The Philosopher of Strength

Ive quoted a bit of Rob McNamara's work here on the blog. A lucid writer and a deeper thinker, Rob has a powerful voice on the integration of strength training as a deep developmental practice.

This recent response to a blog entry on mine at GAIA that is worth a read if you get the chance:

Sorry not to respond sooner - thanks for bringing up the two edges of practice - the capacity to awaken into Novelty and the capacity to entrench habituation.

This is a huge issue for any serious practitioner who's committed to the Unconditioned Ground of Awakening… or whatever you want to label it.

So, I'm just going to throw out some things for you here… here we go.

Reflectivity…
Is sounds as if you've slipped into a pre-reflective practice, which is the heart of habituation, the unconscious articulation of your conditioned history over and over again.

When you say that you're experiencing a loss of reflection, this is what I hear.

This reflective practice sounds like what you're drawn to, attracted to and find fulfillment in.

I'd like to point to something else though, a post-reflective practice that's radically different than both of these yet can integrate and include both in a new sphere of engagement.

I could be wrong, but I think in your heart of hearts you're looking to actually step beyond reflective practice where you look back and discover a new path of transcendence for your practice moving forward.

This is an invaluable process, but when you are the reflective process you can see transcendent avenues opening, but you have yet to radically embrace and embody the very activity of the transcendent itself in the moment.

Stepping beyond reflection is stepping into a radical acceptance and embrace of your practice in a novel way. This direct practice of immediacy is what you're really really after my friend.

That's my bias of course… :-)

So you've got your conventional purposes to strength training, these are important and to be integrated into the larger activity of Transcendence Dancing with Resistance, but as you articulate so well, conventional purposes can entrap and ensnare your conditioning such that the vitality and emergent novelty of who you really are becomes the forgotten dream.

Integral practice and strength training must embrace the post-conventional purpose which is radically non-linear. So it throws purpose in the conventional understanding on it's head. There's no purpose outside of this direct immediacy.

To leave this out is to live your life without a heart. To leave out this most essential component is to fall into a training that seeks not to unfold and awaken your larger sphere of identity, instead your training has the purpose of keeping you in a slumber, shackling your body-mind to cave walls, shadows and the distorted life too afraid to face the radiance of their authentic calling.

So how do you know if you've fallen into habituation?

Ask yourself this one question: do you seek other than what's here?

If the answer is yes, then you're deluded and fundamentally stuck on at least some part of your conditioned history, if not huge sections of your conditioning.

If the answer is no, then you're deluded and fundamentally stuck in avoiding the truth of your history and the embodiment of your relative vehicle.

If you answer with a Silence that holds both… you're getting back on track ;-)