Wednesday, May 21, 2008

THE “HEAVEN-HELL” DEBATE: How Religion Has Always Generated Dualistic Beliefs, Part Six

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An Advaita Vedanta realization, enlightenment, nisarga yoga site discussing non-duality (nonduality), your original nature, and dwelling in the natural state as revealed by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.

FROM A SITE VISITOR: Hey Floyd, I love your site!! Well, I was programmed by catholicism and I'm still having trouble realizing that there is no heaven/hell... I still have a fear that I may create my own hell or that there might be a hell.. How can I deprogram myself from this fear? Are you positive there is no hell?? peace and love alex

F.: Has there ever been clearer evidence of why these non-duality, no-concept teachings are so relevant now (relatively speaking) when the effects of programming and conditioning and enculturation have left so many persons so far removed from logic and reason (that is, blocked from living in a nisarga [natural] manner that is neither illogical nor unreasonable)?

Maharaj said that science would one day advance to the stage that scientific facts would be available to prove the validity of these teachings. That day has arrived, but what does that avail the population of the planet when…

…87% in the U.S. think that "good" people who die will sprout wings and become half-bird-half-human entities and that those invisible manifestations of former “bodies” are hovering over them, guiding them, and protecting them?

…when even presidential candidates admit proudly that they do not believe in evolution?

…when billions believe that the earth is only 6000 years old?

…when billions believe that a virgin can become impregnated and deliver a baby and yet remain a virgin?

…when millions believe that a cataclysmic war in the Middle East would be “a good thing,” paving the way for the return of a man whose plant food body dis-integrated 2000 years ago and returned to the pool of elements from which it temporarily formed?

…when millions more think that their bodies will remain in tact forever, allowing the post-manifestation period to be a sex orgy if they die while killing people who refuse to join their religion?

…when millions of persons think that what they eat can make them more or less “spiritual”?

…when, generally speaking, a population walks the planet today that is just as ignorant as the people who thought eclipses and droughts were the result of an angry god?

…and when someone called “a Dalai Lama” believes and reports that a hurricane destroyed an American city because of the “bad karma” of the people there, after which millions unquestioningly take him at his word?

The same level of illogical thinking in those examples also generates the dualistic thinking that leads programmed persons to report that “I am good and he/she is bad” or “We are good and they are bad” or “We are the greatest nation on earth but they are ‘an evil empire’ or members of an ‘axis of evil’.”

All of that dualistic thinking sets the stage for the breaking of relations during the relative existence; for the experiencing of a false but seemingly real sense of separation; for being trapped in fear (and thus easily manipulated by leaders labeling themselves as “religious”); and for a belief that it is the responsibility and the right of the “good” nations to attack “evil” nations.

Of course the fact is that religions did not dream up duality. As today, arrogant, controlling persons who assumed religious or spiritual roles determined what they believed to be “good or bad” and “right or wrong”; then, they codified their beliefs into the dogma that became the foundation of the pagan religions which eventually evolved into the current religions.

Yet it is the modern religions, along with current religious-political leaders, who quite effectively perpetuate the duality that was dreamed up by those earlier ignorant men.

To be exposed to nonsense from the age of childhood to the age of adulthood disengages all ability to behave in a reasonable and logical fashion, results in the unquestioned belief in nonsense, and leaves persons with no ability to recognize nonsense when it is being thought or heard or stated.

As an example of the latter, consider the question submitted to this site that asked above, How can I deprogram myself from this fear? Would you ask how Pavlov’s dogs could deprogram themselves?

A programmed person cannot de-program himself/herself, yet there is a way that de-programming can happen. [Tomorrow, information about “deprogramming” will be offered since that is at the heart of the Advaita teachings.] Please enter into the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
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