Perceiving resistance about anything in our lives tells us something important - there is still some sort of separation, some barriers within ourself, that prevent us from experiencing unity consciousness.
For us as human beings that is perfectly natural. Our entire experience is based on it, on experiencing what separation means, and how to grow out of it. It literally is a growth process, because what happens whenever separation is transcended is an expansion of consciousness.
So what can we do when we encounter resistance to something or someone in our lives?
There are those who would say that being spiritual is to work on it, to somehow try to overcome the resistance, because it is not spiritual to resist something or someone when in truth we are all one. In that view, resistance is wrong and we must try to get rid of it in order to "be more spiritual".
Take meditation, or yoga, for instance. There are probably millions of people who meditate or do yoga religiously, even though there are things they would much rather do than sit still and try to quiet their mind, or do various, sometimes painful, asanas. They experience resistance to these practices, yet do them anyway because, having set a goal, they naturally want to reach it. If that goal happens to be reaching a state of enlightenment, they're shooting themselves in the foot.
Why is that?
Because enlightenment only dawns when resistance is let go, and what we formerly judged as negative, and wanted to do away with, is seen as a necessary part of ourself. It's kind of a paradox, isn't it? There clearly is resistance, and if we want to reach a state that is free from resistance, we try to resist that resistance by doing a practice that we don't really want to do, in the hopes that it brings us closer to our desired state.
You may or may not see the problem with this. It is one form of what is commonly called a "spiritual ego". That spiritual ego insists on things being this way and not that. Whether it is certain practices or certain behaviours, you name it. You probably know people who will say you can never "ascend" if you still eat animals. That only a plant-based diet will lead to enlightenment, or similar concepts. Maybe you're even one of them. That's totally fine, and if you are, you may be surprised to hear that insisting on something can't possibly lead to expanded consciousness, because insistence creates resistance.
What removes resistance is allowance. Plain and simple. There's resistance to doing yoga? Screw it! Do what you enjoy! Have fun! Notice how good it feels to allow yourself to do what you want to do instead of insisting on things that are not right for you at this time. Times will change. Everything changes. Maybe next year or even next month you return to doing yoga because you noticed that now that the resistance is gone, it feels much more natural to do it. So do it only when you want to, and don't force yourself to do things that suck.
With that said, the main problem about resistance, if we want to call it a problem, is of course our idea about the ego. We believe ourselves to be that which does or does not want to do things, or be with some people and not others. As long as we identify as that I, there will always be resistance. So the best we can do, if we are in that state, is try and see if we can step out of the identification with that I as often as we remember to do it. That is what reduces resistance. How do we do that? We allow that I to be what it is, but we do it consciously, not unconsciously. That's what people mean when they talk about mindfulness.
If we fully indulge in what we enjoy, we are doing it mindlessly. We are totally identified with the I that does whatever it does. And all that does is lead to more of the same. That may be totally fine as long as it is something that feels great, but when does it ever always feel great? Even doing the greatest thing over and over again gets stale eventually. The more we do it, the faster that happens.
Doing something mindfully, on the other hand, means we step out of the identification with that particular I. To use a movie analogy: We experience it not only as the actor who performs, but also as the director of the movie, and as the audience that watches it. That is something that can be practiced, and it can be fun, too - if it is the right thing for us to do at this time.
What happens is that we step from a state of being the victim of whatever happens in our life, into the role of an outsider who either directs it, or merely watches it, but otherwise remains unaffected by whatever happens. After all, it's him or her and not me to whom it happens, right? In a sense, we just replace one small I with another. That, however, can be an intermediate stage between being fully identified with our character in the play of life, and the ultimate state - being all of creation and none of it at once. We are always an I, an ego, and forever will be, but one is small and the other is great.
If we change roles through disidentification, that naturally reduces the resistance we experience. Why is that? Because we always become what we focus on. Ultimately, we already are all of it anyway, but that is a topic for a different blog post, so let's not muddy the waters here. If we focus on being a certain I, we become not only the I, but everything that I experiences as well. If it's thinking about something or someone it hates, then we automatically become that hate, too. Doesn't feel too good being hate, does it?
Any kind of negative emotion signifies some form of resistance. Whatever negative emotion we experience, it is there because we identify as some small I, some imaginary part of the whole, that resists what it believes to be not-I. If, however, we step outside of that, allow that I to be and do whatever it is and does, then that alone already reduces our level of negative emotion immediately and considerably. Why? Because through that tiny change in perspective our resistance suddenly diminishes and our consciousness expands. We may not yet be in a position where all is experienced as one, as self and not-self simultaneously, but it is a step in that direction.
So, to conclude - if we encounter resistance in our lives, and one of our goals is to grow spiritually, then the best we can do is to allow whatever is there to be exactly as it is. If we are in a position to influence what happens, we consciously do what we enjoy instead of doing what we dislike, and try to experience it as the actor, director and audience. At first, our mind may seem to be unable to do all of it simultaneously, but with practice it will switch from one perspective to the other more and more rapidly, giving the experience of coalescence and continuity, or oneness, if you will. Taken to its maximum, that is what is commonly called enlightenment. To be all, yet know that one really is none of it.
And if we are in a situation where we cannot influence what happens, we also allow things to be as they are, including the dislike or resistance our small self may experience. By doing that, we automatically stop being resistance and become allowance, thereby expanding our sense of self. With enough practice that will become natural, and our emotional state will reflect it. We will begin to feel both calmer and more peaceful, better able to deal with whatever appears to happen in our life, and less affected by any of it. Our vibration, and therefore the baseline of our emotionality, will rise, and due to the concurrent expansion of our sense of self, what formerly caused huge waves will eventually create mere ripples in the vast sea of our consciousness until, finally, it becomes perfectly still and silent.
All information given in this blog is Copyright © 2024 by Astrobiomancy Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this blog article may be reproduced by any means – other than for “fair use” as brief quotations embodied in articles, social media posts or the like – without prior written permission of the author.