ADVAITA: A PHILOSOPHY THAT ANNIHILATES ALL, INCLUDING ITSELF? Part One

F.: One pointer in particular from the August 29, 2007 post has resulted in three e-mails asking for clarification, so clarification shall be offered to the following:

The consciousness which shares pointers from the Advaita philosophy via this site would actually bring to an end all philosophy and all study and all ideas and all concepts.

First, understand that the pointer describes a scenario that happens post-Realization. Until Realization happens, the philosophy can be used. After Realization, the Consciousness might speak or the Consciousness might become completely silent, but in either case, no "user" remains to use anything, including a philosophy.

One definition of “philosophy” is “the use of reason and argument in seeking truth, in seeking an understanding of reality, and in seeking to understand the principles that govern existence.”

Yet it is not only philosophy that has been brought to an end in many cases. Some might supposed that if there were a Concept-Killers' Court of the Universe, it would be easy enough to file charges against the Consciousness that speaks via this site and/or via satsangas. Some could charge that the “fingerprint” of Consciousness could be lifted from the various scenes where so many “selves” have been annihiliated and where (as one book reviewer wrote) "so many sacred cows have been slaughtered in the process" as well.

Actually, the seeker who has advanced far enough along the "path" can now understand that nothing has been annililiated and that nothing has been slaughtered. To point out that a mirage is a mirage does not “kill” the mirage. It merely allows the witnessing consciousness to perceive accurately. The same happens if persons see that their false personas (their false selves) are mirages, if they see those identities are illusions, or if they see that their sacred cows are illusions as well.

Advaita allows the use of reason and argument in seeking truth, in seeking an understanding of reality, and in seeking to understand the principles that govern existence. Once that use of reason allows delusions to be seen as delusions, belief in the delusions ends. Once the arguments used in the seeker-teacher exchanges expose false selves as being false selves, the belief in those selves can end.

Once the difference in false and Real is discerned, belief in the false disappears. Once the principles that govern existence (that is, once the functioning of the totality is comprehended) all other notions about “cause” and “effect” disappear. But nothing was destroyed. Unreasonable beliefs, based in misunderstandings and in lies, don’t really even "disappear." To enter a dark room and to flip a switch that turns on a light does not mean that darkness literally disappeared. The darkness had not appeared to begin with. It is more accurately stated that enlightenment happened.

The case is simply that all which was always present but that had not been seen can suddenly be seen, and what the unaware observer thought he was seeing is realized to have never been that at all. Must a guide explain what lies beyond surface appearances? Usually. To use an electron microscope to view the supposed "steel beam" that seems to be supporting the ceiling of a room would reveal that it is not a steel beam at all but is a swirling mass of energy.

Note, too, that many Advaitins will not tell you that “the beam” is "not real." (Want to get really argumentative and philosophical about that point? Then lower your head and run full speed into a stationary steel beam; later, we can discuss the accuracy of the pointer after you regain consciousness.) Many Advaitins instead will settle for your understanding that (a) what the non-Realized think a steel beam is, is not what the beam is at all; that (b) what the non-Realized think is real is not real; and that (c) the way that anything appears to the non-Realized is not what it really IS at all.

So in fact, nothing has ever been destroyed by use of the Advaita philosophy because nothing thought to have been destroyed ever really existed. A mirage cannot be destroyed, but the fact that it appears to be something that it is not can be explained and understood. Remember: there is matter and there is energy, and neither has ever been created and never can ever be destroyed. What is actually happening is merely (1) a series of cyclings happening spontaneously and (2) a matter of the bastardized consciousness misperceiving what is actually cycling.

Thus, "pointers of caution" are offered occasionally in regards to the “mental impressions” that can generate so much misery. Last December, a man came to visit. He was near suicidal because his wife had filed for divorce and he was facing their “first Christmas apart.” (Such has become a regular occurrence during that “season” as ego-states think they are dying so they may as well hasten the process.)

A few probing questions reveal that the marriage had been in shambles for years and that the Christmas before—which he thought he was longing to experience again—had been marred by irritability and an exhausting pace and multiple arguments. In fact, all that he was really longing for was the continuation of a false identity and the continuation of an arrangement that was based in lies and misperceptions and denial and distortions.

As so often happens when current perceptions are based in past misperceptions, misery follows those distorted views as persons cling to their “memories” of "their past" even though the truth about past happenings was never even close to their impression of what those "past" events were really like. Can you relate to that…to having a belief that you were certain was accurate or to holding onto an idea that was you thought was fact-based or to clinging to a sacredly-held concept that You later realized was pure bunk...just total nonsense? Please enter into the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
READINGS RELATED TO TODAY’S POSTING:
WORKING ON LEARNING TO QUESTION IT ALL AND BEING FREE OF THE FALSE (BUT HONORED) CONCEPTS AND BELIEFS OF YOUR CULTURE?

Click IT’S ALL BULLSHIT

WORKING ON BEING FREE OF RELIGIOUS PROGRAMMING AND DOGMA?

Click SPIRITUAL SOBRIETY

WORKING ON BEING FREE OF BODY AND MIND IDENTIFICATION?

Click WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE?

WORKING ON BEING FREE OF MIND AND PERSONALITY IDENTIFICATION?

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

and

Click LIBERATION

WORKING ON THE ADVANCED UNDERSTANDINGS?

