Thursday, May 31, 2012

ANSWERING QUESTIONS RECEIVED, Part Twenty-One

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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 the teachings of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.

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[To new visitors: As with Maharaj, the intent here is not to try to turn seekers into "Super Religious Persons" or "Spiritual Giants." Ultimately, it can be seen that those, too, are just roles. Here, there are two invitations: (1) to use religion or spirituality as nothing more than a plane that can carry You to the Your Destination and (2) an invitation to then exit that plane and abide for the remainder of the manifestation in a Nisarga (natural) fashion, marked by freedom and peace and by enjoying the relative existence fully, relishing all of its available pleasures and bliss rather than merely sitting on the plane for the remainder of the manifestation.]

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FROM A READER IN LONDON: Hello Floyd,

Three of us were sharing a flat in London when a fourth moved in recently to help with expenses. One day I began browsing through a collection of four of your books that was on the nightstand we share and became interested in non-duality. We have began discussing your teachings before bedtime. My friend said that, by the time she had finished reading the collection, what she felt could only be described as a kind of depressurisation and a sense of freedom after seeing how much in our culture really is just so much fictionalised propagandising that has lobotomised an entire nation of people. She left the book here for me to read while she is presently travelling, and I am understanding the seven steps to some degree. My query is in regards to the five stages which she said we would discuss upon her return. What is the difference, please? Might one study the stages rather than the steps or should both be studied? Cheers, and thank you. Kaitlyn

F.: And hello to you, Kaitlyn. Please share with your flatmate upon her return that the use of "depressurisation" and "fictionalised propagandising" are spot on assessments. Well said.

As for steps vs. stages, if you complete the first book in that anthology, you should comprehend the seven steps. Those are specific steps on a "path" that must be completed in their exact order if one is to be free of the "pressurisation" that accompanies the unquestioning acceptance of the "fictionalised propagandising" that is commonplace in all cultures around the globe.

The "Five Stages" are discussed in order to provide an overview for beginners - to encapsulate "the big picture," so to speak - so that they can see what has happened that has blocked the pure consciousness from seeing clearly and what must happen to be free of such blockages. Your flatmate probably heard something which suggested that you might be assisted by seeing that big picture before moving on.

Here is the way the stages are explained:

THE FIVE STAGES

The "Five Stages" offer an overview that shows how persons are programmed and conditioned and acculturated and domesticated and brainwashed (and, yes, near "lobotomised") and shows what is required to be free of the effects of those processes and then reach a condition of Full Realization (which, in turn, allows for AS IF living).

To paraphrase the explanation offered in the non-duality-based fictional novel "The Twice-Stolen Necklace Murders" (available in pdf format at floydhenderson.com or in ebook format for you at amazon.co.uk):

Stage One includes ages 1-20 when person are conditioned, indoctrinated, domesticated, acculturated, brainwashed, and programmed to accumulate ... to get.

Stage Two includes the ages of 20-40 when persons unconsciously do what they were programmed to do, repeating what they were programmed to say, and believing what they were programmed to believe. Stage Two is marked by frenzied efforts to accumulate. Most never transcend that stage.

For those who undertake “the journey” and follow the Advaita “path,” they enter a Third Stage and begin Self-Inquiry. (After dealing with thousands of seekers over the last two decades, it has been noted that those Westerners who reach the understanding are generally around an average age of 42-1/2 when they reach a level of misery and suffering that inspires them to begin to seek earnestly.) Some say, "This life is shallow, hollow, unfulfilling. There must be more. I don’t even know who I am. Who am I'?"

If they find the True Self, they begin to de-accumulate in the Fourth Stage. De-accumulation is the mark of becoming free of the effects of accumulating and personality and programming and conditioning and being acculturated and being domesticated and being brainwashed and being psychologically "lobotomised."

After that, one can enter the Fifth Stage and abide in an AS IF fashion, as if this life were the real; then, they can enjoy whatever remains of the relative existence, free for the first time—free of educational indoctrination, free of spiritual indoctrination, free of religious indoctrination, free of political indoctrination, free of economic indoctrination. Free. Independent. Period.

AS IF living means that the Realized know that this relative existence should be taken as nothing more than an amusement, not as anything that is really serious. Anything offered on this site is posted as a pastime, as an amusement, but never seriously as the Real.

For more information on any of those topics, you may use the search feature at the bottom of this page. Cheers to both you and your eloquent flatmate! Peace, Love, Light.


Please enter the silence of contemplation.

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