Self-mastery: Love in Action

By Royal E. Alsup, Ph.D.

When we stimulate the senses unduly, vitality flows out through them like water from a leaky pail, leaving us drained physically,emotionally, and spiritually. Those who indulge themselves in sense-stimulation throughout their lives often end up exhausted, with an enfeebled will and little capacity to love others. But when we train the senses we conserve our vital energy, the very stuff of life. Patient and secure within, we do not have to look to externals for satisfaction. -- Eknath Easwaran

Participation with other people creates feelings, thoughts, and behaviors that might not be stimulated in isolation. Different situations cause new experiences for the senses and the mind. Training the senses through slowing down and being mindful enables us to actively embrace ourselves and compassionately accept other people. The ideas presented in this article have been influenced by my meditation teacher, Sri Eknath Easwaran.

The Common Waking Trance

Sleep research shows that we dream every 90 to 120 minutes throughout the night, during a stage of sleep called rapid eye movement, or REM. During the REM cycle, the eyes move as if the sleeper were watching a movie. In a dream laboratory, if a sleeping person is awakened while in the REM cycle, the person reports that they have been dreaming. A biological process similar to REM, called the common waking trance, appears to occur in cycles of 90 to120 minutes throughout the day (Rossi, 1986). The presence of this repeated pattern confirms Carl Jung's intuition that dreaming continues during our waking life as well as during sleep. While experiencing the common waking trance the body naturally wants to rest and the mind wants to wander or daydream. It is helpful to take a little time out when the body sends us these recurrent signals that it needs to relax. Rossi says a 15-minute catnap can restore our energy and can make us feel more confident to handle our everyday world. The process of sitting quietly with eyes closed and turning the attention inward enhances feelings of well-being and increases alertness to the natural shifts in the body.

Developing an awareness of the common waking trance and responding to it with acceptance is an easy and effective way to train the senses and the mind throughout the day. It helps us to slow down, to delay gratification, to be mindful, and to be in partnership with our bodies. Training the senses can make the body healthier and more efficient in serving others and loving our families.

Addictions and Training the Senses

American society is extremely outwardly oriented. The pervasive availability of things such as television, computers, spectator sports, videos, and movies can be continually stimulating to a person. The senses drain a vast amount of our energy. When we are not mindful of the subtle shifts in our body, because of being bombarded by external stimuli, we can get irritable and moody. Addictions of all sorts, such as overeating, drinking alcohol, using drugs, gambling, and exploitive sexuality are used to self-medicate mood changes that can result from not responding to the body's rhythmic requests for times of quietness and rest.

Addictions are contextual. They develop out of three influential sources: the person's genetic disposition, media advertisement messages that encourage substance use, and family modeling about how to deal with stress so as to alleviate pain and to pursue pleasure. Family sense-training influences the quality of family life as people learn patterns of habitual sense-pleasuring to deal with the stress of life. Dysfunctional family sense-gratification patterns and habits develop and maintain addictions. Addictions such as anorexia (starving the body), bulimia (overeating and purging), or drinking alcohol to excess are often carried forward from one generation to another generation. Family sense-training has a role in the development of many impulsive, out-of-control, and compulsive mental health problems that are prevalent in American society.

Anger and Violence, and Training the Senses

Watching violent movies and playing violent computer games are activities that directly affect the senses. In my psychotherapy practice, people report that they often have a difficult time sleeping if they have watched a violent movie before going to bed. People who watch violent films regularly may start perceiving the world as more dangerous than it truly is in their particular life situation, filtering their perceptions of their life-world through fear and helplessness. A consumer pattern of violent entertainment can increase anxiety, irritability, despair, and depression, and can even increase the possibility for acts of violence to occur in a person's life. The emotional and behavioral results of excessive violence stimulation restrict people's behavior, impair their problem-solving capability and ultimately interfere with their creative ability to interact with their environment.

One goal of my Liberation Psychology is to liberate the individual, the family,and the community from the massive propaganda of violence. We can help liberate ourselves from this mythology of acceptable violence by training our senses through the selection of entertainment that is not pornographic and degrading, and that is nonviolent. As Easwaran reminds us, the mind eats violent scenes through the senses. Extending the folk saying that We are what we eat, what diet of vicarious violence are we feeding ourselves and our children? What are we to become?

