The one last night made me happy, because whatever it was, I had somehow managed to severely piss it off. My feeling is that if I can make a malignant force angry, then it can only because I have helped deny it something it wanted. I got up with a smile on my face, woke up enough to get a fresh start, then went back into a deep sleep which had no visitations I can remember.
I woke up this morning thinking my life is a large atelier, or workshop, where I have many, many projects in continuous process. I want to reform our economic system, and the basics have long been on my website here. That is in one corner. I want to master Neurofeedback. I want to continue to learn about basic Physics. I want to found a church. Etc.
And I want to learn how to deal with demons. Here is the thing, as I see it: they cannot get to you but through fear. If you see them, you have fear in you, cracks through which they can crawl. They resonate with aspects of your personality or, to switch back to me, with aspects of my personality. I accept responsibility for letting them in. I continue to feel moments of anger and rage and hostility to the world. I feel sorry for myself, and resentful. I feel sadness and loss and grief. All of these are pathways.
My sense is that demons feed on all that is bad, and they do their best to influence us. They have no direct power. When I am feeling good, and I encounter one in my sleep, I just spread my arms and say “Do your best, you piece of shit”, and of course, they have nothing. Their power is in the dark, and particularly when you can’t see them. When they can be seen, there is nothing they can do. I was wondering this morning if they don’t do their best to latch onto all of us like ticks, and hide where they can’t be seen. It’s an unpleasant image, but it underscores the importance of inner work.
This is the importance of shining a bright light into everything in your life, into all aspects of who you are. This is really what meditation is, or should be for most, at least for a long time: focused introspection. Kum Nye is a fantastic process, since the “hiding” happens in our bodies, in areas which are lost to our attention, in “hypomovement” somewhere.
You cannot conquer demons any more than you can “conquer” yourself. Think about it: does the image of one part of yourself standing in triumph over the prostrate body of some other part of yourself make any sense? Both parts exist for specific reasons. Both parts amount to knots through which light and awareness cannot flow.
I am tempted to say, in fact, that declaring “victory” over some part of yourself is the most reliable path to evil, with the victory in most cases most likely being that of the Will over the feeling of helplessness. I think much evil has to do with the absolute and categorical rejection of helplessness at all costs, with the normal logical concomitant being the pursuit of power, of never having to apologize, and never having to bow, again. The bows and the apologies, of course–and in most cases the abject humiliation and terror–never really go away, and killing them again daily costs that person, in the end, their sanity, and their humanity.
I think the “cure” to demons is a love greater than fear. I don’t understand love very well at all, but this seems logical to me. This is the essence, as I understand it, of the Tibetan practice of “Chod”.
In any event, sadhus in India live in cremation grounds to confront demons. I am being much more efficient and having them come to me!!!
My life is not easy, but it is never dull. Every day I feel like a river is flowing through me. I wish I had more visitors to my workshop, where I could show off all my toys and baubles, the things which make me happy, but that time will come, in this life or the next.