THE VARIABLE MIND, Part One

After truly understanding what the illusory "mind" is, all of your effort and work and spiritual workaholism to still the racing, variable mind will end because the illusory "mind" will end.

Karen from Oregon, U.S.A.: I read some of your earlier postings saying that meditation should be nothing more than taking the time to sit quietly in order to consider a teacher’s pointers. I disagree. I am excited about the fact that I’m going to an ashram in India in October to attend a workshop on “Meditation Practices That End the Motion of the Mind.” When I return, I’ll be able to calm my mind at will. Why would you teach something that dissuades people from acquiring that skill?

F.: You are going to India, intent upon acquiring more knowledge, when the fact is that it is all the knowledge that you’ve already acquired that is producing the misery that you’re seeking treatment for. As far as your "disagreeing" with me, another site visitor shared this point from Dresden James: “When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker [will seem] a raving lunatic.” To disagree with the Teachings, when they are first heard by any programmed and conditioned person, is the most common response. Most are asleep and reject any invitation to wake up. As far as seeking in India, that region was once a place when the understanding was firmly fixed among a greater percentage of the population than in any other place. Today, just as many sleepwalkers reside in India as anywhere else. Some there are offering to sale you The Secret to a Motionless Mind. In truth, the prerequisite for the stillness you seek lies in understanding what “the mind” is…and is not. After truly understanding what the illusory “mind” is, all of your effort and work and spiritual workaholism to still the racing, variable mind will end because the illusory "mind" will end. That having been said, you are still going to go to India, you are still going to spend thousands of dollars, you will likely return, and then you will experience the temporary nature of the treatment plan that you are going to try to buy in India. The Teaching, conversely, deals only with the permanent.

Consciousness moves as long as it is manifested. Impure consciousness races and zooms and chatters and clatters. What can end now is the “mind” itself...that well of impure consciousness that you are drinking from all day long, every day. It is the product of that well that you are drowning in all day long, every day. You were “born” with a brain, not with a mind. The mind is the repository of all the myths, superstitions, lies, and incorrect beliefs that they gave you and that you now adopt and defend as if the concepts were originally your own. So the proper question is not why I would teach something that would dissuade your going to India. The question is, “Why would you spend money to go to India to try to acquire that which is unattainable? Why would you go to another country to find that which is within?” Yes, a samadhi state can be reached, but how much of a 24/7 relative existence can happen from a samadhi state? "But I feel better during the day after I reach that state before leaving the house each morning," some argue. Again, that is temporary and fleeting. Even post-India you will experience the world as a persona, driven by that impure consciousness called "your variable mind." In India, you will likely strengthen the persona of "the Spiritual Giant." You seek the "no-thought" state, but all persons live 24/7 in a state of being asleep but thinking they are awake. They think-think-think all day without realizing anything at all, and that is the condition you are seeking to treat. In effect, however, you will be treating the symptom rather than the actual sickness, which is the impure consciousness called your "mind." Thus, other questions that could be asked include:
(1) “Who wants to cling to the mind—but stop its motion—rather than abandon 'the mind' after realizing that it is a repository of contaminants?”
(2) “Who is ‘excited,’ and might that be evidence of emotional or spiritual intoxication?"
(3) “Who is willing to spend thousands and thousands of dollars to buy a plan that puts you out of touch with reality rather than fully in touch with reality?”
(4) “Who wants power...specifically the power to control ‘your mind’ when it’s not even yours anyway?”
(5) “Who does not know that the mind stops when all ideas and beliefs dissolve in the light of awareness of the fact that those ideas and beliefs are all false?”
(6) “Who thinks that she cannot find reality (and therefore peace) where she is but can find it if she alters her geographic location?” [To be continued 1 October 2005] Please enter the silence of contemplation.

WHEN THE UNDERSTANDING COMES

"I know something is clearer because a feeling of being totally unburdened for the first time in decades has come, and stayed."

