Parts of an e-mail from a site visitor are being addressed. [You may see the entire letter in the 23 December 2006 posting.] Today, the responses continue:
V.: Now, looking back and thinking them [his prayers] as sources of deception cannot be true.
F.: Of course they are sources of deception, and they lead to acts of deception. How could they not, since they flow from the earlier deceptions that you were taught by parents or by men in temples or by others who held influence over you? Understand that praying is the process of talking to something that was dreamed up by controlling men and used by persons with dependent personalities. Prayers are a source of self-deception, and the deception believed in by those who pray is that an imaginary external power in “another world” is real, is at their beck and call, and is available for them to use to control “their world” (which is itself imaginary). Go into any desert where a mirage appears on any hot day and talk to it. It will be as likely to deliver an answer or assistance as any other image that is taken to be real. Since the truth can be known but cannot stated, all talk is illusion. Praying, “holy talk,” is just an upgrade of the talk illusion.
As reported earlier, talking to imaginary beings, as well as supposedly hearing the voices of imaginary beings, is classified as “psychosis” by mental health professionals. Technically, “psychosis” is defined as “the inability to differentiate symbols and images from reality.” Does that mean that some six billion persons on planet earth are psychotic, to one degree or another? Absolutely. The “Seven-Step Journey to Reality” is the process (1) whereby psychotics (who don’t have a clue as to Who/What They Truly Are) can be freed of the belief that symbols and images are real and (2) whereby they can then be restored to sanity and (3) whereby they can be in touch with reality. Sheep that act like sheep are just behaving naturally. Persons who act like sheep are behaving unnaturally (or supernaturally).
V.: After seeing the "me" as imagined entity, even reverence to the Guru who told me all this, is questioned. This is really hurting. What do I do with the Guru now? With what thought should I view my Guru from now on.
F.: Consider specifically the concepts of (A) “reverence,” (B) “hurting,” and (C) “guru”:
(A) REVERENCE: All reverence should be questioned, along with all other concepts and delusion-based practices. Paying “reverence” to anything is merely an effort to upgrade an illusion.
(B) HURTING: Again, WHO is hurting? The ego that was fooled? It has been reported, “I AM the Absolute. I Am beyond any states of being and beyond any state of non-being as well. Those who understand that realize My true nature. All others are fools.” Not being fooled anymore should not result in feeling “hurt” but in feeling “relieved,” yet a temporary sense of “lost” or of “an injured ego” is often experienced by persons when they first see how thoroughly they were fooled via enculturation.
Compare that to children in “Christian nations” who learn that there is no Santa Claus and that their parents are outright liars. They also feel “hurt” when they finally discover the truth. Adults should be better equipped than children to handle the truth, but they are not. Why? Because programming and conditioning make adult persons behave and think and feel just like children. Neither children nor adults enjoy the shaking that is required to wake them. Most prefer to sleep, and (as a result of that preference) the relative existence becomes a miserable, stress-filled, exhausting existence or a boring, “death-in-life” existence.
(C) GURU: As for what to do about “a guru,” when this space was diagnosed with cancerous colon polyps, a physician was visited and his directions were followed. Once the polyps were removed and stopped returning, why would this space need to continue visiting that physician? Why would any thought about him be required? Full Realization results in the no-thought state that follows the discarding of “the mind” that generated thoughts. Freedom is freedom from any dependency, be it a dependency on a god or be it a co-dependency on a spouse, on a guru, or on any symbol or image that the contaminated consciousness takes to be real even though it is not. All “persons” or “humans” are illusions. A “guru” is just an upgrade of that illusion. The “inner guru” is that which is available to free you from your belief in illusions.
V.: What did Nisargadatta Maharaj and Floyd Henderson do to me? Why did they erase me and themselves in the process?
F.: This question could only be addressed if that “me” had ever existed. A mirage cannot be “erased” since it never existed. Next, Maharaj never did anything and Henderson has done nothing. Via those spaces, consciousness spoke and consciousness speaks. In both cases, the consciousness has pointed toward the inner guru, toward that alone which can “erase” the illusion of “self.” As far as any experiences that one or more ego-states thought they were having but can’t now have, fret not. Merely see that what was thought to have been happening was not happening at all; also, see that the experiences that ego-states took to be real or enjoyable actually took a very heavy toll. Some adults in the U.S. during this “season” will look back on their childhood and say of their illusion about a Santa Claus, “Well, it was a great illusion while it lasted, so let’s delude our children the same way.” Would you be willing to consider this alternate view?
