Today's Considerations
When the universal consciousnesses manifests in a newly-formed composite unity (a.k.a., "baby") it is comparable to a "blank tablet." Wisdom and clarity can be written on the tablet, or (as is almost always the case) ignorance and nonsense and myths and superstitions can be written on the tablet.
During the early years, parents will begin using mind-speak to pass on nonsensical programming, conditioning, etc. which will block the universal consciousness and which will build a wall of concepts and ideas and misperceptions (a.k.a., "beliefs") around the consciousness by using thoughts and words and whatever else parents unconsciously model which will assure that their child will be strapped throughout the entire relative existence with a blocked version of consciousness.
What will be blocked? A clear perspective. An ability to recognize distortions and delusions. An ability to differentiate between
(a) lies based in a culture's so-called "conventional wisdom" (which is not wisdom at all) as opposed to
(b) the truth which can be seen via use of the universal consciousness, the inner resource, the inner guru.
To illustrate how that unfolds, the discussion will continue by sharing more about the two scenarios which have
been laid out in recent posts, one dealing with a man who was waiting on god to
send him a job (saying, “In God’s time, not mine”) and another who wrote this:
Visitor: My wife’s sister in law, a real nut if I were into
labeling people and things, has hit a financial crisis since her husband just
lost his job. She said the weird thing is that she "turned it all over to
God" and now is not worried. You know, when I have "bottomed
out" I have done that in the past and felt relief. What has happened, I
realize, is that she simply stopped her mind from driving her crazy / from
worrying. When you do that, whether you feel you have to turn it over to God or
just stop worrying, the end result is that you will always feel relief from the
mind.
The “non-dualist” understands that questioning it all is
required if programmed, conditioned and acculturated persons are ever to be
free of their belief in—and attachment to—falsehoods and nonsense.
Functioning spontaneously is a marker of "Realization," so
questioning happens spontaneously as well. As soon as something is heard or
“seen,” it is questioned, so consider what happens if “I turned it over to god and now I am free of worry" is heard or read.
In the early part of the “journey,” the seeker might move
through stages: “Ok, let’s see, that might be true or that might be false . . .
I’ll question that . . . let’s see . . . god is a concept . . . concepts cannot
free anyone of anything . . . they actually trap persons . . . that’s mind stuff . .
. mind stuff is false . . . my BS detector has been activated . . . I call ‘BS’
on that.”
Once “Realized,” the spontaneous questioning moves at warp
speed and activates the detector. Later, once “Realized Fully,” the process
unfolds instantly and thusly:
Claimant: “I turned it over to god and now I am free of
worry.”
“The Realized”: BS.
Yet when one is attached to mind-language and engaged in
mind-speak, then mind-thinking and mind-speaking prevent questioning.
Mind-speak always takes the forms of declarative, imperative, or exclamatory
sentences. It never employs the interrogative form, preventing questioning,
preventing receipt of pointers, and preventing the seeing of falsehoods.
No one “learns” while speaking, and no one “unlearns” while
speaking. Speaking reinforces false beliefs—it does not eliminate them. Yet
only by questioning what one has been told and taught, what one believes, what
one hears, and what one reads (and yes that includes the pointers on this site)
only then is there an opportunity to be free of the belief in and attachment to
nonsense.
Being free always involves being free of beliefs and
attachments, and the shift to that state of freedom begins with questioning.
Yet questioning cannot happen when only declarations, imperatives, and
exclamations are being spoken. The invitation is to consider those pointers as the
exchange continued:
The visitor replied: My point was that once people stop worrying they
are better off. Not using the "created" past or future to upset and
distort the present. Whatever reason causes them to stop worrying, they have to
be better off, relatively speaking.
It is that exact kind of arrogance-based, denial-based, autopilot, knee-jerk “I
was not wrong” reaction which blocks the opportunity to see the false in order
to move on to finding the truth and which, therefore, brings most movement along “the path”
to a screeching halt.
