Cheating Heart Disease
Editorial By William Roberts
Published – Wednesday, October 17, 2001 – Ojai Valley Voice
Ojai is a microcosm of artists, new age practitioners and sidewalk pontificators. We got the pretzel yogi, the silent bogies, and the beatnik roguies. But very few of these individuals actually have any legitimate training in the deeper spiritual conclusions found in India’s Vedic literature. The following article helps the untrained lay reader understand where and how many of the current metaphysical teachers fail to be philosophically consistent despite the effectiveness of their well-practiced smoke and mirrors performance.
An epidemic of Cheating Heart Disease (CHD) has broken loose and it is infecting millions of unsuspecting individuals. The symptoms of CHD are delirium, marked by an acute lack of behavioral consistency and apathy for common sense. In the advanced stage, CHD can seriously impair judgement and may lead to a false notion of social invulnerability. Chronic CHD is evident when one frequently says things like: “I know I’m right because I feel it in my heart.”
Epidemiologists warn that those who grow up in a hostile environment, or are unfamiliar with forgiveness, compassion, empathy, affection or unmotivated love, are very vulnerable to CHD. Those inflicted usually refuse treatment just as persons suffering from substance abuse often do. CHD is also very contagious and when it infects one demographic community, it is known as “Group Think” and can quickly evolve into a malignant “cult.”
CHD is controllable by the erudite when they are respected and empowered to lead. However, the milieu that evolved since the “Age Of Reason” came and went has been ideal for CHD to fester and proliferate. The scientific method led to the industrial revolution and when the Allies won WWII, we experienced prosperity like no other society has ever known. In the 60’s we were introduced to the Age of Aquarius, while the Beatles convinced us that “All we need is love,” and Timothy Leery preached “Turn on, tune in, and drop out.”
Meanwhile the world shrunk, and self-promoting New Age gurus sprouted everywhere to respond to the penetrating questions intelligent people have and conventional religions could no longer answer. The result is an abundance of feel-good, warm-fuzzy, surrogate messiahs pedaling CHD in the form of pithy platitudes to a gullible public. Using bits and pieces of philosophy plagiarized from other sources, many of these “teachers” evangelize the overexploited placebo: “You are God”
Psychologists, historians, philosophers, and behavioral scientists use the “law of the pendulum” to explain why people replace one extreme behavior with an opposite one. This accounts for the reason why there has been such an outbreak of CHD. Society’s infatuation with computers, space missions, global positioning devices and teleconferencing attribute to what the mind of man can achieve, but they do not fulfill the yearning of the heart. Eventually even a die-hard channel surfer realizes that 120 stations of high-definition-surround-sound-television simply cannot satisfy the soul. When that happens, a charismatic spiritual charlatan shows up and lures the materially exhausted into a CHD infected seminar.
Recent cases of untreated CHD illustrate how fatal it can be. In San Diego, persons with terminal CHD ceremoniously donned Nike sneakers, veiled themselves in a purple shroud, drank poison and then lay down to die. Forensic studies indicated that all the victims had such a virulent case of CHD they actually believed that they could hitch a ride back to the Pearly Gates on the Hale Bop Comet!
The ancient sages of India were quite aware of how dangerous the unchecked mind is but they were equally cautious about relying solely on the heart for guidance. They inoculated themselves from CHD by relying on the Vedas. These scriptures are so extraordinary that when one comprehends how exhaustive, consistent, accurate and profound the content is, the only reasonable thing to conclude is that they have a Divine origin. So no matter how “Right” a particular teacher made one feel, if what they taught was not consistent with the Vedas their locutions were considered no more then the sentiments of another conditioned soul.
CHD is an excellent example of how easily fooled we can be by sentiment. Almost everyone has experienced at one time or another how their heart mislead them to trust a member of the opposite sex when it was not appropriate to do so. Such useless sentiments are very distracting to those who are serious about understanding the Absolute truth and the Vedas confirm it:
“He who discards scriptural injunctions and acts according to his own whims attains neither perfection, nor happiness, nor the supreme destination.” – Bhagavad Gita 16.23
Those who suffer from CHD hype themselves into believing that disciplines like yoga, meditation, prayer, or scriptural guidance are crutches for the spiritually immature. They contend that the Absolute Truth cannot be found in a book and they eschew philosophy by simply declaring it an irrelevant byproduct of the mind. They insist that the Absolute Truth is strictly a matter of the heart and they are quite taciturn about what happened to the Space Cadets from San Diego.
The swelling is caused by erectile tissue, identical to that found “down under.” So, does taking a commander cialis worsen one’s sense of smell? That’s a question yet to be answered. (I appreciate that if you’ve just taken a cialis, going around smelling things is probably the last thing on your mind). That’s the moment you start losing hope and confidence sildenafil from india in making love, causing issues in self-esteem and relationships. The development of sync-sound technology and new, icks.org levitra prescription lightweight 16mm cameras allowed documentarians like Maysles to get up close and personal with their subjects and take their frustrations out on others. Neuroscience has introduced mind-changing methods such as viagra discount affirmations and visualization that will give you a new beginning.
Of course, all this conveniently thwarts any intelligent attempt to treat the disease and clears the path for doing whatever one wants as long as it “feels good”. It is also a straw man argument because it completely fails to recognize that the Vedas do not just appeal to ones rational cognitive sense, but they also satisfy the heart.
“This perfection is characterized by one’s ability to see the self by the pure mind and to relish and rejoice in it. In that joyous state, one is situated in boundless happiness realized through transcendental senses. Established thus, one never departs from the truth, and upon gaining this he thinks there is no greater gain. Being situated in such a position, one is never shaken, even in the midst of greatest difficulty.” – Ibid 6.21-22
When CHD misled country singer Hank Williams to a perfidious lover, he rebounded by composing “Your Cheating Heart”. That famous twang also happens to be the perfect sutra for explaining how nearly every New Age Guru feeds their flock, while they fleece their finances and fuel their foolishness. But the perspicacious know that the Absolute Truth can fully satisfy the heart without one having to forsake the intellect. Those who understand this axiomatic truth also know how to distinguish between the truly exalted rare souls and the dime-a-dozen tabloid gurus who are putrescent with unfettered CHD.
About The Author
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William Roberts is a Computer Systems Analyst working at the Port Hueneme Navy Base. He was introduced to Vedic philosophy in 1973 and went to India for several years to study the works of eminent Vaishnava saints. He is an ordained Gaudia Brahmin priest and welcomes all questions or comments. He can be reached at (805) 640-0405.
How To Contact:
William Roberts MBA/MIS, CCP
687 Villanova Road
Ojai, California 93023
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