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
[Continued from yesterday]
A different perspective for most persons would be one based in science rather than in their dogmatically-or-spirituality-or-philosophically-or-ideologically-based belief systems.
Again, Maharaj said that (1) someday science would advance far enough that it would confirm the ancient, non-dual teachings. He also said that (2) if a truly wise woman or man of science were to enter his loft, they would instantly understand what so many seekers were not grasping.
Maharaj's prediction proved to be spot on: science did advance to the point where it confirmed the core teachings of non-dual.
So, to continue from yesterday with examples 6-10:
6.
NON-DUAL MESSAGE: There is no differentiation.
THE SCIENTIFIC FACT: Much in the U.S. nowadays (and in many other countries around the globe as well) deals with the dualistic belief in racial differences, a dualistic concept that then leads to all sorts of economic and social discrimination. [The most ignorant here are still fighting in their "minds" a civil / racial war that was lost by their ancestors nearly 150 years ago.] So what are the scientific facts behind the false duality of "black vs. white"? Science has shown that differing pigmentations are nothing more than a consequence of evolutionary changes that resulted from two simple factors: migration and light levels. As people spread about the globe, the varying levels of light that they were exposed to - depending on whether they were near the equator or far from the equator - triggered a genetic change in response to the various light levels. Darker pigmentation would evolve for those living nearer the equator and lighter pigmentation would evolve for those living farther away from the equator. Yet so programmed and conditioned and acculturated are those who are ignorant - and ignorant of science and ignorant of the facts that science affirms - that they would never believe that all are the same, genetic mutations and alterations notwithstanding.
7.
NON-DUAL MESSAGE: Supposed differences are a matter of perception / misperception only.
THE SCIENTIFIC FACT: Here it has been noted often that what persons take to be a brick is not a brick at all and is nothing like what it appears to be. If one were to look at a brick via the use of an electron microscope, this would become clear: minute particles make atoms, atoms group together to form molecules, and assembled molecules act and interact in ways that result in human cells and tissues and organs or in ways that result in what persons call bricks and steel beams and cars, etc. To look at the brick or the beam or the car using an electron microscope is to see that they are all the same, merely swirling masses of subatomic particles. Everything that appears to be "separate from" or "different from" is all connected to this planet, this solar system, and this entire universe itself. Why? Because it all began with one atom. If one were to study the chemistry of all that is "here" and all that is "there," then - using familial terms - our real "parents and brothers and sisters" are in the stars and heavenly bodies and meteors. All are kin, all connected to the energy / matter that can be traced back almost 14 billion years to the origin of this universe. [Okay, a nod to the scientists in the audience: yes, there is also anti-matter, but since the instant that the Big Bang occurred - triggering the development of this universe - slightly more matter than anti-matter remained. That fact has allowed all else that has happened in this universe to happen. As scientist Lawrence Krauss put it, humans are as much the direct descendants of that one-billionth of 1 percent surplus of matter over anti-matter as we are descendants of our own grandparents.]
8.
NON-DUAL NISARGAN MESSAGE: Again, nothing is being created or destroyed, so there are no creations, no creators or Creators, no birth, no destroyers or Destroyers. All is merely cycling.
THE SCIENTIFIC FACT: As scientist Neil Shubin pointed out: "When you eat an apple, electrons from that material course through your cells to drive the metabolism to power your body. The electrons inside the apple to begin with were derived from minerals in the ground and the water that fell from the sky. The electrons in both have merely cycled . . . for eons. And all of these came about well before the formation of the planet, the solar system, or even the stars."
9.
NON-DUAL MESSAGE: What is called "you" and is called "I" is nothing special.
THE SCIENTIFIC FACT: Every human walking about on the planet today is merely a recyclant, not in the sense that we are recyclers but in the fact that we are what has been recycled. All in this universe can be traced back to one single hydrogen atom. Energy converted to matter, and voila, nearly 14 billion years later, here "you" are - a composite unity of (A) energy / matter (with one type of energy being conscious-energy) along with (B) an elemental plant food body that is (C) circulating oxygen. Thus it should be no surprise that hydrogen makes up almost 90% of all matter today. The hydrogen presently inside your body came from the "Big Bang," from the very origins of the universe nearly 14 billion years ago. Since then it has been recycling. Other elements that are now present here came from the stars and supernovae. And guess what will happen at some point to the elements that have come together temporarily to compose "you": they will return to the stars and supernovae and they will be spread around the universe by some other supernova. All across the skies of this universe, matter is being recycled. Stars right now are generating elements and exploding and releasing those elements, and they shall be cycled and recycled as well. A so-called "person" is merely the renter of particles that have been traveling across the universe for billions of years. "You" are connected to all; in fact, you and all are One. All merely cycles. Things come together and then come apart, so there is no one who is personal or special or unique. All is merely a product of cycling and recycling.
10.
NON-DUAL MESSAGE: Again, everything merely cycles. There is no validity at all to any timeline involving birth, life, death, judgment and then either punishment or reward. Earth elements come together and then earth elements eventually come apart, but nothing is created and nothing is destroyed. All that is involved are variations of energy / matter. And contrary to appearances, matter cannot be "lost." That is merely an error in perception or perspective. Matter can merely convert to energy and seem to the uninformed to be "lost."
THE SCIENTIFIC FACT: Shubin said, to understand what has been revealed by studying the 13.7 billion years of the history of this universe is to understand that our bodies ". . . have roots in the crust of earth, water of the oceans, and atoms of celestial bodies. The stars in the sky and the fossils in the ground are enduring beacons that signal, though the pace of human change is ever accelerating, we are but a recent link in a network of connections as old as the heavens."
To be continued.
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