Nothing "done" along the way by any "one" was necessary since the do-er and the "one" were imagined anyway. Yes, a trip by plane or car is required if the body called "floyd" would travel from Houston to reach a destination in New York;
however, that analogy does not apply to "the Advaitin, Nisargan path" since the Realization trip is to nowhere except where one already IS. Moreover, it would be crazy for "floyd" to be in New York but to claim that he's still in Houston and that he has a very long journey ahead that is going to require a great deal of action and movement if New York is ever to be reached.
Furthermore, any notion that anything or anyone has been "helped" by doingness is not an observation that could possibly be witnessed by the pure consciousness (which would see that no speck of conscious-energy can be helped or needs any help); instead, such a concept amounts to nothing more than a fiction-based belief, arrived at by an always-misleading "mind." To believe that one can be personally helped or can help another person is all mind-game stuff.
I am a speck of energy. You are a speck of energy. What help could be offered to the electricity that awaits at the kitchen plug? None. What help could it need? None. Yet if you would use the blender to prepare a fruit drink but there are child-protector blocks inserted into the outlets, then the blockages would have to be removed for the energy to function naturally.
The speck called "Teacher" is the block-remover, even as it knows there is no doingness involved. And You must do nothing to see a mirage as a mirage except witness the Truth after the teacher exposes lies to be lies.
Q.: Wonderful! With your indulgence then, let me raise a few more questions that I have not quite “got” (or am I still confused on this practice thing - tendrils of protestant work ethic perhaps…lol).
Agreed – there is no journey – who You are is already the reality. However, to remove the filters of misidentification is practice ever necessary – or is simply hearing the Teachings and being given the View by a Realized teacher all that is required?
The feeling here was that in the initial stages – the backing away from the false – practice is needed. After the first three steps are transitioned – the revealing of truth seems automatic? (So – the practice in the initial 3 steps would be watching the sense “I Am”?)
F.: Relevant question, but there was not anyone then to practice anything and there is no one now to practice anything. There is but the consciousness that speaks and the consciousness that "sees" what was "said." When the Realized say "I," the reference is to the re-purified, unblocked consciousness only. Pronouns such as "I" can point by definition to "a person, place, or thing."
With the Realized, the reference is always to a thing - to a speck of energy - and never to a person. The pronoun is a reference to a small particle of energy, the pronoun used only for the sake of communication but without the slightest consideration given to a body or a mind or a personality.
Yet the question has some relevance to the degree that it can allow further explanation that will allow clearer seeing. The answer to your question is that, first, as noted yesterday, even "watching the sense of 'I Am'" is not a practice. It is the elimination of a practice...the practice of placing false identifiers after the phrase "I am":
"I am a wife;"; "I am a divorcee"; "I am a this or a that." Secondly, the answer is rooted in an understanding of what can and cannot happen as far as consciousness is involved - a distinction that few ever grasp. See that there is no "one" removing filters, just as no "one" is required for a mirage in the desert to seemingly appear and just as no "one" would have to do anything for the mirage to disappear.
Instead, mirages can be seen to seemingly appear and then seemingly vanish, but as You understand, no mirages or illusions or distortions in the relative that seem to appear to come or that seem to appear to go actually come or go.
So the closest that consciousness can come to "doing" something is witnessing, as near a dormant happening as is. The witnessing of the I AM is not a practice, practices requiring a do-er.
Witnessing the I AM is really about being in touch with the sense of beingness, and that is happening automatically and spontaneously anyway…with no do-er involved. Grasp once and for all that a particle of energy cannot practice anything. Energy functions as energy functions, but there is no "decider" making decisions about how that functioning happens.
Outside the window this morning, a squirrel is shaking its tail at a female. A robin is hopping about on the ground, eating seeds. Neither decided to do that this morning. They are not practicing anything.
See that You do not need to improve or to be helped any more than they do. Their life is simple; it is merely happening. Human existence is complicated because the egotism of ego-states convinces the "mind" that persons can make things happen and can make them happen the way persons want things to happen.
The robin will fly away and the squirrel will run away if approached, and both of those happenings will happen without thought and without knowledge. Both are aware that the beingness is, and the beingness would maintain continuity.
