A DAILY CONSIDERATION FOR YOU
And what does the mind do . . . constantly? It thinks. When persons say that they want “peace of mind,” what they are really longing for is a no-thought state. “Pleasant” thoughts are thoughts about what one desires, but those always eventually lead to disappointment. All other thoughts are "unpleasant" and thus disturbing; they are peace-breakers, not peacemakers.
The various types of noisemakers developed nowadays are near endless in number, but the peaceful silence is most often broken first and foremost by . . . words. To be able to enjoy the peace that comes with the silence (which happens when words are absent) then – as the continuum above illustrates – there must first be an absence of thoughts.
Most, after having been programmed and conditioned, etc., will never experience samadhi (the “still-mind” state). For those who do reach the state, it is usually a temporary event rather than a fixed state. If there is a mind that is present, it will be forever in motion. Only if the mind has been eliminated – by giving up all beliefs – can the peace of a "no-words state" and of a "no-actions state" exist.
Maharaj: “I am fully conscious, but since no desire or fear enters my mind, there is perfect silence.”
He explained that when “all subsides,” then “the mind merges into silence,” saying, “as to my mind, there is no such thing.”
How easy it could be to return to the original no-belief, no-mind condition if one were to come to prefer the natural (nisargan) over the unnatural and / or the supposedly supernatural.
Here is the reality around "the no-peace and no-silence condition" vs. "the peace and the silence condition": both are guaranteed to come someday (when mahasamadhi is taken), so why not welcome peace and silence sooner rather than later?
Maharaj: “When the relative is over, the absolute remains. The silence before the words were spoken, is it different from the silence that comes after? The silence is one, and without it the words could not have been heard. Shift your attention from words to silence and you will hear it.”
And to shift attention from words to silence, the continuum shows that thoughts must go first.
For three summers during the 1960’s while otherwise attending college, I worked as an apprentice to John Warren, who ran the machine shop for a steel fabrication company. He had little formal education, having dropped out of school around the seventh grade, but he was nevertheless most wise. On the wall in front of his desk, he had hung sign which said, “If I am the one talking, I am not the one discovering or understanding that which I have not yet discovered or that which I do not yet understand.”
Something about the sign “grabbed me.” When I ask John about it, he explained, “Steel fabrication companies are the noisiest workplaces in the U.S. Why add to the noise with needless talk?”
Among the realized, that is almost "a motto": Why add to the already-excessive amount and volume of noise with needless talk?
Yet most persons will never sit in the silence (in fact, cannot stand the silence), and that is why most persons cannot sit still rather than being driven to go and do and zoom.
Words which break the silence also inspire action . . . doingness. As an understanding of the continuum above makes clear, as long as there is a mind, there will be thoughts; and as long as there are thoughts, there will surely follow words; and as long as there are words, then actions and going and doing and zooming will surely follow.
To watch a newscast is to see the functioning of humankind’s insane goings and doings and zoomings as their thoughts lead to their words and their words lead to their actions. And because the thoughts among the non-Realized masses are rooted in what Maharaj called “ignorance, stupidity, and insanity,” then the words (and then the insane actions seen via broadcasts) will also be rooted in insanity.
So what sort of actions does the always-insane mind inspire? As a result of both conscious and subconscious beliefs, and as a result of being driven by the unconscious, hidden agendas of personas which generate totally insane behaviors, persons are willing to:
a. accept unhappiness over loneliness (and thus remain in the most destructive and insane “relationships” imaginable); or to
b. accept chaos over boredom (and thereby be driven to forfeit the peace while abiding in the most disordered, disorganized, confused, and frenzied fashions imaginable); or to
c. accept taking a chance at contracting a fatal STD rather than continuing to feel rejected or “unloved” or simply horny; or to
d. accept a religion’s teachings which suggest that one should “die while killing infidels for God and thereby go to harem heaven where you will be accommodated by virgins and servants in your own personal brothel rather than continuing to live but remaining celibate because no woman who knows you wants to have anything to do with you” (and rather than live and learn how to abandon a culture’s relationship-busting, chauvinistic beliefs about the inferiority of women); or to
e. accept being driven by the beliefs of others and by the hidden agendas of false identities rather than having any real ability at all to consciously choose your own words or to consciously determine your own actions and behaviors; or to
f. accept the notion that misery and suffering in this life are to be tolerated as a result of believing that eternal happiness awaits if you will only live the way that some religious or spiritual person tells you to live; or to
g. accept unquestioningly the beliefs and values and ways of one's parents and thereby perpetuate the ignorance and insanity that has dominated family members for generations.
Yet there is an alternative: find true freedom by being truly free of the content that has been crammed into the mind via programming, conditioning, acculturation, domestication, brainwashing, and indoctrination.
The Ultimate Sickness is a mind sickness, and the fuller the mind, the more serious the Sickness. The invitation is to seek the Ultimate Medicine which amounts to nothing more than receiving the understanding which can render you fully conscious of what you are actually thinking; fully conscious of what you are actually saying; fully conscious of what you are doing; and thus allowing you
to understand fully WHY you are thinking and talking and doing the things you do; to understand fully WHY you are being controlled by the continuum which unconsciously drives humanity and which preempts any opportunity to enjoy the silence and the non-doingness and the peace; and then finally to understand fully that only if mindless (rather than mind-full) can you return to the peace and silence and non-doingness which once characterized Your Original Nature.
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
Section Two offers other recent posts. (All of the nearly 2,400 posts as well as any specific topics which you’re interested in can be accessed by using the search feature at the top of the right column.)
F.: At the root of what the non-Realized masses say and do are the subconscious, hidden agendas of the many personalities / personas which persons have been assigned (by family, culture, etc.) or which they have adopted on their own.
And where is the belief in those personalities stored? In the mind.
Moreover, it is in the mind where those subconscious agendas first manifest as thoughts; thus, the continuum which determines what persons say and what they do progresses in this fashion:
The Ultimate Sickness is centered in the mind and begins only after a mind has been pumped full of Sickness-inducing contaminates (that is, contaminated or obtuse or perverted or really-sick ideas, concepts, etc.) all of which make up what can be called a non-Realized person’s “belief system.”
And where is the belief in those personalities stored? In the mind.
Moreover, it is in the mind where those subconscious agendas first manifest as thoughts; thus, the continuum which determines what persons say and what they do progresses in this fashion:
The Ultimate Sickness is centered in the mind and begins only after a mind has been pumped full of Sickness-inducing contaminates (that is, contaminated or obtuse or perverted or really-sick ideas, concepts, etc.) all of which make up what can be called a non-Realized person’s “belief system.”
The more content (i.e., nonsense) that is stored in the mind, the greater the Sickness. The fewer beliefs, the less serious the Sickness. If the mind ends, by eliminating all beliefs, then the Sickness also ends.
And what does the mind do . . . constantly? It thinks. When persons say that they want “peace of mind,” what they are really longing for is a no-thought state. “Pleasant” thoughts are thoughts about what one desires, but those always eventually lead to disappointment. All other thoughts are "unpleasant" and thus disturbing; they are peace-breakers, not peacemakers.
The various types of noisemakers developed nowadays are near endless in number, but the peaceful silence is most often broken first and foremost by . . . words. To be able to enjoy the peace that comes with the silence (which happens when words are absent) then – as the continuum above illustrates – there must first be an absence of thoughts.
Most, after having been programmed and conditioned, etc., will never experience samadhi (the “still-mind” state). For those who do reach the state, it is usually a temporary event rather than a fixed state. If there is a mind that is present, it will be forever in motion. Only if the mind has been eliminated – by giving up all beliefs – can the peace of a "no-words state" and of a "no-actions state" exist.
Maharaj: “I am fully conscious, but since no desire or fear enters my mind, there is perfect silence.”
Of course, he would eventually report that when he reached a “zero concepts” state, he simultaneously reached a “no-mind” state.
He explained that when “all subsides,” then “the mind merges into silence,” saying, “as to my mind, there is no such thing.”
How easy it could be to return to the original no-belief, no-mind condition if one were to come to prefer the natural (nisargan) over the unnatural and / or the supposedly supernatural.
Maharaj said, “No particular thought can be mind's natural state, only silence.”
Here is the reality around "the no-peace and no-silence condition" vs. "the peace and the silence condition": both are guaranteed to come someday (when mahasamadhi is taken), so why not welcome peace and silence sooner rather than later?
Maharaj: “When the relative is over, the absolute remains. The silence before the words were spoken, is it different from the silence that comes after? The silence is one, and without it the words could not have been heard. Shift your attention from words to silence and you will hear it.”
And to shift attention from words to silence, the continuum shows that thoughts must go first.
For three summers during the 1960’s while otherwise attending college, I worked as an apprentice to John Warren, who ran the machine shop for a steel fabrication company. He had little formal education, having dropped out of school around the seventh grade, but he was nevertheless most wise. On the wall in front of his desk, he had hung sign which said, “If I am the one talking, I am not the one discovering or understanding that which I have not yet discovered or that which I do not yet understand.”
Something about the sign “grabbed me.” When I ask John about it, he explained, “Steel fabrication companies are the noisiest workplaces in the U.S. Why add to the noise with needless talk?”
Among the realized, that is almost "a motto": Why add to the already-excessive amount and volume of noise with needless talk?
Yet most persons will never sit in the silence (in fact, cannot stand the silence), and that is why most persons cannot sit still rather than being driven to go and do and zoom.
Words which break the silence also inspire action . . . doingness. As an understanding of the continuum above makes clear, as long as there is a mind, there will be thoughts; and as long as there are thoughts, there will surely follow words; and as long as there are words, then actions and going and doing and zooming will surely follow.
To watch a newscast is to see the functioning of humankind’s insane goings and doings and zoomings as their thoughts lead to their words and their words lead to their actions. And because the thoughts among the non-Realized masses are rooted in what Maharaj called “ignorance, stupidity, and insanity,” then the words (and then the insane actions seen via broadcasts) will also be rooted in insanity.
So what sort of actions does the always-insane mind inspire? As a result of both conscious and subconscious beliefs, and as a result of being driven by the unconscious, hidden agendas of personas which generate totally insane behaviors, persons are willing to:
a. accept unhappiness over loneliness (and thus remain in the most destructive and insane “relationships” imaginable); or to
b. accept chaos over boredom (and thereby be driven to forfeit the peace while abiding in the most disordered, disorganized, confused, and frenzied fashions imaginable); or to
c. accept taking a chance at contracting a fatal STD rather than continuing to feel rejected or “unloved” or simply horny; or to
d. accept a religion’s teachings which suggest that one should “die while killing infidels for God and thereby go to harem heaven where you will be accommodated by virgins and servants in your own personal brothel rather than continuing to live but remaining celibate because no woman who knows you wants to have anything to do with you” (and rather than live and learn how to abandon a culture’s relationship-busting, chauvinistic beliefs about the inferiority of women); or to
e. accept being driven by the beliefs of others and by the hidden agendas of false identities rather than having any real ability at all to consciously choose your own words or to consciously determine your own actions and behaviors; or to
f. accept the notion that misery and suffering in this life are to be tolerated as a result of believing that eternal happiness awaits if you will only live the way that some religious or spiritual person tells you to live; or to
g. accept unquestioningly the beliefs and values and ways of one's parents and thereby perpetuate the ignorance and insanity that has dominated family members for generations.
Yet there is an alternative: find true freedom by being truly free of the content that has been crammed into the mind via programming, conditioning, acculturation, domestication, brainwashing, and indoctrination.
The Ultimate Sickness is a mind sickness, and the fuller the mind, the more serious the Sickness. The invitation is to seek the Ultimate Medicine which amounts to nothing more than receiving the understanding which can render you fully conscious of what you are actually thinking; fully conscious of what you are actually saying; fully conscious of what you are doing; and thus allowing you
to understand fully WHY you are thinking and talking and doing the things you do; to understand fully WHY you are being controlled by the continuum which unconsciously drives humanity and which preempts any opportunity to enjoy the silence and the non-doingness and the peace; and then finally to understand fully that only if mindless (rather than mind-full) can you return to the peace and silence and non-doingness which once characterized Your Original Nature.
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
NOTE: Sections Two through Six follow:
Section Two offers other recent posts. (All of the nearly 2,400 posts as well as any specific topics which you’re interested in can be accessed by using the search feature at the top of the right column.)
Section Three offers ways that seekers have Realized, tools which some have used, and information on floyd's books.
Section Four offers four free eBooks, compliments of Andy Gugar, Jr.
Section Five discusses parallels in Maharaj's and Floyd's "journey" and provides a chance for you to see if you've had any such parallels as well.
Section Six offers information on paperbacks that are available through Amazon.com for those who prefer a book in hand.
* * * * * *
SECTION TWO:
Other Recent Posts
Section Four offers four free eBooks, compliments of Andy Gugar, Jr.
Section Five discusses parallels in Maharaj's and Floyd's "journey" and provides a chance for you to see if you've had any such parallels as well.
Section Six offers information on paperbacks that are available through Amazon.com for those who prefer a book in hand.
* * * * * *
SECTION TWO:
Other Recent Posts
3 December 2014
A DAILY CONSIDERATION FOR YOU
F.: From yesterday:
Maharaj advised: “Be alert. Question, observe, investigate . . . but, you must not ask idle questions to which you already know the answers.”
For example, it is needless to question whether “2 + 2 really equals 4,” or not. Here, there are no beliefs, but some have asked just that:
“Well surely you believe that 2 + 2 equals 4, right?”
The reply: “No. That only applies if you are speaking of ‘base ten numbers,’ but that is irrelevant. Moreover, there are realities that can be understood intuitively and innately, but those differ from ‘beliefs,’ and the masses are usually blocked from being aware of those understandings which deal with the functioning of the totality.”
The questions to be asked that most persons do not know the answers to are those dealing with the firmly-held beliefs that relegate them to entrapment into the dream state which the masses have been lulled into.
Furthermore, the questions to be asked that most persons do not know the answers to are those dealing with the beliefs of others which they have accepted without “being alert,” without any “questioning,” without any “observation,” and without any “investigation”; instead, those beliefs came to be believed in as a result of having been blinded by programming, conditioning, domestication, acculturation, indoctrination, and brainwashing.
Thus Maharaj said, “When you shall begin to question your dream, awakening will be not far away”
and
thus, his key point on the subject: “You must question everything.”
Yesterday, this was offered: “Everything” includes parents, government, big business, God, religion and religious dogma, spiritual principles, etc.
And what is believed in more than anything by the masses? The dogma to which most have been exposed since a very early age, including the teaching that nothing is more important than blind faith. Without blind faith, the 97% who believe in God and report that they are affiliated with one religion or another would not do so, because their God has never appeared even once to the trillions who have believed in a God or gods or goddesses as a result of blind faith. No willingness to appear even once? Then blind faith must prevail.
If blind faith is missing, religions teach, then all else is lost. That is the key. That is the foremost guiding principle. That is the basic, elemental, central, fundamental, primary, necessary, crucial, critical, essential, indispensable, and chief requirement. It is deemed to be the most important belief above all else. All hail blind faith!
And the masses have bought into that for thousands of years.
Regular site visitors know that a woman from St. Louis, Missouri once said, "Floyd, millions of people cannot be wrong." The reply, “Agreed. In truth, billions and trillions have been wrong.”
Millions of Greeks believed in gods and goddesses and let those supposed gods and goddesses rule their lives. Those Greeks even killed and died for their false gods and goddesses, but today, who believes in those mythological gods and goddesses? No one. Millions of Romans believed in gods and goddesses and let those supposed gods and goddesses rule their lives. Those Romans even killed and died for their false gods and goddesses, but today, who believes in those mythological gods and goddesses? No one.
The quintessential fact: if there were gods or goddesses or if there is a God who wants you to play The Blind Faith Game and unquestioningly accept the claim that “He” exists and if "He" wants you to worship “Him” - and you do so - then you are insane because you are worshipping what would have to be one of the most insane things ever (that is, a "god" who would play that game). Why?
In 1984, the one called “floyd’s wife” at the time was said to have “given birth” to “a daughter.” Now, suppose I had been a religious fanatic and agreed – as the masses do all around the globe do - that blind faith is the key and that it should be the guiding principle above all else and that blind faith is the basic, elemental, central, fundamental, primary, necessary, crucial, critical, essential, indispensable, and chief requirement. Suppose, as is the case with 97% of all persons on the planet, I had deemed blind faith to be the most important belief above all else.
And suppose to teach my daughter that, I decided to move into the closet in the master bedroom. Suppose I told my wife:
“I care so much for my daughter and love her so much that I will do anything to teach her that the most important thing in the world is blind faith. So what I am going to do is spend the rest of my life in the closet. Send food in. I’ll send out bags of waste. Never let her see any of that. When she comes to you and asks, ‘Mommy, why don’t I have a daddy like my cousins and friends?’ tell her that she does, but that she just can’t see him. Then tell her, ‘But you must understand that just because you cannot see The Father does not mean that he does not exist. He is just out of sight, yet he loves you from afar. He’ll always be there for you, sort of. Above all else, he wants you to have blind faith in him and to believe in him though you’ll never see him, no matter how long you live.”
Now, there’s a saying, “Out of the mouth of babes.” It refers to the fact that children, not yet TOTALLY programmed and conditioned, etc., are more likely than adults to make statements of truth and to ask questions that point to the truth.
So when my daughter was told that I did exist but would never show myself to her but that I still loved her and – above all else – wanted her to believe in me based on blind faith alone, then in an “out of the mouth of babes” style, she would have likely then said:
Daughter: “Hummm. Mommy, can I ask you another question?”
Mommy: Of course, Darling.”
Daughter: “So is daddy batshit crazy?”
Mommy: “Probably so, Sugar. Probably so. In fact, yes, he is totally crazy. And if we buy into his game and believe that what he is doing is a normal way to behave, then we will be crazy, too.”
See, Maharaj for a time played the role of “The Super Religious One” and the role of “The Spiritual Giant.” Those are the roles played at the third step on the seven-step "path" from identification with the false “I” to Realization. But he transitioned those roles. He became alert. He questioned. He observed. He investigated. And he woke up from the dream of the planet. Then he said:
"Whatever spiritual things you aspire to know are all happening in this objective world, in the illusion. All this is happening in the objective world. All is dishonesty. There is no truth in this fraud"
and
“Whatever you have tried to understand during your spiritual search will prove false.”
And when that happened, his talks changed. He rejected his earlier blind faith. He addressed the actual root of the Ultimate Sickness: the content in the minds of programmed and conditioned humans.
His guesstimates of how many would ever be Fully Realized at any given time changed over the years from the millions to the thousands to the hundreds. With 97% of the persons on the planet being willing to function is an unquestioning, blind-faith manner, then few will ever Realize.
They will continue to think magically and they will believe that supernatural – spiritual – forces are determining everything that happens on the planet. When asked about a Supreme Being who allows prejudice and separation and war and abuse and disease and poverty and rape and murder and misery and suffering to happen, the answer is that “He works in mysterious ways.” Indeed, like a father hiding in a closet from his child to teach her blind faith. You know, crazy.
From the eBook below entitled THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS PEACE OF MIND:
An understanding of the personality types—and the obstacles to Realization that are generated by each personality—can reveal why so few will ever Realize.
Fifty percent of the earth’s populations are Type Sixes. When Sixes are programmed with dogma, as 97% on the planet are, they will remain loyal to those beliefs, unquestioningly, and will accept what they have been told. Why? Being fear-based, they become trapped by their programmers’ threat: “If you do not have faith in what we say or if you doubt any part of it at all, you will be punished and you will suffer now and forevermore.”
Therefore, the tally of those who will never be enlightened starts with that 50% who most likely will never give up their beliefs in dogma and nonsense. Writer Mark McCloskey had this to say about faith: “Faith is a crutch that humans have used for millennia as a way to explain the unexplainable . . . .”
(The point is offered in satsang here that religious leaders have historically dreamed up “concepts and ideas and teachings and beliefs that were used to convey false and supernatural explanations for events that were totally natural happenings.” Such is the essence of childish, magical thinking. Only if you mistakenly believe that an imagined “world” is real will you also be required to mistakenly believe that an imagined god—who was actually “created” by man in man’s image—is real.)
McCloskey continues, “If you stay with a crutch when you do not need it, you can become lame by reason of the crutch itself. The crutch must be abandoned, thrown away and then you can walk freely again . . . . ” He says, “Faith or any belief system as a whole is the final hurdle to overcome in the human path towards freedom and joy. Let me say it on a very 'personal' level.
"Until you, as a human being, are able to completely abandon what you believe, what you have been told or taught, and what you were told to believe or believe in, you will never experience this moment of reality as it is. You will never be fully free. You will be conditioned to experience present reality through a veil of the past.
