A Grateful Heart Pt. 2: Working with Painful Emotions

He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has." - Epictetus

  Gratefulness, forgiveness and love are positive and joyous emotions that help us to heal and to grow in mind, body and spirit.  The more that we can cultivate and experience these emotions the better off we are.  Most of us are just beginning to realize the emotions come first and the circumstances of our lives follow rather than the other way around.  Instead of being happy when we get what we want, we get what we want when we are happy.  Of course, when we are already aware of our intrinsic happiness “things” don’t matter so much.

Depression, like anxiety, is a negative feedback loop.  What we think and feel is based on the circumstances of our lives, and the circumstances are based on how we think and feel.  The way to change is to break the cycle.  Change the way you think to change your world.  Many of us don’t realize however that our thinking is deeply rooted in unconscious beliefs.  In fact they are rooted in a belief system that is as intricate as a forest ecosystem.  Scientists who are brave enough to investigate the field of parapsychology have developed a massive amount evidence to support the theory that we are all interconnected at the level of our collective unconscious mind. 

Changing our beliefs and our feelings is a conscious process, something that we must work at consistently over a period of time.  As the Yoga Sutras teach spiritual transformation requires both consistent practice and non-attachment.  The first step is accepting ourselves fully as we are in the moment.  This means accepting all of the feelings that we don’t want or have been told we shouldn’t have.  As Carl Rogers stated, "The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change."  This is the crux of psychotherapy and something that even many of us overlook in their zeal for transformation. 

We often increase our suffering due to our aversion to the thoughts and feelings we experience.  We try to deny the sadness, resentment, anxiety, envy or guilt that we feel.  When we suppress these feelings however they fester within us waiting to explode and overwhelm us at the right opportunity.  By refusing to accept, experience and examine them we make things worse.  Our personalities become warped and fragmented and our creative power is diminished. 

So the first step is to be aware and to experience.  On the other hand we must resist the tendency to justify, rationalize and defend beliefs and feelings that don’t serve us well.  Negative emotions affect our physical, mental and spiritual health and neither denying and suppressing nor rationalizing works to help us release them.  Mindful witnessing does.  As Pema Chödron writes, “To stay with a broken heart, with a rumbling stomach, with the feeling of hopelessness and wanting to get revenge—that is the path of true awakening.”  Let go of judgment and avoidance, rationalizing and defending.  Be aware of the underlying cognitions, the thoughts and beliefs upholding your emotional response.  Stay with them until you move into a deeper place within yourself where you realize that these thoughts and feelings are not you. 

“Spiritual realization,” writes Echhart Tolle, “is to see clearly that what I perceive, experience, think, or feel is ultimately not who I am.”  Our true nature is just basic awareness - however there is immense joy, freedom and empowerment in this recognition.  Once we are able to detach from our habitual thoughts and feelings we are free to choose new ones.  In the Yoga Sutras Patanjali recommends the practice of pratipaksha bhavana which is the yogic art of replacing negative thoughts and feelings with positive ones.  When we are able to do so we are exercising our own intrinsic freedom.  We are not the victims of circumstances, our past nor our passing moods and emotions.  We can choose our internal and external responses. 

The path to freedom begins with recognition of where we are stuck.  Negative emotions are like physical pain, they tell us that something is wrong.  Maybe something is wrong with our thoughts and attitudes, then again maybe something is wrong with the way we are being treated.  Awareness and objectivity allows us to discriminate between the two.  There is always a better approach to situations than guilt and resentment.  Again, once we recognize our inherent freedom we can choose our response.

Gratitude is a powerful healing attitude.  But for what and to what are we grateful?  If we are only grateful for the pleasant circumstances of our lives than we are open to resentment when things don’t go our way.  Our purpose here in this life is to awaken whether we realize it or not.  We are here to awaken from the dream of small-self-ego to the reality of Deep-Self.  Painful circumstances are helpful in our awakening, pleasant one often keep us dormant.  Great saints give thanks for their suffering because it helps them to purify themselves and enter more deeply into the freedom of their essential nature. 

