FROM A SITE VISITOR: I’ve read some of your books and a lot of your postings. Somewhere along the way, you said belief in a personal god negates the opportunity for The Understanding to manifest. No argument there, but no complete grasping of the point either. how about some further discussion? Thx Robert
F.: In the previous series, it could have been seen via the responses to Robert's inquiry above that all notions involving ego or ego-states or a sense of "a personal being" or belief in "a personal do-er" or a belief in "a personal god" are all illusions…all mis-perceptions based in delusion. So, how to be free of belief in illusions and to see truth instead?
First, most persons will never be freed from foolish beliefs. When intelligence is neutralized via learned ignorance, then even the intelligent will be fools and will most likely remain fools. When ignorance is combined with learned ignorance, the chances for enlightenment are practically nil. So it is.
Secondly, if the intelligent are to be freed of entrapment in learned ignorance, then all beliefs must be forfeited, without exception, yet who wants to discard the beliefs that most persons prize so highly? The fact is, however, that to discard a thousand beliefs but to cling to even one as if it were your ultimate sacred cow will avail you nothing.
Furthermore, to invite one who believes in a personal self and in a personal god to consider the possibility that their beliefs are pure fiction will only reinforce, not diminish, their attachment to their beliefs. The very invitation itself will usually inspire persons to “dig in their heels” and stubbornly defend what they mistakenly take to be "their" beliefs (which are really others’ beliefs that have merely been passed along to them).
An exception might be a young child that is in the earliest stages of programming. A parent might admit that “the Santa Claus story was a lie, and so was the god story.” The child might want to cling to the belief for selfish purposes (to receive gifts or to gain “power”) but if caught early enough in the programming process, the mere reporting of truth might suffice to free the child of its belief in fiction.
Typically, though, once the programming has extended beyond the age of 7 or 8, beliefs will be taken by persons to be a part of what defines them…that identifies “who they are” as much as the labels that they have been assigned or have adopted on their own.
They will cling forever to their conceptual lies, and only a small fraction will ever be free of the hold of beliefs and thereafter Realize Fully. So blind have persons been made by programming, conditioning, domestication, and enculturation that they cannot begin to fathom the veracity of facts when they hear them.
Should they happen to hear the consciousness speak to say, “Every belief you have is a lie,” most persons will close themselves off from the voice of pure consciousness and cling to the blockages that prevent the consciousness that They Are from hearing itSelf or from hearing facts.
They will refuse to so much as consider the possibility offered by the consciousness when it says, “In fact, you have no beliefs. What you have are ‘their’ beliefs, not yours, yet you have adopted them with such conviction and pride that you behave as if those ideas were original to you.”
This pointer was offered yesterday:
to tell one believing in a personal self that there is no such thing is to only reinforce their belief in a personal self. To tell one believing in a personal god that there is no such thing is to only reinforce their belief in a personal god and will incite them to enter into defensive—and often offensive—modes.
The readiness of the seeker has to be there; only then can the teacher begin her/his task. Dennis Waite put it this way: “It is the perennial problem of the teacher to be able to judge where the student currently is in his or her understanding and lead them onwards from there.”
He added, “As ever, in the philosophy of Advaita, the teaching is graded to suit the level of understanding of the student - and it is no use trying to ‘jump levels’ if we have not yet grasped the lower level principles.”
Meaning? Meaning that there are seven steps required to shift from identification with the false "I" to abidance as the Absolute. Meaning that there are three "levels" among seekers and all pointers offered by the teacher must be level appropriate. What is said to one seeker in regards to a topic may differ entirely when addressing the same topic with a different seeker.
Persons at the “wet charcoal” level (which includes the masses) will likely never be able to understand Advaitin pointers (or much of anything else). The teacher will never be able to “fire them up” enough to burn away their learned ignorance.
Those at the “dry charcoal” level include persons who have done some of the work and, with much effort, the teacher might be able to generate a spark of light that can move them closer to The Understanding. For those at the “gunpowder” level, they are very close to Full Realization, being blocked by attachment to only a few remaining concepts.
With the proper pointers offered by a teacher that knows “where they are on the path,” the teacher can often say to those at this third level exactly what is required to trigger an explosion that blows away all of their remaining beliefs and allows them to continue along the “path” in order that Full Realization might happen.
The pointers offered to a recent visitor to the site would not have been offered to those who have not done the level of work that she has obviously completed. Her comments expose the state of the consciousness when the readiness to move to the next level is seemingly in place.
Tomorrow, the specifics of her case will be shared to illustrate what can happen when the teacher sees that one who has been (a) fixated for a time at the third step—the religious / spiritual / personal god step—then (b) contacts a teacher and asks questions as a result of the consciousness awakening to the possibility of “something” beyond that stage.
Visitors to the site tomorrow will see what it is like when the consciousness becomes ready to transcend that phase and continue on with the post-religion, post-spiritual, post-personal god, post-personal self steps of the “journey.”
What about you/You? Have you been fixated at the religious / spiritual / personal god stage? Is the consciousness finally beginning to inspire some questioning? Might the consciousness have reached a level where it is beginning to sense that there might be “something else” to be understood beyond religious dogma and beyond "spiritual principles"? Please enter the silence of contemplation.
