DOUBT, Part Six

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.

RETREATS OR SATSANG w/ floyd ONE-ON-ONE, by TELEPHONE, by INTERNET CHAT ROOM, and via THE ADVAITA COURSE BY INTERNET (see link to right)
For details click ADVAITA VEDANTA RETREATS & SATSANG
or contact floyd by clicking CONTACT floyd

FROM A SITE VISITOR: First off, thanks for your blog. I thought about some things you write about when I went to see the movie Doubt. I thought about how doubt had to come before I was willing to question anything. Before that, I never had any doubt at all that everything I was told by my preist and my parents was completely true. But I still have a few concepts lurking around back there that need to go. And just when I think they’re all gone, one will show up. Any advice? Please keep up your blogging. Chris

UPDATE FROM CHRIS: I have been tracking the thoughts or concepts that are coming up -- even jotting down a note abvout what they are when they come up and youre right -- there is still a lot of duality to them Things my mom used to say, all the old adages that dad taught us that made me think he was wise when he was really just repeating things he heard, and yes some guilt around what the church taught that I thought I got rid of but haven’t I’ll keep reading the posts Thanx Chris

F.: In that case, consider: among seekers that received religious programming but later hear these Advaitin-based pointers, years can be spent trying to reconcile Christ’s Advaita pointers with the Torah-based pointers which he continued to offer to those at the wet charcoal stage. Therefore, there is something to be understood before moving on any farther.

[UNDERSTANDING THE ADVAITIN TEACHER’S STRATEGY TO AVOID CONFUSION OVER SEEMINGLY CONTRADICTORY POINTERS: Before you move on, understand why these teachings are often so confusing. But first, to clarify for recent visitors and to avoid the bewilderment that comes because of the manner in which the teachings are typically presented by Advaitins, consider the strategy that a teacher will use with different seekers at three “different places on the path”:

wet charcoal: describes the condition of a person being so asleep that it is impossible to light the fire of enlightenment; dry charcoal: those seekers who understand some of the teachings—if they are taught properly, the fire can begin; gunpowder stage: those with much understanding—only a few more pointers are required to set off the spark and then all nonsensical beliefs and concepts will be exploded away and freedom will come.

Years can also be spent trying to reconcile the words shared in the book I AM THAT, or any other book of transcripts from teachers. One day responses would be offered to a seeker at the beginner, wet charcoal level. The next day, a seemingly contradictory pointer would be offered to a seeker farther along the “path.” All very confusing, yes? The same happens with questions submitted here.

One seeker wrote to say that he has gone back to the beginning of the archives and is going to read those from the start to the present. The caution to him is the same: confusion can come if it is not understood that postings are level-appropriate, geared to the level of the seeker. A different answer might be offered the very next day to a different seeker, and that can be confusing if the reader does not understand “level-appropriateness.”

That is why retreats are offered, and why the seven steps are offered in a volume that can guide one through the steps in the exact order in which they must be completed, and why other formats are available for the teachings to be presented in the exact order necessary for the Full Understanding to happen.

E-mails still arrive from seekers at the various levels and are answered on this site with level-appropriate responses that might seem to contradict earlier answers to a seeker farther along the "path."

Too, the later talks by Maharaj really did contradict much of what is shared in I AM THAT. Those later talks were direct and nisarga-based, ignoring all of the literature-based teachings that were so popular in India during the days when he first began offering satsanga in his loft. The call later on from Maharaj was to ignore all “holy” writings and to find what You already know.

But if the courage to doubt and to question manifests, that might lead to freedom from ignorance, programming, conditioning, acculturation, and domestication. That allows for freedom itself to manifest; then, the manifesting of freedom allows the unsteadiness of fear and desire to go and allows a steady peace to come.

Several seekers are currently enrolled in the online Advaita course. Part One includes the reading of SPIRITUAL SOBRIETY and IT’S ALL BULLSHIT. Since they contain a series of relative-oriented propositionalities, what could that have to do with the Advaita understanding?

It is really quite simple. The content is not about attacking the BS in this and other cultures. The content is a challenge that can be used to gauge whether or not the readiness has truly manifested.

The intent is to determine if the seeker is truly ready to forfeit attachment to all of the subjects addressed in those books, including “patriotism,” “accumulation,” “religion,” “nationality,” “respect for the authorities,” and all of the other cows that have been accepted as “sacred” by virtue of acculturation.]

