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Post by Deleted on Sept 2, 2022 21:29:02 GMT -5
Correct, and thinking that there is only one path to the truth is a rather fundamentalist mindset. I think I've made it clear on several occasions that there are many paths but only one goal. You might practice what you call AT-T, someone else might practice mindfulness, or Kriya Yoga or Transcendental Meditation as I did. There are many roads to get to the city. You can take the scenic route and stop off along the way to admire some kenshos or take the highway but whichever route you take you have to eventually end up at the door of City Hall and that door is transcendence. Pure nondual awareness. There is nowhere else to go. There is only one door. There is no other entrance but that. It is beyond interpretation. The Self is realized if the mind permanently dissolves into its source. That is SR. Nothing else can be said to be SR other than that. That is the living reality. So yes I agree, it is fundamentalist because there is nothing more fundamental than that. I assume you've had this 'experience'. What was the experience of your personal will/action/decision as you went through that final "door"? Did you feel that "you" chose to step through it, or turn towards it, as an act or choice? Or did something greater than you take over and do it of it's own power, and you were only along for the ride? Or ... ?? some other way to say it... ??
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Post by sree on Sept 2, 2022 21:49:05 GMT -5
Really? Who are these nut jobs who would say such a thing? 😀 Let me set the record straight. I'm a human being living on planet earth BUT I'm also much more than that. I basically said that in my sentence after....I'm assuming Sree thinks that we think that that is all we are. Your assumption is correct. If you are a human being, then you are what is defined as a human being by science. Which branch of science says that there is more to the human being that what science has defined this creature walking on two legs?
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Post by Deleted on Sept 2, 2022 21:49:23 GMT -5
I think I've made it clear on several occasions that there are many paths but only one goal. You might practice what you call AT-T, someone else might practice mindfulness, or Kriya Yoga or Transcendental Meditation as I did. There are many roads to get to the city. You can take the scenic route and stop off along the way to admire some kenshos or take the highway but whichever route you take you have to eventually end up at the door of City Hall and that door is transcendence. Pure nondual awareness. There is nowhere else to go. There is only one door. There is no other entrance but that. It is beyond interpretation. The Self is realized if the mind permanently dissolves into its source. That is SR. Nothing else can be said to be SR other than that. That is the living reality. So yes I agree, it is fundamentalist because there is nothing more fundamental than that. I assume you've had this 'experience'. What was the experience of your personal will/action/decision as you went through that final "door"? Did you feel that "you" chose to step through it, or turn towards it, as an act or choice? Or did something greater than you take over and do it of it's own power, and you were only along for the ride? Or ... ?? some other way to say it... ?? When you pass through that door you leave the individual behind. There is no choice to go through that door. The only choice you have is to go back to the source as an individual ego. The choice is to approach the door but the opening of the door and going through it involves no choice because you leave yourself behind. Becoming still is not a choice. You do something and then stillness happens by itself. Transcendence or samadhi is self-sustaining and choiceless. If you are hungry and you eat to satisfy your appetite it happens by itself. There is no choice about not feeling hungry anymore.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 2, 2022 21:52:23 GMT -5
I basically said that in my sentence after....I'm assuming Sree thinks that we think that that is all we are. Your assumption is correct. If you are a human being, then you are what is defined as a human being by science. Which branch of science says that there is more to the human being that what science has defined this creature walking on on two legs? No branch of science is ever going to be able to tell you that I am that I am.
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Post by sree on Sept 2, 2022 22:47:17 GMT -5
The whole academic world is also debating accepted theories about the material universe. What I think you all (and this includes academia) are wrong is about what we are. Don't you believe you are a human being? It all begins here. You can philosophize all you want but this fundamental belief conditions all inquiry. Don't you accept that you are living on the planet earth seen in video below?
That's interesting (and a bit confusing) because I'm very sure that lots of folks here don't believe they are 'human beings living on planet earth'. In fact, I can't think of someone here that does believe that. There may be a context in which folks here consider it appropriate to say that we are not cats, and we are not living on the moon, but folks don't consider that a spiritual context. Have I understood you right? If so, can I ask what has made you think that folks here believe they are human beings living on planet earth? Of course, they don't believe they are human beings living on planet earth.They think they are more than that. These folks can't have it both ways. They are either human beings or they are not.
You heard me right. I know folks here and everywhere, unless they are nutjobs, believe they are human beings living on planet earth. You don't think the Pope and the Dalai Lama believe that they are human beings living on planet earth? They may think they are more than human. Good luck with that. Charles Manson thought he was more than that and he ended up in prison.
My question was intended to put the ugly truth front and center. The conditioning of science is all powerful. It forces us to see what we are: human beings living on planet earth. Perception is reality. You cannot be more than what science says. To do that, you must be able to, rationally, take apart its doctrines that shape perception.
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Post by laughter on Sept 3, 2022 0:05:33 GMT -5
The range of human experience is quite broad. There are many who aren't driven by lack of self esteem or worth or unfulfillment. Some people are quite comfortable in their own skin as well as materially. Satisfaction can be an interesting "teacher", but I came to the realization that chasing pleasure or achievement highs was a hamster wheel while I still had a decade of atheism in front of me. Just because there is dukkha doesn't mean that dukkha is necessarily driving the search. So if not then what is driving the search? You only search for something in terms of meaning and fulfillment if you think you don't have it already or you have lost it. That lack of not having what you are searching for is loss. That loss is suffering. Curiosity. Even after it's recognized that relative truth is malleable, that no absolute abstraction exists. Even after - long after - one has realized that chasing a high is futile .. or .. one has actually had their appetites satisfied. Even after one comes to terms with the fact that no one man can save the world and that even his contribution to a cause greater than himself is in the largest scheme of things always quite replaceable, and that utopia is an impossible dream, that the poor, sick and hungry will always be with us. Even after one has accepted the inevitability of death, and has no unresolved emotional issues with those he has lost. Even after a man has realized that his enemies ever really only come from within, and yet still there are times when battle becomes inevitable. Still, you see, Grace is a mysterious gal. She seems fickle to those that approach her directly. Still, after all this, remains. The Question. I can tell you this from first hand experience. The curiosity, the interest in The Question, at that point, becomes a quite exhilarating, all-consuming interest. A time of wonderful, colorful and glorious confusion.
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Post by laughter on Sept 3, 2022 0:21:26 GMT -5
So if not then what is driving the search? You only search for something in terms of meaning and fulfillment if you think you don't have it already or you have lost it. That lack of not having what you are searching for is loss. That loss is suffering. For me, laughter is saying, there is the stick, and then there is the carrot. No, definitely not, as they're really just two sides of the same coin. I could go into the personal stories but I'll refrain for now. And it's not that I can't imagine that it might seem this way - chasing a carrot - for some people. The existential search is woven into the fabric of the existential illusion, because everyone really already knows the existential truth. It's the fourth entry in Rummy's 2-variable truth table: the unknown known. So there really is no wrong way to search. That would be like positing a wrong way to be. Rather, some people are conscious of the search, other's aren't. Some people pursue silence or flow, which invite the happy accident. Sadly, the default way of being leads to deeper trance. As I believe you have alluded to, and as happened for Tolle, as an example, the deeper trances can lead to a suffering so unbearable that Gracie makes a visit as an act of mercy.
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Post by laughter on Sept 3, 2022 0:31:59 GMT -5
For me, laughter is saying, there is the stick, and then there is the carrot. If you are getting beaten by a stick that's suffering. If you're chasing a carrot that's also suffering because you will not be satisfied until you get the carrot. Yes, that's right.
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Post by laughter on Sept 3, 2022 0:45:00 GMT -5
Basically, Buddhism + Taoism = Zen. (Which is a good thing). There is a strange contradiction here. ZD places a lot of importance on these kenshos or satoris, but mention it to the Zen master and you will get whacked by the Keisaku. Dude. You're tryin' way too hard right now.
