Chapter 10. About Men

Chapter 10. ABOUT MEN.

This chapter has 2 sections.

MEN.  (10A)

MANLY.  (10B)

Introduction.

This chapter is about the socialization of boys/men.

Men are not the only ones doing godship, but the socialization patterns for men and women are different, so they have different issues.

Men.  (10A)

The masculine and the feminine.  (10.1)

Our society promotes and admires….

The masculine; might, strength, power, independence, control, money, speed, and anything that is faster, bigger, harder, brighter, louder, and smarter, and white really, as the way to defeat ‘the competition’.

When I say ‘promote and admire’, I mean that society is saying that these things count; they are given importance, and people with these qualities have a ‘voice’, as in, we take them into account.

While it denigrates and derides….

Weakness, slowness, powerlessness, lack of control, nature and the uncontrollable, women, children, the sick, the elderly, the passive, the dependent, and anything that is slower, smaller, softer, duller, gentler, quieter, and ‘clunky’, and not white really, and especially anything that takes time, as the way to lose the competition and thus can be preyed upon by the more powerful, ie, the masculine with godship.

When we deny or denigrate something, we are saying that it is not important and it does not count, therefore we give it no ‘voice’, and we do not take it into account.

This distinction starts early.  (10.2)

Little boys are severely socialized to this awareness around the age of 6-7. They will already be exposed to the themes of godship by TV/Media and the world in general when they are small, but once they hit school, the pressure becomes enormous. We can tell this is so, because the greatest taunts are associated with ‘you’re a girl’ using the most despising tone available to the taunting child. (Later on, many terms of derision/despising are associated with female parts.) They are taught to despise others and to compete with each other and to be superior as part of the business of being a man and achieving and getting to be a god.

There may be exceptions to this ‘socializing’, but it is a major force within our society, and this is how it is promulgated, on and on.

However, the only way that boys are actually able to do this ‘despising the feminine’ thing is to divorce/disconnect themselves from their emotions and their bodies (which are a big part of their whole unconscious, which includes their own ‘feminine’). It is also terribly confusing for them because how do you get to love anything if you despise it?

This leaves them terribly Split from themselves and their bodies and thus unable to TISP Life or InSelf. It also leaves them without any true rudders for their own purposes. Finding Desire and Delight requires connection to one’s own feelings, by definition. Hence most men are actually rudderless and turn to godship to compensate because ‘that’s what you do’ and they perceive themselves as having no choice if they want to be a man. This process is actually quite traumatic for boys, and generates a great deal of Self-Pity ie, victim, internally.

Women as the despised are not so socially forced into such a great distance between outself and InSelf, although this is happening more. One of the few advantages of nowhere lower to go?

Being cut off from our feelings.  (10.3)

When we are cut off from our feelings (both emotions and senses) they remain in the dark, unknown to us, and unable to develop or grow, as with any small plant left in the dark. Hence, they remain immature, inappropriate, unintegrated, weak, and unable to support anyone, least of all their owner, ie, they remain ‘childish’ and stunted, while they ‘leak’ all over the place. The only person who doesn’t know about them is the owner, while everyone else gets to ‘walk around on egg-shells’.

Some women may find it ‘cute’ or may even like the feeling of being more ‘powerful’ in this domain, but it can get a trifle boring as the years go by and that little boy is still there at 50, 60, 70, and so on. But who thinks this is a problem in our godship society? Not the media, because it is owned by little boys.

Another thing that happens is that men then become unable to be observant of their inner world (what inner world?) of their feelings and emotions and hence perfectly unable to observe others’ except in very general terms and not necessarily correctly either. In women’s eyes this results in a sort of oblivious blundering around which never stops; men leave themselves in the dark and actually unable to help themselves or be helped by others. This is a lot of life that they are missing out on. This ‘blundering around’ is what we expect of robots, not human beings intrinsically built to cope with the enormous complexity of Life.

This forcing of men to detach from their bodies and their emotions turns them into robots. The projection of this is the pervasive theme of current fantasy and films of the ‘noble’ male having to battle huge robotic forces that are threatening to destroy the earth. He is successful, of course, as he fights, single-handedly mind you, with whatever marvelous weaponry he has to hand and outsmarting those awful robots with his mind, because they don’t think, because they’re robots, and just do as they’re told or programmed by the ‘evil’ mind behind them.

Pick out all the psychological patterns here.

The mechanization of life.  (10.4)

The socialization of men to disconnect from their feelings, which are both the sensations from the body as well as the emotions, leads to an entirely mechanical view of Life with perfectly disastrous consequences.

The attitude to life becomes that of dealing with a car or robot. If we undo it enough, we can find out and understand all its mechanisms and then we’ll have control. We’ll be able to fix it, change it, build a better, different or new car by tweaking or hybridizing it, and so on. This attitude ‘things’ everything. Notice that ‘undoing’ life tends to take the life out of it. This, along with the ‘rational’ extends to ‘if it can’t be measured or counted, it isn’t there’. This is the basic attitude of our science and medicine, and our academic institutions, which we worship and admire, and hope that they will ‘fix’ us, ie, these are our gods.

