Today's Considerations
Yesterday this was shared:
The Huffington Post news site offered an interview with psychologist
Dr. Priscilla Dass-Brailsford – entitled "A Psychologist's Explanation of Why
Racism Persists in America" - in
which she pointed to some of the same mind-rooted sources of duality and
arrogance and chaos (which Maharaj had set forth decades earlier and which are
pointed to here nowadays) in order to explain what happens when such phenomena are at play.
Though the psychologist never mentions non-duality specifically, her present-day
observations in many cases adumbrate the non-dual pointers of Maharaj which are
as relevant today to the topic she is discussing as they were forty years ago when
he first offered them.
Consider some of the parallels between Maharaj’s earlier pointers
and what she suggests in the article:
Questioner: What types of psychological factors give rise to
racist beliefs and behaviors?
Dass-Brailsford: Racism has to do with thinking of oneself
as being different from other people.
Maharaj on “blind beliefs”:
“Blind beliefs . . . pollute and dull the psyche.”
Maharaj on “different from”:
“There is nothing which is different from me.”
“You are not different from others.”
“There is no chaos in the world, except the chaos which your
mind creates. It is self-created in the sense that at its very centre is the
false idea of oneself as a thing different and separate from other things. In
reality you are not a thing, nor separate.”
“This is your last illusion that you are a jnani, that you
are different from, and superior to, the common man. Again you identify
yourself with your mind, in this case a well-behaved and in every way an
exemplary mind. As long as you see the least difference, you are a stranger to
reality.”
“You are in no way different from me, only you do not know
it.”
Dass-Brailsford: Racists see others as being less than, and
think of themselves as being superior. Just as you would have attitudes about
anything -- about poor people, for example, or immigrants -- you have to think
about where those attitudes began and how they developed. Was it environmental?
Was it upbringing? Was the person born that way? So, there's the age-old debate
about nature versus nurture here.
Maharaj on “Culture”:
"If you seek reality you must set yourself free of all
backgrounds, of all cultures, of all patterns of thinking and feeling."
Maharaj on “environment”:
“The causes of perversity are also natural -- heredity,
environment and so on.”
Maharaj on “superior”:
“Because you imagine differences, you go here and there in
search of ‘superior’ people”
and
“Intellectual arrogance pollutes and dulls the psyche”
and
"Above all, one must not make judgments of inferiority or
superiority."
Maharaj on “race” and “self” / “self-centeredness /
selfishness”:
“The ultimate in selfishness is to care only for the
protection, preservation and multiplication of one's own body. By body I mean
all that is related to your name and shape -- your family, tribe, country,
race, etc. To be attached to one's name and shape is selfishness.”
“Your interest in others is egoistic, self-concerned,
self-oriented. You are not interested in others as persons, but only as far as
they enrich or ennoble your own image of yourself.”
Q.: Can you elaborate on some of the ways that a community
or society can foster and perpetuate racism?
Dass-Brailsford: If you grow up in an environment where
people think white people are superior to people of color, you begin to believe
in it. And when your whole system around you is constructed in a way that
supports that belief, you will begin to think that you are superior.
Maharaj on “beliefs”:
“The more earnest you are, the less belief you need.”
‘To destroy the false, you must question your most inveterate
beliefs.”
“Go forth, unburdened with ideas and beliefs.”
And, again, on “culture” and “environment”:
“If you seek reality you must set yourself free of all
backgrounds, of all cultures, of all patterns of thinking and feeling.”
“The causes of perversity are also natural -- heredity,
environment and so on.”
Dass-Brailsford: South Africa is a classic example: When you
look at the country's history, everything was divided, all of the institutions.
The church actually supported racism -- the white church there (the Dutch
reform church) actually believed that black people were inferior and white
people had to rescue and take care of them. If you grow up in an
environment where people think that white people are superior to people of
color, you begin to believe in it. That's how a belief gets constructed -- by
the social environment you live in, the schools you attend, your church, your families,
your neighbors. All of that.
Again: “If you seek reality you must set yourself free of all
backgrounds, of all cultures, of all patterns of thinking and feeling.”
Q.” What can learn from the example of South Africa, both in
terms of how racist attitudes are created and how they can be overcome?
Dass-Brailsford: In the South African apartheid, a racially motivated system of government affected the lives of all citizens. Blacks were seen as inferior and whites as superior; there were severe penalties to be paid by anyone who disagreed with this. We all know this through South Africa’s most famous prisoner, Nelson Mandela. Segregation was entrenched in the places people lived, in the schools they attended, the beaches and parks they could visit and so on. White children raised in such an atmosphere cannot help but hold racist attitudes of white superiority and black marginalization.
