Guest end3 Posted June 2, 2012 Share Posted June 2, 2012 Also, you calling me an asshole is direct verbal abuse which is a rules violation. I admit I have been provocative - but generally I have attacked or ridiculed your arguments or lack of them. I have not resorted to direct name-calling profanity because I don't know you personally, I can only go on what you write. I'm not sure that an authentic Xian believer would behave the way you are behaving. You're supposed to turn the other cheek are you not? Which makes me think you aren't a genuine Xian at all but a troll. Isn't it a bit lonely under that bridge waiting for the 3 Billy Goats Gruff? It was asshole in a friendly kind of way.....get over it already. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted June 2, 2012 Share Posted June 2, 2012 Since we can't +1 a moderator's post, I'll just reply: AMEN. Yes, indeed. The underlying point I try to make so often is that these sorts of experiences are very common. They are not about a belief system. They are about something within us, that to use a word for it, is transcendent. All myths of God are simply means to try to put a face to it, or as a vehicle to find it within ourselves. I think it's a cool feeling, but I haven't really built my life around it. I can get some hints of the same feeling by listening to certain music (trans, ambient, etc), and I do feel that I can take on the world a little better if I can do this now and then and "sync" my brain. But it's not a routine or practice that I follow consistently. I had a small piece of this feeling yesterday when we biked. I got in the zone and maintained a really good speed, and there at that point in time and space, I was just there. (If you know what I mean.) I want to share something I read recently referencing this verse in the Gospel of Thomas, verse 70: "If you bring forth what is within you, what you have will save you. If you do not have that within you, what you do not have within you [will] kill you." If verses like these were left in the Bible rather than stripped bare out of it by those like Irenaeus and Athanasius to favor instead a salvation based on belief, instead of accessing this in ourselves, I may have found no reason to have left that religion. Instead, they chose to dumb it down and make it simple for converts, "just believe, and keep believing". No work. No hard work of finding that within, which you describe. Yeah. It's a bit like how society works in general. Instead of people learning how different nutrients are good and bad for you (depending on how much you use), or people learn proper maintaing a healthy diet, we're starting to have laws about how much salt can be in food and such. The state must mandate and dictate, so the common man can just follow and obey. It's easier than learning and being responsible. The same goes for religion. The majority of people just want the elevator pitch version of spirituality, and they get the watered down, without any real meaning, version. I'll share here, that like you I too have had these profound "Oneness' experiences that radically changed my life. In beginning to practice meditation around 8 months ago, I found that in fact these experiences are repeatable. In fact, every time I do so now, this is what is accessed and opened to in myself. And my point of sharing this is to tie to what End3 quoted at the outset of this thread. This is definitely going to sound like a fish swimming upstream in this thread, but here it goes.... That's were we're a little different. I'm not seeking out those moments. Once in a while I need some time to recharge, but I don't feel any particular interest in trying to find a method to get me there. Don't get me wrong. I cherish the times it happened, but it's not important to me to find ways of doing it again. I'm sure it's like having different tastes of beer. Some like sour beers and try to find other kinds and brands. Personally, I'm not into sours, but i like stouts, so I look for stouts instead. We're all different. The 'seek and you shall find" verse, actually became an "ah ha!" moment of realization for me within an early practice of meditation. It is not at all about seeking something to get, or possess for yourself as in "I want this for me". It is to do as the Buddha said, to seek enlightenment as if seeking a river with your hair on fire. It is to abandon yourself to it, for its sake. You seek to become Love, not to posses it. You seek to be That, for its sake, for its Beauty, beyond you. You wish it to become you, and you become it. You place it as the single object to know and become for its sake, not for yours. Then, indeed, you find it. It is the simplist, and the hardest thing to do. You have to abandon any personal desire and focus for self-gain to it. You essentially die to you. If instead you seek "I want!", the focus is on you, not it. With the focus on you, you see you, not it. And it finding it, you find you, your true you. Sure. If that's what you want, to seek what you really want. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted June 2, 2012 Share Posted June 2, 2012 It was asshole in a friendly kind of way..... Not like me. I tend to be a friend, in an asshole-y kind of way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