We have a science that can allow no consideration of the psychic, paranormal or esoteric which are ‘taboo’ as stupid, deluded or crazy, yet it pervades our world because it is there, even if it is difficult to measure. (’Stupid’ is the Shadow for the ‘Intellectual’ who prides themself on being intelligent/rational.) This attitude comes about through refusal to acknowledge, much less consider, the enormous amount of information from Life (energy and ‘vibes’) that the body is receiving and absorbing/storing in the unconscious throughout our lives. The fear of being ‘irrational’ (and in with the peons) is driving this one.

We actually live in an ocean or ‘soup’ of vibrations from inorganic as well as organic life, and we absolutely refuse to look at this. In fact, we are taught to consider this ‘vibrational’ stuff non-sense, but it is our ignoring it that is daft; “the fish doesn’t know the water”.

Our ‘flat’ society with its Science, Technology and godship view essentially ignores and disrespects meaning, intuition in terms of sensing ‘vibes’, the psychic, the esoteric/hidden, synchronicity, ‘guidance’, connectivity, telepathy, the Inner World, dreams, the body, the ‘small voice within’, and so on, all of which can be picked up by the Unconscious/InSelf to varying degrees depending on the receiver’s ‘tuning’, attitude and reception.

Our basic social message is that the external and material world is the only one that matters.

Under this mechanical thinking….  (10.5)

  • Nuclear energy is OK and the most efficient means of producing electricity; it’s a pity about the waste or Chernobyl or Fukushima. But, fear not; by that time, we’ll have worked out a way to live in space or on Mars, and so on, and so on. (This is very ‘spirit’ thinking.)
  • In Medicine, the body as a mechanical device means that treating it as an animal needing to be part of Life is not relevant.
  • Emotions or our attitudes or situation don’t affect physical health; physical health doesn’t affect emotional or mental health; our belief systems don’t affect the body.
  • The environment barely affects the body, and anyway the environment is basically fine except for maybe a bit of global warming perhaps, which is nothing to do with us humans anyway, (ie, don’t blame me).
  • Illness is genetic or caused by a bug which we can ‘fight’ if we find out what it is. Causation is mechanical but symptoms are repressed or ignored as ‘in the head’.
  • It doesn’t matter what we do to food; what goes into our processing comes out the same at the other end. Pharmaceutical medicines fix people, are ‘proven’ and safe, and don’t have side effects or interactions.
  • Natural alternatives are dangerous; as are supplements, herbs, homeopathics and all the rest of them as ‘unproven’ and ‘unscientific’ and so on. [This is despite hundreds/thousands of years of use for herbs, much research done during the 30’s to 50’s on vitamins and minerals, or millions of people (India and others) using homeopathics.]

There are legions of possible examples here.

There is no ‘sense’ in this mechanistic view, because we have thrown ‘sensing’ out of it.

It goes on….

Animals are considered things without emotions (like men). It leads to their being treated as production units or commodities, without any respect for their needs, and this treatment is often ghastly. Experimental animals are treated ‘objectively’ with little consideration except to keep them effective as subjects.

But this mechanical attitude to our own life and other life is killing us. Surely by now, it would be clear to ‘blind Freddy’ that animals have emotions; not to mention animals and humans are built in the same manner with the emotions in the same part of the brain.

But our mechanistic ‘understanding’ continues to continue. It is part of male socialization and the pervading godship society. Ultimately, it’s an attempt to dominate Life. Male disconnection from the body means disconnection from their feelings whether sensing or emotions. This disconnection leads to fear of these as ‘unmanning’ them, which leads to their feeling powerless. Thus, they are very afraid of releasing this point of view. We therefore need to be clear that it is the judging with the disconnection that is the problem; it is not the lack of power. The body is the region inhabited by the soul. Male socialization leads to a Soul-less society, and we have lost our way.

If men can’t ‘See’ this, which they can’t, it can’t be changed by them, which it must. Thus, it can only be ‘Seen’ by women and changed by them.

The mechanical causal view is a bit like a frog in a pond considering himself the Big Cheese and ignoring anything outside the pond as a method to compensate for feeling powerless against life.

All our science, medicine, technology, and economics maintain this point of view.

Women, as outside this P&C/godship ‘club’ can See this if they can bear to look, and have the time to think and observe.

This type of thinking is actually stopping us from Seeing, much less addressing how the way that we treat our environment and Earth is actually affecting our health and our ability to reach our own potential. We are simply not noticing what we are doing to Life and ourselves and our bodies. This is at the personal level as well as the social. As women jump on the bandwagon of ‘equality’ (by being like a man) there is less and less notice taken of the body and its needs, which happen to look a bit like Earth’s.

Basically, we’re counting the things in the physical because we can and ignoring the things that we can’t measure or count as irrelevant; in general, because it’s an individual thing. This leads to a terrible distortion of what is important. This is a very ostrich attitude and very limiting, but we cannot see that this is what we are doing.

This disconnection/split from the body and the feelings (= soul) puts a huge emphasis on matters of the spirit, as being part of the Mind, and complete failure to connect to said soul. (See Chapter 2. Spirit and Soul) This has led to much of our current social system and its patterns. This is deeply exacerbated by a. Our religions teaching us that our ultimate purpose and Heaven are off-earth, and b. Our ‘rational’ model of thinking cutting us off from the other energy departments, crippling us.

