PLEASE NOTE: During satsangas over the years, concerns have routinely been raised during Novembers and Decembers and Januarys regarding the misery or pain or suffering that intensifies during what some call “The Holiday Season.” Those kinds of topical questions have always been addressed because the earliest postings in June of 2005 suggested that application of the Advaita teachings during the relative existence is certainly a possibility. Last year, the questions were not addressed until the end of December, but the intensification has already begun again this year (as revealed in e-mails being received about that topic); therefore, portions of the comments offered last year will be presented again, along with some additional considerations. The following was received last year and is an almost exact duplicate of several received recently:
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.: Although there is some evidence to suggest that Seasonal Affective Disorder can manifest during periods of restricted light, there is no such thing as “holiday unhappiness.” What persons think is making them unhappy is not what is making them unhappy at all. To be free of the unhappiness that you’re perceiving, consider the fact that weeds are not removed from a garden by cutting their tops. They must be extracted at the root. Similarly, to be happy, one must see what is really at the root of unhappiness in order to be rid of it at its source. No effort is being made to minimize what those who have written are feeling, but hearing more of your culture’s hackneyed clichés and banal euphemisms will never truly alleviate, once and for all, your misery around this relative existence issue. So, here is your first consideration:
What if whatever is troubling you has nothing to do with holidays or with what people have done or said or with who is in your life or with who is not in your life? What if the source of your unhappiness has more to do with what you are unaware of than what you think you’re aware of? What if, in fact, your unhappiness is rooted in one or more of several specific factors that make persons unhappy, factors that have nothing to do with "others," with the day of the week, with the time of year, with who is with whom, with who is not with whom, with where anyone is sleeping, or with what “things” have been taken away? What if the root of the misery involves the warped consciousness that subsequently warps the way in which the relative existence is experienced by personas?
The factors that perpetuate unhappiness are rooted in the emotional intoxication that results from programming, conditioning, enculturation, and language as well as from the propensity that personas have for imitation.
FACTOR #1: PREFERRING DECEPTION
Those trapped in their personas prefer being deceived rather than facing facts that are contrary to the agendas of their false identities. If you want to know why marriages failed, don’t look at the last days. Look at the first days and find why the parties really married (because even then hidden agendas were at play). Next, look at events that happened long before the divorce, because problems were manifesting long before they finally registered. Why? Because self-deception was at work. For the writer above as well as for those “former husbands” who wrote recently, the ego-state of “husband” would be happier if “the ex” were still with you and deceiving you, telling you that she loves even when you know that she does not. The Actualized Self tolerates no lies, but the false self is sustained by false words and false beliefs. Find the root of your preference for being deceived and for your aversion to knowing the truth. WHO wants to keep living the lie?
FACTOR #2: PREFERRING DISTORTED PERCEPTIONS
The word “holidays” is a compression of the original term “holy days.” The word “holy” originally meant “different from.” “Different from” is a concept of duality, and belief in dualities always results in a sense of separation. In the 12 July 2006 posting, the following pointer was offered:
Those who use the word [holy] still refer to its original meaning [of "different from"] because, even as they speak of “unity,” their beliefs are rooted in the concepts of “separate,” “better than,” and “different from others”—all dualistic concepts. “Holy” land is different from other land? Any geologist can prove that’s a lie, so the perceived difference is in “the mind” only, and the “mind” is only given credibility by the contaminated consciousness.
But look at the conflicts that have been fought for two thousand years by those persons who all want control over land that they think is "holy." And look at the internal conflicts that you are facing as a result of mentally assigning the label "most holy" or "different" to a certain day. That distorted perception is one of the roots of your misery.
Another distorted perception is revealed in comments such as these two heard recently: (1) “Before my husband died, this was the best time of the year. Since, it’s become the worst,” and (2) “We loved the holidays until our son was killed ten years ago by a drunk driver. Now, we hate these days and just struggle to try to survive every year.” The extremes of the duality of “worst” and “best” is a lie. Things were seldom as “good” as recorded in memories and the present is never as “bad” as current perceptions. The extremes of “love” and “hate” are also dualistic, mental traps, and those persons whose language is steeped in duality will experience the extremes of emotional intoxication that their language constantly affirms and re-affirms.
