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: You witness feelings rise and fall. How long can your feelings last, for example, if you lose a friend? Would the feelings simply rise for a minute, a day, a week, etc.? Where do you draw the line?
F.: To continue with Monday’s pointer that “the body can register pain, but it is ‘the mind’ which registers perceptions (mis-perceptions) of offense and misery and suffering,” consider:
Rather than functioning naturally under the auspices of the brain and the sixth sense and the intuition, persons (the non-Realized) operate under the auspices of the “mind”—that storehouse of ideas and concepts and lies which in turn generate fears and desires and false identities and anger and resentment and misery and suffering.
[NOTE: Those farther along the “path” know that even this talk of “misery” or “happiness” is from the kindergarten level of spirituality. It is false to report “I am happy” and it is false to report “I am miserable.” There is no “I” that can “experience” either.
How could a speck of energy possibly claim “happiness” or “misery”? It cannot. The “position of neutrality” mentioned on occasion on this site is only a feeble attempt to enable the not-yet-fully-Realized to glimpse the non-aligned status of the no-concept, non-dual Reality.
And even “non-aligned” is not totally accurate since there is no “one” to align or not align. If you understand the pointers regarding “non-aligned” and “actually no one to be aligned or not,” then you can also understand other pointers such as those regarding the beingness, the non-beingness, and THAT Which Is beyond the beingness and the non-beingness.
It is only an ego-state that will make statements about being "happy" or being "miserable." Identified with being "The Husband," a man reported at this week's seminar, "I finally have a happy, healthy relationship." What that means is that he has found someone currently willing to play the required, co-dependent counterpart to his role in a fashion that is currently supporting his illusion.
One day, he will report that he is miserable in his relationship because the current, co-dependent role player who is supporting his distortion will either stop playing her current role or will stop playing it per his directions.
Understand that “stones walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage.” Instead, it is belief in concepts that results in the prison called "the mind."
This pointer has been offered in the past to those who are confusing the brain and the “mind” and the consciousness: “Consciousness is rooted in the Absolute. The brain is rooted in the elements. The ‘mind’ is rooted in wrong programming and faulty conditioning and lies and concepts and ideas and superstitions and falsehoods.”
Thus, the brain is natural, as is the consciousness. The “mind,” however, is most unnatural. Each concept held to be true is one of the bars of the prison of the “mind.” The “stone walls” are the beliefs that block the Pure Consciousness from witnessing purely. Only a fictional, false identity, working hand-in-hand with the “mind” and all assumed personality, can make any claims about happiness or misery.]
Since the unnatural “mind” is the storehouse of fiction and mis-perceptions, then all perceived via the distortions of the “mind” is fiction as well (including threats taken to be real but that are not). Real or not, of course, the belief that offenses and slights are real will always produce among the non-Realized a sensation of misery and suffering that seems most real nevertheless.
Why does it take some persons so long to (a) process mis-perceptions, (b) see the lie behind the perception, and then (c) be free? Why in some cases does that never happen? Consider: when one enters the shadowy barn and sees the proverbial rope lying in a coil, the sensations of fear and alarm are baseless in reality;
however, the belief that it is a snake is perceived to be quite real to the “mind” that is engaged in mis-perception. The person identified with body, and fearing that the body is in “personal” danger, will ignore an Advaitin who approaches to say,
“It’s all in the ‘mind’” or “Your are mis-perceiving” or “What you think you are seeing is not at all what you are seeing” or “You are being driven by the egotism that is accompanying the false belief that some ego-state is You” and “What you think is true is actually false.”
Though the perceptions of misery and suffering that are subsequent to “mind” mis-perceptions are unnatural processes that are rooted in illusion, most persons will never be convinced that their beliefs could possibly be false;
thus, a belief in illusions will continue, and so will the instability of a relative existence that is marked by fluctuations between perceived “happiness” and perceived “misery.” Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
WHILE THE PREFERRED, TRADITIONAL METHOD FOR OFFERING/RECEIVING ADVAITA POINTERS INVOLVES SITTING ONE-ON-ONE WITH A TEACHER, SOME HAVE BEEN ABLE TO COMPLETE THE SEVEN STEPS TO REALIZATION WITH THIS GUIDE:
click FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE (A Seven-Step Journey to Reality)
