Table of Contents (this page)
- Part II, Chapter 7. FEARS (7)
- Introduction to the 2nd half of Part II. (7.1)
- Introduction to our fears. (7.2)
- Un-safe. (7A)
- Introduction. (7.3)
- We look for how to be safe. (7.4)
- Our ideal of safe.
- But there’s a problem. (7.7)
- We also have another ideal of safe. (7.8)
- What happens if we feel safe?
- How to be safer in life. (7.12)
- Is ‘the other’ safe from you? (7.13)
- Looking out for ‘the other’. (7.14)
- Life is not out to get you. (7.16)
- An aside on those who help to protect us. (7.17)
- Conclusion. (7.18)
- Hungry. (7B)
- Introduction. (7.19)
- Eating/ingesting and being sustained. (7.20)
- Phake phoods. (7.21)
- The energy of food. (7.23)
- Tracking the relationship between the food we eat and the body. (7.24)
- Our first lessons about eating. (7.25)
- Other energy departments ‘feed’ us. (7.26)
- Consuming. (7.28)
- We consume. (7.32)
- What are we actually wanting? (7.36)
- Giving Sustain to ‘the other’. (7.39)
- The ghost. (7C)
- Introduction. (7.40)
- How do we get to be ghostly?
- How do we do ‘ghost’ to ‘the other’? (7.57)
- The mechanism of ‘ghost’. (7.58)
- The problem for the ghost. (7.59)
- The secondary advantage. (7.60)
- Why talk about this business of the ghost? (7.64)
- What matters to your heart? (7.65)
- We want to know we exist. (7.66)
- Conclusion. (7.67)
- Clean. (7D)
Part II, Chapter 7. FEARS (7)
Chapter 7 has 4 sections to it.
UNSAFE. (7A)
HUNGRY. (7B)
THE GHOST. (7C)
CLEAN. (7D)
Introduction to the 2nd half of Part II. (7.1)
In chapters 5 and 6 we have looked at how Spirit’s ideas affect what we do and how we think and how we label this. But Spirit is afraid of life and doesn’t know what it is for. All of its ideas are ‘getting away’ or ‘control’ ideas, none of which actually address our real fears. We think life would be so much easier if we didn’t have a body.
What I hope I have established is that Spirit has no idea of Soul, hence we need to look at what the Soul actually wants.
Our primary fears are the fears of the soul which is the part of us that wants to be safe, fed, and wanted; this is true for all life. So, some of our biggest wants are to get rid of our fears, ie, our wants are coming out of our fears.
Also, there still don’t seem to be any rewards built-in to being on earth. Does Soul have desires as well as fears? Any sensible psychologist knows that rewards are crucial to any ‘learning/mastering’ system; not to mention, the reward had better be for the body if you’re training animals; it’s no good telling them about ‘heaven later’. Well, we still have something inside us about wanting to ‘grow bigger’, so I will discuss this in Chapter 8 titled Desires.
Introduction to our fears. (7.2)
They’re all awful and we don’t like them, and would much prefer that they were not there.
Hence, it seems much better not to look at them, but when we do this we behave like an ostrich.
But looking at our fears is the 1st step in addressing them. If you don’t know what they are you cannot address them.
The first thing we can do is to group them into themes that look like this – Un-Safe, Un-Fed, and Un-Wanted. Unsafe is first because it is so important.
Un-safe. (7A)
Introduction. (7.3)
We feel terribly unsafe in Life. Look what it can do to us! So many things out to get us! We are so fragile; forever at risk while we are alive, and really ‘How can God do this to us?‘ is the underlying question we attempt to answer with our religions. We are really cross about being unsafe and also very resentful that He has done this to us.
But we are unable to notice that SBRs cannot deal with our issues of ‘safe’ because they are built on ideas of ‘unsafe’.
Unsafe is the primary difference between having awareness as spirit ‘in Heaven’, and our awareness once on earth. Heaven is safe, by definition, and we don’t have to do anything, and are able to think as we please. So, we want to be protected, and from Life, basically.
We are a mixture of very afraid of what it can do to us, as well as expecting to be able to do as and when we wish, which is what spirit is used to.
We have almost a war- (well, at least a defense-) mentality with Life/Nature. And we yearn for Heaven and would nick off if we could if it were not so fraught getting back, and if we knew ‘for sure‘ we would get there.
But most animals have to face ‘Nature raw in tooth and claw’, so why not us? In fact, Nature suffers greatly from our depredations on Her.
Neither is our safety dependent on simply the weather and the natural world; we are actually very dependent on other people in an enormous network of ways. Larger examples would be countries and their peoples being affected by the decisions of foreign governments or companies without being able to do anything about it. ‘Smaller’ examples would be the internal networks of dependency that countries have, eg, some countries allow or are unable to contain its citizenry running round with every kind of weaponry under the sun, so they can ‘defend themselves’. Not a good formula for feeling secure. In our current society women are not safe from men, and there are plenty of places that are a great deal worse.
We look for how to be safe. (7.4)
We try to be safe any way we can; control, power and might, hide, attack, defend, look for pity and the other’s protection; but always, life is seen as a threat, and always we are looking for safety from out there, from ‘the other’. We are wanting it, but never really seem to be able to find it. We greatly fear not having it.
Our fears make many turn to the ‘spiritual’ but it can’t help – we just end up kidding ourselves. We try using our minds with judgement and comparison, but that makes us more split than ever.
We try to stuff these fears down, but end up with all that sewage in the basement, a ‘dead’ened/unaware body and bored witless, but if that isn’t bad enough, if we are not aware of that ‘sewage’ internally, we get to meet it externally as well (ML)! Life sure likes to hammer these things home.
But we do have an ideal of Safe.
Our ideal of safe.
Heaven. (7.5)
Our ideal of Safe is Heaven, and we yearn for it. ‘Heaven’ means…
- The end of our fears and worries; whew! Peace at last! No nasty surprises or ‘things that go bump in the night’,
- We can relax and rest; ease; no watching out, or hard work,
- We are loved, wanted and protected,
- And provided for, we are fed without having to do anything, (although we don’t have to be ‘fed’ physically in Heaven),
- It’s beautiful and comfortable, ie, ease.
Heaven is what we are taught as the alpha and omega of what we desire, and most of the impetus to take any notice of the directives about how to get to Heaven comes from hating the fears. We look for any way we can to escape these fears and except for the problem of having to be dead to get to Heaven, more people would try to leave life on earth.
Shopping centres. (7.6)
A shopping mall is another example of what most humans think they need and want and how life should be.
- It is a controlled environment, with no sun, rain or rotten weather. It’s likely to be clean and the right temperature.
- We can eat whatever we like, whenever we like, without much effort or cost; all those nice things full of sugars and ‘nice’ fats.
- We can get to the loo easily.
- There’s plenty of noise and music to deafen us to the natural world and our internal ability to sense that natural world.
- There’s plenty of glitter, colours and lights to distract us from our boredom (or fear) with what we have in life, and with all those people around us, maybe we won’t feel so alone than if we were at home just watching TV.
- Complete disconnection from the natural environment.
But there’s a problem. (7.7)
The problem here is that our definition of Heaven is the child’s version of safety/security; someone else is providing it, not the child.
It has no…
- Explore and Express Self in the physical world of Energy (without which we will get bored eventually)
- Growth in Self-Esteem (SE) which is another thing that we really want! It’s a way of feeling bigger. See below.
Thus and so, we cannot ‘grow’ our SE when we are in Heaven; we simply cannot find out about our own powers for ourself without being alive on Earth; that is the gift.
And this is the problem with thinking that Heaven is where we’re supposed to be, or that there is no positive point in being alive on Earth, which is just a punishment for we know not what.
The difference between the child’s and the Adult’s version of safety/security is the Adult is able to provide their own for themself as well as others to the best of their ability.
We also have another ideal of safe. (7.8)
But we forget that we have another ideal of safe which is on earth, and that is the Garden of Eden, but we consider it a fairy story, and therefore suppress it as ‘non-sense’.
But we do yearn for it, and it is part of our ‘dreams’.
See below in ‘Desires’.
What happens if we feel safe?
We start looking for unsafe. (7.9)
We would like to be safe, but the problem with always being safe is we start looking for unsafe, because we need the contrast, and we do this in all sorts of ways by pushing the boundaries.
And then, if we’re safe, blow me down, we get bored, and unable to be grateful for being safe. We start behaving like a brat, and trying to dominate life. But if we are dominating life ‘successfully’ according to the social ‘norm’, we begin to consider ourselves invincible, and refuse to look in the Mirror, and therefore will not find out who’s inside, which is why you are here in the first place. So that misses the point somewhat.
