manitou

"Our individual perception of that wavelength may differ". This seems to be where the rubber meets the road. Is the fact that we're all the same (as far as having rods and cones and an eye apparatus) and yet different (we're all different sizes, and we have different eye colors!) affect our actual perception to the point where red to me would look even slightly different than red to you? Is there any chance that eye color would affect the way color is visualized due to a variance in how the light is taken in?

Everything, I've been into chaotic keyboard for a couple months. I set my hand on the keyboard (with string overlay) and let the music develop on its own. I play with my eyes closed sometimes and wait for the eerieness to come out. It always does. But it always seems to want to go back to some form too, even though the eyes are closed. Sometimes I will accidentally hit a viable chord and dwell there for a while, tinkering around, until the chaos returns. The odd thing is that it seems to get "better" as time goes on. Almost as if there is a composer in there awaiting opportunity among the chaos. This is the oddest combination of structure and non-structure. In any event, it's quite listenable. I'm in full agreement that to find the Great the tempo must be slowed. The beat in my chaotic music doesn't appear until I've had my hand on a chord or a fifth for maybe 30 seconds. Then I know what It wants to play, how fast, how expressive. "Seeing how things relate to each other, yet differ, is being great". Great is One. The reversion to the One. The One Idea that we are all manifesting and are all merely different phases of the same thing. Nice topic and nice metaphor.

To 'love one's brother as yourself' may not be referring to one's actual brother and sister.

wow. He became one with it all. Very nice, dawg.

It's funny that you say this. It occurred to me one day that Jesus, if the Bible is truly historical, did wu-wei at the end of his life. He performed 'do-nothing' at the end of his life; he said nothing in his own defense, that conversation he had with his higher self the night before must have been intense. But he let it all happen. He did not change the dynamic in action. Wu-wei. And loving to the end (father, forgive them for they know now what they do). This was a sage, a man in total awareness, performing the wu-wei of the TTC, or the Power of Silence as articulated by Castaneda, or occult yogi philosophy, or seemingly the end of any viable path that takes us to the center. It's a way of stopping the world, letting all the chips fall where they may. His chips, if the historical aspect is correct, fell pretty damn hard. But he loved til the end. the man was a sage; a shaman; a light warrior; a christ spirit. Pretty darn impressive, if you ask me. Must've been some guy.

Hi Straw Dog - nice to be back. you were instrumental I wouldn't have thought for a moment that the extreme right wing crazies are making the impact that they are. We'll find out after the next election whether our reality has become the caricature or not... The only thing that keeps me sane is knowing at the deepest level that this is all one big world evolution continuing, and it seems to know what it's doing, despite appearances to the contrary. I think it would be nice if we all just sat here together on the fence and watched it go by.

Thank you, SD, for bringing up this topic. I absolutely concur with just about everything you've said. What difference does it make where each 'soul' makes its appearance on the planet? Each soul is absolutely as important as the next, as IMO all souls are connected as the One. We are the people living on the other side of the world. We just don't realize yet that we are a huge, many armed creature. I hate the idea of nationalism. The bumper stickers here in Ohio are enough to cause a gag reflex. The one I saw the other day on a truck (with gun rack, of course) was "I've got my Freedom, my God, and my Money. You can keep your Change". The mindset of many many people here in middle-America is unbelievable, especially having grown up on the California coast. I see the world as an orb that has all the wealth and riches piled up in several little areas of the globe - and the rest of the world can just all go to hell, as far as they're concerned. Our 'profit motive' society has turned into dog eat dog; only those who were born with the smarts and the good health and the good breeding and lucky enough to be born into the right family are the ones that see the material benefits. These midwesterners cling to the mindset of the old industrial revolution days - when steel was king and when pottery was being made here in Ohio - and they're just sure the Republicans can bring back the happy whistling factory workers. They have no concept of globalization for the most part; of course, every time there's a downturn in the stock market or a bad economics report, it's Obama's fault; never mind that the entire world economy is now interconnected and a downturn somewhere affects everyone everywhere. Honestly, I've never felt this way before. But the idea of nationalism is becoming more repugnant to me all the time. It almost pisses me off to see a flag flying from the antennae of a bubba-truck with big fat wheels. I think we're at the point of global solutions. I think the United Nations better get up to speed real fast. I just can't see it going any other way.

I often wonder if what is green to me might not appear to be yellow to you. How do we know green is green to everybody? Maybe it's red to some. Mind boggling, if you ask me.

