MEDITATION, Part Four

“Since ‘the mind’ is a composite of unnatural and supernatural concepts, then if one cleans away those concepts by seeing that they are rooted in ancient lies and myths and superstitions, then belief in concepts ends and so does their mind which is taken to be one’s own personal mind.”

F.: Are your seatbelts still buckled? Is turbulence being experienced around this discussion of meditation? If so, who is bothered? When a spiritual practice is questioned, only a spiritual persona can react and be “bothered,” revealing that one is "stuck" at the third of seven levels. It has been asked: “But Floyd, didn’t you tell me that during your days of regular meditation that you slowed your heart rate by seventeen beats per minute? That’s got to be healthy.” Of course it’s healthy. I still do the same...when I rest. Natural living is what happened with humankind for millions of years. It is living that is not marred by ideas, emotional intoxication, and beliefs in myths and superstitions. All of that results in unnatural living, marked by unwarranted fears, excessive desires, and unchecked accumulation. Or it leads to an effort by some to try to live supernaturally—to imagine powers that don’t exist, powers that have their own desires and want you to perform rituals and exercises that are needless. Supernatural living leads to magical thinking which convinces persons that they can have access to power that will allow them to control. The master addiction among persons is a desire to control, and the secondary addiction is the addiction to power that they think will allow them to do that. The result among persons is an overwhelming desire to control others, to control their surroundings, to control other nations, and (when they become relgious or spiritual) to use methods to try to control their racing, variable, tortuous “minds.” It cannot happen since what they are trying to control is a mirage. A person cannot control her or his “mind” since the mind is a conglomeration of lies and beliefs and concepts and ideas, an accumulation of mirages and appearances that are taken to be real. Because they did the programming and conditioning that formed that “mind,” persons have no mind of their own to try to control. Persons are trying to control the minds of others, for all minds are theirs. No one has an original mind at “birth.” All have a brain and archetypal influences along with the no-mind purity referred to in From the I to the Absolute : A Seven-Step Journey to Reality as "the Child Ignorance" stage. That purity is soon corrupted by an assault from two groups: (1) those living unnatural lives dominated by fears and desires and (2) those living supernaturally who are dominated by a quest for power that can afford control over people, places, things, weather, cities, states, nations…ad infinitum. The Advaita Teachings invite the seeker to remember, to remember what is naturally known: specifically, what I Am. The Advaita Teachings urge getting rid of, not accumulating more, and that applies first and foremost to getting rid of their mind which is taken to be one’s own personal mind. Efforts to control moods, thoughts, emotional reactions and a racing mind are doomed to failure. One can spend hours a day involved in the task. I certainly tried that for years. But all those efforts provide no more than a temporary respite from the effects of dealing with concepts that are dreamed up by people who unnaturally believe lies or who supernaturally believe in things that result in magical thinking. Either way, a never-ending effort will be required to subdue the “mind” that—with persons—can experience 25,000 to 50,000 thoughts per hour. For those who “choose” to continue that fight, using various methods that they claim are “helping them,” rock and roll. A struggle can have a very calm face, but it’s still a struggle at its core. Natural living is marked by witnessing feelings, yes, but it is not marked by effort after effort after effort to try to force things—including a “mind”—to one’s will. There is an alternative to trying to force a variable mind to be still. See the lies that are generating the troublesome thoughts. A person can never control the “mind.” The appearance of a temporary hold might be taken to be real, but those making such a claim may as well claim that they finally have the desert mirages of the Southwest states under control. How can one use any method to control mirages, to make mirages stand still, to make bothersome mirages stop being so bothersome? The proteges who are led to realization by an Advaitan teacher allow the mind to dissolve once and for all. To see a mirage as a mirage is to ignore the mirage. Since the mind is a composite of unnatural and supernatural concepts, then if one cleans away those concepts by seeing that they are rooted in ancient lies and myths and superstitions, then belief in concepts ends and so does their mind which is taken to be one’s own personal mind. When that mind (which drives persons to emote and behave in a fashion that is dominated by lies) finally come to an end, then the need to try to control the mind ends. Isn’t a goal of those who are practicing meditation religiously to stop the body from racing and to stop the mind from racing? Well, a body can stop. I call it “resting” or I call it “taking a nap” or “having a night of truly restful sleep as a result of the brain cycling at a delta-level.” Of course the mind can stop for short respites by using varied methods, but that’s all short-lived for persons. The alternative is to allow the mind to stop by dissolution. Feelings can still come and go, but emotional intoxication ends, working to rest ends, magical thinking ends, unnatural thinking ends, and then the beingness happens...without effort. That is true rest. That is natural. Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be continued 1 September 2005]

MEDITATION, Part Three

“Meditation is intended to wake people up, not put them to sleep. Exercises conducted in the quiet along the “journey” are tools, yes, but when a homeowner’s house is built, he puts away his tools and then simply enjoys the new place he’s in.”

[Continued from 29 August 2005]
F.: I’ve used the “Don’t Think About A Monkey” experiment with thousands, and not one has claimed the ability to force the image of a monkey from the mind completely. Now, that was an innocuous case. What happens when the mind of a person is trying to process something that the person is really "invested in," something that is having a far greater impact than a monkey’s image? If persons have a real concern or interest or worry or offense that is boiling about in a variable mind, how successful can they be at forcing the mind to ignore that happening? Next, let’s consider what else persons face when trying to force the brain and an illusory “mind” to function according to their desires. As you are reading this information, the conscious-energy is moving at a “beta-rate” of fourteen cycles per second—or even faster for most persons. Fourteen cycles or more per second. That’s 840 cycles or more per minute. That’s 50,400 cyclings or more per hour. By way of comparison, an idling automobile engine rotates at 10 cycles per second. Right now, I want you to force that cycling to slow to a “theta rate” of 4-7 cycles per second. Of course, that’s also impossible for most. If a typical person is in a beta-state and hears music that tries to force the brain to entrain to a theta-cycle range, it is not calming…it is irritating. The racing “mind” hates surrounding calm. Yet only at the theta rate can the sensations of the relative existence be neutralized and allow one to focus on pointers about non-relative possibilities. So a dilemma exists for most who begin dabbling with meditation: how can a person force an over-active “mind” to be still? As with the monkey experiment, the very act of trying to “calm a mind” accelerates the movement even more. “Set a timer,” some advise. Fine, but when the timer sounds and the person continues with the activities of the day, those activities are being done with "a mind" (with contaminated consciousness) ; thus, no lasting peace will happen. The early sages assigned meditation with a specific intention, and reaching the “no-mind” state was not the intent. Meditation is intended to wake people up, not put them to sleep. Every entry in my two Daily Meditation Guides and on this site as well ends with an invitation to enter the silence and then contemplate the point/pointers offered. At no time have I ever suggested that a student or visitor or guest or participant at a session “go into a trance,” “seek a super-conscious state as a regular habit,” or “experience the rapture.” Exercises conducted in the quiet along the “journey” are tools, yes, but when a homeowner’s house is built, he puts away his tools and then simply enjoys the new place he’s in. Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be continued 31 August 2005]

MEDITATION, Part Two

I had followed the instructions of most who had written meditative guides and sought the “no-mind state,” sought to force my “mind” to stop racing, sought a “super-conscious state,” sought in morning meditation to have “a spiritual experience” that would result in a peace that would last throughout the day, sought to have an overwhelming, “emotionally-raptuous experience.”

[Continued from 29 August 2005]
F.: Next, I must admit that my "personal" meditative work was like all my other spiritual workaholism. With unbounded effort and obsessive practice, I “did” meditation in a fashion that many others equaled but that few surpassed. After thousands and thousands of “meditative experiences,” realization still did not come. Neither did anything close to emotional sobriety or real peace. A vision that was key to the understanding came at the end of a day when, physically exhausted, I lay on a carpeted floor and dozed off. While awakening, the vision came. All the bells and whistles and meditative aids and practices were for nil because I found no guides that suggested I should take pointers into consideration. I had no one offering sound pointers anyway, so I had no chance at all of practicing meditation as originally intended. Instead, I had followed the instructions of most who had written meditative guides and thus sought the “no-mind state,” sought to force my “mind” to stop racing, sought a “super-conscious state,” sought in morning meditation to have “a spiritual experience” that would result in a peace that would last throughout the day, sought at other times to have an overwhelming, “emotionally-raptuous experience.” Yet I failed miserably to reach "my" ultimate goal and could not force "my mind” to alter to "my will” or to "the will of an unseen power." To test how capable persons actually are of controlling their own mind and thoughts, I invite proteges to conduct an experiment. Right now, I want you be sure that you do not picture a monkey hanging by one arm from the limb of a tree in a jungle. Anything else that comes to mind is fine, but continue the exercise. At all cost, do NOT picture a monkey hanging from a limb, one fist closed tightly around the limb of a jungle tree, the other arm hanging loosely by its side, the monkey swaying back and forth in the air. Are you NOT picturing a monkey? Avoid at all cost the imagining of a monkey. DON’T see a monkey hanging, a monkey swinging from a limb, a monkey screeching out its monkey sounds. Uh oh. I suspect you’re picturing a monkey. Please stop it. Force yourself, if you must, not to picture that monkey that is still hanging from a limb, still swinging back and forth, its free arm swaying at its side. DON’T picture a monkey. So how did you do with that experiment at controlling "your mind" and your thoughts? Has it been suggested to you by someone that you have the ability to control "your mind"? Has it been suggested that an entity in another realm can control "your mind" and change it to "your" advantage? Has it been a goal to be able to calm "your mind"? Has a quarter-hour to an hour of meditative work been effective in freeing you of a troublesome, variable mind during all of your waking hours? If not, might another purpose of meditation exists, and might that purpose actually free you of the illusion of mind, once and for all? Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be continued 30 August 2005]

MEDITATION, Part One

“What are the options, should natural, impersonal living not happen? Then persons can live (a) unnaturally or (b) supernaturally.”

