Q5-19980617-Larry_Rosenberg-UNK-shining_the_light_of_death_on_life_part_2-43034 Leandra Tejedor

Talk: 19980617-Larry_Rosenberg-UNK-shining_the_light_of_death_on_life_part_2-43034 Leandra Tejedor.json Start_time: 01:35:36 Display_question: How do I practice with the intersection of invincibility and survivor’s guilt? Keyword_search: death, invincibility, survivor guilt, ego, metta, concentration, self, Holocaust, Gulag, military, Soviet Union, betrayal, France, Nazis, professor, university, parent, Adolf Hitler, delusion, conditioning, attachment, compassionate, intelligence, wisdom, consciousness, energy, liberated Question_content: Questioner: I think there's two main components. I've had a situation in my life where I've had to face death, and obviously I've lived, because here I am, and other people in that situation with me are not alive now. So, I have this, like which is a big part of why I'm here, but I think there's two main components that come out of it for me, and how to work with this. There's this bizarre invincibility thing. Like, I faced it, and I survived, so it really plays with my ego. And then there's like, intense survivor guilt because I'm here, and other people aren't. Larry: Yes, I understand. Yes. What is your question? How to practice with that? Questioner: I've been doing a lot of, like yeah, how to practice that? A lot of work with metta and a lot of…it just… Larry: But metta is going to be limited here. I don't mean to because, see, Questioner: No that’s fine that’s why I am asking. Larry: Metta is helpful, but you see, it's not going to uproot… metta doesn't uproot the ego. It's a concentration practice. It will bring a lot of beauty, and melts the heart, is extremely useful, as I'm sure you know. But unless you deal with the source of the problem is what is this sense of self? The self that feels triumphant, and invincible. The self that in some way feels guilty because… do you see what I'm getting at? Now, it's a tricky one, but personally, I haven't had that experience. I have experienced death in the military and in other places, but I haven't, not quite. Break_line: But I've worked with a fair number of people from Holocaust survivors, Gulag survivors from the old Soviet Union. And you have to be very, very careful here. Personally, it's a precaution because you have to understand, forget about the audacity of thinking that you're invincible. I have a hunch that in some level, you know you're not, right. But the other part, the guilt, often there's an unexamined equation, that if you didn't feel guilty, you would be betraying them, or there's some kind of thing in there. This is the way you show that you really love them, and that even you feel badly that they didn't get through it, but you did, and this can last for years. Break_line: There was one… I'm going to go into detail on this, and then maybe we'll call in an evening, a woman who lost her both her parents, in France, during the Nazi takeover. She was a young girl, and she saw both her parents loaded onto a truck, and taken away. She was, I think, eight or nine, and she never saw them again. Now, when I met this person, someone at this center, not here anymore, and I'm not going to mention any names. She had a PhD, was a successful professor at a major university in this area, and still was tormented by this. Obviously, it's a serious thing, but the guilt part was there. That how come she, as the child, survived, and her parents didn't. And when we started to practice with that, and the suggestion that I made a fair number of times that you're going to have to work with that guilt, I didn't tell her, look, the guilt's not helping anything. You're not betraying them. Break_line: But actually, what is this guilt about? Become aware of the guilt. She couldn't do it. She wouldn't do it. And finally became angry at me, because she then she… one point broke off practicing here because she felt that I was callous. And how could I understand the situation of losing a parent? Of course I can't, in a certain way. She didn't want to let go of it, and then she would come back, and it took ten years, but she'd been suffering before I met her, for 50 years. And this guilt part was so necessary for her to hold on to. And it was finally the day came where she saw that, you know, how finally I was able to get through to her. I was desperate. I just said, you know what? I got a little bit annoyed with her, and I said, look, Adolf Hitler had his way. Not only did he do in your parents, but he got you too. He's still alive and kicking. Old Adolf is working on you right now because look at you. It doesn't bring your parents back, and you're suffering, day in, and day out, because of what happened. Can you see the futility of that? And that helped a little bit. Break_line: And then finally, of course, on her own, she was able to begin to see that she could let go of the guilt, and have tremendous love for her parents. The two had nothing to do with each other necessarily. She was a young child. She was helpless. They were helpless. So, the mind can get we call it delusion, but there can be a fierce belief in a delusion, fierce conditioning, fierce conviction, and a need for it. And what's hard to understand is that, for example, she understands this now, that the best gift she could make to her parents, would be to be a happy, fulfilled, wise, compassionate human being, not to be tormented. Do you think if her parents were watching, do you think that they would be happy to know that she's tormented, by what happened to them? They wouldn't be real parents if they were. Of course not. And so correct practice would really be to face the suffering. It's not to diminish it. And to be able to see into and let go of the guilt out of intelligence, out of wisdom. Do you see what I'm getting at? Questioner: Kind of. Larry: Kind of. Questioner: I think I understand the concept. Larry: Okay, forget about you for the moment, even if you don't get it for yourself, do you understand it for this woman? A little bit. Questioner: Yes. Larry: Okay. Now, what that enables you to do is, to then open up a whole new dimension of consciousness, because that fierce attachment to guilt is, freezing up a tremendous amount of energy, that keeps you from growing. Okay, once you see into that guilt, the energy that's held captive in it, is released. And then that energy is yours, to do as you see fit. To enrich your life, to flower, to invest it into deeper meditation, to experience some real, to be liberated from the Nazis. Finally. Do you see it? Questioner: Yes End_time: 01:42:36