TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
ANNOUNCEMENTS
1. Posting may be interrupted as certain post-eye-surgery complications continue.
2. [See the offer following this post for details on how you can watch a retreat on video which includes a detailed discussion of all seven of the steps on the path as used by Maharaj]
3. Here, with those who are still driven to talk about "God," the "Son of God," the "Holy Spirit," "Buddha," "Krishna," etc., etc., etc., the invitation to them is to view those as verbs, not nouns. See the end of the post for the full meaning and implications of that.
4. A new video ("Number Ten: Awakening Together Satsang, March 2018") has now been added in the far right column of this page, offering the opportunity to view a recent 2018 satsang session with Floyd being interviewed by Regina and Jacqueline of "The Awakening Together Group."
FINDING WHO YOU ARE NOT RATHER THAN WHO YOU ARE:
Setting Aside Not Only the Phony "Bad" Identifications
But Also
the Phony "Good" and "Highest" and "Supreme" Identifications As Well
In conclusion:
Maharaj said that, "Someday, science shall advance to the point that it will prove the truth of the non-dual teachings.” Remember, too, that a review of the transitions he underwent show that he was also a scientist of sorts, experimenting with various forms of the Ultimate Medicine, witnessing objectively, setting aside what he saw was not working effectively, and trying another method which might work.
Early on, his family exposed him to only a light dose of Hinduism (they were even meat-eaters, God forbid, I mean, gods and goddesses forbid); therefore, he was not as attached to religion as many in India were. That and his Personality Type Four’s propensity for rebellion and tendency to march to beat of a different drummer may have set the stage for his openness to the non-dual message.
Yet his guru ordered that he was to use a religion / non-dual compound version of the Ultimate Medicine. Turns out that the earliest visitors to the loft were “guinea pigs” in his religious / non-dual laboratory.
He would eventually set that combination aside and try a spiritual / non-dual compound version of the Ultimate Medicine with a heavy dose of Self-Inquiry as well.
The results of any of those versions of the Medicine, obviously, did not impress him.
Thereafter he began to focus almost entirely on the psychological roots of the Ultimate Sickness. Early on, in talks transcribed in the book I AM THAT, he spoke of the use of the mind to move beyond the mind. Eventually, he made clear that the mind must go entirely by reaching a state of “zero concepts.” Later, he even stopped offering those mind-related pointers and, in fact, told seekers to “stop reading I AM THAT altogether and to listen to my current (later) talks.”
What had he witnessed that eventually led him to set aside the use of any degree of religion or spirituality or Self-Inquiry and to focus on the mental aspects of the Sickness? He came to understand that the use of religion and spiritual and Self-Inquiry methods do not end all identification but only inspire the adoption of supposedly "new and improved" and “really good” and “better” and even “the best” identities / Identify.
See? It always comes back not to having too little dogma; not to having a spiritual malady or sick spirit; and not to a failure to know the "Supreme Self" or to believe that You Are God. It always comes back to the debilitating condition which the handicapping "conjoined twins" of mind and personality lead to.
Consider how personality drives persons to become attached to religion and / or to transition into spirituality when they feel that their spirituality makes them different from and better than those who are religious only.
The results of research conducted by Steven Reiss, a professor of psychology and psychiatry at Ohio State University, revealed sixteen basic human psychological (perceived) needs which motivate people to seek meaning or answers through religion and to become attached to their religion or spirituality.
He found that “people are not drawn to religion just because of a fear of death or any other single reason. He said that each of the sixteen basic desires outlined in his book influence the psychological appeal of religious behavior. The desires his research uncovered include . . .
power
independence
curiosity
acceptance
order
saving
honor
idealism
social contact
family
status
vengeance
romance
eating
physical exercise
and
tranquility.
Reiss found that the religious people in the study all expressed a strong desire for interdependence. (Related to that, other studies have also found a strong desire for dependency and co-dependency.) Those who were not religious, however, showed a stronger sense of self-reliance and independence.
Yesterday, the invitation was to seek truth and awareness by understanding which specific ego-states are driving thoughts and words and actions which, in turn, cause persons to cling to their belief in mirages, to “Powers” or “A Power,” and to dogma and spiritual exercises and Self-Inquiry.
Those WHO’s are the personalities / personas which rob persons of the ability to choose and which set them up to be driven blindly by their subconscious influencers and controllers which were set in place by programming and conditioning and domestication and acculturation and indoctrination and brainwashing.
Are you aware enough of the nine basic personality types (the nine basic WHO’s), and are you aware enough of the hidden agendas of those nine types (nine types by the way which you, and all persons, exhibit to one degree or another) in order to be able to understand that those WHO's are driving every thought that is thought and every word that is spoken and every action that is taken?
Those sixteen needs which drive almost all persons (97% on the planet) to remain unquestioningly loyal to one religion or another (which almost always they did not choose but which their parents imposed upon them) do not all manifest equally in every person. They especially manifest differently in persons according to the agendas of the specific personalities which have a higher-than-usual-influence (the degrees of which can be measured exactly by the personality inventory used here).
Therefore, the desires of specific personality types align with the various desires which hook people to religion or which inspire some to advance into the supposedly “higher levels of consciousness” which they think they can attain (or have attained) via spirituality. So what are the sixteen controlling factors?
Power is especially desired by Personality Type Eight Controllers / Bosses.
Independence is especially desired by Personality Type Four Rebels.
Curiosity is especially desired by Personality Type Five Knowledge-Gatherers / Knowers who want to know it all (as well as by Type One Perfectionists who love to know it all in order to reform other and make others over in their own image. See ISIS; see Catholics and Jehovah Witnesses and members of many sects and religions who claim that they are "the only ones who will go to heaven"; etc.)
Acceptance is especially valued by Personality Type Twos who want to be loved by many.
Order is especially desired by Personality Type One Perfectionists (who are especially anal-retentive).
Saving is especially desired by Personality Type Sixes who are usually anxious, fearful, worried, and insecure and by Type Twos who play the roles of Rescuers and Saviors.
Honor is especially desired by Personality Type One Perfectionists.
Idealism is especially valued by Personality Type One Perfectionists.
Social contacts are especially valued by Personality Type Sixes who want to form dependent and co-dependent relationship which can provide a sense of security and met their needs or perceived needs.
Family is especially valued by Personality Type Sixes (who need external support to feel secure) and Type Twos (who feel that families can be a built-in source of the love they did not receive from their fathers during childhood).
Status is especially desired by Personality Type Three Performers / Narcissists.
Vengeance is especially desired by Personality Type Eight Controllers / Bosses / Sociopaths / Psychopaths.
Romance is especially desired by Personality Type Fours.
Eating (with other believers) which is especially desired by Personality Type Nines and Sevens (Nines often being food addicts and Sevens often being addicts . . . to food, alcohol, drugs, sex, shopping, whatever).
Physical exercise is especially valued by Personality Type Three Body-Conscious, Body-Identified Narcissists
and
Tranquility is especially desired by Personality Type Nines who prefer to avoid anything that might upset them.
Are you seeing what Maharaj saw, that it really is all about the mind / personality tandem? Persons want to be at peace and free of anxiety and stress. Anxiety and stress and unhappiness are generated by mental anguish. And what causes mental anguish?
Emotional intoxication. And what drives emotional intoxication? The agendas of personalities, of personas. Feelings are about sensitivity and warmth and caring and understanding and empathizing. The “Realized” feel, but only those trapped in ego-states / false identities / personas / personalities / role playing will emote.
Maharaj was asked, “Do you really care about those of us who come your way?” The answer: “More than you’ll ever know.” Had the question been, "Do you become emotional about those who come your way?" then the answer would have been, “Never.”
Emotions and emotional intoxication are messengers, signaling to you that there is something that is amiss with your psyche, big time.
So what is the solution? Many think . . . “More dogma.” Many think . . . “Being more spiritual.” Many think . . . “Knowing the Supreme Self.”
But all of those have a hidden, mind-and-personality-rooted agenda which drives persons to cling to their attachments, which inspire persons to be obsessive and compulsive about the content of their belief systems; and which take away any and all ability to make conscious choices because persons are always driven by unconscious influences.
Medieval castles were very complex structures. If one were arrested and taken across a drawbridge and it was then drawn up over a moat, then escape was near impossible. The chances of ever being free were decreased with each additional step as the main gates in the barbican were opened and then locked behind the prisoner; as the portcullis was lowered, further blocking access to the main exit;
as the prisoner was lead across the bailey and as the outermost door to the dungeon was unlocked and then locked behind the prisoner; as the prisoner was led from one lower level to another with a series of doors being unlocked and locked while moving farther and farther underground; as one was taken through the main doors of the dungeon which were then locked;
as one was taken through a series of cell blocks with doors being unlocked and locked behind the prisoner; and as the prisoner finally reached a cell at the end of the dungeon, was cast inside, and then watched as those doors were locked there as well.
The programmed and conditioned and acculturated and domesticated and indoctrinated and brainwashed mind is also a complex structure, and the farther one goes into it, the less likely it is that escape from it is possible.
The chances of ever being free are decreased with each additional step as the mind is initially open to believing unquestioningly whatever it is told and as belief systems become locked inside, turning programmed and conditioned persons into prisoners as they become trapped in the bogus beliefs which have been passed down to then from the most ignorant of times;
each belief eventually becomes one of the bars of each person's prison - namely, the mind - which becomes the dark dungeon in which the beliefs of those driven by what Maharaj called "ignorance, stupidity, and insanity" form the cell block in which persons are locked away and left to rot away, imagining that they are free but where they are actually anything but.
In the search from freedom, consider how many doors a prisoner in the final cell of the dungeon would have to pass beyond to finally walk across the drawbridge to total independence; then understand that a prisoner might take dozens of steps and finally reach the open courtyard of the castle and enter into the light for the first time in what seems like forever.
Yet if there is even one final gate that is not opened, even one final portcullis that is never raised, then the prisoner remains as trapped as he or she while in was in the deepest bowels of the castle.
