Coping Mechanisms and Spiritual Dissonance

 "Y'all are in this trance," continues Brett, "and you come here askin ' me to help snap you out of it. I can't help you, though. You gotta get to where you want it enough to do it yourselves, but that ain't easy cuz you got yourselves lulled into this damn complacency which sucks all the urgency out of your plight. It's like a coping mechanism. Y'all know what a coping mechanism is?

It's like a tranquilizer. We keep ourselves strung out on tranquilizers all the time, but if you come here you're sayin' you want to kick that habit. We're all in the hands of a loving God, that's one kind of tranquilizer we like to swallow. Means you can just sit back and pass the time. Be nice and say you're sorry when you done wrong and your lovin' God won't cook your ass. Reincarnation is another pill that goes down easy. We're coming back again and again so we got all the time in the world.

We're subject to a bunch of karma-dharma dipsy-doodle and we just gotta be good little sheep: no pressure, no urgency, nothing to do but lay low and ride it out. Or maybe we're all divine beings of light and all we gotta do is sparkle and shine and live a pretty life, play nice and not kick up a fuss.

She kicks up a spray of sand, pacing.

"Y'all startin' to see a theme emergin' here? Be nice, be quiet, be good, don't ask questions, don't use your minds, don't make a ruckus - sound familiar? That's what all this satsang talk sounds like to me, like you start feelin' a little agitated so you need a fix, got to get some more tranquility, like that's the purpose of these teachers and gurus you keep talkin' about, they keep you mellow, keep you doped up so you don't gotta face your situation.

Sounds like the exact opposite of wakin' up to me."

Now, just replace all the specific comments above with YOUR beloved beliefs, YOUR coping mechanism such as alcohol, drugs, Christianity, Buddhism, Zen, Hinduism, Nagualism, all New Age whatever and…what do you have? Eyes wide shut.

If you opt out of the coping mechanism, open your eyes just a bit, spiritual dissonance may occur.

Spiritual dissonance is what occurs where our inner world meets our outer world: where what we think is true butts up against what appears to be true: where internal belief collides with external reality. It's the discomfort that occurs where self and not-self come into contact.

Self importance and ego are like the thin sheath of atmosphere between the earth of self and the infinite space of not-self, holding one in and the other out. We live out our lives in this narrow band, never digging too far down or testing our upper limits. This is where our emotional energy is spent, pumped into this gap between two incompatible surfaces, keeping them from grinding against each other and jolting us out of our slumber.

That grinding, when it does occur, is Spiritual dissonance.

Spiritual dissonance is the mental/emotional counterpart of negative physical drives like hunger and pain. We experience physical discontent because we are hungry, so we eat. We experience physical pain because our finger is in a flame, so we pull it out. Similarly, when we experience the discomfort of Spiritual dissonance, we seek relief, though it's not likely to be as simple and direct as pulling a finger out of a flame.

Spiritual dissonance is a necessary and vital function of the human condition. It's how we operate. It can, like anything, go haywire, but for most of the people most of the time, it's nothing more than the meeting of two slightly imperfect surfaces: the outermost inner and the innermost outer.

A common example of Spiritual dissonance would be: If God loves us, why does He allow so much suffering? The certainty of God's love is the internal belief. The obviousness of human suffering is the external reality. Is God unable to end suffering?

No, we must answer, because He can do whatever He wants. Therefore, He must allow or even cause suffering. But how can that be if He loves us? Something somewhere has to give or, preferably, we avoid asking the question in the first place.

An ad hoc hypothesis is one way of dealing with messy problems such as this. We come up with a new belief to stuff into the gap between two existing beliefs, like plugging a $#*@% in the wall of our prison cell where a discomforting light is getting through and disturbing our repose. Such a hypothesis in this situation might be, "Because God loves us, He gave us free will and we use it to create our own suffering." This is like a belief patch: we discover a bug in our belief programming, so we install a belief patch and all is well. The walls that enclose us are made of belief, so a belief patch is likely to blend in well and last as long as the wall does, if we don't tamper with it.

Another way we can respond to this problem is to recuse ourselves from such weighty deliberations altogether. "The Lord works in mysterious ways." we can say, and be happily done with it. Similarly, we might relieve our discomfort by deferring to specialists. "It's the job of the clergy to grapple with such imponderable issues, we might tell ourselves, "it's for the shepherds to worry about such things, not the flock."

Or, we might redouble our emotional investment in God and simply dismiss logical inconsistencies with haughty contempt or mocking disdain.

Or, we might go the other way and dismiss God altogether, citing conundrums such as this to bolster our case. Or, best and most common, we can go the ignorance-is-bliss route. We can ignore the question altogether, or deny it, or simply stay occupied and distracted so this question and countless others like it can never gain a foothold in our awareness.

