New Blog on TSK and Integral

Hi, friends, if you're interested, check out my new blog on time from TSK and Integral perspectives:

Three Nows, The Future Infinitive, and Triple-Loop Awareness

If you're interested in discussing it, feel free to do so here or over on my blog.

Re: New Blog on TSK and Integral

Re: New Blog on TSK and Integral

Thank you, Tom.  I like how you put this:  “that turns what once were perceived as solid lines into permeable dashed lines…”  Well said. 

And I'd love to hear any further observations or connections to Bohm (cool!) that you might have to offer…

All the best,

B.

Re: New Blog on TSK and Integral

Bruce, there was always for me something “good first step” feeling about Eckhart's perspective—irreducibly good, but limited.  Of course, the limit I felt was his rejection of past and future which, as I always couldn’t help but feel listening to him, are implied by the term “now” (why else say 'now'?).  Yes, only the present “exists” (the good first step), but in the present, and thus also existing, are future and past as elements of One Whole Time. 

It’s easy to see how the past exists: I am the past.  I am developed, evolved.  My DNA built up over, and contains, the past.  I represent but a further extension of a line that goes back to god knows what that was back then.  Thus the present is the walking talking past.

The future has always been a little trickier to incorporate as present-time, and I think TSK’s future infinitive does it justice: future as present-time openness, the never-will-arrive element of experience.  “Never will arrive,” for its part, and to me, feels contradictory in that it posits some definite “thing” that never will be (ie, posits the existence of a non-existent, like the Buddhist notion of ‘self,’ cough!).  But never-will-arrive is, in a sense, first-stage (unintegrated) future-sense, the way the future is naively felt; future-in-the-present, integrated into real time (ie, now) transforms (reconfigures, in your words) that naïve sense of future into something very real: the feeling of potential in the present.

I like the future-infinitive analogy to knowledge: the future represents the unknown in the known.  “I know,” for its part, implies “I don’t know,” the former being but a distinction that, like all distinctions, implies what it is not.  Not knowing is thus the ever-present flipside of knowing, the leading edge of knowledge, and always presently implied if not explicitly held in mind.  For me, not knowing, as a real-time present reality, infuses knowledge with a certain beyond-knowledge feeling, the feeling of Being, perhaps, which feeling is not separable from knowledge.  Hence knowledge and beyond-knowledge play and imply each other.

One can see this dynamic through the lens of the “infinite.”  When people first realize the finiteness of what they know within the seeming endlessness of possible knowledge, they often will say, “I know nothing.”  Of course, the finite never gets closer, by addition of any “more” finite units or elements, to the infinite, so this “I know nothing” seems to express a certain fundamental of knowledge. 

But “I know nothing” is like the naïve sense of future as the “thing never to arrive.”  Think through “know nothing” and see where it leads: if knowledge is infinite, then any knowing will always be bounded as within, and open to, the infinite, will never be any closer to arriving at “full knowledge:” that is the nature of knowing and of knowledge: it, like the present, is open as within itself, by its very structure and nature.  So from a more developed, more integral place, it is not true to say “I know nothing.”  Just as from that same place it is not true to say the future will never exist.

I thus also don’t follow Eckhart when he separates Being from “the mind,” “thought,” etc.  It also has crossed my mind that his own awakening was precipitated by thought, was in a real sense a gift of thought.  So there feels to me to be a bit of a remaining split I don’t feel when I read TSK.

We might draw an analogy between future, infinite and realization.  I often hear such things as “realization cannot be achieved” or “awakening is as to how things always were before awakening.”  There has always sounded something a little myth-of-the-given to those statements.  I think they represent a leap very similar to TSK's leap to understanding future as future-infinitive.  Or analogize to finite/infinite: the infinite can never be “achieved” by any further finite step.  But, of course, the infinite, to be infinite, must include the finite (and in my deeper sense, and a final banishment of human inferiority, is the finite).

Re: New Blog on TSK and Integral

I really enjoyed your reflections, Tom.  I will respond to some of them in depth soon.  For now, I thought you might appreciate the following passage on not-knowing from one of the TSK books (Knowledge of Time and Space), since it echoes some of your thoughts.  In it, while Tarthang Tulku speaks of a final stage, he does not mean “absolutely” or “metaphysically” final – rather, it is the final stage in the transition between what he calls first-level and second-level knowledge.

