Spiritual Reorientation 10: The Art of Life

originally posted by: TzarChasm
a reply to: BlueMule

You are a smart guy. I don't understand why you haven't taken advantage of the available scholarship and scientific evidence. We can tell you haven't. You are only using your common sense. What if everyone relied on common sense instead of scholarship and science? Where would humanity be?

Getting along merrily in a much cleaner and quieter world.

So you're anti-science and anti-intellectual?

originally posted by: BlueMule

originally posted by: TzarChasm
a reply to: BlueMule

You are a smart guy. I don't understand why you haven't taken advantage of the available scholarship and scientific evidence. We can tell you haven't. You are only using your common sense. What if everyone relied on common sense instead of scholarship and science? Where would humanity be?

Getting along merrily in a much cleaner and quieter world.

So you're anti-science and anti-intellectual?

did I say that? there's more than one kind of world that you can be happy and prosperous in. As long as common sense prevails, there is hope.

originally posted by: TzarChasm

originally posted by: BlueMule

originally posted by: TzarChasm
a reply to: BlueMule

You are a smart guy. I don't understand why you haven't taken advantage of the available scholarship and scientific evidence. We can tell you haven't. You are only using your common sense. What if everyone relied on common sense instead of scholarship and science? Where would humanity be?

Getting along merrily in a much cleaner and quieter world.

So you're anti-science and anti-intellectual?

did I say that? there's more than one kind of world that you can be happy and prosperous in. As long as common sense prevails, there is hope.

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen."

- Albert Einstein

Sometimes common sense doesn't jive with the evidence. Then you gotta make a choice. You have to expand your philosophy, or you have to expand your dogma.

a reply to: BlueMule

Bluemule, I agree with your assertion that aphorism may be reacting to his own reflections, however I disagree with you on a few points and I'd like to add my five cents. A person who is awake, is ALWAYS awake. They do not need to 'maintain it', they don't go to it, and they don't come back from it. Or go in or out of it. This is a false belief. It is a permanent living reality, REGARDLESS as to what's happening to the mind and what thoughts are being generated by it, which eventually a Sage will ignore all together..

This full time job stuff you're referring to, simply is not there for a person who is awake. It is the mind that is trying to make it a full time job. It's the one trying to maintain levels of phenomenal experience which can ONLY be temporary.

The self, or the rediscovery of it, on the other hand (or the Truth) is not an experience and not a phenomena to be experienced, captured, maintained or held. Yet it is infinitely more nutritious and ALL encompassing. It is not partnered up with the mind's endless quest for ever-increasing levels of phenomenal experiences. Thus no need to practice mysticism, yoga, spirituality or anything else for that matter.

A sage, who in my opinion is a mystic who graduated, just abides in the self and lives accordingly and is not enchanted by Maya. They are probably the only free people on Earth. Truly liberated. Not held down by religious and spiritual practices, disciplines, dogma and ideologies.

The self never comes and goes, and doesn't require 'hard work', time or discipline to maintain and MOST importantly, it doesn't need and it doesn't want ANYTHING you want or desire. It is full, whole, complete, always fresh, always here and now. It doesn't want anything from 'you' or your mind/Ego. Thus it doesn't care what either of them are doing because it is infinitely more intelligent them both of them combined.

Sages , Awakened people (just pardon the use of the terms for now) operate from that. They don't seek themselves in the impermanence of mind and it's endless thirst for phenomenal experience and infinite flavors of Maya. Mystics may....but not so called 'enlightened' people. In fact, they don't seek at all. They may play....but they're not seeking and they're not working hard to maintain anything whatsoever.

originally posted by: BlueMule

originally posted by: TzarChasm

originally posted by: BlueMule

originally posted by: TzarChasm
a reply to: BlueMule

You are a smart guy. I don't understand why you haven't taken advantage of the available scholarship and scientific evidence. We can tell you haven't. You are only using your common sense. What if everyone relied on common sense instead of scholarship and science? Where would humanity be?

Getting along merrily in a much cleaner and quieter world.

