An Advaita forum focusing on Realisation, enlightenment, non-duality, Real Love, peace, freedom, Your original nature, abiding naturally, the Oneness, the Nothingness, 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.
There is nothing to practice. To know yourself, be yourself. To be yourself, stop imagining yourself to be this or that. Just be. Let your true nature emerge. Don't disturb your mind with seeking it. – Nisargadatta Maharaj
Desires and fears arise in the mind, like smoke arises from a fire. The problem is not the desires and fears, it is that you claim ownership of them. The moment you claim a desire or fear for your own, you create a false persona. Without the false self, to whom would the desires and fears belong? What happens in the neutrality in which desires and fears are merely observed as they arise without anyone claiming them? Like smoke, they dissipate.
Simply resting in the sense I AM without attributes is the same desireless and fearless location. The moment the I AM is soiled with an attachment, the movement into persona construction and identification takes place. First you construct the false self, and then you identify with it, adorning it with a thousand desires and fears. You have been programmed by society to accept these desires and fears as your own, to nurture them and act on them. You have been told this is who you are. You have been conditioned to create roles and play them out. However, this robotic programming creates bondage and suffering. Here, you are invited to break free of this programming, so you can live and be as you truly are.
When the understanding dawns that while the desires and fears may arise, they are not you and have nothing to do with you, then the ties of bondage are broken. As Maharaj explains: It has nothing to do with effort. Just turn away, look between the thoughts, rather than at the thoughts. When you happen to walk in a crowd, you do not fight every man you meet, you just find your way between. When you fight, you invite a fight. But when you do not resist, you meet no resistance. When you refuse to play the game, you are out of it.
Breaking free of your programming means seeing the false beliefs that keep you bound up in personality identification. However, these false beliefs are deeply instilled in the concept-filled mind and are not easily eliminated. Usually, seekers at the early stages will throw up these types of hackneyed questions:
- I will become a robot.
- What will stop me taking out a gun and shooting everyone?
- What if my family is threatened – surely I must react to the fear that arises to protect them?
- How will I eat and work and support myself without responding to desires and setting goals?
As Floyd explains: you are wise to look at the “standard,” the deer, to test the degree to which natural living is happening in the relative existence. The deer never fails as a model for applying the principles of Nisarga Yoga: the deer lives naturally, does not accumulate, has no identity, engages in no destructive or self-destructive behaviors, avoids conflict whenever possible, follows a minimalist lifestyle, avoids excess in all ways, might have a mate and offspring or might not, adheres strictly to the principle of non-attachment, stays aware and conscious of his surroundings rather than walking about as if asleep, etc.
[For more pointers on how the deer models natural functioning, type “deer” into the Google search bar on the right hand side of the screen. Here is one example: Post on the deer as a model]
Again, the programmed questions listed above occur at the level of personality identification. Natural functioning is spontaneous, and happens effortlessly. Why would the natural functions that support relative life cease? If there is no longer identification with desires and fears, will the heart stop pumping blood? Will the inhalation and exhalation of oxygen cease? Will the movement of love that inspires caring and nurturing come to an end? Will the functions of working productively to sustain life simply stop? Of course not. The questions are superfluous – just reactive thoughts arising from a programmed and concept-filled mind.
Understand once and for all that the roles are not real. The personas are false. The desires and fears do not belong to you but are the products of programming and conditioning. They are like pieces of computer code. You can witness the code, but you do not need to let it run through the machine. From the stance of witnessing, the volatility and reactivity, the drama of the highs and lows of ego-intoxication will lessen and eventually come to an end. It is just a habitual groove or pattern in the mind. When it is not fed or reinforced, the deep furrow evens out. Then in the silence you can allow the teachings to have their effect.
Let’s conclude this series with a quote from Maharaj: The life force [prana] and the mind are operating [of their own accord], but the mind will tempt you to believe that it is "you". Therefore understand always that you are the timeless spaceless witness. And even if the mind tells you that you are the one who is acting, don't believe the mind. [...] The apparatus [mind, body] which is functioning has come upon your original essence, but you are not that apparatus.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
For extending teaching on the Advaitan Understanding – and the removal of the false that obscures Your Real Nature, see the links on the right hand side of this blog. Seekers trapped in personality identification may find an Ennegram reading of assistance. See the option: Understanding Your Personality By Using the Enneagram (scroll through the services offered at The Official Website of Floyd Henderson
Comments / clarifications may be sent to louise.advaita@gmail.com
