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]
CLICK THE LINK AN UPCOMING SATSANG FOR INFORMATION ON
A LIVE SATSANG WITH FLOYD
TO BE BROADCAST ON THE INTERNET ON
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”
From yesterday:
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” laid out by “A” through “D” will be long and arduous. Finally, a truly simple and freeing alternative is available.
But “freed” from want?
Here, for the 29 years from 1989 to the present, the non-dual message has been offered to seekers who have come this way. When seekers come, the same process which Maharaj used has also been used here. The seekers have been allowed to ask questions and then questions were asked of them with one goal: to find out where each is on the seven-step path and what they need to understand to move on to the next step and then complete the entire process.
In order to provide level-appropriate pointers, seekers that come here or that arrange Skype or telephone sessions are asked, “What are you seeking? What is it that you think you want or need?”
More than any other single response, a large majority have said, “Freedom.” So they are clear on that much, yet they almost all exhibit confusion and bewilderment when asked the next question: “Freedom from what? What is robbing you of freedom?”
The “single response” goes by the wayside as hundreds of people or things are named which seekers think are preventing them from being free. Most also mention at some point an association they have made between (a) some freedom-blocking restriction or restrictions which they are experiencing and (b) their inability to be happy, much less blissful or joyous.
In almost every case, what they think or assume or believe is depriving them of freedom and happiness is never correctly identified. Persons do not have a clue why they do not “feel free” and do not “feel happy” and do not feel “joy or bliss.” Regarding the latter, as discussed in the eBook entitled What BLISS Is and What BLISS Is Not, most have no clue at all about what bliss even is. Similarly, most have no clue at all about what is blocking them from being free and happy and joyous.
If a fox or bear or coyote or cougar or bobcat is snared in a trap, they need not - and cannot - understand what has trapped them, what is robbing them of their freedom, why they are unhappy, and why they are most certainly not experiencing any joy. That is because they do not have a mind to do so. All they know is that they want to be free.
Every human, unlike every other living thing on the planet, does have a mind, and unlike every animal that has ever stepped onto a trap and been ensnared, neither a mind nor understanding has anything to do with the animal getting free. Only human entrapment involves a mind and a lack of understanding, so understanding is required for humans to be set free from whatever might be ensnaring them (including the content of their minds).
Next, to the statement earlier regarding the requirement to understand in order “to move on to the next step and then complete the entire process.” The process is a means by which persons can become free and, subsequently, happy. But what is the process? Confusion and bewilderment also result when the process is not understood.
Enlightenment, for example, is merely a happening – or a series of happenings – that must take place for any sought-after shifts to happen. Some light has to shine on the fact that misunderstandings are at play. In the dull light, a rope can be misperceived as a snake (and snakes can be misperceived as harmless ropes); yet, among the non-Realized, misperceiving is not compartmentalized. There are not a few things that are misperceived. All things are misperceived.
[Maharaj: “All perceivables are stains. The entire universe is a stain.”]
Enlightenment involves reaching that understanding, but the hidden agendas of assumed and assigned ego-states and the egotism which defends them will usually prevent the masses from ever reaching that state.
Liberation is not the end, either, though those seeking freedom might think so. Liberation actually refers to being liberated from all personal / personality identification, yet what of all of the other remaining obstacles, such as learned ignorance and insanity? All of that too must go as well, so liberation is not the “end game,” either.
Then consider Realization. There are actually stages to the Realization process, including realizing that the misperceptions mentioned earlier are present; relatedly, realizing that one is not even capable of differentiating true from false;
realizing that ignorance was taught and learned and that one needs to be freed from all of that ignorance to even begin to be free; realizing that personality disorders developed as a result of personality identifications; and realizing that many of those disorders have now disintegrated into full blown neuroses and psychoses which must be treated.
[In the end, Maharaj said that realization is nothing more than the state which comes "when all belief in all learned ignorance is discarded."]
Had Maharaj not come to understand that dogma does not treat the Ultimate Sickness, then he’d have continued to talk to the end about svargam and narakam and karma and nirvana and multiple birth-life-death cycles and various planes of existence; too, he would not have said, “I have no faith in anything which has ever been told, not even what has been told by the Vedas. Only my own experience.”
Had Maharaj not come to understand that spirituality does not treat the Ultimate Sickness, then he’d have continued to talk to the end about spiritual topics instead of telling seekers to “just give up spirituality” and "whatever spiritual things you aspire to know are all happening in this objective world, in the illusion. All this is happening in the objective world. All is dishonesty. There is no truth in this fraud.” And he would not have advised them to abandon spiritual work and to follow "their normal inclinations" instead.
But what Maharaj did come to realize was that the Ultimate Sickness is a mental sickness - a sickness rooted not in a “sick spirit” or “spiritual malady” but rooted in the mind as a result of faulty programming and conditioning and domestication and acculturation and indoctrination and brainwashing. As a result, he also came to understand that the proper version of the Ultimate Medicine is a version which un-does all of that “mind stuff.”
The process he endorsed at the end involves de-programming, un-conditioning, undoing the effects of domestication, undoing the effects of acculturation, undoing the effects of indoctrination, and undoing the effects of brainwashing. [He said, "If you seek reality you must set yourself free of all backgrounds, of all cultures, of all patterns of thinking and feeling."]
If you have a bleeding wound, you do not need someone to take a knife and make the incision even-deeper. That is why you do not need “a program” (which is properly named because it is merely re-programming you).
Instead, the need of all among the non-realized masses is the need to be de-programmed completely; thus, visitors here are told that there is no one here who wants them to believe anything and that – to the contrary – they are invited to discard all concepts, ideas, notions, perceptions, theories (a.k.a., “beliefs”) and to un-learn all;
they are also told that they were taught ignorance via faulty programming, conditioning etc.; and they are told as well that - rather than seeking someone to teach them more - they might consider finding someone who is about the business of un-teaching all in order that all can be un-learned.
Yet even all of that has been shared, some still ask, "But 'freed from' means freed from what, exactly?" So, more tomorrow.
To be continued.
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How guests can listen to and / or watch the satsang.
(To watch, it is recommended that you set up PalTalk - a free service - in advance.)
From the organizers:
You can invite guests to listen to the Satsang interview live. There are two ways to listen:
a - They can go to our website and listen on internet radio. This is the link:
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Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
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