A DAILY CONSIDERATION FOR YOU
F.: It has been shared that, here, the “journey” was long and arduous. Why? Because like most, I was the one in charge of laying out the map for a journey that I had never traveled. I had no idea “where” I was or “where” I was supposed to get to.
Along the way, I fell time and again into what Maharaj called the trap of the “Big Name Teachers.” He warned his visitors to stay the heck away from them. Why?
It is clear now that they use the 5th of the 5 teaching methods for non-duality, namely, “Pseudo Advaita.” That involves taking certain non-dual “Noumenal” pointers but then bastardizing the message by adding popular phenomenal concepts and elements in order to give their talks “mass appeal” (which is actually, “mess appeal”). The strategy: Pull them in by mentioning non-duality, load up the message what they really want - power, success, control, great meaning, affirmation - and then collect the money.
As was the case here, most are running their quest as if they were a metal ball trapped inside a pinball machine, going first here, being kicked back there, flying off in another direction, being thrown back until hitting something else that set them on a different course, and being tossed helter-skelter all over the place.
In the past, the comparison offered involved a car that I received one holiday. It was a small wind-up car that ran in a straight line until it ran into something; then, it backed up a foot, turned ninety degrees, and then ran until it hit something else, at which point it would repeat the process. That is the way the "journey" for most unfolds.
It was finally seen here that, if one would go on a “journey,” and wanted to get to the destination as promptly and as easily as possible, that taking a direct path made sense.
If one happened to be in Los Angeles, California and wanted to travel to New York as promptly and as easily as possible, it would make no sense at all to leave Los Angeles, then drive to Idaho, then to Arizona, then to Wyoming, then to Texas, then to North Dakota, then to Oklahoma, then to Minnesota, then to Louisiana, then to Wisconsin, then to Alabama, then to Michigan, then to Georgia, and then finally to New York. Along the way, the direct path would be crossed – and ignored – over a dozen times, and in the process, a very simple journey would unnecessarily turn into a “long and arduous trip.”
Yet if one has no map, and is trying to make the trip without a guide that knows the way, a long and arduous trip is guaranteed.
If you have been seeking earnestly, look back over your “journey” so far and write down all of the diversionary paths you have taken. If you are honest, you’ll see that the process was totally helter-skelter, totally disorganized, totally haphazard, totally pell-mell, and, likely, totally hurried. Seeking - go-do-zoom style. Spiritual workaholism at its worst.
If all of your seeking would inspire any objective witness to shake her or his head in amazement, then that has all been useless seeking. And if one looked back honestly and objectively at the path followed so far, the appraisal would be, “I didn’t have a clue what I was doing, running about like a chicken with its head cut off. It has all been totally nuts.”
Yet most seekers never “get that.” Why? Because the role of “The Super Seeker” has as powerful a grip on a person as the roles of “The Super Muslim,” “The Super Christian,” “The Super Lover,” or “The Super Spouse.” All, including “The Super Seeker,” can generate such levels of fanaticism that self-destructive behaviors can be normalized.
And who wants to admit that all of their efforts had been in vain? The egotism which supports every ego-state will fight that at every turn.
Furthermore, it is nothing more than a combination of ignorance and denial and egotism that claims, "Well, I had to do everything I did."
The response: "No, you did not. All that you did was harmful (relatively speaking) to far too many people and to yourself, and none of that had anything to do with the 'journey' to understanding Wholeness and Oneness and to attaining Mental and Emotional Health, all of which you still fail to grasp." Yet who wants to hear that truth?
Here, when the truth about where one actually in on the “path” (as opposed to where they think they are, which is typically three steps further along than they really are), then this applies: “The truth will set you free, but it’s going to piss you off first.” The “you” there is the conglomeration of false you’s that have been assigned or assumed as identities.
Moreover, who would welcome an employer who accepts the report that you hand in with pride after working on it for a week and who then hands it back to you saying, “This is a total waste of company time and resources . . . completely useless. Throw it away and start over from scratch.”
There is a saying among litigators: “A man who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client.” The same applies with the process of Realizing because the process is one whereby one comes to see how ignorant one’s beliefs are; whereby one comes to see how insane one’s thoughts and actions are;
whereby one inventories objectively all of the nonsense that has been passed on and stored in “the mind” and is now viewed as something of great value rather than something that should have been tossed out with all of the other garbage that can accumulate;
whereby one sees that programming and conditioning and acculturation and domestication and indoctrination and brainwashing did not result in a being “who is really a pretty nice guy, overall, Floyd” or “a pretty clever, quite savvy woman, mate”; and whereby one sees that phony, dreamed-up, (and, therefore, frustrating) unmet “needs” and unmet desires are personality-generated and based in delusion and illusions.
Who can miraculously know what he or she does not yet know? No one.
From the long and arduous “journey” here, it can be seen that another problem that almost all seekers encounter involves guidance . . . or a lack thereof:
1. Again, the one who would try to guide himself or herself to the peak of a mountain that millions have failed to reach is behaving like a fool.
2. The one who tries to climb that mountain with scores of guides who are all pointing out different ways to proceed is behaving like a fool.
3. And the one that continues to allow the same guide to direct him or her along the path to the peak - though that guide has failed to get anyone to the peak after following that guide for ten or twenty or thirty years - is behaving like a fool.
After a woman heard recently that a specific, step-wise process of Realizing is offered here, she wrote to say, “Since I am on my own and not guided I want to make sure I haven’t missed any steps.”
While that is short of what needs to be seen, it might set up the possibility of moving in the proper direction. What would not have been short? This:
“On my own, I have sought for decades but can only now admit that I have not found at all what I was seeking. The reason those efforts were all in vain, I see now, is because I was not being guided. I understand this much, at least: I am sure that I have missed many steps. I am tired. Very tired. I am now ready.”
Whether the cause is trying to self-guide, listening to too many guides, or sticking with one guide who has shown time and again that he or she cannot offer what you seek, those futile scenarios need not continue.
Next time you’re considering visiting a teacher, or thinking about paying for a seminar or a retreat or thinking about buying another book by a Big Name Teacher (thereby swelling a millionaire’s already-bulging wallet as well as swelling your “Library of Pride-Producing, Accumulated Knowledge,” ask in advance: “Will you be able to tell me exactly where I am on the ‘path’ that you guide seekers along?" and "Will you be able to tell me what step is next and how many more steps there are to take?”
Ask, “Do you have an overall plan that is going to provide a specific analysis of ‘where I am’ and ‘where else I need to go’ to be done with all this searching and seeking once and for all?” Inquire, “After I’m done doing the deal with you, might I then be able to simply abide naturally?” and “Might I finally not have to continue to make a second job out of just living?” and “Might I be free?” and “Might the suffering-inducing symptoms of the Ultimate Sickness be lifted?”
Ask: “How it is going to facilitate my movement along the 'path' if I listen to you promote your newest book and if I hear the same talk you are presenting to everyone else there, no matter how varied our places along the 'path' might be?" Ask: "Rather than using a shotgun approach, can you offer a custom-designed approach for me that will rifle in and target exactly where I am on the 'path' and where I need to move to next?”
Maharaj said that you must go back the same way you came and that you must move step-by-step in the exact reverse order by which you came. His level-appropriate pointers that varied from one seeker to the next were determined by where on the “path” each seeker’s words revealed him or she to be and exactly where she or he needed to go next.
What are the odds that he or she who is self-guided is going to come across - in the exact, reverse, step-wise order – “this book that shifted me to step two” and then “that seminar which shifted me to step three and to a place just beyond the wet charcoal stage”?
What are the odds that he or she who is self-guided is then going to come across “a talk about step three that moved me to step four and to the dry charcoal stage”?
And what are the odds that he or she who is self-guided will then magically come across “the pointers needed to shift me to step five, followed by pointers heard in a non-dual group that meets in my friend’s house which took me to step six in the exact, step-wise order I was following, which was followed by my coming across a talk on a public broadcast network that moved me to the gunpowder stage which then exploded and eliminated the final blockages and cleared the way for me to then be rocketed to the end of the 'journey'"?
The odds are nil.
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
31 May 2014
F.: It has been shared that, here, the “journey” was long and arduous. Why? Because like most, I was the one in charge of laying out the map for a journey that I had never traveled. I had no idea “where” I was or “where” I was supposed to get to.
Along the way, I fell time and again into what Maharaj called the trap of the “Big Name Teachers.” He warned his visitors to stay the heck away from them. Why?
It is clear now that they use the 5th of the 5 teaching methods for non-duality, namely, “Pseudo Advaita.” That involves taking certain non-dual “Noumenal” pointers but then bastardizing the message by adding popular phenomenal concepts and elements in order to give their talks “mass appeal” (which is actually, “mess appeal”). The strategy: Pull them in by mentioning non-duality, load up the message what they really want - power, success, control, great meaning, affirmation - and then collect the money.
As was the case here, most are running their quest as if they were a metal ball trapped inside a pinball machine, going first here, being kicked back there, flying off in another direction, being thrown back until hitting something else that set them on a different course, and being tossed helter-skelter all over the place.
In the past, the comparison offered involved a car that I received one holiday. It was a small wind-up car that ran in a straight line until it ran into something; then, it backed up a foot, turned ninety degrees, and then ran until it hit something else, at which point it would repeat the process. That is the way the "journey" for most unfolds.
It was finally seen here that, if one would go on a “journey,” and wanted to get to the destination as promptly and as easily as possible, that taking a direct path made sense.
If one happened to be in Los Angeles, California and wanted to travel to New York as promptly and as easily as possible, it would make no sense at all to leave Los Angeles, then drive to Idaho, then to Arizona, then to Wyoming, then to Texas, then to North Dakota, then to Oklahoma, then to Minnesota, then to Louisiana, then to Wisconsin, then to Alabama, then to Michigan, then to Georgia, and then finally to New York. Along the way, the direct path would be crossed – and ignored – over a dozen times, and in the process, a very simple journey would unnecessarily turn into a “long and arduous trip.”
Yet if one has no map, and is trying to make the trip without a guide that knows the way, a long and arduous trip is guaranteed.
If you have been seeking earnestly, look back over your “journey” so far and write down all of the diversionary paths you have taken. If you are honest, you’ll see that the process was totally helter-skelter, totally disorganized, totally haphazard, totally pell-mell, and, likely, totally hurried. Seeking - go-do-zoom style. Spiritual workaholism at its worst.
If all of your seeking would inspire any objective witness to shake her or his head in amazement, then that has all been useless seeking. And if one looked back honestly and objectively at the path followed so far, the appraisal would be, “I didn’t have a clue what I was doing, running about like a chicken with its head cut off. It has all been totally nuts.”
Yet most seekers never “get that.” Why? Because the role of “The Super Seeker” has as powerful a grip on a person as the roles of “The Super Muslim,” “The Super Christian,” “The Super Lover,” or “The Super Spouse.” All, including “The Super Seeker,” can generate such levels of fanaticism that self-destructive behaviors can be normalized.
And who wants to admit that all of their efforts had been in vain? The egotism which supports every ego-state will fight that at every turn.
Furthermore, it is nothing more than a combination of ignorance and denial and egotism that claims, "Well, I had to do everything I did."
The response: "No, you did not. All that you did was harmful (relatively speaking) to far too many people and to yourself, and none of that had anything to do with the 'journey' to understanding Wholeness and Oneness and to attaining Mental and Emotional Health, all of which you still fail to grasp." Yet who wants to hear that truth?
Here, when the truth about where one actually in on the “path” (as opposed to where they think they are, which is typically three steps further along than they really are), then this applies: “The truth will set you free, but it’s going to piss you off first.” The “you” there is the conglomeration of false you’s that have been assigned or assumed as identities.
Moreover, who would welcome an employer who accepts the report that you hand in with pride after working on it for a week and who then hands it back to you saying, “This is a total waste of company time and resources . . . completely useless. Throw it away and start over from scratch.”
There is a saying among litigators: “A man who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client.” The same applies with the process of Realizing because the process is one whereby one comes to see how ignorant one’s beliefs are; whereby one comes to see how insane one’s thoughts and actions are;
whereby one inventories objectively all of the nonsense that has been passed on and stored in “the mind” and is now viewed as something of great value rather than something that should have been tossed out with all of the other garbage that can accumulate;
whereby one sees that programming and conditioning and acculturation and domestication and indoctrination and brainwashing did not result in a being “who is really a pretty nice guy, overall, Floyd” or “a pretty clever, quite savvy woman, mate”; and whereby one sees that phony, dreamed-up, (and, therefore, frustrating) unmet “needs” and unmet desires are personality-generated and based in delusion and illusions.
Who can miraculously know what he or she does not yet know? No one.
From the long and arduous “journey” here, it can be seen that another problem that almost all seekers encounter involves guidance . . . or a lack thereof:
1. Again, the one who would try to guide himself or herself to the peak of a mountain that millions have failed to reach is behaving like a fool.
2. The one who tries to climb that mountain with scores of guides who are all pointing out different ways to proceed is behaving like a fool.
3. And the one that continues to allow the same guide to direct him or her along the path to the peak - though that guide has failed to get anyone to the peak after following that guide for ten or twenty or thirty years - is behaving like a fool.
After a woman heard recently that a specific, step-wise process of Realizing is offered here, she wrote to say, “Since I am on my own and not guided I want to make sure I haven’t missed any steps.”
While that is short of what needs to be seen, it might set up the possibility of moving in the proper direction. What would not have been short? This:
“On my own, I have sought for decades but can only now admit that I have not found at all what I was seeking. The reason those efforts were all in vain, I see now, is because I was not being guided. I understand this much, at least: I am sure that I have missed many steps. I am tired. Very tired. I am now ready.”
Whether the cause is trying to self-guide, listening to too many guides, or sticking with one guide who has shown time and again that he or she cannot offer what you seek, those futile scenarios need not continue.
Next time you’re considering visiting a teacher, or thinking about paying for a seminar or a retreat or thinking about buying another book by a Big Name Teacher (thereby swelling a millionaire’s already-bulging wallet as well as swelling your “Library of Pride-Producing, Accumulated Knowledge,” ask in advance: “Will you be able to tell me exactly where I am on the ‘path’ that you guide seekers along?" and "Will you be able to tell me what step is next and how many more steps there are to take?”
Ask, “Do you have an overall plan that is going to provide a specific analysis of ‘where I am’ and ‘where else I need to go’ to be done with all this searching and seeking once and for all?” Inquire, “After I’m done doing the deal with you, might I then be able to simply abide naturally?” and “Might I finally not have to continue to make a second job out of just living?” and “Might I be free?” and “Might the suffering-inducing symptoms of the Ultimate Sickness be lifted?”
Ask: “How it is going to facilitate my movement along the 'path' if I listen to you promote your newest book and if I hear the same talk you are presenting to everyone else there, no matter how varied our places along the 'path' might be?" Ask: "Rather than using a shotgun approach, can you offer a custom-designed approach for me that will rifle in and target exactly where I am on the 'path' and where I need to move to next?”
Maharaj said that you must go back the same way you came and that you must move step-by-step in the exact reverse order by which you came. His level-appropriate pointers that varied from one seeker to the next were determined by where on the “path” each seeker’s words revealed him or she to be and exactly where she or he needed to go next.
What are the odds that he or she who is self-guided is going to come across - in the exact, reverse, step-wise order – “this book that shifted me to step two” and then “that seminar which shifted me to step three and to a place just beyond the wet charcoal stage”?
What are the odds that he or she who is self-guided is then going to come across “a talk about step three that moved me to step four and to the dry charcoal stage”?
And what are the odds that he or she who is self-guided will then magically come across “the pointers needed to shift me to step five, followed by pointers heard in a non-dual group that meets in my friend’s house which took me to step six in the exact, step-wise order I was following, which was followed by my coming across a talk on a public broadcast network that moved me to the gunpowder stage which then exploded and eliminated the final blockages and cleared the way for me to then be rocketed to the end of the 'journey'"?
The odds are nil.
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
31 May 2014
A DAILY CONSIDERATION FOR YOU
F.: Earlier, mention was made of Maharaj’s pointers regarding “kindergarten-level spirituality” and the way that so many seekers are actually – and unknowingly – exactly like their religious counterparts, believing that they are now fully bathed in the light of the noonday sun when they are really still standing in the dim light of dawn.
The religious – self-identified as such in surveys which show that 97% of the planet’s population claim affiliation with one religion or another – are so “certain.” Why? Because they were programmed and conditioned from early on to believe that their way is not only "the right way” but is also “the only way” to whatever it is they think there to gain both now and later as well.
They are sure they know what is to be known, and - trapped in that assuredness - they will never really understand what is to be understood.
At least most seekers who come this way are willing to “budge an inch or so on their belief” about where they are in the process. Most of them think that are “pretty well enlightened” or “have it all except for one little piece that needs fine-tuning.” To that end, they are as trapped at the third of seven steps on the “path” to Full Realization as the self-identified religious and spiritual persons who are also stuck at the third step.
The obstacle on the “path” at that point is the same for those assuming the false identity of “The Super Religious One” as it is for those assuming the false identity “The Spiritual Giant” and as it is for those assuming the false identity of “The Almost Fully Realized” or “The Almost Fully Awakened” or “The Almost Totally Enlightened.”
The old adage, “You're either pregnant or not” applies. There is no "almost fully pregnant” or “almost totally pregnant.” As one character used to say in the comic pages which I read daily during childhood, “Either yous is or you isn’t . . . either yous is or you ain’t.”
And the roles of the “The Super Religious One” and “The Spiritual Giant” and “The Super Seeker” are three of thousands of false identities that will guarantee that one remains in that dim light of dawn while believing that they are in the bright light of noon (a.k.a., "enlightened").
The problem with those seeking via the non-dual understanding? There are five very different methods of teachings and there are many different types of yoga used in conjunction with one of those five methods.
