Home | Community | Message Board


This site includes paid links. Please support our sponsors.


Welcome to the Shroomery Message Board! You are experiencing a small sample of what the site has to offer. Please login or register to post messages and view our exclusive members-only content. You'll gain access to additional forums, file attachments, board customizations, encrypted private messages, and much more!

Shop: Original Sensible Seeds Autoflowering Cannabis Seeds, Bulk Cannabis Seeds   Kraken Kratom Red Vein Kratom   Unfolding Nature Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order

Jump to first unread post Pages: 1 | 2 | Next >  [ show all ]
OfflineDeviate
newbie
Registered: 04/20/03
Posts: 4,497
Last seen: 8 years, 5 months
Bhakti as a replacement for enlightenment
    #19309617 - 12/21/13 09:32 PM (10 years, 2 months ago)

I read something I found interesting in talks with Ramana Maharshi.

SOmeone was complaining to him that he couldn't get enlightenment and ramana said to him that all things would come right in time, but in the meantime there was bhakti.

I found this interesting because before I had been looking at love for God as a means to enlightenment (which it  supposedly is) but somehow it didnt really occur to me that bhakti could be an end itself, or an appetizer if you will to keep you from feeling hungry while you wait for liberation.

This is the major difference between Ramana Maharshi and teachers like U.G. Kristamurti and to a lessor extent tony parsons who seem to imply they reached enlightenment in spite of spiritual practices rather than as a result of them.

What do you guys think about this? Ramana maharshi teaches that love for God is God, so basically liberation is just an extreme state of bhakti. If this is so, then even if bhakti doesnt lead directly to liberation, there is no reason not to cultivate it for those who are interested in liberation.

As I have said, it was largely a result of Ramana Maharshi's urging that I became Catholic. Prior to that, I was only interested in awareness practices. Love, or God didn't really enter the picture for me. I thought I could figure everything out just by being super aware, Buddha style. Cultivating bhakti is really an interesting approach and its one that many westerners have difficulty with, myself being so exception. For some reason it seems like our culture, which places such a high value on individualism and personal achievement, makes it very difficult to bow down and acknowledge that God is the Lord and you have no control because all power belongs to Him. Despite the prevalence of Christianity in the West, it seems like its cultural influences have not diffused down to the point where the average, non religeous person is capable or willing to bow down before the divine and acknowledge the fact that they are not very important. Somehow in our culture we have this ridiculous idea that we are very important and that our lives matter and that we have control over things. This is all completely false. Everything belongs to God alone and there are billions of people out there all of which are just as important as we are.


Edited by Deviate (12/21/13 09:34 PM)


Extras: Filter Print Post Top
InvisibleCosmicJokeM
happy mutant
 User Gallery

Registered: 04/05/00
Posts: 10,848
Loc: Portland, OR
Re: Bhakti as a replacement for enlightenment [Re: Deviate]
    #19309648 - 12/21/13 09:42 PM (10 years, 2 months ago)

I suspect bowing down is just another flavor of self importance. I'm pretty sure 'the Universe' (which is kind of an abstract concept to begin with imho) doesn't give a flying fuck what :monkeydance: stance you take, whether it's kissing feet or posing like He Man.  If the point is that donkeys, grass-hoppers, dolphins, toads, humming- birds, dogs, chickens, tigers, sharks, gophers, spiders, chimpanzees, cobras, cows, lice, squid, deer, and humans are equally important, equally unimportant, equally empty, equally expressive of the "World Soul" or "Life Force", how does training yourself to do the opposite of what you were originally trained to do help?

I feel more 'aligned with the Tao' in retrospect (is not on my mind at the time), when I'm treading barefoot in my backyard on the moist green lawn as a subtle summer breeze blows... :shrug:  I just feel better when none of this matters in the slightest, 'cuz it all feels like posturing to me.  I think dropping out is your best chance at awakening from this narcissistic self-hypnosis.


--------------------
Everything is better than it was the last time.  I'm good.

If we could look into each others hearts, and understand the unique challenges each of us faces, I think we would treat each other much more gently, with more love, patience, tolerance, and care.

It takes a lot of courage to go out there and radiate your essence.

I know you scared, you should ask us if we scared too.  If you was there, and we just knew you cared too.


