LIVING IN THE STYLE OF A REALIZED TEACHER, OR A HERON, OR A DEER, Part Two

FROM A SITE VISITOR: I have read what you have written about the mind and have pre-ordered your book on the mind, but another teacher talks about using the “working mind” and not the “thinking mind.” Will your book clarify (or maybe reconcile) what the two of you are teachings? Andi

F.: Over the years, many seekers have challenged the plausibility of the “try living more like the deer” pointer that was discussed in yesterday’s post. One site visitor wrote, “I have a class of twenty-two second graders that I’m responsible for. That includes teaching them what they have to know for the state test, disciplining them, chaperoning them to lunch, getting the sick ones out of the room and to the school nurse, dealing with their principals and counselors, making tests, grading tests, planning lessons, and conferencing with parents. Tell me how I’m supposed to live as peacefully as a deer in the woods.”

No problem, though the answer is longer than can be offered in a few daily postings. (There are some sources below that offer the full explanation with directions for transitioning each of the seven stages to Full Realization, but some pointers will be offered here. For now, let it be noted that you could live as freely as the deer if you were to Realize Fully and thereby begin the process of de-accumulation.)

What is obvious from the e-mail above is a level of stress that is typical among teachers who are heading into the last month of the U.S. school year after being with the same set of children since August. Sometimes, the stress level even starts out that high in August and stays that way all year. So how could you live more in the style of a deer and avoid that stress? First, by Realizing Fully. Should that happen, you will no longer be “The Teacher” (which is usually self-promoted to “The Super Teacher,” an ego-state which co-dependently requires “Super Students” for “The Super Teacher’s” happiness and, indeed, very survival. Stay in that mode and you will never be happy and stress-free because you will never consistently have Super Students that are more concerned with assuring your happiness than with their own interests and agendas).

However, if you were to Realize who/what you are not (namely “The Teacher” or "The Super Teacher") and Realize THAT Which You Truly Are, then even as you are no longer “The Teacher”…

1. …teaching can still happen;

2. …being paid after teaching happens can still continue;

3. …all of the job tasks that you catalogued above can still happen;

4. …and it can all take place even as an AS IF style of living that is as peaceful as that of a deer also happens.

How can that be? Here’s the way it has been explained before:

When the role of “The Teacher” is accepted as an identity, then egomania immediately promotes that persona to “The Super Teacher.” And what does “The Super Teacher” think that it must have in order to exist? (1) Super lessons that are being sought wholeheartedly by (2) “Super Students.” And when students were not doing what “The Super Students” were expected to do, then “The Super Teacher” felt as if he/she were dying and began to fight for his/her life by attacking “the not-super-students” who weren’t paying attention.

[Such attacks come as often from “The Super Spouse” who is not getting the respect desired, from “The Super Performer” who is not getting the attention that is wanted, or from “The Super Employer” whose employees are not paying adequate attention or “doing” what “Super Employees” are expected to do.]

When that ego-state of “The Teacher” dissolves (post-Realization), a shift results after the understanding becomes, “Teaching might happen today…or not.” (That simply means that no ego-state is attached to outcome or bent on controlling things that are beyond control or ready and willing to fight in order to maintain a false image.) No role and no do-er is fighting for its imagined life any longer. A shift in perspective happens as mere witnessing begins. Truth is differentiated from the false. Emotional intoxication ends. When the illusion of do-er disappears, then the witness begins to merely observe what happens…or not. Peace manifests alongside that process.

To forfeit the illusion of a do-er with power and control allows You to sit back, to relax, and to take it easy while witnessing all of the insane conduct of personas (embroiled in their “going and doing and zooming”). The witness will not be caught up in their chaos and will not be pulled under by the relative existence maelstroms that the egotism of personas always generates.

And that is the way that you can live as peacefully as the deer and still meet your basic food, clothing and shelter requirements. This is not theory but is a report of actual experience. Yet you can never be at peace and ease if meeting the basic requirements is not the goal. If the goal is to have the highest standard of food, the highest standard of clothing, and the highest standard of housing, then you cannot live as the deer lives. The deer is ego-less, so less is just fine.

Thus, to move to a fashion of living that is marked by even higher levels of peace, many have followed the suggestion offered yesterday: they have down-sized or de-accumulated after asking such questions as: "Do I have a house that is larger than required?" and "Do I own my house or does my house own me?" and "Could the next car purchase involve a smaller or less expensive vehicle or not?" and "Have I ever figured the exact cost of ego, in dollars or euros or rupees or pounds sterling, as relates to every purchase I have ever made?" and "Have I made any effort to be free of the effects of having been programmed to believe that 'more is better' and actually considered the possibility that my relative existence might be improved with less?" When a deer has a more peaceful lifestyle than you, and when you see that a deer is a minimalist that could hardly have less, then the wise also see the correlation.

The deer does not accumulate, does not race through its days or nights, does not prefer noise to the quiet, does not adopt false identities, does not overeat or do anything to excess out of boredom or nervousness; and does not adopt an agenda of other animals in the forest and act like something that it is not. For you, less "stuff" could mean less maintenance; smaller "stuff" could mean less upkeep expense; less cost could mean sooner freedom from bills; less noise will guarantee more quiet and peace if schedules are adjusted to include at least some quiet time each day; going and doing and zooming could be less necessary if the illusions of self gave way to an awareness of Self; and freedom of speech could become less touted when freedom from speech becomes valued.

You can live as freely as the deer if you follow the steps that can result in Realization and in de-accumulation (which always follows Realization). And, again, that is not theory. Everything mentioned above is an account of actual experience. Please enter the silence of contemplation.

