From a site visitor: [Received 10 June 2007] Today you said history shows religion leads to separation and judging and even killing. That’s not true. For me, my religion leads to peace and power. I stay in conscious contact with Him with prayer all day, every day, and He empowers me and gives me guidance and peace so I can be happy for as long as by His grace I am allowed to live. I hope you can find your way to Him so that you can have peace in this life and joy forever. Signed, John (as in 3:16)--A Child and Agent of God
F.: It is suspected, John, that the “cutting the roast in half” example from yesterday was not especially relevant to you; therefore, a second example with be provided to show that, while you think you’re making conscious choices around your religious practices, you really don’t have a clue about what you’re doing or why you’re doing it. Your “Lord’s Supper” or “Holy Communion Service” will serve as an example.
While you probably believe that the roots of that ceremony go back to one particular meal 2000 years ago, the origin really goes back much farther. And while you believe that ceremony goes back to one special meal on the night before a crucifixion, the body-blood ceremony was a common ritual being practiced for thousands of years before Christ, was being practiced by many in Christ’s day, and was being practiced by many others in various cultures.
And while you likely believe that the ceremony involved the symbolic consumption of body and blood, it really involved the literal consumption of body and blood throughout most of its history. Here’s the true origin of one of the key elements of your “worship service” which is discussed in greater detail in SPIRITUAL SOBRIETY (Recovering What Religions Lost):
The first communion centered on a woman—not on a male savior. A group of starving people faced death—their crops needed rain. They needed “saving.” A self-appointed medicine man/priest, claiming that he had been spoken to directly by an angry God who was withholding rain, reported to the crowd that the male god could be appeased if only he could have a virgin.
So the priest, being the self-appointed rep of god on earth, would be the one to have her. He called for volunteers, but no females stepped forward. Several fathers did step forward, however, more than willing to make a sacrifice to god for the good of all, and especially their own good since the priest asked neither for a son-warrior nor for a son-worker, but only for one of the many daughters, considered culture-wide to be of far lesser value than males.
Therefore it came to pass that many girls found themselves being pushed forward by their fathers. The priest chose one, then took her into the temple and had his way with her, brought her sobbing body out front, placed it on a make-shift stone altar, and cut from her the beating heart within.
He then ate the body and drank the blood and then passed her heart among the crowd, inviting all to do the same. For centuries after that, worship services had three elements used by people trying to feel “At One” with god and neighbors: sexual acts, vampirism, and cannibalism. Eventually, most religions evolved into talking about being at one with god and neighbors. Now, some drink pretend-blood and eat pretend-body during their communion services. Other Christians believe that, after the priest performs his act of transubstantiation, they are drinking real blood and eating real body, just as the ancients did in their original ceremony.
So there you are, John. Those are the roots of the “Communion Service” or “Lord’s Supper” that you still re-enact to this day. Review what happened then to understand what you are actually doing today: a man who chose to “enter into the ministry” informed people that…
1. there is a god in another world that is controlling things in this world, right down to when and where it rains…or not;
2. the priest told his followers that god could get angry at times (revealing that god cannot control his emotions and that he is co-dependent since the way he feels depends on others, on humans);
3. the priest also told the people that god wants sacrifices made to him, that he wants to be worshipped, and that he wants women—and eventually all persons—to dedicate themselves to him, including “body and heart and mind and soul.” (That description would likely fit any woman’s idea of the “nightmare husband from hell,” but it is the very concept of the god that is worshipped by six billion people on the planet today);
4. then the self-appointed priest told people that god wanted someone killed, and that he wanted people to have a worship service, and during that service he wanted people to eat the body and to drink the blood of the person killed.
Remember the words of Maharaj in this regard:
F.: It is suspected, John, that the “cutting the roast in half” example from yesterday was not especially relevant to you; therefore, a second example with be provided to show that, while you think you’re making conscious choices around your religious practices, you really don’t have a clue about what you’re doing or why you’re doing it. Your “Lord’s Supper” or “Holy Communion Service” will serve as an example.
While you probably believe that the roots of that ceremony go back to one particular meal 2000 years ago, the origin really goes back much farther. And while you believe that ceremony goes back to one special meal on the night before a crucifixion, the body-blood ceremony was a common ritual being practiced for thousands of years before Christ, was being practiced by many in Christ’s day, and was being practiced by many others in various cultures.
And while you likely believe that the ceremony involved the symbolic consumption of body and blood, it really involved the literal consumption of body and blood throughout most of its history. Here’s the true origin of one of the key elements of your “worship service” which is discussed in greater detail in SPIRITUAL SOBRIETY (Recovering What Religions Lost):
The first communion centered on a woman—not on a male savior. A group of starving people faced death—their crops needed rain. They needed “saving.” A self-appointed medicine man/priest, claiming that he had been spoken to directly by an angry God who was withholding rain, reported to the crowd that the male god could be appeased if only he could have a virgin.
So the priest, being the self-appointed rep of god on earth, would be the one to have her. He called for volunteers, but no females stepped forward. Several fathers did step forward, however, more than willing to make a sacrifice to god for the good of all, and especially their own good since the priest asked neither for a son-warrior nor for a son-worker, but only for one of the many daughters, considered culture-wide to be of far lesser value than males.
Therefore it came to pass that many girls found themselves being pushed forward by their fathers. The priest chose one, then took her into the temple and had his way with her, brought her sobbing body out front, placed it on a make-shift stone altar, and cut from her the beating heart within.
He then ate the body and drank the blood and then passed her heart among the crowd, inviting all to do the same. For centuries after that, worship services had three elements used by people trying to feel “At One” with god and neighbors: sexual acts, vampirism, and cannibalism. Eventually, most religions evolved into talking about being at one with god and neighbors. Now, some drink pretend-blood and eat pretend-body during their communion services. Other Christians believe that, after the priest performs his act of transubstantiation, they are drinking real blood and eating real body, just as the ancients did in their original ceremony.
So there you are, John. Those are the roots of the “Communion Service” or “Lord’s Supper” that you still re-enact to this day. Review what happened then to understand what you are actually doing today: a man who chose to “enter into the ministry” informed people that…
1. there is a god in another world that is controlling things in this world, right down to when and where it rains…or not;
2. the priest told his followers that god could get angry at times (revealing that god cannot control his emotions and that he is co-dependent since the way he feels depends on others, on humans);
3. the priest also told the people that god wants sacrifices made to him, that he wants to be worshipped, and that he wants women—and eventually all persons—to dedicate themselves to him, including “body and heart and mind and soul.” (That description would likely fit any woman’s idea of the “nightmare husband from hell,” but it is the very concept of the god that is worshipped by six billion people on the planet today);
4. then the self-appointed priest told people that god wanted someone killed, and that he wanted people to have a worship service, and during that service he wanted people to eat the body and to drink the blood of the person killed.
Remember the words of Maharaj in this regard:
First of all you identify something as being good or bad for yourself. Then, in an effort to acquire good or to get rid of the bad, you have invented a God. Then you worship such a God and ... you pray to that God for something good to happen to you.
And, John, the masses back then unquestioningly believed every word of the fiction that was dreamed up by their religious/spiritual leader, just as you're doing today. More significantly, note that the worshippers did not have faith in god at all. Instead, just as today, they had faith in a priest who dreamed up some lethal nonsense and shared it with a very gullible audience. And most today are just as gullible, just as misguided, and just as deluded and self-deluding as that audience thousands of years ago. Why? Because even today, religious and spiritual persons profess to have “faith in god” but really have faith in the humans who claim that they're sharing religious and spiritual knowledge with people.
When a leader says he “talked to God and God told him to bomb another nation” and 50% of the population believes that, they are not showing faith in god but are showing faith in that man. When an imam says that he talked to god and god wants his followers to blow up themselves and others and they believe him, those followers are not showing faith in god but are showing faith in that man. And when a rabbi says that god flooded the entire planet and killed every human, save the members of one family, they are not showing faith in that killer god but in the man who repeated that ancient pagan tale in what they take to be a “holy text.”
And now thousands of years later, John, you are engaging in the same bloody “sacrament,” thinking that you’re participating in a ceremony that is making you “closer to God” while actually re-enacting a brutal, sadistic ritual that was dreamed up by a sociopath/priest and that was blindly participated in by unquestioning persons of “faith” who were led to believe that there was a god who wants people to “make a sacrifice” (or, later, “give a tithe”).
And amazingly, John, when you were likely told as a child at church to “be quiet and drink your blood and eat that body,” the insanity of that instruction did not shock either you or your parents who were guiding you through that process. Such is the blindness—and numbness—that results from programming and conditioning, and such is the reason that the members of the three religions of Abraham are fixated with blood:
the Jews tell their tales of the blood of the lamb and the blood smeared over the doors during Passover and the Nile turning into a river of blood; the Christians display Christ bleeding from the head, from the side, from the feet and from the hands and claim they are drinking his blood regularly; and Muslim men beat themselves with chains and spikes in order to bleed on their “holy” days. Is it any wonder that members of those three groups are responsible for more blood-letting nowadays than any other source? Blood is at the very core of the religious programming that influences them more than any other beliefs they have.
