Today's Considerations
Regarding the mess called “the content of the mind,” Maharaj
said, “You are wrapped up and lost in your concepts.”
And of all of the learned ignorance which is stored in the mind
- including thousands upon thousands of concepts, ideas, perceptions,
misperceptions, notions, thoughts, designs, plans, schemes, opinions, views,
theories, inklings, and intentions (a.k.a., “all of your beliefs” which are
really not “your beliefs” at all but are actually just “their beliefs”) no concept has been a
greater influence on humankind’s mind-based-and-personality-driven thoughts and words and
actions than the concept of a “payoff.”
Whether perceived as a “benefit” or “advantage” or “profit” or
“gain,” no human ever does anything that is not based in a desire for a payoff,
including – incongruously - those things that are most harmful and destructive
and self-destructive and self-defeating, relatively speaking. Ever see
alcoholics show up at work in near-unbearable pain and misery? Ever hear them
swear off booze forever? Ever see them, nevertheless, head for their favorite
bar as soon as the workday ends? Why? Because in their minds, there is a
perceived – or, often, a subconscious – payoff which might involve:
stress relief, “relaxing," or “unwinding”; escapism and
avoidance; trying to get through one more day with a complete absence of coping skills; avoiding
going home sober and having to face - without some form of lubrication - the miserable
friction that awaits; ad infinitum.
Consider the paradox: how many tear down their bodies and
brains in an effort to . . . relax? How many have taken on a second job in addition to the
one which is intended to address the needs of a presently-manifested composite
unity and have dedicated themselves wholeheartedly to that second job of . . . working to relax? Working to
relax? Working to be free of having to work? Or being totally absorbed – and
self-absorbed - in their religious or spiritual or non-dual workaholism?
For too many, whatever they are doing in terms of their
religion or spirituality or philosophy or ideology or their beliefs about the non-dual teachings
involves . . . working in order to relax. What irony! What insanity! What entrapment
is an externally-imposed belief system!
Do the deer that were resting in the front yard here this
morning ever "work to relax"? Or do they merely relax? Of course, they merely relax.
Why? Because being mindless, they are not being driven by a mind and its near-limitless
fears and desires.
Maharaj suggested that seekers should model the deer and “relax in
the cool, blue shade,” yet so many are trapped in their cultures' warped notions that they are driven by the belief that "there is way too much
work remaining before I can ever even consider relaxing." So many relate to the
words of the man in a Robert Frost poem who asserts, “I have miles to go before
I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.”
So much needless effort is expended
by those among the masses as they "work to relax," and even Maharaj early on
suggested that, “Unless you make tremendous efforts, you will not be convinced
that effort will take you nowhere.” Later, he would stop offering that pointer and would simply say that effort will take you nowhere.
“Relax and take it easy” is an invitation that will never be
accepted by most because of the incongruity between their bodies and their
minds. If the mind is racing at 80 m.p.h. (129 k.p.h), then the body will try
to race that fast too. Why? In order to try to achieve some sense of congruity between the
body and the mind in order to be free of a constant, nagging sense of "feeling torn” or of
“being pulled in two different directions” or of “being driven to go and do and
zoom in an effort to gain some sense of body-mind alignment."
Now, are there some basic “drives” in all living things?
Yes, of course. There are – typically and normally and naturally - the “thirst drive,”
the “hunger drive,” and the "sex drive.” In
the last months, I have spoken with one or both members of a host of married
couples, one of whom said that she has “lost her sex drive.” One woman is complaining because
she been to her counselor four times for help with the same issue yet she is "still
not attracted to her husband."
As if a counselor can snap a finger and “Poof!
You’re suddenly turned on by a man whom you say you're feeling nothing but disgust
for.” As if – per the desires of some religious persons - a counselor can
snap a finger and “Poof! A gay man is suddenly turned on by women instead of by men or as if a gay woman is suddenly turned on by men rather than by women.” What ignorant beliefs - what insanity - all generated by the content of a mind.
Because the three basic drives among living things are
typical and normal and natural, then it is only atypical and abnormal and
unnatural when one does not eat or binges and purges. And because the three basic drives among living things are
typical and normal and natural, then it is only something that is totally atypical and abnormal and
unnatural if it leads persons to the claim that “abstinence is satisfying” when sex is normally satisfying (when “done properly” anyway).
Apart from the natural basic drives though – along with the
innate desire of the consciousness for continuity - all else is rooted in the concept
of a payoff.
Of such “benefits” or “advantages” or “profits” or “gains”
or ‘payoffs,” Maharaj said: “If you expect any benefits from your search -
material, mental or spiritual - you have missed the point.” So consider some behaviors
which can serve as examples of the types of payoffs which humans seek but which are useless or even destructive and detrimental:
THE PAYOFF FOR MOST WORKAHOLICS
A sense of worth, a sense of “self-esteem,” a sense of security (as false as that sense
is in reality), an assuaging of one’s economic fears, receiving “attaboys"
or "attagirls" from friends and relatives, etc.
THE PAYOFF FOR MOST RELIGIOUS OR SPIRITUAL OR PHILOSOPHICAL
OR IDEOLOGICAL WORKAHOLICS
Rewards now; rewards later; the avoidance of punishment now;
the avoidance of future punishment; status; relevance; compliments; admiration; applause; the supposed ability to know the
answer for everything; a sense of supposedly knowing it all; fulfillment of the ego's "look at me desire"; and a sense of
being able to do whatever one wants and then getting “a clean slate” afterwards
just for the asking.
THE PAYOFF FOR NON-EATERS / BINGER-PURGERS
What is the payoff for non-eaters and binger-purgers? Looking
thin in a culture that has conditioned persons, especially women, to believe
that being thin is the ultimate goal. Their minds’ distortion: a grotesquely-emaciated, five-years-in-a-concentration-camp-type body which nevertheless still looks
“fat” to them. Talk about mind-based misperceptions, but that is a key attribute of
every post-programming, post-conditioning mind: warped perceptions.
THE PAYOFF FOR CUTTERS
A false sense of relieving the pressure that has built up
inside.
THE PAYOFF FOR THOSE FOLLOWING THE FOOD LAWS WHICH ARE BEING
IMPOSED UPON THEM
A false sense of “purity” or the payoff of eventually “escaping a
series of incarnations” or the payoff of “eternal bliss someday” in “a special
place.”
THE PAYOFF FOR THOSE DEDICATED TO A LIFETIME OF ABSTINENCE
A false sense of “purity” or the payoff of “escaping a
series of incarnations” or the payoff of “eternal bliss someday” or (among Catholic
women) “a chance to be married to God” or (among Catholics men) “a chance to be
married to the Church" or - among many among the 97% on the planet who claim a religious
affiliation - a supposed chance to live eternally and enjoy eternal rewards.
THE PAYOFF FOR THOSE PUTTING THEIR RELIGIOSITY OR SPIRITUALITY ON PUBLIC DISPLAY
In spite of Jesus advising persons to stop praying in public
because they were only trying to build up their public image and in spite of his saying “Go into
your secret closet to pray,” followers nevertheless engage in image building by publicly displaying their high level of
religiosity. The same is true among those who join spiritual groups or other
types of cults.
Maharaj said that the Realized “do not care whether others
recognise their state or not.”
THE PAYOFF FOR COLLECTING AS MANY FRIENDS AS POSSIBLE
Of that, Maharaj said: “You have a concept about friendship.
How long do you keep your friends? You keep them so long as they are useful to
you. So long as a friend is of some benefit to you, that’s how long you would
like to keep that friendship. Now, how
can I actually derive benefit out of a friend? I, as ‘an individual’, am not there,
so how can there be a question of benefit? Benefit to whom?”
All actions that are taken to gain benefits are driven by
the mind and, specifically, by the hidden agendas of personalities which are
stored in the mind. As an example, consider a couple of the basic personality types
which appear to one degree or another in all of the “non-Realized”:
The agenda of the Personality Type Two is to get as many
friends as possible in order to get as much love as possible in order to compensate
for the love not received during childhood from a father because of death,
divorce, or being physically present while not being truly present at all.
The agenda of the Personality Type Three is to get as many friends
as possible in order to gain as much admiration and applause as possible.
THE PAYOFF FOR IDENTIFYING WITH SOMETHING “SUPREME” and “OTHER-WORLDLY”
Ego-satisfaction, respect, escapism, evasion, diversion, avoidance,
forestalling, distraction, dodging, dissociation, and only being concerned with
some nebulous “Reality” or “THAT-ness” in order to avoid dealing with the present
realities of the “AM-ness.” In fact, Self-awareness has nothing to do with developing the sense of freedom which comes when abiding as one’s Original
State. Why?
Because there is neither any self-ness nor Self-ness in "the Absolute”
(which is nothing more than a field of a particular type of energy); because in "the Absolute” there
is no consciousness of self or of Self or of anything (either prior to the manifestation
of consciousness or after the unmanifesting of consciousness); and because
in "the Absolute” there is no awareness of self, of Self, or of anything prior to the manifestation
of consciousness and the coming into a state of awareness or after the unmanifesting
of consciousness.
Payoffs, like all concepts, are just dreamed up ideas which
drive persons to think insane thoughts, to speak insane words, and to behave in
insane ways.
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
[NOTE:
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