Living with Mental Process
In the Diamond Approach, much time is spent working on the superego, especially in the first five years. This work is important as the superego, part of mental process, wants to keep us in the box of “what is acceptable” and safe and known. This is a barrier to real growth, blazing new ground, and being open to revelation and realization.
Moreover, the superego cunningly diverts our attention from our core psychological and emotional issues. It does this by projecting these issues onto others, making them appear as their problems, not ours. This hampers our personal growth and creates a cycle of unresolved issues, distracting us from addressing our conditioning.
The superego is like a forest fire burning through a limitless fuel supply. Unfortunately, this fuel is our aliveness, strength, and expansiveness. It uses our “fire” to keep us in bounds and under the influence of parental and societal beliefs and norms. It is not friendly or accepting of reality, which it believes it knows a great deal about – HA!
Initially, the Diamond Approach uses the Freudian model of the psyche to explore the superego and mental process—ego, id, and superego. By artificially separating mental process into these components, we can better discriminate the forces and functions involved. We also become more comfortable and intimate with our inner mental and emotional world.
When coupled with spiritual work, this loosens the superego’s hold on us, resulting in more “fire” for the spiritual journey and a more fascinating life.
Freeing Meditation from Mental Process
Like most, my initial ventures into meditation overflowed with mental process—thinking, daydreaming, obsessing, etc. Again, like most, I tried to deal with this by “quieting the mind.” This, of course, resulted in inner tension and conflict. This struggle reinforced the ego-self by applying false will in naive service of “spiritual growth.”
My struggles are similar to the stories of most seekers, and like most, my struggles and investigations into the superego and mediation led me to two epiphanies that changed everything.
- “I” can’t control mental process.
- Meditation happens free of mental process.
The Fundamental Function of the Human Brain
Job number one for our brain is interpreting perception for the organism’s survival. This is happening whether we are aware of it or not. Making sense of the world and identifying sights, sounds, and tastes is a matter of survival. The running dialogue in our mind is part of the conceptual process for external context and understanding of experience.
The Absurdity and Humor of Advice
Like most, I read many books and listened to much advice on dealing with and resolving these two major irritants on my spiritual journey. The joke is on us! The one being irritated and wanting to resolve these issues is the issue. The resolution is the dissolution of that mirage. It can’t dissolve itself and stay around for the realization of reality.
And Yet…
Yet, working on the superego and struggling with meditation seems necessary for most, if not all. It certainly results in more self-knowledge and awakens forgotten capacities, or at least supports the maturation of capacities that need more cognitive development, more capacity for self-reflection, and focus of attention.
Insights into My Superego
Most human beings cannot recall a time without a running dialogue in their heads. Remembering” events from when we were four, or three, or two years old includes projecting our capacity for this running dialogue into the past. Young children don’t have the 24/7 running dialogue yet – it’s in development.
Our superego completes its development at around six years old, and running dialogue becomes an established part of our mental process. The running dialogue isn’t the main issue with the superego. The main issues are:
- Judgment
- Our essential strength and aliveness fuels the judgmental process
Into the Labyrinth
The first major step in working with the superego is realizing that the judgmental voice isn’t ours. When we get specific about the words used in the judgment, the tone of voice, and the emotional and energetic impact, we begin to see that this sounds like???…
The Four Incarnations of My Superego
When I started working on the superego, it was either my mother or father bitching at me. Mostly father since he was the authority figure and the punisher – the giant killer. Many years later, I realized that mother was deeper than father – ah, that need for mother’s love!
Five or ten years of working on the superego saw it shapeshift into a military tribunal – Dad was in the military. Judgment was being passed down in a court martial. This was a response to unsuccessfully trying to deal with the superego through rationalization.
The next incarnation of my superego was like Ethel Merman in It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World – the loud, obnoxious mother-in-law in the backseat of my mind bitching about everything.
The superego seems like a person or an intelligence when, in fact, it is a mirage within a mirage. The ego-self doesn’t exist – it has no ontological existence. Neither does the superego, yet it seems to “know everything.” It seemingly has opinions and positions on everything we do or think.
Then I realized—it’s a Riot! What a joke, what a scam! This internal voice became hilarious, and I lost interest in it. It lost its “foregroundness” and is now simply part of mental process that responds to various stimuli.
Presence and essence are more interesting to me. Mental process happens and may require attention, but it has less control over my attention and presence because so much of it lacks interest. It’s dull and repetitive and, thus, a waste of time and energy much of the time, whereas presence and essence are fascinating and magical – never a dull moment!
Meditation Monkey-Mind
After much time spent dealing with and trying to control the monkey mind, I noticed moments of awareness and presence with what seemed like no mental process. As these moments became more frequent, I noticed that there were times when mental process was still happening, but “I,” my sense of presence and “isness,” was not there, not involved in it, not captured by it.
The same phenomenon that happened with the superego and mental process arose — I lost interest in my mental activity. Presence has more magnetism and is more interesting in a phenomenological, experiential way—it’s way more engrossing.
My attitude is to let the mind do what it does. It doesn’t need my attention or presence—it lacks the interest of presence and being. The shift of interest in mental process and activity has emerged organically.
- There was struggle and effort.
- There was recognition of inner tension and conflict hijacking my interest and attention.
- Micro-moments of freedom arose, not from effort or any doing on my part.
- Those moments were more interesting and had their inherent gravity or magnetism.
- My historical sense of “self”-interest lost interest to me.
- The phenomenological became intensely more interesting than the conceptual.
To summarize this article, curiosity and interest in the phenomenological took me deeper into presence and essence than the conceptual. If you can find advice in that, then you are welcomed to it!