Edited by CosmicJoke (12/21/13 10:21 PM)


Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineDeviate
newbie
Registered: 04/20/03
Posts: 4,497
Last seen: 8 years, 5 months
Re: Bhakti as a replacement for enlightenment [Re: CosmicJoke]
    #19309903 - 12/21/13 11:15 PM (10 years, 2 months ago)

Well, its necessary to understand that spiritual practices are a response to the state of the seekers mind so it may be true that bowing down doesnt work for you but you cant use that as evidence that it doesnt work for most people.

Bowing down works because the life force, which you think doesnt care, is present in us, as us. Its our true self. When you bow down and make a physical gesture of surrender of the ego self, this gives the true self an opportunity to assert itself a little bit. Its actually quite effect when done repeatedly. all these sorts of religious rituals and prayers must be done repeatedly, you are not likely to get anything from bowing down one time. In that case it will be just another flavor of self importance. But when these practices are done regularly, they eventually become automatic and the ego begins to recede as you fall in "surrender mode" and this practice of entering surrender mode begins to loosen the screws which hold the ego in place. It really does work provided you have faith in it and sometimes even if you dont.

It's this attitude that "I am pretty sure the universe.... I know better, etc etc" that is the problem. When you just do these practices obediently without analyzing them or thinking you know better, that is when they are most effective.

And this is precisely what is so difficult for westerners. They feel as though know better, or they must analyze and understand how everything works, or that they dont need these practices. THere is something about bowing down before God with a group of people that makes westerners extremely uneasy. Its like submitting to group think, many people, myself included are repulsed by it at a very deep level of their being. It took me a long time to get used to it and get rid of that feeling.


Edited by Deviate (12/21/13 11:20 PM)


Extras: Filter Print Post Top
InvisibleCosmicJokeM
happy mutant
 User Gallery

Registered: 04/05/00
Posts: 10,848
Loc: Portland, OR
Re: Bhakti as a replacement for enlightenment [Re: Deviate]
    #19309981 - 12/21/13 11:34 PM (10 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

It's this attitude that "I am pretty sure the universe.... I know better, etc etc" that is the problem.




Sure, yet your attitude that this is the problem doesn't exemplify that you know better?  We're both guessing, but due to your other posts of recent, it seemed that you might be kind of miserable, so I thought I'd suggest an alternative to bowing down, one that perhaps included a nature walk.


--------------------
Everything is better than it was the last time.  I'm good.

If we could look into each others hearts, and understand the unique challenges each of us faces, I think we would treat each other much more gently, with more love, patience, tolerance, and care.

It takes a lot of courage to go out there and radiate your essence.

I know you scared, you should ask us if we scared too.  If you was there, and we just knew you cared too.


Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineDeviate
newbie
Registered: 04/20/03
Posts: 4,497
Last seen: 8 years, 5 months
Re: Bhakti as a replacement for enlightenment [Re: CosmicJoke]
    #19310008 - 12/21/13 11:44 PM (10 years, 2 months ago)

Yes I am incredibly miserable but my misery is in part due to the fact that I stopped suppressing my feelings, so all kinds of very painful feelings have been rushing into my consciousness lately and sometimes I just cry for hours on end. I had been suppressing my feelings for such a long time, my heart was completely closed, and having it open again has been excruciating, but I believe that I need to open my heart in order to heal. My mind is miserable but I feel a sensation of deep calm in the center of my chest that I have not felt since childhood. I hope its a sign that my healing work has not been in vain.


Extras: Filter Print Post Top
InvisibleCosmicJokeM
happy mutant
 User Gallery

Registered: 04/05/00
Posts: 10,848
Loc: Portland, OR
Re: Bhakti as a replacement for enlightenment [Re: Deviate]
    #19310064 - 12/22/13 12:14 AM (10 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

Deviate said:
Yes I am incredibly miserable but my misery is in part due to the fact that I stopped suppressing my feelings, so all kinds of very painful feelings have been rushing into my consciousness lately and sometimes I just cry for hours on end. I had been suppressing my feelings for such a long time, my heart was completely closed, and having it open again has been excruciating, but I believe that I need to open my heart in order to heal. My mind is miserable but I feel a sensation of deep calm in the center of my chest that I have not felt since childhood. I hope its a sign that my healing work has not been in vain.




