Every second of your life you have an opportunity to go to God by letting go of your garbage.
Michael A. Singer
I am truly starting to see what is so necessary for our mental and emotional well being, for our ability to feel joy and to move away from the limitations of the ego to deeper consciousness...and to "Go to God", or as it is referred to in yogic terms, to be at one with everything. We need to let go of "our stuff"', let go of our garbage that blocks the way. I used to think that meditation and studying the truth through wise masters was the most important part of "spiritual" practice. But now I see that the real practice is in understanding how " our stuff" is getting in the way, recognizing when it comes up and learning to release it.
If you can control the rising of the mind into ripples, you will experience yoga .
Patanjali
Michael Singer, in the below linked video , speaks about these "Samskaras"...this stored mental junk, (often unpleasant emotional energy), that we have stuffed down inside our minds. This storing and stuffing creates ripples, and mental modifications that block the Shakti (pure energy) from coming to our awareness so we can experience its joy, its freedom, as we are meant to. When we judge and determine which types of emotions or thoughts we will experience in reaction to life events so that certain emotions do not come up to the surface, we do not "escape" these emotions or put an end to them. We just hide them inside, beneath a thick mental barrier that is so challenging and exhausting to maintain. We create a block or a barrier between these emotions, thoughts, memories, strong sensations and then spend our lives struggling against their coming to the surface as all energy is meant to do. We go about the external world determining what will trigger them to come up and we do our best to avoid those situations, people or events. We blame the outside world if they do come up. We determine what will help to keep them down and we go after those things, grasping and clinging.
By fighting, suppressing and repressing, numbing from and avoiding these "unwanted" mental modifications, as Patanjali referred to them, constantly pushing them back down, we keep down all that "wanted" energy as well...the positive...the Shakti. We are setting ourselves up, not for freedom and joy, when we do this...but for a lot of unnecessary suffering!
Samskaras are Mental Formations
Thich Nhat Hanh tells us that samskaras are just formations. (see linked video below). He also says that many conditions must come together to create the formation or samskara be they physical formations like a flower depending on the conditions of rain, soil, sun to help it grow or a mental formation like anger depending on a painful memory, association, assumption etc to make it grow. Mind is made of mental formations, like a river is made of drops of waters. In Buddhism there are 51 categories of mental formations/samskaras that can be either positive or negative or both.
Store consciousness and mind consciousness...
The seeds of these formations lie in store consciousness in the form of "particles" like anger or compassion. These seeds are always there waiting to grow, to come to the surface. Even when we are not experiencing anger at the time, for example, the seed of anger is still there in store consciousness waiting to be watered by some external event and then it will grow into a "citta samskara" , a mental formation or modification in our mind consciousness or conscious awareness,
Barrier and Blocks
If we try to repress and suppress that anger or push it down, we create a kind of barrier or block as between mind and store consciousness but the roots of that feeling are still there just waiting to be watered. The more we hold it down...the stronger and more determined those roots are to push the emotion back up. We often do this "pushing down", this suppressing and repressing, Hanh reminds us, by consuming with substances we put into our bodies or mental distractions we put into our minds. We create a thick barrier between store and mind consciousness preventing a free flow of circulation of all emotions...We are "blocked" by Samskara and this barrier can even prevent the positive seeds from growing and coming up into mind consciousness. It can lead to mental illness, according to Thich Nhat Hanh.
Emotion is just energy, right? It is meant to be experienced, all of it, as is all of Life. Things come in to our experience, then they leave our experience. We are not meant to cling to any of it which we intentionally and unintentionally do when we judge and then repress and suppress. We are just meant to allow it all to flow through. We need to allow the energy of our emotions to manifest, to experience them and then let them go
Restoring the circulation of the mind.
Our practice then is about getting rid of the stored stuff but first we need to stop adding to the junk piles in our minds. Michael Singer tells us we must stop putting more stuff in. If you want to clean out a closet you don't keep filling the closet with more stuff, right? So our practice begins there...in simply becoming aware of our tendency to judge what it is we want to experience in our awareness and what we don't. Notice when we judge something as unpleasant, notice when certain external things trigger us, remembering it is not the external thing that is the problem...but the stuff inside. Do not add that "new stuff" to the pile. Let that go first. Relax and release into what ever shows up in front of you....with the willingness to let go of what is stuffed inside.
Don't Fight-Invite
Then, Hanh tells us, we must become aware of any mental formation that manifests in mind consciousness. It is good to recognize when these formations come up and to call them by their true name. We need to remember that there are many seeds of mental formations that are wholesome and positive and healing within our stored consciousness too...we want these to manifest. Mindfulness, compassion and kindness can be called upon when the less than positive manifests. We can surround the anger, the resentment, the depression, for example, with these positive manifestations, these positive formations. Instead of resisting or fighting what might be deemed as an unwanted or unpleasant emotional energy, we might instead invite the experience into our mind consciousness, into our awareness. We wrap it in mindfulness, compassion and kindness, rather than resistance.
Embracing the Painful
"Hello painful emotion ( whatever it is). I know you are there. I will take good care of you.
After being embraced by mindfulness, compassion and kindness the pain inducing mental formation will lose its strength. Like a crying baby, being rocked and soothed by its mother, it will suffer less and eventually stop crying.
The Practice
So we all have samskaras within us blocking the flow of healing Life energy from flowing through us. Our practice of healing and becoming more "spiritual" is such a practical one really. We do whatever we can to remove the blocks and barricades. We do not look outward as the source of these blockages...we look inward. We become willing to experience all Life has to offer including those mental formations we repressed and suppressed because we deemed them as things that "shouldn't be". We learn to stop adding to the pile and relaxing and releasing into the uncomfortable...mindfully embracing our pain as it surely cries itself to sleep, so the energizing, healing flow of Shakti can come through. We need to "let go of our stuff" to get to God.
All is well.
.
Thich Nhat Hanh (January 11, 2022) Our Mind and Mental Formation. https://plumvillage.app/our-mind-and-mental-formations/
Michael Singer/ Sounds True. (n.d.) Michael Singer Podcast: Giving Meaning to the time between your birth and your death https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgNZs6_GmQs
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