Today's Considerations
Today, as the overall focus of this series is on being rid of the unclear
perspectives which are handed down from one generation to the next by persons with
unclear perspectives, consider what Maharaj had to say about seeing, both clear
and unclear:
First, Maharaj asserted time and again that a warped perspective - unclear seeing - will assure that one will be forever trapped in the bondage which
comes with an inability to see clearly, which comes with an inability to differentiate what
is true from what is false, and which comes with an inability to differentiate between what is believed
vs. what is actually verifiable and provable and confirmable.
He spoke of the connection between (a) the net in which persons
are trapped or bound and (b) not seeing clearly that which can bring about release and freedom and peace:
Maharaj: “Look at the net and its many contradictions. You
do and undo at every step. You want peace, love, happiness and work hard to
create pain, hatred and war. You want longevity and overeat; you want
friendship and exploit. See your net as made of such contradictions and remove
them."
How, you might ask?
Maharaj: "Your very seeing them will make them go.”
Yet that seeing must come from a clear perspective, not via the
far-more-common warped perspective of humans' minds which distorts the way things are
seen:
M.: “Instead of seeing things as imagined, learn to see them
as they are. It is like cleansing a mirror.”
Next, the glorification of “consciousness” must go. Because
all conscious-of-ness involves an “A” being conscious of some “B,” then all
seen via consciousness is going to involve the lie of duality.
M.: “To know that consciousness and its content are but
reflections, changeful and transient, is the focusing of the real. The refusal
to see the snake in the rope is the necessary condition for seeing the rope.”
The solution? Come to know Your Original Nature of
awareness, the original form of the pre-manifested consciousness, and view all via an awareness of the
original awareness which is simply the form of not-yet-manifested consciousness which, therefore, has not yet been adulterated
by ignorant and insane programming, conditioning, acculturation, domestication,
brainwashing, and indoctrination.
As alluded to in the title of the book “A Different
Perspective,” Maharaj made clear that all of the former ways that the mind has interpreted
things and seen things must go:
M.: “Destroy all habits of thinking and seeing.”
The mind is the instrument of distortion, so nothing seen in the way that
the mind sees can be true; therefore, this deal is about being able to differentiate between
the true and the false, about reaching a state marked by the absence of ignorance, and by reaching a state marked by an absence
of insanity. How to know when that condition has been reached?
Maharaj explained how one can know
that a different perspective has come. He said that one can know that truth has
finally been discovered when . . .
. . . “the idea 'this is true', 'that is true' does not
arise. Truth does not assert itself. It is in the seeing of the false as false
and rejecting it. It is useless to search for truth when the mind is blind to the
false. It must be purged of the false completely before truth can dawn on it.”
Howe to purge the mind? Simple. Discard its content, which can
all be grouped under the term “beliefs.” Here that is no “believer,” yet there is
also no "non-believer," either. The closest term that can be used to point to the condition here is would be a “no-belief-er”:
Maharaj was not a Neo-Advaitin, but he did suggest that this
deal really is simple. Noting the connection between (A) one playing the role of “The
Eternal Seeker” who claims to be looking for peace but who is just as restlessness as (B) the majority of persons who are all trapped in their "Go-Do-Zoom mentality,” he
advised:
M.: “Restlessness takes you nowhere. Something prevents you
from seeing that there is nothing you need. Find it out and see its falseness.”
He said, “It is like having swallowed some poison and
suffering from unquenchable craving for water. Instead of drinking beyond all
measure, why not eliminate the poison and be free of this burning thirst?”
What is the poison you were given to drink? In fact, what is
the poison that was actually force-fed to you? It is all of the nonsense that was forced upon you via ignorant and insane programming,
conditioning, acculturation, domestication, brainwashing, and indoctrination. Moreover, those who force-fed their nonsense into you are actually pretty darn proud of the job they did "raising you," and because of ego and egotism, most children, even into adulthood, go right along with the view held by their parents and relatives and teachers and cultures.
One of the surest signs of ego and egotism is the statement, "To heck with you, Floyd. My parents did a damn good job raising us."
When the follow-up query is, "Well, what about 'this' and 'this' and 'that' which are showing up and generating self-destructive behavior and which are bringing about unbelievable levels of chaos, all of which can all be traced directly back to your early programming, conditioning, acculturation, domestication,
brainwashing, and indoctrination?"
The typical response: "Fine! They weren't perfect, but they did the best they could, so to hell you!"
[A different perspective from that typical response? "Well, Hitler did the best he could, too. He wanted to kill every Jew, but he actually only killed six million of them."]
But to be clear: this deal is not about assigning blame or forming resentments. It is about diagnosing cause in order to find the proper treatment for what really ails all persons . . . about finding the Ultimate Medicine to treat what ails every "non-Realized person" on the planet.
See? It's not about you. It's about your programming, conditioning, acculturation, domestication, brainwashing, and indoctrination by "them" - by all of them, going back thousands of years and then continuing right into the present.
My family of origin was poor. Actually, we lived in abject poverty, so at Christmas time, I received only one gift. One holiday I was given a toy car which I had requested. It operated off a wind up spring inside, so I would used the key that came with the car to wind up the spring inside. Then, the neat thing about the car was that after you wound it up and set it down on the floor, it would race off in one direction, at what seemed to be a hundred miles per hour, until it struck something;
then, it would back up a foot, turn ninety degrees, and then race off in another direction until, again, it crashed into something else. Crash. Start over. Crash. Start over. That car would do it again and again and again, until the spring inside finally ran down and there was no more energy left to be able to race about and crash over and over again.
And that is also the exact way that the "non-Realized masses" live. The invitation is to understand this: that which wound them up was their programming, conditioning, acculturation, domestication, brainwashing, and indoctrination. After being wound up, they race about, ramming into one thing after another, getting up, starting over and repeating the pattern until there is no energy left inside.
Recall from yesterday that Maharaj said that "both indulgence and austerity have the same purpose in view - to make you happy." He said, "Indulgent is the stupid way, austerity is the wise way." When he was asked, "What is austerity?" he replied: "Once you have gone through an experience, not to go through it again is austerity."
In other words, once they ram into something, the wise do not simply turn and starting racing about until they ram into something else again. Yet that is exactly the way that the not-wise masses behave because they were wound up and set up to do exactly that. Sanity and wisdom can break that pattern, but sanity and wisdom can only come when all of the beliefs and nonsense passed on via programming, conditioning, acculturation, domestication, brainwashing, and indoctrination are discarded.
See? It's not about you. It's about your programming, conditioning, acculturation, domestication, brainwashing, and indoctrination by "them" - by all of them, going back thousands of years and then continuing right into the present.
My family of origin was poor. Actually, we lived in abject poverty, so at Christmas time, I received only one gift. One holiday I was given a toy car which I had requested. It operated off a wind up spring inside, so I would used the key that came with the car to wind up the spring inside. Then, the neat thing about the car was that after you wound it up and set it down on the floor, it would race off in one direction, at what seemed to be a hundred miles per hour, until it struck something;
then, it would back up a foot, turn ninety degrees, and then race off in another direction until, again, it crashed into something else. Crash. Start over. Crash. Start over. That car would do it again and again and again, until the spring inside finally ran down and there was no more energy left to be able to race about and crash over and over again.
And that is also the exact way that the "non-Realized masses" live. The invitation is to understand this: that which wound them up was their programming, conditioning, acculturation, domestication, brainwashing, and indoctrination. After being wound up, they race about, ramming into one thing after another, getting up, starting over and repeating the pattern until there is no energy left inside.
Recall from yesterday that Maharaj said that "both indulgence and austerity have the same purpose in view - to make you happy." He said, "Indulgent is the stupid way, austerity is the wise way." When he was asked, "What is austerity?" he replied: "Once you have gone through an experience, not to go through it again is austerity."
In other words, once they ram into something, the wise do not simply turn and starting racing about until they ram into something else again. Yet that is exactly the way that the not-wise masses behave because they were wound up and set up to do exactly that. Sanity and wisdom can break that pattern, but sanity and wisdom can only come when all of the beliefs and nonsense passed on via programming, conditioning, acculturation, domestication, brainwashing, and indoctrination are discarded.
Of those who have the opportunity to hear the universal consciousness
speak (inviting them not to see the truth but to see the false) most will fail
to do so. Why? Because they do not understand that (1) the truth cannot be
stated and that (2) they will have found that which they should be seeking when
clear hearing finally points them to clear seeing.
M.: “When you are given diamonds mixed with gravel, you may
either miss the diamonds or find them. It is the seeing that matters.”
A blind person may hear a thousand talks about the difference
in gravel and diamonds or may read in Braille a thousand books about the
difference in those two, but the one who is blind will never see what a diamond really
looks like. All persons are blind until they become able to see clearly once more.
Ironically, almost all who were blinded were able to see at a certain point. As a child, you likely questioned BS when you heard BS, but that ability to spot BS was taken from you as a habit of conforming to your culture's nonsense was imposed upon you.
You may have been force-fed "unquestioning faith" and, as a result, stopped rejecting nonsense and began accepting it in order to avoid punishment or conflict. Is that was the case, is it not time to go back to your roots, back to the point when you were originally able to differentiate between that which made sense and that which was total BS?
Only the one who has had the veil of darkness (which Maharaj called “ignorance, stupidity, and insanity”) removed from her or his eyes
can one see that the gravel that has been cherished – bought into hook, line, and
sinker – is nothing at all like the diamond which is sought.
Maharaj said: “It is like seeing the surface of the ocean and
completely forgetting the immensity beneath. What we call thoughts are
just ripples in the mind. When [the mind] is motionless through and through, it
dissolves and only reality remains. This reality is so concrete, so actual, so
much more tangible than mind and matter, that compared to it even a diamond is
soft like butter.”
Bottomline?
Maharaj: “The catch is in your mind, which insists on seeing
duality where there is none.”
The restlessness of seeking - which actually prevents peace
from manifesting, lip service to the contrary notwithstanding - can only end
(and freedom and peace can only truly begin) when seeing duality ends, when believing
the lie of duality ends, when the beliefs in “different from” and “better than”
come to an end.
Until then, Shias will kill Sunnis; Christians will kill
Muslims; Muslims will kill Christians; and some politicians will allow their dualistic thinking and dualistic perspectives and dualistic beliefs to inspire them to talk about
banning Muslims from entering the country; will claim that all Mexicans coming here
to work are criminals and rapists; will claim that the poor are poor because they prefer to leech off the rich; and will talk in a xenophobic fashion about how
the problems of white people are actually being caused by red people and black
people and brown people.
And the ignorant will applaud that kind of politician's
every word, just as the ignorant and egotistical did with Mussolini and just as the ignorant and egotistical did with Hitler and just
as the ignorant and egotistical are doing now.
The unicity will never be seen by most; therefore, unclear and dualistic
seeing as well as warped and dualistic perspectives will prevail; however, those need not
prevail with you.
To be continued.
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
[NOTE:
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