Masters on Spiritual Bypassing

One sign of possible spiritual bypassing is in uneven intellectual development. Another sign is wanting to see only the light and positive especially in our self, but our pain is too alive to be shut down no matter how hard we try. Roberts words hit very close to home.

He says that even among spiritual seekers a big problem is our fear, grief, pain, and shame. Perhaps we think that because we have meditated for some decades we are supposed to be above being human. Roger Walsh says that 80% of what even advanced spiritual students need must be addressed with psychotherapy. I suspect that the percentage is about the same for spiritual teachers.

Robert calls us to establish just enough distance from our personality to be able to relate to it well, with compassion and intimacy. We are probably not responsible for the cause of our illnesses but are responsible for relating to them. Not everything that happens in the World is about me. Imagine that!

Robert Augustus Masters

look into our pain and seek to heal it

 Instead of trying to get beyond our personal history, we need to learn to relate to it with as much clarity and compassion as possible

"When we remain outside or removed from our fear, we are trapped by it, but when we actually do get inside, cultivating intimacy with it, we are no longer trapped by it, discovering--and not just intellectually--that it is but darkly contracted energy, a knotted-up vitality that can be freed when we become intimate with it."

limit it's ability to keep us isolated from ourselves

If we do not get to know our pain and our wounding, our fears and our hatreds, then we are never fully ourselves

we do not make a self-binding story out of it starring us in the victim role

turn toward and enter it. And how do we do this? We name our pain; we turn toward it; we enter it; we get intimate with all of its qualities (its directionality, texture, temperature, color, density, shape), going into it until we reach its heart. Eventually we emerge; our pain may not be gone, but we now have a very different relationship with it, a relationship that serves our healing and awakening.

our attention being far more focused on our storyline than on the nonconceptual rawness of our pain

stand apart from its script (so as to more clearly bring it into focus), and to cease distancing ourselves from our pain

Staying in pain, and exploring it (without wallowing in despair, pity, or helplessness

FREEDOM DOESN’T MIND ITS CHAINS

inviting us to bring everything, including our suffering, onto the dancefloor.

enter with more than our intellect, that which we never really left

allow it to fuel our way into a deeper life, a life abundant with faith.

"The dragon is a needed adversary, a fitting challenge that tests our readiness to encounter and wisely use the treasure we seek. Instead of viewing such tests just as burdens or adversity, we would do well to be grateful for them, regardless of our fear."

are discovering that the waters they are crossing have no obligation to remain benign or comfortable

contemplate about the essence of fear and pain

I'm not afraid to be afraid”

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_23?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=robert+augustus+masters&sprefix=robert+augustus+masters

I’m reminded of Steven Levine’s teaching to try to keep our hearts open even in Hell.