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Word Gems
exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity
How To Sit Quietly
In A Room Alone
Trying to Outrun the Sadness
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Recently I watched a documentary of the life of an adventurous man. His name, known to millions, is synonymous with daring exploit, high-risk endeavor, and fortitudinous exploration. While I admire him and his courage, I will not mention his name here as it will be helpful to our study to dissect and perform autopsy on the larger-than-life gallantry.
Allow me to preface the following by saying, in preemptory defense, that he’s not alone. Virtually every Epic Man or Woman of history, with a little detective work, would reveal a kindred mindset and hidden motivation. I’d begun to compile such a list of “heroes,” noting a similar psychological profile, but then realized that there’s no point in presenting a series of cookie-cutter intents of the heart. For the unenlightened, it's all the same, for all of them. And so, our friend under review will be asked to represent the main.
There’s nothing wrong with exploits and adventurism, nothing wrong with exploring the frontiers of knowledge and breaking through established comfort-zones. We need more of this. But when we venture into the uncharted, we must do so with clear eyes, lest we fall into egoic dysfunction.
One case in point: the great Spirit Guides lament that, on the other side, too many people live Walter-Mitty lives, are timid and afraid, do not want to “rock the boat” and lose the good things in their lives; not that they could, but unrealistic fears, a cultish frame of mind, stultify too many over there. See my article on “the 500 testimonies from spirit world.” Many in the next worlds could use a good dose of daring adventurism. But when we “hoist anchor, set sails,” and forge ahead where “no man has gone before,” we must do so with our spirits firmly centered upon the “true self.” To do otherwise will be to destroy ourselves. Just ask “the insane 500.”
Our lion-hearted friend in the documentary was famous for his “super-hero” deeds: going here and going there, around the world, daily risking life and limb, with a seemingly dispassionate, fin-de-siecle approach to death. One of Yeats' "smiling public men" in good standing, with academy-award-winning dash, he portrayed himself in this self-assured and domineering way for the judging cameras; "holding his mask up," as Elizabeth said, "with two hands."
Editor’s note: I recall Art Mokarow, over 40 years ago, telling us that if someone is smiling all the time, is “positive” and ebullient all the time, "there’s something wrong with you." I didn’t know what he meant back then, but now I understand. It means you’re wearing a mask, because life isn’t that way; it means, “look at me, natural spontaneous me, smiling all the time, such a good person, and so close to God, am I.” There is a reason why Jesus was called a "man of sorrows."
But our hero's private writings, and the testimonies of family members, reveal something very different, the true fears and motivations of the heart. All of those heroic round-the-world adventures were just a “propaganda campaign,” mainly, to himself. This "smiling, public man" wasn’t truly in search of new knowledge and better understanding of life and the universe; not really; instead, he was “trying to outrun the sadness” in his spirit -- as his family would later use the phrase to describe him -- caused by the inevitable chaos and loss inflicted upon us in this world.
He wasn’t able to simply sit at home, in the quiet of his study, meditating upon life’s meaning and purpose. His “inner demons” demanded that he be out there -- gallivanting, blustering, cajoling, grandstanding, posturing, canvassing for support -- in order to silence the hidden, but raging, disquietude of his deeper person.
Death cannot be outrun. There's an ancient Eastern parable “Death In Tehran” with a fellow who learns that he’s to die that evening, and so he jumps on his fastest horse to get away, to hide, in the big city; but, to discover, that Death was planning all the while to meet him that night in Tehran. Or, it’s like the old Twilight Zone episode where the guy is driving at night, and he keeps passing the same hitchhiker. And so he speeds up to put distance between them, only to discover that the hitchhiker, Death, is now smiling in the backseat.
Neither can sadness be outrun. Sadness is just an aspect of the fear of loss, the ultimate expression of which is death, total loss. We need to calmly and coolly have a face-to-face discussion with that which bedevils us. We have to invite Death, the fear of Death, in for a cup of tea, look him in the eyes, and then expose him for the fraud that he is. Because there is no Death, and we come to know this, not just believe this, when we meet the locus of life within ourselves, the “true self.” But you can’t effect this mystical wonder, not very well, out there, immersed in distracting “busy-ness,” on the world stage as a “smiling, public man.” This kind of existential negotiation might be conducted only in the quiet of a small room, alone.
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everything the ego does devolves to one central pathology
All this talk of the Ego and its ensuing widespread calamity may seem overdone. Therefore, allow me another attempt to explain the pervasive nature of its sordidness confronting every human being.
What do the following 10 examples have in common?
(1) the elderly lady, visibly frightened of new information which might threaten her view of a particular god or goddess rescuing her upon transition to the next world;
(2) screaming fans, shouting with hysteria, hoping to touch, or even glimpse, an adored celebrity;
(3) billionaire corporate heads employing new technology to increase surveillance on a populace, thereby diminishing rights to privacy;
(4) national leaders, with big sloppy grins, posing as benefactors to the country’s interests, while undermining civil liberties, the rule of law, and taking to themselves more power;
(5) supervisors or fellow co-workers seeking to deny promotion or commendation, though you’ve earned it and are the best choice for the new position;
(6) social-media platforms which censor free speech because of "misinformation," meaning, it doesn't conform to a totalitarian agenda;
(7) materialistic scientists who repress, ignore, or otherwise vilify the "scientific evidence for the afterlife";
(8) a friend, lover, or family member who insults you, slants a story, attacks you, cheats you, because they disagree with, and are threatened by, your new-found beliefs.
(9) the neo-Postmodernist, the delusional “woke” adherent, occupying the lowest level of consciousness, arrogantly and vacuously proclaiming that rationality itself is part of “white man’s” oppression; that, even to be on time for work is a “white thing”;
(10) the soldier, part of an invasion force against a peaceful people, firing on, murdering, civilians because it’s his “duty” to “follow orders” of his imperialistic superiors.
We could go on listing many more: the gossip in your neighborhood who stands by her window, judging and condemning, trafficking in the mundane details of others; the college instructor who ridicules, and punishes with lower grades, those who disagree with his totalitarian leanings; the so-called news-reporter, piously claiming to have entered her profession to “make a difference,” incessantly offering selective and screened factoids to support a hoped-for Orwellian dystopia; the suicide-bomber, or the mad driver barreling into a crowd of civilians, or the shootist, seeking for publicity, or revenge; the high-school friend, once a confidante, but suddenly counting you an enemy when she veers off into new philosophical moorings; the martinet husband, psychologically, or otherwise, abusing a wife whom he does not love yet will not allow to leave his fiefdom.
What is the common thread?
In each case, a needy ego has identified with some power-structure, some external augmentation, some strong “father figure” to the inner child; an adoption of surrogate life, a face-saving production, a seeking to enhance oneself, to make oneself “more” and “above,” to feel important and a “somebody”, a propping up and bolstering, an assuagement of underlying fears of “not making the grade,” of “I am not enough,” leading to a surrendering of autonomy and critical faculties, a victimhood pathology of linking oneself to some external image of authority or purported salvation.
According to the great psychologists, in its deepest writhings, all of these examples represent the fear of death on display. In each case, a perceived locus of one's life and essence, one’s “center of being,” lies outside oneself, stands subservient to some icon of imagined greater energy, wisdom, or value. In other words, in all this dysfunction there is no sense of having been "made in the image," of “being enough,” no personal view of the limitless "inner riches," one's divine heritage as "spark struck-off from God." As such, this deficit leads to servility, to existential crisis, to forms of insanity. And therefore nearly 100% of the denizens of planet Earth are engaged in some form of the above cultism.
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more than drinking the koolaid
The long reach of cultism encompasses much more than crackpot churches. The root idea of cult offers the sense of "cut." This core concept of "cut" leads us to images of refinement and refashioning and, by extension, development, control, pattern, order, and system.
Cultism as systemization finds a ready home in religion and philosophy which seek to regulate and redistill the patterning and ordering of ideas. However, in a larger sense, the spirit of cultism extends to every facet of society. We find it scheming and sedulously at work in politics, academia, family, corporations, entertainment, science, artistry – anywhere power might be gained by capturing credulous and fear-based minds.
See the “cultism” page for a full discussion.
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I submit to you, every insult, abuse, affront, contempt, disrespect, misrepresentation, aggression, assailment, invasion, violation, trespass, usurpation, infringement, conflict, and war – in the history of the world, and your own personal history -- have resulted from egos, at the expense of others, attempting to feel better about themselves, pursuing to quash the sense of inner neediness, of “I don’t have enough” because “I am not enough.”
every ego wants something from you
What does it want?
It wants to use you to feel better about itself, to fill up the emptiness inside. It will attempt to accomplish this make-over by (1) comparing itself to you, finding some metric by which it can judge itself as superior; (2) deriving pleasure from you, an effort to cloak the pain within; (3) ruling over you, power-and-control measures, to enhance and propagandize itself; (4) minimizing, discounting what you represent in order to aggrandize its distorted belief system about how life works; alternatively, if demonizing doesn’t succeed, it will (5) surrender to you, call you a genius or a god, by which subservience it hopes to find security and safety under the protective mantle of a “strong father figure.”
further distillation
Can we, even more, reduce all of the above to common element?
The ego, at a deeper level, is driven to create a perception of itself as “other.” This generalized sense of “otherness” is then leveraged into a “me against them” lens of looking at the world. And it’s not just a contrariness toward other people. If others aren’t around, or even if they are, the ego can make us feel estranged from life itself and, of course, God, as well, as we blame, and set ourselves against, these for perceived unfairness.
Why is this important to the ego? According to ancient Spirit Guides, we come to this world for one primary reason: to individuate, to become persons in our own right; all other aspects of development, for the moment, are secondary.
The ego will reconfigure memories and current sensations to emphasize “otherness.” Much of this reformulation can be very unpleasant to contemplate, but it does accomplish one thing: even though at the quantum level we are connected to all, at the surface of personality “otherness” creates a stand-alone psychological entity that becomes the perception of “I”, which is the very definition of ego.
Editor’s note: Concerning the above “10 examples,” each of these represents a certain unsavory aspect of the dark side of human nature. But this skews the picture. The dysfunctional ego also operates in the arena of heroic service and commendable, stalwart mettle.
I am thinking of the celebrity artist, athlete, singer, politician or other notable who publicly dedicates his or her life to good works as a result of purportedly drawing strength from a patron saint, religious icon, or savior-god. The ensuing good works might be larger-than-life, consummated even in the face of great privation and adversity. All of which is meant to proclaim to the world, “I do all this by the power of my relationship to said patron saint, religious icon, or savior-god.”
But, is this reality? How are we to view such valorous and epic conduct? Does it happen by way of aligning one’s person with an external divinity?
We would do well to recall that any number of non-religious “secular saints” might be brought to our attention who have nobly, in a lion-hearted way, offered charitable service, even to the point of death. One example immediately comes to mind: Dr. Viktor Frankl, in the concentration camps. He accepted the task of encouraging other inmates, despite near-starvation and often-beatings by the guards. He served the contagious typhoid dying, and, more than once, refused opportunity to escape the camp in order to remain with the suffering.
The dysfunctional ego is led by its foundational premise, “I don’t have enough” because “I am not enough.” As such, it looks for salvation from an outside source. This is pathological and takes us in the wrong direction, far from sacred destiny of living from one’s sacred center, the true self, one’s inner connection to God.
We are not to conduct ourselves as little children, living under the mantle of a “strong father figure,” a patron saint, religious icon, or savior-god.
We are to open our eyes to the inner riches, the innate “made in the image” reservoir of strength, available to all of us as sons and daughters of God.
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"I am here, I am life."
Dr. Victor Frankl, in his concentration camp memoirs, offers an account of a fellow inmate who was about to die. The following excerpts are from “Man’s Search For Meaning."
It is a simple story, and it may sound as if I had invented it. But to me it seems like a poem. This young woman knew that she would die in the next few days, but when I talked to her she was cheerful in spite of this knowledge.
"I am grateful that fate has hit me so hard,” she told me. "In my former life I was spoiled and did not take spiritual accomplishments seriously."
Pointing through the window of the hut she said, "This tree here is the only friend I have in my loneliness."
Through that window, she could see just one branch of a chestnut tree, and on the branch were two blossoms.
“I often talk to this tree,” she said to me.
I was startled and didn’t know how to take her words. Was she delirious? Did she have occasional hallucinations? Anxiously, I asked her if the tree replied.
“Yes."
What did it say to her?
