Today's Considerations
So what was Maharaj up against when he was needing to find
the root cause, and the appropriate treatment for, his problems and for the
problems of those who came his way and for the problems of all humanity in general? That is, what mislead him? What set him up for years of failing to see the root cause and real nature of The Ultimate Sickness?
And what was I up against for years as well?
And what have you likely been up against for years as well?
And what is almost all of humanity also up against?
The answer: Everything that is passed along during Stage One of these four stages:
STAGE ONE
During what is referred to here as “Stage One,” persons are
exposed to twenty years of excessive levels of ignorant and insane programming and conditioning and acculturation and domestication and brainwashing and indoctrination (which can actually continue for an entire lifetime). In the Western
cultures especially, the foremost programming is "to go out there and get" . . . "to accumulate" . . . and to believe that "the one with the most toys at the end is the winner."
STAGE TWO
Afterwards, most persons pass the next twenty years in the
second stage, consumed with the process of accumulating. Fears and desires mark
their passage.
STAGE THREE
Some few might reach Stage Three (and according to research,
if that happens, it actually occurs closer to the age of 42-1/2). In that stage, some
persons begin to truly feel their sense of emptiness or begin to wonder “What’s this all
about, anyway?” or reach such levels of pain that they seek out some means by
which they can stop doing the things that stopped working for them many years
earlier or they reach such levels of misery and suffering that they are driven
to seek outside their old, supposedly-comfortable venues if they finally wake up to the fact that those venues have
not been providing all that they need in order to abide freely and sanely and naturally
and peacefully.
Most who stand at that “fork in the road of their lives”
might wonder about the possibility of a different “path” to follow, but most only pause for a short spell and
then continue to move along the same old path which they have been trudging along for
decades. Even those humans who most need some sort of change - some "new path" or "new direction" - are seldom
inspired to go for it.
Most persons like their routine, no matter how uncomfortable it
is. In many cases, because of denial or dissociation, the discomfort does not
even register. In other cases, because they want to be taken care of (rather than going to work in order to be independent and able to take care of themselves) they choose "having company in prison" over "being free but alone."
[As for refusing an opportunity to change and be free, persons have come here who are
obviously in the deepest, darkest depths of depression imaginable, yet when asked the
question, “Is it possible that you might be suffering from some degree of depression?” their answer is often, “No! I’m not depressed! I’ve being doing my daily, spiritual exercises
regularly for years, and they assure that I’ll be happy and joyous and free.”
The reply has usually been something like this: “Really? Huh. Well then, there’s no
reason at all for you to be here. Go forth and relish your happiness and joy
and freedom.”]
Robert Frost wrote a poem entitled “The Road Not Taken” in
which he spoke – among other things - about his own “Stage Three Experience” (which
might have looked something like this except his message is metaphorical rather
than literal):
In those verses he offered considerations for those at "the Stage Three Fork in the Road" to
ponder:
"The Road Not Taken"
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler. Long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth,
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
And that has made all the difference.
STAGE FOUR
Fortunate but few are those who find the less traveled (or
seldom traveled) road or “path” that leads directly to the
understanding.
For the few who take the road less traveled, they might move into
Stage Four as they begin a process of either Self-Inquiry or self-inquiry and lie-finding and truth-seeking and self-examination and self-inventory and
reflection and investigation
and de-accumulation and, maybe, discovery.
Their de-accumulation will involve . . .
being rid of all that they have been taught and all that they
have learned (dismissed by Maharaj as “learned ignorance”);
being rid of the effects of faulty and ignorant and insane
programming and conditioning and domestication and acculturation and
brainwashing and indoctrination;
being rid of all beliefs, including the belief
in their “who-ness” (which is rooted in the many false identities which have been
assigned or assumed over the years);
being rid of their belief in some "WHO-ness," some
assumed Special Identity or some other belief in a Special Self or a Supreme Self
or an Ultimate Self or any other Self; and
being rid of having all thoughts and words and actions
determined by the hidden agendas of personalities (which had set the stage for
the accumulation of personality defects and for the development of personality
disorders and for disintegration into various levels of neuroses and / or
psychoses).
Most persons will never make that shift into Stage Four
because they will continue along the road most traveled and will continue
trying to accumulate more and more and more beliefs and “stuff” throughout the remaining entirety of the
relative existence.
For the few who search for the relevant answers by asking
the critical questions which they never asked before because - due to their blind faith - they accepted as the truth everything that they were told, some of those might complete all seven steps along the “path” and reach the Fourth Stage
and “Realize” (that is, realize that their accumulating has been for naught and
realize that any trip can be enjoyed far more if not burdened by carrying along
a lot of extra “stuff” which has accumulated (which refers not just to physical
“stuff” but also to a lot of mental and emotional and "personal stuff" as well).
So what was Maharaj up against for years in the search for the proper treatment of the Ultimate Sickness?
And what was I up against for years as well?
And what have you likely been up against for years as well?
And what is almost all of humanity also up against?
Everything accumulated during Stage One, including (1) all of the teachings which say that the solution to humanity's problems can be found in holy texts and in dogma and (2) all of the teachings which say that humanity's problems can be healed if humans' "sick spirits" or "spiritual maladies" are treated; and (3) all of the other teachings which have led persons for the last 5000 years or more to ignore the actual "mind root" of the Ultimate Sickness.
What is the alternative to continuing along the same old road which has not taken one to where she or he would be? What was the other option which Frost took?
And that has made all the difference.
So what awaits those that do transcend the influences of Stages One and Two and try a different "path" and then realize and then de-accumulate? The fifth, post-Realization stage, which involves what
can be called natural, “AS IF Living.”
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.]
