Speaking of pain, check out the Health Ranger's review "Zrii Juice and the Chopra Center - Does it Stand Up to the Hype?"

"With the launch of the Zrii juice product and its association with Deepak Chopra, many readers have been asking NaturalNews to offer our opinion on the product. Many people are excited about Zrii and the associated business opportunity, and the fact that it is endorsed by the Chopra Center lends it credibility in the natural health community. So to learn more about Zrii, I went to the website (www.Zrii.com) to find the nutrition facts on Zrii. That's where this review ran into a significant stumbling block: Zrii doesn't list its "nutrition facts" label on the website! (At least not that I could find as of this writing.)

I'm always suspicious of network marketing products that don't openly advertise their ingredients. Sure, the Zrii website lists the "featured" ingredients -- Amalaki, Ginger, Turmeric, Tulsi, Schizandra, Jujube and Haritaki -- but it does not conspicuously tell you what else is in the juice, but if you dig around the site and read the fine print, you learn that...."

Read the rest:

http://www.naturalnews.com/023101.html

#1 jeremy

Excellent read. Thanks for posting.

Many proponents of evidence-based medicine have criticized Dr. Chopra's claims about the potency of certain Ayurvedic and other alternative medicine. It seems that people who believe in Ayurveda and nutritional therapies, too are criticizing Dr. Chopra for selling these products.

Many people detest big drug companies for pumping pills into populace for profits...and the alternative medicine business which is now growing into billions in the US is not far behind in those pursuits of profits....only that you have an added element of "hypocrisy" in the later.

Have you ever believed in something so deeply and sincerely that you felt nothing could ever shake that “fact”, only to find out you were deceived, bamboozled and had?

If your answer is “no” you are probably not very honest with yourself.

If your answer is “yes” you would have to ask yourself, it happened once, could it happen again? You would have to wonder, has it already happened again?

Re. #3

Lily S. your comment is nothing more than an ad hominem. YOu say Zrii is the BEST but donot provide any reason why t is o. Apart from teh singular fact that it is endorsed by Chopra Center. And you talk about research and being informed?

Your attempts to discredit a person's views based on his health back ground is pathetic.

"Obviously he’s trying to use Zrii to promote his newsletter and products."

Lets hear it in his words(from the artcile link posted by jeremy):

"... I [could] sign up with Zrii myself and write a bogus glowing article about how great Zrii is, and how you can get rich while revolutionizing your health and all that, and I'd make a small fortune off the massive downline business activity. (I've been offered multi-million dollar deals by network marketing companies several times.) But of course, you'll never see that happen here on NaturalNews.com. I'm here to provide you with the most accurate and honest information I can about health products, health concepts, dangerous pharmaceuticals and life practices that produce positive results. I honor my role, and I respect my audience. My reputation is not for sale, and I tell it like it is, without sugar-coating the subject (or, with Zrii, grape-juice-coating it).

If Zrii changes their formula and I'm impressed with the new formulation, I'll say so and write a positive review. But based on what I know about Zrii right now, I think the product is a nutritional joke. I don't care if saying that means Deepak Chopra will never be a guest on a NaturalNews interview or not. Frankly, if Chopra is going to lend his name to a product like this, he probably doesn't deserve to be on NaturalNews.com in the first place.

You see, I have a simple rule here on NaturalNews.com. I look at what people DO, not just what they SAY. Look at the ingredients on a nutritional supplement or superfruit juice, and you'll learn all you need to know about the integrity (or lack thereof) of the people behind it. Flowery, spiritual-sounding language doesn't make up for junk nutritional ingredients! You can't meditate away the reality of what's really in the bottle.

That's why I continue to openly endorse the Amazon Herb Company and its founder, Amazon "John" Easterling, even though I have absolutely no financial relationship with the Amazon Herb Company. It's an organization that I see as offering honest products with really superb ingredients. Their ethics are straight up, and they're genuinely working to make the world a better place by revolutionizing business models that keep the rainforests alive and intact in South America. To me, the difference between Zrii vs. the Amazon Herb Co. is like night and day."

Moreover, Lily S. YOU have USED intenblog to promote your interest and your website with products about Zrii.

Since you have show your inner meaner self in attacking a person for his opinions and the evidence and arguments he provides, let me degrade myself to your level:

Lets begin with one of your favorite quotes:

"Favorite Scripture... Judge not and ye shall not be judged; condemn not and ye shall not be condemned; forgive and ye shall be forgiven… Luke 6:38"

You Lily Seymor, I bet are not well educated, nor have any professional achievements...nothing any where near like that of the person who's views you are criticizing.

You run escort dating service at your website, which you link to intentblog comments:

http://www.lilyseymour.com/

You run an semi-independent prostitution ring.

You apparently have interest in spirituality and love as can be seen from your blogger and myspace blogs. Even the Eliot Spitzer girl was into spiritual stuff as can be sen from her MySpace blogs.

You are free to advertise our website, personal blogs, escort service (your company with men for money) blogs, Your new found interst in network marketing with Zrii website(which brings you money). But don't show your holier than thou attitude and your self righteousness.

Ref. 3

Since Lily S. posted an excerpt from the Health Ranger's bio, and offered her "potent" rebuttal to the critique(Ref. post #1), it is fair game to know a little about her from her websites from the URL link to her comments at IB:

Here's Lily S.' "professional" bio:

www.lilyseymour.com/bio.htm

Hopefully Zrii(THE BEST!) network marketing(enosrsed by the GREAT CHOPRA CENTER!) will brings her more "prosperity"(money & happiness) than this...her other business whcih may be "healthy" or "unhealthy" based on your interpretations and personal beliefs:

www.lilyseymour.com/packs.htm

"I’ve arranged a few packages for the discerning gentlemen desiring a discreet encounter with an exquisite, elite and reputable lady whose primary objective is your complete satisfaction.

My packages are designed to compliment you on a myriad of occasions; dinner dates, cultural events, domestic or international travel or simple relaxing in an intimate environment for two.
[one hour $1200 to a day $6000]

.

Questions?

www.lilyseymour.com/faq.htm

Life is addiction to survival.

The self is solidified addiction to delusion.

If you eliminate addiction......you got nuthin left.

"During the Cold War the prevailing idea was that the U.S. and the Soviet Union needed to build huge arsenals of atomic weapons until the point of "mutually assured destruction" was reached. Yet instead of insuring peace, mutually assured destruction is exactly what spurs the pain-addicted on. Relationships end in catastrophe, environments are destroyed, genocides occur, dictators run amok -- in all these cases our rational side tells us that nobody can win, yet that doesn't prove to be a deterrent."

--Deepak

Wikipedia artcile on Prisoner's dilemma (Game Theory)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma

Excerpts:

...The prisoner's dilemma game is fundamental to certain theories of human cooperation and trust. On the assumption that the PD can model transactions between two people requiring trust, cooperative behaviour in populations may be modelled by a multi-player, iterated, version of the game. ... The iterated prisoner's dilemma has also been referred to as the "Peace-War game".

Real-life examples...

These particular examples, involving prisoners and bag switching and so forth, may seem contrived, but there are in fact many examples in human interaction as well as interactions in nature that have the same payoff matrix. The prisoner's dilemma is therefore of interest to the social sciences such as economics, politics and sociology, as well as to the biological sciences such as ethology and evolutionary biology. Many natural processes have been abstracted into models in which living beings are engaged in endless games of Prisoner's Dilemma (PD). This wide applicability of the PD gives the game its substantial importance.

In political science, for instance, the PD scenario is often used to illustrate the problem of two sates engaged in arms race. Both will reason that they have two options, either to increase military expenditure or to make an agreement to reduce weapons. Neither state can be certain that the other one will keep to such an agreement; therefore, they both incline towards military expansion. The paradox is that both states are acting rationally, but producing an apparently irrational result. This could be considered a corollary to deterrence theory.

...The theoretical conclusion of PD is one reason why, in many countries, plea bargaining is forbidden. Often, precisely the PD scenario applies: it is in the interest of both suspects to confess and testify against the other prisoner/suspect, even if each is innocent of the alleged crime. Arguably, the worst case is when only one party is guilty — here, the innocent one is unlikely to confess, while the guilty one is likely to confess and testify against the innocent.

"...in all these cases our rational side tells us that nobody can win, yet that doesn't prove to be a deterrent." --Deepak

REF. Prisoner's Dilemma

...In the classic form of this game, cooperating is strictly dominated by defecting, so that the only possible equilibrium for the game is for all players to defect. In simpler terms, no matter what the other player does, one player will always gain a greater payoff by playing defect. Since in any situation playing defect is more beneficial than cooperating, all rational players will play defect, all things being equal.

In the iterated prisoner's dilemma the game is played repeatedly. Thus each player has an opportunity to "punish" the other player for previous non-cooperative play. Cooperation may then arise as an equilibrium outcome. The incentive to defect is overcome by the threat of punishment, leading to the possibility of a cooperative outcome. So if the game is infinitely repeated, cooperation may be a subgame perfect Nash equilibrium although both players defecting always remains an equilibrium and there are many other equilibrium outcomes.

...The likelihood of defection in a population may be reduced by the experience of cooperation in earlier games allowing trust to build up. Hence self-sacrificing behaviour may, in some instances, strengthen the moral fibre of a group. If the group is small the positive behaviour is more likely to feed back in a mutually affirming way, encouraging individuals within that group to continue to cooperate. This is allied to the twin dilemma of encouraging those people whom one would aid to indulge in behaviour that might put them at risk. Such processes are major concerns within the study of reciprocal altruism, group selection, kin selection and moral philosophy.

There is only one battleground ~ the legendary Kurukshetra. Don't look on the map. The real battle is not in Iraq, it is not in the election campaign, not in a congress, not in the Middle or Far East. It's closer than you think.

The biggest battle is not between the military super powers. The biggest battle is right here right now, right in your own heart. Nowhere else.

Dear Deepak, please, I plead you to go back to the teaching of the Masters. You have enough knowledge to do so. I see what you have posted is only part 1, but the written again diverts the attention away from the place of the real work. Why don't you use the knowledge of the science of Yoga Ayurveda for the diagnosis of the international situation and the situation closer to home ? Frankly all this phycological jargon used by you is a passe.

There is no E., please refrain from using it as a headliner, you know exactly the importance of the words and their vibrational power. Remember what our Master used to say:

''When faced with Evil, do not oppose it, do not fight either, for you will give it more power... Just ignore it and it will disappear by itself... Because there is no evil, but a misperception of God...''

After all Maharishi is the innermost witness of each and every heart, the great seer is watching our every action, please do not betray your Self. You are a great teacher, so please stand by what you have to offer. Don't be tempted by the dilly-dalling on the worldly matters. Otherwise you running the risk of loosing the Shakti with which you've been blessed.

With Love & Bliss

Jai Guru Dev

igor

Ref: # 7 V. says:

''Life is addiction to survival.
The self is solidified addiction to delusion.
If you eliminate addiction......you got nuthin left.''

May I offer another alternative, instead of the one suggested:

Life is expansion of Happiness.

The self is vibrating reflection of the Self.

If you eliminate addiction... Life is pure Bliss.

Love

igor

You don't HAVE an addiction...........you ARE an addiction!

I am a first-class addiction
a final fantasy
the omnipotent ritual
of dreamless awakening.

smile, you're on candid camera...!!

Vaness

Perhaps nothingness(Void) and pure Bliss are two different concepts used to express the same fundamental reality.

Territorial creatures are we.

One was never meant to be.

Anything else

falls short

of the

mark.

~

Pull your Self back into the saddle.

It goes along with the ride.

Both of you--hungry,

dry and thirsty.

~

Too little to late, to the limit

of my imagination

I go.

~

Everything on the menu was had.

Dotting the corners of lips:

each separate meal

going beyond.

~

Dear Deepak,

I agree with Igor's comment # 10.

Take care that you are not falling into your own trap:

http://www.intentblog.com/archives/2005/08/emotions_basic.html

To Summer" Love is not a mere sentiment or emotion but the ultimate truth at the heart of creation" Rabindranath Tagore.To all: My biggest personal challenge in relationships ie to "give up being right" totally and completely and irrevocably. I am committed to overcoming this challenge deepak
12. Posted by deepak on August 7, 2005 09:43 PM

Stay committed :)

Love, Mieke

Dear Deepak

In your post, it seems as if every aspect of pain is being thrown into one mortar, and crushed with one pestle.

People who are being physically or emotionally abused have one overriding immediate reaction: a need to survive. Often, the ability to survive is achieved by holding still and keeping quiet until the next moment. When such experiences and reactions are repeated, a deep patterning takes place in the amygdala. In all subsequent threatening situations, the person reacts in a similar way, whether the reaction is appropriate to that moment of survival or not.

The expression of this patterning can be interpreted as addiction to pain, fear, lack of courage, etc. But what it is is the result of a crisis-driven learning process. It can only be countered by equal-in-power but opposite-in-nature experiences, until the reactions to the previous experiences are overridden -- as amygdala patterning can't be undone by normal means, in part because inputs from threatening sitations are more active in patterning the amygdala than inputs from milder situations. (As a physician, you know these things.)

This is why it's difficult to treat the emotional damage done to people who've been repeatedly traumatized. This is why it's true that it takes a thousand kind words to undo the effect of a single unkind one.

The responses to abusive, fear-inducing, painful situations that you list -- a sense of weakness, anger, desire for revenge, guilt, and religious or ego-associated justifications -- are reactions and rationalizations the mind constructs to get out from under the overwhelming corporal sensation of stress and fear that the amygdala patterning triggers when another threat is encountered.

It's is oh-so-easy -- but untrue -- to tell someone who has been conditioned to "overreact" to painful situations that their responses are under their own control. Only by making a strong conscious effort to understand the reactions, and teach oneself to override them, can the patterning be weakened until, by contrast with the newer, salutory experiences, it becomes less of a force on the person. This is the work of years of effort. And it can all be undone if the person has another strongly-threatening experience.

Those who participate in war in the field express their fears and individual pain and need to survive by engaging in reactive or aggressive violence. If they're removed from the threatening situation and helped to recover from the traumas they've experienced, most of them prefer not to fight again.

The people who run wars, who are not in the field, are a different case altogether. Without their impelling power, wars, as we term them, wouldn't come to be. There would be feuds, some of them long-lasting. But not wars on a large scale.

It is this latter group that's interesting, because they create and organize situations that would not otherwise occur spontaneously between most groups of humanity.

I disagree with your contention that "...all of us contain, to one degree or other, all these factors in our hidden -- or not so hidden -- makeup..." -- I lay claim to none of the factors in your list. Having experienced both emotional and physical abuse in the past, and having worked for a long time to identify and counter my mind's and body's reactions to it, I've learned that my experience of, and reactions to, pain are survival-related behavioral adaptations that stay active in me unless I fight them, but belong to the events that caused the patterning, not to me as an individual. I didn't ask for them to be present in my life, I didn't cause them, my body and mind simply reacted as they were designed to react -- biologically -- to persistent crisis-level threats.

