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UPCOMING SERIES:
1. WHEN THE CONSCIOUSNESS SPEAKS VIA SOME OF THE LONGER-TERM VISITORS TO THIS SITE
2. WHY YOU MUST BE EMPTY IF YOU WOULD BE FULL
FROM A SITE VISITOR: Just finished reading the series on doubt. Believing I was farther along the path, but not even sure I’ve passed what you called obstacle one. Any suggestions? Thx.
F.: (First, note that the last two posts in this series today and tomorrow are only for those that have “completed” most of the “journey.” The pointers today are not for novices or for those at the “wet charcoal” or “dry charcoal” stage.)
Yesterday’s “point D” offered the following:
And even among those seekers moving along “the path,” they are deceived by the obstacle of believing in the continuity of a specific speck of consciousness—of a static and singular True Self, of a fixed and unique Pure Witness—assuming that there has been only one uninterrupted manifestation of that certain speck of consciousness that could be pointed to as “You.” Even that is false.
[NOTE: That is likely a pointer that few Advaitin seekers have heard. It will be explained in more detail tomorrow, but talk about removing any "sense of uniqueness" and "special-ness"! Talk about banishing once and for all any credibility given to the concept of "continuity"!]
What a “radical” teaching, yes? One seeker during satsanga protested: “First you take away the body…then you strip away the mind…after which you strip away every identity I’ve ever had. Then I am left with nothing to turn to except the consciousness, to the Pure Witness, to My True Self. Now, surely you are not going to strip away even that!”
Indeed, I am. I give you nothing. I will remove it all. Only then can the Fullness come. Here, you will not be asked to accept anything, to acquire anything, or to learn anything; instead, you will be invited to unlearn it all, to cast it all aside, to be done with it all. To review:
as long as there is food, a body, but not the body, can remain. As long as the body remains but Realization has not happened, then the “mind” too will remain.
If the “mind” remains, this understanding cannot come since the “mind” acts to filter out all that is heard or read that is contrary the learned ignorance stored therein. If the food stops, the body is said by the non-Realized to “die” and then the mind dissolves.
The other option for being rid of the “mind” is to follow the “path” to Realization and to see thereby that the “mind” was nothing more than the storehouse of lies, all of which are to be discarded. The discarding of belief in ideas and concepts and convictions and attitudes automatically brings “the mind” to an end.
Then, the brain and intuition and higher senses and natural instincts function to drive living naturally in place of living unnaturally and in place of efforts to live supernaturally (that is, “magically.”)
The consciousness as energy/matter remains, but not confined within “the body.” Further, the speck that is released today is not the same speck that existed two months earlier. Be done with that false sense of continuity as well.
The body exists because food is transformed…into cells, into usable energy, etc. So the body is made of food, is a plant food body, but it has no continuity. Nor is the witness-consciousness permanent. Some say,
“Yes, I know that the witness shall fade away when the body returns to the universal pool of elements and when the breath returns to the universal pool of air. The consciousness shall return to the universal ocean of energy/matter or to the unmanifested state, to the consciousness-at-rest state, or to the state of awareness, whatever. I see I am not the body or mind or personality, but surely I am that True Self and always have been.”
Not true. This consciousness—this Am-ness, this beingness—is not what I Am. That which I Am is beyond beingness and non-beingness, beyond selfness and Selfness, beyond True Self and Pure Witness, beyond any notion of Infinite Self and non-self and non-Self.
In the end, at the “highest” level of understanding, it is Realized that there is no self or Self and never has been. No more than the energy behind the electrical outlet in a kitchen has “selfness” or “Selfness,” no more than that has any speck of consciousness ever “had” either selfness or Selfness. The terms are just thorns used to remove thorns.
Therefore, there has never been one uninterrupted manifestation of a particular speck of consciousness that could be pointed to as “You.” Even that is false. It has all come and all gone except for a “stored” quantity that can remain for 50+ days or so.
Whatever consciousness is manifested today was not there 50+ days ago. Whatever consciousness is manifested in a body-cum-consciousness now will not be there 50+ days from now. The manifesting and partial unmanifesting is on-going.
For some Self to have existed, even if the supposedly noble term of “True Self” is applied, there would have to have been some continuity of the manifestation of that Self…if only for a few moments or for months or years or infinity. Yet that is not the case.
Or, there would have to been some Self-Identity as the Awareness, or as the Absolute, or…Whatever. Yet that is not the case either. If that were the case, then the awareness would be aware of its Selfness post-manifestation, but the awareness is aware of nothing.
The Real is permanent; the not real is transitory. Consciousness comes and goes and, as Maharaj explained, is actually a “daily occurrence.” Since any daily occurrence is transitory, it cannot be That Which Is Truly Real.
I am beyond beingness and non-beingness, beyond consciousness and non-consciousness, and so are You. I am the Essence, as free of consciousness as the non-Realized are free of consciousness at that point they call “death.” Maharaj said, “Consciousness is intermittent, full of gaps.” It is not continuous.
No matter how far along the “path” you as a seeker have traveled, have you Realized that fact—that the consciousness is intermittent, full of gaps, not continuous? Now, the knowing of that fact will suddenly shatter certain assumptions about having Realized Fully, yes?
This talk of You as a speck is a temporary tool that can be used while guiding a seeker farther along the “path,” but the blinding part of the use of that tool is that persons can come to believe that they are Fully Realized if they assume that they are and always have been and always shall be “a particular speck or quantity of consciousness.”
But they are not that and You are not that. Elevate not the status of the ever-manifesting and unmanifesting consciousness. See that consciousness comes not just at that moment that the non-Realized call “birth.” See that consciousness goes not just at that moment that the non-Realized call “death.”
Via this body that the non-Realized take to be who “floyd is,” trillions and trillions of specks of consciousness have already come and gone. Those quantities of consciousness cycled “in” and cycled “out”; they have come together in a space and have subsequently gone from the space.
Do you understand the implications of that fact in light of the mythical concept of “continuity”? Do you see how many trillions of persons have been controlled over the ages by the dangling of the carrot of continuity by the leaders of the sky cults of Abraham?
Do you see how so much of the insanity on the globe today can be traced to persons whose dogma teaches the continuity of body and mind and personality?
How many would still strap on a bomb vest if they knew nothing awaited? How many would idealize suffering now to earn a reward later if they knew there was no later for their "selves"?
How many would continue to avoid all things pleasurable if they knew that neither reward nor punishment waited? Damn the nonsense. Realize and be done with it all. Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THIS TOPIC:
and
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
