Social Survival 101

[southflorida]

Since icmag is a place where social interaction occurs, I figured I'd write a little about how much of our self-identity is focused on surviving in the social domain.

Maybe a few folks will find this information interesting and can use it to grasp how much energy we waste on a daily basis in an attempt to survive as a false-conceptual-entity. What we are "being" (as a noun) is outside of self-survival, so the information below does not relate to this authentic and original Being that we are.

The information below relates to who we believe and assume we are "being" (as a verb).

Here we go:

The "Social Survival" domain is the largest and most continuously attended domain of our moment to moment self-survival. It is much broader that most folks might suppose...in fact MUCH, MUCH broader.

The mere existence of another person—whether in front of us or only in our minds—creates an entire world, one that cannot exist without the possibility of interacting with another. Think about it.

The act of comparing yourself to others, the idea of being a good or bad person can only occur in relation to others.

The existence of social interplay generates realms such as judgment, communication, emotion, manipulation, sexuality, empathy, and argument.

Without "other people," we wouldn’t have notions like value, self-worth, individuality, beauty, deceit, honesty, agreement, and accountability; nor would we experience reactions like hurt feelings, intimidation, pride, love, embarrassment, loneliness, hate, and shame.

Social survival is the source of language, family, religion, politics, the media, community, culture, entertainment, education, fashion, status, employment, government, subcultures, music, law, and on and on. All of these activities exist solely because the social domain exists.

Imagine what it would be like without any of those domains of experience.

Our social survival is the source of every concern of self-image, self-consciousness, and self-esteem, and these issues don’t pause for us, ever. In fact, most of our thoughts and feelings are socially oriented, since they arise and exist in relationship to other people.

We are social creatures, and the majority of our self-identity is designed in relation to the social domain. It’s difficult to grasp this because we live so thoroughly ensconced within our self-identity that it seems merely an aspect of reality.

The fact is that our self-identity exists because of the social domain.

Our overall experience of life is determined in reference to others and the community we inhabit. Even in the life of a hermit, most conceptual "survival" activities are devoted to self-in-relationship. In fact, without others, he could not even be a "hermit."

It is very important for us to maintain, promote, and protect ourselves in relation to everyone we encounter, or even imagine. This whole domain is central to our lives, and yet we are rarely able to comprehend the enormity of its effect on our experience.

The impact of social survival becomes a more grounded idea for us when we examine our emotional reactivity. What and how we feel determines the quality of our lives and motivates our behavior. Emotional reactions continually arise in relation to how others view and relate to us, or we to them. We can be devastated by another’s comment, or exhilarated by their attention. We may suffer a moody depression when feeling inferior to our peers, or delight in witty conversation with our friends.

A large part of our efforts in communication and interaction revolve around our emotional states, with our more intimate relationships typically revealing the greatest range and depth of our feelings.

We are continually spurred on by how we feel, and our actions are most frequently taken to lead our experience away from negative emotions and toward more positive ones.

Of course, it can’t be as simple as that, since it’s obvious that we often fail to avoid negative emotions and sometimes even evoke them or take action that brings them about.

Why on earth would we do that?

Because there is an even bigger concern than whether or not we feel good.

The primary concern of your self-survival drive isn’t to increase your happiness or status in the world. More important even than that is to "be" in the world. This impulse will include "social" aspects as you promote the continued existence of the person you identify as yourself—your character and personal identity.

It is imperative that you survive, and doing so requires a consistent recognizable "you"—the one you’ve always been.

You might like to become all that you imagine you can be, or even make a change to your way of seeing things. Yet whatever you do, you will do it within the boundaries of who you already are in the world.

"Who we are" in a conventional sense is full of image, history, status, values, character traits, and self-worth. We are largely made up of concerns such as what people think of us, what we want them to think or fear they may think of us, what we think of ourselves, and what we present as ourselves to others.

We seem to come by all of these things quite naturally, but upon reflection we can trace much of it to choices we made and struggles we’ve survived throughout childhood and beyond. These emotional characteristics, behavioral patterns, self-images, personal beliefs, and every other attribute identified as one’s self need to persist in order to ensure the survival of that particular self.

The survival drive protects our conceptual self with the same tenacity that it applies to our bodily persistence. A threat to our identity is a threat to self. Since our survival in the conceptual world is largely at stake in our interactions—in other words, "socially"—the way that we think of ourselves and "position" ourselves in relation to other people is seen as very important.

Even when there is no one around to challenge our identity, our continuous sense of self-in-relation-to-other remains a nearly inescapable aspect of self-survival.

