Today's Considerations
Yesterday, a discussion began regarding exactly what traps
humanity and what, therefore, gives humanity a longing to be free (whether
there is an awareness of that entrapment or not). Of course at the core of
entrapment is a planet-wide attachment to duality and dualistic beliefs and the
subsequent insanity which comes when one’s entire relative existence is marred
by inconsistency and incongruity and ambiguity and conflict which are guaranteed to come when the
madness of self (and therefore self contradictions) prevail. And to deal with those
who are mad (insane) can be maddening as well to those who have no skills to use when dealing
with madness (often including their own).
To that end, Maharaj
said: “What is supremely important is to be free from contradictions.”
To review the specifics of the trap:
The trap in which humanity is snared can be pointed to with
the term “The Ultimate Sickness” or it can be pointed to by referencing the
symptoms of that Sickness: ignorance, insanity, delusions, distortions, warped
perspectives, unclear seeing, illusions, misunderstandings, misapprehension,
misconception, confusion, bewilderment, emotional intoxication, the programmed
and conditioned tendency to adhere to unquestioning and unquestioned faith; and
the desire to accumulate.
And what do they lead to?
All of the chaos and turmoil and upheaval and instability and commotion
and mayhem and disorder those generates. Add to that the tendency among the
masses to mistake mirages and images and fallacies and fantasies and myths and
superstitions and false impressions as reality.
Next, consider that ignorance, insanity, delusions,
distortions, warped perspectives, unclear seeing, illusions, misunderstandings,
misapprehension, misconception, confusion, bewilderment are all involved with
personality identification and the belief that one’s roles define who one is. For
persons to believe that they are something or someone that they are not is the
epitome of insanity . . . of being out of touch with reality.
For those who find the “search for Self” to be far too
esoteric and abstruse and “highbrow,” Maharaj provided the relief of a “Plan ‘B’,”
saying that “it is enough to know who you are not.” So he said: “By knowing
what you are not, you are free of it and remain in your own natural state. It
all happens quite spontaneously and effortlessly” [if free of all false
identifications].
Persons' longings to be free can never be fulfilled unless they understand
what is trapping them, and the assumption of false identities is one of their major traps. Of
course personality identifications go hand-in-hand with mind identification. All
concepts, ideas, notions, etc. (a.k.a., “beliefs”) are stored in the mind, and
each of those serves as one of the bars which makes the prison in which persons
are trapped.
Thus Maharaj’s invitation to “Study the prison you have
built around yourself by inadvertence” (inadvertence referring to humankind’s tendency
toward being inattentive and heedlessness and witnessing with misapprehension,
that is, having a tendency to walk in one’s sleep while thinking one is awake).
He said: “Within the prison of your world appears a man who
tells you that the world of painful contradictions, which you have created, is
neither continuous nor permanent and is based on a misapprehension.”
He advised: “Grasp that you have projected onto yourself
a world of your own imagination - based on memories, on desires and on fears - and
that you have imprisoned yourself in it. Break the spell and be free.” He said:
“Everyone creates a world for himself and lives in it, imprisoned by one's
ignorance.”
Actually, here, the point is that it was your programmers and conditioners
and acculturators who created a bogus concept of a world and passed that - and their
supposed “knowledge” (a.k.a., “learned ignorance”) - along to you. That was
done without any choice on your part, and if it continues, it continues because
you still have no choice, any more than you can choose to have “nightmares”
rather than “sweet dreams” during your sleep.
Only if fully awake can you have the ability to choose, and only if free of their ignorance and their beliefs can you choose wisdom and sanity and allow those to replace the nonsense that was passed down to you.
And, yes, that takes some action, and it also takes some actions
guided by one that has been successful at becoming freed from all of the nonsense
that was stored in the mind without any option to say, “No thanks” (though Personality
Types Fours do have a propensity to go that "thanks but no thanks" route. All others with a capacity to understand have the potential to develop that
propensity and, if exercised, freedom can come).
[But "guided actions"? Yes. Maharaj said, “To escape from prison
one must unquestioningly obey instructions sent by those who work for one's
release.”]
Maharaj’s recommendation regarding what is required for freedom to manifest: “You [and, originally, "they"] have put so much energy into
building a prison for yourself. Now spend as much on demolishing it.”
How to shift from (a) "mind-based-ignorance-and-insanity" to (b) wisdom? He
said: “To know that you are a prisoner of your mind, that you live in an imaginary
world of your own creation, is the dawn of wisdom.”
The dawn does not allow for the full brightness of enlightenment which arrives with “the noonday sun” that Maharaj spoke of, but that dawn is the beginning.
So many suggested to Maharaj and now suggest to me that
there is no way to be free of the mind. Really? And that is said to two that
were both free of the mind? It could be so simple:
Everything in the mind can be grouped into one category: “beliefs.”
To be free of the content of the mind, simply reject all beliefs. They are not
yours anyway. They are “theirs” – the beliefs of those who programmed and conditioned
you. But actually those were not their beliefs, either. They were passed down
to them and can traced back originally to people who were trapped in the darkest ignorance
during the darkest ages.
The question therefore is not, “How can I get rid of ‘my’ beliefs?”
but should be, “Why in the hell would I for even another single second consider
hanging on to 'my' beliefs? Each of those beliefs has always been one of the bars of my
prison. How insane would I be to say while imprisoned, ‘Oh guard! Hello? I must alert you to the fact that I have
been shown the source of my imprisonment and misery and suffering and how to escape; but instead of escaping this very instant, for some crazy reason I think I should point out to you that the bars of
my prison are about ready to crumble, so you better reinforce them - right now - or I’m
outta here’!”
And that is why so many - when they come here and hear their
beliefs being challenged - run back to their programmers and share what they
have heard or read which contradicts the nonsense that they were taught so that the
programmer can reinforce their beliefs and reassure them of the value of
their beliefs and to stay away from anyone who invites them to question their beliefs which they blindly accepted originally without any questioning at all.
They will assure you that "what we told you is true and
anything to the contrary is false." Of that, Maharaj said: “The idea that you
know what is true is dangerous, for it keeps you imprisoned in the mind.”
He said, “The true teacher, however, will not imprison his
disciples in a prescribed set of ideas, feelings [that is, emotions] and actions; on the
contrary, he will show them patiently the need to be free from all ideas and
set patterns of behavior.”
This has often been offered: “Here, there is no one who believes
anything, so it is impossible that there could be anyone here who wants you to believe
anything.”
That is the difference in the pointers offered by Maharaj
(and now offered here) as opposed to what is offered by every religion and sky cult
and dogma-teaching institution; by every spiritual movement and supposedly-spiritual group; by every philosophy; by every
ideology; by every cult; by every creed; etc.
And that is the difference in being free vs. being dependent,
co-dependent, trapped, and imprisoned.
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
[NOTE:
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