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
Recall that during the many years after Maharaj abandoned “the Forest Dweller Stage” and returned to Bombay and received “seekers” in his one remaining shop - and later began receiving “seekers” into his loft - that he revised his estimates about how many would ever realize.
[And note that he defined realization as nothing more than a process by which persons can be freed from belief in all of the “learned ignorance” they had been taught; thus, persons’ notion that they "have realized" and believe that they are therefore “special” or “better than” or a “Spiritual Giant” or in touch with their “Highest Self” - or in line to become a “Supreme Self” or “an Infinite Self” or “Transcendent Self” - is rooted in two sources discussed yesterday:
one is the belief in the total misunderstanding about what the only logical point of the non-dual understanding can be;
and
two, is the engagement in spiritual workaholism and religious fanaticism and the subsequent belief in having “good” ego-states / personas; that triggers the manifestation of egotism which is used as a defense mechanism for all of their false identities which, in turn, inspires narcissism, image-building and image maintenance.]
So what did Maharaj’s revised estimates show in regards to how many seekers he figured would ever realize?
In the early years of offering non-dual pointers, he guessed that “only 1 in a hundred thousand will ever realize and be free of belief in learned ignorance.”
In the middle years, he change the estimate to “only 1 out of one million will ever realize.”
In the later years, he changed his estimate again: “It seems that only 1 out of ten million will ever realize.”
Such is the result when the content of “seekers’” minds drives them to adopt “new and improved but nevertheless false identities” such as “The Super Religious One,” “The Spiritual Giant” and “The Super Seeker” or “The Supreme Self” or “The Infinite Self” or “The Transcendent Self.”
Now some will claim that it is impossible to reach what Maharaj referred to as his “no mind state” and his “zero concepts state.” Yet that is actually an easy step (and a basic step, being the second step on the shift to realization).
Why do those making such a claim have the belief that it can't be done? Because, first they think that their beliefs define who they are and to abandon their beliefs would be to abandon themselves.
Spot on. Abandoning the belief in a self - actually in the many false selves they use to try to define who they are - is a very effective tool in eventually being free of all belief in all of the accumulated, learned ignorance which is stored in their minds.
Others who claim that it is impossible to reach what Maharaj referred to as his “no mind state” and his “zero concepts state” are those who are trapped in the total misunderstanding about what the only logical point of the non-dual understanding can be and how the process of shifting to realization must be conducted.
The process does not, as most believe, require accumulating more and more information and more and more knowledge; nor does it require that some big name teacher or guru teach them more and more.
To the contrary, the process requires finding someone that can guide you through a process whereby you are un-taught and whereby you un-learn.
A doctor treating you for a gunshot wound would not say, “Well, it looks like to me that you need to be shot at least one more time, maybe in the heart, and many even shot a third time, let’s say, right between the eyes.”
The learned ignorance accumulated in a mind can never be treated by pumping in more and more knowledge. Realization requires de-accumulation, not more accumulation. If one’s problem is that a vast accumulation of learning has been accumulated, who would believe someone telling her or him that “more teaching and more learning can treat that condition.”
It would be as if one’s
toilet is clogged and the plumber you called for help showed up and said, “Well,
it looks like I’m gonna have to pump a ton more caca into this thing" (which already
has been filled with too much caca to start with). The same applies to a mind which has already had way too much caca pumped into it.
So here’s the deal: after thinking for years that religion plus non-dual pointers could address the Ultimate Sickness, and after next thinking for years that spirituality and non-dual pointers could eliminate the source of the Ultimate Sickness, Maharaj came to realize that the Sickness is centered in the mind and not in knowing too little dogma and not in a failure to be more and more spiritual.
So what did he prescribe after finally understanding that? He advised seekers to address their psychological problems, their personality disorders, their neuroses and their psychoses which were put into place by . . .
illogical and insane programming, conditioning, domestication, acculturation, brainwashing and indoctrination
and
put into place by . . .
ignorant teaching and by learning all of the ignorance which persons are taught which also results in their contracting the Ultimate Sickness and then exhibiting three of the key symptoms of their Sickness (namely, “ignorance, stupidity, and insanity”).
[Note: All of those symptoms are about mind stuff, not about religious stuff and not about spiritual stuff.]
Maharaj’s interpreters over the years would eliminate from the transcripts they made of his talks any and all of the profanities which he used to pepper his sharings and which he used for emphasis.
One word that he used often which they censored was “bullshit.” Why did he use that often?
First, because it was graphically accurate in summarizing what cultures teach its children and its adults as well. Second, because his listeners in Bombay could relate to actual bullshit being an obstacle because a simple walk down most streets required extreme vigilance in order to avoid stepping into said bullshit while wearing open sandals.
That bullshit had accumulated along the streets as the culture’s sacred cows were allowed to roam about freely and contaminate the city in the process and allowed their supposedly sacred cows to control the flow – or to interrupt the flow – of traffic.
What a fantastic metaphor for “The Seekers’ Dilemma”:
Exposure to the sacred cows
of any culture become accumulated not in the streets but in the minds of
children and adults in each culture. Once there, they interrupt the flow of any truth trying to enter the mind.
Thus, believing in the content of the mind, and allowing one's BS thoughts to roam freely in the mind, will interrupt the flow of any movement along the path to realization.
Children are forced to have open minds (i.e., never questioning adults) just as many in Bombay wear open sandals which allow the BS to accumulate therein.
The sandals cannot be cleaned by adding more BS. The same applies to the BS-filled minds of the masses.
To this day, most of the people of Bombay / Mumbai cling to the attachment to their sacred cows. So do persons all around the globe as they cling to the BS in their minds.
The invitation: stop allowing persons to pump more BS into your mind. See that BS really is BS. See that what you have been taught and learned is exactly what you should be un-taught and exactly what you should un-learn.
Of course, those are just suggestions! 😁To be continued.
Please enter 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."