Now, back to the topic of doubt that you raised: the seeker need not begin the “journey” with an agreement that it really is all BS. If she/he can at least accept that most of the examples in those books are BS, then a movement farther along the “path” can commence.

If that test is passed, then the seeker is indeed set to move forward, because the willingness to question, and to eventually question it all, is a prerequisite for moving along the “path” to Full Realization. Thus, to review so far:

a. To move along, you must be willing to question it all, especially the concepts that you accepted only because you considered someone to be an authority or because they instilled in you a desire for something or a fear of something.

b. You must find WHO is concerned with the concepts that are lurking back there. Find which roles the concepts are supporting and find what new personas are being generated by beliefs and ideas and concepts you have been taught.

c. For a time, focus on the I AM only.

d. Over the next days, find the not-YOU’s.

e. Over the next days (or weeks or months) after YOU see all of the not-YOU’s you’ve accepted as identities, try to focus on the YOU. Meanwhile, more explanation will continue. Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THIS TOPIC:

Click IT’S ALL BULLSHIT

Click SPIRITUAL SOBRIETY

Click WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE?

Click THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS “PEACE OF MIND” (There Is Only Peace If You’re Out of Your Mind)

Click LIBERATION

RETREATS OR SATSANG w/ floyd ONE-ON-ONE, by TELEPHONE, by INTERNET CHAT ROOM, and via THE ADVAITA COURSE BY INTERNET (see link to right)
For details click ADVAITA VEDANTA RETREATS & SATSANG
or contact floyd by clicking CONTACT floyd

DOUBT, Part Five

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.

RETREATS OR SATSANG w/ floyd ONE-ON-ONE, by TELEPHONE, by INTERNET CHAT ROOM, and via THE ADVAITA COURSE BY INTERNET (see link to right)
For details click ADVAITA VEDANTA RETREATS & SATSANG
or contact floyd by clicking CONTACT floyd

FROM A SITE VISITOR: First off, thanks for your blog. I thought about some things you write about when I went to see the movie Doubt. I thought about how doubt had to come before I was willing to question anything. Before that, I never had any doubt at all that everything I was told by my preist and my parents was completely true. But I still have a few concepts lurking around back there that need to go. And just when I think they’re all gone, one will show up. Any advice? Please keep up your blogging. Chris

F.: Yesterday, the consideration was offered for you to re-examine the connection between (a) lurking concepts and (b) the degree to which you have (or have not) actually discarded the teaching of what you referred to as “my priest and my parents.” You seem to minimize what you are really up against by referring to “a few” concepts.

How many would that "few" actually be, Chris? Every concept and idea and belief that remains is a thorn that will guarantee mental and emotional and personal discomfort during the relative existence. Here, the task is to offer thorns that can be used to remove all thorns—especially those implanted by priests (or preachers or rabbis or imams) and by parents.

It has been pointed out before that, for all the talk and lip service given to the concept of “humility” by some religious groups, they all actually foster a different from and better than mentality.

Consider therefore what you were up against as you began to try to accept the notion of “equality” and then transcend that dualistic concept and understand the unicity or Oneness as discussed by Advaitins.

If you have been able to totally discard those early teachings about different from and better than, that would be a rare occurrence. If any vestige of those notions remains, then you cannot be at peace.

As long as belief in any concept remains, happenings during the relative will not occur spontaneously but will be driven by whatever lurking concepts remain as a result of the fact that your parents presented you regularly to a priest for conditioning and programming.

You have sought peace and you were told that religion can provide that, but do the facts back up that claim? Yesterday, the pointer was offered that those attached to dogma will seldom question what they are told but will willingly take on those who do challenge their beliefs. Consider a recent example that might provide some objective insight and enough cause for you to doubt the assertion that religion can be your source of peace:

Years ago in Washington state, Christians gained permission to set up a Christian display in the capitol building each December. [Note that the persons who claim that Muslim theocracies are a source of problems in the world really want a theocracy in their own country but a theocracy based in their religion.]

Eventually, the Jewish community petitioned to set up a menorah next to the Christians’ display, and the believers’ lip service given to the promotion of peace loss some of its credibility. The peace would end completely when a court order allowed a group of non-believers to also set up a display in December of 2008.

Next to the Christmas tree and the menorah, a group of atheists set up a sign that stated, “At this season of the Winter Solstice, may reason prevail. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.”

