“LOVE,” “FEAR” AND EMOTIONAL INTOXICATION, Part Two

[Received 31 July 2007] You mentioned love-hate in today’s post, but in satsanga you told us that the only two emotions that persons experience are love or fear. Que pasa? Ricardo

F.: You were also told in satsanga, Ricardo, that "truth cannot be stated but it can be known." What if, similarly, that which “Love” is cannot be stated but can be known? You were also told that “Persons desiring to know what love is might benefit more (relatively speaking, of course) if they were able to understand what love is not." Just as all false selves must be seen as false before the True Self can be known, so all false beliefs about “love” must be seen before you can even begin to know what “True Love” is. Thus, the list of what love is not continues from yesterday’s post:

2. Is it possible that love is NOT the love-of-self that drives persons to seek “a compatible partner”? What is a “compatible partner”? Many heterosexual persons actually want an opposite-sex version of themselves. Many homosexual persons want a same-sex version of themselves. Dating services promise to put you in contact with someone who is “compatible with you”…with someone who is “exactly like you,” so it will be easier for “love to bloom” (since that person will really be a version of “you”—of your false selves). If a person is not Realized and is matched by test to someone else, that someone else will also be non-Realized.

Persons are so “in love” with themselves—with their false “selves” and their false identities—that they believe that they can only be happy if they find other persons to associate with who mirror them...who think as they think, feel as they feel, and believe as they believe. Any deviation from that pattern is almost always grounds for war eventually, either among individuals or among individuals comprising nations. The Oneness is not known among the non-Realized, so they are driven to live in the mirror. Their entire life seemingly takes place in the looking glass. To love your own "self" when it is reflected by another is not love at all.

3. Is it possible that love in NOT “the missing ingredient in your life” that can bring you happiness if attained? All absence of happiness and all presence of misery is rooted in perceptions of need, in desires, and in fears. Try to name another area that generates more desire or more fear than “love.” Try to name anything else sought out so vigorously in order to meet perceived needs (that are not truly needs at all but are merely more “wants”). Few areas of your relative existence have superceded “love” in fostering desire, fear, short-term happiness, and long-term misery. If you can boast that you have never experienced the latter, just be patient.

4. Is it possible that love is NOT the gateway to having your needs and wishes met? Your needs are perceived and the actual driving force behind your desires cannot be seen until well along the path to Realization.

5. Is it possible that love is NOT a tool to be used for the manipulation of “others” or “another” to gain more or to satisfy your sense of entitlement…the sense that you are entitled to be taken care of or the sense that you deserve more than you have? Happiness begins when the search for more goes and a contentment with less comes. Happiness becomes fixed when nothing is desired. It reaches a new height during AS IF living when the Void is enjoyed. It reaches the ultimate bliss after it is seen that the Void is the fullness.

6. Is it possible that love is NOT “caring enough” to meet the needs and desires of “another”? That is attachment. That is ego-state defense. That is delusion. And more often than not, if you dig one layer below what many claim to be their “altruistic giving,” what is revealed is a hidden agenda to “get.” The drive toward accumulation follows twenty years of early programming. The shift toward true happiness begins when it is seen that one is left with a sense of emptiness in spite of all that has been accumulated, when one enters into Self-Inquiry, when one finds the Real, and when de-accumulation then happens spontaneously.

7. Is it possible that love is NOT because of? The closest that "love" could be to what is real happens when it is not because of but when it remains in spite of instead.

8. Is it possible that love, needs, and “relationships” are NOT that which is the answer to all your problems but are instead the source of much of your misery?

9. Is it possible that love is NOT that which results when your limbic brain system releases pleasure-producing chemicals when you are attracted to someone? That part of the brain recognizes the familiarity of your “caretakers,” ignoring whether that caretaking was effective or harmful, relatively speaking. It is a chemical reaction, not a “love-reaction,” when “others” attract you because of a subconscious response that you can neither trigger willingly nor halt on your own. There is no such thing as "falling in love" or "love at first sight." There can be "chemical attraction at first sight," which has everything to do with archetypal influences, genetic coding and physiological factors but nothing at all to do with True Love. Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
ADDITIONAL READINGS RELATED TO TODAY’S POST:
THE FULL DISUCSSION ON “LOVE” AND THE WAY THAT REALIZATION CAN IMPROVE ALL ASPECTS OF THE RELATIVE EXISTENCE IS DISCUSSED IN CASTING LIGHT ON THE DARK SIDE OF RELATIONSHIPS
WORKING ON ISSUES ARISING IN RELATIONSHIPS WITH THE NON-REALIZED AND ON FINDING SOLUTIONS TO “RELATIONSHIP PROBLEMS”?

