underneath the animal body; the secret breath

Here is a longer one:

[indent][indent]I seek above, and then I find
this has put me in a bind
for I fell into a pit
filled to knees with bovine shit

I clamber out, yet not too soon
I run into a giant goon
He takes my eyes out with his spoon
swings, and throws them at the moon

Here I lay, blind and dying
Yet there's hardly point in crying
It's all anicca anyway
I'll take that knowing any day[/indent][/indent]

There was a man so wise
He jumped into
A sandy place
And burnt out both his eyes!
And when he knew his eyes were gone,
He offered no complaint.
He summoned up a vision
And made himself a saint.


- Children's verse from History of Muad'dib; Dune Messiah (1969) by Frank Herbert

Hah, wow, I guess I wasn't the only one
to come up with a poem like that.
I had the impulse to write in rhyme,
and again,
yet this latest attempt has fallen flat.

He is the fool saint,
The golden stranger living forever
On the edge of reason.

Mysterious, lethal, an oracle without eyes,
Catspaw of prophecy, whose voice never dies!

Fire-sand leagues
Confront our Lord.
He can see
Without eyes!
A demon upon him!

-The Moon Falls Down; Songs of Muad'dib ; Dune Messiah (1969) by Frank Herbert

If a tree falls in a forest, and the only person within a mile's radius is Helen Keller, does it make a sound?

Think you of the fact that a deaf person cannot hear. Then, what deafness may we not all possess? What senses do we lack that we cannot see and cannot hear another world all around us?

Intelligence takes chance with limited data in an arena where mistakes are not only possible but also necessary.

Confine yourself to observing and you always miss the point of your own life. The object can be stated this way: Live the best life you can. Life is a game whose rules you learn if you leap into it and play it to the hilt. Otherwise, you are caught off balance, continually surprised by the shifting play. Non-players often whine and complain that luck always passes them by. They refuse to see that they can create some of their own luck.

With that said, be cautious. Allow for surprises. When we create, there are always other forces at work.

There's no secret to balance. You just have to feel the waves.

Roflcopters flying left
Lollerskaters on the right
With this I put you to a quest
will you succeed, resolve this plight?

A nonsense rhyme I bring to you
of gobbly-boggly-obly-boo
Santsing florks and firewarks too
Why they roggle, not a clue!

Find, then, in your giant tomes
A (set of) quotes to answer this
For I have said not much at all
If blorg you do, I'll be impressed!

Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.

You do not take from this universe. It grants you what it will.

Things persist in not being what they seem.

If you need something to worship, then worship life — all life, every last crawling bit of it! We're all in this beauty together!

Do not be trapped by the need to achieve anything. This way, you achieve everything.

Always-boring choices
dogmatic, eerie failure?
Gone home - invoices
jeeringly kill laughter.

Maybe not, or perhaps quite rightly so?
understand, verily, why xylophones yield zero toes.

Touche.

If you bring me insanity or chaos then I will make order, but it's not easy to predict what a mad emu will find humorous.

When you look directly at an insane man all you see is a reflection of your own knowledge that he's insane, which is not to see him at all.

Sanity is not truth. Sanity is conformity to what is socially expected. Truth is sometimes in conformity, sometimes not.

The truth knocks on the door and you say, "Go away, I'm looking for the truth," and so it goes away. Puzzling.

In this search for truth you look at where you're going and where you are and it never makes sense, but then you look back at where you've been and a pattern seems to emerge. And if you project forward from that pattern, then sometimes you can come up with something.

Solve Et Coagula

The order you made is applauded
by the mad one here
what started as a letter-pun
you made a message, clear!


Once, before my eyes were torn
I gazed upon a man, forlorn
He babbled, screamed, tore out his hair
Pointed out the monsters, there

I, myself could till the earth
grow some food, prove my worth
Earn myself a daily meal
Without need to beg or steal

I saw no monsters, had my hair
Spoke calm and quiet, got no glares
Could live a life well-lived indeed
With food and fam'ly, sometimes mead

So I declared the man insane
was told that he was not to blame
"'twas just my ignorance," they said
"you're just seeing yourself, instead!"

This made no sense, but I approached
To see him better, I encroached
Whereupon he did cry out
He let out a great big shout

Rushed right at me with a knife
Stabbed not once, not twice, but thrice
In my kidney, spleen and liver
Once again into my liver!

As I lay there cold and bleeding
Using all my strength for breathing
I concluded I was right
That man was a crazy motherfucker and I should have stayed the fuck away what the fuck was I thinking


Although sanity is not truth
Insanity's also not truth
nor is truth in sanity
nor truth in insanity


Knock knock
Who's there?
The truth you've been searching for all your life
Go on
Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour?
::slam::


With any sensible endeavor
One should surely have a measure
of how well one is proceeding
of how well one is succeeding

If you start, lost and confused
And resolve to fix this ruse
And the months and years pass by
And one is just as lost, then why

does one not change one's methods, then?
Why is it beyond one's ken
to realize one's on the wrong path
just reconsider, do the math!

in sudden showers,
reflections dissipate--a
rainbow on the eyes.

