I am keeping a journal of times during the day that I treat myself unkindly. No I am not a masochist. No this is not some perverse form of self-loathing. I am an analyst mind and for a person who stews in logic, this is truly one of the deepest forms of self-love I can provide my awake-self. I note that this is ego based because the work sits firmly in my head space and recently my head space has been a place of contemplation…confusing? Tell me about it.
I have found that documenting how I function in a self-harming way and finding constellating patterns is wonderfully logical and also wonderfully lacking a vehicle to move the understanding of why I do what I do to the body level. It is vexing to be sure because every single time I begin to think about whom I am it takes me down the rabbit hole of humanity. I start to ponder the different layers of the psyche, how they tie into sociological perspective, how this aligns with yogic theory and how all of this aligns with philosophy in general…and then I start in on the macrocosm and the violence and corruption that exists in the world and my non-action in it or my action without intention. It sends me into a fucked up spiral of not-knowingness. Seriously. I can stay stuck in this place for days trying to unravel one tread hanging from the branches of one concept.
It feels as if allowing not knowing-ness to take hold IS the lesson but I struggle against it vehemently…because I am a “knower” to the point of intellectual narcissism. A quality that I have worked hard to remove from my life. I don’t want to be a narcissist. How telling is that? To struggle against one sentence – owning what I do not want to be is in itself vexing because it lights upon the conundrum of perception, what I feel like I am and what I truly am…they are different animals and yet coincide in the same body. Vexing indeed and ego based.
Yogic philosophy…along with Jungian Psychology both of which I place deep faith in, indicate that the ego mind is the space where avidya (ignorance) exists. Carl Jung taught me that inflated ego consciousness is a self-hypnotizing – functioning for its own selfishness. Both constructs indicate that to pierce the ego self and swim in the depths beneath is the greatest boon…the most real pursuit one can endeavor upon in this world. I get this. I feel it resonating at my core and perhaps it is that I lack somatic consciousness beyond feeling the truth in these lessons. My response had been study beyond the self. I have read and listened and read and listened and recognized that doing so is a function of the ego mind attempting to understand…that I need to let go of understanding…so back to need for a vehicle…and the convoluted journey down the rabbit hole of the humanities.
Within spiraling of this process is my truth. I know this at the body level in the carved out space where my breath moves behind and around my heart. My asana and meditation practice has provided me with this calmness within the philosophical storm. The spiral is my favorite symbol, special to be because it represents cosmic force. Because it represents the cyclical process of the seasons, of life and death moving seamlessly into one another. Wandering the spiral of learning the depths of the self is sort of like the spiral, continuous and ever changing, holding aspects of the journey that was taken and will be taken at each juncture.
So my journey has many facets and this finding self-love thing is one knot in its web. I’ll visit the actual process of it next time and how affective it was to ground me after the hailstorm of ego/mind shit calmed down. Learning the process of self-love at the micro level and acceptance and love of all creatures, engaging ahimsa at the macro-level has taken breaking open my head in the most compassionate way possible…
Related articles
- Is Ego the mind killer? (afetteredmind.com)
- Do you see the river changed? (laurierohner.wordpress.com)
- Our Infinite Dimension (teachingsofmasters.wordpress.com)
ahimsamaven 
Posted on September 30, 2011
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