WHEN THE EARLIEST DUALITIES PLAGUE THE RELATIVE EXISTENCE OF ADULT-AGED PERSONS, Part One

F.: A corporation with an owner who is traveling the path toward Realization has booked a seminar at the end of November and another in mid-December. The seminars will focus on guiding the members of his staff to end all identification with “The Child” ego-state and “The Parent” ego-state in order to allow “adult-level functioning” to manifest in the workplace.

The conditions that exist there—and in almost every business and home on earth—are marked by the continuing belief by adults in the dualities that they were taught as children. Those dualistic beliefs dominate the thoughts and words of adult-aged persons and perpetuate childish behavior among most of the adult-aged persons on the planet.

The first duality that most children hear is the “No!” vs. “Yes” pairing. Very few instances of hearing “No!” are required in order to program and condition a child, especially if the “No” is ignored by the child and if punishment follows.

The second duality soon manifests: children experience “desire” while trying to avoid or process “fear,” leading to the third duality of “wanting vs. not wanting.” They experience a fourth duality, namely, the desire to "gain" or to be "rewarded" vs. the desire to avoid “loss” or “punishment.” Ultimately, they are programmed with the message that all of the above is dependent on their being “good” and not being “bad.”

By that point, a belief in the five earliest dualities is in place, and those five dualistic pairs will dominate and control the entire relative existence of most persons. They will lose all ability to make independent choices while believing that they are choosing what they think and say and do.

Eventually, those persons who were programmed and conditioned with dualistic teachings as children become obsessive adults, behaving compulsively in their efforts to do all required to always hear “Yes” and to never hear “No”; becoming fanatical in their efforts to have all of their desires met while wanting to avoid all that they fear; and being fixated in their efforts to accumulate all that they “want” and to avoid everything that they “don’t want.”

However, since the relative existence is an existence of inevitable change, the stage is set for happiness to happen when “Yes” is heard but for disappointment and/or anger and/or misery to happen when “No” is heard. The stage is set for happiness to happen when desires are met but for disappointment and/or anger and/or misery to happen when that which is feared comes about.

The stage is set for happiness to happen when the message that one is “good” is received but for disappointment and/or anger and/or misery to happen when the message that one is “bad” is received. The stage is set for happiness to happen when a supposed “reward” is gained but for disappointment and/or anger and/or misery to happen when “loss” or “punishment” comes about.

And the stage on which all of that is being played out is a stage in “The Theater of the Lie” where the “The Play of the Personas” is acted out with daily performances that are completely childish, no matter the age of the actors.

On that stage, periods of happiness and misery are inevitable since that play is a play of every-changing mirages and illusions, of believing lies and then seeing a flash of reality, of thinking you knew “the character of someone,” only to find out you didn’t have the slightest clue about what was really behind the mask.

The relative is marked by change and volatility, yet persons erroneously believe that stability and continuity can happen in a relative existence (and in a post-relative existence as well).

When happenings fluctuate between what persons take to be happy events vs. what they consider to be disappointing or anger-inspiring or misery-producing events, the latter events trigger dualistically “negative” memories that date back to the earliest years of childhood.

At that point, “The Child” persona is triggered and, no matter the age of an adult, childish thoughts will manifest, childish words will be employed, and childish conduct will follow.

Thus, another Advaita pointer is affirmed by observable example: that which makes you happy will eventually make you miserable, and that which makes you most happy will eventually make you most miserable. As an exercise that might reveal the impact of such dualities on your existence so far, list all the things that once “made you happy” but that eventually “made you miserable.”

List also the instances when someone has told you “No” and then describe the emotional reactions that followed; the instances when you felt you “lost” something, and the emotional intoxication that followed; the instances when punishments or consequences happened and the emotions that followed; the instances when you got something you wanted and the emotions around that; and, finally, the instances when you did not get what you wanted and the emotional intoxication that followed.

If you are able to touch the degree to which belief in dualities has marred your relative existence, then you might understand why the Advaitin teacher will suggest that all misery and suffering and chaos is rooted in the belief in duality.

If you accept the accuracy of that pointer, then you might be inspired to complete the entire "journey" to Full Realization...a "journey" which (if completed) can strip away your belief in dualities and thereby end the suffering and misery and chaos that are rooted in childish, childhood teachings. Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)

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SHIFTS IN CONSCIOUSNESS, SHIFTS IN DEEDS, Part Nine

FROM A SITE VISITOR: Do you think that the realized should be able to tolerate any kind of environment or any kind of people? It sounds like you are saying that. I’ve been reading your writings for several months and lately, there are people I spent a lot of time with before but now I’m not spending time with them at all. I’m not realized, but even if I were, I feel certain that there are some people I just wouldn’t want to be around. Art

F.: The discussion today continues by looking at the three case studies along with a mom enabling a son that is suffering from an addiction that has not been successfully treated. [See the post on 27 October 2007] All four, trapped in their dreams that blind them to reality, are enslaved as a result of having been lulled asleep by processes that produced a major warping of consciousness. They have not understood these Advaitin pointers previously offered:

1. That which gives you pleasure will eventually give you pain.
2. That which gives you the most pleasure will eventually give you the most pain.
3. All misery and suffering and entrapment flow from the assumption of ego-states that are driven by either fears or desires or both.
4. Persons have been programmed and conditioned just like Pavlovian dogs.
5. Programming and conditioning will leave them helpless, with no ability to choose anything.
6. That programming and conditioning will determine their every thought…which will determine their every word… which will drive their every action.
7. Being controlled by programming and conditioning can only result in unhappiness because it will drive persons to try to accumulate, will leave them in a state of constant longing for more, and will deprive them of any sense of feeling fulfilled. (In the U.S. alone, more than 10 million women are taking anti-depressants on any given day. Seventy-seven percent of the 300 million people in the nation report that they suffer so much stress that it is affecting them physically.)
8. Those persons who have been programmed and conditioned to want more have already laid the foundation of what will prove to be their own prison.

Of course, persons are merely following their programming to want more, and unless they transcend the accumulation stage and engage in Self-Inquiry, they will never reach the de-accumulation stage that is so freeing. All of the persons referenced in this series are imprisoned, and one force that has driven them into their prisons is a desire for more.

Yet these four are not rare exceptions on planet earth. Add to these the case study from the book CASTING LIGHT ON THE DARK SIDE OF RELATIONSHIPS which discusses a woman whose father told her, “You don’t need to go to college. You’re good looking. Just find a man to take care of you.” Her mother added, “If you manipulate a man with love, you’ll get everything you ever want.”

The non-Realized persons who walk the face of the globe are equally asleep, equally miserable, and equally enthralled with having more. Most of those six billion+ will remain in that condition for the remainder of the manifestation. Robert Crais wrote of those types in one of his novels. A character exits a building at sunrise and observes:

“Moths swarmed around the parking lot lamps, banging into the glass with a steady tap, tap, tap, and I wondered if they welcomed the dawn. At dawn, they could stop slamming their heads into the thing that forever kept them from the light. People don’t have a dawn. We just keep slamming away until it kills us.”

The “Repetition Compulsion” will prevent most from ever breaking the cycles of insanity (or of insane-like deeds or actions which are generated by personality disorders that mark the existence of those identified with body-mind-personality). Consider:

With Case “A,” husband #1 “took care of her,” but they eventually divorced after years of beatings. Husband #2 “took care of her,” but they eventually divorced after years of beatings. Husband #3 is “taking care of her,” but she wishes for him to die after years of beatings.

Yet, her lifestyle is “comfortable,” she claims, because she “doesn’t have to work…is able to shop all day…is able to do whatever she wants.” And that is truly her belief, though he is slamming her head and though she has been kept from the light. Such is the case among billions who are walking about asleep, dreaming they are awake and that they know truth. They will never even begin to see how distorted their thinking is…how warped their perspectives are…how nonsensical their beliefs are…or how every idea they have is 180-degrees in reverse of reality.

Just as with all persons (who are typically in denial and dissociated) Case “A” denies that she is suffering and miserable and depressed. She goes to men who will pay her bills; she runs from men who beat her; she goes back to the same type man because he’s willing to pay her bills; she runs away from that man who beats her. All of this nonsense about hanging around certain people or running away from certain people is typical of the chaos that marks the existence of the non-Realized. Such behavior shows that persons believe all problems are external and that all solutions are external.

As referenced in Art’s question, there are specific people Case "A" wanted to be around but now doesn’t want to be around; instead of moving toward independence and meeting her own relative existence needs, however, she continues to run to the same type of rescuing, caveman-type males who have always believed that whatever they find and bring home is theirs to own and do with as they please: “You’re bought and paid for, fair and square, so you’re mine.”

As a result, she is like Cases “B” and “C,” dreaming that they are free but imprisoned by their dependent, take-care-of-me, give-me-a-better-lifestyle mentalities.

Yet even as they claim they are “doing fine and are happy and joyous,” all three are in therapy, all three are (perfunctorily) involved in 12-step programs, and, as mentioned, all three have recently talked of suicide.

The Advaita Teachings can introduce persons to the dawn—to the beginning of the awakening process—and can reveal that such deeds as “slamming their heads into something” and being “forever kept from the light” can end. A shift happens automatically if one sees the light and spontaneously becomes free of self-destructive, self-absorbed living, as far as the relative existence goes.

Now, what of you? If you look at anyone and think you know him/her well, you do not. If you look at anyone and see anything other than (1) a space formed by a combining of elements and (2) a form in which the consciousness is temporarily manifested, then in no way do you know Who/What That Is which you think you are seeing (speaking in absolute terms) and in no way do you know who or what they are at all (speaking in relative terms).

Krishna spoke of “fools.” All foolishness happens because “they” fooled us first, but now most have taken up the task and continue to fool themselves by refusing to question the ideas and concepts and dogma and beliefs which have been programmed into their "minds." If that applies, know that you are in a position to effect change. The change happens when seven specific steps are taken in a very specific order.

That process can “change” the consciousness from its warped condition to a re-purified condition. More accurately, all that really happens is that the obstacles that are blocking the consciousness from seeing clearly will be removed. Then, freedom from thoughts can happen; fewer words will happen; and a shift in deeds will necessarily follow. Please enter the silence of contemplation. (Tomorrow: The Conclusion)
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MASSIVE ACCUMULATION AND HIGH MAINTENANCE…OR FREEDOM AND PEACE?

FROM A SITE VISITOR: According to American standards I have it all—the great house, great cars, a beautiful wife and smart kids—but what I don’t have is enough time. When I’ve stop by this site occasionally, I always thought it was easy for you to say “relax”. I thought-if I relax the bank will take everything I have. Today I read the August 17th post and I suddenly am feeling things I’ve never felt before and they’re not real pleasant.

F.: First, it is interesting that you mentioned a “great house” and “great cars” before you mentioned a “wife” and ‘kids,” but that’s a topic for another day.

To the root of the content of your no-question e-mail, your delusions must end before any pointer can be heard and understood. If you “have it all,” you would be looking for nothing else, so why do you “stop by this site occasionally” if not looking for something…for something that is missing? Then, you claim you want more time, but time is not offered on this site. Here, time is shown to be another man-made illusion as well. So (1) you’re not visiting this site to find more time, (2) you are looking for something that is missing, and (3) that which is troubling you is not the too little time you mention.

The problem is not that you need more of anything but that you already have too much of everything. They programmed you to accumulate and you have responded in typical, non-Realized fashion. Been there. Done that. Was miserable. Stopped that. Lost the “do-er.” Then and only then did freedom manifest. Finally, it was that freedom, in turn, which allowed happiness and peace to manifest.

In the case of "floyd," trapped in the dream for decades, accumulation happened at an alarming rate. The problem with such accumulating lies not only in all that is required to be in a position to accumulate. The problem also involves the toll which the maintenance of accumulations requires.

That drive to accumulate and maintain led to three jobs, working 80-90 hours a week. It led to building a five-bedroom, three-bath Tudor-style home on a double lot, to building a separate getaway lake house, and to purchasing a rental condo for additional income.

The desire to accumulate led to finding a fellow sleepwalker “in need.” It led to using money to attract someone with a sense of entitlement whose ability to love is limited to the love of money and to the false sense of security which wealth provides to all of those who sleepwalk about the planet while believing that they are awake.