The man mentioned earlier who had “turned it over to god”
and who was touting his “In-God’s-time-not-mine” concept (trying to display how
truly “spiritual” and "worry-free" and "at peace" he was) he might have seemed in the minds of some to have stopped
worrying. Yet what "seems" to be true to the mind is always the 180-degree opposite of truth. The exchange continued:
According to the “best” thinking that your mind can come up
with, that man was “better off” by “turning it over to god” and not worrying
about being unemployed for eleven months and depleting his entire retirement
account? Better off in spite of a wife's disgust and a child's stress and
anxiety? Better off in spite of the fact that all three of them were only days away from eviction and being homeless and on the streets?
Yes, that's all about the relative, but what your mind-speak is
actually revealing is your belief that persons are “better off being delusional and spiritually
intoxicated” and are better off believing in mirages and unicorns and pots of
gold at the end of rainbows if those beliefs make them feel better for a
time.
Decisions made under the influence of spiritual intoxication
are just as debilitating as those made when physically intoxicated or
emotionally intoxicated. The only real antidote for worry is Full Realization,
which you have only tasted to a slight degree in the past but have not chewed and
swallowed and digested.
You have also tasted how fleeting relief from worry is when
you try to “turn it over.” You have admittedly tried that approach off and on
all your life and should, therefore, be able to see by now that the “ostrich
approach” does not work.
Finally, you labeled the woman “a real nut,” yet turned right around and
accepted her thinking and her belief as truth. Hummmm. So what does that indicate about your mental condition?
V.: I am saying that she is better off at this moment in
time because she stopped worrying.
F.: No she isn't “better off.” She is deluding herself and you as well . . . or more accurately inspiring you to delude yourself and join her in her state of delusion. The fact is that her state and condition and economics are exactly the same as before.
She is deluded into thinking that she is better off, and you
are deluded into thinking that she is “better off.” But with the variable
mind at work, do you really think that seconds after she wrote that lofty
claim that she actually had no worries?
And do you not see that the sole intent of her providing
that “testimony” was to put on display what a really good Christian she is as a result
of "her faith" and her ability to "surrender"? And do you
not realize that moments later she was once again embroiled in the quagmire
of her concerns? And if that is not her case, do you not see—at least by your
own admission—that such has surely been your life-long pattern?
Worry and anxiety and dread are like the flu: you cannot
wish them away and you cannot pray them away; and magical thinking will not run
them away. Because worry and anxiety and dread are generated by the
non-realistic thoughts of the "mind," the only “treatment” for them
is to see Reality.
So she claims she had turned it over to "God." Well, at an earlier point in time, persons claimed that they turned it over to Zeus, to Mars, to
Woden, to Thor, ad infinitum. Now you are a complete atheist in that regard because you do not believe in Zeus or Mars or
Woden or Thor or any other gods made up by the ancient Greeks or
Romans; yet now you have regressed after years of studying these teachings
and report that you got relief when you turned it over to a different god who is also made
up by people, only more recently.
You have claimed to understand that Maharaj was spot on when he explained that there
is no god. You claimed to know that god is just a concept; but now you talk of praying to a god for help
and asking him to take care of things. That is all nothing more than self-delusion. You might as well "turn it all over" to a mirage
in the Arizona or Saharan desert.
Now you're talking to one who has been offering
non-dual pointers since at least 1989 and you’re trying to argue your belief
and hers and convince me (a speck of the universal consciousness without a single belief) that people are better off when they delude
themselves, as if that can fixate anyone in a state of peace. Instead, it fixates persons in a state of distortion and delusion and fluctuation.
[Now one might say, “Floyd, you don’t have my worries . .
. my problems.” No I do not, but I did have, prior to Realization, what was
taken to be “my problems” and “my worries.” There was no valid perspective at that point;
there was no possibility for non-attachment; and there were so many fears and
desires that every aspect of the relative existence was ironically burdened
with what was perceived / misperceived to be an unbearable heaviness that was
nevertheless being borne.]
Is Realization as much about putting a “spin” on reality
as talk of "praying" and “turning it over”? Absolutely not.
Realized, it is clear that there is nothing to turn over and no one to turn it over to.
With non-attachment being one “line of defense” against
the angst that accompanies delusion and distortion, it becomes easily seen
that there is nothing to “turn over” at all. It's all seen to be much ado
about nothing.
