“This” is all relative…THAT is Absolute, Part Eight

An Advaita Vedanta realization, enlightenment, nisarga yoga site discussing non-duality (nonduality), your original nature, and dwelling in the natural state as taught by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.

F.: [Continued from yesterday. Please see the 9 March 2008 posting for the e-mail being answered in this series.] Again, this talk involves “relative issues involving personas” only, Danny. “This” is all relative, whether the topic is “The Boss,” "The Employee," “The Daughter,” or “The Mother.”

Yet all of the instances referenced in your e-mail, including persons not “being conscious of any of the suffering in the world”; including “killings on college campuses and in Iraq and Darfur”; including "the European invasions of the Americas;" including "WWII and the inquisition and all of the religious wars, past and present," all of that relative carnage and relative chaos was rooted in personality.

Understand that personality develops in childhood but also drives most persons for the remainder of their manifestation. Adults are living under the influence of a childhood tool. Is it any wonder that what persons would call "mature behavior" manifests so infrequently on the planet? Personality involves the assumption of personas (a.k.a., ego-states, roles, false identities, false selves, etc.) which, in turn, triggers egotism and the use of ego-defense mechanisms.

Rooted therein also are the Sociopathic Personality Disorder, the Narcissistic Personality Disorder, the Schizoid Avoidant Personality Disorder, the Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder, the Depressive Personality Disorder, the Histrionic Personality Disorder, the Paranoid Personality Disorder, and all other disorders that are generated by personality.

Is it clear now why the pure consciousness speaking via an Advaitin teacher invites seekers to abandon all personality and move along the “path” to Realizing Fully THAT Which They Truly Are?

All personas are just as fictional as the beliefs that persons have about the body and “the mind.” In that regard, a site visitor wrote last week to say, “I was so caught up in my continued identification with roles and conditioning that [were being] pointed out...that I still haven't REALIZED that I am not this body.”

Before continuing a discussion of relative issues and personas, therefore, it should be made clear that “being free” does not begin with discarding belief in personas but with discarding any and all belief in the birth principle. For simplicity, see “The Mother” as nothing more than a passage to the pyre or a channel to the grave.

Morose? Certainly not. What is more austere than suggesting that THAT Which You Are is nothing more than a handful of ash or dirt or elements? The intent is simply to de-mystify concepts that are nothing more than false ideas generated by the sky cults, including beliefs regarding birth, life, death, eternal life, paradise in some place in “the sky above,” or eternal punishment is some non-sky place “below.”

In the case of the happening which persons mistakenly refer to as their “birth,” here are the pointers for the visitor who admitted last week that he is still identified with the body:

Nothing more than the following occurred: your parents ate plants and engaged in an act of friction, after which already-existing elements gathered together into a space that would eventually be considered "you." The already-existing elements gathered and organized into a form, but nothing new was “created.”

Via that space, particles of specialized energy gathered into “tighter” groupings than they had been gathered in throughout the boundless Absolute. As a result of manifesting in a limited, confined space—that happening referred to as “the manifestation of consciousness”—the space became able to move about and to witness.

Yet the manifested consciousness would soon be blocked or corrupted. Why? Because You (the consciousness) would be programmed and conditioned and enculturated to believe that "your life" began at birth and that your life should be important and meaningful and purposeful (when in fact it is merely a series of events involving much ado about nothing. If you would but realize that, You could then relax and take it easy).

Eventually those elements that were consumed via plants by “The Mother” formed a space that was said to have been “born.” Those elements now taken by persons to be “you” will eventually return to the elements. All in between can be enjoyable if non-attachment is the mode of functioning; conversely, all can be trying and disheartening and miserable if attachment to self manifests.

To understand the “not-body” teachings, then, merely see “The Mother” as the conduit through which elements gathered before a space began to move about on the planet. Elements gathered via an element-mother, are presently being taken to be “you,” but will later un-gather and rejoin the universal pool of elements.

Simple, yes? And in understanding that simplicity, consider how many complex but fallacious concepts would be undone. That is what this Advaitin “journey” is about: undoing the results of programming and conditioning and enculturation that created the trap of being driven unquestioningly by fallacious concepts. Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)

Notice: Because of requests from people who want to limit time away from their job, some weekend retreats will be offered in ’08. You arrive on Thursday PM or Friday AM, depart Sunday PM or Monday AM. All of the content of the mid-week retreats will still be presented.

Visit AN ADVAITA VEDANTA RETREAT