TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
"The disease is simple and the remedy equally simple. It is your mind only that makes you insecure and unhappy."
--Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Yesterday, this was shared:
All complexities among humans are linked in one way or another to body identification, to mind identification, and to personality identification. Those are the assassins which target and kill off simplicity.
OF THE MIND
Maharaj: "What I teach is the ancient and simple way of liberation through understanding. Understand your own mind and its hold on you will snap"
OF THE PERSONALITY
Again, Maharaj: "It is all very simple; it is the presence of 'the person' that complicates."
["The body" and giving excessive attention to "the outside" rather than to "the inside" will be discussed tomorrow.]
And that leads to the next reason why most persons are willing to enter onto a "path" and then end up staying on it, or why most persons are willing to begin a "journey" which never reaches the destination but continue on that "journey" anyway, and why most persons are willing to accept a treatment plan which they are told offers no cure for what ails them but normalize that and stay with that ineffective plan, anyway:
OF THE BODY
42. Body identification and the resultant idealization of form over substance, of appearance over reality, of the inauthentic over the authentic, of dishonesty over honesty, and of masquerading rather than discarding all masks leads to the masses being occupied and preoccupied primarily with the look of "the outside" facade over any concern with what is on "the inside."
The roots of the problems which humans experience around dating and forming "relationships" are highly complex because (a) so many physical, mental, and emotional aspects are all involved and because (b) body identification is usually the prevailing driver among persons and because (c) body identification is always in the forefront among "the non-realized" and, therefore, determines whether or not an attraction will be triggered.
Part of the physical component, in additional to body attraction, is the way that humans' limbic / reptilian brains operate.
One anonymous blog writer explained its functioning this way:
The limbic / reptilian brain "causes very strong emotions in the brains of people. Logic is 'put aside,' so to speak, leaving only the reptilian brain to function."
Why?
Because the limbic brain is the oldest part of the human brain while "the mind" - the areas where data / memories are stored and from which they are retrieved - is the newest part (in evolutionary terms).
Thus, humans now face a "triple whammy" when it comes to setting themselves up for problems, or when it comes to being set up for problems, when it comes to "relationships":
Whammy 1. The limbic brain runs the show.
If two doe are watching a buck strut about during mating season, one might say to the other, "Wow! Will you look at the rack on that guy!" The biggest and baddest among the bucks will vie for what it finds to be the most attractive and most appealing doe, and that doe will strut her stuff and the two are likely to breed.
Originally, when the human brain was the size of a single cup, there was no mind. The mind was formed over the millennia as the brain evolved into a 3-1/2 cup size. Prior to that evolution, humans functioned in relationship as the deer do in this neighborhood, driven by the limbic brain without any input from a warped mind.
Whammy 2. The minds of humans have been bastardized via bastardized programming, conditioning, etc., so now there are all sorts of beliefs about who looks good, what looks good, and what the many personas stored in the mind expect out of a "good" mate and what they will find to be totally unacceptable in a "bad" mate.
In the long haul, expectations will never be met consistently, and eventually both spouses will upgrade their false-self concept from "The Spouse" to "The Super Spouse," after which expectations will increase geometrically and will most assuredly not be met. Either misery begins and then continues as a result of a host of motives, or a separation or divorce follows.
Whammy 3. The limbic brain cares not a whit about wisdom or logic or reason, and since it is the initial driver of attraction, it is going to go for what looks appealing on "the outside" while ignoring all of the warning signs about what "the inside" might be like.
(Some try to explain that by saying, "Love is blind." The actual case might be that "Love is not blind - it is color blind. It cannot see red flags even when they are being waved all over the place.")
How many times have you seen someone hooking up with a person whose words and deeds should be setting off alarms but the person ignores those and races full speed ahead in the relationship?
The blogger put it this way: "How long would it take for our logical brain to figure out what’s going on and feel manipulated? It would be only a matter of time before it fights back,"
but . . .
"that rarely happens. People love positive emotions. They’d sit with you all day long to tell them how successful they MIGHT be, but they won’t hear for a second how miserable they CURRENTLY ARE."
Then, this pointer was offered:
"Humans are weird creatures, aren’t they? You’d figure they’d want to hear the truth so they can act accordingly and pull themselves out of their misery. But they prefer to be seduced, even though the picture you paint for them is highly unlikely to become reality."
So the third whammy leads to reasons #43 and #44 regarding why humans will stay on a "path" (or in a relationship) which is leaving them miserable:
43. Humans are easily fooled, and most humans are being totally fooled.
44. Some humans are pre-wired (via the agendas of the nine basic personality types) to be dependent and co-dependent and to have a sense of entitlement which convinces them that they deserve to be taken care of by someone else. The arrogant can reach that conclusion on their own; in other instances, some are programmed to think that way.
For example:
A father in South Texas had a son and two daughters. He adhered to the ancient "Law of Primogeniture," popular among the British and others, which asserts that "the right of succession belongs to
the firstborn child, rooted in the feudal rule by which all of the real
estate of a deceased landowner passes to the eldest son.")