However, this is all part of our Explore. All Life Explores. We are actually meant to ‘throw our weight around’ and push our boundaries/limits because this is how we find out what our ‘weight’ and boundaries/limits are.
The cost of ‘safe’. (7.10)
We want ‘safe’ so much that we are prepared to compromise our freedoms for the sake of surveilling everyone to check whether they might be a terrorist. The Covid-19 virus just ‘ups the ante’ here. This is an enormous fear of death if ever there was one. How much money do we spend on this? And how secret is this surveillance? Very, and secrecy breeds injustice. But what sort of life do we end up living? Is the tiger safer in a cage? It still looks like a tiger, but it can only be ‘tigerish’ in a very limited way. Is that what we want? What would the tiger choose? Yes, it’s at greater risk in its natural environment, as are we. Surveillance cages all of us, but in fact the cages that are built for us by the industrial/military and/or medical/pharmaceutical power complexes are far more likely to limit all of us, but these cages are rather more subtle than a terrorist bomb. What do we want?
We can’t be certain of safe. (7.11)
Once again, this problem in life is about needing to look at your own internal attitude to life, because life is reflecting that back to you. Mirror Laws say that if you consider life to be attacking you, you will attack life in some form or other. Your response may be ‘I need to defend myself’ but in all of this you are making ‘the other’ unsafe. You are blaming ‘out there’ for your fears. This attitude on your part will stress you even more anyway. It also ruins relationships; no-one is safe with you.
The point here is that safety is not a certainty, nor can it be, and neither is it useful to you to expect it. You are here to learn what ‘safe’ is actually about, and be able to give it, which is quite something to achieve too.
How to be safer in life. (7.12)
The Answer to How to go about being as Safe as possible for yourself is actually the same as that which animals have to do all the time, (and they are generally able to figure it out, lots, except when humans are on their tail).
You use all your senses and take care – all the time. You also have senses other than VAKOG; intuition, gut feelings and even clairsentience (those psychic abilities) which are very useful. This does not include wearing earphones while on a bicycle in traffic, or texting while driving a car. In fact, living in the natural world is a good idea too, actually, – what’s left of it.
There was a time not long ago when we didn’t have fast communications at all, with all its advantages and disadvantages, but I suspect that many people had to rely on their gut feelings to survive, and knew how to do so; I suspect that mobile phones do not help us to develop our gut feelings.
Notice also that animals in their natural environment do not expect to be safe, although it is also true that sometimes they do not know if there is something ‘new’ that they need to be aware of, eg, the little Australian ground-loving birds in my garden did not evolve to take cats into consideration.
We need our awareness of life out there, and we need our great minds to think about what we meet out there, and what we learn and how we can use what we find.
Life is a challenge for which we are amply equipped, and an explore. The challenge is to find out more about who is within, and the results can be a great surprise – to you and to others. But, until you look, you will not find.
Is ‘the other’ safe from you? (7.13)
The real question is, is the other safe from you?
We think that we should be safe from Life, so we ask how come we’ve been chucked into it and what for, but the question is actually, ‘Is Life Safe from You?’ (As we want to be safe, so we must give it to ‘the other’. Those Mirror Laws, as ever. )
So, how much is Life or ‘the other’ safe from us? Let me count the ways… (in no particular order) pesticides, herbicides, chemicals ‘from hell to breakfast-time’, antibiotics, processing, pollution, mining, manufacturing, waste disposal, faecal matter from billions of humans and animals, nuclear plants and their waste, war, armaments (always for defense of course) development, technology, and on the personal level, judgement, blame, criticism, trolling, etc. etc. and etc.
We make Life/Nature/Earth deal with our toxic waste and pollution, and we take it for granted. This is an abuse on our part; animals don’t do this; humans do. It is another way in which we fail to take any responsibility for ourselves. This is not on, and we need to think about what we are doing. Deal with it ourselves, or maybe even don’t produce it in the first place. This is an enormous topic, and one we will have to address sooner rather than later, although we put it off….
So, how safe do you feel in the present, and how safe from all this are our children going to be?
The more we exploit Life/Nature and kill it for fear or money or whatever, the more Life is unsafe from us, and therefore we will feel unsafe from Life. This is how Mirror Laws work. It is our thinking/beliefs about Life that are killing us, not the actuality.
So, the next step is to work out how to protect ‘the other’, as in, you are specifically attempting to protect life and give it a chance to grow, explore and express. In this you are giving some form of ‘safety’ to other life, and that will help you grow to feel safer internally as well.
Looking out for ‘the other’. (7.14)
How do we look after ‘the other’ which includes looking after your own body?
In how many ways can this be done? One of the more important ways you can do this is to look after your own body correctly for its sake and keep it safe; your body is part of your ‘other’. This (safe) means well-cared for, physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. The ‘spiritual’ department of Energy includes your motives, dreams and aspirations; do you keep them safe from others’ judgements and denigrations? In fact, the question is ‘How do you actually give TISP to your body?’.
Hopefully you are able to look after your body as a child in a well-cared for environment; attractive, clean and relatively peaceful with few dramas and emotional upsets which are emotionally stressful. How much effort do you put into achieving these things? If we believe that the body is not important (SBRs) why bother to look after it?
Clear thinking. (7.15)
Mentally, we need good clear thinking to learn about making our own way in life and able to provide more safety for the other. Some of the more difficult problems with lack of education in countries with little money, is the great restriction in possibilities for their people as well as the narrow-mindedness that comes with superstitions and taboos. The ability to read and hopefully to access books (or the Internet) can be a great ‘equalizing’ factor. The importance of publishing was that information was made affordable and available for most within that society. Most of us take this for granted; we also use all our marvelous resources for entertainment now, rather than for thinking. But this is sort of like eating dessert or sweets all the time, rather than any meat and potatoes or having to ‘chew’ anything. Sweet things alone cannot sustain you. Clear observing and actual thinking will. By this I mean that you are able to arrive at considered conclusions after careful observation and informed deductions.
So, part of looking after yourself is to educate yourself, as in, find out and keep enquiring, so that you can continue to explore life and develop your dreams and aspirations. A good education equips you to find out where to look or who to ask and not just be told. And then, even better, you may be able to teach others what you have found (this is a form of Expression for you after your exploring). Education is a door to giving people tools to help themselves, and to learn to think clearly and carefully. Hence, a good education is part of Protecting yourself. Interestingly, the powerful are not that keen on people educating themselves; they like it much better if people just do as they’re told, or the government pays for ‘factory-fodder’ type training. They don’t like being queried. See also, Feudalism, in Part III.
Other even more primary forms of Protect include Housing, as are clean food and clean water and air (and, proper sewage and facilities, and so on…). All our utilities are/were social protections.
Other forms of looking out for the other include no emotional attacks, eg, blame, trolling etc. quite apart from the fact that you are always doing these things to yourself as well (ML). In fact, our manners are a form of keeping the other safe from our self.
Protecting ‘the other’ is what Adults do. It is part of TISPing Life which is a service. Wanting to be looked after by any ‘other’ is being a child.
Life is not out to get you. (7.16)
The ultimate safety/security is to consider that Life is not out to get you at all. (As you think life is out to get you, so part of you will be out to get back at life.)
Life is there to mirror your InSelf so that you can find out who is actually there inside you; your Real Self, and in this, Life is serving you. This does not mean that all at once you have nothing to worry about and everything becomes all ‘lovey-dovey’. All of us have tonnes of things to learn, some of them not necessarily pleasant, and life can and will bop us on the nose, or provide a stick to the bum if we need to move. You still need to respect that life is fragile and that it can be all over in a blink.
What it does mean is that Life has purpose and point for our benefit. Once again, it is your own attitude to life that is making or breaking your life. What do you want?
To return to the metaphor of the Horse and the Rider. In the end, we want to ride the ‘horse’ of Energy. That’s why we are here. No amount of ‘there is no horse’, ‘we all fall off’, ‘there’s nothing to get back onto’, ‘you’re here because you were ‘bad”, or you’re here for anything other than ‘horse-riding’, makes any difference.
Also, you can’t learn it in theory, and spirit only knows about theory; you have to get on the horse, and then it does things! Not to mention – it’s not Safe! Oh no!
An aside on those who help to protect us. (7.17)
It is really quite ironic that generally those people who are the most necessary and useful within our society, and who are usually paid for and organized by government, eg. firemen, nurses, the police, ambulance, teachers, and others, are paid as little as we/society think we can get away with. The contrast in salary with those of sportspeople and other entertainers is quite amazing. What are we valuing, because that is what we will get? (In Victoria, Australia, our State Emergency Services people are volunteers, as is our Country Fire Authority, yet we rely on them greatly in an emergency.) As we value entertainment over protection, guess what we’ll get?
