TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
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(More tomorrow on the way that Grandmother's influence eventually inspired the willingness to begin "The Journey" and to follow the "path.)
Of the non-dual understanding which Maharaj offered, what might explain why he initially estimated that "only 1 out of 100,000 will ever get this" but later said that "only 1 out of 1,000,000 will ever get this" and eventually - after decades of working with seekers - modified that guesstimate to "1 out of 10,000,000"?
Consider the enormity of the obstacles which one who works for 20 or 40 or 80 years with seekers of the non-dual understanding will witness:
Obstacle #10: Cultures
A "culture" is variously defined as:
"The customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group."
"The characteristic features of everyday existence (such as diversions or a way of life) shared by people in a place or time."
"The set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution or organization."
"The set of values, conventions, or social practices associated with a particular field, activity, or societal characteristic."
"Acculturation" is variously defined as:
"The cultural modification of an individual, group, or people via their adapting to or borrowing traits."
"The process by which a human being acquires the culture of a particular society, starting from infancy."
"The process of adopting the cultural traits or social patterns of another group."
"The learning of the ideas, values, conventions, social practices, and behaviors which characterize a social group."
Some who move from one culture to the next report significant levels of psychological distress and other mental health issues, such as depression and anxiety, which are linked to their problems tied to adaptation and acculturation.
What fewer are in touch with occurs among those who have not moved from one culture to another but who have been raised in one culture since infancy but still have problems linked to acculturation.
Personality Type Fours (such as Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, Johnny Depp, Bob Dylan, Vincent Van Gogh, Jim Morrison, Edgar Allen Poe, Henry David Thoreau, James Taylor, and J.D. Salinger to name a few) often have or had major problems with acculturation.
Type Fours are often the rebels in a culture. Their BS Detectors are armed from early on, so they spot the prevalent nonsense in their cultures and reject it. They are pre-wired to require proof rather than faith, to question authority, and to be less likely to "go along to get along" as so many other types do.
They are often considered to be "too intense" or "too different" or even "contrarians" by the conformists in their cultures and are often not satisfied with being dismissed by others in their culture who say, "That's just the way it is," responding, "Indeed, that is the way it is in this culture, yet it need not be so."
They are often expressive, artistic, authentic, and introspective. If psychically healthy, they will often prefer the solitude; if psychically unhealthy, they tend to isolate.
Being more compassionate than some other types, they are more likely to be sensitive to the feelings of others as well as their own feelings. If realized, they feel but do not emote. They appreciate beauty of all kinds.
Most of all, they do not suffer fools gladly.
As trying as much of that can be, it is no less trying them those who unquestioningly buy into all parts of the acculturation process to which they are exposed and try to conform, impress their fellows, develop the same popular false images of their peers, "go along to get along," become traditionalists, ultra-conservative, anti-progress, and are haters of change and growth; they model others in order to be accepted, will seldom ever seek authenticity, and will prefer form over substance.
They will accept the nonsense in their culture without ever seeing that it is nonsense. If they are raised in a culture where white supremacy and racial and national exceptionalism are believed to be based in fact, they can become supremacists and xenophobes.
One historical example happened in Germany in the 30's and 40's when a man from Austria moved there and began telling those people that they were members of a superior race. He spoke of eugenics, explaining that there was "scientific proof" that their genes were superior to that of the members of darker and non-Christian races. The result of that acculturation: six million Jews were killed in gas chambers and burned in ovens, along with six million others who were murdered because they were homosexual, physically deformed, or mentally disabled.
Or,
those types can be like Dylann Roof (a white supremacist and white nationalist). They might become willing - as he did - to kill blacks simply because their skin is black. Such is the sway of acculturation.
How does acculturation have such a pervasive sway?
Most persons are conformists. Fifty percent of all persons are Type Sixes, the types who believe that authority should never be challenged. Only 1/2 of 1% of the people on planet earth are Type Fours who are pre-wired to challenge authority and to question and to reject so much of what cultures hold dear.
consider: soybeans are of considerable value and trade on the commodities market because of the versatility of their use in making prepared foods. They have this property which accounts for their value: they take on the flavor of whatever they are placed next to:
Want to use them as filler in frankfurters? No problem,. They'll take on the flavor of frankfurters. Want to use them to make breaded foods? No problem. They'll take on the flavor of breading and the foods which they are coating.
The point: Most persons are like soybeans. They take on the flavor of - that is, they assume the ways of - those whom they are around in their culture.
Whereas Type Fours can be fearless, Types Sixes, (again, 50% of the earth's population) are driven by fear and anxiety and are quite willing to let the authorities in their culture do anything they want as long as they can assuage the fears of the masses (fears which those leaders usually stoked in the first place).
Acculturation is one of what is called here, the "Six Scourges of Humankind" (programming, conditioning, domestication, acculturation, brainwashing, and indoctrination).
Those who look at the overall effects of acculturation objectively will understand why it is consdiered a "scourge."
To be continued.
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