TODAY’S CONSIDERATIONS
As noted, Maharaj eventually figured out - through trial and error as much as anything - that neither religion nor spirituality are the Ultimate Medicine. When he came to understand that the problems of humanity center in the mind, then he also understood that - when trying to treat the Ultimate Sickness - the focus much be on understanding what causes the problems with the mind and how to address the causes and effects.
In that regard, Maharaj identified three of the key symptoms of the Sickness as being "ignorance, stupidity, and insanity."
Now originally - for millions of years, in fact - humans functioned quite well without having to try to deal with the overload which results when all three of those symptoms manifest at the same time (as is the case with humans all around the globe now).
The mind was intended by nature to assist with the survival of the human species, and it worked effectively for many, many years. Anthropologists reveal that remote cultures - functioning like those earlier ancient cultures - spend only about 2.5 hours per day involved with the "work" which is required for meeting the basic human requirements of the humans in their communities.
["Work" is in quote marks because the work - hunting, fishing, etc. - are actually the "vacation activities" or the "hobbies" of many persons nowadays, not considered "work" at all. The 21.5 remaining hours of each day and night was spent visiting, relaxing with family and relatives and friends, playing, preparing meals, enjoying sex . . . you know . . . "living naturally," just like every living thing on the planet lives nowadays except for humans.]
Moreover, one generation passed down to the next the kind of skills and awarenesses which were handed down to my Cherokee / Medicine Woman Grandmother. The skills involved living off the land which they used but never thought they owned. The skills involved using what nature provided via hunting, fishing, trapping, foraging, and using natural ingredients and herbs and oils for healing the body.
While humankind always had ignorance to "work through" - for example, the kind of ignorance which involves superstitious, erroneous beliefs about supernatural Powers causing disasters which actually occur naturally - the fact is that the currently-pervasive full-blown stupidity and insanity are more recent conditions in evolutionary terms.
Now, the perfect mental storm dominates the masses as all three of the symptoms identified by Maharaj are determining and controlling the thoughts and words and actions of 99%+ of all persons on the planet.
At the heart of the Sickness, then, are the sources of the warped content of the modern-day mind and the nonsense being passed down from one generation to the next rather than the wisdom which was passed down long ago.
What is being passed down now is the most perverted and warped programming and conditioning and domestication and acculturation imaginable, resulting in the formation of billions of perverted and warped minds which are filled with perverted and warped ideas and concepts and notions and misperceptions (all forming what persons now refer to collectively as "their beliefs").
The following is from the book INSTABILITY / INSANITY: What the Advaita Teachings Can (and Cannot Address):
No one can survive childhood and the teen years on this planet and escape the effects of programming and conditioning and domestication and acculturation.
Some have asked that those be explained in more detail.
Others have asked about the effects of those four. This is an appropriate place for such an explanation:
Programming effects: a disabling of the sixth sense; an inability to readily access the intuition; the imbedding of self-destructive tendencies; the formation of a fiction-filled "mind" that results in persons storing countless false beliefs, bogus ideas, and nonsensical concepts; a replacement of natural tendencies with a preference for the unnatural and the supernatural; an accumulation of learned ignorance; and what Maharaj called "stupidity, verging on insanity."
Conditioning effects: a loss of the ability to choose as a result of abusation, the process whereby persons are trained to respond unconsciously in ways that others prefer rather than behaving in whys that would have happened in the absence of conditioning; the loss of both the freedom and the ability to behave naturally; behaving in ways that are senseless and even insane but that are not considered senseless or insane (thus, the resultant condition of the masses, senselessly and insanely sleepwalking and sleep-talking their way through the relative existence).
