TODAY’S CONSIDERATIONS
[Continued from yesterday]
There Are Hundreds of Sources of Pain, But Only One Source of Misery and Suffering, Part Two
As one non-dual teacher said: “Suffering just means you’re having a bad dream. Happiness means you’re having a good dream. Enlightenment means getting out of the dream altogether."
It was noted that "here, there is no advice about actions you might or might not take regarding pain, but there is most assuredly a means by which you can be free of misery and suffering."
Understand first the distinction: pain is rooted in the elemental plant food body; misery and suffering are rooted in the "mind."
Most often, humans add something that is an external to try to end their pain, such as: over-the-counter medicines, including acetaminophens; non-steroidal, anti-inflammatory drugs; prescription painkillers; and narcotics.
By contrast, misery and suffering must be address by removing internals, specifically the content that has been stored internally in one part of the elemental brain.
When there is an attempt to address misery and suffering by adding something that is an external, then the result is alcohol addiction, drug addiction, etc. That can never work.
So the question is, "What must be removed in order to remove misery and suffering?" That is, what is in "the mind" that leads to misery and suffering? The answer: all that has been added via programming, conditioning, acculturation, domestication; also, all that has been added via brainwashing and indoctrination; additionally, the internalizing and normalizing of what is actually the highly perverted and bizarre thoughts and words and deeds of one's parent(s) or relatives or guardians;
add to that list the hundreds and thousands of beliefs and ideas and concepts that were taught and added to "the mind" without the benefit of questioning and investigation; a host of false identifications; the unconscious, hidden agendas of personality that remove all ability to consciously choose, though persons will claim that they are most assuredly choosing their words and actions; and the multiple personas, each of which has a different agenda but which all generate fears and desires.
Thus, the pointer offered in the previous chapter:
The masses are in a mad rush every day, searching high and low and here and there for a way to alleviate their fears and to satisfy their desires (which usually involves a search for externals that can "make them joyous" or facilitate their being "ecstatically-blissful"). Some assert more moderately, "I just want to be happy" (or, if a parent, "I just want my child / children to be happy").
If one would be happy, then one must first be free. The following illustration has been shared during some retreats and can serve to reinforce the pointer that freedom must precede happiness: There are people in certain programs who claim that they are "happy, joyous, and free" (though their behavior more often than not provides evidence to the contrary). That is just one example of the evidence which reveals the way that the masses talk in their sleep as a result of denial, dissociation, and a failure to be aware of what they are feeling and doing and saying and thinking . . . and why.
Yet a pointer can be taken from their statement. Happy. Joyous. Free. It should be understood by all seekers that those three must appear in a different order if one would Realize Fully and then be happy. The order in which those must occur for the seeker to truly "find" is this: joyous and then free must happen first, in that order. Only after those two have happened in that order can happiness manifest.
Consider: two wayfarers are wandering through a desert, near death from days in the heat without water. As with the masses, they have seen one mirage after another, convinced that an oasis is near, convinced that a mirage can make them happy, only to find that their misery returns when the mirage is seen to be a mirage.
But to see that a mirage is a mirage is not enough to provide relief from misery and suffering. Seeing mirages alone cannot bring freedom or peace. So their search continued.
Finally, they see a real oasis and begin running toward it. At that point, are they finally happy, joyous and free? No. In fact, at that point, they are only joyous. They are caught up in the emotional intoxication of a "pink cloud" moment.
The same happens with miserable and suffering people who walk into a program or a church or some similar place and become caught up in the emotionalism that is typical in those venues.
They suddenly have great hope that they have found exactly what they have been looking for and believe that they will never need to search for anything again.
Soon, their hopes are smashed when the pink clouds fade away, when the emotional intoxication subsides - as it always will - and when they see that what was promised is not happening for them and when they see that it actually is not happening for those making the promises, either.
So it is with the two in the desert: they were joyous momentarily, but the joy of finding water does nothing to relieve their misery. They must drink of the water. When they actually drink the water (or in Advaita terms - taste the "nectar" or swallow the "ultimate medicine") only then will they be free . . . free of their thirst.
Joyous. Then free. And only after those two manifest, in that order, can peace and happiness manifest. Those who are not totally free can never be at peace. (And the fact is, most persons are afraid of being totally independent and do not really want that "total" version of freedom at all. So it is.)
Next, if you want to be happy, you must look back and find when and why you were last perfectly and unequivocally happy, and when that happiness was consistently manifesting.
Once that is identified, then you must go back there. But note that "there" and "then" are not literal "places" or an "actual time." You will not be going back not to a place or a time when you were "the happiest in your life"; instead, you will actually be returning to the condition that existed when you were the happiest.
Furthermore, that condition was the condition of the mind-free brain as it existed in its prior-to-the-development-of-a-mind-state, that mind-state now being that which actually drives humans to feel miserable and to experience suffering.
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
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