Nauvoo Gathering, 2003, Part 10
Facing Glamours
JJ: Some religions say you can’t dance or party and you need to do or not do a lot of stuff to be spiritual but that’s not true spirituality. The disciple does not lower the state of true spirituality, but neither does he refrain from having a harmless good time. He lives in a state of harmlessness. DK mentions this again and again and again. The key to progression is always harmlessness. Harmlessness takes judgment because that which appears to be harmless can be harmful like the guy who says let’s just have an affair on the side and no one will find out therefore no one will get hurt. On subtle planes the spouse always knows because there’s an inner communication, and suspicion arises and the relationship goes downhill because the communication between the two has changed.
That’s an example where they think they’re being harmless but they’re not. Other times churches will say you’re being harmful if you wear the wrong kind of clothes. There is generally nothing wrong with that.
Audience: Another example you used in the group a few years ago is Jim Jones or someone like that. He did some pretty good things at first like getting food for hungry people and stuff but then he got into this glamour where he was the best thing for these people and did some pretty harmful things by making people become so reliant on him.
JJ: Harmfulness is really difficult to judge. When Jesus showed up on the scene the Jews said to him, “You’re trying to destroy our way of life and our law. You’re trying to destroy the law of Moses. You’re an awful guy.” But was Jesus creating the harm? From where did the harm come? A lot of it was their imagination because destroying their black and white idea of the law was really a good thing. Whenever we are attached to something and that attachment is destroyed we think it’s bad. In reality it’s usually good.
This is the basic teaching of Buddha. Release yourself from attachments and you can then attain Nirvana. It’s the same as the words of Jesus telling us to release your self from the old kingdom and go with the new way of attaining heaven. Two important things need to be overcome in the second initiation. Those are glamour and the pull of the emotions. You need to master the emotions. Can someone tell me what DK means when he talks about glamour? Could we say glamour is an inflation of the ego around some idea about itself?
Audience: Can a glamour also have more of a negative connotation like I’m not worthy or not good enough?
JJ: Right. It can be both ways and there’s ever the glamour of false humility where someone says I’m not nearly as good as you when they’re really thinking I’m a lot better than you. Have you ever met people like that?
Audience: What if you believe that?
JJ: You mean is it a glamour? It can be. A glamour is something that gives the ego more control over you. The glamour of humility leads one to say, “I need to be really humble because if I’m humble enough I can be accepted by God.” So the guy goes around being overly humble all the time thinking it makes him righteous. If he does it with that attitude it is a glamour. If he does it with the attitude of true humility thinking I’m either at this stage or that stage so I’ll act like I’m on the lower stage so I won’t be disappointed. That’s okay. That’s a good way to do it because we’re usually on the lower part of where we think we are. Jesus shared a parable about this. The master of the house was having a dinner and the most important guest would sit next to him.
Jesus said if you go in there thinking you’re the important guest and sit next to the master and get told you don’t belong there and get sent to the opposite end of the table you’ll feel really embarrassed. In this way He told us to be humble and just assume we’re at the low end of the table. If you go sit at the low end of the table the master might ask you to come closer and sit next to him. Then you’ll feel good. But if you’re told go back and sit with the scum or sit with the rejects back there when you thought you were right up there with the master you’ll be embarrassed. This is a good way to approach it. If we don’t know we should assume the lower aspect rather than the higher.
Audience: What the second initiation symbolizes in Jesus’ life…was that in the desert?
JJ: No what was symbolized in Jesus’ life as the second initiation was when He was baptized in the River Jordan and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him. In the second initiation you overcome glamour and become humble because you aren’t controlled by glamours anymore. We need to overcome those glamours and negate them so we don’t over inflate our importance. We’re humble and submit to the baptism of the spirit then that’s a symbol of the second initiation.
Glamour is the inflation of self by the ego. The ego takes different aspects of ourselves and builds up their importance. This happens as we develop the feeling nature. Before the feeling nature is developed we’re tribal people living on instincts. The primitive man is very instinctual because he’s very closely connected to the animal kingdom, and animals have very powerful instincts. They react very quickly to these instincts and the primitive man is used to acting very instinctual. He has not thought of himself as important or not. He just thought of himself as a member of the tribe and did what the internal computer program told him to do.
When we develop the feeling nature we learn the power of romantic love, the power of anger and love and hate and all these different emotions. Associated with that, the feelings amplify things. When the feelings amplify our sense of importance we develop a problem. All of us have gone through cycles in our past lives and maybe even our current one where we feel like we are very important people. Probably the most important people on the planet are the Masters and the most important of them is the Christ Himself. An interesting thing He said when people were saying He was great was, “Of myself I can do nothing. It is the father within me that does the works. It’s not me that’s doing these things. It is the father within me because of myself I can do nothing.”
What does that tell you about Christ? He had mastered glamour. He didn’t see Himself as all important. One reason was even though He was doing something important from our perspective, He saw a bigger perspective and knew what He was doing was small in relation to the universe or the whole solar system. This is the way it is. We may see ourselves as very important yet all you need to do to feel unimportant is to look up at the stars at night. Each one of those stars is either a galaxy or a solar system. If it’s a galaxy it’s composed of over 200 billion billion star systems, billion of planets, and millions of beings that are probably smarter than we are. The self importance just evaporates. It’s a tendency of glamour to make one think that he’s the most important person on the earth. Have you ever met someone who thinks they’re the most important person on the planet?
Audience: I think that’s a loaded question. (Laughter) Yes.
JJ: Most of us have at one time or another. I met a guy awhile back who thought he was a master. Pretty soon he thought he was the Ancient of Days, then a short time later he thought he was the Solar Logos. Last time I saw him he thought he was the god over the whole galaxy. By now he probably thinks he’s the god over the whole universe. It’s funny how people’s egos can really get a hold of them.
Audience: We have Joseph Smith reincarnated in Manti who has also been Jesus, Moses and Adam.
JJ: He isn’t god of the planet yet?
Audience: I think that’s what he’s saying now. He goes through the Adam/God doctrine.
JJ: Pretty soon he’ll grow up to be the Solar Logos.
Audience: I don’t think he knows about that or he would be it!
JJ: I used to joke when I taught metaphysics and tell everyone to pick who they were because there are only so many really important people to be. You can be Jesus or you can be Napoleon or you can be Joseph Smith but you need to pick now before they’re taken. Somebody has to be those guys. The chances of being somebody important in history are really pretty small though. If we think we are that person we should probably reexamine the probabilities because they’re pretty small. So we have to overcome our various glamours.
Audience: How do we go about doing that?
JJ: “You probably have. I can’t see much glamour in you so maybe you know how to do it.” (laughter)
Audience: “By not answering questions.” (Laughter)
Audience: “Shed light on it.”
JJ: Yeah, that sometimes helps when you shed light on the glamour. I told the Keys the story of when I thought I was a good singer. This is before we had tape recorders so I couldn’t listen to myself when I was about 14, 15, 16… something like that, I loved Del Shannon. I loved the song, Runaway and I loved the falsetto: wah wah wah wah. I used to listen to it all the time. I drove everyone around me crazy. “So, don’t you think I’m a good singer?” I asked my sister.
“No, you’re a terrible singer,” she would say.
“No, I sound just like him.” I thought.
My dad who was visiting was so fed up so he borrowed a tape recorder. Hardly anyone had tape recorders in those days. He went way out of his way brought it home and said, “Here sing into this.” And I sang into it . Dad played it back with a gleeful look on his face. I heard it and I was horror stricken! Man, I’m never going to sing again. (laughter)
Now, that doesn’t happen today because you grow up listening to yourself on recorders. So you’re not in shock. I had never heard myself on a tape recorder. It was total shock. It probably took half the glamour out of me that I ever had in my entire life. But it was probably a really good lesson for me because ever since then I’ve checked myself. Maybe I’m not as good as I think I am.
Audience: That corresponds, but I meant, shine soul light on it.
JJ: Shedding a light of any kind would help. A person with a glamour is a little bit like an alcoholic. With an alcoholic you help him by gathering everyone together; friends and relatives and you confront him and tell him he screwed up his life as well as others. And when he hears everybody telling the same story, the alcoholic thinks well maybe there is something to it. Sometimes it does work.
So if a person with a glamour gets told again and again; you are not the center of the universe. You are not an enlightened Master incarnated here on the earth, you are pretty much a regular guy. Maybe that will eventually sink in.
Usually the soul doesn’t shed light until we have to go through some painful experience that forces us to look upon the soul and, unfortunately, until we become fairly highly evolved we have to learn by going through quite a bit of pain. Pain forces us to examine ourselves. Once a person achieves a high enough degree of soul contact he can avoid a considerable amount of pain in life because when you trust the soul you can avoid having to learn from pain.
Until you learn to trust the soul you will have a lot of pain, which will eventually teach you. I have received impressions from the soul that I didn’t follow. I underwent a tremendous pain. So next time I learned to follow the inner knowing instead of not trusting it. This is what makes us trust the soul as time passes on. We ignore the soul at first. We think it is our imagination or just our self talking, and we learn to pay attention because the pain happens when we don’t pay attention. Eventually we learn to go around the pain. The pain in this world is impossible to eliminate 100%. The person that is connected in the soul when he has pain won’t be bothered so much because he learns to override it or ignore it, or if he is facing two directions and one will lead to pain, he can take the direction that will avoid the pain.
But on the other hand, of course, there are certain times when you will have conflict if you are in the soul. It is unavoidable yet the conflict that happens when you are in the soul is a joyous thing. Even though people around you will think that it is a terrible thing when you are in the conflict, in the midst of it, it will actually be very stimulating; a little bit like Evil Knievel riding his motorcycle over a canyon. It is exhilarating for the guy even though it is dangerous. That’s the way it is when you are following the soul and the soul guides you in a direction that is a little dangerous. You go ahead and do it and you know it involves some risk, a lot of risk sometimes. You’ll be in it for the thrill, as Rick says.
Have you had some thrills like that feeling like a motorcycle over the Grand Canyon?
Audience: When has my life not been like that? I’d like to know?
JJ: I know a little bit about this audience member, she’s been on some crazy ups and downs of life so I pick on her a little, probably some others here too
Audience: Well, to begin with my father was a Multiple personality, manic depressive, alcoholic. (Laughter)
Audience: Enough said.
Audience: Otherwise he is a great guy.
Audience: Otherwise a great guy, yeah. Depending on which personality he was.
JJ: My dad was an alcoholic too and all the other alcoholics sure loved him.
Audience member: I’ve been married a time or two.
Audience: ‘fess up!
JJ: We have a big advantage with glamours. To overcome something when you don’t know what you are doing takes a lot of trial and error to do it. We have the advantage of understanding specifically what glamours are because DK points them out. When we need to overcome them it gives us tremendous advantage over people who don’t have these teachings. Let’s name three glamours. Can anyone name one?
Audience: Messiah complex.
JJ: Yeah, that’s a big complex. People that think they are here to save the world, even though the world doesn’t want to be saved.
Audience: Martyr complex.
JJ: Yeah, that is a glamour too. Why is martyr complex a glamour?
Audience: Control?
JJ: How does the ego benefit by the guy being a martyr?
Audience: It’s like a stigmata thing. I’m so important I’m being persecuted.
JJ: Yeah, there are many things that will appear like he’s humble, sacrificing himself, but what he is doing is really motivated around drawing attention to himself. “For the good of the group I will fade out and disappear. You guys don’t want me.” You know the martyr complex.
Or in a relationship, “I’ll just get out of your way so I won’t be a problem anymore and won’t be any trouble to you” whereas the person really wants you to say “Oh please come back. I need you so much.” What he’s really wanting is that feeling of self-importance. Can you tell me another glamour?
Audience: Control.
JJ: All glamour is around control to a degree. That’s not necessarily a specific glamour.
Audience: Chosen one.
JJ: That’s a little bit like the Messiah complex. People think that God has chosen them for something. When you read about the chosen people in the Bible it can be translated another way it can be translated as the people who are choosing God. The true chosen people are the ones who have chosen God. Those who choose a true spiritual life, those are the true spiritual people.
Audience: Narcissistic type of thing, you know the end all of creation.
JJ: That’s a possibility
Audience: I don’t know how to put it in words, it has something to do with not being able to trust others. I think it’s kind of a glamour when you don’t trust anybody else because nobody else is trustworthy. No one is worthy of your trust. I think that’s a form of glamour. I’m not quite sure how to put it in words.
Audience: Like, he’s the only one that can be trusted.
Audience: Like I’m the only trustworthy one, no one else is trustworthy.
JJ: Yeah. Yeah. It comes back to where it is centered on you. I can’t trust anybody else. I have to do it all myself. Nobody else can do anything.
Audience: No one else is trustworthy.
JJ: Actually, unfortunately, sometimes that is true. Sometimes there’s one person in the group that is reliable. Sometimes it is a glamour and sometimes it’s just the way it is. But oftentimes the person uses that as a control mechanism so he can draw attention to his importance. So when it is drawing attention to his importance, then it’s a glamour.
Audience: is that #3 of the three glamours?
JJ: What’s your name again? Jon? Jon, mentioned narcissistic.
Audience: is that the third one, narcissism, superiority complex?
JJ: Yeah, superiority complex is a big one. False humility is another subtle one. There are a lot of subtle glamours people use to get control and to draw attention to themselves. They are very subtle. It draws attention to themselves, but in their mind they think they are being humble. Like the glamour of false humility. I was just talking about this to somebody today about how some say, “I could never be as good as you, you are so far above me, I could never be as good as you are.” But as a rule they are really thinking, “I am as good as you. I’m just pretending that I’m not.” Sometimes people will have a false humility that really just draws attention to themselves.
JJ: What’s a real conspicuous glamour?
Audience: Fame and popularity
JJ: Well it depends, you know a person can be a quarterback and have no glamours. The person that has no glamours is looking at his position correctly. A quarterback with no glamour will think, “Well, a quarterback is an important position. That’s true. And I better play it right because if I don’t I’m going to screw up the game for everybody.” That’s not being glamorous. If a quarterback has a glamour he’ll start using “I” a lot, like the game is revolving around him.
Audience: Like: I am the best, I’m the most…
JJ: Yeah, “You better do what I say, or you better cooperate with me,” like he’s the game, as if the other players don’t mean anything. Then that’s a glamour. When a person has an important position it is really easy to manifest glamours at that point.
The glamour where the ego is exalted must be overcome to pass the second initiation.
“Only those who can clearly differentiate between the two aspects of their nature, the real self and the illusory self, can work intelligently.” DK, Treatise on White Magic, Page 53
Dec 11, 2003
Copyright by J J Dewey
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