Advaita Vedanta: CAUSATION and RELATIVE EVENTS AND BEHAVIORS: "Evil?" Or Ignorance, Stupidity, and Insanity? Part Twenty-Six in the Series

Today's "DAILY CONSIDERATION" for You

"I HAVE NO FAITH IN ANYTHING WHICH HAS EVER BEEN TOLD ...."

"I HAVE NO FAITH IN ANYTHING ...."

"I HAVE NO FAITH ...."

The invitation for the next few days is to consider the words of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj in determining which of the following statements is factual:

A. "Evil is the cause of all bad things that happen on the planet"

or

B. "Ignorance, stupidity, and / or insanity are three of the key elements in a long chain of causation in which the cause of all is ultimately ... all."

Maharaj said, "I have no faith in anything which has ever been told, not even what has been told by the Vedas." By the end of his teaching career, his pointers were based in the Natural Yoga along, having turned his back on Hinduism and the Vedas and anything else that was outside that which he understood from his "own experience."

His words over the next several days will be applied to certain contemporary examples in order to examine the evidence. First, his words regarding "faith." Consider: "I have no faith in anything which has ever been told .... "; "I have no faith in anything .... "; "I have no faith .... "

Next, consider the headlines from recent newspaper articles dealing with two events in the U.S. that share in common the key elements of "faith" and "killing / death."

In the last few days in the U.S., there was one case in which the actions of two Christians led to the death of two children; in the second case, the actions of two Muslims led to the death of a child and two adults. Consider how differently the public is reacting to the two events that share those key factors in common:

CATHERINE, HERBERT SCHAIBLE'S SECOND CHILD
DIES AFTER PARENTS USE PRAYER, NOT MEDICINE

April 23, 2013
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A couple serving probation for the 2009 death of their toddler after they turned to prayer instead of a doctor could face new charges now that another son has died.

Herbert and Catherine Schaible belong to a fundamentalist Christian church that believes in faith healing. They lost their 8-month-old son, Brandon, last week after he suffered from diarrhea and breathing problems for at least a week, and stopped eating. Four years ago, another son died from bacterial pneumonia.

Herbert Schaible, 44, and his 43-year-old wife grew up in the First Century Gospel Church in northeast Philadelphia and have served as teachers there. The church's website has a sermon titled "Healing – From God or Medicine?" that quotes Bible verses purportedly forbidding Christians from visiting doctors or taking medicine.

"It is a definite sin to trust in medical help and pills; and it is real faith to trust on the Name of Jesus for healing," says the message from last May.

At a hearing Monday, a judge told the couple they had violated the terms of their probation, noting the Schaibles had told investigators that they prayed to God to make Brandon well instead of seeking medical attention.

"You did that once, and the consequences were tragic," Philadelphia Common Pleas Judge Benjamin Lerner said.

Their defense attorney said: "Nobody argues that these aren't very loving, nurturing parents."

So which is it? "Evil?" Or "ignorance, stupidity, and insanity?"

Case #2:

BOSTON BOMBING SUSPECTS
APPARENTLY MOTIVATED BY FAITH

April 22, 2013
UPDATE: The two brothers suspected of bombing the Boston Marathon appear to have been motivated by their religious faith but do not seem connected to any Muslim terrorist groups, U.S. officials said Monday after interrogating the severely wounded younger man.

In this second case, it is not likely that many in the U.S. will say that "nobody argues that these aren't very loving, nurturing people."

Again, Maharaj: "After the information given to you by the mother, that you are a boy or girl, all your further acquisitions are by hearsay."

The acquisition in the first case: "You are 'Christians' who have the power to heal through prayer. Please God by using that power, not doctors and medicine, to heal your sick children."

The acquisition in the second case: "You are 'Muslims' who have the power to kill when vengeance is called for. Please Allah by becoming 'The Avengers' against American imperialism in Iraq and Afghanistan."

Is it not insanity when one invents a concept and then allows it to drive all future thoughts and words and actions? And what - other than the invention of a particular faith and a particular "God" - drives humanity more when 97% claim an affiliation with one organized religion or another and when millions more claim to be "spiritual, not religious" and worship a God and beg for things? Maharaj on that "invention of a God":

"First of all you identify something as being good or bad for yourself. Then, in an effort to acquire good or to get rid of the bad, you have invented a God. Then you worship such a God and ... you pray to that God for something good to happen to you."