Consider what happens if only fifteen of the various types of yoga happen to be combined with the five methods: there would be 3003 possible combinations or permutations. With 3003 potential results if using the variety of 1 of the 5 methods of teachings combined with 1 of 15 types of yoga, how can one ever measure the actual degree of Realization or Enlightenment or Awakening "attained"?
One cannot.
There would have to be 3003 definitions of what “Realized” or “Awakened” or “Enlightened” looks like and when it has been reached. What confusion! And if one has been around “the non-dual search environment” for any time at all, the level of confusion should be obvious. 3003 different definitions of something do not define something; they cannot, in fact, define anything.
Yet Maharaj was able – by using the Direct Path Method of teaching combined with the Nisarga Yoga – to do exactly that . . . to measure precisely the degree of Realization or Enlightenment or Awakening “attained” so far by any given seeker in the loft.
That same determination is made here on a daily basis when interacting with admitted “novice seekers” or with those who take themselves to be “advanced seekers” or with those who think they “only lack a piece or two of the puzzle” or with those who believe they only need one key pointer – or maybe two at the most - to wrap things up.”
To explain: it has been discussed here that, if reading I AM THAT (which Maharaj suggested to seekers toward the end of his teaching days that they NOT read) one should notice that Maharaj might say something to one seeker in one discussion and then the exact opposite to another seeker in the very next discussion. He was offering “level-appropriate” pointers to both because each was at a different point from the other on the seven-step “path.”
With only a few comments, it is easy for one familiar with the seven steps that Maharaj taught to determine exactly where on the seven-step “path” a particular seeker is presently “located.”
(Though Maharaj never laid them out in order and numbered them “steps 1 though 7” as happens here when working with seekers one-on-one, the seven steps were all addressed by him.)
So, if one is fixated at the third step, as referenced above, then that seeker is 43% “Realized” or “The Almost Fully Awakened” or “The Almost Totally Enlightened” (having arrived at a "3 of 7 point" or at a point that is less than halfway to Realization). None of the other 3002 combinations of teaching methods and type of yoga have any possible way of providing a seeker with clear evidence of “where on the ‘path’ she or he truly is" and “where exactly he or she needs to ‘go’ next.”
Here, the case was that after years of seeking in vain, it was only after understanding exactly “where” I was on the “path” and exactly “where I needed to go next and next and next” that the illusion of the false identity of “The Spiritual Giant” and that the illusion of the false identity of “The Super Seeker” came to an end, along with all other assumed roles, along with all beliefs, and – finally – with the forfeiture of all beliefs that emptied (and thus ended) “the mind.” Then only did the Full Understanding come and then only did Nisargan (natural) abidance begin.
So what about you? If you are seeking, do you know exactly where you are in the total seeking process?
If you identify yourself as “Almost Fully Realized” or “Almost Fully Awakened” or “Almost Totally Enlightened,” have you considered those identities objectively?
And if you are convinced that you are “Fully Realized” or “Fully Awakened” or “Totally Enlightened,” have you tested that objectively?
Moreover, have you gotten an objective “second opinion” on that? :-)
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
28 May 2014
F.: Earlier, mention was made of Maharaj’s pointers regarding “kindergarten-level spirituality” and the way that so many seekers are actually – and unknowingly – exactly like their religious counterparts, believing that they are now fully bathed in the light of the noonday sun when they are really still standing in the dim light of dawn.
The religious – self-identified as such in surveys which show that 97% of the planet’s population claim affiliation with one religion or another – are so “certain.” Why? Because they were programmed and conditioned from early on to believe that their way is not only "the right way” but is also “the only way” to whatever it is they think there to gain both now and later as well.
They are sure they know what is to be known, and - trapped in that assuredness - they will never really understand what is to be understood.
At least most seekers who come this way are willing to “budge an inch or so on their belief” about where they are in the process. Most of them think that are “pretty well enlightened” or “have it all except for one little piece that needs fine-tuning.” To that end, they are as trapped at the third of seven steps on the “path” to Full Realization as the self-identified religious and spiritual persons who are also stuck at the third step.
The obstacle on the “path” at that point is the same for those assuming the false identity of “The Super Religious One” as it is for those assuming the false identity “The Spiritual Giant” and as it is for those assuming the false identity of “The Almost Fully Realized” or “The Almost Fully Awakened” or “The Almost Totally Enlightened.”
The old adage, “You're either pregnant or not” applies. There is no "almost fully pregnant” or “almost totally pregnant.” As one character used to say in the comic pages which I read daily during childhood, “Either yous is or you isn’t . . . either yous is or you ain’t.”
And the roles of the “The Super Religious One” and “The Spiritual Giant” and “The Super Seeker” are three of thousands of false identities that will guarantee that one remains in that dim light of dawn while believing that they are in the bright light of noon (a.k.a., "enlightened").
The problem with those seeking via the non-dual understanding? There are five very different methods of teachings and there are many different types of yoga used in conjunction with one of those five methods.
Consider what happens if only fifteen of the various types of yoga happen to be combined with the five methods: there would be 3003 possible combinations or permutations. With 3003 potential results if using the variety of 1 of the 5 methods of teachings combined with 1 of 15 types of yoga, how can one ever measure the actual degree of Realization or Enlightenment or Awakening "attained"?
One cannot.
There would have to be 3003 definitions of what “Realized” or “Awakened” or “Enlightened” looks like and when it has been reached. What confusion! And if one has been around “the non-dual search environment” for any time at all, the level of confusion should be obvious. 3003 different definitions of something do not define something; they cannot, in fact, define anything.
Yet Maharaj was able – by using the Direct Path Method of teaching combined with the Nisarga Yoga – to do exactly that . . . to measure precisely the degree of Realization or Enlightenment or Awakening “attained” so far by any given seeker in the loft.
That same determination is made here on a daily basis when interacting with admitted “novice seekers” or with those who take themselves to be “advanced seekers” or with those who think they “only lack a piece or two of the puzzle” or with those who believe they only need one key pointer – or maybe two at the most - to wrap things up.”
To explain: it has been discussed here that, if reading I AM THAT (which Maharaj suggested to seekers toward the end of his teaching days that they NOT read) one should notice that Maharaj might say something to one seeker in one discussion and then the exact opposite to another seeker in the very next discussion. He was offering “level-appropriate” pointers to both because each was at a different point from the other on the seven-step “path.”
With only a few comments, it is easy for one familiar with the seven steps that Maharaj taught to determine exactly where on the seven-step “path” a particular seeker is presently “located.”
(Though Maharaj never laid them out in order and numbered them “steps 1 though 7” as happens here when working with seekers one-on-one, the seven steps were all addressed by him.)
So, if one is fixated at the third step, as referenced above, then that seeker is 43% “Realized” or “The Almost Fully Awakened” or “The Almost Totally Enlightened” (having arrived at a "3 of 7 point" or at a point that is less than halfway to Realization). None of the other 3002 combinations of teaching methods and type of yoga have any possible way of providing a seeker with clear evidence of “where on the ‘path’ she or he truly is" and “where exactly he or she needs to ‘go’ next.”
Here, the case was that after years of seeking in vain, it was only after understanding exactly “where” I was on the “path” and exactly “where I needed to go next and next and next” that the illusion of the false identity of “The Spiritual Giant” and that the illusion of the false identity of “The Super Seeker” came to an end, along with all other assumed roles, along with all beliefs, and – finally – with the forfeiture of all beliefs that emptied (and thus ended) “the mind.” Then only did the Full Understanding come and then only did Nisargan (natural) abidance begin.
So what about you? If you are seeking, do you know exactly where you are in the total seeking process?
If you identify yourself as “Almost Fully Realized” or “Almost Fully Awakened” or “Almost Totally Enlightened,” have you considered those identities objectively?
And if you are convinced that you are “Fully Realized” or “Fully Awakened” or “Totally Enlightened,” have you tested that objectively?
Moreover, have you gotten an objective “second opinion” on that? :-)
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
28 May 2014
A DAILY CONSIDERATION FOR YOU
F.: This was shared yesterday: “Their planet-wide popularity notwithstanding, there are problems and shortfalls and inadequacies with all ‘transitional objects,’ substitutes, alternates, surrogates, false replacements, stand-ins, proxies, and swaps.”
Today, consider “alternates” and “your own search.”
Over the years, many have shared their beliefs that they have found some religious or magical or spiritual or geographic place (that is, an alternate) which played – or continues to play – a vital role in their quest or “journey” or in maintaining their Noumenal achievements and accomplishments and gains.
For some, those alternates serve as substitutes for relaxing at home and include going to a church or a temple or a mosque instead; or, as a substitute for relaxing at home, include going to “holy services” or “holy meetings” or “holy sites” on the planet”; including going to India; or include living in India but going to ashrams; or include going to Sedona, Arizona; or Mount Kaila in Tibet; or “The Holy Land”; or “The Vatican”; or Kaaba and Masjid al-Haram and Mecca; or Stonehenge; or Machu Picchu; ad infinitum.
Ignored is the duality behind their belief that certain places are “different from” and “better than” or “more holy” than "other regular places." The only “place” a Realized teacher would suggest one go is to “go to your teacher for pointers, then go into the silence to consider those pointers, then go within, to the inner resource . . . the inner guru.
Recently, someone with a belief about "more holy places" vs. "less holy places" even suggested, as Andy Gugar did years ago, that he felt he had “a need to go somewhere to get the final pieces of the puzzle that he had been trying to understand most of his life,” but his “gut was telling him that place could surely not be Texas where Floyd lives.”
Before Andy came here and found the “final pieces,” he said the same. In the "Editor’s Note" to several of the Advaita books that Andy eventually made available, he said:
“Before I found the Advaita teachings, both my seeking and my life were totally disorganized. I had read over two hundred books during my search which began around the age of eleven or twelve. All of the content of those books was very confusing. Why?
"While some presented teachings that seemed in the beginning to be of value, in the end they proved useless because none of the pointers were organized in a way to offer in a step-by-step manner the route that had to be followed to move away from identification with the false ‘I’ and return to My Original Nature.
"It became clear that - in my case - I required a teacher that could offer such an explanation and that could be available to answer my many questions along the way.
"I began googling ‘Advaita’ and found a blog site where Floyd Henderson was offering daily postings of non-dual pointers. I began investigating this guy, wondering who he thought he was to be posting pointers about Advaita. He was not even from the Far East. Worse, my investigations uncovered the fact that this guy lived in Texas.
Being yet embroiled in ego, I asked, ‘Who does this guy living outside of Houston, Texas think he is ... acting like he 'knows it all' about these teachings?’ I concluded, ‘Heck, I live in Texas. I guarantee I already know as much about non-duality as any other person living in Texas. Who from Texas could offer anything about this eastern philosophy?’"
Eventually, Andy set aside “the Texas thought / the Texas block” and came. The rest is understood now by those who once dealt with “andy” but who now interact with “the Real Andy.”
More recently, another man wrote to ask: “How could anyone who is supposedly realized live in Texas, of all places? Why would you stay there after realization, if you realized?” The reply:
F.: Consider: peacemakers do not go where there is peace. A peacemaker goes to the place where there is the greatest conflict. Similarly, the one that would confront what Maharaj called mass “ignorance, stupidity, and insanity” does not go where there is already wisdom and reason and sanity. He goes to the place where there is the greatest concentration of ignorance, stupidity, and insanity. See? Ha.”
He wrote back: “Touché. Then you're in the right place! Ha! So only one other question. What is your future schedule, meaning, when will you be moving to Arizona, then Louisiana, then Mississippi, then Alabama, then Florida, then Georgia, then Tennessee, then Kentucky, then the Carolinas! Ha.”
F.: “And I’ve been the one accused of alienating hundreds or thousands with a single post? Ha.”
But the Realized non-dualist understands that a seeker might require a visit to a teacher in order to receive the pointers which the teacher can see clearly that any given seeker needs to hear and to consider and to understand in order to move to the next step on the seven-step “path” and complete the entire "journey";
yet that same teacher also understands that one need not spend the remainder of one’s relative existence with that teacher and that one needs not be occupied with finding “permanent” alternates and “constant” substitutes for relaxing at home and, instead, be forever caught up with going to a church or a temple or a mosque or to “holy services” or “holy meetings” or “holy places.”
Those are all merely “transitional objects” which provide a false sense of security and a false and temporary sense of comfort, leaving untouched all that is within that is guaranteed to generate a continuing sense of restlessness and discontentment and a lingering sense of feeling ill at ease or feeling that one is “never quite right” and “never quite complete” and “never quite enough” and “never quite alright” along with a lingering sense that “surely there’s got to be more than this.”
The invitation is to find the means by which you can distinguish between true and false and find the means by which you can be restored to a true state of sanity which is also free of all learned ignorance; then, stop with all the going and doing and zooming.
Then, you can truly relax and just take it easy, for a change. Yet that cannot happen if "a mind" is present and is racing along at 80 miles per hour. When that is the case, the body will try to race along at the same speed in order to feel aligned and "associated with self."
Of course that, too, is a dualistic concept, what with its premise that an "a" can be "associated with" a "b" rather than understanding the pointer regarding being at One, period.
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
27 May 2014
F.: This was shared yesterday: “Their planet-wide popularity notwithstanding, there are problems and shortfalls and inadequacies with all ‘transitional objects,’ substitutes, alternates, surrogates, false replacements, stand-ins, proxies, and swaps.”
Today, consider “alternates” and “your own search.”
Over the years, many have shared their beliefs that they have found some religious or magical or spiritual or geographic place (that is, an alternate) which played – or continues to play – a vital role in their quest or “journey” or in maintaining their Noumenal achievements and accomplishments and gains.
For some, those alternates serve as substitutes for relaxing at home and include going to a church or a temple or a mosque instead; or, as a substitute for relaxing at home, include going to “holy services” or “holy meetings” or “holy sites” on the planet”; including going to India; or include living in India but going to ashrams; or include going to Sedona, Arizona; or Mount Kaila in Tibet; or “The Holy Land”; or “The Vatican”; or Kaaba and Masjid al-Haram and Mecca; or Stonehenge; or Machu Picchu; ad infinitum.
Ignored is the duality behind their belief that certain places are “different from” and “better than” or “more holy” than "other regular places." The only “place” a Realized teacher would suggest one go is to “go to your teacher for pointers, then go into the silence to consider those pointers, then go within, to the inner resource . . . the inner guru.
Recently, someone with a belief about "more holy places" vs. "less holy places" even suggested, as Andy Gugar did years ago, that he felt he had “a need to go somewhere to get the final pieces of the puzzle that he had been trying to understand most of his life,” but his “gut was telling him that place could surely not be Texas where Floyd lives.”
Before Andy came here and found the “final pieces,” he said the same. In the "Editor’s Note" to several of the Advaita books that Andy eventually made available, he said:
“Before I found the Advaita teachings, both my seeking and my life were totally disorganized. I had read over two hundred books during my search which began around the age of eleven or twelve. All of the content of those books was very confusing. Why?
"While some presented teachings that seemed in the beginning to be of value, in the end they proved useless because none of the pointers were organized in a way to offer in a step-by-step manner the route that had to be followed to move away from identification with the false ‘I’ and return to My Original Nature.
"It became clear that - in my case - I required a teacher that could offer such an explanation and that could be available to answer my many questions along the way.
"I began googling ‘Advaita’ and found a blog site where Floyd Henderson was offering daily postings of non-dual pointers. I began investigating this guy, wondering who he thought he was to be posting pointers about Advaita. He was not even from the Far East. Worse, my investigations uncovered the fact that this guy lived in Texas.
Being yet embroiled in ego, I asked, ‘Who does this guy living outside of Houston, Texas think he is ... acting like he 'knows it all' about these teachings?’ I concluded, ‘Heck, I live in Texas. I guarantee I already know as much about non-duality as any other person living in Texas. Who from Texas could offer anything about this eastern philosophy?’"
Eventually, Andy set aside “the Texas thought / the Texas block” and came. The rest is understood now by those who once dealt with “andy” but who now interact with “the Real Andy.”
More recently, another man wrote to ask: “How could anyone who is supposedly realized live in Texas, of all places? Why would you stay there after realization, if you realized?” The reply:
F.: Consider: peacemakers do not go where there is peace. A peacemaker goes to the place where there is the greatest conflict. Similarly, the one that would confront what Maharaj called mass “ignorance, stupidity, and insanity” does not go where there is already wisdom and reason and sanity. He goes to the place where there is the greatest concentration of ignorance, stupidity, and insanity. See? Ha.”
He wrote back: “Touché. Then you're in the right place! Ha! So only one other question. What is your future schedule, meaning, when will you be moving to Arizona, then Louisiana, then Mississippi, then Alabama, then Florida, then Georgia, then Tennessee, then Kentucky, then the Carolinas! Ha.”
F.: “And I’ve been the one accused of alienating hundreds or thousands with a single post? Ha.”
But the Realized non-dualist understands that a seeker might require a visit to a teacher in order to receive the pointers which the teacher can see clearly that any given seeker needs to hear and to consider and to understand in order to move to the next step on the seven-step “path” and complete the entire "journey";
yet that same teacher also understands that one need not spend the remainder of one’s relative existence with that teacher and that one needs not be occupied with finding “permanent” alternates and “constant” substitutes for relaxing at home and, instead, be forever caught up with going to a church or a temple or a mosque or to “holy services” or “holy meetings” or “holy places.”
Those are all merely “transitional objects” which provide a false sense of security and a false and temporary sense of comfort, leaving untouched all that is within that is guaranteed to generate a continuing sense of restlessness and discontentment and a lingering sense of feeling ill at ease or feeling that one is “never quite right” and “never quite complete” and “never quite enough” and “never quite alright” along with a lingering sense that “surely there’s got to be more than this.”
The invitation is to find the means by which you can distinguish between true and false and find the means by which you can be restored to a true state of sanity which is also free of all learned ignorance; then, stop with all the going and doing and zooming.
