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 Fifty =
No Interest in Being Truly Free and Independent
THE MASSES PREFER DEPENDENCY AND CODEPENDENCY AND ATTACHMENT TO THINGS WHICH ROB PERSONS OF THEIR FREEDOM
". . . You are afraid of freedom!"
--Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Today additional pointers from the book Overcoming the Fear of Being Totally Independent will be shared.
DEFINING FREEDOM - CONVENTIONAL SOURCES (cont.)
Among other things, Advaita is about awakening; by contrast, nothing in any culture is about waking you up. All is about:
1. Putting you to sleep,
2. Keeping you asleep ,
and
3. Modeling the ways by which persons can walk in their sleep, can talk in their sleep, and can think in their sleep (i.e., dream and believe the dream is real).
Among the tools used by cultures to put persons to sleep and to keep them that way are their ceremonies. Post-acculturation, there is no freedom so there can be neither happiness nor peace; post-acculturation, there can be neither freedom from ego nor freedom from egotism, for ceremonies generate false identities (egos) and trigger egotism to support those false ego-states.
As noted, one dictionary defines freedom as the absence of ceremony and the ability to live naturally.
Have you considered the way that culture's use ceremonies to program and condition the masses? Have you considered the way that ceremonies, repeated on a daily or weekly or annual basis, are used by cultures to control the thinking and talking and behavior of entire populations?
Discussed so far are the ritualistic ceremonies of religious and spiritual groups which occur with such frequency that even the children who are present can recite in their sleep the ceremonial words and can complete in their sleep whatever ceremonial movements are required. And they do recite and move in their sleep during the ceremonies, and so do participating adults.
Among the most frequent ceremonies are their worship services and their ceremonial funerals. Also included among their ceremonies are communion ceremonies, wedding ceremonies, confession ceremonies, and baptism / christening ceremonies.
Some "self-help" groups that claim to be spiritual have "meetings" rather than "religious services," but their meetings are models of religious worship services which both begin with an opening prayer ceremony, which both have a "spiritual message" segment, which both have a "money collecting" ceremony, and which both have a "closing prayer" ceremony.
Before looking at the next source that has dreamed up the second largest number of ceremonies (namely, nationalistic ceremonies), would you consider the answer to these questions:
a. Can you now observe your own behaviors objectively and see that there have been dozens of ceremonies that you have participated in that were completely senseless in basis and that you did not choose to participate in but were programmed to participate in by your parents or relatives or friends or culture?
b. Have you see how ceremonies were used to introduce to you certain concepts and ideas that you eventually accepted as truth without question?
c. Have you seen the way your culture repeats its ceremonies on a daily or weekly or annual basis in order to keep you trapped and asleep because regular participation in ceremonies reinforces the programming and conditioning of your culture ?
As you read about some of the ceremonies that persons in the U.S. are subjected to, you are invited to consider the nationalistic ceremonies that you have been subjected to where you live:
In the U.S., where persons are highly critical of other nations that subject children to propaganda early on, the school day cannot begin without school-age children having to participate in the ceremony of "The Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag."
The pledge, which was written by a Baptist preacher, blends religious and nationalistic propaganda, especially since the U.S. Congress in 1954 added the words "under God" after a Catholic organization called The Knights of Columbus pushed for the inclusion of that phrase.
The pledge ceremony, conducted every day that schools are in session, requires students from the ages of five to eighteen to participate in the ceremony which attempts to condition children and teens to be patriotic, to love their country, and to accept anything and everything that will be done during their lifetimes under the auspices of that flag.
The typical student, with the right hand placed over the heart, will recite the words to that pledge nearly 3,500 times before graduation from high school (which is marked with another insipid ceremony that most students would prefer to miss and which also opens with The Pledge).
For years children will be required to recite the words which claim that the nation is "indivisible," inspiring them to ignore the fact that
(1) the nation is actually divided into 50 different states, and to ignore the fact that
(2) the nation is divided regionally as a result of the animosity that many in the southern states still cling to because their states lost a civil war which ended 150 years ago for some but which has not ended at all for others in that region.
It is such delusion and ignorance, and the inability after 3,500 opportunities to see that something being said in a ceremony is totally false, is the kind of delusion and ignorance which non-dual pointers try to address.
Too, a sports event in the U.S. cannot begin without the ceremonial singing of the national anthem (an anthem with words that glorify fighting in a nation which already possesses far too much of a warrior mentality to begin with).
[NOTE: The opening ceremony at every National Football League game includes such components as military flyovers, flag unfurlings, emotional color guard presentations of the flag, and the singing of the militaristic / religious national anthem, all done in order for the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) to conduct what it is actually using as an enlistment campaign.
Those ceremonies began when the DOD offered the NFL money to conduct their pre-game, militaristic, patriotic activities. The Department of Defense has paid the football league millions of dollars over the years to continue performing their militaristic rituals. Since 2012 alone, the DOD has spent nearly $7,000,000 to have the right to continue to include their displays of "paid patriotism" via their sports / military recruitment marketing contracts which they need since they now have a volunteer army. So it is when capitalism partners with "patriotism."
Currently the military / religious affairs are drawing attention because some players / protesters are refusing to participate in order to draw attention to the high number of killings of unarmed blacks in the U.S.]
To continue, only a part of the anthem is sung by thousands at a time, but the full text of the song speaks of:
"the perilous fight" and "ramparts" and "rockets" and "bombs bursting" and "foes";
and about
"the havoc of war" and "the battle confusion" and claiming "the foes' blood has wash'd out their foul footsteps' pollution";
and about:
"nothing will save them from the gloom of the grave" while claiming "this is a heav'n-rescued land" and calling on all citizens to "praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserv'd us a nation!" and proclaiming that "this is our motto: 'In God is our trust'" and then ending with "then conquer we must."
How could the warrior mentality of a nation ever be eradicated when the masses regularly participate in the ceremonial singing in unison about "the perilous fight" and "ramparts" and "rockets" and "bombs bursting"?
In middle school and high school, I stopped participating in that morning ritual of saying the pledge to the flag, and that came nearly 60 years before any NFL players made the same decision to stop participating. I was sent by teachers to the office where the principal administered what we called "swats" or "licks" - the striking of my buttocks with a board which often left water-filled blisters on my cheeks.
Yet I continued to refuse to swear allegiance to a flag after having seen the horrors perpetuated by the military people who had carried that flag around with them all across the country and all around the globe.
Grandmother told me of a morning when a chill came over everyone at her family's home and farm site when U.S. soldiers were seen approaching with that U.S. flag blowing in
the wind at the head of the column of troops.
Those soldiers took away Grandmother's family and friends and stole their land and cabin and fields of crops. The land and possessions were sold for $1.50 per acre to a German family of four by the U.S. Government. The soldiers who then marched the "redskins" off to Oklahoma were carrying that same U.S. flag, and many of Grandmother's relatives and friends and others on the forced march died during that walk north.]
How can the warrior mentality of a militaristic nation like the U.S. ever be eradicated when, at community gatherings and in churches and in schools and at athletic events, the masses participate in ceremonies which celebrate such "special" military-related holidays as the Fourth of July, Memorial Day, Veterans Day, VE-Day, V-J Day, Armed Forces Day, Pearl Harbor Day, Flag Day, and even the National Day of Prayer and Freedom Day and Loyalty Day and Patriots Day (on 9 / 11, of course).
[Moreover, what levels of xenophobic ignorance are required to inspire persons to have holidays which glorify the ass-kickings which the nation has received, such as those at Pearl Harbor and in New York City with the destruction of the towers at the World Trade Center?
Yes, in the U.S., there are ceremonies that even celebrate those and other national defeats and national humiliations. Additionally, such ceremonies are especially effective at generating national pride (over defeats) and the perpetuation of national anger and resentment.]
Ceremonies, the effects of which only a small number will ever recognize, rob persons of freedom, and that includes freedom from delusion, distortion, arrogance, anger, resentment, and a host of other effects that generate personality disorders and even insanity.
But the attachment to (and even love of) ceremonies - be they religious, spiritual, or nationalistic - will not be abandoned except among the few that at any given time on this planet are realized.
Meanwhile, even as the non-realized raise their voices in unison and sing of their freedom, they are totally actually imprisoned in ways they will never understand. So it is.
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.
