MIRACLES AND MAGIC or SANE AND SOUND REASON? Part Two

[Continued from Thursday, 27 October 2005]
F.: If persons would be free of magical thinking and false beliefs and the delusions that accompany both, they must give up their worldly knowledge. They must also recognize that spiritual knowledge is a part of that worldly knowledge since it was dreamed up by men of this world and has been taught by persons of this world. They must recognize that spiritual knowledge and worldly knowledge are nothing more than learned ignorance. But most do not want to give up their learned ignorance, their worldly knowledge, their spiritual knowledge, their magical thinking, their false beliefs or their delusions (convinced that they are “truth”). That is why only one in a million is likely to come to an actual awakening. You are attempting to use concepts that are only of this world (which you would likely claim are of “some other world”) to understand the functioning of the totality. It cannot happen. Your magical thinking loves to point toward one miracle after another as “signs” of the existence of a Power that you likely claim to be “close to.” You are assigning a single cause to events that actually are caused by all preceding events. You want to credit to some “Single Causer” the credit for events that happen only because of countless prior happenings.

But those identified with body and mind (who always want miraculous things to happen for their bodies and minds) are prevented by their false identifications from ever attaining the understanding and being free of a magical, thinking “mind.” Persons fixated in their religious or spiritual personas say in one breath that “there is no god who will do for you what you can do yourself” but in the next breath give credit to a god for things that they or others did for themselves. What is that, if not totally illogical? Simply because persons on the planet have been buying into the same dream for millennia does not mean that they aren’t still dreaming. To give “miracle”-type credit for work or accomplishments that humans do for self or for family is to minimize their accomplishments and to ignore the fact that they did indeed do for themselves what they can do for themselves.

So much for the masses who have no desire to awaken. But for those who have an attachment to “miracle” explanations but who do want to awaken from The Dream of the Planet, enlightening questions must include, “WHO wants to believe in miracles?” “What does that PERSONA hope to gain if miracles were to exist?” How is the image of a PERSONA being enhanced when you discuss in the presence of others ‘this miracle’ or ‘that miracle’?” “WHO does not understand the factual and multi-faceted causes of a circumstance or chain of events?” and “WHO has a ‘mind’ driven by the beliefs and magical thinking that reduce all causes to a ‘Single Causer’?”

And finally, “Is there a WHO that is offended over certain points in this post?” “WHO might be having trouble taking what has been said?” If you find all the “WHO’s,” and if you find that they are not YOU and have nothing to do with the True YOU, then any loss of peace shall go and YOU shall become firmly fixed in the peace of realization. You will be content in spite of these words, or anyone else’s words, and in spite of forfeiting your personas’ hopes (and yes, dreams) about miracles and when one might come your way. Please enter the silence of contemplation.
SATURDAY: The response to this visitor’s comment about “True Love” and another visitor’s query on the same topic who also read From the I to the Absolute: "I read your book. Please clarify. Can True Love really exist, or is that just a concept, too?”

MIRACLES AND MAGIC or SANE AND SOUND REASON? Part One

From a site visitor: I read From the I to the Absolute and I’ve concluded that you do not believe in two things that are very important to me: (1) miracles and (2) True Love. My life would be meaningless without those.

F.: The Advaita teaching also includes an understanding about "a meaningful vs. a meaningless life," but that will be deferred to another day. “Miracles” will be discussed in postings today and tomorrow. “True Love” will be discussed afterwards.

First, the realized are never driven. The realized move spontaneously through the relative existence in a natural fashion, likened to the manner in which a deer lives: by use of the brain, the sixth sense, and the intuition.

Persons (those assuming personas, ego-states, false identities) are driven through life by faulty programming and warped conditioning and live either in an unnatural manner or in a supernatural manner. Unnatural living is driven by a thinking mind and is marked by destructive/self-destructive behavior. Supernatural living is driven by a thinking mind and is marked by magical thinking. What you call “miracles” are a result of the latter…of magical thinking.

Here’s an example from a novel with a non-duality theme of how the magical thinking of supernatural living can result in people assigning erroneous cause:

Kirk remembered that not too long ago a mass of people had brought traffic to a halt in front of this very church when word spread of another sighting of the virgin called Mary. This time, making another of her regular public appearances, she had materialized inside a big piece of plate glass, coming out each evening as the sun set at a particular angle. No connection would later be made between her disappearance and the shift in the tilt of the earth as one season dissolved into the next and the angle of the sun became more obtuse.

