TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
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The Pure, Universal Consciousness,
Pure Awareness,
and a
"Proper Perspective"
“I talk to you from the perspective of the universal consciousness.”
---Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
[Continued from yesterday]
So, Maharaj’s “Plan A” was to seek the peace and quiet and silence and to interrupt the thought-to-word-to-action cycles of entrapment which rob persons of the ability to make conscious choices.
His “Plan B” was for those occasions when talking does happen: on those occasions, “talk from the perspective of the universal consciousness” (meaning, the consciousness as it was prior to manifesting within the space formed by a composite unity called “a human” and then being blocked and distorted by way of distorted programming, conditioning, etc.)
Earlier, the act of listening for “tells” was offered as one way to identity and avoid those claiming to be “fully realized” but who are not. In professional poker tournaments, many of the players wear sunglasses in order to hide their “tells” because their eyes might react involuntarily to a winning poker hand or to a losing poker hand and thereby reveal unconsciously to the other players whether they are bluffing or not when they place their bets.
Many who studied the teachings of Maharaj and who now claim to be realized reveal, via their tells - that is, via the duality-based words they use and via the dualistic concepts which they espouse - that such claims might be questionable.
For example, would the truly realized speak of “ambition,” of “the meaning of life,” of “changing your life,” of “someone having a calling,” of being “incredible,” of “succeeding,” of “controlling outcome via intention,” of “fostering ambition,” of “finding your life’s purpose,” of a “Self that is infinite,” of “seeking power and gaining power,” of having “an ageless body and mind,” of “fulfilling desires,” of “spiritual laws,” of "sacred contracts," of “God or Gods,” or of “knowing God”?
The answer is unequivocally “No,” yet all of those duality-based concepts are the subject of books which have made millionaires of those famous "Big Name Teachers" and hypnotized their followers into sending them more and more money.
Note: Many who claim "to have studied and to understand clearly the teachings of Maharaj" are now some of the most famous persons “on the circuit” and are using those exact terms above.
[As for "knowing God," which god or gods and goddesses might one be inquiring about? If one is willing to settle for the view of the majority on the planet, then the god usually referenced is the god of Abraham whose proselytizing led to the development of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
Those three groups account for 58% of the planet's population, so if you study the god whom they believe is revealed in their various so-called "holy books," then here's what to understand to know the god of the majority on earth:
Their god is male in gender.
Their god is not capable of unconditional love. His love must be earned.
Even if his love is earned, it can be lost if one angers or disappoints him.
His viciousness is limitless:
He is said at one point to have killed everyone on earth except for eight members of one family.
He is reportedly willing to subject those who do not please him to eternal fire and / or eternal mental and emotional suffering.
He's a very picky eater, and his food laws for his followers are strict (though senseless).
Per some followers, he does not want people to eat meat; thus, another 1.2 billion followers in India can be added to those adhering to his food rules. He is particularly opposed to the eating of pork.
[Bo Burnham has God asking, "I created the universe, so why would I draw the line at the deli aisle?" Per other followers, god doesn't care if you eat meat unless you're thinking about eating it on a Friday. Now that will not be tolerated. "On Friday," God supposedly said, "you have to eat fish." Rather petty, n'est-ce pas? And while some went along with the religious leaders who lifted that ban, some never abandoned the rule and others today are returning to the restriction.
Ultimately, Bo asked why people should believe in such a god and then suggested that if there is a god, maybe the case is that "he does not believe in you." Bo finally offered for consideration the pointer that if it's love you want, don't look for it from that kind of god. It won't come from him. It can only come from you.
As a child and early teen, I was taken several times a week for years to that hotbed of ignorance and insanity known in the U.S. as "an evangelical church." There, I did get to "know their God" and realized what a totally-foolish schmuck he would have to be and realized how totally obnoxious and contemptible that kind of "personal god" would be; thus, I became determined by the age of 5 or 6 that - as soon as possible - I'd get as far away as I could from those evangelicals and the God they think they know.]
Again, Maharaj warned seekers to avoid those types that, as noted yesterday, he referred to as “Big Name Teachers.” Their words sound profound, but if studied objectively and wisely, their words will be seen to reveal a series of “tells.”
If you disagree with Maharaj’s warning about those types, would you be willing to try an exercise before ending all consideration? If so, consider each word or term above (“ambition,” “meaning,” “power,” “Infinite Self,” etc.) and then determine WHO (that is, which ego-state) feels a certain affection for each of those concepts.
WHO (what persona) wants power? WHO (what ego-state) thinks she / he has power? WHO wants to be ageless? WHO wants to control? WHO wants eternal continuity?
If an author, speaker, retreat organizer, or lecturer adds relative concepts to his or her talks (that is, words which are intended to stroke the relative desires and fears of their audience members), and if they are selling those dualistic concepts as “non-dual pointers,” then Maharaj’s warning to stay away from those who would misled was a valid warning on his part.
By way of example, Maharaj showed how one might need to shift away from blindly following the words of someone whom they were so sure about early on. The words of some might get a seeker to the third of seven steps where religious and spiritual roles are played, but such words will never be able to move one beyond all role-assumption and all role-playing.
A teacher's or preacher's or imam's or rabbi's or guru’s instructions might seem to be "spot on" at one point but - if looked at objectively and wisely - they might be seen to be far-off-the-mark at a later point.
During Maharaj’s guru-bhakti stage, he followed his guru's instructions exactly. Eventually, he would abandon those directions as he found that the version of the Ultimate Medicine which was being offered as a result of his guru's words and strategies was ineffective.
No one should be excused from having their words subjected to an honest and wise and objective analysis to see if those words are sharing a non-dual perspective consistently or if those words are being influenced by personality and desires and other factors which are rooted in hidden agendas.
Next, why else did Maharaj recommend that one’s word usage be rooted in the accurate expressions which come via the pure, universal consciousness, that is, via the consciousness as it was prior to being blocked by way of distorted programming, conditioning, etc.?
Any concepts which a person utters that are generated by the fiction-filled “mind will (a) contribute to furthering misunderstandings instead of leading to the true understanding and will also (b) lead to all of the unnatural or supposedly “supernatural” nonsense which can be witnessed as it unfolds all around the globe.
It was noted that one local weather forecaster planted what was a self-fulfilling prophecy for some listeners as she predicted that people were going to experience a miserable day because of rain and cold temperatures. Another local weather forecaster’s words were forwarded by a site visitor. That man claimed that “our area is in for a bad week with the possibility of rain every day.”
Pure, nonsensical talk, rooted in duality. Never mind that the area had been in a drought for years. Never mind that vegetation needed the rain. Never mind that the foundations of houses were cracking from shifts in the dry, contracting soil.
According to that forecaster's thoughts and words, an entire week was going to be “a bad one,” that assessment offered to an entire community of viewers by a person with preconceived notions (that is, with firmly-fixed, pre-conceptualized beliefs) about what makes a day “good” or “bad.”
Once such dualistic notions are applied not only to weather but also to spouses, to neighbors, to “foreigners,” to blacks in a church in South Carolina, to the unarmed people who continue to be shoot down by some in positions of authority all over the U.S., and to anyone else who is determined to supposedly be "different from" and "less than" because of skin color or nationality or sexual preference or gender or any other prejudicial, duality-based criteria, then the roots of disharmony, fighting and even war become evident to the observant.
It becomes clear how a political leader can declare the entire populations of some nations to be members of "an axis of evil" and then invade other nations on false pretext.
Once the words “good” and “bad” have been introduced and stored as thoughts, then the basis of duality has been set in place. Once dualistic thinking begins to control what persons say and do, their vocabulary will undergo a near-limitless expansion and only dualistic words will adumbrate their dualistic belief systems.
Thereafter, all people and states and nations will be mentally divided and will be spoken of in terms of being either moral or immoral; right or wrong; righteous or evil; deserving to live or deserving to die. After that, an understanding of the no-concept, non-dual reality is almost impossible.
Then, dualistic thoughts and dualistic words become the tools which the "non-realized" use to fabricate illusory (but seemingly real) gulfs, splits, schisms, divisions, subdivisions, separations, hierarchies, and dreamed up multiplicities.
From that point, fluctuations and instability and disharmony will mark the relative existence. Because the quiet is anathema among the "non-realized," the noise of dualistic words will be used to try to drown out the screaming thoughts coming from the disjointed, dualistic “mind.”
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."
