TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
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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."
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?"
Thus, this:
REALIZING WITHOUT DOGMA, WITHOUT CONTINUOUS SPIRITUAL PRACTICES, AND WITHOUT A PREOCCUPATION WITH “THE NATURE OF REALITY AND THINGS NOUMENAL”
When egos (that is, false “I’s” or self-identifications or ego-states) are in play – doing what egos do and being supported by such ego-defense mechanisms as egotism – then those accepting such egos as actual identities are said by some to be “un-teachable.” Why?
Because any given personality which is being assumed as a real identity at any given moment is "a great jnani" or "a knower" or "a man or woman of knowledge" or "know-it-all" in regards to whatever that ego’s agenda and desire might involve. (And what did Maharaj conclude which led to his transitioning beyond jnana-yoga? All knowledge is just "learned ignorance.")
Each ego is driven throughout the day by an often-subconscious set of motives and means of operating, but subconscious or not, the skill set which egos use to protect and perpetuate their illusory selves contains tools which are amazingly cunning and calculating and scheming and shrewd and sly and wily.
The arsenal storing an ego’s available materials for warfare is packed to the brim with highly-destructive offensive weaponry as well as with the most resistant defensive arms imaginable, including mental walls and emotional shields and belief-reinforced fortresses, all erected by ego-defense mechanisms in order to protect and guard and defend each and every assigned or assumed ego-state / personality / identity / role / false self / False Self.
And just as much as ego is persistently and relentlessly in play among the masses, so too can ego be just as much at play among “seekers” and among those thinking they are no longer “seekers” but are now “finders,” having found exactly what needed to be sought and having found that which has now supposedly rendered them “Enlightened” or “Realized” or “Liberated,” resulting in the knowing of a “Clearly-Defined and Identifiable Self.”
And always at play alongside assumed identities is the ego-and-egotism-and-duality-based process of upgrading vs. downgrading.
Religions and spiritual groups and ideologies and philosophies and other sky cults and mythical movements have never had a more effective comrade than the dualistic utensils of upgrading and downgrading. How else could such institutions and groups survive were it not for their promise to upgrade you; to benefit you; to make you better; to provide you with power (and Power); and to guarantee rewards both now and forevermore?
And how can they attract anyone to accept their offer to upgrade if they have not already downgraded each prospect first, making clear to persons that they have been "wrong, sinful, evil, and bad" but can now be redeemed or saved or purified by whichever institution or group or cult or ideology or philosophy is touting its upgrading process?
In such cases, a “good” or “grand” or “noble” or “Supreme” or “other-worldly identity” can be assumed and then used to replace any and all former “bad” or “worldly” roles which were being played. “An Alcoholic” can cast aside that former negative identity and replace it with the new, super positive identity of “A Spiritual Giant.”
Others desiring an upgraded identity and a better image can assume the persona of “The Super Religious One” or “A Child of God” or a “Supreme Self” or “Paramatman” or “The Absolute Atman” or “The Supreme Soul” or “The Supreme Spirit.” Seekers of all such identities (and Identities) can be just as trapped in their newly-assumed roles and can be just as “un-teachable" as the non-seeking (supposed) "Knowers" among the masses.
Maharaj, on the other hand, made clear to those visiting him in his loft that they would get nothing from him and that, to the contrary, they would lose everything (if they understand). He made clear that he was about the business of subtraction, not addition; about the business of de-accumulating, not accumulating; about the business of un-teaching, not teaching; and about the business of offering the un-learning of all rather than learning any more.
The irony is that one must be “teachable” in order to be “un-taught.”
Yet for all the devotion to each and every assigned or assumed (but always false) identity – be it one that is deemed to be "bad” in typical communities or one that is deemed to be “Supreme” in a community of seekers or knowers – an identity which may have enjoyed boundless commitment and unlimited affection at some point can be cast aside in an instant or over a period of time (as happened during the "evolution" of methodologies used by Maharaj.)
For example, let a preacher tell a parishioner more truth than the parishioner is willing to accept and see what happens. Or tell a preacher more truth than he or she is willing to accept and see what happens.
Take seekers who are adhering strictly to the first method of non-dual teachings which they were exposed to, ask them to identify by name which of the five basic methods theirs is (which most cannot do), suggest that they might investigate the other four and see if another method might provide more clarity and freedom in a far-less arduous manner than the method which they are presently consumed with, and you will likely see them exit posthaste.
