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

[Note: Leaving town this morning to offer satsanga. “Part Three, the Conclusion” will be posted on Tuesday.]

F.: The recently-published letters of Mother Teresa reveal the level of torment and suffering she experienced most of her life after being programmed and conditioned with dogma as a child and after being maneuvered into giving up her pursuit of the life that she really wanted. “The Nun Headed to Sainthood” persona would combine with the subsequent egotism, thereby driving her to turn her back on truth and light each time either tried to rise into consciousness. The result was not merely the “darkness” she wrote about; the result was that she would eventually proclaim her “love of the darkness.”

Her programming and religious ego-states inspired her to try to justify the use of any means to reach her religion's goals, including receipt of over a million dollars in stolen funds from convicted felon Charles Keating, funds which she used to spread her Christian beliefs. When she wrote to the judge in Keating’s case to beg for leniency, L. A. Deputy D.A. Paul Turley responded. His letter informed her that she was guilty of having received stolen funds and that she should return the money to its rightful owners: the bond-holders from whom the money had been stolen.

She did not answer his letter and she kept the money, but she wrote to a friend and confessed “hypocrisy.” Yet Mother Teresa was not the exception in that regard. The rationalization that “God’s interests always supersede man’s laws” is a common belief among those programmed in “the faith”:

The early Mormons taught that “Lying for the Lord”—as well as cheating and stealing and killing for the Lord—is totally justified if it protects or spreads their religion. Today, many Muslims believe that those who do not adhere to the dictates of their dogma are “infidels” and should be killed. A born-again Christian president said that he heard the voice of “The Father” telling him to bomb and invade another nation. In the case of Teresa, however, she at least recognized her phoniness, unlike the billions on the planet who do not see their own:

TERESA: “My smile is 'a mask' or a 'cloak' that covers everything.”

Unlike most persons who never see that their role-playing is a lie, Teresa did (and living the lie took its toll):

TERESA: "Jesus has a very special love for you. As for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great that I look and do not see, listen and do not hear.”

The facts revealed in letters and other accounts show that, as early as 1948, Teresa likely had an awakening, but the truth was so frightening (after years of believing the lies of her priest and after assuming her false roles to be real) that she had to reject truth and cling, at least publicly, to the lies with which she had been programmed.

Christopher Hitchens said, “She was no more exempt from the realization that religion is a human fabrication than any other person, and that her attempted cure was more and more professions of faith could only have deepened the pit that she had dug for herself.”

Of course she did not dig that pit. It was dug by her priest and her mother and her other programmers who then tossed her into that pit for life. Persons across the globe domesticate their dogs; parents and priests and teachers and politicians across the globe domesticate children by the same means. The only unique elements in the case of Teresa’s programming are her letters which reveal the life-long effects that manifest when the warped consciousness is left untreated. Among most non-Realized persons, the resulting misery and suffering never register.

In this case though, a set of letters exposes the tortured psyche that results when persons are exposed to childhood programming and conditioning and enculturation and are thereafter driven throughout their entire relative existence by nonsensical beliefs and ideas and concepts. Is it any wonder that she would eventually write:

TERESA: “...There is such terrible darkness within me, as if everything was dead. It has been like this more or less from the time I started ‘the work’.”

Yesterday, it was asked, “My gosh, Teresa. What did they do to you? You were so plump and pink and happy and cheerful.”

Today, the answer is clear: They did to her what they did to “you” (and to all): they used lies and nonsense to program and condition and domesticate and enculturate you, and her, during childhood. They will try to continue their programming and conditioning of you throughout adulthood. They will do all they can to fool you, convinced that they are telling you the truth.

The difference is, while Teresa rejected the light and "loved the darkness," you can accept the light and come to love the Light. You can be free of the “mind.” You can be liberated. You need not wallow in the depths of what Teresa called “dryness, darkness, loneliness and torture.”

Teresa's spoken words were lies all her life, the same way that the words spoken by all persons are lies; however, even though that speck of consciousness called "Teresa" is no longer manifested, the consciousness that spoke via her written words shows time and again that the answer is not "God." [Teresa:"Heaven means nothing."] Instead, the content of her letters is living proof that the proper treatment for the darkness is enlightenment. Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued Tuesday)
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

YOUR DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, Part One

F.: Most will engage in some sort of celebration next week in the U.S. in regards to “independence,” but true freedom and total independence actually have little appeal among persons. Dependent types and co-dependent types do not find independence to be appealing at all. In fact, they really hate independence. “The Religious One” and “The Spiritual Giant” both love their dependency on one or more gods, and they want you to join them in their dependency. They expend huge quantities of energy in urging you on, just as a drug addict will encourage a friend by saying, "Here, try this. You'll like it. It'll make you feel great."

Also, “The Helper” and “The Savior” and “The Performer” and “The Loyalist” and “The Boss” do not want to be free of their false identity. Typically, “The Spouse” and “The Owner” (who owns all sorts of “stuff”) have no propensity for true freedom at all. The closest they come to knowing the unicity is when they think that they are at one with another body or another thing. And so it is with all who are identifying with that which is false while believing that their roles and identities are real.

Some will declare that they are free (and will actually believe that is the case) without having the slightest clue that they are imprisoned every waking second of every day. Because they do not know Who/What They Truly Are, they accept that they are what others tell them that they are. In regards to what they are and who they are, they accept hearsay as fact. In regards to what they believe, they accept hearsay as fact. In regards to what they think they need, they accept hearsay as fact.

As children, what did they desire more than anything and fear as much as anything? They desired the “good girl” or good boy” label from their parents and feared the "bad" label, but in many cases, far more frequently they were corrected or punished than labeled "good." In school, they wanted the “good student” label and feared the “bad student” classification. As adults, many are still imprisoned in a trap that was sprung during their childhood and are now driven by the hidden agenda of that child, still doing all that they can in order to accumulate strokes, reassurance, love, praise, and reinforcement of their false identities. Their perceived "needs" are great.

The bars of the prison in which they are trapped are the desires and the fears that are rooted in personality. Note that most on the planet are driven by one greatest fear and one greatest desire, both of which are rooted in a personality that was formed as a child to contend with dysfunctionalism (which their egotism drives them to deny even existed in their family of origin). Thus, the following, as discussed in detail in the book LIBERATION, mark the relative existence of the non-Realized who are trapped in the fears and desires of one (or more) of the nine personality types:

Ones fear being seen as “bad” and desire to be seen as “good”
Twos fear not being loved and desire to be loved by all
Threes fear failure and desire the appearance of being worthy and considered valuable by the masses
Fours fear having no identity and desire to “find themselves”
Fives fear being overwhelmed by reality and desire the appearance of being competent and knowledgeable
Sixes fear a lack of support and desire to be protected
Sevens fear being deprived and desire excitement and freedom
Eights fear being violated or used and thus desire to control people, places, and things
Nines fear “loss” and desire to be taken care of since they believe they are “entitled”

Who that is driven by such fears and desires could possibly claim that they are “free”? The answer: the non-Realized. Their failure to recognize entrapment and to see how delusional it is to believe that they are really free is tantamount to a person in the passenger seat, the back seat, or the trunk of a car claiming that he/she is driving and is in charge and is determining where the car goes and how the car goes. People who are powerless to make choices and who are being controlled and driven by other forces are neither free nor independent.

How free are you? How independent are you? That is, how free of the influence of personas and personality are you? Have you recognized the degree to which you have been robbed of freedom and imprisoned in ideas and concepts and dogma and values that were dreamed up, and passed down, by ignorant persons? Persons who have not seen that they are trapped cannot take the necessary steps to be free and to declare their independence, once and for all. Please enter the silence of contemplation.
THE FEATURED ITEM FOR THIS WEEK’S SALE IS Daily Meditation Guide II (The guides are self-contained and can be read in either order. Each provides six months of readings and considerations. 15% off the price of the set through July 1st.)

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WORKING ON BEING FREE OF MIND AND PERSONALITY IDENTIFICATION?

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SOCIOPATHS (PSYCHOPATHS), NARCISSISTS, ADDICTS AND THE NON-REALIZED, Part Eight

[NOTICE: out-of-town from June 5th-June 7th to share the non-duality teachings with a group. This series will continue June 8th. In the meantime, please click on a month to the right and visit the archives in order to find postings that you have not yet read.]

