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1. FROM A SITE VISITOR: What does it matter if I use the term “God” as long as I know it refers to Brahma or even Brahman?
2. ANOTHER: You mentioned in an e-mail to my friend a vocabulary of realization and an Advaita-style vocabulary of sanity and non-delusion. Explain, please.
3. AND ANOTHER: How can I know if a teacher is Fully Realized?
4. AND ANOTHER: I’v been reading Maharaj over and over and haven’t gotten from him what you evidently did. Any suggestions? What am I missing?
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[Again, many e-mails with questions that are related in one way or another are being addressed in this series.]
Once, when asked directly if he could identify the exact steps required in the process, he did not answer the question.
That was his “style.” He used an approach that allowed seekers to sometimes find “the way” during the one to two weeks he allowed visitors to attend the AM and PM sessions in his loft. Most, he sent on their way with instructions to consider the teachings received. Some reportedly took years after to “get it.”
Why are so many confused when trying to read and understand M. without having their own teacher? As has been noted previously, he addressed seekers in the order in which they came, so there was no rhyme or reason to the order of his talks. One day, he addressed a seeker at the body level; the next, he might address a seeker that was ready to move to the second witnessing level.
The result is that, in the transcripts, contradictory pointers seem to appear, though they were not. They were simply responses made in a level-appropriate manner, so there was no exception to M.’s impeccability of word usage, just a tailoring of each response in light of where the seeker’s words revealed the seeker was located at that moment on “the path.”
Yet what M. never offered was a clear-cut listing of the steps making up the “exact order” in which the “reversing to the source” has to occur. If one can read M. and “get it,” so it is; unfortunately for many seekers who read I AM THAT, they will not grasp the teachings in totality unless they receive additional clarifications.
Most who have come here and who have been taught the exact order of the steps can then re-read many of the pointers offered by other teachers—M. included—and find that they make sense when they did not before. In that regard, this was received last week:
FROM ANOTHER SITE VISITOR: [After reading and re-reading the content of certain books, a visitor wrote the following, some of which is paraphrased for the sake of brevity]:
I find I am, for the first time, due to all of our discussions, understanding pointers read before.
[He listed some of what is being eliminating and some of what is finally being understood]:
…beliefs, since it means something has been named and that brings associated ideas and images with that something, such as “God.”
…the idea that "I" want some permanency, due to memory, but there is none; we are always changing, interacting with the sun and air as vital components.
…memory, since it is ever changing along with everything else
…time, along with memory, is the other big problem I had. I could never enjoy "now" because of bringing up the past or having expectations of the future. "Now" is always lost.
So, I come to the conclusion that the only way to understand something is to view it (read, listen, learn) from multiple sources until you "see" it.
And such is “his” experience. There is no suggestion that the direct path, nisarga approach employed here is the single, “right” way. It is known, however, that persons must either sit in the presence of a teacher or must find the readings that can lead a seeker step-by-step (each taken in the proper order) to Realization.
And to visitor #3 above, consider your question in light of what you just read from another visitor discussing the part that readings played in his efforts to understand the teachings. Some come to this house for retreats and receive the teachings “face-to-face.” Distance and expenses prohibit others, so they can receive the teachings via the writings offered here or via the accompanying materials offered on the book site.
Again, some will be “wired” in a way that they will understand the teachings as presented in the books offered here while others seem to require (or “want?”) something quite different. So it is. Yet understand that your “quest” need not span decades as “floyd’s” did.
Time after time, teacher after teacher, the pointers came that there is a specific route that must be followed, but not one teacher in the hundreds of books that were read ever outlined specifically the steps on the “path.”
The reason FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE and other works are offered is to provide the “road map” to seekers in order that they might Realize now and then go about the relative business of enjoying the freedom that comes with having completed all of the steps in order.
As alluded to earlier, M. said, “…You should go back, reverse, to the source.” He also said, “Follow the same path by which you came.” There is an exact order by which awareness manifested as consciousness and was subjected to a process whereby obstacles were set in place that block the consciousness from knowing ItSelf and from realizing Truth.
It was by that process that specks of energy from the universal pool of energy manifested and came to identify with the false self or selves (that is, with the “ego”), with the body, with “the mind,” and with the personality (and, eventually, with multiple personalities).
To go back, to take the same path in reverse, is the only means by which a shift from body identification to abiding as the original nature can happen. Many teachers can discuss the various phases of the “coming in” and the “going back.” Few actually teach the exact order in which the steps must be followed to reverse to the source.
Find that order if you would Realize Fully. To questioners 3 and 4 above, that is why the understanding has yet to happen and that is why readings are necessary if one cannot sit with a teacher and receive the necessary guidance. Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
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