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Post by laughter on Feb 4, 2024 4:43:33 GMT -5
Well, there's always time to kill when you're waiting around for Gracie to ring the doorbell, after all ...  Yup. Might as well just enjoy life. like any other Tom, Dick or Hairy. |
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Post by laughter on Feb 4, 2024 4:46:41 GMT -5
 Reefs LOA, in the final analysis, is a more generalized version of what you write in terms of non-reactivity in meditation. Beyond that, there are all these heavy-duty conceptual structures. Whenever there are such structures, there is the potential for both confusion, and wisdom. There is the potential for straw men, or genuine understanding and agreement to disagree. And I don't mean to imply that reefs' field is completely free of scarecrows on every day of the week.  That seems about right. However, the question of all questions is, when Lolly talks about mindfulness and awareness, is he referring to the personal or the impersonal context? I'd say he is referring to the personal context and the false witness position, why else always bring it back to karma and practice in the end? There's no basis for either karma or practice in the impersonal context. So what I am pointing to and what Lolly is describing, in the final analysis, is still literally worlds apart. Midnight, sunrise, noon, sunset, twilight. |
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Post by laughter on Feb 4, 2024 4:53:11 GMT -5
Your actions reflect your state of being. This is why an individual that has reached a certain state of awareness would not deliberately hurt another for example. A peep that is supposedly in a forever blissful state wouldn't harm a fly. You kant separate one's state of being from one's actions. I see Karma just as a result of how one feels from what one does. LOA still reflects there being someone present that can attract something. Can an illusory self attract anything at all lol? Mud only sticks to something. What does 'not deliberately hurting others' mean? You probably know the parable of the monk and the snake, right? For reference: Also, life is on continuous recycling process. You can't survive without hurting a fly or else you will be road kill yourself at some point. So, let's not be silly. And LOA works in the personal as well as in the impersonal context. So, no, you don't need a self. But you need one for LOK, because LOK works in the personal context only. But according to the anatta doctrine, there is no personal self, so this is where Buddhism gets silly. In TAV they solved that issue very elegantly by declaring LOK a merely provisional truth, i.e. something that is a useful concept or explanation at a certain level of understanding but not the ultimate truth, and so it will be discarded later as an unnecessary and unproven assumption as the understanding deepens. aspect of what I read about it (I think from someone linking to or quoting Waite), struck me as quite practical and sensible. It certainly anticipates the witnessing/meditation/samunkie attachment-traps. |
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Post by laughter on Feb 4, 2024 4:55:17 GMT -5
I don't have a problem in believing that there's a personal Andy and a personal tenka, so there are two individuals here in the mix, butt they are not separate from what we are that is in expression of individuality. So for me, there is someone who bashes someones head in and there is also someone whose head is bashed in. The whole notion of there is only one in my eyes is misconceived If that is misconceived then you don't understand your own mantra that "there is only what you are".  In light most favorable to tenkasan he is calling out a oneness blob.  |
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Post by laughter on Feb 4, 2024 5:02:54 GMT -5
So, you can start with a (** cough cough **) simple example: "the sky is blue". If only I was so wise, Master. what have I done to deserve such insult!  |
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Post by laughter on Feb 4, 2024 5:07:18 GMT -5
Let's say for example you had a bad day and you made someone else unhappy because you snapped at them. Would you rather resolve that and make peace with that or would you just start the day afresh the following morning? You see for many they are not even aware of where they stand in regards to karma especially when we are talking about potentially karma accumulated over a hundred lifetimes. What I became aware of is that there is a time and a place for everything and where a dedicated peep stands in regards in all that if one is sincere and genuine to be at peace within oneself and work towards that then certain things relating to this will be revealed to them as it was with me. It's not everyones cup of tea because it's not easy working through oneself in this way. It disrupted my life for a fair while. First of all, from the LOA perspective, it takes always two to tango. Which means there isn't really any room for a perpetrator-victim thinking (similar to Ramakrishna saying that God is the one who encourages the thief to break into a house and also the one who warns the owner of the house of thieves at the same time). Secondly, you attract by your state of being, not by your actions. So your actions matter much less than you might think. So you could do both, forget about it and get happy and you will attract a totally new relationship with that same person, or apologize for your misdeeds and attract a totally new relationship with that same person. It's not really about what your do, but about your state of being when you do it. So forget about karma. Focus on LOA instead. Karma is just a highly personalized and therefore distorted version of LOA. Seems to me that in the natural state of realized and aligned that "being" and "action" are a dwad .. not that I can really claim the "natural state" for myself. I'd note that "attr action", ends in " action". |
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Post by Reefs on Feb 4, 2024 5:19:48 GMT -5
