Today's Considerations
“Ego” is the Latin word for “I.” In non-duality discussions,
“ego” points to the false “I” (and "egotism" is one of the many ego-defense
mechanisms which minds use to preserve false identities and appearances).
[More accurately, the proper term to use would be the false “I’s” because no single identity is ever assigned or assumed. Identities always appear in multiples.]
Assigned personal identities are those handed down by
parents, relatives, etc. Assumed personal identities are those supposedly
chosen by persons from a pool of potential identities that have been catalogued within communities
and cultures and by governments and religious organizations, etc.
An “ego” or false “I” as used by Maharaj after he finally
began focusing on the psychological / mind-roots of the Ultimate Sickness could
refer to a concept, specifically referring to a false self-concept
or to multiple "false selves"-concept.
The “I” or multiple “I’s” are stored in a part of
the brain called “the mind.” In that process, humanity loses touch with the
original, post-manifestation of consciousness intimations of immortality which are pre-stored in “an inner guru” or “the
inner resource” which allows for a sense early on one’s Original Nature and for an understanding
of the fact that “who they have told me I am, that is not who I am at all.” Among some that sense that fact early on, questioning
begins.
In the case with Andy Gugar, Jr. and in the case here as
well, questions were being raised by the age of 5 or 6. In some, the questioning
intensifies by the teen years when angst manifests because of the conflict
between “who 'they' would have you be” and the sense that "you are not who they are telling you that you are” along with the awareness that “you do not want to be what they
are telling you they want you to be.”
Is it any wonder that persons reach their early adulthood
years without having any clue at all about anything at all? Confusion reigns,
and when confusion reigns, chaos follows. [“A dual-minded person is unstable in
all ways.”]
Yet pressure comes from those in positions of influence: “Stop
with all the destructive stuff that is preventing you from being a success. Set
a course for your life and get a career or go out there and find someone to take
care of you and stop with all the feely-feelings and the philosophical questions
and all the mental angst and trying to analyze and trying to understand everything.
Move on, dammit! Fit in and make something of yourself! Go be somebody!”
So these sorts of advice take over:
and
and
And once accepted, these become the guiding principles:
and
Ultimately, one becomes trapped in the false identities of
multiple assigned and assumed ego-states and full-blown egotism kicks in and
takes over:
Having been robbed of the ability to understand (as a result of programming and conditioning
and acculturation and domestication and brainwashing and indoctrination) most eventually just give up, fall in line, and walk in file with those making up the long line
of the planet's Night-of-the-Living-Dead”-type zombies. Or, some might march to the beat of
the drum of "success," whatever the definition of "success" might be in their culture.
Because the masses become inundated with the perverted advice offered
as “wisdom” from parents and relatives and community leaders, or whatever is being modeled by those in the public spotlight, most will eventually
start marching in step with all of the other sleepwalkers and sleeptalkers
and will just “play the game,” whichever game they might find and settle
into playing.
Most will become a part of the 97% on the planet who unquestioningly
accept the teachings of whichever organized religion their parents introduced
them to. A few will be pulled away from dogma and introduced to "spirituality"
(which claims to involve things of a far-higher plane than religion). Some will be
pulled into groups whose members pass on their mythical and myth-based and
superstition-based belief systems.
All will become "unteachable" except for the few who never got
past those original, internal sensations which were emanating from within, from “the
inner guru” or “the inner resource.” Thus, all will feel dis-eased (by the effects of
the Ultimate Sickness); few will ever even recognize their dis-ease because most have become dissociated as a result of their programming, conditioning, etc.; therefore, even the few who were originally engaged in a quest for answers - but who were forced off course by those influencing them - will not return to the "path" which they had only begun to consider during a brief period in the past.
While most among the masses will march off in their sleep - just as they were programmed and conditioned to do - in order to receive
their weekly or daily doses of the mental opiates served up in churches and other sky cults and
in synagogues and in temples and in mosques and in communes and, yes, even in ashrams; and
while others who are following their orders to keep coming back will march off in their sleep to attend their daily meetings - just as they have been re-programmed to do; and while a few will find something
mythical or supposedly "extraordinary" which now blocks them from being in touch with reality; only a
few will stop seeking along those conventional avenues and move to the road less traveled.
A few might finally ask the question “Who am I, really?”
and then move into what often becomes a lifetime of seeking (driven by magical and deep and philosophical and
theoretical and dreamy thinking). Fewer still will reach an awareness of their
Original Nature when nothing was known, nothing was thought, nothing was said, and
nothing was done because there was no “one” to know or think or say or do
anything.
Only a few with move beyond “I am really something” and “I
am really somebody” and reach, via the Self-Inquiry process, the conclusion that “I Am Really
Something Special in an Other-Worldly Way” and “I Am Really That Which is Something
Supreme.”
And only fewer still (per Maharaj’s final guesstimate, “one in ten million”) will
reach a state that is void of any sense of “WHO-ness” or “beingness” or “non-beingness”
and will then, for the remainder of the manifestation, be able to just be, finally
being truly free (by virtue of the fact that they have reached a state of “zero
concepts,” zero beliefs, zero identities, and a state with no "Identity," either).
Tomorrow: More on “Being Somebody” vs. “Not Concluding That One Is Somebody
or Something” and merely being instead.
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
[NOTE:
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