TRANSCENDENCE: Not “Death,” but the “Death” of Ego, the “Death” of False Identities, the “Death” of Misperceptions, Part Two

[Continued from 2 March 2007. If you did not read Part One, please scroll downward to read the March 2nd post first.]

FROM A SITE VISITOR: [Received 1 March 2007] Found your site recently. Some of your writings have helped more since my wife left than the so-called “pros” I went to and the so-called “support groups” but that old husband idea is still kicking my ass (pardon the French.) What you wrote today about being energy and not really being a husband is trying to tell me something but husband still feels very real right now and so does his pain. Any other tips?

F.: Why does such emotional pain accompany the forfeiture of roles that are not even real? Because they are mistaken as the “Self” when they are only the “self”—only false roles. Consider this also: efforts to forfeit attachment to that “husband” identity (and to forfeit attachment to all false identities) shall not happen if marked by whimpers. Those whimperings are the voices of delusion, generated from the “mind,” rooted in the corrupted consciousness, fearing loss, and desiring continuity for a false identity (or false identities). It has been pointed out repeatedly on this site that to be free of the effects of duality and the effects of Multiple Personality Disorder (DID), “the readiness is all.” When the readiness manifests, then the phony roles are forfeited in glad fashion.

Next, see another aspect regarding this suffering that is associated with the forfeiture of a false role: were the actual facts of your case to be known, it would be realized that “husband” has not been experiencing misery only since the departure of “wife.” “Husband” had plenty of misery when “wife” was still there, but denial and re-framing prevented an awareness of that then (and is preventing an awareness of that now). Even if that awareness were to surface, the “mind” would generate thoughts about “what could have been” or “what should have been” and about “what maybe can still be.” When distorted thinking and distorted perceptions typify the parties involved in any arrangement, the arrangement itself will also be distorted...guaranteed.

Distorted memory and misperceptions about “The Way It Is” or about “The Way It Was” are the scourge of Realization. The witnessing of lies as lies moves the process along toward an awareness of truth. But for now, “he” still has a hidden agenda, hidden even from self and certainly from Self. “He/husband” has wants and desires about “wife” and how she claims to feel or not feel about “husband.” “He” has fears. All of the other ego-states that are disappearing have agendas too. The effects are multi-faceted because the personality is multi-faceted.

Truth also be known, “husband” is not ready to die but he thinks that is happening. “Husbands-that-are-dying” arrive at this site or at satsanga with dependent and co-dependent agendas: “Make us a couple again; help ‘me’ last; or at least make 'me' happy. I still want it all.” But “he” seldom arrives with the only sane agenda: “Make me disappear (without physically killing me).” The transcended poet Whitman asked, “Has anyone supposed it lucky to be born?” Then he added, “I hasten to inform him or her, it is just as lucky to die, and I know it.” How did he know it, without having physically died? Via witnessing “his” own death: the death of ego…the death of the false “I”…the death of delusions…the death of misperceptions.

From those persons trapped in duality, the statement can be heard, “I cannot live with myself anymore.” More accurately, the statement could be, “I, the True Self, cannot live in peace or happiness with my false self—or false selves—anymore.” When one sees all of the false roles which he or she has played in a lifetime, and when he or she sees the toll exacted as a result of the playing of all those phony roles, then the roles will be forfeited gladly if sanity is restored.

When the readiness is there, those ego-states will dissolve not with a whimper, not with sadness for an old acquaintance lost, but will be waved “goodbye” to with laughter. When the Realization came in full, during those seconds before "floyd" disappeared once and from all, “he” saw how their lies had been perceived as truth for decades. And then he laughed a short laugh. A chuckle followed. Then long and hearty laughter came. After the laughs had lasted for some time, a state of exhaustion manifested after that exercise.

While reclining on a small couch, one arm fell to the right side and the left arm fell to the floor. There was no more physical movement, no sound was made. And then a quiet statement came forth, and it was the re-purified consciousness noting, “Oh…my….gosh. It was all a lie…just one lie after another. One deception after another. One false role after another. One long play with phony me on the phony stage, joined by phony actors making their welcomed entrances and their mourned exits. Oh…my…gosh.” And then, silence. And then, an overwhelming sense of peace as had never been known before…ever.

