[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sandiego108 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sandiego108 sandiego108@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: Three simple questions. You'll either deal with them or you won't. correct. You didn't. Your call. I most certainly did. If you would like to believe that, Jim, I will allow you to do so. From my point of view, you just rolled out some more Newage (rhymes with sewage) bullshit, and not terribly well. You would be laughed off of the Newage talk circuit after your first seminar. But if you really think that your answers were answers, and dealt with the questions, I shall allow you the opportunity to expand upon them. You know...the way someone who was really enlightened might. So far, NOTHING you have mentioned about enlight- enment has been of ANY value to anyone but yourself. 1. Are you comfortable with that? What? your assumption? No. This is a non-answer evasion. If you are claiming that anything you have said in these discussions DOES have value for anyone but yourself, enumerate which of your statements have value, to whom, and what that value is. I'll wait. 2. Do you feel that you, as someone who claims to be enlightened, have any responsibilities to anyone else? Aside from creating them, and having therefore total responsibility for them as long as they exist? Again, *enumerate* your responsibilities. If you are enlightened, and someone you encounter on the street (whom you egoically believe that you have created) asks you a question about enlightenment and why on earth they should pursue it, what would you tell them? You have been SELLING the need for enlight- enment very hard here, Jim, and in my opinion very badly. Assume that you met someone who was NOT like yourself, and who actually cares about other people more than he cares about himself. What would you tell such a person to interest them in this need for enlight- enment that you have been trying to sell so hard? In other words, What's in it for others? (as opposed to What's in it for me?, which is the only thing you have talked about so far). I think that the ONLY reason you are selling the need for enlightenment is that if it were true, there might be a value in listening to the ravings of people who claim to be enlightened, such as yourself. If someone believes firmly, as I do, that there is NO need to realize enlightenment, then you have NOTHING to offer them. You become irrelevant, just gums flapping in the wind. So AGAIN, what you are saying is in terms of YOU, not in terms of benefit for anyone else. I guess what I'm saying is that as a salesman of enlightenment and its potential value, you are coming across kinda like an SUV salesman whose entire sales pitch is, Well, if you buy this car, I make more money. So you should buy it. :-) 3. For that matter, do you believe that anyone else actually exists? I think I've answered this already. As you may recall we went through this earlier. This is similar to the misatkes question. Everyone creates their reality, just as you are creating me-- who I am, what I believe, what you would like to add to your picture of me. Everyone does this. Everyone, even you. You create me, and I create you. And when we discussed this before, I went to great pains to explain to you the difference between *perceiving* other people, and the world around you, and creating those other people, and the world. You obviously zoned out on the entire discussion, and missed it. If you think you created me, what color under- wear am I wearing as I write this? Where am I as I write it? Who will win the Presidential election? Who will win the World Series? In other words, put up or shut up. If you claim to create the world around you, PROVE IT. Say something -- ANYTHING -- that indicates that as an enlightened being who created the world you know something -- ANYTHING -- about the nature of it. All you have said so far is just badly-recycled, vague Newage bullshit. I'll wait...
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sandiego108 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sandiego108 sandiego108@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: Three simple questions. You'll either deal with them or you won't. correct. You didn't. Your call. I most certainly did. Jim, I'll try to say it another way. You write and/or deliver training, right? Well, so do I. If you had been a trainer in a corporation that had hired you to talk to some of its employees about the nature of enlightenment and why it would be of value to them, you would have been graded POOR, and never allowed to come back and teach there again. Given the standards of the companies I work with, and what they expect in a trainer and in the level of his presentation and knowledge of the subject, the corporation would have demanded a refund, and would have gotten it. What I'm trying to do is to get you to up your game a little, dude. You've been spouting lame recycled Newage bullshit here for a while, seem- ingly under the impression that you are talking to people whose standards are as low as yours, and whose gullibility is on the same level as yours, and who thus will buy what you are saying as profound. I am suggesting that, although you have clearly found a few people on that level (Nablus springs to mind), on the whole you have been guilty of not knowing your audience. In all honesty, the people around me during my first week on TM TTC could talk the talk of enlightenment better than you can, let alone how they could talk it by the time the course was over. And even compared to the lamest of the folks on the NeoAdvaita circuit, you're a joke. And the thing is, most of the people on Fairfield Life get this. Unlike yourself, they have been around the spiritual block a few times, and have heard enough bullshit to know bullshit when they hear it. Most of them are not in the *market* for more. (Unless it's really entertaining bullshit, like Lou's astrology predictions.) As we have discussed before, you don't seem to know the difference between comic books and actual literature. What I am suggesting is that what you say about enlightenment and even about your own minor experiences, which you IMO mistake for enlightenment, is on a comic book level. And yet you somehow expect others to react to them as if they were great literature. You may continue to toss out watered-down, largely misunderstood versions of the enlightenment process here if you'd like, but I don't think you are going to impress too many people by doing so. My take on the posters at Fairfield Life is that they sur- passed your understanding, and in many cases your experience level, decades ago. And you continue to talk down to them as if they were children and you were trying to educate them by telling them stories that you read in a comic book. The people you're trying to impress with comic book language and explanations read actual *books*, dude. They heard -- and in many cases outgrew -- bullshit like the stuff you are peddling decades ago. You keep saying that people need to evolve to your level before they can understand what you say about enlightenment. I think you need to evolve to their level before you can understand how easily they can discern how little you know about enlightenment.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
On Jun 1, 2008, at 9:36 PM, Richard J. Williams wrote: Vaj wrote: ...instead of energy or bliss or shakti, etc. radiating from them or to the listeners, there was a very simple, plain presence. [snip] The first time I met the Dalai Lama, he came up to me and grabbed my hands and shook me (he was laughing so hard) and suddenly stopped and just stared into my eyes. Maybe so, but you have just described a case of 'energy or bliss or shakti' in a 'very simple, plain presence', radiating. Having experienced both, no this was not shaktipat. Actually nothing like it. Just because Curtis insists on wasting posts on you doesn't mean you should be out from under your bridge. Now get back where you belong.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
On Jun 2, 2008, at 4:53 AM, TurquoiseB wrote: Jim, I'll try to say it another way. You write and/or deliver training, right? Well, so do I. If you had been a trainer in a corporation that had hired you to talk to some of its employees about the nature of enlightenment and why it would be of value to them, you would have been graded POOR, and never allowed to come back and teach there again. Given the standards of the companies I work with, and what they expect in a trainer and in the level of his presentation and knowledge of the subject, the corporation would have demanded a refund, and would have gotten it. Two key things I've noticed in highly realized beings is that 1) they don't tell you they're enlightened, as it's usually plainly obvious to those who can benefit and 2) one of the reasons for 1 is it causes confusion the arise in those who could otherwise benefit. Highly realized beings typically aren't interested in fostering confusion, usually the opposite. Witness the bad action and confusion that has arisen from the Rev. Ego's pronouncements. This is the opposite of enlightened action IMO. Go to almost any neoadvaita satsang like ones I've witnessed in New England or FF and you'll see a well of confusion--but they all think it's the greatest thing. But in general they just seem to be brewing ground for confusion and delusion and ego. Almost all are still at the state of talking about experiences, they still have not transcended that basic need: no Self Referral just self referral (i.e. ego referral). These groups may be good in a support group kind of way, and have a potential feel good vibe, which ego reinforcement can temporally bring, but the samsaric patterns are really quite obvious. The problem with self referral (small s), when you are mutually reinforcing ego, you always get a good grade, because egotists love to have their egos massaged and reinforced. It's really a kind of baby awakening codependent support system where they confuse meditative experiences for realization.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Two key things I've noticed in highly realized beings is that 1) they don't tell you they're enlightened... And they find a way to do *that* while not implying that they are. Remember *that* act from TM? Some newb would ask a TM teacher in a lecture, Are you enlightened?, and the teacher's response would be to say, We don't talk about our experiences, followed by a kind of shy blush and a nudge-nudge-wink-wink- know-what-I-mean set of gestures. I was sitting with Jerry Jarvis once when we saw some TM teacher do that, and Jerry turned to me and stuck his finger down his throat, as if to throw up. We both cracked up. By contrast, on the one occasion I saw Jerry asked that question, his reply was, Get real, followed by a laugh. Highly realized beings typically aren't interested in fostering confusion, usually the opposite. Witness the bad action and confusion that has arisen from the Rev. Ego's pronouncements. This is the opposite of enlightened action IMO. My point exactly. I honestly think that the issue in Jim's case is that he's never had to be on the front lines as a *representative* of what he claims to represent. You learn a little humility and *responsibility* when you have to do that. I don't think I'm off base in referring to his presentation as the comic book version of enlightenment. Even if one considered the *TM* presentation of enlightenment as non-comic book (and I don't), his version of the TM enlighten- ment rap sounds as if he is trying to remember stuff from talks he mainly spaced out during. No *TM teacher* I know would be impressed with his rap, much less those who have been exposed to more precise enlightenment traditions. Go to almost any neoadvaita satsang like ones I've witnessed in New England or FF and you'll see a well of confusion--but they all think it's the greatest thing. I think that the reason for this is that the essential message of NeoAdvaita is valid, that there is nowhere to go and nothing to become to realize one's enlightenment. That is a relief to those who have been told for decades that they have to release stress or resolve karmas to get enlightened. What has been missing from any satsangs I have attended, however, is any suggestion as to *how* to realize it. But in general they just seem to be brewing ground for confusion and delusion and ego. Almost all are still at the state of talking about experiences, they still have not transcended that basic need... The thing I noticed most was that NONE of the experiences Jim talks about have anything to do with other people. They are ALL in terms of himself. Whenever I try to get him to even talk about other people, he evades and dodges the discussions. No one I have ever met whom I might legitimately suspect of having really realized their enlight- enment would do that. *Most* of the things they say, PERIOD, are about helping other people. They almost NEVER talk in terms of doing things that would only benefit the individual seeker. THAT is probably the biggest difference I see between the TM dogma and that of other, more established traditions. The only real benefit to others ever talked about in TM is in terms of the awesome woo-woo rays of TMers and butt bouncers radiating outwards and affecting those less fortunate. Could anything BE more self- important and ego-bound? Nothing about selfless service. Nothing about actually CARING for the least among us. Nothing about exercising a little mindfulness in one's daily life to try to be a little kinder and more compassionate to others. All of these things are seen in TM as being side effects of trans- cending. Yeah, right. There is a fellow I met a few times whom I would suspect of being enlightened because of the phen- omena you spoke of yesterday. It's *not* shakti (that's just cheap flash IMO), but something deeper, having to do with the fact that when you are around him, there is no need to meditate to experience transcendence. You have no *choice* but to exper- ience transcendence around him, eyes open or closed; it is just one of the attributes *of* being around him. So what does this guy have to say about enlighten- ment? He won't even discuss it. He doesn't think it's worth talking about. What IS worth talking about, in his opinion? The practical, everyday things we can do to relieve suffering in the people we meet and interact with on a daily basis. Compare and contrast to those who seem to believe that *their* enlightenment is important enough to talk about.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
Maybe so, but you have just described a case of 'energy or bliss or shakti' in a 'very simple, plain presence', radiating. Having experienced both, no this was not shaktipat. Actually nothing like it. It was so - when I met the Dalai Lama, I got all kinds of shaktipat. Maybe you just missed it because you thought he was laughing at you for standing in that line for two hours in the rain. What an idiot! You waited all that time and all you got was a pat on the head. I guess you looked important in your robes and beads and shaved head holding your begging bowl and waving that silly metal trident. Just because Curtis insists on wasting posts on you doesn't mean you should be out from under your bridge. Now get back where you belong. Yes, Sir.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
There is only one enlightenment tradition, This can't be true? Well, it depends on how you define the 'enlightenment tradition'. The historical Buddha (circa 463 B.C) was the founder of the enlightenment tradition in India. He taught yoga, what Eliade terms introspective 'enstasis'. Yoga was later systematized by Patanjali (circa 200 B.C.). This all explained in Eliade's definitive book on yoga cited below. According to Eliade, the yoga system is unique to South Asia. However, you should not confuse the early 'Gnostic' sects with the South Asian Enlightenment Tradition which was founded by the Shakya, nor with the 'Age of Enlightenment' in European history. Nor, according to Eliade, should you confuse 'shamanism' with the Yoga Tradition of South Asia. Eliade has a rather different definition of shamanism. Eliade was an authority on the Yoga Tradition and Shamanism. The key element here is the definition of enlightenment: Shakya the Muni defined 'enlightenment' as the dispelling of the illusion of the individual soul-monad. Patanjali pretty much agrees with this; Patanjali taught *isolation* of the Purusha from the prakriti by yogic means. Gaudapada and Shankara (circa 700 A.D.) adopted the yoga system and many Buddhist doctrines to explain 'moksha', that is, liberation from dualism. Shankara composed an important commentary on Vyasa's commentary on Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. Work cited: 'Yoga : Immortality and Freedom' by Mircea Eliade Princeton University Press, 1970 Other titles of interst: 'Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy' by Mircea Eliade Princeton University Press; 2004 'The Yoga Tradition: Its History, Literature, Philosophy and Practice' by Georg Feuerstein, Ken Wilbur Hohm Press, 2001
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Patrick Gillam [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This thread reminded me of a recent email exchange I had with a friend whose spiritual group was visited by Jan Frazier, who has written a book called When Fear Falls Away. In it, Frazier describes her sudden and completely unexpected awakening into a state of profound contentment. Call it 'enlightenment' if you like, my friend wrote. He said this of Frazier's presentation: Jan Frazier's talk was very good but very unassuming, understated. Those of us on this side of the enlightenment experience want these 'big minds' to be all fireworks and inspiration, but of course the actual experience of awakening is simple, unadorned, immediate. Here's the best part of the exchange, to my mind: Someone asked her [Frazier] if she had been in touch with her guru, Gurumayi, since her awakening. She seemed surprised by the question. She said, 'I didn't think to call Gurumayi. The experience isn't one of `winning' and wanting to call your mentor to give her the good news. It was more like `Duh why didn't I get this earlier?' Contrast this reaction to the title of this thread. That her humility demands its own web site, nationally distributed book, personal bio and weekly events calendar is a bit of a stretch.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
On Jun 2, 2008, at 9:08 AM, TurquoiseB wrote: Go to almost any neoadvaita satsang like ones I've witnessed in New England or FF and you'll see a well of confusion--but they all think it's the greatest thing. I think that the reason for this is that the essential message of NeoAdvaita is valid, that there is nowhere to go and nothing to become to realize one's enlightenment. Yes, of course, but that is the POV of the nondual state from someone who has had that recognition. Different people may need considerable accomplishment or a damn good teacher to have that recognition (unless, of course, a person has certain predisposing factors). Consider both Ramana Maharishi and Nisargadatta who mastered samadhi and kundalini before their realization dawned. Few ever talk about that. Let's just skip that. Mention that to most neoadvaitin's and they'll fall back on nowhere to go and nothing to become crutch. The only ones who don't notice them limping, is them. But in general they just seem to be brewing ground for confusion and delusion and ego. Almost all are still at the state of talking about experiences, they still have not transcended that basic need... The thing I noticed most was that NONE of the experiences Jim talks about have anything to do with other people. They are ALL in terms of himself. Whenever I try to get him to even talk about other people, he evades and dodges the discussions. No realization of interdependent origination.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
However, the historical Buddha apparently arrived at his awakening after (if not necessarily because of) the pursuit and practice of methods that were part of an already long-existing enlightenment/moksha tradition. The Upanishads were already written and discussed among practitioners and seekers when Buddha was teaching his take on what realization was. The enlightenment tradition didn't spring, full-blown from Buddha, but was articulated and renewed by him. [From a Wikipedia entry discussing the meaning and entomology of Tathagata which was Buddha's preferred personal appelation.] ... Interpretations Since the word tath#257;gata is a compound of two parts, different interpretations arise depending on which two parts one separates the word into. For example, if one takes tath#257;gata to be composed of Tat and #257;gata one may conclude the following: Tat (lit. 'that') has from time immemorial in India meant the absolute (in orthodox Hinduism called Brahman), as in the famous Upanishadic dictum: That thou art (Tat tvam asi) from the Chandogya Upanishad, a widely discussed spiritual document in the time of the Buddha. That here refers to which the muni, or sage, has reached at the pinnacle of his having fulfilled wisdom's perfection in the attainment of final liberation. This interpretation, however, is not in accord with Sanskrit grammar, which clearly offers two possibilities for breaking up the compound: either Tath#257; and #257;gata or Tath#257; and gata. Tath#257; means 'thus' in Sanskrit and Pali, and Buddhist thought takes this to refer to what is called 'reality as-it-is' (Yath#257;-bh#363;ta). This reality is also referred to as 'thusness' or 'suchness' (tathat#257;) indicating simply that it (reality) is what it is. A Buddha or Arhat is defined as someone who 'knows and sees reality as- it-is' (yath#257; bh#363;ta ñ#257;na dassana). Gata is the past passive participle of the verbal root gam (going, traveling). #256;gata adds the verbal prefix #256; which gives the meaning come, arrival, gone-unto. Thus in this interpretation Tath#257;gata means literally either (The one who has) gone to suchness or (The one who has) arrived at suchness. Tath#257;gata is therefore a personal appellation of that very rare someone who has realized by experiential wisdom the nature of things just as they are. ... If awakening is the realization of things just as they are then it seems likely that many individuals from all over the world may have come to that aha, aah realization whether or not they were active seekers or practitioners within the South Asia enlightenment tradition. ** --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Richard J. Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: There is only one enlightenment tradition, This can't be true? Well, it depends on how you define the 'enlightenment tradition'. The historical Buddha (circa 463 B.C) was the founder of the enlightenment tradition in India. He taught yoga, what Eliade terms introspective 'enstasis'. Yoga was later systematized by Patanjali (circa 200 B.C.). This all explained in Eliade's definitive book on yoga cited below. According to Eliade, the yoga system is unique to South Asia. However, you should not confuse the early 'Gnostic' sects with the South Asian Enlightenment Tradition which was founded by the Shakya, nor with the 'Age of Enlightenment' in European history. Nor, according to Eliade, should you confuse 'shamanism' with the Yoga Tradition of South Asia. Eliade has a rather different definition of shamanism. Eliade was an authority on the Yoga Tradition and Shamanism. The key element here is the definition of enlightenment: Shakya the Muni defined 'enlightenment' as the dispelling of the illusion of the individual soul-monad. Patanjali pretty much agrees with this; Patanjali taught *isolation* of the Purusha from the prakriti by yogic means. Gaudapada and Shankara (circa 700 A.D.) adopted the yoga system and many Buddhist doctrines to explain 'moksha', that is, liberation from dualism. Shankara composed an important commentary on Vyasa's commentary on Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. Work cited: 'Yoga : Immortality and Freedom' by Mircea Eliade Princeton University Press, 1970 Other titles of interst: 'Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy' by Mircea Eliade Princeton University Press; 2004 'The Yoga Tradition: Its History, Literature, Philosophy and Practice' by Georg Feuerstein, Ken Wilbur Hohm Press, 2001
Re: [FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
On Jun 2, 2008, at 9:08 AM, TurquoiseB wrote: I think that the reason for this is that the essential message of NeoAdvaita is valid, that there is nowhere to go and nothing to become to realize one's enlightenment. That is a relief to those who have been told for decades that they have to release stress or resolve karmas to get enlightened. What has been missing from any satsangs I have attended, however, is any suggestion as to *how* to realize it. One thing many TMers don't realize--because they believed what they were told--is that the mechanics of mantra meditation are NOT for burning samskaras. Samadhi is for burning samskaras. Mantra meditation is intended as an intro to samadhi, which works by planting beneficial samskaras which will eventually help overshadow the negative ones, helping the mind become more sattvic and translucent. In order to 'release stress' you'd have to actually have mastered samadhi--something I've never seen in most TMers. Of course you never can rule out people with exceptional predisposing factors (purvapunya), but TM by and large certainly has not shown any real signs of stabilized samadhi, either in research or in practice.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The thing I noticed most was that NONE of the experiences Jim talks about have anything to do with other people. They are ALL in terms of himself. Whenever I try to get him to even talk about other people, he evades and dodges the discussions. No one I have ever met whom I might legitimately suspect of having really realized their enlight- enment would do that. *Most* of the things they say, PERIOD, are about helping other people. They almost NEVER talk in terms of doing things that would only benefit the individual seeker. THAT is probably the biggest difference I see between the TM dogma and that of other, more established traditions. The only real benefit to others ever talked about in TM is in terms of the awesome woo-woo rays of TMers and butt bouncers radiating outwards and affecting those less fortunate. Could anything BE more self- important and ego-bound? Nothing about selfless service. Nothing about actually CARING for the least among us. Nothing about exercising a little mindfulness in one's daily life to try to be a little kinder and more compassionate to others. All of these things are seen in TM as being side effects of trans- cending. Yeah, right. There is a fellow I met a few times whom I would suspect of being enlightened because of the phen- omena you spoke of yesterday. It's *not* shakti (that's just cheap flash IMO), but something deeper, having to do with the fact that when you are around him, there is no need to meditate to experience transcendence. You have no *choice* but to exper- ience transcendence around him, eyes open or closed; it is just one of the attributes *of* being around him. Good points. Parallel to the human virtures model. However, correlation is not necessarily, in fact often is not, causation. Its the ass-hole theory of enlightenment. Before E, chop wood, be an asshole. Post E, chop wood, be an asshole. Others, who by virtue of their nature, and cultured by family, educational and moral traditions: Before E, chop wood, help others. Post E, chop wood, help others. Grow up in an arrogant, anti-analytical, anti-intellectual tradition and guess what? Post E (or some degree of silence) one remains arrogant, anti-analytical, anti-intellectual. Grow up with the Sisters of Charity and guess what? Post E (or some degree of silence) one remains compassionate, dedicated to helping, and independent of looking out for #1.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Patrick Gillam [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This thread reminded me of a recent email exchange I had with a friend whose spiritual group was visited by Jan Frazier, who has written a book called When Fear Falls Away. In it, Frazier describes her sudden and completely unexpected awakening into a state of profound contentment. Call it 'enlightenment' if you like, my friend wrote. He said this of Frazier's presentation: Jan Frazier's talk was very good but very unassuming, understated. Those of us on this side of the enlightenment experience want these 'big minds' to be all fireworks and inspiration, but of course the actual experience of awakening is simple, unadorned, immediate. Here's the best part of the exchange, to my mind: Someone asked her [Frazier] if she had been in touch with her guru, Gurumayi, since her awakening. She seemed surprised by the question. She said, 'I didn't think to call Gurumayi. The experience isn't one of `winning' and wanting to call your mentor to give her the good news. It was more like `Duh why didn't I get this earlier?' Contrast this reaction to the title of this thread. Excellent-- yep, no need to win anything.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snip The people you're trying to impress with comic book language and explanations read actual *books*, dude. They heard -- and in many cases outgrew -- bullshit like the stuff you are peddling decades ago. You keep saying that people need to evolve to your level before they can understand what you say about enlightenment. I think you need to evolve to their level before you can understand how easily they can discern how little you know about enlightenment. You can rail and beat your chest and toss your insults around like a chimpanzee, Barry. I'll just say that I have been consistent from the beginning of my awakening, that I began talking about achievable permanent enlightenment for two reasons, and only two reasons: 1) To let others know that it is achievable, even by normal western householders like me. It is achievable in modern life, no longer enshrouded in the fog of the past and esoteric practice. 2) I enjoy discussing it with those who are interested in it. I have no interest in selling it, or convincing others of its value. Never have, and never will.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sandiego108 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: You can rail and beat your chest and toss your insults around like a chimpanzee, Barry. I'll just say that I have been consistent from the beginning of my awakening, that I began talking about achievable permanent enlightenment for two reasons, and only two reasons: 1) To let others know that it is achievable, even by normal western householders like me. It is achievable in modern life, no longer enshrouded in the fog of the past and esoteric practice. 2) I enjoy discussing it with those who are interested in it. I have no interest in selling it, or convincing others of its value. Never have, and never will. - I enjoy discussing it with those who are interested in it. Mr. Sandiego, Say I am interested, but I lack the necessary background to understand this thing you call enlightenment. From your perspective: what is enlightenment, and more importantly, why should I want it? -
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, mrfishey2001 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sandiego108 sandiego108@ wrote: You can rail and beat your chest and toss your insults around like a chimpanzee, Barry. I'll just say that I have been consistent from the beginning of my awakening, that I began talking about achievable permanent enlightenment for two reasons, and only two reasons: 1) To let others know that it is achievable, even by normal western householders like me. It is achievable in modern life, no longer enshrouded in the fog of the past and esoteric practice. 2) I enjoy discussing it with those who are interested in it. I have no interest in selling it, or convincing others of its value. Never have, and never will. - I enjoy discussing it with those who are interested in it. Mr. Sandiego, Say I am interested, but I lack the necessary background to understand this thing you call enlightenment. From your perspective: what is enlightenment, and more importantly, why should I want it? - I am not the guy to be asked these questions. For one thing, it doesn't seem that someone reads something about enlightenment, as if choosing a new car, and then decidesyes, h, I'll go for it. Rather it is something that becomes known to the seeker after they have already shown interest in that direction. For another, it is not a path for the faint of heart. Many people dabble with practices that may lead them closer to it, without making much progress. In my experience, there has to be a hunger for this knowledge, a fire burning within already, to drive the seeker to find out more about it. There are many, many avenues to learn about enlightenment and its benefits. My recommendation would be to begin meditation or hatha yoga and take it from there.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sandiego108 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: snip The people you're trying to impress with comic book language and explanations read actual *books*, dude. They heard -- and in many cases outgrew -- bullshit like the stuff you are peddling decades ago. You keep saying that people need to evolve to your level before they can understand what you say about enlightenment. I think you need to evolve to their level before you can understand how easily they can discern how little you know about enlightenment. You can rail and beat your chest and toss your insults around like a chimpanzee, Barry. I'll just say that I have been consistent from the beginning of my awakening, that I began talking about achievable permanent enlightenment for two reasons, and only two reasons: 1) To let others know that it is achievable, even by normal western householders like me. It is achievable in modern life, no longer enshrouded in the fog of the past and esoteric practice. 2) I enjoy discussing it with those who are interested in it. Noble thoughts. My honest assessment, however, is that your second point would be more accurate and more honest if you replaced the final it with the word me.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Jun 2, 2008, at 4:53 AM, TurquoiseB wrote: Jim, I'll try to say it another way. You write and/or deliver training, right? Well, so do I. If you had been a trainer in a corporation that had hired you to talk to some of its employees about the nature of enlightenment and why it would be of value to them, you would have been graded POOR, and never allowed to come back and teach there again. Given the standards of the companies I work with, and what they expect in a trainer and in the level of his presentation and knowledge of the subject, the corporation would have demanded a refund, and would have gotten it. Two key things I've noticed in highly realized beings is that 1) they don't tell you they're enlightened, as it's usually plainly obvious to those who can benefit and 2) one of the reasons for 1 is it causes confusion the arise in those who could otherwise benefit. Highly realized beings typically aren't interested in fostering confusion, usually the opposite. Witness the bad action and confusion that has arisen from the Rev. Ego's pronouncements. This is the opposite of enlightened action IMO. Go to almost any neoadvaita satsang like ones I've witnessed in New England or FF and you'll see a well of confusion--but they all think it's the greatest thing. But in general they just seem to be brewing ground for confusion and delusion and ego. Almost all are still at the state of talking about experiences, they still have not transcended that basic need: no Self Referral just self referral (i.e. ego referral). These groups may be good in a support group kind of way, and have a potential feel good vibe, which ego reinforcement can temporally bring, but the samsaric patterns are really quite obvious. The problem with self referral (small s), when you are mutually reinforcing ego, you always get a good grade, because egotists love to have their egos massaged and reinforced. It's really a kind of baby awakening codependent support system where they confuse meditative experiences for realization. I can appreciate the need some like you have for placing enlightenment on a pedestal and feeling all special about it, with so many shoulds and shouldn'ts, but I personally think that it is perfectly valid to let others know that there isn't a man behind the curtain, that this state can be achieved by normal people, and that the need to obfuscate the attainment of permanent enlightenment behind a bunch of esoterica and fancy language serves nobody.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sandiego108 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I can appreciate the need some like you have for placing enlightenment on a pedestal and feeling all special about it, with so many shoulds and shouldn'ts, but I personally think that it is perfectly valid to let others know that there isn't a man behind the curtain, that this state can be achieved by normal people, and that the need to obfuscate the attainment of permanent enlightenment behind a bunch of esoterica and fancy language serves nobody. Jim, I was going to leave you alone, but you keep on so *completely* missing the point that I cannot. Your whole approach to letting people know that enlightenment is within their grasp is to say, over and over, Look at me. I did it. Therefore you can, too. Well, we ARE looking at you, and at how you conduct yourself, and at the things you choose to focus on as important in life, and at the things that you give no importance to. And the bottom line for a number of us is, If that's enlightenment, we don't want it. It's not *about* the way one talks the talk, Jim. It's about how they walk the walk.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
It's not *about* the way one talks the talk, Jim. It's about how they walk the walk. This is why I consider the concepts of enlightenment or awakening or any internal state with a special name pretty worthless. First of all people describe their internal experiences so differently. I think we all found this out in our small group experience meetings on courses. Then we have the trouble with big fat juicy words that have such a vague meaning as to be pretty useless. A term like enlightenment is a useless as a term like God. There are just too many versions depending on where the person gained the phrase. Even here with our uniform exposure to the TM model we are so often completely unable to relate to each other's internal experience. Next we have all the variables of internal experiences themselves. There are many times in my life when my identity or self shifted in a profound way that has been permanent, I call it growing up. The agitation of my 20's is gone and now I have a profound sense of peace with the world. If I was still into some path I'm sure I could whip it all up in to a great story for my small group experience meeting. So I conclude that people's internal state means nothing at all to me which goes back to your point. If someone presents themselves as enlightened or as a spiritual guy, I just say, yeah I'm having a great life too. I don't assume that they are experiencing anything differently than I am, or if they do, that I might want it. There are plenty of states of dissociation that we are only beginning to understand in physiology. No one could distinguish them from any of the language I have heard from spiritual traditions. Spend a few moments with a functional mentally ill person, as I did performing yesterday, and you get a kaleidescope of descriptions of internal states as well as some interesting darshon-like effects on your own functioning by hanging out with them and being in rapport. There are people functioning really differently and it is fascinating to me. Internal states are s overrated in yoga traditions IMO. But they add some material to the party for modern pych thinkers to chew on. It seems very misguided to take them at face value without integrating them with information we have gained about mental health today. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sandiego108 sandiego108@ wrote: I can appreciate the need some like you have for placing enlightenment on a pedestal and feeling all special about it, with so many shoulds and shouldn'ts, but I personally think that it is perfectly valid to let others know that there isn't a man behind the curtain, that this state can be achieved by normal people, and that the need to obfuscate the attainment of permanent enlightenment behind a bunch of esoterica and fancy language serves nobody. Jim, I was going to leave you alone, but you keep on so *completely* missing the point that I cannot. Your whole approach to letting people know that enlightenment is within their grasp is to say, over and over, Look at me. I did it. Therefore you can, too. Well, we ARE looking at you, and at how you conduct yourself, and at the things you choose to focus on as important in life, and at the things that you give no importance to. And the bottom line for a number of us is, If that's enlightenment, we don't want it. It's not *about* the way one talks the talk, Jim. It's about how they walk the walk.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sandiego108 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, mrfishey2001 mrfishey2001@ wrote: - I enjoy discussing it with those who are interested in it. Mr. Sandiego, Say I am interested, but I lack the necessary background to understand this thing you call enlightenment. From your perspective: what is enlightenment, and more importantly, why should I want it? - I am not the guy to be asked these questions. For one thing, it doesn't seem that someone reads something about enlightenment, as if choosing a new car, and then decidesyes, h, I'll go for it. Rather it is something that becomes known to the seeker after they have already shown interest in that direction. For another, it is not a path for the faint of heart. Many people dabble with practices that may lead them closer to it, without making much progress. In my experience, there has to be a hunger for this knowledge, a fire burning within already, to drive the seeker to find out more about it. There are many, many avenues to learn about enlightenment and its benefits. My recommendation would be to begin meditation or hatha yoga and take it from there. - My apologies. I was under the mistaken impression you enjoyed discussing enlightenment with those interested. I am interested - having said as much. I wasn't aware of the evidentiary requirement; I practice yoga, which includes a form of meditation. While not a card-carrying vegetarian, I do eat well. I've read various books on eastern thought, and attended several lectures on the top of enlightenment. The arrival of summer will place me that much closer to my first spiritual retreat. Do you think it's here I'll find someone who enjoys discussing it with those who are interested in it. - or will they as well ask for further proof? --
