ourF.: At the end of yesterday’s posting, the following pointer was offered: “See how the false ‘I’ is at the core of all personal conflict and why the only chance for peace—which can only be experienced during the manifestation—is via Realization.” Reference was made to one ego-state assumed by some personas: “The Gift from God,” but all conflict is rooted in one or more of the thousands of ego-states that persons can assume and then feel driven to defend: “The Spouse,” “The Employee,” “The President,” “The Soldier,” “The Homeowner,” “The Christian,” “The Muslim,” “The Jew,” "The Spiritual Giant," etc. And with each ego-state adopted comes the egotism and other ego-state defense mechanisms that personas use to try to protect their false images. And the insanity of assuming false identities is seldom seen.
Take as an example a “spouse” who thinks it’s dying and thinks it must take action to defend itself because its counterpart spouse is leaving. To suggest it’s just a role that is perceiving the attack, and that a person walking away is nothing close to a real attack, seems to be a nonsensical point to the spouse who thinks it’s dying. But that same person would think you truly insane if you stood on a long desert road in mid-afternoon, looked at a mirage, thought that the mirage could attack you, and thought that you needed to defend yourself from an assault by the mirage. He would know that you are truly out of touch with reality if you claim, “It was my mirage. I thought it would never leave me. I can’t believe it’s gone. We had such good times together, me and that mirage.” You’d probably be told that “Your memories are distortions of what you thought was real but your ‘relationship’ with the mirage was never at all the way that you had perceived it. What your ‘mind’ came up with regarding you and the mirage was pure fiction and total distortion. Things were never the way you perceived them…the way you thought they were. It was just a mirage.”
Also from yesterday’s post, which was clearly identified as a discussion of relative existence “stuff” that can lead to a lifetime of misery during the manifestation, another pointer was offered which has—in the past—annoyed personas to no end; namely; suggesting that their parents did not do a perfect, or at least a near-perfect job, of raising them. FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE is a book containing transcribed talks from the last sessions done face-to-face. One part not included in the book involved an exchange with a person who became upset over the suggestion that the teaching of dualities by parents sets their children up for misery and suffering since “dual-minded persons are unstable in all ways”:
Questioner: How can you say anything about my parents? You weren’t there, so you don’t have a clue what they were like. They did a wonderful job raising all of us.
F.: It need but be asked, “Did they avoid the inconsistency of using dualities during your upbringing? Because—if they did not—then understand that inconsistent parents are maddening. They literally drive their children mad. Did they never introduce even one maddening, dualistic concept to you, or did they often teach you dualistic concepts and in that process madden you? To be maddened is to be out of touch with reality, and your being out of touch with reality can be detected after listening to you speak a few words that reveal your dualistic thinking. You did claim that they were “wonderful.” That means that some other parents can be “horrible.” And that’s evidence of your dualistic, thinking “mind.” Next, did they tell you when you were “good”?
Q.: Of course. All good parents reinforce their kids when they behave. I do the same.
F.: So you had “good” parents and you were “good” since you got their reinforcement. But if they told you that you were “good” at times, then surely they must have told you at other times that you were “bad,” right?
Q.: No kids are perfect. Kids’ll be kids…parents reward the good behavior, punish the bad.
F.: Children would be children if they were allowed to be children. That is why they pass some days in that Child Ignorance stage where the peace really happens because they haven’t yet been programmed with such dualities as “good vs. bad.” And what always accompanies those dualities? Exactly what you mentioned: “reward vs. punishment,” both of which instill layers of fear and anxiety in children and their fears and anxieties will drive them throughout their entire existence if they don’t Realize. As adults, those same children are anxious to get approval and acceptance and reward and are also in fear of getting punishment. And parents don’t limit that to “this life.” You were taught the difference in “good” and “bad” and “right” and “wrong” and how you can “earn rewards” or “avoid punishments” not only in this life but for eternity as well. Right?
Q.: They took us to church. We learned right from wrong.
F.: So if you know right from wrong and you know what's required to be rewarded in this life and in some eternal life, what are you doing wanting to discuss anything with me, seeking something but still not even being close to finding it? If you believe that your existence can be one reward after another if you do what is right, then go do right and enjoy rewards, now and forevermore.
Q.: No one’s always perfect. We all fall short…must seek to improve constantly. I’m here trying to improve myself.
