TODAY’S CONSIDERATIONS
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Those that have followed the postings here over the years - or who have read the book What a Cherokee Grandmother Passed On to a Grandson -
know that there were two diametrically opposite environments in which nine of the first fourteen years of "floyd's" relative existence took place:
Nearly four months of each year (including summers and school holidays) were spent with a Cherokee Grandmother / Medicine woman living in her cabin in the piney woods of East Texas; two-thirds of the year were spent in an inner city hovel.
In the city environment - dominated by gangs on the one hand and religious fanatics on the other - I was subjected to the most warped programming and conditioning and domestication and acculturation and brainwashing and indoctrination imaginable. My elemental plant food body was fed toxic foods - usually canned meats containing more fat and additives than beef and canned, processed vegetables containing more unidentifiable ingredients than actual vegetables.
In the remote environment of Grandmother's small cabin and huge garden and surrounding forest, I was fed a steady diet of organic, all-natural vegetables and . . . verities. The effect of the organic, all-natural vegetables was to de-tox the body; the intent of the verities was to try to de-tox the mind.
The non-dual teachings remind all that the body is merely a space formed when elements are cycling, coming together and coming apart, while the space provides "housing" for the temporarily-manifested conscious-energy. Within that body is a brain, also made of elements. Within the brain, a toxic section forms post-programming and conditioning and domestication and acculturation and brainwashing and indoctrination. It is called "a mind."
As for the toxic body, it is made toxic as a result of (1) the bastardization of the planet's food supply and (2) the fact that most persons do not know that there are three metabolic body types and that only about 1/3 of them should be adhering to a vegetables-only plan while another third should be following a protein plan while only the final third can function properly on a combination food plan. An entirely different relative existence could unfold for those who shift to the proper food plan for their specific type of elemental plant food body.
As for the toxic mind, made toxic by having been filled with nonsense and with what Maharaj identified as the root sources and symptoms of the Ultimate Sickness ("ignorance, stupidity, and insanity"), an entirely different relative existence could unfold for those who seek and find the kind of verities which "a realized Cherokee Grandmother" served up in her tiny, East Texas cabin.
Here, no fresh all-natural, organic vegetables are served to guests, but some old verities are offered for consideration in an effort to provide some tools which might be used to de-tox the part of the brain called "the mind." The mind differs not at all from the kind of cancer which was once growing inside the body here: Neither cancer nor a mind can be "made better," "improved," "made well," or "healed." Both call for removal . . . destruction . . . complete elimination. How?
By understanding that the ideas, concepts / conceptions, notions, perceptions/ misperceptions, thoughts, impressions, theories, and views accumulated therein amount to one thing - beliefs. To be free of the mind, one need but abandon all of the beliefs which have been stored therein after seeing that no beliefs in anyone's mind are their own beliefs but are all "others' beliefs" . . . the beliefs of ancestors, grandparents, parents, etc. which have been passed down and accepted in the most childish and ignorant manner possible, namely, unquestioningly. What is the result of that unquestioned acceptance of "their" beliefs?
A mental pandemic - a worldwide outbreak of the Ultimate Sickness - which has led to the pervasiveness of chaos and instability and insanity and to the pervasiveness of cons who make false claims about having the proper treatment for the Sickness, whether their treatment or "cure" involves dogma / praying away what ails you; spiritual exercises; cult following; following certain food laws; step work; turning your problems or sickness over to some Power;
kneeling; humming; chanting; eating what is supposedly the body of some savior while also drinking what is supposedly his blood (that is, practicing culturally-and-religiously-approved cannibalism and vampirism); reading best sellers; following the orders or advice of one or more Big Name Teachers or gurus or life coaches; taking a daily 14-pill regimen of psychotropic meds dispensed by psychiatrists, ad infinitum.
While the indication for many includes professional mental healthcare to address psychological issues, there are some cases of the Ultimate Sickness which can be treated effectively by the non-dual understanding. Often, the variable is the degree to which one has already disintegrated psychically.
Hence, this series is offering some considerations regarding what the non-dual understanding can and cannot do, so to continue with excerpts from the book Instability / Insanity: What the Advaita Teachings Can (and Cannot Address):
INSTABILITY / INSANITY Involving Psychic Disintegration and the Accumulation Connection
It has been shown that the root of much that persons find problematic in their efforts to navigate the relative existence is this: their programmers and conditioners and domesticators and acculturators overlaid the relative on Reality.
In that process, any chance to see Reality was foiled and a propensity to take "the not real" as the Real was established; the invitation here is to follow the process offered which can, in some cases, reverse and un-do what those persons did to you. That can allow you - post-realization - to overlay Reality upon the relative.
This series is offering:
1. a discussion of the potential physical, mental and emotional impediments to being stable and peaceful and
2. a recognition of what the Advaita teachings can address, as well as what they cannot address, while
3. offering for consideration information on some of the obstacles which block the seeing of Truth, which contribute to the Ultimate Sickness that has infected almost all persons on the planet, and which result in persons being unstable.
That said, the next topic for discussion is:
INSTABILITY / INSANITY INDUCED BY A FAILURE TO PSYCHICALLY INTEGRATE AND INSTEAD THE TENDENCY TO PSYCHICALLY DISINTEGRATE
In some cases where instability and certain degrees of insanity have been induced by psychic disintegration, the Advaita teachings can address this personality-based condition, depending on the degree to which disintegration has occurred.
Psychic disintegration cannot occur in the absence of personality / personalities, revealing why Realized teacher for thousands of years have tried to lead their protégés beyond the debilitating effects of personality;
yet in far too many cases observed here, such disintegration is not driven by personality alone. In many cases, the deeper cause is that which is also being discussed here, namely, the negative effects of acculturation in those cultures where persons are more rigid and more distant and more aloof and more detached than in many other cultures (but do not know it).
One especially-eloquent eighteen-year-old male (who could as easily symbolize - and, in too many instances, could speak for - Everyman and Everywoman) described in a session with me what he called his "psychic disintegration." He had been told that his deterioration was a result of his drug abuse, but I was offering a different perspective. As you read this teen's words, please consider what has already been revealed about acculturation in this series and consider the connection between acculturation and psychic disintegration.
Consider especially the effects of acculturation as it is applied in some specific cultures that have been alluded to as the ones that are more prone to produce children (and therefore adults) who are cold and uncaring and rigid and distant and excessively formal and remote and detached and aloof.
I taped our conversation and would later give him the only copy of the recording to replay at some later point for additional consideration and, maybe, additional insight. As this teen bemoans the fact that his father is cold and uncaring and rigid and distant and excessively formal and remote and detached and aloof, consider too that the same can as easily apply to mothers who were raised as children in those particularly cold and aloof cultures as well. Here is part of the conversation I transcribed and share anonymously with his permission:
My cheery facade has fallen apart. All I tried to do, every forced laugh, every painted smile has finally cracked me. I am lonely. And I want my father. Not a man who raises you financially. I want a father who will finally hold me and tell me I'm worthy. I can't even remember the last time I actually sat down and TALKED to my father. It's always a curt hello and goodbye.
This terrible pain I carry inside tears at me every day. My fears, the secret fear that I am somehow inadequate. Unfit for love, even from a father. I've been withdrawing. Wait, scratch that. I HAVE withdrawn. I try my best to hide each tear shed from the world. But my pain is clearly written on my soul, a painful brand that sears with every breath, each new morning.
I do my best to help others. But I'm helpless to help myself.
Each day sees a little bit more of me dying. I prayed for an angel, full of goodness and light. But I forgot to pray that the angel would stay by my side, always. I'm just so tired. I have three houses I can go to but no home. Home denotes / implies warmth and kindness, care and love. Who in my family actually sees me for who I am? I've tried. And in the end, I wind up shutting everyone out. No one sees the pain. 18 years I tried. Tried as hard as I could. But I can never feel safe.
Not until my father hugs me and tells me, "You're my son. I love you no matter what happens."
Does that make me ungrateful? To want reassurance of a fatherly love I can never feel, never see? To want normalcy in my twisted world? I've lost everything and everyone I've ever cared about. That has made me cold and uncaring. I want to stop hurting, stop yearning. Most importantly, I'm ready to stop hoping.
Can you relate to that teen? Can you fathers relate to that parent? Can you mothers relate to that parent? Obviously, there's plenty of money available in his family, so how clearly do this teen's confessions support the adage that "money cannot buy happiness"?
Obviously the parent is wealthy, having the money to accumulate "three homes" and to "raise the son financially."
Is the family now paying a treatment center, merely throwing money at the problems that have resulted in what an eighteen-year-old is calling his "psychic disintegration" rather than changing their modus operandi so that they can also throw love and affection his way?
Counselors or therapists or psychiatrists can point out the disintegration, but this obviously intelligent teen already knows that the disintegration is there. Yet who can detect the root of the problem and address that, the root problem being acculturation?
How many generations of cold and uncaring and rigid and distant and excessively formal and remote and detached and aloof parents
(with the main legacy to their children having been to make them into cold and uncaring and rigid and distant and excessively formal and remote and detached and aloof children and, eventually, adults and parents in that same mold)
were required in order for this teen's "emotionally-unavailable" parent(s) to create the environment in which that teen reached the point that, more than anything else - more than "ending his hurting" and more than "ending his yearning" - he wants "most importantly" to "stop hoping"?
Later, a fuller explanation of psychic disintegration will be offered, but on the heels of the earlier discussions about the horrendous effects of the acculturation that persons are subjected to when raised in one of those especially cold and aloof cultures, it is to be seen that the roots of psychic disintegration can be connected directly to acculturation.
And as sad as the teen above was, is it not as sad - or maybe even sadder, relatively speaking - that persons raised in certain cultures normalize their traits and therefore seldom see how truly cold and uncaring and rigid and distant and excessively formal and remote and detached and aloof that they actually are?
Is it not as sad - relatively speaking - that
a. the Wisdom which can bring an understanding of the Oneness, and that
b. the understanding of the Oneness which can bring an awareness of Real Love
is so rare?
Here, tears fell while transcribing that teen's words, and if you did not cry when you read his words, is there something you need to see regarding what happened to you as a child and what has happened to you over the years since? Would you be willing to ask objectively, "What the hell did they do to me?" and "What am I allowing to continue to happen that needs to stop . . . right now?" Why am I not empathizing? Why am I not hurting alongside him?
It was not my responsibility that I went through in my childhood home much of what that teen has gone through in his home, my family's abject poverty notwithstanding; however, it was my responsibility - relatively speaking - to see the effects, to address them, and to become available, to become caring, to know Love and to be able to feel it and share it, to hug my daughter every time she came and went, and to say "I love you" regularly when she was and is present?
It only takes one generation to break the chain of generations of coldness and unavailability and an inability to love unconditionally and then to show affection and kindness and warmth - consistently - instead.
The message to all from that teen should be clear:
it is Real Love - not wealth - that is one of the key components in the compounded "Medicine" which can help address the Ultimate Sickness and which can bring happiness and peace and stability.
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
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