Among religions and philosophies, there is no other means that can produce the necessary brain-flush save completion of the entire Advaita “journey” which invites the dissolution of all of the contamination that is “the mind.”
From a site visitor: I’m totally westernized--gulity as charged--so I’ve been trained to give great value to knowledge, which you’ve been knocking. I’m at least willing to listen to you and see if I can get your point, but looking at your bio info, you obviously attended university, acquired enough knowledge to convince someone that they should pay you to use that knowledge, and then paid your bills through use of that knowledge. Your vast knowledge in many subject areas is obvious. So, what’s the deal? Larry
F.: It should be seen, therefore, that (via the Advaita Teachings) you are being invited to discard all of the warped and perverted and insane teachings set forth by “holy” men and by all others. Some have asked, “But how am I to know if an Advaitan Teacher in not warped or perverted or insane?” and that question should be asked. First, you will not be asked to give away a percentage of your money for life or to make extravagant donations to “the latest cause,” to satiate the teachers’ sexual proclivities, to attend meetings or services for life, or to accept unquestioningly any pointers that the teacher offers.
If the teachings are twisted to encourage any of those four, leave. Find another teacher. Reliance upon the teachers’ words should only happen after evidence has demonstrated that the teacher is offering un-self-ish, sane and rational pointers instead of magical thinking and self-serving concepts. Then only should the teachings be accepted. Another test is this: the message will always be about getting rid of, never about accumulation. Stage Four of the Five Stages to Full Realization (discussed in THE ESSENCE OF THE TEACHINGS) is the de-accumulation stage that must happen if AS IF living is to follow. A sure evidence that Realization has not happened is a continuing desire, and the desire to accumulate is a doubly-strong warning.
A final point on this subject of guru-selection: the Realization process is not psychotherapy, though many nowadays try to use it as such. Yes, there might be some psychological concepts/thorns that can facilitate the removal of thorns before all of the concepts are tossed. But another problem is being seen lately among many seekers that should be noted: though AS IF living in the relative existence happens post-Realization, dissociative disorders and attachment disorders should not be mistaken for the non-attachment that accompanies Realization. Yet that is happening. Realization is not about "escapism" or "surrender" or "denial." "Giving up" belief in illusions or "giving up" attachment to worldly "stuff" is not about "giving up" on the relative existence.
F.: It should be seen, therefore, that (via the Advaita Teachings) you are being invited to discard all of the warped and perverted and insane teachings set forth by “holy” men and by all others. Some have asked, “But how am I to know if an Advaitan Teacher in not warped or perverted or insane?” and that question should be asked. First, you will not be asked to give away a percentage of your money for life or to make extravagant donations to “the latest cause,” to satiate the teachers’ sexual proclivities, to attend meetings or services for life, or to accept unquestioningly any pointers that the teacher offers.
If the teachings are twisted to encourage any of those four, leave. Find another teacher. Reliance upon the teachers’ words should only happen after evidence has demonstrated that the teacher is offering un-self-ish, sane and rational pointers instead of magical thinking and self-serving concepts. Then only should the teachings be accepted. Another test is this: the message will always be about getting rid of, never about accumulation. Stage Four of the Five Stages to Full Realization (discussed in THE ESSENCE OF THE TEACHINGS) is the de-accumulation stage that must happen if AS IF living is to follow. A sure evidence that Realization has not happened is a continuing desire, and the desire to accumulate is a doubly-strong warning.
A final point on this subject of guru-selection: the Realization process is not psychotherapy, though many nowadays try to use it as such. Yes, there might be some psychological concepts/thorns that can facilitate the removal of thorns before all of the concepts are tossed. But another problem is being seen lately among many seekers that should be noted: though AS IF living in the relative existence happens post-Realization, dissociative disorders and attachment disorders should not be mistaken for the non-attachment that accompanies Realization. Yet that is happening. Realization is not about "escapism" or "surrender" or "denial." "Giving up" belief in illusions or "giving up" attachment to worldly "stuff" is not about "giving up" on the relative existence.
