“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]
