Here we go Dear Member:
Stop smoking,
Stop having sex (or reduce it a great deal),
Stop eating meat,
Kill your ego,
Renounce all worldly pleasure, (Stick with me, I’m not through),
Leave your wife and children,
Quit your job and move to India, (preferably, but I have a list of other places are acceptable),
Love everyone and everything.
Well, that pretty much sums things up. If you believe all that, you are certifiably beyond any spiritual reclamation or progress because they are all complete B.S. None of those admonitions have anything to do with T/R or Enlightenment. But they have been preached and written about for thousands of years by thousands of authors (most of whom had serious control issues) and have been warped and wrapped up in just about every imaginable kind of worship, following, dedication, custom, ritual and the like. Time to call 'Bull
****'.
Having said that, I am going to tell you what you really need to do, however, there is a conundrum here in that there is no you who could do it… but if you still believe there is a you then we have to work with that. In the final analysis, it doesn’t really matter if you still think there is a personal you. I will repeat something I have said many times before, everything you do is to avoid the nothingness that you are. Permit me to change that a little…. everything you do is to avoid realizing that this is a dream arising in the real YOU/Truth/Awareness/Conciousness.
Those 'should do' and 'should not do' items will never be perfected. You can never really follow through 100 percent on any, let alone all of them. It’s impossible, just a spiritual hamster wheel, but it’s not impossible to realize something about those admonitions and your human experience. It is ALL a dream (with one exception). Everything that arises does so in the One Awareness which is the same in every person, and with various limitations, within every living creature appearing in this dream.
Let’s look at those ‘must do’s’ a little closer;
Stop smoking: it’s probably a good idea, but who cares? It’s all a dream. Your smoking is a dream, your cancer is a dream, your bad teeth are a dream… so, stop wasting any effort to quit, it doesn’t matter. Why? Because it’s just a dream.
Stop having sex: Good luck with that one. How many of you have tried that and failed? Who cares if you have sex. It certainly can have ramifications, BUT, both the sex and subsequent ramification are all in this dream… absolutely all. So, I suggest you quit worrying about it. Do it or don’t… it doesn’t matter because nothing matters in a dream. Stressing out about smoking might do more damage than just smoking.
Stop eating meat: Why? Do you think it will lead you to God? Please don’t be so silly. If you don’t want to eat meat, then don’t eat it… and please don’t make a big deal about it because no one else cares and neither should you, because eating meat or not is another appearance in a dream, nothing more. How in the Holy Name of Krishna, Buddha, Christ, etc., could it be important? To whom? A dreamt self or a dreamt other? A dreamt global ecology?
Kill the ego: Who on earth is going to do that? Are you going to build up a powerful ego and use it to kill some ‘other’ ego? How can you kill something that has been dreamed up by an appearance in a dream (the little you). A dream within a dream will not prohibit your Self-realization. Teachers give the ego way too much credit, but it just part of the dream too, and thus quite forgivable. BTW, forgiving, while nice and can contribute to a better dream and H/A, is also part of this dream.
Renounce all worldly pleasure: Yeh, sure. I renounce that every day. Come on, let’s get real in this unreal dream. Your effort spent renouncing is better spent eating chocolate cake drenched in Drambuie and contemplating the dream-like nature of it all. My motto, RENOUNCE NOTHING, because none of it is real.
Leave your wife and children: While I am not advocating dumping responsibility, I am suggesting you take it all a little lighter. All your relationships are part of this dream. Is it not obvious that relationships appear to have a beginning and an end, that they make you happy and then miserable? How can they be real? The do appear real because that is the quality of a good dream, and it is indeed a good dream. Would you rather watch a movie on an old black and white TV or in a giant surround-sound IMAX theatre? This dream outdoes IMAX by many orders of magnitude.
Quit your job and move to India: You tell me. What is so impossible about realizing your True Nature from where you are located right now doing what you are doing now? When you go to some other place you still appear to be that same dreamt character. If you want to dream up a story that puts off T/R to some future date, that’s fine, but remember, you are still dreaming that there will be T/R and a future date. Eventually you will realize that you never went anywhere, you (the real YOU) only dreamed you (the little you) did.
Be a loving person: There are people in this world who appear to be more loving, and loveable, than others… just the way this dream goes. However, whether you are a warm fuzzy or cold prickly person is of absolutely no significance. Yup.. because it’s all a dream arising within the awareness that is you.
There you have what you must do in order to realize what I call various things at various times…. just realize that everything you experience is in a dream… and I mean everything… well almost everything. Guess what doesn’t… let me know.
Much love to all and stay healthy.
Jed.
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