Today's Considerations
23. From yesterday:
What is to be sought, and what is to be found at the end of the "path," is relief (NOW!) from the symptoms of the Ultimate Sickness. What is to be found is an ability to differentiate between true and false (NOW!) What is to be found is restoration to sanity (NOW!) What is to be found is freedom (NOW!) What is to be found is peace (NOW!)
What Maharaj eventually came to understand was that none of the philosophical / religious / spiritual "stuff" matters. What matters is being freed from the effects of (a) learned ignorance and the effects of (b) the personality disorders which follow personality assignment and assumption and the effects of (c) the arrogance-generating senses of different-from-ment and better-than-ment which lead to mental and emotional insatiability and to planet-wide disharmony and chaos.
What is to be sought, and what is to be found at the end of the "path," is relief (NOW!) from the symptoms of the Ultimate Sickness. What is to be found is an ability to differentiate between true and false (NOW!) What is to be found is restoration to sanity (NOW!) What is to be found is freedom (NOW!) What is to be found is peace (NOW!)
What Maharaj eventually came to understand was that none of the philosophical / religious / spiritual "stuff" matters. What matters is being freed from the effects of (a) learned ignorance and the effects of (b) the personality disorders which follow personality assignment and assumption and the effects of (c) the arrogance-generating senses of different-from-ment and better-than-ment which lead to mental and emotional insatiability and to planet-wide disharmony and chaos.
In so many ways, Maharaj turned the popular message of Hinduism on its head. ("You were not born once, so how could you be born again?" and "There is no going into and coming out of samadhi" and "You have invented God").
In so many ways he also turned the popular message of non-duality on its head. ("I have no faith in anything which has ever been told, not even what has been told by the Vedas" and "There is no question of elevating to a higher level - here it is only a question of understanding" and "Give up spirituality" and "Stop reading the book I AM THAT and listen to my later talks.")
His most unpopular message, though, is the message which had been the most unpopular since humans dreamed up the concepts of birth and death. The last thing anyone who is occupied and preoccupied and obsessed with continuity - with "eternal life" - wants to hear is that "this is it" as far as any "living you" is concerned.
It is a trait of the manifested consciousness that it wants to remain manifested. It wants continuity. If one never transcends the blocked consciousness and comes to an awareness of awareness and an awareness of all of the falsehoods that are believed and an awareness of truth and a full awareness of all that is involved with both reality (the AM-ness) and Reality (THAT), then one will be occupied and preoccupied with the fictional concept of individual, personal continuity.
Eastern religion has taught for nearly 5000 years that such continuity is possible. Similarly, the Vikings were so convinced that the bogus concept of continuity is real that they buried the "higher status" members of their community with material things which they thought would be needed in "the next life" or "the next world," including food, clothing, weapons, etc.
The Egyptians accumulated things now that were to be buried with persons in order for them to be available for use "later," in "the next life." Even the lowest ranking persons were buried with pots of food and water for the "journey" as well as combs and tools and small weapons to be used "later."
Added to the burial site of those Egyptians who were ranked at the mid-level of their hierarchy were the above items as well as furniture, better weapons, cosmetics, wooden shoes, bread, a leg of beef, a jar of beer and food offerings.
Of course those among the "upper echelons" were buried with all of that and more, including a wardrobe, beds, headrests, chairs, stools, leather sandals, musical instruments, gold, artwork, and unbelievable riches.
Nowadays, most know how ignorant and insane the beliefs were which led to those actions, yet there are still many naive types who buy into such notions. More recent in history, one such group (one of the millions of the sky cults and cults which are active nowadays) was called "Heaven's Gate." In 1997, thirty-nine of the members of that cult committed suicide in order to reach what they believed was an alien spacecraft which was supposedly trailing along behind the Hale-Bopp Comet.
They, too, gathered together things of this world which they thought would be needed in the next world (including a five dollar bill and three quarters in each pocket of those 39 members who believed that along the way they were going to have a pay an interplanetary toll . . . to space aliens . . . who recognized U.S. currency as legal tender).
Many can spot the ignorance and insanity behind the beliefs over the ages that have inspired such behavior as working to "accumulate now what will be needed later." That can bring us back to the earlier pointer about a message that persons do not want to hear: there will be no you later; there will be no benefits later from deeds and practices done now or from knowledge and experiences accumulated now;
there will be no one to use anything later; and there will be nothing to use anything for later. If anything is to be used, use it now, and if anything is being sought for some later benefit or reward (in Nirvana, Valhalla, Heaven, or some "higher level after rebirth") then understand that you have been fooled by all of those who have passed along humanity's massive accumulation of learned ignorance.
