THE SEVEN-STEP “JOURNEY” TO REALITY

From a site visitor: "Thank you for yesterday’s post. I finally got it! (Or should I say, “It has finally been gotten”?!) I have always been confused by what seemed to be contradictions in the teachings with talk of “subject-object witnessing” and “Pure Witnessing.” The confusion blocked the understanding. Thank you very much!"

F.: You’re welcome. There are seven-steps on the “journey” to Realization. The witnessing stages are two of the final “degrees of separation from reality” that must be transitioned, and both the witness and the Pure Witness must be “experienced.” However, it is a necessity to transition each of “the seven degrees of separation.” Most on any "path" stop at the third stage (the "religious persona stage" or the "spiritual persona stage") and never complete the journey to the full understanding. What drives persons to those two ego-states, and what prevents transitioning beyond them?

Some are programmed to accept one or both of those false identities from childhood. Others turn to one or both of those ego-states as a refuge after all their perceived "failures" and "painful experiences." But both personas are only ego-states. What prevents transitioning beyond them? First, the belief that the relief found in the refuge is permanent. After all the contradictions of the religious or spiritual teachings are seen, the ego-states are sometimes abandoned and the search continues. For other persons, the promise of "cleansing" and "renewal" and the "return to favor" are also accompanied with a promise for a reward...for the "best reward" and an "eternal reward." Those have no desire to move on and find the truth. For others who think they have found all the answers (and can now pass on to others all the answers) that newly-acquired "knowledge" has an appeal that the ego-states enjoy. But to fixate in either of those two ego-states is merely to substitute a new ego-state for an old ego-state. Either way, a lie is being lived. Fixated in either or both of those ego-states, persons miss the remaining four steps that lead to the full understanding that provides true relief and true freedom.

Visitors are invited, therefore, to re-read the vision, sit in the quiet, and try to identity everything that separates persons from Reality. Find all seven stages as revealed via the vision. Here's the link to the vision: http://floydhenderson.com/article1.htm .

After reading the description of the vision, please enter the silence of contemplation.

[For more on the seven steps—or the seven degrees of separation from Reality—you can visit http://floydhenderson.com/iamabsolute.htm .]

An earlier post mentioned that the book was sold out. A shipment of the Third Edition has now arrived and includes new information as well as a complete "Glossary of Terms" that has been added in the back. Most books in the last shipment were used to fill back orders but a few remain in stock. If you want your own copy or want the newest version, please visit http://floydhenderson.com/order.htm .

THE “WITNESS” and the “PURE WITNESS”

From a site visitor: “You mentioned the Pure Witness last week. What is the difference in witnessing and Pure Witnessing?”

F.: Pause for a few moments to read a description of the vision at the following link and find the three birds in the vision: http://floydhenderson.com/article1.htm . Now, consider the eagle (which represents the witness). What is it witnessing? How is it witnessing?

What it is witnessing are all of those illusory “things” of the relative “world” below. It is the consciousness that can objectively witness those things of the relative existence and can “see” that it—the consciousness—is not the body, not the mind, not the religious or spiritual roles formerly played (represented by the raven) and that it is not even the Child Ignorance (represented by the gull). Subject-object witnessing is happening as it sees all that it is not (i.e., “I see that I am not that”; however, it does not see What It Truly Is. It does not see its True Self. All of the false must be seen before the truth can be seen. All that you are not must be seen before You can see What You Truly Are). How is it witnessing? Objectively, without attachment. The witness is seeing the lie of duality as it discards each former identity that was false.

As the consciousness purifies and shifts the focus away from the relative and toward the Absolute, note what the True Self (the Pure Witness) is [a] not witnessing and what it [b] is witnessing. First, it is not witnessing anything that dealt with the relative existence. It has “turned its back on all that” and has “left behind all that dealt with the relative.” It has “turned” and is looking toward the light. It is no longer looking at the false but is seeing the truth. It is witnessing its Oneness with all, so no subject-object witnessing remains at the True Self level. It is witnessing That Which It Truly Is. That is Pure Witnessing—devoid of subject-object observations and thus devoid of duality. The witness can see what it is not; the Pure Witness sees That Which It Truly Is…both in manifested space and as it approaches the unmanifested state. The witnessing stage allows the consciousness that is being re-purified to realize what is not; the Pure Witness stage allows the Pure Consciousness to know What Was, What Is and What shall forever Be. Please enter the silence of contemplation.

TRIPS ARE NOT REQUIRED TO COMPLETE THE "JOURNEY"

From site visitor Karen: “I wrote last fall before going to India to tell you I thought you were totally wrong about something. I’m not even sure right now what it was, but I remember your response angered me even more than what I wrote about in the first place. I was sure if I went to India I’d find what I was looking for. I also thought I was happy and just wanted to be “even happier” or “even more at peace.” I read a few of your postings about people being unhappy or miserable and thought none of that applied to me. I came back feeling high for weeks, but then I crashed. Everything started falling apart. Several months ago, a friend suggested I visit her therapist to see if she might be able to help me. I was diagnosed with depression and D.I.D. and have been getting some help. I think I deserve to be happy. I’m not even sure why I’m writing again, except maybe to admit that you were partly right. I didn’t find the answer in India, so I guess you’ll like hearing that.

F.: Hello Karen, I remember your e-mail about plans to visit India, but there is no “one” who can “like hearing” that “he was right.” The reason I did not endorse your trip was based in several facts: (1) A jnani offered satsang in a loft in his house in Bombay for decades, releasing persons—via his pointers—from the bondage of body and mind and personality identification. On the street behind his home were the buildings housing local prostitutes who were trapped in body identification, as were their customers. They were in India and could have walked one block to find release…but didn’t. Thousands came from elsewhere to sit at his feet, but millions already there in India ignored him. You were misled to believe that India today is a nation of the “Realized.” (2) I had traveled as widely in my search for the "answers," for more knowledge (learned ignorance), only to eventually learn one thing: no one needs to travel anywhere to Realize. A few transcriptions of pointers offered in satsang combined with a vision I had, and Realization sprang forth then and there...without leaving the house. That’s why two items are offered on my other site: first, transcriptions of talks [From the I to the Absolute] during sessions in which some proteges Realized, and second, a detailed recounting of the vision.

(3) Because I had to go nowhere for Realization to happen, I knew that no trip to anywhere was required of you. In fact, trips and going and doing and zooming prevent the Realization from happening. (4) Another reason I gave little credibility to any long-lasting results from your trip to India was based in the fact that not only are there as few Realized there as anywhere else but also there are many “professional spiritualists” in that country. You spent thousands of dollars and traveled around the globe and failed to get what you could have attained for $20 in your own home. Finally, (5) you are limitless, as limitless as the space. Freed of labels and conditioning, you are as the space, so what is the use of going anywhere to seek anything? Does the space in India differ from the space anywhere else? What is “there” is what is “here” as well as what is “everywhere.” You Are That which you seek. You need no knowledge. You Are whatever knowledge there is.

As far as “deserving to be happy,” there is no one to deserve happiness and there is no one to deserve misery. Misery is the guaranteed by-product of the programming and conditioning and enculturation that corrupts the formerly pure consciousness. It is not a matter of misery or depression being deserved or not. Both are the unavoidable consequence of being subjected to enculturation and to insane values and beliefs and dogma.

What can be endorsed at this point is your seeking of professional help which might provide a tool for solving the enigma you’re facing. Know that you are far ahead of most persons in admitting to your depression. Most are in complete denial. Too, understand that all persons (all not Realized) have multiple personalities though all don’t suffer from D.I.D. That is not to minimize the seriousness of D.I.D. in the relative existence but is mentioned merely to point out that the assumption of various personalities is common to the human population worldwide. There is nothing “wrong” with seeking assistance from those who are trained to treat the disorders you mentioned, just as there is nothing “wrong” when those who are suffering from body-mind-personality mis-identification seek assistance on their “journey.”

Also, if you are not following the proper food plan for your body type (and there are three different types that each need one of three different plans) then there can be a physiological impact upon your mental-emotional state as well, not unlike the imbalances involving the gunas and food plans that have been addressed for ages. (It should be understood that—in contrast to the ancient teachings around the gunas—yes, all can survive on a sattvic diet, but only 1/3 can prosper by following that plan. Modern research reveals that 1/3 prosper by following a rajasic plan and 1/3 prosper by following a tamasic plan. Note that this information is based in scientific evidence and has nothing to do with any god or gods that care about what you eat or don’t eat.) For now, I would suggest you stay the course you’re on, following the advice being offered by the professional since you said you have “been getting some help.” Neither depression nor D.I.D. should be ignored. They never just “go away.” The site will be here should you want to visit at a later date. Best regards.

For other site visitors, the severity of those two conditions aside, do you understand that all persons who have assumed varied personalities to define “who they are” will also suffer and will also be miserable? Do you understand that enculturation always results in being separated from reality? Do you understand that you need not travel the world to find that which is as close as the "inner resource" that you can tap into in order to find out Who or What you Truly Are and then be free? Please enter the silence of contemplation.

