TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
ANNOUNCEMENTS
1. [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]
2. 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.
3. 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."
THE SEEDS OF DUALITY WHICH PRODUCE DUALITY'S PROGENY:
Offspring Number Fifty-five =
No Interest in Being Truly Free and Independent
THE MASSES PREFER DEPENDENCY AND CODEPENDENCY AND ATTACHMENT TO THE THINGS WHICH ROB PERSONS OF THEIR FREEDOM
To expand on the connection between being "preference-free" and being totally free, consider the state of four men whose cases have been witnessed over the last month:
(1) One is near suicidal because the woman he was living with left him when she discovered that he was grooming another woman in the wings to move in if the present live-in left. Why take such action?
"Because," he said, "he does not want to be alone." (His persona's preference for "company in prison" rather than being "alone but free" - free of the misery of personality entrapment - is driving his suffering.)
(2) A second is miserable because his wife "used him and took his money before leaving with a man even richer than he." And even after finding out that she had been involved in an ongoing relationship with the other man during the marriage, and even after she admitted that she never cared a whit about him, the husband is miserable because he wants her to come back, noting that "she is gorgeous." (His personas have a preference for a particular, outward appearance and how he thinks he was perceived when she was on his arm.)
(3 and 4) The circumstances with the other two men are similar, also being "preference-bound" rather than "preference-free," also being driven by the fear-and-desire-based agendas of the personas which they want to maintain.
To be preference-bound is to be driven by a duality-based value system, forever dealing with preferences for “good” vs. “bad”; “right” vs. “wrong”; “better” vs. “worse”; etc.
To be preference-free is to abide with a non-dual perspective in all things and in all ways, thus avoiding the consequences which Yeshu’a said result from being preference-bound with a duality-based agenda. He said:
“A dual-minded person is unstable in all ways.” The dual-minded masses have no freedom from being unstable, chaotic, disordered, confused, and frenzied.
Those examples reveal further blockages to total freedom:
A. personality, for it is personality that is the source of all "preferences," "desires," "wishes," and "hopes." To be driven by preferences is to be driven by personas, roles, false identities, personality, ego-states, stage characters . . . call it what you will; and,
B. the prevailing delusion among the non-Realized, namely, if something which is a part of the relative existence, and which is thought to be "good," and which, therefore, has been desired . . .
if whatever that is happens to manifest (be that a relationship, a job, a house, whatever), then the delusion is that it can be permanently set, can be enduring, and will be unending.
What shift must happen in order for . . .
(1) freedom from the disappointment and misery and frustration of finding time and again that what is desired or "gained" will never be permanently set, will never be enduring, and will never be unending; and
(2) what do the teachings here offer that allow a fixation in the bliss of THAT to happen, even as the AM-ness continues?
Here is the way Louise (see yesterday’s post) described the shift, starting with "where she was" and then describing "where she is" and what is "different" as a result of having completed the "journey" here:
"The early contacts with you raised the issue of feeling imprisoned by: the demands of the teenager; the difficulties of single parenting; the day job; and the non-realized state (especially glimpsing what was perceived as the blissful state and then returning to imprisoned reality).
"The pointer you offered was: this is all occurring at the level of experience. As you described in the Goldilocks Syndrome, there is no stability in manifest consciousness which is always changing. To attempt to find stability there is like building a house on sinking sand and expecting it to stand firm.
"To free me from this self-created imprisonment, the question you asked me is: what is that changeless state, that is beyond these vagaries of good and bad, stable and unstable, clarity and lack of clarity."
"Maharaj would say: set up camp there. Until that pointer is grasped by the seeker, the experience of duality and therefore instability will persist. Here, the relative life details remain unchanged, but the view is entirely different."
The "relative life details remain unchanged"? Yes, to the degree that the relative challenges of raising a teenager as a single parent remain and to the degree that some always-challenging employment must continue in order to provide for the basic requirements of two people.
Might the relative details in some other instances change? Of course: with some other seekers, there can be a movement away from chaotic relations, from noisiness, from undue busy-ness, from generating crises, and / or from developing an addiction to chaos because of overwhelming boredom.
But the Ultimate Sickness has a far firmer hold on the four men mentioned earlier who, unlike Louise early on, have never even "glimpsed the blissful state."
And "the view is entirely different"? Yes. It is recalled that when Louise moved from one cottage to another, she found that the view of the lovely, peaceful, and even blissful garden was obscured because muck and grime had accumulated for years on the glass of the window and blocked the view of the garden from one of her rooms as a result of that buildup of contaminants.
