On a practical level, actual physical withdrawal and renunciation are a declaration and a shift of social roles. Inner renunciation may also result in withdrawal from the world but not for the same reasons. From the calibration levels of the high 500s on up, participation in the world is problematic. Major alterations of lifestyle may be mandatory as well as preferred. Rural simplicity and peacefulness, as well as environmental beauty, become more concordant with one’s inner state. Some devotees in the high 500s manage to continue to teach or write. At the levels of the 600s and 700s, all participation may stop, and statistically, many who reach these levels choose the option to leave the body; however, some remain for the fulfillment of karmic propensities. In the high levels, function is the consequence of Divine Ordinance, as the personal will has been surrendered to God. ‘Motivation’, ‘intention’, or ‘goals’ no longer exist. Actions are autonomous, spontaneous, and consequent to the Presence as Self. Awareness of the overall silent contextual field is facilitated by a contemplative lifestyle that could be likened to shifting interest from details to ‘the big picture’. It ‘gets’ overall qualities of atmosphere without going into specifics and therefore intuits generalities rather than thinking or analyzing details. The resistance of the ego/mind is that it is afraid it might ‘miss’ something, as it is addicted to processing the details of the content of form, which is the attraction and lure of the world. To ‘renounce the world’ means to withdraw energy from it and decline activities that require attention to specifics, thereby abiding in the Self rather than in the amusements of the self. As a result of the withdrawal from interest in the world, it may be abandoned. Many devotees cease following the news via newspapers or television. It is quickly discovered that it never was the world that was interesting but the projections by one’s ego of its values and the specifics of its sensations. The brain is the sense organ of the experiencer, and one realizes that it is destined for physical death. Therefore, the importance of the Self rather than the self is realized by accepting the inevitability of mortality. It is only necessary to shift from devotion to the world to devotion to God and the Spiri t. One’s life span is already determined at the very moment of birth (verified repeatedly by consciousness research). The devotee is thus one who surrenders one’s life to God rather than to the ego/mind experiencer’s projected values of the world. While abandoning the world may sound drastic in the early stages of the spiritual quest, it occurs quite naturally and is welcomed with relief later on. At advanced stages, some functioning in the world may return but is of a different nature as there is no longer anything to ‘get’ from the world. From: “Discovery of the Presence of God: Devotional Nonduality", Chapter 15: Progressive States of Consciousness, pp. 248-250 --------------------------
Posted on: Wed, 09 Oct 2013 17:45:36 +0000
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