TERESA: The Poster Child for the Brutality of Programming, Part One

F.: For the next few days, a story will be shared that reveals the details of the relative existence of a girl named Teresa. Why speak on this site of Teresa? Because what happened to her is what happens to billions every day (and has happened to trillions before her). Her case is like that of most persons: happiness and contentment happen for a period of time after the consciousness manifests; then, the warping of the consciousness happens, generating untold levels of misery and suffering.

While “your story” has not been completed and might yet have a “happy ending,” the story of Teresa is used since her story has been completed and reveals the entire “happiness to misery cycle” that happens when the consciousness is warped by programming, conditioning, and enculturation. And no means of programming has generated more misery and suffering on planet earth than the type to which Teresa was exposed: namely, using religious dogma to program the youth. The result is that the programming converts joy to misery and happiness to suffering, and that is what allows her to serve as the “The Poster Child for the Brutality of Programming.”

Teresa was born “Agnes Gonxha” but was called Gonxha most often because the name meant “flower bud.” Her mother said that name was appropriate for her since the little girl was always "plump and pink and cheerful." Her parents were known for never turning away anyone who needed help, and in Gonxha’s words, the family was “a very happy family.”

Gonxha’s father died when she was eight, but her mother worked very hard to make sure the children were happy, and Gonxha would report years later that her mother succeeded. Despite the death of her father, she said that her childhood was “exceptionally happy.” The name "Teresa" would be adopted years later.

Teresa’s childhood was not unlike that of any young girl: she was shy around males but giggled with her girlfriends as they admired the most handsome boys in town. She had hopes and dreams. She imagined being married and having a family someday. She would work as hard as her parents did to have a happy marriage, to have a happy family, and to help others who came her way.

She fantasized about her husband-to-be-someday. She grew older and began to show signs of a maturing young girl. Her body began to change shape, and she soon experienced the dichotomy of those glad-sad feelings that surrounded her first menstrual cycle; she began to feel more like a woman than a little girl. Feelings became more pronounced. The first stirrings of sexual longings began. Knowing that she was capable of producing offspring, she dreamed more of settling down with a husband some day and starting her own family. Teresa dreamed of unbridled happiness and bliss. She was the epitome of natural living.

Then came an intervention that had an effect that was not unlike the results of using a mind-altering drug that can so damage the psyche that it could never be normal and could never function naturally again. A huge shift happened to Teresa when, under the influence of her mother and the guidance of a priest, Agnes Gonxha was made to be interested in missionary work.

It would have an especial appeal since the dogma offered by the priest promised Teresa (a young girl who had no father) that she could acquire a replacement father in heaven as well as his son who loved her with all his heart. In later years, she would speak of her relationship with that son in terms that are typically used to describe a worldly love-affair between a young woman and a young man.

Her natural childhood feelings were removed and replaced with supernatural beliefs instead: she would be so programmed with those supernatural beliefs that she would behave most unnaturally, claiming to no longer want a husband or sex or children or a family of her own.

Teresa’s dreams of happiness and bliss were replaced with the concepts of her dogma, including the teaching that "the relative existence is a brief period of suffering, misery, service to others, abandonment of one’s natural inclinations, and giving up all plans for marriage, for raising a family, and for enjoying sexual relations." She was taught that such sacrifice would ensure that Teresa was "good," and if she was good (she was promised) then her relatively brief period of suffering in this life would end and would be followed by eternal bliss.

Soon, Teresa had been so programmed that she accepted as a father-substitute an invisible male in another world, and the “this-world” lover that she was programmed to "marry" was a man who had been dead for 2000 years. The deterioration of the psyche of a sweet, plump, pink, and happy girl (whose natural drives had inspired her to want a husband and a family and pleasure) was being short-circuited as a “mind-job” was done on a child. The consciousness was being so warped that Teresa’s natural tendencies were being supplanted by supernatural tendencies. The result would be a most unnatural existence.

She soon bought into the teachings that said "happiness and bliss are to be sacrificed and replaced by misery and suffering." She was assured that "to fight all of her desires to live naturally, to give up sex, to give up her desire to love a living man, to abandon her hopes and dreams, to forfeit her own happiness, to be willing to suffer for decades, and to live unnaturally" would be a “good” thing. In fact, to do otherwise—that is, to live naturally—would actually be a “bad” thing in her case...so the programming went.

