When we start exploring our world, the reality around us as we perceive it, the brain comes up with several desires based on its level of awareness, understanding, maturity and knowledge. In all of us there is this core desire to have a joyful experience of life. To meet this core desire for a joyful life the brain comes up with desires for several specific experiences/expressions that it perceives will meet this criteria. However, the brain is not “all knowing” – it has a limited vision, the higher your awareness the more aligned your vision, the lesser your awareness the more misaligned your vision. So it makes sense to first grow in awareness before you start fixating on what you really desire – you can read this post “Clear Minded Focus” to get a sense of how growing in awareness can help you get a clarity on what it is that you really desire.
When you have a low level of awareness in your brain your desires can be pretty mismatched with your heart’s calling – this is normal because when you have low level of awareness you are mostly taken in by the conditioning, and shallow perceptions, of the outside without really getting a sense of your own natural makeup, wisdom and inner guidance. Even with a high level of awareness, your brain can’t really know the exact specifics of the right reality for you, but it gets better at aligning its desires with its natural makeup, because it’s more connected with the heart/inner-being, which means you have less deluded desires and more aligned desires.
Resistance created by deluded desires
The deluded desires are not only against your natural expression but they are also purely “egoic” in the sense that they are not in sync with the wholeness of life – this causes you to be in opposition to your own life-stream when you are focused on the deluded desires. The aligned desires are in tune with your natural expression, and hence aligned with the wholeness of life, thus they just feel like an effortless “progression” – by allowing the manifestation of your aligned desires you are basically just living your natural expression.
If you use enough will-power to focus on your deluded desires, you can create some form of manifestation of them – but it requires a lot of forced focus and effort. Also the realities that you create through your own forced focus dissolve easily as soon as you let go of this focus. Aligned desires don’t require forced focus because they are taken up by your “wholeness”, you can say that your heart becomes focused on it rather than requiring a forced focus from your brain, and hence they are manifested smoothly.
The more connected you are with yourself, the lesser your chances of holding onto any deluded desire. By “staying connected with yourself” I mean have a deep sense of the natural makeup of your brain (including its core personality), rest in your being and thus allow the intelligence of your life-stream to touch your mind. Most deluded desires are created through a lack of understanding of one’s own true nature and by fueling a psychological craving over wisdom.
When you have a low level of awareness, you can be extremely certain that a deluded desire is what you really want, and feel highly depressed about not having it. Holding onto some deluded desire becomes a cause of suffering and also resists the manifestation of realities that are aligned with your natural expression. For example, when you desire to be a manager in a job that doesn’t feel aligned with your heart, this desire purely arises from an egoic perspective, because even after you become a manager you are going to be in the same field and hence you would still not be joyful doing it – it’s just that the thought of being a manager creates a deluded sense of happiness in the mind, and you will see through this delusion if you develop more awareness, or when you do end up manifesting it through effort and struggle.
Can the brain resist aligned desires?
Just like the brain can create deluded desires, it can also resist aligned desires based on some deluded fears it holds about it. The brain’s fears may have nothing to do with reality, but it will hold on to it and keep resisting the desire – mostly the fear is of the “unknown” or of leaving the familiar reality. When you have a low level of awareness in the brain, you are more likely to have several fears and negativity which act as resistance to the unfolding of the manifestation of your aligned desires. For example, you may desire a congruent relationship, but the brain can hold several fears about it and hence resist its manifestation.
The best way to determine your aligned desires, and discard the deluded desires, is to go through a phase of letting go fully – where you are not holding on to any “neediness” for the manifestation of the desires. When you let go, the desires that are not aligned with your wholeness, will automatically start losing force in your consciousness because they are no longer getting “fueled” by your forced focus. The only desires that remain are the ones that are aligned with your heart’s calling, or your natural expression. The power of letting go is that anything that’s not aligned with your wholeness starts dissolving, including the deluded desires you were holding – letting go basically means that you surrender your personal “will power” and let life decide what’s aligned with you, this requires a relinquishing of your ego force and staying open to life.
A clear mindedness comes in when you “let go” for a while. The phase of letting go is what I call “phase 3” of awakening (check the post – Awakening, transcendence and return of focus), and this phase allows you to clear out everything that’s not aligned with your wholeness. What remains on the other side is a clear mindedness about what you truly desire as a part of your natural expression. The only realities that dissolve during the phase of letting go are the ones that were not aligned with your natural expression – you lose all your deluded desires during this phase, and this allows for a deep clarity to come into your mind. This clear mindedness allows you to manifest your aligned desires in a smooth manner because now you are no longer resisting it through your focus/obsession with some deluded desires.
Sen
Is it possible to have a focus/obsession with your aligned desire? just an innocent obsession with it that is purely out of love. Its like i get a huge rush of joy every time i think about my desire and it tends to come into my brain by itself many times
Rafael, that’s right, your aligned desires can keep coming up from within – like instigated from your heart.
Hi Sen,
I am now aware that i have feelings of self hatred -unworthiness and not smart enough. How do i work with this feeling? I am currently just being aware that yes this is what i feel and this is how i express when i feel this particular feeling.
