TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
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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 "Advantages" of the Nisarga Yoga
Earlier, the point was offered that few set out on a literal journey without knowing an exact destination; yet that is exactly what happens far too often when persons enter into a "religious" or "spiritual" or "ideological" or "philosophical journey."
Some travel a religious "path" because their parents did so. They did not even choose to do so, but they now blindly walk someone else's "path" that they were set on. Their destination? Among some religions, eternal life, rewards now, eternal reward, and the avoidance of eternal punishment. Add in the promised benefit of "power now" with most of those.
Among others, the details of a movement through a series of lives to reach an ultimate, eternal reward is taught. Even others present their own ideas about what is to be gained by following their dogma and adhering to their principles. Among most: benefits, gain, more, power.
Shared with some who join spiritual programs are twelve basic promises in a list read daily. More than one-hundred-and-twenty other benefits are promised throughout their literature.
Benefits, gain, more, power. Scores and scores of promises are promised to those whose penchant for excess and for more of everything got them into their programs to begin with. Now, they are offered far more promises than are offered by any other religions or philosophies.
Among Advaitin seekers, the various methods of teaching offer a variety of "benefits" or "gains," including the acquisition of even more knowledge; the invitation to dream and succeed and acquire more beliefs; the promise of power;
the encouragement to think more; the invitation to "create your own reality"; and, generally, to gain, to know, to seek forever (or to not seek at all) and to believe naively that the ill effects of programming and conditioning and acculturation and domestication can be undone by merely saying it is so.
The Direct Path Method is a process of de-accumulating, not of gaining more or getting more; yet it alone does not provide all that is required if the Ultimate Sickness is to be addressed.
Also earlier, this was offered and is relevant here:
Any of the four or more methods of teaching Advaita or Vedanta or Advaita Vedanta can remove some of the larger contaminants that block the consciousness, but a "fine-filtering sieve" is still required to provide the total treatment for the Ultimate Sickness.
Here, that additional implement that is employed to offer total purification and absolute cleansing and full filtration and ultimate distillation and unreserved decontamination and full-blown sanitation and complete refinement is . . . the Nisarga Yoga.
The point was offered earlier that here, an additional implement [in additional to the Advaita teachings] is employed to offer total purification and absolute cleansing and full filtration and ultimate distillation and unreserved decontamination and full-blown sanitation and complete refinement.
That tool is the Nisarga Yoga.
This is not to disparage any other teaching methods or other types of yoga but is to affirm what has been observed over the decades when so many teachings inspire seekers to adopt the goal of gaining something - especially something supernatural and other-worldly and supreme - rather than finding the way to abide naturally and peacefully and sanely during the relative existence, NOW.
First, there is no "later," so all religions and spiritual programs and philosophies that dangle a carrot about something that will assuredly be available to their followers "later" is claptrap, hogwash, rubbish, and nonsense.
Also nonsensical is the adoption of any role, be it one labeled by a culture as a "good one" or thought to be a role that shows one is "better" or a role that supposedly shows one is "better than" (which is the very food on which false egos and egotism feed).
Next, of all the teaching methods and all the types of yoga available, there is no other that unwaveringly discourages "following forever," that discourages "devotion forever," that discourages "regular meeting attendance," that discourages "making lifetime contributions to," that discourages "adhering to principles," that discourages "studying supposedly 'holy' writings," that discourages "paying homage to," that discourages "aspiring to," that discourages "being dependent on," that discourages "believing promises promised," or that discourages "gaining and / or accumulating."
As first noted here more than twelve years ago and repeated regularly since:
The Direct Path Method of the Advaita Teachings, specifically when offering the Nisarga approach as a system of yoga, requires no leader, no holy book (so no book studies), no candles, no bells, no special land, no special buildings,
no gold-plated accessories, no dogma, no rules, no regulations, no songs or creeds to memorize, no smoke, no collection of money, no special water, no special crystals, no special robes, no chanting in unison, no boards, no directors, no officers, no far-away god or gods micro-managing events in this world,
no prayers and petitions, no anything. Meetings with an Advaita teacher take a matter of days, not a lifetime. (Maharaj allowed most visitors to stay for less than two weeks, providing pointers and then sending them away to go into the silence and to contemplate those points.) Yet less, rather than more, has little appeal after the acculturation process results in persons who desire more.
During the twenty-five-month “forest dweller” stage, by contrast, deer were seen most mornings as they grazed peacefully. When disturbed by a noise, they merely moved to the next clearing, looked about cautiously, and then returned to their peaceful mode of functioning.
Not once did they have to perform some ritual in order to return to the peaceful state or in order to dwell in that (their natural) state. It has been noted previously that the Nisarga Yoga offers pointers that point toward the Absolute Reality but that are actually adumbrations of the Original Understanding.
That Original Understanding preceded “minds,” so it obviously preceded "thoughts." It also preceded words and bells and holy smoke. It was understood even prior to belief in any religious concepts and before the use of spiritual accoutrements. The Original Understanding was prior to roles and, thus, prior to assumption of roles as identities.
The Original Understanding was the intuitive, no-thought, pre-“mind,” no-awareness-that-anything-is-understood-means by which functioning happened spontaneously and by which all plant-food-bodies-cum-consciousness dwelled in the natural, mindless state.
The Direct Path Method and the Nisarga Yoga system offer pointers that are intended to guide seekers back to an understanding of their original nature, after which they can abide naturally with their feet planted on the planet and not in some castle in the air or some special, holy place in the sky.
Those seeking the latter have hundreds of thousands of sky cults from which to choose if they would follow those leaders who will claim that they can direct their devotees into the firmaments beyond.
Few it is, by contrast, that will invite seekers to find the means by which natural abidance can replace the burdensome unnatural fashion and / or supernatural manner of abidance that the masses generally accept and see as being perfectly sensible rather than totally nonsensical.
Nothing in nature, save humans, lives unnaturally. Nothing in nature, save humans, tries to live supernaturally. The Nisarga Yoga provides the means by which seekers can realize fully, can understand their original nature, and can thereafter abide naturally for the remainder of the manifestation.
To be continued.
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