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How Dualistic Thinking Reinforces Ignorance, Justifies Inaction, and Prevents the Understanding of Causation
There are (1) infinite causation factors which can only be understood if one understands the functioning of the totality; there are also (2) limited, immediate causation factors which involve recent happenings only.
Maharaj: “Like everything mental, the so-called law of causation contradicts itself. No thing in existence has a particular cause; the entire universe contributes to the existence of even the smallest thing; nothing could be as it is without the universe being what it is.”
With that, he cast aside the notion of there being “A Causer,” a god who has made happen everything that has happened and everything that will happen. He called BS on that whole concept.
Maharaj said, “The cause of all is all.” The writer Ray Bradbury wrote a short story on that non-dual subject.
In Ray Bradbury’s science fiction short story A Sound of Thunder, time travel allows the common man to experience the past in ways never before thought possible. Eckels, an avid hunter, pays $10,000 to travel back to the age of dinosaurs to hunt a Tyrannosaurus rex.
While Eckels waits for his expedition to begin, he and a company employee discuss the recent election in which the democratic candidate Keith, the moderate presidential candidate, was elected over Deutscher, the dictatorial candidate described as an anti-everything man.
The two suggest that if the election had turned out differently, many people would be running for the time machine just to escape Deutscher's rule.
After they enter the time capsule and arrive at a time in the past when dinosaurs roamed the earth, Travis gives the hunters two specific instructions: shoot only the dinosaur is marked (they were going to die soon anyway) and stay on the path, which is made of anti-gravity metal which hovers above the ground. When Eckels asks why, Travis launches into an explanation of how changing the past could have a negative effect on the future:
if one mouse is killed in the past, the families of that mouse will also no longer live, along with the animals that would have preyed on the mouse. This would, in turn, cause the animals that preyed on those animals to no longer live, compounding until the effect of the death of that one mouse could mean generations of people may no longer be alive in the present. With everyone sufficiently scared, they head out.
As they anxiously wait for the T. rex, the men hear “a sound of thunder” - the footsteps of the dinosaur - and Eckels is overcome by the beauty and majesty of the beast. He decides he cannot shoot it. Travis, furious that Eckels has chickened out, tells him to return to the machine. Eckels, in a state of shock, moves in the wrong direction, catching the eye of the dinosaur. As the T. rex begins to come after the hunters, they fire and kill it.
Upon returning to the time machine, Travis notices that Eckels' boots are muddy. He had stepped off the path! Furious, Travis threatens to leave Eckels in the past unless he collects the bullets from the dinosaur, which they can't leave. He does so, but Travis still threatens to kill Eckels for disobeying the rules.
Upon arriving back in what had been their former present time, Eckels notices that things are a little off. The air smells weird and the spelling of the company sign is a little different. Eckels looks down at his shoes and notices a butterfly stuck to the bottom, dead.
In shock, he asks who won the presidential election and the employee exclaims that it was Deutscher. Eckels groans. Travis aims his weapon at Eckels and there is a sound of thunder.
The ways and effects and significance of causation are clarified in Bradbury’s warning.
So, to the current pointer: dualistic thinking reinforces ignorance, justifies inaction, and prevents the understanding of causation.
Without understanding the cause of a disease or virus, no medical vaccine or cure or treatment could exist.
Without understanding the cause of the problems in a marriage, none of the problems can be effectively addressed.
Without understanding the cause of respiratory illnesses, no environment contamination issues can be addressed.
Without understanding the cause of the problems in one's culture, no society can address its social issues, be they poverty; homelessness; climate change; overpopulation; immigration stresses; civil rights; racial discrimination; gender inequality; health care availability; childhood obesity; mass shootings and murders; ad infinitum.
Are those all involved with “the relative”? You bet. What other kind of issues can any human face right now?
One other understanding is required before this discussion can continue, and it is the understanding that all societies - from (a) the beginning of human existence and the development of “the mind” to (b) the present - have engaged in the following which I lebel for the sake of discussion . . .
Horizontal Continuum Thinking
and
Vertical Hierarchical Thinking.
Horizontal Continuum Thinking uses a horizontal line to chart various levels of one concept or another:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Very Evil Evil Partly Evil Very Good
Vertical Hierarchical Thinking then follows at some point as the line continuum is turned on its head and looks like this:
10 Very Good
9
8 Partly Evil
7
6
5 Evil
4
3
2
1 Very Evil
Now, take the above dualistic pairing of evil vs. good and apply rankings based on right vs. wrong”; skin color; economic status; sexual orientation; religious / spiritual values; one’s physical home (ranked from “mansion” to “shack”); physical attributes such beautiful vs. ugly; thin vs. fat; strong vs. weak; this political party vs. that political party; etc., etc., etc.