Thanks
Chetana, you will need to stay in this awareness of these negativity patterns, for a few days/weeks, depending on how strong the pattern is. During this period of staying aware you will get conversant with the triggers, emotions and intensity associated with these patterns – this is how you understand its boundaries. Once you have brought awareness and clearly seen the boundaries of a negative pattern, you need to “let go” of it – in the sense you need to stop giving it focus by just staying “relaxed” whenever these patterns show up – this will allow the energy of these thoughts to start dying away, and the negative energy suppressed in your inner space can also get release. Since you have seen through the boundaries of these thoughts, it will easier for you to let go and stay relaxed when these thoughts are playing out – hence it’s important to first see through their boundaries in your awareness.
As you stay in a place of open allowing, in a relaxed way, these thoughts ebb away in intensity to the point where there no longer have a pull on your being. At this point you will notice that you are free to change these thoughts whenever they arise (because they don’t have any force) and focus on the thoughts that you desire out of your clear mindedness.
sen ever since i have been in a state of complete allowing its like all of my biggest fears are coming to a head. The funny thing is that I have faced most of them and they weren’t nearly as bad as i thought.
Is this supposed to be happening? If so until when?
Rafael, when you are in a state of allowing, all the fears suppressed in your consciousness starts coming up so that they can be released – when you try to resist them they feel influential but when you simply stay in a space of allowing they soon disperse/dissolve, as you’ve noticed in your case. This goes on for a while until you’ve cleared up your inner space of the negativity, but the intensity of this release keeps ebbing away until you just feel spacious, what I call inner wholeness.
Sen-
What is your opinion on opposite sex relations. Do you believe in monogamy? Aren’t we resisting by being completely monogamous? Every man and woman is always going to feel attracted to other members of the opposite sex even if they are married. If our heart is really into it shouldn’t we just have the freedom to pursue it regardless of your relationship status. I know what society’s opinion is on this but don’t you think this might just be some old social conditioning that is soon to falter?
Robert, when you are free within you can allow your natural expression to unfold without any resistance – this holds true for your expression in the area of intimate relationships also. Different minds have different preferences, some prefer monogamous relationship while some are into polygamous relationships – when your mind is free of resistance, you will follow your natural preference. Just because you fantasize about having multiple sexual partners doesn’t mean that you actually want that reality – there is a difference between fantasizing and what you would want in reality. The more aware you are the more easily you can distinguish between a fantasy and a true desire in you, and hence you will have an aligned desire. If your mind has the attitude of sincerity towards one partner, it does not just stem from a social conditioning, it’s mostly a preference in your mind, the way your mind is. If your mind feels inclined towards polygamy, it won’t feel the attitude of being sincere to one partner, it will just naturally feels like enjoying connecting with multiple partners. So there are minds that prefer monogamy and minds that prefer polygamy, one is not better than the other, it’s just an expression, you need to get a sense of your own mind and follow its natural makeup.
Sen,
I feel as if I have become very aware, but I also feel that what I desire most is what I fear most.. a congruent relationship. I end up placing too much pressure on myself and another person to “work out”. So much that it becomes overwhelming and negative. I have a hard time letting go and just allowing my lifestream to take over. I feel the need to figure things out.
What can I do to halt this negative process? I am very aware that it has become a pattern in my thinking.
In a simple sense, you are very aware of the mind, but are unwilling to let go of it. You are clinging to your mind and hence you are not allowing its negativity to really dissolve in force. This “clinging” to the mind, is the same neediness that you experience while clinging to a relationship, when you are afraid to let go. In order to experience your wholeness, you need to “let go”, at some point, and let go fully. Your challenge is that you want to be “controlling” and in control of the mind, but this need for control is coming from a place of fear. You need to see through this fear, and let go of the mind (or ego force) – this is when you truly start aligning with your life-stream’s pull. There is no short cut, one does need to go through this fear of letting go of the mind, to come to a place of inner wholeness. As long as you are holding on to the mind (and its fears), you can really fall into your wholeness. It’s a simple process of trusting life to the point where you no longer fear letting go of control, of figuring out and strategizing. Though “awareness” seems like something to “do”, it actually is a pointer to let go of figuring out, let go of control of the mind, and just rest in a space of relaxed being. Unless you let go, you can’t really come to a place of freedom.
To truly be free to love, one needs to be free to let go, one needs to be free of the fear of loss. You fear the attachment of love, because you fear the emotional hurt of a loss/break-up. But as long as you fear attachment, you cannot really connect deeply with any relationship, and hence will always have distance which causes a rift. But when you are afraid of loss, your attachment becomes “needy” and is more a clinging than love. The only way to come to this freedom within is to let go of clinging to the mind, because only then can its momentum/intensity die away, and hence it will no longer disturb your being with its movements.
Sen in the past I have heard you say that just by bringing awareness to some negativity within is enough to make it ebb away.
My question is when negativity arises do we also try to figure out exactly why it is happening? What was it that caused it, etc.