Well, I've never experienced anything like that myself.  When my mind is at rest, my body relaxes and I feel more emotionally stable.  I'm curious though what it means to be mentally agitated, yet feel emotionally calm and physically good, as for me emotion, thought, and sensations are quite deeply intertwined.  But if you're making progress with your practice, by all means keep doing what you're doing.  I'd hope you'd consider that everyone who is not kneeling in the face of an all mighty Reality with a capital R must somehow be the reverse of that, fully invested in their own individual differences.  It just seems like a hangover of the medieval Catholic era that everybody must be X or -X.


--------------------
Everything is better than it was the last time.  I'm good.

If we could look into each others hearts, and understand the unique challenges each of us faces, I think we would treat each other much more gently, with more love, patience, tolerance, and care.

It takes a lot of courage to go out there and radiate your essence.

I know you scared, you should ask us if we scared too.  If you was there, and we just knew you cared too.


Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineDeviate
newbie
Registered: 04/20/03
Posts: 4,497
Last seen: 8 years, 5 months
Re: Bhakti as a replacement for enlightenment [Re: CosmicJoke]
    #19310177 - 12/22/13 01:09 AM (10 years, 2 months ago)

emotion thought and feelings are deeply intertwined for me too. It feels strange to have them out of sync. But for me how it feels is it feels as though great pains and contracted energies have risen up from my heart and they pass through my mind on their way out of the body. Much of this has hapened as a result of my use of the Jesus prayer, keeping the name of Jesus in my heart unceasingly. I also skipped a stage of the prayer though, you are supposed to develop unceasing mental prayer before unceasing prayer of the heart. I did not know that and in my rush to develop prayer of the heart, I neglected unceasing mental repetition of the Jesus prayer, focusing all my attention on my heart. As a result of this my mind and my heart became out of sync, with my heart becoming pure while my mind was still dragging along in the gutter. I am not too concerned about it, because I believe that my mind will follow my heart.


Extras: Filter Print Post Top
InvisibleCosmicJokeM
happy mutant
 User Gallery

Registered: 04/05/00
Posts: 10,848
Loc: Portland, OR
Re: Bhakti as a replacement for enlightenment [Re: Deviate]
    #19310368 - 12/22/13 02:30 AM (10 years, 2 months ago)

Gotta wonder why thinking the same set of repetitious symbols, over and over, until they lose their meaning, actually might help.  Normally you use symbols to communicate the abstract and intangible things that you're experiencing, to make sense of your experiences, to yourself or others. People almost feel a sense of spiritual communion when they feel like they've figured something out for themselves or somebody else understands them.  Even though it's impermanent, we live for it.

I think you're saying the same thing over and over to reinforce that your thoughts are just symbols, they're dead, inert.  Your mind is a tool, to not only survive, but to transcend isolation and connect with other people.  Your heart is a dreamlike well of archetypes, emotions, and instincts.  It's always been pure, and each time you take psychedelics, you penetrate the well and find it's just as it always has and will ever be.  When you've lost the means to reach its waters, you're stuck using your mind in survival mode, though there may not be any immediate danger, it's all oscillating from some traumatic event.  Mantra is retraining your mind to penetrate your heart.


--------------------
Everything is better than it was the last time.  I'm good.

If we could look into each others hearts, and understand the unique challenges each of us faces, I think we would treat each other much more gently, with more love, patience, tolerance, and care.

It takes a lot of courage to go out there and radiate your essence.

I know you scared, you should ask us if we scared too.  If you was there, and we just knew you cared too.


Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineDeviate
newbie
Registered: 04/20/03
Posts: 4,497
Last seen: 8 years, 5 months
Re: Bhakti as a replacement for enlightenment [Re: CosmicJoke]
    #19310593 - 12/22/13 05:13 AM (10 years, 2 months ago)

Yes, the Orthodox church teaches that one must use the prayer to coax one's nous down from the mind into the heart and then live their life with it there down there. So far, my nous has gone all the way down into my heart once and then it quickly rushed back out. It can be a very frustrating and arduous process because the nous possesses this is extremely annoying tendency to rush out of the heart the moment you think it has been established there. But my hope is that with repeated practice, my nous can be forced to remain down there. Of course one must also be careful not to apply too much force because it is possible to suppress thoughts and emotions through the use of the prayer also. If one remains completely locked into the prayer, there is no attention leftover for other thoughts or feelings.

I find this whole spiritual teaching of viewing the person as consisting of a heart and a nous to be very interesting, simple and yet effective.

