Stonyhill Newsletter

Archive for January, 2010

© Dick Rauscher January 31, 2010
The thinking process of our politicians in Washington clearly reflects that of their unconscious primitive ego, but they do not appear to understand the inevitable and dangerous consequences of using an immature thinking process and primitive level of consciousness.

Listening to President Obama’s State of the Union speech last Wednesday was like listening to a frustrated parent scolding a room full of angry rebellious teenagers and encouraging them grow up and begin acting like mature adults; to deal with the deficit of trust that currently exists in Washington. Judging from the responses on both sides of the political isle in the last few days, it is uncertain whether the message was heard very clearly.

A civilized culture requires a government that maintains a delicate balance between protecting the rights and freedoms of its individuals, while at the same time limiting those rights and freedoms so as to protect the culture itself. For example, an individual has the right to work toward his or her dreams, but not the right to steal or kill another person in the pursuit of those dreams. A government has to decide carefully which freedoms can be allowed and which freedoms cannot.

In essence, Obama was saying that when the ideology of an individual politician or political party is too rigidly focused on the idea of allowing government, corporations, and individuals to function without oversight, regulation, or clearly defined limits to individual and corporate freedoms, the inevitable result is chaos and a rapidly growing economic gap between the haves and the have nots. Because virtually all adults are under the emotional control of their inner-child’s unconscious narcissistic primitive ego, a lack of oversight and regulation always leads to uncontrolled corruption, runaway greed, and in extreme cases, an authoritarian take over of the government itself.

Why?

Because any culture that fails to restrain the greed and narcissism of the unconscious primitive ego of its people, corporate leaders, and politicians is essentially giving permission for them to do whatever is necessary to amass power and wealth. The behaviors of Individual citizens, corporate leaders, and politicians living in such a culture will soon be driven by a self-focused “survival of the fittest” mentality. We see this in many of the worlds governments. We see this in unregulated corporations. We see this when the rights of any one individual, or group of individuals becomes narcissistically more important than the rights of others. In general, granting too much freedom is the inflexible ideological position of the Republican party in Washington.

On the other hand, when the ideology of a political party is rigidly focused on the concept of over protecting the standard of living and quality of life of its individual citizens, the inevitable result will eventually lead to the creation of a socialistic government. It is a compassionate, humanitarian goal but such a culture will soon be buried in debt. A high quality birth-to-death standard of living quickly becomes prohibitively expensive. The unconscious narcissism of a culture’s collective primitive ego tends to be inexhaustible in its wants and demands, and because of the primitive ego’s inability to delay gratification, those wants are always demanded now……not tomorrow. The goal of total equality of all individuals in a culture is called socialism. In general, this is the inflexible ideological position of the Democratic party in Washington.

In other words, both parties seem to have become ideologically inflexible, and far more interested in the next election, and their own personal acquisition of power and influence, than they are in the wellbeing of our country. Stated simply, the protection of their own political careers has clearly become more important than the long term well being of their country. This is certainly a rapidly growing perception among American voters.

This is the message that President Obama was trying to get across to congress in his State of the Union address. Both political parties are too rigidly entrenched in their ideologies. They are both manifesting a rigid black and white primitive ego thinking process. They are both convinced that they are “right” and their ideologies have hardened into positions of absolute truth which leaves very little room for creative dialogue.

What President Obama was trying to tell them was that ideology does not represent absolute truth. An ideology is only one concept of how a country should be governed. Dualistic right-and-wrong, good-and-bad, black-and-white thinking always leads to conflict, violence, unyielding grid lock, a political instability and a serious lack of congressional leadership. This is what has happened in Washington.

President Obama was trying to tell them that there is truth on both sides of any issue and a healthy democracy requires that everyone one, regardless of their own ideological beliefs, must actively search for that truth; for a middlepath that best reflects the strengths and truths on both sides of any issue. The focus should be on the long term health of our country and not on the narcissistic primitive ego needs of the individual politicians, their political party, or the next election. Bottom line our politicians are elected to protect the long term welfare of their country……not their own political careers.

When the unconscious narcissistic, primitive ego of our inner-child is allowed to run our lives, the result will always be conflict, greed, and unhappiness. When the unconscious narcissistic, primitive ego of our politician’s inner-child is allowed to run our country, the result will always be conflict, greed, an unhappy electorate, and an uncertain future for our county.

