TODAY’S CONSIDERATIONS
Maharaj: "It is the dance of the conscious presence."
In the “Old West” in the U.S., mob rule was often the "norm." If a suspect was locked away in a jail cell awaiting trial but certain ignorant, fanatical, OCD types determined that the course of justice would take too long and decided that the instant gratification of breaking into the jail and taking the prisoner to the nearest tree and hanging him was preferable, then that’s exactly what mob rule often led to. Additionally, especially in the South, it was not very long ago when such instances of mob rule happened regularly in the U.S.:
Nowadays, to be around one single fanatic at a time - be that a parent or a roommate or a spouse - is challenging enough, but if a group of fanatics gather, then nothing can provide a better example of what behavior can be like when three of the key symptoms of the Ultimate Sickness are manifest (identified by Maharaj as “ignorance, stupidity, and insanity”).
With hundreds of hate groups operating in the U.S. and around the globe; with the number of religious fanatics once more reaching a level not seen since the religious wars and the Crusades of hundreds of years ago; with certain right-wing and fascist political factions coming to the forefront around the globe;
and with groups in the U.S. such as the Christian Reconstructions and some elements of the so-called “Tea Party” who are in favor of defaulting on payment of the nation’s debts, shutting down the government, and starting over with a new constitution based in the Jewish laws as outlined in the Old Testament of their Christian Bible, the fanatics are exerting themselves and exhibiting a propensity for the kind of mob rule that existed in what they call “The Good Ole Days.”
Their fictional dream about how great it was "back then" inspires them to claim now that “they want to take the country back.” [In fact, way back.]
What has been witnessed here during the many cycles which have marked "floyd's" relative existence is this:
There have been times of joy (or emotional intoxication marked by an uplifting sense of exuberance) which lead to dancing the streets:
But now in many places there is little dancing lightly in the streets because
1. as Maharaj said, the dance is a "dance of the conscious presence" whereas the masses are totally unconscious, unawake, and unaware; and because
2. no-longer-dancing persons took themselves and their beliefs so seriously that the dancing has been replaced in many streets around the globe with marching rigidly in the streets, stomping in the streets, tramping in the street, trudging through the streets, and clomping through the streets:
At this moment, in Ankara, Turkey, in Cleveland, Ohio, and elsewhere around the globe, political fanatics are gathering and screaming for their political opponents to be put in jail or even killed.
And it’s all based in duality, in forming alliances and affiliations which are based in the dualistic senses of “different-than-ment” and therefore, "better-than-ment":
Thus, the "right kind," the acceptable kind, of mob anger is deemed to look like this:
while the "wrong kind," the unacceptable kind, of mob anger is believed to look like this:
To understand the history of humanity during the last thousand years or so is to understand that none of this propensity for "drawing sides" and entering into conflict is new. Freedom is never guaranteed, and freedom among the masses seldom enjoys a period longer than a half-life.
Approaching the age of 69 years, I have had the opportunity to dance in the streets and the opportunity to march through the streets (during the days of the Vietnam War, for example). Later, there has been the opportunity to watch others dance in the streets, only to be followed too soon by watching persons marching in the streets once more.
It is the way of humanity with the propensity of the unstable masses to swing constantly between their states of excessive bliss and their states of abject misery. (By the way. One can read a particular millionaire’s book as many times as one likes, but it will not make true the falsehood that there is a vast wave of widespread enlightenment which is presently sweeping its way across the globe. The man who touched one small part of an elephant and then concluded "this is what the entire elephant is like" was - as you might recall - totally blind.)
After the one they call Jesus began sharing some of the non-dual teachings which he was taught, he said: “Dual-minded persons are unstable in all ways.” Because dual-mindedness is now the new global “norm,” so is being unstable.
Maharaj made clear that no one is going to change “the world” - “the world” being nothing more what is misperceived by the human mind anyway. (He said: “Realise that your world is only a reflection of yourself..)
