Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Sense Enjoyment & Satisfaction

Often people try so hard to find happiness through sense pleasure that they may attempt to gratify several or all of their senses at the same time. For example, you may simultaneously be watching TV, listening to the radio, munching potato chips, sipping beer, and smoking a cigarette. Perhaps you may have your arm around the shoulders of your girlfriend or boyfriend. You may also have a magazine at your side, which you look at during commercials. You try to fill up every sense; yet still you’re not satisfied; still you want something more.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

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Nor is sense gratification considered “bad.” Sense gratification comes and goes as a natural occurrence of the senses. For example, one cannot eat without tasting. The point is that a life that is centered around sense enjoyment, that makes sense enjoyment the goal, is a wasted life. Economic development is necessary for the maintenance of the body; so therefore it cannot be neglected. But to seek economic development simply for the sake of endlessly increasing sensual pleasure is foolish. No amount of sensual pleasure will ever really satisfy a person, so no amount of economic development will ever be considered “enough.” 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.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

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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.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation


~ Jagad Guru (Jagad Guru Chris Butler)
© 2008 Science of Identity Foundation

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Out-of-Body Experiences

The fact is that you know you existed five years ago, and you know you exist today. Although you still exist, you know that the body you had five years ago does not exist today. Therefore, you know that your existence is not dependent on the existence of any one body you may have on at any particular moment—whether it is a “baby” body, an “adolescent” body, an “old” body, or whatever.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

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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.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

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An out-of-body experience may help a person who is immersed in bodily consciousness, who is very cynical, who is without faith in the teachings of past sages and scripture, or who is unable to understand his nonmaterial essence through various methods of analytical study and meditation. This direct experience may jolt him out of his bodily consciousness and thus out of his false identification with the body. This, in turn, can awaken in him a sincere longing for a deep, spiritual purpose in life.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation


~ Jagad Guru (Jagad Guru Chris Butler)
© 2008 Science of Identity Foundation

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Three Simple Questions

THREE SIMPLE QUESTIONS

Let me ask you a few simple questions: Do you exist at this moment? Did you exist five years ago? Are you your body? Most people would answer “yes” to all three questions. But if you identify your body as yourself, and simultaneously accept that you exist now and also existed five years ago, then you have a problem: The body you had five years ago does not exist today. There is a dynamic turnover of atoms and molecules which make up your body. There isn’t a single particle of matter—not one atom—present in your body today that was present five years ago. The body you have today is not the same body you had five years ago. It’s not that the body you had still exists but has now changed somewhat. No. The body you had is gone. That collection of atoms appearing as flesh, bone, blood, hair, and so on no longer exists. Yet you still exist.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

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Recent studies at the Oak Ridge Atomic Research Center have revealed that about 98 percent of all the atoms in a human body are replaced every year. You get a new suit of skin every month and a new liver every six weeks. The lining of your stomach lasts only five days before it’s replaced. Even your bones are not the solid, stable, concrete-like things you might have thought them to be: They are undergoing constant change. The bones you have today are different from the bones you had a year ago. Experts in this area of research have concluded that there is a complete, 100 percent turnover of atoms in the body at least every five years. In other words, not one single atom present in your body today was there five years ago.*

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

* Taken from Guy Murchie, The Seven Mysteries of Life (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1978), pp. 321-22.

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Your body has a beginning and an end; your body is subject to birth and death; but you, the spark of life within the body, are eternal.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation


~ Jagad Guru (Jagad Guru Chris Butler)
© 2008 Science of Identity Foundation

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Death Is Not the End of Your Existence

Most people who have actually experienced leaving their bodies and existing outside their bodies no longer identify their bodies as themselves. They know that they can and will exist without the body. They no longer view death as the end of their existence.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

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However, neither the Sri Ishopanishad nor any other Vedic literature recommends that

we neglect bodily needs. Bhagavad-gita states:

There is no possibility of one's becoming a yogi, O Arjuna, if one eats too much, or eats too little, sleeps too much or does not sleep enough.

~Bhagavad-gita 6:16

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

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The faculty of intelligence is superior to the mind.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation


~ Jagad Guru (Jagad Guru Chris Butler)
© 2008 Science of Identity Foundation

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Needs and Greed

There is enough in the world to fulfill everyone’s needs, but not enough to fulfill everyone’s greed. In some parts of the world, people are dying from severe undernourishment, while in other parts of the world people are dying from obesity.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

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Because it is the self who uses the body, this self sees value in the body. Other people see value in the body of some other self primarily because the body is a means by which that self communicates with them, expresses love to them, works for them, and so on.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation


~ Jagad Guru (Jagad Guru Chris Butler)
© 2008 Science of Identity Foundation

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Goswami

A person who tries to be a goswami is careful not to engage in those activities that are harmful to his spiritual development. For example, he refrains from taking intoxicants (including all sorts of drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, and so on); from having illicit sex; from gambling; and from eating meat, fish, and eggs.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

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The senses (whether they are the “normal” senses or “extra” senses) are really just channels by which information from the external world travels to and is impressed upon the mind. The self, then, perceives or views that information as it appears on the mind.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation


~ Jagad Guru (Jagad Guru Chris Butler)
© 2008 Science of Identity Foundation

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Consciousness

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.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

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Despite the difference between sense perception and thoughts and feelings, both are perceived by you, the self. Both are seen or perceived, whereas you are the seer or perceiver.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation


~ Jagad Guru (Jagad Guru Chris Butler)
© 2008 Science of Identity Foundation

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - No-Self Philosophy

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.”

