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Death as an Advisor

Either you detach yourself from your personal history or you begin to fear that death or injury will remove it for you. Life consists of continually facing the terror and pleasure of becoming a new individual without history. I know from my study of childhood dreams that removing personal history is the crucial lesson that everyone seems destined to learn from birth. Your earliest memories or dreams often involve a dramatic conflict and threat to your identified self; demons, witches, and monsters chase you.

...

DEATH AS AN ADVISOR

There are times when you want to die, and all of us will die one day. Separating from an old identity, system, or relationship is like dying. I realize only after one of these separations that I have died. Since I am so stubborn, it takes a lot to kill me, and I die painfully and unconsciously. Afterward I reflect and realize what has happened, like the spirit of a dead man who leaves his body and only then awakens to what has happened to him.

There are easier methods. If you give them a chance, fantasies or death will erase your personal history: the way in which you work, the expectations you have of yourself, and your predictable and worn-out patterns of relating to others. According to a Buddhist ritual, you must meditate on your death every day. Many teachers agree that death is the only wise advisor you have.

Were it not for fear of death, you might never have the courage to change and jump over the obstacles created by history. When you use death as an advisor, however, you remember that you can no longer put off detaching from yourself and your apparent significance or insignificance.

Think of a client of mine who recently died. When she had come to see me for the first time, she was dying of cancer, and her tumors were beginning to inhibit her breathing. She wanted to see me because she was terrified of death. I asked her if there were still something she would like to do with her life and urged her to follow her most important wish. She said immediately that she wanted to fulfill a lifelong dream and travel to Finland in the summer.

"Go ahead," I said. "Take a trip to Finland."

"Oh, no," she answered, I couldn't do that. My husband hasn't any free time just now. He has to work."

That conversation took place in May. Instead of taking time off from work and going to Finland, her husband took time off in July, just when his vacation time came up, to bury and mourn his wife. Death meant little to that woman. Everything else took precedence: her husband's job, her children, her household. She spent her life postponing the things that meant the most to her so that she could maintain her personal history as a housewife. She could have used her death as a wise ally if she had been prepared to experience her disease as a force asking her to free herself from her personal identity. Instead, it simply erased her.

Such near-death situations can make death, in the form of terrifying diseases or body experiences, appear as your wise dreamingbody advisor, the best and most trustworthy one you have. From this viewpoint, fearing death or even getting ill is a fortunate experience because it signifies detachment from your identity.

Every time you fear the worst or are preparing to defend yourself against inner or outer forces, experiment first with imagining your own demise. Feel what it might be like to die. Even go through the act of dying. Imagine how you will die, what you will look like, what you will experience. It is important not only to think that you are going to die, but to imagine what will happen next.

Go through the details of the death fantasy, whether it is of falling off a cliff, dying of cancer, or being struck by an automobile. These fantasies are trying to get you unstuck. Bury yourself. Die before you die. Write your own epitaph: Here lies poor, little old me. He did some things well but could not make the turn and allow the new me to happen. He died at that point so that now I can live on, free. Now I am not myself anymore but have been replaced by taking part in and witnessing whatever is happening.

from The Shaman's Body by Arnold Mindell

Music, States and Stages

Music has played an important role in my life, helping me to define and recall the states and stages I've moved through over time. When I listen to songs I played at a certain period of my life, my heart and mind touch base with that time again, sometimes in a very vivid way. Long ago I became aware of the fact that, whenever I am moving into a new stage of my life, sooner or later I find new music, which then further defines the new period of my life. Upon realizing this, I began to use this fact quite deliberately; if I find myself in the turmoil of transition, I will begin to deliberately look for new music. Often, if the change involves a new person in my life, I will seek to know and be involved with music that person enjoys, which also helps me to resonate with them and get to know them more deeply. Conversely, if I need to touch base with a person or a period in my life, or a particular quality or aspect of my consciousness, I will play music that resonates with that.

That quality of music, helping connect me with various aspects of my being on an intuitive, feeling, non-rational level, has long been a source of fascination to me - particularly as I am someone who has tended to lock myself up in my headquarters and treat my body like a meat puppet (which has changed a lot over many years, but that's where I'm coming from, and is still a strong tendency).

As for association with states, music played during altered states can strongly bring back a feeling tone of the experience, and helps to anchor and integrate it with the rest of my life. Two notable examples are: chants that were sung during Ayahuasca sessions in Peru several years ago, and songs played in workshops with Robert Augustus Masters.

One more aspect of music I'll mention is the lyrical content; I love music that really speaks to me on a cerebral level as well, particularly if it has a strong spiritual content or speaks deeply to me of some significant aspect of the human experience (e.g. love, loss, longing). Three of the most beloved singers for me in this way are Bruce Cockburn, Stuart Davis, and Leonard Cohen.

arthur

An Ounce of Laughter

Here are two quotes; the first from my favorite philosopher and the second from one of my favorite singers.

An Ounce of Laughter

Transcendence restores humor. Spirit restores humor. Suddenly, smiling returns. Too many representatives of too many movements – even many very good movements, such as feminism, environmentalism, meditation, spiritual studies – seem to lack humor altogether. In other words, they lack lightness, they lack a distance from themselves, a distance from the ego and its grim game of forcing others to conform to its contours. There is self-transcending humor, or there is the game of egoic power. No wonder Mencken wrote that “Every third American devotes himself to improving and lifting up his fellow citizens, usually by force; this messianic delusion is our national disease.” We have chosen egoic power and politically correct thought police; grim Victorian reformers pretending to be defending civil rights; messianic new paradigm thinkers who are going to save the planet and heal the world. They should all trade two pounds of ego for one ounce of laughter.

[ONE TASTE, December 7]

“Laughter” - Bruce Cockburn

A laugh for the way my life has gone
A laugh for the love of a friend
A laugh for the fools in the eyes of the world
The love that will never end
Ha Ha Ha...

Let's hear a laugh for the man of the world
Who thinks he can make things work
Tried to build the New Jerusalem
And ended up with New York
Ha Ha Ha...

A laugh for the sun redballing
Through the thermal inversion haze
A laugh for the nuclear good-time boys
Numbering all our days
Ha Ha Ha...

A laugh for the newsprint nightmare
A world that never was
Where the questions are all "why?"
And the answers are all "because."
Ha Ha Ha...

A laugh for the dogs barking at our heels
They don't know where we've been
A laugh for the dirty window pane
Hiding the love within
Ha Ha Ha...

Tapping our feet to an ancient tune
A laugh for the time gone by
A laugh for me and Kitty in the delivery room
Waiting for the child's first cry
Ha Ha Ha...

To Have Without Holding - Marge Piercy

To Have Without Holding
Marge Piercy

Learning to love differently is hard,
love with the hands wide open, love
with the doors banging on their hinges,
the cupboard unlocked, the wind
roaring and whimpering in the rooms
rustling the sheets and snapping the blinds
that thwack like rubber bands
in an open palm.

It hurts to love wide open
stretching the muscles that feel
as if they are made of wet plaster,
then of blunt knives, then
of sharp knives.

It hurts to thwart the reflexes
of grab, of clutch; to love and let
go again and again. It pesters to remember
the lover who is not in the bed,
to hold back what is owed to the work
that gutters like a candle in a cave
without air, to love consciously,
conscientiously, concretely, constructively.

I can't do it, you say it's killing
me, but you thrive, you glow
on the street like a neon raspberry,
You float and sail, a helium balloon
bright bachelor's button blue and bobbing
on the cold and hot winds of our breath,
as we make and unmake in passionate
diastole and systole the rhythm
of our unbound bonding, to have
and not to hold, to love
with minimized malice, hunger
and anger moment by moment balanced.

Integral Naked Interviews Robert Augustus Masters

NOTE: This blog entry has become unweildy, and for that and other reasons I have decided to devote an entire blog to the Q&A, giving each part its own entry. It will take a while to complete, but I think it'll be much better. Check it out here.

Recently Robert Augustus Masters agreed to participate in a Question & Answer thread on the discussion forum Integral Naked - in a sense the forum collectively interviewed him. For a week or so, people submitted questions; I emailed them to Robert and then posted his answers on the thread. It proved quite popular and generated some fascinating, informative and entertaining responses. Since that initial intense week, we've changed to a format where people post questions, and each Friday I send whatever questions there are; Robert then responds to questions time permitting. For convenience, in this blog entry I will place each Q&A session, numbered and dated. The thread itself has additional commentary and discussion by Integral Naked members.

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PART ONE - March 7, 2006

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Questions from Plasmafly (Jana) -

1. There was some indication that RAM was put out by the suggestion that what he was experiencing was a shamanistic death/rebirth.

Of course someone like RAM with his superb knowitall mind, and really solid brainware would bring on the mother of all shamanistic death rebirth chemistry. When he is actually going thru it tho there is no way to put any kind of label on the condition, its too extreme, its too everything, such a omnipotent thing cannot be defined while in the middle of it. Our culture being death-phobic like it is doesn't acknowledge the essential process of death and rebirth...ie: metamorphosis. Only years after the fact when we have some objective distance can we define the nature of our experience, and put it in a nice tidy box with a specific label assigned to similar human experiences.

So I would ask RAM now, was it a shamanistic death/rebirth metamorphic process he went through?

2. It appears that the experience gave RAM more respect for the work that the ego does to “hold us together.”

Is it important to actually lose this function in order to give us an appreciation of its worth? And did the compassion for his own ego translate into being more compassionate over other peoples egos?

3. Does RAM now distinguish the difference between personality and Soul/Self in his daily life…or has his perception melted into an ALL IS ONE sensitivity?

4. I want to know if he "lost" anything of himself in the Darkness Shining Wild process...what did he lose, what did he gain? Did he lose it permanently? Also has his present life spun out specifically from the radius of that "event" or is it an extension or new edition of his life prior to the event? That is how did it remake the man and his life? And does RAM feel any differently about death, or love for that matter?????

5. Has his general fear about life been reduced in direct correspondence to his “new” compassion?

6. Also was the Darkness Shining Wild experience a “humiliation” on some level, or was there no vestige of the ego left “in order to be humiliated?"

To touch the objectivity of reality beyond personal humiliation must give one a sense of freedom from fixation on the fear of death. And also build what must amount to third tier boundary formation where the demands/delusions of the ego of others do not “affect” one so much. Thus perhaps a new center of Self is born, detached and with more freedom to “choose.”

Is that right?

7. I also want to know if RAM is more sure or less sure in his decisions and navigation since he has a less myopic self-sense? With more "range" is it harder or easier to focus on right action?

8. I had a dream of RAM the other morning. Now RAM is a slightly “harder” dream teacher than Ken, but just as poignant.

In relation to that dream I would like to ask if Robert considers lower stage relationship/sex to be largely governed by older brain areas more related to survival and tribal group position?

And that because of this, one has to have developed a certain level of affluence, capability and social prestige before “spiritual” relationship is possible. If this is so this means that ones relationship to oneself is run on more primitive hardware unless there is a degree of actual success and proficiency in the worldly domain of action and consequence. The point being that since one will attract and perpetuate the type of relationship/sex that ones wiring and experience dictates…according to ones position in the world…then how is one to break out of the fatal determinism to achieve higher realms of relationship/sex?

Robert answers:

1. At the time that I was offered the label “shamanistic crisis” (a few days after my NDE), it was to me no more than a bit of well-meaning confetti in a cosmic storm. I would now, more than a dozen years later, describe my DSW experience as, among other things, a death/rebirth process. It was one hell of a journey, a full-term, full-out labor (I just recently realized that my birthday [December 19th] is exactly 9 months after the date of my taking 5-MeO [February 19th]).

2. Losing (or losing contact with) our egoic functioning does not necessarily give us an appreciation of its worth. For example, if we are already unstable, the loss of our egoity may just speed our entry into psychosis. What does give us an appreciation of our ego’s worth is the ongoing practice of relating to our egoity (or not identifying with it), which means keeping it functionally peripheral to Being.
My compassion for my own egoity (and shortcomings) did translate into in a vastly deepened compassion for the egoity (and shortcomings) of others, which has continued to this day.

3. I do distinguish the difference between personality and soul (which I define as the presence of individuated Being), even as I also intuit/feel their non-difference.
A caveat: Let us not permit our embrace of our non-separateness to separate us from our differences.

4. What did I lose of myself in the DSW process? Much of my attachment to being somebody special. Qualities like arrogance didn’t totally disappear, but got a lot less juice from me. I lost interest in my guru-centric ways. I lost my isolation. My heart’s longing was no longer buffered by my meditative talents. And what did I gain? Another life, a deeper faith, a far richer intimacy with the Real (both in Its unmanifest and manifest dimensions).
My present life has spun out from the epicenter of my DSW process. I did not continue, and did not want to continue, my pre-5-MeO ways (which felt to me as though they literally belonged to a previous life). When I began working with people again, I had the same abilities, but my modus operandi was very different: I felt compassion all the way up and all the way down. I was so grateful to be alive, to have come through my hellish ordeal, that I didn’t make nearly as much fuss when things didn’t go my way.
Do I feel differently about death? Yes! And love? Yes! (Check out Divine Dynamite for more about where I’m at with death and love.) Dying to live, to really live, dying to love, to really love. Death is not later. Nor is love. In embracing death, I am brought closer to the deathless.

5. Yes, my general fear about life has been reduced in direct correspondence to the depth of my compassion. Compassion doesn’t necessarily get rid of fear, but gives it room to breathe itself beyond its viewpoint. Meeting fear with love, or at least with the intention to love, allows us to encounter it in ways that serve us. It is most helpful to recognize that most fear is just excitement in drag. (See my May 2005 newsletter: newsletter: www.RobertMasters.com/newsletter/May05.pdf for an essay on working with fear.)

6. Humiliation? I was too blown apart, too infused with terror, too cornered by madness, to feel humiliated. Before, I would have been mortified to have been flipping out like I was, but in the midst of my DSW process, I didn’t care. Whether I drooled, or shrank, or spun out into accelerating terror, I didn’t care how I appeared. Self-consciousness gave up the ghost, at least for a while. Out of this gradually emerged a “new” center of Self, a subjectivity that had both clear boundaries and a liberating sense of boundlessness. And the freedom to “choose”? Suffice it to say for now that I, more often than not, enjoy the freedom of not needing to have a choice (for more on this, see my essay on the nature of choice in the same newsletter mentioned in the previous paragraph).

7. I am more sure in my decisions and navigation. With more “range,” it is easier to focus on right action.

8. How to achieve “higher realms of relationship/sex? Put a lot of juice into waking up, not just in “conducive” settings, but in every sort of setting. Getting intimate with the lower realms of relationship/sex -- which doesn’t necessarily mean making a virtue out of doing time there -- readies us for the deeper reaches of relationship and sexuality. This asks for uncommon courage. In the liberating bondage of genuinely intimate relationship, we touch and are touched by what is too real to be imagined.

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MichaelD makes the following request:

1. I'd just like him to say a word or two about how love played a role in his recovery. And if it makes any sense to differentiate eros and agape in that context...

Robert answers:

1. Again and again, love outshone fear. Love allowed me, at times, to respond compassionately to my extreme terror, right as it was happening. Such love was not so much a feeling as a living choice, a primordial stand. Sometimes it was simply me loving another in bare everyday humanity, and sometimes it was far beyond the personal, existing as an unparalleled purity of presence and knowingness that brought what was left of me to my knees, until all there was was Love...

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crystallake2 (Dan) asks:

1. Would RAM recommend celibacy as a way to transcend your present stage of growth if indeed ones sexual experiences are a manifestation of egoic self-limitation? Does Celibacy help if ones sexual evolution creates a barrier to the next stage of growth?

[In answering the above, could you define what you would mean by "celibacy" - e.g. no sex with others, also no masturbation, no thoughts/fantasies of sex - I've heard it defined in all these ways and more. -Arthur]

2. Your drug experiences are so esoteric and far removed from any "normal" altered state and describe a highly unstable medically dangerous disequilibrium. How can an average person begin to relate to this? How can I use your story and experience and apply it to my life? There is no way I could ever risk this type of experience [i.e. drug induced] (and perhaps this is one barrier my ego has put in place).

3. Can the growth and breakthroughs you have experienced be practically applied to anyone not using any type of drug whatsoever? Can it be done in a more balanced and safe manner without disruption to ones "normal" life. (i.e. if you are a parent for example).

4. If there were one thing you could do to authentically accelerate ones growth to a new stage and stabilize that, what would it be? Is there a universal you can use or is that question strictly one that requires unique strategies depending on the individual?

5. If one has never participated in or practiced psychotherapy, where would you start?

Robert answers:

1. “Does celibacy help if one’s sexual evolution creates a barrier to the next stage of growth?” This is a sticky topic: Celibacy (here meaning no sex with others) can be no more than mere repression and avoidance (regardless of its spiritual garb), and it also can be a more positive practice, providing, for example, a much needed breather between relationships. Prolonged celibacy is probably not a good idea for most of us; horny celibates are prone to making fucked-up choices.
My recommendation is to not avoid the sexual arena. Just enter it with open eyes, doing whatever you can to liberate sex from the obligation to make you feel better. This means, in part, getting to know the very territories from which celibacy urges are often a flight (for more on this, check out my January 2006 Newsletter (www.RobertMasters.com/newsletter/January2006.pdf).

2. How can an average person relate to my DSW experience? By recognizing that its elements, on whatever scale, are present in daily life. For example, we all experience moments of groundlessness most days, regardless of how quickly we pave them over. How to use my story? You could start by more deeply exploring your fear. You don’t have to have experiences like mine to do so. The dragons await, level upon level. Remember that their fire not only burns, but also gives light.

3. “Can the growth and breakthroughs you have experienced be practically applied to anyone not using any type of drug whatsoever?” Yes. “Can it be done in a more balanced and safe manner without disruption to one’s ‘normal’ life(i.e., if you are a parent, for example)?” Probably not. Some disruption is inevitable, if only to break up the logjams behind our forehead. At the same time, the disruption does not have to be so intense that it endangers your capacity to be a parent. I did not consciously choose the extreme disruption I suffered; if I’d known what I was in for, I would have not done what I did (and nor would I recommend “my” route!).

4. Do whatever you do with awareness and care, and do it in a way that is uniquely suited to you.

5. Start with an integrally-informed psychotherapist recommended by people whom you trust, making sure that you feel a natural rapport and connection with him or her.

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PART TWO - March 8, 2006

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Arthur (adastra) asks:

1. Why do you think some people experience the nondual as bliss, others as terror? Could this be related to agency/communion in some way? That is, might someone who is more oriented to communion have an easier time with it, whereas someone – such as yourself – with a more agentic orientation might have a lot more difficulty?

Or do you think it is mainly or entirely a question of what shadow material is revealed when all the walls come down? Did the unpleasant aspects of the experience derive from vestiges of your ego, still present in the midst of nondual identification?

What factors do you believe are involved in how different people respond to a nondual breakthrough?

2. Did you really have a nondual experience? From closely studying the book, my assessment is that you did; however I've spoken with a number of people who doubt that you had a “real” or “complete” nondual experience, insisting that if you did, then by definition there would be no fear, no discomfort – as there would be no one there to feel unpleasant emotions, only Being itself, which is presumably always ecstatic with all of its manifestations. What would you say to this?

3. Your Ayahuasca experience, as described in Darkness Shining Wild, clearly took place outside a traditional ceremonial setting, and seems to have involved a truly heroic (or perhaps foolhardy?) dose. I have several clarification questions about it. Was anyone taking care of you and Nancy, or was it just the two of you? What do you feel led to the extreme power of the journey, and it's particular quality of nondual awe/terror: was it the non-traditional nature of the setting? The dosage? The spiritual work you had done previously? What kind of experience did Nancy have – was it a similar nondual experience?

4. What advice would you have for people, such as myself, who participate in Ayahuasca ceremonies as part of their spiritual path?

5. What advice would you have for people (unlike myself!) who feel drawn to the 5-Meo experience, or to similar extreme entheogenic experiences, such as DMT or salvia divinorum?

6. Someone sent me the following quote from The Way of the Lover:

“Masturbation is sex bereft of awakened love, sex gone to mind, sex burdened by the obligation to make us feel better. Masturbation is a marriage of genitals and mind, orchestrated by a deeply wounded psyche, a long time suppression of being. In its marriage, love is but an ideal, or a romanticized parody of itself. It's wedding vow is to come on command. It's children are enervation, depression and delusion. It's hobbies are interior decorating, acting and watching television, especially stimulating shows. And, all the while, it secretly weeps for it's transformation. Do not turn from it's sobs. Do not fuck them away. They are your tears.”

Do you still agree with this statement? Are you suggesting (rather strongly) that people not masturbate, or are you using the term “masturbation” in a more metaphorical way? (I get both impressions from that text.) Could you elaborate on this passage? Do you consider masturbation a “lower” form of sexual expression, and if so, how would you advise people to approach it? Do you distinguish “masturbation” from “self-love”, and what would you say about that distinction?

Robert answers:

Let me begin by saying a bit about the nondual:

To nondual being, the inherent inseparability of all that exists is neither a concept nor an experience, but an obviousness beyond understanding, consistently recognized to not only always already exist, but also to be none other than the consciousness that “knows” it. That is, not only is awareness naturally aware of itself here, but it also is knowingly not apart from whatever may be arising, be such manifestation gross or subtle, ephemeral or long-lasting, peaceful or, yes, fearful.

No dissociation from phenomena, no strategic withdrawal from life, nowhere to go, no one to be, while “showing up” as all form, forever and everywhere — such phrases, blooming with mind-transcending paradox, point to the unimaginable yet omnipresent reality of the nondual, and point with unavoidable inaccuracy, given that there is not a fitting language for the nondual (because of the inevitably dialectical nature of language, not to mention the need for an ear that can “hear” nondual statements). What perhaps speaks most eloquently and precisely here is silence — not just the absence of sound, but the primordial chant of Eternity, the presence of which, when felt and truly “heard,” may catalyze a recognition outdancing its every translation.

The reality of non-separation is never not here, never not available, ever “inviting” us to awaken from the entrapping dreams we habitually animate. We may conceive of it as a place, a stage, an achievement, a reward — but it is simply what we forever already are, already transcending (and simultaneously including) every would-be “us” that would attempt to assume the position of self.

The personality is no longer the locus of self, but it still persists — and why shouldn’t it? If one is Being-centered, at home “in” (and as) the nondual, then personality, like everything else, is but one more non-binding expression of Being, asking not for annihilation, but for acceptance. To the realizer of the nondual, everything, everything, is God — anger, joy, duality, personality, fear. There is only God, only the Self, only the Real. So what problem is there, really, if fear arises? From a nondual perspective, such arising is, to put it mildly, radically nonproblematic.

In the nondual, fear is not what is transcended; what is transcended is what was done with fear in nondual states or stages.

Now on to the questions:

1. If they are energetically expansive, bliss is more likely; if they are energetically contracted, terror is more likely. Awe is not so far from awful. Ecstasy and hyperterror are less than a breath apart. Prior to my 5-MeO experience, I’d had many nondual times, both while awake and during sleep. All were blissful, peaceful, easy. I think that my difficulties had much more to do with the shock that my system was thrown into than with agency/communion issues.
When all the walls come down, shadow material may be revealed, and it may also not be revealed, being obscured by the intensity of blissful feeling; this resembles the way in which erotic romanticism can obscure shadow material in a couple (until reality’s rude pricks do their job). In my case, the unpleasant aspects of my experience derived not only from traumatic imprints from my early years, but also from the sheer shock to my nervous system.
What factors do I believe are involved in how different people respond to a nondual breakthrough? Conditioning and the degree to which it has been identified and worked with; meditative capacity and depth of practice; setting; health; emotional stability; openness to the unfathomable; ability to open; ego-strength and ego-transparency; hunger to awaken from not just “bad” dreams, but all dreams; and the list goes on.

2. “I” had a number of nondual experiences -- experiences without an experiencer, none of which lasted more than a few hours. And why should fear be excluded from nondual experience? Yes, there’s no one (no separate self-possessed center of subjectivity) there to feel the feeling, but the feeling is nonetheless felt. “Being...is presumably always ecstatic with all of its manifestations.” Really? How do you know? For me, Being is at home with all of its manifestations, including those feelings that we’d rather not be feeling. If we are to let all things serve our Awakening, then we’d do well to cut through our aversion to unpleasant states, realizing that such states are no more problematic to Being than are dark clouds to the sky.

3. It was just the two of us. “What do I feel led to the extreme power of the journey, and its particular quality of nondual awe/terror?” The dosage; the lack of guidance; the timing; the psychospiritual work I’d done; and, especially, my unacknowledged readiness to break free of the guru-centric trap in which I’d gotten myself so deeply enmeshed. I’m not sure if Nancy’s experience was similar to mine, other than knowing right to her core that there was nothing, nothing she could hang on to.

4. Do in-depth, psychospiritual, integrally-informed therapeutic work before (and also after) such ceremonies; the same with meditative practice. Make sure you have a deep, abiding trust in your guide(s). Be as intimate as possible with your deepest fears.

5. Be very clear about your motivation for doing so. Study the relevant literature. Apply what was said in the previous paragraph.

6. I agree with its overall message, but I would word it differently (I wrote it in my pre-5-MeO days). Masturbation is, to me, mere energetic discharge of sexual energy, and is not necessarily just a solo act, but is what often passes for sex. I consider masturbation to be a denser, unillumined, non-rejuvenative form of sexual expression. (I sometimes also use the term “masturbation” in other contexts, such as “emotional masturbation” or “intellectual masturbation”.) I would distinguish masturbation from “self-love”-- if you are touching yourself sexually, and your heart is in it, and you’re including your whole being in the process, allowing an arousal that goes much deeper than mere sensation, then you are not simply discharging energy, but are taking good care of it.


Questions submitted by email (person wishes to remain anonymous):

1. What is your Achilles heel?

2. How does one deal with ego inflation [on the part of the client] therapeutically?

3. What makes you worth 130.00 an hour?


Robert answers:


1. Chocolate.

2. Initially by bringing the client’s awareness to it, without shaming him or her. Soon thereafter, having gathered some relevant personal history, the emotional underpinnings of such egoity can begin to be explored.

3. Most psychologists/psychotherapists charge in the range of $100 to $140 per hour; my fee falls in that range.

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PART THREE - March 8, 2006

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Marianthi asks:

1. If knowledge and love from our higher levels can give us deep ease and compassion in the humanity (ego bound realms) of ourselves then we can extend that to others. With such an inner landscape we will have ease, communion, relationship with most of those who come into our world. Even those who have heavy trips going on.

In the case of intimate love-sex relationships in such a stage of being, I would think that one would tend to follow much spontaneous, post-rational, inner dictates of what is right. Sex, celibacy, erotica would then happen - or not - according to what feels appropriate for self and others on the specific case i.e. no formulas or blanket commandments. This would not guarantee steady, blissful and harmonious results, but results that would expand the mind and heart of those involved and dish out far less trauma-debris than usual intimate relationships.

Now, is that so? Is it much different? Do tell.

Robert answers:

1. I feel pretty much the same way. Being able and willing to wake up in the midst of relational reactivity is essential if we’re to have a more than decent relationship. If we can do this, then we’ve vastly increased the odds that we and our significant other can together gaze with compassion upon the very reactivity that’s just reared its head. The more conscious and loving we choose to be in our relational challenges, the better, especially as we realize that we are not just in relationship, but exist through relationship.

There’s nothing like an intimate relationship to let us know that we’re not as developed or mature as we’d like to think. We may, in meditative retreat or metaphysical flight, assume without much challenge that we are sitting with our less-than-admirable qualities, being mindful of them, etcetera upon spiritual etcetera, but real relationship doesn’t waste much time in letting us know the difference between sitting with such qualities and sitting on them.

Being in such relationship is generally a rude awakening. It steps on the toes of our egoity, unimpressed by our credentials, drawing us into a dharma drama in which our neuroses initially get to star as us, and then are divested of such pretension, becoming but grist for the mill of Awakening. To the degree that we are attached to our egoity and neurotic rituals, a real relationship will, more often than not, seem like just one insult after another.

The sooner we ask what’s right about what’s wrong in our relationships, the sooner we’ll discover the real value and purpose of them.

This may mean approaching our relationships in ways to which we’re not accustomed. Sometimes being off our path is our path. Sometimes what works best is to spend some time in what doesn’t work. We can get so busy trying to be good, trying to stay on the path, trying to be a successful somebody in a conscious relationship, that we stagnate, barely able to move beneath the sheer weight of all our documented failures. Making more room for our intimate relationship to sometimes be messy — which does not mean making a virtue out of laziness and inconsiderateness — helps keep it clean, undirtied by purity and the tyrannies of spiritual correctness.

This does not, however, necessarily mean clear sailing. Any relationship can trigger us. Good relationships trigger the hell out of us without trashing the relationship; great relationships trigger the hell out of us while deepening the relationship. And the best relationships use whatever happens, however hellish or disheartening, not only to deepen the relationship, but to also awaken us beyond it.

In the crucible of truly intimate relationship, we learn to find freedom not from limitation but through limitation.

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questions from Jana/Plasmafly:

1. Does Xanthyros still exist in a more open form? Do you miss the old Xanthyros?

2. And will you reissue your audio material, its so outstanding and there is nothing out there like it, only RAM can be RAM see. How about starting an company called "Kick Ass Audio!" Or get www.soundstrue to reissue your material. You must have a lot more also...this is the best way to spread your wisdom.

[Robert, if you didn't want to release the old material, how would you feel about somebody turning that material into audio files of some kind and putting them on the internet? Would you be opposed to that, or would you permit it? -Arthur]

Robert's answers:

1. The answer to both questions is no.

2. I won’t be reissuing my audio material, as it doesn’t represent who I am now (it was put together a few years before my DSW time, when I was not just a younger version of myself, but a very different man). I may, however, put out some new audio material in a year or so.

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Dan/Crystallake asks:

1. "The ego is the mind-made sense of self, the "problematic me". You then go to a therapist to sort out the problems of this fictitious "me". By developing presence and bringing space to this conditioned self, object oriented identifications begin to unravel. After years of psychotherapy the therapist will finally say 'I am done with you' and hand you all the notes and insights into yourself in book entitled "Me"...and you will still are not any closer to the root of the dysfunction the ego creates." -Eckhart Tolle

How do you view the statement that seeking out a therapist is actually an exercise in sorting out the problems of the fictitious self (ego). Tolle's premise is that the dynamics of "having problems" is a structure of the ego, and that in reality there are no "problems". If this is the case, does it alter the value and effectiveness of psychotherapy? I get the impression that the statement is saying that psychotherapy can actually perpetuate the illusion of a separate self and the whole process might be overridden by going to the root of the ego or self by practicing presence and the witness, therefore seeing our "problems" as an illusion. Hand in hand is the premise that one root of the ego is the need to be unhappy, making "enemies" with the now moment (as the space in which all things manifest as objects of consciousness).

How do we distinguish when psychotherapy perpetuates the illusion of self in a dysfunctional manner and psychotherapy that heals a fragmented "little me" and thus enabling a higher expression of the Self to emerge. You mentioned an Integral therapist, this means an AQAL approach?

Robert answers:

1. First of all, I’ll respond directly to the quote:

I don’t know how much experience Eckhart has with psychotherapy. Does he really think the reason (or the only reason) people go to therapists is to “to sort out the problems of this fictitious ‘me’”? If a woman comes to me in agony because she’s just discovered that her husband of two decades has been having an affair with her best friend, I’m not about to regurgitate for her the notion that her ego is fictitious or a mere sleight of mind, whatever truth that might hold. Rather, I’m going to help her deal with her pain, which is not just a problem of her ego (except to the degree that she dramatizes it).

In his quote, Eckhart simply demonstrates his all-too-conventional (and increasingly antiquated) notion of psychotherapy. Does he not realize that psychotherapy can be integral, can include the body, can incorporate spiritual practices and insights, can effectively work with egoity? I have seen clients have direct experiences of the Real during sessions, without any meditative intervention or discussion of the fictitious nature of the ego. Good psychotherapy will bring you closer to what Eckhart refers to as “the root of the dysfunction the ego creates.” (I don’t think we ought to be blaming the ego for this; egoity that is kept peripherally functional to Being does not create dysfunction on any significant scale. What matters is what we do with our egoity.)

And is ego really fictitious? Ego, which is not an entity, but a process, exists, however illusory or fictitious its representational elements may be. If we identify with it, it of course seems pretty solid, especially when it gets to refer to itself as a “me.” What is fictional then is not egoity itself, but the role we have allowed it to assume. If we don’t identify with our egoity, it’s going to seem far from solid, especially when it is allowed to become transparent to Being. But it is still real, if only as a process, an activity, a cult of one awaiting animation. I would say that egoity is not an illusion, however illusory it may be. Its fictitious features do not invalidate its reality.

Now on to your questions (which the above largely answers):
“How do you view the statement that seeking out a therapist is actually an exercise in sorting out the problems of the fictitious self (ego)”? Mostly false. False how? The ego (which is more verb than noun) is not necessarily fictitious, and so-called problems are, more often than not, clearly arising in interpersonal space, rather than just belonging to a self-contained somebody, and may also be challenges, very real challenges, to one’s core individuality. And true how? Many only see their problems from an egoic viewpoint, thereby severely limiting their options, including being drawn to therapists who operate from an merely egoic perspective (and whose rationality may be disembodied enough to actually be operationally irrational).

“Tolle's premise is that the dynamics of ‘having problems’ is a structure of the ego, and that in reality there are no ‘problems’. If this is the case, does it alter the value and effectiveness of psychotherapy?” Yes, in reality there are no problems, but this does not alter the value and effectiveness of psychotherapy (and I’m talking here about good psychotherapy), because what are referred to as “problems” often still need to be addressed, whether they’re reframed as “challenges” or “opportunities” or whatever. I’ve seen many spiritual seekers trying so hard to follow nondual teachings that they shortcircuit or bypass much of their humanity, treating it as though it were a problem!

Good psychotherapy does not just increase functionality, but also can awaken. Yes, psychotherapy can perpetuate the illusion of a separate self, but it does not have to, and can in fact illuminate that illusion to such a degree that the inherent inseparability of all that is becomes blazingly obvious. The fact that this doesn’t happen more often doesn’t mean that psychotherapy is a suboptimal strategy, but rather that not all that many psychotherapists have effectively integrated spirituality into their practice.

“How do we distinguish when psychotherapy perpetuates the illusion of self in a dysfunctional manner and psychotherapy that heals a fragmented ‘little me’, thus enabling a higher expression of the Self to emerge?” Compare psychotherapies and psychotherapists, and check out their results. Psychotherapy that heals and integrates has a very different feel than psychotherapy that merely rearranges belief systems or settles for cookie-cutter diagnosis.


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Arthur/adastra asks:

1. Do you believe anything personal survives death? Do you think it works against our process of awakening to think so? Does it facilitate our process of awakening to believe in some form of personal after-death survival? Or is it simply irrelevant one way or the other?

2. Is it possible to evoke a nondual experience in another person, and if so, how would you go about it?

3. Short of employing neurochemical dynamite, how can one induce a nondual experience in oneself? Or is it, always, an act of grace?

Robert answers:

1. Yes, but not necessarily in such an intact manner as we might like to believe. My sense is that what happens after death is what is happening right now. Our self comes and goes; we don’t. Sometimes when I’m looking back (and don’t get a knot in my neck), I don’t see a string of previously incarnated me’s, but instead everything, in dazzling contingency in all directions, at once familiar and evernew.

“Does it facilitate our process of awakening to believe in some form of personal after-death survival?” Maybe, maybe not. Go beyond belief to firsthand experience, and explore your attachment to continuing as what you take yourself to be, and your aversion to the possible non-continuation of that.

2. Yes. How would I go about it? Probably through skillful questioning during a time of effortlessly direct eye contact, following a time of deep psychoemotional opening. This, of course, would be best handled by a spiritual master like Ramana Maharshi, whose gaze would be a supremely potent invitation to step into the nakedly nondual.

3. By not trying to induce such an experience. By going to the roots of the spiritual ambition that fuels the desire to induce such an experience.

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PART FOUR - March 9, 2006

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Jana (Plasmafly) asks:

1. Since wisdom is the trait so sorely needed by humanity...I would like RAM's material to be spread throughout the globe...those lucky few who knew about you in the 80's, will perhaps still be following or refind you. But it seems to me that there needs to be a larger global outreach. Sure if you aligned with I-I there would be global exposure, but is not going to filter down to the man in the street. Its like you need your own talk-radio show, infomercial, become a political figure or something to stamp your image on the global brain. Perhaps you could track down Deepok Chopra he is going to do a movie doc like What the Bleep...perhaps you could talk on that. Or on William Arntz's next movie. Certainly soundstrue would give you a huge audience base.

I mean to say why should mythic pap like Ramtha be getting such exposure when the real stuff goes unheard...its like you have to educate your audience to gain an appetite for you. And believe me they will, if they only knew. Currently there is a regression into modes of thinking which should have died out in the middle ages, and this is only so because people have a desire for the transrational, but only "know of prerational means" of attempting to get there. That is why we need voices like yours and Ken's blasting on megaphones from every tall building in the world.

Robert answers:

Thank you for your support!

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from Rhonda/Feral:

1. Robert, I know that you pack a lot of different therapeutic modalities into your individual therapy sessions and your workshops. What exactly is there in the mix and what do you find the different pieces helpful for and when. I gather that you work in a very intuitive way. How does a person learn to trust their therapeutic intuition?

2. Talk to me about meditation. Why would I want to do it? How do you find a practice that is right for you?

Robert answers:

1. What is in the mix is what I intuit will work best. If you watch me work, you’ll see me use modalities like Gestalt and psychodrama, but you’ll also see me improvising as I do so, in accordance with my client’s current state, spontaneously bringing in other modalities (like deep bodywork), or creating on-the-spot structures (like having someone who’s working through some fear face others in the group who trigger that fear), or bringing spiritual perspectives to what’s going on (like inviting an exploration of identity). Given that any therapeutic methodology can be a trap, especially when the therapist is invested in it, I strongly prefer to let my structuring of sessions and groups spontaneously arise in response to client and group energies and needs. This keeps me fresh, alert, creative, ready for the twists and turns of the therapeutic process.
And how does a person trust their therapeutic intuition? Practice. Exploring the roots of their mistrust of their intuition. More practice. In my training of therapists-to-be, a constant theme is that of becoming more attuned to one’s intuition, and becoming more willing to act on it. Implicit in this is a truly deep listening; the more spacious and attentive my trainees are, the more clearly they can “hear” their intuition.

2. Let’s start by saying that meditation is the art and practice of being aware of what’s happening as it’s happening, while taking into account that this is a deceptively simple statement, given that “what’s happening” is not necessarily what it appears to be. What follows fleshes this out. As you read it, I suggest that you soften your belly, and remain aware of the arising and passing of each breath; when your attention drifts away, simply return it to your breath, noting, if possible, to what your attention was pulled.

Meditation simultaneously roots and wings us, helping us to abide in and as Being, while enhancing our ability to take care of the business of daily life (if only through keeping us present). Nothing could be more practical than meditation.

In the beginning, meditation is a practice of the self. Later, meditation is a practice that renders transparent the self. And still later, meditation is a practice that opens us until we are but openness itself, embodying what is obviously more real than the self.

That is, in the beginning, we meditate; later, we allow meditation; and still later, we are meditated. This makes sense not to the rational mind, but to that which cannot help but be aware of the rational mind. Meditation radically decentralizes egoity.

That is, meditation undoes, unravels, renders ever more transparent, the very self that seeks and attempts to meditate. That self, that knot of subjectivity velcro’ed to spiritual ambition, views meditation as a remedy or as a means to an end, but meditation -- if entered into with sufficient commitment -- undresses and unseats that self, cutting through its reign of us, leaving in its wake what we’ve been all along.

(Are you still aware of breathing?)

When we allow ourselves to be centered not by our separative selfhood and its self-obsessed subjectivity, but rather by Being, meditation finds its true depth, the vast dimensionless presence of which unmasks, uproots, and ultimately dissolves our mistaken case of identity.

Meditation includes the overlapping practices of (1) making space -- transconceptual space -- for whatever arises; (2) remaining present; (3) witnessing whatever is arising, externally and internally, without dissociating from it; and (4) awakening to the real nature of all that is.

Meditation is all of these and more, existing at essence as the practice-path of being centered not by self, but by innate awareness.

Meditation is the practice of awaring.

As such, it makes equal room for happiness and unhappiness, simultaneously opening us to deep insight, the moment-to-moment feel of a soapy dish, and the subtle agendas hovering so very near to our next thought. Meditation makes conscious space -- a true living room -- for the high and the low, the gorgeous and the repulsive, the fascinating and the tedious, shining the heartlamp of intrinsic awareness equally on all.

Meditation is not about feeling a certain way, nor about being in a certain state, nor about having certain experiences, but rather is about remaining awake in the midst of whatever is happening.

Meditation requires no props, robes, or equipment. It is not limited to a particular format or posture; one can be still, one can be moving, one can be quiet, one can be chanting or praying or crying. Whatever works. It's good to stay with a practice that works for you, but not to stay with it too long.

(How does your breathing feel?)

And don't make meditative practice special or “above” the rest of your life. It's more useful to awaringly wash dishes than to squat on a meditation cushion trying to reach some exalted state. The good news is that meditation works; the bad news, at least for our egoity, is that the spiritual deepening central to meditation is not always going to make us feel good.

Meditation is not about getting somewhere. In meditation, we move not from here to there, but from here to here -- and from now to now -- allowing ourselves to be awakened and homed by all things.

To be thus awakened and homed is to be grateful for all that has brought where we are. Meditation devoid of gratitude is not really meditation, but only spiritualized dissociation. Gratitude itself can be a deeply liberating practice. As awareness and love become more and more indistinguishable, we begin to truly live, regardless of our circumstances.

We don’t do meditation, but without us there is no meditation. May we take the practice of awaring to heart, daring to let it immerse us in -- and reveal to us -- the full Truth of what we cannot help but be.

******************

And how to find a practice that is right for you? Trust your intuition.

Here’s a user-friendly practice to try:

Sit comfortably, with loose jaw and belly, eyes closed or almost closed, and count outloud your breaths on the exhale, starting with 1; when you’ve reached 5, start at 1 again. Do this for a few rounds, then make the counting silent. Do this for a minute or two, then bring some awareness to your belly, noticing how it moves with each breath, rising/expanding on the inhale, and settling/falling back on the exhale. So as you inhale, notice your belly rising, and as you exhale, count and notice your belly falling back. If you forget where you are in the counting, simply start at 1 again. Do not interfere with whatever thoughts are arising in your mind; let them be. Do this for a minimum of 10 minutes.

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Michael D asks:

1. I particularly enjoyed the words about nonduality…

RAM: "I would now, more than a dozen years later, describe my DSW experience as, among other things, a death/rebirth process. It was one hell of a journey, a full-term, full-out labor (I just recently realized that my birthday [December 19th] is exactly 9 months after the date of my taking 5-MeO [February 19th])."

I’m wondering how Robert now sees the role of (re)experiencing the birth process/trauma – (both the biological and the archetypal) in his “death-rebirth”.

Robert answers:

I see it as a very useful process. It’s easy to overvalue reliving one’s actual birth, and it’s easy to overemphasize the role of our physical birth in our developmental unfolding, but it still can be a powerful part of our healing and awakening. We are all, in different ways, giving birth to ourselves, level upon level -- perhaps the ultimate labor of love. A messy passage, yes, full of blood, sweat, and tears, not to mention a shitload of fears, but worth it, as we emerge, naked and so, so alive, at home in the unfathomable openness of the Real.

