Chapter 6. Coping

Table of Contents (this page)

Part II, Chapter 6. COPING

Chapter 6 has 6 sections, all with their own ‘pages’.

PSYCHOLOGY.  (6A)

OUR LABELS.  (6B)

RELIGIONS.  (6C)

UNADDRESSED FEARS.  (6D)

COPING.  (6E)

BIGNESS.  (6F)

Introduction.  (6.1)

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, with 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)

Primarily this section is about the psychology of our two selves interacting with Energy with its Mirror Laws, but it is also about how we as society label and describe the ways we try to be ‘bigger’ than the other, but get into trouble because ‘the other’ is inside us as well as outside us [Mirror Laws (ML).] it’s about how we label the things we find in life. Hence the labels we use are very important and we need to look at where they have come from.

Introduction.  (6.2)

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 terms ‘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.  (6.3)

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 not true for the InSelf; it’s ‘hollow’ inside.  This is the outself that is wanting this ‘bigness’, which it will do if it can even at the expense of the InSelf. 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 always has to be ‘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.  (6.4)

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.  (6.5)

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 in ‘spiritual’ disciplines as a method for increasing self-awareness/consciousness.

The devil.  (6.6)

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 (Mirror Laws). 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.  (6.7)

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 the Sup/Inf Caper.  (6.8)

A person who thinks he is superior ‘does’ superior to others (generally unconsciously) and is ‘doing’ superior to his own 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.  (6.9)

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 energy departments 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 Power & Control (which I refer to as ‘godship’ in Part III), 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 low 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.  (6.10)

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 ourselves, 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.  (6.11)

We are proud of our superiority and ashamed of our inferiority. (However, we can be genuinely proud of our efforts, so we need to be careful with this word.) In this context, it’s still about the Sup/Inf Caper.

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?  (6.12)

I discussed it in Part 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, and that ‘doing’ generally requires effort – drat! 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 part of the ‘wailing and gnashing of teeth’ that many have been 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?

It is important to question these wants because they may or may not be correct for you and they are much more likely to be incorrect for you if they come through comparison with the other.

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.

The next topic is about the labels we use to name things.

Our labels.  (6B)

Introduction.  (6.13)

This section is about the importance of the Labels we use.

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’ or ‘expanding’ 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 a 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’s ‘Penis Envy’ is a good example.

Freud and ‘Penis Envy’.  (6.14)

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 or why it was crook. It seems to have disappeared for good around the time that Jeffrey Masson’s book on Freud, “The Assault on Truth” (1992) came out, for which I am truly grateful. But its disappearance is most probably the outcome of the women’s movement and the great mountain of abuse reported by women over the years, heard and believed by other women, at long last.

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 integrity!). There are many societies where this is not addressed at all.

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

Religion.  (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 UUS 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.  (6.15)

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.  (6.16)

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?  (6.17)

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.  (6.18)

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 ….

  1. Dream up ‘rational’ reasons for being on Earth,
  2. Disconnect from the body; less pain that way, and
  3. Use its mind to Escape by…
    1. Ignoring it (Life) by not thinking about it or by thinking about something else, eg, consuming entertainment,
    2. trying to stay away from life and get off earth without having to die first, so, no death.

Rational reasons.  (6.19)

This is part 1 of ‘Spirit wants to get away’.

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 its 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.

Hence it cannot understand or value …  (6.20)

  • 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, Ch.8 Flowering)
  • Facing life, and looking for and finding the treasure that comes out of 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 reasons.

Victim/bully.  (6.21)

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.  (6.22)

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.  (6.23)

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. (In the business world, it tends to like the ‘bottom line’, and is not interested with how that line was reached.)

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.

Why doesn’t God actually tell us?  (6.24)

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.

Disconnection from the body.  (6.25)

This is part 2 of ‘Spirit wants to get away’.

The body is our messenger.

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 their 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; we need our body for our rudders.

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.

Escaping.

This is part 3 of ‘Spirit wants to get away’.

Distraction and entertainment.  (6.26)

We can easily spend our lives thinking about anything rather than look at ourselves or our lives. This is partly because we have no idea of the value of so doing. In this current technically marvelous age, we can distract ourselves with computers and communications, the media, and watch films, read fiction, fill ourselves with fantasy forever and so on; these are our ‘circuses’. All of these are a consumption of someone else’s imagination, creativity or life. They are not our own. For many people their own lives are just about unbearable, particularly in comparison with ‘the beautiful people who wear black all the time’. But, of course, ‘we’re all having fun here’ because that’s what we’re supposed to be doing with our lives.

It’s perfectly possible to spend our lives this way, but not particularly rewarding.

But we can also use our minds to get off earth; We can ‘jump’.

Spirit can jump off to heavenly things.  (6.27)

We can use our minds to ‘jump up and away’ because that’s what our spirit part can do. But as we ‘nick off’ we cannot get to our own abilities or powers to do God. ‘Nicking off’ is a ‘do nothing’ answer to life which has nothing to do with Life or Energy or Explore and Express or healing the split.

Most forms of ‘Eastern spirituality’ as taught in the Western world have a large emphasis on the need to meditate as the path to enlightenment and ‘Heaven’, and hence getting off the ‘wheel of suffering’ of life on earth etc. etc.

