TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
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Rather than being "pro-" or "anti-" religion or "pro-" or "anti-" spirituality, the invitation here is to consider becoming doggedly “anti-ignorance” and tenaciously "anti-stupidity" and staunchly “pro-sanity.”
--fh
To review:
The discussion at this point in the series is now focusing on "The Most Influential Obstacles Of All" which have come via dreamed up myths and superstitions and via "religious" and / or "spiritual" sources, including religious and / or spiritual thoughts, ideas, concepts, notions, views, theories, inklings, perceptions, a.k.a., "beliefs."
Recall 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?"
Thus, this:
REALIZING WITHOUT DOGMA, WITHOUT CONTINUOUS SPIRITUAL PRACTICES, AND WITHOUT A PREOCCUPATION WITH “THE NATURE OF REALITY AND THINGS NOUMENAL”
To be free of the belief in the concept of “Being Somebody” instead of “Not Concluding That One Is Somebody or Something” and thus becoming able to merely be and enjoy that state, Maharaj's point that science can validate and facilitate the understanding can come into play and assist seekers in grasping the truths of beingness and non-beingness and that which is beyond both.
The man mentioned above - the one seeking an alternative means of seeking from those which are the most popular - was not alone. In the last twenty-nine years during which I've been sharing non-dual pointers for consideration, hundreds upon hundreds has joined him in expressing that same sentiment.
A woman wrote to ask if there might be some non-traditional, alternative approach - other than those being used by most seekers - which her nineteen-year-old son might try. After years of seeking in several traditional venues, he shared with her that he felt that the non-dual understanding could possibly lead to some clarity and peace but it was clear that he had "burned out" trying religious and spiritual and mythical and SELF-Inquiry approaches and had found them all to be tiresome and ineffective, at least in his case.
Should there not be such an alternative, say for those who were abused or molested in a church and cannot seek through that institution? Should there not be an alternative for those types who can see clearly enough to know that, often, “spirituality” - as practiced in many venues nowadays - is little more than another form of religion with a membership who have not been freed from their false ego-states and their egotism but think that they are actually better than, or on a higher plane than, religious people?
Also, should there not be an alternative for the practical, no-nonsense, matter-of-fact types who cannot relate to “deep philosophical talks” and who cannot relate to the enigmatic and mythical language of such approaches as neo-vedanta (which was structured in a fashion which would allow its key spokesman to tap into profitable Western audiences by blending religion and spirituality in order to come up with what would be a popular message among those people)?
And what about current Western seekers? Should something not be available for those who are reportedly leaving organized religion but know not where to seek next? During the last few years in the U.S., this is how the religious landscape has changed: in 2014, seventy-one percent of U.S. adults claimed to be Christians (which was the lowest percentage to date with a decline of five million adults and a drop of eight percentage points since a similar Pew survey in 2007).
More significantly, it has been determined that, among U.S. adults who claim to be Christian, fewer than 28% of those people are actually “active, regular participants” in their religion.
Many more nowadays are seeming to reach a point where they ask, “Is this all there is?” and when they find that the truthful answer is “Yes, that’s all we have to offer,” they are leaving. Yet what if they should reach a point later on where they feel the urge to seek, to try to find “the rest of the story,” or to try to find what is be understood that has not yet been grasped?
Many of those were exposed to dogma early on with no lasting results and are now seeking "relief" or "power" or "reformation" via spiritual avenues. How's that working? Some alcoholics try that approach, but a U.S. Government / major university research project spent $22,000,000.00 to study in the U.S. and in many “developed” nations around the globe the actual results achieved by the most popular organization that is offering “a spirituality-based treatment plan for addiction.”
What they found: the groups only have a “2% to 5% success rate,” and amazingly, they list in the “success” column the members who are able to run up a grand total of . . . “five years of sobriety.”
"Success"? Really?
For those types as well, when some of them ask, “Is this all there is?” they eventually find out that the answer is “Yes, that’s all we’ve got for you”; thus, they leave but may well have the urge at some later point to seek via another avenue. Should there be an alternative for those types?
Maharaj’s conclusion in regards to all of those questions about an alternative was “Yes,” and he acted on that. Seeing that his religious / non-dual version of the Ultimate Medicine was not treating the Ultimate Sickness effectively, and seeing that his next variety of the Medicine – a spirituality / non-dual version – was not treating the Ultimate Sickness effectively, he tried a new version of the Medicine designed to address the roots of the Sickness, namely, the “mental / mind-based / ignorance / insanity” problems of humanity.
Why did so few accept his shift, and why do so few try that approach nowadays? Because it does not promise to provide that which the masses are addicted to. Which is? It is two-fold, actually:
The primary addiction of humans is to a desire to control, and the secondary addiction is to the desire for power / Power in order to be able to control. All other addictions come after those two primary and most widespread addictions.
Contrary to the popular message being shared by many who falsely claim that they are “non-dual teachers,” Maharaj’s final version of the Medicine promised no gaining of power and no merging with a Power whose "celestial muscle" can be tapped into in order to be able to control events and people on planet earth. Maharaj offered instead to take away all desires, including the desire for control and the desire for power / Power.
So much for those promising that their approach / their latest book / their seminars etc. can give you “power”; can provide you “power by way of intentions”; can provide “power now”; can lead to your “ambitions being met now”; can reveal “the secrets of success”; can assure you “an ageless body and timeless mind”; can lead to “the spontaneous fulfillment of your desires”; can lead to the “fulfillment of your dreams,” yada . . . yada . . . yada.
For those who want to seek all that, rock and roll. For those who think they need no longer seek because they have “found it all” by way of their religious or spiritual organizations, rock and roll. But for those that would seek, yet have tired of seeking through the traditional approaches which claim "a very high success rate" - though the facts reveal a very high failure rate in terms of delivering what is sought - there is an alternative. Does the alternative promise a high success rate? Hardly.
Yet it is there to be tried by those who have figured out that they do not need more but need far less than they already have; for those who had wanted to learn more but have finally realized that they need to un-learn all; and for those who have already been programmed and conditioned far too much but have spent decades allowing leaders to program them and condition them even more.
For them, there is an approach which makes clear that more programming and more conditioning and being re-programmed are not the proper treatment for the Ultimate Sickness and for learned ignorance and for insanity but that de-programming and de-conditioning and de-programming are being called for instead.
For those who are tired of working to try to “be somebody” and working to try to “be something” or who now believe that they really are “some Supreme Something,” there is an alternative. It is a natural and easily-managed alternative which can allow persons to give up the second job which they have made out of what should be mere living;
which can allow them to be freed from their religious or spiritual or mythical workaholism; and which can allow them to unwind and calm down and dance lightly and loosen up and lighten up and take a break and chill out and take it easy and sit back every now and then and just relax for a while in what Maharaj called “the cool blue shade.”
To be continued.
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