NO END "PATHS"? A LIFE-LONG "JOURNEY" WHICH NEVER REACHES THE DESTINATION? A LIFETIME OF TREATMENT WITH NO CURE AT ALL? Sensible and Sane? Or Senseless and Insane? Part SS - A REVIEW OF "THE REASONS"

TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS 

• Specific "reasons" cause persons to be obsessive and compulsive 

 • and render them unable to relax 

• and lead them to be driven to go and do and zoom (whether that involves religion; spirituality; employment; "personal relationships"; politicking; reforming; rescuing; seeking love; seeking mass approval and applause and admiration; trying to escape responsibilities; accumulating; finding caretakers; or controlling). 

• We are looking at what causes "the reasons" to manifest 

• and what must happen in order to be freed from their influence. 

So, to continue: 

Persons also obsess, act compulsively, are unable to relax, are fanatical, are driven by subconscious motives, and do whatever authority figures tell them to do - unquestioningly - because of reason #12: because of the desires and the fears of their assigned and assumed personalities (which include the desire for the eternal continuity of the manifest consciousness; 

the desire for the eternal continuity of the elemental plant body and the mind; the desire for the body-mind-personality to be forever and to experience forever eternal rewards and bliss and / or an eternal life in a brothel with "x"-number of wives, "x"-number of whores, and "x"-number of virgins; or the fear of eternal punishment; or the fear of being deprived of the chance to participate in eternal orgies; or the fear of being punished / burned / etc. for eternity). 

The causes behind reason #12: 

BODY AND MIND AND PERSONALITY IDENTIFICATION and PERSONALITY TYPE SIX INFLUENCES 

99% of all humans believe in a god (or in a cabal of gods and goddesses), yet their views of what their deity or deities are like vary widely. Why? 

At least one major factor which helps determine what believers' view of that Authority is like is influenced by what the first authorities in their lives - their parent or parents - were like. Had a harsh, rigid, punishing perfectionist parent or parents? Then god is going to be seen as a punitive god who can claim to love you but will, schizophrenically, cast you into a hell of fire and mental torment. 

Had an indulgent parent or parents? Then god is going to be seen as a weak god who will really let you get away with anything you want: harm others, ask for forgiveness; go forth with a clean slate; harm others, ask for forgiveness; go forth with a clean slate; repeat, ad infinitum. 

Had a parent or parents who gave you no time or attention but then showered you with gifts to make up for that unavailability? Then you may see god as unavailable and uncaring or as a "Celestial Santa." The latter will inspire a person to just give god a list of what you want and then sit back and wait to have all your prayers answered and all of your wishes fulfilled (and programmed and conditioned people will do that throughout an entire lifestyle, the crappy results in the past notwithstanding).

Similarly, if awareness manifests as a speck of consciousness within an elemental plant food body which identifies solely with that body - which is as far removed from reality and Reality as a person can be - then one's concept of heaven can be a place where one is given not just 72 virgins but also thousands of whores and thousands of wives and where the body will experience eternal, orgasmic ecstasy. 

Or, the concept can be like that held by my Christian neighbor . . . a concept shared a while back on this site: his former belief that he will spend eternity with his current wife after they both die (a wife to whom his attraction is less and less each day) has been replaced with a new and improved belief, namely, that god above all else wants him to be happy for eternity so god will pick a different, more attractive, woman for him to hook up with forever).

When I asked, "So your concept of god is that he's someone who'll be willing to be your Celestial Pimp?" he replied, "Well, yeah, but I certainly wouldn't put it like that."

When one's view of self is reduced to "my physical body" alone, then the desire for continuity will manifest and then concepts will be dreamed up about how to guaranteed both continuity and eternal reward for the body. And once those belief systems are in place, then one is hooked and will follow whatever path one's leader or guide or guru or sponsor dictates in order to insure body safety now and body continuity forever. The rub: to that end, freedom cannot exist. 

Jim Rigby shared a story he heard - not necessarily proven but apropos - that if a goldfish is kept in a bowl of water for months and constantly swims in a circle, then even if it is supposedly set free in a large body of water, it will still stay in one area and swim in a circle. The majority of persons are exactly like that: they are conditioned to do what they've always done and, therefore, never truly break free.

The reason they stay on a path or a journey or a course of seeking forever is because they erroneously think that they are free, but really - deep down inside - they do not want to be totally free at all and because they have no motivation to enjoy all which unbounded freedom can bring. 

With the majority of persons on the planet having a primary Type Six Personality as described earlier, they (1) are set up to be unquestioningly loyal to authority and (2) set up to always follow the leader (which in itself is a sign that they are not free) and (3) are willing to behave in a schizophrenic fashion.

And that means that they will be delusional (believing things that are not true); they will suffer from hallucinations (seeing or hearing things that are not there, as in "God told me to tell you . . . . "); will suffer disorganized thinking ("A dual-minded person will be unstable in all ways"); will use disorganized speech (e.g., frequent derailment of the conversation, loose associations, or talking incoherently); 

will be agitated; will be grossly-disorganized or will exhibit catatonic behavior (e.g., childlike “silliness,” resisting simple instructions, odd or rigid posture, repeated movements that serve no purpose); can lack initiative and be socially withdraw; can experience apathy; and can be unresponsiveness to the suffering of others. 

Type Sixes, and therefore the masses - are prone to be dependent and co-dependent, so they believe that they need a leader, and if they can just get the "right one," then they will be fine. 

Here, the message is, let's move along the path which can free you of learned ignorance and imposed insanity so you can then be totally free. After that, the plan will be for you to go forth and abide naturally. Then you will not need me or anyone else in order for you to be free and at peace and to be able to enjoy unconditional happiness. If we talk after that, it will just be a part of our dancing lightly together because we will be in tune.

Yet the masses do not really want true and total freedom. With the majority being driven by the hidden agenda of the dependent and co-dependent Personality Type Six, they are forever looking for the next boss; the next strong spouse; the next "Parent player"; the next rescuer; the next controller; the next political leader; the indulgent, caretaker father or mother; the next rich (and hopefully-sick) uncle;

the next sponsor; the next life coach; the next commanding officer; the next guru; the next priest; the next rabbi; the next ayatollah or imam; the next holy guide; the next bully; or the next oppressor. Thus, what the masses are not looking for is self-reliance, independence, or total freedom. 

The task of the "non-dualist that is willing to point out the steps on the path" is to get you to the end of the path and then leave you to the business of abiding naturally and peacefully; to free you of the "learned ignorance" which you have been taught and to break the chains of the insanity which has been imposed upon you; to leave you alone to enjoy being freed of all workaholism (including religious and spiritual workaholism); and then to live naturally. 

But most do not want that. Because of their body and mind and personality identifications, they want someone else to protect them and to meet their needs for them and to guide them. They do not want to function as "An Adult" but prefer to function as "A Child" whose wants and desires and needs are being met by someone willing to assume "The Parent" role. 

Among the masses, the only difference in a six-year-old child and a  forty-year-old adult is the size of the body.

Therefore, convince persons identified with body and mind and personality that you can keep them safe and they will gladly forfeit their freedoms. Because body identification keeps persons in a constant state of fear or anxiety, then they will be driven by a desire to be rid of "the other," the ones who are different and not as good as and certainly dangerous and undeserving.

From that mindset, with its accompanying fears and anger, then they will become sociopaths and psychopaths. And who will they vote for as their leader? The one they most relate to and identify with, namely, the biggest sociopath and psychopath on the ticket: "He's just like me. He says in public what I have been saying for years in private. Do we all have to give up our freedoms in order to enable him to destroy 'them'? Sure, but that's a small price to pay for safety." 

One might wonder if those same types would set up a battery of bombs in each room of their home with a detonator in their bedroom so that, if a burglar breaks in to their house, they can set off the bombs and kill the burglar (along with themselves and their family and their home as well, of course). Crazy? Yes. Far removed from the way that the masses often operate? No. 

To be free of the influence of being driven by the subconscious agendas of the nine basic personality types which are driving all persons to one degree or another and which are subconsciously controlling the thoughts and words and actions of all persons, then one could join the many who have been served by taking a personality inventory and then going over the results in a one-hour session as offered here or elsewhere. 

Maharaj encouraged seekers to find out who you are not; to see what the effects of personality identifications are; to see how they run in the background of consciousness and interrupt your opportunity to function smoothly and efficiently (just like a program running in the background on your computer adversely affects performance); 

then start seeing when a personality has activated in the background; ask "WHO - what ego-state, what false identity - inspired me to think what I just thought, to say what I just said, or to do what I just did?"); and then 

stop . . . ,

pause . . . ,

and 

turn . . .

turn away from the influence of that false identity and all other false identities and their always-destructive tendencies. 

To be continued. 

Please enter into the silence of contemplation. 

[NOTE: The four most recent posts are below. You may access all of the posts in this series and in the previous series and several thousand other posts as well by clicking on the links in the "Recent Posts and Archives" section.] 

In addition to the five non-duality books made available without charge by Andy Gugar, Jr. (see “FREEBIES” above), you can now access nearly 3,000+ posts for any topics of interest to you.

NO END "PATHS"? A LIFE-LONG "JOURNEY" WHICH NEVER REACHES THE DESTINATION? A LIFETIME OF TREATMENT WITH NO CURE AT ALL? Sensible and Sane? Or Senseless and Insane? Part RR - A REVIEW OF "THE REASONS"

TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS

• There are specific "reasons" which cause persons to think obsessively and to behave compulsively 

• and which renders them unable to relax 

• and which lead them to be driven to go and do and zoom (whether that involves religion; spirituality; employment; "personal relationships"; politicking; reforming; rescuing; seeking love; seeking mass approval and applause and admiration; trying to escape responsibilities; accumulating; finding caretakers; or controlling). 

• We are looking at what causes the reasons to manifest 

• and what must happen in order to be freed from their influence. 

As we investigate the ways by which persons can be freed from being driven subconsciously by those "reasons," one way that has been mentioned is "seeing," specifically, "seeing differently" by witnessing all from a totally different perspective. 

In the Far East, there have been voices which spoke from the standpoint of the universal consciousness, such as "the later Maharaj," and there are a few of those voices which are speaking now in a variety of places which are often the last place that some might expect. 

For example, some have seen the irony of the fact that the back wall of a flat in Bombay where a non-dual teacher was offering a "you are not your body" message was also the back wall of a brothel which was operating on the adjacent street in a flat which butted up against Maharaj's apartment. The message being offered by his neighbors in that other flat was, "You are your body" and "I am my body." See? The non-dual message has often been offered in the unlikeliest of places. 

(As another example, remember the words of Andy Gugar, Jr. as he described what happened after he first discovered that I was offering satsanga in a house that was only a couple of hours drive from his home: "I began investigating this guy, wondering who he thought he was to be posting pointers about Advaita. He was not even from the Far East. Worse, my investigation uncovered the fact that this guy lived in Texas!")

That said, there is a third example of another seemingly unlikely place where the non-dual message is being offered, and it too is in Texas, specifically, in Austin, Texas.

As some are aware, only a few other than Maharaj are quoted here. One who has been quoted is Yeshu'a (called "Jesus" by those who do not know the name he was called during his lifetime), but none of his words which were rooted in his Jewish programming, conditioning, etc. are mentioned. 

What is shared on occasion, and in the book The Non-Dual Pointers Offered by Yeshu'a ("Jesus the Christ"), are the words he offered during the last few years of the manifestation when he was sharing certain Advaitin teachings. 

Presently, the only ordained minister that is quoted here is the pastor of the progressive church my daughter and her family attend on occasion, namely, Dr. Jim Rigby, because his messages often contain certain non-dual pointers. 

As we look for a different perspective in order to be free of living under the influence of the 68 "reasons" discussed in this series, we can look to Jim and some words he shared recently: 

"When we look around ourselves, we can recognize ourselves in the non-self elements, like a father looking at his children can see himself in his children . . . can see his continuation in his children. So he is not attached to the idea that his body is the only thing that is him. He's more than his body. He is inside of his body but he is also at the same time outside of his body in many elements. 

"And if we have the habit of looking like that, we will not be the victim of our attachment to one form of manifestation, and we will be free. And that freedom makes happiness and peace possible. Other than meditation, is there any specific practice that can help you come to this understanding? Yes. The Buddha advised us to bear in mind that everything is impermanent, that nothing has an absolute entity that remains the same. 

"And when we keep that insight in mind, we can see more deeply into the nature of reality, and we will not be locked in the notion that we are only this body. In fact, because nothing can be by itself alone, no one can be by himself or herself alone. Everyone has to inter-be with everyone else. That is why, when you look outside, around you, you can see yourself." 

See? Simple. A simple message of non-duality coming from the pulpit of a non-traditional church that is non-traditional because the messages offered there are non-traditional and often include - as did Yeshu'a's talks during his last years - a non-dual message as well. 

[Link to other Jim Rigby writings]

So, to continue: Persons obsess, act compulsively, are unable to relax, are fanatical, are driven by subconscious motives, and do whatever authority figures tell them to do - unquestioningly - because of reason #9: because of their obsession-driven pleasure-seeking and their escapism-driven avoidance and dissociation and detachment and evasion. 

The causes behind reason #9: 

PERSONALITY INFLUENCES, ESPECIALLY FROM TYPES ONE, FOUR, FIVE, SIX, SEVEN, AND NINE 

Of the nine basic personality types which all persons exhibit, Type One (The Perfectionist) most often displays the Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder; Type Four (The Romantic) can display a tendency to isolate or escape if not in touch with authenticity; Type Five (The Analyst, The Knower, The Knowledge Gatherer) can also isolate and retreat into her or his studies; 

the Type Six can try to escape the responsibilities of the relative existence by finding co-dependent caretakers or other persons or institutions or groups or organizations on whom or on which they can be dependent; the Type Seven can develop an Addictive Personality Disorder and can be into escapism; and the Type Nine can often retreat and isolate and withdraw as well. 

The reason that sages have long encouraged abandonment of all personality identification is because they have been aware of the impact of being driven by the subconscious agendas and fears and desires of personality, of false identities. 

Next, persons obsess, act compulsively, are unable to relax, are fanatical, are driven by subconscious motives, and do whatever authority figures tell them to do - unquestioningly - because of reason #10: persons' egotism-supported ego-states love the adulation that is heaped upon anyone who is supposedly being "The Super Seeker" or "The Deep and Wise and Philosophical One" or "The Great Ideologue" or "The Super Religious One" or "The Spiritual Giant." 

The causes behind reason #10: 

PERSONALITY IDENTIFICATION / EGO-STATES ASSIGNED AND ASSUMED / EGOTISM 

Those three have been explained earlier. 

Next, persons obsess, act compulsively, are unable to relax, are fanatical, are driven by subconscious motives, and do whatever authority figures tell them to do - unquestioningly - because of reason #11: the masses have lost the ability to choose whether or not to follow no end "paths"; have lost the ability to choose whether or not to engage in a life-long "journey" which never reaches the destination; and have lost the ability to choose whether or not to settle for a life-long treatment plan which offers no cure.

The causes behind reason #11: 

AGAIN, PERSONALITY IDENTIFICATION 

Each personality assigned or assumed operates on a subconscious level, not unlike the way that a program can be running in the background on your computer without your being aware of that fact at all. 

Because personality operates in the background of consciousness, and because personality determines every thought which persons think, every word which persons say, and every action which persons take, then their thoughts and words and actions are being controlled and determined by forces which they are not even aware of. 

When something that one is unaware of is controlling and determining what is thought and said and done, then there is no way that any conscious choices can be made; yet egotism will not allow any "non-realized" persons to admit that he or she is incapable of making conscious choices. 

To be free of such forces, persons must first become aware of such forces and then they must take the steps which are required to abandon all personal identifications if they would be free of the effects of reason #11 and the effects of the other 67 reasons which are unconsciously driving them as well.

To be continued. 

Please enter into the silence of contemplation. 

[NOTE: The four most recent posts are below. You may access all of the posts in this series and in the previous series and several thousand other posts as well by clicking on the links in the "Recent Posts and Archives" section.] 

In addition to the five non-duality books made available without charge by Andy Gugar, Jr. (see “FREEBIES” above), you can now access nearly 3,000+ posts for any topics of interest to you.

NO END "PATHS"? A LIFE-LONG "JOURNEY" WHICH NEVER REACHES THE DESTINATION? A LIFETIME OF TREATMENT WITH NO CURE AT ALL? Sensible and Sane? Or Senseless and Insane? Part QQ - A REVIEW OF "THE REASONS"

TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS 

• There are specific "reasons" which cause persons to think obsessively and to behave compulsively 

 • and which renders them unable to relax 

• and which lead them to be driven to go and do and zoom (whether that involves religion; spirituality; employment; "personal relationships"; politicking; reforming; rescuing; seeking love; seeking mass approval and applause and admiration; trying to escape responsibilities; accumulating; finding caretakers; or controlling). 

• We are looking at what causes those reasons to manifest 

• and what must happen in order to be freed from their influence. 

• Persons obsess, act compulsively, are unable to relax, are fanatical, are driven by subconscious motives, and do whatever authority figures tell them to do - unquestioningly - because of reason #5: persons willingly listen to - and believe - misguided and dishonest leaders. 

The causes behind reason #5: 

CONDITIONING / ACCULTURATION / INDOCTRINATION / BRAINWASHING 

To be free of being driven unconsciously by those forces requires understanding the forces, seeing how they work, being able to spot them in one's self when they activate, and turning away from their influence. 

Conditioning and acculturation and indoctrination have been discussed already. As for brainwashing, it has been defined online as "a process used to make someone adopt certain beliefs by using systematic and often forcible pressure" and "a process (also known as mind control, coercive persuasion, thought control, and re-programming or re-educating) which alters or controls the human mind through the use of certain psychological techniques." 

Persons also obsess, act compulsively, are unable to relax, are fanatical, are driven by subconscious motives, and unquestioningly do whatever authority figures tell them to do because of reason #6: they have become convinced that they have already "been given all truth" or "have been given a 'holy' book which contains all truth in a single volume" or "have found all truth" (but, for some reason, still seem to need life-long reinforcement of their beliefs based in that "truth" they think they already know). 

The causes behind reason #6: 

PERSONALITY IDENTIFICATION / EGO-STATES (BOTH ASSIGNED & ASSUMED) / EGOTISM 

Personality identification has already been discussed, but let's cover the "assigned and assumed" part": early on, the roles (the false identities) which children adopt are assigned by adults; later, as those children reach adulthood, they will be assuming other false identities on their own along with the ones which their culture continues to assign. 

As for "egotism," understand that the term "ego" (Lt., "I," the false personal "I") points to all of the false identities which persons assign or assume; that "ego-state" refers to the condition of being totally consumed by that role -and all roles - and allowing the hidden agendas and fears and desires of their false, "personal" identities to drive all thoughts and words and actions; and that "egotism" is one of many ego-defense mechanisms which persons used to maintain and support their false images and false identities. 

Persons also obsess, act compulsively, are unable to relax, are fanatical, are driven by subconscious motives, and unquestioningly do whatever authority figures tell them to do because of reason #7: humans' egotism-driven ego-states' are always desiring to be stroked and reinforced and held in high regard by their fellows who honor them for supposedly living a life of "great meaning and purpose." 

The causes behind reason #7? Also . . . 

PERSONALITY IDENTIFICATION / EGO-STATES ASSIGNED AND ASSUMED / EGOTISM

Persons also obsess, act compulsively, are unable to relax, are fanatical, are driven by subconscious motives, and unquestioningly do whatever authority figures tell them to do because of reason #8: the influence of their personality disorders. 

The causes behind reason #8: 

PERSONALITY IDENTIFICATIONS 

If there are no personality identifications, then there can be no personality disorders, and if there are no personality disorders, then there will be no disorders to disintegrate into what disorders disintegrate into: neuroses and psychoses. 

Once personality identifications are assigned or assumed, what causes personality disorders to follow? Programming, conditioning, etc. 

For example, if a child's parents are overly-focused on their image, then they will want the perfect child to reinforce their perfect image. They will reward what they suppose to be perfection and they will punish anything short of that. Years of programming and conditioning will continue as the parents' obsessiveness is forced onto their child or children. 

The result: the manifestation of the Perfectionistic Personality Disorder in the child (which will also cause the Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder to manifest along with the Narcissistic Personality Disorder, not to mentioned a serious, often life-long case of anger which - when repressed - triggers depression).

A child so programmed will become rigid, inflexible, and anal, and anyone who enters into a relationship with that type as an adult and then tries to "make that type happy" will be totally unsuccessful and will thus be frustrated and miserable, constantly confronted with the mate's suppressed anger and resultant depression and O-CD nature). 

All of that as a result of one of hundreds of preoccupations which parents with their own disorders pass along to their offspring. How to be free of that? 

Understand that there is no personal identification for anyone. Humans, like other living things, are three-part composite unities: there's an elemental plant food body which is circulating air and which is circulating conscious-energy. 

There is no continuity of that composite, much less any continuity of personal identities. The parts of an elemental plant food body are forever cycling. Skin cells are totally replaced every 10 to 30 days with 28 being typical; the cells making up the stomach are replaced every 2 to 9 days; the cells of the small intestines are replaced ever 2 to 4 days; the cells of which the cervix is comprised are replaced every 6 days; the lungs, every 8 days, etc., etc., etc.

(As a side note, why is what one eats significant? Fat cells last . . . 8 years.)

Consider that there is no continuity of body now, so there will most assuredly be no surviving body later (even of a gauzy, transparent, or invisible version which is half person and half bird). And so much for the distortion that "you" have been around for 30 years, or 40 years, or whatever; understand the above and you will understand that there is no you. 

So what is there in this regard? There is a temporarily-manifested, constantly-changing conglomeration of elements and various forms of energy. In additional to the physical, elemental, ever-coming-and-going body, the air is forever cycling in and out of the body and so is the conscious-energy. 

One eats regularly in order to provide constantly a new source not only of replacement cells but also a new supply of conscious-energy. Stop eating and you will "lose consciousness." Drink water but stop eating and the composite unity might last 55 to 60 days, but around that point, it will stop functioning completely. 

See? No person. No personhood. That is why nothing can actually be taken personally, but also why much is taken persona-lly because of the nonsense-filled mind and the plethora of false identities which are assigned and assumed and stored therein.

To be continued. 

Please enter into the silence of contemplation. 

[NOTE: The four most recent posts are below. You may access all of the posts in this series and in the previous series and several thousand other posts as well by clicking on the links in the "Recent Posts and Archives" section.] In addition to the five non-duality books made available without charge by Andy Gugar, Jr. (see “FREEBIES” above), you can now access nearly 3,000+ posts for any topics of interest to you.

