TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
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THE ULTIMATE SICKNESS and THE ULTIMATE MEDICINE
Four Stages
Stage III: The Forest Dweller Stage (continued)
Once the author became physically and mentally and emotionally depleted as a result of decades of going and doing and zooming, as a result of spiritual workaholism, and as a result of searching without rather than within, then the movement to the forest came automatically, spontaneously.
I became "driven" to get away. Though it was not seen initially, the propensity for escapism which inspired the twenty-five-month retreat into the forest was no different from the escapism that drove all of the external seeking:
an external god had been sought; the external power of money and possession and status and influence had been sought; external teachers had been sought from around the globe;
external rituals and exercises had been sought and found and used; "special places" had been sought; an entire library of books had been sought out and amassed, books made famous because the authors calculated rightly what kind of content could garner mass appeal,
namely
content which focuses on the phenomenal while peppering their books with the vocabulary of the noumenal in order to distract from the fact that what they are teaching reveals that none of them understand the exact steps to full realization.
The Gottmans, known to be two of the most skilled researchers on the planet in terms of marriage, note that any relationship still "has a chance" until the one definite, clearly recognizable deal-breaker manifests with one or both partners, namely, "disgust."
I had to become disgusted with the traditional methods of seeking that were popular among the masses. I had to move away, as Robert Frost did, and enter "the yellow wood" and see where the path "diverged" and "look down one road as far as I could to where it bent in the undergrowth."
I had to see that the bent "path" was the one I had tried and had to see that it does not go where I had been trying to go. I had to then "take the other that wanted wear" (from lack of use) and move forth beyond fear with fearful hope and with courage, knowing "how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back."
I had to be willing to leave behind all that had been and I had to stand where "two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one less traveled by." The result: "that has made all the difference."
As for you, you need not literally go to the forest as did "maharaj" and as did "floyd." You may enter the forest dweller stage right now wherever you are by shifting the focus of your search away from popular books and famous authors and famous lecturers and societal forms of personal power and imaginary external forms of Personal Power(s);
by turning the direction of your search away from externals; by looking away from the unnatural and the supernatural and by focusing on that which is natural and by seeing the difference in those three;
by seeing what amazing shifts can happen if you model that which is natural rather than that which is unnatural or supernatural and by looking within until an all-natural fashion of abidance happens.
During my twenty-five months stay in the forest (which - as noted above - is not a requirement for seekers) I saw that birds moved away from me as I approached and understood the way that consciousness would extend itself, automatically, and triggers a desire for eternal continuity (be that desire in a bird or in a human female or a human male).
I saw that spiders did their work and then relaxed and patiently waited for nature to run its course. I saw, by watching the deer, what natural living really entails. I saw by observing snakes how predictable life-forms behave with their different "personalities."
Some snakes when approached during my morning or afternoon walks would slink away, avoiding conflict and encounters. Others, such as the cottonmouths that frequented the areas around the ponds or swamps in some of the woods I visited were quite aggressive whereas the copperheads that liked to lie in the sun across an open trail, were less aggressive.
I could use the bear claw on the end of the walking stick given to me by a Cherokee man (explaining why the stick could have an actual bear claw attached which would be an illegal accessory for non-indigenous people). Using that claw, I could slide it beneath the middle of a resting copperhead, lift it, set it aside and then move on along the trail.
Were I to try that with a water moccasin, it would leap six feet into the air and try to attach it fangs to my neck or face. I witnessed that water moccasins could be controlling, willing to stake out a territory as if it were their own and then kill to protect the space they claimed.
Then I saw how often in life I had subconsciously been willing to link up with water-moccasin-type, controlling humans rather than with less temperamental and more laid back copperhead-types, and I saw how it was time for me to start making more accurate, conscious, assessments regarding the humans I would hang with in the future.
The different types of snakes showed how powerless (or ruthless) persons are when functioning under the influence of a personality type (or types) which are common to the groups they are members of.
I looked at the swamps and was reminded of the primordial soup and was reminded of what any eight-grader should know from a basic science class: that there was no Creator or creation . . . that neither energy nor matter can be created nor destroyed . . . that the original ooze consisted of hydrogen and ammonia and methane and that lightning struck the soup and formed amino acids.
I was reminded that those acids are the building blocks of life, was reminded that it all began with a spark, was reminded that a spark of consciousness can manifest and can cycle in and can cycle out, and was reminded that what drives all of "this" is indeed, as the scientist said, "a little electric current, set up by the sunshine.”
And I saw by way of an encounter with a bear and her two cubs how
(1) a psychically-healthy human can process an actual or perceived threat in the fifteen minute time-frame that professionals suggest is a reasonable amount of time needed to process
versus
(2) the way that psychically-unhealthy humans who are attached to their false identities can go months and even years without processing perceived threats and without seeing that personas cannot be hurt or threatened and without becoming free of resentments around such misperceptions and then returning to a state of peace.
It was that understanding which allowed the following response to be shared with a seeker who wrote:
"You witness feelings rise and fall. How long can your feelings last, for example, if you lose a friend? Would the feelings simply rise for a minute, a day, a week, etc.? Where do you draw the line?"
The response: "The procedure which is called 'psychological processing' by therapists is termed 'seeing the actual facts' or 'seeing reality' by Advaitins. The need for either (a) processing or (b) seeing truth only follows 'mind'-generated mis-perceptions which are distortions. Among persons, it is an on-going requirement; among the realized, it is not required at all."
Such distortions result in (1) the inability among persons during the relative existence to distinguish between natural threats and unnatural threats and even from supernatural threats and in (2) actions and reactions that are far from natural and that are most unnatural instead.
A relative existence example from “floyd’s pre-realization days” involves perceptions around a bear in case #1 and around a "wife" in case #2:
While walking through a field at the end of a two-week period of hiking and camping in Arizona, (a part of the twenty-five-month-long Forest Dweller Stage) my path crossed that of a brown bear that was guarding her cubs. She first stood, raised her front legs into the air (presenting a fourteen-foot challenger to my safety), then roared, and then charged.
What immediately flashed into awareness was the advice received from Tom Brown (author of several field guides as well as The Tracker, The Vision, The Quest, Awakening Spirits, and other books). A few weeks before that trip, I had visited Tom at his home in New Jersey. We talked about the early influences provided to him by the one he called "Grandfather" and the early influences provided to me the one he called "Grandmother." Later during that visit, he advised:
“The time of year when you'll be staying in the Southwest, the mama bears will be moving about with their cubs and can be especially reactive if they feel you’re threatening their young. If you’re charged by a bear on your trip, fall to the ground and curl into a protective ball.
“The charge will likely be just that - a warning charge to drive you away - rather than a full-blown attack. If it turns out that you are attacked, shift to an offensive mode. Fight for your life . . . go for her eyes, hit her in the nose, fight with all your might.”
That bear’s standing up, growling and then charging could be considered a truly threatening posture in nature, relatively speaking. I felt threatened, and the sensation of feeling threatened by that female was a natural response.
In the second case, when “floyd’s wife” said, “I’m leaving you” and then got into a car and drove away, the not-yet-fully realized “floyd” also felt threatened by a female.
Tomorrow, the contrast between the “perceived threat to a host of false identities” in the second case and the “actual physical threat to the body” in the first case.
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."
teachings which become a part of the Papal Magisterium.
