The thought: "I"

 Have you ever noticed how "I" attaches itself to everything?

For example, it is cold. Immediately there is a thought, "I am cold".

What is the opposite of "I"? The answer might come up as "you", but it is more like anything that is "other". Can you see how "I" is the fundamental separator, dividing experience into what is this body/mind and what is everything else. The "I" thought is the duality thought. 

It comes online around two years old, and it is no accident that this is the age at which childen are really beginning to acquire language, the ability to communicate thought. Without getting into the complex linguistic and psychological hypotheses around this point, language seems to express thought and thought also seems to be shaped by language. 

To illustrate that take this example. I have heard that Inuit languages have many, many words for ice and snow. They live with ice and snow, and have developed more nuanced thoughts about ice and snow, so have more words for ice and snow to express that. In turn, learning their language, that subtley of thought about ice and snow are readily available to them because the language describes it that way.

I digress. The point really is that we have a word, "I" that refers to this body/mind and separates this body/mind for all others. Cutlurally we learn that as we develop. Psychologically it means we develop an ego, a sense of self. And it is pretty darn handy too. We can possess things, we can tell mine for yours. But pause for a minute and consider. It is just a thought!

In our thought processes we give "I" regal status. It owns everything. Whatever happens, I will take almost immediate possession of it.  Even on the meditation cushion, entering a state of Pure Awareness, which by definition is a no-thought state, and there it is: I am aware, As soon as it happens, that's a thought and we are no longer in Pure Awareness. Damn!

I-ness is a great cause of suffering. "I" gets upset whenever its expectations seem thwarted. Watch your moments of conflict. "Other" does something not in alignment with the way "I" would like it, and suffering happens. It is a resistence of reality. 

This ego-identity is also the source of self-images and beliefs, like "I am fat", "I am right", "I am not enough". In fact the ego-identity is nothing more than a whole bunch of I statements. "I am <insert name here>", "I am <insert job here>", "I am <insert position in family (mother, daughter etc.) here>". The ego-identity suvives by the strength with which we believe these statements. 

The ego-identity that the "I" thought represents is defined by Christopher Wallis in Tantra Illuminated (p. 130) in this way:

Ego ... is a persistent contraction of awareness in the form of a collection of self-images that causes suffering through artificial self-limitation.

 Non-dual spritutual awakening requires a loosening of the power of the "I" belief. Many spiritual traditions talk about this ego falling away, viewing it as an enemy. Of course anything that is being rejected, or that we have an aversion to will keep on coming around. 

Richard Miller, creator of iRest®, often talks about self falling away, but he counsels that it will not happen if you do not feel safe with yourself. (Received in in person teaching.) So every promise you make to yourself, keep it. Then perhaps you can go on where the ego cannot go. I find this useful in Yoga Nidra, to take "I" like a little baby, cared for and loved, and place it the cradle of my heart, inviting it to rest there so Awareness can go on alone. Upon return, ego is again assumed, but like the nurse, the police officer etc. put on the uniform of that profession  in order to perform the job, putting on the ego in order to come back into the world, but it is seen through as a kind of ruse. 

Of course, in iRest we also work on the "I" beliefs, challenging ourselves to take their opposites, and bringing them back to the body. Gradually the tenacity of these beliefs about ourselves begins to loosen, and the ruse of the ego is again revealed.

In Non-dual Saiva Tantra (NST), everything is an expression of Supreme Consciousness which contracts itself from a completely unbounded state which is full of potentiality, to express itself as the manifest universe. So the tradition teaches that far from denying the go, all that needs to be done is to expand that which is included in the "I" thought to include everything! One meditation to use in starting to work in this way is to place a beautiful object that you value before you, and meditate on being that object, of including it in your selfhood, by way of a first step in this expansion.

NST also offers us practices where we "burn" away all our self constructs, emptying ourselves for the light of Awareness.

One of the simplest approaches is to just notice the "I" thought attaching itself to everything. See what happens.

Enlighten Me

There’s something wrong with the tube light.
It’s flickering on and off, on and off.

You might say that’s better than when it was off all the time
and I was crashing about in the dark and banging into things.
So much suffering.

Then it came on and everything was so obvious …
for some timeless moments …
before it went off again.

But there was a faint halo left
so I couldn’t forget its brilliance,
and I yearn for that light.
Other timeless moments have happened along the way.
Suddenly being in the light
and then the darkness closing round,
forgetting, almost.

Then it started this flickering business.
This strobing effect is really quite distracting.
It’s driving me mad.
Sometimes I feel drunk,
sometimes nauseous,
sometimes dizzy
with all this on again, off again
state of affairs.

But now I see there’s nothing wrong with the light.
It’s on all the time, but I can’t keep my eyes open.

Time to wake up darling. You’re dreaming.

© Tina Shettigara September 2018

Note: I am not a fan of the term enlightenment. Awakening is more appropriate. However the metaphor of a flickering light describes so well this phase of unstable Awareness that is also coming and going, that I couldn't resist using the term in the title.
View more of my poems

Dan Flavin "monument to V. Tatlin" National Gallery of Australia
Sculpture of fluorescent tubes
Photo credit: https://artsearch.nga.gov.au/Detail.cfm?IRN=111377

Tripping over my stories

Lately I have been noticing how I keep tripping over my stories. Sometimes I have checked in with a friend, to say, "Am I reading too much into this?" I am truly thrilled that I am noticing this.  Otherwise I would just be reacting, believing my stories to be true.  That I am suspecting that my own, essentially fabricated, story is involved is a step in the right direction. 

Let me explain what I mean. I will then examine the implications and the alternative, and give you a five step path to freedom from your stories.

The mind is hard-wired to make up stories

The shocking thing to our sense of self is that the mind is hard-wired to make up stories. It has been known by the yogis for centuries, they called these stories vikalpa but it  also has been shown scientifically. Experiments with folk who have had the left and right brain hemisphere's disconnected to treat severe epilepsy have shown that one side is constantly making up stories that may have no connection to reality in order to rationalise perceptions. We are literally hard-wired to lie to ourselves! I know, it is shattering. (Could this be true? Want to know more?) Believing those stories can be a source of great suffering.

Shocking ... and liberating

This can be a shocking thing to realise; but when we do it is so liberating. No longer do we need to believe those stories ... like the one that is saying "I am just not good enough",  which can take a few different guises, like these:

• I am not good-looking enough, my body is imperfect.
• I am not intelligent enough.
• I am not sophisticated enough (for this job, this event, these people)
• I am a failure at everything
• I am out of my league.

Sometimes the stories come in the guise of blaming. Someone else is to blame for all my suffering.

Then there are the stories about obligations - you should or should not behave in a certain way, like you should (or should not) wear brand name yoga clothes in your yoga class, or you should (or should not) wear your hair in a certain way, get tattoos, body piercings or have cosmetic surgery.

Let me be clear, I am not saying here that we should or shouldn't do any of these things, but what I am saying is that we should be sorting out whether we are behaving in a certain way because of the stories that are not true, or not. After all, a story my brain has made up could well be saying to me not to do something and a story your brain has made up might be telling you to do exactly the same thing.

When my stories intersect with yours

Now we really are in a tricky pickle! When any of us meet from the point of view of believing our own stories, we can either reinforce our delusion, or come into conflict over our delusions. We are all doing the best we can, but when that best is blindfolded by myth, the outcome may appear less than skillful.

Even our love for each other is not enough to lift the veil. How often do we interpret the actions of  a loved one as a slight on ourselves, when in reality they are acting on the basis of their story, and we are reacting on the basis of our own?

The true course is felt not thought

None of us are immune. Only if we can recognise when our view, our course of action, is being guided by story, will we be free.

The only true course is one that is free from story, and that course is felt, not thought. To tune into that we need to become still, to listen beyond the stories.

The inner quiet place of Truth

The good news is that we do not need to relegate ourselves to suffering by forever believing our stories. The meditative paths of yoga offer us techniques for accessing the inner quiet place of Truth. It is simple, however simple does not mean instant nor easy, but if you think it is worth being free of your stories, the path is there to follow.