Edit: I wrote another one...

slow steps through an
empty house, kindled
by the full moon.

Truth is tricky like that; it's not easy to pin down. You may remember the story of how the devil and a friend of his were walking down the street, when they saw ahead of them a man stoop down and pick up something from the ground, look at it, and put it away in his pocket. The friend said to the devil, “What did that man pick up?” “He picked up a piece of Truth,” said the devil. “That is a very bad business for you, then,” said his friend. “Oh, not at all,” the devil replied, “I am going to let him organize it."




Ruse is right, he doesn't need another fight.

The hero of the Odyssey is a great fighter, a wily schemer, a ready speaker, a man of stout heart and broad wisdom who knows that he must endure without too much complaining what the gods send; A lifetime of blows makes him unenthusiastic about any unnecessary interchange, or divergence from his path which he perceives to be tried and true. Trials never end, of course. Unhappiness and misfortune are bound to occur as long as people live, but there is a feeling now, that was not here before, and is not just on the surface of things, but penetrates all the way through: We've won it. It's going to get better now. You can sort of tell these things.

This implies that there is a Truth that is Noble & Good & can defeat the Devil, and it's simply man's fault for not understanding it properly even when presented with it. Yet what if it is the Truth itself that is fundamentally flawed, and it's not man's fault that it hasn't yet brought the peace we have all desired?


What if you feel "it's going to get better now" for your entire life, yet unhappiness and misfortune continue to occur for as long as you're alive? Will peace be found only after death? Or is there peace possible in this lifetime and you simply haven't found it yet? Is thinking that unhappiness and misfortune are bound to occur as long as people live just a way of giving up the search before it is completed?

The Order of the Star in the East was founded in 1911 to proclaim the coming of the World Teacher. Krishnamurti was made Head of the Order. On August 3, 1929, the opening day of the annual Star Camp at Ommen, Holland, Krishnamurti dissolved the Order before 3000 members.

"I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. That is my point of view, and I adhere to that absolutely and unconditionally. Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or to coerce people along any particular path. If you first understand that, then you will see how impossible it is to organize a belief. A belief is purely an individual matter, and you cannot and must not organize it. If you do, it becomes dead, crystallized; it becomes a creed, a sect, a religion, to be imposed on others. This is what everyone throughout the world is attempting to do. Truth is narrowed down and made a plaything for those who are weak, for those who are only momentarily discontented. Truth cannot be brought down, rather the individual must make the effort to ascend to it. You cannot bring the mountain-top to the valley. If you would attain to the mountain-top you must pass through the valley, climb the steeps, unafraid of the dangerous precipices.

So that is the first reason, from my point of view, why the Order of the Star should be dissolved. In spite of this, you will probably form other Orders, you will continue to belong to other organizations searching for Truth. *I do not want to belong to any organization of a spiritual kind*, please understand this. I would make use of an organization which would take me to London, for example; this is quite a different kind of organization, merely mechanical, like the post or the telegraph. I would use a motor car or a steamship to travel, these are only physical mechanisms which have nothing whatever to do with spirituality. Again, I maintain that no organization can lead man to spirituality."
-Jiddu Krishnamurti

I concur with Krishnamurti about truth being a pathless land. Everyone must find it for themselves in their own way. This certainly doesn't mean that I'm not willing to examine the techniques and advice given by wise men and women. I think that truth itself does exist, is worth pursuing, and is attainable. I believe that there is profound Order waiting to be discovered. It may lie outside this conditioned universe, but it is there waiting for me, sometimes even beckoning me. I will discover it myself in my own way. This is not just a belief this is etched onto my heart with laser precision, so I don't need to prove it, or explain how I know, I just know. I think everyone can discover this Knowledge for themselves if they look deeply enough within.



I believe that a perfect lasting peace is possible to attain in this lifetime and though I haven't attained it yet I feel that I have already developed an understanding of higher truth which will ultimately lead me to peace in this lifetime. The more you know of higher truths and apply what you know, the more you begin operating under higher laws that transcend the limitations of the lower. When you operate under these higher laws you don't have to worry as much about outer circumstances. I am not trying to hide some secret in my fist, far from it, I will tell you right now what I know of this higher truth.

I will render it into plain everyday English by saying: circumstances don't matter only state of being matters. This is because mind affects matter at the quantum level, so an inner consciousness shift will create an outer physical shift. In other words, the inner and outer worlds are loosely coupled. The probability of personal life events changes in response to deep changes in your mental and emotional landscape. Once you realize this, then there is never any reason to fear, because you see that the real enemy is fear itself. Even if you are unable to purify your mental and emotional landscape to the degree required to bring about lasting peace in this lifetime there is still no reason to fear.

