6a Coping - Psychology and Religion

Ch.6a. Coping - Psychology

Chapter 6. COPING

Introduction.

This chapter looks at how we cope with our primary concerns about Life.

We have a world that does have pain and suffering for many, so how does society cope with this? Coping is all about how we deal with our fears, so what are we taught about Life, God and how our minds work?

What do we tell ourselves about it all? How do we label/name these things? What do we believe, and what do we do about it.

First I will look at what we know about and the labels we use for how our minds work; our psychology. Then I look at our better known religions and what they have to tell us, as well as their authority. Next, I look at some of the ways that unaddressed issues/fears can actually feel, and lastly at how Life gives us the chance to explore 'bigness' in the world of Energy, and the advantage of that for us.

PSYCHOLOGY  (6A)

The Psychology of our 2 selves interacting with Energy with its Mirror Laws.

This section is about how we label and describe the 'Sup/Inf Caper' in our lives. [The Sup/Inf Caper which is outlined in Chapter 5 is the way we try to be 'bigger' than the other, but get into trouble because 'the other' is inside us as well as outside us (ML).]

Introduction.

Jung was always trying to name/describe how the Unconscious 'worked', as in, how it appears to us in real life.

People are complex beings, and Jung was always looking for useful ways to describe a person’s attributes even when that person was not aware of that attribute within themselves, however plain they may be to others.

He used the labels 'Shadow' and 'Projection' to give an idea of what was happening to us as we live in this strange world of ours, and he needed to use conscious/outself terms, which is the whole point, but difficult, mostly because we prefer to think that the unconscious, ie, the InSelf, isn't there at all.

Inflation.  (6A1)

Trying to be Superior is always an inflation, by definition. Inflation means we are trying to feel bigger, but it's not true because it’s 'hollow' inside.  But this is the outself wanting this 'bigness'. If this 'bigness' at the outself level is not true for the InSelf, the 'bigness' has to be defended, because it is insecure. We know this happens because the owner is defensive. As we try to be bigger using comparison and judgement with 'the other' out there, we end up forever looking 'out there' for confirmation of our own estimation of ourselves. Doing this takes energy because the person has to be always 'on the watch' which is an attempt at control. That person cannot be 'natural'; they always have to be careful to protect their own estimation of themselves. Thus, said self-estimation at the outself is a 'story' which will drain energy from the owner. This does not mean that the attributes that the owner wants are not there; it simply means that the owner does not know they are there. That's what unconscious means.

Shadow.  (6A2)

The Shadow is an internal aspect of our self that we don’t know about, ie, it’s unconscious. The term ‘shadow’ is often used for our ‘bad’ aspects/traits within us that we may be repressing because we want to be thought ‘good’, but people also have ‘positive’ traits of which they are not aware and they can project these as well as the ‘negative’ ones. [Hence it is possible to use those things that we admire in others to work out or describe traits that we would like to know that we have ourselves.]

In general, we learn to repress our undesirable attributes in favour of our socially desirable ones, but even though it is unconscious to us, that does not mean that it is not still there; it just means we don’t know it’s there, although others may. Usually we repress our Shadows out of fear but it is we ourselves who are judging this. Anything that we repress or reject about ourselves is something that we cannot Love/TISP. Hence, no Love for InSelf.

Jung said, “Everyone carries a shadow and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is”. He also said, “in spite of its function as a reservoir for human darkness, the shadow is the seat of creativity”.

In fact, ‘shadow’ is a very useful word for trying to describe something you can’t see yourself because it is at your back; it’s behind you. The brighter the ‘face’ you put on, the darker the shadow of your unknown, un-owned and forgotten ‘lost’ bits. Even when you turn around, you change your shape and still cannot see your shadow, while others can see it perfectly well.

