TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
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QUOTATIONS AND POINTERS dealing with NON-DUALITY, ADVAITA, NISARGA YOGA and more
[To continue with offering for your consideration non-duality-based pointers dealing with a variety of topics.]
Quotations and Pointers by Category and Subject
Matter
REGARDING "THE CHILD IGNORANCE STAGE" of "THE CHILD NOT-KNOWING STAGE"
[Especial attention shall be paid to the fourth step, the step where one leaves behind all identities (and all "Identities") and abides in that earliest relative, manifested state of a no-knowing child which has not yet been taught or programmed or conditioned to believe any so-called "knowledge" (which Maharaj called "learned ignorance").
Originally, Maharaj offered a seven-step "path" which I did as well. Later, he would conclude that "You do not need to find out who or Who or what or What you are. It is enough to understand all that you are not."
That happens if one leaves behind at Step Three all beliefs in personal or supposed "Noumenal Identities" and returns to the Step Four no-knowing / child ignorance stage, meaning returns since the "path" is about "going back" by following the same but reverse path that one followed during the coming in, manifesting "journey."
Once that understanding happenings, then the "path" need no longer be a seven-step path but becomes a four-step path, after which one abides naturally, relaxed as a result of no longer being driven subconsciously by all kinds of workaholism including religious workaholism and spiritual workaholism and seeking workaholism.]
Among persons, only a child—or one existing as a child in the fashion of a
child's pre-programmed, pre-conditioned, pre-domesticated, pre-acculturated, per-indoctrinated, pre-brainwashed state—will witness without judgment, without thoughts, without beliefs based in
duality, and - therefore - without misery and suffering.
Those who have come here for satsang or for retreats during the last thirty+ years have been told that, if they would come unto me, then they must become as
an un-programmed, un-conditioned, un-domesticated, un-acculturated, un-brainwashed, and un-indoctrinated child.
(Sound familiar?)
If one would be free and at peace, then the effects of programming,
conditioning, domestication, and acculturation must be seen first; once a
seeker sees those effects - including misery and the inability to make
conscious choices - then the logic behind the invitation to discard those
effects becomes clear.
For adults to be able to witness without judgment, without thoughts, and
without beliefs based in duality requires a shift “back” to the state of child
ignorance (or the child-no-knowing state) by casting aside all of the nonsense
which has been accumulated as a result of learning and conditioning and
programming and domestication and acculturation and brainwashing and
indoctrination.
Nothing is more at peace than a healthy child if its physical needs have been
met and if it is free of contaminants. As long as its body's most basic
requirements have been met, perfect peace happens.
Contentment for adults can only happen in that pre-mind state of existence.
Realized, contentment happens as a result of "returning to" that
no-mind state. That is to say, contentment happens as a result of removing the
layers of concepts that obscure and block the consciousness so that it is as
available - in that purer, unblocked condition - as it was during that brief
period of childhood that happened prior to the obscuring of the consciousness.
Why should one who currently takes himself to be "an adult" settle
for less contentment than that experienced by a child?
That which the childhood stage offers as the consciousness manifests - but
before it eventually deteriorates and identifies with the "I" - is
the opportunity to know that you exist; therefore, as you take the steps from
the "I" to abidance as the Absolute, returning to the child ignorance
/ no-knowing stage is an opportunity for you to once know that You exist (that
is, to know "I AM" and "I AM" only).
In the child ignorance / no-knowing phase, a fiction-filled mind had not yet
resulted from having been taught the falsehoods about who or what you are.
The "mind" at that point did not exist. Concepts and ideas and
beliefs had not yet been stored in that part of the brain. There had not yet
been any assignment of - or assumption of - false roles or bogus identities or
fear-and-desire-inducing personalities / personas. All that happened merely
happened via natural instinct and body chemistry rather than as a subconscious
result of programming and conditioning and domestication and acculturation and
the learning of ignorance.
Here is why worldwide ignorance has not been stamped out and will not be
stamped out: persons believe that the planet-wide epidemic of ignorance could
be solved if only people would acquire more knowledge.
The Advaitin understands that the knowledge is the ignorance and that the
ignorance is the knowledge.
The ignorance is that which the masses have been taught and have learned, and
their ignorance will only be compounded if more of the same type knowledge is
injected into the equation.
Ignorance could be stamped out if persons were to forfeit their revered beliefs
and ideas and concepts and dogma.
Since such forfeiture happens so rarely - but is a prerequisite for realization
nevertheless - only a few will ever realize (that is, be freed of learned
ignorance and restored to sanity).
There is no lever to pull or handle to push that can produce a brain-flush; the non-dual process can produce that effect.
Were the brain to be flushed of all of the concepts and beliefs and ideas that
make up the "mind," then the peace of the Child Ignorance /
No-Knowing Stage could happen.
Unlike adult-age ignorance, the Child-Age Ignorance Stage, which is really a
misnomer, actually refers to the "no-mind," pre-programming,
pre-knowledge, pre-ignorance state.
Children early on do not have the knowledge / ignorance that adults must be
freed of if adults are to return to that former, peaceful stage.
The level of peace that a child enjoys in that state of "ignorance,"
prior to programming and conditioning and domestication and acculturation - and
prior to being assigned false identities - is never realized again in its
lifetime, in most cases.
The exceptions are those such as you, the ones who take these steps and return
to that "state" of peace that exists when persons are once again free
of learned ignorance and the influence of the illusions of the
body-mind-personality triad.
During the process by which the consciousness manifests and becomes corrupted
or blocked, a series of specific steps happen, steps which leave persons
identified with the physical body and with the fictitious content of the “mind”
and with a multiplicity of personalities / personas).
The steps are exactly the same in every case. The end result is that persons
become identified most with the physical body (and there is no identity that is
farther removed from that which they actually are).
To be identified with the body is to be as far away from being in touch with
Reality as a person can be, short of being catatonic.
In fact, the manifestation and corruption of consciousness results in seven
degrees of separation from Reality and leads to persons identifying with the
false “I.”
In order to once again be in touch with Reality, the same "coming in" steps must be
taken, but in reverse order.
Ultimately, all beliefs and concepts must be abandoned as one discards body
identification - and “mind” and personality identification as well.
Realized “non-dualists” have long agreed that (a) “the path” from body
identification to full realization is made up of the same steps by which the
consciousness initially moved from manifestation to body identification and
that (b) the steps on the "path" to realization must be completed in
the exact, reverse order if the shift from body identification to full
realization is to happen.
Even with that "formula" having been explicated, the fact remains
that most persons still never realize because (a) most will never seek realization
and because (b) even if some do seek, most teachers never delineate - in their
exact order - the specific steps [1-7 in number] by which the pure
consciousness manifested but soon became blocked or contaminated and unable to
see truth.
Most teachers do not catalogue and outline the exact reverse order in which the
steps on "the path" or "the journey" must be taken, though
that reverse order has been alluded to for centuries, if not for millennia.
Thus, seekers seldom find the exact "path," step-by-step, that must
be followed in order for "the return" to Reality to happen.
Two pointers that are especially confusing to most seekers include (1) the
inducement to transcend the "Religious and / or Spiritual Stage" and
(2) the invitation to enter into the “Child Ignorance / No-Knowing Stage."
What distinguishes the way that a child functions early on from the way that
most will behave later on as adults? When the child is a few months old, it has
neither the ability to judge nor the ability to criticize anything or anyone.
It has been taught no lies that will become part of the content of a
fiction-based “mind,” so it can neither form nor value nor express opinions or
ideas or thoughts or beliefs.
Other than basic bodily functions, a child is capable of nothing more than
witnessing. A child might be considered a "looker" or an
"observer" or a "seer" but - most certainly - it is not a
"do-er."
To use the age-old terminology and say that a child is “ignorant” at that point
would not be an accurate assessment, so that leads to confusion. Only when it
is later taught ignorance will it be ignorant.
So what is a child? Merely an elemental plant-food body that is capable of
circulating air and that provides a temporary space in which the unsullied
consciousness can manifest and “look” or "witness." That’s it. (And
"an adult" that merely witnesses is nothing more than that, either.)
The manifested so-called "True Self," therefore, is nothing more than
witnessing. The so-called "True Self" that is realized is nothing
more than "Pure Witnessing."
As a child, the witnessing is "pure" to the degree that the child is
not drawing false conclusions and accepting as truth any ideas and concepts and
beliefs that are really spurious ideas and bogus concepts and false beliefs and
misperceptions about what it is witnessing. With the fraction that are among
"the realized," the same applies.
Does the child know or understand what it is seeing? No. Eventually,
programming and conditioning and domestication and acculturation will strip
away the child's ability to see anything as it truly is because lies and
nonsense will be presented as truth.
The child will not be able to differentiate true from false, and as it moves
from what is called “childhood” into what is called “adulthood,” it will join
the ranks of almost all adults who always misperceive everything that they
think they are seeing, if not realized.
The pointer is that it is only after following the steps which free the
consciousness of the effects of programming and conditioning and acculturation
and domestication during the “going-out” process that "The Child Ignorance
Stage" or "The Child No-Knowing Stage" is reached.
When fully immersed in that stage, the seeker will finally be free (once again)
of all of the fallacious content of the “mind” and of all belief in personas.
When this step is reached during the “going-back journey,” therefore, it could
more accurately be pointed to with the phrase,
“the-person-no-longer-in-ignorance" stage.
Prior to reaching this step during the "going-back" process, persons
will have engaged in either (1) totally distorted witnessing and / or (2)
subject-object witnessing, and / or (3) totally blocked witnessing, all of
which results in misperception and misunderstanding.
At this stage, the earnest seeker that has completed the first steps on the
"journey" will reach a point of again being “childlike” to the degree
that mere witnessing happens . . . without thoughts, without any assumed identity
/ identities, without appraisals, without judgments, without the drawing of
conclusions, without sharing opinions and concepts and ideas, and without being
driven by nonsensical, ego-and-egotism-based beliefs.
From that platform, how can arguments happen? The child has no language and
cannot talk. If all concepts and beliefs have been discarded, allowing the
seeker to move truly into the "no longer in ignorance stage,” then there
are no tools by which arguments (and a resulting sense of
"separation") can be built.
Having re-entered this stage where all adults had once been, the seeker can
once again be in that place where there was no language and where there was
silence (except when hunger or discomfort manifested). Since the adult can
address those conditions of hunger and discomfort for "herself" or
"himself," then the silence can return and can continue.
A baby at rest loves the silence. Only by once again functioning in that same
"no longer in ignorance state" can the silence once again be enjoyed;
otherwise, the ego(s) and egotism will inspire talking to impress, will
generate noise-making to try to drown out the "mind's" chatter of a
thousand monkeys, and will result in shouting to try to control.
A sign of movement along the “path” is a shift from the Anglo's ego-inspired
worship of “freedom of speech”; then, “freedom from speech” and the
"freedom of silence" can manifest and be enjoyed.
“Witnessing” means “witnessing” - not "reacting to," not
"controlling," not "manipulating," not "using,"
not "debating," not "arguing," not
"pontificating," not "moving into and out of histrionic
states," not "displaying extreme so-called 'intensity'," and not
"doing."
Since witnessing happens in the absence of any belief in "a
witnesser," then there can come once again another taste of the original
bliss of merely being.
Farther along the “path,” stabilization in the beingness only can happen.
Returning to the point where there was impartial witnessing that triggered no
reactions allows for the first sampling again of that which was and is and
shall be (and which can be again, right now . . . as well as for the remainder
of the manifestation).
Freedom from “mind” / personality identification begins when the focus is on
the I AM, but no further movement toward reality can happen unless every
instance of following “I am” with a word is abandoned.
That means not only must the belief end that “I am . . . this body” or “I am .
. . a spouse” or “I am . . . an employee,” ad infinitum. It also means that “I
am . . . a religious person” and “I am . . . a spiritual person” and "I am
. . . the Supreme" must also be abandoned because those, also, are nothing
more than “mind”-generated and culture-generated personas / personalities /
roles.
On the “path,” if the "journey" is to be completed in full, then all
personality must be abandoned.
The final personas to be abandoned are usually "The Religious Person” and
"The Spiritual Person” and "The Supreme"; then, finally, even
"The Seeker" can go and true beingness only can come again.
The abandonment of those - and all - personalities as identities makes way for
the shift to the Child Ignorance Stage and the rest of the "path"
beyond.
With that abandonment and the return to the "Child Ignorance /
No-Knowing" level (where freedom from belief in concepts was the case and
where freedom from belief in concepts can happen now), then all beliefs and
ideas and concepts - and, yes, even attachment to false dogma - can fall aside
readily.
The re-purified / unblocked consciousness is returned to that stage - to that
condition - which was prior to programming and conditioning and domestication
and acculturation.
At that Child Ignorance / No-Knowing / No-Knower stage, the manifestation of
consciousness had happened originally, but that stage was prior to the
bastardization of the consciousness . . . prior to programming and conditioning and
domestication and acculturation and the teaching of concepts.
As the reverse order process to realization is followed step-by-step, the Child
Ignorance / No-Knowing level is the transitional stage between (A) freedom from
beliefs in concepts and (B) the newly-recovered ability that you - at the
unprogrammed child level - enjoyed:
namely, the ability to merely witness without judging, without drawing
conclusions, without becoming emotionally-attached to power or
"Power," without trying to use power / "Power" to control
others and the world and the future, without trying to influence outcomes, and
without the never-ending fluctuation and chaos that will, otherwise, mark the
relative existence.
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.