~*~
 

“Though we usually understand not-knowing as dark­ness, a place where the light of knowledge does not shine, this does not tell us what not-knowing truly is. On the one hand, it might be a blank with nothing to offer; on the other, it might reflect a potential for know­ing that does not accord with the juxtaposed positions of the already known.

As a symbol of this latter possibility, we can desig­nate the unknown as ‘x'. In ordinary usage, ‘x' not only marks the unknown, but also designates the infinitely variable. It indicates not only a point where entry is forbidden, but also ‘the spot': the point that may hold the treasure we seek. The multiple dimensionality of ‘x' suggests that the unknown might offer great value.

Greater appreciation for not-knowing can be devel­oped by investigating the links between knowing and not-knowing through several successive stages.

Stage One: At the outset, knowing and not-know­ing are sharply distinguished. But this distinction, by separating the known from the unknown, defines the known and gives it shape. We might say that the unknown is the ‘field' from within which the known emerges; the 'not this' from which ‘this' comes forth. While the difference between knowing and not-know­ing predominates, it is already clear that this difference is possible on the basis of something shared. Like the back side of a coin, not-knowing supports the known.

Stage Two: At this stage, the focus is on the barriers and limits to knowledge - the points of contact between known and unknown. These limits give the known its structure, even its authenticity. Without them, the knowable would remain an open and undifferentiated ‘field', perhaps not even knowledge at all.

Focusing on borders suggests that the line between known and unknown may not be so easy to draw. On the one hand, limits mark the appearance of the not-known within the realm of the known; on the other hand, the same limits are the most distinctive aspect of the known.

Stage Three: Now the focus shifts to the potential for knowing within not-knowing. As the point of not-knowing, ‘x' is also the point at which old limits can be challenged and new knowledge can emerge. For each new and unknown point, 'x' allows the possibility that knowledge can open. Now for the first time not-know­ing does not limit knowledge at all; it seems possible that knowledge could hold the whole, that knowledge is found in each point.  Indeed, not-knowing seems the only possible source for knowledge.

As a corollary, not-knowing now becomes the ‘car­rier' of knowledge. At the first stage, when knowing and not-knowing are clearly distinguished from one an other,'carrying' knowledge would simply mean trans­porting it from one place to another. But now something different is being suggested. Not-knowing might carry a ‘knowledge' that can encompass both knowing and not-knowing - a ‘knowledge' within conventional knowl­edge that at the same time does not exclude not-knowing.

The view that not-knowing can carry ‘knowl­edge' into knowledge requires a reinterpretation of the limitations implicit in juxtaposed positioning. As points of ‘not-knowing', these limitations are expressions of a more encompassing ‘knowledge'. The conventionality of conventional knowledge - its restriction to a lower level - is likewise an expression of such ‘knowability'. We might say that not-know­ing has disappeared, only to reemerge as the ‘know­ing' within first-level conventional knowledge. This second-level ‘knowledge' shows up everywhere, making no distinctions and knowing no limits.

This transitional view culminates in a final stage:

Stage Four: The unknown as a sponsor of ‘knowl­edge'. At this stage, ‘knowledge' invites us to discover a more fundamental ‘not-knowing' implicit in conven­tional knowledge. Although earlier views brought know­ing and not-knowing closer together, not-knowing was still understood as ‘surrounding' knowledge or underly­ing it. Now we can see that not-knowing, in both a first-level and second-level sense, is intrinsic to knowledge. The move that places not-knowing ‘outside' is a kind of deception practiced by first-level knowledge, a distor­tion (or ‘not-knowing') that comes from the failure to acknowledge not-knowing as the limited nature of first-level knowledge.

The dynamic that discloses this interconnection is not-knowing as ‘knowledge'. Newly familiar with not-knowing, we see the way in which we requisition a previous set of arrangements from the storehouse of what is familiar. We see how we have learned to take responsibility for the not-knowing of first-level knowl­edge, accepting not-knowing as our duty and making it into our position-even defining it as knowledge.

At this fourth stage, not-knowing now delivers ‘knowledge' in the non-deliverability of knowledge. Accepting the pattern of conventional not-knowing as what is given by ‘knowledge', not-knowing lets us embody the ‘knowledge' that is there. Not-knowing challenges each axiom, disclosing the ‘x' of the axiom as unknown, and as the ‘known' in the unknown.

The stages outlined here mark a transition from a first to a second level of knowledge. In the non-posi­tioned ‘knowing' of this newly available second-level knowledge, first-level knowing and not-knowing are inseparable aspects of a limited positioning. This insight is presented not as a critique, but as an invita­tion: When we no longer confine ourselves to knowing, knowing and not-knowing alike become manifesta­tions of a second-level ‘knowledgeability'.”  (KTS, pp. 265-268).

Re: New Blog on TSK and Integral

Lovely, quote, Bruce.  I particularly like his description of stage four knowing, and particularly this:

Now we can see that not-knowing … is intrinsic to knowledge. The move that places not-knowing ‘outside' is a kind of deception practiced by first-level knowledge, a distor­tion (or ‘not-knowing') that comes from the failure to acknowledge not-knowing as the limited nature of first-level knowledge.

The dynamic that discloses this interconnection is not-knowing as ‘knowledge'.

So not-knowing as a form of knowledge!  Very nice: not-knowing in knowing, knowing in not-knowing.  This is what I referenced when suggesting “the infinite is the finite.”

I just read something in Bohm that relates to this.  In a letter to “John” (?), he was speaking of groups and subgroups and how any factor expanded to its utmost comprehends all others in it.  To illustrate, he refers to Atman and Brahma (for which you could substitute knowing and not-knowing):

If the “Atman” expanded to the utmost, all would be comprehended in its “factor group.”  Vice-versa, if the Brahma expanded to the utmost, (ie, to extend the external world model), it must include the Atman.  In other words, Atman and Brahman are normal subgroup and factor group of each other.  Each can invert its role in the relation to the other.  Together, they cover the totality.  But the utmost expansion of either one eventually comprehends the other.  So if the awareness could expand without limit, it would be the totality of What is Real.  Or if the scientist's knowledge of an external world expanded without limit, it would also be the totality of What is Real.  Thus, Brahma = Atman.

Re: New Blog on TSK and Integral

Yes, I appreciated your earlier comment on the finite in the infinite.  TSK has a term it uses, finity, which refers to this perception or understanding.  Another related term is the “universal unique.”  I'll pull up some quotes sometime.

Re: New Blog on TSK and Integral

Hi, Tom,

You wrote:  Bruce, there was always for me something “good first step” feeling about Eckhart's perspective-irreducibly good, but limited.  Of course, the limit I felt was his rejection of past and future which, as I always couldn't help but feel listening to him, are implied by the term “now” (why else say 'now'?).  Yes, only the present “exists” (the good first step), but in the present, and thus also existing, are future and past as elements of One Whole Time. 

Yes, I have had the same “sticking point” with Tolle.  It seems he is presenting essentially a simplified or more streamlined teaching to Krishnamurti's.  And in both, to be honest, I have picked up on some unintegrated dualisms – some subtly polarized positions regarding thought, time, etc.

You wrote:  It's easy to see how the past exists: I am the past.  I am developed, evolved.  My DNA built up over, and contains, the past.  I represent but a further extension of a line that goes back to god knows what that was back then.  Thus the present is the walking talking past.

I'm not sure if this is of interest to you, but one of the concerns in Integral thought is to account for the “presence of the past” – something which seems to be subtly (if not overtly) denied in popular (New Age) teachings on the Now, but which I believe the TSK vision handles in a subtle and sophisticated way.

You said:  The future has always been a little trickier to incorporate as present-time, and I think TSK's future infinitive does it justice: future as present-time openness, the never-will-arrive element of experience.  “Never will arrive,” for its part, and to me, feels contradictory in that it posits some definite “thing” that never will be (ie, posits the existence of a non-existent, like the Buddhist notion of ‘self,' cough!).  But never-will-arrive is, in a sense, first-stage (unintegrated) future-sense, the way the future is naively felt; future-in-the-present, integrated into real time (ie, now) transforms (reconfigures, in your words) that naïve sense of future into something very real: the feeling of potential in the present.

This is well said.  The discussion of the “never arriving” quality of the future infinitive is, in TSK, a provisional gesture, helping to orient one to this transfigured sense of the openness of time.

You wrote:  I thus also don't follow Eckhart when he separates Being from “the mind,” “thought,” etc.  It also has crossed my mind that his own awakening was precipitated by thought, was in a real sense a gift of thought.  So there feels to me to be a bit of a remaining split I don't feel when I read TSK.

Yes, I agree.  One thing I appreciate about TSK (and about certain schools of Tantric and Dzogchen thought) is this deeper sense of integration – the “room” they have for those dimensions of our humanness and finity that are often denied in the service of ascent in other traditions.  I think that skillful means may sometimes first call for this “separation” or distancing in thought; where the problem enters, in my view, is when these moves are reified, taken as representing given splits in the world.