See, there are on the planet hundreds of "different nationalities," many "different skin colors," and thousands of "different ethnicities," all generating beliefs about "different-from-ment"; however, there is only one thing that 98% have in common: they believe in the tenets of a religion and they believe in a god (or gods and goddesses). Thus, nothing drives the thoughts and the words and the actions of the seven billion persons on the planet more than religion and religious and / or spiritual faith and religious and / or spiritual beliefs.

And those result in a planet-wide sense of "different-from-ment" because the tenets and practices and god or gods of all of those religions are numerous and different. Add in the fact that nothing generates more emotional intoxication than religious debates and arguments and disagreements and it should become clear why more persons on the planet have died from religious ignorance and religious fighting and religious wars than any other causes besides "natural" causes.

Is the conclusion that "all religious people are evil"? No, there are no persons who are either good or evil. The conclusion points to ignorance, stupidity and insanity.

Consider the points offered in these exchanges:

Questioner: "Do you mean to say that between good and evil there is no wall?"

Maharaj: "There is no wall, because there is no good and no evil."

and

Questioner: "How is it that there is so much evil in my world?"

Maharaj: "There is no evil .... "

Again, Maharaj: "After the information given to you by the mother, that you are a boy or girl, all your further acquisitions are by hearsay."

"You are a Christian" is "hearsay"? Yes.

Based in that additional persona acquisition, were there, as a judge said this week in one case, "consequences [that] were tragic" because of the "further acquisition" of a faith-based, additional identity / persona / personality? Relatively speaking, yes. For five thousand years or more, there have been "tragic consequences," relatively speaking, as a result of the "further acquisition" of faith-based identities / faith-based personas / faith-based personalities.

"You are a Muslim" is "hearsay"? Yes.

Based in that additional persona acquisition, were there, as a judge said this week in one case, "consequences [that] were tragic" because of the "further acquisition" of a faith-based, additional identity / persona / personality? Relatively speaking, yes. For five thousand years or more, there have been "tragic consequences," relatively speaking, as a result of the "further acquisition" of faith-based identities / faith-based personas / faith-based personalities.

TOMORROW: And what if a child were given the "further acquisition" from early on that he is a bird? And what if all of the persons in his culture supported that lie? And what if he and a friend died as a result of that belief? The question then is, "Having brought about relative 'tragic consequences' while acting like a bird because he was told that he was a bird, would that child have been driven by 'evil' or would that child have been driven by the ignorance and insanity that was disseminated in his home and in his culture?"

One book offered below is entitled "FREEDOM FROM BELIEFS (Believers, Non-Believers, and "No-Belief-ers"). Are you seeing why there can be no such thing as "freedom" if beliefs are present?

Please enter the silence of contemplation.

Questions?
Submit them to:

Comments?
Just hang on to those please.

A Non-Duality Online Course is currently available at a reduced rate. See above for details.

[Received from Mac, 10/17/12]:

"Glad to see the online teaching offered at a discount. Hopefully, more who are ready will be able to take the course. For me, the course was the beginning of the unlearning that led to the trip to the lake for a retreat and the understanding."

SHIFTING THE FOCUS FROM THAT WHICH DOES NOT WORK TO THAT WHICH DOES, Part One

A "movement" or "shift" happened here that added another parallel to the many parallels in terms of the phenomenal "experiences" and the noumenal revelations that "Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj" and "Floyd" share in common. (Many visitors over the years have said that they also shared the same parallels with "Maharaj" and "Floyd" as well.) In the case of "Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj" and "Floyd": 1. both grew up in very poor families 2. both moved to populated areas to seek employment opportunities 3. both exhibited business skills that led to their opening and operating many businesses and to their having a large number of employees working for them 4. both succeeded financially 5. both became attached to accumulating; 6. both married and had a family 7. both were initially religious 8. both moved away from organized religion and became interested in "spiritual" matters, finding and following the teachings of a big name teacher (or, in "Floyd's" case, many big name teachers) 9. both had highly religious wives who were quite displeased with the shift away from religion and toward "spirituality" 10. both began to feel empty in spite of all of their "spiritual seeking" and in spite of all of their accumulated "spiritual knowledge";

