Notion-Building….

If you are identified with your idea of the “way to be”, then you are not practicing. You are not being with your experience, letting whatever comes up from that experience come up, and functioning appropriately on the physical plane. Instead, you are keeping a lid on vibrations, or calling them something other than what they are, to keep your narrative intact.

But your narrative is just a notion you’ve built. It’s not even your life. And when you’re notion-building, you’re not practicing. I’ll say it again: you’re not being with your experience, you’re not letting whatever comes up come up from that experience, and you’re not functioning appropriately, because you’re functioning according to a notion.

If you think of the “way to be”, you don’t question it; there’s no reflection, it’s the way it is. But it’s just an idea. When that notion is confronted, you will defend it—you’re obstructed from seeing clearly by your “way to be”. And no matter how happy someone else is, if their way of life diverges from your “way to be”, then you will be unable to see its value. If you were actually practicing, you would in fact dismantle your own “way to be.”

If you are living the “way to be”, you are only playing at spiritual practice. You are superimposing your “way to be” on everything and everyone, including sādhana. Your “practice” is all being done with notions. You have a notion that says, “I am a good person,” or “This is love.” But you are never checking out the actual vibration.

There are two ways not to be with your experience. If, when I am having a horrible experience, I only think, “This is horrible”, I am not being with my experience. I am being with my notion. If I think “I am having a horrible experience” or “I am having a wonderful experience,” and I have put a lid on my experience, I may not be having either. How would I know?

If I have superimposed the word “love” on the vibration that should be called “putting up with,” when I see people putting up with each other, I will say they love each other. If we take the fourchotomy of “put up with”, we can see how people conflate, and how this superimposition works.

If I superimpose the word “accept” on the vibration that should be labeled “put up with”, then I cannot really accept. I put up with, and insist that others put up with me. If I superimpose “stand up for self” on the vibration that is actually “intolerant”, then I am not standing up for myself but just being intolerant. Until I am willing to call the vibration what the vibration is, I am just lost among my own notions.

We have all sorts of ways of notion-building. One of them is what we call “processing”. How many times have I said not to process? Processing is notion-building. Worrying is notion-building. Intellectualizing. Rationalizing. There is a long catalog of words we use to notion-build around things we would rather not feel. Here are some:

Processing
Worrying
Intellectualizing
Abstracting
Dissociating
Rationalizing
Mitigating
Defending
Spinning
Wallowing
Judging
Inflating
Convincing

Notion-building prevents us from ever reaching resolution. Resolution happens when we accept our experience fully and are able and willing to call it what it actually is. When we do this, the “way to be” and all our other notions will dissolve. Because where are those notions? In the mind. If we are actually practicing, we will be in the Heart, and whatever notions occupy our mind will dissolve.

The “way to be” is not the way to be. Narrating your feelings is not feeling. The notion of the Heart is not the Heart. Real Love is not a notion.