Part Eight: THE ULTIMATE SICKNESS CENTERS NOT IN TOO LITTLE DOGMA AND NOT IN A SPIRITUAL MALADY AND NOT IN A FAILURE TO BE “A SUPREME SELF” OR “GOD” BUT CENTERS IN THE MIND

Today's Considerations

First today, you are invited to consider a few pointers. The first is from the book, “From the I to the Absolute (A Seven Step Journey to Reality)” in which this is shared:

1. “It has been found that one must either find a 'working philosophy' (that is, understanding) or be doomed to adopt 'their' ideology instead, and my experience shows that nothing is more destructive than buying into 'their' ideology." 

And what do philosophies and ideologies and dogma and spirituality all have in common?

2. They have all accumulated a huge body of knowledge (which Maharaj called “learned ignorance”), and that body of knowledge is an accumulation of concepts, ideas, attitudes, viewpoints, values, designs, schemes, impressions, perspectives, perceptions, opinions, and notions.

3. All of those collectively can be reduced to a single term: “a person’s beliefs.”

4. If the mind goes, then peace comes, and if peace comes, then going and doing and zooming and racing about can also go.

5. If there would be peace, there must first be an elimination of all of the content of the mind. Maharaj: “There is no such thing as peace of mind.” And here: There is only peace if you’re out of your mind.

While most respond, “There is no way to get rid of the mind,” they fail to understand that the process is really quite simple. Consider:

a. because the mind is the part of brain where persons have stored all knowledge (“learned ignorance”) and their accumulation of concepts, ideas, attitudes, viewpoints, values, designs, schemes, impressions, perspectives, perceptions, opinions, and notions

and

b. because all of those are the basis of every persons’ belief systems

then

c. to be free of the mind, one need not identify and eliminate each and every one of the hundreds of thousands upon thousands of accumulated concepts, ideas, attitudes, viewpoints, values, designs, schemes, impressions, perspectives, perceptions, opinions, and notions one at a time

but can, instead, take a shortcut and simply

 d. give up every belief.

Believe nothing. Reach, as Maharaj recommended, a state of “zero concepts."

Over the years, there have been charges that "Floyd is an atheist”; or an “agnostic at best and a total non-believer at worst"; or that I am functioning as “a new age agent of Satan.”

To report that one is an atheist - that one does not believe in any god or gods or goddesses - is still the expression of a belief. Hence, this book was offered to clarify what a truly belief-free existence can look like:

The “Realized” that have finally been freed of the mind completely are abiding in a manner in which there is not a single belief in any concept; in which there is not a single belief in any idea; in which there are no attitudes being held; in which there are no viewpoints being held; in which there is no belief in any differentiating values regarding “sin or virtue” or “right or wrong” (or any other dualities for that matter); in which there are no designs; in which there are no schemes; in which there are no impressions; and in which there are no notions.

That means that the "Realized" cannot accurately be pointed to with the term “believer,” and it means that the "Realized" cannot accurately be pointed to with the term “non-believer.” The closest to anything accurate that can be stated - for the sake of discussion only -  is that one abiding in that condition is a “no-belief-er.” 

It has been noted here regularly that there is no one here that believes anything, so there is certainly no one here that wants you to believe anything. (And were you to be totally objective and honest, you would see that you have never in your entire life ever dealt even once with anyone else that feels that way. Everyone you know believes whatever they believe passionately, and everyone you know wants you to believe exactly what they believe. In fact, they all want you to think the way they think, talk the way they talk, and behave the way they behave. And if you do not do so, they judge and sometimes punishment your failure to do so. That started with your parents or guardians and is continuing right up to this instant. How has that worked for you, overall?)

So many claim that - more than anything else - they want freedom; yet they do not know what they want freedom from. (People in the U.S. brag about their right to freedom of speech. Hardly any of them ever consider the rights of others who would prefer they try practicing freedom from speech every now and then.)