THE “ULTIMATE STATE”

From a site visitor: “I’m re-reading some of the entries on your site, and I did sit in the silence of contemplation the way you said, but I cannot grasp how it is that the I AM will not be known when the consciousness enters what you called on Feburary 22nd the universal pool of consciousness. Please explain. Thank you.”

F.: And as long as you are identified with a body, you’ll never grasp the truth. In the deep sleep state, what are you conscious of? Nothing. You are not even conscious of yourself. In the universal pool of energy, conscious-energy cannot be conscious of anything, including itself. Some ask, “Well then, what is the 'Ultimate State' while manifested?” It is the state of being free of continued misery and endless effort, and since those are driven by a sense of neediness (which results from being programmed to accumulate endlessly) it is also the state of being free of all sense of need and being free of that incessant drive to get more and more and bigger and bigger. As long as you remain identified with body and mind, however, then only in your deep sleep will you be free of the discomforting sense of need. You will long for sleep in order to escape the miserable sensations of lack and need and unmet desires that you experience during every "waking" hour, but you have not taken all the steps required to be truly free of that (and all other) perceptions. Conscious but not Realized, you will suffer from all sorts of perceived needs. By way of contrast, if you abandon your identification with body and mind and your programming and concepts, then you will have no needs (meaning that if you are freed of body and mind identification and if you stop buying into the beliefs of “others,” then you will no longer believe that you really need the things that your culture says you need).

That is “the ultimate state,” whether manifested or not. Nothing is needed, so nothing is of any use. Nothing is known, so there is no knowledge (or learned ignorance). But only if the consciousness is manifested in a body can the consciousness be aware of itself. In the pool of universal consciousness, no bodies or "minds" exist so nothing is known. To attain nirvana, know only the Void, NOW. Also, that nirvana—that total emancipation or liberation—can only be sensed in the manifest state. The liberation from body and mind will happen when (1) the consciousness unmanifests and is re-absorbed into the universal pool of consciousness or it can happens while (2) the consciousness is yet manifested...if identification with body and mind is abandoned. You and I are both that principle which preceded this universe’s being, but you don't understand that since you're attached to “your” own beingness. Presently, there is a food-body that is aware of the I AM, but when that food-body no longer is, then all self-consciousness and all consciousness of self (and even of Self) shall end. If you Realize, that can happen now and then peace will happen now as well, but either way…all self-consciousness and all consciousness of self (and even of Self) will happen. It's only a matter of “when.” If it happens "now," You'll know it; if it happens "later," no "you" or "You" will exist to know anything. Please enter the silence of contemplation.

CHRIST AND THE ADVAITA MESSAGE

From a site visitor: “My wife ordered one of your books on Christians and I disagree with you completely. You say that most Christians don’t have a clue what Christ was talking about. What do you think you know that He was talking about that we don’t know?”

F.: First, if you had read the entire book instead of reacting to a pointer, you would know the answer to your question. The only reason your query is being addressed on this site is because it concerns the teachings of an Advaitan who offered 2000 years ago the very same message that is being offered on this site today. Next, I haven’t a clue what you know or what you think you know, but I do know that most who accept the label “Christian” don’t have a clue what Christ was talking about...

...if they think his later teachings did not contradict his earlier teachings
...if they think he said anything that had not already been said by many others
...if they think he spoke of people going to heaven or hell after “death”
...if they think he claimed that he came to bring peace
...if they think he taught “family values”
...if they think his message was a message of “love”
...if they think his ministry was anything other than an offering of the ancient Advaita teachings that had come to the Middle East from the Far East
...if they think his talk of the “I AM” is best addressed by current ministerial claims that “some parts of his teachings are presented in mysterious ways and we cannot understand it all at this time, but we will understand it all someday.”

His early teachings were from what the Jews considered their “holy” writings and were offered via the venue of organized religion and in their “holy” buildings; his later teachings abandoned all “holy” writings, were offered outside any “holy” buildings, and were nothing more nor less than the ancient Advaita teachings. He abandoned organized religion, he spoke of the Advaita teachings that were beyond any “holy texts,” he made no effort to create a new organized religion, and—as with any Realized Advaitan—he would not have supported the establishment of any religion organized in his name and supposedly based in “his words” or in any written text. Advaitans know that nothing he said during his three-year ministry from age 30 to age 33 was “his words” at all but were the words of an Advaitan who obviously taught him during his years in the desert. To show how different modern “Christian” teachings are from the Advaita teachings that Christ offered, the following can be studied:

He said that heaven and earth shall fade away. (When? When the consciousness that dreamed up such ideas or that believes in such ideas “fades away,” that is, unmanifests.)

He said that no one would ever see the kingdom of heaven because it is within. (If heaven is "within" and is not a geographic place "out there somewhere," then there is no place where any god could be waiting for you to die so he can judge you.)

He spoke of “Gehanna,” not “hell.”

He said that he did not come in peace but came with a sword. He said that he came to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. (In other words, he invited the dissolution of all ego-states. Too, on one occasion he struck a friend causing serious injury and on another took up a whip and beat people. Not very "peaceful.")

He did not speak of the "family values" or “the value of family” but spoke instead of the lack of value of families, pointing out that “a man's enemies will be the members of his own household.” (Why? Because family members are the ones who most warp the consciousness as they provide much of the programming, the conditioning and the bastardization of the pure consciousness. Children are taught to “beware of strangers,” but the facts show that most will be harmed far more by “relatives” or “friends.”)

He said that you must hate your father, mother, wife, children, brothers, and sisters. (All roles and attachments to false identities have to go, according to him.)

What he was really teaching was the ancient “I AM THAT I AM” message of non-duality, a term discussed for thousands of years before Moses plagiarized it and assigned it to a burning bush. Christ said, “When you speak of me, speak of me as I AM” and “Before Abraham was, I AM.” During his “Lost Years” between the time he moved to the desert and later returned to Jerusalem, he was instructed by an Advaitan teacher. How is that known? Because he repeated Jewish teachings before going to the desert but he offered the Advaita teachings after he returned. His final three years (the thousand days of his actual "ministry") were an offering of the non-duality message: there is no geographic heaven or hell where bodies with minds spend eternity; all ego-states and attachments to false identities should be abandoned; and the only thing that can said with any validity in this manifestation is “I AM.”

So, back to your comments and question: Did you know he said all that? Did you have a clue what he was really talking about when he said all that? Do you now understand what he meant when he said all that? Do you now see how different his message was from what is currently being taught? Do you see how programmed you are to defend anything deemed "Christian" before finding out the facts? Do you see that you haven't had a clue as to what Christ was really talking about? If the message of Christ is not about family values, not about working to be "saved," and not about seeking heaven or avoiding hell, then what was his message to "you"/You? Is it time to abandon what "they" told you and to go into the silence and find out what You know but have forgotten? Isn't it time to forget Christ and to remember Your Self? Please enter the silence of contemplation.
TOMORROW: “I’m re-reading some of the entries on your site, and I did sit in the silence of contemplation the way you said, but I cannot grasp how it is that the I AM will not be known when the consciousness enters what you called on Feburary 22nd the universal pool of consciousness. Please explain. Thank you.”

WARNING LABELS FOR PERSONAS, PROGRAMMING, CONDITIONING

F.: In yesterday’s post, it was mentioned that many products come with warning labels; unfortunately, no warnings come with the labels that are assumed by persons as false identities. Programming and conditioning should also come with warning labels, but the programmers and conditioners have their agendas—often hidden from themselves—so they will never offer any truth that might undo the effects of the lies that they taught as truth. Thus, the following are offered as the warnings that should come with the fraud of false personas, with the fraud of faulty programming, and with the fraud of flawed conditioning.

Warning: The acceptance of false personas as identities, and the unquestioning acceptance of programming and conditioning, will be hazardous to your health in the relative existence.

Precautions: All three frauds typically result in drowsiness, sleepwalking, distorted vision or blindness; they always lead to a lack of consciousness as well as to problems in perception which can become so severe that persons cannot differentiate true from false.

Other Side Effects: Include restlessness, discomfort, irritability, discontentment and delusional thinking. The effects are so severe that unless realization happens, the sufferer will end up not even knowing who he/she is.

Behavioral Alert Regarding Events and Fatalities Associated with the Belief in the Three Frauds: The belief in “ego” (in the “I”-ness) may result in murder (59% of all women killed and 41% of all men killed in urban areas are killed during a breakup as the personas of “lover” or “spouse” believe they are actually being threatened with death and think they must retaliate in order to preserve their false ego-states.)

Other Risks: Include the breaking of “relationships,” road rage, fighting, arguing and—in extreme cases—murder, genocide, and war.

ANTIDOTE TO THE THREE FRAUDS: The result of de-programming, de-conditioning, and realization include an understanding of the following: [quoted from the “Glossary of Terms” in the back of the book FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE--A Seven-Step Journey to Reality @ http://floydhenderson.com/iamabsolute.htm ] :

If you Realize, you will be able to differentitate the true from the false and you will come to understand the following: “How this universe and all prior universes came to be; how consciousness manifests in space containing a nervous system; where You Were prior to consciousness and manifestation; what is relative and What Is Absolute; why no external power exists and why no truth can be found except within; why You Were never born and cannot die; what happens when consciousness is no longer manifested; how all cycles; how the enculturation process puts persons to sleep even as they are certain they are awake; the beginninglessness and the expanse of infinity; the limitlessness; bliss via desirelessness; the source of all suffering; freedom from the pursuit of meaning; Infinite Cause; the link between mind and fear; why "the mind" is a total illusion, and therefore why all perceived via "a mind" is false and is illusion; why you must be out of your mind to be sane; why all knowledge is nothing more than learned ignorance; why time and timelines are illusions; how illusions are taken to be real by persons; what the Oneness Truly Is; what you are not; and who/What You Truly Are…to name but a portion of what becomes known.” Please enter the silence of contemplation.
TOMORROW: “My wife ordered one of your books on Christians and I disagree with you completely. You say that most Christians don’t have a clue what Christ was talking about. What do you think you know that He was talking about that we don’t know?”

UNDERSTANDING THE FRAUD OF PERSONAL NEEDS, BODY CONTINUITY, AND MIND CONTINUITY, Part Six

F.: In addition to accepting false roles as true identities and in addition to accepting the body as an identity, each person is also blocked from knowing Who—or What—she or he Truly Is as a result of believing in another fraud that has been perpetuated on persons: that they have their own “mind” and that the mind is the tool to be used to realize or to find "peace of mind.” In truth, (1) the “mind” is a conglomeration of illusions and delusions and (2) there is no such thing as “peace of mind.” The “mind” is that which prevents peace from happening.

All “thoughts” are based in false perceptions and in erroneous beliefs which humans began to experience after the development of the forebrain in the species. Originally, the brain consisted only of the parts that are now called the “hindbrain” and the “midbrain," which have always controlled natural processes. As the species developed communication skills and as a “forebrain” developed, supernatural thinking and unnatural behavior followed. The cerebrum sits at the topmost part of the brain and is the source of the “intellectual activities” of the brain. It holds your memories and enables you to imagine and think. All suffering is rooted in memories, which are totally distorted. (How could the memory of "an incident" or "a period" be accurate when the original perspective of the incident or period was warped and distorted?) Thus it is the forebrain which allows a “mind” to perpetuate supernatural and unnatural behaviors, all of which are driven by conditioning and programming and incessant thinking and distorted memories. How could a “mind”—which is incessantly thinking, constantly cycling distorted memories, and driven by faulty programming and perverse conditioning—possibly be a tool that could be used to create “peace of mind”?

The evolutionary development of a part of the brain that allowed humans to “store” memories and enabled them to imagine and think was a survival mechanism originally. As more and more programming and conditioning resulted in greater warping of the consciousness, the ability of the forebrain to store faulty memories, misconceptions, and warped perspectives happened simultaneously. How? When one loses the ability to see clearly and takes the false for the true and then “stores” that in memory, what develops is a “mind”—a conglomerate of false perceptions and false imaginings and warped thinking. Totally fallacious concepts among persons are now unquestioning taken to be “truth.” As men came forth who desired to control other men and women (and their bodies and their minds and their behaviors), then concepts based in superstition and ignorance emerged and were also taken to be the truth.

Because generation after generation of persons have spread dreamed-up lies and outrageous superstitions as “gospel,” more and more generations have emerged that have no ability to differentiate the true from the false. The result is a planet populated primarily by fools (that is, those who have been fooled and don’t even know that they have been fooled). And since warning labels only come with certain products in the U.S., the warnings that should come with all labeling and personas and programming is only offered by certain Advaitans or by professionals who try to help neurotic or psychotic persons to get back in touch with reality. What is the actual origin of “your” beliefs? Have you ever considered the possibility that you have no beliefs but have accepted their beliefs...the beliefs fabricated by men who dreamed up ideas thousands of years ago? Is it possible that those fallacious ideas and misconceptions and superstitions have merely been handed down from generation to generation? Have you ever traced back to their roots all the things that you were told in order to discover how all of those ideas were rooted in ignorance and myths and superstitions? Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be continued tomorrow]

TOMORROW: WARNING LABELS FOR PERSONAS, PROGRAMMING, AND CONDITIONING

UNDERSTANDING THE FRAUD OF PERSONAL NEEDS, BODY CONTINUITY, AND MIND CONTINUITY, Part Five

F.: Your programmers and conditioners completely fooled you about who/what you are—which in turn robbed from you the memory of Who (or What) You Truly Are and thereby deprived you of much happiness. In addition to the fraud of dreamed-up personas and their imaginary, personal needs, your programmers also set you up for tremendous misery and limitation by convincing you that you are your body. Pretend for a moment: if you knew someone had been a cat for twenty years and then a dog for twenty years and then at age forty became a human, would you say that person has been a human for all forty years? No. Then why speak of a “baby” and then a “child” and then a “teen” and then a “young adult” and then an “adult” and then a “senior” and suggest that the current senior human is the same human that was referred to as ”child”?

It should have been seen during the postings dealing with the man who was (and is) suffering as result of playing “husband” that the “me” who took itself to be “husband” was a fraud…was a false identity. The “me” who looks at pictures of itself as “baby” and then “child” and then “teen” and then “young adult” and then “adult” and then “senior” and believes that those are all the same body is glaringly unobservant and as blatantly mistaken as that man playing "husband." If you were to lay out pictures of each of those bodies and ask any child (who had not yet been totally programmed) if those were all the same person, he would deny it immediately. The differences are obvious to any objective observer, and only the third fraud (based in the belief in a continuous mind along with a major misunderstanding of science) could so confuse persons that they believe in body continuity. Yet it is from that confusion that all religions have developed and that all beliefs have evolved among persons that they have “one body on earth” which will be “the one, same body that will exist forever” in one of an assortment of dualities: Valhalla or Hifhel; the Elysian Fields or Hades; heaven or hell; Paradise or Hell; the light or the darkness; or the clouds or the fire, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

However, there has never been one body with continuity, and there will never be a body with continuity (whether talking about pre-manifestation, manifestation or post-manifestation). The human body is constantly replacing and regenerating cells to maintain proper and efficient function. Cells such as blood cells, skin cells, and bone cells are being replaced at different rates. (If you spend ten minutes reading this post and considering the content, during that time you will have shed 250,000 skin cells and those will have been replaced by 250,000 different cells. Not one cell of the billions of skin cells that came about during the last twenty-eight days is now present. From one month to the next, your body in not even “enclosed” in the same skin! The basal cells will divide in order to insure a certain skin thickness. If the outer layers of dead skin peel away more frequently, the basal cells on the inside will divide more frequently to make up for the lost skin. If your skin has had no continuity for even a month, why the misconception about the space within?)

Bone marrow cells called “hemopoietic stem cells” can divide over and over to generate red blood cells as well as different kinds of white blood cells. In the inner lining of the small intestine, cells turn over every seven days or so. In the pancreas, the turnover time may be as long as a year or more, but it too is subject the same “turnover.” Liver cells rarely divide, but if there is injury to the liver and the liver is somehow reduced, liver cells will divide to get the liver back to the right size.

So if the body (which you think has been "your one continuous body") has different red blood cells, different white blood cells, a different pancreas, a different lining to the intestines, completely different skin on a regular basis, different bone cells, etc., where is the continuity? Is it becoming clear that the body seen in the first grade photo has practically nothing in common with the body seen in the second grade photo, much less with the body seen in a high school senior photo, much less with a senior citizen body seen in another photo? What do those bodies/spaces have in common, if not “you”? Only the illusion of a continuous mind that misleads the corrupted consciousness into believing in the fallacious concept of “continuity now” and “continuity forever.”

If all bodies are in a constant state of flux (becoming a different body this second, and then a different body the next second, and then a different body the next second), then no body should be mistaken as something that is “set” or “permanent” of “fixed” as a continuous form. And if no “set” body exists, then that which is constantly changing into something else cannot possibly define anything, including “you.” [Compare that misunderstanding with someone saying, "The ice cube that I've dropped onto the hot pavement is a cube...no wait, it's part cube and part water...no wait, it's water...no wait, it's vapor...no wait, it doesn't even exist." Then, understand that the various "forms" were all illusions and that all that was real was the combination of hydrogen and oxygen atoms. See the body as the cube and see the atoms as the energy-consciousness.]

Thus, the flaw in the concept of "body continuity for eternity" should be obvious: which body would exist for eternity if no body is the same for even a split-second in time? If “you” have had no body continuity during “this life,” then you cannot possibly have body continuity in an afterlife. (To believe that lie is an example of magical thinking at its worst.) Thus, no body will exist that can experience the physical pleasures to be gained from scores of virgins, and no body will exist that could experience the pain of eternal flames. What freedom in that understanding! More significantly for Advaitan protégés, if you are not the continuous body you have taken yourself to be, and if you are not a body at all, then Who (or What) Are You, Truly? Do you understand why the only statement that can be made about this manifestation is offered in the declaration, “When you speak of Me, speak of Me as I AM”? That is the only “Me” there is. Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be continued tomorrow]

UNDERSTANDING THE FRAUD OF PERSONAL NEEDS, BODY CONTINUITY, AND MIND CONTINUITY, Part Four

F.: Yesterday, the discussion underway at the end of the posting dealt with a man who wanted to receive the “good” label from a woman he had lived with as “husband.” Note how the belief in dualities always produces misery for persons. The duality of “True Self as opposed to husband” and the duality of “good as opposed to bad” made him miserable while they were together. Her threats to leave could “end husband” in the flash of a second, and in taking that role to define "who he is," he was trapped for years in a sense of vulnerability, dependence, misery, fear and discomfort. And her belief in the fictitious standards of "good" and "bad" that had been programmed into her left her miserable and restless as well. His programming made him dependent on her back then for what he took to be his very "existence," and he remains dependent on her (and her duality-based opinions) to this day. She is still in charge of how he feels, and they are not even in contact. That’s insanity, all rooted in an ego-state and in acceptance of the “good-bad” duality.

That duality was programmed into him as a child and began a life-long quest (actually, the life-long playing of games) to be considered “good” and to avoid being considered “bad.” In fact, he could be free if he realized that “he” is the consciousness that needs nothing other than re-purification. The imaginary roles that his body has played (and continues to play) are assuming that his personal needs are real, and with any belief in unfulfilled needs, misery always comes. Is it becoming clear how all ego-states are prisons and that all beliefs in dualities are the bars? Is it obvious why a dual-minded person will always be unstable in all ways? Is it becoming clear that all "you’s" are just thoughts (and that all thoughts are nothing more than a series of flawed images)? Do you see that the “husband” identity that was cast upon him via enculturation was not even a figment of his own imagination but was a figment of the imagination of others who had been programmed by persons before (and those had been programmed by persons before them…and those were programmed by persons before them, ad infinitum)? Are you seeing that, even though identities and their perceived needs are totally fictional, they can have a “real” impact on the experiences that persons suffer in their relative existence?

So what personal needs do you think “you” have? You might write them all on a piece of paper and then next to each, write the name of the persona or role that thinks it needs that. See that whatever it is that is imagining that need is not You. It is not your True Self but is a false self. Can You find each false self that you are taking to be who you are and that is thus generating a sense of need which will always mark your relative existence with misery and suffering? Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be continued tomorrow]

UNDERSTANDING THE FRAUD OF PERSONAL NEEDS, BODY CONTINUITY, AND MIND CONTINUITY, Part Three

F.: A stark contrast was seen yesterday in the natural behavior of a gnat (with a brain so small that it would fit on the head of a pin) and the supernatural and unnatural behavior of persons (with their large brains and their “minds” that they are so proud of). No gnat has ever behaved like a fool; persons can only behave like fools. With both a gnat and a human, the process began in the same manner with consciousness manifesting in a space, so why such disparity?

From that Absolute state even beyond non-beingness, the consciousness manifested and beingness happened. With the manifestation of that speck of consciousness and the space that evolved from the elements, physical needs began; yet it was not until the consciousness was warped via assignment of labels and personas that the illusion of personal needs came to be accepted as real. Only one species on the planet is subjected to the warping process with such unwavering regularity. Contributing to the ongoing delusion is the fact that, as a child, you were programmed to believe in the earliest dualities taught: the “good-bad” duality and its subsequent “reward-punishment” duality. A belief in dualities and the personas they generate make fools of all persons.

Pause to find what you think you need and see that the false belief that "personal needs are real" will always generate unfulfilled desires as well. Do you “need” another person? A woman said recently during a telephone conversation that she “wanted a man in her life.” She soon saw that her belief system is that she needs a man. In that mindset, it was suggested, it will be obvious to all who cross her path that she is “needy”; the point was made that—from that posture—she will only attract the ruthless types of users who prey on the needy. Reflecting on several recent “relationships,” she admitted that is exactly what she is experiencing, over and over. She was invited to determine how much of her “need” and desire was also rooted in the belief that she was not “good” enough to make it independently on her own, that she was programmed to think that she needs a man to met her needs, and that she cannot feel “good” enough unless she is showered regularly with constant statements of male praise that would reinforce the notion that she is “good.” Reviewing the childhood conditioning applied by a male parent allowed her to see how she was being driven by her early progamming and was making no choices at all "on her own."

Another call was taken from a man whose wife had left him years ago, but he still imagines that he needs something from her. A few questions soon revealed that he imagines that he "needs" to hear his former spouse express an apology for things said. He "needs" her to state what a mistake it was to leave him. He "needs" her to say she now sees that she had it so much better with him than with the next man she married. WHO thinks he needs all that? It is not HIM (not the True Self) but the fictitious role of "husband" who believes in those non-physical but actually personal "needs." For years he wanted her to believe that he was a “good” husband, and though she is gone, he still wants her to believe that he was a “good” husband. While together, that belief would have allowed his false identity of “husband” to continue. Now, though he is no longer “husband,” the role still wants affirmation. Are you seeing the correlation between (a) accepting an ego-state as an identity and (b) the resulting sense of "need" and want and desire that always accompanies that assumption and (c) the experiencing of the unhappiness that always results when haunted by a sense of unmet needs and unfulfilled desires that are based in the assumption of false identities? Are you seeing why the lives of persons become so complicated? Are you seeing why the lives of gnats are so much simpler? Are you seeing what each person must be rid of in order to live as freely and sanely and simply a gnat? Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be continued tomorrow]

UNDERSTANDING THE FRAUD OF PERSONAL NEEDS, BODY CONTINUITY, AND MIND CONTINUITY, Part Two

F.: Much of the suffering and misery of humanity could end today if persons saw through the great fraud of personality. In the relative existence, that consciousness of presence—that sense of “Am-ness”—does not destroy families, does not steal and kill, does not drop bombs on other nations, does not die for religious causes, and does not think that other races should be eliminated; however, the “Am-ness” can be corrupted and programmed and conditioned in a way that results in the forgetting of the “Am-ness” and the replacing of that awareness with a sense of “I-ness.” It is the sense of “I-ness” that generates all the destructive, relative-existence conduct catalogued above.

Recently, a gnat flew toward one of my eyes and I swatted it away. It flew away in the zig-zag manner that gnats use in flight and landed on the back side of a hairbrush to hide. Recall how small a gnat is, then imagine how small its brain is. Yet even with a brain that small, the gnat’s consciousness was aware of its own presence and took action to preserve its “Am-ness.” What it did not do was become embroiled in an ego-state (an “I-state”); it did not become emotionally intoxicated and believe that it could “take me on” to prove its manly gnat-ness, to defend its gnatdom, or to preserve its “Super-Gnat” image. It did not lapse into supernatural behavior and pray for the “Giant Gnat in the Sky” to intervene in its behalf and destroy me. It did not hum or chant from behind the brush in order to restore its “peace of mind.” It did not behave unnaturally and try to kill itself out of the frustration of not being the biggest and the best on earth. It has no mind, so it did none of those things. It just did what was natural, so it is obvious that the gnat is not a fool. Have you behaved as naturally as that gnat for the entirety of your manifestation? Contrast its behavior with that of persons on the planet, especially those who have gathered much knowledge (learned ignorance), who take great pride in the personal libraries they have built within their houses, who pay homage to their “minds,” and who have accumulated so many false identities that they can no longer even begin to imagine the answer to the simplest and most basic question, “Who—or What—Am I, Truly?”

Persons, unlike the naturally-behaving gnat, think supernaturally and behave unnaturally when the consciousness has been bastardized to the point that they take the “I-ness,” their ego-states, to define who they are. In that separation from the knowingness, all that is labeled “destructive” evolves. In not knowing the “Am-ness” but taking the “I-ness” to be who they are, persons adopt roles and then soon elevate their status within that role to a “Super” state: “wife” soon becomes “Super-Wife” and believes she has to try to change “him” because he is not “good” enough—not “super.” "He" retains his “Super-Lover” status and becomes willing to destroy a family to play out that role since one woman is never “enough” for that ego-state. “Leader” becomes “Super Leader,” and in an effort to emulate his “Super-Hero” from the past who had spread their form of government, "Super Leader" will try to spread that ideology with words for a time but with bombs for a longer time.

Have you found the roles that have been assigned to you, or adopted by you, as a result of enculturation? Until you find all those roles and discard them, then the door will be closed to finding True Self. Knowing the True Self, only natural behavior happens. Not knowing the True Self will generate the most destructive, supernatural thinking and the most destructive unnatural behaviors imaginable, relatively-speaking. What roles are you playing? How did you end up accepting those as identities? What has been the actual price paid for trying to maintain those roles? What fictional roles have made you believe that various fictitious “needs” are real needs? Who (or What) Are You, Truly? Please enter into the silence of contemplation. [To be continued tomorrow]

UNDERSTANDING THE FRAUD OF PERSONAL NEEDS, BODY CONTINUITY, AND MIND CONTINUITY, Part One

F.: If not Realized, then you are living under the illusion of a giant fraud. That fraud includes a belief that your personal needs are real, a belief that you’ve had one body all your life, and a belief that you have a mind of your own. Also, the fraud includes a belief (based in the imagined continuity of personality-body-mind) that the personality and body and mind will experience eternal continuity as well…triggering efforts among some persons to be “good” and not “bad” in order to get an “eternal reward” for the body-mind and to avoid an “eternal punishment” for the body-mind. That notion has filled pyramids with “preserved” bodies surrounded by treasures, has filled the coffers of millions of religious treasuries, has filled cemeteries with “preserved” bodies across the globe, and has inspired zealots to kill themselves for some cause that will guarantee that eternal continuity and body reward. The history of humankind is a story of one amazing fraud after another that the bastardized consciousness is capable of accepting as “truth” without questioning any of it at all. The postings for today and tomorrow will deal with imagined needs (and the subsequent desires and misery they generate).

As long as the consciousness remains manifested, the body will have certain physical needs. The body will require food and shelter, for example, and the drive to meet those needs is a natural action. Deer, which live naturally, will work daily to forage for food and to find shelter when required. Humans who prefer to be free—and therefore devise a plan for assuring their independence—can meet their basic physical needs by acquiring saleable skills and performing services. Humans who are willing to be dependent—and thus must settle for never really being free—follow another course. They assume false identities, they create images, and they play roles to inspire other persons to provide for them. In that abandonment of their True Self, the playing of their assumed roles in “The Drama of the Lie” allows them to influence others to meet their needs, but they sell themselves (and their Self) in the process. See the duality created when following the second course: game-playing vs. truthfulness; users vs. takers; being true to Self vs. dedication to maintaining false images; and independence vs. dependence. So it is as some humans work to meet their physical needs while others manipulate to have their physical needs met. The subsequent lack of independence creates misery for persons, but it the additional belief in personal needs that takes the greatest toll on humans in their relative existence.

While the physical needs are “real” as far as the relative goes, it is the personal needs which are imagined and that—though fictional—exact a heavy toll as persons create both dependencies and co-dependencies via role assumption. Why co-dependency? If one assumes the role of “wife,” she must have a “husband” for that false identity to be perpetuated. That false "she" cannot exist without "him." Same for the "husband." To be “boss,” a steady stream of “employees” must flow. Every assumed role requires another person to play the counterpart in order for the playing of the roles to continue. And every persona that is assumed brings with it a litany of false needs that are taken to be real, brings a frustration with it because those needs will never be fully met (since false needs can never be met), and thus brings a chain of unfulfilled desires and the subsequent misery and suffering that personas experience as a result.

Find what you think "you" need personally and you’ll find a major source of any suffering and misery you’ve ever experienced (or will ever experience). Personal needs are the needs imagined by a persona to be true needs because personas take their roles to be true identifiers of self. Find WHO believes that he/she has that need, and you’ll find that a persona, an image, is perpetuating the imagined need. Why imagined? If that which believes it has a need is an image, then the “need” itself is an image…is imagined. When all false images are seen to be false, then the imaginary needs of those images automatically disappear as well. And when unmet imaginary needs disappear, the accompanying unfulfilled desires dissolve. And when false images and a false sense of need and the emptiness of unfulfilled desires disappear, peace happens. Then, physical needs can be met while remaining independent and free and without the burden of emotional intoxication that personas with perceived needs and unmet desires always generate. Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be continued tomorrow]

HOW KNOWING IT ALL PREVENTS UNDERSTANDING IT ALL, Part Three

F.: In regards to the reference to “your power,” do you have the power to change the condition on the planet for billions? Of course not. You don’t even see the condition. Do you have the power to change the condition on the planet for even a few? More to the point, do you have the power to change the condition for you—for that person on this planet who is so dedicated to singing songs of praise to him self that he cannot hear the shouts of agony rising from the sufferers who are scattered across the planet and whom you obviously feel “separate” from? You are “detached,” you report. That means you might be the witness, but you are “the subject” of subject-object witnessing. The “I” (which you take yourself to be) is witnessing those “others” who are “wallowing” and have not accomplished all that you have accomplished. That leaves you trapped in the duality of “me-them.” You claim to know Brahman without even knowing Your True Self. Only from that True Self platform of the Pure Witness would you be able to know the Oneness and become aware of the relative-existence-misery and suffering of “others” that you too are experiencing but denying. You do not understand that because you believe you know it all. You, too, believe yourself to be on third base because you hit a triple, but many who have such pride have had more opportunities given than opportunities made.

Now, to return to the relative existence in which you are actually embroiled as a result of not understanding any of the Advaita teachings. Here is a suggestion regarding your relative existence conduct, which can be taken as an experiment in “Applied Advaita”: for a time, forget using the teachings to “detach”; let ego dissolve so you can detach instead from the glorification of your successes and your illusion of power and the delusion of your Brahman status; go find one hungry child; and then…offer food. That is all that ever happens on this site: every now and then, persons who are hungry for something show up, and sometimes…they just happen to be fed. The irony is that it is not their mouths that must be open in order to be fed. Please enter the silence of contemplation.

TOMORROW: UNDERSTANDING THE FRAUD: NEEDS AND DESIRES, BODY CONTINUITY, AND MIND CONTINUITY

HOW KNOWING IT ALL PREVENTS UNDERSTANDING IT ALL, Part Two

From a site visitor: “What is with some Advaitans who talk of human misery and suffering? I used the teachings to detach from it all and move on. I take my adversities and make opportunities of them. If people have problems, they need to find solutions instead of wallowing in misery. Make clear to people that we are Brahman. We have the power to turn failures into success and move on.”

F.: Your comments reveal that you understand none of the Advaita teachings. If you did, you’d understand one particular irony: the Realized are detached from all illusion but nevertheless have the ability to live "as if" the relative were real while knowing it is not. That frees the Realized from the suffering that is triggered by ego-driven emotional intoxication but still allows the Realized to feel. And one thing that the Realized feel is empathy for those suffering. Devoid of any dualities such as “good-bad,” “right-wrong,” and “moral-immoral,” the Realized automatically move through this existence spontaneously while behaving in a fashion that aligns with common definitions of what "moral" conduct entails—including empathizing with the non-Realized and their misery, understanding their suffering and its causes, and caring about those who are suffering as a result of having to deal with non-Realized egomaniacs.

You’re also operating under a misunderstanding that is common to some when they first come into contact with the Advaita Vedanta teachings: it is believed by certain persons that if she/he realizes—which your statements show you have not—then he/she will receive some benefit. The fact is that, upon Realization, there is no longer anyone to receive a benefit; there is no person to be helped via enlightenment. The result of realization is that the person disappears, and when the final ego-state disappears, including the seeker, then the final vestige of ego disappears; then, when the final vestige of ego disappears, life for “self” does not improve (“self” having dissolved). On the other hand, the relative existence does improve for the thousands who would have had to deal with your ego. Contrary to the beliefs that were revealed in your e-mail, Realization is not as much about you overcoming your problems and misery and suffering. That would only benefit “one.” It is far more about that “one” no longer raining on the parade of all whom that “one's” ego can impact in the relative existence. Comments in yesterday’s post triggered several e-mails, this one being typical:

From another site visitor: “All of your examples yesterday were about nothing more than relative concepts.”

F.: True, the examples offered yesterday dealt with the relative. All misery and suffering is of the relative existence only. That said, let the discussion turn to that “Brahman” mentioned in the original e-mail and to that “power” that was alleged. If you are the power or have the power, then do not merely end your adversity only. End all adversity. If you are Brahman, can you not come up with a “Plan” that is more “divine” than the current one which is failing so miserably? So much for power, and so much for Brahman. Hang Brahman. Hang the “Am-ness” as well. It is the fount from which springs all the misery and suffering that Advaitans speak of. If that speck of consciousness that had manifested in the spaces called “Nisargadatta” and “Ramana” were yet speaking, those specks of consciousness would also say, “Hang Maharaj and Maharshi too.” Also, hang “floyd” and, by the way, hang “you.”

Yes I—the consciousness—speak of the consciousness to novices, but you want to speak of your relative experiences in the same breath as you speak of that Absolute which is prior to any experience (because it is prior to consciousness). I Am That which is prior to both consciousness and experiences. If you were actually to understand the "Brahman" you speak of, then you would not imagine your self or your Self to be something that can escape the reality of that ultimate state, and you would not imagine that your self is existing now or that your Self will exist forever as some form. Yet it is not even required to understand the Absolute to be able to know your True Self, the manifested Pure Witness that is capable of knowing the Oneness, capable of understanding the At-one-ment. You have missed it all as a result of believing that you already know it all. Very egocentric, indeed. Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be concluded tomorrow]

TOMORROW: Your “power”

HOW KNOWING IT ALL PREVENTS UNDERSTANDING IT ALL, Part One

From a site visitor: “What is with some Advaitans who talk of human misery and suffering? I use the teachings to detach from it all and move on. I take my adversities and make opportunities of them. If people have problems, they need to find solutions instead of wallowing in misery. Make clear to people that we are Brahman. We have the power to turn failures into success and move on.”

F.: You remind me of a current “world leader” who was born on third base but who lives in the delusional belief that he is there because he hit a double and then stole third. Your egocentrism has reduced the entire planet to the area of your body and your mind only. Why speak of suffering? After all, that is just a relative existence concept, in the end. Why speak of misery?

