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In my previous post (Enjoying Blissful/Pleroma States?) I wrote about blissful states of mind.
I stated that we often cling to Blissful states because ... well, because they are blissful. But clinging is an attachment. Attachment, just like aversion, needs to be removed in order to achieve the unpolarized consciousness. Here I'd like to offer you a variation of my End of Words method, which you can use to clear Blissful states. End of Words for Clearing Blissful States Feel the Blissful state and answer the following questions: 1) What's good in or about this state? 2) What's bad in or about this state? (take a little more time for this question, as your first reaction will most likely be "Nothing") 3) What else needs to be expressed about this state? Notes: - Go through the questions as many times as necessary to clear this state. (You'll know the exercise is complete when there's nothing else to say about this state) - Write all the answers down if you're self-processing.
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In a therapy session where you use my methods or the ST methods, you often experience high states of mind, such as Peace, God, Love, Pure Consciousness ...
I call these states Blissful States, because they feel blissful--exhilarating. My father, Z.M. Slavinski, calls them Pleroma states. Not all of those states appear to be of the same class/order. Some feel higher, some lower. Some stronger, some weaker. Some feel soothing, some mind-blowing. So for instance, in the state of Peace, you may feel centered, weightless and calm. Whereas in the state of Divine Love, you may feel like you've been catapulted into another, fantastic dimension. But regardless of its nature, a Blissful state is always very pleasant. This is why your response to experiencing a Blissful State is to try to hold on to it for as long as you can. We naturally gravitate to Blissful States, just like we are naturally repelled by the opposite--negative--states of mind. Common sense tells us: the more exhilarating a Blissful state feels, the more 'spiritual' it is. Right? Wrong. To enjoy an exhilarating state means to enjoy the exhilarating emotions/feelings you feel in that state. In other words, to enjoy an exhilarating state means to be attached to it. And attachment is as bad as aversion. Because both attachment and aversion polarize our consciousness. For this reason, in my methods I insist on clearing Blissful States of their emotional charge. Once you clear the emotional energy of a Blissful State, you'll be in a NEUTRAL state of mind--where there is no negative. And no positive. Where there is no split, no division. ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ For practical advise on how to use my method End on Words to remove emotional charge from Blissful States, read my next post: Clearing Blissful (Pleroma) States. Anger is a protest to a perceived VIOLATION.
You or someone else has been wronged. Values are always involved when anger comes up. The higher the value, the more emotionally invested you are, and the stronger your anger will become. With rage, the violation seems so great because it has to do with your highest values. Your Trust (or Love or Justice or Truth or Life or Self-value...) has been betrayed, jeopardized, or denied. Practical exercise for removing anger 1) Feel the situation in which anger has come up. Describe the situation. Be specific and brief, as if describing a scene in a movie. 2) Ask yourself: What do I protest in this situation? (the answer should include a specific person/group/being at whom you are angry and their specific action or behavior) 3) Ask yourself: What has/have… (name the person or group) violated? (If one of your core values comes up here, proceed to part 5) 4) Now look deeper into the violation and ask yourself: Which of my core values is involved/connected to this violation? 5) When you find the core value, describe how it is exactly that that value has been violated in that situation Notes: - If necessary, repeat (parts of) the exercise - If you work alone, I advise you to write down all the answers - Do this exercise for every person that angers you on a regular basis (mother, boss, child, spouse ...) So how do you make Pleroma your permanent state?
Is there a special method? A get-the-perfect-abs-in-a-week trick? A magical pill? Alas, no. What I can offer you instead is what Buddha calls 'bitter balm'. An unpleasant truth no one wants to hear. But this truth, once you realize it fully, cures you. And the truth is: you have to work your way to Pleroma. PERSISTENTLY. PATIENTLY. Spiritual evolution is missing an 'r' for a reason. Methods that take you to Pleroma are a shortcut, but they too will only take you so far. What they do is give you a glimpse of the transcendental reality. It's like being magically transported to a mountain peak, from which you can see your life and problems from a bird's-eye view. But this is not your natural perspective. You HAVE NOT EARNED IT yet. So what is the good news? Some progress is made whenever you process. Even when you get back to your 'normal', unpleasant reality after spending some time in a Pleroma state, you're not exactly back at square one. What you need to do is continue climbing that mountain, even when it feels like you'll never get to the top. And enjoy Pleroma states that you do experience... ... And stop comparing yourself to others... ... And stop worrying about Pleroma. "On being asked by someone how he could become famous, Diogenes responded, by worrying as little as possible about fame." What are Pleroma states?
They are blissful states of mind, which come up as a consequence of deep processing. They can also appear during meditation, mystical experiences etc. Peace, Love, God, Myself and Pure Consciousness are some examples. This would be the typical flow of process that ends in Pleroma: 1) Initial problem -- a problem you want to resolve (like anger at your mother, for example); 2) Several other negative elements, each (usually) deeper and more 'fundamental' than the previous one; 3) A first positive state; 4) Several other positive states, each (usually) higher and closer to your True Core than the previous one; 5) The highest positive state (Pleroma -- Deep Peace, for example). So let's say you've ended a process in the state of Deep Peace, just like in the example above. If you try to feel your initial problem now (anger in the example), it seems trivial. Or silly. Or far away. Or like something you made up... you get the picture. It feels like you've resolved this problem for ever. In fact, it feels like you've resolved all your problems for ever. And like Pleroma is here to stay. Only it's not. A Pleroma state usually doesn't last longer than 2-3 days. And then it's back to your normal, frustrating reality. Then you process again. And reach Pleroma again. You enjoy it for a while, thinking that this time, surely, it must last for ever. But alas, in a few hours or days you're back on earth, firmly grounded in your problems. And so on it goes, up and down, again and again. You might feel like you're making no progress. Like no matter how hard you try, you are always back at the start. If you are frustrated by this, you're not alone. Many practitioners, especially at the beginning of their spiritual journey, try in vain to force Pleroma to stay. But Pleroma acts like a fickle lover. One that comes and goes, and does not want to commit to a serious relationship. So how on earth do you make it your permanent state? Come back next week and I'll tell you. When we work on an emotional problem or inner conflict, fear regularly comes up.
Fear is one of the most persistent emotions, appearing again and again, even during the same therapeutic session. Example: Fear of death comes up while you are working on a certain problem. So what do you do? Typically, in a session you would take this fear of death as a new element and work on it. However, fear is actually RESISTANCE. It is a defense mechanism. Your subconscious uses it to prevent you from experiencing painful situations. So when you fear death, you resist experiencing death. Thus, Death is the problem here. So really there's no wonder that feeling of fear continues to pop up. Because if you work on it directly, you're dealing with the consequence, not the cause. You should work on that which you fear, not on the fear itself. It is faster and more effective. Tips: 1) If your initial problem is fear of something, disregard the fear and start working on the 'something'. For instance, if you fear being abandoned by your souse, start from 'Abandoned by my spouse,' not from the fear. 2) If fear is so intense that you can't feel the experience you fear, start at the aspect of the experience that you can feel (in the example of 'Abandoned by my spouse', you can start from, for example, 'My mother feeling sorry for me' or 'Selling the house'). In the first part of this post, I write about a phenomenon that sometimes happens when opposites integrate: it feels like one pole absorbs the other.
So if we take Life and Death as example, the state of integration of the two is often Life. However, the opposite can also happen. Death can 'absorb' Life. This new Death is of a higher kind. We are not repulsed by it, or scared of it. It is almost impossible to describe. It just IS. And because it has transformed, Death may not be the best name for it anymore. We may call it Nothingness, or Void, or No-Life. That 'Life absorbs Death' more frequently than Death absorbs Life just shows that we are still conditioned. That even in high states of mind, we still experience Life as more attractive than Death. A similar thing happens in near-death experiences: a Christian will have Jesus welcome him at the end of a tunnel of light. A Buddhist Buddha. A New-Age believer a Light Being or their 'Guide'. In order to process sublime experiences, our conscious mind still 'interprets' them using concepts and symbols it can relate to. Life is neither better nor nobler than death. Opposites are equally valuable manifestations of Oneness. William James, in his The Varieties of Religious Experience, writes about the integration of opposites.
He argues that one of the poles, "the nobler and better one", often "soaks up and absorbs its opposite into itself". All of us who work on the integration have experienced this ‘absorption' phenomenon. Let's say that we work on opposites Life and Death. As the two merge, Life may start spreading and absorbing Death. When the integration is complete, Life is all that is left. But this is a whole new kind of Life. It does not feel particularly beautiful, joyous, or even positive anymore. We struggle to describe it in the worldly terms. Because it just IS. We don't feel that pull toward it anymore. Because we are ONE WITH IT. But can the opposite happen? Can Death absorb Life? Read about it in Part II. |
AuthorIvana Mihajlovic Archive
February 2019
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