Jagad Guru Chris Butler | Quotes | An Enlightened Person Fully Understands His Identity

If you erroneously identify yourself with your body, you will conclude that your existence will end with the destruction of your body. But if you know that you are the eternal self within the body, you know that your existence will not end when your body dies.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

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An enlightened person sees the body as a garment that he is only wearing and using temporarily.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

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An enlightened person fully understands his identity as an eternal particle of life, unborn and undying.

Siddhswarupananda

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A person who understands that (1) one day the body will cease existing, and that (2) he himself will not cease existing, naturally becomes less interested in material gain and material pursuits (which he knows will be taken away one day) and becomes more interested in making spiritual advancement—advancement in wisdom, love, and compassion.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

Jagad Guru Chris Butler | Quotes | False Identification Leads to Bondage and Unhappiness

It is natural for us to want to be happy, satisfied, and free. But due to ignorance of our true identity, our natural longing becomes misdirected and leads to further bondage and unhappiness.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

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Most of us—whether rich or poor, educated or uneducated, civilized or uncivilized—are struggling to enjoy our senses. This is due to false identification with the body.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

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If you believe that you are your body, you will strive endlessly to give your body sensual pleasure. You will struggle to fill up your inner emptiness with fleeting sensual flashes. But no amount of sensual pleasure will satisfy you. No matter how many taste orgasms, sexual orgasms, and other kinds of orgasms you may have, you still won’t be actually satisfied. You’ll always have a never ending desire for more.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

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Why does a person claim ownership of a thing or of another person? To control it or them. And why does he want to control it? Usually because he wants to be the enjoyer of it.

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 | Quotes | Value of the Body

What are you worth? Your physical body made of various chemicals is not really worth very much. It may be worth $5 or $10, but is that all you are worth? Is that all your wife or your child, or your friend, or your mother, or your father are worth?

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


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The real value of the body lies not in the organization of its components, but rather in the self, in the person who operates and uses that body.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation


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Without the self to operate the body, that body—as complex and organized as it is—is of no more value than a bag of chemicals.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation


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The body and individual body parts are valuable only so long as a self can use them. If there is no self who can use the body, then it is of no value.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

Siddhaswarupananda Knowledge

Discovering your Real Identity

What is your essence? Is it matter—a mere collection of material atoms and molecules? Or is it something else?

Siddhaswarupananda

“Who am I?” Maybe you’ve never even asked yourself this question. You might think you already know who you are. Unfortunately, however, it’s likely that you don’t know who you are at all. And if you don’t know your real identity, you’re in trouble. You’ll spend your life in a kind of dream state—you’ll falsely identify yourself as something or someone you aren’t. Then, on the basis of this false identification, you’ll determine the goals of your life and the purpose of your existence. You use these goals to gauge whether you are making “progress” in life, whether you are a “success.” And you are aided and abetted in this delusion by a complex network of relationships with other dreamers. Of course, at death (and sometimes before), the whole thing turns into a nightmare.

So knowing who you are is a very practical necessity. The question “Who am I?” is not a philosophical football meant to be kicked around coffeehouses by pseudo-intellectuals. It’s a real-life question. Nothing is more important and more relevant than to know who you are.

Siddhaswarupananda

The Search for Perfect Wisdom

The search for wisdom is a great challenge; to act on wisdom is an even greater challenge. To accept that you are spiritual in essence, that you are an eternal spark of life force, is to open the door on a whole new life. There are many questions now, and there will be many more questions ahead. There are many internal and external pressures against accepting and acting on this truth, and there will be even greater pressures in the future. So yes, it is challenging—just like running the Boston marathon is challenging, or trying to climb Mt. Everest is challenging. But unlike such “sporting,” “part-time” challenges, the search for perfect wisdom and the attempt to live by such wisdom is an ongoing eternal challenge—and it is real. Thus, only the most courageous people will actually accept this challenge. The ignorant, the fearful, and the lazy will remain as they are.

Siddhaswarupananda

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.

Siddhaswarupananda

Jagad Guru Chris Butler | Quotes | The More Your Senses are in Control the Less Free You Are

If you wrongly identify yourself with your body—your senses—you will erroneously conclude that you can achieve happiness through material sense gratification.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation


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The more your senses are in control, the more you are in the position of being controlled by them. Therefore the less free you are.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation


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Yogis have a meditation technique that helps them to realize that they are not the body. All day long they say to themselves, “I am aware that I am doing such-and-such.” By doing this they experience a type of detachment from their body and its activities. While a yogi is eating, for example, he’ll say to himself. “I am aware that I am eating … I am aware that I am tasting something sweet.” He doesn’t dive into the taste—rather, he is a little apart from it. He gradually becomes detached from all the body’s activities, sensations, feelings, and so on. He is aware that things are happening, but he’s untouched by it. He’s free from the movement of the waves of sensations, thoughts, and so on that pass over him. He’s the calm center of the storm that rages all around him. Such a yogi and a hedonist are exact opposites in consciousness. The yogi stands apart from the body and the hedonist dives into it—trying to savor every pleasant sensual tingle. And by diving into the sensual gratification, he is diving into the material senses—that is, he is becoming more deeply immersed in false bodily identification.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation


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The yogi’s interest is inner peace and self-realization and social harmony.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

Jagad Guru Chris Butler | Quotes | Your Mind is Like a Filing Cabinet

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


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The mind is the seat of all material desires.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation


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The mind is intricately linked to the brain, just as the brain is linked to the rest of the body. The mind is also intricately linked to you, the self. The mind (and the intelligence) connect you to the brain and thus to the rest of the body.

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