It's a moving target - there is no goal post

[steve]

1 hour ago, 3bob said:

 

ok, thanks for your explanation.

 

I'd say some teachings can more or less get lost in translation and become dogma like, which doesn't mean to me that all teachings become dogma like,  many are known as powerful revealed doctrine, thus more than just intellectual speculation and concepts to be cherry picked in whatever way one might please.  (if one is to become part of a related lineage or school that goes by same)

 

It seems to me that what determines whether a teaching becomes dogma is more related to the believer and institution than to the nature or translation of the teaching itself.

[Jeff]

1 hour ago, steve said:

 

My perspective of rebirth is very personal and rudimentary.

It starts with emptiness.

The me I experience in life is a construct dependent on causes and conditions, not an independent entity.

It is not that which is reborn. This seems to be the stumbling block for many, it certainly was for me at one point.

As a living being I affect my environment through karma, as it affects me.

Those effects persist beyond the death of this body and mind.

Those better versed in the language of Buddhist sutra and the Vedas can speak far more accurately and eloquently about that which carries the karmic traces forward. I'm not able to do that effectively nor do I relate to the idiosyncratic language and concepts.

Rather, I consider the factors that make sense to my life experience (genetics, environmental factors, interpersonal factors, and so on) and I am open to the fact that there are many more factors one could potentially describe that are beyond my understanding.

The birth of each new life is, to me, rebirth as it is yet another manifestation of the lifeforce, the undifferentiated "I-ness" which manifests in all sentience. Each new birth is impacted by those karmic factors in ways which are far too complicated to predict or understand fully and yet the effects are very clearly present. 

That's more or less how I see it at this point.

I can't say how reasonable or accurate it is, nor how consistent it is with any of the ancient traditions, but it works for me.

 

 

Thanks for sharing, but I am still a little confused by what you mean related to the concept of reincarnation. Is there any continuity between these new lives other than what you call the undifferentiated lifeforce? Are you basically saying that there is more like one general lifeforce that manifests in different ways as all life rather than any concept of “independent” sentient beings?

[steve]

42 minutes ago, Jeff said:

 

Thanks for sharing, but I am still a little confused by what you mean related to the concept of reincarnation. Is there any continuity between these new lives other than what you call the undifferentiated lifeforce?

Good question, I can't say that I have a definitive opinion and it is not something within my realm of experience.

As I'm sure you're aware, Buddhists posit the alayavijnana which is the vehicle of individual continuity but for me it seems to be a subtle exception to my experience and understanding of emptiness which is useful insofar as it allows emphasis on karma as a motivational tool.

It's not something I simply accept as a belief, nor do I disbelieve.

It simply doesn't affect my life or practice one way or the other.

Precisely why I chose the example of rebirth in my earlier post.

From the absolute perspective, an experience of more pervasive 'self-identification' sort of negates its relevance for me.

I'd love to hear from someone more knowledgable (Apech?) in terms of how they reconcile the two concepts.

 

 

42 minutes ago, Jeff said:

Are you basically saying that there is more like one general lifeforce that manifests in different ways as all life rather than any concept of “independent” sentient beings?

Hmm, I hesitate to posit "one" general lifeforce. 

There's a reason for the use of the term "nondual."

On the other hand, the doctrine of sunyata and dependent origination clearly teaches that sentient beings are not independent.

Even modern biology has done away with the concept of independent sentient beings.

There has never existed a sentient being independent of the totality of its environment.

Describing independent beings is a convention of personal, relative experience and convenience.

 

At the end of the day, rather than be pinned down on one side or the other of this age old debate (which for me is frankly tiresome at this point), I prefer to simply know that I don't know in a conceptual sense but know to a limited degree in an experiential sense.

 

[Jeff]

1 hour ago, steve said:

Good question, I can't say that I have a definitive opinion and it is not something within my realm of experience.

As I'm sure you're aware, Buddhists posit the alayavijnana which is the vehicle of individual continuity but for me it seems to be a subtle exception to my experience and understanding of emptiness which is useful insofar as it allows emphasis on karma as a motivational tool.

It's not something I simply accept as a belief, nor do I disbelieve.

It simply doesn't affect my life or practice one way or the other.

Precisely why I chose the example of rebirth in my earlier post.

From the absolute perspective, an experience of more pervasive 'self-identification' sort of negates its relevance for me.

I'd love to hear from someone more knowledgable (Apech?) in terms of how they reconcile the two concepts.

 

 

Hmm, I hesitate to posit "one" general lifeforce. 

There's a reason for the use of the term "nondual."