" …. This is not a joke, not any agnostic or atheistic principle. I am trying to point you to your own total human freedom to be able to live in this world joyfully . . . ."
McCloskey and Maharaj would be in agreement:
Question everything.
Abandon what you believe and have been told or taught.
Maharaj: “I have NO FAITH in anything which has ever been told, not even what has been told by the Vedas. Only my own experience”
and
“You must question everything.”
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
2 December 2014
Maharaj advised: “Be alert. Question, observe, investigate . . . but, you must not ask idle questions to which you already know the answers.”
For example, it is needless to question whether “2 + 2 really equals 4,” or not. Here, there are no beliefs, but some have asked just that:
“Well surely you believe that 2 + 2 equals 4, right?”
The reply: “No. That only applies if you are speaking of ‘base ten numbers,’ but that is irrelevant. Moreover, there are realities that can be understood intuitively and innately, but those differ from ‘beliefs,’ and the masses are usually blocked from being aware of those understandings which deal with the functioning of the totality.”
The questions to be asked that most persons do not know the answers to are those dealing with the firmly-held beliefs that relegate them to entrapment into the dream state which the masses have been lulled into.
Furthermore, the questions to be asked that most persons do not know the answers to are those dealing with the beliefs of others which they have accepted without “being alert,” without any “questioning,” without any “observation,” and without any “investigation”; instead, those beliefs came to be believed in as a result of having been blinded by programming, conditioning, domestication, acculturation, indoctrination, and brainwashing.
Thus Maharaj said, “When you shall begin to question your dream, awakening will be not far away”
and
thus, his key point on the subject: “You must question everything.”
Yesterday, this was offered: “Everything” includes parents, government, big business, God, religion and religious dogma, spiritual principles, etc.
And what is believed in more than anything by the masses? The dogma to which most have been exposed since a very early age, including the teaching that nothing is more important than blind faith. Without blind faith, the 97% who believe in God and report that they are affiliated with one religion or another would not do so, because their God has never appeared even once to the trillions who have believed in a God or gods or goddesses as a result of blind faith. No willingness to appear even once? Then blind faith must prevail.
If blind faith is missing, religions teach, then all else is lost. That is the key. That is the foremost guiding principle. That is the basic, elemental, central, fundamental, primary, necessary, crucial, critical, essential, indispensable, and chief requirement. It is deemed to be the most important belief above all else. All hail blind faith!
And the masses have bought into that for thousands of years.
Regular site visitors know that a woman from St. Louis, Missouri once said, "Floyd, millions of people cannot be wrong." The reply, “Agreed. In truth, billions and trillions have been wrong.”
Millions of Greeks believed in gods and goddesses and let those supposed gods and goddesses rule their lives. Those Greeks even killed and died for their false gods and goddesses, but today, who believes in those mythological gods and goddesses? No one. Millions of Romans believed in gods and goddesses and let those supposed gods and goddesses rule their lives. Those Romans even killed and died for their false gods and goddesses, but today, who believes in those mythological gods and goddesses? No one.
The quintessential fact: if there were gods or goddesses or if there is a God who wants you to play The Blind Faith Game and unquestioningly accept the claim that “He” exists and if "He" wants you to worship “Him” - and you do so - then you are insane because you are worshipping what would have to be one of the most insane things ever (that is, a "god" who would play that game). Why?
In 1984, the one called “floyd’s wife” at the time was said to have “given birth” to “a daughter.” Now, suppose I had been a religious fanatic and agreed – as the masses do all around the globe do - that blind faith is the key and that it should be the guiding principle above all else and that blind faith is the basic, elemental, central, fundamental, primary, necessary, crucial, critical, essential, indispensable, and chief requirement. Suppose, as is the case with 97% of all persons on the planet, I had deemed blind faith to be the most important belief above all else.
And suppose to teach my daughter that, I decided to move into the closet in the master bedroom. Suppose I told my wife:
“I care so much for my daughter and love her so much that I will do anything to teach her that the most important thing in the world is blind faith. So what I am going to do is spend the rest of my life in the closet. Send food in. I’ll send out bags of waste. Never let her see any of that. When she comes to you and asks, ‘Mommy, why don’t I have a daddy like my cousins and friends?’ tell her that she does, but that she just can’t see him. Then tell her, ‘But you must understand that just because you cannot see The Father does not mean that he does not exist. He is just out of sight, yet he loves you from afar. He’ll always be there for you, sort of. Above all else, he wants you to have blind faith in him and to believe in him though you’ll never see him, no matter how long you live.”
Now, there’s a saying, “Out of the mouth of babes.” It refers to the fact that children, not yet TOTALLY programmed and conditioned, etc., are more likely than adults to make statements of truth and to ask questions that point to the truth.
So when my daughter was told that I did exist but would never show myself to her but that I still loved her and – above all else – wanted her to believe in me based on blind faith alone, then in an “out of the mouth of babes” style, she would have likely then said:
Daughter: “Hummm. Mommy, can I ask you another question?”
Mommy: Of course, Darling.”
Daughter: “So is daddy batshit crazy?”
Mommy: “Probably so, Sugar. Probably so. In fact, yes, he is totally crazy. And if we buy into his game and believe that what he is doing is a normal way to behave, then we will be crazy, too.”
See, Maharaj for a time played the role of “The Super Religious One” and the role of “The Spiritual Giant.” Those are the roles played at the third step on the seven-step "path" from identification with the false “I” to Realization. But he transitioned those roles. He became alert. He questioned. He observed. He investigated. And he woke up from the dream of the planet. Then he said:
"Whatever spiritual things you aspire to know are all happening in this objective world, in the illusion. All this is happening in the objective world. All is dishonesty. There is no truth in this fraud"
and
“Whatever you have tried to understand during your spiritual search will prove false.”
And when that happened, his talks changed. He rejected his earlier blind faith. He addressed the actual root of the Ultimate Sickness: the content in the minds of programmed and conditioned humans.
His guesstimates of how many would ever be Fully Realized at any given time changed over the years from the millions to the thousands to the hundreds. With 97% of the persons on the planet being willing to function is an unquestioning, blind-faith manner, then few will ever Realize.
They will continue to think magically and they will believe that supernatural – spiritual – forces are determining everything that happens on the planet. When asked about a Supreme Being who allows prejudice and separation and war and abuse and disease and poverty and rape and murder and misery and suffering to happen, the answer is that “He works in mysterious ways.” Indeed, like a father hiding in a closet from his child to teach her blind faith. You know, crazy.
From the eBook below entitled THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS PEACE OF MIND:
An understanding of the personality types—and the obstacles to Realization that are generated by each personality—can reveal why so few will ever Realize.
Fifty percent of the earth’s populations are Type Sixes. When Sixes are programmed with dogma, as 97% on the planet are, they will remain loyal to those beliefs, unquestioningly, and will accept what they have been told. Why? Being fear-based, they become trapped by their programmers’ threat: “If you do not have faith in what we say or if you doubt any part of it at all, you will be punished and you will suffer now and forevermore.”
Therefore, the tally of those who will never be enlightened starts with that 50% who most likely will never give up their beliefs in dogma and nonsense. Writer Mark McCloskey had this to say about faith: “Faith is a crutch that humans have used for millennia as a way to explain the unexplainable . . . .”
(The point is offered in satsang here that religious leaders have historically dreamed up “concepts and ideas and teachings and beliefs that were used to convey false and supernatural explanations for events that were totally natural happenings.” Such is the essence of childish, magical thinking. Only if you mistakenly believe that an imagined “world” is real will you also be required to mistakenly believe that an imagined god—who was actually “created” by man in man’s image—is real.)
McCloskey continues, “If you stay with a crutch when you do not need it, you can become lame by reason of the crutch itself. The crutch must be abandoned, thrown away and then you can walk freely again . . . . ” He says, “Faith or any belief system as a whole is the final hurdle to overcome in the human path towards freedom and joy. Let me say it on a very 'personal' level.
"Until you, as a human being, are able to completely abandon what you believe, what you have been told or taught, and what you were told to believe or believe in, you will never experience this moment of reality as it is. You will never be fully free. You will be conditioned to experience present reality through a veil of the past.
" …. This is not a joke, not any agnostic or atheistic principle. I am trying to point you to your own total human freedom to be able to live in this world joyfully . . . ."
McCloskey and Maharaj would be in agreement:
Question everything.
Abandon what you believe and have been told or taught.
Maharaj: “I have NO FAITH in anything which has ever been told, not even what has been told by the Vedas. Only my own experience”
and
“You must question everything.”
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
2 December 2014
A DAILY CONSIDERATION FOR YOU
F.: The prerequisite for being restored to sanity is the same as the prerequisite for Realization (which actually go hand-in-hand because they are one and the same): you must question everything.
Maharaj advised: “Be alert. Question, observe, investigate . . . but, you must not ask idle questions, to which you already know the answers.”
To awaken as a result of questioning it all effectively, you must first see that you were put to sleep via programming, domestication, conditioning, acculturation, brainwashing and indoctrination. The result was, ever since those processes went into effect, that you walked in your sleep; talked in your sleep; drove in your sleep if you had a car; worked in your sleep if you had a job; and functioned (or malfunctioned) in your “relationships” while asleep to truth and reality.
Here, and now, comes the invitation to realize that being asleep while dreaming one is awake is (a) natural if physically asleep but is (b) most unnatural if physically awake.
Thus Maharaj said, “When you shall begin to question your dream, awakening will be not far away”
and
"As long as you do not see that [personality] is mere habit, built on memory, prompted by desire, you will think yourself to be a person - living, feeling, thinking, active, passive, pleased or pained. Question yourself, ask yourself. 'Is it so?' 'Who am l'? 'What is behind and beyond all this?' Soon you will see your mistake, and it is in the very nature of a mistake to cease to be, when seen."
Thus, his key point on the subject: “You must question everything.”
“Everything” includes parents, government, big business, God, religion and religious dogma, and spiritual principles; “everything” also includes all authority figures, such as preachers, priests, rabbis, ayatollahs, “sponsors,” “guides,” “coaches” and their “values” and beliefs; grandparents and their “values” and beliefs; your “ancestors” and their “values” and beliefs;
all other relatives and their “values” and beliefs; all neighbors and their “values” and beliefs; all employers and their “values” and beliefs which they inspire you to adopt in order to please them and gain favor; all teachers; all Big Name Teachers; all gurus; all of your so-called “lovers” and their “values” and beliefs; but, most of all, yourself . . . your selves . . . and their agendas (which function at a subconscious level).
That is why, when there is an invitation to consider and possibly determine if truth might be the 180-degree opposite of what one believes, it is only the wise who are at least willing to question themselves and ask, “Might that be a fact? In the example that has just been raised, might my perspective be based in total delusion? Might truth be the 180-degree opposite of what I’ve been taught or have come to believe (unquestioningly) for my entire life?
Maharaj: “Question every urge; hold no desire legitimate.”
What are you presently doing that is not based in logic or reason but is a result of obsessing over desires and being driven by often-subconscious urges (which are exclusively and entirely the “stuff” of personalities)?
For example, are you staying with someone because there are providing financial support, that action based in the belief that “my expenses are being paid so I stay, and I am not troubled in the least by having assumed the role - and by continuing to play the role - of “A Lifestyle Whore” (which is not a sex-specific role because it is played by both males and females).
Or, are you staying with someone because there’s some kind of ego-based payoff, such as “I am hot, really hot, so I am entitled to not have to work in order to pay my own bills because I deserve to have my bills paid for me” or “that person is really hot and my image is enhanced by being with that ‘good-looking’ or ‘successful’ or ‘respected’ person, no matter how big a pain in the rear that person really is behind closed doors”?
Or, might you be staying with someone because of some perverted psychological implantation of a belief from your youth, as was the case with one woman whose dad sent her brother to college “because men need an education nowadays to find a good job and make enough to support a wife and children, but I’m not sending you or your sister to college because you are both really good looking so it will be easy for you both to find men to take care of you.” (And that has been their approach throughout the forty years since they left home at the age of eighteen. For them, the subconscious belief throughout adulthood has been, “A man is a plan,” so they have been driven subconsciously for forty years by the effects of one, single, distorted comment from a parent.)
Or, are you with someone because your childhood experiences left you with certain notions about being “less than” and “not enough” and “not good enough” so that now you’ll do anything and tolerate anything in order to attain a sense of being “loved”?
Or, were you raised in a way that normalized abuse or neglect so that now an abusive “relationship” is deemed acceptable and “just the way it is”?
Some few function via wisdom, so they know immediately that the price of such entitlements take far-too-heavy a toll to be worthwhile; a few more might learn about the heavy costs via experience and finally realize that the price of gratifying their desire for financial perks or that the price of satisfying their psychological agendas is too high to be worth continuing along the same path; but most will continue to tolerate what the wise and sane determine is not to be tolerated.
No price is higher than the price of inauthenticity. To avoid the roots of misery and suffering in the relative is to insure that misery and suffering will characterize the relative, and all of that has to do with unquestioned mind-full-ness.
It is pain that is of the body; misery and suffering are strictly and solely of the mind.
So what are the prerequisites for misery and suffering?
1. a mind;
2. a mind which has been programmed, domesticated, conditioned, acculturated, brainwashed and indoctrinated and filled with dualistic prejudices and concepts and all sorts of other nonsense;
3. that is, a mind filled with beliefs;
4. a mind that now takes assigned or assumed personalities to be actual identities;
5. a mind that is thus driven by the hidden fears and desires of the multiple personalities that have been assigned and assumed;
and
6. a mind which has been programmed to question nothing and to accept all that has been taught by authority figures and which now accepts all of the implanted beliefs as a result of blind faith alone.
Freedom and peace come with questioning; with seeing that what you were taught and what you now believe is all BS; with seeing that your seldom-considered perspectives might well be totally backwards and are not serving your best (relative) interests;
with being free of the constant desire to have, and to have more of what you don’t have, and to have less of what you do; and then turning away from nonsense and being open to the truth surrounding your reality as well as the Truth regarding Reality (neither of which can come until all which is false has been discarded).
During days long past, the mind was humanity's friend; nowadays, however, to sleepwalk under the auspices of the content of the modern mind is to sleep with the enemy.
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
1 December 2014
Maharaj advised: “Be alert. Question, observe, investigate . . . but, you must not ask idle questions, to which you already know the answers.”
To awaken as a result of questioning it all effectively, you must first see that you were put to sleep via programming, domestication, conditioning, acculturation, brainwashing and indoctrination. The result was, ever since those processes went into effect, that you walked in your sleep; talked in your sleep; drove in your sleep if you had a car; worked in your sleep if you had a job; and functioned (or malfunctioned) in your “relationships” while asleep to truth and reality.
Here, and now, comes the invitation to realize that being asleep while dreaming one is awake is (a) natural if physically asleep but is (b) most unnatural if physically awake.
Thus Maharaj said, “When you shall begin to question your dream, awakening will be not far away”
and
"As long as you do not see that [personality] is mere habit, built on memory, prompted by desire, you will think yourself to be a person - living, feeling, thinking, active, passive, pleased or pained. Question yourself, ask yourself. 'Is it so?' 'Who am l'? 'What is behind and beyond all this?' Soon you will see your mistake, and it is in the very nature of a mistake to cease to be, when seen."
Thus, his key point on the subject: “You must question everything.”
“Everything” includes parents, government, big business, God, religion and religious dogma, and spiritual principles; “everything” also includes all authority figures, such as preachers, priests, rabbis, ayatollahs, “sponsors,” “guides,” “coaches” and their “values” and beliefs; grandparents and their “values” and beliefs; your “ancestors” and their “values” and beliefs;
all other relatives and their “values” and beliefs; all neighbors and their “values” and beliefs; all employers and their “values” and beliefs which they inspire you to adopt in order to please them and gain favor; all teachers; all Big Name Teachers; all gurus; all of your so-called “lovers” and their “values” and beliefs; but, most of all, yourself . . . your selves . . . and their agendas (which function at a subconscious level).
That is why, when there is an invitation to consider and possibly determine if truth might be the 180-degree opposite of what one believes, it is only the wise who are at least willing to question themselves and ask, “Might that be a fact? In the example that has just been raised, might my perspective be based in total delusion? Might truth be the 180-degree opposite of what I’ve been taught or have come to believe (unquestioningly) for my entire life?
Maharaj: “Question every urge; hold no desire legitimate.”
What are you presently doing that is not based in logic or reason but is a result of obsessing over desires and being driven by often-subconscious urges (which are exclusively and entirely the “stuff” of personalities)?
For example, are you staying with someone because there are providing financial support, that action based in the belief that “my expenses are being paid so I stay, and I am not troubled in the least by having assumed the role - and by continuing to play the role - of “A Lifestyle Whore” (which is not a sex-specific role because it is played by both males and females).
Or, are you staying with someone because there’s some kind of ego-based payoff, such as “I am hot, really hot, so I am entitled to not have to work in order to pay my own bills because I deserve to have my bills paid for me” or “that person is really hot and my image is enhanced by being with that ‘good-looking’ or ‘successful’ or ‘respected’ person, no matter how big a pain in the rear that person really is behind closed doors”?
Or, might you be staying with someone because of some perverted psychological implantation of a belief from your youth, as was the case with one woman whose dad sent her brother to college “because men need an education nowadays to find a good job and make enough to support a wife and children, but I’m not sending you or your sister to college because you are both really good looking so it will be easy for you both to find men to take care of you.” (And that has been their approach throughout the forty years since they left home at the age of eighteen. For them, the subconscious belief throughout adulthood has been, “A man is a plan,” so they have been driven subconsciously for forty years by the effects of one, single, distorted comment from a parent.)
Or, are you with someone because your childhood experiences left you with certain notions about being “less than” and “not enough” and “not good enough” so that now you’ll do anything and tolerate anything in order to attain a sense of being “loved”?
Or, were you raised in a way that normalized abuse or neglect so that now an abusive “relationship” is deemed acceptable and “just the way it is”?
Some few function via wisdom, so they know immediately that the price of such entitlements take far-too-heavy a toll to be worthwhile; a few more might learn about the heavy costs via experience and finally realize that the price of gratifying their desire for financial perks or that the price of satisfying their psychological agendas is too high to be worth continuing along the same path; but most will continue to tolerate what the wise and sane determine is not to be tolerated.
No price is higher than the price of inauthenticity. To avoid the roots of misery and suffering in the relative is to insure that misery and suffering will characterize the relative, and all of that has to do with unquestioned mind-full-ness.
It is pain that is of the body; misery and suffering are strictly and solely of the mind.
So what are the prerequisites for misery and suffering?
1. a mind;
2. a mind which has been programmed, domesticated, conditioned, acculturated, brainwashed and indoctrinated and filled with dualistic prejudices and concepts and all sorts of other nonsense;
3. that is, a mind filled with beliefs;
4. a mind that now takes assigned or assumed personalities to be actual identities;
5. a mind that is thus driven by the hidden fears and desires of the multiple personalities that have been assigned and assumed;
and
6. a mind which has been programmed to question nothing and to accept all that has been taught by authority figures and which now accepts all of the implanted beliefs as a result of blind faith alone.
Freedom and peace come with questioning; with seeing that what you were taught and what you now believe is all BS; with seeing that your seldom-considered perspectives might well be totally backwards and are not serving your best (relative) interests;
with being free of the constant desire to have, and to have more of what you don’t have, and to have less of what you do; and then turning away from nonsense and being open to the truth surrounding your reality as well as the Truth regarding Reality (neither of which can come until all which is false has been discarded).
During days long past, the mind was humanity's friend; nowadays, however, to sleepwalk under the auspices of the content of the modern mind is to sleep with the enemy.
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
1 December 2014
A DAILY CONSIDERATION FOR YOU
F.: [Continued from yesterday]
So why else do all of those who hear the problem of the planet identified . . . that is, who hear the root of the Ultimate Sickness . . . why, then, do they not address their “mind-based issues”?
BECAUSE OF ARROGANCE, DENIAL, RIGIDITY, OBSTINACY, STUBBORNNESS AND THE HABIT OF AUTO-REJECTING (WHICH LEADS THEM TO LIVE IN AN UNCONSCIOUS, AUTO-PILOT MANNER)
Some of the work here involves taking personality inventory test results of clients of counselors and providing the client and counselor both with an analyses of the results, showing specifically which personalities are subconsciously driving thoughts and words and actions, which personality disorders are in evidence, and then offering a suggested treatment plan for addressing those disorders before they disintegrate into full-blown neuroses or psychoses.
Too, there is also work with non-dual seekers who are trying to be free of the effects of personality.
There are also occasional discussions with others who are “life coaches.”
Too, there are training sessions with professionals who are adding personality testing and analysis to the package of services they offer to those who come their way, coming ostensibly to “change” or “to have a better life” or “to have a more stable existence” or “to improve relationships.”