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“LOVE,” “FEAR” AND EMOTIONAL INTOXICATION, Part One

From site visitor Ricardo: [Received 31 July 2007] You mentioned love-hate in today’s post, but in satsanga you told us that the only two emotions that persons experience are love or fear. Que pasa? Ricardo

[Relevant to the topic of “fears” to be discussed in this series was a recent exchange which began with this e-mail:

From site visitor Sim in Kentucky: Six months before my mom "crossed over" (ok, choose your term) I sent her the It’s All Bullshit book with the inscription, “Floyd has answered ‘What's it all about, Alfie?’” The answer: “It's all bullshit!” She was intelligent enough to take the book for what it was and laugh and move on.
The response: The content of that book is really just a set of relative existence propositionalities with no significance at all other than to provide the timid, novice seeker with the courage or impetus to begin questioning it all. Why question it all? In order to be free of all concepts that trigger fears and desires (a.k.a. "loves") during the manifestation. It seems in this case that the intent was realized in another fashion in that one may have became free of fears and desires regarding that which is post-manifestation. If so, the timing was appropriate since the unmanifesting of the consciousness was seen to be under way. Now, everyone may as well realize that in every case, the unmanifesting of the consciousness is also currently under way. Thx for writing.]

F.: First, the distinction between emotions and feelings will be clarified once again. The Realized can “feel” for as long as the manifestation continues, but they cannot emote. Emotions are reactions generated and sustained by ego-states. Emotions are like small pockets of explosives stored in the warped, fictional “mind” that can detonate without notice. They inspire the taking of unconscious actions around desires/love or reacting unconsciously around fears.

Ricardo, you might re-read the context in which “love-hate” was used, but you are correct: as far as any ego-state experiencing emotional intoxication, there is not really “love and hate”; instead, there is “love” or “fear.” As often noted on the site, all false identities are driven by either desire (often mistaken for "love") or fear.

One person protested that “You’re wrong, Floyd—there’s also jealousy, such as I feel when I drive up and see my wife talking to the man next door.” That was shown to be fear actually…fear that his wife might have an affair with the neighbor or even leave with the neighbor and in the act end the persona of “husband.”

Another person protested that “You’re wrong—there’s also anger, like when my boss gets on my case and I get angry.” That was shown to be fear actually…fear that the boss might fire the employee and thereby end that false identity.

Louise, in Cape Town, South Africa wrote recently and touched on another aspect, namely, that even love and fear are not two: I was feeling love for someone which changed dramatically to fear (the peripetia you speak of). “I” slipped through the crack and realised instantly that love and fear are the same emotion. I laughed madly, felt wild and free, abandoned my work and hauled off to do some gardening (first time in years) while chuckling in delight. It was understood that “This is all bullshit, because it is all concept”.
The response: “Yes, love and fear are the same emotion to the extent that, when driving through the desert, the mirage I see in the road ahead and the mirage I see in the rearview mirror look like two different things but both are really only...mirages.”

The woman referred to in an earlier posting as Case #2 uses "love as a tool to manipulate men to take care of her and give her anything she wants." Apply the pointer offered by Louise and see that, with the woman known as Case #2, “love” is used to eliminate fears and to fulfill her desires. With her, to use Louise’s words, “love and fear are the same emotion,” at least as far as the manner in which Case#2 functions in the relative. Those two words identify concepts that often function in tandem as one. Just as a “bicycle built for two” is actually just one bike, so “love” and “fear” can work in tandem and be used “to one end” by a person.

Why are both “love” and “fear” concepts…merely mirages? Because they are words used by personas who are being driven by perceived needs and imagined threats. The Realized know neither desire nor fear, understanding that the closest any manifestation will come to knowing True Love is when the Pure Witness level is reached and the Realization of the Oneness is understood.

Remember: 59% of all women murdered in the U.S. are killed by a person (during a breakup) who has previously said, “I love you,” and 41% of all men are killed by a person (during a breakup) who said “I love you.” So much for the way in which the word “love” is tossed about by the non-Realized.

What of those who make the following claim about the Oneness: “I am Fully Realized, and that means that God and I are one?” That is an example of subject-object witnessing, not Pure Witnessing as they believe. They are talking “oneness” but thinking “duality.” Besides, is there not already an excess of persons walking about the planet who are suffering from the God Complex Personality Disorder? Is there really a need for any more teachings that increase their fold?

