TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
Of the non-dual understanding which Maharaj offered, what might explain why he initially estimated that "only 1 out of 100,000 will ever get this" but later said that "only 1 out of 1,000,000 will ever get this" and eventually - after decades of working with seekers - modified that guesstimate to "1 out of 10,000,000"?
Consider the enormity of the obstacles which one who works for 20 or 40 or 80 years with seekers of the non-dual understanding will witness:
Obstacle #11: BEING UNAWAKE, UNAWARE, UNCONSCIOUS:
Specifically, Having No Consciousness of the Beckoning to Change Paths . . .
No Awareness of the Cry to Change Paths
What types will not usually consider the possibility of taking a different path from the one they have been following, even if it is generating relative miseries and suffering for them or those around them?
One of the most obvious examples would be the alcoholic or any others with the Addictive Personality Disorder. No matter how much evidence is presented that the path they are on is not a path that is in their best relative interests, all signs and evidence will typically be ignored or denied. Real change seldom come.
Who else?
The arrogant, the cocky, who display an "I've got the world by the tail; watch me strut, and eat my dust" attitude. Historically, those at the top of the hierarchies in societies (such as the super wealthy or the most powerful) are for maintaining the status quo. Have certain philanthropists among that segment come forth at times? You bet, but have those philanthropists been the rule or are they more often the exception?
By contrast, the poor, the starving, and others at the bottom of a society's hierarchies, are the ones that will be willing to change.
Who else?
Those who have normalized their pain and suffering and those who have ennobled pain and suffering: "You just have to put up with the misery being handed to us in this life, knowing that in the next life we'll be rewarded for the misery that we suffered in this life."
Usually, none of those types will seek a different path.
On the other hand, there are those that do nothing but seek. They are "The Super Seekers" and they are as addicted to seeking as addicts are to whatever they happen to be addicted to. The Catch-22 with that mindset? When persons are attached to seeking, they shall not find because - were they to assume "The Finder" role - that would instantly and automatically nullify "The Super Seeker" role which they think they so enjoy playing.
On the other hand, there are those that do nothing but seek. They are "The Super Seekers" and they are as addicted to seeking as addicts are to whatever they happen to be addicted to. The Catch-22 with that mindset? When persons are attached to seeking, they shall not find because - were they to assume "The Finder" role - that would instantly and automatically nullify "The Super Seeker" role which they think they so enjoy playing.
To give up that "Super Seeker" role, to stop "being" "The Super Seeker" would require that thereafter they would just be, and that is something they are not capable of.
So which types might be inspired to seek, to find and then to just BE?
Those that have an inner longing and suddenly become in touch with that yearning ache. Those that have followed a path devotedly but without actually finding what they seek and then finally conclude,
"There must be more than this (or maybe even 'less'?) I must find whatever 'that' is so I can stop allowing seeking to be a second job occupying my entire relative existence so much that there is no time - what with my first job that pays the bills and with my second, adopted job of seeking - to stop and take it easy and smell the roses."
"There must be more than this (or maybe even 'less'?) I must find whatever 'that' is so I can stop allowing seeking to be a second job occupying my entire relative existence so much that there is no time - what with my first job that pays the bills and with my second, adopted job of seeking - to stop and take it easy and smell the roses."
Here, the case was this: my Cherokee grandmother had no formal education, but she was an absolute fount of wisdom. She began passing down to me, in tiny doses at a time, the non-dual understandings which had been passed down to her.
When I became "stumped," she did not push it. She just sent me off to pick a basketful of baby cream peas and some tomatoes from her garden to prepare for lunch and dinner.
In the book
What a Cherokee Grandmother Passed On to a Grandson
(100 pages with pictures) it is explained how it came to be that, by the ages of 5 and 6, I was already being offered pointers toward the non-dual understanding. And what astounding levels of duality I had already been exposed to! The contrasts are illustrated via the differences between being raised in the darkness of an inner city vs. spending time in the forests with a Cherokee Grandmother and seeing the light.
The book contains a discussion of how duality is modeled and copied by children who then become entrapped in dualistic thinking and talking and behaving for their entire relative existence; how some few are fortunate enough to be exposed to a 180-degree-opposite alternative; and how some will pursue that opposite mode of functioning and witnessing and seeing which can allow those few to have an opportunity to be freed from the darkness and to abide in the light.
Above all, Grandmother was what some nowadays call “fully realised.” Was she also “a teacher” of non-duality? Yes and no. She passed on non-duality not as much by offering non-dual pointers as by modeling non-duality all day, every day, for her entire relative existence.
Everything she shared was consistent with what Maharaj shared, and if ever anyone adhered to the nisarga (natural) lifestyle throughout an entire relative existence, it was Grandmother. She pointed the way to me, and she can also point the way to you as well by way of what she shared, some of which is included in the book mentioned above..
So the case here was that "seeds of consciousness" - seeds of the pure, universal consciousness - were planted early on. When the time came that the paths I had tried were not working, a peripeteia (that is, "a reversal of circumstances" or "a turning point") happened. Aristotle defined peripeteia as "a change by which the action veers round to its opposite, subject always to our rule of probability or necessity."
Indeed, those who feel no "necessity," such as those mentioned above who are comfortable because of being stationed at the top of their culture's hierarchy, will never be drawn to change paths, but for the few that become aware of the beckoning, of the cry, they can have an opportunity that few will have: an opportunity alluded to by Robert Frost when he wrote:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
While all that Grandmother had shared had seemingly dissolved and when there was seemingly no consciousness of the beckoning to change paths - no awareness of the cry to change paths - suddenly the beckoning was recognized, the cry was heard.
I instantly began to touch that inner longing and sensed the yearning ache which I had ignored for years.
In you are interested in seeing what Grandmother shared which set the stage for taking the road less traveled, and if you realize that one truly can enjoy the difference which taking the road less traveled cam make, you may read the book now.
(Click to purchase for $2.99)
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
