ANNOUNCEMENTS
[Walter Driscoll asked to interview me in order to preserve on video some of the latest modifications and evolutions in the versions of the message offered here since 1989. He would label the discussion, “Unlearning with Floyd Henderson.”
Please note: For those who have a problem hearing what is being shared, the video offers a fairly accurate set of closed captions which some listeners might want to activate.
The interview is available for viewing by clicking on video “NUMBER THIRTEEN” in the column to the right. Also, by clicking on NUMBER FOURTEEN,” visitors can also see the introductory discussion on non-duality on Walter’s non-duality site and then a Q and A session which followed.]
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 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.
3. A newer video (“Number Ten: Awakening Together Satsang, March 2018”) has now been added in the far right column of this page, offering the opportunity to view a recent 2018 satsang session with Floyd being interviewed by Regina and Jacqueline of “The Awakening Together Group.” (See the details in the blue text after this post.)
4. Some prefer paperback books even if they have to wait a day or so to receive it and have to pay more for a printed book and its shipment. Now, 10 paperback books by Henderson are in print and available in two anthologies through Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and over 40,000+ booksellers around the globe including in the Americas, Germany, India, Italy, Poland, Russia, China, Spain, Brazil and South Korea. See the end of this post in red text for details.
5. Would you like to have us send to someone as a gift from you a copy of any ebook in our inventory?
6. You may purchase a Floyd Henderson Shopify Gift Card here for someone and offer recommendations for the books in Floyd’s store which might be of assistance to them.
7. You may click here to visit Floyd’s bookstore which offers both digital books and paperback books which deal with non-duality, non-duality-based fictional adventures, recovery, and financial budgeting.
ARE YOU AT THE WET CHARCOAL STAGE OR THE GUNPOWDER STAGE?
(Most haven’t a clue and must be told)
THE CURSE OF HUMANKINDS’ RELATIVE EXISTENCE: IDENTIFICATIONS
“The personality is but a product of imagination. ‘The self’ is the victim of this imagination. It is the taking of yourself to be what you are not that binds you. The person cannot be said to exist on its own rights; it is ‘the self’ that believes there is a person and is conscious of being it.”
“Beyond the self lies the unmanifested, the causeless cause of everything. Even to talk of ‘re-uniting the person with the self’ is not right, because there is no person, only a mental picture given a false reality by conviction. Nothing was divided and there is nothing to unite.”
--Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Ego-Defense Mechanisms
Yesterday, some pointers were offered about a key obstacle to realization which exists, namely, the always-reliable ego-defense mechanisms.
As long as persons assume that their ego-states (their false personal identifications) are actual identities, they will automatically, and usually subconsciously, use mechanisms to defend those false identities.
The ego (Latin, “I,” the false “I”) can be said to be - to use one man’s words - “cunning, baffling, and powerful” to the extent that assumed ego-states can control thoughts and words and actions. Moreover, they will do that “undercover” because the agendas of ego-states are always functioning at a subconscious / unconscious level.
Misery and suffering are guaranteed to come to a relative existence when it is controlled by ego and ego-defense mechanisms (which surface shortly after personalities or personas, roles, characters, actors, ego-states, false selves, guises, facades, and fronts are assumed).
So how can ego-defense mechanisms be considered “always-reliable” if they bring misery and suffering? Because they never fail to do their primary job, which is to protect and defend the false images which persons have of themselves.
Moreover, the use of ego-defense mechanisms feed the ego and inspire “self-upgrading” along with the downgrading of others. (Cicero said that, “of ‘The Six Mistakes of Mankind,’ number one is believing that persons can elevate themselves by reducing or lowering others.”)
Here’s an example used on this site of how that works:
Studies show that approximately 50-60% of all married men will have an extramarital affair at some point. At what point? At the point when the “mind” - using the ego-defense mechanism of egotism - upgrades one’s role from “The Husband” to “The Super Husband” (who believes that he is not receiving what he desires or deserves or expects from “His Wife”). At that point, he downgrades her to “A Less Than Super Wife” and another ego-defense mechanism is triggered, namely, justification.
[Another factor is also often involved with male, power-hungry, egomaniacal users with sociopathic tendencies and with their unchecked senses of entitlement and arrogance and with a perceived need to constantly have their egos fed by being accepted by huge numbers of women. They are simply driven to seek and find, constantly. Still, though, it’s about feeding the ego along with a sense of inadequacy which is hidden behind layers of feigned confidence and arrogance and image-construction and image-maintenance.]
Post “upgrading,” “The Super Husband” will believe that he is justified - because of his high level of self-worth and self-esteem - to seek out what he desires and deserves but is not getting from his “Less Than Super Wife.”
Likewise, the “mind” of “The Wife” - using the ego-defense mechanism of egotism - will upgrade her role from “The Wife” to “The Super Wife” who is not receiving what she desires or deserves or expects from “Her Husband.” At that point, she downgrades him to “A Less Than Super Husband” and other ego-defense mechanisms are triggered, namely, rationalization and justification, so she assumes the right to judge him, to criticism him, to leave him, and even to try to destroy him.
[Recall that 59% of women killed in the U.S. annually are killed during a breakup, but 41% of the men killed are also now killed during a breakup. Who says women are not making progress!]
Studies also show that approximately 40% of all married women will have an extramarital affair after they upgrade their role from “The Wife” to “The Super Wife.”