F.: Then you have come to the wrong place. There is no “one” to improve and no “one” to fall short and no “one” to whom your “perfect vs. not perfect” duality applies. It should be obvious to you that the parents’ or guardians’ “good-bad” labels and the threats of punishment and the dangling carrots of reward were all about parental ego. I know one mother who would put her finger in the face of her three-year-old before going into the grocery store and through narrowed eyes and tightened lips that sent the unspoken message that “I can kill you if I want to,” the mother said instead, “Now don’t you dare do anything that embarrasses me in there. If you throw a fit, I’ll beat you within an inch of your life.” I still know that child, now in her twenties, and she’s still practicing repression, still refusing to show what she’s feeling, still burdened with a sense of hyper-vigilance regarding her behavior, and still refusing to face and reject what is resulting in discomfort. There is within her a slowly-brewing volcano. The pressure becomes intolerable at times, but still she has no release because that’s the way she was programmed: to repress her feelings and to avoid showing feelings and, eventually, to not feel at all. But, she never embarrassed her mother, so that makes her a “good” girl, right? And someday she won’t embarrass her domineering, super-critical husband whom she’ll marry, and the reason she’ll marry him is because he will seem “familiar” and “comfortable” since his cruel nature will appear “normal” to her.
Such is the type of programming that has become the standard after 5000-7000 years of the acceptance and transmission of dualistic concepts via the false ego-states assumed by parents. And those concepts were simply dreamed up by superstitious, ignorant, controlling men who wanted power over people, over their “minds,” and over their bodies. And such is the misery that results when parents or adults or spouses or employees or employers or neighbors or persons in traffic or any of the many other ego-states take their false identities to be real and when they take lies to be truth and when they take the bastardizing of the consciousness manifested “in children” to be “their proper parental duty” and “the right approach to take in raising children.” So they take them weekly to gatherings where the discussions focus on “what they should not do with their bodies” and on “how they must keep their ‘minds’ clean and pure.” Then some wonder why they become adults with neuroses and psychoses, why so many are miserable, why persons are obsessed with body and mind and personality, and why persons haven’t a clue about Who/What They Truly Are. If you would be free, look to the dualistic teachings that were dreamed up thousands of years ago by self-appointed medicine men, high priests, spiritual leaders, etc. See how others like them still exist nowadays and still believe that it is their job to make people “better” by focusing on their bodies and minds and trying to control their bodies and minds. Then, reject everything that has evolved out of their bogus teachings if you would be released from their maddening influence. Please enter the silence of contemplation.
Take as an example a “spouse” who thinks it’s dying and thinks it must take action to defend itself because its counterpart spouse is leaving. To suggest it’s just a role that is perceiving the attack, and that a person walking away is nothing close to a real attack, seems to be a nonsensical point to the spouse who thinks it’s dying. But that same person would think you truly insane if you stood on a long desert road in mid-afternoon, looked at a mirage, thought that the mirage could attack you, and thought that you needed to defend yourself from an assault by the mirage. He would know that you are truly out of touch with reality if you claim, “It was my mirage. I thought it would never leave me. I can’t believe it’s gone. We had such good times together, me and that mirage.” You’d probably be told that “Your memories are distortions of what you thought was real but your ‘relationship’ with the mirage was never at all the way that you had perceived it. What your ‘mind’ came up with regarding you and the mirage was pure fiction and total distortion. Things were never the way you perceived them…the way you thought they were. It was just a mirage.”
Also from yesterday’s post, which was clearly identified as a discussion of relative existence “stuff” that can lead to a lifetime of misery during the manifestation, another pointer was offered which has—in the past—annoyed personas to no end; namely; suggesting that their parents did not do a perfect, or at least a near-perfect job, of raising them. FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE is a book containing transcribed talks from the last sessions done face-to-face. One part not included in the book involved an exchange with a person who became upset over the suggestion that the teaching of dualities by parents sets their children up for misery and suffering since “dual-minded persons are unstable in all ways”:
Questioner: How can you say anything about my parents? You weren’t there, so you don’t have a clue what they were like. They did a wonderful job raising all of us.
