"Towards The One"

I am intrigued by this phrase; what is "The One"? It seems to suggest an external attainment, an external goal, something to strive for.

What Oneness are we seeking and where do we seek it?

It seems clear to me that no external Oneness can be achieved until an internal Oneness has been cultivated. In other words, we must take our own divided and fragmented minds and bring them together as One. Not the illusion of One, but rather a true Oneness by accepting the fragments, limitations, failings and imperfections that exist in our own being as well as those outside our being. A true tolerance and understanding of ourselves and others. That is how one achieves Oneness. When that internal Oneness is achieved, an external Oneness will be the inevitable outcome. No striving, or moving towards, required, it will just be the natural progression of the internal peace brought about by the act of bringing our fragmented selves together as One.

“All conflicts in relationships are caused by internal conflicts in individuals”

What does this mean?

There are some things in our lives that are difficult to face, if not nearly impossible to deal with or do anything about. Keeping them in our conscious mind is potentially disastrous to our emotional and psychological well being. The minds defence to this problem is repression and denial. We either deny the problem to ourselves, saying; “although the problem does exist, I will pretend it doesn’t”, or we repress it, meaning we push it out of our conscious awareness and deep in to the darker places of our minds, and these coping tactics allow us to function through the day.

The trouble is that the problem hasn’t gone away; we’ve just hidden it from ourselves, inside ourselves.

By far the most common of these conflicts is what is called “The Fundamental Neurosis”. What this is, is the knowledge that our time is limited and that we all, one day, will die. If we were to carry this knowledge around with us every day, in the forefront of our brains, we would not be able to function very well; “what’s the point of living?”, “What’s the point of building anything out of our lives?”, etc. It would be emotionally and psychologically disastrous to our well being, so the knowledge of our own mortality, the awareness that out time is limited and the fear of our own death, all get pushed towards the backs of our minds.

Because the problems are still there, but because we are not consciously confronting the problem, the emotions that the problems create, still arise in our emotional minds. We have these emotions, but we cannot apply them to the problem that has created them because that would mean becoming aware of something that it would be potentially disastrous for us to be aware of.

How do we deal with the conflict this creates in us?                  

Well for the most part, people usually keep these emotions simmering away beneath the surface. Watch anyone close enough and you can see them struggling to keep control over their emotions and the conflicts they create. Many people are easy to irritate and it is as if they are looking for an excuse to erupt at something or someone.

It is our semi awareness of our limited and finite life, that we only have so much time, that makes us occasionally intolerant and impatient, say, when the car in front of you is taking too long to turn in to a corner, or being indecisive, or not driving fast enough. In reality, the extra couple of seconds of delay has an infinitesimally small effect on the amount of time we have left in the world, but it is because we are semi aware of the fact that one day our time will be up, we instinctively respond with annoyance at the slight delay. The annoyance really comes from the fact that we are annoyed that we don’t live forever. I know I am as bad as anyone else when it comes to being impatient behind the wheel, even though I am perhaps more aware of where the true cause of the annoyance comes from. I also get very irritated when someone takes too long to say something that could have been said much quicker, especially when I’m at work and busy. This is what Carl Jung was referring to when he said “Everything that irritates us about others, leads us to an understanding of ourselves”. When something or someone irritates us, the irritation is due to something irritating inside us that is stimulated by the external source.

So to sum up; When we can’t confront the true reason for conflict, we will seek to find an alternative external annoyance and apply the emotion of the internal conflict, upon an outside source. Usually resulting in reacting to a small irritation with a response well off the scale that the irritation should cause.

Sometimes, we will even invent or manufacture a conflict out of nothing in order to give us an outlet for the emotional response created by our internal conflict. This is especially apparent in relationships where a convenient target is nearby and “trapped”. When the pressure of the emotions created by the internal conflict gets too great to contain, we will seek and give ourselves a reason to blow our top at something or someone, like a volcano erupting, because the build up of lava has burst through. This is where the phrase “Blow My Top” comes from.

