Bindi

Would you agree that this is how your quote relates to 'the kingdom' – attainment of knowledge of the outer kingdom (oneness) leads to attainment of knowledge of the inner kingdom (Self-realisation) – or would you reformulate it?

I didn't know that you found the bible to be such a non credible source, considering how you like to quote from it when it suits you. By my last count, a possible range of 70-110CE for the gospels in question puts the refernces to Christ as being written anywhere from 36-40 years after Jesus' death, (counting his death at 30-34 years old), to 76-80 years at the latest. Hardly the dismissive "hundreds of years later" that you initially claimed. Also, your first quote "The Gospel of John was written by three different authors over a period of 200 years", doesn't tally with your 2nd Gospel of John quote which states "the gospel itself shows signs of having been composed in three "layers", reaching its final form about 90–100 AD. I went with the latter date range, as I was unable to find references to your quotes. It's poor form to not acknowledge a quote, it's called plagiarism.

The term Christ was not coined hundreds of years later by the church. The term Christ was used to translate the term "The Anointed One" as used in the Old Testament, from Aramaic to Greek (Ancient Greek: Χριστός, Christós, meaning "anointed").

What Paul the apostle in his epistle to the Corinthians was referring to when he wrote “Death has been swallowed up in victory”, was a passage from the Old Testament, Isaiah 25:8. “He will swallow up death in victory [or forever]; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the LORD hath spoken it.” What Paul meant is that: You say: Now I can understand the meaning of the words “Death has been swallowed up in victory” in the context of Paul, without having achieved oneness and having moved beyond samsara. This passage is specifically referring to Christians being raised from the dead and never having to face death again, in what is popularly referred to as ‘the second coming of Christ’, an event that Paul believed was immanent, but that has not yet been authenticated. You say: Samsara is the repeating cycle of birth, life and death (reincarnation) as well as one's actions and consequences in the past, present, and future (wiki quote). Christians don’t believe in reincarnation, thus implicitly they don’t believe in samsara. I don’t think you can use concepts from one tradition to examine another conflicting tradition. “For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable” means in simple English “For our dying bodies must be transformed into bodies that will never die” (New Living Translation bible). It doesn't mean "Those who belong to samsara must clothe themselves with Oneness, and we will be changed." Or have you achieved oneness and moved beyond samsara, and therefore have direct knowledge or experience of the meaning of the lines “Death has been swallowed up in victory” and “For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable” that is different to the accepted meaning as stated above, and more in line with your view?

I agree that many things are processed by the heart, I never disputed this, but I believe that some things, such as fear, are processed in the gut. It would seem a shame to ignore where fear is processed, just because you, Ramana and a new age self help author say everything starts from the heart.

It's not really relevant to any part of the discussion, but I will respond to this sentence first, just because it bugs me. In John 1:41, John the Baptist (who was always having to deny that HE was the Christ), pointed out Jesus to some of his disciples. Two of them followed Jesus, figured out who he was, and one of them (Andrew) went and told his brother (Simon Peter), " 'We have found the Messias', which is, being interpreted, the Christ. " (If he'd been speaking Hebrew or Aramaic he would have said "We have found the Messiah". If he'd been speaking Greek, he would have said "We have found the Christ".) In Luke 4:41, the devils that he cast out of people acknowledged him as "Christ the Son of God". He told them not to tell anybody. In John 4:25-26, Jesus told the woman at the well in Samaria that he was the Christ. In verses 29 and 42, the Samaritans testified that he was the Christ, so they also knew early. In John 10:24-25, the Jews said "Look, stop playing games with us. If you're the Christ, tell us plainly." And he answered "I already did, but you didn't believe me." In Matt 16:16, Peter answers Jesus' "Whom say ye that I am?" query with "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." First quoted usage. This is some time before his trial and crucifixion. Four verses later he warns his disciples not to tell anybody he's "Jesus the Christ". In Matt 22:42, he asks the Pharisees almost the same question he asked Peter: "What think ye of Christ? Whose son is he?" The ensuing response suggests that the Pharisees didn't know him as the Christ. In Matt 26:63-68, in his trial before Caiaphas the high priest, Caiaphas asks him directly if he is the Christ. Jesus admits that he is, and they mock him because they don't believe him. (see also Mark 15:32; Luke 23:35, 39) In Luke 23:2, the people take him before Pilate, and one of their accusations is that Jesus was "saying that he himself is Christ a King". After his resurrection, the apostles used the term much more freely, as I Corinthians ch. 15 shows.

How the gut feeling shapes fear The Journal of Neuroscience, 21 May 2014. Gut feeling: the gut influences brain processes involved in emotions like fear. We are all familiar with that uncomfortable feeling in our stomach when faced with a threatening situation. By studying rats, researchers at ETH Zurich have been able to prove for the first time that our 'gut instinct' has a significant impact on how we react to fear. An unlit, deserted car park at night, footsteps in the gloom. The heart beats faster and the stomach ties itself in knots. We often feel threatening situations in our stomachs. While the brain has long been viewed as the centre of all emotions, researchers are increasingly trying to get to the bottom of this proverbial gut instinct. It is not only the brain that controls processes in our abdominal cavity; our stomach also sends signals back to the brain. At the heart of this dialogue between the brain and abdomen is the vagus nerve, which transmits signals in both directions – from the brain to our internal organs (via the so called efferent nerves) and from the stomach back to our brain (via the afferent nerves). By cutting the afferent nerve fibres in rats, a team of scientists led by Urs Meyer, a researcher in the Group of ETH Zurich professor Wolfgang Langhans, turned this two-way communication into a one-way street, enabling the researchers to get to the bottom of the role played by gut instinct. In the test animals, the brain was still able to control processes in the abdomen, but no longer received any signals from the other direction. Less fear without gut instinct In the behavioural studies, the researchers determined that the rats were less wary of open spaces and bright lights compared with controlled rats with an intact vagus nerve. "The innate response to fear appears to be influenced significantly by signals sent from the stomach to the brain," says Meyer. Nevertheless, the loss of their gut instinct did not make the rats completely fearless: the situation for learned fear behaviour looked different. In a conditioning experiment, the rats learned to link a neutral acoustic stimulus – a sound – to an unpleasant experience. Here, the signal path between the stomach and brain appeared to play no role, with the test animals learning the association as well as the control animals. If, however, the researchers switched from a negative to a neutral stimulus, the rats without gut instinct required significantly longer to associate the sound with the new, neutral situation. This also fits with the results of a recently published study conducted by other researchers, which found that stimulation of the vagus nerve facilitates relearning, says Meyer. These findings are also of interest to the field of psychiatry, as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), for example, is linked to the association of neutral stimuli with fear triggered by extreme experiences. Stimulation of the vagus nerve could help people with PTSD to once more associate the triggering stimuli with neutral experiences. Vagus nerve stimulation is already used today to treat epilepsy and, in some cases, depression. Stomach influences signalling in the brain "A lower level of innate fear, but a longer retention of learned fear – this may sound contradictory," says Meyer. However, innate and conditioned fear are two different behavioural domains in which different signalling systems in the brain are involved. On closer investigation of the rats' brains, the researchers found that the loss of signals from the abdomen changes the production of certain signalling substances, so called neurotransmitters, in the brain. "We were able to show for the first time that the selective interruption of the signal path from the stomach to the brain changed complex behavioural patterns. This has traditionally been attributed to the brain alone," says Meyer. The study shows clearly that the stomach also has a say in how we respond to fear; however, what it says, i.e. precisely what it signals, is not yet clear. The researchers hope, however, that they will be able to further clarify the role of the vagus nerve and the dialogue between brain and body in future studies. More information: Klarer M, Arnold M, Günther L, Winter C, Langhans W, Meyer U: Gut Vagal Afferents Differentially Modulate Innate Anxiety and Learned Fear. The Journal of Neuroscience, 21 May 2014. DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0252-14.2014

I wouldn't trust my gut or my heart to drive my car either. But I would trust my gut instincts and gut feelings in emotional situations.

Ah, I see. I was referring to the kingdom of God, and I must admit I wasn't limiting it to the second coming of Christ, and the Pauline view. I fully believe that the kingdom within that Jesus was referring to was not just for Christians.

I agree with this method as well, except to add that the feeling isn't necessarily stored in the heart, some feelings are stored in the gut, and the eyes of the gut are also pretty smart.

To continue Paul the apostle's epistle to the Corinthians: "...flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption 51 Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— 52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. 54 When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” 1Corinthians 15:51-54 In this verse Paul claims that the kingdom of God is neither within nor without for the living, but will only be inherited by Christians that have died and are raised in their bodies and transformed when Christ returns. This is a third alternative view of where the kingdom is, and to some Christians not without merit, but it is a view that is not really relevant to me at the moment.

Many thanks for posting this Nungali, I found it very helpful in sorting out where my confusion was.

Indeed, I have no argument with you there, this must be one of the simplest truisms ever, but always worth repeating. “Know Thyself” was written on the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, and “Man, know thyself, and thou shalt know the Gods” was an ancient Egyptian saying, so this knowledge has been around for an awfully long time. Shakespeare knew it when he penned these words “Of all knowledge, the wise and good seek most to know themselves”, and more recently Ramana Maharshi taught that the direct path to Self-realisation was Self-enquiry. If all religion/spirituality was based on this principle truly enacted, there might be a lot fewer problems in this world.

Personally I've never called on anyone else, and twice I've had an instant and much needed reply And I've never been a practicing Christian, though I was brought up Christian, and my great respect for Jesus grows as I travel further on my path.

I so agree with the idea of working through those earth levels first, I see myself as an embodied spirit, and have always worked primarily with the energies of the body, which have cleared the way to being able now to work with things of the spirit. My take on the earth energies (at the moment), which I see more or less as the first 3 chakras, is that they can be visualised as being like the energy of a wolf, warm but wild, until this energy is transmuted into the energy of it's tamed cousin, the dog, in right relation to the higher self, spirit's best friend, spirit's companion and helper.

I agree that calling for help from Jesus or saying 'be gone' in His name is powerful, but do you think you'd need to have some abiding belief in Jesus, or relationship with him, or do you think just his name is powerful enough?

Does anyone know if there is a TCM remedy for dealing with gluten sensitivity (I do get that Chinese diet would be more rice based, but wheat is surely more common there now), or any other methods that might reduce gluten sensitivity apart from a gluten free diet? Thanks.

I’m trying to understand the process that creates the division of yin/yang on the earth plane, and secondarily the process that can unite yin/yang whilst still on the earth plane. I'm thinking something along the lines of this quote below, I wonder what others think?

I get very itchy in my hands, no other symptoms that I know of.

This concept is an interesting take on ways of experiencing the world, perhaps finding ourselves trapped on the left side, and trying to find a way to at least visit the right side, and then perhaps ultimately to incorporate the right side into our lived experience.

If you open all the gates and invite them in, then yes, clearly entities will visit, and it's almost inevitable that you would lose control of the invitation process. But I believe it is also possible to build impregnable defences against entities and energies, if that were your intention. I wonder (because you wrote shit happens) if entity visits for you are positive, negative, neutral, or all of these?

I would say emotional work is a fine place to start, though I don't mean as part of a meditational system. More in the spirit of good psycho-analysis. In fact I would see it as an alternative path to meditation. I found emotional work to be very effective and relevant for the lower chakras, which can flow into energy work + emotional work for the heart to throat, which can then flow into working directly with subtle energies for the head chakras.

I'd just not come across the concept of yin/yang beyond the earth plane, but I'm interested in the idea that this division does also exist on other planes. Is this concept your personal experience?

So you do not describe the state of liberation as pure bliss, from a personal or Buddhist perspective. Hinduism on the other hand does see liberation as including an endless state of bliss. If all roads lead to the same enlightenment, I wonder how you explain this difference?

For myself, mental clarity is related to the process of dismantling lower manas (mind), the minor chakra found to the right of the heart, and reforming it as upper manas (mind), at the level of ajna (third eye) chakra. I understand this process to be mainly concerned with breaking down persona at lower manas, which begins to be developed in us at a very young age, which is then reformed at upper manas in mature awareness and consciousness. Upper manas is also the place that the higher senses can become active. Persona; [ pəˈsəʊnə, pəː- ] The aspect of someone's character that is presented to or perceived by others. So I understand mental clarity as being achieved at ajna level, but emotional clarity as being achieved at heart level. I definitely see mental clarity (upper manas) and emotional clarity as being interrelated though, with mental clarity playing an important role in achieving emotional clarity.