The world Religion implies re-union re-ligare which in a common-sensical definition, it would mean the unification of man as one and equal; but as anything in this world, we have adjusted it to create our own set of rules and values that we established as ‘the ground we stand upon individually’ even if it’s absolutely uneven, swampy or completely unsustainable. But because we ‘stand on it,’ we believe that ‘it is acceptable’ and ‘sustainable’ eventually thinking that because of all the time, effort and money that we spent on creating such base for us to stand upon, it is ‘our worth,’ sometimes we value more the idea of ourselves than actually taking into consideration what we are in fact as physical living beings. We sometimes end up defending and guarding it with our very own lives, often losing perspective and creating this entire ‘entity’ in separation of ourselves as equal living beings in this world.
This Self-Created Religion as all the beliefs, judgments, ideas, preferences, values is then created as a set of ‘laws’ that we have become and deeply incrusted them into and as our being, believing that it would be impossible to ever change them, because we’ve created ‘who we are’ in relation to that set of knowledge and information as our ego.
I have an example of this, it is my father – ‘genio y figura hasta la sepultura’ is a saying in spanish, an idiom for explaining how one will remain being one’s ego / mind-set/ self-religion until death. One can even take proud on such points, believing that it is actually something honorable to stick to one’s beliefs and thoughts and remain ‘unchangeable’ throughout one’s life – but not within a common sensical perspective of being stable and remaining what we call ‘grounded,’ but actually being extremely rigid about one’s ‘way of being.’ That’s how I could define a Self-Religion. I gave this example to place now myself into perspective, taking such points as myself and when I see this, I see: I’ve been quite a stubborn person in ‘changing my ways.’ I have played the exact same role of not being ‘flexible’ at all times, which means, I’ve lived by that which I ‘believe is so’ and anyone that could dare to challenge it, I would mostly attack and deny or even ‘prove wrong’ within a haughty position.
Man, was I stubborn, even my family members reminded me about that this last December when sharing about our childhood and how we used to be. I accepted the fact that I had been quite a picky and stubborn mostly spoiled child – you guys reading this blog and following my process would not have believed how I was and how I behaved as a child. Though, that’s been mostly exposed for myself to see how I accepted and allowed myself to be playing this role as a ‘drama queen’ just so that I wouldn’t have to take Self Responsibility, which has been part of me stopping all forms of victimization and a general stance of self-righteousness often accompanied with rigid statements and ‘self-laws’ based on my personality/ ego/ persona.
I’ve been quite self conscious throughout my life, I would deliberately create certain ‘systems’ of beliefs/ preferences/ words/ mannerisms and everything else that encompassed ‘my world’ in a very specific way to build myself as a personality. Each point that I would ‘integrate’ as myself , I would ‘make it my own’ and stick to it as if my very life depended on it.
This became part of how I would guard my belongings with my life, being extremely obsessed about having everything under control, being extremely strict about things that I would allow within myself and others that I simply would never engage myself with – essentially being rather stiff about everything. As a child I was extremely serious and disciplined and would suit myself according to the environment I was in at the moment. If I was at school, I would be very serious and behave like a little tin soldier. If I was at home, I would be rather spoiled and wanting to be just having the TV all for myself, all the time = rather possessive and picking up frictions around with my sisters whenever anyone would dare to ‘invade my space.’ If I was wanting to dance or be all goofy, I would ‘take the stage’ and be that in an absolute manner. My mother has dubbed me as ‘extremist’ in terms of how I take on something and live it/ apply it full-on – lol, I guess that’s cool in terms of how I take on this process now, problem was and still is when I would take non-supportive things ‘full-on’ in a rather obsessive manner. I guess that’s how I got to know my ‘limits’ as well, hence not a ‘mistake’ but a road that I simply saw would lead me nowhere.
All of these aspects I can see I used to shape/ form my belief system as the ‘Marlen Religion’ that I fully became. Lol, I remember there was a moment at the farm, I was rather sick or going through some of those tortuous moments of facing myself within a specific point, I felt like shit and I knew that I looked as if I was dying, and Bernard came into the kitchen and said: ‘The death of Marlena! lolol’ which is supposed to be that process of having to let go of the entire ego/ personality and actually beginning to live. All I could do is realize that anything that I could perceive is ‘haunting me’ or feeling like this huge block on top of my head, causing me to be hunching more than usual and having a rather droopy facial expression as a sign of ‘I’m not “feeling well,” was part of the self-created process wherein I got to see what I was actually torturing myself with. It was my own mind, of course.
See, the physical was simply here and just allowing me to see that I had to let go of such fears and judgments that I was tormenting myself with at the time = that’s my religion. All preferences, all ideas of what and who I have to be, it’s like taking on custom-made suit that we used to wear to become this specific personality that we then believe we can’t just ‘take off,’ because we fear being naked and exposed or something like that. Well, this is obviously metaphorically speaking, but I knew that I had to walk out of that limitation and opening up to new ways of living and ‘handling myself’ in the world, which are here for me to be and become, to stand one and equal to in common sense.
