Plans for a religion

Those who want the seperation of Catalonia from Spain want to weaken Spain and to let come a conflict or even a war (civil war). History repeats somehow.

Also, this current case of Catalonia reminds me of the case of Ukraine.

Neither the Ukrainians and Russians nor the Catalans and the other Spanirads are those who want this conflicts and wars. They actually have no say. But others, who have the say, have interests in those conflicts and wars.

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I think so. :slight_smile:

June 26, 2000, I walked out of Lourdes France … in a Westerly direction … no agenda, no time table, a fuzzy destination(Fatima) and carrying my home on my back.(all my worldly possessions were in my back pack) I was compelled to walk across Spain to get there. :slight_smile:

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Gib … interesting choice of words … the word “thread”. Many threads are required to make a morsel of cloth. Had you used the word “OP” my response would be a simple … not worth a shit! :slight_smile:

Since you opened the door … intentionally or otherwise … I’m happy to declare that my Fatima thread when considered in conjunction with all other threads I initiated or participated in during the same time period is really quite exciting … for me at least.

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I consecrated my life to Our Lady of Fatima … the Virgin Mary … more than 20 years ago. I continue to respect my pledge … real or delusion … the Fatima thread echoes my dedication.

Some would say I’m in pretty good company.Today is the Feast Day of St John Paul II who also consecrated his life to the Virgin Mary as a young adult. Some people refer to him as the Philosopher Pope and his motto was … Totus Tuus (Totally yours)

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IMHO … individually Western and Eastern religions have merit. Perhaps their’s potential for synergy if the two ever synthesize into one religion. In a million years maybe. :slight_smile:

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The Gordian Knot? … a formula for sharing authority and wealth … where almost all people would be content … continues to elude humanity despite millennia of monumental philosophical, religious and scientific effort.

Sounds like enlightenment is the same as chronic depression.

Buddha was a fat makeup wearing tranny, I bet I am an enlightened mage of some sort also.

It does if you think Enlightenment (or being Awake) is a state of mind, but it’s not.
Enlightenment is what consciousness is BEFORE the dualistic mind creates any states.

That’s the point of a lot of my posts. I’m not trying to sell anything or convince anyone. I’m simply trying to clarify what the term ‘Enlightenment’ referred to before Buddhism was turned into a religion and new agers hijacked it and sold it as a perpetual orgasm of bliss and pink, fluffy clouds.

Being Awake is just being Awake. It is not an emotional, religious or ‘spiritual’ state of mind.

If we use a computer analogy, we could say that being Awake is analogous to being “On” while emotional/spiritual states are programs that run on top of that. Most seekers are looking for a program called “Enlightenment” and in doing so, their focus is wrong. It’s like the proverbial fish looking for water or the dude looking for his glasses while he’s wearing them.

The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me….” Meister Eckhart. Consciousness is that ‘eye’ (or is it “I”?) :-k

We need to reexamine what it is we’re really looking for: Enlightenment (liberation from the dream) or spiritual experiences inside the dream. One is not more ‘right’ than the other (and they can overlap a bit) but you do have to know what you’re seeking and what you’re experiencing.

That image is the sort of hijacking I’m talking about. In many ways, the Buddha was an ordinary dude who had a dramatic shift of consciousness. I doubt he always looked like he had just stepped out of a lovely hot bath and into freshly pressed clothes, make-up, perfumes and all the other paraphernalia. I’m sure he spent most of his life as a smelling, unkempt beggar but that doesn’t sell too well.

In this style of art, the artist imagines what Buddha’s inner world might look like then tries to represent that image by exaggerating Buddha’s exterior world. As lovey as it is, it’s just pretty visual poetry. It’s candy for the mind.

If the artist was to make a more accurate depiction of Buddha’s interior world he/she might do better to install a pane of clear glass. If the pane was positioned so that it reflected the world around the viewer, then that would be a better depiction of the Buddha’s transparent mind than the image above, but I digress…

(I’m going to be busy for a while so I may not be able to respond as quickly as I’d like. )
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Life could be so easy. But the greed destroys everything. If animals were smarter and capable of speaking, they would certainly say: “Humans are beings of greed”.

That’s the essence of it.

Arminius … certainly few people would disagree.

Let’s use your comment as a ‘baseline’ for further thought. A real world example … so many people attribute the meteoric rise of China to Deng Xiaoping … him being the person who opened the doors to China after these doors had been virtually closed to the outside world for almost 500 years.

Deng Xiaoping’s strategy hinged on two axioms:

  1. Cross the river by feeling the stones(with your feet) Find a stone … step on it … when convinced it’s safe have your other foot find the next stone … and in this way cross the river. ergo … exercise cautious adventurism.

  2. A little greed is OK … ergo … opening the door to greed only a crack will serve our purpose at the moment and we can easily close it again at the appropriate time.

His strategy seems to have worked … and China has recently reached the stage where they want to close the door to greed again. ergo … the highly publicized anti corruption campaign. The jury is still out on whether they will be successful or not.

For me, this real world example says the following:

  1. Greed in certain circumstances has merit.

  2. Greed does not die a natural death … greed must be killed … an enormous and perhaps impossible task.

Let’s change the scope of the example to the world … the human race. Pervasive greed throughout human history brought us to where we are today … not all bad. Has the time for greed to die come? I think so. Will greed die a natural death … simply from old age? :slight_smile: Not likely.

What can/should we do?

World revolution.
youtube.com/watch?v=POyePtj6GbQ

Okay I want to talk about a few things.

There is no way to “liberate” oneself from the dream. Simply stating it is a dream does not make it so.
Like, unless you can walk on hot coals for 5 minutes, and not feel any pain, then you are not liberated from the dream, because it is not a dream.

I am the same way actually. Sometimes I say to myself, what’s the point, DNA machine isn’t real, I will never pass as woman, and so I don’t bother to shave or shower. Whats the point unless you’re a beautiful woman, there is no point.

Im the same as buddha, I imagine myself as a beautiful woman.

Im also the same as buddha, sometimes I imagine myself as nothing and that i am nothing more than looking at my environment.

But Chakra, doesn’t that mean everyone is always enlightened? What does it mean when someone talks about becoming enlightened?

Yes, indeed. I totally agree. I would not use the word “greed” then. But you are right.

That is the question.

When I was talking about “greed”, I did not value that (I am very much an objectivist), but meant it as a fact. And it is just this fact why there is this “enormous and perhaps impossible task” that you mentioned obove.

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I didn’t know … guess that terminates this e-exchange … I am very much a subjectivist whatever that means. :slight_smile:

Why?

We all are subjective anyway (but that does of course not necessarily mean that we all are subjectivists). So when I say “I am an objectivist”, I just mean that the objective part of my inner subjective/objective dualism is above average (whatever that means :slight_smile: ).

From my experience objectivists and subjectivists often enough exchange mega volumes of words … sometimes even with mutual respect and courtesy … yet … in the end both communities remain stuck in a quagmire of words.

I’d rather not wait for the facts to manifest before contemplating solutions to the greed issue we discussed. :slight_smile:

Maybe I’ll soon have a conversion experience and join your community of objectivists. :slight_smile:

Chakra Superstar,

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Define what you mean by just being awake?
Very often when we are awake, we are only half asleep or at least not fully conscious and aware of what is going on around us.

But as human beings with emotions and spirits, doesn’t being awake also have to encompass those things?
For instance, being awake - wouldn’t it mean that when our spirits soar or drag us down, we are aware or conscious of that?
When we have been hurt, wouldn’t being awake cause us to not only realize this but understand what is going on, what has triggered this emotion?
Even within the religious term which means “to be bound up” awake suggests that we would have to understand that that is the experience in those moments, at least, even if we didn’t understand Why in those moments.

Awake would also suggest that we accept it all as being human.

How can being awake mean just being awake?
Couldn’t the just make zombies of us even though zombies are the walking dead?

I think what Chakra means is that enlightenment (being awake) is not a specific emotional, religious, or spiritual state (like being at peace, or finding happiness). It encompasses all mental states, though through meditation, one can shut off those states (or quiet the mind) such that we only experience being just awake. Does that make us zombies? Well, at least we’re sitting quietly, not out hunting for brains.

Being awake, in this sense, refers to being extremely aware of one’s surroundings and the true balance of life, “high consciousness”.

Yes! Absolutely. That’s exactly what it means.

Advaita/Non-dual teachings posit that man is always Enlightened and that our zombie, semi-conscious, sleep-state is why we don’t realize it.

If someone talks about becoming Enlightened they either mistakenly think that the dream character is what ‘becomes’ enlightened or they’re a little sloppy with language. (In truth, the moment we use language, we go off track but that’s another thread)

The dream character doesn’t wake up; it doesn’t ‘become’ Enlightened. The dreamer is the one who wakes up and what the dreamer wakes up from is the erroneous BELIEF that he’s a character in the dream. If you fall back to sleep, the dream character may recall fragments of waking up then claim that he – the dream character – woke up when in actual fact, the dream character was absent when it occurred. When someone recalls a genuine Awakening ‘experience’, it’s being told by a character that wasn’t there.

Re sloppy language… We use sloppy language in day-to-day speak, too, for instance when we say “It’s becoming sunny” we actually mean “it’s becoming less cloudy”. We all know the sun doesn’t get larger or brighter so we’re not confused by the language but it can be confusing if we assume that ‘we’, the personality is that which ‘becomes’ Enlightened. Enlightenment is realized when the personality (ego/psychological identity) falls away.

FTR: The person(ality) doesn’t completely vanish; nor is it meant to. So long as we have a body and mind fragments will remain, but they’re very thin. We need the personality, the body and mind to operate in this world. They’re all part of our total being. It’s about perspective (or balance as JSS said)… it’s about having a light, healthy mind as opposed to a neurotic mind or fragile identity that constantly gets hurt and angry.

Um…. no. People who hypnotise themselves so that pain signals don’t register are not spiritually liberated but thanks for playing. :smiley:

I knew you reminded me of someone. I just couldn’t put my finger on it but it was the Buddha. You and Buddhie could be twin sisters. I swear.

On a more serious note: I’m not sure if you just imagined this or whether these could be genuine small breakthroughs. If the latter, then that could be interesting. Even though I don’t take you seriously most of the time, UP1001, it wouldn’t surprise me if you had a genuine breakthrough. It’s often people who go through immense mental pain that a shift occurs.