By Reza Ganjavi
Subtitle: On another "self-help" new age guru.
I watched the videos by Aaron Doughty, and his pitch for the "meditation" event, and his "meditation" video.
I don't know this man and don't have an opinion on him, but about the topic in general, I humbly share some tips, for whatever it's worth:
Be careful.
Keep it simple.
This field of the psyche has to be treated very carefully. "Messing" with it can result in complications.
Pop psychology is all about the "self" -- empowering the self -- but in reality, psychologically. The self is just a bundle of memories, thoughts. There's tremendous power in being nothing, psychologically -- to experience that without an experiencer ("me") -- the ending of the me -- to be utterly silent, still, inside -- with senses wide awake -- yet, no "me". That nothingness is everything-ness.
What he says regarding seeing the impact of the past and being free from it, again, is a very sensitive topic: a lot of approaches try to free one from the past influence. But -- a lot of them fail and backfire, in making a person psychologically complicated, which is the kiss of death in my book. Simplicity is paramount.
The key to that freedom is seeing what one is. This is not something someone else can tell us. We have to see it for ourselves. Another person can act as a mirror -- in daily life -- I'd never pay for that -- and also in other mirrors of relationship with not just people but things, nature, ideas, etc.
From that seeing, liberation comes. It can't be practiced. Practice, will, effort, is the work of the self which in itself is conditioned and a product of the past. Freedom from the self and its conditioning can't come from strengthening the self.
The whole topic of "worthiness" is about image-making. Here's the challenge: can we live without any psychological images of ourselves, others, others' image of themselves, others’ image of us, etc. --- feeling unworthy is an image?
It's not about practicing feeling worthy and in the process boosting the ego, crystalizing the "me" "I", which is the core of the problem and by definition is isolated. It's about seeing the process of image making, how it's the activity of thought, the roots of it, the habits, and from that seeing a mutation, change, come about -- to that state of silence, nothingness. So we go about our lives, free from psychological images -- worth or unworthy – etc., etc. -- none. That nothingness is bliss. In that nothingness, one is not separate from the universe. That movement is free from time and limits of thought. It's infinite. It's uncorrupted and unpolluted by the activity of psychological thought and its futile attempt to be something.
I wrote more about this this topic. See https://www.rezamusic.com/writings