This body is not you

This world is not your sanctuary

Look beyond the bright lights and the lull of the senses

Look deeper than your inherited beliefs

It’s all in your mind

But then again “you” are in your mind

A Grateful Heart

Thankfulness brings you to the place where the Beloved lives. – Rumi

The importance of gratitude is being recognized these days for its impact on both psychological and physical health.  The fact of the matter is that psyche and soma are not so separate.  Our thoughts (beliefs) influence our emotions which are intimately connected to our bodies.  There is a growing body of research confirming that what we think and feel directly influences our physical wellbeing.  Thoughts which lead to positive emotions promote a healthy immune response, generate healing capacities and make us feel good.  As Candace Pert, Ph.D. writes in Molecules of Emotion, “Hugs not drugs.” 

There is another side to the story however.  This idea of gratitude can be misused.  Should we be grateful to an employer who methodically underpays us?  How does one feel grateful to God when a child dies unexpectedly?  How about when someone we loved and trusted betrays us?  Unfortunately the list of examples could go on and on.  As Buddha reminded us, suffering is inherent in existence.  Certainly many of us use means like drugs, sex, gambling, etc. to distract ourselves from suffering, these means of coping, however, simply delay and increase the eventual suffering we have to face. 

When I was around nine years old my parents were devolving into serious “domestic violence.”  I work with this population now and realize how easily parents seem to believe that their kids are somehow unaware of what is going on.  Children are tuned into everything, both through their senses and through their intuition.  I had witnessed some severe fighting in the weeks before Christmas.  In fact, for our family Christmas get-together my mother had to use extra makeup to hide her bruises.  Relatives arrived and pretended not to notice.  At some point in the evening I became upset and retreated to my bedroom to sulk.  Sometimes as a child we never really know why we are upset.  I don’t remember my reasoning.  I just remember that my aunt came in and told what an ungrateful kid I was.  After that I declared a secret war on gratitude. 

Today I am grateful for my ungratefulness; for my soul-recognition that my family hid behind a veneer of bullshit.  We can’t use this idea of gratitude to deny our reality.  We can make an effort to identify and appreciate what is good in our lives.  However, we can’t gloss over the things that are not.  As we look around our world today, there is much to appreciate and much to address.  Gratitude doesn’t mean taking shit from anyone.  It doesn’t mean pretending inequality doesn’t exist.  Be grateful that the evolutionary intelligence gave you the ability to discriminate just from unjust, real from unreal, right from wrong. 

Gratefulness, forgiveness, love, etc. are wonderful and powerful emotions that serve us on mind-body-spirit levels.  If you are depressed it helps to refocus on what is positive in your experience.  If you are anxious, it helps to focus on where you feel secure.  As a joke I heard puts it though, “Just because you’re paranoid, it doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.”  Be grateful for what is real.  Don’t let it become some illusion.

Becoming as Little Children

Taming the mind is fraught with paradoxes. You have to give it all up to have it all. Turn off your mind. There is a place in you beyond thought that already knows— trust in that. Jesus tells us that unless we become like little children, we cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. That child mind, sometimes called beginner’s mind in Zen, is the innocence of pure being, of unconditional love.

Dass, Ram; Das, Rameshwar (2013-08-01). Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart (p. 6). Sounds True. Kindle Edition.

Childhood is a mixed bag.  Yes there is a basic innocence, openness and trust but there is also impulsive, ego-centric desire.  When Christ suggested that we become like little children I’m pretty sure he didn’t mean become self-centered little bastards.  Few of us can remember that we came into this world from a place of purity and innocence and that our true nature is unconditional love.  Our soul-essence becomes compromised by this world early on in life, in fact, almost immediately.

From the Yogic perspective we understand that we have entered this life – entered into these limited body-mind vehicles – because we were impelled by previous karma.  We come already loaded with the software of ego and attachment.  However, that ego-attachment is not who we are.  The deeper essence of our being, known as Atman, in Yogic terms, is never really contaminated by our conditioning.  We know it as the inner witnessing awareness.  It is the presence of God within us.

As little children we were in contact with this deeper aspect of our beings.  Because we are creatures of desire the world has easily seduced us out of it.  We have identified with our egos and have fallen into the world-dream.  When we start to awaken karma has less significance for us.  Karma only pertains to the ego. 

“Becoming as a little child” is a metaphor and can’t be taken too literally.  Otherwise as we reach old age and need diapers we might think we’re closer to the kingdom of heaven.  As Ken Wilber pointed out we have to distinguish between pre-rational and trans-rational modes of being.  Spiritual awakening requires self-discipline and the ability for mature reasoning.  It also requires that we transcend these at the appropriate stage.   

Beyond Pain and Pleasure

"The field of quantum possibility, in which love has opened doors otherwise unimaginable, is our soul's true habitat. The world of fear and limitation is not our home, and who among us is not profoundly weary of hanging out where we do not belong." ~ Marianne Williamson

Let’s be honest.  If someone were to give the choice right now between a Hershey Kiss and being poked with a sharp stick, I would gladly choose the chocolate.  We all tend to choose what is pleasurable over what is painful.  It is reflexive within our nervous systems.  And it is generally unconscious. 

Experience teaches us that we don’t always get what we want.  Despite affirmations and visualization, hard work and following the rules, prayer and adhering to the “correct” faith suffering finds us and makes us its own.  Despite a healthy diet, proper exercise and the best health care available we still get sick sometimes.  Sometimes life comes after us with a sharp stick and no chocolate.

Although we don’t like to admit it adversity makes us conscious.  Swami Satyananda said, “Remember this: suffering brings wisdom.  Pleasure takes it away.”  The “pleasure principle” keeps us asleep, pain can seem like a rude awakening.  Does this mean that we should torture ourselves?  Definitely not.  All we have to do is be open to life experiences. 

Yoga teaches us to develop and maintain a neutral ground which is beyond pain and pleasure.  We can’t have one without the other.  We can enjoy life without identifying with and clinging to that enjoyment.  We can endure suffering without becoming bitter and resentful.  Instead we can realize ourselves to be the witness of life experience.

When we attune ourselves to the inner witnessing awareness we begin to awaken to our deeper soul-identities.  We begin to understand that this world is not our home.  Instead, it is a collective hallucination.  We stop buying into pain and pleasure and awaken to the inherent bliss of our own nature: swarup-ananda. 

Sometimes this awakening comes suddenly and conclusively, most of the time not.  For most of us it takes consistent spiritual practice.  This means constant effort to remember who we are and where our true home is.  Our true home is heaven.  It is Love, not the self-centered, pleasure-principled love of ego-clinging, but the absolute and unconditional Love of God. 

The good news is that the more we practice the less we have to suffer.

Walking the Spiritual Path

Where knowledge is of the Self (Svarupa Jnana), how can there be various kinds or grades? Knowledge of the Self is one. Proceeding step by step refers to the stage where one has turned away from the pursuit of sense objects and one’s gaze is entirely directed towards the Eternal. God has not yet been realized, but the treading of this path has become attractive.

-    Anandamayi Ma

The idea of a spiritual path is a metaphorical concept that serves a purpose as we pursue the goal of awakening.  There is a tendency to mix metaphors when talking about the spiritual path.  Are we on a journey or are we waking up from a state of sleep?  Or is there, as Ram Dass entitled one of his books, a “journey of awakening?”  Both are metaphors for process of releasing our exclusive ego-fixation and coming to realize our true being.  With most journeys we start from here and go to there.  On the spiritual path we start from there and come back to here.

For most of us walking the spiritual path means maintaining a daily spiritual practice.  It might be mantra recitation, Vipassana meditation, kriya yoga, selfless service, devotional ritual or deep philosophical inquiry.  It might just be remembering to love your neighbor as yourself.  There are a variety of alternatives and we each have to find the path that is right for us.  The important point is to keep on trying.  It is not always easy.

The world dream has its own gravity.  When we choose the path of awakening we are going against it.  One can become lonely as one realizes that friends and family are not interested.  Loneliness is an important part of the journey.  We have to separate ourselves from the collective dream in order to awaken.  The majority of people in this world are still dancing around the golden calf.  Loneliness, solitude and self-awareness are crucial aspects of the path.  We are moving from the world of distractions to the inner reality.  You can’t develop spiritually if you are afraid to be alone.  We can’t grow spiritually unless we are willing to confront the fear of death.  

When the Master Rapes

 

“To stay with a broken heart, with a rumbling stomach, with the feeling of hopelessness and wanting to get revenge—that is the path of true awakening.”

~ Pema Chödrön

It was in the early eighties after returning from a three month stint at the ashram in India.  We returned to the US with plans to begin an ashram in the desert.  With the approval of Gurudev we moved onto some land being offered by an elderly couple who had once started a spiritual community there.  There was just a handful of us with a respected senior sannyasin in charge.  With my ecstatic spiritual batteries recently charged in India, I was full of optimism and inspiration. 

The high desert in Southern California can be challenging.  Depending on the time of year the days are hot, nights are cold, winds can be strong and episodic rains cause minor flooding.  By early spring temperatures rise into the nineties and steadily rise into the hundreds.  We were farming/gardening, maintaining buildings and promoting the ashram as a yoga sanctuary.  Personally, I loved every minute of it: the hard work, spiritual camaraderie, opportunities for meditation and especially evening kirtan. 

We had some difficulties.  My wife was not as enthusiastic as I was about the project and we fretted over our two and a half year old daughter.  There was a growing tension within our small group which seemed mysterious to me at the time.  On the other hand, we received a visit from a highly realized disciple of our Guru who greatly impressed me.  We lead retreats with people coming from all over the country.  We grew a variety of vegetables in the mulched soil that we worked.  I became known as the master of the compost pile.  I had a multiple psychic/spiritual experiences both within meditation and in activity. 

One evening one of our novice sannyasins confessed to us that she had been having a sexual affair with our leader.  As she tearfully went on she had become aware that there were others as well.  I flashed back to a comment that I had filed away when he had remarked “just because you’re a swami it doesn’t mean you have to be a eunuch.”  I had laughed it off at the time.

Our senior swami was married and had children.  We had met them in India.  He also had a habit of extolling the virtues of “brahmacharya,” or celibacy.  I wasn’t that young at the time but I idealized this guy.  It turns out that he was having multiple affairs as he travelled across the country spreading the message of yoga.  It took awhile for it to connect in my mind; he was misusing his yogic charisma and his position of influence and power to seduce vulnerable women.

If you are truly a spiritual aspirant, stop for minute and consider how pathetic that is.  However, to paraphrase Ram Dass, what we meet in another person is a reflection of our own inner tendencies.  I had to admit that there was a spark of jealousy in me, to some extent I saw him as a rock star attracting groupies.  The fact that he was taking advantage of vulnerable women took a while to sink in.  Although it didn’t qualify as rape in any technical sense he was manipulating them.

The misuse of power and charisma for sexual purposes is certainly not new or unusual.  I grew up in the era of JFK and Martin Luther King, Jr. both of who were known to have had affairs.  Many spiritual leaders whether from mainstream religions or from apparent cults have gotten into trouble for their sexual exploits involving their followers.  Recent scandals have involved Bikram Choudhuri and Zen Roshi, Joshu Sasaki, both accused not just of sexual impropriety but rape.  Rape, of course, is not a primarily sexual act but an act of violence.  However, any misuse of power and influence at another’s expense is also an act of aggression.

Following the revelations about our teacher in the desert, I lost my respect for him and we got into an argument after which he left the ashram and never returned.  He left the country in fact after cleaning out our residual bank account.  Although I lost my respect for him in particular, I did not lose my respect for the yoga tradition nor for the many other sincere and dedicated Swamis.  It certainly opened my eyes though and I learned to see through my initial infatuation with charismatic leaders.

Of course our spiritual leaders are human beings with weaknesses.  Fame, power, charisma, etc. present temptations which can corrupt them.  In the Yoga Sutras Patanjali warns us against playing around with yogic powers.  To do so can reinforce egoic self-centeredness and cause one to stumble on the path.  Power of any kind can be corrosive.

Ultimately, as Buddha taught, we are each responsible for our own spiritual progress.  Gurus, teachers and guides are important but we might get into trouble if we lean on them too heavily.  All experiences are a potential means of growth as well as potential illusions to mislead us.  I am thankful for my experience in the desert.  Although it disillusioned me it also awakened me to my personal responsibility.  There has been much to learn since and I still find myself boxing my own shadow at times.  We have to be careful not to over-generalize.  As the saying goes, “one bad apple . . .”  On the other hand we might be well off to look at the structures of power in our spiritual organizations and how they lead to exploitation.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/world/asia/zen-buddhists-roiled-by-accusations-against-teacher.html

http://mindful-yoga.blogspot.com/2013/08/bikram-and-ethical-yoga.html

Ego, Ignorance and Attachment

Attachment is to emphatically be someone.

Nonattachment means the freedom to be no one.

-          Nagarjuna

In the spiritual sense, ego means holding onto a false sense of identity.  It is attachment to an embodied self which is limited in space, time and possibilities.  In that attachment we forget that we are multidimensional beings with the physical body being the outermost shell.  It is like believing that we are the clothes we wear or the cars we drive.  It is belief in a fictional narrative, a hypnotic induction aided and abetted by our friends, family and culture.  In this sense we can understand yoga as a means of dehypnotization. 

Waking up is scary business for most of us simply because we have become so deeply imbedded in our personal storylines.  We are emotionally invested in our BS, our belief systems.  The ego is a false belief system that has lodged in our unconscious mind and created a false reality.  Our essential nature is not influenced by our thoughts and beliefs.  It simply is.  It doesn’t subscribe to categories such as time and space or you and me.  There are no sinners or saints, worthy or unworthy, good or evil beings.  There is only awareness. 

There is a lot of stress involved in being an ego.  We have to work full time to maintain the illusion of a self.  It takes constant mental energy to create, revise, update and keep our storyline going.  We have to prove ourselves, compare ourselves to others, compete, judge ourselves and others, worry about our appearance, social status, finances, health, etc.  Ego is the source of desire, anger, greed, jealousy, pride and fear.  Ego can never afford to relax because it feels itself to be constantly threatened from within and without.

The Yoga Sutras outline five kleshas or afflictions that beset us in this existence, five things that condition us to suffer.  First of all is avidya – ignorance of our true nature as beings of consciousness.  Out of ignorance the second affliction, asmita – ego attachment arises.  Ego is then conditioned by the other three afflictions: raga – desire, dwesha – aversion and abhinivesa – the fear of death.  Once we have forgotten our spiritual essence we descend into the dark world of the ego. 

When we are identified with ego we look outside ourselves for fulfillment.  We seek happiness in other people, possessions, accomplishments, etc.  The problem is that real happiness cannot be found in any of the ephemeral objects of the world.  Real happiness is latent within us waiting for us to recognize it.  We spend our lives seeking for approval, gratification, security, enlightenment, etc.  All of these are already within us as our true Self.  Instead of looking for happiness we are the source of happiness.  Instead of seeking love we are love.  All of the things that we are obsessed with in this world become irrelevant when we recognize our true nature as love-bliss-awareness. 

Western psychology sees the ego quite differently.  However, there are some similarities.  Freud was responsible for developing the concept of the ego as a psychological entity.  He wrote, “The ego is first and foremost a body ego . . .”   So, in a sense there is a general agreement that our sense of identity is rooted in our physical form.  From here we can understand that one’s ego develops through the potentials within us – physical, vital-emotional and mental.  In other words developmental psychology recognizes the first three koshas, or layers of our existential being.  Because Western psychology is based in the truncated world view of scientific-materialism it is resistant to recognizing the higher/deeper levels of our beings. 

From the Western perspective healthy ego-development is the epitome of psychological health.  It is very true that we need to learn to control our impulses, relate rationally and learn to accept life on its terms to some extent.  In fact it is essential before we can enter true spiritual development.  Spiritual development begins when we are able to turn our attention away from the objects of the world and look within.  This is not at all the same as retreating into fantasy (primary process) in order to avoid facing reality.  Meditation leads to the development of a transrational process associated with the ability to observe one’s mind objectively.  The mind is not the observing self; it is not consciousness but an ever-changing object of consciousness.  The ego is basically a self-referential construct within the mind.  It is a handy construct within our day-to-day affairs but it is a cognitive and social fabrication.

Patanjali defines asmita, “egoness”, as a mistaken identification of consciousness with the instruments of knowing, i.e. mind and senses.  The body and mind are a means through which we experience this dream that we call reality.  They are the “instruments” of experience.  They are very valuable instruments.  A healthy body and a sane mind are true gifts for which we must be grateful.  On the other hand, our essential being is neither body nor mind.  It is pure awareness.  Or as Ram Dass and Rameshwar Das put it, “The ego is based on fear, but the soul is based on love.” (Be Love Now: The Path of the Heart)  As we move from our identification with the ego-self to a more expansive awareness we naturally become more open, loving and happy.

In a May 2013 article in Psychology Today entitled This Is Your Brain on Meditation, Rebecca Gladding, M.D. outlines changes in the brain’s functioning which occur through meditation practice that reduce the activity of the medial prefrontal cortex and its connections to the insula and amygdala.  She describes the medial prefrontal cortex as the “Me Center” of the brain.  It is involved with the process of self-referencing information.  The insula is associated with bodily sensations and the amygdala with fear.  Looking at the “Me Center” and its connections the body and “Fear Center,” we can see how the brain mirrors this ego concept quite literally. 

Meditation also strengthens the functioning of the lateral prefrontal cortex or “Assessment Center.”  It is the part of the brain that allows you to “look at things from a more rational, logical and balanced perspective.”  As Dr. Gladding further explains, it is “involved in modulating emotional responses (originating from the fear center or other parts of the brain), overriding automatic behaviors/habits and decreasing the brain’s tendency to take things personally (by modulating the Me Center of the brain . . .)” Here we have a research-based neurological model of the fear-based ego and the means of transcending it through meditation. 

The ego-center of the brain is implicated in states of depression and anxiety which are based in self-referencing in negative ways.  When we engage in constant comparison and judgment, dwell in the past or continually try to imagine the future we create these distressing states of mind.  When we are fixated on “I, me, mine,” we are prone to defensive fear and aggressive violence.  This is the primary problem in relationships.  It is the primary problem in society and in the world.  Our collective consciousness is seeking to evolve beyond the narrow, narcissistic fixation of the ego.  We are seeking the shift into a new consciousness, a new awareness.  Meditative practices are essential in helping us in this direction.

Love actually requires that we are able to be rational and objective.  In order to experience love we need to step outside of our compulsive self-referencing and allow a greater force to enter our lives.  Love is not passion although passion can be involved.  Love is definitely not possession, jealousy, envy, pride or anger.  Our emotional responses are tied into our ego-identity.  Love allows us to let go, transcend ego and open to the expanse of being.  At the same time loving awareness allows us to accept all of our thoughts and feelings without fear or judgment.  We recognize them as temporary states of our evolving identities.  That is, up until we realize that we are none other than the love-bliss-awareness itself.

Reference: www.psychologytoday.com/blog/use-your-mind-change-your-brain/201305/is-your-brain-meditation