manitou

I just entered the 8th precept on Mabel Collins' 'Light on the Path' book written around 1900, up in the Vedanta section. This precept addresses this specific reference to power we're talking about in this thread. The words couldn't be better said, I don't think.... 8. Yet stand alone and isolated, because nothing that is embodied, nothing that is conscious of separation, nothing that is out of the eternal can aid you. Learn from sensation, and observe it; because only so can you commence the science of self-knowledge, and plant your foot on the first step of the ladder. Grow as the flower grows, unconsciously, but eagerly anxious to open its soul to the air. So must you press forward to open your soul to the eternal. But it must be the eternal that draws forth your strength and beauty, not desire of growth. For in the one case, you develop in the luxuriance of purity; in the other, you harden by the forcible passion for personal stature.

Okay, no bites. So I'm just going to keep rattling on from my own limited perspective. Kill out all sense of separateness. Kill our feeling of terminal uniqueness. If we buy the Oneness thing, then this all makes sense. We are all One entity, one discovers after years of inner work has been done. I like to imagine that we are all laying down on the sun, on our backs. (Ouch, I know). We have a cloudy lens that, if it were cleared up, would allow the sun's rays to extend through us and out into the universe. It is our choice within this lifetime whether we want to go to the trouble of cleaning the lens or not. There are lots of ways to do this; but without doing it in some way, the clarity will never occur and the sun's ray will never be able to shine through you. Killing out sense of separateness also involves subjugating ego. We love to feel that we are terminally unique, that there's no one else like us. Sure, that's true to a point, but the inner Essence that the seeker finds turns out to be a communal phenomena which is all connected, one to another. Kill out desire for sensation. Throughout the many years I've been involved in the Search, it's easy to get sidetracked by the things that do produce sensation. Visions are nice, lucid dreams are nice, kundalini rising is nice to know it's happening to you, but not always so nice to live with. Many meditations are geared toward causing sensational results 'out in space', as it were, but it's my opinion that it's easy to get distracted with what all the funny little things the body and mind can do; I'm just a firm believer in doing inner mining and finding that lump of gold that sits at the bottom of all the personality contortions. Kill out the hunger for growth. Wow, does that apply to the TaoBums, or what? Our egos get all involved when we banter back and forth, and I think this has two sides to it too. On one hand, our communal consciousness is spiraling up; at least, I 'feel' at some level that it is. I think what's done that is the fact that we all come from different starting points and our ideas bounce off one another, leading the evolution ever upward. The other side of this, though, is that our periodic ego-contests are the very tools that we can use to subjugate ego, to our benefit. Maybe to periodically swallow our ego, not say something unkind that we initially want to post to someone who disagrees with us. What funny critters we are....competitive little smurfs. I won't comment on precept 8, as it's so very clear on its surface. But I am particularly taken with the last sentence: "For, in the one case, you develop in the luxuriance of purity; in the other, you harden by the forcible passion for personal stature". Wow. The lens will never clear up by forcible passion for personal stature.

I agree. The do-gooder is someone to look out for. The do-gooder has their own agenda and idea of what is good and what is bad. One book which I read at least yearly is The Impersonal Life, by Anonymous. (Later determined to be Joseph Benner). It helps one understand the concept of non-judgment as far as good and bad is concerned. It also says that it takes an EXTREMELY wise person to know 'exactly what it is that another person really needs'. Look at poor Lindsay Lohan. Her attorney was interviewed a couple days ago and of course is doing everything in his power to keep his client out of jail (apparently she wasn't comfortable doing her community service at the morgue). In his view, he said "I have to do what's best for my client." What baloney. If he were a wise man, he would realize that the very best thing for his client is to spend a couple months behind bars so the reality would really sink in. That poor child is going to die because of all the enablers around her. Yes, the do-gooders have an agenda. I think the real agenda is to make themselves feel 'better than' those whom they are doing 'good' for. Another example: my aunt, here in Ohio, participates in a food give-away through their church. Plenty of people come in off the street and get something to eat, and can look for some clothes. My dear Christian auntie will take with her a can of Lysol and spray down the counter each time one of the street people (who may not smell so good) comes and goes. The other church ladies get a kick out of it, and dear Auntie makes a bit of a show about doing this. She told me that the other church ladies are very grateful to her because they didn't want the smell of the street people in their fellowship hall. I would think that the fact that dear Auntie does this in front of the other street people who are waiting would be absolutely humiliating to those people. But this sort of goes to what I was saying above: the nice church ladies are more concerned about earning their way into their heaven, it seems, than being concerned about the feelings of the downtrodden they are serving. I see it as a self-serving endeavor that makes them feel really good about themselves.

