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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.
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.
“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)
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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
