Spiritual Solutions For A Globalist World
The old religions can't help us anymore - they are part of the problem.
This is where most people are right now, spiritually speaking:
There are various religions and systems of philosophy which claim to endow human life with meaning. But they suffer from certain inherent limitations. They couch into fine-sounding words their traditional beliefs and ideologies, theological or philosophical. Believers, however, discover the limited range of meaning and applicability of these words, sooner or later. They get disillusioned and tend to abandon the systems, in the same way as scientific theories are abandoned, when they are called in question by too much contradictory empirical data.
Douwe Tiemersma, Philosophical Faculty Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, Holland June, 1981, Foreword in I AM THAT
The Bible and the Fundamental Thesis of Christianity are littered with “contradictory empirical data” that puts off intelligent, earnest spiritual seekers. Millions left the churches. Other religions have the same problem.
The most profound truth can’t be contradictory. Contradictions are always of the mind, always of people. The meddling of humans with spiritual scripts shows itself in contradictions.
What contradicts itself, has no being. Or it has only momentary being, which comes to the same.
Nisargadatta Maharaj
Q: I thought the real is the mystery.
M: How can it be? The real is simple, open, clear and kind, beautiful and joyous. It is completely free of contradictions. It is ever new, ever fresh, endlessly creative. Being and non-being, life and death, all distinctions merge in it.
Nisargadatta Maharaj
M: You are really in search of yourself, without knowing it. You are love-longing for the love-worthy, the perfectly lovable. Due to ignorance you are looking for it in the world of opposites and contradictions. When you find it within, your search will be over.
Nisargadatta Maharaj
That’s why the Old and New Testaments, amongst other religious scripts, are deeply flawed and confusing to many. Too many humans meddled and distorted the original truth. The Bible still contains ultimate truths, but it requires an illuminated soul to distinguish the real from the false in the Bible. No bible lover I ever met had that capacity. Therefore, the Bible is practically useless for most ordinary spiritual seekers of the 21st century.
That the Bible is contradictory is not even denied by Christian online bible-study groups.
Of course, it does.
Either way you read it, you may come across certain verses or passages that seem to contradict themselves, especially when read out of context.
Watch the language used. It is right out of the 101 propaganda playbook to “explain” and “make go away” the apparent contradictions. They only “seem to contradict”, so they say.
When someone thinks they’ve found a contradiction in the Bible, often there is a misunderstanding of the context of a passage—usually due to a lack of knowledge of the author’s original intent, a past style of writing, or use of language […]
There you go. You only “think” that you found a contradiction, but in their desperate attempt to make them disappear, they blame our lack of understanding, knowledge, and writing style.
I don’t have any issues with contradictions, a lack of understanding, or language problems when I read Nisargadatta Maharaj, Osho, the Buddha, Mooji, Eckhard Tolle and many other spiritual teachers. They are all crystal clear and without contradictions because they are the undiluted, un-meddled truth coming directly from the source.
Unfortunately, the Christian’s only source of the truth - Jesus Christ - never wrote anything down himself. The Bible was written many years after Jesus died. And there are numerous anonymous authors with unknown states of divine illuminations. In short, it is a spiritual mess.
The only reason why it is still used and abused (for various atrocities in the name of Jesus or Jehovah), like currently in Gaza, has nothing to do with truth and everything to do with power and a spiritual monopoly. This monopoly is expressed in the following famous, extremely contradictory statement of the Bible.
Apparently, Jesus said that. According to John the Apostle, one of the twelve apostles that followed Jesus. Most Christians probably believe that John heard him saying it and wrote it down. They treat the Bible like a spiritual mainstream media channel. They never question it.
But the authorship of John has been highly debated amongst Bible scholars:
Although the authorship of the Johannine works has traditionally been attributed to John the Apostle,[14] only a minority of contemporary scholars believe he wrote the gospel,[15] and most conclude that he wrote none of them.
But the Bible makes it look like he was there. He saw and heard Jesus saying it. His name is right under the quote.
Mainstream Bible scholars assert that all four gospels from the New Testament are fundamentally anonymous and most of mainstream scholars agree that these gospels have not been written by eyewitnesses.[71][72][73][74] As The New Oxford Annotated Bible (2018) has put it, "Scholars generally agree that the Gospels were written forty to sixty years after the death of Jesus."
Why is John’s Bible quote above (which isn’t actually John’s) so contradictory? It goes against everything any other enlightened mystic ever said. There always have been and always will be countless ways to God.
Jesus and the Christians do not have a monopoly on God.
This false quote caused all religious wars, killed millions of people and created immense suffering. It also insulted every spiritual non-Christian person that ever lived. The Christians don’t care.
The anonymous author of those words, who wasn’t an eyewitness, made it up. No true mystic would ever say anything like that.
That it ended up in the Bible has nothing to do with divinity or spiritual truth but all with power. It created a man-made spiritual hierarchy that severed the founders of the Christian church very well to defeat the Roman Empire.
It empowered and elevated millions of powerless losers from the socio-economic bottom of the Roman Empire to a fanatic exclusive club that weaponized victimhood and martyrdom. Not unlike the woke these days.