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Post by laughter on Sept 3, 2022 0:47:19 GMT -5
If you are getting beaten by a stick that's suffering. If you're chasing a carrot that's also suffering because you will not be satisfied until you get the carrot. If suffering is the primary driver, then suffering will be the filter through which everything is interpreted. Fortunately, it's possible to find the truth as a result of simple curiosity. And some lucky people find the truth without being driven by either suffering or curiosity. Paul Morgan-Somers is one example--no questioning, no suffering, no curiosity, just.....BAM! Right out of the blue, and that doesn't fit any model of how such a thing might happen. We should change satchi's screen name to Horatio.
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Post by laughter on Sept 3, 2022 0:51:56 GMT -5
I just realized that I don't know what you think we are all dead wrong about. We don't even agree with each other...our spiritualities are somewhat varied. I guess the only thing that unites us is a belief that 'the material universe' is not the basis of existence/life. Some might speak of Consciousness as the basis, some might speak of God, or Awareness, or some might just prefer to speak of this 'basis' a bit more nebulously. Is it this that you think we are wrong about? The whole academic world is also debating accepted theories about the material universe. What I think you all (and this includes academia) are wrong is about what we are. Don't you believe you are a human being? It all begins here. You can philosophize all you want but this fundamental belief conditions all inquiry. Don't you accept that you are living on the planet earth seen in video below?
I am a human being, but belief plays no part in that statement. Human beings are not what you or the scientists think they are. You won't find out what a human being is by trying to answer what a human body is made of.
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Post by laughter on Sept 3, 2022 0:54:11 GMT -5
If suffering is the primary driver, then suffering will be the filter through which everything is interpreted. Fortunately, it's possible to find the truth as a result of simple curiosity. And some lucky people find the truth without being driven by either suffering or curiosity. Paul Morgan-Somers is one example--no questioning, no suffering, no curiosity, just.....BAM! Right out of the blue, and that doesn't fit any model of how such a thing might happen. Before that happened Somers was in a state of suffering. Then everything became Ocean as he is fond of saying. So it came out of the blue as you say and the suffering disappeared. But that's not how awakening usually happens. In his case there was no active seeking so we can't say what was driving his seeking since there was none. None that he was conscious of as it was happening. There's always something happening, after all.
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Post by laughter on Sept 3, 2022 0:58:43 GMT -5
The whole academic world is also debating accepted theories about the material universe. What I think you all (and this includes academia) are wrong is about what we are. Don't you believe you are a human being? It all begins here. You can philosophize all you want but this fundamental belief conditions all inquiry. Don't you accept that you are living on the planet earth seen in video below?
That's interesting (and a bit confusing) because I'm very sure that lots of folks here don't believe they are 'human beings living on planet earth'. In fact, I can't think of someone here that does believe that. There may be a context in which folks here consider it appropriate to say that we are not cats, and we are not living on the moon, but folks don't consider that a spiritual context. Have I understood you right? If so, can I ask what has made you think that folks here believe they are human beings living on planet earth? What a' yous livin' on Mars?? ... Zork!
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Post by laughter on Sept 3, 2022 1:00:01 GMT -5
That's interesting (and a bit confusing) because I'm very sure that lots of folks here don't believe they are 'human beings living on planet earth'. Really? Who are these nut jobs who would say such a thing? 😀 Let me set the record straight. I'm a human being living on planet earth BUT I'm also much more than that. You mean there's room on here for you AND your spiritual ego?
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Post by laughter on Sept 3, 2022 1:03:45 GMT -5
Before that happened Somers was in a state of suffering. Then everything became Ocean as he is fond of saying. So it came out of the blue as you say and the suffering disappeared. But that's not how awakening usually happens. In his case there was no active seeking so we can't say what was driving his seeking since there was none. FWIW, in the videos I've seen of Morgan-Somers, he never says anything about any kind of suffering prior to being inundated by "the ocean", to use his words. In fact, he claims that he was a happy teenager looking forward to playing professional soccer. Maybe the Buddhist religion's emphasis upon suffering causes some believers to filter everything through that concept. That's okay, but it's certainly not necessary, and there are lots of people who have awakened who were not driven by suffering. I suspect that the consensus on this forum by people who have found the truth is that there are many different pathways to the truth. Seems similar to me to how the Christian belief system filters everything through sin. As I believe you've pointed out at various times past, both notions actually allude to the conventional mistaken sense of identity of the person, in the world.
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