The alternative to action based on stories is not anarchy

What is the alternative to thinking through a course of action, to basing decision making or action upon anything other than the stories the mind presents us with?

Naturally, if you see through the stories, you will no longer be compelled to act upon them.  They may still arise but will have no power.  So how on earth do we find the right course of action. This is a radical shift.

When we let go of, or see right through the story-telling of the mind, and are free of them at last, does this mean that we are governed by nothing, that all is anarchic?  Not at all. Being free of the stories is a stilling of the mind, and this is the object of meditation. When the mind becomes quiet we can "hear" a different voice. I place that in quotes because you don't really hear it, you feel it. Free of the compulsion of stories, we come into an intuitive power that shows us the way through feeling, and the feeling is one of harmony.

Choose the path that feels most harmonious. Which path feels most right?

The five step path to freeing yourself of the tyranny of your stories

1. Intellectual knowing that your mind is always creating stories is a start. Having read this blog, you have taken this step.
2. Practice meditations daily that encourage a connection to the deep Inner presence that you are. This is beyond thoughts and stories. (iRest® meditation does this.)
3. Watch how your stories arise, unfold and dissolve within this Awaring Presence.
4. Keep practising until you can bring this into daily life, find yourself as Awaring Presence, and see the stories arising.
5. Keep coming back to Awaring Presence and feel into the action that will feel harmonious. Follow that.

This path works

I am recommending this path from personal experience. It works.  That is why lately I have noticed myself noticing my stories. I am looking forward to continuing to refine the process until I can feel truly free of the stories and be guided solely by that inner quiet voice of harmony.

There is nothing new about this path though. If you care to look you will find exactly this path set out in the writings of the ancient sages.

It's a bit scary ... but then that fear is just another story I am telling myself. It feels harmonious, so I am going there.

There is no such thing as a negative thought or emotion

Does your mind rebel at this statement?

There is no such thing as a negative thought or emotion.

I will stand by it.

It is not to say that I find every thought or emotion comfortable. Far from it. I just think that we should not regard them as "negative".

Every teaching you receive should be put through the filter of your own experience. Thus far I have found that the teachings that stand up in my experience are simple, which is not necessarily the same as easy. So it is with this statement. There is no such thing as a negative thought or emotion.

Reinforcing the belief that they are negative makes things worse

When I see the self help writings offering ways to "rid yourself of negative thoughts and emotions" I experience sadness. The expectation that you can rid yourself of uncomfortable emotions is so unrealistic. The teachers of these ideas are sincere enough, and they seek to help.  Their methods might work for awhile, but in the end those uncomfortable sensations will return.

In fact the perpetration of the idea that they are something you want to be rid of, the idea that they are negative and therefore undesirable, can actually create conditions for them to increase. Any strategy to push them away is bound to be unproductive and even increase the experience of those same emotions and thoughts over time. If they are undesirable, it is logical to push them away.

A radical shift in perspective is called for

As I said before, every teaching you receive should be put through the filter of your experience. To do that you must, of course, first give the teaching a preliminary assessment. If it asks you to do harm, to yourself or others, it is as well to reject it as being false. True teachings are benevolent, not malevolent. Beyond that you can only assess the effectiveness of a teaching by trying it out. I am sharing this teaching with you because I tried it out and found it to be effective, and so I take it to be true.

The radical shift in perspective is to regard everything that arises, including uncomfortable thoughts and emotions, as messengers whose message is a pointer to our essential wholeness. As messengers with such important and useful messages, the only thing to do is to welcome them and to enquire of them what it is they have to reveal.

The moment you turn towards, instead of away, from whatever is here, it ceases to have so much power over you. All the while you are turning away, pushing it away, you are in fact becoming more fused with it.  It may seem counter-intuitive, but in the act of turning towards it you are in fact de-fusing with it. You are immediately allowing it to be a movement in awareness, along with all other movements in awareness. Doing so frees up its passage to move on through, and its movement through opens the space for something else to move through and that something else might just be a more comfortable emotion or thought.

Of course, if a comfortable thought or emotion is present, it must be greeted in exactly the same way. It is pointless to try to fuse with it and hang onto it. It has come, as a messenger, allow it to deliver its message and move on through.

