TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
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To review the introduction to this part of the series:
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 which allows for 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.
REALIZING WITHOUT DOGMA, WITHOUT CONTINUOUS SPIRITUAL PRACTICES, AND WITHOUT A PREOCCUPATION WITH “THE NATURE OF REALITY AND THINGS NOUMENAL”
One might consider the descriptions of Maharaj which shifted from . . .
“a devotée to his guru” to “an organizer of bhajans and meditation sessions” to “a Hindu rishi (sage)” to “a great jnana” to “a ground-breaking teacher” to “a spiritual giant” to “a maverick" who said he was "a spiritual pygmy when compared to those who show up thinking they are Spiritual Giants”
to “a ‘world’-shattering innovator” to “an in-your-face-teller-of-Truth” to “one who became a total nonconformist” to “a revolutionary” to “a radical mutineer” to “a mutinous Hindu” to “an anarchist attacking spirituality” and to “a religious and spiritual insurrectionist” and eventually to . . .
“one who is generally acknowledged to rank with the greatest masters of advaita teachings”
or
“to one who abandoned the faith and the gods and goddesses and God”
or (as reported in the eBook below on Maharaj’s Evolution) the one criticized in the following ways:
"The later books of Maharaj do not enjoy the same clarity as I Am That. It seems that he himself got complicated or rather evolved himself or declined maybe as happens to many teachers"
and
"His direct disciples who later on became notable teachers are of an especially low quality (e.g. Ramesh Balsekar, Wolinsky and others) which makes one to wonder how come" and "Henderson does not teach anything close to what Maharaj taught. Maybe he needs to go back and re-read (or read?) I AM THAT -- many times"
and
"Maharaj taught an extreme form of narcissism in which 'I' am everything"
and
"At first when he was still listening to his guru he was telling the truth, like he did in I AM THAT. In his other talks, his ego made him start telling things he dreamed up on his own that were not true."
and
“He abandoned the proper Advaitin approach of using Self-Inquiry to “find Truth” and “Self” and started jabbering about “finding all that is false.”
Some might wonder, “Can those people possibly be speaking about the same fellow?”
No. They were speaking about their varied (and bogus) perspectives regarding
(1) a “hail fellow well met” when that fellow reinforced whatever personas they had assumed at the time they were applauding him, or
(2) a fellow to be criticized when he did not reinforce whatever personas they had assumed when he stopped following explicitly his guru’s directions; when he focused less on bhajans and meditation and chanting and dancing; when he focused less on Self-Inquiry and the spirituality which Westerners wanted to hear;
and when he abandoned all things religious and spiritual and focused on the core issue of the Ultimate Sickness, namely, the content of the mind and the “ignorance and insanity" which lead to that Sickness and which prevent most from ever receiving the true Ultimate Medicine for that Sickness and being healed, once and for all.
Interesting that the same persons who attack Maharaj for shifting his focus from
(A) a religious-or-spirituality-based-process which dealt with a "Supreme Self” to
(B) a psychologically-based process of “finding all that you are not” and being freed from the chaos and instability of the fiction-filled mind
are the same ones who have used all of the labels and roles catalogued above to identify Maharaj . . . even as they proclaim they have abandoned all self-identification and only speak now of “the Self’ alone.
So it is among persons who practice the duality of “upgrading” and “downgrading” in order to elevate those who support their concepts or to denigrate those who challenge their concepts, respectively.
Yet “the road less traveled” – or, actually, the road least traveled - is the road of pointing boldly and fearlessly and candidly and unabashedly and, yes, even bluntly at all that is false even if that means talking less about Truth. In fact, to talk of Truth is to evidence the presence of ego-assumption and egotism in an epic proportion:
Maharaj: “Whatever I am telling you is not the truth . . .”
and
“The ‘discovery of ‘truth’ is in the discernment of the false”
and
“What the real is cannot be told”
and
“You cannot say truthfully about yourself anything except 'I am'”
and
“The desire for truth is the highest of all desires, yet, it is still a desire”
and
“Once you are convinced that you cannot say truthfully about yourself anything except ‘I am’ and that nothing can be pointed at - can be yourself - you are no longer intent on verbalizing ‘What You Are’.”
So in the end, Maharaj advised seekers to stop reading I AM THAT; to give up all of their spirituality and spiritual doingness and spiritual workaholism; to stop talking about "Who You Are"; to focus on reaching a state of “zero concepts” and zero identity; and to focus on being totally free of the mind, and – thereafter – being free, period.
To those seekers that would be truly free, the only think that has ever been found here which proved effective was a message which – when compared to all other messages presented by all of the religions and spiritual movements and philosophies and ideologies and sky cults - is a message which they consider to be "insurrectionistic" in its content as well as nonconformist and revolutionary and radical and mutinous.
In fact, it is actually a message which can “un-do” the effects of humanity's practice of filling minds with “learned ignorance and insanity” by the use of programming and conditioning and domestication and acculturation and brainwashing and indoctrination.
So consider how the mind came into being during in the original “coming in” leg (and then note what happens during the leg two "going back out" "journey"):
To review:
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