Wisdom-based thinking is far superior than any form of “forced” positive thinking. Wisdom-based thinking is most natural to the being that you are (it’s the natural intelligence inherent to life-energy), however this natural mode of thinking is only available, seamlessly, when you are in a state of balance – when you are imbalanced towards light nature, or dark nature, it’s difficult to have wisdom-based thinking on a consistent basis. All it takes to navigate your life in a wholesome manner is to be connected with wisdom, and all it takes to create imbalanced life situations is for one to be driven by deluded/imbalanced thinking – there are no secrets. The good news is that wisdom is the most natural form of intelligence that’s available in your being, and you will have consistent access to wisdom when you are no longer clinging to an imbalanced way of thinking (light or dark nature imbalance).
Why do we avoid the natural state of being? Why is it that we tend to become imbalanced towards a certain nature, either light or dark, as soon as we become physically focused? The truth is that becoming imbalanced in thinking is very normal when you are operating on a physical plane with a physical body. Physicality is the most challenging form of living – to have a body, to deal with mortality, to deal with diversity, to deal with the brain (its survival tendencies and internal/external conditioning), to deal with the heart (its attractions and anxieties), to deal with the time lag between manifestations (to deal with time in general), to deal with the constant pull towards growth, to deal with external influences, to deal with your drives, to deal with laws etc has to be the most challenging journey a soul can ever take. Given these factors it’s totally normal to lose your awareness to the pull of physicality and become unconsciously driven by it, leading to the development of a certain imbalanced momentum towards some light and dark natures of living, like over-sensitivity (imbalanced light nature) or greed (imbalanced dark nature).
The problem is that a state of imbalance is not conducive towards a connection with wisdom and hence it becomes a vicious cycle of creating more imbalance due to lack of wisdom. The breaking point usually is when we reach some form of threshold, with respect to suffering, after which we become receptive to wanting a freedom from the imbalance, which prompts us to question our unconscious behaviors – this questioning of unconscious behavior is what is called awakening of awareness. This moment of disconnection, from the pull of the imbalanced momentum, is all it takes for your awareness to connect with wisdom inherent to your being, this connection with wisdom can spark an inspiration in your awareness which never leaves you until it takes you towards true alignment in the form of inner wholeness/freedom – this journey towards conscious balance, once sparked, becomes an unrelenting movement until it finds its destination. Of course, finding conscious balance, as a soul, is not an ending rather it’s a new beginning to a different way of experiencing life with a steady access to wisdom.
Wisdom stems from the state of allowing
The state of allowing is simply about an openness in your being where you are not trying to suppress, and are not unconsciously identified with, either the emotional movement or movement of thoughts. You can look at the state of allowing as a form of “intelligence”, a different approach to thinking, a means to connect with wisdom, a channel of becoming receptive to a balanced perspective – it’s a very practical way towards bringing in a maturity in your being. Once you start connecting with this state of allowing (even for a few minutes a day) it starts bringing in more and more wisdom into your life, this wisdom can come in the form of insights from within or in the form of being guided towards a source of understanding/solution on the outside. In my own experience, I’ve known that the state of allowing is all it took for me to start gaining a deeper understanding of life, sometimes this understanding would come from within towards questions or confusion I had, sometimes this understanding would come from a certain event/interaction that took place and sometimes the understanding would come from a random source of information/knowledge on the outside that I felt guided towards.
When you try to live your life on the basis of following some fixed strategies or techniques there is a tendency to become “rigid” in your movement, and this rigidness blocks the fluid intelligence of wisdom that is available on a moment to moment basis. It’s very normal for the mind to ask for a technique because there is a sense of comfort in holding on to a technique – but this sense of comfort comes at the cost of becoming dependent on the technique, and thus being rooted in a sense of rigidity. A true sense of power/freedom can only come in when you no longer feel the need to cling to a technique to live your life, rather you feel totally confident in the intelligence/wisdom inherent in your being to navigate life on a moment to moment basis. The state of allowing is not a technique, though the mind will try to make it into one. The state of allowing is an openness that allows you to be free of the influences of emotions or conditioned thinking, so that you have access to a space that allows a fresh intelligence which is valid/required for your current situation, which is what wisdom is. Always remember that wisdom works on a moment to moment basis, don’t try to cling to a certain wisdom that you got in a moment, don’t try to use a past wisdom/realization to deal with your present – if you do that it means that you are becoming “rigid” and trying to navigate life through a technique.
