Who am I? What am I? Why am I?

[Bo]

Who am I? What am I? Why am I? Chapter 1

For a long period of time I was and still am focused on the subject ‘’who am I’’? and this long period I have discovered many things about myself.
I have discovered things I didn’t knew existed and things that were that were frightening.

In order to understand other machines I had to understand myself first. This is off course a difficult and painful process.

This project that I have created is made with a purpose on understanding oneself better and techniques on trying to be less mechanical, techniques for self-remembering.

I will put my experiences here and my observations about why we are the way we are.

First of all one must remember that you have to want to change, because there is a difference between people that say ‘’I want to change’’ and people that actually sincerely mean it.

So you have to be sincere if you really want to understand your machine and not dreaming that you already do.

In Search Of The Miraculous – Chapter 2

if a man in prison was at any time to have a chance of escape, then he must first of all realize that he is in prison. So long as he fails to realize this, so long as he thinks he is free, he has no chance whatever. No one can help or liberate him by force, against his will, in opposition to his wishes. If liberation is possible, it is possible only as a result of great labor and great efforts, and, above all, of conscious efforts, towards a definite aim.

Ok, so you want to understand yourself better? How do you want to do it?

First of all is to have an empty cup, most people supposedly and magically seem to know themselves very well, which is of course bull, but if you tell them that they don’t know anything about them self they will probably get mad at you and laugh at you and tell you otherwise.

Assumptions about yourself limit your understanding, this will be explained further on in details.

When your cup is empty we can start with observing our self, But how? What do we focus on? We focus on everything , like your thoughts, desires, behavior , etc

When we start to observe ourselves, remember not to judge your thoughts, or emotions etc.
It’s important to just observe first.

We start with a simple observation for a few days and we will write down everything about how we behave that day, and what we think about, it could be everything, if you think about sex all day write it down, if you get angry write it down.

I will give an example about these kind of notes from my own journal(translated from dutch to English);

Today I realized how it FEELS to be dissociate, feeling how dissociate is like, is different then only knowing what it is, at least I think so, because the feeling gives an extra boost to the meaning of dissociating, and the feeling is kind of similar to shame.

I came home from school, and saw my little brother behind the Computer, the first thing I thought about was getting on the computer, I didn’t care about greeting my parents first, my goal was to get behind the computer, so I ran toward his room and asked him gently ‘’so I guess you are done soon?’’ to which he replied ‘’No, I just came home as well’’ and then I replied back angry ‘’Go away, I want to be playing with the computer!’’ and he said ‘’Get lost bo!’’

Then suddenly my mother came in and said ‘’What the hell are you guys fighting about?’’
And I walked angry back to my room.
and it was as if I was triggered at this moment, because my thoughts suddenly changed to ‘’What the hell am I doing?’’ ‘’I didn’t even greet my parents first but was focused on reaching my goal so I could fulfill my needs’’ ‘’Oh crap so this is how it feels to be dissociating’’

This is one of the many examples regarding dissociating, in Myth Of Sanity – page 127 we read:

We are all without an observing ego sometimes, in fact every time we lose ourselves utterly in a movie or a daydream. This absence of observing ego is a part of why dissociated ego states that actually take over feel ‘’embarrassing’’ and out of control to most people in a way similar to our embarrassment when someone someone catches in an intense reverie: we know we have not been watching ourselves.

In Search Of The Miraculous – Chapter 3 we read;

"It is the greatest mistake," he said, "to think that man is always one and the same. A man is never the same for long. He is continually changing. He seldom remains the same even for half an hour. We think that if a man is called Ivan he is always Ivan. Nothing of the kind. Now he is Ivan, in another minute he is Peter, and a minute later he is Nicholas, Sergius, Matthew, Simon. And all of you think he is Ivan. You know that Ivan cannot do a certain thing. He cannot tell a lie for instance. Then you find he has told a lie and you are surprised he could have done so. And, indeed, Ivan cannot lie; it is Nicholas who lied. And when the opportunity presents itself Nicholas cannot help lying. You will be astonished when you realize what a multitude of these Ivans and Nicholases live in one man. If you learn to observe them there is no need to go to a cinema."
"Has this anything to do with the consciousnesses of separate parts and organs of the body?" I asked him on this occasion. "I understand this idea and have often felt the reality of these consciousnesses. I know that not only separate organs, but every part of the body having a separate function has a separate consciousness. The right hand has one consciousness and the left hand another. Is that what you mean?"
"Not altogether," said G. "These consciousnesses also exist but they are comparatively harmless. Each of them knows its own place and its own business. The hands know they must work; the feet know they must walk. But these Ivans, Peters, and Nicholases are different. They all call themselves 'I.' That is, they consider themselves masters and none wants to recognize another. Each of them is caliph for an hour, does what he likes regardless of everything, and, later on, the others have to pay for it. And there is no order among them whatever. Whoever gets the upper hand is master. He whips everyone on all sides and takes heed of nothing. But the next moment another seizes the whip and beats him. And so it goes on all one's life. Imagine a country where everyone can be king for five minutes and do during these five minutes just what he likes with the whole kingdom. That is our life."

By writing down every day notes about your behavior thoughts etc, you will slowly start to see something about yourself which you have not seen before.

I will give an example of a few ‘’programs’’ about my machine, I have discovered about myself,

Here are a few programs which most of you will be familiar with;
• Jealousy
• Anger
• A hunger for physical craving (sex)
• Lazyness
• Self-pity

And every program is protected by another program, for example, lying to yourself is the most common and used to protect the program, I will give an example,

An example of the program laziness being protected by lying to oneself.
When wanting to read a book, you tell yourself ‘’I am gonna read it in a sec, after the show’’ when the show on the t.v ends, there comes another interesting show ‘’aahh I really will read it after this show’’ when that show ends, it will be already to late and you will say ‘’Damn I really will read it tomorrow’’ but you won’t.

In order to beat the program laziness, or at least making sure it does not control your life is by accepting first that you are lazy and not denying it, most people say ‘’well yeah I know I am lazy’’ they say it but they don’t know it, they only know it because people told them they are lazy, they don’t fully accept the idea that they are lazy themselves.

Laziness is like a poison when you have it , it’s difficult to get rid of it, or at least control it, by discipline one can overcome laziness, but how to obtain discipline?

This will be later explained in more detail, for now the point is that you get the lil ‘’basic’’ idea about observing oneself and the programs





In search of the miraculous chapter 3 we read:

"'What do you expect?" said G. "People are machines. Machines have to be blind and unconscious, they cannot be otherwise, and all their actions have to correspond to their nature. Everything happens. No one does anything. 'Progress' and 'civilization,' in the real meaning of these words, can appear only as the result of conscious efforts. They cannot appear as the result of unconscious mechanical actions. And what conscious effort can there be in machines? And if one machine is unconscious, then a hundred machines are unconscious, and so are a thousand machines, or a hundred thousand, or a million. And the unconscious activity of a million machines must necessarily result in destruction and extermination. It is precisely in unconscious involuntary manifestations that all evil lies. You do not yet understand and cannot imagine all the results of this evil. But the time will come when you will understand."

In Myth Of Sanity – page 194 we read;

Having been switched to, an alternate personality does not respond to cajoling from other people, to outcry, or even to the most desperate pleas for a return to "normal." (In other words, when someone has lost his observing ego, you cannot tell him much.) Unlike the phenomenon of "moodiness," which may very well accommodate the needs of other people, or react to a favorable turn of events, a dissociative identity is impermeable. Once in place, it has a life of its own, in the most fascinating and frustrating sense of that phrase. And after an unpredictable interval of time, independently of anyone else's efforts, or of changes in circumstance, it seems to disappear on its own.
Often there can be a crazy-making holographic effect for a life partner, a child, or a close friend: the switcher is loving/vicious/loving/vicious, or wise/infantile/wise/infantile, or noble/corrupt/noble/corrupt. This fluttering perception never resolves; the question, "What is this person really like?" is never conclusively answered. And in the end, a switcher whom one loves dearly can seem to be simultaneously one's best friend, and in some peculiar, ineffable way, one's most terrible enemy.
Also, to be the intimate of a switcher is to live alongside someone with highly inconsistent powers of memory, and this feature of the experience may be even more distressing for the unsuspecting companion than is the individual's changeability itself. The switcher's "normal" capacity to remember even the smallest details of recent events may seem extraordinary, or hypervigilant. But sometimes, strangely, he may relate the same story to the same person more than once, seemingly unaware that he has passed this information before. Or sometimes he may forget that the person he is addressing was the one who told him the story in the first place. Or sometimes he may forget that he has done a task, and set about to do it again.
Of course, we all tend to forgive a certain amount of forgetfulness in another person. When the incident is not significant, we say to ourselves that the one who does not remember was distracted, or stressed. But when a switcher states that he has no memory whatsoever of an intensely meaningful event that happened, say, yesterday afternoon, another person who was involved in the event is bound to become spooked or, more probably, enraged. A screaming argument is quite likely to ensue.
Switchers tend to make other people very angry.

And with this I end my chapter 1, in chapter 2 I will tell more about programs and about techniques you can try to try to get them in balance and about our relationships which I think are a big part of it.

The purpose of this project is trying to share an understanding on how one could observe or recognize programs etc.

If you think something is wrong, please correct me.

Chapter 2 will arrive 30/31 October!

 

[Erna]

Good post. I was actually just reading the bits you quoted from ISOTM in the last hour or so.

G's answer to knowledge and the distribution of it was interesting when this question was put to him:

"Why, if ancient knowledge has been preserved and if, speaking in general, there exists a knowledge distinct from our science and philosophy or even surpassing it, is it so carefully concealed, why is it not made common property? Why are the men who possess this knowledge unwilling to let it pass into the general circulation of life for the sake of a better and more successful struggle against deceit, evil, and ignorance?"

Perfect reading weather this side, constant rumbling of thunder with a promise of the first Summer rains...

 

[PepperFritz]

First of all is to have an empty cup... When your cup is empty we can start with observing our self....

So what is an "empty cup" and how does one achieve this? You seem to imply that this is something one does once, then it is over with. Do you consider yourself to have "an empty cup"?

 

[Bo]

First of all is to have an empty cup... When your cup is empty we can start with observing our self....

So what is an "empty cup" and how does one achieve this? You seem to imply that this is something one does once, then it is over with. Do you consider yourself to have "an empty cup"?

with empty cup I kinda mean like,

Be open minded, if you are close minded and think you have figured everything out, your cup is full, but if you are open minded and open for new ways that could improve your thinking etc then this observing has a use.

and by achieving a empty cup is by this , by accepting that you are not who you think you are.

"Try for a moment to accept the idea that you are not what you believe yourself to be, that you overestimate yourself, in fact that you lie to yourself. That you always lie to yourself every moment, all day, all your life. ... But you never stop yourself in what you are doing or in what you are saying because you believe in yourself. You must stop inwardly and observe. .. . And if you observe in this way, paying with yourself, without self-pity, giving up all your supposed riches for a moment of reality, perhaps you will suddenly see something you have never before seen in yourself until this day." Mme de Salzmann

EDIT: To be more clear, you grow up as a child learning whats good and whats wrong, you get fed with subjectives nonsense and probably lots of trauma from which most people don't know how to heal themselves from.

We get into a religion, we believe we have everything , but something is missing? you feel that something doesn't feel right about that so slowly you start to empty your cup, and you start to search for truth, you start with an open mind, an empty cup.

I hope this clarifies it for you.

 

[Gawan]

Thanks Bo, very interesting.

An example of the program laziness being protected by lying to oneself.
When wanting to read a book, you tell yourself ‘’I am gonna read it in a sec, after the show’’ when the show on the t.v ends, there comes another interesting show ‘’aahh I really will read it after this show’’ when that show ends, it will be already to late and you will say ‘’Damn I really will read it tomorrow’’ but you won’t.

With this programme, I'm feeling very similar. It's like to chase a goal, but you can't reach it.

Also the other programmes you listed, I can simply agree, that they are running in my machine, too.
Can it be said that there is a set of programmes, which you can find in almost all humans?

 

[PepperFritz]

I hope this clarifies it for you.

Yes it does. Thank you.

 

[Bo]

Chapter 2 - Who am I? What am I? Why am I?


In this chapter I will talk more about programs, and techniques you could use for trying to self-remember more and I tell a bit about how our relationships could be connected to our programs.(lover, parents, friends etc.)


We will start this chapter with assumptions,
Assumptions about yourself limit your understanding


So how can assumptions about ourselves limit your understanding? Well I will give an example;

Abe has an exam next week, but Abe already thinks that he will fail, A loses confidence(self-pity), He does not focus anymore on his exams.

But A hasn’t even started to learn for his exam so how can he know that he fails? That’s it, HE DOESN’T KNOW! He ASSUMES he knows. And mostly we seem to believe this lie we tell ourselves, this destructive self-pity program.

This kind of stuff happens daily in our life. We assume so much about ourselves that it turns into self-pity or it turns into ‘’feeling special’ or it turns into overestimating yourself.

Q: (L) What distinguishes one realm from another?
A: Assumptions.
Q: (L) Okay, what you assume or expect is what you perceive about
that atom depending upon which reality you are in, is that correct?

A: Close.
Q: (L) What determines your assumptions?
A: Experience.
Q: (L) My experience of atoms is that they congregate in such a way
as to form solid matter...
A: Every thing that exists is merely a lesson.
Q: (L) Okay, so once we have learned certain lessons, as in
experience of certain things, then our assumptions change?
A: Yes.

We could say that approaching a situation with an open mind, without assuming could give us a better understanding about ourselves.

SAO had it nicely written about assumptions, which we can read here:

So my advice is to focus on specifics. Yes, we are machines, and yes, we are ponerized and largely confused. But it would be easy to use that as an excuse to do nothing or for incompetence, and to begin to identify with a state of helplessness and powerlessness. But to truly address it I think we must realize that the devil is in the details - and that's where self observation comes in. Don't assume that you're worse than you are, or that you're better. Just observe and address what you observe with faith and confidence in yourself - but without anticipation or assumption (so more like positive mental attitude really). Cassiopedia entries on faith and anticipation shine some light on it. Please keep in mind that we can anticipate external outcomes, but we can also anticipate ourselves to be a certain way because of the aforementioned identification/attachment to an "impression" of ourselves. It's just as bad when it's an illusion of a "positive" quality as it is when it's a "negative" quality. Either way it's an illusion. So with that in mind, here are the cassiopedia entries:

The thread can be read here: http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=9855.0

Now I also said that with assumption we sometimes trigger or at least a feeling that could turn into a self pity program. Self-Pity is a very destructive program that could seriously lead to your death if you dwell within it.

With self-pity one will probably feel worthless, but self-pity, to overcome this ‘’feeling’’ ,this program is hard to control or to accept.

What I tried to do to overcome self-pity partly was by realizing that it brought me nowhere , our machine has problems lots of problems, so we have to search for solutions , for ways to ‘’fix’’ our machine, so I saw that self-pity only made me feel worthless, it did not improve my life, it did not improve my way of thinking, instead it actually destroyed my thinking slowly.

Self-Pity has of course many causes, most of the self-pity we have originates from our childhood.

Maybe that’s what many people mean with, ‘’Listen to your inner child’’? if we can work trough our repressed feelings and trauma’s from the past, we will be able to understand self-pity more clearly.

When you buy a computer, and after a few years it will be loaded with bugs, viruses or whatever, mostly you will be able to deal with a few viruses, but your computer is still slow, maybe you have forgotten things that you have not dealt with yet, ah off course, there is still some malware, spyware etc. So how do we get rid of that? Well we try to look for some software that will remove them, while trying to search for a software that removes the malware, we learn in this process more about these things called malware, spyware, your knowledge increases, eventually you find the right tool to remove those programs, and the next time you will be more aware on what you download, you first think, before you download anything again.

Self-pity is like a virus, we are ignoring it, instead of trying to increase our knowledge about why we feel or think the way we do, we just feel sorry for our self, we just pity ourself.

An example
A kid, 8 years old, goes outside to play and lets assume that on some magical way he gets hit by a car and loses a leg.

20 year later this kid, now an adult could choose to dwell within self-pity or accept his situation and go on with his life. By accepting the situation , one owns thinking will become more clear and not clouded by self-destructive thoughts any longer.

I kind of see self-pity as a great distraction from observing our self. But the more we observe our self the more we know about our machine, the easier we can see our problems(programs).

In order to understand self-pity more clearly, one thing you could do is by picking up a pen and paper, and start writing down everything you ever felt hurt by, be it relationships, accidents, or whatever.

While doing this, you are already thinking about it, maybe you will for example see that you are so greedy because people never shared anything with you in the past or whatever.

In summary, Self-pity is very difficult to deal with, things that might assist you in understanding it are psychological books, and techniques you could use yourself for example the pen and the paper.

Or talking with your parents about your childhood could maybe bring up stuff you never knew before?

Of course this is my observation about self-pity, you may have different experiences with self-pity, if you have , share them if you like.

ISOTM – chapter six

"The first reason for man's inner slavery is his ignorance, and above all, his ignorance of himself. Without self-knowledge, without understanding the working and functions of his machine, man cannot be free, he cannot govern himself and he will always remain a slave, and the plaything of the forces acting upon him.

Sometimes we like to start with our big programs first, to deal with them first, but that won’t work. It is easier, at least from my experience to deal with smaller programs first.

For me big programs are self-pity, jealousy and a craving for physical hunger(sex), In order to be able to deal with these bigger programs easier is by first dealing with your smaller ones first, at least it was for me.

An example of an easy program could be, automatically raising your voice when entering a discussion, the next time try to self-remember when you raise your voice so that you won’t do it, at least try to lower your voice to a normal volume. This is a good exercise for self-remembering AND controlling the program ‘’voice raising’’ at the same time. The more you work on your smaller programs, the faster you learn to Self-Remember( I will talk about self-remembering more in detail later on)

More examples about ‘’small tasks’’ to do, (small programs) can be read here;
http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=6039.msg41555#msg41555
Self-remembering is an important part of observing oneself, when you become aware of an ‘’I’’ ,one should be able to self-remember that ‘’I’’ but it will not work all the time. And when you remember that particular I, you could try to balance it, or at least repressing it, one example that I gave was , raising your voice.

When you enter a discussion you suddenly realize(you self-remember) at this moment that you always raise your voice, so you repress that program, and you try to talk on a normal volume while discussing, but this also is very hard to control.

If you try doing this, eventually you will notice that it will become easier and easier to repress the program, you become aware of it faster.

In chapter one I also talked about laziness and that it can be overcome by discipline.
We could obtain discipline trough several ways, one could be going to school, do your homework, or cleaning your room(if you never did it before), etc. etc.

Now the problem with this is, that just thinking you are going to do it, going to obtain discipline won’t work very well, so you need something that could assist you, so that’s why it’s from my experience better to have some kind of plan on what you want to do.

ISOTM – Chapter seventeen we read:

A man is unable to keep watch on the whole of himself, that is, all his different sides. Only school can do this, school methods, school discipline—a man is much too lazy, he will do a great deal without the proper intensity, or he will do nothing at all while thinking that he is doing something; he will work with intensity on something that does not need intensity and will let those moments pass by when intensity is imperative. Then he spares himself; he is afraid of doing anything unpleasant. He will never attain the necessary intensity by himself. If you have observed yourselves in a proper way you will agree with this. [bIf a man sets himself a task of some sort he very quickly begins to be indulgent with himself. He tries to accomplish his task in the easiest way possible and so on.[/b] This is not work. In work only super-efforts are counted, that is, beyond the normal, beyond the necessary; ordinary efforts are not counted."
"What is meant by a super-effort?" someone asked.

"It means an effort beyond the effort that is necessary to achieve a given purpose," said G. "Imagine that I have been walking all day and am very tired. The weather is bad, it is raining and cold. In the evening I arrive home. I have walked, perhaps, twenty-five miles. In the house there is supper; it is warm and pleasant. But, instead of sitting down to supper, I go out into the rain again and decide to walk another two miles along the road and then return home. This would be a super-effort. While I was going home it was simply an effort and this does not count. I was on my way home, the cold, hunger, the rain—all this made me walk. In the other case I walk because I myself decide to do so. This kind of super-effort becomes still more difficult when I do not decide upon it myself but obey a teacher who at an unexpected moment requires from me to make fresh efforts when I have decided that efforts for the day are over.

"Another form of super-effort is carrying out any kind of work at a faster rate than is called for by the nature of this work. You are doing something—well, let us say, you are washing up or chopping wood. You have an hour's work. Do it in half an hour—this will be a super-effort.
"But in actual practice a man can never bring himself to make super-efforts consecutively or for a long time; to do this another person's will is necessary which would have no pity and which would have method.
"If a man were able to work on himself everything would be very simple and schools would be unnecessary. But he cannot, and the reasons for this lie very deep in his nature. I will leave for the moment his insincerity with himself, the perpetual lies he tells himself, and so on, and take only the division of the centers. This alone makes independent work on himself impossible for a man.

You can not obtain discipline if you keep lying to yourself and give yourself excuses.

But while wanting to obtain discipline you will probably hear laziness scream in your head, seriously like what the hell. It’s like when you want to do something like, cleaning the dishes, the first thought usually becomes ‘’NAAAAH won’t do it’’ but you have to push yourself trough to it. You have to act.

when we slowly obtain discipline it will be easier for us to do certain stuff, for example just reading a book without thinking(naah will do later) , without stalling.

It is easier to reach a goal if you know your machine well.

ISOTM we can read: (about aims,goals)

"Very well," said G., "to know the future is the first aim. Who else can formulate his aim?"
"I should like to be convinced that I shall go on existing after the death of the physical body, or, if this depends upon me, I should like to work in order to exist after death," said one of the company. "I don't care whether I know the future or not, or whether I am certain or not certain of life after death," said another, "if I remain what I am now. What I feel most strongly is that I am not master of myself, and if I were to formulate my aim, I should say that I want to be master of myself."
"I should like to understand the teaching of Christ, and to be a Christian in the true sense of the term," said the next.
"I should like to be able to help people," said another.
"I should like to know how to stop wars," said another.
"Well, that's enough,' said G., "we have now sufficient material to go on with. The best formulation of those that have been put forward is the wish to be one's own master. Without this nothing else is possible and without this nothing else will have any value. But let us begin with the first question, or the first aim.

"In order to know the future it is necessary first to know the present in all its details, as well as to know the past. Today is what it is because yesterday was what it was. And if today is like yesterday, tomorrow will be like today. If you want tomorrow to be different, you must make today different. If today is simply a consequence of yesterday, tomorrow will be a consequence of today in exactly the same way. And if one has studied thoroughly what happened yesterday, the day before yesterday, a week ago, a year, ten years ago, one can say unmistakably what will and what will not happen tomorrow. But at present we have not sufficient material at our disposal to discuss this question seriously. What happens or may happen to us may depend upon three causes: upon accident, upon fate, or upon our own will. Such as we are, we are almost wholly dependent upon accident. We can have no fate in the real sense of the word any more than we can have will. If we had will, then through this alone we should know the future, because we should then make our future, and make it such as we want it to be. If we had fate, we could also know the future, because fate corresponds to type. If the type is known, then its fate can be known, that is, both the past and the future. But accidents cannot be foreseen. Today a man is one, tomorrow he is different: today one thing happens to him, tomorrow another."
"But are you not able to foresee what is going to happen to each of us," somebody asked, "that is to say, foretell what result each of us will reach in work on himself and whether it is worth his while to begin work?"