F.: It need but be asked, “Did they avoid the inconsistency of using dualities during your upbringing? Because—if they did not—then understand that inconsistent parents are maddening. They literally drive their children mad. Did they never introduce even one maddening, dualistic concept to you, or did they often teach you dualistic concepts and in that process madden you? To be maddened is to be out of touch with reality, and your being out of touch with reality can be detected after listening to you speak a few words that reveal your dualistic thinking. You did claim that they were “wonderful.” That means that some other parents can be “horrible.” And that’s evidence of your dualistic, thinking “mind.” Next, did they tell you when you were “good”?
Q.: Of course. All good parents reinforce their kids when they behave. I do the same.
F.: So you had “good” parents and you were “good” since you got their reinforcement. But if they told you that you were “good” at times, then surely they must have told you at other times that you were “bad,” right?
Q.: No kids are perfect. Kids’ll be kids…parents reward the good behavior, punish the bad.
F.: Children would be children if they were allowed to be children. That is why they pass some days in that Child Ignorance stage where the peace really happens because they haven’t yet been programmed with such dualities as “good vs. bad.” And what always accompanies those dualities? Exactly what you mentioned: “reward vs. punishment,” both of which instill layers of fear and anxiety in children and their fears and anxieties will drive them throughout their entire existence if they don’t Realize. As adults, those same children are anxious to get approval and acceptance and reward and are also in fear of getting punishment. And parents don’t limit that to “this life.” You were taught the difference in “good” and “bad” and “right” and “wrong” and how you can “earn rewards” or “avoid punishments” not only in this life but for eternity as well. Right?
Q.: They took us to church. We learned right from wrong.
F.: So if you know right from wrong and you know what's required to be rewarded in this life and in some eternal life, what are you doing wanting to discuss anything with me, seeking something but still not even being close to finding it? If you believe that your existence can be one reward after another if you do what is right, then go do right and enjoy rewards, now and forevermore.
Q.: No one’s always perfect. We all fall short…must seek to improve constantly. I’m here trying to improve myself.
F.: Then you have come to the wrong place. There is no “one” to improve and no “one” to fall short and no “one” to whom your “perfect vs. not perfect” duality applies. It should be obvious to you that the parents’ or guardians’ “good-bad” labels and the threats of punishment and the dangling carrots of reward were all about parental ego. I know one mother who would put her finger in the face of her three-year-old before going into the grocery store and through narrowed eyes and tightened lips that sent the unspoken message that “I can kill you if I want to,” the mother said instead, “Now don’t you dare do anything that embarrasses me in there. If you throw a fit, I’ll beat you within an inch of your life.” I still know that child, now in her twenties, and she’s still practicing repression, still refusing to show what she’s feeling, still burdened with a sense of hyper-vigilance regarding her behavior, and still refusing to face and reject what is resulting in discomfort. There is within her a slowly-brewing volcano. The pressure becomes intolerable at times, but still she has no release because that’s the way she was programmed: to repress her feelings and to avoid showing feelings and, eventually, to not feel at all. But, she never embarrassed her mother, so that makes her a “good” girl, right? And someday she won’t embarrass her domineering, super-critical husband whom she’ll marry, and the reason she’ll marry him is because he will seem “familiar” and “comfortable” since his cruel nature will appear “normal” to her.
Such is the type of programming that has become the standard after 5000-7000 years of the acceptance and transmission of dualistic concepts via the false ego-states assumed by parents. And those concepts were simply dreamed up by superstitious, ignorant, controlling men who wanted power over people, over their “minds,” and over their bodies. And such is the misery that results when parents or adults or spouses or employees or employers or neighbors or persons in traffic or any of the many other ego-states take their false identities to be real and when they take lies to be truth and when they take the bastardizing of the consciousness manifested “in children” to be “their proper parental duty” and “the right approach to take in raising children.” So they take them weekly to gatherings where the discussions focus on “what they should not do with their bodies” and on “how they must keep their ‘minds’ clean and pure.” Then some wonder why they become adults with neuroses and psychoses, why so many are miserable, why persons are obsessed with body and mind and personality, and why persons haven’t a clue about Who/What They Truly Are. If you would be free, look to the dualistic teachings that were dreamed up thousands of years ago by self-appointed medicine men, high priests, spiritual leaders, etc. See how others like them still exist nowadays and still believe that it is their job to make people “better” by focusing on their bodies and minds and trying to control their bodies and minds. Then, reject everything that has evolved out of their bogus teachings if you would be released from their maddening influence. Please enter the silence of contemplation.
