EGO-STATES: Either The Invisible Drivers or The Former Hijackers or The Eventual Destroyers, Part Four

FROM A SITE VISITOR: So the whole problem really begins with ego, right? Sam (PS Thanks for the blog site.)

F.: Henry David Thoreau suggested that most persons live “lives of quiet desperation.” An example of that is being observed in the case cited earlier in this series in which a woman is considering suicide because she is losing her “wife” label. Among the Realized, the quiet does often mark the relative existence but desperation mars none of it. The Realized merely see all exactly as it is yet still live in a contented, AS IF fashion that allows peace to happen whether “in relationship” or not, whether “in love” or not, or whether “married” or not. That is never the case with persons (the non-Realized).

Most persons move in and out of what they think are “personal relationships,” often settling into one that they think will be forever. That concept of “personal relationship” amounts to “duality to the second power,” so to speak, because “personal” is rooted in personas and because “relationship” requires a belief that there are two persons who are relating to each other (as opposed to the unicity being known). Were the unicity to be known, there would be nothing happening that could be taken “personally,” there would be no need to work on trying to “relate,” and there would be no ego or egotism driving all “interactions.”

However, since persons cannot witness objectively and see all exactly as it is, they operate in denial, claiming that “all is going along quite well, actually” and that “things in my life are as good as—or far better than—can be expected.” (If that were the case, why is it that as of January 2007, substance abuse rates are at an all-time high as persons try to escape the relative circumstances which they cannot cope with? Why is it that in the U.S., doctors are prescribing anti-depressants to over 10,000,000 women each year? And why is it that 25% of men and women are now abusing alcohol at a level that indicates a need for some level of treatment?)

Can Advaita lead to Realization which could provide a means by which "two" could function in a natural, "not-two" manner? Of course. Since few will ever Realize, though, is it likely that the relative problems that persons are experiencing in “personal relationships” will be reduced? Of course not. How could "two" who do not know the “not-two” possibly have any clue about what the term “love” is trying to point to?

How can persons who do not have the slightest clue about Who/What They Truly Are have any clear understanding of what “love”—or anything else—is? Since their “world” is nothing more than a distorted image of their own “I-consciousness,” and since that warped consciousness traps them in the false I / ego, and since that entrapment will motivate them to seek a perfect clone of themselves to “love,” all persons end up in love with self only. Several previous pointers are relevant in that regard:

Persons desiring to know what love is might benefit more (relatively speaking, of course) if they were able to understand what love is not.

What persons call "love" is the most magnificent experience of all; it is also the most horrendous experience of all. With such duality, how can that possibly be taken for the real? As for feeling or emotion, if love happens as a feeling, take the ride and watch the feelings rise and fall; if love happens as an emotion—that is, if it is being "experienced" by a person in an ego-state—prepare for war.

If such a discussion makes “you” feel uncomfortable to even consider the subject matter, find WHO is it that feels uncomfortable. And even if the discussion does make “you” feel uncomfortable, can you nevertheless relate to any part of the above?

For example, have you ever been convinced that you have really known someone—a friend, an employer, a spouse, a lover, whatever—only to find later that your impression or image of them was totally wrong and that maybe you had been totally fooled? When “the wife” becoming the “not-wife” was asked if her story could be shared anonymously on this site, she said, “If it might keep others from making the mistakes I made, then it’s fine with me.”

That supposes that, trapped as she was in a false identity, she chose to do what she did. It also supposes that if you are trapped in a false persona, you can have freedom of choice, if you can learn from her mistakes (which is not likely to happen either). Would anyone seriously believe that she chose the life she has lived for the last twenty years? Trapped as a result of assuming the false identity of “The Insecure and Dutiful Wife,” she acquiesced to a man’s demand that she abandon her natural instinct to have a child; that she work but never receive any of the pay for her work; that she assent to his daily demands for sex; and that she stand by in denial as he took another woman on trips and as he set up an apartment for the two of them. Now she claims that "he fooled her and didn’t love her," though "she loved him."

