The workshop description:

For many seekers, the spiritual path is considered to be a movement toward “the light” and does not include the equally important process of delving into, identifying and integrating repressed aspects of our psyche (the shadow). Today we will explore this often overlooked aspect of spiritual work and examine how we often fool ourselves using spirituality to hide our shadow (from ourselves and others) rather than honestly facing ourselves. Through four guided meditations through the day, lecture, experiential exercises, group discussion, and Q&A sessions, we will examine some of the common masks we use to hide our shadow side and ways we can begin to productively integrate these aspects of our psyches.

New episode installments will follow every week.

In email or via RSS, you may use the following link to access/download the podcast directly to your computer (warning: approximately 73.6 MB): http://abdiassadi.com/podcasts/abdi_assadi_ny_open_center_10-30-2011_episode3.mp3

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In email or via RSS, you may use the following link to access/download the podcast directly to your computer (warning: approximately 19.4 MB): http://abdiassadi.com/podcasts/abdi_assadi_meditation_09192011_v2.mp3

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In email or via RSS, you may use the following link to access/download the podcast directly to your computer (warning: approximately 4.08 MB): http://abdiassadi.com/podcasts/abdi_assadi_meditation_09192011.mp3

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Shadows on the Path: Learning to Unlearn

A meditation, talk, and Q&A session with Abdi Assadi

The function of a spiritual path is to break us free from our cultural and familial programming that keeps us stuck in our blind unconscious patterns. This is an opportunity to examine whether our practice is effective in shaking off this powerful hypnosis.

This program is being hosted at The Shala in NYC.
You can Google Map this location here: Google Map for The Shala

The suggested donation for this program is $20

AbdiAssadi.com

3W: Human beings have a really hard time putting their minds around
incremental change.

AA: The system actually functions by dehumanizing people. People actually
go to that ego place which really ties into the fame thing. When you
go to the fame thing you’re just ego drive, ego overdrive, which is a very
lonely place. I feel more isolated, so I have to buy one more thing. I feel more
alienated; I have to buy one more thing. What we do is we get together, we
get shit faced, and we just totally try to disconnect. We check out guys, girls,
whatever you’re into, just disconnect, and talk about things that disconnect
us. This is one thing that’s a gift out of what’s happening now. Hopefully, it’ll
bring people together. Now, that’s the curse of the fame thing, that’s the curse
of the celebrity thing. All these shows that are on TV, this fame thing is about
me over you. Wake up! But, hey, whatever these shows on TV are, people want to
be famous. They’re taught we can get there, which is also insane. What? You’re
going to have 300 million people be famous?

3W: I relate to what you’re saying, we’re all obsessed with ego and obsessed
with being the best whatever, with fame, it just takes us far away from ourselves.

AA: The only way you’re really going to consume something is if you’re really
not content. The contentedness never happens externally. When you purchase
something new, all that does is touch the place that’s already content,
and then you get bored with it and you want to repeat that experience again
and again. This is Bush coming over after this horrific thing happens in our
country and he says, “Go shopping.” The system has a consciousness. To me
it’s not just about the fact that there are three mean guys sitting up there trying
to figure everything out. These systems have consciousness. Kind of what
we’re talking about: culture, as you say, is not your friend, but culture is not
some dead entity. When you read Alice Miller – Alice Miller is this amazing
psychotherapist and she studied the Nazis – these dudes were God-fearing,
church-going family people. To me these Nazis were monsters. The scary part
is that they weren’t monsters. There were a couple of psychopaths but there
weren’t millions of psychopaths. How could a culture decimate eight million
people? We’re the same people; we haven’t changed that much. Again, that
ego thing you’re talking about is narcissism, the checked-out-ness. It used to
be religion, then it became nationalism, now it’s become fame. To me it’s the
same damn ugly medicine that keeps repeating itself, and no one’s learned to think.
It’s culture. It’s got a consciousness and it doesn’t want to die.

3W: It’s crazy. I’m a person who is thinking about these things and I also feel
like I need total sensations. It’s hard to get away from.

AA: We don’t experience things directly anymore. It’s almost like we’ve lost
our digestive tracks and someone else has to chew our food for us. Then, by
watching them chew, we can actually taste the food because we don’t have
any taste buds. “How does it taste?” “Well it’s sweet.” “What does that mean?
I don’t really know what sweet is.” “Well, it’s got this experience.” We don’t
have direct experience anymore. Do we choose not to go to that fame place?
Do we choose to switch off the Internet that day and just sit down and
create something?

3W: Saving money is an interesting connection, too.

AA: Same thing. What is the fame thing? You get the money. It is connected
to that, it’s two sides of the same coin, really. Fame is a currency. Currency in
the way that people keep up with it. It’s what I’ve noticed with people. If they
know famous people, if they’ve seen them or taken a picture, it’s a currency.
It’s become a currency. “Hey I saw Joe Blow at this place, here’s my picture.”
It’s this impulse of taking a picture with a total stranger. It’s fame; it always
just blows my mind. So, what does that say? It says this person has something
I don’t have, and by putting my arm around this person and having this
picture taken, I am somebody now.

3W: Well, maybe we should talk for just a minute about my personal favorite
celebrity who just died, Michael Jackson. He was a really talented musician
and all these things. But, I think his greatest work was the sculpture that was
his body. People were terrified by it, and they didn’t like to look at it. But he
transformed himself into what he thought people wanted him to be.

AA: Absolutely. He was a guy who lived in the hyper-real as opposed to the
real. He lived in the extraordinary – the ordinary wasn’t okay. He had to go
to the extraordinary. His only experience would be in his peak thing, right, a
huge playground, this massive thing. It’s an amazing thing that people don’t
realize.

3W: And he totally killed himself with drugs.

AA: That’s pain, that’s how painful it is. That’s how far away you get from
yourself and you forget that you need anesthetics. The metaphor for that is
lost on people. It’s not even using heroin, he’s using anesthetics, drugs that
anesthetize people. It’s crazy and yet it totally makes sense. We have this
projection on people; we have this addiction to perfection. Then, when these
people don’t meet our expectations– Tiger Woods is an amazing example in
that way, right? He became a totally perfect, clear projector screen. He had
no emotions; he was a good boy. Is he black? Is he Asian? He won’t even give
you that. The shadow gets so huge, totally in reversion to how good you pretend
to be. How perfect the projector screen, because there’s nothing really
genuine, really authentic. And this is how these things always work out and
people are always shocked. How did that happen? It’s like, “It’s not shocking,
it’s Michael Jackson.” Because the projector screen is so strong, the flip side of
it gets ghastly. The flip side is us napalming the bejesus out of babies. These
are the things we need to examine. Michael Jackson and Tiger are perfect
examples of people carrying culture and its shadow. Michael Jackson is us.
He was carrying that for all of us.

3W: He was this mirror. He kept mutating because we asked him to and then
we couldn’t even stare ourselves in the face. We couldn’t even look at him.

AA: There’s this mass consciousness that doesn’t want to change and only
wants to be changed when disaster comes – has to be forced to change,
doesn’t want to do the fucking work which is all this stuff.

3W: It’s like Bret Easton Ellis really nailed that with American Psycho.
There’s this character who’s this Wall Street success, but couldn’t help just
killing everyone around him in really perverse, sexual ways.

AA: I used to speak to some Vietnam vets in the Bronx. Those guys saw some
shit. I can’t imagine these kids now, doing this close combat. We’re taking
these guys, basically using them, and then throwing them back 24-48 hours
later in the community. It’s like the highest rate of suicide, homicide; we’re
living that nightmare. It’s not like in some distant future. These are the things
that aren’t working. But, nobody’s questioning why. That’s where the fame
thing comes in, the celebrity. “Pay attention to this, Tiger Woods has like 8
girls that he banged, check that out.” While your neighbor is losing his home,
your neighbor just came back from Iraq, your neighbor just shot his wife,
your neighbor’s a drug addict but there’s not drug treatments so he’s going to
go to prison for 20 years.

3W: I guess what you were saying earlier goes person by person.

AA: The machine is too big; the machine is way better armed than you’ll ever
be, the machine’s way smarter on that level. Forget about the machine, the
machine is going to eat itself alive; we have to step out of that. It’s not going
to be about shifting the system because the system has a consciousness and
this system is so profound. It can co-opt anything. It’s a very intelligent virus.

3W: Everything becomes style.

