Serenity

🙌 🤍 I love that parable. But somewhat, when I get caught in such fear and aversion for a frequency, I throw all the wisdom gathered through the window. Thank you a lot for sharing that story with me again. I heard it from Tolle and think of it sometimes, but never thought of applying it to soften the blow of seemingly doubtful choices.

Hmm. Seeing, hearing, touching, smelling and tasting are the senses. Emotions aren't senses. But emotions are manifesting as sensations in the body. So they seem to do require a body. Thoughts are ironically also made of awareness. There is only one thing that exist. Awareness.

Yeah. It doesn't make sense. An observer sort of implies a subject object relationship. It's more that there is a knower.

Emotions are a question of perception & sensation. Though everything occurs within awareness.

A vortex of self-referential thoughts creating a fictional self through diverse identifications. Well, isn't powerlessness and fear typically due to an illusion of being separate from the whole of beingness? It's more that some emotions are triggered by believing one is separate. By the repression mechanisms. It's a frequency that doesn't feel very nice so trying to ignore it and distract oneself like it doesn't exist is not uncommon. I mean disappointment. Déception is the french word for disappointment, funny enough! Don't get it & dont'get it either.

I think what is meant is that they come from a sense of being a separate self. And that feeling can be expressed through various narratives and perspectives, and some seems to be a better closure than others? So you mean I just need to uncover the doubt that is already there, and no further resolution is needed? I feel the doubt and after I uncover doubt I don't need to look at how to manage and deal with doubt, I just get into uncovering deception? Well, I am doing that. But I got confused whether there was more to do with them, or if it was at the end of the day mostly an uncovering process that is mostly just about being.

@Mandy Thank you again Mandy for your reply. I'll sleep on all of that. Though I hope I won't have nightmares about how surrendering my doubts will lead me to the same fate as MLK or Jesus. I always thought God made them dirty. lol

Hm. Okay! Thank you. I got something out of that. So, does it mean that if something feels right to you, you've got to do it regardless of risking disappointment? What about stuff from the past? Like, 'i was doubting this and i did that and then I got it bad even if I trusted it was right and got hurt and its disappointing because now I'm scared' or something like that would be fine?

Thank you a lot for your reply, Phil. So, I wasn't sure if I interpreted correctly your words so I asked Chat GPT for its opinion: The statement suggests that our emotions naturally guide us and that this guidance is always correct and unchanging. It implies that emotions are a reliable compass for decision-making. On the other hand, it contrasts this with the concepts of faith, ability, and trust, suggesting that relying on these might lead to aversion, possibly implying that placing faith in something external, relying solely on one's abilities, or trusting others could be less reliable or less certain compared to relying on one's emotions. Is this what was meant? That faith, ability and trust comes as certain emotions wanes? I am particularly confused by the word aversion, here. Gotcha here. But when I express on the scale, quite often I express what seems to be very dual and very much biting into the separation narrative feelings . So I am far off from even thinking about I being all there is. It's more like petty little things like "bouhou, i'm not sure if I can pull this because I don't feel very good with this deep within me". And I thought the scale was also usable for very much ego and story identified perspectives 🤔. Would it be good if I were trying to go beyond the ego self each time? Like expressing anger in an egoic manner and then try to expend it to something more unitarian? Because I use the scale in a very cathartic way and I write a lot of deeply unconscious stuff in my journal where oneness is not even close to be looked for. 🧐 I didn't get it. 😬

Thank you a lot for replying me, Mandy. I have started expressing disappointment but some questions remains. I am curious about all of that works and couldn't get how doubt and disappointment were connected.

Hello, I am currently working a lot with the emotional scale and I find doubt to be a hard one for me. It seems like there is a lot to do with faith and the ability to trust the process. Unfortunately, I am not very good at trusting. I was wondering if expressing doubt is enough and if I shouldn't expect for it to resolve and fall into place until later on in the scale?

Doubt is an emotion I have constantly felt, yet most of the time, I was unable to recognize it as such. I would classify it under the label of shame, as you mentioned below. Any ego identification seems to be somewhat tied to shame, which is why all negative emotions are perceived as so sticky compared to the positive ones, which are the recognition of our true, singular nature. Only the ego can feel bad. Doubt seems to be tied to the bottom emotions of the scale. Powerlessness, despair, fear, grief, unworthiness, guilt, all of them are lurking in the background, yet there is motivation and purpose that wasn't there at the bottom of the scale. The energy of anger can fuel us, propel us and act as a gatekeeper to sink back into the depth of the bottom of the scale. Anger is a protective emotion, and it's ripple effect pushed us to blame left and right to scapegoat something or someone for a situation that we feel is in need for a change, as we were struggling to find our power to transform the experience. Worry and doubt are a return to a sense of a sense of personal agency. It is about finding further self-love and learning to trust in our true nature. It is facing back maybe from the first time again the sorrow of the bottom of the scale as so many other emotions were going about something outward. Envy, hatred, anger, discouragement, blame, and worry all had something related to something external. Worry to me seems to be more about worrying about outside circumstances, while with doubt, we are worried WE are going to be the point of failure. Because there is the belief that we are not good enough, or shameful, etc. I have been journaling a lot lately on doubt and worry and felt confused a whole lot. I thought, jeez, am I expressing doubt or am I back at the bottom? Up to this day, I am not sure whether I uncover more feelings of powerlessness or if I am just uncovering all the doubts I've got and if this accurate or just.. worry. 😬

Ooooh. That is inspiring me! The responsibility element here is key and I never noticed that before. I see how worry is again directed at the self-concept directly, like the bottom of the scale emotions were. But this time, there is a sense of power which comes off as responsibility in the shape of existing power leverages that are recognized and want to be activated. The worry comes from the fear of not being successful in the desired outcome after having decided to take responsibility, and doubt has to do with feelings of not enoughness while moving toward our vison. I will contemplate on Doubt a bit more before posting. So far, I am just confused. 🫢

😊 🤍 What about Blame? Here is what comes for me: After the discouragement, there is still a sense of perceived issues being there. Something has been discouraging us, some sort of obstacle, and we still don't know what to do out of it. This something is being rejected and lots of thoughts and feelings arise question why things have to be that way. This level of frequency is dual and there is strong sense of what is right and what is wrong. Blaming is the attempt of trying to find the origin of the disturbance, in order to restaure the peace. Yet, it is misplaced in all sort of reasons why which aren't accurate. 'God has let me down, this person is evil, I am not good enough, etc.' are common exemple of this. The reason for suffering lays into our judgment of good and bad, which begets duality. But this truth isn't felt yet until much further on the scale, so blaming still occurs until the cycle is broken by reaching out to the next emotion that feels slightly better: Worry.

Great thread, thank you. 🥹 Everything that has been said brought me something, and here what arose while contemplating discouragement: Discouragement strikes a deeper chord as you come to realize your inherent worthiness for something greater. Anger marked the beginning of your profound sense of intrinsic worth, igniting you with energy and passion to embark on your quest for the beauty and love that defines your true nature. There's a profound sense of longing for something beautiful, acknowledged and yearned for, yet it still feels just beyond grasp... and it is deeply missed.

The most important thing to me is not to be 'looking for it'. So I am also not really digging deep into the 'why not'. The feelings I got towards it are enough. I follow the flow and the flow says ' I don't want it as of yet'. There are several additional reasons I can identify beyond those I've already mentioned. Given that my upbringing was characterized by significant trauma and emotional detachment, I feel compelled to prioritize clearing the unconscious energy stored within my body first. I've observed individuals who neglected this, subsequently experiencing mental distress and endangering their lives. As J. Campbell said: The psychotic drowns in the same waters in which the mystic swims with delight. Additionally, I have personally experienced distress as a result of unresolved emotions interfering with spiritual awakenings and I wouldn't recommend anyone to go deeper in this type of configuration. So the main reason I don't want enlightenment is because if I am ready for it, it just happens. If It hasn't happened yet, it means that it isn't right. Another element is that I want to facilitate the transition between enlightenment and non enlightenment by having a job and life situation that convert very well from one state to the other. And I am currently building it, but it is not mature yet.

I don't get your question.

That I don't want it. Mostly some concerns about how I survive as my current life situation would have to reshuffle itself and I'm unhappy about it happening without the illusion of 'my' will.

🤗

@Phil I got something out of all of that. Thank you.

As someone who isn't a native English speaker and has a limited vocabulary range, I don't see the value in fixating on minor word choices in situations like this. I experimented with different wording, making adjustments before posting to broaden the scope beyond just Eckhart Tolle. The initial question I posed was, "Why is it acceptable for Eckhart Tolle to discuss the ego if Phil denounces such discourse as lying?" So, for me, the discussions around the semantics of "enlightened masters" seem of little value.

The term "enlightened masters" remains neutral, allowing for diverse interpretations. As Phil (or maybe not Phil 😗) suggested earlier, it might suggest hierarchy, non-hierarchy, or whimsical scenarios, like polar bears savoring rainbow ice creams. Its significance varies depending on individual perspectives. Personally, I associate "master" with mastery and experience. However, shifting focus, my interest was there : Why is it acceptable for Eckhart Tolle to discuss the ego If Phil denounce such discourse as lying?

@Mandy I really don't think I was coming from a place of hierarchical framework. 'Meeting people where they are at' is a common saying in English, which convey the idea of creating some resonance through adaptability. I don't think there is much more to look into that. It's about being practical.

@Phil Just a reminder that enlightened masters like Eckhart Tolle write about the ego and thus meet people at a false belief. He is in your book recommendation list 3x 🤷‍♀️.

Could be interpreted both ways. The concession could be to truth, which means in that case that you compromise truth for the sake of it, in what is a paradoxal but existing occurence when one is trying help. Or the concession could be to the ego, which would mean in this case that you are biting too much into the illusion and thus compromising also on Truth. Lying is a bit of a stretch isn't it. People already believe they have an ego. It's more meeting them where they are. Yes. That's true. Not going to help out those who want to talk about your regular shadow work, which assume there is an ego and can't nearly see as far as you do, though.