It is the mind which is a storehouse of all which imprisons persons.
John Milton: "The mind . . . in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven”
and
Richard Lovelace: “Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage.”
So what did he identify as that which does make a prison? The mind.
It is the mind which is the storehouse of all which results in a false sense of different-from-ment which – in turn – always leads to a subsequent sense of better-than-ment.
It is the mind, being the storehouse of beliefs about different-from-ment and better-than-ment, which leads to a false sense of separation which then sets the stage for arguments, nonsensical disagreements, fighting, conflict, killing, wars, chaos, pain, misery, and suffering.
It is the mind which is a storehouse of learned ignorance, personality disorders, and the neuroses and psychoses which can follow as personality disorders disintegrate into a state of severe psychic unhealthiness.
Religions and spirituality and philosophies and ideologies and belief systems are not stored in so-called "holy" or "special" or "different books." Most Christians have never read the Bible in its entirety. In fact, Constantine made it a crime - punishable by death - for anyone to read the Bible on his or her own. Only a priest could read and explain the content of the Bible. Nowadays, most still follow that pattern. A majority of Muslims have never read the Quran in its entirety, at least 42.7% of them being illiterate.
Instead, religions and spirituality and philosophies and ideologies have always been stored in the most warped and distorted and twisted and sick place of all: the human mind.
At every step, the long and arduous “path” which was followed here for decades involved dealing with persons who were all determined to use their dogma or exercises or beliefs or methods to add more to the mind, touting the need for more dogma, more spiritual exercises, more philosophy, more ideology, more (but different) beliefs, ad infinitum.
The long and arduous search ended when it became clear that (1) all of the stuff in the mind was the actual source of every problem, the mind being the origin of every problem; and that (2) the solution did indeed call for de-accumulation . . . that is, called for entering into a process of being un-taught all of it; called for entering into a process of un-learning it all;
and called for casting aside all of the nonsense which had been added to and stored in a part of the brain which would be called “the mind” and which would lead to decades of ignorant and nonsensical and insane actions which led to massive levels of misery and suffering that did not end until the mind came to an end.
How to end the mind, the entire content of which can all be summarized with the term, “one’s beliefs”?
Abandon all beliefs. No beliefs? No mind. No mind? No stone walls. No stone walls? Freedom.
As has been noted here, each belief, each assumed persona, and each scrap of learned ignorance which is all stored in the mind . . . each of those becomes one of the many bars which are used to form the prison of the mind.
Want to be freed from prison? Cut away the bars of beliefs; the bars of identifications (or Identification); and the bars of taught and learned ignorance.
Only then can you be free of dualistic thinking, and only free of dualistic thinking can you be truly free, and only if truly free can you be happy. (As Maharaj said, “It really is simple,” yes?)
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Here, with those who are still driven to talk about "God," the "Son of God," the "Holy Spirit," "Buddha," "Krishna," etc., etc., etc., the invitation to them is to view those as verbs, not nouns.
THE EXPLANATION
If looked at as nouns, they point to illusions and are, therefore, a total waste of time to even discuss; if looked at as verbs which are resulting in certain sane but rare behaviors among humanity, then they are worthy of some attention during the relative existence.
Meaning? There are members of certain groups who say things such as "My concept of God in the past was of a weak God, an absentee God, A Santa Claus-type God, a mean, punishing, vindictive God, etc. Today, I am in close contact with a loving and caring God whom I worship and praise and glorify and give thanks to."
The reply to that usually goes like this: "If you are in contact with a God that wants to be worshipped and praised and glorified, then you're dealing with someone like yourself - a narcissist - and hanging out with narcissists will never bring an end to your narcissism (that narcissism evidenced by the fact that you think you are "godly").
Next, in the phrase 'loving and caring God,' any supposed God that truly had her or his act together would tell you that the totally irrelevant part of that phrase is 'God' and that the only part that is relevant is the "loving and caring" part.
"That is, a non-narcissistic god / goddess would say, "I care not an iota about being worshipped and praised and glorified by you or anyone else. How arrogant and insecure and needy would I have to be to want that? Forget the man-made, dreamed up noun 'God' and focus on the 'God as a verb' understanding and then go forth and let loving and caring be verbs - not adjectives - and let them generate the act of love and the act of caring and let those actions manifest through you."
Yeshu'a (Jesus) and Pope John Paul II and Pope Francis were spot on:
"No one shall ever see 'the kingdom of heaven.' It is within"
and
"Heaven and earth shall fade away."
--Yeshu'a (Jesus)
and
"Heaven and hell are not geographic places but are states of mind, nothing more than concepts dreamed up by men."
--Pope John Paul II
"There is no hell."
--Pope Francis, the current pope
[in an interview with journalist Eugenio Scalfari,
a writer used by the Pope to issue off the record
teachings
which become a part of the Papal Magisterium]
Here's
the direct link to the VIDEO VERSION
of the "Awakening Together" satsang session with Regina and Jacqueline referenced earlier, 18 MARCH 2018
If preferred, here's
the direct link to the AUDIO VERSION
of that session.
