TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
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and
"The death of the mind is the birth of wisdom"
and
"To know that you are a
prisoner of your mind - that you live in an imaginary world of your own
creation - is the dawn of wisdom."
--Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
"Realization is nothing more than a process which results in a person being freed from believing in all learned ignorance."
--Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The Anatomy of Human Memory Storage: The Elemental Brain vs. the Non-Elemental Mind
or
The Natural Brain vs. the Never-Natural Mind
REGARDING THE BRAIN AND MIND, WHAT IS TRULY ELEMENTAL AND NATURAL?
The elemental plant food brain – along with every cell in every living thing – is a physical object which cycles conscious-energy.
In the brain there are also five elemental plant food parts which - combined and working in unison - can store and sometimes retrieve information.
Conversely, the mind is not an elemental plant food part of the brain. The brain is an organ, but the mind is not. The brain can be touched, by a surgeon for example; the mind cannot be touched. It is not elemental but is a non-concrete, abstract cluster or collection or assortment of distorted views. Concrete? Abstract? Meaning?
Meaning that the mind exists or manifests only as thoughts and ideas and notions and concepts, etc. (a.k.a., "beliefs") but has no physical or elemental or concrete existence; thus, the mind is totally conceptual, theoretical, notional, non-realistic, metaphysical (as opposed to physical), immaterial, and intangible; therefore, it is unnatural, not natural.
[And whatever comes from an unnatural source will also be unnatural, and that is why the mind can only generate unnatural thoughts and unnatural ideas and unnatural notions and unnatural concepts - all combined as unnatural "beliefs."]
The brain and its parts can be touched. The mind cannot be touched and is just another imaginary concept which those driven by ignorance have dreamed up and erroneously believe exists literally within the physical body. That belief is as bogus as the fictional concept of a "soul" which many also believe to be literally inside every person and is "something" that is invisible but is everlasting.
[The same people who place a higher value on their "minds" also place a very high value on their "beliefs" but often place the highest value on their "souls" even as they admit - when pressed - that the soul is an invisible, immaterial part of a human (or animal) that is, nevertheless, immortal. Moreover, most if pressed further will admit that they don't really know what the soul is exactly and will admit they do not know how to define it or explain it exactly but continue to believe that it is the most important thing ever.
The mind is similar to the concept of the soul, therefore, which is also invisible and immaterial. Some believe that the soul "consists of the mind, its thoughts, and its emotions," so, in their book, a phantom mind is like a phantom soul in that they are both phantoms but are nevertheless believed to be material and immortal.
In fact, of course, both are apparitions and hallucinations, nothing more than figments of the imaginations and machinations of the nonsense-filled minds of the masses which temporarily store distortions and delusions and illusions and learned ignorance.]
Certain physical parts of the elemental plant food brain might be said to provide "a place for the non-physical mind to reside," so to speak, but the abstract, non-concrete mind is actually only a mental, psychological, and emotional "construct" rather than something that is physical.
Thus, the mind is nothing more than a non-elemental conglomeration of usually muddled thoughts and perceptions and emotions and imaginings.
Nowadays, it is the mind which houses thoughts and memories and learned information which (post-programming, post-conditioning, etc.) presently amount to a conglomeration of distortions, illusions, delusions, and what Maharaj called, in general, one’s accumulated “learned ignorance.”
Such has not always been the case regarding the human mind. At one point in humankind’s evolutionary process, the mind was an asset, storing accurate information which could be recalled later to assist with the survival of the species.
(Recall the example of modern humans' ancient ancestors who might have watched a man fall from a cliff and be smashed on the rocks below. The accurate information which was stored and could be recalled later under a similar circumstance? “Do not get so close to the edge of a cliff that you might fall onto the rocks below and be smashed.”)
Now that the Ultimate Sickness is so widespread (along with its key symptoms identified by Maharaj as the “ignorance, stupidity, and insanity” which are stored in the mind), that storage section has become a liability, relatively speaking.
That includes being a liability as a result of not being able to differentiate between the true and the false; not being able to see the truth; and being incapable of functioning in a sane and sound and rationale and reasonable and non-self-defeating and non-destructive and non-self-destructive manner.
To that end, Maharaj said:
“Everyone creates a world for himself / herself and lives in it, imprisoned by one’s ignorance. All we have to do is to deny reality to our prison.”
The mind has no reality. How ironic, then, that it controls the masses' thoughts and words and actions which, in turn, generate so much misery and suffering for them and humankind in general.
Finally, after coming to understand completely the actual root of the Sickness, Maharaj shifted away from sharing religion-based / non-dual pointers and away from sharing spirituality-based / non-dual pointers and focused on offering a psychology-based version of the non-dual, Ultimate Medicine, saying that “realisation is but the opposite of ignorance.”
(Not the opposite of being unholy? No. Not the opposite of having a spiritual malady? No. Simply the opposite of being driven by ignorance? Yes.)
Thus, realization is not about becoming an expert in things Noumenal; it is not about earning a Ph.D. in the five, basic, non-duality teaching methods which are used to transmit non-dual pointers (or supposedly non-dual) pointers to seekers; it is not about becoming an expert in one yoga or another; it is not about going into and out of samadhi; it is not about living in a way that guarantees a post-mahasamadhi reward rather than punishment;
it is not about living in a way to escape imaginary birth-life-death-rebirth cycles; it is not about being detached from “this world” and “things relative” and abiding in some “other upgraded world” where one can focus on “non-phenomenal things"; it is not about escaping or avoiding or dissociating; it is not about replacing false, phenomenal identities with new and improved or great or Special Noumenal identities;
and it is not about moving mentally into castles in the air or into some dreamed up, deeply-philosophical, Foo Foo Land (which is often preferred by those who are handicapped by their supposedly-high and unique intellect which convinces them that they should be apart from rather than a part of any mundane relative existence).
Instead, it is about returning to the condition which one enjoyed prior to programming, conditioning. etc., a condition which was "the opposite of ignorance."
Moreover, no one who has been rendered ignorant and insane as a result of ignorant and insane programming needs to be “re-programmed” (as in "the program"). The masses need to be “de-programmed.”
Additionally, that does not happen by way of being taught more and learning more. (What they were taught and learned is the root of the problem to start with.) All persons need to be un-taught; all persons need to un-learn.
Should that happen, then one will return to the Child No-Knowing State and once again be free of ignorance and insanity and will be able to abide naturally rather than unnaturally or “supernaturally” (that is, rather than abiding religiously or spiritually or in any of the other ways which program persons to be driven by unquestioning faith in what is taught and to be driven by the resultant magical thinking).
There are computer viruses circulating regularly on the internet which masquerade as virus-protection programs. They will flash on-screen, inform you that you are infected with such-and-such a virus, and ask if you would like that service to remove the contamination. If you click "Yes," your computer is doomed.
When a visitor using the computer
here during a retreat allowed such a virus to infect the system, the action I
took immediately was to run the "restore" program. The computer was
returned to its clean, pre-contamination state . . . to its original
virus-free, sickness-free condition. That is what the "journey"
discussed here is about, and the full "journey" restores the blocked
consciousness to its original, unadulterated, pre-contamination, pre-Ultimate
Sickness state.
Likely, there are still certain malware infections which are hiding in the
background of the computer, but the main threat to the system was addressed on
that occasion. And that is what this "path" and "journey"
are about, so if you only reach the fourth Child No-Knowing State step and only remove the
main threat to your system (namely, belief in the "not-you's" and the
fears and desires they generate as well as all of the other nonsensical beliefs
that are held), then completion of even four steps can make the
effort worthwhile, relatively speaking.
At that point, one of the most common mental infections which leads to the Sickness – namely, “a belief that false identities are real” – will be removed. If that happens, then one of the most common sources of misery and suffering and fighting and chaos and instability (namely, the hidden, subconscious agendas of personalities which subconsciously control thoughts and words and actions) will also be removed.
In the end, “full realization” comes when all learned ignorance is discarded, along with all of the distortions, illusions, delusions, and accumulated “learned ignorance” which accompany programming, conditioning, etc.
The “aim” is not to use the mind to learn and store even more ignorant and insane ideas and concepts and impressions and theories and views (a.k.a., “beliefs”) but is to return to the “Child Ignorance Stage” (which Maharaj described as a “no-mind,” “non-dual,” “zero concepts” state) and then lighten up by discarding the totality of the mind's content which, again, is made up of ignorant and insane ideas and concepts and impressions and theories and views (a.k.a., “beliefs”).
The invitation: go ahead and take whatever steps are required for you to “realize,” but understand that realization is nothing more than “the opposite of ignorance.”
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of
contemplation.
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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"
and
"Heaven and earth shall fade away."
and
"Heaven and hell are not geographic places
"There is no hell."
