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Daniel Mackler - Essays For The Enlightenment Seeker

My finding this site came as the result of mulling over Halcyon and nefardec's posts in this thread...

http://www.tranceaddict.com/forums/...8&forumid=16&s=

...and watching the Gabor Mate vid Jennypie posted in this thread in the TOTA forum:

http://www.tranceaddict.com/forums/...12&pagenumber=1

Essays For The Enlightenment Seeker - Healing From Childhood Trauma

I feel these writings are a must read for anyone who considers themselves to be on the path to self-healing. The insights he offers will be uncomfortable for many to read (and will outright anger some), and rightfully so - truth is a painful injection, but it's the only medicine that yields permanent, positive results.

On suicide:

Suicide: The Ultimate Way To Avoid the Painful Truth

People commit suicide when the pain of lying to themselves is unbearable and the pain of telling the truth is even worse. Here the journey to manifest enlightenment � to heal all one�s childhood traumas � feels hopeless. The person�s childhood cemented the notion that deep, consistent parental love was completely out the question and that his parents were nothing more than shams. But he could never face that fact, because it was too painful � and they would have only rejected him all the more. Instead he denies it and turns his hopelessness and rage and anger toward himself. He swallows us the worst of his parents into his psyche and he fantasizes that death will free him, and bring him peace. But it will not. Death is no relief. Death will only end his journey and kill his potential to grow.

Only a few of the truly suicidal, the most isolated and alienated, end their own lives. Most express their suicidality more acceptably, through extreme passivity or self-neglect, both of which go hand in hand with a desperate but silent cry for parental rescue. A flip side of this involves people who engage in risky acting-out behavior, such as driving dangerously, using drugs and alcohol excessively, heavy overeating or under-eating, fighting violently with others when true self-defense is not involved, having risky sex, climbing mountains� Such people let the world know how much they undervalue their own lives � which is exactly what they were taught in their childhood homes.

The cure for being suicidal is to heal the ancient wounds that caused the despair. This will not be easy for him, because his parents crushed the searching side of him, and subtly threatened him with full rejection if he tried to reconstitute his healthy and seeking side. But healing is possible. A suicidal person needs to find others who can hear him and believe him and trust him � trust every little bit of horror he�s gone through and still holds inside his psyche like a poisonous abscess � until he can learn to do this for himself. He must begin his growth process in a more enlightened setting that does not crush him anew. He must find ways to look honestly at the history of his demise and feel all his grief, horror, and rage. He may lose his old numb self in the process, but he will find his life. No one who finds the path to his legitimate anger and honest grief can ever stay suicidal for long.


On Addiction:

The Root Cause Of Addiction

The root of addiction is unresolved emotional trauma. When traumas, be they extreme or mild, are not resolved they leave behind a slew of painful, unprocessed feelings in the unconscious. These feelings are never content to remain silent and instead clamor for release. When they express themselves openly and without disguise this activates the healing process. The healing process, however, is so painful and potentially discombobulating that very few people, unless they have a great deal of mature external support and internal self-understanding, can dare undertake it.

But a person�s inability to heal does not stop his unresolved feelings from needing to express themselves. Lacking healing as an option, these feelings instead express themselves as symptoms, of which addiction is just one subset. The purpose of addiction is to divert and assuage painful, upwelling feelings into a seemingly comfortable alternative without allowing them to become conscious. In the short-run this feels much more placid than healing, but in the long-run it only prolongs underground psychic misery and adds new consequences to an already troubled life.

The scope of addictions vary in their intensity, side effects, and degree of societal acceptance. Some are clearly weighted toward the conventionally negative end of the spectrum, like heroin addiction or gasoline-sniffing. Others, like workaholism or membership in a cult or cult-like group, are not so definitively negative in society�s eyes, and can receive societal approval and even perks. And some addictions, like having children and being in unenlightened relationships, are so pervasive, accepted, and even lauded that they are rarely even considered addictions at all � and thus form the backbone of society as we know it.

At present our society, and most of our society�s healers, treat conventionally-accepted addiction by simply helping �sufferers� find milder substitute addictions or other milder symptoms. Alcoholics Anonymous is a great example of this: its members are encouraged and even pressured to learn dissociative techniques whereby they can replace their alcohol addiction for the addiction of membership in the cult of AA. Although this might make life more consciously peaceful for the addict � who has to admit that he remains an addict in order to maintain his membership in AA, which suggests that at least AA is honest in that realm � it falls far short of helping the human race optimally evolve, or helping the individual find any deeper or more honest peace. There is no substitute for the resolution of trauma, and symptom or addiction replacement is nothing but a substitute. Emotional wounds that are not grieved poison the psyche, poison the species, and ultimately poison our world.

