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How well do you know the bodies of other creatures that inhabit our planet? How well do scientists and researchers know them?
How well do you know bodies in general? How well do scientists and physicists know them?
And what does it mean – to know a body? What do you think about bodies? About your own? About the bodies of other people? About the bodies of various species inhabiting this planet?
And what do you feel about your body and the bodies of other creatures?
And what do you know (just like in previous questions) about emotions and mind? About your own feelings and thoughts? Do you recognize them? And what about feelings and thoughts of other people?
What do you know about shapes and forms?
What do you know about essence and content?
About the myth
Let’s discuss it using the example of Christianity (or any other religion). God made man. In flesh and blood. And what was done to man by fellow man in the Middle Ages? What was done to the divine creation – allegedly in the name of faith? What was done to it later – in the age of colonization?
Was it a declaration of the will of God? Or was it just a cover to conceal the pursuit of power, riches, and keeping them no matter the cost?
And suppressing the wonder of fleshliness, the brilliance of emotions. Suppressing the genius of thought, destroying others! By double standards, among other things (when some people are allowed something and others are not).
Why thrust your nose into someone’s bedroom and dictate what they should do, in which position, and how many times? Why have such limitations and control?
Why pry into someone’s private life? Why forbid feeling something and allow only a tiny part of the wide range of feelings?
Why force something so violently and aggressively, telling what one can think and what one cannot?
There are powerful historic examples behind all these questions. Powerful and yet tragic! For not only books were burnt but people too. Talented. Beautiful.
Who gave them that talent? Who bestowed upon them sensuality? And intuition? And mind’s eye? Who bestowed upon them intelligence in all its forms? And beauty? Oh, right. There is the Devil. And yet we were made and endowed with gifts by God. In any case, this is a divine creation, we don’t have any right to control it. However, some people conceited themselves to be near as great as God and began to pride themselves. Others understood the simple truth and yet were not able to abandon power and its gifts. Suppression, control, jealousy, neglect (devaluing), and destruction won’t bring you to God… Neither will pridefulness and pursuit of power. Ignorance and clinging to one’s passions. In this regard, maybe we should study the works of various spiritual teachers and Eastern masters of various religions to get a deeper understanding and analysis?
Perhaps, instead of making fires for the wrong books and people, we should have taken a different path. The one that is fast in terms of our soul but long and tiresome for those who are attached to worldly passion. The path of decent examples, discussions, learning, stories, reflection, mentorship, etc.? Meaning the path of the freedom of agreement, acceptance, and choice. The path of the creation of beauty and comfort (that’s it!), creativity and art instead of violence and fear, destruction and hate, instead of strangling the potential of the Great Creation… We should have taken the path of freedom (freedom from our own ignorance, our fears, power, riches, pridefulness, arrogance, vanity, etc.).
Oh, how much the church opposed progress (not all the clergy really serve the Almighty, since some people choose to serve their own or someone else’s interests by way of religion). How much it opposed paganism that provided, perhaps, even more opportunities for harmony – with ourselves and the world around us – or probably just interfered with the goals of certain people. Those in power don’t like to share and they will never support those who can potentially overthrow them or provide a competition. But Christianity is not the only example. How about killing of infidel even though they were made by Allah? Otherwise, where did they come from? Were they made by someone else? And does it mean that Allah is not alone? That is somehow contradictory, wouldn’t you agree? Alright, we won’t kill them. But we also won’t let our children be happy, we won’t let them and their loved ones be together. Well, that’s an option. How much there was told, written, and sung about this! How many dramas and broken human lives. Why not cancel God at all (you never know, right?) and make a political and economic system our top priority, acquiring the right to do whatever we want?
But let us get back to body and faith. Maybe the secret is simple. Maybe those who launched and maintained all those movements didn’t aim at helping people find God (anything else). Surely, some of them were genuinely mistaken and are still under a delusion. But there are also those who acutely understand: People should be lured away from God, Allah, Krishna, Buddha, or any kind of enlightenment (no matter what name it bears). It doesn’t matter what deities different people (Asian and American Indians, Egyptians, and Aryans) believed in. The crucial thing here is to lure people away from them. How can that be done?
That’s pretty simple! Equivocation and prevarication! Instead of protecting our bodies, taking care of this greatest gift, this tool of manifesting our consciousness into the world, instead of paying heed to our emotions, being in tune with our feelings and understanding what is happening to us, learning how to express our feelings properly and appropriately, instead of treating intelligence as the greatest treasure bestowed upon us by God Almighty (choose whatever name you like) … we are doing exactly the opposite! Instead of improving it all, we declared our bodies to be vessels of sin! Touching your own or someone else’s body is a sin! Sex is a sin! You shouldn’t even wash your body (read some historic works). And should a person die because of that, we consider it great, for they are going to meet God! It’s so convenient. You can ignore the development of medicine and science or deny everybody or someone (women or slaves, for example) medical treatment. That is the will of X (substitute X for any name you like). We can always shift the responsibility for our own actions to a deity. The worldly life is nothing. Naught. We have forgotten who created it and why.
But if the worldly life is naught, then why put so much effort into its creation? And why make it so complex and diverse as well? The worldly life is a way to our soul, to God. We forgot about it… and began to pride ourselves again. Let’s take our mind and feelings under control. And blame all our misfortunes on them… But how? Well, we can always announce that one shall not feel anger, one must exercise patience… One shall not rejoice at one’s success, one must be modest. One shall not hold grudges, one must be obedient!
One must be a stupid, filthy, patient, and obedient slave, sickly of body and mind. So that no lucid idea could be conceived. Our mind is so lively, nimble, inquisitive, enquiring… Oh no, no. Those truly enlightened don’t think… But then how did great ecclesiastical works appear? Thanks to what? Obviously not due to the fact that their authors rejected their own intelligence – an essential step towards enlightenment. That’s for sure. Equivocation and prevarication again. We do need reason, we do need mind. But in order to calm your mind, you have to learn how to be patient. We do need our emotions and bodies too. But balance is important here. Our body, emotions, and mind are a good help. When we tip the balance, they become our masters. In order not to tip the balance, we need reason.
But body is also about life. If you want to depreciate a human life, depreciate their body first, as well as their bodily needs – of water, home, warmth, comfort, touching, and caressing. Or influence their freedom of expressing themselves since one was born. Babies used to be swaddled up tightly, and there was a pretty odd excuse for that: It was supposed to help them stop being afraid of themselves. Communism used the same approach, by the way! And not only Communism. Just look at what is going on in the Western world in respect of children. Though they are supposed to have democracy there. Again healthy expression of love is prohibited under a pretext of genuine care.
You should be humble, obedient, and patient. Once confronted with a choice – faith or someone you love – you should be very careful. Which means you should choose faith. And not love… Once confronted with a question of expressing your talents, you should be modest. Once confronted with the need to protect yourself and your loved ones, you should be humble and turn the other cheek. But don’t constant silence and failure to take action create even more evil? Is humbleness really about that? And what does it mean to remain silent in this case? Does it bring even more evil? All right, so you have to be a martyr, a victim. By no means should you be a master of your own life. Your life doesn’t belong to you. It doesn’t even belong to God Almighty (call him whatever you like) because your life belongs to those who really control it. To your master. Humble, obedient, patient people deprived of intelligence and contact with their own bodies, emotions, and thoughts. People who are willing to countenance. Who are they? Slaves. Slaves by nature. By their psychology! Even though they are not clapped in irons. Why put them in irons if you can always use other kind of chains? Why put them in irons when you can always shackle an enquiring mind, feelings that function as inner eyes and ears, as shining beacons? When you can always trivialize and distort them? All you need to do is set up attention focuses and determine the right and wrong ways of thinking! And, as a lesson to everyone else, to prevent them from taking interest in wrong things, we can impose censorship, disregard, reprobation, and punishments – even to the point of a death sentence to you or your loved ones! To the third or even seventh generation! This kind of scourge exists not only in religion. It exists in politics too. It became so ingrained in our everyday life that we apply the same principle to all unusual children or adult people, trying to force them into the frame of common and familiar things. We try to cure them instead of curing ourselves. We call our path right and their path wrong, though their only fault is that they are different. And they may even have a much stronger connection with their bodies, emotions, and minds.
