Is there anything else to life than just feeling positive and negative? D100
So within the Desteni message and the principle it stands as as oneness and equality, the polarity of positive and negative is explained thusly. From my understanding from watching the interviews and reading the articles found from the Desteni website and the blogs and youtube accounts of the Destonians, the positive is a response that people have when faced with the negative. So for example if someone feels sad, they may respond with doing something that they think will make them happy. So in this way, the positive needs the negative. However, the negative also needs the positive, because without the positive you cannot define what is negative. For example, if you like feeling a particular way, like free, then you automatically dislike feeling, the opposite, feeling trapped. If you do not really care for feeling free, then guess what, you probably don't mind feeling trapped. Makes sense? Test it out for yourself, by removing one positive association within you, like with the feeling free example, and see how you respond with the opposite or negative feeling. Within me, I notice that removing one side, also in a way, weakens or lessens the opposite feeling. Now if you remove both sides, then there is nothing. All that is left is this physical reality. So that is why the negative and positive are removing attention away from what is here. To keep the positive and negative alive, because it is something that seems to live and move on its own, requires our absolute attention and focus. What does this imply about what the positive and negative is, if it requires our attention to such a degree? And what does it imply that we can remove the positive and negative and yet still remain here? Also, another important question is, what are the consequences for not being here? Im not going give my absolute detailed perspective on these questions, but I do want to share one point, how through not being here in one moment, I inadvertently allowed a dog to die. And I felt so much regret that my absence in that one moment has lead to a complete destruction of my life. And if I were to also just be here, after the event, I could have made the commitment to continue to be here no matter what, and I could have forgiven myself for not being here. Everything would have been alright, but I didn't do that. I didn't want to take responsibility, and I felt scared and confused. Instead of forgiving myself, I judged myself harshly, and I became engulfed in negativity. So this story brings us to our next point.
So punishment and reward act similarly to how the positive and negative work. In fact, I would say that the punishment and reward actions, require the use of the positive and negative within a being for it to even work. Using my last story as an example, through judging myself harshly, I was really punishing myself through the negative. Now what is interesting too, is how the positive is used as a reward. Looking at our earlier examples (someone likes feeling free, but dislikes feeling trapped) someone may seek freedom as a reward. But what is also interesting is how a person will continuously search for their rewards, even to the point of their destruction, and how according to our discussion about the relationship between the positive and negative, we would expect that people will continuously create the negative in their lives in order to keep the positive alive. As a note, a person may or may not show their negative points, and only show their positive points towards others, because of how this has been considered the norm in our society. Understanding how the positive and negative work together, will help us understand the true nature of supposedly positive or negative people. They are in fact one and the same, they are simply suppressing some points within them and expressing only some other points. That being said the positive or negative is not good or bad, because they both lead to the same consequences which result from not being here as we discussed before. So continuing where we left off, the reward and punishment actually has become a normally practiced structure across society with the purpose of promoting certain behaviors in citizens. One possible result for this has been that the negative and positive have been targeted more explicitly. So if someone is not participating within a particular positive and (you need both) negative association to some reward that you are enticing him/her with or a punishment that you are threatening him/her with, then the person will not respond to that particular punishment or reward. So this is interesting because the use of positive and negative has become so obvious now. So let's say someone, like me, had internalized judgement as a way to punish others or myself, by saying you are bad or I am bad, and that being bad is something that I have associated negative to, and I have also associated a positive response to the opposite of bad, which in this case is good, then I will feel bad, if I start to judge myself as a way to punish myself in an attempt to control my behavior. So now we are entering into another layer here, where there is this interesting phenomena within me, which I am pretty sure others could have too, where I attempt to control my behavior through use of punishment and reward, or the negative and positive, so its like I am treating myself like another person, which I can't control, and I am attempting to control through the use of some feeling within me. So its like here's Me, then here's this feeling inside me, and here's Me again, but I am trying to control Me through using this feeling inside me. So there is like these three layers here. And we have already learned, Im sure, through direct experience, how the result of participating in the negative or positive feelings, will lead to an absence of what is going on here, and so whenever someone does in fact follow along with the reward and punishment by participating within their positive and negative feelings, as rewards and punishers, then they are in fact not here too. So when participating in reward and punishment, its kind of like we are downloading a routine or programming from others on how to act, and we do so, and its because all of our attention is