Note that the agendas of ego-states and ego-defense mechanisms not only operate unconsciously but they also distort, transform, or falsify reality.
Along with egotism, justification and rationalization, other mechanisms are used as well, including “denial,” “repression,” “projection,” “displacement” and others. Consider what is available in the ego’s toolkit which egos use for “self” preservation:
RATIONALIZATION
Rationalization involves the twisting of facts, “putting a spin on” the way an event or action is viewed, distorting the truth, or trying to cast into a different light the way an event or action is perceived, especially to try to change others’ perceptions about an event or action as well as one’s own.
Examples offered in the past to illustrate the use of this ego-defense mechanism included the husband who claimed during a marriage counseling session that his wife was wrong . . . that he did not have affairs with four women at work because “he only had oral sex with them.” Really?
Another man who called here crying about the fact that his employment had just been terminated - for the fifth time - because of sexual misconduct with subordinates at work.
He was crying the evening he called but by the next morning he had mentally restructured the truth, had distorted the reality of his conduct, had reframed his opinions about his circumstances and actions, had minimized the consequences of his behaviors on himself and the other employees involved who were also fired, so he said cheerfully, “What the heck . . . it’s all good!”
SUBLIMATION
Sublimation is often used by persons with warped psyches who are thus driven by thoughts and emotions and urges that are deemed unacceptable in their culture; to try to avoid the consequences of those thoughts and emotions and urges if acted upon, a person might shift her or his focus . . .
. . . by becoming obsessed with physical exercise or spiritual exercises; by being obsessed with attending meetings or worship services; or by obsessively engaging in other activities rather than addressing the core issues that are generating those thoughts and emotions and urges in the first place. Rather than being free of fanaticism, the fanaticism in one area is substituted with fanaticism in another area.
[Consider those who ignore their families because their obsessive minds are driving them to drink alcohol obsessively but who eventually enter into “a program” that can - supposedly - address their problem(s). The result: they continue to ignore their families but now it is because of their new, substitute obsession, namely, their “program” or their “new friends.” That is the result of sublimation as a “bad persona” is supposedly replaced by a new “good persona” or - more often - by a “really super, really good person” or even by a “Spiritual Giant.”]
DISPLACEMENT
Displacement is a process by which a person might be angry with “A” but redirects that anger toward “B” instead. The classic example is the man who gets angry at his wife but rather than seek resolution around whatever their argument might involve, he kicks the dog or whips a child instead.
UNDOING
Undoing is used to try to gloss over a “negative” comment or action by following it will all sorts of “positive” comments to try to “balance out” or counteract what one said or did. Rather than apologize, the attempt by the ego-state is to try to “save face” and avoid admitting to an error. The insulting of a mate, therefore, might be followed by praising the mate’s looks or intelligence (as if that, rather than an apology, can assuage the way the mate feels).
COMPENSATION
Compensation is a process whereby an ego-state tries to psychologically counterbalance perceived weaknesses by emphasizing strength in other areas. The result is a reinforcement of a person’s self-image without having to address any actual relative “weaknesses.”
The consequences of duality - including personality identification, personality defense, and personality disorders which can lead to neuroses and psychoses - should be clear.
The disharmony that manifests via the use of ego-defense mechanisms to protect ego-states / personas / false identities will end if the steps are taken to be rid of one’s belief in ego-states / personas / false identities in the first place.
Any wonder - looking at all of the disharmony that follows ego-state assumption and ego-state defense and the personality disorders which follow - that sages had long advised persons to be free of all personality identification?
PROJECTION
Consider a rock tossed by one person at another or “projected” at another person. When an ego-state feels that it is being interfered with or attacked (an act which is as impossible as attacking a mirage but which is nevertheless deemed to be an actual attack by those subsumed by their false personality identifications), the ego-state will usually go on the offensive.
It will inspire the hurling of words at others, and such verbal attacks involve attributing to others all of one’s own “personality liabilities” or “negative, personal traits.” In fact, it is almost always the one projecting those traits who displays them rather than the one being attacked.
(Yes, on some occasions, both may well have the traits or “liabilities.”)
A woman that has been observed over the years is clearly suffering from the Borderline Personality Disorder (P.D.), from the Narcissistic P.D., from the Sociopathic P.D., from the Histrionic P.D., and from the Schizoid-Avoidant P.D.
She did some online research in order to be able to “understand” (that is, critique / diagnose / condemn) her husband” rather than herself. She reported that her research revealed that “he is unpredictable and that sometimes he is close but is distant at other times; that he is an egomaniac; that he can be very mean and cruel; that he can’t control his emotions; and that he prefers to escape and avoid the things that he should be dealing with.”
Those familiar with both understand that he displays none of those traits but that it is she who displays them all regularly. (And yes, he does have issues begging to be dealt with - just not her issues which she has projected onto him.)
That is what projection looks like when at play, and its use usually evidences the fact that the one using projection is the one with no real insight and acknowledgement of one’s own “personality traits and liabilities and flaws.”
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
To watch the most recent talk and Q&A with Walter and his guests, click:
Walter Driscoll and Floyd Henderson
To watch the interview when Walter and Floyd discussed the fact that the Ultimate Sickness is a mental / mind sickness and why learning more is not the answer and why unlearning is the answer, click:
