Today's Considerations
The pointer was offered yesterday that fanatics of any kind
typically become so OCD about their routines and their practices and “their new, good habits
which they have used to replace their old, bad habits” that they can become so trapped
in routine that they fail to recognize when high levels of boredom and
depression set in; when numbness sets in; when a sense of deadness sets in; when
a lack of feeling sets in; when a lack of sensation sets in. Then this point
was offered for consideration: all of that is still a form of
"death," but it's a warped version of death called
"death-in-life."
For such types, the relative existence can be seen as "a
sweet dream" by those who have become deluded and asleep to the truth about
their actual condition. Maharaj said that such types – trapped as they are in their
"kindergarten level spirituality" while convinced that they now have a Ph.D. in dogma or spirituality or non-duality or recovery or whatever it is that they are obsessive about and behaving compulsively about – can "think that they are being bathed in the
full light of the noonday sun when they are actually still standing in the dull
light of dawn."
The “awakeness” which they attribute to whatever it is that
they are fanatical about is really just a hallucination, a trance, a fantasy,
another self-deception. They are actually walking about in their sleep - or in
their nightmare - while dreaming that they are awake.
This is shared in the book The Most Dangerous Belief of All, one of
the five free eBooks offered compliments of Andy Gugar, Jr. under “Freebies” at the top of this page:
And what is the existence like for those walking in their sleep? Here come some of them now:
Sleepwalking is akin to abiding in the "personality trance," the
condition in which the masses are trapped. Both terms apply equally to the
non-Realized masses. Here come some more of them now.
It is as if (post-programming, post-conditioning, etc.) persons become just
like zombies. The masses live out their existence in a "walking dead"
fashion, just like those characters above who were featured in a 1968
movie entitled "Night of the Living Dead."
How dangerous is it, really, to walk in one’s sleep, to talk in one’s sleep, to drive in one’s sleep? Quite dangerous, relatively speaking, yet that is the case with most among the masses.
A 24-year old British woman, Amy Wigfull, age 24, was placed on life support this past summer after she fell fifty feet from a hotel window. Toxicology tests proved she was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol; instead, she had been sleepwalking when she fell from the window of a Malaga, Spain hotel. She suffered a broken back, a fractured pelvis, several broken ribs and bleeding of the brain.
Some visitor’s know that on West 69th Street – on the opposite side of the street from the house in which “floyd” was raised – lived a fellow named John K. John, from around the age of six or so, began sleepwalking. In the beginning, he might go to the refrigerator and eat something during the night, but he would have no memory of that at all the next morning. Later, his parents might rise in the morning and find John asleep in the bathtub.
The potential danger increased when he began leaving the house at night while sleepwalking: he was found asleep on the front porch on one occasion; in the back seat of the family car on another; and later on he was found several blocks from home, walking in the middle of the street.
These facts were shared earlier in a summer of 2014 post:
Last year, a survey in the U.S. showed that 168,000,000 people admitted that they have driven a vehicle while feeling drowsy or that they had fallen asleep at the wheel.
(That is out of 196,000,000 drivers, which amounts to
approximately 86% of all drivers. More than 100,000 wrecks occur annually as a result
of driving while sleeping. Those are the ones in which drivers admit that they
fell asleep at the wheel. Far more likely occur without the actual cause being
revealed.)
Data from Australia, England, Finland, and other European
nations indicates that drowsy driving or driving while asleep cause between 10%
and up to 30% percent of all crashes annually.
NOTE: Never have I chased down those driving in their sleep and offered to wake them. If one would be awake, that one must come here and make a request. Otherwise, all of the sleepwalkers are merely witnessed as they walk in their sleep, talk in their sleep, drive in their sleep, shop in their sleep, run a cash register at the checkout counter in a store while asleep, say what they say to their mates in their sleep, say what they say to their employer or employees in their sleep, or take a customer’s food order in their sleep.
[For example, last week while visiting my daughter in Austin, I left her house and went out for breakfast the first morning after she had left for work. I stopped by a nearby restaurant which serves breakfast and placed my order. Within a few minutes, the waitress was back asking, “Did you say you wanted coffee or milk?”
Because my daughter had already served coffee earlier, I
ordered my second-favorite breakfast beverage, orange juice, so when she asked,
“Did you say you wanted coffee or milk?” the response was, “Actually, neither.
I asked for a glass of orange juice.” She said, “Oh, that’s right! Sorry!” and
left.
Of course my being “right” was not the concern, her
affirmation of my being correct about my original order notwithstanding. The
concern was, would she be anywhere close to "right" with the order.
So far, there was little confidence that such would be the case. Sure enough, I
saw her returning, empty-handed, and knew another lapse had occurred.
She said, “I am SO sorry.” [Then whispering so that the
manager would not hear her] “I had a rough night last night. My bad! So you did
say you wanted your eggs scrambled, right?” Again, “Actually, I asked that they
be cooked ‘over easy’.” She: “Oh damn! I mean, heck! That’s right. Where did I
get scrambled? Duh,” and she left for the third time. I did not answer for her the
question, "Where did I get scrambled?" even though I understood
exactly. I did not explain that she – or more accurately, her thoughts and her
mind and her brain overall - had been scrambled starting in childhood; nor did
I explain that, after moving away from home, she has taken over the
scrambling-of-her-brain job where her parents left off.
See? “Taking a customer’s food order in their sleep.” And
that is the way that the relative existence unfolds for the 99%+ who are among
the non-Realized masses who have been lulled to sleep without having even the
slightest clue at all that such is their circumstance. Additionally, little
does she know but - here in Texas, where many wear guns on their hips (readily
available to use to shot whomever they want to shoot) - someone may well draw a
pistol and shoot her after such insane nonsense has happened with their order.
And little does she know that the right-wing, God-fearing,
Lone-Star-flag-loving judges in this state, after hearing the shooter’s
explanation, will likely dismiss the case as being “justifiable
homicide.”]
Research also shows that at least 30% of all people have engaged in sleepwalking at some time in their lives. Non-dualists know better. Non-dualists know that the percentage is actually more than 99%.
Thus, Maharaj said: “As I look at you, you all seem asleep,
dreaming up words of your own”
and
“To be aware is to be awake. ‘Unaware’ means ‘asleep’.”
That typical - though certainly not "normal" - condition of humanity in general would be funny except for the fact that it is, you know, not funny at all. Instead, it is often dangerous, relatively speaking; in fact, it is the most dangerous condition of all.
And it is rooted in the most dangerous belief of all, namely, the belief that one can traverse the relative existence “much better” if one is blind (that is, totally asleep, totally willing to have faith in everything they have been told) rather than (1) being able to see reality and able to see Reality and (2) being able to differentiate between what is false and what is true.
The inability to differentiate true from false is not a too-little-dogma problem or a problem rooted in a sick spirit. The inability to differentiate true from false is solely a mind problem, and that is why Maharaj eventually stopped focusing on anything to do with Hinduism or any other religion, stopped focusing on spirituality, and started offering pointers about the true roots of the Ultimate Sickness: the programmed, conditioned, acculturated, domesticated, indoctrinated, and brainwashed mind.
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
[NOTE:
The four most recent posts follow. You may access all of the posts in
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