Recall an earlier pointer: Transcending the disappointments and chaos and misery and pain of this relative existence does not require a “physical death.” One definition of “die” is “to cease” or “to disappear.” Freedom from your illusory pain can come if you allow your ego to “die,” if you allow your false identities and role-playing to “die,” and if you allow your distorted misperceptions to “die.”

If the playing of the husband role on the stage of your relative existence must truly come to an end, let the role go. An actor in a Broadway production can play a role for so long that he starts identifying with the part. When the run ends, he can say, “Hey, what the heck—I had a good run.” Then, he walks out of the darkened theatre and into the light of the day and is snapped back into reality. Do the same. As "wife" takes her dramatic exit, witness an actress walking off the stage of your relative existence. See the curtain fall on that act. Then, leave the darkness behind. Walk out of “The Theater of the Lie,” walk into the light, and see the truth…see reality. Then, remember that whatever happens, or not, can be accepted. Stay with this pointer for now:

“…If you cling to the false identity of “husband,” you shall never find the True Self, so peace will never happen consistently. If you find the True Self, then “husbanding” or “not husbanding” can happen…but consistent peace will happen either way.”

Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be continued]

WHY MOST PERSONS WILL NEVER REALIZE, Part Three

FROM A SITE VISITOR: Dear Mr. Henderson, Re; your am post of this date.[8 Feb 2007] Can you speak about how to move beyond the fear of losing \"this\" to embracing \"That\". When I think about \"Why not Realize\". It is fear. Fear of losing parts of the little self that I have allowed to define me. Peace,Peace,Peace Virginia

F.: [Continued from yesterday]

DENIAL
When persons read the February 7th and 8th postings that describe the insanity that marks the relative existence of the non-Realized, most will deny that anything in those two postings applies to them. Even as validated research confirms that 95% of people in “developed nations” suffer depression to some degree and that most persons suffer from MPD/DID and that bi-polar disorders have reached an all-time high and that 95% or more are addicted to something, most persons will deny that they are depressed or that they have any really significant problems. The ego always reports to itself that “it is doing just fine” and then reports the same to any who would question that delusion.

Among persons, the case is usually that denial and distortion re-frame miserable experiences as “normal” or as “OK, really” or as "That's just the way it is." It is also usually the case than unbelievable pain—of the mental and emotional and physical varieties—must manifest before persons will take action. When people are asleep, they must be shaken to be awakened, and who that is sound asleep would want to be shaken or awakened? Even those who are having nightmares usually prefer that their nightmare-filled sleep continue as opposed to taking the seven steps that are required in order to be fully awakened.

GREED
Finally, persons are controlled by greed. At the root of that greed is, once again, the desires of false personas and the fear that there will never be enough or that they will not always have enough to sustain all the images that the non-Realized adopt. Whereas Realization is about not wanting and about de-accumulating, body-mind-personality identification is about wanting and accumulating. “Giving up” rather than “getting” is anathema in the planet’s cultures of accumulation. Simplification, therefore, is also scorned, so complications ensue. Trapped within those conditions, the corrupted consciousness will usually remain corrupted throughout its manifestation. (Relatedly, the question that triggered your question was, "Why not Realize?" That could as well be stated as, "Why not clean up the corrupted consciousness that you have become and be restored to the state of pure consciousness that You Were?" or "Why not get free of all the myth-based lies that you've been taught?" or "Why not take out the garbage rather than letting it stay inside and contaminate your home and infect your very being?")

If the consciousness were re-purified enough to understand that “this” is a mirage and that THAT is all that’s real, Full Realization would happen. That understanding happens only after seeing how many lies have been told to humanity for thousands of years. Yet most persons—driven by fear, desire, arrogance, denial and greed—will continue to take lies and myths and superstitions to be true. Furthermore, in cultures where fear, desire, arrogance, denial and greed are now taken to be “the norm,” little inspiration to be free of any of those will manifest.

Thus, most will never Realize because fear, desire, arrogance, denial, greed and chaos have become preferable among the persons of the planet; therefore, the results of Realization—namely, an awareness that there’s nothing to fear, that there are no real requirements that should trigger desires, that having less lightens the load, and that awareness of truth results in peace—have no appeal at all. Because persons have such low tolerance for self-awareness and for self-inventory that reveals their relative-existence liabilities, they automatically have no interest in self-awareness, in Self Awareness, in relative shortcomings and abnormalities, or in truth.

