Instinctive Level

When we are caught up in gender-identity perspectives, conditioning supports us as we pay attention only to those who reinforce a positive view of ourselves. There are three levels. Instinctive Motives drive us: 1) to try to possess more material things than we have in order to increase our sense of safety (Greed), 2) to present a false sense of confidence about what we know in order to create a false sense of security (Arrogance), or 3) to focus on others who are more beautiful or handsome than us in order to leverage our self-perceived image (Lust). Conditioning keeps us from feeling like victims, preventing us from associating with people we think of as victimized. Conditioning accomplishes this by focusing on pre-established beliefs about who we are. We end up operating with a false sense of safety when we project our beliefs on actual experience and are unable to embrace our truth in the moment. Many see this false certainty as reassuring because they do not need to be present to determine the truth anew. The problem is that we are operating from a context of scarcity and fear, believing that no one will want to be with us if we do not know who we are. We are taught it is better to seem certain and clear then to be undefined or open to examination.

Ironically, it is the fear of rejection and abandonment that drives us to cover up neediness and present a superficial persona where we pretend we do not need what we need. The cost of operating in a motive of Greed is that we cannot see the greediness of others and frequently find ourselves in conflict and unable to trust others. When we operate in a motive of Arrogance, it is almost impossible to see when others are lying or exaggerating their skills or experience, because that is what we are doing to them. When we operate in a motive of Lust, we cannot see that the attraction of others is superficial because we are operating superficially. On the Instinctive level, self-objectification ends up hurting us when others turn around and return the favor. In each modality, our self-denial attracts others with complementary denials. We end up exploiting each other’s lack until there is nothing left. This occurs when we do not value ourselves beyond Gender Identities. We believe our appearance matters more than who we are.

The Instinctive motives, Greed, Lust and Arrogance, reflect an external attachment that reflects a denial of our Creative Self. People operating in instinctive motives always appear superficial and disconnected from their internal creative source. For example, by objectifying what others have, we unconsciously objectify ourselves when we compare our “self” to another “self”. We want to have more than them to feel safe (in terms of possessions, different ideas, and sex appeal). Our conditioning acts only to support and reinforce that safety by keeping our appetites and options open. The challenge is to stay open in the face of negative feedback from parents and society. As a result we learn to present a side of us that is opposite from our internal experience. The more we deny our creative truth, the more we need these appetites to be fulfilled. The tragedy is that we get caught between looking right and being real. Over time we realize that others more likely believe appearances over inner truth, so we learn to conform.

Attachments to role-playing are a direct result of actual needs being denied. When we hold on to the belief that we will not be supported, it increases our desire to hold on to what we think we need. If others suggest that something is important by their actions, who are we to question their perspective? An attachment to beauty/handsomeness, being seen as intelligent and powerful and possessing sex appeal are three frameworks that reflect and represent our Gender Identity power. Individuals who get caught up in this process need to create an edge to feel powerful to attract others. Without an edge they feel powerless to fulfill their appetites. This is why those who operate primarily on an instinctive level become expert seducers. Those who do not become seducers use Expectations, Romantic Mythology and Control to make sure that others need them. The four Pretenses (Expectations, Romantic Mythology, Control and Seduction) emphasize the perception that others need to meet us in particular ways that support our perceived images of self.

As we find ourselves evaluating the good and bad of everything around us, it reinforces a material view of our self and the universe. We create an artificial separation between the physical us and the physical universe to promote a sense of personal identity. Whenever we make a choice about the goodness or badness of any situation, it actually reflects our current interpretation of reality, which reaffirms that we are separate and distinct. When we take the perspective that any situation is either good or bad, this occurs at the cost of being unified with the universe. When we merge our actions with another out of fear, it becomes a conditioned reaction to reassure us that we are not alone. When we consciously connect to our wholeness commonly identified here as our creative self, we can see that this fear of separation is only an outer appearance that has no power over us.

By being present with this fear, we experience not only our wholeness within our self, but reaffirm our connection to all that exists. Transmuting our fears in this way permits us to operate with a oneness that is uplifting and inspiring to be around. Let us let go of the perspective that anything is either good or bad. Let us release our attachment to our personal experience so that we can engage the larger universal experience around us. This does not mean that we in any way need to deny our personal experience, for it reflects our ownership of the larger universal truth in a more localized manner. Let us let go of being identified with our behavior and thereby feel connected to whatever we are experiencing. See how asserting our perspective limits our perceptions and provides only a black and white perspective that becomes the WorldView that reflects only creative denial.

