Resistance
Question: How do I learn to go through the resistance I feel when I am asked to do something I don't want to do but know that I should do?
Answer: About the only time you and I really want to handle the things we must is when everything in us agrees that this is the time to do it; translated, this means that we're only happy doing what we must when we're going to feel the most comfortable doing it. This resistance we run into within ourselves when facing unwanted tasks is created by two sets of unconscious conditioned notions we have within ourselves as to the real nature of comfort. First that real comfort is determined by a set of exterior conditions that can be manipulated. And secondly, as part of the unconscious belief hidden in the first, if these conditions cannot be made to match our preconceived notions, then real comfort is impossible. Of course it's nice to have things pleasant around us. But finding our sense of self in anything exterior to us is the same as agreeing to lose ourselves any time these circumstances change, which they always do.
Doing what you don't want to do when you don't want to do it can become a prayer-in action. Each time you deliberately, consciously take yourself through what feels like your own resistance to doing something, here's what you'll find: On the other side of the resistance is the flow. Physically speaking, runners experience this new and deeper sense of self each time they challenge what their body tells them is the end of their endurance. Spiritually speaking, the self resisting any moment is a psychological body that knows itself through past experiences that have conditioned it to believe that only certain sets of circumstances will provide it with the necessary ingredients to be happy. This false self is actually threatened by anything outside of what it "knows" or "wants," which it then resists. Doing what you don't want to do is asking to unmask this false sense of self, in turn revealing that this often self-defeating sense of self is not really you at all! In this inner discovery you learn that real comfort, real pleasure, is in being free of that belief-loaded self whose very existence is resistance.
Excerpted from The Lost Secrets of Prayer
Question: Can you elaborate a bit on Christ's teaching of "Resist not evil" and how this applies to the movies playing in my head? Sometimes I feel like I'm looking at millions of them all at once.
Answer: Try to see it this way: Instead of concentrating on the various movies or scenes running through your mind, begin to notice the role, or sense of identity, that you are extracting from these scenes. If you will do that much, you will start to "taste" something completely different within the whole event. The movies (meaning the thoughts and feelings we have about what we see) are not the problem. Our resistance or attraction (which is secretly the same thing) is what we need to become conscious of. Your awareness and wish to have the Light/Christ's life as your own will begin placing you in a new kind of relationship with these internal forces. Your victory is in this new relationship, not in you trying to extricate yourself from what you see within yourself.
Excerpted from Seeker's Guide to Self-Freedom