The state of allowing is not a passive surrender
There is a lot of importance given to the state of surrender, in spiritual teachings, and the reason is simple – the state of surrender allows your awareness to dislodge from struggling with the mind (with thinking) and thus allows the space for wisdom to start operating. However, the mind can soon start making “surrender” into a technique and tries to get passive in life – the term surrender can have a meek connotation to it and can be misinterpreted by the mind to be a pointer towards becoming passive or imbalanced in the light-nature of being selfless. This is the reason why I stopped using surrender as a pointer (which I would have used in some old posts), and I use the pointer of the state of conscious allowing as a state of fearless being, it’s a state of true power, a state of connecting with inner freedom, it’s not a trance like state of becoming passive and detached from life. Also, the state of allowing is an inner work where you find inner freedom from the pull of emotional/mental momentum, it does not mean that you become allowing of people to run over you on the outside or you become allowing of outside influence to dominate your life, that’s just meekness.
To be rooted in state of surrender can be a technique of the mind, and it becomes evidenced in the fact that you feel more victimized when you cling to this technique as your way of living. The teaching of “If someone slaps you, turn the other cheek”, if used as a technique, can have some highly negative consequences, the teacher might have given this teaching from the wisdom that served him/her, but the student who takes up this teaching as a technique can end up using it in the wrong situation (without allowing his/her own wisdom) and thus end up facing a negative consequence. I remember being influenced by the teaching of “compassion” (during my initial sojourn with spiritual teaching) to the point of using it as a technique to live my life, with some imagination of “egoless” living attached to it, suffix to say that it didn’t auger too well for me. However, this experience allowed me to see the futility of using techniques, or making a teaching into a technique, no matter how well-intentioned the teacher may be – I realized that I had to stand upon my own wisdom rather than trying to incorporate the wisdom-based teachings of some teacher which might have worked for his/her life.
It’s important to understand that you have a personality of your own, not only due to the brain/heart of your body but also from the being/soul that you are, and you have to work through this personality rather than trying to force a certain way of being through using a technique of emulating/copying someone else. Your personality can always change, can evolve, can grow, but only when you start being true to yourself in the present place of where you are – if you can’t be true to yourself in your present state, you cannot grow in a true manner. Trying to mold your personality to fit in with some imagination you have of the “right personality” is a recipe for more inner conflict and pretentious living – I am sure you’ve seen people try to take on a certain fake personality to project a certain image to the outside. The truth is that there is no such thing as a “right personality”, or one right way of being. In many scriptures, Gods are presented to have different personalities, if you take God to be an evolved soul it’s an indication that no matter how evolved you are you will always have a personality of your own – you can bring a balance into your personality but don’t try to fake an image of what you are not. Wisdom always operates in a unique and personal manner, totally personal to your being, to your personality. The state of allowing is not about surrendering your personality, rather it’s about allowing a true connection with yourself while releasing the patterns of imbalance that may have crept into you.
Using your physicality to grow in wisdom
From one perspective, you can see your physical journey, with your current physical body, as a temporary experience of consciously bringing in balance while you are in your physical focus. The experience of consciously bringing in balance is a deeply rewarding one and it enables you (as a soul) to grow in the understanding of what balance truly is, thus becoming a more evolved/wiser being. You may be born with a brain (the physical mind) that has strong imbalances towards certain dimension(s) (out of the six dimensions of love, joy, fear, hatred, boredom and sexuality) and it affords you, as the soul/being focused on this body, the opportunity to bring in conscious balance to it. When you look at it from this perspective, you realize that your body is just a means for you to grow as a soul in your experience with bringing in conscious balance. This experience will serve you in your evolution as a soul. Instead of looking at the imbalances as a negative start looking at them as your opportunity to evolve as a being through connecting with wisdom to bring in the balance. As you accomplish the task of bringing in balance, consciously, to your physicality, there will be a sense of a real achievement/growth in your being – a real appreciation for yourself as a conscious being.
