King Gordia of Phrygia tied a knot so complex it couldn’t be untied. An oracle revealed that the knot would only be undone by the future master of Asia. Alexander the Great cut the knot and fulfilled the prophecy. The legend has come to symbolize solutions to intractable problems found in unconventional thought.
Perhaps the most perplexing and inexplicable enigmas of human behavior is why people advance their religions using methods expressly forbidden by those same religions. A more concrete expression of the question is why Jews, Christians and Muslims (among others) violate the Sixth Commandment in the name of their religions?
The staggering hypocrisy of the behavior and its frequency both cross-culturally and historically imply that it is probably not the work of bad apple zealots but, rather, a peculiarity in human beings as a species. This oddity and virtually all other human behavior can be understood and logically explained once we have a metaphor which corresponds to our psychic anatomy.
We are three brained beings. In other words each of us has three independent but interconnected brains or centers which are each capable of contextualizing experience and dictating our behavior. Each has its own capabilities and each is to a degree able to perform the work of the others. This is an adaptive characteristic. Our three brains or centers are physical, emotional and mental.
The physical center is our body. Its proper functions include the life sustaining activities of our autonomic nervous system. Our reflexes including the fight or flight response are within this domain as is our sex drive. Our ability to perform activities of physical culture is its proper work. Our five senses of perception are first experienced in this center. Sometimes the perception caused by stimuli to any of our five senses can stay within the physical center. Alternatively it can trigger activity in either or both of the other two centers. Some examples might be useful.
Say you’re cooking breakfast in a cast iron pan. You try to move the pan from a burner but forget that the iron handle is hot. You simultaneously perceive the heat and release your hand. Our nervous system is wired to remove our hand from the heat source before the nerve impulse even hits the brain or mental center. We have a reflex in our elbow as a self protective mechanism to prevent burns. In this example the sensory stimuli (hot handle) and the behavior (moving your hand) occurred all within the physical center.
An example of how an impulse can stimulate more than one center is: you’re cooking breakfast and the aroma of frying bacon and fresh coffee is initially perceived by the physical center but, triggers the memory of Sunday mornings in your childhood farmhouse together with the happiness you experienced there .The feeling of joy occurs in the emotional center. You begin to speak to your sister about the memory. Language occurs in the mental center.
The value of these examples is that they provide a notion of what experience belongs to what center. They also show how quickly “control” over behavior can move among the centers. In many people aromas which are initially perceived in the physical center have a pronounced link to the emotional center.
A final example of the work of the physical center illustrates the chief work of this center and how one center can perform the work of another. Many of the physical activities that we perform are done on “automatic pilot”. We can drive a car, swim, run or dance once we learn or more specifically once our physical center learns the activity.
Recollect the process of learning to ride a bicycle. First our mental center controls pedaling, steering and balance as our mental center tries to control our movements and execute the verbal instructions someone else has given us. Inevitably the slowness of the mental center makes the process much more awkward than it is once the physical center begins to coordinate pedaling, steering and balance without any involvement of the mental center. Once the physical center assumes responsibility you can ride. The rest of your bike riding career will be performed almost exclusively by the physical center. Very occasionally the mental center may be required to cope with an unusual problem. Your ride into the path of escaping bank robbers might require involvement of the mental center to logically deduce your safest path of escape.
Our emotional center is the part of us which experiences emotions. Because the word feeling describes both emotions and sensations confusion is almost unavoidable.
Emotions always both feel good or bad and include the following experiences: anger, jealousy, fear, guilt, shame and joy. Sensations can be good, bad or neutral and are usually initially experienced in the physical center.
Our emotional center is the part of us that allows us to empathize with other people. This center provides us the ability to feel other peoples’ emotions as though they were our own. Its’ proper work also includes intuition and perhaps most important it is the seat of our conscience, the part of us that automatically knows right from wrong. Finally, it is the center which contains the eternal spark of our Creator present in each of us. This spark acts with our conscience the way magnetic north orients and energizes the needle of a compass. It is also the esoteric meaning of the parable of the mustard seed.
For those of you who skipped Sunday school this week Jesus was asked to describe heaven. He said heaven was like a mustard seed the smallest seed in the garden but, the one that grows into the largest bush, so large that birds can live in its branches.[1] I do not know if the language Aramaic which Jesus spoke contained the word spark at the time he told this parable. What a seed and a spark have in common is that they both represent something inchoate, which is un-manifested potential. What I believe he was getting at was we have potential heaven (seed or spark) in our emotional center. To grow properly means to manifest our full spiritual potential (largest bush) and by doing so we serve creation (birds in the branches).
Our intellectual center separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom. It is the center that creates and manipulates systems of symbols such as language, written, spoken, computer, musical, and mathematical. It is the part of us which places things in categories. Its’ proper work compares, contrasts and reasons. Its ability to analyze and apply logic is responsible for our use of tools, technology and all the miracles science has created. The key aspect of the intellectual center is that its primary work is the manipulation of symbols therefore all subjective experience in this center is derivative as opposed to experience in the other two centers which is experienced directly.
This observation is critically important to the question at hand because many people take experience in the mental center to be “real”. That is many people forget that all experience that occurs in language is symbolic and a symbol represents something else but, it is not the thing itself. In an objective sense the symbol may grossly distort or omit critical aspects of the thing being symbolized. The more complex the thing being symbolized, the more likely it is that the symbol will be inaccurate.
Take for example, the miraculous potential of human awareness. No one would seriously contend that our current psychology or religion has a definitive description of this phenomenon. Yet it is probably safe to say that the symbol most likely to be used by almost everyone to stand for the miracle of human awareness is their own self-image. This confusion has been described as mistaking the map for the territory. In my opinion this simile is rather benign. The more fervent a person’s belief in their own self image the more likely it is that they will be vulnerable to belief and/or conduct inimical to their own evolution and creation in general.
Objectively one’s self-image is the symbol which results from the accumulation of experiences and our own and other people’s opinions about us. Frequently a person can mistake this symbol for “my true self”. Often a person whose belief about him or herself is predominantly in the mental center will define themselves as a plumber or a lawyer or a Christian or some other social role. A person whose self image is predominantly in their emotional center will often define themselves as “I Am”.
This fundamental confusion between self image the symbol and self as integrated aspect of creation is ironic because selfhood is the symbol most people will spend the most time and effort upholding. This notion of self as self image is the genesis of the Hindu concept of maya a Sanskrit word which means illusion or delusion. Unfortunately sometimes believing in something that cannot be experienced through the five senses is a true religious experience. Confusion between maya and authentic spirituality can be clarified by remembering that anything as vast and unknowable as the Creator can only be approached through intuition a function of our emotional center. This is why Orthodox Jews will not speak or write the word God. Similarly the first aphorism in The Book of Tao states the Tao of which can be spoken is not the real Tao.[2] In physics objects composed of iron or copper can collect a magnetic charge by being placed in a field of electrical energy. Similarly both our mental and emotional centers can collect a charge of spiritual energy by being exposed to experiences which promote belief. The energy of belief can be an extremely powerful force in a human being.
