What denomination or sect are you?

[Beautiful]

I would have to be superhuman to write down all these things. I dont think we are disagreeing on anything. Its all the same thing. There is a life beyond thought. Thats what I speak of, about what happens when thought ceases, when all attention is focused on the truth of present awareness. All beings have minds. Consciousness is more than a mere accident; its a property that is Pratītyasamutpāda, born as a response to a previously existing property. We are speaking of the Unmanifest. This is a fact of the trees. We are not disagreeing on the beauty of flowers or trees. This is the truth; flowers are the most beautiful and frangrant and pleasant to the to the touch thing, and their beauty will fade and they will die. But what dies in it?

I dont speak of traditions. Using metaphysical words of the english dictionary doesnt make it a tradition or religious marketing, we just borrow terms in order to exchange information (this is language.) If I had to invent a way to exchange valueble knowledge of consciousness I would use songs and melodies. This is why Chopin or Bethoveen or Bach are geniuses...Bach, who made music soley for the sake of honoring God.

Language is particularly obsolete in this time and age, given its overexposure, particularly in advertisment. Language can be very detrimental to understanding the truth, cause truth is not a word, but a state of consciousness of total certainty based on the understanding of fact. The fact of Being. I dont understand why you say its wu wu. It is philosophically correct, phenomenology is one of the most precise forms of language for understanding phenomena as its name indicates and this its basis. All knowledge is based on this. All knowledge exists because of experience. This is obvious. You learn to ride the bike first.

Theres no need of dependance on religion to understand facts. And when one understands facts, one sees religion, the fact of religious experience, as a fact; the fact that life is magical and mysterious and beutiful...there is a reason for all these things. This is to be experience in meditation. If you think its a tradition that is not so, most all animals sit down and rest motionless and dream and live inner lives.

Its either 'my religion is right and everyone else wrong' or 'I have so much no-belief that its a form of belief.'

Why the need to complicate things so much? Why cant the mind go directly to the truth? Very simple.

 

[Aupmanyav]

We ourselves are responsible for finding the guarantees; only experientially, only experientially, only experientially.

Sometimes people are brain-washed, sometimes they do it themselves by constantly disregarding facts which go against their view. It does not go with me.

Why the need to complicate things so much? Why cant the mind go directly to the truth? Very simple.

The truth is that the universe started as a ball of energy due to Quantum Perturbation.

 

[RJM]

I dont speak of traditions.

But you do seem to dismiss the traditions and beliefs of other people? It may not be what you mean, but this is quite a lot of what is coming across?

Absolutely no personal offence intended. When a person feels so strongly, it is natural to want to share it with others.

Whereas perhaps really what is happening is that all knowing God is responding to your own sincere outreach from your own position, just as 'He' responds to the sincerity of other souls too from wherever they are -- any time, any place, any religion or tradition or belief?

We change and grow.

I don't think we are disagreeing on anything. Its all the same thing. There is a life beyond thought. That's what I speak of ...

Yes it is. My way is summed up by Proverbs 3:5-7

"Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.
In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the Lord, and depart from evil."

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Proverbs+3:5-7&version=KJV

It's all I need to know.

 

[Thomas]

Old CC. Yes, I remember him. I used to take him quite seriously, back then. Heavy stuff. Lucid dreaming, the 'nagual.' Don Juan the Yaqui man of knowledge -- datura, magic mushtooms and peyote. All a fiction. But perhaps a bit of truth there too?

It appears not. The Yaqui never used peyote, and he seems remarkably ignorant of Yaqui culture, and of the desert in which he supposedly lived ... His legacy is a suicide cult.

 

[RJM]

His legacy is a suicide cult.

Really?
It is heavy stuff.
Certainly datura is a ticket to permanent brain damage. And a very bad experience according to anyone who used it.

Peyote is something different.

 

[Beautiful]

But you do seem to dismiss the beliefs/traditions of other people? It may not be what you mean, but this is quite a lot of what is coming across?

I dismiss the traditions and religions of the world by studying them and embracing them; their holy texts, their most prominent scholars, their chants and hymns, their practices, etc. What I dismiss is irrational belief, group think, brainwashing; the grand majority of people who form part of religious organizations; nazism is a religion, social justice is a religion, etc, endless forms of controlling the masses, of controlling what they think and how they live.

Sometimes people are brain-washed, sometimes they do it themselves by constantly disregarding facts which go against their view. It does not go with me.

.

You are saying there can be no experience of truth because of how much liars there are in the world? So if you say you ate today, your experience isnt true cause many people have lied about such things.

 

[Thomas]

Really?

Check out the skeptical critiques of his works. Seems he was a bit of a Manson-like figure ... ?

 

[RJM]

I dismiss the traditions and religions of the world by studying them and embracing them; their holy texts, their most prominent scholars, their chants and hymns, their practices, etc

Imo a lifetime is not enough to properly study and embrace even one religion and its holy texts, let alone all of them. As I said, we change and grow and life throws up directions we could not have imagined. We should be open to change and growth.