If you are willing to seek out guidance from a “realized nisargan,” then you will have found "A Window Cleaner," so to speak. You will have found a speck of consciousness that understands the muck and grime that obscures your view are really the concepts and ideas and beliefs that are driving you;
that understands why you cannot possibly view the beauty and peace and bliss; that understands how the muck and grime were set in place via years of accumulated programming and conditioning and acculturation and domestication;
that understands exactly why you think what you think, say what you say, and do what you do (even as you believe there is some "you" that is determining all of that); and that understands that it is all of the "not-you's" - all of the personalities that you have assumed or that were cast upon you - that are driving all of your thoughts and words and deeds.
That “nisargan” not only understands the roots of the insanity and ignorance that is driving the four men mentioned earlier, but also knows exactly how freedom could come to them if they would but follow the seven-step "path" to total freedom from the muck and grime;
from the inability to see clearly; from the inability to shift beyond the flux and chaos of their relative lives; from the ability to fixate in the only state where such fixation can happen.
The fact is, though, that those four are exactly like all among the non-Realized masses: the only thing that they are more afraid of than freedom is total freedom. So it is, but so it need not be. At this point, they have no option. At this point, maybe You do.
All that persons are afraid of, they are afraid of because they take themselves to be . . . persons. (Do you see the trap, the conundrum, the "Catch-22" involved there?) That is to say, there can be no fear unless there is first an assumed persona with an agenda.
The four men referenced above have no option at this point other than to pursue a mirage, other than to try to defend a mirage, and other than to engage in the futile effort of trying to convert that which is temporary into that which is permanent.
They may as well become alchemists and try to convert lead into gold.
They may as well go the route of Alonso Quixano and lose their sanity; and lose the ability to see “the world” for what it is; and prefer to imagine that they are living out the life of a noble knight; and dress up as Sir Quixote of La Mancha and spend their relative existence believing that mirages are real and then tilting at windmills which are imagined to be enemy giants.
The planet is filled with Quixotes who cannot differentiate the true from the false, who cannot differentiate windmills from giants, who cannot differentiate perceived enemies from actual, relative challenges, and who – as a result – have lost their freedom because they are trapped in their fear of thing imagined and not real at all.
You, though, might be in a position where you understand that the tried-and-true means by which total freedom can come is right here before you. You might be standing at the fork in the road.
Shall you continue along the same route and experience the same consequences, or is "the road that has not yet been taken" calling you? Shall you continue to try to find stability at "the level of experience," or might you be ready to find stability at the level of reality?
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"
--Yeshu'a (Jesus)
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.
[That said, would that the popes who have shown the courage to reject a core concept of their dogma - namely, "hell" - would find the additional courage required to question the very existence of their institution in light of the centuries-long cover-up of their history of raping children and in light of the mental and emotional and psychological scarring of billions of their members past and present.
And that need for courage also applies as questions need to be asked about why so many other sky cults are still being supported and allowed to continue to exist as well. When certain types of programming and conditioning have been shown to blind the masses, they should end. Will they? Not likely. Why?
Because what the masses think and say and do is most influenced by the international crime families which hold sway over the masses as criminals conduct their planet-wide operations. What are the major international crime families and which are the most influential and have the largest memberships?
The Mafia / La Cosa Nostra; the Catholic Church (with it 1.2 billion followers); Protestant and Evangelical Churches (with over 1.2 billion followers) like the one I was raised in where the youth director molested and sexually assaulted young girls; big business which has long created environments in which people have been abused; powerful political bodies like the U.S. Congress, etc., etc., etc.)
With all of those crime families, neither the followers nor the leadership ever voluntarily step down or shut down their criminal activities. Be they gangs, organized crime families, religions, big business, politicians, etc., they all want control and they all want power and they all want money, and nothing internal will interfere with the driving forces at play.
The masses must demand that all those in charge must step down and their groups and institutions must shut down, and there's the real problem because the continuation of their crimes are enabled not as much by the people running such crime organizations as they are enabled by the masses of people who - wanting some perceived "payoff" - remain involved with them and give them money and support them and aid and abet the continued existence of those criminal enterprises and thus facilitate the ability of church criminals and political criminals and other types of criminals to continue to commit their crimes.]
Here's
the direct link to the VIDEO VERSION
of the "Awakening Together" satsang session with Regina and Jacqueline referenced earlier, 18 MARCH 2018
https://youtu.be/k24ro24uMbo
If preferred, here's
the direct link to the AUDIO VERSION
of that session.
https://awakening-together.org/awakening-together-satsang-with-floyd-henderson/