Projection.  (6A3)

We also Project our Shadow. This is axiomatic. This is when we are judging what that other person is being or doing, and we say to ourselves ‘I am not that’ (‘bad’ or ‘good’ thing). But the projection is axiomatic because ‘the other’ is also the InSelf, ie, you are that. We do this personally, socially, and nationally as well. One cure for this is to ask yourself and identify how you are that which you are judging, and this is quite commonly taught as a method for increasing self-awareness/consciousness.

The Devil.  (6A4)

This is essentially a 'bigger' form of Shadow, and turns up everywhere.

We use the term ‘the Devil’ to try to describe something really bad ‘out there’, and we think that God is fighting the Devil all the time; it’s all about ‘good and evil’. We also like to use the Devil as an excuse for our behaviour, as a force over which we have no control, which we hope will let us off the hook of responsibility. It also leaves us powerless and a victim. But it’s no good; we’ve gone back to judging again and we just go right back to the split between our outself and our InSelf with no chance at Merge, ever. Whatever is out there that you are judging is actually inside you as well (ML). The point being that you will be afraid of what you would consider ‘the Devil’ or evil to be, and run. The more you condemn such things the more likely you are to have done them yourself in a previous life, and probably found out then or later that it was a bad idea; hence the condemnation.

Fears, anger and other negative energy at the InSelf level will always shrink/contract and stress you (because it tightens the gut), decreasing your enjoyment of life. Positive energy will grow (more life, not size) and expand (and relax) you. As you judge, so you will shrink, or indeed, the more you shrink, the more you will judge.

MLs are there all the time because they are describing how energy works. And still the idea is, ‘check out your own beam in your eye first’.

God encompasses all energy, and still, there’s more.

‘Embracing’ the Shadow, (an aside)  (6A5)

This is an adage used by Jung that I have seen used as an excuse for very poor treatment of another, putting that person’s life at risk.

To Love/TISP the ‘bad’ parts of ourselves is not about doing those bad/dark things to self or others (even if we call it ‘exploring’); remember ML; (also the ‘P’ part of TISP is for Protect). Embracing your own ‘dark’ is about looking at what those ‘bad’ things are telling/informing you about the totality of who you are. Ultimately, it is the ‘bad’ things that tell us the most about the ‘good’ things, and thus help us to become more conscious of who we really are and what we truly want. This will lead us to what we truly need for ourselves, and will get us to Life and Joy and TSE.

Using Mirror Laws to ‘explain’ this mechanism of Sup/Inf.  (6A6)

A person who thinks he is superior ‘does’ superior to others (generally unconsciously) and is ‘doing’ superior to InSelf while generally feeling inferior internally (generally unconsciously). It’s the InSelf that is actually doing the feeling.

An example would be that a person aspiring to be intelligent will repress ‘stupid’ internally while unconsciously being very worried about it, because they have been taught that ‘stupid’ is ‘bad’ in that it brings feelings of shame and guilt. This ‘badness’ is denied and buried. They are shoring up the outself with ‘I am intelligent’ as well as ‘I am not stupid’ as part of their worry and defense about actually feeling ‘stupid’. The comparison is forever ongoing internally, and consequently they will be doing it to others.

They will spot others’ ‘stupidity’ and treat them that way, as in, they will be unconsciously ‘doing’ both ‘I am not stupid you’ as well as ‘I am intelligent’ to that other person, and ‘kindly acknowledge’ my intelligence. Here is the wanting BC energy. This will come over as ‘you are stupid’ for the other person.

The other person may dislike such an attitude (surprise!), particularly if worried about their own intelligence and may well do ‘you are stupid’ in retaliation. The efforts to be superior will be increased with the ever increasing feeling that others are doing superior to him, ie treating him as inferior. It all becomes a never-ending competition. His hidden feelings of inferiority make him defensive and prickly and others close to him will have to ‘walk on eggshells’.

The Mirror here is the world ‘out there’ ‘doing’ superior to him while he is the one actually doing it to his own InSelf and he is doing it to others. The greater the superiority/inferiority, the greater the split/gap in awareness between outself and InSelf.