My suggestion would be to make time for meditation daily - the type of meditation where you learn to still the inner dialogue, find the emptiness. It will take years, but this is a perfect time to start. Until the inner dialogue is quelled (you indicated that your mind races) you will not be able to find serenity or the peace you are searching for. As you gain control over your own thoughts and your own mindsets (for example, trying not to judge anyone) the peace will be a by-product. But just the fact that you start meditating to quiet that mind will be a huge step in the right direction, IMO.

How much truer can it get than this? the distribution of wealth on a global scale is just so terribly unfair. some of those fishes need a trip to the desert.

I'd go even a little further and say that life finds us the teacher if we are impeccable to the best of our ability. Being impeccable in this regard would be the ability to still the inner dialogue (only after many years of meditation is this possible), the earnest desire for enlightenment (or whatever one wishes to call it), an understanding of right action, an understanding of telling the truth as they perceive it, and the ability to not judge anything as either good or bad. But above all, one must be teachable. This involves ego, or losing it. If one considers that he/she has the "answers" and no more questions, then there is a barricade to finding the Center. The student must remain open minded; a true teacher will always be a true student. Gerard, thank you for posting that. It was like a drink of cool water.

You're absolutely right. I should have said everybody with a TV has the potential..... I'm afraid that the forces that determine what direction our communal fate is taking generally do have TV's, I'm betting. No, the starving kids in Somalia probably aren't on the same page, you're right. But inadvertently, because of our newfangled gadgets, our Awareness of the starving kids in Somalia is increasing and the world seems to be undergoing huge financial crises which could, at some point, be the answer for the starving Somalia kids. I kind of like one of MSNBC's anchors (can't remember his name at this moment, but he identifies as a socialist)....we don't need a political solution to such things as health care. We need a global solution. Assumedly this would overflow to feeding of people as well. We are the starving kids in Somalia. They are the other side of us. As are the so-called 'terrorists' in Pakistan or Afghanistan (actually, it seems to me that they're more like people trying to protect their own country from a bunch of bullies across the world). Mass communication hopefully will result in the entire world population being elevated, which would be a nice end-run goal for the forces that Be, of which we are all a part. Mass communication is either going to hurl us all over the abyss, because of the simultaneous awareness worldwide....or be instrumental in administering the answer. The answer that benefits all of humanity, not just the white cream at the top.

This is also the best description of what people around the world consider 'God' that I've ever heard. This is the One that is reverted to in the Tao.

I've been away for a few weeks, and came back to see that the Buddhist Discussion is in a separate area. I popped in to read a few, and I was a bit heartbroken to see the most beautiful thread started by Seth Ananda about the earnestness of the inner work. This is something that's so very important in my opinion, and it hurts me to see that it's not all in one place. The reason I say this, is that I think that without the inner work (would that be the Buddhist 8 fold path?) the rest of this is just a cerebral experience. The form can be understood by study alone, the essence must be understood by inner mining. It seems to me that the Buddhists place a very heavy emphasis on the inner clearing-out process in a way that I haven't found in Taoism. Or at least not yet. My own personal inner work manual was the steps of recovery being done over a 30 year period. This works as well. As much as I love the TTC and the sage, I've always sort of wondered at the Taoist path, in that I haven't heard a lot of mention of any sort of an inner path with Taoists. I do understand that the Sage has done the inner work and is an enlightened being. It is apparent from the 3 treasures he possesses, Never Too Much, Never Be The First, and Love. In order to possess these things, the Sage certainly must have been doing inner work. Never Too Much comes from a lifetime of pursuing selfish pleasures and discovering the futility of that (unless of course the very wise Sage can learn from others so he doesn't have to experience the humiliation of a life gone awry firsthand). Never Be The First comes after many years of tamping down the ego, realizing that life is not a race that has to be won. Love comes after the Sage has eliminated the dark, the irrelevant, the selfish and can truly become a reflection of the Great Essence. But my question is this. Within the Taoist 'structure', is there something like an 8-fold path (or a 12 step path?) for Taoists to get down to their original nature? And if it's all about getting down to our original nature, which it seems to be.....why are we now separated into two forums? Isn't Seth's thread about the inner work just as important on the Taoist thread? I think those of us on the Taoist thread are going to suffer because of the separation. Are we not all talking about the same thing? It appears to me that all paths lead up the same mountain and meet at the top. From my perspective, I can See it. It just seems that we gain immensely by bouncing the two mindsets off each other. When we get to the point where we See that we're All One (okay, let the tomatoes start flying) it seems counterproductive to once again artificially separate the paths. It just seems to me that what happens here on this forum is a constant evolution upward, and we are getting closer and closer to removing the human foibles which cause the split in the two paths. Maybe there were too many arguments. But arguments are the very thing that give us a measure of ourselves. If something angers us that someone else said, the trick is to go inside and see why it is angering us. Are we clinging to a favorite mindset out of ego, because we've invested so many years in studying this particular path and surely this must be the only correct way? This we can do something about. Anger can be the perfect measurement for our own inner work. And Love. When the Sage or the Buddha gets to the point of Love, that means he no longer makes judgment on anyone; things are perfect as they are. The Buddha nature lives within us, as does the Sage nature. I'm thinking it's all the same. The only thing that separates it is Form. Form is limiting. The result of lots of years of metaphysical study and lots of years of inner mining has shown me that there is no separation between the I Am. We are all the I Am. Most of us just don't know it yet. The separation of the mindsets on our forum just feels like a step backwards to me. When I came back from hiatus, it sort of tore my heart in two to see it. I'm sure this has all been previously discussed, ad nauseum, probably. If so, I apologize for bringing it up again. This is just my very late two cents being thrown into the can.