What does it have to do with faith? With gods? Nothing! It is a matter of power and finding excuses for those in power! It is a matter of foolishness, lack of education, and general ignorance. It is a matter of aggression that puts even faith into the position of its servant.
Think about it and start loving your body and taking care of it as much as possible. Start enjoying it! To continue your way of spiritual development, you need to have a healthy body. To make the best out of your life, you need to take care of your body.
Allow yourself to experience and enjoy the full spectrum of your feelings, discovering talents you’ve never even thought of!
Think, analyze, ask questions. Have your ears and eyes open, study the world.
Question everything! Even my words, by all means! Especially my words!!
Train your brain by studying and analyzing various paths, decisions, and views! Take nothing for granted! Question everything! Ask tough and disadvantageous questions! In this case, you won’t place blind faith in anything. You will know!
Tips
– How would you treat your body, feelings, and mind (reason) if you knew that they have the untold potential for your development, improving the quality of your life, and manuring your soul and spirit? If you knew that they are an essential and valuable tool of spiritual development? That they are the creation and energy of the very God?
– Start treating them like this here and now. Notice what changes there will be in your life.
– How do you think, are mind and reason pretty much the same thing?
Or are they two different concepts?
What are their differences and similarities?
– If we could apply the aforementioned things to our reason, what kind of ideas and conclusions will you have? Apply them and take a look: What kind of ideas and conclusions do you have now?
Key points
Our body is, in any case, a divine creation, and we don’t have any right to control it.
Perhaps, instead of making fires for the wrong books and people, we should have taken a different path. The one that is fast in terms of our soul but long and tiresome for those who are attached to worldly passion. The path of decent examples, discussions, learning, stories, reflection, mentorship, etc.? Meaning the path of the freedom of agreement, acceptance, and choice. The path of the creation of beauty and comfort (that’s it!), creativity and art instead of violence and fear, destruction and hate, instead of strangling the potential of the Great Creation…
And if the worldly life is naught, then why put so much effort into its creation? And why make it so complex and diverse as well?
Why put them in irons when you can always shackle an enquiring mind, feelings that function as inner eyes and ears, as shining beacons?
To continue your way of spiritual development, you need to have a healthy body. To make the best out of your life, you need to take care of your body.
Think about it and start loving your body and taking care of it as much as possible. Start enjoying it! To continue your way of spiritual development, you need to have a healthy body. To make the best out of your life, you need to take care of your body.
We apply the same principle to all unusual children or adult people, trying to force them into the frame of common and familiar things. We try to cure them instead of curing ourselves. We call our path right and their path wrong, though their only fault is that they are different. And they may even have a much stronger connection with their bodies, emotions, and minds.
The myth in a nutshell
Our body, emotions, and mind are a good help. When we tip the balance, they become our masters. In order not to tip the balance, we need reason.
By taking care of our bodies, we can live longer and get even closer to God while doing it during our material life.
By experiencing emotions, we can learn how to notice and develop essential qualities and states in order to serve God and find our own path to the enlightenment.
By respecting our mind and reason, we can overcome our ignorance and acquire knowledge that will help us get to the enlightenment.
3. The myth of a bad religion or idea
Your experience
Have you ever heard that:
– You did something wrong?
– Your idea is no good at all?
– Your thoughts and desires are worth nothing?
– No one wants you?
In family, at school, at university, at work?
From your colleagues, partners, friends, relatives?
