Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Quotes | Materialistic Society

Because our materialistic society considers the acquisition of wealth and power to be the goal of life, the more wealth and power you possess, the more “successful” you are considered to be. If you are materially poor, you are considered a failure in life, whereas if you are wealthy and powerful (regardless of how you acquired such wealth and power), you are considered a great success. So obtaining material wealth is not only essential for your direct sense gratification, but also for your feelings of self-worth. In other words, you feel only as valuable as the things that you possess and control. Lacking appreciation of your real value as an eternal, blissful spark of the Original Cause -- falsely identifying the temporary body as yourself—you try to achieve feelings of self-worth by acquisition and control of material things. To achieve such economic development, you may end up engaging in illegal activity—in other words, you might become a crook.

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CULTIVATING KNOWLEDGE

The wise have explained that one result is derived from the culture of knowledge, and that a different result is obtained from the culture of nescience.

~Sri Ishopanishad, Mantra Ten

For one who lives a hedonistic life, a life in which nescience is cultivated, the results are envy, anger, greed, impatience, disrespect for others, anxiety, depression, hatred, ever-increasing lust, forgetfulness, frustration, dissatisfaction, duplicity, fear of death, and so on.

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You can eat so much food that your belly aches—yet you still want more! Even though your belly is filled to the point of physical pain, you, the self, are not full; you still desire to consume more. The fact that the body can be full or satisfied while you still feel empty is evidence that the body is not you.

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Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Quotes | Keeping the Body Fit

Many people practice tai chi, chi gong, and so on with the aim of keeping their bodies fit for a long time. There is certainly nothing wrong with keeping one’s body fit—indeed, it is one of the aims of yoga—but unfortunately, many such people are trying to run away from the inevitable death of the body. Some mystic yogis strive to keep their bodies alive forever—but that is not possible. Even if one was the greatest yogi and could keep his body alive for thousands of years, that still is not forever.

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For thousands of years, sages have taught various methods of physical exercises and meditations that are conducive to bringing about an out-of-body experience.

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An advanced yogi wants to use the body in accordance with his knowledge that he is not the body.

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Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Quotes | Being In Tune With Reality

PERFECTION – BEING IN TUNE WITH REALITY

The body is yours—but it is not you. The body is a garment that you are wearing, a machine that you are using, a vehicle that you are driving. The body is your possession. Just as a person does not identify himself as being the shirt he is wearing, he also should not identify himself with the body that he is wearing.

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Perfection means being in tune with reality. The first thing we must understand is reality—the reality of my identity, i.e., my essence, position and function. Who am I? Just as a person does not identify himself as being the shirt that he is wearing, he also should not identify himself with the body that he is wearing.

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According to the Bhagavad-gita, when you falsely identify with the body, you use your intelligence to increase your facilities for sense enjoyment. You use your intelligence and mind to direct the brain and the rest of the body in a way that will bring you sensual enjoyment. You identify with the senses, and so believe that sensual pleasure will bring you satisfaction. Of course you are never really satisfied, nor are you the one who is really making the decisions.

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Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Quotes | Culture of Ignorance

Those who engage in the culture of nescient activities shall enter into the darkest region of ignorance. Worse still are those engaged in the culture of so-called knowledge.

~Sri Ishopanishad, Mantra 9

Unfortunately, most of humanity spends the majority of its time in the culture of ignorance. We cultivate ignorance by serving our tongue, belly, genitals, and other senses like obedient slaves. The vast majority of our energy goes into this mad pursuit of sense pleasure. Left with frazzled nerves, frustration, anger, jealousy, envy, greed, hate, loneliness, and confusion; we seek an escape in alcohol, cocaine, heroin, and a myriad of other legal and illegal consciousness dimmers. This is the cultivation of ignorance.

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Masochism can never lead to spiritual perfection. The body is actually a most precious property of the self; it enables the self to engage in various devotional activities that can bring about a change in consciousness. A person's external activities affect his consciousness, and his consciousness affects his external activities. Knowing this, a bhakti yogi consciously chooses to engage in particular external activities in order to bring about the desired spiritual happiness and wisdom.

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If you know you’re not the body, then you will probably have deeper, more spiritual goals in life. This will make you see the desires of your senses as something to control, not succumb to. Because you’ll see your material desires as distinct from your true desires, you’ll make an attempt to curb your material desires so they don’t get in your way.

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Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Quotes | What Are You Worth?

What are you worth? Your physical body made of various chemicals is not really worth very much. It may be worth $5 or $10, but is that all you are worth? Is that all your wife or your child, or your friend, or your mother, or your father are worth?

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(On the other hand,) the positive results of a society populated mostly by people who are serious about cultivating wisdom and spiritual understanding should be clear. If the citizens are peaceful, satisfied, respectful of others, compassionate, selfless, and so on, then society will be progressive both materially and spiritually.

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Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Quotes | Wanting to Be The Enjoyer

Why does a person claim ownership of a thing or of another person? To control it or them. And why does he want to control it? Usually because he wants to be the enjoyer of it.

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Criminals, whether rich or poor, are criminals not because they are poor or rich, but because they are in the illusion that material things—material sense enjoyment—will satisfy them. And, of course, the reason they are in this illusion is because they erroneously identify their body as themselves.

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You should not judge a person by his race, weight, height, sex, genes, and so forth.

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Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Quotes | Yogis

Contrary to popular belief, hatha yoga exercises are not designed to make fat people thin or to make the body immortal, but to help unblock the gross and subtle nervous systems so that the “life air” can flow freely through the body (specifically, from the base of the spine to the top of the head).

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As a yogi, you see the body that covers you—the pure atma or self—as being made of layers of material energy, from the subtle to the gross.

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Just as there is no perfectly simple way to explain a complex principle of physics or biochemistry to a layman, so there is no perfectly simple way to explain the subtle material technology known to the yogis.

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Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Quotes | Intelligence

The faculty of intelligence is superior to the mind.

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Intelligence is that neutral faculty which you use to analyze and pick out important bits of information from the mind in order to make and/or achieve certain goals and plans. It enables you to understand.

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Brain action directly affects your mind—and conversely, mind action affects your brain. However, this doesn’t mean that your brain is your mind, or vice versa.

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If you know that you aren’t your senses, you won’t automatically conclude that what your senses want is what you want. You’ll know that what your senses may want may not be good for you.

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Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Quotes | Bacteria Have Awareness and Purpose

Researchers seeking the right to patent microorganisms testified before the Supreme Court that scientists cannot draw a line between the living and the nonliving. But contrary to such testimony, matter displays definite characteristics when life is present that it does not display when life is not present.


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However rudimentary the awareness of bacteria may be, it does exist. Bacteria also have a sense of self-awareness, as indicated by the fact that their observable activities seem to center on survival.


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Awareness is your natural attribute—indeed, your essence—that makes this witnessing and observing possible. As such, awareness cannot be separated from you, the self.


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Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Quotes | The Body Is A Computer/Machine

The body is a computer/machine that needs an operator in order to be of value; and the unique nature of each and every body is that it is basically a private computer/machine. It is almost impossible for one person to use someone else’s computer/machine. I can’t operate your body and you can’t operate mine.

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A materialist identifies the person they love with the physical body that person inhabited. Therefore when that person or atma leaves their body and just a corpse remains, the materialist will not know what to think. He will be frightened and confused by the corpse -- because although the body is present, his beloved is not.

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You don’t need to have an out-of-body experience in order to know that your existence does not depend on the existence of your body.

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Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Quotes | The Struggle to Enjoy

Most of us—whether rich or poor, educated or uneducated, civilized or uncivilized—are struggling to enjoy our senses. This is due to false identification with the body.

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In reality, the glossy picture of the “happy rich person” that most people hold in their minds is simply an illusion. Money can buy sense gratification, but not actual happiness or satisfaction.

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Sense gratification does not satisfy. This is further evidence that you are not the body. No matter how much sense pleasure you have, you are still never satisfied within.

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Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Quotes | Sri Ishopanishad Mantra Eleven

Only one who can learn the process of nescience and that of transcendental knowledge side by side can transcend the influence of repeated birth and death and enjoy the full blessing of immortality.

~Sri Ishopanishad, Mantra Eleven

Some neophytes on the spiritual path may fall into the illusion that taking care of the body is somehow evil, or a sign of spiritual backwardness. Not only may they neglect the needs of the body, but they may go out of their way to actually damage the body. Such people actually hate the body. They see it as a source of misery, and thus they take out their anger on it. This is certainly a mistake.


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In the same way that the passing of the “childhood” body does not bring about the cessation of your (the self’s) existence, so the passing away of the “old” body will not bring about the cessation of your existence.


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Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Quotes | SPIRITUAL HUNGER

SPIRITUAL HUNGER IN A MATERIAL WORLD
If you believe that you are your body, you will strive endlessly to give your body sensual pleasure. You will struggle to fill up your inner emptiness with fleeting sensual flashes. But no amount of sensual pleasure will satisfy you. No matter how many taste orgasms, sexual orgasms, and other kinds of orgasms you may have, you still won’t be actually satisfied. You’ll always have a never ending desire for more.

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If you wrongly identify yourself with your body—your senses—you will erroneously conclude that you can achieve happiness through material sense gratification.

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No matter how much sensual pleasure people have, no matter how much they consume, they always want more. This endless personal craving manifests as ever increasing material consumption.

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Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Quotes | The Need for Spiritual Happiness

This is why people in modern Western societies are still not satisfied, even though they are so economically advanced and thus have so much facility for sense enjoyment. They always want more. As the late British economist E. F. Schumacher points out:

Is there enough to go round? Immediately we encounter a serious difficulty: What is “enough”? Who can tell us? Certainly not the economist who pursues “economic growth” as the highest of all values and therefore has no concept of “enough.” There are poor societies which have too little; but where is the rich society that says: “Halt! We have enough”? There is none.*

What's really needed is to recognize the need for spiritual as well as material happiness. A society that has great material prosperity but lacks spiritual purpose is really a poor society. A body without the soul is a dead body—even if it is nicely decorated with fancy ornaments.

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*E. F. Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered (New York: Harper and Row, 1973), p. 25.


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The more your senses are in control, the more you are in the position of being controlled by them. Therefore the less free you are.

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Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Quotes | INNER PEACE, SELF-REALIZATION, SOCIAL HARMONY

INNER PEACE, SELF-REALIZATION, SOCIAL HARMONY

The yogi’s interest is inner peace and self-realization and social harmony.

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So a person's entire lifestyle can be dovetailed with his deep purpose in life. Such a person is the controller of his body, not a slave of his senses. Most people are servants of their senses and minds—they are godas (go means “senses”; das means “servant”). A bhakti yogi, however, strives to be a goswami (swami means “master,” and so goswami means “master of the senses”). A goswami is not dragged around by his senses, but instead uses his senses for his own desired purposes. Although goswami is also a title, in fact the real meaning of goswami is controller of the senses, whether one is externally with the title goswami, brahmachari, householder, or whatever.

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It is natural for us to want to be happy, satisfied, and free. But due to ignorance of our true identity, our natural longing becomes misdirected and leads to further bondage and unhappiness.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation