TODAY’S CONSIDERATIONS
Almost as commonplace as the levels of instability and insanity which are generated by religions and spiritual groups is the instability / insanity which is induced by seeking someone or something to cause you to be happy.
Maharaj said that " Pleasure and pain alternate inexorably." Why? Because, he said, "Pleasure and pain are all in the mind"; thus, that is just the way of the relative existence, just the way of the manifested consciousness which is not aware of the stability of the original nature and awareness.
He said, "That which gives you the pleasure will eventually give you pain, and that which gives you the most pleasure will eventually give you the most pain."
Of the transient and transitory nature of pleasure, he said, "By its very nature pleasure is limited and transitory." The same applies to pain. The same can apply to misery and suffering as well if persons were to seek and find the only effective version of the Ultimate Medicine.
To see how much persons are dependent and co-dependent (which are the very essence of duality) and how much they try to rely on "others" to bring them happiness and pleasure and to help them avoid misery and suffering, merely observe how persons react when their perception is that they have "lost" the only one whom they thought would make them happy.
Fifty-nine percent of all women killed in the U.S. annually are killed by their mate / spouse during a breakup.
Others commit suicide if a mate / spouse dies.
Others die shortly after the one they have been dependent upon dies.
Others who have gone through a divorce or breakup are still disparaging over the "loss" twenty and thirty and forty years later or are still resenting the person who "abandoned" them.
One sociologist who studies family structure and suicide rates says divorced men are almost forty percent more likely to commit suicide than those who are still married. That number jumps to fifty percent for a man who is widowed. Talk about instability. Talk about insanity.
See?
That which they thought would give the most pleasure ended up being at the heart of their greatest misery and suffering.
And it's really all about self. It's not so much about the "loss" of the "other." It's about the loss of what one wants, desires, was dependent upon, or was co-dependent with. It's about the perceived loss of all opportunity to be happy.
More than once certain men have come here to report, "That bitch left me."
The usual reply: "I assume you're here to celebrate if you are now free of one who is 'a bitch,' but your tone does not sound celebratory. I mean, shouldn't you be happy if you're free of someone who is 'a bitch'?"
The typical response to that is something like this: "You're cold and heartless!"
F.: "Well, I'm just trying to understand why you're mourning the loss of someone whom you are labeling 'a bitch'." See the warped perspective? See the insanity?
And understand that in every case they had been fighting for years. There was no happiness at all. It was all a pipe dream. For years they could not have been any farther apart than if one of them had moved to the moon. But in the minds of so many of the complaining men with their warped perspectives, the ones they had been with were eventually - some day, somehow - going to be their source of happiness.
Humans are programmed and conditioned (especially in accumulating, capitalistic societies) to believe that happiness lies in externals - persons, things, places, etc. - rather than in the internal condition.
So the masses believe that they can find the right politician who will make them happy. If they are even slightly in touch with Real Love, they will be attracted to the rare one speaking about unity and sharing or the oneness. If they are xenophobic, misogynous, attached to beliefs about eugenics or white supremacy, then they will be attracted to the most divisive candidate imaginable.
And they believe that they can find the "right" mate / spouse who can make them happy forever.
And they believe they can find the "right" job that will be pleasing.
and they believe they can find the "right" city and the "right" house to live in that will finally provide what they have been seeking.
And they believe that they can find the "right" religion or spiritual movement or ideology or philosophy which will make them happy.
Externals. Externals. Externals.
Such a belief can only guarantee misery in the long haul.
The discussion will continue via the sharing of certain excerpts drawn from the book INSTABILITY / INSANITY: What the Advaita Teachings Can (and Cannot Address):
INSTABILITY / INSANITY INDUCED BY SEEKING SOMEONE OR SOMETHING TO CAUSE YOU TO BE HAPPY
The non-Realized are forever functioning under the influence of the insane belief that "the inside" can only register happiness when "an outside causer" has been found that can cause happiness to come and to stay.
Consider the insanity: If you were to be able to find an outside cause / causer of your inner happiness, then imagine how unstable and imprisoned you would be, knowing that you are dependent on something or someone outside of yourself for your happiness.
Imagine how vulnerable you would be, knowing - if not consciously but at least subconsciously - that your source of happiness could at any moment leave you, could "die," could withdraw whatever gifts or benefits that were being bestowed, or could yank from your grasp whatever that outside source has readily offered (with motives and desires) but could as easily withdraw (if desires are not continuously met).
How limiting and restrictive and insane is it, really, for persons to be willing to accept an external causer of happiness as the proper means of addressing the unhappiness within?
Persons that insane could be provided medicine for a sore throat but instead of swallowing the potion would just lie down and pour the solution on the outside of their throats.
Both scenarios would be senseless, insane, evidence of instability, proof of the presence of personality disorders, and confirmation of some degree of insanity.
Trying to use outside solutions to address internal problems can never work, long-term, and eventual loss of freedom and happiness will be assured.
Maharaj: "You imagine that without cause there can be no happiness. To me dependence on anything for happiness is utter misery. Pleasure and pain have causes, while my state is my own, totally uncaused, independent, unassailable."
Some might recall a conversation shared in a previous post, a conversation overheard at lunch in a former workplace:
Woman 1: "You know, I've decided that I'm ready to get married again."
