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]
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SUNDAY, 18 APRIL 2018, FROM 6:30-8:00 P.M., CST.
[Some have asked how they can listen to or watch the satsang. Information about that has been sent from the organizers and is available at the end of the post.]
To review the key pointers being discussed at this point:
The most influential obstacles of all to realizing and being free 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."
A man who was abused as a child by a priest. man approached and asked for a way "to be guided to a state of realization and freedom without their having to buy into dogma."
The popular venues where seekers seek (or don't) have a 5000+-year history of failing to set persons free of their distorted and delusional and freedom-blocking and independence-blocking belief systems. venues.
Thus it should be clear why Maharaj eventually advised seekers to avoid those, leading to this totally different option:
REALIZING WITHOUT DOGMA, WITHOUT CONTINUOUS SPIRITUAL PRACTICES, AND WITHOUT A PREOCCUPATION WITH “THE NATURE OF REALITY AND THINGS NOUMENAL”
Those that truly understand all of the “phases” or “stages” involved in "Maharaj’s journey” (or in "Floyd's journey") also understand why some speak accurately of “a long and arduous journey” when discussing what seekers typically go through during their quest for whatever it is that they think they are searching for.
Maharaj’s “journey” was certainly a long and arduous one, but the end result was this: after he found that
(A) religion / the mythical method was not the Ultimate Medicine for the Ultimate Sickness; and after he found that
(B) spirituality was not the Ultimate Medicine for the Ultimate Sickness; and after he found that
(C) “Self-Inquiry” was not the Ultimate Medicine for the Ultimate Sickness; and after he found that
(D) neither mystical talks nor mystical “work” was the Ultimate Medicine for the Ultimate Sickness
and
after he realized that the Ultimate Sickness was rooted in - and aggravated by - what he identified as “ignorance, stupidity and insanity,” then and then only did he offer a version of the Ultimate Medicine which could replace the long and arduous "journey" which methods “A,” “B,” “C,” and “D” above always guarantee.
Lao Tzu said that “the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step,” and that has always been accepted as the marching orders for those who are totally subsumed in their use of either method “A,” “B,” “C,” or “D": "You must be prepared to take a long 'journey'; following a short and simple 'path' will not do." Maybe yes; maybe no.
Maharaj’s religious / mythical approach and then his spiritual efforts and then his mystic and supernatural "Self-Inquiry"-instead-of-“self-inquiry” focus and his “Self-Inventory-rather-than-self-inventory" focus did what methods "A through D" always do: they normalize a thousand-mile journey (or a multi-thousand-mile-journey nowadays) although a seven step “path” would take one far more easily to what should be the actual objective (namely, freedom from the roots and symptoms of the Ultimate Sickness: “ignorance, stupidity, and insanity”).
Though he never enumerated the steps on a "1 through 7" list, Maharaj did discuss the same seven steps in the process used here. He advised seekers that they “. . . should go back, reverse, to the source” and to that they should “follow the same path by which you came” in order to reach the actual objective of “going to zero concepts” (and thereby being restored to sanity) by following a simple seven-step “path” rather than undergoing a long and arduous “journey.”
The "path" coming in had seven steps which resulted in the Ultimate Sickness, so the reverse "path" also has seven steps as well, each of which must be taken to un-do the bastardizing and consciousness-blocking effects of the "coming in" process which was dominated by faulty and perverted and bizarre programming and conditioning and domestication and acculturation and brainwashing and indoctrination.
Here, also, the same seven-step “path,” rather than a long and arduous “journey,” is recommended (also after having tried both, just as Maharaj did).
Consider the alternative:
If using plan “A” above, religion will be a birth-canal-to-the-grave-or-funeral-pyre process. You're never finish. You are to worship deities or a deity daily and you are to support the goals of your (actually, your parents') religion regularly with your prayers, your presence, your gifts and your service.
If using plan “B” above, you are to perform daily exercises in order to remain spiritually fit because spirituality only offers a 24-hour reprieve from whatever ails you.
If using plan “C” above then you are destined to move (mentally) from accepting lesser identities to adopting the greatest identity of all and then tout forever the fact that you are something "Supreme.”
If using plan “D” above, then expect a “journey” which moves you away from being in touch with reality and Reality and relocates you (mentally) from the AM-ness and shifts you to Foo-Foo Land.
The options became clear to Maharaj:
OPTION 1: a long and arduous and never-ending “journey”; or
OPTION 2: a simple, seven-step “path.”
In fact, he simplified the process even further by saying that a four-step “path” would be “enough,” transitioning beyond all of the work of Self-Inquiry and doing a simple “self-inquiry” and finding out who you are not. It is that process, if completed, which can shift one beyond the third-step assumption of “good roles” (such as “The Super Religious One” or “The Spiritual Giant” or “Something “Supreme”) and allow for a fourth-step return to the unconditional happiness of “The Child Ignorance Stage” / “The Child No-Knowing State” which was also a “No Concepts and No Beliefs and No Identity State”. See? Four steps on a "path" in contrast to a "long, thousand-mile journey."
Actually, it is not necessary, Maharaj said, to do all of the spiritual or mythical or mystical work to try to find out “Who You Are.” Instead, the “self-inquiry” process can make clear that we are nothing – nothing personal and nothing identifiable. It is the “Self-Inquiry” process which deludes persons into thinking that they are “Something Special or Supreme.” It is the “self-inquiry” process which can make clear that we certainly are “nothing special” so we most certainly are not “Something Special or Supreme.”
It should be clear, therefore, why Maharaj shifted away from religion entirely and away from spirituality entirely when he finally realized that the popular forms of “the journey” lead to life-long entrapment; when he finally realized that the Ultimate Sickness is a mind sickness; and when he finally realized that a simple “path” can lead to freedom - once and for all - as opposed to being involved in a lifetime “journey” which only leads to
. . . the assumption of more supposedly-virtuous (but totally false) identities, to
. . . the assumption of supposedly noble and honorable and respectable Identities, and to
. . . the hypocrisy which, Maharaj made clear, always accompanies the assumption of "virtue" as a personality trait which is assumed by those who are trapped in beliefs about their “new and improved and good personas” vs. their "former, bad personas."
The simple “path” is a means by which one can eventually abide naturally; methods “A” through “D” above guarantee that one will abide in a very complicated and busy and unnatural (but supposedly “supernatural”) fashion.
The “path” can be short and easy; the “journey” as laid out by “A” through “D” will be long and arduous.
Finally, a truly simple and freeing alternative is available.
To be continued.
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