THE NON-DUALITY MESSAGE HAS LONG BEEN WIDESPREAD BUT IT HAS SELDOM BEEN UNDERSTOOD EITHER THEN OR NOW

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.) 

The point in this series is that the non-dual message has long been widespread but has seldom been understood either then or now. 

At the request of some visitors, further discussion or explanation of some of the Maharaj pointers shared recently is being provided. 

A DEEPER LOOK AT SOME OF THE POINTERS OFFERED BY SRI NISARGADATTA MAHARAJ 

(continued from last week) 

16. “The consciousness has to know the consciousness. When it realizes itself, then only do you return to normal" 

and

17. "Understand that it is not the individual which has consciousness; it is the consciousness which assumes innumerable forms." 

The point was offered recently that there are currently thousands of sets of teachings which are being mislabeled as “non-dual teachings.” Over the years whenever that pointer has been offered, the (totally legitimate) question regarding the “version” of non-duality being offered here has been answered: it is a version which uses the “Direct Path Method of Teaching” in conjunction with the Nisargan Yoga. 

So what’s “the test” for that method? 

1. The method is identifiable. Most cannot explain which of the top four methods of offering the non-dual understanding is being used because most are not using any method. They are passing along whatever version best serves their agenda. 

[Fore example: to claim that non-duality suggests that if Nazis threw your child into an oven in the 1940's and forced you to listen to its screams until it was incinerated or to claim that you must love whatever is and you must accept everything – right down to loving your rapist or abuser(s) – is a totally bogus misrepresentation and distortion of the non-dual message which was codified in the 800’s but which has been around in one form or another for nearly 5000 years.] 

Maharaj was never one of the most popular teachers of his day. Yes, a protégé offered to build an ashram for him that would be designed to outshine that of Ramana Maharshi, but Maharaj refused the offer. 

Ramana lived for 28 years in his ashram which began as a single hut but which was expanded over the years on a major scale by using monetary gifts from followers. It was said that “Ramana displayed a natural talent for planning building projects” and his ashram would eventually become a testament to accumulation with its own post office and hospital and with housing for hundreds of paying visitors at a time. 

He was labeled in a most un-non-dual fashion as “one of the last of India's spiritual supermen,” and it was said that “in later life, the number of devotees and their devotion grew so large that Ramana became restricted in his daily routine.” Millions have visited there with hundreds and thousands showing up on any given day. 

Maharaj, on the other hand, might have had 10 to 20 visitors squeezed into the tiny loft above his flat at any given time. After he shifted away from blending Hindi religious pointers and shifted away from offering so-called spiritual pointers and began focusing on the psychological understanding of the Ultimate Sickness, he would be criticized for “allowing his egotism to pull him away from spirituality and start offering non-spiritual pointers."

While Maharaj’s crowds were always small, Ramana’s huge crowds now seem smaller as well when compared to crowds being drawn by those Maharaj referred to as “The Big Name Teachers” (whom he warned followers to stay away from). 

By using venues where thousands can gather at a time for an evening presentation and by selling their books in the millions, a dozen or so Big Name Teachers have exerted a major impact on the misperception of what non-duality is really about. Thus . . . 

2. A second test, per Maharaj, is to see if the version being offered is being offered by what he termed “The Big Name Teachers” and to be very suspect if that is the case. Why? 

Recall the adage offered here on occasion: “The truth will set you free, but it’s going to piss you off first.” Throughout the ages, those who offered pointers toward the truth have been most unpopular. 

If the masses love what someone says so much that the speaker becomes popular among the masses, that – Maharaj explained – is a warning sign. The masses are abiding in ignorance, so if they endorse what someone is saying and if someone is really popular among the masses, then . . . .?

Look what they did to Yeshu’a (“Jesus”) after he began offering non-dual pointers. “Time to haul your cross to the hilltop where we’re going to nail you to it and then shut you up, once and for all.” 

And remember it was not the occupying Romans who were demanding that he be crucified. It was the most religious among the Jews who demanded the assassination of the man who turned his back on organized religion.

So the two tests one might use to evaluate any non-dual message is, “Is an established, identifiable method being used” and is the presenter extremely popular among the masses around the globe or . . . not so much. 

Per the Nisargan Yoga, all that happens on the planet is either 

1. natural (a.k.a., “normal”)

or is deemed to be 

2. “supernatural” or involving “Spiritual Giants” (a.k.a., “abnormal”) 

or 

3. is unnatural / abnormal. 

When Maharaj noted that 

“the consciousness has to know the consciousness. When it realizes itself, then only do you return to normal,” 

he was pointing out that (a) one cannot be free of an attachment to delusional beliefs about what is supernatural or spiritual and that (b) one cannot be free of abiding in an unnatural manner without realizing – that is, without being freed from the effects of believing in all of the learned ignorance which one has been exposed in every culture on the planet. 

If one is living in ignorance, then one will be trying to live supernaturally or will be abiding abnormally. 

For example, if one does not understand the science behind the factors which determine where hurricanes go and do not go, then they will cling to supernatural or abnormal beliefs about hurricane's paths. That will lead them to think that they can tap into a Power and alter the course of a hurricane to miss their community and hit another one instead (and that’s abnormal) or to believe that hurricanes are their god’s way of sending messages to humans that they are not pleasing him (and that is rooted in supernatural, magical thinking and is abnormal). 

Recall Dr. Neil Tyson’s point: "To be scientifically literate is to empower yourself to know when someone else is full of bullshit.” 

The non-dual understanding, when presented in combination with the Nisargan Yoga, is an invitation to abide naturally, not “supernaturally” and not unnaturally. Why? Because neither of those are “normal.”

Finally, the consciousness can assume innumerable forms. The  rarest is "pure, universal consciousness," rare because of the prevalence of impure programming, conditioning, etc.

The most common is "blocked consciousness," blocked by way of distorted and distorting programming, conditioning, etc. and by the human mind which is the storehouse of learned ignorance and nonsense.

To be free of believing in a body of learned ignorance is to be free of supernatural and unnatural belief systems. 

And only those driven by ignorance would suggest that “ignorance is bliss.” 

Not so.

Ignorance is simply . . . ignorance. 

To be continued.

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Please enter into the silence of contemplation. 

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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) 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 

or 

You can click on video "Number Ten" in the upper right-hand column on this page. 

If preferred, here's 

the direct link to the AUDIO VERSION 

of that session.