-----

Sure, TA is full of party-people, friends keeping in touch with one another and fun-a-plenty, distractamacating diversions to make the dull work day a little more tolerable, but in reading this board on a daily basis I also see a lot of pain manifesting in very damaging attitudes and behaviour. Mackler's site may be of some help for those who are honestly seeking it.

Thanks for posting this. You'll soon realize that there are only a handful of people on this board who are eager seekers of Truth and Enlightenment. Some might even had had glimpses of the fundamental truth as to who we are, but those experiences are usually not permanent.

Self-inquiry is the beginning and the end of suffering.

Nice.


Love how the consciousness bit ties into what Dr. Mate talks about. So fucking true.

The problem with this shit is that it begins with the wholly unsubstantiated premise that some nebulously defined past 'trauma' lies at the root of just about every problem.

quote:

Originally posted by Arbiter The problem with this shit is that it begins with the wholly unsubstantiated premise that some nebulously defined past 'trauma' lies at the root of just about every problem.

This is probably due to a childhood trauma experienced by the author of the shit being subjected to his own loosely defined traumatic experiences.

quote:

Originally posted by Arbiter The problem with this shit is that it begins with the wholly unsubstantiated premise that some nebulously defined past 'trauma' lies at the root of just about every problem.

You should read Dr Mate's book.

quote:

Originally posted by Arbiter wholly unsubstantiated

As jennypie stated in a roundabout way, this is where you're missing the mark. It's quite the contrary, actually.

For those who naysay without even bothering to read anything past the initial post, as you were - this thread isn't for you. For those who choose to read through Mackler's site, the key phrase which should be used to temper the reading of his essays can be found on the page, The Fundamentals of My Perspective:

Life has its own timetable. Honor your inner voice, follow its guidance, explore as it bades you, and you will honor life�s path.

quote:

Originally posted by PivotTechno As jennypie stated in a roundabout way, this is where you're missing the mark. It's quite the contrary, actually.

Oh really? Then why don't you substantiate it for us here instead of just declaring it so?

However, don't bother trying to send me on a wild goose chase, because I'm not playing that game. If you can provide here, or at least cite to a proper scholarly source that provides on a specific page number, some kind of empirical or verifiable basis for the idea that "life�s basic conflicts are ultimately rooted in the traumas we suffer in childhood," then, I'd be happy to engage in a substantive discussion of the matter. Otherwise, don't waste my time.

Either way, however, I note that Mr. Mackler did not bother to support his claims with any such substantiation, which is exactly what I was pointing out to begin with.

quote:

For those who naysay without even bothering to read anything past the initial post, as you were - this thread isn't for you. For those who choose to read through Mackler's site, the key phrase which should be used to temper the reading of his essays can be found on the page, The Fundamentals of My Perspective: Life has its own timetable. Honor your inner voice, follow its guidance, explore as it bades you, and you will honor life�s path.

Transcendental nonsense. But since you raised the issue, let's take a critical look at the "fundamentals of [his] perspective."

quote:

What is enlightenment? Enlightenment is the conscious awareness of truth. . . . Full enlightenment is a consequence of full resolution of one�s traumas.

So, in other words, we don't need no stinkin' facts: all we need to do is fully resolve our "traumas" and we'll magically gain full conscious awareness of the truth. Nope, Mr. Mackler clearly doesn't have an irrational obsession with traumas. Not one bit.

quote:

Children are born connected to their spirits

What exactly is a "spirit?"

Oh yeah, it's something only vapid airheads believe in.

quote:

Is full enlightenment achievable? Yes. My heart tells me that it is so.

Well, my intestines tell me that Mr. Mackler is even more full of shit than they are, and it's been at least three days since my last bowel movement. Clearly the path to "enlightenment" doesn't involve looking for verifiable, real-world truths; no, we should just attribute random thoughts to our internal organs and take that as sufficient proof of a given proposition.

quote:

What is God? God - if you feel comfortable using such a loaded word - is the best part of us.

