FROM A SITE VISITOR: [This visitor has written frequently regarding his entrapment at the body identification level and his fear of cancer.] Not long ago you talked about the impact statements can have on people. Recurring statements or even just a one time statement. As you know, I've had an extreme worry of cancer. Irrational. I very well remember my grandmother being a bit of a hypochondriac and, in particular, always talking about getting cancer. My wife told me that my mother told her that when I was very young that my grandmother would talk to me often and I would listen intently about cancer. I had totally forgotten that as I was very young. The thing about statements is that in an instant they can impact your forever but you can't stop them in an instant.
F.: Yes. While vasanas (residual impressions) can provide a glimpse of the Original Understanding that lingers within, some teachers have long advised students to recognize and be free of the relative effects of samskaras—those mental impressions that are rooted in lies and that drive thoughts, words, and deeds. It is your memory of the fear-inducing content of those early conversations, along with your desire for body continuity and your fear of a lack of continuity, that have been the source of much of your mental suffering and emotional intoxication.
Samakaras (sans = together + kara = action) drive deeds when those false memories (or memories of the excessive talk from your grandmother) come together in a space/body that had the ability to take actions or perform deeds. Driven by a “mind” that was warped by such excessive fear-mongering, you (the consciousness) were warped by someone who was so absorbed in self that she assumed that her truth would be everyone's truth.
It would be like telling a relative, “You're going to get colon cancer and diabetes—guaranteed—just wait and see. No exceptions. I got 'em so you’re going to get 'em.” It is one thing to make offspring aware of any familial history with specific hereditary health issues; it is another to speak of it so often that children become traumatized. Yet such is the power of conditioning. Why not try telling the consciousness that it is the consciousness that is in fear, and not You? Why not return to step one and begin again the process of discarding body identification?
Another example of the long-lasting effects of statements from a grandmother (statements which programmed and conditioned a child) was provided by a woman who was advised by an associate to come for satsang. She arrived and soon shared her first lie: that she was “looking for change and peace.”
She had spent her first seventeen years on a south Louisiana rice farm. Her parents had followed the orders of their priest and pope and had bred as instructed: without restraint. As a result, the woman had eleven siblings living in a home with her, her mother, her father, and her grandmother, bringing to fifteen the total number of people living in a three-bedroom home.
She explained that the front porch and the back porch were eventually enclosed and that her eleven brothers and sisters slept in bunk beds either in one bedroom or in the two makeshift, porch rooms. With such crowded conditions, she felt "fortunate" that she was “her grandmother’s favorite” and was thus allowed to share a bed and a bedroom with that woman for fifteen years.
When the woman first came for satsang, she was 45 years old and miserable behind what she called “more than twenty-five years of horrible relationships with men.” More than anything, she wanted to know “what was wrong with men nowadays…why they were not raised to behave properly.”
As she shared the history of her relationships, it became obvious she had adopted the persona of her grandmother who had, in turn, assumed the identity of "An 80-Year-Old Occidental Prude." Men were quite confused over the years by her “runway model looks” but her octogenarian thinking and conduct. When asked to describe the events that precipitated the end of her most recent failed relationship, she explained:
Okay, well with that one, he greeted me properly at the door and gave me a flower. All seemed like it was going to go well. Then, as we approached the car, he unlocked the doors with his remote, got in on his side of the car, and opened my door from inside. I turned and started back to my condo. When he got out of the car and asked if I had forgotten something, I told him that he had forgotten something, namely, that a gentlemen walks a lady to her side of the car and opens her door from the outside before getting into the car.
She went on to describe other relationships that had ended as quickly when she slapped some men for making moves that did not reinforce her “Above all, I am a lady” self-image. Further investigation of what she called “wonderful lessons learned during the years that grandmother shared her room and her wisdom” uncovered the primary messages that contributed to a child’s programming and an adult’s misery:
“Always make sure that men treat you like a lady.” “You must demand that men treat you properly—they will not do it by choice.” “If a man asks you to do anything that is not lady-like, slap him and walk away.” When asked to appraise objectively how her grandmother’s advice was working for her in her relative existence, she defended the woman’s “wisdom” to the end.
After the consideration was offered that the problems in her relative relations were not being caused as much by men as they were being caused by her having adopted the phony self-image of "Super Lady" and by the grandmother that she had internalized, she left the way she arrived: angry. It seemed likely that the only reason she paused for a few seconds on her way to the door was to decide if she should come back long enough to slap the offending mouth.
Have you paused long enough to look at self and to determine if there are some basic but inane beliefs that are driving you through your relative existence? The powerful influence of a few nonsensical comments or pieces of advice or insane words stored as memories can remove from persons any ability at all to make choices.
Instead, their thoughts, words and deeds are being controlled by inane statements that have become components of a “mind”—that repository of nonsense and lies and dogma and concepts that often renders persons helpless and hopeless and miserable.
