Each man has a disposition  --  each man has a personality;
his disposition has needs  --  his personality has interests;
oceans have depths and oceans have surfaces;
constant activity occurs below, but only surface action is seen;
from the hidden circuit boards which produce the music --  nothing is heard,
all sound issues from the visible speakers.

Men believe oceans have a bottom --  men err;
some men want the ocean surface calm  --  men are disappointed.

All that lives has its own disposition; all plants, all animals;
only man has thoughts; only man has personality.

Personality can not be separated from disposition any more than
can waves from oceans; there IS no such thing as a wave without an ocean;
men believe their personality is apart from their disposition, but:
no disposition --  no personality.
Some men’s personality does not like their disposition and tries to change it: their personality is frustrated;
as an alternative, some men’s personality will then attempt to alter itself.

Efforts to effect such change range in intensity from the miniscule & non existent, (psychiatry & religion), to the minisculely-extreme, (the various varieties of
less standard, invisible endeavors, (Yoga, Zen, Cabalism, Sufism, et al);
the impetus for all such come from men’s personality,
(and remember: no ocean --  no waves),
which is tantamount to waves wanting to reconstruct oceans;
personality does not see it thus;
if, under similar conditions, a rose could speak,
it would be calling for its roots’ redemption;
roots would be unresponsive --  roses, crestfallen.

By nature, men’s personalities are dissatisfied;
in this regard, no one knows how it be with dispositions;
those animals only with such, reveal it not;
what is known with man is that his disposition has only needs
which are few and clearly capable of being satisfied or not,
but his personality has only interests, which seem insatiable;
not like eating conclusively meeting disposition’s need for nourishment,
personality’s interests seem forever just out of gratification’s reach.
When its feeding has been adequate, disposition might burp;
when personality is fed the sound it makes is always: “More! More!”

Without realizing it, personality’s dissatisfaction is dissatisfaction with
the disposition of the person for whom it is spokesman;
whereas disposition is indifferent to personality,
(unless it becomes abnormal and a danger to the whole person).
Not recognizing the true source of its dissatisfaction,
(and unable to change it if it did),
personality takes out its frustration on itself --  and other men’s personalities.
In this regard: education is the gentleman's approach  --
trying to Wake-up, the rowdy’s,
but usually, not rowdy enough  --  the rowdiness is insufficiently educated.

Those attracted to those less mainstream activities dedicated to bringing about
a radical shift in a man’s consciousness,
feel as their goal either to acquire supernormal abilities to DO things,
(heal, read minds, fly thru the air, turn tin to platinum),
or else to LEARN things not normally accessible to man.
The first is based entirely on the vacuous dream of recreating one’s disposition,
the second stands on an apparently more feasible basis of wanting to expand
the capacity of personality --
and yet they are both anchored to the same ocean floor.
The first group, by believing that personality can change disposition,
prove simpletons,
while the second, by thinking that personality can expand itself,
turn out to be whatever they say they are.

   “Are you Enlightened?”
       “Yes I am  --  and you cannot prove otherwise.”

and if that will not presently fly, there is always this:
  “Are you a Sufi?”
         “Yes I am, and  I can prove it: here is my membership card in Lodge 36.”
 
 
 

Those of the second sort who perceive the Awakening-of-consciousness to be
for the purpose of increasing their knowledge in an extraordinary style,
(rather than acquiring nonexistent abilities to do extraordinary things),
while aimed in the proper direction,
seldom develop a clear sighting of the ultimate target.
The single fountainhead of all that interests personality
is not even actually a hunger for extraordinary knowledge about things,
but is a desire for quite mundane, straightforward knowledge of itself.
                   Waves call out: “We are disturbed;
                   tossed constantly about; never settled and  satisfied:
                   extraordinary knowledge of things would cure our dissatisfaction,
                   and bring calm to our life;”

personality thinks similarly --  but unwittingly what it seeks is not
secret knowledge of anything  --
but rather knowledge of the thing that says it seeks such knowledge.

How can waves ever “understand” --  even clearly comprehend themselves -- when,  even though they have their own separate name,
have no reality separate from the ocean?
 

While asleep  --  your dreams you cannot interpret;
waves forever sleep --  so long as the source of their actions they fail to see;
forever --  as long as they foolishly accept themselves to be
              what they perceive themselves to be
              from the restricted confines of their own superficial perspective.
 
 
 
 

Personality senses a battle going on  --  disposition has no awareness of such;
personality sometimes correctly senses disposition as being the source of its
wartime sensation, but never correctly identifies it as such;
personality commonly sees itself as its antagonist.

Wanting to scratch that numbing, dumbing & distracting itch that is
the centerpiece in the lives of the few,

                                   The city is the mind of personality,
     and the gunfire it hears is its own desire to scratch itself at its edges --but,
     as ‘twas just noted....................................................................

Note: Some days, symbolic information is encoded as literal fact  --   while others, the reverse is true.