TODAY’S CONSIDERATIONS
Maharaj: "It is the dance of the conscious presence."
Not long ago on this site, various historical and modern “ages” were discussed. Two thousand years ago, a fellow named Yeshu'a
(called “Jesus” nowadays by his so-called followers who do not even know his real name, who do not even know what the real color of his skin was, and who do not know that he was sharing non-dual pointers during his last few years)
spoke of duality and how being unstable is a by-product of being dual-minded.
In the 6th century, Europe declined into a period of stagnancy when intelligence and education were deemed to be not only worthless but also “anti-Christian,” a mindset which prevailed until the 1300’s when a shift away from the idolization of ignorance gave way to a new interest in education and in the arts and in the sciences and which has returned nowadays and is once more as prevalent as ever.
However, such an interest never lasts among unstable humans, so the duality of (a) humankind’s preference for being awake and conscious always gives way to (b) periods when there is a preference for the darkness and dogma over the light and awareness.
During the 1300’s and 1400’s, Florence, Italy led the way in shifting the masses in Europe out of the ignorance of the “Medieval Ages” – the “Dark Ages” – and into an awakening, into an “An Age of Renaissance” and into an “Age of Humanism” as that nation-state became a leader in the arts and sciences and education and things understood to be natural.
Yet half of the population opposed such advances and wanted to cling to the old dogma and its magical thinking which has always taught that there are supernatural / spiritual causes for all that happens on earth, including floods and storms and fires while those free of ignorance understand that the causes of such events are totally natural.
Yet once more, in the late 1400’s, another shift would come when a stiff and rigid and fanatical monk named Girolamo Savonarola
arrived and inspired the 50% of the population - who were the ones trapped in ignorance and who had come to hate art and science and secular education - to reach a new height of religious intoxication and to overthrow the government and to burn (in what came to be known as “The Bonfire of the Vanities”) all works of art in Florence as well as all books except for the Bible (preceding the Nazi book burnings in Germany by over 400 years).
In the U.S. and in many other places around the globe, a host of “New Girolamos” - of new right-wing, fanatical leaders - have shown up and have used the tools of fear and ignorance to create the same kind of divisions which existed in Florence in the later 1400’s.
Once more, the symptoms of the Ultimate Sickness – identified by Maharaj as “ignorance, stupidity, and insanity” – have been used to bring about a near 50-50 split among the planet’s populations.
As a result, once more, such concepts as “good” vs. “evil” abound alongside beliefs about “the sinful” vs. “the virtuous”; “the right religion” vs. “the wrong religion”; “the right sect” vs. “the wrong sect”: “the right race” vs. “the wrong race”; “the right orientation” vs. “the wrong orientation”;
who “our good friends are” vs. who “our evil enemies are"; and now, the prevalence of dualistic thinking have led to separation in regards to “the acceptable and approved way to have sex” vs. “the unacceptable and not approved way to have sex” and “the right place to pee” vs. “the wrong place to pee.”
So while teachings about duality go back not 1200 years but thousands of years, it can be said that the planet is once more trapped in, and subsumed by, a new, widespread “Age of Duality.” Like Florence during the days when their population was split 50-50 along ideological vs. rational lines, such is also the case in the U.S. and elsewhere around the globe.
The primary focus now among many politicians and the citizens who are following them is being directed toward “the enemy.” Billions are being spent around the globe each year by governments which are enhancing their eavesdropping capabilities and their enhanced surveillance techniques and their spying networks in order to seek out "the enemy" and "destroy all of our enemies before they destroy us and our entire nation." In fact, they claim, "we are at the brink of destruction and our days are numbered." (Don't you hate when that happens?)
Dualistic lines of separation are being drawn in the sand around the globe and half of all persons are joining with others of a similar ideological ilk and with others who are similarly trapped in their fear of, and in their anger at, “the enemy.”
Yet as has always been the case when humans are trapped in dualistic beliefs, they are also trapped in delusions and illusions and misperceptions.
Some might remember this cartoon which was shared previously on the site:
In that regard, Maharaj said: “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.”
A visitor to the loft said:
“The man under investigation hears so many times repeated - that he is an enemy of the State and a traitor to his country - that a day comes when something breaks down in him and he begins to feel with full conviction that he is a traitor, a rebel, altogether despicable and deserving the direst punishment. This process is known as brain-washing.
“The man under investigation hears so many times repeated - that he is an enemy of the State and a traitor to his country - that a day comes when something breaks down in him and he begins to feel with full conviction that he is a traitor, a rebel, altogether despicable and deserving the direst punishment. This process is known as brain-washing.
“It struck me that the religious and Yogic practices are very similar to 'brain-washing'. The same physical and mental deprivation, solitary confinement, a powerful sense of sin, despair and a desire to escape through expiation and conversion, adoption of a new image of oneself and impersonating that image. The same repetition of set formulas: 'God is good; the Guru (party) knows; faith will save me.' In the so-called Yogic or religious practices the same mechanism operates. The mind is made to concentrate on some particular idea to the exclusion of all other ideas and concentration is powerfully reinforced by rigid discipline and painful austerities.
"A high price in life and happiness is paid and what one gets in return appears therefore, to be of great importance. This prearranged conversion, obvious or hidden, religious or political, ethical or social, may look genuine and lasting, yet there is a feeling of artificiality about it.”
Maharaj: “You are quite right. By undergoing so many hardships the mind gets dislocated and immobilised. Its condition becomes precarious; whatever it undertakes ends in a deeper bondage.”
In fact, the only “enemies” which need be focused on are “the ‘enemies’ of the Light.”
Without light, the rope can generate needless fear when mistaken for a snake; of more concern should be the fact that - without light - the snake can be mistaken for a rope, and that mistake can bring an entirely new and potentially far more critical misunderstanding.
In the book Dancing Lightly, this is offered for consideration:
THE "ENEMIES" OF LIGHTNESS
A global economic meltdown is not the enemy of lightness; "others" are not the enemy of lightness; fate is not the enemy of lightness; relative responsibilities involving work and child-rearing and treating physical illnesses are not the enemies of lightness; nothing external is the enemy of lightness:
Maharaj: "You do and undo at every step. You want peace, love, and happiness but work hard to create pain, hatred and war"
and
"Even your own happiness is so vulnerable and short-lived, at the mercy of a bank-crash or a stomach ulcer."
Only you - more accurately, the not-you's - are the enemies of lightness. Like a bank heist that requires no breaking and entering, it's all an inside job, this loss of a sense of lightness. The complicating factor is this: the blindness of those not taking advantage of the light is that while they are working hard to satisfy the desires of one or more personas or working hard to avoid the fears of one or more personas, even as they create pain and misery, they actually believe that they are taking actions that will soon lead to happiness.
How could such a totally backwards view happen? Simple: it is all happening from the standpoint of the "mind":
John Milton: "The mind . . . in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven."
And it will. It is the seat of all duality, and living under its influence will guarantee instability. And when in such dire straits as will be guaranteed when living under the influence of the "mind" rather than abiding as the original nature, there will be a miasma-inducing myopia of such a degree that any actual account of what is really happening (an account that the inner resource is trying to offer) will not be detectable.
So WHO, ultimately, is the one who thinks he / she is shifting between states of happiness and unhappiness?
Only one who is still trapped at the earliest steps on the "path" to Full Realization. Only one who believes she / he was born and is now a personalized and individualized being rather than the impersonal and non-individuated beingness.
Yet you were not born because you were not even conceived by those called "parents"; instead, you were conceived by artificial hallucination. In that condition, the not-you's will be in charge of every aspect of your relative existence.
Those fictional but seemingly real not-you's arise in the emotion-driven, ever-moving consciousness as the result of living under the influence of the hallucinating "mind" rather than abiding as the original nature.
The blindness of that totally-unnatural and abnormal miasma-inducing myopia will become your abnormal "norm." At that point when the internal account cannot be heard, an outsider's account is indicated. That "outsider's" account is required to serve as the tool that might be able to dig you out of the sand - or the quicksand - that is trying to take you under, relatively speaking.
