[from Marsha: If you’ve ever started on the path of the teaching ideas and heard about complaining, sticking up for rights, pleasing, quoting authorities, blaming, self-improvement or trying to be different; and in that have observed those in self, you might have begun to think of them as entities because they certainly act that way. And when you try to stop them, escape them or ignore them, very often it seems like they are stronger than you are. So you hear them over and over in your head. So here is yet another way to see them for what they are – they are not I’s – they are not you. Below is an excerpt from a workshop #113 where we’re given a little idea that might be nice to play with.]
Now anybody that has experienced conflict, and I believe we could safely say that that is all of us. We have judged that a thing should be a certain way; and when it wasn’t, we got our conditioned tools out — (not I’s from A-side) — to try to change whoever or whatever wasn’t the way ”it should be” into what we wanted. In other words, we felt we were capable of judging what is, and it ought not be that way.
Then as soon as we got that said and done, then all of a sudden we heard the “B side” of the picture of man (see website) with the methods to achieve that nondisturbance start hollering – The not I’s say, I got to be a good pleaser — then we decided that we ought to quote some authority we had chosen to believe or we put on a front or try to change ourselves into somebody that has more self determination, huh? Be assertive! We was tired of just being a door mat. And so we begin to struggle. We pushed over here and then they pushed over there; and that’s the conflict to and fro. We resist what is and see it as bad.
Now what if you could just see, well there is an “acquired personality in me” that wants to do it this way, but I’m not subject to it – I don’t have to do it’s bidding, it’s just hollering.
There’s a lot of ladies have indulged in making little craft items for sale; and so you could gather or if you’re crafty, make a bunch of talking dolls, and sit them on the kitchen table. mantle or somewhere where you see them. They can remind you that they all talk in opposites – all the time! Would you have to go by and/or do everything those talking dolls you made this afternoon told you to do?
(No.)
You wouldn’t pay a bit of attention in the world, is that right? So you see that as soon as we recognize that these are ”acquired, self created little personalities” that we have, we absolultely pay no attention to them.
So when we see what a not I is, those are little dolls that we made huh? We materialized them out of nothing one day long ago; and maybe set them on our shoulder – three on one side, and three on the other and a little chooser on top of our head that listens to one side and then the other, so they talk and talk in our heads and we’ve been listening to them ever since, huh? And they’re still there since you acquired them. So they are constantly giving orders. They’re all yakkin’ away. Did you create those little dolls?
(I guess I did.)
Are they all homemade little gadgets, huh? Is there any rhyme or reason to do what those dolls that you made say to do – have you any reason to be subject to them sir?
(I don’t have to be.)
They’re little dolls that each of us make, huh? That’s what conditioning is is a bunch of little dolls that all holler. We taught ‘em to talk. We put the programing in; and they talk. Now are you subject to conditioning or the little dolls? Are you subject to them when you see they’re little dolls that lie and tell you what you “should do” or what somebody else “should do” or how “circumstances should be” or how to get what you want right now! If you don’t recognize them as not being you, then you think that is ”I tellin’ myself” this, but instead it’s one of the little dolls – soon as you see it’s a doll you no longer feel subject to it.So the discovery that we can make is what? That we can see these little things as what they are – all things which I created and made talk. I materialized ‘em, set ‘em up, put ‘em on each shoulder so they’d talk. And it is really that they’re not I, not you. So we could call it conditioning. We can call it devils. We can call it little dolls or demons or whatever you want to, it’s still something you made, is that right?
Now once you see that that’s what it is, could you be objective to not pay any attention to it anymore.
(I guess.)
You could do that right now – is all of this stuff “you” or is this all acquired?
(Acquired.)
See, that wasn’t you at all. You acquired the ability to complain because you hoped it would be a way to “get something” and then you set it off like it was you. It says I. Did you acquire the thing, the idea about sticking up for right?
(Right.)
Did you acquire the idea very definitely of pleasing everybody. Did you acquire the idea that it was correct to believe and do what you’re told by you authorities. Did you acquire the idea or make a little doll or piece of conditioning that says you ought’a be different – the self improvement bit. Did you create, define, or agree to the idea that you were perfectly capable of judging everything? That’s a little idea, isn’t it? It’s a little old thing.
Once you see that you created these and then forgot you created ‘em, they keep on operating. They’re still little dolls sittin’ on your shoulder, right? Could you be subject to them any longer? Cause what are they – things you made yourself, is that right – whether you call it conditioning or whether you call it a little devil or a demon. And once we see that, we’re bound to be somewhat more objective.
[from Marsha: It might be fun to find or make these little dolls and put them somewhere with their respective names and attribute to them what the ones inside you are saying – what a wonderful way to disidentify. Further, couldn’t this be a really fun way to play a game and bring the not I’s to a physical level because it’s been said that they can’t stand the “light” being put on them. They can’t stand to be laughed at. With the dolls, we can maybe point an laugh and see their diabolical schemes to create misery, conflict and struggle in our lives.]