Advaita invites you to cast aside all of the ideas and emotions and attitudes that were pumped into you as a child. Question it all. See that it was all just so much nonsense. Then, the invitation is to discard it all and follow the seven-step “path” to freedom. Please enter the silence of contemplation.
READINGS RELATED TO TODAY’S POSTING:
Click CASTING LIGHT ON THE DARK SIDE OF RELATIONSHIPS
Click FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE (A Seven-Step Journey to Reality)
F.: Yes. While vasanas (residual impressions) can provide a glimpse of the Original Understanding that lingers within, some teachers have long advised students to recognize and be free of the relative effects of samskaras—those mental impressions that are rooted in lies and that drive thoughts, words, and deeds. It is your memory of the fear-inducing content of those early conversations, along with your desire for body continuity and your fear of a lack of continuity, that have been the source of much of your mental suffering and emotional intoxication.
Samakaras (sans = together + kara = action) drive deeds when those false memories (or memories of the excessive talk from your grandmother) come together in a space/body that had the ability to take actions or perform deeds. Driven by a “mind” that was warped by such excessive fear-mongering, you (the consciousness) were warped by someone who was so absorbed in self that she assumed that her truth would be everyone's truth.
It would be like telling a relative, “You're going to get colon cancer and diabetes—guaranteed—just wait and see. No exceptions. I got 'em so you’re going to get 'em.” It is one thing to make offspring aware of any familial history with specific hereditary health issues; it is another to speak of it so often that children become traumatized. Yet such is the power of conditioning. Why not try telling the consciousness that it is the consciousness that is in fear, and not You? Why not return to step one and begin again the process of discarding body identification?
Another example of the long-lasting effects of statements from a grandmother (statements which programmed and conditioned a child) was provided by a woman who was advised by an associate to come for satsang. She arrived and soon shared her first lie: that she was “looking for change and peace.”
She had spent her first seventeen years on a south Louisiana rice farm. Her parents had followed the orders of their priest and pope and had bred as instructed: without restraint. As a result, the woman had eleven siblings living in a home with her, her mother, her father, and her grandmother, bringing to fifteen the total number of people living in a three-bedroom home.
She explained that the front porch and the back porch were eventually enclosed and that her eleven brothers and sisters slept in bunk beds either in one bedroom or in the two makeshift, porch rooms. With such crowded conditions, she felt "fortunate" that she was “her grandmother’s favorite” and was thus allowed to share a bed and a bedroom with that woman for fifteen years.
When the woman first came for satsang, she was 45 years old and miserable behind what she called “more than twenty-five years of horrible relationships with men.” More than anything, she wanted to know “what was wrong with men nowadays…why they were not raised to behave properly.”
As she shared the history of her relationships, it became obvious she had adopted the persona of her grandmother who had, in turn, assumed the identity of "An 80-Year-Old Occidental Prude." Men were quite confused over the years by her “runway model looks” but her octogenarian thinking and conduct. When asked to describe the events that precipitated the end of her most recent failed relationship, she explained:
Okay, well with that one, he greeted me properly at the door and gave me a flower. All seemed like it was going to go well. Then, as we approached the car, he unlocked the doors with his remote, got in on his side of the car, and opened my door from inside. I turned and started back to my condo. When he got out of the car and asked if I had forgotten something, I told him that he had forgotten something, namely, that a gentlemen walks a lady to her side of the car and opens her door from the outside before getting into the car.
She went on to describe other relationships that had ended as quickly when she slapped some men for making moves that did not reinforce her “Above all, I am a lady” self-image. Further investigation of what she called “wonderful lessons learned during the years that grandmother shared her room and her wisdom” uncovered the primary messages that contributed to a child’s programming and an adult’s misery:
“Always make sure that men treat you like a lady.” “You must demand that men treat you properly—they will not do it by choice.” “If a man asks you to do anything that is not lady-like, slap him and walk away.” When asked to appraise objectively how her grandmother’s advice was working for her in her relative existence, she defended the woman’s “wisdom” to the end.
After the consideration was offered that the problems in her relative relations were not being caused as much by men as they were being caused by her having adopted the phony self-image of "Super Lady" and by the grandmother that she had internalized, she left the way she arrived: angry. It seemed likely that the only reason she paused for a few seconds on her way to the door was to decide if she should come back long enough to slap the offending mouth.
Have you paused long enough to look at self and to determine if there are some basic but inane beliefs that are driving you through your relative existence? The powerful influence of a few nonsensical comments or pieces of advice or insane words stored as memories can remove from persons any ability at all to make choices.
Instead, their thoughts, words and deeds are being controlled by inane statements that have become components of a “mind”—that repository of nonsense and lies and dogma and concepts that often renders persons helpless and hopeless and miserable.
Advaita invites you to cast aside all of the ideas and emotions and attitudes that were pumped into you as a child. Question it all. See that it was all just so much nonsense. Then, the invitation is to discard it all and follow the seven-step “path” to freedom. Please enter the silence of contemplation.
READINGS RELATED TO TODAY’S POSTING:
