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 CONCLUDING THAT "IT'S TIME TO TRY 'A DIFFERENT ROUTE' WHEN SEEKING A SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEMS OF HUMANITY BECAUSE THE ACTUAL RESULTS OF FOLLOWING THE MOST POPULAR ROUTE FOR 5000+ YEARS HAVE PROVED INEFFECTIVE
(Continued from earlier posts regarding the rationale for seeking the non-dual, nisargan understanding.)
Humanity has survived because of two key factors: (1) luck and (2) practical behavior.
LUCK
Most humans nowadays can recount one or more incidents which constituted a "close call" or a time when they "were nearly killed" or "nearly died."
Similarly, thousands or hundred of thousands of years ago, some earlier human or human-like being or human ancestor had a close call and almost fell off a cliff as others with him did not fare so well. They fell to their deaths, but he survived and went on to breed, and many humans are alive today only because of his luck and the subsequent chain of breeding which that long ago "survivor" triggered.
He refused to follower the others and join them in walking on the loose rocks on the side of a cliff, rocks which gave way with their combined weight and cast them all off the side of the cliff where their bodies were dashed to pieces on a rocky shoreline far below.
PRACTICAL BEHAVIOR
Other chains of survival, marked by the opportunity to breed and to reproduce, happened because someone was more practical than her or his fellows and did not engage in unnecessary, life-threatening, unnatural, impractical, illogical, irrational, unsound, insane, and / or insensible acts.
Originally, humans had a brain but no mind. After evolution resulted in the human brain expanding from its earlier 1-cup size to its present 3-1/2-cup size, sections of the brain evolved into existence which had the capacity to store and retrieve information. Those parts form what is not called "the mind."
Originally, the mind operated in a fairly natural, practical, logical, rationale, sound, sane, and sensible manner, rendering it an asset to humanity. After being exposed to myths and lies and superstitions and nonsense, which was all stored in the mind as well, the mind lost its asset nature and became the liability which it is today.
The accumulation of knowledge, (a.k.a., "learned ignorance") along with ideas, concepts, notions, perceptions, thoughts, designs, plans, schemes, impressions, images, memories, opinions, views, theories, inklings, and all sorts of other dreamed up nonsense (all of which can be summarized with one word . . . "beliefs"), led humans to engage in unnecessary, life-threatening, unnatural, impractical, illogical, irrational, unsound, insane, and / or insensible acts.
Eventually, the most influential (and most detrimental) beliefs came from controlling leaders and / or ideologies and / or philosophies and / or institutions and / or dreamed up bodies of dogma and / or notions about "things supernatural"; nowadays, those beliefs have led to the presence of varying degrees of obstacles which either hinder, impede or totally prevent humans from behaving in a natural, practical, logical, rationale, sound, sane, and sensible manner.
Thus, most seeking nowadays usually involves supposedly supernatural things (which are actually unnatural things). Over the years, after asking, "What are you actually seeking?" the answers have included:
"a way to avoid eternal punishment or to guaranteed eternal rewards." In other cases, some have reported that they "are seeking to accumulate a vast wealth of knowledge; perfection; purity; love; admiration; a way to move far away from 'the madding crowd'; peace; happiness, security;
"support; an ability to escape; power and / or 'a Power' and control; an ability to dissociate from anything deemed to be painful or hurtful or troubling; some 'Infinite Self' or 'True Self' or 'Real Self' or some other 'Supreme Self' or 'The Highest Form of Selfness'."
I have asked that question for nearly thirty years, and what no one has ever answered is, "I am seeking the ability to live consistently in a natural, practical, logical, rationale, sound, sane, and sensible manner."
The invitation here is to ask, of all of the things listed above which person have said they are seeking . . . .
How practical or natural is it ask some other-worldly power to "bring peace to you" or "bring peace on earth" when he that power - for eternity - has allowed chaos and war and disease and rape and assault and abuse and torture and killing in "His, Her / Its Name" to flourish and to reign supreme?
How practical or natural is it to think, to believe, that what they are seeking can be found if they can only hear enough of the ringing which comes when a supposedly special metal bowl, sitting on a supposedly special pillow, is struck with a supposedly special stick?
Or might the case be that there is nothing practical or natural about those who wear special clothing or special robes or special jewelry or special adornments; or who burn specially-scented sticks; or who ring special bells; or who chant special chants or hum special hums; or who visit special temples or special geographic sites; or who collect and display pieces of crystal in special ceremonies conducted on special days; or who eat special diets?
