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 everything to do with treating the Ultimate Sickness, a sickness which Maharaj eventually came to see has everything to do with "ignorance, stupidity, and insanity" and has 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":
Facts vs. fiction, the reasonable vs. the illogical, and sanity vs. insanity
Flat characters are those who are one-dimensional and who only care about a single issue which they obsess about constantly (such as their religion, spirituality, abortion, racial superiority, racial entitlement, victimization, etc.)
A round or rounded or well-rounded character is one who encounters conflict and is changed by it, who wakes up to the fact that whatever it is that she or he is involved with or whatever he or she has been doing or tolerating is not working in their best interests, relatively speaking. Round characters tend to be more fully developed psychically and more aware than flat or static characters.
In the U.S. and in parts of Western Europe nowadays and in parts of eastern Europe and in other countries around the globe, most are flat characters, and more than 50% of voters are flat characters in that they are often single issue fanatics / single issue voters.
For example:
1. "I am an evangelical Christian character who is - above all else - a fanatic about abortion and who therefore believes that if a pregnant woman's doctor has determined unequivocally that she is going to die if she goes full-term and tries to deliver a child, that is irrelevant. She must go ahead and die so the child can live. I believe that if a woman has been raped and impregnated, she still needs to carry her rapist's child full term.
"That is why I gave lip service for decades to morality and to the standards called for in the Ten Commandments but at the same time can now support wholeheartedly a man who has bragged that he had assaulted women, who makes sexually-explicit, incestuous comments about his daughter, who raped his first wife, who had sexual affairs while married, etc. but who is anti-abortion. Because of my one issue which he supports, he gets "a mulligan" and my unequivocal support."
Or,
2. "I am a white supremacist / white "nationalist / neo- Nazi / American Preservationist / America Firstar / White Tribalist who is obsessed with my whiteness and with protecting my white privilege even as I complain that it does not exist while also believing that I am different from and therefore better than non-whites, so I can give lip service to the most lofty principles and concepts about "America" while wallowing in any other swamp-like filth without concern.
[Are assault, incest, rape, and extramarital affairs all a part of the relative realm? Absolutely, but the fact remains: It does no good to drain a swamp if you replace it with a cesspool, yet single issue voters / single-issue fanatics could not care less about anyone doing exactly that.]
3. And what if one who is opposed to abortion or who is a white supremacist is also a pathological liar? That's irrelevant to all who are fanatical, flat-character, single issue voters as long as their liar stands firm about the single issue which such fanatic, monomaniacal types are focused on and obsessed with.
If persons ask, "How can they continue to support and excuse such a person?" then the persons even asking such a question are putting on displaying their extreme naiveté and foolishness and are totally missing the fact that supporters who are fanatically focused on only one issue in the current post-truth, post-fact cultures around the globe will unwaveringly continue to give their support if their leaders continue to support the one issue such types are concerned with.
What does any of that have to do with non-duality and non-duality-based seeking? Everything.
Any instance of being fooled or conned regularly calls for an awakening.
Repeated instances of believing lies call for an awakening.
Believing that one has the right to control women and dictate them what they can and cannot do with their own bodies calls for an awakening.
Believing in racial superiority and the concepts of different-from-ment and better-than-than and separation by skin color calls for an awakening.
Moreover, it explains the small number who will ever arrive at the non-dual understanding and then realize (meaning, become totally free of what Maharaj called their "learned ignorance").
PLAYERS OF RELIGIOUS OR SPIRITUAL ROLES
For those who are playing their "good" religious and / or spiritual roles in order to gain status and respect, they will remain attached to those roles as long as they are providing what is sought, no matter how false such roles are. Why seek via a non-dual process if one's present misunderstanding seems to be working so well?
PLAYERS USING ROLES IN ORDER TO "SIN AT WILL" BUT THEN GAIN ABSOLUTION
For those seeking to do anything they want to do to others but then get a clean slate by going to their temple or mosque or church, they will continue to live the lie that they are living in order to get absolution and then start the sin-absolution-sin-absolution process all over again. Why seek via a non-dual process if the desires of the agenda of one's present roles seem to be working so well?
PLAYERS OF RELATIONSHIP ROLES AND GAMES
For those seeking to please spouses or lovers by playing those roles, and if their spouses or lovers stay in a relationship with them as a result, then they'll keep playing their roles and their games. Why seek via a non-dual understanding if one's present roles seems to be working so well?
Additionally, being asleep and fooled cannot be compartmentalized. The effects of being asleep to truth and being fooled will cross the span of every aspect of one's relative existence and will not be limited to believing the most outrageous claims made by religious or spiritual leaders.
PLAYERS TRAPPED IN THE ROLES OF "THE FOOLISH ONE" AND "THE SLEEPWALKER"
If persons are being fooled by false ads and have habitually given their money to scam artists, they will continue to do that unless they wake up and see what their foolishness has cost them, relatively speaking; otherwise, they will not seek anything beyond what they already think they know.
PLAYERS OF POLITICAL ROLES TO SATISFY A SINGLE ISSUE WHICH THEY ARE OBSESSING OVER
If their political leaders steal their money and pass it along to the friends of the political leaders, their followers will not object as long as the stance regarding their single issue is being satisfied.
PLAYERS OF THE ROLE OF "THE TOLERANT ONE"
A. If workers are being abused in the workplace, unless they wake up to the fact that they need to acquire a new set of skills which will allow them to leave their abusive employers, they will stay.
B. If spouses or mates are being abused in the home, unless they wake up to the fact that they need to acquire a new set of skills which will allow them to leave their abusers, they will stay, telling themselves the lie that "It could be worse" or "It's not really that bad . . . my bills are being paid and I have a roof over me head."
PLAYERS OF "THE LIAR ROLE"
When persons accept the lies of others in order to hang onto some sort of supposed "gain," they soon join in and begin lying to themselves as well. Such lies in those cases lead to justification, excuse-making, denial, avoidance, and mental escapism rather than to the actual physical escapism which the abuse they are tolerating should inspire.
The key points:
In terms of the relative existence, nothing is more costly than being fooled by those who lie.
In terms of the relative existence, nothing can generate more suffering and misery than being conned repeatedly. To be conned and fooled repeatedly is evidence of the fact that one is sleepwalking through life and needs to wake up.
The rub? The politics and religions and spiritual programs and businesses and work conditions and relationships which people are involved with all depend on putting persons to sleep and keeping them asleep in order to strip them of their independence in order to control their thoughts and words and actions.
Yet who that prefers the familiar - no matter how miserable it is - wants change? Typically, none. And who that thinks that they are comfortable being asleep want to be awakened? Typically, none.
And it is those commonplace mindsets among humans which explains why Maharaj estimated that only 1 out of 100,000 will ever wake up, revised later to only 1 out of 1,000,000, and revised eventually to 1 out of 10,000,000.
The odds are slight that sleepers will wake up enough to seek outside the venues in which they have typically functioned and are slight that liars will stop lying or that those who have been conditioned, programmed, etc. to believe lies will ever see the falsity of those lies and seek truth instead.
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."
