EVEN THE "TRUE SELF" IS NOT FOREVER, Part Four

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.

F.: If the toll of accumulating relative identities were to be calculated objectively, it would be seen that the initial expenses are often financial but that the subsequent costs of maintaining the identities would be far more taxing in terms not only of the exorbitant, financial costs but also the emotional costs, bringing along fears and unmet desires and pain and suffering and misery.

PHENOMENAL IDENTITIES
Maharaj noted that whatever gives you pleasure will also give you pain and that whatever gives you the most pleasure will eventually give you the most pain. For example, among the 50-60% of all who marry and who were certain that it seemed "so right at the time," that perception will end as the typical sequence of role-assumptions among them will play out thusly:

stranger to acquaintance to friend to close friend to girlfriend / boyfriend to lover to fiancé / fiancée to spouse to loving and caring spouse to distant spouse to cold and unavailable spouse to enemy to mortal energy to divorcé / divorcée to ... stranger to acquaintance to friend to ... etc.

NOUMENAL IDENTITY / IDENTITIES
While some will eventually experience the bitter after-taste associated with adopting relative identities, few will ever see the toll of accumulating noumenal identities or a noumenal identity: while claiming a new sense of Oneness and an understanding of the unicity, the result more often than not is a superior sense of separation and a misunderstanding of the way that the relative existence can be enjoyed - on every level - even after the Absolute has been overlaid upon it.

While millions might lay claim to "having it" - to the claim that "I got it!" regarding Realization - Maharaj estimated that, at any given time on the planet, the ranks of the Fully Realized will not number in the millions but will include only a few thousand. [Take his estimate, see the earth's population at the time of his estimate, and you'll find that the total is a four-digit number.]

In the process of accumulating one or more of a variety of identities thought to be in the "new and improved" category, persons adopt all sorts of identifications that are religious or lofty or spiritual but which are really nothing more than newly-assumed ego-states that generate the belief that they are "better than" and "different from" even as their talk deals with the "not two."

The sweetness of the nectar of the nirsaga understanding is contained in the total freedom - and in the subsequent peace and bliss - that comes when the essence of that yoga's offering is consumed, chewed, tasted, swallowed, and completely digested.

At that level of total freedom, one is also freed of the toll of having accumulated (and trying to maintain) the noumenal identity / identities they have assumed. A man, who was considered to have been a spiritual giant by thousands if not hundreds of thousands in his circle, would brag that "God wakes me up each morning at 4 A.M. to tell me what He wants me to know and to share that day."

The response from here was not one of awe (unlike the typical reactions he received from most persons who heard his elevated claim); instead, the suggestion was that he "either tell your god that you're sleeping and to check back in three or four hours" or to "find a god who is less rude."

When it was asked if he was "being awakened by a god" as opposed to the alternate possibility that he was so ill at ease that he could not sleep through the night, the anger that followed seemed far from what most would classify as "spiritual."

In order to maintain that assumed persona of "The Most Spiritual One," he was saddled with a lack of sleep; with spending thousands of dollars on a library of books by big name authors whom he could quote in public speeches; with spending thousands of dollars on spiritual workshops;

with spending tens of thousands on visits to famous gurus and ashrams; with spending time and money to attend retreats conducted by one of his favorite authors who subjected him to energy-depleting sweat lodges on many occasions;

with all of the costs of living unnaturally and supernaturally; and with all of the costs of his spiritual workaholism and the expenses of buying all of the accouterments to go along with his image-building and image-maintenance efforts (including expensive pieces of crystal, a special carpet for meditation, a special metal bowl, a special stick for striking it, and an expensive pillow on which he could rest his holy bowl in its position of honor).

If the naturally-abiding deer could have looked at all of that and then commented, the response would have been, "Whew! You make me tired just hearing about everything that you are doing to try to live supernaturally and unnaturally and spiritually and in a manner that appears to be far more lofty than that of the average person on the planet.

"Man, why can't you relax and take it easy? Walk over here to the cool blue shade and sit down with me for a few moments of nothingness and let me show you how all of this existence can happen spontaneously if it unfolds in an identity-less manner."

But the response would have been, "No thanks. How dare you try to dissuade me from identifying with who I truly am. I have found my noumenal identity, and I shall spend the remainder of this manifestation in the process of displaying it for all to see; in the process of doing all that I can to maintain it;

in my involvement with all of the going and doing and zooming associated with my special identity; and in the task of trying to persuade everyone I meet to mirror me and think as I think, believe what I believe, talk the way I talk, and do all of the spiritual things that I do."

The toll of assuming phenomenal identities is often less than the toll expended by some who think they have found their noumenal identity and are willing to go any length to perpetuate a newly-found image rather than merely relaxing and taking it easy;

rather than stopping on occasion to enjoy the cool, blue shade; rather than living naturally; and rather than spending so much money and time and energy on trying to live unnaturally and supernaturally.

It need not be, yet so it is. Now, imagine how offensive these considerations are to one claiming to be "The Realized One" or "The Spiritual Giant" or some personalized version of "Brahman" or "God" or "The Supreme Self" and who respond to the nisarga invitation with the comment, "You just don't get it, do you?"

Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)