Monday, February 07, 2011

When On the "Journey" Does The "Mind" Finally End? Part Five

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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.

Furthermore, for those who have developed a preference for any non-nisargan yoga or who prefer Traditional Advaita Vedanta, Neo-Advaita, Neo-Vedanta, or Pseudo Advaita: here you will only find the use of the Direct Path Method of teaching along with the Nisarga (Natural) Yoga, all shared in simple, everyday English.

F.: Were you to talk to some seekers that have come for satsang or retreats or who have engaged in Skype or telephone sessions, most would tell you that at some point during the teaching / un-teaching, they have asked, "What was that you just said?" or "I'm taking notes - how did you phrase that last pointer?"

They would also tell you that the reply is always the same: "I don't know." Maharaj was the same. He never honored any request to repeat a pointer the way he had just offered it because he was not there when it first came out. (Likely, only a few will understand that.)

Sometimes, he might explain the point in another way; sometimes, there was no effort to revisit the pointer at all. Some would say, "I thought he - and you - were supposed to so awake, so aware, so conscious. Sounds like you two are the ones who must be talking in your sleep."

Hardly. The case is much like when people say of someone, "She was in a zone" or "He's in the zone." Any talks at that point are not coming from the thinking mind or the working mind or even from the consciousness, which is itself ever in flux ... always tied to the duality and relativity that mark the manifestation.

When a seeker hears a pointer that sets off a resonance or triggers a new understanding, none of the above are involved. Instead, what is involved is one of the other modes of communication referenced in yesterday's post.

Yesterday, the way that a Realized teacher can guide the seeker without any use of a "mind" on the teacher's part - and without the teacher actually talking at all - was shared:

If the seeker follows the "path" in a step-wide fashion, only then might "communicating" happen in a consciousness to thinking mind manner; later, in a consciousness to working mind fashion; then in a consciousness to inner guru / inner resource mode;

later still, in a pure consciousness to unblocked consciousness style; next, in an inner guru / inner resource to inner guru / inner resource mode; and eventually in an awareness to awareness style, after which nothing more need be shared at all.

Meanwhile, understand that there is no "teacher" that is talking. There is no "talker" at all. What can speak is the consciousness functioning as its original nature of awareness (which it can, ironically, only be aware of now);

therefore, awareness - which permeates every state of consciousness - can address the blocked consciousness, the unblocked consciousness, the inner guru / inner resource and can even strike a vestige or trace of awareness that is resting at a sub-consciousness level within the seeker. How can that happen? How can that even be?

Maharaj: "Since it is awareness that makes consciousness possible, there is awareness in every state of consciousness. Therefore the very consciousness of being conscious is already a movement in awareness. Interest in your stream of consciousness takes you to awareness. It is not a new state. It is at once recognised as the original, basic existence, which is life itself, and also Love and joy."

For a seeker to mistake (A) pointers being shared by "the consciousness-cum-awareness" as (B) "words coming from the mind of a teacher" is to mistake what is really just "tably wood" (Waite) as "a wooden table."

And for a seeker to believe that an ever-vacillating "mind" can be used to eventually "create a stable and unwavering mind" is to believe that a submarine can be used to find where eagles nest on the ocean floor and is to believe that caution should be used to watch for elephants flying overhead.

Maharaj said: "How can an unsteady mind make itself steady? Of course it cannot. It is the nature of the mind to roam about. All you can do is to shift the focus of consciousness beyond the mind."

And that is the invitation from the so-called teacher and that is what is required for the seeker to continue the "journey" to the end of the "path."

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

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