TODAY’S CONSIDERATIONS
The term used most often to refer to each non-dual insight shared by Maharaj is “a pointer”; another word with a somewhat “negative connotation” could be used: “warnings.”
Either way, most of his observations which - if heeded, could make for a far-lighter experience throughout the relative existence of humans - are instead ignored.
Whether they are called “pointers” or “suggestions” or “considerations” or “warnings” which are based in fact, most humans will ignore them, reject them, or attack them.
Why? Because of the current prevalence of warped minds among the masses. Such was not always the case among humans.
The key change which came about in humans after their brains evolved from a one-cup-size to a three-and-a-half-cup-size was the development of “a mind” within the brain. “The mind” refers to the sections of the brain where information is stored and where a small portion of it is recalled.
As noted here, the brain was originally an asset for humanity when it was filled with facts, such as when Thor witnessed Rickback fall off a cliff and break into pieces on the rocks below and then stored in the mind-part of his brain the intuitive message, “Take caution around the edges of cliffs. The potential is an event which will not contribute to the survival of the species.”
Now, the mind - as Maharaj make clear in multiple warnings - is a liability. He warned:
" . . . The mind obscures and distorts"
and
"It is the mind that creates illusion"
and
"There is no such thing as peace of mind. Mind means disturbance. Restlessness itself is mind."
Eventually, he came to see that it is the mind (as opposed to humans believing in too little dogma and as opposed to humans not being spiritual enough) which generates humanity’s problems and chaos and self-destructive tendencies as a result of the ignorant and insane beliefs which are taught and stored therein. Why?
Because a mind filled with nonsense does not operate in ways which perpetuate the survival of the species but operates in ways which assure self-defeating, self-destructive, self-frustrating, self-thwarting behaviors, thereby sabotaging the very objective or purpose which the mind was originally designed by nature to serve.
In fact, the mind has disintegrated into a filtering system nowadays, allowing information which reinforces beliefs to enter and remain while filtering out information which contradicts one’s beliefs, no matter how insane or how irrational or how inaccurate their learned ignorance (that is, their beliefs) are.
Take for example the use of cigarettes which are used by persons to treat stress (for about a fifteen-minute interval) rather than their seeking and finding a non-destructive means to use to address stress with a method which can provide results which last for an entire lifetime rather than for fifteen minutes.
Those who are familiar with the pain Maharaj experienced in his final days have first-hand evidence of the effects of using nicotine, but Maharaj did not have the advantage of warnings which some governments now require those products to offer:
Though persons have to actually touch one of those warning each time they withdraw a cigarette from a pack, they filter out the warning, any future consequences being ingored when fifteen minutes of relaxation is available NOW!
Another warning Maharaj offered seekers was this:
“Beware of Big Name Teachers.” Why?
To be a "Big Name," teachers have to be popular, and to be popular, they can never offer the true non-dual message which is often “unpopular” because it offers truth and insight into the personality defects and ignorant beliefs which persons hold dear.
Evidence of the validity of what happens when Maharaj's warnings are ignored occur on a daily basis, the most recent happening in the U.S. at a Tony Robbins event Thursday night.
The happenings were described in this news report:
Approximately forty participants attending a Tony Robbins seminar downtown suffered burn injuries to their feet and legs last Thursday after walking barefoot across hot coals in what is being described as a regular part of a Tony Robbins motivational event.
Trainers for Robbins' motivational seminars told News 8 that walking on coals is 'a very emotional experience' for people, and that participants were doing something they didn’t think was possible.
But we saw just how painful a reality that exercise was for a large group of people attending the “Unleash the Power Within” seminar in Dallas Thursday night.
Several ambulances were staged outside the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center by organizers who knew that some participants were going to have to be rushed to emergency rooms for treatment of their injuries. Paramedics treated dozens of people from the sold-out program for burn injuries to their feet and legs. Other participants were taken to the hospital.
Conference volunteers said walking on hot coals has become a regular activity at Tony Robbins seminars around the world.
Consider the difference between one teacher who was not especially popular because he shared sometimes uncomfortable considerations and one who is now quite popular instead: Maharaj in the end had no measurable “financial net worth.” Tony Robbins’ net worth is approaching 500 million dollars. Obviously quite popular, yes?
Consider also the statement, “Participants were doing something they didn’t think was possible.” But they were motivated to do that anyway by someone whom they admired because he has a “Big Name.” How insane is it to think something is not possible and to do it anyway at the urging of a guru? According to Tony Robbins, not insane at all.
His theory: if you don’t think you can walk on hot coals but do it anyway, then maybe if you think you can’t start up a successful business, you’ll do that anyway, too.
Yet how many so-called “successful” businesses were begun by persons who first physically injured themselves by some means? Must those who would found a successful business first be driven by the symptoms of the Ultimate Sickness (which Maharaj identified as “ignorance, stupidity, and insanity")?
As a second example, James Arthur Ray was also a Big Name Teacher and a “New Age Guru” who also identified himself as “a Self-Help Teacher.” On October 8, 2009, at a New Age "Spiritual Warrior" retreat conceived and hosted by Ray at the Angel Valley Retreat Center in Yavapai County near Sedona, Arizona, three participants who had paid $10,000 each to attend his seminar died as a result of participating in the non-traditional sweat lodge exercise designed by Ray.
Eighteen others were hospitalized for everything from burns to kidney failure after he raised the temperatures in his sweat lodge above 200 degrees Fahrenheit (or 93 degree Celsius). Ray had encouraged people who were passing out, hallucinating, and vomiting—symptoms of extreme heat stroke—to fight the discomfort and to stay in the lodge as long as possible.