Yet what do the clienteles of those counselors and teachers and coaches and professionals also have in common with many who visited Maharaj’s loft or with many who have come to this house to seek or with many who come to this “electronic loft”?
This: a far-too-common tendency to automatically and spontaneously reject (a) suggestions and (b) proposals and (c) considerations and – via the personality test – (d) concrete, indisputable facts about personality traits and disorders that are at play. And all of those are rejected even prior to consideration.
It is as if - as children - such persons had been asked so many times by parents, “Did you do so and so?!” or “Did you really start that fight at school?!” or “Did you get into the candy before dinner?!” – to which they eventually developed the habit of saying “No!” automatically and mechanically and instinctively and unconsciously and routinely and spontaneously in order to avoid punishment – that it is now the subconscious, auto-response that is used constantly throughout their adult lives as well. For example:
F.: “Is it possible that you are actually using your child’s supposed needs or interests in order to stay attached to and to engage with your “Ex” because you are still hooked on him or her even after seeing how insane and destructive and injurious and unsafe and risky he or she was throughout the years you two were married?”
The reply: “Absolutely not! You are so off base it’s crazy!”
F.: “You just told me why you have been doing the same thing over and over for years and that the only reason you’re doing that is because of “this” or “that” but is it possible that, in fact, you’re doing it because there is some kind of payoff involving your ego and egotism?”
The reply: “No way. I told you why I do what I’m doing and that’s that.”
F.: “Is it possible that, in fact, you are no different from and no better than those with a different skin color whom you are judging and condemning rather than understanding why they are behaving as they do?”
The reply: “Ha. You are so naïve.”
F.: “Is it possible that ‘she did not leave you’ but that you ran her off like a Mack truck instead.”
The reply: “Absolutely not! She is the one who had the choice to honor her vows or break them. SHE broke them, not me.”
F.: “Is it possible that you have never consciously chosen to be a Catholic (or Baptist or Hindu or Muslim, etc.) but that you are playing that role because your parents passed on to you a “value” or “belief system” that you have never questioned or considered objectively even once?”
The reply: “No! I make the choice every day of my life to continue to practice my faith. There’s nothing blind or subconscious involved at all.”
F.: Is it possible that you have such a high Personality Type Two 'Love-Seeker' score because your father was unavailable during your childhood, either because of death or divorce or because he was 'there physically' but was 'unavailable' nevertheless?"
The reply: "No! My father was always there for me. He was a great dad!"
F.: "Is it possible that you were subjected to some form of abuse or some degree of abuse when you were young – be it mental or physical or emotional or sexual abuse – and that is why you are now also showing some degree of sociopathic, abusive behavior to others?"
The reply: “Absolutely not! I am a really nice person!”
F.: “Is it possible that you are totally depressed in spite of all of the spiritual work you have done?”
The reply: “No! I am NOT depressed!” (the fact that the person could get the role of “Death on a Cracker” or “The Night of the Living Dead Personified” in a Hollywood movie even without an audition).
F.: “Is it possible that you are a controlling, abusive Personality Type Eight who keeps falling for supposedly docile, avoidant Personality Type Nines because you are driven to be an insensitive, domineering, self-centered, aggressive person who is obsessed with being completely in charge in every 'relationship' . . . be it at home, in traffic, in checkout lines at stores, at work, ad infinitum?”
The reply: “Screw you!”
F.: “Is it possible that the 'relationship problems' you are bringing up might not be the fault of your partner at all but are really rooted in the fact that you are a full-blown Personality Type Three narcissist who lacks authenticity and who is obsessed with your image and who must be in the spotlight and who can really only love yourself?”
The reply: “You go to hell!”
F.: “Is it possible that the Big Name Teacher you so admire has really sold you a bill of goods that has nothing to do with the actual non-dual teachings and understanding?”
The reply: “Is it possible that you are jealous because he’s made millions of dollars from his book sales and you’re still dirt poor?”
F.: “You said you told him when you were dating him that you loved him because he was a great lover, but you now tell him that you hate him because he’s a sex fiend; you told him when you were dating that you loved him because he had a great work ethic, but now you tell him that you hate him because he's a workaholic; you said you told him when you were dating that he was the wonderful kind of Christian man that you’d been looking for all your life, but now you are telling him that he a ‘New Age Agent of Satan.’ Is it possible that he has not changed but that you are the one who is forever changing your views and perspectives and opinions because you have the Borderline Personality Disorder and that what you love one day you can hate the next?”
The reply: “Up yours!”
A Counselor: “Is it possible that the things your parents did to you when you were young are still driving the way that you think and talk and feel and behave even today as an adult?”
The reply: “Absolutely not?!”
And so it goes, over and over and over again. Those claiming they “are ready” and “are willing” and “are open to considerations and suggestions” are far more prone to being driven by arrogance and denial and rigidity and obstinacy and stubbornness and are prone to auto-reject anything they hear which is anything short of being totally complimentary of them and their partner and their parents and their religion or their spiritual program or some other type of cult which is influencing and controlling them.
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
30 November 2014
A DAILY CONSIDERATION FOR YOU
So why else do all of those who hear the problem of the planet identified . . . that is, who hear the root of the Ultimate Sickness . . . why, then, do they not address their “mind-based issues”?
BECAUSE OF ARROGANCE, DENIAL, RIGIDITY, OBSTINACY, STUBBORNNESS AND THE HABIT OF AUTO-REJECTING (WHICH LEADS THEM TO LIVE IN AN UNCONSCIOUS, AUTO-PILOT MANNER)
Some of the work here involves taking personality inventory test results of clients of counselors and providing the client and counselor both with an analyses of the results, showing specifically which personalities are subconsciously driving thoughts and words and actions, which personality disorders are in evidence, and then offering a suggested treatment plan for addressing those disorders before they disintegrate into full-blown neuroses or psychoses.
Too, there is also work with non-dual seekers who are trying to be free of the effects of personality.
There are also occasional discussions with others who are “life coaches.”
Too, there are training sessions with professionals who are adding personality testing and analysis to the package of services they offer to those who come their way, coming ostensibly to “change” or “to have a better life” or “to have a more stable existence” or “to improve relationships.”
Yet what do the clienteles of those counselors and teachers and coaches and professionals also have in common with many who visited Maharaj’s loft or with many who have come to this house to seek or with many who come to this “electronic loft”?
This: a far-too-common tendency to automatically and spontaneously reject (a) suggestions and (b) proposals and (c) considerations and – via the personality test – (d) concrete, indisputable facts about personality traits and disorders that are at play. And all of those are rejected even prior to consideration.
It is as if - as children - such persons had been asked so many times by parents, “Did you do so and so?!” or “Did you really start that fight at school?!” or “Did you get into the candy before dinner?!” – to which they eventually developed the habit of saying “No!” automatically and mechanically and instinctively and unconsciously and routinely and spontaneously in order to avoid punishment – that it is now the subconscious, auto-response that is used constantly throughout their adult lives as well. For example:
F.: “Is it possible that you are actually using your child’s supposed needs or interests in order to stay attached to and to engage with your “Ex” because you are still hooked on him or her even after seeing how insane and destructive and injurious and unsafe and risky he or she was throughout the years you two were married?”
The reply: “Absolutely not! You are so off base it’s crazy!”
F.: “You just told me why you have been doing the same thing over and over for years and that the only reason you’re doing that is because of “this” or “that” but is it possible that, in fact, you’re doing it because there is some kind of payoff involving your ego and egotism?”
The reply: “No way. I told you why I do what I’m doing and that’s that.”
F.: “Is it possible that, in fact, you are no different from and no better than those with a different skin color whom you are judging and condemning rather than understanding why they are behaving as they do?”
The reply: “Ha. You are so naïve.”
F.: “Is it possible that ‘she did not leave you’ but that you ran her off like a Mack truck instead.”
The reply: “Absolutely not! She is the one who had the choice to honor her vows or break them. SHE broke them, not me.”
F.: “Is it possible that you have never consciously chosen to be a Catholic (or Baptist or Hindu or Muslim, etc.) but that you are playing that role because your parents passed on to you a “value” or “belief system” that you have never questioned or considered objectively even once?”
The reply: “No! I make the choice every day of my life to continue to practice my faith. There’s nothing blind or subconscious involved at all.”
F.: Is it possible that you have such a high Personality Type Two 'Love-Seeker' score because your father was unavailable during your childhood, either because of death or divorce or because he was 'there physically' but was 'unavailable' nevertheless?"
The reply: "No! My father was always there for me. He was a great dad!"
F.: "Is it possible that you were subjected to some form of abuse or some degree of abuse when you were young – be it mental or physical or emotional or sexual abuse – and that is why you are now also showing some degree of sociopathic, abusive behavior to others?"
The reply: “Absolutely not! I am a really nice person!”
F.: “Is it possible that you are totally depressed in spite of all of the spiritual work you have done?”
The reply: “No! I am NOT depressed!” (the fact that the person could get the role of “Death on a Cracker” or “The Night of the Living Dead Personified” in a Hollywood movie even without an audition).
F.: “Is it possible that you are a controlling, abusive Personality Type Eight who keeps falling for supposedly docile, avoidant Personality Type Nines because you are driven to be an insensitive, domineering, self-centered, aggressive person who is obsessed with being completely in charge in every 'relationship' . . . be it at home, in traffic, in checkout lines at stores, at work, ad infinitum?”
The reply: “Screw you!”
F.: “Is it possible that the 'relationship problems' you are bringing up might not be the fault of your partner at all but are really rooted in the fact that you are a full-blown Personality Type Three narcissist who lacks authenticity and who is obsessed with your image and who must be in the spotlight and who can really only love yourself?”
The reply: “You go to hell!”
F.: “Is it possible that the Big Name Teacher you so admire has really sold you a bill of goods that has nothing to do with the actual non-dual teachings and understanding?”
The reply: “Is it possible that you are jealous because he’s made millions of dollars from his book sales and you’re still dirt poor?”
F.: “You said you told him when you were dating him that you loved him because he was a great lover, but you now tell him that you hate him because he’s a sex fiend; you told him when you were dating that you loved him because he had a great work ethic, but now you tell him that you hate him because he's a workaholic; you said you told him when you were dating that he was the wonderful kind of Christian man that you’d been looking for all your life, but now you are telling him that he a ‘New Age Agent of Satan.’ Is it possible that he has not changed but that you are the one who is forever changing your views and perspectives and opinions because you have the Borderline Personality Disorder and that what you love one day you can hate the next?”
The reply: “Up yours!”
A Counselor: “Is it possible that the things your parents did to you when you were young are still driving the way that you think and talk and feel and behave even today as an adult?”
The reply: “Absolutely not?!”
And so it goes, over and over and over again. Those claiming they “are ready” and “are willing” and “are open to considerations and suggestions” are far more prone to being driven by arrogance and denial and rigidity and obstinacy and stubbornness and are prone to auto-reject anything they hear which is anything short of being totally complimentary of them and their partner and their parents and their religion or their spiritual program or some other type of cult which is influencing and controlling them.
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
30 November 2014
A DAILY CONSIDERATION FOR YOU
F.: If the main problem of humankind centers in the mind,
a. if certain Realized teachers share that, or
b. if certain writers share that, or
c. if certain group members occasionally mention that,
ignorance, and insanity. All belief in false selves is rooted in dysfunctionalism, ignorance, and insanity. If trapped in ego and egotism, then insane thoughts and words and actions are assured.
2. BECAUSE OF THE TENDENCY OF EGO-DEFENSE MECHANISMS TO INSPIRE A (DUALISTICALLY) COMBATIVE / DEFENSIVE NATURE
A man said yesterday that his counselor had angered him in a session the previous week when she suggested that his current problem was actually rooted in a series of childhood incidents involving his parents and their less-than-logical and far-from-normal approach to child-rearing. His sense of perfectionism required that “those who made him the way he is” also had to have been perfect.
That counselor he mentioned had spotted something already seen here long ago, and she was totally spot on; but the ego-state of “The One Who Was Made Into a Perfect Adult by Perfect Parents” became combative when the validity of that false identity was challenged; then, the ego-defense mechanism of egotism was triggered and came to the defense of his false image.
Here, when a hidden motive is clearly driving persons and they are invited to consider if their actual motivation is quite different from what they claim to be behind their actions, they often vehemently deny the alternative motive which they are being invited to consider. How can any shift away from insanity-inspired behaviors ever end when such defenses are operating at an unconscious level? The odds of such a shift happening are slight.
3. BECAUSE OF PROJECTION
Projection is another ego-defense mechanism that is used frequently. To protect one’s ego / self-image, the tendency among the non-Realized is to ignore their defects and flaws which personality brings to the relative existence, to take those defects and flaws which usually only register on a subconscious level, and to then try to cast them out by spotting them in others and judging them and assigning those defects and flaws to them while ignoring them in “self,” in one’s false selves.
4. BECAUSE OF THE TENDENCY TO DENY AND TO PUT A SPIN ON THE FACTS SURROUNDING ONE’S PERSONALITY FLAWS AND PERSONALITY DEFECTS, RELATIVELY SPEAKING
On the personality inventory test used here, a very low Type Eight score indicates that the person being tested is likely going to behave in the fashion of a doormat, letting those with higher 8 scores walk all over them. A high Type Eight score indicates that one is likely to show certain levels of antisocial behavior. Depending on the score, an above-average score in the 8 might guarantee that there will be occasional evidence of some degree of callousness, meanness, and ruthlessness. A very high 8 score will guarantee that there are some deep-seated sociopathic tendencies.
When that is revealed, some sociopaths in the past have laughed, as if to say, “You got me! Ha. That’s me alright!” They do not care. Others who are still working diligently to maintain a “positive image” in public will become quite angry and will deny the truth regarding their actual “state of mind” and the actual degree to which their personality disorder is manifesting. One person rather recently said quite vehemently, “I am NOT a sociopath! I do not have ANY sociopathic tendencies. Your test results are bogus!” Okay. So long.
5. BECAUSE OF THE NEAR-UNIVERSAL TENDENCY AMONG THE EGO-AND-EGOTISM-DRIVEN, NON-REALIZED MASSES TO BELIEVE THE FOLLOWING (AND TO BELIEVE IT WITHOUT THE SLIGHTEST DOUBT AT ALL): “MY CA-CA STINKETH NOT, BUT THOU CA-CA DOTH MUCH OFFEND”
Ego and egotism, functioning hand-in-hand, will block any possibility of seeing one’s own truth while readily judging others and critiquing them.
6. BECAUSE CRAZY CANNOT SPOT CRAZY
An uncle was the chief administrator at a mental institution in Texas, and I occasionally visited him for a day or two in his home and at his workplace during the summers spent at Grandmother’s cabin. As an adolescent, I visited him in the Texas State Mental Hospital in Rusk, and time was spent around the patients there (an act in the late 1950's and early 1960’s that could not take place nowadays).
In one open area of the facility which provided a place for recreation or exercise or fresh air for the sometimes-violent or for the seriously-mentally-ill patients, there was a three-story-high chain link fence surrounding that section of the facility.
There was shock when I would see certain inmates climbing ten to twenty feet up the fence and swinging back and forth and screaming. My uncle explained that those inmates did not have a clue about who there really were and that they “lived in another world.”
See? When persons do not have a clue about who they really are, and imagine that they are many other things, and take many false, dreamed up selves to be real, they are as insane as those inmates; yet most nowadays who are insane to one degree or another are not locked away as those inmates were.
They are moving about the planet, sharing common roofs with families, going to work, and abiding in a way that appears to be normal in many cultures around the globe. (What goes on behind closed doors in something else entirely.) But like the inmates who were “living in another world,” most roaming about the planet freely are insane to one degree or another without having any clue at all about their actual, mental condition.
The challenges involved with being restored to sanity - after being driven into the depths of the Ultimate Sickness via faulty and perverted programming, conditioning, domestication, acculturation, indoctrination and brainwashing - are usually so overwhelming that the masses are all likely to be driven throughout their entire relative existence by the three key symptoms of the Ultimate Sickness which Maharaj identified: “ignorance, stupidity, and insanity.”
It was by mere chance that the path here crossed the path of one – and then, later, another – both of whom had been restored to sanity and could see clearly by the time our paths crossed. The first was one who would tell the truth and let the chips fall where they may. As here, he would share the obvious and would show that one’s perceptions were all twisted a full 180 degrees from reality (not to mention from Reality). If there has been any lingering tendency to argue rather than surrender to the process completely, the door would have been opened and the invitation to leave would have been extended . . . and enforced.
Yet what are the odds, when so few can see clearly and when most are being driven by the arrogance-fostering and the deception-generating personalities and beliefs that persons hold so dear, that one will ever be able to undo the mental and emotional damage which infects the masses who are suffering from the Ultimate Sickness without even knowing it?
The odds are slight, but if persons reach the point where they are finally able to admit,
“You know what? The way I’m living is totally insane. I am ready to do whatever is required to put an end to that, once and for all”
then
the possibility of “a chance” - as happened here - might also happen for them as well.
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
A DAILY CONSIDERATION FOR YOU
a. if certain Realized teachers share that, or
b. if certain writers share that, or
c. if certain group members occasionally mention that,
ignorance, and insanity. All belief in false selves is rooted in dysfunctionalism, ignorance, and insanity. If trapped in ego and egotism, then insane thoughts and words and actions are assured.
2. BECAUSE OF THE TENDENCY OF EGO-DEFENSE MECHANISMS TO INSPIRE A (DUALISTICALLY) COMBATIVE / DEFENSIVE NATURE
A man said yesterday that his counselor had angered him in a session the previous week when she suggested that his current problem was actually rooted in a series of childhood incidents involving his parents and their less-than-logical and far-from-normal approach to child-rearing. His sense of perfectionism required that “those who made him the way he is” also had to have been perfect.
That counselor he mentioned had spotted something already seen here long ago, and she was totally spot on; but the ego-state of “The One Who Was Made Into a Perfect Adult by Perfect Parents” became combative when the validity of that false identity was challenged; then, the ego-defense mechanism of egotism was triggered and came to the defense of his false image.
Here, when a hidden motive is clearly driving persons and they are invited to consider if their actual motivation is quite different from what they claim to be behind their actions, they often vehemently deny the alternative motive which they are being invited to consider. How can any shift away from insanity-inspired behaviors ever end when such defenses are operating at an unconscious level? The odds of such a shift happening are slight.
3. BECAUSE OF PROJECTION
Projection is another ego-defense mechanism that is used frequently. To protect one’s ego / self-image, the tendency among the non-Realized is to ignore their defects and flaws which personality brings to the relative existence, to take those defects and flaws which usually only register on a subconscious level, and to then try to cast them out by spotting them in others and judging them and assigning those defects and flaws to them while ignoring them in “self,” in one’s false selves.
4. BECAUSE OF THE TENDENCY TO DENY AND TO PUT A SPIN ON THE FACTS SURROUNDING ONE’S PERSONALITY FLAWS AND PERSONALITY DEFECTS, RELATIVELY SPEAKING
On the personality inventory test used here, a very low Type Eight score indicates that the person being tested is likely going to behave in the fashion of a doormat, letting those with higher 8 scores walk all over them. A high Type Eight score indicates that one is likely to show certain levels of antisocial behavior. Depending on the score, an above-average score in the 8 might guarantee that there will be occasional evidence of some degree of callousness, meanness, and ruthlessness. A very high 8 score will guarantee that there are some deep-seated sociopathic tendencies.
When that is revealed, some sociopaths in the past have laughed, as if to say, “You got me! Ha. That’s me alright!” They do not care. Others who are still working diligently to maintain a “positive image” in public will become quite angry and will deny the truth regarding their actual “state of mind” and the actual degree to which their personality disorder is manifesting. One person rather recently said quite vehemently, “I am NOT a sociopath! I do not have ANY sociopathic tendencies. Your test results are bogus!” Okay. So long.
5. BECAUSE OF THE NEAR-UNIVERSAL TENDENCY AMONG THE EGO-AND-EGOTISM-DRIVEN, NON-REALIZED MASSES TO BELIEVE THE FOLLOWING (AND TO BELIEVE IT WITHOUT THE SLIGHTEST DOUBT AT ALL): “MY CA-CA STINKETH NOT, BUT THOU CA-CA DOTH MUCH OFFEND”
Ego and egotism, functioning hand-in-hand, will block any possibility of seeing one’s own truth while readily judging others and critiquing them.
6. BECAUSE CRAZY CANNOT SPOT CRAZY
An uncle was the chief administrator at a mental institution in Texas, and I occasionally visited him for a day or two in his home and at his workplace during the summers spent at Grandmother’s cabin. As an adolescent, I visited him in the Texas State Mental Hospital in Rusk, and time was spent around the patients there (an act in the late 1950's and early 1960’s that could not take place nowadays).
In one open area of the facility which provided a place for recreation or exercise or fresh air for the sometimes-violent or for the seriously-mentally-ill patients, there was a three-story-high chain link fence surrounding that section of the facility.
There was shock when I would see certain inmates climbing ten to twenty feet up the fence and swinging back and forth and screaming. My uncle explained that those inmates did not have a clue about who there really were and that they “lived in another world.”
See? When persons do not have a clue about who they really are, and imagine that they are many other things, and take many false, dreamed up selves to be real, they are as insane as those inmates; yet most nowadays who are insane to one degree or another are not locked away as those inmates were.
They are moving about the planet, sharing common roofs with families, going to work, and abiding in a way that appears to be normal in many cultures around the globe. (What goes on behind closed doors in something else entirely.) But like the inmates who were “living in another world,” most roaming about the planet freely are insane to one degree or another without having any clue at all about their actual, mental condition.
The challenges involved with being restored to sanity - after being driven into the depths of the Ultimate Sickness via faulty and perverted programming, conditioning, domestication, acculturation, indoctrination and brainwashing - are usually so overwhelming that the masses are all likely to be driven throughout their entire relative existence by the three key symptoms of the Ultimate Sickness which Maharaj identified: “ignorance, stupidity, and insanity.”
It was by mere chance that the path here crossed the path of one – and then, later, another – both of whom had been restored to sanity and could see clearly by the time our paths crossed. The first was one who would tell the truth and let the chips fall where they may. As here, he would share the obvious and would show that one’s perceptions were all twisted a full 180 degrees from reality (not to mention from Reality). If there has been any lingering tendency to argue rather than surrender to the process completely, the door would have been opened and the invitation to leave would have been extended . . . and enforced.
Yet what are the odds, when so few can see clearly and when most are being driven by the arrogance-fostering and the deception-generating personalities and beliefs that persons hold so dear, that one will ever be able to undo the mental and emotional damage which infects the masses who are suffering from the Ultimate Sickness without even knowing it?
The odds are slight, but if persons reach the point where they are finally able to admit,
“You know what? The way I’m living is totally insane. I am ready to do whatever is required to put an end to that, once and for all”
then
the possibility of “a chance” - as happened here - might also happen for them as well.
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
29 November 2014
A DAILY CONSIDERATION FOR YOU
F.: To review 20 of the key pointers offered so far:
1. The history of human or human-like beings is that, during the entire pre-mind period, they functioned in a manner guided by the brain (not unlike the deer and not unlike every other life-form on the planet, except for modern humans).
2. The human brain began to expand in size and capability only recently (in evolutionary terms) and developed the capacity to store memories and to retrieve (what were at one time natural) memories in order to recall information that could protect the body and perpetuate the survival of the species.
3. Pre-language memories did their natural job: they created a “mind” that contained information which led to constructive behavior and helped avoid potentially-dangerous situations.
4. After languages developed, persons with personal agendas began programming and conditioning the minds of other persons in order to influence them and control their conduct via the placement of beliefs in a mind and then locking those beliefs in place with the use of positive and negative (that is, dualistic) reinforcement.
5. Rather than storing natural information, the brain began storing unnatural teachings and magical teachings about supposedly "supernatural" beings and events. Perverted “mind stuff” began to prevail.
6. True freedom was lost because behavior came to be controlled by one's programmers and their teachings, even if they were not present. (If one is conditioned, then freedom is nothing more than a concept and certainly cannot be real if a person's actions and reactions are the unconscious result of programming and conditioning. More “mind stuff.”)
(Maharaj: “In reality all is here and now and all is One. Multiplicity and diversity are in the mind only.”)
7. Nowadays, persons are living their relative existence in a manner controlled by, among other factors, a host of relatives both living and long “deceased.” It is as if all non-Realized persons are burdened with a heavy load on their shoulders which becomes a heavy burden on their minds. (Are you familiar with the expression, “Get off my back!”?) The “load” can include a grandfather whispering in one ear; a grandmother whispering in another ear; a father whispering in an ear; a mother whispering in the other ear.
8. And even if, for example, a father was absent as a result of a “death” or a divorce or because he was there but “mental and emotionally unavailable,” he is nevertheless whispering in his absence. What is being heard? “I didn’t love you. You mean nothing. You are not worth my time. Feel abandoned forever. Feel as if you never received all of the love that you wanted as a child. Then spend the rest of your existence seeking love from everyone. Give to others until you are exhausted. Ignore your own relative needs as you put the mental and emotional "needs" of others ahead of your own actual relative requirements in order to try to get them to love you. Be driven by that subconscious driver forever.” More “mind stuff.”
9. Or, in cases where the father was there and abused a child physically, then the message being whispered in the ear and heard to this day is, “You are not good enough. You are unloved because you are not lovable, but keep loving me and trying to get my love.” (It is normal – as with those who suffer from the Stockholm Syndrome - to stay with or attach to abusive people. "Also, spend your entire life being a doormat. Now, go forth and become an abuser yourself and keep our family tradition going for another generation." More “mind stuff.”
10. Or, in the case where the father was there and the abuse was sexual, the whispers being heard now are, “You are your body. Your only worth involves using your body to please others. You will only be loved if you never say ‘No!’ You must always acquiesce to others and allow them to use you for their own gratification.” More “mind stuff.”
(Maharaj: “That you hear . . . is a fact. What you hear . . . is not. The fact can be experienced, and in that sense the sound of the word and the mental ripples it causes are experienced. There is no other reality behind it.”)
11. Thus, the mind forms via programming, conditioning, acculturation, domestication, brainwashing, indoctrination and via examples that were set and via perverse or ignorant behaviors that were modeled. The result? Your mind has now normalized the totally abnormal and redefined the totally-unacceptable as being quite acceptable indeed.
12. Once persons began storing ideas and beliefs and concepts in their minds (instead of recording fact-based observations that could assist in natural living), then memories became dualistic in their nature: “Our tribe is good, but their tribe is bad,” and “We have the right to punish those whose memories contain information that differs from the concepts and beliefs in our memories.” The “mind” thus became a distorted conglomeration of corruptions and lies. More dualistic, perverted “mind stuff.”
13. As human behavior became more deviant and abnormal as a result of dualistic beliefs and concepts, children began forming personalities in an effort to try to deal with abnormal situations in their dysfunctional families. More and more “mind stuff” prevailed.
14. As more dualistic beliefs and concepts were stored in memory because humans were being exposed to more and more programming and conditioning, a greater sense of separation from others and Self became more common as the “mind” became more corrupted and warped and as personas became attached to more and more false identities.
(Maharaj: “There is the Self, the only Self of all. Misled by the diversity of names and shapes, minds and bodies, you imagine multiple selves”)
and
(“Even to talk of re-uniting the person with the Self is not right, because there is no person, only a mental picture given a false reality by conviction. Nothing was divided and there is nothing to unite.”)
15. As more adjusting was required among children who were trying to adapt to more and more abnormal circumstances, more personalities were formed. Then, children attached to their personalities (that is, to that childish set of “tools” being used to cope with the abnormal. More abnormal, perverted “mind stuff.”)
16. As persons attached more and more to personality, which is rooted in childhood and in childishness, the eventual result was a proliferation of adults who lost the ability to choose and instead fell under the influence and control of a childish personality. Childish ways were carried over into adult-age situations. Adults, unconsciously driven by childhood memories and childhood programming and personality, began to behave more and more in childish and nonsensical ways. More really ignorant and insane “mind stuff.”
17. Human behavior which is typically inspired by aberrations of personality now generates the majority of the “problems of the planet” as personality disorders determine (unconsciously) how persons emote, how they think, and, therefore, what they do. Each of the basic personality types eventually began to generate a particular set of personality disorders which then generated suffering for each person plagued by those multiple personality types and for all of those who must try to deal with them. More and more and more “mind stuff.”
18. The result is this: billions of persons are walking about the planet, believing that they are choosing to do what they do when, in fact, they are sleepwalking . . . doing what their programmers would have them do; thus, all that they think and feel and do is determined by the emotional intoxication that they suffer as a result of unconsciously allowing a set of childish, childhood tools to guide them through adulthood. And all of that is based in illusion. Why? The past is an illusion. How can one possibly be free if everything being said or thought or done or felt in “the present” is a reaction to false perceptions and bogus messaging from "the past"?
19. The solution to "the problem of the planet,” to the Ultimate Sickness, could come via Full Realization in many instances, a process which begins with the discarding of all body-mind-personality identifications.
(Maharaj: “When all the false self-identifications are thrown away, what remains is all-embracing Love.”)
20. All thoughts about the body and about false identities come via the mind, so – in the end – the real problem among humans on the planet is a mental problem rooted in mind-full-ness. The solution? Freedom from “mind stuff.”
(Maharaj: “You are so blinded by what is personal, that you do not see the universal. This blindness will not end by itself - it must be undone skillfully and deliberately. When all illusions are understood and abandoned, you reach the error-free and perfect state in which all distinctions between the personal and the universal are no more.”)
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
A DAILY CONSIDERATION FOR YOU
1. The history of human or human-like beings is that, during the entire pre-mind period, they functioned in a manner guided by the brain (not unlike the deer and not unlike every other life-form on the planet, except for modern humans).
2. The human brain began to expand in size and capability only recently (in evolutionary terms) and developed the capacity to store memories and to retrieve (what were at one time natural) memories in order to recall information that could protect the body and perpetuate the survival of the species.
3. Pre-language memories did their natural job: they created a “mind” that contained information which led to constructive behavior and helped avoid potentially-dangerous situations.
4. After languages developed, persons with personal agendas began programming and conditioning the minds of other persons in order to influence them and control their conduct via the placement of beliefs in a mind and then locking those beliefs in place with the use of positive and negative (that is, dualistic) reinforcement.
5. Rather than storing natural information, the brain began storing unnatural teachings and magical teachings about supposedly "supernatural" beings and events. Perverted “mind stuff” began to prevail.
6. True freedom was lost because behavior came to be controlled by one's programmers and their teachings, even if they were not present. (If one is conditioned, then freedom is nothing more than a concept and certainly cannot be real if a person's actions and reactions are the unconscious result of programming and conditioning. More “mind stuff.”)
(Maharaj: “In reality all is here and now and all is One. Multiplicity and diversity are in the mind only.”)
7. Nowadays, persons are living their relative existence in a manner controlled by, among other factors, a host of relatives both living and long “deceased.” It is as if all non-Realized persons are burdened with a heavy load on their shoulders which becomes a heavy burden on their minds. (Are you familiar with the expression, “Get off my back!”?) The “load” can include a grandfather whispering in one ear; a grandmother whispering in another ear; a father whispering in an ear; a mother whispering in the other ear.
8. And even if, for example, a father was absent as a result of a “death” or a divorce or because he was there but “mental and emotionally unavailable,” he is nevertheless whispering in his absence. What is being heard? “I didn’t love you. You mean nothing. You are not worth my time. Feel abandoned forever. Feel as if you never received all of the love that you wanted as a child. Then spend the rest of your existence seeking love from everyone. Give to others until you are exhausted. Ignore your own relative needs as you put the mental and emotional "needs" of others ahead of your own actual relative requirements in order to try to get them to love you. Be driven by that subconscious driver forever.” More “mind stuff.”
9. Or, in cases where the father was there and abused a child physically, then the message being whispered in the ear and heard to this day is, “You are not good enough. You are unloved because you are not lovable, but keep loving me and trying to get my love.” (It is normal – as with those who suffer from the Stockholm Syndrome - to stay with or attach to abusive people. "Also, spend your entire life being a doormat. Now, go forth and become an abuser yourself and keep our family tradition going for another generation." More “mind stuff.”
10. Or, in the case where the father was there and the abuse was sexual, the whispers being heard now are, “You are your body. Your only worth involves using your body to please others. You will only be loved if you never say ‘No!’ You must always acquiesce to others and allow them to use you for their own gratification.” More “mind stuff.”
(Maharaj: “That you hear . . . is a fact. What you hear . . . is not. The fact can be experienced, and in that sense the sound of the word and the mental ripples it causes are experienced. There is no other reality behind it.”)
11. Thus, the mind forms via programming, conditioning, acculturation, domestication, brainwashing, indoctrination and via examples that were set and via perverse or ignorant behaviors that were modeled. The result? Your mind has now normalized the totally abnormal and redefined the totally-unacceptable as being quite acceptable indeed.
12. Once persons began storing ideas and beliefs and concepts in their minds (instead of recording fact-based observations that could assist in natural living), then memories became dualistic in their nature: “Our tribe is good, but their tribe is bad,” and “We have the right to punish those whose memories contain information that differs from the concepts and beliefs in our memories.” The “mind” thus became a distorted conglomeration of corruptions and lies. More dualistic, perverted “mind stuff.”
13. As human behavior became more deviant and abnormal as a result of dualistic beliefs and concepts, children began forming personalities in an effort to try to deal with abnormal situations in their dysfunctional families. More and more “mind stuff” prevailed.
14. As more dualistic beliefs and concepts were stored in memory because humans were being exposed to more and more programming and conditioning, a greater sense of separation from others and Self became more common as the “mind” became more corrupted and warped and as personas became attached to more and more false identities.
(Maharaj: “There is the Self, the only Self of all. Misled by the diversity of names and shapes, minds and bodies, you imagine multiple selves”)
and
(“Even to talk of re-uniting the person with the Self is not right, because there is no person, only a mental picture given a false reality by conviction. Nothing was divided and there is nothing to unite.”)
15. As more adjusting was required among children who were trying to adapt to more and more abnormal circumstances, more personalities were formed. Then, children attached to their personalities (that is, to that childish set of “tools” being used to cope with the abnormal. More abnormal, perverted “mind stuff.”)
16. As persons attached more and more to personality, which is rooted in childhood and in childishness, the eventual result was a proliferation of adults who lost the ability to choose and instead fell under the influence and control of a childish personality. Childish ways were carried over into adult-age situations. Adults, unconsciously driven by childhood memories and childhood programming and personality, began to behave more and more in childish and nonsensical ways. More really ignorant and insane “mind stuff.”
17. Human behavior which is typically inspired by aberrations of personality now generates the majority of the “problems of the planet” as personality disorders determine (unconsciously) how persons emote, how they think, and, therefore, what they do. Each of the basic personality types eventually began to generate a particular set of personality disorders which then generated suffering for each person plagued by those multiple personality types and for all of those who must try to deal with them. More and more and more “mind stuff.”
18. The result is this: billions of persons are walking about the planet, believing that they are choosing to do what they do when, in fact, they are sleepwalking . . . doing what their programmers would have them do; thus, all that they think and feel and do is determined by the emotional intoxication that they suffer as a result of unconsciously allowing a set of childish, childhood tools to guide them through adulthood. And all of that is based in illusion. Why? The past is an illusion. How can one possibly be free if everything being said or thought or done or felt in “the present” is a reaction to false perceptions and bogus messaging from "the past"?
19. The solution to "the problem of the planet,” to the Ultimate Sickness, could come via Full Realization in many instances, a process which begins with the discarding of all body-mind-personality identifications.
(Maharaj: “When all the false self-identifications are thrown away, what remains is all-embracing Love.”)
20. All thoughts about the body and about false identities come via the mind, so – in the end – the real problem among humans on the planet is a mental problem rooted in mind-full-ness. The solution? Freedom from “mind stuff.”
(Maharaj: “You are so blinded by what is personal, that you do not see the universal. This blindness will not end by itself - it must be undone skillfully and deliberately. When all illusions are understood and abandoned, you reach the error-free and perfect state in which all distinctions between the personal and the universal are no more.”)
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
Previous post
A DAILY CONSIDERATION FOR YOU
F.: Some take great offense at Maharaj’s having shared that most are suffering from the key symptoms of the Ultimate Sickness, namely, “ignorance, stupidity, and insanity.”
They seem to be slightly more accepting when a discussion centers on personality and the problems which are rooted in personality and in the motives of personas (which unconsciously control all thoughts and words and actions).
The point here is that whether the discussion centers on “ignorance, stupidity, and insanity” or on personality-driven problems or on neuroses or on psychoses,
a. all of that involves the mind (i.e., involves mind-full-ness) and
b. all of that is ultimately about one problem - a mind problem - what is simply manifesting in varying degrees.
The sequence from sanity to insanity follows this path:
I. What is called “a newborn” begins with a brain but without what will soon become a fiction-filled, content-filled, warped mind.
II. A mind is stuffed full of nonsense via programming, conditioning, domestication, acculturation, indoctrination, and brainwashing – all of which also involves the assignment of false identifications and the subsequent development of personality / personalities (which results from a “survival response” as children try to adapt to the dysfunctional environments in which all children are being raised nowadays).
III. As more and more personalities are assigned and / or later adopted, an “identity crisis” begins. Persons do not have even the slightest clue about who they are after they are assigned or after they assume multiple personalities (that is, roles / stage characters / personas / guises / facades / fronts / faces / images, etc.) as identities.
IV. Once persons are being driven, subconsciously, by the hidden agendas of their multiple personalities (the end result being that every non-Realized person on the planet ends up suffering from the effects of the Multiple Personality Disorder), then – when stressed - they will begin to suffer from the worst possible traits of each personality which they have been assigned or which they adopted.
V. As stress increases, so does the process of personality disintegration. What may have been early on a state of psychic health becomes a state of average psychic health which, without intervention or Realization, will eventually give way to more psychic disintegration and psychic unhealthiness.
VI. In the absence of intervention or Realization, the deterioration of the mind – of the psyche – continues and then results in the development of neuroses or even psychoses.
Consider an example offered by the Enneagram Institute to show what happens when a person’s mind moves away from the “healthy levels” of psychic health to the levels of disintegration which follow when no intervention or Realization happens.
(The example offered will be of the Type Six because 50% of all persons on the planet have a Type Six Personality style as their primary type. The example will move past “Levels 1, 2, and 3” where “healthy levels” of personality are observable and begin with the traits of Type Sixes as they move through the “average levels” of psychic health and will then show what they are like when they disintegrate to the three “unhealthy levels”).
AVERAGE LEVELS
Level 4: Start investing their time and energy into whatever they believe will be safe and stable. Organizing and structuring, they look to alliances and authorities for security and continuity. Constantly vigilant, anticipating problems.
Level 5: To resist having more demands made on them, they react against others passive-aggressively. Become evasive, indecisive, cautious, procrastinating, and ambivalent. Are highly reactive, anxious, and negative, giving contradictory, "mixed signals." Internal confusion makes them react unpredictably.
Level 6: To compensate for insecurities, they become sarcastic and belligerent, blaming others for their problems, taking a tough stance toward "outsiders." Highly reactive and defensive, dividing people into friends and enemies, while looking for threats to their own security. Authoritarian while fearful of authority, highly suspicious, yet, conspiratorial, and fear-instilling to silence their own fears.
UNHEALTHY LEVELS
Level 7: Fearing that they have ruined their security, they become panicky, volatile, and self-disparaging with acute inferiority feelings. Seeing themselves as defenseless, they seek out a stronger authority or belief to resolve all problems. Highly divisive, disparaging and berating others.
Level 8: Feeling persecuted, that others are "out to get them," they lash-out and act irrationally, bringing about what they fear. Fanaticism, violence.
Level 9: Hysterical, and seeking to escape punishment, they become self-destructive and suicidal. Alcoholism, drug overdoses, "skid row," self-abasing behavior. Generally corresponds to the Passive-Aggressive and Paranoid personality disorders.
Note that
A. the last levels involve neuroses and, in the end, psychoses; that
B. when “Twelve Steps Groups” label someone as a “high bottom,” those persons are usually at level 8 and those whom they label as “low bottoms” are usually at level 9; and that
C. all of the levels involve the mind and its deterioration and degeneration when under stress and when being swept about in a helter-skelter fashion via cultural influences.
Want to be free? Be free of the content of the mind.
Want to be at peace? Be freed from being driven by the hidden agendas of personality / personalities.
Want freedom and peace? Reject all that you have been taught via programming, conditioning, domestication, acculturation, indoctrination, and brainwashing.
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
25 November 2014
They seem to be slightly more accepting when a discussion centers on personality and the problems which are rooted in personality and in the motives of personas (which unconsciously control all thoughts and words and actions).
The point here is that whether the discussion centers on “ignorance, stupidity, and insanity” or on personality-driven problems or on neuroses or on psychoses,
a. all of that involves the mind (i.e., involves mind-full-ness) and
b. all of that is ultimately about one problem - a mind problem - what is simply manifesting in varying degrees.
The sequence from sanity to insanity follows this path:
I. What is called “a newborn” begins with a brain but without what will soon become a fiction-filled, content-filled, warped mind.