Amazingly, though, while anything that is built on sand or quicksand is destined to readily sink and disappear, the case with imaginary personalities that are built on such unstable ground is that they can "survive" until the time that the consciousness unmanifests and re-enters the universal pool of energy. The ability of false identities to continue to be believed in and to be taken as the real is astounding to any that can objectively observe them at play in the "minds" of those who acquiesce to entrapment by such personas that will always eventually generate instability and misery and suffering and pain.
So I bring an outsider's account of your condition. I come not to "you," to any of the the false selves being identified with. I come to wake you and to set you free from your hallucinations. Your mental mirages want you to walk in your sleep, and they want your walking in your sleep to take you to the edge of the cliff or to the shifting sands or even to one of the many pits of quicksand that dot the landscape of the relative existence.
Your hallucinations want to use the fears and desires of your personalities to render you unable to see so that you can be cast into such sands or over the edge of the cliff. The false selves will always eventually guide you to self-destruction.
With authenticity always lingering in the shadows, that will always drive the self to self-destruct so that the Real Self can be seen; however, there is an easier way than fighting time and again that instability-producing battle.
See now that it can be said more accurately that - rather than the light having to precede the lightness - what must happen in order for a consistent sense of lightness to manifest is a willingness to open one's eyes and see by way of the light (which is already there) all of the lies that the "mind" and personalities generate and then use to rob persons of the bliss which can only manifest in Truth.
Only in Truth will the instability and destructive motions / actions that are inspired by the mind-and-personality-rooted-intoxication of extreme emotions and extreme feelings put to an end the fear and desire that arise from the core of every personality / persona.
"Is nothing to be feared?" some ask.
"Is nothing to be wanted?" some ask, as did one visitor to the loft:
Questioner: " . . . What is worth wanting?"
Maharaj: "The highest happiness, the greatest freedom. Desirelessness is the highest bliss."
The Direct Path offered here is a direct path to that bliss. A "mind" will try to pull the sojourner off track; personality will try to entice seekers to take a detour, inspiring the adoption of "better-than" roles; and those who offer enticements like candy to a child will try to convince some that they - the enticers - are the source of happiness. What a setup for misery:
Maharaj: "Don't you see that it is your very search for happiness that makes you feel miserable? Try the other way: indifferent to pain and pleasure, neither asking nor refusing, give all your attention to the level on which 'I am' is timelessly present. Soon you will realise that peace and happiness are in your very nature and it is only seeking them through some particular channels that disturbs. Avoid the disturbance - that is all. To seek . . . there is no need; you would not seek what you already have"
and
"Nothing can make you happier than you are. All search for happiness is misery and leads to more misery"
and
"Trust my words and remember them. I want your happiness, not mine."
I want your happiness, not mine. A visitor here recently saw an arrogance-filled piece of e-mail which was being answered, only because there was still a slight chance of waking the miserable writer from his sleep. The visitor had been as involved in such arrogance at one time as well, so the question was asked, "Why do you do this? Why do you even mess with us? Be honest - aren't you really tired of dealing with us?"
The reply: "Are you speaking of dealing with the not-you's? Then yes. If it is the not-you's, what registers in far beyond being tired. At times it reaches a point of sadness; at other times, it grows to a point of disgust.
"Yet still I stand on the shore of stability, right at the edge where the seas of insanity and ignorance and fear and desire are tossing the you's about and trying with all their force to sink those you's once and for all. And I speak from the shore to guide you home. But I will not shout. Nor will I try to literally force you from a storm that you delusionally believe is a calm sea.
"There will have to be a lull in the storm that you are caught in if you are to hear me and change course and take the path to me. So . . . tired of you, the real you? No. Tired of the fictional you's and the not-you's? You bet, but sadly, they are a part of the deal until the shiftings go and the stability comes.
"But once you have felt that stability, I must then ask, 'Why would you ever abandon that? See that it is your false selves alone which can inspire you to forfeit the stability. Stay with the real and let the not-you's go, for it is on the cancer of instability that they feed and thrive'."
Again, Maharaj: "Even your own happiness is so vulnerable and short-lived, at the mercy of a bank-crash or a stomach ulcer. It is just a moment of respite, a mere gap between two sorrows. Real happiness is not vulnerable, because it does not depend on circumstances."
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
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