from The Way of Intelligence, Vol I, No 2, March 2001

The Vicious Cycle, The Way of Ignorance

The four facets of a human are designed to work in complete harmony. But if we look around and pay attention, we are far more likely to see people in chaos, conflict, disease — disharmony.

The Intelligence aspect of man, X, is in partnership with its Awareness aspect, whose job it is to tell if (by the feeling it generates) what is going on, and what the value of that is. When this occurs straightforwardly, X does the appropriate thing for the information received. When the person is in conflict, there’s nothing straightforward about this communication, it is in constant contradiction: “I want this, but I don’t want what comes with it.” “I should do that, but I want to do this.” “I hate that person but I have to do what they say.” And on and on.

What is the information being “sent”? Chaos. What is the feeling? Emergency, because conflict is unnatural, feels terrible, utterly outside the purpose of human life. But these things are all false emergency. However, your Intelligence aspect depends on you to “report”, and does whatever you decree. You feel emergency, it responds to emergency, false or not, sending special energy to fight or run. Of course, the nature of conflict means you don’t act — no fighting, no running (which wouldn’t be the thing to do anyway), and this mobilized but unused energy floats around the body awhile, then has to do something so starts working on the cells to burn itself up, eventually leading to symptoms.

This is an effort on the part of Intelligence to balance the body, to use up the false emergency energy, and a great gift, since we weren’t designed to live that way, it’s trying to get it out of the system. But what happens to most people when a symptom shows up? Panic, anger, fear — anything but gratitude. And this, too, is seen as emergency, though it isn’t, and starts the whole thing all over again. Eventually there is disintegration.

We can’t prevent adaptation, and wouldn’t want to. If you get a sunburn, for instance, you want it to heal, and know its pain protects the skin from further abuse. If you do hard manual work, you want your hands to get callused to protect them. If you eat something tainted, you want it gone, fast. If we “let nature take its course,” all is well. If we interfere, we’re back in the vicious cycle. What we can prevent, though, is false emergency, and all the discomfort of that adaptation. We can refuse to get into conflict, and will, if our purpose is anything other than regaining non-disturbance. If we get into conflict, we stop immediately. All it takes is paying attention, recognizing it, refuse to participate — put yourself at ease. This is the essence of healing, and staying well — being grateful for the ability to adapt, knowing, and feeling, in your heart of hearts that All is Well.

More on The Vicious Cycle

When a person lives harmoniously, his actions can be seen as a continuous “Living Cycle.” His or her perception is true, that is based on “what is” rather than an illusion. He has a true feeling about his perception, acceptance that what is IS, and no harmful emotion about it (fear, guilt, anger and all their affiliates). Chemical balance is maintained within the body, and creative action ensues (which can also mean the active “choice” of ignoring). He may change “what is” out of love, or vital interest.

Someone whose perception cannot abide “what is” expects it to change, based on the illusion of some ideal that the change will produce non-disturbance. This always leads to disappointment (hurt) and he or she looks to blame. He many blame others, or circumstances (anger), himself (guilt), not know what to blame (fear) or have been around the vicious cycle so often that he grasps for any answer (insecurity). These all produce a false sense of emergency.

Life provides energy to fight or flee (remember, “X” always does what is appropriate for the information received, whether accurate or not). If he fights or flees a false emergency, this constitutes unusual behavior (a real fight, or a binge of some kind). This works off the emergency energy, but leaves chaos in his environment (inner or outer) to deal with. If he doesn’t fight or run, the energy eventually creates unusual cellular activity in an effort to work it off, which results in unusual sensation, then tissue cell breakdown, disease. The person looks for an escape from this adaptation, (a cure), has a new expectation based on illusion (because it can’t be “cured”, merely allowed to re-balance). And the Vicious Cycle begins all over again.

The way out of the VC is to perceive accurately what is going on, accept “what is” rather that like/dislike/want to change/escape it. Failing that (and nobody’s perfect!) when adaptation sets in, to accept it as the intelligent attempt of life to rebalance to body, and be grateful. It will pass if allowed to do so.

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