Or is it enough to simply be aware that there is negativity within without trying to figure out the cause of it?
Thanks,
Rossana, if you stay as a space of awareness and allow the conflict to play out in this space, it’s enough for it to start dissolving and for understanding/solution to arise from within (from the intelligence of your life-stream). The one trying to figure it out is also the mind, the mind can’t solve the mind, because the mind is the one that created the conflict, how can it be the source of solution? If you purely use your mind to solve a conflict, you will notice that you are just creating another conflict in a new face. There has to be a space of intelligence outside the mind that needs to touch the mind’s conflicts to bring a permanent solution to it. You need to let go into awareness, and allow the mind its freedom of movement until its momentum starts dissolving.
Hello Sen,
Can you give examples of people who living with wholeness in life and with their life streams?Also the more I read and apply your teachings I’ve found myself thinking less,a lot less,is thinking like eating food as in too much can be a bad thing?
The point you made above,on Rosanna’s comment about how the mind can’t solve a problem you have because its the creator,does this mean the only answer to any problem is letting go and having awareness rather than actively trying to come up with a solution through thinking?
Thanks in advance,Chris
Chris, there are a good number of people, young and old, around the world, who live from a place of alignment, knowingly or unknowingly. Some are aligned unknowingly because they were guided towards being connected with themselves since their childhood, due to good parenting or because they were connected with their instinct – such people are just naturally following their heart, uncompromisingly. Some align knowingly when they go through a lot of suffering due to the disconnection, learning to let go of the negativity through external guidance or inner guidance, this again is quite common nowadays will all the information and teachings available through books and internet. You can see them around, if you notice, people who are self-assured, who don’t defend negativity, who have an inner stability, who never compromise on following their heart’s call, who have a free energy about them. Alignment is not extra-ordinary, it’s very ordinary, it just allows you to live a struggle free and harmonious life of your true expression.
“letting go” simply means to relax your effort at thinking. When you this, your brain will continue thinking but now without the “contraction”, there is an openness to its movements – this allows your brain to connect with the inner guidance, or what I call intelligence of your life-stream. Your life-stream has the real solutions because it has the bigger picture and it’s a stream of wisdom. When your brain connects with this intelligence, it comes up with solutions that are “fresh” and intuitive rather than coming from a place of past conditioning or experience.
i have been enjoying a state of stability for some time now but lately, i seem to have reverted to the old way of negativity. I have lots of negative thoughts lately and i always end up taking it on my fiancee. I sometimes get pulled in by these negative thoughts. These things are really begining to scare me because i thought i was getting better, and now the negativity is getting so overwhelming. Things i have already forgotten keeps coming back as negative thoughts in the form of doubts, hatred and insecurities. Sen , what could be possibly wrong with me. Am i getting worse?
Ben, you are not regressing, it’s just that the release is getting more intense as you’ve become more open in your being. Be fully allowing of what’s arising instead of thinking that something’s going wrong. The suppressed negativity gets released in layers, so it’s normal for the old negativity to come back again. Don’t try to cling to the the state of bliss for now, of course there will be period of bliss or stability in-between the cycles of release, but when a new cycle starts it does not mean you’ve regressed – it just means a new cycle of release has started and you just allow it to happen. During this process, it’s best if you avoid unloading your frustration on someone else and learn to allow the release in your own awareness.
Sen,
I really enjoy reading your articles, you know your stuff very well.
I realized that I’m a great appreciator of other people’s achievements. I do want to be successful and innovative in a sphere, although I have no idea how exactly. It basically stems from my desire to be recognized and respected for my potential.
I understand this is to a fair extent only an aspect of an egotistical desire to create an image that’s admired/liked by a good amount of people. Someone who is recognized for a contribution to society.
I’m not saying it’s a generally bad thing- if you do contribute and make something worthy, why not to desire recognition and so on?
What bugs me though, is that when I see other people’s achievements, I feel like I’m stuck in a rut. Which is definitely a lack-based view and I opened my awareness to it.
It started when I realized the limitless potential of being a creator. This made me feel really disoriented, because, as I have mentioned before, I do not have specific desires. But whenever I see someone who’s made a contribution, something innovative/artistic, I immediately say to myself “wow, I’d like to have done something like this!” or “Wow, I could have done something like this- I have the potential.” At the same time, I realize this is based in comparison, but I do feel like I have the potential for many things, the problem is, however, I have no specific view. I have too many interests and when I imagine what I would like to do in my lifetime, I just can’t stick to one inspiration. I feel like, if I do one thing, I will waste my potential in other spheres. In that sense, when daydreaming, I can only imagine the way I would like to feel inside, when I contribute in some way, but they fact that I don’t have any ideas of execution worries me. I allow the worry and it doesn’t affect my vibration very much- it’s only on the mental level, I don’t feel it strongly in my body.
Just wanted to share that I’m being allowing of every confusion or comparison to work out in time, and I realized that I’m actually ambitious but with no clear ideas, which is funny and ironic. 😀