One of the Nisargadatta Maharaj quotes from yesterday was, “Just remember steadily what you want, and reject the incompatibles.”

Today’s reading is about rejecting the incompatibles.

My dictionary has three definitions for “reject”:

1. Dismiss as inadequate, inappropriate, or not to one’s taste
2. Refuse to agree to
3. Fail to show due affection or concern for

What are the incompatibles we are to reject?

1. The world as our purpose
2. Guilt as a motivating factor or call to action
3. Fear as a motivating factor or call to action

In a way, we aren’t to reject the world, guilt or fear, and in another way we are to reject them. First, I will write about how we are not to reject the world, guilt or fear, and then I will write about how we are to reject them.

The World

We are not to reject the world by avoiding the roles we are to play in the world. There are roles that come with each bodily existence. Our roles may include spouse, parent, child, worker, homeowner, pet owner and etcetera. Each role has ‘doing’ that is part of that role. Doing is natural, and doesn’t need to be avoided.

What is unnatural is attachment to doing. We are attached to doing when we associate our identity, self-image, safety, or happiness with doing. We are detached from doing when we see that doing has nothing to do with who we are, what we are, our sense of well being, or joy.

We are to reject attachment to roles in the world, while continuing to do the doing called for by those roles. See attachment as inadequate or not to your taste. Refuse to agree to it. Do not be concerned with thoughts that lead to attachment.

Guilt and Fear

We are not to reject guilt or fear by avoiding those feelings. Whenever those feelings arise, we are to pay attention to them. They signal false ideas that are to be seen and let go. In fact, when guilt or fear arise, it is best to give them our full attention by inquiring into them to see what we can learn, and then by practicing rest-accept-trust until they have passed.

We are to reject guilt and fear as motivators for action. In other words, we are to reject doing what guilt and fear urge us to do. They are not appropriate motivators, and so do not agree to them as motivators. Instead, stay with inquiry and rest-accept-trust, and do nothing else, until guilt and fear have dissipated and a sense of peace, acceptance or well-being returns.

The same is true for the many forms of guilt and fear, which include unworthiness, the sense of lack or the sense ‘I am lacking,’ anger, hatred, jealousy, and etcetera.

A Final Tip

I recommend printing this tip for future reference. Great confusion often comes with attachment to the world, with guilt and with fear. It may be difficult or impossible to remember this tip once confusion sets in. If you keep this tip in a handy place, you can reread it along with NTI Matthew 23 whenever it is needed.

(Note: This is the third tip that I have suggested you print. Consider keeping the printed tips in a notebook, so you know where they are and you can access them easily for review. The other tips I’ve recommended printing are Day 5 and Day 11.)

Yesterday, I told a story about a woman with five daughters. In that story, the daughters were asked to remove their Disney Princess costumes, “and become my daughters again.” Of course, each girl already was the woman’s daughter. No one really had to remove the costume to “become” the daughter.

The same is true with you. You do not need to remove your false beliefs and conditioning in order to become truth. You are truth now. And yet, you do need to let go of your false beliefs and conditioning, just as the girls did need to take of the costumes—if not for strawberry shortcake, then later, for some other reason, like to get ready for bed, to bathe, or to go to school the next day.

Why do costumes need to be removed? Because they aren’t truth. The costumes did not represent who the girls were. The costumes weren’t real. They were temporary. Beliefs and conditioning do not represent what you are. They aren’t reality. They are temporary. The spiritual journey is one of taking off the temporary—like one takes off a costume—and returning to the foundational reality.

How does one do that?

Nisargadatta Maharaj said, “All you need is to listen, remember, ponder. It is like taking food. All you can do is to bite off, chew and swallow. All else is unconscious and automatic. Listen, remember and understand — the mind is both the actor and the stage. All is of the mind and you are not the mind. The mind is born and reborn, not you.”

He also said, “Forget the known, but remember that you are the knower. Don’t be all the time immersed in your experiences. Remember that you are beyond the experience ever unborn and deathless. In remembering it, the quality of pure knowledge will emerge, the light of unconditional awareness.”

And, “The more earnest you are at remembering what needs to be remembered, the sooner will you be aware of yourself as you are, for memory will become experience. Earnestness reveals being. What is imagined and willed becomes actuality — here lies the danger as well as the way out.”

What is to be remembered? “The ‘I am’. Give your heart and mind to it, think of nothing else.”

And one final instruction from Nisargadatta Maharaj: “Just remember steadily what you want, and reject the incompatibles.”

These quotes are the heart of today’s reading. First, contemplate these quotes, and then read today’s reading from NTI. Put your heart into the contemplation and the reading, and you will experience great profit, which brings me to another Nisargadatta Maharaj quote:

Remember that you are.
This is your working capital.
Rotate it and there will be much profit.

A Parable of a Woman and Five Daughters

There was a woman who had five daughters. Each of her daughters loved Disney, so one day the woman surprised her daughters with a day of Disney fantasy. She let each of the girls dress like the Disney princess of her choice, and she took them to Disneyland. This was especially fun, because other people at Disneyland addressed the girls using the names of their characters. For example, “Do you want fries with that, Cinderella?” Also, “Please slide over, Princess Jasmine, to make room for another rider,” and etcetera.

When the woman and her daughters arrived home that evening, each girl ran off in a different direction, continuing to play the character she’d pretended to be all day. Since each of the girls had a smartphone, the mother sent a group text to her daughters, which read, “Please take off your costumes and become my daughters again. When you’ve returned to yourself, join me in the kitchen for strawberry shortcake and milk.”

The twins were the youngest daughters. They were six. They helped each other change out of their costumes quickly and easily. They arrived in the kitchen first, giggling and smiling, excited to eat strawberry shortcake.

