08-26-2008, 12:00 AM
For me it's a huge daily struggle to overcome this tendency to daydream.
One thing that helped me was when I was doing Fourth Way work retreats, one of my teachers exclaimed "I have no attention!", suddenly I had a
profound realization that it's a paradox. I can't have "Attention", until I realize I am full of my own **** so to speak and that I have
none.
The process of Self Remembering, or "not doing", starts from a space of pure humility or "organic shame" in the realization or confession
of one's actual state, "I have no attention" or something similary. A friend described it as realizing one was "meat on a stick".
If we can't come to what I am speaking about we may waste the entire day absorbed in our daydreams.
We might even daydream that we are awake.
In other words we have to become quite empty first to really Work. And for many this is a huge barrier. It was for me.
But luckily one of my teacher's pointed it out it to me at the right time.
This helped me distinguish between Subjective and Objective consciousness. I hope this makes sense.
Another way to look at it is that whenever we have desire to "wake up" we just take it as a given that we have drifted off into unconsciousness. No
harm, no foul.
Then whatever "consciousness" we can bring is all good. Rather than struggle with it, which is really futile we try to wake up to what's really
going on.
Even if it's just a tiny bit, we have to make lots of tiny efforts, rather than one big effort.
One thing that helped me was when I was doing Fourth Way work retreats, one of my teachers exclaimed "I have no attention!", suddenly I had a
profound realization that it's a paradox. I can't have "Attention", until I realize I am full of my own **** so to speak and that I have
none.
The process of Self Remembering, or "not doing", starts from a space of pure humility or "organic shame" in the realization or confession
of one's actual state, "I have no attention" or something similary. A friend described it as realizing one was "meat on a stick".
If we can't come to what I am speaking about we may waste the entire day absorbed in our daydreams.
We might even daydream that we are awake.
In other words we have to become quite empty first to really Work. And for many this is a huge barrier. It was for me.
But luckily one of my teacher's pointed it out it to me at the right time.
This helped me distinguish between Subjective and Objective consciousness. I hope this makes sense.
Another way to look at it is that whenever we have desire to "wake up" we just take it as a given that we have drifted off into unconsciousness. No
harm, no foul.
Then whatever "consciousness" we can bring is all good. Rather than struggle with it, which is really futile we try to wake up to what's really
going on.
Even if it's just a tiny bit, we have to make lots of tiny efforts, rather than one big effort.