I'm glad we had some random idiot with a website to sort that out for us.

quote:

Isn�t your whole website reductionistic � like everything you say just comes back to parental trauma? In my experience life�s basic conflicts are ultimately rooted in the traumas we suffer in childhood. These traumas play out on individual levels, cultural levels, and on the global levels of war, economics, and exploitation of the earth. For people who deny the significance of their own emotional traumas, a denial which is presently the standard of our world, my website certainly can look very foolish and na�ve � and even axe-grinding � but the more I learn and the more I grow and the more I study humanity, the more I realize that if I have made any major errors here on this website it is because I have likely understated my case�

Translation: "Take my word for it because it's true in my experience. If you don't agree, it's because you're in denial."

Nope, nothing fallacious there...

I hope you're not serious with this nonsense. Mr. Mackler doesn't even pretend to offer up any evidence for any of his claims, many of which are plainly incoherent. To call the man a crackpot would be a substantial understatement of the degree to which his ideas lack even the slightest semblance of intellectual rigor. He rather reminds me of ********, actually. Although, I think William is really just a troll seeking attention, whereas Mr. Mackler appears to believe that his rambling, incoherent musings actually constitute a form of intellectual inquiry. They do not, but thanks for bringing in the garbage anyway.

Don't read Mackler, read Mate. His work is well supported by legitimate research.

quote:

Originally posted by jennypie Don't read Mackler, read Mate. His work is well supported by legitimate research.

Which of his books do you recommend? I might have a chance to look into them after finals.

In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts. A must read for anyone, imo. Addicted or not.

Re: Daniel Mackler - Essays For The Enlightenment Seeker

quote:

Originally posted by PivotTechno My finding this site came as the result of mulling over Halcyon and nefardec's posts in this thread... http://www.tranceaddict.com/forums/...8&forumid=16&s= ...and watching the Gabor Mate vid Jennypie posted in this thread in the TOTA forum: http://www.tranceaddict.com/forums/...12&pagenumber=1 Essays For The Enlightenment Seeker - Healing From Childhood Trauma I feel these writings are a must read for anyone who considers themselves to be on the path to self-healing. The insights he offers will be uncomfortable for many to read (and will outright anger some), and rightfully so - truth is a painful injection, but it's the only medicine that yields permanent, positive results. On suicide: Suicide: The Ultimate Way To Avoid the Painful Truth People commit suicide when the pain of lying to themselves is unbearable and the pain of telling the truth is even worse. Here the journey to manifest enlightenment � to heal all one�s childhood traumas � feels hopeless. The person�s childhood cemented the notion that deep, consistent parental love was completely out the question and that his parents were nothing more than shams. But he could never face that fact, because it was too painful � and they would have only rejected him all the more. Instead he denies it and turns his hopelessness and rage and anger toward himself. He swallows us the worst of his parents into his psyche and he fantasizes that death will free him, and bring him peace. But it will not. Death is no relief. Death will only end his journey and kill his potential to grow. Only a few of the truly suicidal, the most isolated and alienated, end their own lives. Most express their suicidality more acceptably, through extreme passivity or self-neglect, both of which go hand in hand with a desperate but silent cry for parental rescue. A flip side of this involves people who engage in risky acting-out behavior, such as driving dangerously, using drugs and alcohol excessively, heavy overeating or under-eating, fighting violently with others when true self-defense is not involved, having risky sex, climbing mountains� Such people let the world know how much they undervalue their own lives � which is exactly what they were taught in their childhood homes. The cure for being suicidal is to heal the ancient wounds that caused the despair. This will not be easy for him, because his parents crushed the searching side of him, and subtly threatened him with full rejection if he tried to reconstitute his healthy and seeking side. But healing is possible. A suicidal person needs to find others who can hear him and believe him and trust him � trust every little bit of horror he�s gone through and still holds inside his psyche like a poisonous abscess � until he can learn to do this for himself. He must begin his growth process in a more enlightened setting that does not crush him anew. He must find ways to look honestly at the history of his demise and feel all his grief, horror, and rage. He may lose his old numb self in the process, but he will find his life. No one who finds the path to his legitimate anger and honest grief can ever stay suicidal for long. \

Too me suicide is no form of enlightment nor is it any form of freedom. People who kill themselves give up on the search for truth, englightment, freedom, survival, etc. This guy's rhetoric is that of a fortune teller. The "painful truth" can be cured outside of the acceptence or nurturing of parents. If you've been through 'trauma', you can't reverse it by things going back to the way they were or the person that gave you trauma changing the way they behave towards you, you still have to create a different perception and knowledge of things to cure yourself.

