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Tablet Fifteen
PRESSURE
<1>Pressure is the instrument of the lower
nature. When a person responds under pressure, in fact he is doing
things that are not according to his deep motives, because he reacts
from fear. <2>Any action from fear brings suffering.
<3>Indeed this world is the kingdom of the
devil, because most of
the people work and react to the pressures of the external world.
<4>Their motivations are not from the
self, but from their fears
created in the external world.
<5>These fears, which are the very cause of
tension and pressure, can be physical, emotional, or mental. <6>The
physical pressures (physical slavery) are much easier to detect and
in a great scale have been eliminated from human civilization
(although still existing in some parts).
<7>However, the mental and emotional pressures
still exist and are much subtler. They have replaced the physical
pressures (slavery) of the past.
<8>In the time of slavery in history, man knew
who made him a slave, so he had a clear picture of his situation and
could identify the enemy. But in mental or emotional slavery, which
is very subtle, he does not know his master.
<9>So the pressure and fear become tension, and
tension creates a turbulent mind. This causes greater confusion and
increases his fear so he conforms to the pressure more.
<10>With this vicious cycle, he truly becomes
the slave of these subtle threads and goes further and further away
from the
self and truth.
<11>The cure to this problem is
meditation! Only
with deep
meditation, creating
a calm mind, facing the truth, becoming familiar with the
subconscious mind,
and recognizing these pressures and their sources (mentally and
emotionally), can a person come in tune with his
self and realize how and why he reacts to the pressures as he
does.
<12>The emotional pressures come from deep
desires and attachments. <13>So those who we think we love,
are attached to, or can fulfill our desires, can easily put pressure
on us.
<14>One of the most widely known is
peer-pressure. Because we are not self-actualized, we need other
people's approval so we conform to their pressures. <15>To
overcome peer-pressure, we should know ourselves and then accept a
profession according to our abilities (physical, mental, and
spiritual). We should become highly proficient in that task, do our
best, and not give in to pressure.
<16>Whenever there is pressure and a person reacts to it,
there is a problem in that situation.
<17>The mental pressures are those which make us
believe we have to have or become something, but we truly cannot
become it, do not want to become it, or do not need it, such as sale
pressure to buy things we do not require.
<18>There is a direct interrelationship between
emotional and mental pressures. They are complementary and help one
another to create the reaction of the person to the pressure.
<19>A
self-actualized
person, or he who has a calm mind and control over it, never
acts under external pressure, so he can never be enslaved.
<20>Those who give in to pressure (individually
or collectively) might conquer the world but they will lose their
Souls, and that is not a good bargain.
DAYDREAMERS
<21>There are people who hear voices, see
visions, talk with spirits, and receive revelations which give them
a hope of something that apparently would change their lives. They
hope these things will come true some day.
<22>So they daydream of when these will happen,
and they escape the reality. <23>But surprisingly if the
fulfillment of their dreams is offered to them, usually it can be
seen that they lose their artificial happiness and might even run
away and find some fault in the fulfiller of the dream.
<24>Or in other words, they do not really want
or expect that dream to be fulfilled, because the very reason they
were drawn into this state has been their feelings of inadequacy and
inability to cope with reality. So when the fulfillment of the dream
is offered to them, there would be nothing left to escape to and the
person would be forced to face the reality again. <25>For a
person who has been out of touch with reality for so long, it is a
hard step.
<26>Also if the dream was generated by a great
ambition to be in a special position, when that position is offered
to the person, he becomes very unhappy again because he truly did
not want to have that position. It was really an escape to feel he
is worthy enough to have it. <27>He either has to face the
reality and improve himself, or find some fault in something that
surrounds the situation, or fall into another dream to escape again.
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