Silencing A Thousand Barking Dogs Episode 1: Introduction

Join Bryan in this series originally recorded in 2011, discussing the nature of “desire” energy. This is episode 1 in the audio series.

Orginally published in the summer of 2011, Bryan shares his personal journey of awakening, discovery, and recovery along with insights of how to become free from thought structures, inner struggles, the duality of the mind, egoic mental chatter, fixations of obsessive thinking and how to become free from our thought structures and overcoming blocks to true conscious awareness of Divinity. He helps us remember that we are in Reality One with All That is, and that we are Pure Being, not thought.

In this free Introductory sample to the paid Series to follow, Bryan introduces key ideas that influence what we help to manifest and bring into the world where we seem to experience reality. All creation originates out of a “womb of creation”, a primordial matrix. Our stream of mental activity directly impact what we “seem” to experience here in this world.

Ultimately, Bryan wants people to understand how our “mental tape recordings” can seem to control our lives, but this need not be. The goal is liberation from thought. Stillness. Peace. Beingness.

WHAT IS THE REALIZATION MATRIX (TM)?

A Sneak peak at Silencing a Thousand Barking Dogs: Subterranean Soul Gold, Spinal Wine, and My Manna of Realization by Bryan Rice 3rd Edition (Illuminatus Press)

WHAT IS THE REALIZATION MATRIX (TM)?

 

 

The Realization Matrix (TM) is a Spiritual Direction/Formation/ Healing Modality that was revealed to me through prayer and meditation. It is a system for Liberation, Illumination, Transformation, Introspection, Self-Healing, Developing “Witness Consciousness”, employing Radical Self-Honesty through “Total Allowance” and “Integration” of one’s shadow through a collective process of discernment. In the Presence of Absolute Love, an audience connected to the Unified Field, reached through pre-show meditation, creates a cooperative, calm healing presence, using a sacred space, a “matrix rebirthing womb” as a container for what is traditionally called Active Imagination, by Jungian Psycho-analysts and Spiritual Directors. There are two main goals of The Realization Matrix. The first two are, discerning and transmuting ‘spirits’ or ‘energies’, determining if they are light, dark, or admixed, rather “life-giving” and “consoling” or “life-depleting” in a manner of “desolation”, from Love (Reality) or from fear (unreality), from the God-Spark in us (King Soul) or the adversary, the accuser, the diabolical “King Ego” (a term used by Paramahansa Yoganananda, the great Hindu Yogi who brought Kriya Yoga to the West), or as Jeshua (Jesus) says in The Way of Mastery, “the sheep’s clothing of the ego (where underneath one is a ravenous wolf)..of persona…the mask….the self-image projected into the social world”. The great depth psychiatrist Carl Jung saw the ego and persona as being different aspects of the psyche. However, that is a discourse unto itself. What I am referring to, is a process of determining what is real and what is illusory, awakened aspects of the True Self or from ignorance, dreaming, and sleeping in the density of matter-bound tendencies. The third goal is most important. It is ‘entrainment’. Entrainment, for our purposes, speaks of uniting brain-wave patterns with heart-wave rhythms, creating an atmosphere of coherence and compassion in which the Releasing Individual, using the Archetype of Actor, is free to “release” and “free” automatic negative thoughts, or compulsive mental patterns, as well as repetitive thought “loops”.

 

All in all, I am speaking of bringing the past, any associated guilt, past ‘terror’, ‘hurt’, entrenched scripts/mental tape recordings and fragmented dramas that may have surfaced through growing in self-awareness, or any accompanying suffering that stems from judgment of one’s personal history, the “ashes” out of which one must arise that remain unhealed in the psyche to conscious awareness out from the subconscious. Then, through the safety of sacred space, acknowledging all that, and then being liberated from it through a collective process of blessing any residual memories that may be hindering conscious evolution for the individual, and ultimately forgiving them, and finally dissolving their ‘dark powers’, {that may have caused one’s mind-field to be possessed by the past, which A Course in Miracles teaches – never happened at all, anyway} into radiant light of the Christ Mind (Higher Self).