And this is rather easy for most people, and what everyone does naturally. The small % of people who fail to do this are the ones who kill themselves. So this guys philosophy that the parent can change a persons trauma is the same he applied to AA and Alcoholics. However, a parent can't fix the problem, just like AA cant fix alcoholics. To fix suicidal tendency, you have to recreate a persons perception and intelligence of things. Again, this is what most people do to cope with 'trauma' naturally.

To me, a person's ability to perceive and envision things how they want to is a powerful trait. Because you can easily turn a negative into a positive this way. Fueled by intelligence, imagination, and creativity.

ps: Mackler's "So What the Hell Is Narcissism Anyway?" is beyond ridiculous.

I would not seek enlightenment through anything Mackler has written. You're far better off finding it yourself by focusing on perception, gaining knowledge and understanding about important aspects of your life.

quote:

Originally posted by Arbiter Oh really? Then why don't you substantiate it for us here instead of just declaring it so?

See, the thing with self-inquiry is that the only evidence that it yields the results that it does comes from personal experience. Mackler has 20 years of self-reflection (I'm guessing via some form of Vipassana or similar meditation) under his belt. He also has a decade's experience as a psychotherapist. Mate I believe, has close to, or over three decades of experience in his field (medical, palliative care, addiction counselling), also professes a life devoted to self-reflection and is brutally honest and publicly forthcoming about his own struggles with unconscious, compulsive behaviour.

Since you seem to be leaning more toward jpie's suggestion, here's the vid she put up in the TOTA forum, in case you haven't viewed it yet:





Again, this isn't something you "get" by reading scientific reviews on the subject (although if humanity actually wises up enough, there may come a time...). You either do it, or you don't. Personally, I've sat many Vipassana courses, and I can say with no hesitation that the cesspool of shit that you don't know about yourself (or have been in utter denial of) that comes roaring to the surface when you're faced with 10 days and upward of 10 hours per day of silent, inward-focused contemplation corroborates quite nicely with both Mackler and Mate's findings.

I wouldn't be posting any of this if I didn't have at least some direct experience in the matter - I didn't just happen upon this earlier today, suddenly exclaiming to myself, "Wow! Now this makes sense, I think I'll post it on my local message board!". You derisively write of "transcendental nonsense", yet my guess is that the knowledge you feel you possess is almost entirely academic - very easy to brush off such words when your books tell you that everything needs to be peer-reviewed and substantiated on paper in order to be true, neglecting to note that these same opinions come from people who have zero personal experience related to the subject at hand.

Re: Re: Daniel Mackler - Essays For The Enlightenment Seeker

quote:

Originally posted by Kismet7 If you've been through 'trauma', you can't reverse it by things going back to the way they were or the person that gave you trauma changing the way they behave towards you

If you actually took the time to read what he says, you'll find that he doesn't advocate anything close to what you've written. He clearly states that the onus to heal rests entirely upon the individual.

To think that you can somehow change the way others behave toward you is the height of ignorance.

quote:

Originally posted by Kismet7 You're far better off finding it yourself by focusing on perception, gaining knowledge and understanding about important aspects of your life.

Which is exacly what he advocates. What website were you reading?

quote:

Originally posted by PivotTechno Mackler has 20 years of self-reflection

And I have 31 years of self-reflection, so fucking what? (surprise surprise) I agree with arbiter. Mackler is a whackler. But hey, if you can fool a bunch of tards into buying your books or paying for your seminars, then more power to you.

There can be so many root causes of addiction (not the least being substances that are chemically addictive ffs) which I find far more compelling than the fact I wasn�t hugged enough as a child.

In response to the Gabor Mate video. From my own findings on the topic of addiction, I believe humans are masochists, innately self abusers, some more than others. They see their behaviour, including the pain they inflict on themselves as a means of survival. And the pain they inflict on others as a response to trauma. Adults have a high tolerence towards abuse, and you could say this self abuse makes them feel more 'alive' than anything else this world offers them. And since the paramount goal of life is survival, this addiction in the mind of the abuser becomes just another route towards the same goal every human has, survival, freedom, enjoying time and space.

