PEACE EVERY DAY…OR NOT, Part Two

From a site visitor: “…Just been introduced to the ideas of Vedanta:How does one overcome day to day frustrations and feelings of anger etc that may arise during a normal working day? While alone, reading, or with friends (bascially pleasant situations) i find it obviously easier to be in a peaceful state, but when i am at work the general frustration and complaining that is part of my job takes over and everything i may read or meditate on just goes out of the window. I guess im saying, how does one start to make spritiual practice and the journey of Self-realization a part of ones working day? I simply find my feelings of frustation in a chaotic workplace overwhelming! Thanks for your time, Jaime

F.: Ultimately, true peace can only happen when all wanting goes; when all desire to gain goes; when the effects of programming and conditioning and enculturation go; and when even the “you” that sent the inquiry goes. For now, that will sound a bit “far out,” so another consideration will be offered:

Is it possible that nothing in that chaotic workplace is overwhelming “jaime” or making “jaime” frustrated and angry? Is it possible that a “chaotic workplace” is not the source of what jaime is feeling but that happenings in the workplace are merely triggering old wounds or old beliefs or old frustrations which are already present and “lying in wait” just below the surface?

Is it possible that those inner factors are leaving you co-dependent, empowering other people and places and things to control you and how you feel? Is it possible that some assumed roles with hidden agendas and desires and fears are feeling threatened or are thinking that they are being interfered with, or are feeling hurt?

A call yesterday that adumbrated the content of jaime’s e-mail provides evidence of the validity of those considerations offered above: a man was “frustrated,” then “angry,” then “livid” with his employer and a co-worker (and he told them so). They had overruled one of his decisions, first “minimizing his arguments” and then “discounting him” and ultimately “rejecting him completely.” Of course he called the wrong telephone number if he was expecting confirmation that his feelings were a result of two externals…the boss and a peer.

Because he had shared openly some facts about his childhood during satsanga, it was already known that as a child he had been adopted because the woman, supposedly, could not have children. Subsequently, she became pregnant twice and the status of the adopted son would soon be likened to that of “a male Cinderella.” Not long after having their "own" children, the parents’ began to give all of their attention and affection to their "real children." The adopted son would be ignored, his accomplishments minimized. He felt discounted throughout the remaining years in that home. He felt rejected and less than and not enough and not good enough.

Is it now clear why, thirty-five years later, he became frustrated and angry and livid yesterday when the painful scenario that had played out in his childhood was repeated in the workplace? After a short talk, he realized that his fear was that his job could be in jeopardy. He desires a bigger role in the operation in order to attain the raise he wants and the job security he desires. He wants respect. He wants to be noticed. Fears, wants, and desires. All prerequisites for misery.

He saw that “nothing in that chaotic workplace frustrated him or made him angry” but that when two people spoke to him as if they were "The Parent" and as if he were "The Child," then decades-old "memories" surfaced immediately. Their rejection yesterday triggered “old wounds and old frustrations which were already present and ‘lying in wait’ just below the surface.” The boss and the peer did not make him angry. Their words merely triggered a mental-emotional process that allowed already-present anger to surface.

His “inner factors" have left him "co-dependent, empowering other people and places and things to control him and how he feels." His "assumed role" of “The Director,” with its “hidden agendas and desires and fears, felt threatened and interfered with and hurt.” Are you seeing how, to emphasis a pointer from yesterday, one can be "taken hostage by personality, by externals, and by relative existence influences?"

Persons are made miserable when ego combines with co-dependency in a sort of “mental marriage”—a condition that is experienced by billions of persons every day. Co-dependency can even manifest with total strangers whom persons empower to determine how they feel and what they do, as often happens in traffic, for example:

“Who does that person think he/she is, to drag butt in the fast lane and slow me down?! What I need to do next is being interfered with by this numbskull! Damn, people are so inconsiderate and crazy that they drive me crazy!”

In such instances, people you don’t even know will be allowed to control how you feel and how you react, just as people at work are "empowered" in the same fashion as well.

And the fact is that the enculturation process has programmed people to also judge and blame and criticize themselves for the way that they think and feel and behave, ignoring the fact that programming, conditioning and enculturation remove all ability to "choose." Yet the fact is, jaime, that you might well be farther along the path to being restored to peace and sane living than the masses who are in denial around their misery and who are normalizing their fluctuations between dualistic periods of contentment and periods of anger and frustration.

You can either try to rearrange the workplace or rearrange (more accurately “un-do”) the “mind” which becomes the great liability of all persons. The “mind” is an illusion, the product of all of the lies and ideas and concepts with which you have been programmed; however, an illusion can be significant, relatively speaking. If a driver on a road that is hugging the side of a mountain swerves to avoid a mirage in the road and plunges into the valley 1000 feet below, the mirage was certainly an illusion, but its effects are obvious when a person acts as if the false is real.

So happenings in the workplace are not the cause of your anger and frustration. There are some ideas you have about the way jaime’s life should be unfolding (but isn't); some beliefs about what jaime deserves (but isn't getting); some perceptions about the way that things should be happening in “the world” (though they're certainly not happening that way); and some concepts about the “right way” that things in the workplace should be happening (but are not...and likely never will).

It is a combination of those ideas and beliefs and concepts and expectations and old wounds that are driving your emotional reactions and causing you to experience emotional intoxication at times. You are invited to begin to seek, fearlessly and honestly, the real sources that are actually at the core of the fluctuations that you want to be free of. Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
READINGS RELATED TO TODAY’S POST:
SEEKING “PEACE OF MIND”?

Click THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS “PEACE OF MIND” (There Is Only Peace If You’re Out of Your Mind)

WORKING ON BEING FREE OF PERSONALITY?

Click LIBERATION

READY TO TAKE THE SEVEN-STEP “JOURNEY” TO REALITY?

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

TERESA: The Poster Child for the Brutality of Programming, Part Three, The Conclusion

F.: Via the insight into the machinations of the “mind” of Mother Teresa (insight provided by her written words), it can be seen that the programming of humans can result in brutal outcomes, relatively speaking. The natural inclinations of a formerly “happy” and “cheerful” girl—including the natural inclinations to date, marry and have children—were short-circuited by the programming of a mother and a priest.

Those childhood traits of being “happy” and “cheerful” were replaced by adulthood traits of “dryness,” “darkness” “loneliness,” “torture,” “terrible pain,” “emptiness,” and “hypocrisy.” Even “hypocrisy” from this “saint-to-be”? Yes. And consider how the guilt of such hypocrisy came about:

Had she not been programmed to believe that when it comes to spreading religious dogma, any action can be justified by the end desired, could a woman living out her existence in a natural style in Yugoslavia have even remotely been able to justify receiving over a million dollars in stolen funds and then keeping those funds even after a district attorney in the U.S. requested that she return the money to its rightful owners? Had her religious programming not driven her to behave as a felon, would she have been tormented by “hypocrisy”?

Would she have been driven into such levels of misery if her religious programming had not led her to reject the truth she saw privately in order to maintain a phony public persona and to continue to live a lie after she saw clearly that the dogma with which she had been programmed was a lie? Though her programming that was inspiring the maintenance of a false public image led her to reject the occasional realization of the lie that she was living and to continue to spread the lies that she was spreading, her letters provide details of her realization of the lies during those brief moments of awakening:

TERESA: Such deep longing for God—and…repulsed—empty—no faith—no love—no zeal.(Saving) souls holds no attraction—Heaven means nothing.

TERESA: If there be no God, there can be no soul; if there is no Soul, then Jesus, You also are not true.

TERESA: I feel just that terrible pain of loss...of God not being God, of God not really existing.”

The “helper’s high” that she experienced, which was just another form of emotional intoxication that manifests after personas are assumed, can never sustain itself…any more than any other false role can sustain itself among those who are in touch with reality to any degree at all.

The disintegration of the consciousness called “Teresa” had been completed early on, and the power of programming was so strong that—even after she saw the nonsense of her beliefs—she would never find the willingness to reject them publicly and thereby escaping her needless misery and suffering.

She was so close to Full Realization, but in allowing the hidden agendas of her personas to drive her, she spent sixty-six years of vacillation and doubt and suffering as a result of presenting a bogus front to the world. So deep was the suffering generated by her phoniness that she actually put these thoughts to paper and spread them across the globe.

Might she have been subconsciously hoping that someone would expose her phoniness and thereby give what she did not have the courage to take (namely, freedom from playing phony roles and living a lie)? How many today are in that same circumstance? How many today are tolerating an intolerable existence, wishing that someone else would take some action to end their suffering and misery, rather than taking the seven steps to Realization and ending that suffering now? How many need professional help but are seeking "spiritual" solutions instead?

Teresa had it, briefly. Many who suffer today because of their own phoniness have also had a glimpse into reality that showed their beliefs and their lives are based totally in a lie; yet their programming and enculturation are also blocking them from rejecting the lie. Teresa saw for a moment that “God” is not true, that “soul” is a concept, and that everything she had been told was a pack of lies.

She saw for a moment that all of her beliefs were nothing more than figments of the imagination of controlling men who lived thousands of years ago. She saw on occasion that “god” is not true; that “jesus” is not true; that “teresa” was not true. She could just as easily have known that “floyd” is not true and “you” are not true.

Teresa, like all who have been programmed, conditioned and enculturated, became the dualistic epitome of self-contradiction:

TERESA: My prayer of union is not there any longer—I no longer pray.

Moving from that false belief in “union,” she understood the unicity but hide that awareness for the sake of maintaining a public image and forwarding a religious agenda.

So much for the peace that comes to the faithful…to the believers…to those who refuse to question. So much for those who have been fooled but who refuse to admit it. (Remember: even those prospectors who only found fool's gold still yelled "Eureka!") So much for the false notion that freedom can happen in the absence of courage. So much for a passive-aggressive approach that tries to manipulate others to force your hand when you are playing a phony—and therefore self-despised—role. So much for any notion that happiness can happen if truth is being repressed or ignored. So much for believing that “this world” or “an afterlife” is real.

That speck of consciousness was so close, but--being warped--it never accepted Full Realization. Now, that formerly-manifested speck called "Teresa" is the Awareness that is not aware of its awareness, so that one shot at experiencing the bliss rather than the suffering was missed. She was so close to recovering the happiness that had been stolen by programming, but instead of accepting honesty, she continued to live her lie and the hypocrisy that generates. So it is, but so it need not be with “you.” The invitation is to take the steps in order to Realize and to be free and to thereby be happy as well. Please enter the silence of contemplation.

READINGS RELATED TO TODAY’S POST:

Click THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS “PEACE OF MIND” (There Is Only Peace If You’re Out of Your Mind)

Click SPIRITUAL SOBRIETY (Recovering What Religions Lost)

Click LIBERATION

Click IT’S ALL BULLSHIT

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Click WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE?

“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)

CONSCIOUSNESS IN MOTION: A Journey into the Dark Abyss of the “Mind,” Part Five, The Conclusion

F.: Via the recent posts, you have been given brief access into the machinations of three “minds” that are preoccupied with the relative and plagued by dualistic thinking and beliefs. What you have seen by looking into the darkness of those three “minds” (which have been blocked from the light of truth and awareness by enculturation and conditioning) is how the consciousness functions (or malfunctions) when it is warped and becomes attached to the phenomenal.

That contaminated, conditioned consciousness then becomes impure, adulterated, limited, unstable, shifting, and ambiguous. The Absolute, by contrast, is uncontaminated, unconditional, unconditioned, unqualified, pure, unadulterated, unlimited, and unambiguous.

By witnessing the movement of the corrupted consciousness, you have been given first-hand access to the narrow spaces between the synapses that have been cluttered with distortion and warping and contamination and duality. You have been given concrete examples of how confused and befuddled and perplexed persons are when trapped in duality. You have also seen that persons who are so very “sure” about so many things have no opportunity at all to Realize.

Quite to the contrary of “being sure,” the true “journey” to Realization begins when a person is finally not so "sure." Then, the "journey" continues with the questioning of all ideas and concepts and beliefs. Realization itself happens when the last thing that any person was “sure of” is abandoned and discarded completely. The result is (a) no “one”—no who—that could be “sure” and (b) no concepts that anyone could be “sure of.”

Also, note in the examples the way in which the “minds” generated thoughts that were so erratic and self-contradictory that some might conclude—after seeing all of those distortions and vascillations—that all three persons are suffering clinically-diagnosable insanity. (Actually, their distortions are rooted more in personality disorders.) Yet all three appear to other persons to be functioning very well in society, to be at peace, to really have it “together”; thus, they are admired by many for their “religious work” or “deep spirituality” or “fine service to our youth.” So much for appearance.

Those three cases do not involve persons who are locked away in a mental institution. They are all persons operating in institutions that are highly respected in the U.S. culture (specifically, a profit-making business, a school, and a church) but where is any real basis for that respect when their corrupt “minds” are racing with a madhouse rapidity and generating distorted views?

