The experience of resistance can be a very useful flag. But it’s important to look into it and see where it’s coming from. Is it within us or from around us? Where do we feel it?
If an event arises in life and we have a strong and sustained reaction, we know there is an inner resistance and an emotional charge here to be resolved. For example, someone makes an off-hand comment that dismisses something important to us. Do we roll our eyes or flame up in anger and resentment? The latter shows a past experience is influencing our present. If we’re able to feel into that resistance, we can allow an old experience to release and complete, winding down that point of reactivity.
This doesn’t mean we’ll stop having strong feelings about some things. It just means we can resolve irrational reactivity around them that cloud our perception.
Watch out for the story-making mind that creates “reasons” for not going near our inner resistance or that wants to blame or that wants an explanation for our feelings. We often have complex inner dynamics designed to protect ourselves from being hurt that shield us from our own feelings. This perpetuates our suffering and impedes smooth choices. It can be like a blanket over all our experiences. Releasing emotional energy means feeling the emotions.
This closely relates to karma. Karma is created by unresolved experiences. These create “noise” that can create a blind spot obstructing clear seeing.
This process is much easier if we have a stable inner reference from culturing inner awareness.
On the other hand, if your actions result in resistance from the environment, that can be a flag it’s not the right direction, or it’s not the right time. Say, for example, you’re considering buying a car. You look at models that interest you but have trouble finding the information you need. Things just don’t come easily. Or other people create obstacles.
I’ve found that if we put it down for now but have the background intention to explore it further, you may find new options or avenues soon show up. Or you find out the perfect model will be available next year instead.
By a simple process of experiment and feeling our way into it, we can discover if the signal is telling us it’s not the right direction or not the right time. For example, if it feels right but there are obstacles, we may need to wait and try later.
Karma itself can create some resistance too. Sometimes we’ll need to work though that resistance before we can find out if the event is supported or not. Here there’s a blend. Inner resistance is showing up in outer events. Add in our own reactivity to how things are going and you get a soup.
We can have an inner resistance to an option that is supported while finding outer resistance to other options that are not. Or we’re open to an option but some karma has to be resolved to get things flowing. Or we’re attached to a specific option that’s not being supported when letting go could reveal what is. Again, if we’re catching inner resistance, this is something to release.
At first, this can be a dance of mixed signals. Over time, as we refine perception and clear emotional baggage, the arena becomes clearer. Eventually, we have a reliable compass for steering through life.
It’s also useful to remember that life moves in cycles. We can get the hang of how life is flowing only to have it shift in a new direction.
I’ve long found nature has the tendency to bring options forward when the time is right but not before. So we may not see the right route until we’re on top of it. In the meantime, we may need to take steps towards something we can’t see yet by following what is supported. Perhaps our first step is some savings or planning that can improve our chances later.
As an example, I had an old desire for grad school but had not considered it a current option. My old IT career was no longer being supported, but it wasn’t clear what was. Then various internal and external signals showed a grant program was my best next step. Yet I had to overcome some inner resistance as it meant a major downsize and letting go. Once I started the grant program*, I was immediately told about a compressed Masters program I was unaware of, by a woman I didn’t know and who didn’t know why she was telling me about it. I applied but was told it would take a miracle for everything to come together in time. There was significant hurdles but everything clicked into place and within the month, I was in grad school.
This takes trust, patience, and observation. And action – we have to act to find out what’s working. Then we find right action, right time, and right approach. We recognize life as a constant feedback loop.
Remember that nature works for the common good. It’s not personal. Things happen when it’s the best time for everyone. Sometimes, that means we have to wait. And sometimes, that means events arrive in an onslaught and we do our best to keep up.
Don’t make this a mind game. Resistance is a feeling value. We explore resistance through feel, not concepts.
When resistance arises to our actions, stop for a moment and look. What is being resisted? And where is the resistance? It’s a useful habit to culture. But again, this isn’t about building stories about who we are and what we’re supposed to be doing – that’s mind. It will do that naturally but try not to take it too seriously.
As we get more fine tuned, we’ll get signals or flow that show right action. We’ll be driving along and suddenly find ourselves turning, only to discover it’s time for an unscheduled visit to a friend. Or we avoided a big accident. Or it’s time for grad school.
Life becomes an unfolding adventure rather than a struggle.
