Obstacle #13: THE MOST INFLUENTIAL OBSTACLE OF ALL (Continued)

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We continue to consider the enormity of the obstacles which one who works for 20 or 40 or 80 years with seekers of the non-dual understanding will witness and which led Maharaj to eventually conclude - after decades of working with seekers - that only "1 out of 10,000,000" will "get this understanding":

Obstacle #13: THE MOST INFLUENTIAL OBSTACLE OF ALL: Myths, Superstitions, Thoughts, Ideas, Concepts, Notions, Views, Theories, Inklings, Perceptions, A.K.A., "Beliefs,"(Continued)

We saw yesterday how influential religion is, and has long been, in controlling the masses and their thoughts and words and actions. But behind that influencer is the penultimate influencer - the secondary "culprit" among humans, most of whom have no ability at all to make conscious choices even as they believe wholeheartedly that they are making conscious choices. That influencer is . . . "family."

Since 1989 - over thirty years ago - when satsang was being offered in my home or in other venues where I was invited to lead non-dual discussions, one pointer was likely offered more than any other, namely . . .

"Declare your independence."

The invitation was "to be free of all of the (often subconscious) drivers of your thoughts and words and deeds. See that you are talking in your sleep while dreaming that you are awake and choosing your words. See that you have long been a marionette with strings attached, strings being pulled back and forth by the hands of family members (or surrogate family members) whether they are still present in your life or long gone.

"See that what you believe is just 'hand-me-down-nonsense,' passed from one generation of your family to the next, and to the next, and to the next, until it was handed down to you. See that it's based in ancient myths and superstition and is totally fictional, totally made up BS."

Since mid-2005 - thus fifteen years ago this summer - the same key point has been offered repeatedly on this blog.

Visitors have also been invited to see the relevance of the point when offered by others, such as . . .

Julie Smith who explained that people do what they do “because things had always been done that way" and that people do what they do “because someone else wanted them to do that . . . not because there was any point in hell in it.” 

From the later Maharaj (that is, from the non-religious, non-spirituality, totally-focused-on-the-mental-psychological roots of the Ultimate Sickness and humankind’s problems Fully-Understanding Maharaj), he explained that those trapped in the Ultimate Sickness display its symptoms of “ignorance, stupidity and insanity.” 

The Advaitin Shakespeare said, “Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” 

 Krishna spoke of those who do not know who they are as “fools.” 

[For years, Maharaj would have agreed. Later, he explained that “it is enough to know who you are not.”] 

After the corruption of the police department in Ferguson, MO was exposed for persons all around the globe to see and for many in the U.S. to continue to deny, musician Prince Ea shared in late 2014 certain non-dual pointers about the happenings there. At the time, his non-dual pointers were posted here in full but included the following: 

Prince Ea: “We have to stop and be open to the possibility that we have been brainwashed within every single level of our lives, brainwashed with conditioned thoughts (beliefs), thoughts we have been killed over, died over, gotten angry over, sad and depressed over.” 

Prince Ea: “We are so loyal to these thoughts, but we have to question them because they were created by the culture that we were born in. This culture taught us that race was real. It taught us that war and violence creates peace. It taught us that love is weakness and we believed it. We ate it up."

Prince Ea: “Open any history book and you will notice a trend in generation after generation, the same story, over and over again. We have tried everything from politics to protests to rallies to riots. None of it works. These things create short term results, not lasting solutions.” 

Prince Ea: “Just because our parents or grandparents believed something does not mean we have to continue that cycle. This is our time, our time right now. Millions have come before us and millions will come after us. We have a real chance right now to make a real difference or we can die doing the same thing we have been doing and expecting different results.” 

Prince Ea: “Who are you is the question? Who are you at the deepest sense? I am not talking about your race, ethnicity, heritage, religion, ancestry. I am not even talking about your experience or your memories. I am talking about who are you in the deepest sense.” Why? 

Prince Ea: “Because there will never be external peace if there is not internal peace.” 

Prince Ea: “A lot of people will not understand the words that I am saying. They just won’t hear it. Some people will find this to be negative. But for the few of you who are watching this I urge you to try and find out who you are . . . who you are inside your body. What have you got to lose?” 

[Of course the answer is, “All of the personalities working side-by-side with the mind and the blocked consciousness, personalities with hidden agendas which are subconsciously driving the thoughts and words and actions of almost every human on the planet.” Now Prince Ea early on addressed the mental / psychological aspect of the Sickness. 

At the end, he speaks from the SELF-Inquiry perspective. Fine. But again, Maharaj said that “it is enough to know who you are not.” What most persons “have to lose” is being controlled by false identities and their warped, subconscious agendas which block any possibility of ever making conscious, sane, wise choices about anything.] 

See?  Maharaj said that “All you have to do is to give attention to the obstacles created by the foolish mind.”

So, again, to review Maharaj's pointers on the subject:

“I have no faith in anything which has ever been told, not even what has been told by the Vedas. Only my own experience.” 

He said: “Those who know only scriptures know nothing. To know is to be. I know what I am talking about; it is not from reading or hearsay.” 

and 

 “You take yourself to be what they suggest; having no direct knowledge of yourself, you have mere ideas . . . all mediocre . . . second-hand . . . by hearsay.” 

and 

“We believe in so many things on hearsay. We believe in distant lands and people, in heavens and hells, in gods and goddesses, because we were told. Similarly, we were told about ourselves, our parents, name, position, duties and so on. We never cared to verify. The way to truth lies through the destruction of the false. To destroy the false, you must question your most inveterate beliefs. 

