TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
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To continue with the sharing of certain quotes which point toward the non-dual understanding:
From Philosophers And Sages And Seers Of Truth:
Miscellaneous Quotations And Pointers That Are Relevant To Advaitins / Non-Dualists
excerpted from the book
THE NON-DUALITY MESSAGE OFFERED IN FICTION (Continued)
Jack Kerouac
“Finding Nirvana is like locating silence.”
“The page is long, blank, and full of truth. When I am through with it, it shall probably be long, full, and empty with words.”
“Love is all.”
“Listen closely . . . the eternal hush of silence goes on and on throughout all this, and has been going on, and will go on and on. This is because the world is nothing but a dream and is just thought of and the everlasting eternity pays no attention to it.”
“Happiness consists in realizing it is all a great strange dream.”
A Questioner: " . . . Do you want to go on being fooled every damn minute of your life?"
The Answer: "Yes . . . ."
Michael Connelly
"He was long past believing in God—the horrors he had seen documented had little by little sapped his stores of faith. In those seemingly final days, as his own heart withered and tapped out its final cadences, he did not grasp desperately for his lost faith as a shield or a means of easing the fear of the unknown. Instead, he was accepting of the end, of his own nothingness. He was ready. It was easy to do."
Mary Shelley
In Mary Shelley's book entitled Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein and the "monster" he created represent a duality in one respect, but - on the other hand - represent two sides of a single entity. By the end of the novel, there is a shift in the one that represents "good" and the one that represents "evil" - the man or the monster. The man-made "creation" / "creature" is actually kind and innocent but misunderstood and mistreated while, inevitably, Victor ends up in a barren area being chased by his own creation.
In the traditional fairy tale "The Beauty and the Beast"
and
in Victor Hugo's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame"
. . . there is a treatment of the dualistic "beauty" vs. "ugliness" that is reinforced by acculturation. There is in both cases one that is considered by the culture's standards to be ugly but who is in love with one that the cultures deem to be far superior as a result of physical appearance.
In the traditional fairy tale "Goldilocks and the Three Bears"
. . . the girl's complaints all contained dualities, ranging from porridge that was too hot vs. porridge that was too cold; from two chairs that were the wrong size big vs. one that was too right; and from a bed that was too hard vs. one that was too soft.
In Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical The Phantom of the Opera
. . . the musical is also based on "The Beauty and the Beast" model. The phantom is also a lonely man seeking love but a man who is also dualistically capable of being bitter and angry and capable of hatred and even murderer.
In Robert Lewis Stevenson's "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"
. . . Dr. Jekyll is a docile man whereas Mr. Hyde displays the a vicious sense of malevolence and cruelty.
In Abraham "Bram" Stoker's "Dracula"
. . . Dracula is part "normal man," part "soulless killer." Werewolves are part "innocent humans," part "uncontrollable killer."
NON-DUALITY POINTERS CO-OPTED BY VARIOUS RELIGIONS THROUGHOUT MANY MILLENNIA
Religions all have their special leader / savior / prophet,
their supposedly "holy book," and their varying concepts about a god or
gods or goddesses. Yet they all have much in common because they share a common
root: their dogma and principles and beliefs have all been drawn from the same
well of ancient myths and superstitions and previously-established pagan
religions.
Of their god or gods and goddesses, Maharaj said: “I have no
faith in anything which has ever been told, not even what has been told by the
Vedas. Only my own experience.”
Even some "non-dualists" have mimicked religious persons and have come up with this or that particular book that they deem to be "special,"or have come up with these or those particularly "special"
writings and have come up with one or another supposedly special seer or guru or teacher.
Of their special books, Maharaj said: “I have no faith in
anything which has ever been told, not even what has been told by the Vedas.
Only my own experience.”
Of those deemed to be "special," Maharaj warned seekers to stay away from such types (whom he dismissed as "Big Name Teachers" who will never provide what should actually be sought).
The irony: while religions have freely plagiarized
pointers offered by non-dual teachers over the millennia - taking credit for the insights from others
rather than giving credit to those that originally shared what they have
repeated - they have never been able to adhere to pure, non-dual
teachings. Nevertheless, many of them have shared certain non-dual pointers which they "borrowed" along the way:
ZOROASTRIANISM
One of the earliest conceptions of dualism came from the Persian Religion of Zoroastrianism (mid-fifth century B.C.) which taught that "Ahura Mazda" was the eternal creator of all "good things" and taught that all thing which ran counter to Ahura Mazda's order - and which were therefore "bad" - came from "druj."
EGYPTIAN RELIGION
Egyptian Religious beliefs contrast the Gods Seth (disorder, death) and Osiris (order, life).
GREEK and ROMAN RELIGIONS
The Greeks made up tales about other-worldly powers to explain the things they deemed "good" and the things they deemed "bad," and eventually the myth-based gods and goddesses evolved into the Greeks' religion. After the Romans conquered the Greeks, they adopted the Greek gods and goddesses but gave them Roman names.
