oak

Unpopular opinion:

There are no humans, there are only hominoid machines.

3 hours ago, Apech said:

 

I don't think the two can be equated since karma involves all action - good, bad, indifferent - as cause and effect.  While a sin, as I understand it is specifically an act in contradiction to God's law/commandments.  If original sin derives from the 'fall' i.e. Adam and Eve eating the prohibited apple and being thrown out of Eden - then I suppose you could argue that any baby born to a human after the fall has the mark of that act upon them and thus has this capacity to disobey God.  Not being able to disobey God would make us like slaves or machines coded to behave ina certain way instead of free beings.

 

 

I think that it helps to know that the hebrew word for sin is "khata" which means "to miss the target". That brings a new prespective on things. At least to me.

The irony of spending the first half of your life trying to have less interest in sex and the second half trying to have more 😱😭🤣

I go fully vegan sometimes but confess that I like plants way more than I like animals.

Books are living things!

2 hours ago, Daniel said:

@oak,

 

How about this for the feeling of wu-wei?

 

"... we're one... but we're not the same.  We get to... carry each other, carry each other... one...."

 

Carrying.  How can they carry each other simultaneously?  Yet that's exactly what's happening.   In order to carry it, it needs to be released, to be free, to survive and thrive.  Then this natural survival and natural thriving is doing the carrying.  But it cannot carry anything, if, it's not being carried.  There's a double meaning here.    "it cannot carry anything, if, it's not-being-carried".  "not-carrying-is-carrying".  

 

They're one.  ---->  They're both "carrying"

But they're not the same. -----> one is carrying directly, the other is carrying in-directly by not-carrying

They get to carry each other... carry each other... but not in the same way and this is how they are one.

 

Here's the video in case you don't know it or remember it.   Lot's of great natural/freedom imagery.  Great song too, imo.  Some people don't like bono, though.  

 

 

Hi Daniel

Quite profound thinking there. Sorry mate but at the moment there's no time for me to do that. Will reply when possible. Cheers.

14 hours ago, Daniel said:

 

I love that song!  I love the riff!  I'm trying to think of something that I would consider producing the feeling of what wu-wei means to me.

 

The first thing that comes to mind is Miles Davis "Agharta" - recorded live and improvised and no lyrics.  But that's me, that's what just pops into my head.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agharta_(album)

 

"Davis led a septet at the concert; saxophonist Sonny Fortune, bassist Michael Henderson, and guitarist Pete Cosey were given space to improvise against a dense backdrop of riffs, electronic effects, cross-beats, and funk grooves from the rhythm section"

 

Maybe, yes... what makes me wonder is the ammont of drugs used while recording that album...

27 minutes ago, Daniel said:

 

 Hopefully you can appreciate that "go,go,go" doesn't sound like wu-wei to me?  The guitar riff is "pushing", isn't it?

 

I kinda like the "go,go,go" it sounds to me as grow, grow, grow in the cultivation of your personal Dao 🙂 I can live with your deslike of the guitar riff 😁

I think you got the message I wanted to deliver now.

My best wishes, Daniel.

1 minute ago, Daniel said:

 

 

~confused~  go johnny, go, go ,go ???  that's what wu-wei feels like to you???

Johnny had little instruction but was spontaneous playing his guitar. Persevering in doing what felt good and right for him turned him into a success. There, simple and profound. 

That is why I gave you a song instead of a rational answer, to try to make you feel it somehow.

I guess it feels just like this

1 hour ago, Taoist Texts said:

is the dragon killed or not? what happens to the princess and the knight? do they get married have kids? Do they go separate ways?  A  painting is a snapshot. We gotta have the full story arc to understand what happens in the snapshot.

 

 

This is an interesting debate and I do appreciate your contribution with the original story, legend, TT. Although it is an important point and some artists must have based themselves in the original story it is obvious that not all of them did. Some tried to share theirs or someone elses experiences or beliefs using this images, many people throughout history have had visions of St. George slaying the dragon...and a vision most times equals a snapshot.

1 hour ago, Apech said:

 So there were both benign and malign serpents.  

" Then the Lord sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Isrselites died.

The people came to Moses and said "We sinned when we spoke against the Lord and agaist you. Pray that the Lord will take the snakes away from us." So Moses prayed for the people. 

The Lord said to Moses, " Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live."

So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived."

The Bible is full of kundalini representations if anyone wishes to look for them.

"Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the son of man must be lifted up."

A curious one which makes me think a lot of Quetzalcoatl, the plumed serpent " (...) so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves."

