You cannot fit God and His Way, into you and your way

You are narcissistic by nature. You live on the island of self, and, moreover, you are the island of self. You also see things and events as revolving around you, and you perceive things and events as either existing for your use, or as undesirable for your use, or in terms of how they may or may not affect you or those you love. You also perceive life through the filter of your own mind, according to your genetic and learned predisposition. Your subtle and gross actions are always that of adding to you and your life: adding experiences, ideas, knowledge, objects, and other people.

You are the self, the ego, and your perception, thinking, and actions are that of constant self-reference. Your life is about you, your ideas, your knowledge, your preferences, your stuff, and your way of living. Your life is also about constantly adding to you and your way of life, and is about constantly  integrating more and more into you and your way of living. Your life is also about protecting you, and is about protecting your current experiences, ideas, knowledge, preferences, plans, stuff, and way of living. It is about protecting the experiences, ideas, knowledge, objects, and other people you have already added to, and already integrated into, you and your way of life. You are also, by nature, self-reliant.

You are about you and your way of living. You are about the natural business of adding to you and your way, and integrating into you and your way, and feeding you and your way. You are also about protecting you and your way, and all that feeds and supports you and your way. And, you accomplish all this adding, integrating, self-feeding, and self-protecting, by relying on yourself, by self-reliance.

However, take note of two key characteristics of all the stuff that you add and integrate into you and your way. New ideas, things, and people are beyond or outside your small, isolated world of self. New ideas, things, and people are also other-than or different from you and your way of living. But the above two facts pose a problem for you: You need ideas, things, and people to feed and protect you, and they are beyond and other-than you and your way of living. Yet, your nature is not to submit or adapt yourself and your way of living to that which is beyond and other-than you and your way. This is the crux of the problem: How can you add and integrate them into you and your way of living, in order to use them, without submitting or adapting yourself and your way to them? So, how do you solve the problem?

Much that is beyond or outside you and your way, and much that is other-than or different from you and your way, must be re-shaped by you in order to fit, and to be integrated into, you and your current way of living. You must alter, re-shape, bend, and mold much of that which is beyond and other-than you, so that it can be comfortably added and integrated into you and your way of life, and can thereby feed and protect you and your way of living. The answer, therefore, is simple: In order for many new ideas, things, and people to be added and integrated into you and your way, you must try to alter, re-shape, bend, and mold them to fit your current ideas, preferences, and way of living. Simply change and adapt that which is beyond and other-than you and your way of living, so that it can submit to you, and to your ideas, and to your way, rather than you submitting or changing yourself, your ideas, and your way of living.

Some new ideas, things, and people already fit well into you and your way of living, so they require no fundamental change for you to add and integrate them into you and your way of living. They are already compatible with you and your way. However, if they do not already fit, or if you cannot successfully modify that which is beyond and other-than you and your way, then you will reject it.

Your nature is not to submit or adapt yourself and your way of living to that which is beyond and other-than you and your way. Your strongest tendency is to seek that which already fits into you and your preferred way of living. But, if a new idea, thing, or person does not already fit, you will either try to alter, re- shape, bend, and mold it to fit you and your way, or, if that cannot be accomplished, you will reject it.

The above facts are not to suggest that you never adapt, submit, or compromise. However, your adaptations, submissions, and compromises are only very superficial, and are allowed only within a very narrow range of possible behavior within that superficial layer. Your adaptation, submission, and compromise with that which is beyond and other-than you, are superficial in depth, and narrow in range.

What does that mean? Your adaptation, submission, and compromise are superficial, because they never reach into the depth and most essential foundation of you and how you live. They are never allowed to go so deep, that they touch the core of you, and are never allowed to interrupt your basic way of living.

First, you never allow you, the separate consciousness or individual that you are, to be threatened, harmed, deprived, or insulted. You make sure that your individuality remains intact, fed, and respected. You never adapt, submit, and compromise to a depth that completely denies you your basic egoic needs of survival, pleasure, and vanity. Moreover, the core-level state of individuality, and your core-level motivation of survival, pleasure, and vanity, are not only never compromised, but are fed and protected by your superficial adaptation, submission, and compromise. You typically adapt, submit, and compromise to the superficial depth that you do, in order to get those needs met, and not for any altruistic reason. Your flexibility is typically for the sake of getting your needs met, and not out of total, or even partial, selflessness.

Second, you never allow your basic way of living to be interrupted, by any adaptation, submission, or compromise. What is your basic way of living? Clinging, selfish taking, and self-reliance, all for the sake of feeding and protecting your survival, pleasure, and vanity.

Using self-energy, you cling to self and to all that feeds and supports self. You cling to self, and to all that is beyond and other-than self, if that other serves one or more of your three needs. Your subtle and gross actions are also that of constantly taking, adding, and integrating into you, your mind, and your being, all the ideas, objects, and people that feed and protect you. You are always pulling-in to yourself, all the ideas, objects, and people that ensure your survival, pleasure, and vanity. In any given moment, you are doing that on both subtle and gross levels, or just on the subtle level using self-energy and the mental process of perception and experience. And, you rely largely on your own ideas, schemes, and efforts, in the ongoing process of clinging and taking for the sake of meeting your three needs. You never adapt, submit, and compromise to a depth that completely interrupts your basic way of living, which is clinging, selfish taking, and self-reliance in order to ensure your survival, pleasure, and vanity.

Your adaptations, submissions, and compromises are superficial, because they do not go so deep as to threaten your survival, pleasure, and vanity, and do not go so deep as to interrupt your clinging, selfish, and self-reliant way of life. Moreover, not only are your adaptations, submissions, and compromises superficial, and not only do they not threaten your survival, pleasure, and vanity, but they are typically for the very purpose of feeding and protecting self.

Also, your adaptations, submissions, and compromises are narrow in range, because your fear, and your clinging to the appearances and personal habits of your life, will not allow you to engage actions that are beyond or other-than a very small scope of possible behaviors. You will typically go "only so far" to get your needs met. But, if great calamity or desperation were to befall you, you may find yourself acting in ways you never imagined.

In general, your strongest tendency is to look for ideas, objects, remedies, activities, and people that already fit into your notions of how things should look, and into your specific habits of living.

You are looking for compatibility. If they do not already fit, then you may try to make them bend, change, and submit to fit your ideas and preferences. You will try to make them compatible. But, you will reject those ideas, objects, remedies, activities, and people that do not already fit, or will not bend, change, and submit. After all, you, by nature, are not willing to adapt, submit, and compromise beyond a certain superficial depth and narrow range. Even when you do, it is still for the sake of self- feeding and self-protection, and usually only when desperate. Regardless of your delusions to the contrary, you are extremely inflexible and unyielding; but you expect all the stuff and people you need and want, to fit, bend, or submit to you and to your specific ways of living. You want the world closest to you, which is the stuff and people that you use for self-feeding and self-protection, to fit your ideas and preferences of how it should look.

New ideas, things, and people are beyond or outside your small, isolated state of self, and are other-than or different from you and your way of living. For you to be willing to add and integrate them into your life, they must either already largely fit your ideas and ways, or they must bend, change, and submit to fit your ideas and ways. However, if they do not already fit, or do not bend, change, and submit enough to suit you, then you will reject them.

The implications of the above information are profound, for the serious seeker, and for the true follower. During your spiritual search, you gravitated toward teachers, teachings, paths, and practices for which you already had a large affinity: those that already largely fit into your general mind-set of how a spiritual teacher, teaching, path, or practice should look, operate, and "feel". You were willing to accept variations within a certain comfortable range, but a general "good fit" or compatibility was required for you to embrace a specific teacher, teaching, path, or practice. Therefore, you completely rejected those that did not fit very well, and from which you could draw no or few ideas or practices that seemed to "resonate" with your pre-existing ideas and preferences. You were looking for yourself and your ways, to be reflected in the spiritual teachers, teachings, paths, and practices you investigated. Only when you saw yourself, your ideas, your preferences, and your ways largely reflected in a given teacher, teaching, path, or practice, did you embrace it. You have sought, added, and integrated only those spiritual teachers, teachings, paths, and practices for which you already had a large affinity, and have rejected or simply ignored all others.

A long-term spiritual seeker has added and integrated many teachings, paths, and practices into his pot of self, and they have only reinforced himself and his general way of living. He is an ego, a separate consciousness, and his general way of life is that of clinging to self and to all that protects and feeds self, and self-reliance. His actions are only that of clinging, which is observed as self- protection, self-feeding, and self-reliance. His state and actions are about preventing God, by merely being himself, and by clinging to self so as to protect and feed it, and by relying on self so as to ensure his needs are met. His delusions about his spiritual status do not change the facts.

Regardless of the superficial variations, every spiritual teacher, teaching, path, and practice has offered him only another means to protect, feed, and rely on self. That which you exercise becomes stronger, and that which you feed thrives. The very subtle and gross actions of self-protection, self-feeding, and self-reliance, merely maintain and strengthen those same actions. In other words, the natural, inherent, and ongoing habit-pattern of clinging, taking, implosion, self-feeding, self-protection, and self-reliance, is reinforced by clinging, taking, implosion, self-feeding, self-protection, and self-reliance. Also, the core-level self, or ego, that is protected and fed through those actions, is strengthened and thrives. His spiritual teachers, teachings, paths, and practices have only strengthened himself, and have only reinforced his natural, clinging, taking, self-protecting, self-feeding, self-reliant, imploding, and constricting way of living. His spiritual endeavors have actually taken him even further from the very God he professes to seek.

But, the seeker also realizes another consequence of his years on the spiritual circuit, and of adding and integrating spiritual paths that fit his ideas, preferences, and natural way of living. He indeed unwittingly strengthens his natural mental habit-pattern of self-protection, self-feeding, and self-reliance, but he also creates a damaging association of ideas in the mind. Under the influence of his natural state and ways, and by reinforcing of his natural state and ways on the spiritual circuit, his vague ideas about God, and about seeking God, and about a path to God, have become even more deeply associated with clinging, self-protection, self-feeding, and self- reliance. In other words, his in-born nature or tendency is to protect, feed, and rely on self. Spiritual teachers, teachings, paths, and practices merely provide more means to engage that which he is already tending to do by nature. He walked onto the spiritual circuit already inclined to seek a teacher, teaching, path, or practice that would help him protect, feed, and rely on self, and they sold him that for which he was seeking, and in a package that was at least close to his ideas, preferences, and general way of living. He now, therefore, even more powerfully associates ideas of God and a path to God, with his inherent state and ways of clinging, taking, implosion, self-protection, self-feeding, and self-reliance. Religion and spirituality are good commerce, because they sell people that which they, by nature, already want and are already doing, only wrapped in a religious or spiritual package.

However, the most damaging outcome for the serious seeker, of adding and integrating spiritual paths into himself and his way, and of his own in-born nature, will be realized if and when he happens to stumble across True God and The Teaching of Freedom. God and His Way of Freedom do not nourish your natural, inherent predisposition for clinging, self-protection, self-feeding, and self-reliance. And, unlike the spiritual circuit, True God and His Way do not offer you any means to do that which you, by nature, are already doing: clinging, self-protection, self-feeding, and self-reliance. God and His Way have nothing to do with the teachers, teachings, paths, and practices found on the spiritual circuit, as evidenced by the fact that they merely offer you a variety of ideas and practices that only exercise and strengthen your inherent subtle and gross actions of clinging, self-protection, self-feeding, and self- reliance, which also reinforces your core-level state of individuality.

To the contrary, True God is opposite to your natural state of individuality, which is limitation and suffering. God is Formless, Infinite, Blissful, and Supreme Power and Intelligence, while you are the exact opposite. And, His Way of Freedom is opposite to your constant actions of clinging, self-protection, self-feeding, and self-reliance. The Way of Freedom is profound Sacrifice, Faith, and Prayer, while your natural way is the exact opposite: clinging, self-protection, self-feeding, self- reliance, and communication with only yourself or other aspects of nature. Me and My Way are opposite to your nature, and are opposite to the spiritual teachers, teachings, paths, and practices found at the spiritual trough; and I clearly illuminate the striking contrasts. Nothing is more opposite than Me and My Way, and you and your way. Nothing is more opposite than Me and My Way, and the thousands of spiritual teachers, teachings, paths, and practices. Nothing is more opposite than Me and My Way, and nature and its way.

Nothing is more beyond and other-than you, than God. No way of living is more beyond and other-than your way of living, than The Way of Freedom that God has Designed for humanity. Nothing is less like you and your way, than God and His Way. Nothing is less familiar and less comfortable to you, than God and His Way. All else in nature, including anything in the ordinary life, and any spiritual teaching, teacher, path, or practice you may investigate, is far, far more like you and your way, and is far, far more familiar and comfortable to you, than God and His Way.

Furthermore, True God and His Way are un-compromising, in that they do not change for any reason, including to fit the ideas, preferences, and ways of humanity. Also, no person, or nothing else, is capable of altering, modifying, bending, or molding God and His Way to be other-than that which they are. God and His Way are un-compromising, un-changeable, immutable, and, therefore, absolute.

If and when a seeker stumbles across Me and My Way, he is usually, and at least initially, very much offended. He is offended that The Teaching of Freedom is not spiritually-correct, because it offers observable, logical, and valid criticism of the natural life, and spiritual teachers, teachings, paths, and practices, by clearly explaining how they not only do not help the seeker Realize God, but how they actually serve to prevent God-Realization. He also reads in The Teaching that all paths do not lead to God, and that, no, you cannot Realize God by your own way or on your own terms. He is told that he and his life are currently Godless, and that he understands very little about God, himself, or The Way to Realize God. He hears that he is not already Enlightened, and that he is just a miserable, limited, selfish, mean, suffering creature. He is asked not to be concerned about an afterlife or reincarnation. He is offered no congratulations. Moreover, this "person" called Dava Prakasha says he is God and God Incarnate, and that the seeker must be in relationship to True God via a True Incarnation in order to be under Grace and Grow. How dare he. It sounds as if Dava is either psychotic, or has knowingly fabricated a bold and brilliant means of self-promotion. But, in a fleeting moment of weakness, he may ask himself, could Dava be Speaking the Truth?

He also eventually finds that God and His Way do not fit into him and his way. He discovers that he cannot simply add and integrate God and His Way, into himself and his natural way of living, like he has done with all his spiritual teachers, teachings, paths, and practices, and like he does with all else. God's Way is contrary to his natural ways, which have been exercised and reinforced using his spiritual teachers, teachings, paths, and practices, and in his ordinary life. God and His Way are contrary to the very state and ways that the seeker is wanting to protect, feed, exercise, and strengthen. His ideas of God and paths to God, have also become associated with teachers, teachings, paths, and practices which offer only more ways to cling, and to protect, feed, and rely on self.

He learns that God is completely Beyond and Other-Than him, and that God's Way is totally opposite to how he currently lives his ordinary and spiritual life. He reads that God is not like him, and that he is not already God. He discovers that The Way of Freedom does not offer any strategy, method, practice, or technique for protecting or feeding self, and offers no tool with which to engage clinging or self-reliance. He also discovers that True God and His Way are completely contrary to all his previous spiritual teachers, teachings, paths, and practices.

The seeker's inherent and learned tendency, is to approach any teaching referring to "God", including The Way of Freedom, exactly as he approaches all else in his ordinary, spiritual, or religious life. He wants to use God, The Teaching, and The Way to protect, feed, and rely on self, and he wants to add and integrate them into himself and his way for that purpose. But, he finds that he cannot take, add, or integrate God and His Way as they are, into himself and his way. He also finds that he cannot alter, modify, bend, or mold God and His Way, to fit into himself and his way of life. God and His Way do not come ready to fit you and your way, and neither can they be altered to fit. Most spiritual seekers will accept only those spiritual teachers, teachings, paths, and practices that come off the rack and are already largely ready to wear.

However, neither can he add and integrate himself and his way as they are, into God and His Way. Moreover, neither can he alter, re-shape, bend, or mold himself and his way, so that they fit into God and His Way. He discovers that he must Faithfully Sacrifice himself, and his clinging, self-protective, self-feeding, and self-reliant ways, into God, thereby allowing God and His Way room to Exist In and Through his being and life. God and His Way, and you and your way, can never integrate, neither as you and your ways currently are, nor with any mere alterations of you and your ways. You must Faithfully Sacrifice your state and ways, and you must allow your state and ways to be Replaced by God and His Way. Your must Faithfully Sacrifice yourself, and your clinging, self-protective, self-feeding, and self-reliant ways, into the Infinite Deep of God, thereby allowing God and His Way to Replace you and your way. You must become an empty vessel: only then can God Replace you with Him, and your way with His Way.

Nothing is more beyond and other-than you and your way, nothing is less familiar and comfortable to you and your way, nothing is less yielding and compromising to you and your way, nothing is less protective and nourishing of you and your way, and nothing requires more of you and your way, than God and His Way. Therefore, if a serious seeker comes across True God and His Teaching of Freedom, the most damaging outcome for him, of adding and integrating spiritual paths into himself and his way, and of his own in-born nature, is that he will be prone to reject Me and My Way. He reacts violently to The Teaching because of the many spiritually-incorrect and offensive statements I make, and because The Way of Freedom is contrary to his inherent and reinforced natural ways, both ordinary and spiritual. God and His Way offend, shock, and frighten him like nothing else. So, his mind and heart are prone to forever close to Me and My Way. He has spent years seeking, and the Object of his search has unknowingly been found, but he may reject it. If he does, nature wins the battle for the preservation of form and individuality, and God cannot Use that mind and body for the Incarnation of Himself.

But, some seekers may console themselves, by rejecting only certain parts of The Teaching, and by accepting those aspects with which they are more familiar and comfortable. But, they may as well reject the entire Way of Freedom, because the amount of clinging and self-reliance they are maintaining, or the amount of surrender they are refusing, will be enough to prevent profound Growth and God-Realization.

You cannot hold to any of you and your way, you cannot be full of yourself and your way, while simultaneously allowing God and His Way. The two can never be added to one another. They also cannot be integrated into one another, and mixed together. Neither one can ever be modified in order to fit into the other. There is you and your way, and there is God and His Way; and the two shall never harmonize, integrate, or become identical. Your state can never become, realize, or grasp God's State; and God's State can never shrink, weaken, darken, dumb-down, and die in order to become or fit you. Also, your way of clinging, self-protection, self-feeding, and self-reliance can never be or allow God's Way of Freedom; and God's Way of Freedom can never change or compromise in order to become or integrate with your way of clinging, self-protection, self-feeding, and self-reliance. You and your way, and God and His Way, are in no way, and to no degree, compatible.

God does not Give Himself and His Way to you and your life, so that you can try to make them compatible. God Gives Himself to you and your life via Incarnation, so that you are in a real relationship to That to which, and in which, you can increasingly Sacrifice yourself and your ways. God also Gives Himself to you and your life, because it is Him, and not you, that Conducts the Work of Purification and Change that ultimately leads to the Incarnation of not other-than Him. God is not Given to you and your life, so that you can try to add or integrate Him into yourself and your ways, either as He is, or by your attempts to change Him. God is also not Given so that you can learn how to become identical to Him. God does not Give Himself, so that you will continue to communicate only with yourself and other parts of nature. God is not Given for you to ignore, by relying on yourself, your ideas, and your efforts for your Growth.

God Gives The Teaching of His Way of Freedom to you, so that you can see and understand that which prevents God, and so that you can understand how to Faithfully Sacrifice, or stop doing, all that prevents Him. His Way is not Given to you for you to pick-and-choose which parts you like, and which parts you do not like. God's Way is not Given to you, so that you can add or integrate it into your natural way of living. God does not Give Himself or His Way, for you to ignore either. God does not submit Himself and His Way to you and your way, neither for your approval, nor for your modification and integration, nor for you to become Him or like Him. He Gives Himself and His Way to you, so that you can completely submit to Him and His Way, through utter Sacrifice, Faith, and Prayer.

Therefore, I am here, and I Offer Me and My Way to those few who would surrender to Me as I Eternally Am, and who would use the one Way of Freedom completely and only as the vehicle for their surrender. I am the Infinite Ocean without bottom or surface, and The Way of Freedom is the vessel that carries you to this Other Shore where I Stand and Wait. But, I do not Wait for you, but I Wait for you to allow Me in and through the mind and body you now call your own, yet while never being less-than That which I Eternally Am.

Your departure into the Infinite Deep, concludes with My Arrival at the Place where I always and already Stand.

by Dava Prakasha