TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
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THE RATIONALE FOR CHOOSING SCIENTIFIC FACTS OVER THE EMOTIONAL INTOXICATION GENERATED BY RELIGIOUS / SPIRITUAL FANATICISM:
While Religion and Science Are Not Always Incompatible, Logic and Reason and Wisdom Make Clear That If a Choice Between The Two Is To Be Made, Only One Choice Is the Sane Option
Here, "religion," "spirituality," "God," the "Son of God," the "Holy Spirit," "Buddha," "Krishna," etc., etc., etc.: are viewed as verbs, not nouns. See the end of the post for "THE EXPLANATION" of that.
Many speak of "consciousness" and of "the unicity" but have no clue what either is and what either isn't. Science can make both clear for some that . . .
awareness is potential energy, functioning as if "cage free" but not "aware-of" anything
and that . . .
consciousness is awareness-energy manifested within a space (such as within an elemental plant food body or plant or rock . . . whatever) and will only be "free" again after it leaves the confined of a space and then merges with the universal field of awareness energy where it will again not be conscious-of or aware of anything.
Szent-Gyorgyi: “What drives life is thus a little electric current, set up by the sunshine.”
How "put-offish" it is for so many seekers to hear that the consciousness and awareness which they have been seeking and lauding and even worshiping is nothing special, is nothing more than one of the many forms of energy in this universe. To understand them, the science behind them must be understood.
1. Some forms of energy are individualized but others are combinations of energy. For example, "radiant energy" is a combination of heat and light energy.
2. Also to be understood are the two categories of energy: kinetic and potential.
At the simplest level, awareness can be taken to be like kinetic energy, moving about in the forms of waves, but not manifested or confined into a particular and limited and limiting space; however, for the most part it is potential energy in that it has the potential to provide awareness-of something if manifested or confined into a particular and limited and limiting space (such as that which exists within a composite unity such as a the composite unities called "humans.") Humans, if realized, have the potential to be aware-of, especially aware of awareness.
That happens rarely, because that requires that it first . . .
a. manifest as conscious-energy within a particular confined and limited and limiting space (thus explaining the "combination" energy pointer: awareness-energy is manifested as conscious-energy but is not aware of itself at this point);
b. reach a point where intelligence is present (intelligence here meaning "the ability to understand");
c. see that while intelligence was developing, the effects of programming, conditioning, etc. were also being introduced and stored in the mind-part of the brain;
d. understand via intelligence that all of the fictional content stored in the mind is to be discarded;
e. discard any and every belief in all of that content;
and
f. then become aware of the original state prior to the manifestation of consciousness when it was in the form of awareness-energy which was not manifested and was, therefore, neither aware of nor conscious of anything;
g. then understand that the awareness of anything will end when the consciousness unmanifests and there is no longer any consciousness-of anything, either.
When consciousness is conscious-of - including conscious of and able to understand conscious-energy / awareness-energy, then the functioning of the totality of the universe is revealed, along with an understanding of the unicity.
For more on Bohm's pointer, the following interview which appeared at the end of the non-duality-based adventure / mystery novel entitled includes certain science-based pointers which can also explain or enhance the non-dual understanding.
[NOTE: In the interview, the term "True Self" refers not to a "pure witness" but to "pure witnessing." The term "Real Self" refers to any supposedly self-ness during the manifestation which is not any false self. At the most, what is real during the manifestation are the elements which form a space or body through which - among humans and non-humans "beings" - both air and conscious-energy can circulate. Note, too, that while Maharaj and I endorsed Self-Inquiry at one point, later self-inquiry - and finding via that process all that one is not - is now deemed to be enough. The following interview took place 15 years ago. For current perspectives, newer readings and posts on this site provide the different perspective which came to Maharaj and to me via newer understandings.]
EDITOR’S INTERVIEW (Part One) from the non-duality-based novel, The Twice-Stolen Necklace Murders
[In the novel, the author's namesake is "Kirk"; hence, the "K" during the interview.]
E.: Kirk, how is it that we get so lost, so separated from the Real Self and so identified with the false self or all the false roles?
K.: It only takes two stages to get trapped but three to get out, so most won’t get out. The first stage is ages 1-20, when we get conditioned, indoctrinated, programmed to accumulate, to get. Ages 20-40 we spend doing what we were programmed to do, repeating what we were programmed to say, and believing what we were programmed to believe. Most will go to the grave in that rut. To get out, we enter the third stage and begin Self-Inquiry. Some wake up enough to say, ‘This life is shallow, hollow, unfulfilling. There must be more. I don’t even know who I am—who am I?’ If they find their True Self, they begin to zen out and de-accumulate in the fourth stage. De-accumulation is the mark of one becoming free of the programming. After that, one can live AS IF, as if this life is the real, and can then enjoy whatever remains of this life, free for the first time—free of educational indoctrination, free of spiritual indoctrination, free of religious indoctrination, free of political indoctrination, free of economic indoctrination. Free. Independent. Period.
E.: We have a chance through this novel about your son’s murder to see how your freedom came. How can the readers’ realization, and thus their freedom, come?
K.: By realizing that there is no duality. There is no false self or false selves as opposed to the Real Self. The Real Self is all there is. The labels we accept, the roles we play, are the very constraints that imprison us. Consider this, please: if you work during the week and are off on the weekends, and you have a job that is very challenging, even draining, then you might experience something like the following. On Monday, your alarm goes off. You unthinkingly shut it off. Just gaining consciousness, you know ‘I am.’ The knowledge of existing in this body begins to come to you. As you awaken more, you remember you are ‘The Employee,’ and you have to get up and leave the comfort of your bed, your room, your house or apartment, and go off to play that role and to try to meet all the expectations and demands that come with having accepted that role and believing it is you. Quickly, the ego will promote you to ‘Super Employee,’ and eventually you’ll be convinced you’re not getting the money or the respect you deserve. Frustration will build as a result of accepting that role. You take things personally, for you are playing a persona, a role, accepting a false identity. If you get fired, you might feel as if you’re dying. To exist, ‘The Employee’ must have a job. Your very identity seems challenged, so your very existence seems at stake.
Watch the news and see what happens when people lose what is required for their false identities to exist: some get fired and go back and shoot up the workplace; ‘husband’ dies when ‘wife’ leaves, for husbands cannot be husbands without wives. Assuming the identity of ‘husband,’ soon promoted to ‘Super Husband,’ then ‘Super Wife’ is required for his very existence. He’ll fight with her when she does not act like a super wife. If she leaves, ‘husband’ is finished. Thinking he’s under attack or being killed by her actions, he shoots her. People see it nightly on the news and just say, ‘He went nuts.’ Well, the insanity did not manifest with her leaving.
It manifested when a man in a robe pronounced ‘You are now husband’ and he bought into that. Human-like beings walked the face of the earth in varying states of male-female partnerships for 7.5 million years before anyone dreamed up the concepts of ‘marriage,’ ‘husband,’ or ‘wife,’ along with all the other labels that religious leaders dreamed up to identity those who did not play strictly by their system: ‘prostitute,’ ‘bastard,’ ‘whore,’ ‘illegitimates,’ etc. Isn’t it interesting that the ‘noble’ role of ‘wife’ and the ‘degrading’ role of ‘whore’ both came from religion?
And in this culture still dominated by Anglo men, one label can set a person up for life while the other label can ruin a person for life. We criticize cultures that make women cover themselves with berkas, yet some in this culture cover the women with labels. And the same happens with men as well. So covered, we end up not having a clue who we really are underneath all the labels. Roles, always dependent on something else or someone else in order to exist, leave vulnerable those who accept cultural labeling. Accepting a label as an identity always leaves one living in fear, in misery, in perpetual desire and need.
Consider that same ‘employee’ we spoke of earlier, now on a Saturday. No alarm goes off. The awakening comes slowly. As one gains consciousness, one knows ‘I am.’ Then, the fact that it’s Saturday settles in. One does not have to go to work. One does not go into the mode of ‘The Employee’ but rolls over in bed and enjoys just being there. To stay in the ‘I am-ness’ prevents accepting false roles and identities.
To stay in the knowledge that ‘I Am, period’ allows one to relax. Free of that false identity for the day, one remains in the ‘I Am,’ in the ‘Is-ness’ only, and thus at ease. That same mindset, seven days a week, will allow the perpetual peace and the constant ease to manifest. That person is not playing the role that day, is not trying to meet expectations and demands, and is free and feels free. What he is really free of is accepting the label.
How many who consider themselves to be a man or a woman are really nothing more than a bundle of concepts and labels and identities assigned by this culture? Is it any wonder that most, before making it to the grave, will wonder “Who am I?” or will state flat out, “I don’t even know who I am”?
To be free is to be free of the false identities that jerk us around and jerk around the people in our vicinity who allow our role-playing and role-demands to impact them. Once we come to know Who We Really Are and stay in the ‘I Am’ state, we accept no false roles as identifiers of Who We Are, no false labels as identifiers of Who We Are, no dependencies as a result of believing we are what we do.
We can take that knowingness into each day of the week, and perform tasks AS IF we are that; but knowing we are not that, we do not attach to the roles, we do not fear for loss of our very existence, we do not have the co-dependencies that always come with ego-states or false identities.
I have been attacked as being an ‘Anti-Christ’ or even ‘THE Anti-Christ.’ In fact, I speak of exactly what Christ spoke of when he said, ‘When you speak of Me, speak of me as I AM’ and when he said ‘Before Abraham was, I AM.’ How many preachers or priests have ever explained that I AM? How many even have the slightest clue what Christ meant? How many know that Moses plagiarized the phrase ‘I AM THAT; I AM’ which had been discussed in the Far East for tens of thousands of years and was discussed in the Middle East in the days of Moses?
Where did he first hear it before writing it down? Who taught Christ the teachings of non-duality, of the ‘I-Am’ message during the ‘Lost Years’ in his life before he began passing it on in his thirties? It does not matter. It matters only to know that the teaching existed long before either Moses or Christ were ever conceived and born. Am I anti-Christ? Hardly. I am anti-distortion, I am pro-truth. Those who refuse to admit that he was teaching an old, established advaitic message of non-duality are the ones teaching something opposed to what Christ was really trying to get across to his listeners.
To be at peace, reside in the ‘I Am,’ alone, but know this too: That Which You Are is not the ‘I am-ness.’ The ‘I Am-ness’ is temporary. When the consciousness leaves the body, the body form ends permanently. Asleep, you do not know that you are, right? So it is when you merge into the Absolute state of What You Really Are. The body loses consciousness, the body returns to dust, the breath joins the universal air, but the universe does not ‘lose’ consciousness. Consciousness-energy cannot be destroyed, any more than it was created. It IS.
E.: Tell the readers the difference then in the manifest state, in our case as energy-consciousness manifested in human form, and the Unmanifest state which you call ‘That.’
K.: While manifested, I AM; I Am energy-consciousness that happened to ‘find’ its way into a human form via plants eaten, plants turned into sperm cells, sperm cells that fertilized an egg, etc. The same manifesting happens in non-human forms, but energy manifested is energy manifested, period. The energy-consciousness in an acorn knows how to make a forest, eventually. All manifest forms have energy-consciousness. A bird is quite aware that ‘It is,’ so it knows the ‘I Am.’ And it knows that its existence, its ‘I-Amness’ or consciousness, can be ended by dangerous humans or by other creatures, so it flies away to try to protect its ‘am-ness’ when threatened.
