With addiction there has to come a point when you see that the desire is out of your control. Maybe the addiction is physiological. Maybe it has been practiced for so long that it has its own groove. But what is in your control, absolutely, is the willingness to NOT MOVE WHEN THE DESIRE APPEARS. The willingness neither to indulge nor repress but to not move in the fire of this impulse of thousands of years. Have you ever experienced this?
Yes.
Then you know the beauty of this fire. You know that in this moment, there is actually a willingness to die. Because the addiction to mind or to habits can be so strong that there is the sense if you don't feed the addiction, you will die. Eventually, through the maturity of the soul, there is a willingness to say, "Okay, if I die I will die. But I am not going to follow this demon down this road again."
This, too, is the mind, but it is the mind in service to what was betrayed. Vigilance was betrayed, and the mind humbled by this. It feels like a descent into hell because with any addiction, the impulse is strong to get rid of the craving, to get rid of the fire. How? How? How? There are millions of ways how, but to not get rid of it, to not go numb with it, to let it burn—this is the fire. This is the Buddha and the temptations of Mara. This is Christ in the desert. Everyone has to experience this—Oh my god, I am dying. Okay, so I am dying. I surrender. I surrender—and there is peace, there is freedom. You recognize what has never left. You recognize what is always here. In that moment, there is a break in the habit pattern. The habit may reappear, but there is something bigger than it, so it does not have the same hold on you. Do you follow this?
I want you to recognize that there are many moments before the acting out. There are many choices. They happen very fast. But if you will slow them down in your mind, just slow the film of this movie down, you will see where the choices were made.
From : http://www.gangaji.org/satsang/library/meetings.asp
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The moment of choice
Questioner: When I come to these retreats I usually spend the first couple of days with the mind running away, running any desire, running any anything: grabbing, reaching for … and I am just dying for some peace. Because when I am experiencing this emotion, it just…
Gangaji: Which emotion?
Q: Any. When I have a desire or a strong emotion, I use the opportunity, or I would like to use it to experience the … to not run, not to…
G: What if you don't do anything?
Q: Then I just…
G: Forget using it.
Q: By lack of effort, I run with it.
G: No.
Q: I understand that it is an effort. But also, you know, it's habit. It's an addiction.
G: By habit, you run with it.
Q: Yes.
G: That is very different.
Q: It's an addiction.
G: That's right: by addiction, you run with it.
Q: So….
G: So what if you just experience the burn of the impulse to run.
Q: The impulse to run is so automatic.
G: Yes, habits are automatic: they have been fed. And maybe it is even physiological. That's all right. But you can just experience the impulse. It is a fire, a tempering fire.
Q: But I have to stop, to even recognize the impulse.
G: No, no. You can recognize the impulse in mid-flight. You know how the impulse feels. You know the signs of the activity of mind. But there is this other thing that has been added: you want to use it to get to peace, or whatever… Forget all of that.
Q: There is this…
G: It is the "using it" part. You have to let go of the user; that is what keeps the addiction going. There is no addiction without a user.
Q: I understand what you are saying. This vigilance, the way I understand it, is being with the emotion as it comes up, and not running with it. And I must be conscious of that, not to do that.
G: Forget that, because it has become an exercise that you are supposed to do. Forget about it. Isn't that a relief? Forget about that. So right now, just remember a time when you ran with it, whatever that means to you. Just recall a memory of that.
Q: Okay.
G: Okay. Now go back to that memory in your mind and slow it down to the moment right before the "running with it" started. So you put the memory into frames, and slow it down so much that you can see it frame by frame by frame.
Q: Okay.
G: And find the moment of choice.
Q: It's there.
G: That's right. Now, go to the frame right before the moment of choice.
Q: Um. (Laughs) Peace.
G: Yes. Now, between peace and the moment of choice there is another frame. And in that frame is maybe an experience of extreme discomfort, or what I am calling impulse, or maybe it is instinct. Maybe it is as superficial as habit. Maybe it is as physiological as an addiction. You get that?
Q: Yeah, I got it.
G: Great. That's it. That is the place to burn. It is very useful to recall a moment and go back and deconstruct it or dissect it: not to analyze it, or figure out why. Just see the fact of it and in that there is an opportunity, a second chance to actually experience the burn of what once seemed automatic. Then you see that it is not automatic. It seems that way until there is a direct experience. You don't know you have choice until you have choice. And then you realize, "My God, all these years I have been saying, I have no choice, there is no choice. Wow, there is choice." There is actually a long period of choice, and then there is another choice, and another one. And you say "Well, too late, I chose". But now there is another choice and another — if you are willing to tell the truth. That is all we are doing here: telling the truth. But we are telling the truth more precisely, inquiring a little more deeply.
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