Two different things: letting go of identification, and changing the content
The dream about the Nazis was a reminder of something that has been coming up for me consciously as well: the need to differentiate between (a) surrendering of identification with the content of awareness, and (b) changing the content itself.
Until there is a full letting go of identification with content (realized selflessness), there will be a confusion and slight mingling of the two.
Our conscious attitude is to want, or aim, to release identification with content, which - when it really happens - allows any content to be exactly as it is. It happens independent on the particulars of the content.
But this conscious attitude is also exactly that which (apparently subtly) does change the content itself. This attitude itself is an identification with content, in this case with a wish to surrender identification with content (and wake up.) So it automatically changes content. In my case, it brings an (again apparently subtle) disowning of an active and engaged attitude.
It is all OK, and maybe even an inevitable part of the process, but also good to notice.
Disowning a sense of a doer
This is similar to, and another variation of, what sometimes happen when we begin to realize selflessness. We have a taste of it, or intuit it: there is no separate self here. Only the doing, and no doer. And before this is more fully and clearly realized, it may lead to a disowning of a sense of a doer.
The sense of a doer is pushed in the background, or maybe even the doing itself is reduced (we do less, so there is less sense of a doer!)
This comes from confusion, and can create a good deal of confusion as well, but when it happens, it may - again - be a necessary part of the process. It is one of the ways we explore, learn about, and gradually become more familiar with this terrain.
Eventually, as this is worked through and clarified, there is a differentiation between the two: there is the noticing and realization that there is no doer here, only the doing. And this doing is now free to include being passive and disengaged, or active and engaged, in the world. There can be lots of doing there, but still no doer.
Labels: differentiation, doer and doing