FROM A SITE VISITOR: Do you think that the realized should be able to tolerate any kind of environment or any kind of people? It sounds like you are saying that. I’ve been reading your writings for several months and lately, there are people I spent a lot of time with before but now I’m not spending time with them at all. I’m not realized, but even if I were, I feel certain that there are some people I just wouldn’t want to be around. Art
F.: The discussion today continues by looking at the three case studies along with a mom enabling a son that is suffering from an addiction that has not been successfully treated. [See the post on 27 October 2007] All four, trapped in their dreams that blind them to reality, are enslaved as a result of having been lulled asleep by processes that produced a major warping of consciousness. They have not understood these Advaitin pointers previously offered:
1. That which gives you pleasure will eventually give you pain.
2. That which gives you the most pleasure will eventually give you the most pain.
3. All misery and suffering and entrapment flow from the assumption of ego-states that are driven by either fears or desires or both.
4. Persons have been programmed and conditioned just like Pavlovian dogs.
5. Programming and conditioning will leave them helpless, with no ability to choose anything.
6. That programming and conditioning will determine their every thought…which will determine their every word… which will drive their every action.
7. Being controlled by programming and conditioning can only result in unhappiness because it will drive persons to try to accumulate, will leave them in a state of constant longing for more, and will deprive them of any sense of feeling fulfilled. (In the U.S. alone, more than 10 million women are taking anti-depressants on any given day. Seventy-seven percent of the 300 million people in the nation report that they suffer so much stress that it is affecting them physically.)
8. Those persons who have been programmed and conditioned to want more have already laid the foundation of what will prove to be their own prison.
Of course, persons are merely following their programming to want more, and unless they transcend the accumulation stage and engage in Self-Inquiry, they will never reach the de-accumulation stage that is so freeing. All of the persons referenced in this series are imprisoned, and one force that has driven them into their prisons is a desire for more.
Yet these four are not rare exceptions on planet earth. Add to these the case study from the book CASTING LIGHT ON THE DARK SIDE OF RELATIONSHIPS which discusses a woman whose father told her, “You don’t need to go to college. You’re good looking. Just find a man to take care of you.” Her mother added, “If you manipulate a man with love, you’ll get everything you ever want.”
The non-Realized persons who walk the face of the globe are equally asleep, equally miserable, and equally enthralled with having more. Most of those six billion+ will remain in that condition for the remainder of the manifestation. Robert Crais wrote of those types in one of his novels. A character exits a building at sunrise and observes:
“Moths swarmed around the parking lot lamps, banging into the glass with a steady tap, tap, tap, and I wondered if they welcomed the dawn. At dawn, they could stop slamming their heads into the thing that forever kept them from the light. People don’t have a dawn. We just keep slamming away until it kills us.”
The “Repetition Compulsion” will prevent most from ever breaking the cycles of insanity (or of insane-like deeds or actions which are generated by personality disorders that mark the existence of those identified with body-mind-personality). Consider:
With Case “A,” husband #1 “took care of her,” but they eventually divorced after years of beatings. Husband #2 “took care of her,” but they eventually divorced after years of beatings. Husband #3 is “taking care of her,” but she wishes for him to die after years of beatings.
Yet, her lifestyle is “comfortable,” she claims, because she “doesn’t have to work…is able to shop all day…is able to do whatever she wants.” And that is truly her belief, though he is slamming her head and though she has been kept from the light. Such is the case among billions who are walking about asleep, dreaming they are awake and that they know truth. They will never even begin to see how distorted their thinking is…how warped their perspectives are…how nonsensical their beliefs are…or how every idea they have is 180-degrees in reverse of reality.
Just as with all persons (who are typically in denial and dissociated) Case “A” denies that she is suffering and miserable and depressed. She goes to men who will pay her bills; she runs from men who beat her; she goes back to the same type man because he’s willing to pay her bills; she runs away from that man who beats her. All of this nonsense about hanging around certain people or running away from certain people is typical of the chaos that marks the existence of the non-Realized. Such behavior shows that persons believe all problems are external and that all solutions are external.
As referenced in Art’s question, there are specific people Case "A" wanted to be around but now doesn’t want to be around; instead of moving toward independence and meeting her own relative existence needs, however, she continues to run to the same type of rescuing, caveman-type males who have always believed that whatever they find and bring home is theirs to own and do with as they please: “You’re bought and paid for, fair and square, so you’re mine.”
As a result, she is like Cases “B” and “C,” dreaming that they are free but imprisoned by their dependent, take-care-of-me, give-me-a-better-lifestyle mentalities.
Yet even as they claim they are “doing fine and are happy and joyous,” all three are in therapy, all three are (perfunctorily) involved in 12-step programs, and, as mentioned, all three have recently talked of suicide.
The Advaita Teachings can introduce persons to the dawn—to the beginning of the awakening process—and can reveal that such deeds as “slamming their heads into something” and being “forever kept from the light” can end. A shift happens automatically if one sees the light and spontaneously becomes free of self-destructive, self-absorbed living, as far as the relative existence goes.
Now, what of you? If you look at anyone and think you know him/her well, you do not. If you look at anyone and see anything other than (1) a space formed by a combining of elements and (2) a form in which the consciousness is temporarily manifested, then in no way do you know Who/What That Is which you think you are seeing (speaking in absolute terms) and in no way do you know who or what they are at all (speaking in relative terms).
Krishna spoke of “fools.” All foolishness happens because “they” fooled us first, but now most have taken up the task and continue to fool themselves by refusing to question the ideas and concepts and dogma and beliefs which have been programmed into their "minds." If that applies, know that you are in a position to effect change. The change happens when seven specific steps are taken in a very specific order.
That process can “change” the consciousness from its warped condition to a re-purified condition. More accurately, all that really happens is that the obstacles that are blocking the consciousness from seeing clearly will be removed. Then, freedom from thoughts can happen; fewer words will happen; and a shift in deeds will necessarily follow. Please enter the silence of contemplation. (Tomorrow: The Conclusion)
RELATED TO TODAY’S TOPIC:
Click CASTING LIGHT ON THE DARK SIDE OF RELATIONSHIPS
Click FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE (A Seven-Step Journey to Reality)
NEW ADVAITA PACKAGES AVAILABLE AT REDUCED RATES:
The Entire Advaita Collection (all twelve items in all three of the packages below): $187.00 + S&H
“The Advaitin Beginner’s Package”: The Meditation CD, two Meditation Guides, Bullshit, and Spiritual Sobriety $62.00 + S&H
“The Mid-Level Seeker’s Package”: Peace of Mind, Liberation, What Happens When I Die? and The Essence of the Teachings $54.00 + S&H
“The Advanced Advaitin Seeker’s Package”: From the I to the Absolute, Consciousness/Awareness, and From the Absolute to the Nothingness $45.00 + S&H
To order, visit http://floydhenderson.com/order.htm .
YES, WE SHIP INTERNATIONALLY. New rates by the USPS went into effect in May 2007. You may visit http://ircalc.usps.gov/ to calculate rates and view options. (Select your country, then in the “weight” box, estimate 1 pound per each book ordered.) Add $5 to cover package preparation, the assistant's trip to and from the PO, and the time for completion of international shipping forms.
F.: The discussion today continues by looking at the three case studies along with a mom enabling a son that is suffering from an addiction that has not been successfully treated. [See the post on 27 October 2007] All four, trapped in their dreams that blind them to reality, are enslaved as a result of having been lulled asleep by processes that produced a major warping of consciousness. They have not understood these Advaitin pointers previously offered:
1. That which gives you pleasure will eventually give you pain.
2. That which gives you the most pleasure will eventually give you the most pain.
3. All misery and suffering and entrapment flow from the assumption of ego-states that are driven by either fears or desires or both.
4. Persons have been programmed and conditioned just like Pavlovian dogs.
5. Programming and conditioning will leave them helpless, with no ability to choose anything.
6. That programming and conditioning will determine their every thought…which will determine their every word… which will drive their every action.
7. Being controlled by programming and conditioning can only result in unhappiness because it will drive persons to try to accumulate, will leave them in a state of constant longing for more, and will deprive them of any sense of feeling fulfilled. (In the U.S. alone, more than 10 million women are taking anti-depressants on any given day. Seventy-seven percent of the 300 million people in the nation report that they suffer so much stress that it is affecting them physically.)
8. Those persons who have been programmed and conditioned to want more have already laid the foundation of what will prove to be their own prison.
Of course, persons are merely following their programming to want more, and unless they transcend the accumulation stage and engage in Self-Inquiry, they will never reach the de-accumulation stage that is so freeing. All of the persons referenced in this series are imprisoned, and one force that has driven them into their prisons is a desire for more.
Yet these four are not rare exceptions on planet earth. Add to these the case study from the book CASTING LIGHT ON THE DARK SIDE OF RELATIONSHIPS which discusses a woman whose father told her, “You don’t need to go to college. You’re good looking. Just find a man to take care of you.” Her mother added, “If you manipulate a man with love, you’ll get everything you ever want.”
