[First, a response to “Anonymous in a 12-step program” who e-mailed yesterday, wondering now "if there really is a higher power or not." Please go to the October 2-5, 2005 postings and read those entries, if you choose.]
From a Site Visitor: “I’ve been reading your postings since last summer. I started to write several times but figured you’d tell me to ‘enter the silence of contemplation’ and find out for myself. I see the insanity of a lot of my ideas, and I’ve tried to get rid of them, but I still have some I can’t let go of. I’m convinced I should, but I can’t. Help!”
F.: Thanks for finally writing. Begin at the beginning by asking, “Why should ideas, concepts, emotional intoxication, and attitudes/beliefs be cast aside?” What would be the payoff, relatively speaking? If you know that the only answer is to be free and to end all personal suffering, the task might be easier. Yet don’t be tough on yourself because you have not yet done so completely. Holding onto beliefs and behaviors that result from conditioning makes no sense (“I see the insanity … but”) and seeing that those insane beliefs should be abandoned is not the final solution either (“I’m convinced I should … but”).
Seeing the insanity is easy, especially when seeing it in “others.” How many times in a day do most use the phrase, “Look at that idiot” or “He’s crazy” or “She’s totally nuts”? Persons see the insanity (especially of “others”) and some few admit to their own, but the insane behaviors and insane talk continues. “Seeing it” changes nothing when the power of programming and conditioning are still in play. Pavlov’s dogs were not “crazy.” Prior to conditioning, those dogs only salivated when smelling something they could consume, as is natural. But after conditioning, they behaved in the most unnatural way imaginable: they salivated when they heard a sound rather than when they smelled food. Conditioning can even drive dogs to behave unnaturally. Why should humans fare any better after conditioning?
What can you do to be free of the conditioning and programming they subjected you to? Your plan is correct. Continue to read these pointers and take them into the silence and consider them. Forget trying to reach a temporary “no-mind” state. You are invited on this site to take the seven-steps that lead to a permanent state of “no-mind” even as the consciousness remains manifested. So here’s your pointer for today and for future days: the consciousness, once conditioned, is impure and corrupted and distorted. The corrupted consciousness is the knower of concepts, the thinker of thoughts, the accepter of lies as truth, the emoter of emotions, the experiencer of pain and suffering, the accepter of ideas rooted in myths, and the believer of false beliefs.
The pure consciousness is the knower of the false and the witness of truth. Yet the re-purification of consciousness cannot be accomplished in one step. It requires seven steps. They might be revealed to you via meditation or you can read the guide that takes you (the corrupted consciousness) through all seven stages from the false "I" to the state of absolutely pure consciousness. Try one. If required, try the other. Continue the “journey” until you reach the end and find that You had nowhere to go…that You Were always “there” all along. At the end, all belief in ideas, emotions, and attitudes will end, and the bliss of AS IF living will begin. Please enter the silence of contemplation.
From a Site Visitor: “I’ve been reading your postings since last summer. I started to write several times but figured you’d tell me to ‘enter the silence of contemplation’ and find out for myself. I see the insanity of a lot of my ideas, and I’ve tried to get rid of them, but I still have some I can’t let go of. I’m convinced I should, but I can’t. Help!”
F.: Thanks for finally writing. Begin at the beginning by asking, “Why should ideas, concepts, emotional intoxication, and attitudes/beliefs be cast aside?” What would be the payoff, relatively speaking? If you know that the only answer is to be free and to end all personal suffering, the task might be easier. Yet don’t be tough on yourself because you have not yet done so completely. Holding onto beliefs and behaviors that result from conditioning makes no sense (“I see the insanity … but”) and seeing that those insane beliefs should be abandoned is not the final solution either (“I’m convinced I should … but”).
Seeing the insanity is easy, especially when seeing it in “others.” How many times in a day do most use the phrase, “Look at that idiot” or “He’s crazy” or “She’s totally nuts”? Persons see the insanity (especially of “others”) and some few admit to their own, but the insane behaviors and insane talk continues. “Seeing it” changes nothing when the power of programming and conditioning are still in play. Pavlov’s dogs were not “crazy.” Prior to conditioning, those dogs only salivated when smelling something they could consume, as is natural. But after conditioning, they behaved in the most unnatural way imaginable: they salivated when they heard a sound rather than when they smelled food. Conditioning can even drive dogs to behave unnaturally. Why should humans fare any better after conditioning?
What can you do to be free of the conditioning and programming they subjected you to? Your plan is correct. Continue to read these pointers and take them into the silence and consider them. Forget trying to reach a temporary “no-mind” state. You are invited on this site to take the seven-steps that lead to a permanent state of “no-mind” even as the consciousness remains manifested. So here’s your pointer for today and for future days: the consciousness, once conditioned, is impure and corrupted and distorted. The corrupted consciousness is the knower of concepts, the thinker of thoughts, the accepter of lies as truth, the emoter of emotions, the experiencer of pain and suffering, the accepter of ideas rooted in myths, and the believer of false beliefs.
The pure consciousness is the knower of the false and the witness of truth. Yet the re-purification of consciousness cannot be accomplished in one step. It requires seven steps. They might be revealed to you via meditation or you can read the guide that takes you (the corrupted consciousness) through all seven stages from the false "I" to the state of absolutely pure consciousness. Try one. If required, try the other. Continue the “journey” until you reach the end and find that You had nowhere to go…that You Were always “there” all along. At the end, all belief in ideas, emotions, and attitudes will end, and the bliss of AS IF living will begin. Please enter the silence of contemplation.
Tomorrow: A Question about "NIRUTA"
