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An instinctive response is the body’s direct response to some external situation. An emotion, on the other hand, is the body’s response to a thought.
Although the body is very intelligent, it cannot tell the difference between an actual situation and a thought.
What the ego calls love is possessiveness and addictive clinging that can turn into hate within a second.
There is not good without bad, no high without low.
They limit themselves through grievances, regret, hostility, guilt. Their emotional thinking has become their self, and so they hang on to the old emotion because it strengthens their identity.
It would be hard to find a partner who does not carry a pain-body, but it would perhaps be wise to choose someone whose pain-body is not excessively dense.
So, in addition to reactivity, negative thinking, and personal drama, the pain-body also renews itself vicariously through the cinema and television screen. Pain-bodies write and produce these films, and pain-bodies pay to watch them.
Another explanation on why we like sad songs
Suppressed pain-bodies are extremely toxic, even more so than openly active ones, and that psychic toxicity is absorbed by the children and contributes to the development of their own pain-body.
Being present is always infinitely more powerful than anything one could say or do, although sometimes being present can give rise to words or actions.
That pain is sometimes misinterpreted as falling in love.
The pain-body needs your unconsciousness. It cannot tolerate the light of Presence.
Your Presence is more than capable of containing it. The emotion is not who you are.
Making yourself into a problem—the ego loves that.
This is to say, you don’t need to become whole, but be what you already are—with or without the pain-body.
Gnothi Seauton—Know Thyself. These words were inscribed above the entrance to the temple of Apollo at Delphi, site of the sacred Oracle.
Whatever you think people are withholding from you—praise, appreciation, assistance, loving care, and so on—give it to them. You don’t have it? Just act as if you had it, and it will come.
“For to the one who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”2
The wise man’s “maybe” signifies a refusal to judge anything that happens. Instead of judging what is, he accepts it and so enters into conscious alignment with the higher order.
The implications of this simple statement, however, are profound.
If your relationship with the Now is dysfunctional, that dysfunction will be reflected in every relationship and every situation you encounter.
The decision to make the present moment into your friend is the end of the ego.
Fear, anxiety, expectation, regret, guilt, anger are the dysfunctions of the time-bound state of consciousness.
So instead of adding time to yourself, remove time. The elimination of time from your consciousness is the elimination of ego. It is the only true spiritual practice.
The many things that happen, the many forms that life takes on, are of an ephemeral nature. They are all fleeting. Things, bodies and egos, events, situations, thoughts, emotions, desires, ambitions, fears, drama…they come, pretend to be all-important, and before you know it they are gone, dissolved into the no-thingness
The affluent world is even more deeply identified with form, more lost in content, more trapped in ego.
I recommend that you experiment with this from time to time. For example, when someone criticizes you, blames you, or calls you names, instead of immediately retaliating or defending yourself—do nothing. Allow the self-image to remain diminished and become alert to what that feels like deep inside you.
Nonresistance, nonjudgment, and nonattachment are the three aspects of true freedom and enlightened living.
They have a deeper purpose: to make you aware of the fleetingness of every situation, which is due to the transience of all forms—good or bad.
This, too, will pass brings detachment and with detachment another dimension comes into your life—inner space.
The intensity will vary from a perhaps barely noticeable background sense of contentment to what the ancient sages of India called ananda—the bliss of Being.
Many people’s breath is unnaturally shallow. The more you are aware of the breath, the more its natural depth will reestablish itself.
It also determines the degree to which you are free of ego because ego implies complete unawareness of the dimension of space.
It has been said: “Stillness is the language God speaks, and everything else is a bad translation.”
For example, if caring for your children gives meaning to your life, what happens to that meaning when they don’t need you and perhaps don’t even listen to you anymore?
This does not mean that you should not be engaged in those activities. It means you should connect them to your inner, primary purpose, so that a deeper meaning flows into what you do.
“The road to hell is paved with good intentions”
Whenever you become anxious or stressed, outer purpose has taken over, and you lost sight of your inner purpose. You have forgotten that your state of consciousness is primary, all else secondary.
The outcome, which is inseparable from the actions that led to it, is already contaminated by those actions and so will create further unhappiness.
A long-standing obstacle or conflict dissolves. Your friends either go through this inner transformation with you or drift out of your life. Some relationships dissolve, others deepen.
Some changes may look negative on the surface but you will soon realize that space is being created in your life for something new to emerge.
What should I do? As the ego is no longer running your life, the psychological need for external security, which is illusory anyway, lessens. You are able to live with uncertainty, even enjoy it.
“the desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise.”
But the motivation to take action comes from a deeper level, not from egoic wanting or fearing.
Because in old age, the emphasis shifts from doing to Being, and our civilization, which is lost in doing, knows nothing of Being. It asks: Being? What do you do with it?
Struggle or stress is a sign that the ego has returned, as are negative reactions when we encounter obstacles.
The modalities of awakened doing are acceptance, enjoyment, and enthusiasm. Each one represents a certain vibrational frequency of consciousness. You need to be vigilant to make sure that one of them operates whenever you are engaged in doing anything at all—from the most simple task to the most complex. If you are not in the state of either acceptance, enjoyment, or enthusiasm, look closely and you will find that you are creating suffering for yourself and others.
You will enjoy any activity in which you are fully present, any activity that is not just a means to an end.
Enthusiasm and the ego cannot coexist. One implies the absence of the other. Enthusiasm knows where it is going, but at the same time, it is deeply at one with the present moment, the source of its aliveness, its joy, and its power.