They definitely share a love for the irrational and fantastic and a distaste for anything logical. They seem to be immune to the pain of cognitive dissonance. For the woke, men can give birth. For the Christians, Jesus can come back from the dead.
The Christians not only defy all logic, but they also claim - despite the admitted contradictions - that the Bible is infallible and inerrant, fancy words for “completely true” and “without error”.
Is the Bible Infallible and Inerrant?
Infallibility has to do with whether or not a particular teaching, document, or person is in fact completely truthful and inerrancy means without error. Christians believe that the Bible is infallible and inerrant because we believe that God is the ultimate author of His Word and that His Holy Spirit illuminated and inspired the minds of the human Bible writers to write God’s truth.
So there we go: The writers of the Bible were indeed human. But somehow, God temporarily illuminated them to write down God’s words. But how can God’s own words contradict themselves?
Oh, I forgot. They don’t. We only think they are, and they only seem to be. And we are too dumb to understand that. And therefore, we need help from priests to get through the contradictory mess.
Construct after construct, trying to patch up the obvious. The Bible was written by cunning church founders who used enough spiritual truth to make it look divine for the simple-minded gullible ones and sufficient carrot-and-stick content to hook them and create a powerful irrational cult ready to martyr themselves for a place in heaven.
Revolutionaries and warriors who welcome death as a reward have always been extremely powerful and successful. Vikings, early Christians, and Islamic suicide bombers are great examples of that.
It was no surprise that with growing wealth, education and intelligence, more and more people ran from Christianity as far as they could. And not only Christians. The other main religions also lost believers in the millions. The cognitive dissonance became too painful. Many couldn’t believe the unbelievable, contradictory, fantastic, religious fairytales anymore.
Where did they run to?
When a system of spiritual interpretation turns out to be unconvincing and not capable of being rationally justified, many people allow themselves to be converted to some other system. After a while, however, they find limitations and contradictions in the other system also. In this unrewarding pursuit of acceptance and rejection what remains for them is only scepticism and agnosticism, leading to a fatuous way of living, engrossed in mere gross utilities of life, just consuming material goods.
Douwe Tiemersma, Philosophical Faculty Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, Holland June, 1981, Foreword in I AM THAT
Just consuming material goods.
That sums up the spiritual state of the world beautifully. The old corrupt religions are rightfully dying. Nietzche summed it up in his unique style:
Must we not ourselves become gods simply to appear worthy of it? What a blasphemous thought! All the priests, rabbis, imans, cardinals, and popes were outraged and fuming. Rightly, though, because they all just lost their jobs.
He may be just a philosopher, but he made the mystics proud:
Q: God may be a mere concept, a working theory. A very useful concept all the same!
M: For this it must be free of inner contradictions, which is not the case. Why not work on the theory that you are your own creation and creator. At least there will be no external God to battle with.
Q: This world is so rich and complex -- how could I create it?
M: Do you know yourself enough to know what you can do and what you cannot? You do not know your own powers. You never investigated. Begin with yourself now.
Q: Everybody believes in God.
M: To me you are your own God. But if you think otherwise, think to the end. If there be God, then all is God's and all is for the best. Welcome all that comes with a glad and thankful heart. And love all creatures. This too will take you to your Self.
Nisargadatta Maharaj
What a colossal spiritual shift. For Millenia, religions told us that God is everything and we are nothing, and our only salvation and hope lies in obeying the rules of the religions. Those few Christian mystics, like John of the Cross and Meister Eckhard, to name two, who vividly experienced becoming God, were excommunicated, imprisoned, tortured and often killed. That’s how dangerous they were to the powers of the church.
But most of us ain’t mystics, we think. Two thousand years of religious indoctrination can’t be shaken off easily. The very thought that each of us is a potential mystic who can find our unique way to become one with God - not a dualistic sinner at the mercy of God - is still unthinkable to most.
That’s when roll models become very useful. Douwe Timersma continues:
Sometimes, however, though rarely, scepticism gives rise to an intuition of a basic reality, more fundamental than that of words, religions or philosophic systems. Strangely, it is a positive aspect of scepticism. It was in such a state of scepticism, but also having an intuition of the basic reality, that I happened to read Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj’s I AM THAT. I was at once struck by the finality and unassailable certitude of his words. Limited by their very nature though words are, I found the utterances of Maharaj transparent, polished windows, as it were.
“Transparent, polished windows” to a new approach to spirituality.
That there should be yet another addition of I AM THAT is not surprising, for the sublimity of the words spoken by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, their directness and the lucidity with which they refer to the Highest have already made this book a literature of paramount importance. In fact, many regard it as the only book of spiritual teaching really worth studying.
“The only book of spiritual teachings really worth studying.”
And most religiously indoctrinated people still think it is the Bible. We don’t have to belong to a church to be religiously indoctrinated. Many people are done with the Christian churches but, in lack of any other spiritual guidance, go their way and become individual Jesus lovers. But they still use “the book”, believing the Bible accurately accounts of what Jesus was like.
This is like being an anti-globalist resistant fighter and reading the BBC as your only news source. Of course, the BBC occasionally reports truthful, accurate content. So those the Bible - occasionally. But in general, the BBC is currently a mouthpiece of the globalists. And the Bible has always been a mouthpiece of the Christians.
Most modern Jesus lovers don’t even get that Jesus didn’t write the Bible. It had nothing to do with Jesus. It was written by “anonymous” authors who weren’t eyewitnesses to Jesus’ life at all. It is ridiculous to base your spiritual foundations on a piece of Christian propaganda.
But they love Jesus anyway, and there is nothing wrong with loving someone, anyone, everything. If you can do that - love from all your heart without the faintest slither of egoic interference (what do I get in return?), you are blessed, and the kingdom of heaven is truly yours. But such unconditional spiritual love is rare. Those lovers usually don’t need a religion, a book, a spiritual teaching or anything else. They are already in heaven.
I haven’t met an unconditional Jesus lover yet, though. The ones I meet - on and offline - are all trying hard to love Jesus, no doubt. Interestingly, I don’t think Jesus was ever quoted as saying: “Love me. Love me.”
He apparently did say: “Love your neighbour. Love your enemy.” So one must wonder if the Jesus lover do the right thing here. Just saying.
“Oh, leave them alone, will you?” many say. There is no harm in loving Jesus, even if it is conditional. That’s true. It usually works for a while and makes them happy. Until the honeymoon is over, that is.
One of the true, non-contradictory statements in the Bible is this:
So how does that fit with the above statement, “The only way to God is through Jesus?”. It doesn’t. It can’t be both. You either find God within you or through Jesus.
The human manipulation here lies in one tiny word that was added by “anonymous authors.”. The word “only’.
Of course, people can find God through Jesus. That’s a fact. Many did it. This is the way of the people with a pure and loving heart, unafraid to surrender it entirely to Jesus with no favours asked. But it is not the “only” way. That is pure Christian propaganda.
The other path, the way within, is open to everyone and known for eternity and in many different cultures.
Indian Culture
Ancient Egypt:
The world is full of contradictions, hence your search for harmony and peace. These you cannot find in the world, for the world is the child of chaos. To find order you must search within. The world comes into being only when you are born in a body. No body -- no world. First enquire whether you are the body. The understanding of the world will come later.
Nisargadatta Maharaj
The most significant spiritual myth is that spirituality has anything to do with “believing” in a God or prophet. It is the exact opposite.
Stop imagining, stop believing. See the contradictions, the incongruities, the falsehood and the sorrow of the human state, the need to go beyond.
Nisargadatta Maharaj
The two paths are either unconditional love or self-enquiry - going within. The result is actual knowing. Believing that God runs the world doesn’t do anything for us. Only knowing it as an absolute truth, acquired through deep love or self-enquiry - will change our life from the core.
There is a deep contradiction in your attitude, which you do not see and which is the cause of sorrow. You cling to the idea that you were born into a world of pain and sorrow; I know that the world is a child of love, having its beginning, growth and fulfilment in love. But I am beyond love even.
Nisargadatta Maharaj
We are seeing a world of pain and sorrow. That is practically the Christian view of the world based on victimhood—the view of the spiritually helpless underdogs that view themselves as sinners. How depressing. No wonder the Christian-infused Western culture is in such a dreadful state.
So far, so good. You probably figured that out yourself already.
But how can the spiritually disillusioned nihilists and materialistically exhausted consumerists trust any modern non-dual self-enquiry teacher?
Q: How can we know that what you say is true? While it is self contained and free from inner contradictions, how can we know that it is not a product of fertile imagination, nurtured and enriched by constant repetition?
M: The proof of the truth lies in its effect on the listener.
Q: Words can have a most powerful effect. By hearing, or repeating words, one can experience various kinds of trances. The listener's experiences may be induced and cannot be considered as a proof.
M: The effect need not necessarily be an experience. It can be a change in character, in motivation, in relationship to people and one's self. Trances and visions induced by words, or drugs, or any other sensory or mental means are temporary and inconclusive. The truth of what is said here is immovable and everlasting. And the proof of it is in the listener, in the deep and permanent changes in his entire being. It is not something he can doubt, unless he doubts his own existence, which is unthinkable. When my experience becomes your own experience also, what better proof do you want?
That’s precisely what happened to me after I started trusting Nisargadatta Maharaj and other modern self-enquiry teachers and followed their instructions. I soon noticed a subtle change in character, motivation and relationship to people and myself. After that, it was easy to keep going, and now, there is no turning back.
I am good, mostly. But humanity isn’t.
To escape this increasingly meaningless materialistic technocratic soul-less existence, humanity needs a paradigm shift in spirituality. While the world goes global, we must become still and go private, attending to our souls. No one else can be trusted with that but ourselves.
It requires the new Uber-Mensch (overman), envisioned by Niezsche.
To sum it up. If we want to survive what’s coming, we all need to grow up from our illusions of who we are and become truly free. This is a spiritual quest, not a worldly one.
Our perpetual overlords can only play their games with children who are ruled by their unconscious fears and desires and who don’t know how powerful they are.