TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
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The discussion at this point in the series is now focusing on "The Most Influential Obstacles Of All" which have come via dreamed up myths and superstitions and via "religious" and / or "spiritual" sources, including religious and / or spiritual thoughts, ideas, concepts, notions, views, theories, inklings, perceptions, a.k.a., "beliefs."
Yesterday, this was shared:
The majority of the humans on the earth will never seek, convinced that the religious or "spiritual" teachings of their parents and ancestors are wholly and flawlessly sufficient.
Of the relatively few who do seek, almost all of them will also seek in religious and / or spiritual venues. Most of the "non-dual seekers" I have met during the thirty years I have been sharing non-dual pointers with were doing exactly that.
And why is that no surprise since most "non-dual teachers" have done the same or are doing the same? The various versions of the Ultimate Medicine which Maharaj used in the first two phases of his teachings were rooted in religion and spirituality, respectively. Same here.
The point is, most have no clue that even among "non-dual seekers," most do not understand that realization can come without dogma, without continuous spiritual practices, and without an exclusive preoccupation with "the nature of reality and things noumenal."
Why is that significant? At one point, I was using the same version of the Ultimate Medicine which Maharaj used during the first phase of his teaching, namely, a non-duality / religion compounded version of the Medicine. Using dogma, I of course became quite dogmatic, and I stayed that way until a man came to me after a talk and said,
"I was abused as a child by a priest. I've done years of work to try to get beyond that, but where I am today is, I still cringe when people start talking religion to me. So my question is, for all the people who feels the way I feel, have you found a way to guide people to realization and freedom without using religion?"
At first I was speechless because there was an internal struggle under way as a religious ego-state did not want to set aside what I thought it knew; however, I was finally able to answer after allowing the man's needs - rather than my agenda - to take the forefront. I said, "Actually, no, but if you'll check back at some time in the future, maybe I can give you a different answer that will involve a different route." Eventually, that different route was found, but it was many years later.
In spite of 5000 years of organized religions and in spite of a variety of spiritual movements more recently, one might ask, "And how's that worked for humankind?" If one looks objectively at the results, the modern history of humankind has been marked and marred by misery-and-suffering-generated disease and famine and civil wars and world wars and holocausts and the chaos which has resulted from the ever-increasing number of persons with personality disorders, neuroses, psychoses, and full-blown insanity.
If the institutions and movements which have claimed to have the answers were to score their efforts and accomplishments honestly and objectively, they would have to give themselves an "F" for failure. Of course, they will not. They blame others for not following the plans set forth by their institutions and movements, ignoring their plans' deficiencies.
Were that truth to be seen, then what would be called for would be a "different route" as opposed to the ineffective one which has been followed so far.
In order to try “a different route,” one must understand some of the verifiable history regarding the plethora of routes which have been tried and understand what was determined first hand regarding the efficacy - or lack thereof - of those routes. Consider:
Those who have found cures for physical diseases did so after studying the successes and failures of the work of the scientists and researchers who came before them; by discarding what did not work; by building on what did; and then finally by coming up with the method and medicine for curing the disease being studied. The same applies with any mental illness / Sickness as well.
Maharaj said that science would one day advance to the point where it would confirm the non-dual teachings. “The non-dual teachings” he eventually endorsed were based in the science of psychology, not in religion and not in spirituality. Maharaj gave both of those earlier routes a fair chance; he experimented with those two methods and eventually discarded them after he saw neither was working to address the Ultimate Sickness which he came to see as a mind / mental sickness.
Seeing the failure of both of those approaches, he formulated a version of the Ultimate Medicine - and a method for administering it - which had a greater possibility of addressing what was truly at the root of what he came to view as the Ultimate (a.k.a., Mental) Sickness.
So what is revealed by way of the verifiable history of the routes he tried first hand before discarding two routes and settling on a third? In his case, there is a more-than-forty-year history available. After shifting beyond his “Forest Dweller” stage, he returned to Bombay and by 1938 was offering counseling informally.
By 1951, he was “initiating” people and would offer two sessions per day in his loft for decades. Moreover, he offered the non-dual message almost right up to the time that mahasamadhi was taken in 1981, so overall he actually had nearly 43 years of first trying one approach / route / version of the Medicine and then another approach / route / version of the Medicine before he eventually settled on a third.
