ON LABELS, PHILOSOPHY, RELIGION, ADVAITA AND YOUTH, POWER, ADDICTIONS, SPIRITUALITY, AND “CHANGING THE WORLD,” Part Two

[Continued from yesterday]

SITE VISITOR Lisa asked for responses to certain questions as part of an assignment for a college course in religions and philosophies:

LISA: How can we help children to access their inner resource?

F.: Actually, Full Realization is not for the young, so to try to teach the youth to tap into the inner resource when they need to be tapping into skills that will allow them to address those basic (relative) needs as listed on the base of Maslow's pyramid would not be advised. If they are to function in their dysfunctional cultures, young adults must play the games of the culture for a time. Otherwise, their parents will be on a Dr. Phil show featuring "Boomerang Kids" about parents who can't get their adult-aged children out of the house. In other words, Pandora's Box of Concepts has been opened, and the freedom from all those concepts and personas that drive the misery of the relative existence on this planet will be their condition until some reach a point in adulthood and begin questioning all of the learned ignorance they have accumulated and then eventually reject it all. Few ever will. So it is.

LISA: Do you have a higher power or have you ever or and can you briefly describe what that is or was.

F.: The master addiction of the planet is a desire to control. That desire drives the secondary addiction: the desire for power (in order to control). That quest for power has led to more destruction and magical-thinking-type nonsense than anything else on the planet. It inspires efforts to accumulate earthly power and also to have an extraterrestrial power (or powers) that can also be tapped into in order to control. (E.g., the desire to control weather generated an imaginary god of rain. The desire to control the outcome of battles generated an imaginary god of war. Eventually, Abraham would take all the various gods of creation, sustenance, and destruction, would tell people that there is only one god, and from that they combined all their former gods into one. That is how then ended up with a schizo god who supposedly creates and sustains but also destroys. The creator god "loves his creations unconditionally" and will sustain them if they believe in him, sacrifice to him, worship him, work for him. Contradictorily, his "unconditional" love has "conditions," and, if they are not met, the sustaining will end and the destruction will begin, along with horrendous, eternal punishments to boot.) To be free of the nonsense of contradictory concepts and inconsistent dogma is to be free of the desire to control. That, in turn, ends the desire for power. As for “higher power,” that implies “lower power” as well, and that would be another duality.

LISA: What would you say is one of the most important lessons you have learned in life.

F.: To unlearn all of the "important lessons about life" that I was taught. One book is entitled, IT'S ALL BULLSHIT (And Why Knowing That Will Set You Free.) Once the learned ignorance of humanity is cast aside, the "path" can be followed that leads to the truth that cannot be stated but that can be understood; thereafter, the functioning of the totality becomes clear and the relative existence can happen in an AS IF fashion, as if any of the stuff of this realm is real or significant, but knowing that it is not.

LISA: What is the way to freedom and inner peace for suffering addicts and alcoholics?

F.: The way involves addressing the cause rather than the symptoms. Since you want these answers short, you may read the postings for Feb 12 and 13 at www.advaitavedantameditations.blogspot.com for more.
TOMORROW, the response to “Do we ever stop growing spiritually?” To all site visitors: Based on the Advaita understanding, what response would the re-purified consciousness provide? Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be continued]

REALIZATION AND ADDICTIONS, Part Two

[Continued from yesterday]

FROM A SITE VISITOR: [Received 11 Feb 2007] “You mentioned today that 95% or more are addicted to something. Is it possible that Realization can treat addiction? I’ve tried off and on for years to cut back on my drinking, and a lot of what you talk about is what I’ve heard in treatment. Of course, a lot of it is different cause I’ve been told only a higher power can help me and you don’t seem to believe in Him.”

F.: Now, to expand on your comment that “of course, a lot of it is different cause I’ve been told only a higher power can help me and you don’t seem to believe in Him.” Yes, in the early chapters of the book which serves as the primary source for many treatment options, it is suggested that persons come up with their own concept of “the power” whereas Advaita suggests being free of all concepts. If you read to the end, though, that same source book reports that (even though words such as “Him” were used) most of the founders of that program considered “the higher power” to be an “inner resource.”

