TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
The next reason why persons are willing to enter onto a "path" and then end up staying on it, or why persons begin a "journey" which never reaches the destination but continue on that "journey" anyway, or why they accept a treatment plan which they are told offers no cure for what ails them but normalize that and stay with that ineffective plan is reason number 23, namely, the secondary addiction of humans.
The primary addiction of humans is the desire to control. The secondary addiction is the desire to have power / a Power / Powers which will allow them to control.
Because most persons have been programmed and conditioned to believe that "sacrificing" and "good works" / "religious work" and "spiritual exercises" and "praying" and constantly engaging in "all sorts of religious and / or spiritual doingness" must be done on a regular basis in order to maintain access to "a Power in another world" who is willing to intervene in one's behalf throughout the lives of persons "in this world" (so long as they "stay on the "path"); thus, they will "stay the course," will stay on the "path," will continue the "journey" in order - selfishly - to be rewarded now and forevermore. So, reason number . . .
23. Persons want Power, and they believe that the other-worldly Powers or Power they've hooked up with is not only All-Powerful but is Omnipresent, that is, (a) able to do anything for them and is (b) always present and reliable and willing to do for them, if only they ______.
(Fill in the blank with the hundreds and thousands of things that persons have dreamed up and reported that gods or goddesses or The One True God wants in order for them / Him to be pleased and, therefore, willing to grant the wishes being asked for on a daily basis to the tune of billions and billions of requests on any given day.)
24. Persons believe that there is a god or goddess or God that will give them what they want if they worship that Power and pray to It and have unquestioning faith in It throughout an entire manifestation.
Being driven by that kind of delusion-based belief system, of course they are going to keep doing what they do on a "path" or "journey" in order to get their wishes granted and to receive rewards - rather than punishment - now and for all eternity.
Maharaj: "First of all you identify something as being good or bad for yourself. Then, in an effort to acquire good or to get rid of the bad, you have invented a God. Then you worship such a God and . . . you pray to that God for something good to happen to you."
See?
Most believe that they have to "worship such a God" regularly and do "good works" regularly, throughout the entire manifestation, in order "to acquire good or to get rid of the bad" (which is even more duality). Only that way, they believe, can you please God . . . Moses . . . Jesus . . . Muhammad . . . whoever:
As an outgrowth of being dedicated to the duality-based concept of "good works" (works done not altruistically but in order to be able to tap into some Power and to get some reward in return), other ego-states manifest, such as, "The Super Helper," "The Really Nice Person," "The Person with a Savior Complex," "The Person with a God Complex," "The One Who Is Going to Make the World a Better Place," etc. (But "duality-based"? Yes, "good works" vs. "bad works" is the epitome of duality).
One source offers this about "good works":
"In most religions, 'good works,' or simply 'works,' are persons' exterior actions or deeds in contrast to 'inner qualities,' such as 'faith'."
So the belief among billions is that "good works" make one a "good person," and "good persons" have their prayers answered and get what they want (or not, if they are awake enough to see how little of what they've asked for has actually been received).
Yet Maharaj noted: "Only that person will visit this place whose virtue and sin have come to an end"; that is, whose belief in both "good" and "bad" have come to an end.
The judgmental see what they claim to be "the bad in the world, the evil in the world" and blame it on "bad people" or "Satan" or "the pervasive presence of evil." The realized understand that the source of what persons label "bad" or "evil" is actually the Ultimate Sickness and its symptoms of "ignorance, stupidity and insanity."
(Were persons able to log the actual results of their prayers to gods or goddesses or God and honestly see how ineffective their prayers have been throughout their lives, they would see that Comedian / Non-Dualist George Carlin was spot on when he said that, after witnessing the less-than-desirable results of asking God for this or that over the years, he tried an experiment and began praying to a different entity:
"You know who I pray to now? Joe Pesci. Joe Pesci. And I noticed that of all the prayers I used to offer to God, and all the prayers that I now offer to Joe Pesci, all of them are being answered at about the same 50 percent rate. Half the time I get what I want. Half the time I don't. Same as god: 50 / 50. Same as the four-leaf clover, the horse shoe, the rabbit's foot, and the wishing well. It's all the same: 50 / 50. So just pick your superstition, sit back, make a wish and enjoy yourself.")
But that joy cannot happen, because when one's belief system triggers the assumption of such false identities as "The Super Helper," "The Really Nice Person," "The Person With A Savior Complex," "The Person With A God Complex," then egotism will soon be triggered to defend those ego-states; and when ego-states are assumed, and egotism is working to support them, then arrogance follows.
