Today's Considerations
[Continued: "Teaching Meditation" and "Doing Spiritual Practices" vs. Abiding as "Your Original Nature"]
13. Richard eventually came to understand that Maharaj was trying to free him from his entrapment in meditation, in studying meditation, in going to Europe to be trained in the ways of meditation, in being taught how to teach meditation, and in teaching meditation (all of which had caused him to become stuck at the third of the seven steps on a "path" which requires the completion of all seven steps if Full Realization and total freedom and independence are to come).
Richard said: "He told me i was seeking the experience of beingness but needed to experience the non-beingness and that which is beyond non-beingness."
[Krishna was a bit more blunt, for he said the wise understand that He is That which is beyond both beingness and non-beingness and that all the rest are fools.]
Maharaj, via both experience and observation, came to understand that meditating - and all other so-called "spiritual practices" - cannot bring the "permanent relief and permanent peace and permanent freedom" which so many seekers are seeking. Why? Because they all deal with "this perceived world" which is not permanent and block the understanding of that which is real (and therefore permanent).
While richard was seeking rewards now - which can only be experienced by a body-mind-personality misidentification - Maharaj taught: "I am not this body-mind, which is neither continuous nor permanent." He tried to make clear that the intent of reaching the understanding of THAT is only to be able to then overlay the understanding of the functioning of the totality and sanity and wisdom onto the relative existence in order to abide sanely and wisely and peacefully and naturally.
[Thus Maharaj also taught: "When all illusions are abandoned, you reach the error-free and perfect state in which all distinctions between the personal and the universal are no more."]
The distortion lies in identifying with the beingness and wanting rewards and perks for "a being" and in the notion that "Right now I am being, but at some point this will end and I will not be being. From that point forward, I will not be being, so you can say I am non-being anymore or I am the non-beingness." Of course all of that reveals that the "I" that is being referred to is believed to be personal.
[Maharaj said on one occasion, "When you believe yourself to be a person, you see persons everywhere. In reality there are no persons, only threads of memories and habits. At the moment of Realisation, the person ceases." On another occasion he said: "How You were prior to beingness - stay like that. You are totally unknown to you."]
What Maharaj was trying to assist richard with seeing was that there is a composite unity, not a personal "being" who can reap perks and benefits by "being spiritual" and thereby "receive the rewards that can surely come via enough proper meditation." Maharaj invited richard to move beyond the desires of the body-mind-personality by shifting to that (Original) state which is beyond beingness and non-beingness.
[Thus Maharaj taught: "Desire is the memory of pleasure and fear is the memory of pain. Turn away from your desires and fears and from the thoughts they create and you are at once in your natural state / Your Natural State." See, the summative statement of non-duality - I AM THAT; I AM" - makes clear that abiding naturally during the AM-ness, while simultaneously abiding as That Natural State, are advaitin . . are not two. They are but one condition - and are the one and only condition - which allows sanity and wisdom and freedom and peace to prevail, now. Moreover, now is the only time during which any of those can be appreciated because in the post-beingness state, there is no "one" to appreciate anything. Additionally, that must apply to the relative existence as well: there is no "one" to earn any rewards or punishments. Those who entered the loft in a true state of readiness were, Maharaj say, "beyond both sin and virtue." If beyond sin, there can be no punishment. If beyond virtue, there can be no reward. See? So much for the agendas of several of richard's ego-states which were all wanting a reward now - a payoff now - for all of his spiritual work and meditation practices. And so much for the motives of "floyd" in the past when he was seeking via spirituality to attain rewards and avoid punishments. And so much for the agendas of every seeker on the planet who is trapped in personality-based desires and fears.]
Now, do not misunderstand Maharaj's urging richard to set aside all of his meditation work and to move on along the rest of the "path." Of course Maharaj endorsed the silence, but not silence associated with the kind of "spiritual doingness" which richard was trapped in.
[To that end, Maharaj taught: "Just sit and know that you are the I AM without words" (that is, without following the words "I am" with any other words or identifiers and without any naming nouns or personally-descriptive adjectives.) He continued: "Nothing else had to be done. Shortly you will arrive at Your Absolute State." Regarding the words "I am": if one follows those words with any noun or adjective, they will "shape one's reality," meaning they will result in one's distorted misperceptions about both reality and Reality. ]
Meditating, and chanting, and entering into and going out of samadhi, and engaging in any of the other practices which seekers engage in, are stopgap measures at best. They will provide no permanent relief because they do not deal with that which is permanent (all ego-inspired protests to the contrary notwithstanding). Why? Because all "practices" require a person - a doer - to do them, so that fact alone excludes any practice and every practice from having anything to do with that which is permanent.
To abide under the auspices and agendas of any false identity (even including the "good ones" such as "The Super Religious One" or "The Spiritual Giant") will lock one into an existence that is characterized by mental contamination, by conditioning, by limitation, by adulteration, by ambiguity, by learned ignorance, by nonsense, and by personality disorders and insanity.