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snip Jim, I was going to leave you alone, Either way is fine... but you keep on so *completely* missing the point that I cannot. Whose point? Oh, right, *your* point... Your whole approach to letting people know that enlightenment is within their grasp is to say, over and over, Look at me. I did it. Therefore you can, too. Exactly-- its that simple, whether you like me or not. Liking me has nothing to do with it. Well, we ARE looking at you, and at how you conduct yourself, and at the things you choose to focus on as important in life, and at the things that you give no importance to. And the bottom line for a number of us is, If that's enlightenment, we don't want it. It's not *about* the way one talks the talk, Jim. It's about how they walk the walk. Nah, I'm calling bullshit on you-- its a convenient excuse for you. You get too close to the subject and create a big fuss to avoid facing it dead on. And therefore, because you cherry pick the way I conduct myself and the things I say, you are going to forego permanent liberation? I think the phrase that applies here is cutting off your nose to spite your face. Anyone saying the same things I am would run into the same truckload of crap from you.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, mrfishey2001 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sandiego108 sandiego108@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, mrfishey2001 mrfishey2001@ wrote: - I enjoy discussing it with those who are interested in it. Mr. Sandiego, Say I am interested, but I lack the necessary background to understand this thing you call enlightenment. From your perspective: what is enlightenment, and more importantly, why should I want it? - I am not the guy to be asked these questions. For one thing, it doesn't seem that someone reads something about enlightenment, as if choosing a new car, and then decidesyes, h, I'll go for it. Rather it is something that becomes known to the seeker after they have already shown interest in that direction. For another, it is not a path for the faint of heart. Many people dabble with practices that may lead them closer to it, without making much progress. In my experience, there has to be a hunger for this knowledge, a fire burning within already, to drive the seeker to find out more about it. There are many, many avenues to learn about enlightenment and its benefits. My recommendation would be to begin meditation or hatha yoga and take it from there. - My apologies. I was under the mistaken impression you enjoyed discussing enlightenment with those interested. I am interested - having said as much. I wasn't aware of the evidentiary requirement; I practice yoga, which includes a form of meditation. While not a card-carrying vegetarian, I do eat well. I've read various books on eastern thought, and attended several lectures on the top of enlightenment. The arrival of summer will place me that much closer to my first spiritual retreat. Do you think it's here I'll find someone who enjoys discussing it with those who are interested in it. - or will they as well ask for further proof? -- Thanks for your response-- I'll give this another try: what is enlightenment, and more importantly, why should I want it? In a nutshell, enlightenment is lasting freedom, experienced 24 x 7. It is the abililty to experience anything in its totality, unmasked and unencumbered by any preconceptions. It is the ability to live skill in action, and by that I mean performing actions in as complete a way as possible, experiencing them as fully as possible. I could go on and on, because the state is one of living within the boundaries of Infinity (that5's a joke). Basically a state of everlasting and enduring freedom.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It's not *about* the way one talks the talk, Jim. It's about how they walk the walk. This is why I consider the concepts of enlightenment or awakening or any internal state with a special name pretty worthless. Agreed-- as concepts, they are as worthless as any other concept. In other words, completely. Can't be concieved of conceptually anyway, so why bother? This asking for definitions of enlightenment is complete trash. Just live it-- why bother with the rest. Get on with it, or get over it, imo.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sandiego108 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: -- Thanks for your response-- I'll give this another try: what is enlightenment, and more importantly, why should I want it? In a nutshell, enlightenment is lasting freedom, experienced 24 x 7. It is the abililty to experience anything in its totality, unmasked and unencumbered by any preconceptions. It is the ability to live skill in action, and by that I mean performing actions in as complete a way as possible, experiencing them as fully as possible. I could go on and on, because the state is one of living within the boundaries of Infinity (that5's a joke). Basically a state of everlasting and enduring freedom. -- Thank you. It would seem that enlightenment then, while lacking a reasonable description, does have some family of attributes. The few you've mentioned; lasting freedom, totality, something in possession of an everlasting character make enlightenment more than an appealing aim. I'll assume for the moment that these are your experiences. May I ask then: outside of the obvious subject comfort, what form do these attributes take in your daily life? ---
Re: [FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
sandiego108 wrote: Thanks for your response-- I'll give this another try: what is enlightenment, and more importantly, why should I want it? In a nutshell, enlightenment is lasting freedom, experienced 24 x 7. It is the abililty to experience anything in its totality, unmasked and unencumbered by any preconceptions. It is the ability to live skill in action, and by that I mean performing actions in as complete a way as possible, experiencing them as fully as possible. I could go on and on, because the state is one of living within the boundaries of Infinity (that5's a joke). Basically a state of everlasting and enduring freedom. What I find amusing is how busy this topic is. We can determine if anything else that FFL'ers love to intellectually masturbate on the subject of enlightenment. The subject line should read: Look at me, my ego is worried about whether I'm enlightened or not! Once one stops worrying about enlightenment then the progress towards it begins.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
I love the threads on enlightenment, though I do not participate much. I enjoy Sandiego's descriptions of what it means to him. Especially the parts about being the designer of his own world. My little tastes of the infinite differ. Instead of being the designer of the world I feel as if I am a speck in the universe, but being a speck is fine as I am part of it all.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
---Right-on! Neo-Advaitins make a big thing about not being attached to (say, Kundalini signs); but neither are ignorant people attached to those phenomena. The point is, one has to go THROUGH the signs. How about the Radiant form of the Master? Challenge to Neo-Advaitins on this forum: Which Master did you see the Radiant form of? In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Jun 2, 2008, at 9:08 AM, TurquoiseB wrote: Go to almost any neoadvaita satsang like ones I've witnessed in New England or FF and you'll see a well of confusion--but they all think it's the greatest thing. I think that the reason for this is that the essential message of NeoAdvaita is valid, that there is nowhere to go and nothing to become to realize one's enlightenment. Yes, of course, but that is the POV of the nondual state from someone who has had that recognition. Different people may need considerable accomplishment or a damn good teacher to have that recognition (unless, of course, a person has certain predisposing factors). Consider both Ramana Maharishi and Nisargadatta who mastered samadhi and kundalini before their realization dawned. Few ever talk about that. Let's just skip that. Mention that to most neoadvaitin's and they'll fall back on nowhere to go and nothing to become crutch. The only ones who don't notice them limping, is them. But in general they just seem to be brewing ground for confusion and delusion and ego. Almost all are still at the state of talking about experiences, they still have not transcended that basic need... The thing I noticed most was that NONE of the experiences Jim talks about have anything to do with other people. They are ALL in terms of himself. Whenever I try to get him to even talk about other people, he evades and dodges the discussions. No realization of interdependent origination.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, tertonzeno [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ---Right-on! Neo-Advaitins make a big thing about not being attached to (say, Kundalini signs); but neither are ignorant people attached to those phenomena. The point is, one has to go THROUGH the signs. How about the Radiant form of the Master? Challenge to Neo-Advaitins on this forum: Which Master did you see the Radiant form of? Mr. Tertonzeno So that I can pass through it (how, if you have the time) when encountered, just what is a radiant form? ---
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, mrfishey2001 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sandiego108 sandiego108@ wrote: -- Thanks for your response-- I'll give this another try: what is enlightenment, and more importantly, why should I want it? In a nutshell, enlightenment is lasting freedom, experienced 24 x 7. It is the abililty to experience anything in its totality, unmasked and unencumbered by any preconceptions. It is the ability to live skill in action, and by that I mean performing actions in as complete a way as possible, experiencing them as fully as possible. I could go on and on, because the state is one of living within the boundaries of Infinity (that5's a joke). Basically a state of everlasting and enduring freedom. -- Thank you. It would seem that enlightenment then, while lacking a reasonable description, does have some family of attributes. The few you've mentioned; lasting freedom, totality, something in possession of an everlasting character make enlightenment more than an appealing aim. I'll assume for the moment that these are your experiences. May I ask then: outside of the obvious subject comfort, what form do these attributes take in your daily life? --- Hard to say, because the experience of it is comprehensive; I don't believe it can ever be put into words, because it transcends everything. All of us have had that experience in meditation, any kind of meditation where we felt infinite, that we were no longer composed of boundaries, that although there was a sense of I, it had no boundaries to it, spreading to infinity in every direction, inwardly and outwardly. That is what the feeling is like, except that instead of only happening in here, it is also happening out there. As if a line could be drawn from the deepest part of myself, straight out to the further reaches of my known and even imagined universe, and there is nothing in the way, no concepts, no fears, no hinderances of any kind to prevent that line from being both intimately me and perfectly straight and clear. And so completely dynamic, so that when just quietly focusing on anything, the totality of the object is revealed. Not purely by discrimination, or intuition, or sensory input, but just by quietly focusing on the object. As if the silence in every object informs the silence within me, and through that process is gained total knowledge of the object. I hope that answers your question. I could write all day, every day, until there were no more days, and still not describe the totality of enlightenment. Now, doesn't that sound like something appealing?
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, tertonzeno [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ---Right-on! Neo-Advaitins make a big thing about not being attached to (say, Kundalini signs); but neither are ignorant people attached to those phenomena. The point is, one has to go THROUGH the signs. How about the Radiant form of the Master? Challenge to Neo-Advaitins on this forum: Which Master did you see the Radiant form of? I don't know exactly what a neo advaitin is, sounds vaguely insulting, but the radiant form of the master I saw was guru dev, SBS. However this was about 15 years ago, long before I attained enlightenment. That is why I seriously doubt the linear progression of these signs you mention. They may well be indications of some purified sensory ability, but you cannot equate them to portals through which everyone must pass in their attainment of enlightenment. Seems instead like a waking state mind wanting to make the concept of enlightenment all comfy cozy.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sandiego108 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, mrfishey2001 mrfishey2001@ wrote: -- Thank you. It would seem that enlightenment then, while lacking a reasonable description, does have some family of attributes. The few you've mentioned; lasting freedom, totality, something in possession of an everlasting character make enlightenment more than an appealing aim. I'll assume for the moment that these are your experiences. May I ask then: outside of the obvious subject comfort, what form do these attributes take in your daily life? --- Hard to say, because the experience of it is comprehensive; I don't believe it can ever be put into words, because it transcends everything. All of us have had that experience in meditation, any kind of meditation where we felt infinite, that we were no longer composed of boundaries, that although there was a sense of I, it had no boundaries to it, spreading to infinity in every direction, inwardly and outwardly. That is what the feeling is like, except that instead of only happening in here, it is also happening out there. As if a line could be drawn from the deepest part of myself, straight out to the further reaches of my known and even imagined universe, and there is nothing in the way, no concepts, no fears, no hinderances of any kind to prevent that line from being both intimately me and perfectly straight and clear. And so completely dynamic, so that when just quietly focusing on anything, the totality of the object is revealed. Not purely by discrimination, or intuition, or sensory input, but just by quietly focusing on the object. As if the silence in every object informs the silence within me, and through that process is gained total knowledge of the object. I hope that answers your question. I could write all day, every day, until there were no more days, and still not describe the totality of enlightenment. Now, doesn't that sound like something appealing? - Appealing perhaps, but hardly unique. I may need more hatha yoga to really comprehend the value of something so completely self-centered. To be honest, it all sounds a bit masturbatory. Now, I've nothing against a good self-inflicted rogering, but eventually something called the world appears. If memory serves me right, excessive self- gratification usually leaves me wanting a sandwich and nap. But thank you anyway. -
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
---The notion of experiencing actions as fully as possible seems to indicate something relative. So, you're saying that E. people are incapable of experiencing half-baked undertakings? How about MMY? In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sandiego108 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, mrfishey2001 mrfishey2001@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sandiego108 sandiego108@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, mrfishey2001 mrfishey2001@ wrote: - I enjoy discussing it with those who are interested in it. Mr. Sandiego, Say I am interested, but I lack the necessary background to understand this thing you call enlightenment. From your perspective: what is enlightenment, and more importantly, why should I want it? - I am not the guy to be asked these questions. For one thing, it doesn't seem that someone reads something about enlightenment, as if choosing a new car, and then decidesyes, h, I'll go for it. Rather it is something that becomes known to the seeker after they have already shown interest in that direction. For another, it is not a path for the faint of heart. Many people dabble with practices that may lead them closer to it, without making much progress. In my experience, there has to be a hunger for this knowledge, a fire burning within already, to drive the seeker to find out more about it. There are many, many avenues to learn about enlightenment and its benefits. My recommendation would be to begin meditation or hatha yoga and take it from there. - My apologies. I was under the mistaken impression you enjoyed discussing enlightenment with those interested. I am interested - having said as much. I wasn't aware of the evidentiary requirement; I practice yoga, which includes a form of meditation. While not a card-carrying vegetarian, I do eat well. I've read various books on eastern thought, and attended several lectures on the top of enlightenment. The arrival of summer will place me that much closer to my first spiritual retreat. Do you think it's here I'll find someone who enjoys discussing it with those who are interested in it. - or will they as well ask for further proof? -- Thanks for your response-- I'll give this another try: what is enlightenment, and more importantly, why should I want it? In a nutshell, enlightenment is lasting freedom, experienced 24 x 7. It is the abililty to experience anything in its totality, unmasked and unencumbered by any preconceptions. It is the ability to live skill in action, and by that I mean performing actions in as complete a way as possible, experiencing them as fully as possible. I could go on and on, because the state is one of living within the boundaries of Infinity (that5's a joke). Basically a state of everlasting and enduring freedom.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, mrfishey2001 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sandiego108 sandiego108@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, mrfishey2001 mrfishey2001@ wrote: -- Thank you. It would seem that enlightenment then, while lacking a reasonable description, does have some family of attributes. The few you've mentioned; lasting freedom, totality, something in possession of an everlasting character make enlightenment more than an appealing aim. I'll assume for the moment that these are your experiences. May I ask then: outside of the obvious subject comfort, what form do these attributes take in your daily life? --- Hard to say, because the experience of it is comprehensive; I don't believe it can ever be put into words, because it transcends everything. All of us have had that experience in meditation, any kind of meditation where we felt infinite, that we were no longer composed of boundaries, that although there was a sense of I, it had no boundaries to it, spreading to infinity in every direction, inwardly and outwardly. That is what the feeling is like, except that instead of only happening in here, it is also happening out there. As if a line could be drawn from the deepest part of myself, straight out to the further reaches of my known and even imagined universe, and there is nothing in the way, no concepts, no fears, no hinderances of any kind to prevent that line from being both intimately me and perfectly straight and clear. And so completely dynamic, so that when just quietly focusing on anything, the totality of the object is revealed. Not purely by discrimination, or intuition, or sensory input, but just by quietly focusing on the object. As if the silence in every object informs the silence within me, and through that process is gained total knowledge of the object. I hope that answers your question. I could write all day, every day, until there were no more days, and still not describe the totality of enlightenment. Now, doesn't that sound like something appealing? - Appealing perhaps, but hardly unique. I may need more hatha yoga to really comprehend the value of something so completely self-centered. To be honest, it all sounds a bit masturbatory. Now, I've nothing against a good self-inflicted rogering, but eventually something called the world appears. If memory serves me right, excessive self- gratification usually leaves me wanting a sandwich and nap. But thank you anyway. - Whatever you need-- its really not at all the way you interpret it-- the problem with trying to put it into words-- the self is no longer experienced the same way so all the self referencing is actually expansive, not contracting.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
Marek wrote: However, the historical Buddha apparently arrived at his awakening after (if not necessarily because of) the pursuit and practice of methods that were part of an already long-existing enlightenment/moksha tradition. Actually, the historical Buddha seems to have rejected most of the systems prevalent in his time: asceticism, skepticism, materialism, and nihilism, and theism, as well as most of the conclusions of the Vedic rishis. He also rejected the notion of the indvidual soul monad espoused by the Upanishadic thinkers. The Upanishads were already written and discussed among practitioners and seekers when Buddha was teaching his take on what realization was. The enlightenment tradition didn't spring, full-blown from Buddha, but was articulated and renewed by him. It has not been established that the Upanishads were composed before the advent of the historical Buddha. History in India begins with the historical Buddh - everything before that is considerd to be pre-history, and is mostly pure conjecture. All I can say is that if the Upanishads had been composed before the Shakya, he would have mentioned them by name and author, but he did not, although he enumerated almost all the prevelanet systems of his time. We may safely assume however, that the yoga system was pre-Vedic, since the Vedas do not mention any yoga techniques. Where it came from is still disputed, but I suspect it came out of what is now southern India.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
Marek wrote: If awakening is the realization of things just as they are then it seems likely that many individuals from all over the world may have come to that aha, aah realization whether or not they were active seekers or practitioners within the South Asia enlightenment tradition. Maybe so, but 'enlightenment' in the context of South Asian yoga praxis isn't concerned with the theoretical notion of 'seeing things as they really are'. Yoga has to do with experiential introverted enstasis; techniques for obtaining enstatic ecstasy. For the yoga advocates, the things and events of this world are an illusion, not real - they are Maya, appearance only. Realizing 'things just as they are' means that the individual has realized the illusionary character of things and events, not that things and events are real. But even if you admit that enlightenment is 'seeing things as they really are' you would have to come to the same conclusion as Kapila, Shakya, Gaudpada, and Shankara - that existence is marked by suffering, lamentation, and grief - something to be avoided. In original Buddhism, enlightenment was termed *Nirvana*, the extinguishing of the notion of the individaul soul monad. This is true not only of original Buddhism, but also of the systems of Patanjali, Gaudapada, and Shankara. All these systems have to do with realizing the illusory nature of things and events and the realization of the *non-dual* nature of the absolute. That's what enlightenment is in the context of South Asia. But in fact, most other traditions have to do with shamanism, dualism, materialism, nihilism, or theism. Enlightenment in the South Asian tradition has nothing to do with any of these notions. That's my point. But the point made by Eliade is that only the Yoga tradition of South Asia has to do with actual *techniques* of introverted ecstasy in order to *isolate* the real from the unreal. Nirodha is 'cessation'; Nirvana is 'blowing out'; Moksha is 'liberation'.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sandiego108 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, mrfishey2001 mrfishey2001@ wrote: - Appealing perhaps, but hardly unique. I may need more hatha yoga to really comprehend the value of something so completely self-centered. To be honest, it all sounds a bit masturbatory. Now, I've nothing against a good self-inflicted rogering, but eventually something called the world appears. If memory serves me right, excessive self- gratification usually leaves me wanting a sandwich and nap. But thank you anyway. - Whatever you need-- its really not at all the way you interpret it-- the problem with trying to put it into words-- the self is no longer experienced the same way so all the self referencing is actually expansive, not contracting. I have no argument with what you've written. I'd simply like to know if, as a result of this encounter, your lived experience has changed. Is the expressed content of your life somehow different? You'd have to agree that the ability to experience anything in its totality must in some sense leave a mark. What does your life, the one you live in lasting freedom look like?
