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Post by laughter on Jul 6, 2015 5:42:10 GMT -5
After reading what andy wrote I feel like the dude in that story from the Japanese airport in the '80's who landed in a parallel reality. Sorry, Laughter, but this post went right over my head. What did I miss? Andy's posted a story a few times about a European traveler in Japan who was from a parallel Universe, have you ever read it?
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Post by andrew on Jul 6, 2015 6:53:57 GMT -5
Ah, the implication was meant to be that you are on stage being watched by an audience. Not me. Yes, that was obvious, but we've done that particular hyperminding together more than once. If you only wanted jay to read that you would have written it privately, so my position here is not other than yours. It was nice to read -- it does have a few questionable points -- but I liked it. No need to be self-conscious about that. I figured I had a choice between making it less questionable (but still questionable!) but which wouldn't answer jay's question well, or making it somewhat more questionable but would answer jay's question better. I went for the latter. How about you have a go....
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Post by zendancer on Jul 6, 2015 7:00:58 GMT -5
Sorry, Laughter, but this post went right over my head. What did I miss? Andy's posted a story a few times about a European traveler in Japan who was from a parallel Universe, have you ever read it? No, but thanks. I thought that perhaps you were surprised at how well Andrew had answered the question considering his usual challenges to the ND club. LOL
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Post by zin on Jul 6, 2015 7:20:03 GMT -5
Ah, the implication was meant to be that you are on stage being watched by an audience. Not me. Yes, that was obvious, but we've done that particular hyperminding together more than once. If you only wanted jay to read that you would have written it privately, so my position here is not other than yours. It was nice to read -- it does have a few questionable points -- but I liked it. No need to be self-conscious about that. This is for both of you, just couldn't resist after the audience pic : )
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Post by andrew on Jul 6, 2015 8:47:16 GMT -5
Andy's posted a story a few times about a European traveler in Japan who was from a parallel Universe, have you ever read it? No, but thanks. I thought that perhaps you were surprised at how well Andrew had answered the question considering his usual challenges to the ND club. LOL I wasn't sure how to take it either to be honest!
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Post by Deleted on Jul 6, 2015 13:01:40 GMT -5
Thanks andrew. I was excited yesterday as i looked at the reply count. Several quick responses to my question..."nice", i thought to myself...only to facepalm upon entering the thread today because only one(yours) was an actual topic response and the rest of the posts on the 5th, was Envy Adams' habitual attacks against others he does not like or agree with, and you taking the bait and responding to his immature trollish attitude. Add to that, the posts on the second day do not address the OP question. It's just more talking and\or arguing individual beliefs\understanding about Advaita, which, if i wanted that i would not have created this thread and i would simply go read the plethora of other threads that contain such information. So, to me, not good advertising about the real life benefits of Advaita, considering the amount of discussions about Advaita multiplied by the number of people. Anyways, i appreciate your effort and like what you have written. Clearly and concisely addressing the question. I will keep my response minimal as i only have a couple of thoughts to share from pondering your words. good question I'm going to write my answer in a way that will hopefully work for you and which will answer your question, but which may not be resonant with some of the advaita folk, but....let's not worry about that eh. I could probably come up with some more, but maybe this is enough for now. 1. Advaita states that the qualities of peace, happiness and well-being are available to us consistently, because they are not dependent on conditions. Instead, they are qualities of our very being. This takes the stress out of having to manipulate conditions to try and be at peace and happy, instead, in just 'being who we are', we can be at peace and happy. Much less effort, much more peace, well-being and happiness. 2. Advaita states that our happiness is not dependent on being right about something, or knowing the truth about something, it's not dependent on how much knowledge we have, on how clever we are, on how successful we are. Happiness and well-being is available right now without having to know anything, or achieve something, or be right about something. So again, much less effort and stress, much more potential of peace, well-being and happiness. 3. Advaita states that nothing that is truly of value is ever lost, so there's nothing to be scared of any more, no need to work hard to keep hold of something, no need to try and prevent change happening. All that is good stands the test of time. 4. Advaita states that Love does not necessarily have to be accompanied by loss, fear, possessiveness, jealousy and anger. So there is no need to fear or resist or deny Love. *** Important point. It's not so much that these statements are truths, what matters is that they can be experienced to be true. 1. I am not disputing those qualities are not obtainable via Advaita when i say this; that all you have said in point 1, i have obtained, yet i do not adopt any Advaita precepts. Never even heard of the philosophy till several years after developing all those qualities and utilizing them at a high level as i journey. I can confidently say i had my own 'Buddha under the Bodhi tree' experience back in '08, which was produced by my journeys through several years of Western psychology books and then a few years worth of travelling through Eastern philosophies, Advaita not being one of them, and only from reading several books by Osho and a couple of other Eastern and western authors. 