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."
4. My assistant found two paperback copies of the book co-authored with Mark Houston, A Twelve-Step Journey to SELF-Transformation, a potentially-effective gift for someone struggling with an addiction to alcohol (or to anything else, really). The book lists for $19.95 + Priority Mail shipping. To purchase, you may use the donate button at the top right of this page and include a note that the $27.60 is for the Twelve-Step book. Regrets to international visitors but this is only available within the U.S. because international shipping rates are prohibitive and time-consuming and cannot be tracked.
TO REVIEW THE RATIONALE FOR GOING BACK AT LEAST TO THE 4TH STEP:
Again, Maharaj advised: "Reverse. Go back." Okay, but go back to what?
Go back at least to "The Child No-Knowing State."
Why go back?
The key consideration for today is this:
That which is forever changing with persons is their perception of what they believe to be . . . valuable.
As an infant, whatever is valued is valued on a totally subconscious level. That has to be the case since no mind exists initially. A mind will be formed with the start and continuation of programming, conditioning, acculturation, domestication, indoctrination and brainwashing which will be used to implant, eventually, a countless number of beliefs.
So what is valued initially involves for the most part only food, dry clothing, and comfortable ambient temperatures. Not much else was valued because nothing else was known other than the basics which provided comfort.
By the time a child reaches the age of two, it comes to know “its separate self” and that self begins to desire many other things. Ironically, some of those things give pleasure or comfort (like ice cream) but can also give pain (like too much ice cream).
Then the number of things or people or places which are valued begins to increase at rocket speed, and what the pre-school child values differs from what the child values in school.
What persons desired through high school will differ from what is valued while in college. And what is valued after college will be different still. Then, what the person desires is a job, but often it is determined to be valueless, so the person wants a different job.
Then a particular mate might be desired, only to find later that that mate is not valued and another mate is desired.
Then the sequence of valuing something and then devaluing it happens around houses and cities and cars and furniture. Non-duality offers an understanding about upgrading and downgrading, actions which ego-states are forever engaging in. How to be free of all of that flux and instability and chaos? Go back.
Why else go back?
1. To have another chance to enjoy once again the unconditional happiness of the non-programmed, unconditioned child.
Maharaj: "Pleasure and pain alternate. Happiness is unshakable."
"What you can seek and find is not the real thing. Find what you have never lost, find the inalienable."
"Pleasure is the seed of pain"
and
"Pain is the background of all your pleasures. You want them because you suffer. On the other hand, the very search for pleasure is the cause of pain. It is a vicious circle."
"The desire for bliss creates pain. Thus bliss becomes the seed of pain. The entire universe of pain is born of desire. Give up the desire for pleasure and you will not even know what is pain.”
And why else go back?
2. To be freed from being driven unconsciously by the hidden agendas of multiple personalities / false identities.
Maharaj said: "Pleasure is about what we desire. Pain is about what we fear."
See that all desires and all fears are rooted in the hidden agendas of personalities, of false identities.
The catch: when you get what you think you want, it never proves long-term to be what you want. All pleasure and pain can only be experienced during the relative, and the relative is forever changing, so perspectives about what is valuable and what is not valuable are forever changing.
(And if you end up with O-CD or end up with one suffering from O-CD - which will further complicate that trend - buckle your seat belt.)
Humans usually want what they do not have and usually end up not wanting what they do have.
Maharaj identified the great irony: Whatever gives you pleasure will eventually give you pain, and whatever gives you the most pleasure will eventually give you the greatest pain.
Love the effects of alcohol or drugs? Just wait.
Want to follow the dictates of a religion which endorses unchecked breeding and thereby receive the pleasure of having received “attaboys” and “attagirls” from church leaders when you expand their membership rolls and their future tithing income by way of your excessive breeding? Just wait.
Love the pleasure that comes with acculturating without anticipating the costs of maintaining all which has been accumulated? Just wait.
Were you a male raised by coddling parents who passed down a message that you are entitled to be taken care of? Have you looked for rich mates all your life as a result? Are you glad that you have found one of those? Just wait.
Were you a female raised by a father who still adheres to the worn out and chauvinistic beliefs rooted in the laws of primogeniture where the eldest son gets all, the other sons get whatever scraps remain, and the daughters are taught to "find a first-born son who has inherited the farm and the assets and allow him to take care of you?" Were you raised to believe that “a man is a plan?” Happy to have gotten such a man? Just wait.
Why else go back?
3. To perform a total delete on the hard drive of the computer called “your mind”
and
4. to escape entrapment by returning to the no-mind state.
Maharaj: “Pleasure and pain are states of mind.”
"Between the banks of pain and pleasure the river of life flows. It is only when the mind refuses to flow with life, and gets stuck at the banks, that it becomes a problem."
“When the discriminative mind comes into being and creates distinctions, pleasure and pain arise.”
He noted that “Pleasure and pain alternate. Happiness is unshakable.”
As a child in “The No-Knowing State,” discomfort or pain from hunger or chafing might have happened. The pleasure of drinking milk might have happened. But those are extremes, and extremes give birth to instabilities. By why of contrast, what is steady?
Not a sense of either bliss or misery but - if fed, dry, rested and in a comfortable ambient temperature - a sense of otherwise unconditional happiness, and that last manifested during "The Child No-Knowing State."
And why else go back?
5. To escape entrapment in all forms of going and doing and zooming in order that a nisarga / natural lifestyle can manifest. And that includes being freed from all of the going and doing and zooming involved with maintaining the identity of the “The Super Religious One” and involves being freed from all of the spiritual workaholism required to maintain the identity of "The Super Seeker" and “The Spiritual Giant."
Maharaj asked: “Does a happy man seek happiness?” Of course not. That would be insane.
Those addicted to seeking are missing out as much as any on enjoying the unconditional happiness which comes with going back and giving up all of the needless work and needless going and needless doing and zooming which false identities inspire.
The alternative?
Return to abiding in the manner in which you lived when originally in "The Child No-Knowing (Fourth Step) State."
And then . . . relax and take it easy, for a change. Just a suggestion, of course.
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
If preferred, here's
the direct link to the AUDIO VERSION
of that session.