--Douglas

From site visitor Douglas: “So, I ordered a copy of From the I to the Absolute and I read it straight through in one sitting. (I know—OCD.) I saw that what I really needed to do was to follow directions and to read a section and then pause and go into the silence to consider each pointer. After some sections, I “got it” after five minutes of consideration. Other points took hours and some took days, but either way, I moved through the book that second time. Now, my request is this: please tell me if this understanding is correct. It is easy to know I Am when everything is—when my family is, when my wife is, when my kids are, when my house is, when my job is, I Am. But the more difficult understanding is in finally knowing without doubt that when nothing is, I still Am. I know something is clearer because a feeling of being totally unburdened for the first time in decades has come, and stayed. Is that understanding correct? Thanks, Douglas from…nowhere!”

Dear Douglas from nowhere,

You may soon have protégés seeking you out for the Teaching! (You will not seek them. In fact, you may want to avoid them, but the teaching might happen anyway.) The reason that you feel “totally unburdened” is because this understanding has come: when all this “objective world stuff” disappears, You still Are. Freedom from the influence of personas has come with the realization that even without family, wife, kids, house or job, You would still be You...and You will remain. That understanding allows for full enjoyment of family, wife, kids, house or job, if they remain. If they remain, all involving them merely happens…spontaneously. If they do not remain, then You would still be. Pretty dang cool, huh? How neat it is when all knowledge is liquidated. Instantaneously, a lack of concern about this or concern about that manifests as well. (Who would be left to care?) Then, with no agenda, the closest that any human will come to True Love can happen. Why? Your relative existence will be freed of the concepts of “good” and “evil” and you’ll not judge and separate. You’ll not feel that desperate attachment to co-dependents that make each ego-state seem real. Instead, the unicity—that unbroken and unbreakable connectedness—will be known. So, is the understanding correct? Indeed it is. Now, go and work, work, work no more. Ha. Thanks for writing. Please enter the silence of contemplation.

NATURAL LIVING VS. SUPERNATURAL OR UNNATURAL LIVING, Part Two

Earlier, Anonymous in CA wrote, “I have [no fear of death] because my religion and spirituality insure I’ll have life eternal afterwards.”

F.: First, If you were continuing to be “Anonymous” because you are no longer identifying with that body and mind and personality that was given a name by “parents,” cool. But since you’re talking about dogma and spirituality and a body-mind-personality triad that can live eternally, it’s clear that you are still limiting your identity to that illusory triad alone.

Anyone who believes in the eternal continuity of the body-mind-personality trio should have no fear, but what about religion’s “good vs. bad” and spirituality’s “right vs. wrong” or “assets vs. liabilities” or “moral vs. immoral”? Are you so certain that you’re so “good” and “right” and “moral” and “marked with assets vs. liabilities” that the “eternal life” you anticipate will be the type you really want? Are you so good that you can be assured you'll get the “reward” and not get the “punishment”? Of course you are, or you wouldn’t claim a lack of fear. Your ego, resulting from your false-identity-ego-states, has convinced you of how “good” and “right” and “moral” and “marked with assets vs. liabilities” that you are, making you quite different from the "others" who won't be allowed to join you as you eternally glorify and worship and praise your male god, 24-7, as you float about and sing exaltations to him. (Some "reward," huh? Ha.) But how free of fear would you be if you realized that your temporary body cannot re-form after death, that your temporary mind cannot re-group, and that your multiple personalities and roles will end? Now THAT’S real peace and THAT’S a real lack of fear when it is realized that none of that will remain—that no continuity of body-mind-personality can happen—but peace and calm still remain anyway, even in light of the facts. In the false belief that your body and mind will be forever and in the false belief that you are “good” and “right” and “moral” and “marked with assets vs. liabilities,” you claim this lack of fear, but could you be as free of fear if you realized the truth? In fact, that is when true peace comes: when the false is seen, when the truth is realized, when the Understanding comes, and when the functioning of the Totality is known. This relative existence became marked by independence and true freedom as the quest for being “good” and “right” and “moral” and “marked with assets vs. liabilities” ended. So, too—in the awareness of the Oneness—did all dualities of “good vs. bad” and “right vs. wrong” and “assets vs. liabilities” and “moral vs. immoral” dissolve. Thus, judging others (and thereby creating a false sense of separation) also dissolved. Then, the peace of living spontaneously happens, and it happens without fear, second-by-second. Otherwise, entrapment in the religious and spiritual roles (the third step on the “Seven-Step Journey to Reality”) prevents the dissolution of ego as those two ego-states convince persons that they have arrived and need seek nothing else. From that stage, personas focus on “helping” “others” to be like them, behave like them, think like them, and emote like them. That way, religious and spiritual ego-states believe, the world will be a better place when everyone believes and thinks and feels and behaves like you, right? Do you not see that that is the very belief system that has resulted in the annihilation of millions of humans in the planet's religious wars (which are yet under way at this instant?) Yet so it is. Having tried being out of touch with reality and being in touch with reality, the understanding now is that being fixed in reality—being in touch with reality and therefore sane—provides true peace and freedom from ego-states, from a variable mind, from emotional intoxication, from trying to give people more beliefs and more concepts, and from trying to change persons to be like those trapped in their ego-states. Few persons will ever want true stability and freedom from chaos and ego. So it is. Ultimately, all the discussion of freedom will be dropped in the end since the light of realization will reveal that there was no one to be in bondage anyway. Only a persona can imagine bondage and thus race about in a continuous search for liberation. Liberation comes with realization, not with effort or work or disciplines.