AA: You have to step out of that. It’s not about becoming something radical,
spiritual, or a monk or a caveman because that’s another thing. The question
is how do you live your life in integrity and real authenticity? Are you’re a rose
bush, are you an oak tree? If the system needs oak trees, it will tell everyone
they’re an oak tree. If you’re a rose bush and you’re trying to eat what an
oak tree eats, you are going to die pretty quickly. You have to figure out what
you are, and then feed that while you’re in the system.

3W: And then, you grow up in that environment, and nothing seems real
except for what’s hyper, hyper-real. Even that is unsatisfying as years go on.

AA: People are living in fear – that’s how you keep people in line. It was the
nuclear bomb, it was the Russians, it was the Chinese, always fear, fear, fear.
Now, it’s the Arabs. Once these systems are in place, how can you step out
of it? The only difference now is that we’re running against a finite line. People
laugh when it’s said there could be food shortages, actually laugh at you.
There’s a very distinct possibility in our lifetimes that we are going to hit
against that again. Right now, there are riots in many countries because of
food shortages. This is how this myth gets perpetuated. “We’re fine, it’s nothing,
stay asleep. Everything is under control.” That’s the part that’s going to
shift it to the next level.

3W: Sacrifice.

AA: Yeah, sacrifice but also the fact that this can be pleasurable. That’s what
I’m saying to you. For me, there’s a lot of serenity in the work that I do -
trying to help the world and forgetting about myself. When I forget about
myself, my big Self steps in. Now that can’t be all the time, because the reality
is that you have to feed all parts of you, but that’s a really powerful experience.
But that’s lost on this culture, that’s lost on celebrity, definitely lost on fame,
cause that’s all about “me.” “What else can I do about me? Let’s talk about
me, let’s talk about me.” That energy never gets into you.

3W: It’s always hungry and it’s never satisfied.

AA: It’s that hungry ghost. The Buddhists have that wonderful image, right,
of this big ghost with a pinprick for a mouth and it can never get enough
food to feed it. And we’re all guilty of that to some extent but the system
makes sure that that keeps going on. Cause what is it going to look like?
There is an economic reality; we’ve been trading since we had seashells.
There is an economic reality when you have six billion, seven billion people
on the planet. It’s not going to keep going this way, so, what is the next step?
Well, you get that by Phil being the best Phil, and John being the best John,
and Jason being the best Jason. That’s how you answer that question, and I
truly know that in my bones. It’s not about going out there and discovering
the wheel, but each one of us go out and do that – instead of A trying to be
his dad, A is A, that’s my gift to this planet.

3W: What can the reader can do to become more of who they are?

AA: I would say, first and foremost, look at the places where you’re not really
you. We are basic archetypes where we rebel against the culture. I realized
I’m trapped being a rebel because I’m still connected to my past. How connected
am I to the past? That would be the first thing. The second is how
many times a day are you people pleasing or not people pleasing as a way of
people pleasing? Just start by examining yourself. It takes like five minutes a
day. And then really look at your relationships with things. Just look at the
way things are. You don’t have to drop out. You can look exactly the same
externally but you have a totally different experience in life, you can still take
the subway, but from a different place. If you’re really angry, if you’re really
sad, examine it. Give yourself a little bit of time to be bored, just a little bit
of introspection. Something that I do is, I just take one thing every once in
a while to work on. So, if it was anger, like in the morning, I would be like,
“Look, I’m tired today, I’m tired, I’m going to be more angry, so pay attention.”
At night, I would have a review, I would be like, “So that was good,
you were tired, you knew you were going to be angry, so you didn’t work as
hard today.” And whatever that thing was, examine it. I don’t want to be connected
to my past, I want to have a relationship with it but I don’t want to be
a slave to it. We never examine. The second we wake up we’re on the go. We
don’t fall asleep until we pass out because we’re on the go and we do it seven
days a week. So give five or 10 minutes a day.

3W: Five minutes?

AA: Literally

3W: Let’s talk about how we all think of ourselves as individuals. There are
a lot of spiritual advisers and philosophers that are just rejecting that notion.
But, there are also tangible things, like we all have individual fingerprints, we
have different DNA, we are literally, undeniably individual.

