Enlightenment thanks to Gina Lake

I was talking about self-realization and how things weren't stable for me after it occurred. I had thought that once it came it stayed. That turned out not to be the case. So it was getting over the confusion and disappointment.... Gina's writing helped a lot with that. She explained that people whose conditioning had been chronic and acute often slipped back into the old ways after they were 'self-realized'. And it all depended on Grace too. Let's call the over-riding intelligent universal force God. So what God had 'planned' was what would happen. This is a challenge to comprehend when you think that there is no time, only eternity: Maybe God's plan is all happening now. Anyway, I don't comprehend that, and here I am working out my own self-realization issues and seeing if in the process I hook up with others in cyberspace.

What Gina says in Radical Happiness is that people's experience after s-r is can differ. As well as all the wonderful things that happen some more challenging things often happen to people. They may get ill as their body adjusts; they may boast about being s-r'd and fall back into ego; they may get disoriented and wonder what to do because the old ideas and activities don't fit anymore: "We are nobody with nowhere to go" and "we [ego-self] often go through a period of emptiness and mourning" because we thought that things would actually resolve forever upon s-r but they usually don't; remaining conditioning comes up for people to be dealt with, and there may a lot of external changes to make too.

Gina says it can two years and often a lot longer to become stabilized.

For me it's been just over two years so that is OK but I don't like the sound of "often a lot longer"! So I have determination that it won't take that long, although of course I don't know and ultimately I will need to have acceptance of how things are. Meanwhile I trust that I will nourish my s-r and keep the ego in perspective: Primarily be determined to do so rather than take what might seem the easy way out and bail (I always wondered what Jesus meant when he said 'The man who takes up the plough and then allows it to fall is not worthy of the kingdom of God" - well now I know!); but also do things such as allow my samskaras, my conditioning to be there even if it hurts a lot, without letting it take root; put the effort into things instead of being lazy, for example, go for a walk when my heart says I need to but my ego says 'ah don't bother, what does it matter!'; just notice in a disinterested way if my ego does take over; and be very very brave.

Lindy :)