FROM A SITE VISITOR: Do you think that the realized should be able to tolerate any kind of environment or any kind of people? It sounds like you are saying that. I’ve been reading your writings for several months and lately, there are people I spent a lot of time with before but now I’m not spending time with them at all. I’m not realized, but even if I were, I feel certain that there are some people I just wouldn’t want to be around. Art
F.: Some like Art talk of moving away from some people he “wouldn’t want to be around.” Others stay with people they don’t really want to be around because they are trapped in roles which they have assumed and which they want to continue playing. All roles require a co-dependent counterpart. That dependency displaces freedom, and a lack of freedom displaces happiness. The Advaita Teachings have made clear for centuries that peace and happiness cannot co-exist with false identities and role-playing.
The pointer has been offered that many persons stay around those they don’t really want to be around because of hidden agendas, attachments, laziness, fears, desires, or a sense of entitlement. Case in point was “A,” discussed yesterday, who occasionally wants her husband to die but stays with him for the money and the lifestyle. She even mentions occasionally that she “does loves him…on some level” to minimize the sense that she is really just selling herself.
Are you seeing, Art, that the solution to all these relative existence “relationship problems” lies neither in (a) trying to run away from or in (b) trying to seek out and use? [Solutions are discussed in detail in CASTING LIGHT ON THE DARK SIDE OF RELATIONSHIPS.]
Today’s post will cover the pointer that [attachments and agendas] can generate acceptance of misery if in denial:
Case “B”:
Regarding, acceptance of misery if in denial
A woman recently complained about “being powerless” to a counselor who shares Advaita pointers during some of her psychotherapy sessions. The woman is frustrated that she "feels powerless" because she doesn’t have the money to provide “the lifestyle that she has always dreamed of.”
The counselor suggested, “You are using the word ‘powerless’ with a negative connotation and the self-fulfilling prophesy is preventing you from moving forth and caring for yourself. To move away from that belief, give me a statement that has a positive connotation and that would be the exact opposite of ‘I am powerless’.”
After extended thinking, the woman answered: “I am being taken care of.” The counselor, stunned for a moment, finally asked, “Did it not occur to you to see that you can ‘empower’ yourself, relatively speaking, if you acquire some salable skill and find employment, meet your own needs, pay your own bills, and become independent?
“I mean, didn’t at least some notion such as, ‘I can become empowered and take care of myself’ not come into consciousness?” The women did not speak, but the look she gave to the counselor spoke volumes, namely, “How are you supposed to help me if you’re going to come up with things that crazy?”
Again, here is a case in which a person is not realizing that a hidden agenda (“to be taken care of”) is leaving her trapped in a relative state of being dependent and needy, in search of someone to take care of her, not finding that person, and therefore suffering misery of a level that drove her to seek counseling. Her denial is that (1) she’s too lazy to get a job and that (2) her real belief is that she is entitled to have some other human take care of her.
As is the case with all who have not Realized, their thoughts and words evidence the degree to which the consciousness has been distorted and the degree to which persons are imprisoned by their desires and fears.
What deeds/actions generally follow such thinking as exhibited in Case “B”? With the “mind”-set currently being exhibited, the most likely scenario will be the forming of an attachment to one who can take care of her, the playing out of a hidden agenda, and eventual entrapment in a self-serving “relationship.” That has been her previous pattern and may well continue to be her pattern for the entire manifestation.
The only freedom that can happen during the manifestation of the consciousness comes when one is freed of thoughts by eliminating belief in the content of the “mind”; when one is freed of the need to speak words constantly…to talk and talk and talk; and in the absence of being driven to go and do and zoom as a result of sleepwalking through the relative existence and being driven by distorted thoughts and warped beliefs.
Again, the post-Realization existence is marked by an absence of the “chatter of a thousand monkeys” that is generated from the “mind” of the non-Realized. It is marked by a movement toward the silence; it is marked by happenings that only happen spontaneously and automatically as a result of being awake, aware, and conscious and as a result of not being driven by hidden agendas or attachments or fears or desires.
Were Case “B” to Realize, she would understand that (1) whatever gives you pleasure will eventually give you pain and that (2) whatever gives you the most pleasure will eventually give you the most pain. (Consider that pointer in terms of your own failed relations, in regards to anything used in excess, or in regards to habits that eventually backfired on you.)
Were “B” to Realize, she would be willing to settle for less rather than seek for more, and she would find a means by which her relative needs for food and clothing and shelter could be met independently rather than by subjecting herself to the entrapment by living in a state of dependence on another.
In "Part Six" of this series, Case “C” will provide an example of the third pointer in this series. In Case “C,” visitors will see a man who has distorted his desire to gain power and his desire to have someone meet his financial and sexual needs into what he terms “love.” Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
RELATED TO TODAY’S TOPIC:
NEW ADVAITA PACKAGES AVAILABLE AT REDUCED RATES:
The Entire Advaita Collection (all twelve items in all three of the packages below): $187.00 + S&H
“The Advaitin Beginner’s Package”: The Meditation CD, two Meditation Guides, Bullshit, and Spiritual Sobriety $62.00 + S&H
“The Mid-Level Seeker’s Package”: Peace of Mind, Liberation, What Happens When I Die? and The Essence of the Teachings $54.00 + S&H
“The Advanced Advaitin Seeker’s Package”: From the I to the Absolute, Consciousness/Awareness, and From the Absolute to the Nothingness $45.00 + S&H
To order, visit http://floydhenderson.com/order.htm .
YES, WE SHIP INTERNATIONALLY. New rates by the USPS went into effect in May 2007. You may visit http://ircalc.usps.gov/ to calculate rates and view options. (Select your country, then in the “weight” box, estimate 1 pound per each book ordered.) Add $5 to cover package preparation, the assistant's trip to and from the PO, and the time for completion of international shipping forms.
