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"Man, guilt and aggression"

Posted October 14th, 2010 by aleksey tivilev

Part of the discussion in russian integral community  around  "The Manifest of Conscious Men" by Arjuna Ardagh.

 Сontext for russian discussion:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arjuna-ardagh/goddess-worship_b_660896.html

  This part was written by Alina Chumakova.

   "I see how hard many men perceive pages of history and real life situations with mentioning of women’s oppression, male chauvinism, wars and other consequences of male aggression demonstration. It is a frequent situation that the men take defensive-aggressive position when perceiving these facts and then it is followed by: defense and efforts to rationalize everything immediately and to find explanations, response accusations of women - “it’s their fault too, they forced us, they made us like that etc.”, refusal to admit facts and exposures of misrepresentation, such as “it wasn’t like that, quite the contrary”, accusations of feminism etc.

    It’s possible that the reasons for that are the guilt for own aggression and fear of its destructive force which generates this aggression immediately. Unfortunately boys (as well as girls however) are virtually never taught how to handle their natural aggression (except for harsh suppression), how to perceive it and how to treat it, what it is needed for, why it is dangerous, and the most important - how it can occur safely in the world.

   The feeling of fear of one’s own force, unclaimed in the modern society any longer, as well as guilt for its destructive aspect, produces an endless source of stress in a man. There are no dangerous predators left all around, no more exhausting physical labor for survival, no constant threat of attacks and wars, hunting and other noble actions to safely reduce aggression. The physiology can’t keep up with social and cultural development and aggression remains a blamed, suppressed and needless, in such scope, resource, and it can be a point of application for biological evolution. This shame and this partial inner absence of demand reveal themselves especially greatly in discussions about negative demonstration of aggression in history. Although the facts do not concern the modern men, but only their predecessors, less developed in all respects, the reactions in the form of defense and resistance, resentment, wish to find excuses are quite frequent.

    There are very few men who are able to admit and accept the hard shadow history of male aggression sincerely and without feeling of guilt and shame for what they actually never did by themselves. And it is usually possible only in case of accepting and awareness of their own inner part of rapist, chauvinist, tyrant and predator and realization of the other part of fearless protector, discoverer and explorer. They all still exist and we remember about them and about their history as well as about their complex interrelations and development.

    I see how hard it is for the modern men to handle their own aggression and I really appreciate all the work that they have done and continue doing in this direction.
Thank you!

Alina Chumakova"

 

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Thank God for Russian honesty

Posted October 14th, 2010 by Nathan Woogums

Thank you Aleksey for this wonderfully clear and concise description of the dilemma that every honest man must face. I actually did spend most of my young adulthood (18-27) engaged in those dynamic masculine occupations that are becoming increasingly invisible - logging and farming in particular. I have also practiced martial arts since I was seven years old. When I was younger I was very hurt and resentful of the opinion that women my mother's age had of young men, and I didn't hesitate to throw it in her face that the year after she divorced my father (a logger) she was asking to borrow some of the money that I had earned working (more than 15 hours a day for three months straight) in the oil fields in northern Canada.

I have been practicing and teaching Russian martial arts for a few years now. One stated purpose of the training is to encounter the circumstances that will enable you to know who you really are right now, aggression, anger, fear and all, and relax into it, breathe with it, embody and use it when appropriate. Unlike most other traditional martial arts, the Russian martial arts are still consciously and intentionally evolving. The training methods help one develop a calm and accepting state of mind and the physical, emotional and moral capacities to act as appropriately as possible in any given situation. Since it's dissemination to the rest of the world after the end of the Cold War, the Russian martial arts keep spreading more and more rapidly. People who are honestly entering into the questions of how to embody and express all masculine qualities in a healthy manner immediately recognise the unique and superior quality of the Russian approach. I am increasingly grateful for this tradition and community that I have entered into, and am committed to furthering our development and offering this unique developmental practice to all who recognize its value and wish to become more fully embodied human beings.  

 

Be strong and

Enter into your own body

For there your foothold is firm

Consider it well, oh my heart!

Go not elsewhere. 

-Kabir

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fundamental topic

Posted October 15th, 2010 by Ambo Suno

Yes, Aleksey, this seems like one of the more basic, big, important, and interesting topics for us humans.