On the other hand, the doctrine of sunyata and dependent origination clearly teaches that sentient beings are not independent.

Even modern biology has done away with the concept of independent sentient beings.

There has never existed a sentient being independent of the totality of its environment.

Describing independent beings is a convention of personal, relative experience and convenience.

 

At the end of the day, rather than be pinned down on one side or the other of this age old debate (which for me is frankly tiresome at this point), I prefer to simply know that I don't know in a conceptual sense but know to a limited degree in an experiential sense.

 

 

Thanks again.  So then no perceptional experience, feeling or sense of an interconnected past or future life?

[steve]

7 minutes ago, Jeff said:

 

Thanks again.  So then no perceptional experience, feeling or sense of an interconnected past or future life?

 

Not enough to trust fully. Limited fragments which could be interpreted in a variety of ways.

After a lifetime of scientific conditioning my opening has been relatively guarded despite a few quantum leaps.

The skeptic clings to my shoulder while the guru rests at the crown! 

[Marblehead]

But one should always look before one leaps.  Don't want to be ending up in some deep stuff.

 

[s1va]

9 hours ago, Jeff said:

 

Sure.  While I get how things can be perceived like reincarnation from the relative perspective of a flow of time. To me, it is much more like their are fractured components of a greater whole in time and space. “Outside of time and space” it is all really happening concurrently as part of a greater whole. So each life is more like a limited aspect view of the greater whole.  As an aspect clears some major issues/fears/Karma, the can cascade through the greater whole and relatively effecting each of the components. At higher levels of realization one begins to have access to and later integrate those components.

 

 

 

Though I get the general idea, it is not clear as to what these fragments are and how exactly they get carried over into the new form.  Taking an example, like a person (male) dies.  At the time of death, upto his throat chakra was open, he also has stored karma and issues.

 

Can you please explain with different potential scenarios of what happens to this person? Can he get fragmented into 2 different forms, different fragments landing in different forms?  Will all the new forms from the fragments will still have the same situation in chakras, upto throat chakra open at birth.  If you have some other better example, then please use that to explain this.

 

Also, if there is a delay from the time the fragments leave to the time they find a suitable form/body, where, how or in what state will they remain?

 

 

 

 

[steve]

10 hours ago, Marblehead said:

But one should always look before one leaps.  Don't want to be ending up in some deep stuff.

 

 

I started in the deep stuff!

[Jeff]

11 hours ago, steve said:

 

Not enough to trust fully. Limited fragments which could be interpreted in a variety of ways.

After a lifetime of scientific conditioning my opening has been relatively guarded despite a few quantum leaps.

The skeptic clings to my shoulder while the guru rests at the crown! 

 

Interesting on the fragments.  Thanks for sharing.  

[Everything]

On 20-10-2018 at 6:07 PM, s1va said:

 

Can we say it's the mandala of everyone, but only the enlightened ones are conciously aware of it?

It is not either fully 100% alignment, or fully 0% disconnected. 

Because you can and will never be disconnected from your Source of existance. That is also why you feel pain and heavy when you experience resistance to the full flow of your true eternal and infinite nature. Because your non-physical eternak and infinite nature holds all of your desires for you eternally. And your relationship with this Greater aspect of your very own being, is then what allows you to experience emotion. 

So can you then understand that in order to be enlightened, you just have to lighten up on your self? 

Because you can never be disconnected from your fullest truth of being that is the greater truth of all that you truely are. But you can pinch yourself off from allowing this truth to flow through you by thinking thoughts that are not in harmony with your Greater knowing of your own Non-physical eternal and infinite being that is who you really are. So this disharmony feels like a negative disharmonious emotion, but that doesn't mean you are disconnected from your own enlightenmeny. The complete opposite! You are NEVER more clear about the enlightenment that you truely seek in your moments of greatest despair and suffering! So the discord you feel with your own nature is the most ripe opportunities for you to fully experience your very own enlightenment. 

So instead of judging your "lesser" experience to be "wrong" you simply allow it to serve you but allowing it to be the stepping stone that it is in your life, in helping you become clear about what it is you truely want. And that is easy to do. Because you are never more clear about what you do want, when you are experiencing that which you don't want.

So you feel heavy and dense and tired. And enlightenment would then feel like freedom, light, easy, fresh, energized. And so you take some fresh air and you enjoy the beautiful open sky. And in that moment of pure appreciation you are allowing your full eternal non physical nature to fully flow trough you. And that is all that enlightenment truely is. And that is also how easy it is. For you cannot make it more difficult for yourself and feel heavier and enlightened at the same time. How simple to know that! And how delivering to finally acknowmedge the ease of being harmony with the full nature of who it is you always already truely are. 

