INRC

Feb 21

In spite of the fact that I know that you choose many of your experiences prior to birth as tools of your evolution and growth, I do not speak to a 14-year-old as being responsible for having stupid parents, parents who may have harmed you, who gave you a reason for developing your negative-ground-of-being. I have never been willing to speak to a young person in that way. However, it is true that I have met some highly evolved young people who had chosen very difficult circumstances in their childhood.

But by the time you are 21, the game changes, and you are responsible for whatever it is that happened to you growing up. Very few people and we know this from mountains of research, very few people enjoyed the way they were raised. The largest majority and I mean probably in the range of 85% report a dysfunctional father.

The odds of becoming happy and fulfilled are considerably small.

Why is this so prevalent?

The soul is aware of all things being of the one consciousness, the one being, the one God if you like. As if it swallows a magical drink of forgetfulness, it moves into the physicality of birth and into the separation, the amnesia, the multiplicity which although certainly not permanent, can seem to be. From unity to division, from bliss to suffering, from knowledge to ignorance, and there it will remain until in one lifetime it begins the process of waking up. The good news, as I said, is that your suffering is temporary. The bad news is that temporary can seem to be forever, including lifetime after lifetime.

In the state of ignorance, whatever pleasure you seek to relieve yourself of the suffering and meaninglessness that accompanies your ignorance, that pleasure will be short-lived and in most cases, just creates more suffering. The thrills of the flesh are not the thrills of the soul.

I’m not objecting to seeking pleasure. I’m arguing for the conscious choice of creating a spiritual path back to the source of your being and then returning to your everyday life, to transform your everyday life into heaven on earth.

It is so important to understand that your soul is eternal, unthreatenable, unoffendable, unbothered by the events of the world. It is also so important to understand that your personality is a non-reality, a temporary label you use to play the game of becoming and that your personality can ONLY be threatenable, offendable, and bothered…by the least little happenings.

So, which one are you? With which one do you identify? Which one do you serve?

It becomes a vital task to organize a meaningful relationship between the two of you, the crazy you and the not crazy you such that the true reality of who you are and what you’re doing here can be established. Here’s where it can get a little fuzzy and seemingly contradictory as that relationship between the crazy you and the not crazy you represents an undivided division. Do you understand?

Although that division, that veil, that lid that exists between your true Self, the spiritual you, and the little self, the you that identifies with your mind, the physical you, is not binding and it is not permanent, it can only be altered, that is that your suffering can stop, not through anything you can do, but only through what you can be.

Your mind is a lower power serving the goals of the higher power in its unfolding and becoming, the necessity and goal of experiencing itself in physical form.

So, if you understand what I just said, then you will understand what I’m saying when I say you are only crazy in appearance. Your physical self, the lower self, the mental self, has no power over the higher self but it is within the higher self that power is centralized. Consciousness, the divine knowledge of your existence, is what supports your world, your life, your insanity, your depression, your pain but is not bothered by it.

So, let me say it again. Building a relationship between the lower and higher self becomes an invaluable tool. They are married to one another but because you don’t know that, the self-infliction and self-imposed state of ignorance continues. If consciousness, the divine, the All that is, if that did not exist, you would have no chance whatsoever of getting out in the first place.

The bridge that links the two of you, the two worlds of horizontal and vertical is wisdom, consciousness, the unbridled power of being. Everything else is a temporary fix. Everything. I’m not saying it shouldn’t be enjoyed. I’m just reminding you that it’s not what you’re looking for and it’s not going to work. Again, maybe for a while…and that “while” can be 20 years but it’s not going to last.

So, into the fray, the darkness, the pit, the cage, you come in birth. The ascent out of the box becomes the bridge but that bridge will be passed over again in your return to the horizontal.

This bridge, this ascent, this seeking must be undertaken. But because there is no judgment, no timeline, no expectations, you can take as long as you want. But you are going to create this bridge in one lifetime or another. So, what not start today? You don’t know have to know anything other than “I want out.” I want out of this suffering. Intention. Desire. Aspiration. Devotion. Commitment.

So, your life itself is a lower power of the higher power of consciousness. Your life is lower energy of the higher energy. This lower energy is working its way to the higher power of self-realization through the daily assault of everyday life, suffering, pain, and loss, the entire time having clue as to what it is doing or why it is doing it. The undivided self grows up in the division and separation. This is the act of becoming.

I struggled for many years trying to come to terms with the purpose behind birth and I finally began to see what the purpose was from my readings of Conversations with God, A Course in Miracles, and Aurobindo’s work. The purpose of birth is the divine experiencing itself in physical form and if that were to be realized, the end result would be heaven on earth. That sounds like a pretty good idea to me.

In the out-of-body experience I had in 1987, I, at last, came to understand the moment when I realized that I was coming back to earth and didn’t want to come. I fought and resisted and repeated saying, “Don’t make me go back. It’s too damn hard.” To experience myself as the me I experienced myself to be in the realm of the Divine, through the eyes of God…that’s what I want.

So, if you see yourself standing halfway across the bridge that links the horizontal and the vertical, the crazy you and the divine you, here’s what you would see.

You would see:

Spirit creates Matter

Consciousness creates Life

Joy creates Personality

The illimitable creates Mind

Your negative-ground-of-being, your knot that is a given in the process of moving from Spirit to the physical body, represents your ignorance, it represents the curtain, the veil between the horizontal and the vertical.

It is through the act of self-realization and only through the act of self-realization that you can render the meaninglessness meaningful, the unbearable bearable, the pain as an illusion. Again, it is the ascent into knowledge, the descent of that knowledge back into the physical and the transforming of the physical. The mind becomes subservient to the spirit, the lower mind serves the higher mind. Then, at last, the soul has a playmate! The world becomes your sandbox!

What other purpose could this suffering that you endure serve? What other possible purpose could there be? Because there can be no doubt that the secret is not hidden within the physical world as we know it. If the potentiality of the individual is a true and valid aspect of that individual, and the secret to its realization lies in the physical world, then, why do so few ever realize that potential?

Potential can only know itself through actualization, through realization of itself, and in order to do, it requires a physical process in which to engage. The fulfillment of the potential may not have anything at all to do with the physical accomplishments…in fact, it rarely does. The potential I am speaking about refers more to spiritual realization.

The physical process to which I refer is the use of physical life in a physical body to experience the divine, not somewhere else, like at death, but now, here, in the physical body. I don’t know about you but I’ve had about all I can take from the unconscious me.

Possibilities into realities. Potentials into realizable outcomes. I am suggesting that this must become your path, it must become your “yoga” in your life. Your existence must be directed toward the discovery of the meaning of your birth and the purpose that was contained in your birth.

Now, in that physical process at birth, you begin to move through developmental stages. These passages are predicated around a number of factors: environment, parenting, genetics, etc. But do not suppose that you came into birth empty-handed. The stage is set but you must face the processes of the physical world.

In a certain way, the physical world is not real. Your current understanding of the physical world is what is not true about the world. You’re just having a sensory experience but that doesn’t make it truth. It is your senses claiming it to be true.

Spirit is energy, energy results in matter, but matter is not the truth of the spirit that created it. It is essentially a deformed version of it, heavier, denser, more inflexible. When you are able to understand that matter’s source is God, the Divine, the Absolute, then that is a greater and more complete truth. And if you’re really listening to what I am saying, then you just heard me tell you that you are God…that is if you were listening. And yes, I did.

So, here’s the unconscious newborn. Suddenly in a physical body in a physical world with unconscious parents in a body that thirsts and hunger and fears and has separated from its source…going through insight. From birth to about 1 to 1.5, you move through the developmental stage of insight. In insight, you get the information you need to move forward. The information some children pick up on is that the world is a scary place and the best thing to do is to pull back, to withdraw. When you get stuck here, you become withdrawn, removed from life and the world, mentally, physically, and emotionally.

But let’s say you’re able to make it through insight and you get the information you need to move forward, around 1.5 to 2.5 to 3…I’m not going to try to be exact but am trying to provide you with a framework… and you begin to go through the developmental stage of nourishment. Nourishment isn’t just food…it’s love, support, stability, it’s being fed mentally, physically, and emotionally…the mother’s eyes in your eyes, the mother’s arms around you when you cry or are afraid. Some children receive this experience. Some do not. In fact, a lot do not. When you get stuck here, you learn to collapse, to retreat, and become dependent upon others because you feel you can’t be OK without receiving the nourishment of others. Mentally, physically and emotionally, you depend upon the nourishment of others. You utterly collapse or you learn to fake it and act like you can take care of business, but even then, collapsing becomes your game of choice to survive, to make it in the physical world.

But let’s say you do make it out. From ages 2.5 to 3.5, maybe up to 4, you move through the stage of response. You learn to put your stuff out there in the world.

You take action.

You react.

You seek to get your desires met by acting in a certain way, by making demands in a certain way.

Sometimes it works…sometimes it doesn’t. If you get stuck here, you have a tendency to become a pleaser or a controller. Enraged that you are forced to put the needs of others before your own, you become a pleaser. Enraged that they made fun of you trying to put your needs first, you become a controller. Either way, you’re stuck. But let’s say you make it out. You move into the fourth and last stage of development called completion. Here you get to sound the horn of success and that you’ve made it! That’s not going to happen.

In trying to live up to the expectations of your father, you dig in and hustle. You work hard to receive the praise, the adulation of others, to at last be presented with the award saying you’ve done it. When you get stuck here, you become a competitor or you become dramatic. Nearly all dramatics are female who is going to create mountains out of molehills to demand and require your attention to their needs where the competitors are going to earn it. Of course, neither succeeds and you stay stuck.

In giving you a terribly abbreviated and simple version of a complex sequence of events, I am laying the groundwork for an unavoidable and incontrovertible fact of physical existence. You are fucked up and either you know it or you don’t. If you know you’re fucked up, that’s called self-awareness. If you don’t know you’re fucked up, that’s called ignorance. Self-awareness leads to growth. Ignorance leads to self-destruction.

But you are going to get stuck…insight, nourishment, response, or completion…you’re are going to get stuck in one of them and that’s part of the process. The earlier you get stuck, the harder it is. But then keep in mind that you chose that as part of your becoming process. There is nothing accidental…and that includes the presence of or the absence of your parents. The mother is mostly associated with the stages of insight, nourishment, and response. The father is dominantly associated with the stage of completion.

Alice Miller, a German psychologist, was an icon of human development who wrote a book in 1982 called, The Drama of the Gifted Child. The book has sold millions of copies.

One of my favorite quotes from that book:

“The truth about our childhood is stored up in our body, and although we can repress it, we can never alter it. Our intellect can be deceived, our feelings manipulated, conceptions confused, and our body tricked with medication. But someday our body will present its bill, for it is as incorruptible as a child, who, still whole in spirit, will accept no compromises or excuses, and it will not stop tormenting us until we stop evading the truth.”

But it should come as no surprise to anyone that her son, Martin Miller, wrote a book called, The True Drama of a Gifted Child Whose Mother was Alice Miller, published in 2013 in which he talks about the abuse and emotional neglect he experienced at the hands of his mother, Alice Miller.

Alice Miller was a Holocaust survivor whose experiences resulted in a lifelong imprint of those horrific experiences on her emotional capacities. These limitations were handed-down to her son, Martin.

So, before we go any further, let’s summarize a few things.

You cannot not experience an event. Your mind is going to react and respond.
But no one did anything to you. You chose these circumstances as part of your individual, unique, evolutionary, becoming process. I know how hard this is to accept.
In the unfolding of that process, you are going to be fucked up.
But underneath this condition lies your training, your yoga, your evolutionary vehicle to rise beyond your neurology and your experiences and wake up and realize your potential in the physical world.
In the stages of insight, nourishment, response, and completion, which is a more complex way of describing your mental, physical and emotional development, you are missing the key to understanding them…which is the spiritual.
To understand effect, you must understand cause. To understand the physical, you must understand the spiritual. The cause of emotional neglect is not emotional neglect which is just an effect.
You are not the effect but created the effect out of your perception and interpretation of what happened to you.
You are free to perceive the situation differently and in doing so, you interrupt the mental, physical and emotional patterns that are the effects of your dysfunction.
Without the movement into the spiritual, the missing key, that interruption will either only keep repeating itself or it will new dysfunctional patterns.
It is the spiritual that holds the key to turning the meaninglessness into truth, the pain into joy, and the damaged you into the innocent you.

So, let’s amend the developmental sequence.

Insight from 0-1-1.5 / Nourishment from 1.5 to 2.5 -3 / Response to 3 – 4 – 4.5 / Completion from 4 – 5 – 5.5 and then Spiritual 5 – 5.5 – through the rest of your life. So, instead of 4 cycles, we now have 5.

Without the spiritual, the mind can only perpetuate its patterns by adapting to the dysfunction in a myriad of ways. Withdraws become cleaver on the outside but they’re still withdrawn on the inside. Collapsers become charming on the outside but they’re still dysfunctional on the inside. Pleasers become kind on the outside but they’re still dysfunctional on the inside. Controllers become grandiose on the outside but they’re still dysfunctional on the inside. Competitors are hard-working on the outside but they’re still dysfunctional on the inside. Dramatics are great pretenders on the outside but they’re still dysfunctional on the inside.

The outer is the mask that hides the dysfunction but gives it enough time and you begin to think you are the mask.

No investigation of any kind into your dysfunction will result in the truth of who you are or the true purpose of your dysfunction. But also, no amount of dysfunction can diminish the essence of your being. You can self-destruct as much as you like but you can’t change that truth. You can reduce your capacity to learn to nearly nothing but you can’t extinguish it. So, it’s’ up to you to realize that sooner or later you will have no choice but to evolve, to awaken.

The stages of development are important because they reveal the physical and psychological origins of how you turn out to be the person you do. There is no such thing as a physiological experience without a psychological reaction and vice-versus. They provide helpful and often measurable data in examining the circumstances, in examining your experience. But they reveal nothing about your existence, the meaning of the event, or its role in your becoming.

The stages of development, however important they are, do not guarantee happiness, peace, power. They do not necessarily produce one another. In other words, the child may be successful in moving through the first stage of insight but insight doesn’t produce nourishment for that is a separate stage in and of itself.

But the movement into vertical, into the spiritual, provides all of your needs.

As an adult, this sequence of insight, nourishment, response, and completion serves a wonderful strategic tool for organizing your learning and growth. As I often say, learning has to be organized, directed, and undertaken and you can get pretty detailed about how you go about your practice which increases the chances of a fulfilling effort.

However and wherever you got stuck, the stuckness is not what the story of your life is about. The story of your life is about your awakening. If you didn’t get it when you were little, get it now. If you didn’t have it when you were little, have it now. If you didn’t become it when you were little, become it now. Anytime you are confused, feeling lost, or unsatisfied with your life…do a check-in with insight, nourishment response, and completion.