- This topic has 9 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 18 years, 11 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
This is an interesting topic for this forum. See the description of the show’s interviews below.
I’ve been busy, so Barbara Walters missed interviewing me about the Taoist notion of heaven(s).
It would have enriched her show. The Daliai lama’s views on the show were closest to that of the alchemical Daoist, except for his unexplained faith based notion of a Buddha beyond Heaven.In the alchemical view, Heaven is Here and Now, but it requires deep cultivation practice to experience all of its dimensions while still in a physical body. So if you chase after Heaven elsewhere, you are missing the entry portal within you.
Later (form) Heaven, Early (formless form) Heaven, and Original/Primordial (formless formless) Heaven all co-exist in the same space, but are vibrating at different speeds/time rhythms. And allemerge from the Supreme Mystery that is and always will be unknowable. This embraces every possible experience, my view. All religionists, and near death experiences are simply reflecting their consciousness and SHAPING their experience of heaven. But many are unfortunately stuck with the outdated notion that you have to wait to die to get into Heaven.
What is yoiur notion of heaven?
Michael
HEAVEN — WHERE IS IT? HOW DO WE GET THERE?
BARBARA WALTERS EXPLORES THE MEANING OF HEAVEN AND AFTERLIFE
ABC News
December 20, 2005http://abcnews.go.com/International/Beliefs/story?id=1374010
Nearly nine out of 10 people in the United States say they believe in
heaven, according to a recent ABC News poll. But what exactly do people
think of when they think of an afterlife and what do they believe is
required to get there?Barbara Walters travels to India, Israel and throughout the United States,
interviewing religious leaders, scientists, believers and non-believers
alike to get a range of perspectives on heaven and the afterlife.From Valhalla to Nirvana
Every culture has wrestled with the question of an afterlife, and most have
come to a similar conclusion: The bad end up in Hell, the good go to Heaven.If you were a Viking who died in battle, fierce goddess warriors known as
the Valkyries would carry you to Viking Heaven, Valhalla, where you would
join an eternal feast. The Romans thought they became immortal and were
spirited off to Paradise on a fiery four-horse chariot.The early Christians and Jews believed that man was not pure enough to enter
the Kingdom of Heaven as flesh and blood. They believed all people were
transformed into spiritual beings, filling Heaven with angels.That belief has changed over the centuries, but angels still have an
important connection with heaven. In cities all over the world, angels can
be seen in watchful poses. “We believe that they are the ones who take care
of us. They are the messengers of God. They are the ones who are God’s very
special friends and his servants,” said Cardinal Theodore McCarrick,
archbishop of Washington, D.C., and chancellor of Catholic University.“I always think of heaven as being a place where we won’t have any troubles
anymore. Heaven is a place where there will be peace and tranquility,”
McCarrick said. As a Catholic, McCarrick believes heaven is more than a
spiritual place. Catholics, he explained, believe the body is resurrected.
“I’m looking forward to meeting my mom and dad and the rest of my family,”
he added.The Rev. Dr. Calvin Butts, pastor of New York’s famed Abyssinian Baptist
Church, tells Walters he has had many visions of heaven over the years. He
describes heaven as “no tears, no mourning, no suffering. It’s eternal joy
and happiness because you are at one with God.”Butts says he’s certain of heaven’s existence, but says it’s in an
indescribable dimension. “Heaven is in another dimension. So you don’t
necessarily have to look up but you can look out and see heaven. Heaven is a
fourth dimension if you will,” he tells Walters.Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, founder of the American Society for Muslim
Advancement, tells Walters he believes heaven is indeed a physical place,
but getting there depends on your behavior in this life. “The real life is
the next life and based upon how we live this life, it determines where we
shall be in the next. We are told we will be in comfortable homes, reclining
on silk couches so we’re given the delights of sex, the delights of wine,
the delights of food with all of their positive things without their
negative aspects.”The promise of heaven plays a central role in the life of Pastor Ted
Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, and his
congregation. As an evangelical, Haggard believes if you are not a born
again Christian, you have no assurance of going to heaven. But if you are
“born again” in the belief that Jesus Christ is your personal savior, you
are assured a place in Heaven. He also believes that this life is a sort of
weigh station on the way to an eternal home. “Jesus Christ guarantees
eternal life to anybody that’ll follow him. The purpose of life is to
glorify God and go to heaven ’cause heaven is our home.”Rabbi Neil Gillman, a professor of philosophy at New York’s Jewish
Theological Seminary, expressed Judaism’s perspective on the afterlife. “For
the past 2,000 years, most Jews believed that at death the body and the soul
separate, the body is interred and disintegrates in the Earth, the soul goes
off to be with God,” he tells Walters. But that’s not the end of the story.