Thus the unconscious behaviour will be the inferiority, lack of self-esteem, and an increase in self-pity while trying ever harder to establish some sense of self-importance or superiority ‘out there’.

In Jungian terms the ‘superior’ person’s Shadow of ‘inferiority’ is Projected as ‘that person is inferior’.

In this UUS I use Mirror Laws rather than the Jungian explanation as a way to remind me what I am doing to my InSelf, and I find it easier to understand as well, but they are the same in terms of describing the mechanism.

In the end, both of them tend to boil my head somewhat, but ML is the great reminder that I am doing the judging and comparison, and that is hurting me, as in, it is at my own expense/cost.

The difficulties in explaining this mechanism are partly because what others are perceiving from out there is very different from what the person is feeling inside. It is also completely foreign to general social concepts and teachings. (Remember, there are always 2 ‘people’ inside everyone. It’s bad enough trying to describe internal motives for one of them; much less both. Not to mention, we always are those things we most definitely think we are not.)

[This is not to say that many people, both men and women, are not perfectly successful in their ability to control their lives and in their ‘superiority’, all of which many of us admire greatly, but the key here is whether they need your admiration or not. In fact, the irony here is that the less someone is concerned about their own Sup/Inf, the more attractive they may be to us, and we may admire this. ]

Doing Sup/Inf is a wanting of more.  (6A7)

This mechanism for Sup/Inf happens with all the ‘external’ attributes we fight for.

If we are looking for ‘power over’ we will be struggling with feeling powerless/insecure internally.

If we are looking for wealth we will be struggling with poverty internally.

If we are looking for control over others we will be struggling internally with feeling out of control or unable to control others or whatever.

Any of these can be in any of the dimensions also (PEMS).

But all of these are a ‘wanting’ that the owner does not feel they have.

The powerful person wants more power.

The wealthy person wants more wealth.

The controlling person wants more control, and these wants are simply never-ending.

And in all of these there is judgement and comparison with the external world going on.

And, as soon as we see ‘Judge’ sitting in there you will now know that there’s going to be trouble, and no-one is really happy. These wants will stay ‘wants’ because we are looking in the wrong direction; externally instead of internally. Both the words ‘judging’ and ‘expecting’ tell us we are looking in the wrong direction.

The more we want Superiority and particularly P&C, the more we are afraid we don’t have it and the angrier we become at someone who refuses to comply with our will. This is axiomatic with all tyrants. This mechanism explains many a dictator getting rid of or killing those that cross them. It also explains the heat that any whistle-blower or rebel of any kind will experience from P&C. Current examples would include Assange and Snowden. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

The superior person expects the inferior person to want to ‘be like’ the superior person, and also that the inferior person will plot to take the P&C away from them for their own purposes if possible, hence more effort to make it less possible. The extreme of this is called Paranoia.

The superior person works to build up pride, but this is based upon the fear and shame of feeling inferior (’the house built upon sand’). It is a ‘highness’ and the other is the ‘lowness’. Other phrases for inferior are ‘not good enough’ (NGE) and lack of self-esteem.

The superior person is using their superiority as a compensation for this lack of self-esteem which can really bug them.

The superior person expects to be admired and deferred to for their superiority.

The superior person feels a great deal of Self-Pity about their feelings of inferiority; not to mention victim. However, the internal feelings of inferiority will be buried, denied and repressed as much as possible,

A good literary example of Sup/Inf in action is the heroine in WAUGH’s ‘Brideshead Revisited’ where she has a lot of trouble with poor self-esteem although coming from a well-born (Superior) family. The low self-esteem is her ‘presenting’ face while the ‘superiority’ is also there but travelling internally. In the story she becomes very angry with the artist/protagonist when she considers that he doesn’t ‘pay’ enough for her with his paintings; he hasn’t ‘valued’ her sufficiently. But the other side of this is that she herself is intrinsically failing to ‘value’ his paintings and therefore him. Then there’s trouble and everybody gets confused.

All of the above are basically a description of the degree/extent of the Split or gap between outself and InSelf. But I also wish to spell out very clearly that where there is Superiority/Self-Importance/Inflation there are also Inferiority/Self-Pity/NGE and vice-versa. You may be presented with a ‘face’ of superiority or inferiority, but both are always there. This is why I use Sup/Inf as the name for the pattern.

Integrity.  (6A8)

The greater the distance/gap/split between the outself and the InSelf, the less we know, allow or own about ourselves and the less we have integrity; we are unintegrated. The less we know, the more we are generally faking it (the outself as a mask). You can’t be true to yourself if you don’t know who is there, so you can’t be real or present. Hence, there will be increased difficulty in relating to others.

Also, it takes energy to maintain a ‘face/mask’ of ‘looking good’ and repressing the ‘bad’. This energy is then not available for us to fulfill our goals in life.

It is perfectly possible for you to have any admirable qualities/talents/skills that are greater than another’s. The key here is to understand that it is your own self-estimation that sets up the Sup/Inf pattern. If your estimation of yourself needs (consciously or unconsciously on your part) any energy from ‘the other’ to maintain it, then you don’t and won’t really know that attribute within you. You may want it, but by definition, you won’t get it. You have to give it to know that it is within you, and even more strangely, you have to do the ‘giving’ first before you can really know it. So, then the question is, how do you do that?

The most important things to understand about the Sup/Inf model is that …

1. Neither end of the continuum or ‘see-saw’ between the superiority and inferiority is actually true, and

2. There can be no equality here. If there is no equality between yourself and your internal (or external) ‘other’, there can be no real relationship or real ‘knowing’ of the other. Hence no Merge and no ‘heavenly’ and no giving Life to InSelf. Remember the MLs.

Pride and Shame.  (6A9)

We are proud of our superiority and ashamed of our inferiority.

The prouder we are, the more ashamed we will feel about its opposite. But both are there at the same time. We are trying to use pride to cover/negate/compensate for shame, because shame feels so disgusting. We are, of course, doing the judging.

What is shame? (6A9a)

I discussed it in Section 1, because I consider that shame and guilt are not only great if not huge unconscious drivers, but they are very ‘sticky’ in terms of trying to get rid of them. I found that I simply could not until I actually looked at just what they were and how I was doing them. But they feel so horrible that we run. I find guilt bad enough, but shame is worse. I can forgive myself for things I have done in the past, and resolve not to do it again, but I actually have to do something about shame or it just never goes away. It’s a good ‘stick’ for this donkey to make it move.

Shame is the bit about ‘I have left undone those things which I ought to have done’. We think that shame is about others finding out what we are guilty of, but in fact underneath it all we do actually know what we haven’t done (shame), just as much as what we have done (guilt). The operative here is that we can only do something about shame while we are alive, otherwise we just stay ashamed, with the actual consequence of no peace. We can’t do anything about it when we are dead. And this ‘sticky’ emotion sticks with the soul, which remembers.

I suspect this is a good part of the ‘wailing and gnashing of teeth’ that we all get threatened with if we aren’t ‘good’. Guilt is probably a contributor to this but shame seems to me to be a major player that gets left out of most of the psychology/self-help books that I have read.

The more ashamed we feel, the more we drive ourselves so that we can feel proud of ourselves. I consider this drive as the source of the ‘Slave-Driver’ archetype; remorselessly driving others or self on forever with no mercy or let-up. Recognize anyone? But this mechanism has its uses also.

Looking ‘out there’ for pride in our abilities does tend to develop our skills and attributes, but it is a very stressful way of doing it and rarely ‘fun’. It does tend to shorten one’s life. It’s like jumping through hoops forever, while it’s your own self who is asking ‘how high?’

The upshot of this is no rest or peace because of shame, and no rest or peace because of wanting to be proud of whatever. The opposite of rest and peace is ‘Racket’. Your mind will never ‘shut up’.

The interesting part to me is that this ‘shame’ that seems to be built-in, implies that we do have internal aims to which we aspire, and they do drive us even if we are not aware of them.

So what are we really wanting?

I’m trying to explain that Pride and Shame are running together and that wanting one and denying the other just leads to an internal and ever-lasting fight/battle. And we end up wanting and ‘hungry’ all the time, while feeling ‘ghostly’.

See below, Fears - Ghost.

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OUR LABELS. (6B)

Introduction. The importance of the Labels we use.  (6B)

The labels or names we use to describe anything are essentially a kind of 'suitcase' or 'portmanteau' holding a lot of attributes. For example, when we use the word 'elephant', we think of the attributes of the elephant and there are quite a few of them; size, largeness, ears, skin, ivory, memory, and so on. One word holds a lot of aspects, and 'unpacking' said aspects helps us to be very clear about what we are naming/labelling.

Essentially, our psychology is the way we label the things of the psyche, and these labels are very important, because they dictate how we think about things and thus, address them. Hence the need for effectively defined labels, so we know what to do with them. They are also essential for communication; there's nothing like being on 'different pages' to cause endless confusion.

We also use our labels as a way of thinking that we have some control here. Think of how important a medical diagnosis is to the sick person. This is because labels can imply that we then know what to do, as in, what action to take for the future, but this is an assumption that is not necessarily true.

We do tend to forget how important labels are, or what happens when a label isn't useful, if not flat out wrong.

FREUD and 'penis envy'. (6B1)

Freud had terrible trouble with the number of women coming to him telling him of sexual abuse from their fathers, some of whom just happened to be men with great social clout for Freud. Initially, he was sympathetic and wanted to believe them, (he had to have been or they wouldn't have told him) but this meant that if he told the truth he would be clouted. So he managed to come up with the theory of 'Penis Envy' as a label to 'explain' this phenomenon, and not get clouted. As you do.

This was a label that plagued women for so many years since, and men loved it. I grew up with it and knew it was 'crook', although not how it was crook. It seems to have disappeared for good around the time that Jeffrey Masson's book on Freud, "The Assault on Truth" came out, for which I am truly grateful.

This label was simply another way of saying to women 'we will dismiss/ignore whatever you say, because you have been disabled and are inferior by birth - hah, hah!' (The laugh was always there as well.) viz. your problem is built in, and you can't do anything about it, and I don't have to take any notice of you. Is this superior or is this superior? This is precisely what I am talking about - the superiority and the dismissing of the inferior. Being on the receiving end of that label was a very good reason to be very cross, which is what happens to anyone who feels dismissed as inferior.

Freud of course had no understanding of the fears held by the masculine, or of the biases coming from society or its religions etc. Neither did he come up with a label for the sexual abuse of boys by men; where is the 'penis envy' here?

In the ensuing years this label developed by an 'expert' actually helped to prevent the sexual abuse of children from being 'seen', much less dealt with, by/in our society, as we are still finding out today. It actively 'hides' it from sight, so to speak, giving the implied 'blame' to the abused as 'making it all up'. Children were simply not believed, and were considered to be actually 'wanting it, so they made up stories'.

So, beware of thinking that labels are not important; they are terribly important. The sexual abuse of children is a major unseen problem within almost all societies on earth, and it is only very recently beginning to be addressed in some countries and reluctantly at that (including churches 'dragging their feet' because they have done it themselves and don't want to know; a great example to us all of their importance and relevance!). There are many societies where this is not addressed at all.

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Another very important method for coping is our religions. In this discussion I deal with our better known religions and 'Spiritual' beliefs. 

OUR RELIGIONS.  (6C)

[Please Note that the use of ‘spirit’ in this UUS does not correspond with the use of the word ‘Spirit’ by those who aspire to the 'spiritual'. I discuss the use of these terms in Chapter 2b Spirit & Soul.

