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.
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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
[NOTE: No post on Tuesday as I will be undergoing a heart procedure. Posting should continue on Wednesday if the procedure goes as planned.]
I spent my childhood under the influence of two forces: (1) the post-WWII-years which dominated our culture and (2) a father whose full-blood Cherokee, peace-advocating mother endorsed his entering the fight against fascist, dictatorial leaders in Germany, Italy and Japan.
Hitler was the ultimate threat to humankind in the 1930’s and early 1940’s and those with a fascist “mind-set” who identified as The Super Patriot / The Super Fascist were his supporters and enablers.
Another kind of international struggle continues today, not only with the global spread of fascist beliefs but with the global presence of minds filled with ignorant beliefs and learned ignorance and opt-in ignorance, all generated by the Ultimate Sickness.
And while the false personality identities are the new Hitler and the new ultimate threat, ego-defense mechanisms are the supporters and enablers of those false personal identities.
That said, the discussion of those supporters and enablers will continue:
DENIAL
Denial
leads to a refusal to accept the truth and the facts about one’s relative
existence and about one’s flaws. A common example of denial that is often cited
involves alcoholics / addicts who have major problems but who can deny for
years that they have any problem at all and who claim that they would do just
fine if everyone else would leave them alone and stop picking on them.
As with all ego-defense mechanisms, certain of the nine basic personality types are at play, coming to the defense of other assumed identities as well. Type Ones, who think they are perfect, are especially prone to the use of denial.
When discussing the result of an enneagram personality inventory, many Enneagram coaches will gloss over liabilities and accent assets in order to keep clients hanging on and to keep the cash flow going. Here, only the facts and the truth will be shared (cash flow be damned); thus, it is quite common for those who are invited . . .
. . . to look at their flaws objectively in order
. . . to be free of those traits
to disappear after one session.
If persons have a high Type One (“The Perfectionist”) score, they are not going to view themselves objectively and they are going to attack or run away as fast as possible from anyone inviting them to consider the actual facts and the actual truth surrounding their not-really-perfect thoughts and words and behaviors.
Personality Type Threes are the kings and queens of denial, forever “putting a spin” on any fact or truth regarding them that does not enhance their image or that might interfere with their receiving applause and admiration from the masses.
Personality Type Sevens, the most prone to develop the Addictive Personality Disorder, are - as mentioned above - also quite prone to the use of denial.
REGRESSION
An adult facing an uncomfortable truth or fact can “regress,” that is, can “return to one’s childhood” and, thus, to childish behaviors. In the previous example where perfectionists are invited to see the error of their thoughts and words and actions, if they use regression to protect themselves (their “selves”) they will - like a child - run away from the facts and the truth.
Regression can also drive some persons to regress to the childish behaviors of going to bed and staying there or sulking or pouting or throwing a tantrum.
ACTING OUT
Acting out is used by those who have no willingness to sit down and calmly discuss with others any issues that need to be resolved; instead, they turn to physical responses. The NFL player who abused two sons on two different occasions - beating a four-year old with a stripped tree branch and a belt to the point that the child required medical care - was using an ego-defense mechanism, sustaining the image of “The Super Disciplinarian,” “The Great Parent,” “The One in Control,” etc.
Personality Types Two are prone to such histrionic conduct, as are Type Eight Bosses, Control Freaks, etc. Consider as examples mates who punch holes in sheetrock when they are arguing with a mate, or who even punch the mate in the face with a fist, or who throw an object at the mate, or who throw a temper tantrum, or who fire four pistol shots through the door of the bathroom where their mate is hiding from them.
DISSOCIATION
Personality Type Nines are especially prone to using dissociation, comparable in some ways to denial but far more subtle. Here, in the cases of some that have been worked with, Enneagram test results, metabolic body rates, and observation have all combined to expose a very high rate of depression, yet some - when that is shared - either deny the fact or are so dissociated from reality that their actual condition does not register.
Thus, they have been heard to say: “I am NOT depressed!” (sounding like death-on-a-cracker even as they cannot see their own truth which others can readily see). Those playing the role of “The Spiritual Giant” or “The One Who Has Attained Perfect Peace” are very likely to dissociate from their depression or anger or lack of peace.
Those using dissociation can say, “I had a great childhood, a really happy childhood” when all of the facts show that the exact opposite is the case. It has been said that “people who have a history of any kind of childhood abuse (or neglect) often suffer from some form of dissociation. In extreme cases, dissociation can lead to persons believing they have multiple selves” (a.k.a., the Multiple Personality Disorder”).
It has also been said that “people who use dissociation often have a disconnected view of themselves. In this manner, a person who dissociates can ‘disconnect’ from the reality for a time and live in a different world that is not cluttered with thoughts, feelings or memories that are unbearable.”
