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Messages - John Ruskan

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136
Yes, you have my permission.

137
We know that there is indeed evil in the world. In fact, I would probably agree with the those philosophers who have suggested that evil rules the world (the material world). If this is true, how are we to reconcile it with love, well-being, and spiritual evolution?

Evil came into being when some of the angels "rebelled" and were "cast down" into hell. But hell appears to have a close connection to the earth, because it is here that evil rules. So the formation of evil and its operation upon the earth appear to be part of the plan, because we are unable to imagine existence without negativity and the poles of light and dark.

What is the function of evil? It's something like, we need adversity to overcome in order to grow. Adversity makes us strong and triggers growth.  We grow through pain. Pain results when what we believe, want, or depend on is denyed us. It starts to get more complicated when personal karma is factored in, since when we act in evil ways, we create a debt that must be paid off, and we invite future suffering into our lives.

We then perceive evil around us - threatening, hurting, undermining, bringing pain and suffering - the basic problem of mankind. Is this evil projected or is it real? It is both.
There are the forces of evil, which we can't see with our eyes, but they are as present as could be. They exist on the inner, subtle planes. They can sit right next to you, like any spirit can. They are individual entities, with varying degrees of intelligence. They see you, they try to influence you. They control the world's events. You feel their influence, but it's up to you whether you will allow yourself to be influenced.

Then, there are the negative forces inside you, lodged in what we call "the subconscious." These usually consist of painful energies. In an effort to dispel the inner pain, we may act in unenlightened ways, blaming, using, hurting others. We have allowed ourselves to be influenced by the darkness when we act so. But if we do not allow ourselves to be influenced, we adopt a more enlightened approach to resolving the pain we feel.

It's helpful to think in terms of levels. On one level, when you place the sphere of light around yourself, you do create a psychic, energetic defense from the overt manipulation and influence of objective negative forces. This is why it's part of the EC protocol. It's basic. We expect that the light around us shields us so we can address the inner subconscious issues without interference.

In meditation, and in projection when we go about the world, we encounter our inner negativity. It may invite and attach to outer negativity. But always try to separate the outer influence from the inner, and work with the inner. You have this beautiful method for doing that.

Then, your stance is basically - just as you place the light around yourself - to shield and protect yourself from outside influences as best as possible, but still, you can take responsibly for the appearance of the negativity. You have attracted it because of inner negativity, but you can still shield yourself. You are both accepting and shielding at the same time.

As I often tell people, don't try to directly accept the outer when you are applying EC. Apply acceptance to your feelings, as they are.

This results in the attitude of compassion. You are not blaming the negativity for making itself present, because you have attracted it. But you understand that mere retaliation and fighting will not be a solution.

As you keep working on yourself, your vibration keeps building, and you move more and more into higher, witness consciousness. As you lift yourself up and clear suppressed negativity inside, the negativity from the outside is less able to reach you. This corresponds with the inner integration of the poles of light and dark, concerning any particular part of yourself.

To sum it up - yes, it's a battle. That's what earth life is about. But we all have chosen to come back, because it's only through the earth experience that we evolve.
Often, we make the mistake of thinking that the purpose of life is happiness, and that becomes our goal. The purpose of life is not primarily happiness, but the deepening of experience, both inner and outer, and the evolution of the soul - moving more and more into the higher witnessing consciousness that comes from it. When you look inside and work with what you find, you are making the most of the earth-life opportunity.

138
Hi Ivan,

Usually, when we encounter unexplainable experiences, we assume it is part of the unfolding of consciousness, and that it would involve projections such as you describe, on a level that we are unaccustomed to. Keeping the principles of EC work in mind, you will sooner or later come through. It is hard to be more specific since your experience seems highly personal and on a psychic level. You appear to be grounded and with a good sense of spiritual work, and it would seem that the work you did in the last years was genuinely productive, and not self-deceiving, which happens often as we engage the spiritual path and try to force ourselves into that mold instead of going deeper into who we really are.

In astrology, the Saturn return occurs around the 29th year, and this could very well be what you are sensing. It is a heavy, blocked, depressive  energy that comes upon you. Feelings can be dampened as well. It can last up to a year. You handle it by processing the experience.

It's alway possible the aura may be damaged, and this is the normal condition of most people, making them susceptible to psychic interference. Such interference is usually active and has feelings involved, so this may not be the case with you, but of course, I can't be sure. Apply the principles, and you'll be all right.

