TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
THE RATIONALE FOR UNDERSTANDING "THE REASONS" AND BEING FREED FROM THEIR INFLUENCE, PART SEVEN
The primary rationale for understanding "The Reasons" and the primary rationale for being freed from their influence and the primary rationale for the discussion offered in this series is to provide for some few seekers a chance to grasp an alternative perspective from that held by most seekers.
Just as seekers are invited to consider alternative perspectives from those held by the uninformed, "non-realized" masses, so too is there a subset perspective which most non-dual seekers will never consider but which is far more freeing than any they will find on their "non-dual paths" or while engaged in their "non-dual journeys."
THE NO-STEP PATH
First, there is one exception - a fairly recent phenomenon among some so-called "non-dualists" - which also encourages the elimination of long and arduous journeys and the following of endless paths. It is called "Neo-Advaita."
It might appear that the invitation being offered in this series and what Neo-Advaitins are sharing are very much alike. That is not the case. To understand how different the approach used by Neo-Advaitins is from what is being suggested in this series, I'll paraphrase Dennis Waite's take on that "non-teaching teaching method:
The teachers who use the Neo-Advaitin method see no need for study, questioning or inquiring into anything. Recognizing only the reality, and knowing that there is no seeker, they conclude that there is nothing to seek and nothing to teach. Often, the result is that even the most diligent seekers who try to attain the understanding with Neo-Advaita teachers can become very confused. Neo-Advaitins suggest that no path is required since there is no “one” to follow the “path." Thus, that is a "No-Step Path."
THE THREE-STEP PATH
The most common "path" used by "Eastern" and "non-dual" seekers and now by more and more Westerners is a "Three-Step Path."
It moves seekers beyond body identification, beyond mind identification, and beyond the "inferior" or "deficient" or "imperfect" personality identities which were assumed along the way,
including "The Drunk," "The Thief," "The Liar," "The Cheat," "The Criminal," "The Reprobate," "The Degenerate," "The Abuser," "The Troublemaker," "The Rotten Employee," "The Bad Mate or Husband," "The Bad Wife," "The Bad Parent," "The Non-Religious Person," "The Non-Spiritual Person," "The Agnostic," "The Nonbeliever," "The Atheist," etc.,
and inspires them to start playing "superior" or "supreme" or "infinite" or "perfect" or "noble" roles,
including "The Reformed One," "The Redeemed One," "The Forgiven One," "The Transformed One," "The Super Religious One," "The Super Seeker," "The Eternal Seeker," "The Spiritual Giant," "The Enlightened One," "The Liberated One," "The Higher Self," "The Highest Self," "The Righteous One," "The True Self," "The Infinite Self," "The Supreme Self," "Brahman," "Paramatman, "Paramātmā," "The Absolute Atman," "The Supreme Soul," "The Ultimate Self," etc., etc., etc.
THE SEVEN STEP PATH
Originally, though he never enumerated the exact steps in order, Maharaj offered a method which would allow seekers to move along a path which had seven steps. (The Seven-Step, Direct Path Teaching Method used by Maharaj early on would be modified over the years as well. His method would later transition into a Four-Step Path which will be discussed tomorrow.)
The No-Step Path and the Three-Step Path can inspire either a most unnatural method of abidance or an effort to try to abide supernaturally. Maharaj's Seven-Step Path did not allow seekers to fixate at the third step where "good" religious and / or spiritual roles are assumed in order to replace formerly-played "bad" roles, yet that is where so many seekers fixate, never truly moving beyond all role-playing and all personality identification. Ah, what pride they take in having reached what they deem to be their Now-Pure State or their Higher Consciousness State while cloaking their self-esteem (or SELF-Esteem) in false modesty.
Unnatural Living
Unnatural living is easy to spot.
Are you or someone else living in a way in which some other humans are also living but in a way that no other living things on the planet are living? That is the first clue that something unnatural is going on. Have habits and behaviors and practices and routines been accumulated and are they now being used regularly, even though no other living things on the planet (except humans) find those habits, behaviors, etc. necessary for them to survive and thrive?
What are some examples of that kind of living? This was shared in the Fall of 2006:
A person claiming that his time in a particular ashram had “changed his life” sent a solicitation requesting a monetary contribution to help fund the ahsram so it could continue to provide a place for people to visit and to experience “spiritual growth.” He enclosed a picture with his guru who had penned a warning that “false advaita is becoming popular.”
The picture showed the two seated on a special rug. Surrounding them were special candles, a special crystal, burning incense, and a special bowl on a special pillow with a special mallet nearby for striking the special bowl. They were wearing special saffron robes, had special food nearby, and a special bell. And above such a scene, that pair felt they could sensibly print on their mailer the words, “Beware of Fake Advaitans”? Physicians, heal thyself. Persons, claim not that you sit in the noon-time sun when the dawn is just now breaking.
The Original Understanding happened pre-rugs, pre-candles, pre-crystals, pre-incense, pre-bowls, pre-pillows, pre-mallets, pre-robes, pre-holy foods, and pre-bells.
There is nothing natural about those who wear special clothing or special robes or special jewelry or special adornments; or who burn specially-scented sticks; or who hit a special bowl sitting on a special pillow with a special stick; or who ring special bells; or who chant special chants or hum special hums; or who visit special temples of special geographic sites; or who collect and display pieces of crystal in special ceremonies conducted on special days; or who eat special diets;
it is unnatural to bow on special rugs and in one special direction on the compass and to do that five times a day to pray; it is unnatural to collect trillions of dollars to build thousands of opulent edifices where persons can gather and worship their supposed Savior (ignoring the fact that the one they claim to be worshiping and following said that poverty is preferable to focusing solely on wealth accumulation);
it is unnatural for men to castrate themselves when told to do so by their cult leader in order to prepare themselves to rendezvous with a spaceship that will whisk them away to heaven, a spaceship that is traveling along behind a comet in order to remain out of view of all of the other people on planet earth;
it is unnatural to drink poisoned Kool-Aid because their cult leader told them to do so;
it is unnatural to go to "houses of worship" on a daily or weekly basis and be very noisy; it is unnatural to listen to sermons offered in a language which one does not understand; it is unnatural for English-speaking seekers to pay $10,000 to go to a retreat in South America where the retreat is conducted in Spanish, (and even though the ones going to those retreats do not speak a word of Spanish, they have assured me afterwards that they "know what is being said, basically");
it is unnatural to jabber and natter and chatter and babble and prattle in order to make sounds which worshipers claim are evidence of their members' ability to "speak in unknown tongues" which evidence "the presence of the Holy Spirit within"; it is unnatural to wallow about and flounder about and roll around on the floor in their "holy" buildings to prove to observers by way of their rolling and dancing and shaking and other boisterous movements that they have "truly fallen under the influence of the Holy Spirit";
it is unnatural to wear special, supposedly holy, supposedly protective underwear; it is unnatural to roll about on leftover food; it is unnatural to use "E-Meters to detect spiritual impediments"; it is unnatural to believe that in order to supposedly be free of their sins, persons must slaughter a chicken onto which their sins have supposedly been transferred;
it is unnatural to dress up as a humanoid bird and allow oneself to be hanged by the use of hooks through the skin; it is unnatural to drop one's children fifty feet from atop a mosque and allow other worshipers below to catch their children in sheets, supposedly to ensure the health of the children;
it is unnatural to worship relics which include what is supposedly a piece of the cross on which Christ was crucified or which include what is supposedly the foreskin of Christ which was saved and is now hermetically sealed in a gold and glass tube or which include what is supposedly the shroud which the body of Christ was wrapped in after his crucifixion (which has been shown by radiocarbon tests to have been fabricated about 1300 years after Christ died);
it is unnatural to conduct exorcisms to evict demons or other evil, spiritual entities from a person or place which those demons are believed to have possessed or taken control of; it is unnatural to baptize the dead into one's religion because they believe that unmarried females cannot enter into heaven unless married to a male in their church who can give them the secret code name which they'll have to use to be pulled through the veil into a new world where males, if in good standing with the church at the time of death, have become gods and have multiple wives and are now ruling over their own kingdoms;
it is unnatural if nude worshipers claim that they are not nude but are "clothed in the environment"; it is unnatural to leave children in the care of religious leaders who have a multi-century-long reputation for molesting children and whose top officials have a centuries-long reputation for denying and covering up the molestation; it is unnatural to continue to give money to a church that uses that money to pay off the victims and the families of victims who were molested by priests and thus enable the molestation to be covered up and to continue;
it is unnatural to deny the most basic medical care for one's children - such as a simple round of antibiotics to cure an infection - and to allow one's children to die because the parents' religion teaches that the use of medicine rather than prayer would be evidence of their lack of faith in God.
Moreover, while other religious and spiritual persons will claim that all of the above is indeed evidence of the "ignorance, stupidity and insanity" which Maharaj spoke of, they will claim that their own particular religion is "mainstream" and has no ignorant, stupid and / or insane practices and that they engage in no ignorant and stupid and insane mimicking of rituals which were dreamed up thousands of years ago by persons being driven by the highest levels of ignorance, stupidity and insanity imaginable.
TOMORROW: "Rationale Seven," continued; Unnatural Living and Supernatural Living vs. Natural Living; and THE FOUR-STEP PATH
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
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