To invite a person with dogged devotion to a religion or sect or spiritual movement or ideology or philosophy to look objectively at their highly-valued belief systems which have never before been questioned will likely trigger the use of their store of defensive and offensive weaponry; will likely inspire them to batten the hatches; will likely drive them to seal off the fortress which guards their false identity / identities; and will likely be responded to with verbal - and often physical – attack.
Doubt that? Ask the fellow in charge of ISIS beheadings, "Now, honestly, if you could be objective for even a moment, wouldn't you agree that Shias might just have a really valid point regarding what their sect believes?"
Or, tell a Christian that - if it were possible for Christ to return to earth and enter that person's church on Sunday - that Christ would bring along the whip he once used on some Jews in a synagogue and would beat the living hell out of him and all his friends calling themselves "Christians" nowadays.
Or tell a Christian that Christ, at the end, was teaching nothing that either Christians or Jews now believe but instead was offering what is called "non-dual pointers." Try that and you may well risk being labeled a “New Agent of Satan” (as happened here).
To a Buddhist like the very wealthy man attached to Buddhism who had inherited a fortune from his father (and who - for some inexplicable reason - came here for a non-duality retreat) decided from the outset that he was going to expose me to all things grand about Buddhism and the Dalai Lama, to that type paraphrase Maharaj and say, "Hang Christ, hang Moses, hang Mohammed, hang Buddha, and hang the Dalai Lama, too." Then see what happens.
What actually happened was this:
In the first minute of the retreat, he began praising "His Omniscient Holiness." In response, the consideration offered to him was this:
"Omniscient? Well the Dalai Lama said that 'Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and devastated it because of the negative karma of the people there.' How omniscient is someone who does not understand that ocean temperatures, low pressure systems, high pressure systems, beta drifts, trade winds, and other stirring global winds cause hurricanes to follow the routes they follow and instead blames the path which Katrina took on some magical nonsense dreamed up by men over 5000 years ago?"
He stood, said he was not going to listen to "His Holiness" being disparaged, and within minutes made a most dramatic exit from what was to be a three-day retreat which had involved two days of international air travel, the hotel expenses, the car rental costs, and the enrollment fees, determined by a host of phony ego-states to be well worth the forfeiture of all that time and money in order to get the heck away from Floyd (a.k.a., "Evil Incarnate That Dare Not Honor His Holiness").
Suggest to an adherent of "the Traditional Method of Teaching Advaita Vedanta" that one might realize without being able to read Sanskrit and without the use of texts deemed to be “holy” and expect another fast retreat, at best.
[Maharaj: “I have no faith in anything which has ever been told, not even what has been told by the Vedas. Only my own experience.”]
Mention the use of birth control to persons who believe that the use of any form of birth control will displease God and cause Him to cast them into the fires of hell for eternity and see how quickly your consideration is dismissed.
Suggest to someone that the multimillionaire leader of their religious or spiritual group is behaving like a self-serving, narcissistic, psychopathic megalomaniac and watch a defensive and / or offensive posture manifest in an instant. (Fine here, but you might want to smell their Kool-Aid before you drink it, or not.)
Suggest to a Jew or Christian or Muslim or Buddhist or Hindu that whatever texts they believe to be “holy” and believe to have been inspired by God or by gods and goddesses might actually be the sole product of a human or humans with hidden agendas and see what happens.
Invite someone who thinks she or he is living “spiritually / supernaturally” to consider abiding naturally instead – just like every living thing on the planet except for humans -
(a) by giving up all of their religious or spiritual or philosophical or ideological workaholism which is making a second job out of mere living;
(b) by seeing the effects of faulty programming and conditioning and acculturation and domestication and indoctrination and brainwashing on his or her every thought and word and action;
(c) by taking the steps to be rid of those effects so one can then be free of the “learned ignorance and insanity” which Maharaj identified as key contributors to, and sustainers of, the Ultimate Sickness;
(d) by seeing both reality (the I AM, and what you are not) and maybe Reality (the I AM THAT as opposed to “this”); and then . . .
expect the same levels of criticism that have been heaped upon Maharaj because he shifted away from the use of a religious version of the Ultimate Medicine and away from a spiritual version of the Ultimate Medicine and began using a psychology-based version of the Ultimate Medicine.
Why did he make those changes? Because he was "teachable" along the way before he was finally un-taught all.
Because he was willing to look wisely and objectively at his words and actions and see what was not working and try a different approach rather than remaining attached to what was not working.
In other words, because he was not hindered by the inflexibility of an ego's agenda or by egotism.
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