Friday, May 25, 2012

The beauty and dangers of Non-Dualism

This is sort of an experiment to see if I can successfully do this:

I learned through Tibetan Buddhism and through studying with Tibetan Lamas both peaceful and Wrathful practices as well as practices that are a combination of the two. A wrathful practice is a lot like the words to the Battle Hymn of the Republic.

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.
(Chorus)
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.
quote from Wikipedia under the heading "Battle Hymn of the Republic"
His Terrible Swift Sword
As a young man in my teens and twenties I often found myself outside my body with a sword of blue flame in my hands battling demons alongside Archangel Michael and the rest of the Archangels. As I fought them sometimes night after night while I slept I found I grew tired of battling all the time and I wished in my heart for a better way than this to move forward with my life and soul.

So then I discovered non-dualism. I found in my 20s that dualism is a part of religions like Christianity and Islam and isn't always useful or a very adult way to look at things in a mature way. Dualism might be useful for raising children to scare them to not run out into the street in front of cars and get killed and stuff like that. But after one grows up this kind of fear and terror is completely useless once one can think for themselves.

Then, a new mode has to be attained as one evolves both mentally, physically and spiritually in one's life.

In non-dualism one begins to view life not as necessarily good or bad but sort of like the weather. Is rain good or bad? Is snow good or bad? Is wind good or bad? is drought Good or bad? Is Cold or Hot Good or bad?

There is no one definitive answer for any of these questions because all these questions will be answered differently depending upon the individuals experience in every new situation. So, what is good or bad is completely individual and situational and not absolute in any way, shape or form.

So, to absolutely say that Rain, Snow, wind, drought, cold or hot is absolutely Good or absolutely Bad is to be completely ridiculous and available for ridicule by everyone.

So, this is why all religions based upon Dualism are open to ridicule at least in regard to dualism.

However, in regard to forgiveness, understanding, compassion, love and kindness all religions should be cherished and admired as they create beautiful civilizations worldwide.

But, unfortunately when religions engage in dualism they only (from a mature adult point of view) become ridiculous!

So, when I came upon non-dualism at first the concept was scary because it comes from a completely different philosophy than the dualism found in the Judeo-Christian and Islamic root tree of religions founded in the middle east.

So, at first as I studied non-dualism as it manifests in Buddhism I was scared and confused as I studied it. But, the more I thought about it the more useful I found it to be to the point where I found that as I integrated it into my life and philosophy that my life became more and more logical, useful and profound in every single way.

And yes. One does have to watch out for nihilism! Nihilism is the negative side of Non-Dualism. So, Non-dualism also has some problems to watch out for just like dualism.

The danger of Non-dualism in nihilism goes something like this:

If nothing is ultimately good or bad then nothing that I do is either useful or necessary. So, why don't I just do nothing because nothing matters in the end?

And once again the danger of dualism goes like this:

Since I am good and you are bad I should kill you right now! And everyone who doesn't believe just like me deserves to die right now!

Does this sound familiar in both fundamentalist Islam and fundamentalist Christianity?

So, what I'm asking of you is to entertain in your minds and hearts if any of non-dualism sounds useful to you?
Because obviously the dangers of Dualism we see in deaths around the world every day on the news.

So, once again, the danger of dualism is murder on a mass scale.

The Danger of non-dualism is suicide on an individual scale.

Somewhere in there somewhere is the balance civilization needs to survive for thousands and millions of years.

If you were to consider what I wrote above as part I, part II would be the following:
Peaceful and Wrathful Buddhist Practices

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