[Jeff]

11 hours ago, s1va said:

 

 

 

Though I get the general idea, it is not clear as to what these fragments are and how exactly they get carried over into the new form.  Taking an example, like a person (male) dies.  At the time of death, upto his throat chakra was open, he also has stored karma and issues.

 

Can you please explain with different potential scenarios of what happens to this person? Can he get fragmented into 2 different forms, different fragments landing in different forms?  Will all the new forms from the fragments will still have the same situation in chakras, upto throat chakra open at birth.  If you have some other better example, then please use that to explain this.

 

Also, if there is a delay from the time the fragments leave to the time they find a suitable form/body, where, how or in what state will they remain?

 

 

Sounds like I did not do a very good job of explaining. The individual fragments do not get carried over from life to life (or form to form). Each one is part of the greater whole. While the pieces appear to be separate (lives), beyond time and space they are all really One. It is just that the Oneness of the greater whole is obscured with the issues/fears/attachment/karma.

 

In Taoist terms you could say that everyone is a One that emerges (or bubbles up) from the Dao, but from the perspective of an individual life, they only see themselves as a 10,000 thing. Immortality is realizing beyond being just the individual aspect/fragment which is bound within time & space and has limited existence (dies).

 

The TTC describes the path from a 10,000 thing like this...

 

SIXTEEN

Empty yourself of everything. Let the mind become still.

The ten thousand things rise and fall while the self watches their return.

They grow and flourish and then return to the source.

Returning to the source is stillness, which is the way of nature.

The way of nature is unchanging. Knowing constancy is insight.

Not knowing constancy leads to disaster. Knowing constancy, the mind is open.

With an open mind, you will be openhearted.

Being openhearted, you will act royally.

Being royal, you will attain the divine.

Being divine, you will be at one with the Tao.

Being at one with the Tao is eternal.

And though the body dies, the Tao will never pass away.

 

Attaining and “being” divine is the key to becoming One with the Tao. Being Openhearted is critical as it is the first step for being able to connect with the divine and become “royal”.

 

 

[Everything]

10 minutes ago, Jeff said:

 

Sounds like I did not do a very good job of explaining. The individual fragments do not get carried over from life to life (or form to form). Each one is part of the greater whole. While the pieces appear to be separate (lives), beyond time and space they are all really One. It is just that the Oneness of the greater whole is obscured with the issues/fears/attachment/karma.

 

In Taoist terms you could say that everyone is a One that emerges (or bubbles up) from the Dao, but from the perspective of an individual life, they only see themselves as a 10,000 thing. Immortality is realizing beyond being just the individual aspect/fragment which is bound within time & space and has limited existence (dies).

 

The TTC describes the path from a 10,000 thing like this...

 

SIXTEEN

Empty yourself of everything. Let the mind become still.

The ten thousand things rise and fall while the self watches their return.

They grow and flourish and then return to the source.

Returning to the source is stillness, which is the way of nature.

The way of nature is unchanging. Knowing constancy is insight.

Not knowing constancy leads to disaster. Knowing constancy, the mind is open.

With an open mind, you will be openhearted.

Being openhearted, you will act royally.

Being royal, you will attain the divine.

Being divine, you will be at one with the Tao.

Being at one with the Tao is eternal.

And though the body dies, the Tao will never pass away.

 

Attaining and “being” divine is the key to becoming One with the Tao. Being Openhearted is critical as it is the first step for being able to connect with the divine and become “royal”.

 

 

Yes! For your heart is always perfect! And always lets you know wether or not you are focused in harmony with your greater truth of being or disharmony. And you do not require to change anything in order to excersize your divine right that is your ability to focus. For if you focus on the stillness, you also begin to have the clarity that is natural to you and your nature, and in so doing, and in so doing you can now begin to SEE the way of nature. Which is this eternal flow with the infinite and eternal stream of well-being that is the Source if all creation. 

Edited October 22, 2018 by Everything

[s1va]

58 minutes ago, Everything said:

It is not either fully 100% alignment, or fully 0% disconnected. 

Because you can and will never be disconnected from your Source of existance. That is also why you feel pain and heavy when you experience resistance to the full flow of your true eternal and infinite nature. Because your non-physical eternak and infinite nature holds all of your desires for you eternally. And your relationship with this Greater aspect of your very own being, is then what allows you to experience emotion. 

So can you then understand that in order to be enlightened, you just have to lighten up on your self? 