In the end, however, who cares either way? Ha. It’s all “entertainment” from this viewpoint, including the imagined dualities of “heaven or hell” and of “eternal punishment or reward” for a continuous body-mind-personality. Each manifested space is “born” with a brain but not with a mind. Return to the natural state of living under the auspices of the brain (and its intuitive, sixth sense guidance) and abandon the unnatural state of living with a chattering, restless mind (which is nothing more than a repository of their concepts that you now take to be your own). My pointers invite you to use your brain and let dissolve the mind…the corrupted consciousness. Use of a mind will result in misunderstanding and in magical, supernatural thinking and in the belief in ideas that are lies. Use of the brain would make clear the facts: dust, when returned to dust, cannot re-form into a body; a mind cannot re-group after that point you call “death”; and your personality (or multiple personalities) cannot last. Yet do not let even those words trouble you. (If truly without fear, no words can bother you since no ego-state would be present to seemingly experience an illusion of being attacked by these challenging words.) Know too that these words are not for average persons. The average person will never get beyond body identification and the always-accompanying-fixation with trying to guarantee the perservation of the physical body for eternity. So it is. In the meantime, I offer the reminder today that I offered yesterday: take no offense because at the Absolute level, there is no separation between You and Me. We are One. Any concept of “separation” is as imaginary as everything else that results from dual-mindedness, and that includes being separated into two groups after death...some going to the "good room" and others being sent to the "bad room." Please enter the silence of contemplation.

NATURAL LIVING VS. SUPERNATURAL OR UNNATURAL LIVING, Part One

Follow-up from Anonymous in California: “Two things about your response. One, you indicated that you had no fear of death. I also have no fear of death, because my religion and my spiritual disciplines insure that I’ll have life eternal. Two, you once again seem to suggest that the only way to live is to live naturally. What if I LIKE to live supernaturally sometimes, naturally sometimes, and even unnaturally sometimes?”

F.: “Then rock and roll, but understand that I don’t suggest that “the only way to live is to live naturally.” Most will never live naturally. Next, the notion that you’re living “supernaturally sometimes, naturally sometimes, and even unnaturally sometimes” is impossible. Living supernaturally or unnaturally reveal that personas are at play, and persons never live naturally. Next, persons are insane and the Teaching offers to restore sanity, but few will ever want to live sanely. So it is. That said, your comments will be addressed like all others…for entertainment value only. Ha.

