Tuesday, August 22, 2023

LIBERATION FROM BELIEVING IN FALSE IDENTITIES

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1. [See the offer in gold text following this post for details on how you can watch a retreat on video which includes a detailed discussion of all seven of the steps on the path as used by Maharaj]

2. 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. See the green text after today's post for the full meaning and implications of that.

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LIBERATION FROM BELIEVING IN FALSE IDENTITIES

“After the information given to you by the mother, that you are a boy or girl, all your further acquisitions [false identities] are by hearsay.”

--Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Being Trapped in Personality vs. Being Realized and Free

Yesterday’s post ended with a reference to “liberation.” I’ve has been asked many times during the last thirty-four years to explain the difference between liberation and realization.

Here, the term “liberation” refers specifically to being liberated from the belief in personality identifications and all false identities. Those beliefs are certainly a part of the body of learned ignorance. “Realization” refers to being free of all learned ignorance.

Personality is (1) that which generates personas and (2) that which allows things to be taken personally.

A persona is an assumed social role or a character played by an actor, the term having been derived from the Latin word for “mask” or “character.” Personas are all of the false identities that persons think define “who they are.” In fact, they define everything that one is not.

“Taking anything personally” can only happen when a persona assumes a false identity and then assumes offense at the words or actions of another. When do personas take offense?

When an assumed identity assumes that it is being hurt, interfered with, or threatened. What conclusion can be drawn from knowing that? All instances of feeling hurt, interfered with, threatened, fearful, desirous, miserable or in pain originate from assuming false identities and then wanting to defend or protect false identities;

therefore, to be free of feeling hurt, interfered with, threatened, fearful, desirous, miserable, in pain or defensive requires being free of personas . . . being free of the entrapment in personality.

Thousands of personas are assumed by billions of persons: husband, lover, homeowner, employee, employer, wife, son, ad infinitum; however, as a result of genetics and environment and other factors, all persons develop one dominate persona while assuming scores of others. Often, that dominant persona is overlaid onto (or combined with) all other assumed roles.

Though persons can pick from hundreds and hundreds of false personality identifications, there are only nine primary personality types, and since persons subconsciously become most driven by types, then the “journey” to liberation can begin with an effort to be rid of the influence of the dominate personality type. Then the secondary types and personas might be abandoned more easily.

Why Understand Personality Types?

One psychotherapist explains it this way: “You may as well learn all that you can about your primary personality type as well as the related types that influence you. For most people, it will determine everything they do and everything they feel during their entire lives. Only a small percentage will ever be liberated from the dominance of personality.”

Dictating Behavior

Of course each individual is “unique,” but unless people understand the way that personality type dictates behavior, then they will never fully understand why they do the things they do and why they feel the way they feel.

Nor can they understand why others do the things they do and why they feel the way they feel - which can be quite different from person to person - depending on personality type. Nor can they ever break free of unconscious influences.

Personality Formation

Early in life, we learned to feel safe (and to cope with unhealthy family situations and circumstances) by developing a strategy based on natural talents, genetics, and abilities.

Personality’s Power over Behavior and Feelings

People of the same type have the same basic motivations, the same basic liabilities and assets, and the same basic view of the world in some fundamentally similar ways. It’s almost “textbook” the way people demonstrate the exact traits of their type.

It is amazing to see how infrequently people choose to do the things they do and how often they are predisposed to certain behavioral patterns. (When you add programming, conditioning, enculturation, and the effects of trauma to the mix, “free will” and “choice” become reduced to the level of theory.)

The Benefits of Understanding Your Type

This understanding can provide release, if not comfort, in knowing that millions of people who share your personality type have the same coping strategy as you and have done exactly what you did when faced with the same circumstances.

But by understanding personality, millions have also been able to say, “Oh my gosh! So that’s why I do what I do!” and then they have become free of the overwhelming influence of personality which has unconsciously driven them.

At some level, “That’s totally insane” can give way to “That’s perfectly understandable, all things considered.” When that understanding comes, then blame and guilt and anger directed at self can end and a shift toward sanity can begin.

What is the Enneagram and What Are the Nine Personality Types?

In geometry, the enneagram is a star polygon with nine sides. In psychology or philosophy or sociology, it is a means for studying the nine basic personality types that have been recognized for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.

Some believe that the Sufis first used the tool in the Middle East hundreds of years ago. Others believe that the roots can be traced to the Far East and were transmitted orally even thousands of years ago.

It is known that the modern use of the enneagram can be traced to the Russian teacher Georges Ivanovich Gurdjieff in the 1920’s. The tool has been used in the U.S. since the 1960’s.

More significantly as far as the pointers in this book are concerned, it is just that . . . simply a tool. The tool can be used to understand the forces that drive persons to do the things they do and to feel the way they feel. 

It can also be used to promote understanding of others and their behavior and also to catalogue the disintegration of persons who move downward from the stages where they can function in society through the declining stages and into the dysfunctional stages. 

It can also provide a series of actions that can be taken to “undo” that process and return to a stage where one can be functional or even totally liberated via realization.

The nine types (and their interactions with each other) are typically illustrated by use of a star polygon. For the purposes of this study, little explanation will be offered to explain the ways that the types adjacent to your own influence behavior or the way that other types connected by lines to your own affect your conduct. Much information is available on the web if you are interested in those other aspects.

To be continued.

Please enter into the silence of contemplation.

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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.] 

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18 MARCH 2018

or

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