This is so for at least two reasons. First, belief can act as a pronounced inspiration. Examples are countless but, consider the number and majesty of the world’s holy buildings inspired by various conceptions of the Creator.
Second, our beliefs have a controlling influence on our perceptions. In short, we perceive what we believe.
The intellectual center proceeds by way of reasoning from a premise. Once a person accumulates a self-image that includes a belief in something, that belief will serve as the premise from which reasoning proceeds. If, for example, the premise is that true religion requires orthodoxy, then it is not too hard to see how coercive means to encourage adherence could seem to be a good idea. That is the mental center using only logic could come to this rather awful, but logical, conclusion. Only the emotional center is equipped with the necessary attributes to act as a containment vessel to properly channel the powerful potential of belief accumulating in a human being. Growth of the energy of belief in the emotional center is in accord with creation and will coalesce as an energetic field because this center contains the mustard seed. If the field reaches a critical mass it will allow this energetic agglutination to survive the death of our physical body. This is what it means to be born again[3] and was the mechanism of the resurrection.
Belief manifesting in the intellectual center is the esoteric meaning of the Biblical house built upon sand as this condition has disastrous consequences for individual evolution. In other words belief, no matter how fervently held, if located in the intellectual center will dissipate with our physical body. It will not coalesce as an energetic field because the intellectual center does not contain the mustard seed.
The idea that we are three brained beings is the psychic operator’s manual which can be used to untie Psychology’s Gordian Knot and explain virtually all human behavior. The widespread acceptance of this metaphor has miraculous potential to promote a quantum leap in our understanding of our potential as spiritual beings, our individual self - knowledge and concomitant social evolution.
Belief manifesting in the wrong that is intellectual center, is the consistent explanation for atrocities committed in the name of religion.
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[1] Luke 13 : 18-19
[2]The Tao Te Ching or Book of Tao is the seminal work of Taoism one of the 6 great world religions. It was composed or compiled between 300-500 BC. The legend is that the author Lao-Tzu was elderly and prepared to leave his village to go to the mountains and die. The leaders barred the gates until he compiled his wisdom. The legend is probably apochcryphal. Tao is usually translated to English as “the Way” which I understand to be in accord with creation. [2]
[3] John 3: 3-8 This is the passage where Jesus tells Nicodemus in verse 3 “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God”. Nicodemus goes onto to ask but, how can an old man be born again? Jesus answers in verse 5&6 “Verily, verily I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” Obviously, Jesus is attempting to imply a different state of matter. Since the general acceptance of the theory of relativity there are two states of matter, energy and mass or in Jesus’ terms flesh and spirit.
Also cf. John 14: 20 “At that day ye shall know that I am in my father, and ye in me, and I in you.”
We know from Sir Isaac Newton that two (or three) objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time again clearly implying different states of matter.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME?
It is an immutable scientific fact that we are surrounded by infinity. Gigantic things like galaxies, black holes and quasars all seem to operate in proper order because every morning the sun rises and every evening the sun sets. The moon and planets follow regular patterns. As do the comets and constellations. The scale of what we can perceive is so vast that we may see starlight from stars that no longer even exist. It is not hyperbole to say that we live in an ongoing space time miracle.
Granted this reality is difficult to sustain when we’re stuck in traffic, late for work, checks are bouncing and the kids are sick.
There is however, the possibility of reconciling the two previously mentioned realities while enhancing our own sanity. That possibility lies in the fact that we have the potential to control our own reaction to “external” events.
In its most rudimentary form this means we can count to ten before we “lose our temper”. On a more advanced level we can learn to observe then eliminate conditioned negative responses to stimuli. We can observe our thought and belief pattern to understand what we thought was so important that we allowed a conditioned negative response to be engrained in us in the first place.
The simple act of eliminating conditioned negativity will make you nicer to be around, other people like to be around you more and possibly even you to like yourself more.
To be perfectly precise what I mean by conditioned negativity is your basic Pavlov dog classical conditioning. For example, other people’s stupid driving (or any other stimuli) makes you angry (unhappy, worried you pick the adjective). Then you respond like a dog and express this negative emotion in some behavior verbal or otherwise. It seems impossible to eliminate other people’s stupid driving. It is. But, it is completely possible to take responsibility for your reaction to it. While we’re at it may as well take responsibility for your whole damn life.
This is much easier than it seems. All that is required is to change the way you think about your reaction to things. The new thought process is: all your thoughts, feelings and deeds are your life and therefore your responsibility. Everything that occurs in your internal world belongs to you. No one can make you feel, think, say or do anything without your complicity or at least your acquiescence.
While this may seem like a difficult burden at first, it is really quite liberating. Some idiot just cut in front of you at the perpetual line of cars getting off the infamous Garden State Parkway exit 135 which has both north and southbound exits feeding into a circle. Did he make you mad? Or are you responsible for your reaction? Do you want to rage at his driving and the incompetent exit design? Do you want to get your own and everybody else’s blood pressure up?[1] Or do you want to just accept what you can’t control?
The other unseen and perhaps even more significant advantage to taking responsibility for your thoughts, feelings and behavior is once you apply this standard to yourself it’s completely appropriate to apply it to everyone else.
This is the liberating part because once everyone is responsible for themselves no one can get away with manipulating anyone else. Why? Because manipulation between people requires a blurring of responsibility. The classic rationalization for abuse is that person A did some behavior which caused person B to have some emotion which justified some emotionally or physically abusive behavior toward person A.
Let’s analyze this interaction in the take responsibility mode. It is very well possible that person A said or did something potentially offensive to person B. However, in the first place person B had the choice to take offense or not. If he chose to take offense he had an emotional response. It is his emotion. Now does the fact that person B has some emotion allow him to shirk responsibility for abusive behavior especially toward a loved one? No, everyone is responsible for their own thoughts, emotions and especially their behavior.
This same result obtains where person A deliberately tries to induce some form of negative emotion in person B in order to get person B to do something. The classic example is the guilt trip or its first cousin described in the Celestine Prophecy the poor me trip. In either case person A claims to have some negative emotion to attempt to infect person B with some correlative negative emotion so person B will do some behavior he might not otherwise do.
If we analyze this scenario in the take responsibility mode person A’s emotion is their own. Person B has the option of saying to person A “I’m sorry you feel that way but I am not responsible for your emotions” hopefully inoculating herself against some gratuitous negativity.
If person A persists person B can simply spotlight the manipulation.
“You are deliberately trying to make me feel guilty (or pity or in the case of a power trip fear) in order to get me to do something for you. I don’t like being treated this way. I would prefer if you want something that you just ask for it.”
Only world class manipulators will continue this tactic once the cover is blown. Even then we retain the choice of how to respond because we are responsible for our thoughts, emotions and behavior and everybody else is responsible for theirs.
A further liberating aspect of this mode of thinking is that it clarifies who did what to whom. Once responsibility is acknowledged the possibility of forgiveness, communication and compromise arise. Resolving interpersonal problems in an adult open way can lead to a happier more satisfying life. Again, if you employ this skill most people will like you more and you may even like yourself more.
Now that you have found and eliminated conditioned negativity gotten in the habit of observing and taking responsibility for your own thoughts, emotions, sensations and behavior and developed a method of smoothing your social relations it’s time to work on some basic psychic management.
In the beginning try to observe as much as possible your physical sensations, emotions and thoughts. Do it in your daily life. Do it when you’re alone. Do it as much as possible.
Almost instantly you will probably observe two things. First it is impossible to sustain this observation process very long. This should perhaps, give rise to the question of how much control you actually exercise over your own awareness?
Second in most people the mental center has words streaming through almost without interruption. After a while you may notice that the stream of words makes it difficult to observe activity in other centers. In most people’s consciousness this stream of words or internal dialogue is considered normal and hardly even noticed.
The internal dialogue has multiple negative effects. It blocks or obstructs messages from the other centers because it speaks with the loudest voice. This can interfere with at least four of our built in psychic self protective abilities.
One of the major functions of our conscience is that it is designed to help us avoid the painful consequences of violating the Law of Karma.
At its simplest level the Law of Karma is in Biblical terms “as we sow, so shall we reap”. Another way to describe it again at the simplest level is “what goes around comes around” or as we say on the east coast “payback’s a bitch”.
In other words all the energy we project into the universe is subject to a boomerang multiplier effect. It inevitably comes back usually tripled. So, for example, if because of internal dialogue we are unable or unwilling to listen to our conscience and as a result we inflict suffering on another being, that suffering will be returned to us multiplied. Michael Vick comes to mind.
The payback may not happen on the same day or the same week. We may not even be able to connect our suffering with our act that caused it in the first place. That doesn’t matter. The reason it’s called the Law of Karma is the same reason some other force is called the Law of Gravity. In each case the results are just as certain.
Further, the people who first observed this Law, the Hindus, believe that violations of this law carry forward into different manifestations in western terms our “afterlife”. For this reason the consequences of violations of this Law may well be much more serious than I have described. Allowing our uncontrolled internal dialogue to interfere with the proper functioning of our conscience is a sucker’s bet; very high risk almost no return.
Emphasizing the seriousness of this danger is the fact that we are equipped with a backup system. If for some reason our conscience fails our ability to empathize could/should allow us to anticipate the suffering someone else will feel as a result of some careless or selfish act on our part. However, the constant stream of useless chatter can shout down this message as well. If so, neither the act nor its consequences will be avoided.
Our intuition also acts as a mechanism of self protection. For quite some time I lived in the East Village neighborhood of the City. One cold very windy November day I walked north from my Sixth St. apartment to the dry cleaners on the south side of Seventh St. After retrieving my bundle I had nowhere to go but home. Instead of turning south I crossed Seventh St. to stand on the northwest corner. I was waiting for don’t walk to turn to walk wondering why I did that when a gust of wind blew down a six foot by four foot heavy metal sign which had been attached to the building ten feet high over the southwest corner of Seventh St. That corner was on the direct path from the dry cleaners to my apartment.
The capacity for intuition varies widely among people. Some people are psychics. Other people are so invested in their intellectual center that they don’t even realize that they have or once had this ability. Some people don’t believe there is such a thing. As mentioned earlier our beliefs profoundly effect our perceptions. If we don’t believe something exists we probably won’t see it unless it hits us like my Seventh St. sign.
My favorite thing about the Jean Auel Clan of the Cave Bear Ayala books is the way she depicted the differences between cro-magnum and homo- sapien consciousness. For those of you who need the Cliff Notes as a result of an earthquake the heroine Barbie-like Scandinavian homo-sapien Ayala (played by Darryl Hanna in the movie) as a baby was orphaned then rescued and raised by the cro-magnum Geico Cavemen.
They were patriarchal and their consciousness was guided by “the memories”. “The memories” was a part DNA part cultural system which provided a proper symbolic way to perceive everything and a proper way to deal with every situation.
Conflict arose because Ayala was the world’s first feminist. She kept inventing new (and better) stuff. The final straw came when Ayala secretly became a better hunter than the men. Eventually, she was busted and the mean chief made the medicine man do the banishment spell on her. As soon as the spell was cast Ayala disappeared to everyone but Ayala. Even though she was still there no one could see her because they all believed in the spell.
We’re not so different. For those of you that snickered at the part about energy coalescing in the emotional center have you ever considered that our science of zoology is deficient in that it omits a whole class of beings? That is non-organic (energetic) beings.
I don’t believe mainstream science has accepted the existence of such things as poltergeist, apparitions and/or ghosts. As a matter of political correctness it takes no position on the human soul (which is really a shame).
The object of this chapter is to identify, highlight some of the dangers of and offer a simple remedy for what I believe to be a serious behavioral disability (expressing conditioned negative emotions) and a serious perceptual disability (uncontrolled internal dialogue) shared by a vast majority of US citizens. However, in order to provide food for thought on an important theme of this book to some of you skeptics; from anthropology we learn that many divergent cultures recognize the existence of energetic beings of some form. To my way of thinking phenomenon which appear in multiple cultures are more worthy of consideration than phenomenon that don’t.
At the frontier of theoretical physics the current challenge is to develop a unified theory which will integrate relativity theory and quantum theory. The leading candidate is a refinement of string theory which postulates that everything is made of little things called strings. The theory implies the existence of at least ten dimensions instead of our usual four.
Carlos Castaneda in his book The Art of Dreaming quotes his teacher as saying that human’s have the capacity to perceive multiple dimensions that are wrapped together like layers of an onion. Some of these dimensions are populated by energetic beings. He also observes that we do not perceive these beings because we are trained not to.
He further observed that everything can be categorized into the known, the unknown and the unknowable. Consider the reality described in the beginning of this chapter then consider how your personal knowledge fits in each of these categories. I guess the moral of this digression is to keep an open mind. Like a parachute it works better that way.
The final self protective mechanism that internal dialogue can disable arises in the physical center. The subtle little changes that occur in our physical center can send early warning signals of incipient illness or deterioration.
The ancient Taoist text The Art of War advises would be generals to solve problems before they arise.[2] In the physical health context this means become aware of and deal with gathering problems as soon as possible before they become major or mortal. For example, let’s say that you notice a new little mole on your arm, a little lump in your breast or chest pain going up the stairs. These are the subtle little warnings from the physical center. Let’s say the emotional center chimes in with a little blast of anxiety. This also is a self protective mechanism.
How does the mental center deal with this situation? It immediately tries to calm it down. “Oh it’s only a mole, cyst, I’m out of shape. I’ll let the doctor look at it next, week, month, year”. This type of self calming internal dialogue is common in many people and particularly insidious because it lies. Good thing those little symptoms weren’t skin cancer, breast cancer or cardiovascular disease.
What about next time?
This type of self calming internal dialogue can disable messages from our emotional center and this mechanism is distinct from the simple obstruction by the volume of the chatter.
Assume you have done something you should not have. Your conscience is “bothering you”. That is your emotional center is manifesting shame and/or anxiety based on you as an individual, the context and the behavior.
What does the internal dialogue do? It immediately tries to stop your conscience from “bothering you”. How does it do this? Lying. This process is called in psychology rationalization. That is trying to explain away the message from your conscience. Recall in Gordian Knot I mentioned that the physical and emotional centers manifest direct experience whereas the intellectual center is derivative because it is symbolic experience?
In the event of a conflict between your two centers which one should you listen to? The one that is manifesting direct experience, your conscience because; it is not subject to the rationalization process. The rationalization process only works when the mental center and its self calming internal dialogue “fool” your conscience.
If you are a procrastinator (then I am your king). That means I am an expert in how the process works. Again the basis is in lying to yourself. I’ll start the diet tomorrow but tonight, “Please pass the plate of cannolies”. Tomorrow morning you don’t have the same motivation because the immediate need for a lie has passed. It really would be more sensible to start on the weekend. So the procrastinator avoids the suffering of doing what he himself knows should be done by lying to himself and punting to the future. This is called in psychology neurotic behavior. The secret to its “success” is the self calming internal dialogue.
This example also illustrates a problem that I will deal with in detail later namely whose in charge here? If I give you all the bad news at once you’ll get mad at me and stop reading.
In any event internal dialogue also has other effects on our awareness. As you might have guessed none of them are good.
In the lives of most people at least when they’re out and about. There is far more sensory data available to us than we can perceive, let alone process into a meaningful
coherent reality. Therefore in order to be a functioning member of whatever society you were born into you must learn to share the consensus of what data is valuable and what data has no use. In addition, you must learn to assemble the data the same way everyone else does.
________________________________________________________________
[1] Activity in the emotional center triggering fight or flight response in the physical center.
[2] The Art of War by Sun Tzu Translated by Thomas Cleary
Granted this reality is difficult to sustain when we’re stuck in traffic, late for work, checks are bouncing and the kids are sick.
There is however, the possibility of reconciling the two previously mentioned realities while enhancing our own sanity. That possibility lies in the fact that we have the potential to control our own reaction to “external” events.
In its most rudimentary form this means we can count to ten before we “lose our temper”. On a more advanced level we can learn to observe then eliminate conditioned negative responses to stimuli. We can observe our thought and belief pattern to understand what we thought was so important that we allowed a conditioned negative response to be engrained in us in the first place.
The simple act of eliminating conditioned negativity will make you nicer to be around, other people like to be around you more and possibly even you to like yourself more.
To be perfectly precise what I mean by conditioned negativity is your basic Pavlov dog classical conditioning. For example, other people’s stupid driving (or any other stimuli) makes you angry (unhappy, worried you pick the adjective). Then you respond like a dog and express this negative emotion in some behavior verbal or otherwise. It seems impossible to eliminate other people’s stupid driving. It is. But, it is completely possible to take responsibility for your reaction to it. While we’re at it may as well take responsibility for your whole damn life.
This is much easier than it seems. All that is required is to change the way you think about your reaction to things. The new thought process is: all your thoughts, feelings and deeds are your life and therefore your responsibility. Everything that occurs in your internal world belongs to you. No one can make you feel, think, say or do anything without your complicity or at least your acquiescence.
While this may seem like a difficult burden at first, it is really quite liberating. Some idiot just cut in front of you at the perpetual line of cars getting off the infamous Garden State Parkway exit 135 which has both north and southbound exits feeding into a circle. Did he make you mad? Or are you responsible for your reaction? Do you want to rage at his driving and the incompetent exit design? Do you want to get your own and everybody else’s blood pressure up?[1] Or do you want to just accept what you can’t control?
The other unseen and perhaps even more significant advantage to taking responsibility for your thoughts, feelings and behavior is once you apply this standard to yourself it’s completely appropriate to apply it to everyone else.
This is the liberating part because once everyone is responsible for themselves no one can get away with manipulating anyone else. Why? Because manipulation between people requires a blurring of responsibility. The classic rationalization for abuse is that person A did some behavior which caused person B to have some emotion which justified some emotionally or physically abusive behavior toward person A.
Let’s analyze this interaction in the take responsibility mode. It is very well possible that person A said or did something potentially offensive to person B. However, in the first place person B had the choice to take offense or not. If he chose to take offense he had an emotional response. It is his emotion. Now does the fact that person B has some emotion allow him to shirk responsibility for abusive behavior especially toward a loved one? No, everyone is responsible for their own thoughts, emotions and especially their behavior.
This same result obtains where person A deliberately tries to induce some form of negative emotion in person B in order to get person B to do something. The classic example is the guilt trip or its first cousin described in the Celestine Prophecy the poor me trip. In either case person A claims to have some negative emotion to attempt to infect person B with some correlative negative emotion so person B will do some behavior he might not otherwise do.
If we analyze this scenario in the take responsibility mode person A’s emotion is their own. Person B has the option of saying to person A “I’m sorry you feel that way but I am not responsible for your emotions” hopefully inoculating herself against some gratuitous negativity.
If person A persists person B can simply spotlight the manipulation.
“You are deliberately trying to make me feel guilty (or pity or in the case of a power trip fear) in order to get me to do something for you. I don’t like being treated this way. I would prefer if you want something that you just ask for it.”
Only world class manipulators will continue this tactic once the cover is blown. Even then we retain the choice of how to respond because we are responsible for our thoughts, emotions and behavior and everybody else is responsible for theirs.
A further liberating aspect of this mode of thinking is that it clarifies who did what to whom. Once responsibility is acknowledged the possibility of forgiveness, communication and compromise arise. Resolving interpersonal problems in an adult open way can lead to a happier more satisfying life. Again, if you employ this skill most people will like you more and you may even like yourself more.