Healing our instinctive conditioning means letting go of our attachments to either good or bad, so that we can truly see things in this moment. Let us not color our experience by attempting to fit everything in prescribed frameworks of predefined benefit or loss. Instead, we can choose to taste the richness of life by examining everything in terms of “isness”. The great inner dissonance and fear where we make others bad to increase our internal sense of goodness. Some of us also become attached to being a victim where we need to make others good so that we can be bad. Instead of measuring the relative merit of our deeds, let us find a third path to unify our nature. Let us choose to let go of any inherent goodness or badness so that we no longer need to protect or reflect how everything relates to our personality self. Let us operate in a way where every aspect of our being is in alignment with our ability to take action without goodness or badness being considered. Let us step into our world where we wholeheartedly experience our being and do not lose our self in what others will think.

When our action is whole and uncompromised it is because we are not evaluating our situation only in terms of our benefit because we know that the universe will support us. When we are open in our interpretations of our experience, it is easier to unify our actions with others in response to universal intent. This is only true when our fears do not predefine our response. Seeing all actions as part of a collage in the expression of universal intent allows us to be the integrating force behind conscious manifestation of larger possibilities. When we lose our connection to our self we also lose our ability to unify our actions with others. Our fearful reactions give away our need to act unilaterally and in effect guarantee that we are going to be distanced from them.

By owning our fear, we can step beyond our conditioning and operate in a manner as an agent of the universe. This requires that we hold in abeyance our beliefs about how things should be, so that things can work out. Any expectation about how things should be automatically separates us from others. This reinforces our conditioning and puts us in the position of constantly justifying our personal needs by the actions we take, since these expectations contain judgments and pre-established evaluations. Let us open ourselves to all possibilities, including the possibility that nothing needs to be done right now. It is only when we can embrace our stillness that we actually know when we are being invited by the universe to take action.

Let us accept our playfulness and natural passionate expression and validate it by how others respond to us when we are operating in alignment with Universal Intent. Universal Intent is what occurs, particularly what changes in the universe moment to moment. Any reactions to our actions indicate the likelihood that we are not including others in our process enough to operate in alignment with them. Let us honor that the response of others that engage us deeper is much more useful than our reaction where we are polarized from each other. Let us see our vulnerability when our actions do not align as opportunities to discover a deeper common truth.

It is only when we evaluate others based on our conditioning that we open ourselves to being hurt by the evaluation of others. Let us imagine how we can operate in a state of simple pleasure at being our Creative Self. From this perspective, we allow our actions to develop within us and emerge when they want to be born. In a way, all possible actions are pregnant opportunities that are only given birth when they are called upon by the universe.

Let us release any attachment to defining our selves in terms of what we do or do not do. Sometimes this type of separation reflects how we like the reassurance of certain actions or how we dislike when our actions are revealed to be a superficial façade that we had no intention of fulfilling. We accomplish this by withdrawing our energy from any positive of negative associations where we affirm our personality perspective at the cost of our higher creative connection. This means that we need to act in an uncompromised manner by being more inclusive about the impact of our actions on others, so our actions are naturally in unity with the actions of others. We call this experience of being present with our actions being whole or complete in our being. Let us experience the divinity that comes from an inner spiritual experience of being connected to our actions without being attached in any way. We then experience our self as an extension of the universe that naturally responds to its needs. May we experience the oneness that comes with consciously aligning our actions with others.

Unconscious Motives Are Pre-established Patterns Of Interaction

When we date others it is possible to quickly detect when motives are not aligned or complementary. Unconscious motives reflect beliefs about how others should defer, respect or esteem us to match our own self-perceptions. When we do not get the responses that we (or others) expect, we immediately believe we are not right together. Impatience becomes amplified when our partners do not take our point of view and reassure us. This is the cost of the current values in our time-focused society. Motives have become more important as society has become time based, when selecting potential partners. We no longer allow possibilities to be revealed over time. First impressions must be good for us to be willing to discover more about a potential partner. In this way we fall into a trap of believing our initial ideas about someone are in fact the reality of the person. This would be true if we were not self-protective and were not hiding aspects of ourselves we may not accept. Unfortunately, most childhood training is about acting in conformance with anyone who threatens our safety, security or survival issues. The more we believe our beliefs reflect who we are, the more we are unable to see what is beyond the belief systems of others.

