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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THE DIRECT (SEVEN-STEP) PATH TO REALIZATION, Part Two

FROM A SITE VISITOR: Do some people just suddenly realize or does everyone have to go through the seven steps you talk about? If so, why seven and why any exact order.

F.: To review yesterday’s pointers, in the traditional, daily satsanga approach used by most masters, all of the seven stages of re-purification are discussed over a matter of days or weeks or months, but in no particular order. Answers to queries were, and are, provided in the random order in which the issues were, and are, raised. The only difference in that approach and in the approach provided in FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE (A Seven-Step Journey to Reality) is that the explications are offered in the exact order in which the stages must be transitioned (and the exact order in which they have been transitioned for centuries, though they were not previously numbered “1 through 7”).

Understand, therefore, that each of the stages that have to be passed through must be transitioned in an exact order: becoming free of the “mind stuff” cannot happen when one is still trapped in the baseness or grossness of identification with “a physical body.”

Now, to the “why seven steps” part of your question. In the limitless expanse of energy called “The Absolute,” that energy which has the ability to be aware of, if manifested, is uncontaminated, unconditional, unconditioned, unqualified, unlimited, pure, unadulterated, and unambiguous. When the consiousness manifests in the space called “a human,” programming and conditioning and enculturation soon result in it being contaminated, conditioned, impure, adulterated, and ambiguous. That contaminating process results in seven degrees of separation from Reality, in seven degrees of separation from awareness of What the consciousness Truly Is and from awareness of its original, unadulterated nature. Seven steps were involved in the-graduated-bastardization-of-consciousness process, so seven steps of re-purification must happen if the consciousness is to be restored to its natural, non-dual, no-concept, unadulterated state.

[For example, one step involved convincing you that you are the body. Another involved steps that resulted in the formulation of “your mind” and in convincing you of its exalted value. Later, you would be advised to “expand your intellect” and to “cultivate your mind” and “purify your thought-life,” as if you could actually improve a mirage or could purify a putrid bag of foul garbage. In total, seven such steps of consciousness-bastardization happened that separated you from being aware of You; thus, most persons eventually express—or at least sense—that quintessential evidence of insanity, namely, “I don’t even know who I am.”]

To illustrate the steps involved in the contamination process, consider a quart jar of water. Take the glass jar to be a space with a nervous system such as that in a human body. Take the water to be the manifested conscious-energy. Take the water to be one component that could allow what is called “the life of a human” to continue for a period (the other two being the elements and the air). To live, relatively speaking, you must have that water, but you face a major problem: people have contaminated the water so severely that, instead of being an asset, it has become a liability with the potential to kill you.

See what happened: one person passed by and added dirt to the water; another poured in a toxic, coloring ingredient that made the water look pretty but made it noxious; a “holy” person came along, judged the water to be dirty, added detergent which he believed would purify the water but, in fact, only contributed more contamination; another added salt; another poured in oil; another added poison; and another dropped some beautiful shards of glass into the water.

Now, it took many steps for that water to become as contaminated as it is. Can you re-purify that water in one step, or will many different steps have to be taken to remove all the contaminants that separate that water from its original, pure state? The process that skims off the oil will leave the shards and the dirt. Purging the detergent will still leave the salt and the coloring, so the water might appear to be “better” or “improved” but it is still contaminated. The only difference in re-purifying that water and re-purifiying the consciousness is that the seven processes required for removing the seven types of contamination from the water can be performed in any given order.

The steps required for re-purification of the consiousness, to the contrary, must be done in the exact, reverse order in which the consciousness was contaminated. For clarification, imagine that you put one ring on your finger, than another and another and another until you have seven rings on the finger. You cannot remove the first ring at the base without destroying the finger. To remove the first ring, all of the other rings must be removed in the reverse order in which they were placed on the finger.

So it is with the re-purifying of the consciousness: the steps of contaminating the conscious—energy were applied in an exact order as original illusions were upgraded or downgraded. To return to the original condition, then the contaminants must be removed in the reverse order in which they were applied. Few know that order, few can guide persons through the process, and only a very few persons will find the ones that know the order and can guide them through the complete method; therefore, only a few will ever be freed from the relative effects of the contamination. So it is. Please enter the silence of contemplation.

"MORAL HAPPENINGS" IN THE ABSENCE OF MORALITY AND DO-ERS

FROM A SITE VISITOR: So when you were out of town and said to visit the archives, I did. I read what you wrote in August that even though the Realized don’t believe in “moral vs. immoral,” most who do believe that some behavior is moral and some is immoral would conclude that the Realized live in a moral fashion (I’m putting it in my own words but I think that’s close). So if I get what you’re driving at, if I Realize and don’t believe in dualities like right-wrong, moral-immiral, etc. I’ll automatically live in a way that is moral according to people who think they know what moral is. I’m not trying to start an argument--I guess I’m too new at this to get how I could live in a moral way if I don’t learn what is moral and what is iommoral so I’m just asking you to help me see what you mean and how what you say can happen. Thanks.

F.: Thx for writing. Your paraphrasing is accurate: the Realized understand that all labeling of behavior as "moral" or "immoral" is relative and therefore reject the moral-immoral duality along with all other dualistic concepts. For example, many cultures have thought that lying is immoral, but to lie to a Nazi in 1940 about a Jew that you were hiding in a closet might be considered moral conduct by some. It’s all relative, but personas attempt to apply absolute truths to their relative existence. That is not only impossible but is also insane (insane being defined as “being out of touch with reality” in this case).

So how is it that the Realized, living in an AS IF fashion, “automatically” (that is, spontaneously) function in a manner that judgmental persons would consider “moral”? First, understand that all behavior which persons take to be "wrong" or "immoral" or "bad" is generated by body fears and desires, mind fears and desires, and personality fears and desires. In the U.S., 59% of all women killed in urban areas, and 41% of all men killed in urban areas, are killed during the breakup of a relationship. Most persons would call those killers “wrong, immoral, and bad.” But what was driving that conduct?

At some points during those relationships the body desires of one or both parties were being met. The fear of those desires no longer being met helped drive the behavior. As for “the mind,” it is that accumulation of lies that allows the corrupted consciousness to assume that the personality is real. Therefore, the "end" of the persona of “husband” or “lover” or “wife” was being perceived as an actual threat to an ego-state that was being taken as a real identity. The desire of the “husband” or “lover” or “wife” to have continuity, and the fear that the existence of those ego-states was coming to an end, generated the conduct that persons label as “wrong or immoral or bad.”

Freed from identifying with the fictional body-mind-personality, the Realized are free of the fictional desires and fictional fears that accompany belief in the fictitious body-mind-personality triad. Free of the fictional body-mind-personality identification that generates behavior that persons label as “wrong, immoral or bad,” whatever happens with the Realized happens spontaneously (or "automatically," to use your word). Whatever happens will happen without the fears and desires that inspire the harmful conduct (relatively speaking) that happens when personas are driven by their agendas to avoid what is feared and when they are driven to accumulate what is desired.

And that is why you will "automatically live in a way this is moral according to people who think they know what moral is" if you “Realize and don’t believe in dualities like right-wrong, moral-immoral, etc.” Please enter the silence of contemplation.