Today's Considerations
The hierarchy /
bloodletting and bloodshed connection has been shown; now, to continue with an
opportunity to understand the sources of duality which foster the formation and
maintenance of hierarchies, for it is that understanding which can allow some at
the top of those structures to become free of their attachment to the hierarchies
which they believe that are a part of; which they are attached to because the continuation of their
hierarchical separation allows them to maintain their higher status quo; and which they
are more than comfortable with because the hierarchical placement of “lesser persons” on
the lower echelons of the rankings will seemingly assure that those at the top will remain there.
[Consider: The scientist Isaac Newton was not so arrogant as to try to take total credit for that which he came to understand only after he first understood what others had shared earlier; instead, he said something like this: “If I have seen further, it is because I am standing on the shoulders of giants.” Contrast that with those at the top of most hierarchies who would say, if honest, “If I have more than others, it is because I am standing on the backs of others (or, to be honest, because I inherited what I have.”) Ann Richards used a version of a Barry Switzer observation when she spoke of "the high place" that President-to-be George Bush held on many hierarchies by saying, “George was born on third base, but he thinks he got there by hitting a triple.” So it often is.]
So, on to the Sickness and to its duality / hierarchy connection:
If you do not find the actual cause of a sickness, then you will not find the actual cure. If you do not find out what your real problem is, you will not find out what the real solution for that problem is.
The most prevalent illness on the planet – the Ultimate Sickness – is passed down initially from parents or guardians and then by others in one's society. Almost all of them are attached to the most popular hierarchy of all - namely, their religion - which allows them to see themselves at the top of "the hierarchy of moral rankings" while all others are somewhere below.
[Maharaj, by contrast, said that only those who are beyond both sin and virtue will come to him and grasp the message he offered.]
What Maharaj eventually taught was that the Ultimate Sickness is not an illness based in too-little-exposure to dogma or in persons being “spiritually-unfit.” He came to understand that it is a mental illness.
Therefore, the Ultimate Sickness is transmitted via minds. One mind can be infected, and then the infection can be transmitted to the minds of dozens or scores or hundreds or thousands of others. The end result is that persons with infected minds have become so prevalent that they have transmitted the Sickness to millions and to billions. Over the ages, the Sickness has been spread to trillions.
[Consider: The scientist Isaac Newton was not so arrogant as to try to take total credit for that which he came to understand only after he first understood what others had shared earlier; instead, he said something like this: “If I have seen further, it is because I am standing on the shoulders of giants.” Contrast that with those at the top of most hierarchies who would say, if honest, “If I have more than others, it is because I am standing on the backs of others (or, to be honest, because I inherited what I have.”) Ann Richards used a version of a Barry Switzer observation when she spoke of "the high place" that President-to-be George Bush held on many hierarchies by saying, “George was born on third base, but he thinks he got there by hitting a triple.” So it often is.]
So, on to the Sickness and to its duality / hierarchy connection:
If you do not find the actual cause of a sickness, then you will not find the actual cure. If you do not find out what your real problem is, you will not find out what the real solution for that problem is.
The most prevalent illness on the planet – the Ultimate Sickness – is passed down initially from parents or guardians and then by others in one's society. Almost all of them are attached to the most popular hierarchy of all - namely, their religion - which allows them to see themselves at the top of "the hierarchy of moral rankings" while all others are somewhere below.
[Maharaj, by contrast, said that only those who are beyond both sin and virtue will come to him and grasp the message he offered.]
What Maharaj eventually taught was that the Ultimate Sickness is not an illness based in too-little-exposure to dogma or in persons being “spiritually-unfit.” He came to understand that it is a mental illness.
Therefore, the Ultimate Sickness is transmitted via minds. One mind can be infected, and then the infection can be transmitted to the minds of dozens or scores or hundreds or thousands of others. The end result is that persons with infected minds have become so prevalent that they have transmitted the Sickness to millions and to billions. Over the ages, the Sickness has been spread to trillions.
Yet most are seeking a solution by way of religion or spirituality. 75% of the people on the planet report an affiliation with one of the four largest religions, claiming that they are Christian, Muslim, Hindu, or Buddhist. Another 22% report that they are affiliated with one of the other organized religions. Thus, 97% claim to be "religious." Over 2% more report proudly, “I am not religious . . . I am spiritual.”
Thus, over 99% of all persons on the planet report that they are either “religious” or “spiritual.” Moreover, they believe that their dogma or spiritual beliefs are the cure for what ails “the world” and they believe that their religious faith or their “spiritual exercises” make them “better” as a result.
Maharaj's final estimate of how many are ever likely to Realize was 1 in 10,000,000, meaning that more than 99.9% of the population would continue to suffer the Ultimate Sickness and would continue to exhibit the Sickness’s symptoms of “ignorance and stupidity and insanity.”
But that was a guesstimate, so set that aside for a moment. The next consideration then involves the fact that Maharaj said he depended on his “own experience only,” so the question regarding how widespread the Ultimate Sickness really is becomes this: “Are you willing to try that approach with this subject and look objectively at the way that people all over the planet are behaving and then answer the two following questions honestly?”
1. Does the preponderance of the observable evidence in your view support the belief that most people all over the globe are exhibiting . . .
wisdom and understanding and astuteness and prudence and intelligence and clear perspectives as well as sanity and lucidity and rationality and reason and logic?
Or,
2. does the preponderance of evidence support Maharaj's estimate that most are suffering from the Ultimate Sickness’s symptoms which Maharaj identified as "ignorance and insanity"?
Would not any objective observation of what is going on all around the planet
at this very moment have to lead to the conclusion that "ignorance and insanity"
are prevalent, even dominant, all around the globe?
So what is the answer? What is the cure? There are two options to consider, though the masses will only consider one:
(A) Can religion or spirituality - which rank as the highest of the hierarchies which the masses love and which they are trying to use to address what they call "the ills of ‘the world’" - provide the answer?
Or,
(B) might the cure be provided in many cases by way of what non-dualists call “the Ultimate Medicine”?
If the proper Medicine to try to use to address the Ultimate Sickness were the religion and spirituality that the masses are currently using to try to address what they call “the ills of ‘the world’,” then
(a) 99.9% would already be just fine mental and emotionally and
(b) only less than 1% of the people on the planet would be suffering from
the "ignorance and / or insanity" which lead to duality and the formation of hierarchies and bloodletting and bloodshed. But do you really believe that is the case?
Over 99% of the people on the planet claim that their religion or their
spirituality makes them “better,” but “better” than what, exactly? If both my
pants legs are on fire and someone tosses water on one leg and extinguishes
those flames, that’s "better," but are things really “fine” for me at
that point?
Maharaj's assessment certainly seems to have proved accurate: the Ultimate
Sickness is manifested around the globe and only a fraction of 1% will ever
Realize and be free of its symptoms. If dogma or spirituality were the Ultimate
Medicine, then over 99% of the people on the planet would not be racked by
"ignorance or insanity." Almost all of humankind would be mentally well. Again,
do you really believe that is the case?
There is no one on the planet who has never engaged in body-mind-personality
identification, so there is no one on the planet who had not thought that he or
she was something or someone that she or he is not. That alone would qualify
them as suffering from "ignorance and / or insanity" to one degree or another.
One analyst suggested that 100% of the people on the planet suffer from the
Addictive Personality Disorder, addicted by one degree or another to alcohol;
illegal drugs; legal drugs; money; work; sex; porn; shopping; video games;
watching television; extreme politics; exercise; throwing up to reduce weight;
nicotine; food; and even to chaos, etc., etc., etc., ad infinitum.
The evidence seems to be that the efficacy and efficiency and effectiveness of
religion or spirituality to address the mental problems of the globe’s
population is nothing to brag about, though brag the masses do about their
particular religion or their particular spiritual state and how they have been
made "better."
It should be clear that what 99%+ of all people are doing to address the
Ultimate Sickness is obviously not working, and that should show just as
clearly that whatever the Ultimate Medicine does involve, it most
certainly does not involve dogma or spiritual
exercises.
So what must be addressed? Not only dualistic thinking but also single-minded,
obsessive thinking, both of which are based in false but highly-valued beliefs.
And since thinking is dependent on the beliefs that are stored in the mind,
then to reach the no-mind, zero-concept state as recommended by Maharaj, then all
beliefs must be rejected.
And if the global pervasiveness
of duality-inspired bloodletting and bloodshed is to be reduced, then the love of
duality-based hierarchies by those at the top of hierarchies – along with the delusions
of many regarding how they truly arrived “at the top” - must go first.
Yes, there are some who
are on third base because they hit a triple; yet many are there because they were born
there. And the latter are the types who most frequently believe that others who
have never even been allowed to play in the game should continue to be excluded
and never even given a chance to be at bat.
Such is the case when
duality and hierarchies reign, and when duality and hierarchies reign, there will eventually be rebellion and chaos and bloodletting and bloodshed. What insane cycling can be witnessed throughout the relative existence as those at the top work to preserve hierarchies as those trapped at the bottom struggle to break free of hierarchies while struggling to merely survive.
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
[NOTE: The four most recent posts follow. You may access all of the posts in this series, and all other posts, by clicking on the links in the "Recent Posts and Archives" section.]