It makes a huge difference when your perspective towards the “negativity”, in your mind, is not one of fear and hopelessness, but is one of looking forward to working towards bringing in a conscious balance. I remember, at one point, I started enjoying this process of working towards bringing in a balance to my mind, to my mental/emotional momentum – the enjoyment was because I could clearly see that I had the power to bring in the required balance, irrespective of what the negativity was. When you sense this power in you, there will no longer be a sense of helplessness towards your mind or towards life. The practice of the state of allowing gives you this sense of this power that you have. When you know that you can allow a feeling of fear within you, without becoming identified with it, you realize the power that you have to go beyond the pull of emotional/mental momentum and thus release its force/grip – as you develop this capacity, you also become confident, as a being, about your power to bring in a balance consciously.
No matter what challenge you are facing in your physical life, currently, just remember that it’s an opportunity to work at bringing in a conscious balance. Imbalance creates suffering, balance creates wholeness – so if you are suffering it’s an indication of a certain imbalance (either in your thinking or in your emotional momentum or both). The imbalance could be present in you as a being (possibly from your past lifetimes) or it could be present in your physicality (body/brain) through the genetics or external conditioning, or both. You would need to use the opportunity you have, in your current physical journey, towards finding a conscious balance in yourself (as a being) and/or working towards bringing a conscious balance to your body/brain through connecting with your wisdom. The more you access wisdom, the wiser you become as a being, and your physicality can act as a “catalyst” that prompts you to connect with your wisdom thus helping you become a wiser being.
So how does one know if there is an imbalance? Basically from the suffering it creates or the sense of conflict that it creates within you. Of course it’s easy to be denial of the suffering, or in denial of the sense of inner conflict, mostly when you are leading an unconscious life of being lost in your mind momentum, lost to the external noise/distraction. You can always sense an imbalance if you are willing to be aware of yourself, if you are willing to take the time to connect with your space of being. Wisdom is inherent to your being, it’s just that you lose touch with this nature when you are lost in the noise of thoughts, emotions or mind momentum. The wisdom of your being will immediately detect an imbalance, it’s just that we can then choose to ignore it, suppress it or deny it, until the imbalance keeps growing in momentum and becomes a force that seems like a huge challenge to deal with. However, no matter how much momentum a certain imbalance has, it’s possible to bring in a conscious balance – this power is present in you as a being if you make a choice towards it, a choice towards being more aware, being more connected with the sense of wisdom inherent to you. The practice of the state of allowing is the portal towards this connection.
Sen,
I would like to say thanks to you for writing this wonderful blog. You seem to have a gift to explain even the most complex stuff in a manner that beautifully resonates with a lay person like myself. Guy finley in his book “secret of letting go” says that the greatest gift you can give another human being is to help him see through the hoax of suffering and unhappiness. I think you are doing just that!
For now, I have a couple of questions for you sen.
1. When you got into “practising” the state of allowing, how long did it take for “allowing” to become your second nature? I mean did you feel you were regressing/wondering if you were doing it right? I consciously want to practise this technique but then I get pulled in so easily by my thoughts/mind momentum that I wonder if I can ever get this right. I also wonder if a state of true inner freedom is even possible given my minds pull. But deep down I also realize that this is the only way out of misery and suffering.
2. Also now that you have consciously regained “balance” is the state of total allowing still your natural movement/approach to life? Is that the only practical way to lead a life free of resistance and suffering?
3. If it is okay with you can you please share some specifics the types of fears/guilt inner disturbances that you overcame as you took this path towards releasing negativity? It would serve as a great inspiration/example for people like me that are on this path towards inner freedom.
