MUMBAI

An Advaita Vedanta philosophy site, focusing on Realization, enlightenment, nisarga yoga, non-duality (nonduality), your original nature, dwelling as your natural state, and the teachings of Maharaj.

FROM A SITE VISITOR: So, your teacher lived in what is now called Mumbai. What would he likely say about the recent attacks?

F.: The pointers from that speck of consciousness called “maharaj” were consistent but they did vary according to the audience, meaning, the pointers offered were “level-appropriate.” That is, the responses were always determined by the seeker’s “place on the path” as revealed by her / his questions or comments.

What can be said to anyone on any level is that, once again, the accuracy of the teachings has been shown:

ADOPTION OF PERSONAS

Early reports suggest that the attackers were affiliated with a religious, separatist group (a redundancy, yes?) Anytime anyone adopts a persona and follows the “I am” with anything, (“I am an Easterner,” “I am a Westerner,” “I am a Muslim,” “I am a Christian,” “I am an Indian,” “I am a Pakistani,” “I am an American,” “I am an Iranian”) then the groundwork has been laid for a sense of separation.

A SENSE OF SEPARATION

Once a sense of separation is taken to be real by personas, then the groundwork for extremist behavior has been laid. Why? Because fears and desires are generated by each persona adopted and because the master and secondary addictions of the human species activate when personas are driving persons.

FEARS AND DESIRES

When identified with a “self,” then "self"ishness dominates all thoughts and words and deeds. As thoughts arise which include such dualistic beliefs as “We are right and they are wrong,” then dualistic words will follow:

“If they are allowed to live, they will cause irreparable harm to the world and will behave counter to the will of God / Allah / Jehovah, etc., so they must be destroyed.” Once dualistic thoughts and words occur with frequency, then dualistic deeds (actions by “us” against “them”) will always follow during the relative existence.

At that point, "self"ishness can justify any behavior desired.

THE MASTER AND SECONDARY ADDICTIONS

Because ego-states generate egotism, then the master addiction to control and the secondary addiction—to have the power to control—both activate. Combine the desire of personas to sustain themselves with the desire to have the power (and with egotism’s drive to bend others to one’s will) and escalation is guaranteed. For example:

(1) A movement involving multiple persons might start with a peaceful protest, escalate later to violent protests, eventually erupt into violent attacks against “others,” and thereafter lead to global conflict; or

(2) The same can apply in “personal relationships” with only two persons. Months ago, a woman spoke to her counselor about an argument that ended when the preacher she was dating grabbed her by the arms and began shaking her. She had bruises on each arm. The counselor warned that the event was only the beginning of what was likely to be an escalation of violence as he would continue to try to control her.

The woman was told, “He will never achieve a level of control and power over you that is satisfactory to his ego. Ego-states always continue to feel threatened, and he will strike out more and more until he feels that he had total control and that you have reached a state of total submission. And even then, it will not likely stop, because even submission does not satisfy that which cannot be satisfied.”

Weeks later, she arrived for a session without her glasses and with swelling and discoloration on one side of her face. During an argument a few nights earlier, he had slapped her so hard that the blow to the side of her face broke her glasses and knocked her to the floor.

Last week, she was in court, testifying that the reason she had called the police was because the man had knocked her down, straddled her, and tried to choke her to death. Only an intervention prevented him from succeeding.

It matters not if a “personal” conflict involves one person (with “self” struggling against “self); if it involves two persons; or if it involves members of groups, religions, organizations, communities, states, or nations. Conflict and complications and chaos are guaranteed when personas and their hidden agendas support non-dual, separatist concepts and beliefs about who is "right" and who is "wrong"...about who is "good" and who is "bad." Please enter the silence of contemplation.

THE RETURN TO SIMPLICITY, Part Seven, The Conclusion

An Advaita Vedanta philosophy site, focusing on Realization, enlightenment, nisarga yoga, non-duality (nonduality), your original nature, dwelling as your natural state, and the teachings of Maharaj.

[Visitors: You may use the link to the right to submit your Advaita-related questions]

[See the 20 November 2008 post to read the entire e-mail being answered here from a visitor trying to understand how to “keep it simple”]

F.: [Continued from yesterday] Be free of the mirage and You will be free of your personal wars, your personal chaos, your personal complications. Then, “keeping it simple” is not something that You will “do”; instead, it is something that will simply happen and that You will simply observe as it happens.

If you are not ready for this understanding, then do what you think you must do. You may think until your final day that what you are doing is wonderful. So be it. However, you may find at some point that you’ve done what you’ve done so much that you can’t stand to do it for another second. Meanwhile, talk all the insane talk you want to talk, and listen to all the insane talk you want to listen to.

You may continue to the end to hear and repeat all of that insanity—over and over—or you may reach a point where you will do whatever is required to stop listening to the insanity and to stop participating in the insanity. Crazy is not the treatment for crazy, and the claim by persons that they can free you but that they cannot free themselves is…crazy.

If Realized, all memberships end, so the complications of memberships end, including attendance at regular meetings; including donating money to supposedly “earn points” in some celestial accounting system; including donating time; including donating service;

including the seeking of an audience; including the addition of “good roles” to replace “bad roles”; including religious and spiritual workaholism; and including all of the doingness associated with such “mind-reinforcing, mind cluttering” memberships.

Where I live, there are no meetings to attend, no donations solicited, no pontifications to endure, no special messages to hear, no one claiming to hear a voice from another world, and no one purporting to speak for some extraterrestrial “Being.” Even on this site, there is no one speaking or writing.

Where I live, there are no intrusions, no audiences to impress, no “good roles” or “bad roles,” no doingness, no “minds,” no repetition of ancient, fictional myths as if they were true, and no quest for power or Power.

Where I was prior to this manifestation was a natural state, and I live today in that same all-natural environ. It is marked by its simplicity, not by going and doing and zooming and joining and serving and “being good as opposed to being bad” or “being bad as opposed to being good.”

There is no one saying “there are no tithes or offerings or dues” while passing a basket to collect tithes and offerings and dues. There is no dualistic nonsense of a geographic place for “good” people to go to and there is no geographic place for “bad” people to go to. It is all so simple in a nonsense-free zone. To be "where" I live requires nothing. How could it? It is nothing.

Thus, nothing needs to be added or acquired…nothing needs to be learned or earned. Also for you, all that has been accumulated can be unloaded and then a very simple “journey” to the end of the manifestation unfolds. Nothing needs to be feared. Nothing needs to be sought or desired. Then, it’s all so simple.

Contrast (a) the lifestyle of the deer that are eating grass in the front yard as this post is being written with (b) the lifestyle of troubled CEO’s or with persons who are losing a lifetime’s worth of accumulations in the matter of a few weeks.

Why would the simplicity not be sought over accumulation and complication? Why do adults handle their finances with no more discipline than a six-year old that is driven to spend all he/she has? Only because of programming and acculturation…only due to personal fears and personal desires…only due to a belief that something can be “forever.” Do you see the way that belief in the concept of “forever” distorts perception in the “not-forever” relative existence?

“We’ll retire and have this house forever”; “we’ll always have each other”; “we’ll have our income forever”; “the company will always be here for us”; “at least there’s Social Security”; “I’m sure she’ll / he’ll love me forever”; “I know I’ll live forever and be rewarded some day because I’ve always either done the right thing or asked for forgiveness when I did the wrong thing.”

Nothing is permanent except That Which I Truly Am and That Which You Truly Are.

Here where I abide, it is all so simple because there is neither a geographic heaven nor a geographic hell, and neither is there for you. Those only seem to exist in the geography of your “mind.” I am without a city or a state or a country. I do not even have a world. I have no name, no memberships, no affiliations.

There is nothing to seek and nothing to avoid. All is witnessed as it happens from a position of neutrality. How much simpler can it get than that? And it is the same for You. A few understand that but most do not. It remains, however, a fact.

Again, the invitation is to know the void that is infinite, spaceless, timeless, and mindless. Here, there is nothing that is special or different or complicated. If you are really serious about keeping it simple, then abide as the no-concept, non-dual Reality. Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
FOR MORE INFORMATION ON TODAY’S POST:

Click SPIRITUAL SOBRIETY (RECOVERING WHAT RELIGIONS LOST)

Click THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS “PEACE OF MIND” (There Is Only Peace If You’re Out of Your Mind)

Click LIBERATION

Click FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE (A Seven-Step Journey to Reality)

TWO OTHER OFFERINGS ARE AVAILABLE:

More and more seekers are requesting an understanding of how a personality formed in childhood is still determining and controlling everything that is thought or said or done in adulthood. Others have inquired about an opportunity to speak one-on-one about the seven-step “path” to Realization.

Thus, two opportunities are being offered from now until Dec 15^th at 50% off:

PERSONALITY TYPING:

Here’s what is included in the package that is available for the next two months (the service available to international visitors but these price being only for the Continental U.S.):

A copy of the personality test (B) Priority mailing of the test (C) Analysis of the test results (D) a one-hour telephone session to discuss the results (E) the cost of the telephone conference. Cost is US$95.

ONE-ON-ONE SATSANG VIA TELE-CONFERENCE

For the next two months, a tele-conference to discuss any aspects of the Advaita teachings one-on-one will be offered. [Rich from the U.K. completed this package recently and was able to make a low-rate international call from his home in the U.K. to the office here in the U.S. for his conference.] The cost covers the income that cannot be earned as a result of being unavailable for regular retainer contract income during your conference time.] Cost is US$75.

To arrange either package, >Click ARRANGE PACKAGES provide all of the information requested, and in the message box at the bottom, indicate that you want to make arrangements for the PERSONALITY TYPING or for the ONE-ON-ONE ADVAITA SESSION or both.

THE RETURN TO SIMPLICITY, Part Six

An Advaita Vedanta philosophy site, focusing on Realization, enlightenment, nisarga yoga, non-duality (nonduality), your original nature, dwelling as your natural state, and the teachings of Maharaj.

[Visitors: You may use the link to the right to submit your Advaita-related questions]

[See the 20 November 2008 post to read the entire e-mail being answered here from a visitor trying to understand how to “keep it simple”]

F.: So it should be seen now, Anonymous, Too, that where you live, there are many obstacles to “keeping it simple” and thus very little chance for simplicity to happen.

Where I live, by contrast, there are no obstacles at all to keeping it simple. There are no groups to join, no meetings to attend, and no bells to ring. There is no “self”-improvement because there is no “self” to improve. There is nothing to burn or to chant, there are no pleas to cast out into the universe, there is no power to seek, and there is no god to petition for things desired or for things to be avoided.