I find it interesting that each work of art representing this theme reveals a specific interpretation of the artist, may it be full of prejudice or full of spiritual maturity. For years I've been trying to find the painting of this theme that spoke to me the most which I saw on a magazine in a doctor's waiting room. It seems nowhere to be found on the internet. Will  keep on looking and maybe share it on this thread someday.

An interpretation:

In this version the knight wants to have sex with the lady and the dragon is in the way.

The lady by the fertile fields (ready for the seed) is the soul, true nature or true self.

The dragon is the ego that must die and will fight to the death with the knight.

The knight is Michael, the divine power, holy spirit that comes like fire to destroy the ego...or the Dao that comes to take away what isn't necessary.

The cave is the secret, dark, intimate place where the union between the knight and the lady happens.

And...

If symbols could be translated into words they would be of no use.

So, this interpretation has the value that it has...not much!

1 hour ago, Lairg said:

 

The evil serpent Apep (Apopis) is trodden under the left foot in ancient Egypt.  Vishnu and Krishna also do a lot of treading/dancing on snakes

 

 

I think you've just made a russian mathematician run for the Baghavad Gita 🤣🤣🤣

8 minutes ago, Lairg said:

 

Which account came first.

 

As I recall the Holy Bible was still being established in the time of King James.  Various books were being included and excluded and re-translated even edited.

 

 

 

 

That's a lot of prejudice towards a book that clearly you don't know...but fine by me. Have it your way.

10 hours ago, Lairg said:

I seem to recall a European version of St George where he put a ring through the nose of the dragon and led it through the market place.

 

That could be interpreted as the spiritual part of the human (George) taming the "dweller on the threshold" (personal will) so that the personality becomes useful in interactions with humans (in the marketplace)

 

 

7 hours ago, Zorro Dantes said:

Leading a dragon by the ring on its nose…Christianity comes from Gnosticism…are they referring  to the might of wielding your kundalini in a disciplined and noble fashion?🧐

Eccllesiastes 10: 11

If a snake bites the tamer before it is tamed, what good is the tamer?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Michael_Fighting_the_Dragon

5 hours ago, Apech said:

 

Why must the knight slay the dragon and rescue the damsel?  And while you're at it what is that cave doing there?

Unravel the symbolism.

Let us try.

The Archangel Michael killing the dragon is a biblical theme. Not sure when or why in history the brits replaced him by St. George 🤪

Hi PestiferMundi.

So, where does one find true knowledge? Is it near? is it far? is it only available to those who have money to pay for very expensive seminars?... or to those who are pure at heart 😇😆?

To me the vital answer and the one that deserves deep consideration and meditation is in this passage of Dante's Divine Comedy (Inferno, Chap 1) : Dante meets Virgil ( video 3:30 ) How, where and why does he meet him is IMHO what you should take in consideration. The video has captions in English. Best of luck.

On 20/09/2022 at 12:31 PM, Cheshire Cat said:

I'm not sure if it's 100% related to covid, but it's more than a year that I wake up around 3 AM, can't fall asleep again until around 5 AM.

I can't remember the last time that I had a full night of sleep.

 

I think it's the time period of the lung meridian. What could I do? Thanks

May that be happening for a specific reason that you still may have not noticed? I'll specify with my own example: it bothered me a lot a phase that I've been through when I was a night shift worker and everytime that I was off or on leave I would wake up and feel quit alert at 2 am. After questioning myself for a long  time about the reason for that to happen I realized that when at work 2 am was the time that I was more active and the tasks required more of my attention and energy. Having understood this helped me get back to normal sleep patters.

29 minutes ago, CyrusTheGreat said:

This is not as profound an answer as you think it is. What's the point of science if you can't build on the knowledge of your priors? If every individual scientists had to reinvent their entire field from scratch, we wouldn't make any progress anywhere.

If I wanted to know whether a particular substance is safe or poisonous, the intelligent approach wouldn't be to test it on myself, but to first see if other people have experience with it.

My priors, the ones that really taught me anything useful in reality didn't tell me much, they gave me clues and suggested a few good, basic, classic, readings. When i told them about such and such author that seemed to know so much about so many details of the path I was told to learn to chew my own food instead of having it chewed by others. But eventually I kept asking, ignoring the answers untill I was told to go away. You can't imagine how grateful I am untill this day for that 🙂

Do your crunches CyrusTheGreat and you will definately know if that's the way the build a six pack...that or spend more time idealizing a six pack. That simple.

Spring will inevitably come back again!