A look at your mind will easily let you know what’s the predominant feeling you are driven by, it has to be one of these – hatred, fear, sexuality, boredom, joy, love. We are not necessarily driven by one feeling alone, but you can always sense what’s the predominant driving force in your life. It’s not rocket science to figure this out, if you are just honest with yourself it doesn’t take more than a few minutes of introspection to know what you are driven by – even if you’ve never considered this question before. We are all on our own unique individual journeys, as a stream of consciousness, and we’ve all had different lengths of journeys coursing through different lifetimes. The journey is always towards growth, towards more and more self-realization, and thus more alignment with our true nature. It starts with a total unconsciousness about who we are and as the journey progresses the self-realization takes us towards a, gradual, conscious knowing. As our knowing deepens, as we get more and more in touch with our true nature, the feeling, or force, we are driven by also changes – until finally it comes to love, inevitably, unequivocally. Until you are driven by love, you always feel that there is something missing.
It’s important to understand that this post is not meant to be a “directive” – I am not asking you to be driven by love as the “right way”, because this is not something you can force upon yourself. If you try to force your mind to be driven by love, it will immediately rebel against you. Like I said, this is the natural course of the journey, and the mind as it grows in awareness, and self-realization, will naturally come to this place on its own. It can’t be forced, it can’t reasoned with – let your mind evolve at its own pace. The best you can do is to be allowing of the mind, just let it be, and it’s a guarantee that it will eventually come to a place of love. A better description would be “conscious love” because there are several misunderstanding about the common way in which love is used. Conscious love is fearless, free of undue/depressing sensitivity, free of hatred (jealousy) and free of a primal drive. Again, this not something you can force on yourself, it just happens this way.
The only possible benefit of this post is to give you a conscious realization of your present state of being and give you a certain idea of where you are heading, so that you can let go of resistance towards this inevitable growth. Eventually the events that take place in your life is for you to “grow” towards self-realization, to evolve in your understanding of yourself, and this path of growth eventually always changes what you are driven by, and this process of change can feel very “disorienting” to the mind for a while – every time you make as shift it’s like losing an identity. This sense of disorientation can cause you to want to cling to your old driving force, and not evolve into the next level, which just delays your growth and stagnates your reality. An understanding of this journey can give assurance to the mind, to trust this path of growth.
Below is a sequence of the way a human being progresses in his/her self-realization and how it creates the growth path towards eventually being driven by love.
Driven by hatred – This can be considered the lowest motivation towards life simply because it’s a complete antithesis to our true nature, and thus takes a deep level of unconsciousness to be driven by it. When you are driven by hatred you’ve not even started becoming conscious of your true nature in any true sense, you may be a highly intelligent person with a high IQ, leadership skills, management skills etc but you are at the bottom most rug of consciousness. This is not really a negative judgment, after you are where you are, and all of us were, at some point, at this level in one way or the other.
When you see that all of life is one body of energy, a hatred towards the outside, or the inside, is eventually a self-hatred. As life-energy we have the “capacity” for hatred, but it’s our lowest form of thinking possible and to be driven by hate-based thinking is thus the most unconsciously motivated life. Since hatred attracts hatred, it’s not long before we end up in a lot of suffering, and the pain of the situation we find ourselves in eventually pushes us towards evolution.
Driven by fear – Strangely enough, being driven by fear is an evolution on being driven by hatred. It may look like a downgrade because hatred seems to have a power, or strength, which fear seems to lack, but from the perspective of growth, fear is superior to hatred because it’s much closer to love. You might have noticed that people who are driven by hatred, when they are struck by debilitating circumstances (attracted by their own hatred) can suddenly become fear-based – they get scared of life. Previously they were lost in a daze of egoic superiority, drunk by their own power, indulging in exploitation and abuse, until the tables turn as the hatred comes back at them – at this point there is a “crack” in the hard shell of the negative ego structure, and there is a realization of fear. This fear can continue into several lifetimes gathering force as we become more and more fearful towards life, until the pain of the fear causes a surrender.