Now that you have found and eliminated conditioned negativity gotten in the habit of observing and taking responsibility for your own thoughts, emotions, sensations and behavior and developed a method of smoothing your social relations it’s time to work on some basic psychic management.
In the beginning try to observe as much as possible your physical sensations, emotions and thoughts. Do it in your daily life. Do it when you’re alone. Do it as much as possible.
Almost instantly you will probably observe two things. First it is impossible to sustain this observation process very long. This should perhaps, give rise to the question of how much control you actually exercise over your own awareness?
Second in most people the mental center has words streaming through almost without interruption. After a while you may notice that the stream of words makes it difficult to observe activity in other centers. In most people’s consciousness this stream of words or internal dialogue is considered normal and hardly even noticed.
The internal dialogue has multiple negative effects. It blocks or obstructs messages from the other centers because it speaks with the loudest voice. This can interfere with at least four of our built in psychic self protective abilities.
One of the major functions of our conscience is that it is designed to help us avoid the painful consequences of violating the Law of Karma.
At its simplest level the Law of Karma is in Biblical terms “as we sow, so shall we reap”. Another way to describe it again at the simplest level is “what goes around comes around” or as we say on the east coast “payback’s a bitch”.
In other words all the energy we project into the universe is subject to a boomerang multiplier effect. It inevitably comes back usually tripled. So, for example, if because of internal dialogue we are unable or unwilling to listen to our conscience and as a result we inflict suffering on another being, that suffering will be returned to us multiplied. Michael Vick comes to mind.
The payback may not happen on the same day or the same week. We may not even be able to connect our suffering with our act that caused it in the first place. That doesn’t matter. The reason it’s called the Law of Karma is the same reason some other force is called the Law of Gravity. In each case the results are just as certain.
Further, the people who first observed this Law, the Hindus, believe that violations of this law carry forward into different manifestations in western terms our “afterlife”. For this reason the consequences of violations of this Law may well be much more serious than I have described. Allowing our uncontrolled internal dialogue to interfere with the proper functioning of our conscience is a sucker’s bet; very high risk almost no return.
Emphasizing the seriousness of this danger is the fact that we are equipped with a backup system. If for some reason our conscience fails our ability to empathize could/should allow us to anticipate the suffering someone else will feel as a result of some careless or selfish act on our part. However, the constant stream of useless chatter can shout down this message as well. If so, neither the act nor its consequences will be avoided.
Our intuition also acts as a mechanism of self protection. For quite some time I lived in the East Village neighborhood of the City. One cold very windy November day I walked north from my Sixth St. apartment to the dry cleaners on the south side of Seventh St. After retrieving my bundle I had nowhere to go but home. Instead of turning south I crossed Seventh St. to stand on the northwest corner. I was waiting for don’t walk to turn to walk wondering why I did that when a gust of wind blew down a six foot by four foot heavy metal sign which had been attached to the building ten feet high over the southwest corner of Seventh St. That corner was on the direct path from the dry cleaners to my apartment.
The capacity for intuition varies widely among people. Some people are psychics. Other people are so invested in their intellectual center that they don’t even realize that they have or once had this ability. Some people don’t believe there is such a thing. As mentioned earlier our beliefs profoundly effect our perceptions. If we don’t believe something exists we probably won’t see it unless it hits us like my Seventh St. sign.
My favorite thing about the Jean Auel Clan of the Cave Bear Ayala books is the way she depicted the differences between cro-magnum and homo- sapien consciousness. For those of you who need the Cliff Notes as a result of an earthquake the heroine Barbie-like Scandinavian homo-sapien Ayala (played by Darryl Hanna in the movie) as a baby was orphaned then rescued and raised by the cro-magnum Geico Cavemen.
They were patriarchal and their consciousness was guided by “the memories”. “The memories” was a part DNA part cultural system which provided a proper symbolic way to perceive everything and a proper way to deal with every situation.
Conflict arose because Ayala was the world’s first feminist. She kept inventing new (and better) stuff. The final straw came when Ayala secretly became a better hunter than the men. Eventually, she was busted and the mean chief made the medicine man do the banishment spell on her. As soon as the spell was cast Ayala disappeared to everyone but Ayala. Even though she was still there no one could see her because they all believed in the spell.
We’re not so different. For those of you that snickered at the part about energy coalescing in the emotional center have you ever considered that our science of zoology is deficient in that it omits a whole class of beings? That is non-organic (energetic) beings.
I don’t believe mainstream science has accepted the existence of such things as poltergeist, apparitions and/or ghosts. As a matter of political correctness it takes no position on the human soul (which is really a shame).
The object of this chapter is to identify, highlight some of the dangers of and offer a simple remedy for what I believe to be a serious behavioral disability (expressing conditioned negative emotions) and a serious perceptual disability (uncontrolled internal dialogue) shared by a vast majority of US citizens. However, in order to provide food for thought on an important theme of this book to some of you skeptics; from anthropology we learn that many divergent cultures recognize the existence of energetic beings of some form. To my way of thinking phenomenon which appear in multiple cultures are more worthy of consideration than phenomenon that don’t.
At the frontier of theoretical physics the current challenge is to develop a unified theory which will integrate relativity theory and quantum theory. The leading candidate is a refinement of string theory which postulates that everything is made of little things called strings. The theory implies the existence of at least ten dimensions instead of our usual four.
Carlos Castaneda in his book The Art of Dreaming quotes his teacher as saying that human’s have the capacity to perceive multiple dimensions that are wrapped together like layers of an onion. Some of these dimensions are populated by energetic beings. He also observes that we do not perceive these beings because we are trained not to.
He further observed that everything can be categorized into the known, the unknown and the unknowable. Consider the reality described in the beginning of this chapter then consider how your personal knowledge fits in each of these categories. I guess the moral of this digression is to keep an open mind. Like a parachute it works better that way.
The final self protective mechanism that internal dialogue can disable arises in the physical center. The subtle little changes that occur in our physical center can send early warning signals of incipient illness or deterioration.
The ancient Taoist text The Art of War advises would be generals to solve problems before they arise.[2] In the physical health context this means become aware of and deal with gathering problems as soon as possible before they become major or mortal. For example, let’s say that you notice a new little mole on your arm, a little lump in your breast or chest pain going up the stairs. These are the subtle little warnings from the physical center. Let’s say the emotional center chimes in with a little blast of anxiety. This also is a self protective mechanism.
How does the mental center deal with this situation? It immediately tries to calm it down. “Oh it’s only a mole, cyst, I’m out of shape. I’ll let the doctor look at it next, week, month, year”. This type of self calming internal dialogue is common in many people and particularly insidious because it lies. Good thing those little symptoms weren’t skin cancer, breast cancer or cardiovascular disease.
What about next time?
This type of self calming internal dialogue can disable messages from our emotional center and this mechanism is distinct from the simple obstruction by the volume of the chatter.
Assume you have done something you should not have. Your conscience is “bothering you”. That is your emotional center is manifesting shame and/or anxiety based on you as an individual, the context and the behavior.
What does the internal dialogue do? It immediately tries to stop your conscience from “bothering you”. How does it do this? Lying. This process is called in psychology rationalization. That is trying to explain away the message from your conscience. Recall in Gordian Knot I mentioned that the physical and emotional centers manifest direct experience whereas the intellectual center is derivative because it is symbolic experience?
In the event of a conflict between your two centers which one should you listen to? The one that is manifesting direct experience, your conscience because; it is not subject to the rationalization process. The rationalization process only works when the mental center and its self calming internal dialogue “fool” your conscience.
If you are a procrastinator (then I am your king). That means I am an expert in how the process works. Again the basis is in lying to yourself. I’ll start the diet tomorrow but tonight, “Please pass the plate of cannolies”. Tomorrow morning you don’t have the same motivation because the immediate need for a lie has passed. It really would be more sensible to start on the weekend. So the procrastinator avoids the suffering of doing what he himself knows should be done by lying to himself and punting to the future. This is called in psychology neurotic behavior. The secret to its “success” is the self calming internal dialogue.
This example also illustrates a problem that I will deal with in detail later namely whose in charge here? If I give you all the bad news at once you’ll get mad at me and stop reading.
In any event internal dialogue also has other effects on our awareness. As you might have guessed none of them are good.
In the lives of most people at least when they’re out and about. There is far more sensory data available to us than we can perceive, let alone process into a meaningful
coherent reality. Therefore in order to be a functioning member of whatever society you were born into you must learn to share the consensus of what data is valuable and what data has no use. In addition, you must learn to assemble the data the same way everyone else does.
________________________________________________________________
[1] Activity in the emotional center triggering fight or flight response in the physical center.
[2] The Art of War by Sun Tzu Translated by Thomas Cleary
THE BIRTH, GROWTH AND MALEVOLENCE OF SELF IMPORTANCE
Adam and Eve were in paradise. They had free run of the place. There was plenty of food around and the climate was like Maui. They didn’t even have to bother with clothes. Their consciousness was like Coming Attractions of Heaven except all the time. They were in God. God was in them, complete and total integration.
There was only one rule “Don’t eat the fruit from the “Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil”[1]. The reason for this rule was that the fruit contained forbidden knowledge. That is an unusual name for a tree and when living in a state of total integration with their environment it is likely that Adam and Eve didn’t even have a concept or word for opposites. They probably viewed things rather like the Taoists do as different ends of the same continuum.
I’m doubtful whether they even had a concept of rules. They probably didn’t much discriminate between the blandishments of the snake and the pronouncements of God. Living in paradise all of them including the serpent were probably used to doing pretty much whatever they felt like doing.
Why would God forbid them any knowledge at all? Because he knew that “a little knowledge is dangerous”. The knowledge in that fruit was manifestly inconsistent with the overall harmony of the place.
So once they munched that apple their perceptions became incompatible with the ongoing smooth operation of paradise. The very first thing they did was stitch themselves a fig leaf couture implying that they saw themselves for the first time as naked individuals. Previously they saw themselves as an aspect of paradise.
What was this knowledge that was so powerful as to make their perceptions incompatible with their continued ability to function in paradise? There is really only one answer and that answer is the pronoun “I”.
“I” makes some beings more important than others. “I” makes a distinction where previously there was integration. “I” leads to greed and rhymes with my.
So they had to go where they were confronted with Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. You know food, shelter, clothing, company, safety, childcare, healthcare and so forth.[2]
For better or worse they succeeded. The worse part is their success reinforced their belief in “I”. This was the genesis (ok pun intended) of self importance.
Of course, this passage has been interpreted as original sin. To me Jesus is all about redemption and this guilt by association thing generation after generation does not make sense. The notion that most of us believe in “I” and spend most of our energy defending what amounts to an illusion is worse than original sin. In conventional theology original sin can be erased by baptism and a confession of faith.
Personally I think that this is far too easy. In my experience nothing great occurs without prodigious effort. Replacing our false “I” with a self image more consistent with creation (and the miraculous creatures we are) is a task requiring balance, detachment, persistence, courage, and judgment of the highest order. This insight is neither new nor original.
Perhaps the world’s first self help book was written over two thousand years ago. Pantanjali’s Yoga Sutras is the seminal book on Yoga and the basis for Raja and Hatha Yoga two of the traditional eight branches of Yoga. Yoga and sutras are both Sanskrit words. Yoga is usually translated to English as yoke or union (with the divine). Sutras are usually translated as verses and come from the root meaning to sew as in sutures. In one of the sutras Pantanjali attempts to state the causes of human suffering: “Ignorance, egotism, desire, and the entrapped existence in the physical...”[3]
The Buddha asked his Bidhus (students) the following question: “If you light a lamp tonight then extinguish it and relight it the following night is the flame the same?”
The implication is that our “I” flickers like a flame and varies from moment to moment. Buddha taught that “I” is an illusion and that illusion is a source of evil.[4]
Confucius is quoted as discussing “mental fasting” with his principle disciple Yen Hui.
Yen Hui asked Confucius, “May I hear about mental fasting?”
Confucius replied, “You unify your will: hear with the mind instead of the ears; hear with the energy instead of the mind. Hearing stops at the ears, the mind stops at contact, but energy is that which is empty and responsive to others. The Way (Tao) gathers in emptiness; emptiness is mental fasting.
Yen Hui said, “The reason I haven’t been able to master this is because I consider myself really me. If I could master this, “I” would not exist. Could that be called mental fasting?”
Confucius said, “That’s all there is to it.”[5]
Jesus told the following parable. When you are invited to a marriage feast do not sit in the place of honor for if someone of a higher status comes your host will have to ask you to move. This will be embarrassing for everyone.
Rather sit in the lowest place so your host can come and ask you to move to a more prominent place and you will be honored. “For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.”[6]
Latif Ahmad the Sufi taught:
Man is like a swimmer who is fully dressed and hampered every moment by his clinging clothes. He must know why he cannot swim before steps can be taken to make it possible.
It is no solution for him to have the impression that he is swimming properly; for this may make him feel better and prevent him from arriving at the further bank of the river.
Such men and women drown.[7]
In this story regular people are the swimmers. They don’t realize that they are encumbered by their clothes which are: self as symbol, self importance, egotism, “I”, or false I.
