TODAY’S CONSIDERATIONS
Maharaj advised: "Reverse. Go back." Okay, but go back to what?
At least to "The Child No-Knowing State."
Why go back?
The key consideration for today is this:
That which is forever changing with persons is their perception of what they believe to be . . . valuable.
As an infant, whatever is valued is valued on a totally subconscious level. That has to be the case since no mind exists initially. A mind will be formed with the start and continuation of programming, conditioning, acculturation, domestication, indoctrination and brainwashing which will be used to implant, eventually, a countless number of beliefs.
So what is valued initially involves for the most part only food, dry clothing, and comfortable ambient temperatures.
Not much else was valued because nothing else was known other than the basics which provided comfort.
By the time a child reaches the age of two, it comes to know “its separate self” and that self begins to desire many other things. Ironically, some of those things give pleasure or comfort (like ice cream) but can also give pain (like too much ice cream).
Then the number of things or people or places which are valued begins to increase at rocket speed, and what the pre-school child values differs from what the child values in school. What persons desired through high school will differ from what is valued while in college.
And what is valued after college will be different still. Then, what the person desires is a job, but often it is determined to be valueless, so the person wants a different job.
Then a particular mate might be desired, only to find later that that mate is not valued and another mate is desired. Then the sequence of valuing something and then devaluing it happens around houses and cities and cars and furniture. Non-duality offers an understanding about upgrading and downgrading, actions which ego-states are forever engaging in. How to be free of all of that flux and instability and chaos? Go back.
Why else go back?
1. To have another chance to enjoy once again the unconditional happiness of the non-programmed, unconditioned child.
Maharaj: "Pleasure and pain alternate. Happiness is unshakable."
"What you can seek and find is not the real thing. Find what you have never lost, find the inalienable."
"Pleasure is the seed of pain"
and
"Pain is the background of all your pleasures. You want them because you suffer. On the other hand, the very search for pleasure is the cause of pain. It is a vicious circle."
"The desire for bliss creates pain. Thus bliss becomes the seed of pain. The entire universe of pain is born of desire. Give up the desire for pleasure and you will not even know what is pain.”
And why else go back?
2. To be freed from being driven unconsciously by the hidden agendas of multiple personalities / false identities.
Maharaj said: "Pleasure is about what we desire. Pain is about what we fear."
See that all desires and all fears are rooted in the hidden agendas of personalities, of false identities.
The catch: when you get what you think you want, it never proves long-term to be what you want. All pleasure and pain can only be experienced during the relative, and the relative is forever changing, so perspectives about what is valuable and what is not valuable are forever changing. (And if you end up with O-CD or end up with one suffering from O-CD - which will further complicate that trend - buckle your seat belt.) Humans usually want what they do not have and usually end up not wanting what they do have.
Maharaj identified the great irony:
Whatever gives you pleasure will eventually give you pain, and whatever gives you the most pleasure will eventually give you the greatest pain.
Love the effects of alcohol or drugs? Just wait.
Want to follow the dictates of a religion which endorses unchecked breeding and thereby receive the pleasure of having received “attaboys” and “attagirls” from church leaders when you expand their membership rolls and their future tithing income by way of your excessive breeding? Just wait.
Love the pleasure that comes with acculturating without anticipating the costs of maintaining all which has been accumulated? Just wait.
Were you a male raised by coddling parents who passed down a message that you are entitled to be taken care of? Have you looked for rich mates all your life as a result? Are you glad that you have found one of those? Just wait.
Were you a female raised by a father who still adheres to the worn out and chauvinistic beliefs rooted in the laws of primogeniture where the eldest son gets all, the other sons get whatever scraps remain, and the daughters are taught to "find a first-born son who has inherited the farm and the assets and allow him to take care of you?" Were you raised to believe that “a man is a plan?” Happy to have gotten such a man? Just wait.
Why else go back?
3. To perform a total delete on the hard drive of the computer called “your mind”
and
4. to escape entrapment by returning to the no mind state.
Maharaj: “Pleasure and pain are states of mind.”
"Between the banks of pain and pleasure the river of life flows. It is only when the mind refuses to flow with life, and gets stuck at the banks, that it becomes a problem."
“When the discriminative mind comes into being and creates distinctions, pleasure and pain arise.”
He noted that “Pleasure and pain alternate. Happiness is unshakable.”
As a child in “The No-Knowing State,” discomfort or pain from hunger or chafing might have happened. The pleasure of drinking milk might have happened. But those are extremes, and extremes give birth to instabilities. By why of contrast, what is steady? Not a sense of bliss or misery but a sense of unconditional happiness, and that last manifested during "The Child No-Knowing State."
And why else go back?
5. To escape entrapment in all forms of going and doing and zooming in order that a nisarga / natural lifestyle can manifest. And that includes the going and doing and zooming involved with maintaining the identity of the “The Super Religious One” and involves being freed from all of the spiritual workaholism which seeking and maintaining the identity of “The Spiritual Giant" requires.
Maharaj asked: “Does a happy man seek happiness?” Of course not. That would be insane. Those addicted to seeking are missing out as much as any on enjoying the unconditional happiness which comes with going back and giving up all of the needless work and needless going and doing and zooming which false identities inspire.
The alternative? Relax and take it easy. Just a suggestion, of course.
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
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A NEW RELEASE
The book What a Cherokee Grandmother Passed On to a Grandson (100 pages with pictures)
explains how is came to be that, by the ages of 5 and 6, I was already being offered pointers toward the non-dual understanding.
And what astounding levels of duality I had already been exposed to! The contrasts are illustrated via the differences between being raised in the darkness of an inner city vs. spending time in the forests with a Cherokee Grandmother and seeing the light.
The book contains a discussion of how duality is modeled and copied by children who then become entrapped in dualistic thinking and talking and behaving for their entire relative existence; how some few are fortunate enough to be exposed to a 180-degree-opposite alternative; and how some will pursue that opposite mode of functioning and witnessing which can allow those few to have an opportunity to be freed from the darkness and to abide in the light.
Above all, Grandmother was what some nowadays call “fully realized.” Was she also “a teacher” of non-duality? Yes and no. She passed on non-duality not as much by offering non-dual pointers as by modeling non-duality all day, every day, for her entire relative existence.
Everything she taught was consistent with what Maharaj taught, and if ever anyone adhered to the nisarga (natural) lifestyle throughout an entire relative existence, it was Grandmother. She pointed the way to me, and she can also point the way to you as well by way of what she taught, some of which is shared in this book.
(Click to purchase for $2.99)
