Today's Considerations
The challenge Maharaj faced (and the reason his guesstimates
about how many would ever “get this understanding which allows for clear
seeing and a proper perspective” changed over the years from “one in one hundred thousand” to “one in a
million” to “one in ten millions) was based in the fact that
(a) "clear seeing and a proper perspective” are based in fact
but
(b) beliefs are based in untruths and non-facts which are
perceived by the masses to be undeniable, not-to-be-questioned truths and absolute facts.
Such widespread distortion will block almost all persons on
the planet from ever being free of distorted thinking, magical thinking,
misperceiving, and viewing everything through the lens of their warped and twisted
perspectives even as they are convinced that they are “seeing quite clearly,
thank you very much.” Maharaj offered a pointer that ran quite contrary to that
mind-based belief: "Whatever is conceived by the mind must be false.”
Thus, the clear-seeing Maharaj informed his visitors that
"the mind obscures and distorts" and that “it is the mind that
creates illusion."
Maharaj said that “it is the work of the teacher of
non-duality to eliminate misery and suffering,” but contrary to those who
believed it when they were misinformed by being told that they could “pray away
their misery and suffering,” there is no “Poop-Abracadabra-it’s-gone” solution to
misery and suffering any more than there is a “Poop-Abracadabra-it’s-gone”
solution to chronic pain.
[It has been noted here that pain is limited to the
sensations which can be felt by a plant food body but that misery and suffering
are rooted in the content of a mind.]
Pain is addressed in all sorts of ways, but misery and
suffering – like cancer - can only be addressed by being completely rid of the
offending tumor within, and the offending tumor within all of humanity is the
tumor of mind content which must be excised in toto. Until that happens,
there will be no clear seeing, no proper perspective which can allow for differentiating the
false from the true, and no ability to understand the true cause of misery and suffering and
then eliminate it.
I once worked with a man who had been recently released from the hospital where he received treatment for a major septal perforation (or a “hole in the septum") which
was caused by his snorting cocaine. It was clear that alleviating the physical pain
he felt because of snorting cocaine was not going to have any effect at all on
the mind-based misery and suffering which led to his snorting cocaine in the first place. The cause of his
misery and suffering - rather than the effects of what he was using to try to dull his mental misery and suffering - would have to be understood in order to treat
the true cause.
And what was the cause of his warped perspective which led
him to try to escape his emotion-based misery by using cocaine rather than seeing
what was behind the suffering to begin with? More warped perspectives, perspectives
which were rooted - as Maharaj explained - "in the mind which obscures and
distorts."
So an inquiry process began (not a “SELF-inquiry” but a “self”-
inquiry - that is, a false-self-inquiry). What he did not understand was that (1) his misperceiving mind was the
starting point of his misery and suffering and that (2) the false-selves stored therein are the vehicles
which minds use to drive that misery and suffering to a point where they become overlaid on an entire relative existence.
So what was uncovered? Tremendous anger and resentment. Regarding?
A crisis with a brother-in-law (whom he had hired as a manager of his business)
and the effects of their conflict which he perceived to be the cause of his marriage to that man’s sister coming to an end.
Floyd: “So what was the crisis?”
He: “I wanted to take his sister on a nice six-week vacation
overseas, so I left him in charge of the business. I gave him enough checks to
cover two month's worth of material costs and labor costs and other business-related
expenses. While I was gone, he took my crew and started his own company. He
used the checks to buy materials and to pay the laborers. By the
time we came home, instead of having the $25,000 I had left in the bank and having an
additional $60,000 in new deposits into my account, I had a zero balance
and no company and no workers. He cleaned me out, and he caused my marriage to
end. She left me over the fight with her brother after I hired him because she
was the one who begged me to give him a job. And he brought all of that about after
everything I had done for him when he couldn’t even find a job.”
F.: “So you hired him when he could not get a job? Why could
he not get a job?”
He: “Because he had no salable skills and because his
father had fired him.”
F.: “And why did his own father fire him?”
He: “Because he was totally incompetent. He ruined two pieces
of equipment that cost $50,000 each by not properly maintaining them, and he
stole money from his dad any time the old man wasn’t around.”
F.” So let me see if I've got this right: you hired a man even
though you knew he had a history of malfeasance and incompetency and who had a
history of stealing from his employer, and after looking at those facts, you
concluded that you were willing to be his employer too, even after all of the other
potential employers he interviewed with sent him packing? Furthermore, you left a guy like that in charge of your business and your bank account for six weeks without any supervision? Have I got this right so far?”
[Long silence . . . a look of hatred . . . a look that said, “I’d
like to kill you, Floyd.” Finally . . . .]
He: “So your idea of helping me is to turn this
around on me, to ignore all of the lowlife things he did to me after I helped him,
and then blame me for everything that happened?”
F.: “Let’s try it this way . . . .
[To be continued tomorrow, sharing how he finally came to a different
perspective and realized all of the truth involved with an event that he had
totally misperceived until we exposed all of the aspects involved]
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.]
