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I AM THAT vs. “This Is Who I Think I Am”
“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.”
---Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
(Continued)
An irony occurred yesterday. I had shared these words of Maharaj:
“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.”
I offered the invitation to . . .
“care enough to verify. Only to try to verify what you have accepted as true will it be seen that nothing you have accepted as true can be verified.
“If one instinctively understands the wisdom of taking the top off of a gallon jug which contains only a small amount of milk in the bottom, smells a pungent odor which makes clear that the remaining milk has soured, and then wisely tosses it in the garbage bin, then . . .
“why not apply the same test to one's belief systems (understanding that those are not your beliefs to begin with. They are the beliefs of others who shared with you the beliefs which has been passed along to them that you accepted as true without verifying or checking or questioning.”
At the same time that I was sharing wisdom regarding the process of questioning, my daughter was sharing the same on one of her sites. She posted the following yesterday:
“Children questioning rules & traditions you expect them to automatically follow is a sign of intelligence, not trouble. Lose the idea that unquestioned obedience is a sign of goodness. No, that’s just a persons who never thinks for themselves, making them easy to manipulate.”
It has been years since my daughter asked me to sit with her and explain what she’d been reading on my blog. I did.
Once the understanding comes, then it remains. Sure, early on there can be some vacillation. Doctors might remove a cancerous growth, but they might not remove the entire tumor during the first surgery only to find later that they have to “go back in” and provide more treatment.
The same can happen with the non-dual understanding:
Maharaj explained, “You are so used to the support of concepts that when your concepts leave you, although it is your true state, you get frightened and try to cling to them again.”
But once the seed has been planted, it can continue to cycle on its own, growing, resting, growing, resting, etc.
Then, when one comes across a salient pointer later on, it can resonant and then one can relate and share that with others.
Finally, fixation happens post-realization (meaning, after all beliefs and all learned ignorance are purged) and after one comes to understand the functioning of the totality (including the functioning which takes place during the relative existence and the functioning of the totality of the not-manifested-in-any-particular-space Absolute).
I dealt with that same issue of “questioning” with a man who came here years ago for a three-day retreat. He was concerned about his child rebelling against him in public and throwing tantrums.
He complained about his child rebelling against him in public and throwing tantrums and his complaint provides an opportunity to understand the functioning of ego-states / false identities during the relative.
See, his “concerns” were not about the child. His concerns were about his image, about the way his identity of “The Father” was being seen and judged.
Every false identity had a basic desire and a basic fear, and his identity of “The Father” has done what all false identities do: in a McDonald’s-like fashion, ego-states soon super-size themselves, so “The Father” - in his mind - becomes “The Super Father.”
What did “The Father” need originally to reinforce his belief in that identity? “The Child.” But what does “The Super Father” require in order for it to believe that it is real? “A Super Child.”
“The Super Father’s” basic desire is to be seen as a really fabulous father; the basic fear of “The Super Father” is that he might not be seen as such.
Therein lies the ability to understand why, of all marriages in the U.S., at least 50% (and in some years approaching nearly 60%) end in divorce . . . or spousal murder.
See, when two persons walk down the aisle in a special building, somewhere in the front of the facility is a stand holding a large candle with two smaller candles burning on either side of the large candle.
At some point in many ceremonies, the presiding official will send “the bride and groom” over to the stand and each will remove a burning candle from the side and touch the two flames to the wick of the large candle in the center.
The representation? Two have just become one. And what happens to the flames of the smaller candles? A huff and a puff and - poof! - they’re gone. Then they are pronounced “Husband” / “Wife.”
Now what does “Wife” need to exist as a supposedly real entity? “Husband.” And what does “Husband” need to exist as a supposedly real entity? “Wife.” But what awaits? Ego-state super-sizing.
When they reach the stage when friends and relatives see them arguing and remark that “the honeymoon is over,” at that point the two false identities have already super-sized and “Wife” sees herself as “The Super Wife” and the “Husband” sees himself as “The Super Husband.”
Now what do those need to supposedly exist? Well, of course, “Super Wife” must have a “Super Husband” and “Super Husband” must have a “Super Wife.”
When is a call made to arrange an appointment with a lawyer who specializes in milking the money out of two angry and egotism-driven persons? When “Super Wife” determines that she does not have a “Super Husband” and vice-versa.
The same happens with “The Super Father” mentioned above. What does he need to sustain that false identity? “Super Child.” “Super Mom” has the same belief about herself.”
