All those who seek enlightenment, God, the true Self, Nirvana, the consciousness of Christ or Buddha, at the beginning of their search try to find something outside their mind: they visit religious sites, read literature, attend satsangs, engage themselves in various practices, look for a master or a guru. It is neither good nor bad, but necessary only for one thing: having got enough pains in listening or reading out, refuting or proving each time a new version of the structure of the world or of the mind, eventually to drop it all. We do not want to upset the readers of these lines neither to encourage them, but the attempts to acquire something “from outside” can take more than one life.
There is NO any single mechanism or pathway to THE REALIZATION OF THE ONE NATURE OF THE ALL.
But there are some kind of stages:
First which is necessary and without which no action can be fulfilled is MAXIMUM HONESTY with oneself. Everyone who has set his foot on the path of search, has to give himself an answer to the MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION: do I really WANT TO KNOW or I’m interested just to get my life somewhat improved using this way. Neither the former nor the latter is good or bad, but it leads to different directions. And if the desire to understand, a kind of establishing the truth is the most important, one can bravely set on a JOURNEY from oneself to oneself.
Second, it is very necessary to change that part of life which it is possible to change, and to do only what is impossible to ignore. Stop paying attention to everything except the most necessary moments of life.
It is not at all necessary to leave your job, family, to become a vegetarian, to go to the Himalayas or to sit immediately in a dark retreat and meditate for days on, but still one has to limit social intercourse. One JUST NEEDS to dedicate all one’s free time to the search.
Third: for any action as well as for the spiritual search, concentration of attention is necessary — it is necessary to make the mind UNIDIRECTIONAL. For this there is a huge number of practices, from contemplation of objects and chanting mantras to breath control. PRACTICES ARE USEFUL BUT NOT NECESSARY: CONCENTRATION CAN BE DEVELOPED BY BEING INVOLVED INTO AN INTERESTING OR IMPORTANT ACTIVITY AS WELL AS BY SPIRITUAL PRACTICES. The only condition is: this activity should not directly harm living beings. It also happens that someone who has developed concentration with the help of spiritual and other practices uses it not to study his own mind, but to acquire benefits (money, things, personal popularity, power, and most often just to find a partner and to control him or her as well as other family members). Again neither upsetting nor encouraging the reader, we would like to warn: with what force one gains the benefits, with the same reluctance and possibly pain one will have to part with them — perhaps during more than one or two lives.
Fourth: what one will have to do is to learn how the sense organs of one’s own body function and THE MEMORY too, for these are they that give such a powerful picture of my body separated from the other space as well as the seeming extension of the separate being in time.
Sight: by itself draws the picture of my body and other bodies seemingly separate from mine, although those same chemistry and physics that are taught at school, prove that EVERYTHING IS INTERCONNECTED, and the information about the seemingly separate interaction is kept only in memory.
Hearing: Yes, I constantly hear the sounds or the words, but only their extension in the memory makes them existing and solid in THE NOW.
Taste, smell and touch are just applied to the body and comfortable tools for survival and enjoyment.
Fifth: having developed concentration, you have to learn to OBSERVE THE THOUGHTS WITHOUT TRYING TO FORCIBLY CHANGE THEM. To see, to feel, to “catch the moment” in which there occurs THE VERY FIRST THOUGHT WITH A CONTENT: I AM SUCH AND SUCH WITH THE NAME AND THE BODY LIVING SOMEWHERE AND THIS MANY YEARS. It is after this initial thought that there follows a whole heap of the rest of the thoughts about survival, getting pleasure and avoiding pain — the physical and mental suffering and enjoyment. With the constant observation of the thoughts there appears by itself the following clarity: IT IS THE IDENTIFICATION WITH THE THOUGHTS that makes “I” such and such — in itself “I” is IMMUTABLE AND NOT COLORED WITH ANYTHING ELSE THAN BLISS.
Sixth: having learned to contemplate constantly the thoughts one can see that the whole manifested world is made only of the pictures given by the sense organs and is colored by thoughts that are stored in memory like folders. At this stage, one can perceive the illusiveness of all that is seen, heard and perceived, such kind of EMPTINESS. And very often there is euphoria and such kind of a pseudonirvana, with the desire to preach to others who still consider themselves someone. Often IT IS HERE THAT THE LAST OBSTACLE IS BORN, the last image is ripening, the image of THE MASTER HAVING REALISED SOMETHING. Such a master often begins almost forcefully to preach to all around indiscriminately and to criticize all existing systems: from States to the ancestral egregors. Although he himself usually creates a new system, calls disciples and sometimes lives at their expense. IF A MASTER ASSURES YOU THAT ALL IS ILLUSION AND ALL DECEIVE YOU, ask him whether HE IS AWARE OF HIS OWN ILLUSIVENESS and whether he protects not the next, the closest for him, the version of the world.
Seventh: having learned observing the thoughts continuously (non-stop mode:)) and also a kind of withdrawing your attention quickly — both from the thoughts and from the information of the sense organs (not to get caught in the loop) — sooner or later, quickly or gradually in stages, there will come an experience-revelation of what is THE TRUE SELF and how THE PROCESS OF AWARENESS is organized. In Indian culture it is traditionally called SAMADHI, and in Russian THE ENLIGHTENMENT, its only feature is an indescribable bliss — a delight colored with nothing. The mind can describe it approximately like this: “what I’m looking for is THE SAME place from which I’m looking for”, “any solid and unchanging ‘me’ doesn’t exist and never existed”, "I am both the space where everything happens and that where the attention is turned”.
Eighth: after the experience your usual activities largely become just of no interest for you and also gradually (sometimes abruptly) the perception of reality changes, and ALL THAT REMAINS IS ONLY THROUGH ACTION to determine the remaining INTERESTS and SIMPLY TO LIVE: TO BE IN JOY AND TO GIVE JOY, becoming transparent to all the rest, never judging or accusing anyone of nothing.
Few words separately about the difference in male and female nature. Never judging and just loving THE MASTERS OF SPIRITUALITY — the lovely creatures in the female assemblage, and also being aware that EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE, one would like to note that still for woman PURITY as well as a kind of organization of THE LIGHT, CREATIVE AND PEACEFUL earthly space is more natural than the spiritual tutorship and education typical for the male nature.
http://www.advaitastayl.ru/2018/07/the-realization-of-nature-of-all-or.html#links