Learning to Sense and Control the Functioning of One's Centers - Help?

[StrangeCaptain]

Thanks again for recommending the 5 psychology books - I read Unholy Hungers over the weekend, and am hunting down copies of the others :p I do try and apply as much knowledge that I newly acquire as possible to my recapitulations and observations, but I must say I don't understand your comment on how reframing or applying that which we've learned to our lives and self-knowledge necessarily side-steps the issue of bankruptcy. Wouldn't this wall only occur if we refuse to alter our self-image based on our new understandings and observations? Are you referring to how some may confuse "gaining self-knowledge" with the useless reshuffling of the psychic material?

Well... I think Anart rephrased what I was trying to say, but as an example, I will quote you:

I've been studying myself independently for about four years relating to these questions, and I want to ask others who are doing/studying similar activities in themselves for feedback and maybe some assistance with some things I'm beginning to encounter. The goal of this is to bring these observations of mine into the context of the work so that I may more fully understand my experiences with your assistance. There’s a lot here, because I’ve been carrying on these observations of my centers for a few years. I wanted to get this all out here because I recognize how critical it is to get feedback from the network/school on my development and such, and I think I’m a bit backlogged as far as that goes, hehe. So I want to see if I’m on the right track or if there are either things I am missing, or things that I am going about incorrectly.

I first started observing how my mind/body works as manifested through certain centers about four summers ago. I was just out of school, and my mind had essentially imploded from all the intensive studying I was doing. I had frequent headaches and stomach aches, for example. These didn't go away immediately after school was out either. It wasn't until I started doing qi gong, and some “grounding” exercises by some people I met that my stomach aches subsided, and I actually felt like I was in my body again! Being a primarily cerebral person, my curiosity about how this all worked was piqued.

I tried focusing on certain feelings or sensations in my body, as Mouravieff advised when he taught the Sage's Pose in Gnosis I: Exoterica (I didn't begin to study Mouravieff until this summer, but I found the connection/corroboration interesting). Eventually I learned to direct awareness and sort of up-regulate the functioning of certain centers and such. This was the first inroad I made to learning how to directly control the functioning of centers, instead of commonly used methods of indirect control (such as, say, doing yoga to try and direct more awareness to your physical center, or doing calculus to direct more awareness to your mental center). My first real empirical test for this was jumping into a freezing cold shower while raising the activity of my physical center. The result was that I actually felt more capable and able to endure the sensory shock of having cold water pouring all over me. There was much less internal resistance to it... like I was more able to embrace the new experience and assimilate it.

I should add I didn't learn how to down-regulate or slow down the functioning of centers until I started reading more into the fourth way path. I think this had to do with my eventual waking up to the fact that the wasting of energy through the misuse of centers is a serious obstacle in the way.

Who was making all of these observations? Who was focusing on these feelings and sensations? Quite simply, who is the observer? Were these observations and sensations just the thousand little I's having conversations with each other? I don't think we can begin to answer these questions before having the type of first initiation that Salzmann describes, and if we have not had that initiation, placing validity on observations of doubtful quality and building structures on top of these observations is a barrier from this type of initiation because we get further and further from being able to see where we started chasing our own tail in the first place.

I am in no position to judge rather or not this is what you are doing. I am in a position to say that this is a real and present danger. I am not going to claim that I have undergone this 1st initiation. I can however say that I have mistaken past experiences as being a first initiation through exactly this type of trying to redescribe my life in terms of esoteric vocabulary, and in doing so, was not able to see just how dysfunctional my everyday life was (and still is in many ways). For me, it was a sort of desperate way of saying "Yes! Yes! I know something! See? See?"

So... As the French would say... Bon courage!!! And best wishes...

 

[whitecoast]

Who was making all of these observations? Who was focusing on these feelings and sensations? Quite simply, who is the observer? Were these observations and sensations just the thousand little I's having conversations with each other? I don't think we can begin to answer these questions before having the type of first initiation that Salzmann describes, and if we have not had that initiation, placing validity on observations of doubtful quality and building structures on top of these observations is a barrier from this type of initiation because we get further and further from being able to see where we started chasing our own tail in the first place.

In that state, they can never truly awaken. Bankruptcy isn't a theory, or an idea, it is a very real, very visceral process that leaves a person not only on their knees but free to take the first real steps of growth they've ever taken in their life. Buffers and the false personality stop all of that. At least, this is my current understanding.