This is so much so that we consider Life itself as a ‘mechanical thing’ – a great set of cogs going around all interacting with each other, with evolution as the mechanism for change. There is no need for God or anyone; it’s all just a fortuitous accident, and anyone who wants to believe in some sort of benevolent overview is a deluded romantic (read, irrational). Yet, disbelief in God is itself a religion in a manner, in that this makes it OK to muck around with the cogs doing whatever we please for this single life and nothing’s gonna happen to me, and I’ll get to Heaven anyway. (Yes, well, maybe and maybe not. The Mirror Laws are always there regardless of what you think.)

No relationship.  (10.6)

Being Split internally (no relationship between the outself and the InSelf) prevents men from any real relationship with women and children because they are unable to relate to their own weaker inner selves. In fact, our society has a lot of trouble with the term ‘father’ which is now being defined all the way from ‘sperm donor’ to being actively involved in the child’s development throughout the child’s formative years. Thus, we mean different things when we say ‘father’. The word becomes ‘elastic’ as well as romanticized and everyone gets confused. (of course, everyone has had a ‘great’ dad!) The more detached, uninvolved, or not knowing or delighting in the child, the more the adult cannot access their own Inner Child and cannot know their InSelf. Many children actually see very little of their fathers. “The Cat’s in the Cradle” is a good song about this dynamic.

This socializing of boys to despise women as part of growing up to be a man is based entirely and solely upon whether that baby has a penis or not. (Remember, gods are born gods.) No other attribute is required, although there is the assumption that there will be greater physical strength at maturity to enforce this ‘power over’, which is what happens. If it has a penis it has every chance of getting to do god and if it hasn’t it gets to be a peon, automatically.

The penis, which has the function of sexual organ and the elimination of urine is also now the source of ‘power over’, and it is very easy to get them all mixed up. Sex now includes power over others as well as piss. This comes out, for example, if a man is feeling powerless or powerful (= ’power over’); angry or afraid (= ’pissed off’); or actually wanting physical or emotional loving. Any of these emotions can be translated internally as ‘sex’ because sex, piss, and power are now all mixed up in the unconscious, which is what happens when bodily sensations and emotions get disconnected and buried. This also contributes to the tendency to sexualize everything.

Sex.  (10.7)

A definition for Sex from Part I Foundations, section 2D could be ‘the merging of the male and the female, becoming one, for a time, (which feels ‘heavenly’) which has the potential for the creation of new life’. [Some churches take this literally to mean only male plus only female and only for children; leaving their subjects in a mire of definitions of ‘male’, ‘female’, ‘procreativity’ and so on.]

Sex is seen as only in the physical, but this UUS argues that it is the external model or metaphor for the internal process of the Creativity that can arise from the Merging of our 2 selves/’people’ within us (the outself and the InSelf).

The problem for men is that it is simply not possible for them to fully merge with the woman if they are busy despising her, albeit unconsciously. Socialization has cut the man off from his body and emotions so what happens is that the sex act becomes a physical sensation only; there is little to no possibility of the emotional, mental and spiritual domains being accessed during the ‘merge’, therefore, no ‘heaven’. This actually builds enormous pressure of expectation on the physical act because all humans want love, but men are socialized into a stance where they can’t get it, but unconsciously keep looking for it. There will be a perpetual and unsatisfied desire of wanting the other feelings associated with sex, and wondering if that is all there is, but being unable to identify them any other way except in the physical as the sex act. Fulfilling sexual gratification thus becomes the great search, and as the years go by, if they haven’t worked out what’s happening, the frustration becomes ever greater; ditto the Self-Pity and Victim and the blame on women who won’t ‘give it to him’, and so on and on.

The problem with sex is that we can’t just be animals and ‘do it’; nor are we meant to be, and neither do I think that animals feel ‘heavenly’ about it, or contrive to find the ‘biggest bang’. Humans are the ones with that InSelf we cart around inside us. We have motives and we carry them with us in all that we do.

The upshot is a most peculiar world where men sexualize absolutely everything, and try to use sex as a means of power and control, as well as the expression of anger/fear.

The sexualization of everything.  (10.8)

This places enormous emphasis on sex and the search for the ‘big bang’. We even think we know that the answer to the problem is the ‘big bang’, so, lots of emphasis on large, hard and fast, lots of physical techniques and so on.

It includes….

  • Checking out others’ sexuality, regardless of any need to know.
  • S&M, pornography, deviancy and risk; generally as a method of increasing the stimulation, because we’re bored off our scones.
  • Sexual abuse of the dependent and powerless; ie, ‘power over’.
  • Sexualization of so much as a way of ‘selling’ anything – more stimulation.
  • Enormous sensitivity to ‘sexual’ anatomical words naming those bits, especially women’s nakedness and the exposure of these. On the other hand, we never expose men’s genitals (‘normal’ view), because?
  • ‘Exploring my sexuality’ as the reason for more stimulation.
  • All mixed up with godship for those who can get it or have it and envy and jealousy for those who can’t.
  • Getting mixed up with ‘unclean’ because it’s all ‘down there’.
  • Men blaming women for what is actually their own sexual response as well as trying to stop hers. (Remember, men’s own response leaves them out of control.)
  • Men thinking that any sexual ‘product’ of his (in the external) has any intrinsic worth.
  • Women should ‘give it to him’; ‘mother’ his needs and be his sexual lavatory, and reassure him of his great skill in using that lavatory by faking orgasm – amazing!
  • Women faking orgasm ‘for him’ – a great recipe for no intimacy at all.
  • Women as sexless, passive and childlike (eg. no hair on the body) and no threat to the male ego.
  • Social conditioning of women in terms of a single stereotype of ‘beauty’ for them. This is currently the Barbie doll with big boobs and long hair and long masculine legs, and denigration if not able to conform; a real ‘cookie cutter’ effect; “And they all look just the same”. Different ages and cultures have all had different concepts of ‘beauty’.

Add your own observations to this list as you wish.

The sexualization of everything is not only about wanting power, but also the search for relationship. If it were actually simply sexual needs, masturbation or a rubber doll would be sufficient. There is a great wanting of ‘sex’ but the godship with the disconnect from the emotional leaves men with the great titter and denigration as the ‘manly’ thing to do. Sex is treated as ‘keeping score’, or another notch on the gun, or the woman must ‘satisfy his needs’, as if she were a lavatory or that rubber doll. The one thing that you can be sure that women (and actually all of us) hate most is being treated like a lavatory, hence during sex she is prone to detach and ‘go somewhere else’ when she ‘gives it to him’, which makes it all worse. So, heaven needs to help a child born under this type of ‘merging’.

Relationship within a godship society.  (10.9)

It has always been true that the servants/peons have always known a great deal more about the master/god than vice versa ie, the ones ‘underneath’ know lots more about the ones ‘above’ than the ones ‘above’ know about those ‘underneath’ them.

There will be no Merge under conditions of inequality. Merge requires equality and relationship.

Men relating to women and vice versa.  (10.10)

I have discussed the tale of the gorgon Medusa in Chapter 5C and used it to paint warnings about how to deal with gorgons, but I wish to point up the mechanism again here.

Men cannot relate to women, or at least find it extremely difficult. Most women do not feel related to by men. On the other hand, women are enjoined to ‘show men their love’ and all will be well and he’ll work out how to do it, and they’ll ride off into the sunset together. Well, no, I don’t think so. The ‘despising’ mechanism of godship is still in full force, along with his Self-Pity plus the Blaming of her for doing this to him.

The woman is supposed to ‘show her love’ and be sympathetic to someone who despises her. Sigh.

This is why I have discussed this. It is true that women may want to be caring, (for whatever motives on her part) and that men want to be loved, but my argument is that godship which is basically Power and Control (P&C) is the opposite of TISP/Love, (See Chapter 5) and both the despising and the concomitant self-pity/victim will have to go first before love gets a look-in.

It is extremely difficult to understand that even though this person is indeed starving for love, they simply are unable to ‘see’ it if you try to ‘show’ it to them. They cannot recognize it. Everyone around them is simply being ‘used’ by that person for judgement and comparison, and this never stops. They are suffering, but you will suffer too. Sad, but true.

I also consider it important to be warned about doing godship/P&C to self or to others (Mirror Laws). The results are highly unsatisfactory for all, ie, the ‘hungry ghost’, or that hole at the end of the road.

The most important thing to understand in all of the above is that the oppressor in godship/P&C actually feels victimized by the oppressed, if that’s whom they are blaming. (This is how Projection works.) Anyone who is doing ‘superior’ to others, eg, men to women, is doing superior to their InSelf (ML) and thus feeling ‘inferior’ and sorry for themselves (victim). Many men will blame the women for making them feel inferior, and hence feeling perfectly justified in dishing out retribution (bully). That is the mechanism.

Thus, the great question that men like to ask women; ‘What is it that women want?’, is actually a complaint about women as the great oppressor, while at the same time doing ‘the master doesn’t need to know about the servant’ ‘godship’ ‘thing’. Women are truly unable to answer this – they may answer, but will not be heard. It is not a question; it is a complaint plus a superiority. Keep clear.

In a similar vein, men also like to sympathize with each other about their ‘oppression’ by the ‘demands’ from women and Life. While women would like to relate fully with men, as well as for their men to relate to their children, and Life would like men to ‘till and keep’ and learn to like it, our general understanding is that ‘freedom’ (think spirit), along with godship is the great aim in Life, and both mean not having to do anything. Who wants to include tiresome, routine relationships and looking after our bodies and children and Nature?

But what is it that men really want? Is there something other than godship that men seem to yearn for?

Well, something that men seem to be really anxious about is to be a man and manly.

Manly.  (10B)

“If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.” J K Rowling.

Introduction.  (10.11)

Is there a difference between being a man and being manly? The answer probably depends entirely upon who is doing the defining, so I will simply use the word/term ‘manly’ here.

All advertising knows that men aspire to manly and are very insecure about whether they are ‘there’ or not. The definition of manly being someone who is able to do the masculine things in whatever way, be it through looks, physique, or deed, with the qualities of strong, fearless, achiever, god, rescuer and so on. But, within our normal social conditioning, he does this by being careful not to be feminine, because he cannot get to masculine if he does so. Hence getting to be a man means making sure he is not a woman.

But this is actually a disastrous definition because a man is not manly simply by not being a woman.

In fact, if his definition of himself is only ‘not being a woman’, he will always be worried internally that he is, ie, he will fear being a woman and we all reject and attack the things we fear.

