TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
THE FOUR STAGES AS TAUGHT HERE:
Stage I: Programming to accumulate
Stage II: Accumulating
and, eventually, either . . .
a. Discomfort / Emptiness inspiring even more accumulation
or
b. Discomfort / Emptiness inspiring seeking outside the popular venues
Stage III: Forest Dweller - the prerequisite and facilitator of the "inner journey"
Stage IV: De-Accumulation (via completion of the Four Stages and the Seven Steps to Realization, followed by abidance in the solitude of a relative existence that has been overlaid with the Absolute, then by abidance as the Nothingness, then by simple abidance, period, until the end of the manifestation).
The discussion of the Four Stages will end with an excerpt from "Chapter Fifteen" of THE ULTIMATE SICKNESS / THE ULTIMATE MEDICINE in which the following is shared regarding the fourth stage:
Stage IV: The De-Accumulation / Actual "Journey" Stage
Something interesting begins to happen after movement into the Fourth Stage and as the Ultimate Medicine is then delivered and received in the exact, seven-step manner that is required to address the Ultimate Sickness.
First, recall the Traditional Stages that have been followed by some seekers in the East for hundreds if not thousands of years:
THE FOUR STAGES - Eastern Traditional
Stage I: Celibate Disciple
Stage II: Householder and Family Person
Stage III: Forest Dweller / Hermit (teaching as a recluse)
Stage IV: Wandering Monk / Renunciant (traditionally ends all contact with people)
What is interesting is that, while the Four Stages here and the stages of Maharaj's "journey" both differ from the Traditional Stages, some of those Traditional Stage components do manifest in the Four Stages as presented here:
Post-realization, teaching may happen or not, but if teaching does happen, it often happens in the manner that is similar to the way it happens in the original, Traditional Stages.
Meaning?
Meaning that something not unlike the traditional "hermit" mode happens in that the teachings might be shared for a part of the day but the teacher still reserves larger portions of the day in order to be "cloistered," guaranteeing that the solitude and the quiet which the realized enjoy is assured. Understand, however, that such is not necessary.
(Yet whatever happens post-realization will happen spontaneously and with attachment6, so the one continuing to work in a crowded office can enjoy peace as much as another "realized one" sitting alone in the woods and listening to a babbling brook as the waters flow by.)
However, in the stages here, there will be no assumption of any new persona, including neither "The Hermit" nor "The Recluse." (You would not call the deer lying in the afternoon shade "A Hermit Deer" or "A Recluse Deer." The deer is just behaving naturally, enjoying the solitude and the quiet. The solitude or "cloistering" just happens spontaneously.)
So the "cloistering" among "the realized" can even happen in a crowd, though the solitude becomes the "norm" no matter what externals might surround the realized. The same pattern came to pass with Maharaj: he generally received visitors for a period in the morning and again later in the day, but the rest of the day he enjoyed rides into the countryside, in natural settings, away from the masses;
or, on other occasions, he followed the advice he gave to some visitors: he walked to the river and sat on the bank and enjoyed the natural setting as he watched the waters flow by. That sometimes happened alone and sometimes happened with a realized companion.
Another comparison is this: in the Traditional Stage Four, "The Renunciant" appears. In the Four Stages here, something like "The Renunciant" also manifests at the end of the third of seven steps. Since "The Renunciant" is also an ego-state, that cannot happen until the end of the third of seven steps but cannot continue into the fourth of seven steps. Why?
By the fourth of seven steps, all identification ends. "The Renunciant" still involves identification and movement in the not-yet-totally-pure-consciousness that will eventually only witness, post-realization; therefore, unlike with the Traditional Stages, the case with the Four Stages here is this: "The Renunciant" cannot continue after realization - all identity and ego-states having ended.
By continuing to complete the seven-step "journey" which occurs in Stage Four, the pure consciousness level (that is, the pure witnessing level) manifests, as illustrated by the naturally-abiding deer. At that point, nothing is "accepted" and nothing is "renounced": anyone thought to have been "The Accepter" is gone and the same applies to "The Renunciant."
Yet all must be renounced before the fourth and fifth steps can happen. What is renounced as the third of seven steps is transcended? The societal mores of any and every culture; anything considered by any society to be its norms and customs;
anything and everything that is deemed virtuous or valuable by any culture, or deemed "bad" or worthless by any culture; any and all beliefs and ideas and concepts, including but certainly not limited to patriotism, nationalism, pride, ambition, ownership, good, bad, best, special, personal, different, better than;
including anything and everything held sacred by any and all cultures or anything deemed to be a "sacred cow" to persons, that is, anything held onto and considered to be valuable in spite of all the evidence to the contrary;
including all belief in hierarchies, whether the hierarchies include those that are established in recovery groups, the military, organized religion, spiritual groups, corporate offices, police forces and fire departments, or those involving economic strata as well as in local, state, national or international organizations;
including forms of government and economic systems; including any and all beliefs held about "relationships" and about what most take "love" to be; also renounced are all forms of dogma, all ideologies, all philosophies, and all spiritual movements (and, yes, that includes Advaita Vedanta, in the end);
including all identification; including all that is thought to be "personal"; all personality; and all other content of the "mind." Also renounced eventually are any and all teachings, including those here that deal along the way with self vs. non-self, self Vs. Self, beingness vs. non-beingness.
Eventually, after all is renounced, then the remainder of the manifestation unfolds in a non-dual, no-concept, no-belief, no-identity fashion, and that is why the consciousness can speak and factually assert that . . .
"Here, there is nothing that is believed, so there is no one here who wants you to believe anything, either. Here, the invitation is to be free of all that you have been programmed, conditioned, acculturated, domesticated, brainwashed and indoctrinated to believe so that you can be free, period."
In the Fourth Stage here, de-accumulation must be complete as far as beliefs and identities are concerned. To move through all seven steps and into a state of "Full Realization," renunciation must be completed along the way as well.
With de-accumulation and the completion of all seven steps on the "journey," ignorance goes and logic comes; then, too, come the simplicity, the peace of the silence, and the pleasures that can be enjoyed after the Absolute has been overlaid onto the relative.
Only if seekers de-accumulate totally and renounce totally can total freedom manifest, and only if total freedom and total independence manifest can total bliss manifest. Best regards on your "journey."
Coming Next: The Causes, Symptoms, Effects, and Aspects of the Ultimate Sickness have been discussed. Next, the Treatment.
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
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