MISTAKING THE ABSTRACT FOR THE CONCRETE, Part Three in This Series

From a site visitor: [Received 10 June 2007] Today you said history shows religion leads to separation and judging and even killing. That’s not true. For me, my religion leads to peace and power. I stay in conscious contact with Him with prayer all day, every day, and He empowers me and gives me guidance and peace so I can be happy for as long as by His grace I am allowed to live. I hope you can find your way to Him so that you can have peace in this life and joy forever. Signed, John (as in 3:16)--A Child and Agent of God

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj: "First of all you identify something as being good or bad for yourself. Then, in an effort to acquire good or to get rid of the bad, you have invented a God. Then you worship such a God and ... you pray to that God for something good to happen to you."

F.: As Maharaj points out, John, no god created man in that god's image; instead, man created a god in man's image. Next month, many persons in the U.S. will be celebrating “A Day of Independence” without realizing that they have none. Two-thirds report—just like you, John—that they pray daily for guidance from God regarding what to do about "this" or what to do about "that." In other words, 66% of all Americans on earth admit that they can’t figure out what to do on their own and that they depend on an entity that does not live on earth to decide for them. For the more than 6 billion persons who claim membership in one of the three religions of Abraham, they admit that they have to be told what to do by someone else. Thus, they have no independence.

Moreover, a study of the evolution of religions shows that their god is nothing more than an abstract morphing by Abraham of all of the pagan gods of creation, sustenance, and destruction into one god that has been assigned a concrete form (specifically, a male form among Jews, Christians and Muslims). 95% of those polled in the U.S. report that they believe in that morphed, male god (as you do, John) and 64% say they have never once doubted his existence even once. Nearly two-thirds of all persons happily admit that they have never once questioned what other persons have told them.

83% also report that they believe, as you do, that body continuity is literally possible, taking the abstract concept of “I am my body” and assigning it the trait of concreteness, now and forevermore. With all of that programming, duality gains a firm foothold, so 88% report that they believe in a literal, concrete geographic “heaven” and "hell." (Actually, 88% report that they believe in "heaven" but only 71% report that they believe in “hell,” possibly hoping that to deny its existence might exempt them from eternal assigment to that location?) But notice, John, how you and those surveyed are merely taking an illusion and then either ungrading it or downgrading it:

You take yourself to be a three-dimensional being and you believe in a fourth dimension that is divided dualistically into a geographic place for housing the “good” and a different geographic place for housing the “bad.” You are taking illusions to be real and then either upgrading or downgrading them as your abstract thinking creates supposedly physical extensions of your illusions. “Heaven” is merely an upgrade in your “mind” of the illusion of “this world.” “Hell” is merely a downgrade in your “mind” of the illusion of “this world.” The “celestial power” that you think is at your disposal is merely an ungrade in your “mind” of the illusion of “worldly power” that you think you have as a result of another abstraction you would call "unquestioning faith."

But whether your beliefs concern upgraded illusions or downgraded illusions, they are still all illusion. You have been deluded, yet you do not know that you are deluded. He who has been fooled only rarely understands that he has been fooled, so you will believe in “power” and "body continuity" and "eternal reward" or "eternal punishment" and "guidance" as well as all of your other abstractions that are based in delusion. And the chief way that persons are fooled is by programming them to believe that abstract terms (terms that refer to nothing more than ideas and concepts that are dreamed up by persons) are terms that have physical referents. Thus, humans can dream up an abstract concept such as “an all-powerful being in another world” and then believe that entity is concrete.

Then, they can claim that their abstract concept has the physical form of a male; next, they can modify the Anglo-Saxon abstract term for “good” (“gud”) into the term “Good” and eventually “God”; and finally, they can claim that “God” is the name of an actual, concrete, physical entity. After generations of programming, the masses can take a contrived concept (that there is an omnipotent being that will share his power if people only believe in him); they can distort words to invent a label for their contrived concept (“gud” to “good” to “Good” to “God”); and they can then convince billions of persons that the abstract concept “God” and the abstract term “God” actually have a real, concrete, physical referent.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj offered this teaching:

"First of all you identify something as being good or bad for yourself. Then, in an effort to acquire good or to get rid of the bad, you have invented a God. Then you worship such a God and ... you pray to that God for something good to happen to you."

In an earlier posting, this pointer was offered:

Either there is One, or there is duality and/or multiplicity. Either there is a prime cause and creation (and therefore a prime causer and creator) or there is neither creation nor destruction. Science has proved that there is neither creation nor destruction. All is energy/matter, and energy/matter can be neither created nor destroyed. Wherefore a causer or a creator in that reality? Where is there any possibility of a creator (or a creator-sustainer-destroyer god) when That Which Is Has Always Been, when That cannot have been created, when That cannot be destroyed, and when all merely cycles...or not?