Dass-Brailsford: In the South African apartheid, a racially motivated system of government affected the lives of all citizens. Blacks were seen as inferior and whites as superior; there were severe penalties to be paid by anyone who disagreed with this. We all know this through South Africa’s most famous prisoner, Nelson Mandela. Segregation was entrenched in the places people lived, in the schools they attended, the beaches and parks they could visit and so on. White children raised in such an atmosphere cannot help but hold racist attitudes of white superiority and black marginalization.
Again, "Envies and anger . . . pollute and dull the psyche."
Dass-Brailsford: After apartheid ended, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission helped acknowledge the
trauma of apartheid for many black survivors and their families. It is a reconciliation
that has not occurred in this country after the trauma of slavery and the
Native American genocide.
Q.” Studies have shown that many people have subtle, or
implicit, racial biases that they're completely unaware of. Are
racial biases often unconscious? How do these unconscious biases over time
develop into hateful beliefs and actions?
Dass-Brailsford: Implicit biases are when you're not aware
that you have a race bias. You behave in a discriminatory way without realizing
that you have racist values. That occurs a lot in the medical profession, for
example -- physicians don't realize that they're treating some patients differently
to others based on race and often based on class as well.
Maharaj on “discrimination”:
“When the discriminative mind comes into being and creates
distinctions, pleasure and pain arise.”
Dass-Brailsford: Again, you develop attitudes and
stereotypes from socialization. Here's a common example: An older woman is
walking down the road and she sees a black man approaching. She holds her purse
tighter thinking that it's going to be snatched. Research has found that both
black and white people often behave in this way because of our socialization.
It's because of what the media says about young black men being thieves and
robbers and bag-snatchers. We all tend to behave in that way based on the
socialization.
Maharaj on “desires and fears”:
“Desires and fears . . . pollute and dull the psyche.”
Q.: Do hate crimes like the Charleston shooting tend to
beget more hate crimes?
Dass-Brailsford: Sometimes, yes. Now there are more churches
that have been burned. When there's a hate crime like this, sometimes it can
escalate issues because people retreat into their separate camps. People who
are racist become more racist, because something they believe in is threatened.
Maharaj understood that anger most often arises when an
ego-state feels threatened.
Again: “Envies and anger . . . pollute and dull the psyche.”
Dass-Brailsford: On the other hand, incidents like this can
actually bring about positive change. Removing the Confederate flag is a
positive development. I would assume that as more positive outcomes develop,
people will need to hold on to their racist values more strongly, and will
become even more protective of their belief systems. You see this in the Muslim
world: as the U.S. became stronger about trying to put down al Qaeda, the
Muslim world became stronger about fighting to hold onto their values.
Q.: What psychological toll does racism take on both its
victims?
Dass-Brailsford: People get depressed and they get afraid,
fearful and anxious. It can come up physically with high blood pressure and
heart disease. There are studies being done on how even sleep is affected by
racial inequality, because racism keeps victimized people from being able to
settle down. They are always hypervigilant because someone or something in the
environment is going to threaten them based on their race. They are fearful all
the time.
Again, Maharaj on “desires and fears”:
“Desires and fears . . . pollute and dull the psyche.”
Q.: What is the relationship between poverty and racial
inequality?
Dass-Brailsford: In some ways that are very complex but also
in ways that are simple. Poverty and race go hand in hand in the U.S. In a
nutshell, as there have always been strong associations between race and
privilege, there are also just as strong associations between race and
disadvantage, which can spiral downwards into poverty. Systemic discrimination
continues to thrive in the U.S.
Again: “When the discriminative mind comes into being and creates
distinctions, pleasure and pain arise.”
Dass-Brailsford: Examples can be taken from looking at how
home loans are given - how race may factor into this process. We all know that
owning property is an important step in upward mobility, but for people of
color this step is often not easy because of racial discrimination. We also see
this in employment: Employers are more likely to hire a white applicant as
opposed to a qualified black applicant.
Q.: What needs to happen for our society to overcome racism?
Dass-Brailsford: We need to have more discussions. Rather
than people retreating into their separate camps, there has to be more
engagement and people need to talk to each other. In Charleston, you do see
black and white people coming together. That's been uplifting to see. There are
a lot of white people supporting the black community. They were in church; they
gave eulogies and so on. Those are positive developments. It's not something
that would have happened 20 years ago, and it goes to show that we are moving
in the right direction as a society, although sometimes when these things
happen, we feel like we're moving backwards. It can be two steps forward and
one back. The movement toward a pluralistic society is taking a long time and
it's far overdue.