"Of these the idea that you are the body is the worst. With the body comes the world, with the world - God, who is supposed to have created the world and thus it starts -- fears, religions, prayers, sacrifices, all sorts of systems -- all to protect and support the child-man, frightened out of his wits by monsters of his own making. Realise that what you are cannot be born nor die and with the fear gone all suffering ends.”

Last night, Bill Maher, during the New Rules segment on his Real Time with Bill Maher show on HBO, discussed the impact of bizarre, unquestioned, unchallenged and blindly-accepted familial influences and traditions and beliefs and offered up the same non-duality-based invitation as has been offered here for over thirty years: declare your independence. Reject all of your bogus, hand-me-down beliefs because they are not your beliefs at all. They are "their" beliefs which you have unquestioningly accepted as truth.

Here's some of what he said:

“If Meghan and Harry can quit their family, you can, too.

“Not that I’ve got anything against families in general. They come in real handy at times like when you need a co-signer for a car loan.

“But the down side of families is that they present a gravitational force that gets you to do stuff you don’t want to do and to continue traditions you don’t really believe in. Families are like drugs – you get high off them but they make you do stupid things.

“Princess Diana famously said that she felt like a prisoner, but many people can get trapped living their family’s life and not their life, remaining captive to the same old job, politics, region, and customs.

“Every New Year’s Day my family fixed pork and sauerkraut. I don’t know why. My parent did it and their parents did it and I did it until one year I said, ‘I hate this shit!’ Just because I shared DNA in a bathroom with you people doesn’t mean I have to live by your rules forever.

[A woman gave me this example which illustrates the point: She said that at a family gathering, as her mom was cutting a roast in half, she told her daughter to get two pots out. Then, after seasoning the two pieces of meat, she began the cooking process. The daughter asked, "Why do we always cut a roast in half and use two pots instead of one?" The mom said, "I'm not sure. It's just the way your grandmother always did it. Probably has something to do with the flavor." The daughter said, "That really doesn't compute." The mom said, "Well, if you're so interested, then call your grandmother and ask her." When she called her grandmother and asked why she always cut her roasts in half and cooked them in two separate pots, the grandmother explained, "Because we didn't have enough money to buy a big pot that could hold a large roast." Hummm. Again, as Julie Smith explained, people do what they do “because things had always been done that way."]

“So do it – fire your family. Harry gave up a castle. What have you got to lose? An air mattress?

“Break the cycle. Think outside the crib. There must be 50 ways to leave your mother.

“You don’t have to do what your folks did. You don’t have to get married and have children if you don’t want to. Or go hunting or work in a coal mine.

“You don’t have to be the religion you were born into . . . or any religion. You can find an alternative way to look at the universe, a way not called ‘batshit crazy.’

“So I give Harry and Meghan some credit, but not a lot because they want to be seen as this modern couple, way hipper than the others in the family. Okay then go all the way and say it.

“Say we’re not just taking ‘a step back’ from royalty. We’re renouncing the whole outdated, racist, anachronistic lot of it. We’re saying loud and proud, ‘What is this bullshit that some people are royal?’

“You want to be modern and ‘woke’ and all that? Want to get rid of politically-incorrect words? How about ‘Your Highness’? What could be more antithetical to liberalism than calling another human ‘Your Highness’? I gotta say to the social justice warriors who never tire of pointing out old behaviors and bygone attitudes that just don’t cut it anymore, ‘Where have they been on this one? Seduced by the pageantry, were you?'

“I think ‘the woke’ have been asleep, surprisingly forgiving of the notion that some people are born exalted above the rest of us and are to be bowed to and carted around in golden carriages.

“Aren’t you people, who (supposedly) ‘woke up,’ offended? Where’s the outrage for you? I want an apology from the people who always wanted an apology!

“Did you know the queen has a Grand Carver, currently the Earl of Denby, whose sole job is to carve the Queen’s meat? And at a dinner when the Queen has finished eating, everyone else have to stop, too. Yeah, when the old bat puts her spoon down, that’s it – we’re all done.

“I thought being born into privilege was public enemy number one now, but you’re happy to be lorded over by a bunch of inbred twits who happened to win what, some ‘23 and me lottery’?

"Meghan and Harry, you wanna be remembered for greatness? Then burn your boats completely and say, ‘It’s 2020. I hereby decree this birthright nonsense from the Middle Ages is stupid.’

"And the next time someone curtsies or bows and scrapes before you or calls you ‘Your Highness,’ stop them and say, ‘We feel ridiculous being called that. I’m an actress. He’s . . . a nice guy. We’re not Highnesses. No humans are higher by birth. It’s gross.’

“And to those who say 'The monarchy is too important a tourist attraction here so it can’t be abolished,' guess what. You don’t need live people for tourism. They still go to Stonehenge and ‘the aliens’ who built that left a long time ago.

“The palaces, the guards, the carriages, it’s practically an amusement park already. We could call it ‘The Magic United Kingdom.’ Fill it with rides like ‘Caucasian Mountain” and ‘The Tunnel of Incestuous Love.’ You know, just keep the kids away from Prince Andrew.”

In the U.S., many have made people like "The President" or their "Top One Percent Bosses" into "the surrogate royalty in the U.S." Such beliefs render the masses here as senseless as the ignorance-driven population whom Maher described above, and it's as detrimental to the survival of "a democracy" or "a republic" as are the beliefs and traditions which Maher described in the U.K.

As noted here often, hierarchies are the epitome of duality, and to pay homage to them and to support them is as rooted in arrogance and in the "ignorance, stupidity and insanity" which Maharaj discussed in  his talks.

(For any who might be interested, the Prince Ea interview will be shared one more time): 

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.]

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