Going back to the concept of karma, the mongrel part of my spiritual upbringing is that IT IS ALL HAPPENING HERE NOW. Perhaps this is why I don't see reincarnation at odds with Taoism. The concept of yin / yang is perhaps another face of reincarnation. Once again, though, you have to take time out of the equation to see it.

Here's my problem. There were old smart guys. They're dead now, at least in this dimension. I don't think any one of them intended for their words to be encased in cement. The Sage, better than anyone I can see, embraces change through and through. When we cling so hard to dogma and structure, we render it more inflexible as the centuries go on. Does not this whole thing seem like an evolution? Can you not see that all things will ultimately evolve into One? If you back way out and zoom in on the universe, this is happening everywhere. World communications, for starters. 'Religious' understandings mix, because we're now capable of having worldwide conversations with each other. It's like being a fundamentalist. They become more out of touch because they take their tome very literally. The more literally they take it, the more out of touch they seem. Maybe we are the great minds of today, and we're standing just a little higher on the ladder than we were when we started this, communally. I think to find the dovetails between the different philosophies (BTW, the word philosophy doesn't seem to involve 'heart' at all; I think the sage uses Love in all his actions, not philosophy) is a huge step in the right direction. There is a life force at work here, regardless of whether we call it Tao or even God (not the Christian god-out-in-the-sky thing) or Brahman. What does it matter? The underlying order of things remains constant regardless of what continent we're on and what 'religion' is predominant. The constant thing I see is the question that seems to be implanted in the very bottom of man's heart. What's it all about, Alfie? (That one was for Marbles because I know he'll remember that movie, he's an old fart like me). But perhaps you're right, Mr. M-head. Maybe it's a good thing that we preserve what you consider to be the genuine article (as found in the book studies, which you are WONDERFUL about leading!) I'm probably not suited as well for that, because I tend to be a bit of a loose cannon about all this stuff. Most of us spiritual mongrels are. I see things in the TTC relating to the Sage that you do not; I feel that you feel that I take things too far. Perhaps my trying to understand the inside of the Sage and his motivations is just really way too arrogant, and perhaps your preservation of your interpretation (the correct one, no doubt) is just what we need. I think I'll start hanging out more in the General Discussion rather than the book studies; my metaphysical legs don't seem to fit within the structured box that we're trying to preserve. But at any rate, Marbles - despite our occasional spats, I do love you. You are kind and gentle and very friendly to the new ones here. You are an absolute rock here.

Marbles - I don't want to get mean here, you're one of the more wonderful presences here on the forum. But it seems like lately you've appointed yourself as the protector of what is Taoist and what is not. Maybe the forum needed protected, I can understand your concern. But we are allowed to think, I think. If something in a Daoist paragraph sends one off on a discussion about connections to other ideologies like Buddhism, so be it. I've noticed that a couple times you've said something like 'I don't believe it, therefore that's not Taoism'. I don't think this is an open minded mindset at all. This is true attachment to a structure. Isn't it Just Possible that we're all talking about the same thing here? That Taoism, buddhism, Shamanism, all the isms - are merely different parts of the elephant to the blind man? It's the path that starts up the hill that is different; when we get to the other end, guess who we meet? Everyone who has gone that far, regardless of where they started! To insist that people color within the lines is missing the whole point, IMO.