There are no holy days, no holy lands, no holy books, no persons being raised on a steady diet of arrogance-inspiring lies, no memberships to claim, nothing to avoid, and no objective world to deal with. There are no fluctuations and there is no "particularly-maddening season" that generates stress.

There are neither individualized “minds” nor “group minds” because there are no persons and because there is nothing personal. At some point you felt alone—even in a crowd. Realized, You could enjoy the solitude—even in a crowd.

Where you live, almost every aspect of life is controlled or influenced by the concepts being spread in churches and synagogues and temples. Where I live, there are no churches or synagogues or temples. There are no special gatherings, no pointy hats, no shiny patton leather shoes, and no fancy robes that are trimmed in gold; in fact, there is nothing that is "special" and there is no one that is “special.”

Here, there is no cannibalistic eating of a holy body and no vampiristic drinking of holy blood. Here, there are no concepts, no dualities, no contradictory beliefs, and no attachments (which includes no attachments to dogma, to spiritual concepts, to things, to persons, to ideologies, to philosophies, to Advaita, to practices and exercises, to false selves, to roles, or to accumulated things with burdensome maintenance requirements).

There is also no attachment to “floyd.” To travel by car or train or plane does not make you a car or train or plane. Similarly, to travel by body does not make Me a body. How could anyone possibly be “attached” to something if merely witnessing it from a distance?

Now, the newsflash is this: You also live where I live…you just don’t know it. That accounts for a seeming appearance of difference which is not real at all. Maharaj taught, “You are already in your true state. Because of the mind, duality comes in and therefore you are afraid. Fear not. Know your true state—your natural state—and be free of all of this.”

Again, “the main problem centers in the “mind,” and as long as a "mind" is present, it will block you from being free of all of this.

I do not live in the world, and You do not live in the world, either; instead, the world lives in you…in your head…specifically, in that part of the head that stores concepts and forms a “mind.”

Because I am mindless, I am also world-less. I see none of the things of your “objective world” as being real—as being what they appear to be. You take all of that complicated “stuff” to be real, so how could you possibly “keep it simple”?

You also complicate your life with what you call “relationships” that you take to be real. You look at this and that and think all that you see is exactly as it appears. To not know the Oneness is to believe in “two,” is to believe that this can “relate” to that rather than to know there is the One…the “not two.”

The distortions of your objective “world” drive you to believe in the complication-generating illusions of “being separate” or “being together” and “being apart” and “ending this” and “ending that” and “needing to kill this” and “having the right to kill that” and “being good” and “being better” and “worshipping this” and accumulating that.

What “relatively horrible tales” come from all the complications that are rooted in concepts and that drive all distorted thoughts and words and deeds. To enter into war with others is always preceded by being at war with your “self” or selves. Yet yours is a war based in a mirage. You are invited to consider that mirage until the conclusion of this series tomorrow. Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
FOR MORE INFORMATION ON TODAY’S POST:

Click SPIRITUAL SOBRIETY (RECOVERING WHAT RELIGIONS LOST)

Click THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS “PEACE OF MIND” (There Is Only Peace If You’re Out of Your Mind)

Click LIBERATION

Click FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE (A Seven-Step Journey to Reality)

TWO OTHER OFFERINGS ARE AVAILABLE:

More and more seekers are requesting an understanding of how a personality formed in childhood is still determining and controlling everything that is thought or said or done in adulthood. Others have inquired about an opportunity to speak one-on-one about the seven-step “path” to Realization.

Thus, two opportunities are being offered from now until Dec 15^th at 50% off:

PERSONALITY TYPING:

Here’s what is included in the package that is available for the next two months (the service available to international visitors but these price being only for the Continental U.S.):

A copy of the personality test (B) Priority mailing of the test (C) Analysis of the test results (D) a one-hour telephone session to discuss the results (E) the cost of the telephone conference. Cost is US$95.

ONE-ON-ONE SATSANG VIA TELE-CONFERENCE

For the next two months, a tele-conference to discuss any aspects of the Advaita teachings one-on-one will be offered. [Rich from the U.K. completed this package recently and was able to make a low-rate international call from his home in the U.K. to the office here in the U.S. for his conference.] The cost covers the income that cannot be earned as a result of being unavailable for regular retainer contract income during your conference time.] Cost is US$75.

To arrange either package, >Click ARRANGE PACKAGES provide all of the information requested, and in the message box at the bottom, indicate that you want to make arrangements for the PERSONALITY TYPING or for the ONE-ON-ONE ADVAITA SESSION or both.

THE RETURN TO SIMPLICITY, Part Five

An Advaita Vedanta philosophy site, focusing on Realization, enlightenment, nisarga yoga, non-duality (nonduality), your original nature, dwelling as your natural state, and the teachings of Maharaj.

[Visitors: You may use the link to the right to submit your Advaita-related questions]

[See the 20 November 2008 post to read the entire e-mail being answered here from a visitor trying to understand how to “keep it simple.” There will be a pause in the response to address another e-mail just received]:

FROM ANOTHER SITE VISITOR: I think that my religious practices and spiritual exercises do simplify my life.

F.: So you admit that belief is a result of thinking, but thinking is the problem to begin with. Humans, via the inner guru, have always known Who/What They Truly Are, but they forget after programming and conditioning and domestication and acculturation.