F.: The suggestion used to open sessions in which religious and spiritual roles are discussed shall be repeated. For the discussion of the use (and misuse) of meditation, some might need to buckle a seatbelt since they might be in for some turbulence. To avoid that, the suggestion is that if you have a regular meditation practice that you love, you probably don’t need to read the posts coming up for the next week. If you love being in a super-conscious “state,” don’t read this. If you love going into a trance, don’t read this. If you love the emotional surge of repeatedly experiencing the rapture, don’t read this. For the rest, we’ll move on.

My teacher’s name—“Nisargadatta”—means “natural.” The understanding of the Advaita Teaching offered via that space called Nisargadatta does not necessarily represent the understanding of all other sages. To make clear the offering, then, that method he conveyed leads to realization and natural living. (What happens after the consciousness is no longer manifested is moot, for no person will experience what happens in the Absolute. Of course, if realized, no person will experience an illusion-driven life while the consciousness is manifested either, and natural, AS IF living will just happen.) What are the options, should natural, impersonal living not happen? Then persons can live (a) unnaturally or (b) supernaturally. Unnatural living is marked by behavior that is driven by ideas, emotions, beliefs and false identification with a food-body, a “mind,” and multiple personas. Supernatural living is marked by magical thinking that assigns blame or credit for all that happens to one source that is believed to be micro-managing every aspect of life on this planet and the remainder of the universe as well. Magical thinking results in the belief that a source is manipulating each and every event experienced by food-bodies, right down to whether it rains or not. Magical thinking results in the belief that a source living in another realm determines which single sperm—of the hundreds of millions of sperm released every second on this globe—will fertilize which source-selected egg in this realm. Magical thinking takes natural processes and assigns supernatural cause to those processes. Maharaj knew that only a small percentage of persons walking the planet will ever realize and then live naturally. So it is. But what did Nisargadatta teach about meditation and its proper use for those seekers on the "journey"? He taught that many claiming realization, and most involved in the search, have so distorted the original intent of the meditative process that the true jnanis wouldn’t even recognize what is called “meditation" today. If you are involved in a regular meditative practice, are you fully awake, completely aware, and totally conscious in order to focus on pointers offered by a realized teacher, or do you have other motives and goals? If the latter, you might list the motives and goals and then ask, “Who wants to gain more than the understanding of the Teaching and who wants something other than natural living for the remainder of the relative existence?” Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be continued 29 August 2005]

COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS from Site Visitors

From Andrea, Canada, Part Five

[Continued from 26 August 2005. The follow-up exchange centered on a reference to AS IF Living]:

Andrea: "Then what does living life look like from that place?"

F.: After you go through all seven steps on the journey (as laid out in FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE: A Seven-Step Journey to Reality), and then once you Realize, you will not necessarily be living "from that place." You will be living "here" with that Full Knowledge, with that Full Understanding, with that Full Awareness, and with that Full Realization. THAT will allow you to live freely, seeking no power to create things the way you want them, seeking no control to try to bring into your life what you might think is missing, living out the remainder of time that the body space has in an AS IF fashion...as if anything in the relative has significance but knowing it doesn't. Living as if any of "this" is real, work can still happen and responsibilities can still be meet; however, knowing none of "it" is the Real, a lack of attachment to the illusory will pre-empt desires and fears. Detachment and the absence of emotional sobriety does not result in being robotic and without "feelings." (Ego-states emote; even the Realized can feel.) You'll watch it all but without any subject-object aspect interfering with objective witnessing. The "journey" begins at the "I," begins with persons believing that they are the body-mind-personality triad. The "journey"—if completed—will free the persona of the misconceptions of body-mind identity and all role identity as well...including religious and spiritual roles that must be transcended. Once the body and mind and religious/spiritual roles are seen to be illusions that resulted from programming, the more peaceful state of a child in ignorance will happen and all else that is false can be witnessed. Any remaining subject-object delusions will fall away. The pure witness—the True Self—can then know the oneness that comes with the knowledge that a tiny "building-block" of energy-consciousness is all there is, and all supposed differences are merely appearances that result from energy vibrationing at varied frequencies. From the platform of the Pure Witness, the beingness can be known rather than an experiencing of the doing-ness. The non-beingness can also be known and the 'state' of Absolute rest and peace can be seen. Then, the remainder of the relative existence can be passed in the "I Am," in the "Is-ness," in the Pure Witness "mode," in the AS IF style. Please enter the silence of contemplation.

Tomorrow: MEDITATION: How personality has diminished a formerly effective tool for realization [with excerpts from The Daily Meditation Guides]

COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS from Site Visitors

From Andrea, Canada, Part Four

[Continued from 25 August 2005. Site visitors yesterday saw a realization happen when Andrea applied the “Who” test. Here’s how that unfolded]:

F.: [Andrea had mentioned that she was playing ‘a lot with vedic astrology and have yagyas (large pujas) performed for me...incredible experiences with both, and i know that i am just playing...having fun, opening more to the awakening. Let’s move to some pointers. Of course, only persons have experiences. Pure consciousness is energy, and energy cannot experience, so the reponse was]: “Andrea, when we try to blend anything that is thought to be material with anything else that is thought to be spiritual, duality results and impure consciousness goes into accelerated movement. Peace ends. I always ask, ‘Is this an example of AS IF living,’ or is there some persona trying to gain something? What's to gain? I enjoy sitting in my boat on the lake, riding through the nearby national forest on my motorcycle, watching the flora and fauna off my balcony, etc. The question would be, ‘Am I trying to gain anything? Am I having to do something to get peace? There's nothing that can ever be done to get peace. Here's an entry from the site which offers a pointer that applies to your case:

‘Is it possible that personal power sources were dreamed up and tales of them are now passed on as a result of human desires and human fears and human resistance to the fact that man can do nothing, and need do nothing, to become free of the bondage of misery-causing fear and frustration-causing desires that result from accepting the body-mind-personality as self?’

Only realization need come. Regarding these activities you name, I'd ask, 'Am I trying to escape something or create a state of peace?' WHO is trying to escape? WHO is trying to gain? Andrea the _____ (fill in the blank if an identity applies. If not, cool.) For me, those activities I named just happen. I'm not really doing anything. That might be a difference with your case...or might not. For me, as those are happening, there's no movement in consciousness, no gain, nothing sought...all is just happening. So I suppose the question would be, 'How would you characterize these activities of yours: is there gain being sought? WHO would gain? Are you doing something to get something, to escape something, to create something?' That would be the test I would use to find the truth and to uncover 'motive.' WHO has a motive? Maybe one exists, maybe not. Best regards, floyd"

So how did a realization happen for Andrea after that exxchange? She actually applied the suggestion. The resulting realization we saw yesterday:

Andrea: “Wow...it is true. When i ask WHO would gain from these yagyas...i just go into this calm place as if there is nothing and nobody to gain anything. It feels like the 'person' who wanted the yagyas did so out of a place of fear and wanting clarity in life.”

F.: [To all site visitors] If you complete all seven of the steps to reality as outlined, then AS IF living will happen automatically. Many attempt to force themselves into the silence. After realization, the silence just happens. Until realization, the silence simply facilitates the ability to contemplate and focus on pointers offered that can lead to realization. More will be offered soon on "meditation." Is the goal to enter a super-consciousness state, or is the goal to set aside quiet time for considering pointers offered? Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be continued 27 August 2005]

COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS from Site Visitors

[The following series of exchanges came during the Level Three discussions around transcending religious and spiritual personas. If the site visitor completed all seven steps, I suspect the content of any message would be quite different now; nevertheless, the exchanges provide an opportunity to review, to see a shift as it occurred, and to reinforce certain pointers]

From Andrea, Canada, Part One
Andrea: “I’m still enjoying your blogs...smiling at the one who "stormed" out. [The reference was to a person who was so consumed by his level three roles that he was driven to confront me and then leave angry. So it is.] Question: i understand that everything is a concept, that all that is really here is consciousness, god, brahman, whatever the label. And yet, isn't the mind also consciousness? Isn't the whole idea to witness the concepts, know that if they are coming from consciousness, that there is some truth to them as well, and yet it is not the whole truth…therefore having the non-attachment to the concepts? For example, i play a lot with vedic astrology and have yagyas (large pujas) performed for me...incredible experiences with both, and i know that i am just playing...having fun, opening more to the awakening...and these practices are not the "whole truth." Does this make sense? Perhaps you have more to add to this. Thanks andrea (in a place called canada)
Part Two
Andrea: “It does feel like years of conditioning based mainly on fears that we need to seek more, improve more, find more, be more...blah blah...it feels like in one's true nature there are no needs and desires...interesting...i feel i go in and out of this...sometimes...eureka!! i have it...and other times i am stuck in the suffering.”

