TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
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THE RATIONALE FOR CONCLUDING THAT "IT'S TIME TO TRY 'A DIFFERENT ROUTE' WHEN SEEKING A SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEMS OF HUMANITY BECAUSE THE ACTUAL RESULTS OF FOLLOWING THE MOST POPULAR ROUTES FOR 5000+ YEARS HAVE PROVED INEFFECTIVE," Continued
Religious and "spiritual" organizations and groups and venues have held a monopoly on seeking for over 5000 years. That's just as well to a point because of this:
whether looking
(1) at the seven steps on the "path to realization" which Maharaj used early on
or
(2) at the four steps on the "path to realization" which Maharaj used later on,
the third step involved the assumption of (and the playing of) religious and / or spiritual roles, at least for a while.
Yet when persons stop at that third step, assuming that "they have arrived," they are either fooling themselves or they are allowing others to fool them.
When I was operating the European Tour Company I owned, one itinerary had participants flying into Schiphol Airport outside Amsterdam. After spending a few days in that city, we traveled south with stopovers in Frankfurt and Munich, Germany, continued south and spent several days and nights each in Venice and Florence and Rome, Italy; spent a couple of days and nights in Nice, France; and then traveled north for a visit to Lucerne, Switzerland; then we spent several days and nights in Paris; and then finally returned via Belgium to Amsterdam for the flight home.
Now suppose people paid for that three-week, multiple-cities tour but I stopped in Freiburg, Germany (a small town approximately at the halfway point between Amsterdam and Rome). Now consider these scenarios:
1. What if I had been insane and thought that we had arrived at the southernmost city on the itinerary and told the travelers that "we have arrived" and that we were in Rome?
2. Or what if I actually thought that what I had to offer them in Freiburg was as good as anything else and convinced myself that they would be better off not doing all that traveling and they could rest and be at more peace by following my plan? I could take them to the Freiburg Cathedral and tell them they were in the Vatican; I could take them to the Augustiner Museum and tell them they were in the Galleria Borghese (I mean, art is art, right?); and I could take them to the Seepark and tell them that they were seeing the Tiber River.
And what difference would it make, really, so long as when they returned home they could tell their friends and relatives all about Rome and the Vatican and the Galleria Borghese and the Tiber River?
And suppose the less-traveled or the less wise or the older, less-clear-thinking people in the group bought into what I was telling them, but others began questioning what I was saying. Suppose with them I got into their faces and began screaming and threatening them and telling them if they did not believe me I would see to it that they suffered from the rest of their lives and for eternity afterwards. They, too, might acquiesce.
3. And what if I sincerely believed that my motives were good and that what I was doing was helping them in the long run while also making a lot of money by controlling them and altering their beliefs and playing to their fears and desires? As long as they truly believed they were getting some benefits, then that should be enough, that should be just fine.
If they at least believed that they had arrived, then so what? If they were truly convinced, without a doubt, that they had reached the final place on the path or journey, so what?
If I could, in the way that cult leaders do, convince them to set aside reality and buy into my message, then if they later told a local that "I love you Romans and love your city of Rome" and the local said, "You haven't reached Rome. You're in southern Germany," then they could ignore that person and walk away or they might stay and fight with the one questioning their belief that they had arrived.
Same in the U.S. If I were traveling from Los Angeles to New York City and stopped in Chicago and really believed that I had reached my destination and was in New York, I'd either be fooling myself or I'd be allowing whoever told me we were in New York City to fool me.
Ah, so many have been seen to become angry or even violent if someone invites them to consider if the organization or group or venue they have become affiliated with has really led them along the entirety of a "path" and to the real destination.
Ah, so many have been seen to become angry or even violent if someone invites them to consider if the organization or group or venue they have become affiliated with has really led them along the entirety of a "path" and to the real destination.
Or what if I were arranging a trip for Holocaust survivors and on the day of the trip I sent a bus from the Achtung-Gestapo Bus Company to pick them up and had hired a tour guide dressed in an SS uniform who was welcoming them on board?
What kind of a jerk would I be to trigger their trauma and tell them to suck it up and just do what they were being told because the end result was going to be worth all of their mental and emotional discomfort and pain and suffering?
Yet that is exactly the advice being offered to many who are like the man who approached me after a talk and said, "I was abused as a child by a priest. I've done years of work to try to get beyond that, but where I am today is, I still cringe when people start talking religion to me. So my question is, have you found a way to guide people to realization and freedom without their having to buy into the dogma you talk about?"
Do those types not deserve a means by which they can reach a realized state which does not re-traumatize them and add to the misery and suffering which they are seeking to end?
To those who have been fooled; to those who, for one reason or another, cannot search in traditional organizations and groups and venues; and to those who have tried it all but still have not been freed from all of the effects of the learned ignorance which has been passed on to them via programming, conditioning, etc., do they not deserve a chance to be guided in a way which might be "outside the conventional box" but which might work for them when all else has failed?
When Hurricane Alicia struck Houston, Texas directly in 1983, the eye of the storm passed over the house we were living in at the time. The winds first blew the trees on our two lots in one direction; then there was the calm in the eye for a spell; then the winds began pushing the trees in the opposite direction as the tail end of the storm passed through.
Eleven trees, each 80 to 100-feet tall, were blown over or snapped. The ones which snapped were the ones that were the most rigid. The ones which were still standing after the storm were the ones which were more flexible and which bent with the wind.
If you are offering non-dual pointers, are you flexible enough and aware enough to be willing to employ a non-traditional approach with those who cannot follow a traditional, religious, or so-called "spiritual" path?
Is a non-traditional approach with those who cannot follow a traditional, religious, or so-called "spiritual" path okay with you? Or is there a belief system that there is only one right way to be freed of the mental effects of the ignorant and insane programming, conditioning, etc. which lead persons to be trapped in the ways of certain organizations and groups and venues which offer some of the most ignorant and insane programming, conditioning, etc. ever seen or heard?
In my "teaching days," I often heard persons ask, "I don't get it. Can you explain that another way?" The answer always was, "If I can't, then I'd had to admit that I'm not very capable, right?" Then I'd explain the pointer in a different way.
Often, nothing is being called for more loudly than "a different route," a "different way," and even . . .
a robe-less way; a cross-less way; a zero-concepts way; a no-beheading-others way; a no-wailing-at-a-wall way; a no-dunking-in-water way; a no-special-all-protective-underwear way; a no-pull-your-wife-through-a-slit-in-the-veil way to get her into heaven; a no-holy-text way; a no-angry-god / drown-the-SOB's way;
a no-sexual-molestation-in-church way; an only-prayer / no-medicine-for-an-ill-child way; a no-bring-people-from-the-"Galactic Confederacy"-and-stack-them-around-volcanoes-and-kill-them-with-hydrogen-bombs way; a no-love-what-is / love-your-rapist way; a no-assuming-"good"-or-"new-and-improved"-personas way; and none of the other thousands of nonsensical and ignorant and insane ways which persons have dreamed up over the millennia.
Maharaj was trapped in notions passed down via traditional and conventional ways for years, and that led him to pass on versions of the Ultimate Medicine which were totally ineffective, long-term. Same here.
A shift came after finding a different route which finally led to the end of not being able to differentiate the true from the false; an end to being driven by blind faith; and an end to unquestioningly accepting ignorance as wisdom. Then only came the willingness to ask this question:
"Is it possible that everything that you have ever been told or taught or now believe is false?"
And what came, by using a different path, was an awareness of the unequivocally-accurate answer to that query:
"Yes."
To be continued.
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