Saturday, December 02, 2023

Beliefs Rooted in Personality and “-ISM’S” (Continued)

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FREEDOM FROM BELIEFS

From “Give Peace A Chance”:

“This-ism, that-ism, is-m, is-m, is-m”

by

John Lennon and Yoko Ono

Beliefs Rooted in Personality and “-ISM’S”

 (Continued)

“-Ism’s” and personas; personas and “-isms.” Each supports the other in an endless cycle that encourages the reinforcement of persona-adoption, followed by a person attaching to the “-ism’s” that reinforce the persona, followed by the “-ism’s” reinforcing the belief that the persona is an actual identity, etc., etc., etc.

To claim that “I am a patriot” is to create an attachment to the beliefs that any given culture suggests are evidence of one’s patriotism, including such statements as:

“We are the greatest country on the planet”; “I am willing to die for my country”; “a real man is willing to sacrifice his life to protect his fellow citizens”; or “I will beat to a pulp anyone who desecrates our flag.”

Once the persona / personality of “The Patriot” has been adopted, then the conceptualized “-ism” of “patriotism” becomes sacred, hallowed, revered, and sanctified; and once the conceptualized “-ism” of “patriotism” becomes sacred, hallowed, revered, and sanctified, then . . .

the persona / personality of “The Patriot” is also believed to have the status of being sacred, hallowed, revered, and sanctified and that belief will blindly drive all thoughts and words and deeds.

Thus, those trapped in personality are killing and / or dying for their country; killing and / or dying for their god; killing and / or dying for whatever the popes’ desires were during the Crusades; 

killing and / or dying for whatever the imam’s desires are nowadays; killing and / or dying for whatever the commander-in-chief’s desires are; killing and / or dying for whatever the prime minister’s desires are, ad infinitum.

Such are the results of the perverted beliefs in false personas and in “-ism’s.” To be free, the recommendation here is to employ the Enneagram as a tool to begin uncovering the variety of personalities which subconsciously drive thoughts and words and deeds and which, therefore, remove all opportunity to make independent choices.

It was noted earlier that much can be revealed by understanding the history of the way that the non-dual understanding became necessary and the way that the Enneagram has been used by some teachers of non-duality to expose the personality trance in which the masses live as well as the effects of personality assumption.

That which is real has been forever; all that is not real but is taken to be so has not been forever but has come about at various times as a result of distortion and ignorance.

Such is the case with personality / personalities, assumed roles, ego-states, personas, stage characters, false identities . . . call them what you will. 

The earliest humans or human-like beings, as with modern persons, faced plenty of challenges during the relative existence, but one challenge they did not have to deal with was the nonsense of personality.

Did they desire? Yes, but were the desires natural rather than unnatural or supposedly “supernatural”? Also, yes. Were they afraid at times? Yes, but were the fears natural rather than unnatural or supposedly “supernatural”?

Yes, and that did not change until humans began dreaming up supernatural concepts based in magical, nonsensical thinking, in distortion, in ignorance, in myths, in superstitions, and in non-facts. That paved the way for ignorance-based explanations (and ignorance-based belief in ignorance-based explanations):

“Why did the hurricane devastate that city, O Holy One?”

“Because of the negative karma of the people there, my child.”

As humans began forming communities, some of the more observant began to notice “individual differences” in the ways that people behaved and reacted alongside patterns of behavior that were common among the members of certain sub-groups in the community.

It was seen that some parents interacted in one way with their offspring, some in other ways that were quite different. It was also seen that children used different coping mechanisms to try to adapt to a variety of family situations, and it was seen that during stressful events, a group of, say, five people all reacted the same way but that another group of five all reacted the same way but in a way that differed from the people in the first group.

The observant began to see that all of the members of the tribe or community consistently revealed certain traits without exception: the prideful were always prideful, no matter what; the avoiders were always avoiding, no matter what;

the admiration-seeking, narcissistic performers were always performing, no matter what; the love-seeking helpers and enablers were always helping and enabling in order to get love, no matter what;

the controllers were always trying to control, no matter what; the escapists were always trying to escape, no matter what; the reformers were always judging and trying to reform, no matter what.

The most observant began to see that (a) those with a similar family situation behaved the same way and that (b) when stressful situations arose, those who shared in common a dominate trait all showed the same opposite trait as well when strained.

For example, those who lost a father early on were seen to be the seemingly-kind helper types. Though they seemed to be the friendly ones in the community, when they became stressed or were challenged, they showed the same traits as those in the village who were usually the angry, controlling, domineering, power-hungry, lustful types.

[Today, if one understands the Enneagram, she / he will know that what happened in the scenario described above is that a Personality Type Two Helper became stressed and was driven by arrogance to disintegrate to the Personality Type Eight Controller / Boss / “Parent” and to become for awhile an angry, controlling, domineering, power-hungry, lustful type person.]

An understanding among the observant of the fact that stress leads to psychic deterioration (and to totally-predictable behaviors among the mentally and emotionally unhealthy) came into being.

It was also seen by the most observant that people in the community were all being driven by one of nine dominate traits or “passions,” that is, by whatever it was that they were seen to be “most passionate about,” whether that was about reforming everyone;

or about creating or maintaining a phony image; or about trying to dominate everyone else; or about allowing others to dominate them in order to gain something they wanted, etc.

Moreover, it was seen that their behaviors were “textbook” in the way that those behaviors manifested so consistently and unwaveringly and in how unsurprisingly foreseeable and predictable their thoughts and words and deeds were going to be in any given situation, some being passionate about gaining power and leadership roles; 

some being passionately angry most of the time; some being passionate about performing in ways that generated admiration from the entire community, etc.;

thus, “distinctions” and “dualities” were born with personality. “Differences” and “personal characteristics” were noted, and the attention to one’s relativistic, personal passion soon began to displace any former concern for the community as a whole.

That gave rise to “self”-ishness which, in turn, blocked the sense of the Oneness and displaced the earlier all-for-one-and-one-for-all attitude with a passion for fulfilling one’s own desires and avoiding one’s own fears.

Conflict driven by self-absorption became the “norm.” It was Evagrius who discussed the early Greeks’ version of the nine passions (or the nine obsessions or nine dominant personality traits). 

That list included anger, pride, vainglory, envy, greed, incontinence, gluttony, lust and acedia (i.e., boredom; listlessness; apathy; a lack of care or interest; indifference; and laziness).

Because he showed how those passions (i.e., dominant personality traits) distorted human perception and limited the human search for the essence and the authentic to the trivial and clichéd and ordinary - especially after religion limited the search to the confines of their buildings and texts only - then Evagrius came under attack from the churches of Rome and Constantinople.

People were dissuaded by their religious leaders from seeking answers scientifically or objectively and told to accept unquestioningly the answers that were provided via dogma and “holy texts” only.

New, “good” selves or personas or identities were generated, further eliminating any opportunity among the mostly-religious masses to know the essence and the authentic.

As for religious leaders dissuading their congregants from seeking scientifically or objectively, that is still the case 1,700 years after Constantine - the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity - codified Christian doctrine in a way that left Christianity unrecognizable.

It was he who eliminated the female church leaders who had been in charge for the 300 years after the murder of Yeshu’a and declared that only men who pledged to reject personal relationships with women and pledged never to marry could be priests.

(How did that work out?)

It was also he who removed all verses in the Bible which alluded to Yeshu’a being a human man; who added the notion of there being a  Satan; and who declared that the penalty for owning a copy of the Bible and for reading the Bible if not a member of the priesthood was death.

To be continued.

Please enter in to 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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