Conclusion. (7.18)
And it’s Back to Mirror Laws, as always.
If you consider Life to be attacking you, you will attack life in some form or other. Your response may be ‘I need to defend myself’, but you are blaming ‘out there’ for your fears. This attitude on your part will stress you even more anyway. It also ruins real relationships; no-one is safe with you.
Wanting to feel safe and protected is a whopping issue for all of us. The answer to all wants is to give them. If we want to feel safe, we need to give protection PEMS, however and whenever we can within our own world of our awareness, and to our InSelf first. This protection is the ‘P’ part of TISP, (= Love in Action). Well, fancy that!
The next fear that I wish to deal with is that of Hunger/Thirst.
Hungry. (7B)
Introduction. (7.19)
Most people understand the fear of being hungry and unable to find food. We are all familiar with hunger and don’t like having to put up with it for long; it’s very uncomfortable; no ‘ease’. We just want to eat and if we are really hungry, we’ll eat just about anything; we will consume.
Therefore, we look for what feeds us, as in, fixes the problem of our discomfort/un-ease. Once we have been fed, we can experience ease; the discomfort has gone.
I am including anything we ingest, take in or consume in this discussion; not just food.
Eating/ingesting and being sustained. (7.20)
Our bodies are designed to eat; hunger is a natural mechanism to remind us to refuel. And because it is our body, it is unconscious to us.
Why do we need to eat? Well, of course we need fuel for our activities; and the general idea of the activities of an adult person is to be able to provide ourselves with what is needed and wanted and to continue to be able to face life and happy to do so.
We are here to Explore and Express and we want to be able to do so and hopefully continue with that.
But we need more than to simply eat/consume. We want to be fed, filled, satisfied and sustained.
We can feel fed if we have eaten enough to feel filled or satisfied; our tummies are full, and we move to the process of digesting, which is about how we make what we’ve consumed/ingested/’taken in’ become part of us. During this time, we can rest, until we get hungry again. Thus, the cycle goes, consume, satisfaction, rest, and when they wear off it’s back to consume.
But we also want/need to be sustained, so what is the difference between ‘fed’ and sustained?
We could think of ‘fed’ as the answer to our hunger in the now, and ‘sustained’ as more about our health in the longer term. Hence being sustained properly by what we eat is very important. As we are properly sustained so we are able to keep on keeping on, which is a kind of strength. We can think of sustain as part of Keep, as in ‘Till and Keep’ (God’s instruction to Adam, ie, humans), and the strength as Fortitude. So, we need Fortitude for Explore and Express.
Phake phoods. (7.21)
The subtle modern problems with food.
But now we have a big difference between eating and being sustained. Our food is not what it used to be. We now have foods that are all the way from being able to sustain us to foods that do not, and it’s very hard to tell the difference. All of it looks like food, but there is great variation in its ability to sustain us. So, we have to become a great deal more conscious/aware of what we ingest. If we stay unconscious about what is in our food, we are at risk of ingesting food that cannot sustain us, so we’re not going to be able to stay well to explore and express without our bodies running into dis-ease. In general, the more commercially processed the food, the less likely it is able to sustain us in the long term. We may not be able to tell with our mind or senses, but our body can after a while, when it does not feel sustained. The biggest problem here is that it can take a lot of time to ‘run down’ and that can vary with every individual. It’s even more difficult to tell in the short term.
We like processed foods and eat a lot of them. It’s easy, cheap, convenient, and they taste good to many. They are high in sugar, salt and fats, which trigger interesting responses in our bodies. We must be built to want them, so, clearly, they are an essential part of the diet, but it is very easy to overdo it in modern times, with fats in particular presenting many problems, partly because the molecules of fats can change their shape so easily (which they are actually meant to do). Sugar is a very big problem too.
The more processed a food is the more it is a sort of ‘shell’ or a ‘ghost’ of food, as we put less time and interest into producing this food; lots of machines and lots of processing and additives. But, it’s not just the processing; even our primary commercially farmed foods are different.
I am using ‘shell’ as a way of describing an outer appearance or structure of food, but what is within it is lacking in ‘substance’/sustenance and so cannot sustain us; it’s a ‘phake phood’. This is a primary change since at least WWII, and we are not noticing that our primary sources of food are produced in ways we don’t want to know about (hence the staggering freedom of GMO companies to do as they wish; also CAFOs ) treated we know not how, with we know not what, and won’t be told if we do ask, to produce something that looks and smells like food, with chemicals for taste, and some sugar to help it all go down. Nor are we asking what chemicals are in the soil or air that will affect this food, or are discharged into the environment as our food is produced this way.
Hence, we have the words/terms/labels for food (and our eating of it) developed over eons of connection with what have been generally local foods, but what we are eating has changed markedly over the last 60+ years, while our words/labels for it have not. In essence, we think we can do what we like to food in the name of making money, and it won’t make any difference to us; as in, everyone eats a ‘healthy’ diet, so we don’t need to look at what we eat, we just assume that it’s ‘food’. Are we blind, bonkers or arrogant, or all three?
We eat this commercial stuff we call ‘food’, which may or may not leave us feeling fed or satisfied, but it is most unlikely to sustain us. We’re just not going to last as long without compromised health or energy. Our ‘experts’ quibble about levels of ‘nutrition’ required by humans, and companies can claim nutritional benefit in their food. But if such ‘nutrition’ is nowadays only about, say, 30% (a much lower figure) of the natural equivalent, it can still be argued that it is ‘nutritious’. But what about the other 70%? When/how is this to be ‘made up’ to 100% if ever? and we need to do this 100% daily.
Our ‘phake phood’ isn’t just lacking in nutrition – it’s actually deleterious, as in, a negative effect. Eating it dulls the mind making it very difficult to think, but thinking is precisely what is required to get us out of the hole we are digging for ourselves. The body has to use its own resources to do something with this stuff it can’t use, otherwise it will just clog up the works as all litter does. Hence, we are even more likely to get stuck in a hole as we eat said food.
Our marvelous medicine, technology and ‘market forces’ world truly sees no problem with this, but our governments are looking at increasingly huge bills and budgets for medical and hospital services, and increasing problems with chronic to severe illnesses, not to mention mental disorders and more disabilities, ie, it is governments (us/we) that are picking up the tab for how the commercial world makes money out of us, as in, this is costing us both ways. How many lifetimes will it take to make the connection? How many lifetimes have we got?
We can’t rely on our senses; we can’t tell anymore. (7.22)
There is now a big difference between what we think, believe or are told is OK and what your body finds is OK for it.
We have lost our ability to correctly identify with our senses, (ie, using our body), the foods/things that sustain us long-term. And then we have to rely on others/authority to tell us what’s OK and what is not. But these others have ‘a living’ to make themselves, and that is dependent upon their toeing the line of the commercial message of ‘Consume’ relayed by the media. You will not get unbiased information from them.
This is where you will have to think and observe for yourself, by asking, ‘Does what I am consuming sustain me in the longer term?’ And then you will have to watch and wait and see how your body responds, which rather depends upon your taking notice of your body in the first place. By this I mean that you are basically on your own if you are finding that you are having trouble/unease in your body. You are the one that gets to track what is happening, and we have no training in this one. This is how we become a great deal more conscious about the whole process of producing and preparing the food we eat, if we want to be sustained.
The energy of food. (7.23)
We simply do not understand that the energy of the way the food is processed/made is in the food and is consumed by us as we eat said food.
As we put as little Time or Interest as possible in our food for the sake of money, so we ingest that energy. Our food is a sort of Ghost of food, and it may help us turn into ghosts. See below.
As we treat animals as commodities using concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) type production, we ingest that energy. CAFO means cattle and sheep et al, standing around in one location grinding the soil/gravel to the mud and mire of their excretions, eating grain rather than grass, and fed antibiotics to counter the potential infections of being packed together eating substances that are incorrect for their health, so that they can do nothing but get fat quickly and be killed. What do they think of the smell and the flies? Cattle and sheep are built for grass; grain is a bit like candy for them; hence all the nice marbling from grain-fed cattle that we like (our muscles do this too under the same circumstances). Then again, what ‘grains’ are being fed, and where do they come from? (Corn and soy are likely to be GMO). We ingest that energy. At least chickens normally eat grain.
How many people do we know of who sit around in an impoverished environment (certainly not the natural world) eating/drinking just anything, and getting fatter by the minute, so much so that they basically can’t move? This cannot occur in nature for animals, so how come it’s OK for us?
