SHIFTS IN CONSCIOUSNESS, SHIFTS IN DEEDS, Part Nine

FROM A SITE VISITOR: Do you think that the realized should be able to tolerate any kind of environment or any kind of people? It sounds like you are saying that. I’ve been reading your writings for several months and lately, there are people I spent a lot of time with before but now I’m not spending time with them at all. I’m not realized, but even if I were, I feel certain that there are some people I just wouldn’t want to be around. Art

F.: The discussion today continues by looking at the three case studies along with a mom enabling a son that is suffering from an addiction that has not been successfully treated. [See the post on 27 October 2007] All four, trapped in their dreams that blind them to reality, are enslaved as a result of having been lulled asleep by processes that produced a major warping of consciousness. They have not understood these Advaitin pointers previously offered:

1. That which gives you pleasure will eventually give you pain.
2. That which gives you the most pleasure will eventually give you the most pain.
3. All misery and suffering and entrapment flow from the assumption of ego-states that are driven by either fears or desires or both.
4. Persons have been programmed and conditioned just like Pavlovian dogs.
5. Programming and conditioning will leave them helpless, with no ability to choose anything.
6. That programming and conditioning will determine their every thought…which will determine their every word… which will drive their every action.
7. Being controlled by programming and conditioning can only result in unhappiness because it will drive persons to try to accumulate, will leave them in a state of constant longing for more, and will deprive them of any sense of feeling fulfilled. (In the U.S. alone, more than 10 million women are taking anti-depressants on any given day. Seventy-seven percent of the 300 million people in the nation report that they suffer so much stress that it is affecting them physically.)
8. Those persons who have been programmed and conditioned to want more have already laid the foundation of what will prove to be their own prison.

Of course, persons are merely following their programming to want more, and unless they transcend the accumulation stage and engage in Self-Inquiry, they will never reach the de-accumulation stage that is so freeing. All of the persons referenced in this series are imprisoned, and one force that has driven them into their prisons is a desire for more.

Yet these four are not rare exceptions on planet earth. Add to these the case study from the book CASTING LIGHT ON THE DARK SIDE OF RELATIONSHIPS which discusses a woman whose father told her, “You don’t need to go to college. You’re good looking. Just find a man to take care of you.” Her mother added, “If you manipulate a man with love, you’ll get everything you ever want.”

The non-Realized persons who walk the face of the globe are equally asleep, equally miserable, and equally enthralled with having more. Most of those six billion+ will remain in that condition for the remainder of the manifestation. Robert Crais wrote of those types in one of his novels. A character exits a building at sunrise and observes:

“Moths swarmed around the parking lot lamps, banging into the glass with a steady tap, tap, tap, and I wondered if they welcomed the dawn. At dawn, they could stop slamming their heads into the thing that forever kept them from the light. People don’t have a dawn. We just keep slamming away until it kills us.”

The “Repetition Compulsion” will prevent most from ever breaking the cycles of insanity (or of insane-like deeds or actions which are generated by personality disorders that mark the existence of those identified with body-mind-personality). Consider:

With Case “A,” husband #1 “took care of her,” but they eventually divorced after years of beatings. Husband #2 “took care of her,” but they eventually divorced after years of beatings. Husband #3 is “taking care of her,” but she wishes for him to die after years of beatings.

Yet, her lifestyle is “comfortable,” she claims, because she “doesn’t have to work…is able to shop all day…is able to do whatever she wants.” And that is truly her belief, though he is slamming her head and though she has been kept from the light. Such is the case among billions who are walking about asleep, dreaming they are awake and that they know truth. They will never even begin to see how distorted their thinking is…how warped their perspectives are…how nonsensical their beliefs are…or how every idea they have is 180-degrees in reverse of reality.

Just as with all persons (who are typically in denial and dissociated) Case “A” denies that she is suffering and miserable and depressed. She goes to men who will pay her bills; she runs from men who beat her; she goes back to the same type man because he’s willing to pay her bills; she runs away from that man who beats her. All of this nonsense about hanging around certain people or running away from certain people is typical of the chaos that marks the existence of the non-Realized. Such behavior shows that persons believe all problems are external and that all solutions are external.

As referenced in Art’s question, there are specific people Case "A" wanted to be around but now doesn’t want to be around; instead of moving toward independence and meeting her own relative existence needs, however, she continues to run to the same type of rescuing, caveman-type males who have always believed that whatever they find and bring home is theirs to own and do with as they please: “You’re bought and paid for, fair and square, so you’re mine.”

As a result, she is like Cases “B” and “C,” dreaming that they are free but imprisoned by their dependent, take-care-of-me, give-me-a-better-lifestyle mentalities.

Yet even as they claim they are “doing fine and are happy and joyous,” all three are in therapy, all three are (perfunctorily) involved in 12-step programs, and, as mentioned, all three have recently talked of suicide.

