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.)
WARRANTED CERTITUDE VS. TOTALLY UNJUSTIFIABLE CERTITUDE
Today’s pause is to discuss “certitude,” ("certainty") which comes in two varieties.
After reading “The Vision” - which is available at the top of this page under “Freebies” – a site visitor asked, “How come you think you can be so sure about what you ‘saw’ in your vision which you are now passing on as fact?”
The reply was this:
“Maharaj said, ‘Someday, science will advance to the point that all non-dual pointers will be proven to be true’.”
“So how can I be so sure? Because scientifically-based-and-proven facts have now advanced to that point. The non-dual revelations I saw have been confirmed and demonstrated and verified to be factual. They have been proven to be true.
“Certitude comes in two varieties.
“The first type of certitude will forever trap one is the Ultimate Sickness and will cause one to be driven throughout the entire manifestation by the symptoms Maharaj identified as "ignorance, stupidity, and insanity." That type of certitude can be referred to as “Totally Unjustifiable Certitude.”
“The second type is the type I experienced and can be referred to as “Warranted Certitude.”
“The first type is the ‘certitude’ which exists among the non-realized masses who are attached to their learned ignorance. It is based in accepting and believing all of the learned ignorance which (a) they were taught and accepted by way of their blind faith to be true in spite of the absence of any factual evidence to support it; which (b) they accepted as fact unquestioningly by way of their blind faith; and which (c) they accepted by way of their blind faith without any empirical evidence at all.”
In June of 1981, Douwe Tiemersma, a member of the Philosophical Faculty at Erasmus Universiteit in Rotterdam, Holland explained it this way:
“There are various religions and systems of philosophy which claim to endow human life with meaning. But they suffer from certain inherent limitations. They couch into fine-sounding words their traditional beliefs and ideologies, theological or philosophical.
“Believers, however, discover the limited range of meaning and applicability, of these words, sooner or later. They get disillusioned and tend to abandon the systems, in the same way as scientific theories are abandoned, when they are called in question by too much contradictory empirical data.”
To continue with my reply:
“The second type of certitude comes when information is presented and it is not accepted blindly or unquestioningly or obediently or automatically or without demur or without any initial doubt; when it is put to the test by way of scientific investigation; and when it is accepted as truth only after scientific facts confirm that it is true.”
Bill Maher shares his take on “certitude” in the conclusion of his film Religulous:
“The plain fact is that religion must die for mankind to live. The hour is getting very late to be able to indulge in having key decisions made by religious people, by irrationalists, by those who would steer the ship of state not by a compass but by the equivalent of reading the entrails of a chicken.
Faith means making a virtue out of not thinking. It’s nothing to brag about. And those who preach faith and enable and elevate it are intellectual slaveholders, keeping mankind in a bondage to fantasy and nonsense that has spawned and justified so much lunacy and destruction.
Religion is dangerous because it allows human beings who don't have all the answers to think that they do. Most people would think it's wonderful when someone says, 'I'm willing Lord, I'll do whatever you want me to do.' Except that since there are no gods actually talking to us, that void is filled in by people with their own corruptions and limitations and agendas.
And anyone who tells you that they know, that they know exactly what happens when you die, I promise you, they don't. How can I be so sure? Because I don't know, and they do not possess mental powers that I do not.
The only appropriate attitude for man to have about the big questions is not the arrogant certitude that is the hallmark of religion, but doubt. Doubt is humble and that is what man needs to be, considering that human history is just a litany of getting shit dead wrong.
[The take here: Those on either side of the debate can doubt, but it is not necessary - and is totally ignorant instead - to doubt when scientific facts support only one side of the argument.
For example: Science has proved that all is basically energy / matter. Neither energy nor matter can be created or destroyed. Since energy / matter has always been, therefore, nothing has been “created.” Because nothing has been created, then there has never been any creator or Creator.]
Maher continues:
"This is why rational people, anti-religionists must end their timidity, and come out of the closet, and assert themselves, and those who consider themselves only moderately religious, really need to look in the mirror and realize that the solace and comfort that religion brings you actually comes at a terrible price.
If you belonged to a political party or a social club that was tied to as much bigotry, misogyny, homophobia, violence, and sheer ignorance as religion is, you'd resign in protest. To do otherwise is to be an enabler -- a mafia wife -- with the true devils of extremism that draw their legitimacy from the billions of their fellow travelers.
If the world does come to an end here, or wherever, or if it limps into the future decimated by the effects of a religion inspired nuclear terrorism, let’s remember what the real problem was:
"that we learned how to precipitate mass death before we got pass the neurologist disorder of wishing for it. That's it. Grow up, or die.”
