F.: Advaitans use the snake in a rope metaphor to illustrate the way that persons misperceive all that they see (or think they see). Persons (the non-Realized, the corrupted consciousness) suffer from the effects of fears that are based in illusion. On the other hand, persons also suffer as a result of not seeing what is really causing their misery. Even as they are alarmed by misunderstandings that should not alarm, they ignore the other factors that should be focused on and understood, relatively speaking. They ignore “the snakes in the rope” that cost them so much money and work and restlessness and discontentment and boredom and exhaustion in the relative existence: body identification, mind identification and personality.
First, those identified with body will fall prey to other persons identified with the body. Some are raised with the belief system that since they are attractive—per the standards of their culture—they can use those looks to be taken care of. They develop a sense of entitlement. They need not “work.” Someone else needs to work to pay for all their expenses because they have a beautiful body and face. And someone similarly identified with body will do just that, will work 60 or 70 or 80 hours a week, for a lifetime, to meet all the financial obligations required to buy the body they like. In addition to basic drives, chemistry, the sensory cortex and the limbic system (the “emotional brain”), how is it that body identification can blind so many persons, then trap them in a state of emotional intoxication, and thereby retard the process of Realization? [Note: Please see earlier postings this month that make clear that enjoyment of physical pleasures need not end with Realization, but being a prisoner of such pleasures will end.]
Realization results in natural living, and for millions of years, the natural lifestyle required only a few hours a day to fish or forage or, later, to tend to a small amount of crops. Eventually, societies were formed and accumulation—a totally unnatural act—gained in popularity as ego-states and their supporting egos “needed” more and more to impress. The more hours that persons work today, the farther they remove themselves from what was a natural style of living for millions of years. As a result of accumulation, persons then become submerged even farther in unnatural living. The more that persons work, and the more that allows them to accumulate, the more they must work to maintain their accumulations. And those identified with body will exert most of their energy—and most of their accumulating—in their efforts to try to accumulate other bodies…or another particular body. Nothing in the entire relative, human experience has proved as costly and destructive as the combination of ego (the false “I”) and hormone-driven desires.
In that de-evolutionary process, misery has become the new standard, so you might interview 100,000 persons and you’ll likely find 100,000 who claim to be happy and enjoying their lives. In reality, you’d be fortunate to find one among the lot who is truly happy and not overworked and overstress or bored by decades of following the same routine, day after day after day. In their frustrations, persons often eventually turn to super-natural living to try to find the peace that they are blocked from by living their unnatural lifestyles. [Those methods never provide more than a temporary respite, requiring that the persons who follow that course return weekly—or even daily—to maintain their reprieve.] Among persons, much of their relative-existence misery is rooted in body identification and the desire to purchase what their egos and body identifications inspire them to try to accumulate, including those with the bodies they desire.
The next snake is the “mind.” In the cases where “normal births” occur, humans have a brain and the consciousness manifests in a space; on the other hand, no human has ever been born with a mind. The brain is that which taps into the inner resources—those intuitive skills and an accompanying sixth sense—that allow for survival for some period of time in this relative existence. The “mind” (a set of bogus ideas, beliefs and concepts) results via programming, conditioning, enculturation and all of the other methods that are employed to convey lies as truth. Myths and superstitions have dominated humankind’s existence, and belief in fiction today is as widespread as it was among those early, most ignorant human ancestors that first began to believe their “leaders” who assigned erroneous, super-natural causes to try to explain the completely natural happenings that they did not understand.
[For example, dozens have been heard to explain that Hurricane Katrina and its destructive forces were “sent by God as a message.” The Dahli Lama claimed that the storm was a result of “the past negative karma of the people of New Orleans.” Let the culture force a “mind” upon you, along with super-natural explanations for natural events, and you’ll be trapped right along with them in their ignorance.]
