“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 One

[NOTE: To those trying to place an order, the server is not yet repaired. In the meantime, if you want to place an order, you can send a message to the book sales division at http://floydhenderson.com/contact.htm and arrangements will be made. Sorry for the temporary inconvenience. Thx. ]

Because of programming and conditioning and enculturation, that which had been an asset (memory) has became a liability.

FROM A SITE VISITOR: Loved your expression “brain-flush”?! Now that resonates. I’ve been visiting your site off-and-on since the early days - you did a piece one time on the brain and mind and consciousness but I can’t find it in the search. Can you tell me how to find that and then tie it in with “brain-flush”? LOL Thanks.

F.: Again, apologies for the search problems. It seems that the site is not searching all of the 2005 postings for some reason. This might be the comment that you’re referencing: “Consciousness is rooted in the Absolute. The brain is rooted in the elements. The ‘mind’ is rooted in wrong programming and faulty conditioning and lies and concepts and ideas and superstitions and falsehoods.” For more on that, visit www.advaitaquotes.blogspot.com.

Your question is similar to many that came in after the post on discarding knowledge (including this one as well: “How can consciousness be ‘warped’ or ‘corrupted’ if it’s just energy?”) All of those questions will be addressed in this new series of postings, along with your query. At the root of the relative problem involving persons is this: that which was one of nature’s assets (the formation of a mind after the brain evolved and developed the ability to store memories) has been warped into an unnatural or supernatural liability. While no Advaitins would suggest that seekers must learn science in order to Realize, Maharaj did say that someday science would advance enough to catch up with the Advaita understanding and validate scientifically the philosophical Teachings. He was correct, so please bear with this approach that might resonate with some.

The smaller human brain, in its earlier and simpler stages of development, allowed humans then to live as deer live today: hunt/forage/find food for survival; interact; take actions that are self-defensive and self-constructive; and procreate in order that the species will survive. As more and more humans walked the planet, the simplicity of existence would be lost as the simplicity of the brain was lost.

Complications resulted because of an increase in human interactions (and an increase in both individual as well as tribal interests and agendas). The brain began to evolve in order to compensate, and eventually areas that could store memories came into being. At that point, the mind and the brain worked in tandem and in harmony to contribute to the survival of individuals and the species. The mind came about as “memories” began to be stored. As a part of the defense mechanisms for survival of the species, the mind had its role and played it “properly” (naturally) for thousands of years.

For example, if a caveman remembered that his companion fell from a cliff and died as a result, the caveman might avoid falling from cliffs. The original process was as follows: over a period of evolution, the brain expanded to include a cerebral cortex and a hippocampus. Afterwards, when an event happened (such as a human falling off a cliff) or when someone learned something (such as, “falling off a cliff can kill you”), the brain placed the memory of that event and the related knowledge acquisition in its “memory files." That is all the mind was: a collection of memories filed away in those "newer" parts of the brain.

The memory of both old and new happenings would be processed and stored away in different areas of the cerebral cortex, or the "gray matter" of the brain. The hippocampus would process the memories. (As a side note in that regard, a disease receiving considerable attention nowadays—Alzheimer’s—comes about when the hippocampus is damaged, resulting in...what else...memory loss. Is it not interesting that one who might have been a fighter for years and who loved chaos suddenly becomes peaceful when the ability to tap into dualistic memories is lost? Witness the way that the ability to remember dualistic concepts and dogma are now the curse of the planet, relatively speaking.)

Over a period of time, language developed which allowed controlling men with hidden, personal agendas to dream up concepts and teach those ideas to others who could—by that point—remember them. The overabundance of dualistic concepts and beliefs and dogma (which were destructive and separatist in nature) began to outnumber the earlier class of memories that were survival-related.

It was one thing for the caveman to “feel bad” if the fish that was going to feed him and his family that day happened to get away. Such feelings are natural. It is quite another thing when modern persons—as a result of living under the auspices of a warped, dualistic “mind”—truly believe that they should feel “bad” when they do things that are also natural, such as...

This is an excerpt from the book
THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS “PEACE OF MIND”
(There Is Only Peace if You’re Out of Your Mind)

For information on the book, visit http://advaitavedantabooks.blogspot.com/

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