The Either/Or Nature of the Individual's Mode of Being as Allowing or Resistant in the Creation of Experiential Reality

You can stand on a ladder and go neither up nor down. However, the relation of the Individual to their more fundamental Individuality or Self is not like this. That is, there in no neutral position that an Individual can adopt relative to their more fundamental Individuality. The relation between the Individual and their more fundamental Individuality is always one of either allowing or resistance, i.e., flow in alignment with or in opposition to the flow of their Self. And it is this relation that determines the most important aspect of what any Individual creates and apprehends as experience as the result of the relations in which they are involved with the rest of Existence, because it is this relation that determines whether the created experience, be it of the emotional, mental, or physical variety, will have a wanted or unwanted quality.

Thus, if you are not in a relation of allowing then you are in a relation of resistance, and if you are not in a relation of resistance then you are in a relation of allowing. Put another way, in order to be in a relation of allowing all you have to do is cease to be in a relation of resistance, and in order to be in a relation of resistance all you have to do is cease to be in a relation of allowing. Not being in one relation is the same as being in the opposite relation.

The importance of this is that we often find ourselves wanting to feel better, but unable to do so. That is, we find ourselves unable to place ourselves in the relation of Self-allowing that would create for us a more wanted or less unwanted emotional experience. And the reason we are not able to place ourselves in that relation, the reason that we are not able to allow, is because we are instead, at some level, choosing to be in a relation of resistance instead. We want to feel better, and we also want to keep pushing against something, but we can't do both. It has to be one or the other, because one involves a relation of Self-allowing and the other involves a relation of Self-resistance.

We think we should be able to feel better while still doing the thing that is actually making us feel bad, because we don't understand the connection between our mode of being as allowing or resistant and what we create as emotional experience. And so we get stuck feeling bad because we try to feel better by pushing away the bad feeling, and in that pushing we generate more rather than less unwantedness, and we also become unable to be in the relation that would create a more wanted emotional experience. We just cannot be simultaneously in what are mutually exclusive relations. If we are involved in one then we are not involved in the other, and so if we are trying to push something away then we are not able to be in the relation in which we are not pushing against something.

The main point of all of this is that in order to feel better all that is needed is to cease resistance, to let go of some degree of resistance, because every degree of resistance released adds another degree of allowing. The object of resistance is not important. No other action is necessary. In fact, any other action will be counterproductive and lead to more resistance and the creation of more unwantedness. One does not have to cease resistance and then allow, for ceasing to resist is itself allowing. Once you are not resisting, and therefore allowing, you can from there become more allowing. But if you are resisting then you cannot, from there, be allowing. If you are resisting then you have to become allowing through a cessation of resistance. That is, if you are to be in the relation in which you are allowing then you must cease to project yourself into the relation in which you are resisting. Put another way, you cannot continue to project yourself into a relation of resistance and at the same time project yourself into a relation of allowing.

It is also true that while in a relation of allowing it is not possible to be in a relation of resistance. This is why if you are in a really good mood, i.e., being very allowing, then you are not bothered by external circumstances that might not be to your liking, because in the absence of resisting or pushing against those circumstances you do not generate emotional unwantedness. But if you choose to focus on one of those circumstances and cease to allow it, you find your good mood has evaporated, and in its place is an unwanted emotion, i.e., a bad mood. And then, once you are in a bad mood, even insignificant circumstances seem bothersome, because then your general relation is one of resistance in which you are generating emotional unwantedness.

There is in the creation of experience a sort of momentum. The better you feel means the more allowing you are being, and the more allowing you are being the more wanted will be all the experiences you create through the relations in which you become involved while in that mode of being, making it easier to find things that are wanted that are easy to allow, while also making it harder to find something unwanted that it seems necessary to resist or push against. Conversely, the worse you feel means the more resistant you are being, and the more resistant you are being the more unwanted will be all the experiences you create through the relations in which you become involved while in that mode of being, making it easier to find something unwanted that it seems necessary to resist or push against, while also making it harder to find things that are wanted that are easy to allow.

It seems to me that habitual, unconscious, and reflexive resistance toward the unwanted is the primary reason that Individuals experience far less wantedness than they otherwise could. We seem to have this notion that it is our duty to push away and rid ourselves of the unwanted so that the wanted can come in its place. What we do not realize that it is our very resistance toward the unwanted that is itself the thing that is keeping us from experiencing the wanted.

We all want wanted experiences, that is the nature of Existence and there is no getting around that. The question is, how are we going about getting what it is that we cannot help but want? That is, are we thinking about experience as something we can get or as something we ourselves create? It is a subtle but vital distinction.

When experience seems to be something we can get it seems to be something that exists independent of us, the Experiencer of it, and so it seems that to get the wanted we first have to get rid of the unwanted , to make room for the wanted by clearing out the unwanted, and in thinking about experience in this way it seems that resistance toward the unwanted is the way to the wanted, and so that is what we do, reflexively resist and push against the unwanted. Or when thinking of experience in this way, as Experiencer independent, when we do find something wanted we think that to keep feeling the wantedness we have to cling to it, to possess it, to control it, which is itself a form of resistance. This reflexive clinging to the wanted is referred to as attachment, whereas the reflexive pushing against the unwanted is referred to as aversion, and both require the Individual to be in a mode of Self-resistance, in which case the Individual is involved in a relation that must ultimately create what that Individual apprehends as experiential unwantedness.

And so, when experience is seen as Experiencer independent, which it is not, our natural and unavoidable desire to have wanted experiences leads us to inadvertently create the opposite of what we want, as we end up trying to create wantedness through resistance and so not only end up creating what we don't want, but also end up in a position in which we can't create what we do want.

Conversely, when experience is understood to be something that we ourselves create, as Individuals, according to how we are choosing to be involved in a fundamental relation, then it no longer seems that the way to get the wanted is to get rid of the unwanted. Instead, in that context, when the unwanted appears, it then is seen that the way to create the wanted is to first stop creating the unwanted. When the wantedness and unwantedness of experience is seen as a reflection of one's own allowing or resistance, as one's own creation, then attachment and aversion have no basis, as those are attitudes that can only exist in the context of conceiving of experience as Experiencer independent, as a sort of object, as something that can be clung to or pushed away.

And so, when experience is seen as Experiencer dependent, which it is, our natural and unavoidable desire to have wanted experiences leads us to consciously create what we want, as we do not end up trying to create wantedness through resistance, through either attachment or aversion, in which case, i.e., in the absence of resistance, we must then be in the opposite relation, which opposite relation creates the opposite of unwantedness.