My Attitude after Thirty Plus Years of Inner Cultivation

by xparavox

I made a spontaneous decisions I could not have predicted an hour before. This was to fire up Aristomenes_X on xparavox. My other blog, esothemes, is more along the lines of esoteric practice, including psychic cultivation, inner alchemy and the processes of affecting reality known as “magic”. This one is more along the lines of general commentary and a bit more personal than the former.

Like most everyone, I don’t like to be labeled. At the same time labels are convenient and readily available, as well as complete with their own conclusions. They do not contain the unpredictable and rich complexity of hard to pin down qualification that realistically radiates from a being, place or circumstance in human experience. So while I don’t quite like being labeled, and do my best to be frugal with my own labeling, I don’t avoid it like the plague, nor do I (usually) suffer if on the receiving end. A little dislike I can handle. I have not been projecting myself as much as I used to on this or that on-line medium, so being slandered has been less of an experience than cringing from observing how trolls slander others.

These days, I am more honest in my lack of tolerance. We live and learn, and we do so to discern because time is precious and giving everyone the benefit of the doubt for no reason other than to make a good impression spends far too much of it. If I would give any advice on the matter of being ‘open-minded’ I would say that the best way to be convinced and open to an alternative view is when alone or in the company of trusted loved ones. Changing one’s mind is like changing one’s skin, and walking around psychically naked and exposed to the often harsh winds of human bias is not the best of choices in this world.

Even so, after dealing with the general atmosphere on social media and you tube comments (as well as the unsavory specifics) longer than I would have liked, I followed the advice of many who have complained and just distanced myself. Then I came back, and had to distance myself again; and again. There was no strategy in this dance of back and forth, but it wasn’t blind compulsion either. It felt a bit like an addiction, but there was also a sense that there was something meaningful in the din of immature reactions and conditioned responses.

What could possibly be meaningful in all that bullshit?

Bullshit is fertilizer when properly fermented. Thus the meaning- in the sense of value and not some elaborate interpretation- takes time to make itself evident. All that crap fertilizes seeds I have planted within me; my own aspirations and desires to stand strong and free and able to express my potential in a fulfilling manner. But unless I take time away, and tune out of the drama zone, I find myself caught by it again and again.

This never really bothered me. I am not one of those people who think even thirty or forty years of esoteric research and application will absolve me of dealing with the challenges of this reality. It is hard-core application that expands the radius of capability into new territories. I love being human, being passionate and emotional as well as clear and analytical when need be. I love using the first person, and reveling in the chromatic complexity of my human personality. Soul and body are one, just as the material part of body can disintegrate upon “death” and be a part of the terrestrial tapestry. The same applies to all the layers of subtle embodiment that mainstream science happens to deny.

I am not a spirit having a human experience. I am the experience of myself. Thirty plus years of esoteric immersion have revealed much and I appreciate it all, even though I am not all-positive-all-the-time; even though I can sound like I complain and judge; even though I do not meet the standards of one with a more cliché sense of what esoteric experience should do to a person.  Concepts of superiority vs. inferiority may not be completely thrown out the window. They have transformed, in my experience.

As such, they have become standards of specific comparison rather than generalizations to evoke a response. Being humble, ego-less (whatever that’s supposed to mean), loving, calm, detached, inspired and all the other new age approved positives are superseded by the imperative of being genuine.  Then the positives are real and have impact, and the negatives have their own important message to convey, and always first and foremost to the one experiencing them.

The sense of being genuine is not just a feedback loop of psychological behavior. It isn’t being comfortable in my own skin, and it isn’t about venting or acting out or any negative shadow blow-back to the positive light that many of a certain disposition encourage others to shine. It is doing whatever the fuck I want. Now there’s a phrase with baggage. It can evoke shock, snickers of approval, sarcasm, harsh verbal and written reprisal, caustic humor and any number of indications signifying discomfort or perverse expectation. But then again, esoteric cultivation doesn’t just help us express honestly any which way. It helps us be healthy in our genuine expression. It helps us taste and sniff out and glimpse and deeply listen to faint whispers and brief brushes of the promise of wholeness and what it implies.

There is a difference between genuine response and compulsive behavior. This is not something I can easily put into words, and at this writing I do not feel like making the attempt aside from a simple statement. Compulsive behavior feels as if pushed out, just as manipulated behavior feels pulled out from me. They both feel forced, even though compulsions can be hard to resist. Genuine behavior does not exhibit- for me at least- the sense as if something is in front or behind it applying a pull or push to get it through. Genuine acts come from genuine feelings, which are centered with self-generated mobility.

My attitude is to remain clear, not in my felt sense or behavior, but in the psychic spaces preceding and following it, to let it be itself as an expression of me and to remain with it at a pace of expression that represents me in that moment. The expression can be labeled as good or bad by others, but when it is genuine, the energy is always healing, regardless of whether there is discomfort or not.

It contributes to those glimpses of wholeness, and that state of well-being that is the base-line of any meaningful existence with all horizons of value fulfillment open and beckoning. The terrain may be rough, but conscious interactive capacity with it increases as one goes along, even as new and deeper challenges can reveal themselves. I can bitch all I want, but what I want is for my bitching to be genuine, and hence a healing influence. Sounds selfish because it is. The difference being that healthy feeling includes guilt free empathy and a sense of understanding (or at least a desire and striving for such) as far as the role one’s relations play in things is concerned. All in all my attitude of doing whatever the fuck I want is a good thing in my own honest opinion. How else can I be true to myself?