"It is impossible to say," said G. "One can only foretell the future for men. It is impossible to foretell the future for mad machines. Their direction changes every moment. At one moment a machine of this kind is going in one direction and you can calculate where it can get to, but five minutes later it is already going in quite a different direction and all your calculations prove to be wrong. Therefore, before talking about knowing the future, one must know whose future is meant. If a man wants to know his own future he must first of all know himself. Then he will see whether it is worth his while to know the future. Sometimes, maybe, it is better not to know it.
"It sounds paradoxical but we have every right to say that we know our future. It will be exactly the same as our past has been. Nothing can change of itself.

"And in practice, in order to study the future one must learn to notice and to remember the moments when we really know the future and when we act in accordance with this knowledge. Then judging by results, it will be possible to demonstrate that we really do know the future. This happens in a simple way in business, for instance. Every good commercial businessman knows the future. If he does not know the future his business goes smash. In work on oneself one must be a good businessman, a good merchant. And knowing the future is worth while only when a man can be his own master.

"There was a question here about the future life, about how to create it, how to avoid final death, how not to die.
"For this it is necessary 'to be' If a man is changing every minute, if there is nothing in him that can withstand external influences, it means that there is nothing in him that can withstand death. But if he becomes independent of external influences, if there appears in him something that can live by itself, this something may not die. In ordinary circumstances we die every moment. External influences change and we change with them, that is, many of our I's die. If a man develops in himself a permanent I that can survive a change in external conditions, it can survive the death of the physical body. The whole secret is that one cannot work for a future life without working for this one. In working for life a man works for death, or rather, for immortality. Therefore work for immor- tality, if one may so call it, cannot be separated from general work. In attaining the one, a man attains the other. A man may strive to be simply for the sake of his own life's interests. Through this alone he may become immortal. We do not speak specially of a future life and we do not study whether it exists or not, because the laws are everywhere the same. In studying his own life as he knows it, and the lives of other men, from birth to death, a man is studying all the laws which govern life and death and immortality. If he becomes the master of his life, he may become the master of his death.

"Another question was how to become a Christian. "First of all it is necessary to understand that a Christian is not a man who calls himself a Christian or whom others call a Christian. A Christian is one who lives in accordance with Christ's precepts. Such as we are we cannot be Christians. In order to be Christians we must be able 'to do.' We cannot do; with us everything 'happens.' Christ says: 'Love your enemies,' but how can we love our enemies when we cannot even love our friends? Sometimes 'it loves' and sometimes 'it does not love.' Such as we are we cannot even really desire to be Christians because, again, sometimes 'it desires' and sometimes 'it does not desire.' And one and the same thing cannot be desired for long, because suddenly, instead of desiring to be a Christian, a man remembers a very good but very expensive carpet that he has seen in a shop. And instead of wishing to be a Christian he begins to think how he can manage to buy this carpet, forgetting all about Christianity. Or if somebody else does not believe what a wonderful Christian he is, he will be ready to eat him alive or to roast him on hot coals. In order to be a good Christian one must be. To be means to be master of oneself. If a man is not his own master he has nothing and can have nothing. And he cannot be a Christian. He is simply a machine, an automaton. A machine cannot be a Christian. Think for yourselves, is it possible for a motorcar or a typewriter or a gramophone to be Christian? They are simply things which are controlled by chance. They are not responsible. They are machines. To be a Christian means to be responsible. Responsibility comes later when a man even partially ceases to be a machine, and begins in fact, and not only in words, to desire to be a Christian."

"What is the relation of the teaching you are expounding to Christianity as we know it?" asked somebody present.
"I do not know what you know about Christianity," answered G., emphasizing this word. "It would be necessary to talk a great deal and to talk for a long time in order to make clear what you understand by this term. But for the benefit of those who know already, I will say that, if you like, this is esoteric Christianity. We will talk in due course about the meaning of these words. At present we will continue to discuss our questions. "Of the desires expressed the one which is most right is the desire to be master of oneself, because without this nothing else is possible. And in comparison with this desire all other desires are simply childish dreams, desires of which a man could make no use even if they were granted to him.

"It was said, for instance, that somebody wanted to help people. In order to be able to help people one must first learn to help oneself. A great number of people become absorbed in thoughts and feelings about helping others simply out of laziness. They are too lazy to work on themselves; and at the same time it is very pleasant for them to think that they are able to help others. This is being false and insincere with oneself. If a man looks at himself as he really is, he will not begin to think of helping other people: he will be ashamed to think about it. Love of mankind, altruism, are all very fine words, but they only have meaning when a man is able, of his own choice and of his own decision, to love or not to love, to be an altruist or an egoist. Then his choice has a value. But if there is no choice at all, if he cannot be different, if he is only such as chance has made or is making him, an altruist today, an egoist tomorrow, again an altruist the day after tomorrow, then there is no value in it whatever. In order to help others one must first learn to be an egoist, a conscious egoist. Only a conscious egoist can help people. Such as we are we can do nothing. A man decides to be an egoist but gives away his last shirt instead. He decides to give away his last shirt, but instead, he strips of his last shirt the man to whom he meant to give his own. Or he decides to give away his own shirt but gives away somebody else's and is offended if somebody refuses to give him his shirt so that he may give it to another. This is what happens most often. And so it goes on.
"And above all, in order to do what is difficult, one must first learn to do what is easy. One cannot begin with the most difficult.

In How To Obtain Self-Discipline In 10 Days, we read:
note: This book, is more as a analyses about discipline, every book has something valuable if you know where and what to look at, approaching these kind of books, like all other books should be approached with a critical! and open mind.

Every psychological theory recognizes that we are made up
of several different selves. So, obviously, we have more than one
side of ourselves with which to contend. Moreover, difficulty
arises when we consider that frequently our different sides want
to go in different directions. Inner conflict, it's called.
Sometimes one side of us wants to engage in a productive
activity such as working on a report for work, cleaning the
kitchen, or balancing the checkbook. But another side of us
wants to watch television and eat chocolate chip cookies, or
anything else to avoid doing something we consider a productive
use of time. In other words, there is a part of you that does not
want self-discipline. This side of you we'll call Hyde.

Let us replace the word ”Hyde’’ with the predator.

Hyde not only knows all your weaknesses, fears, and
insecurities, but also knows how to use them against you.

A cynical person is inclined to question the goodness and
value of everything. And because nothing in life is perfect, the
cynic can always find a flaw in absolutely anything. Once found,
the flaw is then magnified until it overshadows everything else.
The cynic is a genius at pointing out why a particular plan, idea,
or choice is no good and won't work.

Hyde is a master cynic. Expect that your efforts at
implementing this self-discipline system will be constantly
bombarded with cynicism from within. "It's too complicated."
"It's too easy to have any real value." "It's too difficult to
complete." " Blah, blah, blah."

During your initial attempts to improve your self-discipline,
you will need to maintain a positive attitude. So guess what?
One of Hyde's favorite self-discipline sabotage tactics is to
spotlight all of the negative happenings in your life. As you
begin to devise goals and plans, Hyde will attempt to direct your
attention toward everything unpleasant about the persons, places
and things that make up your environment. When Hyde uses this
strategy to divert you from your self-discipline improvement
program, you'll find yourself saying things like, "Why bother?"

So, in essence, you create your attitude and behavior by what
you tell yourself.

Hyde wants to keep you from multiplying
your powers of self-discipline. If that can be accomplished by
dampening your spirit, Hyde will do so by reminding you of
all that's wrong with the world. On the surface, a negative
attitude doesn't seem connected to self-discipline, but rest
assured that your overall attitude about life is what steers and
fuels your actions. So when you feel yourself (Hyde) using
negativity to turn you away from positive action, don't be
tricked. Remember: You can choose your own attitude. Will
your attitude work for you or against you? The choice is
yours. Believe it.[./quote]

Deafeatism

[quote
Using defeatism, Hyde will try to con you into saying things
like: "Maybe this self-discipline program is good, but it probably
won't work for me." "I'm not smart enough to understand this
stuff." "I'm too smart to be helped by this lame stuff." "I'm too
old." "I'm too young." In other words, Hyde will try to convince
you that the fault lies within you personally;

"Try for a moment to accept the idea that you are not what you believe yourself to be, that you overestimate yourself, in fact that you lie to yourself. That you always lie to yourself every moment, all day, all your life. ... But you never stop yourself in what you are doing or in what you are saying because you believe in yourself. You must stop inwardly and observe. .. . And if you observe in this way, paying with yourself, without self-pity, giving up all your supposed riches for a moment of reality, perhaps you will suddenly see something you have never before seen in yourself until this day." Mme de Salzmann

Escapism

Developing self-discipline requires self-knowledge. Selfknowledge,
in turn, requires that you occasionally engage in
self-examination, an activity that sometimes evokes anxiety. Like
a buried treasure, self-knowledge requires that you dig deep
before you can reap the bounty. Inevitably you'll encounter
stones during the dig.
Emotional stones, buried in your subconscious, include many
events and situations that you'd just as soon leave buried.
Unfortunately, however, those stones contain the keys to why
certain parts of you refuse to cooperate in your self-discipline
efforts. This applies whether you are dieting, running a business,
or maintaining an exercise program.

In short, Hyde will try to divert you from the day's exercise,
especially if the exercise in question involves any sort of self examination.
Hyde will coax you toward another activity that
will instead provide some sort of escape. And because you
haven't yet developed the self-discipline that you'll soon have,
Hyde uses escapism masterfully. Chances are that you previously
have used escapism to dash your efforts at reaching your goals.
So, you'll soon learn that Hyde is quite good at employing this
method of self-defeat.

Delayism

"I'll do it later," is one of Hyde's favorite sentences. Often
one of the previously described tactics will be used as the reason
to "do it later." Other times a piggyback reason is offered: "I
can't begin a weight-loss program until I buy a decent outfit to
work out in." Hyde has then succeeded in putting a hurdle
between you and your goal.

Another delay tactic is "I just don't have time." Well, we all
have twenty-four hours per day; no more, no less. This holds true
regardless of whether you are the head of a nation or the head of
a household, or both. "But some of us have more responsibilities
than others," Hyde says. True enough, but now we're talking
about priorities. What you choose to do with your twenty-four
hours per day is another matter altogether. And one of the things
you have chosen to do is acquire self-discipline.

The point here is to recognize whether a given delay is
legitimate; that is to say whether the delay is working for you or
against you. This question must be constantly addressed if Hyde's
tactic of delayism is to be neutralized.

Hyde's Five Favorite Poisons:
- Cynicism
- Negativism
- Defeatism
- Escapism
- Delayism

Remember: Hyde constantly uses negative self-talk to
sabotage you.

In other words, you'll find yourself transmitting negative
messages to yourself when you most need to be self-supportive
of your efforts.

Remember when I talked about self-pity?
That’s enough food for thought about self-discipline for now.

After observing my self for a period of time, you will discover how every program is protected by other programs, it so creepy, that you really won’t know yourself anymore, you get a glimpse of nothingness.

For me self-discipline was one of the first moves to make me able to ‘’do’’ something, I always look for excuses for not doing something, or delaying it or whatever. With doing something I mean, finishing a book, searching for clues about observations, etc etc.


I also wanted to post how relationships are connected with us being triggered and all of that, but I decided to do that in a different thread, and for now to just focus on observations, programs, and how we can try to self-remember.

In chapter 3 I will talk about the programs,

* Anger
* Jealousy
* Some additional information about self-discipline
* A hunger for physical craving (sex)
* Self-remembering(moved from chapter 2 to 3)

In the meantime I also have to finish some homework and deal with a head cold, which hurts like crazy. So I think I will have chapter 3 ready by next week!

If you see anything that could be wrong or way off, then please correct me.
Adding your own observations about programs could be very useful as well! as I could use them for more analyzes, and share them trough chapters.

 

[curious georgia]

I only want to say thank you Bo, for this thread. It is very helpful to me. :) Please continue this when you feel better.

 

[tree]

Thanks Bo, I have an hour or so to read something daily on Cass, and this hit right on... my programs of self-pity and laziness have been calling the shots as of late. I have observed it, however my assumptions were getting in the way of any real awareness...it's like I was using a program to observe another program. Your posts have helped me regain perspective. I appreciate your efforts and your sharing. Hope you feel better.

tree

 

[Aiming]

Hey Bo,
thank you so much for this thread, great work! You've explained it all so simple and clear-cut, supported by examples,
excerpts and comments -- really helpful und much appreciated ! :)
Get well soon!