If the regular people have the impression that they are swimming, they will have false confidence and drown.
The impression that they are swimming is a metaphor for success in the physical world. This is counter-productive. We don’t know what we don’t know. In other words, we don’t know that our clothes (self importance) are encumbering us, which is, interfering with our spiritual growth. If we accept success in the material world as all there is we don’t look for more. Such men and women drown.
Virtually everyone who is a success in the material world has a self importance problem which is a belief in their self image manifesting in the intellectual center.[8] Drown means our spiritual potential has been wasted. The mustard seed returns to our creator, the source of our awareness, like every drop of water returns to the sea. The mustard seed is the only eternal aspect of us with which we are born.
Our physical selves dissipate and return to the earth from where we came. Without prodigious effort on our part resulting in energetic growth in the emotional center, the unique miraculous manifestation of our individual selves dissipates as well. Such men and women drown.
Carlos Castaneda quotes his teacher as believing self importance is the nemesis of mankind. “This is most obvious in our endless worry about the presentation of the self, about whether or not we are admired, or liked, or acknowledged.”[9] His argument is most of our energy is consumed upholding our self importance.
This is the precise reason such men and women drown. If we are consuming our energy upholding our self importance, we are not using it to aggregate in our emotional center.
It is also why Jesus was so insistent on the value of humility.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”[10]
“Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.”[11]
“Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.”[12]
To summarize original sin was in fact, Adam and Eve’s perceptions once they internalized the pronoun “I”. The growth of self importance is the expanding success of the global materialistic world. The malevolence is that the energy required to sustain our “I” is diverted from its proper work coalescing in the emotional center.
Jesus’ solution is to be humble. If we could do this it would solve the problem but, most of us need more specific instructions.
What this amounts to is a deliberate dismantling of your own ego. I found my magic eight ball and it says “the signs are not propitious”. The significance of this is that the deliberate deconstruction of your own “I” can be psychically and potentially physically dangerous. To reiterate in different words the exercises in What’s in It for Me probably won’t hurt anyone. Deliberately destabilizing your own ego could result in job loss, divorce, psychotic episodes, addictions, depression and/or suicide if not handled properly. This should only be attempted gradually with the assistance of an evolved human being.
Of course, executing this maneuver successfully could result in a re-direction of your growth to more closely resemble that which was intended for three brain beings. Success involves serving creation in this life. It also involves evolving and being subject to fewer physical laws while retaining the unique miraculous aspects of you in tact in the next.
Since I’m now frightened for you we better put destabilizing your ego on hold, at least until I tell you about various common dysfunctions of the three centers that I have not yet mentioned. These problems can be an obstacle to shrinking our old self or creating a new one because they also divert energy. Invariably they also make us unhappy.
______________________________________________________________
[1] Genesis 2:17
[2] Genesis 3:24
.[3] Yoga Sutras
Self importance is a synonym for egotism and the subject of this chapter. Let’s not miss “entrapped existence in the physical”. This implies that we have the capacity to manifest in another form of matter. Since our brief lesson on relativity theory we know that E=MC2 implies two forms of matter, energy and mass or in Jesus’ terms spirit and flesh.
Multiple simultaneous manifestations (being two places at the same time) are common in Yogic literature but usually considered a distraction. cf. Autobiography of a Yogi Satchadananda
[4] Life and Teachings of The Buddha
[5] Vitality, Energy, Spirit A Taoist Sourcebook Translated and edited by Thomas Cleary. Shambala Publications Inc. Boston/London 1991 p. 19 Thomas Cleary is a spectacular translator. He gets it. At pages5-7 he advises that this passage was taken from Chang-Tzu or Book of Master Chang a historical person (ca. 369-286 BC). On page 7 Cleary states, “Mental fasting is identified with “emptiness” which is defined in terms of transcendence of the ego and detachment from conceptual knowledge.” (and internal dialogue?)
[6] Luke 14; 7-11 Quoted passage verse 11. Jesus’ teachings contain many warnings to avoid pride and embrace humility. There is an energetic reason for this. Read on.
[7] Idries Shah, The Way of the Sufi
Sufism is the mystical branch of Islam. Their thought is as sophisticated as any I have encountered and fascinating due to their penchant for multiple levels of meaning. Their Jihad is an internal one against the false “I”. Their general orientation is toward individual evolution and by extension to that of humanity.
[8] Mark 10: 21-25 verse 25 “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”
[9] Carlos Castaneda, The Art of Dreaming HarperCollins N.Y.,N.Y. 1993
[10] Mathew 5:3
[11] Mathew 5:5
[12] Mathew 18:4 and many more
There was only one rule “Don’t eat the fruit from the “Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil”[1]. The reason for this rule was that the fruit contained forbidden knowledge. That is an unusual name for a tree and when living in a state of total integration with their environment it is likely that Adam and Eve didn’t even have a concept or word for opposites. They probably viewed things rather like the Taoists do as different ends of the same continuum.
I’m doubtful whether they even had a concept of rules. They probably didn’t much discriminate between the blandishments of the snake and the pronouncements of God. Living in paradise all of them including the serpent were probably used to doing pretty much whatever they felt like doing.
Why would God forbid them any knowledge at all? Because he knew that “a little knowledge is dangerous”. The knowledge in that fruit was manifestly inconsistent with the overall harmony of the place.
So once they munched that apple their perceptions became incompatible with the ongoing smooth operation of paradise. The very first thing they did was stitch themselves a fig leaf couture implying that they saw themselves for the first time as naked individuals. Previously they saw themselves as an aspect of paradise.
What was this knowledge that was so powerful as to make their perceptions incompatible with their continued ability to function in paradise? There is really only one answer and that answer is the pronoun “I”.
“I” makes some beings more important than others. “I” makes a distinction where previously there was integration. “I” leads to greed and rhymes with my.
So they had to go where they were confronted with Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. You know food, shelter, clothing, company, safety, childcare, healthcare and so forth.[2]
For better or worse they succeeded. The worse part is their success reinforced their belief in “I”. This was the genesis (ok pun intended) of self importance.
Of course, this passage has been interpreted as original sin. To me Jesus is all about redemption and this guilt by association thing generation after generation does not make sense. The notion that most of us believe in “I” and spend most of our energy defending what amounts to an illusion is worse than original sin. In conventional theology original sin can be erased by baptism and a confession of faith.
Personally I think that this is far too easy. In my experience nothing great occurs without prodigious effort. Replacing our false “I” with a self image more consistent with creation (and the miraculous creatures we are) is a task requiring balance, detachment, persistence, courage, and judgment of the highest order. This insight is neither new nor original.
Perhaps the world’s first self help book was written over two thousand years ago. Pantanjali’s Yoga Sutras is the seminal book on Yoga and the basis for Raja and Hatha Yoga two of the traditional eight branches of Yoga. Yoga and sutras are both Sanskrit words. Yoga is usually translated to English as yoke or union (with the divine). Sutras are usually translated as verses and come from the root meaning to sew as in sutures. In one of the sutras Pantanjali attempts to state the causes of human suffering: “Ignorance, egotism, desire, and the entrapped existence in the physical...”[3]
The Buddha asked his Bidhus (students) the following question: “If you light a lamp tonight then extinguish it and relight it the following night is the flame the same?”
The implication is that our “I” flickers like a flame and varies from moment to moment. Buddha taught that “I” is an illusion and that illusion is a source of evil.[4]
Confucius is quoted as discussing “mental fasting” with his principle disciple Yen Hui.
Yen Hui asked Confucius, “May I hear about mental fasting?”
Confucius replied, “You unify your will: hear with the mind instead of the ears; hear with the energy instead of the mind. Hearing stops at the ears, the mind stops at contact, but energy is that which is empty and responsive to others. The Way (Tao) gathers in emptiness; emptiness is mental fasting.
Yen Hui said, “The reason I haven’t been able to master this is because I consider myself really me. If I could master this, “I” would not exist. Could that be called mental fasting?”
Confucius said, “That’s all there is to it.”[5]
Jesus told the following parable. When you are invited to a marriage feast do not sit in the place of honor for if someone of a higher status comes your host will have to ask you to move. This will be embarrassing for everyone.
Rather sit in the lowest place so your host can come and ask you to move to a more prominent place and you will be honored. “For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.”[6]
Latif Ahmad the Sufi taught:
Man is like a swimmer who is fully dressed and hampered every moment by his clinging clothes. He must know why he cannot swim before steps can be taken to make it possible.
It is no solution for him to have the impression that he is swimming properly; for this may make him feel better and prevent him from arriving at the further bank of the river.
Such men and women drown.[7]
In this story regular people are the swimmers. They don’t realize that they are encumbered by their clothes which are: self as symbol, self importance, egotism, “I”, or false I.
If the regular people have the impression that they are swimming, they will have false confidence and drown.
The impression that they are swimming is a metaphor for success in the physical world. This is counter-productive. We don’t know what we don’t know. In other words, we don’t know that our clothes (self importance) are encumbering us, which is, interfering with our spiritual growth. If we accept success in the material world as all there is we don’t look for more. Such men and women drown.
Virtually everyone who is a success in the material world has a self importance problem which is a belief in their self image manifesting in the intellectual center.[8] Drown means our spiritual potential has been wasted. The mustard seed returns to our creator, the source of our awareness, like every drop of water returns to the sea. The mustard seed is the only eternal aspect of us with which we are born.
Our physical selves dissipate and return to the earth from where we came. Without prodigious effort on our part resulting in energetic growth in the emotional center, the unique miraculous manifestation of our individual selves dissipates as well. Such men and women drown.
Carlos Castaneda quotes his teacher as believing self importance is the nemesis of mankind. “This is most obvious in our endless worry about the presentation of the self, about whether or not we are admired, or liked, or acknowledged.”[9] His argument is most of our energy is consumed upholding our self importance.
This is the precise reason such men and women drown. If we are consuming our energy upholding our self importance, we are not using it to aggregate in our emotional center.
It is also why Jesus was so insistent on the value of humility.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”[10]
“Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.”[11]
“Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.”[12]
To summarize original sin was in fact, Adam and Eve’s perceptions once they internalized the pronoun “I”. The growth of self importance is the expanding success of the global materialistic world. The malevolence is that the energy required to sustain our “I” is diverted from its proper work coalescing in the emotional center.
Jesus’ solution is to be humble. If we could do this it would solve the problem but, most of us need more specific instructions.
What this amounts to is a deliberate dismantling of your own ego. I found my magic eight ball and it says “the signs are not propitious”. The significance of this is that the deliberate deconstruction of your own “I” can be psychically and potentially physically dangerous. To reiterate in different words the exercises in What’s in It for Me probably won’t hurt anyone. Deliberately destabilizing your own ego could result in job loss, divorce, psychotic episodes, addictions, depression and/or suicide if not handled properly. This should only be attempted gradually with the assistance of an evolved human being.
Of course, executing this maneuver successfully could result in a re-direction of your growth to more closely resemble that which was intended for three brain beings. Success involves serving creation in this life. It also involves evolving and being subject to fewer physical laws while retaining the unique miraculous aspects of you in tact in the next.
Since I’m now frightened for you we better put destabilizing your ego on hold, at least until I tell you about various common dysfunctions of the three centers that I have not yet mentioned. These problems can be an obstacle to shrinking our old self or creating a new one because they also divert energy. Invariably they also make us unhappy.
______________________________________________________________
[1] Genesis 2:17
[2] Genesis 3:24
.[3] Yoga Sutras
Self importance is a synonym for egotism and the subject of this chapter. Let’s not miss “entrapped existence in the physical”. This implies that we have the capacity to manifest in another form of matter. Since our brief lesson on relativity theory we know that E=MC2 implies two forms of matter, energy and mass or in Jesus’ terms spirit and flesh.
Multiple simultaneous manifestations (being two places at the same time) are common in Yogic literature but usually considered a distraction. cf. Autobiography of a Yogi Satchadananda
[4] Life and Teachings of The Buddha
[5] Vitality, Energy, Spirit A Taoist Sourcebook Translated and edited by Thomas Cleary. Shambala Publications Inc. Boston/London 1991 p. 19 Thomas Cleary is a spectacular translator. He gets it. At pages5-7 he advises that this passage was taken from Chang-Tzu or Book of Master Chang a historical person (ca. 369-286 BC). On page 7 Cleary states, “Mental fasting is identified with “emptiness” which is defined in terms of transcendence of the ego and detachment from conceptual knowledge.” (and internal dialogue?)
[6] Luke 14; 7-11 Quoted passage verse 11. Jesus’ teachings contain many warnings to avoid pride and embrace humility. There is an energetic reason for this. Read on.
[7] Idries Shah, The Way of the Sufi
Sufism is the mystical branch of Islam. Their thought is as sophisticated as any I have encountered and fascinating due to their penchant for multiple levels of meaning. Their Jihad is an internal one against the false “I”. Their general orientation is toward individual evolution and by extension to that of humanity.
[8] Mark 10: 21-25 verse 25 “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”
[9] Carlos Castaneda, The Art of Dreaming HarperCollins N.Y.,N.Y. 1993
[10] Mathew 5:3
[11] Mathew 5:5
[12] Mathew 18:4 and many more
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