TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
[Continued from yesterday]
Persons (the "non-realized") are also willing to enter onto a "path" and then end up staying on it, and willing to begin a "journey" which never reaches the destination but continue on that "journey" anyway, and are willing to accept a treatment plan which they are told offers no cure for what ails them but normalize that and stay with that ineffective plan, anyway, for this reason also (which is related to reason #50):
51. Because of an additional blight on humanity which is also linked to human arrogance, egotism, etc., namely a propensity for image-building and image-maintenance which are rooted in a preference for inauthenticity.
Consider what is revealed via this exchange with a man trapped on "the path" and consumed by "his spiritual journey" who was forewarned, "Okay, hang onto your seat because the upcoming 'truths' will set you free but they're really going to piss you off first. Ha!":
The visitor responded to the content in this series with: "What I'm doing is saving my life, dammit!"
Reply: "Is it possible that a life (which requires as much doingness as yours presently seems to) might not be a life worth saving anyway? Furthermore, might it not be 'your life' that you are supposedly working to save but is instead your false images which you're working so hard to try to save?"
"More to the point, Maharaj asked: 'Do you really believe that the world is waiting for you to be saved?'"
"More to the point, Maharaj asked: 'Do you really believe that the world is waiting for you to be saved?'"
"Or might you see that there have been those who have cared about you and who longed in the past for you to show up and be available to them and to give the relationship with them as much attention as you gave to escaping and which you are still giving to escaping?"
Additionally, Maharaj asked: "And what means 'being saved'? Saved from what?"
V.: "Oh, so now you're telling me that I might as well just go ahead and die!?"
Reply: "Is that all that you can deduce from the point offered? First, that would involve duality, 'die vs. live,' and there is nothing dualistic which is ever recommended here. But might there be another conclusion you could draw from the pointer? If I were to tell you, 'My life as it is right now is not worth living,' would the only alternative that you could come up with would be 'then kill yourself'? Or might your ignorance shift into a brief state of abeyance which could allow enough wisdom to manifest to suggest, 'Well, then why not truly change that which you're calling 'your life'?"
V.: "What the hell do you think I'm doing?"
Reply: "You're not changing your life. You're substituting one habit for another, one addiction for another, one play place for another.
"Your family complained that you did not go home to be with them but instead went to a place where you got something to drink and sat with your mates around a table and gripped and whined and pontificated and bragged.
"Now, you still do not go home to be with your family but instead go to a place where you get something different to drink and sit with your new mates around a table and gripe and whine and pontificate and brag about your new and improved condition.
"Maharaj made clear that the only thing you need to be saved from is 'illusion'."
"Yet 'your life' - which was bent and shaped and twisted by a bent and warped and twisted mind - is still being driven by illusion, and 'your life' is still being bent and warped and twisted by a mind which is just as obsessive as ever; which is just as bent on escaping as ever; which still renders you incapable of forming attachments in relationships with your wife and children;
which is now being driven by a desire for 'self-improvement' which actually involves - just as before - the same kind of narcissism-based self-focus and self-interest and self-concern and self-absorption and self-centeredness and self-interest and self-seeking along with just as much dodging and dissociation and avoidance and evasion now as before.'
"Maharaj said, "The 'world' is nothing but the picture of your own 'I' consciousness." He could have as easily said in your case, "'Your life' is nothing but the picture of your own 'I' consciousness."
"Want to change 'your life? Then change the state of your consciousness by eliminating the focus on the 'I' and by removing the blockages which prevent a clear perspective from manifesting and remaining."
"All of your religious going and doing and zooming and all of the spiritual workaholism which you are engaged in is actually being motivated by a desire to build a 'better' image and to be a 'better person.' Your image building is driving you to try to replace a former 'bad' image or 'sinful' image with a new and improved 'good' image or 'virtuous' image. That's just more duality, and 'a dual-minded person is [still] unstable in all ways.'
Maharaj said: "Only that person will visit this place whose virtue and sin have come to an end."
"You want so much to appear as if you have attained some 'higher state' as a result of all of your spiritual workaholism, but Maharaj said:
"There is no question of elevating to a higher level. Here it is only a question of understanding."
"The suggestion to you is to stop with being driven by your beliefs about 'good' vs. 'bad' and you'll stop judging others as well as yourself."
V.: "I'm not judging others. I'm helping them. I'm not only helping myself - I am changing the world and saving others one meeting at a time! I am volunteering regularly with a man and working with him, and he will tell you that I really am helping him."
Reply: "Oh my gosh. It is not your consciousness which has advanced to some 'higher state' but your arrogance which has reached a new, all-time high!"
Maharaj said: "You pray to save one, while thousands die. And if all stop dying, there will be no space on earth."
More to your case, he asked: "What business have you with saving the world when all the world needs to be saved from is you?"
And again, "Do you really believe that the world is waiting for you to be saved?"
He said, "The Guru wants to save you endless pain" (and endless misery and suffering as well).
His advice: "Save all your energies and time for breaking the wall your mind had built around you."
"But all that you have done is merely substituted one hotbed of dualistic thinking about what is 'good' and what is 'bad' for another hotbed of dualistic thinking which is piling on even more learned ignorance and dualistic beliefs than were stockpiled in your former venues."
"So, again, you have changed nothing except your types of 'personality defects,' substituting your former run-of-the-mill type of arrogance with an even more obnoxious type called 'spiritual arrogance.' Yet you think your family is now impressed with you? I have seen their faces in your presence, and I can assure you that they are not in the least impressed. Whatever awe you think you are seeing is only being self-generated."
Maharaj advised: "Give up all of your spiritual work. Go home to your family."
However, in order that . . .
. . . when you go home to your family you can avoid carrying the Ultimate Sickness with you and re-exposing them and then infecting them with your Sickness once more, it is suggested that you . . .
. . . find a qualified assistant to guide you through the process of addressing the real source of your problem, namely, your mind.
You were told that you do not have a drinking problem but that you have a thinking problem, so heed that. Forget all the days and months of years of talking about your drinking and find someone trained and experienced and qualified with addressing thinking problems effectively and then be done with all the excessive work once and for all. You have one job. Do not make another job out of mere living."
Do you see the "Catch-22" involved with the dilemma under discussion today? The delusion and arrogance involved with image-building is the same delusion and arrogance which drive image-maintenance.
The only difference? The delusion and arrogance which drive image-maintenance are even more potent than the delusion and arrogance which drive image-building.
And it is the delusion and arrogance which drive image-assumption and the even more potent delusion and arrogance which drive image-maintenance which drive persons (the "non-realized," those not-yet-freed-of-ignorance) . . .
. . . to enter onto a "path" and then end up staying on it, and to begin a "journey" which never reaches the destination but to continue on that "journey" anyway, and to accept a treatment plan which they are told offers no cure for what ails them but normalize that and stay with that ineffective plan, anyway.
The suggestions:
Find that which is truly driving you.
Find "why" you do the things you do.
Then maybe you'll be able to stop all the going and doing and zooming and just freakin' relax for a change.
The heron I see here on the lake can pull that off with a brain that is smaller than a nut. You have a brain that is three-and-a-half-cups in size. If you apply yourself in conjunction with trained and qualified assistance, I bet you could use that far-larger brain and then also find a way to relax as consistently as do the herons around here that abide in a completely natural, peaceful and contented fashion.
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
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