When we eat food that has had the Time and Interest (read Care and respect) put into it, it is infinitely more satisfying and sustaining and we have contributed to our own independence and ability to cope with life as well.
If there is no ‘soul’ in the way that food is produced, it cannot ‘feed’ our soul.
Tracking the relationship between the food we eat and the body. (7.24)
The problems with phake phood and its production mean that you will have to ask and learn about what is actually in your food. If you want continued health, you will need to ask what’s in your food/drink, where it or its components have come from, (if you can find out, which is another issue), and what has happened to it before it gets to you. That is what becoming conscious means. There is currently little in the media about this except the more dramatic, or the medical world telling you you’re kidding yourself and jumping on the hypochondria bandwagon.
There is a very strong relationship between what you ingest and its effect on your body, but the way society/the media sees it, it doesn’t matter. Well, it may matter to you. There is a huge variation in sensitivity here. But if you are a sensitive, you will probably need to educate yourself in the face of a great deal of pooh-poohing, and will probably have to take control of what you ingest.
Our first lessons about eating. (7.25)
We unconsciously assume the problem ‘in here’ can be fixed by ‘out there’, so we learn to fix internal problems by looking externally.
This is a primary assumption that comes from very early in life. As a baby, we learn unconsciously that hunger (which is an internal state) is ‘fixed/cured’ by looking ‘out there’ (the external world) for the remedy (in this case, food).
Naturally, we extrapolate this to, any internal state that makes me uncomfortable/unhappy/un-easy can be fixed by looking out there for the remedy, if we can find it. But this extrapolation is not necessarily correct.
Firstly, some of the causes of internal un-ease can be, in fact, internal. This can include our own internal thinking, but it can also include a multitude of physical problems within the body itself. We now have any number of chemicals/poisons in the environment, working either separately or together (synergisms), acting within the body in ways we do not know. Add to this mix of unknowns myriad possible and common lacks of vitamins and/or minerals, and sorting out actual causes for problems begins to get very difficult indeed. Looking for an external reason for our discomfort may not be correct, and we may end up blaming the wrong thing.
We are so used to this business of only looking ‘out there’ that we run the risk of a. failing to correctly identify causes from ‘in here’ as well as b. incorrectly blaming supposed causes from ‘out there’ and get cross with that.
Thus, Society’s assumption has been, ” what we need to ‘feed’ and ‘fix’ us comes from ‘out there” and it is physical.
This is fair enough for food; it’s an assumption that has worked reasonably well up to now. In general, our food did used to sustain us, (if we could get it, or it wasn’t compromised etc. but for the vast majority of peoples in the world, there was a connection between eating food and being sustained by that).
But it is also true that some of our un-ease is caused by the way we look at things, our social ‘world view’, which is actually severely limited, and that (way of looking at things) is an internal point of view for each of us.
Other energy departments ‘feed’ us. (7.26)
Human beings actually have a great need and wish to feel ‘fed’, satisfied and sustained in the other energy departments as well…. (PEMS internally and externally) – relationships also feed us, as well as draining us – what sort of relationships do you have?
The Mental department – careful thinking about information can also feed us or drain us – what sort of information/data do you have in your life?
The Spiritual/Inspiritive department – the truth, ethics and integrity are also satisfying and sustaining; what sort of truth or ethics do you have in your life? We do not understand how little our world view or religions are able to sustain or satisfy us.
The relationships we have with others affect us deeply inside (so much so that this is one of the things we try to diminish); ditto, how we are able to think and express our thinking affects us personally as well as out there, and the same is true for the principles that sustain our ideas about why we are here. Society has very limited understanding of the importance of these ‘feedings’; these things we take into ourselves and make part of us.
Hunger from other energy departments is translated into the physical only. (7.27)
But our society only acknowledges the physical and mental, and it is also true that any internal ‘hunger’ we may have in whatever department is translated by our bodies as ‘I need food’, or ‘I need to consume something, and all I know about is ‘out there”. The body feels un-ease, and it is always difficult to sort out internally what the cause may be or from which department. It’s very easy to mix them up; lots of people eat for comfort. It is automatic to consider the ‘fix’ as coming from ‘out there’, but it might be from one or more of the disregarded departments which we are taught to ignore, so, how will you find that in the ‘normal’ world? Hence, we think all ‘hunger’ problems are ‘fixed’ by consuming.
Consuming. (7.28)
So, whenever we feel ’empty/hungry’ we consume.
The less we feel ‘fed’ or satisfied, the more we consume, and consume is what we do – in spades.
Considering our staggering level of consumption, (for those able to do so) it is plain that our ‘normal’ world view is neither satisfying nor sustaining for us.
The problems with consuming.
Cost. (7.29)
We have to pay for it because it is usually produced by another, and so we need something to pay with. We usually do this by working for it and therefore we are dependent on how much money we can make so that we can consume. We fear any inability to provide for ourselves the things that we want, and we consider the things that we should be wanting or that will bring us satisfaction are physical things ‘out there’.
Dependence on others. (7.30)
Someone else has produced this food and these commodities. This makes us dependent on the producer and dependent on those who pay us so that we can pay for our food, etc.
We consume, and we expect to consume, therefore we are dependent on our ability to consume, and admire others who can do it ‘better’ than we can, eg, 7 or more cars for 1 person is deemed a great success. How many cars does one person need?
The more we consume, the more dependent we are on these others, and all dependent people will at some time or another, be treated as puppets, by definition. (‘Dependent’ is about ‘hanging around’; puppets definitely ‘hang around’.) Puppets are always at risk of others’ wishes, ie, ‘fate’. Therefore, our status/estimation of ourselves is dependent on others or ‘fortune’/fate and hence we are always at risk of whatever. This leads to fear. Dependence is a recipe for ‘victim’. Independence brings more choice, but generally takes more effort as well.
Hence, we think we need to have the money/power/control for our happiness and satisfaction and become more fearful of being ‘hungry’. So, money and power have to come first, before we can be ‘fed’ and ease our discomfort.
This makes wanting to be ‘fed’ (and hence consuming), a very powerful drive indeed, especially since it is largely unconscious. Our dependence has made us look for more control. But, notice that it is independence that actually brings more control.
We think consumption or the ability to do so is a measure of our status in life. Those who DIY must be poor. We are sold consumption as a method of expressing our individuality and creativity. We have all this choice.
The Media is the ‘salesperson’ for our consumption. It is the sales face of those in power who are telling us that consuming xyz will bring us happiness. But it leaves us grasping for money/power to be able to pay/force others to provide that xyz to us so that we can consume it. Our level of greed is a great measure of our ‘hunger’.
As we rely on others, we lose the capacity to do it ourselves or use our own resources.
Time. (7.31)
We don’t have time.
The pursuit of money takes time, so there’s no time to grow, prepare or care about food, or the other things that sustain us PEMS. Look at how much time we spend earning so that we can consume. Then, if we have the money, look at how much time we spend consuming, and being entertained; our pastimes, or how we pass the time. Our entertainment is a consuming and a distraction from life.
We don’t have the time to develop our own skills, or find new internal resources, or look for alternatives, or even think about this amazing rat-race we’ve got ourselves onto.
We don’t have time for our children – parents may hope so – the children may not agree.
We consume. (7.32)
The amount we consume is in direct proportion to how ‘hungry’ and un-‘fed’ we feel.
We consume clothing, housing, furniture, cars, entertainment, news, media, words, words, words, noise, sweets, status symbols, pass-times. Mountains of stuff, and we end up ‘stuffed’ ie, tired; it may energise us initially, but then it takes it away. And a lot (all?) of this stuff is ultimately made by exploiting nature or indigent others overseas.
Notice that all of this stuff is made by others, not us. As we consume said stuff, so we consume others’ creativity/output and their take on life and its ‘norms’ which are actually pretty limited. So, we are not thinking for ourselves or experiencing anything for ourselves.
Waste. (7.33)
And how much do we waste?
No matter how much we consume, we aren’t happy. We look for more and more…
We are taught that consuming all of this stuff ‘out there’ is the way to happiness, fun, fulfillment etc, etc., but it simply is not – we just don’t feel fed or sustained or we wouldn’t go on consuming. It is the path to being bored and ‘fed up‘; is this all there is? ‘life sucks and then you die’. Notice, ‘fed up’ instead of ‘fed’ or ‘full’.
We’ve finished with or used up what we have bought and we throw it away; it has not sustained us in the long term.
So, we look for the next thing and the next… and we throw away or discard what we can’t use any more, because it no longer satisfies us. And so, we generate waste; mountains of it, and it is now such a problem and so ignored. We don’t know what to do with it, so we just dump it. Probably half the ‘stuff’ in every shopping centre will be in the tip after only 2 years; that’s a lot of stuff.
