'i have nothing new to teach the world. Truth and non-voilence are as old as the hills'
- The book according to Sissela Bok is written in the likes of The Confessions of St. Augustine
- Married at the age of 13 and on the same day as his 2nd brother and cousin
"Marriage among Hindus is no simple matter. The parents of the bride and bridegroom often bring themselves to ruin over it. They waste their time. Months are taken up over the preparations - in making clothes and ornaments and in preparing budgets for dinners. Each tries to outdo the other in the number and variety of courses to be prepared. Women, whether they have a voice or no, sing themsevels hoarse, even get ill, and dsturb the peace of their neighbours. These in their turn quietly put up with all the turmoil and bustle, all the dirt and filth, representing the remains of the feasts, because they know that a time will come when they also will be behaving in the same manner."
- Note: lookup Sissela Bok
- He was born in 1869 ' Porbandar (aka sudamapuri)
- Extremely shy growing up at age 7, he subconsciously knew elders were wrong but we are ignorant to the faults of elders at a young age
"Numerous examples have convinced me that God ultimately saves him whose motives are pure"
- 13 to 18 years old - 50% of time was separated from wife because better to live with parents as adolescents
- Wept when scolded from teachers
- Came to conclusion that children if children learned to draw first then handwrite, then handwriting will be more gifted
- Was good at geometry starting with Euclid
p34 - "i have seen that i have calcuated wrongly. A reformer cannot afford to have close intimacy with him whom he seeks to reform. True friendship is an identity of souls rarely to be found in this world. Only between like natures can friendship be altogether worthy and enduring. Friends react on one another. Hence in friendship there is very little scope for reform. I am of the opinion that all exclusive intimacies are to be avoided; for man takes vice far more readily than virtue. And he who would be friends with God must remain alone or make the whole world his friend."
"But one thing took deep root in me - the conviction that morality is the basis of things and that truth is the substance of alll morality. Truth became my sole objective. It began to grow in magnitude every day, and my definition of it also has been ever widening. A Gujarati didactic stanza likewise gripped my mind and heart. Its precept - return good for evil - became my guiding principle. It became such a passion with me that i began numerous experiments in it. Here are those (for me) wonderful lines:
For a bowl of water give a goodly meal
For a kindly greeting bow thou down with zeal
For a simple penny pay thou back with gold
If thy life be rescued, life do not withhold
Thus the words and actions of the wise regard
Every little service tenfold they reward
But the truly noble know all men as one
And return with gladness good for evil done
p71 "I did not then know the essence of religion or of God, and how He works with in us. Only vaguely i understood that God had saved me on that occasion. On all occasions of trial He has saved me. I know that the phrase 'God saved me' has a deeper meaning for me today and still i feel that i have not yet grasped its entired meaning. Only richer exprerience can help me to a fuller understanding. But in all my trials - spiritual nature, as a lawyer, in conducting institutions, and in politics - i can say that God saved me. When every hope is gone, 'when helpers fail and comforts flee', i find that help arrives somehow, from i know not where. Supplication, worship, prayer are no superstition; they are acts more real than the acts of eating, drinking, sitting or walking. It is no exaggeration to say that they alone are real, all else is unreal."
p 77 - "I must say a word about the Eiffel Tower. I do not know what purpose it serves today. But i then heard it greatly disparaged as well as praised. I remember that Tolstoy was the chief among those who disparaged it. He said the Eiffel Tower was a monument of man's folly, not of his wisdom. Tobacco, he argued was the worst of all intoxicants, inasmuch as a man addicted to it was tempted to commit crimes which a drunkard never dared to do; liquor made a man mad, but tobacco clouded his intellect and made him build castles in the air. The Eiffel Tower was one of the creations of a man under such influence. There is no art about the Eiffel Tower."
pg 82 - "When i acquainted with him with my little stock of reading, he was as i could see rather disappointed. But it was only for a moment. Soon his face beamed with a pleasing smile and he said 'I understand your trouble. Your general reading is meagre. You have no knowledge of the world, a sine qua non for a vakil. You have not even read the history of India. A vakil should know human nature. He should be able to read a man's character from his face."
p 89 - i believe in the Hindu theory of Guru and his importance in spiritual realization. I think there is a great deal of truth in the doctrine that true knowledge is impossible without a Guru. An imperfect teacher may be tolerable in mundane matters, but not in spiritual matters. Only a perfect gnani (a knowing one, a seer) deserves to be enthroned as Guru. There must, therefore, be ceaseless striving after perfection. For one gets the Guru one deserves. Infinite striving after perfection is one's right. It is its own reward. The rest in the hands of God."
p 123 - "Mr Coates could not appreciate my argument as he had no regard for my religion. He was looking forward to delivering me from the abyss of ignorance. He wanted to convince me that, no matter whether there was some truth in other religinos, salvation was impossible for me unless i accepted Christianity which represented the truth and that my sins would not be washed away except by the intercession of Jesus and that all good works were useless.