Speaking of being a “trapped” target. The fight or flight response comes in to play here. The fight or flight response is a primitive response that evolved during our much earlier incarnations. It evolved to take over at times of threat. It wasn’t required to be complicated; it just shut down everything that wasn’t necessary, while focussing all our remaining energies and faculties on immediate action to neutralise the threat and remove us from danger. This worked fine when the danger was being attacked by another tribe, or being eaten by a lion. Simple threats require simple responses. The fight or flight response was the optimum mechanism for dealing with the threats we used to face.

In today’s world we rarely have to face the threat of tribal wars or hungry lions. Today’s world has far more complex threats. It has threats that, sometimes, we just can’t run away from or attack, but our fight or flight response is still in existence, in its primitive form, within a part of our brain. It still has the power to shut down all non essential functions and faculties in order to respond to threat. It still has the power to take over any of our faculties in order to bring about our removal from the threat. The conflict arises from the fact that in today’s world nearly all our fears are of a complex nature that we simply cannot apply a simple fight of flight response to. We cannot run away from our sources of stress. We live our lives with a constant sense of foreboding of some, as yet unrealised, fears of the future; what if I lose my job, am I going to be able to keep up mortgage payments, unexpected bills, Do I have enough cash to get me through the month, etc. We cannot simply run away from these things and neither can we hit them with a big stick until they go away. We live with these fears constantly and we live with a heightened level of anxiety and stress that comes from holding back our emotions and our fight or flight response. Inside us, we are constantly in a state of conflict with the impulses of our instinctive fight or flight response and the knowledge that if we acted upon what our fight or flight response is trying to protect us from, it would surely end up being very destructive to our lives. This again produces a lot of internal conflict that cannot be confronted, so, again, we look for an outside target, a source of conflict that we can then aim our internal emotions and conflicts at. And if an outside source is not readily available, our own defences will manufacture a target in order to find a way to release the build up of pressure. We will invent a reason to have a fight with a partner, or find a small fault with a partner and turn it in to a massive flaw. The partner is the ideal target for this “projection”, they are trapped, and they cannot easily run away, they cannot easily escape the externalising projection of the internal conflict.

We will often play games in relationships where, inside it is us that wants to run away, but instead we will drive the partner away, because it provides the same result, an escape from the threat of feeling trapped. This could be considered as a projection of the flight response. Alternatively, and just as often in conflicts, we will provoke a violent response in the partner and this could be considered as a projection of the fight response. Most domestic abuse cases are not as simple as we sometimes like to make them, it is not a good versus evil battle, it is not guilty versus innocent, there are always complications and complex motivators hidden beneath the surface, and usually both parties are somewhat guilty of causing a situation through projection and projective identification. i.e. the aggression is projected on to the partner, the partner then responds to the provocation with violence, but the violence began with the projection. In other words, a violent reaction was the desired response, whether it was consciously desired or not.

We could say; “If you go out that door, we’re over”.  What we are really doing is driving that person away so that they have no choice but to act upon their own fight or flight response, so they will either attack us, or run away from us. The final nail in the coffin is the “If you go out that door, we’re over”, we already know they are about to go out that door, they have already committed themselves to act upon their own defensive instincts, defensive instincts that we have provoked and brought to bear. The final “If you go out that door” becomes a further dare, a further motivator, another attack to instil the defensive response to flee. We are ignorant of the fact that, what they are fleeing is something that we have created. They are not in flight as such, they have been driven out. And in a sense, it is us that is fleeing. We are attacking in order to drive the partner away because it facilitates our own escape. We could then follow this up with “You left me”, “you made your choice when you went out the door”. The fact that we were instrumental in the motivating factors that brought about the other persons actions is conveniently buried.

We all have a boiling pot of conflicts simmering beneath the surface, some of us manage them better than others. We all know people with short fuses.

We have so many games and ways of externalising internal conflicts that I couldn’t even begin to list them all, but the end result is always the same;

1. Find something to be the target.

2. Project conflict.

3. Achieve a temporary relief from the pressures of our internal conflicts.

The personality ego structure is vulnerable and fragile. It cannot withstand the narcissistic challenges inherent in routine daily interactions without having it's deficiencies and insecurities exposed repeatedly. This continual chipping away at the ego structure would soon be overwhelming except for the tactics used to divert and dissipate potentially damaging input.