Woman 2: "You know, so am I! I've been thinking the very same thing lately."
Floyd: "I didn't think either of you were even dating?"
The reply: "We're not," offered in both cases with an accompanying look of disdain for the inquiry that called into question their nonsensical declarations and their actual desires and their hidden motives.
Bit of a "cart-before-the-horse" approach they were using, yes?
The sequence that "relationships" usually follow as discussed by Maharaj moves from stranger to acquaintance to friend to lover to spouse (and then, in more cases than not) to enemy to mortal enemy to former spouse; the sequence followed by those two women was on an even faster track because they decided to skip stranger, acquaintance, friend, and lover and to bull dead ahead into acquiring "a spouse."
Senseless? Yes. Very common? Yes.
But because all in the relative existence moves from thought to word to deed, both women had the thought, both put the thought into words, and so - of course - they were both married within the year. You will manifest your thoughts and words.
(FOLLOW-UP: By the way, both women were divorced - each for the second time - within a period of two years . . . financially destitute again, seemingly "lost" again, bitter again, angry again, resentful again, "alone" again, and emotionally and mentally bankrupt again.)
Most unstable, most insane, and exhibiting much evidence of being driven subconsciously by the hidden and insane agendas of personality / personalities / and personalities-that-would-be, all of which determined their insane thoughts and insane words and insane deeds and that resulted, therefore, in insane actions and consequences that generated more instability and more insanity.
See, in both cases, they had an agenda. They had a cause. And they were, therefore, searching for a cause (actually a "causer") who would be able to cause them to be happy; who would cause an improvement in their financial or personal well-being; who would cause a restoration of whatever benefits they thought they had reaped from their first marriages that they were subsequently "missing."
Note the evidence of their being driven by personality (or would-be-personas), specifically the fact that they had fears and they had desires: they desired pleasure; they desired a "better lifestyle"; they desired that their relative existence would be made "easier" by someone else. And none of those desires had anything to do with legitimate reasons for entering into a "committed relationship."
What would Maharaj have advised, if they had asked?
Maharaj: "Giving up desire after desire is a lengthy process with the end never in sight. Leave alone your desires and fears; give your entire attention to the subject, to [the persona] who is behind the experience of desire and fear. Ask: 'WHO desires?'
[That is, which fear and / or desire-driven persona is fearing something or desiring something and therefore subconsciously and unconsciously controlling thoughts and words and actions?]
Let each desire bring you back to Your Self."
In their case, not only was there not Love; there was not even "love" since no "one" was even present to "love" - much less to lead to an understanding of what Real Love is.
Real Love is Absolute; the "love" spoken of by the masses is relative, and thus "love" (a.k.a., "false love " a.k.a., "not Real Love") is . . .
. . . relative
. . . ever in motion
. . . always strong at times but weak at other times, always hot at times, cold at other times (thus, generating instability)
and
. . . never lasting unless it happens alongside an overlaying of Reality upon the relative so that - just as I AM and I AM THAT can happen as one - so too can "love" manifest and be enjoyed on the relative plane as long as it is preceded by Real Love.
And Real Love must be preceded by Full Realization and a total understanding of, and a completely uninterrupted sense of, the Oneness.
The agendas of those two women were hidden from them, and they were hidden from the men they married the second time around. Those two did not know that "a man is not a plan." And yes, the agenda of the men was hidden from the women and from themselves as well.
Duality is always in consciousness and of consciousness . . . all relative.
The term "relationship" by its very name should be seen to be relative and thus rooted in duality.
But among the masses, nothing is more sought-after, more pleasure-giving, or more pain-producing than duality, and none will experience more dualities than in
1. organizations that speak in terms of "good and bad" and "reward and punishment" and the hundreds of other dualistic pairs that they dream up and preach about, or in
2. relationships.
The consciousness brings with it The Ultimate Sickness.
Learning about moralistic dualities is not The Ultimate Medicine and a relationship is not The Ultimate Medicine, contrary to popular belief.
Consider these pointers offered in the past:
What persons call "love" is the most magnificent experience of all; it is also the most horrendous experience of all.
With such duality, how can that possibly be taken for the Real? As for feeling or emotion, if Love happens as a feeling, take the ride and watch the feelings rise and fall; if "love" happens as an emotion—that is, if it is being "experienced" by a person in an ego-state—prepare for war
and
Here, enjoyment certainly happens though nothing is desired.
Nothing is feared since there is nothing to register fear. The awareness-in-consciousness functions from a position of neutrality, knowing that if persons are trapped in seeking the applause of the village, they must also be prepared to accept the scorn of the town as well. If you are willing to seek and accept pleasure from externals, full speed ahead, but be prepared to accept an exactly equal portion of pain and suffering as well.
Maharaj: "Pain and pleasure go always together. Freedom from one means freedom from both."
All on the planet is happening in a theater where role-players are moving about on the stage in The Theater of the Lie - in The Theater of the Consciousness - and in a theater where consciousness-based duality is always the director of all of the thoughts and dialogues and behaviors of the actors.
How can there be any freedom when trapped in relative dualities?
Again . . .
Maharaj:
"You imagine that without cause there can be no happiness. To me dependence on anything for happiness is utter misery. Pleasure and pain have causes, while my state is my own, totally uncaused, independent, unassailable."
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
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