I am writing this thread because I talk to many people in real life who discuss spiritual concepts with me and are stuck in what I term ‘conclusory’ patterns of spiritual thinking. They don't always dig deep into the self and their emotions in order to actually truly understand, accept, or balance their owns beliefs.
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Example (The ‘conclusory’ truth is the italicized phras.):
Day 1 Person A: It’s hard to practice love in the moment. My significant other started eating dinner early without me and it really annoyed me today and I almost snapped. But then I remembered that a balanced person doesn’t get annoyed at the little things in the life. So then I didn’t snap and went and cooled off and meditated some and felt a lot better.
Day 3 Person A: My significant other did it again and started eating dinner early. I nearly lost it. Don’t they realize how rude it feels? I know that these emotions and feels are not made of love. It’s hard to constantly remember these spiritual concepts. I just need to remind myself not to get frustrated and annoyed and eventually I’ll learn to accept this.
Day X: Pattern repeats itself.
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Remembering spiritual truths is important. But true balance is when these truths flow effortlessly from our being. And that doesn’t come from constant focus on the behavior or outward actions of these spiritual concepts. It comes from focusing on our inner world. It comes from figuring out why on Day 1 we got annoyed and frustrated. It goes way, way, way past reminding ourselves of spiritual truths.
Awareness of spiritual truths and our actions is important, but it’s only the beginning. It’s important to dig deep into the self whenever a uncomfortable emotion. Maybe not right at that moment, but whenever you sit down to meditate later in the day, it's useful to think deeply into what caused those turbulent emotions in you – it goes way past reminding oneself that “a perfectly balanced person doesn’t get annoyed” or even that “there is love in every moment” – that is a start – but it's important to get there naturally instead of forcing yourself to act in a certain "spiritual" manner. What beliefs inside you are causing your turbulent emotions in contradiction of those truths? What's preventing you from radiating these truths to you in the form of pleasant emotions?
To use another analogy from math: I can ask you to solve for x^2 – 1 = 0. You might learn that the answer is x = -1 and x = 1. In this analogy, the annoying situation is x^2 -1 = 0. The spiritual truth may be the answer = -1 and x = 1. But unless you truly understand how to solve these equations, you don’t really understand how you get from x^2 – 1 = 0 to x = -1 and x = 1. You need to learn a lot more about math, because when you’re faced with a slightly different situation, you’re not really going to be able to handle it unless you truly know how to learn and derive the answer from some horribly complex equation you might come across. Say x^2 + 4x -32 = 0.
Bottom line is, the spiritual path involves much more than constant remembrance of spiritual truths – that’s an important first step, but there is a lot past it – a lot of digging deep within yourself. Asking yourself the hard questions as to why you feel the way you feel and accepting responsibility for your feelings and emotions (not blaming external events). And being completely honest with yourself. Finding your beliefs from which these uncomfortable emotions arise is key. You gotta play in the mud. Get down and dirty with your self, emotions, beliefs, worldview, perspective, attitude about life, dreams, hopes, fears, and desires and ask yourself why; get to the very core of yourself. Spiritual truths are useful, but the journey is all about getting from these daily catalytic emotions and feelings to a state where we flow and be those spiritual truths. And that doesn’t come solely from constant remembrance. It comes from (hard) inner work.
For a brief example of how this works for me. Something seemingly “bad” happens to me in the external world. I recognize the turbulent emotions inside of me. I recognize this as catalyst. I remind myself that there is love in each moment if necessary. If I’m at work, I put the catalyst on the backburner for later in the day when I have time to dig deep into it. Then, later on, when I have half an hour or so, I revisit it. I go deep into what beliefs, expectations, attitude, and perspectives I had on the situation. I go up the ray list of concepts, and try to find if there are any associations. I meditate pondering these concepts. Once I find a few concepts that may apply to the situation – say a situation where I felt really hurt when my Dad was disappointed in me for making a seemingly honest mistake – I find that it relates to self-acceptance. I go deeper and find that I have a belief that unless I’m “competent” I should feel bad – or I shouldn’t be worthy of love. Then I go deeper in that I have this expectation that I shouldn’t disappoint myself. I then go deeper and make a list of reasons why each of those beliefs is imbalanced. Competency isn’t required for self-worth or self-value – it’s a relative quality first of all. Competency isn’t related to happiness – some of the most happy people in the world and in my personal life are not those who are the #1 in their field or whatever. Seeming lack of competence is a part of life – it’s something every single entity, as time goes to infinitely, experiences for a potentially infinite amount of time. I personally also learn very quickly from each situation and so I can be confident I will be seemingly competent in the future, but even if I’m not, that’s ok. Furthermore, disappointment, of both the self and others, is involving not accepting an outcome, or attachment to an expectation. It’s not really living in the movement. Disappointing others is a part of our extistence. Disappointing ourself occurs only when we have strong expectations for a particular outcome. Why am I so attached to a particular outcome? What part of myself fears an unwanted outcome and why?
…I could literally go on for pages, because this is the nitty gritty, down and dirty, of how I dig deep, of how I brainstorm deep. You will often be surprised how slight a external trigger can get you into some pretty deep beliefs, which barely apply to the situation – but they tell you that if something so tangential triggered a reaction, then those deeply imbalanced beliefs are pretty strongly held, as reflected in how I went from an honest mistake to deep questions as to the nature of competency, disappointment, and existence.