Driven by Boredom – To be driven by boredom is an evolution on being driven by hatred or fear, this is like a state of “peace” where you’ve mostly just surrendered to life. You’ve no energy to fight against anything, you don’t essentially find any strong meaning in anything, you are not passionate towards anything. There is peace, but there is also a sense of deep dullness and detachment which looks “spiritual” externally. A lot of people mistakenly take this state to be the “enlightened” state, mostly because a person in this state is quite unaffected by anything. It’s true, however, that there is a lot of wisdom in this state, the dimension of boredom is an opening towards connecting you with the intelligence of your life-stream. One has a much clearer view on life and can see through a lot of unconscious mind games. However, this sense of meaninglessness starts building up slowly to the point of a subtle, or even strong, depression within. This sense of dullness eventually builds to a point where it pushes you towards an expression that involves some passion.
Driven by Sexuality – To be driven by sexuality is the start of connecting with your body in the sense of finding joy in it, so it’s a gateway towards the higher vibration of life, towards your source nature. Sexuality, in its pure form, is free of fear or hatred, it’s a powerful vibration of its own, and it’s definitely a very passionate driving force that takes you out of the motivation of boredom. The wisdom garnered from the state of boredom, the fearlessness and lack of hatred garnered from the previous growth, allows one to have a very free expression of sexuality. All the repressed sexual drive can come flooding onto the surface creating an almost drugged state of lust. It’s possible to be driven by this state for long time, mostly because of its intensity, its higher vibration, sense of detachment, lack of negativity and the “feel good” factor. However, with time, there is a natural progression towards being driven by sensuality as much as sexuality as a more evolved state of being.
Driven by Joy – Sexuality and sensuality are adjacent to each other, and there is as much an indulgence in sensuality as sexuality, in this place. By sensuality I mean being driven by the senses, drinking in the sensory pleasures of sight, taste, smell, touch – enjoying the aliveness of life, the adventure of living and the vivaciousness of joy-based action. Such a life may seem very superficial from the outside, especially to people who are driven by fear, hatred or boredom, but in truth it’s a huge evolution and is very close to the vibration of source. When one is consciously driven by joy one is at a high state of evolution because in this place one is not influenced by negativity of any form, the mindset of struggle is completely done away with – it’s not possible to influence such a person in any negative manner.
There is close to zero motivation to ever grow from this place, it seems to have everything but it’s not long (by long I mean it could be a few months, few years or a few lifetimes) before one sees through the limitations of joy. It comes as an unavoidable realization that joy is still missing something, it’s a highly disconcerting thought initially and the mind makes several attempts at distraction, trying to cover it up with joy-based activities as much as possible, but once the realization comes in it just doesn’t go away no matter how hard you try to avoid facing it. In this place, for a while, there can be a sudden influx of hatred, fear, boredom all at once because of the disorientation the mind feels – it almost feels like a total regression, like falling back in evolution, but this disorientation is very temporary mostly because your understanding of life is pretty evolved by now and hence is not stuck in any of the low states for long. However, joy stops being the motivating force anymore, once this realization sets in, and neither is hatred, fear, boredom or sexuality – if you allow this confusion fully you will naturally move towards the next phase of growth.
Driven by Love – There is a lot of misunderstanding about love mostly because it’s always corrupted by fear, hatred, joy, or even sexuality, in some way. Fear-based love is tainted with worry, hated-based love is tainted with jealousy/possessiveness, Sexuality-based love is tainted with an insensitive lust, joy-based love is also a lot of frolic with a missing sensitivity. When you’ve consciously evolved from fear, hatred and the primal force of sexuality, and you’ve seen through the limits of joy, you are finally mature enough to sense what “true love” really is. This love is not necessarily “towards” anything or anyone, this love is a state of being, it’s like a final resting place where you feel like yourself more than anything else. Of course, you can have specific love for someone, or something, from this place, but its presence in you is not dependent on any outside influence – it’s not like if the object of love is removed you will go into depression, you will still be in the same place of love, because this love is a state of being not an experience.
