TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
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The Pure, Universal Consciousness,
Pure Awareness,
and a
"Proper Perspective"
“I talk to you from the perspective of the universal consciousness.”
---Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
In terms of “non-dual seeking,” the process of de-accumulating is key. That especially applies when knowledge accumulation (a.k.a, "learned ignorance" accumulation) is happening.
In that case, "accumulators" are invited to understand that the accumulation of more and more knowledge plays no role; moreover, intelligence plays a role only if the term is used to point to an ability, specifically, an ability to understand.
[That is why on this site, since the beginning, the suggestion has been to submit to being "un-taught" and to the process of "un-learning."]
Related to that approach which includes an invitation to be free of all beliefs - especially among the masses who buy into and cling to and value the BS that they have been taught - someone forwarded an article yesterday written by Elyse Wanshel (Trends Editor for The Huffington Post). The article was entitled, “Study Finds People Who Fall For Nonsensical Inspirational Quotes Are Less Intelligent” (that is, they understand far less than they think they do).
Few persons ever seek, most of them believing that they have been given all of the answers. Of the few that do seek, many will claim that they “have found the answers,” “have realized,” are “fully enlightened,” and “have been liberated from all things relative.”
They profess their accomplishment in terms which they take to be evidence of their higher-than-usual levels of depth and profundity. Their declarations often point to degrees of "deep thinking" which are offered in terms that parallel the fashion of the old Star Trek show's introduction:
"Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth . . . Put out my hand, and touched the face of God!!!"
Oh have you now? Really?
First written as lines in a poem entitled “High Flight” by John G. Magee, he also set forth other lines which actually only serve to illustrate not a high level of understanding but a high level of mental and emotional intoxication that parallels the mental and emotional condition of many who speak nobly and proudly of their present - and supposedly lofty - post-realization state:
I have danced the skies on
laughter-silvered wings.
I’ve wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence.
Hov’ring there, I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace.
Where never lark, or even eagle flew.
With silent, lifting mind I've trod
the high untrespassed sanctity of space.
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of.
[Some might respond: “Well now, aren’t you special.” Here, it is noted that two of his words could be joined to reveal his true state: "delirious mind."]
And it was supposedly there, while “up, up” and “sunward” and out “in the clouds” and “out in the blue” and out in “space” that he claims to have “touched the face of God.” [Indeed, one can suppose that one would have to be out of it to claim that he “touched the face of God,” just as would be required to claim that one touched the side of a mirage.]
Of course many go beyond that:
They claim that they have “united with God,” have “become at one with God,” have “found their True and Supreme Self,” have “merged with the Supreme Being” and have now “become the Supreme Being” or “Realized that they were the Supreme Being all along.”
Their gurus are seemingly cosmic real estate agents who showed them some property in Foo Foo Land which they bought into and then moved into.
[As noted, neurotics build castles in the air, psychotics move into them, and then psychiatrists collect their rent.]
Yet none of those "Spiritual Giant-inspired" statements actually provide evidence of “having Truly Realized” (which simply refers to being restored to sanity and being capable of seeing clearly and being able to differentiate true from false).
All such lofty claims are just evidence of the fact that the speaker has either
(a) found a surefire way to amass a fortune by separating seekers from a lot of their money,
or has
(b) reached a state that is as far removed from reality as one can be, ignoring the “I AM” part of the non-dual summative statement while identifying with “THAT” only (even as they claim to have reached their understanding by way of non-dual teachings which are, actually and conversely, about reaching a state of no identification at all).
[The third possibility involves those speakers who have found a way to use words to manipulate those around them and to garner admiration and esteem as they boast about the wondrous benefits that have come as a result of their "Miraculous Spiritual Awakening."
Their talk is generated from the perspective of their
newly-found and supposedly-superior ego-states - which reinforce their belief
that they are no longer “bad” but are now “really, really, good.” To hear them
first-hand, you might sit around any table where “Spiritual Giants” gather to
talk about "God" and redemption and the subsequent freedom and happiness that
they have found through "Him."
Around those tables, you will hear talk that is even sweeter than that offered by wily prostitutes to the trail riders who finished a cattle drive and then walked into an 1870’s Kansas City brothel, and that was indeed some really sweet talk.]
Being free of all identification – including that of the Supreme Self – allowed Maharaj to finally say that at one point he was interested in the business of spirituality and the Self but that he eventually lost interest even in that.
He eventually purged his last talks of all pointers which some had taken earlier to be evidence of his “great depth, great profundity, and great spiritual level”; then, he offered pointers in simple, direct terms and truly talked “from the perspective of the universal consciousness” (which any persons can comprehend if they have the sanity and intelligence required for them to discard their current misunderstandings and then tap into the understanding.