Just as he introduced me to several books, he introduced me to several friends whom he regarded as staunch Christians. One of these introductions was a to a family which belonged to the Plymouth Brethren, a Christian sect.
Many of the contacts for which Mr. Coates was responsible were good. Most struck me as being God-fearing. But during my contact with this family, one of the Plymouth Brethren confronted me with an argument for which i was not prepared:
'You can not understand the beauty of our reiligion. From what you say it appears that you must be brooding over your transgressions every moment of your life, always mending them and atoning for them. How can this ceaseless cycle of action bring you redemption? You can never have peace. You admit that we are all sinners. Now look at the perfection of our belief. Our attempts at improvement and atonment are futile. And yet redemption we must have. How can we bear the burden of sin? We can but throw it on Jesus. He is the only sinless Son of God. It is His word that those who believe in Him shall have everlasting life. Therein lies God's infinite mercy. And as we believe in the atonment of Jesus, our own sins do not bind us. Sin we must. It is impossible to live in this world sinless. And therefore Jesus suffered and atoned for all the sins of mankind. Only he who accepts His great redmption can have eternal peace. Think what a life of restlessness is yours, and what a promise of peace we have.'
The argument utterly failed to convince me. I humply replied:
'If this be the Christianity acknowledged by all Christians, i cannot accept it. I do not seek redemption from the consequences of my sin. I seek to be redeemed from sin itself, or rather from the very thought of sin. Until i have attained that end, i shall be content to be restless'.
To which the Plymouth Brother rejoined: 'i assure you, your attempt is fruitless. THink again over what i have said.'
And the brother proved as good as his word. He knowingly committed transgressions and showed me that he was undisturbd by the thought of them.
But i already knew before meeting with these friends that all Christians did not believe in such a theory of atonement. Mr. Coates himself walked in the fear of God. His heart was pure, and he believed in the possibility of self-purification. The 2 ladies also shared this belief. Some of the books that came into my hand were full of devotion. So, although mr. Coates was very much disturbed by this latest experience of mine, i was able to reassure him and tell him that the distorted belief of a Plymouth Brother could not prejudice me against Christianity.
My difficulties lay elsewhere. They were with regard to the Bible and its accepted interpretation."
"Facts mean truth, and once we adhere to truth, the law comes to our aid naturally." p 133
"It was more difficult for me to secure this concession of payment by instalments than to get the parties to agree to arbitration. But both were happy over the result, and both rose in public estimation. My joy was boundless. i had learnt the true practice of law. i had learnt to find out the better side of human nature and to enter men's hearts. i realized that the true function of a lawyer was to unite parties riven asunder. The lesson was so indelibly burnt into me that a large part of my time during the twenty years of my practice as a lawyer was occupied in bringing about private compromises of hundreds of cases. i lost nothing thereby - not even money, certainly not my soul."
p 136 137
"though i took a path my Christian friends had not intended for me, i have remained for ever indebted to them for the religious quest that they awakened in me. I shall always cherish the memory of their contact. The years that followed had more, not less, of such sweet and sacred contacts in store for me." p 138
"But truth triumphened in the end. The sufferings of the Indians were the expression of that truth. Yet it would not have triumphed except for unflinching faith, great patience and incessant effort. Had the community given up the struggle, had the Congress abandoned the campaign and submitted to the tax as invevitable, the hated impost would have continued to be levied from the indentured Indians until this day, to the eternal shame of the Indians in South Africa and the whole of India." p 158
"Such service can have no meaning unless one takes pleasure in it. When it is done for show or for fear of public opinion, it stunts the man and crushes his spirit. Service which is rendered without joy helps neither the servant nor the served. But all other pleasures and possessions pale into nothingness before service which is rendered in a spirit of joy." p 175
"My experience has shown me that we win justice quickest by rendering justice to the other party." p 182
"And where a choice has to be made between liberty and self-respect that i gave them at the cost of the literary training. And where a choice has to be made between liberty and learning who will not say that the former has to be preferred a thousand times to the latter?" p 201
p 204
"Thus service of the indians in south africa ever revealed to me new implications of truth at every stage. Truth is like a vast tree, which yields more and more fruit, the more you nurture it. The deeper the search in the mine of truth the richer the discovery of the gems buried there, in the shape of openings for an ever greater variety of service."