Life comprises both masculine and feminine.  (10.12)

All of the qualities of the masculine and the feminine make up the enormous continuum that we call Life, and Life needs them, and is composed of them. Any example of a single aspect could be, strength vs weakness, or speed vs slowness, which are opposites in Energy; they are dualities on continua called strength or speed, or how strong or fast whatever happens to be. We need weak or slow at times as we need strong or fast at times; neither is better than the other per se, and Energy is just tonnes of dualities. We need the contrast, and we need to use the energy of them as and when relevant, as in, you choose what to do with them. Considering either of them as good or bad is a judgement, which of course you are also doing to yourself as you do it to others (Mirror Laws).

So, if we have a society that thinks all things masculine as great, and all things feminine to be vilified, then this is about as relevant as a magnet deciding that it shouldn’t have one of its poles, because it’s ‘dumb’. But, since a magnet is defined by having its 2 poles, you will have no magnet. Similarly, Life without the feminine leads to no Life, which is exactly where we are heading.

The whole of Earth is a magnet because of its iron core, and magnetic forces are harnessed by humans in ways we take entirely for granted, including much of our modern-day technology. Hence, there is a great deal of power here which is reliant on having both ends/poles as a unity, as in, both ends are as important as the other, but different, and it is the fact that they are united within the thing called ‘magnet’ that generates the power of it. Hence, if a pole is missing, there can be no power.

There are magnetic forces at work in the irresistible attraction between N and S poles as between Yin and Yang, as well as the repulsions between N and N, or S and S poles. This also applies to the masculine and the feminine, and that tremendous pull between them. Hence, we end up with the very confusing situation where the male is highly attracted to the female and vice versa, at the same time as he is busy despising her and she is wanting relationship.

Another important thing to notice is that as any person is able to integrate both masculine and feminine within themselves, that person becomes more ‘magnetic’ and they will have some indefinable life force that others may sense. This was probably the ‘power’ that Jesus had. This is a very important ‘power’ that only humans, not gods, can develop. Remember gods stay split, by definition, because they are playing the Sup/Inf Caper the whole time.

Both masculine and feminine are built-in to all humans.  (10.13)

Human beings are built with both masculine and feminine energies inside them. For men the feminine is unconscious and labelled the anima by Jung, and for women, the masculine is unconscious and labelled the animus. (Remember also that we humans will experience the other gender across our multiple lives. See Reincarnation Ch. 3G.) When all is said and done men and women are still human beings and there is a great deal in common no matter how different masculine and feminine may be.

Essentially, the man is defining himself by saying he is not his unconscious/InSelf, which does not help the Split between the outself and the InSelf at all. So, no TISPing the InSelf here, and hence, no potential for true self esteem (TSE) either; no-one is going to be truly satisfied. (See, How TSE is reliant on TISPing InSelf in Chapter 8.)

Thus, every time a woman approaches any similarity to a man in ability, concepts, or in whatever manner, the man will have to reject this ‘whatever’ to maintain his own self-estimation as a man. Thus, within our social godship conditioning, women have the double trouble of threatening the man’s ‘manhood’ as well as his need for godship, no matter who she is or what she does, unless she offers only service and/or sex, (which is what she’s here for, of course – sarc). Thus, the man looks for protection from any similarity to a woman, and would prefer them to be out of his orbit altogether except for service (the mothering/saint bit) and sex (the damned whores bit). This is called ‘screwing’.

Another very important point to understand is that a man deems it necessary as part of being a man to be aggressive with respect to maintaining/protecting his own self-esteem, which is dependent on being a man. But any aggression is telling you that this self-esteem is not true at the unconscious, and that’s the problem – there is no True Self Esteem and never can be while our current ‘manly’ with godship thrown in for luck socialization/programming of all continues. In fact, this can give us some hint that if a man is manly, he won’t need to defend his self-esteem – TSE doesn’t need defending.

The more we judge the feminine, the more the feminine has difficulty within our society, and our society becomes increasingly split off from the unconscious, especially men, and thus any real Creativity with its concomitant True Self Esteem (TSE) is not and cannot be available within society to the frustration of all, really. The only thing that gets us to TSE is TISPing the other.

The consequences.  (10.14)

In general, men greatly fear and detest women as they fear and detest Life and Nature, and do everything they can to control them because they blame them for all their troubles. What is done to Life/Nature and women shows us that they are feared and consequently diminished, denigrated, dominated or ‘disappeared’ as much as possible in whatever way, eg, a burqa is a great way of ‘disappearing’ a woman. As for what we do to the environment, well!! It’s better if we don’t look, so we don’t.

It is much easier to blame the other than to understand one’s own responsibility in this, but blaming diminishes us all, so that’s no good. But, in general women have every reason to fear and detest men right back. Just because we’re not conscious of this doesn’t mean it isn’t there, but it is sending us all a bit barmy.

This is the external manifestation of the degree of the internal Split between the inner masculine and feminine, and that split is huge and leads to no relationship, no equality, no Merge, no TISP and no Life.

How much more demonstration do we need? Our current ‘normal’ socialization is unsustainable, and our current ‘norms’ give us no handle to redress this situation. We are so far away from this that we don’t even perceive that there is a problem.