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The seeker of the no-concept, non-dual Reality - if she or he moves
far enough along “the path” - notices that the use of words and phrases such as
“better off” or “worse off” or “good” or “bad” automatically vanishes. Such
words and terms are non-existent in the Vocabulary of Realization, so there is
never even the slightest tendency to apply one label or the other to any happening.
I Am and whatever is . . . it just is. That is all.
With that understanding, wherefore any needs, much less a
need to have some "power" that one can theoretically "turn
unwanted things over to"? Believe that anything "here" can be
turned over to something "there," and believe that god is everywhere
and is everything, and you might as well name an oak in the back yard "Joe" and pray to, and commune regularly with, that tree. It
can also qualify as a "god" under your definition.
So go talk to the bark and tell it that you are turning over
your worries to it. Tell it you want it to fix such relative issues as the loss
of employment and the fear of losing your home and the anger and fear over the
loss of your 401k retirement funds. Or consider an alternative:
When asked if happenings happen here that provide food,
clothing, shelter, etc., the answer is "Of course." Is there ever any
ego-state involved . . . any involvement or attachment that can trigger fear or
desire or worry or anxiety or dread? Absolutely not. The issue is not about
whether turning over one’s worries and fears and anxieties to a god can work or
not.
The issue is not about whether relief comes or not; the issue is
not about how long such relief lasts if it seems to come. The issue is, WHO (what phony ego-states) thinks
that she / he is exposed, vulnerable, or threatened in a way that makes the
"mind" believe that “relief” is needed, that worry and dread and
anxiety must be turned over to some fictional power in some other world who is
supposedly manipulating events in what is erroneously taken to be “this world”?
The task is not to seek some power to help solve relative
“problems.” Those perceived problems are merely the weeds, and the proper
approach for handling the issue of weeds is not to trim them occasionally but
to cut them out at the root. How are you to be done with the heaviness and
reach that point of lightness unless all that is generating dread and worry is
cut out at the root?
Rather than the perceived heaviness, there can be as a
result of Realization an incredible lightness. That manifests after reaching
the original state that is even beyond the “path,” beyond an understanding of
the Absolute and the beingness, beyond Realization of Self. A woman in South
Africa described in the following way what has happened since reaching an
understanding of the nothingness that is even beyond knowing “the Self”:
On Tuesday, walking on the Green Belt, there was this brief exhilarating disappearance of "me" - the lightness and freedom - the vastness of this view - like that feeling in the tummy when a lift (elevator) drops too fast - falling through space. Too absolutely funny that all the anxieties were about a "me" who does not exist - an attempt to find an already existing freedom. The “experience” during this happening was of instantly being outside of the body – being vast and undefined – no boundaries and watching the “scene” from this vast perspective.
On Tuesday, walking on the Green Belt, there was this brief exhilarating disappearance of "me" - the lightness and freedom - the vastness of this view - like that feeling in the tummy when a lift (elevator) drops too fast - falling through space. Too absolutely funny that all the anxieties were about a "me" who does not exist - an attempt to find an already existing freedom. The “experience” during this happening was of instantly being outside of the body – being vast and undefined – no boundaries and watching the “scene” from this vast perspective.
What can possibly touch a speck of consciousness if it is
that free? What worry or anxiety or dread could possibly attach to a quantity
of energy that is so light and free and vast and undefined? What could possibly
bind the boundless? What could possibly attach to the Pure Witnessing that is so far
removed from the relative happening that all events are merely being watched
objectively from a distance?
Wherefore any need for talk of—much less belief in—some
“power” that you can turn something over to? It would be no different for you
to take the spoiled meat that was left out and that is creating a horrible
stench inside your home and putting it in the pantry rather
than being rid of it once and for all.
You can turn it over to the pantry and the stench
will continue or you can turn it over to the collectors who will take the mess away
to a landfill. And the garbage collectors are far more efficient that the god
you and your sister-in-law turn your garbage over to. Why?
They make sure that it does not ever come back. Your “god”
does not perform so well. Here is a dreamed up entity that you and she have
taken to be real yet you do not see that “He” is being out-performed by a trash
collector. My oh my. What a distortion to tote about in your "delusion
carrier" called "the mind."
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
[NOTE:
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