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Eduardo's Blog
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"They beat the common sense out of me when I was a little kid and pumped me full of
Jesus. I went off into the world as a reactionary, quasi-religious, confused believer. I took a
long time to realize that I had been lied to. I had been programmed with a belief system that was
invented by men. Recovering from the brainwashing took an even longer time. I met a spiritual
teacher and, after thirty-four years of practice, I finally got it. I was given what I know to be
the real truth about God and religion―information that came from a higher source
and can't be found
in any scriptures. Since then, my purpose in life is to show people how to find that same knowledge―
but only people who are seeking it. Some think of me as their spiritual leader. But I’m just an ordinary
man who came into some extraordinary knowledge."
--Eduardo
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Reposted 2/15/2007: Where I'm Coming From
You know by now that I'm antireligious.
I admit that I hate religion. I think it's an evil force.
In the history of this planet, more evil has been done in the name of
religion than any other cause. As I'm writing this, in Iraq the Shia and the
Sunnis are busily blowing each other to pieces. Their mutual hatred is all because of some minor
difference in their religious belief. What's amazing is, they're all Muslims. But, because of their
slightly different views, they want to kill each other. Is that not evil?
While
I am antireligious, I am not anti-God. Since I was a child, I've always felt that, if there is a God, I want to know
more about it. And now, I'm certain that we have a Higher Spiritual Presence. But, I didn't come to that
idea by listening to preachers or reading scriptures. Like many would-be
believers, I tried prayer for many years, but I never got an answer. And I
didn't gain any new knowledge. However, I did learn that preachers are
ordinary men (or women), and they have all the faults and shortcomings of ordinary people. I can't
see why their knowledge is any better than mine, at least where spiritual matters are concerned.
But now, I have reason to know their knowledge is NOT as good, because their only sources of learning
have been worldly.
It's well known that all
scriptures were written by human beings. For that reason, they are just as suspect. I'm not convinced that
God ever wrote anything, at least not in a human language. Also, God never invented a religion.
All of them were invented by men. And, at least to that extent, all religions are false.
All religions are beliefs about God, but not a single religion is the
result of direct knowledge from God.
Let's get to the point. I am one of those people who claims to have had conversations
with a higher spiritual presence. Uh oh. At this point, 50% of my readers
decided I'm a nut-case and bailed out. I'm sorry to see them go, because
they might have gained a certain piece of knowledge that could be of
enormous benefit. Many readers fled because their religious beliefs were
threatened or insulted. Anybody who has
a religion and wants to keep it shouldn't be reading my stuff. But if you're
seeking knowledge, keep on reading.
Yes, I received some information that came from a non-physical, non-human
source. I imagine it to be a very high and powerful source. And, as far as I can tell, it's a source not based in
the
physical universe. I have certain specific reasons to call it a spiritual source.
This is a long story that started in 1960 when I was twenty years old. I'd
like to write that story,
little by little, which is the chief reason I'm writing this blog. I'd like to tell it--and preserve
it--mostly for people who will be living a long time from now. (I wonder...what's the expected
survival time of a blog on the Internet?)
In 2002, when I wrote a book about the spiritual knowledge I had received, the outcome
was a long way from rewarding. Hardly anybody takes books about spiritual experiences seriously,
especially if the author is still alive. Religion yeah, but not spiritual stuff.
Most folks figure, ahhh,
what does he know? But, after an author is dead, then his message is usually taken a lot more seriously. The longer a
writer has been dead, the more credibility his story receives. There's a certain magic associated
with speaking from beyond the grave. Woooo-woo. That’s also what makes religion work so well.
Notice that all religions are founded on belief systems started by people
who are now dead.
Perhaps being dead will diminish the idea that I wrote
this for reasons of personal gain. If wanted to make money writing, I sure
wouldn't be writing this. In any event, you can believe my blogging is not a for-profit
activity. Knowing that leaves me free to blog away without reservation or expectations.
