TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
In yesterday's post, the observant will have seen that "The Process" of having a different perspective can manifest in a variety of ways:
1. With the Direct Path / Nisargan Method, certain stimuli come from "without," with a "teacher" offering alternate perspectives;
or,
2. sometimes alternate perspectives come when willing to question authority, to question what you have been told, to set aside long-held beliefs and perspectives after seeing that they have been based in delusion and illusion rather than in clarity. For example:
I went into shock, asking, "How the hell could this happen to Frankie? His family has gone to church several times a week for years. Where is God now? Why would an all-powerful God not use His power to wipe out this horrible disease? In fact, if He's all-knowing, why did He allow the disease to come into being in the first place? A core belief that I'd been taught is sure sounding like a great big crock of bullshit!"
and
3. sometimes, alternate perspectives might come via "experiences," such as those which seemed to alter Frankie's perspective and which allowed him to smile, even as he was left to deal with iron lungs and iron braces and needing to accept help from friends who were willing to carry him the rest of the way after he could only complete a half-mile of the one-mile journey to school each morning and then home again in the afternoon.
The problem with depending on experiences to provide clear and valid perspectives is that most experiences in the relative existence have no connection whatsoever with reality or Reality.
There are a few philanthropists I know who have both a fortune as well as an ability to empathize, my partner in spreading the non-dual message being one; however, that combination has been witnessed rarely in my 69+ years.
A woman who was a victim of crime in Mexico escaped to the U.S. in 1997. During the last two decades, she has been working with the immigration service to stay here legally and now has four children who are U.S. citizens. Years ago she had been convicted of two misdemeanors: entering the U.S. and using a bogus social security number in order to work. Her two misdemeanors after the recent U.S. election was said to be the reason that, after years, her status has been changed to highest priority for deportation.
[Many look at recent cases where felons have been given probation with time served for rape or for manslaughter: A judge allowed Ethan Couch - who drove drunk and caused a crash that killed four people - to go to treatment and to be put on probation with no jail time. His attorney's defense argument: Ethan Couch was the actual victim in that accident, a victim of "affluenza," that is, of affluence. The claim: he was the product of wealthy, privileged parents who never set limits for him.]
For years, the woman now hiding in a church with three of her children had been allowed to stay and to work in the U.S. while appealing her case because she has only been found guilty of two misdemeanors - and no felonies. She looks at those convicted of felonies who are being set free and allowed to go on with their lives as if they have broken no laws. Seek not and expect not any consistency when dealing with "the non-realized" masses.
The reason she came here - to escape the fact that she was a victim of on-going crime - has been considered a legitimate reason for entry into the U.S. and for the granting of citizenship, at least up until the recent presidential election. She had gone to the immigration offices regularly for years to "check in," but her process had been delayed repeatedly, likely because she had a radio show and had been active in immigration affairs.
Last week she learned that she and her children were going to be separated; she was going to be deported to Mexico while her children would remain in the U.S. So last week, she and three of her children moved into a sanctuary church in Colorado to avoid arrest and deportation after she became "a deportation priority."
She said of the new president that she understood his concerns about problems with the present immigration system but that he could not relate to the hardships she and her children and those like them have faced because he was born into a life of affluence and white privilege.
Like so many others born into similar circumstances, neither Ethan Couch nor the president have shown any evidence of empathy or remorse for those who have been harmed over the years.
The point:
Perspectives based in experiences are often warped perspectives.
Such perspectives cannot be relied on by seekers to provide clear seeing.
Some who abused alcohol or drugs in the past have come here and claimed that they are no longer using" and that their lives "have turned around 180-degrees after they had a 'spiritual experience'."
Yet I watch them neglecting their spouses and children and themselves and their responsibilities as much now as they admittedly did during their "pre-'spiritual-experience'-days," only in a different fashion.
