Okay this is a real thing to chew on.
If you haven’t read amarastrand.com what the hell are you doing please go on over there and just consume and stare slack jawed at everything she writes and woven into her writing. Just please allow her perspective to transform you as she’s transformed mine.
But just like any great teaching or knowledge, it ain’t really wisdom ’til it’s applied. and so my major HAYMAKER DOOMSDAY REVELATION FOR THIS WEEK IS SOMETHING TERRIFYINGLY SIMPLE.
Enlightenment is not the same as a healed personality or ego.
You can have a healthy ego without enlightenment.
Shockingly, there are enlightened people with sick egos. They discard them, they don’t need them. But if you want to interact with the world, they patch it up again before going in. Like this avatar for an interface. Regardless the avatar can be dirty. You can have a clean avatar without enlightenment.
Enlightenment is the mountain top and wider awareness perspective of clean avatars, but it doesn’t make your avatar CLEAN. Maybe you have better insight and belief on what level of CLEAN can get – but boy , it doesn’t necessarily seeing something clean is actually cleaning the damn thing.
This is such a game changer for me.
Because one. I always thought people who could channel and see, and experience peak spiritual experiences – had less psychosis ? This is partially true. Meditation and big ass occult energy can blast away a lot of programs and karma and repetitive loops that you have in your life. I’ve had personal experiences of this. This is true.
But get this – IT CAN’T SOLVE ALL PROBLEMS. It can’t resolve all karma. There are powerful teachers and channelers who have deeply ingrained wounds in their persona THAT THEY STILL CAN’T LET GO OF.
Because some problems aren’t handled energetically, or with a wave of a wand. You face them with your humanity, your weaknesses, and your flaws and you git at it. You learn. You get a piece of paper and make a Human plan of attack. You get a therapist, you get someone who’s familiar with the human psyche, and/or you do some Real talk with yourself. Not everything is solved with dharma. Sometimes it’s really that suppressed aspect of you as a child. Don’t hide through exotic terms or magic.
This is so, I can’t reiterate this enough.
Spiritual gurus can’t save you. Psychics can’t save you. I know this is what all non-believers say when they say that psychics sell snake oil. But that’s the thing – the fluidity of time and space IS REAL. PSYCHICS ARE REAL. YET. They are still not the prime advisor of your life. You Are! Obviously!!!
But we hate that! We hate the fact that knowing yourself is hard, and sorting out through your distortions and your psychosis and painful and a drawn out process. MAYBE. MAGIC MAN CAN DO IT. I mean holy shit the first time you did meditation it was godsent right ? Do you really kill buddha when you meet him at the road ? Does no one save us ? Maybe this weekend on this aspect of life can finally slap me into some self-possession —
BUT THAT’S THE THING. THE POWER WAS WITH YOU, NEVER IN THE WORKSHOP.
This is a thing to chew on. seriously. I don’t know if I’m writing this for you or for myself but I hope it helps something.
—
Oddly I think, I’ve learned this lesson already with dance. One of the earliest things my teacher did, when I was starting out was to ask me what I didn’t like about my dancing what I thought I should get better on. What was my critique and observations of these good established dancers.
She not only taught me that my opinion was VALID. She also taught me that my view of my own ART, was the only thing that Actually mattered. Not the judge, not her, not some accepted canon. it was – what did i define as good dancing. What did i like, enjoy, am interested in – where are my gaps – and how do i address it.
She was a freestyle teacher and the thing with freestyle is you TEACH independence. You teach artistry, you teach the student to not need you and develop their own systems that work SPECIFICALLY for them, because only the student knows what ART they wanted to reveal in themselves.
This is like the goldmine theory of art, I don’t know the geography of your inner world, so all I can tell you is to go dig. You’re the one with the internal senses and perceptions – go hone in on your treasure, your home your truth. Put in the work, go find it.
Do you see.
How.
Hmm, philosophical this approach to dance was ??
How. In the span of my dancing, I’ve never tried to change my artistry for a guy, for the approval of an audience, or a judge – because I KNOW. I’ve made it my prime directive, ambition and JOB, to create for myself. For the satisfaction of myself and for the love and truth that I want to express. in that way i can say I’m peerless, I’m on a filed of my own and I can relate to amara when she says she can’t really measure up her own life to others because there’s no comparison ??? we’re so different ?? my responsibility is my truth ????? ((AND THIS IS Exactly why people like my dancing ?? because it’s uninhibited and I can present things that are unassuming and more direct ?? AND I WORKED ON THAT i wanted to give myself that ????))
and this is what astounds me.
