There were some events going on in my life that felt tough to me. This made thoughts and emotions about the situation compulsively arise throughout the whole day, which had a strong near compulsive grip on me. The nearly constant occupation of my mind by this scenario was obvious to me, but I noticed that the thoughts were even there sneaking in, in those in-between moments. So quickly they’d come in, it felt as though there was this “hidden fire” behind it in the subconscious. Thoughts about the situation generated more of a strong emotion, similar to the experience shared here, which would get me fascinated and engrossed. Even when observing, if I wasn’t careful, the observation could turn into identifying with the events again. Before I’d know it, I’d be arguing with the same people all over again in my mind.
During the day and at work I had the opportunity to study myself and to see the details, something Belsebuub explains how to do in his work on self-knowledge. I even had some moments to reflect and contemplate to take that observation a bit deeper.
At night in the astral dimension, I was able to learn more. Through dreams, I received generous help by seeing these situations in a more extreme form and having the opportunity to look into the reactions that played out. Also, I saw further connected sides of the situation that I had not considered before. I was interested to see if I could spot some of those aspects back in waking life.
Beginning the Meditation
In the evening, as usual, I had my list of things I find important that I wanted to do. But there came a moment where I really felt that the most important thing, right now, was that I didn’t want to go through all these precious situations while missing out on the inner learning.
So I turned off my computer, went straight to my room, and lit a candle to start my practice.
I’d been studying a lot of different sides of the situation, lots of details, so when I sat down I didn’t quite know where to even start. So I began by first concentrating right on the centre of my heart, then on some of the heartbeats in order to gain some inner focus. This was a practice I first heard about from Belsebuub.
Then I asked my inner Divine Mother for help to illuminate what I needed to see, such as all those branches of the subconscious which were binding me, the harmful attachments and reactions that I wished to overcome and regain peace and serenity back to my life.
Focus and Dedication in the Practice
Compared to daytime at work, here in this room, a single candle lit, quiet… I was able to dedicate my mind, my concentration, fully. I started with looking at similar situations that happened in a more distant past, seeing what the pattern was there, then I moved onto the current situation. I selected one aspect of the subconscious to begin with, but from then I tried to go with the natural flow of the practice. Whenever a new interesting insight came up I’d dive into that (from this, one or two more directions would often emerge, but I would put those on hold for the time being) until I’d exhausted the initial direction of study. Then I would move onto the next in line.
I made use of this approach because I didn’t want my mind to jump all over the place and for things to get chaotic, yet at the same time, I wanted to make use of the spontaneous insights that came up.
Although I felt I could gain so much learning during the day by seeing many specific details arising in action, a dedicated sit-down practice like this allowed me to be in more continuous concentration where I could dedicate my attention fully towards a much more in-depth quality study.
A Positive Outcome
Seeing things a lot more clearly enabled me to uncover the inner workings and structure of the situation I was in. This reminds me of Belsebuub’s video and his explanation of delving into ourselves for the purposes of self-study:
Having this information, I felt would aid me again when studying myself during the day, placing the details I would observe within that structure I’d discovered. I felt I was piercing quite deep into some of the fundamental workings of my psyche. By the end of the meditation, I felt so much freer of the situation which had me caught up before, and felt a peacefulness in general.
Thanks Karim, I really enjoyed reading your experience. Great video you’ve added of Belsebuub.
Thanks for sharing your experience with the meditation on an ego practice Karim. I agree that it can bring about powerful insights, when we dedicate ourselves to disciplined study, as you did. I’m glad that it helped you to move forwards from the difficult circumstances you were facing and instead gain a greater sense of peacefulness.
Very nice to read your personal experience of this practice Karim, and I’ve found that approach to be really amazing seeing the connection between various inner states and the related experiences.
It really is such an interesting exploration, and getting to that understanding of why and how is so helpful to overcome these negative inner states that cause others and ourselves so much harm.
That video of Belsebuub giving a talk from 2008 is so incredible by the way, I haven’t been able to move past the first 10 minutes as there is just so much insight being shared to understand and experience!
Best wishes for yours and everyone’s explorations!
Meditation on an inner state can be so transformative. I find it amazing the resistance I can find in myself towards doing it. But as your experience illustrates, the insights can be so profound and be incredibly helpful. It is a really important practice.
I really enjoyed your approach to the practice. Your description of not jumping from insight to insight but instead following one investigation through to its end before moving on to the next is such good advice. Thank you! I’m definitely going to try to apply that in my coming practices. I think I can sometimes get distracted by more insights and not really go into enough depth on each.
I’m glad you were able to make the meditation your priority that evening and gain that sort of understanding. Thanks for sharing, Karim!
Sometimes those very difficult circumstances (that function to bring up those hidden strong ego states deep within us), those circumstances are tough enough and overwhelming enough on their own :O. To then also have to make the extra effort within that to study oneself can feel like going to 110%.
But it’s that learning which is the whole purpose of the situation. And when the circumstances disappear (which can sometimes happen in just in a few moments by certain turns of events, haha), then it’s that learning which we’ve extracted and take with us. If we didn’t go that extra mile at that time, then it was just an incredibly difficult time with no fruits! I had experienced that a number of times already in the past and it can be devastating.
Actually remembering some of those past failures helped me on this occasion to refuse to be overwhelmed by that train of drives, and put everything on halt in the middle of the chaos, and to put that inner learning first.
I agree with you Mike on the benefit of self-knowledge meditation.
What I did notice though recently is that I feel that I can make too big of thing out of it as well, and that can make me a bit resistant to starting this big ‘Meditation’ thing, and then I sort of don’t do it much. But this morning I just sat down on a chair and started looking at some things, catching myself by surprise ;-), and it flowed into a very insightful and enjoyable longer practice.
Yes, the purpose of those difficult times is largely for us to learn, if only we could make full use of the adversity. It is such a sad thing to look back when circumstances have suddenly changed, and realize how much was missed. Glad that understanding could help you to push through those difficulties and extract something spiritual.
Interesting thought on making the meditation on an ego into too much of a big deal. I can certainly say the most successful practices I’ve had with it have come when I felt the need to meditate (not always in dire circumstances but more frequently in hard times) and then the investigation has been very natural. At those times ,it wasn’t a gargantuan task; it was simply what I wanted/needed to do to learn more about myself. Being natural with the practice is important and if we aren’t careful, the mind can make it artificial.
What a nice start to the day!
I think you made some good points there Karim, about the need to put in an extra big effort when going through difficult times, in order to continue learning about ourselves. Otherwise we just go through all those struggles without the fruitful reward at the end, as you mentioned.
It reminds me of Belsebuub’s comment in another video, where he points out “You’ve got to put the work into the situation, so that you get something out. If you don’t put the psychological work in, it’s just suffering – and there’s no point in that, is there?” https://youtu.be/vqjZn9LlfdU
It’s a beautiful outline of one of the most important aspects of the Great Work. Wonderful to read Karim; thank you.
Thanks Martin. Wishing you much success and learning in your practices :-)!