We will become known as the ‘waste generation’ in all senses of the phrase and this waste poisons us and life; we will die of it.
Sweet. (7.34)
We want it sweet. We are addicted to sweet/sugar and cannot face life without it.
Our consumption of sugar is gargantuan, (and so are we). I include alcohol in with sugar because the body considers alcohol as a form of sugar.
If politicians and those in power dress up what they say in ‘sweet’/noble/caring words, we’ll swallow anything.
We can eat sweets and feel fed, but they have not sustained us. Ditto for the vast quantities of processed food provided by companies out there with nothing but our wishes and best welfare at heart (sarc.). We consume more food because we feel ’empty’, but end up on the roller-coaster of consume <==> empty, ad nauseam, to our not so general wellbeing. As we fail to be sustained, we end up generally unable to express our potential; we are not as well as we would wish, or not as happy, no ease, etc.
Lack of Sweetness for us is related to our ability to Flower, ie, express our inner self. See Desires Chapter 8.
And as with the rest of this discussion, it is not just about food; it is about what we consume.
No Rest. (7.35)
And we can’t rest; we’re never satisfied; there is never enough.
Here is another problem with our consumption; we need to feel satisfied to be able to rest. How much ‘rest’ do we get?
We all need food and rest to be able to grow; it’s not just children. As we continue to be hungry, so we find no rest. If we can’t find any rest we cannot grow. We’re simply driven to look for ‘food’ and eating just anything, until hungry again.
What are we actually wanting? (7.36)
We may fear hunger, but we are actually looking for the feelings of fed, satisfied and sustained not only in the physical, but also in the emotional, mental and spiritual Energy departments (PEMS).
Our answers are unique to us. (7.37)
We take it for granted that we should be able to obtain what we need to sustain us, but we do not consider what actually leaves us feeling fed and satisfied, as in, not needing more for a while, as in, not feeling driven to look for the next thing that will satisfy us, because the last thing has ‘worn off’. We also need to work out what sustains us.
In this satisfaction, we get a break; some peace and some rest, as a child is fed and satisfied and able to relax and play or rest and sleep.
Thus, we need to ascertain what actually nurtures and sustains us, and what is peace and rest for us? Because there does not seem to be vast amounts of it around.
If we are sustained by what we have inside us, we do not need to consume as much. This is where all our ‘market forces’ economics falls over. And the even greater irony is that if we are actually satisfied and sustained internally, we can rest and we can grow in independence and fortitude. As we are unsatisfied, we consume, we waste, we remain dependent and cross about that, we can never rest, our economic system may grow, and we may grow fatter and do, but there seems no end to it. Well, there is, and we’re trying to find it and are well on the way. We are killing Life and wasting our own.
You are looking for what sustains you in all departments PEMS; what gives you fortitude and the heart to continue on in life with what you want to do.
So, what do we really want? Well, satisfaction is the answer, but it’s not an ‘end’ answer, it’s a ‘beginning’ question. What is it that does satisfy you, sustain you and give you fortitude so that you can find your own direction in life and Explore and Express, which is what we are here for?
These answers are internal. (7.38)
The essential part is that you ask and answer these questions for yourself, because the satisfaction that you are looking for is internal. Nobody else really knows your answers for you, and your thinking that they do will trip you up. For many people, society’s ‘normal answers’ are not satisfying at all, hence that is no help. These people will have to look for their own.
Remember, there is a short-term aspect and a long-term aspect to what sustains you, so it can take time before you can sort out which is what, as in, allow the time to do this. You’re not stupid just because you don’t know the answer(s) straight away, but you are not doing yourself a service if you don’t look for it/them over time.
In the emotional world our intimate relationships ‘feed’ and ‘sustain’ us. What intimate relationships do you have?
Think of relationships that seem to ‘feed’ you in the short term because they are so ‘sweet’ at the time, and naturally you want more of that, but eventually you can feel run down by this type of relationship and very dissatisfied, and that is your warning that something is wrong. Then you get to think about what does sustain you. Desserts can be very nice, but much better for you in small amounts after the meat and potatoes which are far more sustaining. It may be useful to you to be more interested in the ‘meat and potatoes’ type relationship (whatever that means to you) and useful for them as well.
How do you sustain yourself ‘spiritually’? What ‘feeds’ you? This UUS is a sort of ‘meat and potatoes’ kind of ‘food’ that I find sustaining because it helps me face life and enjoy it. But what is yours for you? At the risk of repeating myself, ‘life sucks and then you die’ is not sustaining.
What kind of mental concepts sustain you? Is there any truth to them? Do they help you explore life or express your InSelf?
And strangely enough you have to give yourself the Time and Interest (= Care/attention) to think for yourself, for the answers for you; your ‘right living’. One of the signs that you are on the right track is that you will have more peace and quiet internally and can feel more satisfied with life. Thus and so, Sustain is actually an internal answer, ie, it’s ‘coming from within’. It is personal to you, and others must find their own answers, whatever they may be.
Giving Sustain to ‘the other’. (7.39)
And, of course, the next step is to be able to give what you are wanting…
- How do you ‘feed’ ‘the other’?
- What do you give them that feeds, satisfies and sustains them, so that they can rest and also ‘grow’?
Because, as you do so, you feed your inner self; you are providing your own satisfaction and ‘full-fill-ment’.
These questions are for you to work out how to sustain yourself, and as you give them the time to ponder and answer, so you will find out what sustains ‘the other’. The more you are able to do that, the more sustained you will feel. Sustain is the ‘S’ part of TISP (= Love in Action). Well, fancy that! This is another piece of Love. And notice that this one comes from inside you, (in the ‘feminine’ way).
T and I are still to come, and these are needed to address the fear that I label ‘Ghost’, which is the next fear.
The ghost. (7C)
Introduction. (7.40)
Another great fear is that we are Unseen and Unknown; we do not exist as far as another or ourself is concerned. I refer to this state as the Ghost. In this state we do not really live, and are not dead either; it is a non-life. The Ghost wants respect, acknowledgement, to count and to be treated as an individual by the other, ie, to know that it exists.
Definition and attributes.
The best way to define the feeling of ‘ghost’ is with a list of attributes.
- Unseen and unknown
- Unwanted
- No-thing and no-body and hence,
- Don’t count, and No effect on ‘the other’;
- No matter, does anything matter?
- Feel ’empty’, but cannot be filled. (We are also hungry, but that is dealt with above.)
- Fear, anger,
- Judgement and blame,
- Alone, detachment and separation
- Boredom,
- Low energy,
- Cynicism and greyness; little hope or colour in life. Hence, bleak outlook
- Don’t feel alive, but afraid of death.
THE ATTRIBUTES IN DETAIL.
In reality these attributes are quite entwined, but separating them out helps to clarify them.
Unseen and unknown. (7.41)
There is no intimacy (into-me-see) (with other or with self). There can be no relationship here. Feeling unseen and unknown also kills relationship. We feel as if we have neither face nor voice; does anyone see or hear us? is this our deepest fear? Does anyone take any notice? Even if they say they do, you may not feel that they do. It also makes us feel unsafe, as does being ghostly anyway. So, the fact that we feel ghostly/invisible does not make us feel safe.
Unwanted. (7.42)
Feeling wanted is extremely important; if we are invisible how can we be wanted? How many children are really wanted by their parents? How many people want to be wanted?
Nothing and nobody; no-thing and no-body. (7.43)
We feel like nothing and nobody, which is actually a fairly deadly emotion and we don’t like it, nor do we have a real name for it. It feels like a ‘blankness’. What is happening here is a loss of sensation in the body; nothing nice seems to happen either, or nothing excites us (see also boredom). We are losing our feelings, both sensing and emotions. If we can’t feel, this leads to no rudders, hence, we can’t know what’s important to us and end up relying on others to tell us. But, their answers may be wrong for you….. As we lose our sensations and emotions, we look for ‘stronger’ stimulation so we can feel something. We try greater excitement, risk to self and others, legal and illegal; there is something for everyone.
No ‘thing’ is actually no ‘object’; there is a lack of ‘beingness’ here, as in, it is not enough to just be; the complaint really is that we cannot ‘just be’, in that we have no peace here.
Don’t count. (7.44)
We feel as if we don’t count; we are not taken into account; no effect on the other. No-one is interested; nothing I do seems to ‘have any effect’. There is no ‘weight’ here (I’ve been trying to throw my weight around and that hasn’t worked either) (this may have some connection with reasons for people gaining weight; others must take notice). Feeling no ‘ground’ (very insecure, can’t feel secure), and easily ‘blown away’, as in, upset.
