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 THIRD DEGREE OF SEPARATION FROM REALITY:
False Identifications
with the Last to Go Being
“The Super Religious One,”
“The Spiritual Giant,”
and
“The Super Seeker”
[Excerpts from the book FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE which includes transcriptions of talks offered during one of the last series of satsang sessions that I led.]
[NOTE: When Maharaj was using a Hindu / non-duality version of the Ultimate Medicine, attendance at his 2-per-day satsung sessions held steady. The same was true even after an influx of Western visitors influenced him to focus more on a spirituality / non-duality version of the Medicine. When he eventually abandoned both of those methods and began using a psychology / non-duality version of the Medicine, the number of critics of Maharaj increased and the number of visitors dropped somewhat. The same has happened here over the years.
When persons at the third step have been invited to abandon all roles - all false identities - the attitude has generally been, “Sure, fine with me.” But when they find that the invitation to abandon all role-playing includes giving up “The Super Religious persona,” “The Spiritual Giant persona,” and “The Super Seeker persona,” well at that point the number of visitors always drops off as was the case when Maharaj recommended to seekers that they give up those three false personality identifications. And at times (with an acknowledgment to Welsh poet Dylan Thomas) some of those who leave “do not go gently into the night” and “do not vanish without a fight”! That scenario will be seen in today’s post. So it is.]
To continue:
Q.2.: “I wasn’t in the last session, but my own experience shows that my Higher Power has given me the power to accept the things I cannot change . . . things like you, for example. So I’ll keep doing my spiritual work, and He’ll keep giving me power and peace.”
F.: “Actually, since you weren’t in the last session, and since we’re taking the steps of a journey in a specific order, you won’t be able to make this journey with us at this time, but I’ll finish our discussion. You speak of having to work to get peace. My life is without toil since all work involves working to ignore mirages or working to accept mirages. No more mirages . . . no more work.”
Q. 2.: “You know what? It's obvious that you've got nothing to give, so you can't really be of any service to anyone.”
F.: “I agree. I am not of service and I have nothing to give; in fact, I'll take everything away from those who can hear.”
Q. 2: “Say whatever you want. The fact is that I serve God and help others while all you're doing is harming others. And someday when we both stand in judgment before Him, I’d a helluva lot rather be me than you.”
F.: “You have merely been re-programmed while what is called for is to be de-programmed. When your mind dissolves, so will every concept that you've ever dreamed up, including the god of your own conception. As far as helping others, who can know what any ‘others’ need, long term? Since there is no separation, my teacher advised that each should focus on helping the only one he or she can help—herself or himself. Then, the relative improves for all.”
Q. 2: “I can’t help myself, but I can help others.”
F.: “So a man who cannot swim can rescue others who are drowning? Hummm. And how do you claim to help these ‘others’?”
Q. 2.: “I share my experience, strength, and hope with them.”
F.: “All experience is about the five-sense, phenomenal existence, which is a mirage. Strength is about power, and power is about control, and control is about ego, and ego is a mirage. Ultimately, ego is about fear . . . generated as a result of one knowing at some level that he has no power. Hope is merely about desires for the future, but the future is a mirage; therefore, your experience and strength and hope are all mirages, outgrowths of phenomenal desires and phenomenal fears. What help is derived from sharing ideas about mirages that are based in desires and fears? Worse, fear and desire are the sources of anger, and anger is the source of all hostility. Hostility becomes the source of all harm. [Look of hatred from questioner] Right now, it seems that anger is what you’re experiencing, so the point I offered earlier—that your peace is fragile and can be destroyed by words alone—is confirmed.”
Q. 2: [Expletive, suggesting I do something to myself that is anatomically impossible.]
F.: “I’ll offer a final consideration, and then suggest you go find a quiet place and follow my grandmother’s three-moon rule. She advised that each take any consideration into three days of quiet contemplation before accepting or rejecting the point. So here’s the final consideration for you: before dedicating your life to serving others, why not first serve yourself by investigating whether or not there might be a reality beyond your current spiritual identity that could lead you into a stable and never-ending position of neutrality around the words or actions of others? If it’s peace you want, realization can result in an unshakable peace.”
Q. 2.: “I think instead that I’ll follow my sponsor’s advice and go home and pray for you. I can’t hate anyone I pray for.”
F.: “So be it.”
Q. 2.: [Harshly] “Yeah, so be it!” [Exits noisily]
F.: [Pause, then to group] “Turbulence.” [Laughter]
F.: “Well . . . it seems the pointers that I intended to offer verbally, you have now received experientially. Ha. [Laughter] In that exchange, you didn’t see “The Super Religious persona,” “The Spiritual Giant persona,” and “The Super Seeker persona,” at their worst—they can be far worse, even deadly—but you did see the emotional intoxication that those roles can generate.”
Q.: “So, is his attitude about you right . . . you don’t believe in God?”
