HINDU BY “BIRTH,” BUT INVESTIGATING ADVAITA, Part Eight

FROM A SITE VISITOR: [Please see the 02 November 2007 post for the e-mail which is being responded to today]

(The exchange continues):

F.: Now, Vignesh, you are invited to revisit some of your comments about “God” and “religion” and “holy” writings in light of the pointers offered over the last days:

V.: “My concept of Brahman(God) has so far been like…,” and “in every religion there is no parallel existence to God,” and “God does not change,” and” “Even if there is Consciousness, how could God become aware of It's existence…?” and “But that is not in line with the teachings of the Upanishads, right?”

F.: What a waste of energy, yes? What a waste of time that could be spent dancing and enjoying the lightness of being, yes? Why a waste? Why spend time debating with yourself or others about mirages? See that a mirage is a mirage and move on down the road. But that is nearly impossible for those who, from childhood and then throughout adulthood, have been programmed to believe in duality, in god(s), in holy men, and in holy books.

Maharaj said: “First of all you identify something as being good or bad for yourself. Then, in an effort to acquire good or to get rid of the bad, you have invented God. Then you worship such a God and…you pray to that God for something good to happen to you.”

Note that duality drives the invention of gods, that the invention of gods drives the writing of dualistic (“holy”) books, that dualistic (“holy”) books generate organized religions and spiritual movements, and that religions and spiritual movements generate and support more dualistic concepts: good, bad, right, wrong, reward, punishment, heaven, hell, etc., resulting in a closed loop of learned ignorance.

Why is there no need for holy books and religion and worship and spiritual movements? Because Truth cannot be stated; thus, there is no need for any priest or preacher or prophet or rabbi or imam or medicine man to assume it is his task to tell you what the Truth is. Truth cannot be stated. There is no need for any “holy” man (it is almost always a man, is it not?) to write what he claims are “holy words of God’s Truth” because the Truth cannot be written any more than it can be stated.

However, Truth can be realized by tapping into “the intellect” (actually the pure consciousness) via the inner guru, but many adhere to the view expressed by Loyola who wrote that Catholics “… sacrifice the intellect to God.” (No argument there, but the practice is not limited to any single denomination but is common throughout all religions and sects and “programs” and spiritual movements as well.)

For an objective witness to see how “religious leaders” have required the forfeiture of logic and reason over the ages can lead such a witness to question their invitation to abandon logic and reason; can lead to the objective witness eventually discarding all false beliefs; and can prepare the way for Truth to spring into awareness via the re-purified consciousness.

Yet the forfeiture of logic and reason among persons who are religiously or spiritually programmed, as you have been, is a result of the same programming that inspires many to agree with the belief of Luther who said, “Reason is the Devil’s harlot….”

It is that type of disdain for reason—along with the inflation of the worth of “unquestioning faith”—that has led trillions of people over the millennia to accept that Buddha, Krishna, and Christ were all conceived in some virginal fashion and were all born in manners that (supposedly) did not involve the use of a violated-by-a-male birth canal. So much for holy words in holy books.

If you want to rely on books as your source of truth, then read enough books and treatises and essays to receive a balanced view: Read Freud’s The Future of an Illusion in which he reports, “Where questions of religions are concerned, people are guilty of every possible sort of dishonesty and intellectual misdemeanor.”

Read Heine’s Gedaken: “In dark ages people are best guided by religion, as in pitch-black a blind man is the best guide; he knows the roads and paths better than a man who can see. When daylight comes, however, it is foolish to use blind old men as guides.”

But in the end, what good are any of the readings from believers or non-believers? One group shouts “Aye” and the other immediately shouts “Nay.” The task for you is not to find out what all of them think they know but for You to find the answer to this question: “What do You know?" The third step of the "journey" to Realization is a religious or spiritual step. The step must be taken; however, to complete the "journey," the third step must be transitioned.

To find the answer to the question above, you must cast aside all of the beliefs that are “theirs,” then conduct a Self-Inquiry, and thereafter determine what You have always known but do not remember at this moment because of programming and conditioning. That which blocks the realization of that which You have always known is the impure (programmed and conditioned) consciousness.

The obstructions that have blocked "you" from knowing You are the same obstructions that prevent the seeing of Truth because they create a miasma of lies called “the mind.” That miasma includes such obstacles as dogma, ideas, beliefs, and concepts.

For beginners, Vignesh, the suggestion is to stay with the “I Am” only until the last ego-state and concept and belief dissolves. Eventually, even the “I-Amness” can be transcended, and then, abidance as the Absolute can happen. The “you” will disappear, You will stop functioning as if the various "you's" are real, and You will abide as the one and only You for the remainder of the manifestation. Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
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MISTAKING THE DAWN FOR THE NOON, Part One

From a site visitor: [Received yesterday] Today you said history shows religion leads to separation and judging and even killing. That’s not true. For me, my religion leads to peace and power. I stay in conscious contact with Him with prayer all day, every day, and He empowers me and gives me guidance and peace so I can be happy for as long as, BY HIS GRACE, I am allowed to live. I hope you can find your way to Him so that you can have peace in this life and joy forever. Signed, John (as in 3:16)--A Child and Agent of God

F.: Hello John. It is a wonderment that persons like you find a site such as this at all; however, it is no wonderment at all that when they do, they are driven by ego to submit a prescription for the “right” way that “others” should think and feel and behave (namely, the exact same way that you think and feel and behave). Evidently, you failed to relate to the content in the series on narcissism. It is also no wonderment that those programmed the way you have been programmed will assume that no one is happy or at peace if they do not believe what you believe. At the core of all dogma is the notion that “our way is The Way…the only way.”

You would have everyone add to their knowledge base those things that you believe, whereas Advaita invites you to discard all concepts and beliefs. There will never be an invitation from Realized teachers for you to think the way they think (because they do not think). There will never be an invitation for you to attain more religious or spiritual knowledge (for they have discarded all learned ignorance). You, on the other hand, have an “agenda of addition” rather than a plan for subtraction or de-accumulation.

At any rate, you did find the site, so your opinions and beliefs will be addressed since they provide an opportunity to share certain Advaitin pointers in response; however, your comments will addressed in light of a point offered by Dennis Waite in his most recent book: “Opinions and beliefs may be more dangerous than ignorance….”

[For more, visit: http://www.advaitaquotes.blogspot.com/]

First, a few remarks in general today before addressing later the specifics in your e-mail:

1. The religious and/or spiritual stage is one of the seven stages to Full Realization. There is no suggestion to skip that step, only an invitation to transition beyond a stage that most take to be the final step of the “journey” and that causes them to mistake the dawn for the noon.

2. You have ignored the historical record and claim that a pointer is “not true.” Look, then, at the current events that are resulting in separation and wholesale killing and see the prime identifier that the combatants have adopted and which inspires their conflict. Nowadays, combatants around the globe are not divided along national lines as much as along religious lines. As with all who are out of touch with Reality, the theory behind your beliefs does not match the actual practices.

The Advaitin Douwe Tiemersma—a member of the Philosophical Faculty at Erasmus University in Holland at the time—explained it this way in the 1980’s in his Foreword to the book I AM THAT:

There are various religions [that] suffer from certain inherent limitations. They couch into fine-sounding words their traditional beliefs and ideologies, theological or philosophical. Believers, however, discover the limited range of meaning and applicability of these words, sooner or later. They get disillusioned and tend to abandon the systems, in the same way as scientifc theories are abandoned, when they are called in question by too much contradictory empirical data.

3. Your own words support the link between religion and killing when you explain that you are alive by your god’s grace, the implication being that “he” is going to kill you someday, whenever “he” chooses. And most certainly “his” propensity for killing is well-documented in Jewish and Christian writings.