This knowledge or gnosis seems to unfold on an increasingly deeper level with every passing day and therefor I feel like I have already pulled myself into the gravity of Truth, of lasting peace. This does not mean that I can't make mistakes and cause great trouble for myself, I recognize that I must remain heedful. I do now feel that If I were to run into a set of very unfavorable circumstances it would not shake my understanding; I would not forget what I've already seen. The task is done, the path to lasting peace has been recognized. Now my task is to study any techniques which I can find that allow me to modify my 'state of being' so that it vibrates at a higher rate so to speak, closer to the frequency of what I can only describe as metta, empathy, or love. I think that the meditation practices which were taught by the Buddha are invaluable techniques for achieving this, so that is one reason why I am here, to gain a better understanding of these meditation techniques via discussion with other yogis. Also I find that helping other beings is one of the best techniques for achieving this upliftment of state of being so that's part of the reason why I'm here also, to help all I can.

I hope that the above doesn't come off as arrogant, and I admit that I have no way to prove to you the validity of the statements which I have made. I can only attest to having proven it to myself. Keep in mind I'm not saying that bad things can't happen to good people, far from it. When you first make this discovery I think the universe tests you to see if you have really discovered it or not before it rewards your positive state of being with favorable life circumstances. In other words when you first begin to discover this truth the universe may send quite a bit of unfavorable circumstances your way no matter what you do, just to see how you react, to see if you react differently this time. I think that the Creation tests beings like this because there is no other way to tell if a given being has really learned these principles or not. If you are able to keep your faith in what you've seen, in what you know with regard to higher laws, then eventually the tests stop, or at least you are given a more profound set of confirmation experiences before the next test begins. I have no reason to believe that I have reached the end of such testing so I remain heedful and aware that the next test may arise at any moment.

I think that the more of these 'trials' you go through without losing your faith the more powerfully the higher laws begin working in your favor once a given trial completes itself. I suspect that at some point an individual reaches an unshakeable confidence of mind whereby he knows that no trial is possible which could cause him to doubt these higher laws. I suspect that at this point the trials stop and the being gains some level of 'initiation'. Perhaps this is just my way of describing what Buddhists call 'stream entry' or perhaps they are separate concepts, but either way now you know why I am choosing to walk my own path with confidence despite having not yet reached the destination. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to express all of this.

Tactlessly and tirelessly
I swoop and soar
In mangled arcs
On dancing sparks
At once a saint and whore

Finding merely bliss beyond compare
I despair

Blessed weariness
Blessed, blessed forgetting

A puppy chases its vanishing tail
Three times
And is gone!


-DMI, January, 1996, Thai Monastery, Bodh Gaya, India

That's interesting, somewhat like the faith and sin found in Christianity. Loosing faith gives way to sin, sin again restores faith as sin is seen as untruth. The trial goes on. I used to think faith was about believing blindly in a made-up God, and thus found it rather silly. If instead I understand faith as 'adhering to what is known to be true' it becomes a more useful tool. When faith is seen as such, sin falls into place as the opposite of faith, or rather, that which divert you from faithfulness. For instance if one is "tested" with some tribulations, there can be a very strong gravity towards responding in a way that is not truthful, that is, does not benefit me or anyone else; sinful. Even if sin is irrational the gravity towards it cannot be denied, hence faith is developed as a countermeasure, not as belief, but wisdom.

I agree that everyone can discover this Knowledge for themselves if they look deeply enough within. Here are some pointers that might help you to find it:
[indent]- this Knowledge is Timeless and Formless
- this Knowledge has no beginning & no end, it isn't created so it cannot be destroyed
- any conditioned phenomenon is a result of not knowing the Knowledge
[indent]- that is, things only arise because of not knowing this Knowledge[/indent]- so, anything conditioned is *not* the Knowledge
[indent]- it's not sight, sound, etc.
- it's not thoughts
- it's not feelings in and of themselves though love & compassion manifest spontaneously as a result of it[/indent]- when you know the Knowledge with all your being - when you *are* the Knowledge - then nobody can pin you down, be they humans or saints or gods or devils or demons. invisible to them all, residing nowhere
- even when you become the Knowledge in this lifetime, you will have to wait until you die & cast off the mortal body before being completely pure as this Knowledge[/indent]Does that sound about right?

Now what if all that can indeed be experienced, and you can be that Knowledge and Truth with utter conviction, but it's just a massive delusion? What if the actual utmost benefit of life lies not in an unconditioned Truth which has nothing to do with this universe, but rather, in the experiencing of this very universe itself - with all of its objects and people and shapes and sights and sounds and thoughts etc?

Because this Knowledge has been known for at least a few millennia now. Yet the human race is far from being 'saved'. And not for lack of trying. Is it the fault of almost every single person who has pursued the Knowledge for failing to be saved from it, and of every single teacher of it for failing to teach it? Or is there something wrong with the Knowledge itself?


No problem! I always enjoy being able to express myself fluently in writing. It helps to organize the thoughts, I find. A few questions:

1) About stream entry, from what I understand about the suttas, that seems to be a glimpse of the Deathless. I would equate the Deathless with what you call Truth or Knowledge. Have you had a glimpse of it yet?

2) How are you sure that mind affects matter at the quantum level? Do you have any falsifiable test - a test that can be answered with "no" - that you do to see whether this is true? For example, from what I understand, if you have a higher frequency then good things should be more likely to happen to you. Let's say for a week you have a very high frequency of being, and for that week good things do happen to you. You can then take this as a "yes". But what if for that week bad things happened to you? Then you could explain it as a test, and if you keep at it then good things will happen. Likewise if you have a bad frequency for a week, and bad things happen, then you take the bad things as a result of the bad frequency. Yet if you have a bad frequency and good things happen, you can take it as Creation throwing you a bone to help you out.

The net result is that whatever happens, you believe more and more in this supposed mechanism. Yet there is nothing that could possibly happen to disprove it. So what if what happens is more or less the same as what would happen anyway, regardless of your frequency of being? Then you are just deluding yourself.

One way I can definitely see your frequency of being affecting the world is in how it affects the people you interact with. Sensitive people react to another person's state of being. But that's a much more limited scope than it affecting the entire universe.

3) About the testing: Why does Creation test us like this? It all sounds rather perverse, doesn't it...? Why does it matter to Creation whether you've learned these principles? Or, put differently: why would Creation create a human - thus it should know everything about that human as Creation created the human as a manifestation of Itself - and then test the human to see whether it knows about itself? It seems somewhat pointless.

Cheers sir,
- Claudiu

Yes it sounds about right except for the part where you said "you will have to wait until you die & cast off the mortal body before being completely pure as this Knowledge". That statement may very well be true but I do not have any way of knowing for sure if it is true, it sounds like an assumption which is based on data that I don't yet have access to. If the hermetic wisdom which states 'As above, so below' pertains to the human body as a microcosm of the universe, and if the universe is the body, or garment of God, then perhaps the Creator can manifest in it's purest form via a human body as many christians seem to think was the case with Jesus Christ. To me I consider that to be an unknowable so my practice is to 'not cling to views' with regard to this subject, and instead just focus on the non-doing of any evil, the performance of what is skillful, and the cleansing of my own mind. Then if the time ever comes when I need to know the answers to the questions about the ineffable nature of pure Knowledge then hopefully I will find a way to discern such an answer. For now I consider it to be something that is besides the point and perhaps a 'view of self'. The view of self as "not pure enough for ultimate knowledge while alive" is still a view of self isn't it ?

If you were to ask me to speculate about that point my best guess would be that pure Knowledge is intelligent and decides for itself the conditions under which it will manifest. I don't think that an individual attains to pure Knowledge but an individual instead does his or her best and then the Knowledge decides for itself what is to occur. As the science fiction author and gnostic visionary Phillip K Dick put it "One by one he draws us out of the world". In other words I suspect that the individual can attain to lasting peace on his own, but does not achieve unity with the Divine, with Pure Knowledge by his own volition. I think only the volition of the Creator can make such decisions and I suspect it is a fallacy and arrogant to speculate about there being some limitation which the Infinite Creator must adhere to. I do not believe in any such limitation I believe that the Infinite Creator is truly that.

In the model of reality that I find most compelling there is no moment when the universe arose, nor will there ever be a moment when it ceases to be. Emanation and mirroring are the dynamic principles that operate throughout the cosmos and within the human psyche. The Eternal Ground is immutable but the Universe is inherently unstable, perpetually in flux, its contents ever changing, morphing, cycling. Life is a mystery of ceaseless, seamless becoming, a living dream that constantly shifts from one scene to another, every event pivoting on the timeless moment, Now.

What changes in the Universe is not the power source, but the conditions for the manifestation of that mysterious sourcing power. “Eternity is in love with the productions of time,” said the mystic poet William Blake. Every moment holds the exciting possibility that a singularity will emerge from the depths of the Eternal Now. Novelty will appear and ripple through the manifest worlds.

The Universe arises as a material apparition from a hidden power source, a foundation awareness that never discloses itself directly: the Originator, the Creator. In Dzogchen the foundation awareness is called rigpa, in Hindu Tantra, parasamvit, in the Gnostic materials, pronoia. Tantric metaphysical teachings tell us that the innate inclination of the sourcing power is to veil itself so that it can appear as other than what it is. Its self-veiling power is called maya. Wrongly considered to mean illusion, maya is in reality the power by which the foundation awareness, which stands beyond time, space, and matter, assumes manifold appearances and acts in time and space, assuming material form. Paradoxically, it hides in order to be revealed. It is this maya that I think is holographic and fractal in nature, not the foundation awareness itself, not the Creator.





Well that's an interesting question and there is more than one way that I could answer it. First I'll answer from a buddhist perspective because it is the teaching that resonates with me the strongest, but then to spice things up a little bit I will give an answer from a Gnostic Christian perspective as revealed by a modern gnostic visionary. First the buddhist perspective:


The Enlightened One explains:


I could of course quote myriad verses from the Pali cannon where the Buddha points out the unsatisfactoriness of experience within this material universe, but I'm sure you are already familiar.