Combine (1) arrogance and (2) a belief in "good works" in a person and you have someone who will believe that he or she can help not only people but also "the world" (if only everyone would listen and do what "The Worker of Good" tells them to do).
What those types do not understand was Maharaj's pointer that "You are not in the world; the world is in you."
Meaning?
"The world" as you see it is merely in you, that is, in your mind.
He said: "The mind creates 'the world'"
and
"The world is but a show, glittering and empty"
and
"In the waking state, 'the world' emerges due to ignorance and takes one into a waking-dream state"
and
"Once you realize that the world is your own projection, you are free of it."
His advice, therefore: "Don’t identify yourself with the world and you will not suffer."
Thus, there are as many imagined versions of "this world" as they are people, so - as perceived by persons on planet earth - there are over 7.125+ billion versions of "the world."
When 7.125+ billion people think they are looking at the same thing but are all seeing something very different, how real could that be? Not real at all.
So those persons who arrogantly believe that they can change the world are trapped in the Ultimate Sickness and are displaying the symptoms of that Sickness which Maharaj identified as "ignorance, stupidity, and insanity."
Why?
If one sets out to change the world, but the world is in the minds of others and those versions of "the world" number over 7 billion, then the one who would change the world must change over 7 billion minds. Ha. Better get busy if that task is to be completed in one's lifetime!
In fact, no one has ever permanently changed the world, whether speaking of those deemed to be "good" or those deemed to be "bad." Not Krishna. Not the Buddha. Not Moses. Not Jesus. Not Muhammad. Not the Dalai Lama. Not Hitler. Not Mussolini. Not the dictators presently in charge of nations all around the globe nor the would-be dictators who are presently emerging.
Persons keep working to change their nations' leaders (if they have any say or right to choose at all), and those leaders might bring change alright; yet no changes have ever had any permanency. "Permanency in the relative" is completely impossible.
People in other countries are still writing to ask, "What the hell is going on in the U.S.?"
The reply now is:
The same thing that has always happened: the pendulum constantly swings because persons not freed of ignorance think that leaders who are the opposite of whoever they currently have in charge will finally be the one who grants their wishes and fulfills their desires and makes their dreams come true.
In the U.S., therefore, the pattern has been to go with exact opposites during each election:
Late 1990's: "Let's choose an educated leader."
After him: "Let's choose a leader who acts like a stooge."
After that one: "Let's choose an educated leader."
And now after him: "Let's choose a leader who acts like the biggest stooge of all so we can 'Make America Hate Again'."
Next, the greatest arrogance and ignorance is, first, in believing that "the world" can be changed and, secondly, in believing that if "the world" were to finally change, it could stay that way.
The fact: The pendulum of humankind has long swung from the Darkness to the Light and back to the Darkness again. The swinging is continuous, not fixed. That which is permanent never involves things relative, never involves anything deemed to be in "this world."
Yet the arrogance of persons thinking that they can change the world or can save the world remains. In such cases, the primary addiction of humanity is at play, namely, the desire to control . . . to be able to make all "bad" persons change so the world will change "for the better" and can be saved. Of that, Maharaj said:
"The world does not need saving. Man makes mistakes and creates sorrow." (Mankind, not "the bad and evil world," generates sorrow? Hummm.)
And since the progression among humans always runs from thoughts to words to deeds to "mistakes," then what needs to be addressed? Thoughts, of course. The content of the human mind. To effectively address the problems of humanity, they must be chopped off at the root - at the nonsense-filled minds - before those thoughts are able to generate erroneous words which lead to erroneous actions.
Maharaj said that if one realizes (becomes freed of learned ignorance) then "interest in 'the world' is over."
As for profiting from one's "good works" or "helping improve the world," Maharaj said:
"Nothing profits the world as much as the abandoning of profits. A man who no longer thinks in terms of loss and gain is the truly non-violent man, for he is beyond all
conflict."
Yet believing that one can tap into a Power and can exert influence on the entire world - or some part of it - and believing that one can use the available power of a Power to control will most assuredly inspire those suffering from the Ultimate Sickness and its symptoms . . .
. . . to be willing to enter onto a "path" and then end up staying on it, or to be willing to begin a "journey" which never reaches the destination but continue on that "journey" anyway, or to be willing to accept a treatment plan which they are told offers no cure for what ails them but nevertheless normalize that and stay dedicated to that ineffective plan.
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
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