From a site visitor, continued from earlier postings: “Why do you put path and journey in quote marks? The path I’m following on my spiritual journey is very real.”
F.: A pointer offered yesterday suggested that “You may continue to talk of your ‘spiritual journey,’ or you might transition that role you’ve assumed and discover Full Realization.” There’s a common element in every set of pagan myths and superstitions, in every religion, in every spiritual movement and in every philosophy that persons miss seeing because of their programming. There have been thousands and thousands of storytellers, medicine men, priests, preachers, jnanis, sages, and philosophers who, over the last 5000 to 7000 years, have become captivated by some concept that in each case some man wanted the entire world to know and to accept in order to inspire the masses to listen to him, to follow him, to support him, and to think and feel and behave as he thought, felt, and behaved. One pointer offered by an Advaitan teacher about religions applies to all of the above: “The different religions were only individual concepts which appealed to the consciousness in a particular individual at a particular time.” There is only one small branch among the forests of all religions, spiritual movements and philosophies that seeks no followers, that wants no support, that defines no methodology for you to practice, that has no special texts or writings to study, that has no regular meetings or gatherings, and that makes no demands or suggestions about how to think, feel or behave after adopting “our beliefs and teachings and ideas.” Only that small branch of Advaita that is rooted in the Original Understanding and that deals with living naturally suggests that you ignore everything that anyone tells you they know and invites each protégé instead to find what he/she already knows but has forgotten.
Then, all your spiritual work and spiritual journeys will end and the remainder of the relative existence will merely happen, spontaneously and effortlessly. And, it will not happen spontaneously and effortlessly for you alone. It will also happen for those who might happen to find themselves in the company of such spiritual giants and who are exposed to pontifications about “the path being following” and the talk of lofty stations and lofty knowledge and lofty ideals and lofty living and whatever lofty future that spiritual persons anticipate post-manifestation. Or you might abandon all that effort, relax and take it easy, contemplate some pointers that differ from the concepts you take to be fact, and then more clarity might come. Surprisingly little is necessary for Full Realization to happen: once the willingness to question it all manifests, the process unfolds automatically. At that point, special breathing is not required; studying scriptures or holy texts is not required; all of the various forms of “meditation” are not required (though focused contemplation most certainly is); no guru or sponsor or guide or minister is required; no path is required; no journey need be taken, and none of the remainder of the relative existence need be an arduous chore that is encumbered by practices and disciplines and more work piled atop a full day’s work at a job.
Since all personas—even the so-called “good ones”—inspire fixation at points prior to Full Realization, then all ideas and concepts and attitudes must be abandoned. They can also provide a “check test” for persons seeking Full Realization. The primary check test question at your “spiritual level” is, “Are you still playing some roles?” If the answer is “Yes,” then your search is fruitless so far. Why believe that you must journey somewhere when You Are where you’re trying to get to and when You Are already that which you think a spiritual journey can take you to? Cross over the “bridge” of your spiritual persona and forfeit even that role in order to attain Full Realization. As is the case with all roles, the spiritual persona is false. How can that which is false lead anyone to truth? Only via the abandonment of all phony roles and only via the forfeiture of all belief in false tenets that were dreamed up by men, can the Realization of the Absolute happen. The understanding of the functioning of the totality can become perfectly clear. The at-rest state can then be known even during the manifestation.
Otherwise, those who want to follow a “path” and stay on a never-ending “journey” will have Kirk’s experience as described in this passage from THE TWICE-STOLEN NECKLACE MURDERS:
In his energy-consuming search for salvation, he’d been dipped, dunked, sprayed, spayed, sprinkled, and neutered; in the quest for truth, he’d been blessed, cursed, cussed, lectured, scolded, and praised; in his pursuit of Life’s Meaning, he’d been communion’d, Om’d, grape-juiced, wined, ahsram’d, accepted, rejected, Mu’d, and yoga’d; in his chase for service-work-opportunities, he’d been pulverized, martinized, and frappéd; and in the endeavor to attain Life Eternal, he’d been baptized, Buddha’d, New Aged, powwow’d, Far Eastern Indianized, incense’d, sage’d, Tao’d, Peru’d, Tibet’d, washed in the blood, dunked in the waters, and purportedly purified.
