TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
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THE RATIONALE FOR CONCLUDING THAT "IT'S TIME TO TRY 'A DIFFERENT ROUTE' WHEN SEEKING A SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEMS OF HUMANITY BECAUSE THE ACTUAL RESULTS OF FOLLOWING THE MOST POPULAR ROUTE FOR 5000+ YEARS HAVE PROVEN TO BE INEFFECTIVE"
For at least the last 5000+ years, the masses have believed that humankind's problems have been centered in one key fact: humans know too little dogma, do not find The Will of God (or the Will of the gods and goddesses), or, do not move beyond their focus on dogma and move into "a higher state" by using spirituality rather than religion.
For at least the last 5000+ years, the highly-organized efforts of those types have invented thousands of religions and denominations and sects and cults and dreamed up saviors in an effort to improve humanity. but their overall results have been nil. They have not achieved peace on earth, and there is no peace of mind among the masses.
In light of that, they focus on what they can do for each individual in terms of providing peace of mind, the kind that comes with an acquiescence, an admission that "we are sinners, but no matter how much we sin, we can ask for forgiveness and receive it and then start over with a clean slate."
Now there's a perk that keeps people coming back, but it does nothing to generate sustained peace, sustained peace of mind, or "mutual benefit for all throughout the relative existence," what with "the screwees" left behind to address the effects of haying dealt with "the screwers" who feel they are once more pure and able to continue to repeat their sin-forgiveness-sin-again patterns throughout an entire manifestation.
To review:
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.
With (A) the most popular route having failed - that route being the one which has said, "Give them more dogma and more instruction and more texts and more religious and / or spiritual exercises and more saviors" - and with (B) the leaders and members of the most popular route having abused people and closed them off to seeking in those venues, then the use of another "route" or "path" has been long indicated for those that can perceive clearly.
Thus the call to understand that there is a "different route" available:
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
To review two of Maharaj’s key pointers about this subject:
“It is enough to know what you are not”
and
“Don’t try to understand! It’s enough if you do not misunderstand.”
Novice mountain climbers cannot reach the peak of Mt. Everest without a guide, and even then many still do not. Similarly, neither knowing what you are not nor ending misunderstanding can be accomplished without a guide, and even then, most will not. Why? Because 97% are attached to the dogma which they were taught as a child - teachings which they never questioned at the time - and because they have also never questioned as an "adult" those teachings which they bought into, and have since clung to, based in nothing more than blind, unquestioning faith. Why else?
Because millions more have attached to the role of “The Spiritual Giant” and to the status which they think that image provides (which, in many quarters, is the case).
Here visitors have been told for a decade that “on your own, you cannot know what you do not know”
and
an undiagnosed sickness can never be treated in the proper manner.
These pointers have also been offered for years:
There is nothing you need to gain but there is much you need to lose
and
this deal is not about learning more but unlearning all.
Maharaj made clear that "you cannot abandon what you do not know" (or more to the point, maybe, you cannot or will not abandon what you think you know - but which is in error - unless you come to understand that what you think you know is in error).
The points offered here are that you need not learn more but must instead unlearn all if you would be free and that you must be un-taught, not taught, if you would be free. There is no "one" here with any belief, so there most certainty is no "one" here who wants you to believe what "he" believes.
Yet the question Maharaj alluded to is this: How can you abandon that which you do not know is false but which is nevertheless driving you unconsciously and subconsciously without your even realizing that it is a host of unconscious and subconscious factors which are doing the driving?
And what do those factors, those personality-based factors, all bring with them? Fears, desires and hidden agendas which are even hidden from the very persons who are being driven by those agendas.
Must a guide be required in every case? It is true that Maharaj said, "Your own self is your ultimate teacher (sadguru). The outer teacher (Guru) is merely a milestone." Yet for a time, in almost all cases, someone to point to a new and different way is required. Moreover, that “own self” is nothing special, holy, or Noumenal. It is merely the unblocked consciousness – if freed from the effects of programming, conditioning, etc. - which can see clearly via awareness.
Additionally, contrary to the belief of intelligent people, intelligence has nothing to do with this. The super intelligent are as driven just as often by ignorance and insanity as "the not-intelligent" because those in both groups have been subjected to ignorant and insane programming, conditioning, domestication, acculturation, indoctrination, and brainwashing.
Also, even as the talk is about being free of the belief that mirages are real, a mirage on a certain level is more intelligent that one living as if false identities are real. At least no mirage is thinking "This is what I am, and it is real." At least no mirage is having thoughts and saying words and behaving in a way this is being determined by subconscious agendas. Persons can certainly not make that claim with any validity.
Again, Maharaj’s pointers:
“It is enough to know what you are not”
and
“Don’t try to understand! It’s enough if you do not misunderstand.”
And again, how?
1. Understand that neither religion nor spirituality nor plans which send you off to the dissociation and escapism of Foo Foo Land can show you what you are not (because they inspire the assumption of more identities which you are not and because they want to teach you more, not un-teach all you have been taught). Also, understand that neither can ever help you understand (because they are the greatest contributors to misunderstanding).
2. Begin waking up to the presence of personality, begin seeing the many personalities which you have been assigned or which you have assumed as identities; see how they control your every thought and word and action and feeling and emotion; see how their agendas function on a subconscious level; and see how they thereby rob you of any and all ability to make conscious choices (your contrary beliefs about choices notwithstanding).
3. For a time, until you are aware of all of the personalities that are driving you and until you are conscious of their agendas and the way that they generate duality-based conflict and chaos, and until you have been freed from their influences, try the stop-pause-turn method of dealing with them when they arise.
To review: "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?"
Relatedly, this was once received regarding the process of recognizing personalities and their influence:
“The Advaitin stance is to see or recognise those influences and identify them prior to the emergence of personality.”
The reply: We cannot recognize a person who is not in our presence. The personality must initially be seen as it determines a thought or word or action - hopefully at the very instant it first begins manifesting. Seeing each personality as it activates is often enough to allow for the stop-pause-turn response to activate and then - not shift a person to another personality type or to a different, "better" trait but - to stop allowing that personality's influence to continue to control, subconsciously, one’s thoughts and words and deeds and feelings and emotions.
4. Understand why the sages for ages have encouraged the abandonment of personality identification because of the overwhelming relative toll which they saw personality has taken in terms of the human experience since body and mind and personality identifications took hold.
[There is a historical and ongoing connection between (A) duality and personality and (B) bloodletting and bloodshed.]
5. Next, understand that there is no eternal benefit or reward later on if freed from personality identifications. Whatever the results of that freedom might be, they can only happen now, they can only be known now, and they can only be enjoyed now.
More on that in the next post.
To be continued.
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