"How heavy is the toll of sins and wrongs that wealth, power and prestige exact from man!!"
"The separation from wife and children, the breaking up of a settled establishment, and the going from the certain to the uncertain - all this was for a moment painful, but i had inured myself to an uncertain life. I think it is wrong to expect certainties in this world, where all else but God that is Truth is an uncertainty. All that appears and happens about and around us is uncertain, transient. But there is a Supreme Being hidden therein as a Certainty, and one would be blessed if one could catch a glimpse of that Certainty and hitch one's waggon to it. The quest for Truth is the summum bonum of life. "
"Man and his deed are two distinct things. Whereas a good deed should call forth approbation and a wicked deed disapprobation, the doer of the deed, whether good or wicked, always deserves respect or pity as the case may be. 'Hate the sin and not the sinner' is a precept which, though easy enough to understand, is rarely practised, and that is why the poison of hatred spreads in the world.
This ahimsa is the basis of the search for truth. I am realizing every day that the search is vain unless it is founded on ahimsa as the basis. It is quite proper to resist and attack a system, but to resist and attack its author is tantamount to resisting and attacking oneself. For we are all tarred with the same brush, and are children of one and the same Creator, and as such the divine powers within us are infinite. To slight a single human being is to slight those divine powers and thus to harm not only that being but with him the whole world."
"I have found by experience that man makes his plans to be often upset by God, but at the same time where the ultimate goal is the search for truth, no matter how a mans plans are frustrated, the issue is never injurious and often better than anticipated. "
p 317 / 318
"But i could not for the life of me find out a new name, and therefore offered a nominal prize through Indian Opinion to the reader who made the best suggestion on the subject. A a result Maganlal Gandhi coined the word 'Sadagraha' (Sat=truth, Agraha = firmness) and won the prize. But in order to make it clearer i changed the word to Satyagraha which has since become current in Gujarati as a designation for the struggle."
p 329 definitely
332
345
"These words put me in mind of what the late Miss Emily Hobhouse wrote to me with regard to non co-operation: 'i should not be surprised if one of these days you have to go to the gallows for the sake of truth. May God show you the right path and protect you'. "
"Let no one cavil at this, saying that God can never be partial, and that He has no time to meddle with the humdrum affairs of men. I have no other language to express the fact of the matter, to describe this uniform experience of mine. Human language can but imperfectly describe God's ways. I am sensible of the fact that they are indescribable and inscrutable. But if mortal man will dare to describe them, he has no better medium than his own inarticulate speech. Even if it be a superstition to believe that complete immunity from harm for twenty-five years in spite of a fairly regular practice of non-killing is not a fortuitious accident but a grace of God, i should still hug that superstition."
"The grinding poverty and starvation with which our country is afflicted is such that it drives more and more men every year into the ranks of beggars, whose desperate struggle for bread renders them insensible to all feelings of decency and self-respect. And our philanthropists, instead of providing work for them and insisting on their working for bread, give them alms." p434
"The Gujaratis were deeply interested in the fight, which was to them a novel experiment. They were ready to pour forth their riches for the success of the cause. It was not easy for them to see that Satyagraha could not be conducted simply by means of money. Money is the thing that it least needs." p 436
"When the fear of jail disappears, repression puts heart into the people." p438
Friday, February 27, 2009
Friday, February 13, 2009
A New Earth
Ego is identification with Form
Words example) What is the essence of a Tree really if you couldn't call it a name?
Bum Lady talking aloud to herself in the UK
Eckhart talking hypocritically out loud in Bathroom right after.
Epiphany of missing family ring of dying old lady finally realizing that is not her although she identified it as part of who she was her whole life. Realized the ring was not who she was and laughed at the silliness of caring for it so much.
Aware of your own attachment to things and the need for more. That is the ego conditioned patterns of behavior at a young age....
I think therefore I am. Is discovery of the ego. Being aware that I am bc I think is another dimension and is the concept of awareness coming from our consciousness. Who we really are at the core.
Awareness is the next dimension after thinking and attachment to form. Dreaming. Then aware of dreaming while ur in the ur dream. are 2 different concepts.
