“MIND” and MEMORIES: When Nature’s “Assets” Become Warped into “Liabilities,” Part Four

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Because of programming and conditioning and enculturation, that which had been an asset (memory) has became a liability.

FROM A SITE VISITOR: Loved your expression “brain-flush”?! Now that resonates. I’ve been visiting your site off-and-on since the early days - you did a piece one time on the brain and mind and consciousness but I can’t find it in the search. Can you tell me how to find that and then tie it in with “brain-flush”? LOL Thanks.

[Continued from yesterday]

F.: The “deficient and distorted” part of the brain that Maharaj referred to is, of course, that part which stores and accesses memories, so all memories are deficient distortions. Nothing is as it appears to you, and nothing that has ever appeared to you was really the way it was perceived. You have been fooled because that which "they" gave you to use for perceiving is an accumulation of foolishness. Since the “mind” is the sum total of memories, and because all memories are distortions, then the “mind” is the sum total of your distortions. Want to be free of distortions and to Realize truth? Be rid of the “mind.” Yet you cannot go beyond the “mind” when you are constantly looking at the “mind” (that is, paying attention to "thought"). In order to go beyond the mind, Maharaj said, you must look away from the “mind” and its fictional contents. That means, therefore, that “minds” are nowadays so deficient and distorted that they should be ignored.

If you have not Realized, you do not see things now the way that they truly are, so it would have been totally impossible to have seen them the way they truly were in the past; therefore, the invitation is to Realize, to see that none of the memories that you are clinging to are accurate (including memories about “happenings,” memories involving “persons,” and all of the things you were taught to believe that are still stored “in your memory”).

Next, understand the reason that there is some talk in the teachings about “Now.” (By the way, there is no “power of now” since there is no power. Power is just a concept to which persons become addicted). “Time” too is a concept, so why even speak of now? Because anything supposedly recalled from the “past” is a memory, and it has been established that memories are distortions, so there is no past and there are no accurate memories. In fact, your entire world is in you...in your "mind," so how could that which is merely in your "mind" and which you think is "the world" possibly be real?

The most that the I-Amness can ever claim, therefore, is now, but if Realization has not happened, even perceptions regarding "now" are distortions. (Eventually, even that speck of now-time measurement will become meaningless, if you Realize.) If Realized—and thereby free of (false) memories—no action now would be triggered by a memory of something past. That in itself would be another level of freedom. For example:

MEMORY-DRIVEN DISTORTION LEADING TO EMOTIONAL INTOXICATION: “I am upset because we are no longer together and I don’t have the love now that I had back then.”

CLEAR PERCEPTION NOW AS A RESULT OF NOT BELIEVING IN A DISTORTED, ILLUSORY MEMORY: “What I thought I had back then was not even close to ...

This is an excerpt from the book
THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS “PEACE OF MIND”
(There Is Only Peace if You’re Out of Your Mind)

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Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be continued]

WHY MOST PERSONS WILL NEVER REALIZE, Part One

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

[Initial e-mailed response]: A very legitimate question. Due to its relevance to the recent post, the reply will be moved up the list and responded to tomorrow. In the meantime, know that seven steps are required for the shift you're asking about, and they must be completed in an exact order, the explanation of which is book-length rather than e-mail length. See http://floydhenderson.com/iamabsolute.htm for more on that. Peace and Light. f.

F.: OK, Virginia. Thx for writing. Your assessment (that one factor which is retarding your undertaking of the “journey” to Full Realization is the "fear of losing parts of that little self" that you "have allowed to define" you) is telling. It reveals that you are farther along than most persons walking about the planet since most haven’t considered their circumstances enough to even be aware of the duality of “self vs. Self.” (Technically, the problem is not losing parts of one false “self” but losing all of the many, different false selves that persons use to “define” who and what they think they are.)

While various fears are one hindrance to Realizing, desires, denial, arrogance, and greed are others. First, the fears. The various fears among persons manifest as fears about non-continuity, fears about the unknown, and fears of powerlessness:

FEARS ABOUT NON-CONTINUITY
Among persons--that is, among the non-Realized--an understanding of their fears cannot be separated from an understanding of their desires. The fear that the body-mind-personality might have “an abbreviated stay in this world” is always accompanied by a dualistic desire for eternal continuity of the body-mind-personality in the next world. That desire for continuity will generate fear-based conduct in the relative that reinforces more and more belief in the lies of duality and that results in less and less chance of Realizing. To “earn” or “gain” continuity for the mirage called “the body” and the mirage called “the mind” and the mirage called “my personality,” persons self-servingly cling to their beliefs in such dualities as “god/gods vs. mortals”; “hell vs. heaven”; “rewards vs. punishments” (both "now" and “later”); “benefits of worshipping vs. not worshipping”; “payoffs from tithing vs. not tithing,” etc.

Why self-servingly? Because all of those dualistic beliefs are rooted in the dualistic desires of various false selves to continue now, to continue forever, to gain “good” things now and forever, and to avoid “bad things” now and forever. The goal of persons is to be able to manipulate other persons as well as some external Power in order to get what “you”—that “little self”—wants and desires, which is the power to control as well as some supposed guarantee that "you" will "continue." With Realization comes the awareness that there is no Power or power, that there is no one who can control, and that there is no continuity of body or mind or personality. With Realization comes the awareness that NOW is the only "time" there is, so NOW might as well be enjoyed fully. With Realization comes freedom from illusory fears and illusory desires. For most persons, however, because they are fixated at the elementary level of body-mind-personality identification, the motivation to transcend will seldom happen. Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be continued]