THE STAGES WHICH MUST BE PASSED THROUGH BEFORE THE ACTUAL “JOURNEY” CAN BEGIN
Stage I: Being Programmed to Accumulate (Ages 1-20)
Stage II. Accumulating (Ages 20-40)
Stage III. The Forest Dweller Stage
Stage IV. the De-Accumulation / Actual "Journey" Stage”
Earlier,
“The Forest Dweller Stage” will be discussed in detail because it is there that so many seekers (and even non-seekers) fixate.
Stage III: The Forest Dweller Stage (continued)
Once I became physically and mentally and emotionally depleted as a result of decades of going and doing and zooming and engaging in endless acts of spiritual workaholism and searching without rather than within, then the movement to the forest came automatically, spontaneously.
I became "driven" to get away. Though it was not seen initially, the escapism that inspired the twenty-five-month retreat into the forest was no different from the escapism that drove all of the external seeking:
an external god had been sought; the external power of money and possession and status and influence had been sought; external teachers had been sought from around the globe; external rituals and exercises had been sought and found and used; "special" places had been sought;
and an entire library of books had been sought out and amassed, books made famous because the authors calculated rightly what kind of content could garner mass appeal, content which focuses on the phenomenal while peppering their books with the vocabulary of the noumenal in order to distract from the fact that their teachings address the relative only because none of them know the exact steps to full realization.
While visiting the University of Washington, I met the Gottmans.
John M. Gottman is a psychological researcher and clinician who has done extensive work over four decades on divorce prediction and marital stability. He is also an award-winning speaker, author, and a professor emeritus in psychology.
Julie Schwartz Gottman is a clinical psychologist, researcher, speaker, and author. Together with her husband and collaborator, she is the co-founder of The Gottman Institute - an organization dedicated to strengthening relationships through research-based products and programs.
In fact, they are both known to be two of the most skilled researchers on the planet in terms of marriage and relationships, and their research has shown that any relationship still "has a chance" until the one definite, clearly-recognizable deal-breaker manifests with one or both partners, namely, "disgust."
Their understanding of disgust was relevant to my experiences which triggered a solitary search which would allow me to focus within and to try to tap into the wisdom of the inner guru or inner resource.
Before I could reach the point where I finally had had enough to be driven to leave behind my city life and job for the forest, I first had to become totally disgusted with the traditional methods of seeking which are popular among the masses.
I had to move away, as Robert Frost did, and enter "the yellow wood" and see where the path "diverged" and "look down one road as far as I could to where it bent in the undergrowth."
I had to see that the bent "path" was the one I had tried and had to see that it does not go where I had been trying to go. I had to then "take the other that wanted wear" and move forth beyond fear with fearful hope and with courage, knowing "how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back."
I had to be willing to leave behind all that had been and I had to stand where "two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one less traveled by." The result: "That has made all the difference."
As for you, you need not literally go to the forest as did "maharaj" and as did "floyd."
You may enter the forest dweller stage right now wherever you are by shifting the focus of your search away from popular books and famous authors and famous lecturers and the big name teachers whom Maharaj advised his visitors to avoid along with all interest in societal forms of personal power and imaginary external forms of Personal Power(s).
You may enter the forest dweller stage right now by turning the direction of your search away from externals; by looking away from the unnatural and the supernatural and by focusing on that which is natural and by seeing the difference in those three;
by seeing what amazing shifts can happen if you model that which is natural rather than that which is unnatural or supernatural and by looking within until an all-natural fashion of abidance happens.
During twenty-five months in the forest, I saw that birds moved away from me as I approached and I understood through their actions the way that consciousness would extend itself, automatically, and how it triggers a desire for eternal continuity.
I saw that spiders did their work and then relaxed and patiently waited for nature to run its course. I saw, by watching the deer, what natural living really entails. I saw by observing snakes how predictable life-forms behave with their different "personalities."
Some snakes when approached during my morning or afternoon walks would slink away, avoiding conflict and encounters. Others, such as the cottonmouths that frequented the areas around the ponds or swamps in some of the woods I visited, stood fast because they are very aggressive and territorial.
By contrast, I saw that the copperheads liked to lie in the sun across an open trail and were quite docile when compared to the aggressive cottonmouth / water moccasin. I had a walking stick with a bear claw on the upper tip (a gift from a Cherokee man because bear claws cannot be sold legally). Whenever I crossed paths with a copperhead lying in the sun across a trail, I could work the claw under its belly, lift it, set it to the side off the trail, and move past without being attacked.
