⦿ If we could reduce the complex noise that the ego makes to one statement, it might be “I am special.” Both in the positive and the negative sense. I am especially good, worthy, deserving, superior, etc.; or I am especially unworthy, lacking, inferior, undeserving, etc. I am more real or legitimate than you. I am less real or legitimate than you. And all the energy we expend to chase and to reinforce the illusion of a separate self on either half of that coin. All that we do to guard against anything which might work against our self-image, or reveal the true poverty of that sense of self. To be free of this special curse, that I think is the path of liberation.
⦿ Equanimity, I believe, is also a key facet of that practice of discovering the “completeness within yourself” and other-selves:
The mind contains all things. Therefore, you must discover this completeness within yourself. The second mental discipline is acceptance of the completeness within your consciousness. It is not for a being of polarity in the physical consciousness to pick and choose among attributes, thus building the roles that cause blockages and confusions in the already-distorted mind complex. Each acceptance smoothes part of the many distortions that the faculty you call judgment engenders. The third discipline of the mind is a repetition of the first but with the gaze outward towards the fellow entities that it meets. In each entity there exists completeness. Thus, the ability to understand each balance is necessary. When you view patience, you are responsible for mirroring in your mental understanding, patience/impatience.
Ra
Knowing that all phenomenon is impermanent, and thus not becoming attached, the self can witness any one quality arising without making an identity of it, knowing that it has its opposite that will or at least can arise and fall as well.
⦿ The indigo center (the third eye in the chakra system) remained partially opened this morning. During the past two days, each time an intensive wave of pressure and opening in the third eye got underway, I received a strong visual image of a single, off-white, milky drop being secreted from… something, I’m not sure. (In retrospect, I presume that the image had something to do with the pineal gland long associated with the third eye.)
As I concluded my morning sit in the pagoda, I turned on the dim light provided in the ceiling, stood up, and a small silver reflection from the carpeted floor caught my eye. I crouched down… it couldn’t be, I thought to myself.
With some effort, I got the nearly weightless source of the reflection onto my finger tip. It looked identical to the “silver fleck.” It was not so geometrical (not all flecks were), it was in the shape of a teardrop… reminiscent of the vision of the teardrop I experienced very vividly. I’m in awe. One appeared once before for Austin and me. This is the first of my own. I would later bring the teardrop fleck home from California.
⦿ I’ve had the most stability and clarity in focus that I’ve ever experienced, but I haven’t yet fully stabilized the attention into 100% unwavering and sustained single-pointedness. I believe that this is the precursor to absorption and dhyana (not mentioned in this course but essential to the self-realization in Vedanta and Buddhism). That is my work and goal.
Lunch
⦿ Crashing with fatigue by lunch. Last night was intense, and someone in my dorm had opened/closed their door loudly at 3:30am—those barbarians—and I have been up since. Still energized from the indigo opening, though, I took an hour nap and woke feeling like I had partied hard the night before.
⦿ Sexuality has been mostly muted during this experience. The past two days it’s made some appearance. Not suppressing, per se, but not indulging in order to honor the precept, and to make that energy available for meditation and healing work.
⦿ The thinking mind really is something of an idiot in its constant chatter and things it says.
⦿ The fellows here seemed to be slowing down around Day 6 or so, but as of Day 8, everyone seems to be moving at a crawl. There couldn’t be a more heavenly environment for it either. Sunny blue skies, dry air, mid-70s, birds and squirrels, signs of spring abounding. These men… eight days with them and I don’t know their names, their stories, their accents, whether they even speak English… yet we have existed together in shared purpose in such resplendent peace & harmony.
⦿ The hard negative catalyst in my recent past is less about the facts and substance of the positions and more about my relationship with myself in terms of how such things impact me.
⦿ Mindfully drinking my evening tea and slowly consuming my evening orange and banana, I marveled that this all is happening. One day, old and grey, I will wonder how this ever was, as the ghost of these 60 men walk slowly along the meditative pathway where so many truth-seekers and salvation-goers walked before, where the physical, earth-bound pathways tread with the soles of their feet were really the circuits of their consciousness.
⦿ As the intensity of the opened gateway faded, I slipped into a mode of feeling insufficient and unworthy of the future work ahead. I could feel the misery creeping back in. But like not adding new logs to a fire, I stopped feeding it. I just observed. I could feel the tightening rope uncoil.