SHIFTS IN CONSCIOUSNESS, SHIFTS IN DEEDS, Part Two

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.: It was noted yesterday that “the forest dweller stage” need not happen literally, yet the stage must be entered into in some fashion in order to transition through the entire consciousness re-purification process. Some form of retreat for contemplation and consideration must happen. The requirements of that stage can be met among some seekers by readings that clarify the teachings; by attending an Advaita retreat or seminar or series of satsang sessions; or by receiving pointers and then engaging in meditation in the originally-intended fashion.

(PLS. NOTE: The original purpose of meditation was not to move into and out of a samadhi state or into and out of different levels of consciousness. The original intent was to be removed from the “maddening crowd” in order to enter the silence so that one could more effectively take a teacher’s pointers into consideration and thereby understand the teachings.

That forest dweller type of “removal from the masses” is required, but it does not require that one abandon employment or other relative existence tasks. The original intent of meditation, instead of being used to try to reach a “no-consciousness state,” called for a highly-focused concentration upon the content and meaning of pointers.

Since the intent is to provide an opportunity to focus on pointers that guide seekers to Realization, then post-Realization the tool is no longer used. Should the Realized seem to be engaged in any Advaita-related happenings post-Realization, it is for the sake of entertainment only.)

Remember also, Art, this fact as you consider the people you “want to be around, or not” during the relative existence: any pointers dealing with “relative living” suggest that it should happen in a natural fashion, and sometimes it is natural to take the action to move toward a place where peculiar, external effects cannot exert an influence.

Consider: long before scientists confirmed the existence of Neptune, they predicted that it existed and they predicted where it was located in relation to other bodies in the outer band of this galaxy. How?

Long before they saw Neptune, they saw effects being exerted on other nearby planets or bodies, causing them to behave in a peculiar fashion. Similarly, persons can exert effects on nearby persons, effects that result in peculiar fashions of living. The non-Realized are like soybeans in that they take on the flavor of whatever they are next to. That does not happen with the Realized, but as noted yesterday, the Realized gravitate toward the silence and solitude anyway.

You may be seeing that some persons in your physical vicinity are exerting a peculiar effect. The effect that Realization might have on that occurrence is irrelevant since you are not realized at this point. Realized, neither “tolerance” nor “a lack of tolerance” will be an issue.

Unlike the bodies being affected in a peculiar way by Nepture, which cannot choose to move to a different location, the Realized can move toward other places and other things as the Advaita Teachings provide freedom from attachments that had formerly paralyzed them and/or held them hostage.

In contrast, the “pecularity” of non-Realized persons with attachments is that that they would prefer company in prison rather than being alone and free. Therefore, while you ask about moving away from some types of persons that you are no longer comfortable with, many persons will stay with those very types.

Their attachments and agendas result in forms of bondage that can generate a “tolerance” for pain if the source has an air of familiarity; that can generate acceptance of misery if in denial; and that can generate a tendency to distort into what they call "love" that which is really a desire to gain power or a desire to have someone meet their financial or sexual needs. So it is. Tomorrow, examples of all three will be discussed. Please enter the silence of contemplation.(To be continued)

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EGO-STATES: “LOVE” OR “EGO,” BUT NOT BOTH (A Continuing Series on Ego-States), Part Six, The Conclusion

FROM A SITE VISITOR: So the whole problem really begins with ego, right? Sam (PS Thanks for the blog site.)

F.: This series has discussed the price of being trapped in ego-states by focusing on a man and woman who for twenty years have been play-acting with each other, assuming phony roles, saying phony words, and living phony lives on the stage of The Drama of the Lie. They are not the exception in this culture or in most other cultures.

What is most insane-like among the non-Realized is the fact that they become so embroiled in their roles—and so embroiled in the play that they are writing and re-writing every day—that they eventually take their roles and games and play-acting to be the real. Once they are convinced that their play is “their world,” then when the curtain falls on that play—as it surely will—they are so traumatized by the collapsing of "their world" that they often contemplate suicide or murder or both. (The woman in this series wants to die because her husband is leaving. Another woman said this week that she wants to die because her husband died. Either way, that which they assumed would last forever...did not. Is grief natural? Yes. Are grief-inspired murder and suicide natural? No, though they are becoming far more "typical.")

The connection between the assumption of ego-states and the “problems in personal relationships” has been illustrated. Having accepted the culture’s lies that they are “two,” persons who take themselves to be “a couple” can light all of the “Unity Candles” that they want but that symbolic act (which is done quickly and then forgotten as quickly) can never replace Realization which alone leads to a full understanding of “not two.” Thus, they will develop personas and they will try to relate and they will never see the double lie that the terms “personal” and “relationships” point to.

Is that to say that dating and marriage and establishment of households are to be avoided? Of course not. It is to say that only misery and suffering can follow when persons become programmed and conditioned and enculturated in a way that leads them to believe that the temporary can be forever. The relative existence is marked with such chaos and change and fluctuation that to expect any phase or stage to last forever is delusional, but it is that very belief which leads many persons to those suidical or homicidal thoughts that come when assumed personas in assumed relationships eventually end.