Once she accepted those lies as truth, their programming and bastardization of the consciousness was complete. Her psyche had been made completely unnatural. So deteriorated was her psyche that Teresa believed that she heard a voice from another world, and it was the voice of the dead man that she had "married" and had come to love. And that voice affirmed the details of her training, assuring her that she really was to give up all natural feelings and hopes and desires, was to love him only and no other man, was to move from her homeland, and was to live among those suffering in the slums of Calcutta and suffer alongside them.

The warp was in, and anyone with any degree of compassion would hear her words as an adult and ask, “My gosh, Teresa. What did they do to you? You were so plump and pink and happy and cheerful. Listen to yourself now”:

Teresa: “I feel dryness, darkness, loneliness and torture.”

Teresa: "I feel the terrible pain of loss."

Teresa: "There is such terrible darkness within me."

Teresa: "The emptiness is so great."

Eventually she would say:

Teresa: "Love—the word—it brings nothing."

Teresa: "I have come to love the darkness."

“My gosh, Teresa. What did they do to you? You were so plump and pink and happy and cheerful.” And why, after seeing the effects of the warping of that speck of consciousness that would eventually be called “Mother Teresa,” would the persons of the planet continue to subject billions to that same brutal form of programming?

Why would they take something so happy and make it so miserable? Why would they take something so natural and replace it with magical, supernatural concepts that result in most unnatural thoughts and unnatural feelings and unnatural behavior? Indeed, it is true: they know not what they do. Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
READINGS RELATED TO TODAY’S POST:

Click THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS “PEACE OF MIND” (There Is Only Peace If You’re Out of Your Mind)

Click WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE?

CONSCIOUSNESS IS, Part Two

FROM A SITE VISITOR: there’s all these contradictions, the part I don’t get is “there’s only consciousness” but at the same time “in the Absolute state there is no one to be consciousness of anything.” Then Maharaj talked about “even in the sleep state the consciousness still is conscious” but at the same time “even in the Absolute state there is consciousness or awareness but no one to be aware of it.” Then, “neither matter nor energy can be created nor destroyed” but “this is finite while that is infinite.” Help! BraD

F.: So an attribute of conscious-energy is an ability to be conscious of, and that can happen whether manifested via a space called a “plant,” a “bird,” a “human,” an “animal” or even if not manifested at all. Too often this is not understood: consciousness is, whether it is conscious of itself or not, yet it must be conscious of something to be consciousness. You might say, “I understand that conscious-energy can be conscious of itself if manifested in a space with a nervous system, but how—if unmanifested—can consciousness be 'conscious of' something without being conscious of itself?” To understand, consider the functioning of the subatomic particles of an atom:

One attribute of the subatomic particles at the core of atoms—the electrons, protons and neutrons—is that they are conscious of each other and function spontaneously in certain ways in relationship to each other…as do atoms as well. Electrons are conscious of a nucleus and swirl around it as if the two are dancing some subatomic dance together that is resulting from their “magnetic attraction” to each other. (The notion of manifested consciousness that the natural way for humans to behave when the consciousness is manifested via a “human space”—namely, to relate, to interact, to bond, and to break bonds, etc.—is subatomic in its nature.)

It’s all automatic, it’s all happening spontaneously, and it's all natural. No one teaches the electron to revolve around the nucleus…it’s natural. No one need teach humans to be "attracted to" each other; no one needs to teach a human to masturbate; no one needs teach two humans or two birds or two mammals to fornicate. It’s all natural. Only the bastardized “mind” (filled with all of its dualistic nonsense and the arrogant belief among persons that they have the right to manage the conduct of other humans and to control the bodies of others) will teach persons that it is unnatural to do what is natural: “Our dogma teaches that you can be supernatural (that is, super spiritual) if you do not do what is natural, because we believe that some natural things are actually unnatural!” Such a teaching provides an excellent example of how persons can be stripped of logic, how the consciousness can be programmed and corrupted, and how persons will end up behaving as fools.

Are you seeing how asleep persons are when programmed by their “leaders”? They can actually be taught that something which is completely natural is unnatural, they will then believe that something which is natural is unnatural, and then they will try their best thereafter to avoid behaving naturally. And in that process, they will be convinced that they are pleasing some supernatural entity by unnaturally avoiding the natural. That kind of learned ignorance, which bastardizes the consciousness and which thrives on blind faith, can produce either a nation of repressed, uptight and hypocritical persons or “an army of god” whose members are masochistic, sadistic, and suicidal. Such is the relative existence toll of corrupted consciousness and duality…and the subsequent unawareness of awareness.

