F.: THE ORIGINAL UNDERSTANDING existed before texts and temples, before guides and gurus, before churches and creeds, before dogma and devotion, and before concepts like holiness, religion and spirituality. After the development of languages and printing, some tried to codify the understanding into books and suggested that persons needed the knowledge that was explained in texts which came to be considered “holy,” thereby losing the fact that the understanding must be derived from within. Others added activities to be done along with the gaining of knowledge, thereby losing the facts that there can be no doership since there are no do-ers and that the understanding comes in the not-doing…in the quiet of beingness. Other then added an element of worship, thereby losing the fact that there is no subject-object or “I-Him” or "I-Her" or “worshipper-god” in Reality; therefore, there is no "one" (nor any "thing") to worship. Any persons assuming the role of “worshipper” have adopted a false identity.
More and more concepts were added to a “philosophy” (actually an “understanding”) that originally invited persons to discard all concepts, all knowledge, all practices and then Realize. What was formerly known intuitively (not via books or gurus) became concealed from awareness via the bastardization of the consciousness by the learning of ignorance that became the accumulation of what is called “the mind.” Because learned ignorance blocked THE ORIGINAL UNDERSTANDING that had been known intuitively, persons had to begin seeking that understanding that had been forgotten. Mistakenly, the seeking became an act concerned only with the phenomenal (and that resulted in the development of religions, which focus on providing rewards, avoiding punishments, and extending the continuity of the physical body, the “mind” and the assumed personality forever). What was lost was the awareness of THE ORIGINAL UNDERSTANDING that is not phenomenal at all. Yet identification with the body-mind-personality triad—and efforts by humans to give those infinite continuity—took precedence among persons. Whereas THE ORIGINAL UNDERSTANDING had no concepts, the teachings deteriorated into concepts about “the divine” and “divinities.” Writings began to report about an impersonal Brahman (which some non-duality Advaitans speak of) or of a Supreme Person (the Dvaita, dualist position). Hinduism added gods and goddesses which are purportedly aspects of the divine. Greeks and Romans were coming up with similar sets of gods and goddesses who controlled every aspect of the phenomenal existence. Myths piled on top of myths; superstitions piled on top of superstitions; and concepts and dogma piled on top of concepts and dogma. Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be continued]