That "death of ego" that is talked about does not require physical death of the body-mind as well, only a willingness to stop accepting those limited identifications as Self. Many have been seen in recent years who have suffered from problems with mental-emotional roots beyond those addressed by Advaita Teachings. (Those trying to understand their suffering do become seekers more often than those not in touch with their own pain, yes?) Many of those seekers "find" Advaita and use it to try to whitewash or understand their trauma or to rewrite their nightmarish experiences as something spiritual in nature. Many is the U.S. are even programmed by the dominant dogma to accept suffering as being "beneficial" in some "long run."
That whitewashing or rewriting or supposed "understanding" is another self-delusion that will perpetuate entrapment in personality and in personality's accompanying personality disorders. Dissociative disorders, death wishes, attachment disorders, and depression's acquiesence that is often mislabeled as "acceptance"--while all the stuff of the relative existence--are not treated by the seven-steps to Realization. In this age in which "minds" are being formed that are reaching all-time highs in their level of distortion (and in which a bastardized food supply is negatively impacting organs that affect mental-emotional conditions as well) be wary of any individual that claims that he/she has found the secret that can address and heal everything that needs addressing and healing. Sometimes, professionals are required to treat the part that Advaita was not intended to treat. The preponderance of self-help and twelve-step groups nowadays has given "armchair psychology" a respectability that can prove fatal.
To transcend identification with the body and mind does not mean that body and mind are to be neglected for the remainder of the manifestation. Indeed, when Realization frees persons of body-mind identification and restores sanity, subsequent body requirements or mental health needs are typically addressed, not ignored by use of another psychological tool called "denial." As long as a "mind" remains, it can require varied levels of treatment.
Finally, seekers who come here for a retreat or who arrange for satsanga and expect to “receive” are misguided. Those who come to this site hoping to “gain something” are mistaken. If the pointers hit their mark and shift the consciousness through each of the seven levels of the re-purification process, then you will not know more. Instead, the relative ignorance will be gone; the relative and the worldly and the other-worldly knowledge will be discarded; and that which remains will be the no-concept, non-dual Reality that You Are.
And guess what, Larry: that/That is all there ever was to begin with! This is the point to grasp. Suppose you approach a grocer and say, “I’d like to have some broccoli,” whereupon he hands you some broccoli. How insane would it be for you to look at it and then say to the grocer, “No, this is not broccoli—this is stalks and florets and stems and heads. I want some broccoli.” If he were to suggest that you are perceiving wrongly and are mistakenly believing that the various parts that you are labeling are something different from the whole “broccoli,” then you would likely think him insane.
That is the way it is with this understanding: a few have Realized and know “it’s all broccoli and nothing but broccoli” so to speak, but most persons will imagine all kinds of separate parts and will never come to understand that “it’s all just broccoli, period.” So it is. The invitation for you is to forget about trying to accumulate a body of knowledge and try to understand instead. What you think you see, you are seeing in error. Any knowledge that you cling to, you cling to in error. If you study broccoli until you know more about broccoli than any other person on the planet, it will not change the taste of the broccoli or the chemistry of the broccoli. Therefore, Larry, why not just eat your broccoli and then relax? Please enter the silence of contemplation.
And guess what, Larry: that/That is all there ever was to begin with! This is the point to grasp. Suppose you approach a grocer and say, “I’d like to have some broccoli,” whereupon he hands you some broccoli. How insane would it be for you to look at it and then say to the grocer, “No, this is not broccoli—this is stalks and florets and stems and heads. I want some broccoli.” If he were to suggest that you are perceiving wrongly and are mistakenly believing that the various parts that you are labeling are something different from the whole “broccoli,” then you would likely think him insane.
That is the way it is with this understanding: a few have Realized and know “it’s all broccoli and nothing but broccoli” so to speak, but most persons will imagine all kinds of separate parts and will never come to understand that “it’s all just broccoli, period.” So it is. The invitation for you is to forget about trying to accumulate a body of knowledge and try to understand instead. What you think you see, you are seeing in error. Any knowledge that you cling to, you cling to in error. If you study broccoli until you know more about broccoli than any other person on the planet, it will not change the taste of the broccoli or the chemistry of the broccoli. Therefore, Larry, why not just eat your broccoli and then relax? Please enter the silence of contemplation.