We on the outside see this abuse as addiction, detrimental towards the abusers life and surroundings, but the abuser sees their addiction as merely another way to survive, a form of freedom. Rejecting a straight path of the socially conditioned way of surviving. Rejecting a supressed and repressed way of life. Addiction is essentially the perception and act of survival through another means (a drug), one that works well with a masochist human nature.

So to cure addiction, you have to work with perception, you have to teach the person that they are essentially masochists, go over past trauma and show them why they potentially do what they do. You have to give them an epiphany of sorts, an understanding for why they do what they do, so they have more control over what they are doing. So they can start to perceive what they are doing as something that might not be the best way to survive.

lolll, "we on the outside".

If you think you are above addiction in any way, you're fucking deluded. Not that that's any news to rest of us.

quote:

Originally posted by Halcyon+On+On lolll, "we on the outside". If you think you are above addiction in any way, you're fucking deluded. Not that that's any news to rest of us.

What exactly is your point? "All peoplezz get addictionzzdz to somethinggzz"? Did you want a cookie? This is about drug addiction, asshole, not addiction itself. And of course I am above drug addiction, its not the most attractive means of survival to me.

ps: What is the psychology of a shill? Its pretty sick

quote:

Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN There can be so many root causes of addiction (not the least being substances that are chemically addictive ffs) which I find far more compelling than the fact I wasn�t hugged enough as a child.

And these would be...?

FYI, it's impossible for, as you put it, "a substance that is chemically addictive" to be the root of an addiction, as by definition addiction is a behavioural pattern (which is frequently connected with substance abuse), not a physical object. Think before you type, please.

P.S.: I'm glad you're on arbiter's side.

quote:

Originally posted by Kismet7 This is about drug addiction, asshole, not addiction itself.

No, it's actually about addiction itself. And great that you don't do drugs, but as Halcyon succinctly stated, to consider yourself to be somehow outside of the realm of addiction is entirely laughable.

quote:

Originally posted by PivotTechno No, it's actually about addiction itself. And great that you don't do drugs, but as Halcyon succinctly stated, to consider yourself to be somehow outside of the realm of addiction is entirely laughable.

Can you or he give me the exacts words in which you've created this "above addiction" context to what I said?

And no the topic my response was to was primarily about alcohol/drug vice addiction. That is my response to Gabor Mate talk.

But yes addiction itself is a human trait, and I dont think anyone said the words "I am above addiction." As usual your delusions drive your actions.

quote:

Originally posted by PivotTechno And these would be...? FYI, it's impossible for, as you put it, "a substance that is chemically addictive" to be the root of an addiction, as by definition addiction is a behavioural pattern (which is frequently connected with substance abuse), not a physical object. Think before you type, please. P.S.: I'm glad you're on arbiter's side.

Substances themselves can be addictive and create physical dependency. They alter the way the brain functions. Of course it�s a behavioural pattern, but that pattern can be dictated by the physical qualities of a drug, with absolutely no correlation with mummy or daddy issues. It is perfectly possible for any well-adjusted, happy person to become addicted to a substance that has addictive qualities, without the need to reference some hidden, psychological trauma from their childhood.

Addiction is a complex area which is why simplistic nonsense like that spewed by whackler should be suspect to any critical thinker.

quote:

Originally posted by Kismet7 Can you or he give me the exacts words in which you've created this "above addiction" context to what I said? I dont think anyone said the words "I am above addiction."

"We on the outside"

Addiction is addiction. It doesn't matter whether you're addicted to cocaine, booze, cigs, watching too much TV, spending too much time on the internet, jerking off to porn (feel free to eliminate the comma between the previous two), obsessively working out, staying late at the office, beating your wife and kids or fucking farm animals, it's all the same - the only difference is the relative degree of societal acceptance of your habit.

quote:

Originally posted by Kismet7 And no the topic my response was to was primarily about alcohol/drug vice addiction. That is my response to Gabor Mate talk.

If you actually listened to the Mate talk, you would have noticed that he says exactly the same thing. His going out and compulsively blowing $8K on classical music CDs in one day is no different from the heroin addict who stumbles into the derelict apartment building to buy his next fix.

So, to conclude, there is no "we on the outside". Your addictions are every bit as harmful to yourself and to others as the Vancouver heroin addict's are, it's just that yours are somehow justified as being acceptable behaviour because, in lay terms, "everyone does it".

Which begets the question, "If Johnny jumped off a bridge...?"

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