Friday, April 16, 2010

A JOINT POSTING FROM THE SITE CO-HOSTS: On Personality (a.k.a., Ego) and Arrogance (a.k.a., Egotism), Part Two

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An Advaita forum focusing on Realisation, enlightenment, non-duality, Real Love, peace, freedom, Your original nature, abiding naturally, the Oneness, the Nothingness, and Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.

Here, there is nothing that is believed, so there is no one here who wants you to believe anything, either. Here, the invitation is to be free of all that you have been programmed, conditioned, acculturated, and domesticated to believe so that you can be free, period.

This is the first joint postings and came about spontaneously. More may happen spontaneously…or not.

F.: Yesterday, it was noted how personality leads to distortion and self-deception: persons (those operating under the auspices of personality) actually believe that they are making choices when the fact is that personality is determining everything that they think and say and do as well as how they will emote when under stress. Moreover, personality-driven actions are rooted in the two aspects that generate all suffering and misery:

Louise: Personality-driven actions, rooted as they are in achieving desires and avoiding fears, prompt persons to act in particular ways regardless of what is natural and reasonable. Much of what is dysfunctional on this planet is driven by these hidden yet overpowering personality motivators. Consider for example actions like molesting a child, imbibing poisonous drugs, choosing and staying with a physically violent partner. Could actions like these ever be considered natural and reasonable? Of course not. These are dysfunctional and unnatural behaviours prompted by distorted desires and fears. Consider the less extreme, but equally pervasive, actions of telling half-truths, spin-doctoring, short-changing, judging, proselytizing, gossiping, etc. that most persons engage in but do not regard as “serious” or "damaging." All of these actions are driven by personality – out of the attempt of an ego person to get what it wants or avoid what it is afraid of. Imagine the freedom when there is no persona to defend, protect or reinforce. Imagine the freedom when movement is spontaneous and not driven by programmed desires and fears.

F.: And that is exactly what accompanies Full Realization: freedom when there is no persona to defend, protect or reinforce…freedom when movement is spontaneous and not driven by programmed desires and fears;

additionally, Full Realization provides that which is truly being sought, though most seekers and all non-seekers haven’t a clue about what it is that is “missing” that leaves an unmet desire…an inner longing which always shoves total contentment and joy and bliss just out of reach.

In the very beginning of the first session shown on the DVD or Downloadable computer file versions of the Four-Day Advaita Retreat, the participants were invited to see that they had been robbed. What they were robbed of was the simple existence that humans experienced for millions of years but that became unavailable about 5000 years ago when dualistic philosophies and religions introduced the concept of duality to humanity.

The result is that humans are robbed of the opportunity to enjoy what trillions upon trillions upon trillions of humans enjoyed for millions of years, namely, a relatively simple, non-complicated, non-complex existence.

That is stolen from every child on the planet now because usually by the age of six, children have been saddled with the lies and distortions of personality and the dualistic tasks of being "good" and "right" and "pleasing to a god or gods in order to earn eternal reward and avoid eternal punishment."

Now, meetings and sessions and services and classes must be attended in order to learn all that is required for salvation from eternal torture, imposed by Someone Who loves you unconditionally but is quite capable of being made angry by you and thereafter willing to subject you to everlasting agony.

Anthropologists report that humans for millions of years spent about 2.5 hours per day involved in "life-sustaining tasks" (tasks which nowadays are considered breaks or vacations from work: hunting, fishing, walking through a lovely forest foraging, etc.) The remainder of the day was spent relaxing, being with family, swimming, sharing meals, and, among adults and young adults, the enjoying of sex without any of the presently taught and presently learned psychological hangups that plague so many confused humans.

[For more, see such examples as the Catholic motto, "If it feels good, stop it!" or the too-often pervasive Islamic attitude toward women, namely that "Women are to be beaten with a stick now if they flash an ankle in public and are later to serve men as eternal sex objects." All very complicated as dualistic religious and dualistic spiritual concepts have inspired the adoption of personas / personality / personalities that have, in turn, become the driving force for the last 5000 years in determining the most unnatural / supernatural ways that persons behave. All very complicated, complex, and convoluted...the simplicity having been stolen.]

All persons now are robbed early on of something they sensed for only a brief period, a sensation that has now led them to a conscious or unconscious quest to try to find again. Specifically, what is being sought is the essential quality or essence of the relative existence that could be enjoyed were it not for such blockages as personality and duality.

What are the effects of being blocked from Truth and Reality and being programmed and conditioned to believe lies and to abandon living naturally while trying to live in a supernatural, unnatural manner that is now the “planet standard”?

A consideration from Louise: Could this be why persons often feel “out-of-step”, “out-of-place”, “disconnected”, “wrong-footed” etc?

F.: Exactly. They are robbed of a sense of being naturally in step, feeling naturally in place, being naturally connected (in fact, dare it be said, "being naturally conscious of the oneness"?) What dedicated seekers are actually seeking from their teachers is a total understanding of what is blocking the essential quality and the previously simple essence of the relative existence.

And they seek from a guru or teacher in order to understand how to remove those blockages that are preventing the enjoyment of the historically simple, uncomplicated, non-complex existence that typified the total human experience for all except the last few millennia when duality and personality were taught and thereafter prevented the manifestation of bliss with any degree of consistency.

If persons are seeking, they are lacking. If they are lacking, they are wanting. If they are wanting, they do not feel complete, whole, at one. And it is that desire for "something"...for "the something that is missing" that involves the personality-driven desires that, in turn, generate misery and suffering and block any chance of living naturally. Again:

L.: Personality-driven actions, rooted as they are in achieving desires and avoiding fears, prompt persons to act in particular ways regardless of what is natural and reasonable.

F.: The finding must happen in order for the seeking to end and for the sense of completion to begin. This series can begin to move that quest to its completion if seekers come to see all that they are “up against” in their quest, and what they are up against in the beginning of the “journey” is identification with the body and the mind and, especially, personality.

Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
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2. BY READING these books in this exact order:
IT'S ALL BULLSHIT (And Why Knowing It Sets You Free)
SPIRITUAL SOBRIETY (Recovering What Religions Lost)
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THE MEDITATION GUIDES
[Provide a broad overview of the understanding]
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE?
[Begins to free the seeker of body identification and the desire for body continuity]
THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS "PEACE OF MIND" (There Is Only Peace if You're Out of Your Mind)
[Shows the seeker how to be free of the subconscious motivators of the false content of the “mind”]
LIBERATION
[Shows the seeker how to be free of the subconscious motivators of personas]
THE ESSENCE OF THE TEACHINGS
[Provides the final preparation for the seeker to be directed along the “path”]
FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE (A Seven-Step Journey to Reality)
[Directs the seeker along the “path”]
CONSCIOUSNESS/AWARENESS: The Nature of Reality Beyond Self-Realization (Peace Every Day When Abiding as The Absolute)
[Allows the seeker to understand the functioning of the totality, the manifestation, and what is involved with the un-manifestation]
FROM THE ABSOLUTE TO THE NOTHINGNESS
[Provides the seeker the wisdom to understand the Noneness as well as the Oneness]
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Personality-driven actions, rooted as they are in achieving desires and avoiding fears, prompt persons to act in particular ways regardless of what is natural and reasonable.

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