We all, from infancy, have developed the unquestioned habit of looking outward, to others, to know who we are. They tell us, by their words and actions in relationship with us, what and who we are, our value, and our significance. Other people act as mirrors allowing us to see ourselves. As ego personalities we largely exist as a composite of these external images, mirrored to us by others, internalized and then adopted as identity. Consequently we experience our very beings as threatened when negative, insulting or painful images of us are presented by others.

Thus, using people as external mirrors to better see ourselves, we formed self images and in this way created our ego selves. Without constant vigilance, we run the risk that negative images from others might replace or destroy the positive images we hold of our goodness, value, meaning, and significance.

We are vulnerable because others create our ego selves, good and bad. We are fragile because these ego structures are merely images, without real substance. As ego personality 'selves' it is inevitable that we always feel threatened by others in this way.

The most commonly used and universal strategy for dealing with this insecurity of identity is to attack anyone perceived as threatening. Mirror negativity and deficiency to them, as their quality. Preserve one's own fragile self image by projecting inadequacy onto them. This, of course, will have some predictable effects. First, they will be insulted and wounded. Their ego, also a mere collection of images , will be weakened and the illusory nature of their self, nearly exposed. An immediate counter attack will usually ensue, either overtly or covertly. With both parties constantly maneuvering to protect and preserve feeble, image based, self identity structures, it is easy to set off conflict of this nature in any type of human interaction.

In fact, conflict is an absolutely indispensable component of daily intercourse among ego identified individuals . That is to say, it is an integral part of the coping strategy for everyone, in all of their relationships. The active experience of conflict directs judgmental, critical energies outward, away from your own threatened ego self. It elicits powerful emotions like anger, hatred, rage and contempt. Though distorted and destructive, they give substance and support to the ego. Energy flows. One knows what to do. Action is taken.

Thus, conflict actually serves to convert personality damaging, deficiency revealing , negative mirroring into an experience of self as substantial, and capable. Conflict tells you where you stand, who you are, and what you should do. It gives orientation and is very comforting. Even though the emotions of conflict are negative, they support us when we would , otherwise, experience devastating inadequacy.

Relationships that are structured around conflict elicit this defensive psychic armor; protecting, shielding and defending the fragile ego. If we are to exist as functional, adult personalities we must live, to some degree, in a continual state of conflict. That we all do is self evident.

From early on, we need others and they need us for ego creating, ego enhancing mirroring and support. We also need others and they need us for conflict, and a place to project our own deficiencies, so that we can deny and remain numb to the truth of our own ego vulnerabilty, inadequacy and anxiety. We need contentious others for the armoring, energy, substance, orientation and power evoked in defense of the ego. Ego personalities in relationship simply must have a steady diet of conflict to maintain the integrity of their experience of self.

The inevitability of conflict between ego personalities is best demonstrated in intimate relationship. The ego threat that we seek to defend ourselves against is rooted in our habit of knowing ourselves through others. The one person, historically, that we all most rely on to know ourselves, is our mothers. It is Mom, the unquestioned authority in our infancy and childhood, who informs us about our being, our value, and our significance long before we have the maturity of introspection and self observation. She literally tells us who we are. Later this capacity and right to define us is voluntarily conferred , in large measure, upon our intimate partner.

Because the partner is entrusted with this power to define who we are, our value, and our significance, they exert an immense influence over the quality of the experience of our life. If we perceive them as mirroring us negatively, our reaction is profound. The negativity they are expressing about us may be minor, but the threat that it represents to our self image is major. So is our reaction. In this way, conflict between partners is prone to escalate out of control, even when both parties are well meaning. The stakes are just so high. As personalities , conflict with the partner tends to overwhelm. The experience of fair, informative and appropriately perceived negativity from one's intimate partner is nearly an impossibility. Again, this is due to the vulnerability of the ego combined with it's extreme fragility as a structure of images.

An intimate partner is encouraged to express positivity and mirror good images to their lover, but not negativity, even when appropriate and balanced. The ego just spooks to easily. Over- reaction to criticism expresses first as a defensive counterattack. Negativity projected back onto the complaining partner. This will then provoke an over reaction in them. The chance of a measured communication of simple displeasure then goes out the window. Both partners are relating from the space of an extreme threat to their identity. Appropriate handling of the original issue is lost in a desperate flood of emotion and confusion.