Maharaj: “The proper role of a Guru is to dispel ignorance.”
Not to dispel logic? No. Not to dispel sanity? No. Not to dispel reason? No. Not to convince persons to do something which can cause them physical pain and injury?
No. Not to harm seekers and subject them to pain and suffering and even death? No. Not to encourage seekers to engage in self-defeating, self-destructive acts? No.
No one who is sane encourages others to do things which are insane. No one who is not stupid encourages others to do things that are stupid. No one who is not a con will con persons into engaging in stupid activities.
Similarly, it is the undertaking of every con to make fools of persons, to convince them to filter out truth and to accept as fact the false image being presented by the con and to accept the con’s message of hate and greed and fear and separation and duality as the truth.
After the Treaty of Versailles subjected the German people to severe penalties and hardships as punishment for their role in WWI, most Germans experienced financial deprivation and saw parts of their land turned over to settlers / immigrants. An Austrian named Hitler showed up to explain how unfairly the people were being treated and how their suffering was being caused by the foreigners - specifically, Jews - who were controlling the banks and the wealth, leaving many Germans unemployed and broke.
He played on their belief that they had been treated unfairly, ignoring the roles they played in causing much of the discomfort which they hated and encouraging them to blame others (outsiders) instead.
The results: (1) anger, fear, hatred, greed, and a dualistic sense of “them vs. us” alongside (2) the identification of a specific target for their anger and hatred.
Similar circumstances exist in Europe and in the U.S. nowadays. Certain leaders or would-be leaders are sharing a message based in duality, fostering a “them vs. us” mentality, and fomenting anger and fear and greed and offering bogus solutions and false hope.
There was no lightness in Europe in those post-WWI days once fascists began conning the masses. There is little lightness in the U.S. today as the same is happening. And there was little lightness in Great Britain recently before citizens there went to the polls and voted for separation, for leaving the EU.
There is little lightness this morning in Britain either, after those voting for separation are seeing the consequences which they were warned of but which they filtered out and ignored. Their filtering minds led them to believe that they could best be served by separation, not unity . . . at least until this morning as hundreds of thousands who had voted for breaking relationship with the Union are now petitioning for a second vote to be held so that they can vote for unity instead.
Hundreds of thousands are seeing in less than twenty-four hours that they took an action which was inspired by economic fear and xenophobia and anger and hatred and greed and emotional intoxication and an anti-immigration sentiment as well as by a complete ignorance of the actual facts and the predictable consequences which they now see and regret.
Such is the case when persons are duped, made fools of, and conned.
In the non-duality-based fictional novel, The Board of Directors of Wars, the point / warning is offered that, historically, there have been three institutions which have most fostered dualistic thinking and which have most inspired separation and which have most fostered wars and which have done so by passing on self-destructive, self-defeating beliefs which drive self-destructive, self-defeating behaviors. Those are: big religion, big business, and big government, especially governments which are cursed by the influence of demagogues and would-be dictators and outright cons who are seeking power and control in order to serve themselves and no one else.
The human mind which has devolved from an asset into a liability generates magical thinking. Magical thinking inspires persons to believe in easy solutions and singular causes for humankind's ignorance-and-insanity-based, multi-faceted problems. Maharaj made clear that the cause of all is all and that assigning singular cause to any event or circumstance is also an act of ignorance.
Today, there are many would-be leaders who are similar to the Pied Piper of Hamlin. He came to a town which was infested with rats and convinced the city leaders that he had magical powers and could use his flute to rid their town of its huge rat population. Eventually, he used the magic pipe to lead the children of the village into waters where they drowned.
Around the globe this morning, there are billions of adults who are behaving like the childish persons in that story, willing to be led to the water to be drowned; willing to be lead to walk on burning coals to injure themselves physically; willing to blindly accept nonsense as truth; and willing to have their anger and hatred and fear verbalized and reinforced from a podium.
Such a simple story is the tale of the pied piper, yet it offers a quite astute pointer / warning: only the ignorant and insane who are trapped in their magical thinking will buy into a con’s lies and false-hope solutions and over-simplified explanations for their quite complicated and complex problems.
For the non-dualist, the message is that only chaos and heaviness can result when persons buy into magical thinking and dualistic beliefs being offered by those who endorse separation over unity, hatred over love, anger over peace, and fear over a sense of well-being.
A poem which was popular years ago in the U.S. dealt with a local hero named “Casey” who played for a baseball team in the town of Mudville. The team's supporters feared defeat as the game was not going their way, but their hopes were raised when Casey approached the batter’s box. They began betting ever cent they had on Casey, assured that he was going to solve their problem and bring success and fulfill their wishes and hopes and dreams. But in the end, their sad truth was described thusly: “There is no joy in Mudville — mighty Casey has struck out.”
Similarly, there is no joy now in the places where fear and anger and greed and hatred and a sense of separation fester. And where exactly is that festering taking place? In the minds of the masses whose warped perspectives and flawed thinking is being tapped into by cons who adumbrate and magnify and give full-throated expression to the fear and anger and greed and hatred and sense of separation among the masses.
For the masses to have no ability to see that a wolf in sheep's clothing is a wolf is proof of their having been handicapped by the blindness which is generated when the consciousness is blocked from seeing clearly as a result of a buildup of vast quantities of bogus beliefs which are presently stored in the minds of the masses.
And while duality is at the core of humanity's anger and fear and hatred-based problems, non-duality will never be the cure for what ails those suffering all around the globe from the Ultimate Sickness. The non-dual understanding can, however, offer a cure for one suffering person at a time or for one delusional person at a time.
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
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