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PART FIVE - March 11, 2006

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Denis/elconwords asks:

1. I am not a fan or foe as I have not read any of your works. I only know of you through the fine folks here and by the deference they give you I accept that you are a certain authority in inner, spiritual and non-dualistic shadow puppetry, meaning that you try to impart the knowledge of light and dark through words. I also know that you have been a reader of the posts on this site for some time now and I wonder if you have any comments or reflections on things that may have grabbed you through your perusing this and the old site. Perhaps you would like to share with us some insights you have gained through our experience, in short I would like to leave an open door for anything you might like to address without a pointed question as your launch pad.

Robert answers:

Thanks for the invite.

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ambosuno asks:

1. What is meditation? What do you mean by it? What is not meditation? Are there common misconceptions and misdirections about meditation that are part of some larger illusion? What might be the consequences of such?

2. To what extent is the place you stand and the content of what you say a product of the common material on "spiritual" and religious matters and to what extent and in what ways is it an original expression? Are the things you say, like perhaps the advaita-esque comments, partly generated from the current spiritual zeitgeist? To what extent and in what ways? Who are the influences that maybe mold your words, phrasing, outlook?

3. In terms of how we spend our time in life, how we express our humanity and our beingness, what are essentials and what not? Is there a sense of priority?

Robert answers:

1. I addressed the nature and practice of meditation in my last set of responses to Forum questions. You ask, “Are there common misconceptions and misdirections about meditation that are part of some larger illusion?”Sure. One is that doing certain things -- like meditating -- will make us happy, and if they don’t, then all we have to do is do them more. How easy it is to forget that real happiness is not in having (or doing) but in Being -- not being this, not being that, but simply be-ing. So easy it is to burden meditation -- and plenty of other activities, like sex -- with the expectation that it make us feel better or more secure, forgetting that when we buy into sunny-side up spirituality, all we end up with is egg on our face and a big bill. It’s crucial that we be clear about our motivations for meditating, including those that are ego-centered; if meditation is truly happening, such motivations will not go unnoticed.

2. Where I stand and the content of what I say (along with my delivery) arise out of all that I’ve learned and assimilated; as much as possible, I speak from my own direct experience, and usually try to do so in as creative and original a manner as I can, simply because doing it any other way wouldn’t bring me as much satisfaction. When I’m being original, I don’t think of myself as being original, and in fact (at such times) don’t think of myself in any way in particular, having far more interest in being possessed by the creative process. Those who have influenced my verbal outpourings include everyone from poets (Leonard Cohen is a favorite) to spiritual savants (like Adi Da prior to the 1990s); I especially appreciate and am inspired by those who elegantly encapsulate paradoxical profundities in their writings, regardless of their lineage (or lack of lineage). My loyalty is not to a particular path, but to a way of being that honors and celebrates the personal and interpersonal as much as the transpersonal.

3. What are essentials? Here’s a partial list: Whatever helps remind us of our true nature; whatever furthers the full flowering of our individuality; whatever supports our healing; whatever deepens our compassion; and being present, including when we’re taking care of details. (As we take this deeper, we may find that some or much of what we considered to be non-essential, is in fact essential.) And is there a sense of priority? Sure -- keep the non-essential (or the not-as-essential) peripheral to the essential, and do so not by ostracizing the non-essential (or the not-as-essential), but rather by keeping attention focussed on the essential.

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Kim Burton (via email) asks:

1. How important and helpful he sees body psychotherapy in the evolution of consciousness?
And also, on a practical note, is it difficult to do body psychotherapy without seeing the person naked in order to assess body type and other details?

Robert answers:

1. I see body-including psychotherapy as very important in our evolution toward being truly integrated. Intuitive bodywork, in intimate connection with counselling know-how, teaches us -- firsthand -- the relationship between our fleshiness and our nonphysical dimensions, giving us a well-grounded sense both of our boundaries and of our multileveled continuity with all that is, again and again creating for us a safe place to let go of being safe. Such work, whether it’s hands-on or not, is necessarily deep much of the time, creatively and sensitively deep, inviting us to shift, level upon level, from frozen yesterday to fluidly grounded now.

The memory of what crippled us -- and perhaps still cripples us, however subtly -- waits in our cells, our tissues, our organs and fascia and skeletomuscular tensions, fresh as at the time it was first imprinted in us. The trouble is, such memory is not primarily lodged in our everyday “awareness”(its presence there usually being only spectral or mostly informational, having been stripped of most of its emotional valence in its “translation” from the depths to the surface), but rather in “older,” seemingly less accessible zones of our neurological makeup. Not surprisingly, moving from the translation back to the “original” is far more than a merely cognitive exercise, perhaps most effectively facilitated through bodywork-including psychotherapy.

Such work deepens our sensitivity to our “solutions” to our long-ago problems. It grounds our investigation of ourselves, keeping it from the jaws of unneeded abstraction, returning us to the scene of the crime with an open mind, a willing heart, and the guts to complete what was (and probably had to be) left incomplete then.

2. Nudity is not necessary. When I do bodywork with clients, they are always clothed.

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Arthur (adastra) asks:

1. How often do you spend in witnessing consciousness – e.g. during most of your physically awake periods? In dreams? Deep sleep? About how often do you lucid dream? Has this changed since the 5-Meo experience?

2. In response to my question on how you would try to induce a nondual experience, you said, “Probably through skillful questioning during a time of effortlessly direct eye contact, following a time of deep psychoemotional opening. This, of course, would be best handled by a spiritual master like Ramana Maharshi, whose gaze would be a supremely potent invitation to step into the nakedly nondual.” Have you encountered anybody who has the same kind of transmission ability as Ramana Maharshi (especially who lives in or visits the Pacific Northwest area)? Do you consider yourself to be qualified to do this? Have you attempted to do this - have people requested it of you - and have you been successful?

3. You said, “Masturbation is, to me, mere energetic discharge of sexual energy, and is not necessarily just a solo act, but is what often passes for sex. I consider masturbation to be a denser, unillumined, non-rejuvenative form of sexual expression. (I sometimes also use the term “masturbation” in other contexts, such as “emotional masturbation” or “intellectual masturbation”.) I would distinguish masturbation from “self-love”-- if you are touching yourself sexually, and your heart is in it, and you’re including your whole being in the process, allowing an arousal that goes much deeper than mere sensation, then you are not simply discharging energy, but are taking good care of it.”
I would like further clarification of this, please. Given our (or at least, my) capacity for self-deception, how can I know for sure if I'm acting in awareness and love, or just fooling myself? If I believe, or become aware (at this point, I'm at least highly suspicious) that I am largely acting in a masturbatory manner as you have defined it, particularly in the areas of literal masturbation and sex; how then, would you advise me to move from that to the deeper kind of expression you are talking about?

Robert answers:

1. Quite a bit of the time during the waking state -- not full continuity, but plenty of moments of witnessing, and more prolonged times of witnessing when I’m working with clients. In the dream state, there’s full lucidity maybe twice a month (I’ve had years where it was twice a week or so) and some sense of witnessing perhaps a quarter of the time. I used to be more interested in lucid dreaming (beginning in the early 1970s) and did a lot of experimentation with that state, but eventually lost much of my desire to do so. The territory is very familiar to me, no matter how long I go between lucid dreams, so I don’t feel much need to visit it very often. I did have a lot of lucid dreams following my 5-MeO experience, but only for a year or so. In deep sleep, I’ve been fully conscious, but only rarely.

2. “Have you encountered anybody who has the same kind of transmission ability as Ramana Maharshi (especially who lives in or visits the Pacific Northwest area)?” Not in the Pacific Northwest! The most powerful transmission ability I’ve encountered was with Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh in 1980 during “energy darshans”. Whatever his failings, he could at that time manifest a presence that was immensely powerful and transmit it in industrial strength dosages.

Am I qualified to do this? I don’t know if I’m qualified, but it has happened from time to time. People have not directly requested it of me, and when it happens, I don’t label it as nondual experience, but simply hang out with them in our awareness-aware-of-awareness condition, waiting until a bit later to discuss what happened.

3. How can you know for sure you’re not fooling yourself? You can begin by deepening your meditative practice, to the point where it’s possible to observe the mechanics of self-deception, including the self-talk doing the propagandizing. It’s also very helpful to be with a partner who has sufficient maturity to have a well-developed bullshit detector and who also has your full permission to use it.

How do you know if you’re acting in awareness? If you’re even asking such a question, you’re more in your mind than in awareness. Get more used to being in bare awareness. No frills, no pats on the back, no glamor, just undressed awareness. And love? Visit it more often, get familiar with its touch, memorize the feeling of its presence, and don’t fill its absence with compensatory activity (including sex).

To move beyond masturbatory sex, breathe more awareness into your longing for the kind of connection that epitomizes deep sex. Make love more important than sensation. Make sure you are emotionally connected to your partner before you get sexual. If you find that you are being mechanical during sex, stop, open your eyes, breathe, and tune into your partner and yourself, and talk about/explore that mechanicalness. Make truth more important than security. Do not lose touch with your partner during sex, and do not lose touch with your caring for your partner during sex (this is helped by both of you maintaining eye-contact at least some of the time); this will help you to enter a more heart-centered lust.

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Jana/Plasmafly asks:

1. “When we remain outside our fear, we remain trapped within it. When we, however, consciously get inside our fear, it’s as if it turns inside out. Getting inside our fear with wakeful attention and compassion actually expands (or everts) our fear beyond itself. Once the contractedness at the center of fear ceases to be fueled, fear unravels, dissipates, terminates its occupancy of us. In entering our fear, we end our fear of it. Through attending closely, caringly, and carefully to the particulars of our fear, we decentralize it, so that its intentions and viewpoint can no longer govern us. When the light goes on in the grottoes of dread, then fear is little more than our case of mistaken identity having a bad day. When we touch our fear with authentic caring, it de-tenses and de-compresses, usually quickly becoming something other than fear, something unburdened by fear’s agendas or headlines.” RAM

I read your piece on fear, and think that since fear is “consciousness moving away” it is rather hard to switch around and invite it for tea. How do you do this with clients?

2. I am thinking that “love” is a more comprehensive “opposite” to fear…and bravery is simply a side of love. Of course when one “loves” then courage is not work it just is.
I pictured fear and love put into the yin/yang symbol….so that each has a little of the other in it. I am not sure if this is fundamentally correct; is there another visual image you would use to describe the interrelationship between love and fear?

3. I see nature, phenomena, mind and physiology as hyperbolic in nature. An "action/force/consciousness" would move in one direction to its zenith, reach its threshold of endurance and then flip into its opposite. I have experienced this phenomena in boy/girl relationship...but only when the individual was armored/neurotic...they would rubberband between opening and closure as regular as the sun coming up.

Do you see this hyperbolic pattern with your clients in their response to you? And do you observe it in your personal intimate relationships, or have you and your partner reached a level in which this fundamental physics of chemistry is changed into a different pattern. The following piece on the spillover effect might explain the hyperbolic nature of mind and emotion.

’Aquili and Newberg outline "four basic categories of arousal/quiescent states that may occur during extraordinary phases of consciousness": The Hyperquiescent state; the Hyperarousal state; the Hyperquiescent state with Eruption of the Arousal System; and The Hyperarousal State with Eruption of the Quiescent System. In addition they propose a fifth state where both systems are maximally aroused, the absolute unitary state (AUB). The Mystical Mind, 25-16; see also d’Aquili and Newberg, "Liminality, Trance and Unitary States in Ritual and Meditation," Studia Liturgica 23 (1993):2-24.

D’Aquili and Laughlin report research that shows that when either the arousal or quiescent system is maximally stimulated it results in a "spillover effect" or a stimulation of the other system. That is, experts in meditation may experience a "rush" or a release of energy during a hyperquiescent state. From the other side, those who engage in rhythmic rituals that engage the arousal system, such as energetic dancing and singing, may experience states of bliss, tranquility, and oneness with others. Hyperarousal and hyperquiescent states seem to stimulate the limbic system, which regulates our emotions. Hence, these states are experienced as being emotionally intense, and often pleasurable.

In summary, in states of very high activity around one circuit, there can be a "spillover" such that the dormant system activates and goes "on line" simultaneously with the other. Although rare, this dual state can lead to a sense of "tremendous release of energy" that may feel like "oceanic bliss" or absorption into the object of contemplation.

And in extreme cases there is a "maximal discharge" of both systems, inducing brain activities perceived by the mind as the Absolute Unity of Being or AUB, which brings the abolition of any discrete boundaries between beings, by the absence of a sense of time-flow, and by the elimination of the self-other dichotomy. A mystic in the AUB state will experience either a divine being, such as God, or the cosmic void of Nirvana, depending on whether there has been a predominantly ergotropic or trophotropic involvement. Yet we cannot reduce religious awe, numinous vision or mystical experience to merely a neurochemical flux.

It is also during these "spillover" experiences that the paradoxes presented to the brain through myth become resolved by the simultaneous functioning of both hemispheres of the brain. In ritual stimulation of the arousal system, for example, the presentation of what is an unresolvable logical problem in the left brain (the wafer is both bread and the Body of Christ), is experienced as unified in the holistic operation of the right brain.
http://zero-point.tripod.com/pantheon/ArtemisII.html
Why God Won't Go Away : Brain Science and the Biology of Belief (Paperback)
by Andrew Md Newberg, Eugene G. D'Aquili, Vince Rause; Ballantine Books, 2002

Also this article by Michael Persinger points to this spill over effect actually having an anatomical correlate in the brain...with regards to the specialized and polar functions of the two hemispheres...a simplistic way of looking at it is that the charge builds to threshold in one hemisphere then bleeds off into the other hemisphere to "balance." www.innerworlds.50megs.com/enlightenment.htm Forgetting About Enlightenment: Enlightenment as a Neural process

Robert answers:

1. Gradually and respectfully, beginning with smaller fears.

2. Love can include fear, but not vice versa. A symbol? I see a circle which includes a dark band close to its circumference; the circle is love, the band fear. At its darkest, the band does not know that it is included in love’s embrace, and will not know until it is penetrated by the torchlight of awareness.

3. I sometimes see this hyperbolic pattern with clients in their resistance to the work they need to do (my way of dealing with this is to have them cultivate intimacy with their resistance, so that its energies are not repressed, but rather only liberated from their viewpoint). With regard to my partner (Diane) and me, I don’t observe this pattern.

Let me add something here about THE IMPORTANCE OF SAFETY IN INTIMATE RELATIONSHIP:

To go truly deep in an intimate relationship, we need to feel safe with the other. We need to know — and know with our whole being — that we can trust them, and not just when we’re with them. This is a trust based not on thinking that we should trust them, but rather on feeling right to our core their trustworthiness — their integrity, their commitment to remaining present, their passion for accessing love, depth, and freedom with and through us.

If we cannot count on the other to consistently take good care of the container of our relationship — as when, for example, energy is leaked through cracks created by erotically wandering attention — then we’ll find that there is only so deep we can go with them. If one partner is chronically calling the whole relationship into question every time there’s a fight, then the other is probably going to become wary of opening fully. Less safety means more shallows.

Making the ground of a relationship unnecessarily unstable — as when certain boundaries are overridden or trivialized in the name of “freedom” — keeps the relationship from being as deep and fulfilling as it could be. The point isn’t to create a bastion of security, but to be a safe place for one’s partner to let go of playing it safe. Feeling safe is much, much more than just feeling secure.

Real safety creates an atmosphere in which we can give our all without giving ourselves away. Real safety makes room for a truly radical sharing of all that we are. Without it, we may seem to be free to go where we could not otherwise go, but such freedom — in its relative superficiality — is far more limiting than is the freedom that arises in the presence of genuine safety between intimates.

The safer I feel with my partner, the deeper I can go with her. The safer I feel with her, the deeper the risks I can take with her. The safer I feel with her, the deeper and more fulfilling the passions are between us; anger becomes a guardian of intimacy, lust a magnifier of intimacy, and ecstasy a celebration of intimacy.

Real safety in a relationship gives us room to show up in all of our colors. It gives us full permission to be in as much pain as we actually are, thereby making more than possible the healing we need in order to come fully alive, the healing through which we are awakened by all things. What joy, what benediction, what grace, to share this in the dynamic safety possible in an intimate relationship!

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PART SIX - March 12, 2006

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Rhonda/feral asks:

1. Robert, could you talk about your personal spiritual evolution from the time you were a child to the present? What were some significant learnings and turning points? What were some surprises? What have you believed in the past that you no longer believe and why? Where do you see yourself heading?

2. Are you familiar with the work of Byron Katie, and what do you think of it?

3. What are the characteristics of a good spiritual teacher, and how do you find one?

Robert answers:

1. My personal spiritual evolution? Here’s an abbreviated take... Much of my early childhood was spent in altered states, with very fuzzy boundaries between waking and dreaming. By the time I was 10 or so, I decided that I was an atheist, thanks in part to Sunday School teachers who could not answer my questions. My teens were a spiritual wasteland. In my early 20s I rediscovered my spirituality, feeling deeply linked to the innocence, wonder, and deep openness of my early years. Soon thereafter I began to meditate and to work on myself, which has continued to this day. Along the way there have been many deepenings and just as many detours. An abundance of openings, realizations, releases, reality-unlocking times. I was spiritually very ambitious for quite a while, but for the last decade or so, I’ve felt much more content to be where I am, no longer having a spiritual timetable spinning away behind my forehead.

Significant learnings and turning points? So many! Key ones include: Abandoning my art at age 12; my first psychedelic trip; dropping out of a doctoral program when I was 22; travel adventures in Asia; the breakup of my first marriage; entering therapy and groupwork; starting to practice meditation; spending time at the Rajneesh ashram in India in 1980; finding my true work; the arrival of my children; the formation and dissolution of the community I began in 1986; my 5-MeO-DMT trip; building a new life immediately following my DSW experience; entering a doctoral program in Psychology in 1995; meeting Diane (now my partner).

I used to believe that I was special; I don’t now. Why? Because I know, right to my core, that we’re all in the same boat, and that it doesn’t really matter if I’m the captain or the deckhand, so long as I’m honoring both the shared humanness and the uniqueness of each, regardless of the weather.

I see myself heading deeper into Now, riding the waves of change with ever-increasing trust, passing on what I have learned, dying into Life, letting all things awaken me.

2. I think Byron Katie’s work can be useful for some, especially with regard to creating contexts that challenge outdated self-assumptions.

3. Good for whom? Different teachers are needed for different stages, different people, different conditions. How do you find one that is “good” for you? Let your intuition guide you. Even a teacher who seemingly isn’t good for you can be good for you, if only by making it clearer to you what you don’t need in a teacher.

Having said this, there nevertheless are qualities that, to me, are indispensable in a truly effective spiritual teacher: integrity, compassion, emotional literacy, wisdom, clarity, no dissociation from the raw stuff of life or from relationship, coupled with the ability to connect, and connect deeply, with students.

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Jana/Plasmafly asks:

It’s kinda like if I can’t eat the whole cake, then I don’t want to take a bite.

“We cannot possess Truth, but we can let Truth possess us.” RAM
It takes me a year having sex with the same partner once a week to arrive at cosmic-sex. The disparity between that and having casual-sex once a year is too much to bear. Better to remain sexually fossilized, then I don’t notice my loneliness and unfulfilled potential. If a relationship cannot serve as a "container" for cosmic sex, then it’s just a source of frustration. Without this container, then the sex we encounter composes of various dramas, comedies and tragedies arising from our inability to build a transpersonal relationship in which supra-sex is possible. All of us have an inborn drive and anticipation for spiritual communion in relationship and sex. We die as disgruntled virgins, to the degree that the realization of this intuition is left unlived.

1. We are "realized" in action, through experience. In your writings you point to the difference between coming from a place of deprivation and coming from a place of fulfillment. Needy sex just leads to more deprivation it seems. Yet loneliness and need is what drives us beyond our defenses to engage with others. If we were all already satisfied perhaps there would be no sex. I can clearly see the difference between using sex as an addictive substance, and true communion of souls. Perhaps you would advocate sitting with ones loneliness and need coupled with spiritual practices and therapy to rise up to the level of spiritual sex? So I might have answered my own question.

“Sexual activity that does not stem from (and is not openly expressive of) Being cannot fully flower, for too much of it is rooted in artificial soil. Being-centered, romance-transcending sexuality is not the act of any ego-governed self or interiorized overseer, but rather involves a spontaneous, non-strategic, radical “undoing” (or unmaking) of whatever counterfeit or make-believe identity we have assumed and constellated ourselves around.” 61, Freedom Doesn’t Mind Its Chains, RAM.

Robert answers:

1. I think you’ve answered your own question. I recommend dating your loneliness until your aversion to it is no longer a problem, and desperation no longer fuels you. The point is not “to rise up to the level of spiritual sex”, but to reach that depth of self-acceptance and maturity of which “spiritual sex” is but a byproduct. Don’t hold such sex as a goal; rather, simply do what you have to do to be more integrated and alive, and sex will take care of itself. Permit relationship to be primary, and sex secondary, so that sex expresses, rather than creates, connection and communion.

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Arthur/adastra asks:

1. (following from the above) If someone considers it impossible, for whatever reason, to have a sexually intimate relationship, yet feels a burning desire for same, how should they proceed? Or, more generally, if someone feels intense need that must apparently go unfulfilled, how may they best use that situation to serve their awakening?

2. Do you feel there is a legitimate place for the pursuit of altered states of consciousness in spiritual development? (By whatever means - ascetic practices such as fasting, entheogens, ritual, prolonged dancing, etc.? Do you feel some methods are better or more useful than others?

3. Having been a guru, and then given that up, how do you now feel about the guru-disciple relationship? Is it helpful? Harmful? What is the role of guru in the modern context?

Robert answers:

1. Explore that desire, both from a distance and from up close, becoming as intimate as possible with its qualities, without getting lost in its object. Since it’s there, why not investigate it? Painful as this may be, it is a good pain, for through it, you’ll deepen your understanding of yourself. Out of such exploration, you may find something else to do with the energies of that desire, besides longing for a relationship you cannot have. And maybe, just maybe, authentically engaging in such exploration may bring you into the needed alignment for such a relationship.

2. Yes, though such “pursuit” can be a very slippery slope (especially when we seek altered states in order to get away from something). Which methods are best? That depends on the individual. I think it’s crucial not to get overly enamored of altered states; they may be fine to visit, but not so fine to take up residence in. It’s helpful to remember that the Real is not an altered state.

3. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I was a guru; I had students, not disciples (blurry though the line between the two often was). I did, however, hold an authority then (that I have no interest in holding now) that certainly had guru-centric qualities.

How do I feel about the guru-disciple relationship? Well, first of all, I think that it’s plagued with transference issues, power imbalances, and parent-child concerns that all too often go unaddressed (especially in settings that don’t value psychotherapy). Those who haven’t explored and dealt with their psychological patterns, including unresolved parental issues, may benefit in some ways from having a guru, but in other ways will only obstruct and postpone their growth. Those who are more mature will do much better with a guru, being far more capable of making wiser use of him or her.

The role of the guru in a contemporary context? To serve as a guide, inspiration, and awakening presence, but with far less authoritarianism than before. I think that we as a culture are in the process of outgrowing the need for traditional gurus; this doesn’t mean, however, that we should not be cultivating and deepening our relationships with gurus/spiritual teachers with whom we have a deep fit or connection. For example, I don’t view Ramana Maharshi as my guru, but he does serves as a spiritual beacon for me, for which I am very grateful. Thich Nhat Hanh once said that the next Buddha would not be an individual, but a community. I resonate with that. A group of spiritually mature peers, and not necessarily all from the same spiritual path, is far less likely to abuse power and lose touch than a single individual.

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PART SEVEN - March 13, 2006

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Dan/crystallake2 asks:

1. I am married with two kids (ages 8 and 10). I find it hard to spare much time to be focused on transformative practices, including psychotherapy. My desire to practice conscious transformation is as great as my desire to have a family and to be able to provide for them. On one level this seems like a conflict. I then expect all the canned answers such as "Your entire life is one meditation, live it" or "Everything is an opportunity for growth" or "It's all one, there is no separation." Those ideals don't seem to effectively address the issue on a practical level.

To give a contrasting example (and the ego loves contrasts, always comparing itself to another object of consciousness), I have a friend who lived for years in a spiritual community and never has had children or committed to any marriage. He lived a simple, debt free life with as little clutter as possible. He even only owned two or three pieces of furniture as an example of how he thought and lived. Simplicity to the extreme. To this day at almost 60 years of age he remains "free" as a result of his philosophy of simplicity and has the time to pursue a "spiritual" lifestyle.

I work 5 AM until 8:30 PM 5 - 6 days a week. To pursue transformative practices I will have to get by with 3-4 hrs sleep to squeeze everything into a 24 hr day (and thats exactly what I may need to do). First things first however. I have all the baggage that goes with a family including financial debt. That's first, then whatever is left over goes to "spiritual" activities (i.e. meditation, psychotherapy, weight lifting, etc, etc. I-I's ILP core modules)

My question is, what would you say to someone in my shoes. Is it impossible to have your cake and eat it to? Or is there a strategy even for home makers and parents who have so many worldly obligations?

Yes, raising a family is a "Dharma", but I don't see many examples of these people really moving quickly up the ladder of evolution as in other alternative lifestyles where you have the free time to directly and specifically focus upon transformative practices and activities (ILP core modules that have been proven to work according to Integral Institutes research and recommendations). There are so many "dysfunctional" families these days. It seems that having a family generates so much dysfunction for so many.

Are families a hinderance to authentic transformation? Is there a deeper answer than "Everything is Grist for the Mill"? Creating a balanced fusion of worldly life and inner life is the greatest challenge many face.

Robert answers:

1. First of all, I think it’s crucial that you not turn such well-meaning statements as “everything is an opportunity for growth” into shoulds or occasions to feel bad about yourself. Ask yourself if those who are delivering such statements to you are in (or have been in) anything like your situation, and if not, are they truly getting how it is for you? At the same time, though, you still need to do something with your situation that makes it more workable for you. Do you absolutely have to work such long hours? Is there anything else you could do work-wise that would require less time? If not, then do you get many breaks at work, and if you do, can you do any rejuvenative or transformative practices then?

I strongly recommend (and perhaps you’re already doing this) that you incorporate meditative practice into your work; that is, as you do what you do, periodically do it mindfully. A half-minute here and there throughout your day can do wonders. If you drive back and forth to work, use that time to practice mindfulness and to do any other practice that helps you become more present, like chanting or singing. And home life? Some of what little time you have left of course needs to go to your children and partner, which leaves not much for you, so you need to do whatever you can to make your time with your kids and partner quality time for you too. Not necessarily easy, I know, but definitely doable.

More recommendations: Before you go to sleep, sit for 10 minutes or so, doing whatever meditative practice most easily settles and calms you, then suggest to yourself that you will be aware of dreaming while you are dreaming, so as to help induce lucid dreaming. Why? Because you can work on yourself during such a state, as well as really enjoy and rejuvenate yourself. Upon awakening in the morning, spend a couple of minutes laying still in bed, following your breath while remaining aware of your thinking process, before you get up. Do not neglect your need for exercise; when you lift weights, do so mindfully, riding each breath with full awareness, and, if possible, letting yourself really feel and let go as you work out. Even if your workout time is short, don’t rush through it.

And for days when it’s just too much, days when you feel like you can’t go on? Give yourself permission to rant and/or break down; it’s much more efficient to let the tears (and maybe rage too) flow (in the appropriate setting) than to just soldier on.

Do you want a deeply challenging spiritual practice? Look no further than your family and its attending responsibilities. You’re in spiritual bootcamp for the long haul, and your family circumstances pretty well make sure you can’t bail. This is both the good news and the bad news. Don’t put any juice into comparing your situation to others.

Families are not necessarily a hindrance to authentic transformation. Just don’t look for quick results. What you are in is more a marathon than a few laps around the track. You may not appreciate it at the time, but you are developing an invaluable tool -- spiritual stamina.

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Michael D asks:

You mentioned that you were leading and being supported by a spiritual community when the 5-meo experience took place.

1. Can you say a few words about the relation of recovery and community support? Such as: What if you had been alone during that time? How would things have been different? Was the community support (including spouse) necessary to your recovery?

2. You also wrote about being in the role of “cult leader” to that community, and how the effects of your leader role became painfully apparent to you in the aftermath of the 5-meo experience. Do you think the above two factors were directly connected? In other words, do you think that the 5-meo experience was somehow instrumental in the exposition of the cult dynamic?

3. You are apparently an extraordinary man who has had an extraordinary life in many ways. Can you say a few words about your childhood?

Robert answers:

1. Support is invaluable in the recovery process. If I’d been alone, I would have had a harder time for sure (especially in the first few months), and would have probably surrendered to medication earlier than I did. How would have things been different? It likely would have taken longer to get back on my feet. Was the community support (including spousal) necessary to my recovery? I can’t say for sure; the support stabilized me for short bursts, but the growing instability of the very community that was supporting me just reinforced my shakiness. Regardless, I remain very grateful for the support I did receive.

2. Yes. My 5-MeO experience (roughly 9 months long) was highly instrumental in exposing and dismantling the cultic elements of the community. My defenses were so devastatingly obliterated that I could not hold things together, and could not help but be receptive to what was going on.

3. My childhood... A dreamy and troubled time. I had nightmares most nights, often featuring my parents turning into monsters. My father was abusive, my mother passive; I didn’t trust either, but could not face the monstrousness of this until my childhood was ending. I found solace in nature, and in my inner life. I saw what others apparently didn’t see. All sorts of beings and translucent lights filled my room at night, whether I was asleep or not. Putting on my light did little to dismiss them. I spent long hours creating and dramatically interacting with fantasy characters, sometimes acting them out to such an extent that concerned neighbors contacted my parents.

School was alien to me for a while, until I decided to participate in it. I always had high grades, and so was often allowed to sit apart from my classmates and do projects that were not part of the curriculum. I especially loved to draw, being able by age 7 to accurately draw Disney characters, to the delight of my classmates. I also loved poetry, sometimes reading it in front of classes. At the same time, my competitiveness grew (partly as a “solution” to my difficulties with my father), in conjunction with an equally gripping shyness. I was a such an avid reader that I needed glasses when I was 8 or 9. From an early age, I ‘d ask my parents where I’d come from (one answer I kept getting was: from a garbage can), because I could not believe that they were my parents.

A photo floats before me: I’m about one, sitting on my mother’s lap; she’s posing for the camera, and I have a faraway look in my eyes. An image of rearing horses, wild-eyed, sleek powerhouses, now comes to me, for my parents’ place was, among other things, a thoroughbred racehorse farm, and I was part of that from early on, working with horses, cleaning their stables, etcetera, to the point where they began to gallop through my dreams, obliterating the fences between them and me. One more image: I’m maybe 6, and am swimming underwater toward a glittering popcan at the bottom of an amazingly clear river pool, feeling loose and so, so free...

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Arthur/adastra asks:

1. Given that you feel your pre-5-Meo body of work no longer necessarily reflects what you now believe - even to the point of having been done by "a different man" - how would you advise people to approach that early work? Would you prefer that people not read it, or at least not read it with the expectation that it necessarily reflects your current beliefs? If people wish to study Robert Augustus Masters, Release 1.0, do you have any guidelines or suggestions for them?

2. If your pre-5-Meo self were standing before you now, what would say to him?

Robert answers:

1. I’m fine with people reading it, so long as they read it knowing that it doesn’t necessarily reflect or represent where I’m now at. If people wish to study RAM 1.0 (my pre-1994 writings), my suggestion is to supplement it with my current writings.

2. I love you.

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(responding to the above), Jana/Plasmafly asks:

1. I would say, Give RAMOS 1.0 a flipping break.
Thing is that RAMOS's early work is entirely valuable as it is to energize green and below, and since the majority of humans on the planet ARE green and below, I say...this work is just as valuable to the progress of humanity as RAM's present work.
Other than a slight measure of bombastic enthusiasm I see absolutely no error or problem with Roberts early work. I gotta say this and say it real loud because it would be a shame if his present ego prevented this much needed work from the distribution and exposure that it warrants, and that the world cries out for.

Why don't you give your former self a break, your stuff from the 80's is even more pertinent to where most people are at, than your smoother expansive current approach.
The way you put salt, sugar and lemonjuice together in your former incarnation is just the right combo of irritation to force awake the sleeping billions...IMHO

Robert answers:

1. I appreciate your passion for the writings of RAM 1.0 (my pre-1994 writings), but I’m less of a fan of his than you are. When I look back at those writings, I feel a great tenderness for who I was then, glad as I am to be where I now am. My basic message is much the same, but I strongly prefer my current style and delivery. The wild energy in my earlier books is still with me, especially in my poetry, but is found less on psychospiritual soapboxes now, and more on the shared ground of humanity; if this means that I reach less people, so be it.


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PART EIGHT - March 20, 2006

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Marianthi asks:

1. I have a question on a stage of inner growth where all structured paradigms/practices seem to fall and fail.

In my situation at present (at age 61 and over half of those years spent in faithful´growth practices´) I have included and transcended (I hope): the ´spiritual bootcamp´of family life and dharma-by-the-book obligations, the ´yogic bootcamp´of do´s and don´ts, its Kundalini leaps and Guru dazzles, the I´ve-figured-out-what-this-is-all-about-and-I-have-the-means-for-smooth-sailing-ahead´(including psychotherapy) and I find myself in freefall, where I simply can´t swear allegiance to anything or anyone anymore. I just do the practices that work at any given time such as (at present): meditation, dreamwork, chants, asanas and mindfulness in my work. But now there seems to be no elation or expectation of any particular goal or reward (enlightenment, superconsciousness...). Simply feeling more like ´myself´ seems good enough. And, I´ve withdrawn from friends who want to enthusiastically pull me into any structured belief and action system of growth, including those I had applauded in the past.

Now, Robert, would you say that a stage such as my present one is: healthy?, indefinite? inescapable? a territory I will learn to know and love? familiar?

Robert answers:

To me, where you’re at is healthy. From what you’re saying, you’ve paid your dues, done your time in various disciplines, pretty much outgrown the need to belong to a particular structure/system/paradigm.

It sounds like you’re touching the point of methodless methodology regarding your evolution. No more maps to lug around, no more textbooks to rely upon, no more teachings to hold you up, no structuring that you cannot do without. All the techniques you’ve learned, all the methodology, all the practices, are nonetheless still within reach, but your need to reach for them has dramatically lessened. This is worth celebrating; you can even invite your ego to the party, just so long as you don’t let it hog the scene.

As we learn (after spending sufficient quality time surrendered to structure) not to rely upon nor necessarily impose structure (both outer and inner), we can let it naturally arise and take shape from our relationship and interactions with our environment, human and otherwise. Living this way weans us from the security — the eventually deadening security — of operating from behind a preset structure or methodology, leaving us in a position that requires an appropriately creative response from us. Such creativity keeps us fresh, open, alert.

I’ve done my work from this “position” for the past two decades and only grow increasingly fond of doing so. I don’t mind not knowing what to do next during my work, because the necessities of the situation almost always reveal useful directions (unless of course I’m busy looking elsewhere). If the direction I’m taking seems to not be doing its job, I immediately let it go, and into the clearing created by its departure arrive new directions, intuitions, intimations. Are they mine? Yes and no.

The whole thing looks effortless, and feels effortless in the sense that intense creative output more often than not does itself, even as it consumes us. With no techniques or practices to have to fall back on, I am freed to use methodologies in spontaneously creative ways. For example, I may use Gestalt for a bit, teasing out and clarifying a troublesome polarity in a group member, and then bring in another “seat” to deepen and illuminate the dynamics underway, and then shift the whole unfolding into a structure that involves the entire group, doing so in a way that helps group members to feel not just like observers or even participants, but also like co-creators of what is going on. I have a more central or captain-ish role, but the feeling of everyone being in it together, and not just intellectually or physically, is very liberating, generating an even safer environment for deep work.

When we’re ready to stand free of needing our methodologies and practices, we find a much deeper kind of support.

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Jana/Plasmafly asks:

1. Since you see people in a healer-guide capacity perhaps you have a perspective on where we are as a collective. Are we further along than say the 80's. What are the necessary traits we need to build now to create an integral mandala of self. Is it transcendence, health, life-purpose, collective eco-sociopolitical structures, hope-faith, visionary capacity, creativity, communication, loyalty, awakenness/awareness, care-sincerity?

Although there are lots of signs of progress and people are making great contributions, it seem peripheral to the main thrust of civilization which is still heading for the cliff face. So what do we do, each attend to our own lives, make our little contributions, and wait for the hundredth monkey effect to take hold?

Any thoughts on what if means to be part of the human race at this point in our history?

Robert answers:

I sense that we’re collectively starting to turn an evolutionary corner, but we’re having a hell of time making the needed turn, mostly because too many of us are driving with our eyes shut and our feet pressing both accelerator and brake. Whether or not we enter a saner humanity on a sufficiently large scale depends on all kinds of factors; two that seem foundational to me are (1) waking up, and (2) taking (and putting energy into) actions that primarily arise as a result of waking up. And what catalyzes such awakening? Challenging conditions, of which we have an overwhelming abundance.

It helps to remember that there’s no such thing as an insignificant act. What you consider to be a minor contribution may turn out to be major. Because of this, it’s worth doing whatever you’re doing with as much care, clarity, and presence as possible, even it seems terminally mundane.

Many old structures are starting to show signs of crumbling. Their massive weight may give the impression of long-lasting solidity, but more and more of us are losing interest in buying that impression. The fact that such structures still hold an enormous amount of power means that they have to be approached with great skill, a skill that best arises from well-rooted wakefulness.

This means, among other things, not getting stuck in us-versus-them stances, and letting ourselves really get, right to our core, that what we do to another we do to ourselves; for more on this, here’s an essay from my book Divine Dynamite:

Taking Care of Our Opposition

It can be quite a test when we are confronted by the darker, more painful dimensions of those circumstances set in motion through our choices and actions. In the presence of such unpleasant conditions, we ordinarily tighten up, shrink, rigidify, withdraw, go numb, or otherwise diminish ourselves, ricocheting between defensiveness and submission, as though there’s nothing else we can do.

Just as we tend to inflate ourselves through association with pleasant circumstances, we also tend to deflate ourselves through association with nastier circumstances, assuming the role of victim, through which our capacity for responsibility is abandoned for the shrinkwrapped righteousness of self-blaming or other-blaming. Thus do we pollute ourselves with blame’s developmentally arrested morality and its supporting cast, in the melodramatics and ethical sewage of which guilt and vengefulness take turns masquerading as conscience.

Trying to make sure that we are safe from the unpleasant -- as exemplified by insuring ourselves to death -- only guarantees our keeping it and its worrisome ramifications in mind, where it contextually festers and reproduces with itself until it is literally fleshed-out, translated from the hotbed of its mental blueprinting into all-too-solid reality.

Awakening exposes -- once our honeymoon with spirituality is over -- what is not working in our lives, revealing key changes we need to make or at least open ourselves to making, but if we persist in obstructing, sabotaging, or faking such changes, we will very soon be realigned with our snore, dreaming that we are really living.

The good news is that as lost as we may be in our dreamland wanderings, oppositional forces inevitably will get in the face of the part of the dream that assumes it is us.

Opposition is inevitable and necessary, exposing flabbiness of spirit and every kind of complacency and mediocrity, generating situations that invite us, incite and enliven and challenge us, to Wake up, to hone and ground our alertness, to test and retest our ability to not be sucked in by our reactivity and mechanicalness.


As we begin to shed our blinders --or allow an increasing transparency -- and to make the changes that we know we must make, all kinds of obstacles arise. Doubts may multiply, dread may colonize us, resistance may flatten or blitz us, family and friends may turn away from us. We may then understandably want to turn back, to exit the chrysalis in reverse, to numb and dumb ourselves down. Thus do the old ways pull at us. Familiarity is so seductive.

If we don’t deal well with our difficulties, we may take up residence in disembodied rationality or metaphysical escapism, finding therein a consoling numbness. Or, more commonly, we may settle into a denser state of being, not leveling out until we have found a degree of opposition -- or contractive force -- that we can generally make good use of, rather than merely tolerate.

We don’t get to move on until we are truly ready to do so, and that decisive shift arises not just from our mind and feeling self, but from our core of being, including within itself -- and this cannot be overemphasized -- the essential energies of whatever in us opposes it.

Before we can embody a deeper life, we must be able, more often than not, to remain grounded -- that is, centered not by egoity, but by Being -- not only in the presence of discomfort, unpleasantness, and opposition, but also in the presence of our reactivity and aversion to such challenges. This involves a skillful befriending and acceptance of insecurity, providing sufficient safety to let go of playing it so safe.

Being nonreactive requires the readily-activated ability and willingness to see and feel whatever opposes us as more than just something oppositional. This means ceasing to submit to -- or feed with attention -- our violent intentions and thoughts regarding our opposition.

Our work is to take care of our opposition. This asks that we stretch and expand and open, permitting ourselves vulnerability, a vulnerability that is a source of strength, especially the kind of strength that is utterly unthreatened by dependency.

Opposition is neither to be ignored nor bewailed. The point is to sensitize ourselves to our adversaries, without shrinking or thinking ourselves into their operational strata, so that we are neither stuck in recoil nor bound up in submission. Our work is to enter into empathy -- however indirect its expression might be, or might have to be -- with them, without necessarily locking horns and minds with them, until we can genuinely wish them well. Loving -- not necessarily liking, but loving -- our apparent enemies is a kind of radical sanity, for in loving them, we are not only ceasing to demonize them, but are also aligning ourselves with their healing. And their healing is none other than our healing.

So, yes, open to loving your enemies, but don’t grovel or grow spineless in such love. Instead, stand tall in it, like great oaks asway in the push and slap of a violent storm, and stand soft as well, like grasses bending and bowing in the same stormwinds, losing none of their dignity in their prayer. Stand not like those who act as if they deserve the whip or insult, but like those who are alerted and further awakened -- and are thus healthily appreciative of -- the whip or insult, for only in so doing will you genuinely be able to love your enemies.

Our need is to know our opposition -- both inner and outer -- intimately, so that we might know ourselves. To stand in the midst of malignant contractedness or gross misunderstanding without abandoning or betraying ourselves is an art to be practiced with great patience and care. This goes far beyond facile notions of forgiveness, and far beyond merely trying to persuade ourselves that we are indeed transforming the negativity in our lives, for not only are softness, pliability, and receptivity essential, but also forcefulness, thrust, and bedrock-firm stands.

Having access to such qualities or responses is not so much a methodology as an ever-fresh art, through which we can touch the all without losing touch with the particular, finding a deepening intimacy with both favorable and unfavorable conditions, doing so not to reach What-Really-Matters, but rather to express and live It.

In taking care of our opposition, we take care of ourselves.


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PART NINE - March 25, 2006


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Jana/Plasmafly asks:

1. I don't particularly have enemies, but I do have human situations in which there is a lack of communication and understanding, actually most human situations. I would love to be able to communicate myself fully, truthfully and genuinely in every situation and encounter. Perhaps I believe I have to constantly pretend in order to survive. I know that an authentic life is possible, somewhere over the rainbow.

"This asks that we stretch and expand and open, permitting ourselves vulnerability, a vulnerability that is a source of strength, especially the kind of strength that is utterly unthreatened by dependency."