Duality results in a sense of division, which can only exist in a mind. Is it any wonder that so many countries have reached a point, based in their dualistic belief in their nation’s Vertical Hierarchical Thinking, where there is now so extreme and so fanatical a sense of division, separation, different-from-ment, and better-than-ment?
So, to work from a current example of dualistic pairing, let’s consider one of the most common: the duality-based pairing of evil vs. good.
Meanwhile, keep the focus on Maharaj’s assertion that three of the key symptoms of the Ultimate Sickness are “ignorance, stupidity, and insanity.” Not, “evil?” No. Not evil.
Maharaj said that, “The impersonal cannot be described in terms of good and bad”; that “Stupidity and selfishness are the only ‘evil’”; that “callous selfishness is the root of [what is called] ‘evil;”, that “‘Evil’ is simply a symptom of ignorance”; that "Concepts of good and evil are unnecessary”; and that “We have developed those [two] concepts and are caught in them.”
Now, in most cultures, because of the agendas of politicians and religious leaders, the false concept of “evil” has long been especially popular.
Presently, in the U.S., (which is the ultimate dream of gun manufacturers), many politicians are receiving millions of dollars from those manufacturers and their sellers and wholesalers. Their current wealth and future wealth is guaranteed and protected by the use of dualistic thinking which reinforces ignorance, which justifies inaction, and which prevents the understanding of actual causation.
So why are politicians now focusing on “evil” even more than religious leaders? Because the calls for action after the surge in mass shootings here are sidetracked by suggesting that shooters are driven by “evil.”
So what legislation could be written to curb evil? None. Ergo, no need to do anything except encourage people to pray more, to worship more, to endorse religions all around the globe, and to call for people to be more spiritual and to get closer to God.
Thus, end of story. Done. Completo. Finiti. Fini. Finato. Terminado. Acabado.
So, let’s see how that worked when a teen entered an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas recently on a Tuesday and killed 19 children and two teachers:
Lt. Christopher Olivarez of the Department of Public Safety told CNN. “It just shows you the complete evil of the shooter.”
Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott (Republican) said at a Wednesday news conference, “Anyone who shoots his grandmother in the face has to have evil in his heart, but it is far more evil for someone to gun down little kids,” he said.
The next day he said, “Evil swept across Uvalde yesterday.”
Gov. Greg Abbott also appeared before a grieving nation to explain how it happened, delivering an authoritative account of law enforcement heroes facing down evil and preventing the additional loss of life with quick action.
But much of that story wasn’t true.
The police stood outside the door of the classroom as children were being shot inside; they delayed entering the room and confronting the shooter for over an hour.
Democratic candidate for governor Beto O'Rourke spoke to media outside the auditorium about Abbott, saying, “The only thing he did was make it easier to carry a gun in public. And he bragged about the fact that there would be no background checks, no training, no vetting whatsoever. He talked about ‘this [event] was evil’.”
“Our deepest sympathies are with the families and victims involved in this horrific and evil crime,” the spokesperson for the congressional gun lobby said in its statement Wednesday.
State Republican Rep. Matt Schaefer says Tuesday’s mass shooting at a Texas elementary school was “an unspeakable act of evil” by an individual, and that “gun laws aren’t to blame.”
During a commencement address at the University of Delaware on Saturday, President Biden joined in the Republican chorus and said, “Evil came to that elementary school classroom in Texas, to that grocery store in New York, to far too many places where innocents have died.”
Republican Senator Ted Cruz said, “Heidi [his wife] and I are lifting up in prayer the entire Uvalde community during this devastating time and we mourn the lives that were taken by this act of evil.”
On Friday, former US President Donald Trump told the National Rifle Association's (that is, the gun lobby) at their annual conference that decent Americans should be allowed firearms to defend themselves against evil.”
In arguing for gun rights - and against tighter restrictions - he said that “the existence of evil in our world is not a reason to disarm law-abiding citizens. The existence of evil is one of the very best reasons to arm law-abiding citizens.”
That from a politician who received $33,000,000.00 from the gun lobby when he ran for president.
Tad Neutze, a local businessman in Uvalde, told the BBC that he was a gun owner and challenged the need for increased checks: “If the guy was evil, he was an evil person. And evil is going to find a way to harm people,” he said.
“It's hard to explain to your kid that someone he used to play with won't be there anymore," said Uvalde mother Monique, as she clutched her son, Joaquin, to her side. “It's hard to explain evil. It's hard for them to understand.”
Within a week, there were 23,200,000 hits in a search for “Uvalde” + “evil.”
If “evil” was the cause, then again, end of story. Done. Completo. Finiti. Fini. Finato. Terminado. Acabado.
Dualistic thinking reinforces ignorance, justifies inaction, and prevents the understanding of causation. It also preempts any action which might be taken to address limited, immediate causation factors, no matter the issue being discussed.
To be continued.
Please enter into 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."
teachings which become a part of the Papal Magisterium.
