TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
When I was hospitalized last year for a single issue - "a mild heart attack" - the treatment was far less complicated and less time-consuming than when I was admitted several years ago with a trifecta of issues including (1) a clogged artery in a heart already being overworked as a result of a genetic heart valve defect; (2) internal bleeding caused by the doctors' placing me on an aspirin regimen and a blood thinner med as well; and (3) lung problems which were complicated by the retention of fluids.
When multiple factors converge all at once, the complications can increase not arithmetically (not three-fold, say) but can increase geometrically and might be five or ten or twenty times more complicated.
As concrete evidence, consider what many have come to understand about their "stress levels" and what happens when trying to deal with multiple stressors at once as revealed by their use of the Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS), more commonly known as the Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale. It has been explained this way by some who use the scale:
People use the word "stress" to describe a wide variety of situations – from your cell phone ringing while you're talking on another phone – to the feelings associated with intense work overload or the death of a loved one.
But perhaps the most useful and widely accepted definition of stress (mainly attributed to Richard S. Lazarus) is this:
Stress is a condition or feeling experienced when a person perceives that "demands exceed the personal and social resources the individual is able to mobilize." In less formal terms, we feel stressed when we feel that "things are out of control."
Our ability to cope with the demands upon us is key to our experience of stress. For example, starting a new job might be a wholly exciting experience if everything else in your life is stable and positive. But if you start a new job when you've just moved into a new house, or your partner is ill, or you're experiencing money problems, you might find it very hard to cope.
How much of this does it take to push you "over the edge"? Not all unusual events are equally hard to deal with. For example, compare the stress of divorce with that of a change in responsibilities at work. Because of this, you need to be able to rate and measure your total stress score appropriately.
The SRRS / Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale was created to do just that. This tool helps us measure the stress load we carry, and think about what we should do about it.
In 1967, psychiatrists Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe decided to study whether or not stress contributes to illness. They surveyed more than 5,000 medical patients and asked them to say whether they had experienced any of a series of 43 life events in the previous two years.
Each event, called a Life Change Unit (LCU), had a different "weight" for stress. The more events the patient added up, the higher the score. The higher the score, and the larger the weight of each event, the more likely the patient was to become ill.
Their research enabled them to uncover a way to measure the "weight" of certain stressors and to assign a numeric value which actually ranks the "weight" of one stressor when compared to another.
For example, the death of a spouse is assigned 100 points (but only if one spouse was not secretly wishing or praying for the partner to die đŸ˜€ ); a divorce is assigned 73 points; being fired from a job gets a person 47 points; and a pregnancy will add 40 points to persons' "total stress weight."
After taking the test and adding up the total numerical values of stress by weight / impact / influence, people can look at the range of scores and effects and see this:
11-150 points: You have a low to moderate chance of becoming ill in the near future.
150-299 points: You have a moderate to high chance of becoming ill in the near future.
300 points and higher: You have a high to very high risk of becoming ill in the near future.
[For those that might be interested, a copy of the scale is posted at the end of today's blog]
Consider the impact of problems in a marriage / relationship: If there are sexual problems, that only adds 39 stress points. If able to work through those problems with counseling or a medical procedure, then no long-term problems will manifest.
But suppose that does not work and those two people enter into a "trial separation" (65 points). Now they are up to 104 points. They would most likely be able to move through those stressful experiences with discomfort but without major health consequences.
If they attempt a reconciliation, add 45 points and their total rises to 150 points and they would then have a moderate to high chance of becoming ill in the near future.
If the attempted reconciliation does not work out and they divorce, their "stress total" rises to 223. Forfeiting their home can add another 20 points, taking them to 243 and they are well on their way to being at high risk for significant mental and emotional and physical consequences.
See why assuming the roles of "The Spouse" and soon upgrading that false identity to "The Super Spouse" can have such effects and major impact?
Well, the same applies when one considers the reasons that persons are willing to enter onto a "path" and then end up staying on it, or why persons begin a "journey" which never reaches the destination but continue on that "journey" anyway or why they accept a treatment plan which they are told offers no cure for what ails them but normalize that and stay with that ineffective plan. That leads to the discussion of reason #19:
19: As was the case with the couple described above, a convergence of multiple factors can have a geometric rather than arithmetic effect.
Look back at the lists offered earlier, then understand now what the consequences can be if numbers 1, 4, and 5 converge (which is usually the case):
1. Programming, conditioning, domestication, acculturation, indoctrination and brainwashing.
4. Being misinformed but remaining loyal to authority nevertheless.
5. Listening to misguided leaders.
When those converge, persons seeking treatment for the Ultimate Sickness will continue to be subsumed by an unproductive or non-viable "path" or "journey" because that which they should truly be seeking has not been identified accurately.
The obstacles to taking a "path" but not having to follow it "forever" include:
*** not knowing exactly what ails you,
*** not finding the cure for ails you as a result,
and
*** thus never being able to abide sanely and wisely and naturally and freely and independently and contentedly most of the time.