F.: The postings on the site are addressing your current state, it seems. To look at the religious or spiritual personas objectively is the prerequisite for shifting to the next level. Only after transcending to the next level, level 4, can one be, can one witness, can one know the True Self, can one understand the being and the non-beingness and then the Absolute. Thus I say that the third level I'm discussing in the current posts is the ‘make-or-break’ point, for those who think they have arrived will not continue the journey. Thus, they will miss one intent: to eliminate the constant shifting described by you thusly...

i feel i go in and out of this...sometimes...eureka!! i have it..and other times i am stuck in the suffering.

...and to stabilize. Travel on with me, voyager. Much is yet to be seen!

Part Three
Andrea: “Wow...it is true. When i ask WHO would gain from these yagyas...i just go into this calm place as if there is nothing and nobody to gain anything. It feels like the "person" who wanted the yagyas did so out of a place of fear and wanting clarity in life.”

[To all site visitors: If all seven steps offered on the site were completed, what would now be included on a list of changes in perspective?]

Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be continued 26 August 2005]

COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS from Site Visitors

Continuing the response to yesterday's message

from SIM

F.: Too, the Jiukiukwe have no words in their language for “hate,” “war,” “greed,” “contend,” “competition,” or “rival.” Contrast their language, which has no word for “hate,” with the Aryan language (spoken first in Germany and Austria, then in England and the U.S., but now spreading across the globe) which includes: hate, hatred, animosity, loathing, enmity, abhorrence, disaffection, alienation, coolness, disgust, estrangement, and all the related words such as resent, resentment, dislike, repugnance, revenge, despise, venomous, bitterness, detestation, umbrage, and antipathy. To that list you could likely add hundreds of other words with similar meaning or connotation. What does the absence of those words reveal about the culture/philosophy of the Jiukiukwe and the other tribes mentioned, and what does the presence of those words reveal about persons in societies that use the Aryan/Anglo-Saxon language? Also revealing is the fact that among the Jiukiukwe, the words “angry” and “insane” are closely related.

Then there are the Penans and the Apayao tribes. Neither tribe has words or terms for “separation” or for “thank you.” There is no separation or proprietorship in their worldview, so there’s no need to thank anyone for anything because there are no words for “giving” or for “taking.” All is shared with all others, so there is no personal ownership. With no concept of land ownership, and believing that the land offers up the elements and the energy that facilitate the manifestation of consciousness, they treat all land as equally valuable. There is no “apart from,” so when the Europeans introduced the idea that certain parcels of land are “holy,” (a word which by definition means “different from” and thus perpetuates dual-mindedness) the tribe members could not understand that concept. One early post on this site discussed the conflict that grows out of the western concepts of possession that are expressed with “my” and “mine.” Those two words do not exist in the languages of the tribes above. Also, the Apayaos have no words for "duality,” “hello” or “goodbye,” again because they have no concept of separation. When they arrive, they arrive; when they leave, they leave. It all just happens, but not in any timeframe or with any sense of disconnection. Finally, certain early Eastern Mediterranean tribes had no word for “separation” either since, like all the tribes mentioned above, they had no concept of duality or separation. The concepts of separation and time are religious in origin—used originally to log dates for feasts, for celebrations and for animal or human sacrifice and to describe "the final separation" of the "good" who go up there while the "bad" end up down there, for time eternal. (Agricultural applications of “time” and calendars for planting came later.) However, it was mainly Anglo-Saxons who took the concept of "time" to its current level where clocks now dominate the daily lives of most persons. As the Europeans began their colonization of the world, they spread the religious concepts of birth, life, death, judgment and eternal punishment or reward, and the reality of cycling was lost as time and timelines became a generally-held belief. (Note too how the Christ message of humility was lost when "the seat of Christianity" shifted from the Mideast desert to the western extravagance of Rome/Vatican City. An eastern philosophy rooted in de-accumulation gave way to the western influence of a religion marked by opulence and accumulation. As the western version of the "Christian religion" flourished, the Advaita message of Christ was abandoned, and as combative language flourished, the peace he spoke of waned.) What is the pointer around language differences for Advaitans? First, the relevance of the pointer I repeated yesterday is clear: “the prerequisites for contaminating the consciousness and producing the illusion of a ‘mind’ include words, letters, language…etc.” When consciousness is contaminated and then thoughts and ideas and concepts are expressed via a combative language of bellicosity and belligerence, war will result and peace shall not be known...not in the family, not in the community, and not in the world. Secondly, a "language of reality" exists. Advaitans are conscious of the words and word structures used. A shift occurs in the ways of communication as the realized awaken to the potential influence of words on the mindset of entire populations. While aware that truth cannot be stated, the realized are also aware of the untruths that words convey. Next, since the impact of words is known, they are used less and less among the realized. The quiet is not imposed; after clarity manifests, the silence just starts happening. Finally, look to the languages of the tribes discussed and see what “natural living” was like for millions of years: no wanting, no desiring, no sense of separation, no divisions of land into “holy” and “not holy," and thus no fighting over ownership of “holy land.” Then, know that the realized de-accumulate in all areas in order to live naturally. Any desire to live supernaturally or unnaturally eventually fades away. The value of the void is applied to talking as well.” Please enter the silence of contemplation.
Tomorrow: ANDREA from Canada

COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS from Site Visitors

[Posting comments from two visitors, one regarding sessions and one regarding the link between language, thought and behavior]

From CARLA in Los Angeles, CA, USA
“I understand that you live in Texas. I’m only a few hours away by plane. Are you still conducting sessions and, if so, when does the next session begin?”

F.: “Hi, Carla. Welcome to the site. No, presently sessions are not being conducted. The early content posted for a time on this website contained exchanges from sessions that took place in late 2001 and early 2002. The key pointers offered during each posting are still available. A woman who could not make the first meeting of the 2001 sessions asked a friend to tape it so she could listen to it later and then be “on track” when she came to the second session. Later, realizing that the silence was gaining in appeal, and sensing that the sessions in the fall of 2001 might be the last, I kept that tape and then recorded the content of subsequent sessions and then had a temp type the transcripts for me. Those transcripts have since been compiled into a 180-page book entitled FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE: a Seven-Step Journey to Reality. The silence happened more and more beginning in May of 2002, and only rarely is it now interrupted. Then, blog sites began to appear and some encouraged setting up an Advaita site. It allows the Teaching to be offered while maintaining the silence—thus the site that you are now visiting. Postings will continue on random topics, so you’re welcome to submit any questions you might have. If something beyond these posts seems necessary for full realization, the more deliberate, seven-step process that led to "my" realization is available in the book mentioned above. Thanks for visiting.

From SIM in Owensboro, KY, USA
“I just watched a 60 Minutes segment on river people named the Moken. They had no words for 'when' or 'want.' Time was not a concept of theirs, so they don't understand questions like 'How old are you?' If they catch a fish for breakfast, they aren't even thinking of lunch. There's just 'now.' A boat of kinsmen could pull up and it doesn't make any difference whether it's been 1 week, 1 year or 5 years. To them, it's the same. As to 'want,' they have words for give or take, but they don't understand 'want' and do not accumulate since they live on the sea. It’s really something, the way our language drives our thinking, huh?”

F.: Hello again, Sim. Thanks for your comment, and yes, language does drives thinking. You might recall a recent post that noted that “the prerequisites for contaminating the consciousness and producing the illusion of a ‘mind’ include words, letters, language…etc.” It works both ways: thinking produces a language used to tell lies, and a language of lies results in more thinking. And we know that all thinking is in error since it's generated by a "mind" that is nothing but a reservoir for lies and false beliefs and concepts and ideas. Antropologists tell us that for millions of years, humans worked about 2.5 hours per day to meet the basic survival needs. (Their “work” is what most persons today pay money to do for a “vacation”: hunting, fishing, etc.) The remainder of the human existence was play: visiting with family, swimming, sex, dancing, singing, playing games, etc. The Aryan invasions (of more than 30,000 years ago) that drove the “Indian-Asiatics” to the east accelerated the spread of the ancient Advaitan teachings to what is called North, Central and South America as well as to many islands, and the show you watched seems to have reported the effect. More dominant, however, was the eventual spreading of the Aryan doctrines of accumulation and want and desire. Today, few own their homes, but many have homes that own them. The need to work more to produce more to earn more is driven by the desire for accumulations and the subsequent need to maintain all those accumulations. The natural living that lasted for millions of years ended as most of those adhering to the Advaitan teachings were killed by others involved in conquest and colonization. Among the few remaining descendants of the survivors, you can see vestiges of the Advaita philosophy as revealed through commonalities in their languages, especially by considering what is not included. Note the Advaitan pointers available by seeing what those who originally understood this Teaching never introduced into their languages. For example, in an Advanced Linguistics course in college, we learned that the Algonquin language groups, just as with the Mokens you mentioned, have no word for “time.” The Jiukiukwe Indians also have no word for “time," but even more significantly, they have no word for “problem.” Relatedly, in all the years I spent with my Cherokee grandmother, I never saw her have a problem or comment on a problem. She never discussed things like the weather, even as persons about her complained about it being too hot or too dry or too wet or too cold. For her, the way it was...was the way it was. Even in the 1950's, she had no electricity or running water in her house, but neither was a problem because she did not want either.