Because the "Law of Primogeniture" was brought to North American when the Brits joined other Europeans in invading the territory, and because that law is still influencing many persons (especially, but not limited to, farmers) it led to the belief held by the Texas farmer that the son - though he was "third-born" - would get the farm because he was "the first-born son." As for the daughters / sisters, the message was that their best hope was to find other farmers' sons and marry them and be taken care of by a man.
Thus, the father sent the son to college to learn the newest agricultural techniques which might make the farm even more profitable.
(The son flunked out and dropped out after the first semester. Later, after destroying hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of farming equipment by repeatedly operating tractors and cotton pickers without oil, he was kicked off the farm.)
As for the daughters, no farmers' sons were available in their sparsely-populated part of the state, so they asked to go to college, too. They were told, "No. That would be a waste of money. You're both good looking . . . blonde, blue-eyed, great figures, real beauties. Use your looks (your bodies) to find men to take care of you." (So his career recommendation for those two: "Prostitute yourself. There's plenty of men out there who'll be willing to pay the bills of good-looking women.")
Both of those sisters are now in their 60's, and both have a 40-year history of following their father's advice, moving from one male money source to the next. One therapist tells her clients who have been similarly programmed by their parents, "Don't buy into that nonsense. A man in not a plan!"
Some time back, I crossed paths with the latest husband of one of those sisters, and knowing that I knew her well, he bemoaned the fact that "what is inside that attractive package is not nearly as lovely as the outside appearance which hooked him."
Every day, millions of women are fooled and millions of men are fooled. Such are the results when being driven by the limbic brain rather than by logic and reason and awareness.
I refused to be drawn into a discussion with him about his current misery because I knew that what he was really "in love with" - from the very beginning to the present - was having on his arm one who can still play the role of "The Trophy Wife" and who can supposedly enhance the husband's own public image. Why waste one's breath when nothing that anyone could possibly say will ever inspire his limbic-brain-driven self to "cut his losses short," to stop being manipulated, and to stop being used.
So all I said was, "Hummm. Well I'll be damned," the implication being, "I had long ago seen all which you were - and still are - blind to, but don't come to me now with your complaints. The wiser ones usually seek counsel before they end up making bone-headed decisions, not after.")
[Related to that husband's behavior which is all-too-common among humans of both sexes, the Greeks were so aware of that propensity among humans that they incorporated warnings into their myths:
In Greek mythology, "the Sirens" were creatures who were lovely on "the outside" and who used their naked bodies and enchanting music and lovely voices to lure sailors on passing ships to change course and head toward the Sirens, only to shipwreck themselves on the rocky coast of the Sirens' island and lose their ships and their goods and often their lives. After destroying their ships and sometimes killing the sailors, the Sirens could then gather up all of the sailors' possessions and have them for themselves. Ah, the curse of that damn limbic brain.]
A "Siren" on the Rocks
John Lennon in 1971 released an album entitled IMAGINE, named for "Imagine," a song on the album which could be called "the modern-day anthem of non-duality." Less known from that album, though, is another track entitled "Crippled Inside" - a song which Lennon wrote in a C&W style.
The song is delivered in a light and upbeat fashion which is in sharp contrast to its dark content which provides a frontal assault on image and phoniness and hypocrisy and the excessive attention which humans pay to "the good-looking outside" while ignoring "the dreadful and hideous inside" (which visitors to this site understand is the result of dreadful and hideous programming, conditioning, etc.)
The lyrics include several non-dual pointers which address the magnitude of the toll associated with humanity's tendency to idealize form over substance, appearance over reality, the inauthentic over the authentic, dishonesty over honesty, masquerading over discarding all masks, and the masses' regard and concern with the look of "the outside" facade without giving any regard up front to what is on "the inside":
"Crippled Inside"
You can shine your shoes and wear a suit.
You can comb your hair and look quite cute.
You can hide your face behind a smile.
One thing you can't hide
Is when you're crippled inside.
You can wear a mask and paint your face.
You can call yourself the human race.
You can wear a collar and a tie.
One thing you can't hide
Is when you're crippled inside.
[chorus]
Well now you know that your
Cat has nine lives --
Nine lives to itself.
But you only got one,
And a dog's life ain't fun.
Momma take a look outside.
You can go to church and sing a hymn.
You can judge me by the color of my skin.
You can live a lie until you die.
One thing you can't hide
Is when you're crippled inside.
[chorus]
One thing you can't hide
Is when you're crippled inside.
One thing you can't hide
Is when you're crippled inside.
Of the seven-step "coming in" process whereby conscious-energy ends up manifested within a composite unity (that is, temporary-manifested in an elemental plant food body which circulates air and circulates conscious-energy for a while), nothing is farther-removed from reality than the state of psychic disintegration which leads to body identification.
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
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