Okay
…On a functional level: To provide for my children, my family, myself. To live life as it unfolds. To die at peace with life.
How do you want to die?
"I" want to die before death ever comes.
What I meant was to see your self dying physically and imagine the "best" scenario.
To me there is no best, and no worst, there is just death, but this is just an opinion or belief.
Yes, quite "heady".
However, I would prefer to die free of any terrible physical pain. When I was younger I thought that at death I would take lsd.
That’s still not what I intended with my question.
Just relax and imagine your last minute has come.
If that happened right now, what comes up?
I want to see my boys to say goodbye... I feel as if I am shortchanged, that life has ended before completion... there is a sense of being unfinished.
Yes, that's it.
Now, FEEL that sense of being unfinished now. Take your time. And accept the suffering that comes up, the suffering of being unfinished... and then, let motivation come up, feel more and more motivated to do everything you can to be finished...and let that become an overall motivation, a permanent reminding factor. When you forget, remember again. Before falling asleep, remember, and when you wake up, the first thing to do is to remember this. Accept the (necessary) suffering of being unfinished and feel the motivation to get rid of this/to go for being finished. Don’t be maniac about it.
Do in the spirit of effortless effort.
Okay
What would ideally come up when this happens in reality one day?
Ideally there would be a sense of readiness, a sense of completion, a feeling of having lived, understood and finished life.
Yes.
No matter if there is physical pain or not. How would you feel about the feelings the people have who come and see your dead body?
I don't see that I would feel anything one way or another.
They would be mourning or something like that. How do you feel (now) about people having deep feelings about you being dead?
I understood before that people would have deep feelings about me being dead, that there would be mourning. I would not have any feelings at that time. My feelings (now) are of sadness empathy for those that are mourning.
Is it easy for you to access and allow these feelings?
Yes
Would you say that these are very deep feelings?
No
Do you have an explanation for them not being deep?
I guess they are not deep because in the case of experiencing emotions "as if" I were dead, they are projections of feelings, not the feelings themselves. Emotions for me are easy to access, yet paradoxically I don't feel much attachment to them. They come, are experienced, and let go of. I see no real benefit of hanging onto emotion.
I agree to your last sentence. Yet, it seems to me that there's an issue concerning emotions which we should treat before we go on.
Okay.
How do you feel about our mail exchange so far?
They are interesting, challenging, insightful, and profound. I look forward to them. How do you feel about them?
I don't know. I feel "in between", which means that I can observe a certain talent for understanding my teaching but there's still some blanks to be filled.
What are the blanks that need to be filled?
I’m now sure, it has to do with emotions.
Okay
Do you take any pills or drugs?
No, why do you ask?
Again, it's because I got more and more the impression that you’re not enough in contact with emotions. I wanted to make sure that it's not pills or drugs that produce this.
My hypothesis is that somehow you're not sufficiently able to be associated with your emotions.
It could be that because of fear you learned how not to allow deep emotions, that you built up a kind of defense not to "feel" too deeply or to cut off feelings/emotions. That you taught to your hormonal system to produce natural tranquilizers.
But it could be something else, too.
What I suggest is that you review past traumatic experiences, and also death of friends and relatives, and also what your ex girlfriends /friends told you/reproached you concerning your emotions.
Just let things comes up, we need to find why you're kind of emotionally handicapped (hypotheses).
I could formulate it differently: behind everything I write, there are messages that are destined to go straight to your heart. From your answers I get the impression, that they can't/don't reach your heart.
Yesterday, I went to the funeral of an aunt that I haven't seen in 30 years, and realized that it was only the second funeral that I have attended. The first was my father’s. I found it somewhat odd that although I have lost grandparents, aunts, uncles and a few friends, that I haven't been to their funerals.
My father, ex-wife and some girlfriends over the years, have told me that I am "too sensitive" and "too emotional". Personally I feel that now I have a healthy attitude and relationship with emotions. The HeartMath work that I have spoken to you about briefly revolves around learning how to intentionally replicate positive emotions (care, appreciation, love) in the body. It also involves learning to shift focus from the head or mind, into the heart or area around the heart. I have been practicing this for the last 2 years with successful results.
My past traumatic experiences (death of my father, divorce from my ex-wife, a break-up with my fiancée that I loved deeply) have all produced strong emotions in me. In the case of my father's death, I was adversely affected (deep sense of loss), for several months after. With the divorce from my ex-wife, I experienced a great deal of sorrow and guilt for almost a year after. And in the break-up with my fiancée, I was deeply hurt and betrayed but let go of the suffering within a few weeks.
Throughout most of my life, I was an angry person, quite often loosing my temper easily (particularly on the golf course). It has only been in the last 2 or 3 years that I have learned to observe the anger, accept the anger for what it is, and then let it go, instead of carrying it around with me. I have tried to apply this to most if not all negative emotions.
I see myself as being a very emotionally healthy individual (which as you well know, doesn't mean that is true or not true). That being said, I am certainly willing to look at this differently and am open to alternative viewpoints. Hopefully the above writings and observations will help.
Is it possible that the HeartMath training has conditioned you to become an "emotionally healthy" person?
No, at least not in my understanding of conditioning;I have simply learned how to recognize, experience and release or recognize, experience and replicate emotions.
Negative emotions are for liberation what is gasoline for a car. In my teaching (and in Gurdjieff’s) it's not about not to have them but to use them in a particular way.
If that training has conditioned you to hardly ever be in contact with them, or you have learned how to "transform" or "get rid" of them when they come up, then it will be difficult to for me to be your teacher unless we unwire the conditioning. It seems quite healthy the way you have learned to cope with emotions compared to before when you had lost temper easily, but it could be that you switched to the other extreme.
What do you think of this?
Could this be the case?
The HM training does not condition one "to hardly ever be in contact with them (the emotions)" but rather to experience the emotions without letting them consume you. I know that I am in contact with my emotions. I feel and experience them fully. Neither is this a coping, but rather a method of taking a time out from the emotion, observing it and then reproducing or replicating a more beneficial emotion.
I don't feel that I have "switched to the other extreme". As I've said before, I still experience negative emotions, so if using them in a particular way is the gasoline for liberation I see no reason why this is not possible. At any rate, how or what is done with these emotions, is still dependent on conscious awareness on my part. It is necessary for me to implement or intervene. Without this intervention, the emotions will take their natural and due course, as before.
What would happen if you stopped considering positive emotions as a counterpart of negative emotions? That they come from completely different sources (the one from identity, the other from essential value (e.v.))
I would think that the change would produce a different perception. It seems to me that this (the considering of positive and negative emotions as being completely different) is in and of itself creating separation and therefore duality.
No, not at all, it's just a didactic device, not an ultimate reality.
Please go into details concerning "different conception".
I already asked you to get more detailed and put yourself in my place when you re-read what you've written. This vague answer is the contrary of helpful because of its vagueness: "would produce a different perception".
I want you to be fully concentrated and implicated for ALL your answers.
Also, I need more depth in some of your answers. Maybe you take more time to until you feel that your answer is bringing up new/more understanding for you.
Most of what I write is to trigger essential issues in your machine; I want you to do more efforts to get yourself going.
I understand. I will do my best to provide more in depth responses. My shorter responses are often indicative of lack of understanding.
I spend considerable time whether it shows or not to provide the best I can.
Okay, I got the impression that this is not the case in all your answers.
Most of what I write is directed to bring you new understanding.
Of course, it's necessary to understand intellectually and linguistically first, but the understanding I want to trigger in yourself with what I write, and also your reflection/meditation while trying to find the answers, should not be intellectual, but more overall and a more intuitive.
Do you know what I mean?
Yes I think I do. More of a realization rather than a thinking. For example, today, while sitting in the backyard, I realized that my opinions and ideas have unconsciously become beliefs that can get in the way of what we are doing. Is this like what you are speaking of?
Not completely. It is of course a realization, and an important one and you should have given me an example.What is also missing is the body/feeling part of the realization and the implications for your life having realized this. The way you describe it, it seems to be a purely intellectual realization.
I have the sense that this realization just pops in my mind. It comes from within me, not an intellectualization from thinking about our conversations or teaching. I understand that opinions and beliefs are the same. What is needed is for me to ask what this will mean for my everyday life? How will this change or affect what I am doing? I now understand that there is a remembering, and daily recall that needs to take place when these realizations or "aha's" come up. It is necessary for me to drop the intellectualization and get into the "dimension of intuition", what I call a "feeling sense". This I work on.
Yes, that's it.
If I stopped considering positive emotions as a counterpart of negative emotions, it could force a more complete expression of the negative emotions while at the same time allowing the natural or authentic emotions to simply occur. My differing perception of the resulting emotions could lead to an identification of that primary emotion that contributes to separation.
Right. (I understand "identification" in the sense of becoming aware of, getting in contact with.)
Yes, that is my understanding as well.
Some of the confusion re: emotions, has been cleared by your distinction between "positive" emotions and "natural or authentic" emotions.
Good, that's important. The latter(s) happen spontaneously, out of the moment (or they don't happen).
I can see then that the fact of my intentionally generating them could be problematic.
Very good insight. Please expand on "problematic".
Intentionally generating these positive emotions could inhibit or prevent the "natural or authentic" emotions from naturally arising. It is possible that this self-generating process could also make it more difficult for me to discern the positive (self generated) from the "natural or authentic" emotion. Also generating the positive can prevent the full experience of the negative and therefore minimize or negate the possibility of "shifting states" as in your example of "analogically dimming" them.
Yes, that's it.
What would happen if you stopped "reproducing or replicating a more beneficial emotion". (I would call this "wrong" work on oneself in my teaching.)
I assume that I would experience the negative emotions more fully and completely.
Right.
You may start now (experimentally and for some days) reducing by and by the reproducing or replicating of emotions.
And observe what happens and tell me in a couple of days.
What would happen if you stopped working on positive emotions and let them happen naturally and if you focalized only on work on negative emotions?
Once again, I would experience the negative emotions more fully and completely. It would also depend, I think, on what "work" I was doing with the negative emotions.
Right. Please do not do it yet.
Another important issue is fear. I repeat: fear has to be treated as a resistance to feel necessary suffering.
Whenever there's fear, it hides suffering unless it's an instinctive fear of imminent danger.
So please check what happens when fear comes up and tell me.
Also try to put fear aside when it comes up and observe what happens and tell me.
Okay
I feel, based on your observations and my intuitions from your observations, that fear is the issue. And although fear is an emotion, it is an emotion that hardly ever rises (in me). It is quite possible that I repress circumstances in which this particular emotion can arise, and I am equally sure that I subconsciously and consciously protect myself from experiencing it by staying away from those things that may give it cause to rise.
Let’s treat the fear when you've experienced for a couple of days or weeks what happens when you put the fear aside when it comes up.
By the way, I picked up Radical Awakening today. I have started reading it and find it to be the same as and yet distinctly different from other books that I have read. I can see parallels between your work and his awakening.
Open up for grace to enter you. It’s already waiting. Your work on intuition is preparing the ground. Efforts are needed but they never can be sufficient.
I certainly feel that I am not "finished", but rather just getting started. Would you please clarify for this confused American, who has spent entirely too much time in his own mind, not to mention having to live in a country under the rule of gwbush? :)
Hahaha, yes, that's what one could call "bad karma".
Yes, possibly even "terrible or horrific karma" :)
I’d say you work on intuition/non intellectualization for some time, maybe a week, and then write me a mail.
Btw., you must have read nisargadatta "I am that". Didn’t your intellect go nuts?
You may reread extracts now, but please don't try to understand intellectually; just read it and try to understand intuitively what he wants to convey beyond his words.
-----------------------------------------
Hi Wolfgang,
Hope all is well with you.
I have been working on intuition and have a story to tell. You can laugh while I cry. :)
:):):)
After our last email almost 2 weeks ago, I started my work on "non-intellectualization and developing intuition". After a day or two with no discernible success (because as I soon realized, I attacked this the same way as I do everything, always with the intellect) I started some online research on books about developing intuition. This was followed by a trip to the bookstore, where I spent an hour or so browsing various books. After looking at 4 or 5, I gave up and then stumbled upon a book entitled Intuition, by Osho. So I bought it and spent a couple of days reading and finishing it. And guess what, nothing changed! Well almost nothing at any rate. I did read about the difference between knowledge and knowing (I started to say that I learned about the difference, but at that point, all I had really accomplished was a reading about it: I learned nothing, but perhaps it planted the seed).
The next day, I went out again, In Search of the Perfect Intuition book (because the Osho book hadn't "done it" for me). And while sitting with a small stack of prospective candidates, I suddenly realized that everything I was doing (on this search for the perfect book, and my search for liberation) was the problem and not the solution. I was perpetuating intellect instead of listening for or to intuition. I was attempting once again to gain "knowledge" from someone else, instead of "knowing" from within myself. So I dumped all the books and left.
Upon returning home, I started to re-read our emails. I read slowly and
Just listened to your words (and mine) trying to hear and feel the essence instead of process and analyze the information. And each time the awareness of my intellectualization crept in, I stopped, shifted perspective and started over. This intellect is so strong in me, and I never before realized how strong. I am constantly stopping and then starting again. But every now and then an understanding happens, nothing grand or earth shaking, just a small understanding. Sometimes it is the same as the understanding that I reached intellectually, sometimes it is like I'm reading it or hearing it for the first time.
Yes, that sounds good to me.
As an example of these small understandings, I offer the following: You asked me once, to check into the "feeling superior or feeling special" part of my identity. At the time I told you I felt solitary, not superior. You asked if I felt special. I answered no, just solitary. I now know and feel that while I feel solitary, and I don't feel superior, I do feel special; special in the sense of seeing the importance of liberation and possessing the desire to pursue that liberation.
Remembering these "understandings" is also difficult for me. They are there and then they are gone. Writing the "aha's" down, seems to me to be "feeding" the process of intellectualization.
Yes, learn to recall the "aha’s" regularly without writing them down and without intellectualizing.
This special kind of recalling brings you back to intuition (in case you're not).
I am reading small parts of I AM That. Same process (as explained above). Same results (this continuous intellectual prying, trying to understand, trying to make some sense, trying to apply the concepts read, and it gets in the way of truly knowing or understanding.) And each time stopping, seeing/sensing the intellect at work, withdrawing from intellect, and returning to the listening/hearing. This is a slow process. I feel like I am trying to learn or allow that which I already know but paradoxically don't know or have forgotten knowing.
The intuitive understanding happens much faster (the access is faster, more immediate, and also the internal processing is much faster) than the intellectual understanding and never needs repetition to seize the meaning/signification of what's going on.
Intuition is related to nothingness, intellect is definitely related to
somethingness.
On the other hand there's no (scientific) certainty and no proof in
intuition. By and by there's some sort of confidence (subtle feeling) that develops, some "insighting" that the intuitions come right out of your essential value and thus can't be wrong.
I have come to believe that this intuition has always been there, lurking in the background.
Yes.
Always overshadowed by my intellect. I now feel that being drawn to you was this intuition, this knowing at work. During our phone conversation, you said, "something has made you contact me, something has heard and understood." Is it possible that I somehow understand with intuition (with inner knowing or sensing and not knowledge) and then intellectually over-ride that knowing, instead substituting more acquired knowledge? This is what it seems to me is happening.
Yes, very good insight. Intuitive understanding is already there, has always been present, and is linked with your essential value.
Looking forward to going further,
Please take another week or two to experiment intuitive understanding before re-contacting me.
----------------
How are you?
Has intuition and/or grace taken over?
No, I would have to say that it has not taken over as yet! The intuition has little by little found a larger space to present itself in though. It seems that I am able to "listen" for it easier than before, although I find it interesting that I cannot tell whether I "feel" the intuition, "see" the intuition, or "hear" the intuition, it simply is there (sometimes).
Much of what I have intellectualized over the years, I now believe that I just knew, intuitively. Yet there seems to still be an absence of directly experiencing this "knowing."
Yes, this "knowing" cannot be experienced. "Knowing" is on a higher logical level than experience.
Perhaps the direct experiencing occurred earlier and at the time I just intellect-ed it to death with my researching and book knowledge and the direct experience is lost.
Remain with the feeling of uncertainty (you may even "cultivate" it); it is directly linked with intuition. Whatever you directly experienced in the past, it wasn't "it". "It" cannot be experienced.
From now on please think differently.
Intuition/grace is always there. You may not be aware of because of whatsoever, but it's always there. It "feels" more like an absence than a presence.
Will it help to be "as if" I know or feel it is always there?
Yes. Here and now.
Can you explain this more. To me an absence is something that you feel is missing.
That's an interpretation of identity that cannot represent absence/nothingness. Absence/nothingness cannot be represented, it can only be perceived in this very moment (no past, no future). In the background of whatever happens there is absence/nothingness. This can only be perceived this very moment.
How does one go about perceiving this absence/nothingness in the "moment"?
Here's an exercise you could do once in a while.
Take a break and a fixed sitting position without moving.
Put your attention to all five senses, one after the other, each sense for 5 seconds.
Visual (eyes open)-
Auditory (eyes closed from now on) -
Kinesthetic (feel/sense/whole body feeling) -
Olfactory -
Gustatory -
Take a second to let go the former sense before you start the next one; Then all the five at the same time for 5 seconds.
Then let disappear all senses.
After a few seconds, reopen your eyes and make sure you remain in the same no-perception for some seconds.
When done, go right away back to what you did before without thinking about it anymore.
In other words, forget about having done it right away.
Don't worry about doing it "correctly". It can't be done "correctly".
Always wait at least 30 minutes after redoing it, even after having done it for the first time.
Don't do it too often, maybe a maximum of 10 times a day.
In some days, keep me informed of what this does to you.
Okay
Past and future are representations; they are not real even though you might believe they are. When I say "not real", I don't mean that your representation of it is not correct. You just should stop to believe that they are real. The only reality is here and now.
I no longer believe in the reality of past or future. My belief (about past and future) has been that they are nothing more than concepts, defined by artificial boundaries of our (human beings) creation. I have believed this for the past couple years.
Do you know this every moment with all your being?
(please do not reply to me to this question, reply to yourself only)
There is an aspect of me that is still "waiting for something to happen", even though I believe there is nothing to happen.
What would happen if you stopped waiting for something to happen?
There would be less opportunity for separation (between me and liberation).
It could potentially allow liberation to unfold or surface on its own without, as you have told me before (an event or non-event). I could lose my identity because it is partially defined by this "waiting". I could see that "it" already exists?
From now on, whenever you become aware of the "waiting for something to happen" (which is future oriented; thus misleading) mechanism, stop it right away and be here now.
Do you have any advice as to how to go about pulling myself into the present moment in order to "be here now"?
Look-feel-hear what is perceivable this very moment.
Please keep me informed of what that does to you.
Okay
How do you recommend cultivating uncertainty?
It's another expression for "reminding factor". Re-accessing it regularly, checking regularly. Like a small plant which needs to be nourished several times a day to survive.
I understand. Thank you.
------------
I would like you to tell me how things are going concerning your non-intellectualization, the perception exercise etc.
Concerning non-intellectualization:
I am more aware of over-intellectualization than ever. Most of the time
(kind of like "don't think about a pink elephant", and then you find that is all you can think about)the awareness seems to be ever-present.
Good. So it seems that there is more and more distance and less and less identification.
If you are asking if there is more distance and less identification with intellect I would say yes but I haven't really thought of it in those terms before. I would say there is definitely more balance between the two.
If you're okay with my terms, then please think in my terms because the give a certain direction: going for/going away from.
Yes I am okay with your terms. I understand the direction reference. Makes sense.
Good.
Shifting focus from being (head, mind, intellect centered) into being (heart-centered) takes me out of the mind and brings a sort of feeling sense instead of the usual (normal)thinking sense. Intuition seems to always be there in the background (I guess where it was all along) waiting for intellect to "step aside". Without a conscious decision to "use" this intuition, the intellect over-rides it or occludes it or hides it. Overall there is more intuition and less intellect in my day-to-day existence.
Good. To be continued.
Concerning the perception exercise:
I keep getting stuck at the part of the perception exercise where you say to "let disappear all senses". They never seem disappear, or I cannot seem to allow them to disappear. I know that you said to not worry about doing it correctly, that it wasn't possible to do it correctly so I did not worry about it. On a couple of occasions I felt slightly disoriented afterwards, sort of dizzy but not dizzy. Other than that it doesn't seem to "do anything to me.
