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
F.: Next, contrary to your protestations, the evidence proves that the assumption of religious ego-states leads to separation. Look to yourself for more evidence: you claim the status of being a "child of god" and an "agent as god." Surely, in your “mind,” that separates you from the millions who have not reached your rank. And since you have adopted the ego-states of “child of god” and “agent of god,” you surely take yourself to be "holy," and what is “holiness” about if not separation? According to the Brown Driver Briggs (BDB) lexicon,
“the possible original meaning of the root word for holy is ‘separation.’ As a noun, Kadesh, it means ‘apartness.’ The adjective Kadosh points to the concept of ‘being separate’ and ‘apart from.’ The verb Kadash means ‘to be set apart.’ Nothing about the meanings of these words suggests being intrinsically good or divine.” Instead, “being holy” is about "being separate from."
The Anglo-Saxon root of the word “holy” most closely aligns with the modern English words “different from” and “special”; therefore, a “holy” book is different from—and more special than—other books; “holy buildings” are different from—and more special than—other buildings; “holy days” are different from—and more special than—other days; “holy seasons” are different from—and more special than—other seasons;
“holy land” is different from—and more special than—other land (and is considered to be worth fighting over and worth dying for…at least according to many persons); and “holy people” are different from—and more special than—other people. Duality, duality, duality. Do you see how the abstract concept of “holy” generates dualistic thinking, how it generates a sense of separation rather than unification, and how it supplies and re-supplies arrogance and narcissism, both of which must have their insatiable appetites fed regularly?
Because “holy” and “different from” and “special” also generate a sense of “better than,” the fact is that all things considered "holy" and all people who consider themselves to be "holy" are reinforcing a sense of separation. (Your e-mail certainly indicates that you want people to have what you have rather than whatever you think they have or don’t have. Advaita, on the other hand, invites you to have nothing…to realize the Nothingness of zero concepts and zero personas.)
So, the word “holy” can now be seen to deal with duality, not with the unicity, as do all of your religious concepts of “good-bad,” “right-wrong,” “moral-immoral,” “reward-punishment,” and “heaven-hell” (where all people will ultimately be divided into dual groups, according to your doctrine). So much for uniting rather than dividing. That man you reference in John 3:16, the one you think was set up to be killed by his "father," said after he was exposed to the Advaita Teachings: "A dual-minded person is unstable in all ways."
F.: Next, contrary to your protestations, the evidence proves that the assumption of religious ego-states leads to separation. Look to yourself for more evidence: you claim the status of being a "child of god" and an "agent as god." Surely, in your “mind,” that separates you from the millions who have not reached your rank. And since you have adopted the ego-states of “child of god” and “agent of god,” you surely take yourself to be "holy," and what is “holiness” about if not separation? According to the Brown Driver Briggs (BDB) lexicon,
“the possible original meaning of the root word for holy is ‘separation.’ As a noun, Kadesh, it means ‘apartness.’ The adjective Kadosh points to the concept of ‘being separate’ and ‘apart from.’ The verb Kadash means ‘to be set apart.’ Nothing about the meanings of these words suggests being intrinsically good or divine.” Instead, “being holy” is about "being separate from."
The Anglo-Saxon root of the word “holy” most closely aligns with the modern English words “different from” and “special”; therefore, a “holy” book is different from—and more special than—other books; “holy buildings” are different from—and more special than—other buildings; “holy days” are different from—and more special than—other days; “holy seasons” are different from—and more special than—other seasons;
“holy land” is different from—and more special than—other land (and is considered to be worth fighting over and worth dying for…at least according to many persons); and “holy people” are different from—and more special than—other people. Duality, duality, duality. Do you see how the abstract concept of “holy” generates dualistic thinking, how it generates a sense of separation rather than unification, and how it supplies and re-supplies arrogance and narcissism, both of which must have their insatiable appetites fed regularly?
Because “holy” and “different from” and “special” also generate a sense of “better than,” the fact is that all things considered "holy" and all people who consider themselves to be "holy" are reinforcing a sense of separation. (Your e-mail certainly indicates that you want people to have what you have rather than whatever you think they have or don’t have. Advaita, on the other hand, invites you to have nothing…to realize the Nothingness of zero concepts and zero personas.)
So, the word “holy” can now be seen to deal with duality, not with the unicity, as do all of your religious concepts of “good-bad,” “right-wrong,” “moral-immoral,” “reward-punishment,” and “heaven-hell” (where all people will ultimately be divided into dual groups, according to your doctrine). So much for uniting rather than dividing. That man you reference in John 3:16, the one you think was set up to be killed by his "father," said after he was exposed to the Advaita Teachings: "A dual-minded person is unstable in all ways."
If you could isolate the duality of your religious beliefs and only focus on them occasionally, you might not be so unstable, but you claim that you're into that duality "all day, every day." The result, therefore, according to your own prophet, is that you are unstable from the time you rise until you go to sleep. You are guaranteed to be "unstable in all ways." You cannot compartmentalize the instability that results from your dualistic thinking.
What has happened in your case, John, is what has happened to most: your programmers have used two tools that perpetuate fallacies in reasoning and that result in the erroneous belief that abstract terms identify things that are real and concrete. The two tools they used on you are (1) hypostatization, which is the process whereby a conceptual entity is construed to be real and believed to actually exist, inspiring even intelligent persons to consider abstract concepts to be real; and (2) reification, which is the treatment of an analytic or abstract relationship as though it were a concrete entity. [For more on those, search this site for both terms or visit the August 2006 archives.]
Usually, on this site, visitors are encouraged to set aside what they think they know and what they think others know and then find (a) that which is within but (b) that which is currently being obscured from awareness by layers of concepts that prevent seeing reality. But since you don’t know what you don’t know, the words of Maharaj will be offered once more in order to reveal how that abstract concept of a “god” (which you think you can be in “conscious contact with”) actually evolved into what persons take to be a concrete entity and which now generates a sense of being apart from rather than a part of:
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.
Rather self-ish, yes? Yet the pointer will be offered again for clarity: the religious/spiritual stage is a stage on the “path” to Realization, a stage that cannot be skipped but that must be transitioned if Full Enlightenment is to happen. For those who continue along the "path" and complete the full "journey," the religious ego-state and the spiritual ego-state will be the last two ego-states that will be discarded. Please enter 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.)
What has happened in your case, John, is what has happened to most: your programmers have used two tools that perpetuate fallacies in reasoning and that result in the erroneous belief that abstract terms identify things that are real and concrete. The two tools they used on you are (1) hypostatization, which is the process whereby a conceptual entity is construed to be real and believed to actually exist, inspiring even intelligent persons to consider abstract concepts to be real; and (2) reification, which is the treatment of an analytic or abstract relationship as though it were a concrete entity. [For more on those, search this site for both terms or visit the August 2006 archives.]
Usually, on this site, visitors are encouraged to set aside what they think they know and what they think others know and then find (a) that which is within but (b) that which is currently being obscured from awareness by layers of concepts that prevent seeing reality. But since you don’t know what you don’t know, the words of Maharaj will be offered once more in order to reveal how that abstract concept of a “god” (which you think you can be in “conscious contact with”) actually evolved into what persons take to be a concrete entity and which now generates a sense of being apart from rather than a part of:
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.
Rather self-ish, yes? Yet the pointer will be offered again for clarity: the religious/spiritual stage is a stage on the “path” to Realization, a stage that cannot be skipped but that must be transitioned if Full Enlightenment is to happen. For those who continue along the "path" and complete the full "journey," the religious ego-state and the spiritual ego-state will be the last two ego-states that will be discarded. Please enter 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.)