That’s one of the distortions of consciousness from the very beginning: there is desire associated with the manifest consciousness, specifically, the desire to be and to be forever (an insane desire in and of itself). Thus, consciousness by its very nature brings desire and distortion and then fear...the fear that what is desired will not happen.
Guess what. It won't! A man attending a retreat last year was trapped in a fear of death because the impure consciousness was driving "him" to desire eternal continuity. The invitation was, "If you fear death so much, go ahead and die now and get it over with."
Die the death of illusion. Let the desire for the impossible end now so You will be free and joyous, now. The "I" / energy is all that will last, but post-manifestation, it will not know that it has lasted, so what's the big deal? There is none, and if there is no big deal for the post-manifestation eternity, what could be a big deal during the limited and short-lived relative? Nothing.
Moreover, consciousness cannot go to a store to buy a book, cannot lift a book, cannot read a book, cannot know anything. All of that is mind and body and persona stuff, and all of the illusions involved with the erroneous idea that someone is "practicing and doing and being helped" is being driven by some persona or group of personas.
[Walk into any religious or spiritual group and notice how many there have adopted the false identity of "The Helper," "The Saviour," "The Rescuer," and "The Knower," all claiming to know what you need to know, all claiming that they can teach you more that you need to know, all trying to re-programmed You rather than de-program You. Pure nonsense. Pure arrogance. Pure delusions of superiority and evidence of "The God Complex Personality Disorder."]
Since the key is in understanding the energy aspect of consciousness, go back to the electricity at the kitchen outlet. To plug in a blender and drop in several kinds of fruit and make a drink, the electrical energy is required, but is the energy a do-er or is it the case that what happens with electrical energy is just happening?
Does the energy have to practice before it functions naturally? Do you have to teach the energy anything? Did the energy have to engage in certain exercises and disciplines in order to finally be able to function naturally?
Blending is happening, but even the blender is not a do-er. The consciousness manifested in a body of power such as a quantity of electricity determines that whatever happens happens, just as the acorn-cum-consciousness determines that a forest might manifest someday; but is there a do-er involved, choosing to build a forest?
If you were asked by a seeker to guide her / him to Realization, and if that seeker said that he / she only wanted a set of exercises to do in order to become Realized, what specific exercises could or would you assign that could bring that about?
(Note: If any exercises "come to mind," that and nothing more is happening: they are coming to "mind." They are not coming to the pure consciousness since nothing can come to the pure consciousness. With the pure, unblocked consciousness, only witnessing can happen.) Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
For more information or to order, click:
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.
To find out more or to purchase the DVD set or the downloadable computer file version of the retreat, click:
DVD or Downloadable computer file versions of the Four-Day Advaita Retreat
Option “A” is for the downloadable file version, Option “B” is used to order the DVD set for delivery inside the U.S., Option “C” for international orders.
For the download, Paypal will send me a notice that payment has been received and then I will send by e-mail the downloading instruction, password, etc.
[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]
Purchase an e-Book now and begin reading it in minutes (except with e-checks that can take 7-10 days). Trusting our clients as we do, all e-Books are provided to you in printable form.
SAVE IF YOU BUY ALL ELEVEN AT ONCE:
(You may order the books one at a time or you may use the following link to acquire the entire 11-e-Book set on sale for $99 if ordered at one time with the “Buy Now” button below. For this option, there will be no download links provided; once the near-instant notice of payment is received from PayPal, your e-Books will be sent to you as e-mail attachments. All are printable for your convenience.)
3. BY ENROLLING in the Online Advaita Classes
For information, visit Information on the Advaita Classes on the Internet
To enroll visit Enroll in the Advaita Internet Course
4. BY ATTENDING an Advaitin retreat for satsang with floyd and being guided through all seven steps. For details of the retreats offered, please visit the retreat information site.
5. BY ARRANGING satsang by telephone in the U.S. or by Skype internationally:
Use the Contact link for details or for information on making arrangements for a session
6. BY ARRANGING for floyd to travel to your location and meet with you or your group. Use the contact link above to discuss details.