Ok, well this really pushes some buttons. I suppose the ultimate act of love is acknowledging and living up to that dependency consciously, rather than rebelling from it, denying it or using it unconsciously to manipulate. This would be the growing edge for me, since I have fundamental trust issues and abhor dependency like it's an ax in the head. Thus for me dependency has a hard time maturing because I refuse to face it. Any ideas on how to accept dependency?

Robert answers:

First of all, accepting dependency does not necessarily mean submitting to dependency.
An aversion to dependency can easily result in an overattachment to independence. The more problematic our orientation to dependency is, the more likely it is that we’ll deify independence and the egoic knot at its center, including in spiritual contexts.

Accepting dependency is not an act of submission, but of surrender. Submission is passive, but surrender is dynamic. In submission, we collapse our boundaries, but in surrender, we expand them. Through such expansion, more than enough room for dependence is made, permitted, allowed.

When we see, really see, our dependence (whether on oxygen or love or washboard abs), we are brought face to face with our vulnerability. With so much that could go wrong, doesn’t it seem like a miracle that enough of it works to keep us here for a while? Contemporary sensibilities aren’t particularly fond of needing anything, and so not only assume a problematic position regarding dependency, but also don’t assume much of a positive view of interdependence (since within its omnipresent relational web, dependence is an unavoidable and often obvious reality).

None of the above is to say that dependency is always a good thing. It’s worth asking: Which dependency? Should we accept all dependencies? Of course not. If a particular dependency does not serve your well-being, don’t accept it. If it still attracts you, you’ve got some work to do. It doesn’t take much for dependency to mutate into addiction. When we have to have something, it has us. Nevertheless, dependency’s shadow-side ought not to be allowed to pollute our relationship to dependency.

Accepting dependency isn’t going to go very far if we don’t feel safe. The lack of trust that’s part of not feeling safe must be explored if we are to truly face being dependent. This means, among other things, becoming more intimate with our mistrust, however far back it goes. Those who endured loveless childhoods initially need not to open to dependence, but rather to the pain of that time, entering it so fully and so consciously that they can access the resources and energies which they’d originally had to turn away from.


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Dan/Crystallake2 asks:

1. I was thinking of guilt and shame. Do you think that the blue meme has the biggest and most powerful influence over these dysfunctional pathologies? They are so rampant in our society as RAM points out in the newsletter and blue certainly has had a powerful hold on the spiral through shame and guilt, a form of emotional/mental manipulation and control.

Robert answers:

Before responding, I want to emphasize that shame is not necessarily a “dysfunctional pathology” (as described in my March newsletter). With that said, let’s take a look at what has the “biggest and most powerful influence” over shame and guilt. A leading candidate would appear to be that pushy, obsessively grade-giving complexity called a “should”. We all carry around “shoulds”, and not just in our minds. Taking on esteemed others’ expectations of us can be one hell of a burden, no matter how diligently we “should”-er them. And not just our shoulders get loaded with heavy expectations; our backs bend, our necks sag, our limbs lose tone or try to cover up the ache with exaggerated tone.

But let’s not be too hard on “shoulds” -- what really matters is what we do with them. If we submit to them, we set ourselves up for more shame than is necessary. If we let them set our moral compass, misdirection is the result. If we don’t challenge them, we wither. Since “shoulds” are inevitable -- what culture does not have them? -- we’d do best to clarify and illuminate them, seeing them for what they are, so that we can make wise use out of them when they arise. Sometimes it helps to battle them; sometimes it helps to corner them; sometimes it helps to undress them; but most of all, it helps to recognize them for what they are, so as to not take what they say as truth.

Freedom from “should”-ing means not an end to “shoulds”, but an end to letting them have power over us.


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ambosuno asks:

1. Quickly, I like how he describes the feelings of shame. I like how he presents the very common amalgams and maskings of shame. I think still to be explored for me is the roots of shame - more consideration than just native morality may be helpful - whether it is always truly native/intrinsic or whether shame can still occur from learned and introjected stuff, that isn't yet called guilt.

2. I appreciated how guilt was defined and yet there may be other subtly different ways to slice through our experience that would give a little different definition. Similarly with resentment. It was parsimoniously clarifying for me to hear the simple formulas of guilt and resentment equal shame plus fear/anxiety and aggression, respectively; and I wondered a little about that as well.

Robert answers:

1. I think that though shame is native/intrinsic, its shaping, intensity, and dramatics have much to do with learned and introjected material. Just as anger, fear, joy, and sadness are innate emotions, so too is shame; it comes with incarnation. Ideally, it serves to keep us in check when we’re going too far (or are in danger of going too far) with certain activities; then it simply serves our growth through apt restraint. But usually shame is not restricted to such good use; it easily gets overloaded with parental and societal shoulds, and quickly becomes dysfunctional, crippling rather than curbing us. And shame isn’t necessarily just about doing badly; I recall being shamed by a high school teacher for getting the highest grade in the class (what he managed to do was make me feel as if I’d screwed up by making my classmates look bad. His reasons? I don’t know, but I do remember how much he enjoyed the process). In its toxic forms, shame gives us a very compelling sense of being defective.

2. Guilt is, to me, basically fear-infused shame (for more on this, see my March 2006 newsletter). The fear may be minimal, or may not seem like fear, but it is there. This is not to say that other emotions or states may not also be part of guilt. For example, anger may join the party, maybe adding a bit more intensity to the whipping. Or there may be some depression creeping in, hanging out in the corners, adding to the sag of guilt. And to complicate things further, there may be considerable pleasure in being “bad” (for the childish side of guilt). Quite a mix this all is, sticky to the point of keeping us stuck in guilt’s stalemated domain.

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Arthur/adastra asks:

1. I find indexing very helpful (the more thoroughly indexed the better), especially in books with a high density of information, such as yours. Yet your books are not indexed, alas. Is there a stylistic or other reason for this? Is it possible that you might start having your books indexed at some point? If not, why not?

2. Recently on Integral Naked I quoted something by Philip K. Dick which unexpectedly resonated with DSW in my mind:

"I actually had to develop a love of the disordered and puzzling, viewing reality as a vast riddle to be joyfully tackled, not in fear but with tireless fascination. What has been most needed is reality testing, & a willingness to face the possibility of self-negating experiences: i.e. real contradictions, with something being both true & not true.

The enigma is alive, aware of us, & changing. It is partly created by our own minds: we alter it by perceiving it, since we are not outside it. As our views shift, it shifts. In a sense it is not there at all (acosmism). In another sense it is a vast intelligence: in another sense it is total harmonia and structure (how logically can it be all three? Well, it is)." - PKD, Exegesis, p. 91

What do you think of this quote? Does this resonate for you? Do you find the second paragraph in particular to have some similarity to the way you talked about the Nondual? And, incidentally, are you familiar with PKD, and if so what do you think of his work?

Robert answers:

1. Truth is, I ‘ve never thought of indexing them. But now, and I mean right now as I’m reading your question, I am thinking of indexing them. Perhaps the first will be Divine Dynamite (I’m revising and adding a few more chapters to it, and could add an index to it before getting it republished).

2. PKD...I’ve read some of his stuff, having a vague memory of some mind-bending material that chewed away at the foundations of what ordinarily passes for reality. If he’d brought a more esthetic dimension to his edgy imaginative musings, I’d put him alongside SF master writers like Theodore Sturgeon.

I like the quote, both in the direction it suggests and in its feel for the paradoxical nature of the Real. An interesting flirtation with the Nondual...


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PART TEN - April 1, 2006


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Sohan Ko (via email) asks:

1) What kind of spiritual practices did you do before the spiritual emergency you described in Darkness Shining Wild and what influences did they have on you during those two years?

2) When I read the book, I was thinking that the bigger one's attachment is, the more difficult he/she would find resting in absolute/perfect peace and emptiness. Attachment includes even slightly hanging on to one single idea; it includes any perception, any feeling, any opinion. Attachment could give us hard time during spiritual transcendence as they act like obstruction, impurity. Does this have any relevance to your experience? How did attachment affect your spiritual emergency?

3) What kind of spiritual practices do you do now? Are you still attached to something?

Robert answers:

1. Vipassana, Dzogchen, yoga and Feldenkrais, Rajneesh active meditations, lucid dreaming, intense exercise (running and weight-training) done mindfully. They all were helpful, but what was most helpful was the practice of remaining as present as possible no matter what was happening. An intimate witnessing.

2. Attachment is not the problem; what matters is what we choose to do with attachment. Do we let it mutate into clinging, greed, neediness, addiction? Do we overcontain it or dissociate from it in the name of spiritual correctness? Do we relate to it with aversion or compassion?

Attachment comes with life; without attachment, there’d be no compassion. Be careful of making a goal of nonattachment; you may just be demonstrating attachment to nonattachment. I recommend ceasing to blame attachment for our slippages.

Freedom from attachment does not mean the cessation of attachment, but rather awakened intimacy with both attachment and its sources.

3. My current spiritual practices? Being present as possible under all conditions; finding freedom through intimacy; opening until there is only openness; meditation; taking good care of details; practising nonreactivity.

Am I still attached to something? Yes. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here. Healthy attachment is not clingy or sticky, but connective. Whatever its gravitational pull toward a particular object, person, or outcome, it is not desperate, not needy, not graspy. We can be attached without losing our integrity or dignity.

Freedom is not a matter of no longer having any attachments, but rather of not being at their mercy.


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MichaelD asks:

Arthur...you mentioned this earlier in the thread:
[quote]RAM's experience as a community leader is one topic I'd love for them to discuss, especially as it applies to the dynamics of spiritual communities with a strong leader. It would be interesting to hear RAM delve into the problems he perceived in other such communities, how he fell prey to much the same dynamics, and where he feels the evolution of such arrangements is going and/or how such communities may operate in the future - I'd love to hear him elaborate on something he mentioned in this thread, Tich Nhat Hanh's bit about the next Buddha being a community.[/quote]
I also have wondered about this, and would love it if Robert would expand on this topic a bit.

1. I'm particularly interested if Robert is aware of any communities out there in the great wide world that are embodying "spiritually mature peer" values...

2. I also wonder if Robert might have anything to say about the difference between "spiritual maturity" vs "spiritual attainment"? (E.g. integration into wholeness vs vertical development)

Robert answers:

1. I don’t know of any, but I have a feeling that such entities, or at least in prototypal form, are currently being birthed. The times call for them. They would be more than an association of like-minded individuals, more than a network of spiritual comrades, more than an organization of those devoted to a worthy cause. They would have as an essential part of their foundation a deep and ongoing intimacy, through which the well-being of all involved would be served. This would mean that their members would already be mature enough to understand, value, enter, and support such intimacy, without losing touch with themselves. Individual and community needs would, in other words, have to fruitfully coexist. A steep order this is, made even steeper by the fact that many who have the requisite maturity have little or no interest in forming and participating in community.

Many who want to join a community do so because of unresolved parent-child and security issues, which most communities don’t bother dealing with to any significant degree. In a truly functional community, these issues would not be pushed aside or ignored, regardless of whom they arose in. This would be unlikely to happen in a community with a single leader, which is why I think that the needed leadership ought to be multiple: an intimate group of mature peers, who have full permission among themselves to bust each other without any fear of reprisal. Part of their challenge is to create a safe enough environment to let go of playing safe. A sanctuary and a crucible for awakening...

To help ensure community integrity, being authentic has to be more important than making nice or hiding out in overdone tolerance; everyone needs to share the risk and responsibility of rocking the boat. This is necessary to keep the leadership on track, and to minimize the possibility of community abuses, such as cultism and neurotic power dynamics. A single individual as leader may have remarkable vision and capacities, but what about his or her blind spots? Who will point them out, and who will make sure that something is done about them? Emotionally literate, spiritually mature, well-integrated peers are needed to take good care of immature or unbalanced elements in the community (including in themselves). A difficult undertaking this is, but necessary, if we are to have communities that function in a truly integral sense.

2. I see spiritual attainment as a subset of spiritual maturity, and spiritual maturity as the greatest spiritual attainment. Implicit in such maturity, such fully-bloomed ripeness, is deeply embodied awakening and integration, at once transparent and grounded, lit throughout by unshakable compassion.


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Arthur/adastra asks:

1. In a response to Rhonda/Feral you say "Meditation requires no props, robes, or equipment. It is not limited to a particular format or posture; one can be still, one can be moving, one can be quiet, one can be chanting or praying or crying. Whatever works. It's good to stay with a practice that works for you, but not to stay with it too long." (emphasis added)
The advice I've heard much more often is: don't keep changing practices; find something that works for you and stick with it until your head explodes (or something to that effect). So, could you elaborate on the whys and wherefores of your advice not to stay with one particular practice for too long? And how can one tell when you've been practicing one technique too long?

2. In your experience as a spiritual teacher and therapist, do you see any differences in how women and men tend to approach and work in these areas?

Robert answers:

1. When I say not to stay with it too long, I’m not advocating leaving prematurely. It’s important not to drop a practice just because it’s hard or pushes your buttons, but if you’ve stayed with it for awhile (long enough to get intimate with it), and it continues not to work for you even when you’ve wholeheartedly given yourself to it over and over and over, you might want to consider letting it go. Many who are having trouble with a practice are too hasty to fault themselves and too ready to let the actual practice and its applicability to them go unchallenged. To really handle this well -- the question of leaving or staying with a particular practice -- discernment is essential, as a kind of meta-practice that we don’t leave, but instead allow to evolve.

When we’ve been with a practice for too long, it’s somewhat similar to when we’ve been with a relationship for too long: we get stale, flattened, dulled, losing our edge, even as we rationalize or downplay our deadening. Sometimes a trial separation is what is called for; after a time apart from our practice, we may return to it rejuvenated and passionate, breathing new life into it. And sometimes we just need to let go. Many people don’t marry their partner, but instead marry their partner’s potential. The same error often occurs in the realm of spiritual practice.

2. Speaking very generally, I’d say that in the context of staying too long with a practice, men tend to get more fanatically driven, and women more devotionally driven. Neither is preferable; driven is driven. And when it’s time to let go, who does so more easily? I think it’s a draw.

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PART ELEVEN - April 8, 2006

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Arthur/adastra asks:

1. I've been savoring your excellent new book on Anger, and one thing I feel curious about is how "equanimity" fits into the picture. Can equanimity coexist with emotions, e.g. anger, or does it displace emotions? What exactly is equanimity anyway? Is it an emotion itself, is it a cognitive or existential stance, is it some sort of clearing in awareness, or what? I'm feeling confused about this, perhaps because I'm not feeling particularly equanimous lately. Do you think it's possible to be too equanimous? Other than meditation, is there any other advice you would offer someone wishing to cultivate equanimity?

2. Somewhere in your writings I seem to recall you saying something about the possibility of anger becoming a guardian in a relationship, as opposed to its usual more problematic role. I suspect you will talk about this in your book on Anger at some point, but I haven't encountered it yet. Could you say a few words about this?

Robert answers:

1. Equanimity is a state of unperturbed existential ease and well-being. Though it is not an emotion, its untroubled, spacious stance is usually generously infused with pleasant feeling. Equanimity is less amorphous and more refined than mellowness, more alert and panoramic than laid-back-ness, more spacious and unrockable than relaxedness, more effortless and deep than composure. Equanimity is detached but not indifferent, level but not flat, unperturbed but not uncaring. Equanimity is found not in having, but in Being. When we’re actively resting in the presence and feeling of Being, equanimity naturally arises.

Can equanimity coexist with emotions? With happiness and joy, a clear yes, but with heavier emotions, like anger, fear, or shame, a partial yes, and only so long as it remains central and they remain functionally peripheral to it. Equanimity includes empathy, but does not lose itself in empathy.

Is it possible to be too equanimous? Excessive equanimity is not equanimity. One who is “too equanimous” is stranded on the far shore of mellow.

To cultivate equanimity, one needs to consciously “step into “ Being, and start homesteading there. However, if we do so in order to get away from our pain, we’ll only be cultivating aversion in equanimity’s clothing. Real equanimity is not an escape from anything. It can hold all without breaking a sweat.

What can you do? Meditate more deeply; dive into compassion practices; get intimate with all that you are, refining your ability to hold and touch it all. And when equanimity arises, be grateful that it’s there, and don’t cling to it.

2. Clean anger -- nonreactive, nonblaming, yet still capable of being full-bloodedly expressive -- is a guardian of personal boundaries. If a line is crossed, and we’ve reached the point where our anger is a readily activated resource, we can emphatically and unmistakably make it very clear that we’re not okay with that line, that personal boundary, being crossed. Without our anger being thus available, we’re likely going to either get invaded (having too porous or weak boundaries) or we’re going to get overarmored, walling ourselves away from life.

The degree of caring with which we approach our anger is the degree of caring with which we can infuse the anger we give to others.


For anger actually to be a resource (especially as a guardian) in relationship requires not only that it be permitted its innate vulnerability, but that it also be valued, and valued equally, in both women and men. So long as female anger is treated as something less worthy of respect than male anger (consider the less flattering labels we have for angry women as compared to angry men), relational approaches to anger will remain superficial or unproductive. The creation of empowering relational contexts in psychotherapy — and beyond! — presupposes both familiarity with cultural attitudes toward female anger and a deep recognition of anger as legitimate and useful in building better connection in relationships.


It is also important to cut through the notion that anger and empathy are mutually exclusive. Anger can coexist with empathy and care, so long as relationship itself is rooted in awakened mutuality.

A truly integral approach to anger needs more than apt behavioral assignments, more than cogent analyses, more than expressive practices, more than meditative equipoise, and even more than a fitting blend of all these. A relational element is also needed, so that “anger work” does not occur just for the benefit of an isolated self, but also for the benefit of a more connected (and therefore social) self, a self that thinks and feels “us” as easily as “me”. Then anger becomes not just an emotion to be analyzed or expressed, but also a force of potentially enormous value in furthering relationship, be it dyadic, social, or even global in scope. Creating relational contexts which validate justified anger can provide potent avenues for needed action. Anger that does not destroy — this is the fiery face of compassion, the wrathful shout of the heart.

Clean anger seeks not separation from the world, but raw engagement, in which love (and caring), rather than negotiation, shines at the hub of relatedness. Such anger uses separation to create connection. It is the swordplay of healthy criticism, the firm yet receptive thrust/embrace of needed forcefulness, the guardian of boundaries, the lion/lioness in the relational ecosystem.

Mishandled anger easily mutates into aggression, whether active or passive, other-directed or inner-directed. Thus does a means of communication become a means of weaponry. Anger that masks its own hurt and vulnerability is not really anger, but hardheartedness, hostility, or hatred in the making.

Our work here — a labor of love — is to reverse such processes, to convert aggression, hostility, hardheartedness, ill will, hatred, and every other diseased offspring of mishandled anger back into anger. This conversion, however, does not mean doing away with the energies of such negative states, but rather liberating them from their life-negating viewpoints, so that their intensity and passion can coexist with a caring, awakened attention. In this sense, the world needs not less anger, but more...


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PART TWELVE - April 16, 2006

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Jana/Plasmafly asks:

1. I want to know how RAM went from his meltdown up into his present adaptation level. Does Robert think he would have gone back to University, if he hadn't gone through the crash? Was it time, his practices, new relationships or his college work that was principly involved in his recovery? (I know that's a silly question.)

2. Has Robert got a different friend pool nowadays compared to the 80's, I mean people he is peers with, not students? Do his present friends seem more real to him?

3. Does Robert think that such a thorough meltdown is somehow important to him personally, in who he is now. That is, would Robert feel less than he is now, if he hadn't gone through that? And does he feel that it was a necessary catharsis, a necessary part of his development for body, mind and soul?

Robert answers:

1. By committing myself to being present no matter what; by honoring the needs of the personal and interpersonal as much as those of the transpersonal; by practicing compassion when I didn’t want to; by letting everything serve my awakening. So much was involved in my recovery/reemergence that I cannot isolate any one factor; it all combined to bring me to where I now am. Would I have gone back to University if I hadn’t crashed? Probably not -- I would have been too averse to put myself in the position of student.

2. Yes.

3. Yes. Following is a poem (actually now a song sung by my wife Diane) that holds within its flow much about my meltdown:

Again I break, my need dissolving my pride
Again I spill, my hurt streaming, streaming wide
Again I die, letting all the goodbyes tear open my sky
Again I whisper and again I roar
Swimming through the dreamy door
And again I join what's above with what's below
And again I recognize the One behind the show

Again I fall, chained to my lies
Again I rise, filled with blazing night and newborn cries
Again I pump up my will, gunning for the Holy Thrill
Again I wake, letting go of both hope and despair
No longer seeking something else to wear
And again I join what's above with what's below
And again I recognize the One appearing as the show

Again I reach through the darkness shining wild
Again I rock in the cradle of Eternity's child
Again I die, releasing all that I took to be mine
Again I howl, prowling through forests of palm and pine
One hand on a spear, the other on my fear
And again I join what's above with what's below
And again I recognize the One behind the show

Again I gaze from one eye, my broken body aglow
Again I drop my sword, watching my blood cut rivers in the snow
Again I beat a sweating drum, urging you to leave your mind
Again I disappear without leaving anything behind
And again I join what's above with what's below
And again I recognize the One appearing as the show

Again I smile, touching what's always touched me
Again I dance in the fire, burning free
Again I remember to embrace my wounds
Again I rebuild the temple, rising from my ruins
And again I join what's above with what's below
And again I recognize the One behind the show

Again I break and taste the final goodbye
Again I ride a wave of everlasting sky
Again I fall and forget the Sacred Call
And again I remember and again I include it all
And again here we are, in the flesh yet unborn
Lovers with both the calm and the storm
And again I join what's above with what's below
And again I recognize the One beyond the show

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Arthur/adastra asks:

In The Anatomy and Evolution of Anger, you write:

"...let us consider the power of intimacy to shake us to our core, to open us in ways that we might never otherwise permit; as hellish as the difficult aspects of intimate relationship can sometimes be, they are - usually in hindsight - none other than fierce grace. (p.172, Anger)

"When we are intimate with an other, we can be very, very hurt. We can become crazily jealous, possessive, enraged, angry in ways we never thought possible, our spiritual practices shredding into near non-existence in the storms of our pain and reactivity. It might seem under such conditions that our capacity for awakening has been severely diminished, but that is from the viewpoint that sees only (and that makes a problem out of) the turbulence, the unbridled chaos, of our disintegrating position.

"However, in such rough and wild waters swirls another possibility, one equipped with nothing but a lifeline to What-really-matters. But if we only try to think our way through our relational chaos or dilemma, we merely confine its turbulent forces in our minds, thereby intensifying our confusion, instead of letting its energies - including anger – fuel our leap into a more fitting level of being. Here, we may begin to view relational intimacy not as an end (nor as a haven only), but rather as a means, an extremely potent crucible for Awakening's alchemy.

"In the liberating bondage of genuine intimacy, our separateness is our ticket Home..." (Robert Augustus Masters, The Anatomy and Evolution of Anger, p. 174)"


1. Does the fierce alchemy of intimacy you speak of here apply only to romantically/sexually intimate relationships, or can other types of relationships work this way as well? A guru/disciple relationship would, I suppose, be another such possibility, but what about a very close friendship? Is there something about a sexual bond that creates the conditions for this kind of transformative alchemy? What are the essential elements which make this kind of transformative intimacy possible?

2. In terms of spiritual transformation or Awakening, how do monogamous relationships compare to polyamorous relationships? Is it necessary or helpful for two people to bond exclusively? Or could it actually be more potent, at least in some cases, to be in a polyamorous arrangement?

Also in Anger, you say,

"In a study of patients with rheumatoid arthritis, it was found that emotionally expressive psychotherapy significantly reduced depression levels, even though pain levels remained the same, suggesting that the pain itself was not depressing, but rather the "held" or "pressed-down" emotions associated with that pain. (Anger, p.120)"

footnote to above:

"As such, depression is not a feeling, but rather a suppression of feeling, consuming an enormous amount of life-energy in its "pressing down" of feeling. It could be said to be the sensation of nearly successful repression, minus any significantly satisfying compensatory lift. In this sense, it is a pain that walls away a deeper pain, serving as the drugged yet still wretchedly insomniac gatekeeper of incarcerated pain. It is no secret that most of those who come to psychotherapy with symptoms of depression are female. Why is this? Part of the answer lies in the fact that female anger is generally more negatively viewed in our culture than is male anger. Those who have been historically most disempowered culturally are likely to be the most suppressed in their anger (Stearns and Stearns, 1986) - and what is more depressing than feeling, over and over, helpless because of a pervasive sense of disempowerment?

"Getting openly angry is not the cure for depression, but doing so can help lift "the weight" enough for movement to occur, for deeper, more healing tears to emerge, for aliveness to flow more freely. (p. 128)"

3. Do you think that depression always involves suppression of feeling? Are there cases where the cause may be more primarily physiological? It doesn't feel like suppression to me - it feels like a sucking vortex or an intense gravity. Admittedly, when it starts to lift there may be other feelings that come to the surface - anger, grief - and their release may bring some relief. Other times my mood may shift in a positive direction without going through any kind of cathartic release. In any case, could you say more about this? Is there anywhere in your writings where you have discussed depression in more detail?

Robert answers:

1. The “fierce alchemy of intimacy” that I speak of especially applies to those who are in mature monogamous relationships, but it can also apply to any relationship that is loving, conscious, and close, such as a deep friendship. I don’t see it as applicable, though, to the guru-disciple relationship, because such intimacy requires a true peer relationship, and guru and disciple are not on equal ground.

A sexual bond, and I mean an open-eyed, vital, heartfelt sexual bond, simply magnifies whatever depth and closeness already exists in the relationship. In mature monogamy (see my answer to question 2), sex becomes ecstatically juicy communion on many levels, an embracing that opens us until we are but openness itself, effortlessly sentient.

And what are the essential elements that make transformative intimacy possible? The desire for it, coupled with a commitment to do the preliminary work of exposing and working through our neurotic ways of relating. This is no small task. It doesn’t just ask for quality time spent in meditation, study, and psychotherapy, but also for the hard learnings that come from getting into relationship along the way. About the lessons that come through being in relationship: We get to keep doing them until we’ve learned them by heart.

2. Monogamy versus polyamory (intimate relationship with more than one partner at the same time), with regard to depth, awakening potential, and capacity for ecstasy? Monogamy, by a landslide, so long as we’re talking about mature monogamy (referred to from now as MM), as opposed to status quo, growth-stunting, passion-dulling monogamy, referred to from now on as IM, or immature monogamy.

IM is, especially in men, often infected with promiscuous desire and fantasy, however much that might be repressed or camouflaged with upstanding virtues. Airbrush this, infuse it with talk of integrity and unconditional love and jealously-transcending ethics, consider bringing in another partner or two, and you’re closer than near to polyamorous or multiple-partnering (referred to from now on as MP) territory.

At this point, those who promote MP might jump in and say that it is not IM, because of how loving and open it is. Though there may in some cases be some truth in this, it glosses over the difficulties associated with such “love” and “openness”. One such difficulty is the restriction that MP places on attachment, coupled with its denial that it is doing so. If we have more than one lover, then when things get rocky or flat with one, we can go to another, instead of staying with and working with that rockiness or dryness; we can, in other words, keep ourselves removed from getting as attached as we might if we were with only one deep intimate. Another difficulty has to do with the fuzzy or too-easily-collapsed boundaries that often accompany the enthused “openness” of “open” relationships (this of course also often characterizes IM).

IM gets neurotically attached, MP avoids attachment, and MM (mature monogamy) permits attachment, without making a problem out of it. And what’s so important about attachment in intimate relationship? Well, for starters, without it we are not nearly vulnerable enough in our relationships; it’s easy to be loving but not vulnerable, but without sufficient vulnerability, we won’t open -- and be broken open -- to depths that we otherwise could. I’ll say more about the value of attachment in intimate relationship a bit later.

Those who are caught up in -- or dragged down by -- IM are going to want some compensation for their doing time in the cult of two that is IM, and high on that list, especially for men, is erotic pleasure. If they are not sexually happy with their wives, which is often the case, then they’re probably going to end up hanging out with or acting out their pornographic leanings, which may include polyamorous fantasies. They have not yet learned that eroticism (excessive interest in sexual promise and opportunity) promises happiness, but real sex begins with happiness.

Men in general are not naturally monogamous (at least compared to women), and have to learn it. How? By waking up, especially when in the midst of IM (and MP fantasies). IM is not entirely useless, because time spent in it can -- through the sheer dissatisfaction that it generates -- ready us for something deeper and far more fulfilling that still is monogamous.

MM is a life-giving, passion-deepening, spiritually-opening choice, and it’s a choice we cannot truly make until we’ve become incapable of IM and unseducible by MP’s advances. At this point, we can love so deeply and so fully in a one-on-one relationship that we can become very attached, so that if our beloved were to suddenly die or betray us, our heart would be ripped wide open. Opening to such attachment means that we are not going to run away or dissociate from whatever pain our relationship might bring us. Here, we are not repressing our MP urges, but have outgrown them, leaving ourselves no escape routes (like another lover or some other potent distraction) from our chosen relationship.

MM is all about finding freedom through intimacy, especially the profound and singular intimacy that characterizes a truly bonded partnership. Our relationship with our beloved is then a sacred container that we are deeply committed to protecting and taking good care of. This means, in part, not leaking energy elsewhere, not distracting ourselves from challenges in the relationship, waking up in the midst of reactivity, and putting no limit on our love for our beloved.

Such deep focus, such devotion to our shared depth, such shared safety to get really vulnerable and really alive with each other, such shared emotional and existential and spiritual nakedness, is an ongoing choice made all the richer by cutting off all exits. Then she is not just a woman to him, but all women and Woman Incarnate, and he is to her not just a man, but all men, and Man Incarnate. This is not metaphysical mush, but a living reality, full-blooded and more often than not ecstatic.

Having said all this, I’m not condemning MP, but simply attempting to place it in a relational context that divests it of any glamor we might want to associate it with. MP confuses love and sexuality; yes, we can love more than one person deeply, but this does not mean that we can or need to be sexual with them! Putting a limit on whom we are sexual with does not necessarily put a limit on whom we are loving deeply. Those committed to MM find freedom through limitation.

A man who has not learned MM is going to be, however subtly, chronically on the verge of betraying his partner (and not just sexually). In IM sexuality, fantasy usually plays a big role, allowing us to pump energy into mindgames that make pleasurable sensation and release more important than true intimacy. But in MM sexuality, fantasy is nonexistent (being utterly unnecessary), since the living reality and succulent mystery of each other is more than enough to keep both joyously turned on, especially given the remarkably deep shared trust that is present. Such trust is rooted in the dynamic safety and integrity inherent to MM.

IM may be an avoidance of overt MP, but MP is an avoidance of MM. Put another way, IM and MP are two aspects of a stage of relatedness that must be outgrown and outdanced before MM can take the stage.

One more thing about MM before I finish my rant: MM makes possible the kind of relationship that transcends relationship. Touching the One through the two. Freedom through intimacy. MM is, in other words, a profoundly liberating bondage, a deeply joined freefall into What-Really-Matters. MP is too wrapped up in the shallow end of the pool to generate the depth possible through MM.

In MM, there is not room for another lover, but more than enough room for the Beloved.

And one last thing about IM and MM: Jump in, wherever you are. When you hit bottom, push off and surface, then paddle out a bit deeper. Eventually, you will leave the arms of the familiar, and have no bottom to hit, no end to love, no limit to depth. This is the beginning of MM. What joy, what a blessing, what an all-round wonder, it is to do and allow all this through awakened, full-blooded monogamy!

3. There’s much I could say here, but will for now share just a bit, acknowledging that depression is an enormously complex topic...

Even the suppression of feeling has a feeling to it, which might well have its own attending intensity. What you describe as “a sucking vortex or an intense gravity” may be depression, and may also be more fear than depression. The sensations that typically characterize depression are contractive and heavy -- there’s a pervasive sense of being pressed down. Having things kept down (and weighted down) consumes a lot of life-energy, draining and enervating us, laying us low.

Where anxiety wires us, depression flattens us, leaving us amorphously and greyly embodied, stuck in a flaccid rigor mortis. In depression, cognition is employed as an immune system of sorts, barring entry to the bare reality of certain feelings — with all of their attending imperatives and intuitions — and whatever else is organismically recognized as a threat.

The fact that the rate of depression has risen dramatically since the 1950s is a testament to how threatened we, however unconsciously, feel about our lives, both personally and collectively. Numbness is a common “solution” to feeling threatened, and depression, if nothing else, is a kind of partial numbness. As much as we may look negatively upon depression, we still tend to prefer the burdened beast of depression to the monsters of the deep...


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Q&A Part Thirteen: April 22, 2006



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PART THIRTEEN - April 16, 2006

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Tiki/Liz asks:

Robert,

I've been reluctant to dampen the spirit of the Q&A session, but there were some bits of the book that really puzzled me. I don't know how much of this will easily frame as a question, so I'll try to express myself as well as I can and you can comment back as you see fit. Arthur tells me you don't offend easily...this isn't intended to be an attack on you or your book, but I am puzzled.

It seems to me we all interpret events according to our own established frame of reference, our apparatus for making meaning from what we see around us. I thought your descriptions of an altered reality were really vivid, to the point of being able to communicate the level of fear you felt at the time. I suppose where I struggle is in your analysis of this as some sort of divine experience rather than an acute mental health crisis. I couldn't help thinking it got that level of understanding from you because that's where your frame of reference was set before the experience, living in a spiritual community etc. I couldn't help but feel if you'd been at mythic level you'd have been pursued by demons, at blue you'd have thought God spoke to you, at orange you'd have thought you were God, and at a transpersonal level you construct it as a mystical experience. I understand in saying that I may be doing exactly what I thought you might be doing i.e. taking my own experience of how the world works and trying to make it stick over your experience. I suppose the harshly rational part of me wonders how much you had invested in making some kind of sense or meaning out of this, simply because it was so awful. Awful things are easier to tolerate if we can persuade ourselves they had something to teach us.

I have real trouble with the whole idea of carrying round remembered birth trauma, the only birth trauma I remember was giving birth and I am in little doubt which party felt the pain! Moreover the clinical environment you describe is actually fairly new in western medicine, and the metallic bright light atmosphere sounded like a theatre, implying caesarian delivery, hardly the norm. generally babies aren't prodded and poked that much. The comparison to alien abduction scenarios was the point where I almost packed the book in, and if there hadn't been others reading it who said it got better towards the end I'd have given up. The great leap that claimants of alien abduction are actually recalling forgotten birth trauma, sorry that seemed like just too big a leap.

I did feel concerned that you continued to practice as a therapist during the worst times of your experience when you were sleep deprived etc. I don't imagine that mentally or emotionally you were in any position other than to keep putting one foot in front of the other and keeping diary arrangements would be part of that, but I couldn't help wonder who actually benefited most from those sessions and whether in retrospect you feel clients were not served as well as they should have been?

Similarly, you explained your son's drawings as some sort of shared early trauma memory or connection. Almost like he was drawing your fears and images. It seems to me most kids are much smarter and more aware of what's going on than we generally give them credit for. He could fairly reasonably expect to be traumatized by the state his father was in at the time and that would come out. It seemed almost selfish to assume he was expressing your trauma and that seemed like an excuse to avoid acknowledging he was having his own trauma. Acknowledging that would have been painful as he was witnessing someone he loved going through an awful time. Surely it needs no more explanation than that?

I thought the book brave and honest, the description eloquent in detail and some of the ideas expressed instinctively felt right. But those bits I refer to really jar. That may be my problem, you are not in any way responsible for anything I took from what you wrote, but the opportunity to follow these things up is rare and I'd value any comment you may care to make.

Robert answers:

Let me begin with your view that “we all interpret events according to our own established frame of reference,” and toss in a few questions to deepen the discussion. First of all, what happens when “our own established frame of reference” itself becomes an object of awareness? Second, what happens when it bends, buckles, snaps, or disintegrates? When we cannot repair or resurrect it, what happens? Do we grasp at another frame of reference, do we enter the truly transconceptual, do we regress, do we freak out? Even more to the point, what happens when the “I,” the headquarters, so to speak, animating that frame of reference starts to give up the ghost?

A frame of reference is a kind of sense-making structuring, but what ultimately holds or contains that structuring is not itself a structure. When we view things through that, what do we see? Things may still look the same, and sound the same, but they are not the same, for their essential thing-ness has been brought into intimate communion with us (perhaps to the point where we realize that there is no such thing as a thing). Then we see without eyes, hear without ears, know without thinking, fly without wings. As fleeting as this may be, even a taste of it helps keep our perspectives in perspective.

It’s interesting to notice how invested we are in a particular frame of reference (for each of us has many), and also interesting to notice how invested we are in not having a particular frame of reference.

I don’t think that all of our experience is necessarily filtered through our frames of reference. Some of it bypasses our cognitive filters, our conditioning, our habitual lenses. (Through which perspective do we view the experiencer of our experiences?) Much of my effort in writing DSW was to evoke a sense of reality in which frames of reference were but secondary phenomena, and something more real than answers was what was being sought. This, of course, was a wildly subjective undertaking, perhaps overemploying the poet in me (not to mention my aperspectival ambitions!), but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

******************************************

What happened to me during my DSW crisis was not just “a divine experience,” nor just “a severe mental health crisis,” but both, and more than both. What level did the crisis occur at? I’d say just about all levels, but where are the levels when the ladder loses all its rungs? In the great chaos into which I was flung and in which I ricocheted so madly, any arising maps became utterly shredded before I could clearly see them. There was nothing to hold onto; every frame of reference was already shattered, already gone to nothing. The boundary between spirituality and psychosis is a fuzzy one, a hallucinatory edge upon which I lay pinned for quite some time. For me there was profound illumination, and there also was insanity; between the two what was left of me did its time, while terror ran rampant through my system. Was I able to interpret what was happening at the time? No. Any interpretation that arose immediately disintegrated. Did I attempt to interpret all this years later when I wrote DSW? Yes, but I also wanted to evoke and invite in the reader a sense of the uninterpretable, the irreducibly mysterious, the hyperbole-transcending, the naked Real.

At some point it becomes necessary to investigate the very process of interpretation. Bearing witness to that process doesn’t necessarily stop it, but it does illuminate it.

Trying to find meaning in my experience did not help me at all, and in fact only made things worse. I could see that meaning itself was a kind of intellectual superimposition on Being, and gradually came to realize that Life only made sense when I stopped trying to make it make sense. More often than not, familiarity fled me, leaving with nothing but edgeless Mystery. Nakedly facing this shook the “me” out of me. In writing about my DSW odyssey, I sought to make sense out of what happened, while simultaneously leaving the raw Mystery of it alive and thriving.

*************************************

You say that “awful things are easier to tolerate if we can persuade ourselves they had something to teach us.” First of all, my DSW experiences were not just “awful,” but also
”awe-full”. Secondly, they did have something to teach me; I didn’t have to persuade myself of this, because its impact on me was so obviously growthful, healing, and awakening. I wonder through what frame of reference you view that “harshly rational part” of yourself, and what you then see. Part of my passion is to make as wise use as possible out of all that happens to me, inwardly and outwardly, directly and indirectly, under all conditions and at all times. And what is shit, but compost in drag?

***************************************

Not all birth is traumatic, but birth trauma does exist. No, it’s not necessarily the cause of a screwed-up life later on down the road, but it can be one hell of a developmental factor. Like any other trauma, it can be, to varying degrees, submerged and kept from sight, but it nonetheless shows up through all kinds of symptoms. The unfortunate fact that it is overemphasized in certain therapies does not negate its existence.

If we suffered a particularly difficult birth, with our vital signs having accelerated for a significant amount of time into zones of extreme danger — so that our biological survival was clearly at stake — we obviously didn’t think rationally about our situation (our brain not being ready to do so), but rather automatically reacted by “doing” whatever most quickly and effectively reduced the danger, like going neurologically limp or “depressing” our vital signs. Later in life, when in the presence of sufficiently heavy danger (real or imagined), we not only get afraid, but may also revert, beyond any mental countereffort, to what originally had “worked” to save our life (during our birth) — withdrawing, shutting down, turning off, getting depressed (preferring the burdened beasts of depression to the monsters of the deep).

Our ability to contain and encapsulate trauma has enormous survival benefits; if we couldn’t thus contain and encapsulate it -- in somatic locales or mental hideouts -- we likely wouldn’t have been able to continue. I have seen this firsthand in many, many clients; for example, a woman who was as a girl raped for a decade by family members, learned to put on a happy face so as to stay in the family (and not upset anyone), and kept quiet about the whole fucking thing until she was in a safe enough environment to start her healing -- she’d kept her trauma under heavy wraps for almost 20 years before she could handle and live with its surfacing.

Birth trauma can also be carried around for a long time. Mine didn’t surface in its fullness until 47 years after my birth. I’m not sure where you got your information regarding birthing practices in the Western world around the time of my birth, but I think you may have overlooked the unhealthy elements of such practices. You say that “generally babies aren’t prodded and poked that much” -- perhaps true in the last few decades, but not true back in the 1940s, 1950s and much of the 1960s. (Drugged mothers flat on their backs, unrelentingly bright lights, babies being pulled out with forceps and being spanked to “help” get them breathing was the norm, not the exception!) Leboyer and Lamaze and other pioneers of sane birthing practices hadn’t make their impact then. Remember too that some trauma may occur shortly after actual birth; back in the 40s, 50s, and 60s, newborns were routinely separated from their mothers right after birth, and generally kept apart from their mothers. Being thus separated after a drug-induced birth is far from a humane practice. Fathers were not allowed in the delivery room. The whole thing was treated not as a natural process, but as an operation requiring medical intervention. This was before the rise of midwifery.

You also say, perhaps jokingly, that “the only birth trauma I remember was giving birth” -- but if you’re not joking, then what was traumatic about giving birth? I have seen mothers go through huge agonies of opening and release, but there was nothing traumatic about it; in fact, they were more often than not ecstatically present off and on through the process, again and again surrendering to the primal forces surging through them. Huge contractions, equally huge expansion. Screaming, yes, but not the screaming of trauma. I do think, though, that it can be traumatic giving birth if you are being treated insensitively, are being unnecessarily drugged, and are locked into an overly long and extra-painful labor (I have heard this from a number of women).

You also say that you are “in little doubt which party felt the pain.” Are you saying that your newborn didn’t feel pain? After all, newborns are remarkably sensitive. This is not to say that your newborn was necessarily traumatized, but that he or she definitely felt pain, regardless of endorphin levels. The antiquated notion that newborns don’t really feel all that much has legitimized various barbaric post-birth practices, like circumcising newborn boys without any anesthetic. What a welcome!

*********************************

And now on to alien abductions: Let’s start with the strong correlation between the reports of those claiming alien abduction and those who were under the influence of DMT (an endogenous entheogen of enormous reality-bending power). The similarities between the reported experiences of the two groups are astonishing and raise a bunch of difficult questions -- such as just what is our brain (our pineal body, to be precise) doing manufacturing such a mind-blowing substance as DMT? If we assume that so-called alien abductees are under the influence of endogenous DMT (the “hallucinations” of which are, for almost all, enormously convincing), then we might ask: What kind of conditions might trigger the release of DMT in much larger-than-normal doses (so large that DMT-inhibiting substances wouldn’t be able to deactivate DMT as fast as they usually do)? Well, events that really shake us up.

