Spirituality might work if it wasn't so stupid.

a reply to: Itisnowagain
I agree with you about enjoying different ways of expressing non-dualism, but I have a hard time equating the recent new-age talking school folks with the great adept realizers of various spiritual backgrounds and real spiritual practice.

a reply to: TzarChasm

why does that matter? they barely speak english and will never repay you.

what does that do for you if you save them instead of the billionaire?

I would be able to look at myself in the mirror. I've never known any human being to expect rewards for saving lives. You might be the first.

a reply to: Itisnowagain

David Lynch, the film director, speaks about when he discovered Transcendental meditation and how it transformed his life.

David Lynch is working with Russel Brand to get transcendental meditation in schools. Of course, transcendtal meditation was invented by Maharishi Yogi, the same man that sold "flying yoga" to westerners, complete with marketing depicting people in lotus, smiling, and seemingly floating in the air. It wasn't until people actually went to his classes that they discovered that no one was flying at all, it was that they were bouncing on dirty mattresses, and the marketers simply took photos mid-bounce. He also devised Maharishi Vedic Science, trying to tie the Vedas, presumably also the caste system, to science. In any doubt, its quite the marketing strategy, and very lucrative.

Transcendental Meditation has no discernable health benefits.

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope


Transcendental Meditation has no discernable health benefits.

I suppose the proof would be in eating the pudding.

originally posted by: bb23108
a reply to: Itisnowagain
I agree with you about enjoying different ways of expressing non-dualism, but I have a hard time equating the recent new-age talking school folks with the great adept realizers of various spiritual backgrounds and real spiritual practice.

It has been realized that reality does not have to be practiced or sought - just realized.

a reply to: bb23108
What do you consider 'real spiritual practice'?

originally posted by: [post=19104782]
It has been realized that reality does not have to be practiced or sought - just realized.

True from the standpoint of reality, but that is a great matter that is unfortunately cheapened by those that think it is just a matter of some kind of tacit intuition of this truth, and then held on to as a mental disposition. The stink of enlightenment.

a reply to: bb23108
How is it a mental disposition when it is pointing to what is here. Mental is time and space, about what can be or should be - about what isn't happening.
This is happening. Is what is actually happening of the mental realm?
Seeing is happening. Hearing is happening. Wording is happening. Reading is just happening. It is all just simply happening.

Being obsessed with what is not actually happening - a story in mind about me in another time and place - is mental.
Knowing that there is just now simply happening is what might be called spiritual.

originally posted by: Itisnowagain
a reply to: bb23108
What do you consider 'real spiritual practice'?

A life whole bodily devoted to reality, which necessarily involves whatever supports such devotion.

Jesus gave his disciples the admonition to love God with the whole body-mind and one's neighbor as oneself. To actually do this involves real devotion, real love, real self-transcending service, real life practices - not just talk.

Other great adepts have also required such practices. It generally keeps out the talking school types who typically avoid discipline and use these non-dual arguments to justify their stance. Do they ever speak of the excellences of real God communion and their life of love and service?

a reply to: Itisnowagain

I suppose the proof would be in eating the pudding.

Or in the research.

originally posted by: Itisnowagain
How is it a mental disposition when it is pointing to what is here. Mental is time and space, about what can be or should be - about what isn't happening.
This is happening. Is what is actually happening of the mental realm?
Seeing is happening. Hearing is happening. Wording is happening. Reading is just happening. It is all just simply happening.

Yes, and all such perceptions are still the mind, a conditional modification of reality, not reality itself.

a reply to: Itisnowagain

Knowing that there is just now simply happening is what might be called spiritual.

Knowing such a thing is easy. It's evident. Becoming unnecessarily crippled by it, whether it be negatively or positively, might be called spiritual.

a reply to: bb23108
Yes, I think Paul Smit speaks about how there are various techniques devotion is just one but it is just another seeming way to what is already the case. The pathless path.
It is often the case that when one really hears this message one falls in love with the speaker but it is eventually found that the love felt, is the falling away of the illusion of the separate self as the message strips away all that is not.

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
a reply to: Itisnowagain

I suppose the proof would be in eating the pudding.

Or in the research.

The scientific method would be direct observation. Would you rather be a believer of second-hand knowledge or actually know first hand?
Do you trust anyone else ?

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
a reply to: Itisnowagain

Knowing that there is just now simply happening is what might be called spiritual.

Knowing such a thing is easy. It's evident. Becoming unnecessarily crippled by it, whether it be negatively or positively, might be called spiritual.

But who is crippled by it?
That who is the illusion that tries to escape and in doing so appears to be real in time and space (which is happening as now as thought and projection).

