Wednesday, August 23, 2006

REIFICATION and HYPOSTATIZATION: Humanity’s Most Popular Instruments for Perpetuating Distortion and Preventing Realization, Part Two

Table of Contents

Today's Considerations
Recent Posts and Archives
Tools for Realization
Author's eBooks
Author's Paperback Books
Free eBooks
F.: Examples of hypostatization often come from those who have fixated at the third of seven steps to Realization. One illustration of hypostatization can be found in the statement, “I can’t believe that a perfect, loving, all-powerful god that has created humans would put us here and not control us in order to prevent rape and murder and war and torture. It must be the fault of humans who are abusing free will and not the fault of any ineptness on the part of god.” Review the definition: “Hypostatization is the process whereby a conceptual entity is construed to be real and believed to actually exist. It inspires even intelligent persons to consider abstract concepts to be real.” One abstract idea that the speaker above believes to be real is that there exists “a creator-sustainer-destroyer god.” [Actually, that modern version of god came about when Abraham disputed the common belief of his day in multiple gods, including some that created, some that sustained, and some that destroyed. When he began to announce that "there is only one god," those who believed him said "Okay" and then merely rolled all those gods into one, resulting in the schizo god of Abraham that will create you, will sustain you if you have faith, but will destroy you and make you suffer pain and misery for eternity if he chooses.] So is that god in charge of sustaining or in charge of destroying or, dualistically, in charge of both? The speaker's inability to reason also inspires him to believe that an omnipotent god that supposedly has the power to stop rape, murder, war, and torture—but does not do so—is still “perfect”; thus, the speaker finds another object to blame, thereby enabling him to sustain the image he has of his god as being "loving" even as he allows his creations to suffer in spite of the fact that he has to power to stop the suffering...but doesn't. Other concepts include “all-powerful” which evolved into the concept of “Higher Power.” An abstract idea is given human traits and considered to have a real human-like form, right down to its male gender. Where humans have mentally created a god in their image, they claim that a god “created humans” in his image.

Another example of hypostatization can be found in the statement, “I believe that the universe is guiding me in all that I do.” Review the definition: “Hypostatization is the process whereby a conceptual entity is construed to be real and believed to actually exist. It inspires even intelligent person to consider abstract concepts to be real.” The “universe” can refer to “everything that exists.” Does everything that exists care about you? If some care that you live but some could not care less if you die, which determines your fate? The “universe” can also refer to “the sum total of all galaxies, suns, planets, outer space debris, and the mostly empty space in which they move.” Are galaxies and suns and planets and outer space debris and mostly empty space guiding you? How is that happening, exactly? If the galaxies were able to determine what you and all others do, would they? Why would planets and suns and mostly empty space care about you or about others or about anything? Only WHO’s care, and the universe is not a WHO. Of course the comment is usually spoken by those who are actually assuming religious roles but who want to appear to be "so evolved beyond religious people" that they no longer speak of “a male god” but talk in a way that they believe is more cerebral or spiritual. In fact, all WHO’S are false. WHO’s are the imaginary ego-states that are assumed by personas to define who they are. Their personas are the WHO's that have agendas and that care about their imagined desires and imagined fears. [The next time you're upset about something or someone, pause to ask, "WHO really cares about this?" and you'll find which ego-state is experiencing anger over some offense or slight.] Furthermore, a related type of reasoning fallacy, reification, also prevents Realization from happening.

Reification is the treatment of an analytic or abstract relationship as though it were a concrete entity. It is that which inspires persons to believe that an abstraction can actually have concrete or material existence. Some have spoken in this regard of the “fallacy of misplaced concreteness” whereby the abstract is mistaken for the concrete. Of course, all concepts about “relationships” are false, based in the dualistic notion that there is not One but that there are multiplicities of things and people and that “A” can relate to “B” rather than realizing that there is only “A,” really.
For example, “I am a husband.” Only in the most recent days of the 14-million-year history of human-like forms did humans dream up the concepts of “marriage,” “wife,” and “husband” (the concept of “marriage” and the accompanying roles having first been mentioned only recently in the annals of “human history”…around 1200 A.D.) In the quote above, see the fallacy of reification as an abstract concept (“husband”) is treated as if it were a concrete entity. The delusion is this: “What I looked at yesterday in the mirror and took to be ‘me’ before my wedding is very different from what I am seeing in the mirror today. Today, when I look in the mirror, what I really see now is...a husband.”
Further examples can be seen in all of the dualistic “relationships” that mark this culture: employee-employee; parent-child; the governors-the governed; the rulers-the ruled, ad infinitum. Are there dualities that you believe to be real? Are there personas that your culture has assigned to you that you have unquestioningly accepted as definitions of who or what you are? Do you speak of external, conceptual, abstract powers or forces as if they are real? Do you still believe in some supernatural entity and, in spite of its contradictory nature, still believe that entity can be real? Do you believe that an authority that would be willing to make you suffer forever is, at the same time, “loving you, unconditionally”? Are you identifying some fallacies in reasoning that have led you to take as fact the nonsense that you've been exposed to in your culture? Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be continued]

Recent Posts and Archives

Tools Used by Other Seekers of Realization

WATCHING an Advaita Vedanta Retreat: Watch a Downloadable computer file version of the Four-Day Advaita Retreat (Downloadable on PC only, not Apple.)

