Today's Considerations
The Realized poet William Shakespeare had Hamlet, one of his most famous characters, say:
" . . . The play's the thing /
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."
Had Maharaj paraphrased Shakespeare, he might have said:
"The brain's the thing /
Wherein you can re-catch the pure consciousness of the child."
As noted in recent posts, Maharaj initially tried to address the Ultimate Sickness as if it were a duality / too-little-dogma issue; later, he tried to address the Ultimate Sickness as if it were a duality / too-little-spirituality issue; eventually, he recommended that seekers understand that the Sickness is a mental sickness, so he eventually came to understand that:
religion cannot heal any mental illness (but is instead the source of many of the mental illnesses which can be observed in fanatics all around the globe); that
spirituality cannot heal any mental illness (but most certainly can contribute to the frequent assumption of supposedly-grand ego-states by fanatics all around the globe who believe that their "new and improved" spiritual ego-state gives them a "supreme" identity); and that
The Realized poet William Shakespeare had Hamlet, one of his most famous characters, say:
" . . . The play's the thing /
the mind - which is the greatest contributing factor to the Ultimate Sickness - cannot heal the mind. The mind, he made clear, must end.
That final understanding is why he eventually advised seekers to
stop reading I AM THAT,
stop with all their religious and spiritual seeking,
address the mind problem which is at the root of the Ultimate Sickness,
be freed from the learned ignorance that was taught and from the insanity which was imposed from outside (via parental and societal influences),
stop abiding unnaturally,
stop trying to abide supernaturally (magically, spiritually, etc.) and then
just abide naturally, the way that every living thing on the planet abides except for programmed and conditioned humans.
For that to happen, the mind must end, and the mind ends by forfeiting all of the ideas and concepts and opinions (a.k.a., "beliefs") which are stored therein.
To those who protest that they cannot function without the content of their (now-totally-unnatural) minds, look to nature and see how functioning can happen under the auspices of the brain only (which is natural). All life-forms function without any mind at all - that is, without any ideas, concepts, opinions, a.k.a., beliefs. They function instead via the auspices of the all-natural brain.
Maharaj said that, some day, science would advance to the point that it will substantiate the validity of all non-dual teachings. To that end, consider:
The average adult human brain weighs around 1250 grams. The "mind part" of the human brain which stores and retrieves recent memories (the hippocampus) weighs about 4.1 grams; the "mind part" of the brain which stores and retrieves long-term, life-long memories (the anterior cingulate cortex) weighs just under 4 grams.
If one were to purge the mind part of the brain where all beliefs are stored ("beliefs" being a catch-all term to point to all of the fictional notions that have been dreamed up by men and passed down to persons for thousands of years) there would still be 1242 grams of the brain's 1250 grams which would still be functioning right along (and functioning splendidly, brain injuries notwithstanding) 24 / 7.
The use of the remaining 1242-gram, non-mind part of the brain would allow an adult human to accomplish anything required for natural abidance to happen throughout the remainder of the manifestation, just as is happening right now among the fish and fowl and deer and insects and all other life-forms around the globe which are abiding under the auspices of their no-mind brains.
Maharaj made clear that natural abidance is mindless abidance. Just as the deer move about with ease (day or night), even as humans can only grope about with no ease when in the darkness, so too can you move about with ease in the light of Realization (that is, in the light of freedom from ignorance and in the light of having been restored to sanity).
The non-Realized shall continue to grope about in the darkness, but that need not affect the Realized ones that can see and that will move out of the path of those persons (personas) who are groping about in the darkness of their learned ignorance and in the darkness of their programming-and-conditioning-induced insanity.
What did Maharaj eventually come to understand regarding the mind and the proper means for treating that source of the Ultimate Sickness? He saw that the mind is unnecessary for seeing clearly; to the contrary, in fact, he saw that the mind is the actual source of humanity's inability to see clearly.
If the mind is purged, then the belief that one is defined by multiple personalities will also be purged. And when all false identities are purged (along with the hidden agendas of personalities which determine and control all of the thoughts and words and actions of the non-Realized masses), then the illusion of choice will end and the actual ability to consciously choose to act in a way that is marked by sanity and soundness and logic and reasonableness and wisdom can happen.
Because the minds of the non-Realized have not been eliminated, their ever-in-motion minds will guarantee that their bodies shall align with their minds and shall also be ever-in-motion, going and doing and zooming and racing about without the ability to enjoy even a moment of pure and unadulterated peace. So it is, but so it need not be.
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
The non-Realized shall continue to grope about in the darkness, but that need not affect the Realized ones that can see and that will move out of the path of those persons (personas) who are groping about in the darkness of their learned ignorance and in the darkness of their programming-and-conditioning-induced insanity.