And I’d put traumatic birth high on that list. Such trauma might stay submerged for a long time, until something -- including enough time to wear down the “protective walls” -- triggers the surfacing of it. And why aliens? Why not the original hospital scenario? Because this is how an “abductee” interprets the felt presence of non-human entities that DMT intoxication reportedly induces. I don’t say that those who report alien abduction are for sure only reliving their birth trauma in a DMT universe, but I think that it’s a theory that makes a lot of sense. Here I’ll quote from DSW, and then add a bit more:

“One of the most dramatic offshoots of our culture’s many years of bad birthing practices can be arguably found in the apparently bizarre (and not uncommonly reported) phenomenon of alien (UFO) abduction. Typically, those who claim to be abductees describe the following sequence: (a) feeling strange bodily vibrations or paralysis, as a light of unusual brightness, seemingly otherworldly and often circularly shaped, approaches, into which one is helplessly drawn or sucked; (b) finding oneself in an enclosure that appears to contain technical equipment, surrounded by and at the complete mercy of aliens — usually humanoid, but also sometimes reptilian or insect-like — who generally relate to one with clinical detachment; and (c) being on something like an examining or treatment table, and subjected to various physical procedures, especially probings with sophisticated instruments, by the aliens.


Many take these scenes literally (and others view them as archetypal visions arising in the collective unconscious, or as rites of passage akin to those that initiates in ancient cultures endured), but to me they strongly suggest something much closer to home: a traumatic birth.


Consider the following elements: (a) overly bright light, often somewhat circular at first (the vaginal “gate”), toward which one is literally pulled or drawn (not only through the expulsive force of contractions, but perhaps also through artificial induction or the use of forceps); (b) arrival in an “alien” environment, the delivery room (one’s umbilical link to the earthly — one’s mother — having maybe been prematurely severed); (c) being surrounded and stood over by by “non-mother,” emotionally-removed, masked and capped beings (of whom mostly only the eyes and forehead are seen — hence the myth of prominently-eyed aliens); (d) being treated like a piece of meat; and (e) being subjected to very painful or distressingly intrusive procedures (poked, stretched, probed, suctioned, circumcised, and so on).


When the biological shock and imprint of a badly handled birth (or trauma of comparable impact from our early years) resurfaces later in life — as when we are under extreme stress or are unusually vulnerable — and is not recognized as such, we tend to present it to ourselves not just in the context of its physiological and emotional dimensions, but also through whatever ideation seems to make sense out of it. However bizarre or crazy that ideation may seem, its dramatics — along with our investment in those dramatics — must not be allowed to obscure or supplant its essential themes, if we are to truly understand it.”

Abductees commonly report being taken to a ship, an alien environment in which they are not only poked and prodded while being unable to move (and, after all, just how freedom of movement does a newborn have when being medically checked over?), but are also sometimes stuck in a kind of pod (check out the abductee film “Fire in the Sky”). Is this not reminiscent of the hospital nursery, with all of its wrapped-up newborns kept in their own little cells, far from their mothers?

******************************

The fact that I continued to practice as a therapist when I was on such shaky ground was simply a sign of how messed-up I was. Though I did do some good work -- being unusually open and receptive -- those whom I worked with were not “served as well as they should have been.” Through continuing to do such work, I was simply clinging to a remnant of my old self.

******************************

My son Dama knew of my crisis, but was not directly exposed to it when I was really at the edge. I did all of my heavy work away from him. Still, I know he was affected. He was very close to me. To me, his drawings at that time didn’t just emerge from his feelings regarding my situation, but primarily emerged from a deep communion between us. He did feel shaken by my no longer being the powerful father figure (not just for him, but for a worldwide community), but he also was experiencing me as softer, more caring, easier to be around. I asked him about all of this recently, and he (now 22) had the same take on it as me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Arthur/adastra asks:

1. A further question on polyamory. You came down very heavily on polyamory as a less mature form of spiritual relationship. What about the argument that a poly relationship allows one to explore different aspects of their being with different people? Or the argument that a poly relationship transcends the limitation of monogamy – that someone can be deeply committed to one person (my understanding is that most people in poly relationships have a primary partner who they may be deeply committed to in the way that you describe mature monogamy) within the context of a polyamory relationship?

2. How do you feel about tankrikas or tantric adepts, for whom sexuality and spirituality are one, but in a way which is not necessarily confined to one sexual relationship. (Admittedly, I know very little about this subject.)

3. What do you think of sexual healers, who may engage in a sexual relationship with someone in order to help them heal? They would also be deviating from monogamy, but not necessarily in a less evolved way.
[I'm asking these questions not because I necessarily disagree with that you said in response to my initial question but because I want to further explore this topic, about which I feel quite a bit of curiosity. What you said about mature monogamy sounds extremely appealing to me personally.]

4. Your essay “Sloth and Torpor” in Divine Dynamite is hilarious. May we quote it here?

Robert answers:

1. “What about the argument that a poly relationship allows one to explore different aspects of their being with different people?” Friendship, especially deep friendship, does the same thing. I don’t think that polyamory transcends the limitations of monogamy, but rather that it bypasses them.

I’m not sure from where you derive your understanding “that most people in poly relationships have a primary partner who they may be deeply committed to in the way that you describe mature monogamy, “ but the very commitment that is at the heart of mature monogamy does not include (and does not need to include) other sexual partners. How committed are to your beloved and to going to the very core of being with him or her, if you have to leave him or her to go have sex with somebody else? I think that many who permit their partners to have sex with others are doing so not out of some nobility of heart, but rather because it helps keep the relationship secure or stable. Many women who “allow” their husbands to have affairs do so for reasons of security. Legitimizing this with polyamorous hype doesn’t negate the fact that it is little more than neurotic tolerance, however bright its smile might be.

Here’s an essay of mine that fleshes this out some more:

TAKING CHARGE OF OUR CHARGE

Sexual excitation — the amplification of which will be referred to from now on as charge — is not just something that happens to us, but often is also something that we, however unknowingly, generate in ourselves.

We are in charge of our charge, however strongly we might be inclined to think of ourselves otherwise. It is natural to feel sexually attracted to certain people, but is not so natural to translate and amplify that attraction — or psychogravitational pull — into charge.

The transition from attraction to charge is an unknown territory to most of us, a largely dehumanized zone overpopulated by the conviction that the seductive promises lining its hormonal highways are there of their own accord, independent of us. This leaves us in the position of innocent bystander or victim, conveniently separate from — and far from responsible for — the erotic heating-up we are experiencing.

So what is charge? It is fundamentally just biochemical thrill on the make, mixing together amplified sensation and erotic anticipation. A cocktail of sweet dynamite. Regardless of its outfitting and presentation, charge ordinarily is simply the leading edge — or wedge — of unilluminated lust.


Most of all, however, it is something that we are doing to ourselves, something erotically engrossing and excitingly compelling, something we engage in not so as to awaken from our conditioning, but rather so as to exploit its possibilities. Making out in prison makes it seem less like prison — at least until charge wanes, and we once again busy ourselves rebuilding and restaging it, looking to its engorged meatiness and hotly enveloping dramatics for enough warmth to keep the chill realization of what we are really up to at bay.

The creation of charge, and especially the repetitive creation of charge, mostly is just compensation for the apparent loss of — or, more accurately, estrangement from — what we naturally are. In short, a pleasurably consoling refuge from what troubles us. Something that quickly makes us feel better, efficiently distracting us from what we’d rather not face.

The craving to create charge, to suffuse (and even overwhelm) ourselves with its sweetly surging sensations, is mostly just a confession of being marooned from our depths. A booby prize in the making. Beneath its pinkened periphery and hormonal heights, charge is actually quite desperate, overly concerned with both its satisfaction and its continuation.

But just what gets satisfied? Not us.

Sex cannot truly satisfy and nourish us if charge persists as its foundation and central characteristic. In fact, sex can then only degenerate, until the distance or numbness or turned-off-ness that was there all along is at last undeniably present, daylight naked, soaking up attention and energy (thereby leaving lovers wondering where their original passion went).

Real sex does not depend upon charge. Its passion arises not so much from stimulation, as from an intimacy rooted in deep mutual trust, an intimacy that relies on the most potent of all aphrodisiacs: wide-awake, unconditioned love, soul-anchored love, love in the raw, love that is but the feeling of edgeless, already-sentient openness

As it is usually employed, charge is little more than erotic self-advertising, serving to proclaim our sexual readiness, availability, and potency. When we are thus possessed by charge — overvaluing it to the point where we are unresistingly seeing through its eyes — just about everything around us with any sexual valence tends to be considered as a potential object for its appetite, a possible harbinger of erotic possibility, to be classified as fuckable, unfuckable, or worth checking out.

Nevertheless, charge can be a very positive thing, as when it arises in mature monogamy’s crucible of intimacy; then charge becomes but a juicy rush and richly thrilling swell that supports and celebrates our intimacy.

When we, however, create charge with anyone other than our partner, we usually then only create (or reinforce) distance between ourselves and our partner, all but ensuring that our intimacy with him or her won’t go any deeper. Which may be what “we” actually want.

Flirting — teasing spiked with sexual innuendo — with those other than our lover more often than not keeps us “safely” in the shallows, regardless of the depths suggested by our bedroom eyes. Animating and indulging our promiscuous capacity, however subtly or discretely, generally keeps our intimacies unnecessarily unstable, for we, through our irresponsibly eroticized wandering of attention, are then betraying — or are at least dangerously close to betraying — our relationship with our partner.

Thus do we “protect” ourselves from reaching the point with our partner where we’ve gone too far to have an exit from intimacy’s demands, instead distracting and immunizing ourselves with neurotic suggestiveness and its titillating payoffs. In so doing, we only are fucking ourselves.

The point, however, isn’t to repress charge, but rather to become as conscious as possible of our relationship to it, so that we might cease needing to advertise our sexual availability, and cease being slaves to the creation and imperatives of charge, and cease relying on the presence of charge to make us feel better.

When we genuinely move beyond teasing ourselves and others with the promises and possibilities of eroticism, we are in a position to embody a deeper pleasure, a pleasure that eventually transmutes into Ecstasy. Then we can feel the Presence of the Beloved, the One with Whom we are forever already lovers, letting that feeling permeate, light up, and magnify our bond with our partner.

When we let our charge be in charge, when we overassociate sexuality with sensation, God then is reduced to the Ultimate Orgasm.

When we hobble charge with guilt, God is reduced to the Ultimate Peeping Tom.

At the same time, however, squashing charge keeps us busy playing vigilant zookeeper or leak-inspector, trying to ensure that our erotic heatedness remains properly or nicely contained. Eviscerating charge simply desiccates us, creating in us an exaggerated (or even pathological) interest in religious, philosophical, or political watering holes.
http://infinitespiral.blogspot.com/2006/03/integral-naked-interviews-robert.html
The fantasies we erect and inhabit through the engineering of charge do not necessarily need a wrecking ball, nor quarantine, nor moral righteousness, nor more fire exits, but only sufficient compassion to touch the loneliness, fear, and pain that crouch in their shadows. When we undress charge and give it enough heart, it becomes but liberated energy, revealing what we’re all dying to see and feel.

Taking charge of our charge involves a no that makes possible a deeper yes. And in that yes exists a Joy beyond imagination, a Joy that is our birthright, pulsing in — and as — our very cells, welcoming all that we are.

2. Skeptical.

3. I think of them as sexual predators hiding out in healer’s robes, more often than wrapped up in a tantric headlock -- anything to legitimize their misguided lust and/or sloppy understanding of personal boundaries. However noble or “spiritual” their intentions may be, they are riding a very slippery slope, down which more than a few gurus have slid in recent years, with halos and pants down, their claims of having fucked their disciples for spiritual reasons losing credibility the further down they slide.

When integral healing occurs (as through skilled psychotherapy in fitting conjunction with bodywork and spiritually supportive practices), sexual healing is, in almost all cases, a byproduct. Psychoemotional health breeds sexual health. A woman who has been raped needs to be helped to reclaim her dignity and power, and to integrate what’s happened, rather than to be reentered by male sexuality that doesn’t belong to her current lover or partner. And if one doesn’t have a lover or partner? Then there’s even a greater chance of inappropriate bonding if one ends up in the hands of a “sexual healer.” To truly heal another’s sexual wounding does not require that one be sexual with that person, but that one helps that other to reclaim and reembody his or her natural wholeness and integrity of being.

4. Yes!

Sloth and Torpor

It’s really hot outside. Clear sky, no wind, neuroses out getting a tan. I’m staring out my window. Words come thick and slow, reluctantly surfacing, resisting my command to line up into some sort of topic. Sometimes having nothing in particular to say says all that is needed, whatever the fuck that means. Maybe I should just head for the beach, slalom through the browning flesh, and cool off, get up to my neck in the probably still cold waters. But that means driving down to the beach, 5 minutes or so away, but maybe 15 hot-oven minutes of trying to snare a parking spot. Funny how I have energy to complain, but not to get off my ass.

Even starting a new paragraph is labor. So why don’t I just shut up and quit? Writing usually comes easily to me. It’ll be cooler tonight — I can write then. But the words keep coming, however sluggishly. Buddhist texts list among the hindrances to waking up the following duo: sloth and torpor. I’m guilty of both. They give laziness a nice ring. Have you ever watched a sloth move? My whiskers grow faster. And torpor — just the sound of it makes me want to have a nap. Who cares if it’s only one in the afternoon, and I’ve only been up for two hours?

Sloth might be a bit better than torpor. Imagine conscious sloth — after all, moving very slowly can be very spiritual, can’t it? Think of Buddhist meditators doing mindful walking, as if auditioning for The Living Dead. But conscious torpor? A contradiction in terms. The sunburnt blubber littering the local beach is about as alert as the fried jellyfish along the shore’s edge. I’m slumping at my desk. Maybe I should do a bit of yoga, or even go to the gym. The thought makes me slump more. Sloth and torpor — what a great name for a law firm, or a geriatric rock band.

I’m not going to pull myself out of my sluggish mood just so this essay can take a turn for the better, like a tedious film that finally manages to cough up a car chase. Is there anything more exhausting than enthusiasm pushing its agenda? I can see myself later on looking over these lazily wandering words and trying to extract something that is essay-worth. But I say to that unslumping wordsmith: Go fuck yourself. I don’t even yell it. It’s more like telling him to get his own beer. I’m not walking that far. I don’t even have the juice to get the remote control in my hand. The couch will probably just stick to my skin. Maybe we need more support for complaining. I don’t mean conscious complaining — that’s too spiritual, too much work. Just everyday bitching, with all of existence being our uncomplaining ear.

Another paragraph, your unroyal laziness. I had a smoothie an hour and a half ago, and it’s still hanging out in my stomach. Maybe I should just lie down. Or go drink some water. I’m always telling my kids to drink more water, and I’m sitting here feeling dry-throated, and won’t get off my chair. Look at me sag as I write. The words come slower, reluctant little turds dreaming of making a big splash. I smile, but don’t have the juice to laugh. I’ve never felt bad about sloths. If torpor was an animal, it would be a sloth on valium, the far shore of mellow.

I still have no feeling of where this is all going, so I’ll let it go where it wants to, namely nowhere in particular. I could, of course, jump from this into some kind of reflection on ontological positioning, but I am thankfully not in the mood to do so. If you’ve stayed with me this far, you might as well stay for the ending. Have you ever been at a movie, found it boring or tedious, and stayed anyway, perhaps hoping that it would eventually get better, and then found yourself there at the movie’s end, really irritated at yourself, wondering why you stayed through the whole damned thing? Welcome to the end. Don’t sit around waiting for the credits. There aren’t any.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

PART FOURTEEN - April 16, 2006

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Arthur/adastra asks:

1. On p. 83 of Freedom Doesn't Mind Its Chains, you say:
“When unillumined passion, passion that has been kept in the dark or faraway, and disembodied rationality meet – or collide – there ensues a kind of fertilization, spawning crazed loops of logic that snare us in their rigidly grooved treads, leaving us penned up like so many articulate cattle in our minds, lost in dustclouds of stampeding thought, overly susceptible to the siren call of lines of reasoning that are far from healthy or humane.”
Could you elaborate on this passage? In particular, could you give some examples of the kinds of disorder this unhealthy combination can lead to?

2. How would you advise someone to deal with strong feelings of jealousy or possessiveness in the context of a sexual/romantic -or formerly so - relationship?

3. Someone recently sent me the following poem by Marge Piercy:
To Have Without Holding
Marge Piercy

Learning to love differently is hard,
love with the hands wide open, love
with the doors banging on their hinges,
the cupboard unlocked, the wind
roaring and whimpering in the rooms
rustling the sheets and snapping the blinds
that thwack like rubber bands
in an open palm.

It hurts to love wide open
stretching the muscles that feel
as if they are made of wet plaster,
then of blunt knives, then
of sharp knives.

It hurts to thwart the reflexes
of grab, of clutch; to love and let
go again and again. It pesters to remember
the lover who is not in the bed,
to hold back what is owed to the work
that gutters like a candle in a cave
without air, to love consciously,
conscientiously, concretely, constructively.

I can't do it, you say it's killing
me, but you thrive, you glow
on the street like a neon raspberry,
You float and sail, a helium balloon
bright bachelor's button blue and bobbing
on the cold and hot winds of our breath,
as we make and unmake in passionate
diastole and systole the rhythm
of our unbound bonding, to have
and not to hold, to love
with minimized malice, hunger
and anger moment by moment balanced.

~~~~

I find the stance the poem appears to be advocating both challenging and compelling. (At first I thought it was advocating polyamory but currently see it as potentially describing “conscious monogamy” as well.) It speaks to me of deeply bonding and committing fully to someone while fully respecting their autonomy, as well as realizing to your core that anything can change – that if you truly love that person you need to allow them room to change and grow, be and become as they need to do, even if that means the loss or change of the relationship you've committed to; as opposed to consciously or unconsciously attempting to limit or contain them.
This poem has been caroming around inside me, cross-breeding with your comments on immature monogamy, mature monogamy and polyamory, so I'm curious...what are your thoughts and feelings on this poem and my subsequent musings? How does this fit with what you've been saying on the subject of relationships?

4. What are some projects you're working on or considering currently?

Robert answers:

1. The passage you quote is not an easy one to elaborate on without including the context from which it arose, so I am going to begin by including the essay from which it was taken, and then comment on it.

THE BODY AND “I”

Is the body just the mind’s way of conducting business, is it merely a container for the ego or soul, is it simply an assembly of tissue, bone, and blood, or is it something more, something else?

“The flesh” has gotten negative press for millennia, being overassociated with sin, carnality, moral weakness, and disease. Many of us don’t seem to like our bodies very much. Or we may like them, but not want them to change.


So what’s a body to do?

Let’s begin by considering the “where” of the body. In looking at our body, we may find ourselves looking down upon it. But is it really “down there”? Is our belly below us? And if so, from whose point of view? When we view our body from the vantage point of our cranial headquarters, it may very well seem as if we are above it, and not necessarily just in a physical sense.


It. The very relegation of the body to the status of a concretized “it” — an assembly of matter to be looked down upon, if only geographically — is but a confession of somatic estrangement or disconnection. (And if we are thus disconnected, out of touch with our own body, we are going to have great difficulty relating with sensitivity and ecological savvy to our collective body, the body of Nature, whatever our philosophy.)

“It” gets sick, old, infirm; “it” isn’t attractive enough, healthy enough, strong or resilient enough; “it” betrays us, embarrasses and disobeys us. In short, “it” brings us down. The litany continues — the body is unpredictable, unreasonable, too hot or too cold, too tired or too wired, too thick or too thin, too this or too that, constantly demanding to be filled, then emptied, again and again making trouble. But for whom? Or what?

James Joyce describes one of his characters, Mr. Duffy, as living a short distance from his body. That sense of separation or dissociation, when sufficiently dramatized, makes up much of the basis of the “I” that relates to the body as a literal “it.” This “I,” this self-obsessed, uneasily governed coalition (or mob) of habits, appears — at least to itself — to be a solid self, a discrete entity, a tenured indweller, a non-contingent somebody truly separate (or independent from the rest of existence.

However, as sages have long pointed out, “I” is not an entity, but an activity. A choice. It is not something we have, but something we are doing. Even now.

“I” generally acts as if it is living in (or is trapped within) the uppermost reaches of the body, but this assumed “positioning” is, as I’ll later discuss, a misinterpreted result of “captured” attention, rather than a concrete reality.


In its ossified, tenaciously reinforced subjectivity, “I” is not only literally uptight, but seems to exist over against a universe, inner and outer, of objects (that is, whatever apparently is, or can be classified, as “not-I”), including the body in which it seems to be housed.


In its misguided appropriation of “mind over matter,” “I” automatically presumes to possess the intelligence and vision, while the body becomes the depot of dumb, appetite-driven animal-ness, requiring the near-constant supervision of “I” and its various programs.

Such is our dominant cultural attitude toward the body. We may take good care of it, but we still don’t usually get very close to it. We may park it on the latest aerobic machine at the local fitness center, making sure it works up a decent sweat, but even then, how attentive are we really to it? Not just to its contours and huffing and quadriceps protests, but to its interiority, its deeper needs, its innate rhythms, its cries and memories, its organismic presence. Our minds may be elsewhere, glued to magazines or to the TVs facing the rows of exercise machines. Or just mechanically wandering through recent events or future plans.


When we get ahead of ourselves, what happens to our body? Before long, it starts acting like a neglected child, pulling at our attention with various desires, appetites, impulses — yanking us back from the future, hauling us in like an errant kite, pulling us back into the present, very possibly a past-polluted present, but nonetheless the present. Or our body may find so little success in its attempts to get our attention, that helplessness eventually sets in, leading to depression, apathy, and illness.


If the more subtle messages of the body are not attended to, then more overt or dramatic signals will likely follow. If these are not given enough attention, then even more blatant signs — extreme illness, serious malfunction, and so on — may arise. Like the steed that needs not the whip but only the shadow of the whip, we need to heed the language of our body when it is but a whisper, and heed it with our full, undivided attention.

Conscious embodiment.

Through its lack of somatic anchoring and attunement, “I” usually is poorly informed or just plain confused about our basic needs. Nevertheless, it is capable of a free-floating consideration of many views. At its best, this ability to think about thinking can provide a certain stability — or “fair witness” grounding — for the tolerance and egalitarian logic of healthy rationality. Unfortunately, such positioning tends, because of its frequent estrangement from feeling, to be rather dry and abstract, typically favoring the intellectual over the experiential, the dispassionate over the passionate, and the objective over the subjective.

The disembodied rationality of “I,” regardless of its possible cogency, is too committed to a merely mental inquiry to have a genuinely beneficial impact on any significant scale. It is too busy dissecting and taxonomically sorting the already overcooked to have any intimacy with the raw, or anything else that might “dirty” or taint the sterilized, neatly perimetered sanctums wherein it conducts its inquiries into the human condition. Is it any wonder that the working class has commonly carried such a strong suspicion of the so-called intelligentsia and its erudite analyses of bourgeoisification, class struggle, and so on? Epithets such as “egghead,” despite their crudity and usual malice, are not that far off target, pithily pointing to the from-the-neck-up malady — the overoccupying of one’s head — that infects much of academia.

The language of disembodied rationality is a morally inflated — as in “I’ll defend to the death your right to call me an egghead” — and fleshless shell, a calcified, cleverly articulated latticework of sterilized, politically correct phrasing, avoiding street-talk, sensuality, and emotional passion in much the same that a Brahmin might avoid a Sudra (or “Untouchable”) in India. A Brahmin may assume that contamination has occurred even by being in the vicinity of a Sudra.


Similarly, the passions have been conceived of as polluting the clear waters of reasoned discourse for thousands of years. It is still not uncommon to view emotions as being “lower” or more “primitive” than reason, doing little more than clouding the skies of rational thought, or muddying objectivity.


Thinking clearly is thus often associated with dispassion, or a muting of and distancing from one’s emotions; moral decisions are allegedly best made when passion and feeling are either “safely” out of the picture, or are functionally peripheral to the decision-making process, much like children excluded or kept at a distance from parental discussions. However, when we put emotion aside, or too far aside, we distance ourselves from our body, as if it has nothing worthwhile to contribute to what we’re considering.

For the kind of rationality that favors or relies on dissociation from emotion, the body is the shadow, a carrier of obstructions to rigorous inquiry, again and again driving twisted bolts of passion into the cool of reasoned thought, thereby polluting or even aborting our objectivity.


When unillumined passion, passion that has been kept in the dark or faraway, and disembodied rationality meet — or collide — there ensues a kind of fertilization, spawning crazed loops of logic that snare us in their rigidly grooved treads, leaving us penned up like so many articulate cattle in our minds, lost in dustclouds of stampeding thought, overly susceptible to the siren call of lines of reasoning that are far from healthy or humane.

Those who feel compelled, for whatever reason (including aversion to sentences like the previous one!), to dissociate from their emotional and physical dimensions, may find a certain sanctuary and self-legitimization in the vistas of disembodied rationality, as Evelyn Keller makes clear: “A science that advertises itself by the promise of a cool and objective remove from the object of study selects for those individuals for whom such a promise provides emotional comfort.”


A disembodied rationality means a disembodied inquiry, a questioning confined to “headucation.” Its programs for human betterment and advancement cannot really flower — except as plastic blooms — since they are rooted in artificial soil, far from the blood, sinew, and nerve of human suffering. Its theorizing is generally far from intimate with actual practice — even as it learnedly theorizes about bringing theory and practice together — for its intent is not to actually embody what it is saying, but rather to enlist support for its arguments.

No real compassion. Only politically correct “caring.”

How can we genuinely love if we are cut off from our own bodies? How can we have compassion for others when we have little or no compassion for what’s frightened, broken, stumbling, dysfunctional, or irrational in ourselves? Instead of using our thinking mind in the service of who we really are, we get caught up in exploiting its attributes, using its reasoning and contextualizing powers to distance ourselves from the very pain we need to face, feel, and integrate. That is, we tend to employ the cognizing capacity of our brain to reduce our more difficult or painful feelings — or at least the message of such feelings — to mere information that can then be manipulated in any way “we” want.


But to engage in genuine inquiry does not mean squatting with supposed awareness “above” our marginalized, shut-away, or otherwise shunned pain. Such cerebral escapism or avoidance is of no more value than is indulging in reactive feeling, and in fact is perhaps even more hazardous, because its irrationality is better camouflaged. A healthy rationality is not an escape from body and feeling, but rather is informed by them.


The practice of distancing or dissociating ourselves from our emotions, especially our apparently darker or more uncomfortable emotions, can seriously disrupt our ability to think clearly and act morally. Recent neurological research demonstrates that an impairment in emotional capacity (as perhaps caused by damage to brain regions essential for emotional processing) can actually retard one’s ability to make sound decisions.

Back to the body does not at all mean jettisoning our intellect, but rather allowing it — cognitive intelligence — to synergistically coexist with the social, somatic, emotional, spiritual, moral, aesthetic, and survival dimensions of intelligence.

Back to the body is not an atavistic exhortation, nor a regression, but simply an invitation, a call to return to an embodied now, a now which is centered not by egoity, but by intrinsic awareness, a now in which the personal and the transpersonal are in fitting embrace. In this, my intention is not to put down egoity, but to permit it its most fitting context. Ego is not the villain, the culprit, the spoilsport, the toxic boss, but rather is simply an activity — however multi-headed — that we very easily identify with, at the expense of our body.


To find out “where” the body is, we need, among other things, to closely examine our assumptions about our relationship to our body. Let us, for example, consider the notion of being “in” a body. To assume that we are in a body not only reduces the body to a container, a housing project, a thing, but also implies an out for us, an exit, a potential escape or getaway. After all, how could we even consider going out of the body if we didn’t already believe that we were in it?


But who is in it?


And exactly where is “in”?

Read on...

END OF ESSAY


Disembodied rationality (commonly known as “being in our head”) is not rationality devoid of feeling, but rationality that’s so disconnected from feeling that there’s very poor communication between the two. Such rationality sits not with feeling, but above it, surveying everything from its densely walled headquarters. Feeling, of course, still arises, but, having no intimacy with such rationality, becomes but its hired help, its thirdworld labor force, doing its dirty work.

When disembodied rationality meets unillumined feeling, the result is far from life-giving, leading to activities that, however ugly or atrocious, get the best rationalization that power can buy. An example: Naziism (a survivor of Bergen-Belsen described that deathcamp as having an air of extreme rationality). Another example: colonization of ”backward” peoples. And another: betrayal. The list goes on and on, confusing rationalization with rationality, perhaps obscuring the fact that rationality in of itself is a necessary developmental stage of cognition that serves our well-being (and the well-being of all) if it is allowed to ripen in intimate conjunction with feeling and compassion.

Rationality that overseparates itself from feeling (and being) is an irrational rationality.

2. How to work with jealousy or possessiveness? First of all, acknowledge them for what they are; admit that they are present. Second, don’t try to get rid of them; instead, explore them, dig deep, mine their depths for what lies at their core (if possible, work on this with a good psychotherapist). Third, get them in healthy perspective; allow them to be there, but don’t let them run the show (psychotherapy and meditative practice are very useful here). Seat them where you can keep an eye on them, so that when they start to act up, you see it immediately and can take steps (like shifting perspective) to keep them from overwhelming you. This is not easy, but gets easier with practice. Attachment comes with relational intimacy; jealousy is made possible through attachment; and a more mature, awakened love can come through jealousy, if we will but cut through its melodramatics and go to its heart...

It’s useful to know jealousy well, so let’s take a deeper look at it, keeping in mind that jealousy and envy differ, and that what follows is mainly about the kind of jealousy that arises when there’s a threat (real or not) to our closeness with our intimate other...

Jealousy, especially sexual jealousy in a relational context, can be exceedingly painful, as anyone who has writhed in its straitjacketed fires knows all too well. Most of us strive not to provide fertile conditions for jealousy, but it still manages to sprout up, with a green not of sun-embracing reach, but of venomous force. However, jealousy is not some inherently evil or negative feeling, and nor does it necessarily have to be a problem.

What matters is what we do with our jealousy. Do we get lost in it, thereby embodying its point of view? Do we try to rise above it, acting as if we’re beyond possessiveness, thereby denying ourselves full access to our depths? Or do we condemn it, sentencing it to life imprisonment, thus walling away the very vulnerability of which our jealousy is but a twisted, overly dramatic confession? Or do we abstract it, talking about it with forced, terminally level rationality and unnatural calm, even as we half-wonder why our emotional life is so flat and dull?

Do we believe in our jealousy so strongly that we do irreparable harm to one we love? Or do we run from it, avoiding any circumstances that resemble the one that originally catalyzed our jealousy? Or do we deny that it is actually happening, while we slowly die inside, painting good cheer and non-possessive smiles over our collapse of heart? Or do we make good use of our jealousy, giving it room to breathe and move through us while not submitting to its viewpoint?

Jealousy is a painfully intense dramatization of being rejected, whether the rejection is real or imagined. The perceived threat of rejection (or even increased insecurity), however slight, may be enough to trigger jealousy, especially if we already don’t feel very stable in our relationship.

Jealousy is the outraged cry of thwarted possessiveness, sometimes being hard-fisted, cruel, rabid with indignant logic, and sometimes being sunken, mushy, jammed with self-pity, crammed with boxed-in sorrow, submitting to an unnecessarily hellish tomorrow. But whatever form it may take, jealousy often features a compulsive drive to blame the offending other for what is happening to us, as if to somehow legitimize our extreme contraction of being.

The core of jealousy’s message is: “You don’t love me!” or something similar, implying colossal rejection, as of an infant by its mother; accompanying this is another, implicitly held message: “If you loved me, you wouldn’t be doing what you’re doing!”

How easy it is to get marooned in the wastelands of rejection, especially if our history has predisposed us to being readily hooked by rejection. And what an art it is to stay open, present, and loving -- or at least connected to the possibility of loving -- in the midst of real rejection: There may be anger and tears, and all the symptoms of jealousy, but there will be no significant withdrawal of self, nor any indulgence in blaming; there may be force, but not violence; there is vulnerability, but not mushiness or sunkenness; there is real sadness, not reactive sorrow; and there is a clear willingness to go right through jealousy’s dark realm, rather than just a righteous positioning somewhere within it; and most of all, there is love, or at least the all-out commitment to making room for it, rather than uptight, loveless waiting to see if the other, the one who has apparently rejected us, is being loving, or is going to become loving toward us.

If we will only love when we are already being loved by the other, then we are prime candidates for deep jealousy, for we are then chronically on the search for signs that we are not being loved, miserably sniffing around for evidence of abandonment or betrayal, reducing ourselves to neurotic sleuths, sinking into overdone suspiciousness, again and again demanding, however indirectly, that the other consistently demonstrate or prove his or her trustworthiness. Such demonstration, however, is rarely enough for us, for we, in our jealousy, won’t trust anything except our mistrust and doubt regarding the other. In short, we then expect betrayal, and even, in a sense, crave it, so as to recreate (almost always unconsciously) infantile or childhood scenarios of unresolved rejection.

The lesson here, at essence, is to love, or to remain truly open to being loving, even when we are clearly being rejected. The form of such love is not meek or passive, nor necessarily all-accepting of rejection; rather, it is potent, dynamic, passionately alive, quite capable of fiery yet clean anger, more than willing to call bullshit bullshit (as when the other deliberately does things to catalyze our jealousy, so as to feel more powerful). Such love does not shrink in the face of rejection, and nor does it piously stand aside. It radiates forth, generating an environment that simultaneously cradles and renders reactivity transparent.

When we complain that we not being loved, we, in our very complaining, are not being loving, but are only barricading ourselves from fully feeling our woundedness; we are, in effect, actually rejecting what is most vulnerable in us, doing to it what is being done to us (or what we imagine is being done to us) by the one who is “making” us jealous. Real love does not reject the other, but it may reject something that the other is doing.

Jealousy is the open abscess of unillumined possessiveness, the endarkened sensation of betrayal-catalyzed separation and insecurity. When untouched by awareness, jealousy is a mean-spirited temper tantrum, a coupling of twisted anger and lopsided hurt up on a toxic soapbox, righteously ranting about right and wrong, making too much noise to hear its own true song.

When held and penetrated by real love, jealousy eases its defences, becoming but the uninhibited expression of relational hurt, a heart-opening confession of possessiveness, a sharing of deep feeling, leaving us sobered, unmasked, and more loving, more at ease with our possessiveness, no longer struggling for either ownership or detachment, no longer enslaved to the possibility of potential rejection, no longer afraid of jealousy, and no longer so bound to being in relationships that, through their unresolved neurotic patterns and lack of real grounding, provide excessively fertile conditions for the arising of jealousy.

3. A beautiful, raw-hearted poem...The pain she describes so well appears to be arising, in part, through her repeated opening to being in an “open” relationship, but it also applies to the pain that comes with fully opening to love’s demands, whatever the context may be.

To open to deep relationship is not only to open to deep love, but also to open to the inevitable pain of such relationship. Real love does not remove us from hurt, but rather opens us so wide and deep that we make room for it. The stretching implicit in this sometimes hurts like hell; all we can do then is not turn our pain into suffering. The very hurt that arises through deep relationship can, if embraced, break our heart open to a deeper life. Fierce grace.

4. Writing projects: A book of poetry that includes a CD of my some of my poems that have been set to music and sung by my wife Diane; a book about mature monogamy; a book about dreams, dreaming, and the dreamer; a book about sex.

Other projects: Creating more apprenticeship programs in Integral Psychotherapy, Bodywork, and Groupwork, as well as further developing groupwork for couples who want to awaken through deep relational intimacy.





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PART FIFTEEN - April 16, 2006

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from the Re: Questions for Robert Masters re Poly, Monogamy, etc? thread in Zaadz:

LaSara asks:

“Isn’t it possible that there is a form of polyamory that might be defined as Mature Poly (MP), similar to the MM concept?”

Robert answers:

The fact that it is theoretically possible reminds me of Jim Carrey’s character in “Dumb and Dumber” asking a woman to whom he’s very attracted what his chances are of going out with her; she says something like one in a million, and he’s overjoyed, now that he knows he has a chance. We may think that it’s theoretically possible for any child born in America to become President, but we know, in that place in us where facts are not mistaken for Truth, that it really ain’t so. All of which is to say that Mature Polyamory (MP) is, at least to me, little more than a concept thats slim mathematical chance of actually manifesting is used to present it as more than just a concept.

I don’t, however, think that we are, at a certain stage, incapable of MP, but that those who are capable of it are not drawn to pursuing it. They have better things to do, more relevant matters in which to engage; they no longer have any need to have multiple partners, and in fact may not even be interested in Mature Monogamy (MM). Let’s clarify this by considering a relatively extreme example: Those who are most deeply capable of being in relationship, which means, in part, being consistently present, loving, and intimate with the Nondual, are more often than not disinterested in intimate relationship. Imagine how incredibly loving, compassionate, and wise a sage like Ramana Maharshi would be in a relationship; imagine what a profoundly open and spiritual partner he would be. Trouble is, he had no interest in such relationship, already having a deeper than deep intimacy with all. (The fact that so many great Realizers become increasingly androgynous as they ripen into their Realization is, of course, a factor here.)

The irony is that we are most capable of intimate relationship when we no longer have to have it; then some may choose it, and some may not, but if it is entered into, it is very different than a conventional relationship.

My sense is that the more deeply we awaken, the less scattered our attention regarding intimate relationship becomes; early on, multiple-partnering is more appealing and arousing (especially for men), as our sexuality mechanically extends to all kinds of people; later, we are more drawn to awakened, deeply committed monogamy, as our sexuality becomes less global and more intimately personal, more focused on one intimate; still later, we may go even deeper into mature monogamy (especially if doing so serves others), or we may lose interest (in a nonavoidant, awakened sense) in intimate relationship altogether. An immature person loves very few and feels sexually pulled toward many; a more mature person loves many and feels sexually pulled toward very few; a truly mature person loves all and feels sexually pulled to a particular beloved, or passes into true celibacy. This is not a progression toward more sexual repression, but rather toward more sexual freedom. Having more than one partner does not mean that one is freer sexually, but rather that one is not yet ready to go really deep with another.

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Elizabeth/Tamgoddess asks:

1. I have a situation which has become unbearably painful for me. A very close very dear friend has been depressed for years, and I am unable to help. He has convinced himself that nobody can help him and there's nothing that can be done. He's tried various things, but can't stick with anything. It's a very self-perpetuating and self-defeating cycle.

When I'm talking to him, I realize that what he is going through is, in part, a spiritual crisis. He has fallen into the abyss and found meaninglessness and suffering all around him. If he were a Buddhist, I'd know just what to say! But he is an atheist, and if I made any mention of a spiritual crisis, he'd be not only insulted, but he'd have nothing but scorn for anything I said. I feel like we have no language that we can use to communicate across this divide.

He has been diagnosed in the past with PTSD, ADHD and depression, by various people. He's tried to do EMDR, but he says he feels that none of his problems are worth discussing, much less writing down. Needless to say, that therapy is going nowhere, as he doesn't even feel that his problems, or even his "self", is worth discussing.

I have done what I could do so far. At this point, I know that he has to want to make changes, and clearly, he's not there yet. But I feel so deeply compelled by his pain that I continue to try to help. Maybe in part it's because I have no such tolerance for pain that he does. It seems that he will never hit bottom, and his capacity for wallowing in this pain is infinite! I want to pull him from this abyss he's trapped in.

How can i deal with this? I feel as though I MUST do something. What is it that I can do, (or not do)? He won't get help, and instead has this whole twisted logic of how nothing will ever get better and it's either all his fault or other people's fault who are out to get him. Because he's lost all of his friends, he's convinced himself that he never had any to begin with.

2. What's the difference between wallowing in an emotion–say unhappiness, where you're almost enjoying it in a way–and just trying to be present with that emotion?

Robert answers:

1. My thoughts/intuitions, in no particular order, are:

First of all, a tough, tough situation...Your hands appear to be tied, even as you ache to do something, anything (including doing nothing), to help him. If nothing else, you are bound to become more intimate with your helplessness to make something happen that you really really want to see happen.

You say you don’t feel that you have any common ground with him that can help pull him from the abyss. First of all, you do have that common ground: your suffering. You don’t need to tell him this, but simply feel your way to its core; once you are there, present in the very heart of your pain, appropriate actions regarding him will start to emerge, including doing nothing more than embracing your helplessness to help him.

Second, it sounds like he’s more at the edge of the abyss than actually in it. You might want to reframe his spiritual crisis as an existential crisis, but without speaking of it like this to him. My experience of working with people in his situation is that blunt, no-bullshit yet still caring talk works best. No babying, no speaking from a “higher” place, no trying to fix him, no conveyed sense that he’s being seen as damaged goods.

I’d want to ask him at some point, after making some real connection with him (if only with regards to how incredibly shitty life can be), what keeps him going. I’d also ask him, at a fitting time, that assuming he wants to be freed from his suffering, if he’d be willing to do whatever that took, however small or halting the steps might be. I’d also want to explain to him that his suffering is being amplified by the shock that he’s still carrying, and that until such shock is released from his system, his efforts to get himself to higher ground will not work.

Before he can “be pulled from the abyss”, he needs to not only know it better, but also demonstrate that he would cooperate with such a “pulling”.

You say he won’t get any help. Does this mean that he thinks he can do it himself? Or that he thinks he’s beyond help? And if he clearly isn’t able to do it himself, where does that leave him? Perhaps face-to-face with the pride that says he should be able to do it by himself, beneath which there is very likely a shitload of shame.

Your gift to him is not to “help” him (for he might simply be slipping into the more debilitating dimensions of shame because of the weakness that needing help may imply), but to let him know how his situation makes you feel. Then you are simply sharing data -- hurt, anger, fear, helplessness, and so on -- rather than beliefs about him and his situation. I’m suggesting a being-to-being encounter, without any attachment to a particular outcome.

If he lets in what you’re sharing (which doesn’t necessarily mean agreeing or disagreeing with it, but rather feeling it), he may start to feel a camaraderie with you that will actually be far more helpful than any advice or direction you might give him. Those who are really down and pissed off about it don’t want to fixed, but to be truly met, even if it’s in their latest gutter. Then, they and you get to, after a bit more down-to-earth connecting, mutually gaze at the situation in question. If we won’t enter into the actual pain (at least to some extent) that someone like your friend is experiencing, then we we’ll be at too much of a distance from them to really be of service to them.

He needs some good therapy, but needs to choose it for himself, and to do that, he has to view it as a needed step. My feeling is that he needs a therapist who is willing to get into the scarier stuff with him, rather than sitting back in the safety of a more removed circumstance. It sounds like he’s not just hurting, but also indulging in his misery, but he needs to see this himself, and to also see that shaming himself for this only prolongs his stay in such miserable territory.

I suggest that you don’t try to talk him into getting help. Instead, talk about times you’ve needed help and have gotten it, without, however, doing so to get him to get help. What matters here is your sincerity and your vulnerability. Address not his pain, but yours. This is not about commiserating with him about how difficult Life can be, but rather about inviting him, bit by bit, into that depth of shared heart that has room for everyone’s suffering. The more you enter that zone while you’re with him, the more likely it is that he will, sooner or later, begin moving in a similar direction.

2. “What's the difference between wallowing in an emotion –- say unhappiness, where you're almost enjoying it in a way –- and just trying to be present with that emotion?”
To wallow in an emotion is to indulge in it, to get lost in its dramatics, whereas being present with it is to remain awake in the midst of it, relating to it instead of from it. To wallow in an emotion is to not take responsibility for its arising and expression, allowing ourselves to be “consumed” or “swept away” by its energies and viewpoint. To be present with the very same emotion is to take responsibility for its arising and expression, so that we are no longer playing victim to it; then we can allow the energies of our emotional state to be as they are without having to submit to their viewpoint and action tendencies.

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Arthur/adastra asks:

I have a friend who was in a ceremony recently, and by her report experienced a profound awakening to who she really is – the ground of being manifesting as a particular bodymind, no longer experiencing a sense of separation. During the experience the cosmic mother erased her personal history – it's not that she doesn't remember traumatic things that happened to her, she just feels unaffected by them; what she tells me is that she has realized that everything is utterly impersonal, everything. Therefore she feels she no longer has anything to “work through,” although if anything came up, any personal or interpersonal difficulty or blockage she'd work through it. “Whatever is there, if something comes up, I'll deal with it; it doesn't matter one way or the other.”
During the ceremony she asked the mother to be shown if there were any blockages she needed to work through that were impeding her process. The response was, "I could vaporize that in a second if you wanted me to - do you want me to?" My friend said, "yes," and felt a sense of relief. Next the mother said, "I could vaporize you too, want me to?" Upon my friends assent, she felt her face melt, then her body, and then everything just blew away. In a subsequent ceremony, over and over again she got the message, "Nothing is personal."
My feeling is that she may well have awakened - although I don't feel qualified to make that judgment, since I'm not awake in that sense. She looks and feels “softer” and more present. She speaks about her perspective in a way that sounds congruent with my (intellectual) understanding of these things. She also reports that her body feels different, one manifestation of this being that she is no longer digesting meat very well.
Since she no longer feels any involvement with "her own personal issues", we've talked about whether she could possibly be doing a “spiritual bypass” - but I don't feel that's what she's doing. Another possibility is that she has, in fact, suddenly woken up, not through a long term meditation practice (the closest equivalent for her is using Holosync while sleeping for the past several years) but rather as a result of an induced state change in a sacred ceremonial context.
One other detail I feel I should mention: she did have a profound spiritual experience four or five years ago in which she woke up in some sense - an enduring realization (although she says what happened recently goes much deeper) - and it is obvious to me that she's undergone much development in the intervening time, in both personal and spiritual aspects.

1. Do you think it's possible that she has really woken up suddenly? In Darkness Shining Wild you discuss several similar cases.

2. How would I know if she has? Would it be possible for me to tell, since I'm not at the level of awareness I believe she is experiencing? Would it take someone at a similar level to tell for sure?
3. Sometimes when I talk to her about this, I feel an internal sensation that's sort of like a gravity or attraction; could this be some sort of resonance with her state? If so, how can I facilitate or encourage that?

4. Could she be doing a spiritual bypass? How would we tell? And what should she do if she that is the case?

another question, unrelated to the above

Among people who participate in indigenous or similar rituals which induce altered states for the purpose of personal or spiritual growth – using one or more of the “Four D’s" (dancing, drumming, dreaming and drugging) – several times people have expressed the strong conviction that one should generally speaking keep their visions/revelations to themselves. One explanation given was that this was [subtle or soul] medicine and to speak (too) freely about it would “scatter the medicine” and render it ineffective.
I feel on an intuitive level that there may be something to this, and have consequently exercised more caution in talking about my inner visionary experiences. An alternative explanation could be that to discuss such things too freely – at least for a period of time after such material arises – would distract you from potent internal processing or “metabolizing” of the material; this could apply whether the material arises as a result of dreaming, a therapy session or workshop, meditation, or an altered state induced by any of a variety of means (holotropic breathwork, drumming, Ayahuasca etc.)
On the other hand, sharing such experience can elicit valuable insights or shared experience from another person (especially an intimate other) or group; furthermore, in group sharing, there can be healing benefit for other members of the group or the group as a whole - something I've noticed in both your workshops and in "sharing circles" following shamanic ceremonies.
It did seem to me a while ago that there might be some “diffusion” of the potential potency of such experiences on the part of people who were talking about them too openly, especially in the sense of “this amazing incredible experience that happened to me!” At times I found such sharing intrusive. Other times I received valuable information that applied to my own process. Also, I have found sharing such experience with an intimate other in itself sometimes appeared to be a potent facilitator of growth and insight. In a group sharing experience I’m thinking of, people were careful not to discuss too much in the way of details of their visions or deep experiences, yet shared some of their insights and/or talked about their process in a more general way. I found this to be very moving and identified with much of what was shared - in fact, everyone's story always has some relevance for me.

5. What do you think and feel about this idea of retaining visionary experience or insights and either not talking about it at all, not sharing it for a period of time, or sharing only very selectively? What relevance do you see for the cultural context, the values and practices of the individuals involved, the particular setting (e.g. indigenous healing retreat or group psychotherapy session)?

Robert answers:

1. It’s possible that she had a sudden awakening, a satori. There are many levels of awakening, and many ways to frame it, so it’s not so simple as to just say that she awakened. Awakened from what? There’s plenty to consider here: For example, some who have had a direct experiences of their fundamental nature get caught up in premature assumptions of Enlightenment. And, to thicken the plot, the self-transcendence that typically characterizes sudden awakenings can easily lead one to confuse the “no-self” of deep realization with the “no-self” of shattered egoity (as seemed to be case with Suzanne Segal, in whose final days memories of childhood abuse began surfacing, casting her “no-self” sense of herself in a less overtly spiritual and more depersonalized context). Also, those who have awakened deeply don’t usually go around letting others know that they’ve thus awakened. Only the spiritually ambitious ego wants to claim Enlightenment (all the while wanting, like a character in a Fellini movie, to be present at its own funeral).

2. How to know? See her with not with the eyes of your mind, but of your heart. Let go of the notion that she’s at a different level than you. You don’t have to be where she is to get a sense of her state. You don’t need to, for example, be at the Dalai Lama’s “level” to be able to tell that he’s an unusually kind person; you can feel it, and that feeling carries its own authority. You may not be able to classify your friend’s state, but you can feel it. Let such feeling be primary, and interpretation secondary. It’s so, so important not to automatically assume that someone else is at a certain “level”, but instead to let yourself resonate with her or him, and then see where you are.

3. Such resonance is deepened by opening more fully to her state, but it’s crucial to remember that your increased connection with her state is being triggered by rather than caused by her state. That is, she is not stirring you; you are stirring yourself. Do not make the error of collapsing your boundaries in order to resonate more fully with her; instead, expand your boundaries to do so, thereby including her in the circle/sphere of your being. This keeps your capacity to discern alive and well. So many, when in the presence of someone supposedly at a deeper level than themselves, discard or disregard their bullshit detector.

4. Yes, she could be doing a spiritual bypass. One possible sign of this is her emphasis on the impersonal. Not that reality is not impersonal in a very profound sense, but to me the Real is not just impersonal, but also prepersonal, personal, transpersonal, and interpersonal. I’m suspicious of teachings that overemphasize the impersonal and frame the personal as something lesser.

You say that “she no longer feels any involvement with ‘her own personal issues’”. That sounds like a kind of spiritual bypassing to me. It’s one thing to be stuck in and dramatizing one’s own personal issues, and another thing altogether to be utterly uninvolved with them. The latter speaks of depersonalization and dissociation more than of true transcendence.

I am involved with my personal issues; they are part of my being. I choose not to cut myself off from them, but rather to cultivate a relationship to them that serves my well-being. If one is really awakening, there is an increasingly radical nonavoidance of all that constitutes one -- at least that’s how I see it. I’m not saying that your friend has not had some kind of genuine awakening, but that it (from what you say) is possibly being used by her, however unknowingly, to help bypass or distance her from any pain she may still be carrying from her past. Real awakening does not grant us immunity from our pain, but rather allows us to feel it more fully, without, however, getting lost or invested in its viewpoint. Some teachings advise us not to take it (whatever “it” may be) personally, but I’d like to suggest that such advice ought to be accompanied by the admonition not to take it (whatever “it” may be) impersonally. Rather, simply take it as it is.

5. Sharing sacred experience? Share it very selectively; talking about it to those who are not ready to hear it, or who are not open to hearing it, does no one any good. If you are going to speak about it, tailor to the one with whom you are sharing it; articulate it uniquely for them, as if telling it for the first time. (If someone tells me a story about themselves in the very same manner that they’d tell it to someone else, I am not nearly as interested as I would be if they were to tell it to me in a way that takes into fitting account me as listener.) Find, and keep finding, the fitting language, tone, pacing, timing, emphases, asides; allowing yourself to be creative in your delivery honors what you are sharing. Remember that getting across context is as important as accurately sharing relevant content.

Be clear about your motivation for sharing your sacred or visionary experience. If your listeners have little or no context for it, then that should be addressed, before sharing any of the deeper material. This, of course, presumes that you even ought to be sharing it with them! If in doubt as to whether to share it or not, I’d recommend not sharing it.

Take the following as a possible option: Rather than talking about a deep state we may be in, we may instead simply turn to our listeners and -- assuming that they are already receptive to us -- look into their eyes, allowing them to sense our state through the quality of contact we are making with them. If they sufficiently resonate with us, then we may speak, making sure our language is and remains congruent with our state; this may mean poetic speech, very simple statements, paradoxical utterances, pauses, and so on. Be spontaneous here. Truth cannot be rehearsed.

Consider two deep lovers: So much is said without saying anything. Even saying each other’s name may seem like a lie. Nonverbal sounds may be more eloquent than any words. Silence may often be permitted to say what has to be said. And still, there is a place for language. Feel, for example, Rumi’s ecstatic insights being downloaded into a languaging that can carry us beyond language. We are all capable of speaking from our depths, whatever form our speech might take. What matters is keeping our delivery fresh and attuned to whomever is listening, while maintaining an accuracy of more than just content.

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PART SIXTEEN - April 16, 2006

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Bryan/integralshism asks:

This question derives from some discussion in The Politics of Lust thread ( http://in.integralinstitute.org/public/forums/ShowPost.aspx?PageIndex=7&PostID=12366 ), which has been discussing a book of the same title written by local Vancouver sex activist John Ince (who, btw, will be hosting a salon discussion during the Vancouver Integral Naked Gathering in June).

In that thread, integralschism/Bryan was talking about a current issue in his life, and he'd like to know what you think. He comments:

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I don't mind admitting that when out and about, I'm constantly sizing up women in a sexual way. Sometimes I can use an intentional strategy to NOT do this. But in the absence of this kind of intentional strategy, it's pretty much a constant. And in many cases I find myself "feeling" that "I want to have sex with this 'woman'".

I remember Stuart Davis blogging about how he was finished with the serial sexual life. That he realized that he built up karma with whomever he was with and that it was more his intention to alleviate karma and not make more of it.

I've never been a serial sexualist. But it wasn't because I didn't want to be. I idolized my male friends in middle school and high school and beyond who were successful in having sex with the most coveted girls/women. Now that I'm older and more mature, it's more of a conscious decision to not be a "player" because that's hurtful to people and not necessarily in line with my moral development. However, I'd be fooling myself to say that it's entirely this "moral stance." What if it became easy for me? What if I COULD? Then would I? I don't know. But part of me believes that some kind of exploration of this issue might be a healthy part of my growth.

In SD terms, I think of it has having gotten to the equivalent of Yellow [integral] in the cognitive line and then going back to other levels to heal up the entire system/spiral within.

So in this case I could see it as my Red [egocentric values] sexuality never having been developed. The whole boy meets girl, boy jokes around with girl, gets girls number, calls girl and has a first date, has sex soon thereafter with girl, repeats with another girl. Red sex. Harmful? Harmless? Dependent upon context?

I want to expand on my last post a bit by saying that, when I think of what I would say to someone coming to me with this dilemma. I'm pretty clear that I would tell them "you're probably going to have to find out for yourself." So there's that.

And I also realize at the same time that I'm searching for some kind of permission to do that. For the largest part of my 34 years, I think my center has been in green [pluralistic relativism]. Since I've been 18 years old I've immersed myself in as much green culture as I could (save for the last 6 or so years). I have always felt most comfortable around the accepting nature of green culture, and I've always found it readily available and resonant with me. And my sense is that the green culture mostly views red sex as being a part of the dominator culture. Now there spring to mind exceptions to this. I think Liz presented the case of a guy she knew who would use green terminology to justify sleeping with multiple of "his sisters." But I think my experience has been that this green culture has recommended that I be a docile guy and "respect women so much that I would not bother them with my sexual interest."

So there it is. I think one thing I've been doing here is asking for permission to be promiscuous. To go out there and see how much fun I can have.

And I think that I'm also scared to death to get that permission. Because then I would actually be faced with the enormity of the situation (which ultimately boils down to facing rejection).

Finally, I've been getting these emails that gives tips on how to approach women, what kinds of things to say, the general disposition that it's best to have, etc. Basically it says to have a "cocky sense of humor" and, well, I won't go into it because it seems cheese-cake.

But I think what I WILL do, is take it as a spectrum. The end of the spectrum is actually having one of these "relatively anonymous" sex encounters. The other end of the spectrum is "saying that funny thing" to a woman and seeing how that feels. So there it is, I'm on a mission to play around on the benign end of that spectrum. Maybe I will report back.

And Arthur, add this into a "question" for RAM if you will!

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OK, since I resonate with this issue, I will cheerfully formulate some questions about it.

1. As an integral therapist and spiritual teacher, if someone who feels highly developed in some ways, but perhaps has not had a lot of sexual experience – or a certain kind of sexual experience (that raw “red” boy meets girl, boy fucks girl, boy finds new girl, lather rinse repeat) – asks you for “permission” to explore that kind of raw sexuality in order to, um, flesh out their being, what would you say to them? Would you advise someone in that situation to go with their impulse to “be promiscuous and see how much fun I can have”? Could this be, as Bryan suggests, a healthy part of one's growth?

2. Assuming you felt such exploration was a good idea, how would you advise them to go about it in a morally or ethically responsible way? [I had advised exploring the polyamorous or swinging communities, where people would be more accepting of that kind of sexuality, less inclined to think monogamy was on the agenda.]


Elsewhere in the thread reference was made to the following blog entry by Stuart Davis: Sex Secrets and The Ethics Of Promiscuity Pre-Dharma Surrender ( http://www.stuartdavis.com/node/830 ), which refers to his early very promiscuous period and then his personal Dharmic Reformation. Here's a long (but fascinating) entry from the blog:

“there was a good deal of promiscuity, but the thing that i think gets left out or goes unknown is that i went to great pains to behave in a manner that i felt was ethical...back when i was sleeping with so many people, i wanted very much to be ethical. so, i went to great pains to be totally honest, open, and transparent with everyone i slept with. i didn't sneak around, i didn't lie to girls or women about my availability, interest in relationship, my sexual history - i made every effore to be totally up front. so, before we got into it physically, we always had "the talk". i would answer any questions they had, and i would ask them all sorts of questions to make sure they weren't being mislead, deceived, or manipulated in any way. the talk varied depending on the girl and the situation, but the standard points i always wanted to make unmistakably clear were; 1, sleeping together was not an indication in any way that i would be available for a romantic relationship, or any kind of regular contact 2, i was not going to use a condom, and i had slept with lots of other people, the last time i had been tested was on such and such date, and the results were yadda yadda 3, i would be seeing other people.
now, as fucked up as it may sound to some, this was my sincere attempt to remain in integrity with myself, the other person, and most importantly, the Dharma. i felt that if i wasn't being manipulative, and i was straight with everyone, it would still be ethical for me to have sex with as many people as i wanted to. so why did i stop having sex with women? why did i stop with the promiscuity even before i was with my wife?
because it wasn't ethical.
the problem, in my view, is the Dharma. the ultimate ethical fact, according to my interpretation of being a practitioner, or for that matter a human, is that the PRIME directive of being is to awaken for the sake of all beings. in the loosest sense, what is ethical is that which cultivates, supports, or increases awakened consciousness in self, others, and the Whole. Ethics is the code of conduct which a practitioner in Mystery must observe in order to serve Love, which is synonymous with Awakened awareness, or that which simply IS the Reality behind the appearances.
and it was only too obvious that running through some fucking check list with women i wanted to fuck was my ego's way of utilizing a Loop Hole in the Karmic / Kosmic Ethical Code for practitioners. nice try, stu. but, the FACT OF FUCK is simply that EVEN when you run down the check list with people, and you're totally honest, and they know and fully realize what they're getting into, and they confirm their full cognizance to all the details, absolving you of any potential karma, blame, or wrong doing... IT DOESN'T MATTER, you are only having a conversation with their frontal structure, you are only making an agreement with the intellectual, cerebral part of the personality, and it DOESN'T KNOW SHIT. it will lie to you, agree with you, and make incredible convincing overtures of every imaginable kind in order to enact the impulses of its sad, somnambulant karma.
like or not, an authentic practitioner in the Mystery (notice i did not say "perfected practitioner" or "fully realized practitioner", cuz i wasn't, and i'm not, but i am authentic simply in that i know my own heart, it is sincere and i do attempt to live in concordance with the codes of the Mystery) is automatically aware of not only what is going on the in personality of the person as they are shaking their head and saying "yes, yes, that all sounds good, i agree, now let's fuck our brains out", but you also get a reading what is going on their heart, their soul, and all the deeper dimensions of their being.
you see, my hope was, that if i had this disclaimer conversation with people i wanted to sleep with, they would be advised, informed, and the fuck session would be "sanctioned" by the Mystery, so to speak. it could even be illumed. but, sadly, what happens is that 99% -and i'm not just making that up, i'd say it's actually 99% in my experience- of the people you're getting ready to have sex with are only able to respond with their head, and their head is a traitor to their heart, soul, and higher self. maybe 1% of the people in my experience were actually in a place where they had command of their heart, soul, and were inhabiting their higher self, and their agreement pertaining to the sex was coming from ALL of those places. everyone else was being dragged around by their deep wounding, their pathologies, their unconscious, their denial of Divinity, etc. of course I WAS as much or more than anyone, cuz i was actually trying to manipulate the Mystery and the relationship by using this loop hole of no manipulation.
what is it to work in the Mystery? to serve the awakening of all sentient beings.
you can't simultaneously fuck someone who's unconscious, broken, damanged, lost (and THOSE are the people who are also most confident, engaging, charismatic, and brilliantly convincing that they ARE ready to show up this way) and also serve their awakening. i'm sorry -literally, i AM sorry, cuz wouldn't it be fun if we could just fuck fuck fuck and it was all cool? the 60's love flower bonanza? but, alas, if our Ethical Code is really the Dharma, or the Mystery, or Divine Love (same things), then we have to figure out a way to deal with the incredibly compelling drives and incliniations of our body, mind, and emotions in a way doesn't suppress or deny them, but doesn't hurt other people, or worse, inhibit their awakening.
this is the problem that i've long had with more sexually orientied spiritual teachers (those who fuck their students or get their students fucking), and it's just a hunch developed from my own direct experience in Ethics, etc. it's just exceedingly rare to find people who are awake enough or healthy enough to play in that arena and not have it fuck them up. and frankly, i am always, always suspicious of the teacher's true motivations.
let me get back to my point. was it fun for "me" to have sex with three girls at the same time? yes. was it in the highest interest of each of them and me? no. it wasn't. does that make me evil? no. unethical? ultimately, let's just say i decided it would be better to be MORE ethical...
i don't regret any of my previous sex life, and i do not want to tell anyone what to do, who to do, or who to do them. one thing i know is that i had to go through what i went through and i had to do it the way i did. i NEVER could have taken someone's word for it, i had to learn the lessons, re-learn them, test them again, and it took years. i'm truly sorry for those who got hurt in any way on my clumsy, turbulent process. i'm still on that path, learning now with a wife, daughter, spiritual teacher, and a community of friends in the Mystery that i depend upon desperately to help me surrender and remain loyal to the ~?~.

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3. What's your take on all this? Do you agree with Stuart's explication of the complexities and karmic issues involved in this kind of exploration? If so, can or should someone avoid this kind of exploration if part of their being is clamoring to explore it? If such free-wheeling exploration is a bad idea, how should they work (or play) with that part of their being?

Robert answers:


1 & 2. Rather than giving or not giving my permission, I would deepen the exploration of what’s motivating his desire, including a more-than-intellectual look at whatever conditioning has shaped and colored it. This would mean, among other things, journeying to the heart of his desire, without shaming himself for having it. No repression, no indulgence, but just a deepening openness as the dots are connected.

Turning away from our “lower” desires only strands us from their hidden treasure, their dark pearl, leaving us in an eviscerated freedom, a spiritual wasteland of sterile attainment and disembodied encapsulation. Turning toward our “lower” desires does not necessarily mean submitting to them, but rather feeling our way to their core, knowing them from the deep inside. Desire can bind. Desire can also liberate. It all depends upon what kind of relationship we develop with it.


I’d also have him locate in himself both the he who just wants to freely fuck (the unapologetically masculine guy overflowing with full-blooded lust), and the he who wants to do otherwise (the nice, relatively emasculated, more “spiritual” guy), and then get some dialogue going between the two, the more dramatic and alive the better; then, I’d have him assume a position that compassionately included both, and see what kind of directions emerged -- not from me, but from him. Perhaps he’d just choose not to go into the kind of fucking he’s flirting with, and perhaps he would. So which is better? This is a question that is but the presenting surface of a deeper questioning that initially goes something like: What will best serve another’s growth? And how is this to be known?

After all, sometimes being off the path is the path. At the same time -- and this is very slippery territory, level upon level -- we cannot afford to bypass morality here. It’s easy to use the notion that we don’t really know what will best serve another’s growth as an excuse for fucked-up or atrocious behavior. (This is the headquarters of idiot compassion and neurotic tolerance.) But rather than impose an outside moral authority on those who are seeking permission to freely fuck, I’d have them access their own innate moral sense -- and I mean in its guilt-free, unconditioned form -- and apply it to the very sexual possibilities which they are considering.

For example, I’ve taught some who were caught up in sexual practices that were insensitive to their partner to make open-eyed, genuinely caring contact with their partner and then see if they could still go ahead with such practices. The result? They couldn’t. And the result of that? Some turned to a more conscious sexuality -- perhaps still raw, still wild, but not uncaring -- and others turned off the lights, so to speak, and continued with their practices. Did the latter group also grow from doing this? Maybe, but even if they did, there was a lot more mess to clean up, far heavier consequences to face, enough karmuppance to generate some massive roadblocks.

If we’re going to go ahead with our impulse to be, for example, promiscuous, we’d be wise to have already considered the consequences as best we can. Such consideration may not stop us in our tracks, but will likely bring more light to our doings, keeping us from straying for very long into the darker extremes of sloppy behavior. Some say to look before you leap, and some say to leap before you look too much, but I’d suggest looking as you leap, assuming that the leap is inevitable.

And there’s more: Sex is often not just sex, but also an eroticized acting-out of unresolved issues, an arena wherein those needs of ours that we have sexualized are given free rein, as if they are just the expression of our innate sexuality. In considering our erotically-harnessed “solutions” for dealing with past difficulties — low self-esteem, family problems, anxiety, violence, and so on — the explicitly sexual details are not so important as the setting, context, and dramatic particulars. Our sexual arousal might, for example, have much to do with simply wanting to be nonjudgmentally noticed by an obviously attentive fantasy partner. Yes, our excitation or “charge” regarding this may manifest sexually in our fantasy, but it is only secondarily sexual, its primary impetus being rooted in a longing to be openly loved and seen. This is further fleshed out and given deserving depth by closely examining the supporting props (clothing, furniture, words spoken, etcetera) in our fantasy — the details say much about the original context out of which our fantasy arose, perhaps making possible a reconstruction of previously unintegrated events.