To tie individuals' involvement with and reactions to painful situations to the war in Iraq, or to connect individual soldiers' states of mind in the field (and the decisions that led them to be in the field) with the states of mind of those who caused the war to be, and got it funded, and in place, is like saying this tear in my eye is the ocean. My tears may taste of the ocean sometimes, but tears and the ocean are very different, even though both are forms of salted water.

When the brush is too broad, the painter may, without meaning to, produce a flood of colors that washes everything viable away, rather than a work of art.

I realize your post is part one of a series, and it may have been designed to provoke discussion in any case. But as one person (of many) who's had to live with, and try to undo, the effects of stress-driven amygdala patterning, the combining of the average individual's experiences and management of pain and fear, with issues related to wars, reads as inappropriate -- and potentially confusing to some. Please, first do no harm.

Pain is not addictive. It's overwhelming, and no one enjoys it, not even those who appear to, unless there's some unusual brain damage. Individuals try to get out from under it by whatever means they can, even by using the most irrational unconscious rationalizations to do so. Pain is counter to survival. Our minds and bodies are designed for survival. The amygdala's reactions to threats can create a catch-22 for many people, when in order to survive their amygdala learns to overreact, and their subsequent overreactions effect their ability to survive, adversely.

Please help people who are having a tough time with pain and fear find ways to balance their minds' and bodies reactions to it, rather than pasting labels on their forehead and throwing them into the hopper with the very few individuals who actively promote war.

love, h

The situation that gave rise to the pain is a product of a specific place in consciousness, so it is only natural that we are "addicted" to the pain, meaning that we stay in the same perspective and keep recreating the situation, transforming pain into suffering.

I know the addiction or stickiness you talk about very well, it is often very hard to get oneself out of one's suffering (level of consciousness), many times because we are not conscious of the exact mechanism creating and recreating the pain and unaware of what belief and thought is causing it. Most people don't even realize they are creating the situation themselves, so everything happens automatically.

But even when awareness dawns... then the ego kicks in with all its arsenal, and we'd rather lie to ourselves through habit, victimization and all the rest than let go. It is fascinating to observe this. I guess what helps is a total and whole- hearted commitment to revealing rather than hiding one's true self. And humor...

Deepak, all instances of pain that you cite here, and I must say all seeking of pain is the 'pleasure' of seeking or living in pain.

The pleasure is the constant, not the pain.

Dear Aurora

Labeling the pattern of similar reactions to painful situations as an addiction to pain is not accurate, physiologically.

It is like saying a tomato that has grown from a flower on a tomato plant is addicted to being a tomato.

The difficulty for the person in this kind of situation is remember what it was like to be a flower once, then trying to act flower-like thereafter.

That is how much direct control over the body the amygdala exercises in traumatic situations.

love, h

The ONE way to release pain is to understand it. 'Thinking' it away does not work, for the error is in the thinking mind.
Understanding and awareness of individual and collective pain, is like turning 'water into wine'.
Poof - it disappears. You are free.

Dear Heather,

I do understand what you have been writing # 16.

In my humble opinion one can never generalize pain and suffering as far as a human being is concerned, as you have already expressed.

Regular healthcare does it too much, but even Ayurveda knowledge generalizes. A person can be One in itself and if he/she is, one is happy. This is his natural state.

And I sincerely believe that we can only be One as humanity if we allow every person to be his/her own unique self. And yes there lies the bottleneck, we most of the time only see things from our own perspective.

When you talk about Ego Aurora, it depends on the situation you are in whether to use it or not. I believe every human being still needs an ego to survive. We women even have a strong one, also called intuition because of the fact that we give birth.

And in that case it is a strength that we have. In order to nurture our children we have the natural ability to intuit their needs. And we mostly (G)Know what is good for them and what not.

What has gone wrong perhaps is that we have become too rational, so rational that women even lost some of their intuition and feeling to rationality, confusing it by calling it the ego.

I believe that a healthy mind in a healthy body needs a healthy ego to tell it how to stay healthy. And then we could use the heart to tell us to become more able to place ourselves into the situation of the other, not by telling him/her what to do, but by understanding that his/her world first of all totally differs from ours and by sharing our experiences in that way.

Not what is in it for me, but what is in it for Humanity?

I hope you can make sense of my rambling. I did write another comment with different words, straight from my heart, but when I posted it I got the message that I was not logged in anymore, so lost it :)

Second time words and interpretation are already different again.

But still with all my heart: love from the heartphone,

Mieke

Everone should meditate more.
The Non-Analytical dimension of
Bliss Consciousness
is easily accessible.
Todd

Hi Todd,

Well I know a great way :) And I believe you do too :)

And I believe Deepak does and if not mistaking, I believe everyone that blogs here does :).

You know, by now, there are as many ways to meditate as there are people who are telling one another about it :)

To everyone his/her own way in his/her
N(atural)O(wn)W(ay) :)

Love, Mieke

Mantra meditation is more effective for overcoming
pain, turbulent emotions, thoughts.
Some type of resonant dampening effect subdues
the primitive, animalistic functioning.
It is a gateway to a higher vibration of body/mind.
AUM

'Stickiness' is the word I dwell on. It takes courage to remove a good sticky plaster, especially where there are the hairs of our animal natures growing. (I dwell on abundant metaphors, you?)

I don't think it's the pain that is sticky. It's the Love that binds the whole of Creation that is the sticky and that alerts us to the 'overstretching' of our wholeness with 'pain.' Love is no bad addiction. It's calling, calling us on, come Hell or high water, come pain, come bliss. Bliss, perhaps is more an addiction, if not resolved back to the pain of our neighbour.
Love is the middle road. What side of the road do you drive on?

Dear Deepak,

I prefer the term “forces of ego” and the “ego empire” rather than evil, which all comes down to ignorance and the illusion of being separate or not being all that is. I will be the first to state it is a challenge to live the truth in a world where others are living a fiction especially when the system or game we participate in are based on the fiction, of course one could become a hermit eating grubs or a beach bum.. We would also be reminded with this excerpt from Infinite Play “the omniscient loves surprise and the omnipotent loves challenge how can infinite being experience these two things other than becoming finite?” Transforming from a dynamic consciousness to a linear one? Would not the goal be to transverse the two type of consciousness and become a dual operator, experiencing the best of both?

If I were one I would tell ones self, if I may be so bold, that one is not reaching one’s full potential and that perhaps one’s ego is getting in the way or the ego of those around one are steering you away. Of course they are part of one’s own consciousness. One needs a new circle of daily interactive influence, one that is not so entrained with the world of fiction. But more than that what I see is a clinging to the old thought for example the Vedas and not focusing or integrating the new discovery. There may not be any thing “new” in the universe from the perspective of all potential always existing but there is “new” in the universe or there would be no evolution, evolution is all about NEW. We can also experience things that a specific finite self has not experienced before. The infinite self has experienced everything in one sense and even here we are including the boundaries of time. Time is necessary for a linear consciousness.

Some of being beholden to old lines of thought and insight may be a desire to validate what one says with some other authority, when what you say needs no authority other than that you expressed it. Truth needs no authority, it becomes self evident through direct experience however some need to be exposed to it’s potential to catch a glimpse of it first, and that is what spreading awareness is about. I think you might be missing the boat with your attachment to things Indian. Not that there is not something of value there and truth to be found however it has not evolved for a thousand years.

I consider all the religions Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, and Buddhism dead to the new consciousness unless they evolve but I suspect there evolution is constrained. While they speak of that which is unchanging, the playing field, the dynamics, and our understanding of it has changed. We have improved our ability to understand the unchanging with new evolved concepts that were not available to the common consciousness even 30 years ago. What I am saying is these religions are old hat and science and it’s discoveries and new data coming out every week is on a collision course with validating and providing a more rational perspective the things that all the great spiritual teaching were alluding to.

I would say this is where one’s focus should be. On integrating and investigating, assembling the clues and puzzle pieces while putting together the new data and discovery that occurred just last week, and creating a concise easy to understand presentation of it as it related to the perspective of the evolution of consciousness.

Of course this could all just be a projection of my own self but there is a chance that some applies.

You pick a subject with many levels of perspective. Pain is a somewhat complex subject and not.

Pain is all about evolution.

Pain can be a distraction (allowing infinite being to maintain a state of finite being)

Pain is part of the process of achieving balance.

At a lower perspective pain releases endorphins, natural opiates. But this brings to light a bigger question and the place for exploration, why, how is it that we feel chemicals? Why do opiates make us feel good and end pain? You know if have been reading my comments I am working on the theme that pain is an information state that we want to change.

If we shoot for the higher perspective pain creates contrast or perhaps it is contrast.

If we go higher pain helps to keep the infinite being grounded in finite being.

Have you discovered the two sets of memories yet? Have you experienced being conscious in both the linear state of mind and the dynamic state of mind? Why are we not putting our attention in this area?

When I was in the accompaniment of several of my friends with a more evolved consciousness (which results in a different type of conversation) we all noted that our conversation had been involving towards that level of ultimate knowing or awakening, sure enough just as we reach it, a distraction would happen (pain?) or perhaps a natural emanation of what we would label negative energy that balanced the positive energy. In this case we pulled up next to a car downtown and there was a commotion going on and cries of grief a mother’s baby was choking on food this like immediately grounded all of us.

The reason we were thinking about this theme is one of my friends had been in his house previously mediating reaching this ultimate level of consciousness when there is a commotion outside he looks out in the woods behind his house to see a man running in flames through the trees. He goes out to help the guy and put him out. It turns out the guy had set himself on fire with gas because of turmoil with his girlfriend. The guy has most all his skin burned off (could you image the direct experience of this?) and the guy is consciousness and wants my friend to call his girl friend. This is like a major trip type of experience that in theory is produced by our own consciousness relative to our own evolution. This is why I sometimes think we are directed by a higher self and events produced while what our finite self intends is not always in alignment with some greater purpose and knowing

Just as I am writing this, these two individuals showed up at the house with a major dramatic problem, amazing yes? It brought me down to earth all though I am not directly involved I am influenced. It creates a desire to heal the planet so that I do not encounter this vibration any more. I just try to have faith that such events are to give us direction and provide impetus for our consciousness evolution and something divine is behind all of them.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this dynamic of reaching a high state only to be immediately grounded.

I do wish you success in an endeavor to heal the planet, the whole self, and reach a state of balance having smaller perturbations rather than the large dramatic ones.

I hope I provided what you were seeking, perhaps triggered some insight, we should hang out some time and evolve some thought and perspective, focus on the new discoveries and the evolution of our minds.

It is as if every time I reach a great height (not from an ego sense but consciousness evolutionary height) something arises to snatch me down, only to climb even higher once again, then the next time something more ominous to snatch me down. The higher you go the more severe the lesson, from infinite plays “the sword with the most poundings is the sharpest”? What is the reason? Of course it works the same with Ego Heights, which surely will get one humbled which is why I tend to stay humble to avoid being humbled and save myself the pain.

Look at Jesus, reaching the greatest height of all he gets snatched down with the experience of persecution and crucifixion, can’t get more ominous then that, but he was steadfast with the truth and did not relinquish to their fictions, the ultimate test of holding to the truth. If the story actually happened, and it did to others, some innocent locked away in prison coming out not vindictive but with great insight and understanding.

Those that hold to the truth under great duress are the gallant ones I am only worthy to wash their feet, characters worthy of great honor in any Story especially the never ending one.

Perhaps we must trust that everything is a result of the divine working behind the scenes.

Hello Everyone

This thread is a great reminder that a "mindfulness-based" approach to all our life situations aids us in seeing another person's point of view because it engenders the ability to observe and learn about all particulars involved for both parties, inner and outer, calmly, clearly and closely.

Being able to look beyond one's own needs and desires nurtures greater cooperation and mutually beneficial outcomes, and opens up the door to new possibilities not visible at the onset.

To do this requires an application of effort but requires one thing and that is simply to be kind to one's self and to others and that which enhances life. In being mindful, we should always embrace and reinforce that which is positive and avoid that which destroys the spirit and that would include our using words of mass spiritual destrution.

Love
Bonnie

A symphony orchestra working in concert produces music a pleasure to ears.

A symphony orchestra not working in concert produces noise, a pain to the ears.

How "real" is pain if it is subject to change? Where does my pain go...when I am asleep/ unconscious about it?

This thread reminds me how deep we can go in our thoughts on cause/blame for an appearance....how much we live in the illusion believing it's real and therefore seeking answers.

It is in my opinion easier to "rise above" an appearance when I stay on the surface of thought...and don't go further into looking for the reason or cause of that thought.

Soul is entangled (physically, emotionally, intellectually, intelligently)into the world and its goal is to disentangle. It will not take a step towards its goal if entanglement will not give it pain.

The reason we seem to come to similar painful situations again and again is that we move towards our goal in cycles within cycles. At identical points of each cycle we will confront the like pain, only a bit more refined or subtle.

At no point we actually move towards pain but always towards pleasure which is the state of our disentanglement or our goal.

A realized person is always in pleasure.

I was definitely very "confused" reading this article starting at the beginning and continuing until the very end. This article totally oversimplifies so many things, I don't even know where to begin. And I just feel like for the first part of the article, which seems to be a very fragmentary and also, I would say, false, explanation, about why people get "stuck" in painful situations to suddenly "jump" into an, again, confusing fragmentary comment about the destructiveness of war left me, plainly, confused. I think a lot of the parallels and comparisons being made in this article just don't work.

Ref # 15

Heather, like always, your comment seems to come from deep inside of you, with honesty, conviction and on a subject that seems dear to your heart. This one also makes a lot of (common) sense.

Deepak says:
“Common sense tells us that people naturally seek pleasure and avoid pain, but common sense is wrong.”

Wouldn’t this make more sense?
“Common sense tells us that people ‘unnaturally’ seek pain to avoid pleasure, and common sense is right.”

Are there really people who naturally seek pain over pleasure?

Dear Heather,

To understand what you mean in your post 18 I had to go back and read your #15 and not only follow your reasoning there but also the emotional energy flowing with it.

Can it be so that this subject feels personally triggering to you, that you react quite strongly when faced with the term "addiction to pain"? You mention that you have none of the factors in Deepak's list in your own makeup... not even victimization. At the same time, you write that you have experienced "abuse", you even write:

"I didn't ask for them to be present in my life, I didn't cause them, my body and mind simply reacted as they were designed to react -- biologically -- to persistent crisis-level threats."

Your perspective is that "emotional damage (is) done to people who've been repeatedly traumatized."

Do you notice the passive tense? Can you see the victim? In this view, people are "traumatized" and "emotionally damaged" by something outside of them, and they have no choice than to re-act, to lick their wounds so to speak, wounds inflicted to them by something uncontrollable and completely outside of themselves (the perpetrator).

Well... my perspective is another. Everything we experience is a -product- of our consciousness. Nothing is inflicted from out there, done TO us, we are no victims. Whatever happens in our lives, whoever shows up, is a result of our place in consciousness, but most of us don't realize it and continue to believe themselves to be victims of life. This is a very common way to keep ourselves away from the responsibility and power of being the creators of our own pain.

Your perspective is as right as mine, so I'm not trying to correct you in any way. Just presenting another view.

Much love to you, and I'm sorry about your dog.

