Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Quotes | Karma

KARMA

Everyone is engaged in action. The law of karma means that there are reactions to every action and that a person must endure the reactions to his actions.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

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According to yoga, every action, good or bad, produces some karmic reaction. Actions that are “bad” create bad karmic reactions. A person who engages in heinous criminal actions or who lives simply like an animal, exploiting others, will have to eat the bitter fruit of such actions in the future.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

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Unfortunately, a person who is materialistic, greedy, and self-worshiping wants to take the place of God. He sees himself as the center of the universe. He sees everything and everyone—the world, people, his family, animals, plants, the environment—as revolving around him. He sees everything and everyone as meant for his enjoyment. The world is full of such exploitative people, and they cause so many problems.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

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There is nothing more dangerous to real religion than fanatics who seek to lord over others by force in the name of God.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Quotes | Impersonalist Philosophy: Buddhism

The no-self philosophy has so many weaknesses, but none so glaring as its main premise—that you, the self, do not really exist. Nothing is more real to each of us than our own existence.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

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Although both Buddhist and modern no-self philosophers contend that there is no self, Buddhist followers do not tend toward hedonism.

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Modern no-self philosophers say that when the gross body is finished, the illusion of the self ceases. The Buddhists claim that the mind is different from the gross body, and that the mind continues to exist even after the gross body has died. As long as this mind continues to exist, then there is a continuation of embodiments. So the Buddhist’s aim is for no more mind—because when there is no more mind, then there will be no gross physical body. And since there is nothing other than the mind covered by the gross physical body—no atma within or covered by the mind—that leaves nothing.

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Buddhists do not believe in a life of hedonism because they believe in the law of karma (that is, a person’s actions in this life will affect his existence in his next life) and because they preach that happiness can be obtained not through sensual enjoyment but only through ceasing to exist (the bliss of nonexistence—nirvana).

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Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Quotes | Impersonalist Philosophy: No-Self

The no-self philosophy allows charlatans to believe (and to persuade others) that they have already gone past the search for enlightenment and successfully come out the other side. It allows them to feel they’ve answered the questions: “Who am I?” and “What is the purpose of my existence?” Their answer is: “I am nothing. I don’t really exist. Therefore there is no purpose.” Since there is no self and no purpose, there is also (so they say) no will. Will power is supposed to be the attribute of the self; but if there is no self, then “will power” is really just an illusion. So is responsibility for one’s actions. Therefore any attempt to use will to control the senses is really a symptom of ignorance. The symptom of enlightenment, on the other hand, is to go with the flow of the body—the urges of the senses—without “hang-ups.”

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If a person sees himself as the Supreme Enjoyer, he will automatically live a life of exploitation. He will not respect others or the environment, nor will he care for the well-being of others. He will lead a hedonistic life of unrestricted sense enjoyment, lording over everything and everyone. Although human in form, he will be no more than an animal who lives by the philosophy “might makes right.”

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The no-self philosophy is made to order for people (for the most part highly educated) who really can’t or won’t make the necessary effort and sacrifice to become enlightened masters of the senses but who nonetheless wish to think of themselves as enlightened and wise.

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Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Quotes | Impersonalist Philosophy: Am I God?

AM I GOD?

The impersonalist “I am God”ist Swami Muktananda advised his students:

Meditate on your Self. Honor and worship your own Self. Kneel to your Self, because the supreme reality, the highest truth lives within you as you.*

Obviously, such an “I am God”ist or impersonalist can be very dangerous to others and society. Many of these “I am God”ists end up as the most extreme of all hedonists—having illicit sex with their disciples, drinking alcohol, taking drugs, smoking, eating meat, and engaging in all kinds of debauchery. They declare that they can do so without being contaminated karmically because they are so “spiritually advanced.” At the moment, the Western world (as well as India) is crawling with such charlatans.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

*Swami Muktananda, Getting Rid of What You Haven’t Got (Oakland: S.Y.D.A. Foundation, 1978), p. 43.

