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USA & One Nasty Religious Dogma

Date: Sat 2 Aug 2008 21:38:32 -0000 To: am-global@earthlink.net From: Subject: USA & One Nasty Religious Dogma Baba "E dhulir dharan'iite shudhu bha'lo la'ga' a'r bha'lo ba'sa'…" (P.S. 3183) Purport: Baba, by Your grace You have changed my mind. All the dullness and frustration has been transformed into the enthusiasm of sweetness. Now everything of this dusty earth is sweet, loving, and charming for me. Love and only love is saturated within everything. It feels as though this entire creation is very sweet intimate and most loving. Baba, You are the embodiment of bliss. And revolving around You, all the jiivas are crying and laughing in Your divine play. Everything is blissful.You have showered everyone's mind with the grace of Your divine effulgence. The flower garden & all the flowers have been filled with the nectar and they are emanating a sweet aroma all around. Baba, You are within me-- in a smiling and charming way in my heart; You have filled my whole being with happiness and hope. Everything is very beautiful and meaningful. O' Ajana Pathik Parama Purusa, You are floating and moving ahead in Your golden chariot. You are showering grace and You are providing language to the dumb and bestowing Your knowledge and perfection to those who are timid and speechless. Baba, by Your divine grace everything of this dusty earth has become sweet like nectar, so blissful....
== USA & ONE NASTY RELIGIOUS DOGMA == ~ UPDATED VERSION ~
Note: Unfortunately, my earlier letter on this topic went out prematurely-- it was unfinished and rough. So this is the updated version for everyone to read. Many changes and revisions have been made. Namaskar, Here is a case study which shows how dogma clouds the mind and freezes the brain-- utterly robbing a person of all sense of reason and rationality.
THE FOLLOWERS OF ONE CHRISTIAN POLYGAMOUS SECT
As many may be aware, the ultra-dogmatic, polygamous religious sect-- Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (USA)-- was run by their fallen leader & so-called prophet, Warren Jeffs. Prior to his recent arrest, one might even say that this self-proclaimed prophet was accepted as the absolute ruler of the sect as he would function as "judge and jury, bank and police, and above all defender of the faith". And no one would question what he would do or say, at least not any of his followers. Indeed, this dogmatic Christian prophet would decide who should marry, when they would marry, and if any follower fell in disfavour with him he would appoint that person's children and wives to then be given to someone else. This Christian leader had that type of dramatic, totalitarian control. Amidst his followers, his word was law and he was deemed as God's representative on earth. He himself had about 60 wives and his religious sect was based on underage marriages wherein the so-called prophet would appoint 14 year-old girls to marry-- sometimes marrying their 19 year-old cousin and other times marrying an elder man of the church who was especially loyal to this religious leader. And no one would question it, lest they be banned forever from entering heaven. Because the only way to enter heaven was by being obedient to this "prophet's command" that men should have multiple wives and that the duty of those women is only to ensure that their husband is happy and satisfied. That is one of the main decrees. Verily, everything in polygamous sect revolved around this dogmatic prophet's word. He forbid followers to attend US public schools and colleges and instead designed and oversaw their own education system so that all the children could be indoctrinated into that polygamous way of life. And indeed, that dogmatic sectarian way of life was bizarre, strange, torturous, and illogical in thousands of ways. One senior US government official proclaimed that, 'It is hard to believe that such a polygamous sect exists here in America'. But not only do they exist but they totally run several towns along the Arizona-Colorado border and have an estimated financial worth of more than 100 million. The most surprising thing of all is NOT that one crazy so-called prophet would do something like this. After all, so many people do corrupt and strange things for power. The most surprising thing is that thousands of people revere him as their leader. They follow his each and every command, no matter the depth of that dogma. That is what is so surprising. Why do those followers do like this? They have a brain; they have the ability to reason; they have an intellect. The question then is why do they follow this fake prophet and all his phony teachings. What is "at-work" in this process? What is pushing them in this direction. And the answer is what Baba has said. When the mind is infiltrated by a dogma-- any dogma-- then it loses it rational thinking capacity in that sphere of life. Baba says, "Ism [dogma] overshadows human intelligence in such a way that even if one has been defeated through logic or reason, one refuses to accept the defeat." (PNS-16) Thus the followers of that Christian sect lost their rationality due to being engrossed in the dogma of that polygamous sect. They became totally blind to the prophet's rules and lost their sense of discrimination and the mind could not longer work properly. It is just like if a computer gets infiltrated by a virus. Then that hard drive loses its ability to function properly. The same is true for a mind that is submerged in dogma. When dogma enters the mind then that person's thinking process becomes totally shut down.