She loved him, or she entered into a co-dependent/dependent "relationship" and assumed multiple identities that required his presence to sustain them? Was that love that drove her to behave as she did in her relationship with him? Would love require the abandonment of natural instincts? Would love require that she forfeit the hope of having a child? Would love require the abandonment of Self? Would love require the forfeiture of all that is earned from one’s employment? Would love require that one place one’s head in the sand in order to maintain the status quo and status? Was that love she was showing, or was desire and fear being displayed as an ego-state was driving her and forcing her to place her relative existence on hold to please another and to prevent her from ever seeking the True and Authentic Self? Did she love him, or did she love the roles and the perks that came from sharing a house and a bed with a man she described as being "very handsome and very rich"?

Now, she wants to die without realizing that she has already been dead for 20 years to the degree that she lived a relative existence for someone else and without being true to Self. He had two lives; she had none. For her, the opportunity has finally come for the first time in two decades to actually Realize and then live a contented AS IF existence rather than to end the manifestation. But she would have to find the truth that these earlier considerations (based in non-duality) are pointing to:

“I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.” Oriah Mountain Dreamer

“It appears that where marriage is solemnized by the church and blessed by the priest, it may at the same time be surrounded with customs and ideas of a frivolous, superficial, and even prurient character. Love between a man and a woman is founded on the mating instinct and is not free from desire and self-seeking.” Charles Eastman

“I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to Your Self; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.” Oriah Mountain Dreamer
Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
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THE MESSAGE OF NON-DUALITY, From India and Asia to the “Americas,” Part Four

[These discussions of the Advaita-Asia-India-“Native American” unicity are in response to an e-mail regarding the May 27th HBO presentation of “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.” You may visit http://www.hbo.com/films/burymyheart/ if interested in details. Here is a summary as well: In the late 19th century, the U.S. government waged a systematic campaign to exterminate American Indians—and nobody seemed to care. HBO Films presents this epic adaptation of Dee Brown's nonfiction masterpiece that brought this dark chapter of U.S. history to light. Beginning just after the bloody Sioux victory over General Custer at Little Big Horn, the film intertwines the unique perspectives of three characters—Charles Eastman, Sitting Bull and Senator Henry Dawes—while detailing the sprawl into the American West that tragically affected American-Indian culture.]

CASE STUDY: A First-Hand Account of the Advaita Message as Transmitted by One of the Indigenous Peoples in the U.S.
F.: The ancestors of my Ah-ni-yv-wi-ya (or “Tsalagi” or “Cherokee”) grandmother were sent away from the land they had cleared for farming and lived on for generations when the land was confiscated by the U.S. Government and sold for $1 per acre to a family from Germany. Those Native American ancestors were “resettled” to areas in Arkansas and Oklahoma. Eventually, one "American Indian" family was “pardoned” and allowed to move back south to a small, remote, heavily-wooded tract of fairly-useless land in what came to be known as “Cherokee County.” That family would eventually procreate and it would be in that region where the consciousness happened to manifest in a space that I would someday call “Grandmother.”

The Space called ”Grandmother”

Her family would pass down to her not only their philosophical teachings but also their healing methods as well. She would become a medicine woman, visited regularly by the infirmed, but her curative abilities were not limited to the physical. Time with her would heal the troubled “mind” and emotions as well. With Grandmother, the ancient teachings that found their way from Asia and India were taught at times by word but were transferred more often in the silence of example. In her small house set on a knoll in a dense and isolated forest where I spent my childhood summers, it seemed to a young male from the city as if there was nothing…yet it was seen later as an adult that there was everything.

