TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
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To continue with the reply to the question, "So what else is this deal all about?" some answers have been already been offered in the eBook WHEN ONLY THREE HOURS OF MANIFESTATION REMAIN (The "Final" Talks Of Floyd Henderson)
Today, answer #10 to the question "What is this non-duality deal all about anyway?" is this:
Questioning Everything and Everyone
"When you are concerned with truth, with reality, you
must question everything, your very life."
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Over the years, one question has been asked here more than any other - on this site and in satsang sessions and during retreats - which is: "Is it possible that everything you have ever been taught and everything you have ever been told, by your parents and by relatives and by teachers and by religious leaders and by politicians and by businesses and advertisers and by everyone else, was completely false?"
That is, is it possible that there is no heaven or hell or post-manifestation reward or punishment or post-manifestation beingness or Supreme Beingness?
Is it possible you do not live in the greatest nation ever?
Is it possible that you are not different from or better than anyone else . . . and that's okay?
Is it possible that the persons whom you especially should never believe are those who repeatedly tell you, "Believe me"?
Is it possible that all among the "non-realized" masses are contaminated by the Ultimate Sickness and therefore are driven by the symptoms of that Sickness (identified by Maharaj as "ignorance, stupidity and insanity") and that those who are most despised by the masses for "marching to the beat of a different drummer" are the few who are realizing or have realized (meaning, been freed or are in the process of being freed of their belief in "learned ignorance")?
Maharaj explained: "When you shall begin to question your dream [which in not actually '"your dream" at all but is actually "their dream" which has been passed down for thousands of years] awakening will be not far away."
He advised: "Be alert. Question, observe, investigate. Learn all you can about confusion: how it operates . . . what it does to you and others. By being clear about confusion you become clear of confusion."
Those that have come here for satsang or for retreats or those that have read the writings here know that the invitation to be free of the effects of programming, conditioning, domestication, and acculturation is often extended.
To be free of belief in "dualities" and "separation" and "different from" and "better than," you must be free of the effects of programming, conditioning, etc. The full discussion of the effects of those factors is book-length, but the key point about those influences in this more abbreviated forum is this:
if you are not freed from the influences of programming, conditioning, domestication, acculturation, brainwashing and indoctrination, you will be driven unconsciously by the effects of what "they" told you and taught you; and the results of believing what "they" told you and taught you will be misery and suffering and pain.
Therefore, this is the question which seekers are regularly invited to ask regarding "their" tales and teachings: "Is it possible that everything that you have ever been told or taught or now believe is false?"
If such freedom from beliefs does not come, then one will be burdened by a sense of separation, disunity, disharmony, and "two-ness" (or, more accurately, a belief in some multiplicity vs. the unicity).
The consequence of abiding with a sense of separation, disunity, disharmony, and "two-ness" and multiplicity will be the manifestation of more misery and suffering.
In the past there has been a discussion of certain cultures which have what they see as a "homogenous" population, and history shows what the effects are when cultures adopt a "different from" and separatist belief (whether the cultures are "homogenous" or not).
[For example, a nation such as the U.S. that is supposedly a "melting pot" can still buy into the arrogant, separatist message of its manipulative leaders who claim that "this is the greatest nation on earth"; in the late 1930's and 1940's, the masses in a nation in Western Europe which had long believed that its people were "a Super Race" began a war against those whom they believed were members of an inferior race, and that war resulted in 85,000,000 people being killed; they were joined by another nation that also considered itself to be populated by a citizenry that was "one, homogenous race" of people who were different from all others.]
The history of humankind - when such dualistic and separatist beliefs generate concepts about being "different from" and "better than" - has always been a history of non-realized people engaged in fighting and conflict and war and killing and genocide, and that is true internationally, nationally, locally, and in "individual relationships."
The non-dual understanding can be furthered if one were to understand the implications behind two Eastern (Japanese) terms, specifically, “honne” and “tatemae.” The former term on one level refers to "Real Truth" (Reality / Truth) vs. the latter term which refers to "societal façades."