Very few men will look at this and I suspect that it’s mostly because they are so busy competing with each other for godship that they don’t even notice what gets in the way. However, women are what they (men) can use to give themselves a ‘leg up’ in the godship and ‘manly’ stakes, so they do.

Thus, doing these godship things rather short-circuits the point of having a life really, and in doing so, the man is basically unable to achieve true self-esteem (TSE) which this UUS argues in Part II is what we are all really wanting and deeply at that. And getting to TSE requires TISPing the InSelf. (I know I am repeating myself forever here but this is probably the primary message of the whole book, and it is indeed something that society ‘wots not of’.)

Strong pressures.  (10.15)

In this manner, there are some very strong pressures on men through their socialization.

  • Spirit is afraid of Life and sees no need for the soul which leads to as little connection with Life as a human can get away with. This is our mainstream spirit-based religions. This is a very big fear.
  • The need to be a god or else a big nothing/zero/peon (and in with the women!). This is reinforced by the media. This is a very big fear.
  • The fear of being a woman along with a deep wish/need to be manly. This is a very big fear along with a very deep desire reinforcing it. This is reinforced by the media, and used greatly by advertising.

And none of our normal responses to these fears lessen the fears. ‘If we do what we’ve always done, we’ll get what we’ve always got.’ The more fear we have, the more we try to control everything.

Control.  (10.16)

So, what do men do? Try to control everything.

Control their body and punish it and/or distract the mind.

Men are taught to disconnect from the body which leads to all this mechanization and sexualization.

Flagellation used to be a recommended action. Celibacy or only doing it for procreation was also deemed ‘good’. Sports and overwork are also very useful here. Lots of computer games and mobile phone use may also help to keep the focus on the mind and ignore the body.

Control women and punish her.

Well, anything goes really and globally still does; rape, slavery, prostitution, murder, exploitation, forced servitude, FGM, general despising and abuse all round really, and so on and on, because the male sexual response is the woman’s fault.

And/or take the sweetness only.

As in, sex without the relationship; called ‘screwing’.

But then it becomes less sweet, and there’s no growth anywhere either. (The parrots where I live have worked out that the base of some flowers is sweet, so they bite them off to eat them and that’s the end of the flowers; no fruit here.)

The general response of controlling the body and/or the other hasn’t worked so far, and we’ve been trying for rather a long time. And out of this control, all women have to be taught to be really, really careful not to offend men, because they’ll get clobbered in some manner if they do (and it’s their fault). And in this there’s definitely no relationship.

Our godship society with all its judging and blame built-in guarantees that all people will be cut off from their InSelf. The greater the Split, the more we experience fear and mean-ness which increases daily, and carrying fear and mean-ness in your body debilitates you.

But there is something that men cannot control. It’s called a penis.

The penis as betrayer.  (10.17)

The penis is the part of the male over which he has no control. It’s the part that is actually alive. Some people wonder if this is God’s big joke on men; it is such a betrayer.

Well, what does it actually do? We ask this question because we are looking for what’s actually happening in the physical and for any metaphors in that, because metaphors inform us about what’s happening in the other energy departments.

  • It stands to attention in the presence of the feminine, and wants to relate intimately with it, and this is a very big want – all those hormones running riot.
  • It ‘stiffens’ to the point where it is able to penetrate the dark and the unknown and if it is able to do that, especially if it is able to get to ‘the bottom of it’, it produces the seeds of himself which may be able to fertilize an egg of Life that can grow to produce new life.
  • The lack of control means that the penis is ‘telling the world’ the truth of what’s going on within the man.

And to unravel/unpack these themes.

  • ‘Standing to attention’ means you must take notice of this.
  • The ‘desire’ is huge, it just about takes over, and is urging ‘follow this’.
  • ‘Stiffening one’s resolve’ means to face your fears and follow this resolve; the fear being the dark and the unknown.
  • The drive is to penetrate this dark and unknown of life; (not to mention this is what roots do). Penetrate means to understand fully; to really know it, and really knowing someone/something brings intimacy.
  • And if you ‘get to the bottom of it’ while making the effort of continuing to press on, there is a wonderful sensation of great sweetness and a release of potentials of self – the seeds, which are little bits of ideas coming from within. (‘Seeds’ are ideas.) Also, when you get to the ‘bottom’ of something, you’ve found a truth, and that can bring delight.
  • Any of these seeds can fertilize an egg from a woman, so what is an egg? An egg contains the genes of the female along with something for the new combination of genes to feed on or establish a place to feed/support the new growth. So, an egg has the means for new life to establish itself and get going. And the feminine is the source of this ‘sustain’.
  • The penis ‘tells the truth’ even if the man doesn’t want others to know; it’s the great betrayer.

And I would ‘read’ this as…

  • As you notice Life, pay attention….
  • And face your fears and get to know Life and the feminine well, penetrating its deepest mysteries, while tolerating the process and effort of going forward and then having to go back and then forward as the ‘knowledge’ builds….
  • You will find much sweetness, and stacks of good ideas, ie, inspirations, viz, the ‘breath of life’….
  • And be able to partner/Merge with Life….
  • To bring in new Life, particularly if you look after and protect this ‘egg’….
  • And you will grow in understanding that Life and in knowing it very well, because you will want more….
  • Which will bring more sweetness….
  • And so on.

And, tell the truth of your responses to Life.

Well! How much more needs to be said?

This is what using the correct words/names/labels can do if they are correctly aligned with Energy, because they are true. We can let the words tell us, and this means we do not have to rely on gods to tell us what is ‘true’ about life, as in, all human beings are perfectly capable of working out what is true for themselves, and by themselves, if they want to.

Back to manly.  (10.18)

Over the last 2 sections concerning gods, Feudalism and men, I have tried to spell out how the fight/competition for godship is completely built-in throughout our godship society, and how utterly detrimental to society this actually is. And the crux of the matter is that it is entirely detrimental to all of us personally. There is simply nothing here except dust, misery, boredom and no real satisfaction for anyone – that ‘hole at the end of the road’ that the Lakota Shaman talks about in the quote at the beginning of this Part 3 Counting. There is no TISP here and no Life, just the downward spiral of all of us looking for status for our very little selves and shrinking by the minute. The irony here is that the bigger we try to be, the smaller and meaner we actually get and the reverse is also true. If we can forego worrying about how ‘big’ we are, it seems that we get to ‘big enough’ which is certainly less stressful.

Competing for godship is a criminal waste of our potential as human beings and it leads to a great ‘poverty’ all round. This poverty is our lack of meaning in our lives (Spiritual poverty) and it leads to no Soul, no Creativity, and no personal growth or insight. And all of the above is entirely why we humans absolutely need to understand not to worship any ‘gods’ other than God; that’s why it is the first commandment, and look what happens when we get that bit wrong. As we leave out the soul and the feminine, so the unconscious feels ‘left out’ and thus, so do we.

We tend to rationalize this perpetual competition by quoting Darwinian ‘laws’ of evolution, whereby we are all competing to further our genes, ‘survival of the fittest’, etc, etc, but I rather suspect that humans are here to contribute to life, not compete with all. After all, our competitiveness is not preventing ‘losers’ from having children, which is rather what the ‘eugenics’ people wanted to stop in the early years of the 1900’s; maybe that’s the next step for our current version of godship. This is, in fact, what’s happening, although under the cover of different words.

Survival of the fittest.  (10.19)

Any gardener will know that ‘survival of the fittest’ in their garden will leave them with a great lot of weeds, thistles, blackberries, couch, sorrel, oxalis, and so on because there are so many, and who wants them? The more weeds we have, the less our vegetables or flowers can grow. Lots of flowers and all our vegetables need particular conditions for them to flower and fruit including protecting them from weeds. We love and want the flowers and vegetables so we do our darndest to give them the right conditions. Can we do the same for people/children?

Mirror Laws.  (10.20)

And don’t forget the Mirror Laws. How much do you wish to experience for yourself those things that you have done to others whether advertently or inadvertently? We all ‘wear’ our deeds whether literally or figuratively until we get that it can be quite unpleasant, and learn to stop. So, what do you want to ‘wear’?

Finding True Self-Esteem (TSE).  (10.21)

The question then is how can a man find TSE and real satisfaction for himself? Well, within the factors that impinge on men, we can find a few themes to work with here, and we know that TISPing ‘the other’ is the key to the correct use of Energy for your own sake.

The hunt for godship is essentially about getting away with and justified in doing zero/nothing to contribute to Life, which is itself a refusal to ‘Till and Keep’ aka CWCW, aka Serving Life. (godship is also about massaging the ego – the wanking bit. It needs massaging because there is no contribution to Life.) But Serving Life is the only way anyone can accumulate any TSE.

As a man is chasing godship so he is spending all his time growing and protecting his pride/vanity/self-esteem which is only at the outself/ego level (the ego, in lay terms as used here, is part of the outself) and hence it is not true for the InSelf and will always require shoring up (the ‘house built on sand’ bit). Then the man demands that the women must also protect this self-esteem because it’s her fault it’s falling over, etc, etc, which just shows you how powerful women really are – sarc.

So here we all are, programmed to think this state of affairs is how Life should be, and arguing about what’s true or untrue about what’s untrue (because we cannot get at the truth in the first place) and all running around in ever-decreasing circles, which end up in the dark, and who is happy about this?

Chasing godship is totally bad news all round and thus it’s the outself/ego and its ideas about itself that have to go and jump in the lake, which of course is the hardest thing to do. But no TSE unless you do.

The more you accumulate TSE the more you can get to Manly and will need no shoring up from anybody. You will find that you count for you, and that is enough.

All of the following practical steps will challenge the ego, and help you Serve Life and help you to be much happier.

Getting to manly.  (10.22)

One of the most useful things that could be done would be to find a positive definition of what a man is. At the moment we have the sole negative definition of ‘not a woman’ which is truly a complete disaster for all of us. High time to work out a universal useful positive form. Maybe if more men can get to Adult, and learn to give TISP, they can work out an answer. In the meantime, taking these steps will help.

Take time.  (10.23)

The soul needs Time. All Soul-Keeping and the feminine takes time. In fact, time is an indicator that you are on the right track. Find time and the patience. The process may not end either. Time is part of TISP.

