The Truth

[Remysf]

Truth is inate in everything, in every moment, in every given situation.
True life is tangible not through our minds or our own perceptions but through the Way. The Way in which each of us are shown moment to moment. The way life is presented. To fall into the traps of ego and physical tangibilities is our own undoing yet the most common way for us Americans to live. We live through a bunch of hype, bull****. We categorize meaning through our own experience and emotions. This is fine but is very constraining to our spiritual growth in The Way. To achieve a True Life we must strive to quiet our minds and often times silence our personal opinions and become open to the moment, strive without striving to become part of that moment and then make the trip into the next. Meditate and Pray,
Get past the books and hype, and so called importance, because ultimately we are all One.
Peace,
Remysf

[atiguhya padma]

What do you mean by truth?

'We are all One' is a meaningless sentence, isn't it?

[subterranean]

Originally posted by Remysf
To fall into the traps of ego and physical tangibilities is our own undoing yet the most common way for us Americans to live.


Non American here. Perhaps you can write something which is more general.


We live through a bunch of hype, bull****. We categorize meaning through our own experience and emotions. This is fine but is very constraining to our spiritual growth in The Way. To achieve a True Life we must strive to quiet our minds and often times silence our personal opinions and become open to the moment, strive without striving to become part of that moment and then make the trip into the next. Meditate and Pray,
Get past the books and hype, and so called importance, because ultimately we are all One.


Heard about these things billion of times
Thanks anyway

[fayefaye]

Sounds a little cult-ish. maybe that's just me....

[azmuse]

I'm just wondering what the point of starting this particular thread with all these irrefutable, cast-in-stone (to the author) statements was...

[MacBeth]

By your defintion of truth, how does one clearly define blasphamy? One way to intrepret your text is that Blasphamy exists in material things and sensual pleasures. If so, the idea is Platonic. Remember two things in your quest for truth: to find it, it is easiest to single of blasphamy, and find truth from what's left; no two interpretations of truth are the same, so you'll have to defend your concept of "one."

[azmuse]

blasphemy

[A poem test]

Truth is the one thing
Or idea, which has
No contradicting
Truth is simple as

Yes or perhaps no
Yet it's effects are
complicated, so
Is the path so far

It's hard to explain
Complicated path
Yet the truth is plain
You just do the math

-A poem test

[atiguhya padma]

When I read John Locke's distinction between primary and secondary qualities, I became of the opinion, that all those black-and-white, measurable, indisputable truths, were probably saying more about how our mind works than how the world works. Then I read Immanuel Kant's views on noumena/phenomena and the thing-in-itself and the thing as it appears. This strengthened my opinions. I began to think that the real truths in the world were those things we couldn't easily define, like beauty, love, art, etc. Because we could not agree on these things, this suggested to me that they could not be merely products of mind structure, but rather represented the mind's attempt's to interpret something deeper than phenomenal representation. This kind of thinking turns the world of objective and subjective slightly upside down. Now, however, I'm not so sure.

[gavinowl]

When you speak of The Way and meditation, I can only relate this to my own experience in Zen Buddhism. And yes, we are all one, as contradictory a notion as that seems to us Americans. To see and live truth is to live without attachment to the ego, to all the preconceived notions we pour into everything. To see objects for what they are and not what we THINK they are is truth. Truth is the interdependence of all things, that no object is isolated and depedent from the whole.

[atiguhya padma]

We cannot see objects for what they are. Or at least, we cannot know that we are seeing objects for what they are. We have no way of verifying that they are what we see them as.

[gavinowl]

padma- Interesting. Please explain further.

[star blue]

he's saying that we see everything through human lenses, which may or may not obscure the world around us. the fact is that we just don't know for certain whether truth is something that exists outside of our perception. truth is just a thought in our mind. but even thought is the thought of thought . . . we don't see it objectively. truth is like cat chasing it's tail: the cycle never ends and the cat is nowhere to be found.

[atiguhya padma]

Thanks for explaining it Star Blue.

I wouldn't have used the phrase 'human lenses' though. That may give the impression that we see something of an external reality, but that we blur the sense of it. I'm not sure we can even claim that.

As I am typing on my iMac, I consider what the iMac can know of reality. It has ports that receive information. It represents that information in some central storage area. This is maybe like our minds. We have perceptual input, and represent those perceptions as sight, sound, etc. We cannot go outside the box of our minds and verify that the object represented is identical to the object as it is in itself. All we have access to is the perception. From our perceptions we infer an external world that may or may not be similar to our perceptual world. But it will always remain an inference. We cannot even be sure that those perceptions don't come from the same place that our thoughts come from ('place' is an unsatisfactory word to use in this context, as it signifies spatial location, something that can only be inferred). In other words, we do not know whether the perceptual world is of our own creation.