There are fear, anger and continuing anxiety about having no effect or no control ‘out there’, either now or in the future.
Great anger and self-pity turn us all into bottomless pits, ie, a ‘hole’ and never ‘whole’, because there is never enough. The thing is that we cannot feel it when others try to reassure us or to care; nothing can ‘fill’ us. We don’t realise that we are the ones doing this to ourselves. It always looks as though ‘the other’ is not giving us enough.
Judgement and blame (hence bully/victim), are also here because others ‘should’ acknowledge me. ‘I’ll make them notice me, somehow. Now, if I had a gun…’.
No matter. (7.45)
I don’t matter; it doesn’t matter, what matters; nothing in life matters to me; does it matter what I do? It doesn’t seem to matter to anyone else.
Notice that the ghost is not matter, that’s the whole point and complaint. Matter is a very important word.
Empty. (7.46)
We feel empty and Unfilled, the ‘hole’ bit; not full or satisfied; is that all there is? We may also fear that we can never feel fed, See Fears – Hungry. Feeling hungry gives us neither peace of mind nor rest; we look to consume; we are wanting.
Sometimes the wanting is so great that others can feel that ‘pull’ from the ‘wanter’. This is happening in a lot of ‘sorry for the victim’ transactions; but others may simply not have any energy to spare, or not want to give it away in this manner, and will resist the pull from this source of ‘neediness’.
We are also ‘fed up’ (which are interesting words). We are Frustrated, ie, fear and anger when we can’t get what we want, and anxious about any future likelihood of the same. Long term frustration has a lot to do with depression. (And depression has a great deal to do with the Sup/Inf Caper.)
Alone. (7.47)
Singular, don’t belong, distant, detached, separated and competing, outcast, no relationships except at chat, gossip or sports-commenting levels (that’s why we need ‘circuses’) [ ‘Give them bread and circuses’ was an old Roman edict for keeping the masses quiet, and hence, well-behaved. We have physical ‘bread’ for the hungry (mostly), and sports (= circuses) to keep us occupied/entertained.]
Bored. (7.48)
We get bored; ‘same old, same old’. There is no satisfaction. We can’t find things that absorb us for very long; everything wears off. We get tired of new toys; ‘there has to be something more exciting out there, but this isn’t it’. Peace and Quiet expose the problem of the lack of peace internally because we are wanting/consuming so hard. Hence, we dislike peace and quiet, and will turn to more stimulating/exciting things. We’ll ‘poke bears’ to see what they’ll do. See also above, nothing and nobody and losing feeling.
Low energy. (7.49)
No energy coming in, so will run out eventually. Real energy comes out of purpose; if we have no purpose, then where will the energy come from? When we are unknown to ourself or the other, we have no truth about ourselves; we are ‘in-valid’ (if something is valid it is true); feeling ghostly leads to fatigue and chronic illness and feeling like ‘death warmed up’. Being unwell exacerbates all aspects of Ghost. We become increasingly static, ie, little movement, which is also characteristic of the ghost.
This is also mixed up with little social understanding that we are meant to be doing something fulfilling with ourselves and our abilities; not just earning money somehow so that we can consume on.
Un-alive. (7.50)
We don’t feel alive, which begs the question of what that is, but we are still very afraid of death and will not look at it. Thus, we end up living on and on with little life; an irony if ever there was one.
Cynicism and greyness. (7.51)
We believe this is what life has to offer; “Life sucks and then you die”. There will be a very bleak outlook on life in the future, or the single hope that a huge lottery win will fix it all, with plenty of spending on that hope.
Ghosts can also be rather cross when others seem to be enjoying themselves. They themselves can often look a bit grey in skin colour, or a bit ‘flat’ in their facial features. They do like to look for glitter, gloss and sparkle, hoping it will rub off. There is also a tendency to live out of sync with daylight. The living environment/surroundings will be bleak at best, to mess, clutter and rubbish at worst. And there will be plenty of judgement of others, not to mention self-pity. See Sup/Inf above.
No rest. (7.52)
All of the above leave us restless with no peace of mind; searching forever, or giving up in despair; we cannot Rest in Peace. RIP is only for the dead.
The difference between ‘ghost’ and depression? (7.53)
The difference between ‘ghost’ and depression is probably not great, but the word ‘depression’ is used in a very general way; hence it is more nebulous, and difficult to get a handle on. The terms in the above list describing the ghost are actually more useful than simply ‘depression’ because if you make a list of your own opposites to the ghost attributes, you might find something useful for your own purposes.
How do we get to be ghostly?
There are several factors at work here.
The lack of time or interest in ‘the other’. (7.54)
The primary lack is from not enough Time and/or Interest over the long term from the significant people of our childhood. This can also include lack of respect, disregard for needs, being despised or despising, trauma or severe stress (which are all forms of disrespect, really, and abuse is even worse).
Feeling ghostly takes time to develop and can develop at any time through life, but childhood probably contains some, if not most of the seeds.
[How do parents give their children time in our current world? And enough for the child, not the parent; ‘quality time’ is the adult’s words, not the child’s.] In our society it is rare for fathers to have any real time or engagement with their children; and I’m talking about actual time here, not nice words to reassure us all that everything’s just fine.I use children as examples here because children know all about the ghost, and will attempt to get your attention by hook or by crook.
Denial and burial. (7.55)
Denial and burial of the InSelf inside us – ‘the other’ internally. We are not taught that we have an ‘other’ ‘inside’. Thus, we give neither Time nor Interest to our InSelf. We don’t know that we need to do so, but we do. The InSelf is always there regardless of what we may think. If the InSelf is the source of our life force, then if we consider that we have no such InSelf, we are unable to access that life force.
Disdain for the immeasurable. (7.56)
Many important things in Life are immeasurable, as in, difficult or impossible to measure. These include people’s personal values, or qualities such as loyalty, friendship, kindness or courage. Our insistence on measuring everything goes hand-in-hand with our devaluation of the in-valuable as value-less. But we are the ones who are missing out.
To reiterate, we don’t actually understand that the immeasurable is more important than the measurable. It doesn’t necessarily show up in what we do, or why we do it. We’re generally unconscious of it.
How do we do ‘ghost’ to ‘the other’? (7.57)
- The more we go on consuming, wanting, wasting, using and abusing the natural world for our own purposes without taking its needs into account, or
- The more we dismiss ‘the other’ as they don’t count, as in….
- A waste of time and/or space
- A terrorist or a Muslim or a ‘red under the bed’, ie, whatever fashionable term of fear,
- Stupid, ‘unscientific’, crazy,
- Weak, unfit, undeserving, lazy, ‘loser’ etc.… or
- The more we fail to respect our own needs or those of others, or
- The more we are unable to live our own truths, as in, we dare not face our own warts/sewage because we consider them unacceptable, then,
The more you are doing that to your inner Self.
We can all have fears that we don’t exist, but as we fail to give existence to our internal ‘other’, we are unable to give that to the external other.
The mechanism of ‘ghost’. (7.58)
When we feel unknown or unseen by the other, there can be no intimacy (into-me-see). No intimacy means no real Merge either.
Intimacy takes time to develop, to be more deeply aware, and to meet the complete person, not just the mask (the outself), otherwise we will never feel known.
How much time do parents have for their children when both are employed full-time; not to mention the commuting, and definitely not to mention the housework?
If we want whatever, we will put Time and Interest into that.
All of us deeply want to be deeply known by ‘an other’ and wanted regardless of our ‘warts’; ie, to be loved ‘warts ‘n all’. This is what children want from their parents, (although most parents would rather do without the ‘warts’). Children know how much they are wanted by the amount of Time and Interest that their parents accord them.
But, as we busily deny and bury these ‘warts’, the rotten things insist on coming at us from ‘out there’ because that’s what projection is and does. Our lives are our manifestation of what is inside us.
Thus, if we want others to accept our ‘warts’, the first thing we need to do is to know and accept them ourselves. This is labelled ‘Know Thyself’.
But, as we try to do so, here come all the problems of judgement of self and others, and we don’t actually like letting go of those, because our carefully crafted estimation of ourselves is now at risk. But if you are feeling ‘ghostly’, and are having trouble feeling wanted by others, the idea is to want your InSelf, and that means you will give it your Time and Interest, and that actually does clear the other problem. And, as always, it won’t matter whether others do or don’t want you if you are happy with your relationship with your InSelf.