Sankar, the state of allowing is an “inner state” of being where you are no longer trying to protect your “being” from the movement of the mind or emotions – this openness is what allows you to become transparent to the influence of mind/emotions, which causes you to no longer stay in a strong identification with them, thus allowing the dissolution of their momentum. Of course the state of allowing keeps deepening, and it happens in layers, one does not move into a state of total openness over-night, it can take around 6 to 8 months, possibly more, to start sensing a stability in the openness (inner wholeness) in your being – I guess that’s around the time it took for me when I really started connecting with this state of being open/allowing within (when I realized, as you said, that this is the only way out of the strong hold of emotions/mind and thus out of misery of it).
Openness, once it establishes in your being, becomes your nature (basically it’s not something you need to try to sustain, it’s just there, it’s just your natural state of being). Basically, what happens is that once the accumulated momentum of your mental/emotional force ebbs away, you just sense this wholeness in your being all the time, without requiring any awareness to sustain it. This place allows you to live a life of a conscious choice, as I mentioned in my recent post (conscious choice), and living with a conscious choice is a balanced experience of life because it’s rooted in a sense of inner power and wisdom.
I would say I had strong patterns of neediness (for approval, love and support) which came from a deep insecurity I had about myself and a lack of connection with myself (basically I lacked an understanding of who I was as this body/mind, and had no real connection with my own preferences, and hence was trying to derive my sense of acceptance from the outside). This neediness was the cause of strong emotional pain and mental anxiety, and it hit a threshold at a point, that’s when I started looking for a solution out of this suffering – basically it was my wake up call. I also had strong patterns of recklessness, impulsiveness, and had made several unwise choices in my life that created some very imbalanced consequences – the imbalance was apparent when the sense of suffering hit a threshold. I also had several hang-ups, and guilt, about several aspects of my thinking or being, which caused me to have a limited perspective of life. Actually, the specifics don’t matter because eventually the root-cause is “unconscious living”, in all cases, with no real awareness of oneself, no real awareness of life, and unconscious identification with imbalanced/deluded thinking.
Sen,
One more question. is one’s True Self the “space of being” that you talk about. I then assume that the “false self” is the negative ego. Is my assumption correct?
Ego is just your self of I. I can be, I am this person (ideas about who-I-am in the mind) or I can be that I Am life itself(The whole world, or as far as you feel). The feeling of I is always there when you wake up early in the morning, it is just where you put the marker. Both I’s are perceivable, so therefore the true self and false self are not real. The real one is the one you do not see, this is your being.
Dave, so true.
Sankar, looking for the “correct” answer, is no looking at all.
Sankar, it’s best to not get into the thinking about “true self” and “false self”, rather it’s better to just look at it as “balanced way of being” and “imbalanced way of being” – a balanced self or a imbalanced self. So as a “self” it’s about finding balance. The “space of being” is just a pointer to connect with your inner space instead of being lost to the surface-level pull of emotions and mind, connecting with this inner space is a means to allow the dissolution of the momentum of the mind and emotions.
The part of this I connect with is the idea that our imbalance is a way for us to come into balance. There is no need to believe that life is inherently bad or full of suffering, but I think it’s clear enough that life must always have the potential for suffering and hardship. There must be the possibility for things to go “wrong” in order for anything to ever be “right”. We must be able to be sad if we are ever to feel joy, there must be darkness in order for us to truly appreciate the light. I remember Alan Watts saying a very similar thing once, when he had a realisation that life is about contrast.
The cliche of “is this a problem or an opportunity to learn” takes a new meaning for me in this context. It’s not just that you can feel less overwhelmed by a problem simply by seeing that there is probably a way out of it. It’s the case that without the problem, there would be no solution. The solution is what’s great, what’s enjoyable, what’s our method for growth and discovery. It might be nice for life to be a constant and eternal state of bliss and wonder but I suspect it wouldn’t be terribly interesting or meaningful. There is something significant for the human experience of getting somewhere, achieving something, obtaining some kind of relief. In many ways it’s suffering that can turn our ordinary OK-ness into something fantastic.