COMPARTMENTALIZATION
It has been said of compartmentalization that it “is a lesser form of dissociation, wherein parts of oneself are separated from awareness of other parts and behaving as if one had separate sets of values.” An example might be a person who has two totally-different value systems “that are distinct and un-integrated while remaining unconscious of the cognitive dissonance.”
Another
example might be someone who has built up a positive image in the community -
only believed to be kind and caring and loving when in public - but behind
closed doors their families only see a tyrant and a bully.
(That is a common scenario with Personality Type Twos who can also disintegrate and have a high Type Eight score: the Two is seen as a kind and generous helper but, when stressed or “holy,” disintegrates to the worse of a Type Eight and behaves like a sociopath . . . with varying degrees of severity among those types.)
Remember, the typical sociopath is not “a Ted Bundy, serial killer type.” The typical sociopath is the controlling spouse, the overly-aggressive boss, the raging mate, or the unpredictable partner who can be kind and charming one moment but angry and hostile the next.
In a discussion fairly recently of what was revealed by a set of Enneagram test results, the Eight score was “through the roof,” but when that (and its implications) were pointed out to the person, she used compartmentalization, denial, and - finally - regression. The result: gone in a flash.
[Interestingly, the full-blown, truly-sociopathic Type Eights I’ve worked with have typically been quite willing to admit to all of the negative traits that manifest with that type, even laughing at how “spot on I nailed them” and their thought and behavior patterns. They just don’t care. But if a high Eight also has a high One score, then the self-concept of being perfect will result in what was just described above: those with that combination who are exposed to their facts and their truth are gone in a flash, driven to preserve the image they hold of themselves, namely, being flawless.]
THE OVERVIEW
The wisest of all ages have long recognized that the curse of humanity is arrogance, a sense of entitlement, a sense of rightness in the right vs. wrong debate, and a belief among humans that they really are the upgraded-to-super ego-states which they believe they are..
Narcissism and malignant narcissism (that being the kind of narcissism which is often exhibited by psychically unhealthy Personality Types Eights, many of whom exhibit one degree or another of sociopathic behavior) are among the key curses of humanity, and they are preceded by personality assignment and / or assumption. The subsequent result: humans being driven by the agendas of the various ego-states which persons assumed as identities.
If there is no belief in an ego-state, there will be no use of ego-defense mechanisms.
[Remember, personality forms in childhood, so ego-defense mechanisms are triggered during childhood and are used from early on.]
If there were no use of ego-defense mechanisms, there would be no egotism.
No ego = no egotism
It can be seen, therefore, that “being oblivious to all except your phony self” continues because of
the use of ego-defense mechanisms
which can only come after
assuming ego-states as supposedly real selves / identities.
The antidote to the Ultimate Sickness? Realization. That is, realizing that all you have been taught and believed is false. Understanding that, then realization manifests and this follows:
Realization
ends the needs for ego-states to use rationalization
Realization
ends the needs for ego-states to use escapism
Realization
ends the needs for ego-states to use repression
Realization
ends the needs for ego-states to use normalization
Realization
ends the needs for ego-states to use denial and minimizing
Realization
ends the needs for ego-states to use avoidance
Realization
ends the needs for ego-states to use self-delusion
Realization
ends the needs for ego-states to use approval seeking
Realization
ends the needs for ego-states to use idealization
Realization
ends the needs for ego-states to use magical thinking
Realization
ends the needs for ego-states to use dissociation
Realization
ends the needs for ego-states to avoid intimacy
Realization ends the needs for ego-states to experience guilt and shame . . .
Finally, realization (a) ends the need for the constant noise and babble which persons use in their efforts to drown out the clatter of their fiction-filled “minds” and (b) ends the desire for a captive audience which persons think they need as they speak regularly or “share” regularly [meaning, “as they create opportunities to be listened to regularly”] and
(c)
ends the need for going and doing and zooming in order to try to escape all of
the nonsense of “issues” that are the bane of persons who take their phenomenal
state to be real and who have no clue about the truth of their homogeneous
existence as the Noumenon.
If persons reading this series can break through the barrier of ego and
recognize the authentic, then they might consider that there is a multi-step “path” to
realization and that at the end of that “journey to Reality,” all of that which
is catalogued in the list of the items above could be discarded.
Undertaking
that “journey” will only be appealing if (1) the burdensome weight of all that
is being carried is recognized and if (2) replacing that weight with a
lightness of being suddenly has some allure.
When personality is eliminated, then one is well on the way to the post-realization,
to an AS IF style of living that is free of all of the insane-like behaviors and to all
of the nonsense of relative issues which are actually much ado about nothing
but that are seemingly made into “something” by ego and by the personality
disorders which dominate the relative existence of the non-realized.
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:
