Monday 13 February 2017

5b Judging - Worship



Ch.5b. Judging - Worship

This is the 2nd section of Chapter 5, Judging. 
More about some of the P&C attributes.

Adulation and Worship; what are these?  (5B8)
Adulation and worship tend to be close together when we give the adulated great importance in our lives.

Adulation.  (5B8a)
Adulation is the next step along from admiration and implies that the giver considers themself a great deal less in comparison. It implies that I cannot or may not be able to be like that. It’s a belittling, an abasement, and a downgrading of your own self and is bad for you, ie, not useful in terms of your being able to find your own abilities for yourself. Thus, you need to watch out.
This is not good for the adulation giver, and a lot of people do this. Hence, a great many people are giving what energy they do have to causes/reasons that have no concern for them; they will get no energy back. My argument being that adulation of the BC who is apparently superior has an ‘inferior’ sitting behind it; (you are feeling ‘inferior’ yourself in comparison and thus will admire ‘superior’). The level of adulation is reflecting the degree of distance between the adulated and the adulator. So the question is ‘who is being inferior?’ because that is an awful lot of people.

Worship.  (5B8b)
When we worship something or someone (a ’whatever’ of supposed authority) we are giving this ’whatever’ great importance in our lives. We pay attention.
We consider it ‘bigger’ than we are (because we are ‘little’) and that it knows more than we do, both of which we think gives it more control over life. So, we think it has the answers and knows what to do about life, and it can fix our problems which will then go away; and with even greater luck we will be ‘rescued’ completely from these problems.
We also tend not to question this 'whatever', in case that might leave us out in the cold and stop us getting ‘rescued’. In general, children ‘worship’ their parents.
Thus we do what it tells us to do, ie, we submit, and it is in this way that we put our trust and faith in that ‘whatever’; it has become a ‘god’ to us. Think how much we worship money. (Also we address the judge in a court of law as ‘your worship’.)

Well then, what’s wrong with these?  (5B8c)
What’s wrong with letting this ‘whatever’ be bigger, more knowledgeable, and more in control than we are, and then ‘fix’ us or even rescue us, is that these are the conditions of the child expecting ‘the parent’ to look after them.
As you think and stay as a child expecting others or ‘out there’ to look after you, you will feel powerless and afraid, and unable to develop your own resources or direction for empowering yourself, as in, ‘grow up’. Notice also that the more we are rescued, the less we are able to find any power for ourselves.
Hence, the more we are afraid of life, the more we will worship anything that we think might ‘rescue’ us. We look to ‘experts’ in ‘whatever’ and in so doing, give up our own thinking, observations and experiences in life, ie, our history, and we negate/dismiss/disempower our own selves. Thus, we turn our heads off and do not question ‘whatever’ and as we do that, we turn ourselves into ‘Chicken Little’ (’the sky is falling’) and our fears are ruling us. And notice that the more we are afraid, (and angry) the more we will do as we are told, but we might not get rescued.
As long as we want to be rescued, we are belittling ourselves and our own abilities.
On the other hand, we are here to learn and be given direction, but from Life as our 'other', not just 'experts'.
Over various lifetimes we get some solid lessons about not being ‘rescued’ by whatever we thought could, would or should; sometimes it’s quite the opposite. This is a source of some of our major complaints about life.
The warning signs here are how much P&C in whatever form expects you to be the grateful, obedient, and unquestioning child in the face of their ‘caring’, ‘nobility’ or ‘expertise’, (BC words) and gets quite shitty if you don’t. P&C doesn’t like ‘uppity’ people.

The words ‘there is no other way’ from someone with authority can also be a useful warning sign here. There is always another way, although they all have consequences.

The worship of money and technology.  (5B9)
In our society a primary example of ‘whatevers’ of authority would be money and P&C, with management/science/medicine/technology a close second. These things ‘count’ with us and we respect them, and allow their proponents to teach us and influence us, and we think that it will solve all our problems, as in, ‘fix’ everything.
Think about how much we pay attention to and expect (trust and have faith) that money, power, medicine, science, or technology will fix all our current problems whether personal or social. We turn our heads off and accept all this ‘expertise’ without questioning it at all, regardless of our own observations or experiences.
In this way, we are in fact making these things into our gods, and in doing so we ignore and disrespect human beings, Life and God; we are not paying attention to them at all. Notice also that these ‘gods’/things are all man-made, and even more interestingly, there is no living energy in any of them.

Putting money before people gets us into terrible trouble trying to work out the worth or value of people (judgement - again). While most ‘developed’ countries continue to espouse concepts of people as valuable, our current social systems are devaluing, devoicing and marginalizing minorities more each day, by labeling them crazy, lazy or stupid; ie, what societies say and what they/we do become even further apart. 

 
The Greek Gods.  (5B9a)
Notice how much society's 'beautiful' people resemble the pantheon of the Greek gods. And notice how much they consider themselves immortal and all powerful, while behaving 'no better than they ought to be' as my Nana used to say. Notice also how little they contribute to ordinary mortals; they are much more likely to want to keep it all to themselves; various forms of nasty punishment for those who didn't toe the line eg, Prometheus giving fire to humans. You won't get any help from them. And notice how our politicians wish to join the 'heavenly pantheon' of the worshipped' too; so, there you go.

The First Commandment?  (5B10)
But we have the biblical instruction of ‘”Thou shalt worship no other gods before me”.
So, what’s this one about?
There are 2 warnings here. Worship only God, and don’t worship anything else.
So, don’t make gods of anything or anyone else, eg, people, planets, graven images etc., etc., not to mention P&C/money/technology; it’s bad for it/them and bad for you.
But also be careful not just of what you worship, but what ‘worship’ means for you.

But aren’t we supposed to worship God and abase ourselves because we are naturally dreadful sinners (but we don’t know how) and we must placate him otherwise we won’t be ‘saved’? (This is ‘God’ as ‘Father’ as P&C here.)
This is where worship and adulation become mixed up in terms of if we are worshipping ‘whatever’ then adulation on our part is required, because the gap between the adulator and adulated is so great. This is what we are taught by religions as part of ‘worshipping’ God as a primary necessity for life and avoiding ‘punishment’. But this is happening because we can only conceive of God as P&C, as in, Worship Him because He has control over you, and you are a small nothing. But also, you would like to be rescued from life, and thus able to remain as a child.

But, God is actually warning us that worshipping ‘whatevers’ of anything other than Herself and Life (GLS = your InSelf) is not useful for you; (She does actually know what She is talking about, and She knows perfectly well how our minds work; hence the warning). However, She is not the slightest bit interested in our adulation. She doesn’t need or want it, and it’s not good for us to think this way.

‘Dreadful sinners’ implies that we are faulty or mis-cast or hopeless as we are, but this point of view implies that we are not of God and never can be, unless God decides to want us. Such an attitude/teaching leaves us as disempowered, hapless suppliants placating forever and wanting to be ‘rescued’ - very P&C.
Life is always going to be bigger than any single human being, but it’s kind of an insult to God to think that She makes ‘broken’ anythings. Does She need to forgive Herself? Human beings are meant to be human beings and perfectly powerful for themselves. Life on Earth is for them to find out how to do it consciously. God does not consider us nothings; this is non-sense. Do you consider what you truly create from the heart, nothing? Imagine how much thinking would be required to dream up the amazingness of the human being.

There is no huge gap between you and God; you are part of God, or you wouldn’t be wanting to be like God. But it is still useful to ‘worship’ Her. She is still a ‘parent’ in terms of ‘bigger’ and ‘wiser’, but you are not supposed to remain as a child, or you will just stay angry/afraid. Your part is to find your own powers for your-self and come into partnership with Her.

So then, what would this sort of ‘worship’ be?
Well, worship without adulation would be a start, and choosing to worship things of God, namely with a living energy, would be another indicator. Add to this that if you are ‘worshipping’ whatever correctly, you will submit to what it tells you; you are allowing that whatever to give you information about life. However, ‘submit’ has too many connotations of P&C sitting in there. But another word that could be used would be ‘understanding’ which is actually a ‘submit’ word, as in, ‘standing under’.

Thus, a useful answer could be “Worship what is Loved and Lives”, which includes all of God’s Creations because She Loves them; they’re Her creations; (you don’t have to love them; think of how many ‘weeds’ are really useful medicinal herbs, but you might like being healed, and it is very useful to you to understand them). Thus you will be submitting to God, Life, and your Self and increasing your understanding of Life. This kind of ‘worship’ would include awareness of what you are putting your faith and trust in.
So, if the instruction were to be to “Understand your InSelf (= GLS)” how would you do that? Well, for example, you could learn about looking after your body (= GLS) properly as well as you can for your own sake (see Sacred). Also, using natural/living remedies to help yourself is a far more useful version of ‘worship’ for both your self/body and God.

[Incidentally, what God has tried to warn us about are the consequences of how we use or give our energy, or where our attention goes, or how energy works, (ML) but since we can’t even begin to conceive that God gets to fit in with these Herself, we can’t hear the warning.
God has discovered things about the properties of Energy that She finds amazing, extremely interesting, endlessly fascinating, absorbing and fun. She wants us to have that fun as well because it’s more fun for her. [Energy is our universal ‘ground’ or ‘matrix’ or our ‘background’ or the water we swim in; ‘the fish doesn’t know the water’.]
There is a ‘bow down and worship and rejoice in God’ bit, but that is about Her having worked out how everyone can join in this mighty business of Explore Energy and Express Self and Create Life. It is a whopping win-win situation and in fact, very clever and probably took a fair old while to work out.]

The idea then is to be careful where your energy comes from and where it goes to.
An antidote to adulation could be ‘I appreciate your abilities; now I wish to get back to developing my own’. Debasing/belittling yourself is a waste of everyone’s time; yours in particular; so, don’t.

The 10 Commandments.  (5B11)
We are taught the 10 ‘commandments’ as ‘Thou shalt not do ‘xyz’’ which we interpret as we ‘must’ not, hence these are commands to us.
But if we interpret the ‘thou shalt not do’ as ‘in future, you won’t be interested in doing this…’xyz’’ or ‘you won’t want to do…’xyz’’, we could consider these ‘commands’ as ‘signposts’ that we are heading in the right direction for ourselves. ‘Right direction’ or ‘right living’ is here defined as living correctly for yourself and in increasing alignment and relationship with your ‘Higher Self’ or GLS or InSelf.
Thus, ‘thou shalt worship no other gods before me’ becomes, ‘as you come into alignment with GLS you won’t be interested in worshipping anything other than God or Life’.

In this way, the 1st commandment of ‘worshipping no other gods before me’ becomes the signpost of ‘you won’t be expecting to be fixed or ‘rescued from life’ by ‘out there’ if the ‘whatever’ has no life energy of itself and/or is man-made’. Instead, you will have a good idea of how to carry out your own ‘fixing’ for yourself, and/or not need ‘fixing or rescuing’ in the first place.
Another way of saying this is that you are increasingly able to provide your own energy for yourself and won’t need it from ‘out there’, as in, you are growing up and becoming more adult and less frightened of life.

Thus, if you are actually wishing/wanting to do anything that the 10 commandments say ‘don’t’, then it’s an indicator that you are out of alignment/kilter with GLS.

Trying to find P&C because we’re afraid we don’t have it.
One of the ways we try to do this is through ‘believe-ins’, as in, ‘believe it and you’ll see it’.

‘Believe-ins’ as a form of control.  (5B12)
There is a difference between a ‘belief’ and a ‘knowing’ but we get them a bit mixed up at times.
We have beliefs internally, of which we may or may not be aware, that are reflected back to us by Life so that we can work out what we are thinking at the unconscious. These beliefs are often decisions we made about life in previous lives, which are reinforced by our circumstances in this life. The thing is that these ‘beliefs’ feel like ‘knowings’ entirely because ‘out there’ is reflecting them back to us, so they seem ‘true’. We’re ‘seeing’ it out there, so it must be true.

There are also ‘beliefs’ from out there that we may wish could be true for us. This pertains to religious and New Age thinking such as ‘believe it and you will see it’, or ‘if you are ‘good/spiritual enough’ nothing bad will happen to you’. (Watch the opera ‘Tosca’ to see this one not working.)
This is very similar to ‘If you believe ‘hard enough’ in God, nothing ‘bad’ will happen to you’, or ‘If you believe ‘hard enough’ in whatever, it will become true’, etc, etc. With all ‘failures’ here meaning that you weren’t ‘believing’ sufficiently. (An insurance scheme with insufficient payments?)
We also keep forgetting another saying that goes ‘if wishes were horses, beggars would ride’.

Such ‘believe-ins’ are advocated as a way to happiness etc, as in, they can be used as a strategy to get what you want, ie, to control Life by getting the ‘good’ and not the ‘bad’. This is the 'power of positive thinking', or 'mind over matter', and so on, as if we can control it all with our mind. Yes, well, we do like to have high opinions of ourselves.

The problem with any belief is that your dis-belief has to be suppressed, by definition.
Wanting to believe an external belief means suppressing your own dis-belief. This external ‘belief’ or ‘teaching’ is a program from outside; it is at your outself/conscious only. You do not ‘know’ it (at your InSelf/unconscious), ie, it is not true within. You haven’t been able to find it for yourself and thus cannot know it as true for you. You have been told/taught it and in this way ‘it’ is someone else’s answer.
What often happens is that people who aspire to ‘believe in’ such things as ‘god’s love’ or ‘abundance’ are adopting these things as ‘wants’ at the conscious (outself) level as an antidote (read opposite) to how they really feel (read unconscious) about Life, (ie, not love and not abundance).
Thus the outself wants to believe in such things while the InSelf actually does not believe them; these things are not true for it. This sets up a fight between them where the outself is trying to dominate/control the InSelf.
So, we do ‘If I believe hard enough it will all work out the way I want’, and ‘I’ll just shut my eyes to anything that tells me otherwise’, sometimes with disastrous consequences (shutting your eyes is actually just another way of ‘killing the messenger’). A very common example of this is people using the ‘power of belief’ to wish themselves wellness in the face of severe illness. In fact the words ‘I am fighting this illness’ with the ‘power of belief’ are often used. It’s the words ‘fight’ and 'believe' that are telling you what is actually happening.

Notice also that judgement is still sitting in the middle of all of this. At no stage are we prepared to have a look at, much less address the thing that we want to go away, ie, the 'dis-believe in'. This is actually a resistance to life as well as an attempt at control. But, “What you resist, persists”. If your actuality is not in alignment with what you want, this is not an invitation or a ‘test’ to ‘believe harder’; it’s actually an invitation to consider what your InSelf (GLS) might be wanting to tell you.

It is possible to change a belief and Life will reflect that new belief.
But, and this is a big but, this change has to occur at the unconscious, by definition. And the unconscious (InSelf) will not accept or change a belief unless it is congruent for it. Thus, what is ‘congruent’? It means that any change will have to ‘fit in’ or be in line with our Soul’s objectives and current understandings of life, which are generally based on its previous experiences in life.

So, for ‘believe it and you will see it’, IFF the belief change has occurred at the unconscious you will see it, and begin to believe it and eventually know it. But ‘seeing’ this means that you check/observe whether Life and/or your body agree with what you want to believe since they are telling you what is actually going on with your unconscious.
Failure on your part to achieve this ‘seeing’ does not mean you haven’t believed ‘hard enough’. It simply means you need to go and talk to your unconscious, not bash it into submission. In fact your unconscious wants to tell you what it wants, so face your issues because they are what need to be addressed and they can be, but only by looking at them and addressing them in a 'partnership' way. This is how we begin any relationship, by facing the issue and addressing it. Getting help can also be very useful.
The ‘Belief Changes’ technique is part of the NLP suite of tools, as is the ‘6-Step Reframe’ which addresses internal congruence issues. The Treasure Tool outlined later is also useful, as are others.
Also, some beliefs need more than one go to ‘bust’ them, especially if they are part of complexes, so sometimes you just have to look at the issues again and go deeper. As with all things with the unconscious, treat all your issues with respect.

In fact, you can use your fear that what you want to believe is not true, to show you what you do want.
As a clarifying example, try ‘I want to believe I am loved by God’. The fear would be ‘I don’t feel loved’ and the fear shows me that ‘I want love’. That is what needs to be addressed because that is the issue. The ‘believe-in’ is a mental strategy (think Spirit) for a Soul problem. (An even deeper fear might be ‘if I don’t love God or if God doesn’t love me, I’ll go to hell’. There is often more than one layer to excavate.)

In the end, ‘believe-ins’ can be another version of P&C, but this time you are trying to force your InSelf to comply with your outself; an internal P&C rather than an external P&C. But it’s still P&C.

Affirmations may or may not belong here. Once again, the result is dependent upon their truth at your unconscious (InSelf) level. If it is true/correct internally, it has to ‘show up’ externally in the physical realm as the reflection of your InSelf (not your outself), ie, you will ‘attract it’. In effect, you will be able to see it. This is what the ‘Law of Attraction’ is talking about; because it is basically a ‘mirroring’ law, but what is always being mirrored is your InSelf (unconscious) not your outself (conscious) (ML).

<~><~><~> >~< >~< >~< <~>~<~>~<~>

But the Sup/Inf model can get worse. The 3rd stage is Despising.

5c Judging - Despising



Ch.5c. Judging - Despising

This is the 3rd part of the Judging chapter.

It is also possible for the superiority to get worse, and then we know it as despising and/or contempt.

STAGE 3. DESPISING (5C)
Despising and Contempt.
Thus, according to the mechanism of the Mirror Laws, the despiser is not only despising others but also despising their own InSelf and the Self-Pity increases. The Split between outself and InSelf is now huge.
These mechanisms are of course unconscious, and are thus not always easy to recognize, particularly if the despiser is reasonably socially adept and can say nice (to lovely) things in an appropriate manner (charm), ie, put on a nice 'face'.

We have, as part of our cultural heritage, Greek myths that are very good at describing human characteristics, and if we know how to interpret them properly are as relevant for us today as they ever were.
One of these myths is that of Perseus killing the gorgon Medusa.

The Medusa. (5C1)
Medusa is a monster who has a beautiful (read ‘nice/lovely’) face surrounded by ‘hair’ of snakes.
Anyone who looked at her face was ‘turned to stone’.
Perseus (the hero) was only able to kill her by using a mirror to make sure he could see her without looking at her directly.
Medusa herself had been a normal mortal, but had been turned into a gorgon (read ‘monster’) because she was sacrilegious and treated the temple of a goddess without respect.

There is a great deal of information in this story, which is why I am discussing it.

The ‘lovely’ face = the lovely social face that you see or the nice things they may say.

The ‘hair of snakes’ = this person thinks despising ‘snaky’ things, because that is what they are thinking in their head about you, and they will feel justified (full of self-pity) in saying poisonous ‘snaky’ things to you which bite/hurt. Being bitten by a snake means that it not only hurts, but it is poisonous and the poison/venom stays there inside you in your blood/emotion. It's hidden, as in, we can't see what's happening; we can only feel it. It is also very damaging and very difficult to get rid of. Being despised by someone ‘poisons’ us in a hidden and insidious manner.

‘Turned to stone’ = a stuck lump; stymied; this person cannot ‘move’.
Those who have had a serious dose of despising do not know what to do or in which direction to move. Nothing they do or are is good enough. This leaves them seriously stuck. Being on the receiving end of such an enormous difference between the ‘nice’ face of the gorgon and being seriously hurt/bitten/poisoned is also extremely confusing, and that also helps to leave them stuck. The person has only looked at or focused on the nice face and has ‘buried’ the biting/poison because of the pain.

‘Monster’ is a warning that this person has become inhuman and you need to beware of them.

‘Desecration of the temple’. This person cannot treat another person or aspect of Life as sacred. There is and can be no respect for you or your needs. You are being ab-used and it is the despising/contempt that promotes this ab-use.

A definition of Ab-use would be; using another without respect for that person’s ‘being’ or needs; respect being also part of Love, (although I didn’t put it into TISP). No-one or no-thing is good enough to respect, and also no-one can provide the amount of pity wanted by those full of self-pity. The only use/need for you is to be used for whatever assets you may provide (= used up) and for the despiser to compare themself with (and judge themself superior, of course). This is a desecration of ‘the other’.

Thus, this person may be starving for love, but they cannot be ‘fed’ by you or anyone else. All is comparison and judgement; there is no love here at all. They have become a bottomless pit and are a danger to all. You cannot show them love; you may love them, but they will not be able to ‘see’ it; all they know is judgement with self-pity with victim/bully. The Self-Pity is also a warning to stay away and check out your own. You yourself can't and should not try to change a despiser, overtly or covertly; it's not part of your brief to try to change anyone but yourself.

If you have been ‘poisoned’, you will need to heal yourself first to make sure you can learn to TISP your own InSelf, and that can take a lot of work. In fact, you have to get out of the situation in the first place, and that can be a lot of work too.
Being ‘poisoned’ means your InSelf is hurt and wounded and it stays there in your blood in your body which is by definition, unconscious. This must not be ignored; being despised too often is awful and serious in that it can kill life. I wonder how many ‘stuck’ people have had a dose of despising from an important and powerful ‘other’, eg, but not limited to, a parent. Healing is required. Consider the words 'turned to stone' and people on drugs being described as 'stoned'; a good label of 'stuckness' which leaves me wondering about the level of despising within some families.

Sacred and Sacrilegious. Using and Ab-Using/Exploiting. (5C2)
Medusa was a normal person who became a monster when/because she treated a goddess’ temple with disrespect.
Desecration of a goddess’ temple occurs when we don’t/can’t treat Life or god/desses with awe and respect, (we say to ourselves this is ‘nothing but’ xyz, ie we are ‘thinging’ them and thus, discounting them), usually because we’re busy taking what we can from it/them. It’s like treating all Life as our ‘prey’; only there for our own purposes; it doesn't have a life or power of its own. This is the sacrilege and it does turn us into ‘monsters’.

Sacred.  (5C2a)
[In this discussion I am using the word ‘something’ to include things as well as people.]
If something is sacred for us, it matters to us, we value it, we feel it deeply, and we respect that feeling. (It helps us feel 'bigger' or more real, or more connected to Life.) That particular thing has something to say to us. We set that thing apart for its sake and for our own. We also tend to look after it, ie maintain and protect it. There is a kind of submission to its needs, or to do as it ‘tells us’. We will Serve it. When we cannot respect this quality of sacredness, we commit sacrilege.

What is Respect?  (5C3)
Respect is an attitude of allowing something to be, for its own sake, and we take its being into account in our decisions that may affect it. We are saying it exists, it is a ‘being’ and we are allowing it to have life or appreciate its/their energy or ‘beingness’. We respect another’s right to be as they are, as we wish others to respect our right to be as we are.
When we dismiss something as unimportant, it doesn’t matter and it doesn’t count, we are treating it as no-thing; it can’t ‘tell’ us anything, and we consider it has nothing to ‘say’ to us, and we have no feeling for it. We are ‘thinging’ it.
‘Thinging’ takes the life/energy/vibes out of whatever. It’s a disregard or disrespect for life, and brings to a full stop any possibility of that ‘thing’ communicating with us or showing us something about Life. Remember, all Life is showing you some aspect of Energy, because that is what it is and we are.
The more we ‘thing’ whatever, the easier it is to use or abuse it for our own purposes without considering that thing’s needs. Remember ML; if you’re not respecting them, you’re not respecting your inner self at a deep level.
All of us want others to treat us with respect. We don’t expect to love everything or everyone or for them to love us, but we do want respect from others for our own wishes and needs, ie, we want to be taken into account. If we want respect, we have to give it.

‘Critters’ and ‘Creatures’.  (5C3a)
It is currently becoming fashionable to refer to Creatures of Nature as ‘critters’. It’s supposed to be ‘cutesy’ and ‘affectionate’, but it’s a be-littling and a ‘thinging’. All Creatures are created, and have a ‘being’ or an energy. This energy is sometimes referred to as a ‘medicine’ in North American Indian terms. This ‘medicine’ is referring to the energy of this creature, and its presence in our lives is a message/information for us. This ‘medicine’ is the way that Life speaks to us. The more we call it a ‘critter’, the less we consider that its energy has anything to say to us, and we can just ‘disappear’/ignore it; we don’t even bother to know its name; it has nothing to do with us. This makes a distance between us and it/them, and thus a greater disconnect from Nature and from Life. This is a disrespect, and our loss.

Apart from many insects that we love to hate, other vermin that we wish would go away would include the problem of any pest in any country, eg, cane toads in Australia. These pests are usually telling us something which surprisingly enough we would rather not hear, including that our ‘cleverness’ wasn’t and isn’t.

And the differences between Respect, Worship and Sacred?  (5C4)
Respect is allowing that other the right to exist. It/they are part of Life. They may have information for you, but it is your choice to take notice. But, paying attention is a prerequisite to worship.
Worship is paying attention to the authority of God and Life (living things). Submit to its (GLS) information/directions to you because it has greater awareness/knowledge than you. It is bigger than you, but that does not be-little you.
Sacred is the submission to tending to the other thing’s needs for our own sake. We look after it, and it will serve us by helping us feel bigger in life. This can be useful depending on what is actually ‘growing bigger', but as we treat Life as sacred, so we can help ourselves to grow as Life grows. 

An example might be to consider a man treating his wonderful car as sacred and giving it a lot of his energy, including paying for it. It ‘tells’ other people about some of the qualities of the owner. He tends to it, and serves it, and it actually serves him. If someone else dismissed it as unimportant or that it did not matter or count, he would be shocked, and even more so if it were damaged by another’s carelessness. [This behaviour gives many women ‘the willies’; would that this man were able to treat his own children (much less the wife) with such concern.]
This is an example where the 'sacred' is helping the man's outself to feel 'bigger'. Women call this 'wanking', because they know.

Another example of sacred could be a grove of wonderful trees that gives us feelings of relaxation and wonder. This can be for us humans a 'growing' of a different kind, because as we relax in this type of vibration our aura expands. This is actually very good for our body to experience, and rather different from our 'norm'.

Sacrilege is this ‘dismissal’ or refusal to allow the sacred to affect us or to submit to it. The dismissal itself usually comes about because the sacred energy is simply not perceived. But, essentially the sacrilege is a domination on our part, in that we are not allowing that life form to tell us about who or what it is, and we consider our own needs as more important. We are doing the deciding and we are placing our needs/wants as ‘higher’; no submission here. We treat it as having no life to us; it’s a thing. We are treating it as nothing; no thing; it does not ‘matter’.
But, the ML are there to remind us that as we do this to life, we are doing this to ourselves, and we won’t like the consequences one bit. We have blocked any chance of this aspect of life serving us. We are ‘dead’ to life, and Life has lost its point.
This is what Medusa was doing in the temple.
The Greek myths tell us that this is what gods and goddesses do to you to ‘punish’ you when you have done the wrong thing, but in fact, it’s Medusa’s own attitude to ‘the other’ that has turned her into a monster.

Thus, treating Life as Sacred means not only refraining from using things or people or Life (= the ‘other’) for your own purposes with no respect or appreciation for their needs; it also means submitting to this aspect of life’s needs or directives, which we do for our own sake.
When we do this, we are saying that this aspect of life ‘matters’ to us; we are making matter ‘matter’.

To repeat, treating Life as Sacred - all of it; ‘good’ and ‘bad’ - means ‘Behaving as if the God in All Life Mattered’ (Wright) because this is how you give all of ‘out there’, Life (= matter), and therefore you are giving it to your InSelf as well (because of ML), as in, you ‘matter’. And if you are making your InSelf ‘matter’ you will be giving Life to your InSelf.
This is a very important point which revolves around the word ‘matter’, which comes up a lot.

The primary problem with despising others is the unconscious despising of InSelf (’the internal other’). If it is not stopped it increases as we age, and the comparisons become ever greater, so much so that a despising person becomes even more unhappy with lots of self-pity (a heavy energy) and will secretly hate people who are happy. Any higher, finer, lighter energy can actually give pain to the comparer, and they don’t want it and will discount or negate it, or get rid of it if they can. That person will ‘kill’ it either literally or figuratively.
Sacred energies are these lighter and finer energies and the comparer/judger does not want them in their life. This is the sacrilege; the energy is ignored, refused or negated, and the comparer/judger goes on comparing/judging. They cannot Serve the sacred and the sacred thing cannot serve them. Loss in all directions.

‘Thinging’ and Abusing.  (5C5)
Despising and its little mate, self-pity, can escalate to hatred and cruelty to self or others, and they do. But it is still coming out of P&C and that basic comparison, judgement, fear and blame and feeling a victim.
The problem with feeling a victim is the great anger, self-pity and the blaming of ‘Life, the Universe and Everything’. So that person feels justified in taking from life in whatever manner, including theft and revenge, etc. Taking from life = using something or someone with no regard or respect for that used thing’s needs. This taking from life is an abuse/exploitation, and the person doing the taking and abusing is becoming a bully. And, the more they feel a victim, the more they will bully. (Bully and victim go together as superior and inferior ‘travel’ together.)

Despising Leads to Abuse.  (5C6)
As despising increases, the abuse of others increases. The despising leads to the abuse. The more we abuse someone, the more we tend to ‘thing’ them or vice versa. If anger has gone on to hate, the disrespect just increases, but now that person wishes to punish ‘the other’ and hurt it for being in their life. This leads on to cruelty, and looking for ways to ‘disappear’ that ‘other’. This is how the Nazis were able to behave as they did.
‘Thinging’ is the mechanism of domination, abuse and punishing. We are basically treating ‘the other’ as prey for our purposes only; the great taking from Life. The greater the ‘thinging’ of the other, the more that person is sociopathic, but remember that the person doing the ‘thinging’ has almost certainly been treated themself as a thing for some powerful other’s pleasure/satisfaction.
This is the mechanism for incest, violence and other violations of trust by someone who cannot do anything except P&C.
Also, notice that the more we treat people institutionally as ‘your name is a number’, the more we are prone to ‘thing’ them.

Confusion.  (5C7)
Despising, contempt and hate can be overt/apparent or covert/hidden. If it is overt, at least you know where you stand and can avoid it if possible, but the main point about the Medusa is the confusion for the person on the receiving end of it. The Medusa has a lovely ‘face’ and the despising is covert, secret or unconscious, as in, hidden from you, but you will still feel it, because it hurts and poisons you. You are being ‘used’ for their own purposes in a disrespectful manner. This is what leaves people stuck, and not knowing which way to move, ie, turned to stone. Others may consider your response to the Medusa irrational and are more likely to ignore your observations since they do not coincide with their own, (how could you possibly complain about such an apparently ‘lovely’ person?).
[Confusion is a primary indicator of being on the receiving end of lack of integrity, where integrity is about unifying what is said with what is done. As ‘saying’ and ‘doing’ become further apart, confusion increases for all concerned.]

Being on the receiving end of serious ‘abuse’ is traumatic, especially if there is violence and cruelty (as ‘punishment’), and we understand that. But, children who have experienced the Medusa, (the ‘loving’ ab-use/despising/sacrilege) end up seriously stuck in terms of not knowing what to do, and very angry or depressed at being wounded and starved of love. I suspect that they are much more likely to turn to addictions to whatever in their own search for love, but for them, their business is to ‘know’ their own ‘starving’ and learn how to ‘feed’/love themselves (= TISP InSelf) so that they can heal.

So, where might the Medusa be in normal Life? (5C8)
Any ‘loving’ environment where someone who is supposed to be loving/nurturing/protecting is doing the secret despising/abusing bit. [Ring any bells?] The home environment, persons of trust in institutional environments, missionaries despising ‘the natives’ culture while ‘loving’ them, and so on and on.
Notice that, personal covert despising turns others to stone, and cultural covert despising turns other cultures to stone, eg, male treatment of the female, or ‘whites’ of indigenous/’native’ peoples.

Remember that Perseus (the hero) had to look in the mirror to be able to see the Medusa properly so that he could be-head her (it was the way she was thinking that was so poisonous) and hence kill her. This metaphor can be taken both literally and figuratively, but is a good start for telling you how to begin what has to be done. Once she was dead, people were able to move. Thus, you begin with having to use a mirror to be able to ‘see’ her face correctly, ie, to see her properly and then to ‘kill’ her (stop the effect on you of her thinking) before you can become unstuck.
There’s an awful lot in this UUS about ‘using the mirror’ further on; see the Treasure Tool.

Socially, as the pressures of our times mount, despising increases along with intolerance. This is because our fears mount and despising comes out of fear as the root cause, as do all forms of P&C.

Monsters Can Happen.  (5C9)
The moral of this story is that ab-using/exploiting Life is a sacrilege and does turn us into monsters! It’s perfectly possible for people to abuse/exploit others for their own ‘jollies’. Be aware.
The idea then is to beware of monsters and to heal yourself if you have tangled with one, because if you do not, you may become one yourself and pass it on; (this applies to the vampire stories as well; ditto paedophilia and other forms of abuse; the abused becomes the abuser; but, remember, this is unconscious stuff for them). You then also need to learn to protect yourself from them. You can't stop a despiser from despising. You have to be your own hero, and use the mirror to 'kill' any despising you may have received which is stopping you from working out what you want to do in/with your life.
The P&C vs. TISP list above is a useful start for recognizing signs and symptoms.

Vampires.  (5C9a)
Vampires are frightfully fashionable at the moment, but I hope by now that you might be understanding that there is nothing romantic or exciting about living off, ie, 'sucking the other’s blood' (people or animals) without taking their needs into consideration; this is also referred to as 'preying'. Taking while giving nothing in return as well as attempting to avoid death is the recipe for boredom. The metaphor for blood is emotions, and vampires are immensely ‘cool’ because they have none. It is also true that if you can’t die, you can’t live either. (So many people have already said this; can we hear it?) The corollary to this is that there is nothing ‘noble’ about giving your blood to a vampire since this is the mechanism for becoming one yourself and thus a monster. The real question is, why would you be attracted to one in the first place? Get away, heal yourself, and find a life for yourself.

But, there are other more 'normal' methods of 'vampiring' which happen when we watch TV and others' suffering with no change or action on our part. We're kind of just using it to know we're not as bad as that, or looking for stimulation while we are bored. We are powerless and our energy just drains away. Stealing other countries' oil/gas for our own products and comfort is not a good use of our resources/taxes. And look at all those civilians getting in the way - what a nuisance!

No death.  (5C9b)
No death means no life. We need death to inform life, and in fact to become our guide to life. Defying death is not the way to go; facing death and forming a relationship with it is. Many people have said this before.

Avoiding connection with the Soul leaves us soul-less which is what human beings who become ‘monsters’ are.
We can avoid life and are allowed to do so, but eventually we become so bored and fed-up (but still empty) that we look for alternatives. Also, we can observe that others are having a better time of it. What do they do? Can we allow them to influence us, and so it goes; on with the explore…

Conclusion.
In how many ways can we get this wrong?
Doing Sup/Inf always gets us into trouble. Essentially, we are using our minds to look 'out there' and compare and judge, but as we do so we are also doing this to our own inner selves (ML). Hence, we end up with an increasing split between InSelf and outself, and all the consequences of that separation - no TISP and no Merge and an increased likelihood of pain and suffering.

We have this essential ability and requirement of our minds to compare and contrast. We need it to handle the dualities that energy provides which we call Life. It's when we judge and its consequent blame that we get into trouble. This is what the story of A&E in the Garden is actually about. Our minds are a 2-edged sword. The disadvantage of judgement is the other side of the advantage of comparison and contrast for understanding.

The Sup/Inf model is the mechanism of how we set up the split/difference/distance between our 2 selves; the outself and the InSelf; conscious and unconscious. And this model of life is our ‘normal’ point of view. This is currently how we deal with life, but the whole point of such comparison and judgement is that it is always at the other’s expense and hence, yours! (those ML – again!). So, maybe, stop.

This UUS argues that the P&C part of the Superiority/Inferiority Caper is how we view Life/God and that it is the absolute opposite of Love. It comes out of the fear that life is out to get us which gets reflected back to us by Life because that’s what life is for; to reflect our attitudes coming from inside us back to us so that we can see them.
And it’s currently doing this ‘in spades’ you might say. If we change this internal attitude to a more useful understanding such as this UUS, by definition the world ‘out there’ has to change too and it can and does, with a little help from you. This help being your submission to Life, as in, you get to do the changing first, not life.

Trying to get up the ladder of Sup/Inf is what we are taught about and live in as ‘the fish lives in the water’, but we have almost no idea of the problems that come with our judging.
In the next chapter I look at how we cope with this 'normal' world of ours? How do we explain it to ourselves? What do we try to do with it, and how do we describe or label our thinking and behaviour?