in the positive and negative we feel within us. We then never learn to direct ourselves if this is all that we have been doing. And we may even define this as parenting and teaching or learning. Now one final note before I close this, I would like to share how certain people can become successful or smart even when following this structure of positive and negative that we have been discussing. In my experience, I was considered smart in school, though one thing that I and everyone in my classes thought, was how all of the work was easy, since it involved only memorization. So you can imagine, how easy it is to simply download the information, or programming, and simply repeat the information over and over, before you write out the same information on a test. The people in my classes, knew that getting good grades was helpful, and their minds, or perhaps how their reward and punishment structures within them, allowed them to do it with ease. I can imagine too how the reward and punishment structures with the people who are considered dumb, may actually make it tougher or not possible to do the same work. So I would like to say how our system, our society is currently built in the same structure that we have been discussing here, the same structure that leads to consequences due to not being here. So because of this, it is important to not reinforce the reward and punishment structure by participating in the positive and negative within yourself, because simply put, its less effective than when you are here. When you are here you can do more of everything and do it better. The real limits become the physical limits. So don't think that because our society is built around reward and punishment, that you have to participate within negative and positive feelings within yourself. In fact, I notice that it may be possible to structure the reward and punishment structure to a more physical level, that involves instructions, and teaching as a way to explain the physical relationships, and thus consequences in reality. I know that this is tangential, so please stop reading any time. So, for example, when someone makes a mistake like you leave the kitchen sink dirty, you can explain to them the physical consequences of leaving the kitchen sink dirty, like how bacteria may grow, and how if we wash our dishes in a dirty sink, the bacteria may move onto the dishes, and then you can explain how having too much bacteria in our bodies can be harmful. Something that people tend to do is to explain the consequences that people find emotional, like how someone may find the kitchen sink dirty and then they may feel upset and become angry with you, and now no one likes you. So this social point of seeking positive responses from people is a very common punishment and reward structure. So this is actually an unhelpful point to use as a reason to wash the dishes because, its like you are literally responding emotionally to someone else's emotional state. But interestingly enough, we have to actually be wary to an extent of people's emotional states because as we discussed this is what is found throughout our society. But like something I heard in a movie, sometimes we have to just take a stand. So be aware when there is a moment you can take a stand, because in that you are for one, standing within yourself saying that I am taking responsibility now and I am not following the emotional, positive and negative conditioning, but I am directing my own life, and I chose to live the way that is practical for me as a human being, and that is the way that everyone should live, so I know I am living the best life possible etc... So you take a stand and this may involve actions on your part that you may not have considered before or normally do, but you see is necessary. And so of course, this stand can be taken in a moment that would normally involve a positive or negative feeling. It could even be in a moment where someone is trying to teach you through punishment and reward. Again, this is considered normal, so I would always place things in perspective of oneself, and what one sees. So look at what you see, and perhaps consider what physical consequences that a person that is trying to teach you is not mentioning, and notice what positive or negative feelings you have with what words the person is saying. Like for me the previous example of washing the sink to avoid upsetting someone else because they won't like you, I had an emotional reaction, and this is why I wrote what I did. It was already within me this point of doing things to avoid upsetting other people. And I can see how this can effect my entire life, how I could at an extreme, never do anything that could ever maybe upset anyone. This is of course an unacceptable way to live. I could go on on this point, but the point here to get is how one point, one pattern or structure of punishment and reward, even though it may have been created for one point or reason to wash the sink, could grow and extend to all parts of our lives, completely taking over who we are, and defining us absolutely, which of course may not have been our intent at all. I mean all we were busy doing and have been doing is feeling good and bad, the positive and negative. Have we ever made any other intention? So that's something to investigate for myself and everyone. And I suggest just trying it out, stopping the negative and positive. See what you see. And see what's beyond simply feeling positive and negative. Is there anything else to life than just feeling positive and negative?
-An additional note, its interesting how intellectuals or people that need to be responsible for a lot of things- may develop tactics to deal with their minds, like going to nature to get their mind off of things, or do jogging to get that moment of silence. So even these people need to manage their minds. Now imagine, if everyone simply dropped this mind structure and so never have to manage their minds. We would become extremely productive. So just to also emphasize how this work with our minds will have many benefits, so don't wait. Try to make it a regular routine, and make it a practice to sort out all of the positive and negative within you.
Helpful links
Desteni.org
lite.desteniiprocess.com
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