NO END "PATHS"? A LIFE-LONG "JOURNEY" WHICH NEVER REACHES THE DESTINATION? A LIFETIME OF TREATMENT WITH NO CURE AT ALL? Sensible and Sane? Or Senseless and Insane? Part PP - A REVIEW OF "THE REASONS"

TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS

THE RATIONALE FOR UNDERSTANDING "THE REASONS" AND BEING FREED FROM THEIR INFLUENCE, PART THREE 

There is a major irony involved with (1) those persons who are deemed by their cultures to be "rotten to the core" and "absolutely horrible" vs. (2) those persons who are deemed by their cultures to be "wonderful" and "pure" or "a great Christian / Jew / Muslim / etc." or a "genuinely-exceptional spiritual person": 

Actually, they all display the exact same traits. 

In many communities around the globe, there are successful leaders of organized crime operations who are managing large pools of employees and who have expanded their businesses to include trafficking in humans; making money from the acquisition and sale of illicit goods; selling weapons and arms; 

handling the manufacture and shipment and distribution of drugs; planning armed robberies and white collar crimes; dealing in counterfeiting and money laundering; running protection rackets and shaking down business people; and offering murder for hire and well as being involved in a wide range of other criminal activities. They are making millions and billions of dollars each year. 

Also in those same communities are other business people who are deemed to be champions of capitalism; running their operations successfully; hiring large pools of employees; formulating short-term and long-term business plans; making friends with influential politicians and decision-makers in their community; and making millions and billions of dollars annually. 

In the state where I was raised, we watched Carlos Marcello run a financial empire for decades; we also watched "respected persons in the community who were running supposedly legitimate financial empires." 

Some of the people running large, successful businesses or vast financial empires were deemed to be "evil people" while other business persons were deemed to be "really good people," but both types displayed the same egotism-supported ego-states; both types displayed a plethora of personality disorders; 

both types displayed high levels of drive and energy and a willingness to work and do whatever was required to succeed; both types were obvious pleasure-seekers; both types were often in church on Sunday mornings because they wanted Power as well as power to help them achieve their goals; both types wanted eternal continuity of the manifest consciousness; both types had an unchecked and unfettered desire to control; 

both types believed in "the other" (which they were taught from early on to fear and hate); both types displayed an excess of arrogance and a sense of superiority and a certain cocksureness and even a special way of walking which said, "I've got it, and you don't"; and both types believed that they were awake when they were actually totally asleep. 

 Go down the list of "reasons" which drive the masses to behave the way they do in regards to their seeking and you'll find the same "reasons" or "causes" behind everything else that persons are seeking, be it knowledge, wealth, love, fame, respect, control, power, an unlimited accumulation of "stuff," whatever. 

Maharaj noted that no one visited the loft and actually understood the message offered there unless she or he had transitioned beyond a belief in either sin or virtue. Until that is understood, most will live a Goldilocks-type existence, always wanting things and people to be perfect - to be "just right" - and, therefore, always wanting what they do not have (and will never have). 

For a time, they might hate the ass they are with and wish for a saint, until they get the saint. Some of you know that one woman and her children explained that after their husband / father celebrated his 365th day in the recovery program which had supposedly molded him into a spiritual giant, his family members found that "the jerk" they had lived with in the past was more tolerable than the newly-minted "holy being and glorified soul" they were now dealing with.

The fact: it matters not whether one is playing a "good" role or a "bad" role, the same traits and driving forces will be at play in the mind of each; thus, the "reasons" or causes being discussed here and which are pleading to be understood are the same traits which are driving both "The Good One," "The Super Religious One," The Spiritual Giant" and "The Super Seeker" as well as "The Mob Boss," "The Wicked Criminal," "The Malicious Magnate," and "The Evil Tycoon." 

The wise see that the "reasons" which are behind whatever thoughts or words or actions which persons believe are making them "good" or "better" or even "great" are the same "reasons" or causes which are behind whatever humans do which makes them or others conclude that they are "worse" or "bad" or "awful." 

In September, it will have been seventy years since the one called "floyd" was supposedly "born." Those years have provided more than ample opportunity to witness time and again that the thoughts and words and actions of both "the sinner" and "the virtuous one" are equally repugnant, and Maharaj had no respect for either. 

Both types will always show, at one time or another or in one way or another, evidence of the presence of the "reasons" outlined in this series which generate ignorant and insane thoughts and words and actions, and the invitation to seekers is to expand the understanding beyond what locks persons onto endless "paths" or "journeys" and see that those same influences lock them into the Ultimate Sickness. 

These "reasons" do not only identify what is driving seekers but also identify what is driving the masses, seekers or not. These are the mental and emotional and psychological forces which are driving all "non-realized persons" and which are begging to be addressed if one would be free and at peace and able to function from a state of being awake and aware and conscious rather than moving through the relative existence in the typical and commonplace sleep-walking, sleep-talking fashion. 

Tomorrow, reason #5 and others will be discussed. 

To be continued. 

Please enter into the silence of contemplation. 

[NOTE: The four most recent posts are below. You may access all of the posts in this series and in the previous series and several thousand other posts as well by clicking on the links in the "Recent Posts and Archives" section.] 

In addition to the five non-duality books made available without charge by Andy Gugar, Jr. (see “FREEBIES” above), you can now access nearly 3,000+ posts for any topics of interest to you.

NO END "PATHS"? A LIFE-LONG "JOURNEY" WHICH NEVER REACHES THE DESTINATION? A LIFETIME OF TREATMENT WITH NO CURE AT ALL? Sensible and Sane? Or Senseless and Insane? Part OO - A REVIEW OF "THE REASONS"

TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS 

Today we continue to move through an analysis of "the reasons" which drive persons to behave obsessively and compulsively and renders them unable to relax and leads them to be driven instead to go and do and zoom, whether that going and doing and zooming involves religious and / or spiritual workaholism; 

or their jobs; or their "relationships" (or their seeking a relationship); or their politicking; or their hobbies or recreation; or their efforts to reform the world; or their efforts to rescue others in order to try to get others to give them the love they did not receive from their parents; 

or perform in public - forever putting on a show, with a hope that can get mass approval and applause and admiration; or trying to escape the relatives and the responsibilities of the AM-ness; or accumulating knowledge; or finding organizations of people to take care of them; or controlling; or avoiding; or dissociating. 

The analyses will also look at what causes the reasons to manifest and what must happen in order to be freed from their usually-subconscious influence. 

Reason #3 also drives persons to behave obsessively and compulsively and renders them unable to relax and leads them to be driven instead to go and do and zoom and follow "paths" devotedly and faithfully and fervently and fanatically, though they never consciously chose the path at all or chose to end up where they are. That all happens because of reason #3: they have been lulled into a sleep state while thinking that they are awake and erroneously believing that are choosing to do what they are doing. The causes: 

CONDITIONING and ACCULTURATION 

This is offered online: "In behavioral psychology, conditioning points to the fact that a person's or animal's reaction (a 'response') to some object or event (a 'stimulus') can be modified by 'learning' or by use of a repetitive training process" 

and 

"Conditioning refers to a behavioral process whereby a response becomes more frequent or more predictable in a given environment as a result of reinforcement, with reinforcement typically being a stimulus or reward for a desired response." 

The following was first shared on the site in October of 2010: 

Conditioning involves "associating a response with a previously unrelated stimulus" and "repeated use of a specific stimulus in order to create a predictable and controlled response." 

The Russian Pavlov first noted the way that conditioning worked when a stimulus was controlling responses among his dogs. He began his experiments that established the validity of his theories about conditioning that have been described thusly: 

The original and most famous example of classical conditioning involved the salivary conditioning of Pavlov's dogs. During his research on the physiology of digestion in dogs, Pavlov noticed that, rather than simply salivating in the presence of meat powder, his dogs began to salivate in the presence of the lab technician who normally fed them. 

