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 earlier)
18. "There is no progress"
and
19. “There is no question of elevating to a higher level. Here it is only a question of understanding.”
Ultimately, any “path” or any “journey” is nothing more than a means by which one can arrive at a destination and enjoy being there.
The confusion among the planet’s religions and spiritual movements and philosophies and ideologies - and hence the confusion among the masses who are attached to those venues – is "what the destination really is."
All except non-duality promise their followers that if they but reach the destination, then rewards await. All except non-duality dangle carrots; all except non-duality tempt their followers with pots of gold at the end of a rainbow; all except non-duality promise “a better world” where rewards shall be received and where punishment shall be avoided (at least by "good" people or by the people who are "better" than most).
Only non-duality promises nothing except . . . nothing:
no more pressure and stress of trying to maintain false images and convince others to believe that what you appear to be is real; no more sense of either being perfect or believing that you need to be perfect and therefore no more religious and spiritual workaholism which have made a second job out of just living;
no more fears or doubts or anxiety or desires regarding some dreamed up “eternal states,” one to be avoided and one to be sought; no more constantly trying to “help” others in order to receive the love that self-involved parents were not there to give during your early years;
no more constantly being on stage and seeking admiration and praise and applause; no more trying to escape the realities of the relative existence; no more working to be “The Great Knower” and accumulating more and more knowledge while ignoring a deficiency in wisdom;
no more dependency and co-dependency and expecting others to take provide for you and trading off your independence for being taken care of; no more trying to control; and no more avoiding and dodging and evading and eluding.
I remember advice offered to me by my father when I packed to leave home at age seventeen. He grew up in poverty and he kept us in poverty and he told me, “Here’s your goal: Never forget the Great Depression. Always make more money each year than you made the previous year and you’ll be a success. Progress. Progress. Progress.”
What? If I live another 60 years or so, I must find a way to stop the economic cycles which constantly shift between times of prosperity and times of poverty and which impact all but those in the top 5% economically?
I graduated from college and began teaching, naïve to the fact that no teacher could ever make enough to pay one’s bills and avoid indebtedness, much less “make progress.” Eventually, I left that job to find work in “the corporate world” and did far better economically for awhile.
But the economy entered a downturn and layoffs came and less was made than the year before and without consciously recalling the words my father offered when I left home, the “I am a success” belief shifted into the “I am a failure belief.”
And such capricious and erratic beliefs controlled the way I felt for decades, in terms of economics, relationships, “progress” vs. “regression,” ad infinitum.
After Yeshu’a (“Jesus”) left organized religion and began sharing certain non-dual pointers, he said: “A dual-minded person is unstable in all ways.” Indeed. Instability cannot be compartmentalized. If it exists, it affects all aspects of one's existence.
When on board the pendulum ride at the Relative Existence Circus, one will forever be swinging between “good times” and “bad times.”
Realization - the casting aide of all beliefs received via an accumulation of learned ignorance – is the brake which can stop a runaway pendulum in its tracks.
What the Advaitin Shakespeare referred to as “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” vs. “the best of times” gives way to an ability to step away from the chaos and merely witness purely (accurately) whatever is going on around you.
Sanity will allow you to remain still and silence in the eye of the storm rather than being driven by insanity to step out into the action and enjoy the adrenaline rush of being in the middle of the storm.
The process of forever trying to “progress” and to reach “a higher level” can be quite tiring. Non-duality invites all, as Maharaj said, to model the deer which do what they must by foraging for food but then taking time “to rest in the cool blue shade.”
Of all the living things on the planet, only humans are programmed and conditioned to constantly go and do and zoom and to talk and talk and talk and try to impress and impress and impress and to be better and to always advance and to improve and to increase their accumulations.
Whoa. Talk about forever striving. Talk about forever hustling. Talk about endless toil. Talk about endless labor. Talk about forever slogging it out every day.
Talk about tiring.
Talk about insane.
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) 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.