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sandiego108 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: what is enlightenment, If the last suutra of Patañjali's Yoga-shaastra(?) defines enlightenment (kaivalyam), his answer is rather boring, IMO: svaruupapratiSThaa of citi-shakti (...svaruupapratiSThaa [vaa] citi-shakter [iti])
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, mrfishey2001 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sandiego108 sandiego108@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, mrfishey2001 mrfishey2001@ wrote: - Appealing perhaps, but hardly unique. I may need more hatha yoga to really comprehend the value of something so completely self-centered. To be honest, it all sounds a bit masturbatory. Now, I've nothing against a good self-inflicted rogering, but eventually something called the world appears. If memory serves me right, excessive self- gratification usually leaves me wanting a sandwich and nap. But thank you anyway. - Whatever you need-- its really not at all the way you interpret it-- the problem with trying to put it into words-- the self is no longer experienced the same way so all the self referencing is actually expansive, not contracting. I have no argument with what you've written. I'd simply like to know if, as a result of this encounter, your lived experience has changed. Is the expressed content of your life somehow different? You'd have to agree that the ability to experience anything in its totality must in some sense leave a mark. What does your life, the one you live in lasting freedom look like? I'll answer this generally, so as to spare both of us numerous examples. I was always an introvert, and still am by some definitions (the definition I think suits my nature best is that an introvert enjoys the company of others, but recharges his batteries alone), however all of my social, familial and work relationships are quite good. I am more prosperous. I have no fear of death (although I'd really prefer not to die violently, if at all possible). I have lost all of my convictions about the future (good and bad, including previous beliefs in life after death, and reincarnation-- who cares?). I no longer carry stories about regarding others- I let them live their life and I live mine. I don't believe in much of anything any more and am much happier for it. My intuition has improved, as has my creativity, and my precision too. No reflection on your question, but I am tired of talking about me, so I will leave it at that.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, yifuxero [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ---The notion of experiencing actions as fully as possible seems to indicate something relative. So, you're saying that E. people are incapable of experiencing half-baked undertakings? How about MMY? Oh no-- I wouldn't go that far. E. people experience life in total freedom-- as MMY used to say, all possibilities. He could look as messed up or more so as anyone else.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--Radiant form of the Master: one of the important signs of Kundalini awakening (specifically the 3-rd eye center) that is especially important in the Surat Shabda Yoga tradition (Sant Mat, Radhaswami, Ruhani Satsang, etc); but also found as a marker of progress toward Self-Realization in a few other traditions. To quote from a Sant Mat website: As you look within, you will see a sky, or blue sky: If you look minutely into it, you will find it studded with stars, or you may see pinpoints of Light. If so, try to locate the big star out of them, and fix your whole attention on that. Then you may see the inner sun or moon. If so, focus all your attention into the middle; it will break into pieces, and you will cross it. Beyond you will see the radiant form of the Master or his Master... - In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, mrfishey2001 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, tertonzeno tertonzeno@ wrote: ---Right-on! Neo-Advaitins make a big thing about not being attached to (say, Kundalini signs); but neither are ignorant people attached to those phenomena. The point is, one has to go THROUGH the signs. How about the Radiant form of the Master? Challenge to Neo- Advaitins on this forum: Which Master did you see the Radiant form of? Mr. Tertonzeno So that I can pass through it (how, if you have the time) when encountered, just what is a radiant form? ---
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
what is enlightenment, Mullquist wrote: If the last suutra of Patañjali's Yoga-shaastra(?) defines enlightenment (kaivalyam), Well yes, that's what I have been saying; enlightenment in the yoga tradition is *isolation* kaivalyam; Isolating the Purusha from the prakriti, which then allows the Purusha to stand by itself. Purusha is the 'Transcendental Person', standing alone, isolated from the duality, free from samskaras and karma. Yoga is freedom and immortality; freedom from karmic actions, immortal because there is the realization that the soul monad is an appearance - not real, but relative only. Kaivalya is Moksha, that is, liberation. his answer is rather boring, IMO: Unlike mine, which is full of energized enthusiasm!
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sandiego108 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'll answer this generally, so as to spare both of us numerous examples. I was always an introvert, and still am by some definitions (the definition I think suits my nature best is that an introvert enjoys the company of others, but recharges his batteries alone), however all of my social, familial and work relationships are quite good. I am more prosperous. I have no fear of death (although I'd really prefer not to die violently, if at all possible). I have lost all of my convictions about the future (good and bad, including previous beliefs in life after death, and reincarnation-- who cares?). I no longer carry stories about regarding others- I let them live their life and I live mine. I don't believe in much of anything any more and am much happier for it. My intuition has improved, as has my creativity, and my precision too. No reflection on your question, but I am tired of talking about me, so I will leave it at that. - Much appreciated Mr. Sandiego. Your experience of enlightenment holds value. Better relationships, intuition, and greater prosperity I understand. Live and let live always sound advice. Greater precision - untold advantages. However, dissipation of my beliefs may take a few more yoga classes. Enjoy your enlightenment. ---
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, mrfishey2001 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sandiego108 sandiego108@ wrote: I'll answer this generally, so as to spare both of us numerous examples. I was always an introvert, and still am by some definitions (the definition I think suits my nature best is that an introvert enjoys the company of others, but recharges his batteries alone), however all of my social, familial and work relationships are quite good. I am more prosperous. I have no fear of death (although I'd really prefer not to die violently, if at all possible). I have lost all of my convictions about the future (good and bad, including previous beliefs in life after death, and reincarnation-- who cares?). I no longer carry stories about regarding others- I let them live their life and I live mine. I don't believe in much of anything any more and am much happier for it. My intuition has improved, as has my creativity, and my precision too. No reflection on your question, but I am tired of talking about me, so I will leave it at that. - Much appreciated Mr. Sandiego. Your experience of enlightenment holds value. Better relationships, intuition, and greater prosperity I understand. Live and let live always sound advice. Greater precision - untold advantages. However, dissipation of my beliefs may take a few more yoga classes. Enjoy your enlightenment. --- Thanks- enjoy those yoga classes.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: Just asking. Unlike you, I don't claim to know that my answer to a question about *opinion* is true or factually correct. And a good thing too, since your opinion is based on nonfacts. Funny you should mention that. I was going to ask you about these facts you're referring to. Too late. You decided to show off your ignorance of a whole bunch of other facts instead, in two separate posts. Did you attend the same school of debate that Jim did? Your tactics are similar. I won't be the *least* bit offended or outraged if you don't agree with me. I don't *expect* anyone to agree with me just because I said something. But isn't it fascinating how many folks here DO? And how upset they sometimes get when others DON'T agree with their every word? I never asked you to agree with me. I merely asked you to clarify one of your own statements. You seem upset enough about the question to refuse to answer it. I was quoting you, Barry. I was more than aware of that. But you were quoting out of context. No one said anything about wanting to change your beliefs. All that I asked is for you to explain how you were so certain about them as to answer a Could it be that... question with the word No, and then explain that answer with the assertion that it was factually correct. I didn't see any facts in what you were replying to, *or* in your reply. I was curious as to where you see them. It's *fine* with me if you want to duck out on explaining your rather definitive statements, *especially* since you chose to do so in this particular thread. The original question was: Could it be that people who have spent decades *not* using their critical faculties, and reacting to ANYTHING said by the people they have deemed author- ities as Truth Incarnate, seem to feel after a few years or decades doing this that that is how other people should react to THEM? I consider the question answered by the nature of your response, and subsequent non-response. Thank you for your participation. You can go back to making similar pronouncements about Hillary and other subjects now. Jim did the same thing recently. I was just wondering whether you shared the same alma mater.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sandiego108 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu noozguru@ wrote: authfriend wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu noozguru@ wrote: snip That's always what I understood him to have been saying, Bhairitu, not that you would know everything. He's quite specific about this in his Gita commentary. Exactly but some people believe that they will know everything when enlightened. He needed to emphasize that's not the case. And for good reason. Learning still has to take place at all levels of life-- has to. Even the gods learn. Interesting all of the misconceptions around enlightenment. Much of it due to the often paradoxical nature of the enlightened life. Like the question that comes up about mistakes. Some say the enlightened can make mistakes. Others say this is not so. The paradoxical reality is that enlightened people from their enlightened perspective cannot make mistakes, only because there is nothing to compare their thoughts and actions to, no conceptual template that the enlightened person has deviated from, and therefore made a mistake. Does it look the same way to someone unenlightened? It does not-- unenlightened people constantly make mistakes, and will always see them in others, even in the enlightened. So it is a paradox. The reality of mistakes no longer exists in permanent enlightenment, although the unenlightened will continue to see them in the thoughts and actions of the enlightened. No harm, no foul-- just the way it is. Jim, it seems to me that what you have defined above is that the enlightened live in a state that is completely divorced from reality. Their *perception* (in your words, from their enlightened perspective) is that there can be no possible mistakes, and yet they make them constantly (your word), and so do others. So, a few followup questions: 1. What do you perceive the value of enlight- enment to BE if it makes you perceive this badly and (by your own standards) incorrectly? 2. Should anyone pay ANY attention to the enlight- ened when they claim that there are no mistakes? (It seems to me that you yourself have just said that this perception is incorrect, and yet you keep saying it.) 3. If the enlightened can be *this* wrong about the issue of Are the words and actions of the enlightened perfect and free from mistakes, and *admit* it, why should anyone pay any attention to what they say about anything else?
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
I misread one of Jim's statements below (being unenlightened, I am still able to make mistakes, unlike Jim), so some of my previous followup questions were based on that misreading. Jim may ignore them if he wants, as he probably would anyway because they were tough questions, and Jim has a tendency to run away when faced with tough questions. :-) I will start over. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sandiego108 sandiego108@ wrote: Interesting all of the misconceptions around enlightenment. Much of it due to the often paradoxical nature of the enlightened life. Like the question that comes up about mistakes. Some say the enlightened can make mistakes. Others say this is not so. The paradoxical reality is that enlightened people from their enlightened perspective cannot make mistakes, only because there is nothing to compare their thoughts and actions to, no conceptual template that the enlightened person has deviated from, and therefore made a mistake. So Jim, you are saying that from their enlightened perspective the enlightened *cannot make mistakes*. Did I get that right this time? Ok, does that enlightened perspective have any reality at all, or could it be just one more illusory point of view? If, as you go on to say, everyone around the enlightened being perceives them as having made a mistake, and *only* the enlightened being perceives themselves as *not* having made a mistake, why is the enlightened person's perspective definitive and everyone else's wrong? I mean, Son Of Sam was convinced that he hadn't made any mistakes, and that it was only the ignorance of the people who were viewing his perfect actions as imperfect that was the problem. Isn't what you are describing closer to a description of insanity than enlightenment? Does it look the same way to someone unenlightened? It does not-- unenlightened people constantly make mistakes, and will always see them in others, even in the enlightened. So it is a paradox. The reality of mistakes no longer exists in permanent enlightenment, although the unenlightened will continue to see them in the thoughts and actions of the enlightened. No harm, no foul-- just the way it is. So the bottom line that you are proposing is that the enlightened are right *because they say they are*, and that the only reason they are perceived to be making any mistakes is that those doing the perceiving are unenlightened. You are saying, in effect, that because you are enlight- ened, you cannot possibly make any mistakes. Is that correct? You are saying that the only reason it appears that you are making mistakes is that the unenlightened are not able to perceive the perfection of your actions. Is that correct? OK. It's a belief system, and I guess you are entitled to it. It seems to me a fairly self-serving, solipsist belief system closer to madness than enlightenment, but you seem to like it. But could you do me one favor, just in the interest of clearing up this unenlightened soul's confusion? Please explain to me a statement you made some time ago that appeared to me, from my unenlightened per- spective, to be a mistake. You said, quite clearly, and even repeated the statement in subsequent posts, that Buddha had said, God is love. Can you provide a reference as to where he said that? Then perhaps I will be less unenlightened, and can better understand the perfection of your enlightened actions.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sandiego108 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: snip Do you think it's possible that when you know things the way they do, your seeing becomes so Vedic that you can perceive that it's against the laws of nature to explain how or why you know things? :-) The question you must ask yourself is not something sarcastic directed at others, but why you have this obvious battle going on within yourself, to, on the one hand, desire answers to questions, and on the other ask them is such a mocking and disrepectful tone that you not only substantially decrease your chances of receiving any answers, but also harden your heart and mind against any answers you do receive. It seems like a way to make noise, but not solve anything for yourself. Jim, in order: 1. There is no question I must ask myself. There is only the question you *want* me to ask myself. No matter how enlightened you consider yourself, you have neither the right nor the authority to must me about ANYTHING. Your act lately is to, whenever I ask you some tough questions that *you* don't want to or are unable to deal with, to turn it around and suggest that the problem is from *my* side. It's based on some *lack* in me that is *not* lacking in you. It's the *same* thing you're saying in the other post, that because YOU are enlightened (or claim to be), YOU define truth. You have stated -- quite clearly -- that essentially the reason you believe that you are enlightened is that you have chosen to call your own experiences by the name enlightenment. (That WAS what you said, in essence...you laid out your *own* experiences as a definition of enlightenment, and then said, in essence, Because these are my own experiences, and because I define those experiences as 'enlightenment,' I am enlightened. You then went on to say that it was *not* possible that you could be mistaken about the nature of these experiences. Now you're musting. Seems to me that you've kinda lost perspective on what your place is in the universe, dude. You do not have the intelligence, personal power, charisma, or state of consciousness to must a DOG into obeying you, much less me; you just like to think you have that power. :-) 2. You claim to have perceived that I have a battle going on inside myself. And after I have explained to you, quite patiently IMO, that I have *zero* desire for permanent enlightenment, *especially* as you define enlightenment. I am NOT seeking spiritual advice from you; I'd rather be *dead* than think like you. I'm merely asking you questions to put you on the spot and have you defend some of the statements you have made here in the past, and that you continue to make in the present. 3. With regard to my mocking and disrespectful tone, what is present in you that could possibly be mocked and disrespected? You *have* said, have you not, that you have no self, only Self, right? You *have* said, The process of attaining enlightenment involves the complete dissolution of any sort of artificial identity, have you not? What artificial identity in you thus is able to feel mocked or disrespected? Are you trying to tell us that Self feels mocked and disrespected by itsSelf? 4. As for your answers, I consider them worthless. I am not *looking* for any answers, least of all from you. I would sooner trust answers from Son Of Sam. So the issue of whether my attitude is blocking those answers is somewhat questionable. I think it comes down to what I have recognized about you previously... 5. What you have recognized. Is that synonymous with Truth, Jim? Does the fact that you recognize something make it by definition true? What about your recognition that Buddha -- someone who did not believe in gods and was unfamiliar with even the concept of a single God -- said, God is love. Was that another of your re-cognitions? ...that you have both a fear and a need for enlightenment within you... 6. Methinks you projecting your own motivations onto me, dude. I have no need for enlightenment, nor do I fear it. It comes, it goes. I neither seek it nor avoid it. I don't CARE whether it comes or it goes. What is going on is that you are trying to SELL the need for enlightenment, and I am not buying. ...and you are stuck in the middle, unable to move forward until the fear is resolved. 7. Move forward to WHAT, dude? I have stated very clearly that I have NO desire for enlightenment, as you have defined it, or even as *I* define it. I seek only to appreciate what is, whatever is. It is YOU who is trying to sell me the need to seek enlightenment; it is me who is not buying. The fear is the fear of your ego dissolving. Trust me, it feels a lot better once you have let go. I do NOT trust you. I do NOT believe for an instant that you have dissolved your ego. I do NOT believe for an instant that you are enlightened. And
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