As a human being this is the highest evolution you can reach and from here on it’s just expression, just like source is always expressing itself in some form or the other. You feel driven everyday by this love, it’s “causeless”, it has no reason, it just drives you because it’s who you are. In this place you realize why life can’t help but express itself, why it creates the myriads of forms in nature, it’s driven by this true love. There is nothing more amazing than for this life-energy to come back to this realization of its true nature, again and again, in the form of different streams of consciousness with different journeys. This state of “true love” can be called different names – inner wholeness, a state of balance, inner stability, happiness, but ultimately it’s something you need to live to know what it is, words really can’t explain it clearly enough and there are so many misunderstandings possible. The best one can do is to use words as a pointer towards allowing this natural growth, this pull towards growth is already ever-present in all of us.
Evolution in a lifetime
Some of us will go through this whole sequence, mentioned above, in one lifetime, possibly even in a period of a few months, to a year. This just means that your journey this far made you ready, and receptive, for a quick transition between the states. Some may find it difficult to make a transition in spite of gaining an understanding and it’s fine, it just means it will take some more time and more experience. You can only transition when you are ready. Unless you experience all the “driving factors” and see their limitations you cannot come to a final rest in true love, it happens only when the mind really experiences this realization. This is not a directive to be forced on the mind, it’s just a pointer to help the mind understand the path of growth so that it’s not unconsciously holding on to any state out of confusion.
If you are willing to be open enough to drop an old “driving force”, just this receptivity is enough for your life-stream to instigate a growth. It’s when we try to cling to our past driving force, because we try to gain some sense of identity from it, that it becomes difficult to allow growth until it reaches a point of desperation where there is no choice but to grow or perish in someway. As I mentioned in this post – An attitude of learning – the best attitude to have towards life is to see everything as an opportunity for inner growth, in many cases growth comes in the form of some suffering especially from a sense of disorientation or failure. I don’t see anything as negative, I can only see a value towards growth in everything and this attitude is what really allows me to be resistance-free towards allowing the growth intended through any situation or thought.
Continue to Part 2
My OCD for CDM just got worse from 5th June. Amazing posts Sen.
Sen, thank you for this post. I had a few questions and I sat here trying to compose them but each time, I was drawn to this statement: “I don’t see anything as negative, I can only see a value towards growth in everything and this attitude is what really allows me to be resistance-free towards allowing the growth intended through any situation or thought”. I’m oddly comforted and frustrated by this realization that every situation in my life intends towards growth. It’s staring me right in the face regarding every perceived problem I have and yet my mind wants to throw up some ‘buts’….so I allow both the realization and the ‘buts’ and now I’m deeply confused, yet possessed of clarity. Am I allowing and resisting at the same time?
Jenny, basically this attitude deprives the mind of the security/comfort it found in “blame” and a part of you is relieved by this release of negativity and a part of you feels robbed of a tool of comfort that was available before in through the process of blame (it was a dysfunctional comfort to start with because it prevent personal responsibility and growth) – so you are right in feeling confused and clear at the same time. With time, as this attitude grows deeper in your psyche you will no longer invest energy in defending negativity through blame or self-pity, and this will ensure that you are allowing of the inner transformation that starts happening when you are no longer resisting it through some means of hatred or fear. You will see large portions of your ego/mind invested in blame, anger and complain, and the attitude of allowing growth robs these portions of their momentum, and thus they start losing hold on your being – of course, they do put on a fight for a while. Yeah, you are allowing and resisting at the same time because these portions of negativity are still present in the mind, and it will take time for them to ebb away. The clearer you are in your understanding the less likely you are to give fuel to them.
