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dattaswami
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Buddha kept silent about God
#5910084 - 07/28/06 09:06 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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Buddha kept silent about God
Buddha kept silent about God. This means that God is beyond words, mind and logic as said in the Veda. Buddha means the Buddhi or Jnana yoga that speaks about the absolute God. Thus He is the greatest incarnation of God. If one thinks Him as atheist, there can be no better fool. Mohammed showed the formless medium in which God exists, which is energy and this is presented by Shankara, because basically energy and awareness are one and the same. The prophet itself means human incarnation. Prophet is carrying on the message of God. The divine knowledge is in Him. Is He not greater than other human beings? Message of divine knowledge is the characteristic of God (Satyam Jnanam – the Veda) and so we say God is in Him. Why do you deny it, when God is omnipresent? Then every human being should give the same message of God, since God is omnipresent. But why Mohammed alone gave it? Because the power of God or knowledge of God is in him only. Then the power of God, in the form of knowledge is not omnipresent. In any case, you have to accept that either God or His Power is only in Prophet Mohammed. That is what human incarnation is. You are fighting with us, without analysing the concept of human incarnation. Thus Buddha, Mohammed and Shankara have made the single phase, which was essential to the level of the followers at that time.
The concept of human incarnation was well established by Krishna and Jesus. You can find all three branches of Hinduism (Advaita, Visishta Advaita, Dvaita) in Christianity because Jesus told that He and God are one and the same (Advaita), that He is the son of God (Visishta Advaita) and that He is the messenger of God (Dvaita). The stage of philosophy was expressed according to the required stage of the people of that time.
At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness Sri Dattaswami
Anil Antony
www.universal-spirituality.org Universal Spirituality for World Peace antonyanil@universal-spirituality.org
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Fractalated
There's no onehome up there...

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Re: Buddha kept silent about God [Re: dattaswami]
#5910367 - 07/28/06 10:20 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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because basically energy and awareness are one and the same
How do you know this? Can you demonstrate this?
My meditation pillow is at a basic level just energy. But now you say that it is an aware energy?
-------------------- "Now that the principalities and the powers stockpile weapons of mass destruction, contaminate the earth with their feverish industry, release floods of images to trigger insatiable desires, treat animals and humans as commodities and functions of a market, the devil must be grinning from ear to ear."
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Sinbad
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Re: Buddha kept silent about God [Re: dattaswami]
#5912160 - 07/29/06 02:05 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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"Buddha kept silent about God."
Maybe we should all take this example. 
P.S You said the word "God" 19 times in your post!
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fireworks_god
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Re: Buddha kept silent about God [Re: Fractalated]
#5915300 - 07/30/06 03:26 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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Don't reply as though it was his own words... its just a sermon, copied from someone else, posted amongst a flood of sermons.
Its usually best to simply ignore them. 
 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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Fractalated
There's no onehome up there...

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Re: Buddha kept silent about God [Re: fireworks_god]
#5915314 - 07/30/06 03:31 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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Mmmmmmm mayhaps you're right.
-------------------- "Now that the principalities and the powers stockpile weapons of mass destruction, contaminate the earth with their feverish industry, release floods of images to trigger insatiable desires, treat animals and humans as commodities and functions of a market, the devil must be grinning from ear to ear."
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fireworks_god
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Re: Buddha kept silent about God [Re: Fractalated]
#5915318 - 07/30/06 03:32 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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I didn't even read it. 
 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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Ped
Interested In Your Brain



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Re: Buddha kept silent about God [Re: fireworks_god]
#5916323 - 07/30/06 08:23 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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>> How do you know this? Can you demonstrate this? My meditation pillow is at a basic level just energy. But now you say that it is an aware energy?
It is not something which can be demonstrated; that is not a fair question. It is, however, something which can be reasoned through analysis.
We need to understand what is meant by "awareness" if we are to answer this question. Put most simply, "awareness" is a quality of being whereby one phenomenon interacts with other phenomena in an organized or purposeful fashion. Normally, when we consider awareness, we feel that it is something confined to human beings and animals, inasmuch as they are self-aware. But self-awareness is not necessarily the full extent of what awareness means. For example, we can see that a plant will respond to it's environment by moving -- sometimes in very peculiar ways -- to the most strategic position for absorbing the maximum amount of light available to the area within reach of it's roots. We can identify this as a kind of awareness. Is it an awareness of similiar sophistication to our own? Of course not. Regardless, this does show that awareness occurs across a broad spectrum of simple and complex phenomenon.
From this we can follow that your meditation pillow is, at a basic level, just energy, which is, at a basic level, just awareness. I feel that it is fairly plain to see that the sophistication of any phenomenon's awareness is proportionate to its complexity. Why then can this not apply to low-complexity phenomenon, such as rocks and trees? It was not long ago that this planet was just a rock. But now it has come alive -- it has produced whole civilizations of highly ordered intelligence in precisely the same way that trees produce highly ordered expressions of themselves: fruits. These two phenomenon differ only the magnitude of their organization.
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Dark Triangles - New Psychedelic Techno Single - Listen on Soundcloud Gyroscope full album available SoundCloud or MySpace
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redgreenvines
irregular verb


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Re: Buddha kept silent about God [Re: Ped]
#5916346 - 07/30/06 08:31 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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with this body and this mind and these mental grippers called thoughts, we may try to think about god we may try to enclose something that keeps slipping out of containment we may try to make it hold still for a picture yet it melts into the background while we locate the viewfinder. this body and this mind and these mental grippers are not up to the task of setting words around this kind of idea or being
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Fractalated
There's no onehome up there...

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Re: Buddha kept silent about God [Re: Ped]
#5916348 - 07/30/06 08:33 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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You made wonderful sense right up till here:
From this we can follow that your meditation pillow is, at a basic level, just energy, which is, at a basic level, just awareness.
I'd say that awareness is one property of energy which manifests when the necessary causes and conditions arise. However, I don't think energy is synonymous with awareness. Awareness implies awareness OF something. If everything is energy, then what exists outside of energy for energy to be aware of? I suppose you could argue that energy is self-aware, but then we'd start getting into very abstract realms where we could really only speculate.
-------------------- "Now that the principalities and the powers stockpile weapons of mass destruction, contaminate the earth with their feverish industry, release floods of images to trigger insatiable desires, treat animals and humans as commodities and functions of a market, the devil must be grinning from ear to ear."
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Icelander
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Re: Buddha kept silent about God [Re: Fractalated]
#5916361 - 07/30/06 08:36 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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ALL of this is speculation so why not go for it.
Energy IS awareness!
-------------------- "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
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Ped
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Re: Buddha kept silent about God [Re: Icelander]
#5916533 - 07/30/06 09:13 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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>> If everything is energy, then what exists outside of energy for energy to be aware of? I suppose you could argue that energy is self-aware, but then we'd start getting into very abstract realms where we could really only speculate.
Well this is precisely it. This is the heart of the "God is everything" idea found in all the world's major religions. Even Buddhism refers to "the primordial Buddha" in this sense.
The expression of a phenomenon's awareness manifests according to it's complexity. Simple phenomenon such as plants and animals express their awareness in simple ways, such as their evolutionary strategy or their rudamentary civil order, and complex phenomenon like human beings express it in complex ways, such as music, art, poetry, civilization and so forth. We can see within this scope of phenomenon that awareness occurs across a spectrum. There is no reason to suppose that awareness ceases to be a point of consideration when this scope is widened to include even simpler phenomenon like stones, ultraviolet waves and so forth -- unless we confine our definition of "awareness" to the conventional and entirely self-relative definition we are most familiar with.
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Dark Triangles - New Psychedelic Techno Single - Listen on Soundcloud Gyroscope full album available SoundCloud or MySpace
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Fractalated
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Re: Buddha kept silent about God [Re: Ped]
#5917012 - 07/30/06 11:21 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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This is a very interesting argument. I'm not sure if I really can argue with it.
-------------------- "Now that the principalities and the powers stockpile weapons of mass destruction, contaminate the earth with their feverish industry, release floods of images to trigger insatiable desires, treat animals and humans as commodities and functions of a market, the devil must be grinning from ear to ear."
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redgreenvines
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Re: Buddha kept silent about God [Re: Fractalated]
#5917745 - 07/31/06 04:56 AM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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well if my mental grippers could grasp it effectively I might try to argue with it.
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MarkostheGnostic
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Re: Buddha kept silent about God [Re: Ped]
#5917960 - 07/31/06 08:27 AM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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Interesting. Minerals might express a kind of 'molecular awareness' through the mathematical symmetry of their crystalline nature. Instead of attributing awareness to a rock however, we might consider that our own nervous systems, embedded in the other systems that suport and interact with it, is no more the creator of our awareness than the mineral's crystals. It may well be that 'Mind at large' impresses its own Awareness upon all of creation - each to its own capacity for manifesting awareness (Consciousness). Crystals manifest 'design' or at least form according to mathematical proportion.
The problem I have with the "God is everything" statement is that people take this in a pantheistic sense, like God is the sum total of all there is - in existence. This is not correct because God is prior to existence and the "God is everything" statement makes a definition contingent upon the creation/emanation of God, not God's essential nature which is knowable only to God. PanENtheism is a better conceptual compromise for me intellectually because it suggest not that "God is everything" but rather 'God is IN everything' in a Mysterious way. I absolutely insist on the word Mystery because otherwise we can't help but include God's Presence IN everything in a substantial way, that is, like a substance that permeates matter and energy. Mystery suggests Presence, Immanence, but is a way that remains incomprehensible. Again I must insist that God must remain Incomprehensible or it's just not God! God (or the Dharma Body for that matter) cannot be reduced to a rationally comprehensible 'object' that can be contained and explained.
What thinkest thou?
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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Fractalated
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God is prior to existence
How is this possible? Are you suggesting that God was, in fact, the so-called "first cause"?
-------------------- "Now that the principalities and the powers stockpile weapons of mass destruction, contaminate the earth with their feverish industry, release floods of images to trigger insatiable desires, treat animals and humans as commodities and functions of a market, the devil must be grinning from ear to ear."
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MarkostheGnostic
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Re: Buddha kept silent about God [Re: Fractalated]
#5918193 - 07/31/06 10:48 AM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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Not suggesting, stating (but I'm not being Aristotelian even while affirming "First Cause").
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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Silversoul
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Quote:
Again I must insist that God must remain Incomprehensible or it's just not God!
While I agree with the idea that God is a Mystery, to say that God is totally "incomprehensible" seems to negate the idea of gnosis.
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Fractalated
There's no onehome up there...

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What reason do you have for coming to this conclusion?
If you look at it from a logical perspective, everything is governed by cause and effect. To say that there was a first cause means that an effect would have to have arisen without a cause. That would mean that things would be happening all the time without a cause. You would plant an avacado seed and a unicorn would grow. It only seems logical that cause and effect have no beginning.
-------------------- "Now that the principalities and the powers stockpile weapons of mass destruction, contaminate the earth with their feverish industry, release floods of images to trigger insatiable desires, treat animals and humans as commodities and functions of a market, the devil must be grinning from ear to ear."
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Droz
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Re: Buddha kept silent about God [Re: Fractalated]
#5918587 - 07/31/06 01:34 PM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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Knowing that God can never be seen nor heard.
-------------------- Evolution of Time.
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Fractalated
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Re: Buddha kept silent about God [Re: Droz]
#5918657 - 07/31/06 02:05 PM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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Where did you get that idea from?
If It can't be seen or heard, can it be otherwise experienced? If It just can't be experienced, then what possible reason do you have for suspecting such an entity's existence?
-------------------- "Now that the principalities and the powers stockpile weapons of mass destruction, contaminate the earth with their feverish industry, release floods of images to trigger insatiable desires, treat animals and humans as commodities and functions of a market, the devil must be grinning from ear to ear."
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Droz
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Re: Buddha kept silent about God [Re: Fractalated]
#5918765 - 07/31/06 02:51 PM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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It is the construct behind it all, the design that it follows. Well through science we can predict evolutionary patterns. What will become of the human race?
-------------------- Evolution of Time.
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Fractalated
There's no onehome up there...

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Re: Buddha kept silent about God [Re: redgreenvines]
#5918790 - 07/31/06 02:57 PM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
redgreenvines said: well if my mental grippers could grasp it effectively I might try to argue with it.
I would certainly encourage you to try!
-------------------- "Now that the principalities and the powers stockpile weapons of mass destruction, contaminate the earth with their feverish industry, release floods of images to trigger insatiable desires, treat animals and humans as commodities and functions of a market, the devil must be grinning from ear to ear."
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Fractalated
There's no onehome up there...

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Re: Buddha kept silent about God [Re: Droz]
#5918803 - 07/31/06 03:03 PM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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So God for you then is like a blueprint?
Science is basically a study of the physical laws that our universe follows and of probability.
I have no idea what will become of the human race. Do you?
-------------------- "Now that the principalities and the powers stockpile weapons of mass destruction, contaminate the earth with their feverish industry, release floods of images to trigger insatiable desires, treat animals and humans as commodities and functions of a market, the devil must be grinning from ear to ear."
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Droz
Love of Life


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Re: Buddha kept silent about God [Re: Fractalated]
#5918917 - 07/31/06 03:34 PM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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Who knows for sure, we will be building more towards travelling to outerspace, once we get a grip on the rest of the world. No more wars. Peace throughout the earth.
-------------------- Evolution of Time.
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Fractalated
There's no onehome up there...

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Re: Buddha kept silent about God [Re: Droz]
#5919110 - 07/31/06 04:44 PM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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I would love to live in such a world.
-------------------- "Now that the principalities and the powers stockpile weapons of mass destruction, contaminate the earth with their feverish industry, release floods of images to trigger insatiable desires, treat animals and humans as commodities and functions of a market, the devil must be grinning from ear to ear."
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Ped
Interested In Your Brain



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Re: Buddha kept silent about God [Re: Fractalated]
#5919801 - 07/31/06 08:19 PM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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>> If It can't be seen or heard, can it be otherwise experienced? If It just can't be experienced, then what possible reason do you have for suspecting such an entity's existence?
See, here again we've strayed back in to the habituated idea that we are somehow unqiue from all other phenomenon in the whole of existence. It can't be seen or heard or experienced because you are it. It is not approachable any more than one can turn around and see the back of his own head.
It is as if the great divine is a small child who has set about playing a game of tag with itself, and has forgotten that he is the only one playing.
"You're it!"
Buddha never, ever spoke of this, because it's this recognition, when embraced by a culture, that leads to the suffocating effects of theism. Buddha realized that each and every individual needs to attain liberation of their own accord, and not through adopting other people's articulation of the experience of liberation. The moment we condense liberation in to a series of concepts, we have missed the mark. Buddha, knowing that enlightenment must remain ineffable, made every effort to prevent his teachings from attracting a traditional doctrinal following. Although this is an effort to delay only the inevitable, I feel that we can see how Buddhism is far less dogmatically "sticky" than the other major religions.
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Dark Triangles - New Psychedelic Techno Single - Listen on Soundcloud Gyroscope full album available SoundCloud or MySpace
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Fractalated
There's no onehome up there...

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Re: Buddha kept silent about God [Re: Ped]
#5919923 - 07/31/06 08:53 PM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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I completely agree with what you wrote. I think you may have misinterpreted my post.
It can't be seen or heard or experienced because you are it.
In that case wouldn't it be more accurate to say that it can't NOT be seen or heard or experienced, since it is reality itself?
-------------------- "Now that the principalities and the powers stockpile weapons of mass destruction, contaminate the earth with their feverish industry, release floods of images to trigger insatiable desires, treat animals and humans as commodities and functions of a market, the devil must be grinning from ear to ear."
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Ped
Interested In Your Brain



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Re: Buddha kept silent about God [Re: Fractalated]
#5923289 - 08/01/06 09:31 PM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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Seems like both are true. It is not approachable, because to approach it to conceive self as seperate from it, and it is not escapable, because it is impossible to be anything other than what you are being. This isn't really a satisfying conclusion, because it renders our entire discussion a maddening exercise in superfluity.
...and that's the ghost that's got us all spooked.
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Dark Triangles - New Psychedelic Techno Single - Listen on Soundcloud Gyroscope full album available SoundCloud or MySpace
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