ENROLLING in the Online Advaita Classes For information, visit Information on the Advaita Classes on the Internet To enroll visit Enroll in the Advaita Internet Course

ATTENDING an Advaitin retreat with Floyd and being guided through all seven steps. For details of the retreats offered, please visit the retreat information site.

ARRANGING a one-hour session via Skype or telephone with Floyd. (Skype is a free service.) Click the button to pay and you will be contacted to arrange a date and time for the call.

Five Free eBooks

Compliments of Andy Gugar, Jr.,
the following eBooks are available without charge for you or for friends:

I.
"GOOD vs. EVIL?" or "IGNORANCE, STUPIDITY, and INSANITY?"

The content of this eBook deals with one of the most common but erroneous beliefs that the non-Realized masses cling to and which they will fight about (and even kill over), namely, that there is a planet-wide duel going on between “the forces of good and evil” in the universe.

Either (1) the ancient view is spot on: that the "ills of the planet" are rooted in evil people, in people not being religious enough or spiritual enough, and are caused solely by bad morality; or, (2) the "ills of the planet" are rooted in ignorance, stupidity and insanity and "being good" or "being moral" does not put an end to ignorance, does not eliminate stupidity, and does not treat insanity in any way.

II.
"THE VISION"

Comments regarding the free eBook entitled “THE VISION”:

“My thanks to you and Andy.” – Andrew “Mac” McMaster

“Thanks so much for the book! And, by the way, it is brilliant and the most effective pointing that you have done. It has served to help clear the remaining blockages.” – Stan Cross

“Greatly appreciate having “THE VISION” added to my Henderson resource library that is situated on the right side of my bed for easy access! Eternally grateful for what was received and what was given.” – Robert Rigby

“‘THE VISION’ is such a well-written, condensed version of the Nisarga Yoga approach to understanding and enjoying Reality that I feel it can serve as a must-read ‘meditation guide’ for all earnest seekers.” – Andy Gugar, Jr.

III.
"Sapolsky, Maharaj, and the Non-Dual Teachings"

Dr. Robert Maurice Sapolsky is an American neuroendocrinologist; a professor of biology, neuroscience, and neurosurgery at Stanford University; a researcher; an author; and a Research Associate at the National Museums of Kenya.

There is much that a non-dualist or Advaitin or Nisargan can relate to by comparing and contrasting what Sapolsky reveals about the way certain troops of baboons live in Africa with the way that humans abide all around the globe.

This 152-page eBook catalogues the common, non-dual message shared by Sapolsky and Maharaj and reveals the ways that Sapolsky’s scientific research supports the non-dual pointers offered by Maharaj.

IV.
Seeking

In “PART ONE” it will be seen that most persons on the planet are not seeking, and most will never seek, but for those who are seeking, most will face several obstacles:

In “PART TWO” of this book, it will be seen why many criticized Maharaj for “changing his message in his later talks.” It will be seen that the changes were not about changing the message per se as much as about changing his methodology as he experimented with one version of the Ultimate Medicine after another in order to try to find an effective means for addressing the Ultimate Sickness.

He tried a religious version of the Medicine, a Spiritual version of the Medicine, and finally settled on a version which addressed to Sickness at its core . . . at the mental and emotional level.

V.
"THE MOST DANGEROUS BELIEF OF ALL"

“Dangerous” is a term that can only apply during the relative existence, but of those who do commit suicide, for example, how many shoot themselves in the foot over and over until they “bleed out”? None. They shoot themselves in the head. Why? In order to try to stop the noise - to try to stop the chatter of a thousand monkeys – to stop the noisy mind which is the area that stores the ideas, notions, concepts, mind-stuff, etc. which drives them into the depths of insanity.

And what are those ideas, notions, concepts, etc. called, collectively? "Their beliefs." The irony? They are not their beliefs at all. They are the beliefs of “others” that were set in place via programming, conditioning, etc. and which persons then think are their own.

And what are those beliefs rooted in, and what reinforces those beliefs and convinces persons that they are sacred and worth fighting over and even sometimes worth dying for? Blind faith.

This 337-page eBook discusses those issues in detail.

To read any or all of the free eBooks, please double-click the "FREEBIES" link at the top of this page