Om

[I]On the thread "the Spiritual path"[/I]

The whole point of this discussion has been the "inexpressible" wisdom or spirituality- if there is such a thing, universal peace. Blaze is maintaining that there is no mandatory or only spiritual way- I am saying that I've seen it written very well, in many different authors I've pursued.

[I]Sources of knowledge when they are true, are very refreshing to me. However, the source of true knowledge and the source of false are both empty in nature.[/I]

Beginning with Buddhist philosophy, and continuing studying this, and later Western philosophy, always comparing my ideas with many people, and more recently writing as much as I can down. Practicing meditation, Tai Chi movements, and trance, as well as fasting, and reading, studying, meditating upon the Gita as well as others, I've had greatly numerous insights.

[I]Meditation is related to nonmeditation, and trance is related to Tai Chi. Reading and studying expand the mind, and are related to the mind expanding of Tai Chi. All of these forms are conducive to spiritual growth.[/I]

One time I had the very clear implication that everything in life was a dream- impermanent- and that none of it affected who we really are- our soul. I experienced myself as outside of the dream for an extended period of time, and I saw myself as a buddha of our age, and the light of buddhas in all things.

[I]The feeling I had is similar to a beneficient acceptance of the world, in all of its realms, of nirvana and yin and yang in material nature. It was different though in that it was the perceiving of my true nature. I am but a nexus of information, of skills, directions, habits. I am not more at peace than the next person, but in my head are ideas influenced by deep meditations. If a person cannot contribute something after 19 years, isn't there something wrong with this picture? The fact of my life is that it is shaped by infinite growths, progresses, learnings, experiences. I am universal only in that I've seen and spent much time in the company of astounding people, like grandmasters, politicians, professors- I am influenced and in a way, cultured, although my manner is precisely that of the suffering intellectual who is alone and misunderstood. I am also very passionate, and am somewhat like that of a Werther, or any other soul that felt the burden very greatly. Another name brought itself up to mention myself as, but I forgot. Alas, I am that stranger that disappears into the sand.

Any person who has lived the life I have, with the learning experiences, will not hesitate to claim happiness for themselves. If any person can win against the struggle of exhaustion, they deserve happiness. There is no time or use for energy spent contemplating negative or competitive views. These are forgotten and what should be the natural fundamental in communication is respect for each other's ideas.

One thing I believe is that no one is more intelligent or less intelligent than anyone else. We are all limited, and perhaps the only credible thing is to be aware of and satisfied with one's limitations. Yet what I mean about intelligence- if there were only 5 people in the world, if 4 of them were below average intelligence, I submit they will be good tempered and better company than almost anyone else.[/I]

This occurred before and after meditating upon the Heart Sutra. I realized that I could not understand the Heart Sutra completely, but viewing it I saw it to be the same as my own nature.

[I]The Heart Sutra is a set, it is one that is beyond our grasping. Its limits are there at our edge of understanding, just like ourselves. What are we- are we good or are we bad? [B]We do not know.[/B] But in a way, we can know. We cannot know if it is not in our vocabulary to know, however.[/I]

Everything is of the nature of the heart sutra and the self- they are empty. This great truth I meditated on many times since then. I think about it in many ways.

[I]The heart sutra is not that long. It may be impudent to say this, to give such a simple paraphrase of the heart sutra, but it could be summed up like this: there is no suffering, and there is no sufferer. The are no senses and there is nothing which is affected by them. There is no enligthenment and nothing to be enlightened. This is crude, and there is more of it, so if you wish to correct me, I more than welcome correction.[/I]

Later I re-began and read more of The Joyous Cosmology, and as I recently had much more love in my life, I was able to understand this well, and simply- penetratingly, and with new good insights (the value of output, of creation, and learning from one's self, the value of keeping record and meditating upon it). I began to see things in this way.

[I]In the joyous cosmology several things become real. Time becomes different so that in two weeks we can experience two years or centuries. Time is not a factor, and since it is not, we are not bound by the present but can go into the past or future. Information fields exist which cross over times. The lives of our ancestors are written into our minds, too subtle to see but dancing in our vision, senses and mind. In the joyous cosmology an hour is like a week, and we see things as much greater representations than what they are. The people we are with shift from the harried and harassed personalities to become their primeval archetypes. We are carved into eternity. The years of our present are told to us as children in the past. We link to our past selves with, say, five years of marriage, or study.

We see an apple as it is eaten once but also countless times. Or breath goes into and out of our body like a wind. A minute breathing becomes our whole lives of breath. As we inhabit the world without anything but our observations, the present moment looms like the entire universe. We are no longer great or small, and we look closely at the tiniest point in our field of vision, a small hole in a leaf somewhere, where, hovering, is a single point, and in this point is a universe being created- is our own universe being created as a bang. In split seconds the world is created over and over and over again. As soon as the joyous cosmology is perceived, nothing else is the same. A moment in the joyous cosmology is one which gives us the impression of our whole lives all in the same instant. If we simply delve into our memories, it is no different from being there, it is as if we traveled. So we go back into our memories with the knowledge we know, about our archetypes and love and spiritual progress we will make, and we believe we've known about it our whole lives- we believe it's our destiny.[/i]

Etienne, I do not need you to taste what I taste when I drink a drink, but if I am going to have a philosophical discussion, I will bring all elements of my knowledge into it, and so I will keep coming back to the only important thing I ever learned: it doesn't matter if we take the drink or not.