Dear Mieke,

I'm not so sure what you mean with "When you talk about Ego Aurora, it depends on the situation you are in whether to use it or not".

Egos are Spirit's momentary expressions and of course we express spirit as billions of egos, how else? Thinking we are the momentary expression is a mistake, while seeing how Spirit creates all its expressions, all the interactions and situations leads to the dissolution of pain.

#34 I sometimes think that our perspectives ARE our pain, Aurora.
Did we find ourselves on a 'path' or did we choose that 'path?' What an old Devil our Creator is ;)

Dear Aurora

Nowhere did I write -- or think -- anything that supports your reading into my words anything like: "and they have no choice than to re-act, to lick their wounds so to speak..."

If you've ever had an accident, you know two things: an accident is completely unexpected, and it takes time and work (and if the injury is severe enough, therapy) to recover from it. I would say that most of the time complete recovery (i.e., being able to return to an undamaged state) is impossible, because most of the time there is permanent damage, in the sense that something -- in body, mind or both -- has been changed forever.

May I respectfully suggest that you are reading into my words something you may expect to find, but which isn't there.

love, h

Dear JustWondering

I've known people who seek pain over pleasure. In those cases when I've come to know them well, there has always been some pain inflicted on them when they were unable to defend or protect themselves. It seemed to me that their seeking pain over pleasure was due to a mixture of motives, one being guilt at having been a victim (not being fully aware of how defenseless they were when the victimization occurred, and thus taking responsibility for it), association of pain with survival (having survived pain, pain becomes part of what is seen as necessary for survival), and self-punishment because of the guilt, and a very deep personal despair that's hidden from the person in this situation -- in other words, they are unconscious of how much in despair they are. For one person, life had been very miserable always, and the person seemed to be unfamiliar with, or made uncomfortable by, things we would term pleasurable.

These are things I've seen personally, but they may not be generally true. Based on what I've seen, I'd say (and this is only my personal perspective):

Common sense tells us that people naturally seek pleasure and avoid pain, and common sense is often right. But sometimes people associate pain with pleasure, or have had no real experience with pleasure, and because of this, they seem to seek out pain, rather than pleasure.

love, h

Hi Aurora,

We are always that what we are at the moment. And everyone has a different perspective of it because everyone has a different backpack with experiences.

You comment on my comments from your perspective and your experience.

You comment on another ones comment from your perspective and your experience.

I honour your perspective, I comment from my own one and try to share in the hope that we are able to find something in it that we all have in common.

Up till now I have only read opinions. Opinions from all the different people that blog here. Everyone is convinced he/she has the right opinion. It is quite alright. We are indeed all Egos that express ourselves.

We are all a possibility of Nature. We have been able to share these possibilities in numerous ways if you only look at what has been achieved by humanity.

We will always be able to do this because we are made this way and it is all in the Scheme of Things as Harb tells us time after time.

We are so inventive that we will always find the ways to go forward, it is in our nature :)

Love and Light,

Mieke

Dear Ed,
I don't think it's having the perspectives, but not being able to shift. From a certain perspective things are set in stone, from another they're not, from one we're acted on, from another we're acting, and still from another nothing is happening at all. We all have these perspectives available, and when we can circulate it makes it worth the while :)

Dear Heath,

I think that the first and the second paragraph in your post are contradicting each other... but sure, it may be the way I see them. No accidents to me, but surely there are accidents :) All's well friend :)

Dear Mieke,
Yes... and no :))) The scheme of things is not set in stone, even if in a way it is :)

Dear Mieke

I agree wholeheartedly with your position that:

"...A person can be One in itself and if he/she is, one is happy. This is his natural state.

And I sincerely believe that we can only be One as humanity if we allow every person to be his/her own unique self..."

It is this instinct for wholeness and health, this seeking to be in the natural state, that makes the process of healing possible. It exists in mind and body. Our entire physical and mindful selves are organized -- despite the physical certainty of entropy (dissolution) -- we come together as whole beings at conception, and when any part of our being undergoes an assault of any kind, be it illness or attack, we are equipped to defend and repair ourselves.

And I also support your belief that:

"...we could use the heart to tell us to become more able to place ourselves into the situation of the other, not by telling him/her what to do, but by understanding that his/her world first of all totally differs from ours and by sharing our experiences in that way..."

Because we are each individuals, the way to healing can only be guided -- each person must do the work him- or herself. The desire and energy from healing can only be supported, not done, by others. And often enough, before someone can make a start with healing, that outside guidance and support is important -- if an injured person's self-esteem or confidence has been shaken to the core, the injured person needs someone to walk in parallel with them for a little while, to show them that it can be done, and others beleive it can be done, for long enough so the person begins to beleive it, too.

What best facilitates the healing process in an injured person is a recognition of the individuality of the injured person by the outsider in concert with a visibly optimistic belief that the injured person can make progress with his or her own healing. For an outsider to diminish or reduce the injured individual's uniqueness is an exercise of power over the vulnerable injured one, that can be profoundly distorting, or even destructive, of the healing process.

love, h

Dear Aurora

It is true that, standing outside our lives, we can see their beginnings and endings. But that is an unusual place to stand as we live day to day.

An accident is termed that because it is a surprise. We aren't prepared to deal with it when it happens. We must learn how to deal with it after the fact, by which time whatever destructive potential the event had has already been unleashed.

Sorry, btw, that you had to read my first comment, I thought you had, which was why my #18 was so condensed.

I reread my own comments, and can't find contradictions between para's one and two in any of them. If you could point out what you mean, maybe I can answer that.

love, h

LOL aurora, the scheme of things is exactly set in stone. If it were not so we would never have evolved from stone (clay to minerals ...or from star dust which is also the same);nor a William Blake would have found the whole universe in a grain of sand (again a mineral and that means a stone).

And if someone thinks that we may have evolved from stone but now that we are humans we can change the scheme of things, it is again not true. We do no more than and in the same way as other even sdocalled non-living things. Tilt a 'dead' glass and it will 'automatically' move towards its center of gravity. Push a living man and so will do he. Though not this apparent the same story goes for all the remaining three basic forces. Some force from within pushes us to fall into loves, wars, hates in youth and we for a while feel like falling from our emotional centers. But eventually we again come to our emotional centeres. Same goes for our intellects - we are wayed by a theory off our feet and for a while go out of our centeres of intellect as communists in former soviet union may be said to have gone for a while, but eventually as they so we regain our intellectual center. And so on.

Moreover, do whatever we cannot but again end in 'stone' (minerals, finally clay or dust). Not for nothing Buddha at the end is cast in stone. Buddhaness or whatever one may call it springs forth from stone and finally goes back to it.

LOL now enjoy reading it if you can otherwise dont rack your brains there is not much philosophy or wisdom in it. That is there even in a stone lol.

Resignation
Labels now identical
Surrender the stone

Hello again Heath,

it is an unusual place, but why not let it permeate our vision until more and more of that perspective becomes visible to us in each moment of our day to day life?

As you say, from "outside" we can see the beginnings and endings, but even if we change our perspective only slightly we start noticing the connections. I'll try to exemplify, to get it out of the theoretical into the practical:

I was in a car accident once. If I look at the whole scene from a few feet above, like if I was in a hot air baloon just above, this woman Aurora was in her car one day, waiting to swing left at a crossroads when this other car drove into the back of her car with full speed. Accident, right? From here, everything you describe is correct. I can add that the man in the car behind came out and helped her, was devastated to see her injured and calling her children on the cell phone to say that she'll be at the hospital.

Now if I fly a bit higher up with my air baloon and look at the scene from there, I will also notice what happened before and after. This woman had been facing a crossroads in her professional life, having to choose between two different paths. She had asked for guidance and not received any, she thought. She was swinging left with her car on that road because she had finally chosen one of the paths, chosen with her mind and not her heart. The fact that she was then injured made it impossible for her to follow the mind path and pushed her even more on the heart path. Accident?

Besides, right before the "accident" she had just thought the thought "I wish I had another car, one that feels more solid and steady and balances my temperament". And what do you know... from my baloon I can see that her car is smashed, while the one behind is without a scratch. I can see how the man sends a fat check a week later to express his remorse... surprise for her, right?... and how she buys herself a car just like the one she needed. And how she now starts walking on the path that is hers. Accident?

It will be an accident when we look from her immediate perspective, but not if she learns to stay in the air baloon while she lives her life. It is possible to stay aware and notice the connections, notice how no one thought or situation goes unnoticed in the scheme of things. And the thing is that the more clear this becomes, the more we notice that the source of all this movie is in the depth of our consciousness, meaning that with perfect awarenes, the notion of accident disappears.

Maybe this makes it a little easier to understand why I think that your two paragraphs are in contradiction. As long as we still think there are accidents our only possible action is a re-action to what has suddenly and unexpectedly happened TO us, which we see as damaging. In reality, everything that happens to us is a gift we have created ourselves (from the soul level)intended to lead us into union with our soul perspective. So trauma can be seen as the shock of not understanding what is happening, and judging it as bad and against our well being.

And Heath, I usually read most comments before I answer, but it was late yesterday so I only answered the blog.

Harb,
a human being doesn't have to be a stone rolling wherever it is kicked by some force (or as you have counted four of them ;) operating above its head. A human being can realize its essence and then... there is no difference anymore between being a human being and being the divine. The scheme of things is set in stone AND freely created at the same time.

Time heals wounds hills trees
Happy is the background moss
Stroke rhymes--Sing riddles

Dear Heather,

You said it! :)

Dear Harb,

You know it! :)

Dear Aurora,

You live it! :)

"Om mani padme hum",

At this moment this expression means to me:

So many paths to walk and they all lead to.......

Oneself :)

Love, Mieke

Stumbling pilgrim
Thou guesses That might matter
Imagine the scars

May helps herself bloom
Yellow crescent takes the watch
Yesterdays dust flies

Dear Aurora

But what two para's are in contradiction?

love, h

Aurora, indeed a human being can realise its essence but then finds that there is no difference between being a human being and being a stone, both are equally divine.

Even otherwise I may tell you that a stone too is on the same path albeit a bit behind travelling on which a human being can realise its essence, so even in this way may be later but a stone too can relise its essence.

And why so because the scheme of things is as set in stone as in human beings lol.

#40 Okay, Aurora...then perspectives are just scenes along the particular path on which we find ourselves and we mustn't dilly-dally with them....fine. We may also use them as tools to relating, you seem to be saying. As long as we realise we are not our perspectives or remain stubbornly attached to them, I am with you.

My experience, too, with accidents is just exactly as yours. There are no accidents. I still needed all my reflective wherewithal to grasp the synchronicities. Just as Heath writes, there are 'surprises' and folk may need to see them as 'accidents' in order to orderly process.

In the long run I reckon we will turn them all into 'near misses,' close encounters of the third kind ;)

I see that poetry flows... :)

Dear Heath,

what paragraphs? Just joking... out of sight out of mind, lol
Here they are, friend:

"Nowhere did I write -- or think -- anything that supports your reading into my words anything like: "and they have no choice than to re-act, to lick their wounds so to speak..."

If you've ever had an accident, you know two things: an accident is completely unexpected, and it takes time and work (and if the injury is severe enough, therapy) to recover from it. I would say that most of the time complete recovery (i.e., being able to return to an undamaged state) is impossible, because most of the time there is permanent damage, in the sense that something -- in body, mind or both -- has been changed forever." Heather

When I read them I thought that you are saying exactly that in your second paragraph: that there are situations we can call accidents which hit us out of the blue, that we don't have any say in what happens to us, that there are things in life which damage us and that all we can do is to take it from there and heal the inflicted wounds.

Which, to me, is equal to the view that we have no choice in life than to re-act when life acts on us.

But life and the person are not separate.

Nice little time sync there Aurora....there are no accidents!

Harb, we can fool around with this as much as we want, lol... a stone is on the same path, yes if we're looking from the domain where there is a path and no when looking from where there's just a realization and no stone. But hey, the sun is shining and that is a wonderful experience :)

Ed, we accidentally posted at the same time :P

Ed, we would have repeated that if my computer didn't accidentally happen to be very slow today, lol... I'll keep an eye on it ;)

# 29, Richard, brilliant, concise and profound metaphor !

As well as the moving account of your very personal observations, in # 27,
It is so true, the pathway gets more slippery with each and every step as it gets more and more vertical in its ascend. I hope you don’t mind me to share from my own walk:

I was blessed with having the most amazing spiritual experiences, like opening of the Heart Center, in less than two moths after the initial awakening. I didn’t even know what the words Kundalini and Anahata meant, when suddenly the un-struck sound manifested itself ( just as promised in the scriptures ) as the subtler than subtle flute. Mozart’s Magic One is nothing in comparison. Everything inside and outside ( in fact there was no difference ) was flooded with Light and Sound… it lasted a few months.

Yet, when the consciousness reached still higher centers in the head, I went through a very difficult two year period , with lots of physical pain, despite the constant presence of bliss. Temptations were humongous, especially when the sidhis, phenomenal powers manifested themselves in different areas of my psyche. That anatomically very short passage between the base of the head and the basal plate, medusa oblongata, the sit of pineal gland was like climing the icy slopes.

There is something in this for all walks of life. The summit is here always, nowhere else, yet the very pit of the bottom is also here at all times.

The Climbing is made much easier as well as safer when one has the safety rope along with the navigation of how to avoid the most dangerous walls, from the experienced Master. You’ll throw away the ropes, no doubt, once you master the ascend , yet if you do it too early you might never see the 360 degrees of the horizon , which will forever change your perspective on the line between Heaven and Earth.

Regarding your post # 25. Have you ever had the marma points based massage or an acupuncture. You press the point on a foot and your headache is gone. The planet Earth, is just like the human body has its marma points, the centres of energy. They are circled around the globe like a belt, with a pattern. Some countries naturally inhibit that quality by being geographically positioned within the activity of those centres. India has always been the reservoir of spiritual energy precisely for that reason. Sheltered by the Himalayas, geological formations, the result of the drifting of the continents, the land had several thousands of years of constancy factor to build the most amazing civilization and the only one which survived from the ancient time to the present day with all its heritage rooted in Vedic Culture, and most amazingly with the language, Sanskrit as its vehicle

So what are these points ? They are the whirlpools of energy where the physiology Becomes Consciousness, reversed replica, as it were, of the process of Consciousness-becoming-matter. That’s ‘’all things Indian for you’’.

The ( scriptural) authority is not something to fear. Authentic scriptures are the revealed primordial vibrations, Shruti ~ in Sanskrit, please see the links bellow. After all you’ll agree there is only One and to deny the authority to Him, is like denying the potency of father’s sperm.

Please note the links bellow are from Wikipedia, for the neutrality of the view, however if someone wishes to learn more in depth about the topics, please follow the official websites listed at the bottom of the articles.

For all things Indian : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maharishi_Vedic_Medicine

What are the Vedas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vedas

What are scriptures ~ revealed sounds: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shruti

With Love and Bliss to all,

Jai Guru Dev

igor

Harb, thanks man, for throwing the precious stones in conversing with Aurora. Respect to her she has the spirit of a real fighter.

Please allow me to alternate the comment on the experience of pain, when you've pointed out:

''...A realized person is always in pleasure.''

I would beg to disagree. A realized person is always in Bliss. He is beyond pleasure and pain, yet he feels the original wound of the world on all the levels and he consciously becomes the wound to heal it with his presence.

At least this is my own experience. Feeling every minute changes in the energy field around, and when there is pain on any level it doesn't feel good.

I can add, that some great saints of our times suffered from physical pains, beings like Muktanada and Osho had suffered severe headaches, so had Anandamaya Ma, so is Gurumayi right now. Ramakrisna Paramahamsa died from the cancer of the throat in terrible pain, age 51. It is common when the Saint takes the karma of his disciples onto himself to speed up their evolution. The greater is the Saint the more pain he can absorb from the World.

Aurora, the greatest illusion being entertained by man now is that it creates the scheme of things freely.

Let us see how free he is.

He is a baby. Some force from within forces him to try to get up. Is it his free choice?

Now, in trying to get up he tends to fall and an other force from without in the shape of her body weight forces her to come towards her center of gravity. Is it her free choice.

The baby has now grown up to be a young person. Some force from within forces her to fall into emotional entanglements. Is it her free choice? Some other force from outside - really the electromagnetic force of her emotional body - forces her to come towards her emotional center if she wants to save herself from emotional fall. (The yogic practice of centering one's dhyana on heart chakra and meditating is in fact an effort to help the patient come to her emotional center nothing else. Eventually she does so and saves herself. Is it her free choice?

Same goes for other two forces. She is never free till death.

Yes, as she grows older she feels that perhaps now she has become free and can make free choices, but this is only because she does not know about the other two remaining forces which are too subtle. But nevertheless they act on her then in the same manner as anti-gravity and gravity acted on her in babyhood.

With the result that she is never free. Yes, her goal is freedom, and all this process is slowly taking er towards freedom. But it will be achieved fully only at the end when she as an individual will just dissolve indistinguishably into the Great Oneness. So that while living she will never be free what to talk of making socalled free choices.

Moreover, we in fact go through the four forces induced four phases daily right from our childhood. When we stretch one day's four phases to 80 years four phases we find that we in fact go through the phase of mainly gravity in our whole childhood (0-20 years), of electromagnetic force or the force of attractions and repulsions in our whole youth (20-40), of strong force, the force which is the cause of our intellectual activity/understanding, or of reason, in our whole middle age (40-60), and laslty, of mainly week force, the force of intelligence, intuition, wisdom in our whole old age (60-80). We can further confirm the above by seeing that in our whole childhood the theme of gravity, games, physicality is the main theme on our attention radar. In whole youth it is love, hate, wars; in whole middle age it is reason, rational understanding of things etc and finally in whole old age it is theme of experience, intelligence.

Going through the above process is our destined scheme of things and we eat, drink and do everything else so that we may carry on with this process till the end.

Again, if cant understand just enjoy!

Dear harb, Aurora, Mieke, Heath, Kieth, Ed, Bonnie, Igor, Richard, JW et al who have commented here.

I'm not the philosopher or spiritualist, but I have enjoyed reading this thread - even what I don't understand :)

Its like old times again, a good, lively, friendly and intelligent discussion. This is why I come back to IB so often.

Dara

Dear Aurora

My first para is a disagreement with your finding anything in my words that could be inferred to say "and they have no choice than to re-act, to lick their wounds so to speak..."

Your interpretation of my second para's meaning is correct.

You then draw the following conclusion, based on your own thinking:

"Which, to me, is equal to the view that we have no choice in life than to re-act when life acts on us."

And this is also a correct interpretation of my words -- though I disagree with your hyphenation of the word "react".

Our bodies and minds are designed to react when under threat. We don't have any choice in how they're designed. For the most part, their reactions are healthy and protective. The apparent over-programming that the amygdala undergoes was appropriate tens of thousands of years ago, and more, when a threat was a real threat. It's not an appropriate reaction, most of the time, when an expression of power (emotional or physical) is made by one human being towards another. The ancient threats came from tigers, lions, quicksand, crumbling cliffs, floods, etc. Our minds and bodies were designed to learn threat lessons fast and hard, and keep the lessons learned forever. But in the modern day world, most threats are not so external, they're psychological. They are expressed with violence of emotion or body. We should be able to roll with such things and tell ourselves that our fellow humans are not, for the most part, a constant threat to us. But when we encounter abuse from another person, our amygdala still learns the old way, and preps us to view first that person, then if the abuse is repeated, all people who look like that person, all people of that gender and age, and perhaps, at last, all people, as threats. That makes life very hard to live, because for each person that the amygdala recognizes as a threat, the abused person's body undergoes a flood of stress hormones and a flight or fight reaction. In addition, the repeated release of stress hormones causes the body's base level of stress hormones to be always higher. You've heard of PTSD. This latter mechanism is the one underlying this disease.

You have left out addressing this part of my quote of your words: "...to lick their wounds so to speak..." -- for me, this is a decidedly unsympathetic view of someone whose life has been overtaken by damage from the outside. This is something I have never said, written, implied or thought. These are your words.

You see, I believe there is an outside -- there are others (and situations) who act upon us without any interaction or foreknowledge of any kind on any level, from us. If we stand outside ourselves like Gods, we can see interrelated patterns, but we live our lives as humans, not as Gods.

When I was attacked six months ago, I knew there were things I'd done that made me vulnerable to attack in that way, at that time -- specifically, I was sad and tired as I walked up the hill to my building in the very late evening, and that telegraphed that I was physically weaker than I really am, to a man who was poor and hoping he could get something valuable out of my hand. But I had that realization after the fact, not before it or during the attack. I didn't anticipate the attack, and my body and mind were unprepared for it. My body and mind take no responsibility for that attack. If the man had been elsewhere at the time, I wouldn't have been attacked. If he hadn't been poor or feeling hungry, greedy or jealous, I wouldn't have been attacked. As I was responsible for being tired and sad, he was responsible for being willing to act violently and intruding on my personal space and life in an aggressive way.

Would you say I called the attack down upon myself, or that it is something I should feel responsible for? Do you think I licked my wounds more than was necessary for them to start to heal? After all, there is a reason that animals lick their wounds, it is to clean and sanitize them. For people, too, a little wound-licking is a good thing. It's only if it becomes obsessive that it's a block to healing.

It is the slightly judgmental nature fo a few of your words, like "...to lick their wounds so to speak..." that makes me continue to make my point that people who are immersed in pain need help to start their healing process.

When someone is stuck in pain, they're not addicted, they're trying to get out of it, but they don't know how. Being judged isn't healing. We can't see others' lives from within, and what is blocking them. Sometimes it's something ludicrously simple, when seen from the outside, but that may be something so close to someone that the little bump in their life appears to by a range of mountains, impossible to get past. But each person must do his or her own healing. Love and support and belief that they will find their way is the only thing I know of that consistently helps people actually find their way. There is nothing prescriptive that works for all people. Most prescriptive approaches treat only a few symptoms, and leave others untreated, and even, often, unnoticed.

When you hyphenate "react" as "re-act", you are trying to imply that reacting is a reenactment of a pattern in one's life. I disagree. There is a reason that there are two words at issue here. A primary reaction is not a reenactment. It is a unique reaction to a specific situation. Once the amygdala becomes patterned, the person may react in a patterned way that's inappropriate for a particular threat. But the person is not addicted to pain nor consciously reenacting a pattern. Their body's and mind's hormones and other responses are being directly controlled by an area of the brain that was designed to act in just that way, before humans evolved. Many species have amygdala structures in their brains, not just humans. To say that people who are acting in a patterned way in response to perceived threats and pain are to blame and are addicted to pain, is unfair and incorrect. It's somewhat like blaming people for using the feet that evolved so they can walk -- it's not appropriate to use one's feet for every task, and if people start to use their feet inappropriately, we know something is wrong and try get help for them. But we don't blame them or say they're addicted to using their feet. In the case of the patterned expression of amygdala learning, one can't see the amygdala as one can see the feet, so people assume the person is to blame or is addicted, or whatever. Like another common invisible ailment -- back pain -- unless it's experienced, it's hard to believe how powerful it can be, But there is nothing inherently wrong with feet and how they function, and there is nothing wrong with the amygdala basically, it's just that our lives are, on the whole, so mild and gentle, that it appears to overreact by contrast to our realities. This is no one's fault, and it's not an addiction. It's a physiological fact. It's from that seeming overreaction that so much apparently inappropriate behavior springs, including the viral passing-on of violence and pain towards others. It is very beneficial for a person suffering from this kind of effect to learn what components of it are purely physical, and how these aspects of it affect both mind and body. This frees the person suffering from this effect from the burden of guilt, self-doubt, etc., that can be part of what blocks him or her from starting to heal, and working to build a new, healthy patterning that can, at some point in the future, reduce or weaken the original, negative overpatterning.

love, h

Dear Dara

When I read your comments, they always ring true for me, no matter what they express. They seem to increase the health and vitality of the words and ideas being shared here.

love, h

Igor, the process of realization is in fact a never-ending one. And so is the pain. All the sages and saints you mentioned may have yet to go beyond, may be in next lives, may be to become angels on some other planets... That is, their realisation may be of a certain stretch on their path which may otherwise span many lives of the like of the present.

When I said that a realized person is always in pleasure - yes agreed, bliss - that was just to take the ongoing argument to its logical end - that such will be the end of this process of pleasure and pain. It is like saying that go on multiplying 2 with 2 and some day you will reach infinity...Yes you will not reach infinity if you want me to say this but it is a way of logically ending an argument. One may be completely realised only at one's death even then if one has become so advanced that he will have no possibility of incarnating again at any planet.

Thanks Dara. It is only with the knowledge that some of the people here may enjoy my writing that I carry on. Otherwise I am not here to impart some knowledge or wisdom or to save the world, I know if at all it is I who is to be saved. It is that sometimes some people enjoy a totally unheard of perspective that makes me carry on with my writing. I know most of what I write has yet nobody heard anwhere in the world.

Dearest Harb,
please spare your breath... who said that man creates freely? And as you already told me to not rack my brains with your theory, I won't :)

Dara,
me too :)

Heath, my friend...
there was not an iota of judgment in "licking one's wounds". As you observed yourself, animals do that naturally, and so do human beings who feel they have been abused by something outside of them. Responsibility is not the same as blame, the first is an understanding of a mechanism, the second a judgment.

I think all I want to do right now is give you a big hug and say that I'm sorry that you had such a painful experience.

Dear Ed and Aurora

As there are synchronicities that exist that are hard to see, so there are also patterns that we think we see, that are really projections from our minds, and not true patterns. The mind is designed for pattern recognition, and it often creates patterns where none exist.

(As a trivial example. think of the times that Ed, I, and others, were accused of being aliases here. We never were... yet a few people saw us that way.)

love, h

Dear Aurora

Please explain, if you have time, how responsibility is the understanding of a mechanism.

In the US, to be said to be licking one's wounds is a pejorative and judgmental thing to say of someone. It implies the person has a animal-level, i.e., purely instinctive and unrational, response to a situation, and is wallowing in self-pity.

love, h

Heath,

I didn't know it was pejorative, it's not a bad thing to me :) If you feel you are wounded, the most normal and useful thing to do would be to "lick your wounds"...

Okay, if you want to discuss...
Responsibility for what happens can only come when we understand the mechanism, when we can see in what ways the source of life is consciousness. You say you were unprepared and that your mind and body take no responsibility for the attack. You probably mean that you don't feel you are in any way to blame, and I agree completely.

It is impossible to realize this mechanism until you see how things belong together in the fabric of life. There is no action without reaction and very often action and reaction repeat themselves, and so they become re-actions to each other. The only way out is to see the pattern, to start seeing the clues, big or small, like synchronicities for example. Not every coincidence needs to mean something, of course, but there are times when life becomes one long series of impossible and highly improbably coincidences... When one follows that lead, a new world opens. In this world, everything is interconnected, so whenever one point in consciousness moves, everything moves with it. One can begin to notice how this outer landscape is connected to the inner world, and how a person is not separate from life itself.

In the beginning we can become scared, thinking that we are to blame for all the woe in the world, but blame is just a judgment and has nothing to do with the mechanism. We can also fall in the other extreme, thinking that it is our personal ego who is moving the whole world, lol... but the more we explore, the more we discover things about our own identity, until the difference between "out there" and "in here"disappears.

The man who attacked you is right now someone else for you, and it's only natural. But if you happen to start noticing the signs that life leaves for you, you might notice that the whole scene you have experienced was created, played by and experienced by an aspect of your own self.

When you start to see the mechanism you must take responsibility, meaning that from that moment on you know you are the creator of every bit of your reality- that you and life, you and the source of creation are one. Observe that I'm not talking about the ego being the boss of the world, and that there is no shred of blame in it either. All that is experienced becomes joyful regardless of its nature, as its only purpose is to allow one to experience oneself.

"The scheme of things is set in stone AND freely created at the same time.

"Aurora, whom do you refer to then in the above sentense? Who freely created it or how it was created freely?

# 68, Harb, what about the highest aspect of Consciousness, whose navel is the Universe's root ? Ahh ? Even when there is nothing in Heaven or Earth for Him, yet He incarnates to do His work.

Don't you remember, when Rama ( Vishnu's avatara ), when on the call of duty, had to slush off the head of Shudra practicing tapas ? It gave Vishnu great grieve.

As far as your comment to Dara: '' I know most of what I write has yet nobody heard anwhere in the world''.

Common Harb, you don't need this, I've never read anything by you that I don't know or haven't heard somewhere, despite being about 20 years your junior.

I have tremendous respect for your clarity of vision. But when you come up with the sluggishness, I wonder if you make a distinction of who might be in your audience.

With Love & Joy

P. S. Harb a realized person never speaks anything new. He or She points out that the knowledge of the Self is the birthright of every individual and there is nowhere to go to obtain it. It is the very nature of the Man.

Man is Cosmic.

There is nothing new or original about this knowledge.

Jai Guru Dev

igor

Interesting how we avoid pain and seek pleasure and often more pain comes because we haven't learned the lesson in the suffering. There is no need for suffering, even when physical pain is present.
This is a high level of understanding few achieve.

Harb,
I am caught in myself as patterns which I create freely :P ;)

Hello All

I recently read an article on the book "The Mind & the Brain:Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force", Jeffrey M. Schwartz,M.D & Sharon Begley.

It explains that when presented with the possibility of learning something new, our brain can respond in two different growth-oriented ways, neither of which would be possible if we did not have malleability within the brain itself. All human beings have the capacity throughout our entire lives to constantly a)lay down new grooves of neural (gray matter) communication or b) refine or expand existing ones.

What is important to acknowledge is the fact that information which is programmed into our brains (and therefore our minds) isn't always healthy or positive; for example, someone exposed to abusive or socially unacceptable and divisive mental and emotional patterning over and over will begin to believe and buy into it as much as someone who is receiving consistently emotionally and mentally healthy ,socially inclusive and humanitarian impressions. But the good news is that because our brains are plastic even as we age, life force debilitating patterns can be replaced by more enlivening ones-if both the value and repetition of such new information and ideas are present.