The “mind” is a snake that results in misery and suffering. There is no such thing as “peace of mind” because the “mind” is the source of all mental and emotional dis-ease. And since the “mind” is not real, neither is mental and emotional dis-ease. Be rid of the former and you’ll be rid of the latter. If not, the resulting psycho-somatic illnesses will be real enough, relatively speaking. The “mind” must end for peace to begin; that is, the belief in all of the lies and false concepts and myths and superstitions must be discarded for peace to begin. Please enter the silence of contemplation.
First, those identified with body will fall prey to other persons identified with the body. Some are raised with the belief system that since they are attractive—per the standards of their culture—they can use those looks to be taken care of. They develop a sense of entitlement. They need not “work.” Someone else needs to work to pay for all their expenses because they have a beautiful body and face. And someone similarly identified with body will do just that, will work 60 or 70 or 80 hours a week, for a lifetime, to meet all the financial obligations required to buy the body they like. In addition to basic drives, chemistry, the sensory cortex and the limbic system (the “emotional brain”), how is it that body identification can blind so many persons, then trap them in a state of emotional intoxication, and thereby retard the process of Realization? [Note: Please see earlier postings this month that make clear that enjoyment of physical pleasures need not end with Realization, but being a prisoner of such pleasures will end.]
Realization results in natural living, and for millions of years, the natural lifestyle required only a few hours a day to fish or forage or, later, to tend to a small amount of crops. Eventually, societies were formed and accumulation—a totally unnatural act—gained in popularity as ego-states and their supporting egos “needed” more and more to impress. The more hours that persons work today, the farther they remove themselves from what was a natural style of living for millions of years. As a result of accumulation, persons then become submerged even farther in unnatural living. The more that persons work, and the more that allows them to accumulate, the more they must work to maintain their accumulations. And those identified with body will exert most of their energy—and most of their accumulating—in their efforts to try to accumulate other bodies…or another particular body. Nothing in the entire relative, human experience has proved as costly and destructive as the combination of ego (the false “I”) and hormone-driven desires.
In that de-evolutionary process, misery has become the new standard, so you might interview 100,000 persons and you’ll likely find 100,000 who claim to be happy and enjoying their lives. In reality, you’d be fortunate to find one among the lot who is truly happy and not overworked and overstress or bored by decades of following the same routine, day after day after day. In their frustrations, persons often eventually turn to super-natural living to try to find the peace that they are blocked from by living their unnatural lifestyles. [Those methods never provide more than a temporary respite, requiring that the persons who follow that course return weekly—or even daily—to maintain their reprieve.] Among persons, much of their relative-existence misery is rooted in body identification and the desire to purchase what their egos and body identifications inspire them to try to accumulate, including those with the bodies they desire.
The next snake is the “mind.” In the cases where “normal births” occur, humans have a brain and the consciousness manifests in a space; on the other hand, no human has ever been born with a mind. The brain is that which taps into the inner resources—those intuitive skills and an accompanying sixth sense—that allow for survival for some period of time in this relative existence. The “mind” (a set of bogus ideas, beliefs and concepts) results via programming, conditioning, enculturation and all of the other methods that are employed to convey lies as truth. Myths and superstitions have dominated humankind’s existence, and belief in fiction today is as widespread as it was among those early, most ignorant human ancestors that first began to believe their “leaders” who assigned erroneous, super-natural causes to try to explain the completely natural happenings that they did not understand.
[For example, dozens have been heard to explain that Hurricane Katrina and its destructive forces were “sent by God as a message.” The Dahli Lama claimed that the storm was a result of “the past negative karma of the people of New Orleans.” Let the culture force a “mind” upon you, along with super-natural explanations for natural events, and you’ll be trapped right along with them in their ignorance.]
The “mind” is a snake that results in misery and suffering. There is no such thing as “peace of mind” because the “mind” is the source of all mental and emotional dis-ease. And since the “mind” is not real, neither is mental and emotional dis-ease. Be rid of the former and you’ll be rid of the latter. If not, the resulting psycho-somatic illnesses will be real enough, relatively speaking. The “mind” must end for peace to begin; that is, the belief in all of the lies and false concepts and myths and superstitions must be discarded for peace to begin. Please enter the silence of contemplation.