The Religion of Marlen became quite obvious the more I got to know myself and started seeing how everything that I regarded as ‘who I am’ and ‘what I am’ are nothing but self-created ideas, beliefs, judgments and preferences that I have taken on and sown as the quilt that I’ve become, in terms of personality and overall self-presentation and embodiment as ‘who I am.’
What I explained in the past as going through an ‘emotional breakdown’ at the beginning of this process – and even a while before that – I linked to the Tarot card ‘the Fool. The man in that Tarot card that I have has his hands on his face, all naked and had real messy hair, just like I had it back then yet all grey and of a rather old age. I would see that card as that moment when I realized that nothing of what I had believed myself to be was actually real, meaning this entire personality as the ‘tower’ that I had built of my personality to achieve some form of ‘success’ and that I had actually invested quite a bit upon in time, money and ‘effort’ had to be destroyed by myself. I name ‘the Tower’ because that was another card that I would see rather often at that time, and I asked myself what it would mean in terms of ‘losing my religion’ – yes, just like that R.E.M song lol – and how I later on realized that tower had to be demolished because I was never going to reach ‘god’ with it, I was mostly only inflating my ego, which had to be burst if I wanted to actually get Real and Live.
The ‘emotional breakdown’ that I experienced was mostly having to let go of my beliefs, my ideas, my over-detailed creation as the personality wherein every single thing that I would wear, say, do, have around me would have a meaning/ purpose/ a part of me/ a memory that I had decided to keep as myself. It was quite baffling when realizing I had to let go of all the value, time, effort, money placed in the creation of ‘myself.’ I remember I lied beneath the dining room’s table upon a rug, with my back on the floor and began painting on the back-side of the table’s wood like a ‘cosmic ascension scenario,’ quite a grounding experience, yet it was part of the tantrum I threw wherein I was almost ready to get rid of everything I had done and bought, lol I was quite a drama queen I’d say. But it also revealed to myself how much value/ worth I had placed on everything around me, to the extent of missing myself completely within that equation. I was also able to see how I was rather judgmental toward ‘materialist people’ regarding their wealth and properties as ‘their god’ while in fact, I was doing exactly the same thing.
After I started realizing that it wasn’t necessary for me to stop painting or stop absolutely living as I did, but only changing the starting point of everything I did, I saw how I could simply start looking at how I had created/ defined myself according to how I would carry myself through the world, what I would wear, how I would speak, what was the mindset I would have when interacting with specific people, what I had regarded of value/ worth, what I had defined as ugly/ disgusting/ nasty, what I had defined as dumb/ stupid/ and all the opposites to this, which is how I started debunking my own vocabulary in terms of having spoken about good vibes, positive energies, god/ creation, superstitions, good-will and everything else I mean, I’ll quote Lao Tzu
“when all the world knows goodness to be good, there is already evil”
That point debunked my then perception of the world in a subtle manner that I could only grasp much later on.
My self-religion was created in an attempt to become someone that could have an impact on this world within standing in what I deemed was ‘the good path,’ trying to leave a ‘good impression’ in people for the sake of being liked, being supported, being placed as someone ‘extraordinary.’ That’s probably why I wanted to become an ‘artist’ as this was the platform that I saw could support my inherent desires, yet at the same time, being able to create enough impact on people, while getting the regular dose of appraisal and glorification to keep the ego up to date.
We live in a world wherein individuals are meant to ‘shape their personality’ as part of the matrix-initiation of ‘life’ and ‘living,’ which is nothing else but establishing our own rules, paradigms, views/ perspectives on what we like, what we dislike, what we stand for, what we oppose, what we believe is so, what type of things we do, what we don’t like doing and all of this is endorsed by and within the system so that we stand as part of a certain population that will have similar treats and quirks on ‘how we live life,’ which makes of this world a quilt of types of people, each one being targeted by specific marketing mechanisms and everything essentially being linked to buying and selling life, ensuring the system is ‘kept alive’ by this competition of egos and imposition of beliefs as ‘the way’ to live and interact in this world. Eventually I became part of this specific type of personality within which I was able to establish relationships, ensuring that I would only stick to communicating with people that I saw as similar as myself, and deliberately neglecting and separating myself from the rest, as if they didn’t even exist.