(...) I just had another thought too. Was the voting open to everyone who READS the Tao Bums, or everyone who POSTS on the TaoBums? There are two different dynamics at play here. We, the posters, have evolved into a chemistry with each other over a period of time. I feel that the upward mobility, as a result of this chemistry, has been a spiral upwards. Just those with a Taoist viewpoint alone would have no impetus to evolve upward without challenge from a different perspective, our Buddhists in particular. I think the Buddhists here have a perverted little Taoist in their closets too, and are waiting for them to come out. Either way, both sides benefit. To remove this natural grate and motivation is to devolve in both areas, I think. The quantity of Readers of the posts, however, are many and various. To put to a general vote something as pertinent as the chemistry of the posting community is a mistake. I just feel a little like I've been rent in two, that's all. I'm not a Taoist, I'm not a Buddhist. I really don't want to be an ist of any sort. But it's through point and counterpoint and triangulation of everyone's ideas that the ESSENCE is found. I've been on my own mainly metaphysical inner journey forever, it seems. I bounced in here a few years ago and found a potpourri of wonderful ideas. My path to hopefully eventual enlightenment does involve the principle of reversion to the One, the same reversion to the One that it mentions in the Tao. If anyone knows of any other discussion groups, in addition to this one, where the viewpoints are instead encouraged to merge, and which lead to Oneness and Love as the great essence of everything - the thing we get down to once the dross has been cleared away - if anyone knows of a discussion group like this, could you please let me know? Barbara

What incredibly wonderful responses! Thank you, everybody. I had heard the term Internal Alchemy used in these forums but didn't know if it pertained to the inner journey or not. I'm very happy to know that there are equivalents in each. In my experience, the essence can only be found through the inner journey. 5-ET, a rarely disagree with anything you ever say. But when you say seeing both religions as One is simplistic, I see it instead as enlightened. Go figure

I was brought up biblically, but I couldn't be further away from that mindset at this point in my life. But I do have a few conjectures on things like the Revelations of St. John. I have to get metaphysical here. Einstein proved, in essence, that linear time is an illusion by his theory of relativity. Therefore the reality is that time is all here and now, but it has the appearance of being linear. I think a great metaphor is a deck of cards. If you were a teeny person and standing next to a deck of cards, you'd be able to look straight up and see the card edges, a glimpse of each one. But if a huge honking hand fanned all the cards out into a figure 8, the infinity symbol, the metaphor would be one day at a time. Linear and endless in appearance and form. Getting back to the prophecy thing, I don't discount hallucinogens as being the reason for the prophecies in the bible or any other tome. God knows hallucinogens have been the pathway for many an important vision upon which tribes would organize their culture; we've all heard of Black Elk and his prophecies and visions - I'm guessing that the tribal way for these visions was through shrooms or something similar. It is even conjectured by some on the internet (I don't know how proven this is) that the anointing oils used during the biblical anointments usually contained hemp oil among other things. Perhaps the usage of these oils led to visions and hallucinations and could possibly explain Revelations and other such prophecies. Getting back to current prophecies, what if someone like John was momentarily able to glimpse the edge of the deck of cards - whether from meditation, substance, or whatever? The time we're living in might explain why he 'saw' so much war (even though, as Markern says, it is actually proportionally less than just about any other violent time in history). This is a good point. But what if the edge of one of the cards that John saw was actually a vision of our current media reporting? We see this stuff 24/7 now, on occasion - and maybe John's vision actually captured a glimpse of the rapidity of our current pace of living? Like some big huge TV? Plus, throw in the fact that our communications are instantaneous now; in essence, we've turned the whole world into 'here and now' with our mass media capabilities. It would have been seen by him as rampantly as we get to witness it on TV and as rapidly as it all seems to be happening. Everybody has the potential to be on the same page now, at each moment in time. A type of Oneness has been achieved, at least in the arena of communication. What a trip it is living in these particular times.