It led not as much to "having too little time" as to being owned by a house rather than owning a house, to being owned by another person, to perceiving fear of loss of accumulations, to being owned by financial institutions, and to being burdened with the costs of maintaining accumulations...a cost that can, on occasion, match the original cost of all that is accumulated.

Yet nothing material could compare to the high maintenance involved with adopting personas and maintaining image. The ego's going and doing and zooming that seemingly robs you of “free time” (but that is actually robbing you of freedom) is the high maintenance price being paid to maintain your image and your personas.

If entrapment in the dream for decades led to accumulating at an alarming rate, Realization led to de-accumulation at an even faster rate. De-accumulation made it possible to reduce the number of jobs being worked to two and made it possible to reduce the average work week to 60 hours. Further de-accumulation, including the selling of a too-large house and substituting a small condo in its place, led to a single, 35-hours-per-week job.

Next came the restoration to financial sanity, the creating of a budget, and the end of excessive accumulation. That led to less spending and to less accumulation (which led to not needing any job and to the ability to retire from the last of three jobs at age 54. For more information on that, see the information booklets on budgeting and finances at the end of this post.)

Rather than worrying about the bank taking everything, why not sell it or give it away before they have the chance? De-accumulate and downsize and you’ll likely be amazed, not by how much “time” you have but by how much freedom (and how much peace and happiness) begin to manifest.

Be honest and see what you’re really buying:

An image-enhancing-home that is far more than is required? Have you spent huge sums during your adult years on trying to buy "trophies"? How about other high-end, high maintenance items that enhance image, like expensive cars and beautiful things and beautiful people and the best private schooling?

Try de-accumulating and you’ll be amazed at how much "time you’ll have." (That doesn’t mean you have to eliminate the “beautiful wife” and the “smart kids,” but it does mean that all of them will have to undergo a shift in what is valued since de-accumulation is not likely to be something that can happen unilaterally.)

Ultimately, what is troubling you is your lack of authenticity...more specifically, the dualistic disconnect between false self and True Self. A dual-minded man is unstable in all ways, one Advaitin teacher said.

For those visitors who have not already accumulated to the point where they must work three jobs or where they can’t relax because the bank’s collection department is looking over their shoulders and standing by with papers to file, might you continue to avoid the happiness-robbing practice of accumulating? If so, peace and happiness can happen.

In those cultures that value accumulation and where “The Accumulator” is one of the most popular ego-states, the notion of “giving something up” seems ludicrous unless one realizes that it is by such de-accumulation of all that is false that the real can manifest. And if not fully in touch with that which is real, then no peace, no happiness, and no freedom will ever come. Please enter the silence of contemplation.
READINGS RELATED TO TODAY’S POST:
INTERESTED IN RESTORING FINANCIAL SANITY AND USING A ZEN APPROACH TO HANDLING FINANCES?

Click LIVING WITHIN YOUR MEANS

Click ENDING FINANCIAL PROBLEMS BY UNDERSTANDING YOUR PERSONALITY TYPE

WORKING ON BEING FREE?

Click THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS “PEACE OF MIND” (There Is Only Peace If You’re Out of Your Mind)

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Click LIBERATION

DISCARDING “KNOWLEDGE” WHEN IT IS ACTUALLY LEARNED IGNORANCE, Part Two

From a site visitor: I’m totally westernized--gulity as charged--so I’ve been trained to give great value to knowledge, which you’ve been knocking. I’m at least willing to listen to you and see if I can get your point, but looking at your bio info, you obviously attended university, acquired enough knowledge to convince someone that they should pay you to use that knowledge, and then paid your bills through use of that knowledge. Your vast knowledge in many subject areas is obvious. So, what’s the deal? Larry

F.: Now, Larry, before continuing with the response to your query (a response that will be nothing more than a bit of entertainment) understand these pointers first:

1. All accumulated knowledge, all of the revered knowing, goes when “the knower” goes. (Ultimately, therefore, knowledge cannot be discarded either, since there is no “discarder.” Belief in all nonsense just fades away.)

2. All knowledge, including what persons call their “spiritual knowledge,” is only worldly knowledge. Why? It is all being generated by the warped consciousness that is currently functioning in the phenomenal world, so it all really deals only with the concepts of this false “world” and with upgrading phenomenal, dualistic illusions: “There is this world, and if you’re ‘good,’ you get to go to a better world.” Sounds “spiritual,” huh? Yet an illusion (a better world)that is an upgrade of an illusion (this world) is still an illusion, and illusions are always the stuff of “this world.”

3. Because so-called "knowledge" is being generated by persons in a world that is not real—that is nothing more than a series of false perceptions—then it is all false knowledge; therefore, it cannot be knowledge at all. It is only learned ignorance. To believe that there is “this world” and “that world” is duality, and not only is "this world" false—all "worlds" believed in by persons are false…figments of overactive and warped imaginations.

4. Who could possible “have” knowledge, “possess” knowledge or “attain” knowledge? Consciousness can be aware of itSelf, but even that is time-bound, only for the period of its manifestation. And even that is not a “knowing” since the prerequisite for "knowing" or for something being "known" is the presence of "a knower." To claim that “I know mySelf” is equally false since it suggests duality, that there is some subject with “I-ness” that knows some object. So in the purest terms of any discussion of “knowledge,” you cannot truthfully even claim to know yourSelf, and that is precisely why Advaita teaches that the truth cannot be stated. Ultimately, any knowledge that a person claims to have and then states cannot be the truth, so the effective Advaitin teacher guides seekers to an awareness that even they will not put into words if Fully Realized. The Advaitin teacher can do no more than point toward Reality, and once Reality is seen, even the pointers dissolve. So much for knowledge.

For now, though, back to the entertainment. As for that “vast knowledge” you refer to and think you might be seeing, it amounts to nothing more thorns being used to remove thorns from seekers. Some students of Advaita often miss a key point: you do not need to know everything that your teacher knows in order to realize. To the contrary, you need only to be willing to give up what you think you know if the teacher suggests that you give up certain concepts or beliefs. Eventually, all concepts and beliefs will fade away. Forget accumulating knowledge and focus on the de-accumulation process.

Here, knowledge is valued so little that, just as with a thorn that is tossed after being used to extract another thorn, so too is it all ignored when not being used to remove thorns. Just as there should be no pride in ignorance, there is no pride in knowing. More to the point, there is no one to be proud of anything. The consciousness speaks. One said during a recent gathering for sansang, “But it was the knowledge you shared regarding the pagan, barbaric roots of ‘holy communion’ that allowed me to detach from that ignorant practice.”

The reply was something close to this: "Fine. You are reporting that a piece of factual information was able to rid you of belief in a non-fact, in a bit of fiction-based dogma. But now, be free of all of that information. After you realize that the practice was--and is--all nonsense, then the knowledge of ancient barbaric practices should be as meaningless to you as their modern barbaric excrescence. On the other hand, know that some all along, with no additional knowledge about the history of communion, rejected the barbaric practice when first invited to participate. Many reply, 'Come with you on Sunday to drink blood and eat body (or to drink pretend blood and to eat pretend body)? Are you nuts?! No thanks.' Some naturally see more clearly than others because they were not subjected to the same insane programming. They were not given that 'knowledge'--that learned ignorance. Some see more clearly only after much effort, depending on the degree of programming and conditioning...that is, depending on the degree to which absurd concepts overlay the consciousness."

Next, were you to follow this space called “floyd” throughout a typical day, you would see no use of knowledge per se. You would see living happening in a natural, spontaneous, agenda-less manner. Just as you walk without thinking about walking, this entire “life of floyd” happens just like that. Can the deer (which offers a perfect example of how to live without "a thought-life") function for an entire day, an entire month, or an entire lifetime in that spontaneous, natural fashion? Not only can it—it does. And it happens across the globe among the comparatively few that are Realized. That is, in fact, why “the search” can end “successfully” with Advaita and Advaita only, and that is why the desire to accumulate knowledge and concepts and dogma and ideas can end with Advaita…and with Advaita only.

(NOTE: Until firmly fixed in Full Realization, what are you to do if a troublesome thought should arise? Find the ego-state that is thinking the thought. When you realize that the so-called thinker of the thought is fictional, her/his fictional thought is spontaneously discredited and discounted. Then, using that same process as often as is called for, the assumption of the false identity can recede until it eventually dissolves. You are never the thinker of a thought. Thoughts arise (1) after an ego-state is assumed as an identity and (2) after the ego-state falsely perceives a desire or need or fear-provoking threat. Talk about “needing a mirage" or "running scared from a mirage!”) Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be continued]

DISCARDING “KNOWLEDGE” WHEN IT IS ACTUALLY LEARNED IGNORANCE, Part One

From a site visitor: I’m totally westernized--gulity as charged--so I’ve been trained to give great value to knowledge, which you’ve been knocking. I’m at least willing to listen to you and see if I can get your point, but looking at your bio info, you obviously attended university, acquired enough knowledge to convince someone that they should pay you to use that knowledge, and then paid your bills through use of that knowledge. Your vast knowledge in many subject areas is obvious. So, what’s the deal? Larry

F.: Hello Larry. First, the fact that you are “totally westernized” might preempt any chance of your “getting the point,” especially since the content of your e-mail reveals that you have bought into the very essence of the core belief that most westerners hold about work: you only do it to get something, to gain something, to accumulate, or to get a payoff. (All of the “No, I love my job” stuff ends when your pay ends. As for volunteer workers or “the Personality Type Two Helper,” search the site to see what their true motives are.)

You will see, if you read on and consider objectively, that the western knowledge/beliefs about work have evolved from, and then been merged with, ancient mideastern knowledge/beliefs about religion and spirituality. That blending of knowledge/beliefs about work and knowledge/beliefs about god/gods has resulted in the learned ignorance that now dominates the persons of the planet. In fact, it could be argued that such knowledge is far more dangerous (relatively speaking) than all other types of ignorance combined. It is that category of knowledge (which is not knowledge at all but is actually learned ignorance) that the Advaita teachings invite persons to discard in order that they might be able to see reality (and thereby be in touch with reality, that is, be sane). As it is now, that merging has resulted in a near-planetwide belief in a god or gods who will reward you if you do religious or spiritual work and who will punish you if you do not do that special work.

The invitation for now is to see this: western and/or Judaeo-Christian and/or Anglo-Saxon values are rooted in the ancient “knowledge” passed down from pagans. The Jews accepted that knowledge as their own and taught that those among them who were wealthy and who had healthy children were “good” (and being rewarded by a god) and that those who were poor or had unhealthy or stillborn children were “bad” (and thus beinging punished). Later, the puritannical elements among Christians would accept such “knowledge” as fact, and most today are trapped in the knowledge that they think they have regarding the interrelation of “good vs. bad,” “reward vs. punishment,” and their religious/spiritual knowledge and work as well. It is that type of “knowledge” (learned ignorance) that Advaita invites persons to discard.

That the Judaeo-Anglo work ethic became enmeshed with the so-called religious and spiritual knowledge/beliefs among persons is no surprise. The notion that there is always a payoff for any work you do (be it physical, spiritual, religious, or communal) is the “come-on” that has been used by medicine men and priests and religious men and spiritual men for as long as they have been playing their self-appointed roles: “Do this work that we tell you to do—and do it with knowledge of the 'right' way that we teach you to do it—and there will be a reward, a payoff, both now and later.”

How convincing were the ancient “holy” men? They were so convincing that early priests convinced parents to sacrifice their virginal daughters to please an angry god. As “God’s representative on earth,” the priests had sex with the daughters (in a symbolic act of oneness, they claimed) and then cut out their hearts and passed them through the crowd in order that all might commune with god. The people had been given this knowledge and accepted it as fact: that gathering to participate regularly in "communion" to drink the blood and to eat the body would please an angry god (such as the rain god) and that a payoff would follow. And if the blessing of rain did not come and “save” the crops? More "sacrifice" was obviously wanted by the god. Kill a few more virgins.

