Depression As A Stepping Stone (to Soul Growth)

I have received expressions of appreciation because of this thread, and I thank each of them: I am very glad my participation has been of some use, and to think I might help to change something, warms my heart.

I would like to beg you all to include Laura on your expressions.

I want to take all those expressions and hand them all to Laura, the one who really deserves them all, and the one who gave all this, and so much more, to anyone interested on hearing what she has to say.

I thank you, Maam, for your generosity and for your guidance: Your spirit is a example for me, and for thousands of others, of what it means to be deeply, deeply human -and how to get out alive!

My gratitude for your efforts are my every day efforts to be a better man every day.

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The article Depression as a Stepping Stone? is an alchemical/esoterical discourse that explains a particular maneuver of the soul attainable by the means of a "technique" that would lead us to achieve... or to be able to move towards "the beginning" of the staircase.

From: http://www.quantumfuture.net/qfs/qfs_depression1.htm

Moderator's note: Here's the new link for the article:
http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=2832.msg76821#msg76821

I would like to comment on a paragraph from this article, where a "secret" process is explained. A correct understanding of this process is a "stepping stone" -nonetheless than the first step on the staircase.

I think this paragraph condenses both the article, and the process in question. Load the document. Click on your browser Edit -> Find and type the key-word "mechanically": This will take you straight to it.

Depression as a Stepping Stone? said:

(S1) If, however, at the moment when the negative emotions arises in him, the subject remains calm and does not mechanically begin to run a program, something powerful and positive can occur. (S2) By persistent introspection, the individual can observe the rise of the negative emotions and can disconnect them from intellectual or moving center usurpation and, understanding the origin of the reaction, will shed light on the inner darkness. (S3) The individual is then in a position to perform an act of primary importance: the liberation of the energy of the negative emotion for positive use. (S4) To allow this energy to be kept in the emotional center itself, to concentrate there, while simultaneously acquiring the knowledge of the external reality that stimulated the emotional reaction, and preventing the energy from being dissipated by the moving center, is a "victory" over the negative emotion, a mastery of the self that immediately brings an inflow of joy to the lower emotional center. (S5) This occurs when the negative emotional energy, concentrated in this way, causes the lower emotional center to vibrate at the rapid rhythm that is normal to it, which then establishes instant contact with the higher emotional center which triggers the current of higher emotional energy into the lower. (S6) The inflow of higher joy in the current of energy from the higher emotional center can then act on the energy concentrated in the lower emotional center by induction, transmuting it into the higher energy of the soul, which is the essential process of fusing the magnetic center, or growing the 4th density body - the gradual transformation of the physical body to the immortal body. (S7) With practice, this contact can be prolonged with more rapid results.

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The paragraph is composed of seven sentences (S1-S7) that I have numbered for reference.

Depression is understood as "anger turned inwards". It is worth to mention, and important to understand, this reaction is the expected reaction a healthy mind would effect, when faced against the cultural, religious, scientific atmosphere of the societies of our time, where the stimulated values are in opposition to a healthy development of the individual: The Control System encourages and manufactures psychopathic characters who propagate their own values, so "to feel bad" is wrong -to "feel", is wrong.

Under this panorama, those depression-free individuals who inhabit and nourish the set of values, are in confluence with a system whose trait is to decrease the presence in the self. Most certainly, Depression as a state of being is the ticket to this "absence", where negative emotions find a territory of free expression. Basically, the Lye reproduces it's self ad infinitum in what appears to be a circle of inner deception.

How to break this circle? This is precisely the aspect I want to underline from the article: The How.

S1 gives the first key: It is through repeated and sustained efforts dedicated to not fall into confluence, how "something powerful and positive can occur". Efforts of non-confluence seem to be small things, easily dismissible, easily "postergated" since a direct effect is not automatically apparent. It sounds incredible that, by remaining calm when negative emotions arise, something "powerful" can occur. In the text of the article, Laura warns of a "trap" regarding this first key to orchestrate non-confluence efforts: When achieved, that is, when one manages to remain calm when a negative emotion arises, one would tend to think one has "achieved" the maneuver, since one has, effectively, managed to remain calm in the face of a negative emotion: See! I can remain calm! I did it! This self-contempt thoughts boycotts the entire How of the maneuver: The whole paragraph describes the maneuver, not just the first sentence. S1 presents an objective to achieve, and then to use -it is a process.

We are leaded to achieve a position from the which perform a esoteric action.

If we stay on the self-contempt of having achieved calm when negative emotions arise, the real meat of the maneuver is spoiled by those congratulating thoughts, and nothing happens (One just has learned a new trick). This thought have usurped the energy we are trying to manipulate.

Usurpation: A wrongful seizure or exercise of authority or privilege belonging to another; an encroachment. [http://www.thefreedictionary.com/usurpation]

Encroachment - entry to another's property without right or permission. [http://www.thefreedictionary.com/encroachment]

By thinking "congratulations", the intellectual center has exercised a privilege belonging to another. This is explained on S2: It is all about to disconnect the negative emotions from the intellectual and moving centers. It is about to delimitate what is happening inside of us by localizing its place of emergence within us.

So, "remaining calm" means not to think, not to move: Not to expand the event beyond it's own natural habitat. Any action of this type would start a program. If this can be avoided, something positive and powerful can occur.

To "remain calm" means not to think, not to move... but to observe. This attitude, thoroughly discussed on other threads, stops other centers from exercising authority over the negative emotion. This is the crack on the system: To hold the (negative) emotional energy on the emotional center. To keep what belongs to each center, within each center.

