Enlightenment includes ALL of you
Pillar No2: End the internal war
Your psychology, ego, mind and emotions are here to serve you. The typical spiritual approach is to treating these as bad and evil and that they need to be wiped out. This erroneous attitude sets up the internal war to hold back Presence, joy and all that good stuff. These structures are here to help you Awaken. Each resistant aspect is telling you what is required for full alignment. Don't shoot the messenger. Pillar No2 falls under summary ingredient #2 Structure, as your human components are structural and you cannot remove them.
Being at war with yourself is the second greatest block to Presence and your permanent Abiding Awakening. Presence and God have no problems with any part of you, as they both 'allow what is'. Resistance is mental or emotional war with parts of yourself. Presence is wholeness and allowance of all of you. step 4 in the Correct Presence Practice is connection with the impersonal Divine. The Divine certainly loves and allows all of you just as you are, this is the clue that's your job to do the same. Thus pillar 1 Correct Presence Practice is the simple cure, as you feel your resistance, chatty head, emotional issues in that allowing space that you are. Sounds simple, but it does require proper application to enter Presence and the allowance of the Divine at step 4. This conscious act of being in Presence is the greatest healing balm there is!
There are numerous spiritual myths and beliefs propagated by teachers and spiritual methodologies that are incorrect or impossible for most people. Choose a system and practice that gives you the ability to move forward, rather than set expectations that are impossible. This Enlightenment framework is based in real life and things you have control over. Your Presence skill set will grow as you nurture it. Yes, feeling the not nice things is a requirement, but you can be at peace as that happens, as that is what Presence is. You grow this muscle with correct Presence to be here with it all.
Where is the war within you?
If you examine the 4 steps to Correct Presence Practice you will notice that the internal war is typically within step 2, the inner body, as Eckhart Tolle would term it. The inner body is a vague term that covers multiple layers of energetic and psychological aspects. All of these aspects can be separately defined if one has finely tuned Law Zero acuity. Thus a conflict of the desired outcome not being met is in your emotional body or mind. If you are taking the spiritual path approach, perhaps a chakra (etc) or some other esoteric structure is where you deem the problem to originate. This is still step 2, the inner body in this 4 step Correct Presence process. These inner body structures impact your step 1, the body. It creates tension or pain and maybe even sickness.
Judging something within yourself as bad helps to maintain discord by keeping up the resistance. That resistance is an extra layer of non-allowance. Healing and resolution are then much more difficult. The trick is being persistent with your Correct Presence Practice and entering step 3 Presence as best and as often as possible. If you can't feel your step 3 Presence then staying focused on your step 2 inner body is sufficient. It's about the structure of the habit not outcomes of levels and attainments. The mere allowance of your greater you to let it be gives it a chance to resolve through it being felt 100%. Yes, to feel emotions, limiting beliefs and nasty internal dialogue is unpleasant, but your Presence is very accepting. This is the magical alchemy of Presence.
If you want to speed up the peace treaty to end the internal war with the current issue, then inquiry will help speed it up. I term inquiry as the power tool, as it uses your Presence to heal all layers vertically, all at the same time. Being aligned in Presence impacts you from higher-self, lower-self (ego, emotions and psychology) to the body, cells and DNA in one hit. If you want assistance then book a coaching session.
Dispel silly spiritual myths
There is a long list of impossible or difficult myths that pervade the spiritual community about what is required for Enlightenment. Most of these are pure fable, or may well be true for extremely advanced cycles of Enlightenment. Most of these extreme fables and popular meme-based beliefs are well beyond Transpersonal Awakening, the 2nd cycle of Enlightenment of phases 5+. Given the extreme rareness of Enlightenment Level 1 (phase 3) as defined here on this website, it is best we stick to a measurable reality that anyone can attain.
This is why this 9 Pillar Enlightenment Framework is here, free, as a course for you to evaluate and test. With this framework you can get a specific grasp on your progress, assuming pillars No4 Law Zero and No8 Blind Spots are considered. Clarity of outcomes and specific steps help you form the right habits and give the feedback loop for you to improve and deepen.
Let's consider one of the fairy stories that are spoken as valid: You need to have a silent mind. While you may experience this, ask yourself the question. Does Presence and Grace (God, step 4) allow these? If so then just practicing Correct Presence Practice is the short and easy solution. Needing the mind to be silent sounds good and plausible so people believe it. Yet if you are performing step 1 of being grounded in the body it is impossible to be stuck in your mind chatter and your Presence allows it. Mind chatter, or thinking, is a tiny subset of your step 2 inner body and step 3 of your Presence. Yes, when the mind is silent or quieter it is a nicer experience to have. A silent mind is not required for Enlightenment Level 1 as defined in this website. You being consciously Present is the measurable evidence in life that proves this tooth fairy fable to be wrong. To ignore, suppress (eg: override with a mantra or affirmation) or bash your mind is unhelpful. Your mind gives you easy access to what is buried in your unconscious mind. To be in Presence means you can observe, feel and heal it by just being conscious. Activities to squash the mind into silence is manipulation by the personal will. This control assertion is pure ego-mind activity, thus it helps keep you locked out of real Presence and away from the real Awakened state.
