Engaging the superego; superego as god

Dear Friends, Take heart! We are ploughing deeply into a major obstacle to Oneness. I know this work with the superego can feel impossible, frightening, maddening, hopeless... But it does get easier.

I was struck on Monday by the amount of pain caused  by  churches, ministers, the theology of sin, damnation. As children we can't help but take in these abuses of  religious power and internalize them into self hatred, resulting into an utter sense of disconnection and betrayal.

No wonder so many of us fled. It is a testament to some mysterious courage that you venture back into a church sanctuary. It also speaks to the unquenchable hunger of the human spirit to recover the freedom and goodness of living presence-- or to use religious language of our living, loving God.

It occurred to me that it might be useful to continue the exploration about how we project the superego on God and the church.

I did this exercise years ago and I found it very liberating. 

On a sheet of paper  write a letter to God, and let it rip. God can handle your rage, your disgust, your fears, your pain....all of your feelings. Tell him exactly what you think of his Church, his ministers... all of it. I use the "he" pronoun deliberately because we are mostly conditioned to ascribe the masculine to the face of God.

Then on second sheet of blank let yourself be drawn into by the image of God as   the God of love, the God of freedom, of compassion, glory, beauty, truth, ..... Spend some time sensing your arms and legs, breathing into the belly. After a few minutes  words may come, images will come... write them down, drawn them.. scribbles, doodles...this is not an art project!

On a third page let it remain empty. Meditate for a few minutes. What ever images emerge, feelings, words, let them arise and let them go. Then let yourself gaze gently at the  blank page-- or if it works better gaze out into the space in front of you-- allowing the possibility of being drawn into the divine that is beyond all names, all images, all ideas. Let yourself be drawn by the God of mystery. And remember you cannot think your way into this. Its about relaxing and waking up. Don't judge yourself. 

After a few minutes journal your experience with the three pages. Please bring these pages to our next session.

Here are the questions from our last session:

Tell me a way your inner child engages the superego

Tell me how this engagement with superego impacts your capacity to relax and stay awake.

Explore how you project the superego onto your images of god. How does this block the nowness of living presence, how does this block your openness. 

Practicing presence and the superego

Dear Friends, we tackled the superego, the inner critic, the voice of judgement head on last time. Unless we face this demon we will be shackled by our history. Especially if we undertake spiritual work, which by definition will take you beyond the comfort zone of your ego self. And the superego is designed to keep you inside that zone, by whatever means at its disposal. This can be violent inner attacks-- statements like 'you idiot', "you fuck up', 'you never do anything right' to outright verbal abuse. Or it can keep you in line by telling to "watch you, you know that nothing you do ever works", by endless self doubt. Or it can praise you for being such a good person. Or it may be silent because you are implicitly conforming to its standards and expectations. As you begin to recognize this voice you will feel its impact in the  body: anxiety, heart racing panic, dread, contraction, numbing out, cutting off, collapse, obsessive thinking. The superego does not know you as an adult soul; it sees you as a five year old, or even younger.

So when you start to meditate and introduce the practice presence into your life, you are inviting the divine, the living waters, the life force, spaciousness to enter. And this will expand you beyond your familiar sense of self. So guess who shows up. Yes, the superego. So I encourage you to keep a log of the superego attacks this week, and maybe for a long time!! So by seeing  the superego you are waking up to your conditioning and this awakening which brings you closer to the freedom of presence that you long for. This is a practice and not an easy one.

These are the questions we focused on last time:

 Tell me a way the superego impacts you?

Tell me why you believe the voice of the superego?

Explore what you are discovering about the superego and its impact on your openness to presence.

Next Monday we will focus on how we engage the superego and how the superego becomes God. This is vital to understand if we are to enter the presence of oneness. 

The music from last time: Arvo Part. Fur Alina: 1 and Spiegel im Spiegel:2

Chopin. Impromptus Op.90 D.899, no.3 in  flat

Calling all Angels Jane Sidberry and K.D Lang

I keep these emails and old ones at: http://practicing-presence.blogspot.com/

Fall is here. Hoping to see you on Monday. Alison

the practice of presence

Dear friends, it was so good to see familiar and new faces in our circle. If you are joining for the first time it can feel like a sudden dive into unfamiliar territory. We are not used to learning and sharing in this way. It can feel exciting or awkward and scary. But as I said this is about a practice and all of it takes time. Whether it is the meditation practices, this kind of inquiry, the vulnerability of sharing... So take your time. For old timers it can feel unsettling when the familiar circle of friends suddenly expands. Presence is always asking us to expand beyond what has become familiar and cosy.

