I decided to shorten this post:
There is a big difference between untriggered identifications and the ones that are seen through.
Identifications may be dormant for a while as part of everyday life, or because of a temporary transcendent state. And they are still there. How do we know? Because they are, or can be, triggered again.
It’s different to see through them. To hold a particular identification in loving presence, see how it’s created by the mind, see the consequences in our life of that identification, and that something else is possible. That’s when the charge around it tends to soften. That’s when it doesn’t have to go away, or be dormant, or be trancendet. It’s OK as it is, because it’s seen more clearly for what it is.
A dormant identification doesn’t require much of us. But seeing through it does. It often requires intention, attention, and some diligence. In addition to good practical guidance from someone who is familiar with the process from own experience.
This is one reason why retriggering a particular identification is so helpful in inquiry. It’s often relatively easy to get to a more peaceful state, but that doesn’t mean that the identification is seen through. It may just have gone temporarily dormant.
So we can retrigger, and see if there is a still a charge there.
But you are unlovable, aren’t you?
Look at the situation we started with. Is there a response in your body?
Wouldn’t it be good with a drink now?
Some facilitators jump into retriggering without warning. Others may explain the reason and that they’ll do it at some point during the session. Others may also ask if it’s OK to retrigger. (That may give the client more sense of control, and they know they consented to it.)
………..
………..
………..
Initial draft…..
This is an important distinction.
Our identifications may be untriggered for a while, either wholesale or taking turns being triggered and not. (I use the word identification here as more or less synonymous with belief, or velcro, and it can sometimes be called hangups, or wounds, or traumas.)
When it happens wholesale, no identification seem obviously triggered for a while. This may be when we feel good and our thoughts says that everything is going well. (On a vacation, a day off, while watching a movie, spending time with a loved one, during sleep.)
It may also happen due to “transcendence”, being “lifted up and out of it” for a while, perhaps due to some sort of spiritual experience.
Our identifications may also take turns being triggered, meaning that any one identification may also be dormant for some time while other identifications are triggered off and on.
It’s possible to think that I am finally over that one, especially if an identification hasn’t been triggered for a while, and even more so when there is a sense of transcendence.
In a transcendence, we may recognize what we are (that which all experience happens within and as), and that we are not (exclusively) this human self or a me or I, and – for a while – no identifications may be triggered. Here too, it’s easy to think that this is it, I will never go back to my previously mistaken identifications. At least the first time it happens.
And yet, if it is transcendence – a temporary “lifting up” from identifications – they will return. They return with an invitation. Are you able to recognize what you are, even if these are part of content of experience? Are you able to recognize all content of experience, including the identifications, as what you already are? Are you able to meet them in loving presence, as what you are?
Identifications being untriggered, even if it’s due to a transcendent state, is quite different from seeing through identifications. When something is untriggered, it’s – in a way – a gift. It doesn’t cost much.
Seeing through it is often more like work. It may take dedication, intention, investment of attention and presence. It may also cost us identifications that at first seem very important to us. It may even seem like a life-and-death matter to hold onto them. (The mind holds onto identifications in order to protect the human or separate self.)
How do we “see through” it? There are many ways. Natural rest – resting with what’s here – is an important component. Meeting it in loving presence. Recognizing it as loving presence. And also asking some simple questions, to help us see more clearly what’s there. I am mostly using the Living Inquiries now.