In your case, you don’t see either so, of course, you won’t speak of either. If you live in the U.S., then the majority of the children you see are overweight, but most children worldwide are suffering malnutrition. For every 2.43 seconds that you spent writing about what works for you, another child on the planet starved to death. If you took three minutes to write about your success, three women in the U.S. were raped as you expounded your beliefs about overcoming your problems. Between the time of this posting and tomorrow’s, forty-five people will have been murdered in the U.S. and hundreds or thousands will have to process the relative impact of those murders. Annually, genocide is killing hundreds of thousands (and creating hundreds of thousands of orphans) across the globe. There are 46,000,000 U.S. citizens who have no access to medical care. For each 43 seconds you spent writing about your accomplishment of pulling your self up by your bootstraps, another child was born into poverty in the wealthiest country on the planet. One estimate is that 95% of the U.S. population is addicted to something, and their addictions are merely the symptom—not the problem. The problem is widespread misery and depression (and a desire to escape the misery and depression). While much attention is focused on the loss of families and homes along the Gulf Coast, 62% of all children in the country will lose their families and homes as a result of divorce. And you want to know why Advaitans talk of suffering and misery? Well, actually, Advaitans do not talk of suffering and misery. The Realized—that manifested, pure consciousness—speaks of misery and depression as a result of knowing the Oneness. Even the non-Realized who are logical would speak of misery and depression, knowing that there is a bonding matrix of these prevailing conditions, knowing that there is no separation, and knowing that whatever conditions prevail anywhere will seep into the fabric of existence everywhere.

Even as the lyrics you’re singing are “And I think to myself…what a wonderful world,” humans planet-wide are suffering from experiences that do not parallel your own. And they have no voice of their own either, but if they did, they would be singing a different tune from yours. Why talk of suffering and misery? Because in the relative existence it is too often the prevailing human condition and because that condition could be transcended if enlightenment prevailed and ego ended. The Realized speak of abandoning ego-states in order to abandon ego. What role does ego play in human misery and suffering? The central role. Find a people who are suffering and miserable and you shall also find an egomaniac impacting their existence; he will be openly displaying his propensity for abuse of power, his desire to control, and his unchecked arrogance. And that same type of abuse can be found throughout all nations, in states, in cities, in workplaces, and, maybe, in your own home.

As with those mentioned earlier who suffer addictions, the Realized Advaitan knows that misery and suffering is but the symptom. The problem is always the personality—those ego-states that generate personas and the use of ego-defense mechanisms that they always generate. The Advaita teaching offers an invitation to put an end to ego and arrogance in the relative existence by ending all false beliefs in ego-states. You may be “detached” and thus able to “move on,” but among the homeless and the disenfranchised, among the women raped, among the families deserted, among the people living in poverty and among those suffering as a result of not receiving needed medical care, among the people being bombed or maimed or tortured or murdered, and among the children with bloated stomachs who are starving…how many of them are likely to have the same chance you’ve had to turn “adversities into opportunities?” That which you are so proud of for your self, most humans on earth will never experience. And that which you are so proud of for your self also precludes your knowing the Oneness and thus prevents you from understanding that the bell tolls for “you” as much as for “them.” Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be completed tomorrow]

“SUPERNATURAL” SIGHTINGS

From a site visitor: “My wife has been visited at night by her deceased father who brings positive messages to her. It seems to me that those sighting dismiss your notion that there is no body or any form in an afterlife.”

F.: Your comments, along with your wife’s “sightings,” show that you have both missed the natural understanding and have been programmed to think supernaturally. There are actually two possible explanations for her “experiences”: (1) the sightings were “real” and involved a subtle or causal body state of consciousness or (2) the sightings were actually just visions—merely imaginings—of the types that happen in the Theta state of consciousness. In “The Glossary of Terms Used on this Site,” one entry in December 2005 offered this, in part:

Unmanifesting: The movement of consciousness (which was temporarily manifested into a space) back into that "field of conscious-energy" from which it came. Some speak of three bodies to help students picture the movement. Consider the gross body to be the space housing manifested consciousness; take the subtle body to represent something shifting beyond the personal, gross body; and take the causal body to correspond to the transpersonal stage that precedes total transcendence to the Unmanifest, to the no-body and no-mind Reality. (The erroneous beliefs in ghosts, angels, spirits, and an eternal life with a body were first given credence when the consciousness that was still manifested in some gross body became aware of subtle or causal stage manifestations of consciousness in the transition stage of unmanifesting. A woman who looked as if she'd seen a ghost approached me and told me her grandmother had just appeared to her and told her "everything is going to be OK." Fifteen minutes later, a call came that her grandmother had died fifteen minutes earlier. That event was nothing more than manifested consciousness being aware of unmanifesting consciousness. Rather than suggesting that some "magical world" exists out there or that "bodies last forever," that event merely illustrated that consciousness can know consciousness NOW.) Only use the "three body stages" to help you picture consciousness not unmanifesting in a micro-second but fading out of the manifestation and into the unmanifest. Many persons claim that consciousness is "the soul" and that the soul will go to another world and remanifest there into the same body it was in on earth—along with the same "mind" it had at the "time" of "death." Of course that is impossible since dust does not regroup and since "the mind" was a complete illusion...the storehouse of all illusions.
[ You may click on http://advaitavedantameditations.blogspot.com/2005/12/glossary-of-terms-for-this-site-part_23.html
for the complete text ]

So that covers possibility number one, which is rare. Possibility number two—imagining such sightings and then believing that they were real—happens in the Theta state of consciousness. In that state, persons can dream or envision and be totally convinced that the dream or vision was real. You know that dreams can seem so real that people can often awaken from the dream state with screams or with cold sweats. That’s how real an illusion can seem to be. Which of those two types is your wife experiencing? Since the visits are at night, and since nighttime is generally the time when the Theta state is entered, I suspect the latter, but either case is possible.

However, rather than concern yourself with any of that, why not find if any dreams are being taken as the real? A far more positive impact on your relative existence could then happen. Of course the Theta state can provide visions that can reveal an understanding of the Functioning of the Totality. Regarding any “positive messages,” though, realize that truth does not come from without, whether that which is outside of you is the image of a deceased relative or is an imaginary power. Truth is found from within after all dreams and lies are seen and discarded and after any revealing vision is understood. [See "Articles" at www.floydhenderson.com for more.] Forget all imaginary outer resources and tap into the inner resource. Please enter the silence of contemplation.
TOMORROW: “What is with some Advaitans who talk of human misery and suffering? I used the teachings to detach from it all and move on. I take my adversities and make opportunities of them. If people have problems, they need to find solutions instead of wallowing in misery. Make clear to people that we are Brahman. We have the power to turn failures into success and move on.”

THE SPECIFIC STEPS TO REALIZATION, Part Nine

From a site visitor: “When looking for me, I find that all there is are thoughts or feelings but these walls (mostly a feeling) seem to satisfy me as to who I am. Where do I go from here?”

F.: If you were truly satisfied as to who you are—and if you were truly satisfied, period—then you would have nowhere “to go” and nothing more to do; however, the fact that your search has been so intense, has gone on for so long, and is still continuing to this day suggests that might not be the case. That which seems to satisfy never satisfies. Wanting and searching always reveal to the objective observer that some sense of lacking exists, and no one with any sense of lacking is satisfied. Early humans wanted and searched for food only when they did not feel full (were not “full-filled”) or for as long as they were still hungry for something. The same is true among persons today. Those dissociated from their actual circumstance can claim—and actually believe—that they are happy and satisfied, but they’re in denial or delusion. (They will also deny that fact as well.)

Now, to end this discussion and then allow you the opportunity to take all these pointers into quiet consideration until you truly grasp their meaning (or not), your final questions shall be addressed:

a) Is it the questioning of all thoughts that is needed? I seem to think that because there is so much focus on questioning "thoughts" that it takes you away from reality.

F.: The focus is to realize that all thoughts arise in the “mind” and to know what the “mind” really is. Once you know what the “mind” is, your love of “your mind” and your pride in all its accumulated spiritual knowledge (which is only learned ignorance) will end. So, too, ends the belief that “your mind” knows more than “others” and that “your mind” is right more often than “theirs.” Why do persons resist admitting that the “mind” is nothing more than a cesspit of concepts? That happens because of one—or a combination of—five reasons, all of which have ego at their core: (1) they want to show everyone what they have accumulated, or (2) they believe that everybody should be impressed with what they have amassed, or (3) they are merely impressing their self or (4) they use their "spiritual growth time" as a way to isolate or escape or (5) they are convinced that the “mind” defines who they are as much as the body defines who they are. If number five is the case, then it is clear that they have not completed the first two steps of the “journey” which will allow body identification and mind identification to end. The realized de-accumulate. Never will anything be written on this site that suggests you need to get more of anything, including more spiritual knowledge. Nothing on this site needs to be "learned." All pointers are available to suggest you un-learn and then be done with the site contents as well. Persons do not need to “get more.” They need to “get rid of” and then know the joy of less instead of the joylessness that they’ve grow accustomed to. Every concept used on this site is offered to help protégés get rid of all concepts. Once that is done, the concepts used on this site are to be discarded as well. Every concept is a lie.