 

 

Releasing should always lead to Self-Awareness and progressive detachment from self-limiting beliefs and mis-perceptions that keep the Actor in bondage, negativity, obsessiveness, fixations, ruminations, mental turbulence, fanciful self-deluded neural reruns, the samskara-habit-pain-body and in self-defeating attitudes. Releasing clears the way for the Presence of the Pure Spirit of Oneness to emerge and for one to begin to create as the Way of Mastery, only “the good, the holy, and the beautiful.” The expectation is that all thoughts, emotions, and words in a Realization Matrix ritual will be “taken captive” and tested in the “laboratory” of discrimination and discernment an aspect of what is known to yogis as Jnana Yoga, Union via wisdom and non-dual Truth.

 

 

Through the progressive performance – this releasement ritual, an unveiling hopefully takes place for the Actor, while the group present, acting as the rebirthing womb and container for transformation, remains objective, open, prayerful, and receptive. This is not a clone of drama therapy. This is an effort involving Will power, energy and vibrational healing, and active listening for the voice of the Cosmic Vibratory Power, or the Holy Spirit current, to emerge in the sacred space, whether through the Actor, the Spiritual Director or Spiritual Counselor acting as a Healing Facilitator, or through an audience member, healing agent or the audience/healing matrix as a whole.

 

 

The performance is not a spontaneous unloading of the subconscious. It is scripted, as mentioned through the process of Active Imagination and giving a voice to the subconscious realm. The Realization Matrix experience is pre-written, as subterranean, subconscious emotional charges connected to the written poems, monologues, songs, or dialogues are explored and examined with a qualified professional therapist, or a spiritual director who is trained or gifted in discernment of ‘spirit’ “voices” or “currents”/movements in the soul, first subjectively, in the eye’s of the Actor/Releaser and then objectively, through mutuality and progressive detachment. The “witness consciousness” or the “observing Presence” within the Actor/Releaser is cultivated and nurtured before ever performing/releasing it in the sacred space.

 

 

This is not a book on theory. This is one particular person’s journey from a revelatory awakening experience, which was followed by a dark period of affliction, mistaken perceptions, being caught in illusory imaginings, and out of possession by the subconscious and collective unconscious’ instinctual, idea-energy forces (Archetypes), pain-body samskara tendency-habit residue that flooded the consciousness, of this individual, which happens to a path of my subsequent path of recovery, discovery, and transcendence. These series of monologues, poems, and songs tell a story of an initial Bliss experience of having a direct realization of Divine Love, then the separation from that Oneness, torment, fragmentation, mis-perceptions, and a progressive transcendence of suffering, a recovery circuitry of energy that leads back to Edenic Oneness, or the natural state of Enlightenment, felt Oneness with “Presence” and “Pure Being” (Unified Field/Creative Matrix/Womb of Creation/Mind of God).

 

 

You’ve heard that it takes a whole village to raise a child. Well, in that same line of thinking it takes the collective Presence and encounter with an expansive consciousness, to create a threshold for the release of pain and the undoing of egoic entanglements, such as fear thoughts, anxiety-provoking situations, “offending” personalities or events, and any harbored unloving thoughts. Some would choose to do this type of work one-on-one with a trusted guide (and can be), but doing this in a collective matrix environment allows powerful realizations to take place. The ultimate goal is healing the mind and purifying the emotions through awareness gained, as mentioned through objectivity in a safe setting where judgment and scrutiny is absent. Those who comprise the matrix womb should be carefully selected through discernment and prayer on the part of the Actor/Releaser, so that they will be free of self-consciousness to the fullest extent.