When all form passes away who are you? It almost the 2nd derivative of the mind.
Its not that I am this or I am that... its that I AM
Depression or grievance is the habit of holding on to old thoughts and emotions. Be aware of all the things that get you there and realize it doesn't matter. In order for you to be right someone else needs to be wrong. This feeling of being right is the ego. And it is a trap.
Pol Pot of cambodia ordered everyone with glasses to be killed. considered them to be part of the bourgious, the educated - his view of marxist interpretation
The Catholic and other churches are correct when they identify relativism, the belief that there is no absolute truth to guide human behavior, as one of the evils of our times; but you won't find absolute truth if you look for it where it cannot be found: in doctrines, ideologies, sets of rules or stories. What do all these have in common? They are made up of thought. Thought can at best point to the truth but it never is the Truth. That's why Buddhists say "The finger pointing to the moon is not the moon". All religions are equally false and equally true, depending on how you use them. You can use them in the service of the ego, or you can use them in the service of Truth. If you believe only your religion is the Truth, you are using it in the service of the ego. Used in such a way, religion becomes ideology and creates illusions of superiority as well as division and conflict between people. In the service of Truth, religious teachings represent signposts or maps left behind by awakened humans to assist you in spiritual awakening, that is to say in becoming free of identification with form.
There is only one absolute Truth, and all other truths emanate from it. When you find that Truth, your actions will be in alignment with it. Human action can reflect the Truth, or it can reflect illusion. Can the Truth be put into words? Yes, but words are of course not it. They only point to it.
According to the Journal of American Medical Association, medical treatment is the 3rd leading cause of death after heart disease. Disease and medical treatment. War against anything will cause the opposite effect and make it worse. Super bacteria that adapts to anti-biotics. Will this eventually kill off much of human kind through epidemics / massive breakouts of super bugs?
There is either truth or illusion. Consciousness is truth, ego is an illusion.
- The ego always either wants something, or if it believes there is nothing to get from the other, it is in a state of utter indifference: it doesn't care about you. And so, the 3 predominant states of egoic relationships are wanting, thwarted wanting (anger resentment, blaming, complaining) and indifference.... all you need to know is this whenever you feel superior or inferior to anyone, that's the ego in you.
- In the eyes of the ego, self esteem and humility are contradictory. In truth, they are one and the same.
- Life is the dancer and ur the dance
- Ego comes about through a split in the human psyche in which identity separates into two parts that we could call "I" and "Me" and "myself". Every ego is therefore schizophrenic, to use the word in its popular meanings of split personality. You live with a mental image of yourself, a conceptual self that you have a relationship with. Life itself becomes conceptualized and separated from who you are when you speak of "my life". The moment you say or think "my life" and believe in what you are saying (rather than it just being a linguistic convention), you have entered the realm of delusion. If there is such a thing as "my life", it follows that I and life are two separate things, and so I can also lose my life, my imaginary treasured possession. Death becomes a seeming reality and a threat. Words and concepts split life into separate segments that have no reality in themselves. We could even say that the notion of "my life" is the original delusion of separateness, the source of ego. If I and life are two, if i am separate from life, then I am separate from all things, all beings, all people. But how could i be separate from life? What "I" could there be apart from life, apart from Being? It is utterly impossible. So there is no such thing as "my Life" and i don't HAVE a life. I AM life. I and life are one. It cannot be otherwise. SO how could i lose my life? how can i lose something that i don't have in the first place? How can i lose something that I Am? It is impossible.
- The greater part of most people's thinking is involuntary, automatic, and repetitive. It is no more than a kind of mental static and fulfills no real purpose. Strictly speaking, you don't think: Thinking happens to you. The statement "I think" implies volition. It implies that you have a say in the matter, that there is choice involved on your part. For most people, this is not yet the case. "I think", is just as false a statement as "I digest" or "i circulate my blood". Digestion happens, circulation happens, thinking happens.... this voice in the head has a life of its own. Most people are at the mercy of that voice; they are possessed by thought, by the mind. And since the mind is conditioned by the past, you are then forced to reenact the past again and again. The Eastern term for this is karma. When you are identified with that voice, you don't know this, of course. If you knew it, you would no longer be possessed because you are only truly possessed when you mistake the possessing entity for who you are, that is to say, when you become it.... thinking is no more than a tiny apsect of the totality of consciousness, the totality of who you are.