The dance of manifestation

This shift of perspective brings us into the position of witnessing what is going on instead of being caught up in it. From this perspective we witness the dance of manifestation. That part of manifestation that is this body is full of sensation, energy, emotion, and thought. These movements are coming and going  as a microcosm of the larger manifestation which is the entire universe.

Everything that manifests arises (is born), grows, stabilises and abides awhile, declines, erodes and decays and is reabsorbed. Everything. Can you think of anything that doesn't? Even a mountain. Even a planet. Even a star. Even the whole universe itself. Some things have a short period for this cycle, and some longer. Time itself is a part of the dance.

Compared to the cycle of manifestation of this body, the cycle of manifestation of any emotion or thought is short, sometimes fleeting, sometimes a little lingering, but short nevertheless, especially when it is being welcomed with curiosity.

And this is the message, or at least part of it.  It is simple. Everything comes and goes and nothing is permanent. This too shall pass! And in its time bound manifestation there is beauty. There is beauty in the grief, in the shame, in the sadness, in the nervousness, as much as there is in the joy, the friendliness, the compassion, the delight.

Who is doing the witnessing?

The rest of the message is in the answer to this question. Who is doing the witnessing? The emotion or thought, comfortable or uncomfortable, is a messenger. When we welcome it we open to the shift of perspective that reveals that witnessing aspect. This points us back to that which is witnessing.

Different sages, different traditions, have different words for this, but we might call it capital C Consciousness or capital A Awareness. Notice that this is not the thinking mind because it can be aware of thoughts. This is that part of us, the Consciousness in which those thoughts, or emotions, or sensations arise, grow, abide awhile, decay and are reabsorbed.

I encourage you to read some previous posts which may help your explorations.

Dealing with negative thoughts and emotions

Reset your defaults

Follow the senses

Carl Sagan

Being kind

"Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind. Always."

Versions of this saying abound and attributions are many. It is a worthy axiom to live by.

I am amazed by the troubles that people are managing in their lives all the time.  They may be presenting to us as if nothing at all is unsettling them, but in fact their life may be full of turmoil.

How often does our own turmoil take us away from kindness? I know it does with me, and it is highly likely that my own problems are miniscule compared to others'.

To a great degree our ability to be kind to others, no matter what we ourselves are dealing with, hinges on our ability to be kind to ourselves.  How do we do that when faced with a crowd of sorrows?

Meditation and meeting ourselves as unchanging awareness helps. When we access that part of ourselves which is untouched by the anxiety, the grief, the guilt, the worry, and know ourselves to be that, no matter what else is arising, and meet the same in everyone else, that is the truest kindness we can offer ourselves and all others.

The Ishtar story

Ishtar is a Mesopotamian goddess with an interesting story. She was Inanna to the Sumerians, Ishtar to the later Akkadians, Babylonian and Assyrians. In this week before Easter, it is timely to talk about her as some claim that her name was later appropriated as Easter., though this is debated. Ishtar was the Queen of Heaven and presided over sexuality and fertility, and is identified with the morning and evening star.

Photo credit: Wikipedia - Cylinder seal from ancient Akkadia
depicting Inanna/Ishta in a style we later see as Durga in India.

One of Ishtar's most famous stories is of her Descent into the Underworld. I will try to do it justice in summary.

The Underworld is ruled by her sister Ereshkigal, and it is not a place that folk usually return from. So before departing she arranges for the deities to rescue her if she does not return in three days. She dresses up in elaborate clothing and jewellery to denote her power and status.

To descend she must pass through seven gates. At each gate, in order to pass, she must surrender part of her clothing or jewellery and power objects, and so her power is progressively removed from her. When she arrives before Ereshkigal she is naked and powerless. Thus it is that her sister is able to overcome Ishtar and inflict such torments upon her that she dies and is cast upon a tree. On earth the consequence is the complete cessation of sexual activity, and thus of fertility.

However, Ishtar has her insurance policy and when she does not return, her faithful servant turns to the gods to rescue her and one of them responds, creating two sexless figures and instructing them on demanding Ishtar's corpse and how they must sprinkle it with the food and water of life.

This they do, gaining Ishtar's corpse from Ereshkigal with some drama, revive her and enable her to ascend, back through the seven gates, and as she passes them she regains the items she lost on the descent, regaining her powers.

When the Assyrians converted to Christianity, the cult of Ishtar was appropriated into Christian practice, many aspects of her worship entering into the cult of MaryAnd so too there is the claim that her name being taken on for the festival of Easter, along with practices of the fertility cult (eggs and rabbits). Even aspects of the Passion of Christ bear remarkable resemblance to Ishtar's descent into the underworld, the three days of death cast upon a tree (the cross), the resurrection and ascent to Heaven again.

There are other parallels with Ishtar in the cosmology of India. The Goddess Durga bears resemblance to Ishtar. And if we look west, the Germanic Goddess Eostre, whose name might also give rise to Easter, is a fertility goddess and associated with dawn (morning star).

The seven gates can be interpreted as the chakras. From base chakra to crown the seven chakras move from the gross to the subtle, from earth element, through water, fire and air, and in the higher chakras, increasingly rarified space. Ishtar's descent is a descent into embodiment, and in embodiment is life's opposite, death. But just as she could descend into embodiment, and die, so too could she ascend, becoming whole (restoration of powers) as she does. But the wholeness is always there. ascent through the chakras connects us with that essential spaciousness of Awareness which is always here. So the ascent is the salvation, and it is available to us all.

Stillness and contentment

One day my friend and colleague, Cherise, loaned me a little blue book, the Art of Stillness, by Picot Iyer. "You'll like it", she said. I did.

Being still I catch the scent of gum blossoms.
Photo credit: Vittala K Shettigara

As I read it, and sat with it, I reflected how stillness is something really precious to me, the greatest treasure being when I gain an ongoing sense of stillness, no matter what my activity or what is happening to me or around me.

I practise opening to permanent Stillness. Slowly it is coming.

To write a column like this I need to find stillness so that what wishes to be expressed can make itself heard. So today I have paused, and sat, asking it to come forth. Iyer's thoughts expressed in that little blue book are with me. Stillness is here.

And I recognise what else is here, things that arise through the gateways of my senses. Green tea on the palate. The tinkle of the courtyard fountain. The mid afternoon light a glare through the blinds. The scent of gum-tree blossoms floating in through the open windows.

The loud sounds of excavations across the road as an empty block of land is readied for construction are not disturbing me, they are just there.

As I progressed through Iyer's book he talked a lot about monks going off and spending years in isolation in monasteries and doing nothing. But that is not the life that is available to most of us. Yet I know that those of us who live in the world are not doomed to be caught up in all its motion.

I too love to stop and be quiet. In a few weeks time in early April I will be spending a week in silence sitting with my teacher on retreat. And in June I am offering my students a retreat, partially silent, for three days. Retreat gives us the opportunity to immerse and heighten our sensitivity to the Stillness that is always there. Retreat helps us to carry that flavour of stillness with us back into the whirring activity of everyday life and to continue to experience it there as well.

Iyer also reaches that point in the little blue book, eventually.

"The point of gathering stillness is not to enrich the sanctuary or mountaintop but to bring that calm into the motion, the commotion of the world."

Stillness is a quality of  Being Awareness, a vastness that through practice we come to recognise is who we are, as much as we are the body and personality we inhabit or the thoughts and emotions that we experience.

Contentment is also a key component of stillness. When we can be at peace just with what is here, recognising that everything is arising and subsiding in and from a vast stillness that is Awareness, contentment is also present.

Contentment is the second of the internal practices, or niyamas, described by Sage Patnajali as the second limb of yoga. Yoga Sutra II.42 reads"From contentment there flows the most excellent happiness and delight." (Translation Swami Venkatesananda).

When we are not in connection with Stillness, Contentment is difficult to attain. Yet when we begin to practice the mindfulness that leads to Stillness, Contentment also arises. Discontent is a restlessness of mind, body and spirit. As the restlessness is stilled, through our practices of mindfulness, body and breath sensing in movement and in still and silent practices such as meditation and yoga nidra, so too the discontent, and we are content with things just as they are.