Thursday, August 30, 2007

PEACE EVERY DAY…OR NOT, Part One

Table of Contents

Today's Considerations
Recent Posts and Archives
Tools for Realization
Author's eBooks
Author's Paperback Books
Free eBooks
From a site visitor: “…Just been introduced to the ideas of Vedanta: How does one overcome day to day frustrations and feelings of anger etc that may arise during a normal working day? While alone, reading, or with friends (bascially pleasant situations) i find it obviously easier to be in a peaceful state, but when i am at work the general frustration and complaining that is part of my job takes over and everything i may read or meditate on just goes out of the window. I guess im saying, how does one start to make spritiual practice and the journey of Self-realization a part of ones working day? I simply find my feelings of frustation in a chaotic workplace overwhelming! Thanks for your time, Jaime

F.: Hello Jaime. Your question is typical of the inquiries raised by “beginners” and is valid. For now, you want benefits, and that too is understandable at the beginner stage. Yet most people want solutions without digging deeply enough to expose and completely understand the actual source of their problems. The fact that you’ve been introduced to the Advaita philosophy might accelerate your finding the peace you seek since your words have revealed the source of your frustration and anger: duality.

For the following to make any sense at all, you must (ideally) sit in the presence of a Realized Teacher or you must complete some additional readings and take the pointers into contemplation.

The newest version of the book CONSCIOUSNESS/AWARENESS explains how peace every day can happen after SELF-Realization, but you are not ready for that book since the prerequisite is a completion of all seven steps on the “path” to Reality as outlined in FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE.

That process not having been completed, consider this: is it possible that the real source of your frustration and anger has nothing to do with where you are throughout the day and has nothing to do with what is happening around you? Is it possible that the source of your anger and frustration is rooted within, in jaime’s beliefs? Is it also possible that every role that jaime has played in life has brought with it a plethora of desires and expectations as well as a plethora of fears? Is it possible that fears can produce overwhelming chaos and that unmet expectations and desires can produce anger and frustration?

Persons (that is, those who have not fully realized all that they are not and who have not Realized That Which They Are) will try to experience a compartmentalized (and therefore dualistic) existence, such as the one you describe: OK alone vs. not OK at work; pleasant situations vs. unpleasant situations; spiritual vs. not spiritual; stable feelings vs. unstable feelings, ad infinitum.

Stability (and therefore peace) will not happen when a person is identified with, and attached to, anything that is “relative.” Only an existence marked by abidance as the Absolute can be stable and peaceful, as opposed to “chaotic” and “overwhelming.” Such abidance can only happen post-Full Realization. Either take all of the steps required for abidance as the Absolute to happen or know that your anger and frustration and chaos will continue with only the brief respites that you mentioned.

How brief will those respites be? If employed full time, over half of the hours in a week will be spent at work or in sleep (if sleep comes). If sleep is peaceful, it is a preview of what the waking hours could look like if Realized: you can be unaware of self; contentment can happen while not being attached to the happenings of “the world”; and peace can happen as you are unaffected by the surrounding chaos that continues on the planet while you remain "at rest." If abidance as the stable Absolute does not happen, then you will be driven to participate in the instability of the “relative run.”

THE “RELATIVE RUN” PROVIDES ONLY A TEMPORARY RESPITE, AT BEST
The non-Realized are always on the run: they run from the partner that they blame for their unhappiness; they run from a job that they blame for their unhappiness; they run to people and places and things that they think will make them happy. It could be that your job really is chaotic and overwhelming, relatively speaking.

It could also be that the influences of your personality type (possibly an Enneagram Type Four) make your current employment situation totally intolerable. Type Fours often feel fine in the solitude but miserable if in a crowd or a chaotic workplace. Running to another job might provide a temporary respite, but do you see how limited an existence becomes when external forces and/or personality determine what jaime can do and what jaime cannot do?

Are you beginning to see that jaime can either take the steps to be fully free or will be hostage to personality, to externals, and to relative influences? Are you seeing that one who is not free can never be at peace with any consistency? Do you also see that anyone who is not free is also co-dependent, always allowing people, places and things to determine how one feels and to determine whether one is “happy” at times but “frustrated,” “angry,” “chaotic,” and “overwhelmed” at other times?

There is much for jaime to understand if peace and stability are to replace all of those current traits of a relative existence. If being "spiritual" and "meditative" were the final solutions, that would have happened by now. In fact, "being spiritual" is only the third of seven steps to Full Realization. For now, that should be plenty to ponder. The discussion will continue tomorrow. Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
READINGS RELATED TO TODAY’S POST:
SEEKING “PEACE OF MIND”?
  • Click THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS “PEACE OF MIND” (There Is Only Peace If You’re Out of Your Mind)

  • WORKING ON BEING FREE OF PERSONALITY?
  • Click LIBERATION

  • READY TO TAKE THE SEVEN-STEP “JOURNEY” TO REALITY?
  • Click FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE (A Seven-Step Journey to Reality)
  • Recent Posts and Archives

    Tools Used by Other Seekers of Realization

    WATCHING an Advaita Vedanta Retreat: Watch a Downloadable computer file version of the Four-Day Advaita Retreat (Downloadable on PC only, not Apple.)

