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.)
The point in this series is that the non-dual message has long been widespread but has seldom been understood either then or now.
We’ll return to the deeper meaning behind some Maharaj quotes after a break for a few days while we look again at the prevalence of the non-dual message being offered all around us. Today, we’ll look at the non-dual message as offered by
Dr. Carl Sagan
and
Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson
in a discussion of clear perspective via the brain, the consciousness, and “a pale blue dot”vs."the mind."
F.: Offered here often is evidence of the fact that there are small “pockets” of realization where the consciousness speaks, that consciousness having manifested temporarily as one part of the three-part triads which form billions of composite unities all around the globe.
When those highly-rare cases of unblocked consciousness speak, they provide non-dual pointers for consideration from places that are most surprising to many who erroneously believe that certain countries or “special spots” on the globe have cornered the market on offering non-dual pointers.
Recall that Andy Gugar, Jr. once exhibited such skepticism, a fact which gives us both a great laugh when we talk about it now. He wrote the following about the final phase of his multi-decade-long search:
After being given some labels for further investigation - specifically, "non-duality" and "Advaita" - it soon became clear that I needed to find a capable Advaita teacher.
So I began googling "Advaita" and found a blog site where Floyd Henderson was offering daily postings of non-dual pointers. I began investigating this guy, wondering who he thought he was to be posting pointers about Advaita. He was not even from the Far East. Worse, my investigations uncovered the fact that this guy lived in Texas.
Being yet embroiled in ego, I asked, "Who does this guy living outside of Houston, Texas think he is . . . acting like he 'knows it all' about these teachings?" I concluded, "Heck, I live in Texas. I guarantee I already know as much about non-duality as any other person living in Texas. Who from Texas could offer anything about this eastern philosophy?"
Then I clicked the link for the retreats he offered and saw that, of even greater offense, he wanted to charge a fee for retreats where he teaches non-duality. A year would pass, and more and more searching continued, but at least once a week, the name "Floyd Henderson" came into the forefront of consciousness.
As much as I tried to ignore the name, it would not leave me, so after a year of continued seeking even after having first found his name and websites, I finally went back to his Advaita blog site, looked at the cost of a retreat with him, and concluded, differently this time, "Well, actually it really is only a nominal fee he is charging, and he does have to pay his bills."
So it came to me, "What if this guy just might have what you've been looking for all of your life?" I determined that I might as well spend a few dollars - a small amount really in comparison to the fortune I had already spent during decades of seeking and searching . . . all with no permanent results at all.
Right now, it is giving me cold chills just reflecting on that decision and what happened afterwards.
The result?
There is now that speck of unblocked consciousness which some call “a successful entrepreneur” who shares non-dual Truths from a small “pocket” of realization in northeast Texas;
there was a poor boy in the Middle East named Yeshu’a who was indoctrinated with Jewish dogma and who then taught that dogma early on, but he eventually left organized religion, found the non-dual teachings, and shared those during the last three years of his manifestation from within a small “pocket” of realization before being crucified by Romans with the support of the Jewish religious and community leaders who did not approve of his non-religious, non-dual talks. Later, he would be erroneously called “Jesus.);
there was an uneducated but exceedingly wise man who moved from a rural area in India to the city of Bombay (Mumbai) and who offered non-dual pointers from a loft – from a small “pocket” of realization - over his flat which was located on a very noisy street and which abutted a brothel operating in the connected building behind;
there is a rapper mentioned here in previous posts who is sharing the Truth from a small “pocket” of realization in the state of Missouri, U.S.A. (A video of one of his interview will be offered tomorrow.)
a five-minute drive from the home office here where many of the non-dual books listed below were written, there is a maitre d’ working in a restaurant; he was born in Lebanon, has now read many of the books below and “gets it,” and has two sons in their 20’s who are now reading those books and also “getting it”;
there was a scientist called “Dr. Carl Sagan,” mentioned recently on this site; he was born in an impoverished section of Brooklyn, New York - his father having been a poor immigrant garment worker, originally from a small town in what is today called Ukraine - and he offered the Truth via science and via non-dual pointers:
and now there is his protégé, called “Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson,”
born in Manhattan, New York and raised in the Bronx, his mother a gerontologist of Puerto Rican descent and his father an African-American sociologist; Tyson, an astrophysicist, shares scientific facts while sprinkling his talks with non-dual pointers (and, as was the case with Maharaj) on occasion peppering his talks with the blunt, but totally-spot-on, vernacular which – in Tyson’s case - he often heard growing up on the streets in the Bronx:
It has been noted that often Sagan’s talks - like those of Tyson now - offended conservatives and members of the religious-right (as scientific facts always have); thus, in a nation which has from the beginning been dominated by conservatives and members of the religious-right (and still is to this day) much of what he shared was ignored even though it could have been enlightening and could have been heeded as fair warning (for example, regarding the damage being done to the planet and regarding the ill effects of ignorance on humanity in general).
Mention has been made of Sagan’s protégé Tyson and his “most recent reminders and warnings” which are also being ignored by those most needing to understand. Referencing those types, he said: “Pretending to know everything closes the door to finding out what’s really there.”
In a recent followup to the 1980 “Cosmos” documentary narrated by Carl Sagan, a recent (2014) series entitled “Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey” was hosted by Tyson.