Prior to programming, humans that sat in the silence recognized an intimation of "immortality" ; later, programming convinced them that the body and mind and personality are immortal as well.

Prior to acculturation, humans were able to tap into that inner resource directly since they had none of the nonsensical accoutrements that are employed by persons today, accoutrements that actually distract from tapping into the inner guru as those externals become the focus instead.

They were able to focus on the only source of truth, within, because they had no external distractions...no special bells to ring; no distracting scented sticks to burn; no special rocks or special crystals or special candles or special rugs to sidetrack them;

no special haircuts or special clothing or funny hats or elaborate robes or shiny shoes or special buildings (or building funds) or special leaders to divert their attention; no holy books with fictional tales that shifted attention away from knowing the Real;

no distractions that included genuflecting, meeting, singing, chanting, humming, cheering, worshipping, accumulating, or pledging; no holy food or holy bodies to eat and no special blood to drink; no pyramids to sit under and no compasses to point them in a special direction to a special land or a special place;

in fact, they were not distracted by any nonsensical acts that are contrary to the ways of natural living (which happened spontaneously and automatically for the millions of years prior to the past few millennia when controlling men dreamed up concepts and dogma and rituals and dualistic thinking).

That said, take yourself to be the do-er of all the religious and spiritual doingness that you desire, but if you reach the point that so many reach and realize how truly complicated your relative existence has become in spite of all that doingness, you will have a seed planted and you might recall at some point later on that there is another way.

Now, to continue with the e-mail from “Anonymous Too.” Reviewing, it has been shown that there can be no simple existence when identified with the body and “the mind” and the personality. There can be no simplicity when addicted or when avoiding, because simplicity involves less—involves de-accumulating—whereas addictions are about more…always more…never enough.

And one addiction that is common among persons is their addiction to chaos. Avoidance is about avoiding more and more until nothing is faced and chaos prevails. The accumulation of concept after concept, eventually building up an enormous set of belief systems, also complicates the relative existence.

And "group membership" will also block any chance for keeping it simple. Among groups or otherwise, no single source has generated more concepts than religions / spiritual movements. Any objective study of the effects of those groups (contrary to their claims of being the great source of peace) shows that they have historically generated chaos and are currently generating chaos as well. Simplicity and group-inspired chaos cannot possibly co-exist.

Are you seeing that there is nothing to gain but that there is so much to discard in order to eliminate chaos and pave the way for the peace and the quiet and the simplicity you seek?

Over the years, seekers have come here and shared some of the most (relatively) horrible tales imaginable—tales of appalling abuses (relatively speaking) that were perpetrated by persons embroiled in their complicated religious and/or spiritual beliefs that, in turn, complicated their lives and marred innumerable lives as well:

...a wife whose husband left her for her thirteen year-old-sister, a wife whose mother was so obsessed with religion and image that she arranged for the church to annul the original marriage so that her younger daughter could marry the former husband in the Catholic church and "guarantee that the younger daughter was in a marriage sanctioned by the church rather than living in sin";

...a man whose Christian wife, who was employed by a church, told him that she had gone to the altar and knelled in prayer every day for a year and begged her god to kill him so she could have the insurance money, a house that would be paid for, and the chance to marry another man that she could love;

...a woman whose father—a member of the clergy—abused her sisters to the point of ruining their lives, relatively speaking; and

...a sister who came with great resentment because her brother had joined a 12-step group that told him to “stop taking his medications and to turn to God.” He followed the group's advice, stopped taking his medication with no weaning process or medical consultation, and then killed himself within two weeks.

All of those cases involved persons who had joined groups to be “better people” (and who decided they were exactly that). It has been seen over the years that people who join groups and assume the new role of “member” are merely

(1) exposing themselves to a group of persons who have already assumed false roles and who have been programmed to guide the “newest member” to assume many new roles and who therefore

(2) are responsible for moving persons farther away from knowing the True Self and knowing truth.

Thus, "group membership" is another one of those complicating factors that preempt any chance of enjoying the simple “life” you seek. Groups are places to escape the overwhelming noise of the “mind” when alone. Groups are places that reinforce concepts such as “better than,” “different from,” and “separate and apart from other groups.”

Regarding this topic of groups, that sage named “Carlin” (who typically offered wisdom with a dash of humor) said:

“I got a ‘dual’ problem here. First of all, I like people. You look in their eyes and you can see the universe. We’re all the same thing—we’re all stardust, and it’s all the same atoms floating around.

“I like people one at a time—I don’t like the grouping. People-clotting is what causes the trouble. As soon as there’s about 8 or 12 guys, they start having a fight song or a slogan, or they give themselves a name and buy hats, or they wear little arm bands;

“soon they’ve got a list of people they don’t like, and then they’re marching over in the park—and it’s a (expletive) danger. Groups are a danger. They sacrifice individual beauty for the sake of the group.”

Among the Realized, there is no “this” which can join with "that." There is only the One, so the concept of “grouping” and “group membership” is another false notion that perpetuates the self and that blocks Realization of the Self.

True, for the sake of efficiency, you might see Advaitin seekers meeting for satsang, as happened in Maharaj’s loft…as happens here on occasion…as happens in those out-of-town seminars once or twice a month. But in most cases, Maharaj limited the number of days that anyone could visit the loft.

He provided pointers and then sent the seekers away to consider the pointers alone…in the quiet. There was no group that formed, that considered itself a group, that met regularly as a group, or that solicited membership and dues and fees and contributions.

