Handbook To Higher Consciousness
Chapter 23
The Programming of Happiness and Unhappiness

Chapter 23

The Programming of Happiness and Unhappiness

In this chapter we will set forth three types of basic programming for your biocomputer and show the way they operate to produce unhappiness, happiness, or bliss.

Definitions

First we need three definitions:

1. Unhappiness is a psychological state arising from the more or less continuous disappointment, frustration and emotional tension we experience when life repeatedly gives us what we do not want to accept.
2. Happiness is a psychological state arising from more or less continuous pleasure. Pleasure comes from that which we tell ourselves we want to accept.
3. Bliss is a state of continuous happiness.

Three Types Of Programming

In the Living Love Way to Higher Consciousness, we think in terms of three types of programs for our biocomputer:

1. Addictive Programming. This type of programming is tied in with emotional responses produced in the limbic areas of our biocomputer. The use of this type of circuitry makes us experience varying degrees of emotional tension regarding our fears and desires. When our biocomputer processes the incoming sensory information and finds that it threatens the fulfillment of any one of our addictive programs, our consciousness will be dominated by feelings such as fear, anger, resentment, jealousy, or anxiety. Even when we get what we addictively want, our wanting to keep things that way automatically creates a new addiction! And we are thereby even more deeply enmeshed in an endless network of emotion-backed demands that yield continuous threat, tension and unhappiness. Happiness varies inversely with addictions.
2. Preferential Programming. When we have Preferential Programming, our biocomputer does not connect the fulfillment or lack of fulfillment with the limbic areas in such a way that emotional responses of fear, anger, jealousy, resentment, etc. Are produced. For example, if one has Addictive Programming regarding clear weather during a picnic, he will upset himself if it rains and his whole day is ruined. If he has Preferential Programming for sunny skies during a picnic and the rain comes, he just notices that his preference is not being realized. He gathers the things together and continues to enjoy the picnic in the shelter of a gazebo or the car. The flow of the here-and-now appreciation of life is not upset when you have Preferential Programming.
3. Bliss Programming. When a person has escaped from all of his Addictive Programs and has enjoyed the happiness-yielding Preferential Programs for a sufficient period of time, it is possible to work toward what we call Bliss Programming. Bliss Programming permits us to achieve a state of continuous happiness that is not related to any variable life realities. The nature of all life is that we win some and we lose some. When we unitively merge with everything, winning and losing are one. Bliss Programming enables us to totally break our dependence on the actions of people or any external conditions (including our bodies).

The Mechanism of Unhappiness

Diagram 1 on the next page shows the mechanism of unhappiness that is associated with the first three Centers of Consciousness — Security, Sensation and Power. This diagram illustrates the problem of finding happiness when our biocomputer is programmed with fears and desires that are backed up by emotional circuitry. Ninety-nine percent of the people in the world today operate their biocomputers with this type of programming that produces unhappiness in varying degrees. Let’s see why.

Let us suppose that you dislike criticism and that your biocomputer is programmed to give you feelings of resentment and anger when someone criticizes you. This may be called Addictive Dislike Programming in which you tell yourself, I dislike criticism. Regardless of our likes or dislikes, the variable life reality is that sometimes we will receive criticism (Condition P — stimulus present) and sometimes we will not receive criticism (Condition Nstimul us not present).

When life gives us Condition P, in which we are criticized, the effect on our consciousness is short-term disappointment, frustration, or suffering. When Condition N occurs and we do not receive criticism, we experience neither disappointment nor pleasure. In other words, it may have no effect on our consciousness. Right now, you are not being criticized, not being beaten up physically, not being starved — and the fact that these things are not happening results in no feeling of either disappointment or pleasure since your consciousness is not preoccupied with the matter. However, if one’s consciousness is preoccupied with a situation, Addictive Dislike Programming, Condition N, will bring pleasure. For example, consider the pleasure a man feels who is pardoned from the electric chair!

Now let’s see what happens in those instances in which our biocomputer operates with Addictive Desire Programming. Suppose you have the programming I desire sex. If the variable life reality offers us Condition P in which sex occurs, the effect on our consciousness is to experience a short-term pleasure. However, when we have programmed ourselves to desire sex and life gives us Condition N in which sex does not occur, we experience short-term disappointment and suffering.

