F.: I’m holding all e-mail that contains questions about various terms or phrases in the glossary and will respond to each in upcoming postings, but this one was received yesterday and calls for an answer now (on what many are labeling “Christmas Day.” This entry will be the longest ever, but site visitors will soon see why.)
Received 12-24-05 from a site visitor: “Tomorrow is Christmas and I’m going to be alone. My wife divorced me and got custody of our child. Both of my parents died during the breakup, my health has gone south, and problems at work are constant. My ‘ex’ married another man and he and the ‘ex’ and my child are now living in the home I bought. They are participating in all of the same events that were traditional for my family for many years. She took away my house, retirement funds, cash, other investments, but most of all my family and my child. She’s plugged another man into the slot I once filled with her and my daughter. I suspect you’ll want to offer some Advaita pointer that might relieve me of the hurt and anger, but the pain is overwhelming and after months of trying to detach by using the postings on your site, I need something else. In fact, having written that, I really don’t know why I’m even writing to you because more of the same that has not worked cannot help. But I knew no one else that I could talk to about all this so openly who might understand. Can you say anything I haven’t yet heard that might help me make it through this season?”
F.: Maybe something will come via today’s glossary entry, but first, I’ll remind you again of the response I sent to you yesterday: if you feel suicidal, go to the nearest emergency room and tell someone there what you’re thinking. (There is a suicide every eighteen minutes in the U.S. The numbers peak going into the New Year’s holiday when so many things can trigger memories around former ego-states. Consciousness might as well be allowed to run its natural course, but that’s another topic for another day. Now, to move on after that cautionary point.)
Received 12-24-05 from a site visitor: “Tomorrow is Christmas and I’m going to be alone. My wife divorced me and got custody of our child. Both of my parents died during the breakup, my health has gone south, and problems at work are constant. My ‘ex’ married another man and he and the ‘ex’ and my child are now living in the home I bought. They are participating in all of the same events that were traditional for my family for many years. She took away my house, retirement funds, cash, other investments, but most of all my family and my child. She’s plugged another man into the slot I once filled with her and my daughter. I suspect you’ll want to offer some Advaita pointer that might relieve me of the hurt and anger, but the pain is overwhelming and after months of trying to detach by using the postings on your site, I need something else. In fact, having written that, I really don’t know why I’m even writing to you because more of the same that has not worked cannot help. But I knew no one else that I could talk to about all this so openly who might understand. Can you say anything I haven’t yet heard that might help me make it through this season?”
F.: Maybe something will come via today’s glossary entry, but first, I’ll remind you again of the response I sent to you yesterday: if you feel suicidal, go to the nearest emergency room and tell someone there what you’re thinking. (There is a suicide every eighteen minutes in the U.S. The numbers peak going into the New Year’s holiday when so many things can trigger memories around former ego-states. Consciousness might as well be allowed to run its natural course, but that’s another topic for another day. Now, to move on after that cautionary point.)
Above all, I encourage you first to accept some credit. 59% of the women killed in urban areas in U.S. cities are killed during just such a breakup. (41% of males die at the hands of a mate during a breakup.) The fact that you have not taken such drastic action to retaliate tells me that you are not totally absorbed in false identities and can make it beyond these events that are so painful to you right now. Feelings still happen after realization, and I can assure you that your pain is not being felt by you alone at this moment. This site has regular visitors on all continents, and I suspect your pain is being felt by many across the globe who know the Oneness and thus feel for you. They also know that you can move beyond this nightmarish challenge. I join them.
Now, I cannot ignore the Advaita lessons, but I will offer more, as you asked. To separate this day called “Christmas” from the other 364 per year (and to suggest that one day is different from others) is illusion, but after years of programming and conditioning, detachment does not come easily. To assume lost roles as actual identities (in your case, ‘husband,” “lover,” “parent,” “homeowner,” “victim,” “son,” “employee,” “healthy man,” etc.) might be illusory, but the misery you are feeling certainly seems real enough, doesn’t it? Remember the point made last Thursday about memories?
Memories are recollections based in illusion. The “memories” that allow persons to experience the most misery are those involving the most assumed identities.
