|
Post by silence on Sept 18, 2013 22:36:32 GMT -5
The ability to break things down into the lowest common denominator is often brought about by not suppressing one's skepticism which often goes hand and hand with what most would call common sense. It's not the ability to arrive at some sort of ultimate truth but it is the ability to not get carried away into seriously deep delusion and endless mental traps. The skeptical voice that I suspect most turn a blind eye to would ask what in the world someone is caught up in when they say they're on a spiritual search. What exactly are you doing watching some random guy talk about awareness and this and that? Of course I'm speaking generally about skepticism and not particularly to the style of a speaker. Yeah, I'm a big fan of common sense. Skepticism could be put on a continuum, though, where at one end there's not much and you can get sucked into some weird stuff and on the other, everyone and everything is discounted or given a negative spin. There's a healthy skepticism level in there somewhere. Or at least a point where the skepticism gives way enough to let in something new. Skeptical has been a theme with Max - it's come up quite a few times. I was curious what his take is on it. And I'm curious about my own paddling around and where common sense sometimes gets in the way. It's a bit like a game of cat and mouse where the cat represents your natural skepticism and the mouse is the unbridled openness to anything and everything that will make you feel better or entertain you for the time being. Neither division of mind is the answer. The split is not healed by one side being victorious but rather the whole thing dissolving back into itself. From there, the attention has nowhere else to go but to one's innate authority not born of thought which is not in the least bit searching for anything.
|
|
|
Post by laughter on Sept 19, 2013 2:21:29 GMT -5
An interesting question here is, where is the source of the calculation here, you or Mooji? Are these qualities that you list affected causes of Mooji's success or effects of how enlightened he is? I think it's great to be skeptical of style issues. It seems to me that Mooji and Adyashanti are just doing what they do, I doubt they're calculating how to use whatever soothing style to continue to keep folks in the seeking biz (especially they're biz). It's a personality thing. They happen to have charisma up the wazoo. There's also cultural conditioning/differences. Mooji has the whole rasta thing going on. Niz and the direct-speak schtick is not uncommon for a certain subset of Indians, whether they be dubbed superduperenlightened or just what is a good buy in the produce bin. I went to a TAT meeting last spring. It was nice to actually chat with some web personalities over oreos in kitchen. I really didn't get much of an energy transmission or anything. Maybe they're just not brimming over in that sense, or just not up to snuff on the Enlightened scale. Heck if I know. But the demystification element was nice, because it undercut some of the expectations I had going on. This is an internal game, in the end. Whatever works to get one back to that is good in my book. The upside to comparing teachers and traditions is the recognition of the commonality between them and the downside is encountering the inevitable contradictions that the thinker likes to brandish about as if they were something significant. Bart put it this way at last years SIGgy meet: @ 1:40 The same wind sounds different coming through different instrumentsFrom the first 8 mins of that vid I like Bart. He strikes me as the sentimental type and I rez with that. Thoughts and emotions happen. I can document my expression of the metaphor of the brain as antenna and the body/mind as a TV or radio and the documentation clearly pre-dates my encounter with Maharshi's tale much less U.G.K., so that of course means that I'm at least as enlightened a person as U.G.K. In terms of this metaphor, culture is the design of the circutry of the device. In terms of Bart's metaphor, culture is what shapes the instrument. What tune gets played or channel selected is a matter of trust. Trust, in turn, seems to manifest depending on how we've oriented ourselves toward our cultural baggage and personal experience. Thoughts and emotions happen, and a lack of identification with them actually results in a tune with more depth and poignancy than less. My point to Steve was that feelgoodism happens. No shortage of spiritual P.T. Barnum's that can use peoples desire to feel good to sell tickets, no doubt. On the other hand, genuinely positive feelings towards others and the world overall that aren't based on some sort of principal of group exclusion seem to point toward what the seeker is looking for, and you can see this reflected to some extent in the major main stream religions. This isn't to say that negative expressions can't do that as well, it's just that the positive ones are easier to recognize, especially if someone doesn't know what they're looking for.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Sept 19, 2013 11:03:48 GMT -5
Oh I just said that to encourage the skepticism but I don't really concern myself with being manipulated that much, though I am open to it as a possibility. In the end, the messenger doesn't matter. It's the message we're working on. Yes - the message of all the ones mentioned is: find out who you are. How they deliver that message is just a style issue. I toadally agree with you there. What I'm questioning is the skepticism part. When I asked why be skeptical, you said to encourage skepticism. So now I have to ask, why encourage it? You're making me work here, Max. (I'm genuinely curious - this isn't some kind of set-up) That message is a good one. No need to be skeptical of it. The messenger, however, why not be skeptical? There are tons of cases where the messenger of great messages shifts into a messenger of specious messages. I'm thinking Ladi Da or whatever his name was, for example. The encouragement is to keep the messenger and the message separate. However, having said that, I know that skepticism itself can be a distraction like most things. Latching onto it would be a problem too.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Sept 19, 2013 11:16:02 GMT -5
I think it's great to be skeptical of style issues. It seems to me that Mooji and Adyashanti are just doing what they do, I doubt they're calculating how to use whatever soothing style to continue to keep folks in the seeking biz (especially they're biz). It's a personality thing. They happen to have charisma up the wazoo. There's also cultural conditioning/differences. Mooji has the whole rasta thing going on. Niz and the direct-speak schtick is not uncommon for a certain subset of Indians, whether they be dubbed superduperenlightened or just what is a good buy in the produce bin. I went to a TAT meeting last spring. It was nice to actually chat with some web personalities over oreos in kitchen. I really didn't get much of an energy transmission or anything. Maybe they're just not brimming over in that sense, or just not up to snuff on the Enlightened scale. Heck if I know. But the demystification element was nice, because it undercut some of the expectations I had going on. This is an internal game, in the end. Whatever works to get one back to that is good in my book. The upside to comparing teachers and traditions is the recognition of the commonality between them and the downside is encountering the inevitable contradictions that the thinker likes to brandish about as if they were something significant. Bart put it this way at last years SIGgy meet: @ 1:40 The same wind sounds different coming through different instrumentsFrom the first 8 mins of that vid I like Bart. He strikes me as the sentimental type and I rez with that. Thoughts and emotions happen. I can document my expression of the metaphor of the brain as antenna and the body/mind as a TV or radio and the documentation clearly pre-dates my encounter with Maharshi's tale much less U.G.K., so that of course means that I'm at least as enlightened a person as U.G.K. I can imagine UGk having a good laugh about that. Or a hissy fit.
|
|