I've been pressed for time this week, but I've been intending to respond and finally had time to put this partial answer up now.  More later!

Best wishes,

B.

Re: New Blog on TSK and Integral

I wonder if knowledge, by its relation to the unknown—the whole dynamic of knowing-unknowing—gives a feeling in awareness for—is awareness of—being … being in awareness?

I'm struck by the fact that, despite knowing little how an electron works, what it is, etc., we are electrons.  Being electrons, we must “know” how they (we) are and work, but that would be knowledge, if you will, at the level of being, not at the level of aware knowing. 

In any event, here's a quote from Bohm that speaks to the relation between being and knowing, or their intersection in awareness.  It's from a letter I dredged from his archives in London:

How do we “know” that there is an underlying reality [a reality underlying knowledge]?  Let me propose that we know it because we are it.  Even science is showing today that each part of the universe is in a relation to the totality, in such a way that each part is the totality.  Here, I use the word “is” not in the sense of identity, but rather, in the sense of predication.  (The table is green.)  So the totality of predicates of each entity is in its relationship to the totality of the universe—a two way relationship.  Consider the radio telescope probing the structure of the universe, as carried into each point of space by radio waves from everywhere.  Similarly, each atom, each cell, etc. is in a kind of contact with the totality.  Most of this contact occurs at a very deep and subtle level, where it is lost to our senses.  But I suggest that in the process of awareness itself, man may come into a direct kind of contact with the totality, if he can be in a sensitive enough state to appreciate it.

Interestingly, the etymology of “predicate” = pre- before; dicare, make known, say.  “Pre-” in this sense is as in “present,” before essence, being (esse).

Re: New Blog on TSK and Integral

B: I'm not sure if this is of interest to you, but one of the concerns in Integral thought is to account for the “presence of the past” – something which seems to be subtly (if not overtly) denied in popular (New Age) teachings on the Now, but which I believe the TSK vision handles in a subtle and sophisticated way.

Hi Bruce, this is something I'm interested in, as it bears on integration. 

Closely related the notion of past is that of conditioning.  I hear subtle unintegration in common statements regarding conditioning, as in, “that's just your conditioning” or “we must transcend our conditioning,” etc.  Given that I and every thing is in no small measure the present trace of the past—a form of moving, unfolding conditioning—I tend to reply internally to (and to translate) such statements along the line of “that is your conditioning that wants to transcend your conditioning.” 

Freedom, for me, does not exist opposite (in the sense of against) conditioning, but is a product of conditioning in a deep sense.  Freedom is an emergent on earth, and is seen in beings (humans, for instance) whose physical evolved make-up (ie, conditioning type 1) allows for freedom generally, and whose childhood imprinting (conditioning type 2) implies flexibility and openness (freedom).

One might thus say, the more past, the more freedom; the more conditioning, the more freedom.  None of these, IMM, are separate.

As to the notion of “past” per se, one can play with the term to say, for instance, that part of the accumulated past, if you will, is accumulated future-in-the-past: the present trace of accumulated and accumulated future-as-it-was.  The past, viewed in this sense, would retain an openness, such that the accumulation of “past” could be regarded as a manifesting greater degree of openness, which is pretty much what we see with humans.

Either way, conditioning can be regarded as a gift, not something to fight against: the future infinitive in conditioning.  This would IMM represent a much gentler understanding of “me” as relates to time, and particularly the past.  I suspect what I'm saying is similarly or analogously expressed in TSK.

Re: New Blog on TSK and Integral

hi Tom…

i would love to think that going up against conditioning could be a gentle occurance, and i do see how your ideas of it would make for an easier time of it…and i would welcome that…but my experience has not been so…

it is painful…it is lonely…maybe i am just not integrated enough…lol…but every time i seriously face conditioning within my own being…i have to feel to heal, and keep it real…

i seem to be in the middle of one now…hopefully confusion will lead to a more open clarity of awareness and being…dunno…but i'll keep you posted…lol…*

