[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Nelson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Otherwise its a really absurd idea, with the sort of populistic appeal, the same as that we are all co-creators. It just makes some people feel more important. +++ Haven't you observed that you do some creating yourself? N. For me rather anticipation in creation. +++ Thru your choices, you have created yourself. N. But who created the choices? Are they preexistent? If I create myself through choices, who chose before I created myself? Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, defenders_of_bhakti [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Nelson nelsonriddle2001@ wrote: Otherwise its a really absurd idea, with the sort of populistic appeal, the same as that we are all co-creators. It just makes some people feel more important. +++ Haven't you observed that you do some creating yourself? N. For me rather anticipation in creation. +++ Thru your choices, you have created yourself. N. But who created the choices? Are they preexistent? If I create myself through choices, who chose before I created myself? +++ As a facet of the eternal, you are responsible. N. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Nelson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, defenders_of_bhakti no_reply@ wrote: I think there is a big confusion of what evolution actually means. Here some biological definitions: Evolution: The long-term process through which a population of organisms accumulates genetic changes that enable its members to successfully adapt to environmental conditions and to better exploit food resources. www.accessexcellence.org/AE/AEPC/WWC/1994/glossary.html The change in life over time by adaptation, variation, over-reproduction, and differential survival/reproduction, a process referred to by Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace as natural selection. http://www.emc.maricopa.edu/faculty/farabee/BIOBK/BioBookglossE.html In this sense evolution is not the development to a certain pre-existent goal, but rather the successful adaptaion to a given environment by a certain organism. Thhis is what trial and error and natural selection is all about. This makes the idea of an evolving Creator-God fairly upsurd: How could a Creator adapt to an environment, he has created himself? It is even more absurd if you assume an all-knowing God going through trial and error. Pretty much trial and error can be done by machines, and doesn't require a creator at all. That is why evolution, the theory of natural selection is so much opposed by the creationists. Now one can of course try to transfer the idea of evolution to a sort of teleological argument, and that is what many New Agers do. There is a goal, a pre-existent ideal to which nature develops. But if God himself develops, who established the ideal, was it already there or did he create it? And if he created the ideal, why didn't s/he create the ideal creation right away? I think one gets into a big muddle if one tries to combine evolutionary theories which really don't need any God (like trial and error) with creationist ideas. Why should a God evolve, unless he has fallen, and is now involved in his own creation? Of course one could argue, we are all God, and we are all evolving to finally realize this potential of ours. Otherwise its a really absurd idea, with the sort of populistic appeal, the same as that we are all co-creators. It just makes some people feel more important. +++ Haven't you observed that you do some creating yourself? N. For me rather anticipation in creation. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, defenders_of_bhakti [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Nelson nelsonriddle2001@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, defenders_of_bhakti no_reply@ wrote: I think there is a big confusion of what evolution actually means. Here some biological definitions: Evolution: The long-term process through which a population of organisms accumulates genetic changes that enable its members to successfully adapt to environmental conditions and to better exploit food resources. www.accessexcellence.org/AE/AEPC/WWC/1994/glossary.html The change in life over time by adaptation, variation, over-reproduction, and differential survival/reproduction, a process referred to by Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace as natural selection. http://www.emc.maricopa.edu/faculty/farabee/BIOBK/BioBookglossE.html In this sense evolution is not the development to a certain pre-existent goal, but rather the successful adaptaion to a given environment by a certain organism. Thhis is what trial and error and natural selection is all about. This makes the idea of an evolving Creator-God fairly upsurd: How could a Creator adapt to an environment, he has created himself? It is even more absurd if you assume an all-knowing God going through trial and error. Pretty much trial and error can be done by machines, and doesn't require a creator at all. That is why evolution, the theory of natural selection is so much opposed by the creationists. Now one can of course try to transfer the idea of evolution to a sort of teleological argument, and that is what many New Agers do. There is a goal, a pre-existent ideal to which nature develops. But if God himself develops, who established the ideal, was it already there or did he create it? And if he created the ideal, why didn't s/he create the ideal creation right away? I think one gets into a big muddle if one tries to combine evolutionary theories which really don't need any God (like trial and error) with creationist ideas. Why should a God evolve, unless he has fallen, and is now involved in his own creation? Of course one could argue, we are all God, and we are all evolving to finally realize this potential of ours. Otherwise its a really absurd idea, with the sort of populistic appeal, the same as that we are all co-creators. It just makes some people feel more important. +++ Haven't you observed that you do some creating yourself? N. For me rather anticipation in creation. +++ Thru your choices, you have created yourself. N. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I still believe that it owes a lot to Buddhism... That's a stretch. Many translations of the First Noble Truth have it as Life is suffering, but that's not related in any way to God, since they don't believe in one. To say life is suffering implies there is something-- a condition or state--that is *not* suffering. If suffering is said to be a lack, there is something-- a condition or state--in which nothing is lacking. What is it? ++ State of mind? In a way. If (as the Four Noble Truths state) the cause of suffering is attachment to desire/aversion, then living in a state of mind that is *not* attached to achieving the fruits of desire or avoiding the things one is averse to is a way beyond suffering. The input to life doesn't change, only one's ability to greet it with equanimity. Try to force the square peg of that input into the round hole of one's desires, and you get suffering. Treat it as a square peg and be neither attached nor averse, no suffering. Nothing to achieve, no obstacles to remove from the path to non-suffering, nowhere to go. Same old same old...just life dealt with as What Is, not What You'd Like Life To Be. Just for fun, compare and contrast this to MMY's latest U.N. rap, in which he once again presents his S-V theories and suggests that the problems of the world can't be solved unless one starts over with all-new buildings. In the Buddhist view, this approach to resolving suffering can never work because it is based upon trying to change the input of life to avoid suffering, rather than change the inner being's ability to deals with the input with- out attachment. In the Buddhist view, the richest, most successful person in the world, living in a perfectly-aligned S-V house but still attached to his desires, will be lost in suffering. Whereas the poor person who lives in a cardboard box, if he is not attached to his desires, is beyond suffering. The basic division between suffering and non-suffering lies in, as Barry puts it, if you can accept `What is', or if you want to make life what you want or dream it to be. Paradoxically also accepting 'what is' much more effectively leads to transformation and true healing. The latter way was my way of functioning until age 16. I perceived many faults and defects in myself and wanted to become like some of my peers I admired. The efforts I made to change myself lead mainly to big disappointments and even to worsening of my problems. Then at 16 I got the realization that life doesn't expect me to be like someone, it accepts me as nothing. Life accepts me as no one. There is an evolutionary impulse deep in life's functioning. All I need to do is to align with this evolutionary impulse. It meant `active passivity'. Passivity meant accepting yourself as you are, or being nothing, and not trying to become something. Active meant being alert in nothingness and acting when an impulse appeared from deep inside. This was a start of a highly interesting and exciting journey of life consciously appreciating transformation. And I want to emphasise the word start. I had just got a stable platform. Being established on that I can keep basic stability and calm in the whirls of true transformation and even enjoy the journey, just as you can find a roller coaster ride very enjoyable. For a person, who does not rest on this kind of very stable platform, enlightenment as a dream state means a blissful end station, where all the whirls of painful creation and destruction have ceased. There the essential nature of life is a threat, and enlightenment means you don't need to re-incarnate anymore. Felt pain, mental or physical, is an important source of suffering. Pain that one can accept I don't call suffering. It is just a very intense sensation. Fear makes pain worse. Embracing resolves it. This is of course much more easily said than done. I know this myself thoroughly through my own life experience. I have a hereditary muscular disease. For a very long time (from childhood on, getting worse when I became adult) I felt very uncomfortable pain in my hands and feet. At worst it felt like an awful pain in my bones. I was afraid of this pain. It made me react physically to it by contraction, which made the disease progress. The culmination of this process happened in 92, when intense burning and tingling sensations appeared in my feet. My feet were like burning, and simultaneously it could feel like they were in ice and freezing. It was awful. However I recognized hidden rage in this pain and started to work with it. I engaged myself also in long psychotherapy to help the rocess. Gradually the burning sensation started to diminish and my perception of it to change. I can still occasionally have intense burning sensations in my feet, but now I can appreciate this
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Irmeli Mattsson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: I still believe that it owes a lot to Buddhism... That's a stretch. Many translations of the First Noble Truth have it as Life is suffering, but that's not related in any way to God, since they don't believe in one. To say life is suffering implies there is something-- a condition or state--that is *not* suffering. If suffering is said to be a lack, there is something-- a condition or state--in which nothing is lacking. What is it? ++ State of mind? In a way. If (as the Four Noble Truths state) the cause of suffering is attachment to desire/aversion, then living in a state of mind that is *not* attached to achieving the fruits of desire or avoiding the things one is averse to is a way beyond suffering. The input to life doesn't change, only one's ability to greet it with equanimity. Try to force the square peg of that input into the round hole of one's desires, and you get suffering. Treat it as a square peg and be neither attached nor averse, no suffering. Nothing to achieve, no obstacles to remove from the path to non-suffering, nowhere to go. Same old same old...just life dealt with as What Is, not What You'd Like Life To Be. Just for fun, compare and contrast this to MMY's latest U.N. rap, in which he once again presents his S-V theories and suggests that the problems of the world can't be solved unless one starts over with all-new buildings. In the Buddhist view, this approach to resolving suffering can never work because it is based upon trying to change the input of life to avoid suffering, rather than change the inner being's ability to deals with the input with- out attachment. In the Buddhist view, the richest, most successful person in the world, living in a perfectly-aligned S-V house but still attached to his desires, will be lost in suffering. Whereas the poor person who lives in a cardboard box, if he is not attached to his desires, is beyond suffering. The basic division between suffering and non-suffering lies in, as Barry puts it, if you can accept `What is', or if you want to make life what you want or dream it to be. Paradoxically also accepting 'what is' much more effectively leads to transformation and true healing. The latter way was my way of functioning until age 16. I perceived many faults and defects in myself and wanted to become like some of my peers I admired. The efforts I made to change myself lead mainly to big disappointments and even to worsening of my problems. Then at 16 I got the realization that life doesn't expect me to be like someone, it accepts me as nothing. Life accepts me as no one. There is an evolutionary impulse deep in life's functioning. All I need to do is to align with this evolutionary impulse. It meant `active passivity'. Passivity meant accepting yourself as you are, or being nothing, and not trying to become something. Active meant being alert in nothingness and acting when an impulse appeared from deep inside. This was a start of a highly interesting and exciting journey of life consciously appreciating transformation. And I want to emphasise the word start. I had just got a stable platform. Being established on that I can keep basic stability and calm in the whirls of true transformation and even enjoy the journey, just as you can find a roller coaster ride very enjoyable. For a person, who does not rest on this kind of very stable platform, enlightenment as a dream state means a blissful end station, where all the whirls of painful creation and destruction have ceased. There the essential nature of life is a threat, and enlightenment means you don't need to re-incarnate anymore. Felt pain, mental or physical, is an important source of suffering. Pain that one can accept I don't call suffering. It is just a very intense sensation. Fear makes pain worse. Embracing resolves it. This is of course much more easily said than done. I know this myself thoroughly through my own life experience. I have a hereditary muscular disease. For a very long time (from childhood on, getting worse when I became adult) I felt very uncomfortable pain in my hands and feet. At worst it felt like an awful pain in my bones. I was afraid of this pain. It made me react physically to it by contraction, which made the disease progress. The culmination of this process happened in 92, when intense burning and tingling sensations appeared in my feet. My feet were like burning, and simultaneously it could feel like they were in ice and freezing. It was awful. However I recognized hidden rage in this pain and started to work with it. I engaged myself also in long psychotherapy to help the rocess. Gradually the
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