 

[Bo]

Thanks for the support guys!, I got better I am almost finished with chapter 3 and will post it tonight.

 

[Bo]

Chapter 3 - Who am I? What am I? Why am I?


Knowledge Protects, if you learn more about your programs, if you invest time in your machine, invest time in observing, dealing with your machine will then become easier, as you move on and gain knowledge your being has to change as well, your understanding changes, YOU change.


The Fourth Way - Ouspensky

Q. To understand examples of conscious art one must have knowledge that an average person has not got?

A. Not only knowledge, but knowledge and being. There are two sides of us which must be developed.
In speaking about knowledge and being it is necessary to start from the beginning. Try to think how you look at it yourself, what your attitude to those two ideas was before you met this system. We are all in the same position. We want knowledge, but we do not realize that there are obstacles in ourselves that prevent us from acquiring this knowledge.
I will start with myself. Before I met the system I read a great deal and made many experiments. From these experiments I got interesting states, understood several laws, and I naturally wanted a continuation of these states. But I saw that for this more knowledge was necessary. Then I met this system. In the system particular stress was laid on being. According to this system no more knowledge is possible until one's being is changed.
Soon after we heard about knowledge and being our groups divided into two camps. The first camp thought that the whole thing was change of being, that with change of being we would get more from the knowledge we already have. The second camp (to which I believe I alone belonged) said that even in our present state of being we can get much more knowledge than we have, that we are not so saturated with knowledge that we cannot absorb more.
Later I understood that both are necessary. Take an example of two men: one knows the four rules of arithmetic, the other does not. Naturally the first will be in a better position, although their level of being is the same. The more a man knows about mathematics, the better is his position in a certain profession. So knowledge can increase even with the same being. And he may know more not only in mathematics; he may know many other things, have more psychological knowledge.
On the other hand, you notice that you give two people knowledge (I am speaking of psychological knowledge), and one gets it, while the other cannot. Evidently his being is not prepared. So people are not in the same position in this respect.
The relationship of knowledge and being is a very big question. I want you to think about it and follow what I have just said. Try to find your own examples. Knowledge can lead very far. The question is, can one take it? Can one absorb it? One kind of knowledge we can get, another kind we cannot, so we cannot speak in general about it. For instance, take psychological knowledge: such as we are we can learn very much, and certain things can become much dearer. But every moment a man's knowledge depends on his being. This is what we do not understand. A man can get only as much knowledge as his being allows, otherwise his knowledge will be just words. If knowledge is given to several people, one of them gets it, others do not. Why? Evidently because their being is different.

Q. I do not understand clearly what 'being' is.

A. It is you, what you are. The more you know yourself, the more you know your being. If you have never learnt that you have being, the being of all people will be the same to you. Someone who has never heard of self-remembering, if you ask him, will say that he can remember himself. This is one being. Another knows he does not remember himself—this is a different being. A third is beginning to remember himself—this is a third being. This is how it must be taken.
We understand the difference of objects, but in ordinary thinking we do not understand the difference of being. What do we learn in this system? First that we are not one, that we have many 'I's, that there is no central 'I' in control. This is the state of our being. The result is mechanical ness—we are machines. If we manage to be less mechanical, less divided in ourselves, if we manage to have more control of ourselves, it will mean that our being has changed.
When I met this system, it showed me that change of being was necessary, because we are not what we think ourselves to be. If we were what we think we are—if we had consciousness, will, if we could 'do', then only knowledge would be necessary. But we all think of ourselves differently from what we are in reality. And it is exactly this difference between what we are and what we think we are that shows what is lacking in our being. So two things are necessary: change of knowledge and change of being.

Anger

Anger, it can drive us mad, drive us insane. It can make us do things we don’t appreciate.
You can use anger in a ‘’positive way’’ or it could be used in a ‘’negative way’’

just whenever I use the word positive I mean it in regards of how it affects you and your environment, if it affects you in a way that increases your knowledge and your understanding then I would call it positive, if it affects you in a way that destroys you then I call it negative.

I will first talk about the ‘’negative way’’ of anger.

We usually get angry when we don’t get what we want, after some observations about myself I have seen that anger has different stages, it starts slowly and it builds up rapidly to a climax.

I will give an example from my journal (translated from Dutch to English);

Today I saw, I think I witnessed the program anger, but I couldn’t act upon it, I saw it happen, I was only observing.

I was sitting in my room doing some homework, when my mother came in and told me if I could go to the groceries and buy some bread, because we didn’t had any. I told her to tell my brother to go, while she went to his room, thoughts like ‘’Hell No I am not going to buy some bread’’ like a silent voice, it was small and weak but I could hear it in the background in my head.

When my mother went to his room he told my brother to go, but he didn’t want to go either. At this moment, when he said ‘’No’’ either, it seemed like that small and weak voice became stronger, the thoughts became stronger and turned into ‘’Why do I always have to go?!?! Damn it!’’

I stood up, got out of my room and told my brother ‘’Come on man, you go, I am busy?? Ok?’’ and he said: ‘’No, why don’t YOU go?’’ arguing was impossible, the voice, the thought which was weak at first, suddenly overpowered me and took control. Anger had been activated.

I yelled at my brother, called him names, I hated him at that moment, and out of anger I went to the grocery to buy some freaking breads. Wow all of this because of bread? All of this emotional feeding for what? For just going outside 2 minutes and to buy some bread. What the hell. This day was another example of how anger took over. And interesting program, but devastating to family, friends etc.

I think we all have been trough similar or different situations like the above and still are.

ISTOM – Page 67

man is compared to a house in which there is a multitude of servants but no master and no steward. The servants have all forgotten their duties; no one wants to do what he ought; everyone tries to be master, if only for a moment; and, in this kind of disorder, the house is threatened with grave danger. The only chance of salvation is for a group of the more sensible servants to meet together and elect a temporary steward, that is, a deputy steward. This deputy steward can then put the other servants in their places, and make each do his own work: the cook in the kitchen, the coachman in the stables, the gardener in the garden, and so on. In this way the 'house' can be got ready for the arrival of the real steward who will, in his turn, prepare it for the arrival of the master.

_http://www.carnatic.com/karmasaya/index.php?Moving%20from%20anger%20into%20sadness...

you have always believed in the theory that it is somebody else whose insult has created the anger. That's not true. Anger has always been there; somebody has just given an excuse for it to come up.

If I was conscious of anger, if I Self-Remembered anger, I would have repressed it and just went to the groceries to buy some bread. I could then be able to put this servant on his place, without letting him create chaos.

So I started to wonder, how I could understand anger? Well I have seen it, and felt it. I felt it’s destruction.

One way is observing people who are angry at each other, if you are in school, you will probably find lots of hatred among students there, or in your classroom, or your parents.

We all have seen people arguing and fighting, we have seen it as machines, but have you actually observed it with the intention on understanding the program anger? When watching 2 people fight, they always blame each other and never themselves.

We are so loaded with self-importance, self-importance seems to be a major key behind this nasty program anger and many , many, many other programs.

If you can understand and realize! that your anger is caused by the perception of you being somehow treated unfairly(or by someone else) you can silence yourself, because at this moment you are aware of the damage anger can create.


Imagine you being in a relationship, and after a while being together, you will start to argue and fight with each other about such silly subjects, but when anger arrives and a argue begins, you can make a difference, instead of responding back angry, you can try to stay calm, and try to calm her down, telling her to sit down, and do the talking on a way we don’t have to yell at each other.

This could be linked to being externally considerate with the other,
From the cass glossary we read:

External and Internal Considering

In 4th Way parlance, this is the practice of taking others into account when acting. External considering involves making a realistic evaluation of another's situation and acting in ways which take this into account in a positive sense.
External considering is however not the same thing as being socially polite or considerate, although it may be expressed in this manner.
The key concept is to be aware of and to adapt oneself to the level of being and knowledge of others. Thus, external considering involves for example not talking about things which would simply offend others' beliefs or simply not be understood. External considering relates to an idea of general good will towards the environment, then in the sense of letting the environment be as it wishes and responding to its requests in a manner that honors its right to be as it will.

External considering is rooted in objective awareness of the environment. Its opposite, internal considering, is rooted in attachment to a subjective inner state, to one's own comfort of preconceptions or desires.
External and internal considering are not always outwardly distinguishable, although inwardly they are fundamentally different. One may for example be socially pleasing purely in order to reinforce one's own idea of oneself as a 'good person.' This is internal considering and preoccupation about how others/the self perceive the self.

In some cases, external considering may involve withholding information that is seen as inappropriate, dangerous or simply unlikely to be well received. An internally considering person may also do this, but then again the motive is different.
We cannot codify with external criteria which action constitutes which kind of considering. The concepts are related to service to others vs service to self and to objectivity vs subjectivity. Usually the term considering is applied in the context of personal interactions.
Only through having external considering can one serve others. This requires responsiveness and a sense of objectivity and awareness of what is right action for the given situation. Serving in the sense of merely carrying out commands is not external considering.
Internal considering can be likened to man's inner predator. It feeds itself by engaging in subjective fantasies where it thinks it is other than it is. It will also seek to gain external confirmation for its distorted self-image by manipulating others to confirm it in its views. Man may go to much trouble to make an impression, simply in order to have his own illusory, internally considered self-image reflected back to himself from others. All success in such manipulation feeds the predator and confirms it in its internal considering and accordingly removes the center of gravity of man's inner life away from objectivity. Internal considering is in very concrete terms man's natural enemy who seeks to prevent man from being himself. The predator will at all times prefer an illusion of virtue to the naked truth about itself. Still, it is not useful to morally judge or condemn the predator, just like it is useless to condemn a cat for eating mice. Still, one must disengage from identifying with this predator. Claiming to Work while engaging in internal considering is a contradiction in terms. The forms of internal considering can however be extremely subtle and one cannot always detect them, thus constant vigilance is required. The predator of internal considering may well claim to engage in merciless self-observation, to aspire to consciousness and being and any other virtues and even trick itself to believe it is progressing towards these goals while all the while only feeding its vanity and desire for recognition.
Exterior man needs the support of a group in order to help him detect the many tricky ways in which internal considering inserts itself in his perception and actions.

The origin of anger , like many other programs also comes from our childhood, the way we are raised, you know the more you start to think about these programs, the more you start to realize that all of these start from childhood, man what a messed up world we live in ay?

From; Anger Management For Dummies, we read;

Anger is part of the survival mechanism of human beings. When faced with a
threat — not unlike other animals — humans either run away or attack.
Anger is the fuel behind that attack. But anger can also have the opposite
effect and lead to our untimely demise. As Chapter 3 explains, too much
anger can cause heart attacks, precipitate disabling work injuries, and facili-
tate risky sexual behavior. Anger truly is a double-edged sword.

Informational support: You can have the best of intentions, but if you
don’t have the information you need about anger and how to manage it,
you won’t get far.

One way you know you’re succeeding in managing your anger is when you
begin to realize that things that used to set you off no longer do.

The above is a small example of how being changes with effort and continues gain of knowledge.

Obesity
Do you head for the refrigerator or the nearest fast-food restaurant when
something pisses you off? If you do, you’re not alone! Food is, unfortunately,
the solution that millions of people choose to satisfy their anger. Obesity is
yet another risk factor for heart disease.

Amy, a nice married woman in her mid-40s, is a self-acknowledged emotional
eater. She currently weighs 100 pounds more than she did when she got mar-
ried 20 years ago. She constantly finds herself stifling her feelings — even
positive ones — because of her husband’s discomfort with any open expres-
sion of emotion. Hiding emotion under a façade of niceness is unnatural for
Amy, who was raised in a family where everyone sat around the dinner table
and shared their thoughts and feelings with each other. She lives in emotional
isolation day after day, self-medicating with food as a means of assuaging her
pent-up anger. “I hold in my anger as long as I can — usually for three to six
months — but then I blow up and let it all out at once,” she says. But then the
cycle begins all over again. Bottom line: “I can’t imagine how many hundreds
of pounds I have put on and taken off because of all this anger, but it’s a lot.”

