In Calcutta, India, for example, we can see the ridiculous sight of a starving, sore-infested man meditating on the side of the road: “I am God. I am God.” In America and Europe, you’ll find many so-called yogis and gurus who are directly or indirectly in Shankaracharya’s line of “I am God” ism teachers.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler – Science of Identity Foundation

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The impersonalist “I am God”ist Swami Muktananda advised his students:

Meditate on your Self. Honor and worship your own Self. Kneel to your Self, because the supreme reality, the highest truth lives within you as you.*

Obviously, such an “I am God”ist or impersonalist can be very dangerous to others and society. Many of these “I am God”ists end up as the most extreme of all hedonists—having illicit sex with their disciples, drinking alcohol, taking drugs, smoking, eating meat, and engaging in all kinds of debauchery. They declare that they can do so without being contaminated karmically because they are so “spiritually advanced.” At the moment, the Western world (as well as India) is crawling with such charlatans.
Jagad Guru Chris Butler – Science of Identity Foundation

*Swami Muktananda, Getting Rid of What You Haven’t Got (Oakland: S.Y.D.A. Foundation, 1978), p. 43.

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People cannot remain as materialistic, selfish people and have peace and harmony in the family, society or world.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler – Science of Identity Foundation

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.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler – Science of Identity Foundation

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On a practical level, it’s a lot easier to deny the existence of other selves than it is to deny your own—you have the direct, irrefutable experience of your own existence.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler – Science of Identity Foundation

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Because self-awareness is a completely subjective experience, you cannot directly experience the reality of another self’s existence. Therefore, on a practical level, you cannot deny your own existence, but you find it easy to deny the existence of other selves.

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

Mystic yogis, by the practice of mystic or psychic powers, can do things that ordinary people consider very wonderful and miraculous. Such yogis then exploit the people, claiming that they are God Himself. And millions of foolish people believe such charlatans and blindly follow them. This is very unfortunate.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler – Science of Identity Foundation

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A fake guru wants his followers to believe that he is God Himself—that’s why he tries to impress them with his mystic powers. If the disciple of a phony guru were to express doubts about his guru’s lordship, the guru would surely be angered. So how did Brahma react when Narada asked the questions, “Under whose protection are you standing? And under whom are you working? What is your real position?” And how did he react when Narada asked, “Yet we are moved to wonder about the existence of someone more powerful than you when we think of your great austerities in perfect discipline”? In response, Brahmaji was not angry. In fact, he was extremely pleased.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler – Science of Identity Foundation

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Narada is a perfect example of a bona fide disciple. Even though his guru, Lord Brahma, was immensely powerful, still Narada did not blindly accept him as the Supreme Lord Himself.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler – Science of Identity Foundation

If there is no self in the body, then there is no reason not to treat that body—human or otherwise—the same as we treat any other composition of matter. The no-self world view is the basis, the rationale, for the uninhibited exploitation of other living entities.

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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“Awareness” refers to that inseparable, essential, inherent attribute of yours, the self, which enables you to perceive thoughts, feelings, the world, etc., and indeed your own existence (self awareness = awareness that “I am”).

Jagad Guru Chris Butler – Science of Identity Foundation

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Awareness is your natural attribute—indeed, your essence—that makes this witnessing and observing possible. As such, awareness cannot be separated from you, the self.

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

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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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

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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

Jagad Guru Chris Butler – Science of Identity Foundation

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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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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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Brain action directly affects your mind—and conversely, mind action affects your brain. However, this doesn’t mean that your brain is your mind, or vice versa.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler – Science of Identity Foundation

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Intelligence is that neutral faculty which you use to analyze and pick out important bits of information from the mind in order to make and/or achieve certain goals and plans. It enables you to understand. The faculty of intelligence is superior to the mind.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler – Science of Identity Foundation

If there is understanding of the difference between the body and the soul then, just as we don’t neglect to supply the physical with food, similarly, we don’t live in the illusion that our inner craving or emptiness can be satisfied by endless material consumption.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler – Science of Identity Foundation

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Most people are not concerned about the problems we are creating on earth. Our whole attitude towards this planet is that it is disposable. Everyone thinks that they can take anything they want, exploit it, and then conveniently throw it away. So many things have become disposable, not only diapers, towels, plates and spoons, but babies, wives, husbands and old people too.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler – Science of Identity Foundation

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Due to the desire for sense pleasures, people try to conquer nature but end up destroying the world.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler – Science of Identity Foundation

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SENSE PLEASURE
Sense pleasure, although real, is quite superficial. It comes and goes quickly. It cannot compare to the sweet taste of spiritual love.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler – Science of Identity Foundation

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Material happiness is likened to trying to drink from an ocean of salty water.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler – Science of Identity Foundation

Jagad Guru Chris Butler – Science of Identity Foundation

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If a person sees himself as the Supreme Enjoyer, he will automatically live a life of exploitation. He will not respect others or the environment, nor will he care for the well-being of others. He will lead a hedonistic life of unrestricted sense enjoyment, lording over everything and everyone. Although human in form, he will be no more than an animal who lives by the philosophy “might makes right.”

Jagad Guru Chris Butler – Science of Identity Foundation

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In this world, people are always fighting over property. They want to stake their claims of ownership on both the living and the nonliving. According to the Sri Ishopanishad, these people are like thieves fighting over stolen loot. If we look at the question from the relatively short-term view, we may find it hard to accept that no one is really an owner of anything. But if we adopt the point of view of the Sri Ishopanishad—which sees the universe not in terms of decades, centuries, or even thousands of years, but in terms of many millions of years—then we can understand this point.

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 – Science of Identity Foundation

There’s nothing wrong with differences in external appearance, labels, and external function. In fact, such differences are necessary and valuable. The problem arises when we falsely identify with our bodies and all the bodily labels and functions.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler – Science of Identity Foundation

As a yogi, you see the body that covers you—the pure atma or self—as being made of layers of material energy, from the subtle to the gross.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler – Science of Identity Foundation

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

The subtle layers of matter that first cover you—such as the mind, intelligence, and false ego—are like underclothes. Then, over the subtle material elements come the grosser material elements (going from the more subtle to the more gross), which cover you, the self, layer by layer. The layer of ether or sky covers over the mind, intelligence, and false ego; then the element air covers the element ether; the element fire then covers the element air; next the element water covers over the element fire; and finally the element earth covers over the element water. So in this way, you, the self, are covered by these eight primary subtle and gross layers of material energy. Thus, just as a man may have different layers of clothes over his naked body, the self also has eight layers of “clothes.”

Jagad Guru Chris Butler – Science of Identity Foundation