You had dozens of identities that were smashed in a single blow with her departure and re-marriage. It is understandable that misery is manifesting for you now. Much of your identity in the past was linked to the events that are celebrated during this month when so much talk is about “family.” [In truth, with a 62% divorce rate in the U.S., “family” does not apply as much as “faux family,” persons typically taking the same vows over and over again nowadays.]
Next, even as recently as the days when my teacher was offering the Advaita message, persons did not face all of the additional obstacles to Realization that persons must face today. For example, labs that have been tracking the functioning of the hypothalamus in the general population have data which show that its functioning has deteriorated significantly among persons over the last several decades. If that organ (which helps differentiate true from false) is under-functioning, it will deter the efforts of the most devoted Advaitan student to see the false, to discard it, and to realize the truth. Where the Advaita message might have once offered the entire solution, today some persons need additional treatment as a result of the bastardization of the food chain with chemicals, hormones, pesticides, growth stimulants, etc. that cause vital organs to under-function. The point is, do not be hard on yourself today if you haven’t “gotten” the Advaita teaching completely and if you're feeling pain, for other factors may need addressing. [For additional information on the options in that area, visit http://www.marielachney.com/faqs.php ]. Next, I recently addressed the fact that “humanity” is not nearly as noble as the egos of many persons would like to believe. Among animals that kill other animals to survive, the kill is fast and clean and never intentionally cruel. Among persons, the “kill” can be slow and vicious and is often intentionally cruel, and you’re experiencing that.
All that having been said, only the totally Realized could undergo without emotional intoxication what you have experienced. Do not be hard on yourself at this point. [Later, you’ll be hard enough on your self/selves for them to dissolve, but you’ve made clear you need more than that right now.] Thus, today’s glossary term, which was to be discussed on the last day of the postings, is being moved to today for your consideration (and for consideration by all those who—contrary to the notion that this is the “most wonderful time of the year”—might be experiencing something that is far from “wonderful”). This might offer something for consideration that is different from what you’ve read on the site and that might provide an insight that brings with it a respite from your pain.
Some have gained freedom when they see why the type of experiences you’ve undergone were visited upon your relative existence by someone that you believe, at this point, chose to harm you and chose to hurt you and chose to be cruel and chose to be intentionally vicious in the process. Consider this: if your former wife had accidently backed a car over a neighbor’s child and killed it, would the neighbors be more forgiving than if she’d chosen to kill their child intentionally? I suspect the hurt would be there, but I suspect that something done without intention or conscious choice might engender less anger and hatred of the type you might well be feeling today. So, let’s consider the next subject in the glossary, namely, “responsibility,” and see if some relief might come.
Responsibility in Light of No Single Causer and No Single Cause: Some Advaita teachings are more difficult to grasp than others, including beginninglessness, the borderline between beingness and non-beingness, and responsibility with (a) no single causer that can be identified and without (b) a self that is responsible. As difficult as those pointers are to grasp, however, an understanding of the latter in this relative existence can be tremendously freeing. Maybe you remember this example from the posting on December 22nd:
“…a man remained miserable for years after his wife left him. The woman had been raised by a cold, abusive father and by a mother who repressed all feelings and raised her daughter to do the same. Now more than fifty years old, the woman has never been told by either parent that they love her. The family has a "no-hugging" rule. Their daughter is therefore also incapable of loving unconditionally. The man involved with her lost his role as “husband” when she left. He mourned the loss of that ego-state for years, miserable in his HOPE that the woman would suddenly be able to love. He DREAMED of a tight-knit home and family. His hopes and dreams left him dependent on her image as “lover” and “wife” and “the key to fulfilling his dreams” and "creating a family." His misery did not end until he realized the truth: there is no hope that the woman will ever learn to love uncondtionally, and if she does, he’ll not be the object. His misery did not end until he realized that his dream was just that—a dream, the complete opposite of reality. While many tout the wonderful benefits of having hopes and dreams, the examples above illustrate that both are only beneficial to perpetuating false identities and continuing misery.