Then, you can truly relax and just take it easy, for a change. Yet that cannot happen if "a mind" is present and is racing along at 80 miles per hour. When that is the case, the body will try to race along at the same speed in order to feel aligned and "associated with self."
Of course that, too, is a dualistic concept, what with its premise that an "a" can be "associated with" a "b" rather than understanding the pointer regarding being at One, period.
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
27 May 2014
A DAILY CONSIDERATION FOR YOU
F.: [Continued from previous post] Their planet-wide popularity notwithstanding, there are problems and shortfalls and inadequacies with all “transitional objects,” substitutes, alternates, surrogates, false replacements, stand-ins, proxies, and swaps.
TRANSITIONAL OBJECTS
A security blanket or a pacifier might provide a false sense of satisfaction for something desired, but they never produce a real sense of satisfaction, happiness, or bliss.
PROXIES / SWAPS
A man said: “As you know, I had a major problem with drinking and partying. My lifestyle worked for years, but then it turned on me. I finally went to a group and I admitted to them I had a dependency that I couldn’t shake on my own. They told me only God could remove the urge, and I said, ‘Then I’m screwed because there is no God.’ They told me, ‘Until your view changes, replace your former dependency with a dependency on us.’ I thought that would work, and thought it was working for a long time, but I've got to tell you, I’m as miserable with this supposedly new and improved self and my new boring life as I was with my old miserable life.”
STAND-INS
As students in elementary school, we rejoiced when we heard that we were going to have a substitute teacher that day. We knew nothing worthwhile was going to happen.
ALTERNATES
This was shared recently: “I had a great wife, but I became bored. I left her for some eye candy.” F.: “Eye candy?” He: “Yeah, a really great looking, really hot woman. Prettier on the outside than my wife for sure, but very ugly inside. I’m paying every day for that move.”
SURROGATES
Another man: “My parents gave me up for adoption. Once I found out that my adoptive parents were not my real parents and that my real parents had rejected me, I thought I had accepted that. I said of the two who raised me, ‘These are my real parents.’ After years of denial, though, I see that I tried for years to deal with that abandonment and rejection and low esteem but have failed completely.”
FALSE REPLACEMENTS
As noted here on occasion, the primary addiction among persons is a desire to control, and the secondary addiction among persons is a desire for power (or a “Power” or “Powers”) in order to be able to control. Neither addiction works out in the end. Why? Because chaos prevails throughout the universe and all across this planet, and one cannot control chaos. Nor can one, ultimately, control people. Control and power are nothing more than ego-driven concepts, and “a Power” or “Powers” are the same. If there were such power / Power / Powers, there would certainly be no reason to be impressed, looking at the results.
SUBSTITUTES
At the third of seven steps on the “path” from identifying with the false “I” to understanding THAT, religious and / or spiritual roles must usually be played. The problem: the “Power” or “Powers” which become the object(s) of dependency (and which could serve as transitional objects) end up actually blocking transition and shutting down the process completely.
As with all transitional objects, the use of those substitutes will actually retard growth; will block the shift to independence; will perpetuate magical thinking; will encourage belief in myth-and-superstition-based nonsense; will prevent persons from abiding naturally; will sustain unnatural and supernatural manners of living;
and will block any sense of whole-ness and complete-ness and full-ness and content-ness and happiness because the addressing of actual (relative) requirements will always be relegated to a secondary status behind the all-consuming drive to fulfill what are really nothing more than phony, dreamed-up, personality-based “needs.”
When that happen, mere living (that is, living unnaturally and trying to live supernaturally) becomes a second job. And second jobs are tiring . . . really tiring.
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
25 May 2014
F.: [Continued from previous post] Their planet-wide popularity notwithstanding, there are problems and shortfalls and inadequacies with all “transitional objects,” substitutes, alternates, surrogates, false replacements, stand-ins, proxies, and swaps.
TRANSITIONAL OBJECTS
A security blanket or a pacifier might provide a false sense of satisfaction for something desired, but they never produce a real sense of satisfaction, happiness, or bliss.
PROXIES / SWAPS
A man said: “As you know, I had a major problem with drinking and partying. My lifestyle worked for years, but then it turned on me. I finally went to a group and I admitted to them I had a dependency that I couldn’t shake on my own. They told me only God could remove the urge, and I said, ‘Then I’m screwed because there is no God.’ They told me, ‘Until your view changes, replace your former dependency with a dependency on us.’ I thought that would work, and thought it was working for a long time, but I've got to tell you, I’m as miserable with this supposedly new and improved self and my new boring life as I was with my old miserable life.”
STAND-INS
As students in elementary school, we rejoiced when we heard that we were going to have a substitute teacher that day. We knew nothing worthwhile was going to happen.
ALTERNATES
This was shared recently: “I had a great wife, but I became bored. I left her for some eye candy.” F.: “Eye candy?” He: “Yeah, a really great looking, really hot woman. Prettier on the outside than my wife for sure, but very ugly inside. I’m paying every day for that move.”
SURROGATES
Another man: “My parents gave me up for adoption. Once I found out that my adoptive parents were not my real parents and that my real parents had rejected me, I thought I had accepted that. I said of the two who raised me, ‘These are my real parents.’ After years of denial, though, I see that I tried for years to deal with that abandonment and rejection and low esteem but have failed completely.”
FALSE REPLACEMENTS
As noted here on occasion, the primary addiction among persons is a desire to control, and the secondary addiction among persons is a desire for power (or a “Power” or “Powers”) in order to be able to control. Neither addiction works out in the end. Why? Because chaos prevails throughout the universe and all across this planet, and one cannot control chaos. Nor can one, ultimately, control people. Control and power are nothing more than ego-driven concepts, and “a Power” or “Powers” are the same. If there were such power / Power / Powers, there would certainly be no reason to be impressed, looking at the results.
SUBSTITUTES
At the third of seven steps on the “path” from identifying with the false “I” to understanding THAT, religious and / or spiritual roles must usually be played. The problem: the “Power” or “Powers” which become the object(s) of dependency (and which could serve as transitional objects) end up actually blocking transition and shutting down the process completely.
As with all transitional objects, the use of those substitutes will actually retard growth; will block the shift to independence; will perpetuate magical thinking; will encourage belief in myth-and-superstition-based nonsense; will prevent persons from abiding naturally; will sustain unnatural and supernatural manners of living;
and will block any sense of whole-ness and complete-ness and full-ness and content-ness and happiness because the addressing of actual (relative) requirements will always be relegated to a secondary status behind the all-consuming drive to fulfill what are really nothing more than phony, dreamed-up, personality-based “needs.”
When that happen, mere living (that is, living unnaturally and trying to live supernaturally) becomes a second job. And second jobs are tiring . . . really tiring.
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
25 May 2014
A DAILY CONSIDERATION FOR YOU
F.: Yesterday:
The symptoms of the Ultimate Sickness always manifest through all who are trapped in their dualistic beliefs and personality identifications: fighting, separation, chaos, conflict, disorder, turmoil and instability (as in “Dual-minded persons are unstable in all ways”).
See? Totally dual-minded, insane thinking patterns.
Again, such are the relative results when the Ultimate Sickness goes untreated, allowing personality (false identities, roles, stage characters, personas, ego-states, self, false selves) to unconsciously determine everything that is thought and said and done, eliminating any possibility for conscious, wise, sane, logical, and reasonable decisions to be made.
And even among those seeking “Liberation” (which actually refers to liberation from the influence and effects of personality), duality remains to sabotage the process.
Why? Because persons assume what they take to be “good roles” or “good identities” to replace what they think were “bad roles” or “bad identities.”
And that is why even among the few who seek Realization, most will never move any farther along the seven-step “path” than the third step where such roles and identities and ego-states as “The Super Religious One” or “The Spiritual Giant” are assumed and played out both in private and in public.
Those roles can serve a purpose on the “journey” if they temporarily shift the focus from seeing “the phenomenal” only and are open seekers to the possibility of considering “things Noumenal” as well (at least for a time). If all of the falseness associated with things phenomenal are seen, then the movement to step four on the “path “can happen.
Yet that shift or movement seldom happens, so most never even reach the halfway point of the “path.” They fixate at the third of seven steps, and Maharaj said that once there, they proudly but blindly attach to those third step roles and become trapped in what he called their “kindergarten spirituality.”
Blindly? Yes. He noted that they think that they are completely enlightened when they actually remain in the darkness. They believe they are being bathed in the full light of the noonday sun when, in fact, they are really standing in the dim light of the dawn.
Consider this example offered by some psychologists as they try to differentiate between the use of what they call “transitional objects” vs. the use of things that (a) could be used as transitional objects but that (b) become objects of fixation and mental paralysis.
Transitional objects (or “comfort objects”) are supposed to be the stuff of childhood, but they more often than not become the stuff of adulthood, too. The result? The far-too-common case on planet earth where adults cling to their transitional objects and, therefore, act like children for the entire manifestation.
Some transitional objects that children use when they are being weaned from the breast or the bottle include a “security blanket” (or their “blankey”); “a pacifier”; a favorite stuffed animal; or a favorite toy, all used as a substitute when the mother-child bond begins to relax.
This has been noted: transitional objects are used “when the young child begins to separate the ‘me’ from the ‘not-me’ and evolves from complete dependence to a stage of relative independence.”
Ideally, the transitioning happens, the bond relaxes more and more, transitional objects are cast aside, and, eventually, the child develops into an adult that is independent.
Yet for most on the planet, no matter their age, transitional objects are used throughout the entire manifestation; bonds are not released but, in fact, more and more are sought; transitional objects are not cast aside; and their use continues for the entirety of the lives of most persons.
D.W. Winnicott addresses what should be a normal and natural shift or transition from believing the false beliefs that are stored in the mind to being free of such beliefs and then touching what he called “reality.” Here, the distinction is made using the terms “reality” and “Reality” to refer to “the Am-ness” and the “THAT-ness,” respectively.
Winnicott noted that
“Infants see themselves and the mother as a whole. In this phase, the mother ‘brings the world’ to the infant without delay which gives it a 'moment of illusion,' a belief that its own wish creates the object of its desire which brings with it a sense of satisfaction.”
Of course, that behavior reinforces the concept of “instant gratification” as well and sets the stage for addictive thinking and behaving (and untold misery and suffering as well when driven by the childish, immature desire for instant gratification).
Children eventually realize that their earlier “I + mother = one and the same” assumption is not the case; then, the use of transitional objects begins. That use sets up the child to believe in the duality of the “me” and “the not-me” (represented by the transitional objects) which eventually, Winnicott said, “leads to the use of illusion, symbols and objects later on in life.”
And it also, among the masses, leads to the use of security blankets for an entire lifetime, which brings the discussion back to fixation at the third of seven steps: religion and spirituality, practiced at the third of seven steps, are the security blankeys for adults, and the thousands of gods and goddesses – as well as the Jewish-Christian-Muslim concept of a “one, true God” which Abraham dreamed up and which all three adhere to – are the surrogate parent or parents or Parent that adult-aged “children” turn to and reach out to when desiring comfort and freedom from fears.
Like children trying to coerce or manipulate a parent, they pray and beg and plead and supplicate and beseech and implore and entreat their god or goddess or God to remove the source of their fears or grant them immediate gratification around their desires.
And most will never know that every personality has a basic fear and a basic desire, all dreamed up; and most will never realize that their personality-inspired fears and desires seldom make any sense (though all of the relative consequences of those fears and desires are quite palpable).
The third of seven steps is a transitional step where persons try to use religion or try to use an external nexus of power / Power to provide a sense of comfort (as illusory as it is). To transition the third step and to abandon identification with the “good” false roles that are played at that step is to shift from childish things (those “things” being all of the beliefs and nonsense that were passed on during their childhood as a result of being programmed, conditioned, etc. by adults who are still trapped in, and driven by, the learned ignorance that they were taught).
Personality is personality, and duality is duality. Believing in “good” roles is as insane an act as believing in “bad” roles. Never has there been seen anyone playing the third-step role of “The Super Religious One” or “The Spiritual Giant” who did not have the dualistic belief that he or she is “better-than” and “different-from.” That self-image can manifest as “I am better than I was” or “I am better than others” or both, but the delusional perception is always there.
In uninviting those types to the loft, Maharaj said: “Only that person will visit this place whose virtue and sin have come to an end."
Happiness comes when belief in “good” and “bad” both go. As long as they remain, then bliss / peace / happiness cannot manifest. The relative existence will be filled with doingness rather than mere beingness.
Happiness is not about doing, about playing any role, but is about abiding in the manner of one’s “Original Nature” (which is beyond doingness and which is, in the end, beyond both beingness and non-beingness as well).
Here, the invitation is to take the steps that can free you and allow you to be happy and to dance lightly. That is the invitation to all (unless you are surrounded by fanatics such as “The Super Religious Ones” in Iran who are calling for a group of happy, young people who made a video of themselves dancing to a song entitled “Happy,” whereupon the fanatics called for them to be arrested, beaten, imprisoned, or even killed. Such fanatics only get a part of Maharaj’s message, so the motto for them and their nation is, “Only that person will visit this place whose sin have come to an end."
So much for those playing out the third-step “good” roles. So much for “religion being the opiate of the masses” if an opiate is supposed to provide comfort and freedom from anger and from being totally uptight and retentive.
Again, the self-image of those who would punish others for displaying their happiness is rooted in the personality-driven belief of “being better than others” and in being “good . . . no, wait, make that . . . really good.”
Recently, one playing the role of “The Offended Catholic” asked, “Do you really have any idea at all what Catholicism really offers?
Here, whatever persons say is ignored, especially if their pose is that of “A Good Person”; what persons do is witnessed objectively; and in a few cases, there is also a witnessing of the few that are actually just being and not doing at all.
Meanwhile, is it any wonder that the non-dual sages have long called for an end to personality - to false identifications – including those deemed to be “good” and “bad”?
Is it any wonder that the invitation on this site since 2005 is to reach the third step, to play the “good” roles for a time if you must, but then to give up the use of such transitional objects as religion or kindergarten-level spirituality or such transitional objects as a cult or a group or a co-dependent "caretaker"; to give up the use of all celestial blankeys; to give up all childish things; to give up the illusion of any and all "personal needs"; and then to move on along the “path” to total freedom and independence.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
A DAILY CONSIDERATION FOR YOU
F.: Yesterday:
The symptoms of the Ultimate Sickness always manifest through all who are trapped in their dualistic beliefs and personality identifications: fighting, separation, chaos, conflict, disorder, turmoil and instability (as in “Dual-minded persons are unstable in all ways”).
See? Totally dual-minded, insane thinking patterns.
Again, such are the relative results when the Ultimate Sickness goes untreated, allowing personality (false identities, roles, stage characters, personas, ego-states, self, false selves) to unconsciously determine everything that is thought and said and done, eliminating any possibility for conscious, wise, sane, logical, and reasonable decisions to be made.
And even among those seeking “Liberation” (which actually refers to liberation from the influence and effects of personality), duality remains to sabotage the process.
Why? Because persons assume what they take to be “good roles” or “good identities” to replace what they think were “bad roles” or “bad identities.”
And that is why even among the few who seek Realization, most will never move any farther along the seven-step “path” than the third step where such roles and identities and ego-states as “The Super Religious One” or “The Spiritual Giant” are assumed and played out both in private and in public.
Those roles can serve a purpose on the “journey” if they temporarily shift the focus from seeing “the phenomenal” only and are open seekers to the possibility of considering “things Noumenal” as well (at least for a time). If all of the falseness associated with things phenomenal are seen, then the movement to step four on the “path “can happen.
Yet that shift or movement seldom happens, so most never even reach the halfway point of the “path.” They fixate at the third of seven steps, and Maharaj said that once there, they proudly but blindly attach to those third step roles and become trapped in what he called their “kindergarten spirituality.”
Blindly? Yes. He noted that they think that they are completely enlightened when they actually remain in the darkness. They believe they are being bathed in the full light of the noonday sun when, in fact, they are really standing in the dim light of the dawn.
Consider this example offered by some psychologists as they try to differentiate between the use of what they call “transitional objects” vs. the use of things that (a) could be used as transitional objects but that (b) become objects of fixation and mental paralysis.
Transitional objects (or “comfort objects”) are supposed to be the stuff of childhood, but they more often than not become the stuff of adulthood, too. The result? The far-too-common case on planet earth where adults cling to their transitional objects and, therefore, act like children for the entire manifestation.
Some transitional objects that children use when they are being weaned from the breast or the bottle include a “security blanket” (or their “blankey”); “a pacifier”; a favorite stuffed animal; or a favorite toy, all used as a substitute when the mother-child bond begins to relax.
This has been noted: transitional objects are used “when the young child begins to separate the ‘me’ from the ‘not-me’ and evolves from complete dependence to a stage of relative independence.”
Ideally, the transitioning happens, the bond relaxes more and more, transitional objects are cast aside, and, eventually, the child develops into an adult that is independent.
Yet for most on the planet, no matter their age, transitional objects are used throughout the entire manifestation; bonds are not released but, in fact, more and more are sought; transitional objects are not cast aside; and their use continues for the entirety of the lives of most persons.
D.W. Winnicott addresses what should be a normal and natural shift or transition from believing the false beliefs that are stored in the mind to being free of such beliefs and then touching what he called “reality.” Here, the distinction is made using the terms “reality” and “Reality” to refer to “the Am-ness” and the “THAT-ness,” respectively.
Winnicott noted that
“Infants see themselves and the mother as a whole. In this phase, the mother ‘brings the world’ to the infant without delay which gives it a 'moment of illusion,' a belief that its own wish creates the object of its desire which brings with it a sense of satisfaction.”
Of course, that behavior reinforces the concept of “instant gratification” as well and sets the stage for addictive thinking and behaving (and untold misery and suffering as well when driven by the childish, immature desire for instant gratification).
Children eventually realize that their earlier “I + mother = one and the same” assumption is not the case; then, the use of transitional objects begins. That use sets up the child to believe in the duality of the “me” and “the not-me” (represented by the transitional objects) which eventually, Winnicott said, “leads to the use of illusion, symbols and objects later on in life.”
And it also, among the masses, leads to the use of security blankets for an entire lifetime, which brings the discussion back to fixation at the third of seven steps: religion and spirituality, practiced at the third of seven steps, are the security blankeys for adults, and the thousands of gods and goddesses – as well as the Jewish-Christian-Muslim concept of a “one, true God” which Abraham dreamed up and which all three adhere to – are the surrogate parent or parents or Parent that adult-aged “children” turn to and reach out to when desiring comfort and freedom from fears.
Like children trying to coerce or manipulate a parent, they pray and beg and plead and supplicate and beseech and implore and entreat their god or goddess or God to remove the source of their fears or grant them immediate gratification around their desires.
And most will never know that every personality has a basic fear and a basic desire, all dreamed up; and most will never realize that their personality-inspired fears and desires seldom make any sense (though all of the relative consequences of those fears and desires are quite palpable).
The third of seven steps is a transitional step where persons try to use religion or try to use an external nexus of power / Power to provide a sense of comfort (as illusory as it is). To transition the third step and to abandon identification with the “good” false roles that are played at that step is to shift from childish things (those “things” being all of the beliefs and nonsense that were passed on during their childhood as a result of being programmed, conditioned, etc. by adults who are still trapped in, and driven by, the learned ignorance that they were taught).
Personality is personality, and duality is duality. Believing in “good” roles is as insane an act as believing in “bad” roles. Never has there been seen anyone playing the third-step role of “The Super Religious One” or “The Spiritual Giant” who did not have the dualistic belief that he or she is “better-than” and “different-from.” That self-image can manifest as “I am better than I was” or “I am better than others” or both, but the delusional perception is always there.
In uninviting those types to the loft, Maharaj said: “Only that person will visit this place whose virtue and sin have come to an end."
Happiness comes when belief in “good” and “bad” both go. As long as they remain, then bliss / peace / happiness cannot manifest. The relative existence will be filled with doingness rather than mere beingness.
Happiness is not about doing, about playing any role, but is about abiding in the manner of one’s “Original Nature” (which is beyond doingness and which is, in the end, beyond both beingness and non-beingness as well).
Here, the invitation is to take the steps that can free you and allow you to be happy and to dance lightly. That is the invitation to all (unless you are surrounded by fanatics such as “The Super Religious Ones” in Iran who are calling for a group of happy, young people who made a video of themselves dancing to a song entitled “Happy,” whereupon the fanatics called for them to be arrested, beaten, imprisoned, or even killed. Such fanatics only get a part of Maharaj’s message, so the motto for them and their nation is, “Only that person will visit this place whose sin have come to an end."
So much for those playing out the third-step “good” roles. So much for “religion being the opiate of the masses” if an opiate is supposed to provide comfort and freedom from anger and from being totally uptight and retentive.
Again, the self-image of those who would punish others for displaying their happiness is rooted in the personality-driven belief of “being better than others” and in being “good . . . no, wait, make that . . . really good.”
Recently, one playing the role of “The Offended Catholic” asked, “Do you really have any idea at all what Catholicism really offers?
The reply: “Of course. It offers the same basic tenet as that offered by Protestants and Jews and other Christians and Muslims, namely, the belief that ‘If it feels good, stop it!’”
Here, whatever persons say is ignored, especially if their pose is that of “A Good Person”; what persons do is witnessed objectively; and in a few cases, there is also a witnessing of the few that are actually just being and not doing at all.
Meanwhile, is it any wonder that the non-dual sages have long called for an end to personality - to false identifications – including those deemed to be “good” and “bad”?
Is it any wonder that the invitation on this site since 2005 is to reach the third step, to play the “good” roles for a time if you must, but then to give up the use of such transitional objects as religion or kindergarten-level spirituality or such transitional objects as a cult or a group or a co-dependent "caretaker"; to give up the use of all celestial blankeys; to give up all childish things; to give up the illusion of any and all "personal needs"; and then to move on along the “path” to total freedom and independence.
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
24 May 2014
A DAILY CONSIDERATION FOR YOU
F.: [Continued from yesterday] To review the way it works on this site:
First, the “hypotheses” behind non-dual topics are set forth (currently, the ramifications of personality and the key symptoms of the Ultimate Sickness).
Next, specific examples of the propositions that were set forth are then shared, showing how the “theories” behind personality and duality translate when actually at play during the relative existence.
Yesterday, the case of “Mark” was used to illustrate the relative ramifications of personality and the key symptoms of the Ultimate Sickness. His case can illustrate another key point as well: when any personality / ego-state is assumed as an identity, that will soon trigger the subconscious use of ego-defense mechanisms to support the false identity. Among other mechanisms, the ego-defense mechanism of egotism is always at play, so each assumed personality is soon upgraded:
“The Husband” soon becomes “The Super Husband”; “The Lover” soon becomes “The Super Lover”; etc. In Mark’s case, prior to the upgrading, he was “The Husband”; the only thing “The Husband” needed to believe that it was real was someone willing to play the co-dependent counterpart role of “The Wife.” But once egotism upgraded him to the role of “The Super Husband,” then he had to have “A Super Wife” to support his elevated false identity.
Because she refused to play the supporting role in his play on the stage of “The Theater of the Lie,” she was expendable. In his twisted mind, she had written herself out of the script and out of his play. As “The Director” and “The One in Charge and in Control,” he had the “right” to fire her (or, to fire at her, literally, with a gun).
Next, it was noted that today, the case of a high school who shall be referred to as “Ms. S.” will be shared to show the way that her entrapment in personality and duality and the Ultimate Sickness had ramifications for her and for hundreds of students annually.
Ms. S. had been Mrs. S. for a time, but Mr. S. was not playing the role of “The Super Husband” properly, but being a devout Catholic, she acquiesced when her priest would not give her permission to divorce. She visited several other members of the clergy and with each telling, her tale grew worse until finally one minister did suggest that she did had grounds for “an annulment.”
After the church-sanctioned procedure that followed, she was declared not only to be “not married” but was determined “to have never been married at all.” There’s a handy piece of “spin,” yes?
Over the next year or so, she dated occasionally, but none of the men met her criteria; none were “good enough.” One date was over in the first two minutes because he did not open the car door for her. Finally, she recalled that, at the age of fifteen, her grandmother had advised: “You will most please God if you become a nun. That is what you should do.”
Having gone to college for four years and having several years experience as a teacher, she determined that she would continue to work and bring in the money she was earning from teaching but would incorporate that with her on version of nun-ness: she would marry God. (Actually, she entered into a four-way, claiming at times that she was “married to God”; that, at other times, she was “The Bride of Jesus,” and, at other times still, that she had “merged with the Holy Spirit”).
At that point, her Personality Type One Perfectionist, and its accompanying OCD, took full control. “The Teacher” became “The Super Teacher” and “The Perfect Teacher” and “The Catholic” became “The Super Catholic” and “The Perfect Catholic.” That blend resulted in her using her podium as a podium at times but using her podium as a pulpit at other times.
Now, all that “The Teacher” had needed to continue to believe in its “real-ness” was “Students,” but “The Super Teacher” and “The Perfect Teacher” needed “Super Students” and “Perfect Students” to sustain her illusory identities. Moreover, the proselytizing “Super Catholic” and “Perfect Catholic” needed an audience that behaved as “Super Catholics” and “Perfect Catholics.”
The problem: the school district where she worked was smack in the middle of a community of Germans, and they were all Lutherans; too, there was a large Mormon community as well, and none of the students who took themselves to be Lutherans or Mormons were buying into the not-too-subtle delivery of lessons that always had a not-too-subtle bit of Catholic dogma injected into them.
As with most who have attended any public school, her students began witnessing more and more rants and tantrums, driven partly by the fact that they were not behaving in the way that “Super Students” should behave, thus threatening the perceived existence of “The Super Teacher” and “The Perfect Teacher.”
Too, their rebelling against having her dogma inserted into lessons (because it differed from their dogma) only inspired them to misbehave even more. And that led to more and more ranting. Eventually, the tirades reached such a high level of volume that teachers and students in nearby rooms were hearing the rants as well.
After one particularly loud and long and near-violent rage, she approached some teachers in the hall during the break for class-change and said, “I am going to stay on them until they behave the way they should. I’m not going to give up. Today, I caught two passing a note during my lecture, and I went off on them and I guarantee you, they are going to be better students from now on.”
Little did she know what the teachers heard from her high-school-age students who had preceded her into the hall. Those teachers did not hear anyone saying, “You know, she’s right. We can be much better students than we are. I am going to change my ways and become the best student in all of her classes.”
Instead, what they heard was this:
One female student said to another, “My parents have an appointment to see the principal and they are going to tell him they do not want me to hear another word of her Catholic propaganda”;
another female said, “I’m going to my counselor and ask to be removed from her class”;
and one male student said to another: “Man, that frustrated, miserable b**** needs to get laid!”
But, again, not one student was heard to say, “You know, she’s right. We can be much better students than we are. I am going to change my ways and become the best student in all of her classes.”
Note the distortion that comes when ego-states self-upgrade: while she was convinced that she was the best teacher in the school, she was likely the most ineffective of all; and while she thought she was doing a super job of proselytizing for her religion, she was actually driving people away from it in droves.
And as for a priest saying over and over during Mass, “peace be with you,” and as for her responding over and over “And also with you” or some such, the evidence was clear: the benefits that she claimed she was getting from Mass and from her church and from her the four-ways she was having in her marriage to God and Jesus and a Holy Ghost, there was no peace and no happiness at all.
What there was was a woman trapped in her assigned and assumed personas and trapped in the depths of the Ultimate Sickness.
Consider some of the symptoms she was exhibiting:
She had no ability to distinguish true from false (“I’m really helping them”); she displayed the propensity to believe lies; to distort perceptions; to believe that images are real; to have no clue who she is, really; to talk in one's sleep;
to accept as true, without questioning to even the slightest degree, the concepts and beliefs that are taught by authority figures and to believe the most unbelievable tales that those figures dream up; to accumulate the various forms of the Sickness and then to pass them along to students with pride in having done so; to accept, with blind faith, beliefs that had no basis in fact and that could not possibly be proved;
to allow subconscious motivators (a.k.a., personality / personalities) to determine every thought and word and action while believing that she was consciously choosing to think what she thought, to say what she said, and to do what she did; to be asleep but to believe that she was awake;
to be self-destructive; to exhibit impaired judgment; to be unreasonable and illogical; to display unstable and inappropriate emotions (that is, to be emotionally-intoxicated); to be religiously or spiritually intoxicated;
to believe that absolutes can be applied to things relative; to develop extreme dependencies on people and groups and leaders and on powers that are supposedly living in unseen worlds; to be unable to cope;
to behave like a six-year-old, tantrum-throwing child for an entire manifestation, even during "the adult years"; to be preoccupied with "self" (with the false selves or false identities that are assumed and thought to be real); to play a role on a stage and believe the character is real;
to live a life of “quiet desperation” that eventually became a noisy life of desperation; and to be driven by phony, dreamed-up “needs” which are personality-generated and which are based in delusion and illusions because those infirmed with the Ultimate Sickness do not understand that they are actually nothing more than a composite unity.
The results of Mark and Ms. S.’s dualistic beliefs and personality identifications and their Ultimate Sickness illustrate the consequences that manifested through them and that always manifest through all who are trapped in their dualistic beliefs and personality identifications and their Ultimate Sickness, namely,
fighting, separation, chaos, conflict, disorder, turmoil and instability (as in “Dual-minded persons are unstable in all ways”). Yes, in all ways. Three of the symptoms of the Ultimate Sickness that Maharaj identified, “ignorance, stupidity, and insanity,” cannot be compartmentalized. They show up in all ways and at all times:
“I killed my wife but I loved my wife.” (The reply from here: “In that case, please don’t ever love me.”)
“My faith gives me what we call ‘a peace that surpasses all understanding,’ but bad students can push my buttons and set me off.”
"I was married, but I was never really married."
"I am now married to the members of the Holy Trinity."
Parent to child: “I whip you not because I want to. I whip you because I love you. Someday you’ll understand that.” (“One, please stop offering your version and love; and two, I’ll never ‘understand’ a supposedly all-loving parent who is willing to dispense such seemingly-endless punishment . . . which is actually just like what happens with the God you talk about, isn’t it?”)
“We are the greatest nation on earth; but we do have more citizens in prison than any other nation; we recently caused a worldwide economic collapse; we start wars at the drop of a hat; we have a medical system that is ranked 38th by the World Health Organization; our citizens kill more of their fellow citizens annually than in any other nation;
we rank lowest among all industrialized nations in educational standing; we rank highest in instances of childhood obesity; we rank fifth in the rate of alcoholism among the citizens in all industrialized nations; we have more people living in poverty than any other industrialized nation; and we have more wealth in fewer hands that in any other ‘developed’ nation. So, except for a few ‘blips on the screen,’ we’re #1.”
See? Totally dual-minded, totally insane thinking . . . in all ways.
Again, such are the relative results when the Ultimate Sickness goes untreated. Here, the gratitude is for the non-dual understanding that brought to an end, once and for, all of that insanity and nonsense. So now, how about you? Can you relate at all to any of the symptoms of the Ultimate Sickness?
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
23 May 2014
First, the “hypotheses” behind non-dual topics are set forth (currently, the ramifications of personality and the key symptoms of the Ultimate Sickness).
Next, specific examples of the propositions that were set forth are then shared, showing how the “theories” behind personality and duality translate when actually at play during the relative existence.
Yesterday, the case of “Mark” was used to illustrate the relative ramifications of personality and the key symptoms of the Ultimate Sickness. His case can illustrate another key point as well: when any personality / ego-state is assumed as an identity, that will soon trigger the subconscious use of ego-defense mechanisms to support the false identity. Among other mechanisms, the ego-defense mechanism of egotism is always at play, so each assumed personality is soon upgraded:
“The Husband” soon becomes “The Super Husband”; “The Lover” soon becomes “The Super Lover”; etc. In Mark’s case, prior to the upgrading, he was “The Husband”; the only thing “The Husband” needed to believe that it was real was someone willing to play the co-dependent counterpart role of “The Wife.” But once egotism upgraded him to the role of “The Super Husband,” then he had to have “A Super Wife” to support his elevated false identity.
Because she refused to play the supporting role in his play on the stage of “The Theater of the Lie,” she was expendable. In his twisted mind, she had written herself out of the script and out of his play. As “The Director” and “The One in Charge and in Control,” he had the “right” to fire her (or, to fire at her, literally, with a gun).
Next, it was noted that today, the case of a high school who shall be referred to as “Ms. S.” will be shared to show the way that her entrapment in personality and duality and the Ultimate Sickness had ramifications for her and for hundreds of students annually.
Ms. S. had been Mrs. S. for a time, but Mr. S. was not playing the role of “The Super Husband” properly, but being a devout Catholic, she acquiesced when her priest would not give her permission to divorce. She visited several other members of the clergy and with each telling, her tale grew worse until finally one minister did suggest that she did had grounds for “an annulment.”
After the church-sanctioned procedure that followed, she was declared not only to be “not married” but was determined “to have never been married at all.” There’s a handy piece of “spin,” yes?
Over the next year or so, she dated occasionally, but none of the men met her criteria; none were “good enough.” One date was over in the first two minutes because he did not open the car door for her. Finally, she recalled that, at the age of fifteen, her grandmother had advised: “You will most please God if you become a nun. That is what you should do.”
Having gone to college for four years and having several years experience as a teacher, she determined that she would continue to work and bring in the money she was earning from teaching but would incorporate that with her on version of nun-ness: she would marry God. (Actually, she entered into a four-way, claiming at times that she was “married to God”; that, at other times, she was “The Bride of Jesus,” and, at other times still, that she had “merged with the Holy Spirit”).
At that point, her Personality Type One Perfectionist, and its accompanying OCD, took full control. “The Teacher” became “The Super Teacher” and “The Perfect Teacher” and “The Catholic” became “The Super Catholic” and “The Perfect Catholic.” That blend resulted in her using her podium as a podium at times but using her podium as a pulpit at other times.
Now, all that “The Teacher” had needed to continue to believe in its “real-ness” was “Students,” but “The Super Teacher” and “The Perfect Teacher” needed “Super Students” and “Perfect Students” to sustain her illusory identities. Moreover, the proselytizing “Super Catholic” and “Perfect Catholic” needed an audience that behaved as “Super Catholics” and “Perfect Catholics.”
The problem: the school district where she worked was smack in the middle of a community of Germans, and they were all Lutherans; too, there was a large Mormon community as well, and none of the students who took themselves to be Lutherans or Mormons were buying into the not-too-subtle delivery of lessons that always had a not-too-subtle bit of Catholic dogma injected into them.
As with most who have attended any public school, her students began witnessing more and more rants and tantrums, driven partly by the fact that they were not behaving in the way that “Super Students” should behave, thus threatening the perceived existence of “The Super Teacher” and “The Perfect Teacher.”
Too, their rebelling against having her dogma inserted into lessons (because it differed from their dogma) only inspired them to misbehave even more. And that led to more and more ranting. Eventually, the tirades reached such a high level of volume that teachers and students in nearby rooms were hearing the rants as well.
After one particularly loud and long and near-violent rage, she approached some teachers in the hall during the break for class-change and said, “I am going to stay on them until they behave the way they should. I’m not going to give up. Today, I caught two passing a note during my lecture, and I went off on them and I guarantee you, they are going to be better students from now on.”
Little did she know what the teachers heard from her high-school-age students who had preceded her into the hall. Those teachers did not hear anyone saying, “You know, she’s right. We can be much better students than we are. I am going to change my ways and become the best student in all of her classes.”
Instead, what they heard was this:
One female student said to another, “My parents have an appointment to see the principal and they are going to tell him they do not want me to hear another word of her Catholic propaganda”;
another female said, “I’m going to my counselor and ask to be removed from her class”;
and one male student said to another: “Man, that frustrated, miserable b**** needs to get laid!”