Take a darker example: A man frequents SM parlors, getting the most sexual pleasure out of being whipped hard. In his fantasies he associates sexuality with violence, and is drawn to porn that features this association. Some might think he’s just sexually kinky, but what’s truer is that he’s deeply wounded. Take away the erotic overlay in his fantasies and practices, and what’s left is simple violence and, eventually, heartbreak. It’s no big surprise to find out he was severely beaten, literally whipped bloody, by his mother during his boyhood, and that that was the only touch he got from her. Eroticizing his internalized and undealt-with violence simply took the edge off it, providing a way to discharge the surfacing pain of it. Stripping it down to its roots made possible a healing that quickly eroded his interest in SM porn and practices. Once the original pain had been openly felt and skillfully worked with, there was no need to sexualize it.

Another example: A woman, clearly heterosexual, finds to her embarrassment that the most erotically alive fantasies for her involve other women. No men are present. She’s had some sexual encounters with other women, but it just didn’t work for her. What’s going on in her fantasies is a women-only encounter; take away the erotic dimension, and all that is actually occurring is women being close to each other. This woman grew up in a home with a very violent father and brothers, and found her only comfort, however minimal, in the company of her mother and aunts. Understandably, she has charge with being in a setting that features the safety and warmth of other women, a setting in which she can really relax and let go; the fact that she has eroticized this simply means that it represents something that has generated excitation in her for a long time.

So our erotic fantasies are tales well worth investigating, tales that reveal much about us. What they dramatize is simply the sexualizing — arising from the excitement, however negative — of our longing to be fulfilled, safe, secure, loved, needed, seen, touched, known, and perhaps also our longing to find release from past difficulties and trauma through the very excitation (however terrifying) generated by such difficulties and trauma. The intensity of the pleasure or release that such fantasies promise is a marker of the intensity of the pain we are trying to bypass. Some erotic fantasies may be quite complex, but their themes are not; in fact, such complexity might just reflect a need to have many things in order or under control so that the desired outcome can occur, a need that likely has its roots in many things having been out of order or control in our early years.

Now back to the question of following a promiscuous (or otherwise “unseemly” sexual) urge: Go beneath its surface. Get intimate with it. Try stripping it of its erotic components, and see what is left. Let’s say that what’s left for you is fear of rejection. Instead of sexualizing that fear (that is, converting its energetic excitation into an erotic hunger), enter it. Why should your sexuality be sentenced to the task of avoiding your fear? Why burden your sexuality with the obligation to relieve you of your pain? Some men who are filled with unexpressed and unresolved anger may seem to be highly sexed or hypersexual, frequently wanting to fuck, but what they are really doing is fucking away their anger, or at least the branchings of their anger, turning their partners into outhouses for their frustration and rage. Allow your sexuality to be itself, instead of assigning it to stress-release, egoic gratification, spousal pacification, and so on. Free it from the obligation to make you feel better or more attractive or more secure. Liberate it from the sweatshops of your neuroses. And, if you really need to be promiscuous enroute to this, do it with open eyes, so that it becomes a springboard into a deeper sexuality, rather than just an excuse to overstay your time in sexual shallows.

One more thing: Don’t try to work this all out by yourself. Talk about it in depth with good friends, and don’t hesitate to spend some time with a competent therapist. No need for sex therapy; good therapy takes into account and works with the totality of what you are, so your sexuality is viewed and worked with in the context of your entirety. As you come into fuller alignment with who and what you really are, your sexuality will follow along.

And toss this into the mix: Fuck needing to have someone else’s permission to take the leaps you’ve decided to take; finding the balls to do so without having anyone else’s permission will give you the very strength that you need to say a clear yes or no to your impulses, sexual and otherwise. Your wildness awaits you; don’t reject it, or reduce it to promiscuous fantasies, or try to green it. Let it remind you of your true size, even as you learn to more fully embody the deep masculine.

BLUES FOR SEX

Sex got a bad rap, sex got knocked
Sex got stuck in a pelvic headlock
Sex got bashed for burning pious hands
So sex went to church and sex went to hell
And sex did cry out for its abandoned lands
And sex did weep for the return of its lovers

Sex took a beating, sex got screwed
Sex ricocheted between prude and crude
Sex got blamed, sex got sent below
Where there’s too little light to grow
Just drugged heat and hungry meat
Sex got burdened with romantic demands
Sex got hijacked to desperate lands
Sex got bashed for making ends meet
The basement bulged, the house shook, the judge threw the book
And sex did cry out for love and homeground
And sex did weep for lovers awake and unbound
And sex asks for another hearing, a deeper clearing

The machinery upstairs keeps masquerading as us
The mind shacking up with pornoramic views
See all the loneliness too afraid to be alone
Pelvises grinding for promised pie or holier skies
Sex squirms in its cells, doing too much time
And sex longs to be itself, longs to be freed of lies
A flesh-bright ecstasy of passion and grace
A succulently rapturous loss of face

Sex got smeared, sex got caught up in mind
Sex took on so much that it got left behind
Sex to superconsciousness said someone
And what devout humping, what ambitious friction!
But sexstasy blew its cover in hotbeds of spiritualized greed
Its sublime screwing just another ego-fueled doing
And sex did cry out for a deeper embrace
And sex did weep for the return of its lovers

********************************


3. I think Stuart’s right on. We may think we’re being clean, even squeaky clean, in our doings, without considering our operational context in any real depth. We may think that we’re actually choosing this or that, but most of the time, maybe even almost all of the time, we’re not doing the choosing -- rather, our conditioning is doing the choosing. If our actual choice-making (or preference-generating) capacity is not itself a conscious choice of ours, what does that say about us? Put another way, if the self — or personified conditioning — making the choices is itself not a conscious choice of ours, can we really say that we are indeed making choices? We may think that we’re making choices, but in actuality “our” choices, with few exceptions, are making us — and making us up. Seems pretty fucking depressing, isn’t it? But it’s actually quite liberating: The deepest knowing does not choose, and yet out of it the optimal choices are made, choices that are not really choices in any conventional sense, but rather only lucid obedience to the fundamental necessity of a particular situation.


Stuart’s efforts to be honest, upfront, and transparent with females during his promiscuous days was a choice that obscured a deeper choice to validate, sanction, and follow his sexual appetite, as he so clearly describes. We may like the notion of “consenting adults” when it comes to sexual practices, but who’s to say that those involved are really adults (to me, most adults are just adult-erated children and adolescents) and that real consent is taking place? Saying “yes” from an unawakened place is totally different than saying “yes” from an awakened place, but if we have an investment in hearing “yes”, then we won’t give a fuck where it comes from.

Just because someone doesn’t say “no” doesn’t necessarily mean that they want to go ahead; I’ve seen many, many women in therapy who could not initially say “no”, because when they’d originally needed to say it, or had had the urge to say it, they’d been in a situation (like incest or rape) where it was far too dangerous to say “no.” They’d learned, for reasons of pure survival, to shut up. Would they say no to a man who was sexually interested in them? No. Not even if he repulsed them. Once they’d reclaimed their real voice and power, they could of course readily voice and stand behind their no.

As we awaken we realize, right to our marrow, that what we do to another we do to ourselves, and then behaving ethically is not so much a choice as a necessity, a sacred duty, a commitment. So long as we can fuck around with and manipulate others for our own ends (sex here being not much more than a matter of making ends meet), and frame the whole fucked-up scene as not being fucked-up, we are only fucking ourselves. It’s no accident that one meaning of getting fucked is getting exploited. All Stuart needed was to wake up to what he was doing; to his credit, he then acted on what he discovered. Here is what’s really unethical: When we know better and don’t act on it. If you are behaving stupidly and don’t know it, it’s one thing, inviting in its own consequences, but if you do know it and still behave the same way, you’re going to invite in some really heavy-duty consequences, because anything less wouldn’t do the job properly.

I don’t think you can have sexual maturity without a corresponding emotional, moral, psychological, and spiritual maturity. Those who are cognitively very developed, but whose hearts are young, will not be sexually mature, tending to either be shut off sexually or to overindulge in erotic fantasy (thereby bringing their minds into sexual chambers). Those who are spiritually and morally relatively advanced, but who are emotionally immature or stunted, will not be sexually mature, tending to dissociate during sex, or to burden it with tantric expectations. And so on.

Sex does not need to be (and in fact cannot be) crystallized out from the rest of our experience (as those overly focused on the mechanics of sexuality often try to do). Rather, it needs to be seen, felt, and lived in vital, open-eyed resonance — and relationship — with everything we do and are, so that it is, as much as possible, not just an act of specialized function, nor an act bound to the chore of making us feel better or more secure, but rather an unfettered expression of already-present (and, eventually, already-loving and already-unstressed) wholeness.

To begin embodying such wholeness requires a thorough investigation of the labor to which we have assigned — or sentenced — our sexuality.

That labor and its underpinnings are eloquently revealed in the stark slang of sex. Many of the words and phrases denoting human coitus bluntly illustrate the often confused, disrespectful, and exploitive attitude we commonly bring to our sexuality, and sexuality in general. Consider, for example, the notorious and enormously popular multivalent “f” word, for which there are an incredible number of non-copulatory meanings, a fucking incredible number, all pointedly and colorfully describing what we may actually be up to when we’re busy being sexual or erotically engaged.


Here is a partial list, the majority of which overlap in meaning with each other: ignorance (“Fucked if I know”); indifference (“I don’t give a fuck”); degradation (“You stupid fuck”); disappointment (“This is really fucked”); rejection (“Get the fuck out of here” or “Fuck off”); manipulation (“You’re fucking with my head”); disgust (“Go fuck yourself”); vexation (“What the fuck are you doing?”); exaggeration (“It was so fucking good”); situational MSG’ing (“What a fucking great meal”); rage (“Fuck you!” or “Don’t fuck with me!”); and, perhaps most pithily revealing of all, exploitation (“I got fucked”). It is also worth noting that the noun “fucker” is, though usually not complimentary, sometimes used in an affectionate or playful manner. A fine fucking mess.


Throw the various meanings of “fuck” together, plus the “higher” or more “decent” terms for sexual intercourse — including the vague “having a relationship” and the unwittingly precise “sleeping together” — and mix in some insight, and what will emerge, however dishevelled, is a collage made up of (1) the dysfunctional labor to which we’ve sentenced our sexual capacity; and (2) the expectations (like “Make me feel wanted”) with which we’ve saddled and burdened it.

If you don’t want to get fucked, you’re going to have to disturb your slumber, and rub the sleep out of your “I’s” -- a true labor of love this is, asking everything of us. You don’t have to fuck others in order to wake up, but if you’re already fucking others, you might as well allow yourself to be awakened by such activity. I remember someone who was being incredibly promiscuous telling me that he’d given up on meditation and was simply “fucking his way to God” --he rode his wave for a bit before it crashed, depositing him ass-in-the-air on a shore far from the desired one, too exhausted to pull his head from the sand. This is not to say that sex can’t be spiritual -- for it can, in mind-blowing, astonishingly illuminating and ecstatic ways -- but that fucking others is ultimately a dead-end waiting to be discovered. How long that discovery takes varies from person to person, but it awaits us all, inviting us into the ethical heartland of the Real, where integrity is no longer a concept, but a rock-solid given.

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PART SEVENTEEN - April 16, 2006

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arthur/adastra asks:

1. How would you characterize the similarities and differences between doing therapy in person versus over the phone? Would you consider the phone therapy less effective in some way? Do you charge the same amount for both types of therapy?

2. Would you continue to do phone therapy for a long period of time with someone, or would you consider it necessary to see the individual in person after a certain number of sessions?

3. Have you ever done couples therapy over the phone in a conference call? If so, how is that different from working with a couple face to face or working with an individual client over the phone?

Robert answers:

1. In-person therapy is generally more effective than phone therapy, simply because it includes not only the finely-attuned hearing and in-depth dialogue that’s essential to good phone therapy, but also an abundance of visual and somatic clues that help provide a fuller sense of the client, as well as the possibility of incorporating bodywork and other physically active practices (like acting out a part in a dream or switching back-and-forth in Gestalt contexts) in the session.

Having said this, I still think that phone therapy can be very effective, especially when it’s allowed to be more than just good dialogue. Once issues have been clarified and their contextual foundations illuminated, so that necessary connections are clearly seen, the therapist can let this be enough for the session -- and sometimes this is plenty, with no need to go any further -- or take it into deeper territory.

What does this look like? Here are some possibilities: 1) Basic meditation techniques can be taught; 2) a guided meditation, uniquely suited to and centered by the client’s key issue or issues, can be done, drawing the client into a more openly feeling and/or spiritually-rooted place; 3) the client can be guided into fuller emotional expression, perhaps through altering their breathing patterns and/or by expressing certain statements (which may include amplifying them); 4) if clients have written something as homework (from a previous phone session), they can be asked not only to read what they’ve written, but also to emphasize emotionally-charged parts, perhaps repeating them until there’s some loosening up of feeling; 5) some degree of psychodrama can be done once the primary elements of a particular issue have been clearly identified and examined.

There are, of course, lots of other possibilities in doing phone therapy. Ideally, after a few phone sessions, the client would make the trip to do some in-person sessions. But even if this is not possible, phone therapy can still be a valuable thing to do. And do I charge the same rate for phone sessions as for in-person sessions? Yes.

2. I don’t do phone therapy for a long period of time with a client. After a while (say, 3 or 4 sessions), I usually either wrap up the sessions (which often includes supporting my client in looking for a suitable therapist in their area) or have the client come work with me in-person.

3. No. A sizable portion of my private practice is with couples, and every such session I do requires that I keep my full attention on both persons and on their way of relating to each other. With single clients, I’m not witnessing and directly dealing with the intersubjective realms “between” them and another, but with couples I am, and to do so effectively, I need to be in their physical presence, so as to be able to observe firsthand what is passing between them. Yes, over the phone I could probably pick up a lot of relevant data just from hearing how each conversed with the other, but in person I would pick up much, much more. I would not do a group over the phone, and a couple is, in a psychotherapeutic context, the smallest possible group, but a group nonetheless.

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PART EIGHTEEN - April 16, 2006

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(The first question is taken from the [link=http://in.integralinstitute.org/public/forums/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=15065]acceptance of what is[/link] thread.)

jimtzu asks:

as some of you may know through various posts this last year i have a friend whose husband has progressive MS, which is a steady decline resulting in loss of functions and inevitably death. the external symptoms are being treated (not always satisfactorily by the medical industrial complex) as best they know how at this point.
the reason i'm posting this is to get some ideas and insight on how he can deal with the internal (psychological and spiritual) aspects of coming to terms with his disease and the acceptance of where he is at this moment.
perhaps some wisdom of a personal nature or some sources and/or examples from the psychological/spiritual fields.
not only does he deal with pain and the side effects of medications, he is struggling with accepting his condition and the different role it has put him in... the loss of his manhood (virility, no longer being the bread winner, not being able to take care of his children, etc) and his "human hood" ( feeling helpless, worthless etc)
finding a way for him (or anybody) to accept his disease and where he is now and the possible future will do wonders for his psychological health and those around him. and a good lesson for us all....

any ideas?

Robert answers:

A difficult, very challenging situation, asking for an opening of heart and self that is far from easy...Though I don’t know much about MS, I do have a twofold response that I hope will be of some use: First of all, considering what might be done to make his psychosocial/spiritual environment a more healing setting; and second, considering what he might do to take better care of himself.

I think it’s crucial that those around your friend’s husband see and feel him as more than just a man with progressive MS. This means not getting caught up in the drama of his situation, without in any way distancing themselves from his pain, so that they are not obstructing their capacity to connect with him. Also, if they have not developed some intimacy with their own deep pain, they will not be able to respond very well to his; they may feel bad for him, they may feel upset about his condition, but they will not be able to meet him the way he really needs to be met.

Those around him need to recognize that his situation, his condition, is asking not only for a being-centered response from him, but also from them. Such recognition -- which is far more than just an intellectual undertaking -- would shift the scene from that of an ill person surrounded by those who are, for the moment, less ill, to that of a group of kindred beings all together facing a painful situation with awakened compassion and a shared commitment to making the best possible use of that situation.

And what can your friend’s husband do to take better care of himself? First of all, clearly differentiate between cure and healing (Stephen Levine’s book Healing Into Life and Death clarifies this difference in a very real and readable way); cure is all about fixing things, whereas healing concerns in-the-flesh integration and making whole what was previously fragmented. Whatever in your friend’s husband lies unresolved, stuck, ostracized, or otherwise disowned needs to be allowed to surface, so that it can be directly worked with (as through skillful, bodywork-including, emotionally literate psychotherapy) and integrated.

Emotional release work, however light, will more than likely be necessary; this may be messy at first, but the expressive, contextually sensitive emergence of previously contracted emotionality will speed his return to a more being-centered selfhood. My guess is that before this can happen, he’ll need to recognize his shame (over his emasculation, loss of functionality, and so on) for what it is, or it will likely mutate into guilt and the kind of depressiveness that keeps a heavy lid on emotional openness. (I’ve seen many men who could only access their fully feeling self when their shame was allowed to show up as itself and flush through their system.) If he is open to doing some emotionally expressive, in-depth psychotherapy (which can be as subtle as it’s cathartic), I’d also have him learn some basic meditative practices at roughly the same time. He’d likely find these easier as he opened more.

Instead of judging himself, he would become more aware of the very process of self-judging, without judging himself for judging. Along the way, he could be taught to deepen his compassion for himself and his situation (and for all those in a similar circumstance). All of this makes possible a true acceptance of his situation, not a resigned or submissive acceptance, but a dynamic acceptance, an opening to the deepest dimensions of Life. Dying to live.

Learning to bear the unbearable is a journey that, however hellish its terrain, can break open our heart enough to allow us to embrace what really matters. May your friend’s husband choose and complete that passage, and may he be supported as much as possible in doing so.

Some suggested reading for him (which could also be read to him):

Tuesdays With Morrie (Mitch Albom)
A Year To Live (Stephen Levine)

One more thing: The more clearly suffering and pain are differentiated, the better...

Suffering Versus Pain

If you want to end your suffering, enter your pain.

Though pain and suffering are often thought of as being much the same, they differ greatly from each other.

Pain is fundamentally just unpleasant sensation. Suffering, on the other hand, is something we are doing with our pain.

Pain comes, often inescapably so, with Life. It often also is, especially in its alerting (and awakening) capacity, necessary. Suffering, however, is far less necessary than we might think and is, in fact, a choice.

When we cannot sufficiently distract or distance ourselves from our pain, we generally turn it into suffering. How? By dramatizing our pain. We make an unpleasantly gripping story out of it, a tale in which our hurt “I” all but automatically assumes the throne of self. I hurt, therefore I am — this is suffering’s core credo.

In so doing, we are simply identifying with our pain, overpersonalizing it.

Where pain is consciously felt hurt, suffering is the manipulation of that hurt into drama, a drama in which we’re likely so busy acting out —and being literally occupied by — our hurt role that we’ve little or no motivation to stand apart from it.

In the myopic theatrics of suffering, pain itself mostly just stagnates, like an unwanted exhibit in an art gallery. It is not really seen, not really touched. We may feel close to our pain when we are busy suffering, but it is not the kind of closeness that heals. It is, in fact, an unwelcome proximity, through which we generally just reinforce our suffering, if only because of our sheer desperation to be elsewhere.

The degree to which we turn our pain into suffering is the degree to which we obstruct our own healing.

When we’re busy suffering, we are all but bereft of healthy detachment. We’re then removed from the naked reality of our pain — our attention being more on our storyline than on the nonconceptual rawness of our pain — but not removed in a way that permits us to focus more clearly on what is actually going on.

As such, suffering is unhealthy separation from our pain. Suffering is pain that’s gone to mind, pain that’s doing time in mental cells, mental hells.

The good news is that the more intimate we are with our pain, the less we suffer.

To work effectively with our suffering, we need both to stand apart from its script and to cease distancing ourselves from our pain.

Suffering may seem to keep us near to our pain, but it actually keeps us from getting as close to our pain as we need to, if we are live a more liberated life.

Suffering houses pain, but keeps it in the dark.

When we turn on the lights, the dramatics of suffering become transparent. Then the uncensored reality of our pain gets our full attention, particularly at the level where it is but unpleasant sensation. Then we can enter our pain with care, clarity, and precision, getting to know it from the inside — its fluxing weave and interplay of shape, color, texture, intensity, pressure, location, layering, and so on.

Often when we say that we’re in pain, we’re not really in our pain, but rather are only closer to it than we’d like. But in fact, we’re still outside it.

It is in the conscious and compassionate entry into our pain that we begin to find some real freedom from it. Our hurt may remain, but our relationship to it will have changed to the point where it’s no longer such a problem to us, and in fact may even become a doorway into What-Really-Matters.

The healing of pain is found in pain itself.

As we become more intimate with our pain, we find that we are less and less troubled by it. Suffering is, among other things, a refusal to develop any intimacy with our pain. In fact, suffering only jails our pain.

But the cage door is open, already open, as we’ll see if we just turn around, away from the screens upon which our suffering projects its stories. Then we begin to awaken, to exit from our entrapping dreams. Awareness upstages suffering, dissolving its grip on us, taking us to the heart, the core, the epicenter, of our pain.

And there, in that place of hurt, we meet not more hurt, but more us. More healing, more peace, more welcome.

May we all free ourselves from suffering.

integralschism/Bryan asks:

Are the Men's Group workshops all being held in Vancouver? Do you plan to do anything in the Bay Area (aka the best place on earth)?

Robert answers:

Yes, the Men’s Group workshops are all being held in the Vancouver area. And the Bay area? I’ve no plans to do such groups there, but would be open to doing so if there was enough of a demand for it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

PART NINETEEN - April 16, 2006

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jana/Plasmafly asks:

In Mind Wide Open: Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life by Steven Johnson he says on page 111 that only 5% of mammals are monogamous and that the key factor in creating monogamy was oxytocin in a certain brain area. Obviously the generation of this type of chemistry could be "institutionalized" through changes in an animals collective social patterns.

Also in a fantastic article by Robert M. Sapolsky
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20060101faessay85110-p0/robert-m-sapolsky/a-natural-history-of-peace.html

He says that humans physiologically are neither monogamous or polygamous but both. "We lack the type of physiology or anatomy that in other mammals determine their mating system, and have come up with societies based on monogamy, polygyny, and polyandry."6

It appears that the mature monogamy that you suggest is a form of art that transcends both biology and culture...hence you could say that it might be the both a magnification and culmination of both biology and culture would it not?


Robert answers:

Mature monogamy is, among other things, a psychospiritual art, existing not just outside the confines of conventional culture, but also beyond it. That is, it exists not on the horizontal outskirts of the conventional (where we can dress up in nonconventional habits and practices), but as part of a vertical dimension of relationality that is not apparent until we rub the sleep out of our I’s.

Put another way, mature monogamy is not a different state of relationship, but rather a different stage. There is much that could be said about this stage, but for now let’s just say that it features a radical intersubjectivity in which whatever arises is not just related from, but also related to, through a mutually transparent intimacy and love.

Mature monogamy is not something we can enter into and practice just because it sounds like a good idea to us; we have to be ready for it. And how do we get ready? By exposing, exploring, and ceasing to be a pawn of our conditioning; by turning toward our pain; by doing practices that wake us up; by adopting a nonproblematic orientation toward our difficulties; by putting our passion into leaving our prisons rather than trying to make them cozier or sexier (so that we, to take but one example, no longer confuse the eroticizing of unresolved issues with sexual freedom). Doing such deep work on ourselves doesn’t necessarily lead to mature monogamy, but it makes it possible.

Those who are in deadening monogamous relationships -- and most monogamous relationships are, despite upbeat appearances to the contrary, deadening (flattening, dulling, desiccating) -- will not have a chance at mature monogamy until their desire to be truly free becomes stronger (or is allowed to become more central) than their desire to continue distracting themselves from their suffering. They may try all kinds of strategies to make themselves feel better -- sexual, narcotic, and otherwise -- but what they really need to do is together face the deadness and stuckness in their relationship and do whatever work is necessary to get to the root of it. This means that they need to be willing to face the possibility that they may have to part; doing deep work does not guarantee that they will stay together. Perhaps their bond can mutate into one of mature monogamy, and perhaps not. But if they do the necessary work, they will become capable of mature monogamy, whether with each other or another.

In immature monogamy, we have an affair with the other’s conditioning and/or potential. In mature monogamy, we marry the other’s being; we’re not seduced by their potential, nor are we locked into their (or our) conditioning. Rather, we know our partner’s conditioning as intimately as our our own, and are able to keep it in healthy perspective, letting ourselves be awakened, rather than constrained, by it. There is no neat cartography for this. It is an art, a truly integral art that asks nothing less than everything of us. Rather than exploiting the possibilities of our bond, we instead awaken through our full-blooded participation in it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Timelody/Tim asks:

I believed for my entire life that major events in my family during my early childhood (0-5) “did not affect me.” This is because for some 27 years there was literally no emotion about it. It was all “no big deal.”
And then, only four years ago, an argument with my mother suddenly jarred something loose and a crack broke in what is in reality a massive dyke that I truly was not aware existed . . . much less carried around with me every second . . . and suddenly made my entire life make sense in a way it never had before. That is, I was suddenly aware of the fact that not only was I wholly NOT “not effected” but that this had been secretly molding, shaping, determining and motivating who I was, how I related to people, where I wanted to go, what I pursued to such a degree it was as if I was actually carrying the Empire State building on my shoulders, though unaware and pretending to be "okay."
But this was not the only thing, and this is what scares me: I was suddenly completely aware of the exact same thing in every single member of my large family (six kids) and how all of the major patters, dominant personality traits, life paths, escape mechanisms and so forth could all be traced to this same thing. I could see how all of our lives, literally grew up (and apart in a millions directions) out of this completely unhealthy, weird, toxic and dysfunctional family culture-and we were all trying to avoid admitting it, parents included.
My mother was not mentally (psychologically-emotionally) healthy when I was born. Her mental stability was falling apart before I was born and only became more unstable after. She in fact had to be hospitalized several times over the course of many years, had several major “nervous breakdowns” (as the only way that it has ever been explained) and in between those she was continually not well. (There was even last resort electro-shock therapy, paranoid delusions, complete magical regress, emotional-religious overtones, mention of schizophrenia - just to demonstrate the extent of it.) And it is as if once the psycho-emotional-spiritual and existential nuclear explosion of this experience was physically over, everyone just shut it out, not knowing what hit them. The bomb went off, but the echoes have never been sounded, the damage and debris never assessed, all of that simply disappeared into a vortex of invisible nothingness.
When I realized this I was shocked in a way I have never been shocked before. It was as if my entire life had been a lie, and also that of my family, when the massive effects of this were so obvious to see, everywhere and in everyone. In over thirty years we have met together as an entire family in one place at once time only twice. There is now a third looming on the near horizon-my parents 50th wedding anniversary.
And when I think of this approaching anniversary I find myself stuck in world of either anger or depression. I don’t feel like there is anything to celebrate. I am angry that these things were not dealt with better. I am angry that our family fell apart and no one ever tried to put it back together. I am angry that I have lived an entire life in a state of what in large part feels like embarrassment and nobody ever tried to do anything about it except pretend it was all okay.
None the less, I do not want to ruin this important celebration, but I am not sure I will be able to stop myself. It will be completely unfair, I think, if this 0-5 baby who has never released his emotions (and all the other stages after) does so now. And yet, I don’t know how I can hold it back. The consequence of that –something I seem to have grown truly adept in-is a complete emotional shut-off, a void blank depression without expression. It is as if visiting is a descent into a dark and suffocating world with no way out. The family setting is the trigger for this and I believe explains perfectly why we have such a pitiful history of celebrating anything together.
Do you have any suggestions or ways or anything that I can find the compassion and strength behind all this, to get through this, without dragging everyone into a past they are not ready (and may never be) to see?


Robert answers:

If you do nothing other than keep the lid on, you’re going to have a hell of a time at your parents’ wedding anniversary, because the locks of repression have now been loosened up. My recommendation is to take the lid off as soon as possible, not with your parents and siblings (at least for a bit), but in a place where it’s safe to do so, as in the presence of a suitably skilled psychotherapist (one who knows how to deal with surfacing trauma and emotional intensities in a more than merely cognitive manner). Yes, you will feel a lot of pain, and you will likely feel sometimes as though you are a child again during this, but it is in entering that pain, that original wounding, that real healing begins. You may rage, you may sob, you may twist and writhe and ache, but the very movement of all this through your system will, sooner or later, cleanse you and ready you for a deeper life. As you do this, insights (including into what to do regarding your parents and siblings) will arise that very likely could not have otherwise been accessed. You’ll have left the “safety” of your numbness, and stepped into the raw feeling that most of your life has been a flight from and solution for -- no matter how much this hurts, you will know, right to your core, that you are getting back on track.

We have an amazing ability to encapsulate trauma and to keep it from everyday consciousness. This has obvious survival benefits -- how else, for example, could we get through an unrelentingly abusive childhood? -- but the price we pay is steep, especially when we carry such trauma into our adult years. Keeping the lid on take a lot of juice. Repression makes us more prone to depression. The issues in our tissues weight us down, slowly poisoning our natural vitality. We don’t feel fully. Being comfortably numb then becomes something not to undo, but to reinforce.

I suggest that you, as soon as possible, start doing some psychotherapy that works not just with your mind, but also with your body and emotions. Release-work is essential. You need to cut loose. This will go especially well if it includes talking to your mother as though she’s there (both as she was and is) in the therapy room with you, letting yourself speak freely, no matter how noisy, rude, crazy-sounding, or wild your expression is. It’s also important to do some grounding work at the end of the sessions and on your own, so as to help stabilize the openings you’ll be having.

If you’re not already working out, I recommend doing so (aerobic work is particularly important). Daily meditative practice would be very helpful. Writing letters (as part of your psychotherapy) to your mother and father -- wide-open, nothing-held-back, fuck-the-grammar letters that are not to be sent to them -- will speed your healing. Every day, at the end of your meditative practice, spend some time wishing your mother and father well (even if you were hating their guts a short time earlier in your therapy sessions or elsewhere). Cultivating compassion -- not idiot compassion, but real compassion -- for them (and yourself and your siblings) is worth doing, in conjunction with the full-out expression of your anger and grief regarding your early years with them.

I don’t know when your parents’ wedding anniversary is, but even if you only have time for a few sessions before then (plus every day do the mindfulness and compassion practices mentioned above), I think you’ll be able to handle the “celebration” without much trouble. You’ll see so much there, in the behavior and interactions of your parents and siblings, and you can treat it all as data to be stored until the time comes to share it. You might even feel a bit like an anthropologist doing field study, gathering information for an upcoming presentation. Release as much emotion as possible a few hours before the gathering (yelling/screaming into a pillow, breathing hard, letting your body shake, letting tears come, etcetera, as detailed by your therapist), and do what you do mindfully right up to and during the gathering, remembering to internally wish everyone there well, and you’ll likely have a relatively positive and highly instructive experience.

Sometime after the wedding anniversary you can begin speaking with your family members about what happened when you were little, when you’ve done enough work to be ready to do so. You might start by sharing what you’ve gone through with the sibling(s) most likely to understand and appreciate what you’re saying. I can also see you talking with your mother face-to-face -- again, when you’re ready (that is, no longer reactively caught up in what happened long ago) -- in such a way that she feels not shamed or diminished, but rather invited into a potentially healing dialogue. If you’re open and vulnerable with her, she may surprise you with what she says and does. And even if she doesn’t respond well to you, you’ll find that it is healing to simply talk about what has not been talked about. At some point, you might write about what happened when you were a boy, simply describing that time and how it impacted your life, and share it with everyone involved. Some might not respond well to this, but having it out in the open at least increases the odds of healing within the family.

Through all this, you will probably get more information about what actually happened to your mother and the rest of the family, far beyond the vague “nervous breakdown”. The more you can find out, the better. Make sure you also find out as much as possible about your birth (and how the preceding pregnancy was).

I realize that the thought of taking the lid off before going to your parents’ wedding anniversary is probably far from pleasant, but doing some deep work prior to that event will de-pressurize and loosen you, freeing you in unexpected ways.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Arthur/adastra asks:

Robert, what are your impressions of the Integral Naked workshop compared to other workshops you've done? Do you feel that everyone knowing each other at the beginning made a difference? Many of us went back for more sessions afterward and also continued to process everything that came up on Saturday; indeed the entire week felt like a transformative workshop. Do you feel that the further individual sessions combined with the ongoing social interactions that week synergistically facilitated people's growth? (This is very much my personal impression.) If we decided to have another such workshop in future gatherings, is there any advice you'd offer based on the experience of this one?


Robert answers:

The Integral Naked workshop was not fundamentally different than my other groups, but the already-present connections between the participants made the work done all the richer. I was reminded of the closeness of participants in my training programs who so obviously enjoy seeing each other again at each succeeding weekend module.

You ask if I “feel that the further individual sessions combined with the ongoing social interactions that week synergistically facilitated people's growth?” My answer is a resounding yes!

You also ask “If we decided to have another such workshop in future gatherings, is there any advice you'd offer based on the experience of this one?” Come prepared to do deep work, and to deepen your bonds with the others in the group. And, if at all possible, do some work with me prior to the group.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

PART TWENTY - April 16, 2006

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

leela asks:

Robert,
I get so much from everything that you share, but this is standing out for me these days...
“by putting our passion into leaving our prisons rather than trying to make them cozier or sexier (so that we, to take but one example, no longer confuse the eroticizing of unresolved issues with sexual freedom).”
I am finding it VERY challenging to watch this pattern in people in positions of power or in “committed relationships.” I feel like I am so keenly aware of the damage done to others from these positions and I desire to see that pain end. Its hard to enough to witness it in myself and others when we are going about our day to day (not as therapist, ministers etc), mostly due to the fact that I am still processing the pain I have caused other or they have caused me by acting on those passions that cozy up our prisons. Lately I find myself dealing with loved ones who appear to be doing everything they can to keep those bars in tact while thinking or acting like they are doing the opposite. The lines between keeping a higher perspective and my own emotional reactions are getting harder for me to separate. How do we differentiate our personal judgments from a higher principal? The example of Marc Gafni comes to mind. His pathologies are not something many of us are free from on some level, but his acting on them while in a position of power adds another level of damage. I don’t think he would have had the power within himself to stop his behavior, it required exposure, removal from his position & hopefully therapy to address the issues. Where is that line between witnessing this and exposing it? What is our personal responsibility in speaking out when we know? Are we guilty of enabling the pathology when we witness it and do nothing?
I also ponder the idea that we seek out exposure on some level too. Like do people put themselves in a position to be exposed because that’s how they are asking for help? Are we robbing others of lessons potentially learned for their benefit by remaining silent?
Thank you,
~leela


Robert answers:


What’s the appropriate thing to do? No one-size-fits-all answer hangs out here, for we’re stepping into the ambiguity-laced, multileveled terrain of morality, which only gets increasingly nuanced and complex as we mature (which doesn’t, however, necessarily mean that it is always hard to crystallize into fittingly precise action).

We can -- and need to -- take strongly unequivocal stands in certain situations, even when the sense of what’s moral seems to be not much more than a shapeshifting phenomenon in a multiperspectival pool of possibilities. In this, we consider a situation from various levels and angles, adjusting our lenses and gathering as much relevant data as we can, and then, after letting it all settle (ideally in the unbounded openness of Being), we tune into which action (including doing nothing) has the strongest or most compelling intuitive pull for us.

This, of course, requires a capacity to hold -- not juggle, but hold, contain, even embrace -- different perspectives at the same time. And not just cognitively -- emotional literacy is also crucial, so that we can clearly factor what we’re actually feeling into our exploration of the situation. Our rationality (and transrationality), along with our meditative capacity to provide sentient spaciousness for whatever’s arising, best serve us morally when their findings are scanned/absorbed/evaluated by our feeling dimension (and I mean our nonreactive, consciously feeling dimension) before we take our moral stand.

Let’s consider emotion a bit more, especially with regard to its relationship to rationality: It is not uncommon to view emotions as being lower or more primitive than reason, doing little more than clouding the skies of rational thought, or muddying objectivity. Thinking clearly is thus often associated with dispassion, or a muting of our emotions; moral decisions are allegedly best made when passion and feeling are either “safely” out of the picture, or kept functionally peripheral to the decision-making process, much like children excluded or kept at a distance from parental discussions.

Implicit in this attitude is the common identification of emotion with subjectivity — in the sense that subjectivity is a failure to be objective — an identification that may be justifiable if and when emotion is irrational or egocentric, but not if it is also sometimes rationally informed.

One can be objective and emotional at the same time, as when a releasing of tears washes away an ossified stance, leaving us not in a particular position, but rather aware of possible positions. Research suggests that the openly felt, unrepressed presence of emotion can significantly contribute to mental and social skills. The practice of distancing or dissociating ourselves from our emotions, especially our apparently darker or more uncomfortable emotions, can seriously disrupt our ability to think clearly and act morally. An impairment in emotional capacity (as perhaps caused by damage to brain regions essential for emotional processing) can actually retard one’s ability to make sound decisions. Feelings are needed for making truly rational decisions. Without emotional intelligence (EQ), intellectual intelligence (IQ) means little. But put together EQ and IQ, plus some spiritual intelligence, and moral intelligence is more than possible.

So are ethical decisions best conducted in the absence of emotions? Not necessarily. If emotions are ways of viewing and evaluating (a primarily noncognitive evaluation, but an evaluation nonetheless) our world, then they are already deeply implicated in ethics, whether at the level where emotion is little more than a sense of liking or disliking, or at the level where emotion is a complex, somatically rooted yet mentally sophisticated (and perhaps even rational) “reading” of a given situation.

Okay, back to our situation...Sometimes arriving at a solid decision is not much more than a no-brainer. For example, if your spiritual teacher is fucking you and telling you to keep quiet about it while telling all his students that a good spiritual teacher never ever fucks his students, then blowing the whistle on him is a pretty clear option -- a gift to the other students, and also to the teacher. By exposing him, you are serving the well-being of all involved, regardless of the hurt that may arise. Another example: You find out that your neighbor is beating up his wife regularly; you’ve heard it a few times, and now have seen the bruises and black eyes, and are so outraged that you take action (bringing in the police, social services, etcetera). Again, a no-brainer.

Other times it’s a lot trickier. Your friend’s husband is, you one day discover, having sex with her best friend (X), who also happens to be a close friend of yours. What do you do? You know you’ve got to do something. But you’ve got to take into account certain factors: Your friend and X run a business together that supplies most of their income; your friend has told you that she would divorce her husband if he ever cheated on her; X is emotionally very fragile, with a history of suicidal ideation. So it’s a judgment call. You take all of the above into account, plus other factors (like the kind of relationship you have and want with each woman), notice how you feel as you let the whole thing settle in you, and see what intuition kicks in most strongly. Let’s say you decide to confront X; you don’t know how she’ll respond, but you do know that you expect her to put a halt to her affair. You might also want to tell your friend what has happened, or you might decide to leave that to X. You might also confront your friend’s husband. And so on. And it’s not just a matter of simple confrontation; the way in which you deal with each person is very important. For example, given X’s emotional fragility, you may want to handle your confrontation with her with extra care, perhaps already having some suggestions ready for her as to where she might go for professional help. And you may also want to put the whole thing in the open, trusting that your friend and her husband won’t necessarily separate -- you may think of how horrible it would be if your friend doesn’t discover what’s happened until much later, and then finds out that you knew all along and didn’t tell her. So you can see that whichever way you go, there are risks. This, however, need not paralyze you, but rather only remind you that you cannot know the full outcome of your actions. All you can do is act with all the integrity and care of which you are capable.

It’s also important to look deeply into our motivation for whistleblowing. At times, it may be admirable -- just a wanting to serve the greatest good for all involved -- and other times, it may be less-than-admirable, as when we are acting from jealousy or revenge, wanting to expose the offending others for the simple pleasure of seeing them suffer, even as it looks as if we’re doing something noble.

Exposing wrongdoing can be an unambiguous task, but it is not so straightforward in many cases; would you, for example, turn in a woman who stole from you in order to feed her children? What if that desperate act of hers was the only way she could feed her children at that time? There are plenty of examples like this. We may see a friend doing something we don’t approve of, and we cut them a lot of slack (more than we would grant a stranger), perhaps mentioning to them in private that we don’t feel so good about what they’re doing, but not to the degree of cutting them out of our lives.

For most of us, such compromises are not all that uncommon. Does this mean that we are not moral people? Not necessarily. Morality is much more than a set of rules; in its more mature stages, it not only involves a context-driven, transegoic interpretation of those rules, but also a decision-making capacity that may not depend at all upon those rules. At a certain point, we discover what is more moral than morality, and hitch our action tendencies to that, for better or for worse.

Prior to that, we are, to varying degrees, operating in the dark; all we can do then is take maximum advantage of whatever light and other resources we have, make our choices, and live as best we can with the consequences of those choices.
What’s the appropriate thing to do? No one-size-fits-all answer hangs out here, for we’re stepping into the ambiguity-laced, multileveled terrain of morality, which only gets increasingly nuanced and complex as we mature (which doesn’t, however, necessarily mean that it is always hard to crystallize into fittingly precise action).

We can -- and need to -- take strongly unequivocal stands in certain situations, even when the sense of what’s moral seems to be not much more than a shapeshifting phenomenon in a multiperspectival pool of possibilities. In this, we consider a situation from various levels and angles, adjusting our lenses and gathering as much relevant data as we can, and then, after letting it all settle (ideally in the unbounded openness of Being), we tune into which action (including doing nothing) has the strongest or most compelling intuitive pull for us.

This, of course, requires a capacity to hold -- not juggle, but hold, contain, even embrace -- different perspectives at the same time. And not just cognitively -- emotional literacy is also crucial, so that we can clearly factor what we’re actually feeling into our exploration of the situation. Our rationality (and transrationality), along with our meditative capacity to provide sentient spaciousness for whatever’s arising, best serve us morally when their findings are scanned/absorbed/evaluated by our feeling dimension (and I mean our nonreactive, consciously feeling dimension) before we take our moral stand.

Let’s consider emotion a bit more, especially with regard to its relationship to rationality: It is not uncommon to view emotions as being lower or more primitive than reason, doing little more than clouding the skies of rational thought, or muddying objectivity. Thinking clearly is thus often associated with dispassion, or a muting of our emotions; moral decisions are allegedly best made when passion and feeling are either “safely” out of the picture, or kept functionally peripheral to the decision-making process, much like children excluded or kept at a distance from parental discussions.

Implicit in this attitude is the common identification of emotion with subjectivity — in the sense that subjectivity is a failure to be objective — an identification that may be justifiable if and when emotion is irrational or egocentric, but not if it is also sometimes rationally informed.

One can be objective and emotional at the same time, as when a releasing of tears washes away an ossified stance, leaving us not in a particular position, but rather aware of possible positions. Research suggests that the openly felt, unrepressed presence of emotion can significantly contribute to mental and social skills. The practice of distancing or dissociating ourselves from our emotions, especially our apparently darker or more uncomfortable emotions, can seriously disrupt our ability to think clearly and act morally. An impairment in emotional capacity (as perhaps caused by damage to brain regions essential for emotional processing) can actually retard one’s ability to make sound decisions. Feelings are needed for making truly rational decisions. Without emotional intelligence (EQ), intellectual intelligence (IQ) means little. But put together EQ and IQ, plus some spiritual intelligence, and moral intelligence is more than possible.

So are ethical decisions best conducted in the absence of emotions? Not necessarily. If emotions are ways of viewing and evaluating (a primarily noncognitive evaluation, but an evaluation nonetheless) our world, then they are already deeply implicated in ethics, whether at the level where emotion is little more than a sense of liking or disliking, or at the level where emotion is a complex, somatically rooted yet mentally sophisticated (and perhaps even rational) “reading” of a given situation.

Okay, back to our situation...Sometimes arriving at a solid decision is not much more than a no-brainer. For example, if your spiritual teacher is fucking you and telling you to keep quiet about it while telling all his students that a good spiritual teacher never ever fucks his students, then blowing the whistle on him is a pretty clear option -- a gift to the other students, and also to the teacher. By exposing him, you are serving the well-being of all involved, regardless of the hurt that may arise. Another example: You find out that your neighbor is beating up his wife regularly; you’ve heard it a few times, and now have seen the bruises and black eyes, and are so outraged that you take action (bringing in the police, social services, etcetera). Again, a no-brainer.

Other times it’s a lot trickier. Your friend’s husband is, you one day discover, having sex with her best friend (X), who also happens to be a close friend of yours. What do you do? You know you’ve got to do something. But you’ve got to take into account certain factors: Your friend and X run a business together that supplies most of their income; your friend has told you that she would divorce her husband if he ever cheated on her; X is emotionally very fragile, with a history of suicidal ideation. So it’s a judgment call. You take all of the above into account, plus other factors (like the kind of relationship you have and want with each woman), notice how you feel as you let the whole thing settle in you, and see what intuition kicks in most strongly. Let’s say you decide to confront X; you don’t know how she’ll respond, but you do know that you expect her to put a halt to her affair. You might also want to tell your friend what has happened, or you might decide to leave that to X. You might also confront your friend’s husband. And so on. And it’s not just a matter of simple confrontation; the way in which you deal with each person is very important. For example, given X’s emotional fragility, you may want to handle your confrontation with her with extra care, perhaps already having some suggestions ready for her as to where she might go for professional help. And you may also want to put the whole thing in the open, trusting that your friend and her husband won’t necessarily separate -- you may think of how horrible it would be if your friend doesn’t discover what’s happened until much later, and then finds out that you knew all along and didn’t tell her. So you can see that whichever way you go, there are risks. This, however, need not paralyze you, but rather only remind you that you cannot know the full outcome of your actions. All you can do is act with all the integrity and care of which you are capable.

It’s also important to look deeply into our motivation for whistleblowing. At times, it may be admirable -- just a wanting to serve the greatest good for all involved -- and other times, it may be less-than-admirable, as when we are acting from jealousy or revenge, wanting to expose the offending others for the simple pleasure of seeing them suffer, even as it looks as if we’re doing something noble.

Exposing wrongdoing can be an unambiguous task, but it is not so straightforward in many cases; would you, for example, turn in a woman who stole from you in order to feed her children? What if that desperate act of hers was the only way she could feed her children at that time? There are plenty of examples like this. We may see a friend doing something we don’t approve of, and we cut them a lot of slack (more than we would grant a stranger), perhaps mentioning to them in private that we don’t feel so good about what they’re doing, but not to the degree of cutting them out of our lives.

For most of us, such compromises are not all that uncommon. Does this mean that we are not moral people? Not necessarily. Morality is much more than a set of rules; in its more mature stages, it not only involves a context-driven, transegoic interpretation of those rules, but also a decision-making capacity that may not depend at all upon those rules. At a certain point, we discover what is more moral than morality, and hitch our action tendencies to that, for better or for worse.

Prior to that, we are, to varying degrees, operating in the dark; all we can do then is take maximum advantage of whatever light and other resources we have, make our choices, and live as best we can with the consequences of those choices.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jana/Plasmafly asks:

Since you seem to be Mr. Passion himself, I would like to ask you a question about habit vs. passion.
I am fasting at present and it makes me aware of how my life is just a series of addictive habits. And that even an integral life is a series of life-supporting habits rather than self-destructive ones...swapping good habits for bad.

This does not seem to be congruent with a passionate life for habit seems to be the antithesis of passion. While on autopilot life cannot touch us, the known is boring, the bored brain is a dying brain...a dying life.

Beyond the realm of good and bad habits, how do you suggest establishing "Flow" and passion in ones life?

The first place I am starting is my breasts, which have been sorely neglected over my life. I am starting to massage them every night to reinstate my hormones and try to get some feeling back in my body. They say the breasts are affixed to the genitals...well mine aren't, at least not yet. Thus I start at the physical level with the good habit of breast massage until further hints on the passionate life from you are offered.

One thing I have noticed with my steady decline in passion is that I can no longer readily conjure feelings-thoughts-images of inner worlds, future visions and potentials like I used to when my soul felt more alive, tho I still have a vivid dream life it too lacks potency and purpose.

Part of the problem is the background high endorphin level I have experienced for years, I have to do something that will counteract the eternal buzz, and bring more "excitement" to my nervous system.


Robert answers:

Habits are self-reinforcing recurrent behavioral patterns. At one end of the spectrum, they are relatively harmless and even beneficial (a regular exercise habit, for example), and at the other end, they are destructive (a narcotics habit, etcetera). Habits vary not only in the degree of attachment brought to them, but also in the degree of consciousness granted them. Some habits graduate from routines into disciplines, while others remain adolescent, turning away from good intentions and well-scrubbed morals, preferring seedier hangouts, where they have the power to keep us serving them. Once our habits have us more than we have them, then addiction is a more appropriate term than habit.