In the end, I truly believe our journey is a search for who you are, what you are, and why you are. It’s about discovery. But you can’t get there without discovering yourself, discovering where your emotions come from, and discovering your own deeply held beliefs. It might seem uncomfortable at first, but the buried treasure we seek is there, beneath the surface of the conscious mind, waiting to be discovered. And only through those dearly sought treasures can you discover who you were meant to be.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Example (The ‘conclusory’ truth is the italicized phras.):
Day 1 Person A: It’s hard to practice love in the moment. My significant other started eating dinner early without me and it really annoyed me today and I almost snapped. But then I remembered that a balanced person doesn’t get annoyed at the little things in the life. So then I didn’t snap and went and cooled off and meditated some and felt a lot better.
Day 3 Person A: My significant other did it again and started eating dinner early. I nearly lost it. Don’t they realize how rude it feels? I know that these emotions and feels are not made of love. It’s hard to constantly remember these spiritual concepts. I just need to remind myself not to get frustrated and annoyed and eventually I’ll learn to accept this.
Day X: Pattern repeats itself.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Remembering spiritual truths is important. But true balance is when these truths flow effortlessly from our being. And that doesn’t come from constant focus on the behavior or outward actions of these spiritual concepts. It comes from focusing on our inner world. It comes from figuring out why on Day 1 we got annoyed and frustrated. It goes way, way, way past reminding ourselves of spiritual truths.
Awareness of spiritual truths and our actions is important, but it’s only the beginning. It’s important to dig deep into the self whenever a uncomfortable emotion. Maybe not right at that moment, but whenever you sit down to meditate later in the day, it's useful to think deeply into what caused those turbulent emotions in you – it goes way past reminding oneself that “a perfectly balanced person doesn’t get annoyed” or even that “there is love in every moment” – that is a start – but it's important to get there naturally instead of forcing yourself to act in a certain "spiritual" manner. What beliefs inside you are causing your turbulent emotions in contradiction of those truths? What's preventing you from radiating these truths to you in the form of pleasant emotions?
To use another analogy from math: I can ask you to solve for x^2 – 1 = 0. You might learn that the answer is x = -1 and x = 1. In this analogy, the annoying situation is x^2 -1 = 0. The spiritual truth may be the answer = -1 and x = 1. But unless you truly understand how to solve these equations, you don’t really understand how you get from x^2 – 1 = 0 to x = -1 and x = 1. You need to learn a lot more about math, because when you’re faced with a slightly different situation, you’re not really going to be able to handle it unless you truly know how to learn and derive the answer from some horribly complex equation you might come across. Say x^2 + 4x -32 = 0.
Bottom line is, the spiritual path involves much more than constant remembrance of spiritual truths – that’s an important first step, but there is a lot past it – a lot of digging deep within yourself. Asking yourself the hard questions as to why you feel the way you feel and accepting responsibility for your feelings and emotions (not blaming external events). And being completely honest with yourself. Finding your beliefs from which these uncomfortable emotions arise is key. You gotta play in the mud. Get down and dirty with your self, emotions, beliefs, worldview, perspective, attitude about life, dreams, hopes, fears, and desires and ask yourself why; get to the very core of yourself. Spiritual truths are useful, but the journey is all about getting from these daily catalytic emotions and feelings to a state where we flow and be those spiritual truths. And that doesn’t come solely from constant remembrance. It comes from (hard) inner work.
For a brief example of how this works for me. Something seemingly “bad” happens to me in the external world. I recognize the turbulent emotions inside of me. I recognize this as catalyst. I remind myself that there is love in each moment if necessary. If I’m at work, I put the catalyst on the backburner for later in the day when I have time to dig deep into it. Then, later on, when I have half an hour or so, I revisit it. I go deep into what beliefs, expectations, attitude, and perspectives I had on the situation. I go up the ray list of concepts, and try to find if there are any associations. I meditate pondering these concepts. Once I find a few concepts that may apply to the situation – say a situation where I felt really hurt when my Dad was disappointed in me for making a seemingly honest mistake – I find that it relates to self-acceptance. I go deeper and find that I have a belief that unless I’m “competent” I should feel bad – or I shouldn’t be worthy of love. Then I go deeper in that I have this expectation that I shouldn’t disappoint myself. I then go deeper and make a list of reasons why each of those beliefs is imbalanced. Competency isn’t required for self-worth or self-value – it’s a relative quality first of all. Competency isn’t related to happiness – some of the most happy people in the world and in my personal life are not those who are the #1 in their field or whatever. Seeming lack of competence is a part of life – it’s something every single entity, as time goes to infinitely, experiences for a potentially infinite amount of time. I personally also learn very quickly from each situation and so I can be confident I will be seemingly competent in the future, but even if I’m not, that’s ok. Furthermore, disappointment, of both the self and others, is involving not accepting an outcome, or attachment to an expectation. It’s not really living in the movement. Disappointing others is a part of our extistence. Disappointing ourself occurs only when we have strong expectations for a particular outcome. Why am I so attached to a particular outcome? What part of myself fears an unwanted outcome and why?
…I could literally go on for pages, because this is the nitty gritty, down and dirty, of how I dig deep, of how I brainstorm deep. You will often be surprised how slight a external trigger can get you into some pretty deep beliefs, which barely apply to the situation – but they tell you that if something so tangential triggered a reaction, then those deeply imbalanced beliefs are pretty strongly held, as reflected in how I went from an honest mistake to deep questions as to the nature of competency, disappointment, and existence.
In the end, I truly believe our journey is a search for who you are, what you are, and why you are. It’s about discovery. But you can’t get there without discovering yourself, discovering where your emotions come from, and discovering your own deeply held beliefs. It might seem uncomfortable at first, but the buried treasure we seek is there, beneath the surface of the conscious mind, waiting to be discovered. And only through those dearly sought treasures can you discover who you were meant to be.
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