Diagram 1 — The Mechanism of Unhappiness

Type of Programming: ADDICTIVE (Emotion-backed) PROGRAMMING
Direction of Energy Flow: Manipulating Subject-Object Relationships
Associated Centers of Consciousness: Security, Sensation and Power Centers

Diagram 2 — The Mechanism of Happiness

Type of Programming: PREFERENTIAL (Non-Emotion-backed) PROGRAMMING
Direction of Energy Flow: Unconditional Acceptance or Love.
Associated Centers of Consciousness: Love, Cornucopia and Conscious-awareness Centers

Diagram 3 — The Mechanism of Bliss

Type of Programming: BLISS PROGRAMMING
Direction of Energy Flow: Unitive Oneness
Associated Center of Consciousness: Cosmic Consciousness Center

If all of the above four conditions are equally probable, our life will have the following pleasure-suffering ratios:

The above assumptions imply that half of our life will be spent in experiencing disappointment, frustration and suffering, 37.5% of the time we will experience pleasure and 12.5% will be without either suffering or pleasure. This, of course, is a theoretical model of a single addiction to help us understand the mechanism of happiness and unhappiness. Unfortunately, there is a factor that operates to keep us from experiencing pleasure even 37.5% of the time. We can call this factor The Mosquito Effect.

If you are trying to sleep and there are ten mosquitoes whining around your head at night, you may get up and with considerable effort manage to get rid of most of them. But even though you are 90 per cent effective in eliminating the mosquitoes, it only takes one mosquito whining around your head and biting you to keep you awake. Similarly, it only takes one dislike or fear or one unfulfilled desire with strong emotional programming to intermittently or even continuously dominate your consciousness. And you have hundreds of such mosquitoes buzzing around your head!

When we were born into this world, we were programmed with several simple desires and fears. For example, we had Addictive Dislike Programming about loud noises that startled us, to which we would respond by crying. We had Addictive Desire Programming regarding eating from time to time. Since infancy, we have expanded the half dozen simple demands we place upon our world into literally hundreds of emotion-backed demands or addictions. Many individuals can use Addictive Desire Programming coupled with Condition N to feel frustration and suffering if they cannot afford the latest model automobile that Detroit is offering as a solution to one’s security, sex and power addictions!

Neurosis and psychosis (as well as the garden variety of anxiety, disappointment, frustration and suffering) are all directly attributable to the very complex addictive emotional circuitry with which we have burdened ourselves. It is remarkable that human biocomputers function even as well as they do when you consider that every second we are processing millions of incoming nerve impulses to ascertain which patterns have furthering or depriving effects on the myriad of likes and dislikes with which we have blithely programmed ourselves.

Even if life gives us 90 per cent of what we want and protects us from 90 per cent of what we dislike or fear, the remaining 10 per cent will nag our consciousness, dominate our perceptions, perpetuate the churning of our rational mind to solve the problem, and otherwise keep us from experiencing the state of happiness. For the state of happiness is experienced only when we have an almost continual experience of accepting whatever is here and now in our lives. Just as one mosquito buzzing around our head can keep us awake at night, it may take only one addiction to keep us from experiencing happiness.

The Mechanism of Happiness

A study of Diagram 2 shows that happiness becomes an effective reality in one’s life to the degree that we convert our Addictive Programming into Preferential Programming — the kind that does not activate negative emotions. For when we have upleveled our addictions to preferences, we can accept whatever life variables might present themselves without triggering the emotional feelings of disappointment, frustration and suffering. Suppose, for example, sex is a preference rather than an emotion-backed addiction. When sex does not happen, there is no effect on happiness. But when it does happen, there is a feeling of pleasure.

Similarly, if one has Prefer-not-to Programming such as I prefer not to have a flat tire on my car, one will not suffer frustration when life throws a flat tire at us (Condition P). We simply observe the reality of the flat tire, and we immediately start doing whatever we need to do to get it changed. When we have Preferential Programming, the flat tire will give us neither pleasure nor suffering. Since our consciousness will be free of the negative feelings triggered by Addictive Programming, we will be free to enjoy whatever there is to enjoy while we’re changing the tire. We may notice things in the world around us that would have been otherwise unobserved and thus not enjoyed. Perhaps our consciousness will permit us to appreciate the physical motions we engage in when we efficiently change a tire.

When Condition N occurs coupled with Prefer-not-to Programming, we will experience one of two possible effects depending on whether our consciousness is preoccupied with the matter. If I know air is leaking slowly from a tire and the service station is one block away, I will experience short-term pleasure if the tire takes me to the service station. However, if my consciousness is not at all concerned with the tires, the fact that the tire does not go flat has no effect on my feelings of pleasure or suffering. Hence, Prefer-not-to Programming offers either short-term pleasure or no effect on one’s feelings.

Diagram 2 shows that no frustration or suffering is possible in a life situation that has Preferential Programming. Prefer-not-to Programming (Condition P) and Prefer-to Programming (Condition N) do not produce either suffering or pleasure. When we enjoy Preferential Programming, all happenings just pass by as part of our here and now — just like birds flying across the sky. Prefer-to Programming with Condition P brings us pleasure.

If all four conditions are equally probable, two of the four will have no effect on our feelings, one of the four will bring us pleasure and one will bring either no effect or will bring pleasure.

The Addictive Programming shown in Diagram 1 indicates that the likelihood of suffering exceeds that of pleasure if all four conditions are equally probable. With Preferential Programming, we have vastly improved the pleasure-suffering ratios. Happiness, which is more or less continuous pleasure, is now a real possibility. Based on our simplified theoretical model, here are the improved odds you get with each addiction you can uplevel to a preference:

Since Preferential Programming can insulate us from the downs in life, we are then free to enjoy only the ups. This type of programming is characteristic of the Love Center of Consciousness and the Cornucopia Center of Consciousness. Since a mature adult in these higher consciousness levels will have many preferential circuits, the opportunities for pleasure are continuous or almost continuous. For happiness is the continuous or almost continuous experience of getting what you are willing to accept.

When our biocomputers instantly scan the actions and words of all of the people around us in terms of the degree of threat or assistance to realizing our Addictive Programming, real love is impossible. Real love, of course, flows from the unconditional acceptance of another person. The love that is most common in our culture is the illusion of love in which I can love you only to the extent that you do not threaten my addictions and to the extent that you help me realize my addictive desires. I am trapped in the illusion that I can love you only to the degree that you help me obtain Addictive Desire, Condition P, life situations and help me avoid both Addictive Dislike, Condition P and Addictive Desire, Condition N, happenings! As soon as you begin to hinder rather than help me with my addictions, this conditional type of love immediately goes out the window!

Real love is possible when I reprogram my biocomputer with Preferential Programming. I can then unconditionally accept everything you do or say — regardless of whether I am willing to do or say the same things myself. For when I have Prefer-to or Prefer-not-to Programming, there is nothing you can do that enables me to make myself feel frustration or suffering. But whenever you happen to play a part in increasing the probability of Condition P when I have Prefer-to Programming, I can regard you as helping me find pleasure in life. In other words, with Preferential Programming, there is no way I can lose and there is definitely a way that I can win. And the winning will occur more and more as my consciousness dwells in the Love Center and in the Cornucopia Center.

When you have Preferential Programming in almost all areas of your life, your programming will create a peaceful, loving world for you to live in. The days are past when your Conscious-awareness was dominated by emotion-backed fears or desires. You live in the here and now. You live in a warm Ocean of loving and caring. You have gradually converted your perception of people and things around you from a subject-object basis to a cognitive framework of love and acceptance. By continually living with the programming that yields happiness, contentment and joy, you open up the possibility for an even further step in consciousness growth.

Bliss Programming

The ultimate state in the Living Love Way to Higher Consciousness is generated by Bliss Programming. The primary characteristic of Bliss Programming is that the feelings of continuous happiness or bliss are not related to any outside happenings. In other words, Condition P (in which the desired or preferred thing does occur), or Condition N (in which a desired or preferred thing does not occur) are irrelevant to one’s continuous happiness or bliss.

When your consciousness is in the Conscious-awareness Center, you witness the drama of your life from a deep, calm place within. On the drama level where your body and mind are agreeing with others, disagreeing with others, earning money, making love, etc., you still have Preferential Programming. But this is all seen as drama. It is like watching your life on a movie screen. You play your part as an actor in the great cosmic play in which your body and mind and my body and mind (as well as everybody else’s) interact on this stage we call the world. But the real you is your Conscious-awareness. So you witness whatever is going on in the drama without fear or desire — without any circuitry that could make you vulnerable to emotional ups and downs. When you go to a movie, you can watch the beautiful happenings or the horrendous happenings — and just enjoy the entire show. If those things were happening to you, you would be on an up-and-down roller-coaster experience of pleasure and suffering. But when you see them on a movie screen, they’re just so much interesting stuff going by for your perception and enjoyment.

In a similar fashion, when your consciousness is in the Sixth Center, you just witness the drama of your life and that of everyone else. When you are in this Center on a fairly continuous basis, there arises within you a tremendous feeling of well-being and joy. You are filled to brimming with awe and gratitude in the ecstatic knowledge of the inherent goodness of life. Thus the Sixth Center of Consciousness can be regarded as an intermediate stepping stone in which your body and mind may operate as shown in Diagram 1 or 2 — but your Conscious-awareness is enjoying the entire show in a manner that is independent of the variable life realities.

The sixth level permits your Conscious-awareness to experience continuous happiness that is not related to anything people do or say or to any of the conditions in the environment around you. Just as the Preferential Programming described in Diagram 2 frees you from the tyranny of the subject-object way of relating to the outside world, the sixth level of consciousness frees you from relating your happiness to any variable life realities. When your consciousness has lived for a period of time in a state of continuous happiness, your ego and rational mind become calmer and quieter. You become deeply attuned to the energies of the people and things around you. Everything is increasingly perceived in an us place instead of with me vs. them perceptions. In this state your consciousness is continually free from subject-object separateness and alienation.

The experience of this greatly expanded consciousness may be preparatory to a transition into the highest Center of Consciousness — the Cosmic Consciousness Center — where all people and things are perceived in a unitive manner. The biocomputer expands its perceptual framework so that every person and every object in the world is felt as if from within. Distinctions between inside and outside (although intellectually clear) are merged in one’s experience. All is subject. There is no outside — there is no inside. There is just us happening — us men, us women, us children, us trees, us automobiles, us rocks, us birds — everything is experienced as a unitive oneness.

It should be clear that this oneness transcends love or unconditional acceptance. There is no longer anybody or anything to accept. Do you unconditionally accept your arm? It just is. It is the ultimate in love. It is not the act of loving someone or somethinthing outside of you. Both the outside and inside are one when personal boundaries have disappeared.

The Direction of Energy Flow

In the Living Love System we have three cognitive frameworks perceiving and responding to people and things outside of us:

1. In a Subject-object Manner that is characteristic of the Security, Sensation and Power Centers of Consciousness.
2. In an Unconditionally Accepting Manner in which we experience the beauty of unconditional love associated with the Love Center, the Cornucopia Center, and the Conscious-awareness Center.
3. In a Unitive Perceptual Manner in which one feels no difference between one’s self and all of the people and things outside. The capacity for rational discrimination is completely intact. On the rational level one can still perceive people and objects in their aspect of separateness. But on the feeling level, there is a complete unitive merging into a oneness. This cognitive framework is associated with the Cosmic Consciousness Center.

The direction of energy flow toward the world is associated with the manner in which we work toward happiness. On the lower three levels of consciousness, we feel uncritically sure that the way to happiness lies in improving our odds in the middle column entitled The Variable Life Reality. We put a torrent of energy into subject-object manipulation. We concentrate on preventing that which we addictively dislike and we try to manipulate and control the people and things in the world to bring about the conditions we addictively desire. But the results are never enough.

When you realize that no amount of powerful striving is sufficient to bring about happiness through subject-object control of the people and things in the world, you are ready to redirect your energy to the reprogramming of your biocomputer. Your energy flow then helps you become more loving and accepting. You realize that this method of producing happiness is within your conscious ability to achieve. However, it is not necessary to completely withdraw from the drama of manipulating the variable realities in your life. You will even have two of the Twelve Pathways to guide you on the outside trip.

Two of the Twelve Pathways tell you exactly how to interact with the outside world around you — and the remaining ten Pathways tell you exactly how to work on the inside world which is yourself. The Seventh Pathway tells you to openly communicate with everyone so that you no longer feel and think of yourself as separate. The Ninth Pathway says to do anything you want to do provided you are tuned in, centered and loving. Your actions will always be optimal if your head is in the right place. So Act Freely — but don’t be addicted to the results. By following these two Pathways, you will be enormously more effective in changing the people and situations around you than when you put all your addictive energy into modifying the external conditions of your life. But this increased power to optimize your environment comes to you only to the degree that you effectively change yourself using the remaining ten Pathways.

Some of the conventional methods of consciousness growth may require years or decades for substantial results. The Living Love Methods offer the possibility of rapidly reprogramming your biocomputer so that some of the pleasure and joy of Centers Four and Five may sometimes be experienced in a period of months. It all depends on how much energy you are ready to devote to eliminating frustration and suffering in your life. How intensely do you want to reprogram your biocomputer to produce pleasure and happiness? How soon will you realize that the only thing you don’t have is the direct experience that there’s nothing you need that you don’t have?

You should keep your aims realistic and enjoy taking one step at a time. Once a major part of your consciousness resides in the Love Center, you will experience a happiness and beauty in your life that is enough. Even if you do not progress beyond this Center, you will have a wisdom and effectiveness in your life that will exceed that of most of the people in the world. The consciousness game is the greatest and most genuine of all life games — but one should not get hung up on the spiritual score board. Just enjoy the eternally beautiful here-and-now moment that your life continually offers you. At the end of your journey toward awakening, the only thing you will find is your real self!

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