Modern day spiritual Masters do exists....

reply to post by mysticnoon


I have to agree with that. Some nice thoughts there. I think that I prefer the word angel to master, now. It actually fits your analysis better if you think about it. (You just have to take the biblical / worshipful aspect away).

In one sense I see how you are thinking from the point of view of miracles and or uncanny events. I often feel like people are coming together and I constantly find new information that inspires me which feeds directly off some other information and I'm on a trail. The coincidences baffle my logic. The thing is, most of the material is from the 1980's etc. It seems obvious that the thing that is changing is me - not necessarily society. I'm just getting a look at another angle of the same big picture that is always, forever everything we truly know.

As for angels, they can be anyone - you, me anyone. As for masters - aka self-realised guru's I have hesitations, but then again I'm not ready - let's say. I believe that I have an angel in heaven who knows and loves every aspect of every master or man and this is my access point.

Take Sai Babba for instance. I trust that he had amazing powers. His powers were great but he was still a mortal. He may have resonated with 1 million beings in countless dimensions but he is no closer to the infinite or pure-unity than I am.

Still it's nice to move forward in a less muddied direction and we need all the help that we can get.

reply to post by squandered

In one sense I see how you are thinking from the point of view of miracles and or uncanny events

No, I don't associate masters with any outer show of miracles, if that is what you mean, but I do appreciate the effort you have made to remain open to the idea of masters.

Take Sai Babba for instance. I trust that he had amazing powers. His powers were great but he was still a mortal. He may have resonated with 1 million beings in countless dimensions but he is no closer to the infinite or pure-unity than I am.

I try to avoid reference to specific personalities, but I will take the opportunity to reiterate that a spiritual master should not need to demonstrate any supernatural powers to attract the disciples. If a person is receptive to being guided by a certain master, then they will be aware of a strong bond or resonance with that master and their teachings. It may be akin to "love at first sight", but not in the romantic way.

Still it's nice to move forward in a less muddied direction and we need all the help that we can get.

This is most emphatically pertinent to spiritual matters of which we know relatively little. As the OP mentioned, we need teachers to guide us in most spheres of life in the physical realm, then how much more do we need proper direction and help if we intend to embark on a spiritual path?

I believe that all of us are modern day spiritual masters. We all have moments when we are tuned to the pureness that is us and we all have moments when we get out of tune and when this happens, it's still great because you help others grow. So it's a win-win situation.

Heya, was wondering if I could get the name of the first teacher you mentioned.

And/or the book(s) title(s)?

reply to post by dominicus


a reasonable explaination was that you came into contact with a psycho active substance while engaged with him...

now i will agree that it is quite rare, that when in very deep conversation
i have went into transcendental states, like an OBE... or perhaps a '___' like episode which was
very core shakingly 'Profound' might be another anology of the experience...

but for my money, on your description of the parlay...there was an outside influence,
especially when he began trippin on you with 'knowing' eyes as it were.
he had occult (meaning Secret) knowledge unrevealed to you...


been there done that

hope your not disappointed

reply to post by St Udio


I have to agree.

I know someone who spends months in retreat meditating and knows many of the best known guru's etc and this person has some amazing qualities.

I think this person is a groupie. I told a friend I had the hots for her. When we were together I was falling into desire - something she is skilled with, and I saw an orange cone go through me from the top of my head. I noticed something go through her. She was impressed about it, like it's proof of powers and even took credit. I only saw a cone that I didn't ask for. I told my friend and he said, "well it made you keep your cool didn't it"?.

So, there are many people with the ability to use bells and whistles. It's not so rare, is it? Think of charismatic Christians. All it takes is to be certain of your convictions - in a confused world. People are left unhinged and therefore pliable the notion "I know the way". The way to what? All there can be is uncertainty.

However many ways people become powerful, the secret is always to just be yourself as that's the honest fact of your existence. The rest is...

reply to post by St Udio

a reasonable explaination was that you came into contact with a psycho active substance while engaged with him...

Sorry to burst your bubble, but it was definitely not attributed to some psycho-active Substance.... I've done thos substances in the past, in large amounts, and know them well....

....this was something entirely different. Basically my two descriptions with these two masters, they basically handed over the blueprints on how to Access the divine within me. Ever since then, and because of what they have shown me, I can access now the same states. and let me just say that these States and Absolutes put the effects of those substances to shame!!!!

With the woman in California, she showed me the source of Consciousness, the source of thought, within me. These "centers" within us are veiled because we spend no time there.... so its basically a bunch of cobwebs, that when cleared away, reveals something extremely and undoubtedly real.

With the Non Duality Master ...... I basically experienced that who I think I am is an Illusion, and the reality that really exists behind that Illusion. It came merely from philosophically and socratically breaking everything down, such as "If the thought of a rock is not an actual rock, so too, who I think I am is not who I am, therefore who am I?" It was merely from this intellectual wrestling that resulted in an experience of the true nature of reality, something that this master resides in 24 hours a day!!!!
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In Reply to Squandered:

So, there are many people with the ability to use bells and whistles. It's not so rare, is it? Think of charismatic Christians. All it takes is to be certain of your convictions - in a confused world. People are left unhinged and therefore pliable the notion "I know the way". The way to what? All there can be is uncertainty.

