Essential Point:
The attempt to Escape your Suffering paradoxically reinforces the Egoic entity that causes the Suffering you want to Escape from. Transcendence of Escapism occurs when one begins to take responsibility for their Consciousness through the shifting sense of self.
Overview:
Escapism refers to the various ways in which you attempt to “Escape” from the Suffering and confusion caused by living in Egoic Insanity and dysfunction. As attempts to Escape the Suffering cannot work, Escapism as a strategy only ends up deepening the Suffering and confusion. It creates the “downward spiral” as they say, which may lead to the last resort attempt at escaping – Suicide itself.
Escapism can have countless forms, including but not limited to drinking alcohol, taking drugs, smoking cigarettes, watching television, playing video games, using social media, gambling, having sex, watching porn, and even gossiping, among many others, but they all serve the same primary purpose, which is to lower your Level of Consciousness so that you fall below Thought and numb yourself to the Suffering that accompanies Identification with the Egoic Mind structure.
What often starts as a surface level coping mechanism can quickly deepen into addiction, in which the Mind-Body conditioning is much deeper and therefore harder to Transcend. The greatest irony and frustration of Escapism is in how it makes you more stuck.
All Suffering, and the desire to Escape such Suffering, is ultimately caused by a misunderstanding of your true Self-Identity. When you don’t truly Know “who you are,” you are disconnected from the Source of your Essential Being, which is a frightening place to be that very often leads to frustration, disappointment, and other intense forms of Suffering that you then want to Escape from.
You don’t Realize that your attempt to Escape from the Suffering is, in actuality, reinforcing the entity that is causing the Suffering that you want to Escape from. Escapism as the default state of Unconscious behavior continues to Manifest until there is a fundamental shift in your Consciousness, so that your sense of self shifts beyond the Suffering entity of the Ego through the realization of its ultimately illusory nature as a product of the Mind.
When you realize that the Suffering entity is not who you are, and not even Real, you come to see, almost humorously, that you’ve been desperately trying to Escape from Nothing except the makings of your own Mind, which aren’t real. This is when you start taking true responsibility for your Consciousness and stop engaging in escapist behaviors that end up making you more Unconscious, or deeply Identified with the Mind. You start to become more intentional and disciplined with how you spend your Time because you now Know that Escapism reinforces the dysfunction, it doesn’t alleviate it.
The deeper you go in the Awakening-Journey, the more naturally you will get rid of, or Transcend, escapist behavior. It’s important to note that Transcendence doesn’t mean that you necessarily will eliminate any specific behavior, although it often does, but more so that the level of Consciousness that flows into the behavior is what Changes.
For example, let’s say you enjoy movies – just because you are Awakening doesn’t mean you have to give up watching movies. You can still watch a movie but instead of your Consciousness getting immediately and completely absorbed by the content of the film so that you “black out” and numb yourself for two hours, you now can practice retaining most of that Consciousness so that you watch the movie primarily or entirely from the Seat of Consciousness.
In practice, this may mean that you remain Aware of the surroundings in the room, of how your Body Feels sitting on the couch, of your Breath going in and out, and or of the Aliveness itself indwelling within you that is enabling your Perception to even watch the movie in the first place. What previously was a completely Unconscious activity can now be done with Consciousness so that you can enjoy the activity without losing yourself in it.
The idea of remaining as “the watcher” transfers to other behaviors that were previously used in the service of Escapism. Through Awakening, the ascension of Consciousness can transmute escapist activities into general activities. The importance is not as much what you do as it is how you do it.
With this said, as you rise in Consciousness it is likely that you find many of these activities, which are inherently designed to steal your attention, or Consciousness, as unappealing or even irritating now. Previously, at the Egoic level of Consciousness, they were soothing and led to addictions because they allowed you to fall below Thought and “zone out,” which turned off the Egoic Mind for a bit of time and felt nice.
But now, in the Awakening state, as you rise above Thought, you increasingly find “zoning out” to be more unenticing as you appreciate being in the state of Presence more so. Most fundamentally, as the Suffering entity that is the Ego continues to Dissolve the urge to zone out to turn off the Egoic Mind won’t be as strong. As your Suffering eases through Awakening you won’t have the desire to numb yourself as much because there is simply less of you that wants or needs numbing.
If you find you are at this point in the journey you may want to consider Letting Go of escapist activities all together so that you can lean deeper into more naturally Consciousness-enriching activities. Either way, let it all unfold naturally and don’t try to be at a level of Consciousness that you are not.
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Additional Resources:
– Apply for Private Coaching / Mentorship
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