Our ‘gurus’ who teach meditation talk of a blissful state, feeling at one with God, or ‘we are all one’, freedom from suffering and ‘saving the world’ if we all learned to do it. Not to mention, it’s all an illusion anyway. Surely, this is ‘the answer to it all’.

‘Heavenly’ things.

‘Love and Light’.  (6.28)

Spirit’s teachings and aspirations of ‘love and light’ and ‘forgiving everyone’ imply that this is all you have to do to ‘get there’ (enlightenment and off-earth) but it’s a tactic that may or may not work for you. It is not the be-all and end-all, and in particular it is perfectly unable to deal with the dark. But it’s the dark that is telling you the actuality, and it is the dark that can show you what light could be. Jung makes it clear that the “the brighter the face, the darker the shadow”; see below.

(Watch the film ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ to see the dark side in glorious technicolour (and it’s not just India)).

This difference between light and dark is showing you the split or difference between outself and InSelf, or what we want versus what we have. Peace vs War, or Wealth vs Poverty provide good contrasts at the moment.

The problem with busily ‘loving’ everyone as the antidote to fear is that the ‘love/lerv’ is still based/founded on fear and unless the fear is addressed, it stays that way. It (‘lerv’) is being used as a mental (read conscious) method to cancel out the fear. This is a control/repression or denial of the fear, which means it is still there, and you are just wishing or wanting that it is not. “What you resist persists”; you will wish or want on…

The more afraid you are, the more you may try to ‘love’ everything or everyone, but the ‘love’ here is a mental concept only, so it cannot encompass the other Energy departments (PEMS). But you can certainly kid yourself about your own ‘lovingness’.

We have concepts of ‘unconditional love’ which sound so enticing; surely the more we can give it, the more we must qualify in the ‘love and enlightenment stakes’ and get to escape off earth for good. But, in repressing fear, we have been unable to address the fearful part of ourselves, much less look at it or love it. Fear is the other side of anger, and we can feel trapped and very cross underneath, but these also have to be repressed in case God or anyone else finds out we’re not very loving after all.

With so much ‘love/lerv’ flying around, TISP is a very useful tool for checking what’s actually happening. Wanting to give TISP is the key here; spirit isn’t very good at that. Remember also that creativity is dependent on Merge. Repressing your fears does not lead to Merge because you are repressing your InSelf (=GLS) which is where your true creativity lies. Not to mention you won’t want or like life. You’re refusing it, and sending it to the dustbin (waste/refuse).

The funny thing about all this ‘sweetness and light’ is that our society ingests truly stonking amounts of sugar (including alcohol), with a very high occurrence of Diabetes. Do we consider that we have enough ‘sweetness’ in our lives?

The more we feel trapped in this situation, the more we essentially feel bullied by God and hence a victim; (He’s plonked us here and He won’t say why and He’s bigger and forcing us to stay here). But we’re not allowed to blame God or we get stuck here. (Nice double-bind, eh?) The upshot is that the more afraid we are, the more we try to impose our ideas/opinions/views on the other, and cannot cope with individuality or differences on the other’s part (tolerance has flown out the window). This is how we bully others; watch how teenagers impose their concepts (correction; the media’s concepts) on their peers. This is herd mentality.

Some more ‘New Age’ words. What do they actually mean?

‘Enlightenment’.  (6.29)

If we look at synonyms for the word ‘enlightenment’, such as delight, feeling lit up or lighter, pleased, more relaxed, the tension eases; ‘Seeing’ (insight), ‘the light bulb goes off’; ‘the light turns on’, etc, we get a much better idea of what enlightenment might be. ‘Delight = de-light’ and is a very useful word – ‘enlightenment’ less so. There is a temptation to think of enlightenment as one huge blinding flash, as in a bolt of lightning, and everything is Seen all at once, but I suspect that human insights are probably little ‘enlightenments’ which to me are more like light bulbs going off one by one, and on to the next one over the years. I use the term light bulbs because they’re usually enough to light a room in a house, from say 40 watts (luminescence) to sometimes 100 watts on a big issue. One bolt of lightning is an awful lot of light bulbs, but rather more scorching.

Insights are delightful; “de light’ will show you the way’, but all the more reason for staying on earth to find more, and there’s always more.

All one’.  (6.30)

I suspect we are meant to feel alone so that we will look within for ‘the other’ (GLS). Nor do I consider ‘all one’ with no attempt to better ‘the other’s condition in life’ to be particularly useful to anyone. We are here to work out who we are when we are alone; how else do we find out if we can’t be told, which we can’t? We are also here to explore Energy which is pretty strange stuff and very interesting too. There’s plenty of time to be ‘all one’ when we’re dead. Our ‘oneness’ lies in ‘the other’, not our idea of God or heaven. So, ‘how are you that other’ is a far more relevant question than looking for escape mechanisms. The Mirror Laws are always there whether we like it or not, simply because that is how energy works.

The more you are able to create from your own ‘aloneness’ (which would be a partnership with GLS, ie, your InSelf) the more you are loving your InSelf, and are able to become more connected to the world of Nature.

‘Bliss’.  (6.31)

I suspect that feelings of bliss, freedom, and ‘all one’ belong to the feeling of release from the fears of being alive, as in, success in jumping back to spirit’s state when it is by itself in space, and indeed one with God, ie, part of. (Oh! Thank goodness! I’m not really alone.) Freedom from those boring demands of the soul (”Till and Keep”) and children, and bliss that it has solved the problem. But, maybe not. This UUS is arguing that we are meant to find out who we are in our apartness, so that we can become partners to God. Hopping back into being part of God kind of short-circuits this aim.