Next, the order of the steps toward Realization involve finding out everything that one is not before trying to find out “who” one is. The same applies to “love.” Many persons who consider themselves experts on love write to criticize certain pointers offered here; nevertheless, the suggestion remains that persons try to identity what love is not before offering their opinions about what love is. To that end, some pointers from past posts will be offered for the next few days for your re-consideration as it is shown what love is not:

1. Is it possible that love is NOT the love-to-be that ego-states experience? The “husband” loves-to-be "husband" so much that when “wife” reports that she is leaving, 59% in the U.S. kill the partner who is trying to leave. "Husband" perceives her action as a threat to him because she is walking away (which is actually the most non-threatening posture in nature). When awareness of the True Self is lost below the layers of personas that the non-Realized wrongly take to be who they are, then a threat to an ego-state will be falsely-perceived as an actual threat.

The result is that the person (in this example “husband”) will believe so strongly that he is being attacked that he will be driven to strike out in what is taken by the warped consciousness to be an act of “self-defense” (specifically, in “defense of his false self”). Yet to the end, he will claim that he was driven to do that out of his "love" for her.

Such is the way the warped consciousness morphs "love" and "fear": persons can then allow their love of an ego-state and their fear of the loss of an ego-state to mesh and then trap them in an often lethal state of emotional intoxication. Such is the insanity of being driven by the "mind" that dominates the thoughts, words, and deeds of the non-Realized. Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
READINGS RELATED TO TODAY’S DISCUSSION:
WORKING ON LOVE, HATE, FEAR, OR DESIRE ISSUES ARISING IN RELATIONSHIPS? LOOKING FOR ADVAITA-BASED SOLUTIONS TO “RELATIONSHIP PROBLEMS”?

Click CASTING LIGHT ON THE DARK SIDE OF RELATIONSHIPS

INTERESTED IN THE BOOK THAT CAN GUIDE YOU THROUGH THE SEVEN STEPS?

Click FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE (A Seven-Step Journey to Reality)

EGO-STATES: “LOVE” OR “EGO,” BUT NOT BOTH (A Continuing Series on Ego-States), Part Five

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

F.: Taking into account all of the Advaitin pointers that have ever been offered, none is likely to be as despised by persons (by the non-Realized) as the pointer that “there is no continuity of body or mind or personality.” Ranking a close second is likely the pointer that, “If you have not Realized, then you have never loved; if you are only dealing with the non-Realized, you are not being loved.”

Those who would debate that point are the ones who really desire love or who fear not having love or who believe they really need love or who are convinced that no one could not love them. They do not understand “mutually exclusive.” If reason and logic are applied, it should be clear that one involved in self—that is, a person assuming any false role and taking the false self to be the True Self, will automatically be self-involved and self-absorbed.

One who is self-involved and self-absorbed will see “a world of others,” and all interaction with those “others” will only be to sustain one’s co-dependent or interdependent ego-states…one’s false self or false selves. That “world” of ego-states and egomania will always be devoid of love. Demanding sex every day might be taken as a sign that "he really loves me" and "he really wants me" and "I am securing my roles." The objective Advaitin witness can see that the only thing happening is that the ego-state of “The Lover” is being sustained for the husband. The savvy clinician will see that a sex addiction is being enabled...and nothing more.

Persons tout the benefits of "self-esteem"; that notwithstanding, to be self-involved and self-absorbed and in love with one’s false self/selves excludes any chance for the manifestation of unconditional love. The “search for love” among the non-Realized really involves nothing more than a desire to find an opposite-sex clone of self. The belief is, "Surely we will be compatible forever if we have the same thoughts, the same beliefs, the same behaviors and habits, the same desires, the same fears, etc.," as if persons are not in a constant state of flux and as if they "will always be the way they are now."

The non-Realized, being unaware of the unicity in which True Love is based, will claim that they are “in love” while actually being in love with a mirror image. They are only in love with self, and more specifically, they are only in love with their false ego-states while believing that they truly love those who support their false roles. “The Employee” loves the boss who allows that role to continue (especially if the job is high-paying) and hates the boss who fires her/him and destroys that role. “The Wife” claims to love the man who was her accomplice in forming and sustaining her false images.

That which is real is unchanging, so if love can turn to hate, it was not real to begin with.

The case study for this series is a woman whose husband claimed for years that he loved her but now “does not love her anymore.” After the beginning months or years of most marriages, a point is reached when it is declared that “the honeymoon is over.” What does that mean? It means that all of the images that were being shown or assumed during dating are eventually seen to be nothing more than misrepresentations. It means that the personality defects that were being covered up are now coming to light.

