“MIND” and MEMORIES: When Nature’s “Assets” Become Warped into “Liabilities,” Part Fifteen

[Continued from yesterday]

F.: To review the key pointers offered so far:

· For millions of years, human or human-like beings functioned in a manner guided by the brain (not unlike the deer today).

· The human brain began to expand in size and capability only recently (in evolutionary terms) and developed the capacity to store memories and to retrieve (natural) memories in order to recall information that could protect the body and perpetuate the survival of the species.

· Pre-language memories did their natural job: they created a “mind” that contained information which led to constructive behavior and helped avoid potentially-dangerous situations.

· After languages developed, persons with personal agendas began programming and conditioning the minds of persons in order to control them and influence opinion, beliefs, and conduct. Rather than storing natural information, the brain began storing unnatural teachings and magical teachings about supposedly "supernatural" beings and events. True freedom was lost because behavior came to be controlled by one's programmers and their teachings, even if they were not present. (If one is conditioned, then freedom is nothing more than a concept and certainly cannot be real if a person's actions and reactions are the unconscious result of programming and conditioning.)

· Once persons began storing ideas and beliefs and concepts in their minds (instead of recording fact-based observations that could assist in natural living), then memories became dualistic in their nature: “Our tribe is good, but their tribe is bad,” and “We have the right to punish those whose memories contain information that differs from the concepts and beliefs in our memories.” The “mind” became a distorted conglomeration of corruptions and lies.

· As human behavior became more deviant and abnormal as a result of dualistic beliefs and concepts, children began forming personalities in an effort to try to deal with abnormal family situations.

· As more dualistic beliefs and concepts were stored in memory because humans were being exposed to more and more progamming and conditioning, a greater sense of separation from others and Self became more common as the “mind” became more corrupted and warped and as personas were attached to as an identities.

· As more adjusting was required among children who were trying to adapt to more and more abnormal circumstances, more personalities were formed. Then, children attached to their personalities (that is, to that childish set of “tools” being used to cope with the abnormal).

· As persons attached more and more to personality, which is rooted in childhood and in childishness, adults began to lose the ability to choose and instead fell under the influence and control of a childish personality. Childish ways were taken into adult-age situations. Adults, unconciously driven by memories and programming and personality, began to behave more and more in childish and nonsensible ways.

· Human behavior which is typically inspired by aberrations of personality now generates the majority of the “problems of the planet” as personality disorders determine (unconsciously) how persons emote, how they think, and, therefore, what they do. Each of the basic personality types eventually began to generate a particular set of personality disorders which then generated suffering for each of those types and for all of those who must try to deal with them.

· The result is this: billions of persons are walking about the planet, believing that they are choosing to do what they do when, in fact, they are sleepwalking...doing what their programmers would have them do; thus, all that they think and feel and do is determined by the emotional intoxication that they suffer as a result of unconsciously allowing a set of childish, childhood tools to guide them through adulthood. And all of that is based in illusion. Why? The past is an illusion. How can one possibly be free if everything being done, thought or felt in “the present” is a reaction to false perceptions formed in "the past"?

· The solution to "the problem of the planet" is Realization, including the discarding of all body-mind-personality identifications.

The discussion will now focus on the specific personality disorders that are common to each of the nine basic types, beginning with Personality Type Ones who can exhibit a God Complex Disorder, the OCD Personality Disorder and the Depressive Personality Disorder. Again, those happen most often when Type One persons are stressed, when they are overly-pious or seeing themselves as being highly-spiritual, or when they receive money as a result of their role-playing.

Type Ones (and Type Sevens who disintegrate into Type Ones) can be prone to perfectionism, including the belief that they are perfect and that all others should be perfect, according to the Ones’ definition of “perfect.” The God Complex Disorder inspires persons to act arrogantly, as if they have been appointed by a god or sent on a mission by a god. In the extreme, they act as if they are god, deciding who should live, who should die, judging who is right and moral, or determining who is wrong and immoral (using criteria based in childhood programming). Their sense of being perfect supports duality as they feel separate from—and superior to—“others.” Note how duality is fostered by the assumption of personality.

The Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder drives persons to accept mortgages on homes that are larger than they can afford, drives addictive behavior, and inspires persons to rush into or out of relationships. Professional researchers claim that OCD is one of the top causes of lost income and relative existence problems. The Depressive Personality Disorder is another common result of this personality identification, and while 95% of the earth’s population suffer the defect to one degree or another, most are in denial and claim that they are "really happy" and "have a great life."

In fact, the Depressive Personality Disorder is marked by duality, so there are constant shifts between states of happiness and unhappiness, high esteem and low esteem, optimism and pessimism, acceptance and rejection, and all of the chaotic movements that mark the instability in the lives of persons trapped in personality and in each personality type’s companion disorders. Is it becoming clear that almost all of humankind's relative existence problems are related to body-mind-personality identification and the nonsense that such identification generates? Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be continued] For additional information about the book which these excerpts are being drawn from (There's No Such Thing As "Peace of Mind") click

here

“MIND” and MEMORIES: When Nature’s “Assets” Become Warped into “Liabilities,” Part Fourteen

[Continued from yesterday]

F.: The “mind” has been shown to be the source of all assumed personality. Personality, in turn, has been shown to be the source of most of the relative existence problems on the planet, and each of the nine basic types generates a particular set of personality disorders. Before looking at the personality disorders that each of the basic types generates, a point should be offered that comes from the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition, 1994 (commonly referred to as “DSM-IV”):

A personality disorder is a pattern of deviant or abnormal behavior that the person doesn't change even though it causes emotional upsets and trouble with other people at work and in personal relationships. It is not limited to episodes of mental illness, and it is not caused by drug or alcohol use, head injury, or illness.

So, all of the (relative) negatives of personality, negatives which have motivated Advaitin sages for centuries to encourage the abandonment of personality, are becoming better understood. What additional motivation to Realize could possibly be required among those with any wisdom at all, once the facts about personality are understood: (1) to identify with the personality, formed as a childhood exercise, is a disorder; (2) the behavior that follows the assumption of personality is deviant and abnormal; (3) it is persons--not the Realized--who cling to false personas as identities; (4) emotional intoxication is rooted in personality; (5) relative existence problems, whether at work or at home or in between are rooted in personality; (6) personality has nothing to do with mental illnesses; and (7) personality problems are not caused by addiction, physical injury, or mental illness.

As a relevant example of the DSM-IV definition, apply it to the billions who are suffering from the Addictive Personality Disorder (APD). Take drug or alcohol abuse as an example. Per definition, the disorder is “not caused by drug or alcohol use.” The drug or alcohol abuse is a symptom of a personality disorder. Neither the drug nor the alcohol is the core problem; therefore, if an alcoholic suffering from APD merely stops drinking, that will have no effect at all on removing the negative traits and behaviors of the personality disorder. The traits and behaviors will continue as a result of what the primary literature calls the “grave mental and emotional disorders” that APD’s exhibit. (Also, note that the literature did not say that APD’s have “grave mental and emotional illnesses,” though some do. Most are suffering personality disorders, not mental illness. That applies to all APD’s, no matter whether they are addicted to food, power, gambling, shopping, another person, alcohol, religion, drugs, sex, love, spirituality, chaos, money, etc.)

As noted earlier, the reason that persons with disorders typically do not change is because consequences are not imposed or because they are not imposed to a degree that inspires taking the necessary action to be free of the effects of one or more personality disorders. (That is another reason that few will ever seek Realization and why fewer still will ever Realize fully.)

Further, any rationalizations and justifications and denial and excuse-making in regards to those with personality disorders—such as “His/her behavior must be understood or tolerated as a result of mental illness” or “She/he is an alcoholic or drug addict and that must be considered” or “He/she has some injury or illness”—are (as shown by the definition above) totally unfounded, inapplicable, and irrelevant in regards to personality disorders. Tolerance of the warped thinking and warped behavior of persons with such disorders only prolongs their entrapment in personality and guarantees the continued manifestation of the effects of their disorders.

Now, pause to reconsider the information quoted above from the DSM-IV. Then, list all of the roles that you have assumed that are inspiring you to feel anxious or to fight. Are there certain self-images that are you trying to defend? Is there any evidence that you are forfeiting the fullness and freedom of AS IF living in order to maintain some assumed personality/persona? Are you having trouble in a relationship because “The Boss” persona is fighting for control? Are you angry with someone who is not supporting your false image? Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be continued]

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