This kind of practice will open us to the depths of presence, of grace. It takes time and practice. It takes a safe and sacred circle of fellow travelers and the growing ability to relax and wake up to what is happening in this moment.

I will do my best to circulate the questions after each session so that those of you who were absent can follow along.

Questions:

Tell me a way this practice of presence disturbs you.

Tell me a way this practice of presence attracts you.

Explore your relationship to the practice of presence. Does it invite you. How does your body feel. Do you notice judgements.

We are opening the door to presence, even if we don't recognize it or feel it yet. As I mentioned last time this will activate the superego whether self judgements or criticism of others. The superego does not want us to engage in  spiritual work, especially work that takes us into the depths of our being.

For me it is a joy to begin this journey with you again. Hope to see you all next Monday. Alison

Silence of the heart

Dear Friends, Here are the questions from Monday night.

Tell me a way your superego reacts to the practice of worship
Worship involves learning to listen and feel into silence or stillness, especially in the heart. Ego/superego blocks us, distracts us. Doubts, unworthiness, confusion, beliefs based on our history or experience of church.  Ego and superego resist vulnerability. It wants an operating manual and it wants things fixed.
What is stillness in the heart. It is a kind of emptiness, a lack of reactivity, an openness that allows a space of receptivity and sensitivity. First we may feel deadness, numbness , emotional turmoil, dissociation into the head, distraction. Or we may feel drawn into the stillness and discover the desire of the heart to worship.  Inevitably we will have to contend with the grasping, avoiding, deadening nature of our emotional heart. It is territory we have to traverse with patience and compassion. This  clarifying or purifying of the heart transforms it  from being a center of emotions into the organ of sensitivity and receptivity that is capable of knowing the silence.
Explore what opens you into silence/stillness  in the heart and what blocks that opening? What does your heart feel like right now?

We will be holding our Contemplative Worship Service this coming Monday, February 3rd from 7.30-9.00pm. 

You may begin to notice hopes and expectations arise.Perhaps you had a lovely time during our previous service. You may notice fantasies about how you want it go next time. You may notice expectations. Welcome to the grasping emotional heart! This is almost inevitable. No worship service is the same. Practicing presence allows us to return to our experience in the now, noticing all the grasping, all the judgements, sensing ourselves into our feet and belly. By allowing and by holding our experience we can rest. This is the doorway. 

Or perhaps you had a miserable time and you believe that you will always be cut off. This too is a grasping. We are grasping at our fixed self, convinced that we know what will happen and beset by the attacks of the superego. It is important to recognize the superego and push it away. We may also have to untangle many beliefs and ideas we hold about worship. These beliefs come from what we learned as a children. But they also include deep seated confusions about the languaging of worship. What does God, Lord mean? Are we worthy of being blessed, of being the beloved of the beloved?

By the way the author of the longer reading was Rumi.

Looks like we may warm up a bit. Don't fall, stay warm. Hope to see you next Monday

worship service

Here is the Monday night service and some notes about contemplative worship.

Contemplative worship.
Worship comes from the old English O.E."condition of being worthy, honor, renown,”  and sciepe, and -scip "state, condition of being," "to create, ordain, appoint." Worship is to lift up what is worthy.
Contemplation: The Latin word contemplatio was used to translate the Greek word θεωρία (theoria). In a religious sense, contemplation is usually a type of prayer or meditation.
Practicing Presence is the gentle focus on the embodied now. Sensing the arms and legs, sensing the belly and breath deepens the  grounded embodiment. Sensing in the heart allows us to become closer, more intimate with this moment of nowness. Sensing in the mind allows an opening into deep stillness and clarity. The practice of presence is simply opening to being awake and aware now.
Silence is not the absence of thoughts. Silence is the nature of presence.
Distraction and resistance are to be expected. Simply gently return to sensing in the body.

Contemplative Worship Service
Opening with 3 bells

Acclamation

Listen deep within yourself
To hear the voice of God
Who shepherds us and leads us forth in life.
Let not our hearts be hardened or grow closed,
As many did when the waters failed
And bitterness became their food.

Chant.
Bless  the Lord, my soul
And bless God's holy name.
Bless The Lord my soul,
Who leads me into life.

