friendly questions

[Kat]

Hello John,

I have some friendly questions for you.

This year, in one of your books, I was happy to find a detailed explanation of the word "opposites"--e.g., night and day, black and white, hot and cold, etc. According to you, and I agree with your position on the matter, each pair of opposites contains a complement of the other half. So when I read on page 185 of Emotional Clearing that we humans aren't really our Lower Selves, we're our Higher Selves, and that we shouldn't identify with the Lower Self--I became confused.

Thus, if dualities are always going to exist in everything, no matter how much we evolve or how much external conditions change, why can we not, as students of spiritual development, solidly identify with both of our Selves? Of course, your textbooks clearly speak to the need to accept, own, experience,  witness, and integrate the feelings, emotions, and all of the projections coming from the Lower Self, but your written narratives seem to stop short of identifying with the Lower Self.

Therefore, my end concern here is: If both Selves are always going to be present, no matter how spiritually advanced we become, after a certain point (when the student is ready, of course), why spend time disidentifying with the lower Self; why not honor it as much as you do your Higher Self, because it's one half of a never-ending psychological-spiritual continuum? Another thing: Could identifying with both the higher and lower selves be an unspoken goal of all spiritual practice? Just asking .... 

Is it possible this post contains signs that my Higher Self has become more visible to me and has intimated it has always unreservedly accepted all of me?

I can easily drop these speculations if need be and simply return to the rest of my spiritual practice, applying the instructions from your books, which seem absolutely spot-on to me! After all, I just started working with Emotional/Deep Clearing in July, so I can't claim to be any sort of expert. Just eager to learn and be all that I can.

Thanks for an answer, whatever it is . . . .

With Love,

Kat 

[John Ruskan]

Interesting questions, but here's where you're going wrong: "why spend time disidentifying with the lower Self; why not honor it as much as you do your Higher Self." Maybe this point is made better in Deep Clearing, but a central idea of EC work is to validate (accept, acknowledge, experience, honor) lower self feelings and spend quality time with them instead of unconsciously rejecting (dishonoring) them. Breaking identification is not the same as dishonoring. Unconscious identification with lower self attributes (body, emotions, thoughts, intellect) is the quagmire from which we are attempting to evolve. Shifting awareness to the higher self through witnessing has always been the emphasis of traditional Eastern enlightenment. The EC philosophy imparts a new attitude towards the lower self which I would say does indeed truly honor it without being enmeshed in it.

As you bring heightened enlightened awareness to the lower self, you can think of it as co-existing as a dualistic complement to the higher self if you want but your goal is always to maintain witnessing detachment of the lower self while at the same time recognizing and honoring it. In other words, you are 'owning' the lower self while detaching. You could say you are identifying with it in a new, more enlightened way. The goal of the philosophy of dualistic awareness is always to transcend attachment to the positive and aversion to the negative. In so doing, we evolve past being trapped in any particular lower self dualistic syndrome.

[Kat]

John,

Many thanks for your great answer! I got it all. Especially like the part about "The goal of the philosophy of dualistic awareness is always to transcend attachment to the positive and aversion to the negative. In so doing, we evolve past being trapped in any particular lower self dualistic syndrome."

Now: Do you have any ability to "divine" winning lottery numbers? If not, I won't think any less of you. . . .   

Until next time,

Kat