TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
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To review the key pointers being discussed at this point:
Here, with those who are still driven to talk about "God," the "Son of God," the "Holy Spirit," "Buddha," "Krishna," etc., etc., etc., the invitation to them is to view those as verbs, not nouns. See the end of the post for the full meaning and implications of that.
The most influential obstacles of all to realizing and being free 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."
A man who was abused as a child by a priest. man approached and asked for a way "to be guided to a state of realization and freedom without their having to buy into dogma."
The popular venues where seekers seek (or don't) have a 5000+-year history of failing to set persons free of their distorted and delusional and freedom-blocking and independence-blocking belief systems. venues.
Thus it should be clear why Maharaj eventually advised seekers to avoid those, leading to this totally different option:
REALIZING WITHOUT DOGMA, WITHOUT CONTINUOUS SPIRITUAL PRACTICES, AND WITHOUT A PREOCCUPATION WITH “THE NATURE OF REALITY AND THINGS NOUMENAL": Duality-Based Conflict
[Continuing from yesterday]
Today, many nations are split right down the middle with their populations divided along duality-based identifiers:
Syria is divided along dualistic, religious, sectarian lines, for example.
Somalia, Kenya, Nigeria, Sudan and Libya are engaged in civil wars.
And the U.S. remains divided by these dualistic identifiers:
“conservative” vs. “liberal";
“highly religious” vs. “less religious” or “not religious";
“northern” vs. “southern” geographic identities;
white supremacists and neo-nazis vs. the tolerant;
those willing to work to address issues which need to be addressed vs. those addicted to chaos who want to "tear the whole thing down";
“progressive types” vs. "the regressive types" and “the opponents of all change and innovation.”
History offers many lessons of what can happen when duality rules a nation:
1. Abraham Lincoln, speaking of the U.S. in the mid-1800's, observed in a non-dual fashion that "a house divided against itself cannot stand," a non-dual message that adumbrated a pointer also offered by the Advaitin Yeshu'a many centuries earlier and by Maharaj later.
2. An even earlier example of a case where a national house was divided against itself happened when a city-state known as Florence (Italy) had a formerly-united populace that became divided 50 / 50 along religious and social and political lines.
Those differing political and social and religious-based beliefs split Florence right down the middle after the monk Girolamo "The Bonfires of the Vanities" Savonarola entered the city of Florence. With a hidden agenda to overthrow the government and create a theocracy in its place, he attacked the ruling Medicis as "humanists" and "non-Christians" and chastised them for supporting science.
Like many current counterparts in the U.S., Savonarola was a demagogue of the highest order, able to incite half of the population with emotionally-intoxicating, evangelical-preacher-like-rhetoric while spreading ignorance and fanaticism. Eventually, he was able to foster enough discontentment that the city-state became split 50 / 50 by the divisiveness of their political and social and religious-based, dualistic concepts.
Savonarola inspired a puritanical fervor, declaring passionately that Florence would become "the world center of Christianity" and "more powerful, more glorious than ever" once Christians gained total control of the city-state. During the four years that he was the religious / political ruler of Florence, the city-state sank into utter chaos as he converted it from a self-governed, independent state into a theocracy.
Post-Savonarola's influence, fifty percent of the population longed to return to being a self-governing, independent state; fifty percent preferred his plan: to live in a theocracy - a religious state where God is considered the head of the government and where a human ruler is deemed to be God's spokesperson on earth. Rather than a written constitution serving as a guide, scriptures deemed to be "holy" are the written guide for a theocratic nation.
As in the days of Lincoln, the U.S. is again providing an example for the entire planet as opposing forces - totally trapped in dual-mindedness - are playing out in a real time drama and in their Theater of the Lie exactly what it looks like when duality runs amuck with a present populace that is once again divided 50 / 50 along religious, social, political (and yes, racial) lines.
The 1860's version of a dual-minded "United" States is alive and active, the divisiveness never really having ended in many parts of the nation.
Today, what is happening in the States provides an example for all seekers of the non-dual understanding of what happens when dual-mindedness prevails. In the U.S., the trappings of duality in national politics is at play with demagoguery and hyperbole and histrionics and ignorance and stupidity and insanity (Maharaj) and duality-inspired destruction having become exceedingly popular among the fifty percent or more who prefer those. Their zeal to build a Biblical-based government is all-consuming, inspiring their full-blown monomania.
As far as the non-dual understanding is concerned, Florence in the late 1500's, the U.S. in the mid-1800's, and the U.S. currently can provide examples of what happens when "dual-minded persons become unstable in all ways" and then seek power and control in order to assure that their dualistic beliefs are forced upon an entire population.
Of course, the histories of most nations provide similar examples: the U.K. when Henry VIII broke from the Catholic Church and formed a state religion that to this day functions alongside the government; South Africa under apartheid; other African nations that have been torn by regional wars;
the present-day theocracies that are at war with all who do not belong to their particular religion and sect; and a history of other religious wars that are rooted in the opposing agendas of Judaism, Christianity, Islam and other religions that would have a "faith-based, God-fearing government" in order to guarantee that their nations have a "faith-based, God-fearing populace."
None of that could ever even be conceived except for the fact that dual-minded persons assume false roles which then drive their every thought and word and deed (rendering them unstable in all ways after having assumed the roles of "Super Political Leaders," "Super Proud Xenophobes," "Super Religious Knowers," "Super Patriots" and - most arrogantly and delusionally and divisively - "Those Who Believe That They Are Living in 'The Greatest Nation on Earth'.") All of that is dualistic, arrogance-based, hierarchy-inspiring, separatist nonsense.
Such is the relative existence when it is being controlled by duality, that is, by dualistic thoughts, dualistic talk, and duality-driven actions; by religious fanatics fomenting a false sense of separation and different-from-ment and better-than-ment; by political fanatics fomenting a false sense of separation and different-from-ment and better-than-ment; and by a few big business fanatics who are co-opting control of elections and using their billions to foment a false sense of separation and different-from-ment and better-than-ment.
And so the cycles go, for over 500 years in some of the examples offered. Is should indeed be clear that "There is no chaos in the world except the chaos which your mind creates” and that “A dual-minded person is unstable in all ways"?
To be continued.
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Here, with those who are still driven to talk about "God," the "Son of God," the "Holy Spirit," "Buddha," "Krishna," etc., etc., etc., the invitation to them is to view those as verbs, not nouns.
THE EXPLANATION
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 (that narcissism evidenced by the fact that you think you are "godly").
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
"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."
Yeshu'a (Jesus) and Pope John Paul II and Pope Francis were spot on:
"No one shall ever see 'the kingdom of heaven.' It is within"
and
"Heaven and earth shall fade away."
and
"Heaven and hell are not geographic places but are states of mind, nothing more than concepts dreamed up by men"
and
"There is no hell."