The last thing that man wanted to concede when we first talked was that there was “no self that could be responsible.” In his “mind,” she was responsible for breaking up a family and stealing all he’d worked for. Some relief came to him when he realized that a woman conditioned not to love, not to hug, not to care, and to manipulate did not choose to not love him, did not choose not to hug him, did not choose to not care about him, and did not choose to manipulate him. She did not choose to be so absorbed in her ego-states (and so driven by the ego-defense mechanisms that try to protect those states) that she behaved in such an ego-driven manner. (You never chose to adopt all those identities that you are mourning the loss of right now, either.) Like the computer you’re using to read this posting, it can do nothing that it has not been programmed to do. And it cannot fail to do what it is programmed to do (glitches notwithstanding). It cannot decide anything beyond its programming. So it is with your “ex.” Might you feel some degree of freedom if you realize that all her actions which you are taking personally were not personal at all except to your own assumed personas? Consider: if a child is raised not to hug, not to even hug the people in her family and the people she thinks she loves, why would you take it personally that she could not hug you or be intimate with you? Is she choosing not to hug you? Is she responsible for not being the type to hug? And if now she is suddenly hugging another, does that have to do with “love” or does it likely have more to do with manipulation, per earlier conditioning?
Might you feel some degree of freedom if you realize that her behavior was not caused by you (or by her) but resulted from her programming and from every prior experience she has experienced as a person from the time her parents began warping her consciousness with their insane programming? Might you feel some relief if you realize the things she said that you believe were vicious were words that came from programming that was put into her long before you ever laid eyes on her? Might you experience some relief if you realize that she was set up, long before she knew you, to take the actions she took that you believe to be so cruel? Often, the pain you are experiencing can be diminished—even prior to full Realization—by an awareness of the infinite links in the chain of causation that led to her behavior. Is this an effort to minimize your pain or to minimize the significance of her actions as they impacted you and your child in this relative existence? No. But an effort is being made to cast light on the long chain of events that drive persons to behave in the insane and destructive and unnatural ways that make them seem to be far more cruel than any animal engaged in a hunt and kill. If this entire culture seems to be more and more irresponsible each day, it is because more and more false identities are being assumed. More and more there is a false self that is unconsciously driving persons in this culture. (The same is happening with you right now as a result of perceptions of loss around all those former roles that you can no longer play.)
To suggest that “no self exists that is responsible” does not mean that “responsibility” cannot happen. In the Reality of Oneness, harm in the relative cannot be instigated without also being experienced. Too, the Realized can “respond” without reacting from a state of emotional intoxication. For example, the Realized might take action—might take the responsibility—to act if they observe someone damaging the environment which is required for the continuation of the manifestation of the consciousness.
In the meantime, may you find some peace via an understanding that releases some of the anger in the way that parents might respond if they lose a child by accident as opposed to losing a child that was murdered intentionally. Your home is gone as far as you’re concerned. Your child seems gone as far as you are concerned. More freedom will come when you see who that “you” is that is concerned.
Finally, no person ever took any actions (of the type which "I" also thought at one time were harmful) and did intentionally what they did. Those who are asleep might walk in their sleep and talk in their sleep, but they're still asleep, even if they appear to be awake and choosing. Persons play out their assumed roles according to the programming that has left them without any freedom of choice. Their scripts were written long ago and they are now players strutting across the stage, engrossed in "The Drama of the Lie." You can exert all the energy you want to try to be "The Director" and change the conduct of the actors, but those absorbed in their roles will not listen. Better for you, then, is to know that upon full Realization, you’ll also see that no actions you believed were harmful actually had any effect on YOU—the Real You—at all. Peace can then come.
In the meantime, best regards, and may we continue the “journey” together to the very end of the selves that experience pain. Stick around for that ending. I felt your pain last night, I feel your pain today, and conscious people worldwide are feeling your pain. Please keep me and the site visitors posted in regards to your movement along the “path.” May you find any other treatments you might need, and may you pass beyond the pain of the many “dying” personas to the bliss of full Realization and an enjoyable AS IF life. Love, Light and Peace to You, f. Please enter the silence of contemplation. [Glossary entries to be continued tomorrow.]
Now, I cannot ignore the Advaita lessons, but I will offer more, as you asked. To separate this day called “Christmas” from the other 364 per year (and to suggest that one day is different from others) is illusion, but after years of programming and conditioning, detachment does not come easily. To assume lost roles as actual identities (in your case, ‘husband,” “lover,” “parent,” “homeowner,” “victim,” “son,” “employee,” “healthy man,” etc.) might be illusory, but the misery you are feeling certainly seems real enough, doesn’t it? Remember the point made last Thursday about memories?
Memories are recollections based in illusion. The “memories” that allow persons to experience the most misery are those involving the most assumed identities.
You had dozens of identities that were smashed in a single blow with her departure and re-marriage. It is understandable that misery is manifesting for you now. Much of your identity in the past was linked to the events that are celebrated during this month when so much talk is about “family.” [In truth, with a 62% divorce rate in the U.S., “family” does not apply as much as “faux family,” persons typically taking the same vows over and over again nowadays.]
Next, even as recently as the days when my teacher was offering the Advaita message, persons did not face all of the additional obstacles to Realization that persons must face today. For example, labs that have been tracking the functioning of the hypothalamus in the general population have data which show that its functioning has deteriorated significantly among persons over the last several decades. If that organ (which helps differentiate true from false) is under-functioning, it will deter the efforts of the most devoted Advaitan student to see the false, to discard it, and to realize the truth. Where the Advaita message might have once offered the entire solution, today some persons need additional treatment as a result of the bastardization of the food chain with chemicals, hormones, pesticides, growth stimulants, etc. that cause vital organs to under-function. The point is, do not be hard on yourself today if you haven’t “gotten” the Advaita teaching completely and if you're feeling pain, for other factors may need addressing. [For additional information on the options in that area, visit http://www.marielachney.com/faqs.php ]. Next, I recently addressed the fact that “humanity” is not nearly as noble as the egos of many persons would like to believe. Among animals that kill other animals to survive, the kill is fast and clean and never intentionally cruel. Among persons, the “kill” can be slow and vicious and is often intentionally cruel, and you’re experiencing that.
All that having been said, only the totally Realized could undergo without emotional intoxication what you have experienced. Do not be hard on yourself at this point. [Later, you’ll be hard enough on your self/selves for them to dissolve, but you’ve made clear you need more than that right now.] Thus, today’s glossary term, which was to be discussed on the last day of the postings, is being moved to today for your consideration (and for consideration by all those who—contrary to the notion that this is the “most wonderful time of the year”—might be experiencing something that is far from “wonderful”). This might offer something for consideration that is different from what you’ve read on the site and that might provide an insight that brings with it a respite from your pain.
Some have gained freedom when they see why the type of experiences you’ve undergone were visited upon your relative existence by someone that you believe, at this point, chose to harm you and chose to hurt you and chose to be cruel and chose to be intentionally vicious in the process. Consider this: if your former wife had accidently backed a car over a neighbor’s child and killed it, would the neighbors be more forgiving than if she’d chosen to kill their child intentionally? I suspect the hurt would be there, but I suspect that something done without intention or conscious choice might engender less anger and hatred of the type you might well be feeling today. So, let’s consider the next subject in the glossary, namely, “responsibility,” and see if some relief might come.
Responsibility in Light of No Single Causer and No Single Cause: Some Advaita teachings are more difficult to grasp than others, including beginninglessness, the borderline between beingness and non-beingness, and responsibility with (a) no single causer that can be identified and without (b) a self that is responsible. As difficult as those pointers are to grasp, however, an understanding of the latter in this relative existence can be tremendously freeing. Maybe you remember this example from the posting on December 22nd:
“…a man remained miserable for years after his wife left him. The woman had been raised by a cold, abusive father and by a mother who repressed all feelings and raised her daughter to do the same. Now more than fifty years old, the woman has never been told by either parent that they love her. The family has a "no-hugging" rule. Their daughter is therefore also incapable of loving unconditionally. The man involved with her lost his role as “husband” when she left. He mourned the loss of that ego-state for years, miserable in his HOPE that the woman would suddenly be able to love. He DREAMED of a tight-knit home and family. His hopes and dreams left him dependent on her image as “lover” and “wife” and “the key to fulfilling his dreams” and "creating a family." His misery did not end until he realized the truth: there is no hope that the woman will ever learn to love uncondtionally, and if she does, he’ll not be the object. His misery did not end until he realized that his dream was just that—a dream, the complete opposite of reality. While many tout the wonderful benefits of having hopes and dreams, the examples above illustrate that both are only beneficial to perpetuating false identities and continuing misery.
The last thing that man wanted to concede when we first talked was that there was “no self that could be responsible.” In his “mind,” she was responsible for breaking up a family and stealing all he’d worked for. Some relief came to him when he realized that a woman conditioned not to love, not to hug, not to care, and to manipulate did not choose to not love him, did not choose not to hug him, did not choose to not care about him, and did not choose to manipulate him. She did not choose to be so absorbed in her ego-states (and so driven by the ego-defense mechanisms that try to protect those states) that she behaved in such an ego-driven manner. (You never chose to adopt all those identities that you are mourning the loss of right now, either.) Like the computer you’re using to read this posting, it can do nothing that it has not been programmed to do. And it cannot fail to do what it is programmed to do (glitches notwithstanding). It cannot decide anything beyond its programming. So it is with your “ex.” Might you feel some degree of freedom if you realize that all her actions which you are taking personally were not personal at all except to your own assumed personas? Consider: if a child is raised not to hug, not to even hug the people in her family and the people she thinks she loves, why would you take it personally that she could not hug you or be intimate with you? Is she choosing not to hug you? Is she responsible for not being the type to hug? And if now she is suddenly hugging another, does that have to do with “love” or does it likely have more to do with manipulation, per earlier conditioning?
Might you feel some degree of freedom if you realize that her behavior was not caused by you (or by her) but resulted from her programming and from every prior experience she has experienced as a person from the time her parents began warping her consciousness with their insane programming? Might you feel some relief if you realize the things she said that you believe were vicious were words that came from programming that was put into her long before you ever laid eyes on her? Might you experience some relief if you realize that she was set up, long before she knew you, to take the actions she took that you believe to be so cruel? Often, the pain you are experiencing can be diminished—even prior to full Realization—by an awareness of the infinite links in the chain of causation that led to her behavior. Is this an effort to minimize your pain or to minimize the significance of her actions as they impacted you and your child in this relative existence? No. But an effort is being made to cast light on the long chain of events that drive persons to behave in the insane and destructive and unnatural ways that make them seem to be far more cruel than any animal engaged in a hunt and kill. If this entire culture seems to be more and more irresponsible each day, it is because more and more false identities are being assumed. More and more there is a false self that is unconsciously driving persons in this culture. (The same is happening with you right now as a result of perceptions of loss around all those former roles that you can no longer play.)
To suggest that “no self exists that is responsible” does not mean that “responsibility” cannot happen. In the Reality of Oneness, harm in the relative cannot be instigated without also being experienced. Too, the Realized can “respond” without reacting from a state of emotional intoxication. For example, the Realized might take action—might take the responsibility—to act if they observe someone damaging the environment which is required for the continuation of the manifestation of the consciousness.
In the meantime, may you find some peace via an understanding that releases some of the anger in the way that parents might respond if they lose a child by accident as opposed to losing a child that was murdered intentionally. Your home is gone as far as you’re concerned. Your child seems gone as far as you are concerned. More freedom will come when you see who that “you” is that is concerned.
Finally, no person ever took any actions (of the type which "I" also thought at one time were harmful) and did intentionally what they did. Those who are asleep might walk in their sleep and talk in their sleep, but they're still asleep, even if they appear to be awake and choosing. Persons play out their assumed roles according to the programming that has left them without any freedom of choice. Their scripts were written long ago and they are now players strutting across the stage, engrossed in "The Drama of the Lie." You can exert all the energy you want to try to be "The Director" and change the conduct of the actors, but those absorbed in their roles will not listen. Better for you, then, is to know that upon full Realization, you’ll also see that no actions you believed were harmful actually had any effect on YOU—the Real You—at all. Peace can then come.
In the meantime, best regards, and may we continue the “journey” together to the very end of the selves that experience pain. Stick around for that ending. I felt your pain last night, I feel your pain today, and conscious people worldwide are feeling your pain. Please keep me and the site visitors posted in regards to your movement along the “path.” May you find any other treatments you might need, and may you pass beyond the pain of the many “dying” personas to the bliss of full Realization and an enjoyable AS IF life. Love, Light and Peace to You, f. Please enter the silence of contemplation. [Glossary entries to be continued tomorrow.]
