There are many books, and websites, available today which teach about the potential to create reality using techniques of visualization. Basically, the technique is to visualize the reality you desire, in your mind, and emotionally create the good feelings that you want to experience through the manifestation of this reality. Such a visualization is what I would call an “unreal visualization” or a “half-truth visualization”, or basically a light-natured visualization which completely avoids the dark nature that’s inherent to that reality. And, it’s very obvious that such a visualization exercise doesn’t work very well because it’s not rooted in “wholeness”, it’s mostly rooted in a delusion. For a “reality” to manifest you have to be aligned with the reality as a whole, you cannot just be aligned with one-half of the reality while avoiding the other-half.
If you see kids drawing, you will notice that they usually miss out on the shadows. However, in real life, you can’t have light without shadows. It would be unreal to hope that you can step out in the light and avoid creating a shadow at the same time. Everything in life will always come in two polarities – light and dark, it’s unavoidable. If you only want the light nature of a reality, you are asking for something unreal and hence it can’t be manifested. You can call it a blessing or a curse, it’s your perspective, but the truth is that life-energy has two polarities in it, and everything that comes from this life-energy will always have both these polarities.
You will notice this in nature, if you consider birth as the light nature of reality, it’s followed by death which is the opposite polarity, or dark nature of reality – a flower that blooms is bound to wither away, you can enjoy the bloom but it would be unreal to expect that it won’t wither away. Nothing in life can ever exist in one polarity alone. So, when you visualize your desired reality be sure to align with its dark nature as much as you align with its light nature – when you do this you will realize how much resistance you really have to the desired reality, and you will then know why it’s not manifesting. Until you align with the dark nature of a reality, you are basically fantasizing, you are not grounded in reality – fantasies will just remain fantasies, they can’t ever manifest as a reality in life.
Making peace with the dark nature of a reality
Life is a movement, and this movement exists because of the force of attraction created between the opposite polarities. You can look at the current of life as being similar to the current of electricity, the only way electricity can be generated is by connecting two opposite terminals + (plus) and – (minus) -, and the force of attraction created between these two terminals is what creates the current. It’s simple physics. The same way, what we call life is actually a “current” or a movement, and the reason it can sustain this movement is owing to the force of attraction created between its light and dark polarities. You can take any reality and you will see that there are light and dark components to it, we sometimes call it the “pros and cons” of a situation, though to see the dark component as the “un-required”, or the “con”, is just limiting perspective.
To understand that life-energy inherently cannot exist without its dark nature, can come as a shock to many, especially the ones who had a delusion of reaching some explicit light natured state at some point. This is the reason why it’s said that enlightenment will always steal you of all your delusions of life – enlightenment simply means to “understand” life in its wholeness. The root of struggle lies in not making peace with the reality of life – anyone who makes peace with the dark and light nature of life is no longer in conflict with reality and hence is free of struggle. True freedom is not freedom from the dark polarity of life, but a freedom to allow it. The reason why some people get stuck as permanent “seekers” is because they are seeking a deluded imagination of a hitting a permanent light-natured state at some point, a point which can never arrive because it’s not real – when this flaw in thinking is finally understood there is an openness to allowing the dark nature within them, and make peace with this component of life, and in this allowing a state of balance is realized.
No one can argue that a physical life has its discomforts, but it’s also true that a physical life has its beauty. To enjoy the beauty of physical life you also need to make peace with the discomforts of physical life, degeneration and death being one of them. Anyone who understands life also understands the “ordinariness” of it, you see the limitless in all its limitations. Life is limitless in that there is no end to it, because it’s all there is, however it’s also highly limited in that it can only work in the realm of polarities – even if it really wants it can’t manifest a purely light natured reality. When you see this limitation of life, you understand how ordinary it really is, it removes your sense of “awe” in many ways, it robs you of any delusions you had of extra-ordinariness, this realization leaves you liberated and grounded at the same time. If your idea of liberation was some light-natured state of being, you will soon see how naïve such an idea was. Liberation is about aligning with the reality of life as it is, it’s not about holding onto some delusion about life.
Every desired reality has a dark side
You can see how flawed the technique of visualizing a desired reality, in its “good feeling” aspects alone, is. Visualizing in such a manner gives you a very deluded perspective of reality, an incomplete picture, and hence you don’t get to see your real resistances. It’s only when you see the whole picture can you start seeing all your inner resistances to your desired reality. Of course, the way we desire itself is flawed in many ways when our mind is not understanding of life. Our desires are all “half-truths” when it’s only projecting a light-nature of a reality. A mature mind is the one that understands life to the extent where it does not hold on to a deluded version of a desire. If a reality is not manifesting in your life, it’s mostly because you are yet to make peace with its dark side – you are constantly visualizing its light side, and feel that you are totally resistance-free to having it (of course anyone would be resistance-free to having the light side) but you will be shocked to realize the amount of resistances you may have to the dark side of the reality when you start coming to terms with it.