II. A mind is stuffed full of nonsense via programming, conditioning, domestication, acculturation, indoctrination, and brainwashing – all of which also involves the assignment of false identifications and the subsequent development of personality / personalities (which results from a “survival response” as children try to adapt to the dysfunctional environments in which all children are being raised nowadays).
III. As more and more personalities are assigned and / or later adopted, an “identity crisis” begins. Persons do not have even the slightest clue about who they are after they are assigned or after they assume multiple personalities (that is, roles / stage characters / personas / guises / facades / fronts / faces / images, etc.) as identities.
IV. Once persons are being driven, subconsciously, by the hidden agendas of their multiple personalities (the end result being that every non-Realized person on the planet ends up suffering from the effects of the Multiple Personality Disorder), then – when stressed - they will begin to suffer from the worst possible traits of each personality which they have been assigned or which they adopted.
V. As stress increases, so does the process of personality disintegration. What may have been early on a state of psychic health becomes a state of average psychic health which, without intervention or Realization, will eventually give way to more psychic disintegration and psychic unhealthiness.
VI. In the absence of intervention or Realization, the deterioration of the mind – of the psyche – continues and then results in the development of neuroses or even psychoses.
Consider an example offered by the Enneagram Institute to show what happens when a person’s mind moves away from the “healthy levels” of psychic health to the levels of disintegration which follow when no intervention or Realization happens.
(The example offered will be of the Type Six because 50% of all persons on the planet have a Type Six Personality style as their primary type. The example will move past “Levels 1, 2, and 3” where “healthy levels” of personality are observable and begin with the traits of Type Sixes as they move through the “average levels” of psychic health and will then show what they are like when they disintegrate to the three “unhealthy levels”).
AVERAGE LEVELS
Level 4: Start investing their time and energy into whatever they believe will be safe and stable. Organizing and structuring, they look to alliances and authorities for security and continuity. Constantly vigilant, anticipating problems.
Level 5: To resist having more demands made on them, they react against others passive-aggressively. Become evasive, indecisive, cautious, procrastinating, and ambivalent. Are highly reactive, anxious, and negative, giving contradictory, "mixed signals." Internal confusion makes them react unpredictably.
Level 6: To compensate for insecurities, they become sarcastic and belligerent, blaming others for their problems, taking a tough stance toward "outsiders." Highly reactive and defensive, dividing people into friends and enemies, while looking for threats to their own security. Authoritarian while fearful of authority, highly suspicious, yet, conspiratorial, and fear-instilling to silence their own fears.
UNHEALTHY LEVELS
Level 7: Fearing that they have ruined their security, they become panicky, volatile, and self-disparaging with acute inferiority feelings. Seeing themselves as defenseless, they seek out a stronger authority or belief to resolve all problems. Highly divisive, disparaging and berating others.
Level 8: Feeling persecuted, that others are "out to get them," they lash-out and act irrationally, bringing about what they fear. Fanaticism, violence.
Level 9: Hysterical, and seeking to escape punishment, they become self-destructive and suicidal. Alcoholism, drug overdoses, "skid row," self-abasing behavior. Generally corresponds to the Passive-Aggressive and Paranoid personality disorders.
Note that
A. the last levels involve neuroses and, in the end, psychoses; that
B. when “Twelve Steps Groups” label someone as a “high bottom,” those persons are usually at level 8 and those whom they label as “low bottoms” are usually at level 9; and that
C. all of the levels involve the mind and its deterioration and degeneration when under stress and when being swept about in a helter-skelter fashion via cultural influences.
Want to be free? Be free of the content of the mind.
Want to be at peace? Be freed from being driven by the hidden agendas of personality / personalities.
Want freedom and peace? Reject all that you have been taught via programming, conditioning, domestication, acculturation, indoctrination, and brainwashing.
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
25 November 2014
A DAILY CONSIDERATION FOR YOU
F.: So the question at this point is, “Are you seeking Full Realization, are you Fully Realized, or do you only think that you are Fully Realized”? There’s an easy test that can be used by those who understand the pointers in these recent posts on "the mind":
TEST #1: Are you seeking Full Realization? Seek on. (Where are people still seeking usually “stuck?” At the third step where three roles especially are played: “The Super Religious One,” The Spiritual Giant,” and / or “The One Absorbed in Super, Excessive-Level Seeking.” Seek on. Abandon the first two roles and all beliefs and you’ll almost be at the end of the “path.”)
TEST #2: Are you Fully Realized? Only if the following truly apply:
a. you have given up trying to accumulate more information / dogma / spirituality / knowledge; and
b. you have given up everything that your mind was full of and have emptied it completely of all beliefs (which is a catch-all term for ideas, concepts, notions, attitudes, ideas, certainties, faith, etc.), so
c. you have reached a state of what Maharaj called zero concepts and no-mindedness and (therefore ) narrow-mindedness as well,
d. which means you have been purged of all sense of different-from-ment, all sense of better-than-ment, and (therefore) all prejudices and bigotry
e. as well as all distortions, delusions, misperceptions, and other mental accumulations that were stored in your mind when you were being fooled early on by parents and relatives and friends and your culture and during the subsequent years when you continued to be fooled by your culture and most teachers and friends and lovers and spouses and big corporations and big religion and big governments, etc.
TEST #3: Or do you only think that you are Fully Realized, which is the case if “a” through “e” above do not honestly apply.
Presently, most of the false sense of separation and different-from-ment and duality that are leading to conflict around the globe involves racial differences, sexual issues (involving debates about males vs. females and about sexual orientation and preference) and religious differences (involving members of one major religion vs. members of another major religion; involving members of one Christian denomination as opposed to members of other denominations; involving members of one sect of Islam against members of another sect of Islam; and involving conflict among the members of various branches of the Jewish religion including Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist).
RELIGIOUS CONFLICT
Begin with a 5000-year review of history and then bring the study to the current day by watching any newscast later tonight.
RACIAL CONFLICT
Study history for the last several hundred years and see what you find. Then look at the U.S., which has long made the apartheid-days in South Africa look sane and peaceful by contrast.
In the U.S., racial tension is omnipresent: one side cheered the outcome of the 1995 O.J. Simpson trial while the other side booed the results; one side cheered the outcome of the 2013 George Zimmerman trial while the other side booed the results; one side cheered the outcome of the 2014 Michael Dunn trial in Florida while the other side booed the results; and one side last night cheered the outcome of the Darren Wilson grand jury inquest in Missouri while the other side booed the results.
SEX-BASED CONFLICT
Read recent statements by leaders around the globe and then listen to certain politicians in the U.S. who are making outrageously ignorant and chauvinistic comments about women as those men try to control – as always – what women do with their bodies. Meanwhile, the non-duality-based tool for seeking clarity around one’s persona-based motives can be used to see how personality is driving thoughts and words and actions: WHO cares who has consensual sex with whom? WHO thinks that they, as males or as straight males, are better than anyone else?
Then consider these recent pointers offered by a famous U.S. writer:
"No civilization can be perfect until exact equality between man and woman is included”
and
The United States shall never reach its potential and shall never be at peace unless it addresses its race issues.
Oh . . . wait. Was “recent” the word used? That should have been “consider these pointers offered by a famous U.S. writer, Mark Twain, in the late 1880’s.”
Twain criticized (1) organized religion, (2) sexual discrimination, and (3) racial discrimination. Associated with Missouri as he was, he might look, if he could, at what has happened - or not happened - from135 years ago to the present in terms of addressing the three issues which he identified as key to humanity. He would probably just shake his head in disgust that so little actual change has come.
And nothing regarding any of the key religious issues, sexual issues, and racial issues which lead to the majority of humankind’s problems can or will change until the mind issue is addressed. And that does not involve “changing one’s mind” but involves discarding all of the content of one’s mind, an act which is accomplished fully when the last belief is discarded.
Are you seeking Full Realization? Then all beliefs in your mind regarding religion and spirituality and sexual discrimination and racial discrimination must go, along with all other beliefs held dear.
Are you Fully Realized? Then all beliefs that had been accumulated in your mind regarding religion and spirituality and sexual discrimination and racial discrimination have gone, along with all other beliefs which were held dear.
Or do you only think that you are Fully Realized? That is the case if all beliefs that have been accumulated in your mind regarding religion and spirituality and sexual discrimination and racial discrimination have not gone, along with all other beliefs which you have hold dear.
One organization that works to advance, via higher education, the state of blacks in the U.S. has this as its motto: “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.”
Their laudable intent notwithstanding, a more accurate pointer that can only be appreciated by those that understand non-duality and the role that the mind plays in generating havoc on all levels around the globe would not be “A mind is a terrible thing to waste” but would be instead “A mind is a terrible waste, period.”
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
24 November 2014
TEST #1: Are you seeking Full Realization? Seek on. (Where are people still seeking usually “stuck?” At the third step where three roles especially are played: “The Super Religious One,” The Spiritual Giant,” and / or “The One Absorbed in Super, Excessive-Level Seeking.” Seek on. Abandon the first two roles and all beliefs and you’ll almost be at the end of the “path.”)
TEST #2: Are you Fully Realized? Only if the following truly apply:
a. you have given up trying to accumulate more information / dogma / spirituality / knowledge; and
b. you have given up everything that your mind was full of and have emptied it completely of all beliefs (which is a catch-all term for ideas, concepts, notions, attitudes, ideas, certainties, faith, etc.), so
c. you have reached a state of what Maharaj called zero concepts and no-mindedness and (therefore ) narrow-mindedness as well,
d. which means you have been purged of all sense of different-from-ment, all sense of better-than-ment, and (therefore) all prejudices and bigotry
e. as well as all distortions, delusions, misperceptions, and other mental accumulations that were stored in your mind when you were being fooled early on by parents and relatives and friends and your culture and during the subsequent years when you continued to be fooled by your culture and most teachers and friends and lovers and spouses and big corporations and big religion and big governments, etc.
TEST #3: Or do you only think that you are Fully Realized, which is the case if “a” through “e” above do not honestly apply.
Presently, most of the false sense of separation and different-from-ment and duality that are leading to conflict around the globe involves racial differences, sexual issues (involving debates about males vs. females and about sexual orientation and preference) and religious differences (involving members of one major religion vs. members of another major religion; involving members of one Christian denomination as opposed to members of other denominations; involving members of one sect of Islam against members of another sect of Islam; and involving conflict among the members of various branches of the Jewish religion including Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist).
RELIGIOUS CONFLICT
Begin with a 5000-year review of history and then bring the study to the current day by watching any newscast later tonight.
RACIAL CONFLICT
Study history for the last several hundred years and see what you find. Then look at the U.S., which has long made the apartheid-days in South Africa look sane and peaceful by contrast.
In the U.S., racial tension is omnipresent: one side cheered the outcome of the 1995 O.J. Simpson trial while the other side booed the results; one side cheered the outcome of the 2013 George Zimmerman trial while the other side booed the results; one side cheered the outcome of the 2014 Michael Dunn trial in Florida while the other side booed the results; and one side last night cheered the outcome of the Darren Wilson grand jury inquest in Missouri while the other side booed the results.
SEX-BASED CONFLICT
Read recent statements by leaders around the globe and then listen to certain politicians in the U.S. who are making outrageously ignorant and chauvinistic comments about women as those men try to control – as always – what women do with their bodies. Meanwhile, the non-duality-based tool for seeking clarity around one’s persona-based motives can be used to see how personality is driving thoughts and words and actions: WHO cares who has consensual sex with whom? WHO thinks that they, as males or as straight males, are better than anyone else?
Then consider these recent pointers offered by a famous U.S. writer:
"No civilization can be perfect until exact equality between man and woman is included”
and
The United States shall never reach its potential and shall never be at peace unless it addresses its race issues.
Oh . . . wait. Was “recent” the word used? That should have been “consider these pointers offered by a famous U.S. writer, Mark Twain, in the late 1880’s.”
Twain criticized (1) organized religion, (2) sexual discrimination, and (3) racial discrimination. Associated with Missouri as he was, he might look, if he could, at what has happened - or not happened - from135 years ago to the present in terms of addressing the three issues which he identified as key to humanity. He would probably just shake his head in disgust that so little actual change has come.
And nothing regarding any of the key religious issues, sexual issues, and racial issues which lead to the majority of humankind’s problems can or will change until the mind issue is addressed. And that does not involve “changing one’s mind” but involves discarding all of the content of one’s mind, an act which is accomplished fully when the last belief is discarded.
Are you seeking Full Realization? Then all beliefs in your mind regarding religion and spirituality and sexual discrimination and racial discrimination must go, along with all other beliefs held dear.
Are you Fully Realized? Then all beliefs that had been accumulated in your mind regarding religion and spirituality and sexual discrimination and racial discrimination have gone, along with all other beliefs which were held dear.
Or do you only think that you are Fully Realized? That is the case if all beliefs that have been accumulated in your mind regarding religion and spirituality and sexual discrimination and racial discrimination have not gone, along with all other beliefs which you have hold dear.
One organization that works to advance, via higher education, the state of blacks in the U.S. has this as its motto: “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.”
Their laudable intent notwithstanding, a more accurate pointer that can only be appreciated by those that understand non-duality and the role that the mind plays in generating havoc on all levels around the globe would not be “A mind is a terrible thing to waste” but would be instead “A mind is a terrible waste, period.”
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
24 November 2014
A DAILY CONSIDERATION FOR YOU
F.: This was offered at the end of the last post before a break was taken:
“In the next post, the following will be discussed: How personality styles other than the Type Four block all ability and willingness to question, resulting in 97% of all non-Realized persons on the planet reporting an affiliation with one organized religion or the other.” To continue, noting the way that the nine basic personality types control thoughts and words and actions:
THE PERSONALITY TYPE ONES
Looking back, I saw that the Type Ones accepted the teachings in that Southern Baptist church (which I was taken to as a child) without question in order to foster their image of being perfect little boys or girls in the eyes of their parents and relatives and authorities. Moreover, trapped in their perfectionist roles, they never questioned themselves. For them, believing something made it so. Contrary to Maharaj’s advice, they do not question and investigate and learn all they can about confusion - how it operates, what it does to them and others. Why? Because they stubbornly deny that they are confused; thus, they are never clear about confusion so they are never clear of confusion.
THE PERSONALITY TYPE TWOS
Type Twos bought into the dogma unquestioningly because they are people pleasers and want everyone to like them.
THE PERSONALITY TYPE THREES
Type Threes did the same because they wanted to foster a positive image to get applause and recognition. As with the Type Ones that they share many traits with, they never question themselves but are masters at spinning reality.
THE PERSONALITY TYPE FIVES
Type Fives might have had questions, but they did not express them openly as did the Type Fours. They often would later on spend decades in research, trying to figure out what is true and what is false; or, they ended up questioning nothing but worked to become Biblical scholars seen as being "experts."
THE PERSONALITY TYPE SIXES
Type Sixes (making up 50% of all persons on the planet) remain loyal to authority and question nothing. Contrary to the suggestions from Dr. Tyson, Sixes never question authority, they often blindly believe that an idea is true just because someone says so; they are prone to believe ideas just because they want to; and like Type Ones, believing something makes it so to them.
THE PERSONALITY TYPE SEVENS
Sevens in that church were playing too much (and trying to eat all of the cookies and drink all of the punch) to question or not question.
THE PERSONALITY TYPE EIGHTS
Eights accept the teachings in order to use them to their "personal benefit and gain and advancement." Being power hungry, they want all of the power they can get, be it "earthly" or "heavenly."
THE PERSONALITY TYPE NINES
Type Nines might question, but they keep it to themselves. They don’t want any conflict other than what they start when they shift from their passive side to their aggressive side.
Again, looking back on the people dealt with from early on in that church (and after understanding the power of personality to determine subconsciously every thought, every word, and every action of the non-Realized), it became clear that:
The children in that church who were Type Ones were the ones who did all they could to try to be perfect and who grew up to become totally inflexible and rigid and anal, just as had already happened to the Type One adults in that church. It has been seen that many of those types are now involved in local, state, and federal governments or in such groups as ISIS / ISIL / IS and Al Qaeda and other extremists – in every organized religion – and are completely certain that their way is the only right way. They are the persons now who, in the U.S., are involved with the “Christian Reconstructionist” movement (though many do not know that ideology is at the root of the groups they have aligned with) who want to shut down and dismantle and ultimately destroy the government and replace it with a Christian theocracy which will use the Old Testament as its constitution and bring about the privatization of all services now provided by the government and intend to replace public education with home schooling, using their current Christian-based lesson plans and materials. They are extremely obsessive and therefore act compulsively and impulsively after periods of obsession.
The children in that church who were Type Twos were the ones who did all they could to try to be loved by their parents (or by the mother, who was often the only remaining parent) and who grew up to become “love” addicts and helpers and rescuers, those roles all being played to try to get the love now that was not afforded in the quantity desired during childhood. The Type Two adults in that church were already doing the same and volunteering dozens of hours per week “in service to others” (hoping for a payoff of love in return).
The children in that church who were Type Threes were the ones who were constantly performing, creating an image of being perfect, doing all they could to get applause or honorable mention, just as had already happened to the Type Three adults in that church (who usually included a preacher, a music director, and singers in the choir).
The children in that church who were Type Fours were the ones rebelling against all of the nonsense being heard and against belief in all of the myth-and-superstition-based tales that could not have possibly been true and against all of the dictates (and often dictatorial behaviors) of church authorities.
The children in that church who were Type Fives were the ones who avoided. They were the loners who were not quite sure about the teachings but would, as adults, study for decades to try to find truth or – more typically – to become experts and knowers who could use all their accumulated knowledge to try to impress others.
The children in that church who were Type Sixes unquestioningly and loyally and blindly bought into everything anyone in authority told them. They were the ones (making up 50% of the entire planet’s population) who bought lock, stock, and barrel into all of the insane teachings which religions dream up. As adults, they were the ones tithing their 10% in order to help insure that they would receive an eternal reward some day. Because of their fear and anxiety, as adults they often went into law enforcement, the military, security guard jobs, etc. (all of which gave them the right to carry firearms and use them) or in jobs that were menial but seemed to offer steady employment. They developed dependencies and co-dependencies, relying on other to provide support and food and clothing and shelter for them. Many developed attachment disorders and adopted Type Eight traits and ended up being a boss or someone willing to exact retribution and punishment on those who do not honor perfectly all authority and rules and laws. Many become stuck in horrible relationships but stay in them out of loyally and / or a sense of guilt and shame or out of their loyalty to religious vows.
The children in that church who were Type Sevens were the ones who enjoyed play time and cookies and punch, all of which they ate and drank to excess. They were the ones who did not care a bit about the church’s religious messages but took part in everything that fed their fun-loving nature. The Type Seven adults in that church were usually the ones hiding their addictive behavior while openly judging the heavy drinkers in the congregation or judging denominations that use alcohol in their services, that organize in-church gambling activities and that organized dances.
The children in that church who were Type Eights were the ones who were domineering among whatever church group they were in. They were often insensitive and harsh and even cruel, and their behavior often modeled that of the cruel, mean, and murderous God of the Old Testament whom they identified with. They wanted power, so they sought physical power, other-worldly power, and anything else that could be used to advance their often aggressive agendas. As adults, they would seek all forms of power and often show many Type Six traits as well, dedicated to authority (as long as it helps maintain their own “personal authority and power”).
The children in that church who were Type Nines were the ones who appeared to be the most peaceful, who seemed to be real Peacemakers or Peace Lovers but who were really only concerned with maintaining their own peace; however, most often, they are “Ambush Predators,” driven to get ahead by stealth or strategy rather than by speed or work or strength. They feel entitled to be taken care of, so as adults they develop into persons who seem docile enough, yet that docile appearance is really – as is the case with all ambush predators - not as much a result of being calm and inactive but is actually more of a result of hiding and waiting for their prey to come within striking distance. They often are camouflaged – not as they appear to be. They may be solitary much of the time, but their extreme passive nature will eventually give way at times to their just-as-extreme aggressive nature. They are really quite angry, but they deny that. They will claim to be “tired” rather than admitting that they have shifted to the other side of the anger coin, namely, into depression. They will take stubbornness to an extreme degree as well. Often, they attract controlling Type Eights who think they have found someone who will submit to the Eights’ desire to control. Little do the Eights understand what they are actually getting into with Type Nines who will agree to anything the Eight wants (inspired by their passive side) but will then do the exact opposite and break their agreement (a result of their aggressive side). The stage is always set for constant battling, though the Nine will usually refuse to discuss anything.
All of that ignorance and insanity catalogued above is the result of one thing: minds being pumped chock full of nonsense and ideas and concepts and dogma and faith and myth and superstition and prejudice and notions about being "different from and better than" (a.k.a., “beliefs”).
Note that all of those nine basic personality types are the personification of duality and dualistic-thinking. Note how it all involves mindfulness / mind-full-ness. Note how it all is driven by the hidden, unconscious agendas of personality (or multiple personalities). Note how it all involves the ignorant and insane results of programming and conditioning and domestication and acculturation and brainwashing and indoctrination.