The ‘Spirit’ used in this discussion is defined as that personal part of our mind that can ‘jump’, is intuitive, tends to generalize, likes the bigger picture, and the ‘big (theoretical) answers’.]

Introduction.

Our religions are supposed to help us cope with life as we find it in terms of why we're here and what for or the point etc, and hence they also give information about what we are supposed to do about it. Thus they are part of the affairs of the 'Spiritual' Domain; the 'Why' of anything; the 'highest' why.

Our Answers to Life. (6C1)

Our religions/beliefs about what Life is for, are our answer to the big question of ‘Why Life?', and our social structures, teachings and behaviours reflect these beliefs; they have to. We have difficulty understanding how our belief systems affect our social structures so deeply, but they do. These beliefs include our values and our aspirations as to how things ‘should’ be. So we have the ‘bright’ side of our ‘loving and peaceful’ religions, but it totally puzzles us that along with this we have a ‘dark’ side that presents problems we don’t seem to be able to solve.

Somewhere along the line, something is not quite right, but how or why? Why do we have this gap between how we think things should be and how they actually are, with a very strong temptation to ignore the actuality? Surely, a useful religion would be able to address these great gaps between our ‘shoulds’ and ‘what is’. We don’t seem to be able to just ‘try harder’. But in fact, the ‘dark’ side or the ‘underbelly’ of our social structures shows us the manner in which our religions are unable to really serve us.

Thus, whenever and wherever there is any poverty, exploitation, little to no education, degradation or filth for anyone, there you have a religion or a set of beliefs that doesn’t give life to the other; ie, it cannot serve. This list is accompanied by the inability of that society to value and support women, children, the poor and the sick. This is fairly universal, and for how long?

Each one of us is a part of God. Society explains suffering and pain using all sorts of 'reasons', eg, luck, fate, karma, the Devil and so on, but essentially, it's a big 'don't know', and not very useful either, it's basically a dismissal of a supposedly insoluble problem. But we can do better than this, especially if we can name some of these problems properly. For example, the way any society treats its sewage and waste is dependent on how that society thinks about these problems, and their effect on everyone in its population. Such problems are man-made, and the solutions can and need to be man-made as well - it is not 'God-given' and 'let's just hope you're rich enough to avoid the consequences'.

So, what’s going on? Well, the first question is, where do our mainstream religions come from?

A primary argument of this UUS is that our mainstream religions are based on spirit’s ideas about Life, and I label these religions as Spirit Based Religions (SBRs).

What is Spirit thinking?  (6C2)

To recap from Part I, in between lives, spirit, as part of space, is free to flick around or nick off as it pleases and collect ‘information’ about whatever it pleases, but that is all there is. It is of the mind only (it is ‘mental’, in terms of intuitive as well as having no body, but there is no ‘thinking’ per se, in terms of comparison or contrast); there isn’t anything else; it has no emotions and no body. Yes, it is free to do as it pleases, but for what? No ties, no relationship(s), no influence on another, no mutual endeavour, no sharing, no family, no making any difference to anything or anyone, no personal satisfaction from one’s own endeavours and especially, no point. It is also very used to no physical effort either. It doesn’t have to do anything; it isn’t used to it, and it expects not to have to do it. See Chapter 2b Spirit and Soul.

But then it’s born into a life with a body which can hurt and feel/sense and even get killed, and rather easily at that. Not to mention very high dependency while it is young, then later, the daily bind of having to look after the body. So, more fear, and life would be much, much easier if it did not have to do anything. Not to mention, it now has a memory (from the soul); horrors!, and can remember and fear pain held in the unconscious. Spirit considers soul as a burdensome lump, a shocking uncontrollable drag, and the cause of all its problems. Remember that spirit also considers this lump to be slow, stupid, and in particular, illogical and unreasonable. Spirit actually considers its own way of knowing vastly superior to said ‘lump’, and this assumption on its part has major repercussions.

