Great danger in use of the will

[Steppingfeet]

Hey Gemini Wolf,

In your post to which I replied, you wrote:

Just so I surmise accurately, the quote talks about releasing every secret desire, and not having the mindset of trying to hold onto anything. To me, this sounds like attachments.

And I totally failed to address the specific practice that McLeod counsels.

What he suggests is not so much releasing hidden desire (though, again, that does and will happen) but rather to find someone with whom you can share every detail of your practice, your thoughts, your feelings, your perceptions, etc.

This is a safeguard so that you do not unconsciously protect (become blind to) some area of your life.

For instance, you could foster a hatred for a neighbor that you continually feed inside with angry thoughts and fantasy battles. Instead of bringing this tendency into your conscious view and doing the work of looking at it, accepting, and loving it (with additional analysis regarding what is being mirrored to you, why you are so upset, etc.), you keep it off your radar, you put the blinders on to this tendency, unconsciously becoming consumed with anger each time it is triggered by your neighbor or your thought processes.

Meanwhile you are meditating and gaining in strength, not looking at this tendency within you. As the power within increases due to meditation or other spiritual practice, the anger towards your neighbor (heretofore not made conscious) may hijack or pull your consciousness into its trajectory, using you for its ends, so to speak.

McLeod thusly counsels that you open up every aspect of your life to a trusted colleague, friend, mentor, so that there is no tendency within you that remains unconscious. It is a safeguard to ensure that you don't unconsciously wear blinders to that which you do not wish to see within yourself.

Now I feel like I have done justice to the quote!

By system I probably meant our beliefs that make us who we are. I'm not on the same train of thought I was when I wrote that. I probably meant that our system holds onto old beliefs and has trouble letting go and can for awhile reject any new inputs. It's all about the programming.

Yeah I was contemplating the role of belief when responding to you earlier. I think that these desire-mechanisms mentioned in McLeod's quote are the result of beliefs, the deepest untrue belief being "I am separate. I am the body. I am limited."

Whether one desires wealth or retribution or notoriety or anonymity, these desires must all be rooted in some distorted belief about who the self is. In the case of wealth, the belief may be, "I believe that I am powerless without money"; in the case of retribution, the belief may be, "I believe by punishing he or she who hurt me, I can relieve my own pain and restore balance"; in the case of notoriety, the belief may be, "My identity would be enhanced were I to have the attention of others"; and in the case of anonymity, the belief may be, "Others will judge me if I am exposed to their sight". And on and on it goes.

So in describing the personality as a "system" consisting of beliefs loosely held together, I can see how that works. And likening "belief" with "programming" I agree with -- I think that they are for the most part synonymous.

Whether the "system" rejects, accepts, or ignores new inputs I suppose would be dependent upon the unique configuration and ever-shifting balance of that particular system.

But while it is always well to review, revise, and upgrade our belief systems in light of new understanding, I think the core work is to become conscious of - and unconditionally accept - our existing belief system, whatever that may be.

In becoming aware of our beliefs - be they helpful or unhelpful, service oriented or non-service oriented - we begin to un-fuse our identity from these beliefs, creating a space around them within which we may allow what is to be without attachment or aversion.

Jeremy wrote: This discussion and especially that distinction you just made serves my present situation extremely well, as I'm somewhat at a loss sometimes for how to balance these energies other than to just hold on for dear life and keep accepting them.

J, if you don't mind sharing, what are these energies which disturb your equanimity and cause the holding on for dear life?

As to the balancing technique described by Ra, this is one area of the books that has had almost zero application to my life. Their emphasis on balance in general has been very helpful, but that particular exercise involving the intensification of duality in order to elicit the corresponding opposite and achieve subsequent balance has never made it onto my palette of spiritual practice.

The only thing i can add - and I believe Ra says this somewhere - is that a stable, focused mind would be a prerequisite for this work. To intensify a particular emotion or perception - and then to not get carried away by it down another train of similar or dissimilar thought - would require great concentration in a detached, meditative mindset.

So good to see you back in action man!!

Love & Light,
GLB