56. How the innate motives of your mind and heart lead you to your Cosmic identity.

Enlightenment with Rishi Atma Bodha

Not everything "natural" is good for you. Natural poisons exist. This is the purpose of discernment. To discern is to recognize the difference between healthy and unhealthy. Just as not all plants are healthy for you, so also not all ideologies are healthy for you. This includes spiritual ideologies.

The group doesn't come first, before the individual. Fish don't swim in schools when threatened to protect the group. Each fish is only looking to save their own butt. They are not forced to comply with this group formation by any government authority, they are choosing based on their own individual and instinctual self-interest.

This is true of all animals. No animal puts the group ahead of themselves, except in the insect world, and even then they just do what is in their DNA to do. They don't need to be compelled by some outside authority. There are those in modern society that want us to conform like robots.

These ideas of good and bad must come from within the individual. Diversity is wonderful because we each have different likes and dislikes. The Ultimate can appreciate the Best in all things. So if there is even 1 in a billion that can relish even the worst stench and love it, God through that person loves it too.

We each can be an expression of God on Earth, and the closer we can remove the limitations of our minds and receive this empowerment from the Highest, the more we can be True to our individual authenticity.

How the mind reacts to the external is less about materialism and more about the nature of the mind. The mind exists in the place between the physical and the spiritual. Thus, the secret to liberating the mind is best coached in concepts it can understand.

Those who are materially successful are most often idealistic. Why do people want wealth? They want to live the life of their dreams, the most ideal life. Why are places like VRchat popular? Because they can live a more idyllic fantasy. When they think they can't get what they want from outside life, they turn to virtual life or computer games or books or movies. This is not a rejection of spirituality but a misunderstood affirmation of it. The deeper into the material world you get, the more money you get, the more you want nicer things. Nicer = more ideal. This innate yearning for the ideal is the mind's way of seeking for Absolute Truth.

To see the One Living Truth in all things is to see how various beliefs and ideologies have commonalities that are governed by the nature of the mind itself.

It is natural for you to want to pursue Excellence. We choose that which we perceive as the wisest or most excellent or most pleasurable or most powerful thing to do. These concepts can oppose each other and you can seperate them, or you can recognize that they all are aspects of the highest Truth and the reason your mind finds any of these concepts attractive is in its inherent nature to seek Truth.

Selfishness with a capital S is good.. with a small s is bad. Not because it's bad for others, but because it is bad for yourself in that it reinforces a limited understanding of who you are.

Evil hates being inferior so it will lie and puff itself up and try to make itself look as wonderful as possible.

All evil can do is lie because the truth is superior to any evil.

The following analogy can help put physical reality in proper context:

There's an ancient primordial wager between God and devil. The devil told God that if it was able to have all the power to create temptations and sensual amusements, that he could make humans forget their own divinity.

God disagreed and told the devil that the bet was on.

Now, coming towards the end of this bet, God said that humanity will all choose Truth in the end, not because of external reasons, but because of the commonality that exists within the heart of each person. With each heart yearning for love and each mind yearning For Truth, the power of the materialists will be defied and a new kingdom be created. In this way, darkness is defied and humanity deified.