depression

Do you ever notice how much love & allegiance you have for this Emperor? (Substitute anyone for "you" and any archetype for "Emperor".) Like a parent loves a child, we protect our creations (the hero-villains). They both horrify and thrill us, and on the surface we may think we wish to be rid of them but deeper down there lies a fierce attachment.

Most of us have many such archetypes that play out against the backdrop of the pure consciousness that we are. I've gotten in the habit of looking and noticing what may be playing out in "me" in any given moment. Anytime I sense the tiniest ripple or disturbance (positive or negative) I look for the patterns. I've learned to discriminate between what I call "positive disturbance" and peace, which are very different states of being indeed.

I've recognized many such patterns (archetypes) in myself. And upon recognition, when viewed from a detached perspective without resistance, their energy momentum just seems to run out after awhile, because I'm no longer feeding their manifestation through unconsciousness. From a certain point of view it may seem as if I'm indulging the archetype by allowing it to play out without resistance, but it is a purposeful indulgence. Without my protection it cannot survive. And if it does it's only because I relish it and WANT it to survive.

 

Contrary to popular belief, awakening isn't a linear process. Although from a certain perspective we may indeed move in a seemingly linear fashion toward the READINESS to receive awareness. But... that's only a perspective.

I think this is a rather simplistic perception of what happens. Take the example of an enlightened master in whose presence the ego may still operate. Is it mirrororing his distortion? Specifically, no. But who is "he" really? He may no longer identify himself with a specific (personal) "I" at all, in which case the ego may still function in his presence, but only as a reflection of the "collective" distortion, of which he remains a part. I hope I've communicated this sufficiently... I always grimace at the inadequacy of words.

 

A 'certain perspective'? You mean a human one? Like a linear ...time... kind of one? Yes! That's what i was talking about Because that's how it seems.

And the word 'awakening' implies a process, so if not linear then what kind of process are we talking here?

Yes it was simplistic because it's simple. To be 'in a state of enlightenment' in a state of 'oneness' ... and i'm talking ultimate 'peak experience' here, there is no boundary, no defence, no ego ... I understand that one can have an experience of true enlightenment, oneness or egoless state upon surrendering ego ... but ego returns ... and ego IS the identifying with the personal 'me'. The only true egoless state is within that experience, But if ego is there in any degree it's almost as if it demands a reflection so it can see itself. I just think your example of an 'enlightened master' is redundant here because we are talking about ego in general and how it works in ANY individual human form, master or not. Ego is termed the unobserved mind after all.

He's the same thing we all are.

 

I would certainly like to, yes. However, for the time being, I'm in a state of gestation. My activities here thus far have been like a fetus kicking from inside the womb.

Lately however, the birth canal beckons...

Travis

 

Actually LL i disagree entirely, or i think i do anyway because i really don't know what i think anymore. I think i'm talking bullshit theory.
I'm feeling tired, irritated, defensive, oversensitive and weepy and indeed i feel i'm just humiliating myself, so pay no great heed to my words ok?

 

Ok buddy

 

I hugs ya.

 

So folks, I need to tell you, and maybe you need to know...

I just returned to this forum after, I dunno, a couple of days.

And I don't even remember writing some of the posts I wrote, because I was so stinkin' drunk when I wrote them.

So the thing is, this a kind of amazing thing to me. I've been thinking about this, and I realize...if I drink enough vodka, it turns off my conscious self, and something beyond "me" emerges.

I wonder if this is a subconscious reason for my drinking. To find this...I dunno, "higher" self?

Everything is for a reason...isn't it?

I bought myself a shot glass, so I could count how many drinks I have. Tonight the count is seven. I've had seven shots of vodka, but it hasn't been enough to release my ego consciousness, because my liver has adapted and processes the alcohol so efficiently that I can't get as drunk as I did a few days ago.

So the only way to get back is by reducing my drinking for a few days so that my liver will lose some of its alcohol-processing efficiency.

I had been thinking that becoming an alcoholic was a failure of character. But maybe there's something my higher self is trying to achieve from this.

 

zengizmo, i feel the same way but with marijane, it weird but i think and feel deeper when am very high! when am sober i dnt think in many ways as to where am high........

 

i am the opposite. after years of drinking/drugging on a daily basis, I stopped. almost immediately i started having ALOT of psychic/spiritual experiences. if i want to keep them away, i drink...i try to keep it down to 1 bottle of wine a week, but even that effects these experiences for days afterward.

 

Windy, i hardly drink alcohol at all and it can take a couple of days for me to recover fully from an evening at the pub. Most weeks i won't drink any alcohol at all whatsoever but y'know if someone offers me a glass of wine then sometimes i'll say yes but most often i'll decline. In the last year i've been getting used to not smoking cannabis and although i still enjoy a toke and probably wouldn't refuse a spliff if someone offered, i don't feel a need to go and buy any and i'm quite happy not having any. So that just leaves cigarettes; I just turned 40 and i've smoked cigarettes since i was 13 and i'm finding now that i simply cannot allow myself to continue. I stopped for two weeks last summer which was the longest period i've ever not smoked for and actually i found it quite easy and enjoyable but simply relapsed one evening and just carried on smoking. If there's a way to avoid the moment and being in the now.. smoking is it (for me). I found when i was not smoking i really had to keep bringing myself back to the moment and whatever i was doing just to avoid thinking about smoking too mutch and actually the moment became my refuge and the whole experience of those two weeks was really good with a feeling of alertness and presense and generally feeling like i was more interested and attentive and alive.

So i left Devon a few days ago and i'm in wales now at my mothers and i'm taking this opportunity to stop smoking again. The personal rewards are so great. If i relapse which i probably will i just need to get right back on it. I think the idea of eradicating smoking from my life is probably a little severe, ... i don't see anything wrong with the occasional smoke but i need to create enough distance to be able to do that.

- I'll say more later, i've got some things to do

 

Yes Liquid...any kind of preoccupation/addiction steals away your moments...your now. And there are many preoccupations to take your mind away from who you really are. Not just alcohol drugs and nicotene. Overeating, bulimia, anorexia, gambling...all steal our "now" our moments. One bottle of wine a week totally interferes with my reiki/healing. It's that last thread of escape I am clinging to I suppose...

 

Blues...I like what you had to say on the Yoga and Meditation/Pellinore thread...quote..."Well alot of the ego is being addicted to your own thoughts, the constant mental stream that never stops. Drugs (preoccupations?) allow us to get out of that stream, but in a sense we go BELOW thought. This is more like the vegetable realm, which is in tune with Essence, but is a lower state of development" and "pay attention to that mechanism in you that wants to always add to this moment, as if this moment itself is not enough"...thanks Blues...

 

Addiction to substances has never really been a part of my particular brand of addiction. When I was a teenager and began dating I was always the responsible one, the designated driver, while my boyfriends would drink or take drugs (my ex husband used to grow pot). I've never smoked cigarettes. Pot never seemed to do anything for me, and although I drank on a rare occasion I was largely indifferent to it. To date, the only drugs I've ever done were pot (I could probably count the # of times on my fingers & toes) and Salvia (3 times). Now Salvia proved to be an incredible aid for spiritual vision in my case. But, I must say, I seem to have an aversion to any such "aids" and prefer seeing through direct means. Now I only drink socially and very rarely at that. I'm such a lightweight that 2 drinks of anything (like wine or beer) and I'm pretty tipsy.

In the past I was somewhat addicted to food as I would eat emotionally, but after doing alot of emotional work on myself I became free of that. I have the kind of personality where I become almost obsessed with whatever I'm involved in at the moment. In a way it's an "addictive" personality and I have a strong ability to concentrate to where everything else just fades into the background. I may have developed this at a young age when I was doing piano concerts and had to focus on the music entirely, to where the audience just disappeared for me.