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Rajneesh, infamous for his advocation of “free sex” among his thousands of Western disciples, writes:

The word “brahmacharya” means that you have come to attain, you have come to know that you are the Brahman, the ultimate, the divine, that you are God Himself.1

Satya Sai Baba, India's most famous contemporary mystic and “holy” man, says:

You have not heard Me fully; I say I am God; I say also that you are God. The difference is that I know it and you do not know it.²

The idea of the “I am God”ists is that each of us is actually the Supreme Spirit, but that somehow we forgot our true identity as God and came under the spell of ignorance. So you are supposedly God, the Supreme Being, but you are now caught under the laws of material nature. You are supposedly the Supreme Lord, but you are now bound on the wheel of birth and death. It is an absurd proposition.


Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

1Rajneesh, Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, vol. 3, p. 36.
2Andrew Shaw, Words of Truth: A Second Compilation of Sayings by Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba (New Delhi: Sterling Publishers Private Ltd., 1998), p. 7.

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The chief historical proponent of such “I am God”ism philosophy was Sripad Shankaracharya. Shankaracharya lived and preached throughout India in the eighth century. The preaching of Shankaracharya and his followers was so strong that, practically speaking, it drove Buddhism out of India. Today, throughout India and the world, Shankaracharya's teachings (or slight variations of them) are still having a tremendous influence on people.

In Calcutta, India, for example, we can see the ridiculous sight of a starving, sore-infested man meditating on the side of the road: “I am God. I am God.” In America and Europe, you'll find many so-called yogis and gurus who are directly or indirectly in Shankaracharya's line of “I am God” ism teachers.


Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Quotes | Seeing the Universe from the Point of View of Sri Ishopanishad

LEARNING FROM HISTORY

In this world, people are always fighting over property. They want to stake their claims of ownership on both the living and the nonliving. According to the Sri Ishopanishad, these people are like thieves fighting over stolen loot. If we look at the question from the relatively short-term view, we may find it hard to accept that no one is really an owner of anything. But if we adopt the point of view of the Sri Ishopanishad—which sees the universe not in terms of decades, centuries, or even thousands of years, but in terms of many millions of years—then we can understand this point.

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If you understand that you are not your body, then you’ll understand that a life of false lordship and sense gratification will not satisfy you. Therefore, you will not see the gaining of material wealth and power as the goal of your life. You won’t feel that you need things that in fact you don’t really need. Therefore, you won’t be driven to try to get something “at any cost”—including the cost of your life, someone else’s life, or imprisonment.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation


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It’s clear that the root cause of crime—at least in the West—is not the lack of the basic necessities of survival. The root cause of our crime problem is the lack of wisdom and inner spiritual satisfaction.

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Your aim should be to come to understand your true identity as soon as possible so you can start acting on that fact.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Quotes | The Understanding That Comes With Knowing You Are Not Your Body

If you understand that you are not your body, then you’ll understand that a life of false lordship and sense gratification will not satisfy you. Therefore, you will not see the gaining of material wealth and power as the goal of your life. You won’t feel that you need things that in fact you don’t really need. Therefore, you won’t be driven to try to get something “at any cost”—including the cost of your life, someone else’s life, or imprisonment.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

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If a person engages in the process of bhakti yoga and yet continues to engage in activities that are detrimental to spiritual progress, his spiritual progress will be very slow. This does not mean that a person must be completely free of all bad habits before he can even begin the process of bhakti yoga. For example, in the Philippines, one teacher saved many young people who were addicted to heroin and other drugs by teaching them the process of bhakti yoga. It took some time before they could completely give up all drugs; but eventually they did.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

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The negative social results of a society populated primarily by hedonistic people should be obvious to anyone. A society of self-centered, animalistic people who have no other interest than their own sense enjoyment cannot be at all peaceful or progressive—either materially or spiritually.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation