TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
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DE-AWESOME-FYING NON-DUAL TERMINOLOGY
To continue with 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
and
WHO-ness and / or who-ness
and
“SELF-Actualization”
and
“SELF-Realization”
and
“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
and
becoming who you are
and
having an ageless body and timeless mind
and
karma
and
“Infinite Self” and “Supreme Self” and “Eternal Self”
and
birth-death-rebirth cycles
and
“The Universe”
and
“the work” / “spiritual work” / “spiritual workaholism”
and
contrary types vs. contrarians
and
being blessed and having blesséd days
and
the power of now
and
the pure, universal consciousness
and
“I am consciousness”
and
“Consciousness is all there is”
and
“Nothing is real.”
Today, the discussion turns to . . .
BLISS
With 97% of the planet's population reporting an affiliation with one religion or another, the perceptions regarding "the good and the bad " referenced by Maharaj above will dominate. What will also dominate are duality-based thoughts and beliefs about "high's and low's," peace and war, rises and falls, harmony and disharmony, fortune and misfortune, good economic times and bad economic times, bliss and misery, ad infinitum.
Much has been written on this site about the bogus notions which many seekers hold in regards to "bliss." The search feature will allow the interested to find more on that. The simple version is this:
Nothing about a composite unity that is moving through a relative existence is "wired" for continuous and uninterrupted bliss.
While many seek eternal bliss NOW, believing that the alleviation of their fears and the fulfillment of their desires will produce a state of uninterrupted bliss, Maharaj said to the contrary that . . .
"Desirelessness is the highest bliss."
Not "having all of your desires met?" No. Desirelessness, period.
He said: "The desire for bliss creates pain. Thus bliss becomes the seed of pain. The entire universe of pain is born of desire. Give up the desire for pleasure and you will not even know what is pain."
When asked what about "the bliss of non-duality," Maharaj replied, "Such bliss is more of the nature of a great peace."
Why? Because when seekers settle into the envelope, in that "middle ground" between the high's and low's which are experienced by the non-realized masses who are trapped in dualistic perceiving and thinking and talking and behaving, the few abiding in that middle ground are content with contentment.
What does that look like here? It looks like the moments spent yesterday with two granddaughter’s playing in a park:
That is what awareness of being looks like to a three-year old and a five-year old, and it is available to all that move beyond the third step on "the path" (the step where all of those old supposedly "bad roles" have been abandoned, only to be replaced - unfortunately - by what are deemed to be some supposedly really "good roles").
Beyond the third step where "good" identities are assumed and played, the shift into "The Child No-Knowing State" can happen, as can an awareness of merely being.
Granted, it may appear that something planned is happening, but actually that is just the essence of spontaneous beingness to a child.
Yet so many seek to reach that "eagle-high state" of unassailable bliss and remain there. Again, humankind is not wired that way, is not wired to be able to sustain that state.
Here, there are events which seem to be quite blissful in their nature, but they are as rare as the events which are perceived to be "low." Most of the waking hours are spent in the middle ground of contentment, "satisfied' and "gratified" and "at ease," no longer trapped in a seeking state but enjoying the restfulness and peace of not desiring and therefore no longer constantly seeking.
"The Super Seeker" died some time after "The Religious One" disappeared and very shortly after "The Spiritual Giant" faded away. After those last ego-states were abandoned, then the mere beingness became "enough."
Maharaj: "Awareness of being is bliss."
Consider objectively and wisely whatever "state of ecstasy" one might enjoy during the relative and it should be clear that any peak can come only after a lull, whether the peak involves sexual gratification, the satisfaction of a gourmet meal when hungry, whatever.
Any who reaches a state that seems to be "eagle high" will automatically be set up to soon reach a state that seems to be "whale ca-ca low."
Maharaj's use of the "Direct Method Path" was always combined with one yoga or another. In the end, he settled exclusively on the Nisarga (the Natural) Yoga which was at the heart of the "different route" which he eventually settled on; thus, he said:
Yoga is the science and the art of self-liberation . . . ."
For Maharaj, he shifted through periods of guru-bhakti and bhakti; to bhakti and jnani; to jnani and nisarga; and eventually to the Nisargan Yoga alone.
The consideration he offered at that point is the consideration offered here at this point:
Might it be possible that everything you've ever been told and taught or read is false; that the "route" presently being followed has not yet freed you from all of the beliefs accumulated via those means; and that a "different route" might be indicated to complete the "journey" and return to the identity-less, belief-less, zero-concepts, being-only state where looking for a roly-poly just might be enough . . . that is, might be enough to be able to enjoy contentment without believing one is entitled to being in a constant state of bliss or, by contrast, suffering the chaos of misery which is sure to follow?
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
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“Liberation (Attaining Freedom from Personality via Realization)”
“Freedom from Shifting Between States of Happiness and Unhappiness”
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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.
