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The
Knot of 'I' - The Self-Contraction You may have noticed,
especially in the most difficult or anxious moments, a
persistent contraction, or tension of the whole lower trunk
of the body, from the heart to the abdomen. This tension
often feels like a fist or a stone, or a knot. Especially in
the areas of the navel or the solar plexus. It makes you
chronically anxious. Not only physically tense, but
emotionally, mentally, and psychically uneasy. This tangible
disturbance is evidence of a severe and profound reaction to
life...... DEVOTEE: My question, Beloved, was, it's to do with the self-contraction. And last evening You took us through locating the core of the self-contraction, doing the practice of feeling to You, and, you know, also at the same time not trying to get away from or recoil from the self-contraction at its core. AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Mm. I feel a commentary coming on. [Laughter.] Your way of stating that, you see, illustrates the difference between listening or not yet hearing and hearing. You were talking about it as if in effect you were relaxing the self-contraction, almost like it's a knot in your solar plexus or something, in Communion with Me. That's how you were using the exercise. And that's how it would be done from the point of view of non-hearing. But the point of view of hearing is at the point of the self-contraction, the point of the act of self-contraction, and in Communion with Me passes beyond directly, is flowering truly, not efforting against the self-contraction as if it's somewhere else or someone else or a mechanism apart from you, just a sensation you're experiencing. It's not merely a sensation you're experiencing. It is an act you are performing. You are doing the self-contraction. It is not merely happening to you. I've used the illustration since the earliest days of a man pinching himself,you all know that one, right? And he's uncomfortable and so forth, tries to shake it off, whatever he does, and then eventually discovers he's been pinching himself all the while and he takes his hand away and all his problem disappears.
Well, I've used that little bit to try to describe to you what hearing is about. It's not a matter of your dealing with a something that's objective to you in the context of your human existence. It's not objective to you. It may seem to be so until you hear Me. In some sense. And that's the fundamental description of the difference between non-hearing and hearing. In the case of the non-hearer, you don't yet, at the place itself, understand most fundamentally that your search, your dis-ease, your struggle, and so on, your pain of existence, is something that you are doing. So that's hearing. from that point, you can, in Communion with Me, pass directly from the self-contraction, the act itself, and you can do this, then, under all circumstances, in every context of experience, no matter how the stages evolve from then. The same hearing gesture is your capability and your responsibility. And immediately, or very quickly, prepares you to do the Yoga of seeing Me, such that the hearing process is taking place in the full dimension of Spiritual existence. Then the purification is more profound and final. [to Devotee] You were referring to the self-contraction as a something you would not avoid. You were referring to it in objective terms as a something rather than as your own action. You were not speaking from being in the position of the self-contraction, but you're referring to the self-contraction. You're having some experience of it. But as if you are outside it somehow, somewhere, and don't quite have the key, then, to get rid of it. So you examine each piece of your life, and you see how you do it there in some behavioral or other terms or what not, and you work on that some, discipline it and so forth, and that gets better. But there's still this disturbance, this stress, this pursuit, and so on. Your examination of all that becomes summary. You become established in the knowledge of the act in the place of the act itself, such that it is entirely, immediately, always available to your relinquishment of it, because you are it, you're being it, you're doing it as an action, you're in that very place and you know all about it, just like you know how to open your hand instead of pinching yourself, or open your hand instead of making a fist. So at least by your brief description, then, what you did last night was the listener's version of that exercise. Unless you'd like to retract your statement now. DEVOTEE: No, no. AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: But it is useful for Me to point out how you are using language, because it says something about your disposition, perhaps. Sometimes it may say something about your miscommunication or not fully considering your words, but otherwise it's a reflection of your meanings, your disposition. So that is what you said suggested. DEVOTEE: It was also part of my question, as well, which is how to always return to the core of the self-contraction rather than just being, you know, which is what I'm normally in, the superficial, more superficial area. AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: Yes, that's another example of what I was just saying, "how to return to the core of the self-contraction", when you are always right there doing it! It's amazing, you see! It's like the man pinching himself. It's just as mysterious. I mean, how stupid, a guy sitting there pinching himself! It's a really very apt example of what you're all doing. It's just as silly as that! Just as mysterious,why would you be doing this? So you're right there doing it, it's the core of all your doings, your thinking, your feelings, and so on, and you're doing it right at its root, all the time, and yet you act like it's totally mysterious to you. Even though I point this out to you, it seems totally mysterious to you. You're used to experiencing your self-contraction as an experience rather than as your own action. So you have some feeling about what I'm talking about when I'm talking about the self-contraction, because it's that knot in the pit of your stomach or that feeling of anxiety. You don't realize it's you pinching yourself, you doing that feeling of anxiety, you contracting. You may, in the course of the listening sadhana, get a little better at it all, you know, understand it a little better, but ultimately to understand most fundamentally and to be free of all the wanderings and vacations and so forth and effects of self-contraction, to notice, to feel, and be in the position of the act itself, coincides with the feeling of relatedness itself,they are coincidental,and the arising of attention. The feeling of relatedness, or the self-knot, can be felt all over the body. But if you feel it at its point of origin, it's on the right side of the heart. The right side of the heart is not simply the domain of Divine Self-Realization. It's the root of egoity. It's a knot that must be opened. You have to get back to that Door, by releasing energy and attention to do so.
But in general you all experience it as a knot in the pit of your stomach or a feeling of anxiety, a stressful feeling of being separate or dissociative and so on. Well, it's like any other symptom, then, in the body-mind, like a sore foot or a headache or something. It's a symptom in the body-mind. You observe it objectively, and you decide you'll do this, that, or the other thing about it. You try to relax and breathe deeply, be more straightforward,whatever you have to do to become more functional about it, but on the other hand it doesn't go away. DEVOTEES: [Murmuring] No. [Laughter.] AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: [Chuckling] So you must enter into this profound practice I've Given you, which includes this "reality consideration", perpetual for the individual, sometimes you get together. You must use that sadhana for real, to get to this point of fundamental understanding. So initially you deal with all of the "thi is" and "that's" in your life, and you confess them and you discipline them, and so forth. It's very complex. Then you start zeroing in on particular things, you know, emotional-sexual this, whatever, bring some more discipline to those, and so on, covering all the bases, all the bits and pieces of your life, applying all the disciplines I've Given you, the same purpose as the "reality consideration". And you just become more and more sensitive to something about all of that that's *got a root or that's the same. It's some basic thing. The matter of understanding the self-contraction becomes deepened, less of a superficial consideration. It becomes a deeper consideration. You begin to get a feeling for this something that you're always doing. You get closer and closer to feeling it rather than feeling its effects merely. Then, mysteriously, it can't be pointed out in terms of a particular chapter in a particular educational course or something, it's not a particular moment that can be foretold exactly, or predetermined, even. But somehow, in all of that listening and observation, discipline, you suddenly understand it. You understand it because you're in the position of it, not just peripheral to it, examining it, kind of like a symptom. You somehow, you suddenly feel the thing, the position itself, and realize that this is what you're doing, this contraction, and it's universal to your life. It affects everything. All you've been looking at is all the symptoms of it. There's just this one thing. It's there directly in your view, can never be lost again. But with that knowledge, because you're standing in that place, you get the knowledge, the capability, to directly feel beyond it into Communion with Me, not through relaxing this and that or working on this and that but in place. That's where you have the capability, as well as the knot. And that's when sadhana is made profound, you see. When you have that hearing capability, you can enter into this Samadhi of Communion with Me directly, constantly. Of course, that's, then, the primal readiness for seeing Me. And in must be true. Or all you get is Spiritual effects. And you won't see Me. *** AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: If you truly locate the self-contraction in this Yoga of devotion to Me, you simultaneously locate Me and discover the immediate means always available to you for going beyond that ego-knot. In the hearing practice, there's basically a single gesture, whatever it's accompaniments. It's a matter of standing in the position of that act, that self-contraction, that knot, not just experiencing it from some point of view outside it, and directly feeling beyond it. So that becomes the basis of practice once hearing is the case. It's a very direct gesture. It may be accompanied by Nama Japa or self-Enquiry, whatever, and "conductivity" practice,your whole life of practice,but still fundamentally it's this one gesture every moment. It's not working on the self-contraction from outside. It's standing in its position. And you have the knowledge, in that position, of Radiance. You can always make this gesture. You always know what the problem is. It's this knot, that you're doing. And you always can feel beyond it in Communion with Me. There's certain knowledge in it. This covers everything. This covers the whole case. This was the seeker. This is the basis for the seeking, the constant disturbance. It's the key to all of it. Therefore, it's the key to all the separate parts of your egoic life, patterns you've developed. And they can likewise be addressed from this hearing point of view. Must be. So that's hearing, that realized capability, and always true, always available. And then you never leave that knot position, except through Communion with Me. You should always be aware of that knot, that act, that contraction that you are doing. And that will be your principal experience until you do this act of opening the hand, so to speak, enter into this Communion with Me and not drop back. It becomes more and more profound, more and more constant. So instead of noticing the self-contraction, feeling beyond it, or however it works in your own case, you see, instead of those kinds of routines, it becomes the *constant of Communion with Me, Samadhi, just beyond the self-knot. So that's how hearing matures. It becomes essentially constant Communion with Me. A taste of that is so full you don't want to drop back. And you find out how to enter into that Communion under all circumstances. Relative to the hearing matter, you don't even get to have the interview, though, unless you first prove you're bona fide, all the forms of practice intact, and a history of doing so, and true Ruchira Avatara Bhakti Yoga as a constantly perpetuated exercise or act. If you can't prove that all of that is intact, then there should be no hearing interview further, unless maybe to discuss what hearing is all about and so forth. But your own confession of it can't be taken seriously without that basis to justify such a conversation. And if that was all the case, then, you don't have to talk about that anymore. Then the real conversation can take place relative to this fundamental matter. And it takes place by having My Word in front of you,you and whoever you're discussing it with,applying your own presumption about hearing to My Instruction about it, and see if it's proven in you. And it if doesn't get proven in you, then the interview can maybe serve you anyway, by showing you something more about why, something further to deal with and so on, or some misunderstanding that enables you to get further on with *it is revealed,like Devotee telling Me about the self-contraction as if it were an object or a sensation, something he was apart from, and My talking about how that is not the kind of communication that is associated with hearing. Well, grasping that point, can be useful. Hearing is in the position of the self-contraction. It's the knowledge that you're doing it. It's the knowledge of what you're doing, so you can readily relinquish it if you're viewing it from some other position, or looking at it merely in the context of some particular kind of reaction or circumstance.  |
At
the root of this system is the heart, the primal
organ not only of life but of consciousness in man.
It is here that the presumption and conception of
egoic independence, or the separate "I," arises in
every moment. It is on the basis of this
presumption that the human individual is
predetermined to a reactive life of fear,
vulnerability, flight from mortality, and a
universal constitutional state of contraction. That
contraction encloses consciousness in the limits of
skin and thought, and it separates the whole bodily
being of Man from the Divine Radiance and Perfect
Consciousness that is otherwise native to it and
eternally available to it in every part.|
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