The Jiukiukwe also avoid the use of the active voice, first-person singular (e.g., “I” followed by an active verb), and you’ll notice most sages avoid that usage as well. The personal “I” is avoided by the members of that tribe because they consider its use to be a sign of arrogance. Find a person who is arrogant and you’ll have found a person self-absorbed and totally occupied with the “I,” with the “ego” (Latin for “I”). A Jiukiukwe child would not say, “I want water” but would report instead, “There is thirst.” The focus is on the thirst, not on the wants or desires or needs of a personal "I"—of a persona or a "personality." Their language preempts arrogance because their philosophy preempts arrogance first. Also, note the avoidance of any expression of desire in the languages of the members of all these tribes. The result? If there's no plethora of desires, then there is no plethora of unmet desires. If no plethora of unmet desires accumulates, then there can be no loss of peace. Limitations in the language of the Jiukiukwe Indians also provide insight into their worldview as well. They see themselves as unaffected bystanders in a world where things just are. To them, it’s the world that does things, not them, so they have no word for “doer.” Advaitans know the accuracy of that worldview. Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be continued 24 August 2005]

COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS from Site Visitors

[I'm sharing two posts together since both site visitors wrote to describe a more peaceful AS IF existence as a result of breaking free of programming and conditioning.]

From CHERYL in Colorado, USA
“I've loved your posts. Just lately I have fallen into simply being without being bothered by the world and all its conditioning. Luckily I know quite a few people in this vein; still your writings struck me right in the heart and I look forward to reading them every morning. Thank you so much.”

F.: Hi Cheryl. Thanks for the feedback. E-mails are arriving from site visitors in Portugal, the UK, states across the US, Canada, Finland, Israel, in fact from numerous countries, and many are describing the same. Some have been "around" the Teachings for decades; some are hearing the Teaching for the first time. "Right in the heart" makes sense to me since my Cherokee grandmother introduced me to the "Crystal Cave" teaching and then Ramana spoke of the "cave of the heart." You'll possibly recall also that in my vision, the final understanding came in a cave. If you are in full consciousness of the I Amness, of that "just-being state," then you already know that any search for "bliss"can give way to what my teacher described as merely being "at peace," living the relative existence AS IF. Thx for the comment. f.

RICH in Kalamazoo, MI, USA
“Thank you, thank you, thank you. Your website has shown me how little I knew. [Regarding the Seven Degrees of Separation from Reality] I’ve known the first degree. I’ve also known the second. Level three is new territory for the ‘spiritual guru.’ [Regarding religious games played in level three] In the 1980’s I was baptized five times, but the same asshole kept getting out of the water as went in. Now, I’ve finally let go of the ‘religious seeker.’ I’ve known that it is another ego-made false sense of self, but other than that, I’ve skipped around like a ship without a rudder. The Be-ing I have experienced is a result of the Eleventh Step, but all that has been fleeting. What you are presenting (That) is what I’ve known to be true deep inside. Thank you for providing a road map since ‘seeker’ was fighting for his life.”

F. Hi, Rich. You're welcome. Glad you're continuing your journey rather than being fixated in that third level where religious or spiritual identities prevent a shift to full awareness. You're seeing that which is false as well as that which is real. Your mention of an “Eleventh Step” suggests your familiarity with a Twelve Step program. When I was offering the Teachings regularly, I had hundreds come from recovery groups, visiting Advaita sessions in a search for something that they knew was still missing; therefore, I'm going to devote some site space to share some pointers that have led those, and others not in any program, to clarity. Most of those participants were no longer physically intoxicated, but almost all were mentally intoxicated, spiritually intoxicated and/or emotionally intoxicated. The man who wrote the book on which those programs are based began his journey in a Christian program called “The Oxford Group,” so his book had a decidedly religious flavor even though he claimed to advocate spirituality over dogma. Secondly, his earliest words are usually the only ones that receive attention, but he eventually said that there are four levels of sobriety. An Advaitan pointer can be offered in that regard since we've discussed the fact that mental, emotional, and spiritual intoxication are rooted in illusions. Eventually, he observed that many were fixating at the spiritual/religious level and he saw that spiritual intoxication can be as dangerous as physical intoxication in the relative existence. (A man who hadn't worked for eleven months, who had pulled all his retirement funds out of his account for living expenses, and who had only a month to go before he and his family were to be evicted from his home because he was waiting for a god to provide employment said, "But…in god's time, not mine." That's what spiritual intoxication looks like.) The author of that first twelve-step book predicted that more would be disclosed in the future and he was right, so the founders added an appendix to their book to clarify what the “Spiritual Experience” was really about. After referring earlier to a "Higher Power" and to "God" with gender-specific terms such as ‘he’ and ‘him” in the first edition, more became disclosed. The key line in the appendix added to later editions rectifies the earlier, misleading male-entity references. It makes clear that most of the founders finally realized that the so-called "Higher Power" is not a god with a set of reproductive organs as based on the Zeus model. Instead, the appendix makes clear their new understanding…that the power is what they started referring to as an "inner resource." Even Christ, after receiving the Advaitic Teaching, stopped talking of heaven and hades and said that the kingdom is within. The knowing is within. That is the resource, to the degree that resources exist in the relative. No one will ever find any truth from any outside "power" or "source." The space called "floyd" might have provided steps that allowed the lies to dissolve, but the opportunity for attaining any knowledge of truth—which can never be stated and need never be stated—is already within. It is there, and it is seen once the lies, beliefs, ideas, and concepts—all of which block the corrupted consciousness from seeing the false—finally fade away. Be rid of the effects of programming, or be driven by them for the remainder of the relative existence. Please enter the silence of contemplation.
Tomorrow: SIM in Owensboro, KY, USA

COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS from Site Visitors

From Rachel in the United Kingdom
“What is the difference between advaita vedanta and buddhism in their views of ultimate reality?”

F.: Hello, Rachel. Thanks for visiting the site and submitting a question. First, I speak for no other Advaitans and share only "my" understanding. And I certainly speak for no Buddhists, though I did study their teachings while spending time in a Buddhist community. (I was not that higher level of consciousness that the jnanis are. My journey was an arduous one, as I described in The Twice-Stolen Necklace Murders: In his energy-consuming search for salvation, he’d been dipped, dunked, sprayed, spayed, sprinkled, and neutered; in the quest for truth, he’d been blessed, cursed, cussed, lectured, scolded, and praised; in his pursuit of Life’s Meaning, he’d been communion’d, Om’d, grape-juiced, wined, ahsram’d, accepted, rejected, Mu’d, and yoga’d; in his chase for service-work-opportunities, he’d been pulverized, martinized, and frappéd; and in the endeavor to attain Life Eternal, he’d been baptized, Buddha’d, New Aged, powwow’d, Far Eastern Indianized, incense’d, sage’d, Tao’d, Peru’d, Tibet’d, washed in the blood, dunked in the waters, and purportedly purified. The trip need not be so arduous for those who are "ready" for the Teaching as presented in FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE (A Seven-Step Journey to Reality.) That said, the fact is that no ‘ultimate truth’ or ‘ultimate reality’ can be stated. Suffice it for most simply to know the false. Persons take their body and mind and personality to be who they are, and therein lies the difference in the Advaita Teaching and all others. Rather than try to improve a person, the Advaitan sees that personas are illusions. End of effort. No personas with hidden agendas? No interruption of peace. End of chaos. End of story. Rather than trying to know and repeat Truth, the key is to find the lies by asking questions to determine which persona has an agenda: "Who wants something? Who desires something? Who fears something? Who is claiming something?" I’ve visited with Buddhists of varied "schools" over the years and found diversity in their beliefs and practices. Are we talking about Theravad/Hinayana? Are we discussing Mahayana or its variations such as Tibetan, Zen, Pure Land, or Nuichiven? A common pointer among many Advaitan teachers is that all concepts are false and all practices based in concepts are therefore worthless. Thus, the questions I’ve asked of Buddhists of various schools (and others whom I’ve visited with over the years) is, "Who wants perfection?" and "Who is claiming to have transcended personality?" If transcending personality suggests that one who was formerly assuming a persona as an identity now realizes that all roles are illusory, fine; otherwise, those making such a claim could as easily claim that they can drive through a desert and transcend the mirages that seem to be appearing. To know something is a mirage, i.e., to be in touch with reality, ends any notion of transcending that which is completely imagined to begin with. Now, the questions I ask might be relevant to some who follow this or that Buddhist teaching but not to others. I invite all to take any pointer into consideration and accept or reject the point after three days of consideration. That point offered, I also ask, "Who wants to accept that something or someone presides over this universe? Who thinks he or she will benefit as a result of believing in that concept? Who wants to believe in spirits and gods and saints and who has a desire to get something as a result? Who believes he or she is better than others or better than before as a result of adopting others' beliefs? Who wants to worship, who would want to be worshipped, and who is desiring a benefit from that practice? Who believes in holy places or holy buildings or holy texts? Who believes this is different from, and better than, that?" Believe that most land is "not holy" but that some parcels of land are "holy" and you'll have a belief that will lead to never-ending wars on the planet as persons fight for control of the "special, different" land. All conflict is rooted in duality, including the inner conflict experienced by persons. I also inquire, "Who wants more power and who wants an even higher power? Who has an intention? Who believes in the duality of the concept of 'wholeness' vs. 'unwholeness'? Who believes that spiritual tools, if used every day and forever, will make him or her a better person? Who believes in birth, death, and rebirth? Who is seeking that continuity of body-mind-personality? Who wants free will and who believes she or he has the power to effect change and assign cause to one isolated action in an infinite succession of actions? Who wants to be 'noble'? Who wants to believe in a paradise or Pure Land or Special Place for a body-mind-personality triad to exist in forever? Who thinks that suffering is positive? Who has ideas and opinions and beliefs about right vs. wrong and good vs. bad or opinions and beliefs and ideas regarding abortion or homosexuality or divorce or any issues that occupy the variable minds of persons who want control and influence? Who believes that there are gender-specific roles or tasks? Who is claiming to know what is 'moral' vs. what is 'immoral'? Who is claiming to have helped people? Who is claming the right to prescribe what people should or should not eat, what they should or should not do sexually, or whether they can or cannot consume alcohol or other forbidden beverages? Who believes that a god that could be preoccupied with what you eat—and offers rewards or assigns punishment based on your food plan—is due glorification? Who believes that bodies-minds-personalities are incomplete and need to be made complete, rather than seeing that all three are illusions—nothing more than outward appearances that are far removed from reality? Who believes that intelligence and courage are prerequisites for knowing what is actually already known but that has simply been forgotten?" And finally I have asked some persons, "Who wants to know an 'ultimate Reality' when reality is reality and being out of touch with reality is being out of touch with reality? Who has taken as truth their criteria of what would make you ‘good’ or ‘bad’? Who is accepting without questioning their labels applied to you during your childhood and fixed into your 'mind' by use of punishments and rewards? Who is unquestioningly accepting their concepts and their impact on this relative existence?" Even an "absolute reality" is just pure, uncontaminated reality, and any reality short of reality is impossible, so even that term is redundant. Either a woman is pregnant or not. Either one is in touch with reality or not. Either one has unquestioningly accepted the results of her or his programming and conditioning or one has realized as a result of questioning and eventually rejecting all of their ideas and concepts that were simply made up by controlling men and passed down by those who would control you now. "But what is left if I reject all ideas and beliefs and concepts?" I've been asked. And I answer, "Nothing...and everything." Realize why that answer implies no duality and you'll have the understanding. Please enter the silence of contemplation.