Speaking of obtuse, even after Mary’s departure, which coincided with the arrival of winter, hundreds continued to gather for weeks each day at dusk—freezing but faithful, wet but wishful, perturbed but praying that she might be kind enough to revisit the plate glass just one more time and squish herself into its half-inch thickness. Well, Kirk pondered, maybe again next fall, if they don’t wash the window.
“What a glorious night that shall be!” screamed one priest to the crowd.
“O Holy Night!” screamed a parishioner into a reporter’s microphone.
Oh holy smoke! screamed Kirk into his own brain. [quoted from The Twice-Stolen Necklace Murders]

“Miracle” is a term used by persons/personas who (a) do not understand the factual and multi-faceted causes of a circumstance or chain of events or (b) who have a “mind” driven by the beliefs that come from magical thinking which reduces all causes to a “Single Causer” or (c) do not know the true, scientific causes behind a circumstance or chain of events. In addition to claims of miracles in which a woman who died 2000 years ago is manifesting nowadays in plate-glass, honey buns and grilled cheese sandwiches, look at three other examples of so-called “miracles”:

1. Eclipses were taken to be miracles, signs to persons on earth from a god living in a spiritual realm but occupied with micro-managing a physical realm. (Since no god has ever been seen, most magical thinkers must settle for "signs" of his existence instead.)

2. When crops were dying and the single cause was assigned to an angry male god of rain, many a self-appointed priest claimed that sex with a female virgin, who would later be sacrificed, would appease the male god. As god’s rep on earth, the priest had sex with the virgin (the original act of symbolic “at-one-ment” that linked early religion and sex). Then, in order to make a sacrifice to god and in order to commune with god, the heart of the virgin would be cut from her chest even as it was still beating. The priest would then raise it over his head for the crowd to see before he ate the body and drank the blood. Next, the sacrament would be passed among the crowd so all could eat the body and drink the blood and please the angry god with that earliest act of communion. If it happened to rain after that, it was called a “miracle.” If it happened not to rain after that, it was explained away by reporting that “god works in mysterious ways.” But to justify the murder, the people were taught that everyone must always remember and always honor those who sacrifice their lives for the community. To appease the crowd and to justify more killing, the leader always said that “those who died for the community have not died in vain,” even if the desired result did not come.

3. In 2003, the media reported an event that they labeled “a modern miracle”: a girl fell into a river and was washed ashore downstream. The mom told one reporter that “It was ‘The Hand of God.’ He pushed her to shore.” The reporter agreed, ignoring the fact that the currents were also pushing sticks and brush and other floating material to the very same spot along the shore. Some wondered why, if the hand of god was going to push the girl, that he did not push her back (before she fell in) rather than push her out. And as some wondered at the miracle of a male god saving the girl, others wondered why he was also saving sticks and brush and other floating material. Magical thinking, devoid of all logic. Such is the thought-life for most trapped in The Dream of the Planet.

Tomorrow, we’ll complete the discussion. For now, the invitation to you is the same as always: pause to ponder these words, to question whether the examples above can be true or to determine if another explanation for the events might exist. Is it possible that the reflective coating and cleaning residue on a plate-glass window could result in the illusion of an image? Is it possible that no one claiming to have seen the mother of Jesus in recent days really knows what she looked like and cannot therefore make a valid claim about any likeness? Is it possible to explain scientifically how eclipses occur? Is it possible that the priest having sex with virgins may have had a hidden agenda? Is it possible that religions and spiritual movements are only offering two options for living when they claim that "Either you live supernaturally the way we say or you're guilty of living unnaturally"? Are they completely ignoring the possibility that some not living supernaturally might still not be living unnaturally but are simply living naturally instead? Is it possible that the laws of physics could explain how currents can push sticks and brush and other floating material—and a girl—to a place along the shore? Is it possible that natural living is living in a manner that is free of physical intoxication, mental intoxication, spiritual intoxication, and emotional intoxication? Is it possible that natural living results when ancient myths and superstitions and magical thinking give way to sane and sound reason, to logic, to factual explanations, and to true understanding? Is it possible that those who cling to their myths and magical thinking are subject to the two most frequent addictions among persons: the master addiction (to control) and the secondary addiction (to have power in order to control)? Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be continued 28 October 2005] More information about The Twice-Stolen Necklace Murders available by clicking www.floydhenderson.com

Blind Faith or Clear Vision?

[Received 17 October 2005 after that day’s posting]
From “A site fan in southern California”: You suggested to Frank that faith is an obstacle to giving up belief in lies and then finding truth. I agree. A priest I had faith in abused me in more ways than I’ll tell. The problem is, you’re expecting Frank to have faith in you, so you’re contradicting yourself. Why should Frank or I or anyone believe you and have faith in you?

F.: Thanks for the question, but have you not read the writings on the site or in the books that invite all to “question everything”? Would that not include this space called “Floyd”? The pointer always is that protégés should accept nothing on blind faith, including thorns offered to remove thorns by this space called "Floyd." No one is asked to accept blindly the pointers on this site or to trust me or anyone else. I am no guru; instead, I point to the only thing that should be trusted: the Inner Guru, that inner resource, that vestige of pure consciousness that can be found when the debris field of ideas and emotions and beliefs is cleared away.

