LIVING IN THE MIRROR, Part Four, The Conclusion

An Advaita forum focusing on Realisation, enlightenment, non-duality, Real Love, peace, freedom, Your original nature, abiding naturally, the Oneness, the Noneness, and Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.

Here, there is nothing that is believed, so there is no one here who wants you to believe anything, either. Here, the invitation is to be free of all that you have been programmed, conditioned, acculturated, and domesticated to believe so that you can be free, period.

FROM A SITE VISITOR: A friend mentioned that in a talk on personality you talked about where certain types live but he couldn’t remember it all. He said I’m a Type Three and have a huge ego and that on your list I’m the one who lives in the mirror. Do you have a copy of that I could read? Thanx, Jim

F.: One company where one of "floyd's" contracts involves “staff development”—testing personality types and showing each in private sessions the way that personality drives thoughts and words and deeds and contributes to a dysfunctional workplace—there is time set aside to observe.

In the fitness center provided for staff, those that tested as Type Threes—the ones most likely to be trapped in the Narcissist Personality Disorder—illustrate exactly what it is like to live in the mirror.

While witnessing them "pumping iron," it can be seen how focused they are on their images in the mirrors which cover all of the walls. They watch their muscles expand and ripple as the weight bars are raised and lowered;

certain facial expressions accompany their straining, and they admire their machismo-style looks with a glad heart; they face the mirrors in order to take in the reflection of the “total package” and unabashedly admire what they see…or what they think they are seeing.

They make no effort to cover up their self-admiration. The point is, this in not about Type Threes alone: it is about all among the non-Realized masses who take the image to be real and who have fixated at the first step of the seven-step “journey” from body identification to the Absolute.

Trapped in "The Goldilocks Syndrome," some will believe that the body in the mirror is too hard, and some will conclude that the body in the mirror is too soft. A few will think that the body has yet reached the perfect state but will, nevertheless, develop an egotism-based appreciation for its current condition;

others will think their bodies will never be good enough and will therefore suffer the relative misery of "low self-esteem"; but few will ever agree with Goldilocks that they have found something that is "just right."

Only extreme narcissists believe that to be the case, and when such narcissists meet, “The Dance of Physicality” begins as some use the body to attract the type of partners who will respond to image and looks alone and who will thus satisfy their corporeal desires;

some use the body during the dance as they try to attain either long-term financial security or short-term financial compensation; and some use the body as a means to treat psychological issues around control or esteem.

Certainly, pleasure can be (dare it be said, “should be”?) a most healthy happening during the relative existence, but it never happens among the non-Realized without a host of accompanying complications, extenuating circumstances, self-absorption, and the overriding obstacles of personality-and-mind-involved game-playing.

Thus pointers are offered regarding the body images that are reflected in the mirror or that are projected onto the screen of a theater. The invitation is to know that the images in mirrors are not the Real, that what is being reflected in the mirror or onto the screen is not the Real, and that what is being seen via a reflection is not the Real, either.

All is just part of a play in light, and that is the case with all things relative. Again, go into the bathroom at night, close the door, face the mirror, and turn off the lights. Without any light, there is only an imagining of the way things in the mirror look.

Yet that is the way the relative existence is for non-enlightened persons: they are only imagining—only dreaming, only walking about in a dream state. They see nothing, yet they think they can be certain that they are seeing something and that whatever they think they are seeing and perceiving is being seen and perceived accurately.

If the bathroom light is turned on in the scenario above, the non-Realized will believe that they are seeing something real or that they are, at the very least, seeing a reflection of what is real.

They are mistaken. They may as well see themselves in a photo and imagine that they are the photo. Do you see why all seeing and perceiving in the relative existence is nonsense when it is believed that what is being seen is exactly as it appears?

Nothing in the relative is as it appears, be it that which is reflected in a mirror, be it that which seemingly appears in the mirror, be it that which is projected onto the screen of the “mind,” or be it those who are living in the mirror. Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)

Now you can receive for $40 a downloadable computer file version of the same 7-hour satsang that seekers receive when they visit for the Advaita Retreat with Floyd. You will be guided through the seven steps from identification with the false "I" to the Absolute (and beyond).
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DVD or Downloadable computer file versions of the Four-Day Advaita Retreat

SIX WAYS THAT SEEKERS HAVE REALIZED:

1. BY WATCHING the 4-Disk Video (DVD) Set, or the same retreat available as a downloadable file. Either will provide an entire seven-hour retreat / series of satsang sessions showing three seekers being guided through all seven steps by Floyd and can provide viewers with an “experiential,” step-by-step series of satsang meetings that will move the viewers from identification with the I to abidance as the Absolute and then to abidance as That Which Is beyond

Some seekers are already using the computer file version and the DVD sets for meetings in groups in homes, playing the retreat, pausing for discussion, etc.

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[It is recommended that you watch the video with pen and paper in hand. Write whatever you need clarified. You'll see that there are constant reviews and you might find an answer later in the seven-hour presentation. Then, after you watch it all, there will be a common ground for discussion. Purchase of the DVD’s or the file will include the right to clarifications and answers to your specific questions via e-mail.]

2. BY READING these books in this exact order:
IT'S ALL BULLSHIT (And Why Knowing It Sets You Free)
SPIRITUAL SOBRIETY (Recovering What Religions Lost)
[Those two prepare the seeker to question it all]
THE MEDITATION GUIDES
[Provide a broad overview of the understanding]
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE?
[Begins to free the seeker of body identification and the desire for body continuity]
THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS "PEACE OF MIND" (There Is Only Peace if You're Out of Your Mind)
[Shows the seeker how to be free of the subconscious motivators of the false content of the “mind”]
LIBERATION
[Shows the seeker how to be free of the subconscious motivators of personas]
THE ESSENCE OF THE TEACHINGS
[Provides the final preparation for the seeker to be directed along the “path”]
FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE (A Seven-Step Journey to Reality)
[Directs the seeker along the “path”]
CONSCIOUSNESS/AWARENESS: The Nature of Reality Beyond Self-Realization (Peace Every Day When Abiding as The Absolute)
[Allows the seeker to understand the functioning of the totality, the manifestation, and what is involved with the un-manifestation]
FROM THE ABSOLUTE TO THE NOTHINGNESS
[Provides the seeker the wisdom to understand the Noneness as well as the Oneness]
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