911 and 77 (21)
The heart, mind and spirit principle (if such a thing is possible) of any person, system or religion is that of personal responsibility.
For, ultimately, it is this notion, feeling, idea or whatever that moderates or influences or limits the very worst harm that we allow ourselves as individuals and as collective groups, organisations, systems and religious groups especially to perpetrate (on others, the world, our own selves and well, God too if you want).
I think it is a clue to why a paradox seems to operate with the systems we call religion. Their principle idea, isn't it, is that God does that bit for them. That's a big part of their deal after all. ('God is everything... I know God's wishes...follow me... I know the way... No, I'm not a spiritually blind ****hole, I'm your priest, evangelist, fundamentalist, trust me'... etc). Karma meanwhile takes no account of such devious off-loading (of personal responsibility) at all and awareness of it's reality lights up the words personal responsibility in huge neon letters that are as big as a mountain. No one can escape this no matter how loudly and I mean loudly in an all encompassing way, they make their noise (and I mean noise in an equally all encompassing way).
It seems to me, looking at the problem (and it's a real biggee too) objectively, that the main function of such systems is to take us along a route, not one that leads us uphill, to or nearer to the top (... of the mountain, for the Greater View, etc) but down, downhill towards, well towards a darker darkness and conglomerate low mindedness that is evident wherever these systems take hold and gain power over our own minds and everyday thinking process, as they do and intend to do.
Maybe you don't agree with me. Well, consider, if you have woken up to 9/11, 7/7, the missing nukes and so on or if you just want to mock those who have woken up, either way, the reality (and whichever version you opt to believe in) could not have been brought to us but for the widespread destruction of personal responsibility. Or, rather, the destruction of it's place, it's importance, it's paramount importance. What is currently happening and the tip of the iceberg is being revealed to us, is the result of the deterioration of this principle. Where are all the people of conscience? Where are all the people who really want and demand to know the truth? Why are they so rare? The one single common factor is the loss of any real sense of personal responsibility. We have allowed this to happen. It is what happens when we 'go downhill' - we give up our sense of personal responsibility and most of the religions, for the most part, are to blame for this. This is very much a topical problem albeit that we probably don't have much of a clue about it or what to do about it if we do (have a clue about it).
Put another way and more specifically, wherever c-h-r-i-s-t-ianity floourishes, there you will find the very worst atrocities being engineered and perpetrated and perpetuated. Prophets according to Jesus should be judged according to the fruit, the end results, the end product. By that rule chr-is-tia-ns should have denounced their own system/s decades ago. Promptly at the end of WW2 would have been an apposite time bearing in mind how all the Nazis were all good little catholic boys and how Hitler himself spent two years of his school days in a monastery school. How much of a 'fruit' was that of the chris-t-ian teaching? It had everything to do with it. The failure to see it is due to the state of denial that too much programmed 'thinking' does to us. But while I seize on that particular religion there are other equally nasty clones of it - the packaging is different, that's all. Does it promote and emphasize personal responsibility or does it have something more important in it's arsenal of mind and emotion weapons? Anyway, if the people can't see through all this mist and fog largely just of the mind, then wouldn't you agree that this current worldwide horror scenario is really just no more than we really deserve in the sense that we are sort of excrementing in our own minds? There is a UK phrase "To xxxx on one's own doorstep". Well how much worse to do that into your own mind so to speak. Clean thinking, sane thinking, isn't about not having 'dirty' thoughts but is far more to do with contamination by ideas that seem to be okay despite that a part of us somehow knows that they are not quite right. Many people leave the religion they were 'brought up' with but most of the time they do it not because they have some specific value judgement about it but more often because it doesn't seem right for them. Basically they have decided that they don't want that kind of stuff in their everyday thinking anymore. This is why their techniques are 'seductive' - to attract you into the mindset. Once there it is hard to break free and difficult to see why you should, but a clear head is one that doesn't have much if any rubbish in it and getting rid of rubbish is a task we all have to undertake sooner or later. The idea of personal responsibility is a key for such people, a lifeline really. That, whether such 'lapsed religion' people, realize it or not, is very often what they have invoked in themselves and in doing so make the decision to break free. They know that leading a good life does not require such a system in their life anymore, so they up and leave. The others, those who stay, don't see anything wrong and make multiple fatuous (and flatulent) excuses for staying. Therein lies a clue to clearing out the mind rubbish and not being able to do so. Rubbish, per se, may not be damaging, but it is hardly conducive to clear thinking and in that way all rubbish (that we hold in our minds) is damaging and, actually, especially right now, very very dangerous too.
It should be all too obvious that it is never the religious, certainly it never was and never will be and never can be c-h-r-i-s-t-ianity (or it's clones) that lifts us out of the mire, on the contrary, the mire has always been in large part an end product of that whole destestable product range.
But if obfuscating simple and important truth, personal responsibility for example, is your thing, well then don't let me stop you from
praying preying on the ignorant.
If you really want to do a quality test of any religion then use that one, ask yourself, how much does this system, either emphasise or demote or sideshift this idea, the idea of personal responsibility, and how much does it offload it altogether or deplace it or devalue it or slam God between it and you?
I've nothing against God, but plastic dummies used as an imaginary object to block my view of the mountain top? I won't be blaming anyone else if they kick that dummy out of the window. Self knowledge is the key but failing that personal responsibility should be the main idea, or if you prefer, the moral ideal. And you know or can certainly suspect it, that when personal responsiblity is pushed to the back seat that those in the front think they are more important. Don't fall for it. Don't let them rule or limit your thinking, your uninterupted view of the mountain, and your dreams.
By Paul E. Coughlin
SaneThinking.com
28 March 2008
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