Can you please explain what you mean by ego's intention and personalities intention?

The ego's intention is what we consciously intend to do. The personalities intention is what our inner self intends our ego to do as communicated by the subconscious. Those communications may become conscious, as in a remembered dream, but most often are not. If we have an intuition to do something, but determine that we would prefer to not do it, that may be an event where the personalities intention is positive, but the ego pursues a negative intention. For example, my intuition guides me to slow down and let the driver with their signal on cut in front of me, but my ego decides to drive close behind the car in front of me so that person can not cut in front.

Hi Gene,

"Every behavior is motivated by a positive intention."

I would agree. However I would define "positive" as simply the belief of a person that whatever behavior he pursues is personally justified.

Ra defines two modes of behavior. Service to others or service to self. The paths that result in these behavior modes do not appear to be set upon manifestation, but emerge sometimes later in life. All of us have a mix of these modes and this is healthy to a large extent.

Some radically diverge into advanced service to self, to the extent that they perceive others as less than human and existing only to serve them. They feel perfectly justified and "positive" that they are "serving" God or All-That-Is best by this mode of behavior. We may sometimes call them psychopaths in the extreme.

You may call to mind historical figures that fit this mode of behavior. I suspect Hitler felt very positive and justified in exterminating millions of people as did Pol Pot and Stalin.

Ra says these may progress to a point in spiritual growth but may go no further because they are blocked by the inability to love. They must ultimately make a choice to abandon this belief system in order to progress.

As to NLP, It is a system of practice that has broad application in a number of area, as I understand it; and can be used by those intending to dominate and control people as well as those that would be of service to others. So it may serve the positive intent of both modes of behavior.

Now lest you think I'm just blowing smoke, I have two sisters who fell under the spell of a spiritual "counselor" who used NLP and re-framing to alienate them from their husbands and our parents and ultimately led one to divorce her husband and marry him. He then proceeded to control her in the best abusive manner and to similarly rape and control her teen-age daughter, calling her his "wife" as well.

When this all came to light, he maintained his innocence because according to his beliefs, they WERE husband and wife.

He is now imprisoned but still maintains his "right" to my niece.

Now "positive" and "negative" are often translated "good" and "evil"; however All-That-Is does not differentiate. It is said that He makes the sun to shine on the "just" and the "unjust" (I think). Which is good news for these psychopaths. And others that are embarking on the service-to-self path.

Lloyd

I think there is a good fit between TSM and NLP. Much of what NLP says about how we communicate with ourselves and other people is mirrored throughout the Seth material. As a matter of fact, a good Sethian could use NLP constructively to deepen their understanding of the contents of their own consciousness. I'm thinking here about how the different modalities and sub-modalities of NLP could be utilized more effectively in creative visualization.

I also like the way Grinder and Bandler explained 'parts', like Id/Ego/Superego, etc. It did a lot to illuminate my own understanding of intellectual constructs like Self, Soul, Personality, Ego, Higher/Lower self, etc. Many people like to categorize their intentions by assigning them to parts, a habit I find curious, though it is, of course, quite common. Personally, I refuse to have anything to do with a 'Higher Self', since I consider that cheating.

Ultimately, any kind of organizational principle, whether it's a Higher/Lower dichotomy or a Self/Other dichotomy is only useful as a stepping stone. I can't serve others without serving myself, and I can't serve myself without serving others in some way; similarly, there is no meaningful way to differentiate between my Higher and Lower self without arbitrarily assigning certain actions ('selfish' ones) to my ego and others ('noble' ones) to my higher self. These divisions are simply not useful to me. What is useful to me is understanding how my conscious thoughts directly shape my expectations and experiences.

Incidentally, you can learn a lot by hanging around in the hypnosis forums as well. Many professional hypnotherapists corroborate both Seth and NLP via their own therapeutic work even though many of them would not touch either with a ten foot pole.

So according to you within this particular scenario the ego would be the "negative" part and personality the "positive". I wonder, what would be the purpose that both of these parts serve for you?

I am deeply sorry that something like this took place. It is rather shameful to call oneself a counselor and a spiritual one at that. It is unfortunate for any person to experience something like that.

Although an intention as I stated is positive, the behavior which expresses this intention may not be congruent with the intention. This means that Hitler who wanted to unite Germany and bring the people out of poverty did not necessarily have to do it by massacring millions of innocent people.

Just like any field and system: Religion, Martial Arts, Politics, NLP is no different, because it's just a field and a system, based on various schools of thought which at the time of it's creation were Gestalt therapy, Family Systems, and Hypnotherapy as well as philosophy linguistics, computer programming, including cognitive and behavioral psychologies. The main point of NLP was to help people overcome limiting beliefs, grow spiritually, and just become a better human being.

Im not exactly sure how much of NLP based methodologies actually contributed to any of the above mentioned, since there are such a large extent of social and psychological factors that play a role... it's just that it is a part of human nature to attribute negative characteristics to things not entirely understood, especially if it combined with negative events like the one u mentioned.

Gene,

" It is unfortunate for any person to experience something like that. "

Not necessarily! Although the "pain" and lasting effects may be epic (as in the case of my sisters) it may coincide with their overriding intent to experience exactly what they are experiencing! Note that Seth says in several ways that there are no co-incidences, no mistakes.

Also, I think the teachings in ACIM illustrate that one cannot know on a cognitive level what is actually behind any seeming trauma. What you are stating here really confirms that.

My take is that the world (and individuals) are not broken. It is intended to be what it is and it IS a rich and vibrant environment to experience and pursue meaningful objectives as determined by individual and co-operative intent on the level of our Greater Selves. Any attempt on another's part to "fix" things is largely unwarranted. How can one define a "better human being" after all? Perhaps what we perceive ourselves to be on an ego level? And whatever belief systems are operative may simply be those that are extant to the life challenges and the experiential matrix that has been chosen.

I think the key to spiritual growth from a personal level is very simple, as is the creation of more desirable circumstances - it is simply to ASK and KEEP ON ASKING.

The individual is, after all, a compression of the Greater Self who contains all the wisdom and experiences created over multitudes of lifetimes - so all the answers are within (US).

Lloyd