For those who are really asleep or in denial, being fooled (or fooling oneself) can go on for years. The woman going through a divorce claims that “up until now, he always loved me and I always loved him.” Objective witnesses who read the details of her account would conclude that other factors were involved which convinced her that love is compatible with being controlled by a self-absorbed and neglectful man who took the money she earned, who made her handle all projects and then attacked her over the results, who refused to discuss having children, who demanded sex every day for twenty years, who had a multi-year affair, and who is now leaving her for another woman after she played the role of “The Dutiful and Obedient and Accommodating Wife” for twenty years.

Some might conclude that she was more likely to have been in love with the idea of love or with the idea of “the two of you” or with the idea of their being “a couple.” Some might conclude that she enjoyed being seen about town with what she described as “the best-looking man in town” who bought “the biggest mansion in the city” where they “entertained lavishly.” Some would study her words and conclude that she was in love with something other than “him.” She knows the price they paid for their mansion to the penny, but she does not know the price she has paid by internalizing another person instead of finding her True Self.

Likely, for the first time in decades, she is in a position to finally be true to her Self rather than playing the role of “His Wife” (“his” meaning literally, “the wife possessed by him”). She is in a position to stop playing her false roles of “The Wife” and “The Opposite-Sex Clone of a Man” and “The Provider of Daily Sex.” She thinks he is leaving her, but the fact is that he was never "with" her. She thinks she is dying now, but she has been "dead" for years (meaning, dead to her True Self).

The relevant Advaita pointer has been offered earlier:

The belief by persons that their various roles actually define who they are becomes entrenched. Then, if personas feel that they are being hurt, challenged, interfered with, or threatened, most persons become willing to fight to preserve that which is nothing more than an image. Many have fought to the (relative) death to preserve the false personality that their “minds” have convinced them is who they actually are.

With her threats to kill herself, the woman is “entrenched” in the roles of “Wife,” “Socialite,” “Co-Owner of a Mansion,” “The Woman Enhanced by Being with a Handsome Man,” “The Woman Who Will Always Be Secure, Having Married the Rich Man,” ad infinitum. With those ego-states now being “threatened,” she is ready to fight to the death. In this case, the fight to the death involves her own relative death because she is convinced that if she cannot continue to play her false roles in “The Drama of the Lie,” that ending the manifestation of the consciousness is the only viable alternative available.

Consider how much suffering persons experience as 50-60% who marry will have to face the lost of their assumed identities and will have to deal with the emotional intoxication that happens when the loss of so many identities strikes at once.

If only all false identities were discarded on one’s own timetable instead of a timetable imposed by a co-dependent sustainer of one’s ego-states. If only the ego-states were discarded while visiting with a teacher/guide under calm and rational circumstances. Then, all of the trauma of having identities snatched away could be avoided by having given them up voluntarily. “The Fearful Employee” can disappear though the job can continue. “The Dutiful, Obedient, Accommodating Wife” could disappear though the marriage could continue (the indication for intensive counseling notwithstanding).

The difference is this: the Realized can still feel what they feel without becoming “robotic,” as some charge. Feelings are witnessed as they rise and fall, but the Realized are free of the assumption of false identities that drive persons to think that the loss of a culturally-assigned label is grounds for suicide. Realization, which allows for AS IF living, is a pre-emptive strike against that which will eventually strike all persons absorbed in ego-states. Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
THE FULL TREATMENT OF THE SUBJECT OF “RELATIONSHIP PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS” IS AVAILABLE

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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)
THE FULL TREATMENT OF THE SUBJECT OF “RELATIONSHIP PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS” IS AVAILABLE

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ADVAITA TEACHINGS: Relevant, or Not? Part Two

From a site visitor: OK, so I read the posts from the last days, and you did admit that the I AM is a part of the I AM THAT I AM, so the question is, how is any of that talk about consciousness and witnessing have any relevance to the I AM I’m trying to navigate through? Tom

F.: Next, the very fact that you found this site and wrote to it is evidence that you are searching for something. Ultimately, only the search for Self can result in finding anything that is real. All else that you have been searching for is illusion-based, so at this point you have no choice but to live a life that is based in lies. Yet you question the relevance of teachings that invite you to search for truth and to find that which is Real as you are "trying to navigate through" your misconceived I-Amness?