Perhaps it may be some mass hypnosis for many or most, but it does not work that way with me. I have always refused that aspect of it knowing myself about that aspect. Therefore if someone said that God exists, I wouldn't rest unless I can directly experience this myself, and I did.

If someone told me that Enlightenment is possible, I wouldn't rest unless I can experience this myself, and I did (although not permanently, I can see that certain planes of existences of divine realities were at least realized and seen to be possible to live from those states)

If someone tells me they know of a spiritual master, while I will be humble and approach with respect, I will still prod away intellectually, test every aspect of their knowledge, and look for weak spots. However thus far I have come away from at least two living individuals, even though I approached with skepticism, have seen that they indeed have Mastery in certain aspects of Divine matters.

However many ways people become powerful, the secret is always to just be yourself as that's the honest fact of your existence. The rest is...

Thus far, from these two masters, I have only witnessed selflessness and Love. I have yet to see any displays of power, besides seeing a deep seated knowledge of their branch of spirituality.

Spiritual masters are not teachers, if they are teaching they are frauds.
Jesus was a spiritual master but he did not teach, Buddha was a spiritual master but did not teach. The masters spread a message like sowing seeds, if the ground is fertile it will be received.
Please check out these modern day masters :
youtu.be...
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This one trys to explain non duality:
youtu.be...

Eye is a set of mirrors that create a false sense of consciousness, the sad thing is, is that many people I know would be practically animalistic if it was not for thier "eye".

I believe most spiritual masters would choose to become a scientist, working all their lives humbly and anonymously inside laboratories studying, researching, experimenting until they discover their wonder cures or life saving technology, which they would leave behind as a legacy, for anyone to choose whether or not to use it themselves when becoming ill.

reply to post by dominicus


That was awesome! S&F!

reply to post by dominicus

If someone told me that Enlightenment is possible, I wouldn't rest unless I can experience this myself, and I did (although not permanently, I can see that certain planes of existences of divine realities were at least realized and seen to be possible to live from those states)

That's not how it works. It's very common for people to reach certain stages of Dharma and consider the experience to be enlightenment. There;s no such thing as partial enlightenment.

Trust U.G Krishnamurti. His recordings / interviews will tell you how your thought is still just thought regardless of how you entreat your thought with notions of spirituality. It's all just thought - one thing the same as another.

reply to post by squandered


Everything is thought. Each and every 'thing' is thought. No 'thing' is what we are. No 'thing is what 'this' is.
The many 'things' of this apparent world are seen by some 'thing'. But it is not a 'thing'.
This 'no thing' is the un-namable.

youtu.be...

reply to post by squandered

That's not how it works. It's very common for people to reach certain stages of Dharma and consider the experience to be enlightenment. There;s no such thing as partial enlightenment.

Says who? I only said that I saw that it is possible. Besides, I would never take one man's word for it. I'd see what all those who sought this found, and also look for myself. If I myself have reached anything, it's having experienced the same Holy Spirit Jesus had, and having seen eventually that there is no me!

Trust U.G Krishnamurti. His recordings / interviews will tell you how your thought is still just thought regardless of how you entreat your thought with notions of spirituality. It's all just thought - one thing the same as another.

The same applies to everything U.G. "thought" and "said."

And yet this is One man. And yet can I say this body, that I seem to inhabit, is just a thought? If thoughts are not real, then by stabbing this body, which is all thought, then nothing will happen.

Even U.G. acknoledged that he underwent some kind of changes, some of the phsyical.

The whole, "everything is thought" shpiel, is systematically set up to get a person to experience the state of "no I," but what remains in its ashes is still all that is.

....there is definitely a spiritual side to life .....more real, more dear, more true than the everyday normal limits with which we all live our lives.....

I smile at the surprise and delight in which you share this and the discovery that there are, indeed, spiritual masters. They delight me as well; but, by circumstance, the surprise at finding them came early in my life.

I have often wished that I could keep such persons near at all times in my life, but much of the work has been without such help-- but that has not left me helpless. There is a prayer which asks for grace and includes the words to the effect of "that we may find, and be found by, God." Seeking Him, lost in the dark, He often finds us.

An early master ("teacher, with exceptional practical experience" for goodness sake-- before the semantic police redefine the meaning into oblivion!) who I was able to learn under in my own spiritual journey spoke about the common euphoric feeling when one is new to an aspect of growth in the spiritual life. Most, he said was his experience, abandon the journey into their spiritual life when that euphoric feeling fades.