The protesters were interviewed and the tapes were picked up by certain members of the national media whose penchant is to foment righteous indignation and emotional intoxication among the members of their audiences; millions of Christians across the nation became outraged.

Sermons discussing the event (this much ado about nothing) were delivered and further protests sprang up. So much for talk about "tolerance" and "peace." Now that is only one example of the way that groups claiming to be the source of peace are, in actuality, the source of much discontent. Here the invitation is to forfeit all beliefs, but those persons were driven by their concepts and dogma to fight for their beliefs.

So much for love thy neighbor, so much for loving all, so much for equality, so much for the lip service paid to tolerance, and so much for being a source of peace. Do you see, Chris, that such conditioning typically drives thoughts and words and behavior from a subconscious level?

Do you see that conditioning is what you were up against when you began to doubt, as you questioned, as you tried to reach a new understanding? Is it possible that you are still up against the belief in some lingering concepts taught by a priest and by parents?

It is guaranteed that those lurking concepts are dualistic and that they are linked in some fashion to early conditioning and programming and current personas that have been adopted as well as to the subconscious personality types that developed early on but that you are not even aware of.

Doubting alone will not free you of the thorns. Questioning alone will not free you of thorns. Yes, Maharaj taught that doubting was essential at some point, but seekers must also see that doubting itself can become an obstacle when it delays movement along the “path.”

Because those programmed to have faith face far more obstacles to being in touch with Reality, Maharaj invited persons to doubt their faith. That same invitation is extended here. Does that mean that the consciousness speaking via this site can also be doubted? Definitely.

The invitation is ultimately to tap into that inner resource, that inner guru, and find the truth that cannot be stated but that can be known. Has a teacher always been required to provide guidance along the “path”? No. There was a time prior to the present situation in which learned ignorance is so widespread that one could tap into that inner resource and know.

Now, the obstacles of programming and conditioning and dogma and thinking are so prevalent that their removal usually requires guidance via the consciousness that speaks and that is known as “an Advaitin teacher.” Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THIS TOPIC:

Click IT’S ALL BULLSHIT

and

Click SPIRITUAL SOBRIETY

and

Click WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE?

and

Click THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS “PEACE OF MIND” (There Is Only Peace If You’re Out of Your Mind)

and

Click LIBERATION

RETREATS OR SATSANG w/ floyd ONE-ON-ONE, by TELEPHONE, by INTERNET CHAT ROOM, and via THE ADVAITA COURSE BY INTERNET (see link to right)
For details click ADVAITA VEDANTA RETREATS & SATSANG
or contact floyd by clicking CONTACT floyd

DOUBT, Part Four

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.

RETREATS OR SATSANG w/ floyd ONE-ON-ONE, by TELEPHONE, by INTERNET CHAT ROOM, and via THE ADVAITA COURSE BY INTERNET (see link to right)
For details click ADVAITA VEDANTA RETREATS & SATSANG
or contact floyd by clicking CONTACT floyd

FROM A SITE VISITOR: First off, thanks for your blog. I thought about some things you write about when I went to see the movie Doubt. I thought about how doubt had to come before I was willing to question anything. Before that, I never had any doubt at all that everything I was told by my preist and my parents was completely true. But I still have a few concepts lurking around back there that need to go. And just when I think they’re all gone, one will show up. Any advice? Please keep up your blogging. Chris

F.: Yesterday’s post ended with this pointer from the book FROM THE ABSOLUTE TO THE NOTHINGNESS:

Persons are so sure of all they believe. After being challenged to question it all and not being so sure, they nevertheless return to that state of being certain at the third step on the “path” after assuming religious or spiritual roles.

Many at that point think that they have found the “Advaita Understanding.” They have not. They have substituted one egotism-generating persona for others and have substituted several egotism-generating belief systems for another. They are mistaking the dawn for high noon.

The fact that you even mentioned “parents” and a “priest” likely suggests that some lingering effects from those three remain. As a result of their influence, there was a time (you admit) when you were so sure. You now report that doubt has come, but are you yet totally convinced that everything they told you was fiction…is fiction?

Has contradictory empirical data convinced you that it was all misleading nonsense? The fact that early on you were under their control and influence calls for this reminder: the sway of early programming and conditioning, especially by parents and by those among the clergy, can seldom be overstated.

The question for you is, are there yet vestiges of their early programming and conditioning? Are those the roots of the “lurking concepts”? Advaitin Douwe Tiemersma said in 1981 in the “Foreword” to I AM THAT:

There are various religions [that all] suffer from certain inherent limitations. They couch into fine-sounding words their traditional beliefs and ideologies, theological or philosophical. Believers, however, discover the limited range of meaning and applicability of these words, sooner or later. They get disillusioned and tend to abandon the systems, in the same way as scientific theories are abandoned, when they are called in question by too much contradictory empirical data.

Of course the times they are a-changin’, yes? In 1981, after the “rebellious ‘70’s,” Tiemersma’s point might have been accurate in suggesting that “believers…discover the limited range of meaning and applicability of these words, sooner or later and…get disillusioned and tend to abandon the systems.”

Now, with 6.5 billion “believers” on the planet, and with fundamentalism as well as radical fundamentalism dominating the major religions on the planet, and with so many pre-wired by personality to go along with and never rebel, then the voices of those calling for doubt or study or careful consideration or outright challenging of nonsensical, myth-based teachings are seldom heard.

And if they are heard, the words are dismissed not as having come via the pure consciousness but as having originated from some “dangerous atheist” or as “infidel deserving to die” or “an agent of satan.”

Those attached to dogma will seldom question what they are told but will willingly take on those who do challenge their beliefs. The few persons on the planet that are pre-wired to question (as mentioned earlier, about ½ of 1% of the general population), are often the targets of the wrath of “the faithful.”

This space called “floyd” at the age of six was flogged by a parent for asking in church Sunday school why it was bad for Hitler to kill some of the people on earth but okay for God to kill almost everyone on earth with a flood;

was flogged at eight when he asked a Sunday School teacher, “If there was Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel, and if Cain killed Abel, then who did Abel make babies with?”;

was flogged again at ten when he asked from the viewpoint of “Floyd the Son” why the best plan that god could come up with for “saving everybody” involved not saving his son but setting him up to be killed to save other people.

As in those cases, much of the nonsense that children hear is often questioned or at least found to be perplexing (such as “Thou shall not kill but it’s fine if god does”); however, the threat of punishment for lacking faith, combined with the promise of a reward for having faith, soon ends all questioning and doubt.

Furthermore, even when doubting and questioning become a part of the “journey,” delays can happen if there is piecemeal challenging of one insane concept at time. So many years can be consumed by that dismiss-one-insane-idea-at-time approach before realizing it’s all B.S and thereafter being done with it all, once and for all.

Understand that this “journey of doubt” that can trigger movement along the “path” to Full Realization is not one that the masses on this planet will welcome. Advaitins usually advise, “Keep it to yourself unless you are asked.”

Typically, there will be little tolerance for Advaitin pointers. Once Christ stopped sharing the Torah-based message and began to offer Advaitin pointers, tolerance for that speck certainly vanished. Even trying to discuss certain of these pointers will result in your being summarily dismissed by most Christians:

“When you speak of me, speak of me as I AM.”

“Before Abraham was, I AM.”

“No one shall ever see the kingdom of heaven; it is within.”

“Heaven and earth shall fade away.”

“I come not in peace; I come with a sword.”

“I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.” [All of that referring, of course, not to individuals but to personas.]

Are those pointers understood? Do you see how much of the confusion involving Christian dogma that you were taught by your "priest" could be eliminated if persons were offered those "gunpowder stage," Advaita-based pointers? Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THIS TOPIC:

Click IT’S ALL BULLSHIT

and

Click SPIRITUAL SOBRIETY

and

Click WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE?

and

Click THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS “PEACE OF MIND” (There Is Only Peace If You’re Out of Your Mind)

and

Click LIBERATION

RETREATS OR SATSANG w/ floyd ONE-ON-ONE, by TELEPHONE, by INTERNET CHAT ROOM, and via THE ADVAITA COURSE BY INTERNET (see link to right)
For details click ADVAITA VEDANTA RETREATS & SATSANG
or contact floyd by clicking CONTACT floyd

DOUBT, Part Three

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.

RETREATS OR SATSANG w/ floyd ONE-ON-ONE, by TELEPHONE, by INTERNET CHAT ROOM, and via THE ADVAITA COURSE BY INTERNET (see link to right)
For details click ADVAITA VEDANTA RETREATS & SATSANG
or contact floyd by clicking CONTACT floyd

FROM A SITE VISITOR: [Received several weeks ago]: First off, thanks for your blog. I thought about some things you write about when I went to see the movie Doubt. I thought about how doubt had to come before I was willing to question anything. Before that, I never had any doubt at all that everything I was told by my preist and my parents was completely true. But I still have a few concepts lurking around back there that need to go. And just when I think they’re all gone, one will show up. Any advice? Please keep up your blogging. Chris

F.: It was seen yesterday that it matters not if the “mind” or a culture tells a person that she/he is important or impotent…a king or a beggar. All identities are false as are all of the concepts that are stored in the fiction-based “mind.”

Whether considered by self or by other persons to be powerful or powerless, the end fate of the body is guaranteed to be the same. Either (1) Realization will be that which flattens the imaginary hierarchies that are generated by ego-states and egotism or (2) bacteria inside the body will ultimately level all which cultures and persons arrange according to their relative pecking orders.

In an exchange with ginny yesterday on that subject, it was shared that understanding the eventual bacteria-controlled outcome awaiting all bodies should reset the ego to neutral, at least until the very last assumed ego-state dissolves.

Today, this second pointer from an earlier post will be discussed:

B. To continue the search might require “an understanding of what the relative results would be if The Understanding were to come, including independence, freedom, peace, and a relative existence marked by lightness rather than darkness and heaviness.”

Your e-mail is describing a seeker who has removed many obstacles that were blocking the pure consciousness, yet abidance is still continuing as the consciousness rather than as the Absolute. As long as abidance happens as the ever-moving consciousness, then peace cannot come.

The fixation in the no-concept, non-dual Reality that you seek can only come when abidance happens as Your natural state and Your original nature. Even the ever-in-motion consciousness must be transcended; then, abidance will happen as if already abiding "in" that which is an ocean of awareness without awareness of.

Suppose for a moment that you own a home in a bustling, noisy city but enjoy spending the weekends in a getaway cabin in a quiet, secluded forest. In that analogy, you have moved far enough along the “path” that you are only spending a few days a week in the city but spending the majority of each week in the cabin.

What you are seeking is to move permanently to the cabin and enjoy the peace and quiet of that locale. Such is the difference in visiting the Absolute while continuing to abide as the ever-in-motion consciousness. That will assure that those "lurking concepts" you would be free of will remain instead.

In the West, these matters are seldom discussed. Even in the East, many speak so highly of the consciousness that it is prized. Is it not the case that all non-Realized persons are attached to their belief in the possibility of eternal continuity for the consciousness?

When teachers speak of the consciousness as if it were the be-all and end-all, then the seekers who accept that teaching will always be in the state of flux you describe—maybe not living with all of the fluctuations and chaos of the non-Realized but nevertheless moving here and there, touching the Reality of THAT at times but still overly-involved with, and attached to, the I-Amness as well.

To fixate and be done with those "lurking concepts" that remain, abidance must happen as the original state, as Your original nature. Only by abiding as that state can independence, freedom, peace, and lightness be known; and ironically, it cannot be known post-manifestation but can only be known NOW.

What is the relative existence like when the Full Understanding manifests? It becomes an existence that is free of all of the troublesome things and persons that make the relative existence troublesome for most. You are freed of belief in any concepts.

Would you be free of the lingering effects of abandonment? Would you be free of the effects of words spoken that could make a persona feel as if it has been torn to shreds? Would you be free of the misery and suffering that accompanies a sense of “loss”?

Fixated as Your original nature, not only will there be no “Abandoner” there; neither will the one who spoke such bothersome words be there; neither will the one be there who took away what you once cherished.

And how is this for a piece of news: the one who has been the most troublesome of all to you throughout your relative existence—namely, you—will not be there either. Be done with it all; be done with “them” all. It is the unloading of all of that and then abiding as THAT, which bring about the lightness.

Talk of peace! Talk of freedom! Yet what will try to “pull you back” to the realm of concepts and away from the peaceful state of total freedom? Exactly that which prevents most from ever questioning their learned ignorance in the first place. Consider the pointer offered in this excerpt from the book FROM THE ABSOLUTE TO THE NOTHINGNESS:

Persons are so sure of all they believe. After being challenged to question it all and not being so sure, they nevertheless return to that state of being certain at the third step on the “path” after assuming religious or spiritual roles.

Many at that point think that they have found the “Advaita Understanding.” They have not. They have substituted one egotism-generating persona for others and have substituted several egotism-generating belief systems for another. They are mistaking the dawn for high noon.

Revisit the blocks that prevent any person from fixating as the original, natural state if you would gain insight into what you are up against as certain "lurking concepts" yet remain. Find which ego-states are involved with those concepts and then question the reality of not only those egos but also the concepts that are supporting them as well. Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THIS TOPIC:

Click IT’S ALL BULLSHIT

Click SPIRITUAL SOBRIETY

Click WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE?

Click THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS “PEACE OF MIND” (There Is Only Peace If You’re Out of Your Mind)

Click LIBERATION

RETREATS OR SATSANG w/ floyd ONE-ON-ONE, by TELEPHONE, by INTERNET CHAT ROOM, and via THE ADVAITA COURSE BY INTERNET (see link to right)

For details click ADVAITA VEDANTA RETREATS & SATSANG
or contact floyd by clicking CONTACT floyd

DOUBT, Part Two

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.

RETREATS OR SATSANG w/ floyd ONE-ON-ONE, by TELEPHONE, by INTERNET CHAT ROOM, and via THE ADVAITA COURSE BY INTERNET (see link to right)
For details click ADVAITA VEDANTA RETREATS & SATSANG
or contact floyd by clicking CONTACT floyd

FROM A SITE VISITOR: [Received several weeks ago]: First off, thanks for your blog. I thought about some things you write about when I went to see the movie Doubt. I thought about how doubt had to come before I was willing to question anything. Before that, I never had any doubt at all that everything I was told by my preist and my parents was completely true. But I still have a few concepts lurking around back there that need to go. And just when I think they’re all gone, one will show up. Any advice? Please keep up your blogging. Chris

F.: Here, the invitation is not as much to begin by doubting as to begin by being willing to question, to investigate, to scrutinize, to examine, and to inspect. Further discussion of two pointers offered yesterday might provide an opportunity for further objective and impartial and rational scrutiny of the concepts “they” taught you:

A. When concepts arise, “YOU are not involved.”

If you followed the last series, you saw three persons trapped in personas. One was so miserable and in such a state of suffering that he had contemplated suicide. You saw two others cases where persons—one trapped in a “Husband” role and the other in the “Ex-Girlfriend” role—committed murder and then suicide. That is what can happen when "concepts are lurking around back there."

By contrast, this is one example of what it can be like when personas are no longer imagined to be real: some would say that someone left “floyd” and he was divorced and became "An Ex," but they do not perceive ME or they would know that is not true.

I am free and independent—not engaged in any lingering co-dependence—with anyone or anything. Energy is not capable of such entanglements and alliances. One can make all sorts of claims about "floyd" and "marriage" and "divorce," but I have no “ex-Wife.” I have never been abandoned.

(Does it require being "out of touch with Reality" to reach that understanding? No, it requires being fully in touch with Reality to reach that understanding.)

Understand: I cannot be “divorced” since I was never married. Whatever various religious and legal documents might suggest to the contrary—and whatever certain men in robes might report to the contrary—none of those relative happenings had anything to do with ME. So much for ME. What of "her"?

Some look at “her” and swear she’s a real person; in fact, she is a totally-blocked speck of consciousness and nothing more. Hundreds will claim they know her and that she is real, but they perceive only one of several images:

the image she shows them…the image they assume is real…the image she has of herself that she displays for the public. It’s all a mirage, and I could not possibly have been married to a mirage. A mirage could not have left ME and a mirage cannot harm ME and a mirage cannot cause ME the slightest discomfort.

Can YOU comprehend the level of freedom and peace that comes when YOU or I abide “in” the natural, original state where there is no “Ex,” no priests, no enemies, no religions, no non-spiritual persons, no really-spiritual persons, no former friends, and no former lovers? How peaceful and free it is to dwell in that natural state.

And no role ever played by “chris” had anything to do with YOU either. Furthermore, that body which is called “Chris” by most is really nothing more than a group of elements that have come together. Once those elements are no longer grouped as such, they will be ash if cremated or they will begin the decaying process (unless that Christian-embalming-to-preserve-the-body-process happens).

Maharaj said that one day scientific facts would be available to support every one of these ancient teachings. So look at the science: even before what persons call “death,” there are what persons call “friendly bacteria” inside each body, aiding with the digestive process.