THE ANOMALY OF DOGMA
That is how dogma works; it rots the brain. That is why those followers of that Christian polygamous sect adhere to their prophet's laws and guidelines. Because once dogma enters the mind, one's capacity for rational thought becomes nil. Hence, dogma means bha'va jar'ata in Sanskrit, or the crudification of the thinking process. And we see this same phenomenon among radical Muslims who think that for their cause it is alright, indeed Allah's will, to kill common citizens and send suicide bombers into the open marketplaces etc. They believe in this. Of course it is expected that those Islamic leaders will do irrational things as they want to gain power. The question is why those general Muslims follow that code as well. People outside that Muslim sect think what they are doing is totally ludicrous and outrageous, but those Muslim followers feel totally convinced that suicide bombing and marrying 3 or 4 women is proper. Why is it like that? Because the presence of their religious dogma keeps them bound to their illogical ways. They cannot recognise the defects of Islam. Another example is how recently in the US, frustrated and alienated students fell into the dogmatic pattern of open-firing on innocent students and professors on their university campus, senselessly killing dozens of people. This is also a dogmatic approach-- though it is a social dogma, not a religious one. So these are all examples of how dogma totally consumes one's thinking abilities and flushes all hope of rationality out of the mind. That is why dogma is so dangerous and that is why Baba says, "Dogma no more, dogma no more".
INSTANCES OF DOGMA IN AM
Please excuse me, but tragically, in our Marga, since 1990, various dogmas have taken root. And it is very difficult to eliminate those dogmas. Mainly because, some of our respected brothers and sisters who are adhering to things like groupism, Mahaprayan, or Jamalpur Tiirtha, do not recognise their chosen way as being a dogma. Of course, we know the leaders of the various groups have their own selfish interest in mind when they set-up such dogmas. Either they want money, or control, or power, or post, or prestige etc. It is not surprising that such so-called leaders would invent these crooked policies. In that sense, they are no different from the so-called prophet of that dogmatic Christian sect. The more surprising and astonishing phenomenon is how general Ananda Margiis and acaryas also fall prey to such things like groupism. We have sadhana; we have Baba's teachings; we have so many plus points; even then many in our Marga are following one groupist sect or another. And it is not easy to convince them to give up their groupism. What is the reason? What is the cause? Why is it that margiis and field workers get hitched to a particular factional camp? Again, the reason is that once the mind gets filled with the dogma of one particular group, then it clouds a person's thinking entirely. That is why even when we know in our heart of hearts we are all brothers and sisters and belong together, still due to the presence of dogma we remain divided in different camps and groups. Hence the same operative force-- i.e. dogma in the mind-- that keeps those Christians wedded to their polygamous sect & Muslims stuck up in Islam, is also working to keep margiis disunited and tied to various groups. That is the sad state of affairs.
BABA'S BLESSING
By Baba's grace our Marga will soon become 100% dogma-free and spread the teachings of pure spirituality across this entire universe. But this can only happend when each and every Ananda Margii takes the vow within themselves to not get caught up in dogma. We all have to take the duty and strict reponsbility to ask ourselves every day, 'Am I following dogma or not?'. Then our Marga will again become pure and clean. Baba says, "Ananda Marga is the first movement aimed at liberating spirituality from the unwholesome influences from dogma. Hence you must not in any way encourage dogma. Rather, you should carry on an endless fight against dogma. And while fighting against dogma, you will realize the actual truth, and when you will come in contact with truth, you will be established in real spirituality. Remember, you have got to be established in real spirituality, because in spirituality alone lies the highest fulfillment and achievement of human life...So human beings have got to be established in human excellence and carry on a ceaseless struggle against dogma." (PNS-18) Namaskar, Mukunda
**************************************** Sadhana Point- 1st Lesson
Baba says, "In Japakriya' there is only acoustic rhythm as I have told you about acoustic rhythm Ra'ma, Ra'ma, Ra'ma, Ra'ma. But in Pran'idha'na this acoustic rhythm maintains parallelism with mental rhythm i.e., mentally you will be saying Ra'ma, Ra'ma, Ra'ma, there should be acoustic rhythm Ra'ma,Ra'ma. Ra'ma like this and mentally you will be thinking of Ra'ma also i.e., the parallelism is to be maintained, otherwise in Japakriya' where there is no parallelism what does happen; while you are uttering the word Ra'ma, Ra'ma (Parama Purusa) as you are chanting the word 'Ra', letter 'Ra' you are thinking of the next letter 'Ma.' Ra'ma! Again while uttering the letter 'Ma' you are thinking of the letter 'Ra'. Next 'Ra' and then in second stage of Japa, 'Ra'. In that case your Mantra will be 'Mara' (death) you are uttering the letter 'Ma' and thinking of the latter 'Ra', so your Is't'a Mantra becomes 'Mara' (death) and not 'Ra'ma' (Parama Purusa). So it is useless to do that type of Japakriya'. Unless and until there is a parallelism with the mental wave it is useless and where there is parallelism between acoustic rhythm and mental rhythm it is called Pranidha'na. In Ananda Marga your Iishvara Pra'nidha'na is not japakriya'; it is called Pran'idha'na. Pran'idha'na comes within the scope of Dhya'na and not within the scope of japa. Do you follow?" (SS-18, p. 84-5)
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