Thanks for your follow-up elaborations and qualifications, Anart and Patience.

There are occasions where I do feel bankrupt, where I do realize the extent to which the machinery around us squeezes us to total paralysis. I "know" the first initiation to be true, but the absolutist remarks it makes about everything we know coming to naught makes me doubt such things. Skepticism is a healthy counterbalance to belief obviously, but I wonder if the excessive emphasis on erring on the side of over-caution can interfere with objectivity in some situations. I think the worst I could say of myself would be that, the extent to which I don't "know" the First Initiation to be true is the extent to which I still struggle with implicatory denial.

But even if I do feel bankrupt in a very concrete way, how do I know it's not just false personality bolstering itself again? The best stab I can take at that question is, when I practice inner silence and meditation, an "I" enters me and the "I" of my false personality (with its restless and ineffectual chatter) is subdued, though it subsequently attempts another angle of attack. Every description I have ever read dealing with the struggle between our two identities (or our identity and our non-identity) does have a description matching the character of what I have described about myself. Salzmann says that seeing our two natures and the continuous games of deception the false "I" plays on us is the beginning of truth and knowledge. Am I inferring correctly from First Initiation (of which I've only read the quote offered in this thread, fwiw) that such a realization is supposed to be post-bankruptcy?

Perhaps the error of my own approach is attempting to communicate these feelings and phenomena to others, because our own inner world is so personal that communication may be impossible with some things without a standardized cognitive language. I guess that's why studying psychology and neurology is one of the most important first steps to take in attempting to network about such internal phenomena.

Again, thanks for your help.

 

[obyvatel]

There are occasions where I do feel bankrupt, where I do realize the extent to which the machinery around us squeezes us to total paralysis. I "know" the first initiation to be true, but the absolutist remarks it makes about everything we know coming to naught makes me doubt such things. Skepticism is a healthy counterbalance to belief obviously, but I wonder if the excessive emphasis on erring on the side of over-caution can interfere with objectivity in some situations. I think the worst I could say of myself would be that, the extent to which I don't "know" the First Initiation to be true is the extent to which I still struggle with implicatory denial.

But even if I do feel bankrupt in a very concrete way, how do I know it's not just false personality bolstering itself again?

Hi whitecoast,
Are you familiar with Dabrowski's writings on the Theory Of Positive Disintegration? Here are two threads which may help put bankruptcy in a more practical psychological perspective.

A Brief Overview Dabrowski's Theory of Positive Disintegration
Brief Look at Dabrowski's Multilevelness of Emotional And Instinctive Functions


[quote author=whitecoast]
But even if I do feel bankrupt in a very concrete way, how do I know it's not just false personality bolstering itself again? The best stab I can take at that question is, when I practice inner silence and meditation, an "I" enters me and the "I" of my false personality (with its restless and ineffectual chatter) is subdued, though it subsequently attempts another angle of attack. Every description I have ever read dealing with the struggle between our two identities (or our identity and our non-identity) does have a description matching the character of what I have described about myself. Salzmann says that seeing our two natures and the continuous games of deception the false "I" plays on us is the beginning of truth and knowledge. Am I inferring correctly from First Initiation (of which I've only read the quote offered in this thread, fwiw) that such a realization is supposed to be post-bankruptcy?
[/quote]

Bankruptcy may possibly manifest itself as a single, powerful event but more likely it is a slow process which gradually results in formation of new "higher" conscious structures within the psyche which control or eliminate some of the "lower" mechanical structures. As the process continues, one starts to see more of the two natures and such seeing develops gradually and incrementally with sustained effort over time. So there may not be a clear cut "post-bankruptcy" point which gives rise to realization but a gradual, incremental seeing while going through the process of positive disintegration.

 

[anart]

There are occasions where I do feel bankrupt, where I do realize the extent to which the machinery around us squeezes us to total paralysis.

That is not bankruptcy, that is just every day internal friction at the state of the world. You have not yet known bankruptcy. If you had, it would be very, very obvious in your thought processes. You value your own thinking way too much.

I "know" the first initiation to be true, but the absolutist remarks it makes about everything we know coming to naught makes me doubt such things.

Then you don't know it to be true, not even theoretically. You value your own thinking way too much.

Skepticism is a healthy counterbalance to belief obviously, but I wonder if the excessive emphasis on erring on the side of over-caution can interfere with objectivity in some situations.

