The Entity That Wants to Hold the Reins
La Entidad Que Quiere Sostener las Riendas
A student describes a powerful opening followed by racing thoughts and a new kind of identification, and asks how to work with the urge to control what is appearing.
The Entity That Wants to Hold the Reins
A student describes a powerful opening followed by racing thoughts and a new kind of identification, and asks how to work with the urge to control what is appearing.
That meditation addressed exactly where I've been, going round and round. It was very calming to listen to, and I think you may have already answered my question, but I'm going to ask it anyway. Before the meditation, my question felt very operational: "What should I do?" But the meditation brought me back to something more real.
I had a big opening some weeks ago, and then this effortlessness was just there, a deeper sense of simply being. It unleashed all kinds of things: dynamics with people, insights into my behavior, changes I could see clearly. It's still extremely dynamic.
The meditating was extremely helpful during that period. It was basically just the "I am" meditation. What seems to have happened is that I took on a new identification: the one who isn't identified. And now the thoughts are racing. It feels like Frankenstein. The thoughts are beautiful, expansive, but I want to say, "Shut up. I heard you. I don't need to hear that again." I sit and meditate, and there they are, and I can feel my heart pounding.
Part of me says, "Well, that's what's showing up." I think that's what you were alluding to, but I don't think I've really embodied it, which is the surrender, just letting this be what's happening. I can feel there's an entity that wants to hold on to the reins still. When I was listening just now, simply watching the breath and coming back to that was helpful. Originally I was thinking, "Could you just tell me what to do?" I love the simplicity of that: just do whatever you tell me. But somehow I can see the limitations of it. Anyway, I'm open to hearing.
Like assigning you some Hail Marys? Ten rosaries?
I'll do it. I believe you.
Keep seeing
The key, where you are, is to just keep seeing.
The practice of surrendering and accepting is valuable to a point. Then there's a place where that which can surrender isn't real. But to hear that it's not real before you've reached that edge might not be useful, because there is a kind of clearing that happens when we do a certain practice of accepting, surrendering, seeing, and observing identification. What is needed is simply more clarity, and it's not a clarity of the mind. It's the clear seeing, the clear knowing, of what is appearing.
Seeing resistance as appearance
For example, when you have the sense that there's an entity resisting or pulling, if you go to your actual experience, you feel something pulling away. That is the experience of resisting, appearing. There are thoughts. The thoughts create emotion. There are sensations that are uncomfortable. There is fear, imagination, all of that.
But what can be seen is this: there is an uncomfortable sensation, and you can think of that the way you would think of a sound appearing. It is just appearing. A sound that appears cannot be resisted. When sound appears, sound appears. There is no way you can resist it. You can get distracted, but the sound will still appear. There is no amount of effort, focusing, thinking, or going into imagination that will prevent the sound from appearing.
There is a kind of delusion in the belief structure that says, "I could just pull into this thought space and stop the appearance of something."
There's a usefulness to that, but also a uselessness?