JUDAISM
Their supposedly special book: "The Torah" or "Pentateuch": Five Books Supposedly Written by "Moses"; also The first five books of the Christians' "Old Testament"
["Moses" is in quotes because he likely never existed. The writer may have been a composite of many writers, but what has been credited to him has been discredited. There is no historical record of the Jews having been enslaved by the Egyptians and later freed by one particular man. The Egyptians had slaves from many different regions, but the facts end there. Moreover, there was no parting of the Red Sea and the writer called Moses plagiarized the summative statement of non-duality and had the supposed God of Abraham - who was supposedly speaking to him from a burning bush - identify himself as " I AM THAT I AM." The writer had heard the term brought back to the Middle East from the Far East by traders operating caravans between the two regions, but he did not understand that it was written with a semicolon (I AM THAT; I AM") in order to clarify that the THAT-ness is presently but temporary manifested as the AM-ness, making clear that the supposed two-ness is really the One-ness.]
Judaism is dualistic, dealing with a lower, material part (the body), and a higher, spiritual part (the soul), which evolved from Platonic Dualism. As with Judaism's copycat religion called "Christianity," there is talk of "this world" and "another world."
CHRISTIANITY
Their supposedly special book: The "Old Testament" (i.e., the "Old Contract or "Agreement") and "The New Testament"(i.e., the "New Contract or "Agreement"). The "Old Testament" is actually just the supposedly holy writings from the Jewish religion.
After the Councils of Nicea personalized "satan" (Hebrew = "enemy") and Beelzebub (Hebrew = "God of Insects" or "Lord of the Flies"), the notion of dual gods was introduced. One is said to be "the God of good, the other, the god of evil or bad or sin."
(Even early Christian teachings were dualistic, also largely based on Platonic Dualism. Now, there is also a personal dualism in Christianity with a soul-body distinction based on the idea of an immaterial Christian Soul, though Christ - after he began teachings non-duality during the last three years of his life - said that "No one will ever see the Kingdom of Heaven: it is within" and "Heaven and earth shall fade away.")
Eventually, more concepts were added and Christianity shifted beyond Dualism to teaching that a "Holy Trinity" exists. More duality exists in the teaching of a geographic place where eternal rewards shall be enjoyed vs. a geographic place where eternal punishment and pain and misery shall exist.
Quotations from the Gnostic Writings
(some of which are attributed to YESHU'A, a.k.a., "Jesus the Christ")
"If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you."
"When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be female, when you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then you will enter ['the kingdom' / 'awareness' / the 'peace state']."
ISLAM
Their supposedly special book: "The Koran" or "Quran" or "Qur'an" or "Quoran"
Islam, too, is based in duality with a supposedly eternal reward awaiting in "another world" all of those who behave in certain prescribed ways in "this world." Islam's eventual reward for men who die for Allah will supposedly be endless physical / sexual pleasure not just from seventy-two virgins but also from thousands of wives and whores as well. As for women, well their reward is supposedly to pleasure sexually the Muslim men who died for Allah.
VEDANTA and ADVAITA
Note: The Vedanta philosophy is divided into Dvaita (dualistic) and Advaita (non-dualistic). Dvaita proposes dualism in consciousness and matter, while Advaita does not. (Some modern scientists speak of "energy and matter." Others speak of "energy-matter" or "energy / matter.")
THE NON-DUALITY MESSAGE OFFERED IN FILM
From "The Matrix"
"Within the prison of your world appears a man who tells you that the world of painful contradictions, which you have created, is neither
continuous nor permanent and is based on a misapprehension. He pleads with you to get out of it, by the same way by which you got into it. You got into it by forgetting what you are and you will get out of it by knowing yourself as you are."
"Do not try to bend the spoon. It is not the spoon that bends. It's the self that bends."
"Now he is starting to believe. There is a difference between knowing about the Path and walking the Path."
"You're here because you know something. What you know, you can't explain. But you feel it. You've felt it your entire life. That there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there - like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me."
Morpheus: "The Matrix is the world that has been pulled over your eyes, to blind you from the truth."
Neo: "What truth?"
Morpheus: "That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else, you were born into bondage, born into a prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch. A prison . . . for your mind. Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is - you have to see it for yourself."
Neo: "What are you doing?"
Morpheus: "Your muscles have atrophied. We're rebuilding them."
Neo: "Why do my eyes hurt?"
Morpheus: "You've never used them before."
"Your appearance now is what we call residual self-image. It is the mental projection."
MOVIES WITH NON-DUALITY THEMES
Being There (1979)
About Schmidt
Shutter Island
The Matrix (mainly part one)
The 13th Floor
Inception
The Game
Legend of Bagger Vance
Many parts of the films in The Batman Series
Touching The Void
The Truman Show
The Nines
Pleasantville
Dark City
Existenz
Sliding Doors
Illusion
Powder
Groundhog Day
The Devil's Advocate
Tron 1 & 2
Field of Dreams
Vanilla Sky
What Dreams May Come
What The Bleep Do We Know?!
Calling It Quits
Defending Your Life
Click
Contact
Avatar
City of Angels
Open Your Eyes
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