She answered, "It said to me, I am here, I am here, I am life - eternal life."
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Why do family members, old friends, and romantic mates drift apart or even abruptly split?
When my daughter was in high school, she had a girlfriend; the two seemed inseparable. Later, the friend chose an alternate lifestyle, assumed that she’d be judged, then abruptly, and permanently, broke off friendship ties.
An example of my own: In the “Evolution” article I recounted that in senior-high English class I’d delivered a speech on the subject of “Creationism versus Darwinism.” Almost all of it, as I now perceive, was error. However, a good friend since childhood disagreed, summarily rejected me, and put me away with no reconciliation.
the hidden cause of all conflict
Each of us, likely, could offer scores of such examples. Krishnamurti’s teachings on the ego – concerning dualism, fragmentation, separation, division – are not of mere academic interest only to professional philosophers. This information holds the sacred key to understanding why planet Earth is the stage for war and conflict, not just on the international level, nor solely with religious or political groups, but also among family members, friends, and lovers.
Why do people drift apart or become immediate enemies? The short answer is that they become an offense to each other. People identify with, make themselves equal to, belief systems which, they assume, will "make me happy." They say "this is who I am," and "this is what I need to be safe and happy," and if you represent something different, their self-image will be threatened, their prospects of safety and happiness will seem to fold - and then you'll be rejected, no matter the strength of former bonds of amity. You'll be rejected because, don't you see, it's a matter of life-and-death to the ego.
the carefully crafted self-image
In his 17.December.1969 lecture, Jiddu Krishnamurti offers one of the most clear and insightful explanations concerning the inner workings of this dark dynamic. When we feel offended by someone, he said, “there is an image about yourself,” one that we ourselves build. This ego-image reflects one's cultural “conditioning.” Why do we build this image? We do so “as a means of security ... of protection ... of being somebody.”
fear is behind the curtain
And what do we find if we draw back the curtain of this ego-image? “Now, if you go behind that," Krishnamurti says, "you will see there is fear.” What is the composition of this fear? It is the existential fear of "I don't have enough" because "I am not enough."
Let’s analyze this ego-image more closely. Why do we build it? What are we protecting? If we allow ourselves to become very still, if we taste and sample the nature of this hidden fear, we will find that we’re protecting a self-image, a mental projection of what the ego would like to be and have:
“I am the person who needs to be seen as virtuous, respected, worthy of honor. And it goes without saying that I know what’s best for you.”
“I am the person who needs to be seen as right and correct. As such, I need you to believe as I do, to agree with all of my religious superstitions, and my self-serving political views. I need you to accept all of my inflexible opinions because your assent makes me feel, not just safe and secure but, that I’m worth something.”
“I am the person who needs to be seen as successful, 'in the know,' and winning. I want you to be impressed with what I am and what I have so that I’ll be counted as a somebody. I need these merit badges so that I can face my peer group, family, and community and be considered important."
“I am the person who craves to be viewed as a wise person, an in-demand friend, a counselor with ‘the answers.’ I count on you to offer me this prestige so that I can feel good about myself.”
"I am the person who grew up on the 'wrong side of the tracks.' My family culture held great disdain for education and knowledge. This disrespect for anything truly progressive has always held me back, creating for me a self-image of 'I’m not smart enough to succeed. I can't get a high-paying job, that's for other people.' And so if you come to me and suggest that, in fact, I do possess talents and strengths, then I will feel very uncomfortable, begin to panic, as you attempt to lead me out of my dysfunctional comfort-zone. At the first sign, with your help, that I I could actually advance myself, I’ll fall apart, swoon in terror, and then begin to blame you, and hate you, before I retreat and crawl back under the safety of my rock."
"I am the person who is comfortable with present ideas. They've gotten me this far (sort of). And they may be half-baked, a straw-house of illogicality, but, even so, these irrationalities offer a certain veneer of meaning to my life. In support of this charade, I surround myself with so-called friends with whom I share a tacit agreement, an unspoken pact: 'You must agree never to point out the non sequiturs of my beggarly superstitions, and I will agree to act as if I accept yours.' That’s the conspiratorial deal. However, if you come along with hard empirical evidence, well-reasoned positions, and suggest that I might want to take a more honest approach to what I believe to be true, well then, I will have to hate you for upsetting the applecart of my entrenched and time-honored unreasonableness."