 

In no way, does this intervention claim to be a substitute for Cognitive Behavior Therapy and other psychotherapeutic interventions. But qualified Spiritual Directors, who, as mentioned are skilled in discerning ‘spirits’ (the “play” or “lila” of dark/light/admixed forces), and have a background/ foundation in developmental and abnormal psychology, or especially in Psychopathology, are suitable Facilitators. If a qualified priest or minister fills that role, then protective prayers and blessing can be further emphasized in what some could call a “Rite” or “Sacrament” or “Mystery”. Let’s not get attached to words. That is the whole point of “Releasement”. To disarm the “pain-body” (a name affiliated with the illumined teacher Eckart Tolle) of its “afflictive emotional charges” connected to words, by bringing it into the Presence in the Present Moment Awareness (by Observing the mental-emotional content or resulting behavior). Doing this not only ushers in detachment and self-observation, but a reverse and correction of thought distortion.

 

In the event that the performance/Releasement is halted due to needs of the Actor/Releaser that may arise and there is not sufficient time to complete the whole “script”, a unified effort should be made to seal the aura of the Actor/Releaser with healing light and Pure Loving, magnetic intentions. This is not psycho-magic. It is a Love-based metaphysical empowerment. The egoic script can be performed/Released in front of any size group or alone with a Spiritual Director, Spiritual Counselor, or Energetic/ Metaphysical Intuitive Healer. Remember, entrainment is always the goal, a re-calibration to Oneness, restoring total coherence to the heart, mind, body, and soul by “Transcending” or “Rising Above” the deep waters of the subconscious inner landscape into the higher, more evolved, more aware chakra energy vortices.

 

NOTE: Any critique of the performance/releasement will diminish the overall healing potential for the Actor/Releaser. Negative thoughts that arise during the “Rite,” should be immediately released and nullified by the person experiencing the influx of their ego/sense mind. The goal of this process is not to create a ‘masterpiece’, but rather “Realization”.

 

The Realization Matrix (TM) is a tool for Transcendence, allowing for personal and divine realizations (if indeed grace shows itself and the Divine pours out it’s Energy of Love), Liberation of Consciousness from entanglements, from separation, alienation, addictive, neurotic, obsessive, splinter (or “sub”) personality fragments/spirit-energies and all forms of affliction that lie buried beneath surface consciousness, underwater so to speak, or in what I like to call “Eden’s Basement”, the place where we shove, project, reject, repress, all our pain, humiliations, anger, hate, jealousy, fears, dreads, prejudices, and more. This kind of density and negativity is very gross and inert, and has a lot of weight to it. This is the shadow. We usually shut the door and lock it tight. With chains we think the Light of God won’t ever be able to break. The shadow is dense, but is an important part of consciousness alchemy, mind metamorphosis, deep insight into the false programs of happiness operating under the surface of waking consciousness, and a key to unlocking the door to let the “light” of intuition and introspection in to illuminate the treasured nuggets of gold that can be recycled for radiant self-knowledge and a more full, expansive glimpse of one’s Self.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ENLIGHTENMENT AND ILLUMINATION

This entry was originally posted in the blog Holy Fire by Brother Bryan in August 2009.

As I say in the the subject of this blog, Enlightenment (an inner experience of the Kingdom of God or His Ecstatic Love) and Illumination are not things that can be achieved or earned by following all the rules. Don’t get me wrong, having boundaries is a necessary part of the process of healthy development of one’s sense of self. But rigidly adhering to them, and priding one’s self for doing so, won’t get you that taste of Heaven’s Banquet any more or any quicker than the person who radiates joy, acceptance, and peace. Not even quicker than someone who acts compulsively, irrationally, or impulsively, in many cases rejecting the Love and Power of God’s grace. Father Richard Rohr, OFM has spoken about what he calls “the performance principle”. In addition to refuting the importance many people place on being part of an “in group” or the “chosen religion”, what he calls “tribal religion”, he says that people come to the experience of God’s mercy and love by doing it wrong, by a “spirituality of imperfection.” Don’t misread this; he doesn’t say sin freely and be a heathen. He just honestly admits, including himself in the reality he speaks of, that this is the pattern. Of being lost then found. The parable of the prodigal son is very significant to the pattern of behavior and complacency we have towards God the Father’s hopes for us and how he welcomes us with open arms when we go astray and choose to return.What I am driving towards, is a sort of surrendured stance, a definite kind of humility. Enlightenment and Illumination are terms that most Christians don’t use freely or regularly. Gnostic Christianity does along with other esoteric based religions. God is light in addition to all other aspects we are told about. Having experiences of light or even seeing apparitions don’t make you an Enlightened person who is automatically initiated into the Kingdom of God. Such experiences may preceed a series of mystical experiences, that I can attest to. But for me or any one else, other than maybe Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi, and Lao-Tzu if they were here on earth today, to say “I am enlightened” and to proclaim it as an absolute state of mind that they exist in apart from others, is border line heresy and a claim made by an inflated ego. I have been influenced by German spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle. He says that at the age of 29, he had an enlightening experience that changed his life. If I have heard him correctly, he never has said or written that he is in an “enlightened state” nor in a “privileged state of consciousness” that is somehow superior to the masses of ignorant people that walk the planet sleepwalking so to speak. He is grounded. He actually talks about what Jesus made clear to his those who desired to follow him, that they would have to pick up their crosses and walk the same journey as he did, maybe not to martyrdom, but to powerlessness and surrender to the Absolute Love and Will of God. Rohr and other more progressive Catholics have spoke of experiencing The Christ-Self within or the Buddha nature. In doing so, they speak of a state of Awake, Alert, Sober, Entrainment of Mind and Heart. Jesus, most radically, connected His earthly body in the experiences or encounters with God, thereby uniting the human and the divine in a way that NO OTHER SPIRITUAL TEACHER ever has. Jesus took an established pattern in nature, of life, death, and rebirth (resurrection) and turned the tables on it. In Catholic circles you hear about the Paschal Mystery, “Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again.” In defense of those who believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and to those who are curious about this reality, the experience of Illumination or Enlightenment is found in the encounter and eating of the Divine Substance, not just taking place in a corporal nature, but in a light filled mystical occurrence, whether through the gift of tears, intense, deep peace, or unspeakable ecstasy and joy. These emotions are not experienced at the expense of a Christ who is crucified over and over in a cannibalistic way, but rather through the vehicle of his risen glorified body – one that serves as a promise for us in the resurrection. In my seminary training as a student of Christian gnosticism, I was told that the “Archons” or Fallen Demonic Intelligences created as the result of a cosmic tragedy (the birth of a light being who became a lesser god, than the Ineffable, Incorruptible Father-Mother) feed off of the sacrifice of the Mass and get people who consume Christ’s Body and Blood to experience “false enlightenment” so that they will remain addicted to the sacrament and ignorant, the only sin in gnostic theology. I don’t commit myself to eating and drinking from a corpse. The sacred meal is much more than that, both a thanksgiving/remembrance of the very life Christ lived in this world and the radiance of Light he brought to those in darkness or illusion (both words I chose to substitute for sin).In summary, with the exception of Roman Catholics who exclude those not of their denomination from receiving the Eucharist, even if a person whole-heartedly believes in transubstantiation and humbly wants to receive the Elements, the gift of Christ’s Real Presence is freely given, not only through the Eucharist or Holy Communion, but in fire and spirit longing to be incarnate or impregnated in everyone. Regularly giving thanks/remembrance and partaking in the foretaste of Heaven’s Banquet will bring Divine Light to you and continually transform you, to allow God to reveal Himself/Herself to you with an Intensity no human can replicate by their own doing. Illumination can happen in every experience of the Eucharist, even if you see it as a symbol of Christ’s love and mercy (God is not limited by human restrictions or metaphors or lack of metaphors). Enlightenment, or the state of grace, or the inner condition of the Kingdom of God, I must confess comes and goes. It’s like losing it then finding it again. The minute we think we have it all, it dissipates. Don’t misunderstand me, God is not a tease. But He/She gives us just what we need as much as we need it, almost careful not to spoil the surprise granted to those who seek Him/Her in this world and the next. As an ascended master who appeared to a man who now is a well known teacher of A COURSE IN MIRACLES said, “heaven is like the perfect orgasm that never stops.” I must conclude that though I believe celibacy should be a choice, not a mandate, those who offer up their sexuality in exchange for union with God in the strictest sense can still know what that feeling is like, for there is no marrying in Heaven. This is not a commentary or a chance to provoke debate about mandatory celibacy for vowed religious. I’m just saying, if we “walk the walk” not just “talk the talk” we all are in for a truly ineffable experience. Alleluia!!!

