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FROM A SITE VISITOR: First off, thanks for your blog. I thought about some things you write about when I went to see the movie Doubt. I thought about how doubt had to come before I was willing to question anything. Before that, I never had any doubt at all that everything I was told by my preist and my parents was completely true. But I still have a few concepts lurking around back there that need to go. And just when I think they’re all gone, one will show up. Any advice? Please keep up your blogging. Chris
F.: Yesterday’s post ended with this pointer from the book FROM THE ABSOLUTE TO THE NOTHINGNESS:
Persons are so sure of all they believe. After being challenged to question it all and not being so sure, they nevertheless return to that state of being certain at the third step on the “path” after assuming religious or spiritual roles.
Many at that point think that they have found the “Advaita Understanding.” They have not. They have substituted one egotism-generating persona for others and have substituted several egotism-generating belief systems for another. They are mistaking the dawn for high noon.
The fact that you even mentioned “parents” and a “priest” likely suggests that some lingering effects from those three remain. As a result of their influence, there was a time (you admit) when you were so sure. You now report that doubt has come, but are you yet totally convinced that everything they told you was fiction…is fiction?
Has contradictory empirical data convinced you that it was all misleading nonsense? The fact that early on you were under their control and influence calls for this reminder: the sway of early programming and conditioning, especially by parents and by those among the clergy, can seldom be overstated.
The question for you is, are there yet vestiges of their early programming and conditioning? Are those the roots of the “lurking concepts”? Advaitin Douwe Tiemersma said in 1981 in the “Foreword” to I AM THAT:
There are various religions [that all] suffer from certain inherent limitations. They couch into fine-sounding words their traditional beliefs and ideologies, theological or philosophical. Believers, however, discover the limited range of meaning and applicability of these words, sooner or later. They get disillusioned and tend to abandon the systems, in the same way as scientific theories are abandoned, when they are called in question by too much contradictory empirical data.
Of course the times they are a-changin’, yes? In 1981, after the “rebellious ‘70’s,” Tiemersma’s point might have been accurate in suggesting that “believers…discover the limited range of meaning and applicability of these words, sooner or later and…get disillusioned and tend to abandon the systems.”
Now, with 6.5 billion “believers” on the planet, and with fundamentalism as well as radical fundamentalism dominating the major religions on the planet, and with so many pre-wired by personality to go along with and never rebel, then the voices of those calling for doubt or study or careful consideration or outright challenging of nonsensical, myth-based teachings are seldom heard.
And if they are heard, the words are dismissed not as having come via the pure consciousness but as having originated from some “dangerous atheist” or as “infidel deserving to die” or “an agent of satan.”
Those attached to dogma will seldom question what they are told but will willingly take on those who do challenge their beliefs. The few persons on the planet that are pre-wired to question (as mentioned earlier, about ½ of 1% of the general population), are often the targets of the wrath of “the faithful.”
This space called “floyd” at the age of six was flogged by a parent for asking in church Sunday school why it was bad for Hitler to kill some of the people on earth but okay for God to kill almost everyone on earth with a flood;
was flogged at eight when he asked a Sunday School teacher, “If there was Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel, and if Cain killed Abel, then who did Abel make babies with?”;
was flogged again at ten when he asked from the viewpoint of “Floyd the Son” why the best plan that god could come up with for “saving everybody” involved not saving his son but setting him up to be killed to save other people.
As in those cases, much of the nonsense that children hear is often questioned or at least found to be perplexing (such as “Thou shall not kill but it’s fine if god does”); however, the threat of punishment for lacking faith, combined with the promise of a reward for having faith, soon ends all questioning and doubt.
Furthermore, even when doubting and questioning become a part of the “journey,” delays can happen if there is piecemeal challenging of one insane concept at time. So many years can be consumed by that dismiss-one-insane-idea-at-time approach before realizing it’s all B.S and thereafter being done with it all, once and for all.
Understand that this “journey of doubt” that can trigger movement along the “path” to Full Realization is not one that the masses on this planet will welcome. Advaitins usually advise, “Keep it to yourself unless you are asked.”
Typically, there will be little tolerance for Advaitin pointers. Once Christ stopped sharing the Torah-based message and began to offer Advaitin pointers, tolerance for that speck certainly vanished. Even trying to discuss certain of these pointers will result in your being summarily dismissed by most Christians:
“When you speak of me, speak of me as I AM.”
“Before Abraham was, I AM.”
“No one shall ever see the kingdom of heaven; it is within.”
“Heaven and earth shall fade away.”
“I come not in peace; I come with a sword.”
“I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.” [All of that referring, of course, not to individuals but to personas.]
Are those pointers understood? Do you see how much of the confusion involving Christian dogma that you were taught by your "priest" could be eliminated if persons were offered those "gunpowder stage," Advaita-based pointers? Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
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RETREATS OR SATSANG w/ floyd ONE-ON-ONE, by TELEPHONE, by INTERNET CHAT ROOM, and via THE ADVAITA COURSE BY INTERNET (see link to right)
For details click ADVAITA VEDANTA RETREATS & SATSANG
or contact floyd by clicking CONTACT floyd
