HINDU BY “BIRTH,” BUT INVESTIGATING ADVAITA, Part Three

FROM A SITE VISITOR: [Please see yesterday’s post for the e-mail which is being responded to today]

F.: Today, Vignesh, responses will continue to various portions of your e-mail:

V.: My concept of Brahman(God) has so far been like, It is the Ultimate spaceless-timeless Void which has Consciousness.

F.: Of course a concept of Brahman (God) is just an idea. All concepts are tools that can be employed along the "journey," but when Realization happens, no concepts exist. Thorns are used to remove thorns (concepts) and then tossed.

However, a caution is offered: recall from yesterday the direction offered by Maharaj. In order to complete the “journey” and thereby understand all which happened prior to consciousness, you must “follow the same path by which you came” (except in reverse order, of course).

The erroneous conclusions drawn around “Brahman (God)” and around the “spaceless-timeless Void” result from your effort to address an understanding which can only arrive at the "end" of the “journey” and never at the "beginning."

The “journey” requires that you start by focusing on the body-mind-personality construct with which you continue to identify, as revealed via your use of the words “my concept.” By the end of the “journey,” it can be understood that concepts are illusory and that no “my” (or “me”) exists.

In fact, none of the Teachings can be understood from the perspective of a body or a "mind." Before pursuing an understanding of timelessness and Brahman and the Void, you must answer the most basic questions: “Where were you in the days prior to conception?” and “If you were to lose both arms, both legs, and then undergo an organ transplant, would You not still be You? If so, then who is that You answering the question?”

Furthermore, a body-mind identification might claim that it “has” something, but there is no person (persona) that can “have” anything, including consciousness. The consciousness can seem to assume varied “forms” as it manifests via certain spaces, but nothing “has” consciousness. Similarly, a Void cannot “have” anything, even consciousness.

V.: The Void itself being aware nothing exists.

F.: A void cannot be aware of anything. It is void. However, this talk of the Void should cease for the present. Only the advanced seeker can understand that behind the consciousness is awareness and that beyond the awareness is that Void. For you to grasp now is this: Advaita teaches that beyond the manifestation, there is nothing that is aware of anything. There is no "Self" that knows itSelf. The Void preceded awareness but is not aware. Awareness is not even aware of awareness. Only when manifested can the consciousness be aware that it is.

V.: Now, Consciousness is what provides for the experience. Not the experience itself.

F.: Ultimately, there is no experiencer so there is no experience.

V.: SO Consciousness should make you aware that you exist. Same goes for Brhaman. COnsciousness makes It aware it exists.

F.: Again, your statement reveals that you are fixated in body-mind-personality identification, revealing your belief in subject-object duality. Advaita is about “not two,” about the unicity. The subject “Consciousness” does not make the object “you” aware of anything. There is no “you” to be aware. There is the consciousness, period, and—if re-purified—that consciousness will not make "you" aware that "you" exist but will make clear instead that "you" do not exist.

[Note: Regarding "no you": The use of the "I Am" mantra is a tool for those starting the "journey," an invitation to end the habit of following I am with any words, including "I am a man/woman," "I am spiritual," "I am a husband/wife," etc. Eventually, even the use of that tool will cease.]

Too, for the consciousness (subject) to be aware that Brahman (object) exists would also be duality. Is it not of interest—not to mention of seemingly limitless confusion—that Sankaracharya would speak of three characteristics of the Absolute and of five different phases of Brahman when the fact is that the Absolute is about Oneness, beyond both beingness and non-beingness?

[Is that too radical a consideration? The Teachings should simplify all, not complicate all. The Original Understanding was understood in the absence of holy men and holy books and discussions of multiplicities, especially when it is the unity beyond the seeming multiplicities that is to be realized.

Use this pointer from Maharaj to gain clarity around your spiritual beliefs: "Whatever spiritual things you aspire to know are all happening in this objective world, in the illusion. All this is happening in the objective world. All is dishonesty. There is no truth in this fraud." If your spiritual beliefs remain, then your "journey" along the seven-step "path" will never even reach the fourth level.]

For now, focus only on this: You are neither the body nor the “mind.” That “You” which exists and that can be aware of existence is not “made aware of via consciousness” but is the Consciousness itself. Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
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ON LABELS, PHILOSOPHY, RELIGION, ADVAITA AND YOUTH, POWER, ADDICTIONS, SPIRITUALITY, AND “CHANGING THE WORLD,” Part One

SITE VISITOR Lisa asked for responses to certain questions as part of an assignment for a college course in religions and philosophies:

LISA: Do you have a title or position?

F.: Freedom comes with being free of every title, position, persona, ego-state, false identity, role, or assumed personality.

LISA: Please briefly define Advaita Vedanta. Is that your philosophy and can anyone live by it?

F.: Advaita Vedanta is considered by most to be a philosophy, though nowadays it has been warped into a religion by many. And it is not even a philosophy that is to be "lived by." It is a set of teachings that can shift a person from not having a clue about the real answer to "Who/What Am I?" to the understanding of knowing exactly THAT Which I Am. After that understanding is reached, AS IF living merely happens spontaneously.

"Vedanta" refers to that which is at the end of (or, for some, that which is "beyond") the Vedas, so the philosophy is often associated with Hindus and the Far East. Such associations have distorted the truth since the “Vedanta” part of the title refers to a modern tradition that began with Shankara/Shankaracharya in the 8th century; conversely, the “Advaita” part (meaning "not two," “non-duality”) points toward the ancient, Original Understanding of the unicity, the oneness, the non-duality. Mixing "modern parts" with the "Original Awareness" has resulted in an irony: the original, innate understanding of non-duality has taken on a dualistic aspect itself as many teachers now combine the modern additions with the Original Understanding.

The expression of that unicity may have first happened tens of thousands of years ago, but the sense of the unicity is timeless. Originally, on this planet, non-duality was intuitively understood. There was no language that could be used to bastardize the pure consciousness, but that changed. Those with agendas over thousands of years have introduced concepts steeped in dualities in order to judge and to control people: good/bad, right/wrong, moral/immoral, reward/punishment, heaven/hell, etc. Advaita provides a means by which the consciousness can be re-purified and by which persons/personas can be free of belief in the lies of duality.

LISA: How did you find Advaita and what got you into it.

F.: When on the "quest" described to you in an earlier e-mail, all of the so-called "big-hitters" were being studied. Their seminars were attended, their tapes were watched, their recordings were listened to, and their books were read: Wilde, Tolle, Chopra, Dyer, etc. When it was learned that they had all been exposed to the Advaita teachings, and were all quoting different parts of the Advaita teachings at times, that common source was investigated. It was seen that each had taken one part of the entire teachings and made it a money-making theme. None offered the entire teachings in a fashion that leads to Full Realization. (You can't keep 'em coming back for your concepts if you teach them to be rid of all concepts, right?) When the full teachings were found, the Full Understanding soon followed.

LISA: How has the book of revelations effected or influenced religion?

F.: The Book of Revelation, singular, actually. Its effect or infleunce on religion is to provide one more instance where religions dream up concepts or explanations that are rooted in myths, lies and misunderstandings, disseminate those concepts, and thereby generate more religious or spiritual teachings, (also known as "learned ignorance"). The effect or influence of distorting the original intent of Revelation has been to generate the kind of misinformation that characterizes all movements that are plagued with concepts (Advaita included, nowadays). The book influences, as is often the case, those who claim to live by the precepts of their "special" or "holy" books which they, in fact, have never even read, in most cases. That book was written by a Christian who had been disenfranchised by the Romans and the Book of Revelation was nothing more than his rant.

He was predicting the fall of the Roman Empire, not the end of the world. He was anticipating the end of that Empire with glee and anger and resentment and rage. The content of Revelation was topical, written about events in the author’s day. It has no relevance today at all, but it is a perfect example of why the Advaita teachings suggest that persons ignore all of the so-called “holy” writings, tap into the inner resource or the inner guru, and find the truth within. Yet look at the learned ignorance that interpreting/misinterpretating Revelation has generated among the masses by their misunderstanding of something as simple as “666.”

The number "6" in that day meant "evil," and among Christians the Roman Emperor was called "evil-evil-evil." In order to avoid beheading, the writer coded his rantings about the emperor by referring to him as "6-6-6," the enemy of Christians who was taking their possessions and othewise abusing them. The reference was to an emperor, not to a "Satan" ("satan," Hebrew = "enemy.") Christians in that day knew that the author was referring to the emperor. That message has been distorted so that the masses for centuries have bought into the lies about Revelation predicting the end of the world. Many live their lives under the influence of allowing words that predicted the end of the Roman Empire to affect their entire “worldview” nearly 2000 years later. His predictions about a final battle between the dualities of "good" and "evil" that would defeat the Romans has been distorted into a forecast for a final battle that will see the destruction of Jews, the destruction of "the world" as it is, the return of Christ, etc. A message written for that time has been distorted into a message about some future time. As with all concepts dreamed up by persons and then interpreted and reinterpreted by other persons, Revelation is just much ado about nothing. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, "Never have so many been so fooled by making so much of so little for so many years." Thus, you can now see Revelation's effect/influence that you asked about: it has generated religious nonsense and spiritual ignorance, and it have provided "leaders" with the power to control the "minds" and behavior of persons, and that is what religions (based as they are in myth, superstition, and the desire to have power and control over people) have done since they were first dreamed up by men.

LISA: How can a child be raised to avoid buying into beliefs that could eventually harm that child?

F.: Cultures have created systems that now prevent that possibility almost completely. The consciousness will be contaminated and bastardized. The child that is not filled with such nonsense as Santa and a Great Flood and Hell (though Christ spoke of Gehanna, not Hades) will be the oddball. The harm of that contaminating process (relatively speaking) will never end unless the child happens to be one of a small minority that in later years finds a process by which she/he can reject all ideas, emotions (but not feelings), beliefs, concepts, dogma, and all of the other effects of learned ignorance and programming and conditioning and enculturation and becomes free, Realized, enlightened, actualized, or whatever term you prefer to describe the condition of completing the manifestation as the re-purified consciousness. Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be continued]