You see, the Roman Catholic church is basically just a Bhakti religion (not that there is anything at all wrong with that) but the orthdox church gives us this very practical method for controlling the nous which I have not seen anywhere else except in Hinduism there are similar practices (although the Orthodox church claims that the Indian practices both Christian and Hindu are incorrect).

Its funny because several years ago when i was looking into Christian spiritual practices beyond the "our father who are in heaven" I used to study this new age wbesite that claimed the mainstream churches had become like modern day scribes and pharisees only teaching the letter of the law. At the time I ignorantly believed them and fell into their clutches. After I actually studied the main stream churches however, I found that nothing could be further from the truth. The mainstream churches had actually developed some very simple methods of attuning to one's heart center that were far less complicated and fantastical than those stupid new age teachings which have you believing in atlantis and races of robot men. I remember thinking, ok why do I need to hear about atlantis? Do i really need to believe in atlantis to become enlightened? SO I left the new age movement and joined the Roman Catholic church because its just a simple bhakti religion and thats all you really need, love for God. You dont need thousands and thousands of pages of bewildering new age revelations that mainstream churches "arent open to".


Extras: Filter Print Post Top
InvisibleChronic7
Registered: 05/08/04
Posts: 13,679
Re: Bhakti as a replacement for enlightenment [Re: Deviate]
    #19310600 - 12/22/13 05:19 AM (10 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

Deviate said:
I read something I found interesting in talks with Ramana Maharshi.

SOmeone was complaining to him that he couldn't get enlightenment and ramana said to him that all things would come right in time, but in the meantime there was bhakti.

I found this interesting because before I had been looking at love for God as a means to enlightenment (which it  supposedly is) but somehow it didnt really occur to me that bhakti could be an end itself, or an appetizer if you will to keep you from feeling hungry while you wait for liberation.

This is the major difference between Ramana Maharshi and teachers like U.G. Kristamurti and to a lessor extent tony parsons who seem to imply they reached enlightenment in spite of spiritual practices rather than as a result of them.

What do you guys think about this? Ramana maharshi teaches that love for God is God, so basically liberation is just an extreme state of bhakti. If this is so, then even if bhakti doesnt lead directly to liberation, there is no reason not to cultivate it for those who are interested in liberation.

As I have said, it was largely a result of Ramana Maharshi's urging that I became Catholic. Prior to that, I was only interested in awareness practices. Love, or God didn't really enter the picture for me. I thought I could figure everything out just by being super aware, Buddha style. Cultivating bhakti is really an interesting approach and its one that many westerners have difficulty with, myself being so exception. For some reason it seems like our culture, which places such a high value on individualism and personal achievement, makes it very difficult to bow down and acknowledge that God is the Lord and you have no control because all power belongs to Him. Despite the prevalence of Christianity in the West, it seems like its cultural influences have not diffused down to the point where the average, non religeous person is capable or willing to bow down before the divine and acknowledge the fact that they are not very important. Somehow in our culture we have this ridiculous idea that we are very important and that our lives matter and that we have control over things. This is all completely false. Everything belongs to God alone and there are billions of people out there all of which are just as important as we are.




Love is The Way

You can Love the Truth & contemplate what is true until you find/lose yourself in it, Jnana, or you can Love the highest power, to which you will naturally surrender, Bhakti

Either way it's Love
Love starts you on the path, and it's Love that takes you All the Way, There is Only Love

Ramana encouraged Jnana mostly but also recommended Bhakti, he also said

"It is enough that one surrenders oneself. Surrender is to give oneself up to the original cause of one’s being. Do not delude yourself by imagining such a source to be some God outside you. Your source is within yourself. Give yourself up to it"

Bhakti is generally hard for most westeners in my opinion because they've been brainwashed by media propagation of psuedo-science & nutjob religious-fundamentalists to make Love of God into a subject of ridicule rather than reverence


--------------------


Edited by Chronic7 (12/22/13 05:24 AM)


Extras: Filter Print Post Top
InvisibleCosmicJokeM
happy mutant
 User Gallery

Registered: 04/05/00
Posts: 10,848
Loc: Portland, OR
Re: Bhakti as a replacement for enlightenment [Re: Deviate]
    #19310656 - 12/22/13 05:50 AM (10 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

Deviate said:
Yes, the Orthodox church teaches that one must use the prayer to coax one's nous down from the mind into the heart and then live their life with it there down there. So far, my nous has gone all the way down into my heart once and then it quickly rushed back out. It can be a very frustrating and arduous process because the nous possesses this is extremely annoying tendency to rush out of the heart the moment you think it has been established there. But my hope is that with repeated practice, my nous can be forced to remain down there. Of course one must also be careful not to apply too much force because it is possible to suppress thoughts and emotions through the use of the prayer also. If one remains completely locked into the prayer, there is no attention leftover for other thoughts or feelings.




