TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
To continue with non-duality-based pointers excerpted from the book The Non-Dual Pointers Offered by Yeshu'a ("Jesus the Christ"):
3.
"No one shall ever see the kingdom of heaven - it is within."
Advaita teaches that there is an "inner guru" or "inner resource" that is capable of knowing Truth but that is seldom tapped into because of the blockages that prevent the consciousness from seeing purely and accurately.
Those blockages are the result of programming and conditioning and acculturation and domestication. The "kingdom" is not a state "there" but is a state that is here and now . . . the state of total freedom and peace.
(To clarify, Pope John Paul II - to the chagrin of many Catholics - said that heaven and hell are not literally “geographic places” but are “states of mind.” More on that later.)
4.
"Heaven and earth shall fade away."
Why will heaven and earth fade away, according to the Advaita teachings? Because at the point of mahasamadhi (called "death" by most) the consciousness begins to fade away, to "un-manifest" and leave the body and re-enter the field of energy from which it manifested.
Because heaven and earth are concepts that have been dreamed up and believed in during the time the consciousness have been manifested (believed in because of programming and acculturation and conditioning) then when the consciousness fades away, so will that which allowed those ideas to be believed in and stored what is called "the mind."
5.
And if "heaven and earth shall fade away," then the same would have to apply to hell. In fact, Jesus never talked about hell. He used the term "gehanna" (to be discussed in more detail later).
So much for the dualistic pair of "heaven vs. hell." Because Jesus was teaching non-duality during the three years that he returned to Jerusalem, he was also dispelling any beliefs in dualities.
6.
"Cleave a piece of wood and I am there;
lift up the stone and you will find Me there."
The Advaita ("not two") teachings point to the Oneness of all. Jesus was saying that, "I am the wood, I am the stone, I am that which is under the stone . . . I Am all." Scientists understand that everything in what is called "this universe" began with a single atom.
From that one, all came. Scientists also know that the only reason that things take on appearances that seem to be different is because they are vibrating at different frequencies. If one could force a human body to vibrate at the same frequency as a baby grand, then that person would take on the same appearance as a piano. That Jesus knew; that he taught.
7.
"If you do not know yourselves, then you are in poverty and you are poverty."
Advaita teaches that those who do not understand the teachings cannot understanding the functioning of the totality and are, therefore, "poor" in understanding, in awareness.
Advaita teaches that the Realized - those abiding in Full Awareness - know the Self, that is, the True Self. They also know the unicity, meaning the Oneness of Self. The Advaita teacher Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj taught that "Love is knowing that You are everything" (meaning, at one with all).
Jesus was saying that if persons do not know themselves - that is, the True Self . . . the One - then their lives will not be rich in understanding or freedom or peace.
8.
"I will give you what the eye has not seen, and what the ear has not heard, and what the hand has not touched, and what has not arisen in the heart of man."
The Advaita understandings are beyond the physical realm of seeing and hearing and touching and also beyond what people take to be the "heart" or the "soul." Jesus knew that nothing is as it appears.
An example often used is the steel beam. People believe they know exactly what a steel beam is, but that which it is truly is actually not even close to what it looks like to the human eye. Use an electron microscope and you will see that what is called "a beam" is mainly space with masses of subatomic energy particles swirling about.
Also, he makes the point that Truth cannot be stated so it cannot be heard with the human ear. Instead, it is the consciousness or awareness that speaks, and it is the consciousness or awareness that hears via the inner resource.
Thus, it is not the heart or soul that hears, and it is not a human that hears. It is that inner resource that can hear. When it hears a point that is accurately pointing to Truth, then there is an inward resonance that is "hearing." What is then "seen" (or understood) is the Truth that can be known but that cannot be spoken.
9.
"If they say to you, 'from where have you originated?' say to them,
'We have come from the light, where the light originated through itself'."
The scientist Szent-Gyorgyi noted that “what drives life is . . . a little electric current, set up by the sunshine." All so-called "life" on planet earth "comes from the light" and "shall return to the light." Everything merely cycles. Jesus was challenging the common belief in his day - still pervasive today - in a linear timeline: birth, life, death, punishment or reward.
In this quote, he was pointing to the Advaita teachings that all cycles instead. Trillions upon trillions of humans have "come" and "gone" but nothing has been added to or subtracted from the elements of the earth that merely cycled in order for life-forms to happen.
The only "ingredient" added from without - from beyond what is already on the planet - is light / energy / sunshine. What "made" the Light? Nothing. Neither energy nor matter can be created and neither energy nor matter can be destroyed. What Jesus was saying, therefore, is that there is no creator / Creator because "all that is" has always been.
The light originated through itself. It was not created by something or someone else. (Scientists know that a single hydrogen atom manifested, then split time and again until helium atoms manifested. After they all crashed together, an amazing release of energy and light happened. Thus, "the light originated through itself."
10.
"I AM light."
Jesus did not say, "I am the light." He said, "I AM light." [Note the punctuation that is used by Advaitins and that Jesus used (as in quotes #1 and #2 earlier). View quote #11alongside quote #10 to understand the Advaitin pointer he was offering about "light."
11.
"If they ask you, 'what is the sign of your father in you?' say to them, 'it is a movement and a rest'."
So forget this talk about "The Father," he is saying. He made clear in quotes #10 and #11 that there was no creation, a fact now supported by scientific proof. Again, neither energy nor matter can be created or destroyed.
He also made clear in quote #4 that "heaven and earth shall fade away." If the place where "The Father" supposedly resides is not forever, then there is not place where "The Father" could reside; furthermore, quote #3 affirms his point: if heaven is within, then there is no place "out there" or anywhere else where "The Father" could be or will be.
As for "a movement," that which the Advaitins identify as a movement within is the movement of consciousness, ever in motion (as are all forms of energy).
As for rest, the Advaitin teaching is that rest cannot come when identified with the body or the mind or false identities or the ever-in-motion consciousness; rest comes when abidance happens as the Awareness - the original state.
[The explanation of that point is book-length and is far longer than the framework of this book allows. The book Consciousness / Awareness provides the full explanation.]
Meanwhile, by way of contrast with non-duality-based pointers:
Among there are those in the U.S. who are driven by dualistic beliefs, including white supremacists, neo-Nazis, white nationalists, and members of the alt-right movement and several fascist movements, who organized a "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
They gathered to protest the possibility that the city might remove from public grounds a statue which honors Robert E. Lee, a confederate general during the Civil War (1861-1865) who led forces attempting to overthrown the United States in order to preserve the right to own slaves.
That's correct: in the U.S., persons are still fighting after 150 years a war originally rooted in duality and a sense of different-from-ment and better-than-ment and which continues to inspire a sense of different-from-ment and better-than-ment and resentment that the U.S. Government, 150 years ago, took away a source of near-free labor which reduced the profits of slave owners - especially in the cotton and tobacco businesses - by 25% or more.
[Of the estimated 46,200 plantations (farms and estates being worked by a slave force) which are known to have existed in the U.S. in 1860 . . .
20,700 had 20 to 30 slaves;
2,300 had a workforce of a hundred or more slaves;
and
the rest had slaves in between those two totals.
Overall, in the U.S. in 1860, there were nearly 4,000,000 slaves owned by white men.
It was not uncommon for 10 to 15 slaves to be crammed together in a small cabin, called "the quarters."
One or two times per month on my travels to Louisiana, along a stretch of Hwy 190, I pass a dozen or so slave cabins, some of which have rotted away or collapsed in on themselves; a few others, however, have been maintained and are still standing as a tribute to "the good ole days." Confederate "Rebel" flags fly in front of many houses owned by whites along the route.]
One of the men seen marching at the Charlottesville rally with the fascist group calling itself "American Vanguard" - a man named James A. Fields - deliberately rammed his car into a crowd of counter-protesters at high speed, killing 32-year-old counter-protester Heather Heyer and injuring dozens more.
Of the white supremacists, neo-Nazis, white nationalists, and members of the alt-right and fascist movements, the chief politician in the U.S. said:
“The press has treated them absolutely unfairly. You have some very fine people on both sides.”
The founder of Daily Stormer, an American neo-Nazi and white supremacist site which considers itself to be part of the alt-right movement, said of the president:
"His comments were good. He didn't attack us. When asked to condemn, he just walked out of the room. Really, really good. God bless him."
To be continued.
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