HEALING THE SPLIT between the Conscious and the
Unconscious, which leads to Learning to know the InSelf.
[Please see the Introduction posted March 2013]
The primary commandment/instruction for Life is ‘Know
Thyself’.
We can Know Ourselves by Creating and Serving as
outlined above.
What else?
By using Contrasts and Opposites and by using Mirrors;
all provided in our external world on Earth to enable us to See our internal
Selves.
Contrasts and Opposites.
It is terribly difficult to get any sort of handle on
anything without having some sort of comparison or contrast. In the absence of
knowing anything about yourself, where would you start without having any
contrasts or opposites?
Imagine if our day were all daylight. How would we
define light or night?
This world of ours is an amazing gamut of contrasts
in so many ways. It is the ‘relative’ world as opposed to its opposite of the
‘absolute’ world of God (or ‘heaven’).
‘Consciousness loves contrast’ and in fact
cannot do without it, and the structure of Life on Earth provides these in
spades. From heaven to hell; nice to nasty; good to bad; and so on.
The contrasts of opposites are throughout our lives.
They are so much a part of our life that we may not realize how useful they can
be to clarify for ourselves how/what we are thinking about a concept.
I used contrasts and opposites in outlining the basic
‘coat-hanger’ above.
We can make a list of specifics to give ourselves
clarity about concepts. The more terms in the list, the clearer is the defining
of the concept; it makes a ‘definition’ and helps us ‘see’ a picture.
We will be seeing a great deal more of them.
But the best way for us to See something about
ourselves is to look in the Mirror.
Mirrors and Mirror Laws.
It is extremely difficult for us to ‘see ourselves as
others see us’. It is as if we exist in an absolute world of ourselves, and
need the mirrors from others to get feedback for the energy we put out. [God
worked out how to do it Herself, but it may have taken a while.] Remember, it’s
really easy to see others. It is only you that is unable to see yourself. We
need mirrors (and contrasts) if we are going to know ourselves.
As a culture we are vaguely aware of..
..’do as you would be done by’..
..’as ye sow, so shall ye reap’..
..’what goes around, comes around’.
And less aware of..
..’you are alone in a hall of mirrors’..
..Jung’s Shadow and the mechanism of Projection, and
..Byron Katie’s ‘Turn it Around’ or ‘The Work’ from
the book ‘Loving What Is’.
But it’s kind of worse than that, because
Reincarnation comes into it, so that your decisions from past lives are
included in your unconscious.
What I am talking about are what I term the Mirror
Laws (ML). There are 2 Mirror Laws working all the time behind the scenes,
although, basically they are the same concept. They are far more precise than
the above and we find them very tough indeed. I have called them the Mirror
Laws because they come from looking in the Mirror. I also find them easier as a
concept than Jung’s Shadow and Projection, simply because they are easier for
me to keep my head around.
They are…
What we do to others IS what we do to ourselves. And
What others do to us IS what we do or have done to
others AND what we do or have done to ourselves, in this life or previous
lives.
Mirror Laws are saying that what someone has done to
you is what you do or have done to yourself in some form or manner, as well as
what you do or have done in some manner to others in this life or in a
previous life.
Mirror Laws are telling us how we can tell
what we are actually doing to our InSelves = the internal ‘other’.
The first thing they tell us is …
a. That we have an InSelf, and
b. That this is what we are actually doing to
it, not what we think is happening, or our ‘stories’ about life. Life is
Mirroring your InSelf’s actual energy or vibration.
Notice here that the Mirror laws are about the whole
spectrum of Energy and our relationship to it. Don’t forget that God has had to
fit in with (submit to) these laws as well. They are basically, Love (TISP)
leads to Life (which feels like ’heaven’ or ‘garden’), while un-Love leads to
un-Life (which feels like ’hell’ or ‘shit’).
[The Law of Attraction is a variation of these MLs,
although many try to use it without understanding it correctly. The world ‘out
there’ is matching or mirroring the energy of your InSelf, not your outself.
Many people think that just bashing the InSelf with sufficient ‘wishes’, wants
or ‘commandments’ should do the trick, but it doesn’t. (’If wishes were
horses, beggars would ride’.) Your InSelf holds the Truth of You and wants
your love and affection for it as it is, not your conscious domination
of it or what you consider a good idea. (More in Goal-Setting.)]
But we find these Laws just impossible! It is much,
much easier to dismiss them out of hand. Well, why are they so impossible?