‘Illusion’.  (6.32)

‘It’s all an Illusion’, so it doesn’t matter; I’ll just ignore it all.

We do get things wrong, and much of this book is about trying to explain which bits; and all explaining brings up semantic problems and this one’s a doozy. But ‘illusions’ bring us to the problem of what does matter to you, because that is why you are here. How can you matter if life does not? If it’s all illusion, can you do as you please because it does not matter? The real illusion is our own thinking/perceptions about the world and our own teachings; it’s not the world around us.

The primary illusion for human beings is the failure to a. know that we have an unconscious in the first place, and b. realize its importance.

Treating Life as an ‘illusion’ and meditating off to ‘blissikins’ short-circuits the whole point of being alive as far as this UUS is concerned.

‘Saving the world’. (6.33)

While I agree we’re making a truly horrible mess, I suspect that dealing with it by physically cleaning it up, starting with each of us picking up rubbish and cleaning up messes, is a good way to begin (or maybe, not even making a mess in the first place?).

Life may do very well without us; as in, Life/Nature needs protection from us; we’re the ones who are killing it. Notice that ‘saving the world’ usually means ‘I want the world to be the way I want it’ ‘and maybe notice me while I’m at it’ (back to the Big Cheese again).

Those who teach these things.  (6.34)

Over the years as I have observed/watched these gurus with The Answers, they tend to have a pattern which can be characterized by …

  • generally male charismatic teachers who are ‘enlightened’ and ‘get it’. Thus, they are allowed (= you have given them the authority) to tell you what to do, and you are allowed to hang on their every word. (check the BC list in Chapter 5A)
  • like to look and dress like Jesus or Indian gurus, as much as they can,
  • do not have the ‘drag’ of supporting women and children,
  • travelling (this means they are healthy and strong; the sick tend to stay still, but if you’re sick, you’re not enlightened anyway),
  • generally singular; enlightenment is for those who ‘get it’, and it makes you ‘free’.
  • they are teaching and speaking about how they have the answers; they are not making, doing, creating, supporting or serving an-other; they are not using their hands; someone else does the housework; no ‘chopping wood or carrying water’ here,
  • are basically saying ‘be like me’; (remember the BC list),
  • often surrounded by a ‘harem’ of women who ‘get it’, competing (and squabbling) to be ‘the one’ while the guru enjoys being competed over. There may or may not be sexual exploitation going on, but you’re unlikely to hear about that until much later as part of the ‘imploding’.
  • rarely have intimate long-term relationships with a woman of equal age and status; it’s much more likely to be someone younger, who can be taught and moulded to the ‘right’ shape, for a while.
  • little personal expression of understanding how it all fits together; in general, it’s the line about ‘you’ll understand when you ‘get it’’ (of course!),
  • meditation is ‘the way’ to freedom and bliss; (but not very handy for bringing up children).
  • tending to come and go as a bright comet travels through our universe and may not last for very long. Many ‘blow up’ or implode eventually or die young. By this I mean that they are unable to sustain (the S of TISP) themselves in the face of life in the long term.

Meditation is the Way.  (6.35)

Meditation is a word for thought, so we can meditate on something as a method of collecting and sifting and sorting our thoughts. We need it and it is very valuable.

My understanding of Meditation as currently taught in the Western world is that a lot of people use it to ‘shut the mind up/down’, to get rid of the ‘racket’ and manage perfectly well to do so.

But I suspect that the Toltec goal of ‘stopping the internal dialogue’ is also a name for getting rid of said ‘racket’. This UUS posits that the racket is a measure of the split or the distance between our outself and InSelf.

Meditation can be an experience of peace and quiet which you may not be able to get any other way. Peace and quiet are one of the factors required for ‘grow’, see below. But we are taught that getting there requires stopping the ‘monkey mind’ (Buddha’s name for it) or ‘the racket/noise’. This is probably the ‘self-talk’ that just goes on and on and never shuts up. We tend not to notice it if we’re ‘busy doing’ but there’s nothing like still and quiet to notice the contrast. So, we do our darnedest to stop it and control it, otherwise we are never going to get to peace and quiet. But, here’s the control bit, again.

The ‘monkey mind’.  (6.36)

This ‘monkey mind’ is your self-talk coming from your InSelf; it’s part of our sub-conscious to unconscious. But it’s a sort of gabble or gibberish and a mish-mash; it makes little to no sense and we don’t want to know.

But the InSelf is not referred to as the ‘Inner Child’ for nothing. It communicates as a small child does and you get to translate if (and only if) you give it the time and/or interest to listen to its concerns. A small child doesn’t know the whole story, as in, it has no larger picture or scope of Life; it is fairly unconscious and unlikely to have a full vocabulary to describe or name its concerns. No context and no labels make it pretty difficult for you as your conscious mind to quickly work out what’s going on. What ‘the child’ wants is for you to acknowledge it and respect it and help.

So, here you are busy telling it that it’s not ‘real’, or ’nothing to do with God’ or it’s stupid, and kindly ‘shut up’ for God’s sake etc. etc., because you are thinking that unless you can meditate, you can’t get to ‘spiritual’, much less ‘enlightened’, and so able to get off-earth for good. Some people can shut it up, and some people can’t.