I managed to generate significant positive change and insights to my life through meditation. And I would not call myself "spiritual", because it would somehow narrow down how I define myself. I also do not follow any "spiritual organisation" which I find sometimes overdozed. Meditation is a very natural thing. Easy to learn. Hard to keep up the discipline, but almost a kind of sport.

Speaking about new age and spirituality. For example have seen my past change in front of my eyes. Which is considered to be impossible in physical terms. Since then I know for a fact that reality is flexible. Indeed my past does not change. Only my point of view on it. Which is effectively the same from a subjective perspective. Which is also the only perspective existing to all if us. Objectivity is only a model concept.

Insights and spiritual experiences are also not achievable through "thinking" in my experience. You need to sit down and shut up. Which is tough practice. See it as an investment. Energy in. Energy out. Its that simple.

a reply to: Itisnowagain

The scientific method would be direct observation. Would you rather be a believer of second-hand knowledge or actually know first hand?
Do you trust anyone else ?

If that is the case, brushing your teeth with feces protects the teeth better than toothpaste and mouthwash, but you'll have to do it a few times at least.

10 years of hate towards friends and family is the key to enlightenment and peace.

But that's right, indirect and circumstantial are both used in science and law. You might be confusing it with anecdotal evidence, for instance, David Lynch's speech.

So LesMis, given your title of this thread is: "Spirituality might work if it wasn't so stupid" - are you saying that there is hope for spirituality given you say it might work?

As I mentioned earlier, Jesus gave his disciples the admonition to love God with the whole body-mind and one's neighbor as oneself. To actually do this involves real devotion, real love, real self-transcending service, real life practices - not just talk.

His commandments also necessarily require real surrender to God as the foundation for such a life of love.

Also, LesMis, do you think such admonitions by Jesus are spiritual and/or stupid?

a reply to: LesMisanthrope
Ah spirituality is more of a personal thing. But humans being humans it turns...Well into what you see it as, all religions at there core in some long distant past started by way of spirituality, both in the whole hippy sense and the whole real sense of the material world, and the running away from it part mostly. A happy distraction, that turned into a eternal fad, which in turn became long drawn out fads, which in turn people started taking it seriously, which in turn became coded into ritual and social outputs, which in turn for the most part became religions and rituals of society and large groups of people.

If enlightenment makes you super happy dopy all the time. Well you are far from enlightenment, because it does not make you happy most of the time, but in time with experience and if you survive, which is not likely, not in this lifetime. You can learn to control it and your human feelings and everything else, and the more you become, the farther away you move from the world, and willingly.

Most people become all super sad after even learning that there world is not the picture perfect thing they show on the TV, and others are thrust into the various truths of life, eventually one way or another by untold paths everybody gets glimpses into the abyss. So ya! Only a fool, or a completely bat # crazy person would want to become enlightened. That's what enlightenment is, its like jumping into ice cold water in the middle of the antarctic, it gives you quite a shock, and if you stay to long. Well your out of your element, death is only a matter of time. And not only that, but its purpose.

But you do learn things from it, primarily why it is you should not do that again, or if you do, how to be more prepared. So you see, you do learn something. Enlightenment is merely experience, sometimes that experience stretches into the far and bat # crazy and not really all that useful, basically like pretty much all other forms of experiences.

So is it any surprised people find ways to establish there lookout on things? Its what everybody does albeit in different ways with different cliques. For the most part its what spirituality is. But if you do not prefer that, you can always look to religion. Or other things, but all those things were all created by people and for specific outlooks on life. Its mental clothing, to survive the harshness of the things called reality and truth. Its there for a purpose which was created all by people, no other worldly beings need apply.

Spirituality is a brand of life people seem to like doing things and then putting labels on those things. If it works for them, as long as it does not effect you why should you care? And if it does effect you, why do you care? And hence your whole thread and what you wrote in your original post.

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
a reply to: Itisnowagain

The scientific method would be direct observation. Would you rather be a believer of second-hand knowledge or actually know first hand?
Do you trust anyone else ?

If that is the case, brushing your teeth with feces protects the teeth better than toothpaste and mouthwash, but you'll have to do it a few times at least.

10 years of hate towards friends and family is the key to enlightenment and peace.

But that's right, indirect and circumstantial are both used in science and law. You might be confusing it with anecdotal evidence, for instance, David Lynch's speech.

But this thread is not about whether cleaning your teeth with poo is better than toothpaste.
If it were the title of the thread would be 'Cleaning your teeth with poo would work if it was not so stupid'.

The thing is if you want to know for sure then you would have to see for yourself. Trusting second-hand knowledge is just eating from the tree of knowledge. Direct conscious contact is eating from the tree of life.