In most religions,
it is expected that one expresses their devotion by
strongly and emotionally offering endless
prayers of praise and admiration.
In the Hindu, Buddhist and Tibetan Bon traditions,
their form of devotional prayer is called Bhakti or Bhatti.
While a bit of this is helpful to get the aspirant to get in the
‘Divine’ state of mind throughout the day
and not just at their place of worship…
I’ve found that anyone that just does Bhakti or devotional prayers,
will never ever get any closer to the understanding of ‘God’ or Divinity
in whichever religious or spiritual tradition they find themselves in.
I say “find themselves in” because,
Most people don’t do any research before
choosing a religion or a tradition, because…
It’s the nature of a tradition that one unquestionably follows,
very few people want to go against their family or country’s tradition.
And,
Many Christians I’ve spoke with over the years say…
“I don’t really believe all this, but just in case of eternal damnation…
I’ll go along with it”
Although most folks will do heaps of research
when buying a new car or fancy $$ toy…
Most folks won’t lift a finger to examen for themselves
what is really involved in the most profound decision of their life…
that helps explain their life… and whatever comes after.
For those that are more concerned about the real reality of their life,
their place in this World and the ‘timeless wonder of it all’…
and have the volition to actually learn everything they can
in order to be able to determine for themselves
what are the ‘Ultimate Truths’ that cannot be divisible
or contradicted by an extended group of reasonably intelligent peers.
For those folks…
They will hear the calling to pursue A personal Spiritual Path.
Where they actually will learn everything that has been written about this
and from as many different traditions as possible.
Doing so,
one will easily determine which traditions are ‘pointing towards’ similar concepts.
In time,
One can sort out which traditions are pointing towards
reasonable directions to learn and follow…
and which ones that just ‘don’t hold water’.
Also important to note along the Way…
Is that many traditions were created so long ago
that the world views have changed so much that
they become a bit … misleading.
Often created by misogynistic men that believed:
The Earth was flat
Didn’t know where the sun went at night
Considered slavery to be perfectly normal
Women had no rights…
This last one is still effecting modern women today,
As the church’s collective political power has recently
removed a number of women’s rights including
the right to have a say in what happens with their own body.
I find it down right shameful that the ‘collective voice’ of Christianity
has lost it’s once reasonable thread and that is the basic tenants of morality.
With their strong political conservative influence, they have chooses the most despicable tRump…
someone worse than the ‘anti-christ’ as their new role model.
It’s amazing how so many Christian women now must think
it’s ok for misogynistic men to remove their rights
and allow their husbands to rape women and have affairs with porn stars.
But…
“god” werkz in mysterious wayz”, they say.
~
Be ware of traditions,
especially powerful religions that still state that their
out of date assumptions are the unchangeable and
unfailing word of ‘god’
and must still be taken as the literal truth... When they are literally all made up.
The contradictions that this ‘god’ is unfailing is represented by the fact that
this ‘god’ failed so many times that over 66,000 separate denominations
had to be formed in order to fix some of ‘god’s’ mistakes
:-O
they even did complete re-writes of the bible
they still say was literally written by the hand of ‘god’.
This ‘mythic-literal’ demand is just another dead end to any real Spiritual Path.
Most of these types of religions and traditions
don’t want you to actually learn about their
projections of the ‘god’ they have created and
certainly don’t want anyone to go and experience ‘Divinity’ for themselves,
otherwise,
they fear that you will find out that you don’t need a ‘middle man’
to fulfil your Spiritual Path and
you will stop giving the church heaps of tax-free money
:-O
Without all that tax free money,
they also fear they would not longer be able to buy politicians
and make them do their bidding and then all they’d be left with is
their empty version of ‘god’.
~
Back to the conundrums of worship…
Worship and devotional prayers do have their place…
in that it helps one stay in the ‘Divine’ state of mind
more & more throughout the days…
But,
If that’s all one did…
One would never have time to actually learn about the perspectives of
Psychology, philosophies, morals, virtues, joy, love, and compassion
that are the fundamental core of Spiritual Practice.
Learning these ‘conventional’ wisdoms helps build the depth
to take their meditation practice to profound states of consciousness
in which it will feel like one actually connects with
the inseparable nature of ‘Divinity’.
So,
instead of just spending time praising and
offering endless stream of admiration for a made up deity
that at best simply represents a ‘metaphor’ of “God”…
better to learn as much as possible about the ‘conventional’ wisdoms
and spend as much time possible in deep and effective meditation.
Even though so many folks in our country
proudly worship their projections of ‘God’.
This is a non-starter for those whom think that
all they need to do to get to ‘Heaven’
(yet another man made up mythic place)
Is to just say “Yup” at the pearly gates.
Very few are evolved enough
to have the volition and capacity
to find the time to actual get closer to
that ineffable concept of …
‘Divinity”.
To make meditation more effective,
instead of blabbering on with admiration and praise
to a metaphoric representation of “God”
it’s best to invoke a state of “Loving Kindness” …
Called “meta” in Sanskrit.
The higher states of consciousness experienced in deep meditation
has a ‘Divine’ feeling.
When first experienced,
it feels so wonderful that one could imagine that they’ve
connected with something much bigger than they are…
those that come from a “god” religion
will think they’ve experienced “God”.
It’s that profound.
But,
if the aspirant continues,
they will soon feel like “they” are inseparable from this “God”
and feel that they are “God”,
then in an inseparable moment they realize that
whoever they thought they were,
typically an ego-mind-body, they experience this mistaken identity
dissipate…
Until it is realized that:
There is no self in control and… there is no “God”…
It is all One, Unity, Non-dual consciousness…
When first approaching this state of consciousness,
a very pleasant feeling arises…
It feels like Love, Joy, and Bliss…
As it deepens, an overwhelming rapture is felt.
~
To begin a meditation, in order to help this process along,
It’s best to invoke a feeling of ‘Meta’ or Loving Kindness,
as this helps set up the conditions for the higher states.
This sense of Loving kindness
is a much more useful technique than the
emotional blabbering of praise and admiration to a metaphoric ‘Deity’.
Blind faith worship to an imaginary sky god in a vain attempt
to learn more about god is similar to
trying to get a college degree by just wishing, hoping and praying
that they will get a degree without putting the effort to really learn anything.
This sort of worship makes it seem like the god they imagine
demands that ‘His’ ego must be flattered, similar to how a
self-centered, ego power driven narcissistic king or certain X-president would.
Most religions act like they are their god’s master’s
by constantly demanding the god do their mortal, self-centered bidding.
Even if there really was a god in the sky that had the obligation to
micro-manage each and every micro second for everything that exists
in the known and unknown, manifest and unmanifest universe
and beyond…
Does it make sense that ‘He’ or ‘She’ would take time out of these
time consuming duties just to redo all of time and space,
and move heaven and earth ….
Just to accommodate your petitionary prayers and demands?
So often in our country,
people are praying to god to make their team win.
Again,
assuming there is a god
that is anything like what naive people think “He” is…
That would certainly put ‘Him’ in an awkward position.
Especially when ‘He’ knows that the other team will win
because they practiced harder, had better plays and players
and is naturally a much better team.
~
Most people consider it’s quite alright to make these
unreasonable demands on their imaginary personal god,
expecting ‘Him’ to move heaven and earth re-do the entire
space time continuum…
just to please one particular insignificant unevolved materialistic mortal?
But these mainstream religions attract all sorts of folks
that just keep making up wild assumptions about god,
in fact,
when the power of church and state are combined,
all sorts of crazy stuff that is
absolutely devastating to the human condition arise.
Currently,
it appears the the church has made an official ‘god update’,
stating:
“god no longer likes people that actually go to church each Sunday”,
Because the church want’s our country,
that was founded on the SEPERATION of church and state…
They are demanding that all of us embrace all aspects of a
Christian Nationalist power driven country.
But,
They don’t want a president that actually goes to church!
:-O
The church now essentially states that
God now prefers someone that rapes women in department stores
and bad mouths her for year causing him to pay over a $90 million civil law suit,
has affairs with porn stars while their wife is pregnant and
was convicted of cheating the people of New York out of hundreds of millions of dollars.
And,
It seems like the majority of misogynistic men that go to these churches
are all excited that god has fine tuned what “He” considers the “new morality” …
Now god has spoken to ‘His’ flock and has stated clearly to them that
it’s ok to have an affair with a porn star when your wife is having your baby.
Wow! God is great!
Now all these misogynistic men are overjoyed with being liberated from
the burden of the pre-tRump views of morality and now can
have their way with anyone at anytime and anywhere
when they feel their wife is just not attractive enough in that moment.
If you think I’m crazy…
That god doesn’t say this…
Well…
You’re right!
“God” does not do or say anything… at all!
‘He’s’ just made up by our wildest imaginations
and we state what we think he says, wants, desires…
and even ‘His’ will.
Yet,
The ineffable conceptual-less concept of “God”
is much more powerful to waste time with even having a ‘will’,
or a desire or an insecure ego that can be harshed enough to
kill every man, woman, and child of every species
like the Noah’s ark myth…
It’s all just a myth the church made up,
that for millennia, made people fear their version of ‘god’ and,
has been demanding their ‘god fearing flock’
to take these made up myths, as the literal truth
or face eternal damnation of being tortured over and over
by an all loving pro-life god.
Yea…
that makes about sense as flying pigs…
But they’ll say.
“oh, ya know… god werkz in mysterious ways”
While the more evolved say,
“common sense works in mysterious ways”.
They say “Free Will”
Is a “GOD” given right…
Too bad that so few people that say the believe in “GOD”
actually use this right.
Let’s make AughMerica great again!
by keeping the affairs of the church out of politics…
then
let’s improve our out dated system of representation by eliminating political fund raising.
Use a modest amount of no frills tax money in an even playing field.
then,
let’s make it even better by creating a system in which only the truth can be stated as the truth.
If a political statement has been fact checked to confirm the statement is not true and or is misleading,
the politician must make that announcement on every media outlet available
to correct their wrong statement.
Enforce this by automatically disqualify a candidate after 3 strikes…
Jail time for repeat offenders…
Demagogue politicians have created a self defeating mode of representation
that is dooming the infinite potential our nation once had.
No prayer on Earth can help… only heaps of common sense.