The Advaita Teachings can introduce persons to the dawn—to the beginning of the awakening process—and can reveal that such deeds as “slamming their heads into something” and being “forever kept from the light” can end. A shift happens automatically if one sees the light and spontaneously becomes free of self-destructive, self-absorbed living, as far as the relative existence goes.

Now, what of you? If you look at anyone and think you know him/her well, you do not. If you look at anyone and see anything other than (1) a space formed by a combining of elements and (2) a form in which the consciousness is temporarily manifested, then in no way do you know Who/What That Is which you think you are seeing (speaking in absolute terms) and in no way do you know who or what they are at all (speaking in relative terms).

Krishna spoke of “fools.” All foolishness happens because “they” fooled us first, but now most have taken up the task and continue to fool themselves by refusing to question the ideas and concepts and dogma and beliefs which have been programmed into their "minds." If that applies, know that you are in a position to effect change. The change happens when seven specific steps are taken in a very specific order.

That process can “change” the consciousness from its warped condition to a re-purified condition. More accurately, all that really happens is that the obstacles that are blocking the consciousness from seeing clearly will be removed. Then, freedom from thoughts can happen; fewer words will happen; and a shift in deeds will necessarily follow. Please enter the silence of contemplation. (Tomorrow: The Conclusion)
RELATED TO TODAY’S TOPIC:

Click CASTING LIGHT ON THE DARK SIDE OF RELATIONSHIPS

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

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SHIFTS IN CONSCIOUSNESS, SHIFTS IN DEEDS, Part Three

FROM A SITE VISITOR: Do you think that the realized should be able to tolerate any kind of environment or any kind of people? It sounds like you are saying that. I’ve been reading your writings for several months and lately, there are people I spent a lot of time with before but now I’m not spending time with them at all. I’m not realized, but even if I were, I feel certain that there are some people I just wouldn’t want to be around. Art

F.: Site visitor Ginny wrote to share her take so far on this topic: “Well, this is what it's all about. A draw toward...that usually ends up in a practical way not to aloneness but to All-one.” That is also as near an accurate pointer toward “love” as can be stated. But yesterday, a pointer was offered in regards to how many erroneously use the word “love” to justify their ego-state-generated actions. This pointer was offered:

Their attachments and agendas result in forms of bondage that can generate a “tolerance” for pain if the source has an air of familiarity; can generate acceptance of misery if in denial; and can generate a tendency to distort a desire to gain power or a desire to have someone meet their financial or sexual needs into what they term “love.”

(PLS. NOTE: Once again, if the movement away from anyone is inspired by arrogance, judging, or ego-based righteous indignation that leads to such beliefs as “you’re not good enough for me,” then that movement has nothing to do with the movement among the Realized toward peace, quiet, and an ego-less existence. It has everything to do with egoism.)

Recall that the non-Realized are driven along the thought-word-deed continuum to think unceasingly during the waking hours, to talk unceasingly, and to go and do and zoom through each day. By contrast, the Realized are (a) freed of the “mind” that generates thoughts, (b) practice an economy of words if they must speak, and (c) understand that there is no do-er.

Among the Realized, living happens in a natural fashion, not unlike the example set by the frequently-referenced deer that lives spontaneously—eating plant food, arranging for shelter of a minimalist character, engaging in sex for pleasure and breeding, and developing no “attachments or agendas that result in forms of bondage” of the mental or emotional type. The non-Realized live in an opposite fashion and thus suffer from a sense of bondage (whether they recognize their bondage or deny their bondage).

Consider three examples (including Case "A" today) which were revealed in sessions conducted during the last two months and that show how thoughts generated by the distorted consciousness result in distorted thoughts expressed via words and that drive deeds / actions that are distorted and unnatural as well:

Case “A”
Regarding, a tolerance for pain if the source has an air of familiarity.

The non-Realized are much like the child mentioned in an earlier post in August 2007:

Such is the way it is among persons who normalize the insane-like behaviors of their parents: they will also believe in a parent-based god and then normalize in their “minds” the insane-like behavior of that god which is an (imaginary) extension of their parents. Thus, relationships with parents and “relationships with god” are never as perceived but are typically driven by irrational beliefs and absurd concepts that result in a series of abnormal psychological responses. That is why it required the strength of three social workers to pry a child away from the mother that had used cigarettes to burn the child over the entire length of its body.

That child’s attachment led it to cling to its abuser, to that familiar source of pain, rather than to leave and escape the pain. The Stockholm Syndrome has been discussed earlier as well, and many persons function under the auspices of that disorder, thinking that they “love” their abuser.

Why? Childhood abuse can give adult-aged abuse that flavor of being “familiar.” Too, the “repetition compulsion” drives persons to repeat the same “familiar” scenarios over and over, no matter how unnatural or painful those scenarios might have been…and might now be.