This is a great discussion. In my experience enlightened guys never subject themselves to a continued skeptical inquiry concerning the implications of what they are claiming. Can anyone direct me to other such discussions from masters? The closest I have seen Maharishi allow this was a discussion with one of my philosophy professors concerning the logic of the necessity for a transcendental consciousness beneath waking, dreaming and sleep states. It was an early course, maybe Humbolt. After going round and round Maharishi put a lid on it with the absurd statement Then you must change your logic, exposing his own anti-intellectual bias. Thanks to Jim for continuing on in a bit of a caustic exchange, and to Turq for keeping this alive. This is a legitimate line of inquiry IMO. There are so many assumptive beliefs contained in the idea of someone being in a special state. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I misread one of Jim's statements below (being unenlightened, I am still able to make mistakes, unlike Jim), so some of my previous followup questions were based on that misreading. Jim may ignore them if he wants, as he probably would anyway because they were tough questions, and Jim has a tendency to run away when faced with tough questions. :-) I will start over. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sandiego108 sandiego108@ wrote: Interesting all of the misconceptions around enlightenment. Much of it due to the often paradoxical nature of the enlightened life. Like the question that comes up about mistakes. Some say the enlightened can make mistakes. Others say this is not so. The paradoxical reality is that enlightened people from their enlightened perspective cannot make mistakes, only because there is nothing to compare their thoughts and actions to, no conceptual template that the enlightened person has deviated from, and therefore made a mistake. So Jim, you are saying that from their enlightened perspective the enlightened *cannot make mistakes*. Did I get that right this time? Ok, does that enlightened perspective have any reality at all, or could it be just one more illusory point of view? If, as you go on to say, everyone around the enlightened being perceives them as having made a mistake, and *only* the enlightened being perceives themselves as *not* having made a mistake, why is the enlightened person's perspective definitive and everyone else's wrong? I mean, Son Of Sam was convinced that he hadn't made any mistakes, and that it was only the ignorance of the people who were viewing his perfect actions as imperfect that was the problem. Isn't what you are describing closer to a description of insanity than enlightenment? Does it look the same way to someone unenlightened? It does not-- unenlightened people constantly make mistakes, and will always see them in others, even in the enlightened. So it is a paradox. The reality of mistakes no longer exists in permanent enlightenment, although the unenlightened will continue to see them in the thoughts and actions of the enlightened. No harm, no foul-- just the way it is. So the bottom line that you are proposing is that the enlightened are right *because they say they are*, and that the only reason they are perceived to be making any mistakes is that those doing the perceiving are unenlightened. You are saying, in effect, that because you are enlight- ened, you cannot possibly make any mistakes. Is that correct? You are saying that the only reason it appears that you are making mistakes is that the unenlightened are not able to perceive the perfection of your actions. Is that correct? OK. It's a belief system, and I guess you are entitled to it. It seems to me a fairly self-serving, solipsist belief system closer to madness than enlightenment, but you seem to like it. But could you do me one favor, just in the interest of clearing up this unenlightened soul's confusion? Please explain to me a statement you made some time ago that appeared to me, from my unenlightened per- spective, to be a mistake. You said, quite clearly, and even repeated the statement in subsequent posts, that Buddha had said, God is love. Can you provide a reference as to where he said that? Then perhaps I will be less unenlightened, and can better understand the perfection of your enlightened actions.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: snip Just asking. Unlike you, I don't claim to know that my answer to a question about *opinion* is true or factually correct. And a good thing too, since your opinion is based on nonfacts. Funny you should mention that. I was going to ask you about these facts you're referring to. Too late. You decided to show off your ignorance of a whole bunch of other facts instead, in two separate posts. Did you attend the same school of debate that Jim did? Your tactics are similar. I won't be the *least* bit offended or outraged if you don't agree with me. I don't *expect* anyone to agree with me just because I said something. But isn't it fascinating how many folks here DO? And how upset they sometimes get when others DON'T agree with their every word? I never asked you to agree with me. I merely asked you to clarify one of your own statements. You seem upset enough about the question to refuse to answer it. I was quoting you, Barry. I was more than aware of that. But you were quoting out of context. No one said anything about wanting to change your beliefs. Nor did I say anything about that, including in the quote from your post. Did you misread what you yourself wrote? My point, of course, is that *you* got upset because I disagreed with *you*. And now you're even more upset that I don't feel required to respond to your demand that I tell you how I know that what you said that I disagreed with is wrong.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snip You are saying that the only reason it appears that you are making mistakes is that the unenlightened are not able to perceive the perfection of your actions. Is that correct? OK. It's a belief system, and I guess you are entitled to it. It seems to me a fairly self-serving, solipsist belief system closer to madness than enlightenment, but you seem to like it. But could you do me one favor, just in the interest of clearing up this unenlightened soul's confusion? Please explain to me a statement you made some time ago that appeared to me, from my unenlightened per- spective, to be a mistake. You said, quite clearly, and even repeated the statement in subsequent posts, that Buddha had said, God is love. Try this: The perfection was in saying Buddha had said God is love and getting you all freaked out about the factual error.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This is a great discussion. In my experience enlightened guys never subject themselves to a continued skeptical inquiry concerning the implications of what they are claiming. Can anyone direct me to other such discussions from masters? Thank you for getting it. That is the point. As far as I can tell, the entire lore about enlightenment is based on first-hand reports from those who have claimed to be enlightened. In the entire 40+ years I have been in and around enlightenment traditions, I have never seen one piece of evidence that any of the people who claimed to be enlightened actually were. Everyone just assumed they were because they said so. I was curious as to what would happen if someone didn't just assume this, and followed up the declaration of enlightenment with some requests for the person claiming enlightenment to explain how he knows this, and why we should believe that he knows this. The closest I have seen Maharishi allow this was a discussion with one of my philosophy professors concerning the logic of the necessity for a transcendental consciousness beneath waking, dreaming and sleep states. It was an early course, maybe Humbolt. After going round and round Maharishi put a lid on it with the absurd statement Then you must change your logic, exposing his own anti-intellectual bias. Not to mention that you must thing that has showed up here on FFL lately. Thanks to Jim for continuing on in a bit of a caustic exchange, and to Turq for keeping this alive. Thanks to Jim from me as well. Yes, I *am* being caustic. But why *shouldn't* I be? Jim offered to answer a bunch of questions as enlightenment speaking, and then bailed the minute the questioner *didn't* automatically assume that he was really enlightened. At that point it was declared that I wasn't showing him the proper respect, and the you musts started in. Jim talks about respect, and that I have not been showing him enough of it. But then he tells me that I must do things, simply because he says to. Sounds a lot to me how Maharishi reacted when deal- ing with your philosophy professor. The bottom line was repeating that the professor not only believe what the enlightened one had told him to believe, but that he must believe it. I'm persisting in this because I'm wondering whether Jim has any other tools in his enlightened arsenal than I am enlightened, because I say so, so there! and You must do this or that. This is a legitimate line of inquiry IMO. This is a legitimate line of inquiry. Whole traditions of never asking the teacher any tough questions have been in place for centuries to *keep* it from being a legitimate line of inquiry, but it is. There are so many assumptive beliefs contained in the idea of someone being in a special state. So many. And as far as I can tell, ALL of them have their basis in the *claim* that they are in a special state. No proof is ever offered. Very rarely are any tough questions asked of the person claiming to be in a special state. Such questions are actually considered impolite or disrespectful. What IS considered respectful is to just take the person at their word and then (one of the assumptive beliefs mentioned by Curtis), do what- ever he says, because he is enlightened and the enlightened know the truth (another assumptive belief, told to them by the *same* person who claimed to be enlightened and defined it). Most of us, at least for at time, took Maharishi at his word about enlightenment and its nature. Very few if any of us ever asked him any tough questions. I don't think it's wrong to ask tough questions, especially of those who are claiming to be enlightened. If they ARE enlightened, they should not only be able to handle the questions, they should be able to handle them gracefully. If they are not able to handle the questions, maybe they shouldn't be billing themselves as enlightened.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sandiego108 sandiego108@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: snip Do you think it's possible that when you know things the way they do, your seeing becomes so Vedic that you can perceive that it's against the laws of nature to explain how or why you know things? :-) The question you must ask yourself is not something sarcastic directed at others, but why you have this obvious battle going on within yourself, to, on the one hand, desire answers to questions, and on the other ask them is such a mocking and disrepectful tone that you not only substantially decrease your chances of receiving any answers, but also harden your heart and mind against any answers you do receive. It seems like a way to make noise, but not solve anything for yourself. Jim, in order: 1. There is no question I must ask myself. There is only the question you *want* me to ask myself. No matter how enlightened you consider yourself, you have neither the right nor the authority to must me about ANYTHING. If I may butt in again: I suspect there's a tacit If...then involved here: [If you want to solve anything for yourself,] you must ask yourself...
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This is a great discussion. In my experience enlightened guys never subject themselves to a continued skeptical inquiry concerning the implications of what they are claiming. Can anyone direct me to other such discussions from masters? Thanks to Jim for continuing on in a bit of a caustic exchange, and to Turq for keeping this alive. This is a legitimate line of inquiry IMO. There are so many assumptive beliefs contained in the idea of someone being in a special state. I agree. I think Jim cut out a little early. On the other hand, it does take considerable time to address all the questions. On the other hand, at some point further discussion on an issue can seem useless. As the to MMY way dialog with that professor, I recall that tape, and M's final answer about changing your logic Sometimes these intellecual discussions just drone and on. But, I would have liked to see Jim take it a few steps further. I mean I can think of a few brief replies to some of these questions. And I think for the most part, you ignore the tone in which they are asked, and just address the issue. Don't mind the mockery. As you go through life, make this your goal, watch the donut, not the hole (Burl Ives)
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: snip You are saying that the only reason it appears that you are making mistakes is that the unenlightened are not able to perceive the perfection of your actions. Is that correct? OK. It's a belief system, and I guess you are entitled to it. It seems to me a fairly self-serving, solipsist belief system closer to madness than enlightenment, but you seem to like it. But could you do me one favor, just in the interest of clearing up this unenlightened soul's confusion? Please explain to me a statement you made some time ago that appeared to me, from my unenlightened per- spective, to be a mistake. You said, quite clearly, and even repeated the statement in subsequent posts, that Buddha had said, God is love. Try this: The perfection was in saying Buddha had said God is love and getting you all freaked out about the factual error. Despite your attempt to do exactly what Jim has been doing and make it all about me and claim that I am freaked out, I'm not. It is simply that this comment of Jim's is a clear example of him having made a mistake. He has never admitted this mistake. It would seem that he cannot, because to do so undercuts what he says about the nature of enlightenment. But thanks anyway for your theory.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
Jim wrote: Does it look the same way to someone unenlightened? Jim, it seems to me that what you have defined above is that the enlightened live in a state that is completely divorced from reality. Those that are 'enlightened' live in a different reality than those that live in ignorance. The enlightened have an experience of 'gnosis' in that they realize the illusory aspect of reality. They 'Know', gain 'Gnosis' of a new reality, that existence is composed of suffering, lamentation, and grief. Those who are enlightened understand that existence is not real - it is unreal in the sense of being illusory, that is, unsubtantial, having no absolute basis. Their *perception* (in your words, from their enlightened perspective) is that there can be no possible mistakes, and yet they make them constantly (your word), and so do others. In reality, the individual does not really act at all - it's just the samskaras of the individual that are completing the current cycle of illusory birth and death. Once this cycle is completed, the individual is not reborn as a illusionary soul-monad. So, a few followup questions: 1. What do you perceive the value of enlight- enment to BE if it makes you perceive this badly and (by your own standards) incorrectly? What you percieve, in YOUR unenlightened state, is just the illusion of mistakes. In reality, this perception is just the appearance of what you interpret to be wrong action. In reality, that is, in the enlightened state, actions are percieved to be merely the results of the gunas, which act out due to the karma accumulated in previous lives. 2. Should anyone pay ANY attention to the enlight- ened when they claim that there are no mistakes? (It seems to me that you yourself have just said that this perception is incorrect, and yet you keep saying it.) Those who are enlightened have experienced Nirvana, that is, they understand the 'Twelve-fold Chain of Causation' and the 'Four Noble Truths'. Those who have experienced this state of Nirvana are free, and immortal, in the sense that they have blown out the flame of illusion - they have 'Knowledge', or 'Gnosis', in that, they realize that there is a release from the birth and death. They know that they will not be reborn again - they will not suffer ever again because they know the reality of rebirth and all the sorrow lamentation and suffering that life entails. Buddhas do not have to come back unless they choose to do so. 3. If the enlightened can be *this* wrong about the issue of Are the words and actions of the enlightened perfect and free from mistakes, and *admit* it, why should anyone pay any attention to what they say about anything else? While living we must all recognize the customary habits and morality of the society we are living in, otherwise you may find yourself commited either to a psychiatric ward to to a jail. But this is realtive to your own situation. All of the above is just standard Buddhist and Enlightenment Tradition doctrine. Why on earth you persist in arguing the materialistic POV is beyond me. Even the Rama Guy said as much!
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: snip You are saying that the only reason it appears that you are making mistakes is that the unenlightened are not able to perceive the perfection of your actions. Is that correct? OK. It's a belief system, and I guess you are entitled to it. It seems to me a fairly self-serving, solipsist belief system closer to madness than enlightenment, but you seem to like it. But could you do me one favor, just in the interest of clearing up this unenlightened soul's confusion? Please explain to me a statement you made some time ago that appeared to me, from my unenlightened per- spective, to be a mistake. You said, quite clearly, and even repeated the statement in subsequent posts, that Buddha had said, God is love. Try this: The perfection was in saying Buddha had said God is love and getting you all freaked out about the factual error. Despite your attempt to do exactly what Jim has been doing and make it all about me and claim that I am freaked out, I'm not. Yeah, it freaks you out. You've brought it up over and over and *over* again. In any case, I'm not trying to make it all about you, much as that might appeal to you. I'm trying, once again, to expand your painfully pedestrian conceptual vocabulary about enlightenment. It is simply that this comment of Jim's is a clear example of him having made a mistake. He has never admitted this mistake. And you're still not getting it. The perfection doesn't stop at freaking you out over the error itself; it includes never admitting the mistake (which also freaks you out). The perfection of the factual error and the way Jim deals with it, in other words, isn't self-contained: It includes all the reactions to it as well. It would seem that he cannot, because to do so undercuts what he says about the nature of enlightenment. Au contraire, Pierre. What it undercuts is your understanding of the nature of enlightenment.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Richard J. Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Jim wrote: Does it look the same way to someone unenlightened? Jim, it seems to me that what you have defined above is that the enlightened live in a state that is completely divorced from reality. Those that are 'enlightened' live in a different reality than those that live in ignorance. The enlightened have an experience of 'gnosis' in that they realize the illusory aspect of reality. First, excellent detailed answers. Here is the fundamental problem that I have. How could we possibly know what a person's internal experience is? I can't really separate your points from a bunch of beliefs that any fundamentalist Hindu would have. The enlightened person is just making a claim of having special internal knowledge with no evidence. Most of your points were right out of scriptures. So anyone can claim to know in this special way. I think the difference is that some people get others to buy into the claim. But the problem here is that the the most popular leader by the numbers who was felt to be an actual god on earth was Mao. And he also competes with Stalin for greatest mass murderer. I know that people into the enlightenment model look down on religious people who just read the scriptures and believe a bunch of stuff. But I can't see how they are really different, or if they are, how we could know. Most traditions of enlightenment that I know about including the Jesus cult, make the case for the specialness of their enlightened leader using bad evidence and unsupported claims of miraculous goings on outside the ability to be evaluated carefully. The movement is full of Maharishi's legendary enlightened workaholism. But I've met obsessive driven people like him in business so that doesn't cut it. And the darshon thing gets blown out by Mao. So how could we tell if someone was functioning specially, beyond their spouting words we can all read in scriptures? They 'Know', gain 'Gnosis' of a new reality, that existence is composed of suffering, lamentation, and grief. Those who are enlightened understand that existence is not real - it is unreal in the sense of being illusory, that is, unsubtantial, having no absolute basis. Their *perception* (in your words, from their enlightened perspective) is that there can be no possible mistakes, and yet they make them constantly (your word), and so do others. In reality, the individual does not really act at all - it's just the samskaras of the individual that are completing the current cycle of illusory birth and death. Once this cycle is completed, the individual is not reborn as a illusionary soul-monad. So, a few followup questions: 1. What do you perceive the value of enlight- enment to BE if it makes you perceive this badly and (by your own standards) incorrectly? What you percieve, in YOUR unenlightened state, is just the illusion of mistakes. In reality, this perception is just the appearance of what you interpret to be wrong action. In reality, that is, in the enlightened state, actions are percieved to be merely the results of the gunas, which act out due to the karma accumulated in previous lives. 2. Should anyone pay ANY attention to the enlight- ened when they claim that there are no mistakes? (It seems to me that you yourself have just said that this perception is incorrect, and yet you keep saying it.) Those who are enlightened have experienced Nirvana, that is, they understand the 'Twelve-fold Chain of Causation' and the 'Four Noble Truths'. Those who have experienced this state of Nirvana are free, and immortal, in the sense that they have blown out the flame of illusion - they have 'Knowledge', or 'Gnosis', in that, they realize that there is a release from the birth and death. They know that they will not be reborn again - they will not suffer ever again because they know the reality of rebirth and all the sorrow lamentation and suffering that life entails. Buddhas do not have to come back unless they choose to do so. 3. If the enlightened can be *this* wrong about the issue of Are the words and actions of the enlightened perfect and free from mistakes, and *admit* it, why should anyone pay any attention to what they say about anything else? While living we must all recognize the customary habits and morality of the society we are living in, otherwise you may find yourself commited either to a psychiatric ward to to a jail. But this is realtive to your own situation. All of the above is just standard Buddhist and Enlightenment Tradition doctrine. Why on earth you persist in arguing the materialistic POV is beyond me. Even the Rama Guy said as much!
