Keep God Weird

"Becoming" is a word used to describe, among other things, striving to achieve states of transcendency in speculation practice. We intellectually calculate out a goal, and then conceive of that we have got somehow attained that goal. This is the fast one of a adroit ego; a Chamaeleon in the ways in which it can hide itself. Once we gull ourselves by thought that we have got attained a goal, such as as emptiness for example, it is common to travel disinterested in pattern and go on to more than beguiling activities, perhaps building a speculation centre or becoming a instructor of meditation.

This is because our egotism must always be in control, or it's not happy. During concentration meditation, the egotism is not in control, as we calm down the ideas that make the egotism itself. The egotism doesn't like this; the egotism wishes action, and will therefore make all sorts of semblances in order to allure the head to stop speculation pattern which weakens the ego. The egotism is very adroit and not to be underestimated in its powerfulness to distract.

Inaccurate premises of one's advancement is a common error for intermediate practitioners, particularly if they have got no instructor or good Negro spiritual friend as a sounding board. If speculation is disregarded before the subconscious mind displacements deeply, the intellect, which is then in control again, cannot supply the true realisation of emptiness. As a consequence, emptiness stays only a theory, and although the head will conjure up its ain thought of emptiness creating a belief in the practitioner's head that he or she is making great progress, no advancement is fundamentally made at all, only intellectual and psychological imaginings.

In this context, I talk of the witting head as the psychological and intellectual mind, and the subconscious head head as the well of the life-continuum consciousness and the consideration of karma. Our ideas bubble up from these subconscious mind strata, as make our disposition to concentrate our consciousness in certain patterns. This is wont karma derived from long adhered wonts in this lifetime, as well as past ones. The subconscious head is the lone topographic point that great displacements in consciousness can occur, never in the witting or intellectual, psychological mind.

To defeat this flaw of imagining that we are advanced far greater than we actually are, the egotism must be tricked into becoming a warrior to struggle itself. If we make this with shrewdness, then before the egotism can catch on to what's happening, it overcomes itself! This is called "skillful means."

We must go warriors because that's what it takes to fend off intellectual hypothesis. The surest manner to go a warrior is to accede to concentration practice, simply because right Samadhi practice, particularly jhanas, go forths no flight paths for the egotism to acquire loose and make confusion. Vippasana practice, on the other manus because of its openness, can be more than easily fooled by the ego.

The cogent evidence that your emptiness is only a theory is when you see yourself making some sort of progress, or thought that you have got attained some sort of a realization. World is that no 1 is there to achieve anything, and no 1 is there to do advancement on the Negro spiritual path. If it looks that an physical thing bes that volition travel to another kingdom to go something else, then this is still "becoming" and not contributing to Nibbana, or blowing out the flame. As long as even an coal is aglow regarding the thought of self, the fire have not died completely, and dying to being completely is required before world of "no self" can manifest.

The egotism must be in topographic point and working for realisation to take place. It is the effort. Trying to abandon this thought of egotism or attempt prematurely is an illusion, because the egotism is the exact thing that is doing the abandoning. This is premature intellectual theorizing in the word form of convenient spirituality, and convenient spiritualty will only detain substances if the pattern is diluted.

If you are a Vipassana practitioner, I would urge using one-half of your formal sitting dedicated to concentration pattern or jhana, and one-half to consciousness practice.