2. Paraphrasing\summarizing, you say Advaita states 'happiness and well-being' is not dependent on what we know, that we do not need to know anything to be able to manifest 'happiness and well being', and we do not have to do anything to make them manifest. position 1) Were you manifesting 'happiness and well being'(or the same level of them) before you knew Advaita? position 2) Can you manifest 'happiness and well being' without having any knowledge of Advaita? 3. Nothing? really? What about physical and mental birth defects, what about onsets of illnesses, death of a loved one, being mugged, having your freedoms and rights slowly eroded from under your feet, stalled your car on a traintrack with a freight train barreling towards you. 4. I agree, though will point out that even non spiritual psychologists have discovered\reasoned this. I agree with your last point. It makes sense. Each person experiences existence, operating with the ideas they are evaluating, and based on the results, determines for themself the beneficial value of them, and if the value is extremely high, the common response is to call them 'truths'. I have a follow up question, andrew...based on this, and the other exchanges you had with Envy Adams in this thread... good question I'm going to write my answer in a way that will hopefully work for you and which will answer your question, but which may not be resonant with some of the advaita folk, but....let's not worry about that eh. I could probably come up with some more, but maybe this is enough for now. I know i never worry about what others will think or do with my words. I have expressed this numerous times here and in other forums and offline. I used to though, severely. So much that it actually affected my physical being. From that i then assume\speculate you are referring to yourself, that you are expressing your own concerns, considering the amount of verbal abuse you get from some here. But as the observation\insight\realization goes, "Hurting people hurt others." And i repeat that i do appreciate you answers. That they more than adequately describe the benefits that Advaita states can be achieved if you adopt it's ideologies. My question is, what benefits to your human life have you obtained from adopting the information presented or experienced in Advaita? Perhaps a comparison to what you were like before your Advaita journey would be helpful to me too. jay17 it sounds like from your reply to andrew that you want to know what advaita offers exclusively, as opposed to what it shares with other religions or advertised paths, or happenstance? From my understanding about advaita, there are no additional benefits. Some folks refer to it as 'the direct path' but it just seems like more spin to me. I doubt marketing a path as 'meandering with brambles' would attract that many. However 'meandering with brambles' is probably the path most folks find themselves on.
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Post by laughter on Jul 6, 2015 14:49:00 GMT -5
Andy's posted a story a few times about a European traveler in Japan who was from a parallel Universe, have you ever read it? No, but thanks. I thought that perhaps you were surprised at how well Andrew had answered the question considering his usual challenges to the ND club. LOL Yes, that was exactly the point of the jest.
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Post by laughter on Jul 6, 2015 14:50:59 GMT -5
Yes, that was obvious, but we've done that particular hyperminding together more than once. If you only wanted jay to read that you would have written it privately, so my position here is not other than yours. It was nice to read -- it does have a few questionable points -- but I liked it. No need to be self-conscious about that. This is for both of you, just couldn't resist after the audience pic : ) (** likes the same post twice **)
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Post by laughter on Jul 6, 2015 14:51:46 GMT -5
Yes, that was obvious, but we've done that particular hyperminding together more than once. If you only wanted jay to read that you would have written it privately, so my position here is not other than yours. It was nice to read -- it does have a few questionable points -- but I liked it. No need to be self-conscious about that. I figured I had a choice between making it less questionable (but still questionable!) but which wouldn't answer jay's question well, or making it somewhat more questionable but would answer jay's question better. I went for the latter. How about you have a go....
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Post by earnest on Jul 7, 2015 15:34:10 GMT -5
Though i have mentioned it several times within my discussions with Advaitaists in various places, i had never formally inquired about it...so now i shall. I have noticed that Advaitaists do talk a helluva lot about this philosophy(my classification), and though i have not read everything said, with the huge amount i have read, i have never come across anyone proclaiming any present time benefits from it. So, what benefits to your human life do you obtain from believing\accepting\perceiving the information presented or experienced in Advaita is the truth about existence? I ask because it has been my experience that any truths i have, truthful information, be they actual ones or merely conclusions or experiences i judge as truth, they have always benefited me in my life journey, be they simple things like understanding how to stack firewood more efficiently, to removing my source belief that created a lifetime of suicidal tendencies. Thus i reason that if Advaita is so important to you that you make it the foundation of your being, there has to be some tangible benefits that you experience in order to place so much value on it. I've found that benefits have been secondary to me. I got tired of other approaches I'd been taking because I was always trying to get something, be better, trying to benefit from it somehow. This also created a whole lot of suffering as well. So the benefit of Advaita (or other more mystically oriented approaches) for me is the slowing down of the whole seeking endeavour through being curious about what is here now. In that slowing/stopping has been a lot more peace and happiness etc. But those benefits have been a by-product if that makes sense, and it's increasingly ok no matter what is happening in my body or mind. This Zen story comes to mind This day is the best day!!
