July 2022 - Individual Choices
Individual Choices; Poetry; Quotes; Spiritual Text Verse; Announcements; Podcast Episodes of June 2022; Patreon; YouTube Livestream
Today, I write this with a heavy heart because when individual choices are taken away from people and their rights in making informed decisions are taken away, how can we claim to have a society that has justice and trust at its core? This month has had quite a few setbacks like the Supreme Court’s ruling on abortions and ruling in favor of a coach, who said that his ‘quiet personal prayer’ was protected under freedom of religion.
What does this have to do with spirituality and why would I raise this? The purpose is to understand that as a male, I believe fully that a woman should have the right to choose whether she wants to have a baby or not. The issue is very nuanced. It is not like a woman just decides to abort a fetus. This decision is done after much deliberation and is never easy for a woman. Some may claim the Vedas say it is adharma because it is violence but it is not so binary. The interpretation has to be understood and weighed up. For example, bringing a child into the world is a difficult decision, especially if you cannot afford a meal at night, you do not have healthcare (an issue here in the US), you don’t have enough financial support, you may be a single mother. Now when you consider all that, what would be more harmful to a child? Is it right for the child to go through suffering because some religious text says it is wrong to abort a fetus? I cannot answer this but I can raise questions about this. Ultimately, it is the mother’s karma that decides. It could be one act of adharma or the possibility of multiple acts of adharma. Therefore, the right to choose is with a woman and this should be free from any religious ideology.
Now, what about personal prayer? I wonder if the Supreme Court would give the same ruling for a Hindu, Sikh, Jew, Buddhist, or Muslim? What constitutes as a personal prayer? Should a person with authority and influence force such a thing? What if a child is an atheist and doesn’t want to take part in it? What if a Hindu child wants to recite the Hanuman Chalisa? Or the Muslim recites the namaz? You get my point. Nobody needs to know your prayer. If it is personal, just say it in your heart. Why force it upon another? Everyone has their own dharma and therefore, should be able to refuse to be part of this personal prayer. This ruling also doesn’t make it clear that should multiple prayers be going on before or after the game? Again, if we live in a pluralistic society as the Justice claimed then we must practice multiple prayers. In my opinion, this is another way to bring in religious control into something where religion is not necessary. Each person can do their personal prayer in the privacy of their mind and heart. Nobody else needs to take part in such rituals.
Ultimately, dharma is all about one’s individual choices. Someone can either choose an act that causes the least amount of harm or cause the most amount of harm. We have to face the reactions to our karma. Nobody else is going to help us. None of the Supreme Court Justices who voted to overturn Roe V. Wade is going to look after the poor in this country. None of them will feed a child that has been put into the foster care system because the mother cannot look after the child. Or someone’s criminal intent and actions may cause a pregnancy, why should a woman possibly face this alone? When we start spouting religious ideology into law, we are facing a crisis. The crisis is of your individual choices and your choice to choose your karma. Also, we should discern what religious doctrine is purely a cultural one based on socio-political, and economical purposes and which one is based on the Eternal Truth. If a text can never be changed or be subject to scrutiny, it is best to let go of such texts and use our own discernment, logic, rationale, and common sense.
I am worried about the future and what world we are leaving our children in. Now is the time we go beyond religious doctrine and use our basic common sense to help reduce the suffering on this planet. You see Formless Awareness has no ideology or doctrine and when you discover this - you see the world from a different perspective.
Tell me your views, let me know what you think? It is an open discussion and we can debate it respectfully.
The Bearded Mystic Poetry
There is a moment in this deep silence, Chaos of reality is rising ahead of you. You can see it in the distance, As it approaches you with fast pace. Don’t miss what is passing by, It will give you a glimpse of world peace. Let this chaos rise from your soul, to your heart, Let it enter the mind and inject into the ego. Become a voice for world peace, Don’t let this chaos carry on further. Transcend from this chaos with creativity, Before they destroy the revelation for many. Center yourself to what presents itself before you, Allow this reality to immerse into you!
Tell me what you were reading last month
Everything that anyone has ever experienced—including all joy, suffering, insight, awe, etc.—has always been subjective objects in consciousness. We reasonably postulate the existence of an objective world outside consciousness but, strictly speaking, this is an assumption. In his Discourse on the Method, René Descartes introduced the idea that the only thing whose existence we can be absolutely certain of is our own consciousness. He captured it in his now famous dictum “cogito ergo sum” (“I think, therefore I am”). Beyond that, we only have access to what comes to us through our five senses and cannot ascertain its objective reality without doubt. As brain scientist Dr. Andrew Newberg put it, “The most basic question is what is the fundamental nature of reality and how do we come to experience it. The problem is that we have a block between how we perceive the world and how the world really is. We’re trapped by our brain, by our inability to go beyond thinking and perception.”7 This notion is taken to an extreme in the philosophical position of solipsism, the idea that one’s own mind is all that exists. While I do not endorse solipsism, I do think that the rationale behind it gives us a valid perspective regarding the primacy of consciousness in our perception of reality.
Kastrup, Bernardo. Rationalist Spirituality: An exploration of the meaning of life and existence informed by logic and science (p. 13). John Hunt Publishing.
Spiritual Text - Verse of the Month with commentary
In this way, use your atma’s discernment to strengthen your buddhi; then use your atma to steady your atma. And finally, O mighty-armed Arjuna, with that strength, destroy the insatiable enemy kama rupa ‘the endless forms of material desire’.
Bhagavad Gita. Chapter 3: Verse 43
With the discernment of the Real and the unreal, we strengthen our intellect as much as possible. It is by understanding that the Real is changeless, therefore to steady the mind, we must go to that inner dweller that is still, stable, and composed. When we spend our time contemplating upon the changeless, formless awareness and remembering it constantly, we bring stability to our mind, we control our mind with all its thoughts, emotions, karma, tendencies, conditioning, etc. Basically, we use Nirguna Brahman to steady the mind.
We have to continuously remind ourselves of that Formless Awareness in the background and bring it eventually to the foreground. Establishing Brahman/Formless Awareness fully in spiritual absorption with the help of your own purified mind.
Then speaking in a warrior tone, Sri Krishna inspires Arjuna that he must utilize all his strength to destroy the endless forms of material desire. The only desire worth having is being established in Formless Awareness. There is no need to fall into the abyss of lustful desire for any object as this will never be fulfilled.
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Aum Shantih Shantih Shantih. Aum Peace Peace Peace
Lots of love
Rahul