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[question]

Wow that's a great story, Lightmystic! It's nice to hear an actual life story, see the process in action and not just read cryptic formulas over and over again.

I hope you don't mind me asking: You often wrote of resistances, painful unwindings, suffering. Can you elaborate more on that, give some specific examples? I'm asking because I often read that seekers suffer so much more than anyone else, but I can't really relate to that. Maybe I'm blessed or something, but for me there hasn't been much suffering for a long time (God, I hope I don't jinx it by admitting this ).




Oh and welcome to the forum Jeff!

[lightmystic]

Thanks question! You are quite welcome.

I definitely don't mind you asking about suffering. The process of unwinding is taking those "suffering" places, and gently being with them until they unwind. The more gradually the process happens, the less uncomfortable it is. That said, it's never the letting go itself that causes the suffering, but the resistance of letting go when asked to do so. It's all on a visceral/instinctual level. But it does seem to start kicking in when things really start moving, when things get "real." Jed McKenna calls it the "first step," and says that that's really the goal. Once the first step is taken, there's really nothing one can do NOT to get there eventually, because it hurts too much not to. And that sounds about right to me. It's kind of a critical mass sort of thing.

The initial exploring process doesn't usually hurt at all, but gives you a taste of the amazing openness. The catch, the cost, though, is everything. Everything that we want to cling to or get away from must be confronted and dealt with one way or another. And we don't have to figure it out, we just have to ask life. And life delivers. Ooh, boy, does life deliver. It just depends how fast you want to go...and how nice to yourself you can be. This is the hardest thing anyone will ever have to do, so the ability to be nice to oneself is essential.

I know the cryptic formulas are frustrating. No magic pill though. Which is too bad, because I would have gone for that. Only kidding. But I really didn't know I was only kidding for a long time.....

Jan 29, 2010 14:51:37 GMT -5 question said:

Wow that's a great story, Lightmystic! It's nice to hear an actual life story, see the process in action and not just read cryptic formulas over and over again.

I hope you don't mind me asking: You often wrote of resistances, painful unwindings, suffering. Can you elaborate more on that, give some specific examples? I'm asking because I often read that seekers suffer so much more than anyone else, but I can't really relate to that. Maybe I'm blessed or something, but for me there hasn't been much suffering for a long time (God, I hope I don't jinx it by admitting this ).




Oh and welcome to the forum Jeff!

[souley2]

Sorry couldn't bother to log in.

For me I was actively reforming "myself" to be more present as they call it (think less, focus on senses etc) and seeing that it was really helping and thats how I wanted to live life. I wanted to get all these things straight and kind of sort out the mess that life as it is lived normally, really is. I think I wanted it really badly, and had a very good understanding of everything that we do "wrong". I think "the power of now" is a very good book on what we do "wrong" btw. And at this point I did not think I suffered at all, I saw myself as very smart and perfect for the job of "getting enlightened". I had an intellectual understanding of many ideas being pretty much upside down, and a strong feeling that there must be "more" (less?).

Then one day, after trying really hard for about 6 months to be aware/focused/mindful/etc as much as possible, everything just went berzerk. Everything I had intellectually understood, was just totally released on some fundamental level, and I basically had to live through all the fear and pain that I had in me, on every level, levels that I did not have any clue existed. Atleast thats a way to talk about it, whats "really" happening I have no clue.

LMs post above is pretty much perfectly perfect. And while it certainly true that you have to give up everything, it is also true that everything is as it always have been..

My point with this, is that the way through to sorting everything out, is pretty much to go through all your issues, and that is for most people very painful, I guess. There is probably people who have much less suffering, for me this was a total die-hard rollercoaster, which I could not have been less prepared for. It sounds totally crazy and rediculous, but thats the way it happened.

[lightmystic]

Hey souley,

Thanks for sharing. Good story.

Yep, it all has to come out....better out than in though....