TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
Here, the "blank tablet" or "Tabula rasa" notions have been discussed, often in reference to the fourth step on "the path" where seekers shift beyond all personality identifications and beyond belief in all concepts and ideas and perceptions and perspectives which have been taught and which have become a part of the body of "learned ignorance" which is passed down from one generation the next.
"Tabula rasa" refers to that part of the philosophy shared by many - including Plato, Kant, Nietzsche, Buddha, Confucius, Averroes, John Locke and many others over the millennia - setting forth that infants are "born" without any built-in content and that all knowledge comes from "experience" or "perception."
[The exception: certain archetypal images which are passed along genetically.]
Consider:
Computers come pre-loaded with an operating system and with data storage capability (a.k.a., "storage" or "memory") which allows humans to retain data and information on their computers and then to retrieve it at some point in the future.
With computers, the data can be stored on hard drives or on external memory devices.
With humans, there is the region of the brain known as the limbic system which includes the hippocampus, the amygdala, the cingulate gyrus, the thalamus, the hypothalamus, the epithalamus, the mammillary body and other organs, many of which are of particular relevance to the storing of data and the processing of memory.
Similarly, humans arrive with an operating system, specifically, a brain stem which controls breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, etc. and with data storage and retrieval capability, but - as is the case with a computer - it is up to humans to decide what data is to be accumulated and stored and available to be retrieved.
The same applies to humans except with humans, the information which is accumulated and stored and available to be retrieved is not determined by the individual with the brain where information is being stored but is determined by "authority figures" who are loading a child's brain with information during its early years.
With computers, one's data can be corrupted if, say, a virus is introduced. A computer virus is a software program which is "malicious," meaning its purpose is to cause the computer to malfunction in some way. In the case of computers, the programmers / jackasses who come up with viruses and spread them via the internet are conscious of the fact that they are intending to screw people over royally;
in the case of humans, however, the people introducing viruses into the minds of children actually think they are "helping" them by placing what will prove to be harmful data into the data storage part of the brains of children.
[By the way, "authority figures" / programmers / jackasses will continue the process of introducing viruses into the minds of children even after they reach their adult years, and the only way to stop that process is to unplug the connection which links one to those "authority figures" / programmers / jackasses.]
With computers, the greatest threat, as noted above, is called "a virus"; with humans, the greatest threat (to peace, to clear seeing, to efficient functioning, to being free of distortion, etc.) is called "the Ultimate Sickness."
Whether talking about data saved inside a computer or data saved inside a human mind, one overriding rule applies:
Garbage in; garbage out.
When someone boots up a computer with a virus, they might see that it is slow to startup; that it runs slowly; that something which they are trying to tap into is missing; that they cannot access valuable data that has been stored there and that they are only coming up with valueless nonsense instead; that error messages are coming up (which they often ignore in their panic as they keeps trying to get the computer to do what they want it to do); and that their computer eventually crashes and burns and will not function at all.
The same happens with humans who have been infected with the Ultimate Sickness.
but there is a rub: with their computers, humans can literally feel sick to their stomachs when they realize that their computer has been infected.
Yet when their minds have been infected, they do not know it and do not care.
If their computer is exhibiting the effects of "garbage in, garbage out," they hate that; if their lives are exhibiting the effects of garbage in, garbage out, they normalize that and do not care.
A virus in a computer is in full control, and the same is true of the corrupted data which has been stored in a mind via corrupted and corrupting programming, conditioning, domestication, acculturation, brainwashing and indoctrination.
With humans, the abnormal norm nowadays is the blind acceptance of garbage in, garbage out, of nonsense in, nonsense out.
And the greatest, most influential nonsense nowadays involves the nonsense which drives persons to focus on what they deem to be "the eternal afterlife or existence" after a brief "relative life or existence."
Here, funerals are seldom attended. Over the last eighteen years, there was a presence at only two: one in 1999 for he who was called "father" and a second in 2014 for she who was called "mother."
At the 1999 funeral, a minister conducting a Christian funeral said, "Earth to earth; ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."
And the Christians there nodded in agreement and then many accepted the invitation to walk past the casket after it had been lowered into a hole in the ground, grab a handful of dirt from the nearby pile, and toss it onto the coffin. Why?
As a final reminder, once more, of the key points being offered: "Earth to earth; ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."
Yet those nodding in their sleep ignored the message and left with the perspective / the belief that some part of what was now in the coffin has already escaped "the surly bounds of earth" and had gone to wherever that escaped part of good men and women go.
To heck with the fact that the one they call "Their Savior" said, "No one shall ever see 'the kingdom of heaven. It is within'."
Never mind that they had just been presented with the salient fact that the process of manifestation involves earth elements coming together spontaneously, forming a temporary composite unity (a.k.a., in that case, a "human") spontaneously, and then spontaneously coming apart.
And the attendees at that funeral (along with the masses in general) ignore the fact that they have heard many times, "Earth to earth; ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return"
but were told neither . . .
. . . "Earth to - heaven or hell"
nor
. . . "Ashes to - a kind of gauzy, filmy, transparent, ghostly soul or spirit forever"
nor
. . . "Dust to - an Infinite Self."
Yet how many of the trillions of composite unities which have come together and come apart were driven by the fear of an afterlife of eternal punishment and flame and pain or by the desire for an afterlife of eternal reward? How many spent hours and days and months and years in prayer to get an afterlife reward? How many have given away monetary fortunes in an effort to try to buy their way into an eternal reward? How many have closed their businesses on their "holy day" and forfeited 14% of their potential income?
How many have used special rugs and special candles and special crystals and burned incense and used a special bowl on a special pillow and struck the special bowl with a special mallet or wore special saffron robes or special crosses around their necks or eat only special food and ring special bells or bow five times a day toward one particular direction on a compass or wailed at a special wall or went on a special pilgrimage to a special place deemed to be holy or even paid someone $5000 to teach them how to breathe?
How many have raged "You ignorant, stupid, insane jackasses" at the persons who infected their computers with a virus but have willingly, joyfully, and lovingly accepted the word of the persons who infected their minds and inspired them to engage in the nonsensical practices above?
Winston Churchill said of the Nazis who were bombing the U.K. and other Western European nations during World War II: "Never was so much owed by so many to so few." The perspective of "the realized," looking back over the history of humanity, might lead to their offering this consideration:
"Is it possible that never has so much been owed by so many who have been fooled throughout the ages by the few whom they listened to and believed?"
Abraham Lincoln said: "You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time." The perspective of "the realized," looking back over the history of humanity, might lead to their offering this consideration:
"Is it possible, after seeing what persons have been willing to believe throughout the ages, that it is clear that "You can fool all the people some of the time, and you can fool some of the people all the time and, in fact, you can fool damn near all the people all the time"?
It is the failure of the masses to understand "the nothingness" as well as what is - and is not - "beyond the beingness and non-beingness" which has set the stage for persons to waste an entire relative existence; to ennoble suffering now in deference to get a reward later;
to forego pleasure throughout an entire relative existence; to be driven by fear and desire throughout an entire relative existence; to give away a fortune during an entire relative existence; and to be fooled throughout an entire relative existence.
More on that tomorrow as well as why - of all the different perspectives being called for - a perspective which differs from that which the masses hold in regards to "the purpose of this life" and to "theie concepts about an afterlife" might well be the most freeing, liberating, emancipating perspective of all, relatively speaking.
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
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