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
UPCOMING POSTS:
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 are only for those specks of consciousness 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.)
The caloric value of food varies from one particular type of food to another. Different foods contain different amounts of potential energy. By eating and digesting plant food or by eating and digesting things that have eaten plants, the potential energy trapped within any given food’s chemical structure is released.
Prior to conception, what you have called “mother” and “father” ate food that turned into cells, some of which came together via an act of friction. That began a spontaneous, automatic chain of happenings that allowed conscious-energy to manifest as an elemental plant food body-cum-consciousness.
That elemental body which eventually emerged began to circulate air, was soon programmed and conditioned, and finally began a search for freedom in various areas of the one same prison rather then seeing that the prison must be vacated completely.
It is by way of that process described above that consciousness manifests and is transferred to various forms or spaces, but the manifesting (and unmanifesting) is an on-going process, via each body. It is a “daily occurrence.” Just as the consciousness embedded within an acorn knows how to eventually generate a forest, so the consciousness embedded in every space or form knows as well.
But the consciousness is ever-moving, ever-shifting, ever-cycling, ever-manifesting and unmanifesting. Consider for proof the example of those members of the IRA who in the early 1980’s participated in hunger strikes. It was reported at the time that ten of them had “starved themselves to death.” You know differently, yes?
When food was refused for approximately 50+ days, bodies slumped into comas and it was said that “death followed soon after.” That is not what happened. What happened was that the energy trapped within the chemical structure of previously eaten plant food was “time-released.”
The chemicals that sustain the manifestation of consciousness do not fade away in a day in one fell swoop. The energy is “released over time” under typical circumstances. (A bug striking the windshield of a car or a brain being struck by a bullet will allow for a hastened release, but such immediate release is not the typical scenario.)
Maharaj’s comments about a “daily occurrence” referred to the daily consumption of plant food that allows for the replacing of previously manifested consciousness via the body with a renewed supply of the same. Again, consciousness comes and goes, so even that cannot possibly identity YOU.
So, there has been no continuity of consciousness via the space you call “your body.” To be done with that belief is to set the stage for You to be free of any and all sense of continuity associated with the relative, including the manifestation of consciousness. So “what” were You prior to conception? Energy/matter. “What” are YOU post-manifestation? Energy/matter.
“Where” were You prior to manifestation? In that limitless pool of energy/matter from which the consciousness might be pulled into a cycle of manifestation…or not. Next, this consideration was raised in the
Some have asked: Then how can the understanding continue if there is no “mind”? The answer: "Via the consciousness." "But," it is then asked, "if the consciousness is not continuous, how can the understanding continue?" Once Realized, one need not re-Realize each day.
How can that be? The closest that any “continuity” can be said to be is when the Pure, Unblocked Consciousness realizes that it is a temporarily-manifested speck of energy/matter that involves nothing more than a slight interruption in what is otherwise the ever-present, unchanging Awareness.
The Pure Consciousness presently, if understood in light of the above statement, can be considered to be a fraction of a facet of the one continuous unbroken chain of awareness (in fact, the only continuous unbroken “chain”).
Awareness in the Absolute state is awareness which is not aware of. Manifested as “consciousness,” its attribute of conscious-of-ness can happen briefly. Thus, the daily occurrences of consciousness coming and consciousness going do not require restarting the “journey” each day. I have been present for the formation of all universes. Knowing what has happened in totality is evidence of the continuity of Pure Awareness.
Maharaj said that pure awareness is “beyond the subject object nexus.” (It is also, however, beyond not only the subject-object witness nexus but is also beyond the Pure Witness nexus.)
But it is only as the consciousness is manifested and cycling that the awareness of the continuity of pure awareness can happen. The awareness IS and always has been. I know I was present for the formation of all universes even if no consciousness was manifested that knew of those formations at the time.
Yet prior to conception, the awareness without any form or selfness or Selfness could not be aware of its own awareness-ness. The more relevant pointer is this, though: if you would be free of the machinations and movements and fluctuations and chaos of the ever-in-motion consciousness, then unblock that consciousness in order to understand awareness and abide as that/THAT.
Only as that original state can peace happen. Only as that natural state can the ever-changing be transitioned and stability known. Yet even that knowing which results via the consciousness being used in such a fashion will be finite.
Once abidance happens as pure awareness, all desire and supposed sense of need ends. Even the delusions of Am-ness and continuity end, though the manifestation might continue for a period. That is the condition called “bliss.” Bliss can only be known NOW, not “later.”
That natural state is real; this relative state is not. Yet even that Reality cannot be named or labeled or described, but it can be known…for now.
Without awareness there can be no consciousness, yet there is awareness without consciousness. Prior to manifestation, that was the case. Post-manifestation, that is the case.
But even now, during the manifestation, I have transcended consciousness and abide as awareness. Early on, seekers are taught that they are the pure consciousness; at certain points along the path, the pointer is appropriate, but it has no overall validity. In fact, I Am beyond even pure consciousness, and so are You. I am abiding now as My natural, original state. So can You. 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