Prayer
Oh God of peace, Oh presence of peace, you have taught us that in returning and rest we shall be met, in quietness and  in confidence shall be our strength; by the might of your Spirit lift us, we pray, to your presence, where we may be still and know that you are God.

Grounding meditation

Chant.
Bless  the Lord, my soul
And bless God's holy name.
Bless The Lord my soul,
Who leads me I to life.

A short reading
The soul becomes so quiet in ecstasy, so quiet. Love speaks in silence, not in the heights of passion.
Central remembrance

Central chant 
Be still and know that I am God  (x6  Bell)
Be still and know that I am (x6 Bell)
Be still and know (x6 Bell) 
Be still  (x6 Bell)
Be (x6 Bell)

Silence
 (5-10mins)

Longer reading
 Make everything in you an atom of your sensing being. And you will hear, you will sense at every moment what presence is whispering to you, just to you and for you, without any need for my words or anyone else's. You are--we all are-- the beloved of the beloved one, and in every moment, whether you hear it or not, the beloved one is whispering to you exactly what it is you need to  feel  and know. Who can explain such a mystery? It simply is. Listen and sense and you will discover in every passing moment. Listen and feel and your whole life will become a conversation in thought and act between you and the  divine presence, directly, wordlessly, now and always. It was to enjoy this conversation that you and I were created.             
Quiet reflections in threes  Read three times. Explore what draws you. 
Brief sharing in the large circle

Central chant
Be still and know that I am God  (x6  Bell)
Be still and know that I am (x6 Bell)
Be still and know (x6 Bell) 
Be still  (x6 Bell)
Be (x6 Bell)

The Silence
10-15  mins
Returning to the world

Listen deep within yourself
To hear the voice of God
Who shepherds us and leads us forth in life.
Let not our hearts be hardened or grow closed,
As many did when the waters failed
And bitterness became their food.

Closing chant
My peace I give you,
My peace I give you,
Trouble not your heart.
My peace I give you
My peace I give you,
Be not afraid.

Closing bell 3 times.  

contemplative worship

Dear Friends,

 Joe and I are excited by a new direction that is emerging out of our three years of the practice of presence. We feel a call to create a contemplative worship space. As with everything this space will emerge over time. We will be listening, experimenting and with time a form will emerge that will support worship deeply rooted in silence, chanting, readings and the practice ofpresence. We will dip into this every other week. Everyone is welcome. You do not need to attend the other sessions of the practice of presence, although they will certainly support this new opening.

Our ongoing group will resume on January 6th. We will be exploring what it means to worship, what blocks the heart in its natural longing to praise and celebrate our deepest love. You are welcome to join us.

Our first session of contemplative worship will be held on January 13th 2014 at 7.30pm at ECI. All our welcome.

We wish you all a very happy new year. Alison and Joe

Summary of Fall retreat and First Monday night session

Retreat:

 Session 1 Friday night: practice of presence, the Embodied now

Journal: What blocks you from being with your living embodied experience. 5

Tell me a way you leave the present moment? 

Tell me a way you sense your embodiment now?

Explore what you include or exclude in your sense of the embodied now. Do you select what to focus on? Do you ignore what you think is not appropriate in your experience to speak about. what do you grasp onto? 

Session 2:  Resistance, doubt and superego

Tell me a way you judged yourself since you woke up this morning. 

How do you feel when you judge yourself. 

Explore how your superego manifests. Is it loud, frightening and shaming. Does it whisper. what does it say. Do you recognize the voice.

Why do we believe and listen to this voice? Who hears this voice (child) how do we react to this voice. We get defensive, rationalize, make excuses,. We go on the attack mode. We collapse bodily

Tell me a way you believe into the superego

Tell me a way you child react’s to the superego

Explore in your circle how being attacked by the superego affects your ability to be present. 

Session 3  The alchemy of welcoming and holding. 

Open inquiry. By staying present explore what is arising for  you during this retreat so far.  Check in with your body. 

Journal: explore your resistance to practicing presence, meditating at home.

Tell me what you are experiencing now.

Explore your embodied experience. Notice how you leave your felt experience into your mind, into judging. What happens if you return and include your embodiment.  

Monday Night Sessions:

Monday 30th. Depth or surface.

Tell me a way you stay on the surface of your experience.

Tell me a way you allow yourself to go deeper. 

Explore what you are bringing into this session ? From your life, from the retreat? Notice if you are staying on the surface? Are you going deeper in the feelings, sensations  in the body? What happens when you and sense yourself for a moment.