I understand that drugs and alcohol were never their real problem; that their problems were rooted in the symptoms of the Ultimate Sickness (which Maharaj identified as "ignorance, stupidity, and insanity"); and that they might not be living under the influence of drugs and alcohol but they are still living under the influence of the Sickness and its unchecked "ignorance, stupidity, and insanity."
Their perspectives regarding themselves are as skewed and distorted as ever.
The pointer has been offered to some of those types:
"Might it be possible that the only thing worse than living the way you were living when drunk is living the same way . . . not drunk?" Meaning?
Meaning that in that condition, all of the effects - all of the effects and consequences of the "ignorance, stupidity, and insanity" which come with the Sickness - are being felt even as they are being denied. Crazy cannot spot crazy, either "then" or "now" in their cases.
When abiding in a "dry drunk" condition, their present levels of misery and suffering are often even greater than before, even though they are being denied.
When I was experiencing the pain and discomfort of cancer, I could have denied that I had cancer and I could have claimed that "I have been miraculously healed!" and that "I do not need any further treatment because I have been healed by a god or by a white light experience or by way of a spiritual experience!" Yet such claims and denials would not mean that the effects of the cancer had truly ended at all.
So it is with those suffering from the Ultimate Sickness who are denying their the symptoms are still manifesting even as they refuse to acknowledge their obvious presence. Once persons think they have had a "white light experience" or a "spiritual experience"(often in order to impress their mates and to be accepted and to be admired by others who are claiming the same) then seeking will come to a screeching halt and congratulations and self-congratulating will begin. As a result, no true solutions for their problems will be found.
Maharaj called all of their talk nothing more than nonsense growing out of their "kindergarten-level spirituality." He said that most who are claiming that "they are now being bathed in the full light of the noonday sun" are actually "still standing in the dull light of dawn."
Similarly, he warned "There are so many who take the dawn for the noon, a momentary experience for full realization," and they thereby "destroy even the little they gain by excess of pride."
Maharaj replied to one visitor who was touting his experiences, "Don’t you experience even when unconscious?"
See? An experience does not necessarily lead to awareness. An experience can happen even when one is unconscious, and the fact is, that is exactly the condition of most among the masses: "unconscious."
He made clear that "The Experiencer" is just another false identity which leads persons to claim:
"I experienced a white light experience. I had a spiritual experience!" Really?
He said, "Liberation is of the self from its false and self-imposed ideas; it is not
contained in some particular experience, however glorious."
Maharaj: "My world has no characteristics by which it can be identified. You can say nothing about it. I am my world. My world is myself. It is complete and perfect. Every impression is erased, every experience — rejected."
Now that is a different perspective, especially among those who are traveling the world to experience special, spiritual energy forces being emitted in "holy sites" and especially among those seeking "noble or splendid or holy or sacred or hallowed or godly or virtuous or sublime experiences."
He clarified: "In fact, all experience is in the mind."
He also said that "Beyond the mind there is no such thing as experience. Experience is a dual state."
"Experience," he said, "is, after all, a state of mind, while being is definitely not a state of mind."
He said: "You are dragging down reality to the level of experience. How can reality depend on experience?"
He explained: "In non-duality there is bliss; in duality — experience."
So any person's so-called "experiences" are actually based in duality and therefore have no validity. And any person's so-called "experiences" are actually also based in the mind, and the content of the mind is always pure fiction, so - again - "experiences" have no validity.
As always, to find clarity when one's thoughts and words are being determined by a false identity, ask:
"WHO - what ego-state - is claiming to have had a 'white light experience'?"
and
"WHO - what ego-state - is claiming to have had a 'spiritual experience'?"
and
"What is the actual motive and agenda of that WHO - that ego-state - who is making such claims?"
and
"WHO thinks she or he has 'arrived' at their destination when they have not even completed half of the 'journey' required for realization and for liberation from personality to manifest?"
A different perspective which the proper treatment for the Ultimate Sickness requires is often not the intermediary perspectives which can come. To believe that one is now standing in the full light of the noonday sun while only standing in the dull light of dawn is as delusional as any previous concepts held during prior delusional states.
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
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