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

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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


~ Jagad Guru (Jagad Guru Chris Butler)
© 2008 Science of Identity Foundation

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - 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.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

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The Bhagavad-gita describes eight different layers of material energy. Going from gross to subtle, they are earth, water, fire, air, ether (sky), mind, intelligence, and false ego (the tendency to identify with matter—the body, mind, and so on).

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

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Every one of us continues to live, even though our childhood bodies have long disappeared. Your “baby” body and “childhood” body have ceased existing, but you have not ceased existing.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation


~ Jagad Guru (Jagad Guru Chris Butler)
© 2008 Science of Identity Foundation

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Watching Your Dreams

Watching Your Dreams

Tonight, as you are lying in bed almost ready to fall asleep, watch your body fall asleep. Mentally say to yourself, “I am aware that my body is falling asleep.” As you fall deeper and deeper into sleep, there is a good chance that you will begin dreaming. In this state you will be half-awake, half-asleep. Watch these dreams. Mentally say to yourself as the dream begins, “I am aware that I am dreaming.” By persisting in this practice, you will eventually be aware that you are dreaming, even in deep sleep. But this ability is only a side benefit; the real point is to experience yourself as the viewer of the stream of mindstuff.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

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If the mind is to be controlled, who is to control it? Who is trying to control the mind? It is the self. You, the self, try to control your mind. The mind is your possession. It is not you.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation


~ Jagad Guru (Jagad Guru Chris Butler)
© 2008 Science of Identity Foundation

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Perfection: Being In Tune With Reality

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.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

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When we are attracted to a person, what we are really attracted to is the particle of life, i.e., atma. Without the presence of this atma, without life, you see a body for what it really is: just a hunk of blood, guts, flesh, bones, teeth, stool, mucus, hair, urine, bile, and so on—a bag of chemicals. The monetary value of this bag of chemicals called the material body is about $9. ...

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation


~ Jagad Guru (Jagad Guru Chris Butler)
© 2008 Science of Identity Foundation

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - The Mind

The mind is the seat of all material desires.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

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Because your mind and brain are intricately “hooked up,” if your brain is stimulated in a particular place, it may cause certain forms, images, memories, and so on to come to the surface of your mind. These are then viewed by you. Your mind is the filing cabinet where all memories, desires, and so on are stored.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

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When you close your eyes and watch your thoughts, it is the mind that you, the self, are viewing, not the brain. The stream of mindstuff (the stream of thoughts, feelings, and so on) is all within the mind. The mind, not the brain, is the storehouse of memory.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation


~ Jagad Guru (Jagad Guru Chris Butler)
© 2008 Science of Identity Foundation

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Root Cause of Crime

The fact that there are at least as many “wealthy” criminals as there are “poor” criminals effectively destroys the materialists’ theory that the root cause of crime is poverty and that the solution to the crime problem is to make everybody rich. Obviously, if poverty were the cause of crime, then no wealthy people would commit crimes. Besides, the term “poverty” is relative. A poor American, for example, would be a wealthy Ethiopian.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

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Criminologists and social scientists have almost completely overlooked the fact that materialism is the root cause of crime. False identification of the body as the self leads people to believe that sense enjoyment will make them happy and satisfied; and most crimes are directly or indirectly connected with the attempt to find satisfaction in sense enjoyment.


Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation


~ Jagad Guru (Jagad Guru Chris Butler)
© 2008 Science of Identity Foundation

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Racism

Racism is the identification of a person/self according to the race of the body that self is in. This is like identifying people with their shirts. If you walk along the street, you will see many different-colored shirts. If one of those shirts is purple, you don’t see the person wearing that shirt as a purple person; you see him as someone who merely is wearing a purple shirt. Racism is based on the inability to see that different-colored bodies are just like different-colored shirts.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

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History has shown us that our tendency to colonize and exploit other regions has always backfired. This planet can be made a happier, more peaceful place to live in, but the change will have to come from within the hearts of all of us living here.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Karma

KARMA

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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Hatred and conflict are often rooted in differences between people of different races and religions. We all need to respect people of different races as well as people of different faiths and religions. We need to unite by recognizing our common desire and need for a harmonious society—a society in which we and our children and families and friends and communities can all live our lives in peace and harmony. Regardless of our race or religion, we all want and need such social harmony.

Without respect for people of different races or ethnicities or religions, how can we have a peaceful and harmonious society or world? And without a harmonious society, how can there be the necessary economic development and atmosphere conducive to spiritual happiness and self-realization?

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation



~ Jagad Guru (Jagad Guru Chris Butler)
© 2008 Science of Identity Foundation