According to this book, upon exposure to new information and ideas, data enters into our short-term memory field, which depends mostly upon chemical and electrical processes known as synaptic transmission. The electrochemical impulses of short-term memory fires up one neuron, which then fires up another; however the conditions required to make information last occurs only when the second neuron repeats the impulse back again to the first. This is most likely to happen when we have decided, either consciously or subconsciously, that the new information is particularly important or valuable to us, and/or when certain information and ideas are repeated on a consistent basis. In these cases, the neural echo is sustained long enough to amp up the brain's neuroplasticity, leading to lasting structural changes that hard-wire the new data into the long term memory neural pathways of our brains. During the physical aspect of learning, the brain must move the new information from short-term "working memory" to the basal ganglia at the base of the brain.

Now you may ask what does all that have to do with anything? It just reminds me of the spiritual teaching, that the solution to anything comes about by putting our energies to embracing , committing and repeating the positive and the negatives will fall by the wayside.

Bonnie

I think I know what Deepak is talking about in addiction. When it comes to addiction, common sense goes out the window. I remember when I was trying to quit my addiction of smoking - no matter what common sense tells me, that smoking is bad for me, etc., I still wanted to smoke. It wasn't until I became more conscious, meditating regularly, and the desire to want to quit, did I stop altogether. Meditation helps the "stickiness" become less sticky. Also, if we can acknowledge some of the "stickiness" in ourselves, it would be a good first step. Turn around the beliefs.

Re my #75
Thanks to S. Matthiessen for that info.

There is one important clue here. The Brain can feel no pain!

Who can deduce the correlation?

Dear Heath,

"" Love and support and belief that they will find their way is the only thing I know of that consistently helps people actually find their way. There is nothing prescriptive that works for all people. Most prescriptive approaches treat only a few symptoms, and leave others untreated, and even, often, unnoticed""

So true, so true. This is the only thing that is needed for anyone to heal :)

And what is most important the healer becomes the healed and the healed becomes the healer!

I love you, I send you my heartfelt blessings and I am sure you are already healed from this experience.

I have been away today, walking my labyrinth of stone, in the woods, under a blue sky. Blissful experience again, this is my way, such a wonderful, wonderful healing and creative way.

And Harb, I can follow you because I made that 3D Virtual Universal labyrinth of life around the same time you had written your book :).

Same experience as far as the seasons in a human life are concerned. Your vision goes even deeper, I know :).

Love, Mieke

Hey Aurora, you are very Lucid.

Some don't entertain beliefs these are what make up a fictional framework leading to a frictional life. They dwell in knowing. Of course some find it entertaining as is any good story.

That last post got cut off, sorry...

Some don't entertain beliefs these are what make up a fictional framework leading to a frictional life. They dwell in knowing. Of course some find beliefs entertaining as is any good story. To each his own entertainment, yet we should try not to talk during the movie, and ruin another’s entertainment and wait till the intermission and turn off the ceel phones so they don’t bring us back to reality.

Harb,

I am with you on the cycling. I had thought there was no escaping it, then realized we escape it every night when we sleep, in the deep delta phase. That in it’s self is a cycling between cycle and no cycle. A day spent cycling uses up energy, and we return to the no cycle mode to charge the batteries then waking up for another bike ride.

Hey Bonnie, I have figured out how to erase the mind using binaural beat technology it leaves the knowledge and information intact.

I suspect the world will be ready for it in a number of days.

as a partially related side thought

The New Wave Therapist (evolutionary facilitator) will work to dissolve the fictions in one's mind causing the friction based on a great understanding of the truth.

What is going on with this blog and this thread is an evolution of thought and the minds entertaining them.

All doing quite well, every voice important, all helping all to evolve.

Heather,

Did you know alcohol supresses the amygdala?

Dosn't it help us recognize a threat?

I wonder if it is where fear comes from?

Maybe the world would be a better place if we cut them out.

Dear Richard

I think being able to feel fear is beneficial, in most situations. The fear response, sensation of smell, and assimilation of emotion-related memories are all active functions of the amygdalae. I'll keep mine, thanks, and use MG when my cortisol levels go too high. :)

I didn't know that alcohol has that effect. It explains why, after a few drinks, we often take more risks, and we may have trouble identifying situations and people that are potentially dangerous. and why drinking may be felt to be soothing thing to do. Thanks for sharing that!

love, h

Dear Bonnie

Thanks for sharing that. It correlates with my sense that one should never give up hope, with the emphasis on hope.

Daer Mieke

Love to you, and thank you.

Dear Aurora

It seems local language usage was the source of our misunderstanding.

love, h

Igor, thanks for the feedback and the sharing of your experience. I suppose we could say the challenges must get greater or there would be no further growth / evolution or deeper searching.

I once prayed for problems if that gives you any insight unfortunately the prayer was answered and the universe was generous.

Of course I don't pray for "things" anymore, well maybe occasionally, "it" already knows what I need, but there is a setting of intention. I think prayer is more about focusing on the divine truth or concept and stilling the mind.

My favorite past time is watching the infinite play with it's self.

Heather, I think there is a difference between fear, avoiding an undesired experience and a healthy respect for say a rattle snake.

Of course in today’s world there is not that occasional fear when being chased by some predator, the predator has become all pervading intangible and constantly on our heels 24/7.

I am getting better at transcending fear but it still bites more than I like.

I was just teasing about cutting it out, it serves a purpose.

Dear Heath
I'm glad to know you have recovered from such a traumatic experience.

Speaking of hope, the ability for even an old dog to learn new tricks is due to the neuroplasticity of that individuals brain. :):)

Love you,

Bonnie

Richard, yes, you have understood it right. We are free from the cycles in deep sleep state. We then recharge our batteries for the next day. I think we are even free momentarily when we blink an eye.

As we are free at night so we are free at death to charge ourselves for our next birth, if there is to be any.

In your post 87 you have said a very very interesting thing personally for me. Just as you once prayed for problems I prayed for pain and got aplenty. Though it is also true that it has equally helped me in my evolutionary advancement.

Somewhere I wrote something regarding prayer which may interest you. Here it is:

*****
Of course, prayer has its place as I later discovered.

Often we have heard wise men say to a person who failed in any venture “Your mind was not into it.” And then they would describe various methods to put one’s mind too into the work. Now we are actually made up of not only of body and mind, but of body, mind and soul, the latter being the ultimate core of us, the ultimate coordinating principle of all we are and do, and which from its deepest is no different from any highest power or God.

Now prayer is only a method to put even your soul into your work.

Actually, we are in and to the universe as a drop of water is in and to the sea.

Now from the deepest the drop of water is also sea. Prayer is a method of invoking the powers of the sea for your individual venture of a drop.

Similarly, prayer is a method to invoke the powers of the whole universe for your individual venture.

Neitzsche rightly said, “We pray only to our own highest or divine-self.”

If you are able to put yourself into your work on your own in the above way, that is, with total body, mind and soul, nothing like it and you are a born leader; but if you are wanting in it then the other method to bring your soul into your work is to begin it by praying."
******

Harb

Dear Richard

The article I quoted from was actually about how a lot of people in the spiritual/personal growth field toss out words like "neuroscience,"
"neuroplasticity," "quantum mechanics" etc. without really knowing what they are talking about and as a result have created a lot of myths or exaggerations about how the mind/brain works and have,unfortunately, created false hopes over what is possible. I think you would call those "fictions." :) Research in neuroplasticity may be a major factor, though, in developing effective treatments for brain damage whether resulting from stroke, age related cognitive decline like dementia and Alzheimer's. It's being used in treatment of depression and other behavioural and emotional disorders basically by consciously and purposely focusing the mind toward positive and productive change.

I'll have to check out your binaural technology.
Thanks.

Bonnie

My profound apologies to Lily S.

Ref. #4

I made some misleading statements about Lily's intentions at intentBlog.

She NEVER posted the link to her professional escort site in the URL field of her comments at IB. I found that info from her online profile at blogger.com and used it to claim that she had an agenda(to make money) and promote her Zrii interests at IB.

I see that her most recent comment(s) from a day ago have been removed. Perhaps she is blocked from posting at IB. I read a (deleted) comment where she made it clear that she NEVER solicited escort services at IB.(Which is true) And she never hid her real identiy from the commnuity here. She also mentioned in her comments about moving on with life and how Zrii has brought new hope to direct her positive enrgies into something she believes is good.

She has been posting here from at least Jan 2008. She has been a lively participant, always on topic in her comments. It would be unfair to ban her. She is a genuine admirer of Deepak Chopra. I learn that from her blogs at Blogger, MySpace and elsewhere.

If anyone is to be banned here, it is me for my personal and uninstantiated attacks on Lily S.

My only intention in making that comment(#4) was to discredit her (deleted)comment defending Zrii, the same way she attacked the writer criticizing Zrii products and the Chopra center for endorsing the same.

I hope she is welcome to post here again. Looking forward to see her here again, although it is perfectly fine for me if I am not allowed to post here because of this comment.

Ref # 75

Well said Bonnie, but in the last paragraph are you not coming to a dangerous conclusion?

You say, “Now you may ask what does all that have to do with anything? It just reminds me of the spiritual teaching, that the solution to anything comes about by putting our energies to embracing, committing and repeating the positive and the negatives will fall by the wayside”.

Is there not a little room for some positive skepticism, doubt and critical thinking?
Otherwise you end up doing what President Bush is doing so well, constantly repeating the positive, while his nation is going negative, big time!

Going a bit tangential here in regard to a comment made by "V" #5

Seems to be a progressive issue therefore I believe it is relevant to Intent.

Quite a bit of the subject of prostitution in the news in recent months and again in recent days with the news of the apparent suicide of the so called D.C. Madam. She had recently been convicted and was awaiting sentencing. (Lily S. made a comment about this in one of her deleted posts.)

Just doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me. I know many will disagree and I respect that but from my point of view she was only brokering a deal between two consenting adults with little if any effect on anyone else. I see no crime in that.

With our nation now over $9 trillion in debt and desperately needed new revenue is it time to rethink our prostitution laws? There would undoubtedly be an enormous amount of tax collected from the sector. There could also be a public health benefit by regulating it.

As is often said, it's the oldest profession in the world and currently legal in some parts of the country and in many places throughout the world. It was accepted as a part of everyday life in many ancient cultures such as Greece and India. We know Deepak has written a lot about Kamasutra.

Some will disagree on religious basis. Some for other reasons but I really believe this issue will not go away and in the future, as in ancient cultures, it will likely again at some point be accepted commerce in our modern society.

Talking about different cultures, you got to love the Italians!

A Greek and an Italian were sitting in a Starbuck's one day discussing who had the superior culture.

Over triple lattes, the Greek says: "Well, we have the Parthenon, you know."

Arching his eyebrows, the Italian replies: "We have the Coliseum."

The Greek retorts: "We Greeks gave birth to advanced mathematics."

The Italian nods agreement, but says: "But we built the Roman Empire!"

And so on and so on, until the Greek comes up with what he is sure will end the discussion.

With a flourish of finality he says: "We Greeks invented sex!"

The Italian thinks for a couple of seconds and replies quietly:

"That is true, but it was the Italians who first introduced it to women."

"I've known people who seek pain over pleasure..."

---hgquinn to Just Wondering #38

Perhaps the experience of knowing drug addicts may fit in to illustrate certain points in that comment...

It always helps to give concrete examples of the point you want to convey. Deepak makes the same folly in his artcile, making generalizations and leaving a lot for interpretations.

Pain , pleasure, common sense, often, how often? exceptions, what exceptions?

See..this is not Theory of Relativity Chopra is discussing about things that are contradictory to common sense, neither is their Quantum Physcis to the point of counter-intuitive that we cannot understand the human condition and behavior.

There is little originality and very little substance to Deepak's "ambitious" post. Don't get me wrong, he has a 'point' but he fails to address the complexity and scope of the topic. This is part 1 of the series, hopefully we can see a better written one in the future installments.

To illustrate what we mean by "pleasure" and "pain" is important. A person enjoys good luxury food -- it gives "pleasure". If I see a poor starving old woman at the park during lunchtime, would I seek "pleasure" by eating the tasty food made by my mother in law, or seek "pain" by going empty stomach but my heart filled with pleasure of seeing the starving woman fill her belly?

It is important to highlight the difference between pleasure and pain of senses and pleasure and pain of heart, in any discussion about morality and human behavior in those areas.

Irvine Welsh, thanks for posting #92, #94.

..............

Lily S.,

Please accept my heartfelt apologies for my post #5. I have no business to attack you for something that is unrelated to your participation at intentblog.

I have followed your comments keenly at IB (including Deepak Chopra's "Sex in Glass bedroom" thread) during the Eliot Spitzer controversy. I have found you to be decent and very restrained and your comments insightful and open minded, and yes showed spiritual awareness.

I have noticed your respect towards Deepak. I commend your interset and your defending of Chopa Center endorsed Zrii products.

Like Irvine, my personal attack on you was promyed by the way you took to the criticism of Zrii posted by Jeremy and Freyja.

You may be right about the efficacy of Zrii products and the judgment of Chopra Center in endorsing Zrii. The review of Zrii products and criticism of Chopra Center posted at Natural News maybe flawed, and i can see several reasons why that could be so from what I read in the artcile. Maybe the author has an hidden agenda in criticizing Zrii, but your response in attacking the author and his health history and his motivations for money was not the proper rebuttal, I would have expected from you. Anyway, tat is no excuse for me to attack you, having enjoyed your insights for several months at IB.

I am surprised the moderator(s) have censored you from posting, and not me.

V

#95 talking of Italians...

Prostitution in Italy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Prostitution in Italy is not specifically illegal, and is tolerated in an individually-organized basis; however, several prostitution-related activities are outlawed.

...............

I support the legilization of prostitution

What Italy has done is really the worst of both worlds.

They can't regulate it because of the Catholic church (unless there were Call-altar-boys. The church would support that...)

Not having it totally illegal means that the girls are not checked for health, are trafficked by organized crime (ruthless Albanians) and cause a host of other problems. These women are lured from home with the promise of a job, have their passports taken by pimps and their families threatened if they don't turn tricks. They still get hassled by police and scorned by polite people - until they become patrons.

Where I live for a part of the year the women come out after dark especially on weekends and stand by the side of a two lane super strada. Typically these girls are from Moldova where some of the prettiest women in Eastern Europe come from...guys slow down to look and "chat" and cause major traffic accidents.

Germany is a far better example for legalization and regulation.

#94

Don't care about tax revenue. However we could free the police to follow up on what I consider more serious crimes.

Which is child prostitution and forced prostitution.

“They can't regulate it because of the Catholic church (unless there were Call-altar-boys. The church would support that...)”

Sadly true but still funny.

Dear Heather,

language can only reflect our own judgments. Seeing through them will solve any misunderstanding. I'm glad you did :)

Richard,

I read this from you and enjoyed it greatly:
"we should try not to talk during the movie, and ruin another’s entertainment and wait till the intermission and turn off the ceel phones so they don’t bring us back to reality."

You know, I've sometimes felt like apologising to some soul who is hushing me, telling me to go away and let them dream on ... I guess you're right, we should learn to behave in the cinema :)

Igor, a wise man once said: "If chairs were to find God those would find Him four-legged."

