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brushjw
USA
191 Posts |
 Posted - Jul 13 2008 : 12:05:58 AM
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"Irrevocable commitment to any religion is not only intellectual suicide; it is positive unfaith because it closes the mind to any new vision of the world. Faith is, above all, open-ness—an act of trust in the unknown."
Alan Watts, The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are p. 14 |
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yogani
USA
5201 Posts |
Posted - Jul 13 2008 : 12:22:27 AM
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Amen to that. 
It has been said that it is good to be born in a religion,
but not so good to die in one.
The guru is in you.
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Tibetan_Ice
Canada
758 Posts |
Posted - Jul 13 2008 : 01:15:56 AM
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"If religiousness is all you are interested in, there is no need to look anywhere other than organized religion. The profound statements of the great teachers are not much different from each other. All I am saying is that looking to alien lands and religions does not mean anything. You learn new techniques, new systems, new phrases, and then you begin to think and speak in terms of this new language and probably you feel just great but basically it does not mean anything at all."
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"Whatever man experiences—self-awareness, self-consciousness—he has sown the seeds of his total destruction. All those religions have come out of that divisive consciousness in man. All the teachings of those teachers will inevitably destroy mankind. There is no point in reviving all those things and starting revivalistic movements. That is dead, finished. Anything that is born out of this division in your consciousness is destructive is violence. It is so because it is trying to protect not this living organism, not life, but the continuity of thought. And through that it can maintain the status quo of your culture or whatever you want to call it, the society. The problems are neurological. If you give a chance to the body it will handle all those problems, but if you try to solve them on a psychological level or on an ethical level you are not going to succeed."
- UG Krishnamurti - The Natural State
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brushjw
USA
191 Posts |
Posted - Jul 13 2008 : 02:04:49 AM
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"The sensation of 'I' as a lonely and isolated center of being is so powerful and commonsensical, and so fundamental to our modes of speech and thought, to our laws and social institutions, that we cannot experience selfhood except as something superficial in the scheme of the universe."
I keep rereading this sentence because my intuition tells me there's something very important here... maybe the ideas of sensation and experience I discussed on my 12 July post in this thread: http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic....&whichpage=2
What is "the sensation of 'I'"?
How do I "experience selfhood"?
namaste,
Joe |
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emc
2072 Posts |
Posted - Jul 13 2008 : 04:31:54 AM
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My associations to your questions, Joe:
The sensation of I in this context is described as "a lonely and isolated center of being"... it's what most of us have experienced our whole lifes: our personal identity. I am emc, I was born 1969, I work as a teacher... blah blah...
As long as the individual consciousness is stuck in identification with the personal body-mind, every talk about "The universal Self"/selfhood will be a superficial thing. When we start SENSING the universal self - as stillness in meditation for example - we get another reference point and our identity can start to shift from 'being the person getting more and more stillness inside' to... 'being stillness coming into embodiment more and more'... The sense of I will then expand and go beyond the person and be more and more inclusive... the individual consciousness will be realized to be a wave on the ocean - actually being the Ocean - and not individual at all... but at the same time... individual, cause what 'I' have realized and is sensing is not what 'you' have realized or are sensing... as long as we are in separate bodies in manifestation...
What you describe here sound exactly like that shift in identity going on: "Then my experience is that of a process which is happening, rather than an "I" named Joe. For some reason I quickly exit this state and become distracted by thoughts but I know from experience I'll slowly learn to maintain this state for longer and longer periods over time."
I also quickly snap out of that by distracting thoughts, but as you say... It is a practice to stay home longer and longer... |
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Sparkle
Ireland
1457 Posts |
Posted - Jul 13 2008 : 11:08:25 AM
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Is Buddhism a religion? Thich Nhat Hanh would say no.
The first of his 14 mindfulness trainings as follows:
1. Openness
Aware of the suffering created by fanaticism and intolerance, I am determined not to be idolatrous about or bound to any doctrine, theory or ideology, even Buddhist ones. Buddhist teachings are guiding means to help me learn to look deeply and to develop my understanding and compassion. They are not doctrines to fight, kill or die for. |
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brushjw
USA
191 Posts |
Posted - Jul 13 2008 : 8:37:04 PM
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I just reread this paragraph from Carl Sagan and was struck by the similarity to the above Alan Watts quote:
"There is no easy way around this fact: depending on where you are looking from, you see the universe and its finality completely differently. Please ponder upon this, for it seems to me one of the best antidotes for dogma. Whatever your views are, don't make them a prison. Always leave space to change your mind and your system of the world."
Awakening the Third Eye p. 18
Thanks for your posts, yogani, TI, emc and Sparkle. I've found that the process of posting, even just quotes, helps clarify an issue for me in some way. I don't try to solve the issues intellectually, I just clarify the issue, leave a big ? as a mental placeholder, and open my heart. The Universe eventually provides the means for me to change so I live the answer. I hope that makes sense.
Back to Alan Watts:
"...[S]o-called opposites, such as light and darkness, sound and silence, solid and space, on and off, inside and outside, appearing and disappearing, cause and effect, are poles or aspects of the same thing. But we have no word for that thing, save such vague concepts as Existence, Being, God, or the Ultimate Ground of Being. For the most part these remain nebulous ideas without becoming vivid feelings or experiences."
Oh no, feelings and experiences again! 
namaste,
Joe |
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The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are