Maharaj identified the key symptoms of the Ultimate Sickness as "ignorance, stupidity, and insanity." The rub?
*** Ignorance cannot spot ignorance; stupidity cannot spot stupidity; and insanity cannot spot insanity.
Maharaj said that "realization is merely being free of learned ignorance."
Not becoming "The Super Religious One"? No. Not becoming "A Spiritual Giant"? No. Being freed from being driven subconsciously by "ignorance, stupidity, and insanity"? Yes.
The failure to understand that leads to the next obstacle:
*** being trapped in religious or spiritual seeking rather than seeking a viable treatment plan for one's psychological issues.
The failure to understand that leads to the next obstacle:
*** being trapped in religious or spiritual seeking rather than seeking a viable treatment plan for one's psychological issues.
Once freed, there is no need to continue to travel any "path" or to continue on any "journey." If you received a job transfer and have to move to another city, would you continue traveling even though you reached the city you set out to reach? Of course not.
So, if one's "ignorance" is replaced by wisdom, would one continue on "the path to wisdom"? Not if one truly reached that state.
20. Therefore, those who enter onto a "path" and then end up staying on it, or those who begin a "journey" which never reaches the destination but continue on that "journey" anyway, or those who accept a treatment plan which they are told offers no cure for what ails them are still suffering from the presence of some remaining degree of "ignorance."
And if one's "stupidity" or foolishness or senselessness (a result of programming, conditioning, etc.) is replaced by logic and reason, would one continue on the "path to logic and reason"? Not if one truly reached that state.
21. Therefore, those who enter onto a "path" and then end up staying on it, or those who begin a "journey" which never reaches the destination but continue on that "journey" anyway, or those who accept a treatment plan which they are told offers no cure for what ails them are still suffering from the presence of some remaining degree of "stupidity" or foolishness or senselessness.
And if one's "insanity" is replaced with sanity, would one continue on the "path to sanity"? Not if one truly reached that state.
22. Therefore, those who enter onto a "path" and then end up staying on it, or those who begin a "journey" which never reaches the destination but continue on that "journey" anyway, or those who accept a treatment plan which they are told offers no cure for what ails them are still suffering from the presence of some remaining degree of "insanity."
See, Maharaj's take on seeking differed considerably from the conventional views held by most. The same applies here.
Maharaj advised, "Don't disturb your mind with seeking."
He endorsed "the end of all seeking."
He made clear that, ultimately, "There is nothing to seek."
You need not seek forever and you need not "add to." You need but subtract all that has been added and that formed a lie-and-nonsense-filled mind. The call here is not to be taught, is not to learn more, but is to be un-taught all, to un-learn it all. Then, your seeking and work are done.
See, Maharaj's take on seeking differed considerably from the conventional views held by most. The same applies here.
Maharaj advised, "Don't disturb your mind with seeking."
He endorsed "the end of all seeking."
He made clear that, ultimately, "There is nothing to seek."
You need not seek forever and you need not "add to." You need but subtract all that has been added and that formed a lie-and-nonsense-filled mind. The call here is not to be taught, is not to learn more, but is to be un-taught all, to un-learn it all. Then, your seeking and work are done.
I am currently taking a round of antibiotics because an injury on the bottom of my right foot became infected. The symptoms of the infection include pain and some suffering, but the treatment also is not something that a sane person would want to experience forever.
I am on what the doctor said should be a 10-day path to healing. At the end of ten days, if the infection has been eliminated, I most assuredly will not stay on that path and will not take another round of antibiotics for that foot infection. I will only continue with antibiotics if the sickness has not been cured.
The same applies to non-dual seeking:
There is a Sickness which needs to be treated. Every mind has been infected with nonsensical programming, conditioning, etc. The symptoms of the mental infection generate pain and suffering, but the treatment is not something that a sane person would want to experience "forever."
Once the issues have been resolved, then a sane person would enjoy the resulting peace and sanity and wisdom and freedom and independence and then just relax and take it easy. At the end of the healing process, if the mental infection has been eliminated, the wise will most assuredly not continue with the healing process.
People who are not sick / Sick simply do not do that. They do not look to be well if they are already well. The wise will only continue to seek if the sickness / Sickness has not been cured.
To seek if one has truly found - as opposed to being convinced by ego and egotism that one has found it all when she or he has most definitely not - would be absurd.
Again, why consider such absurdities as staying on endless paths and journeys or accepting treatment plans which guarantee that they can provide no cure at all? In order to see those absurdities for what they are and to stop being driven by absurdities.
Maharaj: "Break the mind from within by investigation and exposure of its contradictions and absurdities."
Maharaj: "The realized teacher" will show persons how they take the most absurd statements for holy truth
and
"The goal of the guru is to dispel ignorance in the hearts and minds of disciples."
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
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