Pain and the indulgence of self -
the basis of addiction

 

A Releasing Your Unlimited Creativity discussion topic

Copyright 2005 by K. Ferlic,   All Rights Reserved

 
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The natural response to pain is to move away from the cause of the pain. That is of course if you know the cause. If the cause is a hot stove, you take your finger off the stove. If the shoes are too tight, you change the shoes, stretch the shoes or use some type of padding. What may be hard to accept is if you don’t address the cause of the pain as a natural response, you are simply indulging the self and what the “I” wants for your are denying the natural response mechanism of the body.

We are all aware of examples were one wears clothes that don’t feel right and may even be painful but we wear them because of what the “I” wants. Now, it is hoped that you will note that we did not say pain is self indulgent. There is a significance difference between being self indulgent and indulgence of the self.

Self indulgence is colloquially used to imply giving into one’s desires as a weakness and inability to control onself. Indulgence of self is about holding to a desire for the purpose of creating an particular type and kind of experience. Indulgence of self is neither good nor bad. You can say that, there is nothing wrong with the indulgence of self. The entire concept of the individuated consciousness, individual spirit, an individual flow of energy, a soul or whatever you like to call it, exits for the purpose of indulgence of self. The self is what gives rise to the illusion of separation such that the Consciousness of All That Is can experience Its own Creation. If you have not read the Creation Story for the Creativity Perspective, you may wish to read it and see what the self really is and why it is so important to Creation and the experience of Creation.

The self needs to be indulged to experience Creation. Without it there is no Creation to experience. It is the way Creation works and Creation would not work without it. The question is whether indulgence of self is done out of strength or weakness. If one is going to become a conscious creator and take responsibility for what they experience and not be a victim, they will have to consciously indulge the self. The question is whether or not we are aware that in which we indulgence ourselves, including our pain. The question is, “How and why are you choosing to indulge the self?”

It just needs to be realized that continued pain is no more than indulgence of the self in a given pattern that is pushing you beyond the limits that you established within your own being. It only depends on how you choose to deal with the pain you create and why it is being created.

Indulgence of the self through indulgence of our desires is how we co-create creation. To understand how we indulge the self one needs to realize when experiencing pain, if you can get past the pain and look at it origins, you will find its purpose is the same at any level - to warn you that you are passing a limit or boundary which you hold. It is what you hold, no one else and you are creating it. So if there is continued pain, it arises from no more than indulgence of the self. It is the indulgence of self in a given pattern of living that is pushing your beyond the limits that you established within your own. It does not matter whether it be spiritual, mental, emotional or a physical limit, in the end it is all the same. Because there is pain, it means that you are unaware of what limit you are pushing yourself past. It only depends on how you choose to deal with the pain you create.

In all cases when the indulgence of the self is taken to an extreme pain will result. Pain in fact is indulgence of the self at its worst in that you attempt to maintain the self as you have defined it at all costs when you are simultaneously trying to created something other than how you have defined yourself can support. Rather than identify with the creator to create something new, you are identifying with the creation and the past. What most do is try and find a way to endure or suppress pain caused from your attachment rather than let the attachment go. That, in turn, causes the pain to lead to an addition or addictive behavior. Either you need to let go of your attachment to what you want to create or let go of how you have defined yourself and the past creation that is interfering with what you are trying to create.

Pain lies at the basis of all addictions, no matter what that addiction may be. Anything of pleasure or anything that can give pleasure that takes us away from our pain or numbs our pain can become an addiction. Rather than face giving up what we want and giving up our past, we look for something to distract us or numb the pain we feel. When we become to rely on the action or external substance to take away our pain rather than have the strength of will to face the attachment that lies at the source of the pain and let it go, we essentially become addicted. How significant that addiction is in our life is another question and another issue. Thinking itself can be an addiction if it is used to distract us from the decisions we need to make about our attachment. Anything can become an additions. We think of addictive substances or addictive behavior such as gambling or sex but even meditative practices and prayer can be addictions if they are used to avoid facing the pain of the physical world, interactions with people or the pain of our own aloneness and the ultimate pain we each will face.

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