4. Now, to your hearing guidance from a god: the fact that an uncle was Chief Administrator of a state-run hospital for the clinically-insane afforded an opportunity to observe first-hand the effects of certain mental illnesses. Many of those suffering psychosis had lost the ability to differentiate the real from the symbolic, as you have. The schizophrenics often had hallucinations and self-reported imaginings, just as you report when discussing the guidance you claim to hear. You are less in "conscious contact" and more in "unconscious contact."

So, one result of the religious programming that you have been subjected to—and which you are now trying to subject others to—is faith-based psychosis and faith-based schizophrenia. Those mental illnesses will get you some Crusades; will get you some Inquisitions; will lead to decimating entire populations in order to establish religious nations; will lead to the gassing and incineration of the members of one religion by members of another; will get you 1,400 years of sectarian violence; and will inspire many among the faithful to strap on and detonate vests made of bombs. Again, variances in noble theories and actual practice are a “call to question” it all as a result of “too much contradictory empirical data.”

Yet your programmers accompany their promises of “peace and power” and their promise that “you” shall not perish with the perfect hook: if you question, you lose all that has been promised.

5. As for the two new ego-states that you have adopted (“Child of God” and “Agent of God”), remember in the verse you reference (3:16) that the best plan “he” could come up with involved killing “his son.”

6. If my 23-year-old daughter called me "all day, every day" for guidance, it would be clear that she is suffering a dependency disorder and has not realized that she has all of the provisions needed for completing her relative existence "journey" from a state of total freedom. Nisarga Yoga is about living naturally, not unnaturally or supernaturally. The deer calls on no one and does just fine.

Now, there is no assumption that any of that can change your “mind” (your warped consciousness) but there might be those who have reached the point mentioned by Douwe Tiemersma and who understand what it is to “suffer from certain inherent limitations” of their dogma; who have discovered “the limited range of meaning and applicability” of those teachings; who have become “disillusioned” and are ready “to abandon the systems”; and who are ready to “question” those teachings as a result of “too much contradictory empirical data.”

While fixated at the third of seven steps to Realization, the dawn is often mistaken for the noon. Persons think that they have arrived and haven’t a clue that they have not traveled even one-half of the “path” to Full Enlightenment and Complete Liberation. It was while trapped in two ego-states (a religious persona and a spiritual persona) that disillusionment finally allowed “floyd” to begin to question. The willingness to question led to a search for something beyond the distortions of programming and conditioning and enculturation, and it was then that the Advaita Teachings were found.

It was those teachings that led to the re-purification of the consciousness which, in turn, led to total freedom. This series will be offered for those who might be in that state of disillusionment, who might find the wherewithal to question, and who might find the notion of “total freedom” to be a saner option—relatively speaking—than the appeal of “total dependence.” Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
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THE RELATIVE NATURE OF “GOOD” AND “BAD”: What Makes you Think you Know?

Tom and Jim met in a nearby mall:

Tom: Hey Jim. Long time no see.
Jim: It's been a while, hasn't it?
Tom: Fall of 2002, I think, at the state championship game when Jim Junior played. Did he go on to play college ball?
Jim: Yeah. He got a full scholarship to the University of Texas.
Tom: Well that’s good.
Jim: No, that was bad because the pressure was too much for him…football…studies…9-11 trauma and the aftermath…and then he broke a leg in a game.
Tom: Awww, that’s too bad.
Jim: Actually, he thought it was good. The time required to heal gave him time to think about what he wanted to do with his life.
Tom: Well then, that was a good thing.
Jim: Well, we thought it was bad. He decided he wanted to join the military and fight for his country. He said that was his calling and wanted to make a career of the army. The leg healed perfectly and they took him.
Tom: Well, that’s a good thing…at least he found a direction for his life, and he followed his heart.
Jim: Well, my wife and I think it was a bad thing...they sent him home a month ago.

Tom: Well, that sounds like a good thing to me.

Jim: Not really. He was in a flag-draped coffin.
Tom: Oh my gosh, Jim! That’s horrible!

