LIVING IN THE STYLE OF A REALIZED TEACHER, OR A HERON, OR A DEER, Part One

FROM A SITE VISITOR: I have read what you have written about the mind and have pre-ordered your book on the mind, but another teacher talks about using the “working mind” and not the “thinking mind.” Will your book clarify (or maybe reconcile) what the two of you are teachings? Andi

F. Hello Andi. The book you’ve ordered does not address the “working mind-thinking mind” terms, but some clarifying pointers are offered about the “working vs. thinking mind” in the book THE ESSENCE OF THE TEACHINGS.

When seekers have come here for satsanga, sometimes they have been invited to walk down the terrace to the harbor or to walk along the edges of one of the coves nearby and watch a Great Blue or Great White Heron. (The same exercise was used with deer when sessions were being offered in a location that was near a forest. Why? Nisarga Yoga is an invitation to live naturally. If you could spend an extended period of time in the presence of a Realized Teacher, you might see natural living being modeled. For most who cannot arrange such an opportunity for witnessing, why not at least witness a bird or animal that is truly living naturally? Most can arrange that right now.)

When they returned after having witnessed one of the birds or one of the deer for a period, the participants were asked to write in their notebooks a contrast of the way that the heron/deer was living as opposed to the way that they were living. Inevitably, the participants always noted certain observations that were common to most of their lists: the deer/heron’s “peace”; the way that the deer/heron seemed not to be bothered by anything at all; or the way that, if it was disturbed by humans that approached, the way it just relocated to a quieter place.

Some of the more creative descriptors that some seekers have written include words such as “natural” or “unencumbered” or “free” or “unregulated” or “not burdened” or “just being.” Then participants were asked to write a second list using words that described the way they were living. (The words were never as appealing as those used to describe the lifestyle of the deer/heron.)

Then the participants were asked to write answers to the following:

“Why does the life being lived by a deer/heron seem to be preferable to your own?”

“Are you more intelligent and more knowledgeable than a deer/heron? If so, why is it able to live a life that seems to be preferable to yours?”

“Why does the deer/heron not need to Realize and why does it not need to go through the "Seven Step Journey to Reality"? That is, what have you experienced that the deer/heron has not?”

“Do you believe that the deer/heron has any kind of mind at all or that it is merely functioning via the auspices of the brain and natural instincts?”

“Do you believe that the deer/heron was ‘thinking’ or merely witnessing?”

“Have your minutes and hours and days and years been passed from a “thinking mode” or from a “witnessing mode”?

“Is your mind ‘working’ more than you want it to?”

“The deer/heron is born with its clothing, eats food that is free, and pays nothing for shelter. Most humans don’t have that privilege, and employment must happen for you to meet your food, clothing and shelter requirements. But if a shift in perspective were to happen, how could you meet those basic requirements and still live in a fashion that would be more natural, less encumbered, far freer, less burdened, and marked by ‘just being’?”

“The deer/heron has accumulated little…a temporary place for bedding only. How could de-accumulation allow an adjustment to happen in your lifestyle that might be preferable to the way that you are living now?”

So, Andi, the same invitation to try that exercise is offered to you and to all site visitors: go to the woods or a park or some place where you can quietly observe a bird or animal in its natural habitat. If possible, focus on one bird or animal alone. Then return home and write answers to the questions above; then, read the answers until a new understanding manifests. For additional explanation, see the book below. Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
Interested in more on “the working mind vs. the thinking mind,” on “manifestation vs. unmanifestation,” on “free will vs. no free will,” on “the seven degrees of separation from reality,” on exercises for focused meditation, on what “the ‘higher power’ is vs. what it is not,” and on “natural living vs. unnatural or supernatural living”?

Click THE ESSENCE OF THE TEACHINGS

INTERESTED IN AN ADVAITA VEDANTA RETREAT? Click

SAMSKARAS, ARCHETYPES, AND THE LOSS OF FREEDOM

F.: Now, to continue the response to those who asked about the validity of archetypal messages. If you look over the edge of a cliff or a tall building and your stomach automatically and involuntarily “jumps” as a means of alerting you of a potential physical danger, certainly that is an archetypal response and certainly it is “of value” and is “valid” to those wanting to protect the physical body. It should be noted, however, that while archetypes can be “useful” in such situations, they are rooted in a history of phenomenal, human experiences and thereby transmit far more false impressions. Whereas nature’s intent was that they would provide legitimate warnings of danger, now they support a dualistic sense of separation by race, by religion, by denomination, by sect, by state, by nation, by economic level, by form of government, etc.

In that regard, the pointer was offered yesterday that…

…from ego and arrogance and a sense of separation have come the desires and fears that generate the perceived need for power; the desire to control; the assumed right to judge and moralize and be “the one who is right”; the assumption of the right to dictate and punish or reward; the need to argue, fight, separate, and engage in wars; and the willingness (and often, indeed, the propensity) to destroy on personal, state, national and international levels. The trillions, and the trillions of trillions, of persons who have died on this planet from anything other than a "natural cause" were actually sacrifices made on the altar of ego.

What do ego-driven, destructive, subject-object “thoughts,” always generated by a dualistic “mind,” look like in practice today? “I am a good man; I just said a bad thing”; “we are the good nation, but they are the axis of evil”; “I talked to Him”; He told me that I should bomb them”; and “our nation has been catastrophically-paralyzed by 32 killings here this week, but regarding the 1000+ killings there this week…not so much.”

The ancient impressions and archetypal images that fostered duality are now inspiring persons to talk about who is good and who is bad; about a supreme being there talking to mortal beings here; about killings here that are bad and about killings there that are merely collateral damage…et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. That is what sacrifices being made on the altar of ego look like, and here are the types of lines being spoken by the key actors on the stage of this absurd play:

“I can decide who lives and who dies locally”; or “It is moral for us to kill legally in Texas but it is immoral for him to kill illegally in Virginia”; or “I can decide who dies in execution chambers in North Korea or in Iran or in Syria or in…Pennsylvania”; and “our nation can decide who lives and who dies anywhere in the world.”

The main characters in this modern morality play called the Drama of the Lie are Arrogance, Greed, Ego, Judging, The Good Guys, The Bad Guys, Separation and Destruction. As for the motivations of the actors, their driving force can be understood by seeing the type of thinking that comes from a dualistic mind (which has now expanded in scope to become the collective dualistic mind of the masses). Such widespread destruction during this relative existence is the result of belief in the dualities of “good vs. bad,” “right vs. wrong,” “moral vs. immoral,” and “deserving punishment or deserving reward,” all of which are rooted in false impressions and in archetypal images which now support the concepts of duality that mar the relative existence.

Those archetypal images are stored in what Carl Jung called “the collective unconscious.” As shown, they have a major influence on human thoughts and perceptions (and misperceptions) as they are rooted in personality types and are often grouped into dualistic categories of "heroes or heroines vs. villains." (Consider that scenario: things in your unconscious are helping to determine how you feel, what you perceive about persons, how you feel about persons, and what you think about persons. Talk about “no choice.”) Thus, archetypes reinforce belief in personality, personas, stereotypes, and duality. They set the stage for “good guy vs. bad guy” judgments, for “good weather vs. bad weather” nonsense, and for “good people vs. bad people” moralizing.

Tomorrow, the discussion of archetypes and their effects (and how to transcend those effects) will continue, but for now, the invitation is to pause and consider: all of the rubbish described above that is now so typical among persons on the planet will not end. It is too engrained among too many who will continue to pass down the teaching of lies as truth. Realization will only happen for a few since the number of those passing along lies is far larger than the number of Advaitins that are teaching the way to find truth. The voice of duality is the voice of madness, yet it is the only voice that is typically heard across the planet. Nevertheless, even as such thinking and behavior will continue, you can be free of such nonsense, even as it continues to happen all about you. The way to that freedom requires that the seeker look first to the “self.”

The True Self cannot be found if the search begins with a search for the True Self. The “journey” must begin with the search for the self, that is, with the search for the false self, and for every false self or persona that is driving you. Have you considered the things that are stored in memory or in the unconscious or in a dualistic “mind’ that are all determining how you feel, what you perceive about persons, how you feel about persons, and what you think about persons? Have you seen, when false impressions and inaccurate memories and images are driving the way that you think and emote and behave, that you really have no “free will” and no "choice" in regards to anything? And do you not see that, without free will and choice, you really have no freedom at all? Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)