We are not taught them per se. They are not
really part of our awareness, although they are the basis of the ‘do as you
would be done by’ instruction that appears to be fading from social awareness
in the infotainment age. Jung’s Shadow and the mechanism of Projection are
describing their action.
They really are quite severe, and we don’t like that,
but we keep on expecting life to be as we think it ‘should be’, and it may be
for some, but they probably take it for granted. While I suspect many people
put on a ‘successful’ face (’we’re all having fun here’), I am not sure how
many people are particularly happy about the way their life and/or the world is
going. Life in the wild looks to be a fairly ‘life and death’ matter for the
animals concerned, and so it looks pretty fierce to me (’Nature raw in tooth
and claw’).
Notice also that I use the words ‘in some form or
manner’ and this is to remind us not to take things absolutely literally.
Sometimes things in the external world have to be translated to the internal
world, and vice versa. By this I mean that for example, emotional ‘violence’
can be as painful as physical violence, as in, the ‘violence’ can be in the
Emotional plane rather than the Physical plane. Even Mental violence
(untruths/lies) can be painful. The body ‘knows’ and feels the pain, and
doesn’t really discriminate which of the PEMS planes/departments it is coming
from.
One of Jesus’ most difficult instructions was ‘turn
the other cheek’, if someone had struck you in the face for basically no reason
apparent to you. This instruction is so far away from ‘normal’ behaviour that
it is simply consigned to the ‘too hard’ if not impossible basket. How relevant
is this instruction to our lives, particularly under the teaching that we only
have one go at Life?
We would blame them, attack back if possible
physically or verbally, be a victim if we couldn’t, and so on. Our whole social
focus is so oriented on blame and fear that we have a very hard time accepting
that we ourselves may have had something to do with what has happened to us
from out there, but in a previous life. 'Resist not evil' has a similar dynamic; the key here being to 'use it'.
Mirror laws are the basis for ‘turn the other cheek’.
There is plenty of evidence that Jesus was part of a society that believed in
reincarnation. However, we no longer need to physically ‘turn the other cheek’
because we now have psychological processes for learning the lessons without
having to experience being ‘bopped’ more than once if we don’t want to.
The Mirror laws as I have outlined them also imply
that past lives can be accessed. Although we are taught that this is neither
necessary because we don’t have them, nor possible because we don’t remember
them in this life, this teaching is not correct. Past lives are quite easily
accessed through techniques of talking to the unconscious if one knows how, and
many people do.
More about that later.
We need these laws to enable us to
understand/comprehend/realize our own energy that is internal to us. We
cannot know otherwise. To rephrase this somewhat, we cannot know our own
effect on others unless and until we can know their effect on us. It
is only in this manner that we can begin to learn that what we do affects our
selves as well as others.
So much of our social understanding implies that what
we do to others has no consequences, especially if we get away with it, and in
many instances disrespectful treatment of others is rewarded (see next
chapter).
So what about when people do horrible things to us,
and they can be horrible. These things have a tremendous effect on us, but it
can still be a call to understand your own power to affect others and yourself,
ie, be powerful for you
Something horrible such as rape or any other form of
major violence will be devastating to that person, but, and it is a big but, if
that person can find her internal ‘violence/intensity/anger’ toward others (or
herself), it actually transforms that internal energy into something very
powerful indeed, and that insight will help the ‘violated’ to mobilize her
energy in an effective manner. Further down the track this person could choose
to become a very useful therapist for others who have had such things happen to
them. Anybody who has looked for a therapist knows what it means to have a
therapist who ‘knows’ and has ‘been there, done that’ and come out the
other end in one piece, and by that I mean able to go on to build a satisfying
life for herself and not needing to look over her shoulder all her life.
It is very difficult not to get stuck in the blame
game here. It all looks and is rotten for the person concerned, and as for
choice - well!! Impossible. But our society has no mechanisms or answers to
truly support this person in their troubles and ultimately to avoid the victim
trap of suffering and being disempowered and consequently living a very fearful
and difficult life. Our religion isn’t useful; our therapists are as scared as
we are (that’s why they’re therapists), and the basic ‘compensation’ is
possibly blame (but what if the perpetrator is not caught or insufficiently
punished?) and maybe lots of pity from someone, and still the person
will suffer. But it’s simply not useful for our own growth and understanding.
All we know is judgement and blame, and they just make us suffer.
The ML laws are also ‘saying’ that as we judge and
blame others we are judging and blaming ourselves; trouble again.
