BEING RID OF self, Part Five, The Conclusion

FROM A SITE VISITOR: I appear to be still “trapped” or entranced at the level of personality.

FROM ANOTHER SITE VISITOR YESTERDAY: So how to eliminate self once and for all?

F.: Finally, know that certain visualizations can become the portal for entering into the process of transcending body and mind and personality.

To begin to be free of body identification, visualize where You were in the days preceding conception. Understand that if you would truly identify your “ancestors,” you would trace your relative roots back to plants. Realized, You would know how to trace accurately the origin of the seed of he who is called “father” and the egg of she who is called “mother.”

Were the masses to understand what the Realized know (which the masses never will) then all magical, supernatural beliefs about “births” and “gifts from god” and bodies would dissolve. As for magical beliefs about “death” and what happens after “death,” see the body returning to the elements to be free of those delusions as well.

Click WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE?

Understand that Your true state is prior to “birth” and transcends “death.” See at the moment called “death” that dust-to-dust is true and that the breath merely rejoins the universal pool of oxygen.

Secondly, see the falsity of the content of the mind and witness it all fade away as You Realize that You are not limited by mind any more than You are limited by body. Understand that in the continuum of thought-word-deed, the mind will generate words that can be based in nothing other than the impressions stored in the "mind" and re-processed as "thoughts."

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

Post-Realization, however, something quite different happens: having transcended the relative, the relative thought-word-deed continuum is also transcended so that the words “I AM” do not constitute the expression of a thought; instead, the I AM-ness is understood to be the witness of thought.

Then, eventually, You might also understand that even the Am-ness is illusion. You might understand once and for all how relative and limited both body and mind are while seeing instead that You are not relative and that You are infinite.

Next, see that all of the personas assigned to you by parents and teachers and preachers and your culture are based only in hearsay. See all role-playing fade away, including any roles you played which your culture thought made you “bad” as well as the personas you might be playing now because they label those roles the “good” ones, including:

the religious person, the spiritual person, the worshiping person, the saving person, the guru, the teacher, the saint, the agent of god, etc. The so-called “good” personas are as bogus as the so-called “bad” ones.

Click LIBERATION

That Which You Are is neither sinful nor virtuous. How could a form of energy be either? Should the energy that powers a stove and allows you to cook and eat and sustain the physical body be considered “good energy” while the energy that electrocutes one who touched a 220-volt by mistake should be considered “bad energy”?

Energy is just energy and is not dualistically “good” or “bad.” That Is What You Are, and THAT is neither good nor bad. It just Is, for NOW. If you find after all this that you are still “trapped” or entranced at the level of personality or have not eliminated self once and for all, consider a retreat with a Realized Advaitin teacher where all of your specific questions can be addressed specifically. Please enter the silence of contemplation.

RELATED TO TODAY’S POST:

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

and

Click AN ADVAITA VEDANTA RETREAT

BEING RID OF self, Part Four

FROM A SITE VISITOR: I appear to be still “trapped” or entranced at the level of personality.

FROM ANOTHER SITE VISITOR YESTERDAY: So how to eliminate self once and for all?

F.: Next, since the self is taken by most to be a composite of body and mind and personality, elimination of the belief in all three of those must be completed before moving any farther along the “path” to Realization.

In May of ’06 and August of ’07, that process was covered in detail. [The archives are available to those who are interested in the full explanation.] Here is a selection from those postings explaining that, for the self to be mistakenly identified as the Self…

some sort of body and mind and personality continuity would have had to exist for whatever number of years your culture has assigned to you, but no such continuity has happened.

First, there has been no body continuity:

The human body is constantly replacing and regenerating cells to maintain proper and efficient function. If you spend ten minutes reading this post and considering the content, during that time you will have shed 250,000 skin cells and those will have been replaced by 250,000 different cells. Not one cell of the billions of skin cells that came about during the last twenty-eight days is now present. There has never been one body with continuity, and there will never be a body with continuity (whether talking about pre-manifestation, manifestation or post-manifestation).

(It is the illusion of "memories" that contribute to the false belief that the body "has had" continuity.)

So much for body continuity. Secondly, there has been no “mind” continuity, that storehouse of ideas and beliefs having been in constant flux. How many things that you “loved” in the past mean nothing to you now? You “changed your mind”? No. The “mind” is constantly changing since it is a storehouse of lies and beliefs and attitudes, and new ideas and concepts are being added regularly. Thus, that speck of consciousness which calls itself “a seeker” might be aware of reality today but can be totally out of touch with reality tomorrow because abidance as the unchanging Absolute is not happening.

Thirdly, there has certainly been no continuity of personality. Some identities you assumed ten years ago, you do not assume today, and those roles you are assuming and playing today, you will not assume and play in “the future.” Further, any labels that you accepted years ago but have not subsequently questioned and rejected will be a part of that mass of lies that blocks the light of truth.

To differentiate between the Real Self and the false self requires an understanding that the self, and the world in which you believe the self resides, are “nothing but the picture of your own ‘I’ consciousness” (Maharaj).

There is no “you” that “has” consciousness. The consciousness manifested without plan or rhyme or reason, and someday it will simply unmanifest as well. Prior to manifestation, there was no form, and post-manifestation there will be no form.

The form is temporary. It might be referred to as a form-cum-consciousness for the sake of discussion, but that is not You. (Just because you might fly in a plane does not mean you are the plane.)