“Case A” reveals the thinking of a woman who describes her misery as being “comfortable,” who uses words to describe her miserable existence as being "comfortable," and who is then driven to act as if she is comfortable. She is a woman whose alcoholic husband (like her alcoholic father) is out seven nights a week, comes home and passes out, and offers nothing more than economic support. She does not see their separate bedrooms as a metaphor for their “marriage.”

She admitted that there have been times when she wanted him to die, yet she claims that she “likes it that she can spend her days shopping,” that she “likes the fact that she has available all the money a woman could want or need,” and that she “loves the fact that she doesn’t have to get a job and work.”

When she was asked if she realized that she was trapped in the bondage of her laziness and her sense of entitlement and that her relative existence was a series of one shallow and miserable happening after another, she bristled at the question and claimed that she was “very comfortable” with her lifestyle and resented the suggestion that she doesn’t love her husband (the one she wanted to die).

Are you understanding the pointer, Art, that the non-Realized do not move toward peace and quiet and a natural, minimalist existence if they have “attachments and agendas”? Are you seeing that those attachments and agendas can “result in forms of bondage that can generate a ‘tolerance’ for pain if the source has an air of familiarity”?

Are you seeing the insanity and misery that is generated by attachment to “relative people and places and things"? Are you seeing the bondage that results from ignorance of the Noumenon? Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
RELATED TO TODAY’S TOPIC:

Click CASTING LIGHT ON THE DARK SIDE OF RELATIONSHIPS

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SHIFTS IN CONSCIOUSNESS, SHIFTS IN DEEDS, Part One

FROM A SITE VISITOR: Do you think that the realized should be able to tolerate any kind of environment or any kind of people? It sounds like you are saying that. I’ve been reading your writings for several months and lately, there are people I spent a lot of time with before but now I’m not spending time with them at all. I’m not realized, but even if I were, I feel certain that there are some people I just wouldn’t want to be around. Art

F.: Hello, Art. What you describe is typical when the consciousness re-purification process begins to happen. Since non-Realized persons function along a thought-word-deed continuum, it seems logical that when the content of the programmed and conditioned “mind” is allowed to fade away, then all those thoughts that it had generated will fade away. Then, the use of words will be diminished. Thus, deeds / actions cannot remain the same.

Few would question whether or not my teacher was Realized, yet he threw out many people who entered the loft where he offered satsanga (especially those showing up in garb that indicated they had added new personas while thinking they were free of all personas). He also sent packing those who only showed up to show off; thus, even Realized, there were "certain people that he didn't want to be around," but that was based in the fact that they were not ready or were not truly seeking.

Those types are sent on their way on this site as well, inspiring some to think that “floyd is all about tough love” or “floyd doesn’t even know what love is.” Those who prefer emotionally-intoxicated teachers and an emotionally-charged “life” can find both, and often do.

The fact is that the readiness is all, and a Realized teacher will determine before offering a pointer to any given seeker (a) which step the seeker is on or (b) whether or not the seeker is even ready to begin a “journey.” To begin the “journey” before the readiness has manifested can set the seeker back for years or can prevent Realization from happening at all.

That having been said, understand that among the Realized, there is no question of “tolerating” or not; however, there is an aspect to the movement along the “path” to Realization which can physically remove the body from the “company of others.” That stage has been called “the forest dweller stage” by some teachers in India or among the indigenous peoples of the “Americas.” (Maharaj tried that for a time until he was informed that he need not isolate in the wilderness but should return to Bombay, should teach, and should live naturally.)

That stage happened with this speck for a 25-month period, and it happens with many specks, yet it is certainly not a requirement. Another element of the “journey” and its outcomes is that the Realized automatically gravitate toward the silence, and even if employment continues in workplaces, there are often quiet locations that can be found. If not, one can be quiet wherever one is and not contribute to the noise. That will never be the case among those trapped in ego-states and egotism. Why?

Because the ego is infatuated with noise. Examples include the look-at-me driver of the car who forces all within several blocks to listen to his music; the non-Realized who gather regularly in buildings with loud organ music and loud choirs and who sing loudly and recite and chant words in unison; or those who attend meetings where their self-absorption can be massaged by having a captive audience to listen to their thought-generated, egotism-inspired words.

As for the Realized “being able to tolerate,” or not, notice that the movement only appears to be away from the noisy, the egotistical and the arrogant. The modified deeds/actions are not as much about intolerance or moving away from anything. The movement in actually toward something, namely a movement toward the silence, toward environs that are ego-state free, and toward places that are egotism-free because of the absence of persons who are assuming ego-states and using arrogance as an ego-defense mechanism.

