SECURITY
“It is a most natural desire of the human soul to seek for happiness and comfort. Man desires principles to guide his life, and he wishes for a moral standard to regulate the life of the community. He wishes for a balance of activity and repose; he desires union with the one whom he loves; he wishes for security of all that belongs to him, a settled reciprocity, a fixed give-and-take, and all things which bring about happiness and peace at home and in the nation.” Hazrat Inayat Khan
“Authority prevents the understanding of oneself, does it not? Under the shelter of an authority, a guide, you may have temporarily a sense of security, a sense of well-being, but that is not the understanding of the total process of oneself. Authority in its very nature prevents the full awareness of oneself and therefore ultimately destroys freedom; in freedom alone can there be creativeness. There can be creativeness only through self-knowledge. “ Jiddu Krishnamurti
"The word security is derived from the Ancient Greek "Se-Cura" and literally translates to "without fear". 'Security' is therefore the state of being secure, or the actions employed to achieve that state, i.e. to be secure is to be without fear of harm." Wikpedia
Imagine for a moment that it is possible to truly be secure. What do you suppose that would be like? When you imagine total security in body, mind and spirit do you find your mind drifting to all the ‘what ifs’? It seems to be a natural impulse to seek security while also being aware of the many things that can go wrong in one’s life. A significant portion of our modern culture is based on this impulse. There is a whole industry devoted to milking this impulse for corporate gain. I do not necessarily see anything wrong with this and I am not advocating anarchy: however I do wonder about some things.
As I have stated in the past, the spiritual life absolutely requires three things if there is to be any expectation of change; Patience, Discipline and Courage. It occurs to me that the last one can be very hindered by our need for security.
One of the things you learn when you take a lot of hypnosis training as I have is that one of the most basic needs of a human, perhaps the most basic is the need to feel safe. Our inner mind or sub-conscious has a lot of jobs but its main job is to protect us from danger, real or imagined. It does not matter whether or not the danger is real because the inner mind is very literal and accepts whatever you tell it. One of the dangers that the inner mind can perceive is change. I do not think that it will come as a surprise to any of my readers to note that change is always uncomfortable. We tend to want our changes to be easy, smooth, no real effort involved. In fact we would pretty much prefer that any such changes just kind of happen without our conscious knowledge. We want to be spiritually aware and to manifest all of the dormant qualities within us but we also want it to be fun with no associated anxiety. But, anyone who has made any kind of effort to expand their state of awareness will know that the above ain't gonna happen. Since this is the case we need to understand the process.
It has long been evident to me that most spiritual training ignores these most basic needs of a person to understand just what is happening to them. There is often this attitude from the teacher that somehow you should just accept and do what you are told. Even when they say that you need accept only what is comfortable, still the attitude is there. I suppose this is a holdover from the traditional way of doing things that held true for so many centuries. But, there is a huge difference in this age. In this age we no longer live in little villages where everyone knows everyone else and is totally supportive. We live in isolation from one another. And even if we are in some kind of village there is still an undercurrent of distrust. Why is this? Because we no longer feel safe. Our world has changed so very rapidly over the past 400 to 500 years that we are still catching up. This is especially true since WWII. Our psyches still are adapted to life in a small village. Almost every single person alive now, with very few exceptions is descended from peasant stock and the one true thing about peasants is that they live in constant fear of the Hun coming over the hill to rape and ravage so they have a very deep dependence on their neighbors. But now, in our modern culture where we are told constantly that trust is misplaced, we are even more fearful. Whew, so what to do?
I think the very first thing that a person should do is decide whether or not you are worth the trouble. Will your safety be increased by self-knowledge? Will you feel more secure by going within on a journey of self-discovery? You see the problem? This is something that you cannot know until you actually do it. So begin with the first one, are you worth it? I am not going to say the obvious because you are the one who must decide. If you look to someone else to reassure you that will only last for a short time as Krishnamurti says above. If you need someone, some authority figure, to maintain your self worth, then it will never ever been secured.