Re: New Blog on TSK and Integral

hey Tom…just wanted to share something…

conditioning absolutely is a gift…LOL…although it does not seem that way when you are actually experiencing ‘going under’ the ‘knife’ of ‘truth’…when you can get past the initial experience, with a more balanced and fuller insight…no longer attached to the ‘suffering’ of the experience…then it can absolutely be seen as a gift as you stated…

here’s the thing…when you are actually having to experience the pain of the surgery, i am not sure there is any way to know that…but i am open to the possibility, and have often thought that it would be very advantageous to be able to ‘know’ that the uncertainty and pain of what you are experiencing is a ‘good thing’…but would ‘knowing’ that, defeat the purpose?

i would love to hear some more of your experiencing of this that can shed any light…and could make for an easier transition…

joy*

Re: New Blog on TSK and Integral

Hi Joy, I just now circled back to this pod to notice you posted two posts in address to me.  Pardon my oversight!  I will reply to your posts a little later when I’ve better considered what you’ve said.

To give a generality for the moment, I view the entirety of me as, in a sense, a form of conditioning … 13 billion years old (the age of the universe) and counting.  This statement gives a more theoretical view of conditioning: me as a memory trace of all that went before, and of all the influences radiating into me at each relevant time past.

On a more experiential note, I have found that in going into and through anything that arises—basically, the stuff given to and as me, my conditioning—whether sorrow, fear, anxiety, grief, terror, etc., and going through with as much acceptance, love and open curiosity as I can muster, that those feelings open and reveal, in their being accepted as such, a certain small bit of integration otherwise foregone.  My own process of feeling-work, as such, includes all aspects of me, my learning, my ideas, my attitudes, my will, my heart.  The outcomes I’ve experienced—I typically feel stronger, more flexible and more settled, open and loving—tell me that important processes lie in wait of any arising from my conditioning, from my past, from my desires, etc.

Feel free to drop me a PM if you want to share more personally what you’re experiencing.  I’ll be back within a few days to reply more specifically.

: )

Re: New Blog on TSK and Integral

Hi Tom, thank you for your reply…
 
I don’t mind sharing it here…I will have three years sober on May 7, so much of what I have had to face about myself and my life has not been pretty.  I did a lot of work with the 12 steps of recovery, and continue to do so.  I suppose that is why TSK inquiry appeals so much to me, b/c it is a continuation of looking within at a deeper level.  It allows me to unwrap those ‘frozen’ things of my past, and learn from them in a more open way.  While the memories may appear to be ‘solid’ in many ways, my perspective on them has changed and continues to do so.  While I cannot re-write or re-live the actual past, I can open it up and look at it in new ways so that I am not ‘bound’ by it in this here and now so rigidly. 
 
You mentioned acceptance; that is one of the main keys to recovery, but I am realizing that I only have to accept the things I cannot change, like if it is raining outside, I cannot make it stop raining, but I do not have to look upon it as a ‘bad’ thing…while I might have made plans to go to the beach and therefore be a little disappointed, there are literally a zillion other things I can do instead, and enjoy doing them.  On a more personal level, I have to accept and take responsibility for my actions and behavior, but until I became ‘emotionally sober’, I was unable to do so.  When the drinks and drugs were gone, I was an emotional mess underneath.  I realized that drinking and drugging was not my problem, it had been my solution; it just stopped working for me.  The problem was me; I did not have a clue as how to live life on its own terms…today I am learning…
 
Today I try to do what is in front of me to do, and not fight with the universe unfolding…LOL…when conditioning arises, I try to pay attention…if it is painful, I accept it and feel it, and I look beneath its surface to see what knowledge is there to understand.  I don’t know how my life got so tangled really, nor do I know why…I have ideas concerning it, but that is what the TSK exercise we did last week pointed to, that we re-write our stories to justify and make sense of our lives.  I suppose what really matters is living free in the here and now, but for me that means unraveling the past still, and uncovering and discovering those burried emotions that I have spent my life running from.  For it is only in facing and embracing the past that I can be truly integrated, and present in the here and now, appreciating the wondrous joy of being…
 
There is a quote from our Big Book, “We will not regret the past or wish to shut the door on it.”  I always slammed the door on the past as much as possible, and that got me no where but drunk and drugged up again.  Today I am learning to live life on its own terms.  It is not always easy, and sometimes there is still a lot of fear, but I am learning that fear is courage when willingness walks through it…
 
Much joy to you Tom…always, star…

Re: New Blog on TSK and Integral

Hey star, I think that’s great what you’re doing.  Let me share a little of my own orientation and work my way around to the notion I stated earlier, which is that my conditioning is my friend.

