Bastardization of “One-ness”

Last updated on: February 27, 2012 at 4:05 am by Desh Kapoor

Bastardization of “One-ness” 2012-02-27T04:05:04-06:00 Desh Kapoor

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All are equal. Every religion is the same. All Gods are the same.

These sentiments seem very nice. Indeed laudable. But when you look a little deeper, they are nothing but nonsensical. Worse when such statements are made using the utterances of Realized Beings and Masters, who have spoken in a context totally removed.

Let us first understand the basics.

Religion is NOT Spirituality. Religion is based on belief and is a “Mind Game”. The entire construct is based on words, crafty ones, both written and spoken. What Krishna spoke or Buddha said had nothing to do with religion. But when a lesser mind of one who follows Buddha refuses to acknowledge the Truth of Krishna and use it as an option to get there himself then he is just indulging in the “Mind games”. Ditto for one who does it to Buddha or Nanak or Meera.

I am not saying believe anyone of these. Please don’t. Do not believe in Krishna or Nanak or Buddha. Because belief is religion.

Spirituality is experience. You cannot believe in Truth, you can only experience it. Spiritual Truth cannot be experienced at the level of the body or mind. It has to be done at the level of consciousness.

That is why, what is ONE is the consciousness, NOT the body or mind. Yes, consciousness is One, but body, thought, and mind aren’t.

Gods of the religious are mind constructs. They have created attributes – specifically defined ones – and such Gods are prisoners of the people who believe in them. Gods of religion are therefore not One. We try to be nice to say they are. Anything of the mind, cannot be One. If indeed they were one, then why did one take the trouble of creating their own brand?

So, wanted to share some specific pointers in this context:

The “One-ness” proponents in general take One-ness of consciousness and extrapolate it to one-ness of mind. There is no one-ness of mind or thought. Mind and Thought is purely individual. Consciousness is NOT the mind. So, let us not be irresponsible about using the buzzwords as we like. Mind/Belief/Religion are NOT the same as Consciousness/Experience/Spiritual.. and you cannot use the concepts from one context interchangeably with the other.
Religion is of the mind, and not of consciousness. Its god is a defined god (deliberately in lower case) – with specific characteristics… and is therefore limited and restricted. It has NOTHING to do with Infinite.. All the talk of One-ness, Infinite in Religion and Theology is schizophrenic nonsense.
Spirituality starts when physicality and finite ends. Spirituality is not a “mind-game”, it is an experiential process.
Religion is belief-centric, Spirituality is experience-centric. Lets understand it from Gita’s example – in the second chapter, Krishna asks Arjun to go fight. He refuses point blank. Instead in third chapter beginning he complains about he is confused between Jnana and Karma. And in the 4th chap beginning he asks directly “How do I know what you are saying is Truth?” Not once in entire Gita does Arjun say even ONCE that “I believe you”. Instead when he sees the Universal self of Krishna he finally says “I KNOW this to be the Truth”. Knowing via experience VS Believing someone.
We have confused our limited “love” for Spiritual Love. To talk of both of them in the same breath and use the actions based on the “Chicken Soul” type love to extrapolate it to make conclusion of Spiritual Love is like using Newton’s theories to illustrated Einstein’s Relativity. It is world apart. And the love for a pet or for our lover and Spiritual Love are different not Quantitatively but Qualitatively! When the Quality of one’s love for her Beloved transform to become hopeless yet unrelenting, then it begins to get into a position to take her beyond the physical.

This is the issue with most “intellectuals” – they are adept at making theories on religion and they extend their expertise to Spirituality. The difference between the Religious and Spiritual is QUALITATIVE!

You cannot mix 10 apples and make them taste like Mango! So, let us not use the examples and vocabulary interchangeably.

Next time, when you want to talk of the “One” – please get to experience it first and then start pontificating on how “such and such” thing is One. If you haven’t known the concept of One – that is still fine. But if you have known by hearsay and use your own mind’s nonsense to project it to dimensions that you have NO idea about, then you muddy the waters and bastardize the concept so much that it will be totally useless.

It is better to stay away then to mess it up completely and make it ridiculous.

Spirituality

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