So, as reported in the article referenced above which shared some the facts found by way of research conducted by Ph.D. Candidate Gordon Pennycook and his team, what correlation was found between what he and his researchers concluded are
(A) people who were revealed by tests to be less intelligent
and
(B) people who are more likely to believe in what he and his team referred to as “pseudo-intellectual bullshit”?
Some of their findings in his study entitled “On the Reception and Detection of Pseudo-Profound Bullshit” include the following:
1. They found that people who are receptive to believing “pseudo-intellectual bullshit” are less intelligent than those who aren't (with some exceptions, of course).
2. The study also found that the people more likely to buy unquestioningly into nonsense tend to have strong religious beliefs, are not reflective, and are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories and the "paranormal" (including ghosts, a Holy Ghost, spirits, a Holy Spirit, angels, guardian angels, Powers living in other worlds but controlling everything in this world, etc.)
3. The researchers concluded that the basic assumption is that "people who are more intelligent should be better able to detect that the statements are bullshit" and, similarly, that "people that are more skeptical about supernatural claims should be more skeptical about all of the bullshit that is presented to them.”
[Yet that did not always prove to be the case, either; instead, nothing absolutely negates the possibly that those who test high on tests which measure intelligence can, nevertheless, behave in the exact same fashion as their not-at-all-intelligent fellow humans.
Even intelligent persons can buy into nonsense and can be incredibly naïve, gullible, susceptible to believing BS, and / or easy to fool. Why?
Because intelligence seldom overrides the ignorance and insanity-producing effects of programming, conditioning, etc. and the effects of the subconscious influence exerted by the hidden agendas of personality identifications.]
During the research, quotations were used from the websites of such renowned "Big Name Teachers" as Deepak Chopra and from a website called “New Age Bullshit Generator,” a site which randomly creates phony, “spiritual” aphorisms intended only for "geeky amusement."
Amazingly, many of the less intelligent persons who read some of the nonsensical, BS quotes claimed to have found them to be “quite profound,” including these:
“By evolving, we exist.” (What?)
“You and I are 'The Dreamweavers' of the quantum soup.” (What?)
“Good health is entangled in a symphony of force fields.” (What?)
“By blossoming, we dream.” (What?)
“Making tea quiets precious
miracles.” (What?)
“Hidden meaning transforms unparalleled abstract beauty.” (What?)
And from
three of the modern-day, multimillionaire, Big Name Teachers / “sages”:
You can have “an ageless body and endless mind.”
You can have “the spontaneous fulfillment of your desires.”
I can teach you “seven spiritual laws of success” that can be used to bring
about “the fulfillment of your dreams.”
I can teach you“how to know God.”
"For a new world view to emerge it must be coherent."
Regarding the action of a Nazi throwing a baby into a flaming pit:
"This act is God. God is what-is. And until we can accept our baby being destroyed, we cannot come to terms with God, with reality.”(What?)
[Rarely can one find a statement such as that one which epitomizes all three of the major traits of the Ultimate Sickness which Maharaj identified as "ignorance, stupidity, and insanity," but that speaker did it;
nevertheless, she attracts persons - especially addicts and alcoholics seeking "recovery" - who are willing to pay her thousands of dollars to attend retreats to hear her teach them such bizarre foolish which they take to be profound and weighty and deep and insightful.]
My spiritual teachings “can provide you with the ‘Ten Secrets for Success’.”
I can teach you to “advance your Spirit.”
In Pennycook's study, subjects ranked how profound the statements were on a scale of one to five. The result: many subjects testing with lower intelligence levels gave an average scores of three or more to such statements, reporting that they found the statements to be somewhere between “profound” and “mind-blowing deep.”
Granted, those who think that they are more intelligent than they really are and who think they are far more advanced than they are – whatever that means – and who think they are far more elevated than most, and who think that they are far deeper thinkers than others, and who think that they are far more capable of appreciating profundities than others, would be glad to explain to you and me "the truth revealed" by those “phony, ‘spiritual’ aphorisms” which were made up for amusement or that were made up by millionaire "Big Name Teachers" in order to become even richer. So it is.
Others who are willing to look objectively at those statements and who have the sense to be able to do so (and who, more to the point, are willing to look objectively at their own beliefs) might reach a level of understanding which could allow them to discard their attachment to any and all nonsense and then just abide naturally and simply and spontaneously and freely. Or not.
Yet that can only happen when persons are
(1) freed from their warped perspectives and their supposedly “profound perspectives”
and are
(2) freed from being driven by their desires to escape, avoid, and dissociate from reality and move mentally to some "other-worldly cerebral residence.”
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
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THE EXPLANATION
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"
and
"Heaven and earth shall fade away."
and
"Heaven and hell are not geographic places
"There is no hell."