In one regard, though, the way that persons behave during the season does reveal a "holy" [i.e., "different"] set of relative existence experiences by personas: in the U.S., a large percentage of all suicides each year occur around the holidays. Anxiety and conflict are heightened as persons are driven even more than usual by the desires and fears of their ego-states. The plot of the play that they’re acting in is marked by an increase in physical demands and an increase in financial stressors as well. That is all rooted in the distorted perception that false identities are real. Once assumed to be real, those ego-states require that certain specific and traditional actions be repeated every year in order for the ego-states to experience the sense of continuity that all ego-states desire (and fear losing). And all of that is rooted in the delusions and misperceptions of the dualistic belief in separation which convinces persons that certain days are different from, and better than, other days or weeks or seasons. Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be continued]
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.: Although there is some evidence to suggest that Seasonal Affective Disorder can manifest during periods of restricted light, there is no such thing as “holiday unhappiness.” What persons think is making them unhappy is not what is making them unhappy at all. To be free of the unhappiness that you’re perceiving, consider the fact that weeds are not removed from a garden by cutting their tops. They must be extracted at the root. Similarly, to be happy, one must see what is really at the root of unhappiness in order to be rid of it at its source. No effort is being made to minimize what those who have written are feeling, but hearing more of your culture’s hackneyed clichés and banal euphemisms will never truly alleviate, once and for all, your misery around this relative existence issue. So, here is your first consideration:
What if whatever is troubling you has nothing to do with holidays or with what people have done or said or with who is in your life or with who is not in your life? What if the source of your unhappiness has more to do with what you are unaware of than what you think you’re aware of? What if, in fact, your unhappiness is rooted in one or more of several specific factors that make persons unhappy, factors that have nothing to do with "others," with the day of the week, with the time of year, with who is with whom, with who is not with whom, with where anyone is sleeping, or with what “things” have been taken away? What if the root of the misery involves the warped consciousness that subsequently warps the way in which the relative existence is experienced by personas?
The factors that perpetuate unhappiness are rooted in the emotional intoxication that results from programming, conditioning, enculturation, and language as well as from the propensity that personas have for imitation.
FACTOR #1: PREFERRING DECEPTION
Those trapped in their personas prefer being deceived rather than facing facts that are contrary to the agendas of their false identities. If you want to know why marriages failed, don’t look at the last days. Look at the first days and find why the parties really married (because even then hidden agendas were at play). Next, look at events that happened long before the divorce, because problems were manifesting long before they finally registered. Why? Because self-deception was at work. For the writer above as well as for those “former husbands” who wrote recently, the ego-state of “husband” would be happier if “the ex” were still with you and deceiving you, telling you that she loves even when you know that she does not. The Actualized Self tolerates no lies, but the false self is sustained by false words and false beliefs. Find the root of your preference for being deceived and for your aversion to knowing the truth. WHO wants to keep living the lie?
FACTOR #2: PREFERRING DISTORTED PERCEPTIONS
The word “holidays” is a compression of the original term “holy days.” The word “holy” originally meant “different from.” “Different from” is a concept of duality, and belief in dualities always results in a sense of separation. In the 12 July 2006 posting, the following pointer was offered:
Those who use the word [holy] still refer to its original meaning [of "different from"] because, even as they speak of “unity,” their beliefs are rooted in the concepts of “separate,” “better than,” and “different from others”—all dualistic concepts. “Holy” land is different from other land? Any geologist can prove that’s a lie, so the perceived difference is in “the mind” only, and the “mind” is only given credibility by the contaminated consciousness.
But look at the conflicts that have been fought for two thousand years by those persons who all want control over land that they think is "holy." And look at the internal conflicts that you are facing as a result of mentally assigning the label "most holy" or "different" to a certain day. That distorted perception is one of the roots of your misery.
Another distorted perception is revealed in comments such as these two heard recently: (1) “Before my husband died, this was the best time of the year. Since, it’s become the worst,” and (2) “We loved the holidays until our son was killed ten years ago by a drunk driver. Now, we hate these days and just struggle to try to survive every year.” The extremes of the duality of “worst” and “best” is a lie. Things were seldom as “good” as recorded in memories and the present is never as “bad” as current perceptions. The extremes of “love” and “hate” are also dualistic, mental traps, and those persons whose language is steeped in duality will experience the extremes of emotional intoxication that their language constantly affirms and re-affirms.
In one regard, though, the way that persons behave during the season does reveal a "holy" [i.e., "different"] set of relative existence experiences by personas: in the U.S., a large percentage of all suicides each year occur around the holidays. Anxiety and conflict are heightened as persons are driven even more than usual by the desires and fears of their ego-states. The plot of the play that they’re acting in is marked by an increase in physical demands and an increase in financial stressors as well. That is all rooted in the distorted perception that false identities are real. Once assumed to be real, those ego-states require that certain specific and traditional actions be repeated every year in order for the ego-states to experience the sense of continuity that all ego-states desire (and fear losing). And all of that is rooted in the delusions and misperceptions of the dualistic belief in separation which convinces persons that certain days are different from, and better than, other days or weeks or seasons. Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be continued]
