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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.
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Yesterday: "Religious and "spiritual" organizations and groups and venues have held a monopoly on seeking for over 5000 years, yet they traveling along the "path" they offer never reach the full understanding. They continue to participate in the going and doing and zooming which their organization and group and venue inspire or even require.
While many have an understandable aversion to dealing with the people controlling those organizations and groups and venues (such as the millions physically, emotionally, and / or sexually abused in those venues), few will ever realize that a clear and fact-based perspective has never been - and never will be - found in those emotionally-intoxicating, traditional settings;
yet how many of those seeking and seeking and seeking will ever consider that the understanding which they have been missing all along can more likely be found by grasping what can be offered by those in the scientific community rather than by those in a religious or spiritual or other cult-like community.
Maharaj: "Realization is simply freedom from the belief in all learned ignorance."
If a child has been taught falsehoods at an early age by adults who do not allow the child to question authority figures and who also taught the child that to question religious or spiritual teachings will result in
(a) being cast into a fire for eternity or (b) having to go through a string of miserable lives or (c) being punished in one horrible way or another,
then what process is likely to be most effective at purging from that child's mind all of the nonsnese and lies and learned ignorance accumulated therein?
Might the best approach to trying to free a child of the learned ignorance taught by religion be to . . .
expose the child to even more dogma and more religious beliefs?
Might the best approach to trying to free a child of the learned ignorance taught by self-identified "Spiritual Giants" be to . . .
expose the child to even more spirituality-based beliefs, especially those which Maharaj labeled as coming from a "kindergarten-level of spirituality"?
Or might the best approach to trying to free a child of the learned ignorance taught by self-identified "Other Worldly Individuals" be to . . .
expose the child to more and more concepts about "other worlds" and "rulers there who are in charge everything in this 'world'" instead of focusing on being in touch with reality and the "here" and the "now"?
yet how many of those seeking and seeking and seeking will ever consider that the understanding which they have been missing all along can more likely be found by grasping what can be offered by those in the scientific community rather than by those in a religious or spiritual or other cult-like community.
Maharaj: "Realization is simply freedom from the belief in all learned ignorance."
If a child has been taught falsehoods at an early age by adults who do not allow the child to question authority figures and who also taught the child that to question religious or spiritual teachings will result in
(a) being cast into a fire for eternity or (b) having to go through a string of miserable lives or (c) being punished in one horrible way or another,
then what process is likely to be most effective at purging from that child's mind all of the nonsnese and lies and learned ignorance accumulated therein?
Might the best approach to trying to free a child of the learned ignorance taught by religion be to . . .
expose the child to even more dogma and more religious beliefs?
Might the best approach to trying to free a child of the learned ignorance taught by self-identified "Spiritual Giants" be to . . .
expose the child to even more spirituality-based beliefs, especially those which Maharaj labeled as coming from a "kindergarten-level of spirituality"?
Or might the best approach to trying to free a child of the learned ignorance taught by self-identified "Other Worldly Individuals" be to . . .
expose the child to more and more concepts about "other worlds" and "rulers there who are in charge everything in this 'world'" instead of focusing on being in touch with reality and the "here" and the "now"?
To see the insanity of passing down generation after generation total nonsense and myth-based lies and superstition-based beliefs and of inundating children as well as adults with learned ignorance should be calling loudly to all persons to consider finding a method which might allow them to realize - that is, to become free of their beliefs which are rooted in ignorance and insanity.
And since the use of dogma and spiritual practices and preoccupation with things noumenal while cursing all things phenomenal are methods which have been given thousands of years to "make people better and to bring peace and to make the world better" without success, wouldn't it make sense to cast aside those methods and to give a totally different method a try?
Of course that would make sense to the sane and to the wise, but since the masses are not sane and are not wise (though they are convinced that they are both) then it is not likely that the masses will abandon their obviously ineffective methods and seek via a method which is different.
Instead, they will not endorse abiding naturally but will instead believe that they are living supernaturally, under the auspices of a god or under the auspices of gods and goddesses from other worlds.
And since the use of dogma and spiritual practices and preoccupation with things noumenal while cursing all things phenomenal are methods which have been given thousands of years to "make people better and to bring peace and to make the world better" without success, wouldn't it make sense to cast aside those methods and to give a totally different method a try?
Of course that would make sense to the sane and to the wise, but since the masses are not sane and are not wise (though they are convinced that they are both) then it is not likely that the masses will abandon their obviously ineffective methods and seek via a method which is different.
Instead, they will not endorse abiding naturally but will instead believe that they are living supernaturally, under the auspices of a god or under the auspices of gods and goddesses from other worlds.
