TODAY’S CONSIDERATIONS
Maharaj: “It is the dance of the conscious presence.”
In the current presidential campaign in the U.S., the majority of television coverage has been given to one candidate who has been spreading a duality-based message every day for more than a year, offering up in public forums and on social media what racists and xenophobes and white supremacists have long shared more privately, namely, an anti-black, anti-Muslim, anti-Hispanic, anti-Jewish, anti-progressive message.
The airwaves during the last year have been inundated by the thoughts and words of one candidate in particular who has been delivering a message of hate which emphasizes the concept of “different-from-ment” and which reinforces the already-existing sense of “better-than-ment” which is popular among those who hold dear the same beliefs being espoused by other right-wing fascists in the U.S. and in Western Europe.
In schools, investigations have confirmed that an increase in bullying has resulted as children have been hearing on a daily basis - by way of the national media - a public, full-throated endorsement of hate and separation and violence, including:
"Part of the problem . . . is nobody wants to hurt each other anymore" and "Hit back. That's what we need a little bit more of" and about a protestor, "If you [hurt him] I'll defend you in court - don't' worry about it" and (on various other occasions) "I'd like to punch him in the fact" and "Knock the crap out of him" and "Maybe he should have been roughed up." Many have listened and followed through on the endorsement of violent acts.
In the wake of a year’s worth of duality-based hatred being spewed against Jews and especially against Muslims, violence against non-violent Muslims has been rising steadily. A short drive to the east of the house where this blog is being written this morning would take one to the site of a mosque which was riddled by bullets two days ago.
A short drive to the south of the house where this blog is being written would take one to a mosque in Houston where five days ago a man was shot on his way inside. The authorities minimized the attack by saying, “It was probably just a robbery attempt.” That is the same mosque which had been firebombed during an earlier incident.
The point is, the already-present levels of anger and hatred are now growing around us all. That happens when leaders promote violence and hatred and a dualistic sense of separation and "different-from-ment" and "better-than-ment."
Those on the right hate those on the left, and that has resulted in a near 50:50 political and ideological split throughout the U.S. The police in the U.S. are like the police in South Africa when the white minority was suppressing and killing members of the black majority: the authorities there viewed blacks as the enemy. Police I knew in Louisiana told in the 70’s that blacks are the enemy. Police in Texas have told me the same more recently. Many blacks, meanwhile, see the police as the enemy.
Social media in the U.S. this week showed two black men being were gunned down by white policemen. Those instances sparked national protests, and at one in Dallas, Texas last night, five police were killed and six were injured. The rhetoric about all of those incidents will surely escalate throughout the day.
The nation’s current and loudest voice will surely intensify the rhetoric and will be singing louder than ever his song which invites his followers to a dance of hatred and violence and xenophobia and racism and misogyny. There will be no lightness among those dancing to the strains of that voice.
Those followers will not be dancing lightly; instead, they will be like the warriors who are praised in a religious song which is in every hymnal that is in Christian churches around the globe as congregations somewhere every Sunday sing:
Onward Christian soldiers
Marching as to war
With the cross of Jesus
Going on before.
Onward then, ye people,
Join our happy throng.
Blend with ours your voices
In our triumph song.
Christ the royal master
Leads against the foe
Forward into battle . . . .
Ah yes. "A happy throng," referenced in a song which praises those who marched off to the tune of "a triumph song" of battle to kill non-Christians in what led to 200 years of religious wars which happened during the 11th to the 15th centuries but which continue to this day.
Have you noticed how stiff and rigid all soldiers are when they are marching anywhere on the globe? Have you noticed how they stomp and stamp and plod and trudge and clomp their way through life? No dancing lightly among those uptight, anal types.
Yet all of the above considered, there is nothing that any “non-dualist” can do to “bring people together” or to stop the hatred and the killing. But what one can do, if freed of the beliefs being clung to by the combative types referenced above, is to have your own dance, one in which you hear and feel and move to a different rhythm.
The non-dualist Thoreau said, “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.”
So what are you listening to? Are you paying attention to duality-based messages which would have you move in sync with a song which invites one to dance the dance of hatred and violence and xenophobia and racism and misogyny and disharmony, or are you hearing the sounds of harmony - or even the sounds of silence - and responding to that?
When a mind has been programmed, conditioned, etc. with dualistic messages of hatred and violence and xenophobia and racism and misogyny and disharmony, then the likelihood of ever purging such a mind of its dualistic, nonsensical beliefs is (to use Maharaj’s guesstimates) maybe "one in a hundred thousand"; no, make that "one in a million"; no, make that "one in ten million."
In Chapter Two of the book Dancing Lightly, a chapter entitled “The Invitation To Enter ‘The Dance Hall’," this is shared:
There should be nothing about a "no-mind" existence which is difficult to accept. Anyone who has gone to see a movie or a play on the stage of a theater has entered into that no-mind state for a least part of the time.
All is merely being witnessed with the witness remaining totally silent. The "mind" goes into neutral, at least for part of the time there, so no thought at all is arising as all of the events are being witnessed.
So what makes the movement along the "path" so challenging when the point is reached where the "mind" must be left behind if the "journey" is to be completed in full? In the book, The Path to Freedom vs. The Path to Misery, this pointer is offered:
"For most, the search begins when seekers think that they need new concepts to replace their old ones. And there’s the rub. Many versions of the Advaita Vedanta teachings will fill that bill, but here, the nisarga approach affirms that no 'replacement beliefs are necessary.' The direct path method and the nisarga yoga make clear that there is no replacement and that it is senseless to try to make sense of the senseless."
When the doctors removed cancerous polyps from the elemental plant food body here, they were not asked, "So what are you going to put in their place?" It would be insane to have the source of misery removed but to want something substituted in place of that source of suffering.
Possibly an understanding of the way the "mind" has shifted from "friend" status to "enemy" status can break the hold. The full explanation is available in the book, "THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS 'PEACE OF MIND' (There Is Only Peace if You're Out of Your Mind)," but here is some additional explanation for now:
Human and human-like forms have walked the planet for 14.5 million years. Minds began to form only at the very end of that period, at least in evolutionary terms.
Yet humans worked together, foraged together, hunted together, survived today, reproduced together, fought together, and played together for millions of years, all without language and, therefore, all without thought.
After "the mind" formed at the end of the evolutionary progression, if something was stored in the mind and retrieved, it was for the sake of perpetuating the species that was otherwise functioning under the auspices of the brain, the intuition, the sixth sense, and the inner resource.
No one ever had to ask anyone else, "Would you please just shut up for a few minutes?! Can you allow me to enjoy just a few minutes in the peace and quiet?! Can you please stop talking for just that long?!"
No, the peace and quiet was the norm, not the exception. As with all other forms abiding on the planet at that time, it would be insane to be noisy and thereby attract animals that would love to feast on you. The silence and the quiet were tools for preservation. (They still are, but are seldom used among the masses.)
Quite a contrast to the egotistical way that so many persons function nowadays, yes? Now humans move about with a demand to "Look at me!" and the attitude that "You will listen to my loud music or my incessant talking, whether you want to hear any of it or not."
So here's the state now that is quite different from the state of humankind for millions of years: now, all moves in a progression from thought to word to deed. All actions begin with a thought, are expressed orally, and then result in an action.
A trip out-of-state to conduct a seminar required traveling through the city of Jasper, Texas.
Events that shined a national spotlight on that town have been discussed before when several white supremacists killed a black man.
The whites first had the thought "I am different from black people and I am better than black people." Then they began organizing meetings in Jasper where whites stood before other whites and expressed orally their hatred for blacks.
Thoughts lead to words, and words led to the deed of three men kidnapping the black man James Byrd, taking him to a remote, country road, placing a chain around his neck and attaching it to the back of their truck, and pulling him along the road until he was decapitated.
Thought . . . word . . . deed. That is the current modus operandi of humans. They think; then they talk and talk and talk about what they are thinking and believing, showing off their supposed knowledge, showing how wise they are, pushing their beliefs on others; then, they act on those words. Their thoughts drive their words and their words drive their behavior.
And because the thoughts among the masses are based in ignorance at best - and insanity at the extreme - then their behaviors can be nothing other than ignorant and insane as well. The mind that served the species well has now turned on its hosts and is devouring them from within.
Where the untapped inner guru could be leading to constructive behavior (relatively speaking) the tapped "mind" is doing the opposite.
The brain says from the stupor of a morning hangover, "I'll never do that again!" Wise counsel from the brain indeed.
But by 5 P.M., the "mind" says, "Well, you could have just have one drink. You know you need it before you go home and face what's waiting there." Overriding the constructive messages from the brain, the "mind" is hell-bent on destroying the self.
Now, communication and talking flood the airways, businesses, carpools, homes, everywhere. Because thoughts are racing, then words are racing, and with words racing, endless going and doing and zooming are the behavioral result.
The unconscious drive is to allow the speed of the body to catch up with the speed of the "mind" so some sense of equilibrium might manifest, but it will never happen; thus, going and doing and zooming combine with talk and talk and more talk to become the rule, and it all happens on a "thinking-mind-to-thinking-mind" level.
Only if seeking begins, and only if a "realized teacher" is found, can other types of communication possibly happen.
If the seeker follows the "path" in a step-wide fashion, only then might "communicating" happen in a consciousness to thinking mind manner; in a consciousness to working mind fashion; in a consciousness to inner guru / inner resource mode; in a pure consciousness to unblocked consciousness style; in an inner guru / inner resource to inner guru / inner resource mode; and eventually in an awareness to awareness style, after which nothing needs to be said.
Then, in the absence of thoughts and words, the behavior that erupts spontaneously is "The Dance" . . . merely "Dancing in Silence," "Dancing in the Quiet," "Dancing in Peace."
That is what "the realized teacher" does, in the end: she / he invites you to the dance, but you must leave all thoughts outside the dancehall, all words outside the dancehall, and all personas and beliefs and ideas and concepts outside the dancehall.
In the dancehall of realization, there is everything and there is nothing; therefore, there is Love and there is Wisdom, and neither of those requires a thought or word to manifest. One writer spoke of the dance in these terms: "Life in the relative unfolds spontaneously. Without the patterning of desire and fear, there is no attachment to things happening one way or another way. However, there does seem to be a strong movement towards what is SILENT, what is STILL and what is NATURAL. This silence allows a seeing with the interior eye – a dance of Love with the mystery of life expressing in this constantly changing show. This affinity to where silence and stillness are naturally present is like LOVE drawing itself to itself."
Among “advanced seekers,” there is far less use of outer resources and far more use of the inner resource (a.k.a., the inner guru) in order to understand truth, in order to become fixed in a state of non-identification, in order to bring activity and searching to an end, in order to simply enjoy the dance to whatever music they choose, and in order to live naturally and without being encumbered with doingness.
One seeker attending satsang years ago when the term was employed in a talk said, “Non-identification? I’ve read every transcript of every talk your teacher offered—some many times—but that’s the first time the term has really registered.”
Yes, non-identification. Be satisfied and relax into the comfort of those words that invite you to an awareness of what you are not and then take it easy. Enjoy the dance. Is it not now time to simply relax? If you do so, then the beingness for the remainder of the manifestation can still have Reality overlaid upon it.
After that happens, a Show of Love can happen, and Bliss can happen, and Joy can happen, and fun can happen, and the dance can happen. And it will all happen in a "much more wonderful" manner than ever imagined possible.
Some share what has happened as a result of a certain awareness that came while reading some of the Advaita writings, but even that is mere entertainment, just a part of the dance shared here.
As Maharaj went about the process of removing the effects of conditioning, nothing about that speck appeared to be “special.”
While enjoying the entertainment that resulted from the dance, his comments at times might seem to have revealed a “separatist” tone, but at the core it was all nothing more than amusement, even as pointers were being offered that could alter the relative existence for the entirety of the remaining manifestation.
Dance the dance of joy if you choose, but be not deceived that the elemental body (which results some nine months after conception) is a result of a ménage-à-trois with you and a mate and a god. Dance the dance of happiness, but do not believe that you are dancing to music that is being provided by a celestial choir.
Why? Because historically, those choirs have more often sung battle songs, war-inspiring songs, songs of separation, songs of duality, songs of "different-from-ment" and "better-than-ment."
Why? Because historically, those choirs have more often sung battle songs, war-inspiring songs, songs of separation, songs of duality, songs of "different-from-ment" and "better-than-ment."
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.]
In addition to the five non-duality books made available without charge by Andy Gugar, Jr. (see “FREEBIES” above), you can now access over 2,800 posts for any topics of interest to you.