To cite an example, consider that you desire to have a new car. If you follow the “rose tinted” visualizing technique, of just focusing on the good feelings you will get while cruising in the car, and other enjoyable aspects of it, you are only looking at 50% of the reality. Enjoying a cruise in the new car is the “light side” of this reality and you will certainly get to experience it when you get the car. However, let’s consider a few aspect of the dark side of this reality,
1. You would now need to make arrangements for doing away with your old car. If you are a male (or a female for that matter) you may have some serious attachment to your old car, and the thought of doing away with it can feel “painful” to a part of you.
2. Usually there is a mechanical process involved in the whole exercise of doing away with an old car, or buying a new car, which involves some paper work and other details. You may have some resistance towards such chores.
3. Buying a car involves shelling out the required money. You may have some resistances around spending money towards a luxury. We usually don’t face up to such resistances because we feel that “Once I have the money, I can spend it”, but if you see, it takes a mindset to be willing to spend on luxuries . If you lack this mindset you may well be disallowing luxuries in your life (which is not a negative, it’s just a question of whether you want it)
4. You may have a fear around driving a new car, possibly about denting, or crashing, it. Some may have a feeling of unworthiness towards driving a new car, or a certain luxury car.
5. There are new cars which keep coming into the market every year, nowadays. There can be a lot of resistance around going in for a car while holding the thought that you might get a better one next year. This state of indecision is usually rooted in the mindset of not understanding the dark side inherent to any reality of life, and thus holding onto some deluded idea of a “perfect deal”.
6. You may draw the attention of your neighborhood with your purchase. Basically, what’s called the “fear of success” may be a strong resistance within you.
7. You will soon start finding the experience of a new car fading away
The above train of thought will naturally ensue the moment you stop trying to force yourself into looking at the “good feeling” images alone. These are not “negative thoughts”, they are just the natural “shadow” of the reality you desire. Negativity is about not allowing yourself to align with the dark polarity of your desired reality. Most of your true resistances will be towards the dark side of a desired reality, and unless you can dissolve these resistances you will stand in the way of manifesting this reality. The only way to dissolve a resistance is to face it in yourself, allow it to come up in your consciousness, don’t try to suppress it or sugar-coat it. The more allowing you are, the more the resistance starts losing its grip on you.
You will notice that once you have a desire, and you are allowing of it within you, your “inner being” (or your life-stream’s intelligence) will automatically start generating possible scenarios of the “dark side” of your reality. Your mind may try to resist these thoughts by labeling them as “negative”, and may try to keep forcing itself to just hold a rose-tinted vision. If you catch yourself doing this, just let go of this mindset, and be totally allowing of the scenarios of the dark side which are being presented by your life-stream’s intelligence – only in this allowing can your inner resistances, to the actuality of your desired reality, start surfacing. You have the choice to hold on to a resistance and disallow the reality, you may realize that you are not really ready for your desired reality in its wholeness or possibly you don’t really want it (now that you are cognizant of its dark side aspects). However, if a desire is really important to you, then simply allow these scenarios, of its dark side, to play out in your mind, you will soon come to terms with them, and thus lose resistance towards the wholeness of your desired reality (especially when you understand that life has no choice but to play out both polarities).
Is it possible to only manifest the light nature of a desire?
It’s not. Simply because a reality can only be sustained by the movement of life-energy, and the movement to life-energy requires the force of attraction generated between the dark and light polarities of the reality (like the + and – terminals of a battery). You may now wonder if a person who has a higher awareness of life is at a disadvantage, because he/she can see the dark side of life so clearly that he/she may have resistance towards any desired reality. This is true, and that’s why it’s important that once you have a higher awareness of life, you need to complete your realization by becoming aligned with “wholeness”, where you are fully allowing of the dark and light nature in you, and in life. If you get stuck in the “limbo”, where your awareness is high but not high enough to transcend your resistances, you enter a state of feeling negative about life, with a sense of meaninglessness. As they say, half-understanding can be more dangerous than total ignorance – however one does have to go through a phase of half-understanding before coming to full-understanding, it can’t be helped, the quicker the transition the better.
A person with low awareness may be unconsciously fearless, but this state of unconsciousness also puts him/her at a disadvantage that he/she may be totally driven by deluded thinking. The truth is that you can’t stay at low awareness forever, your awareness is bound to grow as you journey through life, through life-times, and hence it’s inevitable that you will reach a point where you have to consciously transcend the influence of fear/resistance and see life as it is. So there is no point in arguing if it’s better to just stay in low awareness forever, it’s like arguing if its better to just stay in infancy forever – it’s not possible to do so, you are bound to grow with time. Once you start becoming aware you can’t go back to a low awareness state, your journey should be forward-oriented towards growing in awareness, and then using your awareness to transcend your resistances and thus become a conscious creator of reality.
