--- In [email protected], "seekliberation" <seekliberat...@...> wrote: > > I didn't mean to get on a soapbox about it, sorry if it > seemed that way. It was just a little frustration that > i've had for the last 20 years seeing all these psychic/ > astrological predictions that some magical wave of > consciousness is overcome us all and create a heavenly > wave that will lift us all above our current condition > just like that, no doing on our part at all.
The Rama guy I worked with for a while described this phenomenon (quite accur- ately, in my opinion) in two words: SELF IMPORTANCE Interestingly, if you Google some of the articles surrounding the Y2K non-event, you'll find a number of scholarly articles that point out that *there has never been a time in history that humans weren't claiming that the Apocalypse was right around the corner*. The scholars' theory for why this is true? Same as my former teacher's -- self impor- tance. Everyone likes to believe that THEY are so important that the world revolves around THEM, and that therefore the era THEY were born into is the most importantest, ever. Add to this the rejection of Here And Now and pleasures *in* the Here And Now that many spiritual groups espouse, and you have a potent formula for creating a psychic dependence on a belief in the Afterlife, or in some kind of "Beam me up, Scotty" Apocalypse/Rapture event to "save" them -- again, because THEY are so important that *of course* THEY will be the ones saved. I completely agree with you on this subject: the extent to which a supposed spiritual seeker focuses on Apocalypse fantasies or Doomsday fantasies or The Second Coming or *however* you choose to dress it up reveals the degree of *poverty* inherent in their Here And Now spiritual path, not its depth or profundity. Who would be so focused on some imagined future *except* someone who is incapable of fully appreciating the joys and the wonder of the present? > My only argument was that it's not quite as bad as most > people think... Again, I agree. One of the common spiritual fantasies that goes hand in hand with promising "Heaven On Earth...someday" is a belief that "Things Were Better Way Back Then," in the "Vedic" era or in the "Atlantean" era or whenever. History tells us this is not true. So does common sense. We actually *DO* have a better quality of life Here And Now than in most times in the past, and yet People Complain More. Go figure. Buncha whiners, if you ask me. The bottom line from my perspective is a simple misreading of The Nature Of Time by so-called spiritual seekers. Many of them envision enlight- enment or whatever their spiritual goal is as something that will happen in the future. But enlightenment NEVER happens in the future. It only happens Here And Now, to someone who is fully **IN** the Here And Now. Those who are busy waiting for it to magically appear sometime in the future will be waiting forever, because it (enlightenment) NEVER appears there. It can't; it's very *nature* is Now-ness.