A Higher Spiritual Presence?
Let's get back to that spiritual entity I mentioned above. I think that term deserves leading caps:
Higher Spiritual Presence. See? Leading caps makes it a title and gives it a ring of authenticity.
Also, I like that term better than "God," because the God word has been so over-used. It's one of those words that
everybody knows and everybody uses, but hardly anybody knows what it really means. So I feel a lot
freer to write about a Higher Spiritual Presence. Also, I like the idea of
starting with a concept that has a lot less baggage.
So, we have the same old question: Is there a Higher Spiritual Presence? Here's
some of the knowledge I received.
I've learned that a part of every human being's mind connects to a Higher Spiritual Presence. Way back in time, before we became
so highly evolved, we lived with a continuous conscious awareness of that presence. We were, so to say, "continuously
connected to God." Everybody had the same connection, so there wasn't any question about
believing
whether or not that connection existed.
Then, as time went on, we developed an enormous frontal lobe in our brains that gave us reasoning abilities and all
sorts of other powers. Unfortunately, it also created a barrier that prevents us from accessing the part of
our minds that connects to the HSP. Essentially, we became godless. So, to make up for that loss,
we invented religion. We established our own organized belief systems.
However, a few people in every generation learn to surmount that
barrier. Invariably,
those people are not religious, because they have knowledge that dissolves
any kind of religious belief. They have knowledge of the Higher Spiritual
Presence. As a result, they live on an entirely higher and grander plane of human experience than
people immersed in religious belief systems.
The Nature of Belief Systems
Every religion that has ever been invented also has its own accompanying politics. Somebody has to
be the leader, and other people have to be the followers. Thus, every religion has its own political
system to determine who the leader will be. Everybody else is a follower.
Naturally, those political systems have lots of rules. Also, there must be a system of rewards and
punishments for those who follow the rules and those who don't. Guilt and fear are built into all
religions to reinforce the authority of the leaders and to make sure the followers keep on following.
In the majority of religions until modern times, severe punishment awaited doubters and non-believers.
Millions of people were tortured and killed for not believing (or for not
having faith strong enough) in the local
religion.
Now finally, as personal religious freedom emerges at certain places on the
planet, some adults have the freedom and opportunity to examine
their beliefs, and weigh them against available knowledge. But, guess what? Once a person has been
indoctrinated into a religious belief system, he or she rarely chooses to doubt it or reevaluate it.
Belief is very addictive. People get very attached to their beliefs. Just
reading this kind of material makes Believers feel uncomfortable. Some fear
they will be punished for merely questioning their own beliefs. If you feel
that fear, then you know you have been brainwashed.
Receiving The Knowledge
So, back to the Higher Spiritual Presence (aka God) that nobody seems to really know anything about,
and the lost & forgotten parts of our minds that connect to it. If there is an HSP, why can't we
communicate with it? We were given (or evolved) an ability to reason. Is it rational that
we should ignore that ability? No, it's not rational. We want to know.
Some of us became Seekers. We abandoned our beliefs (or at least set them
aside for a while) and set out to find true knowledge of God. But,
only a minority of Seekers is fortunate enough to receive The Knowledge. Most
simply aren't
persistent and dedicated enough. But, those who are are transformed by what
they find. And they are never the same afterward.
Receiving The Knowledge is without a doubt the highest and most beautiful experience that
is possible while living in a human body. But, there's a down side. You received
it and
your life became a paradise (and, it really does). But nobody understands what has happened to you.
They think you are crazy—or on some kind of drugs. Just try to mention that you have received
Enlightenment some time when you're at a cocktail party. People will get a
strange look on their face and conversation may become strained.
It is a wonderful gift that you have to keep to yourself. You're living in a paradise, but you can't
share it with anybody. There are only a few—a very few—people who will notice that you have
something they would like to have too. They approach you. Some of these will
become your Students, but you
don't want to call them that. At least, not until they ask or acknowledge they want you as a teacher.