It is seen clearly from My view that “you” (the false self which you take your Self to be) are nothing. When You see clearly, You will also know that there is no self to be rid of. Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)

RELATED TO TODAY’S POST:

Click WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE?

and

Click THE ESSENCE OF THE TEACHINGS

and

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

and

Click CONSCIOUSNESS

and

Click FROM THE ABSOLUTE TO THE NOTHINGNESS

and

Click AN ADVAITA VEDANTA RETREAT

BEING RID OF self, Part Three

FROM A SITE VISITOR: I appear to be still “trapped” or entranced at the level of personality.

FROM ANOTHER SITE VISITOR YESTERDAY: So how to eliminate self once and for all?

F.: Ultimately, it must be seen by those who move along the “path” to Realization that there is no self to be rid of. There is only the belief in self to be rid of.

If one sees a mirage in the road ahead, swerves to avoid it, and flies off the side of a mountain, changing that scenario would not have required being rid of the mirage. The relative experience would have changed if only the mirage had been seen to be a mirage.

The belief that the body is the True Self, or any part of the Self, is false; the belief that the “mind” is the Self, or any part of the Self, is false; the belief that the personality—that any false persona—can possibly be the True Self, or any part of the Real Self, is false.

What is that True Self then, the recognition of which will eliminate belief in the false self? There is within most some sense of the True Self that occasionally surfaces into consciousness. Some tap into an awareness of the Real Self via visualization, which was referenced in an e-mail once received from a site visitor:

“I’ve been using your CD. After years of reading every Advaita Vedanta piece of writing that I could get my hands on, that CD actually allowed me to experience the separation from body, from mind, from the religious and spiritual roles I played. I actually experienced the movement beyond the beingness and the non-beingness. Then, at the end when the manifestation process happened as the energy moved into a “tunnel” and out of a “tunnel” and manifested in a form, I was that which witnessed, that which was the child, that which was the child programmed. I came to see how I was given the religious personas I had for years, how the mind took charge, and how eventually I ended up thinking I was nothing but the physical body itself.”

Of course, there was not really any “me” that experienced “the separation from body, from mind, from the religious and spiritual roles I played.” For anything to be able to “separate from” anything else would affirm duality, but his point can be taken as an example of what happens after subject-object witnessing begins but before Pure Witnessing happens.

The witness, the consciousness, in the first case can look at mirages and see that they are mirages. Are you at that level? Have You “seen” the false selves that you have been playing? Only if you have seen all of the false can the singular truth be Realized.

At that point, You will understand the pointer offered in last Wednesday’s post:

I am manifested…not born…not dying…not living. I just AM, for now. I do not abide at, though I do currently abide as...as THAT.

Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)

BEING RID OF self, Part Two

FROM A SITE VISITOR: I appear to be still “trapped” or entranced at the level of personality.

FROM ANOTHER SITE VISITOR YESTERDAY: So how to eliminate self once and for all?

F.: Yesterday’s post ended with this pointer:

Each person (each among the non-Realized) has his/her own little personality cult, worshipping the leader…the self. The personality of the leader is all-important. Only the ideas and beliefs and concepts of the leader are given any value as the self “loves” the self.

What is this self among the non-Realized? It is a composite…the very opposite of the singular Self. It is that which believes the lies of duality and multiplicity while having no clue about the oneness...the unicity.

The self is a composite of all ego-states assumed and employed by persons to identify incorrectly who they think they are. Those ego-states may also be called personas, roles, facades, masks, images, false selves, or any number of other words or terms that point toward the false identities that persons adopt (or unquestioningly accept when assigned by their cultures).

In their dualistic character, some identities carry “negative” connotations (“thief,” “bastard,” “whore,” “homewrecker,” “deserter,” “foreigner,” “insurgent,” “user,” “heartbreaker,” “sinner,” “infidel”) while some are assigned “positive” connotations by their cultures (“priest,” “preacher,” “imam,” “rabbi,” “soldier,” “patriot,” “law enforcement officer,” “mother,” “religious person,” “spiritual person,” “helper,” “volunteer”).

Also, there is always involved with ego-states either an upgrading or a downgrading. An example of an upgrade is when "I am a man" becomes "I am a good man," "I am a loving husband," "I am the best boss ever," or "I am a spiritual man." Another example is when such talk as "There is this world" is upgraded to, "There is a better world...a heaven." A downgrade can happen when "There is this world" can be downgraded to "There is a world of pain and punishment called hell that awaits you."

Some upgrades later become downgrades because ego-states are like chameleons, never knowing stability and always in a state of flux and movement. Thus, "He is a man" can be upgraded thusly: "The man I'm going to marry has a great work ethic and is a great lover," but that is often downgraded later to "The ass I married is a workaholic and sex fiend."

In every case, though, one commonality exists: every persona is driven by a hidden agenda. All are embroiled in (false)-self-service even as they fabricate and display a façade of altruism; all are bound up in (false)-self-absorption and (false)-self-delusion; and all desire that their roles will last and will continue to fulfill perceived needs.

And all selves form their own mental cult wherein they are in control, in power, and in charge or where they believe they should be in control, in power, and in charge or where they wish they were in control, in power, and in charge. As with all cult leaders, the self that worships itself usually has a superficial charm, is always manipulative, has a grandiose sense of itself, and displays no realistic perspective.

The multi-step process of separating from the self, from being free of the false belief that false selves are real, is the seven-step “journey” to Reality. Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)