Tomorrow: Comments from CHERYL in Colorado, USA and RICH in Kalamazoo, MI, USA.

COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS from Site Visitors

From Steve in Chicago, IL USA
“You referred to Christ’s link with the Advaita Teaching, mentioning ‘Before Abraham was, I AM’ and ‘When you speak of me, speak of me as I AM.’ I worked for a time with a teacher who said that my ultimate goal should be to attain what he called ‘Christ Consciousness’ and then allow that consciousness to guide me through life. I tried that for a period of time and yes, I thought I was ‘doing better’ when guided by that Consciousness. But I never stabilized. Now, I’m not so sure that any of what I thought was going on was really happening. What I’ve read on your site makes more sense. Anyway, I see that some ego-state is clinging to an old belief, but I haven’t broken that attachment completely. Can you help?”

F.: “Hello, Steve. Thanks for the comments and question. The answer is, ‘No, I cannot help.’ The reality is that there is conscious-energy. What could I do to ‘help’ conscious-energy? Of course, some will claim that they can 'help you' by helping you become free of the influence of impure consciousness. Okay, but any 'help' is still about a person in the relative. That said, you’ve mentioned several concepts, all of which can be tossed. Yes, on the site I mentioned Christ and I mentioned Khrisna and I quoted other sages such as Maharaj. The words of that space called ‘Maharaj’ played a key role in helping me understand my vision and that led to full realization, but if the food-body known as 'Maharaj' were still breathing and speaking, it would be the first to say, ‘Hang Maharaj, hang Christ, hang Khrisna, hang Floyd and hang Steve.’ The Seven-Step Journey to Reality, if completed in its entirety, would make clear to you that there’s no such thing as ‘Christ Consciousness.’ There is consciousness, period. Christ was a manifestation of consciousness in a food-body called ‘Jesus.’ That’s it, period. You Are that same consciousness. Early on, that food-body called ‘Jesus’ fought with friends, talked back to parents, taught concepts from texts deemed holy, believed in a heaven and hades, and experienced rage in a temple, kicked over tables, and beat other humans. But he retreated from society and was exposed to the Advaita Teaching. How do we know the Teachings were being offered in the Middle East in that day? Because we know that at least two thousand years earlier, Moses had plagiarized the Teachings and had a bush express the basis of the Advaita understanding: I Am That I Am. In the final years of that food-body called ‘Christ,’ he spoke of ‘heaven and earth fading away,’ talked about the fact that ‘no one would ever see heaven because it’s within,’ and spoke of the ‘I AM.’ No heaven? Then no geographic place for a body-mind-personality continuum to float about in bliss. Also, no geographic place for a body-mind-personality continuum to burn while never burning up. Christ spoke of ‘Gehanna’—the 24/7 valley of fire where Jerusalem’s trash was burned—not of the ‘hades’ or ‘hell’ handed down from the earlier mythologies. After decades of existing with the corrupted consciousness of a person programmed in a theocratic state, and thus fighting and trying to force his religious beliefs on others, Christ received the Advaita Teaching. At that point, he left organized religion, left the temples, talked to groups in homes and on hillsides, and shared a totally different message from that of his earlier talks. He abandoned the dualistic concepts of heaven and hell, reward and punishment, and belief in dogma and rituals deemed holy. He became one of the thousands of teachers that tried to share the Advaita Teaching, and his earlier conduct—fighting and beating and ranting—indicate that he was not a sage with a higher level of consciousness and that he did not have an early grasp of the understanding but that realization came at the end of a relative existence. If the plant-body ‘Steve’ wants the same kind of life that the plant-body Christ lived at its end, then garner the same understanding. Next, you mention being ‘guided through life.’ Who is being guided through life? There’s another concept to forget, along with the ‘ultimate goal’ concept mentioned to you. Abandon all concepts and then natural, intuitive living will happen. Being in touch with reality, the conditioned and programmed and corrupted consciousness will dissolve. Just being can then happen.” Please enter the silence of contemplation.
TOMORROW: Rachel from the United Kingdom asked, “What is the difference between advaita vedanta and buddhism in their views of ultimate reality?”

THE FINAL SESSION

"The realized observe with detachment the natural processes of entropy as elements disorganize and organize and disorganize again; persons not realized suffer the slings and arrows of the outrageous fortunes of the chaos to which they are addicted."

F.: "So there you have it. Before we end this last session, I have some final considerations to offer. First, know that instability is a curse on 'relationships' in the relative existence. The realized have no 'relationship concerns' because there is no 'a' trying to relate to 'b.' Consciousness does not relate to consciousness. Consciousness is consciousness. End of story. The at-one-ment is known because it is known that I Am That and You Are That and all that is, is That. Differing vibrational frequencies that account for differing appearances suddenly mean nothing. For the realized, should a feeling like anger arise, it will be witnessed as it rises and falls. Such is the AS IF life in the relative. Realized, no ego-states exist that can trigger the emotion of anger that results in a reaction, and then in a reaction to that reaction, and then in a chain of reactions afterwards. For persons not realized, the instability of duality will continue until the consciousness is no longer manifested, and the relative existence will be marked by a series of actions inspired by ego-states and the subsequent acts of emotional intoxication. The realized observe with detachment the natural processes of entropy as elements disorganize and organize and disorganize again; persons not realized suffer the slings and arrows of the outrageous fortunes of the chaos to which they are addicted. Pure consciousness watches entropy happen; persons 'experience' chaos. [Turning to one participant] Imagine how different your 'experience' would have been when your wife left if you'd understood that some 'relationships' can even be affected by the law of entropy. You'd have witnessed the process of entropy rather than allowing the ego-state of 'husband' to drive you to suicidal or homicidal thoughts. 'Witnessing' vs. 'thinking.' [Participant nods in agreement. To group...] All instablilty occurs in the movement of contaminated consciousness. Impure consciousness can be known to be in chaotic movement because it's marked by the sense that 'I am close to some power' but later 'Now I am not as close to the power' or by thoughts that 'I am more fit at some times than others' or the idea that 'clarity has come but has gone' or 'I am better after that last experience' or 'after doing all my rituals I am far better than before.' With that constant movement, persons shift from the belief that they have 'got it together' to later deciding 'I don't have it as together as I thought and thus need to do some more stuff.' That’s the result of the consciousness of truth 'coming and going' as the 'mind' fights to cling to its identification with the body-mind-personality triad while the 'True Self'—the pure consciousness—tries to answer the question, "Who am I?' If the relative problem centers in 'the mind,' then to be at peace 'the mind' must be stable. But a 'mind' can never be stable for it is the 'storehouse' of the very lies and beliefs and ideas and attitudes that generate chaos in the relative. 'The mind' cannot be stable for it is searching, always on the move, always looking for something to bring happiness by satisfying desires and alleviating fears, all of which are illusory. To abide in perfect, inviolable peace is to reach, and then be firmly stabilized in, the 'destination.' When we reach our destination on a trip, we stop movement, right? As long as we are 'on a path' or 'on a journey' or 'seeking with great effort,' or 'doing The Work' or 'regularly engaged in never-ending religious or spiritual exercises,' persons cannot realize that We Are the destination and What We Are is That, which is so stable that It has remained unchanged for infinity and will remain unchanged for infinity. Of course, all of the 'exercises' above can be required by some persons in order to finally realize. [Pause] Now, if you know that the manifested consciousness lacks that stability, then know that impurities remain. Certain vestiges of conditioning and programming remain. You are not completely out of your mind, which is not your mind at all but is actually theirs. They have co-opted the 'mind' that they created in the first place. The journey does not involve taking back your mind from them. The journey involves seeing there is no mind. There is only a collection of ideas and emotions and beliefs that are all lies. Peace doesn't come when you 'take control of' your thoughts and your mind. Peace doesn't come when you find 'positive' thoughts to replace your 'negative' thoughts. Peace doesn't come when 'right thinking' replaces 'wrong thinking.' All thinking is a lie. Peace comes when you realize that all that you've ever been told is a lie, when you realize that all thoughts and ideas and concepts are lies, and when all the lies are seen to be lies. Then, the 'mind' ends and its influence on your relative existence ends. Peace and stability come when the last belief in their concepts goes."

