Aversion and Attachment
Human life as we commonly know it to be tends to move between two opposite ends of the pole. Rarely, if ever, is there a sense of harmony and balance in what we experience in life. We often push away things or people that we don’t like or we cling onto and grasp onto things and people that we do like. The result of these different approaches is the same. Both lead to bondage and lack of fluidity and of freedom.
In a relationship the woman might be too erratic and emotional while the male is too rigid and rational. Both are trying to balance out on the outside the fact that the inner life is lived without a real center. Awareness keeps moving back and forth as if it was on a tightrope just about to fall and not daring to take a step forward because all the energy goes into trying to find a point of balance.
Because we have been lead to believe that outer conditions are the all important factor in our lives, we continue to live in the cage of Aversion and Attachment. Pushing and pulling and trying to maneuver life into directions we believe we want to go to. If we don’t let go of the rigid beliefs about reality and connect with something that can offer a stable point of balance in this dualistic world of opposites, there is no hope of breaking out of this cycle.
The Ishayas are well aware of what the situation the whole of humanity is in right now. To break the tension between the two opposing forces we need to introduce a new level of consciousness where such tension does not exist nor have any influence. The Ishayas call this the Ascendant. One that is immutable and One that is beyond the workings of the mirage of earthly appearances.
Walking the tight rope becomes infinitely easier when there is a solid anchor point and every step is taken from that anchor point. We are not so caught up in the balancing act between the two opposites, but we are simply anchored in consciousness that resides beyond all of it and at the same time within all of it.
This is the ultimate subtlety and yet it is possible to experience it in this human nervous system. There is nothing that needs to be pushed away; there is nothing that we need to grasp onto. The only way to realize this in your life is to know the One and live beyond the appearances while being in it. This is what the Ishayas are showing us and keeping a door open for us to step through.
Nataraja Ishaya
Enlightenment
Pada 4, Sutra 4
The distortions of consciousness
are all from the ego.
Distortions are those created works that do not proceed from Nature. Their mother is not evolution but illusion. These artificial structures are the likes and dislikes, the attachments and aversions which keep consciousness bound to the Waking State. Consciousness undistorted is clear and experiences exactly what it is -- Infinite, Absolute, non-changing. Consciousness
distorted fluctuates and trembles, breaking the purity of Absolute Silence into multiplicity. These distortions are precisely the obstacles that must be removed for healing life to flood through the body and mind.
What is the source of these distortions? Simply the belief in separation that is the ego. All creations of consciousness that lead to suffering are the work of this one erroneous belief, the belief that it is possible to be separate from the Ascendant.
- MSI
Enlightenment, Pada 2, Sutra 7
Attachment results from experiencing happiness.
What impels desire? The memory derived from experiencing happiness coupled with the hope of experiencing more happiness. Everyone desires what he/she believes will bestow more pleasure. There is nothing wrong with this deep-rooted tendency of the mind, but when it is misapplied and directs life toward increasing boundaries instead of the Unbounded Absolute, time is lost and life does not progress. This is unfortunate, for it means that suffering continues.
It isn't necessary to add to your Ascension practice; there is no need to mix in other techniques while Ascending, nor find a specific feeling of Ascending, nor push other thoughts out. In fact doing so will only keep the awareness superficial. Ascension works when we are innocent with it, but if we add to it or change it at all, the positive effects will decrease. There can be no value in distorting Ascension. Simplicity is everything.
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If our experience of happiness is limited to something small, that will typically be the limit of our scope of desire. For example, when we are young, we experience that some pocket change will buy us an ice cream bar that we greatly enjoy. If we hear the ice cream truck playing its song on our street the next day, we desire a similar amount of change to repeat the experience of pleasure. Our vision extends only to the confines of our individual, private Universe. Is this bad? Not in and of itself, but it creates a repetitive cycle that makes it difficult to move beyond self-destructive habits. If we begin to define our happiness by a daily bottle of wine, for example, how long will our body withstand the repeated assaults on our liver? As we desire, we act; as we act, we
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experience; as we experience, we form new impressions in the subtle recording mechanism of our nervous systems; these impressions impel new desires to form. What can break this cycle? Only the introduction of a higher standard of desiring.
- MSI
Enlightenment, Pada 2, Sutra 8
Aversion results from experiencing suffering.
No one has to be told to run from pain. It is as natural to life as is running toward pleasure. The problems of human life arise when these tendencies become imbalanced. If our life is filled with fear, if we can’t go to certain places or speak with certain people or do certain things because of past stress, our Universe shrinks. The more we exclude, the less there is for us to do. Life becomes extremely narrow as our painful series of self-imposed limits keeps us from acting or enjoying. Breaking our crippling fears can prove an extraordinary challenge, one that is probably all but impossible to master without Ascending.
But with expansion of consciousness, the old, deep-seated fears naturally dissolve as they are exposed to the wholly beneficent influence of evolving awareness. The sweetness of the pure bliss of the Ascendant wipes away every tear in the flawless perfection of God’s Imperishable Love. The boundaries of life break, freeing us forever for unlimited joy.
A life of fear is no life but a living hell. But whatever a human being has created can be uncreated. And that is much simpler and more effortless than is commonly believed.
- MSI
Enlightenment, Pada 2, Sutra 4
Ignorance is the source that rules and animates the others.
The ego slumbers here;
attachments are small, weak, inconsequential;
aversions continually interrupt, wound and obstruct;
obstinacy is always active.
“Small, weak and inconsequential attachments” are not the desires of the enlightened. Every desire that manifests in the human mind has at its inception enough power and significance to be fulfilled instantly. But in the Waking State, by the time the desire reaches the surface of the mind, it is colored by previous impressions of stress and limitation, is therefore weak, often pointless, self-contradictory or even damaging. Such a desire often degenerates into a shallow attachment, small, powerless, of no significance at all. It is a boon that such desires have little energy left in them, else all the vagrant thoughts of the Waking State might be fulfilled and transmute life instantly into chaos.
The “interruption, wounding and obstruction of aversions” affect peace of mind as well as the natural flow of desire. An aversion towards anything means that, at some point in time, a limited judgment was made about the undesirability of a person, place, thing or experience; this arises from its storage place in the nervous system to collide with current experience, coloring and distorting it. The breaking of the stream of desire wounds and obstructs the flow of life, forcing it into painful and limited boundaries. The greatest break is, of course, the awareness of the Absolute into scattered and limited shards of Infinity -- so broken and wounded that the individual pieces no longer remember that they are in reality nothing other than the Infinite Ascendant. Now begins the definition of each of the five inherent tendencies.
- MSI
Opportunity in life
Once we start actively pursuing growth, every experience shows us exactly which desires and aversions maintain our past destructive behavior patterns. Every life-situation becomes an opportunity to grow toward enlightenment. As we become adept at renouncing all the previous mental constructs, we naturally develop a state of evenness that carries us smoothly over and through the mirage of Earth-life.
MSI, Ascension!
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