The struggle to blend the complicated global issues required to create a compassionate global culture in the 21st century is going to be difficult at best. The 21st century promises to be an era of great conflict and opposing ideologies. If we can’t get our own house in order, how are we ever going to provide effective leadership on the rapidly approaching complex global issues that the world is going to be facing in the coming years?

It’s time we began to incorporate a more intentional growth in our individual and collective consciousness. The intentional evolution in our species from a primitive ego consciousness to that of a more awakened, mature, and enlightened consciousness is urgently needed. Teaching the insights of Primitive Ego Psychology to accomplish that goal is the mission of the Stonyhill Newsletter.

© Dick Rauscher January 28, 2010

Why is happiness so difficult to attain? When we do experience happiness, why is it so hard to stay happy?

Part of the problem is the false belief that true sustainable happiness is a difficult and challenging emotional state that somehow has to be attained through hard work and unending effort.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

We already possess all the happiness that exists in the universe. We have always possessed it. So why then is experiencing happiness so difficult to achieve?

The answer is simple.

Achieving a true and sustainable happiness means we have to eliminate the false beliefs, illusions, and emotions that keep us from experiencing the happiness we already possess.

We must also learn to live more fully in the present moment……..the only true reality that exists.

Living in the moment is a difficult skill to incorporate into our lives when our thoughts and emotions are held hostage by the unconscious primitive ego of our inner-child. When our primitive ego is in control of our lives; when we are trapped in the illusions of the past or focused on worries and concerns about the future, it is virtually impossible to keep our adult observing consciousness grounded in the reality of the present moment….the only place true happiness exists.

The concepts of Primitive Ego Psychology taught in the Stonyhill Newsletter provide important insights into three simple but important spiritual practices needed to remove the unconscious barriers that undermine our efforts to be happy.

• Spiritual Practice #1 - To achieve true happiness we must learn to let go of our primitive ego’s black-and-white, all-or-nothing duality thinking….a thinking process that keeps us trapped in the illusions of our certainties and rigid beliefs.

When we were young children surrounded by the complexities of the adult world it was important to keep our life simple and manageable. To accomplish that goal we learned to split reality into good or bad, right or wrong, all or nothing categories.

Our primitive ego, the young ego of childhood that unconsciously resides in each of us, is convinced that all our beliefs represents absolute truth…..“THE” truth. Virtually all of the conflict, stress, and unhappiness we experience in life is created by our primitive ego’s insistence that “our” beliefs are “right”.

Experiencing true happiness means learning to walk the middlepath in life…..learning that truth is found on both sides of any issue. The bottom line……..rigid black-and-white thinking is a sure path to unhappiness.

• Spiritual Practice #2 – Achieving true happiness means learning the art of allowing others to choose their own life path and drop our judgments about their choices.

If we want the right to determine our own path, then we have to be willing to stop judging the paths and choices that others make. We can’t have it both ways.

Our primitive ego of course, is judgmentally convinced that “our” path and “our” life choices are the only correct ones.

Experiencing true happiness means not only allowing others to make their own choices free of our primitive ego judgmentalism, we have to learn how to actually affirm their choices.

The art of “allowing” empathically encourages and supports others as they work to make their dreams and desires come true.

The bottom line…….judgmentalism of how others have chosen to live their lives is a sure path to conflict and unhappiness.

• Spiritual Practice #3 – Achieving true happiness requires that we embrace an attitude of service and selfless concern for the well-being of others……an empathic concern for others without regard to any personal reward or recognition.

The unconscious primitive ego of our inner-child is self-focused and narcissistically self-absorbed. It is convinced that happiness still comes from grasping for personal power and material “stuff” of the world just as it did in early childhood. It believes that security and happiness come only from a me-first, survival of the fittest mentality.

Altruism and an unselfish focus on the welfare of others is an inner attitude that only our more mature, enlightened, and awakened adult observing ego consciousness can sustain.

When we focus on helping others we relax the unconscious self-focused grip that the primitive ego has over our psyche and our lives.

The bottom line…….a narcissistic, me-first, survival of the fittest mentality is a sure path to loneliness and unhappiness.

Because our life journey is an evolutionary spiritual journey from our unconscious primitive ego consciousness to that of an awakened and enlightened consciousness, true happiness is achieved only when we are working with the evolutionary spiritual goals of the living, evolving, conscious universe….a spiritual concept that our unconscious, self-obsorbed primitive ego is unable to grasp.