F.: “I don’t believe in the mind, so I certainly don’t believe in what someone says is a concept dreamed up in the mind. Some use the term Brahman to point to the Absolute Reality and some speak of the ‘matrix’ or of 'Prakriti.' In the West, some claim that those terms refer to their ‘God’ (which has personal traits) but the Absolute Reality is not some omnipotent person. The Absolute is impersonal. Better for you, go to the end of this path and see for yourself. For me, the issue is moot. There’s no reality in any concept, so this is the stage where the serious move on and the players stay behind. It’s time to start purging the mind and being rid of all concepts.”
Q.: “But I’ve always had a sense that some kind of external power must exist."
F.: “Of course external power exists. The sun is an external power source, but someone thousands of years ago projected himself onto an imagined source, gave it personal traits, and ever since, humans have repeated the tale to impressionable children. More to the point, you never had any innate sense that some personal external power exists any more than you had an innate sense that Santa Claus exists. You believed what you were told. You believed for years that there was a super-human male at the North Pole who was omnipotent and omniscient because you were told he exists. You believed that he knew if ‘you’d been good or bad’ and you also believed he was old, white-bearded, kind, giving, loving, residing in a remote location, unseen, etc. You also believed he could be angry and punishing and would withhold gifts from those who have been 'bad' during the previous twelve months. You didn’t come up with all that, but you believed it when it was told to you as fact by people you trusted. An entire culture joined in, and if you asked any of them about this far-out tale, they supported the lie. But inside, as you became older, you had a notion that the story was rubbish. Even then, though, it’s possible that when an older mate on the schoolyard first suggested 'Santa isn’t real,' you were probably ready to fight, not unlike the man who just stormed out of here.”
Q.: “Ha. Guilty!”
F.: “Why? You wanted to believe . . . in order to receive forever the gifts from that super-powerful being. And when did you finally learn that there was no Santa? Did they come to you voluntarily to tell you the truth? No. They didn’t say, 'Hey, we need to come clean. We need to be honest with you. We lied. Somebody just made up all that rubbish and we just repeated it. All of that wonderful story and all of those wonderful traits rolled into one super-powerful being . . . it was all a lie. Sorry to set you up with such great hope and then disappoint you.' No, you found the truth when someone offered an opposing view and suggested that you question what 'they' - parents, relatives, your entire community - told you. You had to confront your bogus belief systems. You had to say, “This Santa tale actually sounds like a bunch of rubbish. Is this real, or not?” That’s my invitation to you. Go into the silence and question it all. Ask the tough questions.”
Q.: “Easier said than done.”
F.: “Why would you delay, having already seen exactly how the minds of the people who programmed you actually worked at that time? Their minds told them, ‘We think it would be a great idea to lie to this child and tell him that he's being watched every second—asleep or awake—by an unseen male who lives at a faraway location and who knows if he's been good or bad. We'll also tell him that the male is keeping a list and will either give a reward or withhold a reward depending on the good-bad label earned.’ The same people who thought it would be good to lie you—and then later admitted that they were liars—those very people then gave you the same story over again but used a new name for the male. But you didn’t question that story the second time around. Why not? You questioned the first lie they told you, even knowing you’d end the illusion and not receive any rewards eternally. Why do you not have the courage right now to question their revised version as well? Seek the answer, knowing that this time, you need ask no one. The answer is within. Ask, ‘Is it possible that personal power sources were dreamed up and tales of them are now passed on as a result of human desires and human fears and human resistance to the fact that man can do nothing, and need do nothing, to become free of the bondage of misery-causing fear and frustration-causing desires that result from accepting the body-mind-personality as self?’ You’ll see that all misery comes when fear and desire meet at the same point.”
Q.: “Meet at the same point?”
F.: “Take as an example the display of misery you witnessed earlier. The dream of having power now and being guaranteed eternal life for the body-mind-personality creates a desire that is accompanied by fear. The body-mind-personality desires power and eternal life, but at the same time it fears eternal punishment. The desire and fear met at the same point—at the point of the concept of eternal continuity. You witnessed the result when that man cussed me and stormed out of here. If you challenge the method that someone is following to pursue a desire or to avoid a fear, then expect emotional intoxication to ensue. In the same fashion, when ‘husband’ thought he was dying, the misery resulted when desire and fear met at the concept of ‘wife.’ The role of ‘husband’ desired her and feared he would lose her.” His desire and fear met at the same point . . . at the concept of ‘wife’.”
Q.: “You’re right!”
F.: [Staring at Q., without comment. Eventually smiling. Light laughter from the group.] “Let’s return to the original pointer. The journey we are on aims to put us fully in touch with reality. To be out of touch with reality is to be insane. This journey is about getting in touch with reality in order to be free of the bondage of the illusions and falsehoods of a mind exposed to years of enculturation.”
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:
XX"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.