Or any number of other scenarios. The main thing is to stop the discomfort, like removing the battery from a blaring smoke detector so we can go back to sleep.

Meanwhile, somewhere, a fire burns, the little bastard in you churns, just waiting for you to look inward, not outward.

Jed McKenna

Erasing Personal History

Let's begin with several quotes from Carlos Castaneda's book entitled, Journey To Ixtlan, in regards to erasing personal history. This [erasing personal history] is a core teaching in regards to the mastery of awareness.

"I don't have any personal history," he said after a long pause. "One day I found out that personal history was no longer necessary for me, and, like drinking, I dropped it."

"How can one drop one's personal history?" I asked in an argumentative mood.

"One must first have the desire to drop it," he said. "And then one must proceed harmoniously to chop it off, little by little."

"Perhaps you should tell me what you mean by dropping one's personal history," I said.

"To do away with it, that's what I mean," he replied cuttingly.

I insisted that I must not have understood the proposition.

"Take you for instance," I said. "You are a Yaqui. You can't change that."

"Am I?" he asked, smiling. "How do you know that?"

"True!" I said. "I can't know that with certainty, at this point, but you know it and that is what counts. That's what makes it personal history."

I felt I had driven a hard nail in.

"The fact that I know whether I am a Yaqui or not," he replied, "does not make it personal history. Only when someone else knows it does it become personal history; and I assure you that no one will ever know that for sure."

"You don't know what I am, do you?" he said as if he were reading my thoughts. "You will never know who or what I am, because I don't have a personal history."

He asked me if I had a father. I told him I did. He said that my father was an example of what he had in mind. He urged me to remember what my father thought of me. "Your father knows everything about you," he said. "So, he has you all figured out. He knows who you are and what you do, and there is no power on earth that can make him change his mind about you."

"Don't you see?" he asked dramatically. "You must renew your personal history by telling your parents, your relatives, and your friends everything you do. On the other hand, if you have no personal history, no explanations are needed. Nobody is angry or disillusioned with your acts. And above all, no one pins you down with their thoughts."

"It is best to erase all personal history," he said slowly, as if giving me time to write it down in my clumsy way, "because that would make us free from the encumbering thoughts of other people."

"Take yourself, for instance," he went on saying. "Right now, you don't know whether you are coming or going. And that is so because I have erased my personal history. I have, little by little, created a fog around me and my life. And now nobody knows for sure who I am or what I do."

"But you yourself know who you are, don't you?" I interjected.

"You bet I... don't," he exclaimed, and rolled on the floor, laughing at my surprised look.

"That is the little secret I am going to give you today," he said in a low voice. "Nobody knows my personal history. Nobody knows who I am or what I do. Not even I."

"How can I know who I am, when I am all this?" he said, sweeping the surroundings with a gesture of his head.

"Little by little you must create a fog around yourself. You must erase everything around you until nothing can be taken for granted; until nothing is any longer for sure, or real. "Your problem now is that you're too real. Your endeavors are too real. Your moods are too real. Don't take things so for granted. You must begin to erase yourself."

"Begin with simple things, such as not revealing what you really do. Then you must leave everyone who knows you well. This way you'll build up a fog around yourself."

"But that's absurd," I protested. "Why shouldn't people know me? What's wrong with that?"

"What's wrong is that once they know you, you are an affair taken for granted, and from that moment on you won't be able to break the tie of their thoughts. I personally like the ultimate freedom of being unknown. No one knows me with steadfast certainty- the way people know you, for instance."

"But that would be lying."

"I'm not concerned with lies or truths," he said severely. "Lies are lies only if you have personal history."

"When one does not have personal history," he explained, "nothing that one says can be taken for a lie. Your trouble is that you have to explain everything to everybody, compulsively, and at the same time you want to keep the freshness, the newness of what you do. Well, since you can't be excited after explaining everything you've done, you lie in order to keep on going."

"From now on," he said, "you must simply show people whatever you care to show them, but without ever telling exactly how you've done it."

"You see," he went on, "we only have two alternatives: We either take everything for sure and real, or we don't. If we follow the first, we end up bored to death with ourselves and with the world. If we follow the second, and erase personal history, we create a fog around us; a very exciting and mysterious state in which nobody knows where the rabbit will pop out- not even ourselves."

"When nothing is for sure we remain alert; perennially on our toes," he said. "It is more exciting not to know which bush the rabbit is hiding behind than to behave as though we know everything."

Wow, that's a lot of quotes and almost the entire chapter! Yet, it's needed, as a core teaching.