Chaos begins with an “individualized, personalized mind”; mass chaos—global chaos—results when those individualized minds become attracted to like “minds” and function together as a “group mind”—as the “collective mind.” At that point, personal conflict can expand to planet-wide conflict. Your desire to “keep it simple” cannot happen via groups. Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
FOR MORE INFORMATION ON TODAY’S POST:

Click SPIRITUAL SOBRIETY (RECOVERING WHAT RELIGIONS LOST)

Click THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS “PEACE OF MIND” (There Is Only Peace If You’re Out of Your Mind)

Click LIBERATION

Click FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE (A Seven-Step Journey to Reality)

TWO OTHER OFFERINGS ARE AVAILABLE:

More and more seekers are requesting an understanding of how a personality formed in childhood is still determining and controlling everything that is thought or said or done in adulthood. Others have inquired about an opportunity to speak one-on-one about the seven-step “path” to Realization.

Thus, two opportunities are being offered from now until Dec 15^th at 50% off:

PERSONALITY TYPING:

Here’s what is included in the package that is available for the next two months (the service available to international visitors but these price being only for the Continental U.S.):

A copy of the personality test (B) Priority mailing of the test (C) Analysis of the test results (D) a one-hour telephone session to discuss the results (E) the cost of the telephone conference. Cost is US$95.

ONE-ON-ONE SATSANG VIA TELE-CONFERENCE

For the next two months, a tele-conference to discuss any aspects of the Advaita teachings one-on-one will be offered. [Rich from the U.K. completed this package recently and was able to make a low-rate international call from his home in the U.K. to the office here in the U.S. for his conference.] The cost covers the income that cannot be earned as a result of being unavailable for regular retainer contract income during your conference time.] Cost is US$75.

To arrange either package, >Click ARRANGE PACKAGES provide all of the information requested, and in the message box at the bottom, indicate that you want to make arrangements for the PERSONALITY TYPING or for the ONE-ON-ONE ADVAITA SESSION or both.

THE RETURN TO SIMPLICITY, Part Four

An Advaita Vedanta philosophy site, focusing on Realization, enlightenment, nisarga yoga, non-duality (nonduality), your original nature, dwelling as your natural state, and the teachings of Maharaj.

[Visitors: You may use the link to the right to submit your Advaita-related questions]

F.: [See the 20 November 2008 post to read the entire e-mail being answered here from a visitor trying to understand how to “keep it simple”] The farther back you go, the more simple it becomes. Eventually, if you move beyond your current (third level) spiritual stage, you might make it back to the (fourth level) Ignorant Child stage where nothing was known and nothing was desired except food and dryness.

But as it is now, accumulations are complicating your existence. You have accumulated dogmatic beliefs. You have accumulated countless desires and fears, and those have complicated your relative existence. You are playing many false roles so you have accumulated a myriad of identities.

And everything you accumulate requires money and/or effort and/or time and/or game-playing to maintain, and that complicates your relative existence and displaces the simple life that could otherwise be.

For simplicity, go back. De-accumulate. You are carrying a heavy load, so of course your relative existence is complicated. You must lighten the load—you must reduce the burden and reduce the load—by tossing out the baggage you carry:

There is the baggage of religious dogma and spiritual practices and dogmatic rituals; there is the burden of desires and fears; there is the burden of attachment to the body; there is the burden of personality and role-playing and role-maintenance; there is the burden of excessive accumulations of various sorts and all of those require maintenance.

There was the burden of living unnaturally, followed by a desire to stop living unnaturally, followed by trying to replace that style of living with the new burden of trying to live supernaturally. That approach has resulted in the accumulation of new “good” roles to replace the old “bad” roles. The playing of your new roles has resulted in nothing more than a different kind of complication. Only nisarga (natural) living is light and easy.

If you can give up all of your roles and go back as far as the pre-concepts, pre-beliefs child stage, you might be able to move back even further to levels that are even simpler. For that level of simplicity, go back to the pre-child stage.

Then, go back to the pre-fertilization stage. Go back to that state prior to conception. Go back to the no-mind, no-body, no-personality quietness that was prior to consciousness, prior to manifestation and prior to concepts and beliefs that are always followed by complicated debates about whose beliefs and concepts are “right” and whose beliefs and concepts are “wrong.”

How much breath is wasted among those attached to their ideas? How much simplicity is lost and how many complications arise as a result of belief in concepts and a desire to spread those beliefs...to "loved ones," to the persons in your community, to the people in your nation, to the entire population of the planet?

How many global conflicts are underway at this very moment that are rooted in conflicting beliefs? How many individual conflicts are underway at this very moment that are rooted in conflicting beliefs? Very complicated, is it not, the type of existence that follows the accumulation of, and attachment to, concepts and ideas and beliefs?

If you complete the seven-step journey as outlined in FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE, then you will understand the quiet, simple, no-concept, no-belief, non-dual, pre-manifestation state as well as the functioning of pure consciousness while manifested.

You can come to understand that there is no body that “has” consciousness but that consciousness temporarily “has” a body. Then you can understand the unmanifesting of consciousness and the simple peace that happens as a result.

If you complete all of the steps to Realization, then You can function as the unmanifested…NOW, and only the unmanifested state can be simpler than that. After Realization, natural, AS IF living can happen NOW. (Search this site for AS IF to understand that type of functioning.)