Life doesn't work that way IME.  Each environment hides from the other its set of stimulus conditions.  You can do your Jesus prayer, and you may very well get free while doing it, but that's not going to help you much when somebody pushes your buttons on The Shroomery.  For all the work you have done, you've only clipped that seed of anger while praying in solitude - this is  a different ball game, and a good sense of humor can help you enjoy it for what it is.


Quote:

I find this whole spiritual teaching of viewing the person as consisting of a heart and a nous to be very interesting, simple and yet effective.

You see, the Roman Catholic church is basically just a Bhakti religion (not that there is anything at all wrong with that) but the orthdox church gives us this very practical method for controlling the nous which I have not seen anywhere else except in Hinduism there are similar practices (although the Orthodox church claims that the Indian practices both Christian and Hindu are incorrect).

Its funny because several years ago when i was looking into Christian spiritual practices beyond the "our father who are in heaven" I used to study this new age wbesite that claimed the mainstream churches had become like modern day scribes and pharisees only teaching the letter of the law. At the time I ignorantly believed them and fell into their clutches. After I actually studied the main stream churches however, I found that nothing could be further from the truth. The mainstream churches had actually developed some very simple methods of attuning to one's heart center that were far less complicated and fantastical than those stupid new age teachings which have you believing in atlantis and races of robot men. I remember thinking, ok why do I need to hear about atlantis? Do i really need to believe in atlantis to become enlightened? SO I left the new age movement and joined the Roman Catholic church because its just a simple bhakti religion and thats all you really need, love for God. You dont need thousands and thousands of pages of bewildering new age revelations that mainstream churches "arent open to".




I think I feel the same way, but I don't want the Roman Catholic church for similar reasons, I just want some silence in the morning and to watch the sun rise.


--------------------
Everything is better than it was the last time.  I'm good.

If we could look into each others hearts, and understand the unique challenges each of us faces, I think we would treat each other much more gently, with more love, patience, tolerance, and care.

It takes a lot of courage to go out there and radiate your essence.

I know you scared, you should ask us if we scared too.  If you was there, and we just knew you cared too.


Extras: Filter Print Post Top
InvisibleIcelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery
Male


Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
Re: Bhakti as a replacement for enlightenment [Re: CosmicJoke]
    #19310819 - 12/22/13 07:10 AM (10 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

CosmicJoke said:
I suspect bowing down is just another flavor of self importance. I'm pretty sure 'the Universe' (which is kind of an abstract concept to begin with imho) doesn't give a flying fuck what :monkeydance: stance you take, whether it's kissing feet or posing like He Man.  If the point is that donkeys, grass-hoppers, dolphins, toads, humming- birds, dogs, chickens, tigers, sharks, gophers, spiders, chimpanzees, cobras, cows, lice, squid, deer, and humans are equally important, equally unimportant, equally empty, equally expressive of the "World Soul" or "Life Force", how does training yourself to do the opposite of what you were originally trained to do help?

I feel more 'aligned with the Tao' in retrospect (is not on my mind at the time), when I'm treading barefoot in my backyard on the moist green lawn as a subtle summer breeze blows... :shrug:  I just feel better when none of this matters in the slightest, 'cuz it all feels like posturing to me.  I think dropping out is your best chance at awakening from this narcissistic self-hypnosis.




This is too logical a view for most and it's really not true that westerners have a problem bowing and scraping before some god master (christianity) political master (obummer) money master ( doctors and lawyers and indian chiefs) and all sorts of other nonsense.

Great response btw, I'm with you. :satansmoking:


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC


Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Offlineall this beauty
Stranger
Registered: 02/13/13
Posts: 779
Last seen: 10 years, 1 month
Re: Bhakti as a replacement for enlightenment [Re: Deviate]
    #19311101 - 12/22/13 09:11 AM (10 years, 2 months ago)

Westerners have a difficult time with the "You are It" thing that forms the backbone of Eastern mystical traditions, so they invent gods and proceed to worship them.  Gods who are merely projections of the godhood residing in each of us. 