In the West, and around most of the globe, there are not even any terms to use to point to that increasingly-common dualistic belief, so certain Eastern sources can advance the cause of understanding duality and its roots. Thus, this discussion in not really about the Japanese but is about the planet-wide propensity for accepting façades and rejecting Reality.
On another level, "honne" can refer to one's "true feelings."
(Note the difference in feelings and emotions: the realized feel, but they do not emote. Emotional intoxication occurs only when an ego-state takes itself to be real and then thinks that it is being hurt or threatened, as in the illustration offered earlier when it was shown that "The Husband" ego-state can become emotionally-intoxicated and reactionary if its existence seems to be threatened by "The Wife's" report that she is leaving.)
One's true feelings will always be contrary to what is expected by society, so the authentic will be hidden so often that any chance to be in touch with that Reality is almost always squashed in every culture around the globe. (Is it any wonder, therefore, that so few will ever realize, that is - per Maharaj - be "freed of the ignorance" taught in all cultures?)
Since "tatemae" is what is expected by society and what is typically required to "maintain one's position and circumstances," then "tatemae" will never match "honne".
The conflict between "honne" and one's "social obligations" (which are taught via programming, conditioning, etc.) has been one of the main topics of Japanese drama throughout the ages. Often, the protagonist must choose between carrying out his obligations to his family or to his lord (or, now, to his boss or employer) on one hand and pursuing a forbidden love affair on the other hand.
In the end, death would be the only way out of the dilemma. Is that not the case whenever and wherever duality is the rule rather than exception? Is that not the case when a belief in duality blocks the understanding of Real Love which is based in the awareness that "Love is knowing that I am everything"?
Next, the concepts of "honne" and "tatemae" are associated with the concept of "Nihonjinron" (referring to "ideas and theories about the Japanese"). The point of view at the core of "Nihonjinron" is that the culture believes itself to be - as referenced earlier - "homogenous."
(In fact, the desire to "be homogeneous" is at the very core of the agendas being promoted by the Far-Right, the Alt-Right, the neo-Nazis, the white supremacists and the "Make Our Country Great Again" activists in the U.S. and in many nations in Western Europe and other nations around the globe. The irony is that their desire for a "non-dual nation" is totally rooted in . . . duality.)
As always, duality-based beliefs will foster the subsequent belief that one's culture is totally different from all other people in all other cultures. Because ego-states are always upgraded, then the notion of "better than" always follows closely on the heels of the belief in "different from." Again, any chance at understanding the unicity is squashed as a result of such programming, conditioning, etc..
A few Japanese researchers and writers are now offering a differing view for the first time, suggesting that such xenophobic, nationalistic visions are just an illusion. What a call to realize, yes? As the case with realized teachers throughout history, those researchers and writers are trying to deconstruct the illusion of "different from" and "better than."
Again, therefore, it can be seen that the Eastern example discussed above is not about the Japanese at all but is about allowing that microcosm to illustrate the widespread duality in the macrocosm.
Thus, to be free of belief in "dualities" and "separation" and "different from" and "better than," one must be free of the effects of programming, conditioning, etc; and to be free of the effects of those, seekers must question everything that they have ever been told or taught.
Here, there is nothing to teach, nothing to learn, and no one to teach or to learn anything. There is, however, much to be un-taught and un-learned. How much? All of it, until there is not one single belief or idea or concept remaining.
Then only can the truth be known, the truth which can be understood completely but that cannot be stated. As the indigenous peoples in the U.S. have long affirmed - along with their ancestors in the East: "Truth is nothing more than the space between exhalation and inhalation."
Here, there can be no vacuum. When all is questioned and completely rejected, then truth will rush in to fill what would otherwise be an empty space. Then, the fullness can manifest as any previous sense of emptiness ends.
To be continued.
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