So consider the potential ways to address the duality-based issues above (and note that, as was eventually the case with Maharaj when he abandoned the use of religion and spirituality in his efforts to try to address the Ultimate Sickness, the psychologist does not suggest that “people just need to be more religious” and she does not suggest that “people just need to be more spiritual”; she focused, and Maharaj finally did as well, on the psychological roots of humankind’s problems). So look at her suggestions:
Discussions? Not likely. Discussions with persons trapped in
ignorance and insanity can only result in ignorant and insane conversations.
Engagement. Maybe.
Cooperation? If you use the feature above and to the right
to search the term “primordial cooperation,” you can find that, yes, there was
that type of relative “cooperation” for a time (among the members of my
Cherokee Grandmother’s extended family and community, for example). Around the globe,
that had definitely vanished. In the U.S., if one is out and about among the
general public, it is constantly made clear that the relative existence is typically marked now with near-unavoidable and near-uninterrupted contact with dual-minded persons who are preoccupied with self only, a fact
which leads to amazing levels of rudeness at the least and to near-limitless
levels of frustration and anger and conflict and fighting at the extreme.
Two steps forward and one back? Yes. My daughter is not
involved with duality as such, but she definitely understands the Oneness and
she does express her take on any and all discriminatory behaviors and perverse political
agendas whereby certain politicians on one hand advocate for “less government interference”
(meaning “less government regulation of the businesses owned by their financial
contributors”) but on the other hand tell women what they can and cannot do
with their bodies; what type of sex is okay and what type is not; who can marry
whom and who others should not marry; who shall really have equal rights and who shall not;
ad infinitum.
She recently said, “Dad, I thought we had settled all of
this decades ago. What’s the deal?”
The reply: “The deal is, there is never an end to the cycle
of billions of persons passing down to the next generation their learned ignorance and stupidity
and insanity, so there is never an end to the constantly re-emerging requirement
to address the consequences of ignorance and stupidity and insanity.”
Note: neither the solutions which Maharaj eventually pointed to nor the
solutions which the psychologist offered for consideration had anything to do with
religion or spirituality. They have everything to do with the psychological
roots of humanity's problems (which is what Maharaj also focused on after his failures with trying religious
and spiritual methodologies to address the Ultimate Sickness).
As was the case with Maharaj eventually, Dr. Dass-Brailsford
did not say people need to be more religious.
Maharaj’s perspective about religion?
To one man: “Take all of the pictures of your gods and deities
and put them in the sea”
and
"With the body comes the world, with the world -- God, who is
supposed to have created the world and thus it starts -- fears, religions,
prayers, sacrifices, all sorts of systems -- all to protect and support the
child-man, frightened out of his wits by monsters of his own making"
and
"Science provides the answer to many questions which formerly
were in the domain of religion"
and
"Look at the mind as a function of matter and you have
science; look at matter as the product of the mind and you have religion"
and
"First of all, you identify something as being good or
bad for yourself. Then, in an effort to acquire good or to get rid of bad, you have
invented a God. Then you worship such a God and . . . you pray to that God for something
good to happen to you"
and
"Recorded religions are mere heaps of verbiage. Religions
show their true face in action, in silent action. To know what man believes,
watch how he acts. For most of the people service of their bodies and their
minds is their religion. They may have religious ideas, but they do not act on
them”
and
Questioner in loft: "You seem to have little use for
religion."
Maharaj: "What is religion? A cloud in the sky. I live in the
sky, not in the clouds, which are so many words held together. Remove the
verbiage and what remains? Truth remains."
and
A visitor to the loft: "The scriptures say
that we have our karma and our sins and that is why we are here."
Maharaj: "That is for the ignorant masses. One who has realized . . . , for him
these stories are of no use."
As was the case with Maharaj eventually, the psychologist also did not say that
people need to be more spiritual to solve all these problems. What did Maharaj say to seekers?
"Forget spirituality." He invited seekers to
follow your "normal inclinations" - that is, their natural
tendencies - and to "do your normal duties" and "just give up
spirituality."
He said: "Whatever you have tried to understand during
your spiritual search will prove false"
and
"When the birth is disproved, the great noble meaning of spirituality and the meaning of this world - everything - is disproved."
"When the birth is disproved, the great noble meaning of spirituality and the meaning of this world - everything - is disproved."
[Okay, so maybe neither religious nor spirituality has provided
a real solution to humankind’s mind-based problems, but what about finding "the
True Self" and "The Supreme Self"? That is certainly the method which has been recommended by some for millennia and which Maharaj recommended for a time as well.]
Maharaj on “SELF-Inquiry” vs. “self-inquiry”:
He said that "it is enough to know what you are not"
and
"I got involved in spirituality, in the business of
spirituality, [but] finally I lost that love of Self also. I have no more love
for the Self."
So what is to be addressed? The psychological issues . .
. the mind issues.
More tomorrow regarding Maharaj's suggestions about the mind / psychological issues which are at the root of the Ultimate Sickness.
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
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