Do you watch the daily news? I assume you all must to some degree or another. Does that look Real to you? Or is it just a metaphor, images, and words that give you some conventional understanding of what’s happening? An attempt to describe the world and idealize it through conventional language? The very word ‘world’ as it is commonly used is an effort to idealize experience and idealize self – a separate thing – be it a world or an individual – a center.
Wisdom teachers use such words and discourse on them because it is in common usage and they refer to a profundity that needs to be understood, but rightly understood. Wisdom teachings could, in fact, be spoken without ever using such words or phases as ‘a world’, or ‘a self’. These are not necessary concepts. They are useful but not necessary. They are simply usages of the convention of mind, a notion of mankind, part of a worldly discourse. This needs to be understood – and IF rightly understood can be used in some sense with reference to what is commonly understood as a real world.
What is called ‘a world’ or ‘God’, or a ‘self/Self’ is a myth. The common language of the news, or references to ‘a world’ or ‘a religion’ is speaking of a myth. Then that myth itself is further mythologized through the language of each particular culture or tradition with its various figures. Some of which are clearly imagined, or constructed simply to give people a world view, as if there is only one thing happening.
The voices that represent a ‘world-view’ – and there are many – want to affirm that they’re not talking about myths. They’re talking about something or someone that actually real, alive – something happening.
A singular world-view is a mythological portrayal of life. Its just one of the niches along with all of the other village-views get tied into ONE View. They’re all made up, all mythology – a story. It’s all point of view language. There is no justification for world-view of singularity or a kind of superiority of knowledge or understanding.
It is possible to understand and be free of all the encumbrances of your provincialism of mind, by examining yourself, the human structure, and all of human manifestations, using the tools of Wisdom. And this is what you must do and not merely be a casual participant in the mythological world portrayed in all forms of media today.
You have to change your life based on Wisdom.
Ed Reither
Beezone
Adapted from a discourse by Adi Da Samraj below.
——————————————
Original Discourse
October 6, 2005
Watch the daily news. I assume you all must to some degree or another. Does that look like Divine Play to you? It’s just a metaphor of conventional religiosity or even lesser stage esotericism, to describe the world in such terms and to idealize it through such language. The very word God as it is commonly used is another effort to idealize experience and idealize self.
I use the word and discourse on it because it is in common usage and refers to some kind of profundity that needs to be understood, but rightly understood it is not the God of conventional religion. Therefore My Teaching could, in fact, be spoken without ever using the word ‘God’. It’s not a necessary concept. It is simply a convention of mind, a notion of mankind, part of religious discourse and such that needs to be understood and can be used in some sense with reference to the Reality in and as which all and all is arising as an appearance, neither necessary nor binding.
That which is Divine, which is Reality Itself, which is always already the case, that is what there is to Realize, not merely to become the God to a mythological deity. What is called God is a myth. The common language of religion is speaking of a myth and then that myth itself is further mythologized through the language of each particular tradition with its various figures and so on, some of which it’s stated clearly are imagined, or constructed simply to give image to concepts for the sake of developing peoples’ religious life.
Some traditions otherwise, however, want to affirm that they’re not talking about myths. They’re talking about something, something or someone that actually lived, happened, and is so and so forth. So you have traditions of that kind such as Christianity and you have traditions of the other kind such as in Hinduism where every village makes up its own and then when some conqueror acquires all of the villages in an area, they take all of the village deities and put them in one big temple and you have thousands of deities, all meaning the same thing, but everybody is accommodated, everybody’s deity is represented there and it’s understood that there is only one, so they put some kind of a figure in the middle of it as the God God [laughter].
In the Great Tradition, properly speaking, you see, Christianity, then, has to put its mythological deity just in one of the niches along with all of the other village deities. They’re all made up, all mythology. It’s all point of view language. There is no justification for cultural superiority, pretended on the basis of saying “Our myth is real, yours is a fairy tale”.
The entire Great Tradition arose from the structures, the psycho-physical structures of human beings, and each of those structures in their hierarchical relation produce the stages of life and each of the stages of life has certain characteristic modes of thinking to express it. And so every tradition is perfectly plain if you listen to its language and look at its pictures.
It’s speaking on the platform of a particular mode of the hierarchical structure of the human entity and if you know how to read the DNA, so to speak, if you take the keys I’ve given you in the Basket of Tolerance, for instance, and examine any and every tradition, you can see exactly where they have come from, what is their root of origin in terms of the stages of life and the psycho-physical structures of human possibility.
And you can also then see that they are limited by the force of conditionality and egoity. So it is possible, in fact, to be free of all the encumbrances of your provincialism of mind, by examining yourself, the human structure, and all of human manifestations, using the tools of My Revelation to you.
And this is what you must do and not merely be a casual participant in the institutional environment of this gathering. You have to change your life. You must listen to and study My Word. I describe the earliest part of this Way as being the listening stage. That suggests an oral transmission. You are listening to My Speech, you see.
I describe the Dawn Horse Testament as a conversation, an Eternal conversation, which suggests more than just a conceptual analytical or private exercise of words. It’s something that takes place in relationship, in the productive or right and sadhana sense, the relationship to Me. So listening to My Word literally spoken, recited, spoken now, otherwise once recorded, then recited, not necessarily recited by Me, recited by anyone, but you listening, but not just listening.
These Words are full of clarifying communication and also instructions. There is supposed to be somebody at the door who checks to make sure you got that instruction and you are DOING it, you see, and who will be back in that room within hours or tomorrow or whatever, and will check again, you see.
This is fundamental to the culture of this Way, that you are kept rightly informed and guided and accountable for your adaptation to the practice for real – no bargaining, no every time you get together a member of the Ruchira Sannyasin Order or some other cultural representative tries to reconvert you, you see, to this Way.