Okay. Stop doing it for a week. And then only once a day for one week.
Then re-mention it in a mail to me.
"Let your focus on all senses disappear", would that be easier?
Yes, it sounds easier. I’ll try it that way and see what develops.
Concerning everything overall:
There was an occasion about 3 or 4 weeks ago, where I fell into a depression that lasted for about 4 days. I say terrible because I cannot remember being depressed for 30 years. The life events that seemed to preciptitate it all involved separation (from my sons, a friend, my ex-girlfriend (delayed reaction, I guess), and another younger girl that i know).
All head shit, you know, questioning whether I was making the right
decisions, questioning why all of these things were happening at the same time, questioning why I was so alone (not lonely, just alone), questioning why I can't seem to get this practice of mine working to make enough money to support myself... blah blah blah.
At any rate, I stayed in this for 3 or 4 days, just eating it up and all the time becoming more and more depressed, even despondent. And then one day I just said the hell with this (to myself, of course) and (almost instantaneously) returned back into the present moment, accepting "what is" as being "what is" and I was fine. During the whole depressive episode I realized that I was depressed, why I was depressed and that I knew how to get out of it, but it didn't seem to matter. I knew how to end it but I didn't and then I did.
The accepting of necessary suffering is one thing, it should be done
consciously and intentionally; then there is an identity mechanism that might try to take over and make it a depression. So, whenever you accept necessary suffering, be very aware of not to "indulge" in it.
Doing what you did after the 3-4 days can and should be done the very moment the tendency of becoming depressed emerges.
Yes, I knew this. Just didn't happen that way this time.
Make sure it does happen next time.
Concerning some questions:
If I understand that now is "what is" then why don't I have the feeling of directly experiencing this?
If I understand that "all there is, is the nothingness, the void, then why don't I have the feeling of directly experiencing this as well? It is as if someone asks "Do you know how to play golf?" and I answer "yes, but I have never swung a club or hit a golf ball or been on a golf course."
If there is nothing to realize, nothing to "get", nothing to seek, or for me to find, then why I am I always seeking? Why am I engaging you as my teacher, why come to France?
If I am already "liberated" and I just don't realize it, why don't I realize it?
If there is no difference (separation) between you and I then what constitutes your "awakeness" and my "asleepness"? (I am not sure if this question is clear even in my mind, but I cannot seem to formulate it differently).
I realize that these questions may have no answer (or possibly no answer that I can comprehend, yet they are still questions that keep asking for answers).
You know, Zen is the most direct way to liberation. The guy who gave life to Zen has really done the ultimate reduction of what is necessary to "get it": sitting all day long in front of a wall in an uncomfortable position, sometimes moving around, sometimes working, sometimes eating, sometimes sleeping. Hardly ever any speaking.
AND:
koans.
All that you wrote after "concerning some questions", are koans.
Koans eventually put you in contact with original belief, the suffering of separation that needs to be accepted when it comes up. The suffering of having these questions and no answers. The suffering of supposing that there are people who have answers. The suffering of considering oneself being a "loser".
In a certain way, it's the suffering of many individuals who have committed suicide, and in a certain way, liberation is a kind of suicide. Outside a monastic environment, 4th way, everyday life with money, family problems etc. allows to have necessary regular "time-outs".
Stay upright with these koans, with the impossibilities, with the necessary suffering.
Do you feel tired sometimes during the day although there is no real reason for this?
Yes, more so the last 4 weeks than I ever remember. Why?
That's normal and a good sign. It means that identity and the impact of intellect is weakening. Don't fight the tiredness, just go with it and become accustomed to doing what you need to do while being tired.
Don't wait for re-becoming dynamic; this might not be available for a long time.
Do you have sometimes spontaneous reminiscences of insignificant details of past events, sometimes from very long ago?
Yes once again. Usually I have no remembrances of past events. Lately certain people and the things we did have popped in my mind.
Very good. It's of no importance, and there's nothing to do on this. It's part of the identity destabilizing process. No need to trigger this, just take note that it happens from time to time.
In case there's other things like this that you may observe and that are not part of your usual functioning, please let me know.
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