Now, note the other ways that electrons reveal that they are conscious of: they can play a role in establishing chemical bonds, “A” being conscious of “B” and bonding with it. An ion from one atom can be transferred to another atom as all involved are conscious of each other. Electrons can also be shared between two or more atoms, so an electron in one atom can be conscious of other atoms, can interact with them, and can bond with them.

Is any “one” directing an electron’s behavior or orchestrating the way it conducts itself in relation to other particles about it? Of course not. Is consciousness present? Obviously. An electron can be conscious of an object (in this example, the nucleus around which it is spinning). Is any “one” present within the atomic substructure to be conscious of a subatomic particle’s consciousness of other particles? No. Even though no “one” is present to be conscious of consciousness, is consciousness present nevertheless? Obviously, yes.

At this very moment, there is a field of energy that can be called “the absolute” in which acts of consciousness are happening even without any self-consciousness. Take that to be a “pool” of energy or an “ocean” of energy or a “field” of energy or a “system” of energy. It doesn’t matter what term is used to point to that field, but know that it is limitless and infinite and boundless and omnipresent. Understand that transferences of energy can and do happen between a “system” of energy and adjacent regions and understand that energy can also undergo transformations.

Thus, energy moves in wave or particle form "into" the field, throughout the field, and (sometimes) "out of" the field and manifests. In the meantime, the consciousness is still consciousness and is still conscious of, even though it is not conscious of itself when not manifested in some space with a nervous system. Compare that to the manner in which consciousness functions as it operates your heart and lungs even during your "unconscious" state of sleep. You are not conscious of your self, but the consciousness is conscious of. That is a natural function, not taught and not learned. AS IF living happens exactly like that.

Also, see the examples on planet earth of such energy transferences and energy transformations: sunlight can strikes a human in a non-usable form, but if it strikes a plant, then the process of photosynthesis will transform that energy into a form that is usable by humans. That "transference" and "transformation" process facilitates the manifestation of consciousness. (See “photosynthesis,” July 31, 2005; August 13, 2005; December 23, 2005; May 24 and 26, 2006; August 26, 2006; December 8, 2006; February 26, 2007; March 24, 2007.) The ability of energy to undergo transformation and transference sets the stage for (a) a plant to transform energy which (b) can be consumed and can thus (c) be transferred and transformed within a human space. Yes, "We Are what we eat." Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be continued]

DISCARDING “KNOWLEDGE” WHEN IT IS ACTUALLY LEARNED IGNORANCE, Part Five

Why do so few Realize? (1) Pride in worldly knowledge and attachment to religious and/or spiritual knowledge. (2) Use of a "backwards" approach, namely, knowledge accumulation vs. ignorance de-accumulation. And that is why worldwide ignorance has not been stamped out and will not be stamped out, because persons believe that the planet-wide epidemic of ignorance could be solved if only people would acquire more knowledge. The Advaitin understands that the knowledge is the ignorance and that the ignorance is the knowledge. The ignorance is that which the masses have been taught and have learned, and their ignorance will only be compounded if more of the same type knowledge is injected into the equation. Ignorance could be stamped out if persons were to forfeit their revered beliefs and ideas and concepts and dogma. Since that happens so rarely but is a prerequisite for Realization, only a few will ever Realize (that is, be in touch with reality...be restored to sanity). Among religions and philosophies, there is no other means that can produce the necessary brain-flush save completion of the entire Advaita “journey” which invites the dissolution of all of the contamination that is “the mind.”

From a site visitor: I’m totally westernized--gulity as charged--so I’ve been trained to give great value to knowledge, which you’ve been knocking. I’m at least willing to listen to you and see if I can get your point, but looking at your bio info, you obviously attended university, acquired enough knowledge to convince someone that they should pay you to use that knowledge, and then paid your bills through use of that knowledge. Your vast knowledge in many subject areas is obvious. So, what’s the deal? Larry

F.: In yesterday’s example of a curtain blocking the witnessing of the lilies, take the lilies to represent Reality and the curtain to be the learned ignorance that blocks seeing Reality. To remove the curtain of ignorance does not require more knowledge as much as it requires seeing ignorance as ignorance and seeing most "knowledge" as ignorance as well. Take the curtain’s removal and the witnessing of the lilies to represent that “Oh my gosh!” moment of Realization when (after preparation happens, after envisioning and reading happen, after discussion with a Realized Teacher happens, and after the readiness thereby comes about) all of the knowledge/learned ignorance fades away, body-mind identity ends, the influences of personality end, and Full Realization happens. Yet nothing prevents Realization more than assuming personas (be they “The Perfectionist,” “The Controller,” “The Religious One” or “The Spiritual Giant.” And nothing supports those last two ego-states more, and nothing perpetuates entrapment in the ignorance of concepts more, than the all-time leading source of concepts: religion (or even philosophies such as Advaita when they are distorted into religions).