Habits can include enormous passion, intense passion, passion that more often than not outshouts and bullies other imperatives in us. But it’s a passion that, however huge or stormy or hot, is nonetheless boxed in and framed by the habit that it’s serving. We’ve all seen others being very passionate in contexts that do nothing for us; you might, for example, watch curling on TV for hours with rapt, happily drooling attention, while I have to switch the channel immediately upon realizing that curling is filling the screen (if you don’t know what curling is, shame on you). Or I might have to have not only a banana in my late morning protein drink, but also have to have it when its skin is already generously mottled with brown blotches, whereas you are fine having a banana or not, and don’t care if its skin is yellow, brown, black, or even green. Of course, these are not addictions (and I don’t care if my wife says that I have a banana addiction, because I absolutely know that I don’t), but they still do contain some passion, however ridiculous they might seem to the uninitiated. Other habits, like arguing over stupid shit at the worst possible time (those doing time in the trenches of immature monogamy have a near-monopoly on this), can get really impassioned, draining away the energy needed for more useful pursuits.

Perhaps our most interesting habit is egoity, the detailing of which I’ll leave for another time, other than to say that it’s a habit with a mind of its own, and that truly and consistently recognizing it -- and not just intellectually -- as a habit is among the hardest work we’ll ever do.

Passion...Essential to bringing more passion into our lives is the practice of liberating it from the confines of habitualness. Think of it as letting the prisoners out, even though it’s not quite that simple. Passion doesn’t necessarily mean no containment or no restraint, anymore than it means screw the consequences. Abilities for both fitting containment and full-out (and responsible) expression of passion must be cultivated. Boundaries are often needed (if only to be kept on tap) when passion arises strongly, but it’s best if they are tailored to fit the current situation; otherwise, we’ll tend to slip into mere mechanicalness in the expressing and sharing of our passion.

The bigger we are when passion arises, the better; when we are our true size, passion has all the room it needs to find its most fitting expression.

If you want more passion in your life, you need to stop putting energy into practices and behaviors that don’t serve you. Check out your habits to see how much juice they are getting from you, and make a list of the ones that are simply draining or enervating you, and pick off one a week (or maybe even one every couple of days) from which to withdraw your energy. A habit fast. If this is really difficult, consider doing some deep therapy to uncover the roots of whatever habit seems to have you in its grip. Put your passion into recovering the passion that’s locked up in less-than-life-serving habits. It’s an adventure worth taking, a journey into what you’ve likely spent most of your life fleeing.

And, rather than trying to manipulate your way into increased passion, put some energy into directly facing the very deadness, stuckness, or pain that your desire for more passion is an escape from. Instead of trying to generate passion, make room for it to emerge. If you want to invite even more passion, get more vulnerable, more transparent, more open to all that constitutes you. Risk getting so close to another that you are opened beyond your every idea about yourself.

Energy that is invested in defensiveness and other forms of armoring simply means less energy for other things. Repression and suppression use up a lot of energy. Recognize the passion that can take you over, whether in the form of rage, grief, lust, or ecstasy, and see that when one of them is denied full expression, the others usually cannot be fully accessed. For example, overly contained anger usually means a flattening of grief, a tepid ecstasy, and a shallow lust, but full-blown (and responsibly expressed) rage can almost instantly mutate into full-on ecstasy, uninhibited grief, or mind-blowing lust; and so on.

The more deeply you work on yourself, including going into and through the heart of your core wounds, the more passion will be available to you, and not just emotionally and physically, but also mentally and spiritually. A passionate awakening...



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Arthur/adastra asks:

I'm curious about love. What is love, really? In terms of romantic/sexual love, what does it mean to love someone or to be “in love”? How can I tell if I “really love” or am “really in love” with someone? I know you've written somewhere about romantic delusions people confuse with love – could you say something about that? How does love manifest differently depending on one's depth of consciousness or stage of Awakening? How can I open myself more deeply to love, deepen my capacity for love (alone or in the context of a romantic relationship)? How does love manifest differently in masculine/agentic and feminine/communion modes?

Robert answers:

Great questions, which I can only begin to address here...

Love may include attraction, but is more than attraction; love may include appetite, but is more than appetite; love may include kindness, but is more than kindness; and so on.
Eros, philos, agape; love of food, love of basketball, love of ideas, love of erotic play, love of God, love beyond love; puppy-dog love, fanatic love, unrequited love, ecstatic love; so many faces of love, so many forms and ways of loving, experientially so obvious and definitionally so hard to effectively corral (probably because love eludes all of its definitions, including those given below).

So what is love? To me, it is primarily the state and practice of expansively felt communion, whether with one or many or all that is. Love is self-illuminating, life-affirming embrace, the heartbeat of real intimacy, the gratitude-suffused intuition of everywhere-present Divinity.

Love is Absolute Mystery nakedly embracing Itself. The personalizing of this is the essence of relationship. Most relationships get stuck and lost in the melodramatics of this, but it is nonetheless possible for a relationship to reach sufficient psychospiritual transparency to touch what is beyond it through our committed participation in it. Freedom through intimacy. And how? By loving so strongly, especially when things are really difficult, that we cease turning away from that in us (and others) which we usually shun, ostracize, or disown; love, deep love, doesn’t exclude, however fiercely it might deal with certain situations. Ever dying into it are we, like clouds in endless sky.

When our heart breaks and we don’t go to pieces and don’t get bitter and twisted, we are in love’s neighborhood. When we give what we most want to be given, we are on love’s doorstep. When we really get that what we do to another, we do to ourselves, we are in love’s living room. When we include in the circle of our reach all that we are, we are in love’s crucible. When we are in love’s fire, and surrender to it, making good use of both the heat and the light therein, we are zeroing in on Home, deepening our capacity to literally be love.

At a personal level, love is the openly felt state of embracing another’s being. When this is attempted through the abandoning of personal boundaries, love is all but gone, obscured by the resulting fusion (soon to be confusion) that commonly characterizes conventional romance. On the other hand, when our boundaries are not abandoned, but are instead expanded to include the other, we make possible a very deep love. When such love’s exceptionally rich bonding coexists with a naturally succulent, effortlessly mutual erotic chemistry, we can say that we’re not just loving, but are in love, falling/rising/being in love. In the presence of such deep communion (the truly shared heart and shared being), there’s no need to romanticize or otherwise restrict love.

More on conventional romance: When fantasy-centered sexual anticipation or excitation gets an emotionally compelling grip on us, and when we mistake fusion with communion, such romance occurs. It is literally a chestful of lust, radiating in all directions, packed with swooning idealism, deliciously stimulating imagery, and runaway hope, a hope hopelessly enthused about union, true love, and soulmate possibilities (all of which do, of course, occur in mature relationships), a hope nourished and sustained by the dissolution of boundaries. A sweetly narcotic spell of dramatic delusion...

In conventional romance — the separative swoon of false oneness — boundaries are not expanded, so as to include the other, but are collapsed, abandoned, forgotten. Eventually, as the passion loses some intensity and doubts creep in and the dream’s fabric thins, the lovers start wondering where they went wrong, not seeing that what isn’t working in the relationship has been there all along, obscured by the heat of their embrace and the giddy intensity of their fusion. They were but getting it on under artificial light, blindly merging where sensation and idealism meet, dumping their boundaries instead of stretching them. Nevertheless, even though many of us recognize the folly of such romance, we still tend to support it, acting as if it’s still a lovely thing, an essential part of love, when in fact it is not love at all, but only perfumed delusion, marketing a pleasurably consoling dream in which sentimentalized eroticism is mistaken for love, and undiscerning certainty for truth.

And, you may ask, how do we know when we’re in the grip of conventional romance? We feel swoony, off balance, intoxicated, erotically stoned, marooned from our critical faculties, and are unquestioningly immersed in our cult of two, our perfect little bubble of immunity, happily unaware of the rude pricks of reality that our very situation is attracting. It’s a delicious dream, happily feverish and often laced with mystical elements (like boundary dissolution and blissfulness), and therefore not so easy to wake up from, but wake up from it we must, if we are to find and live in real love, the kind of love that makes possible a truly intimate connectedness with both Beloved and beloved.

And how to open yourself more deeply to love? Practice opening in circumstances that typically would shut you down; practice being grateful when you don’t give a damn about being grateful; practice being caring toward yourself when you are beating yourself up for something; do some metta and tonglen practices periodically; practice being caring in the midst of your anger, without, however, shutting it down; practice being compassionate toward yourself when your heart is shut; get into a relationship with another who has a similar commitment to such work, so that your relationship becomes a crucible for Awakening’s alchemy; and don’t forget to cut yourself some slack in all this, for it’s far from a straightforward path, with an abundance of dips and twists and surprises...

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PART TWENTYONE - April 16, 2006
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Jana/Plasmafly asks:

Robert you appear to be the most nondual of teachers around in your "embrace" or facing into the darkness, as I am sure you have an intuition as that being the way to liberate the light, and those in your sphere are perhaps more alive than the average human because of it. I suspect that this talent for acceptance was something you were born with and then cognitively/heartly developed overtime...and especially with your Darkness Shining Wild experience.

I imagine that your acceptance is probably one of the main factors in the success of the healing work you do, and the "rapidity" of shifts in aliveness/awareness in your clients and that it must be grounded on a radical acceptance for yourself first.

Whereas it seems like a lot of teachers/gurus/spiritual leaders are still actually afraid of shadow/thanatos...perhaps because they are still power driven..so they must still be non-accepting of themselves, still dualistic and this in turn would keep followers triggered into punishment/reward--parent/child dynamics which would hinder both nondual realization, health, wholeness and sovereignty...and hence they forfeit their contribution to evolving society itself and are locked hopelessly into personal preoccupation...nurturing and fortifying the shell instead of the Spirit.

Also do you find people in your sphere to be artistically inspired by your open elan? Showing a more perfect marriage between the imagination and cognition...right and left brain.

Robert answers:

The more authority and power we have, the more important it is that we work, and work deeply, with our shadow elements. Paying lip service to such work just does not cut it. Real shadow-work is not some cut-and-dried intellectual process, but rather a viscerally compelling, emotionally raw journey into territories that more often than not elude any neat cartography.

It is, of course, tempting to remain in the shallows of such work, feeling a bit of strange or unpleasant feeling perhaps (but nothing strong enough to truly shake us), gathering a little insight into our darker inner workings and desires, but at some point we need to take the plunge, and really get into working with what’s submerged, ostracized, disowned, numbed, and just plain fucked-up in us, and this is an inherently messy undertaking, given that we’re allowing the surfacing of what we’ve spent most of our lives keeping down.

For a while, we may -- especially if we’re in denial about our own shortcomings -- trot out our good points (and have those who are “loyal” to us do the same for us), obscuring what is not working in our lives with what is working, but sooner or later we’ve got to cut through the bullshit and do our work, whether we initiate the process or not. Especially if we’ve got others looking up to us, or looking to us for guidance!

The good news is that the more deeply we work with our shadow elements, the more liberated energy we’ll have, energy that can be put into serving our well-being and that of others. We don’t have to announce to others that we’ve done some really deep and thorough shadow-work; our having done so is enough, making us a conducive presence and safe place for others to deeply encounter and work with their own shadow stuff.

We’d love to get to the treasure without having to face its dragons, but face them we must. And thank God for them, because they -- through what they demand of us -- make sure, and really make sure, that we are ready for what they are guarding. Our task is get intimate with our dragons, so intimate that we not only can look through their eyes and feel their pulse as our own, but also pass by them without any fuss. Although this is far from easy, it must eventually be done if we are to truly access the deepest treasure of all.

The dragon is not the problem. Our distorted connection to it is. Must we armor ourselves to face it? Must we literalize our adversarial link to it? Must we treat the dragon as a mere obstruction, a lower-brain roadblock in need of dynamite, cognitive rehabilitation, or spiritual remedies? The dragon is not in the way; our lack of healthy relationship to it is. We make it into such a solidly alien “other” that we feel justified in conceiving of it as something to flee, attack, or treat as imaginary. We turn it into an enemy, and it behaves accordingly. Keep something in the dark long enough and it’ll get warped.

If we condemn or flee anything in ourselves, it will multiply and fester and eventually occupy every exit, enlarging itself so as to seize our attention, encoding its outcast will throughout the apparently healthier regions of ourselves.

When we cut others close to us too much slack in working with their shadow elements (perhaps because we’ve got a tacit deal with them that we won’t rock their boat if they don’t rock ours), we’re simply creating the conditions that will eventually rock us (and them) so strongly that we’ll have to deal with what we’d rather avoid.

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Liz/Tamgoddess asks:

A friend of mine is having a secret affair. She's the mother of two young children, and married to a man she loves a lot, though she's had a problem with what I would call an addiction to men and the attention she gets from them.

She's aware of this addiction, and doesn't know what to do about it. She is like a junkie, unable to stay away from dangerous activities because of the high she gets from it. She has gotten to the point where she can't even be alone in the same room with men she doesn't even find attractive. She gets giggly and blushes and flirts, yet it seems almost involuntary, and clearly uncomfortable for her. I had to accompany her to a friend's house to pick up a projector for a presentation, and I saw how out of control it's gotten.

She's always been seriously into making sure she gets men to respond to her in a sexual way. She says she used to feel safer when she was fatter, because she felt there was a bit of a barrier between her and the men she flirted with. But the frequency and intensity of it has gotten unbearable since she lost weight. And now she's even having an affair, which she feels powerless to stop.

She has always had self-esteem issues. She acts like it's all her fault that she's having this affair, in spite of the fact that this man is certainly capable of controlling himself as well, and she's asked him to stay away and he hasn't. It's actually kind of sickening how she defends him and denigrates herself. This is an extremely bright and accomplished, deeply spiritual, loving woman calling herself bad and evil and all sorts of things nobody who knows her (except me) would ever suspect she could think of herself.

She has a crazy, toxic mother who has said things to her all her life like "No man will ever find you attractive." So it's pretty clear where this is rooted, and doesn't seem to me to be about sex at all, but a need for unconditional love. Her father, with whom she had a very close and loving relationship, died many years ago.

How can she reclaim her strength and end this affair? How can she restore her relationships with the men in her life to their proper place? How is it that a person can learn to find that love they need without self-destructing in the process?

Oh, and she's married to a man she loves a great deal, as I've said, but none of her women friends can stand him. He's arrogant and condescending, though he's mellowed in recent years. I don't know what that has to do with this behavior. She does all the work of the relationship, in my opinion.

My efforts have been centered around telling her she isn't horrible and that it takes two people to have an affair-this guy isn't blameless. And of course, trying to shore up her self-image, though nobody can really do that for her.

Thanks in advance, Robert.

Robert answers:

Sounds like you have a good understanding of the dynamics underlying your friend’s behavior. What she’s basically doing is acting-out some unresolved stuff in a highly irresponsible way. Sexualizing one’s need for attention is not uncommon, but she seems to be caught up in it more than most. She needs to step back, strip away the erotic component of her behavior, and take a good look at what’s left. More than likely, she’ll see a little girl aching for attention, and behind that, aching for love. That little girl, that place of aching need and hurt and raw vulnerability, needs not to sexualized, but instead taken into her heart and fully embraced. Put another way, the woman/mother in her needs to totally embrace and love and protect the little girl in her.

This, of course, requires that she really see what is going on, and do what she has to do to adopt a responsible stance toward it. Since she doesn’t sound capable of this, she needs to work with a suitably skilled psychotherapist as soon as possible. More than insight is necessary; decisive intervention is needed. I recommend that you directly direct her toward psychotherapy. I also recommend that she stop the affair right away -- cold-turkey it -- and put her energy into healing herself.

Much of the energy she’s channeling into sexuality could go toward forming and maintaining healthy boundaries. She could begin by telling the guy she’s having the affair with to stay away -- not asking him, but telling him; if he refuses, then she’s going to have to get heavy, underlining her demand with enough anger to make a real impact on him. This is something that she could get great support for and practice in by going to psychotherapy.

I’m curious about her relationship with her father: What exactly happened between them; how did he die, and when; how did he relate to her mother; and so on. Perhaps her hypersexualizing of her need for attention is but the presenting layer of her need to have control over men, for when she has such control (through “making” them want her), she can, so it seems, keep them from leaving her (like her father did). Or perhaps not....but it’s all worth exploring in depth.

It would also be very useful for her and her husband to do some couples counselling, perhaps a month or so after she’s begun her individual psychotherapy.


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Maryw asks:

First of all, Robert, I wanted to thank you and Diane again for your wonderful therapeutic work. Since 2001, I had been to 3 local therapists to address my dysthymic disorder [long-term mild depression], and I experienced more catharsis and healing in my individual session with you and during that June 10 IN group workshop than during all those other months of therapy!

I had intended to ask you this while I was in Vancouver and I simply forgot. One of the body-work techniques that you used with me and with several others was a deep massage of the upper abdominal/solar plexus area. You had me lie on my back on a foam pad and take very deep breaths while you massaged my upper abdomen. You also had me do some "sentence completion" exercises during the massage and the deep breathing.

I know very little about therapeutic methods so I was wondering if you wouldn't mind discussing this a little. What happens during the solar plexus massage? Does it help to release held-in energies or to contact pre-verbal wounds? Is it in some way a "diagnostic" technique for you?

I do recall that I felt quite different at the end of that individual session with you -- more embodied and deeply present!

Peace to you,
Mary

Robert answers:

(What I say below is not meant to necessarily apply to you specifically, but to my clients in general.)

Bodywork as I practice it is an intuitive art, so I don’t have a preset way of doing it. Nevertheless, there are certain areas of the body to which I pay special attention, such as the solar plexus and diaphragm. Probing the solar plexus area quickly provides me with an abundance of information about my client: degree of tension, breathing restrictions, sensitivity, degree of embodiment, possible numbness, emotional openness and depth, connection or lack of connection between the upper and lower torso, and so on.

I usually do this in conjunction with working manually for a bit with the diaphragm, sensing how tight or constricted it may be, both in close to the solar plexus and further out toward the sides of the body. As I do this, I often have my clients breathe more deeply, and let some sound out. How they do this tells me a lot. During this, I may also have them finish some incomplete sentences, so as to help them connect what they’re feeling with what’s going on and/or has gone on in their life. If they speak in general terms, I have them get more specific. This usually doesn’t take more than a few minutes, helping to shift the session into a deeper, more openly feeling place.

Those who are physically and energetically restricted across the diaphragm and solar plexus usually have poor communication (nonverbal of course!) between their heart area and abdomen. They may have a lot of heart, but it’s not infused with much energy from below the diaphragm, so that their voice and overall presence is loving, but lacks “guts”. Or they have plenty of gut-level power, but the constriction of their diaphragm keeps the energy of that power from having the heart it needs to be truly effective. When they are feeling or being sexual, the energy of their sexuality may rise to their upper belly, but won’t infuse their heart to any significant extent. But once the arc of the diaphragm is stretched and loosened up, so that energy can flow back and forth across and through it, we feel everything more deeply.

Our sexuality then, for example, will start not only to flow more easily, but will feel much better; a relatively open-hearted man who previously felt drained after coming will now be able to feel rejuvenated after it, because his orgasmic energies can rise up into his chest and heart, passing through his diaphragmatic area easily.

Put your fingers under your ribcage just above your abdomen and press in a bit; if your fingers don’t easily penetrate under your ribcage, you’ve got a tight diaphragm. On your own, you can loosen it some, but for some real loosening, go to a massage practitioner who is adept at deep tissue work, or, if you’re into some really deep structural work, go to a rolfer.

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Denis/elconwords asks:

Robert, I wonder if you could speak a little about anger. The more I try and work through this thing the more befuddled I am becoming. I thought I had made great strides in recognizing the difference between healthy and unhealthy anger and the difference between it's use(manipulative I mean) and it's healthy expression but just when I think I can express it to make clear that some boundaries were not being respected, indicate that I am here and back off please, boom I get called an emotional fatty and I am back to square one in the sense that I am left wondering if I am totally oblivious to what is obvious to others.
What is this anger thing. Is it a pathology, something to be healed and then cast away completely? Can one recognize the pathology in oneself or is it only through others that we become aware of it ? Is there any use for it?
I know that if and when I am angry with myself it serves to spur me on often. I feel when I am angry at myself that it is like turning a brighter light on and saying take a closer look or peeling back the folds and looking directly into the wound, no more niceties it's down to brass tacks!
Can any of that apply outside oneself?

Thanks for your continued efforts and participation on this forum Robert and I look forward to seeing you again in July.

Signed: Pissed off!
Denis

Robert answers:

There’s so much I could say about anger here...Some psychotherapeutic exploration of anger would be useful for you. I also suggest that you read my book THE ANATOMY & EVOLUTION OF ANGER. Among other things, it will help you to clarify the difference between healthy and unhealthy anger, as well as to illuminate different ways to work with anger. Following are some excerpts from the Introduction:

DEVELOPING INTIMACY WITH ANGER

Not only is anger perhaps our most misunderstood and misused emotion, but it may also be (with the possible exception of fear) the emotion for which we have the most aversion. Given the frequently harmful consequences of acted-out anger — epitomized by violent behavior — as well as the often unpleasant, hotly compelling quality of the sensations of anger, it is not surprising that we might want to distance ourselves from anger, or at least from the actual feeling of anger.

We may find such distancing not only through mental strategies — like calm-inducing reinterpretations of inflammatory situations — and spiritual exercises — like equanimity-inducing meditative practices — but also through anger-releasing approaches (such as all-out woodchopping, pillow-pounding, full-throttle yelling, hard-stomping dancing, or aggressive play).

These practices do not always necessarily distance us from our anger, but their usual intent is to reduce, defuse, or discharge anger, as though it were little more than just some sort of noxious or otherwise undesirable substance for which there was no other suitable remedy — or use — than domestication, muzzling, neutering, or outright elimination.

Even the practice of trying to be mindful of our anger, neither suppressing nor openly expressing it — as is recommended in particular by many teachers in the Buddhist tradition — may just indicate a subtler aversion to anger, particularly in the sharing or expressing of its more fiery or confrontative energies.

In fact, many spiritual seekers may be largely drawn to anger-negating practices simply because these practices make a spiritual virtue out of avoiding what such seekers would already (perhaps because of past negative or traumatic associations with anger) like to avoid. Or seekers may misconstrue “mindfulness of anger” — which in of itself is not an anger-negating practice — to mean little more than a rejection of anger, especially in its overt expression.

However, instead of getting beyond anger or removing ourselves from it, we could become more intimate with it — but how can we do this if we will only examine our anger from a distance, or insist on emptying ourselves of its energies (i.e., getting it “out of our system”) when it arises? Developing intimacy with our anger enhances self-knowledge, integrity, relational depth, and spiritual maturation, providing both heat and light for what needs to be done, helping us to embody a passion as potently alive as it is responsible.

There is nothing inherently wrong with anger. Anger is not necessarily a problem, a hindrance, a sign of negativity or spiritual slippage, an avoidance of something “deeper,” nor a demonstration of unlove. It is our use of our anger that is the real issue.

Do we blame our anger for clouding or befuddling our reason — playing victim to our passions being one of our oldest alibis — or do we assume responsibility for what we do with it? Do we turn our anger into a weapon, hiding our hurt behind its righteous, fiery, “pumped-up” front, fueling and legitimizing our defensiveness with it, or do we instead keep it as transparent and permeable as possible, remaining non-blaming and vulnerable even as we allow it as full or penetrating a passion as fits the situation? Do we use our anger to get even, to score points, to overpower or outdebate, or do we use it to deepen or resuscitate intimacy, to compassionately underline or flame through pretense, emotional deadwood, and life-negating investments?

It’s so easy to trash anger. It is so easy, in the name of angerphobia, to reject, crush, nicely incarcerate, bad-mouth or otherwise violate our anger, allowing it so few life-enhancing outlets that it, like an animal kept too long in a cage, usually behaves badly when finally released, thereby confirming our suspicions that it is indeed in need of much the same treatment as a savage beast that has somehow found its way into our house.

It is also easy, though far less common, to glorify anger, with equally harmful results. Exhorting the inhibited to “get into their anger” may just lead to a forced anger, an anger of performance, an anger that leads not to healing insight, but rather to an overreliance on simplistic (and possibly aggression-reinforcing) cathartic procedures.

It is, however, not so easy to cultivate intimacy with our anger; getting close to its heat, its flames, its redly engorged intensity, without losing touch with our basic sanity, asks much of us. But if we do not ask — and ultimately demand — this of ourselves, we will surely miss knowing not only the heat of anger’s fire, but also its light. As much as anger can injuriously burn, it can also illuminate — it all depends on what kind of relationship with anger we choose to cultivate.

Violence and aggression remain the subject of heated debate regarding their reduction and cause. Seeming solutions abound — more love, more understanding and tolerance, better social programs, stricter controls, stronger deterrents, and so on — yet the problem persists. The idealism of solutions aside, there is a potentially very valuable step to take: Becoming more intimate with — rather than moving away from or rising above or acting out — our own violence, our own aggression and hatred, our own mean-spiritedness and hardheartedness, not just intellectually, not just in therapy chambers, but fully. And the very intention to take this step begins with investigating our own anger.

THE NATURE OF ANGER

As an emotion, anger is an aroused, often heated state in which are combined (1) a compellingly felt sense of being wronged (hence the moral quality of anger), and (2) a counteracting, potentially energizing feeling of power, both of which are interconnected biologically, psychologically, and culturally.

Can we identify anger — which is not a single emotion, but instead a family of related emotions, ranging from annoyance to rage — through the observed presence of particular behaviors? Not necessarily. I can display none of the behaviors supposedly characteristic of anger, and still be angry. Instead of banging the table, shouting, or cursing the idiot who has dared to impede my automotive progress, I may instead in my anger try even harder to please you, or I may calmly and smilingly withhold a piece of information that I know would help you. Can we recognize our anger through observing our behavior? Not necessarily.

Similarly, can we identify anger through the observed presence of particular sensations or feelings? Two emotions — like envy and resentment — may feel very similar, having much the same physiological characteristics, yet they do differ. This difference is rooted in subjectivity (and intersubjectivity), both cognitively and contextually. We discriminate between emotions by attuning, however unknowingly, to the context of the situation.

Because bodily sensations are usually so obviously involved in emotion, we may confuse them with emotion. There is, however, more to emotion than just the feeling of it. Anger is an attitude, not just a feeling. We evaluate emotion, but not feeling — we may speak of our anger as “justified” or “unjustified,” but would we speak of our feeling like vomiting as “justified” or “unjustified”?

Also, we can cease being angry, and yet still feel the very same feelings that a moment ago we identified as anger. For example, I am angry at you, raging angry, for breaking my prized drinking mug, and suddenly I find out that you are completely innocent of doing so, and I am no longer angry at you. My evaluation of the situation has radically and instantaneously changed, yet the feelings I was experiencing just a moment ago — pounding heart, facial flushing, adrenaline-charged torso, shoulder muscles knotting — are still present, albeit diminishing slightly. Can I now call these angry feelings? No, because their evaluative framework — or emotional basis — has changed.

ANGER VERSUS AGGRESSION

Anger, contrary to popular opinion, is not necessarily the same as aggression. Aggression involves some form of attack, whereas anger may or may not. Aggression is devoid of compassion and vulnerability, but anger, however fiery its delivery might be or might have to be, can be part of an act of caring and vulnerability. Nevertheless, anger in general remains all but synonymous with aggression.

Aggression is not so much an outcome of anger, as an avoidance of it and its frequently interpersonal nature and underlying feelings of woundedness and vulnerability.

Viewing anger as aggression — or as the cause of aggression — gives us an excuse to classify it is a “lower” or “primitive” emotion. Or something far from spiritual. But anger is far from “primitive,” though what we do with it may be far from civilized. Rejected anger very easily mutates into aggression, whether active or passive, other-directed or inner-directed. Thus does a means of communication become a means of weaponry.

Anger assigned to do injury, however subtly, is not really anger, but hostility. Anger that masks its own hurt and vulnerability is not really anger, but hardheartedness or hatred in the making, seeking not power with, but power over. But there is a potential healing here: to reverse the equation, to convert aggression, hostility, hatred, and every other diseased offspring of mishandled anger back into anger.

This conversion, however, does not mean eviscerating or drugging the energy of such negative states, but rather liberating it from its life-negating viewpoints, so that its intensity and passion can coexist with a caring, significantly awakened attention. In this sense, the world needs not less anger, but more. Especially anger coming from the heart.

Violence — the brass knuckles of neglected or abused wounds — tramples or dynamites boundaries, but anger in many cases protects or guards boundaries, at best resolutely exposing and illuminating (or perhaps even flaming through) barriers to intimacy or integrity, without abusing those who are maintaining such barriers. As such, anger is moral fire. Anger that burns cleanly leaves no smoldering pockets of resentment or ill-will. Violence is not a result of anger, but rather is an abuse — or violation — of anger.

ANGER AND “I”

To study anger in real depth is to study more than anger.

The very “I” that is busy being angry, or that appears to be “behind” anger, has such an impact on the formation and delivery of anger that it cannot be left out of any serious consideration of anger.

Like anger, “I” is not an entity or thing, but rather a process. (However, “I”, as egoity in action, can still be usefully conceptualized as an entity — for example, a “cult of one” — at least with regard to its usual behavior.) Therefore, to investigate anger’s anatomy and evolution is to, among other things, also investigate the anatomy and evolution of “I.” As untidy or complex as this may be, it cannot be bypassed without stranding the understanding of anger in explanatory shallows or reductionist ruts.

When I “have” an emotion (or when an emotion “has” me), who am I? What then is my sense of self? Mainstream developmental psychology speaks about the evolution of the sense of self, but it does not consider, or even acknowledge, the transpersonal dimensions of that self-sense, as if the only dimensions of it that exist are prepersonal and personal. Nonetheless, emotions, including anger, arise in transpersonal realms. So who then is busy being emotional? What is the nature of the “I” (if any) that is apparently feeling sad or happy or angry?

“I” may get angry, and may feel a very solid sense of self in doing so, but who am I busy being then? And who am I when it’s not just “my” anger, but “the” anger (or anger that is more collective than individual)? What differences, if any, are there between the “I” who is angry, and the “I” who is seeking to reroute or bypass that anger?

WORKING WITH ANGER: FOUR APPROACHES

The four approaches to working with anger introduced below provide a framework not only capable of making sense out of the diverse, complex, and enormous amount of material concerning anger, but also sufficiently inclusive to cover both personal and transpersonal considerations of anger.

(1) ANGER-IN refers to strategies that favor the restraining and redirection of the energies characteristic of raw anger. Not surprisingly, advocates of this approach emphasize the importance of not directly expressing our anger. Self-control, subduing and recontextualizing our anger — these are the cornerstones of anger-in. Anger-in “experts” tend to equate the expressing of anger with “venting,” a lack of self-control, violence, and aggression. Anger-in therapies teach one not only to identify those perceptions and interpretations that catalyze anger, but also new habits and skills, such as relaxation and cooling-off techniques — hence the “cognitive-behavioral” label for therapeutic anger-in strategies. Reinterpreting supposed provocations is essential to anger-in; such reappraisal reduces the probability of anger being openly expressed by removing or at least shrinking the perception of being under attack.

Though anger-in may make too much of a virtue out of controlling, managing, and non-angrily “expressing” anger, it does make a strong case for learning to step back from anger so that its more extreme or irrational impulses can be reconsidered or given more contextual space. Nevertheless, anger-in has a difficult question before it: How successful can a way of working with anger be that does not include openly expressing the actual feelings of anger? Would we, by analogy, consider a grief therapy to be successful that did not include the actual expression of grief?

(2) ANGER-OUT refers to approaches that emphasize the importance of directly and fully expressing the energies and intentions of anger. At the very core of anger-out theory and work is the notion of catharsis, which remains a controversial topic in therapeutic practice, despite evidence that incorporating catharsis in anger-management work makes it more effective. Skillfully facilitated catharsis is an essential element of various cutting-edge psychotherapeutic approaches.

Advocates of anger-out say that suppressed anger is not healthy — better to bring it to the surface (or “dig it up”) and release-express it, they claim. As appealing and apparently medically sound as such “down-to-earth” logic may be — and it provides an easy target for anger-in supporters — it can tend to overemphasize a merely physical approach to anger, as if it was just something to discharge or eliminate from the body. The emotional-release work that characterizes anger-out practices can range from mere licence to “run amok” (or irresponsibly “act out” anger) to profoundly healing, integration-promoting release and illumination.

(3) MINDFULLY-HELD ANGER refers to practices in which anger is consciously contained, not emotionally expressed, and meditatively attended to, with a key intention being neither to suppress anger nor act it out. This approach, not surprisingly, is strongly linked with Buddhism and its “Middle Path” philosophy. In its emphasis on neither repressing nor acting out emotion, this pathway appears to offer a solution to the anger-in/anger-out dichotomy. In being wakefully present with our anger, thereby closely witnessing the actual process of it (in its feeling, cognitive, perceptual, and social dimensions), we also bear witness, at least to some degree, to the very “I” who is busy being angry. That is, our perspective shifts from how angry we feel to who it is who feels it.

At its best, the mindful holding of anger is not so much a containment of anger as a deliberately intimate embracing and investigation of it, a willingness to stay with our anger without expressing it. Through such loving alertness, anger can be transformed into the energy of understanding and compassion. However, this practice carries its own dangers (as suggested by the more negative connotations of the term “holding”), especially when it is engaged in prematurely or in order to flee or suppress anger, as when we are not so much sitting with our anger as on it.

(4) HEART-ANGER refers to approaches in which openly expressed anger and compassion consciously and beneficially coexist. Put together the virtues of anger-in, anger-out, and mindfully held anger — healthy rationality and restraint, emotional openness and authenticity, meditative openness and compassion — and minimize the difficulties associated with each, and heart-anger emerges.

Heart-anger is rooted both in full-blooded aliveness and in genuine caring for the other. It can be life-enhancingly shared in its rawness.

As fierce as heart-anger sometimes can be, it is but the essence of wrathful compassion — a potent, often fiery caring. Here, the expression of anger is not necessarily rethought or kept to oneself, nor always given free rein, but rather is deliberately infused with wakeful, investigative attention, without any requisite dilution or non-expression of its passion. It is “clean” anger, incisive, non-blaming, mindful, contextually sensitive, heated yet illuminating — rooted in both the personal and the transpersonal.

As such, it could be called soul-centered anger (by soul, I mean that depth of individuality in which egoity is clearly and functionally peripheral to Being). Such anger has a broad enough sense of human suffering to embrace a radically inclusive morality; it possesses sufficient faith in Existence to persist in its fierce caring; and it has the guts to carry this all out. If all that was necessary was that it shine, it surely would, but it knows that it often must also burn. And, because of this, it knows that it must also weep.

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PART TWENTYTWO - April 16, 2006
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MichaelD asks:

To put this into RAMspeak - I'm doubting my doubts.

I am plagued by doubts these days, and feel that they tend to get in the way of healing more often than not. It's generally quite easy for me to see the value of doubting, and harder to see the value of belief. I gravitate towards the modality of reality testing, dismantling beliefs and systems, and testing the underlying assumptions etc. But in the matter of healing, where intention, trust, love and faith prevail, doubts can be like a cancer?

I wonder if you Robert can speak to the subject of doubts within a healing context?

Robert answers:

First of all, thank you for giving me an excuse to write about doubt! What started as a relatively short answer very quickly mutated into a much longer piece...

Let’s start by taking an overview of doubt, then dig a bit deeper into everyday doubt and “good” doubt, considering along the way how to best work with doubt.

Doubt is an inner questioning infused with uncertainty and enough agitation to make it a relatively unpleasant state. Doubt, in an everyday sense, is what happens when we find ourselves stranded in ambiguity’s carrels, trying to think our way out, stuck in cognitive traffic jams that catch us in their treads and flatten us as much as they fragment us. Trying to make a meal of the grey fare laid out by the fractured realism of such doubt simply enervates and depresses us.

Typical doubt is skepticism that has lost its clarity and confidence, bound up in worrisome shades of uncertainty. Anxiety may be lurking nearby, bringing more of an edge to doubt. Although doubt is not dread, it can become dread if sufficiently fed.

Doubt can manifest as moral impotence, existential fence-sitting, fear of making a decision, indulgence in ambiguity, avoidance of taking a stand, cognitive obsessing, and so on; and it can also, albeit far more rarely, manifest as a necessary questioning, a courageous inquiry that can both tolerate and investigate uncertainty. Doubt is no more “bad” than “certainty” is good.

There’s everyday, mostly neurotic doubt, a self-contracted questioning injected with constricted, unpleasantly turbulent feeling, moving with myopic desperation through the presenting layers of uncertainty; and there’s another doubt, a questioning that carries us beyond facile certainties and automated beliefs deep into the inherent insecurity and uncertainty of Life, inviting us to adopt a nonproblematic orientation toward it.

But before getting into the latter sort of doubt -- which it takes real faith to have -- let’s get more into everyday doubt: It’s important to be able to work well with such doubt before going for the deeper, more awakened kind of doubt. And working well with it means knowing it well, even becoming intimate with it.

Doubt is a collapse of heart that’s gone to mind, an unhappy, unillumined inquiry that’s interested not in discovery or revelation, but only in persisting in repetitively touring its culs-de-sac. It puts a lot of energy into going nowhere, spinning its wheels until it’s exhausted, leaving us asleep at the wheel.

Doubt is the contracted and divided mind doing time in uncertainty’s mental mazes, providing apparent justification for worry.

Whereas skepticism is a healthy, incisive, often robust questioning, doubt is an unhealthy, indecisive, often anemic questioning, a dead-end inquiry, a bottled-up questioning terrified of being uncorked.

When the energy of doubt is allowed to mushroom in our headquarters, it invades and colors whatever content is handy, immediately framing it in a darkly questionable light.

While immersed in doubt, we often inject fearfulness or negative anticipation into various intentions, plans, doings, and so on, obsessing about possible outcomes, chaining ourselves to chronic worry.

Doubt is what the mind tends to do both when it is cut off from the vitality and openness and primal intentions of our depths, and when rationality itself just does not satisfy. And doubt presumes to have an overview, but in fact has none -- it cannot even see itself, let alone accurately assess its environment.

Nevertheless, doubt is not an enemy. What matters is what we do with it. Do we identify with it? Do we give our power away to it? Do we allow it to enlarge? Do we believe in it? Do we make decisions based on it? Or do we illuminate it, outbreathe and outdance it, crashing its slumber-party with such resolute focus that it cannot help but dissolve into a more Life-giving form?

In its unchallenged arranging and cementings of key thoughts, doubt is closely related to belief, being a blue collar frequenter of some of belief’s sleazier hangouts.

Belief is static, abstract, perfectly reproducible, far too stiff to be Truth, hyperfocused on its own replication and confirmation, driven to see its flag raised everywhere and everywhen (“Belief is when someone else does the thinking,” said Buckminster Fuller). Doubt is its less popular cousin, a grimy plebeian, just as mentally constipated as belief (even in its chronic changing of teams), but not so glossy or chrome-plated or mass-legitimized, being more musty, dingy, and decentralized, huddled up in less tidy corners of mind, except when shaved, bathed, dressed up, and brought into the antiseptic chambers of Science, where it, now more hardnosed skepticism than mere doubt, breathes life into scientific methodology.

Doubt usually reinforces our sense of separation. Doubt tends to empower our unhappiness -- however miserable doubt may make us feel, it is familiar, so densely familiar that it generates a sense of identity: I doubt, therefore I am.

Not many of us can stand being in doubt for extended periods of time. We crave breaks from it, but the breaks we ordinarily take from it do not undo it, but only remove us from it for a time. Doubt easily becomes the core of our alibi for holding back; we use our doubt to talk ourselves out of stretching to make the necessary leap.

Those who are mired in doubt have great difficulty in telling what is false from what is true. They get stuck in between, lost in the tales told and retold by their doubt.

Trying to work with doubt through mental means only doesn’t really work. The self-suppression that catalyzes and animates doubt must be seen, felt, known from the deep inside. The whole being must be eased, expanded, given permission to come alive. The torso must be loosened, the limbs unfrozen, the heart entered, the reach made both powerful and vulnerable, the entire anatomy brought into supportive resonance with our core of Being.

Doubt must be seen for what it is, as it is, without getting lost or absorbed in its point of view; only then will it unfist itself, only then will our endarkened familiarity with it come unstrung, only then will our indecisiveness be unequivocally undone, flung into the raw Truth of what we are.

When doubt infects you, don’t give it a thought. Neither avoid it nor let it recruit your mind.

Doubt your doubt, and then pour your full attention into the noncognitive openings generated by doing so. Go into its feeling dimensions, breathing them more alive, giving fitting expression to them; if this is overly difficult, consider going to a therapist who’s skilled in working with such things.

When doubt does manage to infiltrate your mind, read its contents once-through as though they belonged to a supermarket tabloid, taking careful note of which headlines most easily snare your attention. Then immediately shift your attention, and shift it completely, to the physical and physiological correlates of your doubt, resisting the temptation to scoot back into your thinking mind.

No matter how tempting it is to immerse yourself in what your doubt is telling you, shift your attention from whatever it is that you’re doubting to the actual phenomenon of doubt itself. Feel into and through its tensions, its downbeat textures, its contracted tones, its positioning, its emotional qualities, its bodily ramifications and anatomical peculiarities; feel what it is doing to you, feel what it is doing to others near you, feel how it’s staining your speech, vision, hearing, perception, posture, your very being...

And do this without trying to change or trash your doubt. Sometimes simply keeping your attention on your doubt as an energetic phenomenon, as opposed to focusing on its content, will cause it to dissolve. Other times, deliberately doubting your doubt will make it dissipate. Doubt may also sometimes be defused by taking a risk of Being, such as a not-so-easy but much needed movement toward someone or a timely expressing of something painful that needs to be said, especially if these are done not in order to get rid of doubt, but because they are imperatives of Being, arising from something deeper than our everyday mind and conditioning.

Doubt is, among other things, a kind of low-grade fear. As we expand our energy, the contraction at the heart of doubt starts to loosen up, until we’re not fearful, but simply excited.

Through attending closely, caringly, and carefully to the particulars of our doubt, we decentralize it, so that its viewpoint is no longer in a position to govern us.

When the light goes on in the slums of doubt, then doubt is little more than skepticism having a bad day.

The key is to actively and decisively disidentify with our doubt, while also allowing the surfacing and fitting expression of whatever feeling states are associated with it -- fear, sadness, anger, shame, disgust, longing, and so on.

Do not make doubt wrong. Simply realize that when you lose yourself in doubt, you are shortcircuiting a deeper song.

Now toward the healthier zones of doubting! Even in the most deadening doubt there sometimes can be gems of insight, bits of intuitive savvy mixed in with all the mental debris. These often get overlooked in our trying to get away from our doubting mind.

Doubt tends to be a big baby, and there’s not much bathwater (having been displaced by doubt’s multi-armed flailing), but even the little that there is is worth keeping; as it settles, and some clarity emerges, what’s valuable in our doubting becomes more obvious. Various intuitions, for example, may now be accessible. (It’s interesting to note that intuition sometimes masquerades as doubt, mostly when we don’t want to hear it.) Growth-stunting beliefs, beliefs that we no longer need, may lose their grip on us. For a belief to be dismantled, doubt about it is needed. Doubt is a wonderfully deadly virus for belief systems that have outlived their usefulness.

When we give ourselves permission to doubt certain things -- like “expert” pronouncements, self-proclaimed “higher” structures, religious and political certainties, impermeable belief systems (including our own!), and so on -- and we do so without losing touch with our core of Being, we are a little freer, a little less seducible by others’ promises of security. Then doubt does not entrap or flatten us, but rather brings us closer to what is really happening, making us more at home with the Zen saying: “Great doubt, great awakening; little doubt, little awakening; no doubt, no awakening.”

Spending quality time with doubt makes us capable of what John Keats (in 1817!) called “negative capability” -- or the ability “of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.”

Hanging out with doubt can be a drag, and it can also be a portal into the matrix and essence of Existence. It all depends on how we handle it. Initially, it’s usually wise to work with doubt as an energetic phenomenon (noticing its characteristic sensations, staying mindful of breathing and intentions, keeping grounded, allowing emotional release, etcetera), only secondarily paying any attention to its content -- we need to be able to be near it without getting sucked into its viewpoint.

This requires not only meditative practice, but also the ability to know and appropriately express what we’re feeling. Later, we can move in closer to our doubt, entering not only its physical and emotional dimensions, but also its mental dimensions, and start mining it for its valuables. Still later, we can allow our doubt regarding the Big Questions to carry us -- and not just intellectually! -- into the mysteries of the Unknowable, beyond both certainty and uncertainty...

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Arthur/Adastra asks:

1. In the essay "The Dream's Petals Cradle Many a Viewfinder" you say, "What we refuse to face festers and multiplies within us and also around us, as if magnetically drawn to us until it literally takes our place, looking through our eyes and harnessing our energies to its own ends. This isn't necessarily the possession of horror films or voodooistic rites, but it is still possession."

I feel possessed by shadow sometimes. In the long term I'm sure you'd advise doing shadow-work with a qualified integral therapist (luckily I happen to know one). But in the times that it's happening, what would you advise me to do when I find myself looking at the world and everybody in it with flinty, hate-filled eyes? Or if I feel strongly triggered by a close friend to a totally unreasonable degree? I can't always remove myself from the situation. Obviously I don't want to act out (more than I have already - e.g. biting heads off coworkers etc.)

The undifferentiated/omnidirectional anger/rage disturbs me but is something I'm fairly used to - although thankfully it's become a lot more rare for me these days. The situation with my friend is more bothersome. She's been incredibly loving and kind to me, but when I am "possessed" by shadow material, I can't see that at all - only the ways I feel hurt, betrayed or mislead by her. When the shadows clear I see again all the things I love and appreciate about her, all the good times we've had together, how helpful she's been to me; then I feel appalled by what's been in my mind and heart earlier. I do feel like I have or had legitimate issues with her, but all that happened during a confused phase of my life and our friendship, so it's hard to sort out. In my past life when this kind of emotional dynamic played out for me, almost always I walked away from the situation and in many cases regretted ending a close friendship. I do NOT want that to happen this time. I don't know if I should try to process this with her or by myself. When it comes up for me my perspective is totally fucked, which makes it difficult.

This is very disturbing and uncomfortable for me. Any advice you can offer on this would be greatly appreciated.

2. On a related note, I notice that when I feel enraged, the sensation occupies my entire upper body from about my mid-chest up (including my arms), but not below that. I suspect this has something to do with a bioenergetic block or lack of integration of the lower parts of my bodymind. What do you think this is all about, and how should I work with this? In the past (before I started working with you) what I noticed most about the physical correlates of my anger was that if someone "triggered" me, almost instantly I'd get a sensation in my head like a little energetic bomb going off, and I would feel very destabilized and freakishly edgy. At that time I did not notice how the sensations were distributed in the rest of my body. Not uncommonly when the anger clears, under that is sadness, grief and/or despair. This morning I noticed those sensations seemed to be occurring somewhat lower in my body, but I need to observe that more times to be sure.

3. I find your books to be full of insight, and a great adjunct to doing therapy and workshops with you. However, I notice that you never have specific "exercises" that the reader can do - except occasionally you will give some meditation instruction for example, embedded in the text. I'm wondering if you ever consider having exercises (for individuals or couples) or if it is counter to your philosophical approach - in other words if you prefer not give specific instruction to people outside of workshops and therapy where you can intuit what they specifically need. You have mentioned elsewhere in the Q&A thread that you may do audio material in the future - if so, might there be some exercises on those?

Robert answers:

1. A couple of things: First, you cannot just work with your hate/anger/distress cognitively; the more you think about what’s transpired between you and your friend, the more agitated you’ll probably find yourself getting. Yes, pay attention to your hate and anger and distress, get inside them, explore and illuminate them as best you can, but also allow them fittingly full expression: Find ways and places to really cut loose (either by yourself or with others whom you trust), until your heart is blown open and your feet are on solid ground (see my answer to your next question).

Second, don’t let your friend off the hook; make sure that you and she look not only at your part in what’s happened between you, but also at her part. Making it all about you, as you seem to be doing, will only amplify your frustration. If she’s open to it, I suggest that you tell her what’s going on for you regarding her. Let her know what you are actually feeling, without any apology. If you are going to express any anger to her, make sure that you create a context for doing so, that you have her okay to go ahead, that you express it cleanly, and that you are vulnerable.

2. Bring more awareness to your belly, pelvis, legs, and feet. Breathe into your belly more deeply, let it loosen more, practice making sounds that come from your guts, put on some rocking music and stomp your feet to it while letting your voice out, and so on -- whatever brings your attention into your body from the diaphragm down. Don’t be nice. Make room for your power to emerge. Get out of your head. Get into working out not only regularly, but hard now and then, connecting your exertion to the specifics of whatever you’re angry about (this will, for example, not only put more juice into your bench pressing, but will also allow it to be a catalyst and arena for in-context anger-release, even if you’re in a setting where emotional noisiness is a no-no). Needless to say, body-including psychotherapy would be very useful here.

3. I prefer giving specific instructions based on what I sense from directly working in-depth with clients. These are not just practices arising from my general sense of what is needed under particular conditions for, say, men who lack spine, but practices arising from my intuitive, detail-rich, idiosyncrasy-honoring encounter with clients. At the same time, I am open to creating exercises and practices for certain conditions; when I’ll get around to actually getting these in book or audio form, I don’t know.

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PART TWENTYTHREE - April 16, 2006

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Arthur/adastra asks:


1. Is Diane going to record a CD of all the beautiful songs she sings at the end of workshops she does with you? I know that a CD of some of her songs will be included with your next book - the poetry compilation. Much as I've come to like your poetry, it's the CD I'm really looking forward to. Will the CD included with that book have all of those workshop songs? Or only the ones that are based on your poetry?

2. You've spoken somewhere of how most intimate relationships are (or become) a cult of two. Could you elaborate a bit on what this means? How can this be avoided, and what are some warning signs?


Robert answers:

1. Diane will be recording (this Fall, we hope!) a CD of 7 or 8 poems of mine that she has set to music. At the end of our groups, she usually sings several of these, plus a couple of her own songs. Once she has finished with the CD of our collaboration (my words, her music), she’s planning to record a CD or two of her own music, which includes not only her original songs, but also healing affirmations and chants. We are currently looking for funding for the initial CD project, and are trusting that it’ll manifest soon.

2. “A cult of two” is a pretty strong term, loaded with an abundance of not-so-nice connotations, but in a low-grade, far-from-dramatic sense I think it does apply to most couples who are practicing -- or, better, mired in -- what I have previously termed immature monogamy.

Here’s what I mean by “cult”: A tightly bounded enclosure or system that’s rigidly overattached to its core beliefs and practices, and that’s no more than microscopically receptive to critical “outside” feedback (such feedback from within usually getting even less of a welcome). Cults are not just the media-hyped enclaves of entranced followers; ego is a cult of one, most marriage a cult of two, and religion (along with most political parties) a cult of many.

