At the house Karaj talked to me about my progress. He warned me that I am at a dangerous time of the whole process. After a year and a half I am now in a position where I know a little. The problems start when I assume I know more than I do. I can become and am becoming cocky with the wealth of my limited knowledge. This is the time when people give up. If I can make it through the next 18 months then I will win. If I don’t then I will never have the chance again.
Karaj told me that I need to get back to certain attitudes which I had when I arrived at the house in February 2000:
- Get back to playing. Don’t be so serious.
- Be humble.
- Return to the naïvety which caused me to follow advice without question.
- Stop being cocky. I cause myself problems with my cockiness because I think I know what is happening.
- Don’t rescue people. Leave them to it.
- Be quiet.
We talked further. I said that, regardless of what is happening around me, all I can do is control my situation. Karaj responded by saying that nobody is ever in control, especially those who say they are. He added that my next step is to be able to predict when I will next be down, and to deal with it appropriately. To do this I need to stay out of emotions.
Our conversation continued in the garden this evening. Karaj talked about surface emotions and deep-seated emotions. He used the analogy of the sea. On the surface the waves go up and down but are never constant. Deeper down is where the real power lies; in touch with our deep-seated emotions we can be calm. That is what I need to do. It is not that I need to stay out of emotions as such, it is more that I need to dive down into the depths of the emotion and rest there with it, safe from the choppy, unpredictable surface emotion.
Karaj continued, telling me my emotional state is down to a lack of Parent ego state which in turn is due to a lack of discipline. It’s time to get back to my exercises and everything else which belongs to the life I led prior to my back going in June. In addition my cockiness, which has steadily established itself over the last few weeks, is also a result of the lack of discipline.
After 18 months I am rebounding back to my script. This is apparently a perfectly normal and expected part of the process. Stick with it. I am ready to get back to a disciplined routine. I also accept that I have been getting cocky recently, and I am eager to get back to a life of stillness and humility as I consolidate all that I have learned in the past year and a half.