Wednesday, March 13, 2024

FREEDOM FROM SHIFTING BETWEEN STATES OF HAPPINESS AND UNHAPPINESS

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FREEDOM FROM SHIFTING BETWEEN STATES OF HAPPINESS AND UNHAPPINESS

“Be empty of all mental content, of all imagination and effort, and the very absence of obstacles will cause reality to rush in.”

--Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

“Freedom means letting go. People just do not care to let go of everything.”

--Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

“A dual-minded person is unstable in all ways.”

-Yeshu’a

Who can be blissful or even happy or even content if not free? The answer is, No one.” With denial being one of the most-used ego-defense mechanisms among humans, most have no clue regarding the totality of everything which is robbing them of their freedom.

One of the most significant “robbers of freedom” is duality, specifically, the duality-based beliefs which generate the instability that guarantees nervousness and worry and concern and apprehension and fretfulness and angst and fear and anxiety and grief.

Hence, the pointer from Yeshu’a that “dual-minded persons are unstable in all ways.” Persons hate change but most have dozens of things in their lives that they would like changed right now. What is that about?

It is about the common-held belief among the non-realized that if they could just arrange everything in their lives exactly the way that they always dreamed it would be and if they could just get everything they want in place, all would be fine.  

That distortion ignores this pointer from Maharaj: “Freedom is from something. What are you to be free from? Obviously, you must be free from the person (or personas) you take yourself to be, for it is the idea you have of yourself that keeps you in bondage.”

Thus he advised: “Give up all ideas (beliefs) about yourself and simply be.”

No one else is stealing your happiness. You are giving it away. Some say that happiness is an inside job completely. Tell that to the person being beaten regularly by a partner, mate, or spouse.

Yet something or some things on the inside (beliefs stored in the mind) have lead to actions which lead in turn to persons having broken pickers which have then inspired them to make faulty decisions which have placed them in miserable circumstances which do need to be changed.

But now it’s the attachment to the agendas of false personality identifications which keep them involved with the misery-generating circumstances which their broken pickers got them into when they were convinced that a particular person or particular amount of money or job or political party or religion or spiritual movement was going to be able to solve their problems and make their lives grand.

When that proves not to be the case, then they finally consider changing; yet they usually do not choose to change what must be changed. If they are driven by faulty belief that their lives can be grand if they can find a different person, income level, job, political party, religion or spiritual movement, they will fail to find that which they seek.

What must change is the content of their minds. They need a total mind flush; they need to give up all beliefs; they need to find what is robbing them of stability and be rid of those destabilizing contents.

Again, “A dual-minded person is unstable in all ways.”

Sometimes in the loft where ten to twenty seekers might gather twice a day, Maharaj would let only one speak and then he would use the rest of the session to address that person and the person’s comments or questions.

Here, I do the same. I share certain exchanges with a seeker and then allow site visitors to look over our shoulders and possibly hear something which they might need to hear at this point . . . or not.

During the early stages of her search, one exchange happened with “Louise from South Africa” who would eventually realize and become the co-host of this website. She would report years later on one particular series of our earliest talks that will be shared now. She referenced one series which she followed early on:

“I remember that series well. It was such a turning point (clearing point?) All of the relative life, there had been the attempt to stabilize as ‘good’, ‘spiritual’, ‘wise’, ‘abundant’, ‘happy’, etc. That series somehow enabled me to see how fixation on one half of a dualistic pair simply kept me trapped on the roller coaster. What a breakthrough! Thank you.”

The exchanges in that series of satsang sessions began with her sharing the following:

Louise: There has been a temporary shift in the experience of consciousness expressing: very natural and easy experience - the mind quiet - with a kind of gentle ignoring of thoughts - through no effort on the part of a “louise” - who on investigation appeared quite empty - just experiencing without resistance - watching “louise” and experiencing what is happening without much involvement - and yet feeling vividly present in life happening at the same time. There is an absence of a memory stream from the past and no movement to plan a future - not so easy to explain in words.

Then suddenly - not even sure of the trigger - “louise” returns and is now able to reflect on past. It appears that there was a short period of stepping out of the mind-body-personality construct. This has left a view of a different experience of reality. What pointers do you have at this stage?

I am continuing to gently ignore the mind stream and using the “I am”. I am also reading certain texts which seem to break the solidity of the mind-body-personality. Are these spiritual practices I should abandon? They seem helpful - in fact they are my only connection with pure reality and help me feel sane. I would be very grateful for any additional insights.

Floyd:  As usual, your comments provide an opportunity to offer some pointers that other seekers might also find relevant, relatively speaking. The first part of what you shared is an accurate description of what a taste of AS IF living is like.

As for additional insights, you can now sit down to the full course in order to “feel full,” chewing the teachings thoroughly, swallowing them in their entirety, digesting them during quiet contemplation, and then just witnessing whatever follows, naturally and spontaneously, as it happens.

In your commenting, you actually identify why you’ve only tasted the sweetness, why you have not become fixed firmly in the beingness, and why you are once again supposedly “experiencing” a “temporary shift.” What you (euphemistically) call a “different experience of reality” is actually “louise” shifting from the state of relaxation and beingness and peace to the notion that there is a “louise” and that “she” is “experiencing” no sense of relaxation, no sense of the mere beingness, and no sense of peace.

What is that which shifted you away from the peaceful state? It is some illusion of “the past” which you think you are “reflecting” upon. To say erroneously that there is a “louise” who is “experiencing” something other than the peace is really to say that “perceiving is happening from the position of one or more assumed identities rather than via the pure, universal consciousness.”

So how about you visitors reading this post today”? Might any parts of that exchange apply in your case when it comes to ending the constant shifting or to “being unstable in all ways?” Have you found some things you must let go of if you would escape the cycles of shifting?

To be continued

Please enter into the silence of contemplation.

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Here, with those who are still driven to talk about "god," the "Son of god," the "Holy Spirit," "Buddha," "Krishna," etc., etc., etc., the invitation to them is to view those as verbs, not nouns.

THE EXPLANATION


If looked at as nouns, they point to illusions and are, therefore, a total waste of time to even discuss; if looked at as verbs which are resulting in certain sane but rare behaviors among humanity, then they are worthy of some attention during the relative existence.

Meaning? There are members of certain groups who say things such as "My concept of god in the past was of a weak god, an absentee god, A Santa Claus-type god, a mean, punishing, vindictive god, etc. Today, I am in close contact with a loving and caring god whom I worship and praise and glorify and give thanks to."

The reply to that usually goes like this: "If you are in contact with a god that wants to be worshipped and praised and glorified, then you're dealing with someone like yourself - a narcissist - and hanging out with narcissists will never bring an end to your narcissism (that narcissism evidenced by the fact that you think you are "godly").

Next, in the phrase 'loving and caring god,' any supposed god that truly had her or his act together would tell you that the totally irrelevant part of that phrase is 'god' and that the only part that is relevant is the "loving and caring" part.

"That is, a non-narcissistic their god / their goddess would say, "I care not an iota about being worshipped and praised and glorified by you or anyone else. How arrogant and insecure and needy would I have to be to want that? Forget the man-made, dreamed up noun 'god' and focus on the 'god as a verb' understanding and then go forth and let loving and caring be verbs - not adjectives - and let them generate the act of love and the act of caring and let those actions manifest through you." 

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"

--Yeshu'a (Jesus)

and 


"Heaven and earth shall fade away."

--Yeshu'a (Jesus)

and 


"Heaven and hell are not geographic places

but are states of mind, nothing more than

concepts dreamed up by men."

--Pope John Paul II 

"There is no hell."

--Pope Francis, the current pope

in an interview with journalist Eugenio Scalfari,

a writer used by the Pope to issue off the record

teachings which become a part of the Papal Magisterium.

[That said, would that the popes who have shown the courage to reject a core concept of their dogma - namely, "hell" - would find the additional courage required to question the very existence of their institution in light of the centuries-long cover-up of their history of raping children and in light of the mental and emotional and psychological scarring of billions of their members past and present.

And that need for courage also applies as questions need to be asked about why so many other sky cults are still being supported and allowed to continue to exist as well. When certain types of programming and conditioning have been shown to blind the masses, they should end. Will they? Not likely. Why?

Because what the masses think and say and do is most influenced by the international crime families which hold sway over the masses as criminals conduct their planet-wide operations. What are the major international crime families and which are the most influential and have the largest memberships?

The Mafia / La Cosa Nostra; the Catholic Church (with it 1.2 billion followers) whose Vatican Bank worked for decades with the Mafia while laundering mob earnings (for a 15% all-profit charge by the Bank); Protestant and Evangelical Churches (with over 1.2 billion followers) like the one I was raised in where the youth director molested and sexually assaulted young girls; big business which has long created environments in which people have been abused; powerful political bodies like the U.S. Congress, etc., etc., etc.)

With all of those crime families, neither the followers nor the leadership ever voluntarily step down or shut down their criminal activities. Be they gangs, organized crime families, religions, big business, politicians, etc., they all want control and they all want power and they all want money, and nothing internal will interfere with the driving forces at play.

The masses must demand that all those in charge must step down and their groups and institutions must shut down, and there's the real problem because the continuation of their crimes are enabled not as much by the people running such crime organizations as they are enabled by the masses of people who - wanting some perceived "payoff" - remain involved with them and give them money and support them and aid and abet the continued existence of those criminal enterprises and thus facilitate the ability of church criminals and political criminals and other types of criminals to continue to commit their crimes.] 

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