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.
The point in this series is that the non-dual message has long been widespread but has seldom been understood either then or now.
Next:
THE NON-DUALITY MESSAGE AS IT HAS BEEN OFFERED IN FICTION
Jack Kerouac
“Finding Nirvana is like locating silence.”
“The page is long, blank, and full of truth. When I am through with it, it shall probably be long, full, and empty with words.”
“Love is all.”
“Listen closely . . . the eternal hush of silence goes on and on throughout all this, and has been going on, and will go on and on. This is because the world is nothing but a dream and is just thought of and the everlasting eternity pays no attention to it.”
“Happiness consists in realizing it is all a great strange dream.”
Q.: " . . . Do you want to go on being fooled every damn minute of your life?"
A.: "Yes . . . ."
Michael Connelly
"He was long past believing in God—the horrors he had seen documented had little by little sapped his stores of faith. In those seemingly final days, as his own heart withered and tapped out its final cadences, he did not grasp desperately for his lost faith as a shield or a means of easing the fear of the unknown. Instead, he was accepting of the end, of his own nothingness. He was ready. It was easy to do."
Mary Shelley
In Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein," Victor Frankenstein and the "monster" he created represent a duality in one respect, but - on the other hand - represent two sides of a single entity. By the end of the novel, there is a shift in the one that represents "good" and the one that represents "evil" - the man or the monster. The man-made "creation" / "creature" is actually kind and innocent but misunderstood and mistreated while, inevitably, Victor ends up in a barren area being chased by his own creation.
In the traditional fairy tale "The Beauty and the Beast"
and
in Victor Hugo's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame"
There is a treatment of the dualistic "beauty" vs. "ugliness" that is reinforced by acculturation. There is in both cases one that is considered by the culture's standards to be ugly but who is in love with one that the cultures deem to be far superior as a result of physical appearance.
In the traditional fairy tale "Goldilocks and the Three Bears"
The girls' complaints all contained dualities, ranging from porridge that was too hot vs. porridge that was too cold; from two chairs that were the wrong size big vs. one that was too right; and from a bed that was too hard vs. one that was too soft.
In Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical "The Phantom of the Opera"
The musical is also based on "The Beauty and the Beast" model. The phantom is also a lonely man seeking love but is also a man who is dualistically capable of being bitter and angry and capable of hatred and even murder.
In Robert Lewis Stevenson's "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"
Dr. Jekyll is a docile man whereas Mr. Hyde displays the a vicious sense of malevolence and cruelty.
In Abraham "Bram" Stoker's "Dracula"
Dracula is part normal man, part soulless killer. Werewolves are part innocent humans, part uncontrollable killer.
[The writings associated with the following religions, philosophies, etc. are also included in the “fiction” section of this posting because most of what is in those texts is just “stuff that was made up.” That said, there are some valid non-dual pointers in many of those writings.]
ZOROASTRIANISM
One of the earliest conceptions of dualism came from the Persian Religion of Zoroastrianism (mid-fifth century B.C. which taught that "Ahura Mazda" was the eternal creator of all "good things" and taught that all thing which ran counter to Ahura Mazda's order - and which were therefore "bad" - came from "druj."
EGYPTIAN RELIGION
Egyptian Religious beliefs contrast the Gods Seth (disorder, death) and Osiris (order, life).
GREEK and ROMAN RELIGIONS
The Greeks made up tales about other-worldly powers to explain the things they deemed "good" and the things they deemed "bad," and eventually the myth-based gods and goddesses evolved into the Greeks' religion. After the Romans conquered the Greeks, they adopted the Greek gods and goddesses but gave them Roman names.
JUDAISM
The book:
"The Torah" or "Pentateuch":
Five Books Supposedly Written by Moses;
also
The first five books of the Christians' "Old Testament"
Judaism is dualistic to its core, dealing with a lower, material part (the body), and a higher, spiritual part (the soul), evolving from Platonic Dualism. There is talk of "this world" and "another world."
CHRISTIANITY
The book:
The "Old Testament" (i.e., the "Old Contract or "Agreement")
and
"The New Testament"(i.e., the "New Contract or "Agreement")
Christianity is also dualistic to its core.
After the Councils of Nicea personalized "satan" (Hebrew = "enemy") and Beelzebub (Hebrew = "God of Insects" or "Lord of the Flies"), the notion of dual gods was introduced. One is said to be "the God of good, the other, of evil or bad or sin." (Even early Christian teachings were were dualistic, also largely based on Platonic Dualism.
Now, there is also a personal dualism in Christianity with a soul-body distinction based on the idea of an immaterial Christian Soul, though Christ - after he began teachings non-duality during the last three years of his life - said that "No one will ever see the Kingdom of Heaven: it is within" and "Heaven and earth shall fade away."
Eventually, more concepts were added and Christianity shifted beyond Dualism to teaching that a holy "trinity" exists. More duality exists in the teaching of a geographic place where eternal rewards shall be enjoyed vs. a geographic place where eternal punishment and pain and misery shall exist.
Quotations from the Gnostic writings
which are attributed to YESHU'A (a.k.a., "Jesus the Christ")
"If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you."
"When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be female, when you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then you will enter ['the kingdom' / 'awareness' / the 'peace state']."
ISLAM
The book:
"The Koran" or "Quran" or "Qur'an" or "Quoran"
Islam, too, is based in duality with an eventual reward for those who behave is complete certain prescribed actions.
VEDANTA and ADVAITA
The Vedanta teachings are divided into Dvaita (dualistic) and Advaita (non-dualistic). Dvaita proposes dualism in consciousness and matter, while Advaita does not. (Some modern scientists speak of "energy and matter." Others speak of "energy-matter" or "energy / matter.")
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.