F.: The Realized Advaitin who can guide others through the steps to Realization begins the process by moving protégés beyond body-mind-personality identification. It is the adoption of personas and the formation of personality (as a result of trying to adapt to a dysfunctional environment during childhood) that is the root of all of the personality disorders being discussed in this series. For sanity and reason to rule, personality must go. Hence this series of exposés on personality disorders, dealing especially with those that generate the very traits and behaviors that must be eliminated if Full Realization is to happen.

Yesterday, one example was offered that illustrates the fine line that narcissists can cross into sociopathy. A second example of the narcissist-sociopath connection involves a female narcissist whose case study is offered in the book CASTING LIGHT ON THE DARK SIDE OF RELATIONSHIPS. Since 1989, sessions have been conducted with thousands who were seeking peace and who came with a willingness to discuss the effects of personality and to find a path that could eliminate personas and thereby bring peace and harmony to their relative existence. The report in CASTING LIGHT focuses on one who claimed to be willing but whose ego blocked any possibility of realizing the presence of personality defects and personality disorders.

The woman in that case study described herself as “a highly devout, life-long Christian.” She is also a narcissistic Personality Type Three, employed in a highly-visible position in a church (fulfilling the need that narcissists have for an audience and for regular reinforcement of their image). She admitted that she had “prayed every day for a year that God would kill her husband.” When asked how being “a highly devout, life-long Christian” was compatible with soliciting her God to be the hitman in her murder plot, she said that she was “really a good person at heart” and "loved everyone, except for her husband" and that she “had asked God to let the husband die when alone in his car and in a one-car accident, maybe by striking a bridge or a tree, so no one else would be hurt.”

Did the husband know how she felt? Yes. She had shared with him that she had been praying every day for a year that he would die. She also admitted that she had been "ripping men to shreds" all of her life. Yet her self-image is of someone who "loves everyone" (except for one person) and who is otherwise "good at heart."

How well do her narcissistic skills allow her to cover such ruthlessness in private while maintaining an image of being so loving and kind at work? She reported that “the church members see her as ‘a saint’.” Narcissists are that adept at fostering a counterfeit appearance, at maintaining a false image, and at fooling the masses. Moreover, they actually believe in their image, and she was convinced that she is "really a good person at heart" and is "caring about people in general" (as evidenced by the fact that she did not want anyone else to be harmed in a wished-for and prayed-for fatal accident).

That example and the one offered yesterday both show that sociopathic tendencies can be very close to the surface among narcissists and that the lines separating narcissistic and sociopathic behavior can, at times, be crossed very easily. Both examples show how narcissists can behave as violently as murderous sociopaths. Remember the pointer offered early on in this series: the narcissist is not the harmless rope that, at first glance, was mistaken to be a deadly snake. The narcissist is the deadly snake that, at first glance, was taken to be a harmless rope.

In that regard, this is the description offered by The Enneagram Institute of Personality Type Threes (who are often narcissists) when they reach the lower levels of psychic health: They “become vindictive, attempting to ruin others' happiness. Relentless, obsessive about destroying whatever reminds them of their own shortcomings and failures. Psychopathic, [capable of] murder. Generally corresponds to the Narcissistic Personality Disorder.” Note once again the linkage, this time offered by the researchers at The Instutute: “psychopathic” & “capable of murder” & “Narcissistic Personality Disorder.”

However, if narcissists were to read all of the postings in this series, they would not likely be able to relate to any of the content at all. And if you think that you are “in love” with a narcissist, you might not be able to see the traits in him/her, either. People can live with a narcissist for decades and never believe that such traits and behaviors reported herein could apply to "their beloved" (saying, "Well everybody has some faults that must be overlooked"). And they can remain in denial right up to the point that they actually experience the truth first hand. That is how smooth and charming and charismatic the narcissistic can be.

Again, the Advaitin pointer is that the adoption of personas and the formation of personality is at the root of all of the personality disorders being discussed in this series. For sanity and reason to rule, personality must go. For many, the seven-step “path” to Realization could eliminate personality and the defects and disorders that mar the relative existence for so many persons; however, few will ever undertake the "journey" and fewer still will ever follow the "path" to the end and be completely free. So it is. Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
THE FEATURED BOOK FOR THIS WEEK’S SALE IS THE ESSENCE OF THE TEACHINGS. (15% off through June 10th)

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