F.: Addicts often claim that they are “sober” or “clean” if they stop using for a time, yet physical sobriety is only one of four stages of sobriety. If non-using addicts continue to exhibit all of the traits and behaviors of the Addictive Personality Disorder on a regular basis, then they likely have not eliminated their mental intoxication or emotional intoxication and can very likely be suffering from spiritual intoxication as well. Such is exactly the case, too, with those who think they have Realized but are not truly free of mental intoxication, emotional intoxication and spiritual intoxication. How much sanity has been restored when one thinks he/she can give away something that they do not even have, be it all four levels of sobriety or be it Realization?
Questions from two seekers this week who have not Realized fully were responded to thusly:
Something is missing in your case. Realization is about being free of the dream and being fully awake, aware, and conscious. Post-Realization, a lightness of being happens, but the "pink cloud syndrome" does not happen. Post-Realization, functioning should happen more clearly...not less clearly. The Realized can still get a job, keep a job, pay bills, etc. Post-Realization, AS IF living happens, meaning you know that “none of it is real” but you behave as if it is. Then, the relative existence tasks required for providing food, clothing and shelter happen...but without attachment. Insane-like behavior ends, but the invitation to you, at this point, is that you "help yourself" before you go about trying to "save" others.
Short of Full Realization, the only "change" (which is always a disingenuous change) is a change in personas as the acting continues. Persons only put on the cloak of a different character, only change the lines being spoken when in the spotlight, and only change from swaggering and blustering about on stage left to swaggering and blustering about, stage right. With Full Realization, there is no such thing as “I’m getting it.” Is there reading preparation? Usually. Is there some time spent with a teacher? Often. (Maharaj reported that the entire process took three years in his case, yet the exact moment of Realization was clearly fixed.) Can there even be further purification of the consciousness post-Realization? Certainly in some cases, including among some of the most revered Advaita jnanis/teachers/gurus; yet even then, the exact moment of Realization was obvious to them.
Once the consciousness has been bastardized to the point that body identification is happening, there are seven degrees of separation from Reality. Every one of those stages must be transitioned (and never revisited) if Full Realization can be said to have happened. There are no “slips,” there is no “backsliding,” there is no “I had it but lost it,” and there is no “I’m moving through ‘levels’ of Realization.” If Full Realization has happened, the exact instant when Realization “strikes” is known, and from that point there is no “going back.”
To understand that moment and to be able to recognize that particular instant if it happens (and to distinguish a "real happening" from all other assumed but fictional “moments of awakening”), the dramatic arts have provided terms that clarify that moment of true awakening. Realized playwrights have illustrated the awakening process for centuries and they (along with Realized screenwriters now) continue to do so to this day. Here are some theatrical terms that are relevant to the awakening of characters in drama and that are relevant to the Realization moment as well:
“Anagnorisis” (or, “discovery” or “recognition”): a Greek term referring to an actor’s recognition of the fact that he had been representing something that was not real; the discovery by an actor that what he had assumed to be real is actually false; the realization of things as they truly are; an understanding of the basis of antagonistic relations with other characters; and according to Aristotle, “the discovery of one’s own identity and true character”; anagnorisis generates “peripetia”
“Peripetia” (or, “peripeteia,” “peripety”): From the Greek “peripet,” meaning “to change suddenly” or, in drama, “a turning point”; or “the point in a drama when a character learns something he had been previously ignorant of”; Aristotle defined it as "a change by which the action veers round to its opposite”
“Catharsis” (Greek, “Katharsis”): the “purification” or “cleansing” that accompanies “anagnorisis” and “peripetia”
Further discussion of the Realization moment will continue tomorrow, but for today the invitation is to use the definitions above to look at your self/Your Self and answer honestly:
Have you truly and completely recognized the fact that you have been representing something that was not real?
Have you truly and completely discovered everything that you had assumed to be real but that was actually false?
Have you truly and completely realized the way that things truly are?
Short of Full Realization, the only "change" (which is always a disingenuous change) is a change in personas as the acting continues. Persons only put on the cloak of a different character, only change the lines being spoken when in the spotlight, and only change from swaggering and blustering about on stage left to swaggering and blustering about, stage right. With Full Realization, there is no such thing as “I’m getting it.” Is there reading preparation? Usually. Is there some time spent with a teacher? Often. (Maharaj reported that the entire process took three years in his case, yet the exact moment of Realization was clearly fixed.) Can there even be further purification of the consciousness post-Realization? Certainly in some cases, including among some of the most revered Advaita jnanis/teachers/gurus; yet even then, the exact moment of Realization was obvious to them.
Once the consciousness has been bastardized to the point that body identification is happening, there are seven degrees of separation from Reality. Every one of those stages must be transitioned (and never revisited) if Full Realization can be said to have happened. There are no “slips,” there is no “backsliding,” there is no “I had it but lost it,” and there is no “I’m moving through ‘levels’ of Realization.” If Full Realization has happened, the exact instant when Realization “strikes” is known, and from that point there is no “going back.”
To understand that moment and to be able to recognize that particular instant if it happens (and to distinguish a "real happening" from all other assumed but fictional “moments of awakening”), the dramatic arts have provided terms that clarify that moment of true awakening. Realized playwrights have illustrated the awakening process for centuries and they (along with Realized screenwriters now) continue to do so to this day. Here are some theatrical terms that are relevant to the awakening of characters in drama and that are relevant to the Realization moment as well:
“Anagnorisis” (or, “discovery” or “recognition”): a Greek term referring to an actor’s recognition of the fact that he had been representing something that was not real; the discovery by an actor that what he had assumed to be real is actually false; the realization of things as they truly are; an understanding of the basis of antagonistic relations with other characters; and according to Aristotle, “the discovery of one’s own identity and true character”; anagnorisis generates “peripetia”
“Peripetia” (or, “peripeteia,” “peripety”): From the Greek “peripet,” meaning “to change suddenly” or, in drama, “a turning point”; or “the point in a drama when a character learns something he had been previously ignorant of”; Aristotle defined it as "a change by which the action veers round to its opposite”
“Catharsis” (Greek, “Katharsis”): the “purification” or “cleansing” that accompanies “anagnorisis” and “peripetia”
Further discussion of the Realization moment will continue tomorrow, but for today the invitation is to use the definitions above to look at your self/Your Self and answer honestly:
Have you truly and completely recognized the fact that you have been representing something that was not real?
Have you truly and completely discovered everything that you had assumed to be real but that was actually false?
Have you truly and completely realized the way that things truly are?
Do you truly and completely understand the functioning of the totality?
Have you truly and completely understood the basis of every antagonistic “relation”?
Have you truly and completely discovered Your True “Identity”?
Have you truly and completely undergone a sudden (and permanent) change?
Have you truly and completely reached that “turning point” and become aware of all that you had previously been ignorant of?
Have you truly and completely undergone a change that has resulted not only in every action being the opposite of the way your personas acted in the past but has also resulted in your being free of all illusions about the existence of any “do-er” at all?
Has the Consciousness That You Are been truly and completely purified and cleansed of all programming and conditioning?
Have you truly and completely understood the basis of every antagonistic “relation”?
Have you truly and completely discovered Your True “Identity”?
Have you truly and completely undergone a sudden (and permanent) change?
Have you truly and completely reached that “turning point” and become aware of all that you had previously been ignorant of?
Have you truly and completely undergone a change that has resulted not only in every action being the opposite of the way your personas acted in the past but has also resulted in your being free of all illusions about the existence of any “do-er” at all?
Has the Consciousness That You Are been truly and completely purified and cleansed of all programming and conditioning?
Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
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