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.
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.
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