But, again, not one student was heard to say, “You know, she’s right. We can be much better students than we are. I am going to change my ways and become the best student in all of her classes.”
Note the distortion that comes when ego-states self-upgrade: while she was convinced that she was the best teacher in the school, she was likely the most ineffective of all; and while she thought she was doing a super job of proselytizing for her religion, she was actually driving people away from it in droves.
And as for a priest saying over and over during Mass, “peace be with you,” and as for her responding over and over “And also with you” or some such, the evidence was clear: the benefits that she claimed she was getting from Mass and from her church and from her the four-ways she was having in her marriage to God and Jesus and a Holy Ghost, there was no peace and no happiness at all.
What there was was a woman trapped in her assigned and assumed personas and trapped in the depths of the Ultimate Sickness.
Consider some of the symptoms she was exhibiting:
She had no ability to distinguish true from false (“I’m really helping them”); she displayed the propensity to believe lies; to distort perceptions; to believe that images are real; to have no clue who she is, really; to talk in one's sleep;
to accept as true, without questioning to even the slightest degree, the concepts and beliefs that are taught by authority figures and to believe the most unbelievable tales that those figures dream up; to accumulate the various forms of the Sickness and then to pass them along to students with pride in having done so; to accept, with blind faith, beliefs that had no basis in fact and that could not possibly be proved;
to allow subconscious motivators (a.k.a., personality / personalities) to determine every thought and word and action while believing that she was consciously choosing to think what she thought, to say what she said, and to do what she did; to be asleep but to believe that she was awake;
to be self-destructive; to exhibit impaired judgment; to be unreasonable and illogical; to display unstable and inappropriate emotions (that is, to be emotionally-intoxicated); to be religiously or spiritually intoxicated;
to believe that absolutes can be applied to things relative; to develop extreme dependencies on people and groups and leaders and on powers that are supposedly living in unseen worlds; to be unable to cope;
to behave like a six-year-old, tantrum-throwing child for an entire manifestation, even during "the adult years"; to be preoccupied with "self" (with the false selves or false identities that are assumed and thought to be real); to play a role on a stage and believe the character is real;
to live a life of “quiet desperation” that eventually became a noisy life of desperation; and to be driven by phony, dreamed-up “needs” which are personality-generated and which are based in delusion and illusions because those infirmed with the Ultimate Sickness do not understand that they are actually nothing more than a composite unity.
The results of Mark and Ms. S.’s dualistic beliefs and personality identifications and their Ultimate Sickness illustrate the consequences that manifested through them and that always manifest through all who are trapped in their dualistic beliefs and personality identifications and their Ultimate Sickness, namely,
fighting, separation, chaos, conflict, disorder, turmoil and instability (as in “Dual-minded persons are unstable in all ways”). Yes, in all ways. Three of the symptoms of the Ultimate Sickness that Maharaj identified, “ignorance, stupidity, and insanity,” cannot be compartmentalized. They show up in all ways and at all times:
“I killed my wife but I loved my wife.” (The reply from here: “In that case, please don’t ever love me.”)
“My faith gives me what we call ‘a peace that surpasses all understanding,’ but bad students can push my buttons and set me off.”
"I was married, but I was never really married."
"I am now married to the members of the Holy Trinity."
Parent to child: “I whip you not because I want to. I whip you because I love you. Someday you’ll understand that.” (“One, please stop offering your version and love; and two, I’ll never ‘understand’ a supposedly all-loving parent who is willing to dispense such seemingly-endless punishment . . . which is actually just like what happens with the God you talk about, isn’t it?”)
“We are the greatest nation on earth; but we do have more citizens in prison than any other nation; we recently caused a worldwide economic collapse; we start wars at the drop of a hat; we have a medical system that is ranked 38th by the World Health Organization; our citizens kill more of their fellow citizens annually than in any other nation;
we rank lowest among all industrialized nations in educational standing; we rank highest in instances of childhood obesity; we rank fifth in the rate of alcoholism among the citizens in all industrialized nations; we have more people living in poverty than any other industrialized nation; and we have more wealth in fewer hands that in any other ‘developed’ nation. So, except for a few ‘blips on the screen,’ we’re #1.”
See? Totally dual-minded, totally insane thinking . . . in all ways.
Again, such are the relative results when the Ultimate Sickness goes untreated. Here, the gratitude is for the non-dual understanding that brought to an end, once and for, all of that insanity and nonsense. So now, how about you? Can you relate at all to any of the symptoms of the Ultimate Sickness?
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
23 May 2014
A DAILY CONSIDERATION FOR YOU
F.: Here’s the way it works on this site:
First, the “hypotheses” behind a non-dual topic is set forth. Recently, the ramifications of personality have been discussed and yesterday some of the key symptoms of the Ultimate Sickness were shared.
Next, specific examples of the propositions that were set forth are then shared, showing how the “theories” behind personality and duality translate into "reality" when actually at play during the relative existence.
Today, the case of a man named “Mark” will be used to show exactly how personality and duality played out with him, and then tomorrow the case of a high school who shall be referred to as “Ms. S.” will be shared to show the way that her entrapment in personality and duality are having ramifications for her and for hundreds of students annually. To Mark:
I spoke with Mark a few days before he would be flying to California to appear on “The Dr. Phil Show.” He had been in treatment for an addiction to alcohol and drugs and had been clean for a few months. As part of the process, he wanted to try to reestablish a relationship with his daughters; Dr. Phil agreed to arbitrate the face-to-face with one daughter, their first sit-down since Mark had killed his wife and their mother.
The day he was to leave for the taping of the show, Mark’s enthusiasm had dampened. We sat in a room together to discuss the shift. He said something to the effect that, “He’s really going to tear me up big time.” The reply was something to effect of, “Maybe, but you know something about tearing people up big time yourself, don’t you? Go face the music and tell your daughter how sorry you are and know that, whatever she says, you must accept his decision.”
The back story: Mark’s wife determined that the toll being taken on their marriage and on their children as a result of alcohol and drug abuse was too great and that their marriage had to end.
They separated, and Mark played the “I’m Going To Be A Changed, Better Man” role to try to work his way back into the house and the marriage. That role-playing and its short shelf-life had been seen before, so it was rejected this time.
But several of Mark’s personalities continued to fight the wife’s decision every step of the way. Especially threatened were these: “The Husband”; “The Father”; “The Homeowner”; "The Lover"; "The Man Concerned about Finances”; and a plethora of others.
Those were roles / personas / personalities, but they were taken to be real and taken to define ”self,” so Mark actually came to believe, delusionally, that HE was under attack. As those personalities began to die out, he felt as if HE were dying.
After a bout of heavy drinking and drugging, Mark was driven by the agendas of those personalities – and by their fears and the desires – to actually believe that HE was being attacked personally (persona-ly), so he shifted from the defensive to the offensive.
He loaded his gun, drove to his former house, barged in, and barricaded him there while holding the wife and daughters hostage. (Any personality that feels its agenda is being interfered with and threatened can often take such actions. As noted here previously, 59% of all women killed in the U.S. annually are killed during a breakup.)
The wife went into the bathroom, opened a window, and tried to escape by running across the front yard. At that point, Mark shot her. And THAT is how twisted one can become when personalities and dualistic beliefs distort reality and allow one to feel as if he is under attack and is defending himself when someone smaller is moving away from him, which is the most non-threatening posture in nature.
Recall a similar reaction from “floyd,” illustrated by this contrast shared here in the past: a female brown bear with two cubs in tow charged me when our paths crossed in an open field in Arizona. The level of fear experienced went “through the roof.” After she turned and continued away with her cubs, it took me fifteen minutes to cross the field and to check into a nearby hotel, fifteen minutes to shower and change clothes, and thirty minutes to go to a nearby café, eat my first decent, hot meal after two weeks in the forest, and then finally relax. By contrast, when the one called “The Wife” said she was leaving, got into the car, and was watched until she drove out of sight, the level of fear experienced also went “through the roof.” And it took far longer than an hour to process the fear and dashed desires and insanity generated by the agendas of many false identities. A much larger, female brown bear charges, one of the most threatening postures in nature, but that is processed away in sixty minutes. When a much smaller human female walks away, which is the most non-threatening posture in nature, it can take some persons year to process, if at all.
AFRAID when a bear charged me and stood over me, front legs raised toward the sky, approximately fourteen feet from the tip of the claws raised in the air to her feet? Sane.
AFRAID when a woman six inches shorter and fifty pounds lighter was watched as she walked away from me? Insane.
Thinking a wife running across her front yard, away from you, is actually attacking you? Insane.
Taking years to process anger or hatred around a spouse who "did not show proper respect" and who "took from you whatever you desired"? Insane.
Never processing completely the anger or hatred around a spouse who "did not show proper respect" and "who took from you whatever you desired"? Completely insane.
Finally, look back at some of the symptoms offered yesterday and see how they can play out during the relative existence:
While “mark” killed his “wife” and “floyd” did not, both were in really sick relationships but both thought the relationships “were pretty good, overall”; both thought they really were “The Husband,” “The Father,” “The Homeowner,” "The Lover," etc.; both thought they were awake when they were totally asleep;
both allowed subconscious motivators (a.k.a., personality / personalities) to determine every thought and word and action while believing that they were consciously choosing to think what was thought, to say what was said, and to do what was done;
both were asleep but believed they were awake; both displayed unstable and inappropriate emotions (that is, both were emotionally-intoxicated); both believed that the not-special was special;
the personality-driven “thinking” of both was believed to be organized and clear though the opposite was true; both developed extreme dependencies; both entered into a state of unwarranted fear; both desired more and more of what was already contributing to their sickness;
both played many roles on a stage and both believed their many characters were real; both had accepted that their years of suffering were acceptable and should continue; both were living “lives of quiet desperation” (which eventually disintegrated into noisy lives of desperation);
both formed and then stayed in unbelievably unhealthy relationships while denying that their relationships were unbelievably unhealthy; and both were driven by phony, dreamed-up “needs” which were personality-generated and which were based in delusion and illusions.
Such are the relative results when the Ultimate Sickness goes untreated. Here, the gratitude is for the non-dual understanding that brought to an end, once and for, all of that insanity and nonsense. So now, how about you? Can you relate at all to any of the symptoms of the Ultimate Sickness and their consequences?
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
22 May 2014
F.: Here’s the way it works on this site:
First, the “hypotheses” behind a non-dual topic is set forth. Recently, the ramifications of personality have been discussed and yesterday some of the key symptoms of the Ultimate Sickness were shared.
Next, specific examples of the propositions that were set forth are then shared, showing how the “theories” behind personality and duality translate into "reality" when actually at play during the relative existence.
Today, the case of a man named “Mark” will be used to show exactly how personality and duality played out with him, and then tomorrow the case of a high school who shall be referred to as “Ms. S.” will be shared to show the way that her entrapment in personality and duality are having ramifications for her and for hundreds of students annually. To Mark:
I spoke with Mark a few days before he would be flying to California to appear on “The Dr. Phil Show.” He had been in treatment for an addiction to alcohol and drugs and had been clean for a few months. As part of the process, he wanted to try to reestablish a relationship with his daughters; Dr. Phil agreed to arbitrate the face-to-face with one daughter, their first sit-down since Mark had killed his wife and their mother.
The day he was to leave for the taping of the show, Mark’s enthusiasm had dampened. We sat in a room together to discuss the shift. He said something to the effect that, “He’s really going to tear me up big time.” The reply was something to effect of, “Maybe, but you know something about tearing people up big time yourself, don’t you? Go face the music and tell your daughter how sorry you are and know that, whatever she says, you must accept his decision.”
The back story: Mark’s wife determined that the toll being taken on their marriage and on their children as a result of alcohol and drug abuse was too great and that their marriage had to end.
They separated, and Mark played the “I’m Going To Be A Changed, Better Man” role to try to work his way back into the house and the marriage. That role-playing and its short shelf-life had been seen before, so it was rejected this time.
But several of Mark’s personalities continued to fight the wife’s decision every step of the way. Especially threatened were these: “The Husband”; “The Father”; “The Homeowner”; "The Lover"; "The Man Concerned about Finances”; and a plethora of others.
Those were roles / personas / personalities, but they were taken to be real and taken to define ”self,” so Mark actually came to believe, delusionally, that HE was under attack. As those personalities began to die out, he felt as if HE were dying.
After a bout of heavy drinking and drugging, Mark was driven by the agendas of those personalities – and by their fears and the desires – to actually believe that HE was being attacked personally (persona-ly), so he shifted from the defensive to the offensive.
He loaded his gun, drove to his former house, barged in, and barricaded him there while holding the wife and daughters hostage. (Any personality that feels its agenda is being interfered with and threatened can often take such actions. As noted here previously, 59% of all women killed in the U.S. annually are killed during a breakup.)
The wife went into the bathroom, opened a window, and tried to escape by running across the front yard. At that point, Mark shot her. And THAT is how twisted one can become when personalities and dualistic beliefs distort reality and allow one to feel as if he is under attack and is defending himself when someone smaller is moving away from him, which is the most non-threatening posture in nature.
Recall a similar reaction from “floyd,” illustrated by this contrast shared here in the past: a female brown bear with two cubs in tow charged me when our paths crossed in an open field in Arizona. The level of fear experienced went “through the roof.” After she turned and continued away with her cubs, it took me fifteen minutes to cross the field and to check into a nearby hotel, fifteen minutes to shower and change clothes, and thirty minutes to go to a nearby café, eat my first decent, hot meal after two weeks in the forest, and then finally relax. By contrast, when the one called “The Wife” said she was leaving, got into the car, and was watched until she drove out of sight, the level of fear experienced also went “through the roof.” And it took far longer than an hour to process the fear and dashed desires and insanity generated by the agendas of many false identities. A much larger, female brown bear charges, one of the most threatening postures in nature, but that is processed away in sixty minutes. When a much smaller human female walks away, which is the most non-threatening posture in nature, it can take some persons year to process, if at all.
AFRAID when a bear charged me and stood over me, front legs raised toward the sky, approximately fourteen feet from the tip of the claws raised in the air to her feet? Sane.
AFRAID when a woman six inches shorter and fifty pounds lighter was watched as she walked away from me? Insane.
Thinking a wife running across her front yard, away from you, is actually attacking you? Insane.
Taking years to process anger or hatred around a spouse who "did not show proper respect" and who "took from you whatever you desired"? Insane.
Never processing completely the anger or hatred around a spouse who "did not show proper respect" and "who took from you whatever you desired"? Completely insane.
Finally, look back at some of the symptoms offered yesterday and see how they can play out during the relative existence:
While “mark” killed his “wife” and “floyd” did not, both were in really sick relationships but both thought the relationships “were pretty good, overall”; both thought they really were “The Husband,” “The Father,” “The Homeowner,” "The Lover," etc.; both thought they were awake when they were totally asleep;
both allowed subconscious motivators (a.k.a., personality / personalities) to determine every thought and word and action while believing that they were consciously choosing to think what was thought, to say what was said, and to do what was done;
both were asleep but believed they were awake; both displayed unstable and inappropriate emotions (that is, both were emotionally-intoxicated); both believed that the not-special was special;
the personality-driven “thinking” of both was believed to be organized and clear though the opposite was true; both developed extreme dependencies; both entered into a state of unwarranted fear; both desired more and more of what was already contributing to their sickness;
both played many roles on a stage and both believed their many characters were real; both had accepted that their years of suffering were acceptable and should continue; both were living “lives of quiet desperation” (which eventually disintegrated into noisy lives of desperation);
both formed and then stayed in unbelievably unhealthy relationships while denying that their relationships were unbelievably unhealthy; and both were driven by phony, dreamed-up “needs” which were personality-generated and which were based in delusion and illusions.
Such are the relative results when the Ultimate Sickness goes untreated. Here, the gratitude is for the non-dual understanding that brought to an end, once and for, all of that insanity and nonsense. So now, how about you? Can you relate at all to any of the symptoms of the Ultimate Sickness and their consequences?
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
22 May 2014
A DAILY CONSIDERATION FOR YOU
F.: So, the state of humanity is this:
During the multi-million-year history that human-like life forms have walked the planet (which even precedes the periods charted below) and during the millions of years of human life forms walking the planet, archaeologists and anthropologists have found no evidence of those life forms being concerned with self-image and body modification and physical appearances until the most recent times after “modern humans” evolved:
Those "modern humans" who have been concerned with image have existed for fewer than 200,000 of the millions of years under discussion.
Also, only in the most recent "modern" times have plagues, diseases, incurable diseases, and a variety of illnesses manifested.
Of those, none have generated more distortion, anxiety, chaos, fighting, wars, and on-going instances of mass genocide than that referred to by non-dualists as “the Ultimate Sickness.”
A pandemic is an epidemic of an infectious disease that spreads throughout human populations across large regions or continents or even worldwide. The peoples of the planet have witnessed many pandemics, including smallpox and tuberculosis pandemics, the HIV pandemic, and (more recently) the H1N1 pandemic. All of those impacted millions.
But one pandemic that has now spread globally is the pandemic of the Ultimate Sickness, and it is not impacting millions. It is impacting billions. No pandemic has had more widespread and catastrophic effects, relatively speaking.
What are the observable symptoms? They are discussed in detail in the eBook below: "THE ULTIMATE SICKNESS, THE ULTIMATE MEDICINE: The Four Stages and the Seven Steps to Realization," but a sampling is offered in the following excerpt:
The Ultimate Sickness, like most sickness, is passed on when persons interact; it is contracted when a previously-well person is exposed to another person or persons who have the sickness, and the exposure always begins at an early age.
The Sickness is passed on via the "germ" of programming and the "virus" of conditioning and the "contaminate" of acculturation and the "bacteria" of domestication.
