TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
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CONSIDER:
"Heaven and hell are not geographic places but are states of mind, nothing more than concepts dreamed up by men."
-- Pope John Paul II
"There is no hell."
-- Pope Francis, the current pope
[in an interview with journalist Eugenio Scalfari]
"No one shall ever see 'the kingdom of heaven.' It is within"
and
"Heaven and earth shall fade away."
--Yeshu'a (Jesus)
Here, with those who are still driven to talk about "God," the "Son of God," the "Holy Spirit," "Buddha," "Krishna," etc., etc., etc., the invitation to them is to view those as verbs, not nouns. See the end of the post for the full meaning and implications of that.
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
So, Maharaj’s bottom-line on religion has been seen: “Take all of the pictures of your gods and deities and put them in the sea."
So too has his bottom-line on spirituality been seen: “Stop reading (the 'spiritual classic') I AM THAT and listen to my later talks”
and
“Give up spirituality.”
And his bottom-line on “SELF-Inquiry” has also been seen: “You do not need to find the answer to ‘Who am I?' It is enough to find out who you are not.”
In the U.S. each year, 59% of all women killed are killed during the break up of their relationships with their “lovers” or “husbands” or “partners” or “spouses” or “mates” or whatever roles the men whom they were involved with had assumed as real identifiers.
What Maharaj and the wisest sages before him understood is how amazingly the tenor and tone of the relative existence would be altered if only persons were freed from belief in their
personality identifications and freed from living under the influence of the hidden agendas of their assumed personas or ego-states which subconsciously drive the thoughts and words and actions of every human on the planet who has not addressed the issues which evolve from their nonsense-filled minds, minds filled with nonsense and "ignorance and insanity" as a result of ignorant and insane programming and conditioning and acculturation and domestication and indoctrination and brainwashing.
Consider how different the relative experiences of those woman killed annually would have been if no one had been taught to accept false identities as real and if no one believed that personality identifications such as “lover” or “partner” or “spouse” or “mate” were real.
The reason that Maharaj urged visitors to move on to the fourth step if they had become fixated at the third of seven steps on the “path” from identification with the false “I” to understanding the unicity and being freed of the key symptoms of the Ultimate Sickness (which he identified as “ignorance, stupidity, and insanity”) was this:
It is at the third step where religious and / or spiritual roles are played, and the belief by those role-players is that their roles are “good” and that other roles are “bad” or “not as good.” How can anyone move beyond duality and their dualistic thinking patterns if they have not moved beyond the belief in “good vs. bad” people and beyond the belief that there is a world that is dominated by “good vs. bad” forces or that "this is a world where good and evil forces are at war"?
Maharaj understood that it is "ignorance and stupidity and insanity" which drive persons' thoughts and words and actions. He understood that the issues of humankind are far too complex to be explained away by simply concluding they are caused by "bad" people or that they are a result of "evil forces at work in the world."
To that end, Maharaj informed seekers that “self-inquiry” (the process whereby persons can see that the "selves" which they have been assigned and assumed are false) is enough. He saw that “SELF-Inquiry” – when it leads persons to accept a new, assigned Identity or to adopt a new Identity which is even beyond “good” or “great” and is believed to be “Supreme” – also leads to a level of arrogance based in a sense of different-from-ment and a sense of better-than-ment.
He saw that the level of that type of arrogance is gigantic (as in “Spiritual Giantism”) when compared to the arrogance generated by the self-concepts which come with believing that false selves are real.
Recall his words: "Only that person will visit this place whose virtue and sin have come to an end."
Did Maharaj . . .
kick people out of the loft whose thoughts and words exposed the false selves which they were playing,
or . . .
did he kick people out of the loft whose thoughts and words exposed the fact that they had arrogantly assumed the false SELF Identity of Someone or Something that is of a supposedly “Supreme” nature?
When a visitor exposed a false-self persona, Maharaj address that and tried to make clear that the role being played was not real. When a visitor exposed a false, Supreme-Self Persona, Maharaj wasted no time in sending them down the stairs and out into the street.
He realized over the years that he might be able to change the perspective of those trapped in “commonplace” identities, but experience showed him that he was not likely to have any such effect on those trapped in a supposedly “uncommon” or “extraordinary” or “special” or “exceptional” or “supreme” role.
Recall, too, that he said those types with a self-concept of being "virtuous" were also the ones who were going to be blind to their “hypocrisy” which is “extraordinary” and “exceptional” and “supreme” (the lip service given to their "humility" and "unassuming nature" notwithstanding). Maharaj never bought into any identity or Identity, no matter how “good” or “bad” his culture considered any identity or Identity to be.
So why did he say that “self-inquiry” instead of “SELF-Inquiry” would be enough? "SELF-Inquiry" can lead to a belief in a "Supreme Self." Consider what “supreme means”:
“Supreme” = “the highest in rank or authority, paramount, sovereign, and chief”;
and
“of the highest quality, degree, character, and importance”;
and
“that which is the greatest, the utmost, the most extreme, and the ultimate."
Really? That’s what some take their “You” or "Self" to be? And believing that about a “Self” is preferable to any other beliefs about a “self” or “selves”?
What an irony: The very process which is supposed to eliminate all sense of "you-ness" and "You-ness" and arrogance and egotism has been warped into a process which now reinforces a sense of "You-ness" and which expands arrogance and which inflates egotism.
In the end, the closest that Maharaj came to anything either “supreme” or “Supreme” was maybe . . . supreme disgust, specifically, supreme disgust with any and all arrogance and conceit and haughtiness and a sense of superiority and a sense of being supreme and pride and self-importance and condescension and superciliousness and every other trait or attitude or belief which reinforces a sense of duality and which generates a sense of different-from-ment and better-than-ment.
To be continued.
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Here, with those who are still driven to talk about "God," the "Son of God," the "Holy Spirit," "Buddha," "Krishna," etc., etc., etc., the invitation to them is to view those 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 (that narcissism evidenced by the fact that you think you are "godly").
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."
Yeshu'a (Jesus) and Pope John Paul II and Pope Francis were spot on:
"No one shall ever see 'the kingdom of heaven.' It is within"
and
"Heaven and earth shall fade away."
and
"Heaven and hell are not geographic places but are states of mind, nothing more than concepts dreamed up by men"
and
"There is no hell."