After the threat disappears, it returns to normal behavior. It holds no grudges or resentments since it is playing no role. It knows only the ‘I Am,’ so it truly is as free as a bird. My friend the heron is a Master of Living, and that all happens effortlessly for him since he has no ego-states to maintain, no ego to defend, no false roles to ‘protect.’ We can be Masters of Living when we model his example. He does not know he is a heron. It is a label someone provided for him. He does not accept it, so he is not limited or frustrated or defensive or offensive. He just IS.
These are the bars of the prison of the thinking mind: ‘I am a spouse’; ‘I am a worker’; ‘I am a boss’; ‘I am a parent’; ‘I am a homeowner’; ‘I am a lover’; ‘I am a Christian, Muslim, Jew, etc.’; ‘I am a spiritual person’; ‘I am a good person’; ‘I am a bad person’; ‘I am a supporter’; ‘I am an alcoholic’; ‘I am a member,’ etc., ad infinitum.
This is the tool of the working mind that will cut away the bars of the thinking mind and free you: ‘I Am.’ No words follow that phrase. Just the two words only. Not ‘I am . . . a husband’ and not ‘I am . . . a wife,’ but only ‘I Am.’ You need do no exercises; you need attend no meetings; you need read no books; you need give no money to anyone or anything for this truth and to remain at peace.
Once you sit with these words, and understand them fully, and give up all body identifications and false roles and false ideas and false dogma, you are done. You know that You are not this body. You know that you are not this mind, for it is their mind, not yours, filled with their teachings and beliefs adopted by you, but not yours. Know that; then, their ideas are abandoned and your work ends. Living fully begins.
I offer to help no one get anything; to the contrary, I destroy all. Most people—because of programming—want to get, to accumulate. My invitation is to get rid of, to de-accumulate. Do not get; rather, get rid of. Begin by getting rid of ideas and concepts that were ‘theirs,’ never yours to begin with. That beginning also becomes the end—the end of suffering, of worry, of fear, of co-dependency, of attachment. That is what was meant when a certain piece of advice was offered in the religious or spiritual writings of many groups in the past (it did not appear only in the Christian Bible but had been written in many books prior): ‘Hate your father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters and, yes, even your own life.’ That means, hate the labels and role-playing of ‘father,’ ‘mother,’ etc. A man once admitted to My Teacher that he attached himself (his false self) to his family and wife and children. My teacher answered him by saying, in so many words, ‘Your ego-states are so entrenched through your concepts that when you recognize your True Self, fear manifests and you return to those concepts and roles again to define who you are.’
Peace comes when we give up all roles and identities, knowing that we are not this body. Only then can we give up all attachments. As long as we focus on what we think was a ‘loss,’ (an ‘ex,’ for example) then we cannot be open for a ‘gain.’ Believing we lost love when we lost only an illusion of love, we cannot receive True Love when it is offered.
Once we see that all ‘loss’ is an image of our wrong perceptions, then even the loss of one’s own life becomes inconsequential. Does that mean you become suicidal? Hardly. It means you live life fully, unattached, unencumbered, anchorless, tied to no docks. You are free—free of their ideas and their teachings that cause such anal conduct and restrictive living. At one time in an Oriental culture, the practice was to bind the feet of women so that they could not grow.
The process left many crippled and in pain. In W.A.S.P. societies, the mind is bound, so it cannot grow. And that binding leaves many crippled and in pain. I offer to remove the binding. All can be set free, if they but see that their bindings are made of the concepts of an insane culture. I suggest that each ask: ‘Isn’t it time to live?’
Is it not time to live freely, freed of all of the restrictive, controlling, anal dictates of a very old set of Aryan values and beliefs that have a long, arduous history of failure in personal relations, in community relations, in national relations, and in international relations? The change begins with each individual, becoming aware of the lack of growth and the crippling, painful effects of her or his false beliefs. One individual at a time can receive awareness of the false . . . and become free.
