Alexius reflects on his childhood experiences of violence. How his interpretation made him perceive most of the world as horrible and a few selected appearances as wonderful.
As a child, Alexius learned a paradoxical lesson: to be seen as more loveable, he had to suppress emotions his parents deemed negative. However, every experience is a construction of opposites in a world of duality. Hence, you feel disconnected if you suppress negativity to achieve a cheerful look. But you feel connected if you do not perceive negativity and positivity as distinctive feelings, excluding each other, but as a duality pair collaborating to define each other.
From Duality Hack #8.3 in Alexius’ Duality Hacks.
Alexius interpreted many experiences in his childhood as horrible and blamed something outside him for having caused them. Therefore, disassociating himself from his fear, he could hide behind an image of being untouchable. Especially because he also separated himself from his own affectionate feelings by projecting them onto somebody he decided was wonderful.
No matter how deep we bury unwanted thoughts and feelings to hide them from our awareness, suppressed energy always finds the surface, one way or the other.
That seemed to work until Alexius got older and sometimes felt so bothered by the appearances he deemed horrible that his suppressed fear flared out in verbal attacks. Although not physically violent, his outbursts seemed as wild as when his father lost his temper and hit Alexius for not behaving correctly.
So Alexius feared his father would punish him again for not behaving, even though Alexius had long ago run away from his parents. To avoid his old anxiety from breaking out again, Alexius suppressed his hostility by projecting it onto his stomach. This psychological defence mechanism, where one transfers their feelings of anger and fear onto a physical part of his body, he knew from his childhood. Back then, he used it to prevent himself from saying something that would make his father burst out in a rage so violent that it could have been the end of Alexius.
Actually, back then, Alexius found out silence stopped his father’s attacks. In addition to being silent, Alexius tried to look sad and unsound to make his father feel guilty for his cruelty. However, it did not affect his father – only Alexius because he felt guilty. After all, both used each other as a scapegoat for their own psychological issues and emotional struggles.
Evil and purity fighting or cooperating
When Alexius grew up, he felt like he was in a war zone because he never knew when and where his father would hit him again. His mother did not interfere, and he had nowhere to go. So, Alexius felt abandoned. To disassociate himself from feeling vicious, Alexius decided to see his father as evil and himself as pure.
But by disassociating himself from viciousness, he also separated himself from his pureness because viciousness defines it. Therefore, he always looked for purity outside him. But until he faced his suppressed viciousness, he mostly saw the world as evil.
Eventually, he did not hide his viciousness, thus feeling his pureness because it constantly interacted with viciousness. The interaction of this polarity and those that naturally followed made him feel complete. Hence, since there was no fear of evil, he did not need to hide it in himself by perceiving the world as vicious.
Consequently, the apparent difference between himself and the world stopped making a difference. Thus, Alone Together (see Duality Hack #12.1-4), he walks a path without distance to that which is undivided: Oneness.
Alexius hides his perceived negativity in his body
Alexius cannot guarantee that the description of his childhood is correct because he has done it in hindsight. Besides, he is neither a physician nor a psychologist. Nevertheless, in retrospect, it seems he was able to disguise his reactions of fear, aggression and shame to events in his childhood behind the physical problems arising from his congenital disability in the vertebrae.
For example, the malfunctioning vertebra disturbed a nerve going to the stomach, thus making it bloated. Hence, it was easy for Alexius to imagine that his bloated belly was stuffed with the shame he felt when his mother exploited him emotionally as a petite and adorable child to get the affection that her husband could not provide.
Due to Alexius’ bloated stomach, the diaphragm hardened. And since it is the primary mover of the breath, his chest tightened. Hence, it seemed a perfect place to lock up his naivety and natural empathy so he would not be preyed on.
Fortunately, he got in touch with his compassion as he grew up. However, that is another story, so here we go on with Alexius’ childhood and his father, whom he perceived as the devil responsible for the destruction Alexius experienced in himself. Unfortunately, Alexius did not want to realise it was his own viciousness he saw in his father, so he hid his inner demon in the neck, which was weakened by the malfunctioning vertebra.
He also did it because he assumed he would only get his parents’ love by acting like an angel. However, since his parents only loved the divine image he made by suppressing everything devilish, he felt lonely and complained about not being seen.
When the devil behind Alexius’ false front of goodness popped up, he interpreted the psychological disturbance as a physical issue in the neck where he initially imagined hiding his devilishness. Hence, the physical problem became an unsolvable mystery, hiding the helpless little boy inside Alexius, full of sorrow, rage and fear. See Duality Hack #7.1-5 about using the body to hide your feelings.
Alexius’ way to the duality flow
When Alexius was 22 years old, he welcomed the Enlightenment of that which is One (see Duality Hack #10.1-8). It does not change your personality except that you know it is not you. In other words, you return from the Enlightenment of that which is One as nobody pretending to be somebody in a world with more than one (see Duality Hack #2). Therefore, since he knew his distinctive perceptions of the world as either horrible or wonderful were a pretence, he did not need to keep those points of view separated. Hence, he realised they were interdependent – like two sides of a coin. So, in unpleasantness, he felt pleasantness and vice versa.
This interaction made him feel complete, so he had no specific feelings to project onto his body. Those he once had projected onto it were seen in the psychological sphere, where feelings are intangible and constantly interacting with their opposite, for example, helpless and powerful, sorrow and delight, rage and calm, fear and confidence. Many years later, Alexius named the constant interaction of opposites the duality flow.
Since it reduced his psychosomatic disorders to physical issues, the body could deal with them physically. However, the body cannot sort out congenital disabilities completely. So, he still has malfunctioning vertebrae and fallen arches, for example. Yet, everything has been solved so that the experience of being someone in a body has become more comfortable.
Alexius in and out of the duality flow
Out of habit, Alexius still may choose an old, single-minded view of disgust when confronted with something new. Fortunately, he soon remembers that every experience is a pretence made of opposing elements. So then, as from an invisible crack in his conditioned feeling of disgust, a sense of liking unfolds.
Other opposing elements soon replace this interplay. For example, humility and boldness, serenity and lust, calmness and confusion, union and separation, and so on. However, the duality flow is so gratifying that he does not sense when the interplay of one polarity is over and another sets off. The beginning and end are another interaction of opposites that makes him feel adequate.
When one is not trying to control the future, thoughts become unimportant. See Duality Hack #6.4.
In other words, you may overlook the opposing elements in the duality flow. No worries. The duality flow is not about the opposing elements but their interaction. For example, one does not need to label the sides of a coin to sense that it is twofold. Hence, thoughts become insignificant jabber in the background.
A holistic experience is not singular but dualistic in a world of duality. That is why wholeness comes from twofoldness. However, there is no wholeness in non-duality because it takes more than one to be whole.
You do not have to be comparable to the Enlightenment of that which is One to feel completed by twofoldness. You only need to perceive your specific opinion of something as ‘it is what it is.’ That reveals your fixed view is twofold. Hence, you get the satisfaction of duality. We explore that in the following hack. Here, we end with a note about being comparable to the Enlightenment of that which is One.
Everything looks the same after having welcomed the Enlightenment of that which is One. Yet, everything feels different because one knows every experience is a pretence.
One comparable to the Enlightenment of that which is One
Welcoming the Enlightenment of that which is One is a bit like getting to the point of orgasm. Nothing else matters. But whereas the desire for something drives an orgasm, the absence of something fuels the Enlightenment of that which is One.
That does not mean you must become purer by avoiding something, nor must you be harmonious, physically fit or breathe specially. All that is needed is to forget what and where you are. Then, nothing blocks the Enlightenment of that which is One. It does not change your appearance in a world with more than one. But since you keep getting glimpses of the Enlightenment of that which is One, you are constantly reminded that your appearance in a world with more than one is make-believe. So, you are nobody pretending to be somebody.
It feels like role-playing, where one acts out a role in a story governed by the gamemaster. In the case of a world with more than one, the gamemaster is the brain. Being aligned with it, the perception that ‘it is what it is’ comes naturally. Therefore, since the interpretation of past events loses its specific meaning, you are not conditioned by it
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