Today's Considerations
40. [To
continue with the discussion of the contrast between those that abide as their Original
Nature and those who do not with excerpts for the eBook Your Original Nature]
When Maharaj advised "richard" to "find that which is beyond both the beingness and the non-beingness," he was providing "richard" with the means by which he could transcend his false identity of "The Super Meditation Teacher" and be freed from the frustration of his unmet desire to gain relative rewards via the use of supposedly "noumenal" or supposedly "spiritual" practices. What was the means which Maharaj offered? An understanding: understand Your Original Nature and abide as that / THAT, not as a "meditation teacher" and not as "the one who is going to gain something now if meditation is done properly."
In addition to the reasons already cited, why else did Maharaj suggest that seekers find that Original State and abide as That? Early on, when that Original State manifested as its Original Essence, then there was also the manifestation of the "primordial cooperation" - now totally absent among the non-Realized masses.
Review the actions of the two females discussed earlier during the encounter with a herd of deer. They illustrate the two ways in which abidance can happen during the relative existence: "The Abrasive Woman," being totally self-absorbed, cannot possibly exhibit that condition of "primordial cooperation"; "The Quiet Little Girl" most assuredly could . . . and did.
Abiding as One's Original Nature, all humans were childlike, as Maharaj said, rendering them conscious and happy and quiet. In the herd that the little girl and I were visiting, there are ten deer abiding in a "community" wherein "primordial cooperation" is natural and is the rule, not the exception.
It is not as if nine are quiet but then there is that one loud and abrasive deer that is forever noisy, always disturbing the peace that is otherwise being enjoyed by the other nine deer, and always bringing an end to the quietness that offers protection and peace to the entire herd. Abiding naturally, as their Original Nature, all in the herd are quiet and peaceful.
Next, as One's Original Nature, the notion of accumulating more of anything can never manifest - especially, the accumulation of more knowledge and more information which can then be shared with "others" and which can supposedly increase one's status:
Maharaj: "In your Original State there is no awareness of awareness, therefore no question of knowledge."
Moreover, why all this love of the manifestation as it currently unfolds among the masses when it is seen that it is the very manifestation itself which interrupts the peace and quiet?
Maharaj: "The Original State is before the consciousness came upon You."
Is it not that Original State that is subconsciously being longed for? Then know that it can be returned to even as the manifestation continues, but it can only come via Truth, not via false concepts and ideas and beliefs.
What has come via dualistic conscious-of-ness is forever false; what is witnessed in the light of Full Awareness is true. Eventually, that will not matter, yet it is via awareness that the instability of a consciousness-dominated relative existence can end and that the stability and constancy and freedom from chaos can come:
Maharaj: "The entire manifestation is a hallucination, the nature of which is to be inconstant."
The Advaitin called "Jesus": "A dual-minded person is unstable in all ways."
The "something" (or "somethings") and the "Something" (or "Somethings") that have been dreamed up by sleepwalking persons are the very dreams which block persons from seeing the nothingness of the Original Nature and which produce the nightmares of inconstancy instead:
Maharaj: "What I am talking about is this original concept, the consciousness, before which there was nothing."
Next, consider: if before "this" there was nothingness (in terms of anything "personal") and if all that awaits is nothingness, then all of "this" is merely an interval of imagined, conceptualized "somethingness" dreamed up via the manifested but blocked consciousness and amounting to a conceptualized interlude being acted out on the stage of "The Theater of the Lie."
Next, also consider: after this present "nowness," what happens?
Maharaj: "Whatever is in this original concept will remain only so long as the consciousness is there - then we go back to Our Original Nature."
Some will ask, "So why pay any attention to a condition - to a State - that was and that is guaranteed to be again? Why understand non-duality if only nothingness awaits and if nothing that happens 'here and now' is going to change that fact?" Here's why: in order to bring the stability of THAT from which You manifested and THAT to Which you shall return into awareness now in order to be free of belief in the blocked-consciousness-generated falsehoods that, in turn, generate a sense of separation and different-from-ment and better-than-ment which, in turn, generate all of the subsequent chaos that those dualistic concepts generate.
Freedom from such false beliefs and concepts manifests when the consciousness is unblocked and makes clear that the image - or images - that you took yourself to be are false and that That Which You Are if only form and space and energy:
Maharaj: "When consciousness exposes itself to you and shows you Your True Nature, then You will have no form. Without a form can there be an image?"
He said: "People come here with a certain set of concepts. I hold the mirror before them of what they are as phenomena and ultimately they realize that as phenomena they are nothing and when consciousness departs they will reach their Original State - which was there before the body-cum-consciousness arose. In that Original State there was no experience. Even now any experience that one thinks one has is only a concept. In that State, before consciousness arose, there was no query of 'Who am I?' because there was no "one" who wanted to know that answer. This question arises only in consciousness; anything in consciousness is only a concept and therefore it has to be wrong."
To believe that infants existed prior to relative conception and "birth," and to believe that they have entered in a contract with some god, and to believe that they will manifest as a child in a womb when the proper person has been selected as a "birth mother" is to have a five-year-old's understanding of "how babies are made" (meaning, "no understanding at all").
To understand where You were prior to conception is to understand that there was no prior WHO-ness at all and that there will be no post-manifestation WHO-ness, either. There is a form of energy which is not aware of; that form of energy has the potential to be conscious of if pulled into a cycling of that energy;
that form of energy, if unblocked, has the potential to be conscious of its Original State as awareness-not-manifested, meaning that consciousness can facilitate the awareness of awareness and that awareness can become aware of itself and understand that awareness is that which is the unifying factor among all things while consciousness is the factor which sets the stage for the belief in dualistic beliefs.
