TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
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NEEDLESS WORK and COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE ACCEPTANCE and THE CURSE OF HABITS
Lagniappe, Nisarga Yoga Style
As a teen, I spent two years in hell on earth. I learned that it is not a place of eternal fire below the surface of the earth but is located on the very surface of the planet at coordinates 30.6485° N, 91.1565° W.
For those with no desire to set their GPS and to be guided to a visit to Hell, most can use a standard map and visit the name that Hell has on a U.S. map, namely, “Zachary, Louisiana.”
For those who would prefer a shorter drive to have a gander at Hell, no problem since Hell has expanded from that locale and now includes in the U.S. the southern states, and most of the Midwest, especially the rural parts. Most will find that if they do not live in an official part of Hell, parts of it are usually only a short drive away.
For international visitors to this site who would like the have a quick gander to see what Hell is like, be not concerned because Hell has opened branches all around the globe which you can reach quite easily.
Zachary, Louisiana
had many Hell-like elements, so in the high school there, my buttocks were
beaten by teachers and by other students whom teachers allowed life-long residences of the
town to beat the buttocks of “newcomers” like me. Water blisters the size of half a tennis ball were common.
The KKK had members residing there and in the surrounding towns; those who attacked other students on campus during the day received no punishment if their parents were among the town’s wealthiest;
long-standing businesses were allowed to cheat customers without fear of penalty; liquor sales to teens was tolerated; laws were enforced differently for longtime residents as opposed to out-of-towners and minorities; the good old boys who ran the town and its courts were quite similar to Judge Alvin “J.P.” Valkenheiser in the movie Nothing But Trouble.
It was in that cajun town where I was introduced to the French word “lagniappe” because of the community’s high sense of entitlement. If one of the old guard in the town ordered a dozen donuts and received a dozen donuts, they instantly shifted into a state of rage.
Their belief was that if they ordered twelve donuts and paid for twelve donuts, they damn well better find thirteen donuts in the box when they opened it.
They defined lagniappe as “something given as a little extra” or as “a bonus or extra gift” or as “a benefit” or as “an unearned but nevertheless required advantage.”
How does that relate to “seekers”? Exactly, that’s how. Being religious is about receiing benefits, both now and forevermore. Spirituality is the same. Cult membership is the same. Party affiliations are the same. Workers nowadays are showing their employers, understandably, that they now expect “perks” or “benefits packages” with their jobs.
Over the years, many have asked what the advantage is to realizing (that is, per Maharaj, to ending the believe in lies and learned ignorance). Others have asked about the gain to be had from understanding the Nisarga Yoga.
The supposition is that there is “one” - that there is a WHO - that can benefit. Few prefer to abide in a position of neutrality and to merely witness; most want more, want extra, want benefits, want gains.
Of that, Maharaj’s later understanding was, “If you expect any benefits from your search - material, mental, or spiritual - you have missed the point.”
Earlier,
the point was offered here that few set out on a literal journey without knowing an
exact destination; yet that is exactly what happens far too often when persons
enter into a "religious" or "spiritual" or
"ideological" or "philosophical journey."
Some travel a religious "path" because their parents did so. They did
not even choose to do so, but they now blindly walk someone else's
"path" that they were set on. Their destination? Among some
religions, eternal life, rewards now, eternal reward, unlimited sex, and the avoidance of
eternal punishment. Add in the promised benefit of "power now" with
most of those.
Among others, the details of a movement through a series of lives to reach an
ultimate, eternal reward is taught. Members often present their own ideas about
what is to be gained by following their dogma and adhering to their principles.
Among most, those also supposedly include benefits, gain, more, power.
Shared with some who join spiritual programs are twelve basic promises in a
list read daily. More than one-hundred-and-twenty other benefits are promised
throughout their literature. Benefits, gain, more, power.
Scores
and scores of promises are offered to those whose penchant for excess and for
more of everything got them into their programs to begin with. Now, they are
offered far more promises than are offered by any other religions or
philosophies.
Among Advaitin seekers, the various "methods of teaching" offer a variety of
"benefits" or "gains," including the acquisition of even
more knowledge; the invitation to dream and succeed and acquire more beliefs;
the promise of power;
the encouragement to think more; the invitation to "create your own
reality"; and, generally, to gain, to know, to seek forever (or to not
seek at all) and to believe naively that the ill effects of programming and
conditioning and acculturation and domestication and indoctrination and brainwashing can be undone by merely saying
it is so.
The Direct Path Method is a process of de-accumulating, not gaining more or
getting more; yet it alone does not provide all that is required if the
Ultimate Sickness is to be addressed.
Maharaj told visitors to the loft that "you would gain nothing here and, in fact, all will be taken away from you." That is, they would be un-taught; they would un-learn. They would reach a state of "zero-concepts" and "no-mind" and "no beliefs."
Also earlier, this was offered and is relevant here:
Any of the four or more methods of Advaita or Vedanta or Advaita Vedanta can
remove some of the larger contaminants that block the consciousness, but a
"fine-filtering sieve" is still required to provide the total
treatment for the Ultimate Sickness.
Here, that additional implement that is employed to offer total purification
and absolute cleansing and full filtration and ultimate distillation and
unreserved decontamination and full-blown sanitation and complete refinement is
. . . the Nisarga Yoga.
The
point was offered earlier that here, an additional implement [in addition to
the non-dual understanding] is employed to offer total purification and absolute
cleansing and full filtration and ultimate distillation and unreserved
decontamination and full-blown sanitation and complete refinement.
That tool is the Nisarga Yoga.
This is not to disparage any other "teaching methods" or other types of yoga but
is to affirm what has been observed over the decades when so many teachings
inspire seekers to adopt the goal of gaining something - especially something
supernatural and other-worldly and supreme - rather than finding the way to
abide naturally and peacefully and sanely during the relative existence, NOW.
First, there is no "later," so all religions and spiritual programs
and philosophies that dangle a carrot about something that will assuredly be
available to their followers "later" is claptrap, hogwash, rubbish,
and nonsense.
Also nonsensical is the adoption of any role, be it one labeled by a culture as
a "good one" or thought to be a role that shows one is
"better" or a role that supposedly shows one is "better
than" (which is the very food on which false egos and egotism feed).
Next, of all of the "teaching methods" and all of the types of yoga available, there is
no other that unwaveringly discourages "following forever," that
discourages "devotion forever," that discourages "regular
meeting attendance," that discourages "making lifetime contributions
to," that discourages "adhering to principles,"
that discourages
"studying supposedly 'holy' writings," that discourages "paying
homage to," that discourages "aspiring to," that discourages
"being dependent on," that discourages "believing promises
promised," or that discourages "gaining and / or accumulating."
As first noted here in 2005 and repeated regularly since:
The Direct Path Method, specifically when offering the Nisarga approach as a
system of yoga, requires no leader, no holy book (so no book studies), no
candles, no bells, no special land, no special buildings and no bowing and kissing of rings; no tolerance of leaders having sex with young children;
no gold-plated accessories, no dogma, no rules, no regulations, no songs or
creeds to memorize; no smoke, no collection of money, no special water, no
special crystals, no special robes, no chanting in unison;
no boards, no directors, no officers, no far-away god or gods micro-managing events in this world; no prayers and petitions, no anything. Meetings with a non-dualist sharing actual, non-dual pointers takes a matter of days, not a lifetime.
(Maharaj allowed most visitors to stay for less than two weeks, providing pointers and then sending them away to go into the silence and to contemplate those points.)
Yet
less, rather than more, has little appeal after the acculturation process
results in persons who desire more.
During the twenty-five-month “forest dweller” stage, by contrast, deer were
seen most mornings as they grazed peacefully. When disturbed by a noise, they
merely moved to the next clearing, looked about cautiously, and then returned
to their peaceful mode of functioning.
Not once did they have to perform some ritual in order to return to the
peaceful state or in order to dwell in that (their natural) state. It has been
noted previously that the Nisarga Yoga offers pointers that point toward the
Absolute Reality but that are actually adumbrations of the Original
Understanding.
That Original Understanding preceded “minds,” so it obviously preceded
"thoughts." It also preceded words and bells and holy smoke. It was
understood even prior to belief in any religious concepts and before the use of
spiritual accoutrements. The Original Understanding was prior to roles and,
thus, prior to assumption of roles as identities.
The Original Understanding was the intuitive, no-thought, pre-“mind,”
no-awareness-that-anything-is-understood-means by which functioning happened
spontaneously and by which all plant-food-bodies-cum-consciousness dwelled in
the natural, mindless state.
The Direct Path Method and the Nisarga Yoga system offer pointers which are
intended to guide seekers back to an understanding of their original nature,
after which they can abide naturally with their feet planted on the planet and
not in some castle in the air or some special, holy place in the sky.
Those seeking the latter have hundreds of thousands of sky cults from which to
choose if they would follow those leaders who will claim that they can direct
their devotees into the firmaments beyond.
Few it is, by contrast, that will invite seekers to find the means by which
natural abidance can replace the burdensome unnatural fashion and / or
supernatural manner of abidance that the masses generally accept and see as
being perfectly sensible rather than totally nonsensical.
Nothing in nature, save humans, lives unnaturally. Nothing in nature, save
humans, tries to live supernaturally. The Nisarga Yoga provides the means by
which seekers can realize fully, can understand their original nature, and can
thereafter abide naturally for the remainder of the manifestation.
So the difference among billions of seekers nowadays and the few who have realized is that modern-day seekers want to find thirteen or more donuts inside a box if a dozen were ordered; the realized don't order a dozen and can be content with one donut or with no donuts.
Maharaj: "Desire and fear are obscuring and distorting factors."
Here: "Every ego-state has a primary desire and a primary fear. Since desire and fear are rooted in false identities, then desire and fear are based in false beliefs - in lies - making beliefs and lies the source of most of humankind's misery and suffering."
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.