So for me, instead of feeling sorry for myself and thinking that life is just awful and not worthwhile, I can see that perhaps life is worthwhile simply for being an opportunity for me to get over my current feelings of discontent and unhappiness. When I come through to “the other side” I’m going to be a different person, one who is much better able to cope with the tough feelings that today seem to be almost intolerable. That’s a great thing. I’ll be a better being for it. I’ll have learned and grown and I’ll have a new understanding and meaning to my life. This is my path, it’s what I’m here to do. It may not be glamorous but why can it not be important and satisfying? Why wouldn’t a journey of overcoming great fear and feelings of hopelessness be a meaningful journey? Why not a life of being unconscious and anxious, leading to great discoveries and release from those feelings into a brave new way of being? Why is that not an amazing life, an amazing journey?
Thinking of it that way, how could I be anything other than grateful to these difficult feelings for giving me the opportunity to grow beyond them? They’re not my enemy, they’re my teachers, my companions and in some way that is yet to make sense to me … my friends.
A good reminder that all of this suffering is an opportunity to grow as a being. Physical existence really is a challenge, especially when lived through a mind that thinks it knows and understands more than it really does.
Thanks Sen for your wonderful articles 🙂
Dear Sen,
Things are progressing and changing very rapidly for me with no effort
at all.
Fast and Furious.
Stay tuned, I’ll update in a few weeks.
Hey Sen,
I have followed your blog for 8 months.In this time period I tried to understand your writings.In some of your post you talk about surrender and I took surrender as a pointer for very long time. However I became more meek though it released depression and other low states.I became like passive and it was very uncomfortable. Seeing this I took control as a part of dark nature and this provided a sense of confidence in me. However this way of being also had its limitations as I started feeling exhausted.Then I started remaining aware of my mind and its thoughts.Due to this my awareness increased but it also started becoming a technique.Then I just started becoming fearless towards the mind and allowed the space of uncertainty.However becoming fearless towards mind also started becoming a technique after sometime.
What I want to say is that I cannot stick to any one way of being because it becomes too uncomfortable after sometime.I see common sense to adjust myself according to situation and its requirement.So if I am feeling exhausted I just deeply surrender.However if this surrender starts becoming a form of meekness I simply again take control with the help of my dark nature.Sometimes I allow my ego to be hurt and become weak.But if I feel too weak as in if I feel that my self respect is threatened I bring my ego forward.Sometimes I allow the thoughts and also the emotional pain that they create but if this becomes too overwhelming I just Maintain a ‘I dont care’ attitude. For example sometimes I allow the pain of inferiority complex but if it starts nagging me I just adopt a wat the hell attitude and see myself superior to others.Sometimes I just dont give a fuck wether I am on the right path or wrong and sometimes I am careful. Sometimes I try to figure out the right way and sometimes I just dont figure out Anything and allow the mind and the confusion just to be.It all depends on wether a particular way of being is becoming too uncomfortable for me. I hope you understand wat I am trying to say here.I Just dont see any sense in the fact that the state of allowing has to be too uncomfortable to reach inner freedom. Cheers and thanks again!!
Viraj, that’s the reason why there are so many posts on this blog, each post conveys a certain pointer, and one has to gain an understanding of all the pointers in unity rather than trying to hold one pointer as a technique to cling to – if I just had to give a simplistic pointer of “just surrender” one post would suffix. The state of allowing by itself implies that you be open to understanding rather than try to hold on to a certain rigid way technique. There are many layers of understanding and depth of awareness – being flexible is the key to be in a state of allowing. Of course when you do come to a well-rounded understanding, things do seem simple but that’s because you’ve understood that reality of balance. Some are basic, some are deeper – because when you start off you want the basic as you grow deeper in awareness you want a deeper understanding. Some talk about surrender (or letting go), some talk about understanding deliberate creation – so some talk about letting go of control and others talk about working on a conscious choice. Some talk about your “being”, some talk about your brain/heart, some talk about the non-physical, some talk about the aspects of physicality. Reading one post and trying to apply the pointer as a technique wouldn’t work too well. The understanding you’ve gained (through your tribulations of applying pointers as techniques) is a well-rounded one now, and it’s a good place to start connecting with the state of balance and wisdom – it’s actually natural for people to go through this phase of working with techniques until all techniques are seen through as “crutches” and one understands that it’s not about holding on to one technique but about applying a well-rounded understanding of all the pointers in unity.
