Yeah, I think your observation is spot-on, T.C.! I’m having to face the alarming extent of my ego and of my assimilation by STS. And this is actually what I need to notice, as you said, in order to be able to gain ground towards STO. I hear people complaining, “I’ve tried meditation but felt very bad, I won’t try it again.” I’m not a regular meditator myself, but I know that some of this is about facing our ego/STS.
Well, there are different types of meditation. But what you're describing sounds like a kind of meditation that is full of anticipation. It's making an assumption about what meditation is and how it works, with the aim of achieving something that you want. There are numerous pitfalls here. 1) How do I know that this is what meditation really is? 2) How do I know that it will lead to what I hope it will lead to? 3) How do I know that what I hope to achieve is actually something desirable?
I think the kind of meditation that involves, as you put it, "facing our ego/STS", is what I would class as recapitulation (as Castenada called it) or self-remembering (as Gurdjieff called it). The last thing you want to do when attempting these is to go into a dissociative state that most people would associate with meditation. You want the opposite. The states required for that kind of work on the self, facing our ego and STS-ness, are more often achieved when one receives a deep shock that shakes one out of the regular sleeping state of life.
Another factor agonizing to notice is that society in general doesn’t live for STO polarization even if most of them are not “strictly STS-oriented”. Sometimes, everyone and everything appear to be devoted to make everything worse and worse. Considering both my own ego and the situation of the society, it’s like “navigating through storms and rough seas”, sometimes extremely frustratingly so. But this frustration is felt like a challenge after some consideration: Either go back to your more “comfortable” (!) ignorant/hypnotic life, or consider transforming your life/existence to be more compatible with STO polarization, at all costs.
I think the agonising part is that we know in ourselves that we fall short of our ideals. Best not to project that onto others in order to try and take the heat off, though. Everyone has their lessons and their purpose. The majority of people on the planet are not evil - they just do what they think is best for them and others. The problem is that the knowledge of what's really best has been distorted by a trans-millennial psy-op.
As to the inner world, I’m comforted by the belief that the core of existence (7D) is pure positivity/being and that all I need to do is consciously interact with positivity, recognizing it as “me” and all/one. Then I can confidently dissociate myself from “world” to some extent, and find some peace. I tend to make this view my religion. The simplest and best truth to remember and identify with.
Lots of assumptions and imaginings in the above. It's very new-agey, which is part of that psy-op I mentioned, so be careful. Question your assumptions, always. Do not trust your thoughts and beliefs about things. You said it yourself in the first few words: I'm comforted by the belief. Can you see why those words might set off alarm bells for those of us here who are in a position to look from the outside and give feedback?
One major part of true unveiling is to see and understand the darkness, the horror, the evil, which exists. To say that you are comforted by the belief that the core of existence is pure positivity/being, is just a more convoluted or extravagant way of saying "God is good". Then by following with the idea that you should identify with this goodness, recognising it as yourself, it is clear that what is really going on is that you are trying to come to terms with the existence of negativity and evil, outside yourself and within yourself, but the way you think you should go about it is to focus on the goodness, to identify with goodness.
You can't come to terms with evil by ignoring it. You can't become a better person by making believe that you are pure goodness (not true), just as God is pure goodness (also not true), so that you can split your reality into you/God vs. them/Evil. The more you try to do that, the more negativity and evil will manifest in your life and reveal itself to you, because it will demand to be seen.
I can’t be sure where this approach will take me, but I feel I must try it to see. Interacting with positivity, consciously recognizing it as ourselves, means interacting with STO, and God, I believe. Despite all the dominant conditions to the contrary, you find one piece of positivity in you, then find/access/produce another piece and put it on the other, continue doing this, you make it bigger and bigger, stronger and stronger… I feel like this is all I need to do.
It's certainly an important thing to aim for, but it's only half of the work. There's no reason why you can't strive to recognise and categorise the good, while at the same time recognising and categorising the bad. It's literally impossible to know one without knowing its opposite.
But you can't interact with STO, and God, by just shutting yourself in a room away from reality and disappearing into yourself. Interacting with STO, and God, means interacting with reality.
This is like collecting “being”, just like collecting “data” in the external world, the two being identical in some sense. Many aspects of meditation already support this, I think. You get slower, relax, breathe deeply, stop or loosen your mental identification with the external world that is filled with many negativities despite its vital indispensability… The function is to reduce negativity (non-being) and raise positivity (being).
How so? What is your evidence for this? Where did you get this idea? How does this work?
Don't fool yourself. The 'function' of what you are describing is dissociation from reality, and it won't work in the way you describe. Whatever changes a meditation session may bring to your mental, physical or emotional state will not last in the way you are hoping here.
Yes, meditation is an important tool. But you can't just meditate yourself into a permanent state of STO.
This is what I intend to do in my inner world as I feel this is the simplest and best connection I have with God/one/all. Although this might sound like something very easy to do or try, I’m at a surprise how difficult it is actually to do or keep doing regularly or for an extended time period. A major reason I share this view is to get some feedback as to what may possibly misleading in it. I don’t desire or defend to be permanently dissociated from external/social world or to deny the vital importance of steadily increasing our knowledge/awareness of all the phenomena surrounding us.
Exactly. So you obviously know that there's something wrong with your ideas about all this.
Again, mediation is very important. But if you're going to do it, then do it with the aim of strengthening and recharging yourself so that you are able to spend more time focusing on reality and the role you're here to play and to give you the strength to keep going every day and to thoroughly learn your lessons and to study both the light and the darkness. These things are actually 'the simplest and best connection you have with God/one/all.'
By the way, one possible risk that I became aware of about the “positivity” approach I shortly described is that accumulation of a certain amount positivity doesn’t permanently extinguish “ego”. And sometimes it is like, when you have more money than you immediately need for your usual or scheduled expenses, you might be tempted to “waste” it, or spend it not-so-wisely. I observe in myself that the same applies to an amount of positivity accumulated or found. There might be a tendency to corruption. And it is not surprising that such a corruption will absolutely be encouraged by higher STS. But, then, this will also be a challenge for you to regress or progress.
I think there is a kind of positivity which is a trap. It's the wishful thinking, rose-tinted glasses kind. You use the analogy of money; well, money is energy - it's a tool which can be used for good, or which can be wasted or used for bad. Positivity is the same: you can 'spend' it on your goals, using it to keep pushing forward, or you can waste it on meaningless pursuits, flitter it away until it's all gone and you have nothing to show for it.