Plans for a religion

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,

.

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.

Chakra,

What you said concurs with my views perfectly. I wouldn’t have been able to express it as succinctly as you, I would have brought in molecules, brains, operating systems, and my theory of universal experience (I would have ended up sounding like UP1001), but I get your gist.

LOL Are you sure of that?

So we are all awake, except we are asleep?

The soul of a person changes with the level of consciousness. In a sense, the sleeping person isn’t the same person as the enlightened one within the same body. As the dream person fades away into nothingness, it is much like a rebirth for the soul to awaken, conscious of the truer nature of reality, a child shedding play things and becoming a man of conscience, attending to the affects he has upon the world.

shadow side.jpg

thoughtsofamisfit.weebly.com/our … hadow.html

Listen Arc, what you do on your meditation time is your own business. Just remember to wipe your mouth when your done. :wink:

Which ‘we’? The one that’s awake or the one that’s asleep.