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FROM A SITE VISITOR: First off, thanks for your blog. I thought about some things you write about when I went to see the movie Doubt. I thought about how doubt had to come before I was willing to question anything. Before that, I never had any doubt at all that everything I was told by my preist and my parents was completely true. But I still have a few concepts lurking around back there that need to go. And just when I think they’re all gone, one will show up. Any advice? Please keep up your blogging. Chris
F.: So, Chris, since your second e-mail reveals that some of the lurking concepts deal with beliefs you were given by “a mother, a father, and the church,” it can now be seen that you have likely only reached the second half of the third step on the seven-step “path” to full Realization.
Consider what another seeker wrote last week regarding the spiritual personas that he adopted at that point on the “journey”:
FROM A SITE VISITOR IN THE U.K. Been reading and re-reading your books, and putting aside time for contemplation. Whereas I can't say I've got 'it' fully (I guess my mind is holding onto stuff that I can't quite identify), the resulting peace has been gratefully received. It turns out, much to my surprise that the spiritual personas I wore and acted out caused me just as much, if not more problems than most of the others!!! And there were/are lots. I've found the spiritual personas are the ones that led me to label good and bad and then led me into a state that means the world is so Fallen and wrong and into the frustration, anger and fear that obviously result from those erroneous beliefs.
So, thank you, so far, I'm enjoying the journey, much more to come I feel. The pointer you gave that 'teaching either happens or it doesn't' has been an invaluable saying for me and has helped me work in that environment with much less stress and more peace. I've ordered two more of your books, which I look forward to reading! Hope you're well. Dan.
You see, Chris, there are many steps along the seven-step “journey” where persons stop. Dan noted one step that, more often than not, proves to be an insurmountable obstacle even for the most dedicated of seekers.
Now it seems that you too have stopped at that very point as well. Specifically, Dan is referring to the second half of the third step of the seven steps—the religious or spiritual step.
Look at the obstacles on the “path” up to that point to see what all persons are up against in trying to move to the fourth step where no concepts—and therefore very little duality—remains. (Why “very little”? Subject-Object Witnessing happens farther along the “path” and that still involves an element of duality.)
OBSTACLE ONE
The challenge to try to shift beyond body identification is nearly impossible for most persons to overcome.
OBSTACLE TWO
The teaching that persons can Realize and then transition the remainder of the relative existence with the elemental brain but without the culture-created “mind” is also nearly impossible for most persons to grasp.
OBSTACLE THREE
Personality is the next obstacle to be overcome, actually involving the adoption of scores (and even hundreds) of personas as identities. For those seekers actually moving along the “path,” it is during the first half of the third step when they begin to see all of the “not-You’s”—all of the false personas that had been adopted.
Many seekers begin to conclude at the first part of the third step that some of their personas were “bad”: “The Thief,” “The Liar,” “The Scoundrel,” “The Sinner,” “The Rogue,” “The Arrogant Jerk,” “The Vicious Shrew,” “The User and Abuser of Women,” “The User and Abuser of Men,” “The Unfaithful Spouse,” “The Homewrecker,” etc. Many will determine at that point to “change” and “leave their bad ways behind.”
They might also find that many additional personas are the source of misery and suffering and should also be rejected: “The Jilted Spouse,” “The Ex-Husband,” “The Wronged Wife,” “The Fired Employee,” “The One Who Lost the Home,” “The One Whose Retirement Funds Were Stolen by a Spouse or by White-Collar Criminals,” etc.
Yet at that point on the third step, even as the so-called “bad personas” are forfeited and even as "the troublesome personas" are rejected as identities, an entirely new set of personas are adopted that persons think are “good” ones:
“The Religious Woman”; “The Spiritual Man”; “The Reformed Woman Who Now Deserves the Utmost Respect”; “The Ex-Low-life Man Who Would Now Show Others the Way”;
“The One Who Has Reached the Mountaintop”; “The Enlightened One”; “The Realized One”; “The Liberated One”; “The Formerly Crazy One Who Is Still Crazy But Who Now Thinks He Has Been Restored to Sanity,” ad infinitum.
And in your case, one or more of those are likely being sustained (or are generating a sense of guilt if they are being forfeited) by all of those early years of exposure to religious dogma.
Yet what will those so-called “good” persons bring: a sense of separation; a belief in “better-than-ness”; “a notion of “different-from-ness”; judgmentalism; arrogance; a belief that one is “godly”; a sense of present “goodness” as opposed to a perception of former “badness”;
and, as Dan noted, a hatred of the world or a desire to change the world or a fear of the evil in the world or disgust with the world, all of which—he also noted—will lead to a sense of frustration and anger and more fear.
In other words, all of that brings the misery and suffering and arrogance and sense of being “apart from” and feeling “empty” or “not feeling whole” (all of which accompany dualistic beliefs). Also, as Dan noted, the "good" personas usually inspire far more disgusting behavior, relatively speaking, than the "bad" personas.
Relatively speaking, Dan has described accurately what comes about when persons erroneously believe that there is such a thing as “this world”: a sense that people have “fallen," a "frustrating" sense that that all is “wrong,” and then anger and fear (or desires).
Relatively speaking, there can be no argument with what he has observed. Setting aside for a moment the fact that you are not in the world but that the world is in you, it is apparent to any objective witness that this “phenomenal world” has become quite the mess. So why cling to it?
And why try to reform it? Would it make sense to try to reform a mirage or to try to cling to a mirage? If one is functioning as the Pure Witness, what could a witness possibly do to affect anything? By definition a witness only witnesses.
When witnessing-only is happening, there can be no “Do-er” or “Changer” or “Reformer.” There can be no "Judgmental One" or "Angry One" or "Fearful One" or "Frustrated One."
The energy available at an electrical outlet in your home is as capable of reforming or changing or clinging to anything as the conscious-energy/witness is. To review, you are likely “stuck” at that second-half-of-the-third-step.
There, you can become trapped by trying to cling to the “good personas,” an act likely rooted in the influence of “mother and father and the priest” who all have an expectation that you will be “The Good Chris” and not “The Bad Chris.”
The invitation is to continue to log the thoughts that arise and find the lies in which those thoughts are rooted. Doubt. Question. Discard. Please enter the silence of contemplation.
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RETREATS OR SATSANG w/ floyd ONE-ON-ONE, by TELEPHONE, by INTERNET CHAT ROOM, and via THE ADVAITA COURSE BY INTERNET (see link to right)
For details click ADVAITA VEDANTA RETREATS & SATSANG
or contact floyd by clicking CONTACT floyd