As Maharaj noted, there’s just so much damn “ignorance” and “stupidity” and “insanity” which comes with the Ultimate Sickness and the false identities it generates.
Recently, attention has focused on Waco, Texas once more as the public and media marked the thirty-year “anniversary” of the end of a government-vs. cult siege.
I had watched the fiery end of the siege on April 19, 1993 and knew that scores of programmed and conditioned men and women and children were being incinerated inside their slapdash building.
At the beginning of May 1993, I set out to complete the 2.5 hour drive from my home to where that home had stood. I knew the area there, having lived in Waco for a short time as a teen in the 1960’s.
(When I was told we were moving out of the town, I experienced a tremendous sense of elation. “Good damn riddance to all of you asses” my teen mind responded.)
Later, I would not be drawn to the site of the fire by its notoriety; moreover, as most who visit this site are aware, I suffer lightly the fools involved with organized sky cults or with disorganized sky cults or with control-freak governments led by fascists.
To the contrary, I was drawn to the site by the inner sense of the Oneness which generates an ability to feel empathy for those in pain and suffering. (Why else would anyone share non-dual pointers?)
Upon my arrival, no guards were there to stop me from turning onto the road that led up the hill to where the house once stood. All that remained upon my arrival was, for the most part, a 2”-inch deep to “6”-inch deep pile of black ash.
I changed into the rubber boots in the trunk of my car and began walking across the property. Near the center of one burned-out section of the house where the ashes had originally been deeper than in other places, the wind and rain had exposed something that caught my attention.
I used the toe of my boot to push the ash away and saw two tiny legs. As I pushed those around in the black remains, the rest of a small doll came into view.
I picked it up and tapped it against the heel of my boot to shake as much of the soot off as possible and I saw that the hair had been burned off.
As I stared at it blankly, a tear ran down my cheek when I wondered, “Who was the little girl carrying this doll as she tried in vain to race away from the flames and the smoke, clinging to that doll as children do when they use those or stuffed animals to provide comfort?
As I walked farther, I saw the corner of a piece of cloth. I pulled it from the ashes and saw that I was holding the remains of a two or three year old child’s calico dress. The pattern was basically blue. It was charred with burn marks all around the edges.
More tears fell.
BACKGROUND
I later met a woman who had been friends with Robert Rodriguez, the undercover ATF agent who had infiltrated the cult.
She explained that the raid on February 28, 1993 and the subsequent gun battle between cult members and government agents that day did not set into motion the chain of events during the 51-day siege. The screw-up happened during the weeks of planning which preceded the raid.
The real trigger was pulled when the ATF knew that the cult leader went once a week into Waco, always on the same night of the week, to play music with local musicians and to recruit members for the cult.
They could have easily arrested him without incident during any one of those trips into the city. Why did they not do so and why did they choose to stage a dramatic raid instead, inviting the press to accompany them and document their armed incursion?
Here’s why: Congress was scheduled to soon meet to discuss the 1994 budget for the ATF and that agency’s request for more funding then was being proposed. They felt a big show of force and “accomplishment” would strengthen their chances of getting more, not less, money into their next budget.
The raid was a failure for ATF as the cult members blocked their efforts to take control of the building and the arms inside. The siege began, and the stage was set for the fires of April 19 to occur.
Yesterday, a politician held a political rally there to incite his followers to rebel against the same government which is now trying to hold him accountable for his crimes.
In Waco last night, that politician / cult leader found a receptive audience of the same types of religious fanatics and gun lovers and white supremacists I had met there years earlier.
He used the “anniversary” of the deaths of 4 federal agents and 82 cult members (including 28 children) for political gain.
As always, the cause of all is all. There were plenty of screw-ups prior to the siege by both the cult and the government, and those screw-ups took place long before the raid and long before all of the subsequent carnage.
Ego-states and their agendas of fear and desire were driving the thoughts and words and actions of all involved. Federal agents were massacred on Day One by bullets, and cult members and their children were massacred by flames on Day Fifty-One.
Such is the result of ignorance and stupidity and insanity of non-realized humans whose actions ended up with my finding a doll with its hair burned off and the small remains with scorched edges of the dress of a child who burned to death on April 19, 1993.
Were lessons realized. Of course not.
More such ignorance-and-stupidity-and-insanity-driven destruction, relatively speaking, awaits.
It is the way that humankind’s dramas - performed on the stage of The Theatre of the Lie by emotionally-intoxicated fools - always unfold.
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.
