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.)
A final point from yesterday:
Maharaj said, “I have no faith in anything which has ever been told, not even what has been told by the Vedas. Only my own experience.”
Therefore, when he said this,
“You are so used to the support of concepts that when your concepts leave you, although it is your true state, you get frightened and try to cling to them again”
he was speaking from experience, meaning he too had been abiding as his true state, only to be pulled from it by fears and / or desires and to cling once more to certain concepts which were retrieved after having been abandoned.
For years he had not fixated in his true state and original nature; instead, for years he experienced changes and varying degrees of tumult as he shifted from one yoga to the next, using guru-bhakti and bhakti to using bhakti and jnana (and mention of "atma") to using jnana and Nisargan to finally using the Nisargan alone.
He also shifted from using a Hindu / non-dual compounded version of the Ultimate Medicine to using a spirituality / non-dual compounded version of the Ultimate Medicine to finally casting both of those aside and using a psychology / non-dual compounded version of the Ultimate Medicine.
See? His “journey” was marked not by being unequivocally fixed in the true state but instead by experiencing certain states of flux over the decades as well.
Even after realization, which was obviously not “full realization,” it took several more decades for him to fixate in the true state and the original nature and abide in an all-natural-only (nisargan) fashion.
I, too, was speaking from experience yesterday when I shared the number of times that I had abided as my original nature and in my true state, only to be pulled from that state by self-interests (that is, the interests of various false selves which were driving lingering thoughts and words and actions as a result of their desire for continuity).
The point is, there is no shame involved if you find you have done the same or are doing the same right now. There is no "failure" when one leaves the true state as long as one is awake enough to see that has happened and then takes whatever steps are required to return. As noted here often, the “journey” may be marked time and again by cycles of “I’ve got it! I’ve got it! I’ve got it! Whoa, wait a minute. I ain’t got it.”
That said, we can now complete the observations being shared about the third stage since so many seekers fixate there instead of completing the rest of the “journey.”
Stage III: The Forest Dweller Stage (continued)
You are invited to understand that this stage is merely transitional, only preparatory. It is not the actual "journey"; it does not involve moving along the actual "path." At this point, there is still no "going back" or returning "to the source" in the exact, but reverse order, of the coming in, as Maharaj prescribed.
Nor is there any following of "the same path by which you came."
[NOTE: Maharaj went to the forest after meeting his guru and after some said that he had become fully aware. Yet after his return from the forest, he was still seeking, still visiting temples, still involved in long discussions well into the night.
A study of what he said and did after returning from the forest, along with a careful reading of his teachings in the order in which they would eventually be delivered, reveal that additional understandings came later and support the validity of the four stages as discussed here.]
Full realization is rarely followed by the Forest Dweller Stage. Full realization usually follows the Forest Dweller Stage if it happens. Maharaj came to see that realization did not require the abandonment of such relative activities as "householding," as "husbanding," as "fathering," etc.
It was after his period in the forest and mountains that he returned home and engaged in those activities, which is the reverse of the order of the Four Stages that are typically taught in the East.
The Forest Dweller Stage can never lead to full realization and is but a vehicle at best that can move one closer to the mouth of the real "path" where the actual "journey" begins.
[Again, study Maharaj's history and you will see that even after his return from the forest, Maharaj continued to seek . . . continued on the "spiritual hunt" . . . continued to be driven by spiritual workaholism. He was still seeking via some of the old venues.]
The pointer here is that the Forest Dweller Stage is preparatory. It can be a means to an end but it can never be the end itself because there are actually three levels of seeking:
1. The Outwardly-Focused Level of Seeking
2. The Forest Dweller Level of Seeking
3. The Inward (but Directed) Level of Seeking
Most who seek, which will never include more than a small percentage of the planet's population, will fixate in the outwardly-focused level of seeking . . . seeking via the big names . . . seeking in religious or spiritual venues . . . seeking outward power or Power(s) . . . seeking without direction and never really seeking within singularly.
The second level is the type of seeking that happens if one shifts into the Forest Dweller Stage. There is a respite from the outward seeking via persons, but this level still deals with learning (though the learning is coming from sources that are different from all of the sources that were sought out before).
This level of seeking deals with the natural and involves moving away from the unnatural and supernatural sources used earlier; it deals with searching somewhere outside the established venues of dogma and kindergarten-level spirituality; it deals with no longer seeking answers from the teachers and authors and lecturers who appeal to the desires and / or fears of the masses;
it deals with shifting seekers from "the group search methods" used in the past to entering into "a solitary search"; yet it still deals with desire and discovering and learning, though via a more natural source. Full realization only comes, however, when the established, popular teachers and venues are abandoned and one returns from the forest (whether the trip there was literal or not);
when the programmed willingness to seek in venues that know nothing of the actual "path" has been discarded as a result of the visit to the forest; and when there is at least enough "contact" with the inner resource / inner guru to be able to differentiate between the words of a famous talker as opposed to the consciousness that speaks via a “realized teacher.”
In that state, seekers might be willing to enter into the third level of seeking and might be ready to take pointers offered by a realized teacher into quiet consideration. At that point also, a seeker might be "courageously ready" to start casting aside "the old" even though there is not the slightest clue regarding what "the new" might entail (if anything!)
The "ready seeker" at the third level of seeking will be uninterested in religious or spiritual doingness and will take level-appropriate pointers, offered one-on-one, into quiet consideration. At this point, if the readiness is there, the seeker will be ready to abandon a life-long effort to learn more and more and will see that it is unlearning that is required.
As Shakespeare said, "The readiness is all," and what happens during the third stage - The Forest Dweller Stage - is what often leads to the readiness.
If the readiness is there, then a seeker can move into the fourth stage and actually begin the "journey" to full realization, full realization being the state of abiding naturally without being driven by body or mind or personality identifications or concepts because a no-learned-ignorance state has been reached by virtue of having first reached a zero-concepts state which is marked by having no beliefs at all.
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 their god / their 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 the picture link which has now been added for 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.
