TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
[See the offer following this post for details on how you can watch a video which includes a discussion of all seven of the steps on the path as used by Maharaj]
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.
TO REVIEW:
"Heaven and hell are not geographic places but are states of mind, nothing more than concepts dreamed up by men."
--Pope John Paul II
"There is no hell."
--Pope Francis, the current pope
[in an interview with journalist Eugenio Scalfari]
"No one shall ever see 'the kingdom of heaven.' It is within"
and
"Heaven and earth shall fade away."
--Yeshu'a (Jesus)
REALIZING WITHOUT DOGMA, WITHOUT CONTINUOUS SPIRITUAL PRACTICES, AND WITHOUT A PREOCCUPATION WITH “THE NATURE OF REALITY AND THINGS NOUMENAL”:
The I'm Not Religious, I Am Spiritual" Braggadocios Delusion
Next month marks the twenty-ninth year that the non-dual teachings have been offered here. As was the case during the decades that Maharaj offered the teachings, the approach has most certainly evolved. With Maharaj, his approach evolved from a use of various types of yoga which were non-Nisargan; to the use of a religious / non-dual compound version of the Ultimate Medicine;
to the use of a spiritual / non-dual compound version of the Ultimate Medicine; and eventually to a method which focused on a psychological / non-dual version of the Ultimate Medicine which focused on the mental problems of humanity, combined with a near-pure version of the Nisarga Yoga as well.
He changed the method which he was using each time he realized that the method was not providing a long-term and effective treatment for what ails humanity. Here, the changes were made for the same reason, along with others which have been mentioned.
A means for realizing without having to use dogma and without having to engage continuously in spiritual practices and without a constant and impractical preoccupation with “the nature of reality and things ‘Noumenal’” and without a constant focus on “SELF” (which is just an egocentric substitute for focusing on “self” or “selves”) is offered because of their ineffectiveness and impractically but also because it was seen that seekers were coming here with issues that Maharaj never likely had to address.
Some over the years have come here who had sought via religion but who can no longer use that means because of horrific instances of abuse by "religious people." Some regularly underwent the most extreme forms of corporal punishment imaginable in their home where their parents' “holy text” warns against "sparing the rod."
In addition to that - or alongside that - they suffered mental and emotional abuse as their parents shared the teachings of many religions which introduced them to an angry god who has prepared the most radical and extreme and eternal punishments for them if they do not adhere strictly to the dogma they are exposed to.
How lacking in empathy and how cold to the bone is the practice of telling such sufferers that religion is the only answer and that they need to “get over it and move on and get back into the church / temple / mosque and do whatever the leaders there tell them to do.”
Those persons deserve an alternative. That is offered here.
The same applies to seekers who find their way into spiritual groups who claim they are not religious but who model exactly the format of religious services. (Why? Because their so-called "spiritual, not religion program" was based on a program originally founded by two Christian ministers whose program was later copied / plagiarized by a self-identified alcoholic.)
The members of such groups . . .
meet in a place they deem to be special;
start their meetings with a prayer;
talk about God and "how he saved their lives and changed their lives";
pass a basket and collect an offering / small contribution;
talk some more about God; and then
close their meetings with the Christian “Lord’s Prayer.”
(By the way, Christ never prayed that prayer. The talk of a “kingdom to come” directly contradictory to his non-dual pointer that “no one shall ever see the kingdom of heaven because it’s within,” now).
Those who have been abused in a church / temple / mosque / religious / spiritual home cannot find that which they seek in any venue which is an exact model of that which warped and distorted and injured their psyches in the first place.
Those persons also deserve an alternative. That is offered here.
And any alternative or method or institution which is exactly like that which initially injured one’s psyche cannot possibly provide a means for un-warping or un-distorting or undoing the injuries which they caused in the first place.
Consider the case of one man who tried to use the religious plan he was introduced to during his childhood as a cure and, eventually, used the "spiritual" plan he found later during his adulthood:
That man at the age of 49 came here and described a life which had been catastrophe (relatively-speaking) for himself and all those who dealt with him. He confessed to years of abusing alcohol and all of the drugs he could get his hands on.
(He began using those to try to escape the mental angst which developed during his early years and which were exacerbated during the two years when his “Super Patriot” ego-state inspired him to buy into his warrior-mentality government’s warning that Far Eastern communists were a threat to the U.S. His xenophobic urge inspired him to volunteer to go to Vietnam and to kill any people that his government told him to kill.
After we spoke, he came to understand that there was not an iota of difference in that job and the jobs that hit men take on when a mob’s godfather identifies who is deemed to be a threat. That variety of "The Hit Man" also kills whomever the boss tells him to kill and also gets paid for doing the job of killing so-called "enemies.")
He described how, on the farm in the Midwest U.S. - the self-described "Heartland of The Real America" where people are viewed as "good, God-fearing Christians" - and where he spent his first eighteen years, his highly religious mother and grandmother began sexually assaulting when he was thirteen; he also described how his supposedly highly-religious-and-spiritual father forced him to go into the barn regularly and forced him to strip into the nude; tied a rope around his wrists; hung him by his arms from the rafters; and then sado-masochistically used a whip to beat him.
After those experiences during his youth and as a young adult in war, his psychic state had deteriorated to the lowest level possible. He began acting out sexually in the most fanatical ways imaginable, using women for gratification and then tossing them aside.
Meanwhile, he gained an international reputation as "one of the most spiritual men on the planet."
He eventually came to see, as we continued meeting over a period of weeks, that he had been behaving in a fanatical, sado-masochistic manner for over three decades, repeating the same kind of horrors and the same kinds of abuse which his parents had submitted him to. He finally saw that, indeed, for almost every person whom he had ever charmed - and, as a Personality Type Three, charm was the most effective tool he had for manipulating others - the dealings all those people had with him with had sooner or later become their greatest nightmare.
[The rest of his story tomorrow]
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."
