TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
TO REVIEW
. . . some of the key points 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 and indoctrination and brainwashing.
Some have asked that those be explained in more detail. Others have asked about the effects of those six techniques. This is an appropriate place for such an explanation:
Programming effects:
. . . include 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:
. . . include 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:
. . . include 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:
. . . include 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.
Indoctrination effects:
James Miller wrote:
"Intensive indoctrination in a rigid dogma, doctrine or theory tends to suppress good sense, good judgment. As people become more and more indoctrinated their good sense becomes clouded, confused, obstructed. It becomes dormant. Their dogma and theory starts guiding them instead of their good sense. Their mind starts working in terms of new assumptions, the assumptions of the indoctrination."
He added that they lose the ability to make conscious decisions, saying,
"They just follow. Highly indoctrinated people become like automatons. They spout and parrot doctrinal positions and dogma as if that were all they knew, instead of talking with common sense and understanding of people and life. Their natural sense, understanding and intuition become stymied and suppressed by dogma and doctrine. They accept what they are taught by their indoctrinators without thought or question, as if hypnotized, as if they had no mind of their own; believing all they are told to be correct in every detail."
"The doctrinaire sermons of evangelicals constitute intensive indoctrination. They constitute a kind of brainwashing. People become automatons, slaves to doctrine."
[Key sources of indoctrination include religion; politics and politicians (on local, state, national, and international levels); friends, lovers, and spouses; schools and home schools; philosophies; ideologies; spiritual movements and groups; advertising; the military forces; police forces; the workplace; and thousands of institutions that push their own agendas.]
Brainwashing effects:
David Wong shared the following, noting there are six techniques of brainwashing which most are being subjected to nowadays, especially if they followed the recent presidential campaign in the U.S. or if they are following U.S. politics at this point.
Chanting Slogans
"Every cult leader, drill sergeant, self-help guru and politician knows that if you want to quiet all of those pesky doubting thoughts in a crowd, get them to chant a repetitive phrase or slogan. Those are referred to as thought-stopping techniques because they do exactly that."
"Why It Works: The "Analytical' part of your brain and the 'Repetitive Task' part tend to operate in separate rooms. But you didn't need an expert to tell you that. You know you can't solve a complex logic puzzle if I force you to scream the chorus to that "Chumbawanba" song over and over again while you're doing it. Try it."
Slipping Bullshit Into Your Subconscious
"The rise of the internet news portal has given birth to a whole new, sly technique of bullshit insertion. What They (and from here on, 'They' with a capital T means anyone who draws a paycheck by manipulating your opinion) have figured out is that most of you don't read the stories, you just browse the headlines. And there's a way to exploit that, based on how the brain stores memories.
The Drudge Report lives off this:"
A single anonymous source will report to some news blog that, say, Senator Smith runs a secret gay bordello in New Orleans. Drudge will run the headline:
NEW QUESTIONS ABOUT SMITH'S SECRET GAY BORDELLO
Or perhaps there'll just be a question mark on the end:
SMITH: SECRET GAY BORDELLO ASS MASTER?
"It doesn't matter that the headline merely involves 'questions' about the bordello. The idea has been planted, and two months later when somebody mentions Senator Smith around the water cooler you'll say,
'The gay bordello guy, right?'
"And get this: it happens even if the headline we read was specifically about the rumor being untrue."
Controlling What You Watch and Read
"Restriction of reading and/or viewing material is common to pretty much every cult. On the internet, we've all heard horror stories about Scientology, which goes as far as filtering members' internet access. Obviously the idea is to insulate the members from any opposing points of view, to keep them marching in line."
"That technique works just as well outside of the cult world, but They have to be more subtle about it. It just takes a little poison in the well, that's all."
"Why It Works: Studies show the brain is wired to get a quick high from reading things that agree with our point of view. The same studies proved that, strangely, we also get a rush from intentionally dismissing information that disagrees, no matter how well supported it is."
Keeping You In Line With Shame
"I won several formal debates in college using my patented technique of simply repeating my opponent's argument in a high-pitched, mocking tone while wiggling my fingers in the air. There really is no defense.
