TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
ANNOUNCEMENTS
1. [See the offer following this post for details on how you can watch a retreat on video which includes a detailed discussion of all seven of the steps on the path as used by Maharaj]
2. 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.
3. A new video ("Number Ten: Awakening Together Satsang, March 2018") has now been added in the far right column of this page, offering the opportunity to view a recent 2018 satsang session with Floyd being interviewed by Regina and Jacqueline of "The Awakening Together Group."
THE SEEDS OF DUALITY WHICH PRODUCE DUALITY'S PROGENY:
Offspring Number Thirty-Eight =
An Inability to Be Truly Independent and Free
DEPENDENCY AND CO-DEPENDENCY ARE MENTAL TRAPS WHICH CAPTURE HAPPINESS AND CONTENTMENT AND PREVENT THE MASSES FROM ENJOYING EITHER
In the book LIBERATION (Attaining Freedom from Personality via Realization), freedom from the effects of personality identification focuses on one of many types of liberation / freedom / independence which realization can offer.
Maharaj made clear that realization merely and simply involves using a process which provides the ability to differentiate between what is real - what is authentic - and what is not.
Stated another way, realization refers to realizing that all of the so-called knowledge that has been accumulated is bogus and amounts to nothing more nor less than "learned ignorance."
1. Sometimes lies are accepted as truth because of the influence of what Maharaj identified as three key symptoms of the Ultimate Sickness, namely, "ignorance, stupidity and insanity."
2. Other times, lies are accepted as truth because they reinforce persons' lie-based belief systems.
3. On other occasions, lies are believed when they reinforce one's hidden agendas, prejudices, and xenophobia; when they are believed because there is a notion that they can lead to desire fulfillment; and / or when are believed because there is a notion that they lead to fear abatement.
There are many ways that freedom can come. Maharaj's wife Sumatibai nagged constantly about his sharing non-dual pointers rather than teaching Hindu dogma. When Sumatibai died in the 1040's, many tried to fix Maharaj up with this or that woman they knew, telling him he needed to remarry.
His stock answer became, "I am married. I'm married to freedom."
Freedom from lies would seem to be a no-brainer in terms of one's goals, but the fact is that the masses who are trapped in the false - and in their false identities - actually hate truth.
Mark Murphy, in his article "Cognitive Dissonance Helps Explain Why We Hate To Hear The Truth," wrote:
"I've witnessed adults who insist they can handle the truth cry, rant, and even punch the walls upon hearing truth."
He said: "The truth sounds good in theory, especially if it's truth with which we agree or that positions us in a favorable light. It's when we hear truth that isn't so pleasant that we start to resist."
When he conducted a study of 27,048 executives, managers and employees, he found that only 24% of people said that their leader "always" encourages and recognizes suggestions for improvement. Considering how many of those executives and managers and employers are angry, controlling Type Eights, 24% is likely a very high guesstimate.
Murphy asked, "Why do we hate to hear the truth, especially if it involves hearing something we need to improve?"
He answered: "A concept called 'cognitive dissonance' gives us an answer. The state of cognitive dissonance occurs when someone holds two psychologically inconsistent beliefs that create an unpleasant mental tension (such as, "God loves you unconditionally, but he will cause you mental and physical pain and suffering for eternity if you break any of his rules").
A friend and I co-authored a book in which we shared this:
"The truth will set you free, but it's going to really piss you off first."
Freedom from belief in lies is one form of freedom.
Freedom from being driven by the subconscious agendas of false identities is another form of freedom. There is no ability to make choices if one is being driven, and being unable to make conscious choices is a total absence of freedom.
Freedom from religious distortions and nagging is another.
Freedom from the authoritarian rule of dictators or would-be dictators is a form of freedom.
Freedom from unwarranted incarceration.
Freedom from noise is another form of freedom.
Freedom from manipulation is another form of freedom, but the irony is that many manipulators have their manipulations down to an art form and can disguise their hidden agenda as "love," or "passion," or "adoration," or "affection," etc.
[I have shared the story of a father who told his daughter at the age of eighteen that she did not need an education . . . that she had a great body and good looks and that it would be easy enough to find a rich man to take care of her."
Her mother pitched in: "And you can manipulate a man with love and always have your needs met."
Ironically that father / husband had an affair with a neighbor and she left her husband and married him and the wife who said "you can manipulate a man with love and always have your needs met" struggled financially and lived alone for the next fifty years and was barely able to pay her bills.
The daughter, meanwhile, has moved from one rich man to the next richer man. Like a car that a child can wind up and set on the floor and then watch it run into a wall and then reverse and then turn 90 degrees and then go until it hits the next wall and does the same maneuver over and over, the daughter had lived out her programming and conditioning in the same way.]
There are so many types of freedom that are being sought but never found. In some cases, the non-dual understanding had provided freedom in all areas of one's relative existence simply by allowing one to look at the false and recognize it as false.
First must come freedom from "ignorance, stupidity and insanity." After that, all sorts of freedom begin to manifest spontaneously.
Maharaj often offered the pointer that "Understanding leads to freedom."
Exactly.
He said, "The understanding of oneself is necessary for freedom from the bondage of illusion."
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"
--Yeshu'a (Jesus)
and
"Heaven and earth shall fade away."
--Yeshu'a (Jesus)
and
"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,
a writer used by the Pope to issue off the record
teachings which become a part of the Papal Magisterium.
[That said, would that the popes who have shown the courage to reject a core concept of their dogma - namely, "hell" - would find the additional courage required to question the very existence of their institution in light of the centuries-long cover-up of their history of raping children and in light of the mental and emotional and psychological scarring of billions of their members past and present.
And that need for courage also applies as questions need to be asked about why so many other sky cults are still being supported and allowed to continue to exist as well. When certain types of programming and conditioning have been shown to blind the masses, they should end. Will they? Not likely. Why?
Because what the masses think and say and do is most influenced by the international crime families which hold sway over the masses as criminals conduct their planet-wide operations. What are the major international crime families and which are the most influential and have the largest memberships?
The Mafia / La Cosa Nostra; the Catholic Church (with it 1.2 billion followers); Protestant and Evangelical Churches (with over 1.2 billion followers) like the one I was raised in where the youth director molested and sexually assaulted young girls; big business which has long created environments in which people have been abused; powerful political bodies like the U.S. Congress, etc., etc., etc.)
With all of those crime families, neither the followers nor the leadership ever voluntarily step down or shut down their criminal activities. Be they gangs, organized crime families, religions, big business, politicians, etc., they all want control and they all want power and they all want money, and nothing internal will interfere with the driving forces at play.
The masses must demand that all those in charge must step down and their groups and institutions must shut down, and there's the real problem because the continuation of their crimes are enabled not as much by the people running such crime organizations as they are enabled by the masses of people who - wanting some perceived "payoff" - remain involved with them and give them money and support them and aid and abet the continued existence of those criminal enterprises and thus facilitate the ability of church criminals and political criminals and other types of criminals to continue to commit their crimes.]
Here's
the direct link to the VIDEO VERSION
of the "Awakening Together" satsang session with Regina and Jacqueline referenced earlier, 18 MARCH 2018
If preferred, here's
the direct link to the AUDIO VERSION
of that session.