Another example of the program anger working towards a climax.

To understand this process a bit better, consider a conversation I had
recently with an angry client:
Gentry: You mentioned an incident you had with your girlfriend this past
weekend. Tell me about it.
Client: It was nothing really. We had made some plans for the weekend
and all of a sudden she changed them without letting me know. So, I got
annoyed.
Gentry: On a scale of 1 to 10, how annoyed were you when you first
heard that she had changed the plan?
Client: A 4, I guess.
Gentry: Okay. Actually, a 4 indicates that you weren’t annoyed — you
were angry or mad. What I call mad is between 4 and 6. A rating of 1
through 3 would signify annoyance. Did you tell your girlfriend that you
were mad?
Client: No. I just kept it to myself, like always.
Gentry: Then what happened?
Client: We went out to eat, but we had to wait a long time for the food to
come. And I kept getting madder.
Gentry: What number was your anger then?
Client: It was up to about a 6 or 7, I guess.
Gentry: Well, there’s a difference. A rating of 6 means you were really
mad — a score of 7 would suggest you were in a state of mild rage, but
rage nevertheless.
Client: I guess it was a 6.
Gentry: So, at that point, you were just a tick away from rage. Did you do
anything about your anger at that point?
Client: Not really — just got quiet and headed off to a ballgame with my
girlfriend. And that’s when we got into this big fight in the car. I’m not
sure what set me off, but I got so angry I punched the vent in my car and
damaged it.
Gentry: And how angry were you at that point?
Client: Oh, I was definitely a 9 or 10!

Had my client asserted himself when he first became upset — telling his girl-
friend how unfair he thought it was for her to frequently alter their plans
without consulting him — I seriously doubt the incident in question would
have occurred. But he didn’t and it did!

Had he been aware of the program anger, had he known of it’s existence, then the fight probably would have never happened or it would have had a different outcome

Annoyance is the mildest form of anger. It lies at the opposite end of the
spectrum from rage.

How do you settle for just being annoyed? The next time someone pushes
your buttons, try the following:
- Don’t think of the incident or situation as more serious than it is. Keep
things in perspective. If someone cuts you off in traffic, that’s annoying,
but it’s not the end of the world.
- Don’t take it personally. That same guy who cut you off doesn’t know
you — he’s probably oblivious to you, and even if he’s acting out his
own little road-rage drama, it’s not about you in particular.
- Don’t blame the other person. When you start blaming someone else,
it’s easy to let your annoyance escalate. Just let it go.
- Don’t think about revenge. Revenge is often the next step after you
start assigning blame. Spend your energy on more useful things than
revenge.
- Keep striving for a non-angry way of coping with the situation. So
you’re annoyed at that other driver. How can you deal with the situation
without getting angry? Maybe you turn on your favorite music or turn
the radio dial to NPR (it’s pretty hard to be angry when you’re listening
to Bob Edwards or Terry Gross).
- Refuse to see yourself as a helpless victim. Take some type of action to
adjust to or correct the annoying situation. It really doesn’t matter what
you do as long as you do something — other than just be angry.
- Don’t let a negative mood — like depression — magnify your emotion.
Anger only intensifies depression. Tell yourself: I’m not going to let this
annoying situation add to what is already a down mood.

another example of anger controlling, see below.

Parent: I want you to clean up your room before dinner.
Adolescent: I’m doing something now.
Parent: (irritated) I said I want this room cleaned up.
Adolescent: (angry) Leave me alone.
Parent: (angry) Don’t talk to me that way. Start cleaning up your room —
now!
Adolescent: (throwing book across the room in a rage) I told you to get
out of my room!
Parent: (very angry) Don’t you dare throw that at me. Start cleaning this
room right now and I mean it.
And here’s the second conversation:
Parent: I want you to clean your room before dinner.
Adolescent: (irritated) I’m doing something now.
Parent: (irritated) Yes, I can see that, but I want you to clean your room.
Adolescent: (angry) Leave me alone.
Parent: (irritated but not yet angry) Okay. That’ll give you a chance to get
started on your room.
Adolescent: (angry) I’ll do it when I feel like it.

Anger in a positive way

When anger is used in positive ways, it can help us to express our feelings, influence others and resolve conflicts.

I sometimes also use anger as a fuel to do the work, I will give an example,
When reading the news on sott.net I usually become angry about how these psychopaths have made our lives so miserable, those bastards, if only people knew about their existence and their ways of manipulating!

This anger I usually use as ammo to do the work, for example like now, you could also call it inspiration.

I do have to say that when I use anger in this way, I feel pumped up and ready to go! Like ‘’Yeah baby let’s do some reading! Hell yeah!’’ ‘’Damn psychopaths! I will tell the world about you!’’ It’s kind of funny actually…but it works, for me at least.

But it is important to understand that before I even knew about the work and all of that, I could never for example use anger as inspiration, anger was just anger, nothing more nothing less, but now it has a meaning and with understanding it could be controlled and balanced.

This is really why I have said that it is so extremely important to have a daily journal in which you write about your programs, because you can never remember your emotions and thoughts of every day! With a journal like explained in chapter 1, it becomes easier to deal with your programs, it’s a great tool.

For now that’s I think enough about the program Anger..





Jealousy..

Jealousy is well what can I say, a real block, a good way to waste energy.

Last year when I joined this forum, and when I absolutely knew nothing at all, I was extremely jealous of some member at this forum who were so smart, they knew so much, about history, political stuff etc. etc. it is interesting to observe in oneself. I must say that I still have jealousy towards members, but it has become much less, if I compare it to last year.

I even sometimes get jealous when I see someone riding in an awesome new car, while mine is such a wreck.

Jealousy is a form of self-pity, at least that’s what I have discovered from my self-observations.

When you can or have already dealt with self-pity to such an extent that it does not overpower you, then jealousy will be easier to deal with, because we usually get jealous because we believe we lack something (with lacking something I mean; money, being good looking and al of that) or because we don’t trust someone.

Jealousy should be understood, it’s a servant like anger, which needs to be put in place and not create chaos.

From Wikipedia we read:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jealousy

Jealousy typically refers to the negative or angry thoughts, feelings, and behaviours of insecurity, fear, and anxiety that occur when a person believes a valued relationship is being threatened by a rival, or when another person is perceived to have some type of advantage. Jealousy often contains a mixture of emotions such as anger, sadness, disgust, which are focused by passion or anger. While jealousy and envy are similar, they differ in that jealousy concerns something one has and is afraid of losing, while envy concerns something one does not have and either he wants to acquire, or prevent another person from getting.

The experience of jealousy involves:
• Fear of loss
• Suspicion or anger about betrayal
• Low self-esteem and sadness over loss
• Uncertainty and loneliness
• Fear of losing an important person to an attractive other
• Distrust

Jealousy starts from a very very young age, Jealousy like all other programs should be understood, because most people don’t know why they are jealous at all. This makes jealous a sneaky servant which can rule easy in a particular situation and create chaos.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_marriage_jealousy

Jealousy is a familiar experience in human relationships. It has been reported in every culture where researchers have looked. It has been observed in infants as young as 5-6 months old and in adults over 65 years old.

From the book;
The Amazing Infant by Tiffany field we read;

Jealousy as another attachment paradigm

Jealousy is another paradigm that could be used to assess attachments with even younger infants. In this paradigm, we were able to show that young infants became more distressed when their mother hold a doll versus a book.(Hart, Field et al., 1998) A more recent pilot study assessed whether jealousy could be documented in infants as young as 6 months of age.
Six-month old infants were seated next to their mother, who alternately held a lifelike baby doll and a book. The infants fussed/cried more when the mothers were holding the doll, suggesting a form of jealousy as early as 6 months.

What I tried to become more aware of jealousy, is by first learning what it is, after this step I observed myself, and waited until it showed itself. After I have felt jealousy I could combine it with the knowledge I have.
So the next time I get jealous I will remember this particular feeling and try to repress it, to put this servant back in place before it escalates and creates chaos. Some people can deal better with jealousy then other, the ones who can’t deal very well with jealousy are usually I think people who are traumatised on trust, and people who have a very low self-esteem.

People also don’t like to admit they are jealous, jealousy does not like to blow it’s cover.

By observation I concluded that practically all programs can be dealt with effectively if they are understood, with understood I mean having knowledge about the giving subject.

I saw that the more I learned about these programs individually the better I could deal with them, it becomes like a relief, like this, I see every day how true it is when C’s say that Knowledge protects.

Dealing with jealousy effectively is by knowing a lot about it, and by just observing yourself,
I will give an example.

‘’Today when I went to school, a good looking girl walked passed me with a guy holding her hand and they both walked to the guy’s car which was a brand new one, it looked awesome, suddenly all my thoughts changed into ‘’wow she is hot, I wish I could be that lucky, and damn that car, I wish I had money’’

These kind of thoughts happen so fast, that we most of the time don’t even know it is happening, afterwards we will probably feel a little empty inside, asking ourselves why, and how, and 10 minutes later we forget all about it, and we move on.

But when you are doing the work and if you have increased your knowledge about this program jealousy for a long while, you may have felt it before, you understand what it is. So when you walk and see those 2 passing by again, you would at first slowly become jealous and then suddenly you will self-remember this particular feeling that is starting to raise, you then immediately get reminded of jealousy, you then repress it and move on.

Sounds easy, but it is not at all, but if you are truly dedicated on understanding your machine, these kind of exercises become easier and easier as you move on and keep on increasing your knowledge.

Some additional information on Discipline

How To Obtain Self-discipline in 10 days;

our self-discipline muscle gains strength only
through frequent exercise, exercise that leans heavily on
self-confidence.

Self-confidence and self-discipline feed
off each other. No self-confidence, no self-discipline. You won't
start that diet because you don't think you'll stick to it. You
won't start that business because you don't think you can make a
go of it. Indeed, a large part of self-discipline requires that you
genuinely believe in yourself.

Remember: Self-discipline can be hindered by fear of risks,
but this fear can be overcome by a change of attitude, which is
entirely under your control.

We all have a Hyde inside us. So, accept that in
matters of self-discipline, we are our own most difficult problem.

You need to know that most
elements in the self-defeating belief system
operate subconsciously. So before you can
neutralize their influences on your behavior,
you must first become aware of their existence,
then recognize when they are at work, then you
can minimize their influence. In other words,
to improve your self-discipline you need to
shift your self-defeating beliefs from your
subconscious into your conscious. Then and
only then can you effectively deal with them.
So, until you deal with your self-defeating
beliefs, you will be plagued by never-started
projects and half-finished projects; and you
won't know why.

Self-discipline problems occur when people don't apply
the appropriate tools that work best at a particular stage.
The main four stages of the self-discipline process are:
Most people wrongfully start the self-discipline process
at the Action Stage, when in fact they are psychologically
at the Decision or Preparation Stage. That is why so much
exercise equipment ends up gathering dust in the garage,
why so many diets are prematurely abandoned, and why
so many business plans never hatch.

- Decision to act
- Preparation
- Action
- Completion/Maintenance

Most people wrongfully start the self-discipline process
at the Action Stage, when in fact they are psychologically
at the Decision or Preparation Stage. That is why so much
exercise equipment ends up gathering dust in the garage,
why so many diets are prematurely abandoned, and why
so many business plans never hatch.

Why do so many people begin every new year with
personal calendars, schedule books, activity organizers,
etc., but stop using them in a few weeks? These wonderful
tools don't work because people try to use them prematurely.
These are tools for the Action Stage, but if the person using
them happens to be at the Preparation Stage, these tools
are almost useless. In other words, it is useless to use a
screwdriver to sink a nail or use a hammer to turn a screw.
Both tools can be tremendously helpful, but only if they
are used at the right time.

Self-remembering.

