Chapter 2 cont.

Respect for the suffering

Before you continue to read this booklet - BE WARNED!! Too much use of sensate focusing (giving a lot of concentrated attention to the felt sensations of the body) can bring about irreversible results. The exercises and steps which will be discussed in the "Do it yourself now" section, may bring an irreversible change in the quality of your life or even in your personality.

Those whose suffering, deficiencies and inadequacies are precious to them and those in whom human suffering gains more respect than compassion or pity - will do themselves a favor if they refrain from reading this book.

These people who find it very important not to change, will be wise not to take any of the various steps in the training in sensate focus. Even a single execution of one step of the preliminary stage can cause the beginning of processes which will bring about an irreversible change.

It seems that the manner in which the text of this book relates to sensation, emotion and to human suffering may seem inappropriate to many. The treatment of this domain might seem to them too matter of fact - and thus, disrespectful. My approach may hurt the feelings of those with afflicted souls and those dealing too seriously with literature and poetry. Here we apologize for this unintentional, but alas unavoidable aspect of our de-mystification and banalization of the emotional phenomena.

The contention that emotional and other felt sensations of suffering can be relatively easily eliminated (or at least got rid of when encountered) will probably anger many opinionated people. It will anger all those who attribute an important positive value to human suffering. It will most anger those who delegate the bulk of human suffering or even all of it to a divine source.

I do not share the opinions of those mentioned above, nor do I share the belief of those who are, in principal, in favor of the eradication of human suffering, but tactically, believe that "the worse it gets, the quicker it gets better". Moreover, I do not believe in any purifying effect of suffering. Therefore, I do not see even one reason to be lenient to the feelings of the various sorts and creeds of overt or covert sadists and masochists, nor do I feel any inclination to ask their forgiveness.

Only improvement

Alas, in order not to infuriate those who see the main root of human suffering within the inappropriate social order, it is emphasized here that the ideas and suggestions presented in this book are not intended to replace the striving for a better social order but to supplement it.

However, the accumulated experience of many trainees shows that even before any significant improvement in the social order is achieved, alleviation of personal suffering is possible. The first steps of the disentangling of the unpleasant emotional complexity - already achieved in the beginning of the training in sensate focusing - start to contribute to this end. This, and the achievements of the following steps, enable the individual to distinguish better between the contributions of the various factors to his suffering.

This distinction allows - quite early and even before all internal and external harmful factors have been neutralized - the mobilization of resources available to the individual. This mobilization makes the dealing with all sorts of factors easier. Thus, the sensate focusing processes enable the individual to improve the quality of his life - even before any environmental change takes place.

For those who are active in the struggle to change the social order because of the prevailing unnecessary suffering involved within it, the freed resources will enable them to do so in a more successful and human fashion.

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