- After 2 ducks get into a fight, which never lasts long, they will separate and float off in opposite directions. Then each duck will flap its wings vigorously a few times, thus releasing the surplus energy that built up during the fight. After they flap their wings, they float on peacefully, as if nothing had ever happened.... If the duck had a human mind, it would keep the fight alive by thinking, by story-making. This would probably be the duck's story: "i don't believe what he just did. He came to within 5 inches of me. He thinks he owns this pond. He has no consideration for my private space. I'll never trust him again. Next time he'll try something else just to annoy me. I'm sure he's plotting something already. But I'm not going to stand for this. I'll teach him a lesson he won't forget". And on and on the mind spins its tales, still thinking and talking about it days, months or years later. As far as the body is concerned the fight is still continuing, and the energy it generates in response to all those thoughts is emotion, which in turn generates more thinking. This becomes the emotional thinking of the ego. YOu can see how problematic the duck's life would become if it had a human mind. But this is how most humans live all the time. No situation or event is ever really finished. The mind and the mind-made "me and my story" keep it going...... We are a species that has lost its way. Everything natural, every flower or tree, every animal have important lessons to teach us if we would only stop, look and listen. Our duck's lesson is this: Flap your wings - which translates as "let go of the story" - and return to the only place of power: the present moment. Look to nature for the greater meaning of things..... Nature exists in a state of unconscious oneness with the whole. This for example, is why virtually no wild animals were killed in the tsunami disaster of 2004. Being more in touch with the totality than humans, they could sense the tsunami's approach long before it could be seen or heard and so had time to withdraw to higher terrain. Perhaps even that is looking at it from a human perspective...... Even Christ says - Look at the lilies of the field, how they grow... they toil not, neither do they spin. Yet even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. If God clothes flowers in such beauty, then how much more can God clothe you.
Ego loses its hold faster on women because they have suffered much more than men in history. The sacred female has been victim to many unjust cases of oppression, torture, killings and rape and are thus in touch much more quicker at the core of who they are than men at a subconscious level. They have been victim to men's egos in history.
Outflow determines inflow. Whatever you think the world is withholding from you, you already have, but unless you allow it to flow out, you won't even know that you have it. This includes abundance. The law that outflow determines inflow is expressed by Jesus in this powerful image: "Give and it will be given to you" The source of abundance is not outside you. it is part of who you are..... ask yourself often: "What can i give here; how can i be of service to this person, this situation?" You don't need to own anything to feel abundant, although if you feel abundant consistently things will almost certainly come to you. Abundance comes only to those who already have it. It sounds almost unfair, but of course it isn't. It is a universal law. Both abundance and scarcity are inner states that manifest as your reality. Jesus puts it like this: "For to the one who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away."
- Wiseman and maybe... Zen master... Is that So?
- buddha chinese character. No and Man
- The ring and 'This too will pass'
- Television makes u go below ur thoughts like drugs and alcohol. It gives you a break from your thoughts. Sometimes indirectly though it can awaken. Laughter is liberating and healing.
- Connection of the cosmos expanding and eventually contracting to the mirco-cosmo that we all are. Analogy of inner and outer purpose. Just as Hawking asks why does the Universe bother expanding and contracting in this manner and existing period. Don't we ask the same question at a micro level of our own existence? Einstein until he died struggled with this concept that there is no causality of the universe.
Relative truth vs. Absolute truth - Relative is the sun rises and sets. Absolute is that it is actually always shining no matter what. Another relative truth in the mind is that 'my own life' is a relative perspective about you and your life are separate, when in fact they are one.
expansion and contraction is seen in the universe. Its seen in the human heart literally, its seen in breathing in and out, its seen in waking up and sleeping. Its seen in the dream world and the real world. Perhaps is the reverse that the dream world is really what we are when we are aware inside the dream. Process of birth, growth of physical form, then growth of ego, then gradual deterioation of form and your world. you go back where you came from. Nothingness.
- I Am the Way, Truth and the Life - because he was awakened
- Forgive them, for they know not what they do - The concept of awareness
- The Kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed nor will they say Lo here it is or There for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you. - linked to the concept of the beatitudes. That the kingdom of God / Heaven is something linked to the inner Being that is you.... and the poor in spirit are they that are poor of ego.... theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
- Love and Do what you will - st. Augustine
- There is in our civilization a great deal of ignorance about the human condition, and the more spiritually ignorant you are, the more you suffer. For many people, particularly in the West, death is no more than an abstract concept, and so they have no idea what happens to the human form when it approaches dissolution. Most decrepit and old people are shut away in nursing homes. Dead bodies, which in some older cultures are on open display for all to see, are hidden away. Try to see a dead body, and you will find that it is virtually illegal, except if the deceased is a close family member. In funeral homes, they even apply makeup on the face. You are only allowed to see a sanitized version of death.... it is precisely through the onset of old age, through loss of personal tragedy, that the spiritual dimension would traditionally come into people's lives. This is to say, their inner purpose would emerge only as their outer purpose collapsed and the shell of the ego would begin to crack open.
- The 3 modalities of awakened doing: Acceptance, Enjoyment, Enthusiasm.
Acceptance: Whatever you cannot enjoy doing, you can at least accept that this is what you have to do. Acceptance means for now, this is what the situation, this moment, requires me to do, and so i do it willingly. ie. changing a flat tire when it pops in the rain.
Enjoyment: The peace that comes with surrendered actions turns to a sense of aliveness when you actually enjoy what you are doing. Enjoyment will replace wanting as the motivating power behind people's actions.
Enthusiasm: means there is deep enjoyment in what you do plus the added element of a goal or a vision that you work toward.
- In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus makes a prediction that to this day few people have understood. He says, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth". In modern versions of the Bible, "meek" is translated as humble. Who are the meek or the humble, and what does it mean that they shall inherit the earth?.... the meek are the egoless. They are those who have awakened to their essential true nature as consciousness and recognize that essence in all "others", all life-forms. They live in the surrendered state and so feel their oneness with the whole and the Source. They embody the awakened consciousness that is changing all aspects of life on our planet, including nature, because life on earth is inseparable from the human consciousness that perceives and interacts with it. That is the sense in which the meek will inherit the earth. A new species is arising on the planet.....
Franz Kafka, TS Eliot, Albert Camus, James Joyce
Read about Jean Paul Sartre
Buddhas Teaching wiki
Words example) What is the essence of a Tree really if you couldn't call it a name?
Bum Lady talking aloud to herself in the UK
Eckhart talking hypocritically out loud in Bathroom right after.
Epiphany of missing family ring of dying old lady finally realizing that is not her although she identified it as part of who she was her whole life. Realized the ring was not who she was and laughed at the silliness of caring for it so much.
Aware of your own attachment to things and the need for more. That is the ego conditioned patterns of behavior at a young age....
I think therefore I am. Is discovery of the ego. Being aware that I am bc I think is another dimension and is the concept of awareness coming from our consciousness. Who we really are at the core.
Awareness is the next dimension after thinking and attachment to form. Dreaming. Then aware of dreaming while ur in the ur dream. are 2 different concepts.
When all form passes away who are you? It almost the 2nd derivative of the mind.
Its not that I am this or I am that... its that I AM
Depression or grievance is the habit of holding on to old thoughts and emotions. Be aware of all the things that get you there and realize it doesn't matter. In order for you to be right someone else needs to be wrong. This feeling of being right is the ego. And it is a trap.
Pol Pot of cambodia ordered everyone with glasses to be killed. considered them to be part of the bourgious, the educated - his view of marxist interpretation
The Catholic and other churches are correct when they identify relativism, the belief that there is no absolute truth to guide human behavior, as one of the evils of our times; but you won't find absolute truth if you look for it where it cannot be found: in doctrines, ideologies, sets of rules or stories. What do all these have in common? They are made up of thought. Thought can at best point to the truth but it never is the Truth. That's why Buddhists say "The finger pointing to the moon is not the moon". All religions are equally false and equally true, depending on how you use them. You can use them in the service of the ego, or you can use them in the service of Truth. If you believe only your religion is the Truth, you are using it in the service of the ego. Used in such a way, religion becomes ideology and creates illusions of superiority as well as division and conflict between people. In the service of Truth, religious teachings represent signposts or maps left behind by awakened humans to assist you in spiritual awakening, that is to say in becoming free of identification with form.
There is only one absolute Truth, and all other truths emanate from it. When you find that Truth, your actions will be in alignment with it. Human action can reflect the Truth, or it can reflect illusion. Can the Truth be put into words? Yes, but words are of course not it. They only point to it.
According to the Journal of American Medical Association, medical treatment is the 3rd leading cause of death after heart disease. Disease and medical treatment. War against anything will cause the opposite effect and make it worse. Super bacteria that adapts to anti-biotics. Will this eventually kill off much of human kind through epidemics / massive breakouts of super bugs?
There is either truth or illusion. Consciousness is truth, ego is an illusion.