Freedom begins with freedom from beliefs, so freedom can only come in the wake of freedom from beliefs. From the “Beliefs” book:

“The ‘mind’ has been filled with fiction; with beliefs that are based not at all in fact; with beliefs that have never been questioned; and with beliefs that have been accepted with no evidence at all but have been accepted on ‘blind faith’ alone. Among the masses, the contents of the ‘mind’ are now held in such esteem that people are willing to fight for those beliefs or - in some cases - even willing to die in a fight over those beliefs.” (Moreover, the number of those with a willingness to kill over their beliefs has long been high, but the number has now grown astronomically all around the globe.)

Also from that same book:

“How has the ‘mind’ evolved from (1) its original purpose of storing survival-related, retrievable data to (2) its present state of storing distorting, deluding, misleading, fooling, peace-robbing, harmony-destroying, happiness-blocking beliefs which amount to nothing but nonsense? The ‘mind’ is a part of the brain where information can be stored and retrieved, originally used as a ‘constructive’ tool for survival; now, it is a destructive force that drives nonsensical behaviors that are based in nonsensical thoughts generated by the ‘mind.’ What types of information are stored there? Ideas, concepts, etc. (that is, 'beliefs'), beliefs that were set in place by programming and conditioning and domestication and acculturation.

“The content of the ‘mind’ is all one big illusion because it is an area now used for storing an entire network of belief systems that are generated from the dreamed up ‘-ism's’ that are valued by cultures and societies but that are based in non-facts rather than facts. It is the area of the brain that accepts beliefs such as ‘I am this’ and ‘I am that,’ and the false personas that are mistakenly believed to identify who you are will subconsciously drive thoughts and words and deeds, removing all ability to choose and resulting in the non-Realized masses being driven by agendas that are stored in the fictitious ‘mind’."

Have you looked externally to find what is creating your problems or humankind’s problems? That is what the mind and ego-states and egotism would have you do. The source of any of humankind's problems cannot be found externally. Have you looked to a god for the cause of all, or wondered why that god allows bad things to happen? Have you looked to “the world” in general and concluded that things are just not fair?

Reference was made earlier to a woman who had been so joyous over the news that she was finally pregnant but who was subsequently suffering from the misery of learning she had miscarried. As we talked, questions were raised about god. Questions were raised about why “bad things happen to people who are trying to do the right thing and live the right way.” Of that and everything else dealing with the problems and pain and misery and suffering experienced by humankind, Maharaj explained it this way:

“'I am' is an ever-present fact, while 'I am created' is an idea. Neither God nor the universe have come to tell you that they have created you. The mind, obsessed by the idea of causality, invents creation and then wonders 'who is the creator?' The mind itself is the creator."

I responded to that woman: “I have what might prove to you to be a few bits of excellent news: your miscarriage was not about a god who allowed your miscarriage to happen. It is not about whether 'this world' is fair to some and unfair to others. And that is the first bit of excellent news because if there were a god, you could not change or control ‘Him.' And if the world you perceive is real and is unfair you cannot change or control that. The second bit of excellent news is this: your miscarriage had nothing to do with a god and nothing to do with 'an unfair world'; instead, it simply and entirely has everything to do with science only . . . with biological facts and happenings only. Let the clarity of that reality guide your next steps.”

That is happening. Miscarriage has been researched. A partnership has been established with a different doctor, with a top-ranked OB-GYN with a national reputation who specializes in "difficult pregnancies." She has worked with people who have needed the additional understanding and guidance which she provides, and she has assisted thousands of couples as they move through the process successfully.

See? Facts. The “realities” of the ways in which the totality functions. No mind stuff involved.  

Want peace? Want freedom? Then give up the beliefs which have formed your mind, a mind which is always uncontrollable and which is always bent on generating misery and which will guarantee that you will have neither peace nor freedom as long as you are being driven blindly by what you take to be “your beliefs” which, by the way, are not really "your beliefs" at all. 

They are really just “their beliefs” which you have blindly accepted, allowing them to pile up year after year after year without any questioning at all. If you have not reached that "zero concepts" state recommended by Maharaj, are you willing to consider that your time to start questioning it all might well be long overdue?

To be continued.

Please enter the silence of contemplation.

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