NOISY PROSELYTIZING vs. A SILENT VIGIL, Part Three
F.: Those caught up in such roles as “The Religious One” or “The Spiritual Enthusiast” or “The Zealot” or “The Fanatic” or “The Manipulator” are driven to proselytize. If you feel driven to proselytize, there are certainly groups that condone and encourage that behavior and they will welcome you with open arms. All persons trapped in such ego-states will label your behavior as “good.”
Those assuming the false identity of “Mormons” would welcome you to join and to spend two years on a mission to convert others. Those assuming the false identity of “Jehovah’s Witnesses” will encourage you to pair up with a partner and cross property lines and knock on the doors of private residences in an effort to enter homes and proselytize.
Those assuming the false identity of “Christians” will welcome you to join their ranks; to support them with your time and service and gifts; to pay them a percentage of all of your earnings; and to use every opportunity to spread their beliefs to your friends, relatives, associates, peers at work, or neighbors. Those assuming the false identity of “Muslims” will most certainly invite you into their ranks to help impose their beliefs on others and to punish those who do not believe what they believe.
Certainly, non-denominational organizations and spiritual programs and other cult-like groups (all claiming that their brand of religion or spirituality has the complete and total cure for whatever ails people) will also be more than happy for you to join them and then reach out and invite other persons to join as well. You could pursue any of those avenues and be praised for your intrusive style of behavior.
But the Realized Advaitin is beyond all of those ego-states and does not proselytize at all. Realization never inspires the assumption of a new role such as “The Activist” or “The Knowledgeable Messenger.” Realized teachers guide those who come their way to abandon all role-playing, all “metaphysical” game-playing, all religious and spiritual knowledge (learned ignorance), and all nonsense.
The content of several e-mails has indicated recently that there are those among the non-Realized who only think that they know something about Advaita and who have assumed the role of “The Informer” or “The Instigator of Dialogues.” Without a full understanding of the Teachings, they generate nonsense by trying to discuss the Teachings in public or by imposing their uninformed views on those who have not sought out a teacher.
In the process, they are misrepresenting Advaita and the Advaita process. They are also most likely ruining any chance, relatively speaking, for those whom they are approaching to ever receive the real Teachings from a qualified teacher who has completed the entire seven-step “journey” to Reality and who can guide others along that path as well. If you tell children that “This is milk” and then give them a taste of spoiled milk, it is likely that they will never in their lives ever again want to taste what you told them is “milk.”
Such are the relative effects when personas such as “The Enlightened One” or “The Knower” are assumed and when persons playing those roles are driven by their arrogance to approach others rather than remaining in a silent vigil unless (1) the would-be teacher has completed the “journey” in full and unless (2) they are approached by ready seekers. In any other instance when anything dealing with Advaita is shared outside those circumstances, a quote from Alexander Pope is apropos: “A little learning is a dangerous thing.”
It is understood by the Realized teacher that the readiness is all. It is also understood that the “location on the path” of each protégé must be determined and that the manner of offering the teachings must be custom-designed for each seeker and then presented within the framework of the overall “journey.” That is another reason that no one truly Realized would walk about an office, for example, discussing the Teachings in general or en masse. He is only showing his ignorance of the Advaita teaching method by such behavior.
The Realized teacher knows that seekers must try many of the various venues in order to finally experience the shortcomings of those groups or cults or religions or spiritual organizations. Only then might one look beyond the traditional and the well-known venues and seek a “path” that leads to freedom from all relative nonsense and misery and suffering and/or vacillation between periods of happiness and unhappiness. The Realized teacher also has a life, an AS IF life, and plays no games with the Teachings nor uses them to generate distractions or escape or diversions. The Teachings do not become his/her "life"; instead, they remove all concepts that prevent enjoyable, AS IF living (which is not dominated by anything, including discussions about Advaita).
At the end of every posting on this site, beginning on 20 June 2005 and continuing to this day, the invitation at the end of each post has been to “enter into the silence.” Never once has the invitation been, “Now, go forth to the four corners of the earth and share these teaching with every person who crosses your path.” To one protégé who was witnessed recently to have Realized Fully, these words instead were offered:
“Now You Are done here. No more visits or discussions or questions-and-answers are indicated. Via the re-purified consciousness that You Are, the teachings could happen very easily. They may or they may not. So it is. Now, go.” It was understood that AS IF living would now happen and that the dance can be danced…or not. And that’s that.
Meanwhile, the Realized seek no one and find no one. They are found…or not, and only if found does sharing happen. If persons see something “in you” that they want, they will ask. If they do not ask, then something else is being signaled, namely, this: whatever it is that you think you have, they do not want in the least. So it is. Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
THE FEATURED ITEM FOR THIS WEEK’S SALE IS THE NEWEST RELEASE: There’s No Such Thing As Peace of Mind (There Is Only Peace if You’re Out of Your Mind). Regular price after tomorrow will be $14.99 + S&H. 15% off through July 8th = $12.74 + S&H)
Those assuming the false identity of “Mormons” would welcome you to join and to spend two years on a mission to convert others. Those assuming the false identity of “Jehovah’s Witnesses” will encourage you to pair up with a partner and cross property lines and knock on the doors of private residences in an effort to enter homes and proselytize.
Those assuming the false identity of “Christians” will welcome you to join their ranks; to support them with your time and service and gifts; to pay them a percentage of all of your earnings; and to use every opportunity to spread their beliefs to your friends, relatives, associates, peers at work, or neighbors. Those assuming the false identity of “Muslims” will most certainly invite you into their ranks to help impose their beliefs on others and to punish those who do not believe what they believe.
Certainly, non-denominational organizations and spiritual programs and other cult-like groups (all claiming that their brand of religion or spirituality has the complete and total cure for whatever ails people) will also be more than happy for you to join them and then reach out and invite other persons to join as well. You could pursue any of those avenues and be praised for your intrusive style of behavior.
But the Realized Advaitin is beyond all of those ego-states and does not proselytize at all. Realization never inspires the assumption of a new role such as “The Activist” or “The Knowledgeable Messenger.” Realized teachers guide those who come their way to abandon all role-playing, all “metaphysical” game-playing, all religious and spiritual knowledge (learned ignorance), and all nonsense.
The content of several e-mails has indicated recently that there are those among the non-Realized who only think that they know something about Advaita and who have assumed the role of “The Informer” or “The Instigator of Dialogues.” Without a full understanding of the Teachings, they generate nonsense by trying to discuss the Teachings in public or by imposing their uninformed views on those who have not sought out a teacher.
In the process, they are misrepresenting Advaita and the Advaita process. They are also most likely ruining any chance, relatively speaking, for those whom they are approaching to ever receive the real Teachings from a qualified teacher who has completed the entire seven-step “journey” to Reality and who can guide others along that path as well. If you tell children that “This is milk” and then give them a taste of spoiled milk, it is likely that they will never in their lives ever again want to taste what you told them is “milk.”
Such are the relative effects when personas such as “The Enlightened One” or “The Knower” are assumed and when persons playing those roles are driven by their arrogance to approach others rather than remaining in a silent vigil unless (1) the would-be teacher has completed the “journey” in full and unless (2) they are approached by ready seekers. In any other instance when anything dealing with Advaita is shared outside those circumstances, a quote from Alexander Pope is apropos: “A little learning is a dangerous thing.”
It is understood by the Realized teacher that the readiness is all. It is also understood that the “location on the path” of each protégé must be determined and that the manner of offering the teachings must be custom-designed for each seeker and then presented within the framework of the overall “journey.” That is another reason that no one truly Realized would walk about an office, for example, discussing the Teachings in general or en masse. He is only showing his ignorance of the Advaita teaching method by such behavior.
The Realized teacher knows that seekers must try many of the various venues in order to finally experience the shortcomings of those groups or cults or religions or spiritual organizations. Only then might one look beyond the traditional and the well-known venues and seek a “path” that leads to freedom from all relative nonsense and misery and suffering and/or vacillation between periods of happiness and unhappiness. The Realized teacher also has a life, an AS IF life, and plays no games with the Teachings nor uses them to generate distractions or escape or diversions. The Teachings do not become his/her "life"; instead, they remove all concepts that prevent enjoyable, AS IF living (which is not dominated by anything, including discussions about Advaita).
At the end of every posting on this site, beginning on 20 June 2005 and continuing to this day, the invitation at the end of each post has been to “enter into the silence.” Never once has the invitation been, “Now, go forth to the four corners of the earth and share these teaching with every person who crosses your path.” To one protégé who was witnessed recently to have Realized Fully, these words instead were offered:
“Now You Are done here. No more visits or discussions or questions-and-answers are indicated. Via the re-purified consciousness that You Are, the teachings could happen very easily. They may or they may not. So it is. Now, go.” It was understood that AS IF living would now happen and that the dance can be danced…or not. And that’s that.
Meanwhile, the Realized seek no one and find no one. They are found…or not, and only if found does sharing happen. If persons see something “in you” that they want, they will ask. If they do not ask, then something else is being signaled, namely, this: whatever it is that you think you have, they do not want in the least. So it is. Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
THE FEATURED ITEM FOR THIS WEEK’S SALE IS THE NEWEST RELEASE: There’s No Such Thing As Peace of Mind (There Is Only Peace if You’re Out of Your Mind). Regular price after tomorrow will be $14.99 + S&H. 15% off through July 8th = $12.74 + S&H)
FOR INFORMATION ON THE GUIDE FOR TAKING THE SEVEN-STEP JOURNEY TO REALITY
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