Just like persons: some are Personality Type Eight sociopaths and psychopaths who love to attack and destroy while others are far more passive. (Eights find passive types in order to be able to control them.)
The cottonmouths - like Type Eights - could also be controlling, willing to stake out a territory as if it were their own and then kill to protect the space they claimed. The different types of snakes showed how different persons can be when functioning under the influence of a personality type (or types) that are common to the groups they are members of.
I looked at the swamps and was reminded of the primordial soup and was reminded of what any eight-grader should know from a basic science class:
namely, that there was no Creator or creation . . . that neither energy nor matter can be created nor destroyed . . . that the original ooze consisted of hydrogen and ammonia and methane and that lightning struck the soup and formed amino acids.
I was reminded that those acids are the building blocks of life, was reminded that it all began with a spark, was reminded that a spark of consciousness can manifest and can cycle in and can cycle out, and was reminded that what drives all of "this" is indeed, as the scientist said, "a little electric current, set up by the sunshine.”
And I saw by way of an encounter with a bear and her two cubs how
(1) a psychically-healthy human can process an actual or perceived threat in the fifteen minute time-frame which professionals suggest is a reasonable amount of time needed to process
versus
(2) the way that psychically-unhealthy humans who are attached to their false identities can go along for months and even years without processing perceived threats and without seeing that personas cannot be hurt or threatened and without becoming free of resentments around such misperceptions and can then return to a state of peace.
It was that understanding which allowed the following response to be shared with a seeker who wrote:
"You witness feelings rise and fall. How long can your feelings last, for example, if you lose a friend? Would the feelings simply rise for a minute, a day, a week, etc.? Where do you draw the line?"
The response:
The procedure which is called “psychological processing” by therapists is termed “seeing the actual facts” or “seeing reality” by Advaitins and Non-Dualists. The need for either (a) processing or (b) seeing truth only follows “mind”-generated mis-perceptions which are actually just distortions. Among persons, it is an on-going requirement; among the realized, it is not required at all.
Such distortions result in (1) the inability among persons during the relative existence to distinguish between natural threats and unnatural threats and even from supernatural threats and in (2) actions and reactions that are far from natural and that are most unnatural instead.
A relative existence example from “floyd’s pre-realization days” involves perceptions around a bear and her cubs in case #1 and around a "wife" in case #2:
It was while walking through a field at the end of a two-week period of hiking and camping in Arizona, (a part of the twenty-five-month-long Forest Dweller Stage) that my path crossed the path of a brown bear that was guarding her cubs. She first stood, then roared, and then charged.
What immediately flashed into awareness was the advice received from Tom Brown (author of several field guides as well as The Tracker, The Vision, The Quest, Awakening Spirits, Grandfather and other books). A few weeks before that trip, I had visited Tom at his home in New Jersey and he had advised:
“This time of year, the bears will be moving about with their cubs and can be especially reactive if they feel you’re threatening their young. If you’re charged by a bear on your trip, fall to the ground and curl into a protective ball. The charge will likely be just that—a warning charge to drive you away—rather than an attack. If it turns out that you are attacked, shift to an offensive mode. Fight for your life . . . go for her eyes, hit her in the nose, fight with all your might.”
That bear’s standing up, growling and then charging could be considered a truly-threatening posture in nature, relatively speaking. I felt threatened, and the sensation of feeling threatened by that female was a natural response.
In the second case, when “floyd’s wife” said, “I’m leaving you” and then got into a car and drove away, the not-yet-fully-realized “floyd” also felt threatened by a female. more accurately, it was actually many ego-states which felt threatened, and the sensation of feeling threatened by that female was a most unnatural response. For one to be moving away from you in not a truly-threatening posture in nature.
In the next post, contrast the facts of the second case with the first and see why non-dualists are hell bent on offering seekers “a different perspective.”
Perspective alone can cause "humans" (a.k.a., "relative composite unities") or other living things to panic at times and to feel fear but then, soon afterwards, to return to a normal state and move on.
Perspective alone can also cause those humans who are driven by the agendas of personality identifications to panic and feel fear but then not move on but, instead, to cling to panic or fear or anger, etc. for days or months or years or, in some cases, for the entire remainder of the manifestation.
Always it is the mind which is the storehouse of all which imprisons persons.
John Milton: "The mind . . . in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven”
and
Richard Lovelace: “Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage.”
So what did he identify as that which does make a prison? Again, as did Milton, the mind.
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 their god / their 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 the picture link which has now been added for 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.
