Monday, May 26, 2008

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

Table of Contents

Today's Considerations
Recent Posts and Archives
Tools for Realization
Author's eBooks
Author's Paperback Books
Free eBooks

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.: Finally, it has been suggested that you consider the essence of the nisarga yoga approach which invites you to (1) distinguish between the natural as opposed to the unnatural and the supernatural that come about post-programming and post-conditioning and to (2) allow the remainder of the manifestation to happen in a natural manner.

If you would dwell in that natural state, even during the manifestation, that can only happen if you understand Your original nature and function as that/THAT. Few will ever dwell thusly, being trapped instead in a “mind” with a propensity for supernatural and unnatural thinking and living.

(Many also face the added complications of a fractured mind, personality disorders, and body anomalies that contribute to emotional and mental and spiritual intoxication. They are not likely to ever Realize).

For those who would live naturally, understand that the supernatural and the unnatural cannot be separated. They are one in the relative. To be programmed with supernatural teachings (that is, religious and spiritual teachings) and to be led to believe that the religious or spiritual state is the final goal of the “journey” will leave persons trapped in their religious and spiritual personas and role-playing, as far removed from the True Self as ever.

To know that I am the Absolute and that You are the Absolute (and to know that the Absolute is beyond both this beingness and even the non-beingness) is to be enlightened…is to understand. To live unnaturally or supernaturally or spiritually or religiously is to be in darkness…is to not understand.

Ironically, functioning in the unnatural and supernatural roles of “The Religious One” or “The Spiritual One” is a requirement on the “path”; that is, playing religious or spiritual roles is a “step” along the path away from body identification and to Full Realization. However, the religious or spiritual steps are bogs where most fixate and which most never transcend. Why?

Because “The Religious One” or “The Spiritual Giant” are upgrades of the basic illusions of persons, because they are taken to be “good” labels, and because they are taken to be assurances of rewards both now and forevermore.

Convince six billion people that such is the case and the possibility of freeing even a fraction of them from their delusion is nearly impossible. Yet occasionally, one seeking the “path” might cross the path of one who has already traveled the “path” along which the seeker would go.

If that happens, a difference can occur, but it only occurs during the relative existence. Then, the last line of these three lines from poet Robert Frost will apply to the relative:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

What is that difference? The difference is a relative existence marked not by ignorance but by understanding; not by chaos but by stability; not by strife but by accord; not by conflict but by harmony; not by living supernaturally and unnaturally but by living naturally;

not by being unaware of any truth but by understanding the functioning of the totality; not by darkness but by light; not by belief in duality but by understanding the unicity.


As for the one whose e-mail is the basis of this series: considering the volume of questions you have raised subsequent to your original query, and considering how much attention you want, your choices now (as far as this speck of consciousness is concerned) are to (1) find an Advaitin teacher and work face-to-face with that teacher, (2) read the entire series of Advaita books offered here beginning to end, or (3) join the seekers who are currently enrolled in the online course available through this site.


Other than those opportunities, along with the answers already provided in this series and submitted for your consideration, nothing more will be offered to you here or via e-mail. Please enter into the silence of contemplation.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION ON THIS TOPIC:

  • Click IT’S ALL BULLSHIT
  • and

  • Click SPIRITUAL SOBRIETY
  • and

  • Click WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE?
  • and

  • Click THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS “PEACE OF MIND” (There Is Only Peace If You’re Out of Your Mind)
  • and

  • Click LIBERATION
  • 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