I imagine that Jesus lived in exactly the same quandary. Reading what is known about
him, and
extrapolating what was censored and expunged from writings about him, I deduce that he received
Enlightenment by direct communications from the Highest Spiritual Presence. And,
that he lived in a time
where such talk was heresy. Back in those days, pissing off the local religious powers would severely shorten one's life. But he
had to do what he had to do. And he did a great job at it.
Unfortunately, The Knowledge he received and tried to pass on to a trusted few followers was,
during the next few hundred years, grotesquely distorted and used to start a [groan] religion.
I'm sure he would turn over in his grave if he knew what evil has been done in his name. To be
fair, he would also be pleased at some of the great things Christianity has accomplished.
Just like several Masters before him and a few more since him, Jesus tried to teach people, not
what he had learned from his own enlightening experiences, but rather how each person can pursue
his own spiritual development and, in turn, receive The Knowledge. And, that's probably what got
him killed. That kind of knowledge puts preachers out of business. They
don't like it.
The answer is so simple. It seems hardly worth writing about. It's so simple
that practically nobody believes it will work. "Simple" just doesn't sell.
In our glitzy culture, it's gotta have magic. It's gotta sound all holy and
have a deep mystique in order to sell. (Scientology comes to mind.) Make up
an outlandish science fiction story that purports to explain God, and you'll
attract more believers than the simple truth of pursuing inner development
and receiving Enlightenment.
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Reposted 2/17/2007: The Connection Between Belief and Ignorance
Most of my friends think religion is "good." Ever since they were kids, they were taught that
good people are religious, and that non-believers are evil. But that is far
from true.
People who think for themselves
can see that many True Believers are actually terrible people. Not all, but
many. Take, for example, all the scandals surrounding present-day religious
leaders. All of that power and wealth can be an irresistibly corrupting
force. Many big-name religious superstars are simply talented at going
along with the scam.
But, most people
just don't
think for themselves. Only a few people that I know actually think for themselves.
A few of them studied Philosophy in
college and actually "got it." They read some Plato and Socrates. Maybe Aristotle or John Stuart Mill
or Ayn Rand.
They really thought about the concepts of "good" and "evil," and learned to tell the difference.
They are my favorite kind of people.
My biggest hot button is Belief. Another word for that is dogma. It means accepting or believing
something without any real justification. Dogma says, "I believe that is
true because I say so." Think about it for a few seconds: Belief is an act of
accepting some idea, concept, or story as being true without any supporting knowledge. It's simply
an act of choosing something to believe and pretending that it is knowledge.
By accepting a belief, a person makes a deliberate (although most often unconscious) decision to give
up seeking knowledge about that subject. Instead, the Believer just accepts what somebody
else says. Bottom line: Belief is an act of turning away from knowledge
which is ignorance.
Thinking for Myself
If there is a sin against God, letting myself fall into one of the
belief systems would be it. From my perspective if there is a God and if God is
responsible in any way for giving us our wonderful minds and our abilities to judge what's true and
what's not, then not seeking knowledge of God is a sin.
Picking a preacher and adopting his or her belief system is no better than all the millions of believers in all the mythologies (i.e., religions) that have been invented
by humanity. Today's bible beaters are doing the same thing as millions of murderous,
bigoted, ignorant, narrow-minded, intolerant True Believers have done throughout history.
So, why am I living here in one of the hot zones of the bible belt? Good
question. Sometimes I imagine that I might have been sent here by a higher
power to shake people up and get them to start thinking for themselves.
In other times and other places, I would have already been burned at the stake or suffered an even
worse fate. Being "drawn and quartered" comes to mind, as many non-believers were in centuries gone
by. Can you imagine that? Having each arm and leg tied to one of four oxen, and then having the
beasts pull a person into four pieces? All because he didn't accept the local religion?
