Going To The Root Of The Roots pt 2

It takes a special kind of person to have the thirst and drive so strong to keep wanting to go to the root of the roots of a painful situation or behavior pattern – all with the singular intention of transforming the pattern utterly and completely. If you’ve ever had to scratch into hardened soil with your fingers to weed out an undesired plant’s roots, you have an idea metaphorically of what this entails.
 

Knowing if only a little bit of the root system remains, the plant will eventually return in full, it behooves the gardener to go all the way down to eradicate the perceived bad guy weed. Clipping the surface growth won’t do it. You gotta dig deep and pull every last bit out to make a real and lasting difference. 

So it is with many difficult situations in life, doing a casual rearrange isn’t going to make the problem go away. Like moving ugly furniture around in a small room … no matter what the lay out, you still got ugly furniture to sit on. Just so. I’ve recently been moving through a challenging emotional situation where I just haven’t easily exited off the endless cloverleaf, loop d’loop – the drama loop, that is. Just to clarify, this roadway mess is mine, all mine ...

I fully recognize this outer play is an intimate and immediate reflection of my own emotional landscape terrain. I’m not an innocent or uninvolved bystander here. I am no victim either. As always, the Universe forces me to my destiny and this is very much the case now. Because I choose to view all that transpires in my life as an endless opportunity to evolve, this scenario is prime time material which furthers my goal.

If you’ve ever done an extended food fast, often the last few days are the most difficult, if only because you’ve gotten down to the deep and funky sediment crud long buried in the cellular levels of your body. Actually, for anyone who’s done this, all of your bodies (emotional and mental) are likewise purged by undergoing this demanding, internal cleansing process. However, like most tough stuff practices, it often only feels wonderful when it’s over.

I remember reading the works of the African shaman Malidoma Some and from his ancient tribal tradition, there are some life initiations that once in the healing process (or crisis), you either make it successfully through – or you die trying. There is no middle ground. Perhaps you die because you don’t try. Either way, you can’t pull out short of completion. Once in, you’re in – until you’re through it. Or you're dead. This is obviously some serious medicine healing work – very hard core, very old school style.

This is how I’ve come to understand this recent emotional twist and spin of mine. In part, it absolutely and accurately represents the basic core wound I brought into this incarnation and have carried thus far in this present life, go-round. It’s quite the challenge because it all too intimately encapsulates my separation from Source paradigm – which is to say, the erroneous belief that I was somehow rejected by God to have ended up way down here in Earthland, feeling totally cut off from my Soul’s eternal limitlessness.

Aside from channeled accounts of my having willingly signed up for this Earth School journey, all the while knowing I would completely forget my Spiritual connection while in human form (and no way believing this could ever be possible) and yet, still agreeing to enter into the thick soup of Maya - the dance within the constantly illusionary faux reality of Earth. Who knows for sure, though it sure rings true in me.

Earlier on in this present scenario, I tried to take my space and step away when I clearly knew the ball had been dropped between she and I and didn’t bounce back again. It fell flat with no life to return in hand or Heart and meet me in a way that felt good. No great intuitive abilities were necessary to come to this obvious conclusion. It just felt bad and uncomfortable and unsettling … even hard headed guys can get this one.

It’s a remarkable capacity of humans and said to be unique to our human, planetary species, ie. our emotional body. As a rule, most men in our culture haven’t become familiar, adept or even comfortable with our emotions, feelings and physical responsiveness to life around us. As children, who of us were ever taught, counseled or guided by our primary male (or female) care givers or role models how this all works?

Imagine your old grandfather explaining the’ birds and bees’ – reproduction in all its wondrous glory,  to a bunch of young teenagers and you get the quality of comfort and ease this essential and primally basic info download would flow through your ‘wise masculine elder’ to such willing and appreciative ears. It would possibly be like hearing an opera aria sung by a tone deaf and toungeless man. 

After the extended emotional see-saw ride I’ve put myself through these past many weeks, slowly coming to terms with the resulting disruption that’s washed over and in me as a result, I realized my not taking a stand within myself and therefore with the person in question, has prolonged my emotional unrest. This too, is my doing - my not drawing the line between us to create safe boundaries for my self is 100% my responsibility.

It finally dawned on me after a recent conversation with this woman that again, what I heard spoken didn’t feel good to me, instead of trying to come to terms with this or forgive or open my Heart or rise above what I felt, I said – fuck it! – I just have to walk away. In short: if my triggered reactions don’t change in this or any given situation, no matter what I’ve tried, I have to change the situation. I have to act different to get different results. As they say down south - if you keep doin' what you done, you'll keep gettin' what you got!

I’ve come to believe when confronted with a sharp learning curve moment or simply an uncomfortable one, I have two options to choose from: change my attitude or change my location. Sometimes, only both with do. Either way, if my sanity or personal harmony is important to me, I have to act different to feel different. It sounds really simple, doesn’t it?

As the saying goes – to know better means you have to do better - readily applies here.  And yet, is acting or ‘doing’ always the best and only way to completely shift – I mean totally transform a pattern from its deepest roots? Actually, yes and no. By definition, any and all personal behavior patterns are expressions of the personality ego; it’s psychological and emotional make up or structure, one’s past conditioning and belief systems and emotional woundings accrued all contained therein. They're  all aspects of our ego.

A friend sent me a quote last week from the Spiritual teacher Osho, saying that when you finally choose to confront your ego’s hold on you, (meaning: choosing to experience reality primarily from your Soul’s consciousness and perspective and not incessantly through the interpretive lens of your personality), the only thing that will make a significant difference is in fact, to do nothing at all.

This quote expresses where he advocates unplugging from the outside world and going into solitary stillness and silence:

‘Confronting oneself in aloneness is fearful and it is painful, and one has to suffer it. Nothing should be done to avoid it, nothing should be done to divert the mind and nothing should be done to escape from it. One has to suffer it and go through it. This suffering and this pain is just a good sign that you are near a new birth, because every birth is preceded by pain. It cannot be avoided and it should not be avoided because it is part of your growth.’

Also -

‘Why is there pain when you are alone? The first thing is that your ego gets ill. Your ego can exist only with others. It has grown in relationship, it cannot exist alone. So if the situation is one in which it can exist no more, it feels suffocated; it feels just on the verge of death. This is the deepest suffering. You feel as if you are dying. But it is not you who is dying, only the ego, which you have taken to be yourself, with which you have become identified. It cannot exist because it has been given to you by others. It is a contribution. When you leave others you cannot carry it with you.

You are no longer sure who you are: you are just a dispersing personality, a dissolving personality. But this is good, because unless this false you disappears, the real cannot emerge. Unless you are completely washed and become clean again the real cannot emerge.’

Wow! Kinda drastic, isn’t it!? You bet it is. I so wish the pathway of Awakening was all a breeze, a cruise, easy peasy and all that. And believe me, along with the highlight moments I’ve attested and spoken to in this blog, are the less desirable and Spiritually appealing aspects of this process I’ve also chosen to speak to as well.

As Osho writes: every birth is preceded by pain. Breakdown precedes breakthrough. Great encouragement, that – and by the way, it's true. It can’t be avoided. I’ve long believed, in order to actually progress along this Sacred path of Awakening, you have to be a bit nuts if not masochistic to succeed. You're going to have to fully embrace the struggle that this journey entails. Indeed, what you resist, persists. If not, you’ll give up for sure way short of Home. This is where I've been hanging out within myself these past weeks - resisting the obvious.

 

In response to my friend sending this particular quote to me (ironically enough can’t you guess, by the same lady I’ve been dancing the dance of break up with), she also recommended a 10 day, totally silent, 12 hrs plus a day  Vipassana Meditation sit. I’ve heard of this for years, having friends who’ve done this in various locations around the world. Although not chained to the mat, it’s essential to stay for the entire time scheduled. Pulling out before won’t cut it. I'm signed up to begin on May1st.

Again Osho -

‘There will be fear. But you have to go through this fear; only then will you become fearless. I don’t say you will become brave, no. I say you will become fearless. One becomes fearless only when one has gone through the deepest fear of all – that is the dissolving of the ego, the dissolving of the image and the dissolving of the personality.

This is death because you don’t know if a new life is going to emerge from it. During the process you will know only death. Only when you are dead as you are, as the false entity, only then will you know that death was just a door to immortality. But that will be at the end; during the process you are simply dying.’

I was recently told by a trusted friend who is internet conversant, how so much of the information written about the Awakening process sounds so clean cut, trouble-free if not sterile as well – like just say OmOmOM and you’re Home. I wish.

To compliment this approach, I’m sharing an excerpt from the prologue of my upcoming book Awakening The Sacred Masculine At The Turning of The Ages:

‘When I began writing this book, I wanted to speak from the rarefied heights of profound personal attainment and obvious spiritual achievement. I sincerely wished I could communicate from a place that would let you know how special I am, worthy of your well-earned respect and praise.

But alas, this really is not the case. As I quickly began to sink into this material, I soon realized that my viewpoint was not from high above the learning curve, like surfing a huge wave looking elegant, majestic and oh so cool. It was rather from under the smooth crest, deep within the rough and tumble of the undertow. From this perspective, this story is like seeing a wave from the inside out - it sure looks different than anything you might associate with being ‘Sacred.’

I've come to know the qualities of this Awakening process from my own gut level, down and dirty understanding of what the Sacred Masculine is ... not. Over my life, I have learned to do what I want to do by having done things I never want to do again. In this way, it really is a process of elimination. I've played through my mixed bag of tricks, exhausted my self interests and run out of road to end up in this place in my life.’

My choice is to willingly write from a place that speaks to this ‘gut level’ perspective. There are plenty of accounts that either gloss over or don’t speak at all to what this process feels like for a man having come through significant resistance in his life to still keep on keepin’ on this path. Whether you get this or can relate, is not up to me. It is however, to be as honest and authentic and accountable as I can possibly Be.

... to be continued ... 

PS I am offering my Heart Tantra session work here in the NY area for all those interested in experiencing and receiving world-class bodywork and Advanced Energy Healing. Please consult my web site heartantra.com and The Attunement Session for more info on my services.

PPS If you felt moved, inspired, touched, supported, annoyed, or anything else after reading this post, please let me know. I really do appreciate your comments and feedback. It’s easy and only takes a minute.  Click on 'comments' or 'no comments' below. Also, if you feel inspired to share this with another, please do so!

Thank You!