This Laws of Grace Enlightenment framework gives the specificity for you to measure and gather the evidence for yourself. What any other person or teacher says is irrelevant if you have personal evidence, assuming it's based on Correct Presence Practice, or it may just be a mental creation you think is real. A major hurdle to most humans is the discernment of imagination (mind predominance) versus sensory-based outcomes. This process is examined deeply in the Laws of Grace course. These core traps hold most seekers from deepening into phases 2 and 3 of their Awakening.
A Spiritual Myth example
Trigger warning let's be real
If you are willing (Law Zero), let's take a look at the myth of needing to silence your mind. Is this true? You can be Present and fully blazed out with God while your mind chatters. Have you tested this myth? Yup, it's nicer if the mind is quiet, but if it's noisy so what? Correct Presence Practice makes it obvious if you are doing step 1 of the 4 steps to Presence correctly. Then chatty head is secondary and of little importance.
This below video is one of my first videos made in 2017, a legacy video. My language is very different in this video. If you have watched the #4 ingredients summary videos and the framework overview videos you'll hear these aspects all through this. Hearing this same message different ways helps unconscious integration. In this old video Stillness is what I'd call Presence, via Correct Presence Practice.
So, had you previously believed the nonsense meme saying that a still or quiet mind is a requirement of Awakening? It's a nice side benefit when it happens. However, it isn't proof of Awakening at all. A few super-advanced souls (eg: Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev) may actually have a 100% quiet mind. Most claiming this tend to zero their Law Zero (ie: tell fibs) as their bandwidth is typically that of phase 1 Got it Lost It. Also, everybody is unique, so some un-awake people may also have a quiet mind. I have met these people and their claim seemed believable. A quiet mind is not necessarily Presence as defined here. Stick to evidential indicators per your Correct Presence Practice.
In the Laws of Grace we examine the role of what internal chatter and emotions have to say. Your mind chatter is often a reflection of emotions that are being avoided. Emotions are the messenger of the unconscious mind, which is your inner 5 year old that is the bulk of you. It's important to take note of the noise in your head while practicing Presence. This dynamic is explored and made okay in the Laws of Grace course as it may well be an important aspect of your healing and deepening process.
Memes are often posted on Facebook by well-known spiritual teachers on this matter. This can actually hinder you and put you into a place of impossibility. The reality of it is much deeper. What is your evidence on this matter? Plausibility is not reality. Plausibility is the tool used to hypnotise the bulk of humanity. Test this by doing Correct Presence Practice and re-evaluate. When you are truly Present, is a chatty head an issue? No, it is not, but what is important is how you work at a structural level. If your head chatter pulls you out of Presence then you need to redo the 4 steps to Correct Presence Practice. Then inquire as to why you gravitated out of your real grounded Presence. Is this not obvious?
If you fall out of Presence due to the gravity of your old bad habit of being lost in non-presence, you cannot blame Presence as being wrong, can you? Thus the 9 Pillar framework and the Laws of Grace are about the process and No7 structure. It is not about badges of attainment like a quiet mind. Chasing an illusion stops the bulk of spiritual seekers. Examine these common sayings and test them. Their prevalence hinders you as it normalises the lost state as it makes Presence and Awakening impossible.
Be Present correctly first, then see if a chatty mind is an issue. If it is, then ask why. Examine this deeply. Evaluate and check your steps to Correct Presence Practice. Find the truth through evidence, not plausibility of our lost meme-culture. This is why so few really Awaken to Abidance, the myths are so huge it keeps you lost. Plausibility and nice-sounding fluff sells, but it does not Awaken you. The internal war and vague ideas keep you lost in phase 1 Got it Lost it.
Stopping the War with Ego & Mind
Prime Directives: Train it don't fight it
The key is the 9 pillar framework where firstly you follow pillar No1 first; the 4 steps of Correct Presence Practice. This helps you to accept all of yourself, which is pillar No2 in this framework. I make that clear in the above 2017 legacy video, just without saying pillar No2. Thus you can observe and experience the signals given by your mind, physical body, pain body and emotions.
These give the clues as to what is needed to be brought into the unconditional allowance that is genuine Presence. From this place the belief, emotions and behaviour patterns can be released. You'll go through the healing process of bringing these aspects of your personality back into the wholeness of your beingness. This is true healing, and what eventually leads to phase 3 level 1 Enlightenment. When enough of you is Home as Self, your unconscious mind and spiritual bodies default to into Abidance habit, phase 3.
Have you noticed when you accept all of yourself you live in that beautiful heart space? To live backward is not accepting yourself, it is literally evil. Our words point to this, what is live spelled backwards?
live <=> evil
Contemplate that.