The diagram entitled “12 Dating Rejections (Reflecting A Non-Alignment Of Motives)” provides examples of how differences in motives create discomfort and fear. As our personality automatically seeks greater safety and security, we tend to draw negative conclusions when someone does not respond the way we expect, they possess different fears that we consider weak, or operate in ways we consider unfair or unethical. Instinctive motives support the belief that all is fair in love and war as long as you do not get caught. Intellectual motives reflect the ways we differentiate ourselves from others, which, if a partner discounts our self-perceived contributions, it creates the perception that we possess limited value in relationship with them. Idealized motives are particularly important on a first date as we want to assess the degree of interest in us by another to avoid any possibility of long term rejection. We operate to protect ourselves by rejecting them first if we perceive that we need the relationship more than they need us. Only Intuitive motives are genuinely reassuring, for there is no need to protect or enhance our self-image. We intuitively realize that seducing a partner only leads to difficult, entangled relationships not worth keeping.

While Instinctive rejections are concerned with outer appearance and what others will think, Intellectual rejections are primarily concerned with our power or the apparent lack of it. It is appropriate to see the value in being rejected, as it is our own ideals that may be reflected by another’s lack of interest or commitment to meet the passions that motivate us. The sooner we learn this, the easier it is to move on to find others who will appreciate us in appropriate ways. This is why we should always be thankful when others reject us because it delineates the differences that will help us find partners who honor us. Even at the Intuitive level, there are effective reasons that describe real differences in our awareness. There are three Intuitive rejections that reflect differences in perceptions about our degree of actualization: Self-Presence, Creative Awareness, and Creative Self-Love. Operating with partners who do not match us on these levels can be difficult. Unfortunately, most people do not have this degree of inner discrimination and cannot precisely identify what is different about them. These are always the most difficult type of rejections because we cannot identify the deeper truth behind them.

Many people attempt to present a different image from what fear they are when they have received initial rejections they believe are unfair. The construction of self-image is not only based on what we would like to believe, but on what we can get others to believe about us. Motives are scary when they reveal a facade as superficial. Why people resist motive investigation is because when we see our true motives, and realize that others can see us more clearly at times, we know our personality faults will be completely visible, no matter what we do to cover them up. These compromises create a large overhead that cannot be maintained indefinitely. A larger difficulty with motives is how we forget we are compromised and end up seeing only one half of the issue. When we deny the dualistic nature of the nine lower motives, it traps us in the belief that everything is okay, when in fact, we are not moving forward.

We experience greater fear when we operate with similar compromises (meaning the same motives). For this reason we tend to seek partners that possess complementary motives, particularly if they are willing to reassure us about our possible concerns. With complementary motives we do not have to grow or expand our sense of self. We can play small, do what provides a sense of comfort and let life pass us by. This is the trap of conditioning. When we are unwilling to engage in activities for fear of what they may reveal about us, we end up hiding. It reflects we have not learned to accept, acknowledge and affirm our deeper natural creative nature. We falsely believe others’ statements and negative beliefs about us. It is important we realize that many of these statements are more a reflection of the conditioning of the people sharing them, their intention to convey what they believe are the proper expectations to have. This reveals how conditioning gets transferred from generation to generation without conscious questioning if we believe it supports our basic development.

Beliefs only support and reinforce personality concerns. Beliefs are primarily used to offset Safety fears and in this way provide a form of artificial reassurance. The patterns of Motives that a person engages reflect fixed beliefs about who they are and what they want from a relationship. In effect, we are held hostage by beliefs about whom we are when we operate from unconscious motives. The diagram, “Motive Beliefs”, shows the typical perception frameworks through which we encounter the world. As these become the predominant methods of affirming our Truth, we ignore anything that is in conflict with our beliefs. Then everything becomes a struggle and requires effort to bring to fruition. Most of our mythological tales reflect individuals fighting with their Motives to become better people. This can be seen by how we need to be the hero or heroine that accomplishes or embodies something others want and need.  It is important to understand that these beliefs reflect half-truths that we have been trained to believe are whole truths. The more we affirm the unexamined beliefs, the more we feel we are distanced from the underlying fears. Ironically, perspective about our motives becomes who we think we are, when in reality it is a trained reaction to how we were not initially seen or valued.

Noticing which beliefs we reinforce can become a self-diagnostic that reveals where we are in the process of transmuting our fears. Using the “Motive Beliefs” diagram, take a moment to go through and consider which of the 12 motives you are currently engaging to prove something to someone you know. Consider how the choices of motives reflect what you believe are your strengths and the degree to which you are performing complementary motives that diminish or offset the beliefs you hold. For example, if you identify yourself with a motive of Personal Achievement, consider if your partner has identified themselves with a motive of Personal Dominion. It might be interesting to note if Self-Serving Activity is a “war zone” where we try to honor our own time over the time we want to spend with others. We might also consider which motives we operated in with previous relationships. Perhaps we originally acted more from Instinctive Motives, which then progressed to Intellectual and Idealized Motives. The more we accept ourselves where we are and can be present with our Truth, the higher are the motives being applied when connecting with others.