As we slowly but surely make progress on our path, we become more alive and more honest in our feelings and ability to relate. We “sacrifice” old reactive patterns and discover that nothing good has been given up and plenty has been gained. It’s hard to remain skeptical. But at some point in our journey, we are going to run into a wall of our previously concealed but now plenty-conscious negative intentions.
In our whacky, mixed-up psyches, we unconsciously want whatever it is we fear…Further, whatever we experience, we also unconsciously want. All of these teachings are built upon these immutable facts. We need to keep this in mind when we come face-to-face with our basic attitude toward life that basically says No…
To our conscious, rational mind, this may sound totally nuts; we wish for nothing more and nothing less than every imaginable fulfillment. And yet, in a hidden corner of the psyche, we’re backpedalling like crazy. We want to hate and to be spiteful and to withhold—even if it makes us suffer…
So much of the resistance we encounter—in ourselves and our companions—is due precisely to our not wanting to see that a senseless, destructive streak of negative intention is in us…We’d rather hold onto our spite and go on blaming some fate that has befallen “poor innocent me,” than to move from our position…When we do finally see it, it is not a tragedy—it’s a huge blessing…
Unlike negativity, where we have the impression that we can’t help being the way we are—angry, hateful or cruel—with our negative intentions, a deliberate choice is being made…So our negative intentions don’t happen to us—we chose them…
The origin of all this life-negating behavior starts in childhood…With our negative intentions, we will punish life for what it’s done to us. Crazy, right?…But exactly what is it that stops us from loving and instead makes us hate?…If we want to open up this bottleneck, we need to answer this question: What part of ourselves are we identifying with?…
The minute we are able to identify some aspect of ourselves—some good, bad or indifferent behavior, thought or attitude—the identifying part is more us than the part being identified…Once we start to identify our Mask Self and our Lower Self, along with our negative intentionality and our dishonest games, all the energy that has been put into the service of denial will now be available to bring us the truth…
Long story short, the Lower Self should be identified, and the Higher Self, or spiritual self, should be identified with. Who makes this identification? The ego, which must become strong enough to give itself up voluntarily so that it integrates with the Higher Self…Our resistance to giving up the parts of ourselves we hate the most is caused by our wrong identification…
This process of grappling with negative intentionality is much like going through a major life crisis. But if we can do it, it will signal a giant transition on our path.
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