From this observation he predicted that, if a particular stimulus in the dog's surroundings were present when the dog was presented with meat powder, then this stimulus would become associated with food and cause salivation on its own. In his initial experiment, Pavlov used a bell to call the dogs to their food and, after a few repetitions, the dogs started to salivate in response to the bell. 

Note that conditioning displaces that which is nisarga - natural - with unnatural behaviors. (Among persons, conditioning can also replace that which is natural with that which is thought to be supernatural, that is, spiritual or magical or metaphysical, separating them even more from that which is natural and real). 

It is among persons that conditioning results in misery and suffering for it is conditioning that leads to the ignorance of taking appearance for Reality, and such ignorance will always lead (as Maharaj noted) to calamities in the relative existence. Conditioning can lead persons to see the intolerable as tolerable, encouraging a tolerance of pain (which is physical) and / or misery (which is mental and emotional). 

Acculturation is the process of changing psychologically as a result of adopting the ways and beliefs and thinking patterns of the surrounding culture in which one lives.

An example of the results of acculturation has been discussed here in the case of Dylann Roof: 

On the evening of June 17, 2015, in Charleston, South Carolina, a white 21-year-old male named Dylann Roof entered a church with a mostly black congregation and sat with some members for about an hour during a bible study session. Afterwards, Roof drew a gun and stated that he was going to shot everyone there. 

Twenty-six-year-old Tywanza Sanders asked Roof why he was attacking churchgoers and he responded, "I have to do it. You rape our women and you're taking over our country. And you have to go." When Roof aimed to shoot Sanders’ aunt, he dove in front of her and became the first to be shot. Roof shouted racial epithets as he shot the others. 

One image from Roof's Facebook page shows him wearing a jacket decorated with two emblems that are popular among American white supremacists: the flags of the former Rhodesia (Zimbabwe now) and apartheid-era South Africa (which was being run by a white separatist minority government which was supported by U.S. President Ronald Reagan who fought all efforts by Nelson Mandela and others to establish a democracy). 

Roof’s website includes a “manifesto” which includes a racist diatribe about "Blacks," "Jews," "Hispanics" and "East Asians” as well as photos showing an image of Roof posing with a handgun and a Confederate Battle Flag first used 150 years ago by a confederacy of Southern states who were trying to overthrown the U.S. Government in order to preserve the institution of slavery. 

(These are the same Southerners - playing the role of "The Greatest Patriots in the U.S." - who would go to war immediately with anyone displaying an ISIS flag which is flown by another confederacy that also wants to overthrown the U.S. Government). 

The website of the Council of Conservative Citizens was cited by Roof as a source for his radicalization. The group's president, Earl Holt III, stated that the group's website "accurately and honestly report[s] black-on-white violent crime.” 

The Council of Conservative Citizens, founded in 1988 in Atlanta, Georgia and then relocated to St. Louis, Missouri, is an American political organization which supports a variety of conservative causes as well as white nationalism and white separation and the concept of white supremacy. 

Its "Statement of Principles" says that they "oppose all efforts to mix the races of mankind." Several members of the Board of Directors are former leaders of the segregationist Citizens' Councils of America which was commonly referred to as the White Citizens’ Council which was a network of white supremacist organizations first formed in 1954 in the United States and concentrated in the South. Their aim was to stop the implementation of a Supreme Court ruling authorizing school desegregation and to fight all efforts at integration and to halt the civil rights movement completely. 

They have long been identified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, but that has not stopped many right-wing, mostly Republican politicians on the national and state and local levels from aligning with them and taking contributions from the group beginning in 1988 and continuing right up to the present. Their supporters in the U.S. Government even worked to attain tax-exempt status for them, so the group has never had to pay the federal taxes which are due from any partisan group. 

The group is still actively supporting "social and morally conservative candidates," giving political donations to many of Republican candidates for the office of President of the United States including, among others, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Rick Santorum and, recently, Donald Trump (all of whom have received significant financial support from the group). 

How do persons shift so drastically from being loving initially to being filled with hate? Children arrive with a "blank tablet," that is, with a no-mind brain. The brain provides an example of the way that consciousness functions automatically and spontaneously: it makes certain that the heart is pumping blood, that the lungs are circulating air, that plant cells are being converted into human cells, allowing a child to grow, etc. 

At some point, the children will be taught words and then concepts and beliefs which will be stored in the parts of the brain which form "the mind" and which allow information to be filed away and later retrieved. Prior to programming, conditioning, domestication, acculturation, brainwashing, and indoctrination, children are race neutral . . . are color impartial . . . are bias-free. 

In the high school my daughter attended, she had classmates from over 60 different countries, so she had many friends from the Far East and from Central American, from Western and Eastern Europe, and from the Middle East along with those whose parents were African-American or Hispanic. 

My Cherokee grandmother passed along her understanding of the unicity to my father, and he modeled for me the race neutrality and color impartiality and bias-free understanding which he and I both received from grandmother. 

As for my daughter, the message from her Cherokee great-grandmother was eventually passed along to a third generation. Friends and neighbors and associates from the workplace representing a host of racial backgrounds were welcomed into her childhood home; thus, my daughter was not affected by the typical Texas culture which is often class consciousness and often racially-bigoted. 

Had she been raised in the same culture as Dylann Roof, the outcome would likely have been quite different. Such is the "power" of acculturation. Instead, this has been the outcome: my granddaughter has a "godmother" who moved to the States from Eastern Europe; moreover, she regularly plays with children of all races and economic levels. She is (as all children are initially) race neutral, color impartial and bias-free. But in Roof's culture, most children are taught by word and example to be the exact opposite. 

Thus are the effects of conditioning and acculturation. As we move through the discussion of the other "reasons," it will be seen that the effects of conditioning and acculturation show up time and again. 

To be free of being driven unconsciously by those forces requires understanding the forces, seeing how they work, being able to spot them in one's self when they activate, and turning away from their influence.

Reason #4 also drives persons to behave obsessively and compulsively and renders them unable to relax and leads them to be driven instead to go and do and zoom and follow "paths" devotedly and faithfully and fervently and fanatically, though they never consciously chose the path at all or chose to end up where they are. Reason #4 is because they have been misinformed by authority figures but remain loyal to those authorities and their teachings anyway. The causes: 

INDOCTRINATION / PERSONALITY IDENTIFICATION (ESPECIALLY PERSONALITY TYPE SIX) 

Indoctrination is a tool used by authority figures. It is the process of teaching a person or group to develop uncritical, unquestioning, obedient minds so that they will accept a set of beliefs based in nothing more than blind faith. 

Once the Disciples of Christ pastor Jim Jones had completely indoctrinated the typically-ignorant members of his cult, then there was no questioning of their pastor's order when parents were told to give three hundred of their children a Kool-Aid-like drink which was laced with cyanide poison. Nor was there any questioning of their pastor's order for them to drink the same concoction as well. 

Nine hundred and eighteen of the pastor's followers and their children died that day. Some say they died from cyanide poisoning. The wise understand that they died from the indoctrination which robbed them of the ability to question and replaced it with blind faith. How insane can persons become via indoctrination? Completely. 

Of the nine basic personality types which persons all have to one degree or another, fifty percent of all persons have the Personality Type Six as their primary type (and, therefore, as their primary driver which will determine their thoughts and words and actions). 

That type will lead them to be loyal to authority and to never question orders from an authority; to be dependent and co-dependent and therefore willing to "serve their country" and willing to kill for their country and to die for their country; to be fear-based and paranoid and to enter into occupations which allow them to be armed. 

(Sixes are especially drawn to jobs in the military and / or police, to join armed gangs, to join security or black ops forces, to be security guards, or to align themselves with any person who will - or any organization which will - take care of them and be a steady source of food, clothing, and shelter in order to satisfy their perceived needs which are rooted in their body identification.) 

Therefore, fifty percent of all persons on the planet are set up to be driven by reason#4 and are susceptible to being misinformed by authority figures but still remain loyal to those authorities and their teachings anyway. 

To be free of being driven unconsciously by those forces requires understanding the forces, seeing how they work, being able to spot them in one's self when they activate, and turning away from their influence.

To be continued. 

Please enter into the silence of contemplation. 

[NOTE: The four most recent posts are below. You may access all of the posts in this series and in the previous series and several thousand other posts as well by clicking on the links in the "Recent Posts and Archives" section.] 

In addition to the five non-duality books made available without charge by Andy Gugar, Jr. (see “FREEBIES” above), you can now access nearly 3,000+ posts for any topics of interest to you.

NO END "PATHS"? A LIFE-LONG "JOURNEY" WHICH NEVER REACHES THE DESTINATION? A LIFETIME OF TREATMENT WITH NO CURE AT ALL? Sensible and Sane? Or Senseless and Insane? Part NN - A REVIEW OF "THE REASONS"

TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS 

 So today we begin to move through an analysis of "the reasons" why persons are driven to behave obsessively and compulsively and how those reasons have rendered them unable to relax and how it leads them to be driven instead to go and do and zoom, whether that going and doing and zooming involves religious and / or spiritual workaholism; 

or their jobs; or their "relationships" (or their seeking a relationship); or their politicking; or their hobbies or recreation; or their efforts to reform the world; or their efforts to rescue others in order to try to get others to give them the love they did not receive as a child from their parents; 

or perform in public, forever putting on a show with a hope that they can get mass approval and applause and admiration; or trying to escape the challenges and the responsibilities of the AM-ness; or accumulating knowledge; or finding organizations or people to take care of them; or controlling; or avoiding; or dissociating. 

The analysis will also look at what causes the reasons to manifest and what must happen in order to be freed from their subconscious influence. 

Reason # 1 was reviewed earlier, so now we'll look at reason #2 which drives persons to behave obsessively and compulsively and renders them unable to relax and leads them to be driven instead to go and do and zoom and to follow "paths" devotedly and faithfully and fervently and fanatically, though they never consciously chose the path at all or chose to end up where they presently are in their lives. That all happens because of reason #2, parental modeling. 

DOMESTICATION 

While the term "domestication" often refers to the early interaction between animals and humans and the process by which wild animals have been suppressed and "tamed" in order to provide some real or imaginary benefits, the term also applies to the process by which humans / parents "tame" and sculpt and shape and mold and fashion their offspring. 

This definition is offered online: "Domestication is a sustained multi-generational relationship in which one group of organisms assumes a significant degree of influence over the reproduction and care of another group to secure a more predictable supply of resources from that second group." 

Now, biologists and anthropologists have long noted what they call the "negative effects" which domestication has on the animals being domesticated by humans (rendering them weaker, smaller, dependent, more vulnerable to illnesses and diseases, stressed as a result of losing their freedom to go where they want to go and being unable to behave naturally and being limited and restricted as result of being confined in or on their masters' property;

however, little attention is paid to the fact that those very same effects manifest in the children of adults who begin domesticating their offspring from early on. 

Anna Brix Thomsen said: "From the moment a child is born, it is expected to assimilate to the culture and society surrounding it, to make its norms and traditions its own. It is a war with the goal to break down the child until it surrenders its natural instincts and accepts its domestication. 

"This process is unnatural and not without bloodshed. Screaming, conflicts and violence ensues when the child tries to fight tooth and nail to express itself in a way that comes natural to it and not succumb to the unnatural assimilation process. 

"It almost never works. And when it does, the child is labeled with one of the increasingly pervasive diagnoses that we hide behind to not have to take responsibility for our creation; the invention of a society and a culture that breaks down life before it had even had a chance to grow. We call it ADD, ADHD, hyperactive disorder, child depression or simply: ‘bad seeds’. The child innocently asks: “But why?” The parents response? “Because that’s just the way it is. Get with the program.” 

In Texas, a person prosecuted for what is defined as "animal cruelty" will face penalties including monetary fines or jail or both, but the law only applies to domesticated animals. Animals in the wild? "Rip 'em up good, Bro." 

Yet in cities and states and nations all around the globe, children suffer from mental and physical and emotional and even lethal forms of cruelty which is heaped upon them if they rebel and resist the domestication efforts of the adults they are forced to deal with, and that happens without any penalty to the abusers at all. In fact, it is all normalized and praised when parents "whip their children into shape."

Maharaj said, "Facts are real. I live among them. But you live with fancies, not with facts. Facts never clash, while your life and 'world' are full of contradictions. Contradiction is the mark of the false; the real never contradicts itself," and he made clear that it the job of the non-dual teacher to make clear to seekers the contradictions which dominate the programmed mind and guide them to being free from all contradiction.

Nothing is more contradictory and at odds than (a) the natural manner of abidance which worked for human-like beings for millions of years vs. (B) the unnatural and supernatural (religious, spiritual) manner of abidance which is forced on persons who have no choice or say at all about what is done to them by way of the domestication process.

As we move through the discussion of the other "reasons," it will be seen that the effects of human-on-human domestication will show up time and again. 

To be continued. 

Please enter into the silence of contemplation. 

[NOTE: The four most recent posts are below. You may access all of the posts in this series and in the previous series and several thousand other posts as well by clicking on the links in the "Recent Posts and Archives" section.] 

In addition to the five non-duality books made available without charge by Andy Gugar, Jr. (see “FREEBIES” above), you can now access nearly 3,000+ posts for any topics of interest to you.

NO END "PATHS"? A LIFE-LONG "JOURNEY" WHICH NEVER REACHES THE DESTINATION? A LIFETIME OF TREATMENT WITH NO CURE AT ALL? Sensible and Sane? Or Senseless and Insane? Part MM - A REVIEW OF "THE REASONS"

TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS

THE RATIONALE FOR UNDERSTANDING "THE REASONS" AND BEING FREED FROM THEIR INFLUENCE, PART TWO 

It was noted yesterday that, in the final days of this series, we'll look at "the reasons" which explain why humans prefer the complex over the simple and why they become willing to do what they are told, become willing to follow whatever "path" they are put on as if they are some kind of wind-up toy car; 

become willing to do what they do in a blind and unquestioning manner; and become willing to do that for as long as they live rather than march to the beat of a different drummer. 

It was also noted that we would find the root or roots of each reason and then find how to stop being driven subconsciously by those ignorance-and-insanity-based roots. 

More relevant, however, is understanding that the reason that persons are driven to behave in the manner described above is also the reason that humans are not at peace; cannot relax and do not want to; are attached to going and doing and zooming; are miserable without having a clue in many cases that they are miserable; are suffering without having a clue in many cases that they are suffering; or know that they are miserable and suffering but have never been shown an alternative way to address the core causes, "the core reasons."

Also more relevant is the understanding that none of the reasons which are driving humans in the one area of their lives discussed in this series (i.e., incessant seeking) is also driving them in all areas of their lives: work, "relationships," politicking, recreation, reforming the world, seeking love, performing with a hope that admiration will come, trying to escape, accumulating knowledge, finding caretakers, controlling, avoiding, and dissociating. 

None of the effects of the reasons discussed can be compartmentalized. If they are driving persons to behave obsessively and compulsively in one area - the area which involves excessive and endless seeking and being a super religious person and / or being a spiritual giant - then they will drive persons to behave obsessively and compulsively in all areas of their lives. 

Moreover, in order to stop being driven by subconscious forces (that is, by "the reasons" which are unconsciously motivating, influencing and controlling thoughts and words and actions and which are rooted in ignorance and insanity, even as persons are sure that they are smart and that everyone else might be crazy but that they most certainly are not insane at all) then the reasons must be seen in toto. 

That is, they must be witnessed from long range and one must see what they all have common overall. It is necessary to what is required to realize (that is, to be freed from being driving subconsciously by learned ignorance and by the hidden agendas of body and mind and personality identifications) and to understand what can "work" and what cannot "work" in the effort to address humanity's real problems at their core. 

It took Maharaj considerable experimentation with various forms of the Ultimate Medicine before he found a version that has the potential to address humanity's real problems:

Initially he tried a Hindu / non-dual version but came to see that it failed to address the Ultimate Sickness; then, being influenced by a wave of Westerners who found their way to the loft, he tried a spirituality / non-dual version but came to see that it also failed to address the Ultimate Sickness; 

eventually, he came to understand that the Ultimate Sickness is not a "too-little dogma illness" nor a "spiritual malady" but is a mental sickness, a mind illness. He came to understand that a psychology / non-dual version of the Ultimate Medicine was being called for. 

Last Sunday, I listened to a man in Austin, Texas who understands that as well, and he explained clearly to those in his congregation what Maharaj came to understand as well. 

Note: "In his congregation?! You were in a congregation?!" Yep. A couple of people who heard about that were shocked, asking what could possibly convince me to once more enter a church. The simple answer: a daughter and a granddaughter. 

A month ago when my daughter invited me to her daughter's baptism, she said, "I know this is not your thing, but I wanted to invite you anyway, just in case." I answered that, of course, I would be there and that the fact that Dr. Jim Rigby would be delivering a sermon made it all the easier to attend. 

Those who have been visiting this site since at least September of 2015 have heard of Dr. Rigby and have read some of his words which I shared on the 8th of that month because his words are steeped in non-duality, combined with a healthy dose of psychology to boot. As was the case in Maharaj's post-religion, post-spirituality talks, one can also hear the universal consciousness speaking through Jim Rigby.

(That results in the same type of message Maharaj eventually offered, and the case here parallels that of Maharaj. Here, early on, religion and spirituality were offered alongside non-dual pointers, and - as was the case with Maharaj - the long-term results for seekers was nil.) 

Last Sunday, Jim Rigby was true to form, offering an alternate view to those who have been taught the typical concept of God which is offered in most churches and temples and synagogues and wherever else the members of various sky cults meet. He talked about the kind of mind-distorting nonsense which comes when persons are taught to believe in the widely-held concept of a "capricious God who supposedly loves unconditionally but is simultaneously willing to torture forever." 

He also focused on the effects that characterization has on the minds of both children and adults and noted how the mind which buys into the concept of a self-contradictory God can have adverse effects on believers for a lifetime (offering examples of the long-lasting mental effects and ramifications of believing in that concept, some of which are currently being played out on the national level as well as on state and local levels all across the U.S.)

I shared with him afterwards that, had I heard that sermon when I was six, I might have avoided considerable misery and suffering and would certainly have been able to avoid the long and arduous path I had to follow to finally become free of all of the residual effects of that insane religious programming and conditioning and indoctrination. 

So what must be witnessed from long range and what must be seen in terms of what works and what does not work? 

Per both Maharaj and Dr. Rigby as well as via the message offered here, the "ideal" would be to avoid the bastardization of the mind. Since children - and, later, adults - have no say-so in that regard, such avoidance is not likely to happen among the masses; therefore, what "works second best" is being freed from continuing to live under the influence of a bastardized mind. 

As we begin tomorrow to move through the discussion of "the reasons" and see what causes them and what must happen in order to be freed from their usually-subconscious influence (which manifests in all areas of humans' lives), it may become clear why the wise recommend a psychological / non-dual version of the Ultimate Medicine to treat what ails humanity. 

Dogma and spirituality have had at least 5000 years to solve the problem and have failed miserably. Why not try something else for a change and see if it might prove to be more viable?

FOR THOSE THAT MIGHT BE INTERESTED: 

The 8 September 2015 post alluded to above

and 

a link to some of Jim Rigby's writings.

To be continued. 

Please enter into the silence of contemplation. 

[NOTE: The four most recent posts are below. You may access all of the posts in this series and in the previous series and several thousand other posts as well by clicking on the links in the "Recent Posts and Archives" section.] 

In addition to the five non-duality books made available without charge by Andy Gugar, Jr. (see “FREEBIES” above), you can now access nearly 3,000+ posts for any topics of interest to you.

NO END "PATHS"? A LIFE-LONG "JOURNEY" WHICH NEVER REACHES THE DESTINATION? A LIFETIME OF TREATMENT WITH NO CURE AT ALL? Sensible and Sane? Or Senseless and Insane? Part LL - A REVIEW OF "THE REASONS"

TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS

THE RATIONALE FOR UNDERSTANDING "THE REASONS" AND BEING FREED FROM THEIR INFLUENCE, PART ONE

At the beginning of this series, it was noted how often Maharaj declared that this deal is so simple, that "realizing" is a simple process because it requires neither adding anything nor accumulating more knowledge nor going to any place deemed to be "special" or "different" or "holy" (which also means "different from");

thus, as Maharaj said, Realization is simple because all you are doing is discarding all of the learned ignorance which you have been taught from early on (much of it by way of "reason #1" in this series): 

1. because they have all been programmed, conditioned, domesticated, acculturated, indoctrinated and brainwashed. 

So, yes, it is a simple process to be free of the effects of (A) having been programmed, conditioned, domesticated, acculturated, indoctrinated and brainwashed and free of the effects of (B) body and mind and personality identifications and free of the effects of (C) the ego-defense mechanisms which are used to support false identities - mechanisms such as egotism (and its partners grandiosity and excessiveness), denial, projection, blame, justification and rationalization, victimization, and many others). 

The process simply involves seeing - and seeing clearly, for a change - which provides an alternate perspective from the one that was taught. 

When my daughter was fourteen, she and I spent several weeks traveling through the Four Corners area of the U.S. Along the way, she saw something she had never seen before: the Grand Canyon. She only had to see it one time to be able to recognize it forever. She does not have to take a refresher course in geography to understand what the Grand Canyon looks like. 

She does not have to join a travel club and go to daily meetings and talk about the Grand Canyon and read and study books about the Grand Canyon. She does not have to listen to taped talks from so-called "experts" on the Grand Canyon. She does not have to watch slide shows presented by people in the group who have been there. She does not have to stand before the group and describe how emotionally-intoxicated she was in the past when she had a pink-cloud experience the first time she saw the Grand Canyon. 

She has not longed to repeat that experience and has not been driven to go to the Grand Canyon every day in order to "feel good." She does not have to listen to other people share their experience and listen to them drone on and on about when they first saw the Grand Canyon, and she does not have to share the same on a daily basis for as long as she lives. She saw the friggin' Grand Canyon. End of story. 

Now, she is not driven to revisit it to understand exactly what it looks like and how it came to be a canyon in the first place. She saw the Grand Canyon. She understands the Grand Canyon. She can recognize it every time she sees it or looks at pictures of it. Again, end of the dang story. 

For a fourteen-year-old, was it magnificent when she experienced it first hand? Yes. Did she respond emotionally? You bet. But does she have to rely on it now to try to feel magnificent and "emotionally-up" throughout the day? No. She's okay just being. She does not have to seek emotional highs. She does not have to feel magnificent all day long. 

Many with even a tiny flash of clarity would leave that Grand Canyon group because they finally reach a point where it dawns on them: "Okay. We get it. You experienced something Grand. It made you feel grand. In fact, you think because you experienced something Grand that, now, you not only feel grand but you think you are Grand. If that were truly the case, then why aren't you able to shut up about how grand you are and just go live a normal, natural life? Please!" 

By contrast, for those functioning with duality-based perceptions, the AM-ness can be like a roller coaster ride with really high highs and really low lows; that is, it can be chaotic. Remember that once Christ had been exposed to pointers rooted in non-duality, he said, "A dual-minded person will be unstable in all ways." 

So what's required for realizing in the simplest manner possible? Seeing the roots of duality and understanding those roots and seeing what it looks like and then turning away from it every time when you recognize it. To see the effects and results of the roots of duality is to be done them. Eventually, you will turn away from all nonsense and never go back again. 

In this series it has been asked, 

"So why do humans continue to prefer the complex over the simple?" 

and 

"Why do humans become willing to do what they are told, become willing to follow whatever "path" they are put on as if they are some kind of wind-up toy car; become willing to do what they do in a blind and unquestioning manner, and become willing to do that for as long as they live rather than march to the beat of a different drummer?" 

Put another way, the questions might be phrased thusly:

"Why do humans live as if they must drag along a 16-foot burlap bag with a strap hanging over one shoulder and must put each rock they come across into the bag?"

and 

"Why, once their 16-foot bag is full of heavy rocks, do they continue to drag it along with them all day long, throughout every week of every month and every year?" 

Seven years ago, this was shared in a discussion about 

HOW THE LIGHTNESS OF BEING IS BLOCKED WHEN YOU CARRY ALL OF YOUR PROGRAMMERS ON YOUR BACK 

My father was raised on a farm in East Texas where the crops they grew were used to feed a very large family while any surplus was sold to buy other essentials. In 1928, at the age of twelve, my father sought employment after his father died from a ruptured appendix. It became dad's responsibility to earn money for the family in July and August by picking cotton by hand. 

At harvest time, he found work on some of the small, rural cotton farms in East Texas and in West Louisiana where he hand-picked cotton from daylight to dark for a few cents total in order to earn some of the money needed for Grandmother's large family to survive. Even to stand in a field in East Texas during those two months (when heat indexes often reach 110°F) can seem debilitating. Imagine working in such temperatures. 

The breeze-less mornings were still tolerable since the body had rested overnight, since the temperature at 6 A.M. was generally around 80°F, and since the burlap sack being dragged along - soon to be stuffed full of cotton balls - was empty at that point. (Pre-teens used a smaller "toe sack," some average-sized teens used a "three-footer" or a "five-footer." A few of the physically-larger ones used an "eight-footer" or a "nine-footer.")

Dad, being very large for his age and being especially strong, followed the example of the hardest-working hands - usually African-Americans or Hispanics trucked north from the Mexico border - and used two "eight-footers" sewn together.) 

Whereas the younger children picked one row at a time, dad joined the adult African-Americans and a few adult Hispanics who picked three rows at a time, straddling the center row and picking it as well as the rows to either side. From early in the morning until late at night, pickers were bent at the waist. 

To take too long a break by standing erect and leaning backwards and trying to coax the muscles into relaxing would draw the wrath of the field foreman. The assignment was to bend over at the waist; pull cotton balls from the plants; ignore the fact that your hands were bleeding all day long because the plant's sharp prongs on the hull around each cotton ball cut like razors; 

stuff the cotton into the sack; and pull along behind you a sack that by day's end could weigh up to 700 pounds; tolerate the pain of carrying all of the weight along as it put more and more pressure on your back; and then start the entire process over again the next morning after a few hours of sleep. 

Imagine how miserable the persons must have felt who toiled in 95°F to 100°F temperatures in a shadeless field while losing blood and using shoulder and back muscles to drag along a weight that increased throughout the day. Then understand what an exact parallel is involved nowadays when persons carry on their backs the weight of their programmers. 

Consider the message in the following exchange which addressed the issue:

G.: I was going over one of the readings in the meditation guides about the "five stages." You mentioned that the 1st was (birth-20) that I am programmed to accumulate. At (20-40) I am trying to accumulate or "get things." I'm a bit confused here, because I feel like they have worked hand in hand since earliest memories on. Say, 5 years old I would see others kids with certain things that looked like it made them happy so I would fight beg and plead (sometimes violently) to get get get. Always trying to get - to gain a sense of self and for the world to see me as a success. I feel these two worked hand in hand. Is that possible, or am I not seeing the difference? Yes, the tastes and look of things have changed over the years now being 30 but it just seems like it has been a constant mix of being programmed to get and actually following out what I was taught to get from the start. Any feedback on this one to help me get clear? Peace! Gerard 

F.: Yes, it starts early on, but it is around 20 when most leave home and the intensive programming ends and what begins is this: persons are driven, usually for the remainder of the relative existence, by that which is supposedly "left behind" but never is. 

The point is, though persons might leave behind the key centers of programming, it is as if they actually have a burden on their backs and shoulders: it is as if they are carrying mom around and she's whispering in one ear; dad is also on your back, whispering in the other ear; one carries around the grandparents and they are telling you what to do without your even knowing it; teachers are there, along with friends and relatives; soon people have the burden of hundreds of people on their back - entire cultures, in fact - telling them what to do, and it's all BS advice. 

Is it any wonder that persons are often as exhausted at the end of a day as a 1930's cotton-picker who worked 14 hours a day in a sweltering East Texas field? 

Is it any wonder that persons are so frustrated and confused, answering not to one field foreman but to a crowd of foremen and forewomen whom they are dragging through life, a crowd always on their backs? 

Imagine that everything you do, you do while dragging along a sack with 700 pounds of rocks in it. Each of those rocks is a concept, a belief, or an idea that you are carrying, and they really are not even your rocks at all. The rocks are "theirs." They put them in your sack (a.k.a., "your mind") and you have bought into the notion that they are your ideas and that you must cling to them. 

The fact is, in the process of mind-fornication, you are barren . . . you are seedless. You have not given birth to even one single, solitary, original idea or belief or concept. All of the child-rocks you now carry are adopted. 

There is no such thing as "your mind" - there is only "their mind." Newton came up with gravity; Copernicus changed the beliefs about humankind's place in the universe; Galileo gave birth to modern science; but neither you nor I have come up with a single, original "thought" or idea or concept or belief. So why do you give such value to "their" beliefs? 

Why do you delusionally claim that you have given birth to something that was actually borne by others and passed down by one generation after another? Why are you settling for ignorance-based hand-me-downs and walking about with such pride, showing off what you think are "your children" (that is, your ideas, your beliefs, your concepts) when the fact is that you are actually barren? 

Wherefore this pride in those "children" when they are all the product of generations of learned ignorance? The question has been asked, "How can anyone be free of the ideas of meaning and purpose and still feel fulfilled?" 

The other relevant questions are:

"How can anyone be free and enjoy the lightness of being as long as they are dragging along an overloaded burlap-sack-of-a-mind that is filled with the weight of faulty programming and obtuse conditioning and distorted acculturation and the truly-perverted beliefs which were imposed during the domestication process?" 

and

"How can the lightness of merely being ever manifest when you add to the weight of your already-too-cumbersome load of mind-stuff the added weight of the quest for purpose and meaning, especially when the closest that you can ever come to finding any meaning or purpose in 'this life' is just the 'living' itself?"

In the final days of this series, we'll look at "the reasons" provided, find the root or roots of each reason, and then find how to stop being driven subconsciously by those ignorance-and-insanity-based roots. 

To be continued. 

Please enter into the silence of contemplation. 

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