TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
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To continue with the reply to the question, "So what else is this deal all about?" some answers have already been offered in the eBook WHEN ONLY THREE HOURS OF MANIFESTATION REMAIN (The "Final" Talks Of Floyd Henderson)
Today, the next answer to the question "What is this non-duality deal all about, anyway?" is this:
Here, the deal is about realizing via completion of certain steps which, when combined with the Nisarga Yoga understanding, allows natural living to happen - and to happen spontaneously - instead of (a) living in an unnatural manner or (b)constantly working to try to live in a supposedly "supernatural" manner.
If You Would Come To Understand How To Abide Naturally, Find A Guide And Then A Model Which Are Both Abiding Naturally
First, to review and condense even further:
Find the simplest version of these teachings.
Abide naturally.
Seek no identity, including "good" ones.
Rest in the awareness of the nothingness.
All things relative and Absolute are much ado about nothing.
Settle not for instability.
Question.
Be free of the effects of your programming, conditioning, domestication, acculturation, brainwashing and indoctrination.
March to the beat of your inner guru.
Transition beyond religious concepts and identities.
Transition beyond spiritual concepts and identities.
Understand that there are hundreds of sources of pain, that there is only one source of misery and suffering.
Understand and that you must return to the mind-less "Child No-Knowing Stage" if you would be free and happy.
Next:
If you would come to understand how to abide naturally, find a guide and then a model which are both abiding naturally.
Here, Maharaj was a guide for part of the "journey"; once (a) the understanding of the functioning of the totality came during a vision and (b) that "big picture" awareness helped to clarify the later teachings of Maharaj, then Realization happened. [A free version of the vision is available above.]
After realization, this followed: as a result of having a local deer population for neighbors in an area that is shared with them, those deer have provided the model by which the daily existence has unfolded.
The deer’s lifestyle provides an example of natural living (as opposed to supernatural living or unnatural living): the deer functions spontaneously and unthinkingly under the auspices of the “laws” of nature.
It does nothing that is unnatural or self-destructive, and it has no supernatural beliefs. It has no dogma, no practices, no rules, no beliefs, and no concepts.
That plant-food-body-cum-consciousness (thought to be "a deer" by humans only) functions with a brain but no "mind." The deer burns no scented sticks and rings no noisy bells and sings no noisy songs and chants no noisy chants in unison with other deer. It does not knell and it has no "special way to sit" during "special times," such differentiation being the province of the not Fully-Realized.
It experiences no emotional intoxication. Yes, it bonds with other deer, but it experiences neither dependency nor co-dependency. It knows that it IS, but it does not believe that it is “something” or even that it is “anything.”
The sense of Am-ness manifests with the deer, but the sense of “I am this” or “I am that” does not.
(Note that even though the speck of consciousness called “a deer” knows it is, it does not "know" either an “I” or an “i.” Though the beingness is sensed, no thought of a "personal I" or "Special 'I'" occurs. )
The closest that a seeker beginning the "journey" can come to understanding the nisarga / natural state is to understand that when the realized say "I," there is no doubt at all that the "I" that is speaking is a speck of manifested consciousness - a composite unity only - and nothing more.
Note the other "lessons" that the deer can offer by way of contrasting natural living vs. unnatural or supernatural living: Having never been programmed, the deer will never wonder, “Who am I, really”? It will not ask, “Wonder what will happen when I die”? It will not shout in frustration someday, “I don’t even know who I am!”
It will not leave the doe by which a speck of consciousness called “a fawn” manifested, proclaiming, “You just don’t look as appealing to me since you had that fawn.” The doe will never announce, “I’m leaving you for another buck because you’re not good enough for me and your beliefs don’t mirror mine and I can only be in a relationship with a deer that is compatible with me" (meaning, a deer that is really an exact, opposite-sex version of me or, in some cases, an exact, same-sex version of me).
Unencumbered by ego and egotism, no deer will find itself trapped someday in a mindset that believes "I am really only capable of loving me or a mirror image of me . . . only capable of loving some phony image that I take myself to be."
And if the doe were to leave, the buck would not hunt her down and kill her (which is the scenario that accounts for 59% of all murdered human females killed annually in the U.S. during a breakup with "him").
The buck would never eat fermented berries to celebrate a happening or to mourn a happening, would never run down a trail at a high speed while intoxicated from such berries, would never veer off the deer trail, and would never crash into a tree and kill itself. Only humans do that sort of thing.
The deer will never have to focus repeatedly on the “I AM . . . I AM . . . I AM” to free itself of having been programmed to believe that it really is all of the labels that can follow the words “I am.” It does not believe that “I am this doe’s husband” or “I am that fawn’s father” or "I am the owner of this piece of land" or "I am the achiever who will accumulate more than I already have."
Do “husbanding”-type happenings happen nevertheless? Yes. Can “fathering-type” happenings still happen with the deer? Yes. Yet there are no false identifications that accompany those happenings. Do feelings rise and fall? Yes.
Do emotions and emotional intoxication happen (a phenomenon that can only occur if an ego-state is assumed and then believes it is being hurt or threatened or interfered with)? Of course not. That would all be unnatural, and the deer that has not been conditioned or domesticated can only live naturally.
Since seekers have been programmed and conditioned and domesticated and acculturated to define "self" by following the words “I am” with dozens and scores of labels, at the earliest stage of nisarga yoga they are invited to become aware of that same sense of beingness - of “Amness,” of the "Is-ness" - but of the I-Amness or Is-ness only.
Eventually, along the "path" to Realization, belief in the “i” and the “I” will end. All sense of "I-ness" and "self-ness" and "Self-ness" will end. THAT Which Is beyond beingness and non-beingness will be understood.
Then, a sense of beingness only remains, but abidance as THAT happens as well, thus: I AM THAT; I AM. Functioning for the remainder of the manifestation then happens with an incredible lightness of being. That is what dwelling in the natural, nisarga state looks like. A mindless deer can pull that off. Can you?
To be continued.
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