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BECAUSE I CARE Ess: Arising and Falling

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BECAUSE I CARE Ess: Arising and Falling DO YOU BELIEVE? ------------------------------------ 1 A REDEFINITION --------------------------------------- 6 TELESCOPIC VISION --------------------------------- 15 DO ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME? --------------- 18 TO CHANT OR NOT TO CHANT ------------------- 23 GNOSTICISM -------------------------------------------- 27 FOUNDATIONS ----------------------------------------- 28 BEYOND PREFERENCES --------------------------- 31 FIRE AND BRIMSTONE ------------------------------ 37 NOTHING SPECIAL ------------------------------------ 39 CONDITIONING ----------------------------------------- 46 LOOK BACK, GO ON ---------------------------------- 47 MORNING GLORY ------------------------------------- 52 FOR SALE ------------------------------------------------ 56 LISTENING AND HEARING ------------------------- 62 MEDITATION WITHOUT THE CENTER --------- 70 SKILLFUL MEANS ------------------------------------- 77 DREAM COME TRUE --------------------------------- 88 WHO KNOWS? ------------------------------------------ 92 NAME-AND-FORM ------------------------------------- 97 BE PREPARED ------------------------------------------ 101 LINKS ------------------------------------------------------ 108 PAPER PEOPLE ---------------------------------------- 112 NOT SO NARROW ------------------------------------- 117 HYPOCRISY --------------------------------------------- 123 THE PRICE OF LOVE --------------------------------- 130 TAKING A STAND -------------------------------------- 133 BATAAN REVISITED ---------------------------------- 143 HOLEY GHOST ----------------------------------------- 149 AND NOW, TO ME ------------------------------------- 158 A TASTE OF LIBERATION --------------------------- 165 INSIGHT, BY THE NATURE METHOD ----------- 170 z {PAGE } PEOPLE OFTEN ASK ME IF I believe in God, and I reply: In order for me to answer your question, you must first tell me what you mean by the word God. If they then say, as they often do, that God is the ‘Creator,’ who made every- thing, then I say that I don’t believe, for the simple reason that everything was not created, as is plain to see. There is evolution, revolution, and devolution; in other words: every- thing changes and becomes other than it is. It is the old thing about the chicken and the egg that even children know: which came first? A first cause of things, said the Buddha, cannot be per- ceived, casting doubt on all the theories and belief-systems that are centered around this. Years ago, in Nepal, I saw fossils of sea-shells in the Himalayas, showing that what is now the highest mountain-range on Earth was once on the sea-bed. Geology has shown that, because of the move- ment of the tectonic-plates of the Earth’s crust, the Indian subcontinent⎯which was once an island-continent⎯was pushed northward against the Asian land-mass, and the sea-bed between squeezed and forced up to become the mighty mountain-peaks of the Himalayas. This took place many millions of years ago, when there was no-one around to observe or record it, of course, but the incontrovertible evidence is there, nevertheless. Yet so convinced are the believers in ‘creationism’ that their ideas are correct, that they are even prepared to claim that, if God could create everything else, then he is easily able to create fossils, too. And why should he create fossils, we may ask? Why, to confuse the unbelievers and harden their hearts, of course! Nowadays, most of us know about erosion, how, by the ceaseless action of the elements⎯rain, wind, water, snow, ice, sunshine⎯rock and earth is slowly worn away, so that not even mountains last forever, but get washed back to the seas from whence they arose long ago⎯from mountain to sea, from sea to mountain, ad infinitum, in a cyclic proc- {PAGE } BECAUSE I CARE ess: arising and falling. Geology tells us, too, that our planet was not always a planet, spinning around the sun, but came into being from gasses and debris swirling around in Space⎯perhaps the remains of an exploded star or stars; nothing comes from nothing, nothing goes to noth- ing. Over billions of what we call ‘years,’ this cloud of hot debris coalesced, cooled, and ‘became’ our planet. Obvi- ously, it was not created, but gradually came into being and evolved, as we can assume all the other planets, stars, galaxies and nebulae of the universe did. And, just as our planet came into being and evolved, so will it devolve and pass out of being, its component parts and particles scat- tering, to be absorbed into other things. We cannot talk⎯or even think⎯of a beginning or an end to all this. And so the process goes on. A moment in Time, as the believers say, when some ‘God,’ Impulse or Force, decided to create the Universe and everything in it, is inconceivable. Most scientists now⎯though they may change their minds later, as they have done before⎯subscribe to the Big-Bang Theory, by which they say the Universe evolved from a cosmic explosion 15 billion years ago. The substance from which it all came⎯although they can’t say where that came from⎯they call ‘anti-matter,’ which they claim is so dense and heavy that a teaspoonful of it would weigh more than our entire planet! Needless to say, none of them have ever seen or handled anti-matter, and maybe this is just another idea. But even if it isn’t, it is still not new; the sages of India thought of it many centuries ago, and went further than Western science has gone by saying it is recurrent⎯that is, it has happened not just once, as Western scientists say, and that before which there was nothing⎯but countless times. The Universe explodes outwards, lasts an incalcula- ble period, passing through many phases, and then im- plodes or collapses in upon itself. Hindus call this ‘the breathing-out and breathing-in of Brahma.’ When Brahma ⎯their Supreme God⎯breathes out, the Universe comes into being; as Brahma breathes in, the Universe collapses. DO YOU BELIEVE? {PAGE } The time between the out-breath and the in-breath, and the in-breath and the out-breath, mark the periods when the Universe exists and does not exist. So, Western science has discovered, or conceived of, something that was al- ready thought of long ago, and still has far to go. Some people think that, without belief in God there is no basis for morality, and we cannot possibly be religious. But such thinking reveals the poverty and narrowness of their minds. Why should it be that we cannot be moral or reli- gious if we do not believe in God? Does morality or religion really depend upon that? To think so shows that we do not have a firm basis within ourselves⎯which is where it must all come from⎯but are dependent on outside support for it. There are many Godists who are far from being moral, while many atheists live by a much-firmer code of morality than they; on the other hand, though, to be fair, there are believers who really do live religiously, and non-believers who do not. My point here, however, is that belief is not an indispensable part of religion; it can be better replaced with conviction born of knowledge, which means faith; religion would thereby have a firmer foundation. Now, the Universe does seem to be orderly rather than chaotic; no-one can deny this. But its order has come about through chaos over inconceivably-vast periods of time; it wasn’t always this way. To ascribe its order to the controlling hand of an anthropomorphic deity, however⎯ that is, a God or Being with human qualities like us⎯who might be petitioned, bribed and persuaded into changing its mind, answering prayers, granting favors, meting out re- wards and punishments, taking sides, etc.⎯is an assump- tion of omniscience on our part, which is a great mistake, of course, and puts us in a position where it is very difficult to learn more about what is presently beyond us, without first retreating from our unwarranted assumptions. The best and honest thing to do would be to admit, humbly and sin- cerely, that we do not know, rather than fill the vacuum with myths and conjecture. We will not immediately die or dis- {PAGE } BECAUSE I CARE appear if we frankly and fearlessly admit what is true⎯that we really do not know⎯and will then be able to proceed again, fresh and unencumbered. If people want to believe the Universe was created (and there are still people who believe it was created just six- thousand years ago, and that ‘Adam and Eve’ were placed on this Earth to become the first ancestors of the entire human race, with all its various colors and shades), that is up to them, of course; we are all⎯or should be⎯entitled to our own opinions, and because I hold to this principle, I dare to write my books. But it would be better to investi- gate, find out, discover, and know, and thereby leave be- hind the conflicting and tangled mass of beliefs and opinions. At this point, while we are on the subject of Space, and much is being said and reported about UFO’s, I want to say that when open contact is made with extra-terrestrial life- forms, let us hope they aren’t hostile and aggressive, as humans often have been and are. (I say ‘open’ here be- cause secret or clandestine contact has probably already been made). They will likely be more intelligent than us, to have got to us before we got to them, so let’s not assume that in this vast cosmos, the tiny planet we inhabit is the only one that can support intelligent life. Actually, it would be of immense importance, and very instructive for us to be visited by beings from other worlds, for it would provide us with a basis for comparison⎯us and them⎯and hopefully help us understand ourselves as human-beings, regardless of the difference in skin-color. The impact that meeting extra-terrestrials would have on religion would be tremendous, too, and would force us to evaluate and update our concepts and beliefs. Religions based on so-called ‘revelation,’ claiming direct and exclu- sive access to ‘God,’ and which segregate humanity into the ‘faithful and the infidels,’ the ‘saved and the damned,’ the ‘chosen and the forsaken,' etc, would have to rethink their dogmas (or maybe try to convert the ET’s to their be- DO YOU BELIEVE? {PAGE } liefs? I have no doubt that some would be sufficiently naïve and arrogant to try).
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