Ask yourself how you would feel if your desired reality were to manifest the next day – if you feel that you will be over-whelmed by excitement there is a good possibility that you’ve not really made peace with the dark side of this reality, and you are only aware of the light side of it. Anyone who sees life in its wholeness stops getting driven by joy alone, a different factor comes into play – a factor of wholeness, it has a greater depth than joy, and there is an integration of dark and light nature in this place. You create simply because it’s your nature to want an expression/experience, not because of a delusion that it will get you into a permanent light-natured state.
Hi Sen
This is a good post as are your other ones. I do however have a few questions regarding this post:
1. If we allow the dark side of our desire in our consciousness then does it mean all of those possibilities will manifest along with the light side or is it that only the essence of the dark and light side contents of a desire will materialize. Also, will not the dark side of the desire when it plays out into our reality dampen the experience of our light side which we so intensely desire and thus make even the experience ordinary.
2. By allowing the dark side are we not fuelling it. I know you make the distinction between allowing and focusing. As you have mentioned what we focus (give attention to) on amplifies. By focus I think you mean unconscious identification with the mind. By allowing I think you mean staying as a space of relaxed awareness while allowing the possibilites to play out in our consciousness.
3. You have mentioned in previous posts that our life-stream will orchestrate the manifestation of a desire smoothly and harmoniously when we have no resistance towards our desire. So if that is the case then if a dark side of a desire manifests it will not really be harmonious, right?
4. Can our life-stream throw up scenarios based on some past happening coz when our life-stream plays out the dark sided possibilites of a desire manifestation, it is but natural that the mind could seize upon it and superimpose it fears on the dark possibilities. How do we distinguish between the mind related fears and the dark scenarios thrown up by our life-stream’s intelligence. The same is true for the light-sided scenarios of the desire as well. Is this why you suggest that we reduce the momentum of our mind first?
5. I think where you mention that after conisdering the dark sided possibilites as well of a desire manifestation we would probably not have a desire for its manifestation rings quite true. Also as you mention it would make the desire look ordinary. I think also that this is one of the reasons that religious teaching say do not have desire coz every desire is laced with dark and light possibilities. But I think as you have previously mentioned they probably did not understand or communicate to their disciples that desiring itself cannot be stopped. We can probably choose what desire to pursue after considering the possibilities. Does this however mean that undersanding can help us overcome a desire, which is actually an obession in our being.
Thanks!
Sanjay
Sanjay, you will notice that I use two different set of terms – “positive/negative” and “light/dark”, the reason I do so is to distinguish that light does not necessarily mean positive and dark does not necessarily mean negative. Negativity, the way I define it, is a state that caters to imbalanced perspective. Positive is simply a state that caters to a balance. The more you balanced you are, the more positive you are, but by “positive” I don’t mean you become fully light natured, I just mean you are “balanced” – this is best I can explain through words, and the only way you can understand it better is through your own experience of life. It’s not black and white, and it takes an inner realization to understand what negativity is, and what light/dark nature is.
Look at a simple scenario, wouldn’t it be great if we could do drugs, drink alcohol and smoke cigarettes as much as we wanted and the body was “invincible”? I mean the only reason people call them “vices” is because it destroys your health if you over-indulge in them. If life could be purely light natured, we could have infinite joy and joy alone, and we could indulge in joy as much as we want and there would be no opposite polarity effects – it’s like a scenario where spring never stops, where there is no fall/autumn. But what you see in reality that there is something called “over indulgence” in joy (light nature) after which your body starts dissipating entering into ill health slowly, unless it’s balanced with a dose of boredom/non-excitement (dark nature). If spring is not balanced by fall/autumn, the tree would lose its vitality to create new blossoms. Life-energy needs “balance” to exist in harmony, there is no escaping this truth. So is “autumn” a negative? And is spring a positive? A mind, that does not understand life, may feel this way. But a mind that understands life will not label the autumn as a negative, but a balancing force that allows life to enjoy the positive. Negative in its true sense is simple a state of imbalance, where the tree does not go through a period of “hibernation” and hence becomes prematurely weak in its capacity to blossom.
People are attracted to teachings that tell them that once they “get it” life will become pure joy, you will only ever have light natured thoughts and feelings – but if one can be a little insightful in their thinking they would realize that no matter what realizations you have, it does not change the fact that the body will have it low cycles along with high cycles, hunger and thirst will always be there, your body will degenerate slowly towards death, I mean unless you are really naive you will see that life cannot just be pure joy. Joy is a flavor of life, but life always exists in “wholeness” and wholeness includes the dark and light polarities. A state of balance, brings an integration of the dark and light nature, and hence its a state of wholeness, it’s a state of stability, a state of harmony – you have to experience it for yourself to see what it really is, it’s definitely not your mind’s idea of a constant blissed out state.
