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Post by desertrain on Jan 31, 2010 3:36:58 GMT -5
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Post by karen on Jan 31, 2010 13:12:30 GMT -5
What is sacred and what isn't sacred?
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alpha
New Member
Posts: 7
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Post by alpha on Jan 31, 2010 15:00:42 GMT -5
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Post by circussmith on Feb 1, 2010 16:21:28 GMT -5
Karen
What is and isn't sacred? Like so much it depends upon your definition. To me "sacred" would be anything done in a state of Presence and with the full use of attention (though that might be considered a bit redundant)
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Post by karen on Feb 1, 2010 16:38:01 GMT -5
Hi circus,
that's a good observation. It seems as a personal guide for you "sacred" makes sense.
To me though, "sacred" has always implied some-kind of truth cosmologically speaking from on high - such that something we consider "spiritual" to be sacred, but a bowel moment is not. And to me, that's just BS.
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Post by circussmith on Feb 2, 2010 13:39:41 GMT -5
Hi circus, that's a good observation. It seems as a personal guide for you "sacred" makes sense. To me though, "sacred" has always implied some-kind of truth cosmologically speaking from on high - such that something we consider "spiritual" to be sacred, but a bowel moment is not. And to me, that's just BS. I am not sure I follow you. What do you consider sacred? |
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Post by karen on Feb 2, 2010 22:52:01 GMT -5
Nothing at all. Everything is the same it seems. Though some paths might lead to something I might find more advantageous than others. Thus the seemingly polar opposites of the so-called Divine and the profane in my example.
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Post by robert on Feb 3, 2010 13:01:18 GMT -5
is it just me or are we doing a whole bunch of thinking about something that "cannot be known through thought" and is what we are looking for as simple as being quiet and allowing whatever is going to happen, happen?
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Post by zendancer on Feb 3, 2010 13:18:23 GMT -5
Robert: That is correct; it cannot be known through thought. Not-knowing and silence is the way. At some point, the truth shines through, and then one sees that holy is holy and unholy is unholy, but the words are no longer understood in a relative sense. The word "sacred" usually refers to a dualistic concept, but the experience of sacredness--the kind that makes you fall on your knees in worship--is something else entirely.
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Post by lightmystic on Feb 4, 2010 11:29:41 GMT -5
Hey robert, I agree that overthinking it is not useful, because it's always on the level of exploring direct experience, getting clearer on it. Thinking doesn't help, because it doesn't change anything, as the level where the shift needs to happen is not intellectual, but visceral. That said, I wouldn't say that being quiet and allowing, in itself, are going to make it clear on it's own. Although that is a good way to start to become aware of the experience. It's just that we are not aware of the ways in which we are actively resisting it, so the being quite, doing what feels like status quo, is actually full of resistance to what already is. And there has to be a recognition of that on a deep level (although not necessarily involving an intellectual recognition) in order for those resistances to start to shift. It's a process of not just allowing, but an even greater allowing than we know how to do, as resistances (i.e. lack of allowing) that we hadn't seen before start to unwind more and more. And, ultimately, whatever helps put direct attention on it. I definitely agree that intellectualizing about it doesn't work, but talking about it can be very very helpful if one is focusing on their direct experience. Trying to put words on an experience that is, by nature, completely inexpressible as a concept forces one to pay very careful attention to their experience. And that helps bring a very real clarity. I've had clarity come from having to describe the indescribable in ways that no amount of being quiet could ever replace. But then the opposite is also true. I'm just saying that there's a time and a place for everything.... is it just me or are we doing a whole bunch of thinking about something that "cannot be known through thought" and is what we are looking for as simple as being quiet and allowing whatever is going to happen, happen? |
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Post by robert on Feb 4, 2010 12:45:32 GMT -5
well put both of you thank you. holy or unholy, sacred or not sacred, i have always thought that it was either all sacred or none of it was sacred. and yes i do know that there is a time and a place for thinking and a time and a place for silence. it seems to me that thought used properly and efficiently is more a process of negation of stripping away what is unnecessary than a tool for circular debate that leaves one exactly where one started.
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Post by lightmystic on Feb 4, 2010 13:02:04 GMT -5
Hey Robert, Yes, and your point is very well taken. If discussion is not based on direct experience and really exploring that, then it tends to deteriorate into speculation, circular arguments, etc.... And I also appreciate your point about negation, it's always something less in the way, never something additional added. Well said. well put both of you thank you. holy or unholy, sacred or not sacred, i have always thought that it was either all sacred or none of it was sacred. and yes i do know that there is a time and a place for thinking and a time and a place for silence. it seems to me that thought used properly and efficiently is more a process of negation of stripping away what is unnecessary than a tool for circular debate that leaves one exactly where one started. |
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Post by zendancer on Feb 4, 2010 14:30:18 GMT -5
Robert and LM: I'm in the same boat with LM. When I start to teach about something, I find myself looking more deeply into my own experiences (or having new experiences) and thereby discovering new aspects of reality to contemplate. I often encounter questions on this board that plunge me into total silence for a while, which can be very educational. I'm always learning something new here, and that is a barrel of fun.
However, I'm not sure that silence and direct sensory perception, alone, won't lead to full understanding. I know that we have resistances and ideas that we don't even know about, but I'm not sure that they won't all become exposed and dissolve given sufficient silence and direct perception. There may need to be some underlying curiosity or questioning for everything to be revealed, but I'm not sure about that. If the record is correct, then Ramana simply sat in samadhi for seven years and came out free of illusion (as far as we know), deeply connected to the truth, and radiating considerable spiritual power. Zen people would say that during his years of silence he accumulated a lot of "joriki," their word for spiritual power.
When I have gone on three-day silent retreats, I have been able to feel the joriki increase day by day, and the effects can often last for weeks after returning to everyday life. It is hard to imagine the kind of power and understanding that would result from sitting in samadhi for seven years! I suspect that I would blast off into the stars after only a month! LOL. That would be some serious rocket fuel.
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Post by klaus on Feb 4, 2010 17:19:19 GMT -5
zendancer,
Your observation on Ramana sitting in samadhi for seven years just blew me away!
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Post by zendancer on Feb 4, 2010 20:50:15 GMT -5
Klaus: Yes, I, too, am blown away by the story of Ramana every time I think about it. It is probably the most amazing story about unity-consciousness in recorded history. For those who don't know the story here it is (to the best of my memory):
In 1896 Ramana was a sixteen-year-old soccer-playing teenager living in India. One afternoon he happened to reflect upon his own mortality, and was filled with an intense fear of death. He lay down on the floor, looked within himself to investigate what dies, and had some sort of simulated death experience. We don;t know exactly what happened, but he later told some of his followers that he was actually conscious of his body as if from a distance, and felt it enter some sort of rigid state similar to rigor mortis. He apparently had a major awakening, and realized that his true nature could not die and that who he was was not related to a body. After a while he came back into his body, but he was never the same again, and he never again experienced himself as an individual entity. Selfhood was gone forever. He didn;t tell anybody about his experience, and for the next five weeks he continued to go to school like a normal teenager. However, he no longer had any interest in school or anything else of a conventional nature, and he finally gave up the pretense of ordinary life. He stole some money from his mother, and hopped a train to a nearby holy site. After he got there, he sat down near a small temple and went into a deep state of samadhi (a form of unity-consciousness). It was so intense that he lost all awareness of the outside world or his own body. Insects chewed away portions of his legs where he sat in contact with the ground for so long, and that left him crippled for life. His hair and fingernails grew extremely long. He ate very little food (occasionally supplied by sympathetic monks and villagers) and his body wasted away to skin and bones. Kids threw stones at him because they thought he was putting on an act, but he remained oblivious of everything.
Gradually people realized that what they were witnessing was an extraordinary phenomenon, and people began to regard him as a saint. He remained silent and deeply absorbed in samadhi for about seven years. He eventually emerged from that state, and moved to the holy mountain of Arunachula where he remained for the rest of his life, and where a huge ashram grew up around him. After his seven years of silence, he began to occasionally speak and return to a more normal style of life. He radiated such spiritual power that many people reported that their minds were stilled just by sitting near him. A few people even woke up in his presence. Although he later gave out verbal teachings, he always insisted that those were only for people who weren't able to receive his silent teaching directly in its most powerful and concentrated form.
To those people who could not receive his direct mind-to-mind teaching through silence, he would resort to the teaching that "conciousness is all there is." If people couldn't accept that teaching, then he would keep stepping down through lower and lower levels of understanding in an attempt to reach the level of the questioners. He was quite humble and egalitarian and often got up at 3 am to help prepare the meals for all the people who flocked to the ashram. He was undoubtedly the most famous spiritual teacher in India for the last twenty years of his life. Ghandi often sent government people who were agitated to sit with Ramana in an effort to still their minds. Ramana eventually died of cancer (there are several interesting stories about his illness), and reportedly had this final conversation: One of his followers said, "Master, are you leaving us?" Ramana managed to force out a small laugh and said, "Where could I possibly go?"
(If anyone notices any major details that I've omitted from the story, feel free to fill them in.)
Seven years spent sitting in silent samadhi is truly mind-boggling to contemplate!
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