Today's Considerations
If Maharaj was so dedicated to abandoning all religious personalities
and all spiritual personalities, then for the sake of honesty and consistently,
he also had to abandon all other personal self-identities and Self-Identities
as well.
The self-identities had to go because they trigger the use
of ego-defense mechanisms which generate arrogance and thoughts and feelings and
desires and fears. Recall that Maharaj said of arrogance that it "pollutes and dulls the psyche."
And what inspires self-identity assumption or even Self-Identity assumption? He said: When it comes to thoughts and feelings, desires and fears
you become acutely self-conscious." Yes, both self-identifications and Self-Identification are rooted in "thoughts and feelings, desires and fears."
Both
(1) Reality and (2) natural abidance NOW
happen beyond any
religious identification and role-assumption and role-playing; happen beyond spiritual
identification and role-assumption and role-playing; and happen beyond any self or
Self or Supreme Self-identification and role-assumption and role-playing.
There in the loft and here as well, the invitation has been to abide naturally,
to abide as Your Original, pure awareness nature. And what - according to Maharaj - is the evidence if one is abiding as that original nature of pure awareness? He said that the abidance happens “without the least trace
of self-consciousness.”
He said: “Freedom happens when self-consciousness is no more” (and
when “Self”- consciousness is no more, too, saying: “Self-remembering is a mental state" and "reality is beyond”
that).
He said: "The basic unity operates in spite of all. At the root of it
all lies Self-forgetfulness; not knowing who I am." But he clarified that point later: "Self-remembering is a mental state and self-forgetting
is another. They alternate like day and night. Reality is beyond both."
Thus, Maharaj made clear that seekers were to be rid of all
self-identification, asking, “Are you a person during the gaps in self-consciousness?” The answer is, of course not. Yet he also said: “You cannot possibly say that you are what you think
yourself to be! Your ideas about yourself change from day to day and from
moment to moment. Your self-image is the most changeful thing you have”
and
“Self-identifications are patently false and the cause of
bondage.”
But he did not stop there. Speaking of what some term “the True Self,” Maharaj said: “Get
rid of all ideas about Your Self, even of the idea that You are God. No Self-definition
is valid.”
A name familiar to most who have studied the pointers
offered by Maharaj, Douwe Tiemersma, said: “Most people live in the world of
self-consciousness and do not have the desire or power to leave it.”
Maharaj: “Selfishness is always destructive. Desire and fear, both
are self-centred states. Between desire and fear anger arises; with anger,
hatred; with hatred, passion for destruction.”
A man named Mark has been mentioned in this series. It was he who shot his wife in the back as she was trying to run away from him. That came after he had assumed multiple self-identities which felt threatened, including "The Husband," "The
Father," "The Homeowner," "The Finance Man," etc. When
the false identities he desired to maintain felt threatened, that first triggered fear.
Then, “between desire and fear, anger arose; with anger, hatred; with hatred,
passion for destruction.”
Another person discussed in this series, Dylann Roof, shot
nine black people in a church. He wrote in his online “manifesto” that he had
been “inspired by a national ‘white rights’ group that opposes the mixing of
the races.” That is, his assumption of multiple self-identities was inspired by a group which arrogantly believes in and spreads their
beliefs about the concepts of “separate from,” “different-from” and “better-than.”
Roof then wrote: “We have no
skinheads, no real KKK, no one doing anything but talking on the Internet. Well
someone has to have the bravery to take it to the real world, and I guess that
has to be me.”
“I am ‘The Brave One’” and “We need a race war and I am “The
One To Start A Race War” and "I Am The One to Get Done What Skinheads and KKK Members Are Not Getting Done." In his case also, “between desire and fear, anger arose; with anger, hatred; with hatred,
passion for destruction.”
Maharaj: "The realised man is egoless; he has lost the capacity
of identifying himself with anything"
and
"Your burden is of false self-identifications -- abandon them
all."
That must include all personal identities, all religious self-identifications, all
spiritual self-identifications, and all Supreme Self-identities as well.
Maharaj ran out of the loft those who came and who were subsumed in their Supreme Self Identity. Those playing that role do not come here, either, and if they do happen to show up, the case
has always been that they do not stay here long.
Neither a self-conscious one nor a Self-conscious one can tolerate even the slightest exposure to the kind of authenticity which results from a no-identity and no-Identity state. It is anathema to them. Only the counterfeit feels "right" to them. Only the false feels comfortable to them. Only a "righteous" or "lofty" or "supreme" image feel good to them. So it is.
Neither a self-conscious one nor a Self-conscious one can tolerate even the slightest exposure to the kind of authenticity which results from a no-identity and no-Identity state. It is anathema to them. Only the counterfeit feels "right" to them. Only the false feels comfortable to them. Only a "righteous" or "lofty" or "supreme" image feel good to them. So it is.
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
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