Hi Silversurfer,

Welcome to Openhandweb.

It feels like you face a predicament that many actually go through - for various reasons the inner conflict seems quite strong in you.

One thing that stands out from your posting is this...

"I have a conflict between my values and my beliefs, that is, my life experiences have created a self image which is in direct contravention to the values which I have been raised with."

In terms of the 'self image' that's been created, that almost certainly equates to what we speak of here as "The False Self" - a neural web of conditioned behaviours that lock us into false beliefs and ways of doing things - we create a false life-style around those beliefs which never truly serves.

Here at Openhand, our approach is to recognise that all our behaviours have some degree of truth at their core - in some ways they have originated in the soul but become distorted both by upbringing and our experiences within life.

But our approach differs from many Buddhist approaches in one very fundamental way: we observe that in trying to 'eradicate this false self' (as you put it), there's a tendency to throw the baby out with the bath water. We end up dissolving the very impulses of the soul aswell.

This is ultimately self defeating and leads to an unfulfilled life and certainly not to Enlightenment, which is the full, non-attached embodiment of the soul.

In our approach, it's about honouring our expressions as they want to come up, but then looking for the distorted behaviours, resisting these automated reactions and instead, holding the space open for authentic beingness to come through.

As we attune to authentic feelings of rightness within, the distortions tend to fall away until ultimately what remains is a totally liberated soul which is enlightened through ALL events and circumstances.

Avoidance of the self will not get you there - only a complete immersion into life and our experiences will do that.

You can read more about our approach here... Openhand's Spiritual Compass

With much love and emapthy

Chris

Thankyou for your insight Chris,

I really appreciate you taking the time to advise and counsel.

I can understand what you are saying and agree that complete self-erradication is probably a little extreme. I think that my mediations need to directed in the correct way but I'm not sure how to do this. I try to have compassion for the person that I was but at the same time acknowledge that I am a much better person now but to be honest, in doing so, I keep awakening these feelings that I fear so much.

Myabe I shouldn't meditate on this at all? Maybe as you say, its better to focus on the good all around us and let this goodness fill the space.

Do you believe that if we surround ourselves with good tought and positive intent that all other aspects will wither and die?

I will read the spiritual compass.

thanks again

Hi Silversurfer,

You say you're concerned that your meditations "keep awakening the feelings that you fear so much" and perhaps you shouldn't meditate at all? I'd say the exact opposite!

You cannot eradicate fear by suppressing it and pretending it doesn't exist. It does exist. The only way to eradicate fear is to activate it, then go right into the heart of that fear until you explode the myth that it is.

So if your meditation activates your fears, I'd say you're doing exactly the RIGHT thing (assuming you want to evolve).

And you ask...

Do you believe that if we surround ourselves with good thought and positive intent that all other aspects will wither and die?

No I don't. You risk masking the darkness within you and covering it with a thin, false facade of compassion which is not ultimately sustainable. I observe a lot of people making this mistake right now.

In our approach, it's all about being totally honest with what you're feeling right now. If you feel anger, allow anger to happen, feel it fully until you touch the source of it - a need for the world to be a particular way. Work to drop that attachment by realising that you are neither light nor dark, but the WHOLE of it. Then you will ultimately become the everything/nothing that you are.

Chris

Ok Chris,

Thanks so much,

I have really made time for spiritual practice lately, I have just neglected it for so long, I spend a good deal of time now reading and meditating.

I am very awkward around people though, my inner conflict is difficult to hide. It's as if I am drawn away sometimes and just at the wrong times when I need to be socially coherent and fluid.

I drift mid-conversation, trying to supress some bad thought or guilty emotion. This is particularly frustrating as it leads some people to believe that I am not paying attention to what they are saying or that I am not to be trusted as my eye contact betrays me.

I then become frustrated because I have spoilt a good conversation and potentially alienated a friend or acquaintance. This causes me to further blame myself and to create further false beliefs about myself.

It is so painful for me as I used to be one of the most socially capable people I know. However, I do strongly believe that maybe I have had to temporarily lose my social skills in order to find my spiritual path.

I know this sounds strange but I think that if I had always felt confident and complete I wouldn't have searched so hard for my soul and wouldn't have had switched on in this way.

Sorry if that's too much information, I just appreciate the chance to be listed to by someone with wisdom and light on their side.

Hi Silversurfer,

Okay I hear you - great that you can be open and honest. There's the first (and often most difficult) step

The next step is to honour your feelings. So if you feel awkward in social contacts, don't be afraid to be awkward - don't deny it to yourself. Get to know deeply what this feeling of awkwardness is all about.

If you have negative thoughts or emotions, notice them. Don't hide them to yourself. Afterwards, perhaps write the subject matter of them down. Explore them and realise that you are not your thoughts or emotions and neither is it your fault you're having them - it's likely the conditioning of your upbringing, society and your karma. You are not to blame.

When you can realise you are not to blame, then you can begin to 'look the discomfort' in the eye and surrender into it - to cry and wail into it if you feel it. Hold the gaze until the pain activates. If you don't feel to release there and then on the spot, leave and release the pain fully elsewhere. In this way, the source of the negative thoughts and emotions will ultimately dissolve and you won't have them anymore.

Ever seen this scene from Good Will Hunting? To me it is one of the most powerful 'spiritual' moments going...

It is not your fault!

Chris

Hi
I find this thread very important for me as I have struggled with similar emotions. I have carried some deep seated guilt within me, which created difficult circumstances one life after another and I blindly got lost in my mistakes and recreated karmic loops. My heart visions into some of the past lives have given me many answers; shed a lot of light on my situation. It is as if my sense of time has bent, from linear into vertical, and I have been falling and diving really deep in time, extremely scared, and experiencing two realities simultaneously, the past life situation has been much stronger than my current reality. It is quite interesting to live, see, touch, smell etc. what has been going on around me while experiencing the extremely dense energy of completely different time/space at the same time.
I have deeply explored how the emotions of guilt, shame, fear and anger work within me, how in times when I didn't feel them, I felt radiant, interaction with people was joyful, fulfilling and very energizing and then suddenly when those emotions kicked in, it was as if you just turn the magnet the other way round and repel everyone. I know it all goes very deep, somewhere beyond what my heart sight allowed me to see. Guilt is particularly dis-empowering and degrading emotion. Where does it come from? And why is it so persistent?
The last 12 months or so, I have been going through an inner fight between good and evil, it's felt like walking on the edge of a deep dark abyss, one part of me has kept reassuring me that I am good and the other one the contrary. I have seen the demon of those emotions in my heart trying to devour me and I've constantly had to keep choosing to be good. I know intellectually that I am a lot more than just the bundle of those constricting emotions, but I couldn't experience the real me. I understand the Openhand’s approach of honesty and accepting and owning the whole stuff. It is the only working remedy and it is funny how life directed me to the Openhand website to help me out. There is no way I can ever hide or deny what I've seen and felt and what I have been through and I am working on owning it all fully and completely. Although the resistance has been great, I have started to experience relieving sense of surrender and to see the first swallows of my soul liberation . It gives me strength and trust and I have started to feel a solid ground below my feet and the bubble of fear and other emotions is bursting and dissolving . However, I still have to work on dropping ‘that attachment by realizing that you are neither light nor dark, but the WHOLE of it’.
I've decided to share this. Maybe it can be helpful to those who are also swimming in the karmic waters right now. And it is also helpful to me, because in my experience I know that a problem expressed is half solved at the same time.
I am taking full responsibility for my karma and I am OK; I wish nothing more than to evolve.
Best of luck in surrendering and letting go,
Reni