Ego's fragile vulnerability, most specifically to the intimate partner, makes us prone to feeling quickly overwhelmed in any conflict with them, yet conflict will certainly happen. The issue of how to handle conflict appropriately is central to the maintenance of an enduring and authentic relationship. The challenges for ego personalities to attempt this are formidable but unavoidable for couples intent on a mature relationship grounded in truth.

Ego selves just don't relate to others very well. They're too fragile, too needful, too easily spooked and too ruthless when they go off. This situation is not presented for lamentation, nor because it needs to be fixed. It is offered simply for consideration. To be pondered. Held by that part of us that is bigger than this. Clarity of understanding evokes healing.

see source; http://clarityliberates.blogspot.com/2008/06/root-of-conflict-in-relationship.html

"My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer," the boy told the alchemist one night as they looked up at the moonless sky.

Learn control over yourself, and that’s all you will ever need to control.

Fear ... or under whatever name you choose to call it, be it stress, anxiety, uncertainty, doubt ... the kind of fear that cannot be confronted or evaded through physical means, that either gets repressed or denied, or at best, tolerated as an inevitable side effect of the pressures of living in a community, but by doing so, it is maintained and held inside, simmering below the surface. This is a major contributor to the causes of crime, especially violent crime.

Now this can be tackled 2 ways.

1.       You put a greater fear of consequences in to the equation, but with this you risk the chance that for some, the greater fear will not be enough of a deterrent (and this is hardly a risk, more like a fact)

2.       You work to ease people’s fears and reduce the fears people face and have to tolerate and repress in order to function in society. You educate people to better understanding themselves, and even a small amount of self understanding in the population will have a marked effect on the crime and violence in society. It is a well accepted fact that we learn and absorb things better and faster when we are young, so we need to catch these youths before they have tipped over the edge.

The first option will always have a repressed undercurrent and will lead to a consistent percentage of crime and violent crime in society. The second option, I believe, will have a great (and has been having already) effect  on reducing levels of crime and violent crime.

There is a current problem that in a certain area of society, violent crime has been perceived to be growing, while on overall, national figures suggest that there has been a decline . People have, in looking for a reason, perhaps understandably, looked to point the finger of blame on the availability of weapons, parents, race, schooling, police, government. The Japanese have a way of dealing with things which focuses primarily on fixing the problem rather than looking for blame. We need to stop saying “It’s their fault” because this is really saying, “it’s not my fault, so I am not responsible, therefore I shouldn’t have to do anything” This is a lazy attitude. We don’t want to be involved, but this is societies problem, and like it or not, if we are a part of society ourselves, and not outcasts like many of those that commit crimes, then we are responsible and we should all work together in finding ways to reduce the burden of fear that is an unaddressed bye product of living in our communities. For while we turn a blind eye to our own fears and the fears of others, there will always be a shadow side to society, just as there is a shadow side to the communities in our own minds, and this will inevitably maintain the level of crime and violence in society. And if that undercurrent of repressed fear is allowed to breed, then it is also inevitable that the problem of violent crime is going to spiral in the areas worst affected by that fear.

The availability of weapons is not the problem here, weapons will always be available, make one weapon unavailable and there will be another weapon that takes its place. The desire to remove anything that can be used as a weapon is an understandable, but misguided area of focus. It is a natural kneejerk response “if your remove the offending item, then the problem will go away”. Anyone with a modicum of intelligence will know that this concept is absurd, but it is also a natural, instinctive response. The offending item is not the object used in offence, it is the motive inside the individual that is the true source of offence. Tackle the levels of fear in society, especially in the problem areas, by giving children a better understanding of themselves, so that they are better able to deal with the negative repercussions of repressing fears. So that they can manage themselves and their responses and projections, for violent crime is a projection, and become a contributing member of our society rather than an outcast and burden upon our society.

Individuals need to be taught how to deal with their individual shadow selves, so that the negative impact of the collective shadow side of society is better managed.