I think Wittgenstein suggested that the existence of language suggests the existence of other minds. But this is just another inference.

Atiguhya Padma

[Stanislaw]

Truth is like the word normal. It is a cliche, lets mess with everyones-head-quasi-matrix-stuff. I mean the guy has a point(Remsyf), but it seems kind of cliche. Maybe I am just cynical, but truth is death, normal is death. Its the one thing everyone agrees on.:D I know thats a laugh, but we all die, so it is the only common ground, where we can all be one... dinner for worms.

[amuse]

Some of us plan to get sprinkled in a California redwood grove and the Delaware River (between PA and Jersey) instead :D

[Cassandra]

Why be negitive, why not say that we're alive is a common ground and be more upbeat, that's a truth as well.

[atiguhya padma]

I'm not so sure death is such a common ground.

Has anyone here personally experienced death? The perception of death is common. But none of us can ever experience it. And even if someone claimed they had in a previous life, it wouldn't help me, as it would just be a claim.

[Cassandra]

What death is is not common, for example different religions believe different things. That death is is common, even if you believe in reincarnation it seems that death still has to happen. The differences in opinion over death are probably more likely to divide than prove a common ground.

[Stanislaw]

By death being common, I mean we will all die, for a short time we will all believe the same thing, "Hey were dead".

Life is to eratic to be common.

[Cassandra]

It is common in the same way death is, we all experiance it one way or another. Death is also eratic.

[atiguhya padma]

I would just like to point out that we haven't experienced death, and we are more likely to be aware of the experience of dying than death.

Everything that we know of had a start and will have an end.

But can you remember starting?:)

[Cassandra]

Knowledge that we will experiance death is there but it is a very tenuous (sp?) common ground and one I doubt many people could agree on.

[Stanislaw]

The actual act of birth and death I have realized are common, its like we are the water cycle, we all start off the same, go crazy and are all over the place, and then end the same. Or maybe I am nuts.:D

[Cassandra]

You should be :)

[Sancho]

Amuse, reading your post and the rest of this tread, I was reminded of the last few lines of Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass:”


I depart as air—I shake my white locks at the runaway sun;
I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.

I bequeathe myself to the dirt, to grow from the grass I love;
If you want me again, look for me under your boot-soles.

You will hardly know who I am, or what I mean;
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first, keep encouraged;
Missing me one place, search another;
I stop somewhere, waiting for you.

[Sancho]

It sends chills down my spine to read this and know that he is speaking to us from beyond the grave.

[blazeofglory]

Truth is inate in everything, in every moment, in every given situation.
True life is tangible not through our minds or our own perceptions but through the Way. We categorize meaning through our own experience and emotions. This is fine but is very constraining to our spiritual growth in The Way. To achieve a True Life we must strive to quiet our minds and often times silence our personal opinions and become open to the moment, strive without striving to become part of that moment and then make the trip into the next.
Get past the books and hype, and so called importance, because ultimately we are all One.
Peace,
Remysf

These are words of wisdom and I agree with you.

Indeed our conditioned minds, or our ideas that are simply gathered through experiences or books can not comprehend the meaning of truth. Of course we must get past all to arrive at truth.

[atiguhya padma]

These are words of wisdom and I agree with you.

Indeed our conditioned minds, or our ideas that are simply gathered through experiences or books can not comprehend the meaning of truth. Of course we must get past all to arrive at truth.

Including the concept of truth?

[blazeofglory]

Including the concept of truth?

Indeed the concept of truth is likened to the concept of a glass of water unless you drink you ca not satisfy your thirst. This validates the fact that truth is not the concept but truth only.

[JBI]

Emily Dickinson pretty much summed it up here:

I never saw a Moor —
I never saw the Sea —
Yet know I how the Heather looks
And what a Billow be.

I never spoke with God
Nor visited in Heaven —
Yet certain am I of the spot
As if the Checks were given —

No, I do not believe in god, or in Heaven, but I don't think she does either, at least in this way.

[blazeofglory]

Emily Dickinson pretty much summed it up here:

I never saw a Moor —
I never saw the Sea —
Yet know I how the Heather looks
And what a Billow be.

I never spoke with God
Nor visited in Heaven —
Yet certain am I of the spot
As if the Checks were given —

No, I do not believe in god, or in Heaven, but I don't think she does either, at least in this way.

A beautiful poem. And that is why poets are an inch closer to God and they reach where ordinary ones think inaccessible.