Today's Considerations
1. (continued) So Maharaj's pointer that "the consciousness in the loft is the same as the consciousness on the street" was to make clear to one and all that sitting in a so-called "spiritual environment" and discussing "spiritual" topics and then doing "spiritual" exercises does nothing whatsoever to transform conscious-energy. There is no changing of what is believed to be "impure" consciousness into a "pure" consciousness condition.
That should also make clear that there are no spiritual processes or activities whereby one can attain "pure" consciousness and thereby be rendered "different-from" or "better-than" anyone else, for there is no "one" who can be either.
In the supposedly "clean, pure" loft or on the filthy street outside the loft, there is no difference because in both places there are but composite unities, each involving an elemental plant food body which is circulating air and which is circulating (replenishing) the supply of conscious-energy within the space of the body by the continual eating of conscious-energy-bearing food.
If the non-dual understanding is grasped, there can be no beliefs about better-than-ment or different-from-ment. Six inches away from the loft - the width of the wall where Maharaj's flat was connected to the flat on the street behind where prostitutes were plying their trade - Maharaj saw no differences at all except for the blockages which had been set in place and which disallowed the consciousness to differentiate between true and false; thus, he said that those who come to the loft and would be capable of hearing truth must be beyond "both sin and virtue."
Extend that point, therefore, to realize the more far-reaching, non-dual truth by understanding that there are no holy places or different places or better places where one can go and be made different from and better than others. How have so many fallen for the lies about such places?
Again, that is the result of dualistic beliefs, including the dualistic belief in reward vs. punishment which has long driven humans. Such beliefs led (a) to the invention of gods and goddesses and - via Abraham - to the invention of a God; (b) to the invention of dogma and pagan religions and eventually to the modern religions which evolved out of paganism; (c) to the invention of spirituality by those who think they are different from and better than religious persons by virtue of those spiritual persons' belief that they are living on "a higher plane"; and (d) to persons being driven by a "payoff mentality" as a result of programming and conditioning.
Maharaj tried to help richard see that there is no "one" to receive a payoff, no "one" to benefit from the meditation practices to which richard was so attached. Similarly, religions dangles carrots, causing persons to develop a payoff mentality; spirituality dangles carrots, causing persons to develop a payoff mentality; capitalism dangles carrots, causing persons to develop a payoff mentality; meditation teachers dangle carrots, causing persons to develop a payoff mentality; big name teachers dangles carrots, causing persons to develop a payoff mentality; and other financial systems and governmental systems and other institutions and organizations and cults and sky cults all dangle carrots, causing persons all around the globe to develop a payoff mentality.
Again, Maharaj made clear that there can be no payoffs because there is no "one" to receive any such benefit or payoff. He would later invite richard to go beyond focusing on all of the "stuff of beingness" and to go even beyond the "stuff of non-beingness." Only after that can abidance happen naturally and spontaneously and lightly.
So extend Maharaj's point that the loft is not special and cannot make anyone different from or better than anyone else and see the larger truth: people sitting regularly in a church are not different from or better than anyone else; people kneeling on a rug in a mosque throughout the day are not different from or better than anyone else; people sitting in a synagogue are not different from or better than anyone else;
people sitting around tables in a so-called "spiritual" room or club or group are not different from or better than anyone else; people going to "holy sites" all around the globe are not made different from or better than anyone else; people in authority who are abusing those they believe to be different from and lesser than by virtue of their skin color are actually no different from or better than the ones they are judging and abusing;
and no persons anywhere are made different from or better than what they themselves have always been. The composite unity is what the composite unity is, and it cannot be rendered different from or better than any other composite unity. The only difference is whether the blocked consciousness within has been unblocked . . . or not.
2. Next, consider what was revealed by Richard's self-deprecating style throughout his account. How refreshing and revealing such self-effacement is, for it evidences the fact that self-aggrandizement and self-consciousness and self-deception and self-indulgence have come to an end. The Realized laugh, and they laugh at themselves - at their false selves - and at all of the self-inspired silliness which had driven their personality-based thoughts and words and actions in the past.
By contrast, those who have not realized how bogus their beliefs and false selves and personas are will be quite serious, easily offended, easily enraged, and ready to fight to the end for their bogus beliefs which they have taken, unquestioningly, to be totally true.
3. Moreover, Richard's willingness to expose and poke fun at his earlier bogus beliefs throughout the account provides an opportunity for those involved in the early going along the "path" or "journey" a chance to see the fallacy of their own baseless sense of certainly, the fallacious certainly that they are on the one and only "right" path. That "certainty" is what will block all movement toward realizing Truth and being freed from learned ignorance and then being restored to sanity.
4. Those parts of his account also provide an opportunity to clarify and demystify and de-glorify certain terms which many take - erroneously - to be terms that point to lofty and soaring and towering and elevated states or conditions.
an "awakening": an awakening is nothing more than waking up to the fact that one has been fooled into believing nonsense, into believing that the false is true and that the true is false.
"realizing": is simply becoming able to differentiate the true from the false (that is, being freed of ignorance and insanity).
"liberation": simply refers to having been liberated from the effects of personality identifications, each of which has a basic fear and a basic desire and each of which subconsciously determines the thoughts and words and deeds of all non-Realized persons.
"enlightenment": refers to the shift that comes by having light cast upon the darkness of one's false beliefs, the darkness of one's learned ignorance, and the darkness of insanity. It is the light which allows one to see that the rope was being mistaken for a snake (and to see that, far too often, many snakes were mistakenly seen as harmless ropes).
By removing the blockages-imposed-darkness, then Pure Witnessing can happen once all is bathed in light.
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
