From a site visitor: I have tested as a type four personality with a strong helper component. I bought your book LIBERATION to understand myself even better, but instead you attacked me and those like me who choose to try to help people and make the world a better place. What is your problem with people helping people? What do you think is wrong with helping?
F.: During satsanga, it is often asked after offering a pointer, “Now, what did you hear?” That component was added after years of hearing at the end of sessions, “I really agreed with you when you said…,” followed by something that was not said at all. Clarification is often required, and never any more than in your case, seemingly. So the concise version is this:
1. If you are a type four, there is no “strong helper component.” There is, instead, an indication that you have disintegrated from anything that persons might call “the assets of a Four” into what persons might call “the liabilities of a Two.” For a Four to behave as a Two shows evidence of the presence of that which causes disintegration: either high stress or high piety accompanied by spiritual arrogance. Research shows that one or both of those always precede disintegration of the psyche.
2. It is not “yourself” that you need to “understand better.” The invitation is to see that you are not yourself—that you are not what you take yourself to be—and then to find That Which You Truly Are. The synopsis of the book LIBERATION should have made clear that the intent of the work is less to help you understand personality and more to free you of the effects of personality.
F.: During satsanga, it is often asked after offering a pointer, “Now, what did you hear?” That component was added after years of hearing at the end of sessions, “I really agreed with you when you said…,” followed by something that was not said at all. Clarification is often required, and never any more than in your case, seemingly. So the concise version is this:
1. If you are a type four, there is no “strong helper component.” There is, instead, an indication that you have disintegrated from anything that persons might call “the assets of a Four” into what persons might call “the liabilities of a Two.” For a Four to behave as a Two shows evidence of the presence of that which causes disintegration: either high stress or high piety accompanied by spiritual arrogance. Research shows that one or both of those always precede disintegration of the psyche.
2. It is not “yourself” that you need to “understand better.” The invitation is to see that you are not yourself—that you are not what you take yourself to be—and then to find That Which You Truly Are. The synopsis of the book LIBERATION should have made clear that the intent of the work is less to help you understand personality and more to free you of the effects of personality.
3. How many personalities do you think are beneficial? To abide as even one persona is troublesome enough—relatively speaking—but to be trapped in multiple personalities is far more troublesome...relatively speaking.
4. The fact that "you" believe that there is a "you" who was attacked and that there is a “me” doing the attacking shows that you have much more to understand in regards to the Advaita Teachings.
5. You are not “choosing” to do anything when you are driven to behave as a type you are not (in this case, a type two helper).
6. There is no world, so there certainly is not any possibility of your making it better. Organized religions with a history of trillions of members and trillions of trillions of dollars have claimed that to be their goal, but after thousands of years in which to accomplish their goal, they haven’t changed anything for "the better." But your ego is telling you that the world is real, that it is "bad," and that you are going to play a key role in making it "good." So it is, when the warping of the consciousness results in belief in such dualities.
7. The “problem with helping people” is your belief that you know what people need and can provide it. An educated man who was living on the streets of Houston explained that his drug use deprived him of the motivation to find employment, to work, to earn a way to pay for his shelter and food, and to become independent—not just from drugs but from his Dependent Personality Disorder that drove him to depend on others to meet his needs. He spoke of the thousands of dollars collected during his years on the street, money that was given by "well-meaning" persons who thought they were helping him by dropping money into his cup. He explained that what they thought was their “helping” was really their “harming” since it allowed him to continue to avoid employment and to continue his drug use.
The intent is not to open a discussion of societal ills but to offer one specific example where persons who had adopted the role of “helper” did not have a clue about what that particular individual “needed” to shift him beyond his drug dependency and his dependency on “helpers.”
8. As for "What do you think is wrong with helping?" Nothing. If so-called “helping” happens, it happens. If it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t. The "problem," relatively speaking, is when persons are trapped in personality, when they disintegrate into another personality type, when they reinforce dependency, when they reinforce co-dependency, when they reinforce Multiple Personality Disorder, when they encourage the assumption of—and belief in—false identifies, and when they encourage persons to detach from reality.
As an example, many among the current generation of dependent and co-dependent young adults now live with mom and/or dad. Those parents believe that they are “helping” their children by encouraging something so unnatural. It has been pointed out that if one is truly Realized, he lives in the style of the deer in many ways. The doe feeds the fawn for a short time. The buck is there to protect, if need be. Soon, however, the fawn must meet its own needs for food and shelter. That is natural, and nisarga yoga is the method that guides persons beyond body-mind-personality identification, beyond dependency and co-dependency, and to a means of living a natural, AS IF existence.
Grown deer does not depend on a “mother” or “father” to provide food. They find their own food or they starve. They do not wait for a “father” or “mother” to find shelter or to build a bed of straw for sleep. The Realized live in a natural fashion in all ways. To live in a supernatural fashion (as “The Religious One” or “The Spiritual Giant”) is most unnatural. Similarly, it is unnatural to live with any dependency or to assume any identity or to seek out helpers who are willing to care for an adult as if he/she were a child. Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
THE FEATURED ITEM FOR THIS WEEK’S SALE IS THE DAILY MEDITATION GUIDE II (The two guides are self-contained and can be read in either order. Each provides six months of readings and considerations. 15% off the price of Meditation Guide II through July 1st.)
Click MEDITATION GUIDE II
WORKING ON BEING FREE OF MIND AND PERSONALITY IDENTIFICATION?Click LIBERATION
THE FEATURED ITEM FOR THIS WEEK’S SALE IS THE DAILY MEDITATION GUIDE II (The two guides are self-contained and can be read in either order. Each provides six months of readings and considerations. 15% off the price of Meditation Guide II through July 1st.)
WORKING ON BEING FREE OF MIND AND PERSONALITY IDENTIFICATION?