To abide as one's Natural, Original State is to function for the remainder of the manifestation as the uncontaminated, unconditional, unconditioned, unlimited, unadulterated, impersonal, non-dual, unambiguous and all-natural awareness which can be realized and understood only via use of the totally-unblocked consciousness.
To be continued.
Richard said: "He told me i was seeking the experience of beingness but needed to experience the non-beingness and that which is beyond non-beingness."
[Krishna was a bit more blunt, for he said the wise understand that He is That which is beyond both beingness and non-beingness and that all the rest are fools.]
Maharaj, via both experience and observation, came to understand that meditating - and all other so-called "spiritual practices" - cannot bring the "permanent relief and permanent peace and permanent freedom" which so many seekers are seeking. Why? Because they all deal with "this perceived world" which is not permanent and block the understanding of that which is real (and therefore permanent).
While richard was seeking rewards now - which can only be experienced by a body-mind-personality misidentification - Maharaj taught: "I am not this body-mind, which is neither continuous nor permanent." He tried to make clear that the intent of reaching the understanding of THAT is only to be able to then overlay the understanding of the functioning of the totality and sanity and wisdom onto the relative existence in order to abide sanely and wisely and peacefully and naturally.
[Thus Maharaj also taught: "When all illusions are abandoned, you reach the error-free and perfect state in which all distinctions between the personal and the universal are no more."]
The distortion lies in identifying with the beingness and wanting rewards and perks for "a being" and in the notion that "Right now I am being, but at some point this will end and I will not be being. From that point forward, I will not be being, so you can say I am non-being anymore or I am the non-beingness." Of course all of that reveals that the "I" that is being referred to is believed to be personal.
[Maharaj said on one occasion, "When you believe yourself to be a person, you see persons everywhere. In reality there are no persons, only threads of memories and habits. At the moment of Realisation, the person ceases." On another occasion he said: "How You were prior to beingness - stay like that. You are totally unknown to you."]
What Maharaj was trying to assist richard with seeing was that there is a composite unity, not a personal "being" who can reap perks and benefits by "being spiritual" and thereby "receive the rewards that can surely come via enough proper meditation." Maharaj invited richard to move beyond the desires of the body-mind-personality by shifting to that (Original) state which is beyond beingness and non-beingness.
[Thus Maharaj taught: "Desire is the memory of pleasure and fear is the memory of pain. Turn away from your desires and fears and from the thoughts they create and you are at once in your natural state / Your Natural State." See, the summative statement of non-duality - I AM THAT; I AM" - makes clear that abiding naturally during the AM-ness, while simultaneously abiding as That Natural State, are advaitin . . are not two. They are but one condition - and are the one and only condition - which allows sanity and wisdom and freedom and peace to prevail, now. Moreover, now is the only time during which any of those can be appreciated because in the post-beingness state, there is no "one" to appreciate anything. Additionally, that must apply to the relative existence as well: there is no "one" to earn any rewards or punishments. Those who entered the loft in a true state of readiness were, Maharaj say, "beyond both sin and virtue." If beyond sin, there can be no punishment. If beyond virtue, there can be no reward. See? So much for the agendas of several of richard's ego-states which were all wanting a reward now - a payoff now - for all of his spiritual work and meditation practices. And so much for the motives of "floyd" in the past when he was seeking via spirituality to attain rewards and avoid punishments. And so much for the agendas of every seeker on the planet who is trapped in personality-based desires and fears.]
Now, do not misunderstand Maharaj's urging richard to set aside all of his meditation work and to move on along the rest of the "path." Of course Maharaj endorsed the silence, but not silence associated with the kind of "spiritual doingness" which richard was trapped in.
[To that end, Maharaj taught: "Just sit and know that you are the I AM without words" (that is, without following the words "I am" with any other words or identifiers and without any naming nouns or personally-descriptive adjectives.) He continued: "Nothing else had to be done. Shortly you will arrive at Your Absolute State." Regarding the words "I am": if one follows those words with any noun or adjective, they will "shape one's reality," meaning they will result in one's distorted misperceptions about both reality and Reality. ]
Meditating, and chanting, and entering into and going out of samadhi, and engaging in any of the other practices which seekers engage in, are stopgap measures at best. They will provide no permanent relief because they do not deal with that which is permanent (all ego-inspired protests to the contrary notwithstanding). Why? Because all "practices" require a person - a doer - to do them, so that fact alone excludes any practice and every practice from having anything to do with that which is permanent.
To abide under the auspices and agendas of any false identity (even including the "good ones" such as "The Super Religious One" or "The Spiritual Giant") will lock one into an existence that is characterized by mental contamination, by conditioning, by limitation, by adulteration, by ambiguity, by learned ignorance, by nonsense, and by personality disorders and insanity.
To abide as one's Natural, Original State is to function for the remainder of the manifestation as the uncontaminated, unconditional, unconditioned, unlimited, unadulterated, impersonal, non-dual, unambiguous and all-natural awareness which can be realized and understood only via use of the totally-unblocked consciousness.
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
