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Offlinepacmanbreed
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Re: Jesus and John the Baptist: The Eternal Bond of Guru and Disciple [Re: PocketLady]
    #26474115 - 02/07/20 03:12 PM (4 years, 9 days ago)

I find such discussion of high value from realized fellows and can relate fully.

with the teacher/student having a bad rap, more so with the mudified scriptures that are non-diligently interpreted. Id follow my gut the way you do interms of this. :thumbup:
Quote:

Test all things, and hold firmly that which is good. 1 Thessalonians 5




Though im not from the west, Personally id choose self-realization over churchianity that revolves around tithes founded specially in those parts. Self-realization So as long it doesn't have a fix $$price tag, Given that Spirituality is already a lonely serious path this adds up to the burden.

The way it is in this parts, is that we dont have a particular guru/teacher/pastor to be called along the name but rather realized brothers/sisters to help in the self-realization processs.

Ps. Reincarnation is a bit different than ressurection in some extent as mark have pointed.


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InvisiblePocketLady
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Re: Jesus and John the Baptist: The Eternal Bond of Guru and Disciple [Re: pacmanbreed] * 1
    #26474137 - 02/07/20 03:22 PM (4 years, 9 days ago)

I understand where you are coming from, and I think I actually held a very similar view to you in times gone by. When I first met my teacher, he did not present himself as a teacher, but rather as a brother/friend who had already achieved what those of us around him were seeking. Indeed, at that time, I would never have accepted someone as my Guru. He was exactly what I needed him to be at that time, and that's all an authentic teacher ever is at any point; exactly what the student needs them to be, for they have no egoic concerns, and no concern of status or otherwise. It was only over time that a more traditional student/teacher relationship emerged, but that is something that one cannot really explain unless one has been through it, imho. I had some life-changing spiritual experiences which completely changed my perspective in that respect. A true teacher gives fully of themselves, with no desire for anything in return. They are not interested in name, status, or anything else. My teacher was completely anonymous for many years, even many of his long-time students had never seen his face. He never wanted it to be about him, but the teachings. It's only because the public have had a hard time accepting an anonymous teacher that he finally decided to lose that.

I also once believed that spiritual teachings should be free, and whilst I do believe that spiritual teachings should be accessible to everyone, regardless of income etc, it seems important for a number of reasons that the student should contribute something in return for what they are receiving. Whether that is a monetary contribution, volunteering or helping in some other way, or the traditional kind of offerings that might be given in Eastern traditions. A huge part of ego is basically self concern. We are always thinking of 'me', of receiving, of a sense of entitlement, 'what do I get from this' type mentality. So, it seems like trying to give something to someone who is trying to help us be free from ego might be a good place to start. Secondly, the teacher has no self concern, they are only concerned with helping others, but that doesn't mean that they do not need to eat, to have somewhere to live, to be able to devote themselves to sharing the teachings without having to have another job on the side. There may even be costs involved in providing the teachings and trying to reach students. The teacher should be looked after in that respect imho.

Thirdly, often spiritual teachers will not only be providing teachings, but also trying to create an environment in which the teachings can reach more people, where charitable projects can provide for those in need, for those trying to leave the world and dedicate themselves to the spiritual path etc. So, as a student, it is my wish to contribute in such a way that I can help to enable these projects. It's a sad fact of life that money makes the world go around, and that even spiritual organisations cannot do anything without money, so sometimes they have to play the game, imho.

Anyway, just my 2 cents based on what I have experienced the last few years, and it's not something I expect everyone to understand. It's not a perspective I came to overnight, but it has been a gradual unfolding. I will say that my teacher has given me more than I could ever hope to give him, not just teachings which themselves are priceless, but even financial support and the very clothes from his back, no exaggeration.

Quote:

Ps. Reincarnation is a bit different than resurrection in some extent as mark have pointed.




Yeah that's a good point. I guess I would see resurrection as being synonymous with Realization/Enlightenment and being 'born again' in the spirit, at least allegorically. I know in actuality Christ was already 'Enlightened' before he was resurrected.


--------------------
Love is from the infinite, and will remain until eternity.
The seeker of love escapes the chains of birth and death.
Tomorrow, when resurrection comes,
The heart that is not in love will fail the test.

~ Rumi



The day we start giving Love instead of seeking Love, we will have re-written our whole destiny.
~ Swami Chinmayanada Saraswatir


Edited by PocketLady (02/07/20 03:43 PM)


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Offlinepacmanbreed
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Re: Jesus and John the Baptist: The Eternal Bond of Guru and Disciple [Re: PocketLady] * 1
    #26474736 - 02/07/20 09:43 PM (4 years, 9 days ago)

Sad fact interms of some spiritual organization(eg. the major religous sectors of the west) playing by the game. It is really against by the scripture to use such flow in charitable works. Nothing beats a clean slice of a fruit from the heart, than a dirty penny.

I think youve pretty  summarized it aswell in my part.. Thats one of the main essence of spirituality. contemplating and Understanding such struggles together with thy fellow teacher or better yet an elder, brother, whom have shown a good path. A Guidance to teach thyself by the grace of God always directs our steps.

Ps. Youve nailed the ressurection as mark jokingly pointed, more of a symbiote in a sense, And is infinitely contagious. thus it mirror those beatiful quotes in that signature.
We may not agree on this one but just to add from my plain limited understanding is that there are 2 kinds/order of it for those who have not attained Realization during a lifetime(circumstances, specially in this dark era and of the past) for a long glorious light years to come. 1tim4:10,acts 24:14
by that i dont fully incline in the biological chains of deathrebith. although i find it a bit appealing that it may have a part in between.


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OfflineMarkostheGnostic
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Re: Jesus and John the Baptist: The Eternal Bond of Guru and Disciple [Re: PocketLady] * 1
    #26474810 - 02/07/20 11:23 PM (4 years, 9 days ago)

When I first got into the New Testament at the end of college it was right after reading Autobiography of a Yogi. One of the first things I did shortly after college was to take the Transcendental Meditation course but more, I entered teacher-training for TM®.  I was supposed to travel to Switzerland (not India) for initiation by the Maharishi when I dropped out of class 3 weeks earlier. I didn't have any money to fly to Switzerland, didn't have a passport, and discovered that I'd have to cut my long hair off and wear a 3-piece business suit for the privilege of getting a low-paying job as a teacher of TM®. :lol: Then I received a sort of threatening phone call about being prevented from ever re-applying myself to TM® but after the expense of the training they may have surmised that I had been 'turned.' They were right. From a Christian defector who had written on it, I realized that a certain amount of deception was built into the TM® trip.

This was common to cults in the 70s. The Moonies called it "divine deception." The "meaningless" mantra was not meaningless but names of spiritual 'entities' for lack of a better term and the Sanskrit ritual for which we had to bring white cloth and fruit was never translated for us acolytes. I was pledging myself to a lineage of gurus but also the ritual was supposed to be opening the initiate to spiritual beings I had never read about and inviting them into the Lotus of one's Heart, i.e., one's innermost being.

Well, after I entered seminary in 1976 I was still very hurt from the deceptions of the first girl I ever fell in love with (she became then and remains to this day a sex worker - another story), TM® had deceived me and this fantastic girl had deceived me and then I turned my gaze to my occult library which I collected, took to a friend's house, piled up in the snow, doused with lighter fluid and burned. I was done with deception, 'divine' or otherwise. All of these things came together for me but I did learn in seminary that intellectual integrity as well as moral-ethical integrity demanded as rigorous an analysis as my philosophy program had. A hodge-podge of spiritual assertions from differing traditions DID make a difference. Yes, this is the nature of the analytical thinking function but the Thinking function is like the gantry that supports rockets at NASA's Cape Kennedy. It is an absolutely necessary structure which serves to support the vehicle that will soon leave it far behind in a flood of fiery rocket thrust. Yogananda was teaching Kriya Yoga, a specific path, but he wasn't telling people to attempt to become Hindus in the process.

What is not so evident is that the nature of 'spiritual development' varies tremendously between the esoteric heights of the religions. The samadhis of Hindu classic Yoga (which I have experienced, even the Nirvikalpa state) suggest that one needs to remain in altered states (with Sahaj samadhi being the highest form, or Sat Chit Ananda). Buddhism, especially in its Theravadin and Zen forms dismiss the mental fireworks, the nimittas or lights and blisses. They are makyo, illusions, and need to be experienced but released not valued as signs of spiritual attainment. Meanwhile, from a Jewish point of view, union with God is Never acknowledged even in the most mystical Kabbalistic sources. Likewise with Islam unless one is a Sufi, a tangential Muslim who has absorbed a goodly amount of Hindu thought. Unlike Shiites and Sunnis, Sufis are considered to be marginal Muslims even though they remain within Islamic culture. Christianity has Christ-mysticism but not God-mysticism (the best explanation I ever read on this difference was in a very old book by the theologian-physician Albert Schweitzer in his book The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle. Self-realization is a magnitude beyond Self-actualization such as transpersonal psychologists have espoused. The only place I've really seen it is in the non-canonical Gospel of Thomas (Thomas established a Christian church in India).

The bottom line is that we can be seduced by appealing intellectual doctrines (I was taken in by Yogananda) and be fooled into thinking that we are living a spiritual life based on certain assumptions about our subjective condition. But if our subjective condition does not manifest as compassionate action in the outer world but takes on a disengagement which we rationalize as being some lofty detachment from the world (vairaya in Hindu thought, ataraxia or apatheia in Greek thought), we are just fooling ourselves. I remember TMers using the Hindu notion of the Rasa Lila, Dance of Life, as a justification for casual sex vs. every other restraint that Yoga demanded. I could tell a Moonie simply by the same glassy-eyes that characterized them. The followers of the Divine Light Mission had their own 'tell' even before they spoke. Their chubby little Guru Maharaji used to live in a mansion near my college, ride around on a sit-down lawnmower, and talk to passers by on the secret of "Life, Spirit, and Death" as he put it. No mystery where he was getting his high from but his prostrating followers who gave him all their money were pathetic. Where are they today? One follower who used to crash in our dorm and meditate at 5:00 am under a sheet looking like a ghost became a lawyer eventually. The way I see it, I use my analytical mind and logic like the Sword of Discrimination of Manjushri and try to cleave off the barnacles of bullshit that constantly accumulate over my ostensibly 'saved' Being.



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InvisiblePocketLady
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Re: Jesus and John the Baptist: The Eternal Bond of Guru and Disciple [Re: MarkostheGnostic] * 2
    #26476963 - 02/09/20 01:24 PM (4 years, 8 days ago)

I really enjoyed reading your post Markos. The last line made me laugh and I totally hear where you are coming from :lol: I guess I'm coming from a slightly different place. My teacher is extremely well versed in many different traditions, including Kabbalah, Yoga, Tantra, Daoism, Zen, Christianity and many more and he has repeatedly shown me over the years how they are all ultimately pointing at the same thing, especially the mystical traditions, although the terminology used may make it so it might appear on the surface that they are not. However, lets face it, there aren't a whole bunch of Enlightened beings wandering this planet at the moment, which says to me that perhaps despite the fact that all of these traditions originally had the answers, they may not all have the full story now. Feels like a lot of stuff has been lost, distorted, misinterpreted and diluted in this age of spiritual darkness we have been in for a long time.

I also think that perhaps some paths were never meant to be 'completion' paths. If the idea that we have to go through many thousands of lifetimes of learning is true, it would make sense that in many of those lives we progress through increasing levels of spiritual understanding by following different paths, not all of which give the final keys to true Enlightenment, at least not in what they teach outwardly. What's the point in learning how to enter into mystical union with God if during that lifetime, you just need to open to the idea that a Creator exists at all? Maybe different traditions represent different grades in school. No use trying to put a 5 year old through high school classes and expecting them to understand it. It doesn't mean that all traditions are not ultimately pointed at the same place however.

Just ideas anyway :smile:


--------------------
Love is from the infinite, and will remain until eternity.
The seeker of love escapes the chains of birth and death.
Tomorrow, when resurrection comes,
The heart that is not in love will fail the test.

~ Rumi



The day we start giving Love instead of seeking Love, we will have re-written our whole destiny.
~ Swami Chinmayanada Saraswatir


Edited by PocketLady (02/09/20 02:03 PM)


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InvisiblePocketLady
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Re: Jesus and John the Baptist: The Eternal Bond of Guru and Disciple [Re: pacmanbreed] * 2
    #26477109 - 02/09/20 03:27 PM (4 years, 7 days ago)

Quote:

pacmanbreed said:
Sad fact interms of some spiritual organization(eg. the major religous sectors of the west) playing by the game. It is really against by the scripture to use such flow in charitable works. Nothing beats a clean slice of a fruit from the heart, than a dirty penny.

I think youve pretty  summarized it aswell in my part.. Thats one of the main essence of spirituality. contemplating and Understanding such struggles together with thy fellow teacher or better yet an elder, brother, whom have shown a good path. A Guidance to teach thyself by the grace of God always directs our steps.

Ps. Youve nailed the ressurection as mark jokingly pointed, more of a symbiote in a sense, And is infinitely contagious. thus it mirror those beatiful quotes in that signature.
We may not agree on this one but just to add from my plain limited understanding is that there are 2 kinds/order of it for those who have not attained Realization during a lifetime(circumstances, specially in this dark era and of the past) for a long glorious light years to come. 1tim4:10,acts 24:14
by that i dont fully incline in the biological chains of deathrebith. although i find it a bit appealing that it may have a part in between.




We may not agree totally on this one but I really welcome your perspective :thumbup:

Reincarnation or what happens after death is ultimately all conjecture anyway, although it is very interesting to contemplate. I guess what really matters is the here and now and what I am doing to grow and evolve beyond the current state of my mind and heart. With a teacher, a brother, or alone, I am a firm believer that whatever God has given us are the tools we should use to learn in that moment :smile:


--------------------
Love is from the infinite, and will remain until eternity.
The seeker of love escapes the chains of birth and death.
Tomorrow, when resurrection comes,
The heart that is not in love will fail the test.

~ Rumi



The day we start giving Love instead of seeking Love, we will have re-written our whole destiny.
~ Swami Chinmayanada Saraswatir


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Offlinepacmanbreed
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Re: Jesus and John the Baptist: The Eternal Bond of Guru and Disciple [Re: PocketLady] * 1
    #26477450 - 02/09/20 06:59 PM (4 years, 7 days ago)

I find humor :lol: and good wisdom along those conversation with marks bumpy but wonderful journey.

Quote:

PocketLady said:
We may not agree totally on this one but I really welcome your perspective :thumbup:

Reincarnation or what happens after death is ultimately all conjecture anyway, although it is very interesting to contemplate. I guess what really matters is the here and now and what I am doing to grow and evolve beyond the current state of my mind and heart. With a teacher, a brother, or alone, I am a firm believer that whatever God has given us are the tools we should use to learn in that moment :smile:




I Appreciate that radiated good vibes man :thumbup:
conjecture is the right word, inrespect of one of life's great wonderful mysteries. Its comforting beyond the texts that we all get a chance for realization and actualization to be with the DIVINE after the peaceful graduation. With that serene mind, what matters most is indeed The here and now.


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OfflineMarkostheGnostic
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Re: Jesus and John the Baptist: The Eternal Bond of Guru and Disciple [Re: PocketLady] * 2
    #26477859 - 02/10/20 01:01 AM (4 years, 7 days ago)

Ya know, if there is not immortal soul, just a temporary temporal being who channels eternal consciousness idiosyncratically, the notion of thousands of years of rebirth or reincarnation or any other scheme of transmigration is meaningless. As to the "Transcendent Unity of Religions," I am still something of a fan of Fritjof Schuon's perspective wherein there is a singular Reality at the peak of a many-sided mountain.





--------------------
γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself


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Offlinesaved7
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Re: Jesus and John the Baptist: The Eternal Bond of Guru and Disciple [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #26478037 - 02/10/20 07:00 AM (4 years, 7 days ago)

Quote:

MarkostheGnostic said:
Ya know, if there is not immortal soul, just a temporary temporal being who channels eternal consciousness idiosyncratically, the notion of thousands of years of rebirth or reincarnation or any other scheme of transmigration is meaningless. As to the "Transcendent Unity of Religions," I am still something of a fan of Fritjof Schuon's perspective wherein there is a singular Reality at the peak of a many-sided mountain.








Mountains are a natural symbol of gathering together into one transcendental, unifying principle.  You find God communing with men at the top of mountains throughout the Bible.

The resurrected living Jesus Christ sits atop the mountain of reality itself.  The world is his footstool.

Jesus is the logic and intelligibility of God, the defining light by which the very world was created.  All things consist by Him.  He is the reason atoms persist instead of flying apart into chaos.  Jesus is the "Word", the immaterial, physically transcending organizing principle that holds reality together.

We see bits of that light reflected in all the world's religions, (as all humanity ultimately descend from the Image and Truth of God) but there is only one true source, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, the crucified and risen Jesus.

It's a beautiful thing that our Creator God came down to earth to tabernacle with us in the flesh of Jesus to freely give us the truth.


--------------------
"Who do you say that I am?"
- Jesus quoted in the Gospel of Matthew


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InvisiblePocketLady
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Re: Jesus and John the Baptist: The Eternal Bond of Guru and Disciple [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #26478608 - 02/10/20 01:36 PM (4 years, 7 days ago)

Quote:

MarkostheGnostic said:
Ya know, if there is not immortal soul, just a temporary temporal being who channels eternal consciousness idiosyncratically, the notion of thousands of years of rebirth or reincarnation or any other scheme of transmigration is meaningless. As to the "Transcendent Unity of Religions," I am still something of a fan of Fritjof Schuon's perspective wherein there is a singular Reality at the peak of a many-sided mountain.








I think I subscribe to the idea of a soul personally. I like to think we get closer and closer to absolute unity with God, indefinitely, but to each their own. I am honestly no expert on Buddhism, but Daishi has explained a few times that the Buddha never actually said there was no Self/Soul. That idea comes from mistranslations apparently.

I love that diagram, that sums it up extremely well imho :smile:


--------------------
Love is from the infinite, and will remain until eternity.
The seeker of love escapes the chains of birth and death.
Tomorrow, when resurrection comes,
The heart that is not in love will fail the test.

~ Rumi



The day we start giving Love instead of seeking Love, we will have re-written our whole destiny.
~ Swami Chinmayanada Saraswatir


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OfflineMarkostheGnostic
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Re: Jesus and John the Baptist: The Eternal Bond of Guru and Disciple [Re: PocketLady] * 1
    #26481165 - 02/11/20 10:11 PM (4 years, 5 days ago)

No, Buddhism is abundantly clear on the absence of a soul. What the Buddha did not do was to deny God. In fact I surmise that he took the Hindu term Nirguna Brahman (God without attributes, 'Nir' means absence) and developed that concept into Nirvana (from Sanskrit nirvāṇa, from nirvā ‘be extinguished’, from nis ‘out’ + vā- ‘to blow,' as if blowing out a flame [i.e., of desire]). Saguna Brahman is God with attributes as we find in other religions which attribute human characteristics to God whether compassionate or wrathful. Buddha did not want to discuss cosmology or creation of the universe, he said he was just teaching a method for the elimination of suffering.

It is not a doctrine that my ego prefers, but it is persistently logical. But this is my MBTI typology talking. Introverted Intuitive Thinking types will always go with what is logical at the expense of their Feeling function. It is particularly illogical for me to entertain anything but a unitary consciousness without memory, sensory input, or any identity connected to mental contents or the physical body and this is because of a pinnacle experience where all identity vanished except for a self-aware Clear Light of "Unbearable Compassion." There was no thought, no Mark, yet there was Limitless omniscient, formless, self-effulgent transparency. Obviously 'I' returned from this condition but I still surmise that it was as close to a post-mortem condition as is possible to experience in life. Moreover, it was ecstatic and timeless but every one of my descriptors here refers to a unitary seamless 'substance' as the ancients were fond of saying.

Ultimately this means that there ARE no separate 'souls' but that each one of us are the eyes, ears, etc. of ONE Being experiencing Him-Herself through us and it is that Eternal ONE who lends us an illusory sense of individuality. That individuality evaporates in death like a dream when the True Experiencer Awakens from the 'dream' of being you or me at death and once again assumes True Identity as The ONE. The recognition of Reality is God's, not our's. Buddhist say that we encounter our True Nature, but it is no longer 'us' it is God Awakening from His-Her experience OF us. I think this is the more accurate understanding of resurrection depicted by the Christian myth and not some future reanimation of a resurrection body in place of form. This might even be the deeper meaning in Jimi Hendrix's song when he asks "have you ever been experienced?...," i.e., having had the experience of being a being experienced by BEING Itself. Sorry, it's the best I can do with this paradox.


--------------------
γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself


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OfflineForresterM
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Re: Jesus and John the Baptist: The Eternal Bond of Guru and Disciple [Re: MarkostheGnostic] * 1
    #26481514 - 02/12/20 07:32 AM (4 years, 5 days ago)

All that makes sense, but you seem to be equating death with enlightenment unless I misunderstand...

Quote:

MarkostheGnostic said:
That individuality evaporates in death like a dream when the True Experiencer Awakens from the 'dream' of being you or me at death and once again assumes True Identity as The ONE




Don't you think there are different "between life" stages, or no?


--------------------
Repugnant is a creature who would squander the ability to lift an eye to heaven, conscious of his fleeting time here.
-------------------

Have some medicinal mushrooms and want to get the most out of them?  Try this double extraction method.


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OfflineMarkostheGnostic
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Re: Jesus and John the Baptist: The Eternal Bond of Guru and Disciple [Re: Forrester]
    #26481634 - 02/12/20 09:17 AM (4 years, 5 days ago)

I think that we can, not that we invariably do Awaken at death. Our senses fail at the end, as in the Tibetan Book of the Dead when we feel heavy, can't move as the Earth element leaves, we thirst as the Water element leaves, we feel cold as the Fire element leaves, etc. and our mental faculties begin to degrade. I cannot say if the Transcendental Light dawns on our essential awareness despite the failing of our senses and mental faculties and the ensuing confusion and fear. 

The idea that we  as beings change and improve or devolve from life-to-life is something that I just read about again last night. The True Nature does not change, our intellect changes and improves if we are about learning. But our intellect, sems, the lower manas (mind) 'probably' perishes at death rather than entering a metaphysical 'store-house' (alayavijnana) consciousness. I say this because one would think if entire 'streams' of consciousness were preserved it would be far more common for children to be expressing recycled memories from a deceased 'donor.' Although one does read on the internet scary things children have said to their parents  like 'I used to be an old man...' Even so, recycled memories from someone who has died does not mean that we ARE a recycled memory fragment. Mind at the experiential level is not what defines us. Even if the Greeks were correct and Reason is the highest faculty of the human psyche, Reason is 'a' process of mind not 'our' reason any more than the water or calcium that make up our body is 'our' water and calcium. It too gets recycled.

I also read in another source (The Secret Drugs of Buddhism: Psychedelics and the Origins of the Vajrayana by Mike Crowley) that the Bardos are no different than psychedelic visions and stages that we go through on trips. Like most every other religious idea, psychological experiences are projected onto metaphysical backgrounds be they Heaven or the Clear Light (Rigpa) as 'objective places' to which 'we' go. Frankly, I do not Know but I choose not to 'believe' any doctrine. I had one powerful experience of pure consciousness long ago wherein Mark vanished but I cannot Know if that was 'It.' :shrug:


--------------------
γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself


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OfflineForresterM
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Re: Jesus and John the Baptist: The Eternal Bond of Guru and Disciple [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #26481687 - 02/12/20 10:07 AM (4 years, 5 days ago)

That's really interesting about the psychedelic experiences being compared to the Bardos.  I've always been completely lost as to how to classify some of the experiences I've had, knowing how real they felt but not wanting to over-inflate what could have been just short-circuiting synapses :lol:  So mostly I've just used them to remind me and get used to the idea that there is something different out there (in here) than what I'm used to.  Maybe that way at death there will be less fear to get in the way and cause such disorientation :shrug:


--------------------
Repugnant is a creature who would squander the ability to lift an eye to heaven, conscious of his fleeting time here.
-------------------

Have some medicinal mushrooms and want to get the most out of them?  Try this double extraction method.


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Re: Jesus and John the Baptist: The Eternal Bond of Guru and Disciple [Re: Forrester]
    #26481804 - 02/12/20 11:18 AM (4 years, 5 days ago)

Quote:

Forrester said:
Maybe that way at death there will be less fear to get in the way and cause such disorientation :shrug:




:whathesaid: That really gets me from my last accidental trip. That i got a glimpse of the crossroads from my recent one.

Quote:

Mark vanished but I cannot Know if that was 'It.'


:lol:
Quote:

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it.’




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Re: Jesus and John the Baptist: The Eternal Bond of Guru and Disciple [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #26482407 - 02/12/20 06:00 PM (4 years, 4 days ago)

Quote:

MarkostheGnostic said:
No, Buddhism is abundantly clear on the absence of a soul. What the Buddha did not do was to deny God. In fact I surmise that he took the Hindu term Nirguna Brahman (God without attributes, 'Nir' means absence) and developed that concept into Nirvana (from Sanskrit nirvāṇa, from nirvā ‘be extinguished’, from nis ‘out’ + vā- ‘to blow,' as if blowing out a flame [i.e., of desire]). Saguna Brahman is God with attributes as we find in other religions which attribute human characteristics to God whether compassionate or wrathful. Buddha did not want to discuss cosmology or creation of the universe, he said he was just teaching a method for the elimination of suffering.

It is not a doctrine that my ego prefers, but it is persistently logical. But this is my MBTI typology talking. Introverted Intuitive Thinking types will always go with what is logical at the expense of their Feeling function. It is particularly illogical for me to entertain anything but a unitary consciousness without memory, sensory input, or any identity connected to mental contents or the physical body and this is because of a pinnacle experience where all identity vanished except for a self-aware Clear Light of "Unbearable Compassion." There was no thought, no Mark, yet there was Limitless omniscient, formless, self-effulgent transparency. Obviously 'I' returned from this condition but I still surmise that it was as close to a post-mortem condition as is possible to experience in life. Moreover, it was ecstatic and timeless but every one of my descriptors here refers to a unitary seamless 'substance' as the ancients were fond of saying.

Ultimately this means that there ARE no separate 'souls' but that each one of us are the eyes, ears, etc. of ONE Being experiencing Him-Herself through us and it is that Eternal ONE who lends us an illusory sense of individuality. That individuality evaporates in death like a dream when the True Experiencer Awakens from the 'dream' of being you or me at death and once again assumes True Identity as The ONE. The recognition of Reality is God's, not our's. Buddhist say that we encounter our True Nature, but it is no longer 'us' it is God Awakening from His-Her experience OF us. I think this is the more accurate understanding of resurrection depicted by the Christian myth and not some future reanimation of a resurrection body in place of form. This might even be the deeper meaning in Jimi Hendrix's song when he asks "have you ever been experienced?...," i.e., having had the experience of being a being experienced by BEING Itself. Sorry, it's the best I can do with this paradox.





[Most of] Buddhism might seem to be clear that there is no-self, but did the Buddha ever actually say it? Or is that idea based on assumptions made by others? I don't know myself, but it seems like there's a possibility that could be the case.

https://tricycle.org/magazine/there-no-self/

Thanks for sharing a bit more about your Samadhi experiences. It's really interesting. I have heard from more than one source that one can enter what seem to be very deep states of both seeded and seedless Samadhi, and feel like one has reached the ultimate, total union, but that still some residual unconscious clinging to ego remains, and that if one were ever to be in a state which comes very close to being truly free of ego, the physical body would no longer be able to be held and Mahasamadhi would occur.

Anyway, I seem to have got entangled in the very theoretical discussion I was actually trying to avoid and which the Buddha and many other teachers have warned against :lol: For me personally, as far as Buddhism is concerned, Vajrayana seems to be the closest to reaching the peak of the mountain, esoteric Buddhism if you will, and their ideas around reincarnation/the soul etc have always resonated a lot. I used to be a thinking type, now I feel like I am a lot more of a feeling type, so I tend to go with my gut these days :smile:


--------------------
Love is from the infinite, and will remain until eternity.
The seeker of love escapes the chains of birth and death.
Tomorrow, when resurrection comes,
The heart that is not in love will fail the test.

~ Rumi



The day we start giving Love instead of seeking Love, we will have re-written our whole destiny.
~ Swami Chinmayanada Saraswatir


Edited by PocketLady (02/12/20 07:11 PM)


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OfflineMarkostheGnostic
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Re: Jesus and John the Baptist: The Eternal Bond of Guru and Disciple [Re: PocketLady]
    #26483013 - 02/13/20 01:42 AM (4 years, 4 days ago)

Mahasamadhi occurs after a certain number of days (9?) with no water intake, or food, or sleep...from what I've read. The Infinite Expanse of "Unbearable Compassion" flipped into an Infinitesimal singularity of intensity in my Hridayam around which 'I' seemed to return. It later reminded me of Bernini's sculpture of St. Teresa who is pierced by an angelic lance of ecstatic agapé. The Infinite, in "the twinkle of an eye" became the Infinitesimal and yet Infinitely large or Infinitesimally small, the qualifiers fall away to reveal Infinity. Lama Govinda wrote about 'the Complementariness of OM and HUM,' wherein OM is dissolving into the Infinite but in HUM the Infinite arising within the finite. "Solve et Coagula." I must have been absent to myself only for chronological moments and this occurred December 1974 but I remember it in its ineffability.


--------------------
γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself


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Re: Jesus and John the Baptist: The Eternal Bond of Guru and Disciple [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #26485824 - 02/14/20 05:38 PM (4 years, 2 days ago)

It sounds like a truly ineffable experience for sure. And yes, I don't think most of us are at risk of inadvertently Mahasamadhi-ing out of here, although I have heard stories of it happening to a few Realized beings. From what I understand, if you enter Samadhi and come back to tell the tale, then it probably wasn't the highest Samadhi and some ego still remained intact. Mahasamadhi meaning the 'great' Samadhi, after all. There's actually a story about a Realized Master who asked his wife what time dinner was every day. He told his wife that the day he stopped asking what time dinner was, he wouldn't be long for this world. One day he stopped asking his wife, and then next day, he 'died'.  It seems like the highest spiritual masters have to deliberately keep some hold of some attachments in order that they might actually stay here, because once those attachments are gone, they just can't hold on to their bodies to stay here to help us.


--------------------
Love is from the infinite, and will remain until eternity.
The seeker of love escapes the chains of birth and death.
Tomorrow, when resurrection comes,
The heart that is not in love will fail the test.

~ Rumi



The day we start giving Love instead of seeking Love, we will have re-written our whole destiny.
~ Swami Chinmayanada Saraswatir


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Re: Jesus and John the Baptist: The Eternal Bond of Guru and Disciple [Re: PocketLady] * 1
    #26490684 - 02/17/20 07:13 PM (3 years, 11 months ago)

I suppose I was thinking of the samadhis as 'lesser' than say Mahaparinirvana as in the Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra and I may have misused the term Mahasamadhi, not intending it to mean the state that is co-extensive with after-death. Depending upon the school there are these differences. The samadhis 'with seed' are not difficult to elicit after lots of meditation experimentation and psychedelic experiences over decades.

I had previously experienced what I thought to have been Nirvikalpa samadhi in Patanjali's scheme and this occurred while lying down head due South in the late afternoon. At first I visualized the noonday Sun but actually found the internal image to be too much, too 'intimidating' [?], so I created the image of a clear 100 Watt incandescent light bulb. The imaged light began to hum and my entire body seemed to vibrate with yellow-white light. It was ecstatic but not egoless as I was still mentally and physically present to myself and I could feel a smile stretching my facial muscles taught. I then experienced bodily paralysis. A rush of fear-induced adrenaline shot through me in a second of panic, and that electric state subsided. But Nirvikalpa does come with physical rigidity. It is Sahaj samadhi, the natural samadhi that does not manifest these "hyper-pranic" conditions.

The disembodied, egoless Clear Light experience I attempted to describe may well have been a taste of Asamprajnata samadhi (not necessarily Dharma Megha Samadhi) although really, classifying samadhi experiences sounds a lot like proclaiming that "I am quite proud of my humility!" :lol:  https://dondeg.wordpress.com/2014/05/28/patanjalis-ten-types-of-samadhi/ ; It is humbling to die to oneself.


--------------------
γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself


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Re: Jesus and John the Baptist: The Eternal Bond of Guru and Disciple [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #26490946 - 02/17/20 11:43 PM (3 years, 11 months ago)

I was reading "Man's Eternal Quest" a collection of talks and essays by paramahansaji, And as he claimed Jesus reincarnation theory, I Did'nt believe him, but I did ask myself, "who was Jesus before he was born?" the schizo voices in my head said "he was Elma", or so that's what it sounded like they said, I thought "Elma? could that be like elijah?" the voices said "don't worry about it, you'll understand soon enough." so I brush the thought aside, than a couple weeks later, I was at the library and I began to read a commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, it quickly came up that the word used to describe Mary was "Almah", it means young girl or young virgin if i'm not mistaken,,Elma? Almah? is not where and who Jesus was before he was born? sometimes the voices's blow my mind like that.


--------------------
"He who finds peace and joy
And radiance within himself
That man becomes one with God
And vanishes into God's bliss."

-Bhagavad Gita, 5.24
One 21 - Building Better Bombs
One 21 - Pacified
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"Respectability is a cloak for the hypocrite" - Jiddu Krishnamurti


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