To begin with, we are going to start simple. First, learn to shut your mouth and listen to other people. As opposed to seeing this in yourself, first, watch and listen to others to get a feel for this personal history in others. Re-read the quotes above, understand them, and then see if you can identify personal history in others as they speak. This should be quite easy to do if you are paying attention. Second, if it's a conversation and you speak, keep to the point of discussion without adding a bunch of contexts into it, especially personal history about yourself and your own opinions in regards to the issue.

Here's a tip: Stop saying "I" so much. As in, "I" assisted this client and fixed their lower back pain. Or, "I" believe that our new President is an idiot and will do a horrible job. Long lectures from 'you' about your beliefs are NOT what we are trying to do here. Let's say you are a good Christian. You have studied Christianity extensively for many years. That, in and of itself, is all well and good, but to talk to another about it, telling them about how much "I" have studied, how much "I" know, etc., is a display of personal history and very self-important. (I'll get to self-importance in the next post.)

A couple examples are: "It seems the clients back pain has subsided," as opposed to, "I fixed the clients back." Another one: "In regards to Christianity, did you know that back in the fifteen hundreds they did....," as opposed to, "I have studied Christianity for years, and after all my research and hard work I found out that back in the fifteen hundreds Christians...." See the difference?

Here's another tip: If someone else is speaking to you about some topic, ask them questions. If you need to provide conversation that's fine, but keep 'yourself' out of it. Humans love to talk, and not only that, they love to add their personal history into it; not only about a topic but about themselves. Most people's favorite topic is themselves. We want to break that habit.

Let me add one very important point here, to cover my ass as well as yours. Don Juan, above, speaks in regards to lying to people. I'm NOT suggesting you lie to people. Why? Because you may get in serious legal trouble if you claim to be a doctor and you are not. Or, stating you were a part of a U.S. Navy SEAL Team when you were not. It's illegal.

Here's another point: If you are not well versed in the next blog post in regards to self-importance, you will 'lie' in a more uplifting or positive or self-important fashion. Meaning, if someone asked you what you do for a living, and you feel the need to lie to them, you are going to say something 'bigger' than you are, as opposed to something degrading. Again, this is a post about erasing personal history, not self-importance, but this point needs to be made. What we need to learn to do is combine the arts of erasing personal history and losing self-importance, so if someone asks us what we do, we'll tell them something society finds 'not so glorious.' Such as a homeless person. A convenience store clerk. As opposed to telling them you are an attorney, doctor, etc. See the difference?

By now, you should have at least a basic understanding of erasing personal history. Yet, don Juan mentions the 'desire' to drop it. What's this mean? How do we acquire such a desire? One way to lose the hold our personal history has on us is to use critical thinking. (I'm a huge fan of critical thinking, and then allowing the mind to rest without thinking.) Begin thinking about 'you' and all you've done. Everything you are tied to. Ask yourself if you want and or enjoy freedom; freedom from being tied down by your thoughts, and the thoughts of others, in regards to how you behave, what you do for a living, your relationships, religion, etc.

That's enough for now. This post is long enough. All I can say is to re-read the quotes above and then practice what I've written about. Use YOUR OWN examples in your life. Learn to listen to others and watch their personal history in action. Watch your own need to add your own personal history to conversations. Learn how to critically think about what you know, about yourself and others, for certain. What do any of us know for certain? Become aware. Pay attention. This is a critical part in regards to the mastery of awareness.

I'm quite sure I'll come back and add much more information about this topic, it's that important. Or, I'll just create another post. Now, get going!

Warrior's Last Stand

Usually, when we think of a ‘warrior,’ someone drawing a line in the sand, making their last stand on earth, we think they are committing themselves to an all-or-nothing battle: here and now, on this spot, live or die. That's the kind of ultimatum Carlos and others often describe. They make it sound like a fight, like put up your dukes, but it's really not.

It's the end of fighting, the end of a lifelong struggle.

Drawing this line doesn't mean battle stations, red alert, DEFCOM one and all that. It’s not that kind of battle. It means we have to lower our shields, not raise them. That's how easily and effectively we are undone, and it's because the enemy is within, running the show, redeploying all of our mental and emotional resources against us.

Instead of adopting a warlike posture, we must, counter-intuitively, lower our shields and defenses. This seems confusing until we understand that we are both the protagonist and the antagonist in this conflict, both attacker and defender.

This is the paradoxical nature of the struggle. We can't win by fighting. The very thing that fights, that resists, is the thing we seek to overthrow. Only by vanquishing self-importance can we prevail.

Only in surrender can we find victory. This is the part so few get, and fewer get beyond.