Or might the case be that it is neither practical nor natural to bow on special rugs and in one special direction on the compass and to do that five times a day to pray; that it is unnatural to collect trillions of dollars to build thousands of opulent edifices where persons can gather and worship their supposed Savior (ignoring the fact that the one they claim to be worshiping and following said that poverty is preferable to focusing solely on wealth accumulation)?
And might the case be that it is neither practical nor natural for men to castrate themselves when told to do so by their cult leader in order to prepare themselves to rendezvous with a spaceship that will whisk them away to heaven, a spaceship that is traveling along behind a comet in order to remain out of view of all of the other people on planet earth; or that it is unnatural to drink poisoned Kool-Aid because their cult leader told them to do so?
And might the case be that it is neither practical nor natural to go to "houses of worship" on a daily or weekly basis and to be very noisy; that it is unnatural to listen to sermons offered in a language which one does not understand; that it is unnatural for English-speaking seekers to pay $10,000 to go to a retreat in South America where the retreat is conducted in Spanish, (and even though the ones going to those retreats do not speak a word of Spanish, they have assured me afterwards that they "know what is being said, basically");
And might the case be that it is neither practical nor natural to jabber and natter and chatter and babble and prattle in order to make sounds which worshipers claim are evidence of their members' ability to "speak in unknown tongues" which evidence "the presence of the Holy Spirit within"; or that it is unnatural to wallow about and flounder about and roll around on the floor in their "holy" buildings to prove to observers by way of their rolling and dancing and shaking and other boisterous movements that they have "truly fallen under the influence of the Holy Spirit"?
And might the case be that it is impractical and unnatural to wear special, supposedly holy, supposedly protective underwear; or that it is unnatural to roll about on leftover food; or that it is unnatural to use "E-Meters to detect spiritual impediments"; or that it is unnatural to believe that in order to supposedly be free of their sins, persons must slaughter a chicken onto which their sins have supposedly been transferred?
And might the case be that it is impractical and unnatural to dress up as a humanoid bird and allow oneself to be hanged by the use of hooks through the skin; or that it is unnatural to drop one's children fifty feet from atop a mosque and allow other worshipers below to catch their children in sheets, supposedly to ensure the health of the children?
And might the case be that it is impractical and unnatural to worship relics which include what is supposedly a piece of the cross on which Christ was crucified or which include what is supposedly the foreskin of Christ which was saved and is now hermetically sealed in a gold and glass tube or which include what is supposedly the shroud which the body of Christ was wrapped in after his crucifixion (which has been shown by radiocarbon tests to have been fabricated about 1300 years after Christ died)?
And might the case be that it is impractical and unnatural to conduct exorcisms to evict demons or other evil, spiritual entities from a person or place which those demons are believed to have possessed or taken control of; or that it is unnatural to baptize the dead into one's religion because they believe that unmarried females cannot enter into heaven unless married to a male in their church who can give them the secret code name which they'll have to use to be pulled through the veil into a new world where males, if in good standing with the church at the time of death, have become gods and have multiple wives and are now ruling over their own kingdoms?
And might the case be that it is impractical and unnatural if nude worshipers claim that they are not nude but are "clothed in the environment"; or that it is unnatural to leave children in the care of religious leaders who have a multi-century-long reputation for molesting children and whose top officials have a centuries-long reputation for denying and covering up the molestation; or that it is unnatural to continue to give money to a church that uses that money to pay off the victims and the families of victims who were molested by priests and thus enable the molestation to be covered up and to continue?
And might the case be that it is impractical and unnatural to deny the most basic medical care for one's children - such as a simple round of antibiotics to cure an infection - and to allow one's children to die because the parents' religion teaches that the use of medicine rather than prayer would be evidence of their lack of faith in God?
Moreover, while other religious and spiritual persons will claim that all of the above is indeed evidence of the "ignorance, stupidity and insanity" which Maharaj spoke of, they will claim that their own particular religion is "mainstream" and has no ignorant, stupid and / or insane practices and that they engage in no ignorant and stupid and insane mimicking of rituals which were dreamed up thousands of years ago by persons being driven by the highest levels of ignorance, stupidity and insanity imaginable.
To understand the history of humankind and what has been effective in terms of the perpetuation of the species is to understand that such perpetuation has lain not in counting solely on "luck" but has lain in being rid of the content of the mind which blocks humanity's ability to abide in a natural, practical, logical, rationale, sound, sane, and sensible manner.
And abiding in that manner does not come about by adding even more beliefs to what has already been accumulated in "the mind." It happens when all of the content of the mind is discarded and one reaches the condition which Maharaj called "the no-mind, no-beliefs, zero-concept state."
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."
