“Thinking” (which is generated from an illusory mind that is nothing more than the storehouse of lies, myths and concepts) will disappear to the degree that attachment to, and belief in, lies and myths and concepts disappear.
F.: A “spiritual journey” to realization, requiring a realized teacher and demanding that much be done by persons who would be free, is marked by irony after irony. First, the “spiritual” role assumed along the way is only the third of seven steps to realization (See information on From the I to the Absolute: A Seven-Step Journey to Reality) rather than “the end goal.” The next irony involves the fact that a spiritual role is just a role and that all roles are false and block the path to reality unless one transitions beyond them. Too, it’s ironic that there is no real “journey” at all. You Are complete, You Are already what is sought, You have nowhere to go, You have nothing more that needs to be gained. Ironic, too, is the fact that there are things that must be done in order to not do, to just be. Ironically, the realized teacher who speaks to proteges much prefers not to speak at all. It’s also ironic that You Are already free but have believed lies told and have not remembered the inner truth that is already within. And yes, irnoically, one must experience all the conditioning and programming and religious and or spiritual roles that separate one from reality. Ironically, persons must live unnaturally and, once on the path, must live supernaturally and be driven by magical thinking for a time. Yes, persons must do spiritual exercises and meditation in order to realize. All of that must be done in order to finally get free of all doingness, of all unnatural living, and of all supernatural living...free of all the slings and arrows of the variable, racing, troubling mind. Only then can the realization happen which—in turn—results in just being, in watching things happen or not, in experiencing feelings but being free of emoting and reacting and reacting and over-reacting from a state of emotional intoxication. “Thinking” (which is generated from an illusory mind that is nothing more than the storehouse of lies, myths and concepts) will disappear to the degree that attachment to, and belief in, lies and myths and concepts disappear. Few can escape the conditioning and programming that make necessary the “journey.” The programming to accumulate, and the subsequent efforts to accumulate, must be followed by a period of Self-Inquiry and Realization and de-accumulation before one can stabilize “in reality.” And to the observant, both words and behaviors can reveal if all personas and delusional thinking have been abandoned, or not:
A recent e-mailer who shall remain anonymous said: “I came across your site when searching the term ‘Advaita Vedanta’ on Google and saw your blog listed. I suspect it will help many people, but for me, I was born realized.”
The response: “Who is that ‘I’ doing the writing? Why would the ‘realized’ search? Who thinks there are ‘others,’ who has this idea of a ‘me,’ and who believes in the concept of ‘helping’? Who believes that he was born?”
The irony of the “spiritual journey” is that doing is required to reach a “state” of not-doing. After understanding, all happens…or not. What is the relative existence like, when lived in an AS IF fashion? That can be known by considering these questions: How is your sight? Do you have to think to see? Do you have to work to see? Do you have to do daily exercises to see? Or, do the facts remain that (1) if one cannot see one cannot see and that (2) otherwise, seeing can just happen?” Once persons “see” that they are not a body that was born, once they “see” that they are not defined by their thoughts, once they “see” that they are not the spiritual or religious roles they have played, then the de-accumulation of beliefs and concepts and ideas can lead to the peace of Child Ignorance, to witnessing, to knowing the “True Self,” to understanding the beingness and the non-beingness, and to being in touch with reality. From there, the doing stops and the being begins. Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be continued 2 September 2005]