How “great” is an illusion that conditions persons to believe in an external, loving, super-powerful being and simultaneously conditions them to become dependent upon it?
The lie that some parents tell children is that there is a “kind, loving man whom you cannot see but who loves you and cares for you and will bestow gifts upon you if believe in him and if you tell him what you want or need and if are good.” When parents are eventually confronted about their Santa lie, they say, “There really is a kind, loving man whom you cannot see but who loves you and cares for you and will bestow gifts upon you if believe in him and if you tell him what you want or need and if are good. The only part of what we told you that was not totally true was that his name is not Santa—it is ‘God’.”
This discussion is relevant even for non-Christians who do not tell the Santa tale. Why? In ancient cultures where the Santa lie was not told, the Jupiter tale was told, the Zeus tale was told, the Apollo tale was told, the Thor tale was told. Later, the Brahma tale would be told, the Vishnu tale would be told, the Ram or Rama tale would be told. More recently, the god of Abraham tale is being told, including the Moses tale, the Christ tale, and the Mohammed tale. What are the results of hearing and believing these tales that condition persons? The tales condition persons to believe that there are kind, loving super-powerful male-gods and/or super-powerful female-gods or one male-god whom you cannot see but who will take care of you if you will become dependent on them/him. Persons come to believe that gifts will be bestowed upon them if they believe in him/them and if they tell him/them what they want or need and if they are "good." Another result is the belief that “my version of the tale is ‘right’ and your version is ‘wrong’.” Belief in that concept of differentiation and in the accompanying tales of duality have resulted in more wars and death than all other factors combined, except “natural death.”
V.: Now, looking back and thinking them [his prayers] as sources of deception cannot be true.
F.: Of course they are sources of deception, and they lead to acts of deception. How could they not, since they flow from the earlier deceptions that you were taught by parents or by men in temples or by others who held influence over you? Understand that praying is the process of talking to something that was dreamed up by controlling men and used by persons with dependent personalities. Prayers are a source of self-deception, and the deception believed in by those who pray is that an imaginary external power in “another world” is real, is at their beck and call, and is available for them to use to control “their world” (which is itself imaginary). Go into any desert where a mirage appears on any hot day and talk to it. It will be as likely to deliver an answer or assistance as any other image that is taken to be real. Since the truth can be known but cannot stated, all talk is illusion. Praying, “holy talk,” is just an upgrade of the talk illusion.
As reported earlier, talking to imaginary beings, as well as supposedly hearing the voices of imaginary beings, is classified as “psychosis” by mental health professionals. Technically, “psychosis” is defined as “the inability to differentiate symbols and images from reality.” Does that mean that some six billion persons on planet earth are psychotic, to one degree or another? Absolutely. The “Seven-Step Journey to Reality” is the process (1) whereby psychotics (who don’t have a clue as to Who/What They Truly Are) can be freed of the belief that symbols and images are real and (2) whereby they can then be restored to sanity and (3) whereby they can be in touch with reality. Sheep that act like sheep are just behaving naturally. Persons who act like sheep are behaving unnaturally (or supernaturally).
V.: After seeing the "me" as imagined entity, even reverence to the Guru who told me all this, is questioned. This is really hurting. What do I do with the Guru now? With what thought should I view my Guru from now on.
F.: Consider specifically the concepts of (A) “reverence,” (B) “hurting,” and (C) “guru”:
(A) REVERENCE: All reverence should be questioned, along with all other concepts and delusion-based practices. Paying “reverence” to anything is merely an effort to upgrade an illusion.
(B) HURTING: Again, WHO is hurting? The ego that was fooled? It has been reported, “I AM the Absolute. I Am beyond any states of being and beyond any state of non-being as well. Those who understand that realize My true nature. All others are fools.” Not being fooled anymore should not result in feeling “hurt” but in feeling “relieved,” yet a temporary sense of “lost” or of “an injured ego” is often experienced by persons when they first see how thoroughly they were fooled via enculturation.