When I am working with a hypnosis client, what I will often do is help them create a safe place, a place in their mind that they can retreat to if the hypnotherapy becomes difficult, which it can at times. So here is a clue for you. You have the capacity to create a safe place in your inner mind that you can retreat to if things get too scary. And, from this safe place, you can venture forth into the unknown and truly discover the wonders of your hidden attributes. There is no need to do it all at once either. Little increments are best.
It is important that we feel safe. It is also important that we exhibit courage in our quest. So, as Pir O Murshid continually says, seek balance.
Love & Blessings, Musawwir
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THE FRAGILITY OF BELIEF
"True spirituality is not a fixed faith or belief; it is the ennobling of the soul by rising above the barriers of material life."
Hazrat Inayat Khan
"In the realm of religion most believers are still locked into traditionally accepted beliefs... Since these beliefs differ, they are often a cause of political conflicts with the trail of avoidable human suffering... The future perspectives of spirituality are based upon experience rather than belief systems..."
Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan
I bought a copy of Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi and began to read it. This does not always happen. Often I will buy a book because I like the title or the theme appeals to me. But then, in some strange form of imposed osmosis, I will believe that I understand the book without reading it. Sometimes I will break through this odd form of self denial and read, often discovering that my preconceived notion of the content is a great barrier to actually absorbing the ideas therein presented. It is this barrier that I must overcome in order to participate in the world of the author. Sometimes I will fail in this effort, deciding that I am smarter then the author and understand more then he/she does about whatever the issue or theme happens to be. There are a number of books in my library that I feel this way about and occasionally I look at the spines, imprinted with title and author and reprise my superiority. Then, if I am in a good mood, I laugh at my own presumption.
In the case of Reading Lolita in Tehran, unlike my usual m/o I began reading it right away. Why? Because, unlike many of the books I buy, it is about something that I truly know nothing about, the world of women inside a severe theocracy. Plus, the author has an author's note in the beginning of the book that I adore.
She says:
"Aspects of characters and events in this story have been changed mainly to protect individuals, not just from the eye of the censor but also from those who read such narratives to discover who's who and who did what to whom, thriving on and filling their own emptiness through other's secrets."
Isn't that wonderful though? And it brings me to the point of this particular blog. How much of your belief is based on the need to know you are better than others?
That may seem like a specious question but I am quite serious. I have been thinking much about how nice it feels to know that you know something that others do not know. How nice it feels to be in on some secret that only a very few can truly understand. And then to go further, how nice it feels to be able to tell someone that your belief is waiting for them, if only they will stop and listen for a moment to the wonderful message you have for them.
In the case of Ms. Nafisi, she was dealing in a system that not only is totally sure of its righteousness but also was quite willing to flog anyone who does not agree. Unfortunately for the floggers, eventually people will begin to see that there are serious holes, hypocrisies and inconsistencies in the system. So, we come to the next point I want to make, how invested are you in the belief system that tells you that you are wonderful and others are lacking? Do you depend on this belief system for your identity or to consistently inform you in some way?
I suppose we all do this to some extent; probably because we need some form of anchor to help us feel safe. Fundamentally that is what we are always doing, creating a safe place for ourselves with our interpretation of what we are experiencing or what we are told. When we get high or feel the increased flow of endorphins through our brains, brought on by the meditative or ecstatic state we have found, we will tend to attribute the feeling to whatever is taking place around us. It may be a religious ceremony, it may be a meditation class, it may be something quite individual but our tendency will always be to give credit to whatever or whomever the ecstatic state arose from. And we will then create a system to support our interpretation because that is what humans do. The much more difficult course would be to not create a system or a foundational belief.
It is almost impossible to avoid interpretation. We rely on language and cultural information to orient us and those will always be restrictive. Again the constant question, what to do? Well, back in the day, when I was a hippie, we questioned everything. Our battle cry was, "Question Authority!" Of course that only lasted until one was required to make a living, then authority became useful. I am not advocating such extremes but I am advocating having a look at what you think you believe and why you believe it. Only you can know what that is and how you arrived at the conclusions you have decided are real. As Pir Vilayat states above belief systems, even new ones, are passé; experience is the real teacher. Therefore, have your experiences but avoid creating a system to support them.
Love & Blessings, Musawwir