A seeker went to a master and said:
"Master, please, please tell me
the secret of life ! "
The master said:
"Alas, I am sorry, I cannot
tell you the secret of life".
The seeker, who had travelled far and
suffered much,
was very upset and wailed:
"Why not? ! "
The master looked all round and leaned
in to
whisper in the seeker's ear:
"Because . . . . . it's a
secret".
It is a similar story for the
unconscious. No one really knows what the unconscious is, because
it is unconscious ! Its effects can be seen but these effects
require interpretation. There is much disagreement on how to
interpret the signs. For Praxis, fortunately, it is not an issue.
It is obvious to anyone who spends some time looking 'inside'
that there are some things going on that cannot be seen or
understood directly. Praxis leads us to see that every deep
feeling is mysterious . . . .
If you think it useful to consciously
experience the effect of an unconscious feeling, here is
something you can try:
Sit down as if for meditation or, if you
follow Praxis techniques, for Stillness. Do whatever preparatory
things you need to do. Whatever your regular practice, for this,
close your eyes. Each session should last about 10 - 20 minutes:
Without touching yourself or moving in
any way other than to adjust your posture, become aware of you
body as fully as possible.
Become aware of how your skin touches
your clothes, of how you are sitting.
Become aware of your weight
Become aware of any aches, pains, itches
or sensations inside you
Concentrate your awareness on what your
skin feels like, your physical boundary. (There will be a
tendency to concentrate on one area, your arms, or head, or mouth
and nose as the breath comes in and out). Try and become aware of
all of your skin. If this does not happen, try and let your
concentration roam around your skin. After this has happened for
a while, try again to become aware of all of your skin, your
whole boundary.
This may take many times of practice
before you can get to a place where you are comfortable arriving
at a sense of all of your skin, your boundary. (Remember, your
eyes need to be closed for this practice). When you can get this
state comfortably, then maintain it but start to add an awareness
of any sound. Distinguish between sounds "inside" you,
(say, a rumbling belly, heartbeat etc) and those
"outside", (passing traffic, the wind in the trees
etc).
Maintain the skin boundary sense and the
difference between sounds inside you and outside you. Are there
any other experiences that become part of this process? (For
example, I get a sensation of warmth). Any experiences that, over
time, present themselves regularly, providing the act of trying
to achieve them is not too distracting, then build them into the
process.
At this stage, unless you now have a
clear overall sense of your skin boundary, of inside and outside
sounds and other related sensations, it is not worth pursuing
this exercise. The time it takes varies from person to person,
but a rough guide would be this: only devote a month to this
(say, five times a week, maximum 20 minutes each). Assuming you
have this sense, then next, build in looking at any feelings.
Maintain the awareness of you skin
boundary but now pay special attention to any emotions, feelings,
that arise. With Praxis techniques and especially Constancy, the
emphasis is always on experiencing the feeling and letting it go,
that is, not holding on to any feelings that arise, just watching
them come and go. With this exercise, as a feeling starts to
"go" (diminish), watch the "ending" - or -
watch the that part of the process whereby one feeling or group
of feelings, transforms into another or another group. If you can
hone your looking - if this exercise works for you - something
unusual will happen. This "something unusual" will be
different for everybody, and will be different at different
times, but here's what happened to me, by way of illustration. .
. .
I was "watching" my feelings
come and go
I experienced a rush of intense sadness
It was a known group of feelings about
something I knew only too well
No surprises.
I watched the feelings diminish
Then right at the end, a brief flash of
fear.
Why? Why fear?
Why fear about this well known sad but
non-threatening situation?
I tried to recapture that fear. Couldn't
do it.
The flash of fear would not reappear on
demand (things from the unconscious rarely do ! ). I
couldn’t recreate the sadness either, (conscious feelings
rarely appear on demand either) but I could recreate the sequence
of events that had caused the sadness. I did this. Sometimes I
felt the flash of sadness and sometimes I did not.
Patiently, over many months, I teased
out the flash of fear. I could not describe the fear to myself.
It was non-verbal, raw and energetic - albeit very brief in
duration.
As I teased it out, it hung around for
longer.
The fear was not to do with the events
that caused the sadness. It came out (sometimes) once those
feelings were leaving. There was a connection but not a logical
one. This showed me that the boundary between what I thought of
as "me" and "not-me", was a fluid mobile
place. It was not nearly as certain as I originally experienced
it. The unconscious is more noticeable at this fluid
"boundary". It is a good place to look . . . . .