Maharaj predicted that someday science would advance to the point that it will prove all of the non-dual pointers being shared. It has reached that point, but many around the globe are never exposed to the science and many more – especially in the U.S. – reject all scientific facts they hear and instead accept only what was written in their “holy book” thousands of years ago when ignorance and myths and superstition ruled.
In the finale of the newer “Cosmos” series, Tyson offers certain pointers for consideration:
1. He began with a discussion of a library and its associated research institution which existed more than two millennia ago in the city of Alexandria, noting that it was rare then, and now, for a government to be willing to spend so much of its gross national product on eliminating ignorance and engaging in research.
Estimates vary regarding the total number of scrolls in that library, but the range is somewhere between 500,000 to 1,000,000. Yet the library no longer exists. So what happened to it? Access to its contents was in the hands of the “elite”; thus, in the fourth century AD, when “a mob” came to destroy the library and the genius of classical civilization, there were not enough people to defend it. Then Tyson asked: “What will happen the next time the mob comes?”
2. Of course he knows that, in the U.S., the mob has already come, attacking all that science has proven to be fact to date and (as candidate Barack Obama stated in August of 2008), “It's like these guys take pride in being ignorant.”
3. To expose the arrogance and ignorance of those seemingly proud of being ignorant, Tyson suggests this: “I think we're ready to perform an experiment. Pick a star, any one of the hundreds of billions of stars in our Milky Way Galaxy, which is just one galaxy out of the hundred billion in the known universe."
He picked “this one,” called “our sun” by billions of persons on earth. He continued: “Suppose, on one of them, there lives an intelligent species, one of the millions of life-forms on that planet, and there's a subgroup of that species who believe they have it all figured out, that their world is the center of the universe, a universe made for them, and that they know everything they need to know about it. Their knowledge is complete. How seriously would you take their claim?”
4. Yet, he says, that claim is exactly what was believed and is believed even now by the majority: “Our ancestors believed that the universe was made for them. It was natural to assume that we were at the center. After all, it looks like the Sun and stars all revolve around us. We still speak of the Sun ‘rising.’ In 1492, people believed that there were only three continents (Europe, Africa and Asia) and only a great ocean in between. They had no clue that North and South America even existed.” Then he noted, “It's easy to feel smug, right?”
He then noted that it is as if “we had been standing on the seashore at night, mistakenly believing that the froth on the waves was all there was to the ocean.” Then came an admission that “scientists certainly do not know all of the answers about the cosmos” after which he added: “It's okay not to know all the answers. It's better to admit our ignorance than to believe answers that might be wrong. Pretending to know everything closes the door to finding out what's really there.”
[Yet “admitting to ignorance” is far different from “taking pride in being ignorant,” yes?]
5. The final episode also suggested that science, in its own way, carries fewer risks for those who believe in it than religion does. Tyson: “It’s one of the things I love about science: we don’t have to pretend we have all the answers.”
Recent understandings have come, Tyson says, from the work of generations of searchers who took some simple “rules” to heart:
a. Question authority.
b. Question yourself.
c. No idea is true just because someone says so, including me.
d. Don't believe anything just because you want to.
e. Believing something doesn't make it so.
f. Test ideas by the evidence gained from observation and experiment.
g. If a favorite idea fails a well-designed test, it's wrong! Get over it!
h. Follow the evidence, wherever it leads.
i. If you have no evidence, reserve judgment.
j. Science is a way to keep from fooling ourselves and each other.
k. These values undermine the appeals of fanaticism and ignorance.
l. It matters what's true.
m. And perhaps the most important rule of all: remember, you could be wrong.
The final episode marked a return to an earlier theme, that of dismissing religion-fueled ignorance. Tyson’s comments about being open to considerations that differ from engrained beliefs called back pretty directly to pointers he’s offered before about “creationists” who use the Bible as if it were a valid science book.
He noted that the “Cosmos” series was conceived
not to tell you what is true
but
to share how we have come to learn what is true.
Ah, but how many truly want to learn the truth, much less the Truth? Throughout most of the six-seven years that this composite unity has been exposed to sleep-walkers and sleep-talkers, the final conclusion has to be: “Few.”
So it has been; so it is now; but so it need not be for the few that are willing to cast aside all that they have been programmed and conditioned and indoctrinated and brainwashed and acculturated and domesticated to believe and then seek the Truth instead.
To be continued.
THE NEWEST OFFER:
Watch an updated seven-hour streaming video of a retreat with Floyd Henderson which can be viewed by anyone with internet access. (In this video, all seven of the steps on "the path" as taught by Maharaj are explained and discussed.)
If interested, click the button below to pay the fee via PayPal. You will then receive an email which includes the link for you to view the private, unlisted video via an arrangement we have made with YouTube, Inc. You do not have to have a YouTube account to watch this privately streamed video.
(If you do not receive the link promptly, your computer or email provider may have high filter settings. Check your spam and trash folders because some providers automatically transfer emails containing links to those folders.)
To access the seven-hour streaming video of a retreat and begin watching right away, click this "Buy Now" button:
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
[NOTE: The four most recent posts are below. You may access all of the posts in this series and in the previous series and several thousand other posts as well by clicking on the links in the "Recent Posts and Archives" section.]
In addition to the five non-duality books made available without charge by Andy Gugar, Jr. (see “FREEBIES” above), you can now access nearly 3,300 posts for any topics of interest to you.
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
or
You can click on video "Number Ten" in the upper right-hand column on this page.
If preferred, here's
the direct link to the AUDIO VERSION
of that session.
