“LOVE,” “FEAR” AND EMOTIONAL INTOXICATION, Part Two

[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

F.: You were also told in satsanga, Ricardo, that "truth cannot be stated but it can be known." What if, similarly, that which “Love” is cannot be stated but can be known? You were also told that “Persons desiring to know what love is might benefit more (relatively speaking, of course) if they were able to understand what love is not." Just as all false selves must be seen as false before the True Self can be known, so all false beliefs about “love” must be seen before you can even begin to know what “True Love” is. Thus, the list of what love is not continues from yesterday’s post:

2. Is it possible that love is NOT the love-of-self that drives persons to seek “a compatible partner”? What is a “compatible partner”? Many heterosexual persons actually want an opposite-sex version of themselves. Many homosexual persons want a same-sex version of themselves. Dating services promise to put you in contact with someone who is “compatible with you”…with someone who is “exactly like you,” so it will be easier for “love to bloom” (since that person will really be a version of “you”—of your false selves). If a person is not Realized and is matched by test to someone else, that someone else will also be non-Realized.

Persons are so “in love” with themselves—with their false “selves” and their false identities—that they believe that they can only be happy if they find other persons to associate with who mirror them...who think as they think, feel as they feel, and believe as they believe. Any deviation from that pattern is almost always grounds for war eventually, either among individuals or among individuals comprising nations. The Oneness is not known among the non-Realized, so they are driven to live in the mirror. Their entire life seemingly takes place in the looking glass. To love your own "self" when it is reflected by another is not love at all.

3. Is it possible that love in NOT “the missing ingredient in your life” that can bring you happiness if attained? All absence of happiness and all presence of misery is rooted in perceptions of need, in desires, and in fears. Try to name another area that generates more desire or more fear than “love.” Try to name anything else sought out so vigorously in order to meet perceived needs (that are not truly needs at all but are merely more “wants”). Few areas of your relative existence have superceded “love” in fostering desire, fear, short-term happiness, and long-term misery. If you can boast that you have never experienced the latter, just be patient.

4. Is it possible that love is NOT the gateway to having your needs and wishes met? Your needs are perceived and the actual driving force behind your desires cannot be seen until well along the path to Realization.

5. Is it possible that love is NOT a tool to be used for the manipulation of “others” or “another” to gain more or to satisfy your sense of entitlement…the sense that you are entitled to be taken care of or the sense that you deserve more than you have? Happiness begins when the search for more goes and a contentment with less comes. Happiness becomes fixed when nothing is desired. It reaches a new height during AS IF living when the Void is enjoyed. It reaches the ultimate bliss after it is seen that the Void is the fullness.

6. Is it possible that love is NOT “caring enough” to meet the needs and desires of “another”? That is attachment. That is ego-state defense. That is delusion. And more often than not, if you dig one layer below what many claim to be their “altruistic giving,” what is revealed is a hidden agenda to “get.” The drive toward accumulation follows twenty years of early programming. The shift toward true happiness begins when it is seen that one is left with a sense of emptiness in spite of all that has been accumulated, when one enters into Self-Inquiry, when one finds the Real, and when de-accumulation then happens spontaneously.

7. Is it possible that love is NOT because of? The closest that "love" could be to what is real happens when it is not because of but when it remains in spite of instead.

8. Is it possible that love, needs, and “relationships” are NOT that which is the answer to all your problems but are instead the source of much of your misery?

9. Is it possible that love is NOT that which results when your limbic brain system releases pleasure-producing chemicals when you are attracted to someone? That part of the brain recognizes the familiarity of your “caretakers,” ignoring whether that caretaking was effective or harmful, relatively speaking. It is a chemical reaction, not a “love-reaction,” when “others” attract you because of a subconscious response that you can neither trigger willingly nor halt on your own. There is no such thing as "falling in love" or "love at first sight." There can be "chemical attraction at first sight," which has everything to do with archetypal influences, genetic coding and physiological factors but nothing at all to do with True Love. Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
ADDITIONAL READINGS RELATED TO TODAY’S POST:
THE FULL DISUCSSION ON “LOVE” AND THE WAY THAT REALIZATION CAN IMPROVE ALL ASPECTS OF THE RELATIVE EXISTENCE IS DISCUSSED IN CASTING LIGHT ON THE DARK SIDE OF RELATIONSHIPS
WORKING ON ISSUES ARISING IN RELATIONSHIPS WITH THE NON-REALIZED AND ON FINDING SOLUTIONS TO “RELATIONSHIP PROBLEMS”?

