Today's Considerations
To the right are three videos which include discussions of
the rationale for completing the “journey,” but in the book The Relative Results of Returning to "The Child Ignorance Stage" or "The Child No-Knowing State"
there is a discussion of “The Rationale for Completing Even
60% of ‘The Journey’."
Without numbering the steps, Maharaj offered a seven-step plan
for those seekers that would heed his advice when he said:
“…You should go back, reverse, to the source”
and
“Follow the same path by which you came.”
“Follow the same path by which you came.”
Some call that the “Self-Inquiry” process, moving one step
at time away from body identification, then from mind identification, then from personality
identification and then completing the additional four steps to arrive at that
non-place "place" from which the conscious-energy manifested within the space
of a composite unity.
“The Rationale for Completing Even 60% of ‘The Journey’"
is based not in a "Self-Inquiry" process but in a “self-inquiry” process (actually a “false-self-inquiry”) which involves
an amended plan that Maharaj alluded to when he said:
“You need not know what you are. Enough to know what you are
not. What you are you will never know, for every discovery reveals new dimensions
to conquer. The unknown has no limits.”
What irony that after a seeker is told for years that one should
not follow the words “I am” with anything – either adjective or noun – the one
playing the role of “The Spiritual Giant” will at some point violate that admonition,
will ignore all cautions offered along the way in that regard, and assume some
new role as something even greater and then insert that label in a sentence after the words “I am”:
“I am My Supreme Self” or “I am the Supreme Self” or “I am a
God” or "I am God” or “I am . . . _____" (whatever or Whatever . . . fill in the blank).
Problematic enough is the case when one follows the words “I am” with a label and
says “I am a Husband” or “I am a Wife”; more problematic is the fact that once
persons assume a false identity, they soon upgrade it; at that point, the
problematic becomes the totally obnoxious when the new, self-ungraded identity
becomes “I am a Super Husband” or “I am a Super Wife.”
Yet even higher levels of obnoxiousness can be reached when “The
Special One,” “The Holy One,” “The Supreme One” etc. start showing up in the
home or workplace (or on the streets, whatever the case might be).
Recall the woman years ago who reached out, seeking suggestions about how
she and her two children could deal with the man who was her husband and the father
of those children. After years of dealing with his alcoholism and the chaos that
generated for the family, she and the kiddos rejoiced when he joined a 12-Step group and reported that he would never drink again. Finally, she said, it
seemed “the ass” would be no more. She made contact here a year later after his group
celebrated his having gone 365 days without a drink and his having turned into
a “Spiritual Giant.”
Her take, as she described it, was this: she thought a year earlier that it was going to
be wonderful to be free of his drinking and raging and passing out, but after a
year of living with “The Spiritual Giant,” she said that she and the children
came to see that “The New Spiritual Giant” was far more obnoxious than “the former ass.” She
wondered if there was any chance of “undoing” the effects. He was absent even
more after joining a group then when he was hitting the bars between work and
home, and he was just as irritable but refused to admit it.
I said: “The only
thing worse than being the way an alcoholic is when he is totally drunk is for him to be
that same way . . . not drunk.” And that was the case with him. To address one symptom of a problem rather than all of the root causes of the problem is a
useless exercise, but that can – nevertheless - stroke the heck out of an ego. And to think that one has been restored to sanity, simply by not drinking, will assure that one will remain insane.”
Word came later that she and the children finally gave up
and left. The point: any assumed ego-state will become intolerable, including
the “bad” ones and including the “good” ones and including the “really great”
ones and including the “Supreme” ones as well.
Maharaj offered two key pointers in this regard:
It is “enough to know what you are not”
and
“Reach a state of zero concepts.”
If seekers move beyond the third step where religious and
spiritual and Noumenal roles are played, it is because they came to understand
all that they are not; and if seekers give up every idea, concept, notion,
perception, thought, scheme, impression, opinion, view, theory, etc. (a.k.a., every “belief”) then they will reach the “zero concept” and “no mind” state
that Maharaj endorsed.
At that point, they will have gone back about 60% of the way
of the “entire path” or of the “entire journey,” and - per Maharaj - that would be
“enough.” They will have returned to "The Child Ignorance Stage" or "The
Child No-Knowing State" which is where they were the last time that
experienced unconditional peace. Why?
Because it was there that they were abiding as “I am” only,
prior to being assigned false identities; prior to being taught dualistic beliefs
which would lead to a sense of being “apart from” rather than “as part of” and a sense of being "different-from" and "better-than"; prior
to having the part of the brain called “the mind” pumped full of what Maharaj
called “learned ignorance” and “insanity” by way of programming, conditioning,
etc.
Maharaj: “You have to go beyond the conditioned.”
The requirement to do so? Being aware.
“The awareness of conditions brings one to the
unconditioned.”
Persons cannot be free unless they understand what is
trapping them, and what is trapping them is the ignorance and insanity which
are rooted in their past programming and conditioning and domestication and acculturation
and indoctrination and brainwashing.
If one does not see the way that she or he was conditioned and
does not understand what conditioning is and how it robs persons of freedom and
the ability to make conscious choices (as opposed to being driven by the subconscious
forces which determine and control their every thought and word and action), then they can
never return to "the unconditioned state" - or be “brought to the unconditioned” state, as Maharaj put it - when they last enjoyed unconditional
peace because they were concept free, belief free, and free of being
unstable because of being dual-minded.
Thus Maharaj said:
“Self-realisation is primarily the knowledge of one's conditioning
and the awareness that the infinite variety of conditions depends on our
infinite ability to be conditioned.”
At one point, the mind was an “asset,” assisting members of the human species by providing the drive to survive and thrive. Now, the mind has become a “liability,”
filled as it is with nonsense and ignorance and insanity, and in that condition,
it has given the masses - not a drive to thrive - but a drive to self-defeat, to self-destruct,
to self-sabotage, and to lose even the most basis will of the consciousness: to
survive.
The universal consciousness was at one point mankind’s best friend.
While humans slept, the pure, unblocked consciousness watched over them, making sure that the heart circulated
blood, making sure that the lungs circulated air, etc.
What irony that now persons are so attached to and proud of
the destructive concepts and nonsensical beliefs that have been passed down to them that this is the case nowadays: when they
place their nonsense-filled heads on a pillow at night, they are now sleeping
with the enemy (that is, with their thoughts, their beliefs, their learned ignorance, and their insanity).
Reach "The Child Ignorance Stage" or "The
Child No-Knowing State" and you will “sleep like a baby,” as the saying
goes, because the enemy that came to haunt you day and night – filling the
space between your ears with the chatter of a thousand monkeys – will be gone.
The quiet will come, and when the quiet comes, the earlier peace can come back as
well.
That's what it can be like if one moves along at least 60% of the "path" and discards the heavy load that was added along the way and then returns to a state of "lightment," of feeling light, and of being able to engage in dancing lightly throughout the remainder of the manifestation.
To be continued
Please enter into 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.]
