Today's Considerations
The old adage is that if you want to manipulate someone to
think about an elephant, tell them to “do everything possible right now to
avoid thinking about an elephant.” Boom. They’re thinking about an elephant.
And that is exactly why those who would control the masses
plant nonsensical thoughts in the “minds” of persons and inspire them to speak
nonsensical words, because nonsensical thoughts and words—selected from “The
Vocabulary of ‘Mind-Language’”—will lead persons to behave exactly as they were programmed, conditioned, etc. to behave via the use of emotional constructs and mental
implantations.
E-mails arrive regularly, and some merely comment on certain
posts and order books related to the subject. Some are received from seekers that ask questions or ask for
clarifications—sincerely engaged in the search for truth and fairly open to
receiving the next relevant pointers that can move them to the next step on the “path.”
Some write to share what has happened as a result of a
certain awareness that came while reading a post. Those are entertaining, a
part of the dance shared here. However, far more e-mails are received without
any questions at all but are chock full of pronouncements, with declarations of
what the writers think they understand, with attempts to put their knowledge of
Advaita or the Vedas on display.
Some write to challenge a pointer with which they disagree, and others write to endorse the dogma of their religion, to point out the rightness
of their ideology, or to affirm that I am "an agent of satan who is going to burn in hell forever."
Others write just to be writing, taking a brief respite from
the talking they engage in all day long. The content is readily seen to have been
written in the vocabulary of mind-language, and their writings are much ado
about nothing (which they take to be something) and are inspired by the motives
of any number of ego-states that are still very much “at work” via the nonsensical content of their minds.
When roles are assumed, mind-speak must follow.
Personality-driven words must be spoken in an effort to support identity. When
ego-states go, silence comes. The deer make little noise, having nothing to
prove, having no mind-language with which to think, having no vocabulary with
which to engage in mind-speak. That is what nisarga functioning looks like for humans as well if they have been freed of all ignorance and if they have been restored to sanity.
Today, you are invited to witness yourself / your selves as talk happens. Then answer in retrospect at the end of the day: Was
everything that was said really necessary? What was the motive behind the words
spoken? What were you trying to prove? Why does talking and impressing often have more
appeal than the quiet? WHO (what ego-state) felt the need to speak, to be "loved," to
be admired, to be respected, or more often, just to be heard?
Of more interest are the emails which provide an opportunity to share pointers which
might be relevant to other site visitors as well. Consider the content of this
email which was received:
Visitor: My wife’s sister in law, a real nut if I were into
labeling people and things, has hit a financial crisis since her husband just
lost his job. She said the weird thing is that she "turned it all over to
God" and now is not worried. You know, when I have "bottomed
out" I have done that in the past and felt relief. What has happened, I
realize, is that she simply stopped her mind from driving her crazy / from
worrying. When you do that, whether you feel you have to turn it over to God or
just stop worrying, the end result is that you will always feel relief from the
mind.
The reply: So one can receive “relief from the mind” by
using "the mind," which is what caused the anxiety or distress or
worry in the first place? Interesting concept, yes? Pardon the graphic
illustration, but it does provide an exactly parallel example of the reasoning
fallacy being used in that bit of illogical thought:
Once, “floyd’s dad” went into a rage around this incident:
to start with, he had not approved of the fact that a stray dog had been
adopted. The anger came when dad stepped into a bit of that dog’s defecation
and tracked it into the house and soiled the new carpet.
Now the approach to solve that problem did not include a
belief that “the stench and the defecation can be removed if you will go back
outside, traipse about the yard, and bring in even more defecation.”
Similarly, “relief from the mind” cannot come about by
traipsing about “in the mind” and tracking in more of the same stench that “the
mind” came up with in the first place.
Anything generated from “the mind” is going to be nonsense,
and nonsense does not remove nonsense, any more than the source of a stench can
be used to remove the stench. Thus, what came from the “mind”—which is the very
source of all “worry” and “bottoming out”—cannot possibly provide relief from
worry and cannot possibly put an end to the “bottoming out.” That which appears
to be a brief respite does not equal actual relief. Being relieved of the
content of the mind that generates "dis-ease" is what relief is
really about.
You are speaking the language of the mind. Understand that
every word uttered using the vocabulary of mind-speak is just so much hogwash.
Try re-reading this: “When you do that, whether you feel you have to turn it
over to God or just stop worrying, the end result is that you will always feel
relief from the mind.”
That is totally false. First, the effects of any traumatic
experience are stored at a cellular level throughout the body—not only just in “the
mind” or just in "the brain." In fact, the fewest effects are accumulated in the
"mind" since the toxicities of trauma are scattered throughout the
entire body.
Thus, the impact continues even if denial is practiced; the
effects go on and can manifest as unexplained illnesses, as an immune system
that functions inefficiently, and as all sorts of PTSD effects which manifest
at levels that persons can only seemingly dissociate from. The effects remain
nonetheless.
You have shown one more way that people are prey to the
beliefs of others that they hear and then adopt as their own, and that has come
in your case after four years of exposure to Advaitin pointers. No wonder it is
heard so often, “I’ve got, I’ve got it . . . oops, I lost it.”
Further, such “turning it over” to any dreamed up,
other-world entity or entities only delays or stymies the process of addressing
relative issues, not unlike what happened with a man who a few years ago had been unemployed from
January to November.
He had been living off withdrawals from his 401k retirement
fund, withdrawals that were accompanied with penalties and forfeited earnings
of interest. He said that he only had enough money remaining in his 401k to pay
the bills for one more month.
“After that,” he said, “I don’t know what my wife and child
and I will be doing in January for food and housing, but, you know what, Floyd?
In God's time, not mine.” [His wife’s eyes rolled toward the ceiling in a show
of total disgust, and it is a sense of disgust that is always the final
indicator—the near-indisputable marker—that the end of a relationship is
imminent. That is exactly what has happened.]
The reply at that moment: “Now understand that this response
to that magical thinking is admittedly steeped in the relative. Also understand
that it is offered in the truest sense of what you might take to be ‘tough
love,’ but the fact is that you could not be any dumber if you cut your head
off.
“It is suggested that you get up off your rear, quit waiting
on a god to rescue you since you’ve waited for eleven months without results,
refine your résumé, and understand that when someone has no job, his full-time
job is not to sit on a couch as you’re doing, is not to play video games while
waiting patiently for god, but is to go search for a job.”
As noted above, the effects of his “turning it over to God”
was that it delayed and stymied the process of addressing relative issues, it
inspired a “head in the sand” attitude, and it generated a sense of disgust
with its relative but subsequent consequences. Yet such words as those are
frequently used, and in public, by those who want to show one and all how supposedly godly
and how “really spiritual” the speaker is.
Realization and nisarga-style living are not about ignoring
relative happenings and “requirements” of the Is-ness; are not about relocating
to a new “mental residence” in the ether (that is evidence of psychosis), and are not about
denying the Am-ness for the period of manifestation.
Nisarga living happens when Reality is overlaid on the
beingness; when all ego-states and magical / supernatural thinking end; when
believing that being in a relationship with a mirage can be real and can be empowering;
and when all which happens unfolds in a mode of living that is as sane and
logical and reasonable and natural as that of the deer.
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
[NOTE:
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