The problem for the ghost. (7.59)
It has lost or is losing contact with the body and it is the body that does the feeling, whether senses or emotions. Hence the ghost cannot feel its own responses or emotions. You can tell you are becoming a ghost through the detachment and loss of feeling, leaving a kind of blankness or nothingness. But our feelings are our rudders in life. We all need our rudders for working out what repels and what attracts us, and when we don’t have them it is much harder to define what is important to us and what we want. Hence, nothing seems to matter.
If the ghost wants to live ‘fully’, it has to get back to feeling. The business of coming back to life involves learning to feel again, yet that feeling has to include the rotten stuff as well as the good stuff.
The trouble is, we know from experience that if parts of the body have been frozen, damaged or numb they hurt quite a lot when circulation is restored (think of ‘pins and needles’); it’s the same for the emotional self. Sometimes the rotten stuff, including regret, sorrow, shame and guilt, has to be cleared first before the good stuff, so, going through this process usually requires external support from a knowledgeable therapist. ‘Retrieving our feeling’ involves the memory, hence remembering. As our frozen body parts come back to life, we retrieve our ‘members’.
The ghost fears life because it will have to re-feel (which will hurt) if it wants to come back to it, but it also fears death because of the fear of the unknown, but it cannot use it. This is a ‘catch-22’ and it gets stuck.
When I say the ghost can’t use death to give it life, I’m saying that we can’t use the death questions to give us insight into what is truly important or matters to us/ourself simply because we cannot feel the answers at heart.
The secondary advantage. (7.60)
Why would we allow ourselves to get to this state? Is there any advantage to being a ghost?
The primary problem for the ghost is the loss of feeling, and hence detachment from the body and life, because we’ve ‘shot the messenger’. We repress the feelings to avoid the ‘bad’ ones and don’t realise that as we bury ‘the bad’, we then lose access to the ‘good’ ones as well.
Guilt and shame both feel horrible. I defined guilt and shame in Part I (Foundations), with guilt as having done the wrong thing and shame as failing to do the ‘right’ thing. They can be easily conflated because they essentially feel the same. It’s also possible to generate both at the same time for the one deed. But, it’s useful to tease them apart. Both of them feel disgusting at the gut with nausea and sinking feelings, and in fact they feel so bad that we bury them as much as possible. I strongly suspect that these are ‘the fiery sword’, (of the Garden of Eden story) that we won’t face. Shame and guilt stop us getting into the Garden.
We don’t know what to do with them anyway, but they are major drivers in one’s life, especially stuff related to obsession/compulsion. There’s not much information about these, or what to do with them. Most books I’ve read seem to skate over the problem, often by deeming them irrational. This may be so, but it doesn’t stop the problem. It just leaves you stuck with the ‘irrational’ label, which is simply all the more reason to bury them. After all, it is perfectly true that these are subject to our own perceptions, but this is all we have to work with anyway.
The thing is that your thinking/decisions may be based on your experiences in past lives and are possibly perfectly rational, considering what you knew then, ie, in the context of that time. It is perfectly possible to go back, sort these out, get the bigger picture, and change your mind (See the Treasure Tool). But this sort of thing is never going to be ‘scientific’. This process is about ‘memories’ that cannot be proven, nor ever will be. The only thing that can be calibrated is your own assessment of the effect of this ‘understanding’ on your own life, now and in the future, and that is all that is required.
Shame and guilt (again). (7.61)
Both guilt and shame can be worked with, but guilt is about the past and rectifying shame is about both checking what you are actually wanting, and your actions in the future.
The consequence of this is that guilt can be cleared by going back into your past and re-assessing and reviewing your decisions made then, in the light of your present adult capability to overview your patterns of behaviour and attitudes. This is a re-think, which is what ‘re-pent’ means. Usually we find decisions and behaviours in the past that weren’t very useful for us, and we would like to change these to something more useful in the future, which we can. It is possible to forgive ourselves for what we have done, and to choose to do things a different way, and the past is finished.
But shame is a real pill because it is about not having done ‘the right thing’. Hence the only way to get rid of this horrible feeling is to do the ‘right’ thing from now on into the future, but you do need to check whether that ‘right’ thing is actually correct for you.
Thus, this means first finding that thing that is ‘right’ for you to do or live, (with the correct motives) and then, it’s doing it, and that usually requires Effort, and often, Risk, which we don’t like. But then, if you don’t/can’t do that ‘right’ thing for you, the shame (or even only the ‘not-rightness’) just sits there like an incubus, and one of the ways to get rid of that feeling is to go back to ghost. Blankness seems like any improvement on shame.
But, as we bury our shame, we will find that…
- We can’t enjoy anything that we do very much – we just stay ‘blank’,
- We lose energy – all ‘burying’ takes our energy and,
- We become ill, ie, we are ‘in-valid’, as in, we are unable to live our own truth.
Thus, if you’re having trouble doing that ‘right’ thing for yourself, for whatever reason, there is another fear sitting underneath that, and the risk of death may be one of them, and that fear may be perfectly valid in this day and age. Look what happens to people who try to speak out about corruption or P&C at high levels, or investigative journalists or ‘agitators’ (or people who are rude about religions, etc.) who have ‘accidents’ or get ‘disappeared’; There is in fact quite a lot wrong with our wonderful world, and nothing will happen until we look at what these wrong things are. On the other hand, effort is effort and can be a pill. Not that many of us are keen on duty or discipline.
And more fear. (7.62)
At the deepest level, whatever this fear is, it must be faced, and getting a wise person to help is a very good idea here, and it may take quite a bit of doing as well, as in, treat this fear with a lot of respect.
In the end, that saying of Thomas’ about ‘what is within you will destroy you if it can’t get out’ will get you if you can’t do the right thing by/for yourself, so you end up stuck between Scylla and Charybdis. But disintegration because you cannot speak your truth can be worse than death.
This really is very serious stuff, because it can ‘kill’ you, but it’s really about the fact that it is you that has ‘killed off’ your InSelf. (This all sounds a bit grim, but finding/knowing the desire that brings you D&D will get you to where you want to go. It really is about what you are wanting, and respect for Life/Energy.)
The above seems a terribly long-winded ‘explanation’ about guilt and shame, but I find them so important and so invidious, and so underestimated. I’m trying to say, do not underestimate their seriousness, and don’t think that being dead will stop them either.
There are references in spiritual literatures to ‘the wailing and gnashing of teeth’ when dead, most of which appears to be used as a threat or glossed over in a hurry, and ignored. But the logic of this UUS is that without a body, ie, alive on Earth, it is not possible to …
- clear guilt, because you need your memory and feelings to do that, as well as the ‘bigger picture’ (this is the ‘re-pent’ ie, re-think bit) or
- execute those ‘right things’ that are right for you, including express your own truth, so that you can give TISP, and Serve, find TSE, and grow. See Desires.
Hence, these things have to be done while you are alive; you cannot rectify these things when you are dead. Your opportunity is now; and living the half-life of the ghost is pretty dreary anyway.
But everything is supposed to be OK when you’re dead. (7.63)
So why doesn’t any of this guilt/shame stuff turn up when we communicate with the dead? All those messages through Mediums and Psychics saying they’re in a great place and ‘forgiving’ everyone, etc. etc.?
I suspect that none of this rotten stuff about guilt and shame is in the conscious mind at all, but if spirit and soul come together when we are alive, then they are likely to split when we are dead or some variation on this. The crux here is that most people would not notice, and hence, most people would not notice the lack of the unconscious mind when talking to the dead. After all, it is generally what we do while we are alive.
The Greek myths of ‘the shades’ may well contain warnings about what happens to the unconscious part of the mind after we die. Another axiom is ‘as above, so below’, which also has its intrinsic warning, and is also true because of how Energy works.
It also seems that most people get to ‘review’ their lives after they have died, so, it’s basically, review now while you’re alive or later, when you’re dead. It’s not if, it’s when. There is no escape from this, nor is there any advantage in doing so. The courage to face the sewage is what is required. Sewage (unpoisoned) makes the best fertilizer, and then you can grow and ‘Flower’, which see below under ‘Desires’.
Why talk about this business of the ghost? (7.64)
‘Ghost’ seems to be a very sweeping statement, but it’s actually a very big issue.
It comes about through lack of Time or Interest.
Your Time and Interest together are an energy that intrinsically belongs to you, (it’s where your attention/awareness goes) and how you spend that energy is crucial. “Energy goes where your attention flows.”
So, where do our Time and our Interest (T&I) go? Your time and interest are a bit like a budget that you are born with. So, how do you spend it?
In general, most people give T&I because they want it back in some form. They’re kind of ‘investing’ it. (Money is an important form of energy as is relationships, and some of the terms overlap, but this particular discussion is not about money, although there’s nothing like a metaphor or two…..) Fewer people just simply give it away because they like to, but if you love your children and are interested in what they do, that is precisely what you will be doing, just giving them your Time and Interest.
