Hello,
This is Guy,
And welcome to our third session in Breaking the Circle of Addiction.
I trust that you've been thinking,
At least looking at as deeply as you can,
The ideas that we've already discussed,
Because now we need to build on them in this third part,
Where we're going to talk about no more fight or flight reactions.
So let's gather some valuable facts about this lower level of will that we just discussed in the second session,
So that in this portion of our study,
We can start to understand that this lower level of will that we're calling desire,
Its limitations,
And how in our unconscious identification with it,
We are given what for most of us is an incredibly familiar sense of self,
One that basically always feels and knows itself through what it wants or doesn't want,
What it's against,
What it's for,
What I will or what I won't do.
This is pretty simple stuff in one respect,
Because we're a lot like a light switch at this level of consciousness,
Where something turns us on or it turns us off.
And of course that's incredibly limited,
But it never dawns on us how limited are those reactions when we are identified with them.
And to summarize that,
Basically we're talking about this fight or flight reaction.
But the problem,
If you will,
And one that we're going to examine in this session,
Is that neither fight or flight really resolves anything,
Let alone rescue us from our pain.
For instance,
If we take the flight side,
Meaning something happens and we want to avoid or otherwise deny our pain,
Or maybe we try to be spiritual about it,
Meaning we have some image of what it means to surrender,
What really happens is that in that flight mode,
It's a form of apathy,
Where something in us is choosing to avoid an unwanted condition,
Including seeing ourselves as we are in that moment.
Because that nature will say,
Well,
You know,
Something's hurting me and I've struggled with it before,
So what's the point?
I'll just either ignore it or in one way or another meet it with some idea I have to get past it.
And if one thing should be clear to us,
It's that that doesn't work.
It doesn't go away.
But on the other hand,
If we choose the fight reaction and decide we're going to struggle or somehow control,
Overpower the problem,
Be as assertive as we can as opposed to apathetic,
We also can see,
If we're honest,
That that doesn't really change anything else for us.
Because by hook or crook,
We might get past that moment that we've controlled or struggled with.
No one doubts that.
But all that really happens is that we get to meet a similar condition,
Where we wind up fighting to keep in place whatever it is that we have imagined we must have or do in order to be whole.
So fight or flight reactions are useless to those of us who want to break the cycle of being captured by a level of consciousness that keeps doing the same thing and expecting a different result.
It's what I call the circle of self.
And we're trapped in it without knowing it,
So we have to have information,
If you will,
That comes to us from outside of that circle.
And that new information is what we call new self-knowledge.
Because new self-knowledge allows us to look at the moment through a new understanding,
Or at least the possibility of it.
And in that new understanding,
It's as if we bring a kind of lamp into that moment with us that reveals what is concealed,
And in that revelation we can begin the process of healing,
Meaning making ourselves whole again.
For instance,
Take fight or flight reactions.
We think of them as being separate choices,
That we fight with something and that that fighting with something actually is going to change the thing we're fighting with,
But the fight or flight reaction comes to us from a level of consciousness that only knows one side or the other to do.
An event happens,
We react,
And the reaction is always some response from that level of consciousness that has no other choice.
And when we accept the choices,
Those opposites that belong to that lower level of consciousness,
We remain a captive of it.
And this knowledge that I'm describing to you right now is exactly what Christ was trying to convey when he said to his disciples,
You can't serve two masters,
For you will love one and despise the other.
Meaning that as long as I assume that fighting with a moment is going to change the consciousness that fears it,
Or that fleeing a moment is going to help me escape the condition that feels too strong for it,
I'm going to remain serving one and despising the other and never recognizing I remain in the grip of a consciousness that cannot understand its own actions.
That's why in our next session,
We're going to look at how we can begin to understand what we're describing here so thoroughly that it is evident that we can in fact step out of the circle of pain.
I'll see you in the next session.
Thanks for joining me.