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snip Yes, I *am* being caustic. But why *shouldn't* I be? Jim offered to answer a bunch of questions as enlightenment speaking, and then bailed the minute the questioner *didn't* automatically assume that he was really enlightened. At that point it was declared that I wasn't showing him the proper respect, No, that's not true. Jim bailed after a post in which Barry delivered a long, insulting tirade. (That tirade is in post #178384, if anybody wants to check.) and the you musts started in. This is *very* funny. In fact, there was no you must at all from Jim. It was an I must, again in an if- then form: If I'm going to answer these questions, first I must know your definition of enlightenment, specifically whether it means passing the moonwalking- bear video test. And Barry went ballistic, telling Jim he had no right to must, even though Jim was stating his own conditions, not telling Barry *he* had to do anything. Absolutely amazing. According to Barry, Jim has no right to specify under what circumstances he will or will not do something Barry asked him to do. Anyway, then Barry proceeded to accuse Jim of playing games and went off on his insulting tirade. That was the point at which Jim bowed out.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I misread one of Jim's statements below (being unenlightened, I am still able to make mistakes, unlike Jim), so some of my previous followup questions were based on that misreading. Jim may ignore them if he wants, as he probably would anyway because they were tough questions, and Jim has a tendency to run away when faced with tough questions. :-) I will start over. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sandiego108 sandiego108@ wrote: Interesting all of the misconceptions around enlightenment. Much of it due to the often paradoxical nature of the enlightened life. Like the question that comes up about mistakes. Some say the enlightened can make mistakes. Others say this is not so. The paradoxical reality is that enlightened people from their enlightened perspective cannot make mistakes, only because there is nothing to compare their thoughts and actions to, no conceptual template that the enlightened person has deviated from, and therefore made a mistake. So Jim, you are saying that from their enlightened perspective the enlightened *cannot make mistakes*. Did I get that right this time? mistakes stop existing, for them and for anyone else. Making mistakes is a concept that only exists in duality. In oneness, mistakes cease to exist, from the enlightened person's point of view, and for anyone else they observe. For someone living duality, they make mistakes and enlightened people make mistakes all the time. Ok, does that enlightened perspective have any reality at all, or could it be just one more illusory point of view? It is reality. If, as you go on to say, everyone around the enlightened being perceives them as having made a mistake, and *only* the enlightened being perceives themselves as *not* having made a mistake, why is the enlightened person's perspective definitive and everyone else's wrong? I didn't state this as a conclusion. You did. I would not agree with you-- what you are saying is incorrect. I mean, Son Of Sam was convinced that he hadn't made any mistakes, and that it was only the ignorance of the people who were viewing his perfect actions as imperfect that was the problem. Isn't what you are describing closer to a description of insanity than enlightenment? What problem? Does it look the same way to someone unenlightened? It does not-- unenlightened people constantly make mistakes, and will always see them in others, even in the enlightened. So it is a paradox. The reality of mistakes no longer exists in permanent enlightenment, although the unenlightened will continue to see them in the thoughts and actions of the enlightened. No harm, no foul-- just the way it is. So the bottom line that you are proposing is that the enlightened are right *because they say they are*, and that the only reason they are perceived to be making any mistakes is that those doing the perceiving are unenlightened. What is this right and wrong you keep bringing up? What is done is done due to the consciousness of the actor. The way it is perceived is that way too. An enlightened person actsd from his state of consciousness, and all others do too. There is no right and wrong about it. You are saying, in effect, that because you are enlight- ened, you cannot possibly make any mistakes. Is that correct? I am saying that the concept of mistakes no longer exists. The way you are phrasing it assumes that the possibility of mistakes exist for me and I magically avoid them. You are saying that the only reason it appears that you are making mistakes is that the unenlightened are not able to perceive the perfection of your actions. Is that correct? Not exactly. Everything begins with us. So if an unenlightened person has not learned skill in thoughts and action, they will perceive their own actions as imperfect, and therefore they will see all actions as they see themselves; imperfect. OK. It's a belief system, and I guess you are entitled to it. It seems to me a fairly self-serving, solipsist belief system closer to madness than enlightenment, but you seem to like it. I wouldn't have it any other way. The alternative sucks, in my view. But could you do me one favor, just in the interest of clearing up this unenlightened soul's confusion? Please explain to me a statement you made some time ago that appeared to me, from my unenlightened per- spective, to be a mistake. You said, quite clearly, and even repeated the statement in subsequent posts, that Buddha had said, God is love. Here's another one: The value of pi is 4.83830930393939. Oops, I amde a mistake. Can you provide a reference as to where he said that? No. Then perhaps I will be less unenlightened, and can better understand the perfection of
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snip So, a few followup questions: 1. What do you perceive the value of enlight- enment to BE if it makes you perceive this badly and (by your own standards) incorrectly? From my perspective, everything is fine, until it isn't. Its just that there is this story out there that enlightened people do not make mistakes, and (here's the kicker) they are not perceived as making mistakes by the unenlightened. That's the BS. That's the story. As explained earlier, anything an enlightened person does isn't perceived as a mistake *to themselves*, but to others, maybe it is seen as a mistake. 2. Should anyone pay ANY attention to the enlight- ened when they claim that there are no mistakes? (It seems to me that you yourself have just said that this perception is incorrect, and yet you keep saying it.) I am not sure I understand this-- as everyone is always free to decide what they do and don't pay attention to. I am certainly not going to render a judgment on what anyone may or may not do. 3. If the enlightened can be *this* wrong about the issue of Are the words and actions of the enlightened perfect and free from mistakes, and *admit* it, why should anyone pay any attention to what they say about anything else? It is purely a personal choice-- if someone desires enlightenment, then they might be interested in what an enlightened person says and does. If not, they might not be. Its all pretty simple really.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snip Now you're musting. Seems to me that you've kinda lost perspective on what your place is in the universe, dude. You do not have the intelligence, personal power, charisma, or state of consciousness to must a DOG into obeying you, much less me; you just like to think you have that power. :-) I said you must in the context of resolving your inner conflict. I am not asking, telling or insisting you do a damned thing for me. If you go back and read all of the posts I have made I have not once asked, told or insisted anyone do anything for me or believe anything I say. Is that finally sinking in? 2. You claim to have perceived that I have a battle going on inside myself. Yes, very clearly. And after I have explained to you, quite patiently IMO, that I have *zero* desire for permanent enlightenment, *especially* as you define enlightenment. I am NOT seeking spiritual advice from you; And yet, clontine to try to clarify what I, the person who you don't want anything to do with, am thinking. I'd rather be *dead* than think like you. kinda the same thing actually... I'm merely asking you questions to put you on the spot and have you defend some of the statements you have made here in the past, and that you continue to make in the present. Fair enough. 3. With regard to my mocking and disrespectful tone, what is present in you that could possibly be mocked and disrespected? You *have* said, have you not, that you have no self, only Self, right? You *have* said, The process of attaining enlightenment involves the complete dissolution of any sort of artificial identity, have you not? What artificial identity in you thus is able to feel mocked or disrespected? Are you trying to tell us that Self feels mocked and disrespected by itsSelf? snip A mocking and disrespectful tone is apparent in whatever state of consciousness. Are you saying that because someone is enlightened, they can no longer perceive a mocking and disrespectful tone aimed at them? Try this experiment-- the next time you come across someone you are resonably sure is enlightened, hit them hard with a stick, then watch their reaction. They will have one I assure you.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sandiego108 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: snip Now you're musting. Seems to me that you've kinda lost perspective on what your place is in the universe, dude. You do not have the intelligence, personal power, charisma, or state of consciousness to must a DOG into obeying you, much less me; you just like to think you have that power. :-) I said you must in the context of resolving your inner conflict. Which you have declared exists. :-) I am not asking, telling or insisting you do a damned thing for me. If you go back and read all of the posts I have made I have not once asked, told or insisted anyone do anything for me or believe anything I say. Is that finally sinking in? You *are*, however, claiming that I have some inner conflict that you can see because you're all enlightened and all. :-) 2. You claim to have perceived that I have a battle going on inside myself. Yes, very clearly. I will admit that it probably seems very clear to you. Then again, you believe that you are enlightened. That seems clear to you, too. :-) And after I have explained to you, quite patiently IMO, that I have *zero* desire for permanent enlightenment, *especially* as you define enlightenment. I am NOT seeking spiritual advice from you; And yet, clontine to try to clarify what I, the person who you don't want anything to do with, am thinking. I clontine (continue) to ask YOU to clarify what YOU are thinking. You continue to try to make it about me, rather than answer direct questions. I'd rather be *dead* than think like you. kinda the same thing actually... Cool. We have finally found a point of agreement. May you get your wish first. :-) I'm merely asking you questions to put you on the spot and have you defend some of the statements you have made here in the past, and that you continue to make in the present. Fair enough. Remember this at the end, when I ask three more questions. 3. With regard to my mocking and disrespectful tone, what is present in you that could possibly be mocked and disrespected? You *have* said, have you not, that you have no self, only Self, right? You *have* said, The process of attaining enlightenment involves the complete dissolution of any sort of artificial identity, have you not? What artificial identity in you thus is able to feel mocked or disrespected? Are you trying to tell us that Self feels mocked and disrespected by itsSelf? snip A mocking and disrespectful tone is apparent in whatever state of consciousness. Are you saying that because someone is enlightened, they can no longer perceive a mocking and disrespectful tone aimed at them? I am saying that someone who was really enlightened would not, in my opinion, use a perceived (and very present) disrespectful tone as an excuse to avoid answering a few simple questions about enlightenment. Try this experiment-- the next time you come across someone you are resonably sure is enlightened, hit them hard with a stick, then watch their reaction. They will have one I assure you. I did. A verbal stick. You're still running. Thanks for responding to all these posts. To clarify the situation at this point, nothing you have said has convinced me that you are enlightened or even close to it. All that you have done is spout dogma, and not very well. I *do* believe that *you* believe what you are saying. I just see no value in that belief -- for yourself or for anyone else. To continue, if you feel like it, at the point at which you used the excuse of disrespect to stop answering my questions, I was moving away from subjective experience and into the realm of the enlightened person's relationship with and responsibilities towards other sentient beings. That is the one thing that never seems to enter into your calculations, and that you never speak about. I can understand why. As you have tried to explain yourself, you don't even believe that other sentient beings EXIST -- you create them. But could you speak about this a little bit, just for fun, as if the rest of us *did* exist. :-) So far, NOTHING you have mentioned about enlight- enment has been of ANY value to anyone but yourself. 1. Are you comfortable with that? 2. Do you feel that you, as someone who claims to be enlightened, have any responsibilities to anyone else? 3. For that matter, do you believe that anyone else actually exists? Three simple questions. You'll either deal with them or you won't. ( Hint: If your answer to #3 is No, then the only thing disrespecting you is a figment of your imagination that you created. :-)
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sandiego108 sandiego108@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: snip Now you're musting. Seems to me that you've kinda lost perspective on what your place is in the universe, dude. You do not have the intelligence, personal power, charisma, or state of consciousness to must a DOG into obeying you, much less me; you just like to think you have that power. :-) I said you must in the context of resolving your inner conflict. Which you have declared exists. :-) Yes. I am not asking, telling or insisting you do a damned thing for me. If you go back and read all of the posts I have made I have not once asked, told or insisted anyone do anything for me or believe anything I say. Is that finally sinking in? You *are*, however, claiming that I have some inner conflict that you can see because you're all enlightened and all. :-) I can see it. 2. You claim to have perceived that I have a battle going on inside myself. Yes, very clearly. I will admit that it probably seems very clear to you. Then again, you believe that you are enlightened. That seems clear to you, too. :-) I do not believe I am enlightened. I do not believe you have an inner conflict. Hey deja vu all over again! And after I have explained to you, quite patiently IMO, that I have *zero* desire for permanent enlightenment, *especially* as you define enlightenment. I am NOT seeking spiritual advice from you; And yet, clontine to try to clarify what I, the person who you don't want anything to do with, am thinking. I clontine (continue) to ask YOU to clarify what YOU are thinking. You continue to try to make it about me, rather than answer direct questions. Who is asking the questions, and guiding this discussion? I'd rather be *dead* than think like you. kinda the same thing actually... Cool. We have finally found a point of agreement. May you get your wish first. :-) What I was saying is being dead *is* kinda the same thing as thinking like me. I'm merely asking you questions to put you on the spot and have you defend some of the statements you have made here in the past, and that you continue to make in the present. Fair enough. Remember this at the end, when I ask three more questions. I will. 3. With regard to my mocking and disrespectful tone, what is present in you that could possibly be mocked and disrespected? You *have* said, have you not, that you have no self, only Self, right? You *have* said, The process of attaining enlightenment involves the complete dissolution of any sort of artificial identity, have you not? What artificial identity in you thus is able to feel mocked or disrespected? Are you trying to tell us that Self feels mocked and disrespected by itsSelf? snip A mocking and disrespectful tone is apparent in whatever state of consciousness. Are you saying that because someone is enlightened, they can no longer perceive a mocking and disrespectful tone aimed at them? I am saying that someone who was really enlightened would not, in my opinion, use a perceived (and very present) disrespectful tone as an excuse to avoid answering a few simple questions about enlightenment. So, enlightened people operate according to rules that only you perceive? The common wisdom that enlightenment is a state of unlimited freedom is bullshit in your eyes, that anyone enlightened only acts according to rules that you know about? Try this experiment-- the next time you come across someone you are resonably sure is enlightened, hit them hard with a stick, then watch their reaction. They will have one I assure you. I did. A verbal stick. You're still running. So you are admitting you are reasonably sure I am enlightened? I know your answer felt good to write, but does it make any sense? Thanks for responding to all these posts. You are welcome. To clarify the situation at this point, nothing you have said has convinced me that you are enlightened or even close to it. All that you have done is spout dogma, and not very well. I *do* believe that *you* believe what you are saying. I just see no value in that belief -- for yourself or for anyone else. To continue, if you feel like it, at the point at which you used the excuse of disrespect to stop answering my questions, I was moving away from subjective experience and into the realm of the enlightened person's relationship with and responsibilities towards other sentient beings. That is the one thing that never seems to enter into your calculations, and that you never speak about. I can understand why. As you have tried to explain yourself, you don't even believe that other sentient
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sandiego108 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: Three simple questions. You'll either deal with them or you won't. correct. You didn't. Your call.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sandiego108 sandiego108@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: Three simple questions. You'll either deal with them or you won't. correct. You didn't. Your call. I most certainly did.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Those that are 'enlightened' live in a different reality than those that live in ignorance. The enlightened have an experience of 'gnosis' in that they realize the illusory aspect of reality. First, excellent detailed answers. Here is the fundamental problem that I have. How could we possibly know what a person's internal experience is? I can't really separate your points from a bunch of beliefs that any fundamentalist Hindu would have. The enlightened person is just making a claim of having special internal knowledge with no evidence. Most of your points were right out of scriptures. So anyone can claim to know in this special way. I think the difference is that some people get others to buy into the claim. Ones view doesn't necessarily need to be upheld by anyone. My view doesn't usually change because you don't see it that way. It may be good feedback and all, but my state is not dependent on anyone's approval. Evaluating mistakes' is quite relative to the evaluation criteria. And the definition of a mistake. Do cartoon characters make mistakes? Did the roadrunner make ANOTHER mistake that got him blown up one more time? Does Charlie Brown make a mistake when ready to kick the football when Lussy lets go of the it once again? Are spelling errors mistakes? In some contexts yes, in other's no. Spelling is anarbitrary convention. As are words. I choose not to buy into that convention, and spell Lucy as Lussy -- did I make mistake? Again -- by what standards, from what view, pursuant to which objective, and to what consequence. What if the maid slipped, fell down the stairs, mistakenly and accidently bumped Hitler over the rail, where he plunged to his death in 1940. Did the maid make a mistake? Did Scott McClellan make a mistake by not speaking up while press Secretary? He said this morning that he didn't figure out a lot of stuff until year ago. Are some things a mistake in hindsight, or with more knowledge, and not a mistake at the moment? One view, which I like, and which may be a mistake, is that everyone is doing the best with what they have. Is a '64 VW Beetle, on its last legs, choking and coughing to get to the end of the street, making a mistake? Or is it doing the best it can with what it still has? If everyone is doing their best, given all of everyone's limitations, where is are the mistakes? I flunked a course -- took it again, and now know more than anyone in wither class. Did I make a mistake in failing the first time? I hit 63 out of 478 balls into the net this morning. Were those mistakes -- or simply useful feedback to adjust the angle of my racquet head a bit? A child is learning to talk and is a bit inarticulate at times. Is she making a mistake --or on a perfect path to learn the language. I don't claim to have special knowledge, particularly the woo woo kind. I do have specialized knowledge that no one else has on this Forum. (Or ever had in the history of the universe -- for that matter). But its personal, or career, or academic training, or simply what I had for breakfast 2 days ago. And my specialized knowledge affects by views -- and vice versa. I picked up 6 instead of my intended 4 oranges at the store. Was that a mistake? Was it consequential? A man loses his fortune -- by various mistakes. And learns a shitload of valuable life lessons as a result. Was that a mistake? Mistakes are very relative to what. What view, objective, context, evaluation criteria, consequence, etc. Its possible to posit views in which every cloud has a silver lining and things happen for the best. Many people, far beyond enlightenment traditions, have some or much of this view. In that view, its all good good -- in the larger context. One step back, two steps forward. In that view, there are no mistakes. While I am not necessarily subscribing to such, it is a legitimate view.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snip Could this be part of your plan to post out long before Hillary gets trounced in the primaries during the next few days and has to concede, so that you won't have to be here to explain it away? :-) Puerto Rico Primary Results CLINTON: 257,331 68% (38 delegates) OBAMA: 118,972 32% (17 delegates) 98% of precincts reporting. http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/state/#PR http://tinyurl.com/2m8jtd Just sayin'...
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
---Precisely. Such things have to be judged at face value, not one set of Neo-Advaitin standards and another for the Proletariat calss. Mistakes are mistakes, and yes, Hitler was evil. Besides, the people in question are far from Buddhahood. Bourgeosie.fa In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, new.morning [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: Those that are 'enlightened' live in a different reality than those that live in ignorance. The enlightened have an experience of 'gnosis' in that they realize the illusory aspect of reality. First, excellent detailed answers. Here is the fundamental problem that I have. How could we possibly know what a person's internal experience is? I can't really separate your points from a bunch of beliefs that any fundamentalist Hindu would have. The enlightened person is just making a claim of having special internal knowledge with no evidence. Most of your points were right out of scriptures. So anyone can claim to know in this special way. I think the difference is that some people get others to buy into the claim. Ones view doesn't necessarily need to be upheld by anyone. My view doesn't usually change because you don't see it that way. It may be good feedback and all, but my state is not dependent on anyone's approval. Evaluating mistakes' is quite relative to the evaluation criteria. And the definition of a mistake. Do cartoon characters make mistakes? Did the roadrunner make ANOTHER mistake that got him blown up one more time? Does Charlie Brown make a mistake when ready to kick the football when Lussy lets go of the it once again? Are spelling errors mistakes? In some contexts yes, in other's no. Spelling is anarbitrary convention. As are words. I choose not to buy into that convention, and spell Lucy as Lussy -- did I make mistake? Again -- by what standards, from what view, pursuant to which objective, and to what consequence. What if the maid slipped, fell down the stairs, mistakenly and accidently bumped Hitler over the rail, where he plunged to his death in 1940. Did the maid make a mistake? Did Scott McClellan make a mistake by not speaking up while press Secretary? He said this morning that he didn't figure out a lot of stuff until year ago. Are some things a mistake in hindsight, or with more knowledge, and not a mistake at the moment? One view, which I like, and which may be a mistake, is that everyone is doing the best with what they have. Is a '64 VW Beetle, on its last legs, choking and coughing to get to the end of the street, making a mistake? Or is it doing the best it can with what it still has? If everyone is doing their best, given all of everyone's limitations, where is are the mistakes? I flunked a course -- took it again, and now know more than anyone in wither class. Did I make a mistake in failing the first time? I hit 63 out of 478 balls into the net this morning. Were those mistakes -- or simply useful feedback to adjust the angle of my racquet head a bit? A child is learning to talk and is a bit inarticulate at times. Is she making a mistake --or on a perfect path to learn the language. I don't claim to have special knowledge, particularly the woo woo kind. I do have specialized knowledge that no one else has on this Forum. (Or ever had in the history of the universe -- for that matter). But its personal, or career, or academic training, or simply what I had for breakfast 2 days ago. And my specialized knowledge affects by views -- and vice versa. I picked up 6 instead of my intended 4 oranges at the store. Was that a mistake? Was it consequential? A man loses his fortune -- by various mistakes. And learns a shitload of valuable life lessons as a result. Was that a mistake? Mistakes are very relative to what. What view, objective, context, evaluation criteria, consequence, etc. Its possible to posit views in which every cloud has a silver lining and things happen for the best. Many people, far beyond enlightenment traditions, have some or much of this view. In that view, its all good good -- in the larger context. One step back, two steps forward. In that view, there are no mistakes. While I am not necessarily subscribing to such, it is a legitimate view.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
Curtis wrote: Most of your points were right out of scriptures. You're using a very narrow defintion of scripture. Scripture is anything, verbal, written, or recorded - in short, the scriptures are verbal testimony, which is a valid means of knowledge. Based on your logic I could object to you consulting the dictionary in order to post the definition of stress! But I'm not sure exactly what 'scriptures' you are refering to. And, it's not just a matter of reading the 'scriptures', Curtis - we all read the scriptures. The scriptures are just another name for books of knowledge - for consulting with our friends and teachers. We all rely on the three vaild means of knowledge. There are three valid means of knowledge: 1. Sense perceptions. 2. Verbal testimony. 3. Inference. But beyond these valid means of knowledge, there is *transcendental* knowledge. There is the apriori knowledge that makes some actions a categorical imperative. Assuming materialism would not be a logical conclusion, because it is NOT supported by the three valid means of knowledge!