Sen,
I’ve been experiencing alternation between the state of boredom and joy now, and initially there were depressive feelings generated after moving on from the stages of fear and hatred, so thank you for this article, it gives me much clarity on my experiences thus far.
And yes, you are right to point out that ultimately the state of joy is not deeply fulfilling, and I would sense mild depressive feelings after experiencing moments of that state, because the inner Being knows that this state is not IT, there is still more to that. And I have been quite confused as to why interest was lost so quickly in being in the state of joy. So now i’m in the state of boredom mostly, with brief moments of pure love interspersed every now and then.
I understand that this state of boredom is a result from disenchantment with the ‘outside world’ plus the seeing through and sloughing off of old identities. There is no interest to seek anything to fulfill the inside, for it has been learnt from contrast by experiencing moments of inner Being of deep sense of peace and fulfillment.
My question is, the moments of inner Being usually does not last long as the attention still goes to the contents of the mind for stimulation and gratification, what should I do now? I have a feeling that unworthiness plays a role in this residence in the state of boredom….
It will take time for you to sense a deeper connection with this space of your inner being, but it does happen to the point of feeling it permanently. Right now, you are mostly getting foretastes of this state of being, and it’s just an indication of the clearing up of the negativity that’s taking place in this state of allowing. These feelings of unworthiness are bound to surface, and it’s not an indication of “regression” on your part, but just an indication of a release that’s taking place – just allow these feelings fully, and they will soon lose their hold on your being. You don’t have to work this out mentally, first it’s about allowing the dissolution of the intensity of these thoughts and emotions which can only happen in a state of total allowing.
I have gotten better and maintaining a relaxed state when my mind produces bogus fears, but sometimes I want to question them or understand them, and this just sends me into paranoia. It used to be worse but now that I understand relaxed awareness I stay calm and watch my thoughts like I’m staring through a glass window observing but not being affected. Sometimes when I stay relaxed and allow my mind momentum to decrease, I get headaches and my nose tingles. I feel like this is normal because my mind wass so use to dwelling and fearing my minds fears but now I stay relaxed. Sometimes my mind will tell me that if I just let go of the fear and don’t worry about it then it will manifest (which I know I a lie) but I can’t help but wonder sometimes if my mind is right. I think my mind’s jus putting up fears because it doesn’t want to be allowing but am I doing the right thing by relaxing and not letting my minds fears scare me? I feel that I am, but my mind puts up all these fears when I remain allowing and it’s becoming more exhausting to fight through than when I was just unconscious and letting my mind control me.
When I used to get negative thoughts I’d freak out, start dwellng on the thoughts and act with fear. Now I relax wen a negative thought comes up and act from a place of strength and happiness. Idk why my mind tells me this is wrong but am I doing the right steps by remaining relaxed and acting from a place of strength?
Please advise!
It’s a part of this movement towards freedom from the pull of negativity in the mind. You will see yourself growing in inner stability to the point where the mind’s negative talk loses its grip on you, and the mind momentum reduces drastically in its intensity. The deal is to understand that there is no need or necessity to move from “fear-based” thinking, the more open you are to life the more evidence you see of synchronicity that brings solutions effortlessly to you – the more you see this intelligence of your life-stream, to orchestrate abundance, the less likely you are to trust the fear-based talk of your mind.
Thanks Sen. I am so happy that your advise always works for me and has helped me to become the person I used to be again. Thanks, and I know it can be hard, but the challenge is worth it to get to the inner stability that I know I’ve almost reached.
Fantastic! I read this initially with a sceptical mind, but it makes a lot of sense.
Hi Sen,
Thanks a lot for sharing.
I received this post in email a few days ago but only opened the lnk today. Having been through the phases mentioned in the article and I have to say that the driving force of love is the purest and most powerful at the same time.
Somehow transformation happens at the most unexpected time, and it’s often after releasing negativity, like you suggested in other articles. Allow me to share because the most difficult thing in my own transformation is learn to ‘be with another voice’ rather than controling or resisting it.
Sure it’s a lifelong process and your wise words have definitely helped.
Best,
Joey
Hi Sen,
I have a interest in a wide variety of topics but really no interest to pursue it more. I do not excel in anything and really do not seem to have desire to excel beyond what i am. I live what i would term an OK existence. I struggled with this mediocre existence before as i felt i had a potential and a purpose. My struggle came from not knowing what my true interests/passions where. Nothing seemed to drive me to take action. I held a good job, had a good circle of friends, lived in one of the best places in this world, in a great neighborhood and took holidays and vacations but all the while had this persistent feeling of living a passionless existence. Tried a few different things but not anything caught my interest beyond the superficial level. Then i got married and had a child and the last 3 years were a contrast in the struggle of my marriage and the full joy i felt in motherhood. Now coz of circumstances I am going back to work starting this coming Monday to a job in the field i was before and really have this resistance in me against it, even before i have started it. The job came easy but i am not inspired by it.
In the last couple of months I have lost a lot of momentum, and just recently came out of a period that lasted for about a month of feeling tired and worn out and just desiring to be alone. I am thinking this job may do me good to get me out of the energy of struggle of the lst 3 years and i am not bound to it. I sometimes feel these moments of joy, spark in my heart of potential in me. Though i still donot have a concrete passion to invest my energy-a difference from earlier times where i felt drained coz i didnot know my passion. I am also beginning to be specific of my own likes/dislikes and being welcoming of it. I am also starting to identify my own operating limits and letting them go. A progress. I am sharing this history and progress coz i feel gratitude in all the time you take to answer our questions. It is truly appreciated.
I think i may be driven by boredom and starting to move beyond it. How can i fuel this evolution? Rather how can i help myself as i evolve to next stages.
Chetana, the process of growth, as you’ve seen, can be fatiguing to the body per se mostly because of the energy movement involved during the shift/growth or inner transformation. Though we inherently want a “quick growth”, it’s not always prudent to allow too much growth too quickly, or what’s called “quantum leaps” mostly because of its tendency to leave you overwhelmed beyond your capacity to handle. You can trust that your life-stream will keep bringing in the necessary progress and growth, at a pace that’s within your threshold. As you’ve mentioned, there has been a lot of progress since your growth in awareness and understanding, and it will continue this way, and the fast evolution is a given from here on. You see, one can’t move from a place of struggle to a place of alignment in one step, it takes moving from a place of a “strong” struggle, to a place of “okay” struggle, to a place of “less” struggle, to a place of alignment and there is a growth, and learning, involved in each phase before shifting to the next phase. The understanding you have, and your current awareness, will allow you to be non-resistant to growth from here on and thus you will continue to see progress in a much consistent manner, also the intensity of suffering will coming down.
Sen, I was once in this stage of unconditional love, then I got into a relationship and all of my fears and insecurities were awakened and the relationship dissolved.
I feel like now it’s my life mission to regain that sense of everlasting conscious love, but I feel like i’ve regressed, like u mention in the second paragraph of “joy”.
I’ve had a taste of this “love-driven” stage but lost it. Where do I go from here?
I may be giving the love driven state a sense of extra-ordinariness, but compared to where I currently reside, vibrationally, life does seem to lack the beauty it once did.
I’m afraid that I was only able to reach that love state through having a crush on a specific girl and being in her presence, but I sense that this relationship dissolved so that I could learn to get there on my own.
I guess my question is, does any of this matter? Will I have to start from scratch (vibrationally)?
I guess I’m just worried that I’m only in a beginner stage and that I’m being left behind (by her and life in general).
Orlando, can you simply allow these feeling of “doom” that your mind is creating, instead of trying to assure/answer it? This process has nothing to do constantly assuring the mind about the goodness that is to come, rather it’s about allowing the mind its moments of stark fear, or even depression, when it arises – only in a state of total allowing can you start sensing your inner power as a space of being.
