TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
ANNOUNCEMENTS
1. [See the offer in gold text 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 green text after today's 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." (See the details in the blue text after this post.)
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.
The pointer being focused upon: With Maharaj, a seven-step approach was initially offered, replaced later by endorsing a four-step approach. Same here.
Next, as promised, relevant quotations from Dennis Waite of the U.K. will now be shared.(It may be noted that some of the takes and vocabulary used with the "Traditional" perspective differ from the "Direct Path / Nisarga" perspective and the vocabulary used here. Today's offerings are for those that would find pointers toward the Truth and there is no requirement that they adumbrate the same "style" of pointers offered here.)
[Continued from yesterday]
QUOTATIONS
from
Dennis Waite
• RE: KNOWING THE SELF: Whatever we can see objectively, we cannot be that. This applies just as much to the idea of a role, that is actually a group of concepts in the mind, as to a physical object that we believe to exist on the other side of the room. Indeed, this is another argument to explain how it is that our real Self must forever elude the mind. We can never know it as an object simply because it is always the subject.
• RE: TRUTH: The most profound wisdom is knowledge of Self. All false conceptions of what this is must be renounced before the Truth can be discovered. Truth is not about acquiring more and more knowledge until some sort of critical mass is attained and the Self is realised - quite the opposite. It is about discarding more and more of the material and immaterial aspects to which the ego has become attached until nothing more is left – the Self is none of these.
• RE: HAPPINESS: This is the ultimate irony. We spend all our efforts looking outside of ourselves for that elusive object or situation which will finally give us lasting happiness. Yet it is the act of looking that takes us away from happiness. Happiness is what remains when searching ceases and we are ‘left’ with our Self - perfect happiness.
• RE: “PURITY” OF MIND: The goal is to be “free of thoughts that distract one from the pursuit of the truth – desire, anger, fear, worry, anticipation etc. Basically any thought that implies that I am in any way separate or limited is necessarily taking us away from the truth. Furthermore, most thoughts relate to ‘objects’ in the world of appearances. The search for truth is inwards to the reality of the self so that all such thoughts are of no value.”
• RE: FAITH: ShraddhA is also what is involved in science when we provisionally accept a working hypothesis, which we then confirm by experimentation. It would not initially be regarded as scientific to accept (or reject) the hypothesis without experiment. Once many scientists have independently confirmed it for themselves, the hypothesis may become a ‘law’. Others then exercise shraddhA in accepting it without conducting the experiments themselves. It is in this sense that the statements in the shruti may be regarded as ‘laws’, since they have been validated many times by Sages.
• RE: THE PROBLEM WITH THOUGHTS: When we first embark upon a study and practice of Advaita, it often seems that we are most nearly our ‘true Self’ when the mind is still and there is the perceptual and conceptual clarity of sattva. In fact, of course, we are always ‘the Self,’ no matter what may be going on.
• RE: OBSERVING: We, the observer, are inextricably linked with what we are trying to observe. The very act of observation changes the ‘reality’ of the situation. We cannot talk meaningfully about ‘things’ in isolation from us. This, of course, is just a small step away from saying that we are not actually separate from those ‘things’ or even that we and the supposed objects are actually aspects of a single reality.
• RE: REALITY: It is never going to be possible for the mind to move from the world that it thinks it knows to the Reality that it wants to know. The mind and the world are part of the illusion; the world is the domain of illusory objects and the mind the domain of illusory concepts. Once the Reality is known, in Self-realisation, the mind and world are known to exist no more as something separate from the Self. Thus it is that questions such as ‘how can I (the ego) come to know reality’ are actually meaningless. It is as if one of the characters in our dream were to ask how it could know what the waking state is like. All experience is of change; reality is not an event and cannot be perceived or experienced. Thus, everything that is perceived or experienced can be known to be transient and therefore unreal.