Domestication effects: a loss of all that is natural (just as the case is when animals are brought in from the wild and domesticated . . . beaten down . . . made to behave in the unnatural ways that a master prefers and demands); making the uncomfortable feel comfortable; making the unnatural appear to be natural; making the natural appear to be supernatural / magical / spiritual / religious; being "broken" as a result of having been trained in ways that are intended to serve the interests and desires and wishes and agendas of domesticators rather than having the ability to choose one's own agenda;
being forced to adapt to the desires of others rather than to develop naturally without having had to adapt to the (often perverted and insane) wishes of others; being trained to meet the definition of what is "suitable" to others, especially those in authority; being made far too willing to accommodate others unconsciously and to compromise what would be in one's own normal and natural interests;
being "broken" to the degree that one becomes easily persuaded or influenced by others or to the degree that one develops a tolerance for acts of abuse by authorities or people assuming an authority figure role in relationships.
Acculturation effects: developing an acceptance of what would otherwise be seen as cult-like propaganda and nonsense; xenophobia; chauvinism; false pride; and, in certain cultures (to one degree of another) the following: blind loyalty; a sense of separation; a sense of better-than-ment; egotism; and denial.
Furthermore, acculturation has led to the following as well:
a. the raising of children by parents who are cold and uncaring and rigid and distant and excessively formal and remote and detached and aloof, producing one generation after another of adults who are cold and uncaring and rigid and distant and excessively formal and remote and detached and aloof (both with their own offspring as well as with all they form relationships with - those traits having been pervertedly normalized and not seen to be a problem at all);
b. the raising of men in one country in particular to believe that women are chattel, a marketable commodity to be bought and sold;
c. the raising of men in another country in particular to objectify women and see them as objects that are there for male pleasure;
d. the raising of males to believe that women are subtypes who are to be covered head-to-toe and beaten if they expose even an ankle and the raising of males to believe that there is an afterlife where women will be provided eternally, the women there only for the purpose of satisfying the sexual desires of men;
e. the raising of men in one country in particular to believe that women are to be paid less even if they are performing proficiently the same tasks as men;
f. the raising of children to believe that people of a different religion are the enemy or are infidels that are to be killed;
g. the raising of children in many countries to believe that their culture and their nation is the greatest on earth, ignoring those nations' histories of having decimated entire populations so that lands could be stolen and nations formed;
and the description of such insanity in cultures around the globe could go on and on.
Programming, conditioning, domestication, and acculturation are at the heart of what causes the Ultimate Sickness which plagues the masses.
In some cases, the Advaita teachings can un-do some of the resulting instability and less severe personality disorders and lower levels of insanity that result from those four; in some cases, far more is required.
For twenty-two years, the effects of programming, conditioning, domestication, and acculturation on the masses have been witnessed and discussed here.
In some cases, the effects have been undone when persons realized, were thus freed of ignorance and restored to sanity, and have thereafter enjoyed the resulting stability and freedom and peace and happiness.
In some cases, therefore, this site or the writings or retreats or satsang sessions have served over the decades as a clearinghouse of instability and less severe personality disorders and even some lesser degrees of insanity as persons have Realized.
Yet such instances are as rare here as they were in Maharaj's loft. According to his own admission, most who came his way left without ever "Realizing Fully." So it is.
In other cases, some have reported that what happened here with them could be compared to what happens with their alarm clock each day, that the sharings here became "a new and different kind of alarm clock for them." Maybe; maybe not.
Sometimes what happens here is more like what happens with directors of traffic, inviting some to come in and stay for a period of time and consider the teachings; in other cases, pointing some to professionals for intervention;
in certain more serious cases, suggesting to some who have been suicidally-desperate that they visit an emergency room; and in other instances, pointing some toward a holistic approach to address all that ails them.
Some have claimed they came here and found a BS detector and eliminator, though they were not initially grateful for such detection. None of that matters here, for there is no attachment to outcome.
Here, it is understood exactly what is required for "Full Realization"; it is understood that there are clear-cut, specific steps on the "path" that must be completed in a precise, step-wise fashion; and it is understood how to guide seekers along that "path."
After that, the variable is the seeker and the level of readiness.
If you are ready, may you find the way to the end of the "path," to the completion of the "journey," and to the freedom and peace and happiness which accompany the no-concept, no-identity, non-dual manner of nisarga functioning which awaits all that would replace their unnatural and supposedly supernatural ("religious" and / or "spiritual") lifestyles with a natural mode of being.
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
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