- The ego always either wants something, or if it believes there is nothing to get from the other, it is in a state of utter indifference: it doesn't care about you. And so, the 3 predominant states of egoic relationships are wanting, thwarted wanting (anger resentment, blaming, complaining) and indifference.... all you need to know is this whenever you feel superior or inferior to anyone, that's the ego in you.
- In the eyes of the ego, self esteem and humility are contradictory. In truth, they are one and the same.
- Life is the dancer and ur the dance
- Ego comes about through a split in the human psyche in which identity separates into two parts that we could call "I" and "Me" and "myself". Every ego is therefore schizophrenic, to use the word in its popular meanings of split personality. You live with a mental image of yourself, a conceptual self that you have a relationship with. Life itself becomes conceptualized and separated from who you are when you speak of "my life". The moment you say or think "my life" and believe in what you are saying (rather than it just being a linguistic convention), you have entered the realm of delusion. If there is such a thing as "my life", it follows that I and life are two separate things, and so I can also lose my life, my imaginary treasured possession. Death becomes a seeming reality and a threat. Words and concepts split life into separate segments that have no reality in themselves. We could even say that the notion of "my life" is the original delusion of separateness, the source of ego. If I and life are two, if i am separate from life, then I am separate from all things, all beings, all people. But how could i be separate from life? What "I" could there be apart from life, apart from Being? It is utterly impossible. So there is no such thing as "my Life" and i don't HAVE a life. I AM life. I and life are one. It cannot be otherwise. SO how could i lose my life? how can i lose something that i don't have in the first place? How can i lose something that I Am? It is impossible.
- The greater part of most people's thinking is involuntary, automatic, and repetitive. It is no more than a kind of mental static and fulfills no real purpose. Strictly speaking, you don't think: Thinking happens to you. The statement "I think" implies volition. It implies that you have a say in the matter, that there is choice involved on your part. For most people, this is not yet the case. "I think", is just as false a statement as "I digest" or "i circulate my blood". Digestion happens, circulation happens, thinking happens.... this voice in the head has a life of its own. Most people are at the mercy of that voice; they are possessed by thought, by the mind. And since the mind is conditioned by the past, you are then forced to reenact the past again and again. The Eastern term for this is karma. When you are identified with that voice, you don't know this, of course. If you knew it, you would no longer be possessed because you are only truly possessed when you mistake the possessing entity for who you are, that is to say, when you become it.... thinking is no more than a tiny apsect of the totality of consciousness, the totality of who you are.
- After 2 ducks get into a fight, which never lasts long, they will separate and float off in opposite directions. Then each duck will flap its wings vigorously a few times, thus releasing the surplus energy that built up during the fight. After they flap their wings, they float on peacefully, as if nothing had ever happened.... If the duck had a human mind, it would keep the fight alive by thinking, by story-making. This would probably be the duck's story: "i don't believe what he just did. He came to within 5 inches of me. He thinks he owns this pond. He has no consideration for my private space. I'll never trust him again. Next time he'll try something else just to annoy me. I'm sure he's plotting something already. But I'm not going to stand for this. I'll teach him a lesson he won't forget". And on and on the mind spins its tales, still thinking and talking about it days, months or years later. As far as the body is concerned the fight is still continuing, and the energy it generates in response to all those thoughts is emotion, which in turn generates more thinking. This becomes the emotional thinking of the ego. YOu can see how problematic the duck's life would become if it had a human mind. But this is how most humans live all the time. No situation or event is ever really finished. The mind and the mind-made "me and my story" keep it going...... We are a species that has lost its way. Everything natural, every flower or tree, every animal have important lessons to teach us if we would only stop, look and listen. Our duck's lesson is this: Flap your wings - which translates as "let go of the story" - and return to the only place of power: the present moment. Look to nature for the greater meaning of things..... Nature exists in a state of unconscious oneness with the whole. This for example, is why virtually no wild animals were killed in the tsunami disaster of 2004. Being more in touch with the totality than humans, they could sense the tsunami's approach long before it could be seen or heard and so had time to withdraw to higher terrain. Perhaps even that is looking at it from a human perspective...... Even Christ says - Look at the lilies of the field, how they grow... they toil not, neither do they spin. Yet even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. If God clothes flowers in such beauty, then how much more can God clothe you.
Ego loses its hold faster on women because they have suffered much more than men in history. The sacred female has been victim to many unjust cases of oppression, torture, killings and rape and are thus in touch much more quicker at the core of who they are than men at a subconscious level. They have been victim to men's egos in history.