And I think this inner alchemy, necessary in all great traditions that seems to drive us from within, is the very fusion which ultimately changes our perspective forever. It is all-inclusive and there for everyone; and yet not all hear the call. It doesn't matter what religious box our head is in, if any. It's apples and oranges, as Herman would say.

Wow.

Thanks for the kind words, Marbles. Maybe death isn't hot or cold, good or bad. If we buy into the concept of infinity at some level, then that means that we've always been here, we're here now, and we'll always be here. We're in the figure 8, that's all. Our lifetimes are the intersection of past and present, right at the junction of the 8. There is a life stream that draws us to its centre; it's the reason we all bother to hang around forums like this. I think it a bit of a mistake to draw boundaries on our philosophies, because then they're just beliefs. A belief is just that - a construct of the mind, and mindset of choice. In my experience, a construct of the mind doesn't lead to where we really want to go. There is an essence obtained by triangulating the Essence within the construct of multiple lines of philosophical ideologies, and I believe I see in reading many posts in this forum that there are other self-realized mongrels here. No pedigree whatsoever, us mutts. But those of us who came up via the mongrel route have seen truths in all paths and, wonderfully enough, can talk in any forum that involves the ultimate truth being found within one's self. I'm currently reading about the Mystic Warriors of the Plains, and that book was written by someone who could just have easily been a Taoist. The room where all paths meet is the room of Wu-Wei. It has its counterpart in every discipline that gets down to the void, the Essence, within. The Sage is a shaman. He is Budda. He is the Nazarene. He is Gandhi. He is the Dalai Lama. And I'm really going to go out big here: He is Obama.

Okay. Round Two. You ain't buying intelligence? Are you saying there is no intelligence inherent in the formation of our bodies? All cells at first in a fetus are undifferentiated. They are all the same type of cells, originally. But how they Align is what determines whether that cell is going to be a bone cell, a tissue cell, or an eyeball cell. I think this is absolutely incredible! There is a tremendous intelligence underlying all that we can't duplicate with our conscious thought. This is the Intelligence I speak of. It's also the same intelligence that tells the leaves when to drop, the planets how to circle. That's the only Intelligence I'm speaking of. I'm hoping you're not thinking that I think there's a great giant Brain floating around in the sky somewhere. No, the intelligence I speak of is within everything. And time is an illusion. Einstein proved its relativity. For purposes of understanding the whole and seeing it in its entirety, I often 'remove' time to look at the total structure of a dynamic. Otherwise we're caught up in the illusion. And I have a theory about universal consciousness. Babies born today are equipped with a certain level of 'intelligence' that's innate to them, and it differs from the level of consciousness that a baby would have been born with centuries ago. The Intelligence does it this way so that the wheel doesn't have to be reinvented every time a new baby is made. But my theory is this: We only use maybe 10% of our brain? My guess is that maybe another 40% goes to maintenance of our bodily life, and my guess is that the remaining 50% is our connected-brain, the universal consciousness. Sorry you see Theosophy as something less than useful.

I see the Sage as an enlightened being. You can tell from the three treasures he possesses: (yutang, again)...Never be the first, Never too much, Love. The way the sage got to that point was to go internal. He had to master the ego to never be the first. We are born competitive creatures, from the moment the first sperm hit the egg. His ego had to be subjugated in order for him to be satisfied with letting others 'be the first'. This awareness alone is FANTASTIC to remember in everyday life! Never be the first. How often that will rub up against us! In traffic? Waiting in line? If you think about it, the reason we get antsy waiting in line or in traffic is because we think our particular itinerary is so very important, and all others around us are like a sub-cast. But the Sage knows that inside each and every other being is Himself at the bottom, the flame of awareness that's within everyone. Our time just isn't any more valuable than anyone else's time. The Sage realizes that 'all time and space are his', if he stays in awareness. Things will be perfect when he arrives; all people who are supposed to be there will be there, much as in a healing ceremony. Serendipity is our friend. Never too much. Western society teaches us just the opposite. Accumulate the stuff and Achieve the Dream. This is ultimately, baloney, if happiness and contentment are what one seeks. Our nature is such that we always want 'more'. Our nature is such that we never seem to reach contentment with the position we hold, the money we make. More would always make it better, supposedly. The Sage has learned differently. Once he realizes Who He Is (his god-nature or however you want to say it) he is able to surrender the need to be first and the need to accumulate bigger and better. And Love. I think this word says it all. If the Sage can stay in awareness of Love at all times, then all his dealings with everything reflect Love, and he is generating no new negative karma for himself for future working through. He makes no judgments of people as 'good' or 'bad'; rather, he sees each human as someone who has something to give, no matter how small. I think the concept of the Sage and the realization of the Buddha nature are the very same thing.

Rather than alone and depressed, in Yutang's version, it says something like "I alone (the sage) am muddled and nebulous". He contrasts this with the supposed luminous and knowing attitude of the learned. I think this is because he has filed off all rough edges of opinion about all things. All things just "are", there is no good or bad to it. In the same verse, he speaks of drawing his only sustenance from the Mother (earth). He follows the ways of nature in its totality. He sees life as something which is not only in the state of evolving, it is evolved already! Only we don't know it, we can't see it yet. I think relating karma to yin and yang makes absolute sense, only karma denotes a sense of time, whereas the concept of yin and yang denote a mixing of the two (apparent even in the symbol). I think yin and yang can denote a sense of time, or it can also denote a state of being that does not involve time. All here now.

It sort of takes one to know one, if you know what I mean? I see our input here on the internet as a physical thing that is forming the world consciousness in some particular direction. It's like everything's coming back to one Word or something. So hard to put a finger on. Forums like TTBs hopefully are evolving upward, if we keep our minds open. But even Taoism has a structure that must be transcended, far as I'm concerned. I so love that you think outside of the lines. That's what I bow to. I have a question that I'll PM you with.

We're getting very close here. When you speak of 'the processes of the Tao making everything go' you are speaking of something dual, still. I see it as the Tao is the process within nature; the intelligence that makes your body know to breathe and digest even as you sleep. The oak within the acorn. That intelligence. Paraphrasing the TTC, the Sage values drawing his sustenance from Nature and in following her pattern; the pattern of reversion, of birth to life to death to decay, of the many back to the one. Cause and effect, as a concept, also denotes a period of time within the two. The state of Is-ness that the Sage likes to dwell in, rather removes the concept of yesterday, today, and tomorrow in favor of the Now. Cause and effect? Yes, if you put Time into the equation. Is-ness? Much is seen if you take time out of the equation and refrain from trying to define which is the cause and which is the effect. The cause is the effect of something else, and ad infinitum, back to that thing that we're always trying to describe and can't quite seem to, lol..

Hi folks, I'm coming in a bit late. I apologize if I'm duplicating exactly what someone else posted, I haven't read the entire thread. This response is in response to the OP. I see that it is possible to view things alternatively if 'time' is taken out of the equation. We know that time is relative and virtually an illusion. My personal view is that this is somehow tied up with quantum physics, as far as the smallest form of matter that we can detect turns out to be both a particle and a wave at the same, somehow magically. If you zoom out and look at this fact, I think it can be viewed as the intersection of time and space, as a particle takes up space, whereas a wave (of probability) would necessarily take up time. Therefore: the junction of time and space. If you took a folding Chinese lantern and had it pulled out to its lantern shape, this would be analogous of time and space both together, in my illustration. If you crunch the lantern down so it's into a disc shape, this is when time has been removed. However, because the lantern is crunched down, there is a totality of the lantern that can be seen all at once (if you're, say, the size of a praying mantis and were looking out over the top of the folded lantern). Time has been removed, and different things can be seen. Getting back to karma. Karma is suitable for the lantern when it is extended, because we're still dealing with time. But in reality, it's all Here Now, in a state of Is-Ness. For the person who has been able to transcend spiritual framework and has lived a life of true self-examination, the third eye vision occurs. I just see karma as moving Is-ness. We are our ancestors, we are our descendants. I dunno, is that Taoist?

Wow. These are some deep paragraphs. The teacher is trying to convey the components of wu-wei to the student. In the first paragraph, he is demonstrating that the mind must become empty, focused, aware and yet invulnerable to the mental attack of outer stimulus. This is one component of the wu-wei mindset. Once more, we're sitting in the room where all paths meet. This internalization of mother nature as the Source could have been written by a native American shaman, a Yogi occultist, an enlightened one or Sage of any variety. He analogizes the human body with the form of the earth; both with their apertures. He knows that the Expression, the Source of the energy is an internal phenomena that is emitted through the apertures of both the earth and the animals of the earth, including us. The earth speaks its Intent through the apertures of the earth; be it a gale whistling through a cave or the breakage of trees, its Intent is expressed nonetheless. As it is through us, the human animal. Our expressions emit through our mouths, our emotions emit through our words and actions. That which is within us, trying to express, is the Tao. The same Tao in you is the same as the one in me. When the paragraphs talk about both the human and the world being vessels, this is no doubt what he means; that we are an expression for the Eternal Source. But the real punch is in the last paragraph. why look outside of one's self or mother nature to look for the cause? I suspect he is saying here that there is no cause or god of any type on the outside of all this; that it is folly to try and look for something 'out there'.

(Sigh). Straw Dog, you're just wonderful. That's all.

this is so true....no God in Taoism. The God mindset is of something out there, much like a Santa of sorts. Actually, my thinking has changed over the years, from being taught to worship a 'god' out there that one would petition to, as opposed to now feeling the flame within and feeling at one with it. This appears to be where it resides. The sage (or one who is at One with the Tao, essentially Enlightened) understands that the god of his childhood is truly the void, the place of endless possibility, the Order that underlies all, or as the ancients would say, the manitou; the spirit that underlies everything. My guess is that anyone advanced enough to be involved in this forum would understand the sidestep necessary when seeing the mention of God. Think underlying order. Unfortunately, the journey must be an inner one

The sage wastes nothing or no man. He finds use for all. I think the man of Song is an enlightened one. He is attached to nothing, change is his reality. He does not cling to the way things "were", instead he is at one with the change of the seasons of life. This is why he is the man of Song - he is light. Enlightened. The sage would be a lover of all men, regardless of how hard some people make it for others to love them. He would recognize the God-nature in each and recognize it as the same within himself.

I'm jumping in a bit late, I know. I think this statement is exactly what the words point to: I am an instrument in the hands of God. It's also like saying I am an instrument in the manifestation of the underlying Order of everything. It seems pretty clear when the words of conclusion are; Therefore it is said, 'The Perfect man has no (thought of) self; the Spirit-like man, none of merit; the Sagely-minded man, none of fame.' The Sage, or the one who is at One with his inner self, has no thought of self; Self isn't separate from his God-knowledge; he has become merely a vessel for this strange new way of thinking and behaving. He has merged with his God-knowledge and his perspective has changed forever. The sage takes no merit because he needs none. He is complete in and of himself and he loves Work for the sake of work. Therefore, he is Here Now in his most menial task, and receiving merit from others isn't necessary to his own happiness. The sage has no thought of fame because his ego remains in a state of reduction. He is eternally grateful for those things and situations and people and relationships and just...changes in general - and he realizes that all things, at some level, are truly manifesting through us, the personification of creation at this level. He realizes that because he is merely a vessel any accolades coming his way really aren't for him anyway.