It is to This moment that the non-confluence efforts are directed to obtain: "Persistent Introspection" grooms [To prepare, as for a specific position or purpose: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/groom] the inner landscape to be able to catch this, as Don Juan calls it, "cubic centimeter of luck". And this moment is a Victory to obtain over the self.

S3: "The individual is then in a position to perform an act of primary importance: the liberation of the energy of the negative emotion for positive use." This is what self-contempt thoughts avoid on the subject. The process is subtle. Extremely subtle. And requires extreme attention to "shed light on the inner darkness". But, as noted, it is not automatic. The habit to obtain whatever we want as fast as possible (automatic satisfaction), as well as other innumerable habits (mainstream culture, scientific, religious, etc, ideas) acts against us: There is a notion of "now" ("I need this now, not in a few months time!") that applies a pressure on the outcome -and we abandon what requires effort from us, to "use our time more productively", and obtain something more immediate.

To counteract this, it is suggested (Castaneda) to act "without expectation", that is, to act as if nothing were never to result from this non-confluence efforts of "persistent introspection". I think to obtain this frame of mind is actually the grooming of the "grooming process", and this takes time: This is a "specific position" situated beyond the automatism; beyond the depression: We are calling our self's as we move towards our self's. This demands deprogramming, and this presents the suggestion to establish a period of preparation (abandoning all traces of a need of a guarantee) before even consider our self's as able to "perform an act of primary importance": We have to be there to perform this act. That is, we have to groom our capacity and our perception to be able to operate when the time comes to act.

The position is certainly attainable. Castaneda reports the useless actions Don Juan asked from him: Not-Doings. De-programming. The "time" factor consists on this: We most get used to this activity. We most insert it into our system, and make an habit of it. How, when depression is evident? Faith in one's self.

One, by remaining calm, could observe (stopping the usurpation). One could be in "position". BUT, to liberate energy of the negative emotion for positive use, this requires what only the discipline can give. This "something" gathers and accumulates on the body, slowly. "Personal Power", says Don Juan.

Knowledge.

This gathering of personal power has an objective in mind: To achieve the moment where we can grasp the cubic centimeter of luck. We most get there: That is no other than accumulating knowledge of our machine. By persistent introspection. By observation without expectations. By not-doings. By penetrating the version of the matrix that we, each of us, are.

And something powerful can occur: To allow the energy of the negative emotions to remain on the emotional center (S4). We most learn how to "allow" to "remain". I feel it as a kind of a "letting go" -a "let it be". To allow the negative emotions to remain on the lower emotional center is Legal: This is where they were originated; this is where they belong; this is where they most remain. Avoiding usurpation is crucial: Expression of this negative emotions is understood as usurpation. And it is just it, a usurpation: Other centers use what was not generated on them. The Control System trains us to take from others. It is not correct to understand this training as malevolent because it goes way as "deep on us" as to be manifested on our very same central constitutive parts. It is worst than that: It actually starts there, and goes way deep into the world. The activity of "taking from others" comes to the world from within, to establish it's self as a strategy, or a "value", of socialization (masked with numerous designations).

The channels of expression are the intellectual and the moving centers. It could not be in any other way: A emotion cannot be expressed by a emotion. A emotion can be masked with another emotion -Psychopath avenue.

How "to allow this energy to be kept in the emotional center"? It is not kept there by the means of its expression. Expression expels it from the emotional center. Thus, not expressing it is the core of the maneuver. But we most be careful not to mask this no-expression. How would we be masking it?: With another no-expression, aka, lying. We are to not-express the negative emotion, and not another emotion.

Sincerity.

We are to not-express it "while simultaneously acquiring the knowledge of the external reality that stimulated the emotional reaction". Instead of expressing it, we are to concentrate on what stimulated the emotional reaction. This is not an analytic attitude (intellectual), but an observation of the self and only an observation of the self. Persistent introspection most lead to the practice of this non-analytical attitude, which seems passive, but it is, indeed, stopping the world.

Don Juan tells his story to Castaneda: He worked on some Hacienda and the Capat�z wanted to kill him, which he manages -or so he thinks. Don Juan returns a few years latter, but with precisely this maneuver on his being, and comments, one most be able to gather information, while one is being beated with abandon.

And this is obtained by forgetting about one's own self sense of "security" -whatever it might happen to you, just let it happen to you: To allow this "carelessness" to be within. Does this sounds like a dangerous suggestion? Well, yes, a boat is safe on the harbor, but that is not what it was made for. So that was the Ego asking that, getting worried about the "security" of the fake self.

Nothing will happen to the true "I". On the contrary, it might just find a rest from the "I" Policeman! This one is the one on guard, making sure all our motives to be depressed or worried are there, every day, very ready to... drain. Let's stop expressing this.

This non-expression allows an inflow of joy to fall over the lower emotional center. A realization. The "bulb" lights-on, since we have acquired awareness "of what stimulated the emotional reaction" (we have gathered info when we were being beaten with abandon by the "depression"). This lapse of time when the realization is taking place, most be treated carefully... and allow it, first to start, then to end at its peace: This is the moment we are after! This is a Victory over the negative emotions! It is up until now that the event has happened!

Not before!

It took us a long time to groom the "inner self" as to finally arrive to this position. Many things have been removed on the process, and many things have been acquired... all to be able to perform this little tiny maneuver that may sound simple, but it is indeed the access, as the paragraph continues explaining, to another realm beyond depression... to say the least!

Immortality, to say it properly.

How this "joy" occurs? (S5): The vibration of the lower emotional center stimulates the higher emotional center, so this last one releases higher emotional energy. But the lower emotional center cannot vibrate if the energy of the negative emotion is expressed: We most contain it for some precious moments, allowing the lower emotional center to vibrate. This, and observation (lucidity) is all that is required from us. The rest occurs on it's own, thou contact is established between lower and higher emotional centers.

This, explained on the article in a lengthy manner, can only be understood by experience. Then we will know what this is about or how does this feels. Without this experience, there is no clarity on what is being exposed.

Depression as a Stepping Stone? communicates a universal Law: Tendencies accentuate. Take a transatlantic ship: Turning one millimeter the wheel, algorithmically modifies the direction of the ship. This is the main motive for this comment: To invite to obtain a first, as tiny as it might be, Victory over the self.

Just one!

We desperately require one Victory. One that, without any shadow of a doubt, can effectively appear to our entire eyes as a clear and distinct Victory.

It is after this ONE Victory that we most arrange every single gram of inner strength that we had ever dreamed to possess: We most build-up the entire universe in order to produce, and obtain, this ONE cubic centimeter of luck -this ONE Victory we so need... because we need a evidence.

One!

How much would this Victory cost to any one of us?: Whatever it takes, for we are to obtain it because, only then, the gate of time starts to get open.

Only then we have achieved to operate the action that constitutes on setting our foot in the first step of the staircase.

Before this Victory... everything is a Lye.

This ONE achievement is the evidence that life is real, only then, when "I am".

Meanwhile, what has been the prize of not having this experiential evidence?: Happy Lyzzies crushing away our souls -oh, sorry, I meant to say "depression".

So, we are talking of two energies here: One, is the one concentrated on the lower emotional center; the other, is what the higher emotional center produces after the vibrational stimulation it receives from the lower emotional center.

It is this second energy, non-related and superior to the first, the which will act on the concentrated energy vibrating on the lower emotional center, "by induction".

Induction: [http://www.thefreedictionary.com/induction]

- The generation of electromotive force in a closed circuit by a varying magnetic flux through the circuit.

- The charging of an isolated conducting object by momentarily grounding it while a charged body is nearby.

"Varying magnetic flux..."

"Momentarily grounding it..."

When a negative emotion arrives, the lower emotional center gets charged with a varying magnetic flux (the fast vibration natural to the lower emotional center): This charged body, momentarily grounded (aka, the no-expression), charges an isolated conducting object -The higher emotional center. This generates "electromotive" force. That's in a car. In our "General Presences", this is called higher energy of the soul, "which is the essential process of fusing the magnetic center, or growing the 4th density body - the gradual transformation of the physical body to the immortal body" (S6).

(S7) With practice, this contact can be prolonged with more rapid results.

Thanks for reading.

The First Victory. Comments on LKJ's "Depression as a Stepping Stone?"

Hi Art,

First of all thanks again for posting the article, I cannot tell you how much of a difference it has made to me. Although the depression has not gone away , by any means, I still felt a huge sense of relief upon reading it, for several reasons. Reading the comments that members of QFS have written was almost like reading about my own life and feelings in some cases - I know now that I am not alone or crazy! And just to know that depression is in fact a part of the process of the Work, in itself makes me feel much better about it. I had been thinking of it as something that would impede my progress, now I see that it actually can be a tool one can use to Do the Work, through study and observation of the process. And along that line, I have made some observations over the last few days, and I'd like to share here what I have noticed.

- I have observed that one aspect of the depression is a feeling of emptiness, and that emptiness , I think is at least in part because I have been attempting to stop anticipating all the time. I realise that I usually spend so much time anticipating future events, both negative and positive ones, that probably a huge percentage of my thoughts revolve around and around these kind of thoughts. And when I stop doing it, there is a big gap, an emptiness, - what do I think about? It appears that a lot of the happiness I had (I thought) was just from anticipating events. I've even noticed how I somehow enjoy thinking about negative scenarios! Ugh.. So there is a bare space there now, that I have to learn to fill .

- observing when experiencing negative emotions. Having a loveable but bossy and strong willed three year old has given me a regular source of these and I must say , I really don't get nearly as annoyed as I used to. These are of course, really minor situations, but none the less, I have "held it below the neck" a few times and have felt a feeling that is, I thought, perhaps the sweetness that has been mentioned. BUT - I was also congratulating myself as well, which I now see wasn't a good idea - cancelling it out in a way. So I have a long way to go before the First Victory, but at least I have made a start and now I have a better idea of what to do.

This is about as far as I've got so far, its funny that all my life I was an extremely fast reader, and now man has that changed, I'm as slow as can be, it's like I cannot read the way I used to, so it will take me some time to have read enough to comment further.

The First Victory. Comments on LKJ's "Depression as a Stepping Stone?"

Woah, that sums it up. For awhile i've been complaining that i didn't quite get "how" to do "it" where both how and it were ambiguous. I read castenda, read G, read M and still i didn't get it.

It just clicked.

Thank you for that.

The First Victory. Comments on LKJ's "Depression as a Stepping Stone?"

Thank you as well, Ark, for the in-depth explanation, it makes much mores sense and coalesce what I've been reading and experimenting (or trying to ;)) so far.



I was wondering though, when you say Negative emotions does it only relate to what I categorize as anger, hate, self depreciation, etc... or can it be as well positive (like joy, excitation and so on) but articially induced ? not coming up from your deeper being but from an habit or because of imitation for example ?

Maybe it has no relevance because if you're engaged in spiritual work, you would already be watching for any fake/automatic emotions, even positive ones.


I also remarked that I don't know if I am supressing the negative emotion altogether or If I really keep it in the emotional center, and just be present.
I've got no reference point.

Do you know when it happens or can you dismiss it because you don't know what it "feels" like ?

I think this is very important for me to be able to make the difference between shutting out the emotion and shutting out the emotion without denying it.

The First Victory. Comments on LKJ's "Depression as a Stepping Stone?"

Took me awhile to read through the QFS article on Depression but Art, I just wanted to say thank you for making it so much easier to understand. Last few weeks have been really depressing with all that has been happening, and still is happening in Lebanon and Gaza. Not only was I feeling depress but also angry and frustrated. Couldn't continue to look at the horrible images of mutilated bodies, especially of the babies and children. Perhaps now I can use these negative emotions that I am experiencing to do the work.

The First Victory. Comments on LKJ's "Depression as a Stepping Stone?"

question:

Art said:

Instead of expressing it, we are to concentrate on what stimulated the emotional reaction. This is not an analytic attitude (intellectual), but an observation of the self and only an observation of the self.

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Does that mean to just hold the situation in mind the caused the negative emotion?

Further, if we are moving when we are exposed to the negative stimulis, IE driving (i get road rage and have been tryin to channel it constructively) may we continue to move (shift gears, break, etc) as long as we don't let that emotion slip into our motive center and influence our motions or is this too blurred together to allow constructive use?

For example, i tend to drive a little faster then most, when i find someone slow in the left lane of a highway that excites a frustration, however i simply state "patience" in my mind, let the car slow a bit and relax without venting that negative emotion into my environment (getting on their bumper, cursing, etc), is that correct or am i missing something?

The First Victory. Comments on LKJ's "Depression as a Stepping Stone?"

Art: Thanks. To break it down took some effort and we are all benefiting from it.
I very much would like to second a couple of statements, as I felt just the same after reading your very dense (as in "compliment") post.

Cyre2067 said:

For awhile i've been complaining that i didn't quite get "how" to do "it" where both how and it were ambiguous [...] and still i didn't get it.

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and..

manitoban said:

So I have a long way to go before the First Victory, but at least I have made a start and now I have a better idea of what to do.

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I copied your post and printing it out to have it on me, so I can read it again when I am in the mids of the depressing emotion!

I am not out of it yet but my attitude is changing thanks to all the responses and the group effort to work through it. I now understand that depression is not a desirable state but a necessary one, in order to obtain the needed stepping stone. Without it you don't even arrive on the very first stair that leads up the stairway.

Cyre2067 said:

Does that mean to just hold the situation in mind the caused the negative emotion?

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The way I attempt it is to step out of myself and look at me from a few feed away and say: Now look at this guy. He/she/it said x/y/z to this guy and he feels this pain. Isn't that odd.

And that is it. Just to wonder about that this person over there (me) reacts this way to whatever had just been said or done.

Cyre2067 said:

or example, i tend to drive a little faster then most, when i find someone slow in the left lane of a highway that excites a frustration, however i simply state "patience" in my mind, let the car slow a bit and relax without venting that negative emotion into my environment (getting on their bumper, cursing, etc), is that correct or am i missing something?

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I think it could work the same way. Put yourself on the passenger seat or the rear seat and go: Look - how strange! This car in front drives slow and this guy behind the wheel here in this car turns read in rage as a result. How very peculiar!

That's all.

I have to say; I wish I could do it as I describe it to you Cyre. That is a different story. But that is how I attempt it anyway. Hopefully one day comes that one victory for the both oft us....

PS: Thanks Art for starting this thread (as I planed to start one concerning depressions). Thanks for being a step ahead of me and therewith motivating me to do more. I needed this extra motivation that you supplied so generously.

The First Victory. Comments on LKJ's "Depression as a Stepping Stone?"

[How can I correct the title?]
[Ho! :) Thank you for correcting the title!]

Hi all. I am glad you have found some use on the comment.

I first read the article a few years back. Twice. And it made no sense to me whatsoever. This was infuriating to me. Not because I was not able to understand the things in general (I am a slow worker), but because I clearly felt I had just read something truly.... concrete -and I had missed it!

Twice!

Something inside of me did end up vibrating. Something unknown to me, vibrating in an unknown manner (I am not exaggerating or being colorful): What is this? How can she (Laura) do that? -I asked to my self.

I think it was the fact I perceived a sense of hope.

I leaved the article alone for some time. Then I started to suspect that I suffer from depression, and I remembered the article: There is something there!, I yelled to me. It took me a full month to understand what Laura was talking about. And since then, I have wanted to comment the paragraph I quoted.

I never did because first I thought it was just me and my particular faulty intellectual skills the ones that had made it so hermetic to my comprehension. Then, after reading and reading and reading it over and over, when it finally started to make some sense to me, I localized this paragraph, but I had no "pretext" to comment it: I thought it had no use to comment it, since the article on it's self is quite straightforward in real. It does explains the matter quite lengthy, up to the detail. And today, what I feel I did was just to add words to it -but this time, there is a "pretext": Yous. We.

This paragraph was what started to magnetize my center.

I realized of that when my ex-wife contacted me for the last time. It was not the magnitude of her lies, but my realization of the systematic fashion of her lies, what made me explode on the inside like TNT injected on my veins... and it happened.

It was clear and distinct. Amazingly clear and distinct.

Imagine a wide column. If you were to hold this column, your fingers would not reach to touch each others on the other side. Ok this column has wet paint. Now go and hold it tight. Unhold it now: You have wet paint on the respective area of your body that was in contact with the column. This area starts on the left hand and continues up the inside part of your left arm. It goes on to your chest, crossing it (it expands up, a bit towards your collar bone, and down, a bit towards your upper stomach), and continues on to your right arm, down it's inner part, to end at your right hand, right?

After her brutal contact, this area of my body did end-up vibrating (literally vibrating), for 2 weeks. This is all on its own is quite amazing. Now add this: My mind was clear.

I was calm.

Yet, this area of my body, was clearly vibrating (it would weaken as it advanced down my arms; it would faint towards my hands). And my mental process was incredibly clear! I can report a special sort of Joy was indeed washing down through me: For the first time, her poison, her betrayals, her lies, were not making a negative effect on me. I was observing it. I was not missing her. Her actions were very there, but were not hurting me.

So I was able to observe this event, just as Laura had explained it! I was going through the paragraph, in a literal manner, line after line... corroborating it. I had had my First Victory!

It was after this event that I decided to start to participate on the forum (those were the last days of the old forum). I had earned my participation (or so I felt, and so I feel): I had something! I had an evidence of all that Laura was talking about! And it was all explained on this paragraph!

***

Manitoban said:

And when I stop doing it [anticipating], there is a big gap, an emptiness.

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Manitoban, I have been trying to sense on me this effect you report, a "gap", after stopping anticipation. And I think one of two: You either confuse it with "a demand of a response" that the world requires from you, or I have to allow more time to my self to feel this as a "bare space".

When anticipation is gone, it seems to me the things all become more present. They acquire another quality of presence. More immediate. More in a relationship to us. They move to a more predominant plane, a plane closer to us. So they are more at reach, and they demand a solution more loudly: They persist.

I suffer of depression too, and I think I can understand how this change on the quality of the presence of the things can be understood as a "gap": This demand of a response falls on a "silent place" on us, and they fall down there, like a marble down a hole -GLUP! They are swallowed in a sudden manner, and they disappear.

If my line of thought is similar to your experience, what I do is this: I DARE to (that is correct: It is a Dare). I dare to catch that marble, and be responsible for it. I take it (this is an effort against immobility), and I attend to all its desires and needs, to then let it go: This is a step towards purposeful action. This is a step to accentuate tendencies.

Or, on the other hand, time. You say it would take you more time to read more. It is perfectly fine: There is absolutely no hurry. MOST PARTICULARY when it is about the first victory...

DISCLAIMER: I do not know if Laura would validate this maneuver as, effectively, a "First" Victory. It is just an expression I use to convey the transcendence of the achievement.

... so take your time, as I will take it further to sense and observe this "gap" you mention, to perhaps be able to make more precise comments: We are studying, right? And we are studying our selfs: That is a very sensitive action: We most give to this "marble" all that it needs, providing all that it requires from us.

Tigersoap said:

Thank you as well, Ark...

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lol I knew this will happen.

Tigersoap said:

when you say Negative emotions does it only relate to what I categorize as anger, hate, self depreciation, etc... or can it be as well positive (like joy, excitation and so on) but artificially induced ? not coming up from your deeper being but from an habit or because of imitation for example ?

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Positive, but artificially induced, is not positive, but the result of a lye, a masking of the expression of the negative emotion with another emotion, coming from an habit, as you say. Habit = Programming. First: The social atmosphere does not encourage the expression of the emotions. Second: It is not socially accepted to express the negative emotions. Third: That's why we mask a.- the negative emotion, and b.- the expression of the negative emotion with another emotion. This is paramount, and very relevant, I think: Living in this milkshake of the emotionality, how do we know if we are indeed suppressing the negative emotion? Where is the reference point?: There aint! We most build it! I think we most build-up this position. We most get there, that is, take step after step towards it, approaching to it, until we get to be in a position. Trail and error. Practice. Patience. This event is behind a barrier. I think it is the barrier of the self-reflection, that were we don't know, that where we cannot recognize if we are suppressing (not-expressing) the negative emotion: We most go-ahead and perform, little by little, a delimitation of the happenings within us. This is digging. This is finding.

And one day... one glory day... it will happen. You will know, specially now, that we have found words to that.

Tigersoap said:

I think this is very important for me to be able to make the difference between shutting out the emotion and shutting out the emotion without denying it.

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Can I ask you: How do you think this differentiation would be possible to make? Can you come-up with some sort of plan or strategy or scheme to that end? How do you think this could be possible to attain?

Vulcan59 said:

Took me awhile to read through the QFS article on Depression

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It is not fast stuff. And Laura's part do certainly deserves to be read with a magnifying glass, taking notes on every idea, making a "map" of ideas, what comes first, what comes next, why... Me I have had to transcribe the article (Laura's part) a few times. I think whatever time it takes, it is certainly worthy. And there is no hurry. One really needs to dwell in a reflective mood to study it. Then to go and exercise the understanding, as one is atent to the inner events... practicing, remembering what is there to do! There is a saying that goes something like: The knowledge is something you have to steal. Yes it is there, the article is at the reach of anyone. But it is not enough to read it. One needs to READ it. One needs to... unfold it.

In the article it is also mentioned, towards the end, that one most not stay depressed. One needs to master this maneuver to apply it every time we LIVE on this world because there are other steps ahead, waiting for us. QFS, for example. The five steps to the fusion of the magnetic center.... There are a lot of things to do! Is just this stupid depression gets to catch us by the neck: We most fight like a fish out of the water to remove that grasp!

Cyre2067 said:

Art said:

Instead of expressing it, we are to concentrate on what stimulated the emotional reaction. This is not an analytic attitude (intellectual), but an observation of the self and only an observation of the self.

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Does that mean to just hold the situation in mind the caused the negative emotion?

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Mhm... not just to "hold the situation in mind", but to actually obtain a realization, an understanding of the trigger of the negative emotion instead of expressing it. I think your idea is on the right track, but needs just a bit, just a little bit more: It is to contemplate. To achieve this, one most have got enough practice on self-observation, I think. It can be quite straightforward: That guy is driving slowly -well that is the motive of the negative emotion, one would think.

No. Go previous to that: The frustration does not come from the guy driving slowly. I mean, the road rage does not come from the road rage. What is there, lying silently within you, Brent? This is the thing to get to discover by contemplation. From where comes the rage in general? Not just the road rage. The rage in general. This is what you most find.

Under driving circumstances, the moving center most be active, or you crash. But is most be active in a controlled, purposeful manner, not instinctively. It is the way you realize those movements. While driving on a rage episode, shift gears, break, etc, but in a calm manner. As if the rage were not there. Take the gear, and shift it with delicacy, softly, with elegance, if you wish. And not in a raging fashion. Do this while breathing softly, and not in that anger way we breathe when in a rage. See? It is the expression of the rage what most be "skip over", I think. And this energy, use it to shift the focus of your mind, not on the slow car or traffic, but on your inner perception: Brent would be not saying "patience", and that's all. No. Brent will be saying something like: Why my body reacted like that? Wait a second, lets find another instance, so now I can observe more closely (breath slowly). What was it that trigger the rage? My eagerness, perhaps?.

Cyre2067 said:

let the car slow a bit and relax without venting that negative emotion into my environment (getting on their bumper, cursing, etc), is that correct or am i missing something?

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It is correct, if you get to feel a sense of... serenity precisely as the rage kicks in. It is correct if you can manage to surprise the rage with this lack of attention towards it!

Fifth Way's observations are cool.

And why you like to drive so fast anyway?

Fifth Way said:

I copied your post and printing it out to have it on me, so I can read it again when I am in the midst of the depressing emotion!

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Correct! See, on last podcasts Laura explains how Gurdjieff would not be able to remember what he had to do! And this is very important: It is another threshold to be able to remember what to do when the negative emotion arrives! This is why a thorough examination of the ideas presented on the article, fetching a sort of "emergency plan" to activate when a negative emotion arrives, is very important, because it is not easy to steal a few precious moments from the expression of the negative emotion in order to change the direction of our inner being! So having a clear list of activities to elaborate when a negative emotion arrives, was my goal too!

A negative emotion arrives. And we:

1.- Stop (not "patience", Brent :). It is similar, but it is not the same): Relax the muscles of the body, instead of getting "offended" or "angry" or whatever. Move and breathe slowly. Calmly.

2.- Localize the source of the negative emotion: Contemplation of the inner world. Need practice on self observation.

3.- Feel the negative emotion vibrating: Just to "allow" to "remain". This demands one to accept a negative emotion is in place. Ok! It IS in place! Cool! Let it be there!

PRACTIZE WILL RENDER VICTORY!

What do you forumites think of this "3 steps plan" to activate when a negative emotion arrives? Do you think it does represent the idea in a effective manner?

Thanks to you FW, and you all, for reading and participating.

The First Victory. Comments on LKJ's "Depression as a Stepping Stone?"

Just a quick note here. I've been reading "Gnosis" for about two months or or so now, and it goes into the "centers" in great depth.

Anyway, I have noticed the "not identifying" with a negative emotion causes a very strange sensation as well.

It is almost a bliss or something. It IS quite strange.

Don

The First Victory. Comments on LKJ's "Depression as a Stepping Stone?"

dhess31 said:

I have noticed the "not identifying" with a negative emotion causes a very strange sensation as well.

It is almost a bliss or something. It IS quite strange.

Don

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I think the feeling you describe as "bliss" I perceive as "being filled with awe." And I agree is IS quite amazing, and difficult to convey.

The First Victory. Comments on LKJ's "Depression as a Stepping Stone?"

Art said:

Manitoban, I have been trying to sense on me this effect you report, a "gap", after stopping anticipation. And I think one of two: You either confuse it with "a demand of a response" that the world requires from you, or I have to allow more time to my self to feel this as a "bare space".

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These are just a few initial thoughts about this. I'm wondering if the 'gap' I feel is when I have sort of stopped the program thats running in me ( or sort of removed myself , separated myself from the negative emotions) and I feel empty without it. I am so used to running some kind of program all the time that I am somehow uncomfortable when its not there. I observed this last night actually - I had another opportunity to feel negative emotions arising, I did observe it and did keep it down. Then I also remembered not to start congratulating myself and I did'nt do that either, BUT what then happened is my mind suddenly went off about some stuff I have to do next week. It was almost like when the negative emotion program was inactivated by me, some other anticipation programme quickly arose to take its place. Like I automatically had to fill the gap, I couldn't just be. I hope what I am describing here makes sense, I actually find it diffcult to find the right words to explain . (maybe because i don't actually understand it that well? )I am not sure if this might be what you are referring to with the "demand of response"?