I too feel that plenty of my psychic attention in many social situations still scans for these fundamental realities like physical threat. Maybe it's a little like the anti-virus monitoring program that stays alert to threat. Would that it would become increasingly subtle, unobtrusive, and in comfortable balance/integration with all the rest of realities, then in fantasy at least cease to be needed.

Yes, guilt and shame, and as you (and Alicia) emphasize often biologically obsolete, socially anachronistic, a canine tooth among fruitarians. Good to have the tooth around when the carnivores come around.

I would just add explicitly the word "identity" to the explanation so catch that slice of us guys (and maybe gals) for whom these aggressive repertoires seem to be a fulcrum of self-identification for whom we feel we are. Not so easy to integrate because mostly it could feel like losing it, jettisoning it. This post and Nathan's suggest ways to handle this existential and human condition and there may be other's psycho-spiritual in character that also can integrate and quite fully and authentically transcend.

I'm not sure about how to deal with all this but it's often a foreground issue and so we deal with it.

Thanks

ambo

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So Much To Say...

Posted October 15th, 2010 by Jennifer Grove

But all I can manage right now is THANK YOU! You took the words right out of my keyboard. And I'm glad you did because it often doesn't carry as much weight when it comes from a woman. Only when men stand up and say these things will the male sub-culture awaken and change. 

Identifying the inner regressive Personas and trying to help them find ways to do their business so that it is integrated safely and beneficially in society and culture will be the solution. This takes a huge amount of Sacred Space Holding in We-Space so that those personas can be identified and held with compassion. Otherwise they will go right back into the closet where they get us all into trouble. 

Bless you a thousand times. 

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Authorship

Posted October 16th, 2010 by marisha helms

 

Thank you for making it absolutely clear now that the author is a woman.

 

 

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LOL I See It Now!

Posted October 16th, 2010 by Jennifer Grove

Thanks all, for bringing to my awareness that it WAS written by a woman. So, I guess it's good, then, that a man repeated it. 

I read the article by Arjuna from the link. I found it ironic that he took the bait and tried to give advice or instructions to men in how to acquire/achieve what he has. That is so not the point. What Arjuna and Chameli have is Unique. "Unique" in the Integral sense. There is only one Arjuna. And there is only one Chameli. What they have only exists where they are. The comments expose this mistake. 

What all of us do have is our own Bodies, and some of us have the Bodies of willing partners. The Body of each of us contains vast stores of evolutionary information and archetypes which can be revealed and exposed. It is AMAZING how much can be learned from our own Bodies - even sitting alone in a cell with no interaction with others. 

The story about entering the Temple reminded me of an idea that I've been trying out for a few days: That a perfectly adequate woman may be present and exposed for years and her "layers" will not be seen because the man has not developed his seeing yet. It is not the woman who is more and more revealed, but the man. When he is outside the outer wall, his ability to see merely a woman's plumbing parts is revealed. When he steps thru that first gate, his ability to see her nuanced conversation is revealed. When he steps thru the second gate, his ability to see her flaws and vulnerabilities will be revealed. All of her qualities have been exposed the whole time, but he may not have been looking. 

Even more: the woman will have probably seen the man's abilities the whole time, but it took that long for him to see his abilities - and inabilities. Men are usually brought up to focus their awareness on what they are capable of. They are rewarded for this by everyone. The analogy of the Temple rewards him again explicitly for his ability to see and gain access while implicitly teaching him about what he has not been capable of up until that point. I'm actually hoping that this implicitness will be made more explicit in the future. That way the learned abilities will gain a quality of transparency as they are transcended. I'm still not so sure that Arjuna sees thru his abilities/inabilities yet. It is not revealed in this piece of writing via meta-awareness. 

Religious practice that is done within a Tradition and with Teachers and Priests will eventually bring the worshipper's awareness to what changes in the worshipper - because that is the true goal. In the Christian Tradition, it has been said both: "Prayer changes things." and "Prayer changes the Pray-er". These are two very valid and different levels of religious understanding. It takes a very advanced Student to "see" Archetypes within an ordinary living person in an awakened way, not just the sleepy - "Oh, she's so special!" way.  

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