Now for the perspective of gnostic dualism:



So there you go. To interpret the above I view Christ/Logos as an impersonal principle, an aspect of the threefold nature of the Infinite Creator. To briefly touch on the Trinity I will quote a particular christian mystic who's work I greatly respect and who's work I have linked to in another thread:


Anyways to me it's clear that the Infinite Creator (Absolute Beingness) created the universe including the deranged sub-creator (demiurge) for a reason. I am very much inclined to think that this reason has something to do with compassion. Perhaps a 'fallen realm' was allowed to exist so that beings could experience a particular kind of free-will environment where they could learn certain lessons that they could not learn in any other way. Perhaps the creator decided to let the demiurge have as much latitude as it apparently has for an important reason. I do not harbor ill will towards the demiurge nor towards those who are on the path of evolution which leads them to worship the demiurge, for they are merely playing the game according to the rules that the Infinite Creator put in place learning their lessons. I personally think that allegiance to the demiurge is not the 'straight and narrow' path, it is not the shortest path to lasting happiness so therefor I do not choose that path.
It is not in my nature to speculate about what was in the mind of God when this creation was formed, but it is in my nature to do my best to learn my lessons so that I can move on. It is also in my nature to announce my openness, making an earnest request for help from higher positive sources in completing this task. I try not to ask for help for everything, as the saying goes "God helps those who help themselves", and "ask and ye shall receive". I believe that Reality must be met halfway, and requests are granted if one has first done everything one can do. This is one of the reasons why I'm writing this now, to do everything I can do to help all beings return to that 'better realm'. I formalize and energize this request thusly:

From the point of Light within the Mind of God
Let light stream forth into the minds of men.
Let Light descend on Earth.

From the point of Love within the Heart of God
Let love stream forth into the hearts of men.

From the centre where the Will of God is known
Let purpose guide the little wills of men -
The purpose which the Masters know and serve.

From the centre which we call the race of men
Let the Plan of Love and Light work out
And may it seal the door where evil dwells.

Let Light and Love and Power
restore the Plan on Earth.




I have had a glimpse of a realm that is much more pure than my every day reality but any attempt to classify it would be premature I believe after all it was only a fleeting glimpse.



I don't have proof of the assertion that 'raising my vibration' creates favorable circumstances however I have seen strong evidence of circumstances responding to mental and emotional changes via syncronicity. There was a period of time in my life when I was under attack from negative forces, dark magicians, and hyperdimensional predators of all shapes and sizes. These beings were able to manifest negative hurtful synchronicities in my life, or perhaps all they did was lure me into subconsciously generating those synchronicities for myself, but in either case the result was intensely bad. A negative being would make indirect reference to a particular type of painful circumstance and then a few minutes or hours later a very similar circumstance would manifest in my life. This kind of torture lead me to realize that these higher negative forces indeed had the power to effect the outer circumstances of my life and these effects were happening in ways that were obviously not physically set up by physical agents in the real world, they were instead manifesting as synchronicities. The attacks would come through people or situations which I know the negative forces had no direct control over. Therefor I was left to assume that they were able to skew my outer circumstances via their own inner process, via ritual, contemplation, kabbalistic path working, or whatever else they do over on the dark side in order to fuck with people.


At a certain point it got really bad and I was under such an intense attack that I was forced to deeply contemplate what was going on, it was at this point that I realized the truth of this mechanism of mind or Spirit effecting matter. I realized that these negative forces were just conscious beings the same as me, and that the source of their power was their own consciousness and that I too am in possession of consciousness, so therefor I can counter their magick and manifest for myself a set of outer circumstances that I find to be in closer alignment to who I really am, and so I did. I changed inwardly, I faced my fear, increased my awareness, raised my vibration, and broke free from their web of manipulation. I shifted my 'realm' to access a different part of the universal hologram. (see my thread Metta, Magick, and the fractal hologram)

This is not to say that I still don't come under attack from time to time; I do, but when I do I now know it's because of a lack of awareness and I'm able to see where that lack of awareness is coming from and do something about it. Now the syncronicities still come all the time, but they are mostly very positive, and very much confirming what I already Know.

As Goethe wrote, the dark force “wills forever evil yet does forever good.” The self-serving path, despite giving the individual personal power, also puts him in unwitting subservience to higher powers. The highest power of all is the Creator, which those of the dark hierarchy unwittingly serve by providing the grand experiment with the passive force necessary for evolution. Actually I'm not sure if that force is necessary for evolution, I suspect it is not, but never the less it is a potent catalyst which can lead to evolution. They provide the darkness against which the light stands out. Lucifer is referred to as the “lightbringer” because through self-serving actions, manipulation, and infliction of pain, self-serving individuals unwittingly give others the opportunity to see the light. This is what happened in my case. I realized that if the negative beings can effect reality with their emotion/intent then so can I, and I doubt I would have been able to have made that leap of evolution as quickly without their attacks. I suspect this is the only reason why the Infinite Creator allows them to be so nasty.

