TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
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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. See the end of the post for the full meaning and implications of that.
TO REVIEW: Non-duality and non-duality-based seeking has . . .
(1) everything to do with treating the Ultimate Sickness, a sickness which Maharaj eventually came to see has the symptoms of "ignorance, stupidity, and insanity" and has . . .
(2) nothing to do with either knowing too little dogma or with having a "spiritual malady" or a "sick spiritual" or being "spirituality unfit."
To that end, Maharaj would eventually explain that "realization" is simply a process by which a person can be restored to her or his original condition by "being free of all learned ignorance," including being free of all body and mind and personality identification which is also the result of learned ignorance.
Hence . . .
REALIZING WITHOUT DOGMA, WITHOUT CONTINUOUS SPIRITUAL PRACTICES, AND WITHOUT A PREOCCUPATION WITH “THE NATURE OF REALITY AND THINGS NOUMENAL":
Freedom from Ignorance, Including the Ignorance of Believing in False Identifications
The results of several recent surveys of therapists, counselors, and psychologists who have been in practice for twenty-five years or more reveal that over the last several decades, the frequency of clients showing up with major personality disorders has increased significantly and that the severity of the mental disorders which they are diagnosing has increased as well.
They are seeing narcissistic and sociopathic tendencies already manifesting in children as young as 5 and 6 and 7 and 8, and adult clients are showing up with severe levels of personality disorders and neuroses and psychoses including depression, anxiety, narcissism, the borderline disorder, the addictive personality disorder, as well as the bi-polar personality disorder.
They reported that the levels of narcissism in adults now is often so high that what is called here “malignant narcissism” is manifesting and showing up alongside varying degrees of the sociopathic and / or psychopathic personality disorders.
Those professionals are reporting that never in all their years of practice have they seen such high degrees of narcissism and self-importance, such high levels of ego-state assumption, and - therefore - such high levels of the use of ego-defense mechanisms.
Again, Edgar Wallace: “The trouble with you is that you have no sense of unimportance.”
Maharaj: “Selfishness is the cause of suffering.”
One who studied with Maharaj: “It is not Self-Realisation that is transmitted, but self-importance” (and “Self-Importance” as well?)
Consider the sources that have been the most influential over the last 5000 years regarding the spread of ego-states and the use of ego-defense mechanisms and the manifestation of extreme levels of self-importance, namely, religion and spirituality and the self-identifications which they foster and support and the assumption of a Self-Identity. Of course self-importance has been running rampant among humans for thousands of years.
What’s more important to the 97% associated with one or another of the organized religions or to those who deem themselves to be spiritual and who think they are hooked up with a God or who have dreamed up their own concept of God or even think they are God?
[The logical question at this point might be, "How can one be 'at one' with God or 'be God' if there is no such thing as 'God' in the first place?" How can that be proved? All is energy / matter, and neither energy nor matter can be created nor destroyed; therefore, all that is was never "created"; hence, no “Creator.” So where did the concept of God come from, besides being dreamed up?
Maharaj: "First of all you identify something as being good or bad for yourself. Then, in an effort to acquire good or to get rid of the bad, you have invented a God. Then you worship such a God and . . . you pray to that God for something good to happen to you."]
Consider all of the religious workaholism and the spiritual workaholism that has gone on for at least 5000 years by people who have worked their tails off to please God; to know God; to find God; to be acceptable in God’s sight; to receive rewards now and to avoid punishment now from God; to receive eternal rewards from God and to avoid eternal punishments from God; to be at one with God; yada, yada, yada.
Surprise! “You have invented a God!” Damnation! All that workaholism for nothing. All that rigidity for nothing. All that self-importance for nothing. All that role-playing for nothing. All that posturing for nothing. All that pleasure-avoidance for nothing. All that God-involved fearing and desiring for nothing! All that working to make a difference for nothing. Double damnation!
Then consider all of the work that seekers are putting into the “SELF-Inquiry” process, even though Maharaj said: “You need not find the answer to ‘Who Am I?’ It is enough to know who you are not.”
Consider one of the examples used earlier in this series, namely, that of Dylann Roof - the man who walked into a black church in a community that has long been a hotbed of anti-black prejudice and who singled out nine people in that church to kill because they were black and because he wanted to trigger a race war on a national scale and because he had been programmed and conditioned and domesticated and acculturated in a community dominated by duality, by the belief that whites are different from blacks and that whites are better than blacks. Consider:
For him to think that he had the right to decide who lives and who dies? That’s some evidence of self-importance. And for him to think that he had the ability to trigger a nationwide race war? Now that’s a major degree of self-importance.
So it could be asked, "Could religion / spirituality have changed any of that?" Roof’s pastor described him as being "very religion and a good Christian," so the answer is assuredly, “No.” Then ask, “Well, couldn’t “Self-Inquiry” have changed that?” The answer is assuredly, “No.” Why?
Dylann Roof did not need a change in religions to change his thoughts and words which led to his actions. Moreover, does anyone believe that working with a guru to complete the Self-Inquiry process would have changed his thoughts and words which led to his actions?
Suppose he and I had met and I had said to him before he gunned down nine blacks, “You know Dylann, you really and truly are at one with all, including blacks. If you shoot them, you are shooting yourself.” Would that have been the method to treat his Ultimate Sickness, or wouldn’t he most likely have shot me then and there and then gone on to shoot them?
What Dylann Roof needed to understand was that he was no different from "them" - from "those others" - because of skin color and that he was no better than them because of skin color. He needed to understand why he believed that to be the case.
Specifically, he needed to be de-programmed, un-conditioned, de-acculturated, etc. But what are the odds of that ever happening with him or with the millions of others who have been raised for decades in a milieu where the prevailing teaching and belief is that whites are different from and better than blacks? About the same odds that Maharaj gave of any sane realization happening with anybody who needs to be able to differentiate between that which is true and that which is false, the latter being what is presently driving them. Maharaj's final guesstimate in the regard? One in ten million.
To the programming and conditioning that come from the religious and spiritual and non-dual sources discussed above, add in not only the domestication which comes in the home but also the acculturation which happens in homes and schools and communities and the brainwashing and indoctrination which also happen everywhere.
What is required to be free of the influence of the key sources of duality – religion and / or spirituality and / or “the journey which seekers are on” - all of which are influencing persons and determining their thoughts and words and actions without any conscious awareness of that fact?
A totally new and totally different experience.
Maharaj: “I have no faith in anything which has ever been told, not even what has been told by the Vedas. Only my own experience.”
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 relevant is 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."
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."