Compare that to children in “Christian nations” who learn that there is no Santa Claus and that their parents are outright liars. They also feel “hurt” when they finally discover the truth. Adults should be better equipped than children to handle the truth, but they are not. Why? Because programming and conditioning make adult persons behave and think and feel just like children. Neither children nor adults enjoy the shaking that is required to wake them. Most prefer to sleep, and (as a result of that preference) the relative existence becomes a miserable, stress-filled, exhausting existence or a boring, “death-in-life” existence.
(C) GURU: As for what to do about “a guru,” when this space was diagnosed with cancerous colon polyps, a physician was visited and his directions were followed. Once the polyps were removed and stopped returning, why would this space need to continue visiting that physician? Why would any thought about him be required? Full Realization results in the no-thought state that follows the discarding of “the mind” that generated thoughts. Freedom is freedom from any dependency, be it a dependency on a god or be it a co-dependency on a spouse, on a guru, or on any symbol or image that the contaminated consciousness takes to be real even though it is not. All “persons” or “humans” are illusions. A “guru” is just an upgrade of that illusion. The “inner guru” is that which is available to free you from your belief in illusions.
V.: What did Nisargadatta Maharaj and Floyd Henderson do to me? Why did they erase me and themselves in the process?
F.: This question could only be addressed if that “me” had ever existed. A mirage cannot be “erased” since it never existed. Next, Maharaj never did anything and Henderson has done nothing. Via those spaces, consciousness spoke and consciousness speaks. In both cases, the consciousness has pointed toward the inner guru, toward that alone which can “erase” the illusion of “self.” As far as any experiences that one or more ego-states thought they were having but can’t now have, fret not. Merely see that what was thought to have been happening was not happening at all; also, see that the experiences that ego-states took to be real or enjoyable actually took a very heavy toll. Some adults in the U.S. during this “season” will look back on their childhood and say of their illusion about a Santa Claus, “Well, it was a great illusion while it lasted, so let’s delude our children the same way.” Would you be willing to consider this alternate view?
How “great” is an illusion that conditions persons to believe in an external, loving, super-powerful being and simultaneously conditions them to become dependent upon it?
The lie that some parents tell children is that there is a “kind, loving man whom you cannot see but who loves you and cares for you and will bestow gifts upon you if believe in him and if you tell him what you want or need and if are good.” When parents are eventually confronted about their Santa lie, they say, “There really is a kind, loving man whom you cannot see but who loves you and cares for you and will bestow gifts upon you if believe in him and if you tell him what you want or need and if are good. The only part of what we told you that was not totally true was that his name is not Santa—it is ‘God’.”
This discussion is relevant even for non-Christians who do not tell the Santa tale. Why? In ancient cultures where the Santa lie was not told, the Jupiter tale was told, the Zeus tale was told, the Apollo tale was told, the Thor tale was told. Later, the Brahma tale would be told, the Vishnu tale would be told, the Ram or Rama tale would be told. More recently, the god of Abraham tale is being told, including the Moses tale, the Christ tale, and the Mohammed tale. What are the results of hearing and believing these tales that condition persons? The tales condition persons to believe that there are kind, loving super-powerful male-gods and/or super-powerful female-gods or one male-god whom you cannot see but who will take care of you if you will become dependent on them/him. Persons come to believe that gifts will be bestowed upon them if they believe in him/them and if they tell him/them what they want or need and if they are "good." Another result is the belief that “my version of the tale is ‘right’ and your version is ‘wrong’.” Belief in that concept of differentiation and in the accompanying tales of duality have resulted in more wars and death than all other factors combined, except “natural death.”
Those tales then set persons up for the rest of their lives to believe in fantasies, to believe in magical tales, to be dependent, to expect someone or something else to take care of them, and to expect that they’re entitled to be taken care of if they don’t question the existence of things dreamed up and if their conduct is aligned with other persons’ definition of what is “good.”
With an awareness of those relative existence effects of conditioning, might a different perspective come regarding the belief, “Well, it was a great illusion while it lasted, so let’s delude our children the same way”? Might you be willing to question objectively the advantage (or the disadvantage) of being told lies and tales, whether the adults telling those lies and tales know that they are not true or whether they actually believe the lies themselves? Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be continued]