In fact, simple living can only happen if natural living is happening. Simple living is modeled for you by the deer, the bear, the bird. They live in a mindless fashion, so they face none of the complications that you wrote of. If you would be as free as a bird, you—too—must be mindless.

Maharaj made clear that he was void of mind…beyond the mind (and the body and the personality as well). Yet he was totally aware, evidencing the fact that awareness has nothing to do with a “mind.” In fact, pure awareness can take place only in the absence of a misperceiving "mind."

All but a fraction of a percent of what lives on the planet—that fraction called “humans”—live without the complications of a “mind.” With the exception of that same percentage, mindless living is the norm. Mind-full living is the perversion of the norm. Again, the main problem centers in the mind.

Mindless living is natural and simple, but there is nothing more complicated in this relative existence than living unnaturally or trying to live supernaturally, both of which happen because of the complications that come along with a belief-filled “mind.” Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON TODAY’S POST:

Click SPIRITUAL SOBRIETY (RECOVERING WHAT RELIGIONS LOST)

Click THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS “PEACE OF MIND” (There Is Only Peace If You’re Out of Your Mind)

Click LIBERATION

Click FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE (A Seven-Step Journey to Reality)

TWO OTHER OFFERINGS ARE AVAILABLE:

More and more seekers are requesting an understanding of how a personality formed in childhood is still determining and controlling everything that is thought or said or done in adulthood. Others have inquired about an opportunity to speak one-on-one about the seven-step “path” to Realization.

Thus, two opportunities are being offered from now until Dec 15^th at 50% off:

PERSONALITY TYPING:

Here’s what is included in the package that is available for the next two months (the service available to international visitors but these price being only for the Continental U.S.):

A copy of the personality test (B) Priority mailing of the test (C) Analysis of the test results (D) a one-hour telephone session to discuss the results (E) the cost of the telephone conference. Cost is US$95.

ONE-ON-ONE SATSANG VIA TELE-CONFERENCE

For the next two months, a tele-conference to discuss any aspects of the Advaita teachings one-on-one will be offered. [Rich from the U.K. completed this package recently and was able to make a low-rate international call from his home in the U.K. to the office here in the U.S. for his conference.] The cost covers the income that cannot be earned as a result of being unavailable for regular retainer contract income during your conference time.] Cost is US$75.

To arrange either package, >Click ARRANGE PACKAGES provide all of the information requested, and in the message box at the bottom, indicate that you want to make arrangements for the PERSONALITY TYPING or for the ONE-ON-ONE ADVAITA SESSION or both.

THE RETURN TO SIMPLICITY, Part Three

[Visitors: You may use the link to the right to submit your Advaita-related questions]

An Advaita Vedanta philosophy site, focusing on Realization, enlightenment, nisarga yoga, non-duality (nonduality), your original nature, dwelling as your natural state, and the teachings of Maharaj.

F.: [See the 20 November 2008 post to read the entire e-mail being answered here from a visitor trying to understand how to “keep it simple”] Next, look at another of the complicating sources that blocks the simplicity during this relative existence: addiction and/or avoidance.

You—as is the case with all persons—were raised to avoid, namely, to avoid displeasing adults; to avoid punishment; and either to avoid doing the things that caused you to be labeled “bad” or to avoid getting caught (even if the things you were doing were natural, like lusting for someone or like “wasting seeds,” as if there aren’t more than enough to “waste”).

You likely had the Addictive Personality Disorder modeled in your home, 99.9% of all persons being addicted to something; however, it might be that the Addictive Personality Disorder is not one of the primary causes of the complications you referenced. You might suffer from its twin, the Avoidant Personality Disorder, which requires a totally different treatment plan.

Addictions complicate the relative existence, but so too does avoidance. As mentioned yesterday, some are addicted to their religious and/or spiritual beliefs and groups and programs. While those addictions are associated with the master and secondary addictions among humans, they are not the same.

The master addiction among humans is the desire to control, and the secondary addiction is the desire for power in order to be able to control. You have been told by your current advisers to give up your desire for power and to develop a desire for…their power. Yet was not your addiction to power/control a part of your problem all along?

Here, you will not be encouraged to seek power, and that has always made nisarga yoga less popular than other approaches that offer seekers so much "more," including power. You will be invited instead to give up all that you have accumulated and to be free of the desire to “get” as well as the fear of “not getting.” You will be invited to a position of neutrality. You will be invited to see that you can control nothing and therefore require no power.

By contrast, how truly simple the relative existence is for the Realized who are merely enjoying the beingness—from one moment to the next—without the burden of hoping and pleading and wishing for more now...and in the future...and forever.

All that said, remember that nothing has complicated the relative existence more than the source of the most convoluted concepts of all, namely, ignorant ideologies, personalizing philosophies, and self-righteous religions. All encourage spiritual workaholism rather than relaxing and taking it easy and enjoying the trip rather than being preoccupied with some imaginary destination.

All encourage the pursuit of a mirage…or various mirages. No wonder persons never feel fulfilled: that which they seek to satisfy themselves does not even exist. People go from one sanctuary to the next but do not find the truth. In fact, the only real sanctuary is in the unmanifested state.

To that end, many persons commit suicide, but that need not be the case. The body need not end for You—the Real You—to be free. In order to begin the shift toward freedom and simplicity, all that needs to end is the pursuit of the unreal and your attachment to the complex.

Possibly your acculturation and your “mind” chatter have left you addicted to chaos, and like so many of your current advisers, you are actually only giving lip service to really seeking the peace and the quiet and the simplicity and total freedom.

Yet the appeal of suggestions offered here is limited in the view of most persons because the invitation is to wake up and to give up rather than to blindly follow the culture’s programming to get.

Substitute dependencies and substitute co-dependencies will likely feel more “familiar” and therefore more “comfortable” if the corrupted “mind” is allowed to continue and to draw such erroneous conclusions that you will take to be truth. And little is more complicated than a relative existence that is dominated by dependencies and co-dependencies.

Maharaj suggested to seekers that they “go back.” The farther back you go, the more the miminalistic simplicity will come. Simplicity is always “before.” Before what? Before your were programmed and conditioned. Before you were influenced to walk in lockstep with your culture. Before the development of a complicating “mind.”

Before your beliefs and concepts led to confusing thoughts and complicating words and difficulty-generating deeds. Before the non-natural things that drive you were present. To understand how your concepts complicate, try this:

Imagine sitting quietly with another person. Simple, yes? Now, imagine trying to make that person accept your beliefs and your ideas. Complicating, yes? Your ideas and concepts and beliefs will always preempt simplicity and generate complications.

To review, whatever you are addicted to will complicate, including addictions to power and control and being right and avoidance and ideologies and religions and spirituality.

Maharaj taught, “Whatever spiritual things you aspire to know are all happening in this objective world, in the illusion. All this is happening in the objective world. All is dishonesty. There is no truth in this fraud.”

The religious or spiritual step is only the third of seven to Full Realization. Your advisers will tell you that if you become spiritual you will be bathed in the light of high noon. In fact, you will only be standing in the muted light of the dawn.

Advaitins will never suggest that you accept more beliefs or learn new concepts. The simplicity comes via de-accumulation, via the un-learning, not through learning more. Go back, prior to learning, if you would know that which is most simple. Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
FOR MORE INFORMATION ON TODAY’S POST:

Click SPIRITUAL SOBRIETY (RECOVERING WHAT RELIGIONS LOST)

Click THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS “PEACE OF MIND” (There Is Only Peace If You’re Out of Your Mind)

TWO OTHER OFFERINGS ARE AVAILABLE:

More and more seekers are requesting an understanding of how a personality formed in childhood is still determining and controlling everything that is thought or said or done in adulthood. Others have inquired about an opportunity to speak one-on-one about the seven-step “path” to Realization.

Thus, two opportunities are being offered from now until Dec 15^th at 50% off:

PERSONALITY TYPING:

Here’s what is included in the package that is available for the next two months (the service available to international visitors but these price being only for the Continental U.S.):

A copy of the personality test (B) Priority mailing of the test (C) Analysis of the test results (D) a one-hour telephone session to discuss the results (E) the cost of the telephone conference. Cost is US$95.

ONE-ON-ONE SATSANG VIA TELE-CONFERENCE

For the next two months, a tele-conference to discuss any aspects of the Advaita teachings one-on-one will be offered. [Rich from the U.K. completed this package recently and was able to make a low-rate international call from his home in the U.K. to the office here in the U.S. for his conference.] The cost covers the income that cannot be earned as a result of being unavailable for regular retainer contract income during your conference time.] Cost is US$75.

To arrange either package, >Click ARRANGE PACKAGES provide all of the information requested, and in the message box at the bottom, indicate that you want to make arrangements for the PERSONALITY TYPING or for the ONE-ON-ONE ADVAITA SESSION or both.

THE RETURN TO SIMPLICITY, Part Two

An Advaita Vedanta philosophy site, focusing on Realization, enlightenment, nisarga yoga, non-duality (nonduality), your original nature, dwelling as your natural state, and the teachings of Maharaj.

F.: [See the 20 November 2008 post to read the entire e-mail being answered here from a visitor trying to understand how to “keep it simple”] Yesterday, you were invited to “see how the simplicity was lost after complicated and contradictory concepts were taught and were stored in what you call ‘your mind’.”

If you do not understand how events unfolded that transformed a simple existence into the very complicated one that you wrote to complain about, how can you possibly “go back” to the originally simple mode of living?

Understand that the complicating concepts have become a part of the “collective mind” of the planet and how that collective mind now reinforces planet-wide the beliefs that

(1) began as myths and superstitions among the ignorant persons of the planet, which

(2) produced magical thinking among the masses, which

(3) led to the formation of the three dominant sky cults today, which

(4) has complicated the relative existence with thousands of years of religious wars that have reached global proportions nowadays, and which

(5) drives the widespread, unquestioned acceptance of the tenets of religious and spiritual movements.

Thus, when Cassandra in St. Louis wrote to say, “Floyd, god does exist—millions of people can’t be wrong,” the reply was that she was correct, that it is not millions of people who have been wrong…it is trillions upon trillions that have been wrong.

Nothing has complicated the relative existence of humanity more than belief in duality, and belief in duality is rooted in, and maintained today, by those religious and spiritual movements mentioned earlier that have contributed more than any other single factors to “life” becoming complicated.

What is more complicated today than the toll of wars on persons and the toll on nations’ economies that have resulted from the fact that billions of Christians want to spread their message “to the four corners of the earth and baptize everyone in the name of Jesus Christ” while 1.5 billion Muslims are bent on killing anyone who is “a Christian infidel” and who does not accept their religious beliefs alone?

