Cycling: Existing elements can combine, "un-combine," and re-combine automatically, so nothing has ever been created, nothing was born, nothing can ever be destroyed, and nothing has ever died. Only the seeming appearance of what is taken to be a “new space” happens. Only the disappearance of what was taken to be one thing (which was not that thing at all) has happened. Elements are simply cycling. The elements cannot be created nor destroyed, but in "minds" with consciousness that has been contaminated by programming and conditioning, the combinations of elements can be taken by persons to be different things when in truth they are only One thing. So, too, can consciousness cycle and re-cycle in spaces that have a nervous system. With the constant cyclings of the spaces called “humans,” elements, breath and consciousness combine temporarily. Later, the elements return to the pool of universal elements, the breath returns to the universal pool of air, and the consciousness returns to the universal pool of consciousness-at-rest. The cyclings happen automatically and spontaneously, free of any "guidance" or "intervention" or any other magical factors that only personas believe.
Plant Body: A term used to make clear that what persons take to be “themselves”—their bodies—is really nothing more than plant food organized into a space that is circulating breath and temporarily "housing" the manifested consciousness which is the real. Plants are the vehicle through which non-usable energy from the sun is converted into a useable form on earth, allowing elements to combine in a way that results in a space (mistakenly called “a human body” or “an animal body” by persons) and allowing for the temporary manifestation of consciousness.
The Five Stages: An overview that shows how persons are programmed and what is required to reach Realization and AS IF living. To paraphrase the explanation offered in The Twice-Stolen Necklace Murders (http://floydhenderson.com/twicestolen.htm): Stage One includes ages 1-20 when person are conditioned, indoctrinated, and programmed to accumulate, to get. Stage Two is ages 20-40 when persons unconsciously do what they were programmed to do, repeating what they were programmed to say, and believing what they were programmed to believe. Most never transcend that stage. For those who undertake “the journey” and follow the Advaita “path,” they enter a Third Stage and begin Self-Inquiry. Some say, ‘This life is shallow, hollow, unfulfilling. There must be more. I don’t even know who I am—who am I?’ If they find their True Self, they begin to de-accumulate in the Fourth Stage. De-accumulation is the mark of one becoming free of the programming. After that, one can live AS IF, as if this life is the real, and can then enjoy whatever remains of this life, 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. AS IF living means that the Realized know that this relative existence should be taken as nothing more than an amusement, not as anything that is really serious. Anything offered on this site is posted as a pastime, as an amusement, but never seriously as the Real.
Plant Body: A term used to make clear that what persons take to be “themselves”—their bodies—is really nothing more than plant food organized into a space that is circulating breath and temporarily "housing" the manifested consciousness which is the real. Plants are the vehicle through which non-usable energy from the sun is converted into a useable form on earth, allowing elements to combine in a way that results in a space (mistakenly called “a human body” or “an animal body” by persons) and allowing for the temporary manifestation of consciousness.
The Five Stages: An overview that shows how persons are programmed and what is required to reach Realization and AS IF living. To paraphrase the explanation offered in The Twice-Stolen Necklace Murders (http://floydhenderson.com/twicestolen.htm): Stage One includes ages 1-20 when person are conditioned, indoctrinated, and programmed to accumulate, to get. Stage Two is ages 20-40 when persons unconsciously do what they were programmed to do, repeating what they were programmed to say, and believing what they were programmed to believe. Most never transcend that stage. For those who undertake “the journey” and follow the Advaita “path,” they enter a Third Stage and begin Self-Inquiry. Some say, ‘This life is shallow, hollow, unfulfilling. There must be more. I don’t even know who I am—who am I?’ If they find their True Self, they begin to de-accumulate in the Fourth Stage. De-accumulation is the mark of one becoming free of the programming. After that, one can live AS IF, as if this life is the real, and can then enjoy whatever remains of this life, 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. AS IF living means that the Realized know that this relative existence should be taken as nothing more than an amusement, not as anything that is really serious. Anything offered on this site is posted as a pastime, as an amusement, but never seriously as the Real.
The Drama of the Lie: Advaitans who teach by use of the original Sanskrit employ the term “lila," which means “play.” Other definitions of the word “lila” include “pastime” or “amusement.” The term “lila” is often used in conjunction with the word “maya” (meaning “appearance” or “illusion”) in order to make the point that what persons take to be real is not. What persons think they are seeing and what they believe is happening in "this world" is nothing more than a play or a false drama. (Shakespeare made reference to the fact that persons sleepwalk through life and simply play the roles assigned to them by their culture when he said, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women, merely players.”) Persons, being asleep and thus unaware, take the play to be real and take their roles to be real when in fact it’s all nothing more than an illusion or appearance. They are living the “Drama of the Lie.” (Shakespeare later provided the antidote: “To thine own Self be true and it must follow as the night the day: thou canst not then be false to any man.”) The Realized know that the entire manifestation in nature is nothing but an illusion (an appearance, a play, a drama) while also realizing that the absolute consciousness is the only reality. Persons "live" on stage, constantly playing one role after another and taking their roles to be their real identity. Just as an actor can take his part too seriously and internalize the role as an identity, so too can programmed and conditioned persons act out their roles so often and so seriously that they take the drama that they are a part of to be the real. That drama is really the “Drama of the Lie,” wherein persons are behaving as if the play-acting they are engaged in is not play-acting at all; as if the roles they are playing actually define who they are; and as if the roles being played by others truly define who they are. It’s all a lie. (One method used by some teachers to awaken those who are asleep to the truth is a psychodrama-type exercise called “The Theater of the Lie” in which a teacher will provide an opportunity for protégés to see all of the false roles they are playing, how their relative existence is nothing but an illusory drama, and how divesting themselves of all the ego-states they’re using as assumed identities can clear the path for them to abandon the false self/selves and to know the True Self. Meet one such teacher who is highly skilled at using the “Theater of the Lie” to assist persons in seeing all the false roles they have assumed which prevent them from living naturally. He is available for workshops on the subject: http://www.markdhouston.com/ ). The question for consideration today is, “Why not become absorbed in the drama?” Please enter the silence of contemplation. [to be continued]
Wednesday: The completion of the discussion of “The Drama of the Lie” and the end of the glossary entries.
Thursday: Postings begin that answer the various e-mails with questions about pointers offered during the glossary postings, including one query on “Death,” another on “Memories,” and one asking, “Why Advaita?”
Wednesday: The completion of the discussion of “The Drama of the Lie” and the end of the glossary entries.
Thursday: Postings begin that answer the various e-mails with questions about pointers offered during the glossary postings, including one query on “Death,” another on “Memories,” and one asking, “Why Advaita?”