Some ask, “Didn’t you trust your guru?” Of course not. I read his words which clarified the “gift” from my inner resource, namely, the seven-part vision that led to realization and shifted me from the I to the Absolute. (Two links will be provided at the bottom that offer more details on the vision and on the movement from the I to the Absolute.) Next, “Floyd” cannot be listened to. Floyd is not speaking. These writings happen spontaneously from the purified consciousness. Pure consciousness is attempting to circumvent your “mind”—the consciousness that has been contaminated—to address the pure consciousness that You Are. A reporter described a recent crime in which a woman was reportedly blungeoned to death by a teen. She called the crime “mindless.” Wrong. That crime was a result of the killer being “mindful.” Whoever committed the murder had a mind filled with the contamination of the conditioning of this culture. The realized are “mindless” and cannot behave in ways that happen when a mind is full—full of the insane ideas and beliefs resulting from enculturation. These words are for that inner resource and it is from the inner guru that these writings emanate. That resource is not speaking to “a site fan” or to Frank or to any person but is addressing that vestige of pure consciousness that can be known if all the false is purged. Consciousness speaks to consciousness.

I sense from your writing a longing to be free. You, like many, have obviously suffered some abominable experiences that have left you miserable (and that, by the way, were no fault of your own). You want to be free of the after-effects, but those after-effects have left you unable to trust anyone. That is okay for this journey. The pointers on the site are toward that one thing that you can trust: the resource within. It is What You Truly Are. I suspect the Advaita Teachings are not the first thing you’ve tried in an effort to find relief from your misery. I suspect that you might be limiting the focus of the cause of your misery to a repulsive act by a priest, but I can assure you that billions on the planet are in misery who haven’t undergone that nightmare, the memory of which you still carry with you. Understand how all persons get to that place of misery if you would be free, for the causes are not limited to any single cause. I suspect that is a belief of yours right now. You must process that, yes, but true relief will come when you process all of the programming and conditioning. Know that YOU are not contaminated. Your consciousness has been contaminated, but YOU are not that. YOU are the pure consciousness. Most are ignorant of that fact, so they are ignorant of all or some of the true roots of their misery.

Nothing is more limiting and binding than not knowing how persons of the planet come to such misery, and nothing is more freeing and expansive than knowing the truth. The earth’s population is restricted, limited, and miserable, and an opportunity to be free of all that would be available to all except for the fact that persons use the ego-defense mechanisms of denial and magical thinking to convince themselves that they are free and happy. 95% suffer the relative effects of an addiction that result from their repeated use of something in their efforts to escape the misery, searching desperately for even the briefest respite from their despair and their troublesome “mind.” Most addictions are preceded by trauma, and few on the planet can reach adulthood without having been traumatized in many ways. (Again, most will deny that. Even if they admit as you do to childhood experiences that had a major impact, they minimize the effects by saying, "That was then; this is now.” They do not know that their “then” is their “now.” Freedom from the after-shocks can be found.) Misery, if recognized, can be the catalyst that can propel persons onto a “path” that can lead to freedom from the prison of a contaminated “mind” and to the freedom of enlightenment…of finally seeing all the lies and then undergoing the freeing realization of finally knowing the truth. Only one in a million, however, will ever truly realize. Are you the “one”…or the “million”? How free do you want to be? Faith is blind belief…belief in what they told you. Was what they told you based in fact? Rarely. More often, what they tell you is a repetition of fiction presented as fact by persons who are too egotistical to say “I don’t know” and too ignorant to say, “There is a simple scientific explanation for that.” Magicians of old wore robes. Many telling magical stories today still wear robes. Others merely wrap themselves in their spiritual “cloaks.” And those tale-tellers had been told the tales by others before them who were also egotistical or ignorant. The length of time a lie is told gives it no validity, but it does given it credibility among persons who walk the planet in a dream state.

In The Matrix, Morpheus pointed out the dilemma to Neo: “Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?”

Tales, myths, and superstitions have been passed down for thousands of years by tale-tellers, by myth-perpetuators, and by superstition-conveyors. Their falsehoods have been accepted by non-questioning listeners for as long. Forget the blind acceptance of any concept by faith. Turn to the vision within and abandon all concepts. You are seeking freedom and happiness, but they are never found by seeking them. They are found when persons seek to know the True Self and That Which is even beyond the Self. Come to full realization and thereby understand the functioning of the Totality, for only then can peace and happiness happen. Best regards in your efforts to that end, and thanks for your e-mail and your openness. Please enter the silence of contemplation.
LINKS for more details on the content of this post:
The Vision: http://floydhenderson.com/spiritjourney.htm
From the I to the Absolute: http://floydhenderson.com/iamabsolute.htm

COMING UP THIS WEEK: Posts on questions regarding "Miracles" and "True Love"

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE BODY ENDS? Part One

Excerpts from the book

"WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE?"

From Frank in Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.: Thanks for your amazing site. I’ve recently begun to “question it all” per your invitation, and I only recently touched the truth of how miserable my life is. I want to be free and I have a hunch that the answer can finally be found in the Advaita teaching. One thing nagging me now is not knowing what happens when the body ends. So, what happens? Thanks again. I look forward to hearing your answer. Frank in Chicago.

F.: Hello, Frank. Thanks for your e-mail. Confusion about this subject has resulted in Viking ships being needlessly burned…along with horses and armor and relative-world riches; in Muslims lining up to kill themselves for a sexual reward in heaven (which they’ll never experience "there" but which they could be enjoying on earth if they could get free of their arrogance, their ignorance and their warped attitudes about women and sex); in pyramids and tombs being needlessly built and filled with treasures; in millions of acres being dedicated to misuse as cemeteries to preserve Christian remains in the belief that they’ll re-form someday...unless the skeletal remains are not “preserved”; in wasting food and money or valuables, needlessly buried across the globe with the deceased; and in Japanese women and pets being needlessly killed in ancient days in order to provide "companionship" to their deceased male mates. (I look at the history of women being slaughtered as the preferred sex for sacrifice to the gods by male priests; at Muslim women who are to suffer and be celibate now so they can be virginal whores for eternity and serve as sex toys for male killers of infidels; at Christian women who are to be subservient to males per their holy book; at Mormom women who gather in units and serve in the harem of one dominant male; and at women being killed because a mate died and he’ll need companionship in the afterlife. I see all that, and more, and in pre-realization days I wondered why any woman wouldn't run like the wind from religious and spiritual teachings. Then I reviewed the bizarre programming and insane conditioning that promises rewards now and rewards later and I understood.) Thousands of other inane practices have plagued the relative existence of persons for millennia as a result of magical thinking and false beliefs about supernatural powers and the afterlife. Humans—curious early on about what happens when “life” leaves a body—first began to long for continuity of the body and mind because of their fears and desires, then came up with ignorant notions around the subject to try to guarantee "life eternal," and finally came up with superpowers that could be appeased and worshipped in order to avoid eternal “death” or “eternal punishment” and in order to attain a blissful “life” for an eternity with the gods. Later, as humankind became more intelligent and as darkness and ignorance lifted during periods of enlightenment and education and the spread of scientific knowledge, the wise came to see the ignorance of man’s assumed knowledge and dreamed-up ideas and insane concepts about this subject and all others. Science and education helped to eliminate three things: (1) the stupidity of mankind [and I use the word “mankind” because it has always been men who dreamed up magical, supernatural ideas and wrote them down in holy books and used them to try to control others] and (2) the ego of humankind [who accepted the notion of humans as being “noble” and “better than all other creatures”] and (3) the beliefs about what happens to a body and mind and personality at the time of death. The question is, have you experienced enough misery that—in spite of the entrenchment of your personas and ego-states and programming and conditioning—you can withstand the perceived attack of those identities and recognize the stupidity of man’s learned ignorance, recognize you’re not noble and special, and consider an entirely new set of truths surrounding the myths and superstitions that personas use to maintain their erroneous concepts and beliefs about what happens when the body "ends"? [To be continued 8 October 2005] Please enter the silence of contemplation.

NOT TWO AND BEYOND SELFNESS

From Michael in Washington, U.S.A. I’ve studied the Advaita Teaching for many years, but it’s only now starting to make sense. In order to comprehend the basis of the Teaching I AM THAT I AM, isn’t the key to understand the fact that I Am both the being and the non-being and to know the being and non-being are not two?
F.: You Are beyond both. Both imply a "Self." Look beyond all selfness and Selfness and even SELFness to find That Which You Are. Just as persons in the relative are far less than they imagine themselves to be, so We Are far less (manifested or not) than persons would ever imagine. Please enter the silence of contemplation.

CLARIFYING THE “HIGHER POWER," Part Four

[Continued from 4 October 2005] Now, Jim, you are about to see why these posting have been given such space on the site: they are not just relevant for AA’s. They are relevant for 95% of the earth’s population who are trying to find “peace of mind” during this relative existence. Since 95% are addicted to something, these postings are relevant for almost all on the planet. To have been told that “You don’t have a drinking problem; you have a thinking problem” is pointing in the proper direction. For the rest to be told, “You don’t have an eating problem, a spending problem, a workaholism problem, a nicotine problem, a gambling problem (ad infinitum) but you do have a thinking problem” is pointing in the proper direction. The problem does indeed "center in the mind” for all persons. So, Jim, I’ll end by reviewing some Advaita-oriented pointers from your program’s book that are being misinterpreted or ignored by many and that are relevant for all persons/personas:
(1) The founders said that most of those who had a “spiritual experience” conceived of the Higher Power as an “inner resource.” Religious members talked of being “conscious" of a (male) “God,” but that God is merely their “conception” or someone else’s…just an idea conceived by humans.
(2) Now you can understand why on pp. 29-30 they wrote that agnosticism is “no great obstacle to a spiritual experience.” Agnostics, who doubt that a god even exists, can still know the “inner resource.” Religion, according to their point, requires a concept of a “God”; spirituality discounts an outer power/male god and has conscious contact with that inner resource.
(3) The physical manifestation called “Jim” was born with a brain but not with a mind. Your problem does not center in your brain. Your problem, the founders wrote, “centers in your mind.” That’s not a spiritual problem—it’s a “mind” problem. Sanity is not restored by asking to have it restored, and the founders never suggested that...if you understand what the real “Higher Power” is. Understand that and you’ll know that sanity is restored by use of that inner resource, not by asking an outer resource to restore your sanity. The brain operates naturally and self-constructively; the “mind” operates abnormally and self-destructively. You need not get rid of your brain. You need to get rid of your “mind.” People shoot themselves in the brain to try to stop the unbearable, constant movement of the contaminated consciousness that most call “a mind.” The miserable movement can be halted without a bullet to the brain and without endless effort simply by taking the seven steps I offer in the book you received as a gift. Furthermore, if the problem “centers in the mind,” wouldn’t spiritual intoxication and/or emotional intoxication actually clutter the mind even more? What if, like a cancer, the treatment for “the problem that centers in the mind” is not to massage it, expand it, and inject more and more into it? What if the real solution is to be rid of it completely? Your "mind" is a cancer. You are diseased (and dis-eased) by the seeming "dual-mindedness." Being controlled by an insane "mind" leaves persons feeling discontent. It would make anyone restless. You (the Real You) wants to reject that false mind and know the Atonement...the At-one-ment...the unicity. You feel split. You feel incongruous, looking one way on the outside and feeling a different way on the inside. Peace only comes with unicity, not with duality and not with multiplicity. You can be free of being driven by all the garbage they programmed into you that became the “mind” if you will only complete a seven-step journey back to reality.
(4) That “mind” is the repository of all the lies they told you and all the distorted behavior they modeled. To believe lies is insane; to accept supernatural explanations for naturally occurring events is insane; to behave self-destructively is insane; to be out of touch with reality (a.k.a., “The Great Reality”) is insane. Lies are used by the ignorant and arrogant who refuse to say, “I don’t know what the real, scientific explanation for that is” so they assign a supernatural explanation instead. To believe such fabricated nonsense is insane and leaves you out of touch with reality, with the real truth. Thus, to just stop drinking or gambling or over-eating is not the answer. The answer comes through use of the inner resource to restore you to sanity, to get you back in touch with reality, or stated otherwise, to get rid of all that waste which forms “the mind.” Insanity is evidenced by not even knowing “Who You Are” and by believing that your roles or personas actually identify who you are. Insanity is not even knowing how your food-body got here and thus believing a natural event had some supernatural element involved. Why are you encouraged to believe that “a Higher Power” (that inner resource) “can restore you to sanity?” Because only it can. Only it can free you of the prison of “the mind,” each bar of which is one of the pieces of learned ignorance they gave you that you are now assuming to be true or "normal" when it is not. Of course you reach a point where you “cannot differentiate true from false.”

What is that inner resource? It is the vestige of pure consciousness that remains, deeply buried beneath the waste called “your mind.” “Your mind” is the corrupted consciousness that is so marred with its belief in lies and superstitions and all of its knowledge, all that learned ignorance, that it leaves you insane…so insane that you don’t know Your Self and so insane that you believe the lies and dreams of the planet. That inner resource, that spark of awareness that is temporarily manifested and is pure consciousness, can restore you to sanity if you employ it to find the answers to these three key questions: “How did I come to believe that all these roles I’m playing are me?” and “How did this food-body get here?” and then “Who Am I, really?” To not be able to realize that your personas are false, to not know how you got here, and to not know Who You Truly Are is insane. Sanity is “the Great Reality.” Sanity is being in touch with reality and having conscious contact with reality...with Your True Self. “To Thine Own Self Be True” was your invitation on day one, but nothing since that day has been laid out as a clear-cut way to accomplish that. Let it become your single task. Find that True Self and all your tasks will end. Only then can you truly “relax and take it easy.”

Finally, I’ll offer some considerations to that end. Meditation is a time set aside not to reach a state in which "the mind” has no motion. Meditation is a time to take pointers into consideration. Here are some you might take into account, should you choose:
(A) Is it possible that you’ve been fed so many lies and had so many bizarre behaviors modeled for you that you need to stop and question everything that they told you up to this point? The program founders made clear that knowledge was not the solution. What do you know that is beyond all your texts and beyond all your knowledge? Isn’t “your” knowledge really “their” knowledge that you’ve just adopted as your own? If your/their knowledge cannot help, what is your clear-cut plan to be rid of all that knowledge which is contaminating the consciousness and resulting in “a mind”? What you have not realized is What You Truly Are because you have not yet learned to “differentiate true for false.” All of the false must be recognized in order to know THAT, then you shall know What I Am and any sense of separation shall end. And all debate shall end, too, as all concepts dissolve.
(B) You have been told that “self-knowledge” cannot help, but have you considered the possibility that SELF-knowledge during this relative existence might be worth understanding? How can You be True to Your Self if you don't even know what that is? Could your founders have been correct in saying that the real aid to turn to is an inner resource, not a conceptualization and not an outer resource? The outer resource is a conception, dreamed up by controlling men with agendas in order to try to get their selfish desires met or to try to eliminate their imagined fears. It never works more than momentarily. No wonder you have been trapped into doing your “spiritual disciplines and exercises” over and over and over: you know the effect never lasts, so you go back for more and more of what does not work long-term. You are working to get a limited reprieve. What is available is the one, true permanent “cure” for the problem that continues to center in "your mind." What is that inner resource? Is it working for you because it is pure, or do you have a chattering “mind”—that place where your problem centers because it has been contaminated with myths, lies, concepts, superstitions, ideas, emotions, and beliefs?
(C) Do you now see why the founders suggested you “cast aside” all your “ideas, emotions, and attitudes (beliefs)”? Why not follow that instruction? What ego-state wants to continue to follow a plan that is not providing a permanent solution? Why add to that collection of ideas and beliefs if you were told to be rid of them all?

Those might prove to be worthy topics for your next few meditation periods. That said, even those meditations will not given you the ultimate answer. Nothing I have said will give you the final answer. This much site space had been dedicated to your e-mail because millions worldwide are accepting new ego-states as false identities because those pointers from the founders are being ignored or misinterpreted. The fact is that only via completion of all “Seven-Steps to Reality” will the ultimate answer be found. A woman gave you a book with those seven steps. Your spiritual ego-state, which refused to read anything past the chapter that challenged that false identity (along with all of your other ego-states and false identities) must dissolve before you find the ultimate answer that you’re seeking. For those who find that, all seeking will end, emotional and spiritual intoxication can end, religious and spiritual workaholism can end, they can actually “relax and take it easy,” they can find the balance between being the “life of the party” and being the “wearisome and pontificating Spiritual Giant who has much knowledge,” and true AS IF living in the relative can begin. Once more, thanks for writing. Millions are stuck in Denver, believing they’ve arrived in New York. Maybe the discussion that evolved from your e-mail has cast some light on their roadmaps so they can see where they are and know how much farther they have to go. It’s not far at all, if they find the remaining stepping stones. If they realize they have not arrived, then they’ll understand the man who wondered, “Is this all there is?” and they’ll find their own answer if they complete the “journey.” [Note: Being familiar with the nature of the beast (the false ego-states) it is known that many might like to use this forum to continue to debate these issues, but no more discussion of this topic shall be offered on the site. Related queries will be answered, but only via e-mail and only with those whose correspondence indicates that they are seeking the means to transcend their limiting roles, not with those wanting to defend their false personas. My teacher gave short shrift in his latter days to those who want to fight to defend their ego-states. The same now happens here.] Please enter the silence of contemplation.

CLARIFYING THE “HIGHER POWER," Part Three

[Continued from 3 October 2005] You also wrote, Jim, that you are “of service and help others.” I’ll save discussion of that “others” part for another posting. Since the Advaita Teaching deals only in fact and not fiction, however, it must be asked what factual evidence you have to support your claim that others have truly been helped by you? There was a time prior to realization when I, too, made such claims, an assertion that originated from several ego-states/personas. I collected and then gave away coats to people who would not work and buy their own. Was that helping them? I shared more and more knowledge with people who already had too much knowledge and who needed their “minds” purged of garbage rather than having more packed in. Was that helping? I took thousands through a series of steps dreamed up by others to help people find truth when neither they nor I had even begun to find all the false. Was that helpful? When I followed up on some of those people I had claimed to help, however, it became quite clear that they’d received no lasting help at all. Even the ones not drinking were still mentally, emotionally, and spiritually intoxicated, and most were behaving as self-destructively as ever...just in different ways. Several studies report that fewer than 5% who enter the program stay in and stay sober for any length of time. 95% seem not to be helped at all. Next, what about the other three levels of sobriety that Bill W. identified? Are you helping someone if you offer them only one-fourth of the solution, the physical part? The founders’ book says that they used “doctors, psychologists, and practitioners of various kinds.” Are you truly helping people who need professional “doctors and psychologists and practitioners” to treat their “grave mental and emotional disorders" if you’re telling them that you’re “the last house on the block” and that “if they don’t get it there then they’re not going to get it”? Is it helpful if people in the relative existence needing professional help are being discouraged by non-professionals from seeking that help, especially when the founders encouraged such additional assistance? [Again, there are no points being made against a program. The founders were totally correct on this count as well. The pointers here are focusing on those who offer their own personal message that contradicts the program literature.] So even when physical intoxication ends, the “grave mental and emotional disorders” often continue. Is that helpful? And what about the fourth level of intoxication that Bill wrote about, namely, spiritual intoxication? Do you even know what that looks like? How can people become sober around spiritual concepts if they do not even know they have been spiritually conditioned, spiritually programmed and are thus spiritually intoxicated? My book given to you by the woman in your group identifies religious and spiritual roles as the third step of a seven-step “journey.” The religious and/or spiritual roles—as intoxicating as they are—can be a necessary way-station, but they must be transcended, as you’ll learn if you finish From the I to the Absolute. So are you helping someone by convincing them that the adoption of your personas and the playing of your roles is the final goal when in fact that doesn’t get either of you even to the halfway point of a “journey” to the Great Reality? Is anyone helped when given more false identities rather than led to the realization of Who or What They Truly Are? If one cannot even answer the two most basic questions—“Who am I?” and “How did this food-body get here?”—what else can they possibly claim to actually understand? Now, all that having been said—for the sake of entertainment only, by the way—let this pointer be offered: hang that book and hang all books that would suggest that you need to know more from the outside rather than find what you already know on the inside. You may be able to repeat what you’ve heard or read, but are you aware of that which is within? Have you found that? What is that inner resource? [To be concluded 5 October 2005] Please enter the silence of contemplation.

