TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
Barbara Killinger Ph.D. is a pioneer in the field of workaholism with some twenty years of experience. Two decades ago she defined a workaholic as "a work-obsessed individual who gradually becomes emotionally-crippled and addicted to power and control in a compulsive drive to gain approval and public recognition of success."
She said: "Workaholics are obsessed with their work performance and hooked on an adrenalin-high. Bent on self-aggrandizement, these ego-driven folks reach one goal and immediately set another more ambitious one. Staying at the same level of accomplishment is considered a failure."
[She is also describing with those words most Personality Type Threes and Type Eights as well.]
It has been long-recognized by some that any list of the things which persons can become addicted to is an incomplete list if "work" is not included. Persons who are set up to follow endless "paths" and to enter onto destination-less "journeys" are also set up to allow their working and seeking and searching to become not only a second occupation but also a preoccupation, an obsession, a constant concern and worry, a fixation, a mania, an addiction, and a passionless passion.
What is not as easily acknowledged is that there are religious workaholics and spiritual workaholics and philosophical workaholics and ideological workaholics. They can play the role of "The Super Seeker," they are usually fanatical, many of them suffer from the Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder, and they make a second job out of life and trying to find "life's purpose" and "life's meaning."
Maharaj held a totally different perspective, saying, "Living is life's only purpose."
He made clear that by the time people reach him, "The meaning and purpose of existence is redemption from ignorance."
So the "purpose and meaning of one's life" is not to become "A Super Religious Person" by way of spending a lifetime of following some "path" or entering into a "life-long journey" marked by religious workaholism and fanaticism and obsession? No.
And the "purpose and meaning of one's life" is not to become "A Spiritual Giant" by way of spending a lifetime of following some "path" or entering into a "life-long journey" marked by spiritual workaholism and fanaticism and obsession? No.
So why do so many go that route?
Yesterday: This series will first focus on the factors which affect and control the lives of more humans than any other influences, which, in fact, affect and control the thoughts and words and actions of over 99% of all humans; will, secondly, ask the question, "Why would humans allow that to happen?"; and will then offer an alternative perspective for consideration, a perspective which - if manifested - would allow humans to experience a level of freedom and unconditional happiness that most will ever even imagine, much less experience.
To review, here are some of the reasons:
1. Programming, conditioning, domestication, acculturation, indoctrination and brainwashing.
2. Parental modeling.
3. Having been lulled into a sleep state while thinking one is awake and is choosing to do what is being said and done.
4. Being misinformed by - but nevertheless loyal to - authority.
5. Listening to misguided leaders.
6. Being convinced they have already "found" and now only need life-long reinforcement of their beliefs.
Next . . .
7. Adopting assumed personalities / ego-states / false identities as real and letting egotism play a supporting role in maintaining those illusions (which all require constant reinforcement and stroking). And what is more reinforcing and what provides more strokes for persons than their belief that their lives have great meaning and that they are fulfilling some great purpose.
Also, personality disorders drive persons to take "paths" with no end and to enter onto "journeys" which never reach a destination during their lifetimes:
8. The Perfectionistic Personality Disorder drives persons to seek to be perfect; the Dependent Personality Disorder drives persons to seek both "earthly power(s)" and "heavenly Power(s)" to take care of them and to do for them what they think they cannot do for themselves; the Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder drives persons to enter into religious or spiritual or philosophical or ideological going and doing and zooming and all sorts of fanaticism which lead to an attachment to one "path" or another;
the Narcissistic Personality Disorder drives persons to try to attain and then show off their supreme state or "higher level of consciousness" or "purity" or vast knowledge; the Avoidant Personality Disorder will inspire persons to try to escape the AM-ness and move into a state of THAT-ness only; the Paranoid Personality Disorder will drive persons to follow an endless path and to embark on endless journeys in order to avoid their fear of deprivation now during the relative existence or to avoid eternal punishment in some imagined afterlife;
the Addictive Personality Disorder can lead to an addiction to seeking and to a sense of never having enough and never having done enough, trapping them on an endless "path" and in an endless "journey"; and the Dissociative Personality Disorder will inspire some to try to dissociate from and to detach from and to deny all things relative while focusing exclusively on "the later" rather than "the now."
Next, nothing happens among the non-realized masses which is not inspired by the desire for a payoff.
Maharaj: "Man imagines that he works for an incentive, towards a goal. He has always a reward in mind and strives for it."
Forget that there is no "one" to benefit from anything and that which is accumulated shall be lost and that all which comes together will eventually come apart. Each ego-state is driven by either a specific fear or a specific desire.
Maharaj: "That which gives you pleasure shall eventually give you pain, and that which gives you the most pleasure shall eventually give you the most pain."
Maharaj saw the perverted, sado-masochistic agendas of humanity. He said, "In life you often please by hurting and hurt by pleasing."
So,
9. The Sadistic Personality Disorder and / or the Masochistic Personality Disorder can set people on a track for constantly seeking along endless "paths" and endless "journeys."
10. But for one who is
a. relishing the perks of her or his religion, such as doing whatever one wants to do and then getting a clean slate by just asking God for forgiveness and then going back to doing whatever is desired once more until the next request for forgiveness is sent up; and
b. by having the adulation of their fellows heaped upon them; and
c. by being seen as the one who understands the "holy" literature and the doctrine better than anyone else,
why, "Sure, following this path and taking this journey until the day I die is definitely for me!"
As for those assuming the role of "The Deeply Philosophical One" or "The Great Ideologue" or "The Spiritual Giant," why sure, an endless "path" and endless "journey" will be just fine, thank you very much. Why?
Because some - as with "The Super Religious Ones" -
a. get the adulation
while others prefer to be seen as
b. "The Deep and Wise and Philosophical One";
and the ones who prefer to use their posturing in order to dodge the realities of their otherwise-not-especially-pleasant-relative-existence, then the ego-massaging perks of respect and hoped-for adulation start adding up for them as well:
c. they can escape "this realm" completely by mentally moving into FooFoo Land or into the neighboring locale called LaLa Land; and
d. they can avoid, escape, dissociate, detach, evade, and elude all of the humdrum and boring "stuff" involved with their existence; and
e. they, too, can garner respect from those who admire their lofty, superior, towering, elevated, grand, exalted, noble, distinguished, and deeply-philosophical state.
They can sometimes even engage in leading followers; assigning mantras; singing special songs louder than anyone else; being in charge of the special stick used to strike a special bowl sitting on a special pillow; hitting a special gong; ringing a special bell; and setting fire to a special stick which puts off its trail of special, perfumed odor that floats throughout the gathering place.
"And all I have to do in order maintain that image and get the admiration of seekers is to stay forever on an endless path and take part in a journey with no end? Sign me up!"
It should be seen that the understanding of why persons are willing to enter onto - and stay on - endless "paths" and to enter onto - and stay absorbed in - life-long "journeys" which never reach a destination is near-infinitely complex because persons are driven by the near-infinite content of their warped minds which guarantees an existence which is near-infinite in its complexities.
And that is why non-duality invites seekers to find the simple style of functioning which can come to mark the IS-ness if one understands and follows the simple, Nisargan (natural) fashion of living which happens with every living thing on the planet except for humans.
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
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