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
When Maharaj advised "richard" to "find that which is beyond both the beingness and the non-beingness," he was providing "richard" with the means by which he could transcend his false identity of "The Super Meditation Teacher" and be freed from the frustration of his unmet desire to gain relative rewards via the use of supposedly "noumenal" or supposedly "spiritual" practices. What was the means which Maharaj offered? An understanding: understand Your Original Nature and abide as that / THAT, not as a "meditation teacher" and not as "the one who is going to gain something now if meditation is done properly."
In addition to the reasons already cited, why else did Maharaj suggest that seekers find that Original State and abide as That? Early on, when that Original State manifested as its Original Essence, then there was also the manifestation of the "primordial cooperation" - now totally absent among the non-Realized masses.
Review the actions of the two females discussed earlier during the encounter with a herd of deer. They illustrate the two ways in which abidance can happen during the relative existence: "The Abrasive Woman," being totally self-absorbed, cannot possibly exhibit that condition of "primordial cooperation"; "The Quiet Little Girl" most assuredly could . . . and did.
Abiding as One's Original Nature, all humans were childlike, as Maharaj said, rendering them conscious and happy and quiet. In the herd that the little girl and I were visiting, there are ten deer abiding in a "community" wherein "primordial cooperation" is natural and is the rule, not the exception.
It is not as if nine are quiet but then there is that one loud and abrasive deer that is forever noisy, always disturbing the peace that is otherwise being enjoyed by the other nine deer, and always bringing an end to the quietness that offers protection and peace to the entire herd. Abiding naturally, as their Original Nature, all in the herd are quiet and peaceful.
Next, as One's Original Nature, the notion of accumulating more of anything can never manifest - especially, the accumulation of more knowledge and more information which can then be shared with "others" and which can supposedly increase one's status:
Maharaj: "In your Original State there is no awareness of awareness, therefore no question of knowledge."
Moreover, why all this love of the manifestation as it currently unfolds among the masses when it is seen that it is the very manifestation itself which interrupts the peace and quiet?
Maharaj: "The Original State is before the consciousness came upon You."
Is it not that Original State that is subconsciously being longed for? Then know that it can be returned to even as the manifestation continues, but it can only come via Truth, not via false concepts and ideas and beliefs.
What has come via dualistic conscious-of-ness is forever false; what is witnessed in the light of Full Awareness is true. Eventually, that will not matter, yet it is via awareness that the instability of a consciousness-dominated relative existence can end and that the stability and constancy and freedom from chaos can come:
Maharaj: "The entire manifestation is a hallucination, the nature of which is to be inconstant."
The Advaitin called "Jesus": "A dual-minded person is unstable in all ways."
The "something" (or "somethings") and the "Something" (or "Somethings") that have been dreamed up by sleepwalking persons are the very dreams which block persons from seeing the nothingness of the Original Nature and which produce the nightmares of inconstancy instead:
Maharaj: "What I am talking about is this original concept, the consciousness, before which there was nothing."
Next, consider: if before "this" there was nothingness (in terms of anything "personal") and if all that awaits is nothingness, then all of "this" is merely an interval of imagined, conceptualized "somethingness" dreamed up via the manifested but blocked consciousness and amounting to a conceptualized interlude being acted out on the stage of "The Theater of the Lie."
Next, also consider: after this present "nowness," what happens?
Maharaj: "Whatever is in this original concept will remain only so long as the consciousness is there - then we go back to Our Original Nature."
Some will ask, "So why pay any attention to a condition - to a State - that was and that is guaranteed to be again? Why understand non-duality if only nothingness awaits and if nothing that happens 'here and now' is going to change that fact?" Here's why: in order to bring the stability of THAT from which You manifested and THAT to Which you shall return into awareness now in order to be free of belief in the blocked-consciousness-generated falsehoods that, in turn, generate a sense of separation and different-from-ment and better-than-ment which, in turn, generate all of the subsequent chaos that those dualistic concepts generate.
Freedom from such false beliefs and concepts manifests when the consciousness is unblocked and makes clear that the image - or images - that you took yourself to be are false and that That Which You Are if only form and space and energy:
Maharaj: "When consciousness exposes itself to you and shows you Your True Nature, then You will have no form. Without a form can there be an image?"
He said: "People come here with a certain set of concepts. I hold the mirror before them of what they are as phenomena and ultimately they realize that as phenomena they are nothing and when consciousness departs they will reach their Original State - which was there before the body-cum-consciousness arose. In that Original State there was no experience. Even now any experience that one thinks one has is only a concept. In that State, before consciousness arose, there was no query of 'Who am I?' because there was no "one" who wanted to know that answer. This question arises only in consciousness; anything in consciousness is only a concept and therefore it has to be wrong."
To believe that infants existed prior to relative conception and "birth," and to believe that they have entered in a contract with some god, and to believe that they will manifest as a child in a womb when the proper person has been selected as a "birth mother" is to have a five-year-old's understanding of "how babies are made" (meaning, "no understanding at all").
To understand where You were prior to conception is to understand that there was no prior WHO-ness at all and that there will be no post-manifestation WHO-ness, either. There is a form of energy which is not aware of; that form of energy has the potential to be conscious of if pulled into a cycling of that energy;
that form of energy, if unblocked, has the potential to be conscious of its Original State as awareness-not-manifested, meaning that consciousness can facilitate the awareness of awareness and that awareness can become aware of itself and understand that awareness is that which is the unifying factor among all things while consciousness is the factor which sets the stage for the belief in dualistic beliefs.
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