This is wise-acring - mental masturbation. One must reach a state of being able to actually think before skepticism can really serve any objective purpose. You value your own thinking way too much.

I think the worst I could say of myself would be that, the extent to which I don't "know" the First Initiation to be true is the extent to which I still struggle with implicatory denial.

You value your own thinking way too much, that's all it comes down to. If you actually understood the First Initiation, you would see that in every sentence you write, you demonstrate what de Salzmann is talking about.

But even if I do feel bankrupt in a very concrete way, how do I know it's not just false personality bolstering itself again?

It is. You don't feel bankrupt in the way we are referring to it here. If you did, it would be very, very obvious in your thought processes and the way you express yourself. It is not. You think you can talk your way around it and bankruptcy isn't about the intellect or words used as a replacement for understanding.

The best stab I can take at that question is, when I practice inner silence and meditation, an "I" enters me and the "I" of my false personality (with its restless and ineffectual chatter) is subdued, though it subsequently attempts another angle of attack.

I would suggest that all of that is false personality - none of it is your true self. In other words, what you are taking as one i or another is all just the activity of yet another small i.

Every description I have ever read dealing with the struggle between our two identities (or our identity and our non-identity) does have a description matching the character of what I have described about myself.

That's because you take it all theoretically and in that don't understand a word of it. You value your own thinking way too much.

Salzmann says that seeing our two natures and the continuous games of deception the false "I" plays on us is the beginning of truth and knowledge. Am I inferring correctly from First Initiation (of which I've only read the quote offered in this thread, fwiw) that such a realization is supposed to be post-bankruptcy?

No, such a realization - if it is visceral - to the bone - is the very, very, very first step toward awakening and usually prefaces a true bankruptcy. In fact, the bankruptcy is often a result of that deep realization, since until that point, that realization, a person still takes themselves far too seriously and values their own thinking way too much. I don't think you've had that realization yet, or it would be evident in your thought processes and the way you express yourself. It is not.

Perhaps the error of my own approach is attempting to communicate these feelings and phenomena to others, because our own inner world is so personal that communication may be impossible with some things without a standardized cognitive language.

No, I don't think so. Communicating objective knowledge and understanding is actually quite simple, because objective knowledge and understanding is universal. It's not about your communication (though that does tend to be a bit self-referencing) it is about your understanding and the fact that you value your own thinking way too much.

I guess that's why studying psychology and neurology is one of the most important first steps to take in attempting to network about such internal phenomena.

No, it's an important first step in understanding the self, not in 'networking about internal phenomena'. You are still focusing on what you appear to know, instead of what you actually know and understand. fwiw.

 

[Rick3]

Patience,
thank you for the quote 'The Initiation' by Jeanne de Salzmann. I would like to say that this is something I can hang onto - but I suspect the idea is to not "hang" onto anything. I was reading ISOTM but will stop at this point and take a look at the books recommended and start there.

 

[beetlemaniac]

Patience,
thank you for the quote 'The Initiation' by Jeanne de Salzmann. I would like to say that this is something I can hang onto - but I suspect the idea is to not "hang" onto anything. I was reading ISOTM but will stop at this point and take a look at the books recommended and start there.

For me, it was really important to read, apply, and reread the Big 5 psychology books. There always seems to be a new or clearer understanding waiting around the corner in those books. Even as some of the concepts in the Work became clearer to me, it was really important that I grasped what the psychology books really had to offer in terms of knowing how your machine works and why it got to be that way. As G said, "you are not starting with a nice, new, clean machine".

I think that besides reading those books in a specific order, there is much to gain from parallel reading as well as flipping through and locating passages personally important to the history and state of your machine. And also recording those poignant quotes in a journal along with your own observations. The more effort you put into this, the more you get back from it. I think the journey toward objective knowledge is slightly different depending on each person's accumulation of pathology.

 

[Alana]

Patience,
thank you for the quote 'The Initiation' by Jeanne de Salzmann. I would like to say that this is something I can hang onto - but I suspect the idea is to not "hang" onto anything. I was reading ISOTM but will stop at this point and take a look at the books recommended and start there.

For me, it was really important to read, apply, and reread the Big 5 psychology books. There always seems to be a new or clearer understanding waiting around the corner in those books. Even as some of the concepts in the Work became clearer to me, it was really important that I grasped what the psychology books really had to offer in terms of knowing how your machine works and why it got to be that way. As G said, "you are not starting with a nice, new, clean machine".

Exactly! I would also add to the pile of the reading list some books from the diet reading list, Primal Mind, Primal Body, first, and then the Vegetarian Myth. They not only provide excellent view of the workings of our machine and all we need to know about its maintenance on the practical biological level, but also how our minds/moods are affected by our diet. Just going on a low-carb diet is not enough, and can be dangerous to our well-being, unless we have the information of what it is we are dealing with, how to fix it and why. I am adding these to the list in case you haven't read them, because you mentioned on another thread whitecoast, that you were diagnosed with aspengers, and the proper nutritional/dietary regiment will help you a lot.

 

[whitecoast]

Hi whitecoast,
Are you familiar with Dabrowski's writings on the Theory Of Positive Disintegration? Here are two threads which may help put bankruptcy in a more practical psychological perspective.

A Brief Overview Dabrowski's Theory of Positive Disintegration
Brief Look at Dabrowski's Multilevelness of Emotional And Instinctive Functions
....
Bankruptcy may possibly manifest itself as a single, powerful event but more likely it is a slow process which gradually results in formation of new "higher" conscious structures within the psyche which control or eliminate some of the "lower" mechanical structures. As the process continues, one starts to see more of the two natures and such seeing develops gradually and incrementally with sustained effort over time. So there may not be a clear cut "post-bankruptcy" point which gives rise to realization but a gradual, incremental seeing while going through the process of positive disintegration.

Hi Obyvatel! Thanks for your elaborations on potential manifestations of bankruptcy, and for the links on positive disintegration - I came across the concept quite recently while reading Political Ponerology, and have marked the works for further investigation. ;)

Anart, it's been a neurotic last couple of days, mulling over what you've said. I've come around to agreeing with much of what you've said, while still attempting to grok and assimilate other parts. A part of me still feels like resisting and fighting, but I feel that would just further prove some of the points you've been making. Thanks for following up.

Patience,
thank you for the quote 'The Initiation' by Jeanne de Salzmann. I would like to say that this is something I can hang onto - but I suspect the idea is to not "hang" onto anything. I was reading ISOTM but will stop at this point and take a look at the books recommended and start there.

For me, it was really important to read, apply, and reread the Big 5 psychology books. There always seems to be a new or clearer understanding waiting around the corner in those books. Even as some of the concepts in the Work became clearer to me, it was really important that I grasped what the psychology books really had to offer in terms of knowing how your machine works and why it got to be that way. As G said, "you are not starting with a nice, new, clean machine".

Exactly! I would also add to the pile of the reading list some books from the diet reading list, Primal Mind, Primal Body, first, and then the Vegetarian Myth. They not only provide excellent view of the workings of our machine and all we need to know about its maintenance on the practical biological level, but also how our minds/moods are affected by our diet. Just going on a low-carb diet is not enough, and can be dangerous to our well-being, unless we have the information of what it is we are dealing with, how to fix it and why. I am adding these to the list in case you haven't read them, because you mentioned on another thread whitecoast, that you were diagnosed with aspengers, and the proper nutritional/dietary regiment will help you a lot.

Thank you for your thoughtful suggestions Alana! I was spellbound by Nora Gedgaudas' presentation that was covered by SOTT a month or so ago, and I'm even more enthralled to learn she has books I can devour. I'm always looking for new lifestyle changes that improve my focus, mental health, et cetera. The neurotransmitter supplements psyche recommended in the Ultra Mind thread have been remarkable in a number of respects.

Eiriu Eolas has been a major help with some problems I have re: adrenal cortex over-arousal (among other things), but I'm on the lookout for other potential dietary/behavioral solutions to that as well. Hopefully the reading list will cover something of that in it; maybe In An Unspoken Voice?

I really want to read The Vegetarian Myth as well, especially after listening to Lierre Keith give a presentation by way of an audio-recording. I actually first heard Lierre Keith in a documentary with Derrick Jensen on how civilization is destroying life on earth, and was meaning to get around to reading her book for some of the finer details of it. I know it's not directly related to the health aspect, but I still find it interesting nonetheless. :) Thanks again, everyone.

