FROM A SITE VISITOR: I am 22 years from
Everywhere i am seeing these mixture of Psedo-Buddhist and psychology or mixture of yoga and Vedanta, which is creating so much confusion in the mind of people. I am not against Yoga, Psychology or buddhism but the way they harmfully get mixed up and presented before people is really making them sorry.
Even being westerners (although I dont have any prejudice towards westerners but sometimes they do not understan the thing properly and misrepresent it), you are presenting Vedanta in an even more important simple way.
Before I started here I looked for religion everywhere like studying with tibetanta lamas in Dharamasala, doing tens of Vippasan retreats, going to Osho ashram in Pune, sitting and talking Krisnamurthy, and all that Thiruannamallai, to Satya saiu baba and Kamakya -to tantra peeth. This includes a lot more of studies of things like Socrates, Pluto, Cant Decartes, Ouspensky, Gurdjeif, Zen, Tao and all that eastern and western Philosophers.
But of all the systems I found that vedanta is the best. I dont mean that others are inferior but Vedanta is explained most exclusively. I do not say I have reached the highest (the moksha if any !!!) but I find myself much at peace.
So I wish these teachings can be given to people in simple words so that they can come out of there misery. This does not actually mean to give lectures but I think something most be done as my contribution, however small it may be.
What can I do that? How can i be of any help to a seeker whose head is on fire like I had been? The most difficult thing is that how can the teachings be spread in a simple way? How can people be protected from psedo-Buddhism and mixture of psychology that is causing so much of confusion in mind of people? all my best wishes and respect to you. It is for people like you that Vyasa writes in his Brahma Sutra "The people beyond our nationality have also experienced that." Abhiram
F.: Hello, Abhiram. First, let me share a consideration about “floyd’s” route, about “your” route, and about the route that so many seekers undertake. An excerpt from The Twice-Stolen Necklace Murders—a companion piece to the duality-based novel The Board of Directors of Wars—might shed light on…
(1) the arduous “path” that many determined seekers often travel; on (2) the fact that so exhausting a search need not be necessary if a seeker crosses the path of a Realized teacher early on and then understands; and on (3) the reason you speak wisely when noting that…
a. most persons will become entrenched in some dogma or ideology and
b. they need not be judged for doing so since they did not choose to do so and since that can serve as the third step of the seven step “journey” to Realization
The Realized will merely witness all of that as it happens.
As for “spreading the Advaita message,” if what You understand is sought, it will be found. You may come to understand that—because Advaitins do not offer their teachings in the organized and public forums that religious and spiritual groups use—few will ever be exposed to the Advaita teachings (which end all teachings and which end all seeking).
That said, the internet is providing a medium for dissemination of the teachings in a way that could never have been imagined, but as you note, there are more non-truths than valid pointers being offered, a fact that applies equally to all religions and philosophies and ideologies as well. That said, even if the consciousness begins an earnest seeking, the truth will seldom be found. So it is.
Now, see (via the excerpt from the novel) how trying that seeking can be. Notice how similar are “floyd’s journey” and “abhiram’s journey” and the “journey” of many persons to the “journey” of Kirk, a character in the novel mentioned above:
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. Then in the end, they always charged him 10% of his total income for the whole sorry treatment. Plus a building-fund-tax and a foreign-missions-surcharge to boot, in spite of the complete ineffectiveness of all their claims to redeem and save. It sounded too much like grocery-shopping, coupon-style, to him: “We’ll redeem. We’ll save you.” Yeah, but will you triple my value on Wednesdays?
Now some might say, “Ah, I see what’s missing. Here’s your problem. You’ve never been to the mountaintop and talked to the man you’ll meet there.” But Kirk would say, “Oh, but I have, wrong sayer.”
Yes, Kirk had even been to the mountaintop, or darn close to it, when he traveled from his home to the airport, flew from Houston to Albuquerque where he rented a car, and drove from there into Santa Fe, New Mexico and up the side of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, all for the promise of getting the chance to spend one hour with a full-blooded Cherokee wise man. Once there, the wise man asked of Kirk, “Tell me what you have done on your search.” Kirk took forty minutes to provide for the chief a detailed cataloguing of all of his spiritual work to date. Then the chief said, “OK. Now tell me all that you have not yet done on your search that you are planning to do.” That took Kirk another twenty minutes,
At the end of that very long session, at the end of a very long journey, Kirk finally fell quiet and looked at the chief. The chief was gazing directly at Kirk, but not into Kirk’s eyes. The gaze from the chief seemed to be penetrating much deeper than the eyes. The look was one of those soul-penetrating stares. Several times, Kirk severed the link, but each time he looked up, the chief was staring him down. Finally, the chief rose, using the two canes now required for him to be able to move his ancient legs. Tottering over Kirk, he looked down, and Kirk knew the words were seconds away, the words that Kirk trusted would be the key. Finally, coming to him would be the key that would open the door, the key that would allow full and final knowingness to manifest. Instead, the chief said, “Well, then, you’re going to be a very busy boy.” And then the old man hobbled away, in a way that told Kirk without the least doubt at all that he would hear nothing more, ever, from the chief. Kirk flashed on all that had been required to arrive in
Only after many years of all that hollowness, with [his religious leaders’] supernatural explanations for things quite natural, did he transition beyond the religious to the spiritual, beyond the spiritual to the mere beingness. He came to see that those he’d had to deal with who were without sin had instead acquired along their way some really destructive virtues. He saw that the more righteous his ex became, the more destructive she became. Rest for Kirk came in not looking for truth but in realizing that it would be enough at that point to merely see the false, to give up the search for meaning as a result of realizing that no meaning is required. Besides, he saw that nothing wants meaning more than ego and that ego is as false as it gets.
So he begrudged no one fixated in a religious stage or a spiritual stage, including the former wife. Either stage can take one all the way to the grave. So be it, was his attitude, for he knew that even more was to be revealed to him as well. When persons are programmed, then wound up and set free, they have no choice. Garbage in; garbage out. Driven. Whether she was calm or volcanic, charming or vicious, he saw that all that poured from her (and from all of the non-Realized) resulted from the triggering of past memories and past conditioning and past programming.
FOR MORE INFORMATION ON TODAY’S POST:
TWO OTHER OFFERINGS ARE AVAILABLE:
More and more seekers are requesting an understanding of how a personality formed in childhood is still determining and controlling everything that is thought or said or done in adulthood. Others have inquired about an opportunity to speak one-on-one about the seven-step “path” to Realization.
Thus, two opportunities are being offered from now until Dec 15th at 50% off:
PERSONALITY TYPING:
Here’s what is included in the package that is available for the next two months (the service available to international visitors but these price being only for the Continental U.S.):
A copy of the personality test (B) Priority mailing of the test (C) Analysis of the test results (D) a one-hour telephone session to discuss the results (E) the cost of the telephone conference. Cost is US$95.
ONE-ON-ONE SATSANG VIA TELE-CONFERENCE
For the next two months, a tele-conference to discuss any aspects of the Advaita teachings one-on-one will be offered. [Rich from the
To arrange either package, >Click ARRANGE PACKAGES provide all of the information requested, and in the message box at the bottom, indicate that you want to make arrangements for the PERSONALITY TYPING or for the ONE-ON-ONE ADVAITA SESSION or both.