Again, religion can serve as a step along the path to Realization, but if that stage is not transitioned, it will trap persons in systems of beliefs that can drive them to re-enact homicidal rituals that included elements of cannibalism and vampirism; it can inspire the invasion of lands and can lead to the decimation of 150,000,000 indigenous peoples in a “Manifest Destiny”-driven effort to establish “a Christian nation that will serve and honor God”; it can inspire persons to strap on bomb vests and blow up others who have different religious or sectarian beliefs; and it can inspire a leader to claim that he heard a voice telling him to drop bombs on another nation.
So it must now be asked, John: you wrote that if persons find the way to that god of yours, then they can have “peace in this life and joy forever.” The evidence to the contrary is extensive. What fact-based evidence can you present about religion leading to peace? On the “journey,” religious and spiritual knowledge was sought and attained but brought no peace or joy. Peace and joy came when the Advaita Teachings led to freedom from accumulating religious and spiritual knowledge (also know as, “learned ignorance”) and when de-accumulating in all ways took place, including the discarding of religious personas and spiritual personas and finally being free of all false, assumed roles. Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
THE FEATURED ITEM FOR THIS WEEK’S SALE IS THE MEDITATION SET: Daily Meditation Guides, Volumes One and Two (15% off the price of the set through June 24th.)
When a leader says he “talked to God and God told him to bomb another nation” and 50% of the population believes that, they are not showing faith in god but are showing faith in that man. When an imam says that he talked to god and god wants his followers to blow up themselves and others and they believe him, those followers are not showing faith in god but are showing faith in that man. And when a rabbi says that god flooded the entire planet and killed every human, save the members of one family, they are not showing faith in that killer god but in the man who repeated that ancient pagan tale in what they take to be a “holy text.”
And now thousands of years later, John, you are engaging in the same bloody “sacrament,” thinking that you’re participating in a ceremony that is making you “closer to God” while actually re-enacting a brutal, sadistic ritual that was dreamed up by a sociopath/priest and that was blindly participated in by unquestioning persons of “faith” who were led to believe that there was a god who wants people to “make a sacrifice” (or, later, “give a tithe”).
And amazingly, John, when you were likely told as a child at church to “be quiet and drink your blood and eat that body,” the insanity of that instruction did not shock either you or your parents who were guiding you through that process. Such is the blindness—and numbness—that results from programming and conditioning, and such is the reason that the members of the three religions of Abraham are fixated with blood:
the Jews tell their tales of the blood of the lamb and the blood smeared over the doors during Passover and the Nile turning into a river of blood; the Christians display Christ bleeding from the head, from the side, from the feet and from the hands and claim they are drinking his blood regularly; and Muslim men beat themselves with chains and spikes in order to bleed on their “holy” days. Is it any wonder that members of those three groups are responsible for more blood-letting nowadays than any other source? Blood is at the very core of the religious programming that influences them more than any other beliefs they have.
Again, religion can serve as a step along the path to Realization, but if that stage is not transitioned, it will trap persons in systems of beliefs that can drive them to re-enact homicidal rituals that included elements of cannibalism and vampirism; it can inspire the invasion of lands and can lead to the decimation of 150,000,000 indigenous peoples in a “Manifest Destiny”-driven effort to establish “a Christian nation that will serve and honor God”; it can inspire persons to strap on bomb vests and blow up others who have different religious or sectarian beliefs; and it can inspire a leader to claim that he heard a voice telling him to drop bombs on another nation.
So it must now be asked, John: you wrote that if persons find the way to that god of yours, then they can have “peace in this life and joy forever.” The evidence to the contrary is extensive. What fact-based evidence can you present about religion leading to peace? On the “journey,” religious and spiritual knowledge was sought and attained but brought no peace or joy. Peace and joy came when the Advaita Teachings led to freedom from accumulating religious and spiritual knowledge (also know as, “learned ignorance”) and when de-accumulating in all ways took place, including the discarding of religious personas and spiritual personas and finally being free of all false, assumed roles. Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
THE FEATURED ITEM FOR THIS WEEK’S SALE IS THE MEDITATION SET: Daily Meditation Guides, Volumes One and Two (15% off the price of the set through June 24th.)
WORKING ON BEING FREE OF RELIGIOUS PROGRAMMING AND DOGMA?