The Ultimate Sickness is primarily a mental and emotional sickness that is contracted when exposed to what Maharaj called the Sickness’s symptoms of “ignorance and stupidity and insanity” which have spread throughout every culture on the planet. Exposure to the carriers also results in personality disorders that can only be addressed by the casting aside of all personality in order to continue to move along the four-stage, seven-step "path" to wellness.
Treatment for the Ultimate Sickness is complicated by the fact that most persons who contract the illness actually normalize the condition and its symptoms and, therefore, (a) seldom have a clue that they are as sick as they truly are and thus (b) seldom seek the Ultimate Medicine that can address the Sickness and its symptoms.
How, then, is one to know if he or she has contracted the Ultimate Sickness? One must cross the path of a "healer" who suffered the illness, of one who found someone to administer the treatment in the proper stages and steps, of one that was eventually freed of the Sickness and its symptoms, and of one that is now willing to administer the Ultimate Medicine to seekers who are suffering the same symptoms and effects and who are wanting relief.
Therefore, consider some of the symptoms of the Ultimate Sickness which include an inability to distinguish true from false and, therefore, the propensity to believe lies; to distort perceptions; to believe that images are real; to have no clue who they are; to talk in one's sleep; to work and drive and walk while asleep;
to accept as true, without questioning to even the slightest degree, the concepts and beliefs that are taught by authority figures and to believe the most unbelievable tales that those figures dream up; to accumulate the various forms of the Sickness and then to pass them along to family members and friends and associates with pride in having done so; to accept, with blind faith, beliefs that have no basis in fact and that cannot possibly be proved; to be so delusional that “one” is believed to be “two”;
to believe that learned ignorance is wisdom; to suffer willingly and repeatedly the consequences of what Maharaj called "learned ignorance"; to lose all ability to detect nonsense when it is heard;
to allow subconscious motivators (a.k.a., personality / personalities) to determine every thought and word and action while believing that one is consciously choosing to think what is thought, to say what is said, and to do what is done; to be asleep but to believe that one is awake;
to be self-destructive; to exhibit impaired judgment; to be unreasonable and illogical; to display unstable and inappropriate emotions (that is, being emotionally-intoxicated); to be religiously or spiritually intoxicated; to have hallucinations (such as believing that you can hear a supernatural being from another world and to believe that such a being is actually talking to you);
to believe that the not-special is special; to believe that absolutes can be applied to things relative; to be disorganized and confused while thinking that you are organized and thinking clearly; to develop extreme dependencies on people and groups and leaders and on powers that are supposedly living in unseen worlds; to be unable to cope; to be in a state of unwarranted fear; to constantly desire more and more of what is already making one sick;
to feel guilt and self-blame that have no basis in fact; to behave like a six-year old child for an entire manifestation, even during "the adult years"; to be preoccupied with "self" (with the false selves or false identities that are assumed and thought to be real); to play a role on a stage and believe the character is real;
to believe that a physical, plant food body can disintegrate, re-integrate, and last for eternity and can feel pain or ecstasy for eternity; to suffer and then still believe that suffering is good; to believe that things that are unnatural and things that are mistakenly called “supernatural” are actually natural;
who live “lives of quiet desperation” or, more often nowadays, noisy lives of desperation; who form and then stay in unbelievably unhealthy relationships while denying that their relationships are unbelievably unhealthy; who are driven by phony, dreamed-up “needs” which are personality-generated and which are based in delusion and illusions because those stricken with the Ultimate Sickness do not understand that they are actually nothing more than a composite unity; ad infinitum.
Imagine if persons knew of an Ultimate Medicine that could cure all of the above; they would call that a "miracle drug." Know that not only does such a medicine exist, and not only does it address all of the symptoms of the Ultimate Sickness that are catalogued above, but it is available at a fraction of the cost that any sane and sound person would estimate its true value to be.
Yet few will ever know it even exists because few will ever know that they are suffering from the symptoms of the Ultimate Sickness and because few will ever understand they need to be cured from the Sickness that has been passed on to them.
Robert Powell said that Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj provided "powerful antidotes to unawarenesses," that is, to the Sickness that marks and mars the relative existence.
Those antidotes, when accepted, have allowed some to abide in an all-natural, all-sane, no-delusion, non-dual, ignorance-free, and insanity-free fashion.
And that is what one referred to as a “Realized, Non-Dual, Nisargan” offers to those who would be well and totally free.
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
21 May 2014
F.: So, the state of humanity is this:
During the multi-million-year history that human-like life forms have walked the planet (which even precedes the periods charted below) and during the millions of years of human life forms walking the planet, archaeologists and anthropologists have found no evidence of those life forms being concerned with self-image and body modification and physical appearances until the most recent times after “modern humans” evolved:
Those "modern humans" who have been concerned with image have existed for fewer than 200,000 of the millions of years under discussion.
Also, only in the most recent "modern" times have plagues, diseases, incurable diseases, and a variety of illnesses manifested.
Of those, none have generated more distortion, anxiety, chaos, fighting, wars, and on-going instances of mass genocide than that referred to by non-dualists as “the Ultimate Sickness.”
A pandemic is an epidemic of an infectious disease that spreads throughout human populations across large regions or continents or even worldwide. The peoples of the planet have witnessed many pandemics, including smallpox and tuberculosis pandemics, the HIV pandemic, and (more recently) the H1N1 pandemic. All of those impacted millions.
But one pandemic that has now spread globally is the pandemic of the Ultimate Sickness, and it is not impacting millions. It is impacting billions. No pandemic has had more widespread and catastrophic effects, relatively speaking.
What are the observable symptoms? They are discussed in detail in the eBook below: "THE ULTIMATE SICKNESS, THE ULTIMATE MEDICINE: The Four Stages and the Seven Steps to Realization," but a sampling is offered in the following excerpt:
The Ultimate Sickness, like most sickness, is passed on when persons interact; it is contracted when a previously-well person is exposed to another person or persons who have the sickness, and the exposure always begins at an early age.
The Sickness is passed on via the "germ" of programming and the "virus" of conditioning and the "contaminate" of acculturation and the "bacteria" of domestication.
The Ultimate Sickness is primarily a mental and emotional sickness that is contracted when exposed to what Maharaj called the Sickness’s symptoms of “ignorance and stupidity and insanity” which have spread throughout every culture on the planet. Exposure to the carriers also results in personality disorders that can only be addressed by the casting aside of all personality in order to continue to move along the four-stage, seven-step "path" to wellness.
Treatment for the Ultimate Sickness is complicated by the fact that most persons who contract the illness actually normalize the condition and its symptoms and, therefore, (a) seldom have a clue that they are as sick as they truly are and thus (b) seldom seek the Ultimate Medicine that can address the Sickness and its symptoms.
How, then, is one to know if he or she has contracted the Ultimate Sickness? One must cross the path of a "healer" who suffered the illness, of one who found someone to administer the treatment in the proper stages and steps, of one that was eventually freed of the Sickness and its symptoms, and of one that is now willing to administer the Ultimate Medicine to seekers who are suffering the same symptoms and effects and who are wanting relief.
Therefore, consider some of the symptoms of the Ultimate Sickness which include an inability to distinguish true from false and, therefore, the propensity to believe lies; to distort perceptions; to believe that images are real; to have no clue who they are; to talk in one's sleep; to work and drive and walk while asleep;
to accept as true, without questioning to even the slightest degree, the concepts and beliefs that are taught by authority figures and to believe the most unbelievable tales that those figures dream up; to accumulate the various forms of the Sickness and then to pass them along to family members and friends and associates with pride in having done so; to accept, with blind faith, beliefs that have no basis in fact and that cannot possibly be proved; to be so delusional that “one” is believed to be “two”;
to believe that learned ignorance is wisdom; to suffer willingly and repeatedly the consequences of what Maharaj called "learned ignorance"; to lose all ability to detect nonsense when it is heard;
to allow subconscious motivators (a.k.a., personality / personalities) to determine every thought and word and action while believing that one is consciously choosing to think what is thought, to say what is said, and to do what is done; to be asleep but to believe that one is awake;
to be self-destructive; to exhibit impaired judgment; to be unreasonable and illogical; to display unstable and inappropriate emotions (that is, being emotionally-intoxicated); to be religiously or spiritually intoxicated; to have hallucinations (such as believing that you can hear a supernatural being from another world and to believe that such a being is actually talking to you);
to believe that the not-special is special; to believe that absolutes can be applied to things relative; to be disorganized and confused while thinking that you are organized and thinking clearly; to develop extreme dependencies on people and groups and leaders and on powers that are supposedly living in unseen worlds; to be unable to cope; to be in a state of unwarranted fear; to constantly desire more and more of what is already making one sick;
to feel guilt and self-blame that have no basis in fact; to behave like a six-year old child for an entire manifestation, even during "the adult years"; to be preoccupied with "self" (with the false selves or false identities that are assumed and thought to be real); to play a role on a stage and believe the character is real;
to believe that a physical, plant food body can disintegrate, re-integrate, and last for eternity and can feel pain or ecstasy for eternity; to suffer and then still believe that suffering is good; to believe that things that are unnatural and things that are mistakenly called “supernatural” are actually natural;
who live “lives of quiet desperation” or, more often nowadays, noisy lives of desperation; who form and then stay in unbelievably unhealthy relationships while denying that their relationships are unbelievably unhealthy; who are driven by phony, dreamed-up “needs” which are personality-generated and which are based in delusion and illusions because those stricken with the Ultimate Sickness do not understand that they are actually nothing more than a composite unity; ad infinitum.
Imagine if persons knew of an Ultimate Medicine that could cure all of the above; they would call that a "miracle drug." Know that not only does such a medicine exist, and not only does it address all of the symptoms of the Ultimate Sickness that are catalogued above, but it is available at a fraction of the cost that any sane and sound person would estimate its true value to be.
Yet few will ever know it even exists because few will ever know that they are suffering from the symptoms of the Ultimate Sickness and because few will ever understand they need to be cured from the Sickness that has been passed on to them.
Robert Powell said that Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj provided "powerful antidotes to unawarenesses," that is, to the Sickness that marks and mars the relative existence.
Those antidotes, when accepted, have allowed some to abide in an all-natural, all-sane, no-delusion, non-dual, ignorance-free, and insanity-free fashion.
And that is what one referred to as a “Realized, Non-Dual, Nisargan” offers to those who would be well and totally free.
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
21 May 2014
A DAILY CONSIDERATION FOR YOU
F.: So, this illustration
shows that, in terms of the entire human experience, the Ultimate Sickness is a fairly recent condition and that the non-dual understanding is a fairly-recent treatment option as well as a fairly-recent necessity for the entire human species on planet earth.
The fact that humans existed for millions of years without experiencing certain present day issues / problems / illnesses / mental illnesses / emotional issues (much less an Ultimate Sickness) is nothing new:
1. Have you noticed that million-year-old human or human-like skulls are found with teeth in near-perfect shape with no evidence at all of tooth decay?
Why do people in the U.S. visit dentists over a half-billion times per year for treatment of one type or another? Why is it that by the age of thirty-nine, 86.7% of the United States population has had at least one tooth affected by decay?
2. Humans for millions of years never developed polio. Eventually, it was wiped out almost completely, but now a new polio-like illness has surfaced. The cause: self-destructive human behavior.
3. During the past twenty years, at least thirty new, significant diseases have emerged, and for many of those, there is no treatment, no cure or vaccine, and no possibility of effective prevention or control. The cause: self-destructive human behavior.
4. In addition, the uncontrolled and inappropriate use of antibiotics has resulted in increased antimicrobial resistance and is seriously threatening drug control strategies against such common diseases as tuberculosis, malaria, cholera, dysentery and pneumonia. The cause: self-destructive human behavior.
That is the trend regarding physical issues, so there should be no surprise that the same is happening in regards to mental / emotional issues. More than ever before in the multi-million-year history of human-like and human life forms, the contagions that mark the Ultimate Sickness, identified by Maharaj as “ignorance, stupidity, and insanity” are reaching alarming rates, driven by self-destructive human behavior.
The behavior at the root of the problem: a failure to seek treatment for a Sickness that the masses do not even know they are suffering from, that they do not know they are carrying, and that they do not know that they are passing on.
How could a proper treatment for an illness (or Sickness) be initiated if there have not first been a proper diagnosis of that illness (or Sickness)?
Regarding the “journey” from captivity to freedom, from believing the false to understanding the Truth, Maharaj advised:
“…You should go back, reverse, to the source”
and
“Follow the same path by which you came.”
How could persons know that they need to “go back” and “reverse” out of the mess they are in if they are in denial about being in a mess?
The challenge is that insanity cannot recognize itself; that ignorance cannot usually recognize ignorance; and that - when ignorance is admitted to - often there is now widespread pride of ignorance (which is a near-impossible obstacle to overcome).
After hearing more and more evidence of the kind of nonsense that some in the U.S. can come up with, President Barack Obama observed: “It's like these guys take pride in being ignorant."
And many do. How can that pride be overcome? It likely cannot.
So what the masses are facing is this:
There is an undetected Sickness that only a few on the planet are aware of but that all on the planet experience at one time or another;
the vast majority will never know they are infected with the Sickness;
thus, the vast majority will never seek treatment;
the vast majority will continue to spread the contagion;
the mast majority will contract the Sickness from parents and teachers and religious leaders and cultures without even knowing that they have been infected and made Sick . . . really Sick;
the vast majority will never understand that they need to “go back” . . . to “reverse” to the pre-programmed, pre-conditioned, pre-acculturated, pre-domesticated, pre-indoctrinated, pre-brainwashed condition.
The vast majority will continue to unconsciously normalize the abnormal simply because, with them, the abnormal has become that with which they are familiar. As a result, the vast majority have developed and now experience what seems to be a "comfort level" around that which is painful; a high level of tolerance for misery and suffering; and a high propensity for the use of the ego-defense mechanism of denial (which, in turn, blocks them from recognizing their actual condition and their Sickness).
And even among the few who will wake up enough to realize that they need to seek, the vast majority will typically end up seeking to know more and more and trying to learn more and more when what is actually called for is the “going back” (via un-learning) to the condition that existed prior to the development of a mind and the filling up of that mind with nonsense and falsehoods.
All of the above, when combined, reveals why Maharaj estimated / guesstimated in the end that only 1 out of 10,000,000 will “get it,” that is, will ever find the full understanding that sets them free of being driven by the hidden agendas of their personalities and free of the effects of the associated personality disorders and neuroses and psychoses.
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
20 May 2014
F.: So, this illustration
shows that, in terms of the entire human experience, the Ultimate Sickness is a fairly recent condition and that the non-dual understanding is a fairly-recent treatment option as well as a fairly-recent necessity for the entire human species on planet earth.
The fact that humans existed for millions of years without experiencing certain present day issues / problems / illnesses / mental illnesses / emotional issues (much less an Ultimate Sickness) is nothing new:
1. Have you noticed that million-year-old human or human-like skulls are found with teeth in near-perfect shape with no evidence at all of tooth decay?
Why do people in the U.S. visit dentists over a half-billion times per year for treatment of one type or another? Why is it that by the age of thirty-nine, 86.7% of the United States population has had at least one tooth affected by decay?
The cause is clear: self-destructive, ignorance-based human behavior.
2. Humans for millions of years never developed polio. Eventually, it was wiped out almost completely, but now a new polio-like illness has surfaced. The cause: self-destructive human behavior.
3. During the past twenty years, at least thirty new, significant diseases have emerged, and for many of those, there is no treatment, no cure or vaccine, and no possibility of effective prevention or control. The cause: self-destructive human behavior.
4. In addition, the uncontrolled and inappropriate use of antibiotics has resulted in increased antimicrobial resistance and is seriously threatening drug control strategies against such common diseases as tuberculosis, malaria, cholera, dysentery and pneumonia. The cause: self-destructive human behavior.
That is the trend regarding physical issues, so there should be no surprise that the same is happening in regards to mental / emotional issues. More than ever before in the multi-million-year history of human-like and human life forms, the contagions that mark the Ultimate Sickness, identified by Maharaj as “ignorance, stupidity, and insanity” are reaching alarming rates, driven by self-destructive human behavior.
The behavior at the root of the problem: a failure to seek treatment for a Sickness that the masses do not even know they are suffering from, that they do not know they are carrying, and that they do not know that they are passing on.
How could a proper treatment for an illness (or Sickness) be initiated if there have not first been a proper diagnosis of that illness (or Sickness)?
Regarding the “journey” from captivity to freedom, from believing the false to understanding the Truth, Maharaj advised:
“…You should go back, reverse, to the source”
and
“Follow the same path by which you came.”
How could persons know that they need to “go back” and “reverse” out of the mess they are in if they are in denial about being in a mess?
The challenge is that insanity cannot recognize itself; that ignorance cannot usually recognize ignorance; and that - when ignorance is admitted to - often there is now widespread pride of ignorance (which is a near-impossible obstacle to overcome).
After hearing more and more evidence of the kind of nonsense that some in the U.S. can come up with, President Barack Obama observed: “It's like these guys take pride in being ignorant."
And many do. How can that pride be overcome? It likely cannot.
So what the masses are facing is this:
There is an undetected Sickness that only a few on the planet are aware of but that all on the planet experience at one time or another;
the vast majority will never know they are infected with the Sickness;
thus, the vast majority will never seek treatment;
the vast majority will continue to spread the contagion;
the mast majority will contract the Sickness from parents and teachers and religious leaders and cultures without even knowing that they have been infected and made Sick . . . really Sick;
the vast majority will never understand that they need to “go back” . . . to “reverse” to the pre-programmed, pre-conditioned, pre-acculturated, pre-domesticated, pre-indoctrinated, pre-brainwashed condition.
The vast majority will continue to unconsciously normalize the abnormal simply because, with them, the abnormal has become that with which they are familiar. As a result, the vast majority have developed and now experience what seems to be a "comfort level" around that which is painful; a high level of tolerance for misery and suffering; and a high propensity for the use of the ego-defense mechanism of denial (which, in turn, blocks them from recognizing their actual condition and their Sickness).
