TODAY’S CONSIDERATIONS
Maharaj: “It is the dance of the conscious presence.”
Few on the planet nowadays have the ability to dance lightly. Why?
A. Most are being driven by the hidden agendas of one – and almost always many more – false, personal identifications, and that in itself is insane. The agenda of a particular personality type can drive some persons to overreact, to escalate, to be so obsessed with control, to be so desirous of power, and to be so sure - because of entrapment in their false-identity-driven, duality-based thinking - that they are "better than" and that others who are "different from" them are worse than them.
That will convince those types to believe that their way is the only right way and that those with differing perspectives should just go away . . . or be incarcerated . . . or (even better) . . . just die.
Wonder who of these three, under different circumstances, might be capable of dancing lightly as opposed to which ones are never likely to ever experience any sense of lightness at all?
"Broken relationships" in homes; and conflicts at work; and fighting in the streets; and battles in national wars; and international wars between nations are all rooted in the agendas of ego-states which determine thoughts and words and actions and in personality-driven fears and personality-driven desires and in humanity's addiction to control and power.
Maharaj was asked, if he saw someone being beaten, if he would intervene and assist the one being assaulted. He explained that "the realized" function spontaneously, so there is no way of predicting what will happen spontaneously during any given set of circumstances; however, if one is "not realized" but is being driven by the agenda of one's assigned or assumed personality type, then what can be predicted without doubt is what that personality type will do in almost every circumstance. It will be textbook.
Why else?
B. Gone are “The Age of Advancement” and “The Age of the Renaissance” and “The Age of Enlightenment” and “The Age of Reason.”
C. Present once again are an “Age of Religious Fanaticism” and an “Age of Theology and Theocracies / Religious Governments," leading once again to an “Age of Religious Wars”; an “Age of Darkness”; an “Age of ‘Ignorance, Stupidity, and Insanity’” and a continuing "Age of Ultimate Sickness.” The problem with the ages which have gone vs. the ages which are now present?
The present ages do not inspire a sense of lightness and a sense of joie de vie which can lead to dancing lightly, to relaxing, to taking it easy, to . . . just calming the hell down.
D. Such ages also inspire many to assume the role of "Seekers" and "Super Seekers" who actually end up seeking nothing more than escapism, evasion, isolation, avoidance, dodging, dropping out, withdrawing, moving into Foo Foo Land and mentally abandoning the Is-ness. That approach often results in persons ignoring the “I AM” part of the summative statement of non-duality: “I AM THAT; I AM,” as is the case with those who proclaim themselves to be “ascetics who are committed to practicing abstinence from worldly pleasures”;
or monks residing in isolated monasteries; and friars and canons in 24 / 7 “retreat”; and those wandering through forests or about hills and mountains; and nuns who have retreated to solitary nunneries; and other recluses and solitarians and celibates and hermits; as well as those going about what appears to be an integrated, day-to-day existence but who are not consciously present, who are, in fact, unawake, unaware, and unconscious. The result?
E. None who are unawake, unaware, and unconscious can dance lightly. Again, Maharaj on this dance which is spoken of here: “It is the dance of the conscious presence,” but for those types above, it’s a non-dance of unconsciousness, of ignorance, of insanity, of never being fully present in the moment.
I say on this site, “Hi. Would you like to go to a dance where you can dance lightly?” But what do those types answer?
"Thanks but no thanks. Not interested in going to your dance and having fun. I’m going to move into a building with men who shave their heads and wear special robes and hum and chant all day.”
The reply: What!?”
Or I hear:
“No thanks. Not interested in going to your dance and having fun. I’m going to strap a piece of cloth in front of my genitals, put on some beat up sandals, pick up a staff, not shave, not bathe, and walk stinkingly through the mountains all day, every day, every month, every year, to find My Self / God / Enlightenment / Liberation / Realization / eternal salvation / eternal rewards / whatever.”
The reply: “What!?”
Or I hear:
“No thanks. Not interested in going to your dance and having fun. I’m going to move into a building with a bunch of other women, and we’re not going to have anything to do with men because we’re all going to be married to God.”
The reply: “What!?”
Or I hear:
“No thanks. Not interested in going to your dance and having fun. I’m going to turn on, tune in, and drop out while claiming that will get me ‘in touch'.”
The reply: “What?!”
Or I hear:
“No thanks. I’m going to get a job where they give me firearms and other weapons and where they’ll pay me to kill whatever people they decide are the enemy; then the people back home will see me as a great hero”
and / or
“After I get done with that job, I’m going to get another job where I can also carry firearms and rid our streets of all the scumbags who are ruining our country; then the people will see me as the guardian and protector of their property and lives.”
And that is likely the way such types will be seen because the masses never fixate in the light. The result is that they cannot see clearly and cannot see things the way that they really are. They cannot differentiate between what they take to be “A White Knight in Shining Armor” vs. what is actually “A Dark Knight of Unimaginable Suffering.”
That is discussed in a chapter of the book Dancing Lightly, a chapter entitled “Fixating in the Lightness”:
Dance is lightness in motion, but The Light must precede the lightness.
"The realized" perceive what is called "the world" - as well as all happenings that happen during the relative existence - by way of the luminosity of pure understanding; the "non-realized" see only what is reflected in a dim and flickering light.
Because they (the "non-realized," according to Maharaj, those trapped in "learned ignorance") must, regretfully, suffer the slings and arrows of the ever-changing, unstable existence which they take to be the real, they can become attached to the relief and exhilaration of seeing "The Long-Awaited White Knight" arriving in his shining armor, perched high on his white horse and promising to put to an end the loneliness of being single or promising to bring to an end the vicissitudes of single parenting, or swearing to take on the enemies of our nation . . . only to eventually open the visor and see that it is "The Dark Knight of Unimaginable Suffering" underneath.
That will result in "The Rescued One" experiencing the misery brought on as a result of finding out that another deception has been played out in consciousness;
or they can become attached to the happiness of paying off a car note, only to see the mortgage note increase on the house and then attach to that disappointment;
or they can become attached to the happiness of seeing a partner's medical condition cured, only to learn that their child has an incurable disease and attaching to that misery;
or they can attach to the joy of a couple working for decades and finally retiring but then shortly afterwards discovering that greedy and extremely wealthy people have stolen 50% of the assets in their retirement fund, forcing both to begin seeking employment again.
Tossed into that mix are the yearly or monthly (and, eventually, daily) fluctuations of relationships, shifting from perfect at one point to just okay at another to finally being perceived as a total disaster.
Maharaj: "The mind that projects the world colours it its own way. When you meet a man, he is a stranger. When you marry him, he becomes your own self. When you quarrel, he becomes your enemy. It is your mind's attitude that determines what he is to you."
Of course his point was that the scenario above has nothing to do with Real Love. He said: "Love is not selective; desire is selective. In Love, there are no strangers."
It is those fluctuations of the "mind" which shift one's view of another from "perfect" to "just okay" to "disastrous," the type of fluctuations that were adumbrated in the sequence that Maharaj used to describe the typical movement in relationships, the movement going from stranger to acquaintance to friend to lover to fiancé / fiancée to spouse to wonderful spouse to not so wonderful spouse to horrible spouse to enemy to mortal enemy.
And all of that is nothing more than a movement in consciousness, all involving misperceptions and labeling and ego-states being assigned and assumed. The options offered by various forms of Advaita to address all of that, and to replace the heaviness of fluctuations with the incredible lightness of being, include:
1. Stopping the "journey" at "the True Self" step. Many try that approach.
2. "Moving" to the Absolute only, claiming to be THAT alone, rejecting the AM-ness totally. Yet THAT is still an identity, often assumed alongside the "Supreme Self." If the AM-ness is not totally rejected, then there can be the simultaneous assumption of the "Supreme Self" and "The Spiritual Giant," some taking that to be the I AM THAT and the Superior I AM. Close, but no cigar.
Or
3. Overlaying the Reality on the relative. Maharaj said that even with him, there is always a lingering speck of the original, primary personality type (in his case, the Type Four which is often the type that rebels against her or his culture's ignorance and insanity and becomes involved with the search for the Authentic Self).
When that happens, there is no total detachment from the AM-ness, but there is no ever-present attachment to the AM-ness, either. There is that position of neutrality that allows feelings to rise, to be felt, and to fall away without suffering the insanity of emotional intoxication.
The deer in this neighborhood that abide naturally are free of the machinations of the mind that plague humanity; however, the deer are not free of the feelings that relative events can bring. To clarify, recall an event shared in other writings when the normalcy and naturalness of feeling short-term "situational depression" was discussed.
Some depression might be situational and in such cases is natural. For example, during the years spent in the forest, various animals were seen to be “grieving” as they inspected the fallen remains of a companion. Here's an example:
One spring, a buck and doe were observed while grazing in one of their regular feeding spots. Later in the fall, they were seen on several occasions while mating; then, at the beginning of the following summer, it was seen that a fawn had joined in their grazing sessions.
In late August or early September, gunshots rang out near a creek. After following one of the trails that led toward the water, the following was witnessed: the fawn had been shot and had run some distance from the creek before falling. The doe and the buck both seemed to be smelling it and nudging it, trying to encourage it to rise and run, but they eventually realized it was not going to happen. They stood still and witnessed.
Both spent some time there involved in what was clearly an instance of situational depression.
Their demeanor left no doubt that feelings were arising. Suddenly, two boys—hunting out of season—began making a great deal of noise as they approached. It was seen that the feeling of grief being experienced by the deer was being replaced by a feeling of fear. They were torn, moving away from the fallen animal for a moment, then returning for a few moments in a final effort to check on the fawn.
On another occasion, there was a recounting of an event that happened just feet away, right outside the window of this office. A fawn was still-born. The doe tried nudging the body to inspire the fawn to stand. The buck walked over and touched the body with its nose. That went on for many minutes.
Then, the doe and the buck began walking away, only to be driven to return and try again and again to test their offspring for signs of life. It was a long, heart-wrenching process, watching those two deer that were obviously so sad over this turn of events. There was the fluctuation between the earlier joy and pleasure of copulation and this sadness over the demise of their offspring.
So it is among some of "the realized" that, in spite of being Realized, are nevertheless attuned to the ever-changing aspects of the relative but able to move beyond permanent attachment to things not permanent.
That allows "the realized" to avoid emoting but to forever be able to feel. Often the feelings are more powerful than at other times, but never is there an uncontrollable and uncontrolled urge to become emotionally-intoxicated and generate harm.
Remember when Maharaj was asked "if he cared" and he replied, "More than you will ever know."
Does that sound like there were no feelings being felt? Does that sound like Maharaj had shifted to a state where he was void of feeling anything even though he was abiding as The Void rather than as anything identified or identifiable?
To the contrary, the case is this: in the quiet witnessing, understanding can come, and it is via that process that, again, the Realized are able to perceive what is called "the world" - as well as everything that happens throughout the relative existence - by way of the luminosity of pure understanding;
the "non-realized" see only what is reflected in a dim and flickering light.
In the luminosity of pure understanding, how could there ever be a manifestation of judgment which always generates a sense of separation and better-than-ment? There can be no judging of anyone if the driving forces behind thoughts and words and deeds are understood completely.
In the light of Reality and Truth, all can be felt.
An entire gamut of feelings can happen. But they can happen without shifting into personality-driven thoughts and words and deeds that blindly drive persons into acts that anyone not emotionally-intoxicated could see are going to generate tremendous suffering as a result of the consequences.
For those seeking the lightness of being, however, the light must precede the lightness; the lightness can never come before the light. Once the light comes, however, dancing will happen, and it will happen lightly.
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
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