#bypassing

[kellymagovern]

Joe Hudson [x]

[polyphanes]

Reading the Kybalion: Chapter XV ("Hermetic Axioms") and General Follow-up

For this week’s Reading the Kybalion discussion, we’re woefully continuing our reading and discussion of The Kybalion, focusing on chapter XV (“Hermetic Axioms”). This week’s adverb for the reading is “woefully” because we still (somehow) have more to read, but in reality, we should feel a bit of relief; this is the last week we have to read anything we haven’t yet from the Kybalion, since we’re…

[kimchicuddles]

Written with real-life Rajeev TikvaWolf.com Bypassin' Betty: "Informing people of the harm they're causing is just creating more division!! Why don't you just LOVE EVERYONE?" Rajeev: "OK!" Rajeev: "I love you, and by that I mean: I will do my best to be in integrity with what I'm responsible for, as I hold you accountable for what you are responsible for." Rajeev: "I love you, and by that I mean: I will take an honest look at the division that already exists and WHY, instead of sweeping it under the rug in exchange for the plastic veneer of cohesiveness."

[errantabbot]

On Spiritual Bypassing the Imperial Vestiges

All spirituality is attempting to bypass something, sometimes it's healthy, and sometimes it's malignant, and those distinctions are entirely situational and relative, as frequently internal realities are not visible or readily discernable via external demeanor or actions. Fundamentally the concept of spiritual bypassing pits contemporary Western Psychology at odds with spiritual systems that do not necessarily share the same cultural context or world view, and it does so with an attribution of intrinsic superiority to Western Psychology. This is a consistent blunder reflective of the imperial tendencies still deeply vested in Western culture and academia. Again and again, when speaking of spirituality, and religion in general we need to keep a working definition in mind. In this I feel that the famed anthropologist Clifford Geertz has done a wonderful job in proposing that religion is a "special system of symbols" that primarily accomplishes four things, namely it: 1.) Establishes powerful "moods and motivations" in people 2.) Formulates a "general order of existence" 3.) Makes these conceptions appear as fact, and  4.) Makes these moods and motivations seem "uniquely realistic" It's arguable that most of what we do in life could be cast as religion via this metric, and it's thus advisable to keep perspective, as some disciplines such as psychology lend themselves more to this definition than do others. In light of this so much of the spiritual bypassing argument simply becomes an imperial crusade.  ~Sunyananda

[kellymagovern]

[x]

[kellymagovern]

—Osho, "The Great Zen Master Ta Hui," Discourse 27

[kellymagovern]

QUESTION: In America, many people – from meditators to managers – are using a technique called "positive thinking." They are trying to change destructive thoughts and conditionings about themselves, others, and existence, into positive ones, and in this way hope to be more successful on the level of their lives that they are concerned with. Picturing their minds as a cage, I wonder whether this technique is just like painting the cage golden. Is the technique of positive thinking helpful for awakening? Or does it dull the awareness of being imprisoned and the desire to become free?

OSHO: The technique of positive thinking is not a technique that transforms you. It is simply repressing the negative aspects of your personality. It is a method of choice. It cannot help awareness; it goes against awareness. Awareness is always choiceless. Positive thinking simply means forcing the negative into the unconscious and conditioning the conscious mind with positive thoughts. But the trouble is that the unconscious is far more powerful, nine times more powerful, than the conscious mind. So, once a thing becomes unconscious, it becomes nine times more powerful than it was before. It may not show in the old fashion, but it will find new ways of expression. So, positive thinking is a very poor method, without any deep understanding, and it goes on giving you wrong ideas about yourself.

And in America that kind of literature is widely read. Nowhere else in the world has positive thinking made any impact – because it is childish. "Think and grow rich" – everybody knows this is simply foolish. And it is harmful, and dangerous, too. The negative ideas of your mind have to be released, not repressed by positive ideas. You have to create a consciousness which is neither positive nor negative. That will be the pure consciousness.

If you repress some negative idea because it is hurting you… For example: if you are angry, and you repress it and try to make an effort to change the energy into something positive – to feel loving towards the person you were feeling angry with, to feel compassionate – you know you are deceiving yourself. Deep down it is still anger; it is just that you are whitewashing it. On the surface you may smile, but your smile will be limited only to your lips. It will be an exercise of the lips; it won't be connected with you, with your heart, with your being. Between your smile and your heart, you yourself have put a great block – the negative feeling that you have repressed. –Osho "The Transmission of the Lamp," Discourse 36 (June 13, 1986)