And even among the few who will wake up enough to realize that they need to seek, the vast majority will typically end up seeking to know more and more and trying to learn more and more when what is actually called for is the “going back” (via un-learning) to the condition that existed prior to the development of a mind and the filling up of that mind with nonsense and falsehoods.
All of the above, when combined, reveals why Maharaj estimated / guesstimated in the end that only 1 out of 10,000,000 will “get it,” that is, will ever find the full understanding that sets them free of being driven by the hidden agendas of their personalities and free of the effects of the associated personality disorders and neuroses and psychoses.
So it is, but so it need not be.
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
20 May 2014
A DAILY CONSIDERATION FOR YOU
F.: When one realizes while moving through the forest that she or he has become lost, the best plan is usually to stop, to go back the way you came.
Of the “journey” from captivity to freedom, from believing the false to understanding the Truth, Maharaj advised:
“…You should go back, reverse, to the source”
and
“Follow the same path by which you came.”
That has been the approach in this series:
First, to be free of a mess, one must understand that one is in a mess.
To see how to be totally free of every aspect of a mess, one must understand what all of the aspects of the mess are.
To understand how to be extracted from the mess one is in, one must see how one got into the mess.
One must “go back, reverse, to the source” and to that condition that existed prior to being in the mess.
Thus, one must also understand the pre-mess condition, the Original Nature that existed prior to manifestation and then the natural condition that first existed in the early stages after the manifestation happened.
That natural condition was a pre-programming, pre-conditioning, pre-domestication, pre-acculturation, pre-brainwashing, and pre-indoctrination condition.
It was a “no-mind” condition. It was a non-dual condition. It was an all-natural condition and not at all an unnatural condition or a supernatural (that is, spiritual, magical-thinking) condition.
So, to review:
The archaeological and anthropological evidence shows that for millions and millions of years, see [1] above
human-like and human life forms have existed on planet earth, focused on the business of survival, finding places of shelter that offered more protection and less exposure (such as, caves vs. the open veldt),
learning from observing weather patterns that they could wander and find more food for foraging in different areas at different times, learning to use fire, developing tools and agricultural methods that allowed them to settle into certain areas, and developing ways of living that made life, if not necessarily simpler, at least somewhat easier. See [2] above.
And the results of following that different route? A focusing on being different, on being different from “others.” See [4] above. With the new focus on the false self, duality was born and so was narcissism. But again, the “being different” involved only looking different, only looking “better than others.”
Thus, body image came to be used to send social messages such as, “Note our differences: I look far better than you, so that makes me different from you and that means I am above you and that I am better than you.” So the social message being sent also came to involve the conceptualization of hierarchies in which some rose to the top based on looks and physical abilities and all others were scattered along the spectrum below.
Whereas the earlier focus was on establishment of community, on a sense of Oneness, the new focus was on using community for self advancement. The notion of “What can we accomplish together as one?” gave way to the new focus, namely, “How can I bend the will of community to my will to fulfill my own desires and use others for self-advancement?”
The sense of Oneness gave way to a sense of the personal; the sense of the personal, combined with the sense of being at the top of a contrived hierarchy, led to the conceptualization of power; and the desire for power and control allowed for the reinforcement of narcissism and laid the groundwork for the development of sociopathic behaviors and the willingness to exert any and all power over “others” to get whatever one desired.
Once certain persons in the community saw what power was doing for some, they came up with the concept of an external nexus of Power (or Powers). They found they could gain personal power and influence and could use the fear of punishment and the hope for reward - both now and later - to bend the will of the community to their will in order to fulfill their own desires and in order to use others for self-advancement.
Once they convinced persons that the crop which was dying from a lack of rain was being caused by the fact that an angry Rain God needed to be appeased, then the community went for the rest of the story:
“I am God’s representative on earth, so I shall have sex with a virgin and then cut out her beating heart and take a bite of it and drink her blood and them pass it throughout the community so that everyone can eat the body and drink the blood and that will allow us to commune directly with the external nexus of Power that resides unseen in another world."
And the community in unison said, “Amen” (meaning “So be it”).
The hook was set, and humans were misdirected onto an entirely different path that promised to bring not only earthly power but also access to the infinite power of Heavenly, Personal Beings that could also be used to one’s benefit in controlling all things relative.
Thus developed the primary and secondary addictions of modern humanity: first, the addiction to control, and secondly, the addiction to power (and Power / Powers) in order to control.
Simultaneously, natural events were assigned supernatural causes, and the human addictions for control and power took on a positive connotation as a result of a divine aspect being assigned to them.
“Dear God, please change the course of the hurricane that is predicted to hit our city”;
“Dear God, the Governor here, calling on You for help. Please send rain to the Great State of Texas”;
“Dear God, the Texas winemakers here, calling on You for help. Please do not send rain to the Great State of Texas because our grapes do better when it’s dry”;
“Dear God, please send someone to love me and care for me”;
“Dear God, please let there be peace on earth”;
“Dear God, please heal so-and-so”;
“Dear God, please strike our enemies dead”;
“Dear God, we hear you telling us to kill those who refuse to join our religion. Bless us as we go forth, armed to the teeth, to do your will”;
“Dear God, please let the Christian woman win the dancing contest on television”;
“Dear God, please let my team win throughout the playoffs and then win in the finals”;
“Dear God, please help our soldiers kill their soldiers.”
"Dear God, in other words, make me God-like; better yet, make me God so that I can then control weather and people and so that I can decide who lives and who dies, and when; and if that does not sit well with You, at least make me Chairman of the Board of the Universe, in Charge of Space and Time, Master of All People and Places and Things. Amen."
That which had been natural came to be seen as something supernatural, and that which had been natural was abandoned for things most unnatural.
The non-dual message contains – among other things - an invitation to reverse, an invitation to "go back," and an invitation to shift from focusing on the phony, from focusing on appearance, from being driven by the hidden agendas of false personas, from selfishness and self-centeredness, from a desire to use others, from a desire to abuse others, from a sense of duality, and to return to the original sense of unicity and Oneness.
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
You can scroll down through the book section below if interested in receiving a free copy of the eBooks entitled:
"GOOD vs. EVIL?" or "IGNORANCE, STUPIDITY, and INSANITY?"
or
"THE VISION"
Comments regarding the free eBook entitled “THE VISION”:
“My thanks to you and Andy.” – Andrew “Mac” McMaster
“Thanks so much for the book! And, by the way, it is brilliant and the most effective pointing that you have done. It has served to help clear the remaining blockages.” – Stan Cross
“Greatly appreciate having “THE VISION” added to my Henderson resource library that is situated on the right side of my bed for easy access! Eternally grateful for what was received and what was given.” – Robert Rigby
“ ‘THE VISION’ is such a well-written, condensed version of the Nisarga Yoga approach to understanding and enjoying Reality that I feel it can serve as a must-read ‘meditation guide’ for all earnest seekers.” – Andy Gugar, Jr.
Submit to:
Therefore, another movement or shift is happening here spontaneously after reflecting on the more than two decades since the teachings were first offered here and looking at the results of Maharaj sharing pointers in his loft and looking at the results of "Floyd" sharing pointers in this electronic loft: Looking objectively at his results, Maharaj's satsang method of sharing - in the end and by his own admission (only "one out of 10,000,000") - did not produce the intended outcome.
* * * * * * *
Anthology of four books
Anthology of six books
SELF-TRANSFORMATION MEDITATION GUIDE (VOLUME ONE)
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Open the attachment via the email on your iPad or Android tablet or
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[Please note: When the Direct Path Teaching Method is offered in conjunction with the Nisarga Yoga, something unique results when compared to what happens via the approach used by religions, spiritual movements, philosophies, ideologies, etc.:
rather than inviting seekers to learn more, the invitation here is to unlearn all; rather than offerings teachings, what is offered are unteachings; rather than offering to provide seekers more of anything, seekers will find that the process will take away everything. And via that process, the bliss of Your Original Nature will manifest and remain until mahasamadhi is taken.
To that end, the content of this book will seem radical to the seekers of more, but for those truly ready to be totally free and totally independent - and for those who are truly ready to abandon efforts to accumulate and to de-accumulate instead - the pointers in this book might be relevant.]
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WHY YOU MUST BE EMPTY IF YOU WOULD BE FULL
THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF WARS
F.: When one realizes while moving through the forest that she or he has become lost, the best plan is usually to stop, to go back the way you came.
Of the “journey” from captivity to freedom, from believing the false to understanding the Truth, Maharaj advised:
“…You should go back, reverse, to the source”
and
“Follow the same path by which you came.”
That has been the approach in this series:
First, to be free of a mess, one must understand that one is in a mess.
To see how to be totally free of every aspect of a mess, one must understand what all of the aspects of the mess are.
To understand how to be extracted from the mess one is in, one must see how one got into the mess.
One must “go back, reverse, to the source” and to that condition that existed prior to being in the mess.
Thus, one must also understand the pre-mess condition, the Original Nature that existed prior to manifestation and then the natural condition that first existed in the early stages after the manifestation happened.
That natural condition was a pre-programming, pre-conditioning, pre-domestication, pre-acculturation, pre-brainwashing, and pre-indoctrination condition.
It was a “no-mind” condition. It was a non-dual condition. It was an all-natural condition and not at all an unnatural condition or a supernatural (that is, spiritual, magical-thinking) condition.
So, to review:
The archaeological and anthropological evidence shows that for millions and millions of years, see [1] above
human-like and human life forms have existed on planet earth, focused on the business of survival, finding places of shelter that offered more protection and less exposure (such as, caves vs. the open veldt),
learning from observing weather patterns that they could wander and find more food for foraging in different areas at different times, learning to use fire, developing tools and agricultural methods that allowed them to settle into certain areas, and developing ways of living that made life, if not necessarily simpler, at least somewhat easier. See [2] above.
As a result, a change occurred, and as a result of that change, humans were required to focus less on survival, allowing them to focus more on self and on self-modification and self-enhancement, but that dealt only with appearance and image and physical looks.
Humans had reached a “fork in the road” in their evolution and in their focus – see [3] above. What eventually came to an end was the old, former route that humans followed, a route that involved a multi-million-year focus on “reality” and an inner sense of Reality (again, confirmed by the archaeological and anthropological evidence they left behind).
And the results of following that different route? A focusing on being different, on being different from “others.” See [4] above. With the new focus on the false self, duality was born and so was narcissism. But again, the “being different” involved only looking different, only looking “better than others.”
Thus, body image came to be used to send social messages such as, “Note our differences: I look far better than you, so that makes me different from you and that means I am above you and that I am better than you.” So the social message being sent also came to involve the conceptualization of hierarchies in which some rose to the top based on looks and physical abilities and all others were scattered along the spectrum below.
Whereas the earlier focus was on establishment of community, on a sense of Oneness, the new focus was on using community for self advancement. The notion of “What can we accomplish together as one?” gave way to the new focus, namely, “How can I bend the will of community to my will to fulfill my own desires and use others for self-advancement?”
The sense of Oneness gave way to a sense of the personal; the sense of the personal, combined with the sense of being at the top of a contrived hierarchy, led to the conceptualization of power; and the desire for power and control allowed for the reinforcement of narcissism and laid the groundwork for the development of sociopathic behaviors and the willingness to exert any and all power over “others” to get whatever one desired.
Once certain persons in the community saw what power was doing for some, they came up with the concept of an external nexus of Power (or Powers). They found they could gain personal power and influence and could use the fear of punishment and the hope for reward - both now and later - to bend the will of the community to their will in order to fulfill their own desires and in order to use others for self-advancement.
Once they convinced persons that the crop which was dying from a lack of rain was being caused by the fact that an angry Rain God needed to be appeased, then the community went for the rest of the story:
“I am God’s representative on earth, so I shall have sex with a virgin and then cut out her beating heart and take a bite of it and drink her blood and them pass it throughout the community so that everyone can eat the body and drink the blood and that will allow us to commune directly with the external nexus of Power that resides unseen in another world."
And the community in unison said, “Amen” (meaning “So be it”).
The hook was set, and humans were misdirected onto an entirely different path that promised to bring not only earthly power but also access to the infinite power of Heavenly, Personal Beings that could also be used to one’s benefit in controlling all things relative.
Thus developed the primary and secondary addictions of modern humanity: first, the addiction to control, and secondly, the addiction to power (and Power / Powers) in order to control.
Simultaneously, natural events were assigned supernatural causes, and the human addictions for control and power took on a positive connotation as a result of a divine aspect being assigned to them.
Things “personal” (personality-based), such as desires, gained a noble connotation, and things earthly were believed to be earthly-spiritual in nature as external nexuses of Power were supposedly controlling all on earth and offering an external source of power that could be tapped into in order to get what persons wanted:
“Dear God, please change the course of the hurricane that is predicted to hit our city”;
“Dear God, the Governor here, calling on You for help. Please send rain to the Great State of Texas”;
“Dear God, the Texas winemakers here, calling on You for help. Please do not send rain to the Great State of Texas because our grapes do better when it’s dry”;
“Dear God, please send someone to love me and care for me”;
"Dear God, the one You sent to love me and care for me is not good enough, so please strike my spouse dead";
“Dear God, please let there be peace on earth”;
“Dear God, please heal so-and-so”;
“Dear God, please strike our enemies dead”;
“Dear God, we hear you telling us to kill those who refuse to join our religion. Bless us as we go forth, armed to the teeth, to do your will”;
“Dear God, please let the Christian woman win the dancing contest on television”;
“Dear God, please let my team win throughout the playoffs and then win in the finals”;
“Dear God, please help our soldiers kill their soldiers.”
"Dear God, in other words, make me God-like; better yet, make me God so that I can then control weather and people and so that I can decide who lives and who dies, and when; and if that does not sit well with You, at least make me Chairman of the Board of the Universe, in Charge of Space and Time, Master of All People and Places and Things. Amen."
That which had been natural came to be seen as something supernatural, and that which had been natural was abandoned for things most unnatural.
The non-dual message contains – among other things - an invitation to reverse, an invitation to "go back," and an invitation to shift from focusing on the phony, from focusing on appearance, from being driven by the hidden agendas of false personas, from selfishness and self-centeredness, from a desire to use others, from a desire to abuse others, from a sense of duality, and to return to the original sense of unicity and Oneness.
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
You can scroll down through the book section below if interested in receiving a free copy of the eBooks entitled:
"GOOD vs. EVIL?" or "IGNORANCE, STUPIDITY, and INSANITY?"
or
"THE VISION"
Comments regarding the free eBook entitled “THE VISION”:
“My thanks to you and Andy.” – Andrew “Mac” McMaster
“Thanks so much for the book! And, by the way, it is brilliant and the most effective pointing that you have done. It has served to help clear the remaining blockages.” – Stan Cross
“Greatly appreciate having “THE VISION” added to my Henderson resource library that is situated on the right side of my bed for easy access! Eternally grateful for what was received and what was given.” – Robert Rigby
“ ‘THE VISION’ is such a well-written, condensed version of the Nisarga Yoga approach to understanding and enjoying Reality that I feel it can serve as a must-read ‘meditation guide’ for all earnest seekers.” – Andy Gugar, Jr.
Questions?
Submit to:
Comments?
Just hang on to those please.
Just hang on to those please.
SHIFTING THE FOCUS FROM THAT WHICH DOES NOT WORK TO THAT WHICH DOES, Part One
A "movement" or "shift" happened here that added another parallel to the many parallels in terms of the phenomenal "experiences" and the noumenal revelations that "Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj" and "Floyd" share in common. (Many visitors over the years have said that they also shared the same parallels with "Maharaj" and "Floyd" as well.)
In the case of "Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj" and "Floyd":
1. both grew up in very poor families 2. both moved to populated areas to seek employment opportunities 3. both exhibited business skills that led to their opening and operating many businesses and to their having a large number of employees working for them 4. both succeeded financially 5. both became attached to accumulating; 6. both married and had a family 7. both were initially religious 8. both moved away from organized religion and became interested in "spiritual" matters, finding and following the teachings of a big name teacher (or, in "Floyd's" case, many big name teachers) 9. both had highly religious wives who were quite displeased with the shift away from religion and toward "spirituality" 10. both began to feel empty in spite of all of their "spiritual seeking" and in spite of all of their accumulated "spiritual knowledge";
1. both grew up in very poor families 2. both moved to populated areas to seek employment opportunities 3. both exhibited business skills that led to their opening and operating many businesses and to their having a large number of employees working for them 4. both succeeded financially 5. both became attached to accumulating; 6. both married and had a family 7. both were initially religious 8. both moved away from organized religion and became interested in "spiritual" matters, finding and following the teachings of a big name teacher (or, in "Floyd's" case, many big name teachers) 9. both had highly religious wives who were quite displeased with the shift away from religion and toward "spirituality" 10. both began to feel empty in spite of all of their "spiritual seeking" and in spite of all of their accumulated "spiritual knowledge";
11. both began to de-accumulate after both saw that they could survive quite well on a fraction of the income they had been making
12. both had wives who were unhappy when the de-accumulation stage was entered and both had wives who became unhappy about their husbands' focus on non-duality and who blamed their unhappiness on no longer having a religious husband
(The facts be known, in both cases the unhappiness involved the fact that their husbands were no longer interested in - or willing - to work 80+ hours per week and that their husbands were no longer interested in accumulating wealth and possessions and providing the rich lifestyle to which their wives had grown accustomed)
13. both eventually came to see that the religious and spiritual states were also ego-states, and both saw that there are far more steps on the "path" to complete after reaching the religious and spiritual steps and after playing those roles which are the third of seven steps on the entire "path" 14. both "lost" their wives (one via "death," the other through divorce); 15. both accelerated their seeking; 16. both entered into the "forest dweller stage" 17. both Realized 18. both began to de-accumulate even more
19. both began sharing the teachings 20. for years, both answered questions in whatever order those questions were received, though both said that the movement from identification with the false "I" / "I's" involved an exact, step-wise manner of moving along a "path" that involved "going back" in the same (but reverse order) of the way they "came in" - that is, the way that the manifestation happened and the way that the consciousness was blocked through seven stages that resulted in their becoming identified solely with their false personas, with the content of the "mind," and eventually, with the body. But the most significant awareness that finally came to both after years of offering satsang and after having answered thousands and thousands of questions was this: After years of "Maharaj" offering satsang in his loft, and after years of "Floyd" offering satsang in meeting halls and in his home and via what one site visitor called "Floyd's electronic loft," this fact became obvious to both: "Maharaj" came to see in the 1970's and into 1980 and 1981 that his approach was not working and "Floyd" finally came to see the same.
