MAHARAJ: “Lightment” vs. Enlightenment, Part “F”

Today's Considerations

Some who have come this way ask what it is that I wish for them. I wish nothing for them. It has been noted how naïve it is for a parent to say, “I just want my child to be happy.” That in a culture and on a planet where the disrupters of happiness (“ignorance and insanity,” per Maharaj) run rampant.

It is not the nature of any life-form to be perpetually giddy or giggly or titillated or excited or tantalized or thrilled or delighted or in a constant state of ecstasy or even endless bliss.

For a child who hates vegetables but eats them in order to be able to have a post-veggie dessert, a scoop of vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup on top might be a delightful treat on occasion; but if the child were to eat ice cream only, all day long, then the pleasure of even that treat could soon fade. ("Okay young man. I don't care if we have fed you nothing but ice cream for a year. You can be as stubborn as you like, but you are not going to leave this table until you eat every bite of that chocolate-coated ice cream." "Nooooo!!")

On a planet where duality reigns, to have both veggie moments and ice cream moments can be the commonplace, and would that not be acceptable as long as an attachment to instability does not manifest? Right now, somewhere, an antelope and a zebra and a wildebeest are at rest; somewhere else, an antelope and a zebra and a wildebeest are all running a mad dash to try to persevere their lives as they have crossed paths with a pride of lions trying to kill them and eat them. Later, the lions that were racing about during the hunt will also be at rest. With all of those life-forms, running for short periods, but resting for longer periods, is natural.

The lions cannot rest all day; nor can they run at top speed while hunting all day. Similarly, there are some humans that are enjoying unconditional happiness right now, and there are other humans that are being challenged right now by poverty and hunger and assault and war and by being on the lower rungs of their society’s hierarchies in cultures which not only accept but also endorse the abuse or slaughter of those on the lower levels by persons who are ranked higher on the scale.

The result of the non-dual understanding is that - if caught up in the dualistic forces at play - "the Realized" might merely witness whatever is happening without being pulled into a state of emotional intoxication and histrionic-overreaction; or for those who might find themselves in the midst of a hurricane, they might be able to move to the eye where the winds are calm and where they can relax as chaos swirls all around them; or some might take action after tiring of the constant abuse that is heaped on those at the lower ends of cultural hierarchies and rise up and rage against the machine.

Yet when challenges come to “the Realized,” they can meet the challenges; at other times, they can heed Maharaj’s advice and “rest like the deer sitting in the cool blue shade.” There is a time for unconditional happiness and there can be times when action is required to face challenges and then return to the respite of unconditional happiness.

Ultimately, there is no predicting among either “the Realized” or “the non-Realized” what might happen under any given circumstance. Maharaj was asked if he would intervene if he were to see someone being attacked. He explained that, because “the Realized” function spontaneously, there would be no way to know until that moment. He might intervene, or he might not. As for “the non-Realized,” what they are likely to do in any given circumstance is even less predictable because of the inconsistency that is generated by their chaotic minds.

As for "uninterrupted bliss," there is no such thing during the relative existence. Some are aware that my Uncle Brook was the chief administrator of the Texas State Mental Hospital in Rusk, Texas and that, during summers spent in my Cherokee grandmother’s tiny cabin in a remote part of the East Texas Piney Woods region, that uncle would pick me up on occasion and allow me to spend the day with him at work.

While visiting that mental institution, I witnessed persons who appeared to be at perfect peace but who were actually in a catatonic state; I saw other men who were sitting alone and laughing hysterically, and some might have mistaken their condition as being one of perfect happiness and bliss rather than recognizing that they were actually in a totally-psychotic state.

Maharaj opened his loft to visitors not to assure that all would reach an unassailable state of bliss and remain therein for the rest of the manifestation; instead, he received visitors in order to try to interrupt the influences which led those persons mentioned above to be housed in institutions like the one that my uncle managed or which at the least can lead some into a state of misery and suffering which they do not even recognize and acknowledge.

The non-dual offerings can provide to some an opportunity to disrupt the development of personality disorders which lead to chaos and neuroses and insanity before those disorders and neuroses disintegrate into full-blown psychosis, but the offerings will not provide a state of “continuous, uninterrupted, nonstop bliss.”

In this book

the myths regarding bliss and what one should and should not expect, or what some believe they are entitled to in terms of bliss, are discussed. These pointers are among those offered:

How many seekers are frustrated by not having attained bliss? How many seekers think that they have failed or that their teacher has failed them when what they believe to be bliss does not manifest or when they think that bliss comes on occasion but does not remain?
 
Those are the thoughts and beliefs of seekers who are at what Maharaj called "the kindergarten level of spirituality." How many feel that their goal to become "perfectly spiritual, and thereby perfectly blissful" is being thwarted at every turn?
 
Maharaj said, "No ambition is spiritual. All ambitions are for the sake of the 'I am'. The ambitions of the so-called Yogis are preposterous. A man's desire for a woman is innocence itself compared to the lusting for an everlasting personal bliss. The mind is a cheat. The more pious it seems, the worse the betrayal."

That said, the only chance for programmed and conditioned humans to be free of the instability which is generated by dual-mindedness, and the only chance to taste again the sweetness of unconditional happiness, is to return to the Child No-Knowing State (during which unconditional happiness last happened).

Ultimately, this deal is far more about lightment (about lightening up) than it is about an endless quest for “enlightenment”; it is about taking time not just to dance but to dance lightly; it is about seeing all of the false selves which inspire persons to take themselves – their “selves” – far too seriously; it is about relaxing when relaxation is called for, and it is about taking action (wise action) when action is called for.

To be continued

Please enter into the silence of contemplation.

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