TODAY’S CONSIDERATIONS
Yesterday, this was offered:
How about you? Does any sense of being virtuous or sinful linger? Then heaviness will mark your existence. Has all sense of being either virtuous or sinful come to an end? Then lightness is near.
The belief that one is “virtuous” is not the problem, per se. A belief is just a thought. “I am virtuous” is merely a thought. “I am godly” is just a thought. “I am a super religious Hindu, Jew, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, etc. is just a thought. I am a super spiritual Advaitin, Vedantin, Non-Dualist, or alcoholic in recovery are all just thoughts.
The problem is not any given thought per se, including the belief-driven thoughts being reported in the news recently in the U.S., including thoughts which reveal the presence of a narcissist and sociopathic and psychopathic self-righteousness, as was the case with a Christian pastor who said after over 100 were killed or wounded a few days ago in Orlando, Florida:
"They deserve what they got. Are you sad? Um, no. I think that's great. I think that helps society. The tragedy is that more of them did not die."
Or the thoughts / beliefs of a Muslim man, such as:
“I have the right to kill gays at a club because the men rejected my advances and blocked me on their social apps” or “I have the right to kill or wound more than 100 people who have nothing to do with the U.S. Government because the U.S. Government is bombing terrorists” or “I have the right to shoot people because my father dreamed of my becoming a police officer and pushed me constantly to become a police officer but the police academy ruled that I was unfit and turned me down and all I became was a security guard checking ID's at the entrance to a gated community.”
Or the thoughts / beliefs of a Jewish leader in Israel who justifies the right of his soldiers to kill unarmed Palestinians who are protesting the fact that their land has been taken and their homes have been bulldozed.
No, the problem is not beliefs / thoughts per se. The problem with humans, beliefs / thoughts is this:
their thoughts lead to words
and
then their words lead to their actions.
Thus it is thought-based deeds which are at the root of the problems of humanity.
This has been shared in the past and was reflected on this past Monday as travels once again took through a town called Jasper:
A trip out-of-state to conduct a seminar this weekend required traveling through the city of Jasper, Texas. Events that shined a national spotlight on that town have been mentioned here before when several white supremacists killed a black man.
The whites first had the thought "I am different from black people and I am better than black people." Then they began organizing meetings in Jasper where whites stood before other whites and expressed orally their hatred for blacks.
Thoughts lead to words, and words led to the deed of three men kidnapping the black man James Byrd, taking him to a remote, country road, placing a chain around his neck and attaching it to the back of their truck, and pulling him along the road until he was decapitated.
Thought . . . word . . . deed. That is the current modus operandi of humans. They think; then they talk and talk and talk about what they are thinking and believing, showing off their supposed knowledge, showing how wise they are, pushing their beliefs on others; then, they act on those words. Their thoughts drive their words and their words drive their behavior.
And because their thoughts are based in ignorance at best - and insanity at the extreme - then their behaviors can be nothing other than ignorant and insane as well. The mind that served the species well has now turned on its hosts and is devouring them from within.
Where the untapped inner guru could be leading to constructive behavior (relatively speaking) the tapped "mind" is doing the opposite.
The brain says from the stupor of a morning hangover, "I'll never do that again!" Wise counsel from the brain indeed.
But by 5 P.M., the "mind" says, "Well, you could have just one drink. You know you need it before you go home and face what's waiting there." Overriding the constructive messages from the brain, the "mind" is hell-bent on destroying the self.
Now, communication and talking flood the airways, businesses, carpools, homes, everywhere.
Because thoughts are racing, then words are racing, and with words racing, endless going and doing and zooming are the behavioral result.
The unconscious drive is to allow the speed of the body to catch up with the speed of the "mind" so some sense of equilibrium might manifest, but it will never happen; thus, going and doing and zooming combine with talk and talk and more talk to become the rule, and it all happens on a "thinking-mind-to-thinking-mind" level.
Only if seeking begins, and only if a Realized teacher is found, can other types of communication possibly happen.
If the seeker follows the "path" in a step-wide fashion, only then might "communicating" happen in a consciousness to thinking mind manner; in a consciousness to working mind fashion; in a consciousness to inner guru / inner resource mode;
in a pure consciousness to unblocked consciousness style; in an inner guru / inner resource to inner guru / inner resource mode; and eventually in an awareness to awareness style, after which nothing needs to be said.
Then, in the absence of thoughts and words, the behavior that erupts spontaneously is "The Dance" ... merely "Dancing in Silence," "Dancing in the Quiet," "Dancing in Peace."
That is what the "realized teacher" does, in the end. She / He invites you to the dance, but you must leave all thoughts outside the dancehall, all words outside the dancehall, and all personas and beliefs and ideas and concepts outside the dancehall.
In the dancehall of Realization, there is everything and there is nothing; therefore, there is Love and there is Wisdom, and neither of those requires a thought or word to manifest.
At their core, mind and personality identification always inspire a sense of “becoming," of "becoming something" (or "Something!"), as if whatever something really, actually is can become something other than what it really, actually is.
In the case of the action of murdering Richard Byrd, three men - in their minds - supposedly became “White Supremacists,” became “superior,” became “supreme,” became “Judges with the right to judge others,” became “Executioners with the right to kill others.”
In the case of the action of killing members of the LGBT community, a man in Florida - in his mind - supposedly became “inferior due to rejection and thus driven to act out violently” or became - in his mind - supposedly “superior,” became “supreme,” became “The Judge with the right to judge others,” and became “The Executioner with the right to kill others.”
Basically, he became angry and enraged and then acted out like a petulant, spoiled child who simultaneously had in the U.S. the adult-age right to buy a hand-held weapon of mass destruction.
To understand that “I Am” is one thing. Nothing heavy or violent can come about as a result of that understanding; however, to add any word or phrase after “I am” is to set the stage for heaviness, unhappiness, frustration and anger as well as the potential for rage, violence, and the entire assortment and array of humankind’s self-driven, self-rooted problems which are also rooted as well in dualistic thoughts and beliefs about "becoming."
Meanwhile, if cultures and nations set the example that violence is the best means to an end and then actually use that concept to justify colonialism, imperialism, the right to invade other nations to take control of them and to rob them of their resources while “improving the people there by having them adopt our beliefs and our governing and economic systems," then where is the surprise when those who resent such practices also use violence to protest violence?
No one has ever hated the U.S. for “our freedoms”; many throughout history have hated the U.S. for taking away their freedom.
Were leaders and their followers to understated Maharaj’s words that "Wisdom is knowing I am nothing” and that “Love is knowing I am everything,” then they would know that they have “become” nothing and they would know that Love can result in both a sense of atonement (at-one-ment) and a sense of the unicity.
That understanding could lead to freedom from humankind’s pervasive sense of self-righteousness which sets the stage for a sense of different-from-ment and better-than-ment which lead, in turn, to the belief / thought that one has the right to judge and condemn and execute.
Of course all of that requires addressing the key symptoms of the Ultimate Sickness, identified by Maharaj as "ignorance, stupidity, and insanity.”
The odds of that happening? According to Maharaj, one out of a hundred thousand, revised to one out of a million, revised later to one out of ten million.
Not very decent odds, n’est-ce-pas? So?
So, Maharaj said: “If you can change yourself, you will find that no other change is needed. To change the picture you merely
change the film. You do not attack the cinema screen!”
Tomorrow: The Illusion of “Becoming” and the Impact of that Thought / Belief on Humankind
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
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