Today's Considerations
This was offered in the previous post:
In the West, it is noted that all people exhibit all of the nine basic personality types to greater or lesser degrees. The key to a healthy life is balance, so it is claimed in the West, so the ideal is to be “well-rounded” and “balanced.”
In the West, it is noted that all people exhibit all of the nine basic personality types to greater or lesser degrees. The key to a healthy life is balance, so it is claimed in the West, so the ideal is to be “well-rounded” and “balanced.”
The point offered here with non-dual seekers who take the enneagram test and then enter into a discussion of what the results can reveal is this: So powerful are the personality styles that control people and lead to misery and suffering that, in Eastern teachings, a primary goal is to be free of personality influences completely.
Consider the approach in the West where the goal is not to be rid of personality identifications but is to develop a "good personality" and - among the few who seek to "improve" - to work to balance out "the positive" and "the negative" traits of personality and to try to "accent the positives."
In the U.S., 59% of all women killed annually are killed by their "husband" or "lover" or spouse" during the breakup of a relationship. What degree of those assumed identities which drive some men to murder would be okay?
Several years ago, there was a diagnosis here of cardiovascular problems with the elemental plant food body. How sane would it have been for the cardiologist and the pulmonologist to present a treatment plan with the intention of "working to balance out 'the positive' and 'the negative' traits of both a heart and a lung disease and to try to 'accent the positives' involved with my heart and lung issues?" How insane would it be were I to go along with such a plan?
In terms of the Ultimate Sickness, the similarity is this: the Sickness - as was the case with the plant food body here - is also marked especially by two illnesses / dis-eases: there is a major problem with the mind and there are major problems rooted in personality. Would it make any sense to try to "balance those out"? To try to find some "positives" which could be "accented"?
Or, as was the case here, must the blockages in the mind (like the blockages in the heart) be removed completely and (like the problems with the lungs which resulted from years of exposure to toxic chemicals such as the primer and cement used to make solvent welds with PVC pipe) be addressed completely?
Maharaj noted the mind-based "insanity" associated with the Ultimate Sickness. How much insanity - including belief in false identities - would be okay? Do you see how the Western approach ultimately does nothing to address the roots of the Ultimate Sickness?
Yet there is also an irony - a "Catch-22" of sorts - involved with the Eastern plan of being freed from all personality identifications, an irony which Maharaj discussed. More on that in the next post.
To be continued. Consider the approach in the West where the goal is not to be rid of personality identifications but is to develop a "good personality" and - among the few who seek to "improve" - to work to balance out "the positive" and "the negative" traits of personality and to try to "accent the positives."
In the U.S., 59% of all women killed annually are killed by their "husband" or "lover" or spouse" during the breakup of a relationship. What degree of those assumed identities which drive some men to murder would be okay?
Several years ago, there was a diagnosis here of cardiovascular problems with the elemental plant food body. How sane would it have been for the cardiologist and the pulmonologist to present a treatment plan with the intention of "working to balance out 'the positive' and 'the negative' traits of both a heart and a lung disease and to try to 'accent the positives' involved with my heart and lung issues?" How insane would it be were I to go along with such a plan?
In terms of the Ultimate Sickness, the similarity is this: the Sickness - as was the case with the plant food body here - is also marked especially by two illnesses / dis-eases: there is a major problem with the mind and there are major problems rooted in personality. Would it make any sense to try to "balance those out"? To try to find some "positives" which could be "accented"?
Or, as was the case here, must the blockages in the mind (like the blockages in the heart) be removed completely and (like the problems with the lungs which resulted from years of exposure to toxic chemicals such as the primer and cement used to make solvent welds with PVC pipe) be addressed completely?
Maharaj noted the mind-based "insanity" associated with the Ultimate Sickness. How much insanity - including belief in false identities - would be okay? Do you see how the Western approach ultimately does nothing to address the roots of the Ultimate Sickness?
Yet there is also an irony - a "Catch-22" of sorts - involved with the Eastern plan of being freed from all personality identifications, an irony which Maharaj discussed. More on that in the next post.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
[NOTE: The four most recent posts follow. You may access all of the posts in this series and in the previous series and several thousand other posts as well by clicking on the links in the "Recent Posts and Archives" section.]
