If you want to go to God and experience what the great ones experience, you need to pay attention to what is holding you down.
You always start with where you are...you don't start from where you want to be
Michael A. Singer
I found myself wondering today as I was listening to this podcast how Michael Singer would grade this human I call "me" on its learning progress. I embarrassingly found myself imagining me as a little student in Elementary school, looking up and asking, "Am I doing good teacher?"
It took me by surprise to realize I was seeing myself in that light. Though I love and honor his teachings, my redeemer/spiritual ego does not like this "me" to think of itself as his student...any one's student other than Life's. It gets embarrassed for this "me" when it seeks the validation of others.
Why?
Redeemer Ego doesn't like to face the fact that Shamer Ego is still very much around in my Life. I, as I have mentioned many times, see two sides to the ego coin. There is Shamer ego- I am a shamed based human psyche and shame is one of the deepest of the ego layers hiding who I truly am. And there is Redeemer ego- a part of me is always trying to redeem this human in the eyes of others and to pull this psyche up away from this very uncomfortable conscious experience of shame. So, I was experiencing that pull this morning as I was listening.
I want to go to God. I want to experience who I truly am, and I know the process requires I understand what is preventing me from doing that, what is holding this human down. As I unravel the many layers of psyche and samskara that keep this me from experiencing who I truly am, I find I am feeling exposed, vulnerable, without those protective layers. The stuff I stored and ran from all my life is hitting me smack dab in the face and it is so uncomfortable. It isn't easy to live like this.
Has it ever got so intense in there that you don't want to be in there?
That is me. As I peel the protective layers away and I am seeing and experiencing all this that I stuffed, stored, and ran from most of my life...Life suddenly seems so heavy. I question, "Do I really want to go on like this?" On top of that, the life circumstance around this human is more than challenging. I do not have to just deal with low hanging fruit like the weather, and what others might think of me as Singer encourages us to ( I am neurotic and still occasionally fret over those things too) ...I am dealing with very, very challenging things on the outside and those painful things that have made their way up from the inside at the same time. I am being challenged on both ends: inside and outside. I asked... I prayed... for an intensive, speed up to this healing I know is necessary...and boys am I being accommodated. Outside layers are being stripped off,and not so gently, while inside layers are pushing the painful stuff I stored between the layers up. It really kind of sucks lol.
Still, committed to this purifying and healing mission, I go on. I look down into the pile of junk, notice how life can stir it up and though it feels like crap...I remind myself that this is an important part of the most important mission this human can take on. I continue to look deeply into that which is holding me down. I am not looking into the "story" so much. I do not care about the memories attached to each of these emotionally charged things from my past that I stored. I am just attempting to stay open to the energy as it comes up and hopefully out of me.
"I would rather run and hide. I don't want to have to deal with this."
Sure, that is true. I would rather run and hide...but I know now there reaally is no way of escaping truth. I know that it will follow me. I would rather deal with it all now. I stop running. I do my best to relax into what is.
What emotionally charged energy, besides shame, is the greatest thing I must face...that most of us must face? Fear. My fear is so intense. I know that. I don't even know why it is so intense. My memories of past trauma are so repressed and suppressed...I have no idea. I just know, it is there, percolating inside me. Though many layers have been removed, there are still many layers to remove, from behind those layers fear percolates.
[Most of us] end up pushing away the weakness, the part that's scared...
Like many humans, I buried shame and fear so deep inside me and I built many protective layers of redemption over it. Seeking things "out there" that would make me feel better in here...is how I found so called "okayness," but it was never real.
"There were all these things I thought would make me okay but now I want to die..."
Realizing that these layers and things are not going to make us feel okay leaves a human feeling more than a little defeated and depressed. Now what?
Suppression is the worse way to deal with fear...
Though I cannot say that I am enjoying the experience of living without the layers that once gave me a false sense of being okay...I have no intention of dying before my time comes. :) I have faith, not conditional hope, but faith that going deeper "through" that fear and shame and whatever else I have bubbling inside this human psyche is the answer to the end of not only this human's suffering...but all suffering.
Find the deepest part of your being and be true to that. Be true to that...
"If the whole world rejects me but I am closer to God, I went the right way."
"I seen a deeper truth, I want to live it!"
"I live the truth..."
In order to get there, I have to accept the fact that it won't be easy. I will have to suffer a bit.
...you will have to go through hell, an inner hell.
If this very challenging heaviness is a necessary part of the process, I am still in! I just need to stay true to this mission, this path, no matter how uncomfortable it gets and no matter what others think of me for going this way. No more building layers of false protection (personality or psyche layers). No more running from all that I stuffed and stored. Just a relaxed willingness to allow it to come up when it comes up and to go through it.
I would like to hear back from the greatest teacher, Life, that I am doing okay as a student. Maybe Life cannot grant me a 4.0 GPA or an A+ on my fear facing skills yet, but maybe It could give me a smile, a gentle pat on the head, and a gold star for effort.
And maybe Michael Singer would concur,
You got there by noticing the mess not by ignoring it, not by suppressing it, not by denying it...
All is well.
Michael A. Singer ( March 9, 2026) The Stairway to Heaven. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZ1z8NTNoCA&list=PLyOuAoSmZkKoESr2acNWwhznusbBkKXsT&index=1
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