TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
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THE RATIONALE FOR CHOOSING SCIENTIFIC FACTS OVER THE EMOTIONAL INTOXICATION GENERATED BY RELIGIOUS / SPIRITUAL FANATICISM:
While Religion and Science Are Not Always Incompatible, Logic and Reason and Wisdom Make Clear That If a Choice Between The Two Is To Be Made, Only One Choice Is the Sane Option
Rarely is satsang participated in any longer, but an exception was made last Sunday. During the session, presently available here in audio format, a question was asked about what "Floyd thinks about the holy spirit."
Crediting Reverend Jim Rigby of Austin, Texas who often offers non-dual pointers in his sermons, I answered that question in the same way that I answer most questions nowadays about "religion," "spirituality," "God," the "Son of God," the "Holy Spirit," "Buddha," "Krishna," etc., etc., etc.:
"Here, those are best viewed as verbs, not nouns. If looked at as nouns, they point to illusions and are, therefore, a total waste of time to even discuss; if looked at as verbs which are resulting in certain sane but rare behaviors among humanity, then they are worthy of some attention during the relative existence.
Meaning? There are members of certain groups who say things such as "My concept of God in the past was of a weak God, an absentee God, A Santa Claus-type God, a mean, punishing, vindictive God, etc. Today, I am in close contact with a loving and caring God whom I worship and praise and glorify and give thanks to."
The reply to that usually goes like this: "If you are in contact with a God that wants to be worshipped and praised and glorified, then you're dealing with someone like yourself - a narcissist - and hanging out with narcissists will never bring an end to your narcissism. Next, in the phrase 'loving and caring God,' any supposed God that truly had her or his act together would tell you that the totally irrelevant part of that phrase is 'God' and that the only part to be focused on should be the 'loving and caring' part.
"That is, a non-narcissistic god / goddess would say, "I care not an iota about being worshipped and praised and glorified by you or anyone else. How arrogant and insecure and needy would I have to be to want that? Forget the man-made, dreamed up noun 'God' and focus on the 'God as a verb' understanding and then go forth and let loving and caring be verbs - not adjectives - and let them generate the act of love and the act of caring and let those actions manifest through you."
On March 2nd, a bomb exploded a little over 4000 feet from my daughter's house in Austin, Texas. Last night, actually early this morning, the suspected bomber reportedly committed suicide by setting off a bomb in his car which he had parked roadside a couple of miles from her house.
Many will judge him to be a person who "obviously had no religion or spirituality and was thus evil"; here, the evidence based in the science of psychology leads to the conclusion that he was insane, and seldom do loving and caring behaviors co-exist alongside insane thoughts and behaviors.
Moreover, a wise and objective review of the history of religion / supposed spirituality can reveal that religion and supposed spirituality have a multi-thousand-year history of also leading to behaviors which have been far from "loving" and "caring" and which have been especially insane. Most significantly is the realization that crazy cannot spot crazy, much less heal it.
Moreover, a wise and objective review of the history of religion / supposed spirituality can reveal that religion and supposed spirituality have a multi-thousand-year history of also leading to behaviors which have been far from "loving" and "caring" and which have been especially insane. Most significantly is the realization that crazy cannot spot crazy, much less heal it.
Once Maharaj came to understand that "realization is simply being free of belief in any and all learned ignorance," then he understood that religions have never treated insanity, that supposed spirituality does not treat insanity, and that science has advanced to the point where effectively-trained professionals can often address persons' mental and emotional and personality disorders while religion and supposed spirituality have often contributed throughout human history to the spread of ignorance and insanity.
"Science will someday advance to the point that it will validate all of the non-dual teachings."
--Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
To review some examples which have been shared here over the years:
1. NON-DUAL MESSAGE: There is no "one" that shall be forever. There will be no continuity of body or mind or personality.
THE SCIENTIFIC FACT: The Second Law of Thermodynamics shows that things come together and they come apart. Nothing is forever except energy / matter.
2. NON-DUAL NISARGAN MESSAGE:
There is nothing personal, including a person, an individual, or a Personal Creator. There is beingness, but there is no personal being or Personal Supreme Being. Because nothing has been created, there is no creator / parent and there is no Creator God or Creator Gods and Goddesses; additionally, there is no Destroyer God and there are no Destroyer Gods and Goddesses.
THE SCIENTIFIC FACT: All is energy / matter. Neither energy nor matter can be created. Neither energy nor matter can be destroyed.
3. NON-DUAL MESSAGE: There are no timelines.
THE SCIENTIFIC FACT: All is merely cycling. There is no beginning and there is no end, be the discussion about energy or about matter or about babies or about adults. Babies are not created. Babies are elemental plant food bodies that can temporarily house the manifest consciousness. Same with human adults ... same with all "living creatures." They are merely composites of already-existing elements that are being cycled as opposed to something "new" being created. The elements might be arranged in a "new" formation or form or space, but they have existed forever and are not "new." The elements can come together for a time, but they will not remain together. The body that "was" last month is not the same body now; the specks of consciousness that were manifested last month are not the same specks of consciousness presently manifested within the space. (If either of those could happen, no one would have to eat anything to "resupply" the cycling elements or to "restock" the temporarily-manifested conscious-energy.)
4. NON-DUAL MESSAGE: All is one.
THE SCIENTIFIC FACT: Differences in appearance are due to differing vibrational frequencies and evolutionary changes. As the Transcendentalists taught, "There is a unity beyond the multiplicity" (or beyond the "supposed" multiplicity, yes?) Beyond differing vibrational levels, variations in appearances are also the result of evolution, de-evolution, and / or mutations. Some aquatic forms over millions of years developed an ability to abide both in the water and outside the water as well. Eventually, some moved to the land and their earlier outer protective shell (see lobster or crayfish) evolve / de-volved into any inner shell (see humans). For all of humanity's self-glorification ("Oh, what a special piece of work is man!"), humans are one of the most de-volved, mutated forms on the planet. Trance the family tree of humanity back to its roots and you'll see that, originally, that which is now called "the ribcage" was external, not internal. So now, the so-called "protection" for certain internal organs leaves humankind's largest organ - the skin - completely exposed and unprotected. Hardly an evolutionary "advancement." As for the oneness, science has shown that fish and humans are closely related with both sharing the commonality of appendages, backbones, excretion systems, and skulls. That is a result of both having originally been ONE and the same. Most of humanity's past was spent in water, and only recently - in terms of the overall history of this universe - have humans been separated from the water. So there is an example of a living form or space moving from the water to the land. What people call "whales," by contrast, moved from the land to the water. They are not fish but are mammals, and science proves that they evolved from something most similar to what are called "hippos" and "deer," explaining why scientists have found the remains of whale skeletons that had . . . ankles. Compare human DNA with animal DNA and with bacteria DNA and science shows that all three evolved from the ONE and same source that existed several billion years ago. In fact, everything on this planet can be traced to ONE single, original, common thing.
5. ALSO REGARDING THIS NON-DUAL MESSAGE: All is one.
ADDITIONAL SCIENTIFIC FACTS: Scientists can uncover in a single atom evidence of the beginning of the entire universe and can thereby chronicle the history of this entire solar system. All that is now can be traced back to one, single atom. Understanding that allows for an understanding of the facts surrounding the pointers regarding "beginninglesssness" as well as an understanding of the facts regarding "multiple universes"; regarding "something manifesting in a vacuum"; regarding how "one atom led to multiple atoms and now uncountable atoms in 'this universe'"; regarding "how the sun functions and the role it places in the manifestation and cycling of conscious-energy"; regarding the fact that "nothing can be created"; and, therefore, regarding the fact that "there was not and is not and shall never be a "Creator."
The term "the beginningless" is explained in this way: Scientists in labs have now been able to reproduce as follows the events that unfolded as this universe began: it has been seen that, in a vacuum, a particle can simply manifest; other particles also form and then they all interact . . . being conscious of other particles. Whether the particles involved with the formation of "this universe" had "escaped from" or moved beyond the confines of an existing universe and manifested in an area that would be called "our universe" is not especially relevant to the discussion.
Yet there is no question about the presence of other universes. Maharaj and other sages having referenced them for ages.
He said: "Entire universes are imploding and exploding every moment . . ."
and
". . . universes come and go . . . "
and he noted that "what 'he' truly is" had and has always been and had, therefore, been present for the imploding and exploding of all universes.
As he predicted, science is now finally "catching up with" these teachings, so this was reported a few years ago
\
"In the most recent study on pre-Big Bang science, a team of researchers from the UK, Canada, and the US (and specifically Stephen M. Feeney and others) have revealed that they have discovered four statistically unlikely circular patterns in the cosmic microwave background."
"The researchers think that these marks could be 'bruises' that our universe has incurred from being bumped four times by other universes. If they turn out to be correct, it would be the first evidence that universes other than ours do exist.
"The idea that there are many other universes out there is not new, as scientists have previously suggested that we live in a 'multiverse' consisting of an infinite number of universes. The multiverse concept stems from the idea of eternal inflation, in which the inflationary period that our universe went through right after the Big Bang was just one of many inflationary periods that different parts of space were and are still undergoing."
In the case of "this universe," there was first a hydrogen atom that manifested; eventually, many hydrogen atoms began moving in the space that would become "this universe." The sun shows on a small scale what happened after that and what produced the big scale "bang" that resulted in what is called "this universe":
Within what is called "the sun," four hydrogen atoms fuses together and make one helium atom. Each time that happens, a tremendous amount of energy results. To appreciate the force involved, see the sun as a hydrogen bomb, a bomb with explosive power that is derived from the energy released when hydrogen atoms are fused to form helium.
This atomic fusion reaction is the same reaction that takes place in stars like the sun throughout the universe when the pressure of gravity forces hydrogen atoms to fuse; a hydrogen bomb uses the force of an atomic explosion (the fission reaction exploited in atomic bombs) to compress the hydrogen to the point where fusion takes place. The fact that it was hydrogen and helium atoms that triggered the initial process "here" also explains the prevalence of those atoms.
Of course the result of hydrogen combining with oxygen results in the water that is necessary for "human life." The same process that is occurring on the sun in this solar system (and throughout the universe) is also what happened at the point called "the beginning of this universe": hydrogen atoms fused and made helium atoms as they interacted (atoms being conscious of other atoms); in the case of "this universe," their interactions resulted in an explosion of unimaginable force, and that triggered the chain of events that followed.
The explosion was so great that at this moment, billions of years later, this "universe" is still expanding (and may well be bumping into and "bruising" adjacent universes). While that chain of events can be referred to as "the beginning" of this universe, it was not the beginning of the atoms that generated the Big Bang. The particles had existed infinitely because neither matter nor energy can be created nor destroyed. Since no creation ever occurred, no "Creator" could, or can, exist.
(Therefore, in this case, "a negative" can be proved, scientifically. To the contrary, what cannot be proved is that which is dreamed up by men who present only "their faith" as evidence of their claim that what they conceptualized in their imaginings is real.)
Moreover, because all has always been, infinitely, no beginning happened and no end will happen. Infinity is infinity and was “as infinite” before the manifestation of consciousness as it will “be infinite” following the unmanifestation of consciousness. Thus, "beginninglessness" (and, therefore, endlessness as well).
To be continued with 6-10 tomorrow.
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