Training the mind to have violent thoughts by watching violent and pornographic movies that degrade people may be a major factor in the ongoing rise in frequency of child abuse. During the past 10 years, child abuse has doubled and serious injuries to children have tripled. The presence of abuse-prevention educational programs in schools and the establishment of mandated reporting of abuse by professionals have not lowered the increasing frequency of violent crimes to children. These commendable attempts to make the world more safe for children are not enough. The solution to this burgeoning problem of escalating violence to children and women, and within families is more a matter of training the mind and training the senses.

Anger training and violence training are direct outcomes of feeding the senses on demand. When a spouse tries to interfere with their partner's unhealthy or compulsive pursuit of pleasure, such as spending money, having sex excessively, or using drugs, it may result in physical or verbal spousal abuse. Some people live by the motto, If you stop me from pursuing my pleasure, you are going to make me angry. The idea of decreasing consumption has become a prudish idea to many Americans. The common attitude is that freedom is license and that it is all right to give ourselves impulsive training all day, everyday, by trying to find happiness through the unhindered pursuit of pleasure. This erotic psychology will not produce enduring happiness, however, because it is bound to lead to dissatisfaction and the compulsive addictions that plague our society today.

Corporate Responsibility

Cigarette advertisements aimed at young people display corporate self-interest that is out of control and that perpetrates violence on children. Tobacco industries and their lobbyists seem to believe it is their democratic right to produce and advertise a product that destroys lives. The idea that we can find peace and happiness through the freedom of pursuing our own self-interests, both at the individual and corporate levels, at the expense of our friends, family and communities, is false and unethical.

Tobacco laws and smoking ordinances that protect children and nonsmokers are good examples of the interface between ethics and the training of the senses. These laws require smokers to act with concern for other people and to protect other people from unwanted exposure to secondhand smoke. Smokers sometimes get irate and angry when they are not allowed to smoke in public because they cannot restrain their own desire to stimulate their senses. It is a form of violence to smoke cigarettes without being considerate of other people and the health problems that secondhand smoke causes, especially in children and the elderly. Smoking laws and ordinances are also expressions of love toward the addicted person because they increase the chance that smokers will become more concerned about their self-destruction.

The Hidden Human Image of Selfless Love

Mahatma Gandhi, Thich Nhat Hanh, and Mother Teresa stress that through self-denial we can experience true freedom and happiness. Gandhi said that India could only have home rule through self-determination and self-restraint. He saw the relationship between self-mastery and family/community peace. Thich Nhat Hanh, in his many works, talks about self-denial and self-control. He stresses that love and peace flourish in one's life through delaying gratification. Mother Teresa talks about faith and service as a way to achieve self-control. She tells us to restrain ourselves in our everyday lives by not worrying about being successful, but by having the aim to be faithful in each moment of our interactions with other people. The paradox in the ideas and words of all three of these wonderful teachers is that through self-restraint, tremendous amounts of energy and pleasure come to our lives.

Self-restraint and training the senses require a shift in focus. Centering ourselves in our Higher Power, the Heart Center, or God-consciousness transforms our life-goal from the pursuit of pleasure to the pursuit of meaning. This shift of focus does not cure, nor does it eliminate our addictions, but it alters our attitude toward them. Changing our focus from the narcissistic, self-centered gratification of our senses to a real God-centeredness is a change from an I and It manipulation of others to an I and Thou faith in others.

The transformation to God-centeredness is a movement from the unreal life of the senses to the Real Life of faith and love, as written about in the Hindu sacred writing of the Upanishads. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gives powerful witness to the need for self-denial, training the senses, reconciliation, and loving God and persons. Jesus was a great psychologist. He knew that love and nonviolence could only take place through self-mastery and self-denial. According to the Jewish philosopher Maurice Friedman, an approach to life that seeks the I and Thou is a different and potently meaningful path. It is a manner of living that seeks to transform the dehumanizing image of humankind distorted by self-interest and self-gratification. Living with an openness to the I and Thou is a path that reveals the true hidden human image of selfless love.

References

Easwaran, E. (1964-1992). Climbing the Blue Mountain: A Guide for the Spiritual Journey. Petaluma, CA: Nilgiri Press.

Friedman, M. (1992). A Heart of Wisdom: Religion and Human Wholeness. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Nhat Hanh, T. (1992). Touching Peace; Practicing the Art of Mindful Living Berkeley: Parallax Press.

Teresa, M. (1995). A Simple Path. New York: Ballantine.

Rossi, E., in Wolman, B. B., & Ullman, M. (Eds.). (1986). Handbook of States of Consciousness. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company.