Persons are trapped in ignorance because of their dualistic perspectives and because of their supposed "need" to classify everything as "positive or negative," as "good or bad," as "black or white" with no possible chance of any gray areas existing at all. Religious persons have been heard for nearly fifty-five years, explaining exactly what will get me a reward and exactly what will get me punishment, though their criteria vary by denomination or sect; judgmental persons have been heard as they share what they are sure is moral and what they are sure is immoral; politicians have informed the nation that “this country” or “that country” was evil, only to start a war, end a war, and then become their trading partners and allies decades later; spiritual persons have assumed me over the last several decades that they could teach me some spiritual disciplines that—if practiced on a daily basis—will guarantee a good life.

Persons talk about “good weather” and complain about “bad weather”; about getting a “good job” but later about leaving that “bad job”; about finding “a good man” or “a good woman," only to leave after finding they had “married some kind of wicked devil”; about finding "a great lover" who would later be re-labeled as "a sex maniac" instead; about a man with "a good work ethic" who would later be re-classified as "a workaholic"; about a "really cool woman" who would later be labeled as "an emotionally-unavailable witch."

In an existence in which everything is relative, in which change is the only constant, and in which there are no absolutes, what (other than colossal egotism, self-satisfied arrogance, and total blindness) would make persons think they know—for a fact—exactly what is “good” and exactly what is “bad”? Please enter the silence of contemplation.

DISCARDING “KNOWLEDGE” WHEN IT IS ACTUALLY LEARNED IGNORANCE, Part Five

Why do so few Realize? (1) Pride in worldly knowledge and attachment to religious and/or spiritual knowledge. (2) Use of a "backwards" approach, namely, knowledge accumulation vs. ignorance de-accumulation. And that is why worldwide ignorance has not been stamped out and will not be stamped out, because persons believe that the planet-wide epidemic of ignorance could be solved if only people would acquire more knowledge. The Advaitin understands that the knowledge is the ignorance and that the ignorance is the knowledge. The ignorance is that which the masses have been taught and have learned, and their ignorance will only be compounded if more of the same type knowledge is injected into the equation. Ignorance could be stamped out if persons were to forfeit their revered beliefs and ideas and concepts and dogma. Since that happens so rarely but is a prerequisite for Realization, only a few will ever Realize (that is, be in touch with reality...be restored to sanity). Among religions and philosophies, there is no other means that can produce the necessary brain-flush save completion of the entire Advaita “journey” which invites the dissolution of all of the contamination that is “the mind.”

From a site visitor: I’m totally westernized--gulity as charged--so I’ve been trained to give great value to knowledge, which you’ve been knocking. I’m at least willing to listen to you and see if I can get your point, but looking at your bio info, you obviously attended university, acquired enough knowledge to convince someone that they should pay you to use that knowledge, and then paid your bills through use of that knowledge. Your vast knowledge in many subject areas is obvious. So, what’s the deal? Larry

F.: In yesterday’s example of a curtain blocking the witnessing of the lilies, take the lilies to represent Reality and the curtain to be the learned ignorance that blocks seeing Reality. To remove the curtain of ignorance does not require more knowledge as much as it requires seeing ignorance as ignorance and seeing most "knowledge" as ignorance as well. Take the curtain’s removal and the witnessing of the lilies to represent that “Oh my gosh!” moment of Realization when (after preparation happens, after envisioning and reading happen, after discussion with a Realized Teacher happens, and after the readiness thereby comes about) all of the knowledge/learned ignorance fades away, body-mind identity ends, the influences of personality end, and Full Realization happens. Yet nothing prevents Realization more than assuming personas (be they “The Perfectionist,” “The Controller,” “The Religious One” or “The Spiritual Giant.” And nothing supports those last two ego-states more, and nothing perpetuates entrapment in the ignorance of concepts more, than the all-time leading source of concepts: religion (or even philosophies such as Advaita when they are distorted into religions).