The more self attributes we’re attached to and the more traits we identify with, the more we have that needs to be protected and managed as “self.” This means that every facet of our self-image, every characteristic pattern of our behavior, every emotional nuance that comprises our self-concept and emotional self becomes something to defend, express, and promote—in other words, to "be" as a verb.

Protecting our social status is a primary motive for misrepresentation (lying). We find that what we present and express influences the kinds of reactions we receive. Since we have many social needs, and we want people to have a good image of us, this becomes an almost irresistible trap. We begin altering our expressions, painting a picture of "who we are" that diverges slightly from what’s actually true in our experience. This is a misrepresentation, a lie.

Once we get used to going down that road, it begins to become automatic. By the time most of us are adults, so much of this has taken place and the real and the false have become so blurred that most people honestly believe things about themselves that aren’t true.

These affectations were only adopted so that we and others would view us in a particular light, but repetition has created a real pattern of misrepresentation. Such patterns then turn into character traits, and become believed as real even by oneself. This is one way a false-self begins to be perceived as real.

When a false-self determines our expressions, these will not only be inaccurate representations of what’s there, they will be purposeful misrepresentations. The consequence of such distortion and misrepresentation provides the bulk of the negative self-concepts, feelings, and experiences that we currently endure.

 

[southflorida]

Surviving as a Self

We devote our energies and intelligence to whatever we believe to be ourselves. We promote, defend, protect, serve, maintain, advance, care for, and preserve this self. We are genetically and culturally programmed to do whatever it takes to ensure that our selves persist, that we survive any and all ordeals that life metes out. This same motivation permeates every facet of our experience, from escaping mortal danger to a trivial conversation with someone in a forum such as this.

This impelling force doesn’t just relate to some factual or objective self; it is applied to anything that we identify as the self—the entire "snowball" of characteristics that we know as self.

We find this self-preservation impulse in everything we do, think, and feel, since we are constantly compelled to maintain our self-identity.

If you want to have a direct experience of "being" who you truly are, you must place yourself in opposition to this relentless drive for self-continuity.

By "surviving a self" I don’t mean outlasting or persisting in spite of, as in "I survived a tsunami," but there’s no word I know that can do the job as well.

The words maintain or persist are simply not accurate enough since they don’t convey the force, magnitude, and complexity of the drive that I'm talking about.

Although to maintain something means keeping it in existence, which is what we do with a self, the word suggests both puttering and working on something that already exists.

But, when we actually look into this matter, we find that self is continually creating as well as maintaining itself, so "surviving a self" is the best phrase to indicate the entirety of conceptual survival—the activity of generating, sustaining, protecting, promoting, and persisting as a self.

So "self survival," as I speak of it, should have a sense of someone busy being like a verb—like the hamster on his wheel, very active, but actually not going anywhere.

When we are surviving a self, we’re creating it, living within it, and creating from it. We’re shaping the world around us in our perceptions, just as we are defining ourselves not only by our reactions in the world but through whatever we identify and cling to as the self.

Imagine that self is like a "magic dust" that gets on anything we see and reforms it so it becomes part of us, or at least relates to us.

The way we create and live as a self is quite functional and appropriate for our survival. It’s not all that hard; billions of people do it daily. The essential impulse is to "exist," and to exist we need to be something in particular.

The drive might be basic and simple, but surviving a self is an extremely complex activity, generating the world we perceive as well as the self that we are.

The whole process is so all-consuming and so essential to human nature that we are hard-pressed even to recognize it.

Can you find this in your own experience?

 

[skullznroses]

that was a little? a little book perhaps. Ill have to wait until my day off to read that dude.

 

[southflorida]

that was a little? a little book perhaps. Ill have to wait until my day off to read that dude.

maybe you would like an mp3 sir?

 

[Crusader Rabbit]

that was a little? a little book perhaps. Ill have to wait until my day off to read that dude.

It's worth reading several times.

 

[hup234]

Where are you going with all these posts SF.What's your answer ?

 

[BlueBlazer]

I post, therefore I am . . . I think.

 

[lost in a sea]

maybe your thought is predestined ??

and you aren't

 

[ghostmade]

i dig this,is it your workor of a book.

 

[Stoner4Life]

Christ almighty, this is the id of dreadlock threads.......

 

[skullznroses]

It is worth reading many times. It is a great word. lol Crusadre Rabbte

Im not a social phobic person in general so I reserve the right to read this at an approp moment when Im feeling emotional. No judgement here. Just gauging the read from the first line, and then I saw lots more lines... that i just couldn't finish right now. Looks like deep thinking Im not prepared for, but I may be wrong, so I will read this very soon.