But this ‘child’ is your InSelf; it deeply needs and wants your Time, Interest, Sustain and Protect (TISP), but you’re too busy, and you don’t want to.

As someone who could never meditate and certainly not find any peace of mind, I spent a lot of time searching for ways to find it. The only way I could find was to give that scared and angry gabbling child the time and interest which I eventually found fascinating anyway. But I had to learn to translate and understand how ‘she’ worked. Eventually I found a method of addressing her/my/our concerns (with much help on the way). This method is called the Treasure Tool; See Chapter 16.

In general, we have very little social understanding that in giving TISP to this Inner Child, it can and does ‘grow up’ and begin to take on a partnership role internally. This partnership means both of you working together and that ‘child’ has the keys to the doors that open to Life. An internal ally with good connections can be a great help. You have much to gain by addressing that child’s concerns, not the least being that as your child’s concerns diminish, so does the ‘racket’; (thank the Lord).

This internal partnership is the way that you learn to partner Life (GLS), and is thus the source of feeling ‘fed’/satisfied, along with proper rest when you have done that. Hence growth for both of you.

It is in fact, just like bringing up a child – it does require a lot of your time and resources. These are much easier to give if you are interested in it. Hopefully, you can eventually find it fascinating as well.

This is the way that our inner life reflects or mirrors the ‘worldly’ life of bringing up children. The outer life is the model or metaphor for the inner process.

The upshot of all this is that we look for peace of mind which certainly is not easy to find in our current social milieu and we think it comes as we repress/control the ‘monkey mind’. But this ‘monkey mind’ is part of us all as well; it’s your other ‘me’, and a small child at that. As you repress and deny this child, so it cannot grow, and neither can you. So, no internal equality, partnership, merge, creativity or TSE. If these things are not there internally, they won’t be there externally with the other either.

‘Successful’ Meditation may be your ticket off earth, but your actual business is to learn to want to be on earth with your InSelf and delighted about it. As you are able to Real-ize your InSelf (=GLS), so your InSelf has become ‘real’; this is delightful.

‘Big’ and ‘Little’ minds.  (6.37)

Meditation/’spiritual’ teachings bring up the business of explaining how our minds work; that we have 2 parts of the mind. One part being the ‘bigger’ which is also superior, and knows what is required, and has to discipline and control the ‘little’ mind which insists on behaving like a monkey; hence ‘monkey mind’.

The whole of the Little Mind is denigrated as wrong, weak, fearful, crazy, lazy, stupid; the cause of all our failures, and keeps us trapped on Earth and so on and so on. Since soul is housed in the body, the body cops the flack as well. This ‘Little Mind’ needs to be controlled and trained to behave and be good, and it is Big Mind that can and has to do it, or no ‘enlightenment’ or escape from Life. I consider that this ‘smacks’ of being punished for your own good, and other ‘father’ type ‘authority’ thinking.

‘Big’ and ‘Little’ are the wrong way around.  (6.38)

But these terms are actually the wrong way around. What is termed the ‘big mind’ isn’t because this bit is our outself, and it is limited in its awareness, although we think it is ‘big’. In fact, what is termed the ‘little mind’ is actually the ‘big’ bit.  The whole of Jung’s work is geared to this understanding, and that is why it is so important. The unconscious really is a great deal larger than the conscious; psychologists use figures of about 9x bigger, but it is difficult to quantify, (although I am not quite sure why we need to quantify it).

What we have here is a situation where our mainstream religions (which I consider to be based on spirit’s ideas only) attempt to ‘explain’ our human psychology without any understanding of what that might actually be. Spirit is assuming that it is the Big Cheese here which, however ‘natural’, is entirely incorrect.

This causes a rather large problem, in that ‘spirit’ has the psychology of itself and hence all human beings the wrong way around, and hence all ‘spiritual explanations’ are incorrect. (And this in spite of so much consensus among spirits too, for so long!) Thus, not only does spirit have human psychology incorrect, it has God’s ‘psychology’ incorrect as well. If we are made in the image of God, then God has to be made in the same way as we are.

This ‘explanation’ by spirit of our psychology leaves out any understanding of partnership with anybody for anything. It cannot even begin to consider such a thing because as far as it is concerned there is no ‘other’ to be a partner with. Spirit considers itself to be singular. This is why I call these religions Spirit-Based (SBRs).

Thus, and so, SBRs, in coming from spirit’s estimation of itself, have got it wrong, and therefore can never ask the right questions. And if you cannot ask the right questions you will never find the right answers.

We cannot ask the right questions.  (6.39)

Within our social understanding based on Spirit-Based Religions we cannot ask the right questions.

Questions are like keys in a door; if the question is wrong, all our answers will be wrong and the door can never open.

If the question is correct, our answer can be correct; the door will open and we can move through the door.

The other things that trip us up are our assumptions; the things we don’t question. The assumption that our conscious mind is ‘bigger’ than our unconscious (not to mention ‘in charge’) is a major assumption that has really bitten us on the bum, as all assumptions do; this one for a very long time.

If this UUS is correct, it should lead to our ability to ask the right questions, which I think it does, which is why I’m writing this, because it makes sense to me of so much that has puzzled me over the years.

Authority.  (6.40)

In all our religions we are looking for authority because we want to know what to do to fix our troubles, and think that ultimately it comes from God, especially since He has all the Power and Control. But there’s a problem, because the question is, ‘who has said so?’ because that bit comes from a human being who said ‘this comes from God’, and you get to take their word for it, or not.

The most obvious things about our current mainstream religions is that they a. come from Spirit’s ideas about things, and b. none of them value the feminine to varying degrees. The other obvious thing is that these are not the only religions/teachings available to us; they are simply more common in the Western world.

The fact that every person has had both male and female lives in their pasts shows that gender, while important in the differences, is of equal value in what we are here to learn about ourselves in relation to Energy. Not to mention every one of us has both genders within our psyche now – one of them being conscious and the other unconscious.

There can be no proper relationship when there is disparagement, and Love requires proper relationship.

Hence, any ‘word of God’ that diminishes/devalues the feminine/Life/Earth/Nature simply hasn’t come from God. Somebody with a bias has got in the way.

Neither does God have P&C over us. Here, to repeat, we are failing to understand that God and Energy are two different/separate things. God understands that TISP gets us to Life and that doing anything else doesn’t, and since Energy simply reflects your InSelf (ML), it’s up to you what you want to do with that, ie, it’s your choice how you respond and how you work with Energy. Being like God means that doing TISP will get you to Life, while not doing TISP will get you to not Life, and we don’t like that bit, but, it’s our choice simply because it is our own attitude.

It is also true that the more afraid we are, the more we turn our brains off as part of that physiological fight/flight mechanism and don’t and can’t think. This shows up with all beliefs that are unavailable to seemingly contrary/different data or logic. This is when this information/data/logic is simply condemned rather than any attempt to explain or incorporate said contrary facts/ideas.

It is also nice to be told what to do; it has all the ‘advantages’ of remaining a child and able to blame others, but it has its disadvantages as well. The more you are dependent, the more you will be afraid.

Well, if God doesn’t have the authority, who does? Well, how do you know? Just because ‘everyone says so’ does not mean that it’s correct. What do you want authority about? How to avoid the ‘bad’ and get the ‘good’ and be happy? And what are these? Because they are different for us all, and they all have a function and a message for you. Your ‘dialogue’ with Life is your Exploration of Energy and how you Express what you find out about who is inside you. God is at all times trying to tell you how this Energy works/functions, and so was Jesus, and others, but it gets lost in the translation, even if you heard anything in the first place. My understanding of Jesus is that he was trying to live and teach a life-giving way of working with Energy and God, but much of his message was ditched by whichever church found bits of it inconvenient, especially as they increasingly wanted P&C.

We also have trouble with God being ‘Real’, so if He’s not, we won’t get punished, and we can do what we like, and so on? Remember that the Mirror Laws (ML) of Energy are the reason for ethical behaviour on your part at all times for your own sake. ‘Do as you would be done by’ is alive and well in the 21st century. See also Part I, Mirror Laws.

If you do want to look for some form of ‘authority’, look for someone with integrity, wisdom and kindness for a start, who is able to direct their lives to a ‘right living’ for themselves and some sort of ‘light’ within them that’s attractive to you, eg, human, with humanity.

In the end, you get to decide, for better or worse, but it’s always possible to explore concepts and test and observe for yourself (while keeping an eye on those MLs of course). It’s also wisest because then you will know for yourself and thus it won’t be simply a belief. Edgar Cayce apparently said ‘Serve or Suffer’ and that’s what it looks like to me, although I consider that there are some very rewarding reasons to Serve. See below.

This chapter is called Coping, and we are still looking at how we cope with our fears/issues in life, and we have a great deal in the media about ‘putting it all behind you’. Our fears have lots of different names and degrees of strength. We like to think we have all the control, so, we can decide that these fears are not there anyway, but they insist on ‘popping up’ when we least want them as anxieties, neuroses, obsessions and compulsions, depressions, irritations, stuff that gives us ‘the shites’ and so on. But they all have a fear aspect to them, which is why I use the word ‘fear’ as a catch-all term, and judging always makes us more fearful. Well, what happens then? ‘Putting it all behind you’ means that these fears/issues are not addressed. Essentially, we have turned our back on them.

Unaddressed fears/issues.  (6D)

What happens to our unaddressed issues or fears or our ‘warts’ if we ignore them?

Well, they don’t go away, as we wish and tell ourselves so [Spirit likes to think that they do, while Soul knows perfectly well that they don’t]. They sit there down in the dark and build up/accumulate. This means that we don’t ‘know’ about them because we can’t see them or name/label them, and therefore can’t address them. But, they’re still there and the body can feel them, which makes the body feel even ‘lumpier’ than ever, so even more reason to ignore the body. (Our fears and issues actually get stored in all the tissues, joints and organs in the body.) Since our society has very little idea about the internal energy departments of the body’s sensing and emotional energies, we have/give no value for these and they don’t count, hence ignored and unaddressed, ie, no attention. We don’t want them – they are ‘warts’ and most un-nice. We can’t look at things if we give them no attention, as in, this is neither T nor I from TISP.

We also like to think we don’t have them at all, especially because we ‘bury’ them in the dark, and they’re horrible and actually very difficult to talk about. If we have always ignored them, we have no way of naming them, to ourselves or to others. This is called repression, and then we forget we have them, until Life (and ML) insists on triggering them, once again, and bingo! Up they come – again. What’s more, they make us feel ‘weak at the knees’, and thus, a failure. Hence, we have trouble gaining the skills to deal with them, not to mention feeling superior to others if we consider that we have buried ours successfully, ie, other people have fears, but we personally don’t.

Metaphors for unaddressed fears.

Here are some metaphors for what our fears can look and feel like internally.

The washing machine metaphor.  (6.41)

To use the washing in the washing machine as a metaphor – as our fears accumulate inside us, they get thrown together and mixed up rather like the washing after it has been through the wash. This is a ‘lump/blob’ that we consider to be ‘wet washing’ that can’t ‘get out’ – so to speak. We can’t get the whole blob out of the machine at once, because it is bigger than the machine’s door (in a front loader). If we pull on just anything, we’ll simply tear things, and it will all be too heavy.

This is what happens to those who have been ‘stuffing it all down’ in the name of success in life. Any queries about ‘issues’ immediately tugs on this inability to know what to do or say about this ‘knot of stuff’, and generates the reply of ‘it’s complicated’, or the blank of not knowing.

The only real way to attend to this stuff is to give it our Time, Attention, and Action, and action seems a strange word for something that is being done inside, but this ‘action’ is thought, which is what the mind is for. You get to think about yourself. What’s here, why; is this what I want, and so on? And start small with the little things first, because it takes practice and time.

This is the way we pull washing out of a washing machine, one by one, finding what they look like so we can name them, and then going on to the next thing. Generally, it’s wise to start with the socks, ie, the little ones, first. And still it has to be sorted if we want to get it all dry and put away so we can use it again (these things have now become part of our resources for life and looking after ourselves).

Sometimes people refer to the unconscious issues that come down families as ‘washing that has never been done’, and has been left to you to do. Maybe you’re the first person to do so, and that can be a lot of washing, because issues seem to get worse as they pass down the generations.

If the washing just gets left in the washing machine it will go off and start to rot, so it’s much better to address it sooner rather than later. This brings us to another metaphor of accumulation.

Sewage or baggage or crapola or ‘shite’.  (6.42)

Whatever we deny, bury or repress stays down there and does not go away. Not only does it stay there, it starts growling and festering and getting terribly ‘on the nose’. It’s very much like a septic overflow in the basement which we think is ghastly, and it is. It is reasonably easy to keep the basement door shut while we are young, as in 20’s to 30’s, but the more that is in there, the more that keeps getting put down there, until around the early 40’s it starts rattling the door and it takes more and more effort to keep the door shut; (‘of course it’s all under control !!’). [Shame, guilt, anger and self-pity are part of those ‘shitty/smelly’ things that are increasing and threaten to spill over and all of these emotions ‘bug’ your gut.]

This is the time that marriages/relationships start to fail and the basement owner wants to run; but, of course, we carry our basements with us. From then on it takes increasing effort to keep that door shut, and that effort starts to wear us out, and tiredness, disease and illness begin to tap us on the shoulder. These ‘taps on the shoulder’ are thus warnings that it’s time to address this ‘shite’ which not only can be done, but you will feel a lot better without all that sewage weighing you down. It’s hard to believe this smelly stuff will ‘get us’ but my observation is that it does.

In this way, it is easy for the young and the privileged to consider that they have no fears and to discount them in themselves and in others; the basement has plenty of room. These ‘young and privileged’ would include a great many politicians and corporate executives.

The point about looking at and addressing these issues/fears/’warts’ is that if we want to be loved ‘warts ‘n’ all’, the idea is for us to love our warts ourselves first which is what TISPing InSelf is all about.

Coping.  (6E)

This chapter is called Coping, so what is the relationship between the title and the content? We consider life to be full of pain and suffering, so we try to work out what to do with it, which means trying to label it and to work out why we’re here. We also try to work out how our minds work, so then we’ll know what to do with our minds.

Humans cope with things by a. describing and labelling them, (what have we got here?) and/or b. working out the reasons why (for the more intangible things). This is actually using the Physical/Sensate (the What, ‘P/S’) and Spiritual/Intuitive (the Why, ‘S/N’) departments of Energy, and is essentially the correct method of tackling the intangible or the new.

We think that if we have names for things then we will know what to do with them; we’ll have ‘the tiger by the tail’, so to speak, and in this way, we think we have it more under control. Think how important it is for those who feel unwell to have a correct/proper medical diagnosis; then the assumption is that all will be well and they’ll be fixed! But there is a gap between diagnosis and action; the label itself does not mean ‘success’ or even ‘correct’ action/’doing’ to attain the desired result.

It is the same for our ‘reasons why’; we think that if we know what they are, we’ll know what to do.

Thus, our labels and our reasons should help us work out what to do with life. This is what we really want to know and we want happiness, love, etc, etc, so, what do we do to get that? and so on….

Well, do our current labels and reasons help us work this out? And the answer is that for some people they do, and for others they don’t.

If our labels and reasons miss out on crucial factors for whatever reason, what then? We do not question these labels and reasons until we find that they don’t work for us, and still, then what?

The questions then, are…

Does our normal social understanding of psychology really help us to find happiness?  (6.43)

This psychology is our ‘what do we have here’ and our ‘how are we built’?

Well, it does not really understand that we are a duality internally, or that Energy acts as the Mirror for the InSelf, or how that can be used for our own benefit. It does describe signs and symptoms and labels them, which is a sort of diagnosis, but it’s missing some important bits about what to do about what we have, according to this UUS. It has also become separated from the ‘Why’ (our religions) for life which doesn’t help. We need the ‘Why’ to face life in the first place.

Do our mainstream religions help us to find happiness?  (6.44)

The argument in this UUS is that these mainstream spirit-based religions of ours come from sources that do not want to be on earth, so, ‘how on earth’ can they be useful to us to find happiness, satisfaction or love on earth while we are here, not to mention courage and kindness which I suspect are of the highest value? In these religions there is no understanding that God and Energy are two different things, or that we are composed of a spirit and a soul while we are alive, both of which are about the dualities that can be made a unity. As well as this, our mainstream religions do not understand our actual psychological makeup, with no ability to value all life either. In effect, our religions don’t understand what humans have and how they are built; their ‘What’ is not correct. (Just because problems are un-noticed and un-addressed doesn’t mean they are not there, but we wish on….)

What about our fears or issues?  (6.45)

Well, ignoring them or telling ourselves that they go away is the ‘Ostrich’ solution, and we don’t think highly of ostriches.

The argument in this UUS is that as we leave our fears unaddressed, so we leave our inner ‘other’ unaddressed and unknown, and therefore no relationship. We can’t ‘Know Ourselves’, and we cannot Love/TISP our Inner ‘other’, so that’s a bit of a problem too.

So, what do our normal Coping systems do for us?

Well, all of them imply that we have no power to do anything about the life we have; ‘God or whatever has put us here’ and we are powerless to do anything about it. Thus, anything ‘good’ or ‘bad’ that happens to us all boils down to ‘luck’, ‘fate’, and ‘God’, which leaves us essentially powerless and the thing is, we don’t like being powerless, at all. After all, that is what all the Sup/Inf business of Chapter 5 is all about; wanting some form of ‘power’ somehow, and being very cross/afraid/miserable when we think we can’t get it, and it is also true that many of us can’t. We can’t find the point of it all and this UUS argues that Spirit does not know, and cannot find it by itself, but it thinks that its ‘self’ is all there is and it wants to get away – that’s the problem.

Hence, our coping systems consider that we are powerless, so we must be powerless. (of course!)

But there must be advantages to having a life on Earth, ie, being on Earth.

To repeat, we know enough about the psychology of motivation to know that there is no point whatsoever in trying to frighten people into doing the ‘right’ thing because all the motives then get bent/skewed. It’s all head and no heart, really, and neither is it love in a fit.

Therefore, the ‘right’/correct thing must have its own rewards ‘built-in’ to the system, so to speak. In this way you end up ‘doing the right thing’ for its own rewards for you internally, as in, you will like doing the ‘right’ thing because it will feel ‘correct’. This is a signpost for you to know you’re on the right track, for you, because you can feel it for yourself, and no-one else has to tell you. And so, we look for the ‘right/correct’ thing to do to make us happy, and we do like to do our own searching as we please.

Power.  (6.46)

All of us are looking for Power for ourselves and our own Explore and Express which is an essential need within us.

So, what is Power? There is a huge difference between power over another and power for one’s own purposes. Power over another simply pulls in Mirror Laws so you are actually doing it to yourself which is not what you want.

Our own power in life to Explore and Express as we wish is essentially what we are looking for, and is essentially what this book is about, as a how to do it for yourself, although not necessarily by yourself.

The next 2 chapters continue to explore this theme.

The primary emphasis of this discussion over chapters 5 and 6 has been that we search for ‘bigness’ or power for ourselves. I have also been discussing how we use our maxims in life to cope with our difficulties with this life. But, there’s more.

Bigness.  (6F)

So, here we are, wanting ‘bigness’ or ‘feeling big’, and no actual idea what it is or how to find it; but we certainly search, and the direction we know about is ‘out there’.

But, once again, in this way, you are wanting energy from out there and will stay wanting and won’t get, by definition.

And, once again, it’s the looking ‘out there’ that is getting us into trouble. As soon as we want others to tell us how big we are, we start getting into trouble with ‘small’, because the world ‘out there’ is a duality, (as are we).

You can’t actually be told you are big. You will not believe you are big unless you feel ‘big’ inside.

This is how we end up exploring the gap between too much and too little of whatever we want to be ‘big’ about. How much is too much, and how big is big, and how little is little?

And in all of this, you are allowing ‘out there’ to define you (tell you who you are), and your estimation of yourself becomes dependent on ‘the other’. If you consider that you are getting the energy you want you will feel Superior, Self-Important and pleased with yourself (self-congratulation); if there’s not enough, you will feel Inferior, full of Self-Pity and victim, ‘poor me’.

But, the most important part to understand is that this ‘see-saw’ of too much to too little is inside you; you carry both ends internally; one consciously, and the other unconsciously. When one side is up, the other is down, and vice versa. This ‘see-saw’ is a continuum between 2 opposites, or as Jung named it, the ‘enantiodromia’, because each end is actually informing you about the other end.

Our looking for external confirmation of our ‘bigness’ leads us to look for as much Superiority as we can manage, but as we do so, we are telling ‘the other’ (our InSelf) that s/he (ourself) is ‘small’, so you are doing this to yourself, because of ML. Hence, it is we ourselves who are generating while really detesting the Inferiority (some irony here). So, then we look for more Superiority, hoping that this will compensate or get rid of the Inferiority, but it actually just makes it worse.

Thus and so, we racket up and down this see-saw  of each end of any continuum of Energy from one end to the other, in so many ways and in so many lifetimes, from wealth to poverty, powerful to powerless, too much sex to too little, greed to poverty or abstinence, and so on and on; explore, explore, explore, whatever we can have too much or too little of.

But life is actually asking us to decide what we ourselves want, as in, where on this continuum is ‘just right’ for each one of us, and the ‘answer’ appears to be ‘the middle way’ of coming to the centre and finding the balance point. This being the ‘middle way’ spoken of by various religions.

And, once again, there is a ‘however’.  (6.47)

This continuum, or see-saw, or duality that we are exploring is actually a pair of absolute opposites, an AO1, which is a concept that was introduced and discussed in Part 1. And the way to get off an AO1 is to look for its opposite, which is named the AO2.

So, the AO1 which arises through looking out there and comparing and judging has the AO2 of looking inside yourself to find your own answers that lie within you. This gets you off the see-saw altogether and back inside yourself where you belong.

This AO2 means that once you See/find it, you can understand the relationship between it (the AO2) and each end of the continuum of Energy in the AO1s, and thus the necessity, function and usefulness of all 3 points (of the ‘coat-hanger’). This gives you the bigger picture and lifts you up and out of getting stuck on running up and down the ‘see-saw’ of each end of the AO1s.

Hence, the see-saw of the duality of life is forcing you to look within for your own answers for yourself which is your own truth about you and that is how you get to know yourself. This is what GLS wants from you, and in fact, what you want from you. God has set up a system that benefits Her and benefits you at the same time.

Thus, however much pain and strife we think we are in, and for how many lives, we are still exploring and we are still learning, and this is the only way we can learn, and it will teach us, eventually. We have given pain and strife and we have received it. The only question then is ‘how long do you want to be in pain?’ which sounds awful, but that is because we consider ourselves powerless, but we are actually perfectly powerful in our own way. It is our own attitudes and beliefs that must be changed first, and we just don’t want to know. Nobody has any idea of the potential powers within you or any one of us that can come alive through your ‘jousts’ with Energy, but they are there, and they are your treasures within you. Your children are a great way for you to find out; this includes your ‘inner children’ as well as your outer children.

Experiencing Energy and finding our own power within that, is why you are alive; you cannot get to find out about yourself while you are dead. Life is Serving you as it forces you to look in the mirror and think. Getting to know who you are is very empowering.

Lots more about how to carry out this inquiry will be covered in the chapter on the Treasure Tool.

Conclusion to Chapter 6, Coping.  (6.48)

Our current coping systems don’t seem to me to be working that well, and the strange thing is that our psychology needs another ‘religion’ (the ‘why’ of life) and our ‘religions’ need another ‘psychology’ (the ‘what’ of life).

Thus far, for the last 2 chapters, we have looked at how we try to get to feel ‘bigger’ and find some sort of ‘handle’ or ‘control’ on life. We do want to be bigger, so much so that we use our minds to do this as much as we can, because we can. And we will do it at the expense of the other if we can. We think this is OK and in fact, this is normal and what life is about, and this is what God does too. (This UUS argues that God does not and cannot, and it makes no sense to do so.)

But, it’s all judgement, with blame attached accordingly, and it brings anything but Love/TISP for self or the other. Whatever we do at another’s expense will cost our own selves internally. Is this what you want to pay?

This is Mirror Laws in action reflecting, as always, our InSelf back to us, which is what we are here for.

Our minds are built to be able to compare and contrast; that is our advantage over other life which is not built that way. But judging good/bad over others is bad for us. Yes, we can do it, but it’s a 2-edged sword, and judging gets us into trouble. It actually leads to suffering. This is what the Adam & Eve story is about. It’s the warning not to judge, because to ‘eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil’ means you are deciding ‘good/bad’ which is the problem. See Adam and Eve addendum.

This UUS argues that we are using our minds incorrectly for the sake of these wants, and the results bring us pain and discontent. Then we try to cope with said pain and discontent by telling ourselves that this is what life is for, so if you do ‘xyz’ you can get away/escape, which also presents problems.

And yet, however much we do things the ‘wrong’ way, we are still within a system that we can use to work out what the ‘right’ thing for us actually is. In fact, it forces us to look, and the answers are there to be found within the way Energy works. I suspect God got to go through this Herself, and Heaven knows how long it took, but once we ‘get’ it, we can’t ‘un-get’ it. The ‘light’ has switched on and then we can See. And there is great Delight. ‘De light will show you the way.’

We are meant to be here, and we are meant to be looking, and we will find out eventually that we have an Internal Power to direct our own lives, so the question then is, do we want that sooner or later? There’s plenty of time……

However, we still need to enquire about what we are really wanting.

In the next 2 chapters I look at what we want, and the first thing to notice is that there are heaps of things that we don’t like that we wish would go away. We want them gone. These are our fears (Chapter 7).

The second thing is to work out what we are really wanting and why, and what the rewards are and whether they are worthwhile and what do we do to ‘get there’? We also need to check if these things fit in with what we already know about humans and life. These things that we want are our Desires (Chapter 8).

And so, we turn to the first of those things that we most want – to get rid of those fears.