139
THE EMOTIONAL CLEARING PROCESS / Re: Highs and lows
« on: December 05, 2011 »
I don't know if it's common, but if that's whats happening for you, it might be a sign that you're pushing too hard. Use the EC Process to integrate the feelings, and keep the breath sessions to a reasonable frequency - no more than 1 per week. If you can process successfully the negative aftereffects, than you're ok. If not, you probably need to slow it down.

140
Good question. Here’s how I see it.

The starting point is the feeling is in the subconscious – trapped, fragmented, unintegrated, but still affecting us.

Next, it jumps into awareness because of some (projected) event. It’s now conscious, but still unintegrated. “Integration” refers mainly to the rejection of the mind. The mind is normally (unconsciously) resisting, pushing away, making the feeling wrong.

Next, the mind reverses its stance and becomes more accepting of the feeling. This may require a deliberate, conscious reversal of the mental attitude towards the feeling. Integration is now starting, and now, it’s possible to move into the moment with the feeling, which was not possible before, because of the rejection of the mind and the resulting unintegration of the feeling.

Here, in the moment, the feeling is integrated, because the mind is no longer thinking about how to avoid the feeling, but the feeling has not yet “released” or dispelled or gone away.

This is the critical point of processing where you apply the capacity to remain in the moment with the feeling, experiencing it with no thought of anything needing to be different. You have shifted beyond the ego-based preference of the mind, which always simply wants to avoid pain, and you are in the transcendental witness, just being present with the feeling, with no thought of needing to fix, change, make better or different.

As you stay in that place, at some point, it appears that “resolution” will occur. There may be stages of resolution: 1. You still have the feeling but its not so bad, it’s no longer motivating you, you have disidentified with it and are peacefully coexisting. 2. The feeling has actually been exhausted, and it’s gone. 3. There’s been a conscious bringing together of both ends of the dualistic syndrome in question. For example, if you’ve been working with feelings of failure, the compulsive quest for success starts to normalize, and both failure and success are welcomed as the complete dualistic experience, resulting in growing beyond being trapped at this stage. 4. Outside events and circumstances are miraculously changed because of your inner processing.

141
Hi Alex-

Nice to see you're getting serious about the work. When Leonard Orr first invented the Rebirthing Breath, he put together some things he had learned from the Kriya Yoga tradition, in which I also happen to be initiated, 40 years ago. By speeding up the connected breath, he and his group produced radical results in going into the subconscious. This has expanded into the other breath formats available.

In my view, this breath can be very useful in self-work. However, I would recommend that you think of it as that special, mind-bending peyote trip that you're going to take on special occasions, let's say a few times a month, or maybe once a week for 10 weeks. I don't see it as something you want to make an everyday practice, because its too intense. What you can do everyday is gentle Ujjayi breathing, connected. This form of gentle breathing has the same effect, drawn-out, that the speeded up connected breath has. It allows prana to build up, and do its job as it sees fit, and it gently stirs up the subconsious, so it will appear and you can then process it. You can make it your daily practice, and its not so dramatic - its grounding and nurturing.

While the breath can be helpful, more important is the sense of relaxing into the moment - as you do the practices - so that you're not seeking something. The seeking is of the mind, never satisfied, always looking for more.

I don't see any reason why would necessarily need a facilitator for the Rebirth breath - there's no danger, except you might have a hard time keeping awake, which is the main facilitators main job.

142
Good question. I discuss this at length in my new book Emotion and Art, soon to be posted on the site. If you're using your art (the writing) as a means to express any feeling, you're basically still in the "get it off your chest" camp, which I feel has limited therapeutic potential, maybe even suppressive, especially when the expression is accompanied by projection and blame, as you say.

The key is to shift to the place where you're using the art to experience the feelings, not to primarily express them. Your subtle intention is not to get rid of, but to be with. Then, the art can definitely help uncover the subconscious as you allow the stream of consciousness.

The shift occurs through awareness of what you're doing, your intention, and then using the witness to be with what is emerging. You also apply the steps of processing to the art experience, taking responsibility, etc.

143
It's a giant step to realize that suppressed emotions are probably the major factor in the depression. If you start working with the process, looking for the feelings, it's only a matter of time until you see some results. I'm wondering if the medication can be the major reason for the sleepiness. A side effect usually is drowsiness. Maybe discuss this with your doctor? Maybe a change of meds.