 

[skullznroses]

ugggghhhh

he said social position alot

should we serve him?

 

[southflorida]

Are we confusing Happiness with Self-Survival?

Nothing seems to mean more to us than our happiness, but we may once again be confusing one thing for another. Culturally, we share a belief that obtaining what we desire will make us happy. Yet when all is said and done, does it?

Obtaining what we desire may indeed temporarily alleviate some fear, tension, or struggle related to our self-concerns. It may even bring the rush of pleasure that accompanies success. None of these is happiness.

Contrary to our common assumption, the pleasant emotion associated with accomplishing a goal or avoiding a threat is not an experience of happiness, it is an experience of victory or relief. Perhaps a bit of giddiness or satisfaction arises when we successfully manage some aspect of self-survival, but this is not happiness—and is always only temporary. The next survival issue is sure to arise in due course.

...Since survival is about persistence, issues will persist.

Although it may seem like it, happiness never was the goal of our efforts. Self-persistence is our goal. This is an important distinction. Although everyone says in earnest that he or she wants to be happy, this statement really means: "I want to have what I want, and to not have what I don’t want." For most of us these seem like the same goal, so what’s the problem?

The thing is that wanting and not wanting are really statements of self-survival, not happiness. There is a reason this dynamic goes unnoticed for what it is.

As a metaphor we could say we are like a mouse running inside its wheel. What keeps us moving is the allure of some tasty cheese—the myth of obtainable "survival-happiness"— just outside the wheel. The "cheese" is only there to get us to run; it is not there for us to obtain. Unfortunately for us, we don’t know that.

Since we don’t seem to be closing the gap, we run all the harder chasing this cheese—the promise of happiness. If we didn’t believe we were entitled to the cheese, or we knew we couldn’t ever get the cheese, we’d stop running. But our wheel and our running and what we perceive as our particular needs are a large part of what makes us "this particular self."

In the overall scheme of surviving as a self, it’s imperative that we remain ignorant of what’s true and what’s only an illusion. If we were to grasp this dynamic for what it is, this self we’ve become confused with might cease to persist.

Although we tend to think that attaining all positives and avoiding all negatives would make us happy, this is not actually the purpose of wanting and not wanting. Notice our desire to be happy is not the desire to be happy with whatever happens to be the case, or to be happy whether we get what we want or not, or to be happy regardless of how life turns out.

Being happy is confused with being successful, or being comfortable, or having life turn out as desired, or being free from pain and suffering. Believe it or not, all of these last examples are self-survival orientations. They are not the impulse to be happy.

It’s hard for us to recognize the difference between happiness and the sensations associated with successful self-survival. We’re hardwired so that the activities of self-survival take precedence on every level, especially an emotional one.

The emotional promise of happiness IS what keeps us moving on our wheel.

When we confuse obtaining survival goals—getting what we want, fulfilling needs, winning some battle, protecting ourselves from danger—with being happy, we also assume that realizing these goals is the only way to be happy. This is a false assumption.

Using “happiness” as a survival goal puts it out of our reach—it becomes the unobtainable "cheese" that motivates us forward in life. We are stuck moving from one obtainment to another, from one struggle to the next, sometimes feeling good about it and sometimes feeling bad, yet never actually and only being happy with whatever is taking place. The promise of the cheese drives us to persist as the one that we are or want to be, but it doesn’t provide a sense of inner freedom or happiness where we stand.

Another thing that we completely ignore or are not aware of is that self-survival is the cause of all suffering.

As much as we desire happiness, we abhor suffering. Suffering seems to be the antithesis of being happy, and yet they are both based on the same dynamic. As much as we run toward the cheese of happiness, we run away from the pain of suffering. They both keep the wheel spinning in the same direction. It is easy to see suffering as unwanted; it’s not so easy to see that it exists solely as a mechanism of self-survival.

If there were no self, and so no drive to survive, then there would be no suffering. There would be no manipulation, no struggle, no dissatisfaction, no desire, no misrepresentation, no self esteem, no hurt feelings, no worry, etc. There would be no pain, but even if some activity existed fulfilling the role of pain, it would be of little
consequence and not a form of suffering.

Self-survival is the origin of suffering.

Strange as this may sound, "being" and life can take place without a self or the need to survive. In our culture it isn’t likely, but it is possible.

Since being without a self is inconceivable and very hard to realize, such freedom remains unknown to virtually everyone. Yet without a self designed for and committed to survival, there is no suffering.

To get a handle on this, recall any form of suffering, any distress, worry, upset, fear, misery, stress, longing, or anything else that you suffer, and consider long and hard: if you didn’t care about you persisting in any way, if it didn’t matter to you if you existed or not, got your way or not, or that things turned out in a way consistent with your desires and needs, if you let go of attachment to your self and the survival of your self, would you suffer any of these things? The answer is NO.

You cannot suffer when there is no self trying to survive. You cannot suffer when you have no drive to persist. The desire to survive, to persist as the self that you are, is the cause of suffering.

Of course, the self can be very convoluted and intricate, involving attachments to any number of things—emotions, perceptions, ideas, memories, character traits, objects, senses, and so on —even objects and concepts outside the jurisdiction of the individual self.

But the principle is the same, whatever self "is" or "is attached to" will engender the persistence and protection of that thing, and the self will also suffer the struggles, and so the fear and pain, that accompany this survival disposition.

Freedom from self and self-attachments ends the suffering involved in persisting as a self.

No self = no suffering.

But we don't need to reach an absolute state of complete "no self" to reduce suffering. Any movement in the direction of understanding this dynamic will serve to decrease our suffering. Notice that "no self = no suffering" translates to "no aspect of self = no suffering that aspect."

We can see that "being" doesn’t mean that one has to persist as this particular self, being this particular way. If in the next moment the self is no longer that way, but some other way, then that self didn’t survive, but being still remains. Letting go of the self-survival-drive can apply to anything you identify with or are attached to, from the smallest and most insignificant belief or reaction to your life and death.

Consider: if you were to suddenly let go of one of your beliefs, if you had no motivation to maintain this belief (have it survive), then it wouldn’t matter at all to you if it were right or wrong, remained or vanished, would it? You would no longer suffer any of the struggles that formerly accompanied your attachment to the belief—defending it, promoting it, or fearing its loss.

This is also true of every emotion, thought, self-image, possession, perception, idea, or anything else you consider you or yours. If "being" is inherently free of any attachments, then it really doesn’t matter if any aspect of a self persists or if the entire self fails to survive altogether.

We assume that if we aren’t in immediate pain, if we aren’t suffering, we should be happy, but in reality this just isn’t so. We may chalk it up to our inherent "human condition," assuming that somehow pain and suffering accompany us just because we exist. In the case of self-survival, this is true. Ultimate happiness seems to elude us no matter how hard we try, and various forms of suffering seem to find us no matter where we hide.

Perhaps it is time to seriously reconsider our assumptions in this matter.

The assertion here is that both the rarity of happiness and the presence of suffering are based on self-survival.

Still, we have little interest in challenging what is perhaps the most fundamental presumption upon which we live - our selves.

In order to embrace such a practice, we would need to be convinced on an experiential level that the source of our unhappiness is somehow tied to the force of maintaining ourselves. We would have to feel for ourselves that in the very impulse of our struggle to survive, we produce unhappiness.

In this way we would be far more inclined to welcome a practice of letting go of the self, and open to becoming conscious of whatever is true about being.

Noticing that the "self" is simply a false cultural assumption in your awareness is a major step toward eliminating it.

Being, who we are originally and authentically, and existing only in the present moment, is what will remain once the false-self is let go.

Very few folks want to take this step, but the few that are ready to stop carrying around this huge rock of concepts on their back, this false-conceptual-self that we confuse with our being, will find true freedom.

 

[skullznroses]

yes, no self does mean suffering, unless you are a monk dude

 

[southflorida]

I post, therefore I am . . . I think.

lol...actually it is I post, therefore I post

Most folks don't actually know the real story behind the Descartes
"I think, therefore I am" statement.

It originates from his work in relation to doubting everything in his experience.

What he became aware of is that he couldn't doubt that he was doubting, since the act of doubting is itself and can't be doubted.

So his statement is more focused on the observation that actually sounds more like: I think, therefore I'm thinking.

Thinking is not proof of that we ARE, it is proof that we're thinking

That we ARE is proof that we are, since being who we are is itself.

 

[southflorida]

Where are you going with all these posts SF.What's your answer ?

My answer is hearsay for anyone reading this.

I would rather that folks actually focus on the question of who they are in their own awareness.

Contemplating "Who am I?" will bring authentic insights because they will be made in one's consciousness.

Direct experience is what is true and what counts.

Our communication is always in relative terms and always an interpretation with a meaning provided by our self-minds.

This means we can't have a direct experience of another individual consciousness, but can only exchange conceptual forms (beliefs and assumptions) that only refer and point toward something.

Concepts are never the "thing" - itself, they only can represent something. And as a rule, we mostly misrepresent, because we can never describe what something IS, since what something IS, is not-known.

For everything that exists we have labels and uses, in other words, we identify everything and relate it to ourselves. Except for these concepts, we actually don't know and can't know what something IS.

 

[southflorida]

It's worth reading several times.

The self-mind finds this kind of information VERY threatening, because it points toward one insight.

The insight is this: the "self" is a false assumption that has been programmed into us through the culture and society where we have grown up.

The "self" is a secondary process, and fundamentally it's a survival program that most humans have confused themselves with.

Being is what IS. Self is always what IS-NOT.

If one doesn't allow their self-mind to interfere, and actually reads this information over and over, at a certain moment they will actually grasp that what they have been living AS - is a snowball of concepts.

 

[southflorida]

yes, no self does mean suffering, unless you are a monk dude

no self, no suffering

suffering can ONLY relate to a self or aspects of this self

if you have no desire for your "self" to survive, you will not be able to generate suffering

 

[southflorida]

Here are three posts from this thread I started in september 2012. Makes sense to put it here, because it covers happiness and self-survival in more detail.

This information will be interesting only if you can dis-engage from your self-mind. If you can't, your self-mind will find it very threatening because it points out the fact that the SELF DOES NOT REALLY EXIST.

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=246092

This is PART #1 (of three)

the PRIMARY QUESTION is: Do we really want to be happy? Or...are we confusing happiness with a temporary feeling of victory from SOMETIME getting what we want, or a feeling of relief from avoiding what we don't want?

From my observations over the last 28 years (I'm currently 42) - I have noticed that we, as a human race are seriously confused about what it means to be truly happy.

Here is my current definition of happiness:

Happiness is being happy with whatever we experience, or to be even more exact, being happy "regardless" of what we experience. Yes, this means being happy EVEN if we don't get what we want!

To some this might sound like a defeatist attitude, as if one is settling for mediocrity rather than striving for more. But, please notice that nothing in that definition says that we can't strive, or create any other experiences or activities. It says that simply we are happy with whatever we experience, even the striving.

But, one of the major traps we seem to fall into is confusing being TRULY happy with being "finished." Think retirement, or achieving financial independence, hitting the lottery, getting a massive inheritance...etc

Since we assume that happiness is our goal, and that achieving what we want will make us happy, it follows that when we are happy, we must be finished, we must have attained all that we want.

Who can see the flaws in this thinking?

Obviously, based on this flawed thinking, the chances of being happy must be reduced to moments of achieving something we want, and to be completely happy we would have to have achieved all that we want.

This is VERY unlikely, because our wanting never ends.

Given that wanting is a function of self-survival, which is another topic in itself, this drive to want, won't end until we do.

The endless desire to get what we want is not restricted to major goals or life-altering events, it is found in every day activities, like wanting to find a good program to watch on TV, winning an argument in this forum , getting something good to eat, banging your wife's sister (without your wife finding out, or instead, with your wife finding out ) - and so on.

But, I do want you to notice that fundamentally, all these things only bring us short term pleasure, a feeling of victory, or relief, but NOT true happiness.

True happiness is based on being happy, and not on circumstance.

And true happiness is being happy with whatever one experiences and regardless of what one experiences NOW, in the present moment, and ONLY in the present moment.

Happiness is NOT and never about the future. It is always about being happy now, and being happy with whatever we are experiencing on a moment-to-moment basis.

If we have what we want, we are happy, if we don't have what we want we are happy. Happiness is about being happy, period!

It is clear that if our happiness is circumstantially derived, and this is how it seems when we are confused, then whenever we fail to avoid unpleasant circumstances, we must be unhappy.

Striving to make circumstances conform to our personal desires not only puts us in a position of endless struggle, it seduces us into a mental frame of judgement, opinion, reaction, and manipulation. By their very nature these will always lead to some form of suffering, even if it's so taken for granted that we assume it's simply a natural aspect of life.

The bottom line is that this dynamic produces an endless stream of reactions that appear as inflicted and unwanted. Since getting what we want seems the opposite of suffering, it follows that if we aren't getting what we want, we must be suffering.

If both are an illusion (and they are 100%) then neither needs to be the case.

When we are in pain, we assume that we are suffering.

Yet suffering is actually "being forced to put up with something unwanted."

Certainly pain is unwanted, isn't it? It might even be the most unwanted thing.

But it just might be that we are NOT forced to put up with it. It might be that we generate it on purpose.

Pain and pleasure clearly exist to provide information regarding our relationship to everything.

As a "self" we need to classify everything into positively and negatively charged fields.

Pain is part of this activity. So is pleasure and desire.

These charged assessments (pleasure and pain) are additions to our experience - rather than an experience of what is there in reality.

We create pain, and want to continue to experience it, because deep down we know that pain provides us with a real service that helps with our physical and social survival, and we all want to survive in these two domains.

This is what a conceptual-egoic-self-mind does on a moment-to-moment basis, and true happiness is not a part of its plan, because the self-mind has no interest in the present moment.

All it cares about are past memories and future projections.

Oh...and to keep everyone of us running like rats inside a wheel, chasing the invisible cheese (goals and desires), trying to survive as a false-self.

If you didn't know WHY it is called the rat race...now you do.

The self-mind also works quite hard to make sure we ignore the FACT that we will never get the cheese, we will not survive, we will die.

One of the ways out of this trap is to be happy with what you have at this exact moment, on a moment-to-moment basis.

I mean think about it. Have you ever been anywhere except here and now?

=================================

Thanks for all your comments and the rep folks.

This is PART #2 (of three)

Continuing on, toward the true nature of happiness:

It becomes increasingly clear that in the domains of physical and social self-survival we need for pain to occur. By the way, physical and social-survival is ALL we do. If we are living as a false-conceptual-self (and believe me we are) 100% self-survival (physical and social) is all that is occuring. There is nothing outside of it...ever.

It isn't actually that difficult to consider that if we need pain to occur, that as a result, we also need suffering to occur. We need these to occur in order to continue to generate the particular activities of the self that we have become identified with.

It is simply an overall by-product of the complex of activities that depend on pain and pleasure, value and threat, good and bad, to determine survival. Since we want to survive we want to suffer. That might sound absurd...but it's 100% true.

Of course, we say we want pleasure and don't want pain, and that we don't want to suffer. It just seems to happen to us, try as we might to avoid it. But we're missing the big picture folks.

Pain and Suffering are NOT happening to us, we are actually producing them.

Since it is not acceptable for us that our "self" dissolves (does not survive) - or that anything associated with or serving this "self" is surrendered, we do not care to let go of the activities that allow us to hang on to all these things.

It is not acceptable for us NOT to have a way to navigate this complex "self" - that we believe and assume we are - through our field of experiences.

We need to have a positive and negative charge on everything in order for us to do so - and this field is generated by us - not merely perceived.

When we are clear that our suffering is occuring within our own internal state - our own thinking and emotions, judgments and reactions, perceptions and interpretations - we can better recognize this pain and suffering in its many forms as an activity that we create.

It also becomes evident to a large degree, that this is all a by-product of all the activities that we ourselves are doing.

If we can locate in our awareness the activity that creates pain and suffering, no pain or suffering needs to be experienced as simply occuring.

I am aware that it is difficult to see all of these familiar and taken-for-granted activities, - desire, judgments, ideals, beliefs, opinions, clinging, self-image, fear, self-identity, upsets, needs, and concerns - as creating our own suffering, but with observation and contemplation of your own experience it is possible. Simply looking back on your life, and also observing how you are currently projecting into the future, one can notice how we suffer and struggle because of all the activities mentioned above.

I know this is not easy to grasp at first glance, and especially hard to grasp when we are confronted by life's activities. But, if we contemplate the matter, getting past the knee-jerk assumptions that emanate from self-survival and our adherence to cultural dogma, we will begin to see that it is true.

We do in fact generate our own suffering because we cling so much to our self-interests on so many levels.

Even if you're unwilling to give up the basic sense of being a self - and are willing to suffer the consequences - you might be willing to give up the complexity of your conceptual-self and false-self, and so need not suffer the preservation of these.

The vast majority (99%) of our suffering is caused by clinging to the conceptual world of self. By far the best thing to do is to directly experience what your real self really is. This would clear up so much.

But, until that happens, you can profoundly observe what the false-egoic-conceptual-self "does" and grasp how you actually generate 100% of the suffering in your life, rather than endure it.

Were we to recognize that suffering is NOT necessary, we imagine we wouldn't endure it.

Yet, we do!

Clearly, it requires a much deeper experiential recognition of the activities that cause the suffering. Beyond simply hearing about it, we need to be willing to challenge the assumptions that are as close to our hearts as our very selves.