Therefore, most will remain trapped in their body-mind-personality identification. If one would hate to lose even one single finger, think how much more he/she would hate to give up the body. If one is proud of her/his learned ignorance and "mind," why would the person consider giving up the lie-filled mind as the path to peace? If a person is so proud of the roles being played, why would he/she even consider discarding those phony roles and stop playing all the phony games? Most never will, and so it is. But anyone reading this post certainly has the opportunity to begin the seven-step “journey” to Full Realization. Please enter the silence of contemplation.

SCIENTIFIC ADVANCES VALIDATE ADVAITA AND CONFIRM WIDESPREAD INSANITY, Part Two

[Continuation of yesterday’s post]
F.: Yesterday, a man was mentioned who had assumed many roles and who had internalized many personality types. In spite of having founded a business that generated millions of dollars in profits for several decades, he confessed that he had experienced at least 46 years of off-again, on-again happiness. He explained how, eventually, his relative existence had become marked by far more chaos and unhappiness, though he had never realized that was the case. He began to make a connection between that unhappiness and the fact that he had spent a lifetime trying to be what he was not, being trapped in personality, and being driven by the roles that he was playing and the images that he was trying to maintain.

His disintegration into a Type Three had driven him to adopt a false image and to exhaust himself in a four-decade quest to maintain it. He saw how the Type Three’s drive to be considered “valuable and worthy” had been adopted because of his life-long quest to gain approval from a non-approving father. He saw how he had been driven to create and operate a mega-successful business in order to impress and to gain the approval which he hadn’t been given as a child. He saw how all of that game-playing with his father and the belief in the duality of "good vs. bad" had driven him to continue to try to play the role of “The Good Child,” even up to his present age of fifty-one.

Assuming his employment position to be another component of his identity, he played the phony Type Eight roles of “The Aggressive Boss” and “The Super-Successful Businessman.” The man's Personality Type Five wing left him unable to act at times, suffering the paralysis-analysis that is inspired by that personality type. His Personality Type Seven wing sent him off on destructive adventures in an effort to escape the misery of assuming all those roles and identities that he was not. His Type Six personality inspired loyalty to things and people and institutions that deserved no loyalty, including a very disturbed father who has been trapped for his entire relative existence in the insanity of his dualistic beliefs.

After an hour-and-a-half discussion of all the things that he is not but that he has spent a lifetime trying to be, and after a presentation of some of the basics of the Advaita teachings, the first signs of a shift began: rather than remaining in "The Victim" persona as a result of no longer having control of his company, of no longer having anyone to play the counterpart to his “Husband” identity, of still not getting approval from his father, and of no longer having his false images to support, he seemed ready to discard the misery of personality and to begin the “journey” to finding the True Self.

He has much to discard, but the personality test that he took showed him in black and white numbers—charted on a specific scale of 1 to 32—exactly how driven he has been by personality…by his multiple, assumed personas. He saw why he has “felt torn” and “in pieces” for his entire relative existence. He saw why no sense of Oneness or wholeness had ever happened, as highly identified with his multiple personalities as he has been.

So Maharaj was correct: the illness of the planet is rooted in personality, and the treatment involves understanding the steps that can remove the delusions of personality via Full Realization. Indeed, “enlightenment” or “Self-Actualization” or “Full Realization” are merely terms that point toward that condition which follows the re-purification of the bastardized consciousness. Yet personality is rooted in body identification and “mind” conditioning which personalize the consciousness…which (falsely) “individualize the consciousness,” so to speak. The de-personalization process, therefore, must go back to its roots to be cut off there: being free of the misidentification with the body and “mind” must happen before one can be freed from the misidentification with personas. After the end of identification with body-mind-personality happens, the Child Ignorance state is re-entered and the consciousness will be aware that it Is. The witness will observe that manifest principle and will accept no false identities as real.

The man mentioned above attained, during a relatively short visit, a glimpse of what AS IF living can be like for the remainder of the manifestation if freed of personality…if free of the relative existence effects of that widespread mental illness of Multiple Personality Disorder or Dissociative Identity Disorder. Another area of science has finally caught up with the Advaita teachings. Please enter the silence of contemplation.
TOMORROW: The Delusion of Believing That a Journey Half-Completed Has Been Fully Completed