We all enjoy making evaluations and labeling things and people «good» and «bad». As if there were two colors only: black and white. As if there were only extremities, a dichotomy or a duality, and we had to choose only one thing.
If not, you may consider yourself lucky. Though there is a great chance that you simply forgot it, like we tend to forget any other unpleasant experience. It happens like this. Sometimes we can forget having been treated ill because we don’t want to do anything about it. Sometimes we can forget having treated other people ill because we don’t want to accept our nature.
About the myth
While reading this book, some people may say that it should be banned since it is insulting to the feelings of religious believers. But it is not. It is insulting only to the feelings of those who exploit faith for their own benefit. But in this case, such people should consider whether they have anything that can be insulted. Or, perhaps, they have something that is insulting?
Faith and religious ideas (just like some political trends) are strikingly beautiful by nature. They are about something important, something valuable. They are about love and hope. About peace throughout the world. I’m not being sarcastic. They were meant to unite and consolidate different people. To lay the creative foundation for developing societies and even states if there is any point in them as we see them now. They were meant to teach people to resolve their differences peacefully, in accordance and acceptance of each other, with respect, dignity, and loftiness. They were meant to teach people to see value in their lives and treat them with due care. To help them understand their passions and attachments and not become their obedient servant. To help them see their ignorance and replace it with enlightenment. Almost all religions were meant to create something that could keep humanity from relentless intraspecific and all other kinds of aggression. Something that could provide a basis for rectitude, moral pillars. Unfortunately, instead of providing a path, religions often turned into servants (or even obedient slaves) of human passions and the very same ignorance.
Just think of how many people have died in wars – big and small – and what for? If only we could steer their creative potential on a peaceful track instead of destruction, what would our world look like?! Humans have spent so many millennia fighting for all kinds of resources (gold, oil, land, money, power, etc.) in one guise or another, doing it under the shadow of faith or political ideas… They missed the most important thing! The very things (or rather, the very creatures) they sacrificed are indeed the most valuable resource and the most essential idea. Human beings! The power of their souls and thoughts! Their creative and artistic potential! That is the resource of the greatest worth! We still don’t understand the true value of it!! It’s no accident that in some religions, the pinnacle of divine creation is man. Nothing was created after man.
But let us get back to the topic. An idea and a way of its implementation are two quite different things. You may have a beautiful idea but it will be implemented poorly. And vice versa, you may have a poor idea but some people can turn it into a wonder! Of course, the best scenario is when we have both a wonderful idea and a decent way of its implementation. The worst-case scenario means that both an idea and a way of its implementation are horrible. I am not urging you to go and destroy religions and systems, let alone their historic and cultural heritage. By no means. It would contradict what I am trying to communicate. I encourage you to reflect while you follow a religious or ideological path on whether your way of implementing an idea is a relevant one.
If there is an invitation to love thy neighbor, perhaps, we shouldn’t in blind hate destroy everything that moves and all dissenters?
If there is the commandment «thou shalt not steal», perhaps, we should obey it regardless of our own and other people’s religious and political beliefs, national and cultural identity?
If there is a call to convert others to your own faith, perhaps, it pays to do it by way of a decent example, rather than by the sword and violence? Perhaps, it pays to accept refusals or different choices, expressing respect and understanding and keeping in mind the diversity of paths and the greatness of the one who created them all?
If there is a call for spirituality, perhaps, you shouldn’t commit soulless acts? Can we call the lack of care towards your relatives, parents, children, and loved ones spiritual? Can we call poverty and hunger when there is always an opportunity to work for your own good and for the good of your family spiritual? Can a man who deprived his wife and children of his care and support and feeds on them or his parents be notable for his spirituality? Can a woman who hates her children or relatives and treats other people ill be notable of her spirituality? Can the lack of action supporting words of friendship be spiritual?
If there is a call for peace, should there be a war, even a proxy one?
If there is a call for a constructive dialogue, should there be a manipulation?
Put to a test everyone who urges you to do something in the name of faith or ideas. Is the means of implementation relevant? Or «the end justifies the means»? If the former is true, debate the matter in your mind once again. If the latter is true, run, run for your life! When the cream of a nation is sent to its doom, run away! When books are burnt (and not only due to some dissenting views), run away! When violence towards those who somehow differ is justified, run away! When dissenters, their friends and relatives are declared public enemies, run away! Crawl away! For any idea and any faith is not worth the life of even one human being, let alone hundreds, thousands, or millions of them! Why? Read the myths further to find out!
Though it is true not only on the scale of nations, countries, monarchs, and rulers. The same can be applied to any ordinary person. Do the idea and the means of its implementation concur or run contrary to each other? If they don’t concur, does the one who conceived and/or articulated the idea realize that their means of implementation is entirely about something else?
Tips
– Ponder over everything that has been created by human beings over the course of the last five thousand years. And everything that has been created over the last one hundred years. How many creations in various fields! How many discoveries, achievements, accomplishments that changed our life. Can oil, land, gold, and other resources match them? Can these resources match the creative potential of man? Of course, they are important. Sometimes they act as components. But still!! What are these resources without the power of human thought? Just think of it and comprehend the true power of human potential! Could oil and gas pull themselves and produce useful goods on their own basis without human thought? Could gold become wonderful jewelry or a convenient means of payment without human mastery? Is the land worth something at all without the human skill of farming?
– Think of who created powerful and legendary companies and states? Is it oil, land, or gold? Nope. It’s people. Some certain, living people. If we are capable of such enormous transformations, will we be able to deal with the challenges of modern times? Oh yeah! So what is the main resource? What and who should we invest in? What resource should we protect and treasure? At least in the form of a resource… At least we can see human beings and their potentials like this. If they are not of value…
– What potential do you personally have? How and in what forms is it manifested? How and in what forms can you manifest it?
– What potential do your friends, relatives, colleagues, employees, bosses, and acquaintances have? How and in what forms is it manifested? How and in what forms can they manifest it? Unlock it and use it?
– Test whether the idea and the means of its implementation concur before blindly following it.
Key points
While reading this book, some people may say that it should be banned since it is insulting to the feelings of religious believers. It is not. It is insulting only to the feelings of those who exploit faith for their own benefit.
Almost all religions were meant to create something that could keep humanity from relentless intraspecific and all other kinds of aggression.
Unfortunately, instead of providing a path, religions often turned into servants (or even obedient slaves) of human passions.
It’s no accident that in some religions, the pinnacle of divine creation is man. Nothing was created after man.
You may have a beautiful idea but it will be implemented poorly.
I encourage you to reflect while you follow a religious or ideological path on whether your way of implementing an idea is a relevant one.
An idea and a way of its implementation are two quite different things. You may have a beautiful idea but it will be implemented poorly. And vice versa, you may have a poor idea but some people can turn it into a wonder! Of course, the best scenario is when we have both a wonderful idea and a decent way of its implementation.
For any idea and any faith is not worth the life of even one human being, let alone hundreds, thousands, or millions of them!
The myth in a nutshell
A lot of religions and ideas are good. But it is also important to check whether the means of their implementation is good too.
4. Myth of Our Heavenly Future and Sinful Past
Your experience
– How often do you reminisce of the past? And what about other people? And what about the common past that we share with someone?
– What is your past like? And what about other people? And what about the shared past? How do you see it? How do other people see it?
– How do you see your future? How do other people see their future? What is the difference between your vision and theirs with regard to your shared future?
– What and who are you in your present? What and who are other people in their present?
– What do you think about the phrase «Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift»?
About the myth
Different religions have different descriptions of the past. Some see it in glowing colors, others have a less radiant picture, and yet others are in two minds about that. The description of the past is exciting. It is our origin. And, on the other hand, it is all the values that were originally established or a sort of their historic or modern interpretation.
