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

TODAY’S CONSIDERATIONS 

Maharaj often said, “This is so simple, really.” Yet for most persons, trapped in the symptoms of the Ultimate Sickness, nothing is simple, be it their seeking or their "religious or spiritual life" or their complex and complicated relative existence. 

But there really is a process which can simplify treating the Sickness and which can simplify the remainder of the relative existence of those who can be restored to sanity and freed from the effects of their programming, conditioning, etc. The rub? Most persons usually do not prefer the simplest method.

Many love to engage in convoluted and drawn-out and long-winded methods which allow person to try to satisfy the key desires of "non-realized" humans, namely (1) to talk and talk and talk and (2) to attain more “noble” identities such as “The Super Religious One” or “The Spiritual Giant” or "The Super Seeker" or “The Old-Timer in a Group”; thus, persons will often try one or more or all of the following: 

USE RELIGION TO TAP INTO THE POWER OF GOD 

All humans are addicted to something. In addition to the long list of what they are addicted to, all other addictions are preceded by the primary and secondary addictions of humanity, the primary addiction being an addiction to control and the secondary addiction being an addiction to power (and usually “a Power” as well) in order to be able to control. Maharaj’s take? 

Ultimately, power (and Power) are illusions:

"First of all you identify something as being good or bad for yourself. Then, in an effort to acquire good or to get rid of the bad, you have invented a God. Then you worship such a God and . . . you pray to that God for something good to happen to you." 

BECOME SPIRITUAL IN ORDER  TO TAP INTO THE POWER OF GOD SO YOU CAN BECOME GODLY (OR EVEN GOD) 

Originally, Maharaj tried to use a religion / non-dual mixture as the Ultimate Medicine. Later, he tried a spirituality / non-dual compound as the Ultimate Medicine. Eventually, he abandoned both and used a psychological / non-dual form of the Ultimate Medicine, advising:

“Whatever you have tried to understand during your spiritual search will prove false” 

and 

“When the birth is disproved, the great noble meaning of spirituality and the meaning of this world — everything — is disproved” 

and 

“I have no faith in anything which has ever been told, not even what has been told by the Vedas. Only my own experience" 

and 

"Whatever you think of as 'spiritual knowledge' was gained in the realm of consciousness; such knowledge is merely a burden upon your head and it is going to add more misery. It is nothing more than spiritual jargon" 

and 

"There is no such thing as spirituality; whatever is, is only this worldly life, in the five-elemental play" 

and 

"Those who have apperceived my knowledge will not fall a prey to the logic or spirituality expounded by others" 

and 

"Spiritual knowledge should not be studied" 

and 

“Give up spirituality” 

and 

“Follow your normal inclinations" 

and 

"Forget spirituality.” 

In other words, abide naturally (in a Nisarga fashion) rather than trying to live supernaturally / religiously / spiritually.

USE DRUGS 

 Since the 1960’s, some have accepted Leary’s advise to “Turn on, tune in, drop out” in their efforts to reach a higher plane or higher level of consciousness. Maharaj's take on that method:

“Some are addicted to trances, with their consciousness in abeyance. Without full consciousness, what [success] can there be?”

Moreover, he said, "There is no question of elevating to a higher level. Here it is only a question of understanding." 

FORM OR JOIN SPIRITUAL GROUPS AND HELP EACH OTHER WITH SELF INVENTORY / SELF-INQUIRY IN ORDER TO FIND GOD OR THE TRUE SELF

To those playing the role of “The Spiritual Giant,” he advised: 

“Proclaiming oneself to be an omnipotent, omniscient and omnipotent deity is a clear sign of ignorance.” 

He said: “Get rid of all ideas about yourself, even of the idea that you are God.” 

As for spiritual groups, he knew they were useless. Some protest, saying, “But he had groups meeting in his loft two times a day for decades.” Yes, but he addressed specific questions with answers intended to move seekers to the next step and then he sent them away to consider his pointers in the silence, alone, not in groups. With a few exceptions, he only allowed most to stay for a week or two. Those who showed they were not ready were sent packing in a matter of minutes. 

Yet there are still groups even to this day in Mumbai who meet daily to go to a room where there is preserved behind glass a handful of the ashes which remained from his pyre where the plant food body was cremated, ashes which were snatched up by a man. Now, everyday in that room, men gather to pray and worship and bow and chant and sing praises to a handful of ashes. How might Maharaj describe that group's activities, were he present to witness them? Maybe with a word which he used often but which his translators and editors expunged from his talks and transcripts, namely, “bullshit.” 

As for the SELF-Inquiry process, Maharaj would eventually say that it was not necessary, encouraging seekers to engage in a (false) “self” inquiry or “self inventory” and to find not "What They Are” but what they are not. He said: “It is enough to know what you are not.” 

There are other spiritual groups which also recommend self-inquiry or self-inventory, along with a second kind of inventory as well. Millions have come and gone through the doors of such groups and experienced no relief from their personality disorders and no real, significant change (just like the 2%-4% who remain). 

The co-founder of the largest such spiritual group bemoaned the fact in his later years that the “success rate” had become dismal and that the failure rate of their groups was soaring through the roof. He blamed the high failure rate on poor leadership and the fact that few remain who really know how to guide seekers through their steps. 

Some who remain spend a lifetime doing the self-inventory step (the “moral inventory” step,” they call it) over and over. What a heavy, rather than light, way to live. How drab. How boring. How self-focused to the exclusion of focusing on family.

Yet most never truly understand that the moral inventory is to be done only once and never truly understand the instruction to do a “personal inventory” on a daily basis (at least until they find all of the false personal / personality identifications which set the stage for personality disorders to manifest in the first place and which continue to drive the insane thoughts and words and actions of persons in those groups). Were they to find what can be found through "self-inquiry" or a "personal inventory," they would be done with it all and could then just live simply and naturally.

So what is the simple method which can work even for those who have “grave mental and emotional disorders" but who have not yet been totally lost in the deepest, darkest depths of psychoses? What was Maharaj’s plan? 

“…You should go back, reverse, to the source” 

 and

“Follow the same path by which you came.” 

That is, go back to “The Child Ignorance Stage” (known here as “The Child No-Knowing Stage”) in which there are not yet any of the assigned and assumed personality identities which will soon come via insane programming and conditioning and domestication and acculturation and indoctrination and brainwashing; in which there is not yet a mind which will form as the child is taught nonsense and learned ignorance"; and in which there are not yet any ignorant and insane and warped ideas, concepts, notions, perceptions, and perspectives (a.k.a., “beliefs”). 

To be continued. 

Please enter into the silence of contemplation. 

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