Today's Considerations
Just as a child does not exit a birth canal in adult
form, so Maharaj did not arrive straight out of the “non-dual chute" in a "Fully Mature-Teacher State" with the skill set required to offer a fully-effective
version of the Ultimate Medicine. The
version of the Medicine he used in the end had not even the slightest
similarity to the versions used earlier.
The only version of the Medicine which he offered for the Ultimate
Sickness which most seekers are familiar with is the version of the Medicine which they have found in the book I AM THAT containing talks offered during “His Middle Period
of Teaching.”
Most know little about the first version of the Medicine, a version which was actually prescribed
by his guru who, essentially, told Maharaj that you must trick them: get them
into your flat by offering bhajans throughout the day and then insert some
non-dual pointers during the Hindu practices they like. His guru envisioned the coming of no seekers other
than Hindus, and he never envisioned the likelihood of seekers coming from outside the
Hindu state of Maharashtra or from anywhere other than the environs of Bombay, the Girgoan region, and the Khetwadi
neighborhood.
So the original “teaching strategy” during "Maharaj's "Early Period
of Teaching” was to seek those interested in religion and to try to free them of their present habit of viewing all in a totally-dualistic manner in which they believed in vast multiplicities
of gods and goddesses and to developing a non-dual perspective instead.
Most seekers know little of "that Maharaj" who - during his guru-bhakti-driven
days - unquestioningly followed Siddharameshwar’s prescription for treating the
Ultimate Sickness.
Only after he moved beyond his guru’s orders and began formulating
a teaching methodology based in his own experience (and in his own observations
about what was "working" and what was not) did he begin offering a compound
version of the Medicine which was made from a Hindu base with non-dual additives and then blending in a peppering
of “spiritually-oriented pointers” for flavor. It is that version which most
are familiar with because it is the one most-widely circulated with the publication of I AM
THAT.
[See at the end of today's post his comments about that book and the talks contained therein, comments which have surprised more than a few seekers who do not understand his evolution and why he evolved as he did.]
But the evolution, the maturing, was not complete at that point in this recounting of his teaching "journey." The "Tea of
Maharaj's Final Understanding" had only begun to steep.
Afterwards, the mostly-Hindu audience began to be joined more
and more frequently by non-Hindu audience members who were Westerners;
then only did Maharaj begin transitioning beyond his guru’s “game plan.”
In some later books, more shifts in the focus of his talks
can be traced, but the major shifts were not advertised. They have been
revealed over the years in private interviews; in anecdotal accounts of one-on-one
comments he shared; in accounts of off-the-record conversations; and in
usually-closely-held, formerly-private writings of those who recalled what he
had said during “unofficial” or “confidential” talks or in never-professionally-published
transcripts of what he had said in the presence of one seeker or in the presence of only a few.
For those familiar with the pointers offered by “the
off-the-record Maharaj,” it is obvious that he went through (A) his seeking phase,
(B) his guru phase, (C) his “Forest Dweller” phase, and (D) his early teaching / informal
sharing phase when visitors began to stop by his bidi shop regularly in order to talk and to listen. Then
came (E) his Hindu / religious / non-dual blend phase and (F) his less Hindi / more spiritual
/ more non-dual phase.
All of that might be compared to a child moving into his
teen years and then into his young adult years and then into his adult years
and then finally reaching his older / far-more-astute / penetrating / sharp-witted
/ clear-sighted / wise-old-man / perspicacious / fully awake / fully aware /
fully conscious / “elder sage” stage.
Yet would those who criticize Maharaj for “evolving” (for growing)
hope that a child of their own would fixate and would never develop and would remain
stunted throughout the entire manifestation?
Because of experience and observation and a trial-and-error approach,
he reached a point where his own experience lead him to look not only outside
the surrounding culture but also outside the realm of anything that any Far Eastern teacher had tried up to that
point. He came to see that the problems of humanity are
all rooted in the mind, not rooted in a too-little-knowledge-of-dogma issue and not rooted in
a too-little-spirituality issue and not rooted in a too little knowledge of Self issue.
[Thus, he said: “I have no faith in anything which has ever been
told, not even what has been told by the Vedas. Only my own experience.”]
Thus the teaching periods were marked by trying but then discarding many different versions of the Medicine before he realized that the problems of humanity will never be effectively addressed if the focus is on what some take to be "too-little-dogma issues" or by focusing on what others take to be "spiritual malady issues." He came to understand that the root of the problems will only be addressed by focusing on "the mind issues," the mind being the place from which the self-generated problems of humanity emanate.
That is why he told people in the end to "stop reading I AM THAT" and to "listen to my later talks."
How rich billions of persons would be if they were given a dollar for every time they (yes, accurately) observed, "Look at that - that person is nuts!" or "What a fool!" or "He / She has got to be totally insane!"
Yet how poor they would be if a dollar were taken away each time they failed to see the true facts surrounding their own mental condition.
Here, these related points are offered for consideration to those who are focusing on the ignorance and insanity which they are observing in "others":
"If you spot it, you've also got it"
and
"If you can see it, you can also be it"
and
"You will never find the truth regarding your own mental condition until you give up this firmly-held belief about what makes 'you' different from - and therefore better than - all of those 'others':
'My poop smelleth not; thy caca, on the other hand, doth much offend'."
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
[NOTE:
The four most recent posts follow. You may access all of the posts in
this series and in the previous series and several thousand other posts as well by clicking on the links in the "Recent Posts and Archives" section.]