    ENROLLING in the Online Advaita Classes For information, visit Information on the Advaita Classes on the Internet To enroll visit Enroll in the Advaita Internet Course

    ATTENDING an Advaitin retreat with Floyd and being guided through all seven steps. For details of the retreats offered, please visit the retreat information site.

    ARRANGING a one-hour session via Skype or telephone with Floyd. (Skype is a free service.) Click the button to pay and you will be contacted to arrange a date and time for the call.

    Five Free eBooks

    Compliments of Andy Gugar, Jr.,
    the following eBooks are available without charge for you or for friends:

    I.
    "GOOD vs. EVIL?" or "IGNORANCE, STUPIDITY, and INSANITY?"

    The content of this eBook deals with one of the most common but erroneous beliefs that the non-Realized masses cling to and which they will fight about (and even kill over), namely, that there is a planet-wide duel going on between “the forces of good and evil” in the universe.

    Either (1) the ancient view is spot on: that the "ills of the planet" are rooted in evil people, in people not being religious enough or spiritual enough, and are caused solely by bad morality; or, (2) the "ills of the planet" are rooted in ignorance, stupidity and insanity and "being good" or "being moral" does not put an end to ignorance, does not eliminate stupidity, and does not treat insanity in any way.

    II.
    "THE VISION"

    Comments regarding the free eBook entitled “THE VISION”:

    “My thanks to you and Andy.” – Andrew “Mac” McMaster

    “Thanks so much for the book! And, by the way, it is brilliant and the most effective pointing that you have done. It has served to help clear the remaining blockages.” – Stan Cross

    “Greatly appreciate having “THE VISION” added to my Henderson resource library that is situated on the right side of my bed for easy access! Eternally grateful for what was received and what was given.” – Robert Rigby

    “‘THE VISION’ is such a well-written, condensed version of the Nisarga Yoga approach to understanding and enjoying Reality that I feel it can serve as a must-read ‘meditation guide’ for all earnest seekers.” – Andy Gugar, Jr.

    III.
    "Sapolsky, Maharaj, and the Non-Dual Teachings"

    Dr. Robert Maurice Sapolsky is an American neuroendocrinologist; a professor of biology, neuroscience, and neurosurgery at Stanford University; a researcher; an author; and a Research Associate at the National Museums of Kenya.

    There is much that a non-dualist or Advaitin or Nisargan can relate to by comparing and contrasting what Sapolsky reveals about the way certain troops of baboons live in Africa with the way that humans abide all around the globe.

    This 152-page eBook catalogues the common, non-dual message shared by Sapolsky and Maharaj and reveals the ways that Sapolsky’s scientific research supports the non-dual pointers offered by Maharaj.

    IV.
    Seeking

    In “PART ONE” it will be seen that most persons on the planet are not seeking, and most will never seek, but for those who are seeking, most will face several obstacles:

    In “PART TWO” of this book, it will be seen why many criticized Maharaj for “changing his message in his later talks.” It will be seen that the changes were not about changing the message per se as much as about changing his methodology as he experimented with one version of the Ultimate Medicine after another in order to try to find an effective means for addressing the Ultimate Sickness.

    He tried a religious version of the Medicine, a Spiritual version of the Medicine, and finally settled on a version which addressed to Sickness at its core . . . at the mental and emotional level.

    V.
    "THE MOST DANGEROUS BELIEF OF ALL"

    “Dangerous” is a term that can only apply during the relative existence, but of those who do commit suicide, for example, how many shoot themselves in the foot over and over until they “bleed out”? None. They shoot themselves in the head. Why? In order to try to stop the noise - to try to stop the chatter of a thousand monkeys – to stop the noisy mind which is the area that stores the ideas, notions, concepts, mind-stuff, etc. which drives them into the depths of insanity.

    And what are those ideas, notions, concepts, etc. called, collectively? "Their beliefs." The irony? They are not their beliefs at all. They are the beliefs of “others” that were set in place via programming, conditioning, etc. and which persons then think are their own.

    And what are those beliefs rooted in, and what reinforces those beliefs and convinces persons that they are sacred and worth fighting over and even sometimes worth dying for? Blind faith.

    This 337-page eBook discusses those issues in detail.

    To read any or all of the free eBooks, please double-click the "FREEBIES" link at the top of this page