Click CASTING LIGHT ON THE DARK SIDE OF RELATIONSHIPS

“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)

THE CURSE OF PERSONALITY ON THE RELATIVE EXISTENCE

F.: Even those seekers who have only begun to explore the Advaita Teachings likely know one of the most basic tenets: body-mind-personality identification is at the root of blindness and unawareness. What some might not yet recognize is this: each assumed persona generates the additional assumption of several other personas, and it is that ever-growing accumulation of multiple personalities that create the mass of darkness that prevents persons from seeing Who/What They Truly Are. And what greater example of ignorance or insanity can exist than not knowing who you are or than thinking you are someone or something that you are not?

When persons are not Realized and don't know the True Self, then they will be driven to adopt not only the false personas that they have been set up to assume but will also adopt other roles/personas that are offshoots of their already-adopted personas.

For example, an insecure man with fears of abandonment, taking himself to be “Husband,” will internalize the personality of “His Wife.” His fears will drive him away from being true to Self and he will internalize “Wife” in order to please her and reinforce her false identities, thereby sustaining his “Husband” identity. Fear of loss, combined with a desire to sustain his own false identity, will drive him to become a male version of "her."

That practice does allow many "relationships" to continue for a time since persons embroiled in their ego-states are so egotistical that they can only "love" self. If they see, as in this example, an opposite-sex version of themselves, they can continue the illusion that they are "in love." They are, to the degree that they are "in love" with their false self/selves, and they will be attracted to any thought, word, deed, or image that helps to support the continuation of their illusions and delusions.

Note how the assumption of one false self inspires the assumption of another: to sustain "Husband," the insecure man also becomes "Wife" by adumbrating her every thought, word, and deed as he reflects her image back to her. Of course, the same applies regardless of the gender of the parties involved: wives reflect husbands; lovers reflect lovers; parishioners reflect priests; abusers reflect abusers; radicals reflect radicals; the prejudiced reflect the prejudiced; ad infinitum.

Another example of this relative phenomenon was witnessed recently. A consulting contract was signed with a business that wanted its staff members to understand the ways that personas were negatively impacting performance. The owner of the business recognized that his employees were being driven by their primary personality types, that they had disintegrated into the worse of several other types, and that the fact that they were being driven by personality was disrupting the harmony in the workplace as a result of their also being so far removed from awareness of the Authentic Self.

The work with one company employee showed this: three months ago, that employee (who is a Personality Type Four) tested high as a Personality Type Two. In a recent re-test, his Type Two score was his lowest and his Type One score was his highest. Such shifts are generally unheard of or are very rare if the questions were answered truthfully during both testings. After studying the situation, several factors were revealed:

1. He is a Four but he had internalized his hero/grandfather who is a Type Two. One role, "The Good Grandson," inspired the assumption of another role, "The Helper." Further, his employment has an element whereby helping is supposed to happen, so that drove him away from his own basic personality type and allowed the liabilities of a Type Two Helper personality to manifest. One role generated more role-playing and prevented the manifestation of peace that only comes with authenticity.

2. But what accounted for the major shift from the Two to the One? After taking the first test, that employee spent the next three months under the supervision of a Type Four who had disintegrated and was exhibiting the worst traits of a Type One Perfectionist. As with the insecure man who had assumed his wife’s personality in the earlier example, this insecure employee assumed the personality of his supervisor. Because his supervisor/mentor is only showing the worst of Type One traits, this employee had assumed (after only three months of exposure to that supervisor's influence) the false persona of perfectionist as he modeled/mirrored his supervisor in order to sustain "The Employee" role.

That scenario plays out across the globe: persons subconsciously mirror "The Boss" in order to reinforce "The Employee" role. It happens on the national level as staff members/"Yes Men" become mere reflections of the president they serve; it happens in most work situations; it happens in "personal relations"; it happens in churches and schools; it happens in homes. Mirrors are reflecting mirror images, so authenticity is nearly extinct on a planet where 95% or more of the population is living a lie.

Rather than living in touch with Reality, persons are living in the mirror instead, but only a few will ever reach the point of admitting, "I don't even know who I am" or the point where they say, "I'm so disgusted with the phoniness that is dominating my existence that I am going to find what is Real."

If persons do not Realize, they will function as “human soybeans” and will take on the flavor of whatever they are next to. They will be robbed of choice as a result of being driven blindly by their self-generated fears as well as their desires to sustain their assumed ego-states. New ego-states will spring up to try to protect other false identities.

The result is a relative existence marked by multiple personality disorders, by chaos, and by persons being true to others' false selves rather than to their own True Self; thus, a relative existence results that is marked by flux, change, turmoil, self-deception and instability as persons try to be all of the things that they are not in an effort to try to sustain personas that they also are not.

