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."
The focus is also on this pointer:
Of the relatively few who do seek, almost all of them will seek in religious and / or spiritual venues, few understanding 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? Recall the man who approached 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, have you found a way to guide people to realization and freedom without their having to buy into the dogma you talk about?"
That question made clear that I had not even reached the "kindergarten level of spirituality" which Maharaj condemned, much less the understandings beyond that which awaited. It was that question which would send me along a "different route" and would eventually lead me to the entirely different version of the Ultimate Medicine which is offered now.
REALIZING WITHOUT BEING FANATICAL ABOUT DOGMA
and
WITHOUT ENGAGING INCESSANTLY IN SPIRITUAL PRACTICES
and
WITHOUT A NEVER-ENDING PREOCCUPATION WITH THINGS NOUMENAL
rather than
RELAXING AND TAKING IT EASY
and then
ABIDING NATURALLY
and then
DANCING LIGHTLY THROUGHOUT THE REMAINDER OF THE MANIFESTATION
At the end of May in 2015, the one called “daughter” and “Ashley” returned from a two-week honeymoon in Prague, Vienna, and Budapest. Her health was excellent throughout her travels, but last Tuesday she awoke with the pain and misery of a serious infection.
Of course she might have contracted the sickness during the last days in Budapest, but a news report noted this: “Scientists already know that smallpox, measles, tuberculosis, seasonal influenza, a host of viruses, and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) can be transmitted during commercial flights. Now, in the first study to predict the number of H1N1 flu infections that could occur during a flight, UCLA researchers found that transmission during transatlantic travel can be fairly high.”
Understanding the cause of her sickness, however, was less relevant than understanding that a special medicine was going to be required to cure her sickness. She understood that, to be restored to wellness, she did not need to focus too much on the cause but that she did need to recognize the true nature of her illness and she did need to visit a doctor who could provide the medicine needed:
specifically, in her case, that involved a round of antibiotic, taking two the first day and then one each day for the next four days. Quickly, the symptoms of the virus had subsided, but the side effects of the medication were manifesting: stomach pain, mild headache, insomnia and restlessness, ringing in the ears, etc.
Obviously, if she is free of the sickness and restored to health, she will take no more of the medicine. She will be done. She will go on with her life and enjoy it now that health is restored, freed from not only the misery-inducing effects of the virus but also freed from the side effects of the medicine. She will not have to devote a lifetime to fearing the next virus that might come along, and she will not take medicine for a lifetime instead of for what should be a brief period and then being done with it.
That approach is not unlike the route which eventually came to be offered by Maharaj, and is not unlike the route which eventually came to be offered here. Consider the parallels with the Ultimate Sickness and the Ultimate Medicine:
** Persons are made sick through no fault of their own (not having asked for the bizarre programming, conditioning, etc. to which they have all been subjected)
** Ashley needed some slight understanding of the cause of her misery and suffering and pain, but only enough to realize that what she was suffering from was not just going to go away on its own; realizing that she could not cure her sickness on her own; realizing that she needed a specialized medicine; realizing that, if she took the proper medicine, her suffering would end; and realizing that if she did not, she would be miserable and would eventually suffer dire consequences – relatively speaking – if her symptoms were not addressed by use of the proper medicine.
** Once well, she abided naturally and normally rather than being driven by an Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder to take medication endlessly for what had once ailed her; she will simply go on with her life.
Originally, Maharaj focused on Self-Inquiry. Later, after seeing that neither dogma-medicine, spiritual-medicine, or Self-Inquiry-medicine was working to address the Ultimate Sickness long-term, he began recommending “self”-inquiry only instead:
“It is enough to know what you are not”
and
“Don’t try to understand! It’s enough if you do not misunderstand.”
Thus the suggestion here is to begin with determining if one is actually well or not because - as is the case with "walking pneumonia" - many have a serious sickness which they are not even aware of.
If aware of the fact that some symptoms of a sickness exist and need to addressed, and that the sickness is actually centered within the mind, then the next step is to realize that the symptoms will not go away on their own; to realize that misery and suffering and consequences will be assured unless the proper Medicine is found and used; and to realize that a specialized Ultimate Medicine is available to address what is ailing one.
To try that Medicine, one must also realize what cannot possibly work, what cannot possibly heal the Ultimately Sick mind, and what has a multi-thousand-year history of failure; then only might one become willing to try a different route; a “non-mythical” route; a non-dogma route; and a non-Foo-Foo-Land, non-supernatural, non-spiritual route; then, one might take a route which provides the proper Medicine for what really ails humankind.
To become both well and free, one need but take the limited dosage which begins with stopping and pausing long enough to observes one’s (false) selves at play and then – seeing how silly it is to react to mirages and illusions – to turn from them.
Then, once healed, one can move on with enjoying the remainder of the manifestation without suffering the side effects of taking more medicine than is needed; without the side effects of restlessness and not being able to sit still and being driven to go and do and zoom to become "super well" or "the most well of all" by becoming a religious or spiritual or mythical workaholic;
without making a second (religious or spiritual or other-worldly) job out of living; and then just living the remainder of one's life normally instead, without being attached obsessively to exercises and practices and all sorts of things that are used to create and sustain a phony image of “The Super Religious One” or “The Spiritual Giant.”
Just get well, "know who and what you are not," stop "misunderstanding," be freed of the side effects of taking too much of the Ultimate Medicine, abide naturally and spontaneously, dance lightly for a change, and enjoy some joy along the rest of the way.
Of course that's just a suggestion.
To be continued.
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