TODAY’S CONSIDERATIONS
In the book Sri Nisargadatta and His Evolution,
this is offered:
Maharaj never adhered to one type of yoga consistently until he finally settled into what might be called an "all-nisarga" approach. On some level, the evolution of Maharaj's understanding might be understood by seeing the following shifts in what he offered:
FROM
guru-bhakti and bhakti
TO
bhakti and jnana (and mention of "atma")
TO
jnana and nisargan
TO
the nisargan exclusively.
All of that was a “journey” to authenticity with stopovers in The Clothing Store of Life where one garment after another is tried on; bought - often at a high price; worn for a time; eventually becomes uncomfortable; and is discarded, only to continue to shop in what is actually an effort to try to find what fits or where one might "fit in"; to find one’s name; to find the answer to “Who Am I?”; and to find oneself while lost in an ocean of people who want to know why you are changing (and not being like you were when you were buying into the fashions which were popular in your culture).
When Maharaj changed from the use of a religion / non-dual version of the Ultimate Medicine, the locals criticized him for changing.
When he changed from the use of a spirituality / non-dual version of the Ultimate Medicine, self-defined “Spiritual Giants" from around the globe criticized him for changing.
For example, these critiques followed his “changing” / evolving:
"The later books of Maharaj do not enjoy the same clarity as 'I Am That'. It seems that he himself got complicated or rather evolved himself or declined maybe as happens to many teachers. It is also the lack of quality of translation in the level of "I Am That"
and
"He deteriorated from one of the great spiritual men of all times to one of the least spiritual people of all times."
What actually happened was that he tried over a period of years all of the favorite fashions of his culture, but eventually he stripped himself bare and was totally authentic, influenced only by what he came to understand “did not work” and only by what he came to understand about the true, mental roots of the Sickness and why a psychological approach is required to address psychological defects and liabilities and issues.
In the Tuesday post, this was shared:
Maharaj tried to redirect seekers to focus less on gaining knowledge, (their "knowledge" being nothing more than “learned ignorance” anyway, he said) and focus more on being fully authentic.
He said: “You need something much more intimate and deeper than mediate knowledge, to be yourself in the true sense of the word. Your outer life is unimportant. It is what you are inwardly that matters. Your inner peace and joy you have to earn. It is much more difficult than earning money. No university can teach you to be yourself. The only way to learn is by practice. Right away begin to be yourself. Discard all you are not and go ever deeper. If you ask me: 'Who are you?' My answer would be: 'Nothing in particular'.”
Frequent visitors to this site understand, as Maharaj came to understand, that the psychological effects of programming, conditioning, etc. develop personality identifications and the assumption of false names, identities, roles, etc., playing multiple parts . . . playing a variety of characters strutting across the stage of “The Theater of the Lie.”
Those visitors also understand that the Type Four must be cultivated if one is ever to be authentic (the Personality Type Four being either “The Romantic Escapist” or “The Authentic One”)
Consider how heavy it is to accept false roles and then work to maintain them, to feed them, to nurture them, to work and work and work to preserve and sustain all of those phony roles.
The Type Four has an early propensity for realizing and for trying to understand, as was the case with the Personality Type Four Maharaj.
The earliest longings of that type involve a desire to escape, to get away from the insanity and inanity of the masses. If Fours can shift away from isolating and tap into their inclination to be able to enjoy the solitude, then in the quiet, clarity might come.
At some point, they declare their independence and become firmly fixed in the lightness and ease which come with full and true authenticity and its accompanying freedom.
No more shopping for cloaks to cover themselves as they walk to the beat of a different drummer; no more shopping for outer garments to cover up all about them which sets them poles apart from the masses; and no more shopping for that which can hide everything about them which is so uncommon when compared to the ways of the masses.
Frequent visitors also understand that all develop by the age of five or six to varying degrees the nine basic personality types which all persons display.
How early do those propensities and tendencies begin among Type Fours?
They began very early for Maharaj. They began very early here, by the age of five or six. And they are beginning very early with Grace VanderWaal.
Who the heck is Grace VanderWaal? Just one of the rare Type Fours (making up only 1/2 of 1% of the planet's population) who - in her case - recently displayed her Four-ness to millions last Tuesday on the television show “America’s Got Talent” where she made clear that names, including her own, mean nothing but that discarding all that is phony and false and then finding one's authentic self is all. The twelve-year-old sang on national television this song which she wrote:
I DON’T KNOWN MY NAME
I don’t know my name.
I don't play by the rules of games,
So you say I'm just trying . . .
Just trying.
So I heard you are my sister’s friend.
You get along quite nicely.
You ask me why I cut my hair
And change myself completely.
I am lost . . .
Trying to get found
In an ocean of people.
Please don't ask me any -
But, I don't know my name.
I don't play by the rules of game.
So you say I'm just trying
Just trying.
I now know my name!
I don't play by the rules of game!
So you say, I'm not trying
But I'm trying . . .
To find my way!
Note the Type Four-style pointers:
“I don’t know my name” points to a search from self.
“I don't play by the rules of game” points to the tendency of Fours to march to the beat of a different drummer.
“You ask me why I cut my hair / And change myself completely” points to the inanity which Fours recognize in their cultures which drive persons to focus on meaningless images and pay no attention at all to anything authentic.
"Please don't ask me any -" shows some restraint because a Four being asked such shallow questions as her sister’s friend asked about her appearance (rather than about what is inside and about what is far more meaningful that the trite and stale and pedestrian and hackneyed and banal topics which the “non-realized” consider important and focus on) might lead a Four to say, “Please don't ask me any . . . of your stupid, dull, trivial questions!”
“I am lost” points to the sense which Fours have from early on, a sense that they “don’t fit in” and that they "don’t belong in 'this world' at all."
“Trying to get found in an ocean of people” reveals the way that Fours often feel, surrounded by far too many people who block the Four’s need to spend time some time each day in the quiet, alone, “far from the madding crowd” as Thomas Hardy called it.
The last verse builds to a crescendo as Grace begins to realize who she is – or more to the point, all that she is not – and declares that all of her actions which she is being questioned about are part of the process she must undertake to “find her way.”
The likelihood of her succeeding is indicated.
The “journey” is seldom "light" for the Four, or any other type for that matter, but the lightness does await.
If you care to hear Grace sing the song she wrote and performed Tuesday night, you may do so here:
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
[NOTE: The four most recent posts are below. 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.]
Also, other tools to assist with the realization process are available:
In addition to the five non-duality books made available without charge by Andy Gugar, Jr. (see “FREEBIES” above), you can now access nearly 2,800 posts for any topics of interest to you.
