Quotes from Robert Augustus Masters

When transcendence of our personal history takes precedence over intimacy with our personal history, spiritual bypassing is inevitable. To not be intimate with our past—to not be deeply and thoroughly acquainted with our conditioning and its originating factors—keeps it undigested and unintegrated and therefore very much present

Where feeling is reaction, emotion is adaptation. So feeling is an instantaneous, nonreflective (there's no time for reflection!) arising, but emotion is all about how we handle that feeling.

The fiery intensity at the heart of anger asks neither for smothering nor mere discharge, but for a mindful embrace that does not require any dilution of passion, any lowering of the heat, nor any muting of the essential voice in the flames.

So let's consider other factors or qualities that ought to—but generally don't—count for much in making a male a "real" man, factors that many men keep in the shadows: vulnerability, empathy, emotional transparency and literacy, the capacity for relational intimacy—all qualities more commonly associated with being female than male.

Turning toward our pain is about bringing into our heart all that we have rejected in ourselves, all that we have ostracized, disowned, neglected, bypassed, shunned, excommunicated, or otherwise deemed as unworthy in ourselves. Our heart somehow has room for it all.

Shame is probably our most hidden and misunderstood emotion. It's also the one most likely to motivate men to stay away from the help they need—and need to admit they need—which can range from psychotherapy to addiction programs. Performance anxiety is driven by shame; so is the drive to overachieve; so is the pressure to man up. Shame is behind the scenes much more often than you might think.

clearly healing and potently integrative. What spiritual bypassing would have us rise above is precisely what we need to enter, and enter deeply, with as little self-numbing as possible. To this end, it is crucial that we see through whatever practices we have, spiritual or otherwise, that tranquilize rather than illuminate and awaken us. Despite

CULTIVATING NOT-KNOWING Though not-knowing is natural to us and not all that unfamiliar—as when we wordlessly resonate and interact with the radiant presence emanating through a baby's eyes—the capacity for it gets easily pushed into the background by our conditioned knowing.

Emotion is far more verb than noun, being not some entity or thing we can get out of our system but a vital process always in some degree of flux.

Softening can be a profoundly healing undertaking, helping to make more room for pain and difficulty, enriching a man's capacity for deep relationship, rendering him more flexible and permeable, more heartful—especially when that softening coexists with stead-fastness and firmness. An example of such coexistence can be seen in fierce compassion, wherein we're both forceful and soft, both angered and caring.

The more our self-esteem is tied to our competency or perceived competency, the more debilitating shame will be for us, whether it's coming from us or from others.