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Post by Reefs on Aug 4, 2019 23:10:08 GMT -5
TMT (1)
Jed: Emerson said a man is what he thinks about all day long. (Buddha supposedly said something similar, but any time you see the words Buddha said..., your bullshít alarm should start screeching, so we’ll stick with Emerson.)
I don't seem to think about anything anymore. I can’t even think of anything that needs thinking about. Sometimes I try to think about something, latch onto something and give it some thought, but it just fades after a moment or two. Thought for me is a tool, a weapon. The only reason to lug it out is if something needs to be killed. It’s a sword, but I have nothing left to swing it at. I pick it up desultorily and cleave the air, but it’s just the empty reminiscences of an old soldier. What would I think about? Religion? Politics? Business? The arts? I am blank. I am, by Emerson’s reckoning, nothing.
My general state most closely resembles a kind of bittersweet gladness. I don’t dwell in my memories, I'm not even sure if I really have any. I know that I was once a warrior, but it's not the memory of that state of being, just the recollection of a fact. There’s no pleasure or displeasure in it. It's like something you know about someone else.
Jed McKenna, Spiritual Warfare, Chapter 26
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Post by laughter on Aug 4, 2019 23:51:41 GMT -5
I'm surprised by your suggestion to drop it, as it didn't seem to me as if I was trying to prove anything. (** shrug **) "heh heh ...I can understand why it would seem that way to you... heh heh ... butt WIBIGO is WIBIGO... heh heh" Git ur own material. Pal.  |
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Post by Reefs on Aug 5, 2019 5:16:40 GMT -5
TMT (2)
Jed: Once in a while I climb up into the belfry and look around for bats. I head into my head to make sure that there are no messes anywhere, no pockets of darkness, no tracks in the dust, no piles of droppings. Like an old, unarmed night watchman making his rounds, I do a quick tour of the joint. I don’t do it in a very alert or cautious manner; I’m not too concerned that there would be anything to find or, if there was, that removal would pose any great challenge.
Death especially is an area where I want to remain a bit vigilant. I don’t feel any fear or concern about my death, I don’t attach any importance to it, but it seems like the kind of thing that could sneak something past me, so I keep an eye out. I’ve been in a dozen situations in the last decade where I figured it was all over, and never were there any unpleasant surprises about my reaction. In every situation I felt intrigued, ready, grateful. I didn’t panic or react fearfully, so I'm reasonably sure that I don’t have much in the way of death demons lurking about. It would be interesting if I did, but I don’t think I do.
My day-to-day persona is another thing I keep a lazy sort of awareness about. I interact, I have a presence in the lives of other people and I have my own life to navigate through; my dreamstate existence. That’s something I pay attention to, but again, not much. It doesn’t take much thought or effort. I have this teacher/author thing going, but there’s no real danger of that pulling me back down into the perinatal states commonly mistaken for waking life. I don’t think anything could pull me back down, but there’s no harm in this minimal sort of mindfulness.
Jed McKenna, Spiritual Warfare, Chapter 26
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Post by Reefs on Aug 5, 2019 5:29:52 GMT -5
Peace of mind
Jed: ‘In the final analysis,’ said the Dalai Lama, ‘the hope of every person is simply peace of mind.’ I agree with the Dalai Lama: peace of mind—Spiritual Consonance—is what virtually all seekers of all places and all times are really seeking. It all makes perfect sense when you look at it that way. Why is everyone seeking and no one finding? Because they’re not seeking truth or growth or change, they’re seeking peace of mind. The rest is just dressing.
What’s so bad about peace of mind? Nothing’s wrong with it, it just doesn’t register with someone like [me]. Personally, I think about this idea of peace of mind and I shudder in revulsion. To me, it's just a fancy way of saying that people just want to keep munching their cud and plodding along, head down, surrounded by herd mates: unconscious, unengaged, unalive. To someone like me, peace of mind is the enemy. It’s the worst thing in the world. It’s the cow, it’s the inmate, it’s the hairless, fetal thing that's still plugged into the matrix. I mean, peace of mind, what’s the point?
Jed McKenna, Spiritual Warfare, Chapter 28
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Post by tenka on Aug 5, 2019 5:39:08 GMT -5
Peace of mind
To someone like me, peace of mind is the enemy. It’s the worst thing in the world. It’s the cow, it’s the inmate, it’s the hairless, fetal thing that's still plugged into the matrix. I mean, peace of mind, what’s the point? To me it's obvious that he hasn't really suffered if he has to ask that question . |
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Post by Reefs on Aug 5, 2019 8:49:00 GMT -5
I agree, posing as the most enlightened dude ever right from the start in the first book comes across as him just having fun slaying holy cows and breaking taboos. But the further you read, the more you'll realize that he actually believes that, especially the parts where he criticizes the various traditions. What's also quite telling is that he doesn't get Zen and koans. That's typical for over-intellectual people. I've seen this on the forum a lot. Well, that got people talking, right? I want to make it clear here.. 'Jed' is someone who sees things with clarity. In my book, Clarity and seeing the world/ existence/reality/ Atman/ Brahman (insert here for any other Eastern/Western definition of this life) without the blindfold is that elusive state of enlightenment, even though I hate the word with a vengeance, in the same way I hate the word 'God'. That does not mean 'Jed' hasn't played the survival game with the rest of them. He has - by the act of having written those books, and by continuing to write. He is not interested in fame, and not so much in fortune, but he IS interested in having a comfortable existence where he doesn't have to face hordes of people who are nowhere near his level of comprehension. They never have been, ever. He is not in the same league of intellectuals as for instance Ken Wilber, whose neuronal connections would upscale the Everest, given the chance. In my book - this wilberism is a handicap, and 'Jed' certainly doesn't suffer from that. He is clever, somewhat cold, but that hasn't always been that way. It's just that seeing the state of humanity without a blindfold can be pretty heart-breaking, and he got it when still a teen. In a way - he has created his own cozy cave IN the world, instead of hanging off the pagoda roof somewhere in Asia, or worse, joining the Western spiritual circus. Cheers.
I've been reading your blog a bit (finished chapter 1 & 2). I think I browsed thru it a couple of years ago and it didn't leave a distinct impression apart from 'why does she care that much about some random internet guy?' But having read the trilogy now, I have to say your blog is a fascinating read. I like your style and your no-nonsense, down-to-earth attitude. Quite the contrary to Jed's purely intellectual no-nonsense attitude. It also seems that we somehow have come to the same (or at least similar) conclusions re: Jed's actual level of realization and actual state of being. Looking at the books from a mere intellectual perspective, I have to say that they are full of interesting insights and Jed has definitely realized something, even though it's not what he thinks it is. As such, I see the books of value. However, looking at the books from a mere feeling perspective, I can't say that reading these books left me in high spirits. Jed seems to be a rather sad and lonely guy who feels very much disconnected from the world. That's what comes thru to me from reading between the lines. There's always a certain sadness, lostness, purposelessness and loneliness present when he talks about what it's like to be Jed, the fully awake, truth-realized ex-spiritual-warrior. Sometimes you don't even have to read between the lines, you just have read how he characterizes the 'awakened/truth-realized' being as some kind of orphan and the life after awakening/truth-realization as some kind of cast away experience on a desert island. That's certainly not the enlightened state of being. That's exactly what the state of separation feels like. I've got more to say but I think I'll finish reading your blog first. You've already confirmed a ton of suspicions I got about the author from reading the books. |
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Post by Reefs on Aug 5, 2019 8:59:07 GMT -5
Peace of mind
To someone like me, peace of mind is the enemy. It’s the worst thing in the world. It’s the cow, it’s the inmate, it’s the hairless, fetal thing that's still plugged into the matrix. I mean, peace of mind, what’s the point? To me it's obvious that he hasn't really suffered if he has to ask that question . Here's my impression: He obviously doesn't have a clue what peace of mind means. His "I am fully enlightened, self/truth-realized, abiding non-dual awareness etc." is just identity poker of the most advanced kind. IMO, he knows all too well how suffering feels, quite simply because he still is in a state of suffering. It's all just mental patch work. |
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Post by laughter on Aug 5, 2019 9:59:47 GMT -5
There's a belief among some folks of the ideal of a perfected saint, I've heard this expressed by more than one individual who I consider otherwise insightful, and people tend to get rather defensive when they're challenged on this and their other notions about what an "enlightened life" should be. I've always enjoyed offering alternative contemplative perspectives to my friends, but especially as time goes on, I'm reverting more and more to the way I was before I got interested in this culture: let other people believe what they want to believe, 'cause they're probably gonna' keep thinking the way they think anyways.  I have never met 'a perfect saint' and don't know anyone who has. Every human has buttons to be pushed which will take them out of the saint costume in no time at all. Which is to say that this 'sainthood' notion, just like plenty of other equally dubious notions - is a hope inspired delusion. There are no saints.
You wised up. It happens to men as they grow older. All that testosterone..
Perfected sainthood doesn't necessarily mean the end of conditioned responses or negative emotions - although that depends on what one's conception of the notion is. I can't deny the possibility just 'cause I ain't no saint. From my own experience, there is an obvious gravitation away from dead-mind that comes with seeing the big picture. I just don't think the topic has anything to do with what Jed wrote in either the first book or in these excerpts here, with one glaring exception: when Jed writes about ego death. |
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Post by laughter on Aug 5, 2019 10:03:00 GMT -5
ha! ha! .. now there's no way I'll buy any of the others! I'd say 'Don't buy anyone's. It is all a contrived snake oil show. However, 'Jed' got it. He saw through the veil when a very young man, which automatically excluded him from much of world's activities. I mean... if someone comes up to you during that proverbial football match with mates and gushes about their favourite team and how they will beat the s h i t out of the opponent, and you see a phantom, a man who is effectively brain dead AND will be physically dead a few years down the line... what the hell do you have in common with him? And if you tell him your REAL thoughts on the encounter... what kind of reaction do you think it will evoke and would you be the darling of the party??
Grim to even imagine. He wouldn't have lasted a week.. and he hadn't. So guys.. have some compassion for someone who at least gets the precarious position each human finds themselves in every day. Having said that... "If you can't beat them - joint them". Jed did it in a quiet way: by selling his unique Mind on a platter of Enlightenment. So bloody what... I do have an issue with that, but then ALL of these 'spiritual teachers do the same. At least, in the past the questions of life and death were left mostly to philosophers who did not push the fake Holy Grail as some major life achievement and something to aspire to. Plato was easily a highly aware astute man, but we don't hail him as enlightened. Da Vinci was extremely lucid, very clear in his understanding and also very humble, but we don't hail him as enlightened. This is because the enlightenment conventions have shifted in modern minds. Most have their heads in the cloud, looking for pink elephants. The whole of the fake enlightenment culture from the East has screwed up rationality and common sense. Those folks lived in miserable conditions where one form of escape from the hated Reality was to make up stories about it and about the 'alternative' realities. Traditional drugs of the East had played a massive part in the birth of the myth. If one seriously thinks that people who had lived a few thousand years back - had a better view and understanding of the world - this person deserves all the misery they get. They don't know how to use own brain.
The Catholics have some material that presents an idea: "don't settle for the God of your imagination". But as Jed points out, most people are better off pursuing human adulthood, because enlightenment isn't as they imagine it to be, and isn't something that can be earned or learned. How can you possibly not have compassion for the mass of humanity given their condition? |
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Post by laughter on Aug 5, 2019 10:08:00 GMT -5
Ramana Maharshi & The Outward Only Club (2)
Jed:it's more like a mountain of ignorance that has to be pulverized into particulate, stone by stone. Jed McKenna, Spiritual Warfare, Chapter 19 Here, he's just flat out wrong.  |
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Post by laughter on Aug 5, 2019 10:14:08 GMT -5
Peace of mind
To someone like me, peace of mind is the enemy. It’s the worst thing in the world. It’s the cow, it’s the inmate, it’s the hairless, fetal thing that's still plugged into the matrix. I mean, peace of mind, what’s the point? To me it's obvious that he hasn't really suffered if he has to ask that question . If people need to meditate their way into a relatively peaceful state, it might be because their sense of identity and reality is rooted in so much falsity that it can't but help but lead to their suffering, which will inevitably return once the artificial morphine has worn off. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 5, 2019 11:39:34 GMT -5
Do you take issue with that quote and if so, why? You used to be quite insistent yourself that all that can be known is "I exist". I can pull up a quote if you like...? Not everyone needs to go through not-knowing. It's just one potential facet of the infinite possible paths.  If folks can't relate, they can't relate. As I see it, "Not knowing" is not something one 'goes through,'...it's not a path at all, rather, in SR, the absence of absolute knowing pertaining to dream content, abides the arising of all experience. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 5, 2019 11:42:33 GMT -5
Yet, Jed effortlessly merged with the said Ministry of Awakening that he targets his scathing wit at. The truth is the books wete conceived as a business, and he once expressed it quite explicitely. But as someone once said to me in his 'after'state "Now what? Go make some money I guess". Yes, the irony! I figured that much already. And it's also obvious that Jed had problems filling his books with actual content. In the second book, maybe 1/3 is just quotes from other books. It's that bad. And this wisefoolpress entity just seems to exist to publish the Jed stuff, right? The story I am hearing and have been hearing for a while, says there is not just one author of those books....wisefoolpress is a group project (opinions vary on precisely how many...some say up to four folks have contributed)...and that supposedly accounts for some of the apparent differences between books and even at times within the same book. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 5, 2019 11:54:15 GMT -5
A really good example of where he goes too far, overstating things, but I gotta say, it did make me laugh out loud. This is a good example of where I'm not sure if he's just exaggerating for the humor, using hyperbole, or he really would be experiencing 'hellish torment....unbearable hardship' under those conditions. Way back, I was appalled and took it at face value and evidence that he was not even close to being at peace. These days I'd be more inclined to say he's exaggerating/trying to be funny. (which for some reason, it really IS to me!...I suppose because I can relate....just a little teensy eensy bit ) And just in case he's not using hyperbole...I'll add, I don't dispute that likes/dislikes continue on post SR, but, This is really the same conversation as the 'can blameful/vengeful anger arise post SR?' Feelings/emotions of a certain depth, simply have nothing from which to arise upon once the SVP is not longer in play. An experience of 'unbearable hardship' in the face of drinking beer, watching sports would have to mean the presence of attachment/delusion. If it would have just been this one quote, I wouldn't have an issue with it. But it's not just that one instance, this is just an example. It goes on and on like this thru-out every book. That's why I say, look at it as a whole. If it would be just one or a couple more instances, I'd excuse it the same way you do. But when you've read the entire trilogy, you'll realize that this is something systemic. And as such, it's way off. He does say a lot of things just for effect. No doubt. It's pretty obvious. And in and of itself, hyperbole is not an issue if used sparsely and wisely. But he doesn't do that. Hyperbole seems to be his only device. And as a result, he sometimes does cross the line into distastefulness, IMO (see the story about the disfigured girl and the haiku about throwing a baby against a wall). There's something seriously amiss there. You don't see the possibility of an element there of "Be wary of expecting a sage to behave appropriately" kinda thing?
The fact that it is fiction, imo, lends itself to that kind of thing far more than if it wasn't.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 5, 2019 11:58:29 GMT -5
Yes. In explaining that all 'you's' are arising appearances to Being, seems he feels the need to get a few digs in; 'minor character...semi-coherent energy pattern....a bit player.' A little disdain there I'd say. And when you factor in that he speaks about human adulthood encompassing the ability to manifest desires, you gotta ask; Why is he, one who has supposedly gone way past human adulthood still not manifesting a reality that is to his liking?
For me, the largest hypocricies in his books stood out in his descriptions of interactions with others...feelings about others. But again, taken purely as a fictional story, that can serve as part and parcel of the entertainment value.
He's basically copying the A-H stuff. But in a rather ham-handed way. What he calls the integrated state, is basically what A-H call alignment or what ZD calls flow. Yes, the interactions are really weird. I think this is due to Jed suffering a bit from over-thinking. The entire trilogy comes across as rather over-intellectual. And the entertainment value is greatly diminished after you realize that these interactions all follow the exact same pattern in every book. Yawn. But again, even the most bogus teachers and most silliest books can be of value in that they provide a certain amount of contrast which can give you a whole new set of options. Different people see different things in the books and get different things out of them. I've just read the books out of curiosity and I also read them systematically, making notes, because I wanted to talk about it here on the forum. So my advantage is that I'm well-prepared to talk about it in detail. Tano has done even more work. She can go into even more details. I don't know when you read the books and if you have taken notes etc. but it seems you didn't read them for a specific purpose. So maybe you are unaware of some episodes in the books and are more willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. But it has been interesting comparing 'notes', especially with Tano. As I see it, that there really is the value of the books. They provide fodder for dialogue....for argument.....for digging into the whole idea of what it means to be SR. There are not actually many writings out there that stir up controversy in the way these writings do....they shake things up a bit, and I think that's a good thing. |
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If folks can't relate, they can't relate.