TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
[See the offer following this post for details on how you can watch a video which includes a discussion of all seven of the steps on the path as used by Maharaj]
Rather than being "pro-" or "anti-" religion or "pro-" or "anti-" spirituality, the invitation here is to consider becoming doggedly “anti-ignorance” and tenaciously "anti-stupidity" and staunchly “pro-sanity.”
--fh
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”
“Ego” is the Latin word for “I.” In non-duality discussions, “ego” points to the false “I” (and "egotism" is one of the many ego-defense mechanisms which minds use to preserve false identities and appearances).
[More accurately, the proper term to use would be the false “I’s” because no single identity is ever assigned or assumed. Identities always appear in multiples, so all persons eventually suffer from the Multiple Personality Disorder, and usually that begins early on.]
Assigned personal identities are those handed down by parents, relatives, etc. Assumed personal identities are those supposedly chosen by persons from a pool of potential identities that have been catalogued within communities and cultures and by governments and religious organizations, etc.
An “ego” or false “I” as used by Maharaj after he finally began focusing on the psychological / mind-roots of the Ultimate Sickness could refer to a concept, specifically referring to a false self-concept or to multiple "false selves"-concept.
The “I” or multiple “I’s” are stored in a part of the brain called “the mind.” In that process, humanity loses touch with the original, post-manifestation of consciousness intimations of immortality which are pre-stored in “an inner guru” or “the inner resource” which allows for a sense early on one’s Original Nature and for an understanding of the fact that “who they have told me I am, that is not who I am at all.” Among some that sense that fact early on, questioning begins.
In the case with Andy Gugar, Jr. and in the case here as well, questions were being raised by the age of 5 or 6. In some, the questioning intensifies by the teen years when angst manifests because of the conflict between “who 'they' would have you be” and the sense that "you are not who they are telling you that you are” along with the awareness that “you do not want to be what they are telling you they want you to be.”
Is it any wonder that persons reach their early adulthood years without having any clue at all about anything at all? Confusion reigns, and when confusion reigns, chaos follows. [“A dual-minded person is unstable in all ways.”]
Yet pressure comes from those in positions of influence: “Stop with all the destructive stuff that is preventing you from being a success. Set a course for your life and get a career or go out there and find someone to take care of you and stop with all the feely-feelings and the philosophical questions and all the mental angst and trying to analyze and trying to understand everything. Move on, dammit! Fit in and make something of yourself! Go be somebody!”
So these sorts of advice take over:
and
and
And once all of that is accepted as truth, these become the guiding principles:
and
and
Thus the accumulation of an assortment of usually-life-long-distortions begins with "I was born"; continues with the assignment or assumptions of a host of false identities which supposedly identify and label that "I"; then the false selves begin self-upgrading after persons become trapped in the false identities of multiple assigned and assumed ego-states; and then full-blown egotism kicks in and takes over:
"Since being born, I have really become somebody" and "Now, I am really something, huh?" etc.
Having been robbed of the ability to understand (as a result of programming and conditioning and acculturation and domestication and brainwashing and indoctrination) most eventually just give up, fall in line, and walk in file with those making up the long line of the planet's Night-of-the-Living-Dead”-type zombies. Or, some might march to the beat of the drum of "success," whatever the definition of "success" might be in their culture.
Because the masses become inundated with the perverted advice offered as “wisdom” from parents and relatives and community leaders, or whatever is being modeled by those in the public spotlight, most will eventually start marching in step with all of the other sleepwalkers and sleeptalkers and will just “play the game,” whichever game they might find and settle into playing.
Most will become a part of the 97% on the planet who unquestioningly accept the teachings of whichever organized religion their parents introduced them to. A few will be pulled away from dogma and introduced to "spirituality" (which claims to involve things of a far-higher plane than religion). Some will be pulled into groups whose members pass on their mythical and myth-based and superstition-based belief systems.
All will become "unteachable" except for the few who never got past those original, internal sensations which were emanating from within, from “the inner guru” or “the inner resource.” Thus, all will feel dis-eased (by the effects of the Ultimate Sickness); few will ever even recognize their dis-ease because most have become dissociated as a result of their programming, conditioning, etc.;
therefore, even the few who were originally engaged in a quest for answers - but who were forced off course by those influencing them - will not return to the "path" which they had only begun to consider during a brief period in the past.
While most among the masses will march off in their sleep - just as they were programmed and conditioned to do - in order to receive their weekly or daily doses of the mental opiates served up in churches and other sky cults and in synagogues and in temples and in mosques and in communes and, yes, even in ashrams;
and while others who are following their orders to keep coming back will march off in their sleep to attend their daily meetings - just as they have been re-programmed to do; and while a few will find something mythical or supposedly "extraordinary" which now blocks them from being in touch with reality; only a few will stop seeking along those conventional avenues and move to the road less traveled.
A few might finally ask the question “Who am I, really?” and then move into what often becomes a lifetime of seeking (driven by magical and deep and philosophical and theoretical and dreamy thinking). Fewer still will reach an awareness of their Original Nature when nothing was known, nothing was thought, nothing was said, and nothing was done because there was no “one” to know or think or say or do anything.
Only a few with move beyond “I am really something” and “I am really somebody” and reach, via the Self-Inquiry process, the conclusion that “I Am Really Something Special in an Other-Worldly Way” and “I Am Really That Which is Something Supreme.”
And only fewer still (per Maharaj’s final guesstimate, “one in ten million”) will reach a state that is void of any sense of “WHO-ness” or “beingness” or “non-beingness” and will then, for the remainder of the manifestation, be able to just be, finally being truly free (by virtue of the fact that they have reached a state of “zero concepts,” zero beliefs, zero identities, and a state with no "Identity," either).
Tomorrow: More on “Being Somebody” vs. “Not Concluding That One Is Somebody or Something” and merely being instead.
To be continued.
NEW OFFER:
Watch an updated seven-hour streaming video of a retreat with Floyd Henderson which can be viewed by anyone with internet access. (In this video; all seven of the steps on "the path" as taught by Maharaj are explained and discussed.)
If interested; click the button below to pay the fee via PayPal. You will then receive an email which includes the link for you to view the private, unlisted video via an arrangement we have made with YouTube, Inc. You do not have to have a YouTube account to watch this privately streamed video.
(If you do not receive the link promptly, your computer or email provider may have high filter settings. Check your spam and trash folders because some providers automatically transfer emails containing links to those folders.)
To access the seven-hour streaming video of a retreat and begin watching right away, click this "Buy Now" button:
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
[NOTE: The four most recent posts are below. You may access all of the posts in this series and in the previous series and several thousand other posts as well by clicking on the links in the "Recent Posts and Archives" section.]
In addition to the five non-duality books made available without charge by Andy Gugar, Jr. (see “FREEBIES” above), you can now access nearly 3,300 posts for any topics of interest to you.