Are your current deeds inspired by your own arrogance, judging others and deciding they aren’t worthy of your company? Or is the movement you reference simply happening spontaneously as You move toward the silence…toward an ego-less environment…toward humility? See the difference? Please enter into the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
NEW ADVAITA PACKAGES AVAILABLE AT REDUCED RATES:

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YES, WE SHIP INTERNATIONALLY. New rates by the USPS went into effect in May 2007. You may visit http://ircalc.usps.gov/ to calculate rates and view options. (Select your country, then in the “weight” box, estimate 1 pound per each book ordered.) Add $5 to cover package preparation, the assistant's trip to and from the PO, and the time for completion of international shipping forms.

SAMADHI: Thought-Word-Deed/Deed-Word-Thought

F.: This exchange occurred during satsang this week:

Questioner: “I’m being nagged by my roommate over leaving clutter about, but all of those kinds of ‘this world issues’ seem so unimportant to me. My focus is on trying to enter into samadhi and still the mind, so I asked my roommate ‘WHO cares?’ You know, WHO is it—what persona—is caring about having everything perfectly straight? I find it difficult enough to reach the samadhi state without being nagged, and it’s darn near impossible if I’m being hazzled to ‘clean up that mess before you go sit down and meditate’.”
F.: [Pause…waiting] “Do you have a question?”
Q.: “Well…yeah. What would you say to a roommate like that?”
F.: “It would be said, “Thank you for pointing out a behavior that is blocking the way to samadhi and to Realization.”
Q.: [Puzzled look]
F.: “It may well be that there is no WHO and no persona that is 'nagging.' It might well be that there is a speck of re-purified consciousness that is offering relevant pointers, and the pointers are these: the Realized do not tolerate clutter, and the Realized ‘zen out’ their environment to the same degree that they ‘zen out’—that is, become rid of—all clutter...including environmental clutter, home clutter, desk clutter, mind clutter, relationship clutter, emotional clutter, ad infinitum. Your acceptance of clutter indicates how far removed you are from the state which you seek and reveals the way that your habits are blocking you. Were you to Realize, you would not have to be nagged to remove clutter. It would happen automatically and spontaneously after “Stage Five De-Accumulation” is reached.”
Q.: “Stage Five? The witnessing level?”
F.: “No, that is step five of seven on the path to Realization. Some of the early Advaitin teachers also spoke of ‘Five Stages,’ the final one being the de-accumulation stage. The pointer for you is this: you're trapped in a warped thought-word-deed paradigm. Once there, if you are into 'taking action' and being involved in doership, then you must reverse out of the trap via deed-word-thought.”
Q.: [Waved hands in a manner that indicated first confusion and then dismissal]
F.: [Silence]
Q.: [Finally] “OK, please explain.”
F.: “In order for the deed—namely, the act of cluttering—to manifest, you must first have cluttered thoughts that manifest as cluttered words. It is a guarantee that you have cluttered thoughts, and it is guaranteed that your words are cluttered as well. After reaching that condition, nothing other than the deed of cluttering will happen. That assures that you will be trapped in clutter and going in and out of various states-of-“mind” or fluctuating moods. Among the Realized, there is no ‘going into samadhi’ and ‘coming out of samadhi.’ All credibility that was formerly given to the ‘mind’ and its bogus content has been discounted and then cast aside. The re-purified consciousness is stable and fixed, not shifting and fluctuating. Since the programming and conditioning and enculturation that warped the consciousness have now trapped you in the realm of clutter, 'action-takers' like you must back out of the trap by reversing the paradigm. You must take the action to de-clutter, to de-accumulate, and to bring about an orderly environment. Then, you must speak of removing the chaos, as your roommate is doing. Only then might your thoughts begin to be less chaotic and less cluttered. Deed-word-thought can facilitate the shift until the no-thought state materializes permanently. Were you Fully Realized, all of that would happen spontaneously, but since you are not, you may use this reverse plan for now. So look at your home. Is clutter lying about? Is every inch of every wall covered with something? Are your rooms bursting at the seams because they are overfilled with excess furniture and “stuff”? Are you ‘saving’ stuff that might be used in the future? Do you have things in your closet that have not been touched in years? Are you like a neighbor who had two cars worth $100,000 but left them sitting in his driveway because his garage was filled with boxes that have not been unpacked during his last three moves, boxes that contained items which would not fetch $500 in a yard sale if all of the contents were sold? All of that clutter is a reflection of thoughts. Thoughts precede deeds. Chaos in one's words or one's life is always preceded by a chaotic 'mind.' It is known for a fact, therefore, that you cannot possibly reach the samadhi state with the degree of mind-clutter that is being revealed by your actions that tolerate clutter and that drive accumulation. Realization involves the de-accumulation of all clutter. The calm and peace come when less is more attractive than more...when the nothingness is preferred to the something or to the everything.” Please enter the silence of contemplation.
RELATED READINGS TO TODAY’S POST:

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

Click LIBERATION