A UNIVERSE OF ACCIDENTS, OR A UNIVERSE OPERATING ACCORDING TO PLAN, OR…NEITHER? Part Four, The Conclusion

F.: In the meantime, nonsense like that spouted by Brother Juniper in Thornton Wilder’s The Bridge of San Luis Rey (mentioned in an earlier post) will continue. Like the masses today, Juniper wondered if the bridge in that story fell (A) “by accident” or (B) “by plan.” Some people are asking that question about the bridge that recently fell in the U.S., but most are totally sure that everything that happens is caused by god, is god’s will, and is part of a “Divine Plan.”

Because the perceptions of persons are so primitive, most will never consider any options other than those two, but the correct answer is "C," "D," and "E":

(C) all happenings are happening due to an infinite number of causes;

(D) the basic principle involved is “cycling”; and

(E) the only “governing forces” involved are the Laws of Thermodynamics (including Entropy), and the Law of Atrophy.

Furthermore, all change happens as a result of the Laws of Thermodynamics and Atrophy and all change is natural, no matter how much those who believe in—and long for—continuity might disagree. The laws have been discussed earlier but are relevant here as well:

By nature, all except that which You Truly Are is limited and finite. The Law of Thermodynamics says that everything in the relative—including situations and relationships and bridges—is dynamic and changing. Elements that happen to “come together” cannot “stay together” permanently, just as a so-called human "form" or "space" will not be a permanent form and just as the manifested consciousness will not manifest permanently. The elements will eventually return to the universal pool of elements and the conscious-energy will return to the universal pool of energy.

The Law of Entropy says that elements disorganize and organize and disorganize again. Even the elements organized by humans into what they call a "bridge" will disorganize...naturally and automatically and on their own. This Second Law of Thermodynamics says that everything deteriorates, collapses, breaks down, and wears out all by itself. It is a law of nature. Everything in the relative deteriorates, collapses, breaks down, and wears out…all by itself. The basic elements and the energy will remain, but no “relative combinings” are permanent. That applies to bridges and to marriages, to cars and to courtships, to computers and to possessions.

The Law of Atrophy, or The Law of Reduction, says that all forms shall waste away, wither, or deteriorate. That includes plants, animals, human bodies, bridges, and relationships. Only the basic elements and the energy remain, but no forms perceived to be "real" will last.

Yet most will never realize these facts since they accept their god as the cause of all. Once persons are “sure” they know the answer to everything, they will never find the truth about anything because the search for truth never even begins.

For the few who can forfeit their belief that they are “sure” and “right” about everything, another option remains. There is the opportunity to question it all, to be free of it all, and to merely witness it all…without attachment. There is the opportunity to Realize...to take all seven steps required to be in touch with reality. Why take those steps? Because then, and only then, can true freedom and independence manifest during the relative existence.

Why else? Because You Are the consciousness. Even when lying on a couch or bed, the body is doing nothing but the consciousness is churning away. Even when the personality is not inspiring the talk that is used to sustain personas, the consciousness is churning away. There can be no peace without Realization.

The body might be at rest. The mouth might be at rest. But it is the consciousness that is never at rest among the non-Realized. The invitation is to take the seven steps in order to be rid of the “mind” that allows the consciousness to churn. Only then can the nonsense about perfect parents and controlling gods and falling bridges and all other silliness be abandoned. Only then can one be free of the influence of parental programming and cultural conditioning and fictional tales about god(s) and warped ideas that are forever driving persons and robbing them of peace.

Only when freed of all of those influences can true freedom happen. Only then can those centers of logic and reason and sanity that have been deactivated by programming and conditioning and encuturation reactivate. Only then can that inner resource be tapped into. Only then can the remainder of the manifestation happen spontaneously, sanely, reasonably, and rationally. Only then can persons be free of their magical thinking and supernatural beliefs about happenings that are simply natural. Please enter the silence of contemplation.
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A UNIVERSE OF ACCIDENTS, OR A UNIVERSE OPERATING ACCORDING TO PLAN, OR…NEITHER? Part One

F.: Yesterday’s post generated a huge volume of e-mails in response. Many reported that they saw for the first time ever the way that they have allowed a twisted, distorted image of a god (an image based on the unstable personality of parents and/or other authority figures) to haunt them throughout much of their adulthood.

Many shared that they had spent as many years trying to please that imaginary parent/god as they had spent trying to please their parents (without any sense of having accomplished either). What an arduous task children are programmed to undertake; what an exhausting mission it is that “The Childish Adult” works to fulfill. What misery exists when trapped in that dualistic effort to avoid “being bad” and trying to “be good” in order to avoid “punishment” (from a parent or a god or both) and trying to attain “rewards” (from a parent or a god or both).

Past postings have discussed instances where children in sixty-year-old bodies are still working to get an “attagirl” or an “attaboy” from a parent who was (and is) incapable of hugging, complimenting, or loving unconditionally. Now, as adults, love from their parent-inspired image of “god” also comes with “conditions”…and punishment…and unpredictability…and mysteries, such as, “Why did He make that bridge fall and hurt and kill those people?”

Some e-mails contained reports of fond recollections of childhood, but many more recalled long-repressed memories that resurfaced...memories of being judged, of being punished undeservedly, of being used, of normalizing the crazy conduct they had to witness and tolerate, of instability, of unpredictability, of fear, of the unavailability of parents when they seemed to be needed the most. So many are still held captive by the subsequent pain and suffering. This speck of consciousness was as bound as any before the Advaita teachings led to Realization which, in turn, finally led to liberation and independence and freedom from all of that.

A few still sense that they are the “apple of god’s eye” the way they have always been the “apple of their doting parents’ eyes”; however, many who identified themselves as “former believers” claimed they did see, while reading yesterday’s post, a parallel between their “distorted concepts about God” and their parents’ distorted ideas and often-bizarre conduct.

Some said that they are in a program that is telling them to “come up with their own conception of god” and claimed to “undertand now why they are receiving that advice” and why they “need to come up with a different concept from the one their parents provided.” (Maybe they will someday receive the truth of the pointer than any concept they come up with is still…just a concept; on the other hand, they might not. So it is.) Some saw how exactly their earlier beliefs about a male god were explained in a “right on” fashion in the posting, though they have since transcended their past belief in that male.

Reading those e-mails, it became clear why so many adult believers are overwhelmed, trying their best to make sense of nonsense; trying to “be good” and to “get rewards”; and trying to “feel worthy” and to “escape fear” and to “be pleasing in the eyes of God.” How exhausting it was to see all of the energy expended; to see all of the mental and emotional machinations generated by their concepts of god; to see their distorted beliefs about what an imagined god requires; to see the frustration of years of wanting an explanation for what is unexplainable because it is based in myth and fiction.

Now, to continue. The level of nonsense that humans are capable of believing in becomes most obvious during their “times of crisis”: discussions about a collapsed bridge include the on-going debate about “god’s role in that event.” Thousands more are expressing their surprise that a bridge that was predicted to fall…actually fell. Equally as insane were the actions of one “woman of faith” who said that, seconds after the bridge fell, she “just had a desire to get as many people praying as possible.”

She stepped before a group of fifty people who were near the bridge and began screaming out orders for them to fall to their knees and pray. They did. They allowed a woman of faith to convince them not to rush forth and render aid to the injured and drowning but to fall to their knees and pray instead.

But of all of the nonsense so far, one major piece of nonsense made the national news last week when the actual bridge that collapsed was compared to a fictional bridge that collapsed and killed five pedestrians in Thornton Wilder’s novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey. One purpose of that novel was “to study god’s role in disasters.” The broadcasting of such claptrap is another example of the way that an entire nation can be enculturated and conditioned to accept total nonsense as truth and fact when reported by a supposed "authority."

In Wilder’s novel a character named Brother Juniper asks, “Why did this happen to those five?” Thornton says, “If there were any plan in the universe at all, if there were any pattern in a human life, surely it could be discovered mysteriously latent in those lives so suddenly cut off. Either we live by accident and die by accident, or we live by plan and die by plan.” Herein lies another Advaita pointer:

In a nation of magical thinkers attached to the supernatural, only two explanations are being considered: either (A) the bridge in Minneapolis fell by accident (to the degree that eroding materials and governmental negligence can be written off as “an accident”) or (B) there really is a god who made the bridge fall and who killed and injured people. Over 89% of the people in a U.S. poll taken several years ago said that they believe that “everything that happens is caused by God…all part of 'His Divine Plan'.” Could there possibility be a third explanation that you might be able to raise for consideration? Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
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