What won't bend must break, as they say?

Without offence these religions you dismiss are made up of real people, not mindless "irrational belief, group think, brainwashing; the grand majority of people who form part of religious organizations ... endless forms of controlling what they think and how they live. etc."

 

[RJM]

Check out the skeptical critiques of his works. Seems he was a bit of a Manson-like figure ... ?

Really? Thanks. I'll have a look ...

 

[Beautiful]

Imo a lifetime is not enough to properly study and embrace even one religion and its holy texts, let alone all of them. As I said, we change and grow and life throws up directions we could not have imagined. We should be open to change and growth.

A lifetime isnt enough to understand a book...I wonder then how well we are using our time? I certaintly dont see why such a thing would be inhumanley possible. On the contrary.

We should be open to change and growth I think so too.

Without offence these religions you dismiss are made up of real people, not mindless "irrational belief, group think, brainwashing; the grand majority of people who form part of religious organizations ... endless forms of controlling what they think and how they live. etc."

Yes, nazism was made of real people. Armies are made of real people. What you consider mindless or not is a matter of semantics...if being a robot for the ruling classes, cruel, authorative, a consumer of culture and a lover of power, and a destroyer of life, is not mindless in your defintion...I dont know, its semantics really. Whatever you call 'mindless' thats nazism, racism, etc.

 

[KnowSelf]

Old CC. Yes, I remember him. I used to take him quite seriously, back then. Heavy stuff. Lucid dreaming, the 'nagual.' Don Juan the Yaqui man of knowledge -- datura, magic mushtooms and peyote. All a fiction. But perhaps a bit of truth there too?[/QU

Yes me too, embraced early Pink Floyd as my teacher, stranded, dark side of the moon until I wasn't

 

[RJM]

A lifetime isnt enough to understand a book...I wonder then how well we are using our time? I certaintly dont see why such a thing would be inhumanley possible. On the contrary.

We should be open to change and growth I think so too.



Yes, nazism was made of real people. Armies are made of real people. What you consider mindless or not is a matter of semantics...if being a robot for the ruling classes, cruel, authorative, a consumer of culture and a lover of power, and a destroyer of life, is not mindless in your defintion...I dont know, its semantics really. Whatever you call 'mindless' thats nazism, racism, etc.

So you have studied all the scriptures of all the religions and concluded they are akin to nazism?

You say you are a philosophy teacher? It seems to prove my point that either you have studied them to get the forgone conclusion you have already decided on -- or else that you have not studied them very deeply, imo?

But by the time anyone is comparing things to nazism the conversation isn't usually going anywhere useful.

My problem is not at all with what a person believes, but when that makes it necessary to rubbish the beliefs of anyone who thinks differently?

 

[Beautiful]

Yes I am terrible at my job and dont know what I am talking about

God bless you !

 

[RJM]

Yes I am terrible at my job and dont know what I am talking about

God bless you !

No. But to bring nazi comparisons into any conversation is usually a bit desperate.

Also to insist that other souls are incapable of finding God (or God of finding them) unless they do it your way is plain wrong. Imo

God bless you too

 

[Aupmanyav]

You are saying there can be no experience of truth because of how much liars there are in the world? So if you say you ate today, your experience isnt true cause many people have lied about such things.

Yeah, many people speak untruth (purposefully or inadvertently). The listener needs to analyze.

 

[Cino]

Wonderful post, Thomas!

I'd like to unpack this part a bit:

Because a man cannot ride two horses.

'A beginner who goes from one monastery (tradition/guru/master/whatever) to another is like a wild animal who jumps this way and that for fear of the halter.' The Paradise of the Desert Fathers

"If you did not find it in your tradition, you will not find it here" Dalai Lama to a 'spiritual seeker'.

I think you conflate a few things here: the contemporary spiritual marketplace with its easy access to almost all traditions, the perennial (!) phenomenon of the student who won't do tedious assignments, the equally perennial phenomenon of good teachers turning up in unlikely places.

To sum up my point: That exasperated quip by the Dalai Lama, was it spoken to Rene Guenon?

 

[Cino]

Why the need to complicate things so much? Why cant the mind go directly to the truth? Very simple.

People don't like the truth.

"You will die".

This is true. It is simple. It is an affront to all we hold dear about ourselves. Is it evil? Is it even true? ...

See? Not simple at all.

 

[muhammad_isa]

People don't like the truth.

You mean some people don't like the truth
..but yes .. we all find various different truths "hard to stomach"

 

[Cino]

You mean some people don't like the truth
..but yes .. we all find various different truths "hard to stomach"

I've yet to meet anybody who likes the truth. Myself included. I've seen people deny it, or wearily cease resisting it, but like it, haven't seen that so far.

 

[RJM]

I've yet to meet anybody who likes the truth. Myself included. I've seen people deny it, or wearily cease resisting it, but like it, haven't seen that so far.

The body dies, the soul continues.