MAHARAJ: “There’s No Such Thing As Peace of Mind,” Part II

Today's Considerations

 The only thing the consciousness will ever be able to see that is not based in duality is - via the understanding - the Awareness . . . the Original Nature prior to manifestation; otherwise, the consciousness will always only involve conscious-of -ness whereby some “a” is conscious of  some “b.”

Maharaj: "Awareness is primordial; it is the original state, beginningless, endless, uncaused, unsupported, without parts, without change. Consciousness is on contact, a reflection against a surface, a state of duality. There can be no consciousness without awareness, but there can be awareness without consciousness, as in deep sleep. Awareness is absolute, consciousness is relative to its content; consciousness is always of something. Consciousness is partial and changeful; awareness is total, changeless, calm and silent. And it is the common matrix of every experience" 

and

Maharaj: "Since it is awareness that makes consciousness possible, there is awareness in every state of consciousness. Therefore the very consciousness of being conscious is already a movement in awareness. Interest in your stream of consciousness takes you to awareness. It is not a new state. It is at once recognised as the original, basic existence, which is life itself, and also love and joy."

During the early phase of the Child Ignorance Stage or the Child No-Knowing State, after a child’s eyes reach a point of being able to focus and look at - let's say, its “mother” - the child puts a form, a face, to the voice it heard while in the womb and identifies with what it is seeing. It is, for the time, seemingly "at one with mother." (Compare that to a child later on that looks at an idolized singer and dresses like that singer and acts like that singer – again identifying with what the child is seeing).

It is not until a few years after the manifestation of consciousness - when the child becomes highly conscious of "its own, separate body" - that the identification with “mother” (and a sense of "oneness") begins to end. The child begins at that point to focus on itself (fascinated for example with the foot it has discovered and the hand it has discovered) and begins to be become more conscious of self – more self-absorbed – while paying less attention to the original object with which it identified. The child begins to identify with its body and focus on its selfish agenda only.

[Parents begin to speak of that as the “Terrible Two’s" stage.]

The sense of “I” develops and as the self-focus continues, the “a” and the “b” which the consciousness sees shift:

In the beginning, the “a” was “mother” and the “b” was “I”; therefore, there was an original sense of the Oneness. As the Child begins to focus on “self,” then the “a” and the “b” shift to “I am conscious of myself .” Among the masses, the sense of Oneness will never return and the focus for the remainder of the manifestation will be rooted in self-interest and self-absorption and narcissism. The prevailing self-concept will be driven by the agenda of “The God Complex Personality Disorder.”

As teaching and learning begin (all rooted in programming, conditioning, etc.) and as a mind begins to form and stores all of that learning, the duality which is inherent with manifested consciousness will generate a mind which sees everything in terms of polar opposites (that is, right and wrong, good and evil, sinful and virtuous, etc.) with no possibility of seeing any middle ground, much less seeing no right and wrong at all, no good vs. evil at all, no sinful vs. virtuous at all, etc.

[At that point, the child has added mind identification and personality identifications alongside its body identification.]

Those trapped in the instability of dual-mindedness will have been taught and will have learned and accepted and come to believe that they are abiding at the extremely proper pole and that anyone with differing thoughts or words or actions from theirs are at an extremely improper pole. All is seen as white or black with no gray “in-betweens.” Either persons agree with the one who believes that he or she is abiding at the extremely proper pole or all those "others” are bad and deficient and wrong and immoral and evil.

Such is the defectiveness of the programmed and conditioned and domesticated and acculturated and indoctrinated and brainwashed mind. Either persons buy into a culture’s trait assignments and see themselves as "perfect" or they buy into a culture’s trait assignments and see themselves as "defective" or "lacking."

That will carry over into "relationships." The one who buys into a partner’s narcissistic and perfectionistic self-concept and agrees that her or his partner is “ideal” and “a great catch” and “better than” will kiss up to that partner; will be controlled by that partner (out of fear of losing that partner and the identities being sustained by the partner's willingness to play a variety of counterpart roles); and might on occasion behave passively-aggressively with that partner but will for the most part “go along to get along ” Welcome to the only “real Hell” there is.

Or, if persons buy into their own narcissism-based and perfectionism-based self-concept that began to form with doting parents and continued to be reinforced by doting members of their culture, then they will heartily agree that (1) they are “ideal” and “a great catch” and “better than” and that (2) they are entitled to special treatment and deserve to be treated differently from and better than all others.

Either way, the dual-mindedness will assure that all who deal with that type will get a super-sized dose of the only "real Hell" there is, namely, "hell on earth" . . . living in an environment that is marked and marred by arrogance and self-deception and distortion and egotism and selfishness and self-centeredness and insensitivity and a lack of empathy and consideration for one’s feelings.

Thus, Maharaj’s point out that “there’s no such thing as peace of mind”

and

John Milton's point that "The mind . . . in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven" 

and

the poet Richard Lovelace's point that “Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage.” So what, according to him, does make a prison or a cage? The mind.

Realization is not about finding some "Supreme Self” or “Being At One With God" or “Being At One With the Godhead,” much less about “Being God.” It is about

(1) realizing the difference in true and false;

(2) realizing that one has been taught (and thus learned) ignorance;

(3) being aware of the personality disorders which have come via personality identification; and then

(4) being free of the ignorance and insanity – that is, the content of the mind,

(5) being free, period, and thereafter

(6) being at peace.

Maharaj: "Realisation is but the opposite of ignorance." 

 
To be continued.

Please enter the silence of contemplation.

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