Tag Archives: religion of self

June 5, 2017

569. On Sacrifice and Virtuousness

By Marlen

Or understanding the ‘Morally Upright’ construct I’ve been living as in relation to living a process of self-change

Continuing with this underlying ‘imprint’ within my personal process of self-change and the relationship to the words ‘being an example’ that can be read in my previous blog, I’ve seen lately the kind of words embodied within this idea of ‘being an example for others’ coming with a dose of morally upright stance. What does that mean? That part of what was motivating me to do things is to ‘demonstrate to others how things are done’ and in a way taking the high horse of experiencing it as a form of ‘noble path’ that separates me from the rest, that I am someone that is virtuous, commendable, proper, giving myself a ‘greater worth’ in separation of others, being dignified, dutiful… and some other words may emerge as I go opening this up, which don’t mean that the words in themselves are the problem, but how I have imprinted them all within this construct of ‘morally upright’ which will then require me to redefine those words to live them without the ‘experience’ of them separating me from the rest.

Here the relationship to being an authority to myself extended to becoming an ‘idea of authority towards others’ where leadership or being a ‘leading example’ is tainted with a righteousness, a stubbornness at times and an idea of virtue upon myself that is very similar to what some ‘religious authorities’ would impose onto themselves, separating themselves ‘from the rest’, being ‘more worthy of god’ etc. lol yet! At the same time claiming sainthood in wanting to help or save others, appearing as selfless and modest.

Now, this is a very subtle yet existent aspect of how I have been living thus far my relationship to this process of self-change, where there is – or was – an experience defining me in relation to ‘what I do’ as being virtuous, doing ‘the right thing’ in a moral stance that invariably came with an air of superiority, of ‘lifting myself above others’ in a very subtle way within myself and this invariably becomes part of the ‘process character’ where one believes oneself to be ‘better than others’ because of walking this process of self-change, which is nothing else but another personality as an ego that leads us back to being in our minds and recreating separation through the inferiority/superiority construct.

My experience of this wasn’t ‘visible’ to others for the most part – or so I think! – but I’ve been in it/as it all the way and it’s a very sneaky one because one becomes the ‘benevolent character’ that seeks an egotistical pride or honor through becoming ‘something more’ than others through doing what is believed to be ‘the right thing,’ the ‘good deeds,’ ‘being there for others’ all the time – and within this falling within a morality construct where it can appear that I am focusing on all the ‘good stuff,’ the ‘supportive stuff,’ but! The problem is that this benevolent construct of ‘goodness’ cannot exist without the opposite or its polarity, which translated in my case to existing in a constant judgment – and denial – of everything that is just not going along the lines of what I see is ‘the right thing to be/do/thing,’ the ‘truth,’ or ‘what is best for all’ and so forth, which invariably leads one to become this morality driven personality that claims doing what is most beneficial, what is most supportive – and may in fact get to ‘do it’ – but, in my secret mind what is fueled is a constant judgment to everything and everyone else that stands as the opposite of all of these words I described above, all that is ‘corrupted’ at the eyes of what I see as my principles and ways of living, all that is ‘impure’ so to speak such as lacking virtues, honor, respect, lack of principles, lack of awareness and in essence kind of placing myself in a very subtle experience of me vs. ‘the mortals’ that aren’t aware of themselves, that are still ‘weak in character’ type of thing, while covering that up with a façade of nobility, kindness and benevolence.

This is a very deceitful aspect to debunk because it is easy to say ‘well, you’re doing what’s beneficial, what’s right, what’s of beneficence to others, what’s wrong with that?’ or getting ‘compliments’ like ‘More people should be like you!’ type of thing which I’ve actually heard over the years in my case,  and again the problem is not about all of those deeds/actions and decisions to support oneself or others, but about how these decisions, actions and at times ‘self-sacrifice’ to ‘be there for others’ unconditionally fed this particular construct of the ‘morally upright’ character, where in my own mind I’d then compare, judge and go into denial of my own personal experiences and personal desires/needs/wants because of judging them all as too shallow, too ‘mundane,’ or lacking any genuine ‘impact for the rest of the world.’