For their societies to assume that those three persons “really have it all together” shows how deficient persons are at distinguishing between appearance and reality. You, too, have likely said at some time, “He/She fooled me. I had no idea she/he was like that.” Most persons can maintain their public façade quite adequately, expecially in cultures where play-acting and “fronting” are deemed preferable to reality.

What you have been allowed to witness, via those three examples, is the racing consciousness in movement. It has also been demonstrated, via those three cases, that the longer dualisitic beliefs dominate persons, the faster the “mind” will race. You have seen the depth of disintegration to which the corrupted consciousness can sink as all three of those persons are plagued by the shiftings between what they deem “good” and what they deem “bad,” between what they “love” and what they later “hate.”

Now, the suggestion is this: You have just been given a glimpse inside the “minds” of persons who are trapped in personality and duality. Now, the invitation is for YOU to find the ego-states that are talking. Find examples of the instability of their dualistic thinking. Find the way that each gave religion a chance or used their religion and spirituality to justify their behavior. Find all of the unstable nonsense as revealed in their unbalanced psyches and their unsteady prattle.

Then, see that a “mind” trapped in duality exacts a heavy mental and emotional toll. Understand that dualistic thinking is a progressive illness. See that those same types of results await all who refuse to recognize the degree to which the consciousness has been warped. Then, the invitation is to cast aside ideas, emotional intoxication and beliefs and complete the seven-step “path” back to Reality. Please enter the silence of contemplation.
(TOMORROW: A GOD OF WRATH WHO BREAKS BRIDGES AND KILLS PEOPLE)
READINGS RELATED TO THE CONTENT OF TODAY’S POST:
While non-duality’s “not two” teaching eliminates the possibility of “one relating to another,” every aspect of the relative existence is marred by “relationship problems” until Full Realization happens. The following book identifies the roots of “relationship problems” and provides a holistic treatment plan for healing, for applying non-duality principles, and for ending such relative problems.
THE 15% OFF SALE ITEM FOR THIS WEEK IS CASTING LIGHT ON THE DARK SIDE OF RELATIONSHIPS. FOR INFORMATION:

Click CASTING LIGHT ON THE DARK SIDE OF RELATIONSHIPS

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

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

F.: Ego-states either (a) invisibly drive those who assume false identities or (b) have been recognized and discarded so that persons formerly hijacked by false identities are now free or (c) will lead to destructive behaviors, relatively speaking. Ego-states have such influence over thought and behavior because they generate both codependency and interdependency.

First, codependency is fostered since “The Husband” must depend upon the presence of “The Wife” in order to “exist”; “The Employee” is co-dependent upon “The Employer”; “The Helper” is dependent upon the “The Needy”; “The Needy” and “The Takers” are dependent upon “The Loving” and “The Giving” and “The Helpers” for maintaining their ego-states; “The Users” depend on the “The Enablers” and "The Enablers" must depend on "The Users" in order to perpetuate their false identity;

“The One Who Is Loved So Dearly” is dependent upon “The Lover Who Is So Dear” for perpetuation of that role; and “The Compassionate, Caring Lover” is dependent on finding and keeping a person who is seeking compassion and needing love and wanting to be cared for. If one is really interested in a lifestyle that is more simple, then it must be seen that all of the wanting and seeking and desiring and searching and role-playing and dependency can become rather complicated, can it not? And if one is seeking freedom, it cannot manifest as long as dependencies are preferred.

Next, interdependencies are fostered since no ego-state will ever stand alone but will always generate more ego-states. As an example, in the case described yesterday, “The Wife” does not think that she is just losing “The Husband” but thinks she is losing all of the other roles that developed from the assumption of that primary identity as well: “The Homeowner” is dying; “The Active Socialite" and "The Social Entertainer” are gone; “The One Enjoyng the Benefits of the Status Quo” is gone; “The One With Status” is gone since one of the richer men in the community is leaving; “The Woman with High Esteem” is gone, having been left for “The Younger Woman.” “The Financially-Secure Person” is gone. “The One Who Can Retire Someday” feels that she is gone forever.