The Fourth Way – Ouspensky.

Q. When you say 'remember yourself', do you mean by that to remember after you have observed yourself, or do you mean to remember the things we know are in us?

A. No, take it quite apart from observation. To remember oneself means the same thing as to be aware of oneself—'I am'. Sometimes it comes by itself; it is a very strange feeling. It is not a function, not thinking, not feeling; it is a different state of consciousness. By itself it only comes for very short moments, generally in quite new surroundings, and one says to oneself: 'How strange. I am here'. This is self remembering; at this moment you remember yourself.
Later when you begin to distinguish these moments, you reach another interesting conclusion: you realize that what you remember from childhood are only glimpses of self-remembering, because all that you know of ordinary moments is that things have happened. You know you were there, but you do not remember anything exactly; but if this flash happens, then you remember all that surrounded this moment.

I see self-remembering as when a program activates in a given moment, that you suddenly remember what, how and why.

Just like the many examples I gave remembering particular I’s and when you remember them, you can repress them.

Self-remember, if you try to practice it, it can become a great tool, the more you become aware of your different programs, the easier self-remembering will become.

ISOTM – Chapter 7:

On one occasion at the beginning of a meeting G. put a question to which all those present had to answer in turn. The question was; "What is the most important thing that we notice during self-observation?"
Some of those present said that during attempts at self-observation, what they had felt particularly strongly was an incessant flow of thoughts which they had found impossible to stop. Others spoke of the difficulty of distinguishing the work of one center from the work of another. I had evidently not altogether understood the question, or I answered my own thoughts, because I said that what struck me most was the connectedness of one thing with another in the system, the wholeness of the system, as if it were an "organism," and the entirely new significance of the word to know which included not only the idea of knowing this thing or that, but the connection between this thing and everything else.
G. was obviously dissatisfied with our replies. I had already begun to understand him in such circumstances and I saw that he expected from us indications of something definite that we had either missed or failed to understand.
"Not one of you has noticed the most important thing that I have pointed out to you," he said. "That is to say, not one of you has noticed that you do not remember yourselves." (He gave particular emphasis to these words.) "You do not feel yourselves; you are not conscious of yourselves. With you, 'it observes' just as 'it speaks' 'it thinks,' 'it laughs.' You do not feel: I observe, I notice, I see. Everything still 'is noticed,' 'is seen.' ... In order really to observe oneself one must first of all remember oneself" (He again emphasized these words.) "Try to remember yourselves when you observe yourselves and later on tell me the results. Only those results will have any value that are accompanied by self-remembering. Otherwise you yourselves do not exist in your observations. In which case what are all your observations worth?"
These words of G.'s made me think a great deal. It seemed to me at once that they were the key to what he had said before about consciousness. But I decided to draw no conclusions whatever, but to try to remember myself while observing myself.
The very first attempts showed me how difficult it was. Attempts at self remembering failed to give any results except to show me that in actual fact we never remember ourselves.
"What else do you want?" said G. "This is a very important realization. People who know this" (he emphasized these words) "already know a great deal. The whole trouble is that nobody knows it. If you ask a man whether he can remember himself, he will of course answer that he can. If you tell him that he cannot remember himself, he will either be angry with you, or he will think you an utter fool. The whole of life is based on this, the whole of human existence, the whole of human blindness. If a man really knows that he cannot remember himself, he is already near to the understanding of his being."
All that G. said, all that I myself thought, and especially all that my attempts at self remembering had shown me, very soon convinced me that I was faced with an
entirely new problem which science and philosophy had not, so far, come across.
But before making deductions, I will try to describe my attempts to remember myself. ' The first impression was that attempts to remember myself or to be conscious of myself, to say to myself, I am walking, I am doing, and continually to feel this I, stopped thought. When I was feeling I, I could neither think nor speak; even sensations became dimmed. Also, one could only remember oneself in this way for a very short time.

I had previously made certain experiments in stopping thought which are mentioned in books on Yoga practices. For example there is such a description in Edward Carpenter's book From Adam's Peak to Elephanta, although it is a very general one. And my first attempts to self-remember reminded me exactly of these, my first experiments. Actually it was almost the same thing with the one difference that in stopping thoughts attention is wholly directed towards the effort of not admitting thoughts, while in self-remembering attention becomes divided, one part of it is directed towards the same effort, and the other part to the feeling of self. This last realization enabled me to come to a certain, possibly a very incomplete, definition of "self-remembering," which nevertheless proved to be very useful in practice.

I am speaking of the division of attention which is the characteristic feature of self remembering.

A man feels something which seems to him very big, he thinks he will never forget it; one or two years pass by—and nothing remains of it. It now became clear.

to me why this was so and why it could not be otherwise. If our memory really keeps alive only moments of self-remembering, it is clear why our memory is so poor.
All these were the realizations of the first days. Later, when I began to learn to divide attention, I saw that self-remembering gave wonderful sensations which, in a natural way, that is, by themselves, come to us only very seldom and in exceptional conditions. Thus, for instance, at that time I used very much to like to wander through St. Petersburg at night and to "sense" the houses and the streets. St. Petersburg is full of these strange sensations. Houses, especially old houses, were quite alive, I all but spoke to them. There was no "imagination" in it. I did not think of anything, I simply walked along while trying to remember myself and looked about; the sensations came by themselves.
Later on I was to discover many unexpected things in the same way. But I will speak of this further on.
Sometimes self-remembering was not successful; at other times it was accompanied by curious observations.
I was once walking along the Liteiny towards the Nevsky, and in spite of all my efforts I was unable to keep my attention on self-remembering. The noise, movement, everything distracted me. Every minute I lost the thread of attention, found it again, and then lost it again. At last I felt a kind of ridiculous irritation with myself and I turned into the street on the left having firmly decided to keep my attention on the fact that I would remember myself at least for some time, at any rate until I reached the following street. I reached the Nadejdinskaya without losing the thread of attention except, perhaps, for short moments. Then I again turned towards the Nevsky realizing that, in quiet streets, it was easier for me not to lose the line of thought and wishing therefore to test myself in more noisy streets. I reached the Nevsky still remembering myself, and was already beginning to experience the strange emotional state of inner peace and confidence which comes after great efforts of this kind. Just round the corner on the Nevsky was a tobacconist's shop where they made my cigarettes. Still remembering myself I thought I would call there and order some cigarettes.

Two hours later I woke up in the Tavricheskaya, that is, far away. I was going by izvostchik to the printers. The sensation of awakening was extraordinarily vivid. I can almost say that I came to. I remembered everything at once. How I had been walking along the Nadejdinskaya, how I had been remembering myself, how I had thought about cigarettes, and how at this thought I seemed all at once to fall and disappear into a deep sleep.
At the same time, while immersed in this sleep, I had continued to perform consistent and expedient actions. I left the tobacconist, called at my Hat in the Liteiny, telephoned to the printers. I wrote two letters. Then again I went out of the house. I walked on the left side of the Nevsky up to the Gostinoy Dvor intending to go to the Offitzerskaya. Then I had changed my mind as it was getting late. I had taken an izvostchik and was driving to the Kavalergardskaya to my printers. And on the way while driving along the Tavricheskaya I began to feel a strange uneasiness, as though I had forgotten something.—And suddenly I remembered that I had forgotten to remember myself.

Put a cross as in a X on your palm, when you wake up,
then see how long it will take before you forget that you even had put anything on your hand. This is what I used as one of my first experiments with self-remembering.
As I was continuing my day as I normally do, I tried to constantly remember the cross, even while I was talking to people, sometimes I forgot it fast, and a few moments later I remembered again, then later in the day I suddenly completely forgot about it and when I got home, I accidently looked at my palm and saw the cross and it was as if a shock hit me, ‘’Damn it! I forgot to self-remember’’

But this is only an experiment on a small scale focused on a specific item, later I tried experimenting while walking towards my school, to remember how I walk and what I see and what I thought about, when suddenly a biker in front of me was almost hit by a car.

At this moment I completely forgot everything, I was distracted. And I moved on towards school, When I arrived at school, I felt like I forgot something, it is only until after I was free from school and went home, I finally understood what I forgot, I forgot to self-remember.

My intention was to self-remember, but I forgot it.

Like this there are many ways to experiment self-remembering, with continues effort and dedication it will eventually become easier and easier.


Another tool before exercising self-remembering can be spinning before you start your exercise.

Spinning for example as said by the C’s and the pleidans help to increase perception and energize you, at least that’s the result I get/feel after I do it, spinning is explained in a lot of threads, use the search button for more information on spinning.
http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=5262.0

ISOTM

I spoke of my observations and deductions to the people in our group as well as to my various literary friends and others.
I told them that this was the center of gravity of the whole system and of all work on oneself; that now work on oneself was not only empty words but a real fact full of significance thanks to which psychology becomes an exact and at the same time a practical science.
I said that European and Western psychology in general had overlooked a fact of tremendous importance, namely, that we do not remember ourselves; that we live and act and reason in deep sleep, not metaphorically but in absolute reality. And also that, at the same time, we can remember ourselves if we make sufficient efforts, that we can awaken.
I was struck by the difference between the understanding of the people who belonged to our groups and that of people outside them. The people who belonged to our groups understood, though not all at once, that we had come into contact with a "miracle," and that it was something "new," something that had never existed anywhere before.
The other people did not understand this; they took it all too lightly and sometimes they even began to prove to me that such theories had existed before.

And with this I end chapter 3, I have moved the program * A craving for physical hunger (sex) to chapter 4.

Usually when I start a chapter. I notice that they become longer then I actually want them to be, that mostly is the reason I decide to move them up a chapter and mix them with other programs.

In chapter 4 I will tell about the programs;

• A craving for physical hunger(sex) – moved from chapter 3 to 4 –
• Body language and the connection to the work.
• ‘’I’m a good boy/girl’’ program.

Chapter 4 will be ready next week!

If you yourself have to add anything about your own programs, share them if you like!

 

[Psalehesost]

Own programs...? No idea how useful the following will be, but here [after much typing, then trimming the noisier half of the post] I go...

I have noted two classes of programs in me that react to information, namely blocking and nonblocking programs. A nonblocking program simply internally considers it in some way, while other reactions to the same information can occur at the same time, as well as the information being actually understood, given the capacity to do so. A blocking program, on the other hand, repeats or simply "holds" the impression without actually doing anything more to it, and in the process cuts of access to it for other programs as well as prevents understanding as long as this goes on. This can consist of mechanically repeating a phrase just read in your head without anything more happening, holding an image rigidly before the mind's eye, and so on. As a desire for understanding occurs and action is prompted, the mechanical response will typically be yet more "holding" or "repetition" of the information by the blocking program, and nothing more gets done. When this is seen through, the program will eventually "let go", giving you a chance of understanding it or at least analyzing it in a meaningful way.

Now for a form of internal considering that I've seen in myself and think quite common. The process typically goes something like this: (or so I think)

Impression received -> Little "I" compares to fantasy -> If deemed "match", then "good"; discard accurate data, use fantasy instead / If deemed "not match", then the world is not as it is supposed to be, and that is horrible! Aaah! It can't be true! Quick, reject reality and... -> Enter denial / Project / Distract through emotion / Run "blocking programs" [this happens as I try to sincerely read and fully feel and understand what I just wrote]

Even if data is deemed "OK" by the little "I", things are still filtered through imagination and understanding limited/skewed. Hence, these little "I"s must be dismantled in order to remove the dodgy "filtering" that they perform. The more I get rid of these imaginings, the clearer my mind becomes. Always be on the watch for comparisons of incoming impressions with fantasy.

Further on, in my makeshift sort-of irregular journal, I wrote the following on programs: (This is all very OSIT; corrections appreciated. Note that the word "do" is meant in the simple, mechanical sense, as in performing a movement or process)

Belief way of functioning of predator's mind. Programs follow single track [each]. Programs assume. They hold as true ... whatever they do. Without programs, no wanting/needing to believe?

Programs one-dimensional - do, feel, or think along a sliding scale. Are they in pairs? Two scales, each on a side of neutrality or inaction?