More over, we suffer the ignored knowledge that in our struggle to survive as a "false-self" - we will, in the end fail. We will die a physical death, and the false-self will stop persisting at that moment. Since it was created after we showed up in this world, and is a simply a temporary distinction occuring inside of OUR Consciousness, the false-self is an illusion that lasts only as long as the physical body last.

The main assumption that results in the consequence of suffering is the assumption of the "self."

We presume that we need the "self" to exist.

We DO NOT.

Let go of the false-conceptual-self, and you let go of suffering.

NO false-self = NO suffering!

Folks, we ONLY suffer because we believe and assume we ARE this false-self. But we are NOT.

Once you let go of the false-self - true happiness will emerge as your real-self being happy with whatever and regardless of what you experience at the present moment.

If you will have all that you want, or you will not have anything that you want, you will be truly happy, and not merely surviving as something false, that needs a non-stop exchange of pain and pleasure in order to believe that you are alive and surviving.

You can jump off this wheel, stop being a mouse that's chasing the invisible cheese, and actually experience reality AS-IT-IS-AS-ITSELF and FOR-ITSELF, and not in relation to a false-self made up of a snow-ball that is filled and over-flowing with false beliefs, assumptions, and BS that our CULTURE has been force-feeding us for millennia.

Your REAL SELF is what IS.

Your false-conceptual-self, the mouse chasing the cheese, is what is NOT.

This is why as a false-conceptual-self, we continue to run after the cheese, and as we get closer and closer, the cheese continues to be out of our reach.

The false-conceptual-self makes a RAT out of us, and uses DESIRE as the invisible-cheese that we are never meant to actually get.

Look where you are right now. No matter what you have or don't have, if you have desires about the future, you are SUFFERING, because suffering is an element of desire. Desiring in itself, is when you are not happy with what IS, and a belief in that you will be happy when you get what you desire at some time in the future.

...Do notice that this desire IS-WHAT-IS-NOT, and simply a future projection in your mind. And you believe and assume that when you finally get this cheese (desire) you will be happy.

But, as this future gets closer and closer, the cheese gets moved forward ==>> farther and farther into future, over and over.

To actually grasp how this self-principle keeps us chasing the cheese as if we are rats in a wheel, you have to contemplate your life experience, and observe how from the first moment you remember your "self" existing and right up to this moment where you are right NOW - you have been running inside this wheel, chasing the invisible piece of cheese.

And what has been pushing you to run non-stop is the force of pain and pleasure created through your own false-conceptual-self-mind.

All you have been doing 100% of the time is surviving as this FALSE-SELF.

As soon as this "false-self" was created in the field of your awareness --- (when you were a small child) --- self-survival has been the goal...period!

But, if we recognize that this is all an illusion, we can stop being rats, stop being what we ARE-NOT, and actually BE what we are.

.......a Human BEINGS.

Being does not persist, it does not need to survive. It is what it IS.

Being IS-ess.

IS = Being.....and it does not need to survive or persist, because it is what IS.

It does not need to be a DONKEY walking after an invisible carrot, being dangled by the false-conceptual-self-mind.

Being exists AS-ITSELF and FOR-ITSELF, and Being exists ONLY NOW.

Here and Now. And Being is what you really ARE.

Interesting, huh?



That's end of part#2 folks

=====================================================

This is PART #3 (of three)

It may sound strange, but our purpose in life is NOT to be happy. Life as a goal of persistence demands that our attention and commitment be devoted to "self-survival" - and all of our organs of perception have been designed toward this end.

Since mind serves and is generally considered to be the self, this self-mind is where all experience arises from and relates to.

Our constant thinking and chatter, our emotions and reactions, our underlying drives and instincts, are all designed for and committed to the persistence of this "self."

Nowhere in any of this is happiness the purpose.

The devotion of mind and body to the persistence of this "false-self" is not a devotion to happiness. As a matter of fact, for reasons other than the simple fact that it is not, survival cannot be directed toward happiness. Happiness is NOT found in the pursuit of happiness.

As strange as it may sound WANTING happiness, is itself unhappiness.

Wanting happiness implies a separation from the thing desired. So wanting to be happy suggest we are NOT happy. The very act of wanting happiness is an act of suffering.

Happiness on the other hand is only found in BEING happy.

Since we notice that getting something we want frequently brings us a sense of pleasure, we reason that attaining everything we want should take pleasure to some ultimate, permanent level.

If we think that an abundance of fulfilled desires indeed brings happiness, it obviously makes sense that one of our culturally accepted goals is to get a lot of everything we want - an abundance of love, success, wealth, or even enlightenment.

