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.: A key Advaitin pointer is that “the cause of all is all.” “Psychological processing” is required when there is a need to restore “peace of mind,” but persons fail to understand the real cause(s) of what they take to be the “loss of their peace of mind.”
They will not know that the cause is actually that repository of all learned ignorance which is itself…“the mind.” Thus, the “Catch-22”: just as a polio vaccine cannot treat polio, so the “mind” cannot heal the “mind.”
This is quite contrary to a popular teaching offered by many, so consider: it has been asked, “But Floyd, don’t I have to use my mind to understand your pointers and be free of the mind?”
No. You are not being invited to learn more or to replace what you have learned with new knowledge, which will only add fuel to the fire that is already burning within. What you are being invited to do is to forget, and it is not necessary to use the “mind” to forget. In fact, “forgetting” happens when the “mind” is not being used, yes?
Only by forgetting and then using natural tools—such as instinctive reason and inherent logic—can that which is most unnatural (namely, the “mind”) be disabled. And isn’t that what you are really trying to do? Aren’t you seeking to disable the “mind” that is generating the chatter of a thousand monkeys? Aren’t you seeking to have a “quiet mind”? Well, that is impossible.
There is no such thing as a “quiet mind” and there is no such thing as “peace of mind.” The brain, if not cleansed of all of the content of that part called "the mind," will not be able to function naturally since the unnatural part ("the mind") will be in constant motion. The "mind" will never be “still” on a continuous basis as long as the consciousness is manifested. Natural functioning happens via the brain and the consciousness, never via the "mind."
The Advaitin teacher invites you to cast aside all that you think you know, to forget all of the nonsense and learned ignorance that is the cause of having no “peace of mind,” and to forget, period: forget all those ideas, forget all those concepts, forget all those beliefs. They are false, so forget them.
If you are asked to take out the rancid garbage in order to be rid of its effects, would you conclude that you must first collect far more garbage before you’re willing to be rid of the putrid garbage that you have already accumulated?
You can be rid of your accumulation of rancid ideas and putrid concepts (a.k.a., “the mind”) that are fueling misery and suffering, but the “mind” cannot play any role at all in cleansing the brain of all of the accumulated garbage that has been collected in that region called “the mind.”
Having “forgotten,” You will observe all, but You will observe it without forming opinions and without assigning dualistic labels such as “good” or “bad.” You will see that “It Is” rather than thinking “It is good” or “It is bad.” You will function as the “I Am” rather than as the “I am this” or the “I am that.” “I am wronged” and “I am hurting” will give way to the “I Am” only.
From the level of a child in ignorance or from the level of a mindless deer, You will witness all but You will not be encumbered by the “mind” that is the register of misery and suffering. Then, what is there to “process”? What is there to “process with”?
A woman in Europe has been writing off and on over the past several years about her continuing state of depression because her husband left her for a younger woman. So one man out of seven billion humans on the planet made a comparison and concluded that “Woman ‘B’ is better than Woman ‘A’.”
Now, twenty years later, “Woman ‘A’” is still miserable because of one man’s comparison, because of one man’s opinion about her, because one man (out of billions) ranked two women (out of billions) via the use of his relativistic, dualistic set of “standards.”
Billions of other men may have ranked “Woman ‘A’” as “# 1” in the comparison, but she continues to take one man’s opinion as her truth…as an accurate ranking. Now, an ego-state, because of its accompanying egotism, is miserable at having been ranked “#2” in a contest in which only one person voted. (By the way, he has now left Woman “B” and is on to “Woman “C” and never gives the slightest thought to “A” or to “B.”)
Yet both “A” and “B” are still in a co-dependent relationship with him, allowing his deeds to determine how they feel even though neither he nor “A” nor “B” have had any contact in decades. Talk about “Long Distance Dependency.” So even after twenty years, the site visitor had not processed the misery. And why are misery and suffering her daily companions? Because of “him”? No. He is long gone.
It is because of her “mind.” It is because of her programming, because of her conditioning, and because of her beliefs and her concepts, all of which make up what is called “her mind.” While "he" is gone, that is what remains..."her mind." And she can spend another twenty years trying to “process” her hurt, or she can see that it is the content of her “mind” that is perpetuating her misery and be free.
Her "mind" content includes the distorted “memories” she retains of the way she thinks it was; includes the ego-states that “he” was allowing her to play because he too played a role; includes the ego-states that were "play-able" no more because he stopped playing his counterpart role; and includes the perceived offense being registered by her “mind” via the egotism that still wants to mourn the "loss" of those old, false roles and still wants to condemn him for having ended the play.
If there is no mind, there can be no “loss of peace of mind” or “regaining of peace of mind” or “peace of mind that comes and goes.” There can only be the steady, impartial witnessing and the stability of Pure Witnessing if the content of the “mind” has been discarded.
Should that discarding happen, then the Consciousness will be fully and clearly in touch with ItSelf, and that conscious-energy cannot be disturbed because post-Realization it abides as its natural, non-dual, no mind, no concept, no persona state. 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 THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS “PEACE OF MIND” (There Is Only Peace If You’re Out of Your Mind)
Click FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE (A Seven-Step Journey to Reality)
