Humans vs. Animals
Obsessed with experiencing all pleasure and no pain, humans set themselves apart from the animal kingdom but end up distancing themselves from the Divine. We have an animal body, a human mind and a divine potential. Animal consciousness is limited to physical survival. They live their whole lives with Fight or Flight reactions to bodily threats. They do not possess the free will to do otherwise.
Our identity is based first upon safety and survival, and is guarded with the same instinctive Fight or Flight response that happens with a real threat to our existence. We are perpetually on “high alert” with adrenaline flowing and brain chemicals pouring into every cell to sustain the self-image. This state becomes the state of mind we live in. Living in a perpetual high-stress situation ultimately damages our health, causing all manner of illnesses and disease. It is also responsible for flawed thinking and poor decision-making about relationships.
The human consciousness of “I” extends beyond the body into the realm of “who I am.” The sense we develop as “who I am” is a vast, definable nebula of changing self-concepts, belief systems, personal perspectives, attitudes, opinions, biases, likes and dislikes, attractions and repulsions. The self-destructive ego-mind uses its negative influence to draw the body away from its natural protection. The function of our animal instincts is suppressed, sacrificed in the pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain. The self-image sets up an internal frame of reference, telling us who we are, how far we have traveled and where we are going. It decides what is right, what is wrong, what we fear, what we love, what we should ignore and what we should cling to. Whatever drive is dominant in our personality at any given time determines our perceptions, choices, logic, reason and even memory, which is distorted at best. It cannot be trusted, yet we blindly follow it every step of the way.
But we do have a choice to get out of the trap of our own delusions. Moving beyond the Fight or Flight response is what separates us from animals. As humans, we are invited to a third choice, but few of us take advantage of this unique privilege. The third choice is “witness consciousness.” Often it is characterized as Wu Wei in Taoist philosophy. It is way of disassociating our personal reaction and observing an interaction from a third person perspective.
I, as an individual, have the choice as to what I eat and how much, and whether it is for pleasure or for nurturance. How often I have sex, overwork at the office, or expend effort to gain the acceptance of others are choices animals do not have.
All species of animals have group choices in terms of food, sex, self-preservation, means of survival and use of environmental resources. Birds build nests, even though each type has its own habits in nesting, in a tree or in a marsh. Lions in the wild live differently from cows on a farm. No two lions, however, will select a different kind of accommodation to show off, as if to say, “Look how special my den is. I am more prosperous than you.” During mating season, males may battle to the death, but this is not ego. It is their genetic instinct for the procreation of their species, not because their ego will be stoked by being seen with the most attractive female in the pack. Animals have no individual ego-mind that needs to be better than the other. They are tied together as a group soul.
Each human, with its unique soul, acts as an individual, with the freedom to make its own choices. With this freedom comes the responsibility of the choices we make. If our choices only serve to reinforce the self-image, our karma ledger becomes filled with debits against our spiritual growth. As we grow, everything around us changes, but the memory remains fixed. Growing up doesn’t necessarily mean emotional maturity. That depends on evolving conscious self-awareness. And that takes practice, as well as understanding of the difference between who we really are and who we think we are.
Identification with the Persona
Persona, the Greek word for mask, is the face of our self-image. It is not who we really are. It is who we believe we are. It is the face we show to the world. The mask changes with each role we play, whether it is daughter or son, sister or brother, mother or father, friend, citizen, businessperson or lover. On the stage of life, we change the mask with every relationship.
The exhausting job of continually changing masks keeps us in a stupor, preventing us from functioning at our maximum potential. Instead, we continue to rely on our underlying self-image, an adopted philosophical structure based on our beliefs, opinions, attachments and fears. We identify so closely with these concepts that we become them. They reinforce our gluttony for more luxury, success or money—none of which we really want to experience directly, but for the delight in how others perceive our accomplishments. The more we get, the more we need to keep us satisfied. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Identification becomes so enmeshed in our self-image that we will do nearly anything to maintain it. In its extreme, it leads to religious wars, assaults and white-collar crimes. At the very least, self-righteous behavior can spell our personal ruin.
We think we are alone as individuals, but there is actually a whole crowd of inner voices giving us directions… and all of them we call “me.” For example, as “I” develops a complete identity, our entire experience of life originates from this fantasized self. If I am successful in convincing others of who I think I am, I also buy into what my self-image is selling. As I project this false identity, all my relationships are directed by a fictitious self. Ultimately, who can love a false person? This is why relationships fail, but without understanding of how we got ourselves into this predicament, we are left wondering what went wrong, who did what to whom, and who is at fault. Until we learn from these failures, we are doomed to strained relationships in our original family, extended family, love life and career.
Without awareness of the cause, we set ourselves up to repeat the same behavior in our next relationship, and the next and the next. We continue doing the same thing expecting different results. Does any of this sound familiar? Is this how you have been living your life?
You are the creator.
What you believe, you create.
What you create, you become.
Chapter 2
Masquerade of Love
Why do we fall in love? Because it is natural. It is inborn. As biological beings, sexual attraction is hardwired. Our animal body is pre-programmed to perpetuate the species. It is the ultimate law of attraction—the magnetic pull of negative and positive poles, yin and yang, animus and anima, Shiva and Shakti. We really have no choice on the biological level. As long as attraction remains at the purely sexual level, there is no problem. But as human beings, we have devised a complex system of mental constructions around what we call “love.”
What we do have a choice about is romanticizing the attraction rather than allowing love to truly blossom on many levels. From our perspective of how we think love should be, we open a Pandora’s Box of emotions, feelings and ideas about our potential partner. This is where we all get stuck, not realizing we are sabotaging what we want most.
Newness
New love brings new hope. Beyond the magnetism of sexual attraction, we are lured into the false promise of new hopes and new dreams. It contains the possibility of relieving the pain of the past and building a future full of projections and expectations.
There is a reason romance is called “falling in love” rather than “rising in love.” Instead of elevating our consciousness, we essentially lose our balance and all sense of rational reasoning when we become enchanted with a new partner. This is the meaning of