Members of both of those two warring factions want every person on the planet to believe exactly what they believe. Do you see that, without beliefs, there would be no basis for their wars that have gone on for 1300 years?

The teachings of both are rooted in lies that were disseminated by persons who dreamed up the notion that there are other-world powers that control everything in this world, so all of their teachings today are lies as well. And where are those lies stored? In the “mind.”

So again, review the literature of the program in which you hold membership: “the main problem centers in the mind.” See the source of the complications. See how your life became complicated when all those dualistic beliefs were used during your upbringing to determine when you were supposedly “good” and had earned rewards and when you were “bad” and had supposedly called down punishment upon yourself.

See how dualistic beliefs have been at the root of all of the complications and misery and suffering that you wrote about. See where those dualistic beliefs are being reinforced in your culture. Then, if you would be free, stay away from the sources and reinforcers of dualistic beliefs and be rid of the “mind” that now stores the beliefs that "they" have already taught you. That is the only chance for a return to simplicity to happen.

Understand the primary sources of complications so you can discount them and be rid of their influence. The complications began millions of years ago when the human brain expanded to include sections that can store and recall “memories.” The problem became exacerbated when persons dreamed up lies, stored them, taught them to other persons who stored them and taught them to others, etc.

Note the loss of simplicity when the first medicine man dreamed up not just a rain god but an angry rain god. Before that point, humankind would have witnessed and accepted the fact that when it rains it rains; when it doesn't rain, it doesn't rain; when it’s hot it’s hot; and when it’s cold it’s cold.

After that god was dreamed up, note how complicated things became: parents had to offer a daughter to have sex with the medicine man; to be killed; to have her heart cut out; and to participate as all passed the heart about and ate the body and drank the blood in a service that provided the chance to commune with the rain god and please him by sacrifice.

Those early “worshippers” began to define morality and then inventoried what is “good” behavior and what is “bad” behavior; they codified their beliefs in “holy” books; they began to engage in preemptive strikes, sacrificing in advance rather than after the rain had stopped.

Now, when humans simply behave in the natural ways that humans behave and engage in very natural acts, then other complicating concepts are added to the mix: guilt, shame, rejection, disgrace, fear of not being rewarded now, fear of not earning an eternal reward but of suffering eternal punishment instead, giving hours of “service” in order to get rewards, ad infinitum.

Very complicated, n’est-ce pas? So, how to un-do the mess? You will never put an end to the primary sources of duality. Religious or spiritual movements will continue in the same unchecked fashion that they have over the last 5000 years. What you can do is to complete the “journey” that will free you of the duality that they dreamed up and that they are continuing to teach today.

Nowadays, nearly 6.5 billion persons across the planet dutifully engage in their laborious activities (a.k.a., “religious practices” and “spiritual exercises”). They face financial crises but continue to give 10% of their money to avoid problems and to reap the benefit of getting back “seven times more than they give.”

Some complicate their lives by attending services on Saturday or on Sunday morning and Sunday evening and Wednesday evening; others stop five times per day to do their prayers (with no women allowed, of course); some attend meetings every day, realizing they have been made insane and being told that god will restore them to sanity.

But it does not happen, so they keep going back. That is the phase you reached and fixated in, is it not? See how much effort is required throughout an entire manifestation for one who thinks he/she must work their way into the graces of a god in order to earn an eternal reward or to be sane or to be happy or to be at peace.

Do you not see that those who would free you of addiction are merely offering you new, substitute addictions to replace the old one? Are you not being invited to become addicted to the group, addicted to meetings, addicted to doing, addicted to a “power,” addicted to adopting “good” roles to replace your old “bad” roles?

Do you not see that you are still trapped in that original parent-child mode that first set you up to be driven by dualities? Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON TODAY’S POST:

Click SPIRITUAL SOBRIETY (RECOVERING WHAT RELIGIONS LOST)

Click THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS “PEACE OF MIND” (There Is Only Peace If You’re Out of Your Mind)

TWO OTHER OFFERINGS ARE AVAILABLE:

More and more seekers are requesting an understanding of how a personality formed in childhood is still determining and controlling everything that is thought or said or done in adulthood. Others have inquired about an opportunity to speak one-on-one about the seven-step “path” to Realization.

Thus, two opportunities are being offered from now until Dec 15^th at 50% off:

PERSONALITY TYPING:

Here’s what is included in the package that is available for the next two months (the service available to international visitors but these price being only for the Continental U.S.):

A copy of the personality test (B) Priority mailing of the test (C) Analysis of the test results (D) a one-hour telephone session to discuss the results (E) the cost of the telephone conference. Cost is US$95.

ONE-ON-ONE SATSANG VIA TELE-CONFERENCE

For the next two months, a tele-conference to discuss any aspects of the Advaita teachings one-on-one will be offered. [Rich from the U.K. completed this package recently and was able to make a low-rate international call from his home in the U.K. to the office here in the U.S. for his conference.] The cost covers the income that cannot be earned as a result of being unavailable for regular retainer contract income during your conference time.] Cost is US$75.

To arrange either package, >Click ARRANGE PACKAGES provide all of the information requested, and in the message box at the bottom, indicate that you want to make arrangements for the PERSONALITY TYPING or for the ONE-ON-ONE ADVAITA SESSION or both.