Relationships: Self-Reference - Knowing ourselves is knowing our relationship

By James Westly

An aspect of knowing ourselves is knowing our relationship to other people. We have been raised in a society where what other people think has been made very important to us. This is a good thing to a point. As long as we remain asleep to the potential lying dormant within us and continue to live in illusion, the control mass consciousness exerts is essential to maintaining order. However, when individuals arrive at the point of awakening, one of the first things they have to do is to begin listening to their inner guidance. This often means breaking the bonds of social convention.

This is a process requiring courage and a willingness to experiment. All of our lives to this point have been lived within the influence of other people. Most of us learned through trial and error how to make our way in the world by figuring out what others wanted and giving it to them. We are held in a particular form of social conformity through the indoctrination we received from our parents, teachers, clergy, peer groups, police, government, employers, media...etc.

This is powerful conditioning, and is not easily overturned or transformed. Consider that we have spent a lifetime guiding our life process by focusing our attention on the external world, living according to what others wanted for us. Now we reach a point where we begin to realize the need to look within ourselves for more effective guidance. This is something we're not accustomed to doing. We have had little or no practice doing it, and the old way, external focus, is an ingrained habit.

Our first response may be to attempt to break the habit, to resist it. I would not recommend this. Anything we resist requires intense attention focused on the thing resisted. This includes our judgment of it. Thus, we're giving energy to the very thing we wish to diminish. This can do nothing but strengthen the habit, make it larger. A more effective way is to develop a new habit, a new attention focus. This is the thrust of the practice of Self-Reference.

All teachings, ancient and modern, instruct us to look for the answers to our deepest questions within ourselves. Begin by affirming to yourself the possibility that this is the key. This may sound simplistic, but it acknowledges our self-doubt. Most of us are a mass of inner contradictions. How else do relatively simple ideas become so complex? Start by affirming to yourself that:

"Everything I need to know already exists in me."

Say it to yourself several times each day. Then begin the practice of intense, active, listening.

In the beginning, what you will hear will be what I call The Radio Talk Show of the Mind, the commentator endlessly chattering on about the trivia of mundane existence. Even as I write this line, I must contend with the background noise generated by the multitasking nature of my brain. My attention is anything but single pointed. It naturally tends to wander about my inner landscape, moving from concern to concern on the basis of association, distracting me from my intended purpose. I need to continually remember that purpose and refocus my attention. This is part of the practice.

The more you listen without judgment, the more you are able to begin sorting out the data, the more you notice what is of value. The more competent you become at sorting the data, deciding what is important and what is not, the more you place attention on what is relevant. Inner listening is a skill. Anyone can learn it. Listening, however, is just the beginning.

Knowing is one thing, acting on what you know is another, and is the essential next step in the practice of Self-Reference. This is the part that may require some courage, for our inner guidance doesn't give a hoot about the opinion of others. It simply knows what is best for us, frequently without supporting logic. The messages from within may, at times, require us to take actions which are contrary to what others in our lives want for us. Sometimes the only support we will have for an action is the support we receive from our inner guidance. If we fail to act, however, we diminish the strength of our inner guidance. When this happens, and it will, we must begin again, and again, and again. Each time we begin from a new place within ourselves, a new moment containing new possibilities.

James Westly uses Hindu Satsanga, hypnotherapy and psychotherapy in a technique that bypasses ego structure to heal inner blocks and traumas. He can be contacted by e-mail: jwestly@infinet-is.com