They call this 'the appeal to ridicule fallacy'."
"'They' know that if they can paint an idea as ridiculous, the listener usually won't bother examining it any closer to find out if the ridicule is justified."
"But why does it work? Well, there are these primitive, lower parts of your brain called amygdalae that control those base, emotional reactions. That's where things like contempt and shame come from, and stimulating it can completely shut down the analytical part of your brain."
Black and White Choices
"Listen to an argument between your friends. Any argument. Listen to one guy say John McCain is a Fascist, while his opponent says Barack Obama is a Communist. Watch as even fans of the same football team bitterly divide themselves over whether the new quarterback is going to be 'awesome' or 'garbage'."
"Never anything in between. Everyone is a friend or enemy, every band either rules or sucks, black and white, nothing in the middle. They (capital T) love this, because They can convince you that you must choose either their way or the most utterly retarded option on the opposite extreme."
"Why It Works: Because we evolved from creatures who were always in danger of being eaten, our brains were built on a very simple foundation: the "fight or flight" mechanism. This let us make lightning-fast decisions by boiling every situation into two options. Anyone who preferred to stop and mull over the subtleties of the scenario wound up in the digestive system of a saber-tooth tiger. Fast forward thousands of years and you find a humanity with much fancier brains but that still prefers all-or-nothing choices when we're put under stress."
"So if somebody wants to bypass your critical thinking circuitry, all they need to do is make you scared or anxious, often with a time limit or urgent threat. ('We need to act now, or lose our way of life!')"
Note the role that duality plays as Wong points out: "Instead of pondering the situation with the analytical neocortex, you're using the primitive limbic system, scanning the landscape for the 'Right' and 'Wrong' move. You'll have no patience for wishy-washy talk about 'a spectrum of options'."
"Us vs. Them"
"Sure, we know about the obvious examples, they're written across the history books in blood and bullet holes. Racism, genocide, horrifying caricatures on propaganda posters. But They have figured out that the same technique that works so well for getting people whipped into a murderous apocalyptic frenzy, can be used sell you cars, or hamburgers, or computers."
"Why It Works: Basically, we're hard-wired by evolution to form tribes."
[One placebo-type "antidote" for personality-driven fear? The belief that "There's safety in numbers."]
"The more stress we feel, the more we feel love and attachment to those who look and sound the same as us, and the more we feel hatred to those who don't. It's just an old survival mechanism, since the ancient guys who didn't show that kind of blind loyalty were killed off by the fierce tribes formed by the ones who did."
"So today we get that petty dehumanization of everybody outside of our group ('hippies,' 'rednecks,' 'geeks,' 'douchebags,' 'libs', 'cons,' 'fags,' 'breeders,' 'infidels,' 'towel-heads,' 'honkies,' 'darkies,' 'players', 'haters')."
"They can play on those old, primal urges for even the most retarded of results. Watch five seconds of an election stump speech. Every side does it. Not only is 'Us vs. Them' the most important one on the list, it's the culmination and end goal of all the others. Drawing you into the right tribe is what They want most, because they can accomplish nothing without tribesmen."
[Welcome to the U.S. of A. in 2017 as well as parts of Western Europe as well as many other places all around the globe.]
Programming, conditioning, domestication, acculturation, indoctrination and brainwashing contribute to The Ultimate Sickness which plagues the masses.
Note that the prerequisite for falling for "their techniques" to program, condition, domesticate, acculturate, indoctrinate and brainwash anyone is the removal of the right or ability to question and being forced to accept anything said by the authority figures in one's life with blind faith.
In some cases, the non-dual teachings can un-do some of the resulting instability and less severe personality disorders and lower levels of insanity that result from those six in other cases, far more is required.
For more than twenty-eight years, the effects of programming, conditioning, domestication, acculturation, indoctrination and brainwashing on the masses have been witnessed and discussed here.
In some cases, the effects have been undone when persons Realized, were thus 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 satsanga 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 that accompany the no-concept, no-identity, non-dual manner of nisarga functioning that awaits all that would replace their unnatural and supernaturally-oriented lifestyles with a natural mode of being.
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
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