Today's Considerations
[Continued from yesterday, when Richard was describing his having been confronted by Maharaj during Richard's first visit to the loft. Richard confessed that he actually understood far less than he had imagined regarding what "Realization" and "the journey" are actually about. It was also upon that occasion that he was presented with his first chance to understand how misguided his search had been over the years, an opportunity not fully appreciated at the time because his "spiritual" ego-states were blocking the possibility. That led to many more years of wasted time and effort involved with "teaching meditation" and still seeking rather than with Realizing and then merely abiding naturally. His story continues, flashing forward three years after that first encounter with Maharaj.]
"i finished training as a meditation teacher, determined to save the world. i also finished law school and worked for a big law firm. During the time in training to become a meditation teacher, i heard a talk by my teacher at the time that the whole journey was a 'pathless path'. That really struck me and puzzled me.
"Here we were with a paint-by-the-numbers approach to enlightenment - 'do this and then this and then this state results' - but here was the teacher saying that it was a pathless path. Thought about it for a long time and was reminded of what Nisargadatta Maharaj had talked about.
"So, i practiced law while at the same time teaching at the meditation center. Got into hot water for mentioning the 'pathless path' to other teachers and how we were all . . . on one level . . . already there.
"Asked my teacher about how i was teaching and was told that what i was doing was exactly what he wanted and i should keep doing what i was doing. Asked about the 'pathless path' and he repeated that i should keep doing what i was doing.
"Still wondered if that torrent of words Maharaj had spoken could be relevant. Read I AM THAT. Resonated with some of it, but some of it seemed confusing and contradictory. Talked the firm into a leave of absence to go back to Europe to see my teacher.
"While there, I bumped into the same friend who had gone to see Nisargadatta Maharaj with me. One day he simply asked, 'Wanna go?' We both knew what he meant, and soon we were again climbing the stairs to Maharaj's loft.
"i got to ask Maharaj my burning question: 'My teacher had prescribed a path, yet said it was a pathless path. Maharaj had followed his teacher's instruction to abide in the I AM, yet he said that the I AM - the THAT - was never born, will never die, we are THAT. So what was to be done?'
"The same intense stare came from Maharaj, and after some time he said something like (again, the gaze quieted the mind so much i couldn't really think) that he was speaking from his level of consciousness but that i was trying to use the information as an individual though he was not speaking as an individual.
"He said that i 'still wanted to be the one to travel the pathless path, but until i realized the unreality of that one who wanted to travel any path, even a pathless path, all my study was for naught and would just be more ignorance.'
"Although the words did not make sense at the time, something was going on in the awareness that was so profoundly still i could barely breathe, much less speak.
"He told me i was seeking the experience of beingness but needed to experience the non-beingness and that which is beyond the non-beingness. i'm sure my facial expression was like that of a dog that had just been shown a card trick."
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
