Today's Considerations
As much as anything, Enlightenment involves casting enough light on something so that whatever is being seen is seen accurately. (For example, in a well-lit barn, one that is enlightened will see clearly and can, therefore, look at a coiled rope, can see in the proper light what the rope is and what the rope is not, and will not mistake the rope for a coiled snake. Also, in the "relationship games" which many people play, the enlightened can see clearly and can, therefore, look at a coiled snake and will not mistake it for a harmless rope.)
Similarly, Realization also involves clear seeing, clear perceiving, and accurate seeing.Realization is simply (a) the end result of having been freed from the distorted thoughts and beliefs which come with programming and conditioning and domestication and acculturation and brainwashing and indoctrination and is (b) the end result of having been freed from the effects of personality assumption and the ensuing personality disorders and insanity and is (c) the end result of having been freed of all beliefs - which are the result of learned ignorance and the unquestioning, blind faith acceptance of all sorts of myth-and-superstition-based nonsense.
During the days when a European tour company was being operated, many of the tours stopped for a few night in the city of Lucerne (Luzern) in Switzerland. When the tourists on those trips were standing on the promenade paralleling Lake Lucerne on cloudless day, they could see the flat surface of the lake; they could look down beneath the water and see fish swimming below the surface of the lake; and then they could look up and across the lake and see a mountain of granite rising some 7000 feet above the surface of the lake and view the snow-covered peak of Mt. Pilatus. Like those tourists and like most persons among the masses, some things are perecived to be "average" or "okay," but most things are seen as "high's" vs. "low's" or as "nothing special" vs. "something really special."
The Realized, in one respect, have transitioned beyond perceiving all people and all events in terms of being either "high" or "low" or being "special" vs. "not special" or being "winners" vs. "losers" or involving "good guys" vs. "bad guys."
For the Realized, the so-called “world” is flat to the degree that the Realized see no differentiation. It is duality and a duality-based-sense of differentiation which leads to dualistic beliefs about being "different-from" and "better-than," perceptions which have led throughout the last 7000 years to needless bloodshed and bloodletting.
[For example, bloodshed followed after Michael Slager became subsumed by his "winners" vs. "losers" and "good guys" vs. "bad guys" mindset. The white South Carolina Police Officer Slager would have gotten away with murder were it not for the fact that a cellphone video recorded by a bystander showed 50-year-old Walter Scott running away from the officer trying to arrest him and showed Slager calmly assuming a firing stance and shooting the unarmed black man five times in the back and then planting evidence to suggest that the shooting was justified. There have been all sorts of explanations about why the policeman gunned down the unarmed black man who was originally stopped for a broken taillight on the car he was driving, and parts of those explanations might have some validity, but the one with the non-dual understanding is well aware of "the rest of the story" and the other contributing factors involved with the killing. A friend in Cape Town can identify the animals on her continent which are considered to be "endangered." Here in the States, certain humans who are deemed to be "animals" by those trapped in their non-dual beliefs are as equally endangered. Are you seeing that the duality / bloodshed connection can be traced back 7000 years to a religious ritual which involved killing a virgin and then conducting a communion service in which the priest and crowds ate her body - her heart - and drank her blood, and are you seeing that the duality / bloodshed connection is as prevalent today as it was 7000 years ago?]
Among the Realized, there are no hierarchies where someone can be considered to be higher than another; where someone can be considered to be better than another; or where someone can be thought to be lesser than another. It’s all "flat," all seemingly “equal” to the Realized . . . but actually not even that.
“Equal” implies duality—this being equal to
that. In fact, there is advaita ("not two"). There are no "two" that can be perceived to
be equal or unequal. There is only one. Understanding that results in a brain which can perceive a “flat
topography” rather than a mind-driven person who lives out an "up" vs. "down" and a "good" vs. "bad" existence.
What blocks the understanding of that
pointer? Everything listed in the upcoming paragraph. All in the following
paragraph (a) marks the relative existence; (b) results in the belief that the
relative existence is happening in what persons' see as “the world" . . . a totally
erroneous perception in itself; and (c) preempts any chance for a stable and even and
flat topography of perceiving which is free of arrogant-based high’s and disappointing low’s; instead, when marked by dualistic thinking and beliefs, only an existence which is marked by up’s and down’s and swings and
instability can exist. So what does a duality-dominated existence involve, specifically?
Belief in duality and all types of ignorance;
prejudice; ego-states and their egotism; bigotry; intolerance; bias;
fanaticism; judgmentalism; arrogance; mental and emotional fascism;
foolishness; a lack of the formal education which could otherwise provide a
basis for scientific and philosophical understandings; religious and/or
spiritual intoxication;
inanity; learned ignorance; hatred; learned
and/or inherent stupidity; susceptibility to influence; concern with self; self
absorption; folly; pride; game-playing; belief in hierarchies in which some think
they are on the “higher plane” while believing that others are on the “lower
plane;” belief in separation and differentiation;
belief in the multiplicity rather than an
understanding of the unicity; revering accumulation; belief in continuity of
the body-mind-personality triad; a magical belief in things “supernatural”;
belief in god(s); belief in ideas and concepts that have been taught; belief in
divergence and division;
thinking; magical thinking; functioning under
the influence of programming, conditioning, acculturation, and domestication;
taking pride in one's ignorance and showing disdain for anything that is
intellectual; dwelling as the unnatural or supernatural as opposed to the
natural, original state; living under the auspices of personality; and
polarization.
The non-dual understanding provides the treatment for all of that mental and emotional
sickness; for the Ultimate Sickness; for a chance to be free of delusional and distorted thinking and beliefs; for a chance to be free of the arrogance-based sense of "different-from-ment" and "better-than-ment"; and a chance to understand the actual roots of societal problems and the real solutions that could be applied (were learned ignorance no longer ruling thoughts and words and actions).
So the question to consider is this: "What use is the understanding if it is not 'applied' during the only time when it can be applied, namely, NOW?" Some ten years ago, the first post was published on this blog. In that post, there was a statement identifying what the focus of this blog was going to be, the focus being on "Applied Advaita" . . . on "applying the understanding throughout the relative existence." That focus was and is rooted in the understanding that there will never be any "one" who is around post-manifestation to benefit from, or to suffer from, anything. It's NOW or never.
The focus has not wavered. The invitation is to Realize, to allow the light to come, and to possibly effect certain changes in thinking and believing which might alleviate some misery and suffering and which might impact to some degree humanity's insane fascination with letting blood and shedding blood and conducting religious services in which adults normalize, and model for their children, the eating of body and the drinking of blood.
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
[NOTE:
The four most recent posts follow. You may access all of the posts in
this series, and all other posts, by clicking on the links in the "Recent Posts and Archives" section.]