Personal is a perspective with a sense of doership, in serial time and space, separate from or interconnected with the world (separation). Impersonal is a perspective without a sense of doership, prior to time and space, not separate from the world but the world itself (oneness). Seth, for example, while beyond time and space, is still the personal perspective. Thanks. I don't understand. I hoped to be something I can relate to. I can relate to your non-relating. This is not about conceptual knowledge in the sense of information, that you can study, accumulate, compile, pass on or teach. ZD likes to use the terms 'gnosis', or 'grok' and I sometimes use the term 'visceral' understanding. Those are all pointers beyond conceptual knowledge. It takes a direct reference in order to understand it, nothing else will do. Please know that I can understand your disappointment and frustration. But the situation is such that this can't be helped. To get to this understanding you don't get there via a progression of knowledge, but via a quantum leap. Which is frustrating to those who want to understand it because there's no reliable manual on how to do that leap. There are theories on how to do it based on individual case studies of those who did it, but it's rare that someone can actually replicate it. It almost never happens. So if you approach this with a scientific mindset, you are going to be very disappointed. There's nothing there for you to quantify or qualify with your traditional scientific or even mental tools, even ESP or your inner guides cannot help you here. |
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Post by Reefs on Feb 4, 2024 5:34:02 GMT -5
Yes, volition is a mental overlay over pure functioning. So in a sense, if there is no self (anatta) and only a stream of consciousness, or pure functioning. Attachment to certain parts or aspects of that stream ('me' and 'mine') then are the only problem. But that doesn't affect the stream or the pure functioning, consciousness will always be streaming and functioning purely. So neither self nor karma are real in that sense. It's all a fiction. There is no self that is in bondage or is freed from bondage because there is no self in the first place. Which means there is no cause of bondage and also no liberation from bondage. Which is why all the dharmas are empty and not truth. So it seems to me that LOK, the 4truths and the 8fold path may actually be the lower teaching of the Buddha, sorta like an appetizer, while anatta is the higher teaching, the actual teaching of the Buddha. Because that's Advaita as taught in Vedanta and Taoism. The bulk of karma theory is a commentary about a fiction. It's like saying Bond's first name was James. That's a true statement, but it's about the fiction. Immediately after his enlightenment, Buddha said something like, I see you house builder. I relate the 'house builder' to the false self just because I saw my own ghost, and thought, Wait a sec, that's not me. I was also a little dismayed that I'd been living as that all this time. Not that I call seeing the mirage enlightment. Some argue enlightenment is only when purification is perfected, and I'm happy to go along with that, but I'm more inclined to the notion that it's you, just as you are now.
I think Buddha, just going by what he supposedly said, went through the body to understand the mind and 'pierced the veil'. Hence he taught from experience and covered all the bases of body, mind and spirit. I think it's probable that Vedanta is also comprehensive (I don't know what it says), but modern teachers from Ramana on tend to promote self inquiry and neglect physical and psychological contexts. I'm not against self inquiry in any way - it's just that in the Buddhist philosophy, self inquiry one part of a broader endeavour.
Karma theory also extends to true statements about true things, but by and large, it's an explanation the pitfalls of living as a false self, and as such, is largely some true statements about fictional things.
Okay, it seems we are getting a bit closer. It is unfortunate that people got all their ideas about Advaita Vedanta from Niz and Ramana. But Ramana and Niz are more like freelance teachers of Advaita Vedanta. In TAV it is actually the whole program as you just laid out in the case of the Buddha. You won't find that with these two guys. According to TAV, there are certain criteria that qualify a teacher as well as a student. So not everyone is served and accepted by default. I think Niz was picky too about his students but RM had been praised as having rejected no one. So what you get from Niz and RM is a bit of a willy-nilly approach. In that sense, as I explained in the other thread, not good teachers. However, since Niz and RM are fairly recent figures, they were able to clarify some controversial points in the scriptures like turiya (aka the fourth state) which had been taught incorrectly by many modern teachers of TAV, because the original meaning got lost over time (a general problem with scriptures). That's the importance of a real guru, not to re-invent the wheel but to make tradition relatable and understandable again to modern minds. |
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Post by Reefs on Feb 4, 2024 6:06:10 GMT -5
If we define 'sin' is merely not being yourself, it would also provide the context for 'good' and 'evil', which would be more or less alignment vs. misalignment. (to the extent I understand your terms and meanings) Excellent point, but the devil is always in the details. For example, aren't wealth and physical health outward signs of alignment? To me, each are quite ambiguous as to measures and indicators of good or evil. Wealth, in particular, can often be a countersign, as in, an indicator of evil. Excellent point as well. The wealthy are in alignment with wealth and the poor are in alignment with poverty, of course. It doesn't say anything about being in alignment with themselves per se. There is also a difference in terms of how wealth is accumulated, i.e. on the competitive plane (from a state of being of lack) or on the non-competitive plane (from a state of being of abundance). The first category is usually where you would find signs of 'evil', because on the competitive plane the one who is the toughest and meanest usually wins, because it is a closed system, and if you want a bigger piece of the pie, you to take away something from the other players in the game. So there's usually a lot of collateral damage. Not so on the non-competitive plane. There you just create your own, bigger pie without having to take away anything from any of the other players (from zero to one). In fact, what the other players do is basically irrelevant to what happens to your pie. So those are very different approaches to life. And so rich doesn't automatically mean evil person, the same way that poor person doesn't automatically mean good person. There are rich people who are very miserably precisely because they are rich, and there are poor people who are very happy precisely because they are poor. Being rich obviously has its perks, but being poor does too. Health is different though, because it is a reflection of your entire being, not just one aspect like wealth or power or status or fame. And most of the wealthy and powerful people you see portrayed in the media are not actually healthy, have you noticed? |