The Advaita process will reveal to you the ignorance of believing in concepts, dogma, and ideas that (1) were dreamed up ages ago by shrewd men with an agenda to control the ignorant masses (especially females), that (2) have been passed down as “religious or spiritual knowledge” for millennia, and that (3) must be removed if truth is be seen. Advaita is based in reason and logic, so no Realized Advaitin would insult seekers (especially “females”) by suggesting they learn the chauvinistic tales in the “holy” writings of the three dominant religions. Why accept teachings that pass on an irrational, subliminal message about how much “worse” women are than men, such as Eve who tempted a formerly “good” man; such as Lot’s wife who (unlike her “good” husband who did not look back) was turned into a pillar of salt because she did; or such as Mary Magdalene who was revamped as “a whore” when the Christian Bible was totally re-written, and its message further distorted, in the 4th century.

Advaita would never reinforce such vilification of females, portraying them (in religious texts that are described as “the inspired word of God”) as the “bad” influence on pitiable men who were previously “good” before dealing with “evil” women…women such as Jezebel, Rahab, Potiphar’s wife, and Delilah. Females would never be encouraged by an Advaitin to accept teachings in “holy” texts that denigrate women (or men). Curiously, three billion women on the planet do go right along with all of that sexist nonsense, evidence of the degree to which programming and conditioning can result in causing some otherwise intelligent people to be totally blind and totally fooled. And the fact that so many women continue to honor those beliefs and align themselves with the billions of men who adhere to such prejudicial, dualistic dogma is a wonderment as well. So it is on the “Planet of the Programmed.”

To the contrary, Advaita erases, rather than reinforces, such dualistic belief in “bad women vs. good men,” in "good men vs. bad men," in "God vs. bad people," in “differences,” in “better than,” and in “evil vs. moral.” You will never be asked by a Realized Advaitin to stretch the imagination, to start thinking magically, and thereafter believe that a human egg was once miraculously fertilized sans sperm. You would never be asked to accept that the (supposed) mass-murder-by-drowning of every inhabitant on the planet except for eight people (resulting in an act of genocide that made Hitler’s efforts look like child’s play) was a “perfectly understandable and acceptable” act that should not be questioned.

These are but a few examples of the type of fictional knowledge that currently trap over six billion persons in the imprisonment of their so-called “minds.” They do not need more to believe in--they need far less. Thus, the Advaita approach deals with “the removal of knowledge which is merely learned ignorance,” not with “acquiring and accumulating more knowledge.” There is no other means that can produce the necessary brain-flush save completion of the entire Advaita “journey” which invites the dissolution of all of the contamination that is “the mind.” And that is why Christ, after understanding the Advaita message, left organized religion and used the Advaita method not to add more beliefs but to try to remove beliefs: "A dual-minded person is unstable in all ways"; "no one will ever see the kingdom of heaven...it's within"; "heaven and earth shall fade away"; "when you speak of me, speak of me as I AM"; and "Before Abraham was, I AM." Please enter the silence of contemplation. [Tomorrow: The Conclusion]

THE DIRECT (SEVEN-STEP) PATH TO REALIZATION, Part Three—The Conclusion

Unnatural living and supernatural living are both tiresome and exhausting, but natural living is easy.

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.: Now, if you review yesterday’s example, you should find that the order in which the water was contaminated parallels the manner in which the consciousness is contaminated: one person uses the element of dirt to contaminate the water—just as parents program the manifested consciousness to believe that it is the dirt (i.e., the elements, the body) with such comments as “You are a boy” or “You are a girl” or “You are a human” or “You are a person.” Then the level of corruption increases as the body illusion is ungraded: "You are a special person," "You are a gift from God," or “Your body will last forever so it cannot be cremated—it must be saved and buried.” Then, as with the water, the next person adds a coloring element to make it look pretty…to upgrade the illusion: “You have a beautiful body,” “You are so lovely,” “You are good boy,” or “You are a good girl.” The illusion of arrogance develops and, as with the contaminated water, a noxious element is added.