Unraveling and Peeling Away: The Core of the Ego – Chapter 3 in “A New Earth”

by Bryan Rice on August 2, 2011.

Chapter 3 of Eckhart Tolle’s best seller book “A New Earth” focused a great deal on the egoic mind, unconsciousness, reactivity, and holding grievances as they relate to delusional thinking.

He made a point of saying that most people are “possessed” by their minds – by an “incessant stream of involuntary and compulsive thinking.” Many of us if we were completely honest would affirm this to be true. Buddhists and eastern spiritual seekers call this the “monkey mind”. Chatter. Chatter. Chatter. If a person is not aware of this they will mistake the “thinker” to be who they are. This being the egoic mind, egoic because there is a “sense of “I” (ego) in all our thoughts, memories, reactions, and emotions. This Tolle said, is “unconsciousness” in a spiritual sense.

It is important to point out that thinking is conditioned by the past and many other factors. Again, honest introspection would show us that we identify with persistent thoughts, emotions, and reactive patterns. When we say “I” we mean the ego, not our real self. Furthermore, this I, says Tolle, “consists of thoughts and emotions – a bundle of memories that people identify with as ‘me and my story’ “. The false “I” also personally identifies with possessions, opinions, external appearances, long standing resentments, or even concepts of oneself as “better than or not as good as others – as a success or failure”. Egos survive on separation.

Thoughts and emotions are nothing more than fleeting information and energy, as Deepak Chopra might say. Most unenlightened people live through their mind-made self. So, if every ego strives to survive, to “protect and enlarge itself”, others will be seen as enemies.

Now we can begin to see the structure of personal and collective egos. One egoic pattern, rather on one side of the scale, the ego consists of the compulsive habit of “fault finding” and complaining about others, and at the other end of the spectrum are the seeds to physical violence between individuals and warfare between nations. The basic component at work is that, when a person criticizes (condemns) another, it makes them feel bigger and superior.

Complaining and resentment as a topic was a big part of this chapter. Engaging in this kind of behavior is a strategy of the ego to strengthen itself, it is part of the “mind-made story”. Some egos can’t find anything better to do than to survive on complaining. This happens many times, out of unconscious and habitual neural grooves that are formed in the brain. We love to apply labels to people, to name call, egos need to be right, to triumph. Lower consciousness causes a person to shout, scream, and resort to physical violence.

Resentment as an emotion is linked to complaining. It gives energy to the ego. Resentment really means to feel “bitter, indignant, aggrieved, of offended”. What becomes problematic, is that rather than overlooking another’s unconsciousness, our egos make it their identity. We misinterpret through projection and we strengthen in ourselves what we react to in another.

How does a person go beyond reactivity? Well, Tolle says that non-reaction to the ego in others is one of the most effective ways to go beyond the ego in oneself and also “dissolving the collective ego”. Moreso, one can “only be in a state of non-reaction if they recognize the ego or product of collective dysfunction in another”. More importantly, refraining from reacting to someone else’s ego, creates the potential to bring out the “sanity” in others – the unconditioned consciousness.

The greatest protection to falling into unconsciousness and acting out negative emotions is to be “conscious”. Continuing with the idea of non-reaction, it is not weakness in any way” to not – react. Tolle says it is strength. Non-reaction is equated with forgiveness – “of looking through another’s ego to see their essence”.

When we peel away to the core of the ego we see that it resents situations, not just people. The ego gets more energy by making enemies. Voices underlying egoic mind-made thinking, for example are “This should not be happening”, or “I don’t want to be here,” and “I don’t want to be doing this,” also “I’m being treated unfairly”.

A very important point to make note of from this chapter it that the ego’s greatest enemy is the present moment. We must remain neutral if we are to feel any sense of peace. The little “me” enjoys making someone wrong. The ego does NOT want to change. It would be content to go on complaining. To reiterate, the ego is a conditioned mind pattern. But, you are NOT the ego voice, rather you are the one who is AWARE of it. “You are the awareness that is aware of the voice”. Once you become aware of the ego inside you, it becomes just an old, conditioned mind pattern. Since the ego equates to unawareness, awareness and the ego cannot co-exist. Therefore, once noticed, the ego is weakened.

A big section in chapter 3 was subtitled “Reactivity and Grievances.” It talked about how people become addicted to being angry and upset, in the same way someone becomes addicted to a drug. Many people says Tolle, are “just waiting to find something else to react against, to feel annoyed or disturbed about”. No doubt, this is toxic. Such feelings are strengthened through continuous reactivity.

The way the planet is effected by not only individual egos, but the collective ego, is that collective grievances are potentially dangerous and can lead to cycles of violence between nations.

Tolle defines a grievance as “a strong negative emotion connected to an event in the sometimes distant past that is being kept alive by compulsive thinking – by re-telling the story in the head or out loud of ‘what someone did to me’ (or us)”. Furthermore, to show the effects of grievances he went on to point out that they contaminate other areas of people’s lives. For one, it creates negative emotional energy. Secondly, it distorts perception of people or events in the present. Also, it negatively influences behavior and speech, and it keeps you in the grip of the ego.

By forgiving enemies and keeping our grievances in check, we can target one of the many egoic structures of the mind. In essence, grievances are baggage of old thought and emotion and by focusing on something from the past, we cannot exist in the “Present”.

Other sections of the chapter dealt with the temptations of wanting or needing to be right and make another wrong, thereby strengthening your false sense of I (enhancing the false self by making it morally superior to others). Another section talked about how we defend ego illusions by taking everything personally and over-identifying with the mind and a mental position. Basically what was said in that section was that every ego is a master of selective perception and distorted interpretation and that again, only through awareness and NOT thinking can a person differentiate between fact and opinion.

Under the section “Truth: Relative or Absolute”, the distinction between defending insane points of view of misperceived notions of having possession of “absolute truth” has led in history, to such things as torturing and burning people who held different opinions. The Catholic Church was one such institution that used the notion of “absolute truth” to justify violence. Tolle made a strong point: “Absolute Truth is NOT found in doctrines, ideologies, sets of rules, and stories (made up of thought)”. Thought can point to truth he said, but never be the truth. The major trap of religion is for one to claim that “my” religion is the only true one. This only creates illusory thinking and division and conflict with people.

All these things mentioned point to why we need to help create “A New Earth” or a “New World Order”. We in essence are each, potential saviors. If we would only transcend the ego, by undoing it, we could live in the power of our True Presence. In the Now. Not in the past, not in hurts, not in grievance, not in negativity, not through defending what we perceive to be absolute truth when it is really relativism, not by separating ourselves from others in an “us” versus “them” mentality, and not through underlying dysfunction or mental illness. The reason the planet is caught in an insane spiral of perpetration and retribution, action and reaction is because collectively and individually, we don’t go to the root, or the core of the problem. It is the complete identification with thought and emotion that is leading to the destruction of earth. This is the old way, the non-evolved way. Our greed, our selfishness, our exploitation, cruelty, and violence all act as a time bomb that could destroy us all. Once we recognize that war is a mindset and that we can’t fight unconsciousness with unconsciousness, by making ourselves right and others wrong, we can peel away at the ego and see it for what it is: the insanity of the human mind. Through awareness and the presence of our Being, or through the I Am Presence found in each of us, we can exchange reactivity for forgiveness and compassion. It is only through radical honesty that we can in fact create “A New Earth”.

Many Faces of the Ego : Chapter 4 “A New Earth”

Chapter 4 in Eckhart Tolle’s book “A New Earth” centered on the roles that egos assume and the “many faces” of individual and collective egos.

To get its needs met, an ego will play a “role”. Things it may try to get from someone are material gain,  a sense of power, superiority, specialness, and gratification – either physical or psychological.

People are usually unaware of the roles they assume. Other things the ego through a role will seek are attention and psychic energy. They will seek the energy outside themselves because they are unconscious that it exists within them. So attention, recognition, praise, admiration, wanting to be noticed, and needing to have its existence acknowledged are aims of the ego roles that are assumed.

Egos derive from a conceptual sense of self, whether positive or negative – positive might be (I’m the greatest) and negative might be (I am no good). Tolle says that behind every positive self-concept is the hidden fear of not being good enough and behind every negative self-concept is the hidden desire of being greater or better than others. For instance, the shy, inadequate ego that feels inferior has a strong sense of superiority.

VILLAINS

Some egos will settle for other forms of attention through a “villain”-like role if it can’t get praise or admiration. Not getting positive attention, they seek the negative , maybe by provoking someone else to get a negative reaction out of them. For example, we see children misbehaving to get attention.  An important point made in the text was that the playing of negative roles is pronounced when the ego is magnified by the pain body, rather emotional pain from the past that wants to renew itself through more pain. You see this when people commit crimes for fame or seek attention through notoriety and condemnation. The voice behind the seeking is “please tell me I exist, that I am not insignificant”.

VICTIM

Playing the victim is a common role of the ego that consists of the personal drama of “me and my story”. Egos don’t want the false stories to end. They think that problems equal their identity. The voice that very well might drive this type of person is “I am treated unfairly by life and God.”

LOVER

Role playing the lover is done to attract and keep a relationship going or to initiate one with a person who will make a given ego happy, make them feel special, and they believe that a certain person will fulfill all their needs. Falling in love is really, in most cases an intensification of egoic wanting or needing.  Egos become addicted to people, rather the image they have of them. Falling in love, most of the time has nothing to do with true love. It is a matter of “I want you” vs. “I love you”.

LETTING GO OF SELF-DEFINITIONS

This section focused on the idea of having roles being conditioned by environmental and social structures. In this modern world, people are confused about where they fit in and who they are. Tolle’s main point under this subheading was that “when you fully accept that you don’t know (if you look to thought for an identity) then you enter a state of peace and clarity that is closer to who you are.”

PRE-ESTABLISHED ROLES

When you play roles, you are unconscious. But, when you catch yourself in a role, you “create a space.” This is the beginning of freedom from a given role. Some people totally identify with their roles, for example a doctor who doesn’t see their patient as human, but just a case history.

When people do identify with pre-established roles or function, “human interactions are inauthentic, dehumanized, and alienating.” Furthermore, “pre-established roles can give the comforting sense of identity, but ultimately, you lose yourself in them”. Functions in heirarchical organizations lend themselves to becoming role identities. For instance, in a government institution, the military, church structure, and in corporations.

Some pre-established roles are “social archetypes” such as the middle-class housewife (diminishing), the tough macho male, the female seductress, the “non-conformist” artist or performer, people of culture, and the adult. As a note, the Hippie Movement was a rejection of social archetypes, roles, and pre-established patterns of behavior in addition to egoically based social and economic structures. “Hippies” refused to play roles imposed on them. The 1950s were about conforming while the 1960s was about rejecting conformity. The Hippie movement made possible the movement of Eastern wisdom and spirituality to come to the West and play a part in Global Awakening.

To summarize more efficiently, Tolle spent time debunking false happiness and roles people assume, examined the roles and functions that enter parenthood, such as manipulating children through unconscious behavior versus being alert, aware, still, and present in the moment, he talked about conscious suffering and how suffering both comes as a result of the ego, but also burns the energy of the ego up, using the “man on the cross as an archetypal image to show how suffering does in fact erode the ego, he talked about how hard it is to give up the roles, fearing a loss of identity versus coming to know yourself as being, and then he examined the pathological, paranoid, schizophrenic, and split-personality nature of the ego and its roles.