Being a Christian Mystic, he proposed that it is God who allows us the feeling when we take the first steps into our fuller humanity, and will reward us similarly in subsequent steps, but like a father with a child just beginning to crawl-- the praise for crawling ceases when the expectation is that one will begin to walk. As adults, too often we chase the feeling rather than pursue our journey, and so continue crawling, unaware that there is more expected of us.

More wonders (and bruises) await us when we walk, and then run, and then fly; and sometimes, we find we learn to walk, because the ability to do so is already in us-- and we need no Master for that.

I suspect we all find that when we want a Master, we often will find ourselves without such a person, but when we need a Master, that person will enter our lives. In the times of un-met want, we press on, because our hearts and souls demand it.

By the way... We can (despite the semantic rhetoric which has plagued this thread to no apparent purpose) use words such as "levels," "masters," "progress," and such, because the spiritual reality is the source of language, and is very much a part of our ability and need to speak of it, write of it, and use analogies, stories, and song to describe that "more" which every person is able to experience. I am sorry that not everyone realizes this, but collectively, mankind across all times and all cultures has sensed it to be so, if not outright grasped it as so.

Originally posted by Itisnowagain
reply to post by squandered

 

Everything is thought. Each and every 'thing' is thought. No 'thing' is what we are. No 'thing is what 'this' is.
The many 'things' of this apparent world are seen by some 'thing'. But it is not a 'thing'.
This 'no thing' is the un-namable.

youtu.be...

Therefore, if not a "thing" or a no "thing" - then it must be a process of which man is an intrinsic part if not the very culmination of an eternal, cosmic, creative evolutionary process.

Part of a process, indistinguishable from the largest or the smallest possible frame of reference, which then begs the question. Where precisely does the rubber really hit the road and precisely what then (when framed relative to one another within the unconditioned ground of all being and becoming) is our obligation and our imperative relative to ourselves, to our fellow man, and even to the larger reality and existence within which we are immersed inextricably as active participants, whether we like it, or not?

This leads me, personally, directly to the deeper, esoteric made exoteric teachings of Jesus (Yeshua) of Nazareth as illuminated in one way or another in the Gospels of Mathew Mark Luke and John, it's all there, imbedded in the master's unparalleled genius, if you look for it it's there.

"Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven."

Jesus understood clearly, what we are only now just beginning to understand and to "grok" more fully.

It's inevitable.

The coming of the kingdom of heaven is inevitable, and therefore it may be said that it's coming, and that indeed it is already here (said like Jesus).

Anything else is just "kicking against the goads".

What a marvel!

What utter simplicity.

But what that means and how it all plays out, is up to each of us, to a one, and as many - it's still entirely open in other words, and therefore a boundless realm or domain of infinite freedom, and love, unending, eternal, and, as things would have it, an occurance and a process in eternity that's happening, right NOW. It's crazy! But it's true, because it is the very condition that we find ourselves in, as human beings having a human experience in life and even in eternity already always right now (no time but the present).

I tell you God is mirthful, and humorous, gentle, and kind, wanting as the overarching will, nothing for himself, but only to share with all his children throughout the entire universe, in kononia (intimate participation) what was already his from the beginning, to the very end - the inheritance of the kingdom of God (eternal life).

It's a very intimate sharing however this koinonia business, which makes many if not most of us rather uncomfortable at the potential loss of control or ego identity, and so we draw away with the final realization as if it would kill us, when all the while it is there knocking at our door, to LIBERATE us FROM a "deathful life" (no life at all when you really think of it) and thus a terribly constraining and humorless life, one which suffers the indignities of life, for no good reason whatsoever!


"God made our spirit with wings to fly in the spacious firmament of love and freedom. How pitiful it would be then, if we were to lop off our wings by our OWN hand, and suffer ourselves to crawl, like vermin upon the earth." (not that there's anything intrinsically wrong with vermin).
~ Khalil Gibran (perenthesis mine).

"Our liberation is God's compulsion."
~ C.S. Lewis


"The kingdom of heaven is like a man, a treasure hunter, who, after unrelentingly persistent searching, at last finds the buried treasure and then in finding it at last, immediately reburies it and quickly returns to the point from where his search first started - to buy up the whole field!"

"The kingdom of heaven is like a wealthy merchant in search of a very fine and precious pearl who, when he finds it sells everything he owns to have that pearl!"

"The kingdom of heaven is like a storekeeper who brings forth from his storehouse of treasure both something old and something new!"

Happy is the man who hears these words of mine and keeps them. How great is his reward! (paraphrased).

They are all, to a one, proclamations of great joy and celebration, of absolute triumph over the world of sorrow and strife, universal statements of everlasting joy and celebration. They are capable, when grasped, of restoring our very sense of humor and mirth, and charm. An incredible feat it is, that which makes what was no longer functional, functional again.

Wisdom is gained through introspective gnosis from a learned teacher, not by birth. It is possible to have a book be your teacher if you are diligent in asking questions and coming up with answers, in this way multiple books can be studied at one time, whereas with a living teacher only one teacher and his way is taught.