TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
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DE-AWESOME-FYING NON-DUAL TERMINOLOGY
“The scriptures say that we have our ‘karma’ and our sin and that is why we are here, but this is for the ignorant masses. [For] one who has realized, these stories are of no use.”
--Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
More on the rationale for this series:
1. Among the 7+ billion non-realized persons on planet earth, 97% reported in a survey that they limit their “search area” to the space beneath the roof a church or basilica or cathedral or temple or the meeting room of a “spiritual group” or a wat or mosque or synagogue or gurdwara. Actually, they seldom seek because they are convinced that they have found. They are taught to “question nothing” and to “accept with blind faith” whatever they are taught.
2. The same applies to the millions supposedly seeking in particular rooms or a loft or a home or a borrowed gathering space or via a particular ideology, cult, philosophy, or theory.
3. Of those seeking via a system of pointers which included the invitation to “question everything,” few question it all.
4. Here, “non-dualists” are encouraged to “question it all” and then an expanded caveat is added: “even question every non-dual pointer you’ve ever heard or read.”
5. Long before Maharaj shared pointers on the bogus beliefs regarding body and mind and personality identification; and long before he advised seekers to abandon their religious and spiritual role-playing; and long before he advised them to give up their spiritual workaholism and merely abide naturally, he laid the groundwork for all the pointers to come by saying, “Question everything.”
He meant with those words that every belief accumulated by listening to others and by reading the words of others and by going to gatherings (where those he derided as “Big Name Teachers” were collecting millions of dollars a year from seekers) must be questioned.
6. There have been millions of religious and spiritual and philosophical and ideological and Eastern and, yes, even non-dual concepts / beliefs which billions of humans have taken to be “awesome.”
In addition to “awesome,” so many simple and basic parts of the non-dual understanding have been “elevated in status” in a most supercilious, pompous fashion, reporting that various elements of the message are “noble,” “other-worldly,” “extraordinary,” “exceptional,” “distinctive,” and “exclusive.” None of them were, and none of them are.
7. This series is offering a different perspective about those concepts / beliefs / pointers / whatever.
So far in this series, it has been shown that - far from being “awesome concepts or teachings” - there is actually no validity or logic at all to such concepts or teachings as . . .
continuity;
WHO-ness and / or who-ness;
“SELF-Actualization”;
“SELF-Realization”;
“self-realization” (unless referring to the fact that one has realized that all assigned or assumed selves are illusions as are all assumed Selves as well)
and
liberation
and
enlightenment, awakening, and spiritual awakening,
and
“the Spiritual Malady”
and
higher consciousness
and
noble truths
and
how to know God
and
finding your life’s purpose
and
how to find peace of mind
and, relatedly,
mindfulness
becoming who you are
and
having an ageless body and timeless mind.
Today, the discussion moves to . . .
KARMA
Recall that Maharaj initially offered a Hindu / non-dual compounded version of the Ultimate Medicine, so he played along with the only-Hindu visitors who were coming to his loft. That meant he also played their game of talking about “karma.”
Recall too that Maharaj later offered a spirituality / non-dual compounded version of the Ultimate Medicine to appease the Western guests who came to visit, so he played along with their game of only-established-Eastern-teachings-are-acceptable-and-they-must-all-be-honored, so he talked with them about “karma.”
But when he shifted to the third and final version of the Ultimate Medicine which he would offer in his later no-holds-barred talks - that version being a psychology / non-dual compounded version of the Ultimate Medicine - he advised seekers to forget about karma (just as he would eventually advise Western visitors to “forget about spirituality”).
Many would claim that “he contradicted himself” by telling one seeker on Monday one thing and would tell another seeker on Tuesday the opposite. What was that about?
That was about offering “level appropriate pointers.” The reason he allowed visitors to ask questions and make comments during the early part of a session was to find out where they were on the “path.”
Once that was revealed, Maharaj took over and offered a person at the second step the pointers needed to shift that seeker to the third step. For seekers who revealed they were at the third step, he offered pointers that shifted them to the fourth step.
He was not “contradicting himself”; he was offering level appropriate pointers for each seeker.
Consider this parallel:
The Advaitin Yeshu’a (erroneously called “Jesus”) would tell those farther along the “path” that “there is no God and there is no heaven awaiting you.”
Then, fast forward to the crucifixion.
Four writers described the events of that day, and all four wrote totally differing reports about what was said. (Since they were writing their hearsay accounts some 80 or more years later, of course their accounts would differ, especially since each writer had a different agenda and motive in reporting his version.)
One of the accounts which differed totally from that of the other three writers reported that Yeshu’a said to one of the men on an adjacent cross who was in full panic mode, “My Father's house has many rooms. If that were not true, would I have told you that I'm going to prepare a place for you?”
So did Yeshu’a lie to the man he told him years before "there is no heaven" or to another man to whom he said, “Heaven and earth shall fade away”?
Or was he lying to the man on the adjacent cross?
Or, as a third possibility, (if he actually even said those words to the man on the cross next to him), might he have simply shared what a parent might say about death and the afterlife to a child who is mourning the death of a pet cat or dog?
So much for all that.
For the rest of us, after Maharaj shifted beyond his earlier Hindu-influenced and Westerners-influenced comments about karma (which were similar to the message which parents discussing death and the afterlife with a child who is mourning the demise of a pet cat or dog) let’s consider what Maharaj eventually had to said about karma:
Maharaj: "'Karma' is only a word you have learnt to repeat. You have never been, nor shall ever be, a person.”
Question: “Is it destiny that ordains?”
Maharaj: “Calling it destiny explains little. When it happens you cannot say why it happens and you merely cover up your ignorance by calling it ‘karma’ or ‘Grace’ or ‘God’s will’.”
Maharaj: “Beyond the world of form exists true freedom, not bound by destiny or karma.”
“The scriptures say that we have our ‘karma’ and our sin and that is why we are here, but this is for the ignorant masses. [For] one who has realized, these stories are of no use.”
Simple, huh?
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.