It (spirit) doesn’t mind being alone/singular while it’s as spirit, presumably because it feels part of God/Universe etc, but it doesn’t like it (alone) while alive, and feels very small, powerless, exposed and above all, unsafe.

All in all, very uncomfortable, and no idea of the point of it all, as in, what for?

Spirit's Ways of Coping.   (6C3)

Thus the spirit part of us (all) does not want life and fears it, and has no idea why it is here anyway. (I might have said this before.) So, it deals with it in the way that it is used to - it can still jump to conclusions, it prefers to do nothing, which feels simpler/easier, and it can ‘jump off’ mentally. So, it can and does; it can ….

A.      Dream up ‘rational’ reasons for being on Earth

B.      Disconnect from the body; less pain that way, and

C.      Use its mind to Escape by…

a.       Ignoring it by not thinking about it or by thinking about something else, eg, consuming entertainment,

b.      trying to stay away from life and get off earth without having to die first, so, no death.

`

A. RATIONAL REASONS. (6CA1)

Spirit’s 'rational reasons’ for being on earth include …

·         This is so awful that we must have done something terrible to deserve it, etc, etc; you need punishing, but we won’t call it that; we’ll call it love.

·         We’re meant to be somewhere else which is a much better place.

·         If you were ‘enlightened’ you wouldn’t be here; if you’re here you’re not (enlightened).

·         Suffering is good for you in some unknown manner; it’s ‘character building’.

·         You should ‘lump it’; accept your position at the bottom of the heap or whatever gets dished up to you; it’s your karma or fate. Another 'you must have deserved this; it's your fault' reason.

·         God’s put us here for a reason, (which is somewhat cyclic),

·         It’s all an illusion anyway; it will pass; (here 'the words get in the way’ - again).

… all of which imply that somewhere else is better, as in, it’s not on earth. Thus, it can find only off-earth reasons for life on earth. This is the giveaway; Spirit does not know why it is here on earth, and can’t find a reason or a method to face life and find the treasures of so doing. It is always trying to get away.

The crux here is that as far as it’s concerned ‘not life’ is better than life, and thus it does not want life. If you don’t want Life you can never love it.

Thus, it cannot understand or value …  (6CA2)

·         Know Thyself (a primary commandment), and keep going, and there’s always more,

·         ‘Till and Keep’, or ‘Chop Wood, Carry Water’; much less Serve ‘the other’ (= GLS).

·         Giving TISP (Love as an action) to ‘the other’ ie, Love thy Neighbour as Thyself,

·         The equality and value of the feminine (which is???). See Part III, Women.

·         The body with the soul.

·         Making-the-2-one (what 2?) ie. Merge.

·         The psychology of our human mind comprising conscious and unconscious, and all of Jung’s work naming the ‘light’ and the ‘dark’.

·         Mirror Laws making clear the need for ethical behaviour on your part, or you’ll need to ‘wear it’ yourself.

·         Long-term intimate relationships,

·         Happy, healthy, creative children, including good relationships with them as adults (the test?).

·         Creativity and self-expression; giving life to the other, internally and externally,

·         Life for itself, human-ness; and in particular, how Life actually serves you,

·         True Self-Esteem and how to develop it. (See below, Flowering)

·         Facing life, and looking for and finding the treasure buried in the muck (Buddha's lotus flower); aka empowering yourself by understanding that ‘sewage’ makes the best fertilizer, (as long as it isn’t full of poisons). And the enormous ongoing value to yourself of learning to do so.

·         Courage for yourself and kindness for others.

·         Delight in life and gratitude for it, and

·         Loving life, finding it all enthralling.

So, there’s a few things missing here.

The consequences of these ‘rational reasons’.  (6CA3)

Victim/Bully.  (6CA3a)

All off-earth reasons for life generate a victim mentality, (God’s doing this to us, but we’re not allowed to blame Him or we’ll get stuck here). We feel bullied and trapped. A victim mentality leads to bully and taking or exploiting what you can, if you can. There is a lot of self-pity here - Poor Me. We also feel trapped and don’t know how to get out, hence anger (feeling trapped leads to anger). Fear, anger and self-pity make a charming combination and generate an enormous ‘racket’.

