Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Quotes on No-Self Philosophers

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.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

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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.

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.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

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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).

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation




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

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Quotes on Genetic Engineering and Respect for Life

The Supreme Court has ruled that genetic technology or engineering that deals with the manipulation of the bodies of living organisms is no different from any other technology that deals in the manipulation of matter.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

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As far as the Supreme Court is concerned, a machine is a machine, a product is a product, an invention is an invention. There is no difference between a so-called living invention or a living machine and a nonliving machine or nonliving invention.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

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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.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

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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.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

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Mankind doesn’t own the lower or higher species of life.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

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The basis of ethical protest against genetic engineering on lower and higher species is respect. And the basis of our respect for living beings is our perception of a fundamental distinction between the living and the nonliving. We see life as special. Without that respect for the living, there is no basis for protesting the treatment of the living as if they were nonliving.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Quotes: The Impersonalist Yogi Can Be Very Dangerous

An impersonalist yogi can be very dangerous because he may try to take the position of the Supreme Lord, believing himself to be the Supreme dominator and enjoyer of all that he surveys. This is the darkest region of ignorance. He may try to act on the illusion that he is God and that the world is his playground. He may become, in other words, a “super-hedonist.” One such “I am God”ist, Richard Alpert (Ram Dass), formerly a professor at Harvard University, declares that no one exists except oneself, and that after merging with the impersonal Brahman, one returns to the world and is the world and is everyone.

If you come back into form from having merged with God ... you fill the forms [bodies] though there is no one home, it is just more lila, the dance of God.1

The late Swami Muktananda, a well-known “I am God”ist who had thousands of followers, wrote:

Assuming physical bodies, He appears as separate entities.2

According to the “I am God”ist, the apparent existence of others is just a hallucination. And since you are God, you are the creator of the laws of the universe (or as Ram Dass puts it, “You are the laws of the universe!”).3 And since you are the laws of the universe—since you are God—then there is no higher person or law to which you must subject yourself. Your will, your desire, is God's desire—God's will—so there is no need whatsoever to check or control your desires or actions. As another “I am God”ist, Werner Erhard puts it:

What you're doing is what God wants you to do. Be happy.4

So according to the “I am God”ist, since you and I—each of us—is God, whatever you and I and others are doing is what God wants us to do. You can be engaging in the most illicit or the most heinous activities, but since you are God, you are doing the will of God. Your will is God's will. In other words, he believes his will is God's will because he wrongly believes he is God.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

1Ram Dass, Grist for the Mill (Santa Cruz, CA: Unity Press, 1976), p. 166.
2Swami Muktananda, Siddha Meditation, p. 59.
3Ram Dass, Remember, Be Here Now (Albuquerque, NM: Lama Foundation, 1971), p. 86.
4Quoted in Adelaide Bry, est (Erhard Seminars Training): 60 Hours That Transform Your Life (New York: Harper and Row, 1976), p. 66.

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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

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There's a saying: “Misery likes company.” So-called religious fanatics are so miserable that they want to create as much havoc in society as possible. They want others to join them in their misery.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation


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