The Advaita process will reveal to you the ignorance of believing in concepts, dogma, and ideas that (1) were dreamed up ages ago by shrewd men with an agenda to control the ignorant masses (especially females), that (2) have been passed down as “religious or spiritual knowledge” for millennia, and that (3) must be removed if truth is be seen. Advaita is based in reason and logic, so no Realized Advaitin would insult seekers (especially “females”) by suggesting they learn the chauvinistic tales in the “holy” writings of the three dominant religions. Why accept teachings that pass on an irrational, subliminal message about how much “worse” women are than men, such as Eve who tempted a formerly “good” man; such as Lot’s wife who (unlike her “good” husband who did not look back) was turned into a pillar of salt because she did; or such as Mary Magdalene who was revamped as “a whore” when the Christian Bible was totally re-written, and its message further distorted, in the 4th century.

Advaita would never reinforce such vilification of females, portraying them (in religious texts that are described as “the inspired word of God”) as the “bad” influence on pitiable men who were previously “good” before dealing with “evil” women…women such as Jezebel, Rahab, Potiphar’s wife, and Delilah. Females would never be encouraged by an Advaitin to accept teachings in “holy” texts that denigrate women (or men). Curiously, three billion women on the planet do go right along with all of that sexist nonsense, evidence of the degree to which programming and conditioning can result in causing some otherwise intelligent people to be totally blind and totally fooled. And the fact that so many women continue to honor those beliefs and align themselves with the billions of men who adhere to such prejudicial, dualistic dogma is a wonderment as well. So it is on the “Planet of the Programmed.”

To the contrary, Advaita erases, rather than reinforces, such dualistic belief in “bad women vs. good men,” in "good men vs. bad men," in "God vs. bad people," in “differences,” in “better than,” and in “evil vs. moral.” You will never be asked by a Realized Advaitin to stretch the imagination, to start thinking magically, and thereafter believe that a human egg was once miraculously fertilized sans sperm. You would never be asked to accept that the (supposed) mass-murder-by-drowning of every inhabitant on the planet except for eight people (resulting in an act of genocide that made Hitler’s efforts look like child’s play) was a “perfectly understandable and acceptable” act that should not be questioned.

These are but a few examples of the type of fictional knowledge that currently trap over six billion persons in the imprisonment of their so-called “minds.” They do not need more to believe in--they need far less. Thus, the Advaita approach deals with “the removal of knowledge which is merely learned ignorance,” not with “acquiring and accumulating more knowledge.” There is no other means that can produce the necessary brain-flush save completion of the entire Advaita “journey” which invites the dissolution of all of the contamination that is “the mind.” And that is why Christ, after understanding the Advaita message, left organized religion and used the Advaita method not to add more beliefs but to try to remove beliefs: "A dual-minded person is unstable in all ways"; "no one will ever see the kingdom of heaven...it's within"; "heaven and earth shall fade away"; "when you speak of me, speak of me as I AM"; and "Before Abraham was, I AM." Please enter the silence of contemplation. [Tomorrow: The Conclusion]

THE DIRECT (SEVEN-STEP) PATH TO REALIZATION, Part Three—The Conclusion

Unnatural living and supernatural living are both tiresome and exhausting, but natural living is easy.

FROM A SITE VISITOR: Do some people just suddenly realize or does everyone have to go through the seven steps you talk about? If so, why seven and why any exact order.

F.: Now, if you review yesterday’s example, you should find that the order in which the water was contaminated parallels the manner in which the consciousness is contaminated: one person uses the element of dirt to contaminate the water—just as parents program the manifested consciousness to believe that it is the dirt (i.e., the elements, the body) with such comments as “You are a boy” or “You are a girl” or “You are a human” or “You are a person.” Then the level of corruption increases as the body illusion is ungraded: "You are a special person," "You are a gift from God," or “Your body will last forever so it cannot be cremated—it must be saved and buried.” Then, as with the water, the next person adds a coloring element to make it look pretty…to upgrade the illusion: “You have a beautiful body,” “You are so lovely,” “You are good boy,” or “You are a good girl.” The illusion of arrogance develops and, as with the contaminated water, a noxious element is added.

In the world of duality, however, any upgrading of an illusion sets the stage for a downgrading of the illusion on other occasions: “You are a bad boy” or "You are a bad girl” or “You’re so ugly that no one will ever want you” or "As your spiritual guide, I must tell you that such conduct will cause you to be cast into hell forever" or "You're living in the greatest country on earth," or "They are all out to get us." The consciousness becomes more and more corrupted as a fictitious “mind” is formed during childhood and stores away all of the nonsense of separation and all of the lies of differentiation which become “beliefs and values that are worth fighting for…or even dying for” during adult years.

As the corruption of the consciousness continues, dualistic beliefs convince some that they are "clean" while they consider others to be "dirty"; then, a “holy” person might be sought out to add “detergent” as in the earlier example with the water. Some religious dogma or some spiritual exercises will be added with instructions to "adhere to the dogma" or to "continue the spiritual exercises for life" in order to purify the person who is being "bad," to make the person "good," and then to provide the cleansing and re-cleansing efforts that "they" claim will be needed for as long as a person lives.

But the cleansing effects can never keep pace because more and more contaminants are added as the earlier contaminants are held in esteem as "my" beliefs. In their efforts to upgrade the illusion of self, persons start adding more contaminants (new ideas, new beliefs, new information, new knowledge, new dogma, new exercises, and new concepts) to "find the answer" or “to be a better person” or "to be at peace." All of those "self-improvement" efforts are nothing more than a source of further contamination because they deal with (1) trying to make an illusion "better" and because (2) anything in a world of duality that can “help” can also “hurt.” The understanding of the homogeny seldom comes as belief in the multiplicity becomes fixed in a fictional “mind.”

How (after so many years of programming, conditioning, contaminating, and enculturating) can persons ever be rid of the tens of thousands of contaminants that make up a "mind"? With the glass of water, see that the step that removes shards of glass will not remove the poison, and see that the step that removes the salt will not remove the coloring. In like fashion, a variety of steps must be taken and transitioned, in a specific order, for the re-purification of the consciousness to happen. Those steps form a "path."

The "journey" is simply the movement from the contaminated state of consciousness to the re-purified state of consciousness, but none of the steps on the "path" can be skipped. (For example, the steps that eliminate that adoption or assumption of religious or spiritual personas, cannot be taken prior to the steps that remove body and mind identification. Similarly, Maharaj noted accurately that “there are two witnessing stages,” and the second cannot be entered until the first is entered and surpassed. Each “stage,” to use Maharaj’s word, must be entered into and then transitioned in a specific order for Full Realization to happen).

Two seekers wrote recently, a male who has read the words of his guru for five years and a woman who read the same swami's words for seven years, and the content of the e-mails from both seekers revealed that they are almost as far from Full Realization as when they began the search. Seekers are often advised to "be patient." In fact, some seekers become too patient, dedicating five years or seven years to doing the same thing over and over and expecting some different result (even though what they have been doing is not producing the results they are seeking at all). What these two require is what most seekers require: they simply need a clear-cut set of directions that map the way to move along the "path" (often combined with some one-on-one clarification with a "teacher") and then they can end once and for all the ineffective toil and strife and effort and work. This should not be an arduous task. Come to the Understanding and then relax and enjoy the AS IF living that follows. Work is work, but "life" should not be work. In fact, unnatural living and supernatural living are both tiresome and exhausting, but natural living is easy.

The “Spiritual Masters” all addressed the various stages that must be transitioned in order to alleviate the illusions that result in the seven degrees of separation from Reality and then to transition all seven in order to Realize fully. The book FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE does not offer “new Teachings.” It merely provides the Teachings in the exact order in which the steps must be taken, along with detailed explications that guide the seeker through each step. Remember, Maharaj said, “Follow the same path by which you came” and “…You should go back, reverse, to the source.” To go back to the source, to Realize the Absolute, and to abide as the Absolute, the exact reverse order must be followed that led from the Absolute to the delusion of the “I.” Best regards as you continue your “journey” via the Teachings of the Advaita Vedanta philosophy. Please enter the silence of contemplation.
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