Because you can never be disconnected from your fullest truth of being that is the greater truth of all that you truely are. But you can pinch yourself off from allowing this truth to flow through you by thinking thoughts that are not in harmony with your Greater knowing of your own Non-physical eternal and infinite being that is who you really are. So this disharmony feels like a negative disharmonious emotion, but that doesn't mean you are disconnected from your own enlightenmeny. The complete opposite! You are NEVER more clear about the enlightenment that you truely seek in your moments of greatest despair and suffering! So the discord you feel with your own nature is the most ripe opportunities for you to fully experience your very own enlightenment. 

So instead of judging your "lesser" experience to be "wrong" you simply allow it to serve you but allowing it to be the stepping stone that it is in your life, in helping you become clear about what it is you truely want. And that is easy to do. Because you are never more clear about what you do want, when you are experiencing that which you don't want.

So you feel heavy and dense and tired. And enlightenment would then feel like freedom, light, easy, fresh, energized. And so you take some fresh air and you enjoy the beautiful open sky. And in that moment of pure appreciation you are allowing your full eternal non physical nature to fully flow trough you. And that is all that enlightenment truely is. And that is also how easy it is. For you cannot make it more difficult for yourself and feel heavier and enlightened at the same time. How simple to know that! And how delivering to finally acknowmedge the ease of being harmony with the full nature of who it is you always already truely are. 

 

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.  Though, my views on this are different.  If it can be named, if it can be described as the state of freedom, easy, fresh, energized, etc., then that's not it for me.   Who feels fresh, energized, etc? Is it the local body and mind or something else? Also, as this post says, I see it as ever expanding potential, and not any fixed state.

[Everything]

6 hours ago, s1va said:

 

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.  Though, my views on this are different.  If it can be named, if it can be described as the state of freedom, easy, fresh, energized, etc., then that's not it for me.   Who feels fresh, energized, etc? Is it the local body and mind or something else? Also, as this post says, I see it as ever expanding potential, and not any fixed state.

You are your body, and your body is not a fixed state. 

[s1va]

5 minutes ago, Everything said:

You are your body, and your body is not a fixed state. 

 

It can appear so.  Body is just a projection like everything else.

[Everything]

37 minutes ago, s1va said:

 

It can appear so.  Body is just a projection like everything else.

So what are you most often projecting? Or what do you want to project or intend to project. 

[s1va]

1 minute ago, Everything said:

So what are you most often projecting? Or what do you want to project or intend to project. 

 

I am not projecting.  The senses and the mind are projecting.  It is like playing a virtual reality video game.

 

And, each one is us have to find the answers for ourselves.  Divine help is available if we reach out.  Best wishes in your journey!

[Everything]

2 minutes ago, s1va said:

 

I am not projecting.  The senses and the mind are projecting.  It is like playing a virtual reality video game.

 

And, each one is us have to find the answers for ourselves.  Divine help is available if we reach out.  Best wishes in your journey!

Wow cool, so you're fully up to speed with your non-physical greater knowing. Well, I guess I reached out to you, but you don't have to help me ofcourse. 

[s1va]

Just now, Everything said:

Wow cool, so you're fully up to speed with your non-physical greater knowing. Well, I guess I reached out to you, but you don't have to help me ofcourse. 

 

I am just a fellow traveler or player and I am always here to help anyone that asks my friend .

 

[Everything]

1 minute ago, s1va said:

 

I am just a fellow traveler or player and I am always here to help anyone that asks my friend .

 

You're very kind I also like your avatar. Heaven on earth. Someone described the water as liquid diamond. Pure. 

[s1va]

12 minutes ago, Everything said:

You're very kind I also like your avatar. Heaven on earth. Someone described the water as liquid diamond. Pure. 

I just picked it because I liked the picture with water, etc.  🙂

Don't know if it's heaven on earth.

[Everything]

Just now, s1va said:

I just picked it because I liked the picture with water, etc.  🙂

Don't know if it's heaven on earth.

Hehe, well, I guess if you turn the image upside down, then it is the earth on heaven 

[3bob]

On 10/21/2018 at 3:15 PM, steve said:

 

It seems to me that what determines whether a teaching becomes dogma is more related to the believer and institution than to the nature or translation of the teaching itself.

