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

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.: So to review, the Advaita philosophy is not about passing on knowledge but about eliminating learned ignorance. Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj said,

"All knowledge is like the son of a barren woman."

At http://www.advaitaquotes.blogspot.com/, the following pointer is offered:

"Ultimately, Advaita Vedanta is the Teaching that has the 'goal' of becoming the non-teaching by way of un-teaching."

More unequivocally, Dennis Waite wrote,

“The knowledge, once it has served its purpose of pointing toward the truth, is discarded too."

Ultimately, the only "real" knowledge pointed to by the Advaita Teachings per se is Self-Knowledge. Once that awareness happens, it is never forgotten. Once that awareness happens, all else is forgotten.

Thus, no one else, other than an Advaitin, ever said, “You do not need to know more or gain more or grow. You already Are That Which You Are. The consciousness that You Are has been corrupted (or seeing truth has been hampered) as a result of lies and myths that are disguised as knowledge. Treat that condition alone. See the falsity of belief in learned ignorance and watch the (relative) effects of learned ignorance end.” No one else offered a method for addressing the corrupted consciousness that offered “the full and final treatment.” No one else said, “Realize, and then you don’t need to keep coming back.” No one else said, “Realize and You are finished with all the ‘spiritual work.’ Then, You may go and be free and enjoy natural living.”

Next, you have also drawn an erroneous conclusion from your reading of any bio information. I did not attend college, I did not acquire knowledge, I did not teach, and I did not pay bills. College attendance happened; the accumulation of information happened; teaching happened (or not, some days); and bill-paying happened (or not, some days). Furthermore, the accumulated information underwent the de-accumulation process almost immediately, post-examination. Little of it was relevant to a career in teaching, and that irrelevance was noted both as it was being presented by professors and later as it was being discarded.

Further, no “knocking” of knowledge has been happening. What has been offered is an invitation to avoid developing false pride in knowledge because that will support ego-states and egotism and thereby only stand in the way of continuing the Self-Inquiry process to completion. Too, "spiritual knowledge" and "religious knowledge" will block advancement along the remainder of the “path” to Full Realization since those “Knowers,” thinking they now know it all, will thereby miss it all. Persons assuming those two "new" identities will fixate at the third of seven steps to Full Realization.

So try this: from the third floor master bedroom window, it is possible to look down on a terrace that slopes gently to the edge of a lake. The green lawns of the terrace are landscaped with scrubbery and trees and beds of flowers. Within the next three weeks, in a bed just below that window, some wild lilies will begin to bloom. To the eye, they can have a certain appeal. To gaze at them in the silence and to appreciate their relative “beauty” is calming. Even though the curtain over the window was closed this morning, and even though the lilies have not be seen for eleven months, and even though they are not yet in bloom this season, their presence is realized.

In a few weeks, what more would you think needs to be known about those flowers to be able to appreciate their beauty, fleeting though it shall be? Nothing. Yet there is that which can prevent the flowers from ever being seen, namely, the curtain. If the curtain is opened, then the flowers will be seen and appreciated fully, at least during the brief period when the blooms manifest. Nothing new will be known about the flowers that will enhance their appearance. (A pedant residing nearby once said I should know that they are not “lilies” at all but are actually "examples of the lilium philadelphicum classification." His sharing that piece of knowledge illustrates exactly how pride in knowledge prevents the natural enjoyment of anything natural.)

New knowledge or more knowledge about the flowers will not be sought or acquired. All that will happen when the curtain is drawn back is this: whatever was blocking the seeing of the flowers will be removed and the flowers shall be seen. Witnessing the flowers shall just happen, and later the witnessing of the flowers shall end, at least until another cycle happens spontaneously. Now, how does that relate to the discussion of excessive knowledge acquisition, seeing Reality, and that which blocks persons from seeing truth? Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be continued]

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.
TO READ REVIEWS BY READERS OF FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE (A Seven-Step Journey to Reality) visit: http://advaitavedantabooks.blogspot.com/
TO ORDER YOUR COPY OF FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE (A Seven-Step Journey to Reality) visit: http://floydhenderson.com/order.htm