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Post by Reefs on Feb 4, 2024 6:10:28 GMT -5
What does 'not deliberately hurting others' mean? You probably know the parable of the monk and the snake, right? For reference: Also, life is on continuous recycling process. You can't survive without hurting a fly or else you will be road kill yourself at some point. So, let's not be silly. And LOA works in the personal as well as in the impersonal context. So, no, you don't need a self. But you need one for LOK, because LOK works in the personal context only. But according to the anatta doctrine, there is no personal self, so this is where Buddhism gets silly. In TAV they solved that issue very elegantly by declaring LOK a merely provisional truth, i.e. something that is a useful concept or explanation at a certain level of understanding but not the ultimate truth, and so it will be discarded later as an unnecessary and unproven assumption as the understanding deepens. aspect of what I read about it (I think from someone linking to or quoting Waite), struck me as quite practical and sensible. It certainly anticipates the witnessing/meditation/samunkie attachment-traps. Yes, that's genius, actually. However, this is also why you have to teach certain concepts in a certain order, you cannot skip any steps. Niz and RM didn't do that, so they put a lot of folks on the samunkie track. In that sense, not good teachers. This was Andre's (and also my) point in the other thread. |
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Post by Reefs on Feb 4, 2024 6:11:25 GMT -5
If that is misconceived then you don't understand your own mantra that "there is only what you are". In light most favorable to tenkasan he is calling out a oneness blob. |
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Post by Reefs on Feb 4, 2024 6:14:49 GMT -5
First of all, from the LOA perspective, it takes always two to tango. Which means there isn't really any room for a perpetrator-victim thinking (similar to Ramakrishna saying that God is the one who encourages the thief to break into a house and also the one who warns the owner of the house of thieves at the same time). Secondly, you attract by your state of being, not by your actions. So your actions matter much less than you might think. So you could do both, forget about it and get happy and you will attract a totally new relationship with that same person, or apologize for your misdeeds and attract a totally new relationship with that same person. It's not really about what your do, but about your state of being when you do it. So forget about karma. Focus on LOA instead. Karma is just a highly personalized and therefore distorted version of LOA. Seems to me that in the natural state of realized and aligned that "being" and "action" are a dwad .. not that I can really claim the "natural state" for myself. I'd note that "attr action", ends in " action". Haha, yes. Just keep in mind that natural state in practical terms translates into 'living spontaneously', basically, or 'roaming freely' as Zhuangzi put it, or the cloud/water thingy in Chan/Zen(yun-shui/unsui). Also, the closer you get to a state of total alignment, the more instant manifestations will be the norm. |
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Post by DonHelado on Feb 4, 2024 9:33:24 GMT -5
What, pray tell, is this ego that thinks it "has" a "being" like it owns a little piece of real estate? The Realization of Niz, et al, reveals this separate being to be an illusion, and LOA is more dream stuff for that ego. It's mildly useful at times depending on a person's psychology, but to get so emotionally attached to it that you try to elevate to an Absolute law, that's just silly. I always found the LOA people to be annoying over on the Tolle forum years and years ago. "What's that got to do with anything??  ". It's sorta' like a .. "life goes on" thing.  Yeah, the contrast between the self transcendence of Tolle and the self-serving fantasies - money grubbers in the temple, even Jesus got annoyed. I'm not going to wade through the flood of words here, but eventually the ego shows up to talk about "manifesting" for itself. Fortunately, in our modern world, it's comic relief. In the old days, they'd wheel out an iron maiden and have one their cult followers tie you down. Sports, science, engineering, and other fields - they have checks against reality to keep the participants honest. Did the runner make the time? Did the bridge fall under the load? But academic humanities and mass-market spirituality allow the ego to spin theories without check. It's great for selling books or starting cults. |
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Post by DonHelado on Feb 4, 2024 9:45:48 GMT -5
I just channeled Seth. He said that when this forum gets to 500,000 posts it will collapse under the weight of the opportunity cost. Some of you could have written novels instead. When it's fiction, call it fiction – that's better for the collective health.
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Post by lolly on Feb 5, 2024 22:43:45 GMT -5
Some of you could have written novels instead. When it's fiction, call it fiction – that's better for the collective health. Well, the thing is, karma theory is intricate philosophy which can be summed up as a one liner like 'you reap what you sow' but the nuances need a little elaboration. If it's not to your taste, just keep scrolling. |
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