TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
ANNOUNCEMENTS
1. Following eye surgery, clear focusing has not returned and eye strain results from anything other than a brief exposure to a computer screen; moreover, two follow up procedures must be arranged to "fine tune" the effects of the surgery; hence, the postings will be brief for awhile.
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."
From another site visitor yesterday:
I'm writing to confess that I've obviously been suffering from some self-deceiving pride.
You've mentioned pride (of the "false" variety) as a trait of fanatics and pride yesterday as one of the sins which some religious people call "deadly."
You've also said that more of humanity's problems have been caused by ego-state assumption and the egotism that always comes along with that than anything else. I agree with your point. Too, growing up, I heard "pride comes before a fall" and have continued to agree with that maxim also.
I've also long seen how pride has blocked me from seeing truth and even being "decent company" for friends and family and co-workers. And I've also seen how many times since I started seeking via non-duality and the nisarga yoga and thought, "I've finally got it!" that some awareness comes along and casts light on my pride-based distortion. You did that yesterday.
I've asked many people the same question that the man you quoted yesterday asked: "How can these religious people tolerate and even support a man for president who is an admitted sex predator?"
Yet never once did I see the obvious, meaning, their historic practice of tolerating and supporting their own leaders who have been revealed to be sex predators. There it was, right before my very eyes for decades, yet I didn't connect their support for predatory religious leaders with their support for a predatory political leader.
I've been on this path for years. Why am I yet so blind?
The reply: At least you're seeing that you're still not seeing all that can be seen. Many are blind but still believe they see quite well, thank you very much. With you, the "clear perceiver" (the so-called "knower") had been there but does not always send into consciousness what it can perceive ("know").
Consider the relevance of this pointer from Maharaj:
"Surely you cannot say the knower was absent. The experience of things and thoughts was not there, that is all. But the absence of experience too is experience. It is like entering a dark room and saying ‘I see nothing’. A man blind from birth knows not what darkness means. Similarly, only the knower knows that he does not know. Sleep is merely a lapse in memory. Life goes on."
Most do not know what they do not know. All that remains for you is some additional time spent with one who sees clearly to point out what you are looking at but not seeing clearly.
Maharaj: "In due course a guru appears to inspire us to practise Yoga (here, the Nisargan Yoga) and a ripening takes place as a result of which the immemorial night of ignorance dissolves before the rising sun of wisdom. But in reality nothing happened. The sun is always there - there is no night to it."
What did he say is the culprit that makes that happen? "The mind."
Clear seeing cannot happen unless there is light. It is the darkness of the mind which always blocks out the light.
I was recently in Austin and my granddaughter and I went for a walk. At one point, she stopped abruptly and pointed toward the landscaping in front a house and said, Look!" I said, "Yes, those are pretty plants, aren't they." She said with a chastising tone, "No! Cat!" and pointed again.
Recent surgical procedures which have had some complications have left the sight blurred as I await a second procedure. By squinting and looking closely, in the shadows of the plants, there it was . . . a cat.
She saw what I was not able to see easily. So it is with "the fully realized." They see easily what others are not able to see easily or at all, even though all might be looking at the same thing.
So the stage can be set for conflict as a result of faulty seeing:
One says, Look at that scoundrel."
Another looks at the same person and says, "He is my hero, my idol, my deity personified."
Let's try using the following as an illustration. Suppose I show you this picture:
and ask,
F.: "What do you see?"
The answer might be: "A beautiful ocean-side vista at sunset."
F.: "Okay. And did you notice the rock duck in the picture as well?"
The reply might be,
V.: "I don't see any duck - not a wood duck, a mallard duck, or a rock duck, whatever that is."
F.: "Well look again at this version of the picture:
"Oh, that's what you were talking about. I was looking out in the water and in the distance sky. I didn't see what was right in front of me that you were inviting me to see. I didn't even understand the basic term. You weren't talking about a real duck but were seeing the likeness of a duck in the rock formation."
"The fully realized," free of all of the blockages which had been stored in the mind, can see clearly and can see things - as did my granddaughter - which others don't see or never even notice at all.
Two doctors have told me that once I have the next procedure on my eyes, I will see very clearly. (I just have to wait two months because of a nonsensical insurance timing restriction involving a 90-day waiting period before they'll cover the multi-thousand dollar cost. The delay is for their benefit, and certainly not mine. So it is.)
Similarly, as you continue along the path, someday your vision may well become sharper and sharper.
Maharaj said: "To know that consciousness and its content are but reflections - changeful and transient - is the focusing of the real. The refusal to see the snake in the rope is the necessary condition for seeing the rope."
[Yet many who are naive or ignorant because of their mind-content-blocked consciousness and their resultant poor seeing also refuse to see the snake that appears to be a rope.]
Consider:
Questioner: "When do I know that I have discovered truth?"
Maharaj: "When the idea ‘this is true’ / ‘that is true’ does not arise. Truth
does not assert itself; it is in the seeing of the false as false and rejecting it. It is useless to search for truth, when the mind is blind to the false. It must be purged of the false completely before truth can dawn on it"
and
"There is no such state as seeing the real. Who is to see what? You can only be the real — which you are, anyhow. The problem is only mental. Abandon false ideas, that is all. There is no need of true ideas. There aren’t any."
To be continued.
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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.
