Moderator Joshpantera Posted November 13, 2012 Moderator Share Posted November 13, 2012 +10 for a Bruce Lee reference. How about, "Having no way as way, having no limitation as limitation." - Bruce Lee I think that rings just as true with respect to religion as it does to martial arts. I guess that's why even though I enjoy eastern mystical philosophy, I would never go all out and become a devotee of any one of them. I like to keep it fluid, take what is beneficial and disregard what is not. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ravenstar Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 Great thread. I've yet to read the Hindu texts.. my reading list is immense, it's on there somewhere. I have received more inner peace and insight from the practices of meditation and yoga though than I ever did from western religion. I have not felt it necessary to align with any one school of thought though... I take what works for me and yes, leave the rest. Dogma creeps up in all paths and I avoid it like the plague. I found it interesting when Deva mentioned that enlightenment really can't be spoken of... i get that. I over-analyze and rationalize and over-intellectualize everything... so for me the practice is the key. I find it fascinating that most eastern paths emphasize meditation not indoctrination. The best teachers turn your questions around — they don't give pat answers but put the responsibility back on the questioner, or seeker. I wonder what would happen if the schools taught yoga and meditation to all the kids? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator Joshpantera Posted November 13, 2012 Moderator Share Posted November 13, 2012 Yes, that reminds me of a Hindu episode between Joseph Campbell Sri Krishna Menon that made it into several of his books. He was a well respected guru who had been a police officer and had to experience the horrors of the world in his line of work. And Campbell was searching for a guru in which to pose a loaded question. So they greeted each other respectfully and Menon asked Campbell, "do you have a question?" Campbell asked, 'if all things are Brahman, are this divine energy, then why do we renounce the world? Why do renounce vise? Why do we not see the divine energy shinning from within the most brutal, the most horrific, the most ignorant, and the most dark?' Menon replied, 'for you and me, that is where it is.' And they went on to have long conversation about the affirmation of the world. This really got to me because I realized that if you can manage to affirm the world just as it is, and see through all of the BS to the underlying unity of it all below the surface perception of difference, then nothing can have a hold on you or get you too down. No matter what you hate or how much you hate or dislike it, you can still manage to see through the surface level appearance's and identify yourself in some way with the thing you dislike. And then contemplate it from that angle. I found that I no longer harbored grudges or ill-will towards others. I can see that the very fabric and structure of existence that is me, is also every other object in existence. It's every consciousness in existence. It's the unifying factor ingrained into everything, including the darkness. So to take up a world rejection view (Jains) or a world restoration view (Zoroastrian-Judeo-Christian-Islamic) didn't seem very logical. The dichotomy between light and darkness is more or less grounded in ignoring the unity of existence. So I took that piece of eastern Hindu philosophy as a useful tool in life for trying to navigate the confusing and treacherous waters with some degree of clarity and insight. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deva Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 Great thread. I've yet to read the Hindu texts.. my reading list is immense, it's on there somewhere. I have received more inner peace and insight from the practices of meditation and yoga though than I ever did from western religion. I have not felt it necessary to align with any one school of thought though... I take what works for me and yes, leave the rest. Dogma creeps up in all paths and I avoid it like the plague. I found it interesting when Deva mentioned that enlightenment really can't be spoken of... That is true and the greatest teachers always acknowledge this. However; they still talk about it! The greatest "masters" can only say things that are pointers or that suggest the state. It is one completely beyond birth and death. Nisagadatta maintained that he was never born - "In my original state of unicity and wholeness, I didn't even know that I existed. And then one day I was told that I was 'born', that a particular body was 'me', that a particular couple were my parents. Thereafter, I began accepting further information about 'me', day after day, and thus built up a whole pseudo-personality only because I had accepted the charge of being born although I was fully aware that I had no experience of being born, that I had never agreed to be born, and that my body was being thrust on me. Gradually, the conditioning became stronger and stronger and grew to such an extent that not only did I accept the charge that I was born as a particular body, but that I would, at some future date, 'die' and the very word 'death' became a dreaded word to me signifying a traumatic event. Can anything be more ridiculous? By my Guru's grace, I realized my true nature, and also realized what a huge joke had been played on me." Nisagadatta Maharaj "Consciousness And The Absolute" Naturally, in talking about it they realize it sounds absurd to most people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antlerman Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 I wonder what would happen if the schools taught yoga and meditation to all the kids? Watch this video at the top of the article for that answer: http://abcnews.go.co...80#.T3tCutlZhNh I like the little girl in the video, "If I don't meditate, then I get really mad and yell at people". How awesome is this! You know why we are what we are? We are neurotic monkeys with over-sized brains. Our instincts from the forest have no place to go in a modern society structure, and so it comes out all over the place in neurotic ways. We need to meditate to train our minds to deal with this fact. And what a difference it makes! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator Joshpantera Posted November 13, 2012 Moderator Share Posted November 13, 2012 ^ Absolutely true. That's yet another way of viewing the world I had to come to terms with after leaving the creationist mind set. We're Great Apes as we sit here. When I see BS on the nightly news I'm watching the activity and shennagins of a species of Great Apes just basically behaving like the animals that we actually are. But then there's the higher order in which we are attempting to evolve. Raising the bar to try and be less animal like, and struggling to reach these ideals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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