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.: So, Art, it has been shown that there are times when some persons leave other persons out of egotism and that there are times when some persons with hidden agendas seek out or stay with other persons in order to use them to sustain ego-states and to meet relative desires and to avoid relative fears.
There are also instances when relative-only factors are involved with staying or going, such as when someone is being abused mentally, emotionally, and/or physically; such as when someone is being used and realizes that their enabling is causing someone to remain dependent instead of being free; or such as when the “relationship” should never have been entered into from the start.
As for the notion that the Realized should “tolerate” others, if that means “passively permitting or putting up with,” understand that all happens spontaneously with the Realized. Some among the Realized might appear to be passive; some might appear to be active. What happens…happens.
If “tolerate” means “to suffer something to be done by not hindering or prohibiting it,” understand that Realization does not result in being disengaged from relative happenings. And it certainly does not result in trying to control relative happenings.
Yet the Realized are not insulated from happenings with employment, from dealings that involve children or mates, or from events such as wars or fires or earthquakes or robberies or assaults. What does mark the relative existence, post-Realization, is a non-attachment to false identities and an absence of being driven blindly and irrationally by personality or agendas or desires or fears or emotional intoxication.
Maharaj was once asked a question about what he would do if he saw someone being beaten. Would he rush in to aid the victim of the beating or not? He explained that the cause of any action is the cause of all prior actions, so he did not predict. Whatever happened, if that circumstance were presented, would happen spontaneously. The cause of whatever action was or was not taken would be a result of the accumulation of all causes up to that very instant.
More relevant than those types of “what if” scenarios, however, is this question: does a shift in consciousness result in a shift away from the type of deeds or actions that were happening during the period of non-Realization? Of course, and it all happens automatically and spontaneously.
Now Art, a final pointer on your questions about “spending time with certain people” and “tolerance”: when belief in the illusion of “self” is eliminated, it will be understood that there is no "one" to tolerate (or not tolerate) anything. You’ll understand that the Realized do not have to “go” anywhere to be at peace, though many do seem to pass more time in natural or natural-like settings (meaning, calm and undisturbed by the type of doingness that drives persons).
Yet even in a crowd, even in a chaotic workplace, peace can happen if witnessing without attachment happens. Indeed, there is nothing to do to maintain the peace. Peace is about beingness, not doingness. Beingness and peace happen in the absence of a “do-er,” not in the presence of a supposed “do-er.”
Many who are attached to all of their so-called “spiritual exercises” have not understood this point. Post Full Realization, there is no "do-er" to do exercises and no “maintainer” to work daily to maintain anything. All just happens spontaneously.
Peace happens no matter the surroundings, though there is, post-Realization, a shift toward the peace and quiet and silence as self-lessness (and eventually even SELF-lessness) are understood.
At that point, there is no longer any assumption that there is any “one” to “move” or “stay” or “go.” Whatever happens happens spontaneously and naturally. “But what if I am being abused?” someone asked in an e-mail. The response: "Is it natural to be abused? No, so if abuse is happening in one place, the Realized would automatically move toward another place."
Might the movement toward the silence reduce the number of persons invited into your environs who could disrupt the silence? That often is the case, and you mentioned that there were persons you spent a lot of time with before but now spend no time with at all. That is not uncommon as the “journey” to Realization happens.
However, let it be emphasized that Realization does not mean that the Realized cannot be involved at all in “ordinary life” or in the “relative existence.” Quite to the contrary. A relative existence marked by pleasure and joy and beingness is engaged in far more fully than during any pre-Realization life that was marked by turmoil and chaos and noise and doingness and dissociation and disengagement.
Belief in the duality of “with” vs. “apart from” is nonexistent. Too, the solitude is not sought out. It just happens. There is no “one” that is moving toward or away from, unlike the persons in the case studies in this series who all feel certain that they can maneuver and manipulate events to their will and who all believe that they can make certain they get what they want. The fact is that the relative existence is devoid of certainty.
The only certainty is You. Via the tapping into the inner resource—the inner guru—that which is certain (namely the Absolute, the Awareness, the Void) can be understood.
Understand, though, that happiness cannot happen before independence happens. Who that is not free could truly be happy? Who that is driven by thoughts and words and deeds which they do not select (but that have been pre-selected because of programming and conditioning) could possibly be happy, even though their delusion is that they have power and the ability to choose?
When a shift in consciousness happens (that is, when the obstacles to seeing truth and reason are removed) then a spontaneous and automatic shift happens. Both sin and morality disappear; unfounded fears of punishment and empty dreams about rewards disappear; and an understanding of the functioning of the totality appears. Then peace happens, automatically and spontaneously. Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
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