Q.: "So if we can't continue to come here each week, and I know that the consciousness that I Am is not yet fixated in that state of peace and stability...?" [Lift hands, shrug shoulders]

F.: "Then more 'work' is required before all 'work' will naturally end, but no more visits here can happen. What you needed to hear has been heard. Now, it but needs to be understood. Should the understanding not be fully established, then I have a cassette tape of the vision that I suggest you use daily until the realization explodes into full consciousness. [Site visitors: click on Non-Duality CD above to see the reference.] Also, I'm writing a couple of meditation guides that lead the reader step-by-step to the full realization. You can get a copy of the manuscripts and use those on a daily basis until the understanding is firmly fixed." [Site visitors can see the reference by clicking on Non-Duality Meditation Guides above.]

Q.2: "I don't want these sessions to end!"

F.: "Then you've just told me that you need more 'work.' Use the tape and the guides. When it all ends with no attachment, that is the beginning...the 'new' beginning. Then you'll know that there is no end and no beginning and only an uninterrupted continuum of cyclings. See the cycles, witness all that rises and falls, attach to none of it, and have fun in the remaining relative existence. Know that 'it don't mean a thing.' [Laughter] And in knowing it don't mean a thing, there too ends the search for 'meaning.' When all searching ends, the rest begins. Now, go, and just be, or do until you can just be...in peace." Please enter the silence of contemplation.

TOMORROW: Comments and questions that have been coming in from site visitors.

REALIZATION: AS IF Living

“Realized, You know that You Are Light, that I Am Light, but employment can still happen, merely without attachment. Responsibilities can be met and challenges will be handled, but without emotional intoxication.”

F.: “I've mentioned five stages that can be transitioned if one takes The Seven-Step Journey to Reality. Persons are exposed to twenty years of programming and conditioning. In the Western cultures especially, the programming is to get, to accumulate. Afterwards, most persons pass the next twenty years in the second stage, consumed with the process of accumulating. Fears and desires mark their passage. Some few might ask, 'Who am I?' and move into the fourth stage as they begin a process of Self-Inquiry, investigation, and discovery. Most persons will never make that shift and will continue trying to accumulate until the relative existence ends. For the few who focus on the search for an answer to that critical question, some will complete all seven steps along the path and reach the fourth stage of realization. So what does the remainder of the relative existence look like for the realized? The fifth stage is AS IF Living. In the novel I’m writing, I’ve included these pointers [picks up papers and reads]:

De-accumulation is the mark of freedom from the early programming. After that, one can live AS IF, as if this life is the real but knowing it's not. The realized can then enjoy whatever remains of this relative existence, free for the first time—free of educational indoctrination, free of spiritual indoctrination, free of religious indoctrination, free of political indoctrination, free of economic indoctrination. Free. Independent. Period.

Let the exercises and concepts serve the purpose of bringing about an understanding of the differentiation in the true and the false, and then toss it all away and live simply and naturally, as if. To live AS IF is to know that THAT is all that is Real, but even the realized meet the requirements of a food-body and honor commitments made for the relative time that the consciousness is manifested. Realized, You know that You Are Light, that I Am Light, but employment can still happen, merely without attachment. Responsibilities can be met and challenges will be handled, but without emotional intoxication."

Q.: “As was the case when you were still employed to teach even after realization. You said that ‘teaching happened’ as opposed to ‘you taught’.”

F.: "Actually, I said, 'Teaching happened...or not.' Sometimes it did, sometimes it didn't. So it was."

[Continues reading] Know that all which is believed to be observable is ‘seen’ in the flickering images of the light that plays before our eyes. It is not the Real, any more than the actors flicking across the screen of your television are Really there. They are but images in the mind. So is all that is ‘seen.’ Be aware that the Unseen, the Unseeable, is the Real. Be done with worrying about the false images of this manifestation we call our ‘lives’ or ‘others’ or ‘self.’

Then, you’ll enjoy the present moment, the Eternal Now, as long as the consciousness is manifest. And you’ll have no expectations to meet nor any future rewards to long for nor any future punishments to spend a lifetime trying to avoid. Free of those, you are free of the control of those who dream up or pass along all those concepts that form the prison called ‘the mind’ that traps persons in fear, misery, depression, or all the addictive behaviors that follow those defects in an effort to try to escape them. As long as anyone tries to maintain a religious-spiritual image or role, he will be at the mercy of those who would manipulate him with religion or with spirituality. They’ll tell him that a religious person does this and a spiritual person does that, and to keep his religious or spiritual image, he’ll do what they say. Then, he’s theirs. For some, both states can serve a purpose, but both are to be transcended. They are but bridges that allow us to cross the degrees of separation. In one does not transcend those, he is vulnerable, and thus in fear, and frustrated eventually as a result of being controlled by others. There is no freedom, and thus no peace, living in ‘their’ world with ‘their’ mind doing the driving. After transitioning those steps, the journey can continue to full realization and then to the peace of living AS IF, as if any of the relative existence is real but knowing that it’s not." (From The Twice-Stolen Necklace Murders, subsequently published in 2003) Please enter the silence of contemplation.

REALIZATION: No Single Cause

“You said something like ‘the cause of everything is everything that’s happened before’.”

F.: “Upon realization, another duality disappears: the credit-blame duality. The realized know that assigning credit to one source or assigning blame to one source is to ignore the reality of an infinite chain of happenings. Here’s a simple example that might be relevant. Last week, driving along the road that leads out here, the rear tire of a car ahead of me threw a pebble against my windshield and cracked it. You’ve all probably had a similar experience? [Nods in agreement] What caused that?”
Q.: “The rear tire of the car ahead of you.”
Q.2: “Actually, the driver of the car was responsible. I think people who do that should have to pay for the cost of the repair.”
F.: “I’m glad you said that since your comment will let us see how wrong that type thinking is and let me offer the pointer about ‘cause’.” [Participant displays a mock frown. Laughter from group] As I passed that car and drove farther along the road, I caught up with a truck that was hauling gravel…and spilling it all along the roadway. The pebbles in the road, one of which was thrown into my windshield earlier, most likely came from that truck. Now who’s to blame for my cracked windshield?”
Q.2: “The driver of the dump truck.”
Q.3: “The manager of the hauling company who allowed the truck to haul gravel without a cover over the top to prevent slippage.”
F.: “The manager? Or could it have been the owner of the hauling company who was too cheap to provide covers or too negligent to be certain that covers were being used?”
Q.4: “I’ll play along: it was the fault of the highway patrol that is not efficient enough to pull over those creating hazards on the road.” [Laughter from group]
F.: “Or the legislators who misappropriated funds to their pet projects and underfunded the highway patrol? [More laughs] Okay, enough. You get the picture. A series of events evolved in a way that, at a particular moment, a particular set of circumstances also evolved that resulted in a broken windshield on my vehicle. And if we wanted to play this game a little longer, you’ve already shown that we could trace the cause back millions of years to the circumstances that resulted in a boulder being broken down into pebbles, one of which millions of years later struck my windshield. But billions of years before that, an atom appeared in a vacuum, maybe even spit forth from an adjacent universe. And that atom split and then split again and then formed a mutated atom and those two collided and…bang…that collision caused a chain reaction that resulted in our boulder being formed billions of years later. And then millions of years after that, the boulder atrophied into huge stones and then rocks and then pebbles, and because of that happening and because of a truck and an owner and a manager and a driver and a construction project and an inefficient highway patrol and a driver and a car ahead of me, my windshield broke. Ha. Look at the billions of events that had to occur over a period of billions of years in order for my windshield to be damaged. Yet arrogantly, persons want to claim that they know exactly what's causing any particular happening. Persons want to tell you the one cause that they think is behind whatever is happening. They want to credit one thing or one entity or one power. Or they want to blame one thing or one entity or one power.”
Q.: We’re back to the pointer you offered before.”
F.: “Specifically?”
Q.: “About over-simplifying the ‘cause’ of anything. You said something like ‘the cause of everything is everything that’s happened before’.”
Q.2: “And you said that if we don’t realize that, we'll buy into the ancient myths about a single causer and a single creator of matter and energy. And you said that if one can imagine infinity beyond this manifestation, then one should be able to know the infinity before this manifestation.”
F.: “Well, that’s not quite the way I put it, but your version is accurate. The point is just as you said: the cause of all is all that has ever happened. Forget seeking a prime cause. Who wants to know why a particular happening is happening? Who wants to be the one who understands it all? Who wants more knowledge and more learning and more information and more proficiency and more wisdom than others have? The Eternal Truth cannot be spoken. What’s to know? What’s to say? After the thorns have removed all thorns, who cares about any of the thorns? Enjoy the thorn-free relative existence of less knowledge, less learning, less…period.” Please enter the silence of contemplation.
Tomorrow: REALIZATION: AS IF Living

REALIZATION: NO self…NO Self…NO SELF, Part Three

"There is no Supreme Individuality or Supreme Personality. There is no Supreme Body or Supreme Mind or Supreme Entity or Supreme Anything."