They jump, then, between positive and negative, yes and no, one response after the other.

Outside its line of focus, a program cannot do, cannot think, cannot conceive.

All input mapped to its simple scale, you can but make it slide - back and forth.

Programs are simple things. For them, doing is believing. Do one thing, say one thing, think one thing, feel one thing - you believe it. Think you are lying? You believe that also. Not only, but also.

EDIT: Forgot to say thanks, the first two chapters in this thread having saved me some time (which at present is precious) and given me a good reminder when I first read them.

 

[Bo]

Chapter 4 - Who am I? What am I? Why am I?

ISOTM;

"At the same time sex plays a tremendous role in maintaining the mechanicalness of life. Everything that people do is connected with 'sex': politics, religion, art, the theater, music, is all 'sex.' Do you think people go to the theater or to church to pray or to see some new play? That is only for the sake of appearances. The principal thing, in the theater as well as in church, is that there will be a lot of women or a lot of men. This is the center of gravity of all gatherings. What do you think brings people to cafés, to restaurants, to various fetes? One thing only. Sex: it is the principal motive force of all mechanicalness. All sleep, all hypnosis, depends upon it.
"You must try to understand what I mean. Mechanicalness is especially dangerous when people try to explain it by something else and not by what it really is.

A craving for physical hunger(sex)

Since our childhood, we are fed with an amazing box called the television, yes quite amazing… from childhood ‘’sex’’ already starts as ‘’love’’ in cartoons like they almost always have a boy and a girl who eventually fall in love, or the guy fights till the end and gets the girls, or the guy saves the girl and then magically marries the girl or whatever.

But my point is that from the above, love(they way we start to see it) starts slowly in our childhood, we slowly give meaning towards it, even if it is from bed time stories or cartoons.

Stories like the ‘’one’’ and you start to believe that there is a ‘’one’’ for you as well, yes perhaps there is, perhaps not.

But the thing is, that our idea of love starts to change to ‘’sex is love’’ but how does this happen?

The more you grow up, this amazing box, this television shows you 24/7 women who barely wear anything, if you walk outside you probably see lots of posters of models on walls or bus stations, wearing basically nothing.

At this point women become an object of lust, we do not see them as women any longer, we forget that these women become the mother of our children. Instead the only thing that matters to us is self gratification.

“I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. … I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:15, 23-24).

It starts as an addiction to pornography, your lust gets fulfilled with pictures of naked women.

You start to want women, to posses them, and ask yourself this, when you are making love to your partner, do you do it with the thoughts of wanting to posses her, or because you love her and want to share it trough physical means, without thoughts of possession and self gratifications.

Those who have a severe craving for sex, are I think addicted to pornography, which leads to these cravings combined with raging hormones, it becomes almost impossible to deal with.

I do think these desires we feel are just a part of our being and they way we were designed, but the thing is that we abuse it, just like I talked about all the servants in our mind, this one can also create chaos, chaos in a way that destroys your health and more.

Lust needs to be put in his place, and be balanced.

I see this program as a big one, and do not recommend starting with it before you have learned how to deal with smaller ones.

An effective way to deal with lust is from my observations, that whenever you sense, feel or whatever this craving for physical hunger, that if you sense it is coming and trying to take over, that at this moment you need to change your thoughts immediately. You basically need to recognize this program, that whenever it comes up, you won’t let it rule you. You immediately need to change your thoughts. This will become easier the more you practice it.

Before being able to do the above, it is important to remember that you need to have a lot of data about this physical craving out of self-observations, writing down everything that goes through you whenever you get this craving.
Because it is pointless dealing with a program, when you don’t understand anything about it.

I also recommend reading these following threads
http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=4104.0
http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=4907.0

Q: (L) Well, sexual energy "redirected"; does this mean women will
stop having sex with men?
A: Not exactly.
Q: (L) Am I close?
A: Yes. Men will lose most of their drive in favor of more spiritual
pursuits. It is the sex drive that is at the root of most of the
historical
aggression and lack of feeling on the part of the male.

Q: (L) I noticed that at about the same time I began meditating
heavily that my drive plummeted. Is this because of the meditation?
A: Yes. Females will lose some drive too. But how will humans react
to this, that is the question. Will they be prepared?
Q: (L) Does this mean that everybody is going to lose interest in
sex?
A: Will have much less and must learn to relate to each other more
spiritually.
Q: (L) Is this because one of the major drives of the human being is
for contact and, up to now, this has been manifested through sexual
union and without the sexual urge they will be forced to find other
ways to relate?
A: One would hope so. You are all moving toward 4th level which is
less physical thus you must learn this existence in order to pass
through into the 4th level.

: (L) For anybody. In just a general way. Does anything happen to
a person psychically when they have sexual climax.
A: Open.
Q: (L) Is it different for each individual?
A: Close.
Q: (L) Is it different for males from females?
A: Usually.
Q: (L) The reason I ask is because a man named Wayne Cook did
some work with dowsing and he found out that the human body,
after sexual climax, dowses the same pattern as a dead body. Why
is this? (T) Draining of energy.
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Okay, where does the energy drain to?
A: To the ether.
Q: (L) Does the energy go to one or the other partner?
A: Maybe.
Q: (L) Is it possible, during this activity, for Lizzies or other beings
to
be hanging around and be drawing this energy?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Is that, in a general sense, what often happens?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Is this one of the reasons that sex has been promoted and
promulgated in our society to such an extent...
A: Yes, yes, yes.

Q: (L) Of all the modes of sexual expression, which one is more
likely to advance one to 4th density more rapidly?
A: Total celibacy.
Q: (D) Well then I'm okay! [laughter] (V) Can you explain why total
celibacy?
A: Because you are then "letting go" of the cravings for physicality.
Q: (T) It is a 3rd density act which entices you to 3rd density. (L)
Okay, now, what is the second most likely for advancement?
[laughter] (D) We have me taken care of, now we're going to get you
taken care of! (J) In order of importance... [laughter]

Q: (D) In "Bringers of the Dawn" it talks about sex and it says that it
is an expression of love and so forth and that you should not have
sex with someone who does
not really love you.
A: Love is all that is needed.
Q: (L) If two individuals, as an expression of true love at higher
levels, desire to express this love in a physical way, is it possible to
channel the energy in a positive way without feeding the 4th level
STS guys?
A: Nope.
Q: (L) In other words, no matter what you do, how you think, or
whatever, that's where it goes?
A: Sex is a physical craving.

Q: Okay, enough on that. Here is a note from Mike C-T. He writes:
"Laura, I was very dismayed to read your post on Diet and Nutrition
on the Web Page. The C's are saying that Love is enough and that
sex is a pure physical craving and that orgasm energy feeds the 4th
D STS buggers. Then, they go on to say that you should smoke, and
consume x mg of nicotine, because you need it. Those 2 ideas
seem contrary to me, since smoking is also a 'physical craving.' Yes,
people gain weight after they quit smoking, but the metabolism does
settle down after a year or so. Are you sure of the source of this
message? Could STSers be getting through and are getting you and
others to try to kill yourself slowly? Covering ones lungs with ash

cannot be good for you, regardless of what the ash is made of. Even
wood smoke causes breathing disorders. I felt sick when I read that
part. It didn't fit into my world view of the C's." Signed, Mike. Could
you comment on his remarks?
A: We did not suggest that smoking was advisable per se, the
response was in regard to a personal inquiry about difficulty in
achieving weight loss on the part of Laura. And, we did not say that
this was a permanent solution.
Q: Well, you DID say that it enhances resistance to disease and that
it did other beneficial things.
A: Yes, but, it is best accomplished with pure tobacco products, not
the corrupted variety available on the mass market.
Q: Well, what about the sex issue?
A: Specifics, please.
Q: He says that the two ideas seem contrary...
A: How so?
Q: I guess his idea is that is if you are gonna give up sex, you ought
to also give up smoking because they are both physical cravings.
Or, that if smoking is okay, then sex ought to also be okay. I am not
altogether clear on the perspective. I did write back that my
understanding was that it is not sex, per se, that was bad, but rather
the drive for self gratification that was feeding STS.
A: True.

Body Language

I think that body language has a great connection to the work, because it can help you to anticipate someone’s mood, thoughts or why they behave the way they do.

From the book ‘’ Defining Body Language’’

If you’re quiet for a moment and take the time to pay attention to body language
movements and expressions that silently communicate messages of
their own, you can cue in on gestures that convey a feeling and transmit a
thought. If you pay close attention, you can identify gestures that you automatically
associate with another person, which tell you who she is. In addition,
you may notice other types of gestures that reveal a person’s inner
state at that moment.

Speech is a relatively new introduction to the communication process and is
mainly used to convey information, including facts and data. Body language,
on the other hand, has been around forever. Without relying on the spoken
word for confirmation, the body’s movements convey feelings, attitudes, and
emotions. Like it or not, your body language, or non-verbal behaviour, says
more about you, your attitudes, moods, and emotions, than you may want
to reveal.
According to research conducted by Professor Albert Mehrabian of the
University of California, Los Angeles, 55 per cent of the emotional message
in face-to-face communication results from body language. You only have to
experience any of the following gestures or expressions to know how true
the expression is, ‘Actions speak louder than words’:
_ Someone pointing her finger at you
_ A warm embrace
_ A finger wagging in your face
_ A child’s pout
_ A lover’s frown
_ A parent’s look of worry
_ An exuberant smile
_ Your hand placed over your heart

External consideration, dealing with programs are very much connected to body language, it is quite interesting while observing one self, to observe how we move, how we look, how we behave, in particular situations.

How you position your head, shoulders, torso, arms, hands, legs, and feet,
and how your eyes, mouth, fingers, and toes move, tell an observer more
about your state of being, including your attitude, emotions, thoughts, and
feelings, than any words you can say.

In a previous chapter I talked about anger, have you noticed in self observations how you move your hands and feet while being angry? Have you noticed how you look when that particular program is activated?

Shaking with your hands, shaking with your head like a wild animal, your body shows it is anger speaking.

While self-observing you will learn to understand how body language is connected to several programs, and by training this, understanding others can become easier, it is a great tool.

At times in life you may want to conceal your thoughts and feelings, so you
behave in a way that you believe hides what’s going on inside. And yet wouldn’t
you know it, out pops a slight giveaway gesture, often invisible to the untrained
eye, sending a signal that all’s not what it appears. Just because these micro
gestures and expressions are fleeting doesn’t mean that they’re not powerful.

Also keep in mind that great manipulators use this to their advantage by showing good gesture, giving flowers looking at you with enormous love, while in reality they have an agenda to feed on you in every possible way.

There are always signs/red flags, I am positive of this, but you need to learn where to look at and what to look at, that’s why you first need to look at yourself.

Fake gestures: Pulling the wool
Fake gestures are designed to camouflage, conceal, and fool. They deliberately
point you in one direction to make you believe something that isn’t so.
Fake gestures pretend to be something when they’re actually something else.
You’re able to tell a fake gesture from a real one because some of the real gesture’s
parts are missing.
Some gestures that are commonly faked are
_ Smiling
_ Frowning
_ Sighing
_ Crying
_ Holding your body as if in pain

Think of your body as if it were a movie screen. The information to be projected
is inside you and your body is the vehicle onto which the information
is displayed. Whether you’re anxious, excited, happy, or sad, your body
shows the world what’s going on inside. Here are some examples:

_ People who feel threatened or unsure of themselves touch themselves
as a means of self-comfort or self-restraint. Gestures, such as rubbing
their foreheads, crossing their arms, and holding or rubbing their fingers
in front of their mouths, provide comfort and protection (see Figure 1-1).
_ People who perform specific gestures reserved for religious rituals
reveal their beliefs and values. Upon entering a Catholic church, the congregation
dip their fingers into holy water and cross themselves. Before
entering the home of many Jewish people, you may touch the mezuzah
by the front door. Muslims bow in prayer facing east. By performing
these gestures, people are demonstrating their respect for the culture,
its traditions, and values.
_ People in a state of elation often breathe in deeply and gesture outwards
with expanded arms. Pictures of winning sportspeople frequently show
them in the open position with their arms extended, their heads thrown
back, and their mouths and eyes opened in ecstasy.
_ Footballers who miss the penalty kick and city traders who get their
numbers wrong often walk dejectedly with their heads down, and their
hands clasped behind their necks. The hand position is a comforting
gesture and the head facing downwards shows that the individual’s
upset.
_ People in despair, or feeling down and depressed, reveal their thoughts
and attitudes by the slouch in their step, their drooping heads, and their
downward cast eyes. Positive people, on the other hand, reveal their
thoughts and attitudes with an upright stance, a bounce in their step,
and eyes that appear lively and engaged.
_ Not every bent head signals depression. Sometimes it just means that you’re reflecting,
thinking, or absorbing information. If you’re demonstrating
the behaviour of someone who’s thinking hard, your head most
likely rests in your hand or on your fingertips, like Rodin’s The Thinker.