Of course, Easterners are not immune from this "projection" thing.

Ever see the inside of a good old classic Hindu temple, for example?  :grin:


Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineIcyus
KavitārkikasiṃHa
Male


Registered: 11/07/13
Posts: 3,502
Loc: Inbetween.
Last seen: 8 years, 1 month
Re: Bhakti as a replacement for enlightenment [Re: all this beauty]
    #19311124 - 12/22/13 09:21 AM (10 years, 2 months ago)

I think this will work against that of enlightenment...


--------------------
And thus begins the  reverse-fusing of our one-dimentional understanding, and adds ever-expanding perspectives, in depth and number; splitting our perception, and in so doing, seemingly irrationally, creates yet more one-ness, with all that ever was, is and will ever be, streching across the infinite, inunderstood concept of everything, percievable and not.


Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Offlinedeff
just love everyone
 User Gallery


Registered: 05/01/04
Posts: 9,412
Loc: clarity Flag
Last seen: 3 hours, 11 minutes
Re: Bhakti as a replacement for enlightenment [Re: Deviate]
    #19311143 - 12/22/13 09:28 AM (10 years, 2 months ago)

along the same vein as bhakti - i think cultivating a very deep and rich sense of gratitude for life and our individual blessings (not necessarily towards a God, but just deep gratitude) goes a long way. especially if this is combined with the wisdom of non-duality to whatever extent one is capable of engendering - this seems to intensify the gratitude but also prevent us from getting stuck in a particular story / conceptual thing. i think the same thing is important with bhakti - to realize the God / Being you are in love with is also yourself inseparably.


--------------------



Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Offlineall this beauty
Stranger
Registered: 02/13/13
Posts: 779
Last seen: 10 years, 1 month
Re: Bhakti as a replacement for enlightenment [Re: deff]
    #19311958 - 12/22/13 01:38 PM (10 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

deff said:
along the same vein as bhakti - i think cultivating a very deep and rich sense of gratitude for life and our individual blessings (not necessarily towards a God, but just deep gratitude) goes a long way.



Nice.

But do you think it's possible to "cultivate" a sense of gratitude, and how would one go about it?

Unlike devotion to a deity (essentially an intellectual exercise -- no one can truly, in their deepest recesses, "love" an invisible, essentially unknowable entity such as a "God"), cultivating gratitude seems like an emotional exercise.

What do you think?


Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineIcyus
KavitārkikasiṃHa
Male


Registered: 11/07/13
Posts: 3,502
Loc: Inbetween.
Last seen: 8 years, 1 month
Re: Bhakti as a replacement for enlightenment [Re: all this beauty]
    #19311978 - 12/22/13 01:45 PM (10 years, 2 months ago)

No one can love.. either this is wrong, or they just stop excisting to you? True love is not matereal.. someone could love a rock.. or a thought, if they so wished..and, no, I am not speaking of affection, but love.. it is hard to understand how weird people can be..


--------------------
And thus begins the  reverse-fusing of our one-dimentional understanding, and adds ever-expanding perspectives, in depth and number; splitting our perception, and in so doing, seemingly irrationally, creates yet more one-ness, with all that ever was, is and will ever be, streching across the infinite, inunderstood concept of everything, percievable and not.


Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Offlinedeff
just love everyone
 User Gallery


Registered: 05/01/04
Posts: 9,412
Loc: clarity Flag
Last seen: 3 hours, 11 minutes
Re: Bhakti as a replacement for enlightenment [Re: all this beauty]
    #19312032 - 12/22/13 02:05 PM (10 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

all this beauty said:
Quote:

deff said:
along the same vein as bhakti - i think cultivating a very deep and rich sense of gratitude for life and our individual blessings (not necessarily towards a God, but just deep gratitude) goes a long way.



Nice.

But do you think it's possible to "cultivate" a sense of gratitude, and how would one go about it?

Unlike devotion to a deity (essentially an intellectual exercise -- no one can truly, in their deepest recesses, "love" an invisible, essentially unknowable entity such as a "God"), cultivating gratitude seems like an emotional exercise.

What do you think?




