TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
ANNOUNCEMENTS
1. [See the offer in gold text 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 green text after today's 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." (See the details in the blue text after this post.)
4. I have only two remaining paperback copies of the book co-authored with Mark Houston, A Twelve-Step Journey to SELF-Transformation, a potentially-effective gift for someone struggling with an addiction to alcohol (or to anything else, really). The book lists for $19.95 + Priority Mail shipping. To purchase, you may use the donate button at the top right of this page and include a note that the $27.60 is for the Twelve-Step book. Regrets to international visitors but this is only available within the U.S. because international shipping rates are prohibitive and time-consuming and cannot be tracked.
To continue:
Consider some of the philosophers and poets and song writers who have shared non-dual pointers and consider where on the globe they were when sharing those pointers and the claim here that the non-duality message has long been widespread is further substantiated:
Plato lived in Greece some 400 years before Yeshua (“Jesus”) whose non-duality-based quotes have been shared over the last three days;
also quoted today will be St. Francis of Assisi who lived nearly 800 years ago in Italy; Erasmus who lived 550 years ago in The Netherlands; John Lennon lived in the England and later the U.S. while George Bernard Shaw was an Irish writer;
and Ian McCallum I was introduced to while visiting the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden in Cape Town, South Africa where some of his non-dual poetry is on display.
"MISCELLANEOUS QUOTATIONS AND POINTERS FROM PHILOSOPHERS AND SAGES AND SEERS OF TRUTH WHICH ARE ROOTED IN NON-DUALITY"
Plato
"We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark. The real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light."
E. Bayda
"It is only in our minds we seem trapped - in Reality we are utterly free."
Edward Thomas
“And heavy is the tread of the living, but the dead returning lightly dance.”
St. Francis of Assisi
"What you are looking for is what is looking."
Desiderius Erasmus
"Give light and the darkness will disappear of itself."
"A good portion of speaking will consist in knowing how to lie."
"A nail is driven out by another nail."
"Fools are without number."
"If you keep thinking about what you want to do or what you hope will happen, you don't do it, and it won't happen."
"In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king."
"It's the generally accepted privilege of theologians to stretch the heavens, that is the Scriptures, like tanners with a hide."
"Man's mind is so formed that it is far more susceptible to falsehood than to truth."
"Nothing is as peevish and pedantic as men's judgments of one another."
"The nearer people approach old age the closer they return to a semblance of childhood, until the time comes for them to depart this life, again like children, neither tired of living nor aware of death."
"There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other."
"To know nothing is the happiest life."
"What difference is there, do you think, between those in Plato's cave who can only marvel at the shadows and images of various objects, provided they are content and don't know what they miss, and the philosopher who has emerged from the cave and sees the real things?"
Albert Einstein
“A person experiences life as something separated from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. Our task must be to free ourselves from this self-imposed prison, and through compassion, to find the reality of Oneness.”
"A human being is part of the whole called by us 'universe,' a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."
John Lennon
”Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we're being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I'm liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That's what's insane about it.”
”There's nothing you can know that isn't known.”
“You don't need anybody to tell you who you are or what you are. You are what you are!”
And then there’s the lyrics of the non-duality anthem entitled “Imagine” which Lennon co-wrote with Yoko Ono:
IMAGINE
Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today . . .
Imagine there's no countries,
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too.
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace . . .
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world . . .
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one.
George Bernard Shaw
(When asked if he thought there might be life on other planets): His reply was that he was certain that "there had to be life on other planets because people there are obviously using earth as their insane asylum."
Ian McCallum
"We need to stop speaking about the earth being in need of healing. The earth does not need healing. We do. Our task is to rediscover ourselves in Nature. How or where do we begin?"
"We begin exactly where we are right now, when we look at the world as a mirror, when we discover that our sense of freedom and authenticity is linked to the authenticity and well-being of others, and that includes the animals, the trees, and the land."
"To understand wildness is to discover the thread that binds us to all living things."
"To distance ourselves from, and worse, to deny our wild ancestry, is to witness its return in all manner of savage outbursts."
And then there’s the lines in his the poem entitled “The Rising”:
THE RISING
One day
your soul will call to you
with a holy rage.
"Rise up!" it will say . . .
"Stand up inside your own skin."
Unmask your unlived life . . .
Feast on your animal heart.
Unfasten your fist . . .
let loose the medicine
in your own hand.
Show me the lines . . .
I will show you the spoor
of the ancestors.
Show me the creases . . .
I will show you the way
to the water.
Show me the folds . . .
I will show you the furrows
for your healing.
"Look!" it will say . . .
The line of life has four paths -
one with a mirror,
one with a mask,
one with a fist,
one with a heart.
One day,
your soul
will call to you
with a holy rage.
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) whose Vatican Bank worked for decades with the Mafia while laundering mob earnings (for a 15% all-profit charge by the Bank); 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.
