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 are 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.]
[Continuing from the previous post]
Q. 4.: “So you don’t believe there’s a Prime Cause—or ‘causer’ as you say?”
F.: “You still want to bring up concepts that were dreamed up in some mind and then repeated by programmed people for millennia. Forget trying to find out about ancient concepts and find what is authentic now.”
Q. 4.: “So, I guess there’s no chance of you believing in the Trinity?”
F.: “The Trinity? The Trinity?! [Light laughter] I speak of non-duality. I Am the unicity. Why would you mention a duality, a trinity, a quadrility, or anything other than the unicity?
“We’re discussing the non-dual teachings. If you want to examine 'trinities,' study the ancient words of the gurus. If that's your interest, then know the three gunas; study the inner, the outer, and 'the supreme'; find the sat, the chit, and the ananda if you like; focus on the material, the spiritual and the essence; talk of the ‘I Am,’ the ‘I,’ and even the ‘I-I.’ But in the end, you'll only be contributing to the already-excess of noise and you'll only delay your movement along the 'path.'
“The ancient form of various teachings are awash with trinities that you can study if you like, but you continue to want to bring up concepts after we’ve discussed in Level Two all of the misery associated with such mind clutter. I’ve addressed all of that.
“I spoke earlier of groups dreaming up concepts like ‘time’ and ‘eternity’ and ‘far-off places’ for dust-to-dust bodies to re-form and gather with other re-formed dust-to-dust bodies for some eternal reward or never-ending punishment. That’s all about the desire for continuity of a body-mind-personality triad.
“To even ask that question, you show that you’re still ignoring the cyclings. Energy can’t be created or destroyed, so how can there have been a ‘creation’? And if there’s no creation, what need for your creator concept or Prime Cause? You’ve modeled our recently-departed guest and are dreaming up your own conception and then wanting to talk to me about the content of a dream. Understand the facts and then answer the question for yourself. [Pause] For now, just listen.”
Q. 5: “So how did you get past this point in your journey?”
F.: “After all of my study and searching and ‘spiritual work,’ I spent an evening applying my teacher’s words to the vision I’d had. Realization came on an April 21st, a little after 9:30 one evening when I was doing nothing . . . nothing but resting in the silent contemplation after reading the words of my teacher and focusing on all the lies I’d ever been told . . . and objectively questioning it all.
“When I finally saw it was all a lie—including every belief and idea that had contributed to all my assumed personas—the illusion of a ‘personal I’ dissolved and the understanding of the functioning of the Totality was realized.”
Q. 5: “You make it sound so easy.”
F.: “It wasn’t for me, but it can be for you. It took me half a century. It need take you but seven steps. Take advantage of the offering.”
[Or, using the later approach Maharaj offered and which is offered here nowadays, take at least the first four steps.]
Q. 5: “Here’s the part I don’t get. Remember how you said a shift in consciousness came and you didn’t have to quit your job teaching to be at peace . . . you just let teaching happen . . . without attachment?”
F.: “Go ahead.”
Q. 5: “Why can’t religious or spiritual practices ‘just happen’ too?”
F.: “They can, but not for any of you at the present. [Pause] Consider this: I once loaded a car in Lucerne, Switzerland one morning and began a trip to Venice, Italy. Seven and a half hours later, I pulled into Piazza Roma and parked. I unloaded the baggage.
“I arranged for a gondola, and forty-five minutes later he delivered us to a canal-side entrance to Hotel Ala. We checked in. We negotiated narrow steps with our luggage and finally arrived in the room. After more than nine hours, I fell backwards onto the bed and relaxed.
“The journey was long and tiresome that day, but for the next several days, we spent hour upon hour in the main square, just enjoying the orchestras and watching what was happening. We did nothing. All just happened and we just witnessed it.
"You, in that example, are still in Lucerne but wanting to relax in the Venetian square without having completed any of the journey in between . . . without unloading any baggage . . . without giving up every false identity.
“You can feign detachment and tell me you’re just amusing yourself, but I know you’re as attached as ever to the personalities and the body-mind that sustains them. You must give up these two roles and all others, take this entire journey, see all that you must see, and know the functioning of the Totality.
“Only then can you practice AS IF living and truly be free.
"Your ego is telling you that you’ve arrived and can pull that off. You cannot. Playing the roles at this point will attach you to the role identifications. In truth, your questions show that you haven’t abandoned the roles at all. The only thing ‘happening’ for you is an on-going struggle to preserve your illusions.”
Q. 5: “The trouble is, I've been told what he was told, [pointing at Q. 3] being taught that reaching the spiritual state is the end of the road.”
F.: “None of you were likely raised in a more unyielding, religious environment than I. I’m proof that such cannot prevent seeing truth and abandoning rigidity. But are you ready for your road to end? I’d much prefer to reach the true end of the journey and then live a life in the relative with the peace afforded by understanding the functioning of the Totality.
“But for those who choose to stop here, so be it. Many certainly do, but they miss out on the first three filtering stages and the freedom of the child ignorance or no-knowing state.
“If you don't grasp that, then you will never know the 'teaching-just-happens-or-not' existence. If none of that seems worth the continuation of the journey, camp out here and the rest of us will wave to you on our way ‘back’ to a lifetime of wonderful AS IF living! Ha.” [Laughter]
Q. : “So if being in touch with reality restores us to sanity, and you practiced strict religious and spiritual disciplines along the way, were you insane?” [Laughter]
F.: “Totally. I was out of touch with reality, limited by accepting the last three ego-states as the ultimate. That arrested my journey at this third level for years. In a book I’m writing, one passage will describe those years when I was trapped in the dogma and attached to spiritual exercises: [Picks up a folder of papers, begins reading]
“In his energy-consuming search for salvation, he’d been dipped, dunked, sprayed, spayed, sprinkled, and neutered; in the quest for truth, he’d been blessed, cursed, cussed, lectured, scolded, and praised; in his pursuit of Life’s Meaning, he’d been communion’d, Om’d, grape-juiced, wined, ahsram’d, accepted, rejected, Mu’d, and yoga’d;
“in his chase for service-work-opportunities, he’d been pulverized, martinized, and frappéd; and in the endeavor to attain Life Eternal, he’d been baptized, Buddha’d, New Aged, powwow’d, Far Eastern Indianized, incense’d, sage’d, Tao’d, Peru’d, Tibet’d, washed in the blood, dunked in the waters, and purportedly purified. (from The Twice-Stolen Necklace Murders).
“[Huge laughter] I had as active an addiction to spiritual workaholism as ever existed. If it had led to realization and a life marked by consistent peace, I’d be recommending it all to you right now. But ultimately, none of that allowed me to escape the duality, and I have never seen any person living in duality who is free.
“Krishna said, ‘Those alone who understand that I, the Absolute, am beyond the states of being and non-being realize my true nature, and all others are fools.’ Can you be consistently free if you’re consistently ‘being fooled’? Only by seeing all the lies and then the truth within can one not be fooled.”
Q.: “I’m just having such a hard time even considering the possibility that the spiritual state in not the supreme state. The goal for me has always been to work to be more godly.”
F.: “The 'journey' merely offers abstract concepts in concrete terms to facilitate realization. At realization, all concepts and all 'abstracts' and 'concretes' dissolve, including being "godly.'
“As for your working 'to be even more godly,’ what I have witnessed is that persons who believe in a judging and punishing god—when they become godly—are judging and punishing in their relative interactions. And persons who believe in a god that gives rewards for good behavior—when they become godly—give rewards with strings attached in their relative interactions. Find that which is authentic and which has no attachments and no rewarding-punishing dualism.”
Q.: “You don’t believe in a creation event, but I was raised to believe in the creation story in the Bible.”
F.: “Those very same people also raised you to believe in Santa Claus. Do you still believe in that concept?” [Laughter]
Q.: [Defensively] “I believe in the creation story as told in Genesis.”
F.: “Which one?”
Q.: “I said the one in Genesis.”
F.: “Which one in Genesis? There are two totally different and contradictory versions of creation in that one book.”
Q.: [Long pause, confused, thinking] “I’ve never heard that.”
F.: “You’ve never heard anything I will say, and you never will unless you investigate all your beliefs and see them for what they are: ancient myths and superstitions handed down for so long by so many that they are unquestioningly taken to be truth. I invite you to question it all.
“You speak highly of your sacred text and accept its content as fact without even having read thoroughly the first chapter of the first book. [Q. tightens lips] Not unusual. I’ve witnessed that to be the case with almost all who quote their holy texts. I invite you to forget what 'they' told you that 'they' thought they knew and find out what you know, within.
“You take offense when you are told that you must transition beyond these last three personas and all others, but identified with these ego-states, you take my words PERSONAlly. [Smiles].
"All personalities are limiting. These three will limit your ability to see all else that must be seen for realization - for freedom from learned ignorance - to happen.”
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.