The insanity of humanity and of so many seekers specifically is they they want to become experts in "THAT" and in "what is to come" and in "other-worldly stuff" and in some dreamed up "later existence," yet they do not have even the most basic and fundamental tools required to function effectively and sanely and wisely in this existence.
You might as will not reap any joys or pleasures now from the money you have earned now and save it instead for an interplanetary toll later. You may as well not enjoy the pleasures which are available only now, during the relative existence, in order to save up for "greater rewards later."
And that is why many did not want to hear some of yesterday's considerations regarding what a waste it is to focus on such stuff as "later things to come" or on "A Supreme Self," "An Infinite Self," or "A True Self"; or on such things as learning Sanskrit or other languages in order to study supposedly "holy" texts; or on such things as so-called "religious experiences" or "spiritual experiences" or on any of the other stuff that deals with things that have nothing at all to do with the only thing that any human will ever be conscious of, namely, what Maharaj called "the here and now." He alienated others by explaining that the "not here and the not now" are meaningless and are, in fact, the stuff of dreams and dreamers.
Yet those attached to things deemed to be lofty and spiritual and heavenly and noumenal do not want to hear Maharaj say that are no persons walking about the planet and that what is walking about the planet and being called "a human" is really just a composite unity of plant food elements which have come together temporarily to form a space which is temporarily housing consciousness and a space which is circulating air into and out of itself.
They did not want to hear Maharaj explain that there is no past and that there will be no future and that there is only NOW. They did not want to hear Maharaj explain that when mahasamadhi is taken that the elements will return to the universal pool of elements, that the conscious-energy will return to the universal pool of conscious-energy, and that the air will return to the universal pool of air and that's the end which awaits every temporarily-manifested space, period. End of story. They did not want to hear him say that there is no continuing life for anyone after this existence and that if they want to enjoy anything, they better enjoy it now.
And to this day, many seekers do not want to hear that the only "benefit" of Realization is for persons to realize that they have been driven by learned ignorance and personality disorders and varying degrees of insanity and that the only purpose of Realizing is to be purged of arrogance and to be restored to sanity and then to overlay that on the relative existence for the remainder of the manifestation so that ignorance can be replaced with wisdom as the primary motivator of all actions.
Many do not want to accept that they should, post-Realization, ignore THAT because THAT will "take care it itself" (meaning, it will function in the way which it has always functioned and in the way which it shall always function: in a totally impersonal, natural manner).
Realization (freedom from ignorance and insanity) which can relieve a person from the symptoms of the Ultimate Sickness only has relevance now.
When Maharaj told "richard" to forget about gains and about receiving any benefits from meditation or anything else and to find that which is beyond the beingness and the non-beingness, richard did not "get it" at that point. The understanding would come later, though, and it would include an awareness that, while there is no "one" to gain anything now, it is possible that there can be a shift away from the learned ignorance and insanity which have been cast upon persons through no choice of their own. Thus, the summative statement of non-duality is "I AM THAT; I AM." The "AM-ness" part remains in the statement, always. The statement does not shift post-Realization to "I AM THAT, so I am just going to forget all about the I AM."
Thus, the paradox of the non-dual teachings:
(1) there is no "one" to benefit from anything, including Realization (that is, from realizing that what is being passed down from one generation to the next is learned ignorance and insanity)
but
(2) ironically, there can be major shifts in the way that the relative existence unfolds, and those shifts will occur if one completes the "journey" which eliminates learned ignorance and which restores sanity and which brings about the type of shifts which should be heartily-welcomed by those who have previously experienced the misery and suffering which ignorance and insanity generate throughout the manifestation.
[J.C.: "A dual-minded person is unstable in all ways." So why Realize and be freed from having actions and deeds being driven and controlled by a mind filled with dualistic beliefs? So one can stop being unstable, stop being addicted to chaos, stop being addicted to control, stop being addicted to power and stop being addicted to "A Power." In short, so one can be stable.]
Again, therefore, it can be asked: If none of that philosophical and lofty and "other-worldly stuff" matters except in terms of the shifts which the non-dual understanding can bring about NOW, why follow the "path"? Why seek at all?
The answer: (A) because there is something that will most certainly have a major, "negative" impact on the entire relative manifestation, namely, learned ignorance and insanity and (B) because there is something to be said for a relative existence in which thoughts and words and actions are not being determined solely by learned ignorance and insanity.
Once more, Maharaj: "There is no question of elevating to a higher level - here it is only a question of understanding."
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