During those years in his "laboratory" / loft, he was observing what did and did not work. After seeing clearly what was not working, he abandoned the use of religion as the Ultimate Medicine, abandoned the use of spirituality as the Ultimate Medicine, and in the end offered a form of the Ultimate Medicine which was based in psychological principles and methods. That was the route which he recommended for use in the end and which was - and still is - almost totally different from most all other routes.
If one understands the “evolution” of his message and why it happened, then one might find the wherewithal to reject “the dogma route,” to reject any and every supposedly “divine or devout or other-worldly or saintly or holy or spiritual route,” and to reject any “mythical route.” Then at that point, there might come a readiness to seek the understanding by way of a method or route which has nothing to do with anything that is mythical but which points instead toward that which is most assuredly not “mythical” – meaning, that which is not based in myth or superstition and which is not based in what evolved from the ignorance of ancient, dreamed up myths and superstitions and misunderstandings and conjecturing. And what evolved from the ancient myths and superstitions and misunderstandings and conjecturing?
Religions; spiritual movements and groups; ideologies; creeds; faiths; philosophies; and doctrines along with all sorts of other concept-laden, mythical-based belief systems and institutions and organizations and foundations and societies and associations and bodies and traditions and conventions and establishments and cults and sects and factions.
Next, the ability to move along a different “path” or “route” requires one to be aware of these two understandings:
(1) the one who is at least wise enough to know that it is time to undertake a “journey” - that is, to move away from where one is to where one would be - needs also to be wise enough to look first at a map (and that is what is provided here); then,
(2) one must understand everything about “where one is” in order to know “where one would go” in order to lay out the proper route for that "journey."
In the case of a young fellow seeking a “non-mythical route,” he was at least wise enough to understand “where he is.” And "where" is he? Trapped in personality, an understanding that came after careful study of what was revealed when he took the enneagram personality inventory which is offered here. Then this followed:
“When we got to the conversation about the positive attributes to strengthen and the liabilities to reduce, his question was: “It is so much. How can I shift all of those things?”
The reply:
The point about personality assets and personality liabilities is for Westerners. For the rest, that's just more duality. I dealt with a man yesterday who reported that he has suffered from low self-esteem all his life and he wanted me to tell him how to have high self-esteem. Ha. I told him he had definitely come to the wrong place. Maharaj said that those who are truly ready for the message are beyond both sin and virtue, beyond all notions about good and bad, beyond all belief in assets or liabilities. The applicable question, therefore, is not "How can I shift all of those things?" but is "WHO is the 'I' that is asking?"
Then this: “On reflection, I have been asking myself – how do we actually shift personality?”
The reply: Here is the key, relevant point at this juncture: there is no "shifting" of personality. That would be like saying, "I want to shift from being a mirage to being an optical illusion instead." Rather than shifting in regards to personality / personalities, there is merely a seeing of the personalities at play. “Enough just to know who you are not," Maharaj said.
So the next stop along this “different route" is a stop at “liberation station” ("liberation" simply a term to use to point toward being free of being controlled unconsciously by the hidden agendas of each and every personality that is at play). Therefore, it is enough just for the True Self (the Pure Witnessing) - to stand back a bit and see the personalities at play (meaning, to become totally awake, aware and conscious in regards to all of the ways in which one’s assumed identities and their hidden agendas, along with the specific fear and desire of each) is driving a host of thoughts and words and deeds, even as persons erroneously believe that they are choosing what is said and done, (which is a great delusion in itself when they are actually being driven by the subconscious agendas of their false identifications).
So next, one must practice stopping, pausing and turning. "Catch yourself" means "catch your false selves at play." When a harmony-interrupting thought comes, stop and ask, "WHO, what persona, is thinking that?" When a harmony-interrupting word comes, stop and ask, "WHO, what persona, inspired that?" When a harmony-interrupting action happens, ask, "WHO, what persona, inspired that?"
So first, to follow a different route, one must see what routes have not worked long-term and what is not likely to work long-term; then, one must become willing to stop, to pause long enough to observe one’s false selves at play, and then – seeing how silly it is to react to mirages and to be driven by the hidden agendas of illusions – to turn from them.
With decades of seeing what worked and what did not, Maharaj came to understand that it is not necessary "to seek the Self," "to know the Self," or "to assume the Self as a new and improved identity" in order to be free of the “ignorance and insanity”-based thoughts and words and actions which assigned and assumed personalities are always guaranteed to generate.
To be continued.
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