"I am the person who carries on the traditions of my family. Unfortunately, these are more like peculiar shibboleths, marks of tribal distinction, but not of honor and dignity. I feel duty bound to ask, “What would mother do?” or “This isn’t the way dad did it.” I don’t have enough self-respect to live my own life, follow my own insights, quest for my own meaning and destiny. And if you come along and encourage me to think for myself, to break the apron strings (years after mom passed on), I will feel frightened, disoriented. And then I will blame and hate you for pushing me toward autonomy, full personhood, and self-realization."
“I am the person who needs you to make me happy. You can be my friend/lover/relative if you do exactly what I say and think just as I think. Anything less than this will be threatening to 'who I am.' I need you to love me -- just as I am, with all of my soft-underbelly beliefs -- to compliment me, to defer to me, so that I can judge myself as ok. Don't let me down, I warn you.”
“I am the person associated with you, and if you disappoint me, if you fall short of my expectations - especially after all I've done for you - if you fail to make me happy, if you begin to take on contrary opinions, then you will become an opposing force to what I want and to the image I’ve created for myself. If any of this happens, then, of course, I’ll have to get rid of you, even though we’ve meant much to each other over long years. I'll have no choice but to shun you.”
And so if anyone – sibling, friend, lover, child, parent -- stands as opposition to any of these ego-images, then the offending person will immediately be counted as an enemy, no matter a long history of cordial relation.
a closer look at the hidden fear
We find there’s more than one curtain to open. The ego’s need to be seen as right, virtuous, properly religious or political, is not the only hidden agenda. As one pierces the levels of self-obfuscation we discover the core terror which vivifies all of the ego’s activities. It’s the fear of death. This is the central terror, as we learn from the great psychologists.
This means that when one is attacked, there may be purported surface issues, but the real reason people rage and become apoplectic is the ego fighting for its life. It's identified with, made itself equal to, being right, virtuous, and all the rest, and if it fails to promote itself with these "images," then it will face a kind of psychological death. “Who will I be?” it asks, if these false-security images are minimized or taken away?
the high cost of following the truth wherever it leads
All this is most dire. The reality is, if you assiduously pursue the truth, no matter the cost or where it might lead, then you will lose (for a time) almost every last person who was once close to you. Why must it be so? - because you will become a living, walking threat to another’s carefully crafted self-image.
narrow gate, without fellowship
Editor's note: In his writings, Andrew Jackson Davis warns of the "narrow gate" that leads to life; few be that enter it. Those who live courageously by following the truth wherever it leads, as Davis points out, “will walk a pathway without fellowship of thy earthly brethren.” The cults have long employed the weapon of excommunication, shunning, and ostracization - a forced separation from friends, workmates, and family - toward anyone who disagrees with the hive mentality. This putting away occurs not just in religion but in dysfunctional families, corporations, academia, politics, and other power-seeking groups. They’re afraid of contrary opinion which might disembowel and expose shallow teachings. And so they’ll get rid of you for spreading "misinformation"; and you, as a truth seeker, will be censored and required to make your way through this world “without fellowship of thy earthly brethren.” But, be assured, a day of reckoning is but one missed heartbeat away.
We, ourselves - not some mythical Satan - are the focal point of all evil in the universe. It’s the pathological ego within; it’s the false self, the ego-images, ever attempting to find safety and security for itself, to bolster an inner neediness, the existential emptiness deep within.
We cannot become truly educated, nor reach a good level of wisdom and maturity, in the highest and best sense - or meaningfully prepare ourselves for Summerland or to be with one’s Twin Soul - without understanding the wiles and machinations of our own personal “heart of darkness.”
please, it’s very impolite of you to notice that I lack a self
Soren Kierkegaard: “But in spite of the fact that man has become fantastic in this fashion [i.e., lives unrealistically by denying his own mortality and impending death, the terror of which is covered up by palliatives such as ritualistic, form-based but empty, religion], he may nevertheless … be perfectly well able to live on, to be a man, as it seems, to occupy himself with temporal things, get married, beget children, win honor and esteem – and perhaps no one notices that, in a deeper sense, he lacks [an authentic] self.”
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