And there are stages in the ever-changing realm of the relative. Shakespeare spoke of “Seven Stages.” Some Eastern philosophies speak of “Three Stages” (student-householder-forest dweller) and some speak of “Five Stages” (Programming, Accumulation, Self-inquiry, Realization, and De-accumulation).

Shakespeare said that “All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.” He listed the infant stage, the student stage, the lover stage, the fighter stage, and—before returning to the childish stage during advanced age—there are the stages of introspection and consideration which can lead to enlightenment that can, in turn, end the fighting and lead to relaxing and taking it easy, no matter what happens.

Easterners who discuss "Three Stages" list the student stage, the householder stage, and the forest dweller stage. In the first stage, the “tools” required for meeting the basic necessities of the relative existence are accumulated. In the second stage, accumulating happens at an accelerated pace (including a job, a spouse, a home, furnishings, children, necessities, luxuries, etc.). Most persons fixate at that stage and never reach the third stage, the “forest dweller” stage.

That third stage has been entered literally by many who abandon all material possessions and retreat to the woods for contemplation and considerations that can lead to enlightenment. Henry David Thoreau was one of the few U.S. citizens in his day to enter that third stage that has its roots in Eastern philosophy. Moving to Walden Pond, he said, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” Yesterday, the pointer was offered that the wife (who is now suicidal because she is losing her primary label) has not realized the point offered by Advaita and adumbrated by Thoreau: separated from Self, she has come to die without discovering that she has not yet lived.

To come to the essential understandings via the “forest dweller stage,” however, does not require that one literally go to the woods (though time in “re-treat” for “re-creation” can be most effective). Furthermore, most Advaita teachers would never encourage anyone who might be wanting to skip from stage one to stage three. Maharaj did not offer the teachings to his children because they had to move into the householder stage and “earn a living.” Exposure to the Teachings at too early an age can prove detrimental to movement through each of the stages, he pointed out.

That said, there is no age requirement for transitioning beyond the householder stage and into the forest dweller stage since one need not literally leave family and possessions behind in order for enlightenment to happen. Most persons, however, will fixate in the second stage and never seek the understanding available via the third stage. As a result of that fixation, they will live with the constant fluctuations between “good times” and “bad times” and all of the instability that comes with the adoption of ego-states that are generated while in the householder stage. Eventually, those roles will either be taken away traumatically or can be forfeited with pleasure. That is a key consideration in this discussion.

The pointer was offered yesterday that “Realization, which allows for AS IF living, is a pre-emptive strike against that which will eventually strike all persons absorbed in ego-states.” AS IF living means that freedom from the “mind” and “personality” has happened, so freedom from both self-absorption and even SELF-absorption has happened. Even freedom from SELF-absorption? Yes. Among the Realized, the relative existence is not burdened with having to focus on any concepts or any teachings or even on “The True Self.” If the teachings happen to be shared post-Realization, that generally accounts for a small portion of a day’s activities. Nothing is obsessed over, including Advaita, once Full Realization happens.

Consider again the pointer that was offered yesterday:

The Realized merely see all exactly as it is yet still live in a contented, AS IF fashion that allows peace to happen whether “in relationship” or not, whether “in love” or not, or whether “married” or not. The Realized are driven by nothing, including relative desires, relative fears, or relative perceptions of need. That is never the case with persons (the non-Realized). Total freedom can happen, no matter what your circumstances might be.

Are you ready to be free? CASTING LIGHT ON THE DARK SIDE OF REALTIONSHIPS identifies the sources of problems in “relationships” and offers solutions that can be applied during the remaining manifestation of the consciousness. FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE is a guide through the steps that can lead to total freedom. The ways and the means are available. May your “journey” begin now (or continue now) and move promptly to its end in order that freedom from all things relative might be transitioned so that You can abide as the Absolute and know absolute peace and absolute freedom...now. Please enter the silence of contemplation.

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THE MESSAGE OF NON-DUALITY, From India and Asia to the “Americas,” Part Four

[These discussions of the Advaita-Asia-India-“Native American” unicity are in response to an e-mail regarding the May 27th HBO presentation of “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.” You may visit http://www.hbo.com/films/burymyheart/ if interested in details. Here is a summary as well: In the late 19th century, the U.S. government waged a systematic campaign to exterminate American Indians—and nobody seemed to care. HBO Films presents this epic adaptation of Dee Brown's nonfiction masterpiece that brought this dark chapter of U.S. history to light. Beginning just after the bloody Sioux victory over General Custer at Little Big Horn, the film intertwines the unique perspectives of three characters—Charles Eastman, Sitting Bull and Senator Henry Dawes—while detailing the sprawl into the American West that tragically affected American-Indian culture.]

