Inner War Part 2: The Hidden Enemy Few People Know About
We are faced with an inner energy, a raw energy that is the biggest enemy of our meditation, but one most people aren’t even aware of.
I’ve called this the ego in the past, but I feel that the ego, identification with form that includes our thinking and mental beliefs, is a reaction to this force.
Deep within us there is a strong pool of energy. This energy is one of deep fear, which I will call FEAR to differentiate it from normal day to day fear.
I thought it was just me when I originally felt it, something personal to me, when I heard Eckhart Tolle mention it in the Power of Now as well.
You need to have a level of awareness before you notice this energy, but once you do, you will wonder why you never felt it before.
It is like a static noise in the background, one that gives you a headache, but that you aren’t even aware exists until it stops, and you suddenly feel peaceful.
The FEAR is like that. It drives us crazy, makes us to stupid stuff, makes us run after “things” to make us happy, it drives every single thing we do, and we aren’t even aware of it!
The FEAR is like a pain in the background, a pain that never goes away. Because the pain is unconscious, we are not aware of it, though we do FEEL it even on the conscious level. Previously I have called this the Pain of Living though a better term would be the Pain of Unconscious Living.
So everyone, and I do mean EVERYONE feels this pain, this FEAR, this raw energy that hurts them non stop and they try to deal with it by:
1 Externalising the pain
I am tense/scared/angry because my parents/wife/kids/boss don’t love/respect me. If only I had more sex/money/hard disk I would be happy
2 Trying to heal the pain by filling it with “things”
Where “things” could be money or sex, but also spirituality, religion, and gasp God (at least a mental idea of god).
And some of the problems in your life may even be true. You may actually be suffering due to lack of money, you may be struggling to find romantic love, your life may actually be shit.
I myself was at one point at a stage where if we ate out, even at a cheap place like McDonalds, I’d have to worry if we’d make rent. We had to constantly dip into our savings, cancel holidays, just to meet rent.
And then my salary doubled (after a few years), but I still felt miserable. And that’s when I discovered FEAR in me. Until then, I could rightly blame circumstances for my problems. But now I had no problems meeting rent, we could eat out at fancy places whenever we wanted, so why the FUCK was I so miserable?
NO Charlie, Money isn’t Evil
And let me take a side track: This is not a Money can’t make you happy rant. Because Money DOES make you happy, no matter what the hippies said.
Money can solve 80% of your problems, at least in the material world. The other 20% can be solved by being a good person and growing up (as the 2nd most common problems materially are to do with relationships).
Money fixes most of your material problems, but not your spiritual problems.
But you know what?
It is EASIER to sit down and meditate when you don’t have to worry about meeting rent, or when you don’t have to cancel a holiday to meet the doctor’s bill. Money is FUCKIN’ AWESOME and don’t let any lah-di-dah Im so spiritual type tell you otherwise.
Money doesn’t heal your spiritual pain, but it does give you the freedom to pursue your spiritual goals. And as I found out, it gives you clarity of vision, because once you are comfortably well off (NOT necessarily rich, just well off), you can start to realise that your problems come from the inside, and that’s where they must be faced.
You are Never Upset for the Reason you Think
Coming back to the pain, we feel this pain, but being unaware of its source, try to externalise it
I’m scared because of BOSS / WIFE (for me, BOTH)
I’m angry because [REASON]
I’m sad because [EXCUSE]
Like the Course in Miracles says:
You think you have many problems, but you only ever have one problem
and
I am never upset for the reason I think I am
The pat/cliched answer to this is: We are upset because we are separate from God/Spirit. It is cliched because most people just say it without any experience to back it up. It is yet another mental belief.
And so we try to find a medicine for the pain, something to soothe the hurt. We run after money, sex, power, and to repeat, ain’t nothin’ wrong with bein’ rich and gettin’ laid every night (preferably with different men/women 😉 ). It’s only when you ty to do this to heal the inner pain, as a substitute for inner peace, that you get into trouble.
How to Heal the Pain?
You can’t
Sorry :)
This is one of those things. Like the Alcoholics Anonymous, you have to admit you have been taken down by a force greater than yourself; and so, you have to ask for help from a force greater than your limited mind.
The FEAR is too strong for the mind. Indeed, some philosophies say it created the ego, which for most people is their mind.
So we can’t go beyond the FEAR, because our own mind created it. Anything we do, which includes meditation or praying, we do from the mind. And the mind IS the problem. It is a Catch 22 situation, an infinite recursive loop that never ends.
But that doesn’t mean we are helpless.
NO
What we can do is become aware of this background FEAR, this hidden pain. By meditation, by practicing compassion, by living a life of kindness and forgiveness, or any other spiritual technique.
And once you SEE the FEAR (thru the inner eye), you just keep an eye on it. YOUR own Power of Awareness, which is God will melt the FEAR, like the sun melts a block of ice.
It will take time, as the FEAR won’t just sit there, twiddling its thumbs. And here you need faith, you need trust.
You need to be like a child, with full faith in the mother. You need to be like a pilot flying on instruments in the storm, trusting the instruments will guide him even when he can’t see the ground (to use an analogy from Marianne Williamson).
It takes TIME, but it also takes FAITH. An impatient Why the FUCK aren’t I enlightened by now, THERE IS NO GOD! is a game played by the ego to delay the inevitable.
Like I’ve said before, PEACE is our NATURAL STATE. If we don’t have peace, something has gone wrong.
We need to stop resisting, but it takes courage to trust the unknown.
And it takes EXTREME COURAGE to do nothing. Doing nothing means doing nothing from the ego. Like trying to meditate “harder” or “longer”.
At one point, you have to trust the Spirit to do the work. You have to trust the universe is helping you, even if you can’t feel it yet.
tl;dr 3 steps to become enlightened
1 Meditate until your mind becomes quiet enough to feel the FEAR. This is a raw energy of sadness, fear, abandonment, loneliness, the feeling that there is nothing in the universe, that we will die alone and unloved. This FEAR comes from beyond the mind, so you can never understand or analyse it
2 FEEL the FEAR, breathe thru it, burn it with the power of awareness
3 Profit! (Become enlightened)
Yes, it is not easy 😀 😀 😊
