Chapter Seven: Dispelling the myths

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[Excerpt  Be and Become, © ProCreative, Sydney 2000]

Key Concepts:

  1. The belief in “separateness” (i.e. that everything and everyone is separate, local and limited) is the root cause for the world’s ills. In an analogous sense, we are children, not yet having learned how to relate to others (other species, other races, “inanimate” objects and ourselves).
  2. The belief in “separateness” causes humanity to focus on loss, pain and limitation. It separates (denies and ignores) our potentials for an inner-spiritual awareness and creativity, causing unnecessary upset, turmoil and difficulty.
  3. This belief-system fuels competitive, combative behavior. It fuels the mechanistic scientific view that we are merely a lucky coincidence of molecules.
  4. The belief in “separateness” allows the development of the belief in spiritual perfection (reliant on a separation between 'here and now,' and some ideal 'other' state).
  5. Similarly, this philosophy leads to a belief in scientific certainty (reliant on perfection of knowledge and measurement) in which matter, energy, people, plants and planets can be fully understood by analysing the component parts (reductionism).
  6. The belief in “separateness” is due to humanity’s immaturity. In terms of human development, we are in late adolescence, nearing adulthood. For the last few hundred years (during the industrial era) we have overly focused on the “masculine” qualities of difference, technology, objectivity and individuality, much as many adolescent males do. Hence Western science’s dismissal of the “feminine” aspects such as cooperation, interconnectedness and the “spiritual.”

A separate reality

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[Excerpt  Be and Become, © ProCreative, Sydney 2000]

An imperfect ideal

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[Excerpt  Be and Become, © ProCreative, Sydney 2000]

In view of the ideas presented in this book, we might appreciate that we have been unduly fixated on our limited, local physical existence. But simply beginning to believe or recognize that reality is innately nonlocal will not, of itself, allow us to more freely examine the deeper aspects to our psyches.

It will not simply be a matter of believing that we are more able to access and control our subconscious and unconscious thoughts and bodily processes unless we also believe that it is safe to do so. We won’t begin to hate others less, or diminish our prejudices unless we begin to believe that it is safe to more thoroughly know ourselves. And we won’t accept that it is safe to know ourselves, and thus our fellow man until we discard some misconceptions which have had a deep influence upon mankind.

The belief in the ideal of perfection is perhaps the most pernicious by-product of the belief in “separateness” (locality). However, before I begin to explain why a belief in the ideal of perfection is so detrimental, let’s first consider just what is meant by the word “perfection.”

We begin by recognizing that a state of perfection is one that cannot be improved upon. If it could be improved it would not be perfect. Something which is perfect is ideal, complete, finished, pure, absolute, utter. Perhaps most importantly, a state of perfection is also faultless. Few religious people would consider God to have fault, or that He was somehow incomplete or unfinished. The Pope (God’s official representative here on Earth, at least according to the Roman Catholics) is also considered or believed to be infallible. In other words, he is deemed perfect. This belief in the Pope being perfect is, at the time of writing, still a central doctrine of the Catholic Church. Recently an article in a leading Sydney newspaper reported that:

Circles in the sand

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[Excerpt  Be and Become, © ProCreative, Sydney 2000]

The belief in perfection ultimately translates into the belief that we are all bastard beings, innately soiled with shame and guilt that hampers our expression of our deeply innate loving and compassionate characters.

Put simply, because we believe in the existence of perfection, we feel unworthy to freely express our energy. We feel constrained. In an analogous sense we operate our lives much like driving a motor vehicle with the hand-brake on.

Religious doctrine has it that the human race has sinned and that we need forgiveness.

It’s reasonably straight forward to recognize that this “sin” which has been committed was simply the adoption of “free choice”—the evolvement of the conscious mind. Refer Figure 7.1.