Also, Maharaj said: “You can spend an eternity looking elsewhere for truth and love, intelligence and goodwill, imploring God and man - all in vain. You must begin in yourself, with yourself - this is the inexorable law.” See? The priority is for each to take the action to free herself or himself. If that happens, then all else which happens will be witnessed in a far clearer way and in a far calmer way and in a non-emotionally-intoxicated fashion.
Maharaj said: “You talk so much of reforms: economic, social, political. Leave alone the reforms and mind the reformer. What kind of world can a man create who is stupid, greedy, heartless?”
He also said: “It is neither necessary nor possible to change others. But if you can change yourself, you will find that no other change is needed. To change the picture you merely change the film, you do not attack the cinema screen!”
All of humanity’s problems are rooted in the kinds of illusions and delusions which come when in the darkness. Yet even that is not the absolute case. What if the darkness itself is an illusion?
In the book Dancing Lightly, this is offered for consideration:
THE NEXT LEVEL OF UNDERSTANDING: THE ILLUSION OF DARKNESS
The following pointer was offered in the past but is also relevant here: Have you seen that there is no duality of light and dark? When you look into the sky at night and see the moon because the light is reflecting from its surface, have you been fooled into thinking that the light is not also all around the moon and simply not seen because it is not being reflected?
There is no darkness. There is only the non-reflected light.
There is no heavy life. There is only the Lite Life that is not seen because the light is not being reflected as a result of the impure or blocked consciousness; additionally, that means that there is no one to seek enlightenment . . . no one to experience “the rumblings and the shakings and the booming noise and an atmosphere of chaos” which only seem to be real because misperception is the rule among the non-Realized.
There are only the personas which think they are experiencing the rumblings and the shakings and the booming noise and an atmosphere of chaos when they believe that they are real and when they believe that they are being hurt or interfered with or threatened. Yet all persons and many "seekers" are so confused that they mistake the dawn for the noon, the light for the dark, the dark for the light, and the heavy for the lite.
Further, you are the light that you seek, and - if you find that you . . . that Light - then Life Lite will manifest as well. The question is, has the garbage been set out? Has it all been hauled away? The real garbage was never in a disposable bag; instead, it was placed between your ears by those who stole your chance at simplicity. Take back what was stolen.
Then hold it firmly, for even as you abide as Your Original Nature, this AM-ness will go on, and in that AM-ness, how narrow the odds are that you will bump up against anyone if you remain in the light.
Even as they are certain they are being bathed in the full light of the noonday sun, the masses are actually far removed from the light. In that condition, they will reach out and try to pull you into that dark state with them.
They come bearing all sorts of relative existence enticements, and if your fears and desires drive you to reach for their enticements, you may grasp their enticements with one hand but they will grasp your other hand and enslave you, stealing once more not only your chance at simplicity but actually stealing you as well.
At some point, their promise of Life Lite will be seen to be Life Heavy; their promise of Life Light will be seen to be a life of delusion where Life Darkness will seem to have come upon you once again.
What drives those who have come so close to stabilizing in that Original Nature to once again reach for enticements and, in the process, turn their back on the light? The self / selves have not been completely abandoned, once and for all. Instead, the perceived needs and unmet desires of a personal self (in fact, many personal selves) have returned to chase after what they want and to try to avoid what they do not want.
Maharaj: "The personal self by its very nature is constantly pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain. The ending of this pattern is the ending of the self. The ending of the self with its desires and fears enables you to return to your real nature, the source of all happiness and peace. The perennial desire for pleasure is the reflection of the timeless harmony within."
"It is an observable fact that one becomes self-conscious only when caught in the conflict between pleasure and pain, which demands choice and decision. It is this clash between desire and fear that causes anger, which is the great destroyer of sanity in life. When pain is accepted for what it is, a lesson and a warning, and deeply looked into and heeded, the separation between pain and pleasure breaks down, both become experience - painful when resisted, joyful when accepted."