13. both eventually came to see that the religious and spiritual states were also ego-states, and both saw that there are far more steps on the "path" to complete after reaching the religious and spiritual steps and after playing those roles which are the third of seven steps on the entire "path" 14. both "lost" their wives (one via "death," the other through divorce); 15. both accelerated their seeking; 16. both entered into the "forest dweller stage" 17. both Realized 18. both began to de-accumulate even more
19. both began sharing the teachings 20. for years, both answered questions in whatever order those questions were received, though both said that the movement from identification with the false "I" / "I's" involved an exact, step-wise manner of moving along a "path" that involved "going back" in the same (but reverse order) of the way they "came in" - that is, the way that the manifestation happened and the way that the consciousness was blocked through seven stages that resulted in their becoming identified solely with their false personas, with the content of the "mind," and eventually, with the body. But the most significant awareness that finally came to both after years of offering satsang and after having answered thousands and thousands of questions was this: After years of "Maharaj" offering satsang in his loft, and after years of "Floyd" offering satsang in meeting halls and in his home and via what one site visitor called "Floyd's electronic loft," this fact became obvious to both: "Maharaj" came to see in the 1970's and into 1980 and 1981 that his approach was not working and "Floyd" finally came to see the same.
21. Both saw that many who heard the teachings are not going to understand (Maharaj reporting that "only 1 in 100,000 are going to 'get' this" understanding)
22. both soon saw that even more than expected of those who heard the teachings were not going to understand (Maharaj modifying his "guesstimate" and reporting that "only 1 in 1,000,000 are going to 'get' this" understanding)
23. eventually both saw that even far more than expected of those who heard the teachings were not going to understand (Maharaj eventually concluding that "only 1 in 10,000,000 are going to 'get' this" understanding). And the failings were not the fault of seekers.
A "one -in-ten-million" estimate is proof that satsang was not working for most seekers, and the evidence here lately is proof of the same.
Both "Maharaj" and "Floyd" invited seekers to focus on the exact, step-wise "path." Yes, during satsang, "Maharaj" sometimes alluded to the steps while discussing them in no particular order - but he never once laid out the steps in the exact order in which they had to be completed. That was not his teachings style or approach.
Therefore, another movement or shift is happening here spontaneously after reflecting on the more than two decades since the teachings were first offered here and looking at the results of Maharaj sharing pointers in his loft and looking at the results of "Floyd" sharing pointers in this electronic loft: Looking objectively at his results, Maharaj's satsang method of sharing - in the end and by his own admission (only "one out of 10,000,000") - did not produce the intended outcome.
Looking objectively at the results here when using an "electronic loft" satsang method of sharing has not produced the intended outcome nearly as often as any of the three "face-to-face" methods used with seekers by which they have been led through the seven steps in order.
Here, the body is growing older, of course. Mahasamadhi could be taken today, or it could be taken in twenty years.
Obviously, that cannot be known. But the decision here has been made that whatever amount of the relative existence remains shall be spent in sharing the teachings in the ways that have been seen over the last 20+ years to be the most effective methods.
Looking back over the list of those that have truly received the understanding, it is seen that Robert R. read all of the books, then took the online Advaita course and then completed some face-to-face Skype sessions to receive the final clarifications required. It was seen that Mac read all of the books, completed the online course, and then attended a retreat where he was guided through the seven steps. Mac said that the online course work inspired him to attend the retreat in order to be able to receive the final "pieces." It was seen that Andy Gugar, Jr. read all of the books, then came here for a retreat and was taken through the seven steps in order, and then returned once more for the final clarifications required. After reviewing the shifts that happened with him after attending two retreats, he reaffirmed this past week his commitment to helping spread the non-duality, nisarga understanding as presented here. As a result of seeing what has "worked" during the last 20+ years of sharing the non-duality understanding - and seeing what had not "worked" as well - changes will be made.
SHIFTING THE FOCUS FROM THAT WHICH DOES NOT WORK TO THAT WHICH DOES, Part Two
Looking back over the list of those that have truly received the understanding, it is seen that Robert R. read all of the books, then took the online Advaita course and then completed some face-to-face Skype sessions to receive the final clarifications required. It was seen that Mac read all of the books, completed the online course, and then attended a retreat where he was guided through the seven steps. Mac said that the online course work inspired him to attend the retreat in order to be able to receive the final "pieces." It was seen that Andy Gugar, Jr. read all of the books, then came here for a retreat and was taken through the seven steps in order, and then returned once more for the final clarifications required. After reviewing the shifts that happened with him after attending two retreats, he reaffirmed this past week his commitment to helping spread the non-duality, nisarga understanding as presented here. As a result of seeing what has "worked" during the last 20+ years of sharing the non-duality understanding - and seeing what had not "worked" as well - changes will be made.
SHIFTING THE FOCUS FROM THAT WHICH DOES NOT WORK TO THAT WHICH DOES, Part Two
In "Part One," examples were given of seekers that were led to Realization not by satsang but by following the various protocols outlined farther down this page which provide the understanding in the step-wise, orderly, required fashion which moves seekers along a "path" that is as prescribed by Maharaj ... "going back" in the "reverse order" by which the consciousness manifested and became blocked.
However, conversations with some that just read the majority of the books have revealed that they certainly seem to have grasped the understanding and Realized as well.
As a result of seeing what has "worked" during the last 20+ years of sharing the non-duality understanding - and seeing what has "not worked" as well - changes are being made.
There are seven specific steps that happen when awareness-energy is "pulled" into a cycle of manifestation. When that energy manifests as conscious-energy, that formerly pure and unadulterated energy becomes "corrupted" (or "blocked" from seeing clearly) via programming, conditioning, domestication, acculturation, and brainwashing. Soon, there is a belief in the not-Real as a result of seven degrees of separation from an understanding of the Real.
Using the method that was also employed by his contemporaries - a method which focused on offering non-duality pointers via satsang - Maharaj addressed questions in the order in which they were received. He might receive a question from a seeker at the third step and his reply would include what amounted to an invitation to move to the fourth step. The next question might come from a seeker at the first step, and the reply would include an invitation to move to the second step.
The information offered to the second seeker would seemingly contradict what was offered to the first seeker, so visitors who have come here for decades have asked questions which showed how confused they were by the fact that Maharaj's statements to each visitor in his loft were "level-appropriate" yet were provided in no precise order, resulting in what seemed to be an inconsistent message.
So the process overall was confusing in that
seekers were told to follow the "path back" in the same way that they "came in," except in reverse order,
but
pointers were not given in a specific, step-wise order at all.
Maharaj did recognize the seven steps that are taught here, but by offering the teachings in an order that was dictated by the order in which questions were received from seekers who were at different steps on the "path," the result was this:
a pointer about moving beyond the fourth step might be followed by a pointer about moving beyond the first step, and that pointer might be followed by a pointer about how to move beyond the sixth step.
The same was done on this site for seven years. The result is a collection of 1,800 or so essays discussing almost every non-duality topic that can be discussed, and the search button on the top right side of this page will now allow seekers with a question about a specific topic to find an explanation. That method, however, will never provide the manner in which the seven steps on the "path" must be transmitted and received in order to Realize Fully.
An objective study of the history here of more than twenty years of offering non-duality pointers reveals this: seekers that were given pointers in the exact order in which they needed to receive them were the ones that Realized.
They read the books, then they completed the online course and / or completed seven Skype or telephone sessions or came here for a retreat (or watched the downloadable DVD version of an actual retreat, available below).
Some found that which they were seeking by reading the author's book that deal with non-duality subject matter. Via all of those venues, the steps are taught in their proper order.
The essays available on this site will remain for those interested in searching for a discussion of a particular non-duality topic without charge, but the focus here until mahasamadhi is taken is going to be on offering the teachings in the step-wise fashion that has been seen to work.
THESE PAPERBACK BOOKS ARE AVAILABLE THROUGH AMAZON.COM
(Four by Floyd Henderson and two by Dennis Waite. Click the picture for more information or to order)
(Four by Floyd Henderson and two by Dennis Waite. Click the picture for more information or to order)
* * * * * * *
ALL EBOOK AND PAPERBACK VERSION OF HENDERSON'S NON-DUALITY BOOKS
and
RECOVERY LITERATURE
and
FINANCIAL BOOKS
are available at
Floyd Henderson's Website
International buyers: note the separate option for those outside the continental U.S.
II. BY READING the explanations offered in the collection of non-duality books that are available on this site and at www.floydhenderson.com.
III. 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
IV. BY ATTENDING an Advaitin retreat with floyd and being guided through all seven steps. For details of the retreats offered, please visit the retreat information site.
V. BY ARRANGING a one-hour session via Skype or telephone with Floyd. (Skype is a free service.)
Click the button to pay and you will be contacted to arrange a date and time for the call.
VI. ALL OF THE FOLLOWING BOOKS are available at
Floyd Henderson's Website
Within minutes of purchase you can be reading any of the eBooks below on your mobile devices, including an iPhone, iPad, Android tablet, Android phone, laptop, home computer or on a Kindle reader.
For Apple and Android, either download the eBook directly onto your device or email the eBook file to your mobile device and open the file from your email. For Kindles or other similar devices, use your USB cable to transfer the eBook to your reader.
FOR THOSE SEEKING FURTHER EXPLANATION OF THE NON-DUALITY UNDERSTANDING, AS NOTED ABOVE, SOME SEEKERS HAVE REALIZED BY USING THE METHODS BELOW, OR A COMBINATION OF THE METHODS:
FOR THOSE SEEKING FURTHER EXPLANATION OF THE NON-DUALITY UNDERSTANDING, AS NOTED ABOVE, SOME SEEKERS HAVE REALIZED BY USING THE METHODS BELOW, OR A COMBINATION OF THE METHODS:
WAYS THAT SEEKERS HAVE REALIZED:
I. BY WATCHING the 4-Disk, Seven-Hour Video (DVD) Set of an advaita retreat, or the downloadable file version. To find out more or to purchase the DVD or downloadable computer file version of the retreat, DVD or Downloadable computer file versions of the Four-Day Advaita Retreat
I. BY WATCHING the 4-Disk, Seven-Hour Video (DVD) Set of an advaita retreat, or the downloadable file version. To find out more or to purchase the DVD or downloadable computer file version of the retreat, DVD or Downloadable computer file versions of the Four-Day Advaita Retreat
International buyers: note the separate option for those outside the continental U.S.
II. BY READING the explanations offered in the collection of non-duality books that are available on this site and at www.floydhenderson.com.
III. 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
IV. BY ATTENDING an Advaitin retreat with floyd and being guided through all seven steps. For details of the retreats offered, please visit the retreat information site.
V. BY ARRANGING a one-hour session via Skype or telephone with Floyd. (Skype is a free service.)
Click the button to pay and you will be contacted to arrange a date and time for the call.
VI. ALL OF THE FOLLOWING BOOKS are available at
Floyd Henderson's Website
FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE: A Seven-Step Journey to Reality
CONSCIOUSNESS / AWARENESS
FROM THE ABSOLUTE TO THE NOTHINGNESS
THE FINAL UNDERSTANDING
THE ADVANCED SEEKERS' SERIES
Anthology of four books
THE BLISSFUL ABIDANCE SERIES
Anthology of six books
SRI NISARGADATTA MAHARAJ AND HIS EVOLUTION
THE FINAL FIFTEEN TOPICS DISCUSSED BY SRI NISARGADATTA MAHARAJ
A TWELVE-STEP JOURNEY TO SELF-TRANSFORMATION
For more information on this book, or to purchase a copy now, click:
A GUIDE FOR WORKING THE STEPS (IN THE MANNER USED BY THE FOUNDERS)
THE TWELVE STEPS AND ADVAITA / NON-DUALITY: A 21-DAY PLAN FOR A PSYCHIC CHANGE
SELF-TRANSFORMATION MEDITATION GUIDE (VOLUME ONE)
SELF-TRANSFORMATION MEDITATION GUIDE (VOLUME TWO)
WHY NISARGA YOGA IN ADDITION TO THE ADVAITA TEACHINGS?
A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE via the Non-Duality Teachings and the Nisarga Yoga
YOUR ORIGINAL NATURE
GOING CRAZY / GOING SANE
INSTABILITY / INSANITY: WHAT THE ADVAITA TEACHINGS CAN (AND CANNOT) ADDRESS
THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS "PEACE OF MIND" (THERE IS ONLY PEACE IF YOU'RE OUT OF YOUR MIND)
FREEDOM FROM SHIFTING BETWEEN STATES OF HAPPINESS AND UNHAPPINESS
THE ULTIMATE SICKNESS / THE ULTIMATE MEDICINE
PROGRAMMING, CONDITIONING, DOMESTICATION, AND ACCULTURATION (THE SOURCES OF THE ULTIMATE SICKNESS & THE NON-DUALITY TREATMENT)
"WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE?"
THE MYTH OF "DEATH"
THE ESSENCE OF THE TEACHINGS: THE SIMPLICITY OF REALIZATION
FINDING REAL LOVE IN AN UNREAL WORLD
CASTING LIGHT ON THE DARK SIDE OF RELATIONSHIPS
OVERCOMING THE FEAR OF BEING TOTALLY INDEPENDENT
THE NON-DUALITY POINTERS OFFERED BY YESHU'A ("JESUS THE CHRIST")
NOW ACCEPTING REQUESTS FOR FREE COPIES OF THE FOLLOWING EBOOKS:
A free copy of the 278-page eBook entitled
"GOOD vs. EVIL?" or "IGNORANCE, STUPIDITY, and INSANITY?"
and / or
A free copy of the 267-page eBook entitled
"THE VISION"
is available to be sent to you and anyone else you choose.
[Please note: When the Direct Path Teaching Method is offered in conjunction with the Nisarga Yoga, something unique results when compared to what happens via the approach used by religions, spiritual movements, philosophies, ideologies, etc.:
rather than inviting seekers to learn more, the invitation here is to unlearn all; rather than offerings teachings, what is offered are unteachings; rather than offering to provide seekers more of anything, seekers will find that the process will take away everything. And via that process, the bliss of Your Original Nature will manifest and remain until mahasamadhi is taken.
To that end, the content of this book will seem radical to the seekers of more, but for those truly ready to be totally free and totally independent - and for those who are truly ready to abandon efforts to accumulate and to de-accumulate instead - the pointers in this book might be relevant.]
To receive your free copy, or to have us send a free copy to your friends or relatives, send your email address (or their addresses) to the following:
(Sorry, but for security reasons, we no longer have a clickable link. You will have to type in our gmail address above. By the way, your email addresses will never be used to contact you or your friends or relatives and email addresses will never be shared with anyone else.)
Simply state in your email that you want the book sent as a gift to you (or as a gift from you to as many people as you like. Copies are now ready to be sent.)
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE THE ADVAITIN
WHEN ONLY THREE HOURS OF MANIFESTATION REMAIN (THE "FINAL" TALKS OF FLOYD HENDERSON)
I AM THAT (vs. "This Is Who I Think I Am")
QUOTATIONS AND POINTERS DEALING WITH NON-DUALITY, ADVAITA, NISARGA YOGA, AND MORE
DANCING LIGHTLY
THE PATH TO FREEDOM VS. THE PATH TO MISERY
THERE IS NOTHING THAT IS PERSONAL (INCLUDING YOU AND INCLUDING GOD)
LIBERATION (ATTAINING FREEDOM FROM PERSONALITY VIA REALIZATION)
WHY YOU MUST BE EMPTY IF YOU WOULD BE FULL
FREEDOM FROM BELIEFS (Believers, Non-Believers, and "No-Belief-ers")
WHEN REALITY IS OVERLAID ON THE RELATIVE
THE RELATIVE RESULTS OF RETURNING TO "THE CHILD IGNORANCE STAGE" OR "THE CHILD NO-KNOWING STATE"
WHAT BLISS IS AND WHAT BLISS IS NOT
THE TWICE-STOLEN NECKLACE MURDERS
THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF WARS
LESSONS IN NON-DUALITY FROM TRAVELS IN SOUTH AFRICA
A SERIES OF ESSAYS DISCUSSING THE FIRST STEP ON THE SEVEN-STEP PATH TO REALIZATION
A SERIES OF ESSAYS DISCUSSING THE SECOND STEP ON THE SEVEN-STEP PATH TO REALIZATION
A SERIES OF ESSAYS DISCUSSING THE THIRD STEP ON THE SEVEN-STEP PATH TO REALIZATION
A SERIES OF ESSAYS DISCUSSING THE FOURTH STEP ON THE SEVEN-STEP PATH TO REALIZATION
A SERIES OF ESSAYS DISCUSSING THE FIFTH STEP ON THE SEVEN-STEP PATH TO REALIZATION
A SERIES OF ESSAYS DISCUSSING THE SIXTH STEP ON THE SEVEN-STEP PATH TO REALIZATION
A SERIES OF ESSAYS DISCUSSING THE SEVENTH STEP ON THE SEVEN-STEP PATH TO REALIZATION
SPIRITUAL SOBRIETY (RECOVERING WHAT RELIGIONS LOST)
IT'S ALL BULLSHIT (AND WHY KNOWING IT SETS YOU FREE)