While your search should focus on that which can be discovered from within, you are obviously searching for that which is external to You as you “navigate” about. Using that approach, seeking something or someone that you think you "need," you will always be needy and dependent or co-dependent. Then you will never be free, and if not free, how can you possibly have a sense of fulfillment? See the circular trap you are in? Also, as you come across in a needy, dependent fashion, you will only attract persons who are prone to seek out, manipulate, and take advantage of the needy types and the dependent types.

Further, as you search outside yourself, reinforcing your false belief in subject-object (which was also discussed in the recent postings that you are challenging) you will engage in one “relationship” after another which can only lead to instability and chaos. (Remember the eternal, subatomic influence that triggers a desire to “relate to” something? Do you see how that is dualistic at its very core?) Why will that search guarantee misery rather than the happiness and fulfillment that you seek? Because you will mistake your culture’s definition of “love” for the real. In that regard, this pointer is offered in the book FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE (A Seven-Step Journey to Reality):

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.

Not knowing that You Are the unicity, you will identify with a variety of ego-states and those will assure that (1) you will seek to find someone to “make” you happy; (2) even if someone else makes you happy for a time, if they have that power to make you happy, then they also have the power to make you miserable; and (3) all of your “relations” will, therefore, advance and degenerate along this continuum:

stranger -> acquaintance -> friend -> best friend -> lover -> spouse -> one’s beloved -> eventually, irritating spouse -> enemy -> ex-spouse -> mortal enemy

If you do not understand the unicity, which you don’t, you will search for persons and things to “make you happy;” thus; any notions that you have about love will be at a self-serving level only. In that regard, see the relevance of pointers offered in regards to subject-object witnessing and transitioning beyond to the Pure Witnessing level: when you believe “I love him/her,” that subject-object belief sets the stage for you to also experience “I hate him/her” or “She/he hates me.” In the book CASTING LIGHT ON THE DARK SIDE OF RELATIONSHIPS, the problems are identified before solutions are offered, and one relative problem is rooted in all of the misunderstandings about “what love is,” about "what love is not," and in the duality of subject-object. For one involved in external searching, as you are, that pointer should also be relevant.

Why else discuss emotions vs. feelings and witnessing? Emotional reactions are the product of assumed identities—false ego-states—and one who is emotionally intoxicated cannot be happy or at peace. Peace can happen, on the other hand, when feelings are witnessed as they rise and fall. Then, the full spectrum of AS IF living can happen without the misery of emotional intoxication. My teacher offered this pointer: "Love says "I am everything." Wisdom says "I am nothing." Between the two, my life flows."

Finally, happiness can only happen if free. One identified with body and mind and personality can never be free. Freedom from all nonsense and desire and fear can only happen via the re-purification of the consciousness and Full Realization. As far as this Is-ness is concerned, what could be more relevant than these Teachings that can lead to an understanding that can provide, in turn, freedom and happiness/contentment for the remainder of the manifestation? Yet peace does not come to the seeker. Peace comes when seeking ends as a result of having found, yet those searching externally will think on occasion that they have found, only to learn later that they have not. Please enter the silence of contemplation.

WORKING ON “THE FINAL PIECE” AND PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER?

Click FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE (A Seven-Step Journey to Reality)

WORKING ON ISSUES ARISING IN RELATIONSHIPS WITH THE NON-REALIZED AND ON FINDING SOLUTIONS TO “RELATIONSHIP PROBLEMS”?

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REALIZATION PRECLUDES EMOTIONAL INTOXICATION, BUT IT DOES NOT BLOCK THE ABILITY TO FEEL

From a site visitor: I’ve looked at this Advaita Vedanta thing long enough to figure out that Realization leaves you cold and and uncaring. I’d rather feel bad ever now and then so I can feel good most of the rest of the time. To hell with people who are cold and uncaring.

F.: The misunderstanding you have shown has been discussed on the site before, but your comments will be addressed nevertheless. You have provided evidence once more of the fact that (a) it is persons who draw conclusions without facts and that (b) it is persons who express very strong opinions on experiences that they have never had. Realize first and then discuss what it is like to be Realized.

The Realized do not emote since emotional intoxication is restricted to the realm of persons/personas/personality; yet the Realized—in the AS IF style of living—feel far more, love far move, and care far more than any non-Realized person. Once you know the unicity, then all that happens to all also happens to the Realized. The following pointer was offered earlier on this site:

Ego is believing that there’s a vast multiplicity arranged in a hierarchy and that you’re the pinnacle; humility is knowing that you’re nothing, no-thing; love is knowing that You, with a capital ‘Y,’ Are everything.