To review, the “mind” is your problem. It will make you no fun to be around. It will isolate you from “others.” It will make you arrogant. It will drive you to suffer from analysis, analysis, and more analysis. It will deny you even a minute’s peace with its incessant chatter. Lose it. Of all the religions, spiritual movements, programs, self-help plans, philosophies, and ideologies, Advaita Vedanta is always the last one tried because no more is needed after Realization. Accumulation ends and de-accumulation happens. The effects of past programming end and de-programming is completed. The conditioned consciousness is de-conditioned or re-purified. Advaita is the only approach that offers the total solution. It is the only one that invites you to “get rid of” rather than “get more of.” It is the only one with the teaching that suggests you abandon all teachings. It is the only one that invites you to relax and take it easy…and really means it.

The belief that one’s “mind” is a storehouse of essential valuables rather than a storehouse of man-made lies and false concepts is rooted in the ego part of the ego-states that persons assume as false identities. Progress along the “path” happens when you stop giving any credibility to “your mind” (which is really “their mind”). The deer—which lives peacefully and naturally rather than unnaturally or supernaturally—is able to do so because it has no mind. It does have a brain and pure consciousness; therefore, it still accomplishes its daily tasks—it does what it does to survive—without any of the ego-inspired mental handicaps which make it impossible for persons to live in harmony…whether alone, in a family situation, in a workplace, in a city, in a nation, or on this planet. Many spiritual persons claim to be satisfied by reaching the "no-mind state" for a period of time during a meditation session. You mention in question “c” below a “temporary solution.” To reach a no-mind state during a meditation session is a temporary solution, and such a brief respite, ultimately, is irrelevant. The goal is to be rid of "the mind" once and for all and thereafter reside in the no-mind state for the remainder of the time that the consciousness is manifested. That is the second step of the seven steps that provide the permanent solution.

b) Or is it the "letting go" of all thoughts that is needed? I seem to think that this is a temporary solution because if there are still some burning issues that need to be faced what has really happened is you have just put them aside and ignored them.

F.: When one is restored to sanity via realization, one can still “take care of business.” The first humans were realized without having to seek realization; that is, their consciousness had not been corrupted by man-made concepts or self-serving conditioning by “leaders” with agendas; nevertheless, they still worked to provide shelter and they still hunted and foraged to provide nourishment. They also played. The point is, realization does not require that anyone stop caring for the body and brain during the period of manifestation. It does not suggest that “burning issues” be “put aside or ignored.” Realization makes it possible to face all that must be faced in the relative existence without suffering emotional intoxication around those “issues,” to use your term.

For example, even the realized might understand the value of finding out whether their body type is a 4, a 5, or an 8. Only one-third of the earth’s population will thrive on a vegetarian diet. If the other two-thirds follow a vegetarian food plan, they will suffer a crash of their sympathetic and their parasympathetic systems as well as a crash of many of the organs that must function properly in order for both physical and mental well-being to happen. Yet persons listen to “holy” or “wise” or “spiritual” leaders who tell them what they can eat and what they cannot eat in order to be “pure.” Governments propagate just as much nonsense by recommending a “combination or balanced food plan” which is, in reality, only ideal for one-third of the earth’s population. Religious leaders prescribe food plans that will supposedly please a god that will otherwise be angered over one’s consumption of pork, or beef, or beef instead of fish on a certain day, ad infinitum. Others will recommend fasting as a "holy" exercise. You wrote that you also have chosen to follow a limited food plan. There is a one-out-of-three chance that your choice is the right one for your body type. So it is.

Too, some might have trauma “issues,” and they might find that their relative existence would be improved by addressing those issues with a professional. Realization simply allows all of that to happen without (a) any persona thinking he/she has to have power in order to have control over people, places and things and without (b) any triggering of emotional intoxication. Work, too, can continue to happen (or not) without suffering the emotional intoxication that personas suffer when they want power in order to be able to control. The point is, realization does not impose limitations but instead removes all limitations, especially the limitation of personality. But what is the greatest limitation? The insanity of being out of touch with reality. In that case, persons do not address “issues,” do not know what their specific body needs are for optimal functioning, and will allow “leaders” to dictate what they can and cannot do with their own bodies. (Talk about “temporary solutions,” about “avoiding” what should not be avoided, about not “facing” the truth that should be faced, and about not being free!)

c) Or is it neither questioning or letting go but rather understanding what your relationship to the thoughts that appear in your mind is in the first place?

F.: You cannot “let go of” that which you do not first question. Pavlovian dogs fell for the trick because they had “faith” as a result of conditioning. (Of course, all “faith” and the resulting refusal to question results from programming and conditioning.) The dogs’ faith—as faith always does—deprived them of the ability to question, so they were trapped in the insanity of their conditioning; therefore, they salivated in response to a sound (unnatural) rather than to a smell (natural). Persons live in a similar fashion—unnaturally or supernaturally—as a result of faith, conditioning, and a refusal to question their belief systems (which are not really their own at all). In order to let go of the influence that the bogus “mind” holds over persons, questioning it all must come first. If that does not happen, then persons will continue to live the way the masses live: controlled by conditioning, believing they are making choices while choosing nothing, and acting and reacting in unnatural or supernatural ways that are being driven in a manner that differs not at all from Pavlov’s trainees.

Yet ego will stop the process dead in its tracks (usually at step three of seven) because egotistical persons (those who believe that ego-states really define who they are) believe that their beliefs are right and that any opposing views are wrong. It’s all nothing more than ideas and concepts dreamed up by controlling men over the ages, so it’s all false. The “relationship” you asked about between a false you and your thoughts (which are their thoughts, not yours at all) is that the false thoughts sustain the false “you,” the false personas. If you find the Real You, you’ll not quote others and you'll not think what others have thought. You will come to know again what You always knew but forgot because of programming and conditioning. There is no relationship between the Real You—which can know truth—and the bogus thoughts that are generated by corrupted consciousness. Since “the mind” is false, then the thoughts that “appear in your mind” are false. Again, the only “relationship” possible in the scenario you are asking about is “bogus selves : bogus thoughts.”

So, these posting should have revealed the reason that so many spiritual seekers who usually fixate at the third of seven steps will never find that which they are seeking (or will struggle for years in the search for that which they are seeking): they never completed the first two steps of a seven-step “journey.” They are still identified with body and are still trapped in the false roles that their “minds” have convinced them are their identities. That is where the masses are trapped and will stay trapped. They love their “minds” and the content thereof, even as they want to quiet or take control of the “mind.” Neither of those is possible. All misery begins when the illusory body-mind-personality triad is taken as an identity. All misery continues as long as any credibility is given to spiritual knowledge (a.k.a., “learned ignorance”) that has been acquired from “others”—especially when those “others” claim to have acquired great religious revelations or deep spiritual truths that you need to add to your knowledge base. The Advaita teachings, conversely, will never suggest that you need to know more but invite you instead to flush away the fictional "mind" and all you think you know. Rather than trying to inspire protégés to accept more beliefs, the Realized will suggest that you get rid of all the ideas and dogma and beliefs and emotionalism and attitudes that you have accumulated. All of that "stuff" in combination is the "mind," and the "mind" will always generate restlessness as a result of the clutter. The specific invitation to all religious persons and spiritual persons who are stuck in either of those personas is to turn back to the beginning of the “path” and start at the actual starting point. If those first two steps are completed, then such roles as “The Deeply-Religious Person” or “The Spiritual Giant” can be abandoned, one can transition those two ego-states, and can then take the final four steps that separate persons from Reality. Best regards. Please enter the silence of contemplation.
TOMORROW: “My wife has been visited at night by her deceased father who brings positive messages to her. It seems to me that those sighting dismiss your notion that there is no body or any form in an afterlife.”

THE SPECIFIC STEPS TO REALIZATION, Part Eight

From a site visitor: “Attraction or want...who is wanting?”

F.: Ultimately, all “who’s” are personas. Even the question, “Who Am I, Really,” should be “What Am I, Really?” Consciousness is impersonal (“without persona”); “who” is “personal." Energy-consciousness is personality-free; “who’s” are all personality-encumbered. I Am impersonal. I have no personality. I Am That which is impersonal, limitless, eternal. I Am That which can know Self and the Absolute if manifested. I Am That which, if not manifested, knows nothing. Awareness is aware of awareness only if manifested. The only thing “blissful” about re-absorption into the Absolute is the bliss of the Void, of the nothingness, of the no-mind, no-body, no-personality, non-beingness and That which is beyond even the non-beingness. If one is “attracted to” or “wanting” bliss, then find it now. NOW is the only “time” when it can be known.

If not realized, you may as well study the nine Enneagram Personality Types that were set forth by the Sufis so you can be aware of what destiny you’ll be trapped in on "the Pecking Order of Humans." Why? Because if not realized—if not what the Sufis would called “developed” or “actualized”—then your specific personality type WILL drive your entire relative existence and will lock you into the negative side of your personality in this pecking order:

Type Eight’s will assume the role of “The Boss” or “The One Who Should Control”
Type Three’s will assume the role of “The Exploiter, Manipulator and User”
Type Two’s will assume the role of “The One Who Manipulates with 'Love' ”
Type One’s will assume the role of “The Rigid, Judgmental One”
Type Six’s will assume the role of “The Paranoid, Defensive One”
Type Five’s will assume the role of “The Knowledge Seeker” and “The Know-it-All”
Type Four’s will assume the role of “The Melancholy One”
Type Seven’s will assume the role of “The Escapist” or “The Avoider”
Type Nine’s will assume the role of “The Slug” or “The Doormat”

So WHO is wanting? All of those personalities (or personas or ego-states) will fear the “death” of their ego-states, no matter how harmful those false identities are (in the relative). They will want their false roles to last forever, no matter how much misery the roles generate. The domineering “boss” will be as in fear of losing her/his power and control and position at the top of the chain as the “doormat” will fear being walked on by others as he/she is locked into the lowest position. Their personalities will drive all the non-realized to want, and that wanting will always assure a sense of need and dissatisfaction.

