An Advaita Vedanta realization, enlightenment, nisarga yoga site discussing non-duality (nonduality), your original nature, and dwelling in the natural state as revealed by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.
FROM A SITE VISITOR: Hey Floyd, I love your site!! Well, I was programmed by catholicism and I'm still having trouble realizing that there is no heaven/hell... I still have a fear that I may create my own hell or that there might be a hell.. How can I deprogram myself from this fear? Are you positive there is no hell?? peace and love alex
F.: Programming and conditioning and enculturation result in unnatural and/or supernatural (magical) thinking and behavior. The end result of unnatural and supernatural thinking, relatively speaking, is a total blockage of awareness of Your original nature, a total blockage of awareness of Your natural state, and, therefore, an inability to live naturally.
Supernatural thinking is marked by magical, fairy-tale-type beliefs and concepts:
“I believe there is a reason for everything, all under God’s control”;
“six billion people can’t be wrong about God”;
“anyone who looks at the order of the universe has to admit that there must be some God managing everything”;
“there is an overall plan that we do not always understand”;
“there is a hand that has been guiding me through life”;
“the universe sends me all I need, when I need it”;
“the consumption of some foods will make you a more spiritual person and the consumption of other foods will prevent you from being spiritual at all”;
“I’ve been unemployed for eleven months, but I know in my heart that God has some plan for me, so in God’s time, not mine”;
“I believe that suffering makes a person stronger”; and
“you can be more spiritual if you use certain accoutrements like burning sticks, drums, crystals, special bowls that are struck by special sticks to make special sounds, ad infinitum.”
Then there are the ones that the ego truly loves since they convince persons that they are so special:
“you were created and put here for a purpose”;
“you are a gift from God”;
“you are a child of God, an agent for God on earth, a vessel of God, a channel for God, God’s spokesperson, God’s representative, God’s ambassador, etc.”
The end result of supernatural living—dominated by such magical thinking as revealed in the examples above—is a very unnatural life…one totally unlike your original nature…one totally unlike Your natural state. Thus, supernatural living and thinking and behaving is unnatural, so it should be clear why the Fully Realized Advaitin teacher will invite you to abandon such unnatural behavior and such nonsensical thinking which is generated by the fiction-laden “mind.”
Contrast supernatural, unnatural living with the type of natural living exhibited by the deer or the AS IF type of living exhibited among the Realized:
Each morning, three to six deer usually feed on the grass of the front lawn of the current residence. They are content. They have no cares or concerns. They have no dogma. They have no “mind.” They have no ideology or concepts or ideas or beliefs. They are at peace. They are living naturally, functioning in a manner that is true to their original nature.
Were you to be in touch with the reality of Your original nature, you would live as naturally as the deer. What can block you from that? Supernatural (a.k.a., “religious” or “spiritual”) ideas, concepts, and beliefs.
For example, the act of friction is natural, the transfer of seeds is natural, and the fertilization of eggs in natural. To believe that a woman can be impregnated without that act of friction is to live in total darkness, in abject ignorance, and in juvenile foolishness. (Parthenogenesis is an act reserved exclusively to some plants and a few rare species, humans not included.)
Yet two billion programmed Christians unquestioningly believe that a virginal—rather than vaginal—birth happened, unaware that Christianity is not the first but is the 23rd religion that claimed a savior born of a virgin. (Actually, the word used in the original text that supposedly foretold a virgin birth was almah, meaning “a young woman,” not “a virgin.”)
Add in the Buddhists who believe that Buddha was born via an opening in his mother’s side and include the Hindus who believe that
Childish, immature, magical belief systems are the driving force among persons who have been programmed, conditioned, enculturated, and domesticated by the dogma rooted in pagan religions and that is now the stock and trade of modern religious and spiritual groups.
To see Pavlov’s dogs as they unnaturally salivate as a result of sounds rather than smells is to see how you—when similarly conditioned—will live just as unnaturally as those dogs.
Only if freed of all beliefs and concepts and only if residing in Your original nature as the no-concept, non-dual Reality can the bondage of supernatural beliefs (which inspire unnatural thoughts and words and deeds) be transitioned. Please enter into the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
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