Dear Sen,
As you know, I’ve been in a state of unconditional relaxed, total allowing for many months now. Since then I’ve experienced a whole gamut of thoughts, emotions, and energy come and go without attachment and my understanding in how I see myself, how I see my place in this world and the Universe has increased to a place where I have peace, strength, joy on what so far seems to be almost a permanent basis. Knowledge comes to me, solutions come to me, albeit not always at the time I want them to, but they come when they’re ready. Wisdom, intuition comes also, but I don’t blindly accept anything without resonance. My mental and emotional strength has increased notably, and I have no idea where this leads to but I’m in a state of peace because I don’t control or deny anything. Day by day I feel I’m getting stronger, smarter, more focused, more relaxed with no effort whatsoever on my part. The only effort I make is to remain open, relaxed, non-resistant and totally allowing. I don’t seize on a thought, I don’t “think I’m somebody superior” there seems to be no ego force (negative or positive), in other words, I’m feeling a sense of balance and fulfilment without thoughts either negative or positive about myself. (If that makes sense)
There is something, however, I want to ask you. You may or may not know the significance of this, indeed it may be nothing, but since you’ve made this journey and by all accounts, we don’t stop making this journey no matter how aware/enlightened we may feel, I feel you’re the only person I can relay this to.
About three weeks ago, I started to feel a very slight pressure, almost like a pins-and-needles feeling with pressure at the back of my mouth, just above the roof of the mouth. This pressure came mainly when I went on my walks where I would be in a place of total allowing. Since that first day, almost a month ago now, the pressure has increased, firstly in small stages, and now, this pressure seems to fill my entire head. There is no panic or fear about what’s happening to me, it’s almost if there’s a silent guidance about it all. I don’t experience this feeling every day when I am in a state of allowing, but there seems to be a build-up I can feel and after a day or so, the pressure becomes too great and a release happens, the only way I can describe it is it’s like a powerful stream of energy entering my head from what feels like the back of my throat and during this process, I feel like I’m ultra aware, ultra at peace, like it’s meant to be this way. I don’t know what this is or what’s happening or where this is leading to but there is no concern, worry or anything, it’s like it’s supposed to be this way. This is the only way I can explain what I’m feeling Sen.
Can you shed some light?
Pavlo, basically during the phase of emotional clearing (as part of the release of accumulated dense emotions) there is a clearing of the channel from the spine to skull basically called the clearing of body chakras. Depending on which chakras were “clogged” you can feel bodily sensations along those regions, like near the base (like the gut region where the base chakra is located), near the chest (heart region), near the back of your neck (throat region) or your skull/face region (where the crown chakra is) – without getting into any details, it’s basically normal for tingling sensations to happen, for a sense of energy movement or even for a sense of strong pressure to happen around these chakras as a part of the emotional clearing. The crown chakra is also associated with being the awareness center, so it’s normal to feel a sense of deeper awareness as a part of this clearing. The physical energy movements vary from person to person depending on where the dynamics of their congestion or suppression. The intensity of this energy movement will keep reducing and will become negligible in a short time, so just be allowing of it while its happening without getting concerned.
Sen, this is indeed a remarkable journey.
Thank you so much. WOW.
Hey Sen,
I feel like that my whole life i’ve trying to find a the correct way of living. I’m coming to realize that there is no real right or wrong way of living. There is no right or wrong way of being. What i’m really after after is living in allowance, living in balance and alignment for me, regardless of what outside circumstances are, regardless of what others think of me. Have you felt this wisdom on your journey?