MAHARAJ: “Lightment” vs. Enlightenment, Part “VVV”

TODAY’S CONSIDERATIONS 

With 97% of the persons on planet earth claiming an affiliation with one religion or another, the concept of "confession" has high regard globally. Yet is confession a noble act or might it be a tool used by those who are willing to abuse others? 

Some government officials endorse torturing persons in order to gain confessions. 

Some religion leaders teach that “confession is good for the soul,” but - there being no soul to start with notwithstanding - a salient question might be this: Is it possible that the conditioning of members to confess regularly also conditions them to accept and normalize their tendencies to exact relative harms on others and normalize and minimize those acts by suggesting that one can commit all sorts of relative offenses but then get a clean slate upon request, over and over again?

(Lizette W. Reese said: "The old faiths light their candles all about, but burly truth comes by and blows them out.")

Treat others like hell all week, go to confession, and then come home with boundless pride regarding your once-again-totally-pure condition? Not impressed.

So one can behave in a stupid and selfish and greedy and callous and unkind and even merciless manner but can then confess that one behaved in a stupid and selfish and greedy and callous and unkind and even merciless manner during the past week and then be absolved and start all over with a clean slate? What a bargain that belief, is, yes? Might that actually be one of the religion's biggest draws? Creating a better world by restoring people to a condition of purity? Yet Maharaj illustrated how far clearer his perspective was when he asked, “What kind of world can a man create who is stupid, greedy, heartless?" 

Some spiritual groups encourage both public and private confession of one’s wrongs or the harms done to other people and then encourage them to reflect on a daily basis, find where harm was done to other people, and then confess that harm to both them and another person. Maharaj pointed out that if one is freed of ignorance and insanity, then one will be “wise, affectionate and kind.” So if one “realizes” and becomes “wise, affectionate and kind,” what can there be to confess? What constantly-repeated harms could possibly continue to be done, setting up a constant need for confessing afterwards, over and over again?

By the way, this is not about being “perfect.” It is simply about being "wise, affectionate and kind" to all (without accepting or tolerating abuse when the kindness you offer is not reciprocated). Such wisdom-based kindness can only happen when one reaches that level where it is understood that one is all. To be free of beliefs about being “different from” will free one from the belief of being “better than”; and if freed from beliefs about being “different from” and “better than,” then the lack of kindness which comes with arrogance-basic dualistic beliefs can be averted. 

Maharaj went right to the very core of the non-dual understanding when he explained: “All separation, every kind of estrangement and alienation, is false. All is one - this is the ultimate solution of every conflict.” See? That which is false is the rub.

And what is the opposite of that which is false? That which is true. Maharaj: “Truth is loving and lovable.” Thus, lies are evidence of the unlovable, unloving, and contemptible. 

Maharaj said, “A spark of truth can burn up a mountain of lies. The opposite is also true” 

and 

“There are three aspects of reality: Truth – Wisdom – Bliss” 

and 

“Disregard your desires and fears, concepts and ideas and live by truth alone” 

and 

“The impure mind is opaque to truth” 

 and 

“The understanding comes by way of the love of truth.” Yet most do not love truth. Why?

Michael Reisig offered this on the subject in one of his novels by way of a cynical (but somewhat realistic) character: 

“People don’t want the truth. It’s too damned uncomfortable in the long term. They’ll take a sweet lie to an inconvenient truth every time. They want to be coddled and taken care of. They want to be told that it’s gonna be all right. Where have you been all your life, son? The mortar of government is lies. Do you think the populace out there could be controlled if they knew the truth—about the food they eat, or the water they drink, or the people that govern them? God! In my lifetime alone I’ve seen backroom deals cut by politicians and corporations that would have had the populace wanting the heads of every elected official in the nation. 

The duplicity, the misinformation you’ve been fed, and the real conspiracies - from Roswell to the Rockefellers, to the exotic energy technologies we’ve tucked away in hidden vaults, all the way to the people who really control this nation - hell, this country would come apart at the seams in a week. It’s simple, son. There’s more victory in deceit than there is in truth. There’s more money in it. Nobody really gives a shit about honesty. Put simply, unadulterated truth would just screw things up abysmally.” 

Alexander Solzhenitsyn said: "We do not err because truth is difficult to see. It is visible at a glance. We err because this is more comfortable." Or "seems" more comfortable or "appears to be" more comfortable. The widespread distortion among humans is rooted in an inability to differentiate true from false and an inability to differentiate between what is truly comfortable vs. what is actually most uncomfortable.

George Orwell said: "In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." (Of course, "telling it like it is" does not count if that "telling" itself involves more lies.)

Can you recall an instant which you told a lie to a parent and then walked about in abject fear, dreading the likelihood that you were going to be found out and punished?” Can you recall an instant which you told a lie to a boss or a mate (which can in many "relationships" be one and the same) and then walked about in abject fear, dreading the likelihood that you were going to be found out and then have to pay the consequences?” In the darkness of the barn, a rope can appear to be a snake.That can lead to fear and anxiety, which can generate anger and heaviness. When the door is opened farther and the light is able to shine in, then truth can be seen, a sense of relief comes, and that brings a sense of lightness.

Some would say, “Go ahead and confess the lie you told and you’ll feel better.” Not necessarily, depending on what the consequences of being found out are. 

(Work for a billionaire who is an ass but before finding another job you decide you must tell the truth and explain to him that he’s an ass? Might have been wiser to avoid both lying and telling the truth. Just find another job. What is often the motive in the first place for being driven to try to “tell everyone his or her truth”? Do you really believe they want the truth as you see it? Here, no one is sought out to hear the telling of the truth. They must find on their own that which is offered but which will never be imposed upon them.

Moreover, Maharaj said: “If you expect any benefits from your search - material, mental or spiritual - you have missed the point. Truth gives no advantage. It gives you no higher status, no power over others; all you get is truth and the freedom from the false.”

Really, what the heck. Why spend a lifetime focusing on truth? Actual truth can be understood but it can't be stated anyway. 

Work with Kim Jong Il and he asks you one day, “Do you think that I’m a total psycho?” Must you be so O-CD and anal and perfect that you cannot tell a lie and just have to tell him the truth? Rock and roll, but prepare for the consequences.) 

So what would allow you to “feel better” in all of the examples above would have been not lying in the first place. Lies bring heaviness. Truth comes via light and brings lightness. 

Maharaj: “Abandon the false and you are free of pain; truth makes happy - truth liberates” 

and 

“It is useless to search for truth, when the mind is blind to the false. It must be purged of the false completely before truth can dawn.” 

The case with Maharaj was that he eventually advised seekers to find what you are not instead of looking for “What You Are”; similarly, he said to those playing the role of "The Seeker of Truth": one need not seek truth but instead, Maharaj advised: “Concern yourself with untruth only.” 

Stop lying. Stop believing lies. Yet that is easier said than done. Lying and believing lies can only come to an end after receiving the proper treatment for the Ultimate Sickness and then being free of all learned ignorance and free of all previously-imposed insanity. 

To be continued.

Please enter into the silence of contemplation.

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