Theos-Talk Archives (January 2007 Message tt00373)

  Bless you Cass!  Ha


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AT HOME WITH THE INNER SELF

                                       by J.B.

    I learned how to lock onto my inner self 
at all times.  - JB


CONTENTS:
    
Introduction 
I. The Success Mode  
II. Society  
III. "Mental Illness"  
IV. Method  
V. Childhood  
VI. Psychology  
VII. Philosophy and Mysticism  

 
INTRODUCTION


"KNOW THYSELF"

       
    Perhaps it is best said at the outset that 
we consider ourselves to be at the earliest 
beginnings of man's first true awakening.  We 
consider the problems of the world to be rooted 
in the fact that each individual person has not 
yet discovered the nature of his own consciousness.  
The grand awakening, should it ever come, 
would be one in which every individual person 
is brought to realization and complete, clear 
awareness of their own internal workings.  We 
consider that in some point in time this will be 
required by school and statute.  The general 
maelstorm mankind finds itself in and has to do 
something to get out of, is the result of all the 
machinations of projection and transference in 
which everybody is working their own internal 
conflicts out on everybody else.
       

   Freud and Jung were the godheads of a new 
beginning.  They pointed a course as to what 
has to be done to get beyond the mass externalization 
of stress that results in bloodshed and insane, 
abusive wealth.  Internal disharmony can be traced 
to being at the root of our problems from starvation 
to ghetto muggings, and until people are able to 
be responsible to themselves for themselves, there 
is not a faint ray of hope. Until something is done 
about the source of the carnage, there is no hope 
on earth. Working on your own mind-set and 
improving your understanding of yourself and 
others has been alluded to since Grecian times, 
but it is no longer a pleasure for the idle rich, it is 
a necessity for every person on earth.
       

   Everyone goes through life picking up from 
everybody around them pieces of mind-set that 
are devoted to one's own destruction.  That is 
why you have to get down to the raw elements 
of where the whole things started and trace it all 
through.  I've spent forty years doing this and 
believe such a process is the only hope for 
humanity and a new dawn coming over the earth.  
In the destroyed condition I've been in and come 
back from several times in my life, I've seen 
what is possible and know that there is real hope.  
There is a process going on we are only at the 
beginning of.
       

   People talk about meditation, talk about T.M.,
 talk about tantra, talk about prayer, talk about 
books on philosophy and psychology, talk about 
discussion groups, talk about this and that and the 
other thing - but no one makes a clear statement 
of what they are trying to do.  A person is bound 
to get confused.  If you've gotten to a point where 
you realize that the thing you would like most to 
find in this world is a steady source of guidance, 
to help you become your own source of guidance 
- then that's what you are after.  You never find that 
stated anywhere in simple language.
       

   The key to the whole process lies in the fact 
that there is a fountain-spring of endless guidance 
and information within every human being.  One 
only has to learn to get out of its way, to let the 
consciousness generate in a stilled and quiet mind.  
Because of our western heritage, I'm tempted 
to use the term that is common in the A.R.E. and 
the churches - that the Christ-head reigns supreme 
within.  When you begin to have experiences of 
the information from within, you learn how perfectly 
attuned the inner mind is to your immediate and 
momentary circumstances.  It can guide you 
exactly to the thinking required to deal with the 
outer circumstances or other aspects of 
consciousness that is absorbing your attention.  
It is perfectly attuned to the potential of expanding 
your total consciousness to its absolute maximum.  
It is designed to do this.  It is endlessly trying to 
do this.  It can't stop doing it.  The fountainhead 
lies totally within.  All we discuss here pertains to 
the methods and particulars that are involved in 
uncovering the wellhead.
                                          - J.B.


I. THE SUCCESS MODE

   
     ...I really can't talk to people who can only 
think what they can get out of it.  There are 
people who think every second they are with 
someone what it's going to get for them.  When
 I lived in the ------- area of  -------, there were
 people there with almost exclusively that mind 
state.  As far as I am concerned, they are a cancer.


   The key to understanding the essence of the 
circumstances of these driven type of people, 
lies in the fact that they almost universally had bad 
childhoods, in varying degrees.  It is beyond my 
capability to imagine a person with that unusual 
amount of energy to have found that energy through 
anything but through frustration.  What they are 
doing every day is going out the door to prove what 
a "good kid" they are.  They don't care a thing 
who they kill in the process.  They are still being
 a "good kid."
   

   If I go out the door in the morning  to be 
engaged with society, which is  a specific feeling, 
for me the greatest  kick is just to be knocking 
around with other people.  It doesn't matter if 
it is teaching or digging ditches.  This is not true 
of the success-oriented person.  The success
-oriented person sees everything in the form of 
hierarchies, and evaluates everything in terms of
 his position on the pole, and what it's going to 
get him.
   

    Nothing succeeds like success except for 
one thing that is wrong with it.  It's addictive.  Like 
all addictions, it takes a little more every day to 
get the same high.  If the person is fortunate 
and happens to be at the right place at the right
 time often enough, and also able to do what is 
required of him in his work without messing up 
wholesale in his handling of people, then he 
can make it and continue succeeding.  In the 
long view, though, how many corporate 
presidents are there?
  

      Obviously the success-oriented person 
is necessary for our economy.  As soon as 
these people get into middle management 
positions and climb about as high as they will, 
their dreams begin to die.  I've seen half a 
dozen of my friends in their fifties go through
 this process.  Everyone of them became a total 
loss.  They start getting their hopes up about 
being able to accept defeat, which they are 
never able to completely do, and somehow 
crawl across the line to sixty-five and retirement,
 which becomes a vahalla of sorts, whereupon 
they promptly die within six to eighteen months.
  

     No matter who you are, if you don't die 
young, the bullshit is going to be stop being 
bought sooner or later.  If you have to prove 
yourself every day all over again, it gets 
very tiring.  Even if a person doesn't know 
what's going on, it still gets tiring.  You get all 
sorts of variation of reaction.  One guy will 
go home and whimper to his wife all night, 
which is a common reaction.  Some go 
whimper to the bartender.  Some go whimper 
to their buddy.  I'm referring to people who 
are in relatively high achievement positions.
   

    What I'm trying to suggest is that I would 
love to see just one case of a person who 
isn't like this, because I don't think there are 
any.  I'm  saying that they are poor Johnny 
one-notes.  Some are just the opposite.  
They scream from the minute they come in 
the door until the minute they leave.  If you 
are saddled with having to prove yourself 
all the time, it's a hopeless task.  I had a 
couple of friends I thought weren't going to 
have this problem.  They got to forty-five or 
fifty though, and every one of them fell apart.  
There has to be some that don't fall into this 
pattern, but I've never met them.
    

      I gave up on altruism as an explanation 
of people's actions.  There are a few people
 who's basic interest is knowing how to be 
important to other people in positive ways.  
They are not masochists or sadists, but a third 
type.  These people are interested in getting 
the day's affairs in order and accomplished and 
in developing a smooth flow of effort, and so 
are the best kind of managers.  Unfortunately
 there aren't too many of them.


       The majority of people are motivated by 
their effectiveness at what they are doing.  If 
they loose this effectiveness, although it doesn't 
happen too often, they just fall apart.  All people 
are effective at least to a degree at what they 
do.  The minute they don't have something to 
give them a sense of accomplishment, they 
have nothing to fall back on and their whole 
world comes apart.


        The average guy has a job because 
the boss has to have somebody there to 
do it.  If the boss could do it himself, the guy 
wouldn't be there.  He doesn't see the boss 
that often, but generally speaking, bosses 
have a tendency to be a pain in the rear 
because of some specific reasons.  The boss 
got to be boss because he was effective at 
doing something real.  Now he's got nothing 
to do, so he has to stick his nose in 
somewhere it doesn't belong so he can 
have a feeling of effectiveness.  This is the 
biggest problem with managment.  They 
have a tendency not to have anything real 
to do.  It depends on the situation.  Most are 
up to their eyes in paperwork.  The paperwork 
isn't like being on the line and doing the work.  
You don't get the same sense of effectiveness 
out of it.


        In psychological patterns, it is a matter of 
having or not a sense of effectiveness.  If there 
is no one around to listen to the bosse's ideas, 
then no matter where he is in management, in 
his own eyes he considers himself a peon.  
He's always looking to be upstairs, so he always 
has the inferior feeling.  Every time he gets a 
rebuff of any kind, it comes back down the line.  
That's the difference between good and bad 
managers.  The whole error in their thinking 
lies in that they see their whole world as tied 
up in their job situation.  They have no world 
view.


        If I had had my mind and gone into 
something, I would have, I think, come to 
the place where I was doing as much as I 
wanted to do.  I've known a few people that 
consistently turned down promotions because 
they didn't want to be bothered with the pressure 
of the higher level.  The trouble with most 
corporations is that they won't let you get away 
with it.  You turn down a promotion and they 
end up firing you.


        To me the idea was to run just as fast 
as the situation pulled me.  I wasn't interested
in being anything beyond what I wanted to be.  
I knew that in myself I didn't want to be over-driven.  
I knew too many people in way over their heads.


      In the matter of continuing to maintain a 
sense of function and capability, which is the 
key to the whole thing, there are people who 
want to feel personally close to those around 
them and there are people who abhor it.  The 
ones that abhor it are the ones who have the 
negative pattern of having never known what it 
was like to be cooperative with anyone in their life.


      When I was working and had any type of 
job with people working for me, the thing that 
was most important to me was the sense of 
personal involvement. There are some people 
you work with that don't want any part of it.  They 
can't tolerate the sense of closeness, any kind 
of a sign of closeness.  They want to come in, 
do their work and leave, and they have nothing 
to do with you personally.  There are others 
who are just crazy to have company.


      We are always looking for an expansion 
of the communal feeling.  The fact that people 
do this or that because there is a buck in it is 
what kills it.  It is cheap prostitution.  The 
power-chaser will never let you see his soft side.  
On the other hand, a person who trys to be 
all heart with people will never let you see how 
they cheated someone.  Generally, neither can 
even see it themselves.  That place in the 
middle is what we're seeking.  The more good 
company you are, the more you get.  The more 
you give, the more you get.


      "Positive thinking" or "correct mental attitude" 
has nothing to do with success.  If you examine 
the people that propose these theories and 
say they are responsible for their success, 
you find the theory has nothing to do with it.  
They were in the place it happened and there's 
nothing more to it.  It is outside our range of 
control.  Success comes to one person and 
not another and there is no accounting for it.  
There is no rich man who ever created a family 
of rich men.  There is no king that ever created 
a king.  There is no philosopher that ever 
created a philosopher.  It just doesn't work 
that way.  Our type of comprehension wants 
us to believe that when we get smart enough 
we'll achieve success.  This is the tragedy of 
the ego.


      At puberty and after puberty for a certain 
period of time exists the possibility of knowing 
that what you want to know is about your own 
internal nature. If you don't have any 
reinforcement to know what you can find, 
you don't find anything that means anything
to you.  So you end up loosing the opportunity.  
Once you loose the opportunity, the urge gets 
misplaced or sublimated into the urge for 
material things, status, and all the rest of it.  
But you can never satisfy the need for a 
square peg with a round one.  You can 
just never do it.  You can chase it all your 
life and never get any measure of what 
you are looking for.


      What is unhappiness?  People are unhappy 
and never question it.  If what you have now 
makes you unhappy, what would make you 
happy?  In each person's mind are a certain 
number of routes to his own fulfillment.  They 
are different from person to person.  What 
are you really striving for?  It is the desire for 
a fulfillment which can't be found in the marketplace.


      I am convinced that the people that succeed 
in this world in the ordinary sense, have views 
of the world that permit them to maintain fantasies
that will not suffer examination.  Their head is 
addicted to some view that permits their mind 
to function in a response pattern where they 
are beyond the capacity of doubting.  This is 
not really bad.  There would be no life on 
earth as we know it if it weren't so.  We have 
the belief that we have to answer to success 
in order to answer to our own inner needs.  It 
is a fallacy of reasoning that is almost universal.  
We're putting round pegs in square holes.  It 
is an inaccurate view of what our needs truly are.


      I have had a very clear outer mind at times 
in my life.  This permitted me to understand 
that when a mind is free of the inner stress, it 
hungers for activity in the outer world.  Not for 
the purpose of success, but for the purpose 
of utilization of energy, to maintain a sense 
of internal tranquility.  As soon as you're doing 
something in terms of success, you're off 
the track.  The reason you do things is that 
the pressure is there to do so.  If you do 
nothing, the build-up becomes unbearable.  
The doing is the satisfaction, not the successfulness.  
The real relief is finding a place to put the 
energy that answers to itself in the doing of it.


      The other day I was coming from downtown 
--------- on the bus.  There was a street person 
who got on the bus.  You don't see nearly 
as many of these people in Pittsburgh as 
you do in some of the bigger cities.  This 
person was probably in her fifties, massively 
overweight, wearing about five coats, the 
last of which just fit around her and was 
buttoned at the top.  She had on a knit hat 
and was carrying four cloth shopping bags.  
Because of my knowledge of these people, 
she was carrying everything she owned.  
She was completely out of her shoes, her 
feet were sticking out all over.  It was cold, 
she had on about three pairs of stockings 
and then a pair of socks.  It's a great 
question whether she had a regular place 
to sleep.


      Now this can be very upsetting.  It is 
upsetting to everyone on that bus, whether 
they know it or not.  We all identify with the 
possibility of being in that condition, whether 
we identify with it or we don't.  It's automatic.  
This is why we like to be near successful people.  
The load is less.  That's the only reason. The 
mutual responsibility is less, period.  But if 
you get too far down the road, being around 
successful people can be a very bad drain 
because that side of your being feels inferior.  
You find youself in the flip-flop of the thing.


      I lived in the YMCA downtown and all 
the rest of it.  It's an existence that completely 
eschews the success mode.  For one reason, 
it isn't available to these people.  Anyone, 
on the other hand, who answers to the success 
mode in that their bills are regularly paid and 
they can be looked upon as being about the 
norm in society... So long as these conditions 
are met, a person is incapable of escaping it.  
It requires personal failure to generate insight, 
the way we go about it.


      It is my hope that when we come to 
know how to answer to the inner being as 
its capacity develops in children... If we come 
upon that line and never loose it, we can 
attain the ability for insight by a totally painless 
route.  The way it is now, it takes a crash 
before the outer self can be forced to admit 
that there even is an inner self.

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