How convincing are the modern “holy” men as they continue to transmit the ancient knowledge and myths and superstitions and beliefs and practices? So convincing that nowadays two billion people pass on this same knowledge to their children who now believe that they will be closer to god and will be making him happy and will thereby be rewarded and blessed both now and forevermore if they will perform that same cannabilism-vampirism routine regularly. So convincing that two billion more will use spikes and maces to beat themselves regularly and bring forth the blood in order to please their god.

Are you seeing the points about “knowledge” and “learned ignorance”?

1. Far less of such knowledge, rather than far more knowledge, is called for.

2. To learn a skill that will pay your bills is one thing. Even to be “proud” of that knowledge is just another bit of arrogance based in the adoption of a persona (i.e., “The Super Teacher,” “The Super Protégé,” “The Super Student,” “The Religious Expert,” "The Super Ascetic," etc.)

3. Infatuation with your "vast store of knowledge" will delay being free of all learned ignorance.

4. Infatuation with accumulating more will retard your de-accumulating and being free of what you already have too much of.

5. To learn ignorance is another thing still, and it is that which persons are invited to cast aside.

But with a “westernized mindset” (becoming popular in the Far East as well nowadays) little about Advaita will sound appealing to you since you will be told, “Do this ‘work’ and you will gain nothing but will lose everything instead!” That very notion will likely be anathema to your “western mind”; however, since you claim that you are “at least willing to listen and see if you can get the point,” a pause will happen in order to provide an occasion for consideration. Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be continued tomorrow]

ON LABELS, PHILOSOPHY, RELIGION, ADVAITA AND YOUTH, POWER, ADDICTIONS, SPIRITUALITY, AND “CHANGING THE WORLD,” Part Two

[Continued from yesterday]

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

LISA: How can we help children to access their inner resource?

F.: Actually, Full Realization is not for the young, so to try to teach the youth to tap into the inner resource when they need to be tapping into skills that will allow them to address those basic (relative) needs as listed on the base of Maslow's pyramid would not be advised. If they are to function in their dysfunctional cultures, young adults must play the games of the culture for a time. Otherwise, their parents will be on a Dr. Phil show featuring "Boomerang Kids" about parents who can't get their adult-aged children out of the house. In other words, Pandora's Box of Concepts has been opened, and the freedom from all those concepts and personas that drive the misery of the relative existence on this planet will be their condition until some reach a point in adulthood and begin questioning all of the learned ignorance they have accumulated and then eventually reject it all. Few ever will. So it is.

LISA: Do you have a higher power or have you ever or and can you briefly describe what that is or was.

F.: The master addiction of the planet is a desire to control. That desire drives the secondary addiction: the desire for power (in order to control). That quest for power has led to more destruction and magical-thinking-type nonsense than anything else on the planet. It inspires efforts to accumulate earthly power and also to have an extraterrestrial power (or powers) that can also be tapped into in order to control. (E.g., the desire to control weather generated an imaginary god of rain. The desire to control the outcome of battles generated an imaginary god of war. Eventually, Abraham would take all the various gods of creation, sustenance, and destruction, would tell people that there is only one god, and from that they combined all their former gods into one. That is how then ended up with a schizo god who supposedly creates and sustains but also destroys. The creator god "loves his creations unconditionally" and will sustain them if they believe in him, sacrifice to him, worship him, work for him. Contradictorily, his "unconditional" love has "conditions," and, if they are not met, the sustaining will end and the destruction will begin, along with horrendous, eternal punishments to boot.) To be free of the nonsense of contradictory concepts and inconsistent dogma is to be free of the desire to control. That, in turn, ends the desire for power. As for “higher power,” that implies “lower power” as well, and that would be another duality.

LISA: What would you say is one of the most important lessons you have learned in life.

F.: To unlearn all of the "important lessons about life" that I was taught. One book is entitled, IT'S ALL BULLSHIT (And Why Knowing That Will Set You Free.) Once the learned ignorance of humanity is cast aside, the "path" can be followed that leads to the truth that cannot be stated but that can be understood; thereafter, the functioning of the totality becomes clear and the relative existence can happen in an AS IF fashion, as if any of the stuff of this realm is real or significant, but knowing that it is not.