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Richard J. Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Curtis wrote: Most of your points were right out of scriptures. You're using a very narrow defintion of scripture. Scripture is anything, verbal, written, or recorded - in short, the scriptures are verbal testimony, which is a valid means of knowledge. Based on your logic I could object to you consulting the dictionary in order to post the definition of stress! But I'm not sure exactly what 'scriptures' you are refering to. And, it's not just a matter of reading the 'scriptures', Curtis - we all read the scriptures. The scriptures are just another name for books of knowledge - for consulting with our friends and teachers. We all rely on the three vaild means of knowledge. There are three valid means of knowledge: 1. Sense perceptions. 2. Verbal testimony. 3. Inference. But beyond these valid means of knowledge, there is *transcendental* knowledge. There is the apriori knowledge that makes some actions a categorical imperative. Assuming materialism would not be a logical conclusion, because it is NOT supported by the three valid means of knowledge!
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Richard J. Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Curtis wrote: Most of your points were right out of scriptures. You're using a very narrow defintion of scripture. Scripture is anything, verbal, written, or recorded - in short, the scriptures are verbal testimony, which is a valid means of knowledge. Based on your logic I could object to you consulting the dictionary in order to post the definition of stress! But I'm not sure exactly what 'scriptures' you are refering to. And, it's not just a matter of reading the 'scriptures', Curtis - we all read the scriptures. The scriptures are just another name for books of knowledge - for consulting with our friends and teachers. We all rely on the three vaild means of knowledge. There are three valid means of knowledge: 1. Sense perceptions. 2. Verbal testimony. 3. Inference. But beyond these valid means of knowledge, there is *transcendental* knowledge. There is the apriori knowledge that makes some actions a categorical imperative. Assuming materialism would not be a logical conclusion, because it is NOT supported by the three valid means of knowledge!
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
Curtis wrote: But the problem here is that the most popular leader by the numbers who was felt to be an actual god on earth was Mao. Not sure I'm following you on this one; Mao was a materialist, but by the numbers, the historical Buddha would probably outnumber Mao in the millions in a popularity contest. Mao didn't believe in the 'gods' and Shakya by all accounts was a real historical person, not a 'god'. [snip] Most traditions of enlightenment that I know about There is only one enlightenment tradition, and according to Mircea Eliade, this is the Yoga tradition of South Asia. Mircea defined Yoga as introverted 'enstasis' and he found no evidence of this system in other cultures that he studied. including the Jesus cult, The 'Jesus' cult has nothing to do with the South Asian enlightenment tradition. The Jesus cult espouses the doctrine of atonement and bodily resurection, both of which are foreign to the enlightenmnet tradition. make the case for the specialness of their enlightened leader using bad evidence and unsupported claims of miraculous goings on outside the ability to be evaluated carefully. Maybe so. But the enlightenment tradition has nothing to say about 'specialness' - enlightenment is the normal state, not a 'special state', and it is not concerned with any individual soul-monad. Enlightement consists solely in *dispelling* the illusion that there are individual soul-monads. Enlightenment is beyond mundane knowledge, enlightenment is not a mere knowing of things and events. Work cited: 'Yoga : Immortality and Freedom' by Mircea Eliade Princeton University Press, 1970 Other titles of interst: 'Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy' by Mircea Eliade Princeton University Press; 2004 'The Yoga Tradition: Its History, Literature, Philosophy and Practice' by Georg Feuerstein, Ken Wilbur Hohm Press, 2001
Re: [FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
On Jun 1, 2008, at 11:24 AM, curtisdeltablues wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Richard J. Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Jim wrote: Does it look the same way to someone unenlightened? Jim, it seems to me that what you have defined above is that the enlightened live in a state that is completely divorced from reality. Those that are 'enlightened' live in a different reality than those that live in ignorance. The enlightened have an experience of 'gnosis' in that they realize the illusory aspect of reality. First, excellent detailed answers. Here is the fundamental problem that I have. How could we possibly know what a person's internal experience is? I can't really separate your points from a bunch of beliefs that any fundamentalist Hindu would have. The enlightened person is just making a claim of having special internal knowledge with no evidence. Most of your points were right out of scriptures. So anyone can claim to know in this special way. I think the difference is that some people get others to buy into the claim. But the problem here is that the the most popular leader by the numbers who was felt to be an actual god on earth was Mao. And he also competes with Stalin for greatest mass murderer. I know that people into the enlightenment model look down on religious people who just read the scriptures and believe a bunch of stuff. But I can't see how they are really different, or if they are, how we could know. Most traditions of enlightenment that I know about including the Jesus cult, make the case for the specialness of their enlightened leader using bad evidence and unsupported claims of miraculous goings on outside the ability to be evaluated carefully. The movement is full of Maharishi's legendary enlightened workaholism. But I've met obsessive driven people like him in business so that doesn't cut it. And the darshon thing gets blown out by Mao. So how could we tell if someone was functioning specially, beyond their spouting words we can all read in scriptures? Most teachers I've been around who had great realization actually would have the opposite of what most people would consider the 'enlightenment buzz'; instead of energy or bliss or shakti, etc. radiating from them or to the listeners, there was a very simple, plain presence. It was as if what we normally experience as mind- chatter simply ceased. Consequently, one could go into deep meditation, spontaneously; it didn't matter if your eye were open or closed. Answers to deep questions would be answered without words or one might spontaneously hear detailed commentaries to teachings, inseparable from the teacher, yet only you would hear it. It's inexplicable and paradoxical, but I have experienced it many times. The first time I met the Dalai Lama, he came up to me and grabbed my hands and shook me (he was laughing so hard) and suddenly stopped and just stared into my eyes. It would be impossible to describe the utter sense of balanced calm and unity that this gave, other than the warmth that just spread from the heart and then expanded to all sense contacts till you couldn't grok any separation. In cases like these, you just know. There's really no intellectual explanation, as it's completely paradoxical. I call it spontaneous presence and after a while you learn to recognize that presence when a teacher teaches. Similarly, it's absence is also rather obvious. OTOH I've also met a number of Hindu teachers who radiated shakti or bliss, and from my POV I'd have to say they were just advanced practitioners, but they seemed to be still in process. No sense of balanced wisdom.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
Vaj wrote: ...instead of energy or bliss or shakti, etc. radiating from them or to the listeners, there was a very simple, plain presence. [snip] The first time I met the Dalai Lama, he came up to me and grabbed my hands and shook me (he was laughing so hard) and suddenly stopped and just stared into my eyes. Maybe so, but you have just described a case of 'energy or bliss or shakti' in a 'very simple, plain presence', radiating. So, you have sort of contradicted yourself. But enlightenment isn't any of these - enlightenment is an interior ecstatic 'enstasis' - it may or may not be exhibited in one's actions or personality; it may or may not be percieved by anyone. Enlightenment has to do with dispelling the illusion of the individual soul-monad. You could just as easily have been experiencing an illusion or a dream. Maybe the Dalai Lama just *appeared* to be laughing or full of energy. There is nothing in the waking state that could not be experienced in a dream. In dreams you can also meet the Dalia Lama and he could just as well 'shake' your hand. Elightenment has nothing to do with the individual soul-monad, whether simple or complex, laughing or sad, Dalai Lama or not.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Richard J. Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Curtis wrote: But the problem here is that the most popular leader by the numbers who was felt to be an actual god on earth was Mao. Not sure I'm following you on this one; Mao was a materialist, but by the numbers, the historical Buddha would probably outnumber Mao in the millions in a popularity contest. Mao didn't believe in the 'gods' and Shakya by all accounts was a real historical person, not a 'god'. You are right about the numbers of Buddhists in history but I was talking about the numbers when he was alive who believed he was a god. Even as a materialist, Mao was believed by his followers to be a god on earth. [snip] Most traditions of enlightenment that I know about There is only one enlightenment tradition, This can't be true? There are a whole bunch of them right? and according to Mircea Eliade, this is the Yoga tradition of South Asia. We both can name a whole lot more, I don't understand your point. Mircea defined Yoga as introverted 'enstasis' and he found no evidence of this system in other cultures that he studied. including the Jesus cult, The 'Jesus' cult has nothing to do with the South Asian enlightenment tradition. The Jesus cult espouses the doctrine of atonement and bodily resurection, both of which are foreign to the enlightenmnet tradition. I was using him as an example of bad evidence being used as proof that he was special. make the case for the specialness of their enlightened leader using bad evidence and unsupported claims of miraculous goings on outside the ability to be evaluated carefully. Maybe so. But the enlightenment tradition has nothing to say about 'specialness' - enlightenment is the normal state, not a 'special state', and it is not concerned with any individual soul-monad. There is nothing normal about the magical claims concerning the type of knowledge claimed about these states. Or the magical abilities. Enlightement consists solely in *dispelling* the illusion that there are individual soul-monads. Enlightenment is beyond mundane knowledge, enlightenment is not a mere knowing of things and events. I understand that this is part of your belief system. Richard, you have been serving up some really interesting detailed posts and it is appreciated. Work cited: 'Yoga : Immortality and Freedom' by Mircea Eliade Princeton University Press, 1970 Other titles of interst: 'Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy' by Mircea Eliade Princeton University Press; 2004 'The Yoga Tradition: Its History, Literature, Philosophy and Practice' by Georg Feuerstein, Ken Wilbur Hohm Press, 2001
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Roses Derise [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Dear Fairfieldlifers, For the last couple of years I have been stunned again and again as I have, (in doing research what I thought was a book unrelated to government) discovered horrific things that are going on in the upper echelons of power. What the Bushita government does visibly, terrible as it is, is nothing compared to what it has been happening underground, in this case literally. Your first reaction may be to believe this is simply impossible: http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index1104.htm Had I not found so much already, knowledge that has dispelled all notions I have ever had of the mom, apple pie and Americans-as- heros view of the world, I would not believe it was possible for the information in this video to be true. I would have thought that anyone who believed stuff like this was simply a reactionary alarmist and/or a radical conspiracy theorist. You may think I am also, but friends, I am concerned enough to post this and face likely ridicule because I believe it is very likely to be true. I don't know what we can do but somehow this must be stopped or I seriously believe 2008 may be our last year of intelligent life. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Roses Derise [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Unusual Northern Lights in Sky close to epicenter - just before ChinaQuake. http://youtube.com/watch?v=3JMeVaVstuI If I may synopsize, the message being conveyed in these two posts (and in the source posts referenced by Roses and Off) is the same: Look at ME! Focus your attention on ME! I'm more special than you are! I know the Truth and you don't! My question is WHY some people -- TM TBs among them -- are so in need of attention that they are willing to postulate conspiracy theories and UFOlogy bullshit to attract it? We all know Off's act, from FFL, and how he's willing to do and say almost anything to attract attention. Roses (formerly Sharalyn) holds court at Yahoo group Fairfield Community Kiosk, post- ing compulsively to a seemingly devoted audience of four or five other people to get *her* attention fix. Seemingly, the New Age bullshit she's been posting hasn't been getting her *enough* attention, so she has branched out into conspiracy theories. But the message is the same: I know this stuff and you don't. Aren't I 'special?' I'm just wondering lately, especially after my short (he bailed after 4 posts) interaction with enlight- ened Jim, whether the issue is that these TM TBs, who basically formed an entire belief system on the basis of simply believing what was told to them without questioning any of it or using any of their critical faculties, now expect others to react to *them* the same way? Jim gets upset and bails on discussions when the other person doesn't treat him with the respect he deserves. Roses is clearly looking for some kind of pat on the back for alerting us to the dangers of this terrible earthquake weapon before anyone else. And Off...well, we've all seen how his mind works, and how he reacts when someone reacts to one of his pronouncements as if it were anything else *but* a pronouncement of truth. I'm wondering if there is a common denominator here. Could it be that people who have spent decades *not* using their critical faculties, and reacting to ANYTHING said by the people they have deemed author- ities as Truth Incarnate, seem to feel after a few years or decades doing this that that is how other people should react to THEM? It certainly seems that way to me. There seems to be a trend in which those who have drunk the TM Kool-Aid the longest, and have thus have put their own critical faculties on hold the longest, are ALSO the people who expect other posters on FFL to do the same thing when THEY write something here. They get upset and defensive and abusive when other posters DON'T react by believing every word they say as if it were truth. Anyway, I see a trend here. Others may not. But if you don't, I'm sure you'll speak up and say otherwise. And that is *appropriate*. I won't be the *least* bit offended or outraged if you don't agree with me. I don't *expect* anyone to agree with me just because I said something. But isn't it fascinating how many folks here DO? And how upset they sometimes get when others DON'T agree with their every word? And isn't it fascinating how many of the folks who do this have spent decades believing what Maharishi said and automatically agreeing with his every word? It's like, I have paid my dues believing everything that 'my betters' have told me. Now others should not only do the same with me, they should praise me as they do it.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snip Could it be that people who have spent decades *not* using their critical faculties, and reacting to ANYTHING said by the people they have deemed author- ities as Truth Incarnate, seem to feel after a few years or decades doing this that that is how other people should react to THEM? No. This has been another edition of Simple Answers to Simple Questions. (h/t Atrios)
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: snip Could it be that people who have spent decades *not* using their critical faculties, and reacting to ANYTHING said by the people they have deemed author- ities as Truth Incarnate, seem to feel after a few years or decades doing this that that is how other people should react to THEM? No. And is that answer authoritative? Is it truth? :-) This has been another edition of Simple Answers to Simple Questions. You forgot the last phrase: ...as stated by Simple Minds for other Simple Minds. :-) I'm not surprised you chimed in, Judy. Just as an unrelated question, is anyone's view of Hillary Clinton correct if it doesn't agree with yours? Hillary rehearsing her hand gestures: http://tinyurl.com/5fs7qj
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: snip Could it be that people who have spent decades *not* using their critical faculties, and reacting to ANYTHING said by the people they have deemed author- ities as Truth Incarnate, seem to feel after a few years or decades doing this that that is how other people should react to THEM? No. And is that answer authoritative? Is it truth? :-) It's factually correct, yes. snip I'm not surprised you chimed in, Judy. Of course you're not, Barry. You wouldn't be so Important if you were surprised. Just as an unrelated question, is anyone's view of Hillary Clinton correct if it doesn't agree with yours? Possibly, depending on the specifics. View of is rather broad.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: snip Could it be that people who have spent decades *not* using their critical faculties, and reacting to ANYTHING said by the people they have deemed author- ities as Truth Incarnate, seem to feel after a few years or decades doing this that that is how other people should react to THEM? No. And is that answer authoritative? Is it truth? :-) It's factually correct, yes. snip I'm not surprised you chimed in, Judy. Of course you're not, Barry. You wouldn't be so Important if you were surprised. Just as an unrelated question, is anyone's view of Hillary Clinton correct if it doesn't agree with yours? Possibly, depending on the specifics. View of is rather broad. 7 posts before 4:00 a.m. your time Saturday night, Jude. Could this be part of your plan to post out long before Hillary gets trounced in the primaries during the next few days and has to concede, so that you won't have to be here to explain it away? :-) Just asking. Unlike you, I don't claim to know that my answer to a question about *opinion* is true or factually correct. I rest my case.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 7 posts before 4:00 a.m. your time Saturday night, Jude. Sorry. Saturday morning (late Friday night), her time. Could this be part of your plan to post out long before Hillary gets trounced in the primaries during the next few days and has to concede, so that you won't have to be here to explain it away? :-) Just asking. Unlike you, I don't claim to know that my answer to a question about *opinion* is true or factually correct. And, I am more than willing to accept other possible explanations of this late-night posting binge. For example, it could have *nothing* whatsoever to do with Hillary, and could be a kind of Jones-ing because she hasn't been able to correct anyone on FFL and tell them what the truth is for almost a week. Or it could simply be that Judy had a cup of coffee after dinner and couldn't handle it, and is still up for completely under- standable physiological reasons. Or it could be that spending the wee hours correcting papers at FFL and telling other people how wrong they are is her idea of a fun Friday night. *Lots* of explanations are possible.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: 7 posts before 4:00 a.m. your time Saturday night, Jude. Sorry. Saturday morning (late Friday night), her time. Could this be part of your plan to post out long before Hillary gets trounced in the primaries during the next few days and has to concede, so that you won't have to be here to explain it away? :-) Gee, Barry, you know, you're so ignorant about what's going on in the primary contest, you really should just button your lip so you don't look like a total fool. Here's a little primer for you: Clinton is heavily favored in Puerto Rico and will take the majority of its 63 delegates. Obama is heavily favored in Montana, with 16 delegates, but probably won't get more than 9 of them. Clinton and Obama are neck and neck in South Dakota, with 15 delegates; Obama has a slight edge in the polling (at least one poll, however, has him well ahead). The upcoming three last primaries, in other words, aren't going to be decisive, contrary to your ignorant fantasy. Clinton isn't likely to get trounced except in Montana. She'll gain more delegates than Obama, but she'll still be behind. Neither of them will come close to the magic number of delegates needed to secure the nomination. At issue as well are the delegates from Florida and Michigan. The DNC Rules Committee is meeting this weekend to try to resolve that problem. It looks at this point as though the resolution, if they come to one, will accord more delegates to Clinton than Obama. But that's still uncertain; and no matter what happens, it won't give Obama the magic number. After the primaries, it's possible that enough of the currently undeclared *superdelegates* will declare for Obama to give him the magic number. However, none of this will be official until the convention in August, since both delegates and superdelegates can switch their votes. It's entirely possible that Clinton will withdraw sometime between the last primaries and the convention; or she may simply suspend her campaign, in which case she could decide to reactivate it at some point before the convention. In any case, there's no basis whatsoever to suggest that Clinton will have to concede. She might well stay in, no matter what the results of the last three primaries and the Florida-Michigan situation and any declarations by the undeclared superdelegates, until the convention, in which case there would be a floor fight. Bottom line, at this point there's no basis whatsoever to anticipate that I would have to explain away whatever occurs with the last three primaries. There are far too many unknowns. Your notion that somehow the results of these primaries will decide the nomination is just abysmally uninformed. Unquestionably, Clinton's chance of getting the nomination is tiny. Her one hope is to convince enough of the superdelegates that she will have a better chance against McCain than Obama in the fall and have them switch their votes to her. There is furious analysis of the national electoral vote situation going on in many quarters right now. Some analyses favor Clinton, others favor Obama. None is definitive this far away from the fall campaign, but they may still influence the superdelegates. Just asking. Unlike you, I don't claim to know that my answer to a question about *opinion* is true or factually correct. And a good thing too, since your opinion is based on nonfacts. And, I am more than willing to accept other possible explanations of this late-night posting binge. Oh, how *gracious* of you, Barry! I'm overwhelmed by your generosity and magnanimity. But I'm not going to give you the explanation; I'll just note that none of those you've fantasized is correct.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: Just asking. Unlike you, I don't claim to know that my answer to a question about *opinion* is true or factually correct. And a good thing too, since your opinion is based on nonfacts. Funny you should mention that. I was going to ask you about these facts you're referring to. Here's a short refresher course in the thread I'm referring to: Could it be that people who have spent decades *not* using their critical faculties, and reacting to ANYTHING said by the people they have deemed author- ities as Truth Incarnate, seem to feel after a few years or decades doing this that that is how other people should react to THEM? No. And is that answer authoritative? Is it truth? :-) It's factually correct, yes. Can you point out to me the facts that you are speaking about? The original question is a speculation based upon observation, and opinion formed as a result of that observation, asking for an opinion in return. Your answer of No to the question that begins Could it be that... sounds pretty definite to me, almost, uh, authoritative. As I read it, that one-word answer says, No, it could *not* be that... Are you qualified to say that? Do you *know* that my speculation is not true for many TMers? (I know that you have a tendency to believe that anything *anyone* writes is about you, but the original post wasn't.) So I'm hoping you can expand upon your answer somewhat and tell us what about your answer of No was factually correct. What were the facts that you perceive as correct in a matter of opinion? Or could it be that you replied to my rap about how some long-term TMers tend to post here as if they know the Truth by replying as if you know the Truth?