There is no simple answer and this is a truth we need to accept. It's a long hard road to reduce the violence in our society and there are no easy steps!

The quote "Since love and fear can hardly coexist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved" by Niccolo Machiavelli, clearly alludes to this phenomenon.

being mentally balanced is just that, it's a balancing act. The brain is an incredibly marvellous piece of biological engineering, but it is far from being perfect or faultless. Giving names to psychological conditions is, in someway unhelpful in realising that these conditions exist to some extent in all of us. The ones we label are merely the more extreme versions of imperfections that we all share.

When you try to inform someone of something that every ounce of their unconscious defence mechanism is trying to defend them against conscious awareness of, the information is perceived as an attack upon those defences, the fortress of the self is perceived to be under attack, because it’s walls are being assaulted and the unconscious defences will then mobilise an attack upon what it perceives as a threat. This whole process is autonomous and the individual will be totally unconscious of their actions. The defence mechanism is cloaked from conscious awareness so that the illusion of authority and control can be maintained by the ego.

The quality and scale of the attack will be in direct proportion to the threat perceived by the unconscious defence mechanism

One paradox that I have noticed, is that people with a hunger for knowing, often are the same people that use knowledge to conceal their ignorance. It becomes an armour to protect their not knowing, and their hunger is a need to fortify themselves.

This locks the ignorance inside. It appears to be caused by a fear of their own ignorance and a fear of admitting their ignorance to themselves

Any knowledge becomes their weapons and armour against disclosure of their not knowing. The hunger for something, usually, like the hunger for food, suggests a sense of emptiness inside.

When you sense your stomach is empty, you hunger for food. When you sense your mind is lacking in knowledge, you hunger for knowing.

Knowing should not be a hunger, but rather a relaxed communication without the restrictions hunger places on it, it should be like a revolving door.

The unimpeded flow of knowledge comes with peace and not anxiety, anxiety narrows perspective and restricts the flow of knowing. Hunger suggests an anxiety.

There’s a sense that something isn’t fair, that it is not fair that you may not know something, that someone else does, and if that knowledge isn’t readily released upon demand, stress and tension sets in.

The knower becomes the target of irritation or anger when the true source of irritation and anger is the internal ignorance.

It is said that "God works in mysterious ways", but so also, does "The Devil" for he is a master of deception. Our own defences, the phylogenetically inherited fight of flight response, created self deception as a method for dealing with emotionally and psychologically threatening information. These unconscious defences and the thoughts and actions that they produce, are the true source of all that we have labelled as evil. Inside us, we are our own gods, and our own demons.

The concept that each of us has a non conscious self that works independently and sometimes against our conscious wishes and desires, that can manipulate our own thoughts, perceptions, interpretations and thus our behaviour, that can, through the manipulation of our own behaviour, manipulate the perceptions, interpretations and thus behaviour of those around us in to fulfilling a non conscious self serving need, seems to be one of the hardest facts of our internal psychological existence for us to come to terms with and accept as a reality. We seem to be in built with a defence mechanism cloaking device that protects us from seeing the true driving forces behind some of our feelings and behaviours. Nowhere is this more noticeable than in the emotional relationships that we experience as romantic couples. It’s as if we have to overcome the hurdle of realising our internal world in both its good and evil potentials before we can truly have a fulfilling relationship without the, sometimes meaningless and ridiculous conflicts that arise out of our own autonomous non conscious defence mechanisms. The most remarkable thing is that while we are communicating, there is always a sub-communication occurring out of our conscious awareness, as if our non conscious selves are also having their own conversation and trying to bring about an outcome that is self serving to a part of ourselves that we work very hard not to notice or know exists within us. We will even go as far as attacking and destroying anything that could potentially make us aware of the “devil” inside us, as has happened so many times in relationships between individuals, tribes, countries and religions. There is, it seems, a certain autonomy in our non conscious experience, that doesn’t always serve our needs, but always serves its own.

No, it’s just our own omniscience, the ability to see and perceive without prejudice. Without our insecurities determining our perceptions and interpretations. Without ego interference twisting and warping our perceptions. To see without fear clouding or distorting our interpretations.