Recently I've witnessed addictive tendencies with the internet. I see this addiction as any other, something to fill the space with noise, to avoid being fully present, to escape. I'm watching it. On one level I "know" better. On a deeper level there's a need of some kind... a craving that wants to grasp. I no longer seek a reason or explanation for this craving, but rather see it directly as just that: an ego distortion. I can also describe it as an issue of identification, perhaps of an emotional nature.

 

You're welcome.

Hey, you do Reiki too eh? Cool! :cheers2: (oh wait... not the beer toast!) hahaha!

 

LOL

 

I'm often amazed at how people forget things .. obvious things or things you'd really expect them to remember and i've noticed this particularly with people with 'mental disorders' and i've come to the conclusion that they don't remember because they were not present in their awareness at the time of the event ... to put it simply, they were lost in thought and not paying attention to what's going on. I particularly remember one night i visited a friend and a visitor was there ... i chatted to this person for probably an hour before we both walked a mile together back into town talking all the way. I saw this person again the next week and said hi and he looked at me blankly - he had no clue who i was and simply didn't remember me or even walking from the house the week before... nothing at all. I was totally bemused! Since that time i got to know him a bit and found out he's schizo ... a really nice guy and intelligent too but sadly ...a complete space cadet. I had problems with a woman a few years ago who was schizo too ...she was my landlady for a few months ... we'd made agreements about a few things which she then promptly went and forgot all about, ... denying she'd ever made them and left me with some problems to sort out as a result. I've learned you really need to be careful with people who have mental health problems and usually it means just keeping a safe distance and not getting very involved. But yeah, memory is a strange thing ... some people seem to have it and some people not.

Hey blues, i used to play in bands and i've done alot of gigs in my time and i totally agree with what you say about performing music and also just playing music ... it really brings you into the now ... and if it's improvised, even more so because you're not dealing with memory or reading so mutch. I sometimes have described playing an improvised solo as like going into a trance of sorts where the audience and even the rest of the band and perhaps even the rest of the music dissappear for a while.

 

I remember being an infant and bottle feeding and spitting out the milk cause I thought it was sickeningly sweet. I remember being around 18 mo - 2 yrs old and feeling like I was floating outside my body. I remember listening to my family talking and understanding everything they were saying and chuckling to myself thinking how they thought I was just a baby who couldn't understand them. lol!

Oh cool! What instrument do you play? I would practice until my fingers knew the notes. Then I would totally give in to the emotion of the music.. put my heart and soul into it until it would play me, so to speak. Sometimes it felt like I'd leave my body, or rather would be so absorbed in the music that I lost awareness of my body. Then at some point I'd snap back into body awareness and there would be this split-second panic like I didn't know where I was. haha!

Yeah, I used to concentrate on what I was doing so intensely that someone could walk right up to me and start talking and I wouldn't hear them, literally didn't know they were there. This was with anything... reading, writing, listening to something, or thinking.. whatever. I got so much flack from people because of it that I've since learned to be aware of my surroundings on a much greater level. This was good for me.

 

Well personally i don't remember anything before i was two or three.

I played rhythm and lead guitar in several bands between 16 and 27, i stopped playing around the time of my death experience. I was fed up of people knowing me as a guitarist in this band or that band ... and i was suffering an identity crisis at the time also and just wanted people to see me for who i was beyond all that. It was part of the big let-go. Like my inner landscape was changing and the outer had to follow.

I always wanted to ask you ... do you like blues? I love blues! ... although i didn't always play blues ... jazz and funk and rock were big influences, but blues was what i played best ... people would say i sounded like a black man ... i suppose i got the knack for a good vibrato early on. Love BB king, Robert cray, Albert Collins, Stevie Ray.
Still have the guitar and amp though and play occasionally but i'm rusty and unpracticed as hell now

 

hem hem... of course, that goes without saying.

yes I like blues (Miles Davis comes to mind). I like alot of variety in music. I'd say rap and country are my least favorites.

yeah me too. I don't have a piano right now and really miss it. I mostly played classical though. When I was young I attended a music conservatory in USSR, and was studying to become a concert pianist.