Self-Knowledge and Self-Realization

I have received some negative feedback regarding my previous two posts where I eschew interest in one’s everyday life. Some people want to eat their cake and have it too. In other words, they want to hang on to their pride in their accomplishments, their family, their children, their job, and especially on their thinking search for spiritual knowledge, as opposed to just looking into one's own awareness and searching for the I-sense. Some people just refuse to accept no mind, becoming dumb as a rock, becoming good for nothing as a way of life. There is too much pride in them for everything about them in this worldly life.

Some people feel that the purpose of spirituality is to enhance and make better their everyday worldly life, much like many Christian Street preachers who say that it is God's will that you be happy, healthy, wealthy and wise. There are some spiritualities which are entirely directed to making your everyday life more productive and happy, like various forms of Japanese chanting Buddhism, such as the Soka Gakkai, where one chants for happiness or for things, as well as the Sedona release technique, where you learn to let go of things in order to get things.

Much of her Christianity is dedicated to securing the good life through prayer and tithing, sort of asking for a divine quid pro quo.

In any event, no matter what types of spirituality the average person practices or accepts, very few want their practices to interfere with their everyday family life and career. They want spirituality to enhance their everyday life and happiness and career goals. They want to let go of nothing. That is, they want to have their cake and eat it too without being bothered much by a need to walk the talk of surrender or letting go, and going within.

Therefore I want to read part of a talk by Siddharameshwar called "Give up the Addiction to Mundane Worldly Life," dated August 12, 1934:

The worst habit is that of mundane worldly life. It is called the "greatest addiction." By force of this addiction to worldly life, Paraatman is made to believe that He is an individual, and is compelled to live the worldly life as a prison. All bad habits can be dropped, but the addiction to mundane life is the most difficult to drop. The mundane worldly life is called the blind dark life. The greatest enticement of Illusion, Maya, is this mundane life. However great maybe one sorrow, this addiction cannot be dropped. One is greatly lucky if this addiction is dropped. There was only one person who condemns the worldly life, and that is the saint. Nobody else does that. One does not even think of leaving this worldly life, even if one suffers endless difficulties.

People try to strengthen their ties with others by speaking to them respectively and congratulating each other over small things. People compete with each other for earning more honors and status. In this way, they feel they are happy in life. They act as if this is a respectable bad habit.

The "God of Death" is happy to give you many kinds of bodies and various troubles. Know that the body is your enemy. Very few are those who have truly understood. Only those who are lucky enough to receive the blessings of the Guru, who is the Self, can escape from the illusion by right efforts. All others are bound to the treadmill of life in various incarnations, and they make houses of bodies of various shapes and duration.

Those who consider themselves as being very scholarly only raise many various doubts and lead quite a wrong way of spiritual life. They only end up unhappy and make others unhappy as well. The man who is extraordinarily clever and learned is truly of no use. He puts himself and others at a great loss. He suffers because of his own pride in knowledge and worldly attainments.

The things of this world that are cherished by people always breed fear. When some action is done after listening to the opinions of worldly people, it increases many kinds of fear. We get completely exhausted and trying to maintain those things that appear in the illusion, as those things are ultimately perishable.

In short, people are like donkeys. They never listen because they are heavily conditioned from birth. However, those of you who do listen to the guru will attain self-realization.

The same holds true for those possessed by various ideas, such as spiritual purity, either of themselves or the guru. Siddharameshwar says on page 156 Of the Master of Self-Realization, the following:

Once there was a disciple who although he had received instructions from his guru, had not given up his former attitude. He had a peculiar sense of cleanliness and purity. His concept was that in order to avoid the touch of the dirty earth, he climbed up a tree. He lived in a tree, drank only rainwater and continued to lead that the earth was in pure.

When his guru came to know of this, he went to see him. The disciple had become very famous. People have built quite a large round platform around tree that he lived in, and had made a lot of decorations. The disciple did not like to come down, because to him the earth was impure. When the Guru came to him, he said, "You come down." The disciples said, “I will not touch the earth.” The Guru asked him, “Where was he sitting,” and the disciple replied, “On a tree.”

With this the guru said, “The tree is part of the earth and you remain in the tree. The tree in the earth are not separate. You have separated them by your mind, but in reality, the tree cannot be separated from the earth. The tree is the offspring of the earth and therefore cannot be separated from it. You are smothered by your imaginary distinctions of pure and impure, and in this way you would have become very impure. I gave you mantra so you would become pure, in unity with the whole world, but you, by your imagination are holding onto ideas of separateness, purity and impurity. Because of that you have become impure. You are now unfit for the realization that there is nothing other than Brahman. This is why you have no self-knowledge and you will not be able to realize everything is only one absolute Brahman.”

As a disciple listen to this, he understood his following and with fear, he climbed down. The guru said, in order to wipe out your ego you have to live in a pig pen for six months.

Is this not the way of many religions, from the Christian devote flailing themselves to obtain purity, to the ten commandments, to the 500 vows of living made by a fully ordained Buddhistmonk, and by the million “shoulds of society” and religion we all live by?  Siddharameshwar clearly states all the spiritual and religious ideas separate us from the totality of life and the world by setting us apart, making some actions and ideals pure, good, or impure.

I do it myself.  I tell people not to eat meat.  But this is my own way.  It made me feel better about myself once I knew animals were not dying to keep me alive, and in a sense, I set myself apart by taking this stance. But it is a separation I can live with because I accept the goal of nonviolence.