Let me take up your questions briefly
1. If we allow the dark side of our desire in our consciousness then does it mean all of those possibilities will manifest along with the light side or is it that only the essence of the dark and light side contents of a desire will materialize. Also, will not the dark side of the desire when it plays out into our reality dampen the experience of our light side which we so intensely desire and thus make even the experience ordinary.
Reply – You are just aligning with the certain events (dark/light) that are needed for the manifestation of this desire – for example, if you have to travel to a different country for sight seeing, you will need to get your visa. The action of getting the visa may seem like an unnecessary burden (dark nature), and your mind will wish that it can just have the joyous experience of the travel alone – but such a thought is not in alignment with the reality of life. You see this world requires certain systems to be in place to prevent chaos, if we lived on the premise of just having “pure joy” we will live in chaos soon enough – joy can be considered light nature, and wisdom can be considered dark nature, because wisdom can play a spoil sport to joy sometimes, and prevent you from over-indulging. It takes a childish mind to have fancy ideas of over-excitement about a desire, any mature mind can see the ordinariness inherent to every desire and this only reason why a mature mind is able to manifest realities much faster than a childish mind, in fact the transformation needed for the manifestation of certain realities is for the immaturities in a mind to be dissolved. In a state of balance you are not so taken in by the light side alone (which is quite surface level), your experience of life is much deeper than that, it’s a different and a more well-rounded experience.
This does not mean you have to “struggle”, the more aligned you are the less you need to struggle, your life-stream’s intelligence takes care of the orchestration through the path of least resistance – you don’t have to go through unnecessary actions. The way I define struggle is “unnecessary actions created in an imbalanced state”.
2. By allowing the dark side are we not fuelling it. I know you make the distinction between allowing and focusing. As you have mentioned what we focus (give attention to) on amplifies. By focus I think you mean unconscious identification with the mind. By allowing I think you mean staying as a space of relaxed awareness while allowing the possibilites to play out in our consciousness.
Reply – Again, the question is about balance and imbalance. As long as you are not imbalanced towards the dark nature, you will not see imbalanced manifestations of it in your reality. A balanced manifestation of dark nature is part of life, and it can’t be avoided. It’s just about avoiding the imbalanced expression/experience, which is the cause of the majority of suffering.
3. You have mentioned in previous posts that our life-stream will orchestrate the manifestation of a desire smoothly and harmoniously when we have no resistance towards our desire. So if that is the case then if a dark side of a desire manifests it will not really be harmonious, right?
Reply – It orchestrates events smoothly in a balance as long as you are in a state of allowing – it’s your resistance that creates the disharmony, you can see this intelligence operating only when you are in a state of allowing. It can’t manifest events smoothly if you are clinging to certain delusions or high-states alone, in that case you will have resistance to certain events that are needed for the manifestation. If you see a flower, it blossoms and it slowly withers away, there is a harmony there even though the dark and light are playing out together. Basically, unnecessary, unproductive and counter-productive actions will be done away with, and you will find yourself aligned with a wisdom that ensures that the path of least resistance is followed.
4. Can our life-stream throw up scenarios based on some past happening coz when our life-stream plays out the dark sided possibilites of a desire manifestation, it is but natural that the mind could seize upon it and superimpose it fears on the dark possibilities. How do we distinguish between the mind related fears and the dark scenarios thrown up by our life-stream’s intelligence. The same is true for the light-sided scenarios of the desire as well. Is this why you suggest that we reduce the momentum of our mind first?
Reply – a mind which is imbalanced towards fear, while obviously show the symptoms of imbalance including superimposing needless fears. The more balanced your mind is (lesser momentum of negativity) the more open it is to the communication from your inner being and free of superimposed negativity.
5. I think where you mention that after conisdering the dark sided possibilites as well of a desire manifestation we would probably not have a desire for its manifestation rings quite true. Also as you mention it would make the desire look ordinary. I think also that this is one of the reasons that religious teaching say do not have desire coz every desire is laced with dark and light possibilities. But I think as you have previously mentioned they probably did not understand or communicate to their disciples that desiring itself cannot be stopped. We can probably choose what desire to pursue after considering the possibilities. Does this however mean that undersanding can help us overcome a desire, which is actually an obession in our being. Also, if understanding the dark side of a desire makes us not really want it then we run into the possibity of desiring what is “practical”, which is the same as what our current social set-up teaches us to do and thus restricting our desire and ability to grow beyond our current situation and gain new experiences.
