In what could be my last post here, I present "Pathogenesis of a yogi".

1. Insufficient bonding with parents/primary carers, or neglect or abuse as a child, creating the belief “I am not worthy of basic acceptance let alone love”.

2. Painful sensations of low self worth are felt in the body, particularly the heart. The body and its pain is avoided by escaping to the mind.

3. The mind receives massive over-stimulation through repetition of thoughts of “why don’t I fit in?” and “what’s wrong with me?” and “why don’t I feel good?”. Trying to find answers to these questions creates very heavy rumination, both conscious and unconscious. The mind (thoughts) becomes the center of the person’s being. The person becomes a 'nerd' or 'geek' and gravitates towards anything with a strong intellectual bias (eg physics, religion, meditation), and avoids anything with a physical or emotional bias (sport, relationships, social gatherings).

4. A strong intellect and problem solving skills develop through constant practice and intellectual enquiry into what simply amounts to self-worth issues. Paradoxically, the lower the self-worth, the less likely the person is to actually understand that this is the core problem, (despite the well-developed intellect). The ego does everything in its power to avoid the painful truth. Note the disproportionate number of highly intellectual posters on this website.

5. At some point, through massive and repeated mind stimulation, the person starts to develop ’unusual’ perceptions of the World not available to others. “Finally!!! A reason to feel special!! I can perceive things other people can’t! I am also smarter than other people!” Of course this is just the ego speaking, and has nothing to do with self-acceptance. However the new ’talent’ gets taken very seriously because without it, our man would fall back into oblivion.

6. Mind stimulation continues at a great rate until some day, something even more unusual happens, like visions, energies, vibrations, etc. The intellect grabs hold of it again and the person gets drawn into spiritual pursuits. But not just any run-of-the-mill spirituality, it must be one with a very high intellectual component. I mean, it wouldn’t do to just to sit in church and pray, one must learn Sanskrit and delve into Pali canons, yeh?!

7. Endless retreats ensue.

8. Then what?….

Oh I can relate.

Heh, I also relate to some points. Although at any point in the process (in my case at number 4, maybe 5), one can decide to look inwards and try to understand how one came to feel so bad. And then it's one hell of a ride. One discovers things such as your list here, but one can really go much deeper and understand a lot more.

In fact, you might get all the self esteem you want, all the social skills you want, and that will change aspects of your life for the better. I'm all for that.

But that is, believe it or not, just the tip of the iceberg. You can go to such a deep understanding of what suffering is, that it will become very clear and obvious that even those people who have high self esteem etc do suffer quite often and quite intensely, and simply don't realize it due to a mix of insensitivity to their own internal processes, and a life-long habit of taking their own suffering for granted, so that it is seen as "normal".

Once my own sensitivity went up a notch, this was cristal clear. It is also uncanny to see my nephews growing up, how the suffering of their parents propagates and generates more suffering for the children, despite the best possible intentions.

Something a little more body-focused might really help you to re-inhabit your body, and this can really help with the kind of issues you talk about. You could do some work with an experienced massage therapist or any decent bodyworker. Or maybe take off on a course that will get some dirt under your nails and plenty of people around you.

If the sitting isn't helping, leave it for a bit and re-visit it later.

Haha. nice.



i can relate... Karma doing its thing..

I can definitely say that a lot of it fits in my case. Thanks for that, CCC. (its nice to be reminded)

All the best in whatever you decide to pursue.

wisdom & compassion

Yeah, many of us here clearly have aspects of those patterns going on.

I say: go for it. Shine based on the motivations you consider not that great or unskillful. The practice, taken far enough, can demolish the problematic elements that initially drove it, and if those are the motivations that drive you to do skillful things, go for it.

Be a geek, attain to very special things, have amazing perspectives that few do, blaze, get really, really enlightened, as what do you have to lose? I attained all sorts of good things based on a very complex mix of motivations: the achievements were the same regardless and completely worth it.

I am not saying that there aren't traps that await us based on insecurity that may have to be dealt with at some point, but it is very possible to side step some of that work initially and just focus on bare insight, and then, when you have some paths under your belt, turn that well-developed light of awareness on the hard stuff.

D