In one area of my life where I trust myself, I’m competent, I’m free, where I’ve unlocked so much of my healings , and acceptance and love for the creativity of fellow artists and witnesses of the world, where I’ve come to a point where I’m non judgemental with that granny or fat kid doing a dance because i know how universal it is to inhabit the body, where i can genuinely say I’m Real Real. And that there’s no artifice in me when I do it.
I. Actually know how to do this shit.
The shit , that amara talks about about being the prime directive of your life. It’s freestyle dancing except it’s everything else in my life. And holy crap. This is just crazy for me. Because the things she talks about spiritual work – that it’s not the amount of books and teachers it’s the work you put in and the dedication I KNOW THAT. THAT’S HOW AN ARTIST IN DANCE IS REVEALED. I SAY THAT ALL TH TIME. Because — to react to music is so inherent to the body and soul. Classes can help in introducing systems other teachers have and their ideas – but YOU Creating what YOU is. is All on YOU.
LIKE. PLEASE/ PLEASE CAN WE GRASP THAT.
I would literally. I swear. In dance I would take just one move and “lab” / study it to a point of mind oblivion that I would just melt into sound and space. I would talk with my feet I would try on the absurd. I would take responsibility!!! of my own expression, something i knew truly that can only be practiced on your own. I never thought na this was a teacher’s responsibility, no that’s yours. It’s your body, it your dance.
It’s like being a potter, but only putting your hand in the clay when you paid for a workshop every month. That’s the only time you commit to who you are. You paid someone to look over you , to show you techniques that you were supposed to workshop and try at home. and you expect to be happy and have results.
IT’S STUPID. UNBELIEVEABLY STUPID.
HOW LONG HAVE I BEEN THINKING THIS WAY. SO THIS IS WHY ALL THE OTHER AREAS OF MY LIFE ARE PALING IN COMPARISON. I’VE BEEN GIVING AWAY SO MUCH POWER AND AUTHORITY TO TEACHERS – WHO MEAN WELL, BUT I’VE BEEN DOING NO ASSIGNMENTS.
They’re all half-hearted. Nothing like the laser like focus and oblivion i had when I labbed my body to listen and react to music. nothing like the agency and authority i had when i studied the best and decided who i was in a colored landscape. Nothing with that kind of fervor and COMMITTMENT.
YOU LAZY. BITCH. MARIA YOU DIDN’T PUT IN THE WORK.
(OKAY DEEP BREATHS.)
So.
I think I’m gonna go about this from the other way around. Like how I started dancing.
What do I not like about my life ?
Why ?
Really ? How come ?
If that’s so , then what ?
What could you work on ?
What/who models can you learn from ? Jumping off from them as EXAMPLES, not gods, how can you integrate that teaching into the art that is your LIFE. LIFE. even my typing that doesn’t have the same reverence as when i type dance.
This is the truth of me for now is that is I’ve processed so many of my beliefs with dance, body and expression and with life I probably only can write about a few. Obviously it’s a wider span of a topic and no authority figure ever told me – hey you. you . whats your opinion ? why ? so – now what ? Never – never placed me in that position of power. but it doesn’t matter now ?? I think I’m actually starting to get this shit >????
I kind of need to stare into space for a few hours.
Also I had a thing in dance where i never took a class or watched a video unless i properly chewed on the thing i was trying to learn before. I realized that for “life” spritual shit ive just been consuming so many lessons I haven’t digested them. NOT EVEN properly focused my energies into digesting them. REALLYY REALLLY GETting into that rhythm of integrating that knowledge into your body and malleable life.
nope.
nope.
so much work.
let’s get to it.
/// and mind you the work on your life / of the persona and ego has progress, because its the limited self. the enlightened infinite self cannot learn to be “better”. But the work of the personality is REGARDLESS. still worthwhile. It’s only of a different pursuit. adn the odds of the grace of enlightenment striking you is close to nil. SO the work of polishing the bitter tanning of your own hide … is actually not so bad afterall.
Maria Mison 