This led me to constantly having ‘others eyes’ upon me in my mind where I placed myself with the ‘duty’ of ‘being an example to others’ of what ‘sacrificing yourself for the greater good means,’ and in doing so, I was in fact on my way to live a life of limitation and fears, which is ‘nobly’ said to be “of sacrifice and selflessness”, of “giving myself to others, “of “serving a greater cause/ a greater good” while actually neglecting myself in the form of denying to myself the possibility to genuinely enjoy myself, actually get to do what I’ve been denying to myself to do because of judging it as a ‘too shallow to dedicate myself to it, because it doesn’t benefit others directly’ or rather it doesn’t fit this ‘benevolent sainthood’ construct I’ve been living as – and within that, limiting my possibilities of being in a position where I could actually be of most benefit to myself and eventually others in doing so.

The bottom line is that what I just explained as this personality construct of sacrifice and virtuousness in a form of religious experience is really not at all the way to understand walking this process of self-change and I am entirely sure this is not the point of the Desteni Process at all to make ourselves into egotistical morally upright individuals that separate ourselves from all the ‘mundane filth’ lol and place ourselves in these pedestals of virtue and piousness. Not at all!

It’s quite interesting how I had become that in a very ingrained manner, not even questioning it at all if it wasn’t because of getting direct feedback on this through another’s eyes – of which I am quite grateful for because I tend to lack this kind of feedback – and this proves again that we cannot do this process ‘alone,’ but require to be in check with others that are also walking their process and can give us an ‘outsider’s view’ upon something that we’ve become so much to our eyes, that has become the very mindset through which we function on a daily basis that it takes some external point of view to see this with clarity, and in my case this also was shared from someone that had a similar design to my own so, that was a direct feedback of someone that has walked this point as well, which is what makes the Desteni community so awesome and supportive in walking this process as well.

I am also aware that the emphasis within this process is placed on ‘doing what’s best for all’ and how this can be twisted into only focusing ‘on others’ out there and forgetting about oneself in people’s minds like my own, where we tend to remove ourselves from the equation. So a simple reminder is to understand it as ‘being the best for oneself and so best for all’ as a result of that, so that ‘I matter’ is included in this starting point of everything we do, are, change and decide to implement in our lives within this context of self-change to benefit ourselves and in doing so, stand as our matter, as life to the potential that we see is possible and that we can practically live and develop in our lives, self change! In short.

I’ll keep sharing more on how this ‘denial’ of my own aspirations and desires within a stance of ‘selflessness’ led me to create comparison and jealousy towards others that I viewed as being ‘too selfish’ in their lives, enjoying themselves ‘too much’ while I was in the mindfuck and belief that ‘we should all suffer at the same pace of the rest of the world’ – or the majority of the world – and so, living in denial of me possibly being able to actually create the life that I want, that I see is benefic, supportive and enjoyable for myself because of considering that I had to live almost like a monk if possible, ‘detached from earthly pleasures’ lol!

And I do see that I turned this process of self-change into this ‘moral standard’ within myself rather than an actual practical consideration of myself, my life, my location, my skills, my context, my abilities, the person I am and want to in fact be and express and take it from there – instead of turning it into a moral semi-religious sainthood that would have led me to frustration, jealousy, bitterness, dissatisfaction and eventually becoming a fascist in my life towards myself and others, which is something that ‘resonates’ a lot with me in that personality context. An example is whenever I see military people like sergeants in movies, I can totally relate to them and almost see those characters as ‘kindred spirits’ lol! Where this notion of ‘the noble path’ makes one honorable, respectable and virtuous, better than others, superior, powerful, all of it lived as a character within a fake authority of fear that we sure have to change and step out of in our own minds and in the systems within this world in order to actually live equality in all aspects within ourselves, starting with ‘who we are in our minds’ and within me, this translates in ensuring that I don’t recreate this mindfuck of the ‘virtuousness’ and ‘morally upright’ experience in relation to walking this process of self-change.