The list could go on, but focus now on the effects of being forced to see that things were never really the way they were assumed to be: when ego-states are struck by the light of reality which ends the false belief that “this is going to last forever,” persons are forced to recognize that their false identities are temporary and are forced to admit that they were all just phony illusions. Finding out that a lie is a lie (when it was thought to be 100% true) is a mental and emotional and physical shock…be it the discovery that there is no Santa, that there is no God with its male or female appendages, or that “until recently he’s always been a loving, faithful, caring spouse and I was always sure he would honor his vows and me forever.”

When the overwhelming mental and emotional and physical pain that accompanies the “death” of an ego-state is triggered among persons, then a series of disproportionate reactions will often follow since it is seldom the case that one, solitary ego-state is ending. When one identity comes tumbling down, the entire structure built on multiple codependent and interdependent (false) identities will collapse. If persons feel as if they are dying when an ego-state is seen to have been false, imagine the impact of a happening that brings about an end to the assumption of dozens of false identities. Thus, the quote from yesterday: “I think he’s just not himself right now and will come to his senses and return. If he doesn’t, I will kill myself.”

“He’s not himself” really means that (1) “he is no longer showing the phony image, that false self, that he showed in the past” and (2) “he is no longer meeting the image that I had dreamed up in my mind of the way I thought he was.” It also means that (3) “while I thought I knew someone better than anyone knew him, I have been sleeping with a stranger all these years” and that (4) “I would prefer to continue to live that lie and once again believe it is the truth than forfeit a false identity and use this event as an opportunity to find out Who or What I Truly Am and then be free for the first time in forty years.” Finally, it means (5) "I think I am dying now" instead of seeing the fact that "all along I have been living a 'death-in-life' existence with this guy and really only now have a chance to 'come alive'...that is, to find Who/What I Truly Am and then be free for the remainder of the manifestation of this consciousness."

The expression “I will kill myself” means that “I have so thoroughly accepted as my primary identity a role assigned to me by my family and my culture and a religious institution that I prefer death to no longer being able to continue to play a spurious role that has enslaved me to a selfish, controlling, dominating, narcissistic, self-absorbed person.” It would be tantamount to someone being held and tortured in Nanjing Prison in China, being released, walking about free, and then deciding that “You know, that wasn’t really so bad after all; in fact, I really had a pretty good thing with Nanjing. I think I'd like to go back and stay in that prison for the rest of my life.” Such is the inability to see clearly when trapped in the darkness of ego-states.

Does all this mean, therefore, that she should never have married? Of course not. Does it mean that if you're married, you must get a divorce to be free? Of course not. You might recall an earlier pointer offered to a “husband” who thought he was dying: “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 either ‘husbanding’ or ‘not husbanding’ can happen…and consistent peace will manifest either way.” The pointer to “The Wife” who thinks it is she who is dying is that misery and suffering almost always manifest when roles are assumed and when co-dependency and interdependencies are formed. Might a professional help guide her through the five stages of processing grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance)? That’s certainly possible.

For the Advaitin seeker, however, there is another pointer that can be drawn, based on the scenario above: why not launch a preemptive strike against the ego and against all ego-states? Why not be rid of them on your terms rather than on someone else’s terms? Why not calmly and willingly discard each and every one of those false identities now, rather than waiting for them to be struck down violently and traumatically later on?

There is nothing that is happening right now that cannot continue to happen in the absence of ego-states. It is just that it will all happen from a position of neutrality, from the stance of the witness, from a condition of non-attachment and, therefore, from a state of true freedom in the absence of codependency. (By the way, if you are “in relationship” with someone who objects to your being that free, then you have an entirely different matter to consider, and if you do not want to be that free, then you have a greater matter, relatively speaking, to consider.)

All that having been said, how many will escape the effects of the emotional intoxication that accompanies ego-states and will thereby be reasonable enough and logical enough to accept nothing short of true and unequivocable freedom? Few. So it is. Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To continue on Tuesday, May 22. Out of town until then.)
WORKING ON ISSUES ARISING IN RELATIONSHIPS WITH THE NON-REALIZED, ON FINDING SOLUTIONS TO “RELATIONSHIP PROBLEMS,” AND ON BEING FREE EVEN IF “IN A RELATIONSHIP”?

Click CASTING LIGHT ON THE DARK SIDE OF RELATIONSHIPS

“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]

NOTE: This series includes excerpts from the book

THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS “PEACE OF MIND”
(There is Only Peace if You’re Out of Your Mind)

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

Psychiatrists and psychotherapists attempt to treat mental illnesses. Realization offers the treatment for personality disorders.

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.