The message Christ was teaching during his final years was the message of non-duality, but few Christians have a clue what Christ was really talking about. (Would he be pleased with a Vatican worth billions of dollars which is housing billions or trillions of dollars worth of art and artifacts or with the opulent cathedrals and expensive churches scattered about the globe? What did he model instead?)
Maharaj: “Only the religion of one's true nature (an awareness of one's inner awareness) will last to the end”
and
“True religion is the religion of the Self (existence, consciousness). It lies in searching for one's true nature and stabilizing oneself there”
and
“Religious traditions are based on concepts. There is silence (existence, consciousness) when these concepts are given up”
and
“The ultimate religion is a state of Self-Realization. It is an unbroken and fearless state of Being (existence, consciousness).”
If those persons who were members of the church of my youth - and all like them whom I’ve dealt with for over six decades – were really interested in being like Christ, they would have to do as he did and leave organized religion; they would possibly spend years (as he did) seeking the truth which was not taught during his early years around organized religion; and some of them might finally settle on the teachings of non-duality (as he did) as the means to truth, to understanding, to freedom, and to peace.
If that does not satisfy, then the understanding regarding the role that religion and / or spirituality play along "the path" likely cannot be taught to you. You will likely have to witness or experience firsthand what the total ramifications of religions – all religions - really are in the long run, and even then, little will likely change.
Finally, the prerequisite to being free of the nonsense of dogma and all other baseless beliefs involves questioning . . . involves the setting aside of blind faith.
Teachers offering a legitimate version of non-duality (that is, one without popular pointers that garner mass-appeal) have long endorsed that one key prerequisite that is required for beginning the “journey” to Realization, that is, to realizing the difference between nonsense and sense; between insanity and sanity; between ignorance and wisdom; and then finally being able to differentiate between all which is false and that which is true.
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
Previous post
“In the next post, the following will be discussed: How personality styles other than the Type Four block all ability and willingness to question, resulting in 97% of all non-Realized persons on the planet reporting an affiliation with one organized religion or the other.” To continue, noting the way that the nine basic personality types control thoughts and words and actions:
THE PERSONALITY TYPE ONES
Looking back, I saw that the Type Ones accepted the teachings in that Southern Baptist church (which I was taken to as a child) without question in order to foster their image of being perfect little boys or girls in the eyes of their parents and relatives and authorities. Moreover, trapped in their perfectionist roles, they never questioned themselves. For them, believing something made it so. Contrary to Maharaj’s advice, they do not question and investigate and learn all they can about confusion - how it operates, what it does to them and others. Why? Because they stubbornly deny that they are confused; thus, they are never clear about confusion so they are never clear of confusion.
THE PERSONALITY TYPE TWOS
Type Twos bought into the dogma unquestioningly because they are people pleasers and want everyone to like them.
THE PERSONALITY TYPE THREES
Type Threes did the same because they wanted to foster a positive image to get applause and recognition. As with the Type Ones that they share many traits with, they never question themselves but are masters at spinning reality.
THE PERSONALITY TYPE FIVES
Type Fives might have had questions, but they did not express them openly as did the Type Fours. They often would later on spend decades in research, trying to figure out what is true and what is false; or, they ended up questioning nothing but worked to become Biblical scholars seen as being "experts."
THE PERSONALITY TYPE SIXES
Type Sixes (making up 50% of all persons on the planet) remain loyal to authority and question nothing. Contrary to the suggestions from Dr. Tyson, Sixes never question authority, they often blindly believe that an idea is true just because someone says so; they are prone to believe ideas just because they want to; and like Type Ones, believing something makes it so to them.
THE PERSONALITY TYPE SEVENS
Sevens in that church were playing too much (and trying to eat all of the cookies and drink all of the punch) to question or not question.
THE PERSONALITY TYPE EIGHTS
Eights accept the teachings in order to use them to their "personal benefit and gain and advancement." Being power hungry, they want all of the power they can get, be it "earthly" or "heavenly."
THE PERSONALITY TYPE NINES
Type Nines might question, but they keep it to themselves. They don’t want any conflict other than what they start when they shift from their passive side to their aggressive side.
Again, looking back on the people dealt with from early on in that church (and after understanding the power of personality to determine subconsciously every thought, every word, and every action of the non-Realized), it became clear that:
The children in that church who were Type Ones were the ones who did all they could to try to be perfect and who grew up to become totally inflexible and rigid and anal, just as had already happened to the Type One adults in that church. It has been seen that many of those types are now involved in local, state, and federal governments or in such groups as ISIS / ISIL / IS and Al Qaeda and other extremists – in every organized religion – and are completely certain that their way is the only right way. They are the persons now who, in the U.S., are involved with the “Christian Reconstructionist” movement (though many do not know that ideology is at the root of the groups they have aligned with) who want to shut down and dismantle and ultimately destroy the government and replace it with a Christian theocracy which will use the Old Testament as its constitution and bring about the privatization of all services now provided by the government and intend to replace public education with home schooling, using their current Christian-based lesson plans and materials. They are extremely obsessive and therefore act compulsively and impulsively after periods of obsession.
The children in that church who were Type Twos were the ones who did all they could to try to be loved by their parents (or by the mother, who was often the only remaining parent) and who grew up to become “love” addicts and helpers and rescuers, those roles all being played to try to get the love now that was not afforded in the quantity desired during childhood. The Type Two adults in that church were already doing the same and volunteering dozens of hours per week “in service to others” (hoping for a payoff of love in return).
The children in that church who were Type Threes were the ones who were constantly performing, creating an image of being perfect, doing all they could to get applause or honorable mention, just as had already happened to the Type Three adults in that church (who usually included a preacher, a music director, and singers in the choir).
The children in that church who were Type Fours were the ones rebelling against all of the nonsense being heard and against belief in all of the myth-and-superstition-based tales that could not have possibly been true and against all of the dictates (and often dictatorial behaviors) of church authorities.
The children in that church who were Type Fives were the ones who avoided. They were the loners who were not quite sure about the teachings but would, as adults, study for decades to try to find truth or – more typically – to become experts and knowers who could use all their accumulated knowledge to try to impress others.
The children in that church who were Type Sixes unquestioningly and loyally and blindly bought into everything anyone in authority told them. They were the ones (making up 50% of the entire planet’s population) who bought lock, stock, and barrel into all of the insane teachings which religions dream up. As adults, they were the ones tithing their 10% in order to help insure that they would receive an eternal reward some day. Because of their fear and anxiety, as adults they often went into law enforcement, the military, security guard jobs, etc. (all of which gave them the right to carry firearms and use them) or in jobs that were menial but seemed to offer steady employment. They developed dependencies and co-dependencies, relying on other to provide support and food and clothing and shelter for them. Many developed attachment disorders and adopted Type Eight traits and ended up being a boss or someone willing to exact retribution and punishment on those who do not honor perfectly all authority and rules and laws. Many become stuck in horrible relationships but stay in them out of loyally and / or a sense of guilt and shame or out of their loyalty to religious vows.
The children in that church who were Type Sevens were the ones who enjoyed play time and cookies and punch, all of which they ate and drank to excess. They were the ones who did not care a bit about the church’s religious messages but took part in everything that fed their fun-loving nature. The Type Seven adults in that church were usually the ones hiding their addictive behavior while openly judging the heavy drinkers in the congregation or judging denominations that use alcohol in their services, that organize in-church gambling activities and that organized dances.
The children in that church who were Type Eights were the ones who were domineering among whatever church group they were in. They were often insensitive and harsh and even cruel, and their behavior often modeled that of the cruel, mean, and murderous God of the Old Testament whom they identified with. They wanted power, so they sought physical power, other-worldly power, and anything else that could be used to advance their often aggressive agendas. As adults, they would seek all forms of power and often show many Type Six traits as well, dedicated to authority (as long as it helps maintain their own “personal authority and power”).
The children in that church who were Type Nines were the ones who appeared to be the most peaceful, who seemed to be real Peacemakers or Peace Lovers but who were really only concerned with maintaining their own peace; however, most often, they are “Ambush Predators,” driven to get ahead by stealth or strategy rather than by speed or work or strength. They feel entitled to be taken care of, so as adults they develop into persons who seem docile enough, yet that docile appearance is really – as is the case with all ambush predators - not as much a result of being calm and inactive but is actually more of a result of hiding and waiting for their prey to come within striking distance. They often are camouflaged – not as they appear to be. They may be solitary much of the time, but their extreme passive nature will eventually give way at times to their just-as-extreme aggressive nature. They are really quite angry, but they deny that. They will claim to be “tired” rather than admitting that they have shifted to the other side of the anger coin, namely, into depression. They will take stubbornness to an extreme degree as well. Often, they attract controlling Type Eights who think they have found someone who will submit to the Eights’ desire to control. Little do the Eights understand what they are actually getting into with Type Nines who will agree to anything the Eight wants (inspired by their passive side) but will then do the exact opposite and break their agreement (a result of their aggressive side). The stage is always set for constant battling, though the Nine will usually refuse to discuss anything.
All of that ignorance and insanity catalogued above is the result of one thing: minds being pumped chock full of nonsense and ideas and concepts and dogma and faith and myth and superstition and prejudice and notions about being "different from and better than" (a.k.a., “beliefs”).
Note that all of those nine basic personality types are the personification of duality and dualistic-thinking. Note how it all involves mindfulness / mind-full-ness. Note how it all is driven by the hidden, unconscious agendas of personality (or multiple personalities). Note how it all involves the ignorant and insane results of programming and conditioning and domestication and acculturation and brainwashing and indoctrination.
The message Christ was teaching during his final years was the message of non-duality, but few Christians have a clue what Christ was really talking about. (Would he be pleased with a Vatican worth billions of dollars which is housing billions or trillions of dollars worth of art and artifacts or with the opulent cathedrals and expensive churches scattered about the globe? What did he model instead?)
Maharaj: “Only the religion of one's true nature (an awareness of one's inner awareness) will last to the end”
and
“True religion is the religion of the Self (existence, consciousness). It lies in searching for one's true nature and stabilizing oneself there”
and
“Religious traditions are based on concepts. There is silence (existence, consciousness) when these concepts are given up”
and
“The ultimate religion is a state of Self-Realization. It is an unbroken and fearless state of Being (existence, consciousness).”
If those persons who were members of the church of my youth - and all like them whom I’ve dealt with for over six decades – were really interested in being like Christ, they would have to do as he did and leave organized religion; they would possibly spend years (as he did) seeking the truth which was not taught during his early years around organized religion; and some of them might finally settle on the teachings of non-duality (as he did) as the means to truth, to understanding, to freedom, and to peace.
If that does not satisfy, then the understanding regarding the role that religion and / or spirituality play along "the path" likely cannot be taught to you. You will likely have to witness or experience firsthand what the total ramifications of religions – all religions - really are in the long run, and even then, little will likely change.
Finally, the prerequisite to being free of the nonsense of dogma and all other baseless beliefs involves questioning . . . involves the setting aside of blind faith.
Teachers offering a legitimate version of non-duality (that is, one without popular pointers that garner mass-appeal) have long endorsed that one key prerequisite that is required for beginning the “journey” to Realization, that is, to realizing the difference between nonsense and sense; between insanity and sanity; between ignorance and wisdom; and then finally being able to differentiate between all which is false and that which is true.
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
Previous post
A DAILY CONSIDERATION FOR YOU
Tyson is likely a Type Five which means he also likely developed a Type Four-wing from early on, giuving him the courage to question authority. Maharaj had the same. Likewise the case here. What Type Fours have in common – and which all seekers must develop if they would Realize – is an internal “bullshit detector.”
Some frequent visitors to this site are aware that the early exposure to the right-wing, ultra-conservative, completely-nonsensical version of dogma as presented by Southern Baptists inspired questioning early on by “floyd” and his Type Four style:
“Wait a minute! There was just Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel in the beginning? And Cain killed Abel? That left Adam and Eve and Cain? So who did Cain make babies with? Oh. My. Gosh!”
“Wait a minute! God loves unconditionally but he drowned everyone on the planet except for the members of one family? No way!”
“Wait a minute! Noah was strong enough to build a huge wooden boat when he was already 600 years old? No way!”
“Wait a minute! They got a male and female of every species on one boat, and the tigers didn’t eat the sheep and the mosquitoes and flies all stayed within the confines of the boat, and Noah had plants for the plant-eating animals and . . . what about the carnivorous species? What did he have for them to eat? Noah entered the ark on the 17th day of the 2nd month and left the ark on the 27th day of the 2nd month of the following year, so he and the family and the pairs of all species were on the ark for 370 days. And the meat for the carnivorous species didn't spoil and rot . . . for a year? They had enough edible food to keep everyone and everything alive for a year? No way!”
“Wait a minute! God loves unconditionally but he still killed everyone else on the planet? And He loves unconditionally but will send me to hell for eternal suffering and misery and pain? No way!”
During “the search,” time was spent in study, looking objectively and judiciously and questioningly at those early teachings, focusing for a time on Moses and “what he might have been onto” when he used the Eastern term, “I AM THAT I AM.” This came to be seen while in “my early 20’s” and was shared on this site in 2009:
It is known that some version of the non-dual teachings had reached the Middle East hundreds or possibly thousands of years before Jesus arrived on the scene. How? Moses (or whoever really wrote the Jewish scriptures which Christians call “the first five books of our Old Testament”) actually plagiarized the summative statement "I AM THAT; I AM," left off the semicolon, and then put the words into the mouth of God / "a burning bush."
Moses plagiarized that term and everything else he wrote in what the Jewish people call “the Pentateuch” (or “the five books of Moses”) and which the Christians call the first part of their "Old Testament," including the Advaitin summative statement and including the story of the pagan god Ram.
Five hundred years before Moses (or whoever) wrote Moses into a hero role as the one who freed the supposedly enslaved Jews in Egypt (an imaginary event which, as Asimov pointed out, never actually happened), there was the pagan tale of Ram.
In that mythical tale, Ram had displeased the gods who had cast him into the darkness and dreariness of a subterranean locale. From there he was summoned by the gods to free some of their people who had been enslaved; to lead those children of the gods across a desert to a promised land; and to use a magic stick to hit rocks in order to make water flow. All along the way of a multi-decade journey through the desert, the gods supposedly dropped food from heaven for the wayward travelers.
Having been exposed to “the Moses story” in church as a child and then coming across the story of Ram and seeing that Moses (or whoever) stole the ancient tale and wrote Moses into the lead role that had originally been played by Ram in a fictional, pagan tale, there was a flashback to other tales told in those same five books, including:
orders to stone homosexuals to death; including orders to stone to death women who commit adultery; including the oft-repeated Great Flood story which was a part of the dogma of every prior religion; and including both versions of the creation stories that were circulating among the pagan religions of his time.
(Few know that there are two versions of "The Creation" story in "the book of Genesis," each contradictory of the other. So much for “infallibility of the scriptures,” huh?)
What flashed into consciousness when it was found that the writer of "the book of Exodus" had simply plagiarized a 500-year old story? What else could flash into consciousness except the realization that . . . “It’s ALL bullshit!”
So back to the earlier pointer: seekers are encouraged to “question it all,” but of course time does not permit. What is required instead is what was discussed in the duality-based fictional book entitled “The Board of Directors of Wars” (a sequel to the part-autobiographical, part fictional novel entitled “The Twice-Stolen Necklace Murders”):
I want that peace,” Brett almost demanded.
Kirk paused again, not to consider the answer for he knew it exactly. He paused to decide if Brett was anywhere near ready to hear. Then, admitting that Brett had asked, Kirk would offer the answer.
“Brett,” you’ve been shown the answer all your life. It was there for you to see in every play, in every movie, in every mystery you’ve ever read.”
Brett’s confusion kept him in the silence, so Kirk went on.
“My man Shakespeare borrowed the dramatic technique from the Greeks,” Kirk began. “Today, it is the basis of all mystery and suspense stories, and it’s also the basis of Realization.”
“I’m lost,” Brett confessed.
“Well, look at every drama you’ve ever seen. The main character, who represents you and me and everyone, runs around like a chicken with his head cut off. He is confused and in the dark. Those who are in a position to sit back and witness the drama objectively can see that he's just an actor on a stage and that none of the drama is real. But for entertainment's sake, he and the witnesses can pretend it's real. Both, in fact, can get so absorbed in the role that they can take it to be the real for a time.
“But even amidst all the drama, a time comes, that moment in the play when even the actor finds out the truth. It is called the peripetia in drama—that moment in the play or the movie when the lead actor finds out that everything he thought to be true is really false; when he sees that he was being misled at every turn; when those he thought he could trust the most and those whom he thought were telling him the truth were also wrong.
“It’s the moment of freedom that comes when one finds out that everything he ever thought or believed or held sacred or thought worth fighting for was a lie. The freedom comes when he gives up all of the concepts he bought into, drops his head in relief and amazement, shakes his head back and forth, wonders for a moment how he had bought into all their crap, smiles at how easily he was duped, watches how all the rest of the play unfolds automatically until its end, and leaves the stage after saying to himself, Well sonofabitch. I'll be damned. And then he laughs. He laughs at it all. And then he's done with it, once and for all.”
See, your moment of peripetia can come without trying to analyze individually and trying to test for validity individually each of the hundreds of thousands of concepts / beliefs stored in your mind. It comes when you are objective enough to look critically at what you have been taught by grandparents and parents and relatives and your culture, then see that if part of what they said was nonsense or an outright lie then the possibility is great that it's all nonsense or an outright lie. Then you, too, can admit:
"Well sonofabitch. It’s all BS. I'll be damned. At that point, you will cast it all aside and you’ll be done with it, once and for all."
At that point, you will have broken free of the bondage of mindfulness and mind-full-ness and can thereafter reach the peaceful state of mindlessness . . . of no-mind-ness . . . of what Maharaj called a mind-free state of "zero concepts."
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
Taking a break for a few days. In the next post, the following will be discussed:
How personality styles other than the Type Four block all ability and willingness to question, resulting in 97% on the planet reporting an affiliation with one organized religion or another
and
how to overcome that obstacle, how to become free of all beliefs, and thus how to become free of the otherwise endless machinations of an ever-in-motion, peace-robbing mind.
Meanwhile, you’re invited to use the search tool at the top of the right-hand column and read about any non-duality topics that might be on interest.
15 November 2014
F.: Yesterday, pointers offered by Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson included these:
a. Question authority.
b. Question yourself.
c. No idea is true just because someone says so, including me.
d. Don't believe anything just because you want to.
e. Believing something doesn't make it so.
Teachers offering a "legitimate version of non-duality" (that is, one without pointers intended to garner popular appeal) have long endorsed one key prerequisite for Realization, namely, questioning.
Maharaj: “Be alert. Question, observe, investigate, learn all you can about confusion, how it operates, what it does to you and others. By being clear about confusion you become clear of confusion.”
The options in that regard are to either “question everything” or to “have blind faith,” the key word being “blind.”
No questioning = “confusion.”
No questioning = a continuation of your having been fooled.
Seekers are encouraged to “question it all,” but of course time does not permit. The "how" will, therefore, be offered below.
Among Personality Type Fours, the type most likely to develop an interest in authenticity, there is a natural tendency to question. (50% on the planet are Type Sixes, loyal to any and all authority and the least likely to ever question authority: "Nowadays in the U.S., the police and border patrol agents and other authorities are killing minorities at an alarming rate? Well, the minorities must deserve it. The police would never just shoot someone who does not deserve to be shot").
Fours, on the other hand, develop their Type Four personality style early on because by the age of 5 or 6, they have already seen the penchant that authorities have for being abusive; they have already seen the tendency that authorities have to abuse persons to one degree or another; they have seen the willingness of authorities to abuse their power and to abuse others; and they have usually felt the sting of some form of abuse from authority figures; thus, their rebelliousness toward authority is fixed early on.
A pointer from Tyson was shared yesterday:
a. Question authority.
b. Question yourself.
c. No idea is true just because someone says so, including me.
d. Don't believe anything just because you want to.
e. Believing something doesn't make it so.
Teachers offering a "legitimate version of non-duality" (that is, one without pointers intended to garner popular appeal) have long endorsed one key prerequisite for Realization, namely, questioning.
Maharaj: “Be alert. Question, observe, investigate, learn all you can about confusion, how it operates, what it does to you and others. By being clear about confusion you become clear of confusion.”
The options in that regard are to either “question everything” or to “have blind faith,” the key word being “blind.”
No questioning = “confusion.”
No questioning = a continuation of your having been fooled.
Seekers are encouraged to “question it all,” but of course time does not permit. The "how" will, therefore, be offered below.