On a deeper level what I learned is that consciousness is the dreamer (Creator), the dreamed (individualized consciousness), and the dreamscape (matter, space, energy, and time). There is no difference between reality and dreams except that reality involves mass consciousness holding the rules of reality rigid, whereas in dreams usually only the personal subconscious does so. Just as thought underlies objects in dreams, so does thought form the basis of matter in waking reality.

Upon incarnating into a physical body, we experience an occultation of awareness and forget who we are. Then social conditioning and biological impulses graft a false identity upon us that is in total discord with our true spiritual nature. Most people wear this false identity for life and fail to recognize and fulfill their true reasons for incarnating. But for others, intuition and experiences help them realize that there is more to life than the material world admits. Throughout life these individuals experience higher impulses guiding them toward becoming lucid in this dream, while simultaneously lower impulses beckon them toward sleep. For those who consistently listen to their higher impulses, inner and outer life transforms and begins to operate under divine instead of material laws, removing limitations of the latter and opening up new possibilities. This is the process of transcending the material world, using higher laws to override lower ones by developing and purifying one’s internal nature to resonate with higher realms of existence.

The road to transcendence is traveled via intuitive thinking, which may also be called nonlinear or nondeterministic thinking. Whereas deterministic thinking proceeds from the old to generate the new, meaning the new is just an extension of the old and therefore not new at all, intuitive thinking allows one to feel out the new and revise the old so that previous assumptions are overturned to become extensions of the new. Intuitive thinking is therefore the only way to reliably come up with anything truly new because it gives you newfound vision.

Intuition does what the intellect alone cannot: sense truths that do not follow directly from the old assumptions, old logic, or old programming. Truths accessed by intuition are therefore transjective. Intuition can point you to flaws in prior assumptions, help you notice new observations that were otherwise missed, and present new possibilities to contemplate.

Intuition comes from beyond. Whatever determines your current realm, your current body of assumptions and programming — intuition originates from beyond that. If you are a product of the past, intuition is a feedback flow from the future. If you are the lower self, intuition comes from the higher self. If you are operating from the five senses, intuition comes through the sixth. So it is an influence that comes from beyond, that beckons you beyond, versus influences that come from the lower self, the collective physical reality, and genetic programming that solicit you into rationalizing away the new for being unsupported by the old. Intuition is your internal compass magnetized to absolute truth, that if followed takes you through ever greater levels of objectivity and thus through ever more advanced realms of existence. It is the thread that leads you out from the maze of illusions, it is the heart of your soul, the voice of your spirit, and it only speaks as clearly as you have ears to hear and the mind to listen.

With intuitive thinking, intuition is the guiding hand of logic. Logic alone is incapable of determining the absolute value of anything because it deals in binaries and the relation between them: premise versus conclusion, subject versus object, congruent versus divergent, rational versus irrational, or cause versus effect. But what decides the premise? What determines the first cause? Who decides what is rational? What determines objective truth? Not the intellect; it only acknowledges and obeys them after they have already come into existence. Intellect takes what it is given and follows through with it. In the absence of intuition, it takes orders from group consensus or physical signals, hence the “nature versus nurture” debate, which is another binary fallacy that fails to include the transjective possibility of spiritual factors. Logic without intuition puts intellect in the business of reinforcing biases rather than uprooting them.

On the other hand, intuition without logic leads to vague impressions that never become accurate expressions or communicable understanding. The intellect is also necessary to avoid confusing intuition with emotionalism; the latter being subjective, its commands will have holes, self-contradictions, discoverable motives that are less than reasonable, and consequences that you can already foresee would be unpleasant. As mentioned, those who discard the intellect have no means to distinguish between the two. They get caught up in a self-made world of illusion that is wholly at odds with the objective reality they reside within.

Intuitive thinking is only possible through deep contemplation. Stitching together a patchwork of other people’s ideas is not sufficient to move forward in a revolutionary way. If you really want to figure things out, take time to contemplate deeply. This involves focusing inward to become ever more sensitive to your intuition, ever more capable of discerning between genuine intuition and subjective bias. It also involves cranking up your intellect to follow through with the suggestions intuition provides, to look for holes and inconsistencies, to unravel an intuitive “thought ball” into words clear enough for others to understand.

Good intuition and good thinking leads to good truth analysis. If an idea feels off, then find out exactly why it feels off. If an idea feels right, then find out exactly why. You are not finished until you clearly understand the intuitive impression, have logically dissected it, and can convey it accurately in words. Doing so is a divine act because it gives clear voice to spirit. It is really an internal communion, a nonverbal socratic dialogue between the lower self and the higher Self. You turn within, pose the question, feel out the possibilities, investigate the results, correct misunderstandings, apply them, test them, revise them, learn from them, ask and receive, feel out and figure out, realize and transcend.

