Fighting with Oneself

fighting with oneself

Question: As soon as a state of peace or pain arises in myself, I feel I have identified with it and get lost in that reaction. How can I detach from this state and get free from it? How can I let go given I have all these sensory organs? If I try to detach, it feels like being at war with myself and it doesn’t work. How can I let it go?

You can observe the phenomena of being in state of pain or peace. When observing that state, ask yourself who is observing this? Surely not ‘the state’ itself is observing, but the one that is constant — the seer — that is the one able to see these states or movements or changes of being. You know these states change and you know you are growing and not the same from day to day, so these states you see are only a momentary happening. The one observing this is your true self, in other words because you can observe this you are already awake. That state is what appears via your sense organs and nervous system as energy form of outside world of body gets reflected inside as a ‘picture’. It is like a movie of your outside (past tense or created aspect) getting reflected back into your mind, or that ‘which you just were’ a moment ago. We tend to focus on that which we can SEE, which is the movie. We do that because we believe that the reflected movie is actually our true self, because we can see it. But in reality our true self is the SEER of the movie, and that true self has no form. Having no form it is invisible, yet always there. That is your anchor or rock, in the center.

We get into a reactive or false ‘STATE of BEING’ when our true-self’s attention is focused into the movie being played on the screen. We do that with our thoughts (as in dreaming, or chaining thoughts together to weave a story) and what we focus on manifests. So mind-chatter sets the tone (peace or pain) and then emotion follows the tone of the mind-chatter, then the state manifests. If our thoughts are peaceful, then we create a peaceful self, if painful thoughts, then painful self. As long as we keep our attention focused in that movie or state, then that state persists. Then if you try to eliminate that state, say the painful one, because it doesn’t feel good, you try to do that with the same way it was created. You think: I don’t want this … well, that of course doesn’t work, because now you have just created a new state of being with thought-emotion getting channeled to the state of being resistant. That is why fighting with yourself never works.

The solution I use is to

1. Realize I am triggered or generating a certain state (I am caught in a movie or dream world I am creating).

2. Use that as cue to take my attention out of the mind-chatter mode or weaving thoughts together mode, which I do by putting your attention on something that doesn’t need thought, such as simply observing my breathing which happens by itself, or observing nature and also just letting my muscles relax, to let go the generated emotion  of that movie.

3. I keep doing this until that arisen state dissolves. When I calm down in mind and body, the state goes away! After that I resume my daily life activities and of course, it will happen again because it’s an OLD HABIT.

So it takes time to dissolve the habit itself, but the more you practice dissolving those arisen Movies the less you’re drawn into the addicting habit of getting excited out of living in the MOVIE. Okay, so the reason we do it, is because we get a kick out of being an actor in our movie, it is like we create the movie with emotion so that we can ‘feel alive’ even if we don’t like the movie we made!  In our movies, it is not true feeling alive, it is only acting. Fighting is just another Movie. Once you start dropping living in the Movie habit you will get more taste of what truly being alive feels like when calm in center as one with the SEER and then you will only want more of that  TRUE BEING ALIVE STATE which further motivates you to keep working to stop living in the Movie state. One state is much preferred over the other, once you taste it.

A final thought, thoughts cannot be stopped or erased completely nor would you want to do so, they are way to channel your vision into outer world, or manifest things. So the movie view of self continues to get projected inward through your senses (the outside world is reflected within so you can see outer world) from your encounters in daily life.  With the movie projection inward, it will trigger thoughts and feelings. The problem comes in when we attach to the movie self thinking that is US and then get lost in the reflection and lose our contact with the present moment which is continually changing. So it really is about just not identifying with the projected movie, then that makes it instantly go away, when you don’t attach to it. Whereas the other way when you focus on the movie, it is like watching a television show you are still replaying the show in your mind, even though you are now in another time frame or movie — like walking.

Betsy
August 3, 2014

Posted in Healing of Emotions, Healing of Mind, Self-realization Tagged with: , , , , ,
9 comments on “Fighting with Oneself
  1. vivbala says:

    The movie is a very good example that is well put, Betsy!
    If we are aware all the time we are the actor as well as the director of the movie, then it makes it easier.
    Otherwise we get sucked into the movie.

  2. edwin roworth says:

    If good movies are just as absorbing of consciusness as bad ones, should they be witnessed also?

  3. edwin roworth says:

    Betsy, yes Witnessing is beneficial..it brings a sense of impersonal love, Divine Expression and just Awaring or Being. But there is still a Watcher and a Watched. Have you ascended into Unity and most crucially, how does one live in this world with wife and responcibilities..I can not envision being like Eckhart Tolle, who sat in perfect peace on a park bench, for 3 months, or like Dr Hawkins who spent 10(?) years remaking a Persona..Is there a gradual approach to Non Duality or do we wait for Being Touched By the Finger Of God.. I am in my early 70’s, having spent 40 years on the journey, and like you, time is running out..blessings, and thanks Ed

    • betsy rabyor says:

      Seer, Seen and Seeing.

      When you do not have knowledge about your true nature, then you are identified with your reflection. There is no distance to observe, the Seer and the Seen are one.
      After awakening event, then you realize you are the Seer, and then you can Witness your reflection, because now you know that the reflection is not you.
      But still you are mostly identified with your reflected aspect, so it is like the Watcher and the Watched. If you continue work with self-inquiry and your meditation goes deeper then over time, you create more distance between the Seer and the Seen. Meditation by itself is not enough, one must also be gaining self-knowledge by questioning what one observes with final goal to realize: “Who Am I?” As you observe yourself and reactions and ask questions about what you observe, then insights will come revealing other layers of how you stay in identity with the mind or body which limits your SIGHT. Eventually you will receive a key insight and have the experience of just SEEING with no subject or object. In my journey so far, these moments haven’t lasted that long, but over time I notice SEEING as an experience is happening more frequently. When in Seeing State, you see only oneness, even in the face of another person, you only see yourself looking back at you. I am not in permanent state of SEEING.

      How I see it is there is nothing but time, endless time, eternity, and endless incarnations. So this lifetime, I have a particular thing to learn or accomplish and I just do my best to get that done. I feel this lifetime might be a catching up one for me in that I maybe did not do so much meditation in prior lifetimes (but I could be wrong about that, there is also another theory), and thus needed to squeeze more into this one. In the end, it doesn’t really matter because whatever you learn / realize this lifetime, you carry that with you when you leave your body. Then what? Next incarnation you pick up where you left off last time. Evolution / self-realization is endless process, there is always another step to challenge you. However, this is not an excuse to be lazy or not take advantage of the relatively easy and comfortable lifetime we have now with more free time and resources than hardly any generation before. Not to mention that each lifetime is precious, and time between them could be very long.

      I’ve spent many years working on self-realization, but I feel happy about doing it, nothing is more important to me. I think it is gradual growing process, but also the more we work on it the more result we will get. But, in this realm of course the mind is very tricky and it’s easy to get stuck in a concept or ineffective meditation and make no progress for decades. Another reason why Brute honesty and courage to look and uncover where you may be acting unconsciously is imperative to make progress. I think many people get stuck in their evolution because they think they are aware or have arrived. That last thing anyone wants to hear on this path is: “You are not awake.” But that truth is the one that can help you the most.

      I would not wait but also I would not be desperate.
      Thanks for your comment, I enjoyed answering it today.

      Love & Blessings,
      Betsy

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