TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
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Of the non-dual understanding which Maharaj offered, what might explain why he initially estimated that "only 1 out of 100,000 will ever get this" but later said that "only 1 out of 1,000,000 will ever get this" and eventually - after decades of working with seekers - modified that guesstimate to "1 out of 10,000,000"?
Consider the enormity of the obstacles which one who works for 20 or 40 or 80 years with seekers of the non-dual understanding will witness:
Obstacle #8: "That Which Sets the Stage for the Constant Use of Ego-Defense Mechanisms"
Yesterday, we looked at some of the ego-defense mechanisms which are used by the non-realized to defend and protect their false images / personalities / fake identities / roles, etc., including justification, rationalization, sublimation, displacement, undoing, compensation, projection, denial, regression, acting out, dissociation, and compartmentalization.
Can you imagine how challenging one's relative existence is if living with someone who is trapped in a host of ego-states and who is using those defense mechanisms and others to protect what is a total illusion?
Well actually, you need not try to imagine because if you have ever lived with anyone or if you are currently living with someone, the odds are that you have been or are currently living with someone who is non-realized and doing exactly that.
Or, can you imagine how challenging a young person's relative existence is if being raised around adults who are trapped in a host of ego-states and who are using those defense mechanisms and then passing that nonsense along to the young people around them?
Well actually, you need not try to imagine because as a child the odds are that you were surrounded by adults who were non-realized and doing exactly that.
Yet the source of all that nonsense is not the use of ego-defense mechanisms but is the assignment and assumption of ego-states which, in turn, trigger the use of ego-defense mechanisms.
No ego-states assumed? Then there will not be any use of ego-defense mechanisms.
Moreover, no ego-states assumed? Then there will also no arrogance; no sense of entitlement; no sense of rightness and therefore no sense of a need to judge and criticize everyone around you; no narcissism and no malignant narcissism; and no personalities to disintegrate into personality disorders. No personality disorders? Then there will be no neuroses and no psychoses, that is, none of the insanity which comes with believing that one is something or someone that one is not and no insanity of not knowing who and what you are not.
False identities are born of ignorance and are feed by ignorance, and ignorant thoughts and beliefs lead to use of ignorant words and the use ignorant words leads to ignorant actions and insane deeds and the use of ignorance-based tools which persons use to defend their illusory identities.
At the core of insanity
and
at the core of being miserable as a result of using ego-defense mechanisms
and
at the core of making life exceedingly challenging for those around you when you are using ego-defense mechanisms to protect ego-states
is the act of accepting as real the many false identities which have been assigned and / or assuming other personality identifications on your own and then believing that they are real.
"The Journey" or "The Movement Along a 'Path'" are merely terms used to point toward the process of realization which, per Maharaj, involves nothing more than being freed from the "learned ignorance" and the taught "stupidity" and the passed-down "insanity" which all persons are exposed to nowadays via warped programming and conditioning and acculturation and domestication and brainwashing and indoctrination.
How many will receive the impetus which inspires seeking and how many will have a drive triggered which leads them to begin "The Journey" or "The Movement Along a 'Path'" which can remove the obstacles being discussed and which can remove the symptoms of the Ultimate Sickness which generate misery and suffering? Almost none.
With the 7.372 billion persons claiming a religious affiliation and believing that their religion and their holy texts have all the answers, why would they seek outside that venue? When millions more brag about "not being religious but being spiritual instead" are added into that mix, then few will ever begin "The Journey" or "The Movement Along a 'Path'" which can remove the obstacles which are generating the misery which billions are dissociated from or denying they are suffering.
As for the relative few that do seek, the stories describing "the impetus" may differ widely while sharing certain commonalities. For those I've worked with over the years, many had to go through years of misery and suffering - often denied - before feeling forced to seek "something else." Tracking their stories, most of them did not being seeking earnestly until driven by pain and suffering to do so between the ages of 42 and 43.
Here, the foundation for the motivation to one day undertake "The Journey" was laid early, on around the age of 5 or 6. The impetus came during my youth as a result of having spent many months out of each year living with my Cherokee grandmother / medicine woman who first introduced me to the non-dual understanding (without my having any clue that such was what she was doing).
The details of that experience are shared in the book entitled What a Cherokee Grandmother Passed On to a Grandson.
(Some of those details will be shared tomorrow.)
The point is, most persons - certain that they know all they need to know or that they know a holy place or holy text which can provide anything else they might need to know - will never be inspired to seek beyond the limited and limiting belief systems of others which they have been programmed and conditioned to accept as their own beliefs and as "The Total Truth."
Trapped thusly in ignorance, they will never realize; that is, per Maharaj, they will never be freed of the suffering-and-misery-generating ignorance and insanity and other obstacles being discussed.
To be continued.
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