I shared in an earlier post a quote from Saniel Bonder’s Waking Down book, the concept of "hypermasculine dharmas", which is the leading developmental paradigm of human culture up to this point (both East and West):
The fundamental intention [of hypermasculine dharmas] is to dissociate from perceived limits of who we are and what we can or can not do […] In order to accomplish the necessary dissociation, extrication, or liberation, the hypermasculine force of being first analyzes the limits it perceives and then deduces, by both intuitive and deductive means, strategies of thought and action that will achieve the desired goals. The hypermasculine impulse then works to superimpose these strategic formulas of thought upon the living human mind and body.
Chew on that for a moment, particularly in terms of the costs that such a system can bear to one’s psyche (or the Earth).
Here is another section on the nature of "The Rot":
The Rot is the passage that individuals undergo when they conclusively begin to lose faith in – and enthusiasm for – the hopes, beliefs, enterprises, and all of the personal, social and cultural forms whereby they have engaged in an endless search for happiness, peace, freedom, love, enlightenment, or other ultimate or even ordinary goals in life [...] Different people Rot in different ways (I have to capitalize references to this process – it is so thoroughly sacred and divine – yet we usually experience it as anything but that!) Some people go through dramatic and difficult ordeals that chasten them into readiness to permit the Rot to do its work. Others appear to be breezing through life as if no problem had ever occurred, as if nothing were wrong, out of place, incomplete or frustrating. Yet, regardless of the surface appearances, the Rot goes on in all those who can no longer avoid it. Because as long as you can avoid the Rot, you will. I have seen this to be so, again and again. As long as you have a path, as long as you have anxious hope, as long as you have a trajectory that you are traveling, an arc of growth to cultivate and defend, you are not yet prepared to encounter and embrace existence as the core wound. Therefore you will not permit yourself to endure the onset and the consequence of the Rot.
So what I finally got is that my compulsive relationship to money and time-management is my personal Rot. I have tried financial independence, a number of business ventures, polyphasic sleep, any number of transformational modalities, diets, NLP, exercise and yoga, personal organization and workflow management systems – all of this works up to a point (and has certainly been worthwhile), but the final prize is elusive.
So what, according to Saniel Bonder, is the difference between living in the creative flow of life and acting (reactively) out of the Rot?
We need to clarify something here. It’s not as if, after Rotting in this manner, you never try to do anything to better your life ever again. Hardly. You may become impassioned to change many aspects of both your own life and others’ lives. But you will have ceased to do so as an effort to relieve yourself of that underlying emptiness or despair. You will have ceased to seek in fundamental reaction to your core wound.
So when do we know we are creating out of passion and connection, vs. the "Rot"? The best answer I can come up with right now, is when we sense the presence of love in our acts of creation. I have taken this on as a practice now – to slow down and check-in with myself when I feel I am getting compulsive.
But I can’t always stop myself in the middle of a "Rot" cycle… yet.