Without investigating too much we naturally assume that making everything work out and obtaining all that we want will bring the happiness we seek.

But, the problem here is this: The fundamental operating principle of self, and of our self-mind, - which dominates our EVERY perception, thought, reaction, emotion, and action - makes this reasoning incomplete and happiness unattainable.

Getting or maintaining what we want is a function of survival. This includes both physical (20%) and social survival (80%). It is not the pursuit of happiness even though it SEEMS like it is.

Remember the mouse is never meant to get the cheese, only to persist by running after it.

Ordinarily we tend to focus on acquiring whatever will fulfill our needs. With experience, we tend to notice that our needs are never finally or ultimately fulfilled no matter what we accomplish.

Some of us even begin to suspect that our activities and impulses may be cyclical - that they may even somehow cause our distress.

This awakening suggests a high degree of sensitivity and alertness on our part, but still we find ourselves unable to step off the mouses's wheel.

Unfortunately our attempt to handle our many needs doesn't come to us like a cheese-chasing metaphor; it comes to us like life.

Yet, no accumulation of wealth, knowledge, status, or obtained desires will create happiness. We maybe happy to have those things, but without being free within, we won't actually be happy.

Happiness is as much about being free FROM ourselves as it is about being free to BE ourselves. Try as we might, we still struggle with this as a possibility rather than live within it as a reality.

Navigating through the ups and downs of circumstances and the good and bad of our internal states is self-survival in action.

If we're upset when something doesn't go our way, how can we be happy?

We imagine it is a temporary glitch, and once we fix the problem we can then be happy.

Usually the problem is seen as standing in the way of our happiness and so must be overcome in order for us to be happy.

Yet, in reality it does NOT stand in the way of happiness, it stands in the way of the SELF.

This is a BIG difference.

We have confused accomplishing survival - which shows up as getting what we want - with BEING happy.

Survival doesn't make us happy. It keeps us alive and persisting as ourselves. In the realm of survival, happiness is an illusion - it's simply some of the cheese that keeps us running on the wheel and so is just a tool of survival.

Actual happiness is NOT something to pursue for itself. Happiness is better seen as being happy with whatever you are experiencing on a moment-to-moment basis.

This obviously is not the goal of survival, which must divide experiences into good and bad.

Imagine being happy even though your experience is sad, or upset, or afraid, or angry.

Imagine being happy without desiring happiness.

Imagine being happy REGARDLESS of how you feel.

This is TRUE HAPPINESS.

Doesn't sound like the happiness we're used to as "happiness" does it?

That's because we aren't used to happiness, we're used to VICTORY (or defeat), and victory is always temporary.

No matter what is accomplished throughout our life, no matter how successfully we meet all of life's challenges, the end of the story is that we will fail. We will NOT survive.

All goals accomplished and ordeals overcome will fall away. That maybe a depressing and unacceptable fact for a self.

But to Being it doesn't matter.

If happiness is dependent on successfully realizing your goals, then ultimately there can be NO satisfaction and NO freedom.

On the other hand, if you are happy working toward your goals, then your happiness is not RESERVED for attaining them. If you are happy with whatever you experience, then you ARE happy. Being happy is a matter of being happy, period!

As far as BEING happy, your true nature is already happy; simply let it "BE."

Realize that this is true, and then it is true. It doesn't matter what comes or goes.

It's an odd thing to say that life is already complete, and that at our source (our true, genuine, and authentic self) we ARE already happy.

Perhaps happiness is an inherent aspect of Being, just as suffering and struggle are an inherent aspects of surviving as a false-self.

Don't fall into the trap though, thinking it is either one or the other - happiness versus suffering - but rather as BEING happy in the struggle and with suffering, and BEING happy without them as well!

Suffering and struggle are not something to be resisted; they are to be fully experienced and understood. Just as happiness isn't something to be desired; it is also to be fully experienced and understood.

Being CONSCIOUS of the true nature of things elicits joy and humor. I don't really know why. Perhaps the miraculousness of it all blows away the human mind, and freedom within shows whatever is there as unnecessary, and so our long suffering then appears - although not without affection - as rather humorous.

We don't really know what we ARE or what this moment IS.

If we can live in the moment and NOT-KNOW who or what we are, and what all of this IS, we will be the closest to our true nature as unknown-beings.

But, no matter if you ever reach this state, or not, --- BE HAPPY with whatever you are experiencing on a moment-to-moment basis!

Thanks for reading this long-ass 3-part post

 

[southflorida]

double post