11. both began to de-accumulate after both saw that they could survive quite well on a fraction of the income they had been making 12. both had wives who were unhappy when the de-accumulation stage was entered and both had wives who became unhappy about their husbands' focus on non-duality and who blamed their unhappiness on no longer having a religious husband (The facts be known, in both cases the unhappiness involved the fact that their husbands were no longer interested in - or willing - to work 80+ hours per week and that their husbands were no longer interested in accumulating wealth and possessions and providing the rich lifestyle to which their wives had grown accustomed) 13. both eventually came to see that the religious and spiritual states were also ego-states, and both saw that there are far more steps on the "path" to complete after reaching the religious and spiritual steps and after playing those roles which are the third of seven steps on the entire "path" 14. both "lost" their wives (one via "death," the other through divorce); 15. both accelerated their seeking; 16. both entered into the "forest dweller stage" 17. both Realized 18. both began to de-accumulate even more 19. both began sharing the teachings 20. for years, both answered questions in whatever order those questions were received, though both said that the movement from identification with the false "I" / "I's" involved an exact, step-wise manner of moving along a "path" that involved "going back" in the same (but reverse order) of the way they "came in" - that is, the way that the manifestation happened and the way that the consciousness was blocked through seven stages that resulted in their becoming identified solely with their false personas, with the content of the "mind," and eventually, with the body. But the most significant awareness that finally came to both after years of offering satsang and after having answered thousands and thousands of questions was this: After years of "Maharaj" offering satsang in his loft, and after years of "Floyd" offering satsang in meeting halls and in his home and via what one site visitor called "Floyd's electronic loft," this fact became obvious to both: "Maharaj" came to see in the 1970's and into 1980 and 1981 that his approach was not working and "Floyd" finally came to see the same.

21. Both saw that many who heard the teachings are not going to understand (Maharaj reporting that "only 1 in 100,000 are going to 'get' this" understanding) 22. both soon saw that even more than expected of those who heard the teachings were not going to understand (Maharaj modifying his "guesstimate" and reporting that "only 1 in 1,000,000 are going to 'get' this" understanding) 23. eventually both saw that even far more than expected of those who heard the teachings were not going to understand (Maharaj eventually concluding that "only 1 in 10,000,000 are going to 'get' this" understanding). And the failings were not the fault of seekers. A "one -in-ten-million" estimate is proof that satsang was not working for most seekers, and the evidence here lately is proof of the same.

Both "Maharaj" and "Floyd" invited seekers to focus on the exact, step-wise "path." Yes, during satsang, "Maharaj" sometimes alluded to the steps while discussing them in no particular order - but he never once laid out the steps in the exact order in which they had to be completed. That was not his teachings style or approach.

Therefore, another movement or shift is happening here spontaneously after reflecting on the more than two decades since the teachings were first offered here and looking at the results of Maharaj sharing pointers in his loft and looking at the results of "Floyd" sharing pointers in this electronic loft: Looking objectively at his results, Maharaj's satsang method of sharing - in the end and by his own admission (only "one out of 10,000,000") - did not produce the intended outcome.

Looking objectively at the results here when using an "electronic loft" satsang method of sharing has not produced the intended outcome nearly as often as any of the three "face-to-face" methods used with seekers by which they have been led through the seven steps in order. Here, the body is growing older, of course. Mahasamadhi could be taken today, or it could be taken in twenty years.

Obviously, that cannot be known. But the decision here has been made that whatever amount of the relative existence remains shall be spent in sharing the teachings in the ways that have been seen over the last 20+ years to be the most effective methods.

Looking back over the list of those that have truly received the understanding, it is seen that Robert R. read all of the books, then took the online Advaita course and then completed some face-to-face Skype sessions to receive the final clarifications required. It was seen that Mac read all of the books, completed the online course, and then attended a retreat where he was guided through the seven steps. Mac said that the online course work inspired him to attend the retreat in order to be able to receive the final "pieces." It was seen that Andy Gugar, Jr. read all of the books, then came here for a retreat and was taken through the seven steps in order, and then returned once more for the final clarifications required. After reviewing the shifts that happened with him after attending two retreats, he reaffirmed this past week his commitment to helping spread the non-duality, nisarga understanding as presented here. As a result of seeing what has "worked" during the last 20+ years of sharing the non-duality understanding - and seeing what had not "worked" as well - changes will be made.

SHIFTING THE FOCUS FROM THAT WHICH DOES NOT WORK TO THAT WHICH DOES, Part Two

In "Part One," examples were given of seekers that were led to Realization not by satsang but by following the various protocols outlined farther down this page which provide the understanding in the step-wise, orderly, required fashion which moves seekers along a "path" that is as prescribed by Maharaj ... "going back" in the "reverse order" by which the consciousness manifested and became blocked.

However, conversations with some that just read the majority of the books have revealed that they certainly seem to have grasped the understanding and Realized as well. As a result of seeing what has "worked" during the last 20+ years of sharing the non-duality understanding - and seeing what has "not worked" as well - changes are being made. There are seven specific steps that happen when awareness-energy is "pulled" into a cycle of manifestation. When that energy manifests as conscious-energy, that formerly pure and unadulterated energy becomes "corrupted" (or "blocked" from seeing clearly) via programming, conditioning, domestication, acculturation, and brainwashing. Soon, there is a belief in the not-Real as a result of seven degrees of separation from an understanding of the Real. Using the method that was also employed by his contemporaries - a method which focused on offering non-duality pointers via satsang - Maharaj addressed questions in the order in which they were received. He might receive a question from a seeker at the third step and his reply would include what amounted to an invitation to move to the fourth step. The next question might come from a seeker at the first step, and the reply would include an invitation to move to the second step. The information offered to the second seeker would seemingly contradict what was offered to the first seeker, so visitors who have come here for decades have asked questions which showed how confused they were by the fact that Maharaj's statements to each visitor in his loft were "level-appropriate" yet were provided in no precise order, resulting in what seemed to be an inconsistent message. So the process overall was confusing in that seekers were told to follow the "path back" in the same way that they "came in," except in reverse order, but pointers were not given in a specific, step-wise order at all. Maharaj did recognize the seven steps that are taught here, but by offering the teachings in an order that was dictated by the order in which questions were received from seekers who were at different steps on the "path," the result was this: a pointer about moving beyond the fourth step might be followed by a pointer about moving beyond the first step, and that pointer might be followed by a pointer about how to move beyond the sixth step. The same was done on this site for seven years. The result is a collection of 1,800 or so essays discussing almost every non-duality topic that can be discussed, and the search button on the top right side of this page will now allow seekers with a question about a specific topic to find an explanation. That method, however, will never provide the manner in which the seven steps on the "path" must be transmitted and received in order to Realize Fully. An objective study of the history here of more than twenty years of offering non-duality pointers reveals this: seekers that were given pointers in the exact order in which they needed to receive them were the ones that Realized.

They read the books, then they completed the online course and / or completed seven Skype or telephone sessions or came here for a retreat (or watched the downloadable DVD version of an actual retreat, available below).

Some found that which they were seeking by reading the author's book that deal with non-duality subject matter. Via all of those venues, the steps are taught in their proper order. The essays available on this site will remain for those interested in searching for a discussion of a particular non-duality topic without charge, but the focus here until mahasamadhi is taken is going to be on offering the teachings in the step-wise fashion that has been seen to work.

THESE PAPERBACK BOOKS ARE AVAILABLE THROUGH AMAZON.COM
(Four by Floyd Henderson and two by Dennis Waite. Click the picture for more information or to order)

* * * * * * *

ALL EBOOK AND PAPERBACK VERSION OF HENDERSON'S NON-DUALITY BOOKS and RECOVERY LITERATURE and FINANCIAL BOOKS are available at

Floyd Henderson's Website

Within minutes of purchase you can be reading any of the eBooks below on your mobile devices, including an iPhone, iPad, Android tablet, Android phone, laptop, home computer or on a Kindle reader. For Apple and Android, either download the eBook directly onto your device or email the eBook file to your mobile device and open the file from your email. For Kindles or other similar devices, use your USB cable to transfer the eBook to your reader.

FOR THOSE SEEKING FURTHER EXPLANATION OF THE NON-DUALITY UNDERSTANDING, AS NOTED ABOVE, SOME SEEKERS HAVE REALIZED BY USING THE METHODS BELOW, OR A COMBINATION OF THE METHODS:

WAYS THAT SEEKERS HAVE REALIZED:

I. BY WATCHING the 4-Disk, Seven-Hour Video (DVD) Set of an advaita retreat, or the downloadable file version. To find out more or to purchase the DVD or downloadable computer file version of the retreat, DVD or Downloadable computer file versions of the Four-Day Advaita Retreat

International buyers: note the separate option for those outside the continental U.S.

II. BY READING the explanations offered in the collection of non-duality books that are available on this site and at www.floydhenderson.com.

III. BY ENROLLING in the Online Advaita Classes For information, visit Information on the Advaita Classes on the Internet To enroll visit Enroll in the Advaita Internet Course

IV. BY ATTENDING an Advaitin retreat with floyd and being guided through all seven steps. For details of the retreats offered, please visit the retreat information site.

V. BY ARRANGING a one-hour session via Skype or telephone with Floyd. (Skype is a free service.)

Click the button to pay and you will be contacted to arrange a date and time for the call.

VI. ALL OF THE FOLLOWING BOOKS are available at

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and ALL CAN BE SENT TO FRIENDS OR FAMILY MEMBERS AS GIFTS [details at floydhenderson.com. Once on that site, click on the picture of the book you would like to send as a gift for details]

FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE: A Seven-Step Journey to the Absolute