Resistance.....an obstacle to insight

The title of this post has come from a comment I received to my last post about the recorded interview with Eckhart Tolle. I was moved by the trust which the comment seemed to put in my spiritual judgement. The comment was beautiful and has prompted this post this morning. I want to apologise for not allowing a comment to the post, it was an oversight on my part. In my opinion the greater the resistance there is to something the more powerful is the insight to be had. There is an on-going and continuing game (I don't want to call it a battle) between the mind and the no-mind. The tools that keep the game in place are the chattering noisy mind which prevents the access to the calmer quieter no-mind and the compulsion of the mind to 'do', to keep busy to not make the time for reflection and/or contemplation.

Spiritual awakening is nothing more than the quieting of the noisy mind. The end of the incessant and continuous mental chatter. When the mental chatter stops the peace and calm which has always been there but has been covered up can emerge. The mind will use any ruse it can not to begin the journey of spiritual awakening. In the case of the comment from Tony it was because of a non-affinity with Oprah Winfrey who had recommended Eckhart's writings which prevented him from getting what is possible from this transformative writing. I look at all of my resistances very carefully. In my experience my resistances have been a cover up for some major breakthroughs. I can remember once having a terrible tiredness when going up to a Landmark training evening. With resistance it's so easy to give into it. The mind will quickly produce thoughts like 'you've had a hard day', 'don't bother going up tonight', give yourself a break and have a nice hot bath'. This can appear to be loving and well-meaning but don't be fooled - there is a payoff to the mind when resistance is given into.

I persevered on these evenings through intense tiredness and then had an amazing insight that I didn't want to be powerful. I was doing a training programme where I would be powerful in creating the life I wanted and I was resisting it with everything I had, this was why I was tired. Once I saw this I could give up the resistance and free the trapped energy that was keeping this tiredness in place. What this has made possible is so much energy and now tiredness is something I rarely experience and when I do my first question is 'what is it I am resisting'.

So to all readers I would recommend to look carefully at those areas where there is resistance. The reason for the resistance is not important, so in in this case a dislike of Oprah Winfrey is not the reason it is the tool used by the mind to prevent the important insights that are possible. The mind needs an object for its resistance. I have found that it is those people who I am most resistant to who I learn the most from when I let this resistance go.

This is not to say that having a feeling that something is not right, or not for you, is only resistance. It takes careful examining to discern whether something is just resistance because of the power of what is possible or whether it is solely that it's a message that it is not part of one's path at that particular time. I always find it fascinating when I speak to people about what the Landmark training in distinctions makes possible. When I first begin to speak and share the no-mind seems to recognise the possibility and gets all excited and the person wants to know lots about it. Then they say that they will think about it and let me know. The next time I speak to them there is a level of wariness and 'not for me' that I now smile about because I understand exactly what is going on. The mind has seen the possible future for itself which is an end to its domination and control which is why it suddenly puts up resistance and that resistance takes the form of thoughts like 'you don't need that, it's for losers and you're not that'.

I would assert and I don't know this is true but I would assert that all that is happening is the playing of the game between the no-mind which sees the possibility of the happy life that arises out of getting an access to the constraints which the past has imposed on our view of life and giving them up to become free and powerful and the mind which is desperate to maintain the status quo. There's nothing wrong with this game but for the sake of a happy and connected world more people have to wake up to the game and its potential for happiness or destruction depending on the winner.......

But I believe that as we come up to 2012 that more people are gaining an inner awareness of this game. There is an awareness of the inner tension and a yearning for something more that is not materialism. This momentum is going to gather force as we approach 2012 I feel sure of that....But why wait until 2012 why not start the journey of transformation NOW.....