Today's Considerations
7. For a second time, three years after his first visit to the loft, "richard" found his way to India; to the city of Bombay (Mumbai); then into the Khetwadi section of the city; then to the "Vanamali Mansion" on the 10th lane (actually just a small bye-lane, noted most for "noise, squalor, and stench");
then he would have seen, by looking up at the first floor, (the second floor in U.S. nomenclature) the shutters in front of the three narrow windows of the loft pushed open in the hope of allowing at least a slight bit of air to enter and to be circulated somewhat by the use of an electric fan standing in the corner of the small room.
For the second time, richard would have climbed again a short flight of stairs to a small landing near the midpoint of the steps leading to the loft above, would have turned to his right, and would have then ascended the remaining stairs which provided access to the loft. He would have entered a small room and seen Maharaj still seated, still waiting to begin his first session of the day, punctually, at 10 A.M.
It took little time for richard to be singled out by Maharaj who understood, after one question from richard, that in the three-year interval since his first visit richard had still not come to understand anything and was still clinging to the useless meditation practices which richard still believed (in spite of all of the contrary evidence) would somehow, someday, finally kick in and improve his material life.
It was obvious that in the case of "richard," the readiness to understand was simply still not present, blocked as it was by an attachment to a teacher who was misguiding him and by an attachment to a method which he felt he had mastered fairly well and which would one day lead to his receiving everything he desired (if only Maharaj could explain how he needed to fine-tune his practices in order to make them effective).
That mindset was nothing new to Maharaj because he always found the lack of readiness and the subsequent lack of understanding to be the rule rather than the exception: his wife never understood him (that is, never grasped an understanding of his message), and while many seekers traveled thousands of miles to hear his message, his four children had no interest in the words of wisdom which they could have heard by walking up a winding set of stairs.
In his inimitable style, which often including trying to shock his visitors into an awakened state in order for them to be able to break free of the bondage of the nonsense which they were stubbornly clinging to in their sleep, Maharaj confronted richard again, asking, "Do you think I am some wallah (seller) of false knowledge about a false self, sold by those who want money and prestige from the ignorant who would be sold / told how to get that by meditation?"
Then, Richard explains, "i wanted to disappear."
How ironic, since that is exactly what Maharaj was aiming for!
Richard would eventually come to understand that the false "i" - in fact, the multiple false "i's" - must disappear if "Awakening, Realization, Enlightenment, and Liberation" are to appear . . . are to manifest and thereafter mark the remainder of the relative existence. What had to disappear in his case? The belief in "The Super Teacher of Meditation"; the belief in "The One Who Shall One Day Receive All of the Benefits and Rewards of Having Purified the Consciousness"; the belief in "The Super Seeker"; and the belief in dozens and scores of other false identities.
Maharaj was not concerned at all with trying to guide Richard to know "Who he is." He was far more concerned with facilitating the process whereby richard - and all of the other visitors - would come to understand all that they are not. "That," Maharaj said, "is enough."
The ultimate understanding, which can only come when all false identities are rejected, reveals the Absolute - the awareness - which can manifest as the consciousness (which, in turn, allows all distorting and misperceiving to happen). To discard all of the distortions and misperceptions is to pave the way for understanding THAT, for understanding one's Original Nature.
If one were to understand the exact nature of that Original Condition (explained in detail in the eBook dealing with Your Original Nature below) then one could abide as THAT - and like that - even as the AM-ness continues (and is enjoyed as never before).
In touch with - and mirroring - that no-knowing, no-body, no-mind, no-personal-identity, and prior-to-consciousness condition, the relative existence will then unfold in the same fashion which existed prior to the manifestation of consciousness and prior to all of the nonsense and chaos which the soon-blocked consciousness always generates after being obscured by faulty programming, conditioning, etc.
Abiding as that Original Nature, all is merely witnessed throughout the remainder of the manifestation, and all will be witnessed accurately and sanity and wisely, without any chance of acting and reacting in the former ways which were rooted in inaccurate seeing, in ignorance, and in insanity.
It really is all so simple if one casts aside the complex and complicated concepts and ideas and perceptions and notions and theories (a.k.a., "beliefs") and then abides spontaneously in the all-Nisargan, all-natural, no-beliefs, zero-concepts fashion (which is the way that every living thing on this planet abides except for programmed and conditioned humans).
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