The non-Realized persons who walk the face of the globe are equally asleep, equally miserable, and equally enthralled with having more. Most of those six billion+ will remain in that condition for the remainder of the manifestation. Robert Crais wrote of those types in one of his novels. A character exits a building at sunrise and observes:
“Moths swarmed around the parking lot lamps, banging into the glass with a steady tap, tap, tap, and I wondered if they welcomed the dawn. At dawn, they could stop slamming their heads into the thing that forever kept them from the light. People don’t have a dawn. We just keep slamming away until it kills us.”
The “Repetition Compulsion” will prevent most from ever breaking the cycles of insanity (or of insane-like deeds or actions which are generated by personality disorders that mark the existence of those identified with body-mind-personality). Consider:
With Case “A,” husband #1 “took care of her,” but they eventually divorced after years of beatings. Husband #2 “took care of her,” but they eventually divorced after years of beatings. Husband #3 is “taking care of her,” but she wishes for him to die after years of beatings.
Yet, her lifestyle is “comfortable,” she claims, because she “doesn’t have to work…is able to shop all day…is able to do whatever she wants.” And that is truly her belief, though he is slamming her head and though she has been kept from the light. Such is the case among billions who are walking about asleep, dreaming they are awake and that they know truth. They will never even begin to see how distorted their thinking is…how warped their perspectives are…how nonsensical their beliefs are…or how every idea they have is 180-degrees in reverse of reality.
Just as with all persons (who are typically in denial and dissociated) Case “A” denies that she is suffering and miserable and depressed. She goes to men who will pay her bills; she runs from men who beat her; she goes back to the same type man because he’s willing to pay her bills; she runs away from that man who beats her. All of this nonsense about hanging around certain people or running away from certain people is typical of the chaos that marks the existence of the non-Realized. Such behavior shows that persons believe all problems are external and that all solutions are external.
As referenced in Art’s question, there are specific people Case "A" wanted to be around but now doesn’t want to be around; instead of moving toward independence and meeting her own relative existence needs, however, she continues to run to the same type of rescuing, caveman-type males who have always believed that whatever they find and bring home is theirs to own and do with as they please: “You’re bought and paid for, fair and square, so you’re mine.”
As a result, she is like Cases “B” and “C,” dreaming that they are free but imprisoned by their dependent, take-care-of-me, give-me-a-better-lifestyle mentalities.
Yet even as they claim they are “doing fine and are happy and joyous,” all three are in therapy, all three are (perfunctorily) involved in 12-step programs, and, as mentioned, all three have recently talked of suicide.
The Advaita Teachings can introduce persons to the dawn—to the beginning of the awakening process—and can reveal that such deeds as “slamming their heads into something” and being “forever kept from the light” can end. A shift happens automatically if one sees the light and spontaneously becomes free of self-destructive, self-absorbed living, as far as the relative existence goes.
Now, what of you? If you look at anyone and think you know him/her well, you do not. If you look at anyone and see anything other than (1) a space formed by a combining of elements and (2) a form in which the consciousness is temporarily manifested, then in no way do you know Who/What That Is which you think you are seeing (speaking in absolute terms) and in no way do you know who or what they are at all (speaking in relative terms).
Krishna spoke of “fools.” All foolishness happens because “they” fooled us first, but now most have taken up the task and continue to fool themselves by refusing to question the ideas and concepts and dogma and beliefs which have been programmed into their "minds." If that applies, know that you are in a position to effect change. The change happens when seven specific steps are taken in a very specific order.
That process can “change” the consciousness from its warped condition to a re-purified condition. More accurately, all that really happens is that the obstacles that are blocking the consciousness from seeing clearly will be removed. Then, freedom from thoughts can happen; fewer words will happen; and a shift in deeds will necessarily follow. Please enter the silence of contemplation. (Tomorrow: The Conclusion)
RELATED TO TODAY’S TOPIC:
NEW ADVAITA PACKAGES AVAILABLE AT REDUCED RATES:
The Entire Advaita Collection (all twelve items in all three of the packages below): $187.00 + S&H
“The Advaitin Beginner’s Package”: The Meditation CD, two Meditation Guides, Bullshit, and Spiritual Sobriety $62.00 + S&H
“The Mid-Level Seeker’s Package”: Peace of Mind, Liberation, What Happens When I Die? and The Essence of the Teachings $54.00 + S&H
“The Advanced Advaitin Seeker’s Package”: From the I to the Absolute, Consciousness/Awareness, and From the Absolute to the Nothingness $45.00 + S&H
To order, visit http://floydhenderson.com/order.htm .
YES, WE SHIP INTERNATIONALLY. New rates by the USPS went into effect in May 2007. You may visit http://ircalc.usps.gov/ to calculate rates and view options. (Select your country, then in the “weight” box, estimate 1 pound per each book ordered.) Add $5 to cover package preparation, the assistant's trip to and from the PO, and the time for completion of international shipping forms.