That's what would make me cry. The tree was still giving even when the man was sitting on him.

Ms. Weirdness checking in. In the event that all is actually One and we are indeed the point of the spear through which the Order of Everything manifests...in essence, we are actually God,....my guess would be that the earth anomalies are the consequence of our own spiritual indigestion. The fact that things seem to be happening SO FAST now is because of the instantaneous nature of how we communicate with each other....worldwide now, instant, translated from one language to the other...this is like the Tower of Babel in reverse. Man's consciousness is becoming more One all the time, like ants gathering to the queen. Polarized certainly, but it seems that so many different dynamics are coming to a head now. Racism, for example. We have racism at the very highest level in our country. That's our biggest problem right now...not the economy. It's the racism of the Rich White Man's club who just can't seem to accept a new color of president. And the world economy - now all our fates rest upon our combined fates, regardless of where in the world we live. We're all hooked together now. And the Arab Spring - and even the downtrodden vs. upper class in this country. Do we want to throw global warming in? I'm thinking it's the condition of our consciousness that's the real problem. Our combined consciousness. Hate, greed, ugliness rule the day now. This is what we, the Creator, are manifesting. The good thing is that there is so much good going on too - even the development of our own ideas (and ideals) on forums such as this - but the good stuff doesn't make the news. We just have to know that perfect alignment is indeed underlying everything, and that it will always win out in the end.

Enlightenment, should anybody desire that, does involve loss of structure.and temperance of ego. Along with not being slaves to emotion or opinion.

And maybe the abyss isn't a bad thing. Maybe there's nothing to fear at all.

Beautiful discussion. It reminds me of Shel Silverstein's Giving Tree, a book I was given as a young girl. The darn tree just keeps giving up its leaves, its wood, its trunk, until there is nothing left to give. I think at the end of the book someone's sitting on the stump. Pleasures are transitory; meditation is transitory. But doesn't it seem that meditation taps into something that is non-transitory? I sense tapping into the collective mind.

Well, there is one thing we can do about it. We can lose the fear of death and then none of it makes any difference anyway.

Clarity on one hand, but self restriction on the other. I've been on hiatus for a while so I've missed some stuff. Why are we segregating the Buddhist attitudes from the Taoist? Is there anyone here at all besides me that Knows that this thing we keep trying to describe and understand is All One? It's all the same thing? I love it when one of the Taoists and Buddhists connect up on an idea; it's like forging a wormhole, breaking down the illusion of structure that describes both mindsets. I think it's up to us to bring the walls down, and stop worrying so much about old dead guys. We were given brains for a reason. Is it because we've been uncivil with each other in the past? So what? We are all mirrors of each other, bouncing our own reflection back and forth. I can't believe how much personal growth I've experienced since I've bounced around on this forum. And what a perfect place for us to see our own egotism. To have to admit that as unsagelike as it may be, that sometimes our egos can get out of check. We're all the same, you and I. I vote for letting the forum continue to be self-marketing; I think the hostilities we may sometimes feel are a great gauge for our own development. If we're trying to iron things out by changing the structure of the forum, I don't think it would be as conducive to personal growth as letting us slug it out, walk away for a couple rounds (as I just did) and return to the party. I truly felt disconnected without every single one of you. What a luxury it is to have people - no, friends - to communicate with on this level? I live in Bumfuk Ohio. There's nobody here to talk to. All I have is you. And it pains me a little to know that we're separating our ranks in this manner. I just think it's going to be antiproductive to our personal quests. No offense meant here at all, Trunk! Perhaps I'm not understanding things correctly? Barb

I merely think Everything and I have gotten down to Who we Really Are. This involves loss of structure, whether it be Daoism or Buddhism. they all lead to the same place, once you get there you realize that.