Reply – Basically, it gives you a balanced perspective on a desire, and that’s the most accurate perspective to hold to ensure you are not deluded in any way. You will notice that you want to see the manifestation of certain desires even after you are aligned with a wholistic perspective, and these are the desires you become aligned towards manifesting. The state of balance will dissolve deluded thinking, and hence desire stemming from deluded thinking lose their ground in your being. However, desires that are important to you will always be there. To suppress desires altogether is again a state of imbalance, and the motivation behind doing so is the fear of living. What your mind thinks as “practical” does not account to anything, it could just be limiting ideas rooted in its past experiences and a lack of understanding of your potential to create realities. Once you understand your ability for deliberate creation, you don’t work through limiting notions of your mind, rather you work with the intelligence of your life-stream. The only criteria to harbor a desire is to see if it feels important to you, and then align with it.
Hi Sen
I will add one more question to point number 5 of my comments that I posted above, which is that if understanding the dark side of a desire makes us not really want it then we run into the possibity of desiring what is “practical”, which is the same as what our current social set-up teaches us to do and thus restricting our desire and ability to grow beyond our current situation and gain new experiences.
sen if this struggle and drk nature is part of life then what is really the point of even trying to stop suffering, from your article it seems like suffering is inevitable.
when we each this place of balance are we still suffering?
Abet, it depends on what you call suffering. The way I define suffering is a state of negativity created through resistance to a natural flow of life, basically suffering comes from an imbalanced state/perception. Would you say that only a state of ecstatic joy is happiness? and the state of being calm is suffering? If so, you are yet understand the truth about balance. The state of allowing takes you a resistance-free place and thus eliminates all the suffering created by resistance to the flow of life – the flow of life follows its course. For example, by reaching balance you will not defy death, you will only lose your unnecessary resistance to it and thus eliminate a huge percentage of your psychological suffering. You may also want to read my answers to a previous comment by Sanjay.
Also, I never mentioned that struggle is a part of life, the way I define struggle is unnecessary action taken from a place of imbalance (such as purely fear-driven actions). In a state of balance, your actions are in alignment with wisdom, and thus have an aspect of harmony to them and you don’t waste your energy on unnecessary or counter-productive actions.
Dear Sen, thank you for yet another great post! I totally relate to your description of being with high awareness stuck in limbo. The first time I came to this point of seeing the dark side of life so clearly was about 15 years ago, and I remember I kept asking myself what’s the point of desiring anything if you have to see its dark side as well. This realization gave rise to feelings of anger towards the Creator and the cruel illusion of life. Life became meaningless and I felt heart-broken yet I stayed in resistance to the ‘evil darkness’ for a very long time. I just did not know what to do with the darkness that arose and felt it my duty not to give in to it and to fight it. I thought I must strengthen my belief, I must keep faith; that I must grow towards light-nature and that I will be free when I triumph over the darkness within. I stayed in this resistance limbo for what seems to be a very long time until most recently when I finally gave in and gave up, and started allowing what arises. What’s ironic is that it seems as though just when I come to the phase of allowing the process of desire manifestation, I see it all spelled out for me here on your blog.
Sen, so on the beginning as on the end it is all about experience of life. And life is whole in its polarities. So to be conscious means place of clarity – an deepness of understanding of very nature of all. The whole taste of truth as it is.
Only mind can label something as good or bad and fear, resist what it seems unpleasant from its perspective. Aware or not we will taste both aspect of reality always, and that should be just adding to our experience, an richness and deepness of its flavors.
So mind will interpret and brainstorm about desires, if we are open it will see all aspects of it, if we allow resistances to resolve with it. So this should keep mind well grounded in reality of what it is as well opened for learning in balanced way so to stay in touch with whole.
It is nature of every physical experience, so why we resist this view so much, is it only for minds fears, an deep programming of growth that is in root of our intention that mind interprets rigidly? We fear degradation, an stagnation, and that fear is exactly what makes us stagnant. Can mind ever come to a place of being ok with all, or will always produce this fears and resistances?
Joy, you can find insight on this query in the recent post – a natural patience
Hi Sen…
Thanks a lot for your wisdom… its strange that, I happen to bump into it, and read very relevant posts and minutes later or after something happens which carries the same theme, it seems like its orchestrated, for e.g. one morning I read your post about anger (I dont read your post religiously,everyday). And after a few minutes, I had an altercation with a friend and I was really getting very angry to an issue which did not call for such anger…it kinda made me realize once again my issues with anger. Anyways, here are few of my questions and reflections.
1. I am a transgender, and had this strong urger to do thinks more in line with my feminine nature, spirit etc, but I never do it as I realize am so scared. (strong desire vs strong fear)
2. If anyone asks me what I want to be, I would say a dancer, but I never approach it and no opportunities or paths open up as I still have huge fear of expressing my feminity
3. My question is: I am currently looking for a job (a job would do), but the desire is so intense and what you said about over whelming joy, if I get it is there, i visualize this again and again, like getting a phone call and getting very happy, being in a very happy place once I get a job. I just got through an interview, I really desired that job (for reasons of stability, money and not getting embarrased for not having a job), but they came back to me and said that they have put the vacany on hold. Do you think my struggle with getting “a job” is because:
1. My spirit is not aligned with the desire ( i really want to be in arts deep dow)
2. if i ever do a job being an “administrator” is not my ideal job, but working with people is what I really love, however I am also applying for admin jobs , but deep down probably i am not aligned to it?
3. When you talk about life`s ordinary reality – I have these moments, where say after coming back back from an amazing party, I have this surreal feeling of going into this state of calm, (i was on a train, back home) and the joy and excitement of the party seemed unreal, and I felt this calmness is the reality of life – this just happened) : having said that, I dont want to give up this clinging to an idea of life that its “happening, thrilling, amazing” – like a high – and after reading this, i feel like crying to know that life is actually true groundedness, i feel horrible to give up this “image” I have been clinging to and struggling to make real. Thinking of state of stability makes me cry, somewhere I dont want it, as its so “boring” and not exciting!
Again, thanks a lot for helping us in this journey!
Ketan, it’s basically a journey of growth, and of course growth entails change. The mind is afraid of change due to the fear of unknown and wants to cling to what is familiar – including the familiar feelings, familiar motivations and familiar drives. It can cry when it senses the need for change, and feels sad about leaving a past mindset/reality, but eventually you will sense that the growth enables you to experience life in a deeper way, in a more richer way – however, to get to this place you have to see through the fear of unknown in the mind. You may be driven by joy right now, but wholeness is much deeper than that – there is something deeper than being driven by excitement alone. The invitation is for you to explore it.
This helps me so much! the “problem” isn’t attachment to (a) desire… it’s attachment to only the desirable fantasies (or aspects) of this desire – eternal spring with no thought of the in-built necessity of autumn, to paraphrase from your post. This is so clear. Moreover, you are able to communicate all of this without ‘raining on the parade’. To me, this is no small thing. It’s one thing to understand the nature of the reality of experience (polarity and balance), it’s another thing altogether to be able to communicate it in ways that are uplifting and supportive… without watering it down. A refreshing view on the meanings and implications of positive and negative.
Hi Sen,
What is not often discussed (I couldn’t find it in your post) is that light and dark is not just in the experiences that we seek but in ourselves as well. All of us have a dark side. What I am about to say will revolt many, but it will strike many as intrinsically true.
Every one of us has, for instance, a murderer or a rapist or bully within us. We are all as capable of terrible attrocities as we are of giving love. It is time we accepted this shadow side as well. It is the yin and yang of our natures. Now the natural question will be why all of us are not savage by giiving vent to these natures.
We do have an outlet for this side of us, be it in anger or abuse, either of friends or family. Sometimes when we go out of control, we feel our other half assserting itself. A mother is capable of murder if her child is threatened. A convict is simply someone who spent 99% of his life in the light side, but his darker side asserted itself too violently at some point, balancing his nature.
My point is that we are all saints and sinners within. By allowing a natural balance by allowing both sides to exist without undue resistance or suppression, we prevent one suppressed nature from coming out uncontrolled and causing unforeseen consequences. This dark side if embraced helps handle the darker side of our experiences, while the light side helps appreciate the light side. Thus every experience matches perfectly with us resulting in a balanced joy.
Hrishi, I talk about this balance in the post – integrating your light and dark nature
Hi Sen,
Thanks for the great article. I have a question please. So when you mention that we may be afraid of some aspects of our desired reality and since we are not observing and releasing the dark side of it it’s not manifesting. But for example let’s say I want to find a relationship. One of the things that I worry about maybe that I would not have enough time to spend with my other friends. The way you suggested is that I should embrace this dark side of it that I may not be able to have time to see my other friends but what if my partner is very understating and so considerate and he is ok with me seeing my other friends and spend time with them too. Or let’s say I’m worried that he may be working all the time and not have any time for me and that’s the dark side of the relationship but what if he does not work long hours and can spend so much time with me?
This kind of looks like to me that I’m having a negative expectation about my desire and expect all those dark sides and my thoughts and worries and they may happen. So what should I do please?
Thanks so much for everything.
trueone, a mind, that lacks a deeper understanding of life, usually only wants to concern itself with the “joy” aspect of life, but is afraid of looking at any other dimension of life. But life, as you would have noticed, has light and dark side to it, it’s unavoidable because these two polarities are part of life-energy – for example, birth moves into death (as a cycle), achievement moves into new goals/desires, day moves into night, satiation moves into hunger (as a cycle). So if you are expecting a fully “light natured” relationship, which has nothing but joy, you are mostly just deluding yourself – and the more you understand human minds (or life in general) you will see how they have light and dark sides to them, and there is not one human who is purely light natured. There will be obvious changes in your life when you move into a relationship, it obviously will require some devotion of time, it would require aspects of “understanding” each other, it would require being in each other’ space will also wanting to give each other space – and this fine balance does need a balanced mind. A relationship which is purely aimed at “fun n frolic” usually doesn’t last very long, without the depth of emotional connection, and an emotional connection involves feeling the pain of love because a part of your mind always does know that everything is fleeting and there would be loss at some point (at the latest with death). You see, life has a “depth” to it, and this depth is created because of the interplay of its light and dark nature – it’s not just a comedy movie, it’s more like a piece of art that has various nuances to it. It’s possible that your mind, in its immaturity, only wants the light-natured aspects of life while being afraid of facing the dark natured aspects – this fear will keep you feeling stuck in many ways, and can be a constant hindrance in your journey towards growth. The fear of facing the natural dark natured aspects of life is what I call a part of “negativity”. The relationships that create turmoil are the imbalanced ones, which are either too imbalanced in the dark nature or too imbalanced in the light nature – what’s need is a “balance”, and you can attract a balanced relationship when you are balanced within yourself in your own dark and light nature.
If someone feels ok with himself being in the light nature, having also dark nature feelings, thoughts but not manifests them, just allowing their creation in the mind, allowing their existence is this a path to balance? The person knows that the negative feelings, thoughts and fears are just creations of the conditioning mind which sends some times false alarms and creates strange connections and that is why he finds the power of allowing them to be in the mind as they are. Like they are natural there but don’t want to act on them. If the thought is unwanted and creates anguish and fear, just feel these feelings and let it be? Allowing to feel fear of a person, thought or situation? Allowing is the power to accept the fear and pleasure of things not to keep yourself not to react on them. But if I understand that a thought is absurd I try not to have any emotion toward it because I can see it’s absurd structure and meaning created by the mind. I just let it there and say: It’s my mind, I am not only my mind, and it is nothing to fear just allow its presence there. Because someone can’t do everything that comes into mind thinking that this is what HE is or really wants. It is just his mind. So he allows himself having this thoughts and fears like they appear.
Anca, that’s right, it’s just about allowing the mind to have its movement, not about acting upon all its thoughts – it’s not about saying “yes” to the imbalances of the mind to the point of acting it out, rather it’s about allowing the mind movement in a space of conscious allowing. Your “consciousness”, or connection with your space of being, ensures that you are not lost in “reactive mode” of living rather you are rooted in an inner wisdom/guidance which brings a balance to your actions.
considering both sides, would you say dark and light are as one, a non-duality? or that the duality is inherent and inescapable?
Ray, light nature and dark nature are not one, just like light and shadow are not one, but they are both “natures” of life-energy, and life-energy is the “one” substance that’s all there is, which is what is living in as all forms. It’s when one understands that life-energy has a light and dark nature, and is willing to bring this balance in oneself (we being the same life-energy), that they fall in alignment with life and its inherent harmony.
Greetings Sen,
In your above post you wrote:-
“To understand that life-energy inherently cannot exist without its dark nature, can come as a shock to many, especially the ones who had a delusion of reaching some explicit light natured state at some point.”
As far as I am understanding and observing the way life
energy is working in me I would say as you did in another
article when you said “the core nature of life energy is
Love, Joy, Peace”, because the very movement of life energy
is a movement toward balance . When there’s disturbance
the movement of life energy is always toward harmony provided
you are open and allowing of the movement within.
Now having experienced this myself and as I continue to
allow perspectives to come to me from my life stream and as
I continue to allow suppressed emotional energy to be released,
I can sense balance being restored daily. The physical
movement is real and I can sense wholeness coming to
me all the time (acceptance of physical life’s dark and light
nature which is the very definition of “totality” or wholeness).
My question is this. Since the very nature of life energy
is Love, Joy, Peace, which seems to increasingly be my
natural state because I allow everything ( both psychologically
as well as in physical life) Since this not in any way a forced state
and since this is the way the totality of life seems to be moving
within me, how can I perceive the dark natured force of
Life Energy?
The only way I can think of describing the dark nature
of this same force would be a sense “power”
(as you alluded to in your “Requirement for Inner Freedom article)
and possibly as a sense of “ordinariness” which may come to me
at a later time when emotional accumulation finally ebbs away
(I’m still going through this stage Sen)
Would agree with this assessment? and if so, what other dark nature
qualities would you associate with the force of life in its non-physical
form?
Regards to you Dear Sen.
Pavlo, when I use the term “dark nature” I don’t mean it in a negative manner, it’s just that when one is imbalanced towards light nature, or dark nature, that one feels the negativity in terms of the imbalanced intensity. When one starts finding inner wholeness/balance, the line between light and dark becomes blurred out, and it’s not really possible to “sense” them separately – it’s like how a rainbow (of 7 colors) actually comes from a “white” light – the white light is like the state of wholeness where the colors are so blended in balance that you can’t distinguish them separately. Two experiences/expressions that stay true, even in the state of wholeness, are enjoyment and growth, they are both positive but if I have to contrast them I would say enjoyment is light nature and growth is dark nature because growth entails change/loss (of course, like I said one does not experience the intensities of dark or light nature in terms of feelings, rather one just senses the inner wholeness permanently).