All in the name of God? And as
sure as rain falls, the only thing that prevents fervent believers from doing the same thing
these days
are our laws. Do you see why I equate Religion with Ignorance?
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Reposted 2/20/2007: Subtle Evils of Religion
Another reason why religion is so evil is that it keeps people from gaining
true knowledge of God. I've noticed that people who are immersed in what other people believe about God
don't pursue their own inner development. And, the other people who create
the religion and preach it don't have direct knowledge of God either. So, they're all just passing their
beliefs around to each other. It's known as lore. For all practical
purposes, lore isn't much different from gossip.
Most of the religious believers I know don't really believe in God
themselves. They simply believe in their religion. As one proof of that,
look at their inordinate fear of death. Any person who has received direct
knowledge of God has relatively little fear of death. However, religion
works by design to instill fear and guilt into the minds of its
Believers.
True Believers stay away from me because of my lack of respect and awe for their beliefs.
Who can blame them? People like to be around other people who believe the same stuff. They only
want to talk to people who will reinforce their beliefs. That's why they have churches.
But, I digress.
I want to get deeper into the reasons why religion keeps a person from gaining true knowledge of God.
It's simple. All human beings have a part of their minds that connects to God.
(And by the way, it is NOT through prayer.) When a person finds
and uses that direct connection, all religious belief evaporates and is replaced with knowledge. In that moment, the person who receives the Enlightenment comes to know that his or her
previous religion was childish myth.
There are several steps to Enlightenment. Usually about the third or fourth
experience involves direct knowledge of the Higher Spiritual Presence, aka God.
People who have such experiences profess them to be the highest and most
rewarding events in life. But, most religions don't give people the training they need to discover their own connection
to God. Religions don't teach people how to receive Enlightenment.
Instead, most religions--that is, nearly all
religions--seek to keep their followers dependent upon the religion, especially the ritual,
and upon the clergy that provides it. Religious organizations find this necessary in order
to maintain control of their followers and to provide a steady flow of income.
Thus, religious organizations have no motivation to help people learn to find God, even if they
knew themselves--which of course they don't. If they did, they would cease their deception.
In order to receive the kind of meditation training that allows a person to go within
(and thereby create the opportunity for receiving Enlightenment), that person must become at
least mostly free of religious dogma and indoctrination. Religious ritual virtually guarantees
that a person cannot quiet his mind adequately to create the inner peace that must precede
Enlightenment.
Imagine, for example, the inner noise that is created by mumbling Hail Marys
or Our Fathers over and over. Such rituals work perfectly to prevent
inner development. All you get is more noise in the mind and, as a result,
more dependence on your religion provider.
Spiritual knowledge is received by first creating utter inner stillness.
Alas, most Believers are frightened of that inner stillness. Instead, they draw comfort from the
same, familiar noise they've heard all their life. They are truly trapped in their beliefs.
And, they feel safe in their trap. What's worse, they have absolutely no inkling--no concept--of being in a trap. Their deepest and most profound addiction (their need for belief) is being continually fed by their trap, and they're not likely to give it up willingly.
So, nobody on the outside can help them. Instead, Believers draw back from non-believers with dread and fear, because such heretics threaten the security of the little belief box in which they live. That's why we non-believers have been persecuted and burned at the stake ever since we all lived
together in caves.
We who live outside the religion trap must choose a careful path.
Bottom line: The seeker who wants to get free of his trap is a rare person.
Oddly, that makes my mission in life much simpler. I'm here to help those who want the same thing I was given. I should not annoy the believers who are happy in their comfortable little box. Rather, I must wait until I am asked by someone wants to find The Knowledge. That means I don't have to do any real "work," as such. I am merely a little light that
glows (and not overly brightly), just in case somebody comes along looking for it. Those who are not looking will never notice it.
Indeed, it is a nearly perfect situation.
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Note: Eduardo is in the process of converting his online blog (which appeared for a while on
www.blogspot.com) to a series of blog pages in this web site. More installments will follow soon.
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