It seems like them you find 'God' like some huge Human Being twirlng His mouchtache and creating the universe from His navel at His own sweet free will.

The Universe is What Is,Is; ultimately indefinable conglomerate of matter/energy in various forms. EVERY 'point' in it is capable of giving birth to an evolving universe from within it like ours. (I agree with Greek philosopher Empidocles when he said: "The Universe is that whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere."). Call it your Super Human Being's Navel if you are more comfortable with it but I wont.

Moreover, the universe evolves from and involves back to It eternally and on its own: In its evolution are the seeds of its involution and in its involution are the seeds of its evolution. So again, there is none out there twirling His mouchtache and thinking of whether to create a universe now or leave it for later perhaps after having a Huge Dinner you might say.

And the names like Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh and so on and so forth were for us when we were children as a civilization, not for us now, with so much advancement in science, especially in physics.

As I have explained somewhere else, the reason that there are three basic deciplines of knolwedge i.e., science, philosophy and mysticism is because the evolutionary scheme of things of the universe comprises three interacting realms of referecne i.e., physical, virtual and spiritual (spiritual too is only a category of matter), and each is represented as well as explored by one system of knolwedge - physical is represented as well as explored by science, virtual, by philosophy and spiritual, by mysticism.

Science has now almost touched upon all three aspects and so there is now no need to invoke mythological names of Brahma, Vishnu, mahesh for them; or even religio-spiritual sounding qualities like Sattvic, Rajasic, tamasic to them as has been done in Gita. We can understand and explain all these as properties of three basic forms of matter.

Nor socalled Cosnciosuness as the ground of everything is properly understood by most people most of whom have aquired their knolwedge from studies of this book or that veda or with the help of this guru or that guru, rather than through direct experience. They project the consciosuness of humans upon that basic indefinable stuff. If one can understand that that 'consciosness' is as much present in a stone or a speck of dust as in humans only then one can claim to know its real nature. But then one will not attribute such consciosness to any human-like Superbeing but to a certain homogoneous 'ground state' or 'lake of equality' as some wit put it, which comes at certain intermediate stages on a continuous universal evolutionary process and which comes most pronoucedly at the end of the universal evolutionary process where for a while all gets indistinguishably dissolved into it/Oneness.

Nor the name of Rama invokes anything in me. We are now far more advanced than those times.

Regarding your saying that you have heard nothing new from me, no doubt no one can say anything new on REALIZATION nor have I touched upon it, but leave it alone and let me know if you have read anywhere any explanations concerning life porcesses in terms of four basic forces as I have explained above in some of my posts. And even if you did, there ARE SOME OTHER readers who may have not. Nobody took your name. Why should you and only you feel challenged? Your saying this only shows that you are losing the same cool you are blaming Simon with in an other thread.

Anyway, for this very reason this will be my last post addressed to you. Why waste energy if you have already heard all what I can say?

And oh yes, you need 20 more years and very very difficult ones at that - must have heard about mid-age crisis, again no book can explain it only first hand experience can -to reach the stage I am at. You will definitely remember my words after 20 years.

Peace, friend!

Dear Aurora

Were you able to see your projections, in your readings of my words?

love, h

"Were you able to see your projections, in your readings of my words?"

I doubt that, but as usual she would be content and happy to assume and acknowledge others' as conceding to having done so.

Dear Heather,

Every one of us is projecting reality. Both you and me. So if you would make a list of the projections you see me projecting they would still be your projections, and mine would be mine regardless of yours, and still perfectly interconnected.

Every individual mind is a point in the universal mind, dreaming an individual dream that is weaved into a collective net of thought. Only from outside of mind can the futility of mirroring images pointing fingers at each other be seen.

The only relevant question is: am I suffering? If yes- I'm asleep. If not- I'm dreaming awake.

Ref. 102 Harb : Igor Kufayev

Now now, this isn't the first time I have seen such a reaction from Harb. During the Avtar Singh, DK Matai, Ricky Ponting discussions at IB...

Maybe Harb can learn from Simon how to react positively when criticized or misunderstood, or regain your composure back without being insecure and defensive.

...or "close" further exchange or a dialogue, attacking the other guy with references from past(like Simon Freejohn ref. in his comment)...etc

"I know most of what I write has yet nobody heard anwhere in the world."

Anyone who reads the statement would understand it the same way as Igor K.

Igor K, doesn't know about Harb's book on Four Forces...

The larger point Igor makes is(apart from the junior statement which wasn't necessary) is that there are no truly original ideas in the wolrd...even for a mathematician who finds new theorems, a scientist who discover a new fundamental law of universe....all these truths exist in the universe..people are lucky enough to stumble on them or are insightful enough to discover them... only discoveries..no inventions...

As per Harb's four basic forces theory in his book -- the lens he uses to understand every issue in this world -- ...nature has cycles and patterns everywhere, and we can fit a cycle, a force anywhere to validate our point...this has been part of Vedanta philosphy which i am sure Igor K. is aware of, so I am not sure if he isn't aware or appreciate the fundamental truth in Harb's recent comments with out knowing anything about his exact formulation about his Four Basic Forces hypothesis which he wrote a lot about in the past at IB(four forces of physics, four seasons, four stages of a man's life.. four hypothetical races of human kind, always evolving and the cycles repeating, and to justify any and all anomalies .... cycles within cycles, big cycles and small cycles...cycle everywhere... in the creation of universe, of life, of world, of anything..no end no beginning always evolving always changing...)

"s per Harb's four basic forces theory in his book -- the lens he uses to understand every issue in this world -- ..."

I mean the lens he uses to try and "explain" every subject...

Not "understand"... of course he like all saints "understands" or rather experiences the fundamental reality intuitively and mystical...

#105 Aurora...ha ha ha nice one, typical!

This below about "Advaita Shuffle" is about Absolute view point, Aurora's philosophical views at IB are absolute in their relativeness..but both share similar threads...

The "Advaita Shuffle" can be used skillfully at the right time by a spiritual teacher to temporarily stop the mind and thereby reveal the
beginningless and endless ocean of being, usually obscured.

Unfortunately this technique is frequently used as a way to deceive oneself and others when the user is placed in a position of threat, challenge or difficulty.

....

From the "What Is Enlightenment?" publication Volume 1, #1, quoting Andrew Cohen:

The Advaita, or non-dual teachings, are widely considered the highest teachings. When their depth and subtlety are not fully understood, they
can be misinterpreted and misused.

[Ganga exchange ...the usual "Who's identifying...? Who's judging?" etc..]

This exchange ...illustrates the impossibility of having a rational, mutual inquiry with someone who is stuck in the Absolute viewpoint. It defies
all common sense and logic. Prolonged exposure can even lead one to doubt one's sanity. Ganga is continually answering any question with further questions about who the questioner is. Superficially this may seem profound, but in a mutual investigation it can all too easily be
used as a smokescreen to avoid any real inquiry whatsoever. The "Advaita shuffle" enables a person to use the Advaita teachings of non-duality to
"Advaita away" conflicts, disagreements, or uncomfortable aspects of reality. The attention is drawn away from the actual content of the discussion and put back on the questioner himself. This excerpt also shows how proponents of the Advaita view can be so fixated on the Absolute position that they regard any form of discussion as a descent into the relative, and a manifestation of ignorance. In this way, all desire and possibility for investigation, learning and change are destroyed…

Andrew Cohen and the editors at WIE.
http://www.wie.org/index.html

--Andrew Cohneen

*********************

"Almost everyone who realizes their true nature agrees that a certain period of integrating the realisation is necessary, as a so-called ‘ripening’ stage. But not everyone shares the necessity of exchanging information about that particular stage. Many people indicate, or show, that speaking about it simply is impossible, since consciousness is all there is and anything that looks slightly ‘different’ does not need further attention. The integration, which is happening by itself because any form of ‘doership’ is gone, does not require any comment at all.

For me that is not only a pity but incorrect as well. Why? Because this way all kinds of elementary things, that will no doubt present themselves on the level of ordinary human interrelating, can be stashed away.

Andrew Cohen created an expression for this, he calls it the ‘Advaita Shuffle’, the Advaita fast-change trick. ...It points to secretly (or unconsciously) removing a subject that is experienced as threatening or uneasy to a level where that uneasy matter has ‘dissolved’; in other words dissolved into the very substance it consists of indeed: Consciousness itself, pure Knowing. A smuggletrick is used in order not to be accountable as an individual (because ‘the individual’ is seen as unreal). And that accountability is precisely what this is all about. ..."

Philip Renard

http://www.flameout.org/flameout/gurus/hotpotato.html

Dear Just Wondering
Re #93

Caught me om my hasty conclusion did you? :)
See I had typed that once, time expired and had to retype. But that was a good thing because I can now expand on it. My conclusion was meant to integrate how the brain actually works and spirituality as it relates to Deepak's article on evil and addictions. The solution to addictions is not through attacking the perceived evil.negativity but by augmenting that which is positive to dissolve the negativity by recontextualizing it. Based on how the brain works, attaining short-term memory alone is energy intensive[as in cramming for exams in college] but unless knowledge becomes integrated into the part of the brain associated with long term memory, it ultimately does not serve us. So, recontextualizing would be accomplished by a "mindful" focused effort on the type of thoughts we think on a regular basis.

For an example, we could look to AA where their principles are those of honesty, responsibility, humility, service and the practice of tolerance, goodwill, and brotherhood. AA does not subscribe to any particular ethic, has no code of right and wrong or good and bad, and avoids moral judgements, i.e. a "mindful" focus which is also spiritual.

I had not thought of brother G.W. when making that comment, but the same could be applied to him. We as a nation will not solve our problems by turning negative and using the same tactics of attacking what we perceive as "his evil" but by recontextualizing those negatives into opportunities for our growth as a nation.

So, yes of course, there is always room for positive skepticism whereby everyone can compare notes and respectfully work side by side to explore the possibilities of what we can do when we put our minds, and our brains, to it.

Love
Bommie

And if I were more mindful, I could type my own name! Yo.

# 106, Dear Irvine, thank you for your comment, it is both intellectually and emotionally satisfying to know that someone understands the language of allegory, when it is used to talk about most profound issues.

I often feel it's more appropriate to ''approximate'' the truth with the use of myth, metaphor or an associative element, rather than trying to pin it down with direct reference. The language is all we have here and it poses a certain barrier to a totally care free communication, for the words and sentences work their magic accordingly to the personal setup not to mention the state of the nervous system at the time of writing and reading.

I must confess, Harb's response caught me by surprise, I thought, after what I've witnessed reading his exchanges with the others, that Harb has enough understanding and plenty of imagination to fill the gaps between the words, of what has been said and what has been left to figure out. Now I know it's not the case and in the future I would try to be dead literal in my expositions.

I mean, to assume that when I mention the names of divinities, hindu or any others, is a sign, a shortcoming, of my vision of Reality, is beyond my comprehension. Is man serious when he says:

'' It seems like them you find 'God' like some huge Human Being twirlng His mouchtache and creating the universe from His navel at His own sweet free will.''

I am sorry I cannot take that as a conversation between the minds. I may at times come forcefully in the dialogue, ( as it was previously with Kurt and Simon, both are a good sport by the way ) yet I wouldn't deprive my ''opponent'' the intellectual capacity.

Harb's sentences like:

'' Nor the name of Rama invokes anything in me. We are now far more advanced than those times. ''

Betrays how skin deep is the man's understanding of his own heritage ( and its relevance to todays world), for even kids in North Carolina know that Ram is a mantra and Rama an aspect of Absolute responsible for governing the laws of nature.

Raam is ( one of ) the primordial sound of the original matrix and thus belongs to the science of Consciousness more than the quantum theory.

As far as being ''... more advanced than those times'' I could give Harb a friendly insight.

~ First of all there is no advancement in the domain of Consciousness, there couldn't be, it would contradict the nature of Consciousness. Even such categories (qualities) of Nature like ether, air, fire or water cannot evolve, so much so the Raam. Consciousness is beyond qualities it cannot evolve, progress or regress.

~ Secondly, and even when speaking from the point of view of the concrete historical moment in time. The events composed by the poet-seer Valmiki in the epic of Ramayana belong to the Golden Age - the reign of a perfect ruler - Rama. Being an embodiment of Dharma (purpose, virtue) he is a manifestation of perfection in administration. Our times could hardly be called ''advanced'' in comparison.

Anyway, I think Harb took the wrong end of a stick, trying to teach me with it. That's fine with me. I wrote a rather intimate response to him and though Harb promised never to converse with me, I hope he'll read it at least.

Thanks again Irvine, for embodying the common sense and being a fair referee. God bless.

With Love and Good Will

igor

Hi Igor,

Without pretending to know much about the language of allegory (a visible symbol representing an abstract idea) it does seem to leave room for misunderstandings.

Wouldn’t it be great if more of us would think like this wonderful lady does? Here are her thoughts on her late husband:

“His argument was not with God but with those who believed that our understanding of the sacred had been completed. Science's permanently revolutionary conviction that the search for truth never ends seemed to him the only approach with sufficient humility to be worthy of the universe that it revealed.”

“The methodology of science, with its error-correcting mechanism for keeping us honest in spite of our chronic tendencies to project, to misunderstand, to deceive ourselves and others, seemed to him the height of spiritual discipline. If you are searching for sacred knowledge and not just a palliative for your fears, then you will train yourself to be a good skeptic.”

Sean, thanks.

Well, that sticky list, could be mine, as I was wondering why I do the things I do sometimes (especially all the trouble I've cause myself within these last few weeks), since the actions that cause me pain are the unfruitful ones because I have no energy left to follow thru, which is what I am finding out as I needed a drop or two more energy to finish my goal. Therefore, I failed. Plus, I was wondering about S&M and what it meant when Guru Pitka said he was into S, but not M :-) in one of his post that I read last Thursday, so I looked it up. It appears that the both the S and the M are about pain, except one inflicts it and the receives it.

Love, Char

# 102, Dear Harb, please don't take it personally, and please don't take it literally either, when I illustrate my comments occasionally with mythological characters like Shiva, Vishnu etc. Of course a simple folk can take it as if I am talking of mount Meru or Olympus where the Mighty ones have fun watching our human drama munching soma or manna.

Yet, I was hoping you'll read beyond the obviousness of the language, besides the divinities aren't ''dead'' they simply change the passports and the names. Yes, I assumed that you'd know that Mount Meru be the part of human physiology and Vishnu Avatara representing a particular aspect of Consciousness. I am not a Hindu, so no worries.

End of your last post, addressed to me, shows that you are offended, so much that you decide to scold me as a child. That's fine, after all I was born not far from you, just across the Himalayas, where the respect for the age is part of the culture. Yet when you speak of experience, may I utter in my ''defense'' that what I've lived through is enough for more than one life. Dear Harb, in the company of men of your age I don't feel a minor.

It's not your shortcoming, not being able to tell what this or that person went through, such is the nature of the ethernet communication. Yet, so that you have an idea I thought it's no harm to share with you my brief bio.

~ I've lost my father age three and was brought up by a single mother in the ghetto of the soviet city;

~ I was an artist as far back as my memory goes and thought of life as being paradise;

~ at 12, I got picked up from a street, by the man who became my mentor and had to live through witnessing his brutal killing by the mafia, he was a legendary martial artist, painter and a poet );

~ barely at twenty, served 2 years as soldier during the invasion of Soviet Union in Afganistan, having to go through the training in the Kara-Kum desert, though I didn't go into the actual combat, I've seen enough to become a vegetarian;

~ after the army I've met sufis and that set the circle in motion;

~ I had my first one-man exhibition still being an immigrant in a foreign land at the age of 24;

~ lost my daughter Laura, in a car accident, she was 6, I was 26;

~ at 28 I've started yoga of meditation and two years later had a spontaneous awakening of Kundalini; a year later, my dear mum introduced me to Maharishi's teaching;

~ at 30 I had friends, pop-stars like Leo Sayer, singing at my birthday anniversary, in London, while Elton John had a room of my work in one of his houses;

~ though I grow up in poverty, at the age of 33 I lead a life of a jet-setter, traveling the world at a whim, summers in the South of France, art-fairs in Switzerland, etc you name it;

~ reached a mid-life crisis at 35 which trampolined me to go back to my home country to attend the TM-Sidhi program;

~ at 36 by Guru's grace I saw the Universe as my own Self, and myself as the whole World;

~ I went into a total reclusive way of life working as a Pranic Healer for 5 years, successfully treating mostly cancer patients;

~ finally a couple of years ago I have been invited to come back to Uzbekistan to work as a tutor and an art consultant;

~ I am a wealthy man and have a lovely english-trinidadian wife and a beautiful 8 month old daughter Ramana Naaimah Devi, together with my mother ( also TM-Sidha practitioner ) we live now in a diplomatic village in Tashkent sharing my time between Europe and Central Asia.

You don't have to reply to my post, yet I feel its not right when the intellectual discussion between two mindful beings ends in a bitter attitude. I hope you'll find a place in your heart and mind to restore harmony between. Myself I apologize if I hurt your sense of worth, by saying that you do not state anything new. By that I meant, that there isn't anything new, when we talk of the Ultimate, which does not meant to undermine your unique view of the topic.

When I read Irvine's kind interception I understood what your theme of discovery was based on the theme of four aspects, cycles and so on. Interestingly enough, that was my own obsession ( in a good sense ) in the mid-90s when I was involved in studying the Sacred Geometry, which actually brought me to the study of the Vedas and later on Vedanta, for it was intimately connected to the principe used in the Vedic Geometry and Vedic Mathematics. So I even created a series of work based on the four cycles of Nature, the four round paintings, tondos, untitled ''Zauber''.

Each tondo representing a particular aspect of Universal cycle: The Elements, The Space, The Seasons, The Time. Fortunately all four have been acquired by the same collector, the family, who housed the work in Paris in an old house restored to have the paintings fitted onto the ceiling as a one composition.

You can see the images of the actual paintings, by clicking on their names, via this link: http://www.igorkufayev.com/theme4.html

In no way to undermine your own concept, yet if I did the work now I would use five or three module concept, again because of my new understanding of Geometry as the language of Nature.

That's as brief as I can put it, dear Harb. It may look like an act of self-exhibitionism, if so be it. I can afford this stripping, for it is my last entry to this blog, for the reasons beyond these argument which is a minor episode. The real reason is the policy or rather policing.

It was a great pleasure to converse with some original minds.

With Love and Joy,

igor

# 102, Dear Harb, please don't take it personally, and please don't take it literally either, when I illustrate my comments occasionally with mythological characters like Shiva, Vishnu etc. Of course a simple folk can take it as if I am talking of mount Meru or Olympus where the Mighty ones have fun watching our human drama munching soma or manna.

Yet, I was hoping you'll read beyond the obviousness of the language, besides the divinities aren't ''dead'' they simply change the passports and the names. Yes, I assumed that you'd know that Mount Meru be the part of human physiology and Vishnu Avatara representing a particular aspect of Consciousness. I am not a Hindu, so no worries.

End of your last post, addressed to me, shows that you are offended, so much that you decide to scold me as a child. That's fine, after all I was born not far from you, just across the Himalayas, where the respect for the age is part of the culture. Yet when you speak of experience, may I utter in my ''defense'' that what I've lived through is enough for more than one life. Dear Harb, in the company of men of your age I don't feel a minor.

It's not your shortcoming, not being able to tell what this or that person went through, such is the nature of the ethernet communication. Yet, so that you have an idea I thought it's no harm to share with you my brief bio.

~ I've lost my father age three and was brought up by a single mother in the ghetto of the soviet city;

~ I was an artist as far back as my memory goes and thought of life as being paradise;

~ at 12, I got picked up from a street, by the man who became my mentor and had to live through witnessing his brutal killing by the mafia, he was a legendary martial artist, painter and a poet );

~ barely at twenty, served 2 years as soldier during the invasion of Soviet Union in Afganistan, having to go through the training in the Kara-Kum desert, though I didn't go into the actual combat, I've seen enough to become a vegetarian;

~ after the army I've met sufis and that set the circle in motion;

~ I had my first one-man exhibition still being an immigrant in a foreign land at the age of 24;

~ lost my daughter Laura, in a car accident, she was 6, I was 26;

~ at 28 I've started yoga of meditation and two years later had a spontaneous awakening of Kundalini; a year later, my dear mum introduced me to Maharishi's teaching;

~ at 30 I had friends, pop-stars like Leo Sayer, singing at my birthday anniversary, in London, while Elton John had a room of my work in one of his houses;

~ though I grow up in poverty, at the age of 33 I lead a life of a jet-setter, traveling the world at a whim, summers in the South of France, art-fairs in Switzerland, etc you name it;

~ reached a mid-life crisis at 35 which trampolined me to go back to my home country to attend the TM-Sidhi program;

~ at 36 by Guru's grace I saw the Universe as my own Self, and myself as the whole World;

~ I went into a total reclusive way of life working as a Pranic Healer for 5 years, successfully treating mostly cancer patients;

~ finally a couple of years ago I have been invited to come back to Uzbekistan to work as a tutor and an art consultant;

~ I am a wealthy man and have a lovely english-trinidadian wife and a beautiful 8 month old daughter Ramana Naaimah Devi, together with my mother ( also TM-Sidha practitioner ) we live now in a diplomatic village in Tashkent sharing my time between Europe and Central Asia.

You don't have to reply to my post, yet I feel its not right when the intellectual discussion between two mindful beings ends in a bitter attitude. I hope you'll find a place in your heart and mind to restore harmony between. Myself I apologize if I hurt your sense of worth, by saying that you do not state anything new. By that I meant, that there isn't anything new, when we talk of the Ultimate, which does not meant to undermine your unique view of the topic.

When I read Irvine's kind interception I understood what your theme of discovery was based on the theme of four aspects, cycles and so on. Interestingly enough, that was my own obsession ( in a good sense ) in the mid-90s when I was involved in studying the Sacred Geometry, which actually brought me to the study of the Vedas and later on Vedanta, for it was intimately connected to the principe used in the Vedic Geometry and Vedic Mathematics. So I even created a series of work based on the four cycles of Nature, the four round paintings, tondos, untitled ''Zauber''.

Each tondo representing a particular aspect of Universal cycle: The Elements, The Space, The Seasons, The Time. Fortunately all four have been acquired by the same collector, the family, who housed the work in Paris in an old house restored to have the paintings fitted onto the ceiling as a one composition.

You can see the images of the actual paintings, by clicking on their names, via this link: http://www.igorkufayev.com/theme4.html

In no way to undermine your own concept, yet if I did the work now I would use five or three module concept, again because of my new understanding of Geometry as the language of Nature.

That's as brief as I can put it, dear Harb. It may look like an act of self-exhibitionism, if so be it. I can afford this stripping, for it is my last entry to this blog, for the reasons beyond these argument which is a minor episode. The real reason is the policy or rather policing.

It was a great pleasure to converse with some original minds.

With Love and Joy,

igor

once the net of tangles has been dissolved there is wide open space to traverse the universe

When I needed LOVE the most and there was no one, God gave me love. I was not asked if I was good or bad or if I knew God. I was seen as worthy by a great God of compassion.

Praise the Lord God Jesus Christ.

Love, Char

No problem Igor, I am perfectly at peace with you and myself. To tell you the truth I feel closer to you now than before. Wish you the most fulfilling life.

I know nothing happens by chance. This conversation had to develop in this way so that you could say some things you wanted to say and I could say some things I wanted to say and in the process learn something which must be the need of the hour for each one of us.

I also know writing cannot convey the real thing because beyond a certain point the things are rather said with one's whole being and even more importantly, spontaneously. Then there comes the problem of English being third language. In thinking on the sentences we often lose the direction of the argument and even its substance. I have often faced this difficulty myself. But then I think all must be in the scheme of things because initial misunderstandings can lead us to even greater understandigns if our basic approach is right.

I will no longer be averse to conversing with you if you will still post. However, I for my own reasons may not write much here.

Wishing you the supreme fulfillment once again,

Harb

PS: Very lovely name of your daughter - Ramana Naaimah Devi. In a certain period in my life my soul was fully lodged in Ramana Maharshi. Though later I had to move forward.

Harb writes:

"Then there comes the problem of English being third language. In thinking on the sentences we often lose the direction of the argument and even its substance. I have often faced this difficulty myself...."

I get that.

"In a certain period in my life my soul was fully lodged in Ramana Maharshi. Though later I had to move forward."

Perhaps Harb having to "move on" from a certain phase of life could best convey the meaning...without the misgivings/misunderstanding that Ramana was "backward" in some sense. And of course one can move on from spirtual interests in studying Ramana and his teachings(and one may not even know anything about Ramana) but one can't realy move away from the truth of Ramana -- advaita(non-duality) and self-inquiry -- if you are on a spiritual path.

John,

Since the game of life is the dynamic game of both Being and Becoming, time arrested and time passing, stillness and motion and so on at the same time, all spiritual masters such as Nanak, Ramakrishna, Ramana, Krishnamurti etc are at the same place so far as first aspect of it is concerned but at different places - even backward and forward - so far as second aspect is concerned. In the second aspect Nanak, Ramakrishna belonged to the Age of Bhagti while Ramana, Krishnamurti belonged to the Age of Reason. Relevant to the first aspect they experience the same One, relevant to the second they explained the same One differenntly.

It is not much different from a person refering to the same one earthly father but explaining him differently in his youth and middle age. In youth he has emotional ties with him, in middle age he understand him, or has rational ties with him. Bhagti Age verily represents emotional ties with the One, while Age of Reason the ties of understanding.

We can explain all masters in the same way and this is in fact the reason why there are different religions and even quarrels between them.

This is the reason Christians and Muslims are fighting now. Christ belonged to the very beginning of the Ad era global cultural cycle and so saw the One as "Father." Mohammad came some 700 hundred years later and saw the same One "lord", even "Lord of the house." Accordingly their interpretations differed regarding all things connected with them.

Yes, I moved beyond Ramana in the second aspect at my own level. Ramana fully negated this world and his pet phrase was "where is the world except in your mind?" I do not fully negate the world in his way. I take it rather like Adi Shankra: "The world is an illusion; the world is God, God is real." So for me the world is real as well. Some take the world very objectively, some very subjectively, while the world is both yet beyond both.

Harb

Who, other than the ego, can feel hurt? It was quite useful for me to realize that and to remind myself whenever pain showed up, until the insight was well incorporated.

Feeling hurt is seeing through the lens of one's ego, of one's personal history, memories, expectations. Pain is the tightness of our own limited self definition. Of course the "hurt" will look as if it is inflicted by something/someone else. The ego is nothing than an idea of being something else :) Pain is extremely kind, it shows us exactly where we still cling to a definition of ourselves as being separate.

Igor,
if you ever feel like talking about your knowledge and experience with pranic healing, I'd love to read about it. Maybe on the open thread?

"Yes, I moved beyond Ramana in the second aspect at my own level. Ramana fully negated this world and his pet phrase was "where is the world except in your mind?" I do not fully negate the world in his way. I take it rather like Adi Shankra: "The world is an illusion; the world is God, God is real." So for me the world is real as well. Some take the world very objectively, some very subjectively, while the world is both yet beyond both."

Ramana says a lot of things and in communications you use a lot of spiritual techniques to guide the seeker on the path to self awareness. You yourself acknowledge the fact about language having limitations. I wouldn't say I have moved beyond Ramana even though I might have found a better way to learn and grow in my spiritual journey.

Adi Shankara was the first to teach the philosophy of Vednata's nonduality. Modern teachers like Ramana, Ramakrisha, Osho et al, and contemporary teachers like Katie Brown, Adyashanti, Tolle, Chopra all preach Advaita in their own way. Many people do find a great treasures in Ramana's teachings and his legacy that he left behind, many of his students have become some of the greatest great teachers of Advaita in the world scene. But I wouldn't say, that those touched by Ramana and then went on to set their own paths, like you, have moved "beyond" Ramana in that sense.

"greatest great teachers of Advaita "

That's too far fetched. Just one "great." Typo.

***

"Ramana fully negated this world and his pet phrase was "where is the world except in your mind?" I do not fully negate the world in his way. I take it rather like Adi Shankra: "The world is an illusion; the world is God, God is real." So for me the world is real as well. Some take the world very objectively, some very subjectively, while the world is both yet beyond both."

I wouldn't conclude that Ramana's views are different from what Shakara said.

"I wouldn't conclude that Ramana's views are different from what Shakara said."

:::::::

Shankara: "The world is an illusion; the world is God, God is real."

Ramana: "where is the world except in your mind?"

To elaborate further, lets go through these words by Ramana:

What is called mind is a wondrous power existing in Self. It projects all thoughts. If we set aside all thoughts and see, there will be no such thing as mind remaining separate; therefore, thought itself is the form of the mind. Other than thoughts, there is no such thing as the world.

...Of all the thoughts that rise in the mind, the thought 'I' is the first thought.
[Knowledge itself is 'I'. The nature of (this) knowledge is existence-consciousness-bliss]

...That which rises in this body as 'I' is the mind. If one enquires 'In which place in the body does the thought 'I' rise first?', it will be known to be in the heart [spiritual heart is 'two digits to the right from the centre of the chest']. Even if one incessantly thinks 'I', 'I', it will lead to that place (Self)'

...The mind will subside only by means of the enquiry 'Who am I?'. The thought 'Who am I?', destroying all other thoughts, will itself finally be destroyed like the stick used for stirring the funeral pyre.

...If other thoughts rise, one should, without attempting to complete them, enquire, 'To whom did they arise?', it will be known 'To me'. If one then enquires 'Who am I?', the mind (power of attention) will turn back to its source. By repeatedly practising thus, the power of the mind to abide in its source increases.

...The place where even the slightest trace of the 'I' does not exist, alone is Self.

...Self itself is the world; Self itself is 'I'; Self itself is God; all is the Supreme Self

Didn't we come a full circle?

This is pure Advaita, perfectly consistent with Adi Shankara's views.

Ramana's views were perfectly consistent with Adi Shankra relevant to the first aspect of Being, and as I said already views of all masters are consistent as to this aspect. But they are not consistent regarding the second aspect. If it were so then Adi Shankra too would have passed his entire life sitting at one place and would not have toured the world or set up maths to propagate his philosophy. Nor all other sages would have lived their lives in their own different ways, or differently to him.

Re #122, you are again confusing Being and Becoming aspects. All may be the same in Being but have "their own ways" in Becoming, and why have they their own ways because they are in different timespaces, and that means they are behind or ahead. Again, that is not to say that they are behind or ahead regarding the aspect of Being, but behind or ahead regarding living it and explaining it.

Even otherwise all here go on extolling the virtues of being in the Now, how can anyone be really in the Now if his mind is fully loaded with all the sages and masters and books of the past all the time? How one will act spontaneously? In this sense sometimes Grand Scheme of Things of the Universe pushes some into saying things which will shake this load off some ripe heads. To a certain extent I knowingly used the word "moved forward" for this purpose otherwise I could have said it in an other way.

There were times we needed fathers on our heads and there come times we become fathers ourselves. Similarly, there are times when we need to listen to, to follow, this master or that sage, and there come times when some of us become masters or sages ourselves. No need to carry on the weight of the past. No need to be afraid if it escapes through your writing that you moved ahead of this or that master. Of course you will have this confidence only if you have had the first-hand experience of the One yourself and all by yourself. Not only this, if you have further again forgotten it at one time in your life and then have regained it step by step, that is, consciously. But that is up to each one of us.

"...But they are not consistent regarding the second aspect. If it were so then Adi Shankra too would have passed his entire life sitting at one place and would not have toured the world or set up maths to propagate his philosophy. Nor all other sages would have lived their lives in their own different ways, or differently to him."

"...Again, that is not to say that they are behind or ahead regarding the aspect of Being, but behind or ahead regarding living it and explaining it.

Exactly. I would say, Raman was far ahead in "living and explaining" aspect of it.

Adi Shakara formed maths and toured the world, Ramana, was teachings his philosophy to several thousands in his life time directly, and indirectly through books, as I said many of his disciples went on to become famous gurus who spread the Advaiata philosophy all across the world.

Perhaps, you are not aware, but in the west, at least in the US, almost all Advaita teachers of the present including Tolle, Adyashanti, Katie Brown, David Hawkings to name a few are all deeply touched by Ramana. Perhaps in India the Advaita view, even during Adi Shakara's times is not so popular, Bhakti path being the most popular among the masses.

The point being, Ramana's life and work had a great influence in the spiritual landscape, especially in teaching Advaita, much greater than any modern guru including Osho and Mahesh Yogi, imo.

I haven't mentioned Nisargadatta, who isn't that well known in India, but his teachings like Ramana are one of the purest forms of Advaita and he ;left a lastng impression in spreading nonduality across the world. Ramesh Baleskar is another influential modern day advaita teacher from India.

Ramana is giant whose body-time recedes but influence grows(in every aspect.)

Papaji was a student of Ramana and is a major influence.

Nisargadatta,(author of the classic I Am That.) has an enormous impact in world of Advaita.

J Krishnamurthy on the other hand is extremely influential, enlightened, but not directly helpful as guru.

"Perhaps in India the Advaita view, even during Adi Shakara's times is not so popular, Bhakti path being the most popular among the masses."--John

Although Ramana advocated self-enquiry as the fastest means to realization, he was also known to have advised the practice of bhakti and self-surrender (to one's Deity or Guru) either concurrently or as an adequate alternative, which would ultimately converge with the path of self-enquiry.

In contrast Ramakrishna (his followers created maths...like Shankara, very influential right?) advocated Bhakti primarily, but he also advocated nondual philosophy/Advaita to people... like Swami Vivekananda.

Ref. post #1 by jeremy, #2 by Freyja, #3 by Just Wondering, and Lily S.' comment on Zrii products.

Please read The Skeptic's Dictionary's artcile on multi-level marketing (a.k.a. network marketing & referral marketing):

The idea behind multi-level marketing (MLM) is simple. Imagine you have a product to sell. A common MLM product is some sort of panacea, such as a vitamin or mineral supplement. You could do what most businesses do: either sell it directly to consumers or find others who will buy your product from you and sell it to other people. MLM schemes require that you recruit people not only to buy and sell your product, but who will also recruit people who will not only buy and sell your product but also recruit people....ad infinitum. Only there never is an infinitum to move towards. This may seem unusual to traditional business people. Why, you might wonder would you recruit people to compete with you? For, isn't that what you are doing when you recruit people to sell the same products you are selling? MLM magic will convince you that it is reasonable to recruit competitors because they won't really be competitors since you will get a cut of their profits. This will take your mind off the fact that no matter how big your town or market, it is finite. The well will go dry soon enough. There will always be some distributors who will make money in an MLM scheme. The majority, however, must fail due to the intrinsic nature of all pyramid schemes.

Multi-level marketing is system of marketing which puts more emphasis upon the recruiting of distributors than on the selling of products. As such, it is intrinsically flawed. MLM is very attractive, however, because it sells hope and appears to be outside the mainstream of business as usual. It promises wealth and independence to all. Unfortunately, no matter what the product, MLM is doomed to produce more failures than successes. For every MLM distributor who makes a decent living or even a decent supplemental income, there are at least ten who do little more than buy products and promotional materials, costing them much more than they will ever earn as an MLM agent. The most successful MLM scheme is Amway. It has millions of distributors worldwide with sales in the billions. At the turn of the century, the average Amway distributor earned about $700 a year in sales, but spent about $1,000 a year on Amway products. Distributors also have other expenses related to the business, e.g., telephone, gas, motivational meetings, and publicity material (Amway.com; Klebniov 1991).

The reason MLM schemes cannot succeed is because MLM marketing is, in essence, a legal pyramid scheme. The basic idea is for a sales person to recruit more sales persons. This is very advantageous to those who own the company and supply the products, especially since the sales persons in MLMs are also customers. But it is puzzling why a sales person would think it is to his or her advantage to increase the number of competing sales persons.

This is not to say there is no benefit to MLM membership. You get certain tax write-offs. You get to buy products, some of which you will be happy with. You get to go to inspirational meetings, some of which will make you feel good. You may meet new friends and you may even make a few bucks. But more than likely you will end up alienating some family and friends. You will probably end up buying more stuff than you sell. And you will learn a lot about deceiving yourself and others. You won't be allowed to tell anyone how you are really doing, for example. You will always have to think positive, even if that means lying. You will have to tell anyone who asks that you are doing great, that business is wonderful, that you've never seen anything go so fast and bring you income so quickly, even if it isn't true.

The dangers of MLM schemes have been well articulated by others. If you are thinking of joining any MLM program, I advise you to first read Dean Van Druff's What's Wrong With Multi-Level Marketing or Robert Fitzpatrick's False Profits - Seeking Financial and Spiritual Deliverance in Multi-Level Marketing and Pyramid Schemes (Herald Press, 1997).

See also Amway, multi-level marketing harassment, and pyramid scheme at SkepDic

http://skepdic.com/mlm.html

# 121

'' Igor, if you ever feel like talking about your knowledge and experience with pranic healing, I'd love to read about it. Maybe on the open thread? ''

Aurora, I would have loved to share my experiences along with the knowledge of what could be shared on the Pranic Healing. Yet I banned myself from the blog, and in any case the open thread is a very busy format to talk about it. Perhaps some other time or some other place, unless there is an urgency in which case you are welcome to email me directly via the contact page on my website.

With Love

igor

# 126,

'' The point being, Ramana's life and work had a great influence in the spiritual landscape, especially in teaching Advaita, much greater than any modern guru including Osho and Mahesh Yogi, imo. ''

It's interesting to know that Swami Lakshmanajoo, the last exponent of the Kashmir Shaivism ( a non-dual philosophy, like Vedanta, except it embraces the World rather than negates its existence ) in a direct lineage, and the guru in his own right, sat at the feet of Ramana Maharshi and made regular visits to the great sage. He also new Mahesh Yogi very well. When it came down to answer the question on assessing the greatness of The Yogi he said the following:

'' If you ask me, Maharishi's teaching starts where mine ends and it goes from there to Infinity" Then he added, "Maharishi is the greatest saint to walk the Earth in ten thousand years!"

I wonder if any of you have read '' Aparusheya Bhashya'', Maharishi's gloss on Brahma Sutras, the main text on non-dual Vedanta. It leaves Ramana's expositions far behind if only for the shear poetic beauty of the white verse, not to mention the diamond clarity of the commentaries.

That does not mean that Ramana Maharshi wasn't the greatest teacher of the last century.

I wonder how one can measure the greatness of the Master ? On the other hand what about those who never come down from the mountains and never form any movements ? As Tat Wala Baba said: '' We are doing our work here in the forest, so that the Earth keep revolving in its orbit''.

Jai Guru Dev

igor

P. S. It took me quiet a while before I could surrender to Maharishi despite drinking at the fountain of his wisdom, the main reason, as it's often with artists, is that I felt I would loose my individuality, the second reason was the fame of the Guru was too obvious, I wanted to have someone ''more exotic'', more ''mysterious''. When I finally saw the Master for what He Is, surrender came along with the bliss, so the choice was mutually reciprocated, ( later I've learned that is the true relationship of the guru-chela ). The second step was the unveiling of the Maha Rishi within my own Heart. There is no distinction any longer.

Thank you Igor, it was kind of you to think of an emergency, but I was just interested in the subject. I'm sure you're right, it's not the right place or time :) Thank you again and be well!

Igor K, #132.

' The point being, Ramana's life and work had a great influence in the spiritual landscape, especially in teaching Advaita, much greater than any modern guru including Osho and Mahesh Yogi, imo. '[John 126]

"That does not mean that Ramana Maharshi wasn't the greatest teacher of the last century.

I wonder how one can measure the greatness of the Master ? On the other hand what about those who never come down from the mountains and never form any movements ?"

Of course that's true. But my point was about great "influence," of the guru in spreading the knowledge to seekers.

And I am specific about the influence in nonduality(Advaita) path/field in my orginal comment. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi has a great influence touching millions of people, but he can't be specially called a Advaita type guru as is Ramana or Nisargadatta, neither can he be characterized as a Bakthi type guru.

I would say, Mahesh Yogi belongs to the Middle Path -- this is the most difficult category to describe, occupying the middle of the devotion/advaita spectrum. It can partake of both, denying neither, both in theory and practice. It is an attempt to go beyond the dryness and intellectuality of advaita and embrace some of the juiciness of ordinary life, without losing sight of the truth of non-duality. It goes without saying that there are lots of contradictions and paradoxes. The best of these masters have a big tent where all are accepted and anything that might be useful as a device to help us wake up is considered. Methods, often taking the form of meditation techniques, may be many and varied, and will usually be quite central to daily practice in the master's "buddhafield," although they too may be dispensed with according to the master's perception of what is needed in the moment.

John, # 34

Beautifully put, I agree. Mine was not so much a doubt of your comparison between the sages, but a reflection on the theme of The Teacher.

I have to admit the fact that despite my total devotion to my beloved Master, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, I've received very little ''help'' from the movement itself when undergoing the ( technically known as violent ) rising of Prana Shakti. That's when the Guru's grace directed me to the teachings of the other Masters and above all to Baba Muktananda's and his gravitation towards the Kashmir Shaiva Tradition.

'' The ways of God ( The Master ) are incomprehensible ''.

Going back to the great teachings of the Rishis, Ramana and Mahesh, there is interesting ''difference'' which perhaps sheds the light on the actuality of their methods. Ramana, by the time he become ''famous'', sitting in one place, attracted mostly intermediates and advanced students, some of whom where scholars in there own right. That explains the amount of enlightened Ramana ''produced''.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi on the other hand chose to travel the world ( 4 times around the globe ), imparting teaching to the ordinary householder. Which meant often starting from the scratch. Which culminated in the global awareness of the methods of meditation, yoga, ayurveda, jyotish, vastu, and so on. The Guru simply re-educated, trying to re-direct the course of the western culture, which become increasingly impoverished to the basis of harmonious living.

Looking back in retrospect Mahesh influenced the entire course of the western culture if only the popular aspect of it is concerned. The Beatles association with the Guru isn't accidental in that respect, for being the most influential pop-act in the second half of the century, they've reflected the social needs along with individual aspirations, which culminated in the White Album ( still sold at the full price, after almost 40 years ), in its content unapologetically reflecting the influence of the great Guru's teaching.

Yet, to the advanced aspirant Maharishi was the Absolute incarnate. That's where both Masters come equal. Because there is no ''other'' Master, but always One.

Indeed Igor.

Speaking of Advaita type gurus... the term "advaita" is contentious among some adherents of traditional "Advaita Vedanta"(of Adi Shankara) who feel their specific use and meaning have been debased. It is basically a Hindu term because it is in India that the theory of this approach is most developed and it seems to be the term of choice among many leading exponents. While its best practitioners go way beyond mental methods, one way of characterizing it is as a mental/existential approach. The most direct(often associated with Ramana's self-inquiry approach) is the simple use of the question, "Who am I?" More than a mantra, it is meant to apply existentially to every situation where self-observation reveals some identification with a less-than-cosmic level of reality. I am pissed, i enquire as deeply as i can into precisely who it is that is pissed. Finding the one who was pissed to be non-existent, i can discard that identity. Or something like that, until i come to the conclusion that i am not separate from the whole.

We can refine this notion a bit to include a more incisive pointing to oneself, the ostensible doer, along not only the lines of "i am pissed," but "i am pissing." Therefrom we can investigate our investment in pissing (or any circumstance) and uncover the elusive sense of "me" that pervades all identity. It makes me feel real. Nice tool for those for whom it is suitable, requiring as it does a far more intense involvement than is suggested by some of the major "nothing-to-do" type of gurus.

One thing about most of these Advaita type gurus is they can sound quite similar, and since the philosophical position, that there are no beings separate from the whole, is so easy to state and maintain, it is more difficult to differentiate the bogus from the genuine gurus. To test-drive this approach is easy. Its practitioners are everywhere, touring aggressively and popping up like mushrooms after a fall rain.

This is a list of famous Advaita type gurus which includes some of the greats, helping many:

Adyashanti, Sri Atmananda, Ramesh Baleskar, Swami Chinmayananda, Swami Dayanand Sarawswati, Byron Katie, Jean Klien, Jiddu krishnamurti, UG, Ram Tzu, Nisargadatta Maharaj, Toni Packer, Papaji, Ramana Maharshi, Shri Ranjit Maharaj, Sailor Bob, Sri Sadguru Siddharameshwar Maharaj, Eckhart Tolle.

Some of the Middle path gurus of past and present who inspire and influence, apart from Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Osho and Muktanda who have been mentioned previously, inlcude:

The legendary Babaji, Yogi Bhajan aka Sardar Harbhajan Singh Puri Khalsa, Bodhidharma, Dalai Lama, George Gurdjieff, BKS Iyengar, Sant Kirpal Singh, Swami Shanti Kristian, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Richard Rose, Seung Sahn, ShantiMayi, Sri Swami Sivananda, Thich Thanh Tu, Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan, Paramahansa Yogananda.