This is the part where everything starts sounding all sagely or Zen like, but that can't be helped. If you want to say that all religions and spiritual teachings share a core truth, it can only be this: Surrender is victory.

Yet, this isn’t the end. It’s only the beginning.

Once we surrender, The Real Work begins.

~

Belief vs. Faith

Do you believe in enlightenment? Do you believe what Castaneda wrote? Do you believe that the sun is coming up tomorrow morning? Do you believe in such a thing as a 'Nagual?' 

When questions like this arise in our life, the thing we always need to find out is: What difference would it make in my practice if I knew the answer to this?

But I think that before we can answer this important question, we have to take a look at how we are using language. A comment as an example: "...do you believe we have a purpose in life?"

I don't "believe" that we do, and I don't "believe" that we don't have a purpose. There is a big difference between the word "belief" and the word "faith." When I believe something to be so, then I tend to see everything as if it backs up that belief, and distrust or reject anything that clearly doesn't support that belief. In other words, belief is narrowing down, or limiting, of that which can be experienced "as it is."

Whereas if I have faith, there doesn't need to be any object of that faith. Faith is an opening, an acceptance, and it provides an ability to be with whatever arises in confidence. So belief is quite limiting and therefore somewhat dangerous, while faith is freeing.

So, now let's return to the important question: "How will this help me in my practice to know this?" What is my practice?

My practice is to be completely present in this moment and to experience whatever arises fully. And that's it. There is nothing more, because everything else is imagined or constructed. We have sensation, we have emotion, and we have thought. All three of these arise, often simultaneously, and we invariably take them to be fact, while actually, they are only the movement of energy.

If we look, we can notice that there is an awareness that is aware of all these movements, but is not a part of them, and is not effected directly by them. This awareness we tend to call "I", but when we fall into this awareness, we find no "thing" there that could be identified as an "I" or a "person" or a "body". It is the direct experience of this causeless awareness experiencing itself that is the purpose of my practice.

So, I suppose I can say that I believe and have faith in being present in this moment and experience whatever arises fully. My purpose is the focus of my attention at this moment.

TMMK

What Are You Going To Do?

Yesterday, my associate got killed. And then she got killed again. And again.

Dreaming...

She was in her house, and an assassin broke in, armed with knives. She reacted and took another knife, but one instant too late.

She saw her blood and felt the infinite shame of defeat and outrage.

Only it didn't happen, because, just when the man was about to kill her, none other than Florinda Donner-Grau entered the house, kicked the villain on the back and stabbed him with the TWO knives that she was holding, one in each hand, killing him ipso facto. All this was done in one single, efficient and beautiful movement. It might have been a combination of impeccably executed magical passes.

Only it did happen, because Florinda showed her the scene, in slow motion, over and over again. The assassin broke in, my associate took the knife and reacted one instant too late. The assassin stabbed her. She saw herself lying on a pool of blood, feeling the infinite shame of defeat and outrage.

Over and over, in slow motion.

Florinda Donner-Grau spoke:

"Why didn't you react? Why are you waiting to be recognized by us?"

"You are as quick as I am"

"It's so simple. It's always there, right in front of you. Let yourself go."

"What are you going to do when we are gone?"

"What are you going to do?"

Over and over. She couldn't answer.

"Don't follow us. BE us."

"Don't look for us. BE us."

"Don't try to be recognized by us. Recognize yourself."

"You ARE me. You can do what I can do. YOU."

"What are you going to do?"

I was awake around the time this happened. It was late night. I was listening to some music in my room, at a low volume. I live far away from my associate's home. A person that lives with me came suddenly rushing up the stairs and asked me what was happening. He looked very alarmed and short of breath.

"Didn't you hear?” he asked.

"No. What?"

"Screams."

We went out to the terrace. The streets were empty. There was no one at the house's door.

"What were the screams like?" I asked.

"It sounded as if someone was fighting, or..."

Another person in the house had also heard them, and she was scared and worried.

They had been really loud screams, apparently coming from a terrified person asking for help.

I instantly thought of my associate, for some mysterious reason. She is an impeccable warrior. I Saw that there was nothing to be worried about, but also that something had definitely happened. I discussed all this with her this morning, while having breakfast in a restaurant. Her beautiful eyes glowed with joy and silent understanding. She is very much alive and kicking, thank you. At least in this world.

When she finished relating her Dreaming, I told her what had happened later.

Since I was thinking of her, I asked the person who came upstairs if it had been a man's voice.

"No. It was a woman", he replied.

"What was she shouting?"

There was a brief silence.

"She was shouting your name...'Enrique!'"

What are you going to do?