An Advaita Vedanta philosophy site, focusing on Realization, enlightenment, nisarga yoga, non-duality (nonduality), your original nature, dwelling as your natural state, and the teachings of Maharaj.
FROM A SITE VISITOR: You witness feelings rise and fall. How long can your feelings last, for example, if you lose a friend? Would the feelings simply rise for a minute, a day, a week, etc.? Where do you draw the line?
F.: The procedure which is called “psychological processing” by therapists is termed “seeing the actual facts” or “seeing reality” by Advaitins. The need for either (a) processing or (b) seeing truth only follows “mind”-generated mis-perceptions that are distortions. Among persons, it is an on-going requirement; among the Realized, it is not required at all.
Such distortions result in (1) the inability among persons during the relative existence to distinguish between natural threats and unnatural threats and even from supernatural threats and in (2) actions and reactions that are far from natural and that are most unnatural instead.
A relative existence example from “floyd’s pre-Realization days” involves perceptions around a bear in case #1 and around a "wife" in case #2:
While walking through a field at the end of a two-week period of hiking and camping in Arizona, my path crossed that of a brown bear that was guarding her cubs. She first stood, then roared, and then charged.
What immediately flashed into awareness was the advice received from Tom Brown (author of several field guides as well as The Tracker, The Vision, The Quest, Awakening Spirits, and other books). A few weeks before that trip, I had visited Tom at his home in New Jersey and he had advised:
“This time of year, the bears will be moving about with their cubs and can be especially reactive if they feel you’re threatening their young. If you’re charged by a bear on your trip, fall to the ground and curl into a protective ball. The charge will likely be just that—a warning charge to drive you away—rather than an attack. If it turns out that you are attacked, shift to an offensive mode. Fight for your life…go for her eyes, hit her in the nose, fight with all your might.”
That bear’s standing up, growling and then charging could be considered a truly threatening posture in nature, relatively speaking. I felt threatened, and the sensation of feeling threatened was a natural response.
In the second case, when “floyd’s wife” said, “I’m leaving you” and then got into a car and drove away, the not-yet-fully Realized “floyd” also felt threatened. Yet contrast the facts of the second case with the first:
In the first instance, a female was running toward me. She outweighed me by about 800 pounds; she was about three feet taller; and where I could run ten miles an hour in a short burst, she could run 35 miles per hour over a longer distance. That is a case where a female was a real, natural threat as far as the relative existence is concerned, and the fear—and the reactions that the fear inspired—were quite natural.
In the second case, a female was walking away from me. She weighed about fifty pounds less; she was five inches shorter; and she could not run nearly as fast as I could. Yet in the second case, I felt even more threatened by the actions of that female than I did by the actions of the female in case #1.
When a shorter, lighter-weight female is walking away from a larger male, that is one of the most non-threatening postures in nature, yet how many millions of persons have felt threatened under those same circumstances and have reacted to a non-threat as if it were a real threat?
The fact that I felt threatened by what was a non-threatening posture in nature was a totally unnatural reaction. To have felt threatened in that case could be seen as an insane act with no possible explanation at all unless one understands the effects of programming and conditioning and acculturation.
The Advaitin process is similar to “psychological processing” if the latter results in seeing the false as false. It was seen that, in Case #2, there was no threat to Me. That which was perceiving (imagining) a supposed threat was the not-Me, namely:
the ego-states of “The Husband” and “The Lover” and “The Father” and “The Family Man” and “The House Owner” and “The Finance Man” and “The Man With Retirement Accounts” and “The Owner of Rental Property” and “The Owner of Land” and “The Person With Savings Accounts.” It was all about self, self, self, ad infinitum.
Is it seen that the threat in the second case only seemed real because a person was trapped in the false identities of many ego-states which, when they thought they were being threatened, triggered all sorts of ego-defense mechanisms and mis-perceptions and unfounded fears?
Peace comes when any lie that was taken to be the truth is seen for what it is. Peace can come if the anger or misery experienced around a perceived “loss” comes to an end because it is seen that one never had in the first place what an ego-state is thinking it “lost.”
The processing of “the lie of a non-threat”—of an illusory mis-perception being generated by a false identity—can take years or can take minutes among the non-Realized. Among the Realized, abiding as the natural state and witnessing all, there is no "one" to be pulled into the sturm und drang of relativistic non-threats that are perceived to be threats.
Consider: in the second case, lost in the “Dream of the Planet,” having spent nearly twenty years on a stage while playing multiple phony roles in “The Drama of the Lie,” processing can be indicated. The lie had been taken to be the truth; the truth had never before been seen. Only Full Realization brought to an end the need to process anything as the “one” that was processing disappeared.
In the first case, little processing was required. After the danger faded and the bear moved away with her two cubs, the adrenals once again began functioning naturally; the brain determined that the threat had ended; blood pressure returned to a normal range, as did the heart rate.
That is the way the relative existence can unfold if Realized: relative, natural threats can be witnessed; if a natural action is indicated, it can happen; and feelings can rise and fall and be witnessed without triggering emotional intoxication or unnatural reactions.
Non-threats (which only ego-states can “experience”) are never taken to be real. When exposed to a lie, differentiation between true and false happens automatically and instantly. Further, those supernatural threats mentioned earlier, which can generate untold delusions and fears, are never a factor.
There is no fear based in threats about “eternal damnation,” about “the never-ending pain and torture of fire to which a physical body will be subjected,” and there is no fear of “being punished and deprived now and forevermore.”
Among the Realized, abiding as THAT Which is body-less, mind-less, and persona-less, natural actions and reactions can happen around an event like the one described in Case #1 above, but what will not happen ever again—post-Realization—are the unnatural actions and reactions and emotions that persons experience if dealing with a happening like that described in Case #2.
Until Realized, understand that processing will be required. It might happen, yet it might never happen. Post-Realization, You Are not subject to the pain and misery of dealing with relativistic happening that are erroneously taken to be real, so no processing is required. Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
WHILE THE PREFERRED, TRADITIONAL METHOD FOR OFFERING/RECEIVING ADVAITA POINTERS INVOLVES SITTING ONE-ON-ONE WITH A TEACHER, SOME HAVE BEEN ABLE TO COMPLETE THE SEVEN STEPS TO REALIZATION WITH THIS GUIDE:
Click THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS “PEACE OF MIND” (There Is Only Peace If You’re Out of Your Mind)
Click FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE (A Seven-Step Journey to Reality)
