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.
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 #30: post-programming, post-conditioning, post-domestication, post-acculturation, post-brainwashing, and post-indoctrination, the case among the masses is that, to them, the senseless seems to make "perfect sense," rendering their perceptions and perspectives the 180-degree opposite of reality and truth.
The causes of reasons #30? Once more:
PROGRAMMING, CONDITIONING, DOMESTICATION, ACCULTURATION, BRAINWASHING, AND INDOCTRINATION WHICH GENERATE UNQUESTIONING FAITH IN - AND BELIEF IN - DISTORTIONS AND DELUSIONS.
And what did Maharaj eventually identify as the major contributors of distortion and delusion? Organized religion and spirituality.
Now, before the religious and / or spiritual dismiss that as a charge rooted in some "atheistic" or "agnostic" bias, let us hear in a moment what a Christian minister - a "progressive" Christian minister named Jim Rigby - had to say about that charge because he will affirm it as well, at least in terms of what is being shared in most venues nowadays.
If you were to go back through the postings on this site for the last few years, you would see that Jim has been referenced on several occasions. What makes his messages unique from the messages delivered in most religious venues is his lack of bias, his impartiality, his refusal to accept unquestioningly any longer what he was told, and his ability to find truth in stories which were intended - as he explains - not to be taken literally but were to be understood as stories which can provide "experiential wisdom for living."
He understands that the wisdom was lost when persons began to take the stories literally, when the tales now being passed down as true stories which are supposed to be accepted literally resulted them no longer providing an understanding of the cosmic processes which have unfolded and which continue to unfold.
Jim has not abandoned religion and is not encouraging anyone else to do so; instead, in his venue, he is offering - for a change - the original intent of what were non-literal pointers which can assist in the finding of accurate understandings which can provide the "experiential wisdom for living" which he referenced.
Jim has not abandoned religion and is not encouraging anyone else to do so; instead, in his venue, he is offering - for a change - the original intent of what were non-literal pointers which can assist in the finding of accurate understandings which can provide the "experiential wisdom for living" which he referenced.
The same happened with Maharaj: There are those who criticize Maharaj for his having abandoned the use of Hindu-based pointers and / or spirituality-based pointers. What they fail to understand is that Maharaj did not shift away from religion and spirituality-based messages and did not begin sharing psychology-based messages simply because he developed an anti-religion bias and an anti-spirituality bias.
He had no anti-religion bias. He had no anti-spirituality bias. ("Pro" vs. "anti" would still be dualistic.)
What he did come to was a different understanding, based in the unblocked, universal consciousness. That understanding was that misunderstood religious pointers and misunderstood spiritual pointers block the consciousness and result in a belief in distortions and delusions which are then accepted as fact.
No one is given the option to choose what they believe. All are given the beliefs passed down from others who push persons to accept those beliefs as their own. Jim explains that such was never the original intent of anything deemed "religious" which originally tried to aid in the finding of Truth (as opposed to "beliefs").
Jim said recently that "the whole idea that 'truth' is 'belief' is one of the most burdensome parts of religion." He agrees that "truth will set you free," but he makes clear that "nothing will put you in chains quicker than unquestioned beliefs."
Sound familiar to you regular visitors to this site?
What Jim understands is what Maharaj came to understand about those who are sharing warped beliefs via their warped, supposedly-literal interpretations of the content of so-called "holy" writings. Jim said, "They are trying to give CPR to worldviews that have already died."
(At least they have died among those not still trapped in the ignorance and insanity which drives them to cling to ancient myths and old superstitions and other distortions and delusions dreamed up by ignorance-driven men and then passed down by generations of ignorance-driven persons, over and over for thousands of years.)
So what is Jim's formula for breaking the mental chains which have been formed by that pattern? Abandon religion? No. That is not his invitation. He said, "Religion has to go through a major reformation from belief to awareness."
Wait. Maharaj said that, right? It sure sounds like he could have.
No, Jim said that.
His invitation involves this: Give up your "beliefs about past and present and accept the call to the present to be aware, Loving, and alive."
Okay. So Maharaj did say that, right?
No, Jim said that, but Maharaj made the same point decades earlier.
What is to be understood in this regard?
When one has been programmed, conditioned etc. to believe rather than to find the truth which can be known but cannot be stated, then persons will believe that the senseless makes "perfect sense"; thereafter, they will be driven by perceptions and perspectives which are the 180-degree opposite of reality and truth.
Next, Jim pointed out that to misunderstand what persons take to be "the divine name" as used by so many, specifically the name "God," is to miss the point entirely. As long as persons cling to the belief in an anthropomorphic, human-like deity with ears and eyes and a mouth, he said, then they will understand neither the functioning of the totality nor the source of the cosmic processes which have been happening and which continue to happen.
The key misunderstanding, he says, is that "the name" is not a noun but is a verb, is - specifically - the verb "to be," namely, I AM.
Related to the key point of this series: Jim speaks of the searching and the seeking which dominate the lives of so many and then notes how futile that search is when persons are looking for "A Person."
He said: "If 'the sacred' is a noun, then we have to go find it. It's here but not there." But if we look at it as a verb, he said, then it may be "more a quality of our experience than 'A Hiding Person'."
Then he asked: "Aren't you tired of looking for the missing person named 'God'? Why is God hiding? If there is a person named 'God,' he's not very polite. Either this Person has been listening to your pleas . . . and is unmotivated by that, or that's the wrong understanding."
On the other hand, he says: "If it's a verb, if it's the cosmic process that is being talked about, then it's everywhere. And how do you find something that's everywhere? You have to stop searching, right?"
Okay, so you said that, right Floyd? That's the point of this series?
No, Jim said that, too.
He continued: "The story [involving 'the burning bush'] keeps playing off the term 'I AM'."
He says this whole deal is about being in touch with reality, asking next, "Isn't that what we're looking for? Not beliefs." Reality.
Thus, the point he made, as well as the point being offered here, is this: "Stop searching."
We do not need more beliefs. We need not engage in the hopeless, ignorant, insane, and endless search for a mirage. We merely need to be in touch with reality. Once in touch with reality, all seeking ends, and when all seeking ends, freedom and peace come; and when freedom and peace come, then natural living - marked by relaxing and by enjoying unconditional happiness - can begin.
What comes via realization (that is, via being freed from believing the learned ignorance which we were taught) is an opportunity to clear the way for the universal consciousness to enter and bring with it the opportunity to see truth (which can be understood but cannot be stated).
You do not need more beliefs. You do not need more knowledge.
That is why it has been said here from the beginning that
you do not need to learn more and that, instead, you need to un-learn it all
and that
you do not need to be taught more and, instead, you need to be un-taught all.
Yet truth cannot come as long as there remains even a single belief because even a single belief can block out the seeing of all truth.
As large as the sun is, you can block out your ability to see it by placing something as small as your thumb in front of your eye. The smallest blockage can prevent your being conscious of the biggest things in the universe.
Maharaj said: "Keep the ‘I Am’ in the focus of awareness, remember that you are, watch yourself ceaselessly and the unconscious will flow into the conscious without any special effort on your part. Wrong desires and fears, false ideas, social inhibitions are
blocking and preventing its free interplay with the conscious."
To hear and see Jim's entire 20-minute message, click Jim's message.
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
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