But, and this is a big but, however much we may not
like it, they are acting all the time because,
This is the way in which we are all one. The external
‘other’ IS the internal ‘other’, or ‘they’ is ‘us’.
And
They are the single most important reason for ethical
behaviour on your part at all times for your own sake.
When you judge, blame, damn or despise another, you
are doing that to yourself (your InSelf) as well. Whenever you treat someone
badly, you are doing that to yourself as well. If you steal from someone or
attack someone in any manner, you are doing that to yourself as well, and on it
goes. The laws are a primary reason why ‘vengeance is mine, says the Lord’. It
is not, ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’. Any vengeance on your part
is acting on your InSelf as well; you are doing it to your InSelf. So, don’t.
The best way to short-circuit blame is to consider
that there may be something to See that might be of value to you in these
circumstances.
Of course, it is also true that when you treat another
with kindness and respect, you are doing that to yourself as well. This is the
basis for the church teachings of ‘being good to others as the way to learn to
be good to yourself (’Love thy neighbour as thyself’). There is a problem here
that is called ‘motive’, and that is why I focus on being good to one’s InSelf
and loving this internal ‘other’ first, (the ‘as thyself’ bit)
which is difficult enough as it is for most people.
The worst part is considering that we ourselves have
done ‘bad’ things in the past. But we have, and there’s no way around it. It
may have been inadvertent, but we have still done it. It is part of our
exploring and it is part of God’s allowing, but we still need to
understand/comprehend our own internal energy, and Mirror Laws are part of how
we get to do that.
Applying them.
The main way to use them is as in Byron Katie’s ‘The
Work’ where we ‘turn it around’. If for example I am cross because I feel that
someone is not caring about me, I can turn that around and ask ‘Am I being
shown something about how I am not caring about me?’ and you may find that
indeed you do not, and it is also true that when you care about
yourself, others may do that also, but it will not matter to you if
they don’t.
The extent to which I feel rejected by others is the
extent to which I am rejecting my InSelf, and so it goes.
A larger example would be that I could hate someone
for the way that I perceived them as having treated me in this life, only to
find that I myself have treated others in just such a fashion (if not worse!)
in a previous life . I could also find that my behaviour at that past time was
inadvertent because I had no idea at all of how to treat other people well, or
even take them into consideration in the first place. I can now consider that
maybe I needed to be on the receiving end for once so that I could understand
that others may not like what I did then. True understanding only comes from
experience, and if I choose to consider that I might have chosen this situation
simply to understand why it is not a good idea to mistreat others, I can choose
again to behave differently in future.
And I think that’s what it is all about. You are
looking for ways to ‘love what is’ in whatever way you can for your own
ultimate benefit.
The only person you have to forgive in this is
yourself. The ‘strange’ thing being that as you forgive yourself you
begin to realize that others are doing their normal bumbling and
pfaffing around as all humans do. Not to mention learning to be particularly
careful about your own motives for whatever you intend to do in the future. Nor
do you ‘have to’ do anything either. In the end it’s just so much more
enjoyable to find these insights and grow into love for your self.
The Mirror Laws are universal laws and are in action
regardless of whether you like it or not.
They will make more sense for you under these
attitudes..
·
Realizing that
there are things we need to See or understand; basically referred to as
‘lessons’. Remember that we are trying to find out what is inside us by using
what is outside us.
·
We have multiple
lives – Reincarnation; however, these laws are still in action whatever you
believe.
·
Complete choice
in this life and every life.
You are using and are meant to be using Life to learn
how to be apart.
To be apart properly means healing the split in your
own psyche and differentiating yourself out from being a part. You are trying
to find your own uniqueness, which is what you and God actually want.
Life (=God) provides
·
Multiple lives
·
Contrasts and
opposites and
·
Mirrors
all for you to experience. And asks you to choose
whatever you want because God knows in the end you will choose God because you
are God, which is the nicest way to be anyway.
Life brings you what you need to know, not what you
want. The most useful attitude for you to adopt for your own sake is to work
out how you can use that information or even look for what the advantages of
your current situation might be.
It’s as if Life presents us with a pack of questions
that we have to answer for ourselves.
We just cannot be told – we can’t ‘hear’ what others
have to say.
Hence, we have to work it out for ourselves, and we
seem to have to own our own behaviour in all lives and all the consequences
thereof; this being how we learn.
But we will be extremely pleased with ourselves when
we have found our own answers to our own questions. It’s called true
self-esteem.
No comments:
Post a Comment