As for that nothingness, never did she complain about the lack of indoor plumbing or about a too small house or about the absence of electricity. Never did she complain about having to draw water from a well or about having to gather wood or about having to build a fire each morning under a large black kettle in order to heat her water. Never did she complain about the multi-mile walk to the nearest store or about having to use a mule to plow her one-acre garden. Never did she complain about the red dust blown into her eyes from the lane that paralleled her land or about being alone in a very dense forest.

To the contrary, she was free of fear and free of desire, functioning as a minimalist who was completely content, even as “less” marked each aspect of her existence. All efforts by her children to provide “the basic amenities” were refused. Though “nihilism” would not have been among the words in her vocabulary, in practice she lived in what dualists would have called “a moral fashion” without needing a defined, moral code or religion to guide her; though she provided healing for many, she never did so to attain a sense of “self”-value or to give “meaning” to “her life”; and what happened on any given day at any given time was never a result of “preferences.” Looking back later, it was seen that everything that happened with Grandmother happened spontaneously or not at all.

She knew no time; she honored no days with dualistic notions about some being “more important” or “different” or “holier” than others; she honored no person with dualistic notions about some being "more important" or "different" or "holier" than others; she was attuned to the cycles of the seasons but lived only in the moment; she was at-one with all. The manifestation spanned a century, so she obviously cared for her body without caring about her body. Looking back, it is obvious that she had none of the delusions that cause many to confuse three-dimensional things or three-dimensional beings with the real.

THAT FIRST TASTE OF NIRVANA
For a young child longing for peace and for respite from an existence that was plagued with far too much nonsense, with far too many judgments about being “good or bad,” and with the application of excessive punishment when labeled “bad,” the contrast of summers with a calm, serene Ah-ni-yv-wi-ya grandmother became a welcomed balm. To be in her presence in the quietness of the natural surroundings of a forest and in a home where serenity reigned was to be in Nirvana. At least it was for a young child who was already trying to escape an environment in the city that was far too chaotic, far too noisy, far too castigatory in character, and far too illogical and irrational. The concept in India of undergoing “the forest dweller stage” became my experience long before I heard the term.

AN EARLY LESSON ABOUT THE ILLUSION OF DEATH
When in the city with my parents, bedtime was always marred with a prayer which included the phrase “…and if I die before I wake.” That always struck me as a peculiar concept to introduce just prior to sleep, but my protests in that regard were ignored and the lines had to be spoken. That prayer was never a requirement at Grandmother’s; in fact, Grandmother never used any prayers that I saw or heard, but she did offer a hug and a kiss and a pat at bedtime, so sleep in her home was long and deep. Except for one night.

One night, when fears generated by strange noises outside the open window drove me from my bed to hers, she calmed me with a hug and shushing sounds. That night, the noises triggered a fear that “this might be the night that I die before I get to wake.” The thought drove me to seek something to assuage the fear in a way that would allow me to return to sleep, so it was asked, “Grandmother, am I too bad to get to go to heaven if I die?” After a moment of silence, in which she was processing a hurt that I only now realize she was feeling, Grandmother said, “Not only are you not bad, but there is no death, so do not be concerned. Just go to sleep and rest.”

“There is no death?” I repeated sleepily. I wanted to ask for more explanation, for more assurance, but I wanted even more to return to sleep, so nothing more was said after a few incoherent mumblings from a child transitioning from abject fear into the quiet-breath sounds of sleep. It would be forty-five years before it would be seen in retrospect that the transitioning from abject fear into the quiet-breath sounds of rest would be a metaphor for the Advaita “journey” of transitioning from my relative existence that had been marked by imagined fears and unmet desires and “mind”-generated suffering to enjoying the quiet-breath moments of rest, post-Realization.

Can you relate to a child running about in the darkness of abject fear over what was really nothing? Can you relate to an adult still doing the same? Are you ready for the quietness to replace the chaos? Are you ready for the sleep-state level of peace to manifest during the waking hours as well? Are you ready for peaceful surroundings? Are you truly ready to take all seven steps that are required to complete the journey that can take you to that? Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
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