TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
Another way to insure instability and insanity is to become dependent and / or co-dependent with someone . . .
because very few can be relied on consistently;
because many have the Borderline Personality Disorder and will "love" you one day and hate you the next . . . will hug you one day and will slug you the next; and
because most, in the end, want to get more from you than they are willing to give you.
Anyone familiar with the non-dual teachings knows that rejection of all personality identification is at the heart of the understanding; some are aware of the many ways that false identifications contribute to instability and insanity; and some also understand that the assumption of false personality identifications cannot happen unless dependency and co-dependency are first in place.
Just as no addict can practice his or her addiction without someone else being willing to play the part of the addict's enabler, no assigned or assumed persona / role / ego-state / personality can be played without someone else being willing to play the counterpart role which enables a fictional identity to be considered real to its player.
Consider: in literature, a foil is a character that possesses qualities which are in sharp contrast to those of another character; that is, a foil serves to highlight one or more attributes of another character, often the protagonist, by providing a contrast.
For example, in the Harry Potter series, Voldemort is a foil to Harry because the former is depicted as being evil while Harry is depicted as being good.
In the Greek play Antigone, Antigone and her sister Ismene are foils to each other. Antigone attempts to be independent and to direct her own life and to take control of her own fate while Ismene is willing to "sell out" and play the role of the submissive woman who is willing to be dependent on a controlling male caretaker.
In personality assumption, though, foils may occasionally be brought into play. For the most part, those assuming a false identity must have someone else willing to assume the complementary, dependent and co-dependent counterpart - but "identical" - role.
[Identical? Meaning? Those playing roles, those assuming ego-states as identities, are so driven by egotism that the only thing that is "good enough" for them is a replicate of their own selves. For example, truth be told, what egotistical heterosexual males want is an opposite sex version of themselves; what egotistical heterosexual females want is an opposite sex version of themselves. Ultimately, egotistical role players are actually only capable of loving themselves. Moreover, their false self image can only tolerate that which mirrors their image: "The Christian Wife" must have a "Christian Husband" for her role to supposedly be real in her mind. Likewise, "The Super Christian Wife" must have a "Super Christian Husband" for her role to supposedly be real in her mind. The same applies in reverse with those type husbands.]
Note that the role of "The Spouse" cannot be played without another person also being willing to play the role of "The Spouse."
The role of "The Employer" cannot be played without another person also being willing to play the role of "The Employee."
The role of "The Hate-Filled, Angry, Sociopathic, Psychopathic Political Leader" cannot be played without others having already entered into the role of "A Hate-Filled, Angry, Sociopathic, Psychopathic Member of the Electorate." Such voters "love" the politician who is a mirror image of them - who is "identical" to them - and they literally hate the one who is not like them and, in fact, hate all who are not like them. Such are the workings and machinations of ego and egotsim.
Sometimes, roles which are based in arrogance and egotism must fabricate in their minds a foil which is supposedly playing a related but opposite role. "The One Who Thinks He / She Is Better Than Non-Whites, Hispanics, 'Redskins,' Non-Christians, Anyone "Different," must come up with a foil - a scapegoat - to be assigned the role of "The Ones Who Are Lesser Than Those of Us Who Are Superior / Supremacists."
The result is that those playing "The Persona Game" are guaranteed to either be (1) dependent / co-dependent on others to make them happy or be (2) forever about the business of trying to find others to blame for their misfortunes or failures.
More on that will be offered by using excerpts from the book INSTABILITY / INSANITY: What the Advaita Teachings Can (and Cannot) Address :
INSTABILITY / INSANITY INDUCED BY SEEKING SOMEONE OR SOMETHING TO CAUSE YOU TO BE HAPPY
The non-Realized are forever functioning under the influence of the insane belief that "the inside" can only register happiness when "an outside causer" has been found that can cause happiness to come and to stay.
Consider the insanity: If you were to be able to find an outside cause / causer of your inner happiness, then imagine how unstable and imprisoned you would be, knowing that you are dependent on something or someone outside of yourself for your happiness.
Imagine how vulnerable you would be, knowing - if not consciously but at least subconsciously - that your source of happiness could at any moment leave you, could "die," could withdraw whatever gifts or benefits that were being bestowed, or could yank from your grasp whatever that outside source has readily offered (with motives and desires) but could as easily withdraw (if desires are not continuously met).
How limiting and restrictive and insane is it, really, for persons to be willing to accept an external causer of happiness as the proper means of addressing the unhappiness within?
Persons that insane could be provided medicine for a sore throat but instead of swallowing the potion would just lie down and pour the solution on the outside of their throats.
Both scenarios would be senseless, insane, evidence of instability, proof of the presence of personality disorders, and confirmation of some degree of insanity.
Trying to use outside solutions to address internal problems can never work, long-term, and eventual loss of freedom and happiness will be assured.
Maharaj: "You imagine that without cause there can be no happiness. To me dependence on anything for happiness is utter misery. Pleasure and pain have causes, while my state is my own, totally uncaused, independent, unassailable."
Some might recall a conversation shared in a previous post, a conversation overheard at lunch in a former workplace:
Woman 1: "You know, I've decided that I'm ready to get married again."
Woman 2: "You know, so am I! I've been thinking the very same thing lately."
Floyd: "I didn't think either of you were even dating?"
Their reply: "We're not," offered in both cases with an accompanying look of disdain for the inquiry that called into question their nonsensical declarations and their actual desires and their hidden motives.
Bit of a cart-before-the-horse" approach they were using, yes?
The sequence that "relationships" usually follow as discussed by Maharaj moves from stranger to acquaintance to friend to lover to spouse (and then, in more cases than not) to enemy to mortal enemy to former spouse; the sequence followed by those two women was on an even faster track because they decided to skip stranger, acquaintance, friend, and lover and to bull dead ahead into acquiring "a spouse." Senseless? Yes. Very common? Yes.
But because all in the relative existence moves from thought to word to deed, both women had the thought, both put the thought into words, and so - of course - they were both married within the year. Most will always manifest their thoughts and words, or be vanquished trying.
(FOLLOW-UP: By the way, both women were divorced - each for the second time - within a period of two years . . . financially destitute, seemingly "lost," bitter, angry, resentful, "alone" but not by choice, homeless, and emotionally and mentally bankrupt.)
Most unstable, most insane, and exhibiting much evidence of being driven subconsciously by the hidden and insane agendas of personality / personalities / and personalities-that-would-be, all of which determined their insane thoughts and insane words and insane deeds and that resulted, therefore, in insane actions and consequences that generated more instability and more insanity.
See, in both cases, they had an agenda. They had a cause.
And they were, therefore, searching for a cause (actually a "causer") who would be able to cause them to be happy; who would cause an improvement in their financial or personal well-being; who would cause a restoration of whatever benefits they thought they had reaped from their first marriages that they were subsequently "missing."
Note the evidence of their being driven by personality (or would-be-personas), specifically the fact that they had fears and they had desires: they desired pleasure; they desired a "better lifestyle"; they desired that their relative existence would be made "easier" by someone else. And none of those desires had anything to do with legitimate reasons for entering into a "committed relationship."
What would Maharaj have advised, if they had asked?
Maharaj: "Giving up desire after desire is a lengthy process with the end never in sight. Leave alone your desires and fears; give your entire attention to the subject, to [the persona] who is behind the experience of desire and fear. Ask: 'WHO desires?' [that is, which fear and / or desire-driven persona is fearing something or desiring something and therefore subconsciously and unconsciously controlling thoughts and words and actions?]. Let each desire bring you back to your [actual] self."
In their case, not only was there not Love; there was not even "love" since no "one" was even present to "love" - much less to lead to an understanding of what Real Love is.
Real Love is Absolute; the "love" spoken of by the masses is relative, and thus "love" (a.k.a., "false love " a.k.a., "not Real Love") is . . .
. . . relative
. . . ever in motion
. . . always strong at times but weak at other times, always hot at times, cold at other times (thus, generating instability)
and
. . . never lasting unless it happens alongside an overlaying of Reality upon the relative so that - just as I AM and I AM THAT can happen as one - so too can "love" manifest and be enjoyed on the relative plane as long as it is preceded by Real Love.
And Real Love must be preceded by "full realization" and a total understanding of, and a completely uninterrupted sense of, the Oneness.
The agendas of those two women were hidden from them, and they were hidden from the men they married the second time around.
Those two women did not know that "a man is not a plan," at least, not a viable plan. And yes, the agenda of the men they married was hidden from the women and from themselves as well.
Duality is always in consciousness and of consciousness . . . all relative.
The term "relationship" by its very name should be seen to be relative and thus rooted in duality.
But among the masses, nothing is more sought-after, more pleasure-giving, or more pain-producing than duality, and none will experience more dualities than in
1. relationships and in
2. institutions and organizations which speak in terms of
"good and bad" and "reward and punishment" and the hundreds of other
dualistic pairs that they dream up and preach about.
[Consider why Maharaj eventually gave up any and every notion that religion or spirituality could serve as forms of the Ultimate Medicine. His estimate was that only a handful of persons at any given time are truly "realized," yet 97% of the population of planet earth have been taught the dogma offered by one or another organized religion or other sky cults. Millions more have been taught the various philosophies which offer spiritual messages and those persons have engaged energetically in the spiritual exercises which they has been assigned. If religion or spirituality were the true antidote to the Ultimate Sickness, then with more than 99% of the people on the planet involved in religion or spirituality, then how could there be so few around the globe who are truly realized and free of all "learned ignorance" and insanity? The proof is in the pudding. Neither works. Why? Because, as Maharaj came to see, the Ultimate Sickness is a mental Sickness, centered in the mind. That which puts more in the mind, instead of purging the mind, cannot heal the mind.]
The consciousness brings with it The Ultimate Sickness. Learning about moralistic dualities is not The Ultimate Medicine and a relationship is not The Ultimate Medicine, contrary to popular belief.
Consider the implications of these pointers offered in the past:
What persons call "love" is the most magnificent experience of all; it is also the most horrendous experience of all. With such duality, how can that possibly be taken for the Real?
and
"As for feeling or emotion, if Love happens as a feeling, take the ride and watch the feelings rise and fall; if "love" happens as an emotion—that is, if it is being "experienced" by a person in an ego-state—prepare for war"
and
"Here, enjoyment certainly happens though nothing is desired. Additionally, nothing is feared since there is nothing to register fear."
The awareness-in-consciousness functions from a position of neutrality, knowing that if persons are trapped in seeking the applause of the village, they must also be prepared to accept the scorn of the town as well. If you are willing to seek and accept pleasure from externals, full speed ahead, but be prepared to accept an exactly equal portion of pain and suffering as well.
Maharaj: "Pain and pleasure go always together. Freedom from one means freedom from both."
All on the planet is happening in a theater where role-players are moving about on the stage in The Theater of the Lie - in The Theater of the Consciousness - and in a theater where consciousness-based duality is always the director of all of the thoughts and dialogues and behaviors of the actors.
How can there be any freedom when trapped in relative dualities?
Again . . .
Maharaj: "You imagine that without cause there can be no happiness. To me dependence on anything for happiness is utter misery. Pleasure and pain have causes, while my state is my own, totally uncaused, independent, unassailable."
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
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