[Continued from 15 August 2005]
F.: “Granted, there’s a period on the so-called 'journey' when SELF-consciousness was a prerequisite for losing self-consciousness, but now the understanding has matured. I’m no longer speaking to visitors who are at the ‘wet charcoal’ or ‘dry charcoal’ level. Consciousness is speaking to consciousness, and the consciousness to which I speak should be so purified by now that it’s like gunpowder, ready for these pointers to ignite a degree of awareness that explodes the final illusions and results in full realization. As we were taking the steps, of course discussion of the ‘self’ and the ‘Self’ and the ‘Supreme Self’ had to happen, but when totally in touch with reality, no concepts are given credibility any longer. No distinctions or labels are taken to be true. [Pause] You know now that you’re beyond the 'being' and the 'non-being.' ‘Being’ implies a ‘self.’ A ‘no-self’ is implied by ‘non-being.’ You Are beyond both ‘self’ and ‘no-self,’ if you will. The ‘Supreme Self’ is a term used to point to that which is beyond both, but the Absolute—being at rest—knows neither a Self or a SELF. Only when consciousness is manifested can the I Am and the I Am That be known. That ‘non-manifested state’ is like the deep-sleep state. Consciousness is there, but consciousness is not aware of itself. Persons mistake the ‘beingness’ to be some body-mind-personality ‘self’ that is being. Recall that 'self' is defined as 'individuality' or 'personality.' There is no Supreme Individuality or Supreme Personality. There is no Supreme Body or Supreme Mind or Supreme Entity or Supreme Anything. Realized, all former imaginings of greatness give way to the reality of smallness. It is understood that the early programming to accumulate, and the years spent in endless effort to accumulate, resulted in dissatisfaction instead of satisfaction. That dissatisfaction set the stage for the seven-step journey of SELF-Inquiry that, along the way, revealed the false 'self' and the 'True Self' and the awareness of awareness. After realization, de-accumulation just happens, automatically. The fear-based and desire-based drive to work to be 'good' and to 'become better' in order to get a reward now and to insure the continuation of an imagined body-mind suddenly ends; religious and spiritual personas are seen to be 'transitional stages' rather than the 'ultimate state.' Realized, the relative existence is no longer dominated by fears and desires and emotional intoxication. The realized understand that What We Truly Are is beyond both the beingness and non-beingness…beyond 'self-ness' and even beyond 'non-selfness.' The realized know the peace which happens in the impersonal relative existence after the last identity of any kind goes, and the realized know the non-relative, impersonal Absolute as well." Please enter the silence of contemplation.

TOMORROW: REALIZATION: No Single Cause
COMING SOON: Responses to the backlog of questions submitted by e-mails as well as acknowledgment of comments from site visitors in at least five different countries.

REALIZATION: NO self…NO Self…NO SELF, Part Two

"I speak to you of the no-self, no-Self, no-SELF Reality…that is all. All these terms are words and concepts that are used to get you to the no-word silence and the no-concept bliss."

[Continued from 14 August 2005]

Q.: “I’m still having trouble with the point that no Supreme SELF exists.”
F.: “Who is having trouble…with anything?”
Q.: “But wait a minute. You named the personality by using the word ‘self’ and then told us it was false, so that was fairly easy to release. [F. twists lips and stares] Okay, maybe not so easy [laughter] but eventually released anyway. Now, it just seems that if the ‘condition’ or ‘state’ of ‘Supreme Self’ is named and you’re not telling us it’s false, then it’s more difficult to let go of.”
F.: “And I will never tell you that any 'Ultimate Truth' can be stated. I will tell you that any label is ultimately false. I shared a quote earlier, explaining that ‘the Tao that can be stated in not the eternal Tao.’ [Pause] Once you look at a door under an electron microscope and see the microscopic elements, you know that the door is not what it appears to be, is not at all what they told you a door is, and is not what you’ve believed all your life that a door is. So the question again is, ‘Who wants to be 'The Supreme’ instead of admitting that this food-body seated before me is just a temporary clustering of elements that for a limited time can serve as a space for the manifesting of the cycling conscious-energy that is permanent? What is permanent is real; what is temporary and what is like a door—appearing to be something that it’s not—cannot define What You Are. But once you see those sub-atomic particles that the door actually is, would you call either them or the door ‘The Supreme’ or 'The Ultimate’? [Laughter] Only an ego-state will fight for such titles. [Pause] I shared with you earlier some passages from the manuscript of a book that I’m writing. Let me read another section from that...the response to a question from my editor. [Thumbs through some pages…then reads]:

Editor: I know that modern science is confirming this teaching, as in the new revelations regarding the ‘Field of Consciousness,’ but is this understanding compatible with the newest teachings in physics, such as the ‘strings theory’?

F.: Absolutely. My Teacher said decades ago that science would one day catch up with the ancients’ understanding and prove that the teachings are fact. Such is happening. Since strings are reportedly the lowest common denominator of everything, smaller than atoms, smaller than electrons, smaller than the mass of protons and neutrons at the core of electrons, then the understanding of the science of strings shows us that the only thing which makes you appear to be different from me—or from a piano, or from a tree—is the vibrational pattern of the strings. And since the strings are simply energy in motion, and since the strings know automatically what to do when they are manifested in a human as opposed to in a piano as opposed to in a tree, then the teaching of strings proves this Understanding, scientifically. We are consciousness-energy. We are all That, all the same, all one, with only appearances leading us to believe we are separate or different. We are not. Physics now proves that We Are That. It has proven that We Are All One. We are the strings or the smallest element or the tiniest ‘whatever’ that exists. Use whatever name you choose to refer to that one permanent ‘thing’ from which all is composed when manifest. More recently, the strings theory had been modified by some who now claim that the ‘sparticle’ might be even more basic than the string. No matter. What is Real is whatever that most basic, singular, non-dual ‘thing’ is, period. Now, call 'That' what you want, the truth is that Easterners have known for about 40,000 years that everything in the universe that is manifested or not is nothing more nor less than a manifestation or not-manifestation of That, of the one True That-ness. Call it ‘strings’ or ‘That’ or ‘sparticle’ or ‘energy with consciousness.’ That is All, and That is All there Is. [Quoted from The Twice-Stolen Necklace Murders, subsequently published in 2003]

F.: "Only an ego-state wants to fight for the right to be considered 'The Supreme' or 'The Ultimate.' I speak to you of the no-self, no-Self, no-SELF Reality…that is all. All these terms are nothing more than words and concepts that are used to get you to the no-word silence and the no-concept bliss." Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be continued 16 August 2005]

COMING SOON: Responses to the backlog of questions submitted by e-mails as well as an acknowledgment of the comments that have come in from site visitors across the globe. Thank you.

REALIZATION: NO self…NO Self…NO SELF, Part One

"Now, you take yourself to be a ‘Supreme Self.’ Go right ahead, if you can know clearly that the unmanifested consciousness has none of the attributes associated with ‘self-ness’...."

F.: “Realization is marked by the abandoning of all concepts. On this seven-step ‘journey,’ we’ve used many concepts to remove concepts, not unlike the proverbial thorn used to remove a thorn. If you have something within you like a thorn, and you use a thorn to get rid of that which was within, that which was causing your misery, what effort need remain after the removal? The work is done; the tools required for the task—the thorns needed to remove the thorn—are no longer required. What further exercises could be indicated? Realized, You will not know any concern about any thorns from ‘the past.’ You will not long for any thorn to return. You will not save spare thorns just in case they might be needed in ‘the future.’ You will not work to maintain Your 'state of non-thorn-ness.' It’s all gone, all dissolved. It just happened automatically when the last concept dis-appeared.”
Q.: “So there’s not even one concept you believe in any longer?”
F.: “Until the final concept is released, realization will not happen. If you have nine thorns in your hand, would you be free of all misery and pain if you removed only eight? All must go.”
Q.: “But how can anyone work a job, pay bills, meet responsibilities without some ideas?”
F.: “We’ll be discussing ‘As If’ living soon. For now, let’s focus on one of the last concepts that persons love to cling to: the 'Supreme Self.' My teacher Maharaj made clear that the ideas of self and even not-self also eventually dissolve. Even those concepts, ultimately, are useless. Let’s review the ‘selves’ that are discussed in the teaching: first, there’s the ‘personal self’ that believes ‘I am this’ or ‘I am that.’ Via programming, the list of all the personas becomes very long: boy or girl, son or daughter, Christian or Hindu or Muslim or Jew, student, graduate, employee, young adult, friend, acquaintance, lover, spouse, enemy, mortal enemy, owner of this or that, adult, senior citizen, grandmother or grandfather, and finally ‘the deceased,’ ‘the dearly-departed,’ or ‘the saint.’ [Laughter] Again, you laugh. How many a few months ago were buying into one or more of those roles? [A few hands are raised; eventually, all are raised.] So that’s 'the self,' the false self, the personality/personalities, the false roles being played. Shakespeare said that ‘all the world’s a stage and all the men and women, merely players.’ If you complete all seven steps of the journey from that false ‘I’ to the reality of seeing all of the false and thus the truth, along the way you come to know the 'True Self.' You understand that Pure Witness, the consciousness freed of all the limiting contaminants that resulted in an existence that was dominated by beliefs in myths and lies and misperceptions. Some might call that ‘the super-personal I Am’—beyond any identity with a person/persona. Some call it the ‘I Amness.’ Actually, we saw that the 'True Self step' was merely the platform from which we could see above all the illusions and glimpse what some call the ‘Impersonal Absolute—The Unmanifested—The Supreme Self—The Infinite Self—That.’ The problem is, when many perceive ‘That’ and begin describing themselves as 'Supreme Selves,' most have simply added another label, another concept, another thorn.”
Q.2: “How could it be a thorn to know the Ultimate Self? I thought that was the final goal.”
F.: “Tell me what your relative existence would be like if you know you are that 'Ultimate Self'?”
Q.2: [Pausing] “I’m giving that some thought. I know it’s a trick question. Ha.” [Laughter]
F.: “You’ve already failed. [Laughter] Who is thinking? Who wants to answer the right way? Who thinks she is now 'Supreme”? [More laughs] Let me answer for you. You imagine that if you know that you’re a ‘Supreme Self,’ the remainder of the relative existence will be marked by your being much more…more loving in the awareness of the At-one-ment, a ‘much better person,’ a ‘more helpful person.’ In fact, I'll bet that you even become 'noble.' [Laughter] From that position, you would imagine that the world is a 'better place' as a result of your improving and that you could then change the world and eventually have a huge impact on the entire globe. You'll think that you can 'help people' and can guide them to become 'good' and 'better,' like you.” [Laughter]
Q.2: “That's not really the way that…. [F. frowns, smiles] Okay, it might be that way to some degree.” [Laughter. F. stares, smiles] Okay, to a large degree.” [Laughter]
F.: “To realize is to know that the world was only in you, in your mind, and that you've never been in the world. It's to know that you can't be 'in the world,' for the world is an imagining in the mind of a person. As many worlds exist as there are persons to imagine the way things are. That Which You Are, and which all is, is that most basic ‘building block’ that cycles and recycles, or not. You’re that invisible, infinitesimal, infinite, sub-atomic, sub-molecular speck of energy-consciousness that happened to find its way into a plant that was consumed and relayed via friction to an egg that evolved automatically into a food-body. That manifested speck of consciousness, once contaminated, believed itself to be a body-mind that has since experienced experiences for ‘x’ number of years. In truth, that speck is nothing more than the light in which everything seemed to appear. And the contaminated consciousness subsequently took every appearance to be real. Now, you want to take yourself to be a ‘Supreme Self.’ That's another want, another desire. Who is wanting? I've witnessed persons fighting for their 'Supreme Self' label as much as he [pointing at a participant] fought for his 'husband' label. Go right ahead with that identity, if you can know clearly that the unmanifested consciousness has none of the attributes associated with ‘self-ness,’ such as, form, a mind, an eternal beingness as a being, longing, desiring, or ideas about ‘better than’ or ‘good.' Stop seeking more; know the bliss of 'less.' Persons seek everything; the Realized know the bliss of the nothing. The Void is all." Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be continued 15 August 2005]

REALIZATION: No Mind, Part Five

“The prerequisites for contaminating the consciousness and producing the illusion of a ‘mind’ include words, letters, language, superstitions, traditions, beliefs, ideas, shared communications, efforts by persons to use all that to control other persons, the perpetuation of more concepts, the taking of imagined worlds as real, images taken to be reality, misperceptions, an imagined ‘I’ in the world, the ‘I’ taking desires and fears and needs to be real, faulty neurotransmitters, and chemical imbalances. All contribute to the constantly-in-motion thinking mind.”

[Continued from 13 August 2005]

F.: “Finally, here’s the last understanding that you must ‘get’ to understand completely the nature of consciousness and its movement. [Pause] Let’s go back to the ice cube. The ice cube is a system, really. A system is any complex whole marked by an organized arrangement. Organized arrangements just evolve as a result of consciousness. In this universe, an organization simply evolved...over a period of billions of years. As a result of the organization of the universe that happened to evolve, an organization on this planet also evolved...over a period of millions of years. The ice cube in our example is a system of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom that, if organized into a particular space, interact in a certain way at a certain temperature as a result of an organizing field of consciousness. That’s the key to any system: the organizing consciousness is present. Put water into an ice tray and place the tray in a freezer and the process that results in what appears to be a ‘cube’ just happens automatically as a result of that consciousness. No one guides the process. The same happens when an oak tree ultimately results in a forest of oaks or when friction between two humans ultimately results in a race. Do you remember our earlier discussion of entropy? I made the point that entropy guarantees that all except the real shall change, but the change is only in appearance. When that ice cube melts, a change in appearance occurs, but the essence of the cube—the hydrogen and oxygen atoms—remains the same. So it is with food-bodies that come and go. The appearance changes...the essence remains. Later, as the cube undergoes the effects of entropy, then the field that organized that cube suddenly unmanifests from that place. It moves. [Q3 nods in understanding] As with electrical currents, it is not seen as it moves, but it moves and it’s real nonetheless. The organizing consciousness that allows all systems to function as they function, that consciousness itself, remains as a field or expanse that extends infinitely. It is not limited by time or space or form or shape. Consciousness can re-manifest if the circumstances are suitable but will not remanifest if circumstances are not suitable. ‘Suitable circumstances’ can include the circumstance that allowed for the formation of this universe when consciousness provided the organization of a system that allowed an original hydrogen atom to manifest in a perfectly void vacuum. The consciousness guided that atom to split and eventually to fuse into a group of four which then formed a helium atom. When the two interacted, that act released an immeasurable amount of energy. That seminal function in the case of this universe is now the same system that is functioning at the core of what we call the sun. Understand the functioning of the sun and you understand the origin of this universe and all universes. That fusion process occurs at the core of the nuclear furnace that is supplying heat energy and light energy to this solar system. ‘Suitable circumstances’ can also include the circumstances that evolved on this planet that allowed for a system that organized plants and allowed them to flourish. ‘Suitable circumstance’ includes a system that allows photosynthesis to occur. That process eventually resulted in another system and another ‘suitable circumstance’ for consciousness to manifest in a plant that could be consumed and would eventually allow for the movement of consciousness from one space to another on earth. And a ‘suitable circumstance,’ namely the ‘demise’ of a food-body, allows for the unmanifestation and movement of that conscious-energy which will return to the field or expanse that extends infinitely and that is not limited by time or space or form or shape. Circumstances can also allow consciousness to re-manifest…or not. [Pause] We’ve discussed the prerequisites for manifestation of consciousness on this planet, namely, plants and photosynthesis. We’ve discussed the prerequisites for the manifestation of consciousness into the space of a food-body. The prerequisites for contaminating the consciousness and producing the illusion of a ‘mind’ include words, letters, language, superstitions, traditions, beliefs, ideas, shared communications, efforts by persons to use all that to control other persons, the perpetuation of more concepts, the taking of imagined worlds as real, images taken to be reality, misperceptions, an imagined ‘I’ in the world, the ‘I’ taking desires and fears and needs to be real, faulty neurotransmitters, and chemical imbalances. All contribute to the constantly-in-motion thinking mind.”
Q. “But if the consciousness that You Are has been freed of all contaminants, how can feelings of anger or joy happen? You admitted that you still have feelings.”
F.: “Feelings happen...via the food-body and the functioning of the brain. I don't experience them. They are witnessed, that's all. Pure consciousness is natural. Emotional intoxication is unnatural and is rooted in the agenda of false identities. Parts of the brain, via electrical and chemical functioning, can trigger fight-or-flight responses. So it is. That’s natural at times and unnatural at times, depending on whether a threat to the food-body is real or imagined. Pure consciousness knows the real. Illusions are not even considered. When contaminated consciousness triggers a reaction based in the false belief that something harmless is harmful—consider the snake in the rope—that is not natural. A person can try to live supernaturally, driven by the illusions of magical thinking, and that is not natural; a person can live unnaturally, driven by the illusions of contaminated consciousness; or living can happen naturally when consciousness is freed of the contamination that results in the disquietudes of a thinking mind, when freed of the influence of concepts, when in touch with reality, and when freed of believing lies or myths or superstitions or any of the other insane notions set forth by persons in any culture.” Please enter the silence of contemplation.
Sunday: REALITY: NO self…NO Self…No SELF, Part One