Those bacteria feed on the contents of the intestines, but when persons “die” and food is no longer consumed and discharged into the intestines, then persons will consider the “good bacteria” to be “bad bacteria” because they begin feeding on the intestines itself.

The natural process for millions of years, in the absence of cremation or embalming, has been this: bacteria consumes every body, including the bodies of those considered to be “A King” or “A Beggar”; “A Good Man” or “A Bad Man”; “A Spouse” or “An Ex”; “A Saint” or “A Whore”; “A Wonderful Man” or “A Total Ass.” Wherefore attachment to rank? To station? To identities?

Wherefore differentiation? Wherefore uniqueness? Wherefore status? Wherefore hierarchies? Wherefore pride? All which comes together in the relative shall come apart in the relative. Attach not.

Science also makes clear that, once the intestines are consumed, the bacteria will begin to feed on other internal organs. Enzymes will spread throughout the body, hastening the decomposition process. Seeing what this science reports can automatically eliminate belief in the hundreds and hundreds of concepts that are based in delusions about the body, including:

“birth,” “life,” “death,” “everlasting,” “good,” “bad,” “reward,” “punishment,” “heaven,” “hell,” "eternal pain," "eternal bliss," "An Infinite Self," "Ageless Body, Timeless Mind," "knowing God and being with God," ad infinitum.

Then you can see that (1) nothing in what is called “this life” or “this world” has anything to do with YOU but has only to do, if not Realized, with personas and a temporary body and a temporary “mind”; and see that (2) nothing dealing with what is called “death” has anything to do with YOU either.

See that bacteria will equalize all post-manifestation, and see that Realization “equalizes” all during the manifestation: one route “in”; a manifestation; one route “out”; and much ado about nothing in between. See that and be free.

Since you mentioned your “priest,” here is an additional consideration: if you were taught “ashes-to-ashes and dust-to-dust” and know that the body is temporary and will end, but if you are still in fear because you were also told that your soul would survive and could be rewarded or punished, where is that soul now? Point to it on an x-ray. Have a doctor open you up and expose it.

Next, even if the body decomposes, if that soul supposedly remains, then it must be present now if it is to “remain.” But it cannot be shown to you because it does not exist. Do you want to call it “the conscious-energy”? Do so, but energy can feel no pain. It can only be aware of pain if manifested via something with a system of nerves.

If “they” told you that the body would resurrect and could be burned painfully and eternally without end, then they contradicted their “ashes-to-ashes talk.” But how could a body resurrect if it is known for a fact that within days or months it has been consumed totally by bacteria and remains as a human body no more (again, cremation and embalming notwithstanding)?

Thus, what could possibly be burned in a supposedly eternal flame (a concept used to threaten you and to try to control you)? Not a soul. Not a body that is no more.

Conversely, what is going to sing and praise some god or gods forever? What is going to know bliss post-manifestation? The answer from any logical, reasonable person must be “no one and no thing.” But persons are never logical or reasonable. They are programmed and conditioned with “knowledge,” and the knowledge they claim to possess is just learned ignorance and nothing more.

I tell YOU that no concepts lurking around back there have the slightest thing to do with YOU. YOU were not born, YOU shall not die. YOU shall not resurrect and YOU shall not be rewarded nor punished eternally. Know the YOU and eventually any lurking concepts about the not-YOU will dissolve.

The YOU that “was and is and shall be” is nothing more than a speck of energy, capable of conscious-of-ness if manifested, conscious of nothing once unmanifested. Forget selfness or Selfness now. Forget selfness or Selfness later. Ahhhh…peace.

To attain that peace now, then all of the learned ignorance they taught you must be subjected to intense questioning, then doubted, then discarded; otherwise, each remaining concept that you cling to will still form a mental-emotional prison. In prison, you cannot be free, and not free, you cannot be at peace.

Once everything that you have been taught to the contrary is questioned and once YOU see that every scientific fact regarding the body discounts all of “their” magical tales and their pervasive ignorance about “the body, post-death,” then understand how easy it will become to reject all of “their” other nonsense that is lurking around back there.

The next pointer from yesterday will be treated tomorrow: Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THIS TOPIC:

Click IT’S ALL BULLSHIT

and

Click SPIRITUAL SOBRIETY

and

Click WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE?

and

Click THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS “PEACE OF MIND” (There Is Only Peace If You’re Out of Your Mind)

and

Click LIBERATION

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