Self-Mastery

Ownership and Non-Resistance

Over the years (maybe it’s taken the better part of the past 35 years), I’ve come to understand self-mastery as neutrality—a state of non-resistance; and havingness—the ability to actually “have” everything we create, is a state of ownership.

I originally learned the terms havingness and neutrality as part of a self-healing and intuition program I attended in the 1980’s-90’s. Not just terms, they are also evolutionary concepts—processes of learning and creativity.

Havingness as ownership, begins with a sort of all-consuming identification with an emotional state or attitude—”I am” the emotion; then it moves into some separation from the emotional identification, becoming more a temporary feeling state; and eventually becomes something we have and own.

Neutrality is achievable by witnessing ourselves—an advanced state of awareness and allowance.

Generally, and like *dharana, the object (a person, place, thing, and even subtle energies like emotions and attitudes) is seen as impersonal, something “out there” in the world. Like *dhyana, the object is observed in a more personal way—like an exact mirror reflection; and ultimately in a state of *samadhi the witness and object are the same.

Neutrality means remaining in a state of non-resistance to the object at every level of awareness and interpretation. And in addition to being neutral to what is out there, that includes being neutral to the neuro-chemical reactions that are evoked and arise from inside our body—unconsciously and unintentionally as a result of perceiving and experiencing the object.

So…self-mastery is allowing, and yet being neutral to, our body’s deep inner reactions; neutrality is dependent upon our ability to have and own those reactions which are governed, not by the choice-making part of our mind, but what lies in the unconscious parts of us and is expressed automatically.

Once we begin to allow, rather than suppress these automatic responses, they will gradually lose a lot of their charge. One of my yoga teachers suggests inviting them to tea…so I do.

Allowance takes us into ownership, which moves us toward a state of responsibility and self-empowerment, rather being victims of our neuro-chemical reactions. As Carl Jung suggested (totally paraphrased): we are only as healthy as what we’ve brought out of the shadows, into the light.

It’s an ongoing process of getting to know ourselves, embracing all of our amazing components and responses to our experiences.

*Yoga Definitions: Dharana is concentration or focus on an object outside of ourselves. Dhyana is meditation with the object; and Samadhi is absorption, becoming one with it.