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Post by Deleted on Jul 8, 2015 13:32:18 GMT -5
jay17 it sounds like from your reply to andrew that you want to know what advaita offers exclusively, as opposed to what it shares with other religions or advertised paths, or happenstance? Not at all. 1. For if this were the case, i would have to already have a database of all the religious and spiritual philosophies...and i do not. I only have minimal knowledge of a couple of them and out of them i do not even know what the benefits are. 2. There is no ulterior motive to my direct question of what benefits has an individual obtained from Advaita. I have clearly asked this because i do not know what they are, as it has never been expressed, or i have not seen it expressed by any Advaita devotees\advocates\practitioners\believers\whatever. 3. My comments about personal benefits from Advaita that andrew shared, that the same benefits can be obtained without adhering to Advaita, are simply the natural progression of the conversation. I had no idea what Advaita benefits there are, andrew shared some, and i commented that they can be obtained using other philosophies. And the reason i asked is i notice that there's a helluva lot of discussion about it, and thus i reason it must be very important to some folk to dedicate so much of their lives to this activity, thus there must be some high level of positive results obtained from adopting this philosophy, but i could not see any...so i have asked. From my understanding about advaita, there are no additional benefits. I have not asked other to share what they think Adviata has compared to other paths. I clearly asked people to share, and i will combine the two questions, what are the benefits of Advaita they they have obtained? For what you have shared offers no information about the benefits you have obtained from Advaita. You imply there are as many as in other philosophies, but then one has to take the time to ask many people of all the other philosophies what benefits do they have, to actually know. And so far, out of all the people who talk a helluva lot about this philosophy that seems to me that some are proclaiming constantly is the ultimate truth of existence or ultimate state of being an individual can reach, only andrew has expressed what are the proclaimed benefits from adopting Advaita. He has yet to share what benefits he has obtained. For it occurred to me when i noticed that i did not see anyone proclaiming Advaita's benefits, that's there's two main possibilities i see; 1. There are none. 2. There are but for reasons unknown it just doesn't come up in conversation. And it seems to me it does not come up in this forum because the main theme of Advaita discussions is people arguing about who's version is right. Discussing the benefits gets left by the wayside because in the battle to establish self as right and defeating the other as wrong, discussing the benefits is not required in those exchanges. Which seems feasible considering only one person has taken the time away from 'the battle for the planet of the Advaitaists' to share any benefits they have from adopting the philosophy. It's like the benefits are not important to all the others here, but very important to remain debating over interpretation, and who's version is right. And of course, if that is important to others, i see no reason to denigrate them for it. Me, i think the benefits obtained from adopting a philosophy is far more important than getting one's interpretation perfectly aligned with the original creator's...so i asked. Okay. When thinking about benefits, for me it's entwined with my experience with buddhism. So even though you are not asking for a comparison, that's basically all I can offer. Methinks advaita is interested in the same bennies that Buddhism offers -- liberation from (existential) suffering, primarily -- see andrew's post. I don't really consider myself a fan of advaita. Once upon a time I was enthralled with buddhism. But some of the advaita 'pointers' I've found to be invigorating. 'Die before you die' 'you are what you seek' 'there is no separation' -- this is stuff that complements what I know of buddhism. There's a bit of perspective-busting/expanding and re-emphasis on presence/being. It's more like a lens by which to look at what I've learned in the buddhist circle. One thing I like about advaita better than buddhism is the emphasis on how this.is.it. I know Buddha was a rad cuz he liberated karma-addled hindis from multiple lifetimes of effort and basically proclaimed that 'you can do it in this lifetime.' I'm hearing advaitists being even more rad and basically saying the whole thing is a set up, a mind game. The belief that with great constant practice you will reach some end point of enlightenment has to go. Part of the problem. In short, benefits for me have been new perspectives challenging older perspectives.
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Post by andrew on Jul 10, 2015 9:12:33 GMT -5
Thanks andrew. I was excited yesterday as i looked at the reply count. Several quick responses to my question..."nice", i thought to myself...only to facepalm upon entering the thread today because only one(yours) was an actual topic response and the rest of the posts on the 5th, was Envy Adams' habitual attacks against others he does not like or agree with, and you taking the bait and responding to his immature trollish attitude. Add to that, the posts on the second day do not address the OP question. It's just more talking and\or arguing individual beliefs\understanding about Advaita, which, if i wanted that i would not have created this thread and i would simply go read the plethora of other threads that contain such information. So, to me, not good advertising about the real life benefits of Advaita, considering the amount of discussions about Advaita multiplied by the number of people. Anyways, i appreciate your effort and like what you have written. Clearly and concisely addressing the question. I will keep my response minimal as i only have a couple of thoughts to share from pondering your words. good question I'm going to write my answer in a way that will hopefully work for you and which will answer your question, but which may not be resonant with some of the advaita folk, but....let's not worry about that eh. I could probably come up with some more, but maybe this is enough for now. 1. Advaita states that the qualities of peace, happiness and well-being are available to us consistently, because they are not dependent on conditions. Instead, they are qualities of our very being. This takes the stress out of having to manipulate conditions to try and be at peace and happy, instead, in just 'being who we are', we can be at peace and happy. Much less effort, much more peace, well-being and happiness. 2. Advaita states that our happiness is not dependent on being right about something, or knowing the truth about something, it's not dependent on how much knowledge we have, on how clever we are, on how successful we are. Happiness and well-being is available right now without having to know anything, or achieve something, or be right about something. So again, much less effort and stress, much more potential of peace, well-being and happiness. 3. Advaita states that nothing that is truly of value is ever lost, so there's nothing to be scared of any more, no need to work hard to keep hold of something, no need to try and prevent change happening. All that is good stands the test of time. 4. Advaita states that Love does not necessarily have to be accompanied by loss, fear, possessiveness, jealousy and anger. So there is no need to fear or resist or deny Love. *** Important point. It's not so much that these statements are truths, what matters is that they can be experienced to be true. 1. I am not disputing those qualities are not obtainable via Advaita when i say this; that all you have said in point 1, i have obtained, yet i do not adopt any Advaita precepts. Never even heard of the philosophy till several years after developing all those qualities and utilizing them at a high level as i journey. I can confidently say i had my own 'Buddha under the Bodhi tree' experience back in '08, which was produced by my journeys through several years of Western psychology books and then a few years worth of travelling through Eastern philosophies, Advaita not being one of them, and only from reading several books by Osho and a couple of other Eastern and western authors. 2. Paraphrasing\summarizing, you say Advaita states 'happiness and well-being' is not dependent on what we know, that we do not need to know anything to be able to manifest 'happiness and well being', and we do not have to do anything to make them manifest. position 1) Were you manifesting 'happiness and well being'(or the same level of them) before you knew Advaita? position 2) Can you manifest 'happiness and well being' without having any knowledge of Advaita? 3. Nothing? really? What about physical and mental birth defects, what about onsets of illnesses, death of a loved one, being mugged, having your freedoms and rights slowly eroded from under your feet, stalled your car on a traintrack with a freight train barreling towards you. 4. I agree, though will point out that even non spiritual psychologists have discovered\reasoned this. I agree with your last point. It makes sense. Each person experiences existence, operating with the ideas they are evaluating, and based on the results, determines for themself the beneficial value of them, and if the value is extremely high, the common response is to call them 'truths'. I have a follow up question, andrew...based on this, and the other exchanges you had with Envy Adams in this thread... good question I'm going to write my answer in a way that will hopefully work for you and which will answer your question, but which may not be resonant with some of the advaita folk, but....let's not worry about that eh. I could probably come up with some more, but maybe this is enough for now. I know i never worry about what others will think or do with my words. I have expressed this numerous times here and in other forums and offline. I used to though, severely. So much that it actually affected my physical being. From that i then assume\speculate you are referring to yourself, that you are expressing your own concerns, considering the amount of verbal abuse you get from some here. But as the observation\insight\realization goes, "Hurting people hurt others." And i repeat that i do appreciate you answers. That they more than adequately describe the benefits that Advaita states can be achieved if you adopt it's ideologies. My question is, what benefits to your human life have you obtained from adopting the information presented or experienced in Advaita? Perhaps a comparison to what you were like before your Advaita journey would be helpful to me too. Hi jay, I've had a very busy few days, but the question you asked me has popped into my head a few times. I'm not going to address all you said there, but I will attempt to answer the question. Its not easy for me to separate out the benefits of advaita from the self-help and spiritual stuff, it all melds together into a particular way of living and being in the world. However, if I was to try and pinpoint the specific benefit of advaita for me, I would say that it is the relentless bringing us back to the present moment, or the now. I find this very grounding...there is a sanity to it that I appreciate. I appreciate the sense of present moment awareness...the 'presence' of it. I also want to clarify something that I thought of a couple of days ago. I can't honestly say that my life is better than than it was 10, 20 or 30 years ago. It's certainly different, but not better as such. And yet I also know for sure that I wouldn't choose to go back to the way things were which is interesting. The best way to illustrate this is through offering a semi-similar example - When I first went ski-ing I had a great time, it was a huge amount of fun being a beginner and I laughed a lot. Perhaps the most fun week ski-ing I have ever had. A few years later I was no longer a beginner, I was an average skier, very much enjoying and appreciating the skiing and being able to go down advanced runs. I didn't laugh as much as I did in that first week, but on the other hand, there would be no point in hanging around in a beginners class once the skills had been mastered. And that's kind of how it is for me. If skiing doesn't work as an example, pick something different. Say...a language class. Being a beginner is fun, and being an advanced student is cool, but there would be no point in the advanced student going back to being a beginner. That doesn't make the advanced class a necessarily better experience though. Perhaps in the same way (to use a cliche) that the experience of a butterfly isn't necessarily better than the experience of being a caterpillar. I would say my experience these days is more enriched, perhaps more complex and difficult in some ways....yet simpler and easier in other ways. There is a sense of truthfulness to my life that wasn't quite there before. I do think advaita has played it's role in that, though it's hard for me to imagine ever recommending to someone that they pick up an advaita book or watch an advaita video, so perhaps that says something. Though I would perhaps recommend teachings that I see as veering towards advaita to some extent (I think a lot of spiritual teachers veer in that direction....Buddha included).
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Post by earnest on Jul 10, 2015 15:20:04 GMT -5
I've found that benefits have been secondary to me. I got tired of other approaches I'd been taking because I was always trying to get something, be better, trying to benefit from it somehow. This also created a whole lot of suffering as well. So the benefit of Advaita (or other more mystically oriented approaches) for me is the slowing down of the whole seeking endeavour through being curious about what is here now. In that slowing/stopping has been a lot more peace and happiness etc. But those benefits have been a by-product if that makes sense, and it's increasingly ok no matter what is happening in my body or mind. And those benefits you obtained from\thru Advaita are secondary to you...according to your opening statement? And what do you actually mean by 'secondary'...because i can interpret your opening statement to mean all benefits are not important to you, you are not motivated to obtain benefits... or it can mean you still value benefits that may be attached to the attainment of your primary goal\achievement. This Zen story comes to mind This day is the best day!! I assume this is your primary goal\achievement, and you have obtained it? I've replied to the thread but i don't want to get into a discussion about it with you.
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Post by zendancer on Jul 10, 2015 16:30:06 GMT -5
And those benefits you obtained from\thru Advaita are secondary to you...according to your opening statement? And what do you actually mean by 'secondary'...because i can interpret your opening statement to mean all benefits are not important to you, you are not motivated to obtain benefits... or it can mean you still value benefits that may be attached to the attainment of your primary goal\achievement. I assume this is your primary goal\achievement, and you have obtained it? I've replied to the thread but i don't want to get into a discussion about it with you. Earnest, you are a wise fellow! *bows*
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Post by zendancer on Jul 13, 2015 7:10:02 GMT -5
Earnest, you are a wise fellow! *bows* When i journey within a topic, i simply do not accept, at face value, what others say. I examine, explore within the content of each post - each paragraph, statement, sentence and word...seeking out more understanding via expressing my individual interpretation\observations and clarifying inquiries of that which i see, for the other to analyze and respond to. Earnest knows that's how i interact. He does not have to add any more than he already has. I have always stipulated that anyone conversing with me can end the convo when they feel or need to, and i will peacefully leave them be. However, you judge him as wise for doing so...which you are entitled to your own judgements\opinions\interpretations, just like all of us are. So imma gonna share my thoughts on that. I am asking people to share the benefits they obtained from Advaita. Respondents provide this info. The usual desired outcome would be that each individual expresses themself in a way that enables me to understand what they have shared with me. No point proving info if the receiver does not understand this info. So, in the context of 'wise', if i have follow up questions, or i express discrepancies that i see from my interpretation, then i judge earnest is not being wise by choosing to not clarify things for me. I am left with possible doubts and misunderstandings about the info he wanted to share with me regarding the topic. Why do you judge him as wise for not clarifying things for me, or what is it about earnest that you judge him as wise? And because you also know how i interact within discussions, what judgement do you have of earnest when he offered his initial info? The issue is clear to Earnest and me, so words are not necessary.
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