TODAY’S CONSIDERATIONS
To review the key pointers that would be offered were the taking of mahasamadhi only hours away, “Two Sets of ‘Final Talks’" are being offered.
Site visitors now have several options regarding what could be deemed "the central elements that are at the core of” the Direct Path, Nisargan, non-duality teachings: you can consider the topics discussed in Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj's final talks; the pointers offered in the "final" talks offered in this book; the pointers included in both sets; or neither.
Yesterday, this was offered: “Fifteen Key Pointers Offered in Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj's Final Talks”
Today, this is offered: “Fifteen Key Pointers Which Could Be Offered in Floyd’s Final Talks”
1. Find the simplest version of these teachings.
2. Abide naturally.
3. Seek no identity, including "good" ones.
4. Rest in the awareness of the nothingness.
5. All things both relative and Absolute are much ado about nothing.
6. Settle not for instability.
7. Question.
8. Be free of the effects of your programming, conditioning, domestication and acculturation.
9. March to the beat of your inner guru.
10. Transition all religious and spiritual roles and concepts.
11. You must return to the mind-less "Child No-Knowing Stage" if you would be free and happy.
12. If you would abide naturally, find a guide and a model that are both abiding naturally.
13. Just be, without trying to be anything or anybody.
14. Be still and know so that you can then be still so that you can eventually . . . just be.
15. Sense the Oneness to understand Real Love and allow Wisdom to make possible the understanding of the Nothingness.
UPDATE: During the last six years since that list was compiled, what has been witnessed is (A) an increase in the number and in the severity of personality disorders which have been manifesting globally, and (B) a sharp rise in the levels of fanaticism being evidenced; therefore, the list of key pointers has been modified to include the following:
16. The source of all relative problems always involves fanaticism.
17. Fanaticism is always rooted in the agendas of personality identifications.
[Only ego-states can provide the mental compost heaps required for fanaticism to take root and bloom into the idiocy displayed by zealots and extremists and all other types of believers, whether the zealotry involves being fanatical about a “love” interest; or involves being fanatical about one’s children or pets; or involves being fanatical about a fascist politician; or involves being fanatical about one’s race; or involves being fanatical about one religion or another passed down one’s parents and grandparents; or involves being fanatical about some philosophy or ideology; or involves being fanatical about seeking; or involves being fanatical about the object of one’s addiction; or involves being fanatical about the desire to be seen as a spiritual giant; or involves a xenophobic attachment to one nation or another; etc., etc., etc.]
18. Fanaticism also works hand-in-hand with the higher-than-ever levels of the Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder which are manifesting around the globe (often as a combined result of mental and physiological factors, including the obsessive mind which comes with the Addictive Personality Disorder and the chemical imbalances in the elemental plant food body which involve the alkali-metal group which some naturopathic doctors address with organic lithium since it does not have the side effects of synthetic lithium).
Has it crossed your mind as you are sharpening your knife each morning before going out to a nearby sand dune to behead the day's collection of infidels that maybe you're an obsessive fanatic playing the role of "The Super Religious One"? Probably not, but that does not negate the observable fact that you are doing that and that you are therefore in serious need of some counseling and in serious need of having your body's imbalanced chemistry realigned.
Has it crossed your mind as you are cleaning your U.S. Military-issued rifle with Bible verses etched into the metal before going out out to kill other obsessive, religious fanatics that you are playing the role of
"The Super Religious One" and "The Super Patriot"? Probably not, but that does not negate the
observable fact that you are doing that and that you are therefore in serious need
of some counseling and in serious need of having your body's imbalanced
chemistry realigned.
Has it crossed your mind as you are headed to a gathering of other obsessive, spiritual fanatics that you are playing the role
of
"The Spiritual Giant" and that, while you might have stopped drinking and drugging, you have not stopped your all-day-and-all-night-long mental obsessing? Probably not, but
that does not negate the
observable fact that you are doing that and that you are therefore in serious need
of some counseling and in serious need of having your body's imbalanced
chemistry realigned.
And the same goes for political fanatics and for relationship fanatics and for those addicted to seeking and for all of the other kinds of fanatics referenced above.
19. Around the globe, feelings have been displaced by emotions . . . by the entrapment of the masses in a state of extreme emotional intoxication.
In light of the preponderance of personality identifications which are controlling thoughts and words and actions; and in light of the excessive seriousness and excessive fanaticism of most among the masses; and in light of the excessive sense of heaviness which marks and mars the relative existence of most persons, this information which was offered previously bears revisiting at this point:
Maharaj said: " . . . The source of all that is, is the Infinite Possibility, the Supreme Reality, which is in You and which throws its . . . light and Love on every experience."
Yet the guru and / or the inner guru can shine the light about for minutes or days or months or years, shining the light on every self-destructive, personality-driven fear or desire and on every insane thought and word and deed that those generate, but those being driven by the hidden agendas of their personas will move along with eyes wide shut . . . refusing to see anything that runs counter to the wishes of whatever ego-state or states have taken control of thoughts and words and deeds and have moved one onto a collision course with the worst imaginable consequences.
Ego-states (personality identifications) are like certain mushrooms: where most everything requires light if it is to thrive, those mushrooms actually thrive in the darkness. Just as the light can fade out the colors of a painting left outside to the point that eventually nothing is left on the canvas, so it is when the light hits personas. They fade away.
But if they show up and take control, they become one of the most powerful forces on the planet.
The one in touch with authenticity wants no power and has no power, so it has no chance at all in a self vs. Self struggle. Why? Because that is not the actual struggle anyway. The self is a mirage, so what has happened is that one has become divorced from the Real and in that void, self-delusion has moved in and is in charge of all thoughts and words and deeds.
Consider:
How large is the source of light in this solar system? The sun is huge, yet one can use something as small as the palm of a hand, can raise it and put it over the eyes, and the light of something as huge as the sun will be blocked out by something as small as a palm.
When the relative challenges arise, what arises simultaneously is the duality of perception and misperception. If the Self witnesses, then all will be seen in proper perspective via the light. A sense of lightness will prevail. If self arises, then the light will be blocked, all will be miss-perceived, and the lightness will end. Darkness and heaviness will come.
Maharaj: "In my light they [things relative] come and go as the specks of dust dancing in the sunbeam. The light illumines the specks, but does not depend on them. Nor can it be said to create them. It cannot be even said to know them."
A friend recently faced the challenge of being at the center of three converging storms which left "her" with such an overwhelming sense of vulnerability and want and need and desire that the personas that were generating all sorts of fears and desires raised their hands to block out the light. In that rejection of the light, the lightness was also lost.
She was tossed off center by the storms, something that can seemingly happen to selves but never to the Self which is the center.
Persona-inspired emotions led to motion (to fear or desire-driven actions) and those always lead persons to move into the darkness which, in turn, generates a sense of heaviness and misery and suffering or pain or all of the above.
When she finally stepped back from the brink and allowed the light to be shined on her miss-perceptions, she came to see that all is well; yet not a single circumstance had changed. Not even one of the storms has dissipated, yet she is witnessing it all from the platform above it all, from the platform where the light is shining down on all of the snakes that had seemed to be ropes.
How easy it is to see in the light that the snake is only a rope, but how far more difficult it is to see a snake when it appears to be a rope that is being tossed out to pull one out of the stormy seas. In the darkness, it is impossible to see clearly, to see Reality, to differentiate true from false.
Maharaj: "It is like entering a dark room. You see nothing - you may touch, but you do not see - no colours, no outlines. The window opens and the room is flooded with light. Colours and shapes come into being. The window is the giver of light, but not the source of it. The sun is the source. Similarly, matter is like the dark room; consciousness - the window - flooding matter with sensations and perceptions, and the Supreme is the sun, the source both of matter and of light. The window may be closed, or open, the sun shines all the time. It makes all the difference to the room, but none to the sun. Yet all this is secondary to the tiny little thing which is the 'I am'. Without the 'I am' there is nothing. All knowledge is about the 'I am'. False ideas about this 'I am' lead to bondage, right knowledge leads to freedom and happiness."
And who but the insane do not desire happiness? To desire happiness is not the fault. The fault lies in the miss-perceiving, in mistaking a nightmare for a dream solution which could finally bring the much sought-after happiness and lightness.
Maharaj: "Desire by itself [is not either] right or wrong. It is nothing but striving for happiness. Having identified yourself with a speck of a body you feel lost and search desperately for the sense of fullness and completeness you call happiness."
Emotions are unnatural. Feelings can be natural, allowing one to be fully in touch with all that the relative existence can bring, but even those are to be transcended for they do not in the end bring freedom and happiness and lightness.
You deserve nothing less than an existence that is marked by the incredible lightness of being. You also deserve the means by which emotions and feelings can both be processed when they bring on darkness so that you can again return to the light which, in turn, brings lightness. You deserve the opportunity that then comes to dance lightly.
Peace. Unity. Light. Love.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
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