Part of being walking with Desteni as a group is facing all these various prejudices toward myself within a particular frame of mind (lol, wrote ‘friend of mind’) that I had deemed as immovable, unwavering, unchanging as al the aspects of myself that would not allow me to unconditionally stand with particular ‘types of people’ only because of how they looked, what they seemed like, what they enjoyed, how they expressed themselves, etc. This has been actually an ongoing process of unconditionally being able to stand equal to a person and deliberately walk through situations and events without falling for the usual automated prejudices wherein I would immediately categorize and place in my ‘charts of values’ all people around me. I actually even thought that I was the only one having the ability to do this ‘right away,’ only to realize through participating in this process that we all did exactly the same thing! No specialness anywhere, we were truly all just living out the same shit.
It’s funny now to expose it, but at the moment it was almost ‘painful’ having to let go of my definitions and specifically, letting go of cherishing everything that I had almost classified and kept for the sake of maintaining this constant memoirs and reminders of ‘who I am’ and ‘why I am what I am,’ lol. When walking this process one perceives such points as an internal “Nooooo!” but it is only the mind screaming back at itself when seeing that a source of energy as the kicks we get from anything we define ourselves as, is no longer supported, no longer ‘fed’ so to speak within revisiting all of those points as sources of memory/ reminders of who I am, why I do what I do and what ‘drives’ my life, which was all in separation of myself.
At that time, I saw that having to let go of using 8 rings in my hands, letting go of using my beloved black eyeliner and nail polish, letting go of my hair at some point, letting go of my general treats like smoking or drinking and getting high, letting go of friends, letting go of my beliefs in a supernatural reality, letting go of the idea of myself that I had fed until that moment as being a ‘special person’ was actually ‘losing myself,’ when it was in fact the other way around. It was almost physically painful getting rid of all the quirks and presentation of myself. I did become like a robot for some time, yet it was part of this process of initially giving ‘death’ to who I was.
The more we limit ourselves, the more we cage ourselves in a particular mindset. The more we become introverted – and dare I say selfish in terms of not being able to look at other people’s worlds/ realities – the more we deny ourselves the ability to get to know someone from the starting point of realizing how everything that we’ve imposed as categories/ types of people toward one another, have only been part of the systems that have ensured that we remain secluded in a particular ‘group of people’ with similar views, with similar tastes, even similar socioeconomical status only apparently ‘evolving’ within that small view/perception and realm within this world.
“Earth is like a giant painting where we have neglected most parts and just focus on tiny portions of the painting and make only those spots look pretty – everything else gets ignored” –Andrew Gable
It’s fascinating that we believe ourselves to be ‘losing’ something when in fact, getting rid of such limitations is expanding, it is mingling in this reality as others and getting to see how it is that I can only consider myself as ‘different’ to another at a mind level. The essence of who we are is the same at a physical level, and it is then how through this process I’ve come to stop much of the judgment I held toward particular people, wanting ‘nothing to do’ with some others and still, I’m walking the process and reminding myself that I cannot judge another because I am judging myself, as simple as that.
My perspective on life, myself and others has had a major overhaul to be able to see how it is that whenever I see myself saying: ‘I would never do that’ – obviously in common-sense points, I am in fact defending my own credo wherein I am acting from a prefab version of ‘who/ what I am’ according to and based upon the knowledge and information that I’ve decided to “live” as myself in the past.
”Ego is a projected energy self based in polarities of good and bad, love and hate that is confused by the movement of the energy of the polarity and believes that it is the energy. When the energy ends, the ego ends and with it love and hate. This world , although physically dependent on energy, is not best served with an outside illusionary entity that pretends to be life” – Bernard Poolman
We can see how that outside illusionary entity that existed as myself as all of these polarities lying on the boldness of good/ evil, can in fact be stopped and not supported any longer by myself. The projection as the show that I was putting on as the character that I had become, had to have a major turn off so that I could start seeing what I had become, what was the motivation of every single thing that I said, why I said it, how I said it and so forth with everything I did, say, do, communicate about, etc. My ego as the self-created persona became almost ‘ unbearable’ for me to witness every time that I would speak almost in an automated way – which still does happen from time to time if I am not enough HERE as breath. At some point I would go into this sense of recrimination for having spoken just out of the automated version of myself as that ego, it’s like the memory that plays out automatically/ by default whenever I am not here as breath, it became very obvious to spot these situations because it almost feels ‘icky’ in the moment.
Thus the importance of focusing on breath as the actual energizing process that keeps our ‘power’ in place at a physical level, instead of giving all our focus and attention to ourselves as a personality, keeping up that entity that we’ve called ‘who we are’ and ‘how we live.’ As long as we are possessed by our own mind we haven’t in fact ever lived, we can only be existing here as breath as life in every moment when we are not existing in any ‘pole’ to create friction generating energy for the mind to keep running and going back and forth between poles.