CASE STUDY: A First-Hand Account of the Advaita Message as Transmitted by One of the Indigenous Peoples in the U.S.
F.: The ancestors of my Ah-ni-yv-wi-ya (or “Tsalagi” or “Cherokee”) grandmother were sent away from the land they had cleared for farming and lived on for generations when the land was confiscated by the U.S. Government and sold for $1 per acre to a family from Germany. Those Native American ancestors were “resettled” to areas in Arkansas and Oklahoma. Eventually, one "American Indian" family was “pardoned” and allowed to move back south to a small, remote, heavily-wooded tract of fairly-useless land in what came to be known as “Cherokee County.” That family would eventually procreate and it would be in that region where the consciousness happened to manifest in a space that I would someday call “Grandmother.”

The Space called ”Grandmother”

Her family would pass down to her not only their philosophical teachings but also their healing methods as well. She would become a medicine woman, visited regularly by the infirmed, but her curative abilities were not limited to the physical. Time with her would heal the troubled “mind” and emotions as well. With Grandmother, the ancient teachings that found their way from Asia and India were taught at times by word but were transferred more often in the silence of example. In her small house set on a knoll in a dense and isolated forest where I spent my childhood summers, it seemed to a young male from the city as if there was nothing…yet it was seen later as an adult that there was everything.

As for that nothingness, never did she complain about the lack of indoor plumbing or about a too small house or about the absence of electricity. Never did she complain about having to draw water from a well or about having to gather wood or about having to build a fire each morning under a large black kettle in order to heat her water. Never did she complain about the multi-mile walk to the nearest store or about having to use a mule to plow her one-acre garden. Never did she complain about the red dust blown into her eyes from the lane that paralleled her land or about being alone in a very dense forest.

To the contrary, she was free of fear and free of desire, functioning as a minimalist who was completely content, even as “less” marked each aspect of her existence. All efforts by her children to provide “the basic amenities” were refused. Though “nihilism” would not have been among the words in her vocabulary, in practice she lived in what dualists would have called “a moral fashion” without needing a defined, moral code or religion to guide her; though she provided healing for many, she never did so to attain a sense of “self”-value or to give “meaning” to “her life”; and what happened on any given day at any given time was never a result of “preferences.” Looking back later, it was seen that everything that happened with Grandmother happened spontaneously or not at all.

She knew no time; she honored no days with dualistic notions about some being “more important” or “different” or “holier” than others; she honored no person with dualistic notions about some being "more important" or "different" or "holier" than others; she was attuned to the cycles of the seasons but lived only in the moment; she was at-one with all. The manifestation spanned a century, so she obviously cared for her body without caring about her body. Looking back, it is obvious that she had none of the delusions that cause many to confuse three-dimensional things or three-dimensional beings with the real.

THAT FIRST TASTE OF NIRVANA
For a young child longing for peace and for respite from an existence that was plagued with far too much nonsense, with far too many judgments about being “good or bad,” and with the application of excessive punishment when labeled “bad,” the contrast of summers with a calm, serene Ah-ni-yv-wi-ya grandmother became a welcomed balm. To be in her presence in the quietness of the natural surroundings of a forest and in a home where serenity reigned was to be in Nirvana. At least it was for a young child who was already trying to escape an environment in the city that was far too chaotic, far too noisy, far too castigatory in character, and far too illogical and irrational. The concept in India of undergoing “the forest dweller stage” became my experience long before I heard the term.

AN EARLY LESSON ABOUT THE ILLUSION OF DEATH
When in the city with my parents, bedtime was always marred with a prayer which included the phrase “…and if I die before I wake.” That always struck me as a peculiar concept to introduce just prior to sleep, but my protests in that regard were ignored and the lines had to be spoken. That prayer was never a requirement at Grandmother’s; in fact, Grandmother never used any prayers that I saw or heard, but she did offer a hug and a kiss and a pat at bedtime, so sleep in her home was long and deep. Except for one night.

One night, when fears generated by strange noises outside the open window drove me from my bed to hers, she calmed me with a hug and shushing sounds. That night, the noises triggered a fear that “this might be the night that I die before I get to wake.” The thought drove me to seek something to assuage the fear in a way that would allow me to return to sleep, so it was asked, “Grandmother, am I too bad to get to go to heaven if I die?” After a moment of silence, in which she was processing a hurt that I only now realize she was feeling, Grandmother said, “Not only are you not bad, but there is no death, so do not be concerned. Just go to sleep and rest.”

“There is no death?” I repeated sleepily. I wanted to ask for more explanation, for more assurance, but I wanted even more to return to sleep, so nothing more was said after a few incoherent mumblings from a child transitioning from abject fear into the quiet-breath sounds of sleep. It would be forty-five years before it would be seen in retrospect that the transitioning from abject fear into the quiet-breath sounds of rest would be a metaphor for the Advaita “journey” of transitioning from my relative existence that had been marked by imagined fears and unmet desires and “mind”-generated suffering to enjoying the quiet-breath moments of rest, post-Realization.

Can you relate to a child running about in the darkness of abject fear over what was really nothing? Can you relate to an adult still doing the same? Are you ready for the quietness to replace the chaos? Are you ready for the sleep-state level of peace to manifest during the waking hours as well? Are you ready for peaceful surroundings? Are you truly ready to take all seven steps that are required to complete the journey that can take you to that? Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
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