 

could be, and could be the blind leading the blind...and part of that is that an institution over time and in some cases can reverse and replace the original nature of a teaching itself; which is something that is very obvious in Christianity with its long history of cases of being corrupted towards "manifest destiny" as an excuse  to commit genocide against American Indians.  (and lots of other crimes against lots of other people in the name of God, something which Lord Jesus would never tolerate for a moment)   

Edited October 23, 2018 by 3bob

[s1va]

On 10/22/2018 at 7:19 AM, Jeff said:

 

Sounds like I did not do a very good job of explaining. The individual fragments do not get carried over from life to life (or form to form). Each one is part of the greater whole. While the pieces appear to be separate (lives), beyond time and space they are all really One. It is just that the Oneness of the greater whole is obscured with the issues/fears/attachment/karma.

 

In Taoist terms you could say that everyone is a One that emerges (or bubbles up) from the Dao, but from the perspective of an individual life, they only see themselves as a 10,000 thing. Immortality is realizing beyond being just the individual aspect/fragment which is bound within time & space and has limited existence (dies).

 

So, you are saying from one form to another, it is just one continuation of flow.  How does this differ from the Hindu traditional view with divides soul taking another form.  If we describe that process -- from the perspective of an individual life -- as change of clothes, or, choosing a different character and starting from Level 1 of a video game, would that match with your view?

[Everything]

21 minutes ago, s1va said:

 

So, you are saying from one form to another, it is just one continuation of flow.  How does this differ from the Hindu traditional view with divides soul taking another form.  If we describe that process -- from the perspective of an individual life -- as change of clothes, or, choosing a different character and starting from Level 1 of a video game, would that match with your view?

You get a new body, but the level is still increasing. The soul is always growing. And you can see this growth in the expanded experience of the newer generations. It may look like life is going up and down. But if you zoom out, you can see, it is going higher very steadily, both in the peaks and bottoms that follow one another. It is like a flower that grows, the growth is maintained, and expanded non-physically, the physical flower decays, the valuable experience and growth reached by the flower is now slowly manifesting in a greater way by virtue of its non-physical ever expansion, that may allow it to manifest in ways that you cannot even imagine, yet. How or where, I do not know. That depends on the growth achieved by the individual flower and the new realizations it has individually come to know that it truely wants, and that is why every individual is so valuable in all of this variety that ensure the eternal expansion of existance and creation and this universe. That life has caused it to ask, non-verbally, essence wise, a greater creation, and a newer creation, that always eternally flows forth, unconditionally from Source, which is always infinitely and eternally focused on our always now more expanded version of who we always now are that we are always becoming and always holding that best of all that we are in vibrational escrow, eternally infinitely. What we have become, because of this life we have been living, has already become, it's a done deal. It is non-physically established, it cannot ever become less and will always become more. This non-physical being that we now are, can never become less, simply not possible, it is infact always becoming more. We don't have to do anything as physical being to reap the benefits of our own growth even in our physical life. But what we do have to do, is stop doing the things that do not allow us to go with the natural stream of expansion, such as holding on to the conditions that has allowed us to come to a greater knowing of who we have now become because of the experiences that we have had, IF we wanna reap the benefits of our growth in this life. And even if we do not allow ourselves to go with the natural stream of our more expanded self of who we are always becoming, that also does not cause our essence to become less. So then you would in a sense, be experiencing lvl 44 even tho you're 88 in essence, which might be a little bit uncomfortable, then if you die, you instantly catch up to the full realization of your total expansion and thus instantly become lvl 88, in other words that which doesn't allow you to realize who you've now become is simply not there anymore, and then there is no turning back from that. You cant go back to what you were, because you're always becoming more. Even if you would go back, you would then be going back as the more expanded version of who you now are. There is also from non-physical point of view no desire to become less. So there is no such thing as back, there is only motion forward. Always becoming more and better. Joyoush being always looking for the next best thing. Because it always effortlessly flows with the natural expansion that it is. That we can also learn to do in this physical life. But even if we don't, that doesn't mean we become less or more, because we're always becoming more. There's literally no stopping your eternal nature. It's just a matter of time, before one allows themselves to realize that. And often it's a death experience, and often it's a life experience. Becuase the death experience is in essence a life experience aswell. Life in essence is not primarily physical, but primarily non-physical and eternal. We just come here for the fun of our eternal expansion. There's honestly really nothing serious going on at all. There's no test or something like that. That's just rediculous and funny from your non-physical point of view. You may think life's getting difficult, but it's not. It's always becoming easier and more fun. Challenges are also part of that fun that we want, because we as eternal beings love that the joy is in the journey, because we are eternal, there's no resistance to the journey, because journey is what is so fun! So enjoyable, to move to be, in inspired fashion, always moving to the next best thing and the next, and the next. And always effortlessly catching up to the more that we are always becoming. As that new and more and better.

Edited October 23, 2018 by Everything