In the world of duality, however, any upgrading of an illusion sets the stage for a downgrading of the illusion on other occasions: “You are a bad boy” or "You are a bad girl” or “You’re so ugly that no one will ever want you” or "As your spiritual guide, I must tell you that such conduct will cause you to be cast into hell forever" or "You're living in the greatest country on earth," or "They are all out to get us." The consciousness becomes more and more corrupted as a fictitious “mind” is formed during childhood and stores away all of the nonsense of separation and all of the lies of differentiation which become “beliefs and values that are worth fighting for…or even dying for” during adult years.

As the corruption of the consciousness continues, dualistic beliefs convince some that they are "clean" while they consider others to be "dirty"; then, a “holy” person might be sought out to add “detergent” as in the earlier example with the water. Some religious dogma or some spiritual exercises will be added with instructions to "adhere to the dogma" or to "continue the spiritual exercises for life" in order to purify the person who is being "bad," to make the person "good," and then to provide the cleansing and re-cleansing efforts that "they" claim will be needed for as long as a person lives.

But the cleansing effects can never keep pace because more and more contaminants are added as the earlier contaminants are held in esteem as "my" beliefs. In their efforts to upgrade the illusion of self, persons start adding more contaminants (new ideas, new beliefs, new information, new knowledge, new dogma, new exercises, and new concepts) to "find the answer" or “to be a better person” or "to be at peace." All of those "self-improvement" efforts are nothing more than a source of further contamination because they deal with (1) trying to make an illusion "better" and because (2) anything in a world of duality that can “help” can also “hurt.” The understanding of the homogeny seldom comes as belief in the multiplicity becomes fixed in a fictional “mind.”

How (after so many years of programming, conditioning, contaminating, and enculturating) can persons ever be rid of the tens of thousands of contaminants that make up a "mind"? With the glass of water, see that the step that removes shards of glass will not remove the poison, and see that the step that removes the salt will not remove the coloring. In like fashion, a variety of steps must be taken and transitioned, in a specific order, for the re-purification of the consciousness to happen. Those steps form a "path."

The "journey" is simply the movement from the contaminated state of consciousness to the re-purified state of consciousness, but none of the steps on the "path" can be skipped. (For example, the steps that eliminate that adoption or assumption of religious or spiritual personas, cannot be taken prior to the steps that remove body and mind identification. Similarly, Maharaj noted accurately that “there are two witnessing stages,” and the second cannot be entered until the first is entered and surpassed. Each “stage,” to use Maharaj’s word, must be entered into and then transitioned in a specific order for Full Realization to happen).

Two seekers wrote recently, a male who has read the words of his guru for five years and a woman who read the same swami's words for seven years, and the content of the e-mails from both seekers revealed that they are almost as far from Full Realization as when they began the search. Seekers are often advised to "be patient." In fact, some seekers become too patient, dedicating five years or seven years to doing the same thing over and over and expecting some different result (even though what they have been doing is not producing the results they are seeking at all). What these two require is what most seekers require: they simply need a clear-cut set of directions that map the way to move along the "path" (often combined with some one-on-one clarification with a "teacher") and then they can end once and for all the ineffective toil and strife and effort and work. This should not be an arduous task. Come to the Understanding and then relax and enjoy the AS IF living that follows. Work is work, but "life" should not be work. In fact, unnatural living and supernatural living are both tiresome and exhausting, but natural living is easy.

The “Spiritual Masters” all addressed the various stages that must be transitioned in order to alleviate the illusions that result in the seven degrees of separation from Reality and then to transition all seven in order to Realize fully. The book FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE does not offer “new Teachings.” It merely provides the Teachings in the exact order in which the steps must be taken, along with detailed explications that guide the seeker through each step. Remember, Maharaj said, “Follow the same path by which you came” and “…You should go back, reverse, to the source.” To go back to the source, to Realize the Absolute, and to abide as the Absolute, the exact reverse order must be followed that led from the Absolute to the delusion of the “I.” Best regards as you continue your “journey” via the Teachings of the Advaita Vedanta philosophy. Please enter the silence of contemplation.
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