FROM A SITE VISITOR: You said that there is no such thing as improving or being better. Then why not kill? Why not abandon all purpose and all positive actions to benefit mankind? Why not just stop trying to give your life meaning? It seems your plan is either one big “get out of jail free card” or one big excuse for being a bum. Tommy
F.: Hello, Tommy. The following response is not for you, since you will not understand. This response will be for those at the dry charcoal stage who are positioned to move to the gunpowder stage if they grasp a few salient pointers.
The reason that Realized Advaitins do not kill, if they do not kill, is because they are beyond the insanity of self-injury. If a person were to kill me, that would not hurt Me at all. On the other hand, that person will have reinforced his/her sense of separation and will therefore have injured herself/himself, relatively speaking.
As for “purpose,” how much of what you have determined to be your purpose has worked out according to your plans? And how much that actually came about was in spite of your plans? And how many testimonials to your having been "a benefit" are actually in circulation?
Too, consider happenings that you would label “bad” happenings. Did you ask for them? Did you plan for them? Did you have even the slightest clue that those events were coming? Of course not. You were blind-sided.
And of all that is currently taking place as a result of your “planning,” if it has not yet been seen to have ended in a manner that was quite different from your plan, then wait. That will come. Relative fortune usually comes without planning, while all of man's plans generally run awry.
Furthermore, the Advaitin does not automatically “do good” post-Realization; typically, the Realized merely stop "harming." That is enough.
Next, you speak of “positive.” Here, "negation" is the topic. Negation is the topic of the egoless; “positive” is the topic of egos and their accompanying egotism. With your talk of purpose and meaning, your ego believes that it is responsible for many “good” things, but to be responsible for something would mean you have total control over it.
The fact is, however, you can control nothing. All of your false notions about control and meaning and responsibility are in your mind only, but the mind is the repository of all nonsense. Were it not for a “mind” recalling nonsense and then passing on nonsense, then natural living could happen and nonsense could end.
As for being a bum, if I could be a bum, then you could be a person. But you are not a person. Your words show that you know self-love but you haven’t a clue about Self Love. If you could Love Me, then there would be proof that you love yourself. If you hate Me, then there is proof that you hate yourself. Both your love and your hate are nothing more than self-reflections.
As for “jail,” the real jail is the prison of your mind, and each bar of your prison is one of the concepts that you hold dear: improvement, betterment, purpose, positive action, life, meaning, bum-ness, expert-ness, grand-ness and an infinite number of other concepts that you hold dear.
For you, and for all who think they have found, you have not. There is nothing to find. There is only being rid of that which you think you have learned and then un-learning it all.
The invitation is to cast aside all beliefs you hold dear and to know that there is no heaven, no hell, no nirvana, no paradise, no samsara, no in-betweens, no purgatory. Only when you remove all of the obstacles called "your beliefs" can you know and be free. You have no beliefs. You have merely adopted "their" beliefs as your own.
You wrote because you obviously want something, but I want nothing. To use a pair of the type of dualities you clearly appreciate, if one wants but the other does not…
…which is full, and which is empty? The one wanting or that which wants not? Please enter the silence of contemplation.
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More and more seekers are requesting an understanding of how a personality formed in childhood is still determining and controlling everything that is thought or said or done in adulthood. Others have inquired about an opportunity to speak one-on-one about the seven-step “path” to Realization.
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