Whenever there is rebirth the forces of resistance will rise up. The resistance can come from the superego, with its shaming, attacking, numbing attacks or from our own fears of change. Resistance also comes from the outside from those who are threatened by our becoming bigger, stronger, clearer, more honest, more loving. Resistance will arise whenever the status quo is threatened. And the ego, the personality, the usual way of being, represents the status quo. Whenever we embark on the spiritual journey we will begin to discover that we are presence (the Body of Christ, Buddha Mind, the Atman,) not bound by history, not bound by the rules (superego) that we learned in our childhood. This presence of consciousness expands and reveals more and more what we truly are. This is a journey of expansion, growth, and maturity.This expansion will bring forth the superego, the prime engine of ensuring that we stay small, disconnected, childlike, fearful, and completely cut off from our presence, our divine nature.
So in order to go very far on this jounrey, we need strength. We need the capacity to resist the forces of inertia, of resistance and collapse. I call this strength. And we all know strength. It shows up as clarity, a courageous heart and a stable, grounded sense of solidity. When we feel strong we feel mature, functional, capable of being with what is happening and responding in useful, fresh and creative ways. In a nut shell we feel alive, and balanced. This is the life force operating through our maturity. The problem is that life force often gets co-opted by anger and aggression.The life force gets channeled through the superego and the more primitive parts of ourselves, in particular through the ways of the child and our instinctual nature.
The child has only two ways of managing the intense charge of aggression; either by suppressing it, or discharging it. Aggression can show up as violence, or as suppressed rage, as underhandedness, manipulation, passive aggressiveness, or as depression, self hatred, passivity and numbness. As adults we have to the capacity to actually sense these intense feelings. With time and practice by actually feeling the energy, the heat, the agitation, of the anger, a mysterious alchemy occurs. What began as out of control, too much, too scary, too threatening, coalesces into the presence of strength, with all its vitality, clarity, and groundedness. This presence of strength is one of the faces of presence, one of its vital expressions. God as the face of strength. You as the embodiment of strength.
We need strength to deal with the resistance of the superego to rebirth, unfolding, emergence of presence. Unlike many spiritual traditions where anger is pushed away, judged, or"purified", in our practice of presence we invite anger when it is present. We sense it, we hold it, we understand it. That is the doorway to strength. This is not easy at first. But at some point we wake up to the outrage of being denied our birthright, our presence, our maturity. In a nutshell we want our freedom from our history, from our superego more than our fear of change. This takes strength. Every time you wake up and take on the superego you are inviting your inherent strength to arise. At some point the life force captured by the superego becomes your juice, your vitality, your truth.
I invite you to pay attention to the comings and goings of the inner voice of judgement, the superego. Notice what affect it has on your vitality, your awakeness, your responsiveness. Notice when you feel strength. Feel it, enjoy it. The more you pay attention to your strength the more it grows. The more you disentangle from the superego the less power it has over you. This is a process.
Hope to see you all next Monday. And here comes the balmy weather. Scary really. Alison
PS. You will find this email and the playlist posted on my blog: practicing-presence.blogspot.
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