The Realized feel, but the feelings are witnessed as they rise and fall…without attachment, without emotional intoxication, and without triggering a chain of destructive actions and reactions (all the stuff of the relative existence, of course). The following pointer, however, was also offered to a site visitor who asked, “Can you, from the position of “As If Living” that follows Full Realization, feel and share Unconditional Love?” The answer:

Not only can You, but You shall. In fact, once again, no choice will be involved. It will just happen...spontaneously and unequivocally.

Last night, the news reported that men in Zambia are knowingly passing along their AIDS infections to young girls who are selling their virginity to earn money for food. The men are buying their virginity because they believe that sex with a virgin will cure AIDS. The reporter also discussed the high child-mother mortality rates in Zambia. They showed women lying on dirt floors as they give birth; they reported that women are using pieces of sawgrass to cut umbilical cords, thereby contracting infections and dying from sepsis.

Then, the reporter showed a sixty-cent “birthing kit” that contains a piece of plastic that a woman could lie on during the birthing process to prevent contact with the dirt and a sterile razor blade that could be used to cut the cord without causing infection. When the contents of the sixty-cent bag are used, mother and child have a 13 times greater chance of surviving, but most women cannot afford the bag. Fifty-percent of the time, they and their child will die for lack of a piece of plastic and a razor blade.

The Realized, watching that report and literally being the unicity, felt exactly what the mothers felt as 50% of their children die within five days of birth. The Realized, literally being the unicity, know exactly how the teen girls feel when they are informed that they have been knowingly infected. Those who watched that report and felt no tightening of the throat or a knotting of the stomach were not the Realized, so you are now invited to figure out who the persons are on the planet who are actually “cold and uncaring.”

Furthermore, because persons project their truth onto others, any who are pointing a finger toward the Realized and making charges about being “cold and uncaring” are revealing their own true nature…not the nature of the Realized. You are invited to take your own inventory before taking the inventory of “others”…or not. You are invited to consider questioning your self rather than “others”…or not. You are invited to actually have an experience before you draw conclusions about that experience…or not. And again, you are invited to Realize first and then discuss what it is like to be Realized…or not. Please enter the silence of contemplation.
TOMORROW: Consciousness Is
NOTE: Some have e-mailed to say they’re trying to select some readings but don’t know where to begin after seeing all the options offered on the site. This is for them:
REALIZATION RESOURCES:
WORKING ON LEARNING TO QUESTION IT ALL AND BEING FREE OF THE FALSE (BUT HONORED) CONCEPTS AND BELIEFS OF YOUR CULTURE?
Read IT’S ALL BULLSHIT (<-- click here for synopsis)

WORKING ON BEING FREE OF RELIGIOUS PROGRAMMING AND DOGMA? Read SPIRITUAL SOBRIETY(<-- click here for synopsis)

WORKING ON BEING FREE OF BODY AND MIND IDENTIFICATION? Read WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE? (<-- click here for synopsis)

WORKING ON BEING FREE OF MIND AND PERSONALITY IDENTIFICATION? Read LIBERATION (<-- click here for synopsis)

Read THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS “PEACE OF MIND” (<-- click here for synopsis)

WORKING ON “THE FINAL PIECE” AND PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER? Read THE ESSENCE OF THE TEACHINGS (<-- click here for synopsis)

Read FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE (A Seven-Step Journey to Reality) (<-- click here for synopsis)

WORKING ON ISSUES ARISING IN RELATIONSHIPS WITH THE NON-REALIZED AND ON FINDING SOLUTIONS TO “RELATIONSHIP PROBLEMS”? Read CASTING LIGHT ON THE DARK SIDE OF RELATIONSHIPS (<-- click here for synopsis)

INTERESTED IN A NOVEL STARRING A REALIZED ADVENTURER?

Read THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF WARS (<-- click here for synopsis)

INTERESTED IN A NOVEL WITH A CHARACTER WHO EVOLVES FROM A LIFE OF MISERY TO THE PEACE OF REALIZATION?

Read: The Twice-Stolen Necklace Murders

Order from Amazon

INTERESTED IN RESTORING FINANCIAL SANITY AND USING A ZEN APPROACH TO HANDLING FINANCES BY USE OF A METHOD THAT HAS A PROVEN RECORD?

Read LIVING WITHIN YOUR MEANS (<-- click here for synopsis)

Read ENDING FINANCIAL PROBLEMS (<-- click here for synopsis)

INTERESTED IN AN ADVAITA VEDANTA RETREAT? (<-- click here for information)