I find with anything painful in my life, if I look carefully, I see I am or was wanting to buy something with that pain, or buy something in that painful circumstance, from this person or that, or from life.  By inquiring in this manner, the pain tells me about areas in my life where I’m not in the position of full responsibility—full responsiveness—in whatever kind of circumstance the pain appears.  

This stance, for me, a 100%-responsibility stance, sees me as an active participant in anything that has happened to me.  When I say “active participant,” I am not discounting actions of other people, or discounting the necessary slow pathway of learning and growth for myself.  I’m but taking a view of the circumstance from the vantage point of my feelings about it, and looking into those feelings for information about me vis a vis another person, vis a vis, a life situation or condition, etc.  Those feelings reveal my attitude, and that attitude, if other than 100% responsive in an embodied, integrated responsibility, will show pain of some sort.  Pain thus gives me information about base attitudes underlying my interactions with other people and life itself.  Precious information.

And just like a baby needs to go through XYZ stages of learning and growth to be independent, so too, IMO, do we need to go through XYZ stages of learning and growth in our emotional/relational worlds to achieve standpoint-independence, as it were—to not only live life on its own terms, as you say, but to be life in the very way life shows up and is on this planet and in my life.  This latter is a very long road of inner depth.  

For me, the best guide on this road is the notion of pain as indicating <100% responsibility.  A positive way of saying this is: I am what is.  If I have a problem with what is, I’m split somewhere inside, this splitness, IME, generating a very specific feeling, however subtle, of painful divide, one part fighting another.

From this perspective, I am therefore very careful around notions of “my conditioning,” as if “I” can ever be separated from “my conditioning”—what a fiction!  Most spiritual traditions, so far as I can see, attempt to “get beyond” “one’s conditioning,” an activity that, to me, entrains a habit of inner division.  To me, inviting and enacting inner division limits, to the extent of the divide, freedom, flexibility, openness, love, accountability, etc.  To the extent of that divide will I be a victim of some or another inevitable sort.  One might say, then, that pain shows victimage.

As an antidote to this conditioning-beyondism, so called, I like to say, we are 100% conditioning: there is no beyond.

If we are conditioning, so called, we might as well be it, ey?  If I have a problem with my conditioning, I have a problem with me, am divided in that problematizing, feel pain from the divide, will feel “this person did X to me,” or that “life did X to me,” etc. 

One of the few people I’ve encountered to take full responsibility in life in this manner is Byron Katie.  I recommend her audio presentations and her method of self-inquiry for the deep surgery it represents.

Re: New Blog on TSK and Integral

Free Byron Katie audios.

Re: New Blog on TSK and Integral

Hey Tom, great post!  We are in agreement.  I’m very familiar with Byron Katie and her work.  I just happen to resonate better with TSK, but have several friends in recovery that are avid participants of her method.

While much of my pain has been physical, from injuries that were beyond my control (I mean I suppose you could say that I did climb that tree I fell 20 feet from when I was 5 years old, and I did go swimming in that pool where some guy pushed another guy in that just happened to fall on my head…LOL…), the first two years of my sobriety I was an emotional mess and did a lot of that ‘inner’ work…I can see how not knowing how to deal with physical pain, or reality for that matter (b/c of the drugs and the way I was raised), and not knowing how to allow and encourage my body to heal through more holistic methods, in turn allowed for the emotional conditioning that followed in many ways…which led to my life and addiction…which has now led to recovery…

Where I was the victim of traumatic accidents and injuries, I do not have to allow myself to continue to be victimized by those accidents.  While I may still feel pain, and I do, I do not have to feel divided within my being b/c of that pain.  I can own the pain, and continue to find healthy ways of dealing with it.  Pain is a good thing.  It makes you aware that something is not right.  Today, I pay attention to it instead of running from it.  I am learning to listen to what my body is telling me, and in doing so, am strengthening the areas that are weak, and I am aware of my body…healing.  

As far as getting ‘beyond’  conditioning, where once I was conditioned to take drugs and drink for escape, or use various religious beliefs to try and do the same thing…and behaved in insane ways to get what I wanted…instead, today I face it.    In facing it, accepting what I cannot change, taking responsibility for what I can change, my conditioned reactions and behavior has changed.  Whether we qualify that as ‘going beyond’ or not, might just be semantics really…lol…I do understand though, what I think you are getting at, b/c my unhealthy conditioning did not magically disappear…it has taken a lot of rigorous honesty and inner looking, and then just doing what is in front of me to do…



thnx for your reply; I totally enjoyed reading it…always, star…