An overlooked analogy

[Guest guest]

Jan & Friends,

 

Jan says:

>>>For a serious candidate,

Selfrealization/apperception/enlightenment is a 2...3 year affair.

For the proverbial visitors of Yama it can be much shorter.

 

Jan, I don't know where you got this notion, but I would take serious

issue with it, and so, I think, would most people who have seriously

approached sadhana, despite Nisargadatta's felicitous experience to

the contrary.

 

Still, this small disagreement isn't why I'm writing. In another

posting both here and on other lists you've announced a new Advaita

site, listing some great beings' names as well as appropriate

subjects. I don't see, just yet, how either the subject or the

approach is significantly different than which we already have on

NDS, or even on Harsha, if you take a long range perspective.

 

Is there anything you'd like to say as to what you expect will be

different about the site you intend to start?

 

yours in the bonds,

eric

 

 

 

 

, "ecirada" <janb@a...> wrote:

> MD's are familiar with the joke "don't keep the patient waiting or

(s)he will heal spontaneously".

> Those able to watch 'free' animals know that an animal when sick,

will look for a shelter and rest

> there until the disease is healed. Before the advent of modern

medicine, fasting was acknowledged

> as a way to detox both the body. Fasting still has adherents as it

can work miracles, medicine

> (still?) cannot, and it has no unwanted side effects. When that is

considered "too hard", there are

> infinite paths between fasting and "one calorie/day less".

>

> Conditioning could be defined as the horde of do's and don'ts,

should and should-nots, that start

> to accumulate from childhood on, issues like "dinner time is 6 PM"

instead of "when hungry, eat".

> All the opinions too, for instance that weeds are ugly and roses

beautiful.

> Mind being a processing machine, is overloaded as the subconscious,

continuously scanning the

> sensory input and ready for response, does so via the 'rules' of

acquired conditioning: a burden

> that will only be felt, when gone (again).

>

> When the body is lethargic, obese or loaded with toxins the

digestion system couldn't flush, the only

> cure that helps fast is fasting. The few medicines that can assist

are absorbents like active carbon.

> Having overcome the 'start up' problems, fasting becomes pleasant

and once the body is

> lean and clean (again), a painful hunger will be felt, unlike the

usual appetite for a snack...

>

> For the mind the same goes: when no longer fed with "entertainment

as usual" but fulfilling duties

> as is required, neither liking nor disliking, taking care without

thoughts on stuff like attachment or

> non-attachment, the do's and don'ts etc. start to dissolve as they

are but habits that once having

> entered the mind, perpetuated themselves. Without fuel, the fire

dies. Knowing this is a medicine.

> The acquired conditioning gone, the mind machine is lean and clean

and its relative "leisure"

> will manifest itself. That event goes under the names Self-

realization, enlightenment, apperception,

> immaculate conception etc.

> When the above 'mental fast' is "too hard", there are infinite

paths between the proverbial visit to

> Yama and 5 minutes/day of relaxation at the incense burning

ritual.

>

> Knowing this, still abuse the body, or binge on special 'low

calorie foods', despite the possible side-effects?

> Still binge on countless books and discussions on free will, the

Self, God, big 'I's, small 'i's and related issues?

> At least now you know what that activity will bring out: the show

goes on with the same old song.

> For a serious candidate, Self-

realization/apperception/enlightenment is a 2...3 year affair.

> For the proverbial visitors of Yama it can be much shorter.

>

> Although the analogy ends here, regarding the mind, the 'lean and

clean' is but the start,

> as biological conditioning related to 'suffering' (including

physical pain) can dissolve

> as well. And don't forget, unless mind's potential for

conditioning dissolves, "the thread

> continues". As to no surprise this dissolution goes under names

like moksha, nirvana and

> as the 'nirvana' event, contrary to the 'apperception' event, is

spectacular, once it happened,

> can't be missed in scriptures and literature, irrespective the

discipline governing expression

> like in the recorded words of the Buddha or Jesus Christ.

>

> Peace,

> Jan