Thanks for reading.

 

 

 

Join us in our process of Self-Expression as LIFE

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June 2, 2017

568. Sacrificial Sainthood

By Marlen

Or how the idea of ‘being an example to or others’  in my head became another personality to debunk

In my case and relationship to living purpose, I noticed that I had defined me doing this process of self change also to ‘be an example for others’ and in that, more veering towards the noble, pious and honorable idea of ‘being an example’ of what it means to live in certain principles in this life and ‘show that to others’.

 But! I realize how there was a weight placed on the ‘to others/for others’ rather than understanding the simplicity of what ‘being an example’ means, which in my current redefined relationship is not to see it as a standard of superiority, a ‘quality standard’ or being qualified with notions like being ‘more noble’ or ‘better’ or showing others ‘how it’s done’ from a superior starting point, but instead actually using ‘the matter’ that I am as a human with a physical body, a mind, a capacity to make decisions, create, grow, expand within challenging my own limitations, my own ideas and beliefs which include the whole point of ‘creating an impact ON OTHERS’ and so focusing too much on ‘others’ and in a way, relegating myself to a second plane which might have been ‘subtly’ there, but it does create and sustains a persona/personality around ‘being an example’ and making that ‘my living purpose’ where it becomes about showing, demonstrating, teaching others something instead of first living it for and as myself, entirely and unconditionally.

See, what I found I tend to miss is that in being the best for myself, as myself, for myself = one invariably then becomes an example – but here I had to redefine my relationship with the word ‘example’ because within me it was plagued with notions of my past experience as an ‘exemplar student’ and how I was placed on a form of ‘pedestal’ at the eyes of my peers as in being used to show others ‘how things should be done,’ and I’ve lived that pattern ever since – in varying degrees, a lot less pronounced in the past years – but I realized it was still there when I started uncovering more about certain patterns that I’ll continue to share in relation to ‘others’ and how ingrained this point of ‘serving others’ and ‘being for others’ or at times ‘sacrificing’ myself ‘for others’ has existed in my life, taking almost a religious tonality to it, which I’ve been definitely challenging and debunking this past month, allowing myself to slowly but surely disentangle myself from these covert or more ‘ingrained’ aspects in how I’ve been approaching certain aspects in me ‘by default’ which at the same time build personalities in me that have become so much ‘myself’ that I actually required a second pair of eyes looking into my life to assist me in seeing this, which is quite cool as well.

Now this doesn’t mean ‘what I do’ changes, but the starting point does. And that’s what becomes a fine line in everything that we do, are, become and invest ourselves on, being best for ourselves first and foremost which may be understood as a point of selfishness if you will, which I had quite a ‘reaction’ to doing at first, until I realized it was a matter of seeing how I had lived my relationship to words like selfishness, serving, ‘being an example for others’ and others that I’ll be opening up as I go with particular positive and negative charges to them.

I am aware that many more specially in this context of walking a process of self change might have a similar ‘design’ to the one that I have/had/am walking through which is where one kind of forgets about oneself and completely and solely focuses on ‘others’ and ‘serving others,’ at times even if that means compromising oneself in one way or another or simply forgetting to first do things for, by and as myself – and sometimes even going into guilt if one ‘dares’ to do things that are solely for oneself (!). So I found today’s interview released at Eqafe.com spot on describing this pattern and personality, along with a beautiful explanation on ‘finding one’s inner spark’ so altogether very recommendable:  Work, Work, Work (Rediscovering Your Spark in Life) – Quantum Systemization – Part 156

I find then that the whole point of ‘I matter’ has assisted me a lot to confirm what I had been pondering about for some weeks and it’s funny that this word ‘matters’ was popping in my head but I could not see anything further other than what I explained in my previous blog in relation to what matters, what is important, but never linked it to ‘I matter’ which is a necessary ‘click’ that I required to see that yes, I had in a way placed more importance on ‘everything else out there’ rather than focusing first of all and primarily on myself, because how can I in fact be a supportive example if I am missing ‘myself’ in the equation? If I turn this whole process into a semi-religious sacrifice where I believe I cannot enjoy myself and life unless everyone in the world gets to be in a good living position, how would I end up ‘living’ my life?

Well, I would be setting myself to live in an emotional state of misery and that’s definitely not what’s best for me, nor for anyone else if there’s an actual ability and possibility to be ‘the best’ that we can be for ourselves – and so invariably to others as well. I am aware this might sound a bit extreme but this kind of associations did exist within me up to fairly recently, very subtle but still there and it’s a point of morality as well about wanting to be a ‘good person’ that is ‘compassionate’ and ‘caring to others’ as a form of benevolent persona which I am aware now became a limitation to focus on things that I had then judged as not important, menial, shallow, not ‘supportive for the world’ and so, I was exiting in denial of doing things that I know I genuinely enjoy, which I came to at times be in conflict with because of seeing it as ‘menial’ – like doing what I actually trained myself to do, which is arts. Now I’m deciding to fully take that on again as a career path, which I am quite happy about but even this ability to write ‘I am happy about it’ to me has been a process, I initially almost had a ‘hard time’ embracing this decision and life statement yep! That’s how deep this ‘sacrificial sainthood’ pattern goes, yep almost like a nun really that ‘renounces to earthly pleasures’ and what I genuinely like doing for the sake of ‘doing everything for everyone else’ which is not the point at all.

And yes as I write that, man, a part of me wants to pop out and say ‘but no, you can’t!’ and that’s the thing! that’s the personality I’ve lived which can be equated in a polarized manner to that of a religious person in fact where there was a dimension of ‘I cannot enjoy myself, I cannot be ‘happy’ unless everyone else in the world is happy’ and so yes, denying myself the possibility and ability I have to fully live the words ‘I matter’ not only in the aspects I described yesterday, but in everything and anything I do or don’t do, to do it for and as myself and stop seeing myself ‘through the eyes of others’ which I’ve seen lately is quite a ‘biggie’ for me as well.

Therefore, I’m glad that I’ve been able to open this up for myself and I share it considering how someone else might relate to it –part of the principle of making myself ‘matter’ is to express and share, to keep track of myself in what I go discovering about me, my life, the way I’ve lived, the points I have yet to walk, change and fine tune. All of this is what I see is a key for me to step out of certain limitations as beliefs, ideas of ‘who I must be’ that eventually become what has been defined as ‘the religion of self’ as the personalities we’ve become, the limitations, the fears, the morality over the reasons why we do or don’t do things which stand as obstacles to us fully embracing, living and expressing as the matter, the life, the potential that is here as ourselves, that’s what the Desteni Process is about, so in a way learning to be ‘the best’ for yourself, as yourself entirely and then get to realize what that means when understanding the actuality of equality and oneness : )

 

Will continue to share as I go…

 

Thanks for reading!

 

Hollow the Priest

 

Join us in our process of Self-Expression as LIFE

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April 24, 2017

562.Stepping out of Character

By Marlen

Or how to practically challenge the ‘I will never….’ statements

I’m currently doing things that I would not have done before, that I had said ‘I’m never going to do’ or that I was resisting to get to do not that long ago, yet upon also analyzing to what extent these beliefs were limiting me in many ways, I realized how I was sticking to certain views and ideas about myself and what I am willing to do or not as part of a religion of self, where I believed that ‘I have to stick to my words’ or ‘I have to follow through my decision’ even if these words or decisions are proven to be ineffective, rather limiting or leading myself to a form of restriction or ‘sacrifice’ within a moral view of what I believed is right or wrong to do.

An example is getting a car and learning to drive. I had been wanting to avoid doing this for such a long time and dragging this around as something I would ‘someday, maybe, eventually do’ but ultimately had not placed a time and date for it, believing that somehow I could just prolong it and leave it hanging there for indefinite time. However, I am glad that certain situations in my reality have also led me to push to get this done and saw for myself how it was rather ‘easy’ it was to give direction to these two points in terms of finding a suitable used car and scheduling the driving lessons. I had the first one today and yes of course it’s completely doing something that I had for sure feared and so resisted to do for such a long time that whatever I face as fear is only also an accumulation of all the reasons, excuses and justifications I would tell myself in order to not move and direct this point in my life, which I am definitely now aware is something that I can get to enjoy and benefit from.

Here then for example, some of the reasons, excuses and justifications I used to not learn to drive is not wanting to pollute more the world with one more car, opting to walk around for the most part, take uber rides or public transportation which I have defined also as ‘grounding moments’ which sure I can still do whenever it’s practical do so, but it’s of course cool to have an option that is a more independent form of transportation. I also got to take pride on walking long distances, to the point where I could walk to places without even taking public transportation, which is still something enjoyable for sure and great exercise, though sometimes road to get somewhere is not always walkable, weather conditions are not always suitable and this also becomes a determining factor to go out to places that are mostly nearby, which has actually been then a limitation for me to not go to places where public transportation doesn’t get to or private rides would be too expensive. So, with having a car I can then circumvent these limitations and get around easier.

In terms of seeking a car, it was also quite a time consuming situation, something that I had to not give up on and be patient about as well, it’s not so ‘easy’ to buy a used car and be satisfied in most aspects about it, so I am glad I found the one I ended up buying right when I said ‘ok I’m done, this is the last number I’m calling to’ – and a part of me also wants to diminish all of this as petty situations, nothing too ‘transformative’ or these are things that people do on a daily basis, but here I also have to consider my context and my particular beliefs that I had to essentially breakthrough – or step out of character – in order to do all of this, so I have to not go into a projection about how this might be read, because here I share the direction that’s needed to do things that I had postponed for a long time until realizing the benefit that it creates.

Another thing I decided to do is get into a short running race for amateurs on Sunday, it’s essentially a 3 km jog that I regularly do, and I managed to get a second place in it lol, it was funny because to me it ended up being a lot more considering I jogged all the way back and forth to the start of the race, so I also discovered that I can in fact jog more than what I usually do and my body didn’t get strained at all, which means that whenever I feel like I can barely complete one loop around the track it means I am most likely listening to my mind and not really being here with and as my body. Of course this wasn’t among ‘professional’ so I’m not bragging about the position here, but rather seeing how this was easy for me to do because of having been consistently jogging.

This is again something I would not have at all considered I would do in my life based on how much I would suffer to give a jog around a smaller track when being in junior high school and saying words like ‘I’m never going to run again in my life.’ For this race, I had to make a decision to participate in it, get myself inscribed which is by all means something I would not have dreamed of doing over 2 years ago when I would probably run 100 meters and start panting… it may seem easy to say to be part of a race, but again taking my context into consideration, I would always only fume about how I ‘sucked at running’ and ‘loathed physical exercise’ many years ago. However with consistency I’m about to do some 2 years of being regularly jogging without having any problems in my body with it, being very gentle as well and not over doing it, as well as continuing walking on a regular basis which I’ve done for some 10 years or so, which has also been very assisting to me, my grounding ‘get away from computer’ moment as well, a ‘me time’ walk towards downtown and yes for sure also doing it for the exercise it is. Here I also place a disclosure that many people consider jogging is not good for the body, and so it might not but that’s where I’m at right now with it and enjoying a lot the fact that I can do something I would not have dreamed of being able to do before – of course starting with small steps, practicing, just like with everything, which I now remind myself of now that I got quite into the ‘new zone’ of learning to drive, and reminding myself to be patient about these new things to learn, expansion it is!

I’ve also been painting something that I sincerely would not have done 10 years ago when I started my career, and it is funny how I am remembering more about the classes  I decided to skip many times because of how I deemed my teacher was ‘too conservative’ and that I was ‘never going to paint the stuff he wanted us to paint’ and even had verbal arguments with him where I got into one of those arrogant positions of me being all about abstract art and ‘could not care less for painting a self-portrait.’ And I just realized I kind of just painted that lol! And I am actually blushing right now in embarrassment while remembering that moment with that teacher where I almost let everybody know how much I disliked his ways and creating a belief that I also was not precisely appreciated by him, which I actually later on had to debunk for the assumption it was on my side, and also up till this day, I do regret not having gotten some basics from him, because they are in fact the kind of apprenticeship that you don’t get anywhere else, so I share this as a cautionary tale to ‘never say never’ and realize that any skills are always welcomed to be learned, because we never know when we might need them.

But in my case that’s done and now all I can do is learn those skills myself. Here simply sharing as part of those things that I said I would ‘never do’ and have kind of just ended up doing it anyways because I am also exploring different things to do and challenging what comes ‘natural’ to me and doing things I would usually definitely not do when it comes to painting.

I’ve discovered how painting or doing art is where most of my self doubt can emerge because there is not set ‘right or wrong’ ‘finished or unfinished’ type of task that I am good at – when it comes to self-creation it is a process in itself and that’s also how I’m realizing that it goes beyond the ‘final product’ as well, it also has to do with how one goes shaping one’s expression every brush of the way so to speak. And yes I also have to eat my words as well when I said I wasn’t going to paint again and do art again… well, here I am, one more to the list of things that I’ve gotten to ‘get back to’ or start learning to do or continue integrating in my life, which I am definitely enjoying because it is one of those things I do for myself and discovering new starting points for it becomes a nurturing hand in hand process with the Desteni Process as well.

Same with travelling to a particular country that I said ‘I won’t ever step foot into it again!’ and ranting about it… well, yep I can never know what opportunities may open up in relation to that country as well so, I can only eat humble pie and take my words back, self-forgive my absolutism/self-fascism that I now realize I have kept as a form of limitation which I am now very much willing to and ready to expand from.

With these few examples and others in my day to day, I am seeing more clearly how ‘tight-viewed’ I have kept myself in relation to many things in my life just because of believing that I am comfortable the way I am, but in reality it might not be so and the only way to get to know where one is actually limiting oneself or in fact doing something out sheer preference, is by testing things out and realizing that nothing is lost by testing something out, giving it a go, doing something ‘out of the normal’ which I am definitely eager to continue doing in various ways as well. It definitely seems like I am shedding an old skin so to speak and opening my horizons to something beyond what has become very normal and regular to me.

The overall point as a reminder for myself is: never say never, because we won’t ever in fact know what is ‘around the corner’ in our lives and creating these statements like ‘I’ll never drive a car’ ‘I dislike jogging’ or ‘I hate painting self-portraits’ or ‘I am never going to buy a car’ or ‘I won’t ever grow my hair back again’ are statements I made at a certain point in my life, but I’m learning to not keep myself captive within my own sentences and instead challenging myself, because to me many times it felt as if I was ‘betraying myself’ by doing all of these things, but all I’ve seen is the betrayal of opinions, beliefs, morals – ultimately a religion of self where I was not really considering all the potential situations or outcomes in life that I have to in fact be flexible about, so this is also another practical way to live the word flexibility.

All of this is of course part of walking this Desteni process where these decisions to do something and actually ‘move’ in our reality  – even more so when they are ‘out of the comfort zone’ situations – are quite supportive to transcend our fears, our limitations, our beliefs, our morals, our ‘religion of self’ and continue challenging myself this way, which is then again going hand in hand with my previous blog on ‘provocation’ and provoking myself to ‘loosen up’ some of the tight and rigid fixed ‘norms’ I had set for myself throughout my life in the past – or up to fairly recently – because hey, every day can be an opportunity to challenge these limitations.

Ok, let’s continue walking.

Thanks for reading.

 

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