[Continued from yesterday]

F.: “Mind” and “personality” cannot be separated since the former generates belief in the latter. The latter, in turn, generates all emotional intoxication. [Search the site for “feelings” vs. “emotions.” The short version is, while the Realized can witness feelings rise and fall, only ego-states—only assumed personas—emote. When personas believe that they are experiencing some slight, hurt, threat or interference, a series of actions and reactions are inspired that trigger emotional intoxication as well as destructive and/or self-destructive behavior.] When persons are trapped in the agendas of their false roles, then emotions will always overwhelm cognitive functioning, so now a new pointer is available:

It has been seen that the “mind” can override the constructive functioning of the brain; now it is seen that persona-generated emotionalism can also subdue the manner in which nature had originally intended that the brain should function. Now the degree of wisdom behind the Advaitin pointer that one must relinquish identification with the “mind” and the personality as well as with the body becomes clear. Review the evolution of the brain in regards to this latest understanding:

Humanity functioned with a mind-less brain for thousands of years. The brain evolved, developing an area for storing memories and an organ that could retrieve memories. Those two areas of the brain were intended to help humanity survive and to behave constructively. No personas were taken to be identities.

As language developed, information being stored in the brain was less and less of the character of things observed and became filled more and more with the remembering of things told. To observe a friend who touched a burning log, to see his pain, to file away that memory, and to recall that memory when next in the presence of a burning log produced behavior that would be considered “sane.” To the contrary, to observe crops dying as a result of the lack of rain, and then to be told that the rain is being withheld by an angry god who wants a priest to fornicate with a virgin and who wants the priest to cut out her beating heart with a sharp-edged rock and pass it through the crowd during a commune-with-god service produced behavior that would be considered “insane.”

The result of thousands of years of being conditioned to believe in whatever one is told rather than witnessing objectively and believing in that which is observable and provable has resulted in a planet that is populated with masses of ...

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/

To order the book, visit
http://floydhenderson.com/order.htm
(You can use the Special Message box)

Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be continued] For additional information, click

here

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

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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.

[Continued from yesterday]

F.: The “deficient and distorted” part of the brain that Maharaj referred to is, of course, that part which stores and accesses memories, so all memories are deficient distortions. Nothing is as it appears to you, and nothing that has ever appeared to you was really the way it was perceived. You have been fooled because that which "they" gave you to use for perceiving is an accumulation of foolishness. Since the “mind” is the sum total of memories, and because all memories are distortions, then the “mind” is the sum total of your distortions. Want to be free of distortions and to Realize truth? Be rid of the “mind.” Yet you cannot go beyond the “mind” when you are constantly looking at the “mind” (that is, paying attention to "thought"). In order to go beyond the mind, Maharaj said, you must look away from the “mind” and its fictional contents. That means, therefore, that “minds” are nowadays so deficient and distorted that they should be ignored.

If you have not Realized, you do not see things now the way that they truly are, so it would have been totally impossible to have seen them the way they truly were in the past; therefore, the invitation is to Realize, to see that none of the memories that you are clinging to are accurate (including memories about “happenings,” memories involving “persons,” and all of the things you were taught to believe that are still stored “in your memory”).

Next, understand the reason that there is some talk in the teachings about “Now.” (By the way, there is no “power of now” since there is no power. Power is just a concept to which persons become addicted). “Time” too is a concept, so why even speak of now? Because anything supposedly recalled from the “past” is a memory, and it has been established that memories are distortions, so there is no past and there are no accurate memories. In fact, your entire world is in you...in your "mind," so how could that which is merely in your "mind" and which you think is "the world" possibly be real?

The most that the I-Amness can ever claim, therefore, is now, but if Realization has not happened, even perceptions regarding "now" are distortions. (Eventually, even that speck of now-time measurement will become meaningless, if you Realize.) If Realized—and thereby free of (false) memories—no action now would be triggered by a memory of something past. That in itself would be another level of freedom. For example:

MEMORY-DRIVEN DISTORTION LEADING TO EMOTIONAL INTOXICATION: “I am upset because we are no longer together and I don’t have the love now that I had back then.”

CLEAR PERCEPTION NOW AS A RESULT OF NOT BELIEVING IN A DISTORTED, ILLUSORY MEMORY: “What I thought I had back then was not even close to ...

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/

To order the book, visit
http://floydhenderson.com/order.htm
(You can use the Special Message box)

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