I think gratitude can be seen, at least in my experience, to arise based roughly 50% on intention and 50% on grace (in the sense that it arises from parts of your being you aren't conscious of). while we can't control the grace aspect of the gratitude, we can initiate the intentional gratitude (which is often intellectual at first) which in turn inspires the grace experience of gratitude (which is more feeling-oriented, heart-centered, and seems to wash over you or flood your being with that beautiful feeling). so the intentional trigger of gratitude can be brought on by purposely thinking about your blessings in life and making the decision to be grateful, at least intellectually, about life - which then triggers the emotional gratitude, the deep feeling. sometimes the deep emotional gratitude can come on without any conscious intention, but by deciding to be more grateful i think we can dramatically increase it's presence in our life. this is my experience of it anyways :smile:


--------------------



Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Offlineall this beauty
Stranger
Registered: 02/13/13
Posts: 779
Last seen: 10 years, 1 month
Re: Bhakti as a replacement for enlightenment [Re: Icyus]
    #19312051 - 12/22/13 02:11 PM (10 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

Icyus said:
No one can love.. either this is wrong, or they just stop existing to you? True love is not matereal.. someone could love a rock.. or a thought, if they so wished..and, no, I am not speaking of affection, but love.. it is hard to understand how weird people can be..



Please.  You and I obviously have very different understandings of what "love" is.

You cannot "love" a rock.  Sure, you can have an emotional attachment to a rock, but...  "love"?  Get real.

You cannot "love" a thing (like a deity) that is essentially unknowable to you.  People will say they "love God," but I'd suggest that's because they're afraid of going to their imaginary "hell" if they refuse to say so.

"Love" of the various world's deities (there are many) is something people are taught and do primarily out of fear.

No one intuitively, naturally, "loves" something that is essentially unknowable to them.


Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineIcyus
KavitārkikasiṃHa
Male


Registered: 11/07/13
Posts: 3,502
Loc: Inbetween.
Last seen: 8 years, 1 month
Re: Bhakti as a replacement for enlightenment [Re: deff]
    #19312062 - 12/22/13 02:13 PM (10 years, 2 months ago)

I let gratitude only arise from impulse.. even though I am not always in controll.. how does that sound?

You say "you", yet you are speaking to your reflection..


--------------------
And thus begins the  reverse-fusing of our one-dimentional understanding, and adds ever-expanding perspectives, in depth and number; splitting our perception, and in so doing, seemingly irrationally, creates yet more one-ness, with all that ever was, is and will ever be, streching across the infinite, inunderstood concept of everything, percievable and not.


Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Jump to top Pages: 1 | 2 | Next >  [ show all ]

Shop: Original Sensible Seeds Autoflowering Cannabis Seeds, Bulk Cannabis Seeds   Kraken Kratom Red Vein Kratom   Unfolding Nature Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order


Similar ThreadsPosterViewsRepliesLast post
* Bhakti Yoga leery11 1,366 16 08/06/08 02:51 PM
by lines
* On your path to enlightenment...
( 1 2 all )
ShroomismM 12,355 34 10/15/22 10:25 PM
by Buster_Brown
* Enlightenment smacks of elitism or does it
( 1 2 all )
Anonymous 6,431 26 09/14/06 11:47 PM
by gettinjiggywithit
* Do "You" Desire Enlightenment? Chronic7 1,904 14 05/07/08 05:33 AM
by Chronic7
* I fell through: A glimpse of Enlightenment? leery11 1,853 11 02/17/06 06:51 PM
by eve69
* A Most Enlightening Shopping Trip! MystikMushroom 954 1 07/08/06 03:50 AM
by truekimbo2
* the game of enlightenment backfromthedead 1,653 17 03/03/08 05:09 PM
by Jack Albertson
* I'm looking for Taoist Psychedelic Enlightened Masters onlynow 1,178 10 09/04/07 10:39 AM
by shakercee

Extra information
You cannot start new topics / You cannot reply to topics
HTML is disabled / BBCode is enabled
Moderator: Middleman, Shroomism, Rose, Kickle, yogabunny, DividedQuantum
1,670 topic views. 0 members, 5 guests and 3 web crawlers are browsing this forum.
[ Show Images Only | Sort by Score | Print Topic ]
Search this thread:

Copyright 1997-2024 Mind Media. Some rights reserved.

Generated in 0.023 seconds spending 0.003 seconds on 14 queries.