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 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 #49: those with the Ultimate Sickness (and its symptoms which Maharaj identified as "ignorance, stupidity, and insanity") despise wisdom.
The causes of reason #49?
THE WIDESPREAD PERVASIVENESS OF IGNORANCE, STUPIDITY and INSANITY and THE TENDENCY AMONG SOME TO ADMIRE - AND EVEN EXTOL - IGNORANCE, STUPIDITY and INSANITY
Barack Obama, referring to his Republican critics, once said: "It's like these guys take pride in being ignorant."
Now I can relate to children not wanting to go to school. I found it to be a less-than-pleasant experience many days, from 1953 when I was enrolled in the first grade to 1965 when I enrolled in college and earned a B.A. Degree to a few years later when I enrolled in graduate school and earned an M.A. Degree. Very little of what I was taught during those years attempted to differentiate between accumulating knowledge and learned ignorance on the one hand as opposed to seeking wisdom on the other hand.
Moreover, that assessment of schooling as being a less-than-pleasant experience is nothing new:
The Advaitin William Shakespeare referred in his "All the world's a stage" speech (contained in the play As You Like It which premiered in 1603) to "the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
and shining morning face, creeping like snail
unwillingly to school."
But all schooling involves younger persons being given "knowledge," which Maharaj dismissed as "learned ignorance."
By contrast, the persons Obama referred to were not child age but were adult age; yet in terms of their levels of maturity and reason and logic and sense and wisdom, they were indeed mere infants.
According to the 2016 "Index of Ignorance," produced by Ipsos MORI, a study of the populations in forty countries revealed that "The Ten Most Ignorant Countries" (ranked from most ignorant to least ignorant) were found to be:
India
China
Taiwan
South Africa
The United States of America
Brazil
Thailand
Singapore
Turkey
and
Indonesia
Furthermore, a nation's level of so-called "development" seemed to have no bearing on the level of ignorance found among the populations of persons in any given country:
The USA, the richest country in the world economically, ranked as the fifth most ignorant out of forty countries. The populations of thirty-five other countries were determined to be less ignorant than the population of the U.S.; meanwhile, Malaysia - which many consider to not be "fully-developed" - has a population which is among the top ten least ignorant.
Additionally, even as the current president in the U.S. disparages the people of the nation on our southern border in Mexico, the results of Ipsos MORI's research revealed that the population of Mexico has a significantly less ignorant population than that in the U.S. (while a computer program which analyzes the vocabulary and syntax and sentence structure used by writers and speakers revealed that the current U.S. president speaks at a fourth grade level. Hummm.)
Wondering "what the hell is going on in the U.S nowadays"? Wonder no more. Wondering "what the hell is going on in 'the world' nowadays"? Wonder no more.
Next, it is noted here frequently that ignorance cannot spot ignorance, so the facts above notwithstanding, many in the U.S. continue to brag regularly about the U.S. being "The Greatest Nation on Earth" while many travel to India in their "search for wisdom." Hummm, again.
Maharaj said that most persons will never realize (that is, "be freed from their learned ignorance") and then become wise. The facts once again validate his observations. That is indeed the way it is for most among the masses . . . for most humans among the planet's populations.
Okay, granted, certain wise humans likely abide in all of the planet's nations, but seekers with any degree of wisdom at all would likely "play the odds" and seek more carefully and with enough awareness to recognize when someone is pointing toward truth while those whom Maharaj warned seekers to stay away from (namely, the "Big Name Teachers") are running a self-enrichment scam.
To return to a pointer from yesterday's post, wiser to seek a diamond in a diamond mine than in a trash dumpster or a dunghill.
But wait. Did I just cast aspersions on "myself"? Actually, what I just acknowledged is how many of "floyd's" soon-to-be seventy years were also spent in ignorance.
Similarly, Maharaj - by abandoning his use of a religion / non-duality version of the Ultimate Medicine and by abandoning the use of a spirituality / non-duality version of the Ultimate Medicine and by eventually prescribing a psychology / non-duality version of the Medicine - acknowledged in those acts his own ignorance which also lasted for the majority of his existence and throughout most of his "teaching career."
Maharaj's acknowledgment of the lack of efficacy of those earlier versions of the Medicine came
as a result of
objective witnessing and
as a result of
having the wisdom to spot the ignorance behind his earlier sharings and to abandon those for a wiser method which focused on the actual roots of the Ultimate Sickness (namely, "ignorance, stupidity, and insanity") and
as a result of
the absence of ego-states and egotism which, in turn, allowed him to admit that his earlier talks were in error (and to advise seekers to "stop reading the talks in the book I AM THAT and listen to my later talks").
The first evidence of the manifestation of some degree of wisdom is the acknowledgment of one's ignorance
and
the clearest evidence of the manifestation of ignorance is having pride in one's ignorance as well as accepting and admiring and exalting ignorance.
And more evidence of ignorance is on display . . .
when
(1) persons unquestioningly accept as true the lies they are told;
when
(2) persons - based on blind faith alone - unquestioningly dedicate their lives to following an endless path which they were put on by someone else who was ignorant and who had been placed on that path by other ignorant persons;
and when
(3) persons refuse to acknowledge that ignorance is subconsciously determining their every thought and word and action, including the subconscious willingness to follow endless paths, to engage in endless journeys, and to settle for a plan of treatment for their sickness which is offered by programs whose members admit that they have no cure for what ails them or anyone else.
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
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