Davidya
* the grant program put me on campus and allowed me to get things done faster for the degree. It would not have worked out had I been back in Canada.
Last Updated on January 12, 2020 by Davidya
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Very often divine help us to resolve our issues guiding us through ( events in life ) to resolve primary one which can not be resolved straight away, it is so stron that could kill us if we faced it.
Hi Bartosz
Yes, the hand of the Divine is very much involved but we don’t have to recognize that to have the support.
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I would not say there is anything that would kill us in there. It’s all stuff we’ve already lived through. There can certainly be old fear of facing it layered on top, partly because we were very young and didn’t have the experience to deal with it before. But usually the bark is worse than the bite, so to speak.
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That said, the idea here is to process things as they arise in digestible chunks. We don’t want to trigger overwhelm as that’s basically why we have remains of experiences sitting in there. This isn’t an eating contest. 🙂
Thanks David.
Yes the support of nature and life is very important so we don’t work against it but with it.
I had to learn to take a pause and rest, learn the cycle of creating and resting.
After I had an akashic records reading, it was explained to me that in several past lives I rushed things without taking a rest and having time to contemplate if this is the right thing to do. That explained a lot of my exhaustion in this lifetime which is slowly getting better.
Now a deep sense of peace has returned and I can enjoy the art of doing nothing 🙂
Hi Jean
Yes, some of our bad habits have been going on for a long time. We also live in a culture that encourages excess work.
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The key with overwork is looking behind it to see what’s driving it. A sense of not being enough? A feeling we’re responsible for it all? An avoidance of how we feel? etc…
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Lovely you’ve found that.
Once more, I am grateful for your posts. This endless process is enhanced, it seems to me, by the terms used by those masters we now have access to. Your work for me, fits into that mold and is revealed by what has been described as the Science of Yoga. It seems to me that if we could “readdress” the narrative of “religion” and return it to this lovely, gentle and natural expression of our cycles, one can only imagine how this love and peaceful coexistence can flood into all. I guess we wait fo the next Satya period. Thanks again!
Hi Bill
Periodically, a sage arises who is not only awake but knows how to awaken others. For 3-400 years, many awaken through their approach. But then the core process is lost and people stop waking up. The teaching slides into concepts, then dogma and belief. A religion is born. Then breakaway branches with competing concepts, etc.
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This has happened many times. Jesus, Buddha, & Shankara are a few high-profile examples. But it also happens on more local scales, with teaches who quietly support their students.
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While there are occasional revivals, more typically it shows up as a new approach to suit the new time.
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Satya will be another time when we’re not dependent on this or that sage. The group consciousness will have raised us all. But we don’t have to wait. There are such people alive today, surrounded by awake people. The trick is finding them as they often keep a low profile. 🙂
“The trick is finding them as they often keep a low profile. ”
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Thank you – I wrote something similar yesterday to a member of Purusha:
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When I read about Maharishi not liking to be thanked, I began laughing because no real Yogis like to be thanked personally! It diminishes them – Not in reality of course, that would be impossible, but one must shrink in a way to accept the thanks for one’s Cosmic status, while identified by the person doing the thanking as just the personal name. Sounds more complicated than it is. 🙂
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Not a big deal either way – Receiving thanks is an appreciation at any level. Yogis though will not seek this out. An easy way to find the real Yogis, that they are difficult to find! Haha
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Hi Jim
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Yeah, they’ve long not experienced themselves as the doer, so thanking them personally is misplaced.
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Maharishi, as an example, offered everything he did to his teacher and the lineage of masters.
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The other part of the trick is finding the above in someone who has a similar history and thus language and with whom we resonate. But these things tend to be organized – when the student is ready, the teacher appears and all that. 🙂
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What surprises me sometimes is when people don’t or won’t see. Expectations or unwillingness seem to get in the way.
Hi David
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“Maharishi, as an example, offered everything he did to his teacher and the lineage of masters.”
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Yes, I responded about that too:
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“Yes, it is all Guru Dev, which I just looked up and Guru Dev means Lord of the Teachers, the Gurus, the Seers. Maharishi was so wise in always giving away His thanks to Guru Dev – It is the perfect model for our ongoing transcendence and purification, ever rising towards our higher selves. To always give to Guru Dev keeps the momentum of transcendence going. And quite honestly what else is there? :-)”
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Yeah, lots of ways to miss the obvious. Personally, doing TM keeps me from getting too much into my head, and taking spiritual knowledge as sparingly as medicine keeps me focused on life’s ongoing integration, vs. getting concept laden.
