In the world but not of it-4
Your Essence is very open and generous in expressing itself. And this Essence has the possibility to grow, to mature, to become stronger, gaining in courage, which, like a solvent, can dissolve the anaesthesia induced by personality. Essence frees itself from the bonds of external influence. When it is mature it can use its centring as a fundamental influence on its environment.
It rarely enters into conflict, is not afraid to cry, is not afraid to show its weakness. Indeed, it tries to find the strength within itself and tends to build its own life to this end. Personality comes in when Essence, unable to adapt to the surrounding environment, has need for a process of integration. This process is not always negative, but can become so if taken to extremes, if Essence’s motivations are forgotten, if we become the means instead of the end. When that happens life loses its meaning and we have to barricade ourselves behind our masks. In our work we seek to dismantle these barricades, we analyse them, we try to understand what their historical “roots” are. But before carrying out such an operation, we possess specific tools to strengthen the Essence, to encourage it, to start freeing ourselves from the dictatorship of its “stepsister”.
This process is not just a declaration of independence. Often you think that by working to gain such independence you will become capable of it, able to support yourself, earn lots of money, do what you like. But this is not independence, I am speaking of a different, inner, intimate independence. Independence from the world, so as not to be of it. We all live in the world, we dress, we eat, have a job and maybe a lover. And yet this is not the essential aspect of a man’s life. We learn to develop the ability to be aware of what is happening both inside and outside us, but at the same time not to identify with it. We develop what we call awareness and disidentification. These are the most important things needed for harmonious growth.
Until now, the world has been like a big classroom: life situations where you can develop certain aspects of yourself, certain aspects of your Essence. The world is like a big university offering different courses: classes on sex, classes on work, relationships, dependence and independence and so on. But to make your university course profitable you have to learn the basic lesson without which you will lose sight of the meaning of everything. And that lesson is learning disidentification, analysing the meaning of “being in the world, but not belonging to it”… ( 15 March 2007)
(CONTINUED)
It rarely enters into conflict, is not afraid to cry, is not afraid to show its weakness. Indeed, it tries to find the strength within itself and tends to build its own life to this end. Personality comes in when Essence, unable to adapt to the surrounding environment, has need for a process of integration. This process is not always negative, but can become so if taken to extremes, if Essence’s motivations are forgotten, if we become the means instead of the end. When that happens life loses its meaning and we have to barricade ourselves behind our masks. In our work we seek to dismantle these barricades, we analyse them, we try to understand what their historical “roots” are. But before carrying out such an operation, we possess specific tools to strengthen the Essence, to encourage it, to start freeing ourselves from the dictatorship of its “stepsister”.
This process is not just a declaration of independence. Often you think that by working to gain such independence you will become capable of it, able to support yourself, earn lots of money, do what you like. But this is not independence, I am speaking of a different, inner, intimate independence. Independence from the world, so as not to be of it. We all live in the world, we dress, we eat, have a job and maybe a lover. And yet this is not the essential aspect of a man’s life. We learn to develop the ability to be aware of what is happening both inside and outside us, but at the same time not to identify with it. We develop what we call awareness and disidentification. These are the most important things needed for harmonious growth.
Until now, the world has been like a big classroom: life situations where you can develop certain aspects of yourself, certain aspects of your Essence. The world is like a big university offering different courses: classes on sex, classes on work, relationships, dependence and independence and so on. But to make your university course profitable you have to learn the basic lesson without which you will lose sight of the meaning of everything. And that lesson is learning disidentification, analysing the meaning of “being in the world, but not belonging to it”… ( 15 March 2007)
(CONTINUED)
posted by Borrowed Wisdom at 12:48 AM
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