October

Nine of us this morning first up an Alan Watts video on making the journey to understanding then realising there was no need. We are where we need to be. The idea to not interfere with what is just as we do not try to organise our body we let it function as it knows best. We are not in control any attempt to do so is not the way.
The following we found interesting written by a therapist.

   The "midlife" crisis with which the psychotherapists grappled probably reflects the fact that at midlife one's own death becomes less theoretical and more probable. Goals of money, security, fame, sex, or power might formerly have peen purpose to life. With experience, the limited nature of such satisfactions becomes increasingly evident. As one grows olderan awareness surfaces that one is on a relentless slide toward extinction, making self‑serving goals seem utterly futile. Even altruistic goals can wear thin without a larger picture of the human race than the one our scientific culture provides. As life progresses, the search for meaning becomes increasingly urgent. Profound despair and dull resignation are symptoms of failing in that search. The pervasive use of alcohol, sedatives, and narcotics In our society might well reflect many people's attempts to suppress despair at their purposelessness, to substitute heightened sensation for meaning. This widespread malady need not be inevitable, for it is possible that the conclusions of scientific materialism are wrong. From time to time we sense a larger reality than the pot science provides, a subtle perception pointing to a better, Meaningful existence. The dissonance between the scientific view and the one we intuit produces restlessness and a need for resolution. Even the pursuit of material goals may be a blind response to the urge to attain a dimly sensed reality in which purpose and meaning are facts, not fantasies. Our ability to progress in that direction is severely hampered by our notunderstanding the nature of the problem, by restricting reality to the empirical realm. Indeed, Western psychological science tends to regard the very consciousness through which we know the physical world to be no more than a product of that world, an epiphenomenon less real than that which it comprehends. No wonder meaning vanishes.
 it is as if Descartes had been stood on his head and made to declare, "I think; therefore, the world exists and I am an illusion."    Pain and dysfunction inevitably result from the denial or distortion of reality, a consequence clearly demonstrated in the effects of the fantasies of those suffering from psychosis or neurosis. It is equally true of the fantasies and beliefs promulgated by an entire culture. Our culture's belief in positivistic empiricism  — only the tangible is real‑produces increasing symptoms at the individual, social, and political levels. A person who seeks psychotherapy may be suffering from a distortion of reality. not only at the interpersonal but at the metaphysical level, and neither the person nor the psychotherapist is aware of that.
   A basic tenet of mysticism is that reality as ordinarily perceived is indeed a distortion' and that human suffering is the consequence of believing in that distorted view. According to mystics, the problem is compounded by human beings' inherent need to progress in their ability to perceive the reality that underlies the phenomenal world, which can result only from the development of a higher intuitive faculty, a process called "conscious evolution." People whose evolutionary need is frustrated experience a persistent dissatisfaction with the course of their lives. On the other hand, fulfillment of that developmental goal enables people to perceive the meaning of their own lives and the purpose of human existence. Thus, in the mystical tradition, meaning is a perceptual issue.
Similarly, it is possible that the meaning and purpose of human life are outside the spectrum of ordinary consciousness, whose widening and deepening are the concern of the mystical tradition. In fact, some see the evolution of consciousness as the principal task of the human race. Western psychology, in its often vain attempts to explain away the sense of meaninglessness and its attendant symptoms, may havemuch to learn from mysticism, which sees meaning as something real and accessible to consciousness, provided the appropriate perceptual capacity has been developed.    The fundamental questions, "Who am I?" and "What am 1?" arise increasingly in the struggle to find meaning and purpose in life. Therapists hear them as explicit queries or to indirect form: "Who is the real me?" or "I don't know what I want  — part of me wants one thing and part of me wants something else. What do I want?" Western psychology is severely handicapped in dealing with these questions because the center of human experience  — the observing self  — is missing from its theories. Yet, at the heart of psychopathology lies a fundamental confusion between the self as object and the self of pure subjectivity. Emotions, thoughts, impulses, images, and sensations are the contents of consciousness: we witness them; we are aware of their existence. Likewise, the body, the self-image, and the self‑concept are all constructs that we observe. But our core sense of personal existence ‑- the "I" ‑- is located in awareness itself, not in its content.
   The distinction between awareness and the content of awareness tends to be ignored in Western psychology, its implications for our everyday life are not appreciated. Indeed, most people have trouble recognizing the difference between awareness and content, which are part of everyday life. Yet, careful observation shows people that they can suspend their thoughts, that they can experience silence or darkness and the temporary absence of images or memory patterns ‑- that any element of mental life can disappear while awareness itself remains. Awareness is the ground of conscious life, the background or field in which all elements exist, different from thoughts, sensations, or images. One can experience the distinction simply by looking straight ahead. Be aware of what you experience, then close your eyes. Awareness remains. "Behind" your thoughts and images is awareness, and that is where you are.    What we know as our self is separate from our thoughts, memories, feelings, and any content of consciousness. No Western psychological theory concerns itself with this fundamental fact; all describe the self in terms of everything but the observer, who is the center of experience. This crucial omission stems from the fact that the observing self is an anomaly  — not an object, like everything else. Our theories are based on objects: we think in terms of objects, talk in terms of objects. It is not just the physical world that we apprehend in that way; the elements of our mental life are similar. Seemingly diffuse and amorphous emotions are localized and observable; they have definite qualities. emotions, like fluid objects, are entities we observe. Images, memories, and thoughts we objects we grasp, manipulate, and encompass by awareness just as we do the components of the physical world. In contrast, we cannot observe the observing self; we must experience it directly. It has no defining qualities, no boundaries, no dimensions. The observing self has been ignored by Western psychology because it is not an object and cannot fit the assumptions and framework of current theory.
   Lacking understanding of this elusive, central self, how are we to answer the essential questions "Who am I" "What am I?" that lie at the heart of science, philosophy, the arts, the search for meaning? To find answers we must step outside the boundaries of our traditional modes of thought.

   Here too the mystical tradition has focused on an area ignored by Western science. Both Yogic and Buddhist metaphysics and psychology emphasize the crucial difference between the observer and the content of consciousness and use meditation techniques to heighten the observing self. As with meaning, mystics hold that answering "Who am I?" and "Why am I?" requires a special mode of perception. That claim is not surprising, considering the anomalous character of the observing self. To understand the "I," we should first learn what the mystical tradition can teach us about it.