Remember that at the beginning of our practice, we need to defend ourselves against the superego, and to do that, we need to bring forth our aggression and our strength. As a matter of fact, in time, simply feeling our strength burns up the superego, without our doing anything to make it happen. However, we recognize that the importance of strength also lies in its function of complementing kindness. We cannot progress on the path with kindness alone, because sometimes what is happening is scary or destabilizing or disorienting. Perhaps where we are is terrifying because what’s happening is unknown, totally unfamiliar. Or there’s the possibility of pain or of feeling lost or falling apart if we keep going. Then kindness might not be of much help.
That’s when we need courage. We need a bold, courageous, adventurous heart to take us where we have never gone. Because that’s what the inner journey is—going where we haven’t gone before. If we only have a nice, kind heart, that might help us to not attack ourselves, but we won’t take the bold step of moving into the now, of being open and vulnerable to whatever beckons us into new territory. – The Unfolding Now: Realizing Your True Nature through the Practice of Presence, Ch. 6
It is relatively easy to see that much of our opaqueness, much of our lack of openness, much of our stuckness, is due to the attacks of the superego—ours and other people’s. These are the criticisms, the put-downs, the comparisons, the judgments, the devaluations, the blaming, the shaming, the rejection, and the hatred that the superego levels at you in all kinds of situations. Here the Red latifa can specifically be used in the service of inquiry, by giving us the strength to defend against the superego.
Initially, we need to defend ourselves against these attacks by directly confronting them. This can happen through challenging the superego’s authority—by telling it to back off. Such an internal confrontation requires great strength and intelligence. Later, when the Red Essence is more readily available, it becomes possible to disengage from selfjudgment simply by clearly discriminating it for what it is and not going along with it. Disengaging from the superego is, in essence, a separation from your parents—the parents you long ago internalized and have lived with in your mind ever since. This disengagement allows you to see more clearly what is there in your experience, because if you’re entangled with these attacks, you won’t even know what you’re experiencing or what has caused the attack in the first place. – Spacecruiser Inquiry: True Guidance for the Inner Journey, Ch. 18
One of the original functions of the judge was to act as your conscience. The judge learned standards of right and wrong from parents and society. Then, by using guilt and shame, it helped you as a child to behave and act appropriately according to that moral code. Unfortunately, this process suppressed your spontaneity, aliveness, and instinctual power in order to make you socialized and acceptable. You needed the judge’s firm support and direction as you developed your own ability to perceive, evaluate, and understand. However, the outcome of that development was not grounded in your true nature. As an adult, you have continued to rely on the judge’s internalized standards of right and wrong. Only true maturation can replace the judge with a living conscience. This capacity of the soul depends on the recognition of your essential nature and the development of your ability to be authentically yourself. – Soul Without Shame: A Guide to Liberating Yourself from the Judge Within, Introduction
The first way works well during the stage one of the journey when our awareness is not strong, our presence is not developed, and our inquiry is not yet skillful. That’s when we need to directly defend ourselves, to own up to our aggression and to use its strength and energy to throw the superego out, to create space to be where we are. In this way, we defend ourselves consciously—by using our strength instead of erecting walls, defenses, and resistance to protect us from dangers of the superego.
In the early years of our practice of being where we are, we need to constantly recognize the superego and its ploys and learn how to defend against them. Basically, we need to tell the superego where to go: “Who cares what you think? Go to hell.” Okay, so you feel deficient, and the superego keeps insisting that you’ll never amount to anything. You can tell it, “Good—if I’m never going to amount to anything, why are you bothering me? Go find somebody else.” This is a way of disengaging, but with strength, with energy, with awareness. – A. H. Almaas, The Unfolding Now: Realizing Your True Nature through the Practice of Presence, Ch. 6
From our perspective, the superego is the inner coercive agency that stands against the expansion of awareness and inner development, regardless of how mild or reasonable it becomes. It is a substitute, and a cruel one, for direct perception and knowledge. Inner development requires that, in time, there be no internal coercive agencies. There will be, instead, inner regulation based on objective perception, understanding, and love. – A. H. Almaas, Essence with the Elixir of Enlightenment: The Diamond Approach to Inner Realization, Ch. 5
The work on the superego, on expanding the awareness and deepening the sensitivity of the body, involves the activation and freeing the chakra level of energetic functioning. This does not necessarily mean direct work on the physical location of the chakras. It is basically clearing the mind and opening the body, which inevitably involves the clearing of the chakra system. The chakra system is basically the level of emotions, thinking processes, and physiological functioning. Freeing these functions from the unconscious, defending against the superego, and clearing the conflicts in the mind, is itself the work on clearing the chakras. Of course, there are other methods of dealing with this level of work. Some systems work directly on the chakra system and its centers. Others activate the kundalini energy and use it to activate and clear the chakras. Others use yogic physical techniques. Psychotherapy and the body therapies also are attempts in this direction. The chakras do not function properly because of the body armor and its patterns of psychophysical tensions. The work on the superego, especially if coupled with somatic-energetic techniques, such as those that employ breathing, is a powerful and efficient method for clearing this level. It also guards against the fascination and the excitement characteristic of direct work on the chakras. Clearing this level of the personality leads at some point to the regaining of the pure emotional energy, and culminates in the experience of the void. – A. H. Almaas, Essence with the Elixir of Enlightenment: The Diamond Approach to Inner Realization