AA: We’ve gotten so lost in the individuation and now it’s sort of the journey
back into remembering we’re a whole. When that aspect of forgetfulness
of individuation becomes hyper individuation, that’s the Wall Street, that’s the
psychopath. Psychopath does not have a memory of being connected to
other people, that’s why it’s actually so disconnected. The problem with the
psychopath experience is that nobody is experiencing it. That’s why you stab
10 people to death when you’re a psychopath; there’s no experience, there’s
no body left, there’s no body home. Healthy culture tends to have a balance
between perpetuating itself and allowing you to be the best you. To me, that’s
a healthy culture. We’re in a culture that wants to decimate you if you’re not
getting into the program. And it does it.

3W-Phil: It’s this drive to make yourself thin, to make yourself vapid, just a
wrapper, that way you can become famous. Become a brand of self.

AA: One thing that you’re saying which has become one dimensional,
which ties into what you’re saying, which is chaos. People don’t want to deal
with the fact that there is chaos. The fact that you can have all the spiritual
understanding in the world and walk out and get run over by a car, this is what
all the bullshit in the way of spirituality doesn’t want to come to it. You can have
the deepest understanding of it, but if your number’s up, your number’s
up. That’s where the real courage comes in. If you know that every time you
get on that bike, you could actually be done, and you choose to do it, that’s
courage. Not in a stupid way, but you’ll approach it differently. If you’re sort of
unconscious, you get on that bike, hit the throttle, do a buck 80 without giving
a shit, you’re not really tasting anything. You’re in that psychopath mode.
So the fact that it is chaotic, and yet it’s all One, there’s nothing to be done,
yet it’s this wonderful, horrific play that’s happening… To kind of straddle
those things, that’s what’s really rare. That’s a new thing that’s happening
culturally.

3W: The thing about a bike that is a great benefit and interesting is I get
scared when I’m not on a bike. I get scared thinking about what happened
the last time I rode, how ‘it was fucking close’ and how I should do this or
that next time. But, once you get on, and the motor is going… no more fear.

AA: When you’re riding, if you’re riding properly, the only way to survive in
New York City, is you don’t think about anything. You’re in the moment, so
like, the gift of this whole thing, that’s the pleasure, the moment. When you’re
with your lover, and it’s awesome, it’s in the moment. These spiritual people
have been trying to tell us this forever. The magic is in the moment.

Over the next several weeks, we will be publishing a series of short videos that discuss various aspects of the spiritual path. These videos are segments of an extended interview conducted by Jonas Elrod, co-director of “Wake Up”.

If you cannot see the video player or file download links below, you may alternatively access and play the video on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/user/AbdiAssadi

Or, you may access this video podcast episode via your iTunes application:

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“I know that nothing has ever been real without my beholding it.
All becoming has needed me.
My looking ripens things and they come toward me,
to meet and be met”.
Rilke

How do you read this poem? As an invitation for your ego to go forth and conquer? That with out you
there is no world? Is Rilke professing the same knowledge espoused by many of the modern new age teachers about manifesting what you want? Or can you see that it can also be read as life being a process of becoming; “to meet and to be met”? That there is a mutual dance that occurs when we soften, and the line between us and the process blurs? The times that we are living through will not and can not be met by the first way of reading it. It can only be navigated by the second, by trusting the process and softening the self.

I invite you to use this demarcation of a new year to deepen your relationship to your Self. I sense that any one who has concrete plans for a specific goal or direction right now will be sorely disappointed. It is a good time to be fluid and paint with broad brush strokes, set general directions and allow the unfolding of time to fill in the fine details. Any thing that smells of the old ways of being will continue to be ripped away from us. The challenge at hand is to continue to have the courage and take the time to examine what or whom is not serving us any longer. It is a time to keep clearing away the old and allow ourselves to know that we don’t know instead of singing the same old tunes. These times of uncertainty are extremely uncomfortable for all us needing the illusion of being in control. And yet it is exactly these times, when attended to with attention and silence, that allow us to better understand what poisons us and what feeds us. Here’s to a mindful new year.

We can deepen and enrich our lives by examining our conscious and unconscious attitudes towards death. In my experience, it is possible to learn about dying while we are living, and it is a valuable knowledge. When our actual death comes, most of us leave in the middle of something—we do not get to choose our moment of passing. Very few of us leave when our egos are ready. So it is good practice to see what feelings come up when we do have to leave things unfinished.

A meditation that I do from time to time is to lie down and feel what it might be like if I was dying. In my mind, I release all that I hold dear, all the plans and dreams and love that surround me in that moment. I pay attention to the emotions that come up and my reluctance to let go. And then I practice letting go. Try this exercise with some heart—it can show you much about where you are in your life.

Another activity that I practice is to stop an experience that I am engrossed in. Let’s say I am watching a movie that I find engaging and I force myself to walk out before the end. Or I am working on my motorcycle and before I finish the job I put down my tools. You can have the same experience by putting aside a book that you are immersed in. I follow all these actions by sitting with the agitation that comes from my ego not being satiated. Practice it: the force of the agitation might surprise you. With repetition, it does become easier. Practicing dying leads to living more fully. And letting go a little now can make it easier when death does arrive.

The same walk for over a decade and something new every day. Yet the
witness, this old friend who watches through my eyes and smells through
my nose, who lives within and beyond this single human specimen, is strangely
the same. What if I had died last night and I am in a bardo state, my spirit walking
out of my apartment out of habit? I chuckle, feel my feet and drop my breath. I
take solace in the fact that in the river of life this city street carries, my awareness
of this witness is all I have. Thirty three years walking these New York City streets,
the teenage boy and the middle aged man, walking step in step.

A great example of this is our melting economy and how we are all being lulled back to sleep into an unsustainable cycle of consumption and debt as if everything is back to normal. We have to recognize that this inner as well as outer chaos is not something to be feared but rather something to befriend and be informed by. Chaos does bring with it a message and direction that will lead to a different way of being within and without. I find that at this time we need to have the patience, courage and wisdom to leave open the space and live with the unknown before the new reveals itself. We usually get one piece of information at a time when we are moving to a more authentic space. For example we might get that we need to change our job, home or relationship but no other information. Generally, we need to act on that one piece until the next piece is revealed. This is not some cruel joke or test by our psyche but rather the only way something new can be revealed. Otherwise we will be back where we were internally but with new surroundings. This is difficult for our egos since our tendency is to want to fill it with the old as soon as some neurotic behavior gets loose from its mooring and we feel uncomfortable in the newness or unknown. It takes courage and constant vigilance to live empty until the new reveals itself unto us, one piece at a time.

Let me explain what this can look like with a pedestrian example in my own life. Last week I was holding a meditation gathering at a temple where I have been holding it for about a decade now. A mass email was sent out several days prior for the Sunday evening event. I usually tend to get there an hour before to prepare the space and it was at this time that I realized I could not find the key to the place. The person whose space it is was traveling in India and I was not sure if he was back yet. Several unanswered phone call later I was still without a response or the key. In that moment, I had to surrender to the two pieces of information that I had: there was a gathering to be held with no way of reaching every one in time to tell them of the predicament and that there was no way to access the space. As I checked in, I got that I just need to go and sit by the door of the temple. I have learned not to limit the possibilities so I just sat in front of the door of the space and informed people as they were gathering that there was no key. There was fifteen minutes left before the start time and one of the attendees had managed to find a space for the group that can range from twenty five to eighty people several blocks away. Not an easy task on a Sunday evening in Manhattan within a fifteen minute time limit. And another was on the verge of finding another space when I got a call from the man with the key saying that he had indeed just gotten back from India. After a rush dash to and fro, the space was opened five minutes after the designated time.

So to break it down: I get that it was time to hold a meditation gathering and send out a mass email. That is the first piece of information. Then the day of and several hours before I find I have no key. That is the second piece of information and the place where I have to surrender into helplessness and work on not getting anxious about it since after all, I am helpless. I check in again and get that I need to show up at the temple’s door, but I have no solution or expectation. That is the third piece of information. Then the situation resolves itself. It could have just as well been that every one had to go home, then that would have been what was needed by the group psyche. The tricky part is to get the ego’s desire of what resolution needs to look like out of the way.

The important thing here is not to limit the outcome; not to see a worst or best case scenario. We do all we can with the information at hand, making room for our helplessness while keeping an eye out for underlying anxiety. Order, disorder, chaos which then leads to a new order. Our souls are beckoning. How are you answering?