The eldest daughter was thirteen. She was excited to get the text that promised strawberry shortcake, but then she became distracted by another group text with friends. It was half an hour before she finally took off her costume and joined her mother and sisters in the kitchen.

The next eldest daughter was eleven. She was dressed as Snow White. This daughter was particularly imaginative. She pretended that her mother, four sisters, the family dog and family cat were the seven dwarfs. She swirled down the hallway toward the kitchen in costume, hoping to have shortcake with the seven dwarfs. Her mother saw her in the hallway in costume and said, “When you are ready, come into the kitchen as my daughter, and you can have strawberry shortcake and milk.”

The next eldest daughter was eight. She was dressed as Sleeping Beauty. When she got home, she ran straight to her bedroom. She lay down on her bed and closed her eyes, pretending to be Sleeping Beauty, but she fell asleep and did not see her mother’s text. When she did not come into the kitchen, her mother sent the twins to look for her. The twins woke her up and relayed the message about strawberry shortcake in the kitchen. The little girl felt guilty for falling asleep and missing her mother’s text, but when she arrived in the kitchen her mother smiled and said, “It is as it is. Now let’s enjoy strawberry shortcake.”

With all of the daughters in the kitchen, the day of pretending was over. The woman thanked her daughters for changing out of their costumes, told her daughters how much she loved them, and they all enjoyed strawberry shortcake and milk together.

The End.

Today’s NTI reading is a gentle introduction to what can become a hard-hitting topic. I call it a “gentle introduction,” because anyone who is not ready to see what today’s reading points to can not see it in the reading. However, anyone who follows this path to its end will eventually come to the point of questioning every expectation and everything he has ever put faith in.

I am not going to rob you of the gentle introduction provided through today’s reading. One will arrive at “hard-hitting” when one is ready. All I want to do in this tip is highlight one paragraph:

Peace comes from laying down your expectations and your judgments and accepting truth as it is. There is no other way to accept the truth, for to accept it in any way other than as it is, is not to accept the truth. It is to accept delusion over truth, and in delusion, you are lost from truth.

There is a term that is used frequently these days. The term is “his truth” or “her truth,” as in, “She has to find her truth and live by it.”

The problem with that idea is this:

There is only one truth.
Anything other than truth is not truth.
It’s imagination.

Most people live by imagination. In fact, there is so much imagination in most people’s lives that I couldn’t begin to point it all out. Nor would I. Each one is allowed to live by his imagination. However, the problem comes when one person’s imagination conflicts with another person’s imagination, or when one group’s imagination conflicts with another group’s, or one nation’s with another nation’s imagination. The problem with imagination is that it isn’t consistent—it can be anything—and when it is heavily believed and invested in as if it is truth, it creates conflict.

Conflict comes from believing one’s imagination.
Peace comes from accepting truth as it is.

That’s why everyone who follows this path to its end eventually comes to the hard-hitting point of questioning everything she’s ever believed. You can begin that questioning whenever you are ready. Life will provide the starting point for you. Every time you are upset, you are provided with the opportunity to discover where you’ve mistaken imagination for truth.

Note: I recommend that you read Matthew 21 in the Bible before reading NTI today, since today’s reading refers directly to the stories in the Bible.

A Parable of a Woman and Five Sons

There was a woman who had five sons. All of her sons were comic book fans, so she took them to Comic-Con. Each boy dressed as his favorite comic book character and spent the entire day at Comic-Con pretending to be the character he dressed as.

When they arrived home that evening, each boy ran off in a different direction, continuing to play the character he’d played all day. As the woman walked through the house looking for her sons, she came across her youngest son first. She said, “Go into your bedroom and change out of your costume. When you are done, come into the kitchen for chocolate cake and milk.”

A few minutes later, the woman came across her eldest son. She said, “Go into your bedroom and change out of your costume. When you are done, come into the kitchen for chocolate cake and milk.”

The woman continued through the house in this way until she found each of her five sons, saying to each of them, “Go into your bedroom and change out of your costume. When you are done, come into the kitchen for chocolate cake and milk.”

The last son that the woman found loved cake the most, so he changed his clothes the fastest. He ran into the kitchen and saw a round chocolate cake cut into six slices. The boy said, “Mom, since I was the fastest can I have two pieces of cake?”

“No,” the woman said, and she gave her fast son one piece of cake and a glass of milk.

Next the eldest son came into the kitchen. He looked at the five remaining slices of cake and said, “Mom, since I am the oldest, can I have two pieces of cake?”

“No,” the woman answered, and she gave her eldest son one piece of cake and a glass of milk.

Two more boys came into the kitchen and the woman served cake and milk to each of them. Finally, the youngest boy came into the kitchen. He was only four years old, and so he had worked very hard to take his costume off all by himself. “Momma,” the youngest said, “Since I worked the hardest, may I have the extra piece of cake?”

“No,” the woman answered. “Each one of you took off your costume, so each one of you get the same amount of cake.”

Why didn’t the woman give the extra piece of cake to the fastest boy, the eldest boy or the boy who had worked the hardest? It is because each one was her son. The differences made no difference.

There are apparent differences among us. Some of us gain wisdom quickly. You could say we are fast, like the woman’s fastest son. Some of us have been on the spiritual path for many years. You could say we are the elders, like the woman’s eldest son. Some of us are very committed and work very hard at awakening. We are a lot like the woman’s youngest son. However, we are all already consciousness, so our apparent differences make no difference at all.

Today’s reading focuses on letting go of the differences we see in one another. That doesn’t mean that differences won’t appear. It means that differences are appearance only.

When we focus on differences, we focus on appearances as if they are reality. When we let our sight soften around differences, and we look for sameness—for the fact of each human, in which there is no difference at all—we open to reality.

(Before reading from NTI today, read Matthew 20:1-16 in the Bible.)