F.: If not Realized, then you are living under the illusion of a giant fraud. That fraud includes a belief that your personal needs are real, a belief that you’ve had one body all your life, and a belief that you have a mind of your own. Also, the fraud includes a belief (based in the imagined continuity of personality-body-mind) that the personality and body and mind will experience eternal continuity as well…triggering efforts among some persons to be “good” and not “bad” in order to get an “eternal reward” for the body-mind and to avoid an “eternal punishment” for the body-mind. That notion has filled pyramids with “preserved” bodies surrounded by treasures, has filled the coffers of millions of religious treasuries, has filled cemeteries with “preserved” bodies across the globe, and has inspired zealots to kill themselves for some cause that will guarantee that eternal continuity and body reward. The history of humankind is a story of one amazing fraud after another that the bastardized consciousness is capable of accepting as “truth” without questioning any of it at all. The postings for today and tomorrow will deal with imagined needs (and the subsequent desires and misery they generate).
As long as the consciousness remains manifested, the body will have certain physical needs. The body will require food and shelter, for example, and the drive to meet those needs is a natural action. Deer, which live naturally, will work daily to forage for food and to find shelter when required. Humans who prefer to be free—and therefore devise a plan for assuring their independence—can meet their basic physical needs by acquiring saleable skills and performing services. Humans who are willing to be dependent—and thus must settle for never really being free—follow another course. They assume false identities, they create images, and they play roles to inspire other persons to provide for them. In that abandonment of their True Self, the playing of their assumed roles in “The Drama of the Lie” allows them to influence others to meet their needs, but they sell themselves (and their Self) in the process. See the duality created when following the second course: game-playing vs. truthfulness; users vs. takers; being true to Self vs. dedication to maintaining false images; and independence vs. dependence. So it is as some humans work to meet their physical needs while others manipulate to have their physical needs met. The subsequent lack of independence creates misery for persons, but it the additional belief in personal needs that takes the greatest toll on humans in their relative existence.
As long as the consciousness remains manifested, the body will have certain physical needs. The body will require food and shelter, for example, and the drive to meet those needs is a natural action. Deer, which live naturally, will work daily to forage for food and to find shelter when required. Humans who prefer to be free—and therefore devise a plan for assuring their independence—can meet their basic physical needs by acquiring saleable skills and performing services. Humans who are willing to be dependent—and thus must settle for never really being free—follow another course. They assume false identities, they create images, and they play roles to inspire other persons to provide for them. In that abandonment of their True Self, the playing of their assumed roles in “The Drama of the Lie” allows them to influence others to meet their needs, but they sell themselves (and their Self) in the process. See the duality created when following the second course: game-playing vs. truthfulness; users vs. takers; being true to Self vs. dedication to maintaining false images; and independence vs. dependence. So it is as some humans work to meet their physical needs while others manipulate to have their physical needs met. The subsequent lack of independence creates misery for persons, but it the additional belief in personal needs that takes the greatest toll on humans in their relative existence.
While the physical needs are “real” as far as the relative goes, it is the personal needs which are imagined and that—though fictional—exact a heavy toll as persons create both dependencies and co-dependencies via role assumption. Why co-dependency? If one assumes the role of “wife,” she must have a “husband” for that false identity to be perpetuated. That false "she" cannot exist without "him." Same for the "husband." To be “boss,” a steady stream of “employees” must flow. Every assumed role requires another person to play the counterpart in order for the playing of the roles to continue. And every persona that is assumed brings with it a litany of false needs that are taken to be real, brings a frustration with it because those needs will never be fully met (since false needs can never be met), and thus brings a chain of unfulfilled desires and the subsequent misery and suffering that personas experience as a result.
Find what you think "you" need personally and you’ll find a major source of any suffering and misery you’ve ever experienced (or will ever experience). Personal needs are the needs imagined by a persona to be true needs because personas take their roles to be true identifiers of self. Find WHO believes that he/she has that need, and you’ll find that a persona, an image, is perpetuating the imagined need. Why imagined? If that which believes it has a need is an image, then the “need” itself is an image…is imagined. When all false images are seen to be false, then the imaginary needs of those images automatically disappear as well. And when unmet imaginary needs disappear, the accompanying unfulfilled desires dissolve. And when false images and a false sense of need and the emptiness of unfulfilled desires disappear, peace happens. Then, physical needs can be met while remaining independent and free and without the burden of emotional intoxication that personas with perceived needs and unmet desires always generate. Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be continued tomorrow]