As noted in the 21 August 2005 posting,
The “trip” need not be so arduous for those who are "ready" for the Teaching as presented in FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE (A Seven-Step Journey to Reality.) That said, the fact is that no ‘ultimate truth’ or ‘ultimate reality’ can be stated. Suffice it for most simply to know the false. Persons take their body and mind and personality to be who they are, and therein lies the difference in the Advaita Teaching and all others. Rather than try to improve a person, the Advaitan sees that personas are illusions. End of effort. No personas with hidden agendas? No interruption of peace. End of chaos. End of story.
In summary, you claim that your spiritual journey (and therefore your spiritual persona) are “very real.” To the contrary, all personas are false, so all the roles and games they play are also false…including their “journey.” How could a false role possibly undertake a journey? Actually, only in a dream could a person believe that she/he is undertaking such a journey, and that is the case with all spiritual personas. They are still in the dream, erroneously taking as real the play, the characters, and all the lines being spouted by those who are talking in their sleep.
For millions of years humans just existed and were able to just be and were into the “I-Amness” only…though not even focused on that “Is-ness.” Free of ego, they made no claims about “helping,” “improving,” “having purpose and meaning,” "saving lives," “being religious,” “being spiritual,” ad infinitum. After religious and spiritual concepts were introduced—including “good,” “bad,” “reward” and “punishment”—concept-based personas were taken (and are still being taken) as true identities. Next, anxiety and stress began to mar the relative existence as persons began to try to meet unnatural (supernatural) expectations and demands. More anxiety and stress came when humans behaved normally and naturally but had their normal and natural behavior labeled as “bad” and punishable for eternity. And the same holds true today as religions and spiritual movements and controlling people try to ban the most natural behaviors.
Now, persons such as you are claiming to be on a “spiritual journey” (at least in part to relieve stress and anxiety and the rigors of the relative existence when lived out via false identities). Yet those fixating at the third step of the seven-step “journey” are actually clinging to the original religious or spiritual sources of dualities (which cause the anxiety and stress) rather than moving on beyond those chief sources that inspire adopting personas which, in turn, block Full Realization and then reinforce continued belief in false personas and false teachings. The invitation is to move beyond attachment to what others are telling you and find what you know within. Ignore your outer gurus and leaders and tap into the inner resource that is available. Please enter the silence of contemplation.
F.: A pointer offered yesterday suggested that “You may continue to talk of your ‘spiritual journey,’ or you might transition that role you’ve assumed and discover Full Realization.” There’s a common element in every set of pagan myths and superstitions, in every religion, in every spiritual movement and in every philosophy that persons miss seeing because of their programming. There have been thousands and thousands of storytellers, medicine men, priests, preachers, jnanis, sages, and philosophers who, over the last 5000 to 7000 years, have become captivated by some concept that in each case some man wanted the entire world to know and to accept in order to inspire the masses to listen to him, to follow him, to support him, and to think and feel and behave as he thought, felt, and behaved. One pointer offered by an Advaitan teacher about religions applies to all of the above: “The different religions were only individual concepts which appealed to the consciousness in a particular individual at a particular time.” There is only one small branch among the forests of all religions, spiritual movements and philosophies that seeks no followers, that wants no support, that defines no methodology for you to practice, that has no special texts or writings to study, that has no regular meetings or gatherings, and that makes no demands or suggestions about how to think, feel or behave after adopting “our beliefs and teachings and ideas.” Only that small branch of Advaita that is rooted in the Original Understanding and that deals with living naturally suggests that you ignore everything that anyone tells you they know and invites each protégé instead to find what he/she already knows but has forgotten.
Then, all your spiritual work and spiritual journeys will end and the remainder of the relative existence will merely happen, spontaneously and effortlessly. And, it will not happen spontaneously and effortlessly for you alone. It will also happen for those who might happen to find themselves in the company of such spiritual giants and who are exposed to pontifications about “the path being following” and the talk of lofty stations and lofty knowledge and lofty ideals and lofty living and whatever lofty future that spiritual persons anticipate post-manifestation. Or you might abandon all that effort, relax and take it easy, contemplate some pointers that differ from the concepts you take to be fact, and then more clarity might come. Surprisingly little is necessary for Full Realization to happen: once the willingness to question it all manifests, the process unfolds automatically. At that point, special breathing is not required; studying scriptures or holy texts is not required; all of the various forms of “meditation” are not required (though focused contemplation most certainly is); no guru or sponsor or guide or minister is required; no path is required; no journey need be taken, and none of the remainder of the relative existence need be an arduous chore that is encumbered by practices and disciplines and more work piled atop a full day’s work at a job.