After intuition results in an epiphany, everything you thought you knew realigns slightly so that the answer to a previously befuddling question becomes smack-your-forehead obvious. Intuitive thinking therefore leads to logically self-consistent results even if the intervening process momentarily abandons logic for intuition when encountering an impasse. Intuitive thinking can do everything that strict logical reasoning can, but unlike the latter it can also transcend itself. The condition is that you logically follow up on an intuitive impression, which may be nothing more than the most resonant and best-fitting guess, even if your current observations, experiences, and assumptions do not yet prove it directly. If your intuition is correct, then in following and testing it you will encounter new observations, new experiences, and revised assumptions that prove it. But this type of transjective confirmation must come after-the-fact. Since intuition comes from beyond, the proof of its validity is accessed by going beyond.

And that is the true scientific method, where a hypothesis is proposed first and then tested. Too many scientists and skeptics irrationally reject “far out” hypotheses before investigating them solely because these “wild assertions” are not yet supported by prevailing assumptions. They are afraid to take a single step without the certainty of group consensus and the absolute confirmation of all prior steps, and so they are barred from accessing higher levels of objectivity and instead rationalize away transjective influences. Intuitive thinking is more scientific than modern science because it does not allow the scientific method to be restrained by limitations irrationally imposed by old assumptions. It is the way of the gnostic intellectual rather than the agnostic rationalist. I believe that intuitive thinking is the true science of transcendence.



You've hit upon the exact thing. If you can understand how sensitive people reflect another person's state of being then all you need to do is realize how a being is related to the rest of existence. Quantum physics points out that it makes no sense whatsoever to talk about the universe as if it exists objectively, separate from us, or to talk about us existing independently of the seemingly outer universe. We and the universe are inseparable partners in a timeless embrace. We are collaboratively dreaming up the universe, while the universe is simultaneously dreaming us up. This interplay reciprocally co-arises in a non-linear, acausal and atemporal, synchronistic and cybernetic feedback loop. Buddhism calls this beginning-less process interdependent co-origination: every part of the universe evokes and is concurrently evoked by every other part in a seamless expression of undivided wholeness. This is to say that the idea of separation between ourselves and the universe is an illusion.



What is the Universe? What is samsara ? School or prison, depending on your chosen perspective. On the one hand, it is a hyperdimensional teaching system accelerating your rate of spiritual evolution by providing you with catalytic experiences in response to your thoughts, emotions, and spiritual composition. On the other hand, many of these experiences manifest as predatory forces preying upon your weaknesses. Of course, the only way to prevent being manipulated by these forces is to discover, integrate, and transform your weaknesses into strengths, thereby indirectly accomplishing the higher purpose of samsara which is to help you transcend it. Nevertheless, these hyperdimensional predatory forces possess freewill and have their own agenda, which is to expand their power base and sustain themselves by feeding upon humanity’s emotional energies as well as keeping anyone from becoming aware enough to add destabilizing influences to the spiritual prison/farm they are running here on earth. I view this universe as a school of hard knocks that weakens the spiritually weak and strengthens the spiritually strong, in accordance with their choice to be victims or warriors. The trials are the universe's way of giving you a choice, forcing you to choose whether you ultimately want to be a victim or a warrior. I think that all beings which exist at the very high levels of evolution are spiritual warriors and this universe is here to help us learn to choose to that path, to choose strength of mind.

That's precisely how I see it. I think that 'adhering to your highest known truth' vs 'giving in to illusion out of convenience' is the real mapping for faith vs sin in the Christian teachings. Armed with this view many of the christian teachings can be applied to support a Buddhist practice or any other wisdom oriented practice. Thank you for stating it so clearly.

a little Voice

It says many things,

but there is something that always gets to me.

"It's time to meditate"

And then the inevitable response
(or prelude, I don't know which)

"oh shit"

This is amazing you guys, you are having the most point counter point altruist rap battle I have ever seen

When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle. — Edmond Burke

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Zen master Hakuin was praised by his neighbors as one living a pure life.

A beautiful Japanese girl whose parents owned a food store lived near him. Suddenly, without any warning, her parents discovered she was with child.

This made her parents angry. She would not confess who the man was, but after much harassment at last named Hakuin.

In great anger the parents went to the master. "Is that so?" was all he would say.

After the child was born it was brought to Hakuin. By this time he had lost his reputation, which did not trouble him, but he took very good care of the child. He obtained milk from the neighbors and everything else the little one needed.

A year later the girl-mother could stand it no longer. She told her parents the truth — that the real father of the child was a young man who worked in the fishmarket.

The mother and father of the girl at once went to Hakuin to ask his forgiveness, to apologize at length, and to get the child back again.

Hakuin was willing. In yielding the child, all he said was, "Is that so?"

