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Post by inavalan on Jul 24, 2020 21:22:36 GMT -5
i The Christians in our group disagree about Jesus mission. One of my ex wives studied the teachings but I have not with any care. So I am really relying on what those scholars have said to me about it in discussion which is predominately Jesus as Saviour. There may be some here who can get into what he said and swop Bible quotes which I will follow if it happens. I dont have a Bible any more. I've never had any serious dialog with anyone in person about my take on Christianity, as I doubt most can relate to it. I had one orientation to it before spending some serious time at participating in mass, and then another one, after. Christianity doesn't seem to me to be traditionally condusive to what we might consider a "path of insight" involving self-inquiry and neti-neti, and it seems to me that this is to a large degree a function of those institutional distortions that I alluded to already: the churches that are here now, are here because they were good at perpetuating themselves, and any true propagation of the "spirit of Jesus" is almost incidental to that perpetuation. What has the potential to happen in prayer and communion isn't, in my opinion, apprehendable by the scriptures or the dogma or any philosophy, and ultimately, I think any of the ideas about Christianity can just as easily obscure the communion as not. And I'd opine that the true propagation of that spirit by those institutions was as inevitable as it was incidental, as it's in that spirit, and in the practice of the prayer and communion, in which the relationship to the nondual pointers might be found. So, do you believe there's a God? |
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Post by inavalan on Jul 24, 2020 21:27:44 GMT -5
I'm asking these direct questions, because I'm really interested to understand. I intend neither to offend, nor to argue.
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Post by amit on Jul 25, 2020 2:45:48 GMT -5
i The Christians in our group disagree about Jesus mission. One of my ex wives studied the teachings but I have not with any care. So I am really relying on what those scholars have said to me about it in discussion which is predominately Jesus as Saviour. There may be some here who can get into what he said and swop Bible quotes which I will follow if it happens. I dont have a Bible any more. I've never had any serious dialog with anyone in person about my take on Christianity, as I doubt most can relate to it. I had one orientation to it before spending some serious time at participating in mass, and then another one, after. Christianity doesn't seem to me to be traditionally condusive to what we might consider a "path of insight" involving self-inquiry and neti-neti, and it seems to me that this is to a large degree a function of those institutional distortions that I alluded to already: the churches that are here now, are here because they were good at perpetuating themselves, and any true propagation of the "spirit of Jesus" is almost incidental to that perpetuation. What has the potential to happen in prayer and communion isn't, in my opinion, apprehendable by the scriptures or the dogma or any philosophy, and ultimately, I think any of the ideas about Christianity can just as easily obscure the communion as not. And I'd opine that the true propagation of that spirit by those institutions was as inevitable as it was incidental, as it's in that spirit, and in the practice of the prayer and communion, in which the relationship to the nondual pointers might be found. Christianity is simply another examaple of Oneness manifest so is no different from Nonduality in that respect. Different versions occur in both. Discussion is made more difficult, and daunting, because of those different versions. At least from a nodual perspective, Oneness is both sides:) |
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Post by Reefs on Jul 25, 2020 7:26:50 GMT -5
You went right into the monkey mind trap the zen master laid out for you.  The zen master has no use for your concepts of "time", "reincarnation", "the physical universe" or "the wider reality". He wants to see the real deal, not abstractions. Knowledge, any kind of knowledge, isn't going to help you here. That doesn't mean though that you cannot reply using words. It just means that you cannot answer it from an intellectual level. You have to answer from a deeper, visceral level of your being. Nah ... As he worded his question, so I worded my answer. Anyway, I can't argue with your belief. Okay. Never mind. In case you want to dig a bit deeper, read what Alan Watts has to say here: spiritualteachers.proboards.com/post/454225/thread |
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Post by zendancer on Jul 25, 2020 7:45:37 GMT -5
I have numerous versions of the Bible, but I rarely look at them anymore. I wrote a newspaper column for ten years about a more mystical/cosmic interpretation of Jesus' teachings, and I followed that up with a book based on those articles (A Path to Christ Consciousness, Non-Conceptual Awareness Practice as a Doorway to the Infinite), but other than a handful of open-minded people there was virtually no interest in that subject by conventional Christians. Stephen Mitchell also wrote a book about Jesus that was rather shocking in its claims, but after thinking about the issues he covered, I suspect that he was correct in his speculations. Nevertheless, I lost interest in trying to discuss non-duality with people who are locked into any hard-core belief system. There are mystics in Christianity, and one of the most widely watched interviews on batgap.com is between Rick and a Christian who became enlightened, but that kind of attainment is pretty rare. One of the reasons I ask people if its possible to find the truth on a desert island without any holy books or teachers is to attack the idea that any book or teacher is necessary for finding the truth. All that's required is shifting attention away from thoughts and staying focused on what can be seen. Another approach is simply to "look within." "Looking," of course, is the key word. People would rather think than look. Starting from the title you mentioned, I browsed on some 2010 posts on this site, and eventually a presentation you gave in 2012 (vimeo ~1h25min). If you don't mind, what makes your experiences more valid that my experiences? It is a honest question; I'm not looking to argue it. Thanks. Everyone's experiences and/or realizations are valid (because they happened), and there's no better or worse except from a dualistic POV. If people are happy with their lives and their understanding of reality, then they won't go searching for Truth with a capital T. Most people interested in non-duality have intuitively sensed that what Charles Tart called "the consensus trance state" is somehow flawed, or they are suffering in some way and are seeking an end to suffering. Whether driven by pure curiosity or suffering seekers are all seeking peace of mind. For people who are driven by curiosity the seeking is directed toward seeing the world in some direct way free from cultural conditioning or in finding answers to their existential questions (which usually leads to the same kinds of realizations). Sages do not tell people what they ought to believe; they tell people to find the truth for themselves. If people ask how to find the truth, all that sages can do is point in a particular direction by offering admonitions such as, "look within," "be still," "shift attention away from dualistic thoughts," "meditate," etc. etc. Those who follow such admonitions usually have experiences that are quite different than people who do not follow such admonitions, and if they pursue their curiosity far enough, they usually end up living life quite differently than most humans (no fear of death, no worry, no psychological resistance to whatever happens, no fantasization or regret, etc. etc). In general they become happy little campers because they've seen the context of human life from 30,000 feet and the mind has been put to rest. Jesus said, "In my Father's house are many mansions," and virtually all sages would agree with that claim. What we all are cannot be imagined, and there is no limit to what THIS can discover about Itself. In a very real sense, Self exploration is a kind of colossal adventure, and all kinds of strange stuff can happen as THIS explores Itself beyond the realm of the intellect. THIS is incomprehensibly intelligent, but whether THIS, as a particular human, will discover the vast intelligence of Itself is a mystery. Some people are interested in things like that and others are not. While searching for the Truth, many people have the same kinds of experiences and realizations, so there is a general consensus among sages about what's going on, but that consensus is based upon direct experience and similar realizations rather than ideas or beliefs. It is in this sense that realizations inform the mind. Bottom line? All experiences and realizations are what they are. No better or worse; just different. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 25, 2020 10:11:56 GMT -5
Yes perfectly. Adam is considered to be one soul in which we are all in and Jesus is considered to be another soul which is pure and sacrificed to save the first soul. What? Wasn't the apple "tree" in Eden also called the tree of the 'knowledge of good and evil'? That doesn't sound like "nothing to do with non-duality" to me. It's one thesaurus step away from "the tree of the knowledge of duality". Though that 2nd phrase doesn't sound as good. You can imagine 1000 stories out of what had happened in the eden garden,I heard many but the story simply implies what it says! Simple and Easy! Some people read into the text which is not there, ZD is the best example of that! They will never allow the text to speak for itself! |
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Post by laughter on Jul 25, 2020 10:28:01 GMT -5
I've never had any serious dialog with anyone in person about my take on Christianity, as I doubt most can relate to it. I had one orientation to it before spending some serious time at participating in mass, and then another one, after. Christianity doesn't seem to me to be traditionally condusive to what we might consider a "path of insight" involving self-inquiry and neti-neti, and it seems to me that this is to a large degree a function of those institutional distortions that I alluded to already: the churches that are here now, are here because they were good at perpetuating themselves, and any true propagation of the "spirit of Jesus" is almost incidental to that perpetuation. What has the potential to happen in prayer and communion isn't, in my opinion, apprehendable by the scriptures or the dogma or any philosophy, and ultimately, I think any of the ideas about Christianity can just as easily obscure the communion as not. And I'd opine that the true propagation of that spirit by those institutions was as inevitable as it was incidental, as it's in that spirit, and in the practice of the prayer and communion, in which the relationship to the nondual pointers might be found. So, do you believe there's a God? Not in the sense this is usually meant to refer to, no.  The only way that I got to a point where I could walk into a church was long after I'd questioned, put into perspective, and so left behind everything I once believed. What I found at church was the same thing I'd found by doing Zen inspired meditations: the spaciousness of silence, the peace, of emptiness. |
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Post by laughter on Jul 25, 2020 10:30:36 GMT -5
I'm asking these direct questions, because I'm really interested to understand. I intend neither to offend, nor to argue. 's'all good with me dude. Directness is a symptom of self-honesty. One of the most profound spiritual statements ever made was by Billy Shakes, by the mouth of his character, Pollonius: "to thine own self be true, and it will follow, as sure as night follows day, that you can be false to no man." |
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Post by zendancer on Jul 25, 2020 11:10:13 GMT -5
What? Wasn't the apple "tree" in Eden also called the tree of the 'knowledge of good and evil'? That doesn't sound like "nothing to do with non-duality" to me. It's one thesaurus step away from "the tree of the knowledge of duality". Though that 2nd phrase doesn't sound as good. You can imagine 1000 stories out of what had happened in the eden garden,I heard many but the story simply implies what it says! Simple and Easy! Some people read into the text which is not there, ZD is the best example of that! They will never allow the text to speak for itself! One of the questions that bothered me even as a teenager was how to know which belief system was correct. At that time I still thought that belief systems were either correct or incorrect. Haha! I remember asking my parents about this because it seemed obvious that everyone all over the world was conditioned to believe whatever the dominant belief system was that they grew up with. It seemed illogical to think that all of them were correct, so upon what basis could one decide the correctness or incorrectness of any particular set of beliefs? It seemed like the whole world was a kind of floating opera, and the whole thing was relativistic. I wondered if there were any way to discover something absolute and unquestionable--if there as any "solid ground of being" that could be known. I grew up in a fundamentalist Christian tradition, and the idea that children in India or China might be condemned to eternal torture simply because they had never been exposed to the ideas of Christianity seemed totally absurd and rather horrific, but that's what people in my parent's tradition believed. When I asked about this, they explained, essentially, that humans lived in a kind of morality play, and Christians had an obligation to proselytize people in other traditions so that they would know that a "correct" belief system was available. If they then chose incorrectly, then God would punish them for eternity. haha! Looking back, the kind of indoctrination that leads to ideas like this seems rather incredible. |
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Post by inavalan on Jul 25, 2020 13:25:54 GMT -5
Starting from the title you mentioned, I browsed on some 2010 posts on this site, and eventually a presentation you gave in 2012 (vimeo ~1h25min). If you don't mind, what makes your experiences more valid that my experiences? It is a honest question; I'm not looking to argue it. Thanks. Everyone's experiences and/or realizations are valid (because they happened), and there's no better or worse except from a dualistic POV. If people are happy with their lives and their understanding of reality, then they won't go searching for Truth with a capital T. Most people interested in non-duality have intuitively sensed that what Charles Tart called "the consensus trance state" is somehow flawed, or they are suffering in some way and are seeking an end to suffering. Whether driven by pure curiosity or suffering seekers are all seeking peace of mind. For people who are driven by curiosity the seeking is directed toward seeing the world in some direct way free from cultural conditioning or in finding answers to their existential questions (which usually leads to the same kinds of realizations). Sages do not tell people what they ought to believe; they tell people to find the truth for themselves. If people ask how to find the truth, all that sages can do is point in a particular direction by offering admonitions such as, "look within," "be still," "shift attention away from dualistic thoughts," "meditate," etc. etc. Those who follow such admonitions usually have experiences that are quite different than people who do not follow such admonitions, and if they pursue their curiosity far enough, they usually end up living life quite differently than most humans (no fear of death, no worry, no psychological resistance to whatever happens, no fantasization or regret, etc. etc). In general they become happy little campers because they've seen the context of human life from 30,000 feet and the mind has been put to rest. Jesus said, "In my Father's house are many mansions," and virtually all sages would agree with that claim. What we all are cannot be imagined, and there is no limit to what THIS can discover about Itself. In a very real sense, Self exploration is a kind of colossal adventure, and all kinds of strange stuff can happen as THIS explores Itself beyond the realm of the intellect. THIS is incomprehensibly intelligent, but whether THIS, as a particular human, will discover the vast intelligence of Itself is a mystery. Some people are interested in things like that and others are not. While searching for the Truth, many people have the same kinds of experiences and realizations, so there is a general consensus among sages about what's going on, but that consensus is based upon direct experience and similar realizations rather than ideas or beliefs. It is in this sense that realizations inform the mind. Bottom line? All experiences and realizations are what they are. No better or worse; just different. Thank you for your reply. What triggered my question was a statement you made, either in what I read, or on your talk on vimeo, that you found "the truth" in 1999 (if I remember correctly). To me, that means that you strongly feel (let's say based on intuition) that to be the case. ... I wrote a few more phrases, but I deleted them, because I don't think that I'll get a direct answer on the lines I'm looking for, so it doesn't matter how I read your reply. Thanks for trying. |
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Post by inavalan on Jul 25, 2020 13:32:05 GMT -5
So, do you believe there's a God? Not in the sense this is usually meant to refer to, no. The only way that I got to a point where I could walk into a church was long after I'd questioned, put into perspective, and so left behind everything I once believed. What I found at church was the same thing I'd found by doing Zen inspired meditations: the spaciousness of silence, the peace, of emptiness. Thank you. |
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Post by inavalan on Jul 25, 2020 14:00:04 GMT -5
When people make references to religious dogma, sometimes I google trying to understand what are they referring too, and most of the time it seems that people quote, or explain things out of context. Recently somebody quoted, upset: "Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him." (Mark 4:12)
With google i found the quote, then the context (to which I added in the brackets explanatory words, that I believe to be right):
Then, another poster still objected to my last addition ("even what he has [knowledge of the mysteries] will be taken away from him.") because that didn't make sense to him. I replied that as I understand it, JC meant that those who don't understand much of his ideas (Whoever does not have [knowledge of the mysteries]), will get even more confused listening to his parables (even what he has [knowledge of the mysteries] will be taken away from him).
It isn't that somebody will give or take, but about understanding, or lack of (a.k.a. "confusion").
JC spoke in parables, and his words shouldn't be taken at face value, but their symbolism interpreted.
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Post by zendancer on Jul 25, 2020 14:17:01 GMT -5
Everyone's experiences and/or realizations are valid (because they happened), and there's no better or worse except from a dualistic POV. If people are happy with their lives and their understanding of reality, then they won't go searching for Truth with a capital T. Most people interested in non-duality have intuitively sensed that what Charles Tart called "the consensus trance state" is somehow flawed, or they are suffering in some way and are seeking an end to suffering. Whether driven by pure curiosity or suffering seekers are all seeking peace of mind. For people who are driven by curiosity the seeking is directed toward seeing the world in some direct way free from cultural conditioning or in finding answers to their existential questions (which usually leads to the same kinds of realizations). Sages do not tell people what they ought to believe; they tell people to find the truth for themselves. If people ask how to find the truth, all that sages can do is point in a particular direction by offering admonitions such as, "look within," "be still," "shift attention away from dualistic thoughts," "meditate," etc. etc. Those who follow such admonitions usually have experiences that are quite different than people who do not follow such admonitions, and if they pursue their curiosity far enough, they usually end up living life quite differently than most humans (no fear of death, no worry, no psychological resistance to whatever happens, no fantasization or regret, etc. etc). In general they become happy little campers because they've seen the context of human life from 30,000 feet and the mind has been put to rest. Jesus said, "In my Father's house are many mansions," and virtually all sages would agree with that claim. What we all are cannot be imagined, and there is no limit to what THIS can discover about Itself. In a very real sense, Self exploration is a kind of colossal adventure, and all kinds of strange stuff can happen as THIS explores Itself beyond the realm of the intellect. THIS is incomprehensibly intelligent, but whether THIS, as a particular human, will discover the vast intelligence of Itself is a mystery. Some people are interested in things like that and others are not. While searching for the Truth, many people have the same kinds of experiences and realizations, so there is a general consensus among sages about what's going on, but that consensus is based upon direct experience and similar realizations rather than ideas or beliefs. It is in this sense that realizations inform the mind. Bottom line? All experiences and realizations are what they are. No better or worse; just different. Thank you for your reply. What triggered my question was a statement you made, either in what I read, or on your talk on vimeo, that you found "the truth" in 1999 (if I remember correctly). To me, that means that you strongly feel (let's say based on intuition) that to be the case. ... I wrote a few more phrases, but I deleted them, because I don't think that I'll get a direct answer on the lines I'm looking for, so it doesn't matter how I read your reply. Thanks for trying. When I wrote, or said, that I found the truth in 1999, what I meant was that on that day the illusion of being a separate volitional entity collapsed and I finally understood what I had always wanted to understand. I realized (1) that who I had imagined I was prior to that day had been an illusion and had never existed, and (2) that what I AM (and what everyone and everything else is) is what we call "reality"--a seamless infinite field of being. This ended the search for existential understanding and resulted in peace of mind. Perhaps what was seen on that day might be more accurately called "the living truth" because it's more like a verb than a noun. |
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Post by inavalan on Jul 25, 2020 23:20:35 GMT -5
Thanks Coincidence somebody else mentioned an Alan Watts' quote yesterday: That seemed to point to something I resonated with, but, reading a little more around that quote, I believe AW was saying something differently that I hoped. |
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Post by Reefs on Jul 27, 2020 5:00:12 GMT -5
Thanks Coincidence somebody else mentioned an Alan Watts' quote yesterday: That seemed to point to something I resonated with, but, reading a little more around that quote, I believe AW was saying something differently that I hoped. What were you hoping to read? That he acknowledges that there is a personal creator? |
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