So you're anti-science and anti-intellectual?

did I say that? there's more than one kind of world that you can be happy and prosperous in. As long as common sense prevails, there is hope.

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen."

- Albert Einstein

Sometimes common sense doesn't jive with the evidence. Then you gotta make a choice. You have to expand your philosophy, or you have to expand your dogma.

is that all you want to do here now? Be contrary for the sake of it?

Fact factories frequently favor fashionable factors.
Fact finders find favorable factors funny.
Fact frequency forms familiar fantasies.
Fact familiarity frequently fosters fantastic forms.
Feh.

originally posted by: GetOutOfMyLight
Fact factories frequently favor fashionable factors.
Fact finders find favorable factors funny.
Fact frequency forms familiar fantasies.
Fact familiarity frequently fosters fantastic forms.
Feh.

sounds like you harbor an intense distrust of the scientific authorities who establish such facts.

a reply to: Visitor2012

We might not be on the same page with regard to some terminology. So maybe, if I describe one of my experiences to you, you could tell me what you would call it? I would appreciate any insight you can offer.

Back in 2010, during the winter solstice lunar eclipse, I had a remarkable experience that changed my life. My mind was pulled past the state of deep dreamless sleep by two pulsing blue lights. I didn't wake up... I stayed asleep. But I woke up within the state of deep sleep. As they pulsed, I became more and more lucid. It was like penetrating a membrane.

When I was fully through, I was fully lucid. I could see in all directions, and behind me the material realm shrunk to nothingness at the speed of light, or so it seemed. The pulsing blue spheres became more defined. I could then see that they were comprised of many smaller blue spheres arranged in concentric circles. The were flashing in brilliant patterns. They were crisp and clean, sharp and more defined than anything I've ever seen in my life.

It was much more real to me than the waking state of consciousness. Compared to it, the waking state is but a fleeting, hazy dream. It was more lucid than lucid, more sublime than sublime. I was immersed in the incomprehensible no-thingness, incomprehensible silence.

I saw that my body was made of light. I marveled as I looked at it, it was full of a million sparking stars. It was spectacular. I was made of light! When I moved my arm, it sort of rippled, like suspended animation. It was a timeless experience; it seemed like an eternity watching the beautiful blue spheres speak to me through their brilliant patterns.

Eventually a kind of wave or ripple enveloped me and I came back to my body. I woke up a moment later and sat straight up. I was so stunned I couldn't speak. I was seeing in a wierd kind of second-sight, and I saw a living shadow in the room. It became aware that I was aware of it, and it tried to elude my second-sight. I stayed calm and treated it like a game of hide and seek. I smiled when I grabbed it, then it disappeared.

It took me a very long time to get used to being in a body again! I was a stranger in my own skull. It was like being born all over again. I had to move very deliberatley, slowly. When I moved, it was as if I wasn't moving at all. It was as if the universe moved around me.

It felt like I was in a kind of cosmic womb around the clock for days. I experienced paranormal phenomenon, visions, epiphanies. It was occasionally disorienting, occasionally alarming. My wife was very worried. I couldn't eat, couldn't drive. It is difficult to do it all justice with mere words. I was practicing spontaneous kriya yoga and meditating all night. It was so easy to meditate!

But I couldn't maintain that lifestyle. My family needs me to work, not stay in my womb. I was lucky I had the time off of work, because it took many days to get grounded. It changed me very deeply... I'm not the badass Irish aries asshole I used to be. Now I'm a whole new kind of asshole.

originally posted by: TzarChasm
sounds like you harbor an intense distrust of the scientific authorities who establish such facts.

Pointlessly poetic pabulum.

I don't ignore a car mechanic's advice, but I do remember they don't directly "establish" the facts of gear ratios. More importantly I decide how I want to drive and keep in mind the sort of things that threaten their existence as mechanics.

a reply to: BlueMule

The last part of your post ( which I can't paste) had me laughing out loud. I completely know what you mean.

A profound experience like that, leaves a mark that words will never touch, especially mine. But I have had experiences similar to that, and I know what you mean when you say speechless. If I may be so crude, it sounds like you had a lucid dream which became an OBE. I say it because, OBE's seem far more real than LUCID dreams, and are more real than normal waking life which, in comparison, seems more like sleep.

a reply to: Visitor2012

Yes I agree. I have frequent lucid dreams... but this was a step way past that. It's the aftereffects I never could have anticipated. It was as if both sides of my brain were fused together, working together in a way they never had before. I was charged with some sort of energy, probably chi or kundalini or something. I wish it could have lasted... it left a void in its place. But it was taking a toll on my body and mind. Yoga helped... and I began to understand its true value.

originally posted by: BlueMule
a reply to: Visitor2012

Yes I agree. I have frequent lucid dreams... but this was a step way past that. It's the aftereffects I never could have anticipated. It was as if both sides of my brain were fused together, working together in a way they never had before. I was charged with some sort of energy, probably chi or kundalini or something. I wish it could have lasted... it left a void in its place. But it was taking a toll on my body and mind. Yoga helped... and I began to understand its true value.

This goes very deeply into the mystical, which is an area I try to avoid, however the ending of such experiences and the void they create (or reveal) in their wake, can create an entirely new level of suffering, especially if a person is trying to find themselves through it or in it. The mind prefers the experiences over the void you speak of. But the void is far more important. It's the one the mind tries desperately to avoid, which means it's exactly 'where' you may need to 'go'.

When it comes to discussions on philosophical or ideological conversations about reality or anything thought-based, I come down hard with a hammer, because I know it's all pure nonsense. But with the mystical, I really don't like to elaborate on it, because there is FAR too much room for misunderstanding. And at your level of awareness, I'd rather keep my mouth shut and let the intelligence of the Universe do what it does.

HOWEVER, if that experience (or something like it) is something you want to have again, you can have it anytime you desire by triggering OBE's. Sounds like that is something you're already familiar with.

a reply to: Visitor2012

I agree yet again.

And then there came the pilgrimage...

a reply to: BlueMule

I changed my post a bit. I don't think I changed much of it..I try to be careful with my words which usually results in a few edits...

originally posted by: TzarChasm
sounds like you harbor an intense distrust of the scientific authorities who establish such facts.

Perhaps this is more coherent.

Only Shakespeare has any semblance of a claim to tell me how to read Shakespeare... yet I still challenge his authority over my interpretation. What role does anyone but Shakespeare and I really play in such a play?

HEY GUYS!!!

stop getting personal here before the mods have to step in and shut this thing down. shake hands, hug, kiss and make up. please and thanks? i'm looking out for everyone here.

Wait, I thought this whole thread was based on prejudice, assumptions and ignorance in the first place? Not to mention the bizarre hatred on "spirituality" (or the esoteric practices which the OP has obviously no clue about)..

Well I'm glad to see it backfired (ONCE again).

a reply to: Aphorism
I can't do much writing and reply directly to your comments and responses, as I am on vacation using my mobile phone.

For me, spirituality is the practice of intentionally programming your internal reactions to the exterior world- on a deep level. Not simply repressing emotional response (and I refer to the physiological states of body) and conditioning one to act in opposition to that internal state (as in acting against ones fear, for example), but rather, to progressively bring the internal state to have reactions that are in sync with the goals and intents of the conscious will. (To bring down the level of fearful hormonal state that is produced as you choose to undertake something, to continue the same example)

I do think that my spiritual activity, including meditation was necessary for me to change my early programming and conditioning. Visualisation, imagination and belief are powerful tools in such an undertaking. I do not percieve that it could have been done in any permanent way with other means
(I had been through much psychotherapy and medicinal treatments they were useful for determination of problems and temporary relief only).

If you feel that your early programming is sufficient or effective, for you to be a happy person in general and an active constructive element in your community, then I see no reason for you to engage in spiritual practice. But I truly wonder how you feel you can determine that for others?

I will be frank on something which might be offensive, I hope it can be heard with some distance. But the opinion you express is very common amongst people who have explored spirituality a bit, but not with the intent to heal or change parts of self, but rather, as an outlet for their innate draw to power and competative alpha drives.
They enter with the intent of coming to possess knowledge which will give them power, superiority, over others.
When that fails to happen, they become resentful of the spiritual leaders and guides they have imagined to be superior in some way, in the past.

So they try to be an alpha through beating them instead of joining them, trying to rally masses to follow them in crusade to replace them with - your word instead.

perhaps this is not your case, I just let you know it is the global aura I get from your discours, even if it might be false.

originally posted by: Visitor2012

HOWEVER, if that experience (or something like it) is something you want to have again, you can have it anytime you desire by triggering OBE's. Sounds like that is something you're already familiar with.

Actually, the pulsing blue pearls did most of the heavy lifting. So I'm kind of like a pearl-diver who can't swim, when it comes to triggering. The pearls have to come up to me here on the shore. Lucky for me they do. They never really left. They are there, just past the veil.

I haven't pursued intentional triggering, because the aftereffects took me so long to recover from that if the timing isn't right I could disrupt my life. But maybe the effects would get easier each time. Maybe that's my next step. If so I could probably use your help.

But my point was, the aftereffects had me in a profound ecstatic rapture that eventually wore off. Plus, during my 1,000 mile 3-month pilgrimage there were altered states of higher consciousness that lasted days, and they wore off too, but of course they left their mark. I can't really go into much detail about those.

I don't know if I'm 'enlightened' or not... I am deeply changed... and yet I live here in the everyday world and the world (especially my wife) can get under my skin sometimes. I get angry, sad, afraid, I experience the full spectrum of feelings and appetites that this cramped, tiny, wonderful human body has to offer. I think of them as guests and teachers. And sometimes, I want to reach through my screen and smack people upside their stupid head! It's my hot-tempered Irish blood I guess.

Compared to a lot of people, I have a lot to learn! There are people out there whose knowledge and experience far surpases mine. But that doesn't mean I will just accept whatever they say, or do whatever they say. I'm far too stubborn for that, lol. So I don't expect people with less knowledge and experience than I to just accept whatever I say. I can understand where someone like Aphorism is coming from, and I realize they have their legitimate place in the grand scheme of things. Nothing can change people like them except a lifting of the veil.

originally posted by: Tryptych

HEY GUYS!!!

stop getting personal here before the mods have to step in and shut this thing down. shake hands, hug, kiss and make up. please and thanks? i'm looking out for everyone here.

Wait, I thought this whole thread was based on prejudice, assumptions and ignorance in the first place? Not to mention the bizarre hatred on "spirituality" (or the esoteric practices which the OP has obviously no clue about)..

Well I'm glad to see it backfired (ONCE again).

you apparently one of the few who desire to keep scratching and biting even when everyone else is over it. grow up.

aaaand moving on....

a reply to: WhiteHat

Do you believe the first step is to nullify the ego? I see that teaching everywhere. It is frequently not mentioned that the existence of independent (but not separate) parts allows us to see the true grandeur of what is here.

I also feel like saying things such as "there is no you and there is no me" is only half accurate. I would add that there is both you and me, regardless of attempts to amalgamate them into a singular system in our perspective. We are part of the same thing, but we are not the same thing. Saying otherwise can directly lead into attempting to limit what is here according tto a limited perspective.

Just like any tool, I have difficulty agreeing that the ego is the problem. Even if all is self, there is ego involved. Rather than believing humans are fundamentally broken, I see that we are simply not using the tools available to us in the correct manner. The methods are likely just as everything else, and that is that they would be objectively verifiable. We simply haven't looked in the right way at the right places. It isn't mysterious, it is just perceived to be by many. It is also used for great amounts of profit and control.

I think it would have a positive impact if everyone were to share how they think they can "fix" things. Working together in this way would be significantly more productive than simply being contrarian. And how else could we offer ideas we believe in if we do not think they will make a proper impact? Thinking we can make a change for the "better," and sharing it in a productive manner, goes hand in hand with actually changing the world for the better.