Another point I have noticed is that even the small things that used to frustrate me and annoy me don't anymore - I feel so ashamed when I think about how such small events would tick me off , now it is much easier to just observe them. But these are really minor things, no big test. (yet!)

And

Art said:

Or, on the other hand, time. You say it would take you more time to read more. It is perfectly fine: There is absolutely no hurry. MOST PARTICULARY when it is about the first victory

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I really need to remind myself of this, sometimes I get so caught up in the urgency - I simply cannot absorb all this quickly and I need to just accept that instead of trying to force the pace.

Anyway, this is all great stuff, it is such a big help to have the work broken down into smaller steps and to get the help of the group.

The First Victory. Comments on LKJ's "Depression as a Stepping Stone?"

Cyre2067 said:

question:

Art said:

Instead of expressing it, we are to concentrate on what stimulated the emotional reaction. This is not an analytic attitude (intellectual), but an observation of the self and only an observation of the self.

Click to expand...

Does that mean to just hold the situation in mind the caused the negative emotion?

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I don't think so. It means, in the most simplistic terms, to just feel what you are feeling without battling it's very existence. It just it what it is. Why should it be anything else? To hold the situation in the mind is possibly another usurpation.

The First Victory. Comments on LKJ's "Depression as a Stepping Stone?"

Art - thank you very much for this commentary. It made this maneuver of using negative emotions clear to me, finally. At least in this moment. I will follow FW's idea of printing this out and keeping handy for reference anytime it's needed - and I WILL need it.

Now maybe it will be a little off-topic, but anyway, I'd like to share this..What you wrote about not rushing things, slowing down and proper studying struck me mightfully now.

Sometimes I feel ashamed, because several forum members already indicated that trying to rush things while learning has negative effect to the extent that nothing is really learned at all, and I seemingly read those comments, but not internalized what was said.

Now that I saw your method of working, reading and "unfolding" the material I recalled that I used to do it - but a very long time ago. It was in primary school, when I was just curious of things, had fun with learning and had not much to worry about. I could just sit with books, notebook, coloured pencils and make "mind maps", diagrams, notes, etc. Like every moment I was learning a new thing was an adventure. But then...I went to secondary school, which my parents chose for me, because it was so "higly regarded and renown". That environment turned out to be so overwhelmingly suppresive, so intimidating (teachers and class-mates together) that now as I think of it I feel something DIED in me back then. Learning was fun no more, actually, I've begun to hate it. And to survive in school while hating it like I did I closed in myself, in my own world, reading science-fiction books and dreaming of other times and other worlds. To pass tests I did everything that was necessary, but since I hated learning, I started to cheat. And when the cheating has begun, there was no end to it.

And so it went. Even when I switched schools and then went to university, I was still cheating. I liked SOME subjects, which I studied and in those cases I was fair in my conduct, but those cases were rare. I usually relied on my luck, intelligence and wits - since I'm rather a smooth-talker I very often succeded in fooling everyone around me. But, it seems I've succeded to fool MYSELF in the first place.

Now as I write it I feel grief.. grief for something alive in me what was killed by The System, what I then substituted with trickery and what now I'm certainly missing. Hopefully, this moment will be a seed from which a new tree of passion and attention to learning will grow eventually.

And there is curious thing about this grief..and I'd like to know your thoughts about it, forumites. I sense some part of me likes this emotion, like it would be very satisfied with just wallowing in grief. Why is that or what is that? Is it because I'm letting myself to feel it, instead of escaping or overlying it with another emotion or activity? Strange thing, I haven't felt like this since three years now, when I finally went over my "heartbreak hotel" drama.

Thank you again, Art, and all others for your contributions and for your being here.

The First Victory. Comments on LKJ's "Depression as a Stepping Stone?"

dhess31 said:

Anyway, I have noticed the "not identifying" with a negative emotion causes a very strange sensation as well. It is almost a bliss or something. It IS quite strange.

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Lucy said:

I think the feeling you describe as "bliss" I perceive as "being filled with awe." And I agree it IS quite amazing, and difficult to convey.

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I was wondering, just how useful do you think it would be to "strange-fy" the vibration of the lower emotional center?

There are words to describe it: to shed light on the inner darkness; the liberation of the energy of the negative emotion for positive use; to adquire the knowledge of the external reality that stimulated the emotional reaction; a mastery of the self; an inflow of joy to the lower emotional center; etc.

This descriptive sentences are profiling a process designed to crack the matrix. The Knight would eventually find it's self experiencing the absence of this matrix and would know, yes, it is a "strange" feeling, but because of the alienation the process is addressing in a direct, powerful way, and not because it is it's own nature to be strange. One finds it to be actually quite natural, quite liberating... and yes: Quite clear.

What is strange, is not to be able to obtain the First Victory. This requires immence efforts: One has to build, with one's own hands, the requirements; one has to gather personal power; and one has to build and gather this elements from the effort to comprehend the nature of the matrix, and from the efforts to penetrate the self, which happens to be in "sleep mode".

Understand something: Everything is against the Knight, so do not expect immediate results, immediate understanding.

Expect LYES:

- This state of serenity is beyond me.

- I don't understand this.

- This "inner vision" is only for those with a Chaman nearby.

- I cannot attain it because of my depression...

- I suffer of something so strange that no one can explain, that's why. Yeah, that most be why.

Manitoban said:

the 'gap' I feel is when I have sort of stopped the program thats running in me and I feel empty without it. I am so used to running some kind of program all the time that I am somehow uncomfortable when its not there... It was almost like when the negative emotion program was inactivated by me, some other anticipation programme quickly arose to take its place. Like I automatically had to fill the gap, I couldn't just be.

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Only those who get in there; only those who grope and touch and feel that territory, recognizing it, can get legal concerns, like Manitoban here. His text comes from his inner territory: He is reporting. He is describing: "It was almost like when the negative emotion program was inactivated by me". I think this is a vigorous movement of the inner eye.

Manitoban, I was lost when I was talking of "demand of response". What you describe is more like it indeed: "BUT what then happened is my mind suddenly went off about some stuff I have to do next week". This observation is IMPOSSIBLE if one actually is not right there to observe it happening. If one does not gets in there, without a instructions sheet and without a flashlight, there will only be "technical questions".

Yes! Manitoban has "shed light on the inner darkness"! He reports it is difficult to find the right words to expolain it: This is correct. I mean, he is not saying "I think it is difficult" or "it seems difficult"; he is saying: "I actually find it difficult".

Manitoban said:

Another point I have noticed is that even the small things that used to frustrate me and annoy me don't anymore

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What was it that you did, as for the things that used to frustrate you, don't frustrate you anymore? How did you stopped that effect?

StrangeCaptain said:

Cyre2067 said:

Does that mean to just hold the situation in mind the caused the negative emotion?

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I don't think so. It means, in the most simplistic terms, to just feel what you are feeling without battling it's very existence. It just it what it is. Why should it be anything else? To hold the situation in the mind is possibly another usurpation.

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Greetings, My Captain!

Most certainly. It is about to feel. As simplistic and elemental as that. To feel, without battling it's very existance.

This is just an example: Take a needle. Pinch your finger. And just observe. Don't jump. Don't cry "ouch!". Don't curse. Don't suck it. Don't tight your eyes. Don't go "usshhhhh...!". Don't rise your eyebrows. Do not allow your blood to "boil". Do not "congratulate" your self: LIMIT YOUR SELF TO FEEL. JUST THAT.

Our bodies (mine included, most certainly!) have forgotten to feel. Mainly those bodies of us who think "not me". This is why we express the negative emotions: Fear, or corporal ignorance, to feel it. So we most get rid of it ASAP (and over the one we think was the one producing it, like a poor guy who was just enjoying the view while driving!).

j0da said:

I feel something DIED in me back then.

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Greetings, Mr. Joda! So nice to see you here. And so nice to be here!

That was a great post! And totally related, if you ask me!

I know what you mean. When I was about the age you talk about, me too, I also "closed in my self" to the extent there are WHOLE YEARS I cannot say what was it that I did, or what was it that I was thinking... Just lost. And it was preciselly at secondary school time as well. At that stage of my life, I was a trully miserable youngster. And today it pains me such a waste, sucha state which extended trough several years on my life. It griefs me too.

Yes: What was that?

I have a hypothesis: In that period, a battle took place and the lye was installed. The lye, along with all the parafernalia of the "socialization skills" and this "predilection" for being alone, for willowing in grief, as you say, or to enjoy thinking about negative scenarios, like Manitoban said.

What was that? Was it not a ponerization process?

j0da said:

Now as I write it I feel grief.. grief for something alive in me what was killed by The System, what I then substituted with trickery and what now I'm certainly missing. Hopefully, this moment will be a seed from which a new tree of passion and attention to learning will grow eventually.

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For Joda:

THE TWO TREES

By William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

BELOVED, gaze in thine own heart,
The holy tree is growing there;
From joy the holy branches start,
And all the trembling flowers they bear.
The changing colours of its fruit
Have dowered the stars with merry light;
The surety of its hidden root
Has planted quiet in the night;
The shaking of its leafy head
Has given the waves their melody,
And made my lips and music wed,
Murmuring a wizard song for thee.
There the Loves a circle go,
The flaming circle of our days,
Gyring, spiring to and fro
In those great ignorant leafy ways;
Remembering all that shaken hair
And how the winged sandals dart,
Thine eyes grow full of tender care:
Beloved, gaze in thine own heart.

Gaze no more in the bitter glass
The demons, with their subtle guile,
Lift up before us when they pass,
Or only gaze a little while;
For there a fatal image grows
That the stormy night receives,
Roots half hidden under snows,
Broken boughs and blackened leaves.
For all things turn to barrenness
In the dim glass the demons hold,
The glass of outer weariness,
Made when God slept in times of old.
There, through the broken branches, go
The ravens of unresting thought;
Flying, crying, to and fro,
Cruel claw and hungry throat,
Or else they stand and sniff the wind,
And shake their ragged wings; alas!
Thy tender eyes grow all unkind:
Gaze no more in the bitter glass.

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The First Victory. Comments on LKJ's "Depression as a Stepping Stone?"

This post couldn't have come at a better time. I've been mired in depression for the last month or so. Reading your post touched something in me. I couldn't take my eyes from the screen as I read.

It's funny that I get glimpses of "another me" sort of at times. Your post gave me another one of those glimpses. It is like getting a glimpse behind the Matrix for a moment but not being able to actually move beyond it without doing the work to break it down inside of myself. One of the really difficult things about breaking it down is the confusion that sets in rather quickly for me. Sometimes it seems like there is so much to deal with and think about at once with no obvious point to focus on.

I think what you have written provides a very good focus point. As I read I thought, "this has got to be my aim for now." Suddenly, my depression is feeling a bit like a gift.

Thank you for taking the time to lay this out in such a clear way.