One can use labels love, peace and joy to define “wholeness” but it’s not entirely accurate as it’s a much deeper state of being than any of those individual light natured feelings. However, you are right in your assessment and it’s evident that you are becoming grounded in inner wholeness.
Thank you so much Sen.
Incidentally, as all these perspectives come to
me “change” seems to becoming more stark
which one could consider dark nature of wholeness.
For the past 6 and half years I have been living in
Montreal. Just last month a situation at work
(a job which I detest due to toxic working conditions)
enabled me to move back to Vancouver, my home town.
I was a abused by my boss at work and after I went to the
Vice President of the company to detail my experiences
under my current boss and the one before him who was
still with the company, they both ended up getting fired
and I was offered the chance to stay with the company
or to take a severance package. I chose the latter and
now find myself moving back to my home town which
is 5000 km away, and I will be spending Christmas
with my family. I am leaving Montreal in Dec 24th.
As you alluded to in some of you previous writings,
once release of momentum/ego force/ emotional
accumulation happens, the evidence of your physical
reality which existed under state of delusion will start
changing also…. This is my experience Sen.
Brilliant, this really answers a lot of second guessing ive had surrounding the law of attraction.
I feel like this answers why myself and a lot of g00d people struggle accomplishing things in life.. Your words are always appreciated Sen.
Hi Sen,
I was trying to read about ” how to overcome overexcite” and read your article. It was nice to read you. Can you please guide me,
My que is :
My biggest weakness is getting overexcited. Before the happiness arrives i start flying in its mood and before the disaster occurs i panic at it like i lost everything. At a very small mistake of my own i panic and regret as if i did a sin though the person forgives me i cann forgive myself. And on the contrary i so easily understand others and forgive them and forget every wrong did from their part to me, but i never forgive myself for even a small mistake.
I give lot many explanations at even a small mistake of mine done innocently though not asked.
I am appreciated and admired as a very matured and understanding person and by God’s grace m good at my work too as am very ambitious. But, I personally feel if i overcome this i can become far better in my personnel as well as professional life. So can you please guide me how to overcome this over attitude of mine. What shall be the step 1 step 2 kind of things to be done when such stokes occur. As i tried many things myself but never works.
Somya, over-excitement is a manifestation of an imbalance towards joy, where one gets excited at the prospect of joy and gets fearful towards its absence. You mentioned about being overly ambitious, while there is nothing wrong with being ambitious and enjoying your achievements as a part of your expression, the attitude of being overly identified with your ambitions (as a means to feel a sense of worth, and deriving your joy from it) can cause you to shut off other aspects like sensitivity (aspects of love) and can also make you a struggle-based, overly-competent, aggressive, person. Deep down the whole attitude of deriving your identity from your ambitions is rooted in a lack mindset, where your view of your worthiness is linked to your achievements, in which case it’s easy for you to judge yourself, and others, on the basis of achievements and thus become a superficial person – this is what leads to a lack of sensitivity and an imbalance towards superficiality. The basis step would be to be aware of this movement in you, and use this awareness to let go of being identified with this “pull” in your mind – the only way to let go of an imbalance is to let go of your identification with its pull in you. The more aware you are of this movement in you, the less likely you are to be lost towards getting identified with it. You don’t have to try to suppress this movement in your mind, rather just allow it to arise, be aware of it, and let go of being identified with it – this is what I imply by the state of allowing.
As for the question about forgiveness, instead of “trying” to forgive yourself just allow yourself to observe what felt wrong, or what felt like a mistake, about what you did, and get a sense of whether you were truly wrong/mistaken in the situation or if what you did was right/responsible/required. You don’t have to feel bad about doing something that was “required” as a part of wisdom in the situation even if it meant making someone feel bad (sometimes you just have to take a stand that may not be pleasing to others). However, if you feel that what you did came from a place of imbalance, possibly stemming from either your own insecurities or your arrogance etc, then use your awareness to identify this imbalance in you and work towards letting go of being identified to its pull so that your actions in the future are not imbalanced. There is no point is trying to wallow in feeling bad about something that has happened in the past, what you can do is learn from it and allow for a growth to ensure you don’t repeat something like that in the future.
Hello Sen, Like you said I must not try to suppress my thoughts, I am doing this but you know I am losing myself completely like I have no control over myself. Is this the right way to do what you have told ? I end up making myself guilty because that’s not what others think is right for me. True, they are much more experienced than me but every time I let myself loose I do something horrible and regretful. Should I discipline myself? Though I still do not stop from doing hateful things. I am not loyal to anyone.