FROM A SITE VISITOR: Witnessing the aryan celebration of veterans day here at the livelihood, a defense contractor. A thought arises that there should be a change of livelihood, to something less supportive of war, but the teaching is that there is no duality, no right or wrong livelihood. The work can be done, now, without buying into the culture. Is there clarification?
F.: [Continued from yesterday] As for changing jobs or trying to physically move away from those who “support war,” where would one go on a war-torn planet or in a nation that was born of war-prone invaders and that was suckled on the blood of people that Christopher Columbus characterized as “so docile they will make perfect slaves”?
Interesting (is it not?) that a nation which was founded via the slaughtering of millions of inhabitants, which confined the few survivors to small “reservations” that are still in use today, which treated some humans as chattel to be owned or killed at will, and which has treated its females in a second-class manner throughout its history can so blindly and arrogantly believe that it is the nation that is most qualified to say “God bless America” and believe such a blessing is deserved.
Yet the masses here do truly believe that such blessings are due to all in a nation that early on was wet-nursed by those with a penchant for conflict with—and control over—the masses of the world. The masses, having been convinced that they abide in “the good nation” and “the greatest nation,” truly believe that their nation has the right to bend all “others”—by persuasion or by invasion and force—to model this nation religiously and economically and governmentally.
Has any greater example of duality, of a widespread dualistic belief system that generates unchecked arrogance, been observed on the planet?
So the question is, “Where could one find a job that would not expose her/him to that mentality that is so dominant in a nation that as an infant was weaned off the blood of natives but that has continued to feed throughout its history off a steady diet of destruction that has been cloaked from view with the mantle of false pride and the shroud of unchecked arrogance that justifies and applauds the actions undertaken in Viet Nam, Grenada, El Salvador, Honduras, Iraq, ad infinitum?
You can go nowhere “here” to be free of exposure to persons who have been exposed only to a sanitized version of their own history and only to the programming and conditioning that is the officially-approved version of what they can hear in their homes, in their schools, in their churches, and in speeches from their leaders.
(Some see hope in a possible sea-change happening as millions in the U.S. recently voted for the first president in the nation’s history who seems to show a preference for peace over provocation, who does not add with pride the words “a fighter” after “I am…,” and who seems to prefer calm over chaos. May it be, but even if it happens, it will be an event happening at the end of the swing of a constantly-moving pendulum.)
So considering the history of arrogance and hypocrisy and fighting, who claiming to be sane and peace-loving would live here? In fact, millions claim proudly to live in this country and to be citizens.
But I do not live here, and neither do You. I am not a citizen, and neither are You. I am not an American, and neither are You…
…and those persons living in other nations who call themselves North Americans and Central Americans and South Americans might like to have back their share of the name that has been appropriated from them by the people of one nation among them. Again, that arrogance.
So what to do when trying to negotiate a way around so many sleepwalkers? Stay with the I AM only, and have nothing to do with all of that other “I am this” and “I am that” nonsense of differentiation. If there seems some need to follow the “I am” with a word, let it be…”nothing.”
To know that I am nothing at all in particular—including nothing “special” and nothing “different from”—is to be free of attachment to anything, including misery-causing concepts.
Ultimately, I Am nothing. Who could possibly impact…nothing? Consider the egotism involved with one who says, “I have the ability to impact everything.” I claim the ability to impact…nothing. I claim abidance as…nothing.
There is nothing personal associated with what persons would associate with the label “floyd.” Presently, the alignment here is only with facts, not with concepts such as “better than” or “special”…not with any ego’s efforts to differentiate.
Should a job change happen? Should one even move to another land as did the sniper who was discussed yesterday? In order to escape…what? WHO wants to escape?
Post-Realization, some things change spontaneously. Other times, the same things continue to happen, but without role-playing. [For example, it has been pointed out that “husbanding” can still happen but without any delusions about “being ‘the husband’” and that “teaching can happen without assuming the false identity of “The Teacher” a.k.a. “The Super Teacher,” etc.]
At the last job held, the people were as asleep and blind and programmed as those you work with. A way was found to stay away from their upgrading and downgrading talk most of the time. When witnessing did happen, it happened without comment. Seek not to challenge the babbling for it is considered “holy” to babblers.
Yes, solitude—even at the workplace—can happen, and it can happen without isolating. Know too that it is a personal self that seeks anything, including seeking pleasure and including seeking to avoid inevitable pain.
(During the last year of the manifestation of that speck called “Maharaj,” nothing was put into the body to diminish the pain associated with the body’s cancer; instead, the “externalized” Self merely witnessed the pain.)
You can leave behind a job, but you can’t leave behind a nation of sleepwalkers, a “world” of sleeptalkers. That can only happen via Full Realization. Post-Realization, non-attached witnessing happens for the remainder of the manifestation.
Most do not have a clue about “where” I live, but if they do understand, then they will also understand how totally unimportant any “outer life” is. (Later, they might understand that the “inner life” is fictional as well.) Liberation begins with “externalization,” meaning You step back and observe…and observe purely.
For now, the suggestion is to merely witness…or not. Later, Realize fully and dwell “in”/as Your natural state. That natural state alone is free of all dualistic illusions of differentiation and upgrading and downgrading.
All of that said, this has been observed: in some cases, post-Realization, what happened before to pay the bills can continue; in some cases, it does not. What happened before for entertainment might continue, but it often ends. What happened before that involved role assumption will always end. So it is.
The final Advaitin pointer in the series is this: if abiding as the natural state, there is no regard for what persons think “is” or for what persons think “they are.” The message is only to Realize Your Self as “a droplet in the ocean of consciousness” in order to move to the next level.
Know that and then stand wherever you stand, spontaneously and peacefully.
However, know too that the stand taken here is even beyond that ocean, and that is why (a) the “I AM” and (b) the “neti-neti” are not contradictory. Neither are (c) I AM and (d) THAT contradictory or dualistic. Know “this country” and “this world” as a “creation” by blocked specks of consciousness that you have since adopted as your own concept of “this country” and “this world.” See that and then be free of it all.
Know the void that is infinite, spaceless, timeless, mindless, non-special, non-different, beginningless and endless. Know the prime cause…the essence…and be done with all the rest. Please enter the silence of contemplation.
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