• RE: ENLIGHTENMENT: The neo-advaitin claims that ‘we are already enlightened’. This is a fundamental error, which results from a failure to define terms clearly, and causes much confusion. It is true that we are already brahman, the non-dual reality, because there is only That. The point is that we do not realize this. Enlightenment takes place when we do. This is why the term ‘Self-realization’ is also used – it is the direct knowing of ‘the Self’ that we already are.
• RE: WHAT ENLIGHTENMENT IS NOT: Enlightenment has nothing to do with 'merging with the Self' or ‘becoming one with God’. In reality, we are already ‘the Self’ so that these expressions could have no meaning. Nor is it a 'feeling of unity'. When a pot is broken, the ‘pot space’ does not merge with the ‘total space’; the ‘total space’ is entirely unaffected by the presence of the container and remains the same before, during and after the temporary appearance of the pot.
• RE: WHAT ENLIGHTENMENT IS: Neo-advaitins repeatedly tell us that ‘I’ cannot become enlightened since ‘I’ do not exist. But there is very good reason why ‘I’ am unable to accept this. The simple fact is that I know that I do exist – it is the single thing about which there is no possible doubt. The problem is that the mind is mistakenly identifying who I really am with the body and mind – the ‘person’ – this is the ignorance that needs to be corrected. When this occurs, it is not ‘I’ who becomes enlightened. Enlightenment is the dissociation of the truth of ‘I’ from the prior identification with mind and body.
• RE: EGO: What is required is that [the mind] be metaphorically destroyed by self knowledge.
• RE: NEO-ADVAITA: Neo-advaita is a belief-system without a system – i.e. no structure, no method, no practice; the ‘bottom line’ without any preceding text.
• RE: THOSE WHO SAY "THERE IS NOTHING TO DO": If nothing is done, nothing will happen! The ‘person’ will continue in his or her life of suffering. Of course this is irrelevant at the level of reality - after all ‘I am brahman’ – but to the ignorant jIva it makes all the difference. Simply hearing the message repeated is not on its own sufficient, as many satsang seekers will testify. If the basic understanding is not present, the message will simply be unintelligible.
• Re: TRADITIONAL TEACHING: Traditional methods are regarded as archaic and no longer relevant to a modern age by many satsang teachers and all neo-advaitins. But you can’t replace an established and proven methodology with a complete absence of any method. Furthermore, although times, society and people change, the basic problems do not. Hence, the old teachings will always essentially still be applicable. They do not need to change because they already work and have been proven over many centuries.
• Do not accept the essentially unverifiable pronouncements of neo-advaita regarding your existence as a 'story' and the meaninglessness of paths and teachers. Ask the following question of your neo-teacher: "Why should I believe you rather than the evidence of my own senses and reason? Why should I reject the proven teachings of the past thousand years in favor of what you are saying?"
To be continued.
THE NEWEST OFFER:
Watch an updated seven-hour streaming video of a retreat with Floyd Henderson which can be viewed by anyone with internet access. (In this video, all seven of the steps on "the path" as taught by Maharaj are explained and discussed.)
If interested, click the button below to pay the fee via PayPal. You will then receive an email which includes the link for you to view the private, unlisted video via an arrangement we have made with YouTube, Inc. You do not have to have a YouTube account to watch this privately streamed video.
(If you do not receive the link promptly, your computer or email provider may have high filter settings. Check your spam and trash folders because some providers automatically transfer emails containing links to those folders.)
To access the seven-hour streaming video of a retreat and begin watching right away, click this "Buy Now" button:
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
[NOTE: The four most recent posts are below. You may access all of the posts in this series and in the previous series and several thousand other posts as well by clicking on the links in the "Recent Posts and Archives" section.]
In addition to the five non-duality books made available without charge by Andy Gugar, Jr. (see “FREEBIES” above), you can now access nearly 3,300 posts for any topics of interest to you.
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) whose Vatican Bank worked for decades with the Mafia while laundering mob earnings (for a 15% all-profit charge by the Bank); 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.