Among Personality Type Fours, the type most likely to develop an interest in authenticity, there is a natural tendency to question. (50% on the planet are Type Sixes, loyal to any and all authority and the least likely to ever question authority: "Nowadays in the U.S., the police and border patrol agents and other authorities are killing minorities at an alarming rate? Well, the minorities must deserve it. The police would never just shoot someone who does not deserve to be shot").
Fours, on the other hand, develop their Type Four personality style early on because by the age of 5 or 6, they have already seen the penchant that authorities have for being abusive; they have already seen the tendency that authorities have to abuse persons to one degree or another; they have seen the willingness of authorities to abuse their power and to abuse others; and they have usually felt the sting of some form of abuse from authority figures; thus, their rebelliousness toward authority is fixed early on.
A pointer from Tyson was shared yesterday:
Maharaj made use of the same BS term, though his translators and editors always edited out the profanities which occasionally sprinkled his talks” (in order to what . . . maintains a “religious and spiritual image”? Really?)
Tyson is likely a Type Five which means he also likely developed a Type Four-wing from early on, giuving him the courage to question authority. Maharaj had the same. Likewise the case here. What Type Fours have in common – and which all seekers must develop if they would Realize – is an internal “bullshit detector.”
Some frequent visitors to this site are aware that the early exposure to the right-wing, ultra-conservative, completely-nonsensical version of dogma as presented by Southern Baptists inspired questioning early on by “floyd” and his Type Four style:
“Wait a minute! There was just Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel in the beginning? And Cain killed Abel? That left Adam and Eve and Cain? So who did Cain make babies with? Oh. My. Gosh!”
“Wait a minute! God loves unconditionally but he drowned everyone on the planet except for the members of one family? No way!”
“Wait a minute! Noah was strong enough to build a huge wooden boat when he was already 600 years old? No way!”
“Wait a minute! They got a male and female of every species on one boat, and the tigers didn’t eat the sheep and the mosquitoes and flies all stayed within the confines of the boat, and Noah had plants for the plant-eating animals and . . . what about the carnivorous species? What did he have for them to eat? Noah entered the ark on the 17th day of the 2nd month and left the ark on the 27th day of the 2nd month of the following year, so he and the family and the pairs of all species were on the ark for 370 days. And the meat for the carnivorous species didn't spoil and rot . . . for a year? They had enough edible food to keep everyone and everything alive for a year? No way!”
“Wait a minute! God loves unconditionally but he still killed everyone else on the planet? And He loves unconditionally but will send me to hell for eternal suffering and misery and pain? No way!”
During “the search,” time was spent in study, looking objectively and judiciously and questioningly at those early teachings, focusing for a time on Moses and “what he might have been onto” when he used the Eastern term, “I AM THAT I AM.” This came to be seen while in “my early 20’s” and was shared on this site in 2009:
It is known that some version of the non-dual teachings had reached the Middle East hundreds or possibly thousands of years before Jesus arrived on the scene. How? Moses (or whoever really wrote the Jewish scriptures which Christians call “the first five books of our Old Testament”) actually plagiarized the summative statement "I AM THAT; I AM," left off the semicolon, and then put the words into the mouth of God / "a burning bush."
Moses plagiarized that term and everything else he wrote in what the Jewish people call “the Pentateuch” (or “the five books of Moses”) and which the Christians call the first part of their "Old Testament," including the Advaitin summative statement and including the story of the pagan god Ram.
Five hundred years before Moses (or whoever) wrote Moses into a hero role as the one who freed the supposedly enslaved Jews in Egypt (an imaginary event which, as Asimov pointed out, never actually happened), there was the pagan tale of Ram.
In that mythical tale, Ram had displeased the gods who had cast him into the darkness and dreariness of a subterranean locale. From there he was summoned by the gods to free some of their people who had been enslaved; to lead those children of the gods across a desert to a promised land; and to use a magic stick to hit rocks in order to make water flow. All along the way of a multi-decade journey through the desert, the gods supposedly dropped food from heaven for the wayward travelers.
Having been exposed to “the Moses story” in church as a child and then coming across the story of Ram and seeing that Moses (or whoever) stole the ancient tale and wrote Moses into the lead role that had originally been played by Ram in a fictional, pagan tale, there was a flashback to other tales told in those same five books, including:
orders to stone homosexuals to death; including orders to stone to death women who commit adultery; including the oft-repeated Great Flood story which was a part of the dogma of every prior religion; and including both versions of the creation stories that were circulating among the pagan religions of his time.
(Few know that there are two versions of "The Creation" story in "the book of Genesis," each contradictory of the other. So much for “infallibility of the scriptures,” huh?)
What flashed into consciousness when it was found that the writer of "the book of Exodus" had simply plagiarized a 500-year old story? What else could flash into consciousness except the realization that . . . “It’s ALL bullshit!”
So back to the earlier pointer: seekers are encouraged to “question it all,” but of course time does not permit. What is required instead is what was discussed in the duality-based fictional book entitled “The Board of Directors of Wars” (a sequel to the part-autobiographical, part fictional novel entitled “The Twice-Stolen Necklace Murders”):
In “Board of Directors,” Kirk is talking with a friend named Brett:
I want that peace,” Brett almost demanded.
Kirk paused again, not to consider the answer for he knew it exactly. He paused to decide if Brett was anywhere near ready to hear. Then, admitting that Brett had asked, Kirk would offer the answer.
“Brett,” you’ve been shown the answer all your life. It was there for you to see in every play, in every movie, in every mystery you’ve ever read.”
Brett’s confusion kept him in the silence, so Kirk went on.
“My man Shakespeare borrowed the dramatic technique from the Greeks,” Kirk began. “Today, it is the basis of all mystery and suspense stories, and it’s also the basis of Realization.”
“I’m lost,” Brett confessed.
“Well, look at every drama you’ve ever seen. The main character, who represents you and me and everyone, runs around like a chicken with his head cut off. He is confused and in the dark. Those who are in a position to sit back and witness the drama objectively can see that he's just an actor on a stage and that none of the drama is real. But for entertainment's sake, he and the witnesses can pretend it's real. Both, in fact, can get so absorbed in the role that they can take it to be the real for a time.
“But even amidst all the drama, a time comes, that moment in the play when even the actor finds out the truth. It is called the peripetia in drama—that moment in the play or the movie when the lead actor finds out that everything he thought to be true is really false; when he sees that he was being misled at every turn; when those he thought he could trust the most and those whom he thought were telling him the truth were also wrong.
“It’s the moment of freedom that comes when one finds out that everything he ever thought or believed or held sacred or thought worth fighting for was a lie. The freedom comes when he gives up all of the concepts he bought into, drops his head in relief and amazement, shakes his head back and forth, wonders for a moment how he had bought into all their crap, smiles at how easily he was duped, watches how all the rest of the play unfolds automatically until its end, and leaves the stage after saying to himself, Well sonofabitch. I'll be damned. And then he laughs. He laughs at it all. And then he's done with it, once and for all.”
See, your moment of peripetia can come without trying to analyze individually and trying to test for validity individually each of the hundreds of thousands of concepts / beliefs stored in your mind. It comes when you are objective enough to look critically at what you have been taught by grandparents and parents and relatives and your culture, then see that if part of what they said was nonsense or an outright lie then the possibility is great that it's all nonsense or an outright lie. Then you, too, can admit:
"Well sonofabitch. It’s all BS. I'll be damned. At that point, you will cast it all aside and you’ll be done with it, once and for all."
At that point, you will have broken free of the bondage of mindfulness and mind-full-ness and can thereafter reach the peaceful state of mindlessness . . . of no-mind-ness . . . of what Maharaj called a mind-free state of "zero concepts."
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
Taking a break for a few days. In the next post, the following will be discussed:
How personality styles other than the Type Four block all ability and willingness to question, resulting in 97% on the planet reporting an affiliation with one organized religion or another
and
how to overcome that obstacle, how to become free of all beliefs, and thus how to become free of the otherwise endless machinations of an ever-in-motion, peace-robbing mind.
Meanwhile, you’re invited to use the search tool at the top of the right-hand column and read about any non-duality topics that might be on interest.
15 November 2014
A DAILY CONSIDERATION FOR YOU
vs.
"the Mind"
F.: Offered here often is evidence of the fact that there are small “pockets” of Realization where the consciousness speaks, that consciousness having manifested temporarily as one part of the three-part triads which form billions of composite unities all around the globe.
When those highly-rare cases of unblocked consciousness speak, they provide non-dual pointers for consideration from places that are most surprising to many who erroneously believe that certain countries or “special spots” on the globe have cornered the market on offering non-dual pointers.
Recall that Andy Gugar, Jr. once exhibited such skepticism, a fact which gives us both a great laugh when we talk about it now. He wrote the following about the final phase of his multi-decade-long search:
After being given some labels for further investigation - specifically, "non-duality" and "Advaita" - it soon became clear that I needed to find a capable Advaita teacher.
So I began googling "Advaita" and found a blog site where Floyd Henderson was offering daily postings of non-dual pointers. I began investigating this guy, wondering who he thought he was to be posting pointers about Advaita. He was not even from the Far East. Worse, my investigations uncovered the fact that this guy lived in Texas.
Being yet embroiled in ego, I asked, "Who does this guy living outside of Houston, Texas think he is ... acting like he 'knows it all' about these teachings?" I concluded, "Heck, I live in Texas. I guarantee I already know as much about non-duality as any other person living in Texas. Who from Texas could offer anything about this eastern philosophy?"
Then I clicked the link for the retreats he offered and saw that, of even greater offense, he wanted to charge a fee for retreats where he teaches non-duality. A year would pass, and more and more searching continued, but at least once a week, the name "Floyd Henderson" came into the forefront of consciousness.
As much as I tried to ignore the name, it would not leave me, so after a year of continued seeking even after having first found his name and websites, I finally went back to his Advaita blog site, looked at the cost of a retreat with him, and concluded, differently this time, "Well, actually it really is only a nominal fee he is charging, and he does have to pay his bills."
So it came to me, "What if this guy just might have what you've been looking for all of your life?" I determined that I might as well spend a few dollars - a small amount really in comparison to the fortune I had already spent during decades of seeking and searching ... all with no permanent results at all.
Right now, it is giving me cold chills just reflecting on that decision and what happened afterwards.
The result? There is now that speck of unblocked consciousness which some call “a successful entrepreneur” who shares non-dual Truths from a small “pocket” of Realization in northeast Texas;
there was a poor boy in the Middle East who was indoctrinated with Jewish dogma and who then taught that dogma early on, but he eventually left organized religion, found the non-dual teachings, and shared those during the last three years of his manifestation from within a small “pocket” of Realization before being crucified by Romans with the support of the Jewish religious and community leaders who did not approve of his non-religious, non-dual talks;
there was an uneducated but exceedingly wise man who moved from a rural area in India to the city of Bombay (Mumbai) and who offered non-dual pointers from a loft – from a small “pocket” of Realization - over his flat which was located on a very noisy street and which abutted a brothel operating in the connected building behind;
there is a rapper mentioned here in previous posts who is sharing the Truth from a small “pocket” of Realization in the state of Missouri, U.S.A.;
a five-minute drive from the home office here where many of the non-dual books listed below were written, there is a maitre d’ working in a restaurant; he was born in Lebanon, has now read many of the books below and “gets it,” and has two sons in their 20’s who are now reading those books and also “getting it”;
there was a scientist called “Dr. Carl Sagan,” mentioned recently on this site; he was born in an impoverished section of Brooklyn, New York - his father having been a poor immigrant garment worker, originally from a small town in what is today called Ukraine - and he offered the Truth via science and via non-dual pointers:
and now there is his protégé, called “Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson,”
born in Manhattan, New York and raised in the Bronx, his mother a gerontologist of Puerto Rican descent and his father an African-American sociologist; Tyson, an astrophysicist, shares scientific facts while sprinkling his talks with non-dual pointers (and, as was the case with Maharaj) on occasion peppering his talks with the blunt, but totally-spot-on, vernacular which – in Tyson’s case - he often heard growing up on the streets in the Bronx:
It has been noted that often Sagan’s talks - like those of Tyson now - offended conservatives and members of the religious-right (as scientific facts always have); thus, in a nation which has from the beginning been dominated by conservatives and members of the religious-right (and still is to this day) much of what he shared was ignored even though it could have been enlightening and could have been heeded as fair warning (for example, regarding the damage being done to the planet and regarding the ill effects of ignorance on humanity in general).
Mention was also made yesterday of Sagan’s protégé Tyson and his “most recent reminders and warnings” which are also being ignored by those most needing to understand. Referencing those types, he said: “Pretending to know everything closes the door to finding out what’s really there.”
In a recent followup to the 1980 “Cosmos” documentary narrated by Carl Sagan, a recent (2014) series entitled “Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey” was hosted by Tyson.
Maharaj predicted that someday science would advance to the point that it will prove all of the non-dual pointers being shared. It has reached that point, but many around the globe are never exposed to the science and many more – especially in the U.S. – reject all scientific facts they hear and instead accept only what was written in their “holy book” thousands of years ago when ignorance and myths and superstition ruled.
In the finale of the newer “Cosmos” series, Tyson offers certain pointers for consideration:
1. He began with a discussion of a library and its associated research institution which existed more than two millennia ago in the city of Alexandria, noting that it was rare then, and now, for a government to be willing to spend so much of its gross national product on eliminating ignorance and engaging in research.
Estimates vary regarding the total number of scrolls in that library, but the range is somewhere between 500,000 to 1,000,000. Yet the library no longer exists. So what happened to it? Access to its contents was in the hands of the “elite”; thus, in the fourth century AD, when “a mob” came to destroy the library and the genius of classical civilization, there were not enough people to defend it. Then Tyson asked: “What will happen the next time the mob comes?”
2. Of course he knows that, in the U.S., the mob has already come, attacking all that science has proven to be fact to date and (as candidate Barack Obama stated in August of 2008), “It's like these guys take pride in being ignorant.”
3. To expose the arrogance and ignorance of those seemingly proud of being ignorant, Tyson suggests this: “I think we're ready to perform an experiment. Pick a star, any one of the hundreds of billions of stars in our Milky Way Galaxy, which is just one galaxy out of the hundred billion in the known universe."
He picked “this one,” called “our sun” by billions of persons on earth. He continued: “Suppose, on one of them, there lives an intelligent species, one of the millions of life-forms on that planet, and there's a subgroup of that species who believe they have it all figured out, that their world is the center of the universe, a universe made for them, and that they know everything they need to know about it. Their knowledge is complete. How seriously would you take their claim?”
4. Yet, he says, that claim is exactly what was believed and is believed even now by the majority: “Our ancestors believed that the universe was made for them. It was natural to assume that we were at the center. After all, it looks like the Sun and stars all revolve around us. We still speak of the Sun ‘rising.’ In 1492, people believed that there were only three continents (Europe, Africa and Asia) and only a great ocean in between. They had no clue that North and South America even existed.” Then he noted, “It's easy to feel smug, right?”
He then noted that it is as if “we had been standing on the seashore at night, mistakenly believing that the froth on the waves was all there was to the ocean.” Then came an admission that “scientists certainly do not know all of the answers about the cosmos” after which he added: “It's okay not to know all the answers. It's better to admit our ignorance than to believe answers that might be wrong. Pretending to know everything closes the door to finding out what's really there.”
[Yet “admitting to ignorance” is far different from “taking pride in being ignorant,” yes?]
5. The final episode also suggested that science, in its own way, carries fewer risks for those who believe in it than religion does. Tyson: “It’s one of the things I love about science: we don’t have to pretend we have all the answers.”
Recent understandings have come, Tyson says, from the work of generations of searchers who took some simple “rules” to heart:
a. Question authority.
b. Question yourself.
c. No idea is true just because someone says so, including me.
d. Don't believe anything just because you want to.
e. Believing something doesn't make it so.
f. Test ideas by the evidence gained from observation and experiment.
g. If a favorite idea fails a well-designed test, it's wrong! Get over it!
h. Follow the evidence, wherever it leads.
i. If you have no evidence, reserve judgment.
j. Science is a way to keep from fooling ourselves and each other.
k. These values undermine the appeals of fanaticism and ignorance.
l. It matters what's true.
m. And perhaps the most important rule of all: remember, you could be wrong.
The final episode marked a return to an earlier theme, that of dismissing religion-fueled ignorance. Tyson’s comments about being open to considerations that differ from engrained beliefs called back pretty directly to pointers he’s offered before about “creationists” who use the Bible as if it were a valid science book.
He noted that the “Cosmos” series was conceived
not to tell you what is true
but
to share how we have come to learn what is true.
Ah, but how many truly want to learn the truth, much less the Truth? Throughout most of the six-seven years that this composite unity has been exposed to sleep-walkers and sleep-talkers, the final conclusion has to be: “Few.”
So it has been; so it is now; but so it need not be for the few that are willing to cast aside all that they have been programmed and conditioned and indoctrinated and brainwashed and acculturated and domesticated to believe and then seek the Truth instead.
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
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. BY USING EBOOKS available at
Floyd Henderson's Website
Anthology of four books
Anthology of six books
SELF-TRANSFORMATION MEDITATION GUIDE (VOLUME ONE)
WHY YOU MUST BE EMPTY IF YOU WOULD BE FULL
THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF WARS
The following three eBooks are available without charge for you or for friends:
I.
"GOOD vs. EVIL?" or "IGNORANCE, STUPIDITY, and INSANITY?"
II.
"THE VISION"
III.
24. both made the decision that whatever amount of the relative existence remains shall be spent in sharing the teachings in the way that has been seen to be the most effective method: not suggesting that there are not enough religious persons; not suggesting that the Ultimate Sickness is caused by being "spiritually-unfit"; but by seeing that the problem centers in the mind (which must come to an end, which it will the moment all beliefs are abandoned)
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.
SECTION SIX:
CLEAR PERSPECTIVE
via
the Brain, the Consciousness, and “A Pale Blue Dot”vs.
"the Mind"
F.: Offered here often is evidence of the fact that there are small “pockets” of Realization where the consciousness speaks, that consciousness having manifested temporarily as one part of the three-part triads which form billions of composite unities all around the globe.
When those highly-rare cases of unblocked consciousness speak, they provide non-dual pointers for consideration from places that are most surprising to many who erroneously believe that certain countries or “special spots” on the globe have cornered the market on offering non-dual pointers.
Recall that Andy Gugar, Jr. once exhibited such skepticism, a fact which gives us both a great laugh when we talk about it now. He wrote the following about the final phase of his multi-decade-long search:
After being given some labels for further investigation - specifically, "non-duality" and "Advaita" - it soon became clear that I needed to find a capable Advaita teacher.
So I began googling "Advaita" and found a blog site where Floyd Henderson was offering daily postings of non-dual pointers. I began investigating this guy, wondering who he thought he was to be posting pointers about Advaita. He was not even from the Far East. Worse, my investigations uncovered the fact that this guy lived in Texas.
Being yet embroiled in ego, I asked, "Who does this guy living outside of Houston, Texas think he is ... acting like he 'knows it all' about these teachings?" I concluded, "Heck, I live in Texas. I guarantee I already know as much about non-duality as any other person living in Texas. Who from Texas could offer anything about this eastern philosophy?"
Then I clicked the link for the retreats he offered and saw that, of even greater offense, he wanted to charge a fee for retreats where he teaches non-duality. A year would pass, and more and more searching continued, but at least once a week, the name "Floyd Henderson" came into the forefront of consciousness.
As much as I tried to ignore the name, it would not leave me, so after a year of continued seeking even after having first found his name and websites, I finally went back to his Advaita blog site, looked at the cost of a retreat with him, and concluded, differently this time, "Well, actually it really is only a nominal fee he is charging, and he does have to pay his bills."
So it came to me, "What if this guy just might have what you've been looking for all of your life?" I determined that I might as well spend a few dollars - a small amount really in comparison to the fortune I had already spent during decades of seeking and searching ... all with no permanent results at all.
Right now, it is giving me cold chills just reflecting on that decision and what happened afterwards.
