Mind, Maturation and Living in the Moment – Is there any greater Freedom than this?
Much of the work of Tantra is about uncovering and integrating what has been lying hidden in the unconscious. The unconscious is where we store all suppressed experience, which includes all of the experiences – big or small – that were too much for us to feel to their depths at the time they happened.
Overwhelming experiences can include anything from an overt sexual violation all the way to that moment in our proverbial development when our mother decided not to breastfeed us any more.
If the feelings that arose as a consequence of ‘the incident’ were too much for us to deal with at the time, they ultimately got stored in our unconscious to be revisited another time.
Following here, Tantra teacher Sw. Rahasya Advait describes an aspect of the workings of the mind in the following excerpt from his blog (intended for those who are being guided by a Dakini or other teacher/practitioner and which will also perhaps be useful to those who take their spiritual journey with a tantric, as opposed to a monastic, approach. 😉):
“The unconscious mind can do many awesome things for you, but, until it has completed its main work – this is what it will be concentrating on…
From puberty on, until maturation is complete, the unconscious has one job: To purge the massive backlog of incomplete feelings (aka psychological traumas) which have been accumulated.
To do this, the unconscious has to arrange events that resonate with the past traumas. It has to trigger them, moving them towards consciousness, where they can be felt and finished.
In this endeavour, it is in conflict with the conscious mind (you), which reflexively strives to protect itself (you) from the triggering of traumatic memories and feelings.
To get that pile of past trauma addressed, the subconscious has two superpowers:
- It gets to generate your desires by orchestrating catalyzing events in your life. (You’ll be able to explore this phenomenon with us in SEXUAL SHADOW & DESIRE – Module 1 of the Sexual Shadow Work & Integration – A 9-Month Online Deep Dive into Your Sexual Unconscious)
- Your subconscious mind is cleverer than your conscious mind (therefore cleverer than you). It will continue doing what it takes to get through to you, leading you to liberation from the past.
This is a natural mechanism of maturation. The unconscious is set up to win.
If it wins, you become truly capable of ‘Living in the Moment’ – responding and relating directly to life’s arising. Is there any greater Freedom than this?”
If you’ve got feelings that have been put away for later, then later is Now!
“The only way to no longer be a prisoner of desires and fears is to face them, live them, immerse in them, move through them.” – Shakti Malan