As well as…  (10.24)

  • Take responsibility for your own sexual response.
  • Don’t worship gods or power or money and don’t try to be one either. This is a whopping ask and it’s not gonna happen in a hurry. But, it’s a good start.
  • Aim at being a human being and TISPing InSelf. This the correct direction in life. Find your power for
  • Worship what is loving, loved and lives and gives TISP to the other.
  • Eradicate all Self-Pity; it makes you a victim, and all victims will bully when they can.
  • And investigate the Protect roles that interest you. The question to ask is ‘what helps to keep the soul, body, life and Nature’, and I think there’s quite a bit of room to move in that.

Grow up and serve.  (10.25)

  • Grow up and work out how to TISP the other.
  • Ditch wanting to be mothered which keeps you as a child; adults look after themselves. It’s the mother’s job to withdraw mothering as the child grows up. Requiring mothering stops men growing up, and therefore ‘unmans’ them. It’s also nigh impossible for women to feel sexy with a ‘child’ she’s just had to pick up after, nor will she have any energy for it. The thing is if you’re expecting to be served by another, you cannot be grateful.
  • Ditch the media. Check out how much you want ‘bread and circuses’ entertainment which will keep you peed on; this is a big issue for older ‘child’ men.
  • Stop having a snit when you can’t maintain your status, especially as you get older.
  • Ditch believing all you are told by gods which keeps you as a child wanting to believe adults/experts. Use your own senses and thinking to work out whether these things are true or not for you, however inconvenient.
  • Ditch computer games with violence, weaponry, glitter, noise and fast responses as a way of spending time, and most of them could be banned. They are very mental with no physical engagement and are simply not part of a truly civilized society heading in the right direction for humanity. They encourage godship and huge disconnection from Nature/Life.
  • Consider actuality rather than the rational, starting with yourself.

Challenge yourself.

Challenge yourself in your own estimation; do some ‘peon’ things.

  • Who are you if you are not a god? Are you really powerless or a failure or out of control? Who are you if you reconnected to your body? Can you face your own sewage?
  • Ask the death questions. What are the things that are most important for you?
  • Pick up rubbish in the street. Don’t attack anyone. Stop competing and judging all and sundry. If you’re being defensive, you’re a long way from TSE.

TISPing the other and protect. (10.26)

The ‘P’ in TISP stands for Protecting, which seems to have some fairly deep resonance for men, not to mention they are generally more physically able to do so. An awful lot of those computer games are about men ‘saving the world’ and being a hero, although there is far too much judgement there as well. But it seems to be an important theme that could be developed for the greater good within social structures.

It is the soul/body that needs protection and many of our government utilities are/were about how we organize that protection; housing, statistics, sewage, running water, electricity, gas, education, health, waste treatment, regulation, transport and so on. We rely greatly upon our fire and rescue services, although governments try to reduce their expenditure on same. However, many of us admire the work that these men do (and some women also); they are ‘heroes’ to those who have been rescued.

Tales of knights rescuing (protecting) the oppressed as well as ‘damsels in distress’ have been part of our culture for a long time.

Men are also generally very bad at protecting themselves (or others) in the first place especially if they are young and competing forever for godship, taking all sorts of risks and mostly ignoring their bodies. This rarely changes unless they experience a lot of pain that doesn’t kill them (which may have been exactly what initiation ceremonies were about). Ignoring the body/emotions for however many years a man can makes it much harder for a man to learn to TISP his own InSelf, and consequently others.

Protecting is the ‘keep’ part of ‘Till and Keep’ which means keeping Life. Life means anything that has a life of its own and can give life to itself, eg, human beings and Nature. This also includes protecting those who support the growth of Life.

Could this include helping your wife – could you ‘mind her back’, as in, look after the external concerns of protecting the household so that she can look after the internal concerns of sustaining the children as much as she wishes, etc, etc? How could you protect her from the massive overwork that being a woman brings, and I don’t mean simply ignoring it, or adding another gadget into the mix.  You could possibly ask her (though getting past her guilt can be a pain for all).

And maybe ensure the children know how to contribute to the household and look after themselves.

Make things.

Many men find great satisfaction in mending and making with their hands, which can include more than building or making things. Music or art or writing and other forms of Creativity all have their own rewards.

Kindness and Courage.

Look for kindness and courage; these things ‘stand like stone’ and are very valuable human qualities. Notice that gods do neither. Kindness absolutely disappears in a godship society; it is considered very ‘woossy’.

Hence, it is a great challenge to engage in it.

Life Wants to Help.

And all of us can ask God or the Universe or whatever for help which is a submission, and all of us can learn to TISP our InSelf, as in, Love Thy Neighbour as Thyself.

And in the end, as you get these things going in your life, you won’t even worry about ‘manly’ because you will be.

And Stop Taking.

As an aside, older men are rather prone to talk about ‘giving back’ to society in a slightly self-congratulatory manner as if all of us should be doing this. However, I rather fail to see what exactly women were ‘taking’ in the first place. Maybe someone can explain.

As well as ….

It would be a good idea to ban the ‘killing’ electronic games mostly played by boys; they are simply dreadful in that they promote a very hard judgmental attitude toward other people as requiring their control. They are basically the last thing teenage boys need to be doing. As we kill others, so we kill ourselves in some manner (ML). ‘Killing’ ‘baddies’ is no way to solve problems. Growing ‘goodies’ is a much better tactic which gets rid of the problem at its source.

In chapter 13, I consider ways to ‘grow goodies’.

Men are not the only ones doing godship, but the socialization patterns for men and women are different, so they have different issues.