Cultism overseparates. It is a self-obsessed us, with the rest of existence an overly distant them. Whatever caring exists within cultism — and it, however misguided, can be a deep caring — is eventually impoverished by its isolation from the rest of Life. Initially, cults protect what is inside their walls, but sooner or later they become guards rather than guardians. As such, they cut off the very life which they’re claiming to be enhancing.

In a relationship, this manifests either as romantic delusion or as a deadening process. Growth may have occurred in the early stages of the relationship, but before long it all but ceases. In the cult of two, mutual (and often tacit) agreements are made not to rock the boat, to appear to the outside world as happier and more together than is the case, to stay together even when the damage being done to one or both is apparent, to either not go to therapy or go to it without really exposing and working with the rotten foundations of the relationship. and so on.

Superficiality is given exaggerated importance in the cult of two. So is security. If others see them as an ideal couple or a happy couple, this is considered a good thing, even if the truth is quite different. Any in-depth uncovering of what’s really happening is avoided, as is whatever might threaten the actual cult or relational bubble. Others are denied any meaningful access to the inner workings of the relationship. And even though both members of the cult may be miserable with each other, they will nonetheless usually defend their relationship to those who dare to question it at all.

In a mature or significantly awakened relationship, the two may be profoundly bonded and even spend the majority of their time together, but their togetherness is not cultic. Yes, we don’t directly participate in their intimacy, but we are touched, opened, and furthered by their unusual closeness, the inner workings of which are openly radiated and communicated. This kind of relationship is not isolated, whatever its privacy, from the rest of Life; it is connected, and willingly connected, to the community-at-large, while maintaining its integrity.

When we’re in the presence of such a relationship, such a sanctuary of deep intimacy, we tend to feel more open, looser, happier, safer to do deeper work. The agreements made by the partners in a mature relationship are sufficiently life-giving so as to positively impact those with whom they come in contact, however indirectly.

How to avoid becoming part of a cult of two? Work on yourself; blow the whistle on what’s not working in the relationship; don’t pretend that it’s better than it is; get professional help when things start slipping; rock the relation-ship, and keep rocking it; get comfortable with your discomfort; expand the container of the relationship by relieving it of any deadening or otherwise life-negating practices that have crept into the relationship; don’t stop working on yourself, and don’t let your partner avoid doing his or her work; be committed to leaving if things get bad and stay bad no matter what you do.

Make truth more important than security, and connection more important than being right, allowing whatever arises in your relationship to serve your awakening.


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Julie/UnrulyJulie asks:


Brain chemistry and awakening...do anti-depressants ultimately help or impede the awakening process?

Recent studies seem to suggest that SSRIs like Prozac function as neurogenic agents rather than via just causing increased serotonin levels per se.

I've been on anti-depressants for years. Many years ago, I began taking Prozac after a significant period of competent therapy that had a great effect on cognition, but little on actual mood. I was in a very stressful living situation at the time; and the drug kicking in after a few weeks was like someone finally opening the curtains in a darkened room. So THIS is what other people's lives are like!??!!! It really did seem unfair...depression is a failure of the imagination--the inability to imagine that life can be any different than the way it is. I could not have imagined the transformation.

Going off seemed to trigger mood relapses, however.

I had no meditation or other spiritual program to work with these emotions until the last year. What I have found now, however, is that to a certain extent, the drug prevents my exploration of shadow in an experiential sense. I've found myself walking around my closed room of a mind looking for voids that I'm afraid to dive into...and they just aren't there. I've recently cut my dosage in half, and that does seem to make my heart a bit more open to both pain and joy. I'm holding it there for the time being. The particular drug I'm taking will trigger anxiety unless I taper slowly.

And yes, I have found that there is a rabbit-hole around the potential that my mind will wander into an anxiety-ridden hell that no drug can rescue 'me' from. Done some work with that one.

Any insight you may have on the role (or lack thereof) of anti-depressants while working the profound spiritual path would be most welcome. Thank you for your time.


Robert answers:

First, a few words about depression....My take is that depression is not so much a feeling as a suppression or pressing down of feeling, a deadening weightiness infused with a nastily pervasive sense of helplessness. Depression is primarily characterized by a resigned, self-dulling disempowerment; this can be a relatively short-lived mood, and it can also be a long-term condition. Also, depression is not just a personal condition; much of contemporary culture is depressed (collective psychoemotional numbing being but one symptom) and getting more and more depressed, while being simultaneously addicted to a great variety of uppers -- anything to take a break from depression’s bleak, energy-sucking domain.

Depression could be said to be the sensation of partially-successful repression, minus any satisfying compensatory lift. As such, it is a pain that walls away a deeper pain, serving as the drugged yet still wretchedly insomniac gatekeeper of incarcerated trauma or deep suffering.

Where anxiety wires us, depression flattens us, leaving us amorphously and greyly embodied, stuck in a flaccid rigor mortis. In depression, cognition is employed as an immune system of sorts, barring full entry to the bare reality of certain feelings — with all of their attending imperatives and intuitions — and whatever else is organismically recognized as a threat. That is, depression keep us “safe” from having to openly and fully feel what we’ve spent much of our life avoiding feeling. As such, it is a kind of solution -- a botched solution, but still a solution -- to unresolved pain. The longer it has been left intact, the more it will feel like a part of us, unpleasant for sure, but at least familiar. Not surprisingly, we tend to prefer the burdened beasts of depression to the monsters of the deep.


You ask: “Do antidepressants ultimately help or impede the awakening process?” I’d say both. What follows will hopefully clarify this.

Antidepressants have their place, but tend to be overused and overrelied on. They can be a Godsend, lifting the curtains of depression (as you describe), providing a necessary crutch for difficult times; and they can also be a crippler, keeping us resigned about our depression, stuck in a pervasive sense of lifelong chemical dependency.

Antidepressants are helpful in getting us into a place where we can function, feel some lightness and ease, and start doing some real work on ourselves. They can give us some stability, without which we might be too messed-up to be able to make necessary changes in our life. They give us a break from depression’s sunken territories, so that we can truly imagine and consider other possibilities. So antidepressants, used in moderation, can help us get started in working on ourselves, if only by freeing up enough energy so we can get going.

Antidepressants impede the awakening process by removing us from the deeper, more primal elements of our depressiveness, keeping our encounters with those elements relatively shallow. There may a sense of safety or security in remaining removed from the black pits of depression -- and for a while, it may be necessary to keep our distance from such zones -- but there’s also a huge loss, the loss of being cut off from so much of ourselves. Antidepressants lift the lid of depression enough so we feel better, but not enough to really expose what’s below.

So what to do? First of all, if you’re not already thus involved, do some high-quality psychotherapy that includes emotional work (exploring and releasing anger, and so on), and do it on a regular basis for a while. Combine this with some spiritual practice and meditation -- whatever form or forms you feel drawn to -- and do it daily, no matter how bad you feel. Also do some sort of exercise every day -- aerobic work (really work up a sweat), conscious stretching, weights, long walks -- and do it with total, fully embodied attention. And eat well. All of this can, of course, be done while you are on antidepressants.

Stay on your half dosage of antidepressants until you feel a bit stronger and more stable, then -- with your physician’s okay -- cut back to a lower dosage, not a lot lower, but low enough to feel a difference. You may feel shakier, less stable, a bit more fearful; it comes with the weaning process on which you’re embarking. Stay with the psychotherapy, meditation, and exercise. After a week or so, you should start feeling more stable and less fearful. Stay with your lower dosage a while longer, until you feel ready to drop it some more. Again -- and with your physician’s approval -- lower the dosage a touch more. During this process, take your time; it’s better to spend a year weaning yourself and have it work, than to rush it and have to go back to a heavier dosage. At the same time, if things get really rough, don’t hesitate to go back on a slightly higher dosage. Hopefully, at a certain point you won’t need antidepressants any more, and even if you do, the dosage will probably be small enough so as to not significantly interfere with your awakening work.

One last thing: Don’t overlook or only superficially approach your anger. In your psychotherapy sessions (and elsewhere, under fitting conditions), give yourself permission to be unruly; sometimes anger needs a relatively messy start to really get going. If you’ve turned anger in on yourself, reverse the process. You may find that when your anger is truly flowing and alive, it catalyzes a releasing of tears far deeper than the tears of depression.

It is no secret that most of those who come to psychotherapy with symptoms of depression are female. Why is this? Part of the answer lies in the fact that female anger is generally more negatively viewed in our culture than is male anger. An angry woman easily gets stuck with labels like “bitch” or “nag,” but an angry man generally receives less unfavorable labels. Those who have been historically most disempowered culturally are likely to be the most suppressed in their anger — and what is more depressing or crushing than feeling, over and over and over, helpless because of a powerful sense of disempowerment? Getting openly and uninhibitedly angry is not necessarily the cure for depression, but doing so may lift “the weight” enough for more movement to occur, for deeper, more healing tears to emerge, for aliveness to flow more freely.


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Bryan/integralschism asks:


I wonder if Robert would speak to the distinction between "seduction" and "creating attraction." I think it will be easier if I first say more about what I myself mean about those terms.

"Seduction" I see as a generally negative term. It implies that I'm causing someone to do something that they would not consciously choose to do if I were not manipulating them.

"Creating attraction" is different, in my mind. It is about changing myself so that qualities arise in me that are inherently attractive to women (e.g., confidence).

Now, remembering back to things RAM has said in previous answers, I think one thing he would say is, "first back up and examine why you would want someone to be attracted to you in the first place; what are the underlying motives to wanting to have sex with such and such a woman, or with any woman for that matter? Are you acting out erotic fantasies based on blocks within your own psyche?"

To the last question I would answer with a resounding "possibly" (and in truth I'm sure the answer is yes).

However, my GUESS is that if I worked on those blocks and psychological issues with great intensity over many years, that even though my inner state would change, as would my perspective towards women-in-a-sexual-manner, I still believe that I would feel naturally arising sexual desire when in the presence of a woman whom I feel attracted towards. And I also PREDICT that, after all that work, I would still be interested in SOMEHOW FINDING mutual attraction with her that may or may not lead to sex.

So, back to the creating attraction thing. IF we agree that WANTING mutual attraction is OK, and IF we agree that "changing our inner state for the better with the conscious understanding that this makes us more attractive to potential lovers" is OK.... .

Lost my train of thought, but I do think it's important to get agreement on the above two things first.

So, confidence. Creating more confidence in myself. I think this is across the board a good thing.

But here's where some grey area comes in. Some of the "dating guru" literature I have run into recommends gaining confidence (or at least acting confident). But it also recommends things like playful teasing. Also things like "not giving too much too soon." For example, this theory postulates that women are (metaphorically or literally) being offered sex by men all the time. And that most men kind of give themselves away by metaphorically saying, "I'd do anything for sex with you. I'll buy you what you want, I'll give you compliments, I'll be a little puppy at your feet. Whatever it takes." The theory goes on to say that this is inherently UNATTRACTIVE to women. So it recommends being a little teasing, a "leaning back" posture (physically and emotionally), etc. And as a caveat, it is quite clear about not being an asshole. These things are done with a little smile on the face.

So, can I re-wrap this question? If it's okay for me to want women to be attracted to me, and it's okay for me to build confidence in myself (partially) for that purpose, then is it also okay for me to CHANGE myself into a MORE TEASING, RASCALLY guy?

Because sometimes it feels forced. But other times it feels like the most delicious thing I could be doing, especially when it gets the kind of response from a woman that "acting like a puppy" never did.

Thanks in advance Robert. I hope you have fun with this one.


Robert answers:

Instead of “being interested in finding [my italics] mutual attraction with her,” how about allowing it? How about dropping the calculatedness, reentering your depths (masculine and otherwise), and aligning yourself with whatever instincts that then arise? Scary, yes, but also exciting, because you’re then no longer on the sidelines trying to send in a play to your quarterback. The ball is in your hands; you have two seconds maximum to make a play, no matter how sweaty your touch is -- no time to think, but time enough to act. No rehearsal. But what passion! What deep coil and thrust, what decisiveness, what out-in-the-open power, what confidence!

If you want real confidence, don’t bother putting juice into its surrogates. Instead, get in touch with your psychoemotional core, relocate yourself in your guts, reclaim your balls. Keep your sensitivity, but not at the expense of your masculine rawness. Access that rawness, get intimate with it, give it a voice, exult in it, making sure that you also keep what’s between it and your heart wide open. When you stand in your true masculinity, letting it exude from you, and you do so with integrity, women will naturally be more open to you, including sexually. The confidence you need is not just an intellectual confidence, but an organismic confidence sure enough of itself to not have to put on a show.

At one point in your question/concern, you say that you lost your train of thought. That may be a good thing: Too much thinking about what you want to do with women just keeps you stranded in your head, “safely” removed from the thing you apparently want. I suggest that you let your longing for juicy female company derail your train of thought -- not all the time, but more often than not -- so that you are left immersed in your feeling (and not just your sexual feeling); go into that longing, that deep ache, and go in with the lights on, and you will be guided into what’s needed next, even if it’s to spend more quality time dating your loneliness or self-consciousness.

You talk about wondering if it’s okay to change yourself into a “more teasing, rascally guy.” Whose permission do you need? And what if such a change is not natural to you? You could do really deep work on yourself and still not be that kind of guy, except maybe every now and then. Maybe you hope that becoming a “more teasing, rascally guy” would bring you more “success” with women, in which case you are just seducing yourself with hope. Present yourself as you are, in a way that fits with whomever you are with, and at least then if a spark arises between you and a woman, it will be grounded in something more natural than dating strategies.

To make yourself more attractive with the least karmic hassle, settle into a Being-centered perspective as much as possible, attune to your need for fitting female company, and align yourself with the resulting intuitions as to how to best arrange your exterior. This is not manipulation, but simply dressing for the occasion.

There’s no need to closet or gag your egoity and insecurity, so long as you keep them functionally peripheral to your depths. This may sound a bit cumbersome, but it’s really just an invitation to maintain some intimacy with the deep end of the pool as you play in the shallows. It’s crucial not to get caught up in trying to do it right. Bottom line is: It simply feels better to do what you do from that place in you where you cannot help but care for the other, no matter how much she arouses you.

If flirting is natural for you -- and it may not be -- keep your heart in it. Flirting is teasing spiked, however subtly, with sexual innuendo, serving as a kind of self-advertising -- your job is to use it well. Don’t, for example, come on to a woman in a way that’s disrespectful of her, and then excuse yourself by saying that you were just joking. Pay attention to boundaries. Some women may go along with your flirting, and act as if they’re fine with it, when in fact they feel trapped or even paralyzed by it, but don’t (because of past associations) feel at all safe making an issue out of what’s going on, let alone actually confront you.

Notice what it is about women that turns you on the most, and find out what part of that, if any, is generated by your unresolved issues; approaching a woman because she fits your conditioning (i.e., “I want her to want me and I’ll be a good boy -- or docile supersensitive guy -- to get that”) is quite different than approaching a woman because she resonates with your essentialness and does so with a dynamite mixture of camaraderie and chemistry.

The more deeply you work on yourself, the more prepared you’ll be for a truly great relationship, and the more adeptly you’ll handle and learn from more casual relationships.

Don’t rehearse. Be appropriately transparent. Don’t try to be deep; make room for being superficial, without, however, being shallow. You might even find yourself being deeply superficial.

And how much to reveal? Don’t undress too quickly, but do let some layers show, so that she has more to engage with than just self-conscious testosterone or horny hopes. Make connection more important than your fear of rejection, and I mean connection not just with her, but also with yourself; the more whole you are when you are with her, the more whole you will be giving her space to be.

If you’re not already doing so, I recommend bodywork-including psychotherapy (to help cut through your investment in being nice and to really get you into your guts) and men’s groupwork (to augment the preceding). The Deep Masculine awaits you. Trust it. Once you start to embody it, the Deep Feminine will start showing up in your life.


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PART TWENTYFOUR - August 14,2006
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Liz/Tamgoddess asks:

Robert-this month's newsletter was great, as usual. Loved the essay on doubt. Here are two questions for you. I thought seriously about posting them anonymously, but then, last time I did that, I ended up having to reconstruct my questions and it was a pain. What the hell, here goes.

1. I've been examining my feelings about my marriage ending and my ex's girlfriend. I've come to a point where I'm comfortable with the situation for the most part, and my ex and I are getting along very well. At this point, much of my negative feelings are just tapes playing in my head, not deeply felt emotions. They're mostly empty. I've also accepted my part in the end of our marriage.

My difficulty is in stopping these tapes from playing. Is it premature to expect that, or is there a way I can actively stop this repetitive resentment? I feel like it is coloring my new relationship in that I have fears that I'm indulging in, and I don't want to keep repeating a cycle of fear and closing myself off.

2. Also, do you have a better word for my "ex"? It sounds horrible to me, and he's much more than that. He's my best friend and my children's father. We plan on having a relationship for a long time. I would prefer a more friendly term.

3. Also, the physical distance in this new relationship is really hard for me. How does one who is not a great meditator and has trouble staying in the here and now live with the loneliness that comes with a long-distance relationship? Is there some sort of structured meditation or something that will help?

Love to you and Diane,

Liz

Robert Answers:

1. How to stop the tapes from playing? If they truly are just mental loops devoid of emotion, then simply becoming aware of them as they arise, and then shifting your attention to something noncognitive (like the abdominal sensations generated by your breathing) ought to be enough. But I suspect that there may be some emotion fueling the tapes, if only because you do refer to their playing as a “repetitive resentment” that you’d like to stop. I recommend that you give yourself permission to openly feel and express whatever hurt and anger may still be there, regardless of any thoughts you might have that you shouldn’t be feeling such feelings anymore.

If there is any denial whatsoever of such feelings, they will energetically migrate to your head, finding a kind of pseudo-release through the kind of thinking in which you are caught up. I suggest that when you become aware of the tapes starting to play that you immediately identify what you are feeling, and shift your attention to that, whatever it may be, and keep your attention there as best you can. Sometimes doing so will not require any overt emotional expression, and other times it will. In addition to this, I suggest that each morning you do a minimum of 15 minutes of focused meditation, followed by visualizing your ex and wishing him well for a few minutes.

2. As horrible as “ex” might sound to you, it’s important that you honor and fully accept what it signifies; you could think of him as your “ex” and still feel warmly toward him as your “ex” without bringing in whatever negative associations you might have with the term. If “ex” still doesn’t work for you, you could try extending it to “ex-partner” or try some similar labels, like “former partner” or “past partner”. You could also shorten “former partner” to “f-p” (“past partner” doesn’t shorten so well); when you mention “my f-p” to someone, you’d of course have to explain what it meant, which would give you an opportunity to say a bit more about him and your current relationship with him.

3. First of all, there’s no alternative to practicing being present; simply saying to yourself, “Now I’m aware of...” and immediately finishing the sentence is something you can do at all kinds of times. One of the benefits of this new relationship is that it is going to force you (assuming you remain committed to it) to become more skilled at being present.

I recommend that you date your loneliness.

This means spending quality time with it, becoming more sensitive to it, moving toward its pain, its craving for release from itself. Notice the intensity of your pull to get away from those sensations that characterize your loneliness. What if you were to just sit there, sit with your loneliness, not doing a damn thing other than giving it your undivided attention? What if you were to simply let it settle and rest in your presence, listening to it with an opening heart and curious mind, noticing its shape and breath, its bodily terminals, its tones, its textures, its shifts?

And shift it will, if you continue to give it undivided, compassionate attention. You can thus hold your loneliness, holding it close but not so close that it cannot breathe freely.
Then your loneliness is not just a painfulness, but a vulnerable fullness warming you, a tender ticket to your depths, a far from dysfunctional catalyst for remembering What-Really-Matters.

In letting your loneliness transmute into aloneness, you may still be physically alone, but you’ll be palpably connected, especially at the heart, with many others, realizing that only when you are truly capable of enjoying being alone are you capable of really being in relationship.

Of course, none of this means that you won’t miss your new relationship. What’s important is not to make a problem out of missing him. Stay with the ache of it, the hurt and longing of it, and use that pain to deepen your connection to the Real. Also realize the benefits of being apart: You have space to truly work through whatever’s left unfinished with your f-p; you have space to digest and integrate whatever’s happening between you and your new man; you get to deepen and refine your speaking and listening skills (via phone intimacy) with him; you are forced to gradually settle into the relationship, building a solid and true friendship, without the chemistry between the two of you getting in the way.

When it is truly time to be together full-time, the key sign will be that your separation will no longer be serving your mutual growth. Until then, be grateful for your bond, and grateful for what it stirs up in you, neither speeding nor braking the ripening of your connection.

I’m not speaking theoretically here, for my wife Diane and I spent close to a year not living together, despite feeling remarkably close and bonded early on, because we lived a thousand miles apart. We missed each other terribly during our times apart, but were okay with it until a half year or so had passed (during which time we let the depth of our bond pervade the rest of our lives), after which it began to feel, and consistently feel, unnatural not to be fully together. Then, and only then, did we begin seriously talking about living together. Your new relationship is still ripening; all you and your man need do is provide the necessary conditions for that ripening to continue. Along the way you will become much more intimate with states like loneliness, patience, doubt, and faith, not to mention your own depths. Along the way meditate, pray, weep, rage, laugh, letting go of how you think it all should be. Trust, and a deeper trust...

I’ll close this with a poem I wrote to Diane after one of our L.A. airport partings (roughly 4 months after we met):

AIRPORT BLUES II

So we parted once again
Letting the pain sweep through
Knowing it was coming
Didn’t make it any easier
Only in dying, living
I leave but am not leaving

Blazing sea of clouds below
Clear superblue skies up here
And I’m raining, raining inside
Your goodbye tears ripping me wide
Only in dying, living
I leave but am not leaving

We found a little corner
Airport crowds streaming past
Forgetting them was easy
Letting you go was not
Only in dying, living
I leave but am not leaving

We stood tenderly trembling
In our little concrete corner
Wrapped in our shared heart
Knowing we’d soon be apart
Only in dying, living
I leave but am not leaving

I carry our parting kiss
Up the bustling stairs
Leaning into the buzzing hustle
Looking back at the space between us
Only in dying, living
I leave but am not leaving

Beloved, take my hand
Let’s pass through every land
Until separation cannot keep us apart
And we are what beats our heart



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PART TWENTYFIVE - August 21,2006
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MichaelD asks:

Reasons for making reasons (within a healing context):

Making or finding reasons for why we are as we are can possibly suggest useful strategies for making changes.

Reasons provide meaning which in turn satisfies a desire…the desire to understand…to solve a puzzle, to satisfy curiosity, provide solace to the ego etc.

Provide the illusion of control (the mind likes to think it runs the show, and meaning is mind-fodder).

Provide story and explanation to reinforce and bolster continuity of identity.

Reasons can serve to reinforce ‘the problem’.

Reasons can provide plenty of materials for purposes of complaining.

Based on the above, it would seem that the negatives outweigh the positives of making & finding reasons. Yet to my often amazed mind, I still continue to look for and create reasons, and frankly, I'm tired of it.

There is the need for investigation and processing that simply doesn’t go away no matter how much I wish it away.

I investigate what is happening within and to me because to not do so is painful. A sense of Wholeness and Understanding that is beyond mere reasoning calls me ever forward, even as the pain of looping over and over again in cycles of one sort or another insist that I bring awareness into dark areas of self via an investigative mode of inquiry.

So I do so. Part of what happens then - is simple witnessing, and another part is analysis. (actually, I think that there are multiple layers of inquiry, and rational analysis is just one of them, but tends to dominate).

And what does the analyzing mind do? Makes and finds reasons and patterns and stories of course.

Reasons tend to go on and on in ever widening circles of self-justification.

What are your thoughts Robert on the question of interpretations and meaning-making within healing?


Robert answers:

What are my thoughts on the question of interpretations and meaning-making within healing? First of all, remember that an interpretation, however useful or fitting, is just that, an interpretation, and don’t stop remembering it. Second, be aware of whatever value is being placed upon a particular interpretation, both by yourself and by others. Third, keep an eye on the interpreter. Fourth, allow your interpretations to retain enough of an unfinished quality so that they have room for further shaping and evolution. Fifth, keep in touch as much as possible with that which eludes all interpretation. And last, but not least, stay in compassionate relationship with the you who needs what meaning-making provides.

When we, in a healing context, do some work and start connecting the dots, it’s quite natural to interpret our experience, to somehow make some sense out of it. There’s a reason, or reasons, for why we are the way we are, or so we think, perhaps finding a needed comfort in such explanation. We may settle for reasons that are mundane, and we may settle for reasons that are more metaphysical, like those employing notions like “karma” to explain -- and perhaps also justify -- just about anything. But Life is not so neatly ordered or mappable, regardless of our conceptualizations of it. We don’t necessarily always have to interpret or make meaning out of what’s going on; we can sometimes simply be with it, letting it make unexplainable sense; or we can allow our interpreting and meaning-making to remain functionally peripheral to our simply being with whatever’s arising.

I know I’m skimming over some deep waters here. Rather than continuing to scan the territory, I’m going to plunge into the notion of meaning itself, examining along the way the “why?” that more often than not fuels our meaning-making enterprises. Though my approach to meaning is not exactly gentle, I do not intend to diminish anyone for whatever relationship they might have with meaning, or for whatever comfort they might derive from meaning and meaning-making. And once again what started as a relatively concise response has morphed, with no real resistance from me, into something essayish...

OURS NOT TO REASON WHY
An Inside Look at Meaning

Life is too real to have (or to need) meaning.

And just what does that mean?

Read on...

Given the actual condition in which we find ourselves, it is quite understandable that we’d look, and keep looking for -- and at times require -- some sort of comfort or reassurance in the explanatory dimensions of consciousness, even though our attempts to find or extract or assign meaning ultimately only distract us from the raw contingency and absolute mystery of our existence.

We act as if we need a reason to go on (plus a reason to keep on needing reasons), but, as James Hillman points out, “A significant life does not have to find meaning because significance is given directly with reality.”

Significance, unlike meaning, does not explain, but reveals.

Many of us believe that everything happens for a reason. But it actually happens simply because various factors have, in their mutual intersecting and coming together, made such manifestation inevitable. Each of these factors has its factors, and so on, back and back and back, in cartography-eluding, surpassingly complex contingency. This, all put together, constitutes something far more real than “a reason.”

We may not want (or be prepared) to fully acknowledge the contingent nature of whatever arises -- including us (especially in our wanting to be special, to stand out against the rest of existence) -- trying instead to assign some kind of meaning to it, but such explanatory strategies do not even remotely approach what is really occurring.

The assumption that anything possesses — or can truly claim — intrinsic meaning is important to cut through, but only when we are ready to do so. Whatever its value developmentally (as part of formal reasoning’s unfolding) and under certain conditions (psychotherapeutic, for example), meaning remains an interpretive process designed, however automatically, to distract us — and, more often than not, protect our separative self-sense — from that which has spawned us and paradoxically also is, as always, literally making an appearance as us.

We make meaning, and it makes us, and on and on this goes in Möbius loopity-loops, more often than not leaving us eventually circling ourselves so tightly that there’s not much more to breathe than just more data. “Just when I found the meaning of life, they changed it” (George Carlin). And we is they.

So is Life meaningless? Coiled deep within-and-beyond this question is the “answer,” existing not as a facile yes or no, but rather in the transconceptual illumination of what is really motivating the question. Identifying who — or, more to the point, what — is formulating it is far, far more important than just attempting to reply to its content. Whatever is generating the question needs to be fully exposed and acknowledged, not only intellectually, but with our entirety. Then, and only then, can the actual relevancy of the question be viewed in its nakedness, so that it might spark a truly fitting response.

That is, when the question becomes primal inquiry, its investigation leads beyond the cognitive associations of the conventional mind into firsthand participation in deeper dimensions of Being. Something more real than answers — or what we “normally” think of as answers — is sought, intuited, taken in.

Life makes sense only when we stop trying to make it make sense.

Put another way, when we cease projecting meaning onto Life (an undertaking that should not be engaged in prematurely) — thereby giving Life more breathing room, more space to be — then Life’s natural significance begins revealing itself to us.

The entire issue of meaning and meaninglessness, if explored with sufficient depth, provides an opportunity to become more aware not only of the functioning of our mind, but also of our attachment to knowledge and its various framings. Stephen Levine speaks of how “no ‘meaning’ can hold it all.... There is an odd way the mind, particularly when threatened, attempts to find ‘meaning’ in life, to make some intellectual bargain with the unknown.” We forget that that which seeks to explain the Mystery is just part of the Mystery, as ultimately unfathomable as anything else.

However, the point is not to make existential real estate out of meaninglessness (which is where existentialism has floundered). When our mind is quiet and our heart open and our belly relaxed, Life can be before us in its horizonless, nameless, naked, ultravivid reality and absolute mystery, and we have room for it all to be just as it is, not minding that it carries no intrinsic meaning. Its bare existence and seeming paradoxicalness — a neverending perishing that is never other than Eternal Being — draws us to it, beyond the reach of our mind, until our relationship with it becomes, at least to some degree, identification with it.

Nevertheless, the usual “I” is but a thought away.

So easy it is to shift from Be-ing to me-ing.

To reiterate: Life has no inherent meaning, both including and transcending whatever seeks to explain, conceptualize, frame, or contain it.

Meaning provides a relatively secure (and, at times, necessary) sense of certainty, a psychosemantic hedge against the Wild Mystery of Being, a comfortingly shared or personalized flag to hold up and wave in the midst of Infinity, a neatly-bricked bastion of explanatory facticity (and corresponding values) in which to dwell when emissaries of primordial Being — like death and nondual stirrings — come knocking.

As important as meaning is at times — as when it provides needed bridges over stormy or confusing waters — it nonetheless remains little more than a mental strategy. It may take us to the very edge of the personal, but to proceed further, we must cease hanging onto it.

And we must also cease hanging onto meaninglessness. Where meaning seduces us with hope — nostalgia for the future — meaninglessness seduces us with despair — angst for the future. Beyond (and yet also simultaneously prior to) both hope and despair is the Now in which we are always already Home.

Meaninglessness is a grave problem to most, a burdened sea with no habitable coast, the suffocating yet reassuringly familiar shadow of a brooding existential ghost. Meaninglessness — which is not equivalent to purposelessness — is the glum and sometimes intellectually smug companion and angst-crowned legitimizer of despair, elevating to pseudo-priesthood those who claim to be able to restore meaningfulness.

Nevertheless, the issue of meaning and meaninglessness isn’t really that much of a core concern, being peripheral to issues like purpose. In brief, purpose involves the uncovering and fitting-as-possible embodiment of a kind of psychospiritual blueprint, simultaneously simple and complex, already written yet invitingly blank, rich with improvisational possibility. Purposefulness may seem to share some overlap with meaningfulness, but it is much more than a cognitive construction. Purpose is more organismic than meaning, rooted not just in mind, but also in body, emotion, psyche, and spirit.

In such totality, there is a naturally felt sense of significance. Significance transcends meaning. Meaning is rooted in dualistic apperceiving, but significance, in the crunch, is not nearly so dualistically rooted or framed or limited, signaling the impact of direct contact with What-Really-Matters, whatever the level.

Significance doesn’t ask “Why?” (because it has no need to), but meaning does, and in fact is an attempt to meet “Why?” with answers/explanations/beliefs that will silence it. But “Why” is asking for something very different, if we will but really listen to it...

When we are suffering, we may find ourselves asking: “Why?” There is, however, no genuinely satisfying answer at the level at which our suffering is the prevailing reality for us. And nor are the metaphysical and “spiritual” reasons and beliefs spewed out by our intellect truly satisfying.

The understanding we seek is not in our everyday mind. But it exists. It is often first sensed when we cease turning away from the pain that centers our suffering. And it is found when we — in the form of awakened attentiveness — penetrate that pain so deeply that we connect, intimately, with its essence. Then suffering’s “Why?” ceases being a conventional question, and simply becomes one more catalyst for opening the book of our life to the most fitting pages.

Philosophically, we may rebut suffering’s “Why?” with “Why not?” or with cosmic smooth talk. But when we move beyond these and other such strategies, our sense of identity shifts from everyday selfhood — which both centers and animates that dramatization of pain which we call suffering — to the selfhood that knows itself to be but Being making an appearance. Pain may still exist here, but not suffering.

So when you, in your suffering, ask “Why?”, shift your attention — your undivided attention — to whatever it is that you are feeling. Thoughts may be campaigning for your attention, but shift, and keep shifting, your attention from thought to sensation and feeling. Don’t try to silence your mind; simply let it be as you focus in on the feeling dimension of your suffering. Enter it. Explore and illuminate its geography from within, touching all of it with care. See it without eyes, hear it without ears, know it without thinking. Don’t stop short; enter it fully.

Permit yourself intimacy with detail — detail of location, shape, texture, pressure, temperature, speed, color, directionality, imagery. Don’t wait for a seemingly more auspicious moment; go, go this very moment, now. Enter it deeply, passing through it until you reach the place where pain is but fierce grace. Then observe who or what it is that is asking “Why?” -- is it really you, or is it just a habit that has been given permission to refer to itself as you? Looking for meaning here is just a detour.

Check out the billboards lining your journey into and through the feelings that are central to your suffering. Notice which ones grab you, seduce you, hook you. Maybe ones like “Life’s not fair” or “I don’t deserve this” or “Why me?” snare you. Don’t, however, get focused on the dramatics at this point — it’s enough to simply recognize that you’re caught. All the places, faces, and embraces that hook us weave the net of our suffering.

Suffering can be one hell of a drag, but it also gives us an identity — I suffer, therefore I am. We tend to be reluctant to give up our suffering. What would we then blame for our failures? And who would we be (and who would we be responsible for being) if our suffering were to cease?

The end of suffering — which does not mean the end of pain — means, among other things, ceasing to adopt a problematic orientation to Life. Then every feeling and thought and state, however dark or tight or dense, becomes a portal into Being, the open sky of which effortlessly renders transparent suffering’s “Why?”.

As Presence — the self-illuminating, effortlessly sentient imprint of Being — becomes primary, and perception secondary, we find ourselves reassembled as motivelessly awakened openness, as at home with the ouch as with the aahhh!

The answer to suffering’s “Why?” is not really an answer, but rather an openness ablaze with a recognition before which the mind gets so quiet, so unburdened by meaning, so dynamically empty, that the arising of a single thought is thunderously apparent.

Instead of trying to get rid of suffering’s “Why?”, we could treat it as a kind of divine appetizer, signaling a feast not so far away, to which one and all are invited. The main course includes the self that turns pain into suffering, cooked to perfection. Not exactly tenderloin, but quite edible, nevertheless, and easily digested when not allowed to become food for thought.

Suffering is but pain that’s gone to mind. Instead of minding pain — thereby letting it overfuel thinking and thinker — be with it, breathe it, feel it, inch closer and closer to it. The more intimate we are with our pain, the less we suffer.

Ours not to reason why, ours but to come alive.

Perhaps later on we will understand what is not ours to understand now, but that is not the point — what matters is the degree of intimacy that we cultivate with our not-knowing.

Allow suffering’s “Why?” to be like a roll of newspaper used to stir a fire; soon, it becomes food for the flames, its transformation its gift to us, the ever so brief calligraphy of its ashes eloquently traced across Big Sky.

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PART TWENTYSIX - September 13, 2006

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Liz/Tamgoddess asks:

Here's a question that came up in conversation last night.

I just read yet another story about a guy who killed his whole family and then himself.

Often, the scenario is that the woman is leaving him, and he decides he can't live with that. I have personal knowledge of this scenario, as this happened with someone who worked at a place where I ended up working later. His wife was leaving, and he was just this regular guy, seemingly. He seemed to be coming to grips with it, and then he just shot everyone in his family and then himself. From what my coworkers told me, he'd been in to work the day before, and seemed not at all different, except having accepted the situation, as often happens with suicidal people who have made the decision and are "at peace" with it. He had no history of domestic violence, as far as anyone knew. I found this so disturbing, that it could happen seemingly to anyone.

This seems to be something that men do and not women, though of course there are exceptions. When a man does it, it barely even makes the news anymore. Do you understand why this happens? Why do these men feel the need to take everyone with them?

Also, this seems to happen much more frequently now. Do you think there is some social reason that it's become more acceptable in these men's minds to do this than, say, 50 years ago? Is it just that they've seen it happen with other men, and they get the idea that it's the best way out?

I do have some ideas about this, but I wanted to see what you think before I comment on it. Thanks.

Liz


Robert answers:


I don’t have any kind of conclusive answer to the questions you raise, since each such murder-plus-suicide situation has its own unique formative elements, but I do think that there are some factors worth considering:

(1) Increasingly pervasive cultural stress, in deadly combo with an overwhelming level of personal stress. Those who don’t handle this so well usually find “solutions” that, sooner or later, simply compound their distress. A breaking point is reached, which may manifest in all kinds of ways, including, at the extreme, murder and/or suicide. I’m not saying that stress causes a man to kill his family and himself, but that there’s a positive correlation between extreme stress and “out-of-character” acts. Put just about any of us under extreme pressure for long enough, and who knows what will be uncorked?

(2) Twisted logic, coupled with heavy stress levels and emotional overload. The father in question may have thought along these lines: “I don’t want my family to have to live with the pain of having a father who’s committed suicide, so I’ll spare them that pain by ending their lives before I take my own.” An irrational rationalization for sure, but a rationalization nonetheless. Or he may have thought something like: “I don’t want to separate my family.” This is not an uncommon thought, especially amongst those who are in a situation that may be leaning toward unwanted separation.

So keeping the family together by killing them all at the same time may become an appealing notion for one who is at an extreme edge. Enough distress may fuel the kind of thinking that concludes that the family is better off dead. (This may be made all the more palatable if we hold religious beliefs along the lines that we’ll all literally be together again, pretty much as we are, in some kind of heaven-world -- so what real difference does it make how we get there?)

(3) Violence remains a common “solution” to certain difficulties, especially among men. And the greater the stress, the greater the aggression, whether it’s turned toward others, or toward oneself, or both. Even the “nicest” guy may turn into a stalker (whose self-loathing only further fuels his ultra-possessive behavior) when his wife leaves him, submitting to the most primitive of territorial imperatives. Or he may enter the uglier dimensions of aggression because of extreme shame -- think of how we, at least in a cinematic sense, almost expect the shamed hero to revenge himself on those who have put him down. Revengeisus.com.

I mention shame because of how intensely it can arise in those who are being left, or are about to be left, by their partner. In women, this shame often manifests as toxic self-deprecation, an aggression turned inward, but in men it more often manifests as as an equally toxic putting down of the woman, a blaming of and aggression against her. Hostility plus.

Also, a man who is about to be left by his wife may be so opposed to her being with another man, not to mention their children also being with a new dad, that he’d rather kill them all than endure such a situation; he might not have considered suicide before killing them, but once he has, suicide may seem to him to be the only way out of the horror he has brought about.

(4) An extremely compelling sense of no-exit despair, no way out, no alternative. When someone has reached this point, suicidal thoughts are common. If significant others are being considered at such a time, it likely won’t be with any real clarity. Those who are seriously considering suicide are, with few exceptions, in immense pain, stumbling through a darkness beyond darkness. At this point our psychophysiological default will assert itself with great force: We might shut down our vital signs (as we probably first did when under unbearable stress) and sink into the “safety” of depression; we might get overly absorbed in obsessive thought-loops, finding some distance from our emotional pain through doing so; or we might try to simply disappear (which may have been part of how we survived our childhood), going in the direction of extreme dissociation or in a more overtly physical direction, like suicide.

If a man’s family is central to his sense of identity, and he is totally opposed to having it come apart (as through the departure of one member, including him), even as he simultaneously feels certain that he is going to leave via suicide, then his backed-into-a-corner solution may be to take his family members with him into death. Such may be his answer -- however bizarre it may seem to less troubled others -- to keeping his family together, brushing him, however fleetingly or ambiguously, with a trace of moral triumph in his last desperate moments.

Robert Augustus Masters on Integral Naked

Recently I've taken a position as one of the moderators on the Integral Naked forum, and in that capacity I recently set up a "question and answer" thread with local (near Vancouver) integral therapist and spiritual teacher Robert Augustus Masters. This project started several days ago and will likely continue for several more days or so - until the supply of questions starts to dry up or we see a natural endpoint.

Each day I take whatever questions people have posted on the thread or sent to me in email, send them to Robert, then post his answers on the thread. The thread has gotten a lot of participation, and people have expressed excitement and gratitude at the results; with the success of this experiment I hope we will be able to have more "big name" integral and spiritual thinkers participate directly with forum members in this way.

Please click on Robert Augustus Masters Q&A if you would like to check it out, and feel free to submit questions! Once the thread has run its course, I plan to post all the questions and answers here for easy access.

arthur

Chanting Weirdness

While chanting along to "Om Namah Shiviya" today, I had a weird experience where, eyes closed, I felt a vivid and palpable sense of presence around me, especially behind. My boundaries felt distinctly more permeable than usual. At times I also felt as though the whole back side of my body was - how can I express this - "open" in some way, sort of as if the front part of me was a hollow facade filled up with Being - it wasn't nondual, I'm certainly not claiming that (at no time did I really lose my separate self-sense) - but there was a sense of immanence, as if things could get Really Freaky, Really Fast. I've had this kind of experience a few times before while chanting. Usually I have to open my eyes to dispel it, because it scares me too much. This time I tried to stay with it as long as I could, using a prayer I learned recently to deal with difficult emotions - "I love and accept even this." That helped me stay in it longer than usual, but finally my eyes popped open - whew! Relief! Solid, physical world, nothing to worry about here! Then closed my eyes again, went into that weirdness again a bit more, not quite as strong...and gradually it diminished and faded away completely. Then I did some Tara chants and felt happy.

I've been sick for several days, and chanting has been somewhat more intense than usual.

Any comments on this or reports of similar experiences would be welcome. What do you think this could be? I don't plan to get very hung up on it - it sounds like the kind of thing Spiritual Authorities would advise me not to get distracted by...but I'm just curious and besides, since I have an INTEGRAL framework, I'm authorized to investigate any and all phenomena - as long as I solemnly swear on a stack of Wilbers to ultimately transcend and include them. And I do so solemnly swear, so help me Ken.

arthur

DREAM TRIPS: DREAM DRUGS AS METAPHOR

The following is a short article I wrote in 1999, which I've expanded and re-written slightly.

DREAM TRIPS: DREAM DRUGS AS METAPHOR

If someone takes a psychoactive drug while physically awake, it changes her brain chemistry and so alters her state of consciousness. Taking a drug in a dream is a very different proposition, however - in that realm a drug would actually be a metaphor for an intention to change your consciousness in a particular way, and as such is an interesting and useful technique for those who utilize state changes as part of a spiritual path, or just as a means of exploring the possibilities of their own mind. Ann Faraday discusses this type of “high dreaming” in her book DREAM POWER:

I had several high dreams during and after the period of my [legal] drug research, and the one I remember most vividly still remains somewhat of a mystery to me. In this dream, I found myself on a desert island with some friends when a storm blew up. As we stood and watched the lightning flash across the sky and the waves beating against the rocks, I thought, "I wish I had some acid now." My wish immediately became reality, and I reached a "high" in the dream. For a timeless moment, I danced, flashed, and roared with the storm and seemed to merge with the "being" at the center of it. On regaining normal consciousness in the dream, I turned to my friends and said, "You need acid to see the devil in the storm," and they nodded their comprehension. I woke up feeling exhilarated and joyful beyond belief, a feeling which remained with me for several days. Here again is evidence that the "high" state can be produced without drugs - in this case it was a mental image of LSD which succeeded in bringing about the ecstatic dream experience.

In contrast to Charles Tart's article on "high dreams" in ALTERED STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS, Faraday suggests that it may be possible to experience such a state in a dream without having experienced it first in waking life. Most of Tart's data comes from subjects who had participated in LSD research and subsequently had similar experiences in dreams. Faraday, however, experienced her first high dream long before her research with psychedelics. One fascinating aspect of this phenomenon mentioned by Tart is that some of the subjects experienced a continuation of the altered state for a few minutes after they woke up. Terence McKenna, who has done extensive research with psilocybin and DMT, mentioned in an interview that he has experienced "full-blown DMT experiences" after taking the substance in a dream, and that this experience sometimes persisted for a few moments after waking. It would be interesting to speculate on whether taking a drug in a dream is literally altering your brain chemistry, or even if naturally occurring psychedelics in the brain could be involved in the normal dreaming process. After all, it is known that a small amount of a psychedelic taken before going to sleep - an amount too small to produce a noticeable effect if taken while awake - will extend the period of REM dreaming. The Lucidity Institute Lucid Dreaming FAQ states, "Drugs in the LSD family, including psilocybin and tryptamines actually stimulate REM sleep (in doses small enough to allow sleep), leading to longer REM periods." They add, "we do not recommend the use of drugs without proper guidance nor do we urge the breaking of laws," an important qualification with which I fully agree.

Regardless of the possible role of endogenous psychedelics in "normal" brain chemistry and daily altered states such as dreaming, it may be worthwhile to experiment with "dream drugs" as a metaphor for intended alterations of consciousness. Obviously, if one has experienced the effect of a particular drug while awake - be it LSD, alcohol, ecstasy, marijuana or whatever - it would be possible to compare the states produced in the dream and those produced while awake. However, even if one has never experienced a particular drug in waking life, knowing what the effects of the drug are said to be may be sufficient to produce a useful altered state in the dream environment. A.S. Kay, in the article "Psychedelics and Lucid Dreaming: Doorways in the Mind," mentions a dreamer's experience of taking MDMA [ecstasy] in a dream, then notes, "The dreamer had...not yet taken MDMA in waking life. Shortly after this dream he did try it and found the experience to be very similar." Kay points out the rich array of possibilities open to someone who chooses this line of experimentation:

A particularly "psychedelic" way of programming your choice is to decide which dream drug to take in a lucid state. If you take dream-MDMA you will have a heart-level bonding experience, which can be used to clear negative patterns with parents, lovers or friends, or to enhance awareness of the perfection of your self, and every other person. If you take dream-LSD you can more easily tune into the unconscious realms and the spiritual channels, etc. You might even try creating your own brand of psychedelic, with attributes of your fancy. If you are really daring, take a totally unknown drug, and let it take you where it will. Everything you learn will mirror your mind! You will reach totally new and uncharted lands, which are yet somehow familiar!

Speculative and science fiction stories also offer good ideas for compounding your dream drug...time warpers would be drugs that dilate or contract time, or allow time travel to past and future lives. Or take a stripper drug that peels away layer after layer of whatever you see/feel to reveal its deeper essence - then dream a mirror and fall into your core! Or design a transference drug that allows you to be fully in another's mind, or in an alien consciousness. Of course there are all manner of telepathy-enhancing drugs you could conjure, as well as dream tripmates to play with. The list is an endless as your fantasy world, and as deep as your calling.

No matter how you feel about using psychedelic or other drugs while physically awake, you may find them worthwhile to experiment with in dreams. In dreamland you don't have to worry about breaking the law, nor about the possible purity or even identity of black market drugs. You need not worry about the safety of your physical body. And in the fluid state of dreams, you may be able to go much deeper into a state than you would during an analogous experience initiated in consensus reality. As John Lilly aptly noted, "In the province of the mind, there are no limits."

Exercise: Taking a dream drug

If you have developed the ability to dream lucidly, choose to take a drug in a lucid dream. A simple way to find such a drug – or anything else you need – in a lucid dream is to reach into your pocket and know that it will be there (trust me, this works). If you have not yet developed lucid dreaming ability but wish to do so, see the article Lucid Dreaming (http://infinitespiral.blogspot.com/2005/10/lucid-dreaming.html). An alternative approach would be to use dream incubation techniques to create the intention of taking a particular drug in your dreams. The simplest way to accomplish this would be to firmly repeat the intention to yourself just before you go to bed, or as you are falling asleep – e.g. “Tonight I will take LSD.”


References

The first four references are resources which provide a rich source of information on the effects of drugs, which can be used as inspiration for “dream drugs.”

1. Erowid has a vast library of detailed information on every mind-altering drug imaginable, as well as thousands of user reports.

2. Alexander Shulgin & Ann Shulgin, Pihkal: A Chemical Love Story (Berkeley: Transform Press, 1995).

3. Alexander Shulgin & Ann Shulgin, Tihkal: The Continuation (Berkeley: Transform Press, 1997).

4. D.M. Turner, The Essential Psychedelic Guide (San Francisco: Panther Press, 1994) [Now available online.]

5. Ann Faraday, Dream Power (New York: HaperCollins 1980).

6. A.S. Kay, Psychedelics and Lucid Dreaming: Doorways in the Mind, Psychedelic Monographs and Essays, Issue 3: Dec. 1987. [I believe this essay is available in the book Psychedelics: The most exciting new materials on psychedelic drugs, ed. by Thomas Lyttle. The article should also be available from your local library as an Inter-Library Loan.]

7. Charles Tart, Altered States of Consciousness (New York: HarperCollins 1990).

8. The Lucidity Institute Lucid Dreaming FAQ is available here.

Fractured Ground, Kosmic Sky

I was looking at my new avatar on Integral Naked recently (you can see a copy of it at the beginning of this thread) and thinking about the symbolism of it, what attracts me to it. I see a figure standing alone on a fractured red landscape, near the edge of a precipice, and gazing towards a mandalalicious kosmic swirl. Perhaps this is an expression of where I feel I'm at these days, as reflected in a recent blog entry about some work I've been doing:

Report on Traditional Healing Ceremony

So my avatar seems to me at this moment to be a rich symbol of where I'm at and what I'm looking for. Then again, it could be just some guy standing in a weird place, looking at something swirly – and maybe that's all there is to my life at this moment as well.

Probably both/and.

So what to do? Jump over the edge? Stop looking far away and look at where I'm actually standing? Just tune into the ground and the edge and the kosmic sky and the me and realize it's all one? I'm not necessarily looking for answers to these questions, just musing aloud.

arthur

p.s. I always feel I have to explain the word "kosmic" - not to be confused with "cosmic" - when I use it outside of certain circles. Coined by Ken Wilber, it refers to the whole shebang, exterior and interior aspects of, well, all this; as distinguised from "cosmos" only taking in the exterior stuff that can be measured and seen directly, leaving out all that juicy conscious experience.