We understand how experiences shape us: if we have been through something that etches itself indelibly on our psyche we will never forget the experience. For instance, if you burnt your hand badly on a stove, you’d likely never be casual around a hot surface – the memory would be too ingrained. In this way, on our journey, if we know the alternative clearly we may be more focused on how we make progress on the path – because we have experienced the sense of loss of having to live without our higher connection. (At the end of this post there are instructions and a link to download this recording to your computer.)
John: There can be interesting ins and outs of that. When something operates in a shadow dynamic, the shadow dynamic can even be in an amnesia. You can have a shadow dynamic quality and an amnesia associated with each other, in which, again, there isn’t quite a viability or functionality directly in the outer – and that something is wounded.
Now, when it is like that, what you’re going through is reverberations of repetitive memory pain in the heart. So what I was seeing last night is that when you have a repetitive pain in the heart, everyone has the very first degree of it where they get caught in identifications in terms of having to function in the outer, where you have to go through the phases of being born, and then adolescence, and so on.
And then at some particular point there are people who develop an awareness in terms of the fact that that is, somehow or another, limited, and that there is so much more. What surprised me was those people who develop that recognition, and start working upon themselves according to precepts, and concepts, oftentimes get further away. And, generally, if you were to make a general rule, get further away because they get caught up in the idea of being and acting in some way that’s somewhat spiritual, I guess, and use that as if that’s what takes them somewhere.
And what I was surprised to see is that if, after the first level is recognized, instead of becoming subtler and learning to slowly start to redirect your attention and pull back, if by chance instead you stayed out there, that is, after the heart had gotten to a point where it recognized the absurdity of things, if you stayed out there and beat up on the heart even more, to the point where it was undeniably loud, to the degree to which what you were doing, and identifying with, was hurting the heart, the memory of that pain will slingshot you faster than if you’re trying to go at this one baby step at a time, subtly – because you get caught in spiritual illusion.
That’s why it is said by a teacher that if they come across a student that has done a lot of work, and practices, and this, that, and the other, it is harder than if they come across someone who knows that they’re a bad person. In other words, just still carry some sort of extreme density that they need to move away from. And the earmark of that is the way that the heart has come to denote the distinction; it’s more clear cut.
You can kind of deceive yourself and lie to yourself and placate a bit if you’re trying to become more subtle in your approach. There is a danger in trying to become more subtle in your approach, in a submissive fashion, instead of just finally being exhausted by it to the point where you just totally let go and fall into an empty space.
You go back into a subtle way of carrying yourself, and you have a certain sight in that, you have a certain recognition in terms of how it is with others. Yet somehow or another you crack, maybe you’re not strong enough to maintain it, or whatever it is, it becomes even more inner and you no longer can function in the outer. There’s still that saintly quality that shows, it just isn’t readily accessible and flowable, in the outer anymore. And, when it flickers, it flickers and then it’s forgotten. In other words, it can come up, it can show for a split second, and then it can fall away.
Which is an interesting phenomena, because the connectivity to the breath is different. It’s kind of a depiction, I guess, of an aspect of the soul journeying to go home, so to speak, which is a home at a depth in terms of its overall intertwined heart. And yet it’s not there. And it doesn’t have the quality of a true letting go and surrender that is strong or something, that isn’t shattered. Well, it’s like the time is up for someone that’s like that, as opposed to something that can still carry that note into life.
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