In the end, though, if the lesson is not accepted, then the supposedly "easier way" that is often turned to will be revealed at some point to be the "most difficult way of all." Those pulled away from the light will enter a prison which they mistakenly believe in the beginning is a palace.
Only the dim and flickering light can shine at that point, the bright light of awareness having been dimmed by the fears and desires of their various personalities.
It is at that point that they will approach a snake, sure that what they are seeing in the dim light is a rope. To set aside the personal is to set aside the notion that you are not already free and independent; to set aside the personal is to set aside the liberty-robbing belief that you need rescuing. You will again be able to see beyond the imagined duality of darkness and light and an end will come to what seems to be the constant shifts from one to the other.
Having transcended belief in the slings and arrows and outrageous fortunes of a personal, relative existence, and having transcended belief in any personal limited space that is trapped in humanity's concepts of time (which always blocks the understanding of the cyclings), you will fear not. You will no longer be constantly preoccupied with the peace-stealing sense of need for you will have understood your immortality and invulnerability.
You will remember again that there is not a single part of the composite unity which can be harmed. Then the relative existence can continue, but you will abide in freedom from things feared, or things perceived to be unmet needs, with no sense of personal existence at all. You will have understood that whatever was personal and was taken to be real was just space with a temporarily-manifested speck of consciousness.
You will have understood that even the speck has no continuity within that space, one quantity of such energy coming and going and another coming and going until the manifestation ends entirely. You will relax in the awareness of the fact that what truly IS will return to the limitless space; then, You will know that you are a limitless space which might as well relax in the peace of nothingness right now - knowing that there is nothing to bother about because there is nothing to be bothered:
Maharaj: "Immortality is beyond time and space; in that timeless, spaceless existence there is no entry for the five elements, for light or darkness, for the sun or the moon. Timeless, spaceless existence doesn't know that it is. That is reality."
Imagine the freedom of existing and not knowing that you exist, that is - paying no heed to this illusion-filled existence at all - thereby being freed from being driven by things relative which you thought were real but were not. When you are asleep you do not know you exist.
If realized, then also while awake you will be free because you will be free of belief in the duality of light and dark, a belief which triggers the shifts between happiness and unhappiness.
Even while being totally awake, aware, and conscious, such freedom as is found in deep sleep can manifest. You will no longer mistake the light for the dark, and you will most assuredly not mistake the dark for the light.
Maharaj: "The light is there, the darkness is there, but what is the background? The space. The space is there which is neither the light nor the dark, but the space is. You have to transcend light and darkness to abide in space. Similarly, one has to transcend the knowingness and no-knowingness - the aspects of bodily consciousness. If you have reached that state, you are watching consciousness and no-consciousness, that is called natural samadhi.”
and
"Naturally, you are in that state, but this psychosomatic instrument of body and consciousness is always available. The moment somebody comes, the instrument is being operated - otherwise you revert to the Absolute."
Revert to the Absolute or you will revert to the state where "they" will imprison you again with their concepts and enticements. Revert to the Absolute, or allow the thieves to come and steal again what they stole in the beginning and have stolen many times since. When that happens, mob rule will prevail, and you may be susceptible to being pulled into joining the the mob and their agenda.
But revert and then you will know that there was not any real darkness at all, only the delusions of the "mind" and the fears and desires of the fictitious personas abiding therein that inspired you to close your eyes and to refuse to see the light that was already there.
You will know that the light reflected from the surface of the moon is just as present in the area surrounding the moon as the light striking its surface and being reflected from the surface. Similarly, You will know that the days that seemed the darkest were based in illusory fears and desires regarding unreal needs. You will know (in terms of the Absolute) that there is light and that it was always there; and you will also come to know (in terms of the relative) that there is also lightness there as well.
Thereafter, you will be able and willing to dance lightly for the remainder of the relative existence.
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
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