A key invitation in that regard is this:
(A) Look at all of the life forms on the planet which are abiding naturally; then look at humans who have made a second job out of mere living because they are abiding unnaturally or are going and doing and zooming in an effort to abide supernaturally / religiously / spiritually;
then,
(B) if able to witness purely and clearly and honestly and objectively, it will be seen that every living thing on this planet is living naturally except for humans; that humans are the ones who are not abiding naturally but are trying instead to abide supernaturally / religiously / spiritually; and that it is only those life forms which are abiding naturally which consistently display a sense of peace and contentment.
It is humans, and not any other life form, who are sometimes driven by a lack of peace and contentment to seek out those versed in the science of psychology (though many pet owners nowadays have driven their pets to be as crazy as their owners so a new occupation has emerged called "pet psychologists" who describe themselves as "professionals who work with animals that have any number of behavioral issues").
["Sorry to tell you this, Mrs. Brown, but we've completed our diagnosis and have determined that the root of Fido's problems is . . . you. In fact, he's exactly like you; therefore, we've had to call representatives from the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the local police force to remove Fido from your home. He cannot be returned until he has spent three months in the care of a pet psychologist and until you have completed sessions for two years with a psychologist who works with humans.
"You are also scheduled for a home visit by representatives from Child Protective Services to see if the programming and conditioning and domestication etc. to which your children are being exposed is rendering them as insane as it has in the case of your dog."
So much for engaging in the "domestication process." A child once programmed, conditioned, domesticated, etc. on planet earth nowadays will likely need the services of a professional versed in the science of treating the sick mind rather than what is being offered by the typical priest or preacher or pope or rabbi or ayatollah or swami or lama or guru or other cult leader.]
So, what are some of the other options which make possible realizing without dogma, without continuous spiritual practices, and without a preoccupation with the nature of reality and things noumenal?
To begin finding the answer, consider what all of the following have in common?
Anti-abortion activists
Far left-wing politicians
Far right-wing politicians
Politicians who claim to “want government to get out of the lives of people” (specifically, out of the lives of their financial contributors) yet who believe at the same time that the government should be able to determine what type sex a person can have in the privacy of one's own bedroom and what type sex one should be outlawed from having in her or his own bedroom and what a woman can and cannot do with her own body
Politicians who believe the government should be able to determine what type people one has sex with, based on race and / or gender for example, as well as what orientation is okay and what orientation is not
People who go to church every day or who go to “confession” every day
People who go to a mosque five times per day
White nationalists
White supremacists
Nazis / Neo-Nazis
Other racists
People who behead those with differing religious beliefs
People who are Christian extremists
People who are Muslim extremists
People who are Jewish extremists
People who are Hindu extremists
People who are Buddhist extremists
People who are Sikh extremists
People who are Advaitin or Vedantin extremists
People who are Advaitin or Vedantin extremists
People who are extremists in any other religion or cult
People who are spiritual extremists
People who go to one or more meetings every day, and intend to do so forever
People who believe that all “bad guys” should be shot
People who believe that all gays should be shot
People who believe that all socialists should be shot
People who believe that all socialists should be shot
People who believe that anyone who decides to leave a relationship with them should be shot
People who believe that “others” of a different race or of a particular race should all be shot
People who believe that a woman who commits adultery should be stoned to death (though the same does not apply to men who commit adultery or who have multiple wives)
People who believe that anyone drawing a picture of their religious leader should be shot
People who believe that anyone labeled by their leaders as “an enemy” or “a threat” should be shot
People who rigidly adhere to food laws or rules set forth by religions or by spiritual movements
People who seek to accumulate more knowledge than all “others,” spending an entire existence reading and studying and becoming an expert at some religion or spiritual program or philosophy or ideology
People who seek perfection
People who seek a positive public image in order to gain admiration from the masses
People who think that they are holy (and even more holy than “others” and actually very different from “others” and thus better than “others”) and who wear special robes or special clothes and special hats and special hairdos (or no hair) to prove it
People who spend an entire lifetime focusing on their “Self” or their “Special Self” or their “Supreme Self” or the “Self Beyond” or their “Supreme Soul” or their “Supreme Spirit” or “Atman”
While (a) the specific agendas of the persons in the examples above are being determined by their various assumed personalities and roles, which vary considerably; and while (b) their behaviors which are determined by those agendas will vary considerably, what they all have in common without variation will include the following:
the Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder
emotional intoxication
fanaticism
an unwillingness to compromise
unbending and strict and severe and stern and even harsh personality styles
monomania, that is, an exaggerated or obsessive preoccupation with one thing and one thing only
rigidity, inflexibility, stiffness (just like soldiers and police who march or "stand at attention")
being uptight
a fixed sense of rightness
warped thinking, especially of the dualistic (black or white) type
high degrees of being psychologically retentive / anal
high levels of stubbornness
a desire for control and for the power to be able to control (which go hand-in-hand with fear and with arrogance)
a desire to know-it-all and to be seen as one who knows it all
a tendency to be ill-humored and overly-serious
a preference for complication and complexity
ignorance and insanity (often manifesting side-by-side with some degree of intelligence)
a plethora of fallacies in reasoning
unyielding belief systems
self-contradictory thoughts and words and actions
instability
What do those who have been restored to sanity have in common?