For those who might be interested in being restored to sanity, I will offer for consideration that the only way to live SANELY is to live naturally. Obviously, the Advaita Vedanta Teaching is not for you right now, though in truth the Advaita Vedanta Teaching is especially for you. In From the I to the Absolute (A Seven-Step Journey to Reality), I point out to an advaitan protégé, during a discussion about how few humans ever reach a level of true understanding, that “the variable is not the teacher. The readiness is all.” Most are not ready and most never will be. So it is. “Not ready for what?” you might ask? Most are not ready for stability. Your claim that you like to live according to three totally contradictory approaches to life is even beyond dual-mindedness. Mental instability among persons is evidenced by their acting in an unnatural and self-destructive fashion at times and by assigning at still other times either cause or blame or credit to some magical, other-world entity. Mental instability is endorsed by few but experienced by most, and mental instability cannot be compartmentalized and allowed to affect only certain aspects of one’s existence. If one is mentally unstable, that instability will impact every aspect of a person’s relative existence. Instability in “relationships” will happen, instability in financial decision-making will happen, instability of moods and emotions will happen…in fact, instability will mark every aspect of a person’s relative existence. What other lack of readiness do your comments reveal? The lack of readiness to move away from the chaos of dual-mindedness (or assumed "triple-mindedness" in your case). While waiting for their eternal reward, persons complain about their lives now, about a hectic day, a hectic week, or a hectic life, but the fact is that persons (driven by their personas) are addicted to chaos. Boredom generates a subconscious desire to stir things up; to go and do and zoom; to get the adrenals pumping. But desire generates misery and fear. Who would endorse such? Who would defend such? Persons who subconsciously want chaos will generate chaos, and no more effective means of generating chaos exists than to be driven by an unstable mind that at times buys into magical and supernatural thinking that creates emotional intoxication; than to be driven by lies and myths and faulty programming while acting deliberately only on rare occasions when a fleeting glimpse of reality happens; and to be driven at other times to live unnaturally in ways that are self-destructive. Persons—identified with their bodies and longing for their bodies to last for eternity—are not ready to abandon duality, not ready to abandon chaos, not ready to become stable, not ready to abandon the dependency that supernatural thinking generates, and not ready to abandon the self-destructive behaviors that without doubt must be impacting every aspect of their relative existence. You are not ready to abandon your emotional intoxication, and you are not ready to abandon the false identities that persons, thinking as you are thinking, always fight to preserve. Your comment makes clear that you are willing to fight to defend the roles of “religious person” and “spiritual person” and are therefore stuck at the third level of a seven-step journey. The Understanding allows all assumed roles to dissolve, allows all thinking to end as the false mind dissolves, allows for an end to all efforts to give people new or additional beliefs, and allows for the abandonment of all concepts and conditioning after realizing that it was all made up by men who were seeking power in order to control others. Generally, those who are on the Advaita "path" are seeking something different from the mental instability and chaos and zooming that they realize is not working. They have experienced the needless suffering and want to be free of that. How can the NOW be enjoyed thoroughly if the belief is that LATER will provide the ultimate deal and the time for peace and happiness? That magical thinking makes suffering in this relative existence something to be tolerated or even accepted. Why wait for a hoped-for reward later when the bliss can happen NOW? Because persons do not realize the impact that dual-mindedness is having on their relative existence. They really think that they are comfortable with a life that is being driven by three totally contradictory philosophies and do not know that when three people try to steer one car, it will always crash in the end. So it is.

On the other hand, the clear-cut directions are available should you realize the relative impact and determine to find stability and peace by taking a seven-step “journey” to reality. Should you realize someday that trying to live in the volitility of three different approaches to life might not be ideal, then the Advaita Teaching might be seen to be for you. Why accept the Advaitan invitation to cast aside ideas and beliefs and emotional intoxication? Because the consciousness, once programmed and conditioned, is impure and thus the seat of all falsehoods. Why take the steps to be free of impure consciousness? Because it is that conditioned consciousness that is the believer of false concepts, that is the thinker of distorted ideas, that is the emoter of emotions, that is the experiencer of pain and suffering, that is the believer of all false beliefs, and that is the assumer of false identities…including your religious and spiritual roles. Not knowing one’s True Identity can only result in misery and emotional intoxication. All that having been said, take no offense because at the Absolute level, there is no separation between You and Me. We are One. Any concept of “separation” is as imaginary as everything else that results from dual-mindedness. So if you want to live out this relative existence by thinking magically at time, rationally at times, and in self-destructive ways at other times, again…rock and roll. Thanks for writing. Please enter the silence of contemplation.
TOMORROW: The response to, “I also have no fear of death, because my religion and my spiritual disciplines insure that I’ll have life eternal.”