Noticing your own body language
My husband suggested that people may only
demonstrate body language when someone else
is around to see and respond to it. I found that an
interesting thought and retired to my office to
consider the implications on my own. As I sat at
my desk reflecting on what he said, I noticed I
was leaning back in my chair with my head tilted
upwards, one arm folded over my body supporting
the elbow of my other arm. My chin was resting
lightly on my thumb as my index finger gently
stroked my cheek. I couldn’t help but think of the
saying about falling trees in the forest making
noise if no one’s around to hear it.

We as machines lack a lot of external considering, therefore we can hurt others by simply forcing them to tell us things unconsciously or we tell them things we should have not.

One of the main exercises in the work revolves around recognizing programs, which also means that after you can do this, you must be able to put your self in the shoes of the other, by having self observed yourself, you have seen how body movements are connected to programs.

An example from body language.

Toby, my personal assistant, is a quiet, thoughtful, focused man. I’m highly
energetic with a mind that skips and leaps from one project to the next.
Frequently, I ask Toby to do one task, only to interrupt his concentration
by asking him to do something else, often unrelated. When Toby pats his
eyebrows with the tips of his fingers I know that the time’s come for me to
back off and let him get on with what he has to do.

another example.

Anna is a highly motivated recently qualified lawyer in a large London firm.
She knows that, in part, her success depends on her ability to get on well
with clients and colleagues. One day her supervising partner invited her
to attend a client meeting and to put together the remaining briefs that a
previous trainee had begun and hadn’t had time to finish. Anna, already
overloaded with work, stayed at the office until well past midnight. In spite
of little sleep and over an hour’s commute that morning, she arrived, shortly
before the meeting’s 8 a.m. start looking smart. At one point during the session
the client remarked that some information seemed to be missing. The
partner shot Anna a glance of annoyance before covering up his feelings with
the hearty remark, ‘Well, she’s new on the job. We’ll let her get away with it
just this once.’ To cover her fury and shame, Anna put on what she calls her
‘smiley face’, a big toothy grin, and offered to find the missing materials.
Anna’s teeth were clenched, and her eyes didn’t crinkle (a sign of a sincere
smile). She was tired, hurt, and humiliated and anyone paying attention
would have seen she was giving a fake grin.

Displacement gestures
When you’re feeling conflicting emotions, you may engage in gestures that
have no relation to your immediate goals. These behaviours are mostly selfdirected
and serve to release excess energy and gain a feeling of comfort,
even if only temporary. Drumming fingers, flicking feet, going for a glass of
water when you’re not even thirsty – these are the behaviours of someone
who’s looking to burn some pent up energy, or at least, refocus it. Called displacement
activities, they’re a conduit for excess energy that’s looking for a
place to go.
Some examples of displacement gestures are
Fiddling with objects
Tugging at your earlobe
Straightening your clothes
Stroking your chin
Running your fingers through your hair
Eating
Smoking

Some smokers light up a cigarette, take a puff or two, and then put it out or
leave it in the ashtray barely smoked. These people may not actually want
the cigarette, but need a gesture to take their mind off something else.

If you want to succeed in your career or relationship, using effective body language
is part of your foundation. Once you’re aware of the impact – of what
works and what doesn’t – you can move and gesture with confidence, knowing
that you and your message are perceived the way you want them to be.

for now that is enough about body language, more to follow later on.


I’m a good boy/girl program

Ah yes you are such a good man indeed, doing everything everyone tells you, you don’t even have to ask why, you just do, like a slave walking in circles.

From ISOTM

He was talking about a man I had met while with him, and he spoke of his relations with certain people.
"He is a weak man," said G. "People take advantage of him, unconsciously of course. And all because he considers them. If he did not consider them, everything would be different, and they themselves would be different."
It seemed odd to me that a man should not consider others.
"What do you mean by the word 'consider'?" I asked. "I both understand you and do not understand you. This word has a great many different meanings."
"Precisely the contrary," said G. "There is only one meaning. Try to think about this."
Later on I understood what G. called "considering," and realized what an enormous place it occupies in life and how much it gives rise to. G. called "considering" that attitude which creates inner slavery, inner dependence.

I have noticed from my self-observations that my ‘’good-guy’’ programs usually is active in situations where I want people to like me, where I want them to know that I am good.
It is in these situations that people can take easy advantage of you, because you think you are good and that they will see you as someone being good, but no, they only see you as a slave.

From Unholy Hungers.

How
exciting it is to save someone from the jaws of tragedy, particularly if the recipient is
adoring and appreciative! You, the noble champion, journey alone down the desolate
nighttime road, when there appears by the wayside a sweet little mist who is weeping in
loneliness and alluring despair. Ah, you think, here is a perfect chance for me to put my
sword to its proper use! Here is someone to save! And how charmingly pathetic she is!
Perhaps there will be some love for me at the end of the heroic rescue! Your sword
flashes up, and you dash to her aid-slaying all foes, fixing all woes, and paying each bill
that she hands you.

You parry and thrust past the point of exhaustion, for two adoring
eyes are watching and their owner must not be let down. Onward you march, beyond
fatigue, beyond all means, until your every resource is spent. But still you fight on,
despite your depletion, to rescue the sweet, helpless mist, for how could you let down the
poor little thing? Whatever would become of the helpless mist without your sword to
defend her against the great cruel world?

I will give another example;

John and Trent are best friends, John has a job and Trent does not have a job, and they both go out a lot, like going to the movies and hanging out in bars and all of that,

Almost every time it is John that has to pay the bill for everything…and Trent never pays, because well he has no job. But John does not want to be seen as bad person, so he keeps on paying for both of them.

On occasion John does ask Trent when he will go and get a job, and Trent usually replies “I’m on it man, I’m on it’’ but he always says this.. and never acts toward it, because john seems himself as a ‘’good man’’ he keeps up paying for both of them whenever they go out and do stuff.

In the above scenario we can see that john is not a good man, but a good slave, and Trent takes advantage of that, be it unconscious or conscious.

What I did to avoid scenarios like the above was by having enough of letting myself being used as a slave, But then most people ask, how do you even know you are used as a slave?

I think most people do realize they are being used as a slave but are sacrificing them self in order to look as a good guy in the eye of another.
But in order to avoid the above scenario, is by learning to see manipulation, and destructive feeding, but in order to even be able to say something one needs also a great amount of self – esteem and will.

I see ‘’the good-guy program’’ also as a big program, and it should be dealt with, after you have learned how to deal with smaller programs first.

Try to understand that you can not let people abuse you just because you are ‘’good’’ or just because you want to be ‘’good.’’

You are not good in their eyes, but you are merely a slave. A good slave.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Right work on oneself begins with the creation of a permanent center of gravity. When a permanent center of gravity has been created everything else begins to be disposed and distributed in subordination to it. The question comes to this: From what and how can a permanent center of gravity be created? And to this may be replied that only a man's attitude to the work, to school, his valuation of the work, and his realization of the mechanicalness and aimlessness of everything else can create in him a permanent center of gravity.

and with this I end chapter 4

I will have chapter 5 ready in 2 weeks, because next week I am having exams, So I will have to focus on that on the moment.

 

[fabric]

Thanks Bo for sharing this project with us. I find myself able to relate to a lot of the things mentioned in your post. It has given me a little more inspiration and ammunition in this battle for my soul. As of late I have not been able to Do much - just observe. I drive an hour to work everyday and it's a good time to practice that self remembering exercise. It's funny how little we can self-remember, and I am always shocked when I realize that I remember that I forgot to self remeber! It's like having "spiritual narcolepsy", just dozing off (not that I was ever "awake" in any real sense) suddenly at any given time of the day.

As for programs, I think my biggest ones are my constant self-deception and lying to myself. It is just too damn easy! I really need to work on the discipline thing and find those excerpts from the book you quoted helpful.

Another program is communicating on the forum. I read and lurk about but don't share or contribute much. I keep telling myself, "yea, yea, tomorrow" or "too busy (delaying, escaping) and nothing gets done. The worst part is that I can see these things and know what I need to do but don't because I am lazy. It's pretty disgusting to me and observing these qualities and attitudes makes me feel like I am going crazy! All these little i's are having a free for all and it's almost too much.

But I realize that I do have moments here and there and with great effort and work I can increase it. Knowing that the I writing this will be falling asleep at some point in the near future is sad... but I also know that something can be done about it ~ that is the key. I just recently read this from Ouspensky's "The Fourth Way":

Q. How do you know of the miraculous results which will follow self-remembering?

A. You see, this is connected with the whole idea of development, with the possibility of changing being. This is one of the first things we must understand: that man is not bound to remain as he is; he can change. There are different degrees of man that can be attained after long and persistent work. If we can be more conscious, this will make higher centres work. The functioning of higher centres will be in many ways miraculous. The idea of self-remembering enters into many systems and school teachings, but it is not in the right place, it is never put first. But this system says that you do not remember yourself and that if you understand that you do not remember yourself, you may be able to achieve something. Self-awareness is the greatest change possible, because in ordinary conditions of life nobody is aware of himself, and yet people do not realize this. Everybody sitting here, if they ask themselves sincerely whether they are aware of themselves, will have to answer that they are not. Nobody is aware. The whole idea is to be aware of yourself in this place, at this moment. This is the beginning, for one has to begin somewhere. Later it may take different forms, many other things may be included in it. Nothing can describe this: it is material for observation and study. Descriptions will not help, one has to practise. Normally nobody remembers himself, nobody is aware of himself. This is the ordinary state of a human being, of a man-machine. But if he knows about it, if he realizes it and thinks about it, it becomes possible. Only, in the beginning self-remembering is very slow in coming and very small, with long lapses of not remembering.

Q. Is the essential feature of a state of self-remembering the ordinary state of alertness of mind?

A. No, you cannot take it like that—it is too small. It is a different state, more different from our present state than our present state is from physical sleep; but even comparing sleep with the ordinary state gives you some possibility of understanding the difference. When you are asleep, your world is limited by actual sensations, but when you wake up and find yourself in the objective world (although you see this world in subjective categories) it is much less limited. But when you realize that this is not full awakening, that you are actually less than half-awake, you will understand that if you awake fully you will find yourself in a still richer world and will see and understand many of its characteristics which now pass unnoticed.

Q. I want to know whether self-remembering, at any rate at an early stage, should be expected to consist of a sterile cessation of attention to any-thing other than oneself?

A. At an early stage it can only be a realization that you do not remember yourself. If we realize how little we are aware of ourselves and how tiny the moments are when we are aware, when we remember that and feel that and realize what it means, then we can understand what self-remembering means. If you realize the importance of this fact and all that it implies, it will not be sterile. But if you do not realize it, you are quite right, it will be sterile. Then it will simply be a strange exercise that does not lead anywhere.

Q. Does self-remembering come automatically when you realize that you do not remember yourself?

A. This is self-remembering. You cannot make the next step without realizing where you are. It is the same process, the same thing. The more you realize how unpleasant and dangerous it is to be a machine, the more possibility you have to change.