What purpose does that mind serve? Nothing else but our own interest in separation of common sense = what’s best for all. That’s how living as an ego of the mind, as a certain personality is in fact living in dishonesty because within such frame of mind, we’re not considering what’s best for all, we’re not even aware of our full potential, because of existing in the mind as certain recurring thoughts, memories and patterns, having a limited version of ourselves to live by in every moment, just so that we’re able to ‘stick to our protocol,’ stick to what ‘suits our image.’ It’s like having a computer and having all of these full suites to work with – yet because we’ve become so used to only working with one single program, we stick to it because it’s ‘known,’ it’s become ‘comfortable’ with its own limitations. We then justify and create excuses to not go and explore the array of possibilities that are also existing here in our Operating System because that would imply stepping into the ‘unknown’ and getting out of our self-imposed bounds wherein we would think we’re ‘getting out of character.’
It’s like when being in a cage for too long, long enough to then get scared or freak out the moment that the door is open and we are able to simply walk out of it. It’s fascinating how the mind operates from this perspective, ensuring that we keep us limited as this personality just because of fear and in the name of survival, as that which becomes ‘reliable’ to live by, becomes our religion. If it works – even if it has its major flaws or absolute lack of common sense – we accept it as a fact and we make sure that we stick to it, otherwise it is like ‘disrespecting ourselves’ in some way. At least that’s how I would see it, even with petty examples like ‘not listening to this/ that type of music because it doesn’t suit my personality’ and within that, having limited myself from listening to various types of music at some point, just because of it not being in accordance to the entire mood-set that I had created for myself to live by every day for quite some time in my life.
Ludicrous, and I then dared to judge Christianity/ the catholic church so vehemently, never daring to see how I had created this self-religion and the ‘Marlen Church’ as the entire ritual that I created of my day to day living, how I would live every moment ensuring that I would stick to the image I CULTivated of myself, so that I could be able to kind of ‘be proud of myself’ and get a kick out of my creation as this ‘ego’ sticking out in the world.
Becoming self honest is the process of becoming aware of what is really here as the physical world. Self honesty is the opening of the eyes to really see reality and to identify what of reality requires change to what is best for all life. Bernard Poolman
I shifted my eyes to look at the physical reality that I was. I started getting rid of everything that I would put on, wear and mask myself with because I started seeing the deceptive starting point for everything I’d say, do, think… I cannot deny that I would feel like going crazy at times – yes I dubbed that by saying in a video ‘it’s weird at times’ but it was actually a process of seeing this self image just requiring to be demolished, so that I could finally step out of it while applying Self Forgiveness for the extensive fear of loss that I would experience when having to get rid of something, when having to let go of a self-definition that I had deemed as ‘positive’ within myself.
All love and hate aspects within me had to be self forgiven even when still having the perception that ‘I was right in disliking/ judging this/ that,’ all the perceived treats and advantages that I had, all the good and the bad had to be placed on the table to see and realize that if I am here to create myself, this will be done from scratch, having no particular holds on to something that I regard as ‘nice’ or ‘unable to let go of.’ Oh man, that ‘death’ is what we all have to take on as it is in fact the process of liberation from such ego that is then walked as the entire process of Self Honesty. I mean, I’m definitely not ‘done,’ it is an ongoing process that I am in at the point of self-creation wherein the moment that I let go of points, I have to now correct myself and make sure I fill in the gaps of such programming with self—supportive commandos so to speak. That’s then how we create not an ‘entity’ in separation of myself as a ‘better version’ or an ‘upgraded version,’ but as an actual being that is here in simplicity living in common sense, moving myself to create and establish what’s best for myself as what’s best for all.
This is the simplest way we can look at this process. I’ll add another point mentioned by Bernard as well: “Self Honesty is nor nice or beautiful” which is what got me to realize that facing myself, facing my religion was going to be a process wherein I would want to hide beneath that table again, yet only realizing that I could hide there for a limited amount of time until I realized that mindfucks are not able to be sustained that long until we start getting bored and fed up with our usual mind bs, which is actually how I discovered that expanding myself and letting go of this limitations, was the actual ‘freedom’ that I had sought and that I was eager to experience as myself.
Right now we realize that it doesn’t matter how ‘liberated’ one can get at an individual level, None is Free until ALL is Free and within this, we are here to establish a system that will enable ALL Beings to stand equal to the realization that I am sharing here as myself, as who and what we all can become when standing as Equals in a world where everyone is supported As LIFE, so that we can start living and exploring what actual Self Expression is in Equality.
The Fool is the beginning of Process – the Tower and Death is when we let go of this veneer as our ego – we then walk the process until we embrace the entire world as who we really are within standing as the principle that Life is: Equality and Oneness.
We’re already walking it, we are here and you can walk along as well if you see that this makes sense in terms of getting rid of all religions and self-religions to finally be vulnerable and ready to mingle with everyone else in Equality.
MarlenLife's Blog 
December 5th, 2012 at 11:50 am
[…] 2012 Self-Religion: The Tower of the Fool […]