Freedom from all of the above.
Next, as for "what to seek" and "how to seek it"?
Consider the irony and contradiction if one believes that selflessness is the key attribute of Paramatman / Paramātmā, where all personality, individuality, and identification supposedly vanishes yet assumes, nevertheless, one sort of Selfness or another as their “ultimate attribute” or identity?
It should be kept simple rather than being made more complicated.
Maharaj noted time and again that “this is all so simple.” It can be if the process if reduced to a few steps or if one need but come to “know who you are not, even if you never come to know ‘Who You Are’.”
As has been pointed out on this site for more than a decade - and as has been shared orally for decades and in writing since 1989 - there are either seven steps or four steps on the “path” offered here, steps which can guide a seeker to transitioning beyond the various degrees of (assumed) separation from both “reality” and from “Reality.”
And the most detrimental false sense of separation – both relatively speaking and in terms of the non-dual understanding – involves identification. Body identification, mind identification and personality identification are the three types which the sages for ages have cited. Maharaj joined those that went a step further, noting that any and all identifications are to be discarded (including the lofty or special or Supreme identities which many assume after they erroneously think or claim that they have “Realized Fully”).
Was not it admitted that those who come here for retreats are led to understand all seven steps – including the three beyond the Fourth Step where all concepts and ideas and beliefs about identities are purged? Yes, but understand: when that "full understanding" is shared here, it is done with an explanation regarding what Maharaj considered the first leg of the “journey” which he saw as the “coming in” stage;
with an explanation of the second leg of the “journey” which he alluded to with such terms as the “going back” or “reversing to the source” stage; and with an explanation of the third leg of the “journey” where one “comes back in again” but comes back this time without being programmed and conditioned and acculturated and domesticated and indoctrinated and brainwashed. Instead of staying "out there," they are guided to "come back in" and overlay Reality (i.e., sanity as well as clear and accurate seeing and perceiving) on the relative existence.
See the difference in the entire seven-step “journey” which Maharaj taught for a time and the four-step "journey" which he said "would be enough": if all seven steps are completed here, it happens in the same way that a therapist using the EMDR method with a trauma victim guides a client to freedom. First, the therapist "digs down deep" and uncovers suppressed and denied traumatic events from the past, "opens up" the client, “cuts” out all of that darkness, and then "closes the client’s wounds" before the client is allowed to leave the office.
Or it happens in the same way that a heart surgeon works with a patient, opening her or him up, cutting out the parts that need to be removed, and then closing the patient’s wounds before releasing the patient from the hospital.
So, if one is led through all of the steps to a discussion of – and an understanding of - THAT or the Absolute or “things beyond the relative AM-ness," they are not “left out there.” They are led back to the IS-ness and encouraged to abide naturally and to be done with all of the unnatural / supernatural / lofty / spiritual stuff with which they were previously preoccupied.
Thus, two options are available:
(1) find out all that you are not and be done with the seeking at that point; or,
(2) come to understand not only the AM-ness and all that you are not but also the THAT-ness (that is, both the “phenomenal” as well as the so-called “Noumenal”) but do not remain “there” either in Foo Foo Land or “out there,” removed and dissociated from the “realities” of the AM-ness. “Come back” and overlay "Reality" on "reality" and thereafter abide sanely and naturally and spontaneously and wisely.
Either way, understand that, though Maharaj never listed the seven steps in a 1-7 list, he did discuss all seven steps thoroughly over the years. Understand that the first three steps are preparation for discarding all identities and all concepts and beliefs and thereby setting the stage for returning to "the Child No-Knowing State" or “the Child Ignorance Stage,” as some call it.
You are invited to understand also that the aim of any discussion of the last three steps is merely to allow seekers to understand exactly what cycles – and how it cycles – but to then “return” to the AM-ness and abide wisely for the remainder of the manifestation.
Next: an explanation (or, for some, a review) of the three legs of the “journey” will be shared for those that might be interested in the rest of the story or the rest of the “path” that Maharaj discussed during the earlier phases of his teachings.
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.
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
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of the "Awakening Together" satsang session with Regina and Jacqueline referenced earlier, 18 MARCH 2018
or
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If preferred, here's
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