 

[Rick3]

Thanks very much Alana and Beetlemaniac for your feedback - both on the dietary and psychological front. My background is very much 'adult child of alcoholics' - personally I am now sober three years, seven months - six months sober regarding love addiction - but much work to do. And thank you Whitecoast and the forum for this thread, the questions and the replies. I aprreciate.

 

[whitecoast]

If I may chime in with 2 cents...

You have to let all of your past "observations" go or at least admit the possibility that they were fundamentally flawed with respect to gaining some kind of objective knowledge. If you try to integrate your past observations into The Work before understanding how constrained these observations were by the mechanical personality, then you end up accepting lies and reservations as truth.

I may be wrong, but from the tone of your writing it appears that your emotional sense of yourself drives your intellect. This can (on the surface) be applied to the Work and cause one to seem very spot-on, while in fact you may be hindering yourself by trying to "explain" too much at one time to your own self.

It's been quite awhile since you said this, Johnathan (if you read this), but I wanted to ask you, what did you mean by my emotional sense of self drives my intellect? I regret that I didn't ask you this earlier, but I was being too defensive to open up further. It's funny how I keep coming back to this and reading it over again, and I somehow see and understand things that were said to me earlier that I wasn't able to grasp back then... I'm starting to see things I haven't before in myself, especially related to how my intellect is operated and controlled by negative emotions or attempts at emotionally/socially "connecting" with people. My imagination gets suckered into imaginary intellectual disputes with mods over this or that point, disconnected from what the actual context of a given topic is. Often this results in either not posting at all (= wasted energy), or in having apologetic thinking that is always justifying or defending this emotional content that's really out of place more often than not.

 

[abeofarrell]

Whitecoast, there is not really much I can add to what has already been said, but just some observations on your "presence" here from the perspective of what I am learning. I see too much of your PERSONALITY here, whereas our personality should be our enemy. Gurdjieff says that we should recognize two people within us, the stronger is our personality, for me it would me my "Abe", and this "Abe" is holding my weak essence prisoner. I must see him as my enemy, thus I must totally understand him, I must be forever on-guard against his ways and must struggle continually until he comes under the mastery of my real I. Also relating to this, I cannot sense that you have yet come to your wits end, where you realize that you cannot do anything. I see that you are doing so much and sense satisfaction in what you have done, and have many plans to do much more. But until you come to the point where you can only say "I am nothing and I can do nothing", until you experience disintegration of the machine you have built up around you, there can be no progress. Why try and "control" your centers, do you already truly understand them? I am far far from understanding my own machine or its centers. Every day I only feel weak, seeing how much energy I waste needlessly, and my own frailty in the face of "Abe". I am only trying to self-observe, self-remember and retain as much energy as I can for self development.

FWIW, all the best.

 

[whitecoast]

Whitecoast, there is not really much I can add to what has already been said, but just some observations on your "presence" here from the perspective of what I am learning. I see too much of your PERSONALITY here, whereas our personality should be our enemy. Gurdjieff says that we should recognize two people within us, the stronger is our personality, for me it would me my "Abe", and this "Abe" is holding my weak essence prisoner. I must see him as my enemy, thus I must totally understand him, I must be forever on-guard against his ways and must struggle continually until he comes under the mastery of my real I. Also relating to this, I cannot sense that you have yet come to your wits end, where you realize that you cannot do anything.

Thanks for your words, abeofarrel. I share your sentiments and views in many ways.

FWIW I do not believe in myself any longer. But I continue on as if I do. I do, after all, have a life to live, and cannot simply step out of the world. To the contrary, I have to put even more focus and effort into living. The only option I see is to continue as before, but doing so with a little more self-awareness, wisdom, and external consideration than before. That is the essence of controlled folly, OSIT.

I see that you are doing so much and sense satisfaction in what you have done, and have many plans to do much more. But until you come to the point where you can only say "I am nothing and I can do nothing", until you experience disintegration of the machine you have built up around you, there can be no progress.

Thank you for pointing the satisfaction out to me. It is obvious to me now: that I seem to portray satisfaction, consciously or otherwise in my behaviour. But that doesn't mean I'm actually satisfied, if that makes any sense. I see lots of room for improvement in all aspects of my being, but I still rejoice over any small victory. :)

I am far far from understanding my own machine or its centers. Every day I only feel weak, seeing how much energy I waste needlessly, and my own frailty in the face of "Abe". I am only trying to self-observe, self-remember and retain as much energy as I can for self development.

Yeah but you're not alone in this. All the best.