Sleepiness and torpor can be an unconscious attempt to avoid unpleasant feelings, and there may be some of that here, but it seems like something else is influencing you. Maybe something like inability to take in revitalizing energies because of the defensive shielding that suppression creates or some other subtle disfunction in the energy body that would be hard to see. I would use the light and earth visualizations to start to align the energy body and protect yourself from the possibility of psychic interference, and then expect that processing negative suppressed energies will eventually bring the energy body into balance.

It wouldn't hurt to start with the physical. Make sure your diet is good, no caffeine or junk, and exercise so you sleep well when you do sleep. Exercise may  also wake you up. Witnessing the sleepiness wouldn't hurt and may help, but since it doesn't appear to be a core feeling, I wouldn't expect a change just from witnessing.

144
Here's what I was recently writing about this subject:

emotionalism
Another type of reactive emotional impulse to watch out for is emotionalism. This is when we are overly emotional - easily agitated, reacting with what appears to be strong feeling or even hysteria, and possibly continual anguished crying. Emotionalism is another way that we unconsciously react in order to defend ourselves from confronting core feelings. Continual emotionalism does not release feelings, as may appear. It is only a diversion. Crying can be good at the right time; it can coincide with emotional release. Excessive crying suggests that it is no longer performing this function, but has become a means of avoidance - turning away from the core feeling. Try to restrain excessive crying by looking with a clear awareness into the feeling level - look for the feeling behind the event of crying. Your awareness (intellectual level) can control the unproductive reactive emotionalism of crying as a defense on the lower feeling level.Try to stay detached, impassive, witnessing the feeling when you get to it. You definitely don't need to be actively expressing emotion in order to clear core feelings.

When you get to the core feeling, you are usually in a quiet, highly alert state. In a way, you're beyond tears, which are more concerned with emotions; core feelings are concerned with feelings - there's a difference.

145
THE EMOTIONAL CLEARING PROCESS / Re: myopia
« on: August 25, 2011 »
No, I've not had experience or heard of anyone else's experience on this.

146
Hi Jake,

Focusing on the 3rd eye is the portal to higher-self witness consciousness and also brings the 2 hemispheres into balance. I have never seen any reference to focusing only on a physical eye to work on a corresponding hemisphere in yogic teachings. The right brain corresponds to the left side of the body, so it fits that if you are right-brain deficient (overly logical) the left side of the body would be weak also.

John

147
Thank you for a lovely sharing. With a sensitivity such as this, I'm sure you will eventually find your way. Serious disease is to be viewed as the result of the build-up of inner negativity, but also the disease is the releasing of the negativity. It appears that you have been through a major transformational experience, which even brought a valuable shift of consciousness. The transformational clearing is still continuing, and now you are moving to a deeper emotional realization of the negativity within. It's just a matter of settling back into a dedicated personal practice and staying with it.

Fear and sadness sound like core feelings. As you make a continued effort to process these, at some point, shifting will occur. The problem, as you point out, is that there is usually a time factor that we are not comfortable with. Transformational work requires time, and it may be one of the purposes of this lifetime for you to integrate the sadness and fear. You can't be impatient; devote this lifetime to these major core issues. I appreciated your reference to sad music being therapeutic, and it made me smile in recognition that my own compositions (with my Venus in Capricorn) are usually sad and dark, and I indeed find them therapeutic and still tend to feel they are the most authentic form of expression for me. I don't worry about this; this is what I do best, so I do it. I'm not expecting or anticipating change.

The adrenalin is more of a reactive emotional response to the core feelings. You can be hooked on it, but try to see that you don’t have to react with fight or flight - just be present. Process the adrenalin if it continues. Settle into the core feelings with the process and check to make sure you are applying all the steps. It sounds like there is an active subconscious which affects your sleep. Try to become more conscious of what happens in sleep. Write down sleep-dream experience and process that in normal consciousness. Use your art as part of your practice, along with meditative yoga and conscious breathwork. Relax into it all. Witness. You're on your way.

148
THE EMOTIONAL CLEARING PROCESS / Re: Yoga
« on: May 25, 2011 »
Hi Tony,

Just as I prefer not to comment on other authors or psychologies, I prefer not to recommend specific other sources. I have spoken about yoga in the EC book and on the website. My important point is that I feel the exercise-oriented yoga we see everywhere today does not accomplish the same goals as classical, meditative, consciousness-oriented yoga.

John

149
Hi Jake,

Glad you're appreciating EC. I generally make it a rule to not comment on other authors or systems of healing, philosophy, etc. Maybe some other members will comment.

John

150
Yes, continue in the same thread by hitting replay. I might be able to move it over.

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