WHY BE RID OF PERSONALITY?

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 WHY BE RID OF PERSONALITY?

Whether one is following the seven-step "Direct Path Method of Teaching Non-Duality" (which Maharaj used early on) or the four-step "Direct Path Method of Teaching Non-Duality" (which he used later on), the "first step" either way involves becoming free of identification with the body and with the mind and with the plethora of assigned and / or assumed personality identifications. 

Today, let's turn the focus to the being rid of personality. The following was received some time back . . .

FROM A SITE VISITOR: Like Raja, I’m new to Advaita--but never had any religious training. It is easy enough to know that I am more than a body but why do you say I should not have a personality? Thank you.

F.: The Advaitin “journey” to full realization begins with an abandonment of body-mind-personality identification. To understand why personality is included in that trio, you are invited to take certain facts about personality into consideration.

First, there are only nine basic personality types. By the age of 5 or 6, spaces-cum-consciousness are assumed to be "persons" and to have developed "their own distinguishing personality."

Those familiar with the nine types know that is nonsense, realizing how every Type One actually thinks and talks and behaves like all other Type Ones. The level of predictability and commonality is textbook, and personality does not "distinguish" but actually makes for a lack of distinction, relatively speaking, among all who are of the same type.

All persons become dominated by their primary personality type, though most will eventually disintegrate and "split" into four or five other types as the consciousness becomes more and more warped or blocked. That is one part of the “personality” discussion.

The second part is the adoption of scores of other personas—other false identities—that will unconsciously and subconsciously drive the thoughts, words, and deeds of the non-Realized.

Being unconsciously and subconsciously driven by personality type(s) and the desire to maintain false images/assumed roles, the non-Realized erroneously believe that they are choosing their thoughts and their words and their actions but are actually not choosing anything at all.

As evidence, you may use this analogy: suppose that you are in a car and being driven. In that instance, you are in the passenger seat, the back seat, or the trunk. In either case, you are not behind the steering wheel. Being driven, you have no say about where you go, when you go, how you go, etc.

Therefore…

1. …under the influence of personality, persons experience a false sense of being split, of being many things (hindering the consciousness from being aware of the Oneness)

2. …under the influence of personality, persons are driven to maintain false images (further hampering any effort to find Self)

3. …under the influence of personality, persons think they are making choices when they are not (the height of self-delusion and a formula for chaos and unhappiness and disaster, relatively speaking)

4. …the assumption of personas is always accompanied by egotism (in an effort to defend false ego-states that are taken to be real) as well as a sense of being “special” or “different.”

While Realized Advaitins know that there is no such thing as “different,” persons (the non-Realized) are attached to (and convinced of) their false sense of being “special” and “unique” and “different.”

Furthermore,

5. ...attachment to personality automatically triggers fears and desires which—in turn—trigger instability and unhappiness. Why?

Instability guarantees that periods of happiness and unhappiness will alternate. Too, that which makes a person happy at a certain point will make that same person miserable at another:

 “I love this person” first becomes “I see now that I really didn’t know him/her when I got involved” and then can become “I hate this person”; or “I loved that person and was happy, but she/he died (or left); now, I’m miserable.” The same fluctuations happen with jobs and houses and friends, ad infinitum.

Thus…

6. …personality, rooted in duality as it is, will always entrap persons in their relative fears and desires, their loves and hates, their happiness and unhappiness, their stability and their instability.

Are you beginning to get a glimpse into why so many "non-dualists" over the ages have offered pointers inviting persons to be free of personality? 

To be continued.

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Here, with those who are still driven to talk about "god," the "Son of god," the "Holy Spirit," "Buddha," "Krishna," etc., etc., etc., the invitation to them is to view those as verbs, not nouns.

THE EXPLANATION

If looked at as nouns, they point to illusions and are, therefore, a total waste of time to even discuss; if looked at as verbs which are resulting in certain sane but rare behaviors among humanity, then they are worthy of some attention during the relative existence.

Meaning? There are members of certain groups who say things such as "My concept of god in the past was of a weak god, an absentee god, A Santa Claus-type god, a mean, punishing, vindictive god, etc. Today, I am in close contact with a loving and caring god whom I worship and praise and glorify and give thanks to."

The reply to that usually goes like this: "If you are in contact with a god that wants to be worshipped and praised and glorified, then you're dealing with someone like yourself - a narcissist - and hanging out with narcissists will never bring an end to your narcissism (that narcissism evidenced by the fact that you think you are "godly").

Next, in the phrase 'loving and caring god,' any supposed god that truly had her or his act together would tell you that the totally irrelevant part of that phrase is 'god' and that the only part that is relevant is the "loving and caring" part.

"That is, a non-narcissistic their god / their goddess would say, "I care not an iota about being worshipped and praised and glorified by you or anyone else. How arrogant and insecure and needy would I have to be to want that? Forget the man-made, dreamed up noun 'god' and focus on the 'god as a verb' understanding and then go forth and let loving and caring be verbs - not adjectives - and let them generate the act of love and the act of caring and let those actions manifest through you." 

Yeshu'a (Jesus) and Pope John Paul II and Pope Francis were spot on:

"No one shall ever see 'the kingdom of heaven.' It is within"

--Yeshu'a (Jesus)

and 

"Heaven and earth shall fade away."

--Yeshu'a (Jesus)

and 

"Heaven and hell are not geographic places

but are states of mind, nothing more than

concepts dreamed up by men."

--Pope John Paul II 

"There is no hell."

--Pope Francis, the current pope

in an interview with journalist Eugenio Scalfari,

a writer used by the Pope to issue off the record

teachings which become a part of the Papal Magisterium. 

[That said, would that the popes who have shown the courage to reject a core concept of their dogma - namely, "hell" - would find the additional courage required to question the very existence of their institution in light of the centuries-long cover-up of their history of raping children and in light of the mental and emotional and psychological scarring of billions of their members past and present.

And that need for courage also applies as questions need to be asked about why so many other sky cults are still being supported and allowed to continue to exist as well. When certain types of programming and conditioning have been shown to blind the masses, they should end. Will they? Not likely. Why?

Because what the masses think and say and do is most influenced by the international crime families which hold sway over the masses as criminals conduct their planet-wide operations. What are the major international crime families and which are the most influential and have the largest memberships?

The Mafia / La Cosa Nostra; the Catholic Church (with it 1.2 billion followers) whose Vatican Bank worked for decades with the Mafia while laundering mob earnings (for a 15% all-profit charge by the Bank); Protestant and Evangelical Churches (with over 1.2 billion followers) like the one I was raised in where the youth director molested and sexually assaulted young girls; big business which has long created environments in which people have been abused; powerful political bodies like the U.S. Congress, etc., etc., etc.)

With all of those crime families, neither the followers nor the leadership ever voluntarily step down or shut down their criminal activities. Be they gangs, organized crime families, religions, big business, politicians, etc., they all want control and they all want power and they all want money, and nothing internal will interfere with the driving forces at play.

The masses must demand that all those in charge must step down and their groups and institutions must shut down, and there's the real problem because the continuation of their crimes are enabled not as much by the people running such crime organizations as they are enabled by the masses of people who - wanting some perceived "payoff" - remain involved with them and give them money and support them and aid and abet the continued existence of those criminal enterprises and thus facilitate the ability of church criminals and political criminals and other types of criminals to continue to commit their crimes.]

Here's

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of the "Awakening Together" satsang session with Regina and Jacqueline referenced earlier, 18 MARCH 2018

or

You can click on the picture link which has now been added for video "Number Ten" in the upper right-hand column on this page.

If preferred, here's

the direct link to the AUDIO VERSION. 

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