If wanting is happening, it is always a persona (ego-state or false identity) that is wanting. All yearning (or misery or depression or unhappiness or sense of unmet need) is rooted in an imagined desire by some ego-state. Pure consciousness—always in a state of merely being—wants nothing. Work can continue, but it happens from a state of beingness rather than busy-ness or doingness. Productivity can still happen, but with contentment. Only that which is not real (but is mistaken for the real) can want, and all want is rooted in a fear of death. For example, “husband” wants “wife” to stay in order for that assumed identity to survive. Without “wife,” “husband” cannot be. So convinced is he that the limited identity of husband defines who he really is that he’ll believe that label is necessary in order to “exist”…to “not end.” Should “wife” choose to leave, “husband” can feel as if he is dying. “Employee” wants his job to continue so that “employee” can survive, and “employee” will feel he’s dying if his employer says, “You’re fired” or “We’re downsizing” or “We’re closing this plant.” Emotional intoxication will be triggered and will often set off a chain of destructive events, relatively speaking.

Worse, every role that is assumed as an identity requires a counterpart to play the supporting, co-dependent role. Since anyone can leave at any given time and in many different ways, no role can ever feel secure about its existence. All dependency supports a sense of fear, knowing that a false role can be “killed off” without a moment’s notice should the person playing the counter role depart. Why follow all seven of the specific steps to realization? To be free of the fear of being locked into behavior controlled by a personality type, free of never-ending wants and desires, free of handing over control of your happiness to another person/persona, free of co-dependency, and to be free…period. To find out WHO is wanting, find out what is wanted and then identify the false role that believes it has to have that in order for that false identity to continue…to “survive.” Please enter into the silence of contemplation. [To be continued]

TOMORROW: The conclusion of "The Specific Steps to Realization"

THE SPECIFIC STEPS TO REALIZATION, Part Seven

From a site visitor: “If there is no ‘me,’ then who is the person thinking, doing, feeling, etc?”

F.: Persons are always dissociated from the depression or apathy or busy-ness which results from their boredom, their yearning, or their misery. That is the true state of their relative existence, but persons are always separated from reality. When the misery which can be generated by the playing of false roles and by the assumption of all those false identities becomes so exhausting and debilitating that even the natural desire (that ‘love-to-be”) is extinguished, who are the two components in the duality being referenced in the comment, “I can’t stand to live with myself anymore”? [Is it clear that the "I" is witnessing the false self and realizing that such a bogus existence cannot go on?] You are correct, as your question reveals, that there is no “me.” But an error exists in the search for trying to answer part of your question: who is the person thinking, doing, feeling, etc? You rightly used the word “person.” That person which thinks and does and feels is a persona (Latin, “mask”) and can, therefore, never be found. What can be found is an assumed label—the name given to some false ego-state—that is driving the thinking or doing, such as, “spouse,” “employee,” “boss,” “parent,” “teacher,” etc. [Actually, the Realized can feel…persons emote. Use the search feature at the top of the page to search the site for more on that distinction.]

Why can a person never be found? Because all persons/personas are mirages. Driving a straight road on a hot day, you can never “find” a mirage. You can only falsely believe that the mirage you are “seeing” is real when in fact it’s just an appearance…an image only. Keep driving and see that the mirage is always beyond your grasp. It can only be seen for what it is (or, better yet, what it is not). A scientist might say "It is not a sheet of water but is an optical illusion in which atmospheric refraction by a layer of hot air distorts or inverts reflections of distant objects." The layman might say, “It’s not a sheet of water but is an optical effect that looks like a sheet of water in the desert.” An Advaitan might say “It’s not the real but is an unreal reflection, an optical illusion that can be compared to the kind of mental illusions that cause persons to look at things—including themselves—and take them to be one thing when they are something else.” If someone driving a car sees a mirage in the road ahead and swerves off a cliff in order to avoid the mirage, or if he accelerates to try to catch the mirage and runs off the road and kills everyone in his car, that would be insane…relatively speaking. Similarly, allowing mirages to have dominion over one’s conduct and to determine what a body-mind-personality thinks and does, is insanity. [What is an example of the way that believing in images can drive conduct and generate misery? In the U.S., 62% of all marriages entered into this year will eventually end in divorce. Why? Because marriages that are rooted in dishonesty and illusion cannot be healthy and because the vow that began that marriage, if based in honesty and reality, would have actually asked, “Do you take this image that you’re being shown to be your lawfully-wedded mirage?” The majority of marriages will end because the images that were taken to be real will later be seen to have been nothing more than…images, mirages. One will eventually shout at the other, “I don’t even know who you are!” Exactly. And that shouter should also admit, “I don’t even know who I am!” If that declaration should inspire a search to find Who You Are, then the “Death-in-Life Existence” might end and then true, AS IF living might eventually happen.]

In your question, the person thinking, doing and feeling (emoting, actually) is a mirage, so the persona that is thinking, doing, and emoting is also a mirage. In contrast, (1) what would be apart from any “who” or “person” and (2) what, from a neutral position, could witness that “who” or “person” and see that it is a mirage? Who or what can look at the body and can see that so many cells have come and gone that the “original” body is far from the one currently being observed, and can therefore know, “That can’t really be who I am”? Who or what could look at the role of “husband” (and at all the thinking and doing and emoting which that role has inspired) and know that what You Were—long before a holy man in a holy robe with holy water and with a holy text in a holy building on holy ground assigned that label of “husband” to you—is What You still Truly Are today, post-labeling?

To find some examples of mirage-type beliefs, "relationships" always provide some excellent examples of how appearance is taken to be real. A survey of marriage counselors recently revealed that when the partners were asked to assess the relationship’s stability and chance for longevity on a 1-10 scale, the men ranked the relationship at a “9” on average while the women ranked the relationship at a “3” on average. 95% of divorces involving children in the U.S. during the last twenty years were initiated by the wife, and in over 90% of those divorces, the men reported that they were “shocked” when their wives left. They "couldn't believe it." They had no trouble in believing a lie for years, but they could not believe the truth, even as it stared them in the face. They were sure that the “9” ranking they had been “seeing” was real. Back to the Advaitan’s comment about a mirage: “It’s an unreal reflection, an optical illusion that can be compared to the kind of mental illusions that cause persons to look at things—including themselves—and take them be one thing when they are something else.” For example, “I am a spouse”; “We have a great relationship”; “I have a devoted wife who’d be a fool to give up everything I offer—she’ll never leave”; “my husband is faithful and would never look at another woman”; “my spouse is ideal”; “this deal is going to last forever, even if the statistics show otherwise”; “we spend freely because I’ll always be making this kind of income”; “I am really very happy…how dare you suggest I might be depressed”; “this woman is a saint”; and one of the classics from a regular visitor to the site: He said, “I know she gets upset on occasion, but my wife is a saint—a wonderful Christian woman who loves me dearly.” That's what he said. What she said was, "I've prayed every morning for a year that he would die.” Many say, “Ignorance is bliss—I’d rather not know.” The ostrich that is inspired to stick it’s head in the sand to avoid seeing reality leaves itself in a most vulnerable position. It is likely to be “shocked” at some point—even devastated—when its method fails to alleviate misery but actually sets it up for more misery. The suffering of persons is rooted in the fact that they are dreaming while being convinced that they are fully awake—that they are looking at the false while being convinced that it is the real.

The corrupted consciousness removes the ability to see accurately. It can even remove the willingness to see at all because it is fueled by denial. Yet where is the chance for any peace when persons cannot even differentiate the true from the false? There is that, however, which can see the false and can then see the truth. Who or what could look at the body and answer the question in the affirmative, “If I were to lose both arms, both legs, and certain organs, would I still be ME”? Of course the answer is “Yes.” Who could know that You would still be You, even without a spouse and without any of the other roles being played that help maintain assumed identities? Who could then conclude that “If I know that I am still ME (even if all those body parts are missing and even if all the roles that the body has been playing are missing) then I must be more than—I must be something far beyond—that body and “the mind” that has assumed false identities”? Who or what can know what That is? Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be continued]
To learn how to take the complete “journey” with a step-by-step description of the shift “From the I to the Absolute”—and for the complete discussion of “The Seven Step Journey to Reality”—click the links below. That volume includes the word-for-word transcripts of the last sessions done face-to-face with protégés. The exact exchanges, with all Q and A’s and more, are included in one volume that you can see at http://floydhenderson.com/iamabsolute.htm or at http://advaitavedantabooks.blogspot.com/. Note: This has become one of the more popular books on the site so there is currently a three-week delay in filling orders on that volume. We are processing credit cards as they come in and creating a first come-first served list to ship in the order in which payments are received. Thank you for your patience as we work to process all of the orders coming in for that book.