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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.
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MAHARAJ'S
FINAL PLAN:
REALIZING WITHOUT DOGMA, WITHOUT CONTINUOUS SPIRITUAL
PRACTICES, AND WITHOUT A PREOCCUPATION WITH “THE NATURE OF REALITY AND
THINGS NOUMENAL"
The bondage of world concern, self-concern,
material concern, religious concerns, and spiritual concerns
Today:
The Bondage of "self-Concern"
The Bondage of "self-Concern"
False identities, personas, personalities, roles, characters, guises, facades, fronts, faces - call them what you will. The key points about those illusions are these:
Each will have its own basic desire and basic fear.
Each will control one's thoughts and words and actions as those delusions fight for what they want and become driven by what they fear.
Hence, among the non-realized masses who accept those delusions as real, their thoughts will be delusional, their words will express their delusions, and their actions will be driven by the hidden agendas of delusions.
The result? They will become parrots, repeating whatever they hear which aligns with the hidden agendas of their delusional roles and which support the continuation of their delusional identities and supposedly satisfy their concern with self . . . with their false selves.
The method used in Maharaj's loft to eliminate the belief in those false selves was this:
A visitor might make a series of statements and then ask a question, often about some relative happening, so the following relative issues were occasionally discussed:
Yes, persons who are glad one day can be sad the next;
yes, a man who talked all the time speaks very little now, and one day you may find that he has stopped talking completely;
yes, citizens trapped in their nationalistic, xenophobic beliefs are fighting again;
yes, the members of two opposing religious groups are attacking each other and the buildings they worship in;
and
yes, once again, the members of different political leanings are attacking each other.
In addressing the specific, relative examples which reveal a variety of thoughts and words and actions coming from persons abiding in a dualistic manner, Maharaj provided an opportunity for seekers to see duality at work; to see how it distorts persons' perceptions;
to understand how delusional persons can actually be; and to try to encourage seekers to recognize when duality is at play and generating arrogance and a sense of separation while laying the groundwork for conflict and fighting and wars and misery and suffering.
to understand how delusional persons can actually be; and to try to encourage seekers to recognize when duality is at play and generating arrogance and a sense of separation while laying the groundwork for conflict and fighting and wars and misery and suffering.
Next, Maharaj would determine from a seeker's statements and questions exactly where on the seven step "path" that seeker was at that moment. Then, he would offer pointers which were intended to provide an understanding which could potentially move the seeker's focus to the next step on the "path" if the seeker would leave and find a quiet place to sit, alone, and take those pointers into the silence of contemplation.
A similar method is used here:
As I moved about during the days prior to the virus lockdown and came into contact with sleepwalkers and sleep talkers in traffic, in the neighborhood, in the grocery store, in a doctor's waiting room, waiting for workers to repair a problem with an automobile . . .
. . . being with a friend who has sleepwalking and sleep talking relatives or friends, speaking with persons as Maharaj did and hearing them recount something they heard or witnessed which was totally based in duality, then
such cases have often been shared on this site by way of illustrating certain non-dual pointers.
Why? As with Maharaj, to provide "real time," present day examples of what dualistic thinking and talking and behaving look like. What might come of that? Some might say, "Gee, I've never said or done anything which is that ____"(fill-in-the-blank . . . insane, crazy, rude, uncaring, arrogant, etc).
Along with that method, a caveat is offered here occasionally: "Avoid comparisons. Ego-defense mechanisms which are intent upon protecting ego-states, false identities, etc. are amazingly stupid but, simultaneously, amazingly clever as well and often lead to the conclusion that . . .
A. 'Well, I've never been that bad'
or
(among those who have been weighed down by excessive loads of such concepts as 'guilt' and 'shame' and 'embarrassment' and 'humiliation' and 'disgrace'),
B. "Well, I'm even much worse than that."
Hence the suggestion that comparisons be avoided but that awareness be honed so that duality can be recognized instantly when it is witnessed and so that non-duality can be recognized instantly when it is witnessed.
That said, I have a friend who is quite wealthy and who also happens to be realized. His generosity is near-boundless, sharing what he earns with those who are trapped in positions far down the economic hierarchy in a capitalist culture which is so rigid it provides little opportunity for meaningful movement "up the ranks."
Yet I see and hear something far different from many who are among the wealthiest, one of whom during a vacation some years back was heard as she expressed a common complaint expressed by many among the richest in the U.S.:
Explaining how many millions of dollars the recent U.S. tax cut netted them, she said: "I am sick and tired of the government taking our hard-earned money and doling it out to lazy, no-account people who are living it up in a fashion that is better than the way we live. We eat a medium-priced cut of meat while they go to their elite butchers and use their welfare checks or their food stamps to get the most expensive cuts available!"
The facts: Food insecurity is prevalent in the U.S., and those trapped in that state are not "living like kings and queens and princes and princesses."
There was a time in the early 1970's when my sister's husband left their house and never returned. She worked at a poor-paying job, but infant care took every penny she earned. No one in our family knew that my sister, who at the time had a four-year old son and 2-year-old twins, eventually swallowed her pride for the sake of her children and applied for assistance through the government's food stamp program.
In fact, the children were still malnourished and she was even worse off, all four of them experiencing "food insecurity." They ate, barely, but they were not buying "elite cuts of meat." Are there abuses in the program? Sure. Are those receiving food
assistance living like royalty? Hardly, but the current president has
proposed the highest levels of cuts in that program since its inception,
a program which allowed a maximum food allowance of $16 a day for a
family of four. He is cutting even that piddling amount.
"Food insecurity" is defined by the government as "the lack of access, at times, to enough food for all household members." In 2011, households with children reported a significantly higher food insecurity rate than households without children: 20.6% vs. 12.2%; thus, even nine years ago 12-21% of people in the U.S. do not have an adequate amount of food and at any given time were hungry and malnourished.
That scenario became even more widespread even before the current pandemic which is leaving even more to suffer from a lack of food. One school cafeteria manager said last year before the pandemic hit that the majority of children in her school are told by a parent or their parents to eat everything served for breakfast and lunch at school because they will will not have anything for supper in the house.
[And the economic impact of the coronavirus has already exacerbated the existing food crises for many here and around the globe. Millions of persons here and elsewhere had been suffering because of their already-limited ability to access nutritious food even as circumstances are resulting in tons of food loss and waste on a daily basis.
Historically, that has long been the existing modus operandi in the U.S. Between 2007 and 2014, U.S. consumers wasted 150,000 tons of food per day. Among the adult age "wasters," they will toss out an average of 5,180 pounds of food during their adult years.
That scenario became even more widespread even before the current pandemic which is leaving even more to suffer from a lack of food. One school cafeteria manager said last year before the pandemic hit that the majority of children in her school are told by a parent or their parents to eat everything served for breakfast and lunch at school because they will will not have anything for supper in the house.
[And the economic impact of the coronavirus has already exacerbated the existing food crises for many here and around the globe. Millions of persons here and elsewhere had been suffering because of their already-limited ability to access nutritious food even as circumstances are resulting in tons of food loss and waste on a daily basis.
Historically, that has long been the existing modus operandi in the U.S. Between 2007 and 2014, U.S. consumers wasted 150,000 tons of food per day. Among the adult age "wasters," they will toss out an average of 5,180 pounds of food during their adult years.
In addition to that, the stats on produce are especially discomforting. Roughly fifty percent of all produce in the United States is thrown away—some 60 million tons (or $160 billion) worth of produce annually, an amount constituting “one third of all foodstuffs.” According to the Environmental Protection Agency (an agency being dismantled under the present administration) wasted food is the most prevalent item in American landfills.]
The woman above who is married to a multi-millionaire and who was overheard complaining about "our hard-earned money being taken to allow others to eat better than we do" is quite the exaggeration and is evidence of the duality-based nonsense often heard in the U.S. from those with high levels of both income and self-concern but without any concern for anyone who are suffering as a result of their unfortunate circumstances.
Her rant continued: "And I'm sick and tired of our hard-earned money going to people who don't even have a job."
Her actual case: Decades ago, she married a man in the top 1% income bracket and has never had a job since. She drives each day to the gym in a luxury vehicle given to her, wearing a different pair of $200 designer leggings each day along with shoes which cost hundreds of dollars.
She never cooks, so every day she either has restaurants deliver the food for the four-member family living in their multi-million-dollar home or she make arrangements for them to eat out at nightly at one of the top restaurants in the city.
Nor does she clean, having maids come in throughout the week to care for the house and take care of the laundry. While some "housewives" work far harder than their spouses, she is not among those.
Dualistically, she believes in "the other," and "the other" is always perceived to be a threat to those attached to their duality-based beliefs and to their material "things." A friend asked her and her husband about a particular, small-scale restaurant with excellent reviews. They both explained that, "You would not be comfortable around their clientele. A lot of poor people and a lot of minorities eat there."
[The entitlement and distortion expressed by the woman quoted above is not necessarily a gender-specific issue. I heard a similar tale recently from a woman regarding her second husband. She has filed for divorce, but the jobless man who is living in her house won't leave the house and the police have told her that in their state, the domicile protection laws do not allow them to toss him out until their litigation moves through the courts (which can take months or even years). He's been living off her income since they married several years ago, has contributed nothing toward their bills, and refuses to leave, so she is still paying for his food and shelter.]
Note how the words of the woman above with that ultra-rich husband reveal how duality will lull persons into a deep-state of sleep from which they will talk and talk and talk without ever seeing the contradictory, dualistic nature of the beliefs they are expressing, much less the cold-blooded, selfish mindset she has.
So you can say that you are "sick and tired of our hard-earned money going to people who don't even have a job" while you have never had a job since the day of your marriage?"
If you were sitting in your Lamborghini, would you say, "I hate people who drive Lamborghinis?" No. That would be crazy.
If you were sitting in your Lamborghini, would you say, "I hate people who drive Fords and Chevys?" No. That would be conceited and arrogant and snobbish and would reveal a through-the-roof level of self-importance.
If you were standing in the mansion your husband paid for, would you say, "I hate people who live in homes that are like castles when something much more modest would do as well?" No. That would be crazy.
It would be evidence of the height of dual-mindedness, and Yeshu'a (Jesus), after he heard the non-dual teachings, said, "A dual-minded person is unstable in all ways."
The woman offering forth her duality-based criticism of "others" is a fanatical Christian, but does she have even the slightest understanding of "her Savior's" comments about those who are unstable and how her words show she is even more unstable than most?
Her life is one absorbed with going and doing and zooming and spending and forever enhancing the shape of her body and then cloaking it in the most expense clothes available.
So what does this have to do with "seekers"?
What does this have to do with those who would see clearly, consistently?
What does it have to do with those who would attain a total understanding of the Oneness and then abide in that understanding consistently.
What does it have to do with those who would cast off their dual-mindedness and abide in a never-ending sense of the unicity?
First, those who talk in their sleep nevertheless hear on occasion what they are saying, so when their talk comes from a sleep state dominated by dualistic beliefs, what they hear will reinforce that.
Secondly, most humans are like soybeans: they take on the flavor of whatever they are exposed to, whatever they are around. Abide with those trapped in duality and no matter what you understand, you will nevertheless be impacted.
As the deer in the neighborhood do not hate the youth who generate all kinds of nonsensical sounds and disturb the general peace, the deer do, nevertheless, move away from them so they can avoid disturbing, nonsensical noise.
When Maharaj endorsed abiding in the same fashion in which the deer abide, that was what he was talking about. He was talking about abiding in a natural, peaceful, quiet, Nisargan manner by moving away from all unnatural and supposedly supernatural ways of living; away from chaotic environments and ranting, complaining persons who are talking nonsense in their sleep; away from noise; and abiding in a nisargan fashion.
That can only happens if awareness is honed so that non-duality can be recognized instantly when it is witnessed and so that duality and ignorance and insanity can be recognized instantly when it is witnessed and can be moved away from just as the deer do, and as the fish do, and as the birds do, and as everything alive on this planet does except for most humans who normalize the abnormal thoughts and talking and behaviors which are commonplace in duality-driven cultures.
Tomorrow: "The Bondage of Material Concern"
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
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"
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."
and
"Heaven and earth shall fade away."
--Yeshu'a (Jesus)
and
"Heaven and hell are not geographic places
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."
"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
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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
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