Hi -- I'm new here!
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- Posts: 68
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Hi -- I'm new here!
My interests center mostly in the Cabala, Alchemy and Ancient Astology. The longer I live the less difference I see between any of the Spiritual Paths --
I realize that those with a religious bend tend to make their own system right and others 'deficient', but the new (and growing paradigm) seems to be --
All reality is NON_DUAL
I like that umbrella. Itallows space for everyone.
I am male, retired and a senior citizen. I am currently spending half my time with Yoga and the other half with Carl Jung -- all in service of asgtrolgy.
I promise not to bore anyone with my personal views.
shantana
I realize that those with a religious bend tend to make their own system right and others 'deficient', but the new (and growing paradigm) seems to be --
All reality is NON_DUAL
I like that umbrella. Itallows space for everyone.
I am male, retired and a senior citizen. I am currently spending half my time with Yoga and the other half with Carl Jung -- all in service of asgtrolgy.
I promise not to bore anyone with my personal views.
shantana
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- Posts: 68
- Joined: Fri Jun 24, 2005 7:00 pm
non-dual or not non-dual?
Hi Abishek =-- :smt001
A short answer to your question might be ‘Since we are all God, you are God. Hence you are non-dual.’
As a ‘break-through’ experience, as YaYa3 suggests, non-dual may get a bit more complicated. Whatever Reality is, IT seems to
have many levels, while remaining one Unity. With this approach, I suppose, most of us spend our lives in the bargain basement until
we discover there is an elevator which actually goes ‘up’!
The ride to the higher levels, I am told, can be quite a thrill.
Meister Eckhart, the Christian Mystic, once stated the matter this way: ‘I find in this break-through that God and I are one and the same.’
The Christian mystics gave this level the name of ‘Godhead – formless, boundless and unmanifest’. And since IT is the Source or Root of everything else, IT must also include the manifest world.
The Hebrew mystics called this the ‘en sof’, meaning ‘limitless nothing’. The Hindu Vedantists named it Brahman (‘Brahman alone is the world’).
But all of this is a rather metaphysical approach. I was thinking more along the following lines: ‘since all differences in spiritual systems seem to be in names only, why not simply agree we are all the same – all One?’
In I AM THAT Sri Nisargadatta points out that ‘the memory of an event cannot pass for the event itself, nor can the anticipation’.
So 'there is something exceptional about the present event, a livingness, an actualization, a livingness, and it stands out as if illumined.’
In short, friend Abishek, you ARE this awareness, this existent and blissful moment of energy. So how does it feel to realize you are eternal?
shantana
.
A short answer to your question might be ‘Since we are all God, you are God. Hence you are non-dual.’
As a ‘break-through’ experience, as YaYa3 suggests, non-dual may get a bit more complicated. Whatever Reality is, IT seems to
have many levels, while remaining one Unity. With this approach, I suppose, most of us spend our lives in the bargain basement until
we discover there is an elevator which actually goes ‘up’!
The ride to the higher levels, I am told, can be quite a thrill.
Meister Eckhart, the Christian Mystic, once stated the matter this way: ‘I find in this break-through that God and I are one and the same.’
The Christian mystics gave this level the name of ‘Godhead – formless, boundless and unmanifest’. And since IT is the Source or Root of everything else, IT must also include the manifest world.
The Hebrew mystics called this the ‘en sof’, meaning ‘limitless nothing’. The Hindu Vedantists named it Brahman (‘Brahman alone is the world’).
But all of this is a rather metaphysical approach. I was thinking more along the following lines: ‘since all differences in spiritual systems seem to be in names only, why not simply agree we are all the same – all One?’
In I AM THAT Sri Nisargadatta points out that ‘the memory of an event cannot pass for the event itself, nor can the anticipation’.
So 'there is something exceptional about the present event, a livingness, an actualization, a livingness, and it stands out as if illumined.’
In short, friend Abishek, you ARE this awareness, this existent and blissful moment of energy. So how does it feel to realize you are eternal?
shantana
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i think i like being a normal mortal. there is no fun in being eternal. it takes out all the simple joys of life from living. i would rather be feel sad and angry and maybe even hateful and jealous at times just for the heck of it then live life in eternal bliss and happiness. i dont know what life with be with any one of the emotions missing.how does it feel to realize you are eternal?
eternity strictly speaking could also mean the end. maybe the end of ones karmic cycle? i dont know. to me when i feel happy and sad and feel the various emotions good and bad is eternal. it is what makes life worht living.
Am i being too dramatic? :D
Abhishek
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- Posts: 68
- Joined: Fri Jun 24, 2005 7:00 pm
it is o.k. to be eternal since you already are!
Abhishek --
your remarks remind me of story about a simple peasant girl, her boyfriend, the villagers and a local recluse or monk.
The boyfriend got the girl pregnant, but refused to own up.
The girl told her parents it was the monk who got her pregnant.
When the child (a boy7) was born, the whole village trekked up to the monk's cave and after berating him, left the child in his care. He smiled and nodded --
and raised the boy for four years
the young girl and her boyfriend worked things out and got married. and then she wanted her child back, so she told everyone the truth
the whole village trekked up the mountain again, and after apologizing, took the boy back to his mother ...
the monk smiled and nodded ....
AND I am sure he enjoyed the entire show! So one can be enternal, and still share all those passions and other goodies. They just don't run our lives any more.
And -- you understand (I hope) that I am only talking about theory here.
shantana
your remarks remind me of story about a simple peasant girl, her boyfriend, the villagers and a local recluse or monk.
The boyfriend got the girl pregnant, but refused to own up.
The girl told her parents it was the monk who got her pregnant.
When the child (a boy7) was born, the whole village trekked up to the monk's cave and after berating him, left the child in his care. He smiled and nodded --
and raised the boy for four years
the young girl and her boyfriend worked things out and got married. and then she wanted her child back, so she told everyone the truth
the whole village trekked up the mountain again, and after apologizing, took the boy back to his mother ...
the monk smiled and nodded ....
AND I am sure he enjoyed the entire show! So one can be enternal, and still share all those passions and other goodies. They just don't run our lives any more.
And -- you understand (I hope) that I am only talking about theory here.
shantana
Dear Shantana,
your point well taken. and i am learning. and as i stated before i consider you have much more experience and knowledge than most of here on the board put together. i am hardliner and have a fixed way of seeing or doing things for most.. unbending and maybe even stuborn for most part. but things are different now.
However, i still cant come to except that being eternal has any more to "being" than being a mere mortal. The monk you are talking about today is hard to find, if one does exsits. and a monk i am not. what i mean is look at The Dalai Lama, he is one of the few examples of real living, breathing, talking, walking heavenly soul (if you wanna call him that) here on earth. and look what he got himself into -i dont know the details or even the full story, so i wont indulge much in it. but from what i heard sometime back was there was a huge huge controversy and shit load of politics surrounding him.
Like i said i dont know the facts nor the whole story... but today all it takes is for a finger to be pointed at someone. The monk and maybe The Dalai Lama is taking all this "sportingly" but to what end? what did you monk tell or teach the world by taking the child under is charge without a word?
i dont know... there a ton of questions in my head. maybe you can help me see your point we we discuss this more and more.
Thanks again,
Abhishek
your point well taken. and i am learning. and as i stated before i consider you have much more experience and knowledge than most of here on the board put together. i am hardliner and have a fixed way of seeing or doing things for most.. unbending and maybe even stuborn for most part. but things are different now.
However, i still cant come to except that being eternal has any more to "being" than being a mere mortal. The monk you are talking about today is hard to find, if one does exsits. and a monk i am not. what i mean is look at The Dalai Lama, he is one of the few examples of real living, breathing, talking, walking heavenly soul (if you wanna call him that) here on earth. and look what he got himself into -i dont know the details or even the full story, so i wont indulge much in it. but from what i heard sometime back was there was a huge huge controversy and shit load of politics surrounding him.
Like i said i dont know the facts nor the whole story... but today all it takes is for a finger to be pointed at someone. The monk and maybe The Dalai Lama is taking all this "sportingly" but to what end? what did you monk tell or teach the world by taking the child under is charge without a word?
i dont know... there a ton of questions in my head. maybe you can help me see your point we we discuss this more and more.
Thanks again,
Abhishek
When the time comes, when living the life you live becomes too hard, you turn inward and that's were It all Is. It's not intellectual and it's not about history and past sadhanas or gurus or what have you.
If you enjoy the giant ups and the giant downs of life, the stress, the pain, the worries, the depression, disease...enjoy!
some people reach a point, though, where they just DON'T WANNA DO THAT ANYMORE. until you reach that point, you just might as well forget about it, because one never "gets" it until one GETS it.
If you enjoy the giant ups and the giant downs of life, the stress, the pain, the worries, the depression, disease...enjoy!
some people reach a point, though, where they just DON'T WANNA DO THAT ANYMORE. until you reach that point, you just might as well forget about it, because one never "gets" it until one GETS it.
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- Posts: 68
- Joined: Fri Jun 24, 2005 7:00 pm
on being sporting ....
Well said, YaYa3 ....
Hi Albhishek –
When you said ‘sportingly’ – as if there were ‘points to score’ for not showing any reaction under stress, you put your finger on the core of the monk’s story. He did not have to fight his ego; he would actually enjoy – and hugely, all the energy that the villagers brought to him. And, he would be able to ‘read’ the players at a glance, and probably sensed the true story. And obviously (from his point of view), LIFE wanted him to take care of the child until the other players worked through their roles in their little soap opera.
And, he would also enjoy, and hugely, the gift of having the child for four years, and would not look on the boy as ‘his’ possession. Equally, he would enjoy the energy that came along when the villagers retrieved the child. AND the outcome!
To use a simile: a Buddhist monk scales the mountain by years of work and meditation. Then – if he makes his or her ‘breakthrough’, he/she comes back down as a Boddhisattva. Which means he/she now enjoys the ‘game of life’, and helps others. More importantly the ‘game of life’ no longer runs him/her.
Or so they tell me.
Shantana
Hi Albhishek –
When you said ‘sportingly’ – as if there were ‘points to score’ for not showing any reaction under stress, you put your finger on the core of the monk’s story. He did not have to fight his ego; he would actually enjoy – and hugely, all the energy that the villagers brought to him. And, he would be able to ‘read’ the players at a glance, and probably sensed the true story. And obviously (from his point of view), LIFE wanted him to take care of the child until the other players worked through their roles in their little soap opera.
And, he would also enjoy, and hugely, the gift of having the child for four years, and would not look on the boy as ‘his’ possession. Equally, he would enjoy the energy that came along when the villagers retrieved the child. AND the outcome!
To use a simile: a Buddhist monk scales the mountain by years of work and meditation. Then – if he makes his or her ‘breakthrough’, he/she comes back down as a Boddhisattva. Which means he/she now enjoys the ‘game of life’, and helps others. More importantly the ‘game of life’ no longer runs him/her.
Or so they tell me.
Shantana
i see Yaya's point. and i am starting to understand. it like we are all caught up in this rat race. where there is no starting and no ending... in a figure of speech.
and like YaYa put it ... "because one never "gets" it until one GETS it." ... and i am still to get it. i hope i get it soon.
however, there are still questions in my mind. tons of them. i am not sure if i should start a new threa about it or just continue here? i mean this is suppsed to be your introduction thread. my questions for most are philosophical in nature. things i am trying to understand but have been been able to.
Thanks
Abhishek
and like YaYa put it ... "because one never "gets" it until one GETS it." ... and i am still to get it. i hope i get it soon.
however, there are still questions in my mind. tons of them. i am not sure if i should start a new threa about it or just continue here? i mean this is suppsed to be your introduction thread. my questions for most are philosophical in nature. things i am trying to understand but have been been able to.
Thanks
Abhishek
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