Swami Muktananda: "You mustn't believe in your own religion; I don't believe in mine. Religions are like the fences that hold young saplings erect. Without the fence the sapling could fall over. When it takes firm root and becomes a tree, the fence is no longer needed. However, most people never lose their need for the fence." (Source)
How is that for a mind blowing statement from a religious figure?
Of course like most religious figures he was not able to live up to his image.
Still I think the quote stands on its own as an obvious truth.
I had a young man working for me many years ago who fell in with one of these gurus, lived with his girlfriend in the ashram. The things that I saw happening to him, mentally, were just appalling, but he was a true believer so there was nothing one could do to stop the abuse.
ReplyDeleteI saw him again, once, about twenty years after he left the job and he was still in the group.
It's all about brainwashing and control, and needy people let it happen to them. They are powerless to fight it.
Buddha Shakyamuni said the same thing in the Perfection of Wisdom Sutra. The sutra is the response by the Bodhisattva, Avalokiteshvara, to the question by Shariputra, a disciple of Buddha:
ReplyDelete"Form is empty; emptiness is form. Emptiness is not other than form; form also is not other than emptiness. Likewise, feeling, discrimination, compositional factors and consciousness are empty."
"Shariputra, like this all phenomena are merely empty, having no characteristics. They are not produced and do not cease. They have no defilement and no separation from defilement. They have no decrease and no increase."
"Therefore, Shariputra, in emptiness there is no form, no feeling, no discrimination, no compositional factors, no consciousness. There is no eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind; no form, no sound, no smell, no taste, no tactile object, no phenomenon. There is no eye element and so forth up to no mind element and also up to no element of mental consciousness. There is no ignorance and no exhaustion of ignorance, and so forth up to no ageing and death and no exhaustion of ageing and death. Likewise, there is no suffering, origin, cessation or path; no exalted wisdom, no attainment and also no non-attainment."
"Therefore Shariputra, because there is no attainment, bodhisattvas rely on and abide in the perfection of wisdom; their minds have no obstructions and no fear. Passing utterly beyond perversity, they attain the final state beyond sorrow. Also, all the Buddhas who perfectly reside in the three times, relying upon the perfection of wisdom, become manifest and complete Buddhas in the state of unsurpassed, perfect and complete enlightenment."
that is EXACTLY how i feel but never put into such eloquent words. thank you for sharing with us.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link, Gryphen, worth reading.
ReplyDeleteCharisma can be used for good as it can be used for evil. Life is not simply good (right) OR evil (bad), it is good AND evil.
Because most of the time we are forced by intellect to live and cope in the gray areas of existence, those of us who choose to recognize it, we know that it is never this or that, it is pretty much both/and, this and that.
We should love other human beings, not 'religion' of whatever stripe. Idolatry of mere mortals or material things is what creates chaos, IMO. We should (must?) treat others the way we want to be treated with respect and basic human empathy. We must do theology and not just preach it.
No wonder there are so few comments on your wisdom of the day post. It's not wise.
ReplyDeleteYou think the majority of your readers are poorly educated, and who would know that better than you?
Sadly, his words lose a lot of their validity when they came from his mouth.
ReplyDeleteAs they say, a stopped clock is right twice a day, and there are probably better people to support the case against religion than a man who used it for a lifetime to control others.
Weird and ironic.
From a facebook post - Religion is like training wheels for the soul. When a young child is learning to ride a bike the training wheels provide the security and foundation to move forward, but once the child has practiced and developed a sense of balance the training wheels can be removed and the child can explore and move forward to new roads and pathways. To often fear, self doubt, blind devotion, or other emotional stumbling blocks cause us to forget our soul no longer needs the training wheels of our childhood. ~Cynthia Rose King
ReplyDelete