Only the ship with no restricting anchor sails freely. The ship attached to a dock goes nowhere. My heron friend has no strings attached. It goes where it pleases; it goes when it pleases; it goes how it pleases; or it does not go at all, and that pleases it too. For now, in this manifestation, he is perfect peace, with form and shape; consciousness, with form and shape; energy, with form and shape. So Am I. So are You. Ultimately, he is That—That Which He Was, Is, and Shall Be. No duality.
E.: Can you give the readers a hands-on analogy of this energy-consciousness as it applies to us?
K.: OK. Let’s consider electrical energy, ‘resting,’ ‘dormant’ at a plug. You cannot see it. You cannot know it is there except to be told by someone who knows. Or you can be shocked and know that some power unseen is present.
I know, so I can tell people what I now know about manifested energy-consciousness, but I usually don’t, because most will not care to know. To be awakened can be shocking also, and who wants to wake up, really, much less be shocked in the process! Ha. They killed Christ because he broke the advaitic rule: ‘share this message privately, not in public.’ They’ll kill you for challenging them to question their programming, their ‘values,’ their ‘faith,’ their ‘beliefs.’
The Orthodoxy has always reacted violently, bloodily, towards those who challenge their beliefs. Say that something is a part of one’s ‘religion’ and it gets a free ride in this society. If a major corporation perpetrated the same harms done to people by the religions in this world, the company headquarters would be shut down tomorrow morning, surrounded by pickets and protestors and rock throwers and legal teams to boot.
Back to the analogy you asked for. Energy must have something through which to manifest if its presence is to be observable. We do not create energy, but it can be channeled; it can manifest through forms. So let’s take a blender and plug it into the outlet. With energy pulsating through it, the blender does what it was programmed to do.
That operation of the blender, its ‘doing’ something, can continue if the energy is present and if the earth elements from which the blender is made do not corrode, rust out, and return to the earth some day. But one day the blender will no longer physically exist. It will decay, as will your body and mine. The oxygen whipped through the blender will rejoin the pool of oxygen. The earth elements will rejoin the pool of earth elements.
The energy remains and will rejoin the field of consciousness, the Unmanifest, though ‘at rest’ until manifested into something else. In fact, it may never manifest again. Or, it might be manifested in a blender or through something else next time it is manifested. This does not mean that grandma becomes a cow. Grandma’s form, once gone, is forever gone.
Dust does not re-accumulate into some prior form with the brain / mind of that form also re-occurring. Please. Give me a break. As far as humans go, know this: when manifested, I AM; when unmanifested, I AM THAT. So Are You. No end; no beginning. No destruction; no creation. Eternal cycling, or not.
To be continued.
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Here, "religion," "spirituality," "God," the "Son of God," the "Holy Spirit," "Buddha," "Krishna," etc., etc., etc.: are viewed as verbs, not nouns.
THE EXPLANATION
If looked at as nouns, they point to illusions and are, therefore, a total waste of time to even discuss; if looked at as verbs which are resulting in certain sane but rare behaviors among humanity, then they are worthy of some attention during the relative existence.
Meaning? There are members of certain groups who say things such as "My concept of God in the past was of a weak God, an absentee God, A Santa Claus-type God, a mean, punishing, vindictive God, etc. Today, I am in close contact with a loving and caring God whom I worship and praise and glorify and give thanks to."
The reply to that usually goes like this: "If you are in contact with a God that wants to be worshipped and praised and glorified, then you're dealing with someone like yourself - a narcissist - and hanging out with narcissists will never bring an end to your narcissism. Next, in the phrase 'loving and caring God,' any supposed God that truly had her or his act together would tell you that the totally irrelevant part of that phrase is 'God' and that the only part to be focused on should be the 'loving and caring' part.
"That is, a non-narcissistic god / goddess would say, "I care not an iota about being worshipped and praised and glorified by you or anyone else. How arrogant and insecure and needy would I have to be to want that? Forget the man-made, dreamed up noun 'God' and focus on the 'God as a verb' understanding and then go forth and let loving and caring be verbs - not adjectives - and let them generate the act of love and the act of caring and let those actions manifest through you."