Outflow determines inflow. Whatever you think the world is withholding from you, you already have, but unless you allow it to flow out, you won't even know that you have it. This includes abundance. The law that outflow determines inflow is expressed by Jesus in this powerful image: "Give and it will be given to you" The source of abundance is not outside you. it is part of who you are..... ask yourself often: "What can i give here; how can i be of service to this person, this situation?" You don't need to own anything to feel abundant, although if you feel abundant consistently things will almost certainly come to you. Abundance comes only to those who already have it. It sounds almost unfair, but of course it isn't. It is a universal law. Both abundance and scarcity are inner states that manifest as your reality. Jesus puts it like this: "For to the one who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away."
- Wiseman and maybe... Zen master... Is that So?
- buddha chinese character. No and Man
- The ring and 'This too will pass'
- Television makes u go below ur thoughts like drugs and alcohol. It gives you a break from your thoughts. Sometimes indirectly though it can awaken. Laughter is liberating and healing.
- Connection of the cosmos expanding and eventually contracting to the mirco-cosmo that we all are. Analogy of inner and outer purpose. Just as Hawking asks why does the Universe bother expanding and contracting in this manner and existing period. Don't we ask the same question at a micro level of our own existence? Einstein until he died struggled with this concept that there is no causality of the universe.
Relative truth vs. Absolute truth - Relative is the sun rises and sets. Absolute is that it is actually always shining no matter what. Another relative truth in the mind is that 'my own life' is a relative perspective about you and your life are separate, when in fact they are one.
expansion and contraction is seen in the universe. Its seen in the human heart literally, its seen in breathing in and out, its seen in waking up and sleeping. Its seen in the dream world and the real world. Perhaps is the reverse that the dream world is really what we are when we are aware inside the dream. Process of birth, growth of physical form, then growth of ego, then gradual deterioation of form and your world. you go back where you came from. Nothingness.
- I Am the Way, Truth and the Life - because he was awakened
- Forgive them, for they know not what they do - The concept of awareness
- The Kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed nor will they say Lo here it is or There for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you. - linked to the concept of the beatitudes. That the kingdom of God / Heaven is something linked to the inner Being that is you.... and the poor in spirit are they that are poor of ego.... theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
- Love and Do what you will - st. Augustine
- There is in our civilization a great deal of ignorance about the human condition, and the more spiritually ignorant you are, the more you suffer. For many people, particularly in the West, death is no more than an abstract concept, and so they have no idea what happens to the human form when it approaches dissolution. Most decrepit and old people are shut away in nursing homes. Dead bodies, which in some older cultures are on open display for all to see, are hidden away. Try to see a dead body, and you will find that it is virtually illegal, except if the deceased is a close family member. In funeral homes, they even apply makeup on the face. You are only allowed to see a sanitized version of death.... it is precisely through the onset of old age, through loss of personal tragedy, that the spiritual dimension would traditionally come into people's lives. This is to say, their inner purpose would emerge only as their outer purpose collapsed and the shell of the ego would begin to crack open.
- The 3 modalities of awakened doing: Acceptance, Enjoyment, Enthusiasm.
Acceptance: Whatever you cannot enjoy doing, you can at least accept that this is what you have to do. Acceptance means for now, this is what the situation, this moment, requires me to do, and so i do it willingly. ie. changing a flat tire when it pops in the rain.
Enjoyment: The peace that comes with surrendered actions turns to a sense of aliveness when you actually enjoy what you are doing. Enjoyment will replace wanting as the motivating power behind people's actions.
Enthusiasm: means there is deep enjoyment in what you do plus the added element of a goal or a vision that you work toward.
- In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus makes a prediction that to this day few people have understood. He says, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth". In modern versions of the Bible, "meek" is translated as humble. Who are the meek or the humble, and what does it mean that they shall inherit the earth?.... the meek are the egoless. They are those who have awakened to their essential true nature as consciousness and recognize that essence in all "others", all life-forms. They live in the surrendered state and so feel their oneness with the whole and the Source. They embody the awakened consciousness that is changing all aspects of life on our planet, including nature, because life on earth is inseparable from the human consciousness that perceives and interacts with it. That is the sense in which the meek will inherit the earth. A new species is arising on the planet.....
Franz Kafka, TS Eliot, Albert Camus, James Joyce
Read about Jean Paul Sartre
Buddhas Teaching wiki
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