Giving it to get it back is essentially the wrong reason/motive, because it implies lack on your part in the first place, and hence dependence on the return. All spiritual writings warn about any dependence on the external world, simply because it is ephemeral, and can and will change sooner or later, and this includes people. Nor are you meant to depend upon it. As you are dependent, so you will want more control, but you will also become a ‘puppet’ being controlled (dependent).
You cannot depend upon it/them and essentially ‘out there’ cannot give you the energy you really need and you will run out.
What matters to your heart? (7.65)
The idea is to give your T&I to what matters most to you at your heart – what you truly love or hold most dear, which means coming back to feelings to find out. This includes knowing what these feelings are and interpreting them correctly.
Pursuing whatever is at your heart because you want it naturally leads to Explore and Express because you will be giving your Life energy to whatever matters most to you. Hence, it is your choosing that makes it matter. (As it matters to you, so it becomes real.) If your heart isn’t in it, you will eventually run out of energy. Hence, we need to choose what we want rather carefully.
Notice also that it is perfectly possible to give all your T&I to money or power, but these are unlikely to give T&I to you in return.
Hence, the big question is ‘what does your heart want?’ and if the answer were obvious, we would all be living in an untroubled world. We consider the answer to be ‘love’, but although true, it is a ‘mind’ answer. The actual question is ‘what does love mean to you in your body, and how do you give it?’ and clearly, the answer is not obvious and can take some hunting. So, explore on.
The key is when you’ve worked it out, giving your T&I to it/them will energize you or hearten you in some manner so you will want to give more. But, even then, this is still easy to mix up with the short-term warmth of new relationships or more money, so you still need to watch and see and notice whether these effects are lasting or sustaining.
We want to know we exist. (7.66)
We want to be seen and heard, to count, to matter and to be real. ‘Tell me I am here’. So we spend a great deal of time looking for that attention from the other ‘out there’. Think how much we use electronic media, and how much time we spend using it, and what for (see also Hunger/Consume above). So much so that we have very little time for our inner selves. So, we start running out/down, and we can feel it in our body; less energy.
However, I suspect that even more than wanting to be seen and heard, is the wish to feel wanted by the other. Although I would add, you will want to be wanted by the other you want; you might not feel so keen if you didn’t want that other. But, even so, the way for you to have that feeling is to want your own InSelf and that requires your Time and Interest directed there.
Good manners are also a way that will help you feel wanted by others. Good manners mean that you are actually taking the other into account; it’s a consideration. Failing to teach manners to children simply leaves these children unwanted by others and excluded sooner or later. Anyone who gives no consideration to others cannot complain if they receive none themselves. (This is where the idealistic concept of parents [usually the mother] giving ‘unconditional love’, tends to fall over in the aim of raising a loved and loving child. Often the result is that it’s a challenge to other adults to love it too.)
As with anything we want from another ‘out there’, we have to work out how to give that to the inner self ‘in here’, the InSelf, the ‘inner other’, in spite of no real idea within society that we have one. The Treasure Tool can help, see Chapter 16.
Remember also that the ‘inner other’ or InSelf = God, Life and Self.
Thus, if we want to matter to others, God, Life and Self have to matter to us. Most people consider these as having no matter or relevance to them at all. But we become real as we real-ize who is within. We can also notice that even if we think that God does not matter, God has no doubt about that at all, and is not the slightest bit fussed when we think in this way. That is what She is saying when She says ‘I am’.
Conclusion. (7.67)
The warning here is that if you are experiencing some of the attributes listed for the ghost, the idea is to take notice, and you are likely to need help. And that bit isn’t easy either. It’s not just the doing of it, it’s finding the right person as well. Even having found the right person, the actual process is likely to be neither easy nor comfortable; it never is, but hopefully it will be enthralling and you will find some treasures.
Also, the ghosts that people report seeing/feeling are a (time) part of the soul with no body, ie, no matter attached to them. The ‘hungry ghost’ is one of the Bardos, (Tibetan states of the dead) but I suspect this is a state that is not only occupied by the ‘dead’.
And, strangely enough, Time and Interest are the first 2 letters of TISP = Time, Interest, Sustain and Protect, which is Doing Love. More pieces of Love.
The next section is 7D.
Clean. (7D)
Another requirement for the body (and mind actually) is clean, which we can take for granted in some societies and not in others.
We are still animals and it’s just as important for us as well as them to have our bodies and surroundings clean and comfortable. Most of us feel better for a wash, and we don’t like bugs. They usually make us uncomfortable – they ‘bug’ us – and may lead to unease to dis-ease. We can have bugs internally, eg, microbes etc, as well as innumerable external forms. After all, lots of things that ‘bug’ us give us ‘the shites’ too.
But we are messing up our environment in spades, and one of those ways is through the generation of super bugs – microbes that can make us super unwell. The point here is that we are not only harming our environment, we are harming ourselves too.
Being ‘bugged’ can also be extended as a metaphor for the other Energy departments as well, with the implied value in cleaning up those things that ‘bug’ us mentally and/or in whatever way.
The Treasure Tool is a very useful mental ‘de-bugging’ device; see below.
Conclusion for Chapter 7 Fears. (7.68)
In this chapter we have looked at Unsafe, Unfed and Unseen/Unwanted as our 3 greatest fears, and these fears come from the soul part of us. These fears actually force us to learn what TISP is and to practice it, or else, basically. These fears are like sticks for the donkey to make it move, and so our primary wants are to get rid of these sticks. But without them we are not going to learn TISP. Hence giving TISP is the way that we can address these fears, for our own selves and for others.
TISP is the answer to our soul-less world, and interestingly enough, giving it to your InSelf first is all that is required of you, as in, it is enough. This is a very important point. It may seem entirely selfish to concentrate only upon yourself, but your internal satisfaction and peace are the very things that can help others if that is what they want. In the meantime, you do not have to save the world, because Mirror Laws tell us that as you give TISP to your InSelf, so you will be giving TISP to GLS, the outer as well as the inner. This is how energy works.
Notice here also, that there is no point whatsoever in ‘escaping’ or looking to be ‘rescued’. We actually need these fears to teach us about the need for TISP. That’s what our mind is for – to work it out, and we will like having worked it out because God did. Neither do the fears ‘go away’; they provide the contrast with TISP and must always be respected. They are powerful and make us careful about what we do and think and why.
The whole point about defining out our fears so carefully is that it is much easier to spot what’s going on if we have names for them and can separate them out. Naming them makes it much easier to address them and thus to face them if we know which bit of TISP is missing. But it’s not very easy to address them when they’re all mixed up together. See also Chapter 5, Judging. (5D9)
The trap about our fears is that they seem to be existential which they are, and common to all, so that they appear to be just too big for us, so it’s better not to look. The trouble is that some of the causes of these fears are bigger than we are as individuals, but not if we have a common and proper understanding of what humanity actually needs which is what this book is about. But we still cannot get any sort of handle on them if we just run away (or are angry) and blame ‘fate’ or whatever.
However much our fears seem to be ’caused’ by something outside us, they are also our own fears and not exactly the same as other people’s, ie, their manner and expression is individual to you. Thus, we still need to address our own fears for ourself, and the message here is that it is worth it – ‘in spades’, you might say. As we run away and refuse to look at them, our minds are turned off because we are afraid, and then we can be herded like sheep. This makes us ‘sheople’, which entirely fits in with what big business would like, which is to just do as we’re told. See Feudalism in Part III. (And what Covid-19 is all about.)
Your only way to really grow is to face your fears, which is what this UUS is all about, and why it is worth doing so. Facing them requires courage, because they do feel like dragons, but we can learn to do that too, especially if there are good reasons to do so. All of us have faced fears as we have grown up; just different ones for different people; some more, and some less.
We learn how to handle problems, and go on to develop abilities and skills, and as we do so, our confidence increases, which helps us to explore and express, and face more fears and so on….
The other thing that comes with facing our fears and finding the ‘fertilizer/treasure’, is that it becomes increasingly easier to find alternatives to the things that we think are trapping us. It busts down the walls of our prisons and opens our horizons. The treasures underneath our fears become our resources and make us stronger for ourselves.
Understanding that it is our fears that actually teach us about TISP, gives us purpose and point for our benefit as we are alive. This is the key to being able to face our fears and find out what is underneath them, because all dragons have treasure piled up under them and we want the treasure.
It is in facing our fears that we get to our desires, but it is our desires that give us the reason to face our fears. So, what are our essential desires?