Wednesday, October 15, 2008

IGNORANCE AND LEARNED IGNORANCE AT PLAY: Citing and Believing Phony “Evidence,” Part Three

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FROM A SITE VISITOR: Why do you say that truth cannot be spoken? (I do not disagree--just do not understand.) thank you Patty


F.: Yesterday, the pointer was offered that those who assume positions of authority then use those positions to talk—to disseminate their beliefs and concepts and ideas as if they were truth. Actually, nothing could be farther from the truth than statements, especially statements made by those assuming an ego-state (such as "The Authority") as an identity.


Why? Because an ego-state is false, so anything being spoken from the platform of a false identity must necessarily be false as well. Evolving from the authoritative personas discussed yesterday is a related source of untruths and ignorance, namely, the concept of “faith.”


B. FAITH

Royalty has long demanded that subjects have unquestioned faith in their dictates, as have political leaders and members of the police and the military. So, too, have judges and priests and popes and preachers and imams and rabbis also demanded faith without question.


All of them want you to unquestioningly accept any and all of their pronouncements as truth, but the Realized know that truth cannot be spoken; therefore, their words which ask you to accept their proclamations on the basis of faith alone must be expressions of deceit:


“If you don’t support this war I want us to fight, we’ll all be killed. Take my word for that…trust our intelligence.”


“You don’t know what I know, so trust me…it really is necessary that we fight in Vietnam, in The Falkland Islands, in Nicaragua, in El Salvador, in Grenada, in Iraq, ad infinitum.”


“Their fighters are acting dishonorably, but you should support our troops who conduct themselves exactly as they should. You’re not here, so just have faith in what we report from the battlefield.”


“We are fighting over there to protect our nation so that you can be free.”


“The people who fought the British when they invaded us were ‘patriots.’ The people who fight the U.S. when we invade them are ‘rebels’…‘radicals’…‘insurgents’.”


“Trust me…I hate war, but we must kill them if we think they might attack us.”


“All of the countries I have named are enemies of our nation…trust me on this.”


“We have the obligation to spread our capitalistic economic system and our democratic system of government throughout the world. The world will be a better place when everyone is like us.”


“We are only here to serve and protect. That’s all we do.”


“We didn’t abuse that man we arrested. Trust us on this.”


“She died in our custody but we’re not liable. We did everything we could to prevent that from happening.”


“We had no other choice—we had to shoot him.”


“There is a heaven and there is a hell, and only faith in our born-of-a-virgin savior can guarantee you eternal respite in the former while saving you from eternal pain and misery in the latter.”


“Only the Shi’a sect is a legitimate faith.”


“Only the Sunni sect is a legitimate faith.”


“The members of that religion are the enemy. Have faith in our religion.”


“The members of that sect are the enemy.”


“The members of that other denomination are the enemy.”


“The devil is the enemy.”


“When we speak in tongues, it’s not just gibberish—believe me.”


“Our religious ceremony purged her of any and all influences of witchcraft.”


“The sooner we have all-out war in the Middle East, the better. It will set the stage for our savior to return.”


“If you wear our religion’s special underwear, the garment will protect you from harm.”


“The spirits of thetans (space aliens) are stuck in our bodies and must be removed. Trust us on this one.”


“The thetans are here because millions of years ago, the Galactic Federation of seventy-six planets had an over-population problem so their leader Xenu brought some beings to earth, blew them up with hydrogen bombs, and packaged them. It is their spirits that now live in our bodies.”


“The E-meter our religion uses can locate areas of concern inside your body and mind.”


“A woman can get pregnant and still be a virgin. Believe me.”


“A man can live inside a fish for three days. Believe it.”


“A god that got so angry that he killed everyone on earth except for the members of one family nevertheless loves all of his children unconditionally. Believe it.”


“We had no idea our priests were sexually molesting so many people—trust us on that.”


“God is pleased with you when you give us money.”


“All people in my court are treated equally, believe me.”


“Our nation dispenses justice equally and fairly.”


“We believe that all men are created equal.”


“This country was founded as a Christian nation, and that’s the Gospel truth.”


“The earth is only about 6000 years old. We have the numbers in our holy literature to prove it, so believe it.”


To the contrary, no Realized Advaitin will ask you to believe anything. Nor will he/she claim to be able to tell you the truth, nor will you be asked in satsang to have unquestioning faith in pointers, nor will it ever be suggested in satsang that one group is better than another, nor will it ever be suggested in satsang that ancient myths, superstitions, fables, or any other bits of nonsense are true.

AND THEN THIS FROM SITE VISITOR GINNY: Wittgenstein said: “The limits of my language are the limits of my mind. All I know is what I have words for.” “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”

dear floyd,

The past few days of blogs have got me going on this for whatever reason. Maybe the issue that so many get stuck on is the very dualistic notion in the western “mind” that what cannot be said cannot be seen (or understood) and yet we in the western "mind" allow so much of "our" Christian thought to be paradoxically, “the great mystery”. Bodily resurrection? Virgin birth? Transubstantiation? “I can't explain it, it is a mystery.” “You just have to accept it.” And most of the western world is OK with that.

Why then is it so hard to swallow the statement when Consciousness asserts, “I say that truth cannot be spoken because truth cannot be spoken.” This word “truth” may be an issue too. Here is the difference to “me”, and i hope that my use of language allows this to be stated clearly. HA!

When for years i heard and accepted the “mystery” of many of the religious “truths”, there was always the lingering doubt...call it a “feeling” that there was more to it. Now i “know” there was less. Once all the concepts were questioned and disintegrated there was no going back. i now understand when you say that once realization occurs, all just IS. It is the turn, once taken... Notions like “Paradox” and “Mystery” have themselves disintegrated into That which cannot be stated because It is fundamental to, and presently beyond, the language capabilities of limited specks of manifestation. It yet remains assuredly known. Whew, love, g

Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
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