“At the end of days, God will resurrect bodies, will reunite body and soul,
and the individual will come before God to account for his or her life,”
Gillman said.Walters also traveled to India where she met with the Dalai Lama, considered
by Buddhists to be the reincarnated Buddha. The Dalai Lama says that the
purpose of life is to be happy, and that you can accomplish that by
“warm-heartedness.” He tells Walters heaven “is [the] best place to further
develop the spiritual practice for Buddhist the final goal is not just to
reach there, but to become Buddha. [It’s] not the end.”As a Buddhist he believes in reincarnation and tells Walters that people can
have second lives as animals. “If someone do[es] very bad, badly kill or
steal [he] could be born in an animal body.” Walters also talks to actor
Richard Gere, a longtime follower of Buddhism. Gere tells Walters, “I don’t
think necessarily heaven and hell happen in some other life. I think it’s
right now.”The Skeptics and Non-Believers
Walters also speaks with scientists, who say they’re beginning to understand
why so many people believe in heaven. Still, they have yet to come up with
the proof that it exists.For most people, proof of Heaven’s existence is not necessary. Faith is all
they need. Dr. Dean Hamer, a geneticist at the National Institutes of
Health, thinks he has figured out why this faith comes easily to some, but
eludes others. “Whether a person is spiritual or not is not necessarily a
matter of their will. It may be something innate about their personality,”
Hamer tells Walters.Hamer suspects spirituality might be a personality trait encoded in our
genes. He began his research by asking more than 1,000 people to answer a
series of questions about faith and spirituality. He then tested DNA from
the study participants and found that those who scored highest on his survey
had a mutation of at least one gene that seemed to affect their level of
spirituality. He named it “the God gene.”“It’s a gene that’s called VMAT2 and we can isolate it, and we can study it
in detail. This particular gene controls certain chemicals in the brain.
And those chemicals affect how consciousness works. They affect the way that
our feelings react to the events around us,” he tells Walters.Hamer also notes that researchers have been able to detect changes in the
brain when people are in the midst of intense prayer or meditation.Dr. Andrew Newberg, a neuroradiologist at the University of Pennsylvania, is
one of those researchers. Newberg says his research shows a marked increase
in brain activity in the frontal regions of the brain. “At the same time,”
he adds, “the parts of the brain that monitor our sense of time and space
became less active.”Newberg says this contributes to an individual’s feeling of “losing that
sense of self.” The feeling, he said, is “attributed to God, for example.
And then they feel that God is providing them that energy, that feeling.”But for Ellen Johnson, president of the American Atheists, science or no
science, heaven is a myth.“Heaven doesn’t exist, hell doesn’t exist. We weren’t alive before we were
born and we’re not going to exist after we die. I’m not happy about the fact
that that’s the end of life, but I can accept that and make my life more
fulfilling now, because this is the only chance I have,” she tells Walters.‘Death Trips’ to Heaven
Walters also talks with people who feel certain of heaven’s existence, apart
from their faith, because they believe they’ve had a glimpse of it in
near-death experiences.A U.S. News & World Report from the late 1990s says as many as 18 million
Americans believe they have had near-death experiences that gave them a
glimpse of the afterlife.Dianne Morrissey tells Walters she felt the “white light of God” when she
was electrocuted. “My near-death experience changed everything about me.
There is not a single experience on Earth that could ever be as good as
being dead,” she said.British psychologist Susan Blackmore has spent decades searching for a
scientific explanation: “When the oxygen levels fall in the brain you get
massive over-activity in the brain. I think there is a true
transformation, but not because you’ve been to heaven.”Family, Children and Heaven
Walters talks with California’s first lady, Maria Shriver, whose early
experiences with loss as a member of the Kennedy family prompted her to
write a book about heaven for children. “I had, growing up, a lot of
questions about these deaths that occurred in my family with no person to
really talk to them about it,” she tells Walters.“My daughter, who was about 6 or 7 at the time, started asking me a lot of
the same questions that I had had as a child, really basic questions: ‘Why
do you put somebody in a coffin? Where does she go now? Is she scared in the
box? Can she breathe in the box?’ And what was interesting, Barbara, was
that she started answering the questions for herself. So I started writing
down her answers,” she said.Walters also talks with Mitch Albom, author of “The Five People You Meet in
Heaven,” to get his personal take on the afterlife.Albom tells Walters, “There’s one thing I would say about heaven. If you
believe that there’s a heaven, your life here on Earth here is different.
You may believe that you’re gonna see your loved ones again. So the grief
that you had after they’re gone isn’t as strong. You may believe that you’ll
have to answer for your actions. So the way you behave here on Earth is
changed. So in a certain way, just believing in the idea of heaven is
heavenly in and of itself,” he said.————
SEARCHING FOR HEAVEN
A PREVIEW OF BARBARA WALTERS’ SPECIAL REPORT:
‘HEAVEN. WHERE IS IT? HOW DO WE GET THERE?’
ABC News
December 16, 2005http://abcnews.go.com/2020/print?id=1411270
On Dec. 11, 2002, 42-year-old Deb Foster checked into Scripps Memorial
Hospital in San Diego to give birth. Her doctors performed a successful
Caesarean section, delivering her second child — a healthy baby girl named
Bryce. Her family was thrilled, especially her husband, Andy, and their
112-year-old son, Christopher. Within hours, however, Foster was fighting for
her life.“It was as if my breath was knocked out of me, and I couldn’t breathe. I
said: ‘I’m dying. I’m dying. Help me,'” Foster recalled.She had suffered an amniotic fluid embolism — a life-threatening condition.
“It [the embolism] went in through my heart into my lungs and shut
everything down. I was flat-lined. There wasn’t a pulse. I was dead,” Foster
said. The doctors later confirmed that Foster was clinically dead for about
four minutes. As they struggled to bring her back to life, she says she took
an unforgettable journey.“I immediately went to a different place. I was on a staircase, and the
staircase went as high up into the sky as you can imagine and the sky was
the most incredible color of blue that does not exist in this life. It’s not
on any color palette. I’ve tried to find it after this experience. It
doesn’t exist.”Foster said she had company during her journey. “There were dogs and cats
going up and down the staircase, and they were very gleeful. And you could
just tell they were so intensely happy. … I was in this place of
incredible peace. There wasn’t any pain. It was serene. It was the perfect
moment,” she said.Foster believes she saw a glimpse of heaven.
British psychologist Dr. Susan Blackmore spent decades searching for a
scientific explanation for the near-death experience. She developed a theory
that these experiences can be explained as the product of a dying brain. “We
know that when the oxygen levels fall in the brain, the inhibitory systems
start to fail first and you get massive overactivity in the brain. It’s kind
of going wild in there. I think there is a true transformation but not
because you’ve been to heaven,” she said.Many scientists and doctors believe that the near-death experience is simply
the function of a dying brain, but Foster — and thousands of others who
have had similar experiences — believe otherwise.“I know what I experienced, and no scientist can deny the near-death
experience. There is no proof that it doesn’t exist. It exists, and I was
there,” she said.Looking for Answers to a Universal Question
What’s behind these visions of an afterlife, the human craving for eternity,
the sense that another world awaits us when we die? Is it innate? Is it
something we learn?Walters talks with both scientists and religious leaders to examine the
question.Dean Hamer, a geneticist at the National Institutes of Health, tells Walters
he thinks he has figured out why faith comes easily to some, but eludes
others. His research suggests that some people may have a genetic
predisposition toward faith. “This particular gene controls certain
chemicals in the brain. And those chemicals affect how consciousness works.
They affect the way that our feelings react to the events around us,” he
said.Walters also traveled to the Himalayas in northern India and spoke with
Buddhism’s most esteemed believer, his holiness, the Dalai Lama, who does
not believe in God but does believe in a form of heaven.In spite of the continuing inhumanity, war, suffering and disease that still
plague the Earth, the Dalai Lama said he believed the world today was closer
to heaven than to hell.Walters also met with Palestinian terrorists at a high-security prison in
Israel to ask about their concept of heaven that underlies their willingness
to kill others in order to martyr themselves.When asked whether he wanted non-Muslims to go to hell, Jihad Jarrar, one of
the terrorists, responded: “No, it’s not what I want. It’s what God wants.
It’s not what I want. You should follow Mohammed.”And those who don’t, “will go to hell, of course,” he added.
Prominent Christian leaders explained their own perceptions of heaven.
The Rev. Dr. Calvin Butts, pastor of New York’s famed Abyssinian Baptist
Church in Harlem, N.Y., told Walters he too had seen heaven. He described
heaven as “eternal joy and happiness because you are at one with God” — and
a place where he’ll have his hair back.But who will be allowed to enter heaven is a matter of debate for religious
leaders of different faiths. Pastor Ted Haggard believes only those who
accept Jesus Christ as their personal savior will enter heaven. Those who
don’t will go to hell, Haggard believes. “I don’t want to communicate a bad
attitude or anything like that. But the issue is this is a guarantee for
eternal life,” he told Walters.In addition to these religious figures, Walters talks with ordinary people
about their beliefs and how those beliefs make a difference in their daily
lives.Interesting. Thanks for posting Michael!
A very excellent book on how we are wired for God is by Andrew Newberg (who is mentioned above) titled “Why God Won’t Go Away”.
Also, there was a decent show on the the History Channel recently titled “A History of God” the description eluded to something about how God has manifested “himself” to humans over the millenia…
I taped it and am only a bit into it but found it interesting as a Rabbi explained, the original meaning of Holy was… “I think the first and deepest meaning is other. And you can associate a number of other words for that; dreadful, terrible (in the old sense), not terrible in yuck, but terrible in “AHHHHH”, awful as in full of awe, dread, and think of a feeling that you had when you thought there was a ghost around at your camp, and the hairs stood up on the back of your neck. That times a million!” Then the narrator says… “Isaah’s experience with the “other” was so terrifying that he feared for his life”.Matt
Matthew,
I had noticed this jewish definition of God when reading Steinsatz’s “Thirteen Petalled Rose” ,
an excellent explication of the Qaballah by a torah scholar (vs. the new age or christian qabalists popular today).It’s true, humans really fear the impersonal, anything that is not human. Its partly why people are often afraid of insects, aliens, or simiply can’t stand to be alone without other humans.
but my thought about the jewish definition of god as other is that it creates a split between God and humans. It implies that God and the Holy are better than humans, that humans cannot be God and Holy. I think it may be the reason why Jews suffer from a perpetual sense of guilt.
I believe one of the virtues of the inner alchemical process is that it gives humans a way to gradually bridge the gap between the personal and the impersonal.
michael
Kenneth Cohen describes the divine not as impersonal but transpersonal, not excluding the impersonal and the personal but inlcuding them and yet going beyond them. Immanent and transendant, the Tao.
The anglo-saxon word “holy” is connected with “whole” and “heal” and “health” which would imply connectedness.I don`t think us humans “invented” personality and then projected it onto nature, that has always seemed to be an overly complicated way of seeing things and nature doesn`t work like that. Our personalities have not appeared from nowhere. Apes have personas, dogs have personas, plants, viruses, quantum particles have personas however brief or primordial.
Nature itself takes on personality. This is how gods come into being through interaction (symbiosis not parasitism) with mankind, we shape each other. We ourselves are personifications of nature in this light.
Maybe the gods are the jingshen of the wu chi. This would explain why they often misbehave or seem frightening to humans. Of course someone who has connected to the source can connect to their source, one and the same, the original spirit. They would then change their attitude to the human and be seen in a different light.I think this is behind the story of Job. Its not about taking shit from above, things get better for Job when he has the courage to stand up to Yahweh (or the demiurge in the gnostic view) and ask whats going on, he doesn`t go all the way and backs down in the end, but this book is the most shamanistic in the bible.
I think humans and gods and other spirits are equally capable of returning to source in their own way but also deviating from it. Ultimately fear is an alchemical deviation from divine love and can return to it at any time.
Dylan
Hmmm interesting and very nicely put. Agree with that. Deviation can happen any time. I liken it to the forging of a sword. The metal is pounded over and over again over time and fire and prayer …. the end work is beautiful. However even in its beauty, an error in its wielding can break the blade.
Heaven …. my impression. Well, my little brain cannot see much, my spirit describes it as indescribable. So I would take that as heaven. To put it into philosophical terms, re bible and quotes, well I am not so into that however the material given so far is magnificent. I think that in trying to describe heaven it would be most wise to leave that to my creator … the inner self. So much of what we think we need and what we really need doesn’t line up. And unless you are one heck of a chess player one cannot see the plays till finality or hindsight. Sometimes anyways, as one progresses one would like to believe they could and a person can foresee the future …. but why do things happen and for what reason? Well, I was told never to ask why. That will drive you crazy. And sometimes that little hint of mystery is what gives the spark to this life. Makes one come back to self, to regroup. That is an interesting process.
Trouble is some of us are so stubborn (me!) so we spend a lot of time asking why, why, why. Until finally exhausted we retreat to self and go …. okay. I get it. Just trust in it. Heart shows way.Until one truly aligns I think that what heaven means cannot be truly understood, or even read. We can read about it, and even though it may be truth, I think that we truly cannot understand it till we are in full mind, body, spirit alignment. And I have a suspiciion that even in that alignment or what some call enlightenment we will receive a huge surprise that the universe has mysteries that we will never understand. Never will. At that time I think that we can only smile. That is quite the universe joke. So much seeking, so much work on self. Ahhh, such beauty in written words and work in trying to “get it”. And then bingoooo…..gotcha. There are more mysteries than you ever dreamed of.
I’d bet a million bucks on that one. And it is in letting our human nature of having to understand everything that gets in our way that is the downfall of mankind, in both past civilations and now in this world. It is nature. Beautifully unexplainable. Did you see the Emperor Penguins in the March of the Penguins. Amazingly incredible beings. Like the Guardians of life. They do not question what they do … they just do. And they survive. A deviation from that is death. So to me, humankind is meant to align with the universe and its laws. When we deviate from that it is “death”. Some of us get so concerned about being in control of everything and understanding “why” that we miss the beauty of this life. But then again there is so much beauty in the words written in trying to understand. How can that even be wrong? That would be shorting our capabilities and abilities.I do know though that manipulation and deviation of and from universal laws and integrity will have its payback. No matter what level of master you are or saint …. if you deviate …. it is the error in the wielding of the blade and it will fail.
And I guess maybe that is heaven …. when we quit trying to deviate.
In our human mind we make up this image of control that we must escape from, we are prisoners!. Ah, but how many times have we had something we just hated to do and we felt it had to be so hard, and such a crappy thing to do….. but we went ahead and did it anyways,… and geez, it felt so good after we did it and it wasn’t half bad and it didn’t take us even half as long as what we thought it would. And usually we come to a different point of view because of it. These are gifts given to us that even we could not conceive at the beginning of the event. And they are given in ways we could not even imagine. This is heaven. It is not control, the universal laws are not what we consider in our understanding as “rules” …. they are gifts. We just have to learn to accept them. Universal laws are our gifts. We just gave them the wrong name.
Happy New Year
Michael and others,
I agree that the alchemy is a gradual approach to what we are and can be what one needs for liberation. I have also found descriptions of these experiences after I have had them in literature of various traditions and realize that they all point to various aspects of the same universal Heaven / God. Eventual a traditions context can be (but doesn’t have to be) dropped as ones direct communication with the lifeforce expands.
I have come across similar (I feel related) descriptions of God in this “other” aspect in a few other places as well:
1) Bhagavad Gita – when Arjuna is shown Gods form and it is “terrible”
2) Mayans – Speak of the terrible beauty and of the lightening bolt.
3) Castenaeda – when “stopping the world” and stalking allies
It is not to say that these experiences are not naturally intigrated into self and that they are seperate. I also do not see these experiences as deviation as everything and beyond is “there”.
In my personal experience, One Clouds inner alchemy formulas have gradually helped me to deepen my relationship with the lifeforce. That is not to say that it isn’t still personally extremely challenging at times and that there are not more sudden shifts (lightening bolt type experiences). While these Taoist formulas have been helpful to me, I have met many other people with similar experiences who practice other traditions or not much at all.
When these experiences occur there is no doubt, yet afterwords, we seek to comprehend them in some way and then evenetually release it is not that important to find intellectual meaning. I guess, for me, I still love to hear about what others directly experience (whether they lived 2,000 years ago or are living today) and find I am more times than not, totally amazed by the universiality of it.
Regards,
Matt
The alchemical tradition has historiclly been secretive – one would never describe one’s experience to others (except one’s teacher) because it might wrongly influence the unfolding of their own particular essence.
This is another way of sasying that the experience of the Holy is unique to each individual; we personalize the universal as humans. That is our contribution to the collective.
I prefer the more modern path of risking confusion in exchange for sharing inspiration that arises from hearing other’s experience of their “Holy”. And, as I have said before on this forum, even though many different spiritual paths cross cross each other with seemingly similar experiences, due to the different processes and the uniqiue individuals involved I don’t believe all paths lead to the same experience.
You can only experience the Holy Source through your own unique essence. That is the gift you bring back to the Source. Not diminishing the personal, but digesting its essence.
Is the transpersonal beyond the personal and the impersonal? Interesting question raised by Dylan.
But the words don’t quite ring true conceptually. Transpersonal describes intersubjectivity between persons. The Im-person is not a person. so I think transpersonal is more about collective consciousness of beings. It may fortify or even be the prerequisite for understanding the impersonal, which takes you into the mystery of the wuji. Transpersonal is not beyond the wuji; nothing is, by definition.New Years in the west is not a natural/impersonal event – its a transpersonal event, a collective agreement to celebrate a human cycle.
more words to chew on, and spit out.
chi-ers,
michaelI agree with sharing ones journey. Sometimes as individuals we struggle so hard and in opening up during my teacher’s training I had no direct guidance other than hours of “reality is important!!” lectures. Anything I said about my experiences were just shoved away and ignored. I thought I was strange, I got thoroughly confused with no direction. It has taken me 5 years of sorting and prying and reading and finding others to help me that I can finally understand a little of what happened. We are all in this journey together and I think it should be shared. Each of our journeys will be personal anyways due to our DNA. Manipulation and ignorance by and of teachers to their students when the teachers are aware of spiritual development in their student is more harmful than honest sharing. The secretiveness and mysticism causes fear and doubt for the student and of course gives power to the teacher over the student. Even if this is not done intentionally I can see this happening lots in the western world. And as the easterners realize our innocence on spirituality I think there are a lot of us westerners being taken for granted and mega $$. I would have give gold to have someone sit down with me and say directly, you know … you are experiencing opening and quickening. Just relax. And these things may help, these exercises. Try them, if not, let me know and we may be able to find others to suit your development. If you feel an urge to try something it may be your inner self guiding you towards helping yourself. That is okay. Depending of course. Maybe just check with your heart and if you are not sure, well we can do some clearing of issues to help you gain clarity in that area.
What is so hard with that. For teachers of arts that open their students spiritually. Why could this not be part of it all. Isn’t it supposed to be? Maybe for just the Chinese and insiders? Let all the rest of us suffer and struggle and sometimes spend years in deviation.
Secretive spirituality growth? Reminds me of the years when they sent women who were menstruating outside of the camps to bleed so that their uncleanliness would not be caught by the others. How women who were menstruating were kept away from the cows at the time of menstruation as they were believed to turn the milk sour.
Like …. Hello!!
Or how about the times when they actually tore humans apart by horses for even a slight hint of psychic being or gifted healing. I would like to think that Spiritually is coming out of the dark ages and way beyond that. And I guess that is another thing that makes me angry. How can they hide spirituality like it is a “dirty thing”. It is beautiful and meant to be seen and shared by all. One day there will be many, many religions of spirituality that openly share with each other. One day they will realize (they already are actually) that the essence is the same, just that the flavour is different.Sharing is important. Giving is important. Love is important.
Hiding causes fear, doubt, greed, manipulation, darkness. It is a whole negative energy thing. Like Helllloooooo! Spirituality should not ever be swathed in that. That is not what the Buddha, Jesus and all of the other holy warriors wanted. It is only those with greed and powerlust that seek to hide things. For their own gain usually. Of fame, of $$$.
It is their own weakness inthemselves that cause them to feel that they need to have something over others. That is a weakness in their human psyche. It is not tradition. It is unclear development. Unclear udnerstanding. Deviation. Not truth.Oh and some will say what if the darkside gets ahold of all of this. Well sweet things, they already have. And they have been using it to their glee for years and years. And one of the major ways they use this “information” is to cause fear and doubt and greed. How do they do that. Well causing people to think that spirituallity is a four letter word and should be hid behind closed doors is one way. A major way actually.
I was at a Buddhist Temple not long ago, listening to a nun. There was a small “select” group of us she was talking to along with a gentleman who was highly knowledgeable in Buddhist ways and energy. Well, we were told not to talk to any of the ordinary congregation about our “visions” or energetic/spiritual development as some of these people in the congregation had spent 20 years in Buddhist rituals and hadn’t reached even a fifth of the level that we were at. They said that if they knew it would cause jealousy and that would not be a good thing. EXCUSE ME!!
How about maybe opening up the world of these people who were stuck. It reminded me of cattle who kept coming to the feeding trough at 5 a.m. and 5 p.m. every day because they had no idea what else to do. It is just what they do. Well, spiritually these people in the congregation need a little uplifting and by God, they should all be where we are if not beyond if someone quit trying to control them into their line of thinking and let their spirit develop itself. My God. It is such a shame. Needless to say I could not go back. It breaks my heart to think of it.And the man who knew so much of Buddhism. He collected an army of deities to protect himself. He had legions of energetic deities of all sorts and he was so proud to have them. I just thought, what a fearful man. His house was full of crystals and statues and energetic persuasive and collective materials. It was amazing. His collection was massive, it must be tens of thousands of $$ worth of collectables. It was all to protect himself. I could not go to Buddhism for that reason. For some it may have been a good way to go but for me, just a couple of huge angels, an older Chinese gentleman and a European woman healer is all of the protection I need. I mean in energetic guidance they are there to help me understand more. Not so much to protect. Although they definately do help so much and I am eternally grateful for that. But the darkness of some of the deities and the need for this fella to have that protection was to my understanding a weakness in his psyche that he was not willing to face and work with. I mean, don’t get me wrong I would shake the hands of all of those deities but I think they have other things to do and other places to be and that is where they should go. Unless they are helping to open and guide to our destiny they should not be held or invoked. Anyways, that is a whole other discussio I guess. But that was not for me.
Too bad really because it had amazing information and I do love the core of the Buddhism. That part is in my heart with Christianity.
Well, time to go.
Have a Happy New Year!
I hope to share more this year and to love more. I pray that the universe helps me to do that. This year was very hard for me but very rewarding in the work I did inside. What the universe helped me do inside. It has not been easy at all. But I would not change a thing.
Spiritual adjustment is difficult when one is stubborn. I believe at some point I was truly a mule and/or jackass. Not much difference there is there.Rainbows
KarenI like this, because it is so wide open, philosophically sound, and honouring the uniqueness of individual path.
New Year’s for me involved some primal dancing to live music at a house party. Some kind of tapping in to the medicine of rhythm and sex and something unsaid that moves that, led to a kind of shaministic exhaltation, an overcoming of boundaries–but for me there needed to be a decision to embrace that, which led to a special spontaneous occasion, which is not new–a kind of conscious trusting in a deeper mind.
I feel what I just tried to articulate is part of what has been secretive, has remained unsaid, as was being discussed here by you and commented on by Rainbow Bear. And I feel the hesitancy to voice it… to cheapen a sacred access. But such experience is so lacking that I agree that we need to be very forthright, to support each other, to affirm the truer ways over current madness.Simon
I never did understand why adepts were not encouraged to share their experiences. I always thought it had to do with influencing what another might experience versus one coming to their own experiences / understanding.
I too find sharing inspirational and beneficial. However, as Simon eluded to, I am myself a bit hesitant to share experiences unless the situtation feels right.
I read somewhere that one can find understanding or validation of their experiences by reading what others have written about it in the past. I have also noticed that in general that we tend to miss stuff that we aren’t ready for and when we are ready it all of a sudden seems to appear.
I read an article Michael wrote and it mentioned the culminating experience with fusion. I read it after I had experienced it and was like wow, that is so amazing. On the otherhand, I had read the HT description of other formulas many times before I experienced it. But the experience was still the experience which was really beyond any description. So, I am rationalizing being more publicly open with experiences than I am already 🙂
I have stepped back for a few days, I still see the commonalities of direct experience of Source. That is not to say that all paths don’t lead to the same place. I guess that is just part of the way I see the world.
Just more words 🙂 Happy U.S. New Year!
Matt
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.