FROM A SITE VISITOR: The way you laid out the advaitan pointers 1-7 was helpful. How about doing the same for those of us new to A.V.? I mean sort of a simple, straight forward
[Continued from yesterday]
F.: So, with that "A-Z" piece possibly providing what you requested for beginners, let this series end with the reminder that all of the doingness is not necessary for Realization. What is required is a teacher who can determine where on the path you are and what pointers are required to shift you to the next step on the “journey.”
Use “Advaita, A-Z” but know that at some point all doingness can end. Consider the pointers in the reading for "day 97." After the reading, consider whether or not you might eventually be free of that workaholism. The reading begins with an excerpt from a non-duality novel as it reviews one seeker's life-long efforts. That excerpt is followed by a consideration.
97
In his energy-consuming search for salvation, he’d been dipped, dunked, sprayed, spayed, sprinkled, and neutered; in the quest for truth, he’d been blessed, cursed, cussed, lectured, scolded, and praised; in his pursuit of Life’s Meaning, he’d been communion’d, Om’d, grape-juiced, wined, ahsram’d, accepted, rejected, Mu’d, and yoga’d; in his chase for service-work-opportunities, he’d been pulverized, martinized, and frappéd; and in the endeavor to attain Life Eternal, he’d been baptized, Buddha’d, New Aged, powwow’d, Far Eastern Indianized, incense’d, sage’d, Tao’d, Peru’d, Tibet’d, washed in the blood, dunked in the waters, and purportedly purified. (pp. 42-43, The Twice-Stolen Necklace Murders)
Consideration: What if Full Realization happened instead to be as close as the “inner guru”? Carbon-dating of human skeletons prove that mankind has walked the earth for millions of years. The question is, how did humans “make it” for millions of years without all of that doingness, without candles and bells, without gongs and incense, without bowing or genuflecting, without tithing or serving, without special books and special robes and special dogma or special, spiritual exercises?
[NOTE: That notion that humans “made it” for millions of years is called into question by fundamentalists at the far right of the reasoning spectrum.Those fundamentalists ignore scientific evidence and believe instead in the “Ussher Chronology”—a system of dating the earth that is based in Bishop James Ussher’s literal reading of the Old Testament during the 17th century. By totaling the years recorded in the “begats” (this person begat that one and he lived this many years, etc.), Ussher concluded that the first day of the “Creation Process as reported in Genesis” occurred at nightfall the day before October 23, 4004 B.C. (using the Julian calendar).
Using that bit of nonsense, modern fundamentalists use Ussher's dating method (a) to determine that the earth is only a little over 6000 years old, (b) to conclude that scientists who speak of evolution and a multi-million-year-old planet are liars, and (c) to conclude that humans and dinosaurs walked the earth together.]
Using the scientific evidence available, however, the question can be asked again: "How did humans make it for millions of years without all of the religious and spiritual and self-improvement methods that are catalogued in the excerpt above?"
What has changed that supposedly requires that modern humans work so hard at their religious or spiritual activities in order to be free and to find peace? Is it possible that finding the answer to that question might be a key to being free of working at being at peace so that one can just be at peace, period? Please enter the silence of contemplation.
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