Dear Jim,
To continue our discussion, this is
crucial for me right now. Finding a way
to be consistent with what I know to be true...especially in the context of
being a teacher and practitioner of psychotherapy. I certainly think that contributions
to the development of a ‘quiet’ mind is valuable...but like you say why
not just be straight forward. I suppose
I think that the knowledge of the Self is, paradoxically arrived at through the
ego being dissatisfied with itself. Psychoanalysis is
much better at this than a lot of psychotherapies in that they do not want to
provide gratification within the relationship and consider that harmful. They want the patient to realize there is no
"inner child" or whatever and no "unmet needs" that you
must have met. I intend to integrate
what I know with what I do in a way that is dharma. But how "clear",
"peaceful" does someone have to be to successfully inquire into the
nature of the Self? I guess that the
reality is that people in great turmoil can "get it" but others imagine
they "need" an inner peacefulness and so it is a good idea to respond
to this for awhile.
Jim:
A successful inquiry is a long process.
Ignorance takes many subtle forms and one needs to keep working on it
patiently. For it to proceed properly
there needs to be a conviction that ‘the world’ meaning relationships,
situations, objects, etc. are definitely incapable of giving lasting
satisfaction. As long as the person
holds on to the belief that he or she is just a victim of bad luck, that when
Jupiter passes through the sixth house his or her ship will appear on the
horizon, he or she will keep giving in to samsaric thinking…and this will cause
a fair amount of emotional distress and compromise his or her ability to
actually resist samsaric fantasies and delusions. In Vedic spiritual culture such a person is
said to be discriminating and dispassionate.
The dispassion arises out the discrimination that relationship with the
world will not do the trick. The kind of
insight that comes from ‘great turmoil’ is very useful in getting one to
analyze one’s priorities and set one on the path of inquiry but unless it is
supported by a rigorous sadhana in a conducive environment (which is the only
thing that will bring abiding peace) the person will usually become an
experience junkie and live in such an intense way that he or she gets regular
epiphanies. As a consequence the whole
samsaric attitude, the belief that something outside (a ‘spiritual’ experience)
is needed to make one happy, will survive the transition from a worldly to a
spiritual lifestyle…and make it virtually impossible to maintain an inquiring
mind. In fact these people actively
resist inquiry. They usually condemn it
as ‘intellectual’ and dismiss it out of hand.
I’m meeting quite a few people
lately who came into the spiritual world many years ago because an intense
trauma led to an ‘awakening’ and who quite innocently defined enlightenment as
the ultimate experience, one that would be gained by living a certain way
(following a yogic path, for example, like ‘kundalini’ which promises mind
blowing transcendental experiences) but who after many years realized that the
core personality is still the same as it was before they took up a spiritual
path and that the ‘permanent transcendental state of infinite bliss’ was as
elusive as ever. After a period of
disillusionment these people are usually quite peaceful and mature and tend to
accept themselves in a way that allows them to actually practice inquiry. I think that one place a therapist can be
useful is in helping the person convert his or her dissatisfaction into inquiry
by illumining the thought process that underlies the sense of
dissatisfaction. People are not happy
because they see themselves and the world incorrectly. They think there is something wrong with them
and they believe that ‘change’ can make it all better. But in reality the determination that
something is wrong needs to be examined.
This is where an inquiry into childhood can be useful because it is in
childhood that one gets quite innocently gets saddled with a limited self
concept, sadly at the hands of those who are meant to love and care for
them. Anyway, when one discovers that
what is actually ‘wrong’ is the way one thinks about his or herself and the
world. So ‘change’ is not about changing
who one is, but how one thinks.
The people who are chasing peace
need to be encouraged. They will usually
end up quite happy and complacent. It is
very rare for a person to see the limitation of peace because it feels so good
compared to the experience of life in emotional turmoil. This is probably about the limit of
therapy. And if at this point there is
still a subtle dissatisfaction or boredom, the idea ‘is this all?’…like a grain
of sand in ones shoe…disturbs the mind, the person is ready for a guru because
the problem now is that the person thinks he or she is a person, albeit a happy
one…which is nonetheless an unacceptable limitation. At this point the inquiry should take the
form of into the nature of the ‘
Jim