LISA: What is the way to freedom and inner peace for suffering addicts and alcoholics?

F.: The way involves addressing the cause rather than the symptoms. Since you want these answers short, you may read the postings for Feb 12 and 13 at www.advaitavedantameditations.blogspot.com for more.
TOMORROW, the response to “Do we ever stop growing spiritually?” To all site visitors: Based on the Advaita understanding, what response would the re-purified consciousness provide? Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be continued]

WHY MOST PERSONS WILL NEVER REALIZE, Part Three

FROM A SITE VISITOR: Dear Mr. Henderson, Re; your am post of this date.[8 Feb 2007] Can you speak about how to move beyond the fear of losing \"this\" to embracing \"That\". When I think about \"Why not Realize\". It is fear. Fear of losing parts of the little self that I have allowed to define me. Peace,Peace,Peace Virginia

F.: [Continued from yesterday]

DENIAL
When persons read the February 7th and 8th postings that describe the insanity that marks the relative existence of the non-Realized, most will deny that anything in those two postings applies to them. Even as validated research confirms that 95% of people in “developed nations” suffer depression to some degree and that most persons suffer from MPD/DID and that bi-polar disorders have reached an all-time high and that 95% or more are addicted to something, most persons will deny that they are depressed or that they have any really significant problems. The ego always reports to itself that “it is doing just fine” and then reports the same to any who would question that delusion.

Among persons, the case is usually that denial and distortion re-frame miserable experiences as “normal” or as “OK, really” or as "That's just the way it is." It is also usually the case than unbelievable pain—of the mental and emotional and physical varieties—must manifest before persons will take action. When people are asleep, they must be shaken to be awakened, and who that is sound asleep would want to be shaken or awakened? Even those who are having nightmares usually prefer that their nightmare-filled sleep continue as opposed to taking the seven steps that are required in order to be fully awakened.

GREED
Finally, persons are controlled by greed. At the root of that greed is, once again, the desires of false personas and the fear that there will never be enough or that they will not always have enough to sustain all the images that the non-Realized adopt. Whereas Realization is about not wanting and about de-accumulating, body-mind-personality identification is about wanting and accumulating. “Giving up” rather than “getting” is anathema in the planet’s cultures of accumulation. Simplification, therefore, is also scorned, so complications ensue. Trapped within those conditions, the corrupted consciousness will usually remain corrupted throughout its manifestation. (Relatedly, the question that triggered your question was, "Why not Realize?" That could as well be stated as, "Why not clean up the corrupted consciousness that you have become and be restored to the state of pure consciousness that You Were?" or "Why not get free of all the myth-based lies that you've been taught?" or "Why not take out the garbage rather than letting it stay inside and contaminate your home and infect your very being?")

If the consciousness were re-purified enough to understand that “this” is a mirage and that THAT is all that’s real, Full Realization would happen. That understanding happens only after seeing how many lies have been told to humanity for thousands of years. Yet most persons—driven by fear, desire, arrogance, denial and greed—will continue to take lies and myths and superstitions to be true. Furthermore, in cultures where fear, desire, arrogance, denial and greed are now taken to be “the norm,” little inspiration to be free of any of those will manifest.

Thus, most will never Realize because fear, desire, arrogance, denial, greed and chaos have become preferable among the persons of the planet; therefore, the results of Realization—namely, an awareness that there’s nothing to fear, that there are no real requirements that should trigger desires, that having less lightens the load, and that awareness of truth results in peace—have no appeal at all. Because persons have such low tolerance for self-awareness and for self-inventory that reveals their relative-existence liabilities, they automatically have no interest in self-awareness, in Self Awareness, in relative shortcomings and abnormalities, or in truth.

Therefore, most will remain trapped in their body-mind-personality identification. If one would hate to lose even one single finger, think how much more he/she would hate to give up the body. If one is proud of her/his learned ignorance and "mind," why would the person consider giving up the lie-filled mind as the path to peace? If a person is so proud of the roles being played, why would he/she even consider discarding those phony roles and stop playing all the phony games? Most never will, and so it is. But anyone reading this post certainly has the opportunity to begin the seven-step “journey” to Full Realization. Please enter the silence of contemplation.