Orlando, as I understand this process, you have been vibrational mirroring the emotional state of losing your girl in your awareness. Your awareness is very pure in nature and you are very stable person. I honor and regard your ability to reflect and resonate with any state of presence.
The more suitable answer to your question lies in next para ” Driven by love “, where in it point to true love, wholeness :: ” When you’ve consciously evolved from fear, hatred and the primal force of sexuality, and you’ve seen through the limits of joy, you are finally mature enough to sense what “true love” really is. This love is not necessarily “towards” anything or anyone, this love is a state of being, it’s like a final resting place where you feel like yourself more than anything else.”
With all the fear and insecurities awakened and fleet of with time( by totally allowing it), you will naturally fall in place where in you are aligned with your life stream.
But remember, there is no going back (or) trying to get back to the state of bliss, because it was only a dense release of “one form of energy” when the momentum of mind was high and on release of such suppressed group of energy one experiences intense bliss ( a vibrational high state). Life is ordinary and one has to accept life in its ordinary sense..and all other states are temporary experience.
This is my understanding of the process and how I look at it in my own experience. I only have a inner- sense of experience of all these states and not much experience in practical life. And many thanks to Sen who has been a source of guidance through out my journey.
Would appreciate if you would like to add to my understanding.
Orlando, you don’t “lose” what’s your natural state – it’s just that you need to let go of being driven by the mind’s momentum, until its intensity reduces to the point where you can sense your natural vibration again.
Sen,
How does one know whether there is hidden, negative beliefs out of your minds awareness below the surface? I have heard this described as beliefs in the Sub-Conscious that guide you without you being aware of these negative, deep seeded beliefs that truly hold you back from getting what you want.
Gary, “sub conscious” is simply another term used for “unconscious” patterns in you – “subconscious patterns” simply means that you are not aware enough to sense their presence in you. The stronger your power of awareness the less likely you are to have “subconscious patterns”. A fully aware person does not have “subconscious” patterns, he/she is fully aware of all the patterns operating in him/her. So the pointer would be to simply keep growing in awareness by bringing in awareness to your mind.
It’s great that I can put a search in google based on what has been playing on my mind and it takes me back to this web site. I really like these insights Sen, they give me a good sense of perspective on where it is that I’m heading in life. I often wonder what it is that I’m “seeking” but I think this simple enough progression in my motivation is basically what I’m chasing. I suppose I don’t really need to chase it or seek it, that in itself is part of my problem, but it’s nice to know there is still some kind of goal, something to hope for or at least aim for while I am still very much ego-driven.
Right now I feel absolutely that I’m driven by fear. My slowly emerging awareness is teaching me this, constantly. I can start to see just how much of what I do is about avoiding something, covering something up, finding a better alternative. It’s all about feeling that life is not right, it’s broken, I have to get away from it and find something better. This is pretty dysfunctional and that’s emerging as a more solid understanding in me. You just can’t live life by avoiding things that are frightening or seemingly unpleasant, but this is precisely what I do almost all the time. I’m in a constant state of anxiety about something. If there is nothing to be anxious about I’ll make something up. This is how I’ve learned to be.
I guess what I want to say is that I’m looking forward to this changing, to being someone who no longer is driven in that way. My current way of being is tough, unproductive, reactive and I feel quite helpless now that I see how powerful it is. Getting through this phase and finding a new way of being of ultimately being driven by love is absolutely an evolution in my way of looking at things.
Sen, correct me if I’m wrong, but what you’re describing in this post sounds to me like someone who is not going through the phase of total allowing consciously, but rather one who is going through the natural evolution from unconscious to conscious living as being pulled along by life, while they themselves remain unconscious. That this way takes longer because there is no conscious commitment to finding balance but rather its a part of the fierce grace of many lifetimes as opposed to reaching wholeness in a few months or years.
Someone who makes the commitment to reach wholeness would go through all these phases in one lifetime, where someone who is unconscious may go trough this in several lifetimes. Is that about right?