Click THE ESSENCE OF THE TEACHINGS

and

Click FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE (A Seven-Step Journey to Reality)

SAMSKARAS, ARCHETYPES, AND THE BIRTH OF DUALITY

F.: Samskaras, involving memories and mental impressions, are by definition “of or pertaining to the mind,” and “the mind” over the ages has devolved into nothing more than a repository of lies and concepts that are to be transitioned if Realization is to happen. (NOTE: Such "impressions" are quite different from one property of the manifested consciousness, namely that which allows for “non-personal communication” as consciousness speaks to consciousness without bounds. An example of that was offered earlier when a woman named Elaine in Louisiana awakened abruptly at 4:30 A.M. CST and became aware of the fact that her daughter LeeAnn, in California at 2:30 A.M. PST, had been involved in an accident.)

Over the last several million years as the brain evolved from an organ the size of 400 mls to one that is over 1400 mls, two "new" sections developed that made possible the storage and retrieval of "memories" and the sensing of "impressions." The intent was for those sections of the brain to facilitate the survival of the species. Thus, if one man saw another walk off the edge of a cliff and shatter on the rocks below, the brain of the witness would record the incident in memory. Later, if that witness happened upon the edge of a cliff, his brain would retrieve the earlier memory from a section of the brain and make the man aware of a threat. Soon, the threat would be given a connotation and a sense of “not good” would be felt every time a similar happening occurred.

On different occasions, after returning home from extended hunting trips that had ended in success, the same man might approach his mate. Each time he did so, he would raise their next meal into the air for her viewing. They both would develop from those instances a sense of “good,” and that would be associated with such tangible concepts as "having a mate" and "sharing a meal" as well as with intangible concepts such as “homecomings” and "cohabitating" and "caring for" and "being cared for." Human would soon begin to form thousands of images with connotations of either “good” or “not good,” all associated with an ever-increasing number of human experiences.

Over millions of years, those images and connotations would be stored in the brain’s “newer” section for storage, would be retrieved repeatedly by triggering mechanisms, would be discussed and reinforced once languages developed, and would eventually be passed on as part of the genetic coding. And all of that was based in what would develop into a series of images in "the mind" that classify everything as “good” or “bad.” Those images, and that duality, gave rise to what would be called "archetypes."

The terms "good" and "bad" would eventually be used by humans to appraise and evaluate and classify and divide and separate all happenings and persons and things and places.

The concept of duality was born.

After that, the sense of “separate from” would eventually become what seemed “natural.” From that point to this, not only would the Original Understanding of non-duality be lost (along with the innate and natural awareness of the unicity) but also the Teachings of non-duality would be taken by most to be the “unnatural” perspective because it became the least common.

The evolution of the brain that generated samskaras and archetypal images (both of which help perpetuate a belief in duality) also laid the roots from which duality would grow. From the belief that duality is the real, all conceptualized illusions of “separate” and “different from” and “better than” would grow. Ultimately, it would be from the conceptualized illusions of “separate” and “different from” and “better than” that all ego would grow, and from ego has come all relative existence arrogance. And 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.

The roots of the widespread, insane-like behavior among persons, all embroiled in the relative existence and driven by their concepts, can be traced back to evolutionary events that set the stage for the widespread belief in duality. It can be seen, therefore, that to be free of the effects of all of that programming, conditioning, genetic influence, and enculturation is an awesome and challenging undertaking. Understanding the scope of those obstacles explains why so few will ever Realize, yet for the dedicated seeker who finds a capable and willing teacher, it can happen. Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)

SAMSKARAS AND ARCHETYPES: DELUSIONS AND DUALITY

F.: A recent series explained how the mind was once an asset but has now become a liability. That series triggered a number of e-mails asking about samskaras as well as archetypal images. Tomorrow, archetypal images will be discussed. Today, some considerations regarding samskaras will be offered, as explained earlier in the following exchange that is an extract from the soon-to-be-published book entitled CONSCIOUSNESS, AWARENESS, AND THE NATURE OF REALITY (Peace Every Day When Abiding as the Absolute) :

Seeker: And how has my consciousness been corrupted, according to you?
F.: Via impressions—or samskaras—as my teacher called them. Here’s an analogy: imagine you’re at the beach, a few yards from the water’s edge. As you walk, you leave behind impressions of your feet. Are those impressions real?
Seeker: For the moment, yes.
F.: Really? What’s real about those impressions? They are only space—nothingness, emptiness—that seems to your eye to be “something” when in fact they are nothing. Will they last?
Seeker: They’ll last until the tide comes in and washes them away.
F.: So are they an actual form, or just a temporary space that appears to have shape and form?
Seeker: OK...they’re temporary.
F.: So it is with everything you think you see. It’s only an appearance, and appearances are distortions, and distortions trigger misery. You look at the body called “floyd” and all that is there is a space, but you think you are seeing some thing. It is emptiness…nothingness. Just a handful of elements with air and energy temporarily circulating through the space. If you remove the water that is within the body, then those elements won’t even fill a small urn.

Realization is like the wave that can come along and sweep away all the false impressions imprinted on "the mind." Realization makes you aware that the nothingness that you’ve always taken to be something is not that thing at all. Those impressions were never real. You mistook an empty space to be something, and that’s what persons do all day long, all month long, all year long, year after year after year. Most spend their entire existence convinced that their perceptions are the “right” perceptions when if fact they have never seen anything “rightly.”

As a result, they will suffer from one false impression after another, not unlike all the impressions in your “mind.” Footprints in the sand appear to have some shape or form, just as mirages in the desert appear to have a shape or form, but the reality is that all impressions and all mirages are just a part of the fiction of the “mind.” To be “in touch with reality” is to be able to differentiate betwen what is illusion and what is real, between what is delusion and what is truth, and between that which appears to be dualistic as opposed to that which is One and truly Real. Please enter the silence of contemplation.

WORKING ON “THE FINAL PIECE” AND PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER?

Click THE ESSENCE OF THE TEACHINGS

Click FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE (A Seven-Step Journey to Reality)