Hats off to Witch on this one! Talk about a premonition. Your receptors are in immaculate condition. How much more change could there be, other than what's going on in the world now, at this moment. Kudos, my friend...

I'm seeing a lot of relativity in this story. The author zooms in and out from greatness to smallness; indeed, the very small make fun of the great, in that the great (the big bird) must go to so much trouble for his sustenance. The cicada and the dove seem to laugh at this. Perhaps one of the messages of this passage is Be Here Now, Know that where you are is where you are supposed to be. Don't aggressively try to achieve higher status. Let it unfold.

Up in the Vedanta section, I've been posting the precepts written by a M.C. Collins back around 1900, in a pamphlet called "Light on the Path". The Light on the Path book is contained within another book: Advanced Course in Yogi Philosophy and Oriental Occultism, by Yogi Ramacharaka. Ramacharaka comments on this Collins book throughout the first part of his book. Although we're not to this precept yet up in the Vedanta section, I wanted to post it here in General Discussion because of its incredible texture and applicability to all paths: 20. Seek it not by any one road. To each temperament, there is one road which seems the most desirable. But the way is not found by devotion alone, by religious contemplation alone, by ardent progress, by self-sacrificing labor, by studious observation of life. None alone can take the disciple more than one step onwards. All steps are necessary to make up the ladder. The vices of men become steps in the ladder, one by one, as they are surmounted. The virtues of man are steps, indeed, necessary - not by any means to be dispensed with. Yet, though they create a fair atmosphere and a happy future, they are useless if they stand alone. The whole nature of man must be used wisely by the one who desires to enter the way. Each man is to himself absolutely the way, the truth, and life. But he is only so when he grasps his whole individuality firmly, and, by the force of his awakened spiritual will, recognizes this individuality firmly, and, by the force of his awakened spiritual will, recognizes this individuality as not himself, but that thing which he has with pain created for his own use, and by means of which he purposes, as his growth slowly develops his intelligence, to reach to the life beyond individuality. When he knows that for this his wonderful complex, separated life exists, then, indeed, and then only, he is upon the way. Seek it by plunging into the mysterious and glorious depths of your own inmost being. Seek it by testing all experience, by utilizing the senses, in order to understand the growth and meaning of individuality, and the beauty and obscurity of those other divine fragments which are struggling side by side with you, and form the race to which you belong. Seek it by study of the laws of being, the laws of nature, the laws of the supernatural; and seek it by making the profound obeisance of the soul to the dim star that burns within. Steadily, as you watch and worship, its light will grow stronger. Then you may know you have found the beginning of the way. And, when you have found the end, its light will suddenly become the infinite light. I absolutely love these paragraphs (other than the 'worship' word, which sort of kicks me back into my old Lutheran church). I can only attest to my own inner knowledge of the path; it's just a hodge-podge of everything. But that which we pound into our heads is just one part of it; the other part of it must involve an inner journey. What a beautiful junction the various paths come to. The room where all paths meet.

5. Kill out all sense of separateness. 6. Kill out desire for sensation. 7. Kill out the hunger for growth. 8. Yet stand alone and isolated, because nothing that is embodied, nothing that is conscious of separation, nothing that is out of the eternal can aid you. Learn from sensation, and observe it; because only so can you commence the science of self-knowledge, and plant your foot on the first step of the ladder. Grow as the flower grows, unconsciously, but eagerly anxious to open its soul to the air. So must you press forward to open your soul to the eternal. But it must be the eternal that draws forth your strength and beauty, not desire of growth. For, in the one case, you develop in the luxuriance of purity; in the other, you harden by the forcible passion for personal stature. Any discussion?

9. Enlightenment, in a cerebral sense, means loss of structure altogether. Enlightened = getting rid of stuff that makes us heavy and keeping our minds totally open and unopinionated.