All consciousness is in movement. Only the Absolute is stable. To avoid a relative existence that is marked by an addiction to chaos and that is dominated by layers of darkness that prevent being enlightened to the truth, even the consciousness must be transcended and abidance as the Absolute must happen. The "journey" to Realization only takes seven steps, but most will never find them; therefore, most will never be free of being driven by personality. Please enter the silence of contemplation.

ADDITIONAL READING RELATED TO TODAY’S POST

Click LIBERATION

A UNIVERSE OF ACCIDENTS, OR A UNIVERSE OPERATING ACCORDING TO PLAN, OR…NEITHER? Part Four, The Conclusion

F.: In the meantime, nonsense like that spouted by Brother Juniper in Thornton Wilder’s The Bridge of San Luis Rey (mentioned in an earlier post) will continue. Like the masses today, Juniper wondered if the bridge in that story fell (A) “by accident” or (B) “by plan.” Some people are asking that question about the bridge that recently fell in the U.S., but most are totally sure that everything that happens is caused by god, is god’s will, and is part of a “Divine Plan.”

Because the perceptions of persons are so primitive, most will never consider any options other than those two, but the correct answer is "C," "D," and "E":

(C) all happenings are happening due to an infinite number of causes;

(D) the basic principle involved is “cycling”; and

(E) the only “governing forces” involved are the Laws of Thermodynamics (including Entropy), and the Law of Atrophy.

Furthermore, all change happens as a result of the Laws of Thermodynamics and Atrophy and all change is natural, no matter how much those who believe in—and long for—continuity might disagree. The laws have been discussed earlier but are relevant here as well:

By nature, all except that which You Truly Are is limited and finite. The Law of Thermodynamics says that everything in the relative—including situations and relationships and bridges—is dynamic and changing. Elements that happen to “come together” cannot “stay together” permanently, just as a so-called human "form" or "space" will not be a permanent form and just as the manifested consciousness will not manifest permanently. The elements will eventually return to the universal pool of elements and the conscious-energy will return to the universal pool of energy.

The Law of Entropy says that elements disorganize and organize and disorganize again. Even the elements organized by humans into what they call a "bridge" will disorganize...naturally and automatically and on their own. This Second Law of Thermodynamics says that everything deteriorates, collapses, breaks down, and wears out all by itself. It is a law of nature. Everything in the relative deteriorates, collapses, breaks down, and wears out…all by itself. The basic elements and the energy will remain, but no “relative combinings” are permanent. That applies to bridges and to marriages, to cars and to courtships, to computers and to possessions.

The Law of Atrophy, or The Law of Reduction, says that all forms shall waste away, wither, or deteriorate. That includes plants, animals, human bodies, bridges, and relationships. Only the basic elements and the energy remain, but no forms perceived to be "real" will last.

Yet most will never realize these facts since they accept their god as the cause of all. Once persons are “sure” they know the answer to everything, they will never find the truth about anything because the search for truth never even begins.

For the few who can forfeit their belief that they are “sure” and “right” about everything, another option remains. There is the opportunity to question it all, to be free of it all, and to merely witness it all…without attachment. There is the opportunity to Realize...to take all seven steps required to be in touch with reality. Why take those steps? Because then, and only then, can true freedom and independence manifest during the relative existence.

Why else? Because You Are the consciousness. Even when lying on a couch or bed, the body is doing nothing but the consciousness is churning away. Even when the personality is not inspiring the talk that is used to sustain personas, the consciousness is churning away. There can be no peace without Realization.

The body might be at rest. The mouth might be at rest. But it is the consciousness that is never at rest among the non-Realized. The invitation is to take the seven steps in order to be rid of the “mind” that allows the consciousness to churn. Only then can the nonsense about perfect parents and controlling gods and falling bridges and all other silliness be abandoned. Only then can one be free of the influence of parental programming and cultural conditioning and fictional tales about god(s) and warped ideas that are forever driving persons and robbing them of peace.

Only when freed of all of those influences can true freedom happen. Only then can those centers of logic and reason and sanity that have been deactivated by programming and conditioning and encuturation reactivate. Only then can that inner resource be tapped into. Only then can the remainder of the manifestation happen spontaneously, sanely, reasonably, and rationally. Only then can persons be free of their magical thinking and supernatural beliefs about happenings that are simply natural. Please enter the silence of contemplation.
READINGS RELATED TO TODAY’S DISCUSSION:
SALE ITEM FOR THE WEEK: 15% OFF ON “WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE?”

Click WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE?

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)