agnosticator Posted June 2, 2012 Share Posted June 2, 2012 Re-reading this the other day and it seems that "finding the door open" seems more a function of what we do rather than what we expect God to do. I knocked, until the door opened, but it was the force of my knock that opened it. Nobody was home, and there were no fish, no bread, nor any other gifts under the tree. Then I went back outside and realized I already had everything I needed, courtesy of Mother Nature. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest end3 Posted June 2, 2012 Share Posted June 2, 2012 It was asshole in a friendly kind of way..... Not like me. I tend to be a friend, in an asshole-y kind of way. You and I rub each other the wrong way on occasion, but I am still expecting a home brewed beer or at least i can buy you and the family dinner if I every make it to CA. (I have always kept in my mind that you and I think it was your brother maybe argue just for sport....so most of the time i take it as that) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted June 2, 2012 Share Posted June 2, 2012 It was asshole in a friendly kind of way..... Not like me. I tend to be a friend, in an asshole-y kind of way. You and I rub each other the wrong way on occasion, but I am still expecting a home brewed beer or at least i can buy you and the family dinner if I every make it to CA. (I have always kept in my mind that you and I think it was your brother maybe argue just for sport....so most of the time i take it as that) I agree. And I know there are things that we do agree on, so it's not all animosity and antagonism in everything between us. If you ever get your butt over here, I would most definitely share my beer with you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spectrox Posted June 2, 2012 Share Posted June 2, 2012 Also, you calling me an asshole is direct verbal abuse which is a rules violation. I admit I have been provocative - but generally I have attacked or ridiculed your arguments or lack of them. I have not resorted to direct name-calling profanity because I don't know you personally, I can only go on what you write. I'm not sure that an authentic Xian believer would behave the way you are behaving. You're supposed to turn the other cheek are you not? Which makes me think you aren't a genuine Xian at all but a troll. Isn't it a bit lonely under that bridge waiting for the 3 Billy Goats Gruff? It was asshole in a friendly kind of way.....get over it already. You have referred to me as a rude body part and seem to have got away with it, so I can play that game too. From now on I shall refer to you as Bell-End - but don't worry, I'm only doing it in a friendly way. Seen any Billy Goats yet, Bell-End? Managed to give a straight answer to any question put to you yet? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Legion Posted June 2, 2012 Share Posted June 2, 2012 Spectrox, you've not been here long. Please allow me to offer an interpretation of End's standing here. He's growing. And we all pretend that ex-C has nothing to do with it. And that's cool. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spectrox Posted June 2, 2012 Share Posted June 2, 2012 Antlerman wrote: It's not a rules violation for the Lion's Den. "Expect heated responses". Where I as a mod get upset is when members do stuff like that when it's unprovoked. In other words bullying based on personality differences, then it's an abuse of the lax rule structures here for some personal axe to grind. I don't know how you are able to detect "personality differences" as distinct from "differences of opinion" on a forum. Much easier to distinguish is attacking an argument/philosophy as distinct from personal name-calling (ad hominem). But that's just me I guess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest end3 Posted June 2, 2012 Share Posted June 2, 2012 Seen any Billy Goats yet, Bell-End? Managed to give a straight answer to any question put to you yet? The only billy goat I smell is you.....pissing on everthing.....kinda like a billy goat pissing on his face....no biggie, must be a UK thing And your going to have to explain a bell-end. Local dialect? Not a common phrase around here. I wouldn't want to miss how I am being appreciated. Never mind....l looked it up....lol, dickhead. Good one Spec. Yes, I can be an ass....go figure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spectrox Posted June 2, 2012 Share Posted June 2, 2012 Seen any Billy Goats yet, Bell-End? Managed to give a straight answer to any question put to you yet? The only billy goat I smell is you.....pissing on everthing.....kinda like a billy goat pissing on his face....no biggie, must be a UK thing And your going to have to explain a bell-end. Local dialect? Not a common phrase around here. I wouldn't want to miss how I am being appreciated. Never mind....l looked it up....lol, dickhead. Good one Spec. Yes, I can be an ass....go figure. And there you have it folks in all its glory. Authentic Christian believer? Semi-enlightened being? Troll? Colossal arse clown? Evasive gob-shite with a strange hidden agenda? Or just plain mad? Take your pick. It's all King Kong excrement at the end of the day. If End is a Christian then the Romans had the right idea by throwing them all to the lions. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antlerman Posted June 2, 2012 Share Posted June 2, 2012 If End is a Christian then the Romans had the right idea by throwing them all to the lions. End is the kind of Christian Christians burn at the stake. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bdp Posted June 3, 2012 Share Posted June 3, 2012 Never mind....l looked it up.... Now go back and look up 'take the piss.' Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antlerman Posted June 4, 2012 Share Posted June 4, 2012 The underlying point I try to make so often is that these sorts of experiences are very common. They are not about a belief system. They are about something within us, that to use a word for it, is transcendent. All myths of God are simply means to try to put a face to it, or as a vehicle to find it within ourselves. I think it's a cool feeling, but I haven't really built my life around it. I can get some hints of the same feeling by listening to certain music (trans, ambient, etc), and I do feel that I can take on the world a little better if I can do this now and then and "sync" my brain. But it's not a routine or practice that I follow consistently. I had a small piece of this feeling yesterday when we biked. I got in the zone and maintained a really good speed, and there at that point in time and space, I was just there. (If you know what I mean.) Yes, very much I know what you mean. I think something worth talking about is that it's not about seeking that experience, or about building ones life around it. You recognize the beneficial effects it has on your living, how it is 'syncing' the brain (I describe it as realigning ourselves). The key is there are certain practices that we need to make a regular part of our lives that accomplish this, as a discipline like exercise for the body. See it as exercise for the mind and soul, the grounding, centering, realigning, synching, that happens. "Transcendent" experience is frankly an effect (by virtue of contrast), but not the goal . What you seek for is to enter that place of being healthy in mind and spirit, and from that, then, it flows out to all aspects of our daily lives. The thing you build your life around is a healthier living, which includes practices that help create that in ourselves. I want to share something I read recently referencing this verse in the Gospel of Thomas, verse 70: "If you bring forth what is within you, what you have will save you. If you do not have that within you, what you do not have within you [will] kill you." If verses like these were left in the Bible rather than stripped bare out of it by those like Irenaeus and Athanasius to favor instead a salvation based on belief, instead of accessing this in ourselves, I may have found no reason to have left that religion. Instead, they chose to dumb it down and make it simple for converts, "just believe, and keep believing". No work. No hard work of finding that within, which you describe. Yeah. It's a bit like how society works in general. Instead of people learning how different nutrients are good and bad for you (depending on how much you use), or people learn proper maintaing a healthy diet, we're starting to have laws about how much salt can be in food and such. The state must mandate and dictate, so the common man can just follow and obey. It's easier than learning and being responsible. The same goes for religion. The majority of people just want the elevator pitch version of spirituality, and they get the watered down, without any real meaning, version. Bingo I'll share here, that like you I too have had these profound "Oneness' experiences that radically changed my life. In beginning to practice meditation around 8 months ago, I found that in fact these experiences are repeatable. In fact, every time I do so now, this is what is accessed and opened to in myself. And my point of sharing this is to tie to what End3 quoted at the outset of this thread. This is definitely going to sound like a fish swimming upstream in this thread, but here it goes.... That's were we're a little different. I'm not seeking out those moments. Once in a while I need some time to recharge, but I don't feel any particular interest in trying to find a method to get me there. Don't get me wrong. I cherish the times it happened, but it's not important to me to find ways of doing it again. I've come to learn the experiences are incidental to an overall value and benefit, which is what is worth seeking and developing in our lives for our lives. Becoming aligned, centered, clear, calm, mindful, aware, present, whole, healthy in mind and emotions and body, is what it is all about. Becoming that, rather than only occasionally finding a reprieve from all the shit we normally wade through. What we access in those otherwise arbitrary breaks through those everyday clouds in our lives, is actually what is there all the time in us, just hidden by our own selves in how we use our minds. This is simply learning how to pull back that veil to let us be our real selves. That place we find through those arbitrary moments, those peak experiences, become the norm. And that it what I've meant when I've kept promising to start a thread called "peak experience and structural adaptation". They really are only "peak" experiences because we aren't there yet in our 'normal' life. Adaptation gets us there to where it is the norm. The "peak experience" part of it is more a reaction to it 'overwhelming' us. It is a state of consciousness, as opposed to a stage of development. At a point, it's no longer overwhelming, but just the way things are. Is that worth seeking? Oh hell yes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest end3 Posted June 4, 2012 Share Posted June 4, 2012 .......but just the way things are. To bad we don't understand it when we are young. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antlerman Posted June 4, 2012 Share Posted June 4, 2012 .......but just the way things are. To bad we don't understand it when we are young. I don't believe were able to when we were young, that is anytime before at least 25. We haven't really developed our own sense of self identity all the well at that point, let alone to go beyond that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antlerman Posted June 4, 2012 Share Posted June 4, 2012 To bad we don't understand it when we are young. This just made me think of a quote:, "To be one with the truth for just a moment, Is worth more than the world and life itself." ~Rumi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest end3 Posted June 4, 2012 Share Posted June 4, 2012 Just saying the identity may certainly be there but we are not cognizant of it's meaning. And then it didn't get lost in the shuffle for me, but reasigned somewhat. The alignment you speak of aligned me towards self strength/identity through hate......lovely as that is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest end3 Posted June 4, 2012 Share Posted June 4, 2012 To bad we don't understand it when we are young. This just made me think of a quote:, "To be one with the truth for just a moment, Is worth more than the world and life itself." ~Rumi Trying not to be a party pooper here, but my ability to stay within this ideal seems tied to pursing that which brings me joy. Cultivating the thorny ground, aka work, certainly seems burdensome at this point.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antlerman Posted June 4, 2012 Share Posted June 4, 2012 To bad we don't understand it when we are young. This just made me think of a quote:, "To be one with the truth for just a moment, Is worth more than the world and life itself." ~Rumi Trying not to be a party pooper here, but my ability to stay within this ideal seems tied to pursing that which brings me joy. Cultivating the thorny ground, aka work, certainly seems burdensome at this point.... Another quote for you.... "This silence, this moment, Every moment, If it's genuinely inside you, Brings what you need". ~Rumi Finding that and being in that, is what takes practice and discipline. What do you want? Than do what you need to have that. You want a beautiful garden, than weed it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted June 4, 2012 Share Posted June 4, 2012 To bad we don't understand it when we are young. We can't know how it is to live a life until we have lived one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bornagainathiest Posted June 4, 2012 Share Posted June 4, 2012 The one who asserts that the entire universe was created specifically and only for the benefit of humans? I'll be brief BAA. I don't see any other competing life forms matching humanity....maybe insects. The one who asserts that the entire universe was created only so that humans could make just one decision? The life decision seems paramount for all of us. The one who asserts that the entire universe will be trashed when the allotted decision-making time is up? Science says our galaxy will collide with another head on in about 4 billion years....so boom anyhow, right? The one who asserts that another, better, new universe will be created only for those making the right decision? Literal or figurative, it's a win, win. The one who places humans squarely in the center of the entire universe?The one who reckons that humans are the pinnacle of all creation? The one who thinks of humans as the one and only reason the entire universe exists at all? The one who believes that everything and anything revolves solely around the human race? The one who maintains that nothing else has the right to exist in of itself, but everything owes it's existence only to us? The Bible talks about other life forms that we know little about....angels, et al. What makes you think man is all. So who's the arrogant one here, End? That asshole Spec. He knows he knows everything. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest end3 Posted June 5, 2012 Share Posted June 5, 2012 Oh man, not the double face palm. Oy, I deserve it most of the time. I appreciate you noticing BAA, sincerely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bornagainathiest Posted June 5, 2012 Share Posted June 5, 2012 So is it worth my asking you why you think you deserve it End? BAA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bornagainathiest Posted August 1, 2012 Share Posted August 1, 2012 0 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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