Persons who are programmed to believe that their bodies-minds-personalities shall last "for infinity after death" do not pause to consider that, if infinity is a possibility in --> that "direction" on their timelines, then it must also be a possibility in <-- that "direction" on their timelines. Infinite is infinite. Whatever has the ability to exist "forever after" also had to have the ability to exist "forever before."

If persons are not free of being fooled, if they are dependent on someone else to tell them what to do in every situation, and if they are trapped in the delusion that results when they believe erroneously that abstract concepts have a physical referent, then they are walking about as if in a dream. They are walking about in their sleep, dreaming that they are free and empowered while actually being trapped and being so powerless that they cannot even decide what to do on their own.

They are imprisoned in the “minds” that have resulted from their consciousness having been warped by ignorant leaders (or by truly savvy leaders who have elevated manipulation to an art form). Yet, like you, they are convinced that they have power and that they are free. Such is the delusion of dualistic thinking and assigning concrete forms to abstract concepts. Please enter into the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
THE FEATURED BOOK FOR THIS WEEK’S SALE IS CASTING LIGHT ON THE DARK SIDE OF RELATIONSHIPS (which identifies problems and their causes and offers suggestions for creating healthier relationships—relatively speaking). 15% off through June 17th.

Click CASTING LIGHT ON THE DARK SIDE OF RELATIONSHIPS
WORKING ON BEING FREE OF RELIGIOUS PROGRAMMING AND DOGMA?

Click SPIRITUAL SOBRIETY

“MIND” and MEMORIES: When Nature’s “Assets” Become Warped into “Liabilities,” Part Twelve

The very worst of each personality type in evidenced when persons are stressed, overly pious, or making money off their phony role-playing. How many on the planet are not either stressed, overly-pious, or receiving income for playing their roles? The negatives of personality—relatively speaking—are prevalent and dominate the “human (persona) experience.”

[Continued from yesterday]

F.: If one walks into a forest and becomes lost, the surest way out is to retrace one’s steps, exactly, in reverse order. Similarly, the “path” to Realization is the exact opposite, step-by-step, of the way one became lost in body-mind-personality identification. This series is showing how the contamination process happened in order to see what must occur for the re-purification of the consciousness to happen. Only if one sees, “Oh, my gosh, yes, that applies to me” might one realize why the “journey” is indicated as the appropriate “treatment” for what ails the earth’s human population.

Therefore, the earlier points that “persona-playing will lead persons to personality disorders” and that "adults behave in childish ways" should now be understood. What remains to be understood is what those “bizarre circumstances” are that drive children to develop a specific personality and to behave in the ways that are unique to that personality type.

Each of the nine personality types identified by the enneagram, therefore, developed certain traits and behaviors in childhood that “worked” to some degree in those early, unhealthy parent-child relations but that become major obstacles when applied to adult-aged relations (which are most typically marred with the playing of “The Child role” or “The Parent role” in the absence of “Adult”-appropriate conduct). Here are the abnormal home conditions that generate personality and that set children on a destructive course as they apply their childhood strategies to adult-age circumstances (meaning, as they unconsciously allow personality to dictate the ways that they think, emote, and behave):

Often, Type Ones as children were trying to cope with a rigid, judgmental environment in which parents set forth unreasonably excessive moral and ethical demands and expectations, especially involving religious restrictions. Ones become reformers or perfectionists, can become highly self-critical if they don’t adhere as adults to the parental expectations that were set forth during childhood, can become judgmental, and will often label others as being “bad” or “evil.”

Often, Type Twos as children were trying to cope with an environment in which parents were emotionally unavailable, were offering only a conditional version of love, or wherein a parent (often the father) was in absentia, physically or otherwise. They can spend their entire adulthood is a search for love and will give away far too much in the quest.

Often, Type Threes as children were reacting to an especially indulgent parent (often to the mother). Sometimes, an abusive male parent was present, and the hiding of family secrets set the stage for manufacturing the images that were shown outside the home (which were quite different from the abusive reality that existed inside the home). The stage was set for creating and maintaining positive images while living darker lives behind closed doors. Threes, therefore, can experience a sense of incongruity since their "positive" outside image never ...

This is an excerpt from the book
THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS “PEACE OF MIND”
(There Is Only Peace if You’re Out of Your Mind)

For information on the book, visit http://advaitavedantabooks.blogspot.com/

To order the book, visit
http://floydhenderson.com/order.htm
(You can use the Special Message box)

Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be continued]