The result? There is now that speck of unblocked consciousness which some call “a successful entrepreneur” who shares non-dual Truths from a small “pocket” of Realization in northeast Texas;
there was a poor boy in the Middle East who was indoctrinated with Jewish dogma and who then taught that dogma early on, but he eventually left organized religion, found the non-dual teachings, and shared those during the last three years of his manifestation from within a small “pocket” of Realization before being crucified by Romans with the support of the Jewish religious and community leaders who did not approve of his non-religious, non-dual talks;
there was an uneducated but exceedingly wise man who moved from a rural area in India to the city of Bombay (Mumbai) and who offered non-dual pointers from a loft – from a small “pocket” of Realization - over his flat which was located on a very noisy street and which abutted a brothel operating in the connected building behind;
there is a rapper mentioned here in previous posts who is sharing the Truth from a small “pocket” of Realization in the state of Missouri, U.S.A.;
a five-minute drive from the home office here where many of the non-dual books listed below were written, there is a maitre d’ working in a restaurant; he was born in Lebanon, has now read many of the books below and “gets it,” and has two sons in their 20’s who are now reading those books and also “getting it”;
there was a scientist called “Dr. Carl Sagan,” mentioned recently on this site; he was born in an impoverished section of Brooklyn, New York - his father having been a poor immigrant garment worker, originally from a small town in what is today called Ukraine - and he offered the Truth via science and via non-dual pointers:
and now there is his protégé, called “Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson,”
born in Manhattan, New York and raised in the Bronx, his mother a gerontologist of Puerto Rican descent and his father an African-American sociologist; Tyson, an astrophysicist, shares scientific facts while sprinkling his talks with non-dual pointers (and, as was the case with Maharaj) on occasion peppering his talks with the blunt, but totally-spot-on, vernacular which – in Tyson’s case - he often heard growing up on the streets in the Bronx:
It has been noted that often Sagan’s talks - like those of Tyson now - offended conservatives and members of the religious-right (as scientific facts always have); thus, in a nation which has from the beginning been dominated by conservatives and members of the religious-right (and still is to this day) much of what he shared was ignored even though it could have been enlightening and could have been heeded as fair warning (for example, regarding the damage being done to the planet and regarding the ill effects of ignorance on humanity in general).
Mention was also made yesterday of Sagan’s protégé Tyson and his “most recent reminders and warnings” which are also being ignored by those most needing to understand. Referencing those types, he said: “Pretending to know everything closes the door to finding out what’s really there.”
In a recent followup to the 1980 “Cosmos” documentary narrated by Carl Sagan, a recent (2014) series entitled “Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey” was hosted by Tyson.
Maharaj predicted that someday science would advance to the point that it will prove all of the non-dual pointers being shared. It has reached that point, but many around the globe are never exposed to the science and many more – especially in the U.S. – reject all scientific facts they hear and instead accept only what was written in their “holy book” thousands of years ago when ignorance and myths and superstition ruled.
In the finale of the newer “Cosmos” series, Tyson offers certain pointers for consideration:
1. He began with a discussion of a library and its associated research institution which existed more than two millennia ago in the city of Alexandria, noting that it was rare then, and now, for a government to be willing to spend so much of its gross national product on eliminating ignorance and engaging in research.
Estimates vary regarding the total number of scrolls in that library, but the range is somewhere between 500,000 to 1,000,000. Yet the library no longer exists. So what happened to it? Access to its contents was in the hands of the “elite”; thus, in the fourth century AD, when “a mob” came to destroy the library and the genius of classical civilization, there were not enough people to defend it. Then Tyson asked: “What will happen the next time the mob comes?”
2. Of course he knows that, in the U.S., the mob has already come, attacking all that science has proven to be fact to date and (as candidate Barack Obama stated in August of 2008), “It's like these guys take pride in being ignorant.”
3. To expose the arrogance and ignorance of those seemingly proud of being ignorant, Tyson suggests this: “I think we're ready to perform an experiment. Pick a star, any one of the hundreds of billions of stars in our Milky Way Galaxy, which is just one galaxy out of the hundred billion in the known universe."
He picked “this one,” called “our sun” by billions of persons on earth. He continued: “Suppose, on one of them, there lives an intelligent species, one of the millions of life-forms on that planet, and there's a subgroup of that species who believe they have it all figured out, that their world is the center of the universe, a universe made for them, and that they know everything they need to know about it. Their knowledge is complete. How seriously would you take their claim?”
4. Yet, he says, that claim is exactly what was believed and is believed even now by the majority: “Our ancestors believed that the universe was made for them. It was natural to assume that we were at the center. After all, it looks like the Sun and stars all revolve around us. We still speak of the Sun ‘rising.’ In 1492, people believed that there were only three continents (Europe, Africa and Asia) and only a great ocean in between. They had no clue that North and South America even existed.” Then he noted, “It's easy to feel smug, right?”
He then noted that it is as if “we had been standing on the seashore at night, mistakenly believing that the froth on the waves was all there was to the ocean.” Then came an admission that “scientists certainly do not know all of the answers about the cosmos” after which he added: “It's okay not to know all the answers. It's better to admit our ignorance than to believe answers that might be wrong. Pretending to know everything closes the door to finding out what's really there.”
[Yet “admitting to ignorance” is far different from “taking pride in being ignorant,” yes?]
5. The final episode also suggested that science, in its own way, carries fewer risks for those who believe in it than religion does. Tyson: “It’s one of the things I love about science: we don’t have to pretend we have all the answers.”
Recent understandings have come, Tyson says, from the work of generations of searchers who took some simple “rules” to heart:
a. Question authority.
b. Question yourself.
c. No idea is true just because someone says so, including me.
d. Don't believe anything just because you want to.
e. Believing something doesn't make it so.
f. Test ideas by the evidence gained from observation and experiment.
g. If a favorite idea fails a well-designed test, it's wrong! Get over it!
h. Follow the evidence, wherever it leads.
i. If you have no evidence, reserve judgment.
j. Science is a way to keep from fooling ourselves and each other.
k. These values undermine the appeals of fanaticism and ignorance.
l. It matters what's true.
m. And perhaps the most important rule of all: remember, you could be wrong.
The final episode marked a return to an earlier theme, that of dismissing religion-fueled ignorance. Tyson’s comments about being open to considerations that differ from engrained beliefs called back pretty directly to pointers he’s offered before about “creationists” who use the Bible as if it were a valid science book.
He noted that the “Cosmos” series was conceived
not to tell you what is true
but
to share how we have come to learn what is true.
Ah, but how many truly want to learn the truth, much less the Truth? Throughout most of the six-seven years that this composite unity has been exposed to sleep-walkers and sleep-talkers, the final conclusion has to be: “Few.”
So it has been; so it is now; but so it need not be for the few that are willing to cast aside all that they have been programmed and conditioned and indoctrinated and brainwashed and acculturated and domesticated to believe and then seek the Truth instead.
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
SECTION THREE:
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
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. BY USING EBOOKS 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 Kindle reader.
FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE: A Seven-Step Journey to Reality
CONSCIOUSNESS / AWARENESS
FROM THE ABSOLUTE TO THE NOTHINGNESS
THE FINAL UNDERSTANDING
THE ADVANCED SEEKERS' SERIES
Anthology of four books
THE BLISSFUL ABIDANCE SERIES
Anthology of six books
SRI NISARGADATTA MAHARAJ AND HIS EVOLUTION
THE FINAL FIFTEEN TOPICS DISCUSSED BY SRI NISARGADATTA MAHARAJ
A TWELVE-STEP JOURNEY TO SELF-TRANSFORMATION
For more information on this book, or to purchase a copy now, click:
A GUIDE FOR WORKING THE STEPS (IN THE MANNER USED BY THE FOUNDERS)
THE TWELVE STEPS AND ADVAITA / NON-DUALITY: A 21-DAY PLAN FOR A PSYCHIC CHANGE
SELF-TRANSFORMATION MEDITATION GUIDE (VOLUME ONE)
SELF-TRANSFORMATION MEDITATION GUIDE (VOLUME TWO)
WHY NISARGA YOGA IN ADDITION TO THE ADVAITA TEACHINGS?
A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE via the Non-Duality Teachings and the Nisarga Yoga
YOUR ORIGINAL NATURE
GOING CRAZY / GOING SANE
INSTABILITY / INSANITY: WHAT THE ADVAITA TEACHINGS CAN (AND CANNOT) ADDRESS
THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS "PEACE OF MIND" (THERE IS ONLY PEACE IF YOU'RE OUT OF YOUR MIND)
FREEDOM FROM SHIFTING BETWEEN STATES OF HAPPINESS AND UNHAPPINESS
THE ULTIMATE SICKNESS / THE ULTIMATE MEDICINE
PROGRAMMING, CONDITIONING, DOMESTICATION, AND ACCULTURATION (THE SOURCES OF THE ULTIMATE SICKNESS; THE NON-DUALITY TREATMENT)
"WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE?"
THE MYTH OF "DEATH"
THE ESSENCE OF THE TEACHINGS: THE SIMPLICITY OF REALIZATION
FINDING REAL LOVE IN AN UNREAL WORLD
CASTING LIGHT ON THE DARK SIDE OF RELATIONSHIPS
OVERCOMING THE FEAR OF BEING TOTALLY INDEPENDENT
THE NON-DUALITY POINTERS OFFERED BY YESHU'A ("JESUS THE CHRIST")
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE THE ADVAITIN
WHEN ONLY THREE HOURS OF MANIFESTATION REMAIN (THE "FINAL" TALKS OF FLOYD HENDERSON)
I AM THAT (vs. "This Is Who I Think I Am")
QUOTATIONS AND POINTERS DEALING WITH NON-DUALITY, ADVAITA, NISARGA YOGA, AND MORE
DANCING LIGHTLY
THE PATH TO FREEDOM VS. THE PATH TO MISERY
THERE IS NOTHING THAT IS PERSONAL (INCLUDING YOU AND INCLUDING GOD)
LIBERATION (ATTAINING FREEDOM FROM PERSONALITY VIA REALIZATION)
WHY YOU MUST BE EMPTY IF YOU WOULD BE FULL
FREEDOM FROM BELIEFS (Believers, Non-Believers, and "No-Belief-ers")
WHEN REALITY IS OVERLAID ON THE RELATIVE
THE RELATIVE RESULTS OF RETURNING TO "THE CHILD IGNORANCE STAGE" OR "THE CHILD NO-KNOWING STATE"
WHAT BLISS IS AND WHAT BLISS IS NOT
THE TWICE-STOLEN NECKLACE MURDERS
THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF WARS
LESSONS IN NON-DUALITY FROM TRAVELS IN SOUTH AFRICA
A SERIES OF ESSAYS DISCUSSING THE FIRST STEP ON THE SEVEN-STEP PATH TO REALIZATION
A SERIES OF ESSAYS DISCUSSING THE SECOND STEP ON THE SEVEN-STEP PATH TO REALIZATION
A SERIES OF ESSAYS DISCUSSING THE THIRD STEP ON THE SEVEN-STEP PATH TO REALIZATION
A SERIES OF ESSAYS DISCUSSING THE FOURTH STEP ON THE SEVEN-STEP PATH TO REALIZATION
A SERIES OF ESSAYS DISCUSSING THE FIFTH STEP ON THE SEVEN-STEP PATH TO REALIZATION
A SERIES OF ESSAYS DISCUSSING THE SIXTH STEP ON THE SEVEN-STEP PATH TO REALIZATION
A SERIES OF ESSAYS DISCUSSING THE SEVENTH STEP ON THE SEVEN-STEP PATH TO REALIZATION
SPIRITUAL SOBRIETY (RECOVERING WHAT RELIGIONS LOST)
IT'S ALL BULLSHIT (AND WHY KNOWING IT SETS YOU FREE)
SECTION FOUR:
THREE FREE eBOOKS
(Compliments of Andy Gugar, Jr.)
THREE FREE eBOOKS
(Compliments of Andy Gugar, Jr.)
The following three eBooks are available without charge for you or for friends:
I.
"GOOD vs. EVIL?" or "IGNORANCE, STUPIDITY, and INSANITY?"
The
content of this eBook deals with one of the most common but erroneous
beliefs that the non-Realized masses cling to and which they will fight
about (and even kill over), namely, that there is a planet-wide duel
going on between “the forces of good and evil” in the universe.
Maharaj said of each that visited his Bombay loft, “Only that person will visit this place whose virtue and sin have come to an end.”
He also said that the problems of humankind are problems associated
with the Ultimate Sickness and that three of the key traits of the
Ultimate Sickness are "ignorance, stupidity, and insanity."
To
that end, either (1) the ancient view is spot on: that the "ills of the
planet" are rooted in evil people, in people not being religious enough
or spiritual enough, and are caused solely by bad morality; or, (2) the
"ills of the planet" are rooted in ignorance, stupidity and insanity
and "being good" or "being moral" does not put an end to ignorance, does
not eliminate stupidity, and does not treat insanity in any way.
II.
"THE VISION"
Comments regarding the free eBook entitled “THE VISION”:
“My thanks to you and Andy.” – Andrew “Mac” McMaster
“Thanks so much for the book! And, by the way, it is brilliant and the most effective pointing that you have done. It has served to help clear the remaining blockages.” – Stan Cross
“Greatly appreciate having “THE VISION” added to my Henderson resource library that is situated on the right side of my bed for easy access! Eternally grateful for what was received and what was given.” – Robert Rigby
“ ‘THE VISION’ is such a well-written, condensed version of the Nisarga Yoga approach to understanding and enjoying Reality that I feel it can serve as a must-read ‘meditation guide’ for all earnest seekers.” – Andy Gugar, Jr.
“My thanks to you and Andy.” – Andrew “Mac” McMaster
“Thanks so much for the book! And, by the way, it is brilliant and the most effective pointing that you have done. It has served to help clear the remaining blockages.” – Stan Cross
“Greatly appreciate having “THE VISION” added to my Henderson resource library that is situated on the right side of my bed for easy access! Eternally grateful for what was received and what was given.” – Robert Rigby
“ ‘THE VISION’ is such a well-written, condensed version of the Nisarga Yoga approach to understanding and enjoying Reality that I feel it can serve as a must-read ‘meditation guide’ for all earnest seekers.” – Andy Gugar, Jr.
III.
While in South Africa in 2011, I was introduced to A Primate’s Memoir (2002)
by Dr. Robert Maurice Sapolsky. Sapolsky is an American
neuroendocrinologist; a professor of biology, neuroscience, and
neurosurgery at Stanford University; a researcher; an author; and a
Research Associate at the National Museums of Kenya.
A Primate’s Memoir (which documents Sapolsky’s years in Africa while studying baboons), was recommended because there is much that a non-dualist or Advaitin or Nisargan can relate to by comparing and contrasting what Sapolsky reveals about the way certain troops of baboons live in Africa with the way that humans abide all around the globe. The book also portrays an unconventional way of studying neurophysiology to determine the effects of stress on life expectancy. (And the reduction or elimination of stress among humans is one of the aims of the non-dual understanding.)
Now Sapolsky’s recent findings are offered in a documentary film entitled “Stress: Portrait of a Killer.” [The 56-minute film is available on YouTube in many countries.]
This 152-page eBook catalogues the common, non-dual message shared by Sapolsky and Maharaj and reveals the ways that Sapolsky’s scientific research supports the non-dual pointers offered by Maharaj.
In “PART ONE” it will be seen that most persons on the planet are not seeking, and most will never seek, but for those who are seeking, most will face several obstacles:
Often, many do not really know WHY they are seeking. Too, many who are asked WHAT they are seeking often offer no clear-cut answer beyond the standard talk about "Realization" or "Enlightenment." For those who have come this way and have a clear notions about why they are seeking and what they are seeking, many have not yet found anyone that has shown them exactly HOW to go about the process. The content in "Part One" offers some considerations about all three.
In “Part Two” of this book, it will be seen why many criticized Maharaj for “changing his message in his later talks.” It will be seen that the changes were not about changing the message per se as much as about changing his methodology as he experimented with one version of the Ultimate Medicine after another in order to try to find an effective means for addressing the Ultimate Sickness.
Maharaj’s loft was actually more of a laboratory in a loft in Bombay (now “Mumbai”) because he undertook in that loft many experiments in his efforts to find an effective form of the Ultimate Medicine that could treat the Ultimate Sickness effectively and successfully. In fact, he would eventually have three laboratories:
He first ran . . .
** a “Religion Laboratory,” then later
** a “Spirituality Laboratory” and eventually
** a “Psychology Laboratory.”
All three will be discussed in detail in "Part Two."
[Sorry - for security reasons, no "clickable" link is provided. You'll need to type the address in to your emailed request manually. Also, the initial response to free eBook offerings is usually significant so it takes some time to process the requests. A new series will begin after those initial responses are taken care of. THX.]
A Primate’s Memoir (which documents Sapolsky’s years in Africa while studying baboons), was recommended because there is much that a non-dualist or Advaitin or Nisargan can relate to by comparing and contrasting what Sapolsky reveals about the way certain troops of baboons live in Africa with the way that humans abide all around the globe. The book also portrays an unconventional way of studying neurophysiology to determine the effects of stress on life expectancy. (And the reduction or elimination of stress among humans is one of the aims of the non-dual understanding.)
Now Sapolsky’s recent findings are offered in a documentary film entitled “Stress: Portrait of a Killer.” [The 56-minute film is available on YouTube in many countries.]
This 152-page eBook catalogues the common, non-dual message shared by Sapolsky and Maharaj and reveals the ways that Sapolsky’s scientific research supports the non-dual pointers offered by Maharaj.
IV.
In “PART ONE” it will be seen that most persons on the planet are not seeking, and most will never seek, but for those who are seeking, most will face several obstacles:
Often, many do not really know WHY they are seeking. Too, many who are asked WHAT they are seeking often offer no clear-cut answer beyond the standard talk about "Realization" or "Enlightenment." For those who have come this way and have a clear notions about why they are seeking and what they are seeking, many have not yet found anyone that has shown them exactly HOW to go about the process. The content in "Part One" offers some considerations about all three.
In “Part Two” of this book, it will be seen why many criticized Maharaj for “changing his message in his later talks.” It will be seen that the changes were not about changing the message per se as much as about changing his methodology as he experimented with one version of the Ultimate Medicine after another in order to try to find an effective means for addressing the Ultimate Sickness.
Maharaj’s loft was actually more of a laboratory in a loft in Bombay (now “Mumbai”) because he undertook in that loft many experiments in his efforts to find an effective form of the Ultimate Medicine that could treat the Ultimate Sickness effectively and successfully. In fact, he would eventually have three laboratories:
He first ran . . .
** a “Religion Laboratory,” then later
** a “Spirituality Laboratory” and eventually
** a “Psychology Laboratory.”
All three will be discussed in detail in "Part Two."
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SECTION FIVE:
COMPARE YOUR "JOURNEY" AND SEE IF YOU'VE UNDERGONE ANY EVENTS THAT PARALLEL THOSE OF MAHARAJ AND FLOYD
COMPARE YOUR "JOURNEY" AND SEE IF YOU'VE UNDERGONE ANY EVENTS THAT PARALLEL THOSE OF MAHARAJ AND FLOYD
The "experiences" of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj and Floyd share many parallel. Many visitors have said that they have also shared some of the same parallels. Can you relate to any of these?
1. Both grew up in very poor families
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 initially tried to address the Ultimate Sickness with religious teachings but realized that did not work, so both tried to address the Ultimate Sickness with spirituality, only to see eventually that "being spiritual" did not cure the Ultimate Sickness either
8. both then realized that the main problems of humanity center in the mind so both turned to the sharing of psychology and scientific-and-fact-based pointers to free persons of the effects of programming, conditioning, acculturation, domestication, brainwashing and indoctrination
9. both had highly religious wives who were quite displeased with the shift away from religion
10. both had grown to feel empty in spite of all of their "spiritual seeking" and in spite of all of their accumulated "spiritual knowledge"
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 initially tried to address the Ultimate Sickness with religious teachings but realized that did not work, so both tried to address the Ultimate Sickness with spirituality, only to see eventually that "being spiritual" did not cure the Ultimate Sickness either
8. both then realized that the main problems of humanity center in the mind so both turned to the sharing of psychology and scientific-and-fact-based pointers to free persons of the effects of programming, conditioning, acculturation, domestication, brainwashing and indoctrination
9. both had highly religious wives who were quite displeased with the shift away from religion
10. both had grown 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 (and no longer having a husband who brought in huge sums of money)
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 offered satsang
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 (and no longer having a husband who brought in huge sums of money)
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 offered satsang
21. both saw that most who hear the teachings are still not going to understand
22. both, therefore, offered pointers without expectation, without attachment to outcome, and without any concern about the way that persons react to hearing Truth
23. both suggested that seekers focus on the exact, step-wise "path
22. both, therefore, offered pointers without expectation, without attachment to outcome, and without any concern about the way that persons react to hearing Truth
23. both suggested that seekers focus on the exact, step-wise "path
24. both made the decision that whatever amount of the relative existence remains shall be spent in sharing the teachings in the way that has been seen to be the most effective method: not suggesting that there are not enough religious persons; not suggesting that the Ultimate Sickness is caused by being "spiritually-unfit"; but by seeing that the problem centers in the mind (which must come to an end, which it will the moment all beliefs are abandoned)
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.
SECTION SIX:
FOR THOSE WHO PREFER A BOOK IN HAND TO READING eBOOKS, 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)
(Four by Floyd Henderson and two by Dennis Waite. Click the picture for more information or to order)