Sn 1.3 PTS: Sn 35-75
Khaggavisana Sutta: A Rhinoceros

As a deer in the wilds,
unfettered,
goes for forage wherever it wants:
the wise person, valuing freedom,
wanders alone
like a rhinoceros.

Without resistance in all four directions,
content with whatever you get,
enduring troubles with no dismay,
wander alone
like a rhinoceros.

Cold & heat, hunger & thirst,
wind & sun, horseflies & snakes:
enduring all these, without exception,
wander alone
like a rhinoceros.

As a great white elephant,
with massive shoulders,
renouncing his herd,
lives in the wilds wherever he wants,
wander alone
like a rhinoceros.

At the right time consorting
with the release through good will,
compassion,
appreciation,
equanimity,
unobstructed by all the world,
any world,
wander alone
like a rhinoceros.

People follow & associate
for a motive.
Friends without a motive these days
are rare.
They're shrewd for their own ends, & impure.
Wander alone
like a rhinoceros.

With persistence aroused
for the highest goal's attainment,
with mind unsmeared, not lazy in action,
firm in effort, with steadfastness & strength arisen,
wander alone
like a rhinoceros.

surrender totally to what is the case

this alone is my saving grace

but how rarely i want to be saved

how will your supposed road to here be paved?

something else, anything else

but doesn't such seeking undo itself in the first instant?

how terrifying to travel with no map

a price i must pay however

as i saw all of this world the first time i saw a part, and its opposite

contention as their very definition

The Fool and the Universe, which houses him, exist and evolve contemporaneously. Before both is the beckoning precipice of oblivion into which they moment by moment step forth in faith. And step forth they must, for the strange fact is, that the pages of the great Book of Life turn in only one direction. Moreover, man is bound to read the Book of Life one chapter at a time. Each chapter is then read one page at a time, the page one line at a time, and the line one word at a time. We all read at a different pace, we all retain the “information” differently, and all experience what we have “read” in different ways. None of us know the end, only the place from which we have come, and to which we can never return. Once a page is turned it remains turned. There is no going back.

HS,

You post some long posts. Some of which appear to have parts written by you, some of which appear to be written by somebody else and copy and pasted from the internet. For example, large sections from here:

http://montalk.net/metaphys/138

If your real name is Tom/"Montalk", then I do apologise, but I presume this is not the case. Even if so, it would still be helpful to know where the original source can be found and that it wasn't written by you especially for this forum.

Excessive cutting and pasting into posts (even when acknowledged as such) can make some posts hard to read and disrupt threads. If you want to highlight other people's ideas when you think they are relevant, then one alternative could be to summarise why you think they are important, and add a link to them, and readers can decide if they want to look it up for themselves.

If I were Claudiu, for example, and making an effort to respond your posts with thought and consideration in my own words, then I would probably want to know that I was actually responding to the writings of Robert M Pirsig, Frank Herbert, Michael Tsarion etc...... So as a courtesy to other forum users I would suggest you make it clearer in future when you are using your own voice and when not.

I borrow from dozens of others too. Phillip K Dick is another big one, Robert Anton Wilson is another. I do try to quote them when I don't first heavily modify their stuff or when they're "normal" authors but I also try not to link into hard core fringe conspiracy websites on a dharma forum, because although I feel that some people here are ready for the metaphysics from these sources perhaps they are not ready to read about the more 'dark' material. Note I do have permission from some of these author(s) to use their work on forums without citing in some cases. Who cares if you find my post hard to read ? Notice that I started off with a tiny poem and I only increased the size of my posts as emu dragon did his/hers. Once she wrote a huge rant so did I.

Note my intention with all of these posts is just to get certain important information out there and when asked a question to answer to the best of my ability by using whatever means are available to me. This is not a book, I'm not claiming intellectual property rites on anything. The stuff that I state was personal experience really as my personal experience. I may take a paragraph or two from a book or website, modify a few phrases here and there, a few words here and there, and post it. I'm not modifying it in order to obscure the source but rather to adapt it to fit my own needs. If it's a direct quotation from a normal (non-conspiracy) author I do try to give credit as I've done with frank herbert, philip k dick, and others. I was intentionally trying to not cite montalk.net so as to perhaps preserve the sanity of unstable minds. I believe that there is a karmic cost associated with needlessly exposing people to potentially destabilizing information that they are not already asking about. In this case this forum was 'asking for" information about certain sensitive subjects (magick, the powers, intuition) and not others (aliens, conspiracy, etc) so I was trying to respect that with my hyperlinking and citations or lack thereof.

Ah interesting, I was wondering if any of the longer-form stuff was taken from anywhere. It all sounded as if it was the same voice though. It didn't make the posts hard to read, in any case.


I am a he. And aye, it was a smooth progression. I wrote a response to roughly the first half of your latest post but haven't had the inclination to put enough energy into making it all cohesive and coherent and to the point and finishing it up. Which is interesting because...


The intention of many of my posts was to figure out more about how HS thinks about certain topics. So it seems we're roughly on the same page, there.