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TM is the most effective bulldozer I have found for eliminating expectations and unwillingness, year after year, decade after decade, absolutely impersonal and mechanical, making it impossible to escape Reality. Ironically, this is why so many quit practicing it! 🙂
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Yes. Davidya, so true and most often in the strangest ways. My Guru guy, appeared to me in Meditation, as I was looking into my vision of Padmasambhava. All of a sudden the image slide down as a large image slowly loading on line and then following that was an image of Neem Karoli Baba Maharaj-ji. I had been to the Temple in Taos, but just to meet someone there and was shown around. Since then (about 4 years now) he has taken control completely and I found that he has been here all along, I just had not remembered him. His grace shines through eternity. So, as you say, you never know?
Hi Bill
OK – just for clarity, there are several possibilities. One is the teacher showing up in person. Another is the teacher showing up within. Usually there is a long term connection that is revived for that. But the third is an astral entity appearing as a teacher to manipulate. The red flag is you mentioning “taken control completely”.
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One of the keys for spiritual progress is learning our lessons personally. Others can’t do this for us. Divine beings never influence our autonomy but may offer suggestions. Astral beings, on the other hand, may have less integrity. They may enjoy making us co-dependent or take us over in various ways. But we have to give them permission to do that.
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This may not be what you meant but it’s useful to mention this to the people who may be reading. Maharishi used to say that he only ever met with people physically. If someone doesn’t know the difference between astral and divine, they’re likely experiencing astral. They should be seen the same way as anyone you might meet on the street. Just because they’re well dressed and have a fancy title doesn’t make them wise or in your best interest.
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This has become a more common issue in recent years for reasons I’ve discussed elsewhere.
Hi Bill, If I may David
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These images are more than images. If you want to culture the relationship you can, but careful what you wish for. Very crisp discrimination is needed to build a functional relationship with these realized beings.
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As everyone does who takes such a path, you will run into imitators, stale pictures, attachment, and abandonment along the way. In all three worlds.
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Even so it is worth it, though more a 10,000,000K trek than a 10K race. Thanks
Thanks for all your fine comments. Yes, I am aware of the issues you point out. I was a Zen person for many years. The contrast is sharp. Bhakti was never something that I could ever imagine nor practice. However, here I am. I only related my experience as another alternative to the physical expression of the teacher concept, which is more generally experienced. In the circle of Karoli Baba, it seems that my experience apparently is not unique. Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the “student” if we can refer to those with a Guru as such, to make the distinctions along the path and with experience, that is not too difficult. I did not mean Baba “took control” in the sense my ineffective writing conveyed and I apologize for that. It was more of a metaphor for my shift to unity as I recognized I was not the doer anymore. Anyway, I find your work and deep thoughts a refreshing and particularly important guide and description of our continuing process and I am grateful for your help! I also did not mean to take up so much space for my comment. Many thanks!
Hi Bill
Thanks for adding context and not a problem. It’s an important point to bring out. In words, it can sound like there is little difference between devotional surrender, the end of doership, and letting an entity take over. But they’re very different and have very different results.
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You’re welcome.
Reading your blog continues to be of such great value for me. The timing for this one is perfect. I have the opportunity to respond effectively to a difficult family member who has been doing very negative projections towards me over the last 5 years. I felt a block in my heart and body, and, could not get the underlying thing until I realized ….. resistance. I noted the resistance, let my tears flow, and my tender heart open at last. At that point, the right words manifested. Dropping the resistance seemed to open a channel to the divine. It is such a relief. I have moved to a place recently of deciding ‘no respinse’ unless I am plugged into that flow.
Hi Deborah
Beautiful. Thanks for sharing. When we resist, we create a feedback loop that strengthens an “attackers” energy. When we’re transparent, the energy dissipates and diffuses the conflict.
And yes, when we’re out of the way, the right words naturally flow. However, we can’t control the flow (then its not flow) so we can’t expect it to be there in a certain way. But with experience, we learn to trust it. 🙂
As the Borg would say: ” Resistance is futile!”
🙂 Yes. that’s a running joke in some circles.