That "inner resource" is no different from what Advaita teachers call “the inner guru.” And what is that “inner resource / inner guru”? It is the consciousness which had been pure, which has been corrupted via programming and conditioning, and which can be re-purified if one completes all seven steps of the Advaita “journey” from (a) identification with the false “I” to (b) abiding as the Absolute. Of course the consciousness, if fully re-purified, sees "higher" and "power" as nothing more than concepts as well.

Have some who have completed that seven-step “journey” reported that they no longer use substances to escape since they no longer have anything to escape and since there is no longer an “escaper”? Yes. Have some who have completed that seven-step “journey” reported that they no longer use substances to try to cope since there is no longer any persona, any “one,” that is trying to cope? Yes. Those who are trapped in the addictive personality want to control; therefore, they seek power so that they can control. Have some who have completed that seven-step “journey” been freed of all of their illusions about “power” and “control,” which are nothing more than concepts rooted in myth and egoism and delusion? Yes.

So, can Realization treat addiction? Full Realization certainly frees personas from the master addiction of the planet (to control) and from the secondary addiction of the planet (to have power in order to be able to control). It certainly removes all identification with personality, including the false concepts that are rooted in the addictive personality. Since you have “tried off and on for years to cut back on” your drinking—and have evidently failed—you might be interested in taking the seven steps from the “I” to the Absolute and then find out for yourself/YourSelf what the result is. Or, you might not. So it is. Please enter the silence of contemplation.

WHY MOST PERSONS WILL NEVER REALIZE, Part One

FROM A SITE VISITOR: Dear Mr. Henderson, Re; your am post of this date. [8 Feb 2007] Can you speak about how to move beyond the fear of losing \"this\" to embracing \"That\". When I think about \"Why not Realize\". It is fear. Fear of losing parts of the little self that I have allowed to define me. Peace,Peace,Peace Virginia

[Initial e-mailed response]: A very legitimate question. Due to its relevance to the recent post, the reply will be moved up the list and responded to tomorrow. In the meantime, know that seven steps are required for the shift you're asking about, and they must be completed in an exact order, the explanation of which is book-length rather than e-mail length. See http://floydhenderson.com/iamabsolute.htm for more on that. Peace and Light. f.

F.: OK, Virginia. Thx for writing. Your assessment (that one factor which is retarding your undertaking of the “journey” to Full Realization is the "fear of losing parts of that little self" that you "have allowed to define" you) is telling. It reveals that you are farther along than most persons walking about the planet since most haven’t considered their circumstances enough to even be aware of the duality of “self vs. Self.” (Technically, the problem is not losing parts of one false “self” but losing all of the many, different false selves that persons use to “define” who and what they think they are.)

While various fears are one hindrance to Realizing, desires, denial, arrogance, and greed are others. First, the fears. The various fears among persons manifest as fears about non-continuity, fears about the unknown, and fears of powerlessness:

FEARS ABOUT NON-CONTINUITY
Among persons--that is, among the non-Realized--an understanding of their fears cannot be separated from an understanding of their desires. The fear that the body-mind-personality might have “an abbreviated stay in this world” is always accompanied by a dualistic desire for eternal continuity of the body-mind-personality in the next world. That desire for continuity will generate fear-based conduct in the relative that reinforces more and more belief in the lies of duality and that results in less and less chance of Realizing. To “earn” or “gain” continuity for the mirage called “the body” and the mirage called “the mind” and the mirage called “my personality,” persons self-servingly cling to their beliefs in such dualities as “god/gods vs. mortals”; “hell vs. heaven”; “rewards vs. punishments” (both "now" and “later”); “benefits of worshipping vs. not worshipping”; “payoffs from tithing vs. not tithing,” etc.

Why self-servingly? Because all of those dualistic beliefs are rooted in the dualistic desires of various false selves to continue now, to continue forever, to gain “good” things now and forever, and to avoid “bad things” now and forever. The goal of persons is to be able to manipulate other persons as well as some external Power in order to get what “you”—that “little self”—wants and desires, which is the power to control as well as some supposed guarantee that "you" will "continue." With Realization comes the awareness that there is no Power or power, that there is no one who can control, and that there is no continuity of body or mind or personality. With Realization comes the awareness that NOW is the only "time" there is, so NOW might as well be enjoyed fully. With Realization comes freedom from illusory fears and illusory desires. For most persons, however, because they are fixated at the elementary level of body-mind-personality identification, the motivation to transcend will seldom happen. Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be continued]