Birch

I don't know. Some days when I'm walking along the street I'll see a person who seems to me to look exactly like some other person I've already seen. Fashion doesn't help for sure but sometimes I wonder if other people see me walking in the street and say to themselves, 'that person looks like a person I've already seen'. So I'd conclude it's probably not anything to do with how a person looks. I don't know what the best way would be to figure it out. I would like to think people are individuals because I would like to think I am one myself.

Looks like I'm pretty able to combine my atheism with lots of other things;-) Let me define my atheism as being my rejection of the 'big white bearded dude in the sky who has total authority over everything - including you'

I didn't say it was easy. For the reasons you state above (and more). I don't mind argumentative. I'm also not immune.

Did you find it weird and f*cked up? I did. It's also (one of) the reasons I'm on this silly forum I don't know why it hasn't happened again either and I don't think I want it to. Unless there's a very good reason for why it would be a good idea.

I figure that (what you just said) all by itself could 'transmit' to a few people Oh alright, only works on me. Thanks JB!

I very much enjoyed your post Jetsun. I also agree about the 'borgish' bhuddists. I propose that the reason for that result stems from an approach to practice in bhuddism (whether it is a 'misunderstood' practice is debatable) which pits 'ego' against itself. Whereas other systems approach it quite some differently (well, they don't technically IMO/IME, but once you've found that out it's usually too late It's like hiding the pill in the dogfood).

And http://www.usu.edu/anthro/davidlancyspages/PDF's/Sample%20Publications/Learning%20'From%20Nobody'%20Final.pdf

It's close to what I was trying to get at, but not quite what I meant. What I meant is that through absolute trust in yourself and your own perceptions you will know whether to trust anyone else (or not) under any circumstances. It's not a 'preset' thing, which would be the thing that leads you (or me for that matter) away from being able to do so.

Anyone else hear "That must just be your karma, dude" (or without the dude part) said more or less seriously right after something crappy happens to you? I imagine if I heard "That's just because you're a sinner, dude" said more or less seriously I would laugh loudly. Maybe not in the deep South, maybe not. Anyway, so if religions can't successfully turn people into anything other than they are, and arguably gives them reasons to act much worse, what's the point of having them?

Ok, thanks for clarifying Aaron:-) I'm almost sure I've posted this before http://www.anthropologyofchildhood.usu.edu/

I propose that if you can trust yourself you'll be fine:-) But I wouldn't equate that with 'not trusting others' as your own self will make that abundantly clear whether you ought to in the circumstances or not. What often happens IME is that something (call it 'convention' for now) acts on our trust of our own perceptions and understanding leading us over time to be less willing to trust ourselves. Language is directly related to this process IMO IME.

You're not a murderer. You murdered someone. You're not a liar. You lied. If you're a liar, you can never be capable of truth because of your nature as a liar. I've often heard 'best indicator of present and future conduct is past conduct'. No idea how often that turns out to be the case.

On powers. Be careful out there kids http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1706593/ Hehe, if movies like this 'cautionary tale' are being made, who knows Mr Pie, you could be onto something. I actualy do take this stuff seriously. Just because I don't have any powers doesn't mean I'm not interested:-)

Or in some cases 'not literally enough'? If I can find those illuminated mushroom Jesus illustrations will post. Edit: I'm not advocating mushrooms. Or religion for that matter. http://psypressuk.com/2011/03/04/literary-review-the-mushroom-in-christian-art-by-john-a-rush/

Thanks Aaron, but it's still clear as mud to me. Seems I have a 'thing' about this 'lesson'-business.

Certainly I've had experiences via meditation but in the case of 'after death' it's a tough call to get from those experiences to 'after-death'. I'm too chicken to try any of the really hardcore austerities that would put me actually in the 'after-death' category.

Excellent post SB! "I rather like the use of Reason to help suss out flaws in presentations although I'm not sure it is capable of being the most excellent of all methods in discovering truth." This was the part I liked the most about your post. The art of wielding Reason is one I really admire and would like to be better able to do myself. When it comes to Blake's rant, I figure same has probably been done with all kinds of ideas.

Think they should just do acid instead;-)? There are reasons why all that stuff gets banned :-) You have a clear goal Mr Pie. May all the whatnots in all the realms help you achieve it. :-)

Me for one. But from the (nicely put LuckyS) deep existential suffering startpoint. Actually, as it turns out, it's more to do with healing from some not-inconsequential amount of abuse by family and resulting flawed perceptions, ideas about self and world. No super powers here. Although I could go on about really strange subjective states.

The way I read the 'self/no self' thing is that it says that no-one has a self that is not in some way related / influenced / determined by everything else in the universe (can't get into multiverses because I have no idea what those are). - including all those influences as mentioned above by Jetsun. Then there are other systems that talk about there in fact being a 'self' that is not the self as described above, but is some kind of 'essence'. It would be 'me' in some way without all of the experiences of being determined and influenced and all that. I can get pretty intrigued about who that person might be and some days I spend time looking for her. I suspect I may be disappointed... I agree that if you have suffered what I'll lightly term 'negative influence / determinism' then the tendency may very well be to continue on with same within any subsequent 'belief-system'. It's like changing one pointy hat for a second pointy hat of a slightly different colour. With gongs on.

I get very unhappy and quite some concerned when I read 'spiritual' literature such as this. 'Symbolic of what?' is the main question I like to think about when reading 'spiritual' texts but I've noticed a tendency lately to read them all the same way (more or less). All to do with the 'ego' and its relationship to 'pure consciousness'. To me that says 'bad news' as it means I'm reading too many things with the same perspective. The irony in this should be immediately apparent.

And then this http://www.berzinarchives.com/web/en/archives/advanced/kalachakra/kalachakra_world_peace/kalachakra_tantra_rel_world_peace.html

There's this. But I'm thinking it won't be very popular http://www.trimondi.de/SDLE/Annex.htm

Well, Mr GrandP. I was under the impression that all this was pretty 'vanced'. However, as you may have noticed it hasn't made of me anything enlightened. In fact, as a bystander I'd say 'holy crap, what happened???' Both lots of things and not much at all.

Yeah, I'd put myself in the skeptics camp and at the same time I have to (embarrassingly or not, I guess that doesn't matter) that during one KAP live teaching session I had a very (subjectively) real experience of a blue/electric current passing through my body. And on other occasions (nothing 'sought', no KAP) very (subjectively) real experiences of: - 'something' rushing up my spine and making disklike felt things 'spin' as it did so. When I looked at my hands, the veins were blue and standing out, then they receded - 'cause' likely the sun-salute chakra yoga I had decided to do - two distinct felt things (like 'fish') 'swimming' up my back criss-cross.- 'cause' I don't know. Since then I have read that all this is not very 'advanced' in cultivation terms but it is/was for me.