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

The very worst of each personality type in evidenced when persons are stressed, overly pious, or making money off their phony role-playing. How many on the planet are not either stressed, overly-pious, or receiving income for playing their roles? The negatives are prevalent—relatively speaking—and dominate the “human (persona) experience.”

[Continued from yesterday]

F.: Often, Type Sevens as children were trying to cope with a rigid or emotionally-unavailable or demanding parent (more often the mother). Sevens sense, rightly or wrongly, that the inflexible parent is never totally pleased with them or that the parent is never willing to fully accept their uniqueness. (That is generally a result of the fact that the mothers of many Sevens were either facing their own challenges at the time the Seven was a child; or had an attachment disorder; or were over-stressed because of circumstances but lacked the coping skills to deal effectively with those circumstances; or were preoccupied with their own agenda and interests.) Sevens as children become dedicated to trying to lighten the mood of the overly-serious parent. As a result, Seven’s end up on a life-long quest to have fun and escape restrictions (such as those imposed by a rule-loving parent). Later, however, they also become hesitant to make commitments in their own adult relations, preferring to keep many options open instead.

Often, Type Eights as children were trying to cope with a mother in a battle for control. Typically, the Eights succeeded in getting their way as a child and they expect to always get their way throughout their adult years as well. They usually become domineering and controlling and often want both earthly and “heavenly” power in order to have all of the power necessary in order to try to control everything and everyone.

Often, Type Nines as children were dealing with excessively supportive or indulgent parents, so as adults they have a sense of entitlement that makes work unattractive and creates an expectation that others should take care of them. Nines can become quite lazy and can use passive-aggressive methods to manipulate others to care for them.

(NOTE: It has been asked in the past, “If childhood and family conditions have such an influence on determining personality type, why do siblings so often have different personality types?” The answer is, “Because no two brothers or sisters are raised by the ‘same’ parents or in the ‘same’ family.” Meaning? Meaning that parents are in a state of flux and families are in a state of flux. The dynamics are never the same for any two children, though they might be members of the 'same' family, since economic cycles rise and fall, since the parents’ relationship ebbs and wans, and since the addition of each child affects the character of the family unit.)

Thus, the most common personality defects (as revealed above) which mar the relative existence include the following: self-absorption; judgmentalism; giving, but only in order to receive even more in return; viciousness; being overly-competitive; being phony; being aloof; being unavailable; being morbid; being fear-based and insecure; being blindly loyal; being an escapist; being a control freak; being demanding; and being lazy. Those are the typical products of the basic personality types. Add the defects that appear when persons adopt another twenty or thirty ego-states ("spouse," "employee," "lover," "homeowner," etc.) and the fallout from personality becomes overwhelming, throwing the entire planet into chaos. Some have asked: “What about those who are ‘healthy’ and behave ‘well’”? The answer is simple:

The very worst of each personality type in evidenced when persons are stressed, overly pious, or making money off their phony role-playing. How many on the planet are not either stressed, overly-pious, or receiving income for playing their roles? The negatives are prevalent—relatively speaking—and dominate the “human (persona) experience.”

The more significant Advaita pointer is this: when strategies (a) originated in the mind of a child who was trying to cope with abnormal circumstances and when those strategies (b) produced a specific personality and when (c) those childhood strategies are still driving abnormal and subconscious behavior years later, then those are strategies that actually should play no part at all in the relative-existence lives of adults. For freedom to happen, the warped “mind” that generated personality during childhood must be dissolved and the personality (and its persona-driven behaviors) must be discarded.

Next, there are two or three specific personality disorders that are common to each of the basic personality types, so those will be discussed. In the meanwhile, are you seeing any of those examples of personality in your own conduct? Do you see any evidence of those remnants of a child within often controlling your thoughts and behaviors? Are you seeing why Advaitin sages recommend being free of body-mind-personality identification?

Are you seeing why Advaitins make the point that the problems of the relative existence are rooted in personality and that, in order to be free of chaos, all personal attributes and personal identifications must be discarded? For more on that, click

here

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

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

Three factors cause persons to attach to their false identities, to be driven to fight to defend their false personality / personalities, to descend into the depths of what some professionals term “an unhealthy psyche,” and then to suffer the effects of personality disorders. Those three factors are (1) stress, (2) extreme piety or spirituality, and (3) the linking of money / income with a persona.

FROM A SITE VISITOR: your mind/memory series is interesting, but I don’t get the exact connection with the direct path you claim to offer.

[Continued from yesterday]

F.: To clarify for the sake of the one who sent the above e-mail, consider: there’s a regular visitor to this site who had prostate cancer. If the passing of blood had not happened, he would have never known the problem so he would never have sought the solution. This series is identifying the root of the widespread problems of the planet in order that site visitors might (a) better understand the cause of their problems and also know that (b) the Advaita Teachings offer a solution.

While many would dismiss other persons as “insane” if they disagree with them, most behavior that appears to be insane is actually rooted in personality. So that is the problem. Then, knowing the problem, one might be willing to seek the solution, namely, Realization. For some, the direct path offered on this site or in the retreats being offered again will "work" for some persons; the traditional path might work for some seekers; and other, newer approaches might work for other seekers. The solution is found when the suitable "path" is followed to its end.

So, the problems of the planet are, for the most part, rooted in “personality conflict.” That is a term that is typically used to minimize the reasons that a "relationship" "failed," but the term can be used accurately in light of the statistics posted yesterday: while up to 5% of the planet’s population was shown by research to have mental illnesses, 99% have personality disorders. As evidence, one estimate is that 99% suffer from ...

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] For additional information, click

here