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wilshire
free radical


Registered: 05/11/05
Posts: 2,421
Loc: SE PA
Last seen: 14 years, 3 days
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inner peace, enlightenment, etc... boring?
#5378997 - 03/08/06 07:51 PM (17 years, 10 months ago) |
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after my first psychedelic experience, which was about 5 years ago now, i had a big interest in finding the 'way' and living it. i studied some philosophy and religion, primarily eastern stuff, did meditation, etc. i was a vegetarian. i smoked too much pot but other than that i was pretty healthy.
i feel like lately i've turned my back on a lot of that. much of that probably has to do with the alcohol/sex culture at college... my life is a little crazy. definitely not the peaceful, harmonious way. plenty of pain, danger, unhealthiness, and general wild times... i don't see a problem with this though. i'm young. there is plenty of time to find a calm, healthy way of living (hopefully).... but then at the same time... i dunno. what are your thoughts on this?
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dblaney
Human Being

Registered: 10/03/04
Posts: 7,894
Loc: Here & Now
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Re: inner peace, enlightenment, etc... boring? [Re: wilshire]
#5379027 - 03/08/06 07:55 PM (17 years, 10 months ago) |
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You're already perfectly centered in the Way, it's just a matter of waking up to this fact, or so I've been told.
-------------------- "What is in us that turns a deaf ear to the cries of human suffering?" "Belief is a beautiful armor But makes for the heaviest sword" - John Mayer Making the noise "penicillin" is no substitute for actually taking penicillin. "This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it." -Abraham Lincoln
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leery11
I Tell You What!

Registered: 06/24/05
Posts: 5,998
Last seen: 8 years, 9 months
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Re: inner peace, enlightenment, etc... boring? [Re: dblaney]
#5379500 - 03/08/06 10:06 PM (17 years, 10 months ago) |
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i don't think that life is right, you say in your post its unhealthy and not harmonius, which makes me think that it is therefore not worth doing.
the middle way is the right way and ecompasses sex, drinking, and all things..... but.......... none to the point of harm or imbalance or impurity. (arguably Buddhists would say no, don't ever get drunk or high... but the next best thing is just doing it once in a while and not being habitual)
i see glimpses of that kind of life, which I have avoided. I think it's a great thing to do to get a little bit (little bit not a ton) drunk with your friends now and then, but that's not what life is about.
that's what self-destruction is about. the consumerist culture manifested through college self-masochism is rather..... unfulfilling.
I mean........ you know........ you're a girl, run around wearing thongs, get hung over way too much, do things you regret. Then you keep doing it.
or you're a guy, drink too much, skip lots of classes and fuck those girls... that's not what it's supposed to be about.
It IS supposed to be about experimentation, and cutting loose, but the cutting loose should be an act of liberation and defiance toward social conformity, it shouldn't be a social norm in itself.
You should get fucked only when you feel like it, and not make a habit out of it.
Frankly colleges would be a better place if alcohol was a very rarely used substance and everyone either smoked/ate pot or used hallucinagens.
Because alcohol + college kids = never ending disaster. weed + college kids = ...................... hey dude.... pass the chips. psychedelics + college kids = more humbled and rounded out college kids with greater appreciation of life.
Basically, if you want to party. Party. But don't party for the sake of partying... only party if it fulfills and enhances your life. And it certainly can if you do it in moderation and don't go overboard.
-------------------- I am the MacDaddy of Heimlich County, I play it Straight Up Yo! ....I embrace my desire to feel the rhythm, to feel connected enough to step aside and weep like a widow, to feel inspired, to fathom the power, to witness the beauty, to bathe in the fountain, to swing on the spiral of our divinity and still be a human...... Om Namah Shivaya, I tell you What!
Edited by leery11 (03/08/06 10:08 PM)
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Cherk
Fashionable


Registered: 10/25/02
Posts: 46,493
Loc: International
Last seen: 1 year, 2 months
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Re: inner peace, enlightenment, etc... boring? [Re: wilshire]
#5379525 - 03/08/06 10:13 PM (17 years, 10 months ago) |
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You gotta do what you gotta do. Dive in bro and enjoy it while you're young enough to not be labled an alcoholic.
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I have considered such matters. SIKE
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ClammyJoe
Azurescen Head



Registered: 11/03/05
Posts: 3,691
Loc: PNW
Last seen: 11 years, 1 month
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Re: inner peace, enlightenment, etc... boring? [Re: Cherk]
#5379614 - 03/08/06 10:36 PM (17 years, 10 months ago) |
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Yeah, I'm also trying to find the way, but I don't know what to do, I feel so misguided, and I'm very very skeptical of religions, belief structures aren't as bad, but I still don't know, I just want to find ultimate truth. I stopped drinking, I stopped smoking(everything) and I haven't had mushrooms to the point where I'm lusting for another experience, hoping that this time around they can guide me again, like they have every time in the past. Whats a boy to do?
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Deviate
newbie
Registered: 04/20/03
Posts: 4,497
Last seen: 8 years, 4 months
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Re: inner peace, enlightenment, etc... boring? [Re: ClammyJoe]
#5379717 - 03/08/06 11:19 PM (17 years, 10 months ago) |
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raising your consciousness takes effort, thats what makes it boring. its not the instant gratification which we have been trained to expect. you sit through a 2 hour calculus lecture not because you find it fun and exciting, but because you hope that someday your effots will pay off. if you are going to walk the spiritual path, boredom is one of the things you will have to face and overcome.
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silver22
Stranger
Registered: 01/13/05
Posts: 44
Last seen: 10 years, 14 days
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Re: inner peace, enlightenment, etc... boring? [Re: wilshire]
#5380542 - 03/09/06 09:02 AM (17 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
wilshire said: i feel like lately i've turned my back on a lot of that. much of that probably has to do with the alcohol/sex culture at college... my life is a little crazy. definitely not the peaceful, harmonious way. plenty of pain, danger, unhealthiness, and general wild times... i don't see a problem with this though. i'm young. there is plenty of time to find a calm, healthy way of living (hopefully).... but then at the same time... i dunno. what are your thoughts on this?
It's a self-disipline that requires your whole self not just when you feel like it but all the time.
peace
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fireworks_god
Sexy.Butt.McDanger


Registered: 03/12/02
Posts: 24,855
Loc: Pandurn
Last seen: 1 year, 12 days
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Re: inner peace, enlightenment, etc... boring? [Re: wilshire]
#5380653 - 03/09/06 09:58 AM (17 years, 10 months ago) |
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Inner peace does not concern the practices and experiences that one derives from one's interactions with reality. Inner peace is equivalent with awareness, and it, essentially, is the maintainence of a continual presence of one's body, one's mind, and the subsequent experience that results.
Everyone is aware, but barely is that awareness focused within and made aware of itself. Awareness of awareness? That is the ultimate awareness. 
Seriously, though, center oneself in one's being, then/as one gets drunk, crazy, and youthful. 
 Peace.
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If I should die this very moment I wouldn't fear For I've never known completeness Like being here Wrapped in the warmth of you Loving every breath of you
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MarkostheGnostic
Elder


Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 3 years, 2 days
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Re: inner peace, enlightenment, etc... boring? [Re: wilshire]
#5382548 - 03/09/06 06:39 PM (17 years, 10 months ago) |
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'Tomorrow is not promised.'
I would not presume that you have ample time because you're young. Presumption is a dangerous karmic attitude.
"The futures uncertain and death is always near." - Jim Morrison
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dorkus
don't look back
Registered: 04/12/04
Posts: 1,511
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Re: inner peace, enlightenment, etc... boring? [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
#5382688 - 03/09/06 07:26 PM (17 years, 10 months ago) |
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Do you think only some makes it through while others vanish? What would it take to deserve eternal life?
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MarkostheGnostic
Elder


Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
Loc: South Florida
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Re: inner peace, enlightenment, etc... boring? [Re: dorkus]
#5384499 - 03/10/06 06:04 AM (17 years, 10 months ago) |
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I'm on a high from Freke's and Gandy's books on Gnosticism (if you haven't noticed in recent posts of mine). One of the reasons is that they define in exquisite clarity and simplicity the 3-levels of human type and of human existence: Hylic, Psychic and Pneumatic (and they sometimes add Gnostic).
Each level describes a higher degree of understanding of your question (and of closely related questions). Eternal Life is what were ARE. Like the Buddhists say in the Tibetan Book of the Dead, one must grasp at the moment of death that the Clear Light of the Void IS our own essential nature. We have been dreaming (like Neo in The Matrix) and we need to awaken, in Truth, to what we Really are. As long as we continue to identify with our mind-body, we remain 'Psychics.' If we are unfortunate enough to think of ourselves as 'intellectual meat' than we remain unenlightened Hylics, but if we come to the Realization that beneath all the modifications of mind and matter, we are Consciousness (formerly called 'Spirit'), then we Realize Eternal Life here and now! This is what BE HERE NOW, The Power of Now, and Freke's and Gandy's books teach. Of course, the Buddhists, Hindus, primitive Christians (Gnostics), ancient Egyptians and others have been teaching as the 'Perennial Philosophy' for millennia. Then, Roman Catholic Christianity began to occult the Truth, and to make it seem as though Eternal Life could be given or taken away for not believing certain doctrines, or for certain sins. It is falling from a Pneumatic Realization of the Truth into lesser degrees of Truth and understanding that are behind these doctrines that even give rise to your question.
The LIE of incomprehensible magnitude is what Literalists have taught about scriptures since the inception of The Roman Catholic Church as the 'christian-colored' Roman Empire. The LIE was passed to Orthodoxy and later to Protestantism and only recently have certain individuals emerged from 'The Matrix,' the illusion, the LIE. Eternal Life is the awareness of the 'mind of Christ.' Christ is NOT conjoined to Jesus - despite the anathema of the Church for making this claim. Christ is the 'anointed' Universal Consciousness available to all human beings. Jesus Christ may have been a human being, but it is His myth that is sacred and transforming to our lives, and it is NOT dependent on doctrinal belief, or bread and wine, or anything beyond the immediate awareness of Unmitigated Reality - Eternal Life.
Peace.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
Edited by MarkostheGnostic (03/10/06 03:11 PM)
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dorkus
don't look back
Registered: 04/12/04
Posts: 1,511
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Re: inner peace, enlightenment, etc... boring? [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
#5384849 - 03/10/06 09:41 AM (17 years, 10 months ago) |
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Thank you, Sir.
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niteowl
GrandPaw


Registered: 07/01/03
Posts: 16,291
Loc:
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Re: inner peace, enlightenment, etc... boring? [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
#5385233 - 03/10/06 11:32 AM (17 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
The LIE of incomprehensible magnitude is what Literalists have taught about sciptures since the inception of The Roman Catholic Church as the 'christian-colored' Roman Empire. The LIE was passed to Orthodoxy and later to Protestantism and only recently have certain individuals emerged from 'The Matrix,' the illusion, the LIE. Eternal Life is the awareness of the 'mind of Christ.' Christ is NOT conjoined to Jesus - despite the anathema of the Church to make this claim. Christ is the 'anointed' Universal Consciousness available to all human beings. Jesus Christ may have been a human being, but it is His myth that is sacred and transforming to our lives, and it is NOT dependent on doctrinal belief, or bread and wine, or anything beyond the immediate awareness of Unmitigated Reality - Eternal Life.
-------------------- Live for the moment you are in nowDon't be bogged down by your pastDon't be afraid of what lies in your future
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fireworks_god
Sexy.Butt.McDanger


Registered: 03/12/02
Posts: 24,855
Loc: Pandurn
Last seen: 1 year, 12 days
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Re: inner peace, enlightenment, etc... boring? [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
#5385592 - 03/10/06 01:24 PM (17 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
MarkostheGnostic said: The LIE of incomprehensible magnitude is what Literalists have taught about sciptures since the inception of The Roman Catholic Church as the 'christian-colored' Roman Empire. The LIE was passed to Orthodoxy and later to Protestantism and only recently have certain individuals emerged from 'The Matrix,' the illusion, the LIE. Eternal Life is the awareness of the 'mind of Christ.' Christ is NOT conjoined to Jesus - despite the anathema of the Church to make this claim. Christ is the 'anointed' Universal Consciousness available to all human beings. Jesus Christ may have been a human being, but it is His myth that is sacred and transforming to our lives, and it is NOT dependent on doctrinal belief, or bread and wine, or anything beyond the immediate awareness of Unmitigated Reality - Eternal Life.
Thus, the stage is set for Christians to rise from the ashes of the obstructions of their experience of life like a pheonix as they realize the truth of their Church and the nature of their Christ, the awareness and presence that is constantly within them. 
 Peace.
--------------------
If I should die this very moment I wouldn't fear For I've never known completeness Like being here Wrapped in the warmth of you Loving every breath of you
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MarkostheGnostic
Elder


Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 3 years, 2 days
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Re: inner peace, enlightenment, etc... boring? [Re: fireworks_god]
#5386016 - 03/10/06 03:08 PM (17 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
fireworks_god said:
Quote:
MarkostheGnostic said: The LIE of incomprehensible magnitude is what Literalists have taught about sciptures since the inception of The Roman Catholic Church as the 'christian-colored' Roman Empire. The LIE was passed to Orthodoxy and later to Protestantism and only recently have certain individuals emerged from 'The Matrix,' the illusion, the LIE. Eternal Life is the awareness of the 'mind of Christ.' Christ is NOT conjoined to Jesus - despite the anathema of the Church to make this claim. Christ is the 'anointed' Universal Consciousness available to all human beings. Jesus Christ may have been a human being, but it is His myth that is sacred and transforming to our lives, and it is NOT dependent on doctrinal belief, or bread and wine, or anything beyond the immediate awareness of Unmitigated Reality - Eternal Life.
Thus, the stage is set for Christians to rise from the ashes of the obstructions of their experience of life like a pheonix as they realize the truth of their Church and the nature of their Christ, the awareness and presence that is constantly within them. 
Addendum:
"For Christian Literalists we are born in sin and need reforming by being made to follow a strict code of shoulds and should nots as laid down by the religious authorities and apparently approved by God himself. Should we fail to live up to God's expectations, we could well find ourselves spending the whole of eternity suffering horrendous punishments. The approach of the Christian Gnostics is the complete opposite of this. Ptolemy explains our essential nature can't possibly be damned, no matter what we do:
'Consciousness cannot be corrupted, regardless of the behavior it has to pass its time in the company of. A piece of gold does not lose its beauty when it is put into filth, but keeps its own nature, since the filth can't harm the gold. What leads one to the pleroma is not behavior but the seed that was sent here as an infant and grows to maturity in this place.'
We don't get into the pleroma - the Kingdom of Heaven - as a reward for obeying the rules, but by recognizing that this is already the eternal home of our essential Self. We are 'spiritual not by behavior but by nature, and will be preserved no matter what.' We are saved not because of how we act, but by being what we are....For Gnostics, it is not what we do but why we do it that counts....As our realization of Gnosis deepens we 'no longer abstain from evil because of fear of punishment or do good from hope of promised reward,' but naturally express the Good, living spontaneously 'out of love,' for someone aware of the Oneness cannot help but express unqualified love for all beings."
Of course, all this is behind the objections to the Gnostics by the Literalists:
"Irenaeus is outraged that Christian Gnostics proclaim that the realization of Gnosis sets them free to act spontaneously, regardless of moral conventions. He writes indignantly:
'They maintain that they have attained to such heights that they are, therefore, free in every respect to act as they please, and have no fear of doing anything.'" from Jesus and the Lost Goddess by Freke & Gandy, pp. 173-175
Indeed, some Gnostics did assume that 'all things are lawful,' and behaved in completely libertine ways - even perverse ways, like the Carpocratians, who ostensibly used semen and menses in a corrupt sacramental meal intended to symbolize the syzygy of 'masculine' and 'feminine.' But by-and-large, Gnostics understood that there were two Initiations or understandings of the Christian mythos: the Psychic and the Pneumatic, and moral behavior flowed from the awareness of Oneness. Moral behavior did not 'result' in a state of Oneness, or again, acting like a Boy Scout doesn't get one into Heaven, realizing Heaven results in our behaving like a Boy Scout. I learned this from BE HERE NOW long ago in a Yogic idiom, and now I've renewed that Teaching in a Gnostic Christian idiom, which somehow feels even closer to my Heart.
"Whilst the psychic initiation teaches us how to live as an apparent part of the One, the pneumatic initiation reveals to us that essentially we are the One." Ibid, p.176
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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eligal
Noobie


Registered: 05/25/05
Posts: 7,021
Loc: California
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Re: inner peace, enlightenment, etc... boring? [Re: wilshire]
#5386666 - 03/10/06 04:50 PM (17 years, 10 months ago) |
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party on!
-------------------- \m/ Spanksta \m/ "do you have the freedom to do with your nervous system what you want?" "MolokoMilkPlus said: I'll respect you if you let me give you a blow job" "tactik said: respect the can."
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PinballWizard
Naive and Gullible as usual

Registered: 03/20/04
Posts: 2,804
Last seen: 9 years, 9 months
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Re: inner peace, enlightenment, etc... boring? [Re: wilshire]
#5390348 - 03/11/06 08:46 PM (17 years, 10 months ago) |
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I don't see much of a problem living one way or the other, as long as you get a good buzz out of it.
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Deviate
newbie
Registered: 04/20/03
Posts: 4,497
Last seen: 8 years, 4 months
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Re: inner peace, enlightenment, etc... boring? [Re: PinballWizard]
#5390372 - 03/11/06 08:58 PM (17 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
PinballWizard said: I don't see much of a problem living one way or the other, as long as you get a good buzz out of it.
one problem with certain lifestyles is that they aren't sustainable; they may give you a buzz in the short term but screw you over in the slightly longer run. for example my stepdad has been smoking cigarettes for 27 years, he is now 44 years old and has recenlty been coughing up blood and his doctor is suspecting lung cancer. he hasn't gotten the results of the ct scan back yet but i can certainly tell you he does not want to die right now, he has a young son and a daughter in college, 2 wonderful dogs,etc. this is just a rather sad example why i dont think agree with the philosophy that anything goes as long as it gets you buzzed. self destruction is really a rather ugly thing if you ask me.
Edited by Deviate (03/11/06 08:59 PM)
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