The really problematic dimension of suffering is not personal (if one can indeed become detached from internal desire or aversion) - it is interpersonal. Try being detatched whilst your loved ones are being tortured... --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Irmeli Mattsson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Irmeli Mattsson Irmeli.Mattsson@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: I still believe that it owes a lot to Buddhism... That's a stretch. Many translations of the First Noble Truth have it as Life is suffering, but that's not related in any way to God, since they don't believe in one. To say life is suffering implies there is something-- a condition or state--that is *not* suffering. If suffering is said to be a lack, there is something-- a condition or state--in which nothing is lacking. What is it? ++ State of mind? In a way. If (as the Four Noble Truths state) the cause of suffering is attachment to desire/aversion, then living in a state of mind that is *not* attached to achieving the fruits of desire or avoiding the things one is averse to is a way beyond suffering. The input to life doesn't change, only one's ability to greet it with equanimity. Try to force the square peg of that input into the round hole of one's desires, and you get suffering. Treat it as a square peg and be neither attached nor averse, no suffering. Nothing to achieve, no obstacles to remove from the path to non-suffering, nowhere to go. Same old same old...just life dealt with as What Is, not What You'd Like Life To Be. Just for fun, compare and contrast this to MMY's latest U.N. rap, in which he once again presents his S-V theories and suggests that the problems of the world can't be solved unless one starts over with all-new buildings. In the Buddhist view, this approach to resolving suffering can never work because it is based upon trying to change the input of life to avoid suffering, rather than change the inner being's ability to deals with the input with- out attachment. In the Buddhist view, the richest, most successful person in the world, living in a perfectly-aligned S-V house but still attached to his desires, will be lost in suffering. Whereas the poor person who lives in a cardboard box, if he is not attached to his desires, is beyond suffering. The basic division between suffering and non-suffering lies in, as Barry puts it, if you can accept `What is', or if you want to make life what you want or dream it to be. Paradoxically also accepting 'what is' much more effectively leads to transformation and true healing. The latter way was my way of functioning until age 16. I perceived many faults and defects in myself and wanted to become like some of my peers I admired. The efforts I made to change myself lead mainly to big disappointments and even to worsening of my problems. Then at 16 I got the realization that life doesn't expect me to be like someone, it accepts me as nothing. Life accepts me as no one. There is an evolutionary impulse deep in life's functioning. All I need to do is to align with this evolutionary impulse. It meant `active passivity'. Passivity meant accepting yourself as you are, or being nothing, and not trying to become something. Active meant being alert in nothingness and acting when an impulse appeared from deep inside. This was a start of a highly interesting and exciting journey of life consciously appreciating transformation. And I want to emphasise the word start. I had just got a stable platform. Being established on that I can keep basic stability and calm in the whirls of true transformation and even enjoy the journey, just as you can find a roller coaster ride very enjoyable. For a person, who does not rest on this kind of very stable platform, enlightenment as a dream state means a blissful end station, where all the whirls of painful creation and destruction have ceased. There the essential nature of life is a threat, and enlightenment means you don't need to re-incarnate anymore. Felt pain, mental or physical, is an important source of suffering. Pain that one can accept I don't call suffering. It is just a very intense sensation. Fear makes pain worse. Embracing resolves it. This is of course much more easily said than done. I know this myself thoroughly through my own life experience. I have a hereditary muscular disease. For a very long time (from childhood on, getting worse when I became adult) I felt very uncomfortable pain in my hands and feet. At worst it felt like an awful pain in my bones. I was afraid of this pain. It made me react physically to it by contraction,
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, claudiouk [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The really problematic dimension of suffering is not personal (if one can indeed become detached from internal desire or aversion) - it is interpersonal. Try being detatched whilst your loved ones are being tortured... Of course, in the TM sense, lack of suffering is due to witnessing. Anger, horror, terror, unhappiness, etc., can be expected within a person watching another, especially a loved one, being tortured. That doesn't preclude witnessing in the TM sense, however. It's an interesting paradox: one can suffer and yet not be suffering. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Irmeli Mattsson Irmeli.Mattsson@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Irmeli Mattsson Irmeli.Mattsson@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: I still believe that it owes a lot to Buddhism... That's a stretch. Many translations of the First Noble Truth have it as Life is suffering, but that's not related in any way to God, since they don't believe in one. To say life is suffering implies there is something-- a condition or state--that is *not* suffering. If suffering is said to be a lack, there is something-- a condition or state--in which nothing is lacking. What is it? ++ State of mind? In a way. If (as the Four Noble Truths state) the cause of suffering is attachment to desire/aversion, then living in a state of mind that is *not* attached to achieving the fruits of desire or avoiding the things one is averse to is a way beyond suffering. The input to life doesn't change, only one's ability to greet it with equanimity. Try to force the square peg of that input into the round hole of one's desires, and you get suffering. Treat it as a square peg and be neither attached nor averse, no suffering. Nothing to achieve, no obstacles to remove from the path to non-suffering, nowhere to go. Same old same old...just life dealt with as What Is, not What You'd Like Life To Be. Just for fun, compare and contrast this to MMY's latest U.N. rap, in which he once again presents his S-V theories and suggests that the problems of the world can't be solved unless one starts over with all-new buildings. In the Buddhist view, this approach to resolving suffering can never work because it is based upon trying to change the input of life to avoid suffering, rather than change the inner being's ability to deals with the input with- out attachment. In the Buddhist view, the richest, most successful person in the world, living in a perfectly-aligned S-V house but still attached to his desires, will be lost in suffering. Whereas the poor person who lives in a cardboard box, if he is not attached to his desires, is beyond suffering. The basic division between suffering and non-suffering lies in, as Barry puts it, if you can accept `What is', or if you want to make life what you want or dream it to be. Paradoxically also accepting 'what is' much more effectively leads to transformation and true healing. The latter way was my way of functioning until age 16. I perceived many faults and defects in myself and wanted to become like some of my peers I admired. The efforts I made to change myself lead mainly to big disappointments and even to worsening of my problems. Then at 16 I got the realization that life doesn't expect me to be like someone, it accepts me as nothing. Life accepts me as no one. There is an evolutionary impulse deep in life's functioning. All I need to do is to align with this evolutionary impulse. It meant `active passivity'. Passivity meant accepting yourself as you are, or being nothing, and not trying to become something. Active meant being alert in nothingness and acting when an impulse appeared from deep inside. This was a start of a highly interesting and exciting journey of life consciously appreciating transformation. And I want to emphasise the word start. I had just got a stable platform. Being established on that I can keep basic stability and calm in the whirls of true transformation and even enjoy the journey, just as you can find a roller coaster ride very enjoyable. For a person, who does not rest on this kind of very stable platform, enlightenment as a dream state means a blissful end station, where all the whirls of painful creation and destruction have ceased. There the essential nature of life is a threat, and enlightenment means you don't need to re-incarnate anymore. Felt pain, mental or physical, is an important source of suffering. Pain that one can
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, claudiouk [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The really problematic dimension of suffering is not personal (if one can indeed become detached from internal desire or aversion) - it is interpersonal. Try being detatched whilst your loved ones are being tortured... It is not about being emotionally detached. It is about embracing all the awful emotions the situation arises, and by no way trying to diminish the horror of the situation. This is much easier to accomplish when the `I ` is firmly established on a ground where it does not anymore identify with these emotions. Not identifying does not mean not feeling intensely. It means that you can keep yourself separate from the emotions. It is a situation where you have emotions in your system, body and mind. You are not the emotions, you have them, you witness them and simultaneously observe and feel them very intensely. I went through this kind of torture experience when my father was very sick and he was given wrong kind of medication. For a month he was in a catatonic state, very stiff, not capable of speaking. He could only scream for help, which he did whenever he had enough energy for screaming. And he was full of panic and fear and pain, which they tried to medicate down, but actually made only worse. He deep inside himself knew this and wanted away from the hospital, but couldn't express himself. And even if he had been, they wouldn't have let him go. It was awful to sit in the hospital at his bedside and be with him in his enormous suffering. Once when I went to the hospital, my husband said to me:You look like you were going to a beheading. I did not understand at that time the medication caused this torture to my father. After a month they moved him to the University Hospital and there they immediately realized it was the medication that caused his suffering. They stopped the medication and after one week he was much better, and after two weeks again at home. Irmeli Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Irmeli Mattsson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, claudiouk claudiouk@ wrote: The really problematic dimension of suffering is not personal (if one can indeed become detached from internal desire or aversion) - it is interpersonal. Try being detatched whilst your loved ones are being tortured... It is not about being emotionally detached. It is about embracing all the awful emotions the situation arises, and by no way trying to diminish the horror of the situation. This is much easier to accomplish when the `I ` is firmly established on a ground where it does not anymore identify with these emotions. Not identifying does not mean not feeling intensely. It means that you can keep yourself separate from the emotions. It is a situation where you have emotions in your system, body and mind. You are not the emotions, you have them, you witness them and simultaneously observe and feel them very intensely. I went through this kind of torture experience when my father was very sick and he was given wrong kind of medication. For a month he was in a catatonic state, very stiff, not capable of speaking. He could only scream for help, which he did whenever he had enough energy for screaming. And he was full of panic and fear and pain, which they tried to medicate down, but actually made only worse. He deep inside himself knew this and wanted away from the hospital, but couldn't express himself. And even if he had been, they wouldn't have let him go. It was awful to sit in the hospital at his bedside and be with him in his enormous suffering. Once when I went to the hospital, my husband said to me:You look like you were going to a beheading. I did not understand at that time the medication caused this torture to my father. After a month they moved him to the University Hospital and there they immediately realized it was the medication that caused his suffering. They stopped the medication and after one week he was much better, and after two weeks again at home. Irmeli One emotion there is however that I don't easily experience and that is getting hurt of something someone says to me. Often I may not even observe the insult, or if I observe I may react by getting furious and try to express why I felt the person's behaviour was inconsiderate or stupid. Irmeli Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Irmeli Mattsson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, claudiouk claudiouk@ wrote: The really problematic dimension of suffering is not personal (if one can indeed become detached from internal desire or aversion) - it is interpersonal. Try being detatched whilst your loved ones are being tortured... It is not about being emotionally detached. It's good to be precise in these kinds of discussions. 'Detached' is not the same thing as 'non-attached.' Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Irmeli Mattsson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: One emotion there is however that I don't easily experience and that is getting hurt of something someone says to me. Often I may not even observe the insult, or if I observe I may react by getting furious and try to express why I felt the person's behaviour was inconsiderate or stupid. Who is being insulted? If you've experienced every notion you've ever had of who and what you are dissolving into light, over and over and over, what's left to be insulted, or to resent the insult? Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Irmeli Mattsson Irmeli.Mattsson@ wrote: One emotion there is however that I don't easily experience and that is getting hurt of something someone says to me. Often I may not even observe the insult, or if I observe I may react by getting furious and try to express why I felt the person's behaviour was inconsiderate or stupid. Who is being insulted? If you've experienced every notion you've ever had of who and what you are dissolving into light, over and over and over, what's left to be insulted, or to resent the insult? What makes me react by fury sometimes is, when my husband keeps on nagging and nagging to me about some minor details in a weary tone. There maybe some drops of juice on the kitchen floor that he feels on his soles. Or there is something in the layout in my work he does not like, which I think is very easy for him to change. I just cannot know exactly what he wants. He expresses it as if I were deliberately tormenting him by this kind of behaviour. Usually I don't care about his nagging at all. And then suddenly I feel insulted and frustrated by it and get ballistic. And then he often runs off, because I tend to put my words in a way that hurt him deeply. No name-calling. I just do a deep analysis of him. Earlier he could feel hurt for a week or two, during which he didn't speak to me. Nowadays most of it goes away in one day. When I get hurt, it lasts only for the moment of my blast and then it is gone. This probably is not the most smart behaviour. However I have not come upon a better way of dealing with my frustration. I have also tried to correct the details he gets irritated about. That is however no solution, because then he gets irritated about something that didn't irritate him before. But this is not a cause of suffering to me, but a challenge it is, that I have not been capable of solving. To be quite honest I also enjoy these blasts. Irmeli Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I still believe that it owes a lot to Buddhism... That's a stretch. Many translations of the First Noble Truth have it as Life is suffering, but that's not related in any way to God, since they don't believe in one. To say life is suffering implies there is something-- a condition or state--that is *not* suffering. If suffering is said to be a lack, there is something-- a condition or state--in which nothing is lacking. What is it? ++ State of mind? In a way. If (as the Four Noble Truths state) the cause of suffering is attachment to desire/aversion, then living in a state of mind that is *not* attached to achieving the fruits of desire or avoiding the things one is averse to is a way beyond suffering. The input to life doesn't change, only one's ability to greet it with equanimity. Try to force the square peg of that input into the round hole of one's desires, and you get suffering. Treat it as a square peg and be neither attached nor averse, no suffering. Nothing to achieve, no obstacles to remove from the path to non-suffering, nowhere to go. Same old same old...just life dealt with as What Is, not What You'd Like Life To Be. Just for fun, compare and contrast this to MMY's latest U.N. rap, in which he once again presents his S-V theories and suggests that the problems of the world can't be solved unless one starts over with all-new buildings. In the Buddhist view, this approach to resolving suffering can never work because it is based upon trying to change the input of life to avoid suffering, rather than change the inner being's ability to deals with the input with- out attachment. As I understand it, the theory is that S-V buildings facilitate the change in the inner being's ability to deal with the input without attachment. In the Buddhist view, the richest, most successful person in the world, living in a perfectly-aligned S-V house but still attached to his desires, will be lost in suffering. Whereas the poor person who lives in a cardboard box, if he is not attached to his desires, is beyond suffering. But what if living in a perfectly aligned S-V house makes it easier to break the attachment to desires? (I'm not saying it does, just that if one is comparing *views*, it's important to include that aspect of MMY's view.) As I recall, some time ago MMY in an interview made the same point about the poor person; I think the specific context was hunger rather than housing, but the idea was that the poor person who was enlightened would not *suffer* from hunger. Some people found this shocking and outrageous. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: I still believe that it owes a lot to Buddhism... That's a stretch. Many translations of the First Noble Truth have it as Life is suffering, but that's not related in any way to God, since they don't believe in one. To say life is suffering implies there is something-- a condition or state--that is *not* suffering. If suffering is said to be a lack, there is something-- a condition or state--in which nothing is lacking. What is it? ++ State of mind? In a way. If (as the Four Noble Truths state) the cause of suffering is attachment to desire/aversion, then living in a state of mind that is *not* attached to achieving the fruits of desire or avoiding the things one is averse to is a way beyond suffering. The input to life doesn't change, only one's ability to greet it with equanimity. Try to force the square peg of that input into the round hole of one's desires, and you get suffering. Treat it as a square peg and be neither attached nor averse, no suffering. Nothing to achieve, no obstacles to remove from the path to non-suffering, nowhere to go. Same old same old...just life dealt with as What Is, not What You'd Like Life To Be. Another thought on this subject, to relate it back to the rap that started this thread: Both desire and aversion are an attempt to turn What is into something else. The person who is convinced that there is something that 'prevents' their enlightenment -- whether they consider that something to be ego, or intel- lect, or stress, or whatever -- is attempting to (in Vaj's terms) patch the What is of the universe and transform it into the What I'd like it to be of the professional sufferer. It's the desire/aversion cycle as path -- I should come back to the mantra; I should not trusts my ego/ self/intellect. The What is of life is *all you need* to realize enlightenment. But this itself is the realization. Or to put it another way, in enlightenment one has realized that the What is of life is all one needs. Prior to enlightenment, one does not have this realization. So there is still something to be achieved. The realization that there was nothing to be achieved *is the achievement*. Nothing needs to be achieved, nothing removed. Nothing is an 'obstacle' to enlightenment. The ego is enlightenment, the intellect is enlighten- ment, the 'good' questions of the bhakti are enlight- enment and the 'bad' questions of the cynic are enlightenment. Only enlightenment is. If there was nothing to be achieved, we would all be born with this realization. In other words, to tell a person who has not had this realization that there is nothing for him or her to achieve is a category mistake, spoken from the perspective of one who has already achieved the realization. Listening to someone go on and on about the parts of one's self one has to reject or not trust or get beyond to realize enlightenment is a lot like watching someone looking for their glasses while wearing their glasses. You'd kinda like to tell them, but at the same time they seem to be so *involved* in searching for the glasses everywhere that you hate to spoil their fun... Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, claudiouk claudiouk@ wrote: The really problematic dimension of suffering is not personal (if one can indeed become detached from internal desire or aversion) - it is interpersonal. Try being detatched whilst your loved ones are being tortured... Of course, in the TM sense, lack of suffering is due to witnessing. Anger, horror, terror, unhappiness, etc., can be expected within a person watching another, especially a loved one, being tortured. That doesn't preclude witnessing in the TM sense, however. It's an interesting paradox: one can suffer and yet not be suffering. But the referent of one changes. The self is suffering, while the Self is not. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Irmeli Mattsson Irmeli.Mattsson@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Irmeli Mattsson Irmeli.Mattsson@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: I still believe that it owes a lot to Buddhism... That's a stretch. Many translations of the First Noble Truth have it as Life is suffering, but that's not related in any way to God, since they don't believe in one. To say life is suffering implies there is something-- a condition or state--that is *not* suffering. If suffering is said to be a lack, there is something-- a condition or state--in which nothing is lacking. What is it? ++ State of mind? In a way. If (as the Four Noble Truths state) the cause of suffering is attachment to desire/aversion, then living in a state of mind that is *not* attached to achieving the fruits of desire or avoiding the things one is averse to is a way beyond suffering. The input to life doesn't change, only one's ability to greet it with equanimity. Try to force the square peg of that input into the round hole of one's desires, and you get suffering. Treat it as a square peg and be neither attached nor averse, no suffering. Nothing to achieve, no obstacles to remove from the path to non-suffering, nowhere to go. Same old same old...just life dealt with as What Is, not What You'd Like Life To Be. Just for fun, compare and contrast this to MMY's latest U.N. rap, in which he once again presents his S-V theories and suggests that the problems of the world can't be solved unless one starts over with all-new buildings. In the Buddhist view, this approach to resolving suffering can never work because it is based upon trying to change the input of life to avoid suffering, rather than change the inner being's ability to deals with the input with- out attachment. In the Buddhist view, the richest, most successful person in the world, living in a perfectly-aligned S-V house but still attached to his desires, will be lost in suffering. Whereas the poor person who lives in a cardboard box, if he is not attached to his desires, is beyond suffering. The basic division between suffering and non-suffering lies in, as Barry puts it, if you can accept `What is', or if you want to make life what you want or dream it to be. Paradoxically also accepting 'what is' much more effectively leads to transformation and true healing. The latter way was my way of functioning until age 16. I perceived many faults and defects in myself and wanted to become like some of my peers I admired. The efforts I made to change myself lead mainly to big disappointments and even to worsening of my problems. Then at 16 I got the realization that life doesn't expect me to be like someone, it accepts me as nothing. Life accepts me as no one. There is an evolutionary impulse deep in life's functioning. All I need to do is to align with this evolutionary impulse. It meant `active passivity'. Passivity meant accepting yourself as you are, or being nothing, and not trying to become something. Active meant being alert in nothingness and acting when an impulse appeared from deep inside. This was a start of a highly interesting and exciting journey of life consciously appreciating transformation. And I want to emphasise the word start. I had just got a stable platform. Being established on that I can keep basic stability and calm in the whirls of true transformation and even enjoy the journey, just as you can find a roller coaster ride very enjoyable. For a person, who does not rest on this kind of very stable platform, enlightenment as a dream state means a blissful end station,
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
I still believe that it owes a lot to Buddhism... That's a stretch. Many translations of the First Noble Truth have it as Life is suffering, but that's not related in any way to God, since they don't believe in one. To say life is suffering implies there is something-- a condition or state--that is *not* suffering. If suffering is said to be a lack, there is something-- a condition or state--in which nothing is lacking. What is it? ++ State of mind? In a way. If (as the Four Noble Truths state) the cause of suffering is attachment to desire/aversion, then living in a state of mind that is *not* attached to achieving the fruits of desire or avoiding the things one is averse to is a way beyond suffering. The input to life doesn't change, only one's ability to greet it with equanimity. Try to force the square peg of that input into the round hole of one's desires, and you get suffering. Treat it as a square peg and be neither attached nor averse, no suffering. Nothing to achieve, no obstacles to remove from the path to non-suffering, nowhere to go. Same old same old...just life dealt with as What Is, not What You'd Like Life To Be. Just for fun, compare and contrast this to MMY's latest U.N. rap, in which he once again presents his S-V theories and suggests that the problems of the world can't be solved unless one starts over with all-new buildings. In the Buddhist view, this approach to resolving suffering can never work because it is based upon trying to change the input of life to avoid suffering, rather than change the inner being's ability to deals with the input with- out attachment. As I understand it, the theory is that S-V buildings facilitate the change in the inner being's ability to deal with the input without attachment. As I understand it, the S-V theory is being promoted by someone who has been afraid to leave his suite of S-V rooms or to be in the same room with a human being other than the two or three trusted aides he interfaces with for over a decade now. And the latest plan to deal with the input being promoted by the person living this S-V-compliant lifestyle depends on raising an amount of money that is greater than the combined GNPs of the world's biggest countries. I'd say that either the theory needs a sanity break or the theorist does. In the Buddhist view, the richest, most successful person in the world, living in a perfectly-aligned S-V house but still attached to his desires, will be lost in suffering. Whereas the poor person who lives in a cardboard box, if he is not attached to his desires, is beyond suffering. But what if living in a perfectly aligned S-V house makes it easier to break the attachment to desires? See above. The longer the primary proponent of S-V hides inside his S-V house, the larger his demands for money get and the more dire his pronouncements of what will happen to the world if he *doesn't* receive the money he's demanding get. Does this look to you as if S-V reduces either one's desires or the attachment to them? Just asking. I mean, people these days pay a million dollars to go on a course with Maharishi, the person who has been living in S-V compliant buildings longer than anyone else, and what they find is someone who is so fearful or reclusive or whatever that he can't even sit in the same room with them. Does this behavior tend to convince you of the benefits of S-V? Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: I still believe that it owes a lot to Buddhism... That's a stretch. Many translations of the First Noble Truth have it as Life is suffering, but that's not related in any way to God, since they don't believe in one. To say life is suffering implies there is something-- a condition or state--that is *not* suffering. If suffering is said to be a lack, there is something-- a condition or state--in which nothing is lacking. What is it? ++ State of mind? In a way. If (as the Four Noble Truths state) the cause of suffering is attachment to desire/aversion, then living in a state of mind that is *not* attached to achieving the fruits of desire or avoiding the things one is averse to is a way beyond suffering. The input to life doesn't change, only one's ability to greet it with equanimity. Try to force the square peg of that input into the round hole of one's desires, and you get suffering. Treat it as a square peg and be neither attached nor averse, no suffering. Nothing to achieve, no obstacles to remove from the path to non-suffering, nowhere to go. Same old same old...just life dealt with as What Is, not What You'd Like Life To Be. Another thought on this subject, to relate it back to the rap that started this thread: Both desire and aversion are an attempt to turn What is into something else. The person who is convinced that there is something that 'prevents' their enlightenment -- whether they consider that something to be ego, or intel- lect, or stress, or whatever -- is attempting to (in Vaj's terms) patch the What is of the universe and transform it into the What I'd like it to be of the professional sufferer. It's the desire/aversion cycle as path -- I should come back to the mantra; I should not trusts my ego/ self/intellect. The What is of life is *all you need* to realize enlightenment. But this itself is the realization. Or to put it another way, in enlightenment one has realized that the What is of life is all one needs. Prior to enlightenment, one does not have this realization. So there is still something to be achieved. The realization is that nothing ever had to be achieved. The realization is that there was never a time when enlightenment was not present, merely a time when one did not realize it was present. The glasses you have been searching for have always been on your nose, but the person wearing the glasses has been so caught up in searching for them and so attached to being a perpetual searcher that she never noticed. :-) The realization that there was nothing to be achieved *is the achievement*. There is no achievement because there was never any need for anything to be achieved. Enlight- enment was always present. The glasses have always been on your nose...is noticing them there that big an achievement? Nothing needs to be achieved, nothing removed. Nothing is an 'obstacle' to enlightenment. The ego is enlightenment, the intellect is enlighten- ment, the 'good' questions of the bhakti are enlight- enment and the 'bad' questions of the cynic are enlightenment. Only enlightenment is. If there was nothing to be achieved, we would all be born with this realization. Says the person who desperately wants to keep searching for her glasses, while wearing them. :-) In other words, to tell a person who has not had this realization that there is nothing for him or her to achieve is a category mistake, spoken from the perspective of one who has already achieved the realization. Or the truth, spoken from the perspective of someone talking to a person with glasses firmly on nose who is whining about them being lost. :-) Listening to someone go on and on about the parts of one's self one has to reject or not trust or get beyond to realize enlightenment is a lot like watching someone looking for their glasses while wearing their glasses. You'd kinda like to tell them, but at the same time they seem to be so *involved* in searching for the glasses everywhere that you hate to spoil their fun... Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snip In the Buddhist view, the richest, most successful person in the world, living in a perfectly-aligned S-V house but still attached to his desires, will be lost in suffering. Whereas the poor person who lives in a cardboard box, if he is not attached to his desires, is beyond suffering. But what if living in a perfectly aligned S-V house makes it easier to break the attachment to desires? See above. The longer the primary proponent of S-V hides inside his S-V house, the larger his demands for money get and the more dire his pronouncements of what will happen to the world if he *doesn't* receive the money he's demanding get. Does this look to you as if S-V reduces either one's desires or the attachment to them? Damn. I could have *sworn* I included a disclaimer that I wasn't saying the theory worked. Let me see... Yup, I did. But you seem to have deleted it from your response: (I'm not saying it does, just that if one is comparing *views*, it's important to include that aspect of MMY's view.) Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: snip The person who is convinced that there is something that 'prevents' their enlightenment -- whether they consider that something to be ego, or intel- lect, or stress, or whatever -- is attempting to (in Vaj's terms) patch the What is of the universe and transform it into the What I'd like it to be of the professional sufferer. It's the desire/aversion cycle as path -- I should come back to the mantra; I should not trusts my ego/ self/intellect. The What is of life is *all you need* to realize enlightenment. But this itself is the realization. Or to put it another way, in enlightenment one has realized that the What is of life is all one needs. Prior to enlightenment, one does not have this realization. So there is still something to be achieved. The realization is that nothing ever had to be achieved. Right, that's what I just said. That's the realization one needs to achieve. The realization is that there was never a time when enlightenment was not present, merely a time when one did not realize it was present. Right, that's the realization one needs to achieve, as I just said. The glasses you have been searching for have always been on your nose, but the person wearing the glasses has been so caught up in searching for them and so attached to being a perpetual searcher that she never noticed. :-) Yup, being caught up and searching and attached is what gets in the way of the realization that there is nothing to be achieved. Those are the-- parts of one's self one has to reject or not trust or get beyond to realize enlightenment --just as you so aptly put it. The realization that there was nothing to be achieved *is the achievement*. There is no achievement because there was never any need for anything to be achieved. Except the realization that there was never any need for anything to be achieved. Enlight- enment was always present. The glasses have always been on your nose...is noticing them there that big an achievement? Seems to make the difference, don't it? Nothing needs to be achieved, nothing removed. Nothing is an 'obstacle' to enlightenment. The ego is enlightenment, the intellect is enlighten- ment, the 'good' questions of the bhakti are enlight- enment and the 'bad' questions of the cynic are enlightenment. Only enlightenment is. If there was nothing to be achieved, we would all be born with this realization. Says the person who desperately wants to keep searching for her glasses, while wearing them. :-) In other words, to tell a person who has not had this realization that there is nothing for him or her to achieve is a category mistake, spoken from the perspective of one who has already achieved the realization. Or the truth, spoken from the perspective of someone talking to a person with glasses firmly on nose who is whining about them being lost. :-) Another way of saying what I just said, but nastily. See, you can't avoid the achievement aspect. All you can do is push it back a level. This kind of category mistake always results in an infinite regress, something you've never understood. But then, if you did understand, you wouldn't have the opportunity to express scorn and contempt for those who haven't yet achieved the realization, and that's much more important to you than intellectual honesty. Listening to someone go on and on about the parts of one's self one has to reject or not trust or get beyond to realize enlightenment is a lot like watching someone looking for their glasses while wearing their glasses. You'd kinda like to tell them, but at the same time they seem to be so *involved* in searching for the glasses everywhere that you hate to spoil their fun... Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snip But then, if you did understand, you wouldn't have the opportunity to express scorn and contempt for those who haven't yet achieved the realization, and that's much more important to you than intellectual honesty. (Speaking of attachment...) Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: snip In the Buddhist view, the richest, most successful person in the world, living in a perfectly-aligned S-V house but still attached to his desires, will be lost in suffering. Whereas the poor person who lives in a cardboard box, if he is not attached to his desires, is beyond suffering. But what if living in a perfectly aligned S-V house makes it easier to break the attachment to desires? See above. The longer the primary proponent of S-V hides inside his S-V house, the larger his demands for money get and the more dire his pronouncements of what will happen to the world if he *doesn't* receive the money he's demanding get. Does this look to you as if S-V reduces either one's desires or the attachment to them? Damn. I could have *sworn* I included a disclaimer that I wasn't saying the theory worked. Let me see... Yup, I did. But you seem to have deleted it from your response: Did you see anything in the *question* asked of you above that implies you *did* say that that the theory worked? I was asking a question to see if you'd answer instead of sitting on the fence spouting disclaimers *while* defending the theory. Guess not... :-) (I'm not saying it does, just that if one is comparing *views*, it's important to include that aspect of MMY's view.) Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig sparaig@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, claudiouk claudiouk@ wrote: The really problematic dimension of suffering is not personal (if one can indeed become detached from internal desire or aversion) - it is interpersonal. Try being detatched whilst your loved ones are being tortured... Of course, in the TM sense, lack of suffering is due to witnessing. Anger, horror, terror, unhappiness, etc., can be expected within a person watching another, especially a loved one, being tortured. That doesn't preclude witnessing in the TM sense, however. It's an interesting paradox: one can suffer and yet not be suffering. But the referent of one changes. The self is suffering, while the Self is not. Well yeah, but just because we see beauty in the dead dog's shiny teeth doesn't mean we go out of our way to admire them if there is something else *better*, relatively speaking, to look at. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: snip But then, if you did understand, you wouldn't have the opportunity to express scorn and contempt for those who haven't yet achieved the realization, and that's much more important to you than intellectual honesty. (Speaking of attachment...) You're the one whining... Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: snip But then, if you did understand, you wouldn't have the opportunity to express scorn and contempt for those who haven't yet achieved the realization, and that's much more important to you than intellectual honesty. (Speaking of attachment...) You're the one whining... And you are whining about the whining. And I am whining about the whining about the whining. Hey, a universe in the making! Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: snip In the Buddhist view, the richest, most successful person in the world, living in a perfectly-aligned S-V house but still attached to his desires, will be lost in suffering. Whereas the poor person who lives in a cardboard box, if he is not attached to his desires, is beyond suffering. But what if living in a perfectly aligned S-V house makes it easier to break the attachment to desires? See above. The longer the primary proponent of S-V hides inside his S-V house, the larger his demands for money get and the more dire his pronouncements of what will happen to the world if he *doesn't* receive the money he's demanding get. Does this look to you as if S-V reduces either one's desires or the attachment to them? Damn. I could have *sworn* I included a disclaimer that I wasn't saying the theory worked. Let me see... Yup, I did. But you seem to have deleted it from your response: Did you see anything in the *question* asked of you above that implies you *did* say that that the theory worked? Sure. It was a rhetorical question. And you make it explicit below, when you claim I was defending the theory: I was asking a question to see if you'd answer instead of sitting on the fence spouting disclaimers *while* defending the theory. Guess not... :-) Again, you confuse defending a theory with stating what the theory *is*. I was doing the latter, not the former. As I said, if one is comparing *views*, it's important to correctly, and completely, *state* the views. Then one can move on to discussing whether one view works better than another. I have no idea whether MMY's S-V theory works. I don't live in an S-V home and don't know anybody who does. I don't know whether MMY is hiding in his S-V home or whether he's too frail to leave it. I don't know whether his demands for money represent desires to which he's attached. And neither do you. But you have a desire to belittle MMY's theories, behavior, and state of consciousness, to which you're obviously very much attached; what is is not acceptable to you. For that matter, you're very firmly attached to your desire to belittle anybody who doesn't see things the way you do. (I'm not saying it does, just that if one is comparing *views*, it's important to include that aspect of MMY's view.) Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: snip But then, if you did understand, you wouldn't have the opportunity to express scorn and contempt for those who haven't yet achieved the realization, and that's much more important to you than intellectual honesty. (Speaking of attachment...) You're the one whining... And you're whining about my whining. The difference between us is that I don't have any problem admitting it. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- 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, authfriend jstein@ wrote: snip But then, if you did understand, you wouldn't have the opportunity to express scorn and contempt for those who haven't yet achieved the realization, and that's much more important to you than intellectual honesty. (Speaking of attachment...) You're the one whining... And you're whining about my whining. I think both you and Lawson need to straighten your already-present glasses. :-) I am merely poking fun at your whining. It's *your* choice if what you want to do is whine about your lost glasses while wearing them. That doesn't sound like a whole lotta fun to me, but if that's how you choose to amuse yourself, so be it. It doesn't affect me one way or another, so it's not as if I've got anything to whine about. But something to *laugh* about...that I've got. Many thanks... :-) Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- 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, authfriend jstein@ wrote: snip But then, if you did understand, you wouldn't have the opportunity to express scorn and contempt for those who haven't yet achieved the realization, and that's much more important to you than intellectual honesty. (Speaking of attachment...) You're the one whining... And you're whining about my whining. I think both you and Lawson need to straighten your already-present glasses. :-) I am merely poking fun at your whining. It's *your* choice if what you want to do is whine about your lost glasses while wearing them. What, me whine? Barry, virtually all you *do* here is whine about one thing and another. That doesn't sound like a whole lotta fun to me, but if that's how you choose to amuse yourself, so be it. It doesn't affect me one way or another, so it's not as if I've got anything to whine about. Actually you have nothing to whine about because neither Lawson nor I are whining, at least not about not being enlightened. To state that one is not enlightened is not in and of itself whining, but rather simply saying *what is*. But Barry isn't at all happy with *what is*, so he whines and whines and whines: The *nerve* of those people, saying they aren't enlightened! But something to *laugh* about...that I've got. Many thanks... :-) Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What, me whine? LOL. Now you've done it. Now I've got an image running through my mind of Mad magazine's Alfred E. Newman with a pair of glasses on his nose, searching for them everywhere while whining about them being lost. All of this over a caption that says in big letters, What, me whine? :-) I suspect the bottom line to all of this is some kind of cosmic wish-fulfilling gem with a weird sense of humor. Some people really *like* being on the path to enlightenment. Being on the path is what they live for. They've got their unfulfilled seeker act down pat and don't want to learn another act. So enlightenment fulfills their wishes by making their path longer and longer and longer, as long as they need it to be so they can keep seeking. Other folks would rather be enlightened than seek enlightenment, and enlightenment accomodates them, too. Nice system, sorta like in a Chinese restaurant. You get to choose from either column A (perpetual seeking) or column B (finding). I don't know about you, but I'm gonna have the Kung Pao Chicken tonight... Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: What, me whine? LOL. Now you've done it. Now I've got an image running through my mind of Mad magazine's Alfred E. Newman with a pair of glasses on his nose, searching for them everywhere while whining about them being lost. All of this over a caption that says in big letters, What, me whine? :-) I suspect the bottom line to all of this is some kind of cosmic wish-fulfilling gem with a weird sense of humor. Some people really *like* being on the path to enlightenment. Being on the path is what they live for. They've got their unfulfilled seeker act down pat and don't want to learn another act. So enlightenment fulfills their wishes by making their path longer and longer and longer, as long as they need it to be so they can keep seeking. Other folks would rather be enlightened than seek enlightenment, and enlightenment accomodates them, too. And some folks would rather slap column A and column B labels on people. Nice system, sorta like in a Chinese restaurant. You get to choose from either column A (perpetual seeking) or column B (finding). I don't know about you, but I'm gonna have the Kung Pao Chicken tonight... Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Nelson nelsonriddle2001@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Nelson nelsonriddle2001@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Irmeli Mattsson Irmeli.Mattsson@ wrote: snip Although I think that also God makes mistakes and learns through and from them. Question on this one point: By what standard can it be said that God makes mistakes? I recall reading somewhere that he said that he was evolving which would mean not so much making mistakes as doing things differently. N. Evolving toward what? I think there is a big confusion of what evolution actually means. Here some biological definitions: Evolution: The long-term process through which a population of organisms accumulates genetic changes that enable its members to successfully adapt to environmental conditions and to better exploit food resources. www.accessexcellence.org/AE/AEPC/WWC/1994/glossary.html The change in life over time by adaptation, variation, over-reproduction, and differential survival/reproduction, a process referred to by Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace as natural selection. http://www.emc.maricopa.edu/faculty/farabee/BIOBK/BioBookglossE.html In this sense evolution is not the development to a certain pre-existent goal, but rather the successful adaptaion to a given environment by a certain organism. Thhis is what trial and error and natural selection is all about. This makes the idea of an evolving Creator-God fairly upsurd: How could a Creator adapt to an environment, he has created himself? It is even more absurd if you assume an all-knowing God going through trial and error. Pretty much trial and error can be done by machines, and doesn't require a creator at all. That is why evolution, the theory of natural selection is so much opposed by the creationists. Now one can of course try to transfer the idea of evolution to a sort of teleological argument, and that is what many New Agers do. There is a goal, a pre-existent ideal to which nature develops. But if God himself develops, who established the ideal, was it already there or did he create it? And if he created the ideal, why didn't s/he create the ideal creation right away? I think one gets into a big muddle if one tries to combine evolutionary theories which really don't need any God (like trial and error) with creationist ideas. Why should a God evolve, unless he has fallen, and is now involved in his own creation? Of course one could argue, we are all God, and we are all evolving to finally realize this potential of ours. Otherwise its a really absurd idea, with the sort of populistic appeal, the same as that we are all co-creators. It just makes some people feel more important. He didn't say but I would guess that being at level, he would be pretty well qualified to decide. If he recognizes that ultimate toward which he is evolving, such that he can see that something he did was a mistake, or that he needed to do things differently, what is the nature of that ultimate? If what we're calling God is not the ultimate, what is? Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, defenders_of_bhakti [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think there is a big confusion of what evolution actually means. Here some biological definitions: Evolution: The long-term process through which a population of organisms accumulates genetic changes that enable its members to successfully adapt to environmental conditions and to better exploit food resources. www.accessexcellence.org/AE/AEPC/WWC/1994/glossary.html The change in life over time by adaptation, variation, over-reproduction, and differential survival/reproduction, a process referred to by Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace as natural selection. http://www.emc.maricopa.edu/faculty/farabee/BIOBK/BioBookglossE.html In this sense evolution is not the development to a certain pre-existent goal, but rather the successful adaptaion to a given environment by a certain organism. Thhis is what trial and error and natural selection is all about. This makes the idea of an evolving Creator-God fairly upsurd: How could a Creator adapt to an environment, he has created himself? It is even more absurd if you assume an all-knowing God going through trial and error. Pretty much trial and error can be done by machines, and doesn't require a creator at all. That is why evolution, the theory of natural selection is so much opposed by the creationists. Now one can of course try to transfer the idea of evolution to a sort of teleological argument, and that is what many New Agers do. There is a goal, a pre-existent ideal to which nature develops. But if God himself develops, who established the ideal, was it already there or did he create it? And if he created the ideal, why didn't s/he create the ideal creation right away? I think one gets into a big muddle if one tries to combine evolutionary theories which really don't need any God (like trial and error) with creationist ideas. Why should a God evolve, unless he has fallen, and is now involved in his own creation? Of course one could argue, we are all God, and we are all evolving to finally realize this potential of ours. Otherwise its a really absurd idea, with the sort of populistic appeal, the same as that we are all co-creators. It just makes some people feel more important. +++ Haven't you observed that you do some creating yourself? N. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Not to argue, but you seem to have missed this section: Maharishi's commentary says: By 'homage' is meant submission or surrender. Sure, I saw it later, but he was of course quoting MMY. Not setting the stage for his own audience. http://www.commandperformance.net/calendar/Sept%2004/25.htm :-) :-) :-) Is BDSM on operating system? (Like FreeBSD) Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, defenders_of_bhakti [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: Not to argue, but you seem to have missed this section: Maharishi's commentary says: By 'homage' is meant submission or surrender. Sure, I saw it later, but he was of course quoting MMY. Not setting the stage for his own audience. http://www.commandperformance.net/calendar/Sept%2004/25.htm :-) :-) :-) Is BDSM on operating system? (Like FreeBSD) In a way...it stands for bondage, domination and sado-masochism. Given Michael's sig file, I doubt it's free. :-) I'm just joking around. I'm sure it's fine for a therapist to give a talk about BDSM...I just thought it humorous that it was billed as a workshop/demo... Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Michael Dean Goodman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: SELF-DOUBT AND CYNICISM VS. PROFOUND TRUST From a Talk by Adyashanti There is nothing more insidiously destructive to the attainment of liberation than self-doubt and cynicism. Doubt is a movement of the conditioned mind that always claims that it's not possible ... that freedom is not possible for me [or for you - or at least it is very very difficult, very distant]. Doubt always knows; it knows that nothing is possible. And in this knowing, doubt robs you of the pos- sibility of anything truly new or transformative from happening. Fur- thermore, doubt is always accompanied by a pervasive cynicism that unconsciously puts a negative spin on whatever it touches. Cynicism is a world view which protects the ego from scrutiny by maintaining a negative stance in relationship to what it does not know, does not want to know, or cannot know. Many spiritual seekers have no idea how cynical and doubt-laden they actually are. It is this blindness and denial of the presence of doubt and cynicism that makes the birth of a profound trust impossible - a trust without which final libera- tion will always remain simply a dream. - Adyashanti A complementary perspective to Adhyasanti's view: For evolving to higher stages of consciousness, more destructive than self-doubt and cynicism, is an unquestioning mind with no capacity to inner inquiry and dialogue. Whatever grandiose idea of oneself appears is taken to be the absolute truth, doubts are immediately suppressed, if they ever appear. Doubts and cynicism can be quite destructive. However I see even that kind of tormenting doubt as one of the first steps into an acquisition of capacity to inner dialogue. Denial of the presence of doubt leads to suppression. Working with doubts canlead to a transformation, where doubt becomes a constructive inner voice and opener to inner inquiry. A person who suppresses doubt has an internal structure that could be called fundamentalism. A person who has no doubts is even below that developmentally. Being beyond fundamentalism means capacity to handle doubts and also difficult emotions in an constructive way. In my teens I remember myself spending long ours almost daily in an inner dialogue. An idea came to my mind. Soon after that appeared an opposing idea that doubted or disapproved with the first idea. I calmly just witnessed this discussion and dialogue inside and it gradually got more and more subtle, and dealt with many important existential questions. I still remember one pearl that was created through these dialogues: If there is God, and he is the embodiment of Truth, he can only expect from me that I do what I understand to be true and right. Even if that meant the denial of God. And it actually meant it for me then. I think this insight appeared at 14. I also claim that it was this kind of inner dialogue that lead to the powerful experience of realization I had at age 16, that I have described more in details many times here at FFL Irmeli Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Michael Dean Goodman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [That trust is also often called homage, or even devotion or surrender - and the path that encompasses this openness of heart is called bhakti. Once Self-realization is ripening, this open- ness of heart in devotion is essential in order to expand out and meet and imbibe your god/goddess. - MDG] BHAGAVAD GITA ON HOMAGE, REPEATED INQUIRY, AND SERVICE For example, in the Bhagavad Gita, 4:34, Lord Krishna says: Through homage, repeated inquiry, and service, the men of knowledge who have experienced Reality will teach you knowledge. Maharishi's commentary says: By 'homage' is meant submission or surrender. The commentary says that surrender to the teacher (ultimately to the Truth that the teacher is a reflector of), is the prerequisite for asking questions (repeated inquiry, or curiosity). After devotion, the questions are true seekings for deeper understanding. There is no hint of any intention to diminish the teacher or test the teacher or argue with the teacher or improve the teacher - no hint of any in- tention to doubt the teacher or the Truth. There is no intention to play the game I'm more OK, based on making you less OK. The teacher has already been accepted fully as a conduit of Truth, and the inten- tion of the inquiry is to make everyone more and more OK, more and more infinite/vast/divine. Then the heart of the teacher opens wide, any and all questions are welcome and appropriate, and deep knowledge flows in response to them. This acceptance of the teacher is actually a surrender to the unbounded Truth; it invites the unbounded to shine forth through the teacher. This trust or surrender means that the individual has gotten out of the way to some extent, has dropped their ego-defend- ing patterns, has dropped their guard. Before trust, before devotion, the questions are not really from a surrendered place. The questioner has not accepted the teacher as a teacher, the questioner has not accepted the limitations of his/her own relative ego/intellect, and therefore there is not that open flow of knowledge. In the questions there may be some lack of respect for the teacher, some implication that the teacher is not competent, some belittling or depreciation of the teacher. The teacher's heart is not opened by this, the recipient's guard is not put down, and the flow of Truth is not profound. We all know from everyday experience that questions (curiosity) gener- ally can have two very distinct purposes, even in mundane conversation: 1. To actually gain understanding, as sincere inquiries; to create love/togetherness/unity by going deeper into knowledge; to open the conduit for richer flow of knowledge. 2. To hide something behind the smokescreen of a question: a. To hide our criticism/anger, to avoid making a directly critical statement. b. To hide that we're trying to control or dominate someone - to hide that we're trying to manipulate someone or trying to engage someone in a game. c. To create doubt/division/fear. In this case, questions are actually deceptions, a kind of passive/ aggressive behavior. Rather than saying what we feel in direct statements, we hide behind questions. If challenged, if our true but hidden feelings or motives are noticed, we can always say I didn't mean any criticism - I was just wondering Often it is apparent to observers, and to the recipient of the question, that we were NOT just wondering. The question has an obvious edge to it, or it asks for an answer that we already know or could figure out, or it is pretty blatantly a manipulation, or it just leaves the recipient feeling odd, as though they've been tricked or mess- ed with. Although not so easy to say in words, the difference in how it feels to receive these two different kinds of questions (inquiries) is energetically obvious to most of us. Sincere questions, without hidden emotional agendas or motives, evoke an open flow of knowledge, evoke more unity and deepening, and don't leave a strange aftertaste. The nature of a person's speech (and writing), especially their style of spiritual inquiry and discussion (as on this list), is very reveal- ing about the condition of their heart and mind. They reveal so clear- ly whether they are swimming in the sea of doubt and cynicism and ego- defense, or whether they've found the life-preserver of surrender and simplicity and concern for others. Namaste, Michael Also a complementary perspective to Goodman's view: Bhagavad Gita, 4:34, Lord Krishna says: Through homage, repeated inquiry, and service, the men of knowledge who have experienced Reality will teach you reality. My dictionary translates homage to mean respect, reverence, and not
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Irmeli Mattsson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: My dictionary translates homage to mean respect, reverence, and not surrender. And I understand the quotation in a way that also the teacher should show homage to the student, give his advice after repeated inquiry, and do service to others. Through wrongly understood devotion many difficult questions and doubts can get suppressed and the inner process becomes partial or distorted. Experience shows that the suppressed issues tend to get acted out elsewhere in a less constructive ways in the student's and teacher's lives. And I think the teacher should be tested, or at least his behavior, and the structure of his organization observed very accurately. Just as an observation, the only teachers I have ever met who reacted negatively to being tested by their students were IMO afraid that they would flunk the test. This includes high Tibetan lamas and recognized tulkus who had *no problem* with their students or drop-in visitors questioning *anything* they said or taught. In contrast to those who *do* react negatively to having their expertise or authority questioned, these guys seemed to *delight* in the testing. The tougher the questions, the more they seemed to like it. Go figure. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, defenders_of_bhakti no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: Not to argue, but you seem to have missed this section: Maharishi's commentary says: By 'homage' is meant submission or surrender. Sure, I saw it later, but he was of course quoting MMY. Not setting the stage for his own audience. http://www.commandperformance.net/calendar/Sept%2004/25.htm :-) :-) :-) Is BDSM on operating system? (Like FreeBSD) In a way...it stands for bondage, domination and sado-masochism. Given Michael's sig file, I doubt it's free. :-) BDSM actually contains multiple meanings within it: BD = bondage discipline DS = dominance submission SM = sadism masochism Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Irmeli Mattsson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snip Although I think that also God makes mistakes and learns through and from them. Question on this one point: By what standard can it be said that God makes mistakes? Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
On Mar 12, 2006, at 8:29 AM, authfriend wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Irmeli Mattsson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snip Although I think that also God makes mistakes and learns through and from them. Question on this one point: By what standard can it be said that God makes mistakes? Which God? Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mar 12, 2006, at 8:29 AM, authfriend wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Irmeli Mattsson Irmeli.Mattsson@ wrote: snip Although I think that also God makes mistakes and learns through and from them. Question on this one point: By what standard can it be said that God makes mistakes? Which God? The one Irmeli is referring to. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Irmeli Mattsson Irmeli.Mattsson@ wrote: snip Although I think that also God makes mistakes and learns through and from them. Question on this one point: By what standard can it be said that God makes mistakes? It is just the observation that evolving in nature happens through errors and in animals also by avoiding the mistakes and as even in a more advanced form humans can sometimes also learn from mistakes. I consider the manifest creation to be expression of God or one aspect of God. Irmeli Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Alex Stanley [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, defenders_of_bhakti no_reply@ wrote: Is BDSM on operating system? (Like FreeBSD) In a way...it stands for bondage, domination and sado-masochism. Given Michael's sig file, I doubt it's free. :-) BDSM actually contains multiple meanings within it: BD = bondage discipline DS = dominance submission SM = sadism masochism Wow. Impressive...a truly modular operating system. Combine the first letter with the last (BM) and you've even got coprophilia covered. :-) Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
On Mar 12, 2006, at 8:44 AM, Irmeli Mattsson wrote: It is just the observation that evolving in nature happens through errors and in animals also by avoiding the mistakes and as even in a more advanced form humans can sometimes also learn from mistakes. I consider the manifest creation to be expression of God or one aspect of God. Ah, a Creator God. Yeah, they screw up all the time, esp. at the start. :-) Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
On Mar 12, 2006, at 5:45 AM, defenders_of_bhakti wrote:--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Not to argue, but you seem to have missed this section: Maharishi's commentary says: "By 'homage' is meant submission or surrender."Sure, I saw it later, but he was of course quoting MMY. Not settingthe stage for his own audience. http://www.commandperformance.net/calendar/Sept%2004/25.htm :-) :-) :-)Is BDSM on operating system? (Like FreeBSD)No, bioenergetic pathology. To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' SPONSORED LINKS Maharishi university of management Maharishi mahesh yogi Ramana maharshi YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS Visit your group "FairfieldLife" on the web. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mar 12, 2006, at 8:44 AM, Irmeli Mattsson wrote: It is just the observation that evolving in nature happens through errors and in animals also by avoiding the mistakes and as even in a more advanced form humans can sometimes also learn from mistakes. I consider the manifest creation to be expression of God or one aspect of God. Ah, a Creator God. Yeah, they screw up all the time, esp. at the start. :-) LOL. Being essentially a Buddhist w.r.t. to creation (that is, believing that there never *was* one, and that the universe has always been, is now, and will always be) I've always been interested in how much of theology seems to be based on linear thinking. If one begins with the assumption that there was a creation (a start), and that things evolve towards dissolution (an end), then the need to posulate a Creator intellectually arises. If you further assume that there have been multiple creations, with a 'gap' between the dissolution of one and the creation of the next, *again* the need to postulate a Creator arises. (Because if the 'next' creation actually is 'created,' then some Creator energy or intelligence must have been present during the 'gap' between creations to create the next one. On the other hand, if one starts with the assumption that the universe is eternal, and that there has never been a moment in which it was not manifest, and never will be, then there is no intellectual need to postu- ate a Creator. The need for a Creator is very much dependent on the assumption that there was once a creation. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Sal Sunshine [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It's rhetorical, Def. :) Sal Thanks. Being native german, I did a 'literal' translation. On Mar 11, 2006, at 6:49 PM, defenders_of_bhakti wrote: Well, we all know rethoric questions, don't we? (This was a rethoric question). Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Irmeli Mattsson Irmeli.Mattsson@ wrote: snip Although I think that also God makes mistakes and learns through and from them. Question on this one point: By what standard can it be said that God makes mistakes? I recall reading somewhere that he said that he was evolving which would mean not so much making mistakes as doing things differently. N. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Irmeli Mattsson Irmeli.Mattsson@ wrote: snip Although I think that also God makes mistakes and learns through and from them. Question on this one point: By what standard can it be said that God makes mistakes? On the basis of this is of course gnostic thinking (Freemasonree, Rosecrucians). The basic idea behind it, is that creation is like a prison. I still believe that it owes a lot to Buddhism, possibly even the Upanishads, who say, that the Gods keep man like cattle. In Tantra there is a term calling it the 'original ignorance' Why would ignorance be there at the first place, if the creation was perfect, just as it is? Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj vajranatha@ wrote: On Mar 12, 2006, at 8:44 AM, Irmeli Mattsson wrote: It is just the observation that evolving in nature happens through errors and in animals also by avoiding the mistakes and as even in a more advanced form humans can sometimes also learn from mistakes. I consider the manifest creation to be expression of God or one aspect of God. Ah, a Creator God. Yeah, they screw up all the time, esp. at the start. :-) LOL. Being essentially a Buddhist w.r.t. to creation (that is, believing that there never *was* one, and that the universe has always been, is now, and will always be) I've always been interested in how much of theology seems to be based on linear thinking. If one begins with the assumption that there was a creation (a start), and that things evolve towards dissolution (an end), then the need to posulate a Creator intellectually arises. If you further assume that there have been multiple creations, with a 'gap' between the dissolution of one and the creation of the next, *again* the need to postulate a Creator arises. (Because if the 'next' creation actually is 'created,' then some Creator energy or intelligence must have been present during the 'gap' between creations to create the next one. On the other hand, if one starts with the assumption that the universe is eternal, and that there has never been a moment in which it was not manifest, and never will be, then there is no intellectual need to postu- ate a Creator. The need for a Creator is very much dependent on the assumption that there was once a creation. +++ Did you read the greatest miracle by Og Mandino? In it was a memorandom from God which contained quite a bit of information on this latest creation. Believing or not is a choice sometimes and, I enjoyed the story. N Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, defenders_of_bhakti [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Irmeli Mattsson Irmeli.Mattsson@ wrote: snip Although I think that also God makes mistakes and learns through and from them. Question on this one point: By what standard can it be said that God makes mistakes? On the basis of this is of course gnostic thinking (Freemasonree, Rosecrucians). The basic idea behind it, is that creation is like a prison. Depends entirely on the flavor of gnosticism. Some flavors believe that creation wasn't created by God but by the other guy (Satan, the demiurge). I still believe that it owes a lot to Buddhism... That's a stretch. Many translations of the First Noble Truth have it as Life is suffering, but that's not related in any way to God, since they don't believe in one. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, defenders_of_bhakti [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Irmeli Mattsson Irmeli.Mattsson@ wrote: snip Although I think that also God makes mistakes and learns through and from them. Question on this one point: By what standard can it be said that God makes mistakes? On the basis of this is of course gnostic thinking (Freemasonree, Rosecrucians). The basic idea behind it, is that creation is like a prison. I still believe that it owes a lot to Buddhism, possibly even the Upanishads, who say, that the Gods keep man like cattle. In Tantra there is a term calling it the 'original ignorance' Why would ignorance be there at the first place, if the creation was perfect, just as it is? Maybe this is made up by those who want to free you from ignorance and charge you for it? Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Nelson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj vajranatha@ wrote: On Mar 12, 2006, at 8:44 AM, Irmeli Mattsson wrote: It is just the observation that evolving in nature happens through errors and in animals also by avoiding the mistakes and as even in a more advanced form humans can sometimes also learn from mistakes. I consider the manifest creation to be expression of God or one aspect of God. Ah, a Creator God. Yeah, they screw up all the time, esp. at the start. :-) LOL. Being essentially a Buddhist w.r.t. to creation (that is, believing that there never *was* one, and that the universe has always been, is now, and will always be) I've always been interested in how much of theology seems to be based on linear thinking. If one begins with the assumption that there was a creation (a start), and that things evolve towards dissolution (an end), then the need to posulate a Creator intellectually arises. If you further assume that there have been multiple creations, with a 'gap' between the dissolution of one and the creation of the next, *again* the need to postulate a Creator arises. (Because if the 'next' creation actually is 'created,' then some Creator energy or intelligence must have been present during the 'gap' between creations to create the next one. On the other hand, if one starts with the assumption that the universe is eternal, and that there has never been a moment in which it was not manifest, and never will be, then there is no intellectual need to postu- ate a Creator. The need for a Creator is very much dependent on the assumption that there was once a creation. +++ Did you read the greatest miracle by Og Mandino? In it was a memorandom from God which contained quite a bit of information on this latest creation. Haven't read it, or any of his books. Believing or not is a choice sometimes and, I enjoyed the story. N I enjoy good stories, too, even the ones associated with gods and creations myths I may not personally believe in. Sometimes a good story is just a good story, similar to the way that a cigar is just a cigar. :-) Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Irmeli Mattsson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Irmeli Mattsson Irmeli.Mattsson@ wrote: snip Although I think that also God makes mistakes and learns through and from them. Question on this one point: By what standard can it be said that God makes mistakes? It is just the observation that evolving in nature happens through errors But again, errors by what standard? and in animals also by avoiding the mistakes and as even in a more advanced form humans can sometimes also learn from mistakes. I consider the manifest creation to be expression of God or one aspect of God. Irmeli Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, defenders_of_bhakti no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Irmeli Mattsson Irmeli.Mattsson@ wrote: snip Although I think that also God makes mistakes and learns through and from them. Question on this one point: By what standard can it be said that God makes mistakes? On the basis of this is of course gnostic thinking (Freemasonree, Rosecrucians). The basic idea behind it, is that creation is like a prison. Depends entirely on the flavor of gnosticism. Some flavors believe that creation wasn't created by God but by the other guy (Satan, the demiurge). I still believe that it owes a lot to Buddhism... That's a stretch. Many translations of the First Noble Truth have it as Life is suffering, but that's not related in any way to God, since they don't believe in one. Curious- where did the suffering idea come from? Suffering for some is a challenge for others. sounds like they had a poor attitude. N. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Nelson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Irmeli Mattsson Irmeli.Mattsson@ wrote: snip Although I think that also God makes mistakes and learns through and from them. Question on this one point: By what standard can it be said that God makes mistakes? I recall reading somewhere that he said that he was evolving which would mean not so much making mistakes as doing things differently. N. Evolving toward what? Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, defenders_of_bhakti [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Irmeli Mattsson Irmeli.Mattsson@ wrote: snip Although I think that also God makes mistakes and learns through and from them. Question on this one point: By what standard can it be said that God makes mistakes? On the basis of this is of course gnostic thinking (Freemasonree, Rosecrucians). The basic idea behind it, is that creation is like a prison. I still believe that it owes a lot to Buddhism, possibly even the Upanishads, who say, that the Gods keep man like cattle. In Tantra there is a term calling it the 'original ignorance' Why would ignorance be there at the first place, if the creation was perfect, just as it is? Ignorance *of what*? You can only have ignorance by comparison with something else that is not ignorance. Ignorance is a lack of some sort. Where is what is lacking in ignorance to be found? Here's what I'm getting at: If God makes mistakes, if creation is imperfect, where is the perfection that is lacking? Or to put it another way, what is it that we're calling God? If what we're calling God makes mistakes, then this God cannot be the ultimate, because there has to be perfection for there to be a mistake. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Nelson nelsonriddle2001@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Irmeli Mattsson Irmeli.Mattsson@ wrote: snip Although I think that also God makes mistakes and learns through and from them. Question on this one point: By what standard can it be said that God makes mistakes? I recall reading somewhere that he said that he was evolving which would mean not so much making mistakes as doing things differently. N. Evolving toward what? He didn't say but I would guess that being at level, he would be pretty well qualified to decide. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Nelson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: That's a stretch. Many translations of the First Noble Truth have it as Life is suffering, but that's not related in any way to God, since they don't believe in one. Curious- where did the suffering idea come from? Suffering for some is a challenge for others. sounds like they had a poor attitude. N. In my opinion, more like a poor translator. :-) I've *never* been able to identify with the Life is suffering thang, even though I've hung out in Buddhist sanghas for years. I personally believe that Life is suffering doesn't do justice to what Buddha had in mind with his First Noble Truth, which was that satisfaction and fulfil- ment can never be based on the elements of the emphemeral world, because they *are*, after all, ephemeral. The other three Noble Truths explain the situation somewhat, going on to state exactly what the problem is (attachment to the fruits of desire) and explaining that there is a way beyond suffering. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, defenders_of_bhakti no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Irmeli Mattsson Irmeli.Mattsson@ wrote: snip Although I think that also God makes mistakes and learns through and from them. Question on this one point: By what standard can it be said that God makes mistakes? On the basis of this is of course gnostic thinking (Freemasonree, Rosecrucians). The basic idea behind it, is that creation is like a prison. Depends entirely on the flavor of gnosticism. Some flavors believe that creation wasn't created by God but by the other guy (Satan, the demiurge). I still believe that it owes a lot to Buddhism... That's a stretch. Many translations of the First Noble Truth have it as Life is suffering, but that's not related in any way to God, since they don't believe in one. To say life is suffering implies there is something-- a condition or state--that is *not* suffering. If suffering is said to be a lack, there is something-- a condition or state--in which nothing is lacking. What is it? Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Nelson [EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote:
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Nelson
nelsonriddle2001@
wrote:
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@
wrote:
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Irmeli Mattsson
Irmeli.Mattsson@ wrote:
snip
Although I think that also God makes mistakes and learns
through and from them.
Question on this one point: By what standard can it
be said that God makes mistakes?
I recall reading somewhere that he said that he was
evolving which would mean not so much making mistakes as doing
things differently. N.
Evolving toward what?
He didn't say but I would guess that being at level, he would
be pretty well qualified to decide.
If he recognizes that ultimate toward which he is evolving,
such that he can see that something he did was a mistake,
or that he needed to do things differently, what is the
nature of that ultimate?
If what we're calling God is not the ultimate, what is?
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[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Nelson nelsonriddle2001@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: That's a stretch. Many translations of the First Noble Truth have it as Life is suffering, but that's not related in any way to God, since they don't believe in one. Curious- where did the suffering idea come from? Suffering for some is a challenge for others. sounds like they had a poor attitude. N. In my opinion, more like a poor translator. :-) I've *never* been able to identify with the Life is suffering thang, even though I've hung out in Buddhist sanghas for years. I personally believe that Life is suffering doesn't do justice to what Buddha had in mind with his First Noble Truth, which was that satisfaction and fulfil- ment can never be based on the elements of the emphemeral world, because they *are*, after all, ephemeral. What is it that is *not* ephemeral? The other three Noble Truths explain the situation somewhat, going on to state exactly what the problem is (attachment to the fruits of desire) and explaining that there is a way beyond suffering. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, defenders_of_bhakti no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Irmeli Mattsson Irmeli.Mattsson@ wrote: snip Although I think that also God makes mistakes and learns through and from them. Question on this one point: By what standard can it be said that God makes mistakes? On the basis of this is of course gnostic thinking (Freemasonree, Rosecrucians). The basic idea behind it, is that creation is like a prison. Depends entirely on the flavor of gnosticism. Some flavors believe that creation wasn't created by God but by the other guy (Satan, the demiurge). I still believe that it owes a lot to Buddhism... That's a stretch. Many translations of the First Noble Truth have it as Life is suffering, but that's not related in any way to God, since they don't believe in one. To say life is suffering implies there is something-- a condition or state--that is *not* suffering. If suffering is said to be a lack, there is something-- a condition or state--in which nothing is lacking. What is it? ++ State of mind? Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Nelson nelsonriddle2001@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Nelson nelsonriddle2001@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Irmeli Mattsson Irmeli.Mattsson@ wrote: snip Although I think that also God makes mistakes and learns through and from them. Question on this one point: By what standard can it be said that God makes mistakes? I recall reading somewhere that he said that he was evolving which would mean not so much making mistakes as doing things differently. N. Evolving toward what? He didn't say but I would guess that being at level, he would be pretty well qualified to decide. If he recognizes that ultimate toward which he is evolving, such that he can see that something he did was a mistake, or that he needed to do things differently, what is the nature of that ultimate? If what we're calling God is not the ultimate, what is? +++Whatever you are seeking, possibly the same. Maybe the ultimate is upgraded from time to time-infinity plus one you know. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
Maybe the ultimate is like Avis--We Try Harder. Sal On Mar 12, 2006, at 11:27 AM, Nelson wrote: > If what we're calling God is not the ultimate, what is? > +++Whatever you are seeking, possibly the same. Maybe the ultimate is upgraded from time to time-infinity plus one you know.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, defenders_of_bhakti no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Irmeli Mattsson Irmeli.Mattsson@ wrote: snip Although I think that also God makes mistakes and learns through and from them. Question on this one point: By what standard can it be said that God makes mistakes? On the basis of this is of course gnostic thinking (Freemasonree, Rosecrucians). The basic idea behind it, is that creation is like a prison. Depends entirely on the flavor of gnosticism. Some flavors believe that creation wasn't created by God but by the other guy (Satan, the demiurge). I still believe that it owes a lot to Buddhism... That's a stretch. Many translations of the First Noble Truth have it as Life is suffering, but that's not related in any way to God, since they don't believe in one. To say life is suffering implies there is something-- a condition or state--that is *not* suffering. If suffering is said to be a lack, there is something-- a condition or state--in which nothing is lacking. What is it? Perfect coordination between one's self and one's environment. To relieve suffering, we don't travel anywhere, so the difference [between suffering or not] must be due to either having full awareness of our envirnment, and taking full advantage of it, or not. So how is this done? First by becoming aware of our environment, all of the inside and all of the outside. Then, having this awareness, we act, and it is the action that integrates both, coordinates the two worlds, of the inside and the outside, until they merge, transforming life from the lack of suffering, to the abundance of perfect coordination. How do we know we are there? We are released from our suffering in all situations and states of consciousness; life begins to transform itself before us, always perfect, always just what we wanted. Not by us 'making do', or settling for less, but by having a perfect acceptance of all that we do, and a perfect response from our environment, our world, that maintains our everpresent success. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Irmeli Mattsson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Irmeli Mattsson Irmeli.Mattsson@ wrote: snip Although I think that also God makes mistakes and learns through and from them. Question on this one point: By what standard can it be said that God makes mistakes? It is just the observation that evolving in nature happens through errors and in animals also by avoiding the mistakes and as even in a more advanced form humans can sometimes also learn from mistakes. I consider the manifest creation to be expression of God or one aspect of God. Irmeli Does God exist within the boundries of time? How do you know if what WE perceive as sequential unfoldment of existence isn't like how Mozart described his comprehension of a symphony, where all the notes were present at the same time though he could only write them out one- at-a-time. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, defenders_of_bhakti [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Irmeli Mattsson Irmeli.Mattsson@ wrote: snip Although I think that also God makes mistakes and learns through and from them. Question on this one point: By what standard can it be said that God makes mistakes? On the basis of this is of course gnostic thinking (Freemasonree, Rosecrucians). The basic idea behind it, is that creation is like a prison. I still believe that it owes a lot to Buddhism, possibly even the Upanishads, who say, that the Gods keep man like cattle. In Tantra there is a term calling it the 'original ignorance' Why would ignorance be there at the first place, if the creation was perfect, just as it is? The original ignorance is the mistake of the intellect, noting distinctions between Self and Self. This gives rise to all relative existence after an infinite or near-infinite set of combinations of noticing the noticing about what you are noticing... Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, defenders_of_bhakti no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Irmeli Mattsson Irmeli.Mattsson@ wrote: snip Although I think that also God makes mistakes and learns through and from them. Question on this one point: By what standard can it be said that God makes mistakes? On the basis of this is of course gnostic thinking (Freemasonree, Rosecrucians). The basic idea behind it, is that creation is like a prison. I still believe that it owes a lot to Buddhism, possibly even the Upanishads, who say, that the Gods keep man like cattle. In Tantra there is a term calling it the 'original ignorance' Why would ignorance be there at the first place, if the creation was perfect, just as it is? Ignorance *of what*? You can only have ignorance by comparison with something else that is not ignorance. Ignorance is a lack of some sort. Where is what is lacking in ignorance to be found? Here's what I'm getting at: If God makes mistakes, if creation is imperfect, where is the perfection that is lacking? Or to put it another way, what is it that we're calling God? If what we're calling God makes mistakes, then this God cannot be the ultimate, because there has to be perfection for there to be a mistake. MMY gives a lecture where he describes the creation of the universe in terms of the ultimate mistake: the unmanifest notices that it exists by virtual of the buddhi -- the fundamental intellect. This mistake is inevitable given that the nature of consciousness is to become conscious and the nature of the intellect is to make distinctions but it is a mistake nonetheless because there IS no distinction between Self and Self and yet the buddhi recognizes enough of one to come into [as it comes into?] existence and note Self and Other. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Nelson [EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote:
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Nelson
nelsonriddle2001@
wrote:
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@
wrote:
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Nelson
nelsonriddle2001@
wrote:
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend
jstein@
wrote:
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Irmeli Mattsson
Irmeli.Mattsson@ wrote:
snip
Although I think that also God makes mistakes and learns
through and from them.
Question on this one point: By what standard can it
be said that God makes mistakes?
I recall reading somewhere that he said that he was
evolving which would mean not so much making mistakes as
doing
things differently. N.
Evolving toward what?
He didn't say but I would guess that being at level, he
would
be pretty well qualified to decide.
If he recognizes that ultimate toward which he is evolving,
such that he can see that something he did was a mistake,
or that he needed to do things differently, what is the
nature of that ultimate?
If what we're calling God is not the ultimate, what is?
+++Whatever you are seeking, possibly the same.
Maybe the ultimate is upgraded from time to time-infinity plus
one
you know.
Nyah, Aleph[i+1].
Aleph[0] is the level of infinitity that the countable numbers
possess: 1, 2, 3, . It is the smallest infinity.
Aleph[1] is the level of infinity found when you combine all the
numbers of the countable infinity in every possible combination, also
called the Power Set P(Aleph[0]).
Aleph[i+1] is the Power Set: P(Aleph[i]).
Aleph[i+2] is the Power Set of the Power Set: P(P(Aleph[i])).
Aleph[R] is the level of infinitity of the real number line. It may
or may not fit in with the series given above, but by Cantor's
Transfinite Arithmatic, P(Aleph[0]) P(Aleph[R]) P(P(Aleph[R])).
Cantor, by the way, died in an insane asylum, but his Transfinite
Arithmatic is considered one of the most important advances in
mathematics in history.
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[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
Thanks for the heads-up on Cantor. The website on the Hotel Infinity is good stuff. ** --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Nelson nelsonriddle2001@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Nelson nelsonriddle2001@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Nelson nelsonriddle2001@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Irmeli Mattsson Irmeli.Mattsson@ wrote: snip Although I think that also God makes mistakes and learns through and from them. Question on this one point: By what standard can it be said that God makes mistakes? I recall reading somewhere that he said that he was evolving which would mean not so much making mistakes as doing things differently. N. Evolving toward what? He didn't say but I would guess that being at level, he would be pretty well qualified to decide. If he recognizes that ultimate toward which he is evolving, such that he can see that something he did was a mistake, or that he needed to do things differently, what is the nature of that ultimate? If what we're calling God is not the ultimate, what is? +++Whatever you are seeking, possibly the same. Maybe the ultimate is upgraded from time to time-infinity plus one you know. Nyah, Aleph[i+1]. Aleph[0] is the level of infinitity that the countable numbers possess: 1, 2, 3, . It is the smallest infinity. Aleph[1] is the level of infinity found when you combine all the numbers of the countable infinity in every possible combination, also called the Power Set P(Aleph[0]). Aleph[i+1] is the Power Set: P(Aleph[i]). Aleph[i+2] is the Power Set of the Power Set: P(P(Aleph[i])). Aleph[R] is the level of infinitity of the real number line. It may or may not fit in with the series given above, but by Cantor's Transfinite Arithmatic, P(Aleph[0]) P(Aleph[R]) P(P(Aleph[R])). Cantor, by the way, died in an insane asylum, but his Transfinite Arithmatic is considered one of the most important advances in mathematics in history. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, defenders_of_bhakti no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Irmeli Mattsson Irmeli.Mattsson@ wrote: snip Although I think that also God makes mistakes and learns through and from them. Question on this one point: By what standard can it be said that God makes mistakes? On the basis of this is of course gnostic thinking (Freemasonree, Rosecrucians). The basic idea behind it, is that creation is like a prison. I still believe that it owes a lot to Buddhism, possibly even the Upanishads, who say, that the Gods keep man like cattle. In Tantra there is a term calling it the 'original ignorance' Why would ignorance be there at the first place, if the creation was perfect, just as it is? Ignorance *of what*? You can only have ignorance by comparison with something else that is not ignorance. Ignorance is a lack of some sort. Where is what is lacking in ignorance to be found? Here's what I'm getting at: If God makes mistakes, if creation is imperfect, where is the perfection that is lacking? Or to put it another way, what is it that we're calling God? If what we're calling God makes mistakes, then this God cannot be the ultimate, because there has to be perfection for there to be a mistake. MMY gives a lecture where he describes the creation of the universe in terms of the ultimate mistake: the unmanifest notices that it exists by virtual of the buddhi -- the fundamental intellect. This mistake is inevitable given that the nature of consciousness is to become conscious and the nature of the intellect is to make distinctions but it is a mistake nonetheless because there IS no distinction between Self and Self and yet the buddhi recognizes enough of one to come into [as it comes into?] existence and note Self and Other. Right, but this is still not what I was asking Irmeli, originally. She said: I think that also God makes mistakes and learns through and from them. What I was trying to get at is that for there to be a mistake, especially one that can be corrected, there has to be a corresponding NOT-mistake, i.e., perfection. So if God makes mistakes, then there is something beyond God that is free of mistakes. So this God cannot be the ultimate entity/state/condition. The point being that if when you say God you're referring to that Ultimate, but when I say God I'm referring to the mistake-making entity/state/condition, we're not going to understand each other very well. It seemed a lot more profound before I actually wrote it down. ;-) Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Nelson nelsonriddle2001@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Nelson nelsonriddle2001@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Nelson nelsonriddle2001@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Irmeli Mattsson Irmeli.Mattsson@ wrote: snip Although I think that also God makes mistakes and learns through and from them. Question on this one point: By what standard can it be said that God makes mistakes? I recall reading somewhere that he said that he was evolving which would mean not so much making mistakes as doing things differently. N. Evolving toward what? He didn't say but I would guess that being at level, he would be pretty well qualified to decide. If he recognizes that ultimate toward which he is evolving, such that he can see that something he did was a mistake, or that he needed to do things differently, what is the nature of that ultimate? If what we're calling God is not the ultimate, what is? +++Whatever you are seeking, possibly the same. Maybe the ultimate is upgraded from time to time-infinity plus one you know. Nyah, Aleph[i+1]. Aleph[0] is the level of infinitity that the countable numbers possess: 1, 2, 3, . It is the smallest infinity. Aleph[1] is the level of infinity found when you combine all the numbers of the countable infinity in every possible combination, also called the Power Set P(Aleph[0]). Aleph[i+1] is the Power Set: P(Aleph[i]). Aleph[i+2] is the Power Set of the Power Set: P(P(Aleph[i])). Aleph[R] is the level of infinitity of the real number line. It may or may not fit in with the series given above, but by Cantor's Transfinite Arithmatic, P(Aleph[0]) P(Aleph[R]) P(P(Aleph[R])). Cantor, by the way, died in an insane asylum, but his Transfinite Arithmatic is considered one of the most important advances in mathematics in history. +++ Looks like I have gotten into the realm of the square root of minus one... Did not know about Cantor- thanks. N. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
I still believe that it owes a lot to Buddhism... That's a stretch. Many translations of the First Noble Truth have it as Life is suffering, but that's not related in any way to God, since they don't believe in one. To say life is suffering implies there is something-- a condition or state--that is *not* suffering. If suffering is said to be a lack, there is something-- a condition or state--in which nothing is lacking. What is it? ++ State of mind? In a way. If (as the Four Noble Truths state) the cause of suffering is attachment to desire/aversion, then living in a state of mind that is *not* attached to achieving the fruits of desire or avoiding the things one is averse to is a way beyond suffering. The input to life doesn't change, only one's ability to greet it with equanimity. Try to force the square peg of that input into the round hole of one's desires, and you get suffering. Treat it as a square peg and be neither attached nor averse, no suffering. Nothing to achieve, no obstacles to remove from the path to non-suffering, nowhere to go. Same old same old...just life dealt with as What Is, not What You'd Like Life To Be. Just for fun, compare and contrast this to MMY's latest U.N. rap, in which he once again presents his S-V theories and suggests that the problems of the world can't be solved unless one starts over with all-new buildings. In the Buddhist view, this approach to resolving suffering can never work because it is based upon trying to change the input of life to avoid suffering, rather than change the inner being's ability to deals with the input with- out attachment. In the Buddhist view, the richest, most successful person in the world, living in a perfectly-aligned S-V house but still attached to his desires, will be lost in suffering. Whereas the poor person who lives in a cardboard box, if he is not attached to his desires, is beyond suffering. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I still believe that it owes a lot to Buddhism... That's a stretch. Many translations of the First Noble Truth have it as Life is suffering, but that's not related in any way to God, since they don't believe in one. To say life is suffering implies there is something-- a condition or state--that is *not* suffering. If suffering is said to be a lack, there is something-- a condition or state--in which nothing is lacking. What is it? ++ State of mind? In a way. If (as the Four Noble Truths state) the cause of suffering is attachment to desire/aversion, then living in a state of mind that is *not* attached to achieving the fruits of desire or avoiding the things one is averse to is a way beyond suffering. The input to life doesn't change, only one's ability to greet it with equanimity. Try to force the square peg of that input into the round hole of one's desires, and you get suffering. Treat it as a square peg and be neither attached nor averse, no suffering. Nothing to achieve, no obstacles to remove from the path to non-suffering, nowhere to go. Same old same old...just life dealt with as What Is, not What You'd Like Life To Be. Another thought on this subject, to relate it back to the rap that started this thread: Both desire and aversion are an attempt to turn What is into something else. The person who is convinced that there is something that 'prevents' their enlightenment -- whether they consider that something to be ego, or intel- lect, or stress, or whatever -- is attempting to (in Vaj's terms) patch the What is of the universe and transform it into the What I'd like it to be of the professional sufferer. It's the desire/aversion cycle as path -- I should come back to the mantra; I should not trusts my ego/ self/intellect. The What is of life is *all you need* to realize enlightenment. Nothing needs to be achieved, nothing removed. Nothing is an 'obstacle' to enlightenment. The ego is enlightenment, the intellect is enlighten- ment, the 'good' questions of the bhakti are enlight- enment and the 'bad' questions of the cynic are enlightenment. Only enlightenment is. Listening to someone go on and on about the parts of one's self one has to reject or not trust or get beyond to realize enlightenment is a lot like watching someone looking for their glasses while wearing their glasses. You'd kinda like to tell them, but at the same time they seem to be so *involved* in searching for the glasses everywhere that you hate to spoil their fun... Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Marek Reavis [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Thanks for the heads-up on Cantor. The website on the Hotel Infinity is good stuff. ** Wikipedia seems to have an awful lot on the subject. It's quite fun to contemplate deities whose hierachy is like the Power Set's. HOffstedder wrote about something like that in his _GEB: the eternal golden braid_: The recursive G.O.D. (God Over Djin). Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Michael Dean Goodman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Many spiritual seekers have no idea how cynical and doubt-laden they actually are. It is this blindness and denial of the presence of doubt and cynicism that makes the birth of a profound trust impossible - a trust without which final libera- tion will always remain simply a dream. - Adyashanti I always liked Adyashanti. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: We all know from everyday experience that questions (curiosity) generally can have two very distinct purposes, even in mundane conversation: 1. To actually gain understanding, as sincere inquiries; to create love/togetherness/unity by going deeper into knowledge; to open the conduit for richer flow of knowledge. 2. To hide something behind the smokescreen of a question: a. To hide our criticism/anger, to avoid making a directly critical statement. b. To hide that we're trying to control or dominate someone - to hide that we're trying to manipulate someone or trying to engage someone in a game. c. To create doubt/division/fear. His definition of the first (good) type of question seems to be that they have to be based on total and complete surrender and submission to the teacher. Sorry to correct you Barry: but he nowhere says so. He rather speaks of questions *curiosity* even in a 'mundane conversation' This does not imply complete surrender and submission as you falsly say. His definition of the second type of question seems to be that their purpose is by definition bad or nefarious, and that therefore the questions he assigns to this category can be justifiably disregarded, and the questioner demonized. Well, we all know rethoric questions, don't we? (This was a rethoric question). To me this seems to be just an extension on such rethoric questions. Maybe rethoric question, which are not immediately recognizable as such. I don't see any demonization in this. Doesn't it strike you as fascinating that a person who has set *himself* up as a for-profit spiritual teacher is *already* promoting a closed belief system in which any question about his *own* actions that he doesn't like can automatically be written off as a) angry, b) an attempt at control or game- playing, or c) an attempt to sow seeds of doubt and fear? If I were *really* cynical, I would suggest that this kind of closed belief system doesn't bode well for Michael's clients. Well, you are real cynical and say it. Again, rethoric. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
It's rhetorical, Def. :) Sal On Mar 11, 2006, at 6:49 PM, defenders_of_bhakti wrote: Well, we all know rethoric questions, don't we? (This was a rethoric question).
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
Patrick, thanks for this, couldn't agree more. ** --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Patrick Gillam [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Maharishi's commentary says: This acceptance of the teacher is actually a surrender to the unbounded Truth; it invites the unbounded to shine forth through the teacher. Instead of the teacher, read life. This acceptance of life is actually a surrender to the unbounded Truth; it invites the unbounded to shine forth through life. And we have the work of Byron Katie. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Self-doubt and cynicism vs. profound trust - the role of surrender as the fo
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, defenders_of_bhakti [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: His definition of the first (good) type of question seems to be that they have to be based on total and complete surrender and submission to the teacher. Sorry to correct you Barry: but he nowhere says so. He rather speaks of questions *curiosity* even in a 'mundane conversation' This does not imply complete surrender and submission as you falsly say. Not to argue, but you seem to have missed this section: Maharishi's commentary says: By 'homage' is meant submission or surrender. The commentary says that surrender to the teacher (ultimately to the Truth that the teacher is a reflector of), is the prerequisite for asking questions (repeated inquiry, or curiosity). As a funny aside, it strikes me that a curious seeker, perusing Google to find out more about MDG (I'd never heard of him until these recent long rants to FFL), might wonder whether his fascination with submission and surrender was somehow related to one of his public appearances that is still listed on Google: http://www.commandperformance.net/calendar/Sept%2004/25.htm :-) :-) :-) Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM ~- To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