Since all personas—even the so-called “good ones”—inspire fixation at points prior to Full Realization, then all ideas and concepts and attitudes must be abandoned. They can also provide a “check test” for persons seeking Full Realization. The primary check test question at your “spiritual level” is, “Are you still playing some roles?” If the answer is “Yes,” then your search is fruitless so far. Why believe that you must journey somewhere when You Are where you’re trying to get to and when You Are already that which you think a spiritual journey can take you to? Cross over the “bridge” of your spiritual persona and forfeit even that role in order to attain Full Realization. As is the case with all roles, the spiritual persona is false. How can that which is false lead anyone to truth? Only via the abandonment of all phony roles and only via the forfeiture of all belief in false tenets that were dreamed up by men, can the Realization of the Absolute happen. The understanding of the functioning of the totality can become perfectly clear. The at-rest state can then be known even during the manifestation.
Otherwise, those who want to follow a “path” and stay on a never-ending “journey” will have Kirk’s experience as described in this passage from THE TWICE-STOLEN NECKLACE MURDERS:
In his energy-consuming search for salvation, he’d been dipped, dunked, sprayed, spayed, sprinkled, and neutered; in the quest for truth, he’d been blessed, cursed, cussed, lectured, scolded, and praised; in his pursuit of Life’s Meaning, he’d been communion’d, Om’d, grape-juiced, wined, ahsram’d, accepted, rejected, Mu’d, and yoga’d; in his chase for service-work-opportunities, he’d been pulverized, martinized, and frappéd; and in the endeavor to attain Life Eternal, he’d been baptized, Buddha’d, New Aged, powwow’d, Far Eastern Indianized, incense’d, sage’d, Tao’d, Peru’d, Tibet’d, washed in the blood, dunked in the waters, and purportedly purified.
As noted in the 21 August 2005 posting,
The “trip” need not be so arduous for those who are "ready" for the Teaching as presented in FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE (A Seven-Step Journey to Reality.) That said, the fact is that no ‘ultimate truth’ or ‘ultimate reality’ can be stated. Suffice it for most simply to know the false. Persons take their body and mind and personality to be who they are, and therein lies the difference in the Advaita Teaching and all others. Rather than try to improve a person, the Advaitan sees that personas are illusions. End of effort. No personas with hidden agendas? No interruption of peace. End of chaos. End of story.
In summary, you claim that your spiritual journey (and therefore your spiritual persona) are “very real.” To the contrary, all personas are false, so all the roles and games they play are also false…including their “journey.” How could a false role possibly undertake a journey? Actually, only in a dream could a person believe that she/he is undertaking such a journey, and that is the case with all spiritual personas. They are still in the dream, erroneously taking as real the play, the characters, and all the lines being spouted by those who are talking in their sleep.
For millions of years humans just existed and were able to just be and were into the “I-Amness” only…though not even focused on that “Is-ness.” Free of ego, they made no claims about “helping,” “improving,” “having purpose and meaning,” "saving lives," “being religious,” “being spiritual,” ad infinitum. After religious and spiritual concepts were introduced—including “good,” “bad,” “reward” and “punishment”—concept-based personas were taken (and are still being taken) as true identities. Next, anxiety and stress began to mar the relative existence as persons began to try to meet unnatural (supernatural) expectations and demands. More anxiety and stress came when humans behaved normally and naturally but had their normal and natural behavior labeled as “bad” and punishable for eternity. And the same holds true today as religions and spiritual movements and controlling people try to ban the most natural behaviors.
Now, persons such as you are claiming to be on a “spiritual journey” (at least in part to relieve stress and anxiety and the rigors of the relative existence when lived out via false identities). Yet those fixating at the third step of the seven-step “journey” are actually clinging to the original religious or spiritual sources of dualities (which cause the anxiety and stress) rather than moving on beyond those chief sources that inspire adopting personas which, in turn, block Full Realization and then reinforce continued belief in false personas and false teachings. The invitation is to move beyond attachment to what others are telling you and find what you know within. Ignore your outer gurus and leaders and tap into the inner resource that is available. Please enter the silence of contemplation.