CLARIFYING THE “HIGHER POWER," Part Two

"The founders made clear that all except the religious members realize that the 'Higher Power' is, in fact, an inner resource."

[Continued from 2 October 2005] I challenge your claim that you’re "not religious but are spiritual," using the distinction made in your own literature. That book uses gender-specific religious terms like “He” and “Him” to refer to a Higher-Power/male-God. But in the back of the book the founders added Appendix II to clarify. They said, “With few exceptions our members find that they have tapped an unsuspected inner resource which they presently identify with their own conception of a Power greater than themselves.” That term “with few exceptions” means “most,” so most of the founders did not believe the Higher Power to be a male entity but identified it as an “inner resource” (a.k.a., pure consciousness). Too, you’re likely aware that the program is rooted in religion, an outgrowth of the Oxford Group that was started and advanced by a Lutheran minister and an Episcopal rector. Meetings follow a religious format with an opening prayer, a message, a passing of a basket to collect money, and a closing with the Christian “Lord’s Prayer.”

Actually, this topic is only being discussed on this site because of that revelation. The founders offered a truth that is being ignored: that the power is within, not without. Remember the man who wrote, “I had reached the point where I decided that if this is all there is, I might as well die, and then I found this site and I'm learning what I was missing”? He, too, missed what his own literature had offered: the founders made clear that all except the religious members realize that the "Higher Power” is, in fact, an inner resource. Neither the false nor the true can be realized wiithout tapping into a real resource rather than into a conceptualized resource.

They continued, “Most of us think this awareness of a Power greater than ourselves (this awareness of an inner resource) is the essence of spiritual experience. Our more religious members call it ‘God-consciousness’." So those who had a “spiritual experience” are aware that “the power” is just an inner resource. It’s the religious members—not the spiritual members—who continue to call the power a male “God” and who refer to an outer resource. Since you report that you found “God around the tables,” then by your own book’s definition, you are religious and not spiritual. What a revelation, huh? (By the way, know that the only purpose in clarifying the exact roles you’re playing—religious and/or spiritual—is to allow you to know which rung you’re on on a seven-rung ladder. You're on the third.) If you believe you have “arrived,” then your “journey” will end before it’s even half complete. If your intent is to journey from Los Angeles to New York and you’re in Denver and mistaking that for New York, anyone agreeing with you is certainly mistaken, is allowing you to remain misinformed, and is contributing to your incomplete journey. They are not helping you. So, Jim, are you seeing more clearly that neither in the book the woman gave you nor on this site is any program being criticized? What is being offered, instead, is an awareness of some of that program’s teachings that have typically been ignored and that offer an Advaita-type message. Any benefit you claim will not be debated, but consider this analogy: if one is bleeding from a broken arm and wants to ennoble the first responders who helped halt the bleeding, so it is. It sounds as if the program may have been your first responder and had an effect for you. No value can be given to the methods of the medics, however, if they ignore the broken bone within and only treat the externally-visible symptoms. Finally, to your claim that you are helping others, would you consider some questions in that regard? [To be continued 4 October 2005] Please enter the silence of contemplation.

CLARIFYING THE “HIGHER POWER,” Part One

"Only the permanent is real. Discussion of the unreal reinforces beliefs in unreal concepts. Concepts are defined as 'theories.' Theories are dreamed up by men. Things dreamed up are dreams, not real. So much for any concepts."

From Jim in Georgia, U.S.A.: Hello. My name is Jim and I’m an alcoholic from Atlanta. A woman in my home group gave me a copy of your book. I just got into Level Three and I disagree completely with some of your comments to the man from AA. I especially think you’re wrong about the value of sharing experience, strength and hope, and you were completely wrong about his conception of God. I am not religious but I am spiritual, and I found God around the tables of AA. THAT is what is letting me be of service and help others, so let’s not discount what we offer, OK?

F.: Hi, Jim! Welcome! (Sorry. I just wanted to make you feel at home. Ha.) Thanks for your letter. While the discussion of specifics about any group would typically not occupy space in a post on this site, your comments will be addressed for two reasons. (1) Recently, an inordinate number of AA-ers are visiting the site and corresponding. [Even as they claim they got it all in their program, most are still looking outside of their program for something more. I heard recently from another man in AA who said, “I had reached the point where I decided that if this is all there is, I might as well die, and then I found this site and I'm learning what I was missing.”] The other reason your comments shall be addressed is (2) The Advaita Teaching is usually presented in this fashion: (a) a pointer is offered (b) a person embroiled in an ego-state/persona challenges the pointer (c) clarification is offered (d) the person understands how it was a false role driving him to feel offended and make the challenge (e) the person gives up playing that role and moves a degree closer to Realization or (f) the person stays trapped in the false identity and leaves angry (as you saw a person do in the book). Your challenge, therefore, is welcomed and your comments shall be addressed.

Let’s take your remarks in order. Since the only book with a “Level Three” that includes an exchange with a member of AA is From the I to the Absolute (A Seven-Step Journey to Reality), your friend obviously gave you a copy of that book. So, a woman in your group gave you that book while surely knowing about the exchange with an AA-er in Part Three. Yet she—also in AA—gave you the book anyway. What do you think she may have seen in you that made you the one she passed it on to? Or, what have you not yet seen—since you haven’t read the other four parts of the book—that she obviously thought you should know? Next, as far as the value of sharing about the temporary—those personal experiences, notions of strength and power, and thoughts of hope about a future that is an image...the accuracy of that pointer stands. Why? Only the permanent is real. Discussion of the unreal reinforces beliefs in unreal concepts. Concepts are defined as “theories.” Theories are dreamed up by men. Things dreamed up are dreams, not real. So much for any concepts. So we come to your claim that you are not religious but are spiritual. Actually, according to the book used by your program, you are religious and you are not spiritual. That is based in your founders’ definitions, not any others. [To be continued 3 October 2005] Please enter the silence of contemplation.

THE VARIABLE MIND, Part Two

"It is learned ignorance that spoiled your pure consciousness and resulted in a 'mind.'

(quoted from From the I to the Absolute—A Seven-Step Journey to Reality)

[Continued from 30 September 2005] Karen, I wrote the following in the book FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE (A Seven-Step Journey to Reality) : Only seek to realize all that is false. That is your beginning. When you eventually come to know The Great Reality—The Absolute—you will Realize that all perceived via the five senses is false and is nothing more than learned ignorance. It is learned ignorance that spoiled your pure consciousness and resulted in a ‘mind.’ The goal is not to stop the chatter of "the mind" for a few minutes of the day. The goal is to see that "the mind" is a compendium of all the lies, myths, superstitions, concepts and beliefs that all cultures perpetuate. If you see the lies, then the illusory, delusional mind dissolves. You could save a fortune in money and time and effort if you could but realize that this body-mind-personality of yours is material, not spiritual…not mystical…not magical…not special. You exist because two people had a moment of fun, followed by a lifetime of suffering and misery for you. How do I know about that misery even as you'd probably deny it? Because you have a racing mind this is so troublesome that you’re going to spend thousands of dollars and travel halfway around the globe to try to find a treatment. You’re in such mental pain that you’re willing to go to those lengths to try to get treatment for your chattering mind when in truth you need go to no length. Save some money: go to New Mexico, drive along an abandoned stretch of highway after the noon hour, and seek to treat a mirage. It would be as effective. Your suffering is in "the mind," and "the mind" is a mirage. You want your mind to be still when in fact there is no “your mind.” There is only “their mind,” and each belief (which they gave you and that you have now adopted) forms one of the bars of the prison that is called "your mind." You want to go to India to make the prison stand still rather than to break out the prison once and for all. Get out of the prison and let it end so you can never be trapped in it again. Since the space called “Karen” arrived with a brain and not with a mind, use of the brain will lead to self-constructive behavior until the consciousness is no longer manifested; the “mind” will always lead to self-destructive behavior for as long as the corrupted consciousness is manifest. The only opportunity for knowing all the false and then knowing all the truth is within. It is not in India. It is not in a church or synagogue or temple or mosque or meeting. Those are the repositories of myths and superstitions and concepts, intended to control people. You want control of a mind that is owned and operated and managed and controlled by them. You cannot change them and you cannot change all the garbage they taught that has formed the “mind.” Only one solution remains: be rid of "the mind." It is as useless as last night's meal. Flush it all from your consciousness. How? By questioning everything you have been told; by questioning everything you hear; by ignoring everything you’ll hear in the future; by seeing every lie; and then by experiencing the realization of truth that comes when a belief in the very last lie goes. You are not that which has a body or mind or personality. Focusing on any one of those three will prevent your knowing Who You Truly Are and What You Truly Are. If you want peace, then find THAT and then let the remainder of the relative existence happen spontaneously in the "Is-ness" alone. Know that You Are the eternal, limitless potentiality after the body returns to dust, after the universal breath rejoins the universal air, and after the consciousness-energy reunites with that limitless, eternal universal field of Consciousness Unmanifest. Either give up "the mind" at what you'll probably call "death" or give it up now. It will end eternally, one way or the other. Why not give up that vehicle of misery now? If you do, you won't need any other vehicle to transport you to India or to conferences or to meetings or to assemblies or to services or to anywhere else other than where You Are. Thanks for writing. Please enter the silence of contemplation.