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
And, I am more than willing to accept other possible explanations of this late-night posting binge. Judy wrote: Gee, Barry, you know, you're so ignorant about what's going on in the primary contest, you really should just button your lip As long as we are trading insults this morning, why don't both of you shut your pie-holes and get some sleep? so you don't look like a total fool. Thanks for your primer, but don't you think this is a little detailed and long for Barry to read? Do they even have U.S. voting machines in Sitges? Here's a little primer for you: Clinton is heavily favored in Puerto Rico and will take the majority of its 63 delegates. Obama is heavily favored in Montana, with 16 delegates, but probably won't get more than 9 of them. Clinton and Obama are neck and neck in South Dakota, with 15 delegates; Obama has a slight edge in the polling (at least one poll, however, has him well ahead). The upcoming three last primaries, in other words, aren't going to be decisive, contrary to your ignorant fantasy. Clinton isn't likely to get trounced except in Montana. She'll gain more delegates than Obama, but she'll still be behind. Neither of them will come close to the magic number of delegates needed to secure the nomination. At issue as well are the delegates from Florida and Michigan. The DNC Rules Committee is meeting this weekend to try to resolve that problem. It looks at this point as though the resolution, if they come to one, will accord more delegates to Clinton than Obama. But that's still uncertain; and no matter what happens, it won't give Obama the magic number. After the primaries, it's possible that enough of the currently undeclared *superdelegates* will declare for Obama to give him the magic number. However, none of this will be official until the convention in August, since both delegates and superdelegates can switch their votes. It's entirely possible that Clinton will withdraw sometime between the last primaries and the convention; or she may simply suspend her campaign, in which case she could decide to reactivate it at some point before the convention. In any case, there's no basis whatsoever to suggest that Clinton will have to concede. She might well stay in, no matter what the results of the last three primaries and the Florida-Michigan situation and any declarations by the undeclared superdelegates, until the convention, in which case there would be a floor fight. Bottom line, at this point there's no basis whatsoever to anticipate that I would have to explain away whatever occurs with the last three primaries. There are far too many unknowns. Your notion that somehow the results of these primaries will decide the nomination is just abysmally uninformed. Unquestionably, Clinton's chance of getting the nomination is tiny. Her one hope is to convince enough of the superdelegates that she will have a better chance against McCain than Obama in the fall and have them switch their votes to her. There is furious analysis of the national electoral vote situation going on in many quarters right now. Some analyses favor Clinton, others favor Obama. None is definitive this far away from the fall campaign, but they may still influence the superdelegates. Just asking. Unlike you, I don't claim to know that my answer to a question about *opinion* is true or factually correct. And a good thing too, since your opinion is based on nonfacts. And, I am more than willing to accept other possible explanations of this late-night posting binge. Oh, how *gracious* of you, Barry! I'm overwhelmed by your generosity and magnanimity. But I'm not going to give you the explanation; I'll just note that none of those you've fantasized is correct.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: Just asking. Unlike you, I don't claim to know that my answer to a question about *opinion* is true or factually correct. And a good thing too, since your opinion is based on nonfacts. Funny you should mention that. I was going to ask you about these facts you're referring to. Too late. You decided to show off your ignorance of a whole bunch of other facts instead, in two separate posts.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: Just asking. Unlike you, I don't claim to know that my answer to a question about *opinion* is true or factually correct. And a good thing too, since your opinion is based on nonfacts. Funny you should mention that. I was going to ask you about these facts you're referring to. Too late. You decided to show off your ignorance of a whole bunch of other facts instead, in two separate posts. Did you attend the same school of debate that Jim did? Your tactics are similar.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: Just asking. Unlike you, I don't claim to know that my answer to a question about *opinion* is true or factually correct. And a good thing too, since your opinion is based on nonfacts. Funny you should mention that. I was going to ask you about these facts you're referring to. Too late. You decided to show off your ignorance of a whole bunch of other facts instead, in two separate posts. Did you attend the same school of debate that Jim did? Your tactics are similar. I won't be the *least* bit offended or outraged if you don't agree with me. I don't *expect* anyone to agree with me just because I said something. But isn't it fascinating how many folks here DO? And how upset they sometimes get when others DON'T agree with their every word?
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: Just asking. Unlike you, I don't claim to know that my answer to a question about *opinion* is true or factually correct. And a good thing too, since your opinion is based on nonfacts. Funny you should mention that. I was going to ask you about these facts you're referring to. Too late. You decided to show off your ignorance of a whole bunch of other facts instead, in two separate posts. Did you attend the same school of debate that Jim did? Your tactics are similar. I won't be the *least* bit offended or outraged if you don't agree with me. I don't *expect* anyone to agree with me just because I said something. But isn't it fascinating how many folks here DO? And how upset they sometimes get when others DON'T agree with their every word? I never asked you to agree with me. I merely asked you to clarify one of your own statements. You seem upset enough about the question to refuse to answer it. Jim did the same thing recently. I was just wondering whether you shared the same alma mater.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
TurquoiseB wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Roses Derise [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Unusual Northern Lights in Sky close to epicenter - just before ChinaQuake. http://youtube.com/watch?v=3JMeVaVstuI If I may synopsize, the message being conveyed in these two posts (and in the source posts referenced by Roses and Off) is the same: Look at ME! Focus your attention on ME! I'm more special than you are! I know the Truth and you don't! Now to be fair you *did* go look at the video, correct? What if HAARP actually manipulated things to cause the earthquake? Wouldn't that be a travesty? I'm not that familiar with the technology to be sure that you can focus the transmissions to anywhere other than above the installation. And there is some information in Indian philosophy about earthquake weather which I will go look up to see if it includes colored clouds. So it may be a phenomenon that often occurs before earthquakes. Scientists for years scoffed at the idea that new and full moons cause earthquakes but more recent research shows that indeed the gravitation pull (which is responsible for the tides) *is* enough to causes shifts in fault lines. The problem is they have no way of knowing what faults are going to be effected. Basically the faults get pulled up and when they settle you get the quake. Just watch, like clockwork following the low and high tides you'll get a strong earthquake somewhere in the world.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: TurquoiseB wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Roses Derise homeonthefarm@ wrote: Unusual Northern Lights in Sky close to epicenter - just before ChinaQuake. http://youtube.com/watch?v=3JMeVaVstuI If I may synopsize, the message being conveyed in these two posts (and in the source posts referenced by Roses and Off) is the same: Look at ME! Focus your attention on ME! I'm more special than you are! I know the Truth and you don't! Now to be fair you *did* go look at the video, correct? Correct. What if HAARP actually manipulated things to cause the earthquake? Wouldn't that be a travesty? Absolutely. And I do not rule it out. HAARP has an enormous budget, and in the Bush administration pure research projects just don't *get* big budgets unless they have military applications. I used to hang out in Santa Fe with a bunch of nerds who worked at the National Labs in Los Alamos. They would have fired off such a weapon in a moment. They would have drawn straws to see who got to push the button. *Not* out of patriotism or misguided neocon zeal, just to see if it worked. Scary dudes. What I don't believe is that anyone who claims to *know* that it caused the quake, or is capable of it, knows diddleysquat. It's just speculation, presented as knowing. It's the same issue I've been on about with Jim and Judy lately. I have no problem with someone believing that they know things, to the point that they declare the things they know as absolute truths. That's their right. I just like to ask such people HOW they know, and see what happens. Both persons I have asked in the last few days have found excuses not to respond. Do you think it's possible that when you know things the way they do, your seeing becomes so Vedic that you can perceive that it's against the laws of nature to explain how or why you know things? :-)
Re: [FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
TurquoiseB wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: TurquoiseB wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Roses Derise homeonthefarm@ wrote: Unusual Northern Lights in Sky close to epicenter - just before ChinaQuake. http://youtube.com/watch?v=3JMeVaVstuI If I may synopsize, the message being conveyed in these two posts (and in the source posts referenced by Roses and Off) is the same: Look at ME! Focus your attention on ME! I'm more special than you are! I know the Truth and you don't! Now to be fair you *did* go look at the video, correct? Correct. What if HAARP actually manipulated things to cause the earthquake? Wouldn't that be a travesty? Absolutely. And I do not rule it out. HAARP has an enormous budget, and in the Bush administration pure research projects just don't *get* big budgets unless they have military applications. I used to hang out in Santa Fe with a bunch of nerds who worked at the National Labs in Los Alamos. They would have fired off such a weapon in a moment. They would have drawn straws to see who got to push the button. *Not* out of patriotism or misguided neocon zeal, just to see if it worked. Scary dudes. Same when I hung out with people who worked at Hanford. To them it was just a job and they didn't consider the end result. What I don't believe is that anyone who claims to *know* that it caused the quake, or is capable of it, knows diddleysquat. It's just speculation, presented as knowing. It's the same issue I've been on about with Jim and Judy lately. I have no problem with someone believing that they know things, to the point that they declare the things they know as absolute truths. That's their right. I just like to ask such people HOW they know, and see what happens. Both persons I have asked in the last few days have found excuses not to respond. Do you think it's possible that when you know things the way they do, your seeing becomes so Vedic that you can perceive that it's against the laws of nature to explain how or why you know things? :-) This a fallacy that I think MMY perpetuated that somehow if you are enlightened you would know everything. That is impossible and would get a good laugh from many other gurus and yogis in the world. What one knows in enlightenment is supposedly the basis of all knowledge but not all knowledge itself. One may have improved intuition and have a hunch about something and that hunch may indeed later on turn out to be true but that isn't exactly direct knowledge. What enlightenment also provides is an ability to see the forest for the trees and that can be a benefit but can also be developed without enlightenment though I'm not sure that the process anyway would still lead to that as the end result.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snip This a fallacy that I think MMY perpetuated that somehow if you are enlightened you would know everything. That is impossible and would get a good laugh from many other gurus and yogis in the world. What one knows in enlightenment is supposedly the basis of all knowledge but not all knowledge itself. That's always what I understood him to have been saying, Bhairitu, not that you would know everything. He's quite specific about this in his Gita commentary.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
authfriend wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snip This a fallacy that I think MMY perpetuated that somehow if you are enlightened you would know everything. That is impossible and would get a good laugh from many other gurus and yogis in the world. What one knows in enlightenment is supposedly the basis of all knowledge but not all knowledge itself. That's always what I understood him to have been saying, Bhairitu, not that you would know everything. He's quite specific about this in his Gita commentary. Exactly but some people believe that they will know everything when enlightened. He needed to emphasize that's not the case.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: Just asking. Unlike you, I don't claim to know that my answer to a question about *opinion* is true or factually correct. And a good thing too, since your opinion is based on nonfacts. Funny you should mention that. I was going to ask you about these facts you're referring to. Too late. You decided to show off your ignorance of a whole bunch of other facts instead, in two separate posts. Did you attend the same school of debate that Jim did? Your tactics are similar. I won't be the *least* bit offended or outraged if you don't agree with me. I don't *expect* anyone to agree with me just because I said something. But isn't it fascinating how many folks here DO? And how upset they sometimes get when others DON'T agree with their every word? I never asked you to agree with me. I merely asked you to clarify one of your own statements. You seem upset enough about the question to refuse to answer it. I was quoting you, Barry. Jim did the same thing recently. I was just wondering whether you shared the same alma mater.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: authfriend wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu noozguru@ wrote: snip This a fallacy that I think MMY perpetuated that somehow if you are enlightened you would know everything. That is impossible and would get a good laugh from many other gurus and yogis in the world. What one knows in enlightenment is supposedly the basis of all knowledge but not all knowledge itself. That's always what I understood him to have been saying, Bhairitu, not that you would know everything. He's quite specific about this in his Gita commentary. Exactly but some people believe that they will know everything when enlightened. He needed to emphasize that's not the case. And for good reason. Learning still has to take place at all levels of life-- has to. Even the gods learn. Interesting all of the misconceptions around enlightenment. Much of it due to the often paradoxical nature of the enlightened life. Like the question that comes up about mistakes. Some say the enlightened can make mistakes. Others say this is not so. The paradoxical reality is that enlightened people from their enlightened perspective cannot make mistakes, only because there is nothing to compare their thoughts and actions to, no conceptual template that the enlightened person has deviated from, and therefore made a mistake. Does it look the same way to someone unenlightened? It does not-- unenlightened people constantly make mistakes, and will always see them in others, even in the enlightened. So it is a paradox. The reality of mistakes no longer exists in permanent enlightenment, although the unenlightened will continue to see them in the thoughts and actions of the enlightened. No harm, no foul-- just the way it is.
[FairfieldLife] Look at me, I'm important! I know the Truth! (was Re: Shaken)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snip Do you think it's possible that when you know things the way they do, your seeing becomes so Vedic that you can perceive that it's against the laws of nature to explain how or why you know things? :-) The question you must ask yourself is not something sarcastic directed at others, but why you have this obvious battle going on within yourself, to, on the one hand, desire answers to questions, and on the other ask them is such a mocking and disrepectful tone that you not only substantially decrease your chances of receiving any answers, but also harden your heart and mind against any answers you do receive. It seems like a way to make noise, but not solve anything for yourself. I think it comes down to what I have recognized about you previously, that you have both a fear and a need for enlightenment within you, and you are stuck in the middle, unable to move forward until the fear is resolved. The fear is the fear of your ego dissolving. Trust me, it feels a lot better once you have let go.
