Posted on by The Book of Dreams blog

We are stuck in an illusion: What’s the Point?*

In a recent nightmare everything is vanishing. I struggle to hold onto something, but the holding only increases the vanishing. 

Why is the society that seemed to support the goodness in ourselves seem to be vanishing? How is it our society is becoming more and more self-centered?

At the core of the problem seems to be fear but not the fear that protects the body but the fear that protects the ego, that which makes us separate from everything else. The beliefs of the Ego-Self are what we use to protect us from this fear and whether they are fact or fiction based they separate us from our fears as well as from each other and the environment around us.

Beliefs are necessary to maintain the illusion of separateness. Without them the separateness dissolves and we become all things. The defense of our beliefs is the defense of our ego, our illusion of separateness. Without them the illusion disappears and we disappear as a thing, an entity separate from all other entities. We will defend our beliefs to the death of all those who threaten them as well as our own death for without our beliefs, what are we but the everything, the whole, the All? And as All we cease to exist as does everything else.

Letting go of our illusions is a form of Kenosis, an act of “self-emptying”. I’m reminded of the story of Jacob’s Ladder in the Christian Bible where a ladder ascends from the earth-bound illusion to the heavens i.e. from the mundane of things to the everything/nothing of the divine.

My ego is terrified for it translates as oblivion as in becoming nothing i.e., no thing. What’s the point? 

It seems that our beliefs not only make us something but also give us a point for being.

This is not to say that one must be stuck in a belief for in a reality of infinite beliefs there’s a lot to experience and just maybe that’s the point.

*This article can also be found in The Book of Dreams blog

Posted on by The Book of Dreams blog

Who am I being or expressing?

Over the last 40 years I have taken the MBTI personality inventory three times (with at least 10 years between them) as a means of ascertaining any life experience effects. Generally, the results have been relatively consistent with some small regression within the expected variation. Having recently celebrated my 80th year I’ve found myself reflecting a little more than usual on my life to this point and what internal points of view have motivated my movements through my life up to now. As I reflect on these internal factors and how they have played out across the years I’ve been most interested in how accurate the MBTI has been in my own journey. Personally, I have always viewed the traits revealed in this personality inventory as a means of defining how the soul is being expressed into my life.

So, what is this MBTI of which I’m writing?

As per the Google search for the MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator):

The MBTI is based on Carl Jung’s theory of psychological types, which was then developed into the assessment by Katharine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers in the 1940s. The test is designed to make Jung’s complex ideas more accessible by assessing a person’s preferences across four dichotomous domains: Extraversion/Introversion (energy), Sensing/Intuition (information intake), Thinking/Feeling (decision-making), and Judging/Perceiving (lifestyle). These preferences combine to form one of 16 possible personality types. Jung proposed that people experience the world through four principal functions: sensation, intuition, feeling, and thinking. 

Jung also believed that people have dominant ways of using these functions and that variations in behavior are due to differing preferences. Since the advent of this personality indicator there have been extensive studies that show good reliability in some areas to limited support in others.

In a reading of studies that have looked at my personal personality result (ENFP/INFP) most of the interpretations seem to support my own self-reported experiences (this of course may be biased). The difference between my E (extravert energy) versus my I (introvert energy) scores suggest no dominance in this area (known as an Ambivert) and indicates high adaptability. This rings pretty true for me in that I’m willing to lead if needed or called upon and have been told that I do a relatively good job at it but prefer to remain in a supportive mode and a solitary mode. The context of a situation often dictates what personality is expressed.

Typically, people who fall into this category find themselves highly intuitive (N), feeling oriented (F) and approaching life with flexibility, spontaneity, and openness to new information and opportunities (P perceiving).

We also tend to be highly critical of ourselves and feel as though we don’t belong (a feeling versus a fact), finding it difficult to explain our inner self to others. 

If you’re interested, you can find access to the MBTI at the following link:

 https://www.16personalities.com/personality-types

Posted on by The Book of Dreams blog · 2 Comments

Want to know what the Dark Knight looks like?

It was a dreary, overcast morning when I entered the local coffee shop down the street. It was Saturday, so the usual bustle of people going in and out of the shop was reduced to almost nothing. This was the end of a long and painful walk I had taken that morning, having gotten up before the sun to take advantage of the early morning coolness.

“How are you doing today?” the barista asked as I ordered my coffee. 

My mind was just finishing up with a poor-me-diatribe born of a bruised ego conversation I’d had with one of my daughters earlier in the week. What I wanted to say was…

“As my daughter keeps saying, any time there’s an upset, “This isn’t about you, Dad!” Never mind that I have feelings and thoughts; they’re irrelevant to what’s going on. But she’s probably right. I don’t feel very relevant these days, and wonder if I never was, but my ego was too busy to notice. 

Another side to my irrelevant self says, “So what?” Who’s to care if it’s not about me?

I want to think I’ve lived my life with at least giving and taking in equal measure, if not a little more to the giving side. Still, I’m not the determiner of that because the ego nearly always tries to weigh its experience toward the self-interest positive end of the spectrum. 

Others in the family will write the story of my life that will be handed down, and from what I hear, I’ve failed miserably to live up to their expectations. It also seems a universal opinion that I failed and made it too much about me. But so what? I can’t change it now; soon, my ego will be dead, and how relevant I was won’t make any difference; the damage was done. I’m also not sure that the soul cares one way or the other, either. 

It’s starting to feel like I’ve wasted my once-only time here. But again, that’s the ego talking, and the soul doesn’t care; the ego did its job by giving the soul a vehicle for entering the world.”

But all I said was, “Fine, just fine. How’s yours been going?” And then I thanked him for my coffee and said, “Have a good one!” as my ‘irrelevant self’ walked out the door. It was no use wasting a perfectly good ‘poor me’ and spreading my “down-eristic” self on an innocent barista. 

I have had these Dark Night experiences many times throughout my life. For many years, I used to run from them, which only got me mired and stuck, but now I periodically embrace them as a means of transcending them and moving through into the light.

“How’s your day going so far?”