TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
To review:
That which is natural is rooted in non-duality; all which involves unnatural thinking and / or supernatural thinking is rooted in duality.
Whether speaking of Maharaj's lesser focus on the Nisarga Yoga in the beginning or discussing his near-total focus on abiding naturally in the end (as opposed to trying to live supernaturally and / or unnaturally), it is granted that all of that is relevant only to the AM-ness, but presently, what happens in the AM-ness impacts every person far more than anything to do with the THAT-ness.
So, to continue with excerpts from the book Why NISARGA YOGA in addition to the Advaita Teachings? as considerations about the Nisarga (natural) fashion of abidance are offered:
The Uniqueness of the Nisarga Yoga
There is talk here of a "path" and the "Direct Path Method" and a "journey." "Path" and "journey" are placed in quotation marks to indicate that there is no actual path to be traveled and that there is no literal journey to be made.
Yet the irony is that . . .
1. there are steps (toward understanding) which must be taken
and
2. there is a "movement" away from or a "shifting" away from (from misunderstandings)
even though the movement does not require actual journeying away from where one is.
The movement is away from believing that one is what one is not; a movement toward the understanding of what one is; a movement away from all identification; and - in the process of discarding all previously-held identifiers - returning to authenticity alone for the remainder of the manifestation.
But why? Why even set out on such an undertaking?
If this "journey" is to move seekers . . .
1. away from the personal (from personality, from personas, from believing in personal identities)
and
2. to abiding in a no-concept, no-self state
and
3. eventually even to a no-"Self" state where it is seen that what has been taken to be some Special "True Self" is really nothing more than a specialized form of energy which is capable of Pure Witnessing if all blockages have been discarded
then
4. how is it that so many other "objectives" have been added by so many teachers to what is supposed to be a very simple, de-accumulating process, namely, the taking of seven simple steps in an exact order which can move one away from the blockages set in place by programming and conditioning and acculturation and domestication and brainwashing and indoctrination and allow for the seeing of all that is false and allow for the seeing of the Truth which can be known but which cannot be stated?
Yet are those not also irrelevant objectives as well? Is the "goal" of the "journey" to know more, or to un-learn all (that "all" being the accumulation of all learned ignorance and all else that is thought to be known)? Who sets out on a trip without identifying a clear destination? In terms of literal trips, almost no one. In terms of "religious" or "spiritual" or "philosophical" or "ideological" journeys, many.
How many can look ahead and see the end of the Advaita path? What they see depends on which of the many methods of teaching that they have accidentally stumbled across.
(Why "stumbled across"? Because a "fully realized Advaitin" does not proselytize. She / he does not knock on doors and hand out flyers inviting persons to take this "journey." The additional rub according to one man interested in non-duality is that finding a "fully realized teacher" happens almost as rarely "as finding an eagle's nest on the bottom of the sea.")
So what are other teachers offering that is so far removed from the Original Understanding and from Your Original Nature and from what only Nisarga Yoga offers?
One so-called "swami" has said that "the goal" of the Traditional Method of teaching Advaita Vedanta is "first and foremost the acquisition of knowledge about Vedanta." Acquisition? So much for de-accumulation. So much for un-learning.
As for Neo-Advaita, the claim is that "there is no journey at all." The message is, "There is nothing to learn or un-learn, no work involved, no effort required. Just rest in what you already are."
Yet Maharaj made clear that one cannot know what one already is until one discards all of the false beliefs about what one mistakenly thinks that one already is, for all such misperceptions block one from knowing what one already is.
As for Neo-Vedanta, the term refers primarily to the method used by Vivekananda and his followers who have tried to make the teachings more suitable to Western tastes (where concepts and ego-states have dominated persons for millennia).
Some examples of the concepts they teach include: "Dream on an idea and be full of it and you’ll succeed; believe in yourself; make yourself strong; find God and gain power; use thoughts to "create a new reality"; engage in the noble goal of seeking knowledge; you are responsible for what you are; acquire power; and seek love."
'Dream rather than awaken fully"? The duality of "success" vs. . . . "failure"? "Believe"? "God? "Power"? "Use thoughts"? "Create your own reality"? "Seek more knowledge, more power, more love"?
In other words, live unnaturally and supernaturally (meaning, in a spiritual, magical, other-worldly manner) which removes you from being in touch with reality even while claiming to be in touch with Reality? Ignore the "I AM THAT; I AM" and speak only of "I AM THAT"?
Such concepts are in direct opposition to the teachings presented via the Direct Path, Nisarga Yoga approach. So the "goal" of the "journey" of those non-Direct Path, non-Nisarga Yoga approaches is to gain more; to know even more; to seek more forever; or to believe that the effects of programming and conditioning and acculturation and domestication and brainwashing and indoctrination can be undone by merely saying it is so?
Do seekers who stumble across one teacher or another even know what the "goal" of that teacher's method is and how any given goal might differ from the goals of other teachers using different methods? If not, then those seekers are among the types referenced earlier, setting out on a trip without identifying any clear destination at all.
Only the Direct Path Method - used in conjunction with the Nisarga Yoga - makes clear a final destination which involves abiding as Your original nature (which in turn allows for abiding naturally rather than unnaturally or supernaturally and which therefore allows for being totally free of all that has been "added" and all which is totally contrary to Your original nature).
What marks the non-original nature of the non-realized? That nature is one which is false, bogus, counterfeit, inauthentic, an imitation and a sham, forged in the fiery hell of programming and conditioning and acculturation and domestication and brainwashing and indoctrination.
In the process of removing all of those "add-on" effects, the Nisarga Yoga will never suggest - as some do - that there are no steps to be taken. Here, it is made clear that there are seven steps which must be taken (and that even the taking of the first four of those seven could be enough).
The Nisarga Yoga will not claim that you need more knowledge. The Nisarga Yoga will not claim that you need to employ soaring and elevated and noble sayings which inspire dreaming and believing and acquiring and "creating your own reality" (as if that is possible).
And all of that makes it a most unique process.
To be continued.
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