From a site visitor: [Received 10 June 2007] Today you said history shows religion leads to separation and judging and even killing. That’s not true. For me, my religion leads to peace and power. I stay in conscious contact with Him with prayer all day, every day, and He empowers me and gives me guidance and peace so I can be happy for as long as by His grace I am allowed to live. I hope you can find your way to Him so that you can have peace in this life and joy forever. Signed, John (as in 3:16)--A Child and Agent of God
F.: The delusions which persons (the non-Realized) live in—and which are addressed by the Advaita Teachings—are fixed in the “minds” of persons and are one dominant influence on their relative behavior and thought. The effects of those delusions are so dominant that persons are walking about in their sleep, talking in their sleep, and doing what they do in their sleep while actually believing that they are fully awake and while actually believing that they are controlling their thoughts and making their own decisions and choosing to do what they do.
Could it possibly be more insane-like than for persons to be driven by unconscious and subconscious factors while being convinced that they are awake and aware and conscious and exercising free-will and choice? Could the level of self-deception be any greater than for persons to be driven to say what they say and to do what they do without a clue about why they are doing it or why they are saying it? Consider this example:
A child watched her mother and grandmother in the kitchen as they cut a roast in half and put it into two small pans for cooking. When the child asked her mother why they didn’t just put the roast in their big pan, her mother said, “Because this is the way that your grandmother always did it. Maybe it involves flavor or cook time or something, is that right, Mom?” But the child’s grandmother answered her daughter, “Not really. That’s just the way my mother always did it.”
So the child picked up the phone and called her great-grandmother and asked, “Why did you always cut a roast in half and put it into two little pans instead of just putting it into one big pan for cooking?” And the great-grandmother replied, “Because we were poor back then and couldn’t afford to buy a big pan. I always had to cut our roasts in half and put the halves into our two small pans because we didn’t own a large pot.” So one person did something out of necessity, but then two more persons senselessly modeled that same behavior out of ignorance. And it took an act of questioning to finally expose the senselessness of the behavior that had been passed down, unconsciously and unquestioningly, for generations.
But even after the child returned from the phone call and revealed to her mother and her grandmother the root of their now senseless behavior, for the rest of their lives they still continued to cut their roasts in half and to put the two parts into small pans for cooking. Eventually, that child became an adult, married, had children and cooked roasts. And in her kitchen one afternoon, as she was cutting a roast in half and preparing to cook the two pieces for their evening meal, her child asked her, “Why don’t you just put the roast in the big pan to cook it?”
And she answered, “Well, I remember asking that question myself one time, but now I don’t remember exactly what the answer was. But I know that your great-great grandmother did it this way, and your great-grandmother did it this way, and your grandmother did it this way, so I just do it that way too.” And the little child said, "OK," and when she became an adult, she did it that way, too.
The Advaita Teachings invite you to wake up and to stop doing things simply because you and your family and your friends and your culture and your “leaders” have always done things that way. The Advaita Teachings invite you to wake up and to stop believing in concepts simply because you and your family and your friends and your culture and your “leaders” have always believed in those concepts.
The Advaita Teachings invite you to question it all. The teachings offer a method by which you can be awakened, by which you can be enlightened, by which you can understand how you have been unconsciously driven by folklore that is thousands of years old, and how you can be free of all things that currently influence you and that unconsciously drive you. Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
THE FEATURED ITEM FOR THIS WEEK’S SALE IS THE MEDITATION SET: Daily Meditation Guides, Volumes One and Two (15% off the price of the set through June 24th.)
Click THE MEDITATION SET
WORKING ON BEING FREE OF RELIGIOUS PROGRAMMING AND DOGMA?Click SPIRITUAL SOBRIETY
F.: The delusions which persons (the non-Realized) live in—and which are addressed by the Advaita Teachings—are fixed in the “minds” of persons and are one dominant influence on their relative behavior and thought. The effects of those delusions are so dominant that persons are walking about in their sleep, talking in their sleep, and doing what they do in their sleep while actually believing that they are fully awake and while actually believing that they are controlling their thoughts and making their own decisions and choosing to do what they do.
Could it possibly be more insane-like than for persons to be driven by unconscious and subconscious factors while being convinced that they are awake and aware and conscious and exercising free-will and choice? Could the level of self-deception be any greater than for persons to be driven to say what they say and to do what they do without a clue about why they are doing it or why they are saying it? Consider this example:
A child watched her mother and grandmother in the kitchen as they cut a roast in half and put it into two small pans for cooking. When the child asked her mother why they didn’t just put the roast in their big pan, her mother said, “Because this is the way that your grandmother always did it. Maybe it involves flavor or cook time or something, is that right, Mom?” But the child’s grandmother answered her daughter, “Not really. That’s just the way my mother always did it.”
So the child picked up the phone and called her great-grandmother and asked, “Why did you always cut a roast in half and put it into two little pans instead of just putting it into one big pan for cooking?” And the great-grandmother replied, “Because we were poor back then and couldn’t afford to buy a big pan. I always had to cut our roasts in half and put the halves into our two small pans because we didn’t own a large pot.” So one person did something out of necessity, but then two more persons senselessly modeled that same behavior out of ignorance. And it took an act of questioning to finally expose the senselessness of the behavior that had been passed down, unconsciously and unquestioningly, for generations.
But even after the child returned from the phone call and revealed to her mother and her grandmother the root of their now senseless behavior, for the rest of their lives they still continued to cut their roasts in half and to put the two parts into small pans for cooking. Eventually, that child became an adult, married, had children and cooked roasts. And in her kitchen one afternoon, as she was cutting a roast in half and preparing to cook the two pieces for their evening meal, her child asked her, “Why don’t you just put the roast in the big pan to cook it?”
And she answered, “Well, I remember asking that question myself one time, but now I don’t remember exactly what the answer was. But I know that your great-great grandmother did it this way, and your great-grandmother did it this way, and your grandmother did it this way, so I just do it that way too.” And the little child said, "OK," and when she became an adult, she did it that way, too.
The Advaita Teachings invite you to wake up and to stop doing things simply because you and your family and your friends and your culture and your “leaders” have always done things that way. The Advaita Teachings invite you to wake up and to stop believing in concepts simply because you and your family and your friends and your culture and your “leaders” have always believed in those concepts.
The Advaita Teachings invite you to question it all. The teachings offer a method by which you can be awakened, by which you can be enlightened, by which you can understand how you have been unconsciously driven by folklore that is thousands of years old, and how you can be free of all things that currently influence you and that unconsciously drive you. Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
THE FEATURED ITEM FOR THIS WEEK’S SALE IS THE MEDITATION SET: Daily Meditation Guides, Volumes One and Two (15% off the price of the set through June 24th.)
WORKING ON BEING FREE OF RELIGIOUS PROGRAMMING AND DOGMA?
