Today's Considerations
From yesterday:
Though Maharaj’s parents were neither highly religious nor
highly spiritual, he was nevertheless exposed to cultural influences, so for a
time he bought into the notion that persons with the Ultimate Sickness could be
treated if their hearts or spirits were "ministered to" or "cured" or "healed."
The case here was this: having been diagnosed in 1962 at the age of 15 with a genetic
heart defect, heart issues have long been a topic of discussion during visits
with doctors. In the last ten years, especial attention has been paid to that
organ, what with its defects having been aggravated with age and excessive use
(that muscle having contracted and expanded and beaten and pumped over two billion times).
On many occasions, that organ has been observed on an echo-cardiogram
machine. On other occasions, it has been viewed and studied via x-rays. At still other
times, and as recently as last month, it has been viewed during catheterization
procedures. Here’s what the doctors see
when they are performing a cath on that heart:
More to the point, though, is this: here’s what those doctors did not see:
While every doctor reported having seen a physical value
defect as well as some varying degrees of buildups and blockages, not once have any of
those women and men who have literally looked inside my heart and studied every millimeter of
that organ up-close ever discovered the presence of anything which was unusual
or unique or “Noumenal” or otherworldly. It’s all elemental; all physical; all material; all “flesh and blood,” if you well.
Around the globe, over 250,000,000 surgeries are performed annually,
meaning that more than one billion surgeries have been performed in the last
decade. Some of those surgeries involved various parts of this plant food body referred to
as “floyd.” After all of the cases where the insides of this body have been
viewed via x-rays, scans, and the naked eye by many surgeons over the years,
not one doctor or technician or nurse or assistant saw a soul or spirit, either in the heart or anywhere else in
the body.
And with all of those persons on the planet who are so tuned in to
reporting what they deem to be "miraculous" events or sightings or experiences, not one time out of those one billion+ surgeries has anyone reported
seeing anything Noumenal within the body. Not one thing normally “unseen” (or “Unseen”)
has ever been found.
In every case, every human, (that is, every composite unity)
has involved only three things: a body which was formed from elemental plant
food as plant cell transformed into human body cell; air being circulated into
and out of that space; and conscious-energy being temporarily-manifested
therein.
Never has a “soul” or “spirit” or “inner self” (or “Inner Self”)
been witnessed. Never has anyone ever witnessed with the naked eye - or via an
x-ray or a cath procedure either - some kind of a gauzy or ghostly or phantom-like or apparition-like or
specter-like entity. And that’s with billions of persons on the planet having a propensity for claiming to have “seen”
miraculous things.
[For example, there was never a drawing of the one called “The
Christ” 2000 years ago, so no one have a clue what he looked like, though
being native to the region where he lived, he likely had very dark skin rather
than the white skin shown in the many illustrations of him being displayed nowadays.
Were he around today and tried to take a plane to one destination or another,
airport security would likely profile him and he’d be whisked out of the check-in
line for further investigation as a possible terrorist. Yet in spite of having
no clue what he looked like, there are those who report seeing him on their
morning toast; on a honey bun served in a café; on the side of an underpass in Chicago,
Illinois; in a knot growing on the trunk of a tree; in cloud formations all around the globe;
etc., etc., etc. Yet even with that kind of mind stuff going on, no one in the medical
field has ever claimed to see anything inside a body which could – by any stretch
of the imagination – be determined to be a soul or spirit. So those who have tried for thousands of years to heal
someone with "an evil heart" or "a sick spirit" or with "a spiritual malady" may as
well have been trying to heal a mirage in the desert which they took to be
sick.]
Therefore, if the problems of humankind – all symptomatic of the
Ultimate Sickness – do not involve dogma deficiencies or a sick spirit,
then that only leaves one other alternative, the alternative which Maharaj
eventually concluded is the root of humanity’s problems: the mind.
True, the nonsensical and ignorant and insane content of the mind cannot be seen either, although it can be
heard when persons talk; but certainly the parts of the brain which form the
mind – the areas within the brain where information is stored and where it is sometimes
retrieved from – have been seen.
Yet even “the mind” – to which one can trace the source of
so much divisiveness and hatred and fighting and misery and suffering - does
not need “healing” (unless that part of the brain has been damaged physically,
say by way of a blow to the head or as a result of a car accident where the head was smashed
against the dashboard or windshield).
What the mind needs is the same thing that a filthy toilet needs,
namely a good cleaning out, a good flushing away of all of the contents
therein. Toilets are like minds in that both are full of contaminants which have
the potential to make a person sick or miserable. Some of the contaminants can
even kill.
One way that the Ebola virus can be contracted is via contact with
feces such as that inside a toilet. It can cause a person to experience many symptoms
including internal bleeding and it can often be fatal. Pardon the explicit nature
of this pointer, but it is spot on: what is true about the content of a toilet is also true about the crap inside persons’
minds.
Nowadays, there are trained professionals dealing with the
process of cleaning out the mind. Some are more effective than others, and some
are using state-of-the-art methods (such as EMDR) to root out the deepest, most
hidden drivers of misery and suffering and fighting and death which are lodged
inside the subconscious parts of the mind.
There are also a few teachers – in the style of Maharaj – that have seen what works and what does not work in addressing the Ultimate Sickness and the core issues which are generating humanity’s problems. For thousands
of years, humanity has tried to use dogma or spiritual principles to address humankind’s
real problem (the content of the mind). Maharaj tried both for a time. Both were tried
here. Trillions all around the globe over the years have tried both.
Yet any objective student of human history would have to
admit that the overall result of the use of those two methods has been nil.
In his later years, Maharaj – having long abandoned the use
of dogma - also urged seekers to set aside dogma and spirituality, saying,
“Stop reading (the 'spiritual classic') I AM THAT and listen
to my later talks”
and
“give up spirituality”
an
“follow your normal inclinations"
and
"forget spirituality."
In place of all that, he urged seekers to focus on the source
which he eventually identified as the real problem: the mind and its content. The same
invitation is offered here: be rid of the mind completely (and that proved
really easy to do in the end.)
Because Maharaj came to understand that the main problem centers
in the mind and not in “a bad heart” or “sick soul” or “malady-plagued spirit,”
he said:
"All illness begins in the mind."
"Your confusion is . . . in your mind."
"Distrust your mind, and go beyond."
"Your confusion is . . . in your mind."
"Distrust your mind, and go beyond."
"There is no chaos in the world except the chaos which
your mind creates."
" . . . The mind obscures and distorts."
"There is no such thing as peace of mind. Mind means disturbance. Restlessness itself is mind."
"Beyond the mind there is no suffering."
"There is no such thing as peace of mind. Mind means disturbance. Restlessness itself is mind."
"Beyond the mind there is no suffering."
"Stop making use of your mind and see what
happens."
"There is no such thing as mind. There are ideas . . .
."
"Abandon the wrong ideas, for they are false and
obstruct your vision . . . ."
"To know that you are a prisoner of your mind - that you live in an imaginary world of your own creation - is the dawn of wisdom."
"To know that you are a prisoner of your mind - that you live in an imaginary world of your own creation - is the dawn of wisdom."
So what was his state in the end, the state which ultimately freed him and led to the birth of wisdom? It was a no-mind state:
“Don’t rely on your mind for liberation. It is the mind that
brought you into bondage. Go beyond it altogether.”
and
“The death of the mind is the birth of wisdom.”
and
"There is no such thing as a mind."
and
"I have no mind . . . ."
And reaching that state was “easy”? Yes, in the end. How?
All ideas, notions, concepts,
etc. which are stored in the mind can be summarized in one term: “your beliefs.”
How to be rid of the mind, then? Easy: just give up every belief.
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
[NOTE:
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