Racket.  (6CA3b)

So, what’s the ‘Racket’?

The ‘racket’ is the perpetual self-talk that we are so used to that we generally ignore it. It’s the judging, blaming, trying to connive and contrive to get ahead; the fury when we can’t or think we can’t; no time for self, unable to relax, have to get it all done, boredom and its ‘little mate’ overwhelm; our minds going flat out like a rat on a wheel, and no shutting it up, especially if we can’t sleep.

This is our internal ‘racket’, and we try to stop it using a lot of means; anti-depressants, alcohol, drugs, pharmaceuticals, noise to deafen us (external racket), talk, talk, talk; company of whatever kind; entertainment ad nauseam; anything really. Some things work, for a while.

But all of this is trying to use ‘things’ from ‘outside’, while the din is actually coming from inside. It’s part of the Sup/Inf or Shame/Pride that we don’t want to know about. This ‘internal dialogue’ weakens us and makes us less able to be powerful for ourselves. It comes with being Split, which is a rejection of the InSelf.

Spirit does not actually think.  (6CA4)

Spirit is afraid of Life, and only knows ‘get away a.s.a.p.’, and would do so, if it were not so afraid of pain, suffering and death, which are there to force it to look, otherwise, it won’t. It does not know that there is anything to look at! Hence, our religions and our general understanding of psychology don’t know either, so we have awful trouble working out why we are here.

Notice also that spirit does not actually think except in terms of getting away; it’s unable to notice the difference between its own theoretical ‘big answers’ and the actual practice of what’s here on earth. Our mind is our actual thinking bit, and it needs and is composed of spirit together with the soul, neither of which are able to think on their own. Note that we perceive both spirit and soul through our mind. Spirit is in fact rather fond of slogans because it doesn’t have to worry about how they will come to fruition. The more frightened spirit becomes, the shorter its attention span, and the more it likes slogans.

Spirit has absolutely no idea of the potential powers/energy available to it through proper connection to soul and through that to the body, the earth and Nature.

So, why doesn’t God tell us?  (6CA5)

Pardon me?

She has to leave us free to choose what we see and hear. She is that still, small voice inside that we are busy dismissing/ignoring because we want to be ‘spiritual’ and get away as fast as possible, or it is drowned out by our own internal racket.

Life shows us so many models and metaphors ‘from hell to breakfast-time’ under our noses all the time, but we won’t look and can’t be told. The whole of this book is about Metaphors, Models and ultimately, Motives.

So, how does our spirit part deal with life?

How can we get away from Life and avoid pain and suffering? Oh! We can just ‘jump off’ with our mind.

B. DISCONNECTING FROM THE BODY. (6CB)

The Body as the Messenger.  (6CB1)

Our body holds/houses both spirit and soul, but the feelings/sensations/feedback come from the body. This includes unconscious memories from past lives that get stored in all parts of the body. It is our receiver from out there, as well as a storer and transmitter, but we are feeling these things from inside the body. We are conscious of some things and unconscious of others, but there are enormous individual differences between people in our bodies’ sensitivities, and we can also train ourselves to be less consciously aware of what we are perceiving. We particularly do this when we don’t like what the body has to say. The upshot of this is that the body goes on receiving energies/information from out there but as we learn to take no notice; we’ve ‘shot the messenger’ and disconnected from the messages.

This is the way we use our mind to ‘control’ life (and our InSelf), but of course, the consequences of this are of feeling lifeless, which I label ‘ghost’ and discuss it below as part of our fears. Not to mention having no rudders to be able to steer through life for what we want at heart.

This tends to be the Western method of getting away from Life. Disconnection from the body is a major disconnection from Life/Nature. Alcohol and drugs are a great way of disconnecting.