Jadespear

Look to your own self, to understand what is virtue. If there is but one almighty theme of the Tao Te Ching on a personal level, it is to trust yourself, to trust your nature, and to hold to your center of what you know to be true. It is an open observance on the world, not a "how to" book. Remember the beginning of the Tao Te Ching, : The tao that can be named is not the true tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name. The line you quoted, is a simple illustration of what could happen when a person or groups of people begin to attach a judgement on a particular action, person, place, or thing.... because the underlying teaching of the Tao Te Ching, is that there is no absolute good or evil in any sense.... calling anything by these terms is allocating an absolution to an actual relativity, and is therefore not true, and therefore not-virtuous from a taoist perspective. Perhaps a later chapter in the Tao Te Ching will help to illuminate: "True virtue is not virtuous Therefore it has virtue. Superficial virtue never fails to be virtuous Therefore it has no virtue. True virtue does not act And has no intentions. Superficial virtue acts And always has intentions . True humaneness acts But has no intentions. True justice acts But has no intentions. True propriety acts and if you don't respond They will roll up their sleeves and threaten you. Thus, when the Tao is lost there is virtue When virtue is lost there is humaneness When humanenss is lost there is justice And when justice is lost there is propriety. Now propriety is the external appearance of loyalty and sincerity And the beginning of disorder."

Well, well, well a scientist amongst us who likes to explain things. Ok. Explain to me how the information you put forward can be used to do anything besides sound like you are onto something of philosophical merit? Philosophy doesn't hold a candle to practicality. Your explanation, explains as best as it can what we see, but why does that matter? You can't do anything with that knowledge, based upon your understanding so far.... only to conclude that reality ( the world that we live in) is a continual process of us perceiving it that makes it exist.... which is interesting to speculate on, but does not really live up to other questions.... like if I don't perceive it, will it stop to exist? Is it even possible to stop perceiving something at the level of unconscious interaction you described?... The original question of " Is the earth flat?' can only be answered by someone who trusts their own 5 senses. If we were all using your type of unconscious process to tell us what is really going on in the world, then no one could answer anything because it would all amount to.... " but my senses make it that way...".... Reality is not a subjective experience. The spatial dimension of the Earth has been proven to be a 3 dimensional circle, or a "sphere". If we were to use your way of understanding then the earth, us, everything around us, has no shape at all really, but only looks that way.... thereby rendering your senses useless in understanding anything. Why would anyone do that? Why would you deny the only things in life that are capable of providing you with any real evidence to act on? Furthermore, what is the point of all this stupid questioning of the earth being round..... what are you guys doing to yourselves? Why waste time on this pointless question? Please come to your senses and acknowledge the facts of science to be correct in their 100% correct conclusion of the earth being round. Come on people. I thought you were supposed to be "intelligent" and "inquisitive", not in defiance of the truth. Please save yourselves from further moronic conversation.

News Flash: the earth is round. Go skydiving. You can see the curvature of the earth as the horizon if you get high enough.

As to your resolute ending question about the will..... I think it is a part of our conscious mind, which is sustained by vital forces of life that surround us. From the point of view of a magician, strictly speaking, the will is the most powerful, dangerous, expansive, illuminating, and binding capability of ones own mind and emotions. It is made of intention and energy, when combined with thought movement it becomes a super force displaying real manifestations in the physical world that we live in, that become real based upon the intensity, quality, and quantity of it's total expression. There are wills of individuals, wills of groups, and wills of the unseen that shape our lives..etc.

The term of the abyss is a little vague.... however, I once was so still physically and emotionally that I had a mental perceptive glimpse I think into a part of something like this "abyss"... I perceived a very loud humming sound and dazzling lights occuring at the same time directly where my mind was focused.... as if I was perhaps creating a mental portal or touching into one very close to me.... Anyway, only reason I refer to it as associated with the abyss concept is that there was nothing going on inside of me internally, I suppose I had emptied myself, and was in a state of emptiness, which opened me up to experiencing something that I had definitely not experienced before... It was quite thrilling.... I still havent been able to make sense of it really, aside from the pretty on point explanations in Bardon's work describing that everything is caused by the causal principle and comes into being through the labor of the elements... symbolized and expressed as fire, water, air, and earth. I think maybe I was seeing this labor of the elements taking place if only for a moment..... glimpsing the unseen invisible world of electricity and wavelengths chaoticly and spontaneously reacting from the central aether. The aether that is everywhere in all things. Almost as in tuning my aether into a spatial placed once and seeing the flow of the elements and their labor take place... like turning a faucet on and watching the water flow out one hole and into another.....which translates almost to turning my mind off and letting my perception go and reflect itself through its origin... don't know for sure though, mostly never do.

Lets get down to the big question here for us being interested....... is there any credibility to this guys story of having met a man that is 2,800 years old? I fully believe that it is possible, I just want to know how he handles the question.

I've never tripped before... but I do have many friends that have. What I can tell you is this.... drugs re-wire, or change the neurons and pathways in your brain and entire nervous system. Any drugs do that.... tylenol, advil, painkillers, weed, cocaine, lsd, etc.. Cocaine is very bad for your brain, it eats away at brain tissue, and causing holes in peoples skulls on the inside at the base of the brainstem. I'd chill on the drugs for awhile man.

Yes, there is. But, you need to realize letting go is not an "idea", it is an action and an attitude that you must choose to embrace wholeheartedly.... there can be no confusion in you. Simply lay down your worries or fears and move on. Feeling unqualified for something like a job is normal. You may in fact be unqualified, but what does that matter after you have decided to pursue the job? It's the same with anything else.... if you acquiesce to your own insecurity or your own self defeating mindset than you will continually your own prophecy..... albeit the "self fulfilling prophecy." Letting go is different than working through your own inner attitudes and perceptions whether those things are real or not. Letting go is more like not caring at all, about anything.... no outcome, or current situation that you think you cant control.... just forget about it.... if you cant forget about it, than think about something else. If your mind cannot be still and aware than you will never be able to truely let go of all the movement that it does...

What is not conceivable? According to your line of thinking anything that is conceivable can be true.... I can conceive of anything in my imagination, but imagining it does not make it true. All prophecies from all people are loaded with nothing but a huge waste of time. Prophecy?... are you kidding me, hello, wake up, we live in the 21st century where science has proven basically everything that we need to know in order to survive. I am laughing at you and crying at the same because of your lack of intelligence.

The art of war today is of a new pattern in warfare, due to technology. We can now annihilate anyone from a helicopter, bomb an entire nation, and genetically engineer the ills of an entire culture with an engineered virus. The sayings from the art of war are applicable to the time in which they were written, they are no longer apt to be applied as such. So is the way of many ancient texts etc. etc. etc.

Dude. Are you all together? Someone as smart as you should know that thus is a crazy rant and your so called facts are nothing archaic misinformation. The only facts of any use to anyone are the laws of nature, of science, and of physics. Your prophetic mis mash is nothing but entertainment for the Sunday morning joke pages in the paper.

I'd recommend first understanding yourself, before ever even beginning to understand some other " system " or " practice". This is achieved by simply sitting and observing yourself and how your internal world behaves. The first step I recommend would be to observe all things, without identification, without any type of word to describe anything that occurs within you... no yin or yang nonsense, or light and dark energies nonsense; or anything resembling a symbolic meaning to label what occurs. This practice is good for me because it attunes me into the real energies at work, underlying and supporting my existence...which is the same existence as yours. Be still, observe, and remember.

An "esoteric" interpretation is one defined by our culture as one that is held by a few interested people... it means nothing more than that. Did you mean "esoteric" in that way, or in another more "eternal" way? Anyway you slice it, Jesus was a human being just like you and me, his spirit was his own - just like you and I... we are all "sons and daughters of God" because God is real and has created us in his image. I disagree with how you interpret the "son of man" phrase how does the "son of man" interpret into rising up out material form? The two ideas do not correlate. Once again I will refer back to what is historically understood by many biblical scholars as the correct interpretation of the use of the word "son" as a literal "servant". Replacing "servant" for "son" in both phrases shows that it is correct, because Jesus was saying he is a "servant of God" and a "servant of men".... which if you believe that he existed can be seen as "true" from a certain holistic perspective. He was a servant of God because he worked to enlighten others to the fact of Gods existence, and he was a servant of men because he worked towards alleviating mankinds suffering.

Pretty sure, that is Jesus just remarking his own perceptive truths to illustrate a point he was trying to make...as he did all the time as seen in the parable stories and the like... not sure of what the passages were before or after, those provide the proper context to understand naturally...

A sage is a just a name, anyone can do anything he wants to at any time...and only truely answers to himself and to Divine Providence. One day, I re-created a rock from my mind, through the powers of the Tao, from a rock that was already there, through the ether, and into physical form... Another Day, I transmuted a ball of string into a piece of celery. ... another day, I enhanced the illumination of the sun. But, to what level am I? What is this hierarchy of levels? We're all on the same level, flowing through a current that we cannot change. " Occult abilities are just flowers of the Tao, and the beginning of all FOOLISHNESS. The true master rests in the root and not in the flower."

Do not all flows of thought color how we apprehend or understand what is?...how we label, that which is truely without a label... And does this coloring of our awareness, not leave a shadow in its wake of what is not or what could have been, or what remains? 0-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-0............ Everything that has been created, has come into being through the labor and workings of the elements....

There are so many mistranslations today.... back in the day, "son" was a word used to describe one who "serves"... hence we can see the actual meaning by the words of Jesus, when he referred to himself as the "son of man" or " son of god".... actually literal meaning " one who serves" all the passages make mystical metaphorical sense when read with the knowledge of how words were used and scribed at the time... * everyone, and everything is in all reality a " son " or " servant of God and of man " when they choose to help one another through any suffering or obstacle and lead them toward what is true. Freewill is an interesting subject. Freewill is half the truth... yes we can choose, but ultimately the immutable laws of creation cannot be overturned, or changed.... it is our freewill that directs our course through the laws of the universe at every level, that creates our karmic destiny, that creates anything and everything that we see, think, feel, experience, and are aware of.

Faith is a mental attitude. An attitude required to achieve anything at all anywhere.... if you have no faith, what have you got? Even if you knew everything about the entire universe, what would you do with it? Faith is what we apply to the knowledge we have to achieve anything we want. Faith is key to life, and life is key to faith. Belief is quite different... belief can be a barrier, or a manifester of imagination. Faith and belief are both useable, faith being more so for people who need to change, because it gives them courage to do so, and the idea that they can, will, and should.

What you will find here may help guide you... however for you to fully comprehend you must find a way for yourself to make sense of things. In general though, we all emit and attract like minded things, people, and beings ( angels included ) to ourselves through the forces that are the immutable laws of gods creation ( people call these spiritual laws ). I would consider you quite fortunate, for the presence of angels if they really are angels can only mean that you are radiating good vibes.... There is a flip side possibly, which may or may not be true.... through certain magical means, angels can appear as delusions broadcast by nefarious spiritual people...( sorcerers )... this is probably most defintely not the case if you are a happy go lucky person. However, it is important to not jump to too many conclusions before being able to see what is going on.

Crossing the void, or the abyss, or whatever we want to call the place that is everywhere devoid of all meaning ( The Tao) is not a matter of conversing with anyone or anything, it simply a matter of staying concentrated in the awareness of it. Its all the meanings, and beliefs, and impressions that you cross over that have sprouted up from the abyss. The abyss is eternal, all thought, all perception, all symbols, all movement originate from it and are transitory in terms of their duration in time-space, their meaning, and their significance. The Tao, ( the abyss ) is all that is actually eternal, without will, and without meaning, the great no-thingness..... " The tao that can be followed is NOT the Eternal Tao. The way that can be named is not the eternal way"

The abyss: Timeless, spaceless, nothingness Un originated eternal Continuum through all centers of existence Awaiting us to find, always enjoying a new discovery un created source of creativity the abyss is you, the abyss is me, the abyss is eternally free

Off with their heads!

I read a book called, "The Great Tao", written by Stephen T Chang, which is a well thought out treatise on the historical basic concepts of taoism. After having thought about the dualistic concept of yin and yang, I have attempted to relate it to real physical phenomena. In doing so, yin and yang, light and dark, become in short every conceivable opposite that is observable…such as up and down, left and right, above and below etc… and this dualistic relationship to one another is part of the whole which they both compose. For a more in depth discussion on the bodily energies commonly referred to as yin and yang, I suggest you reflect on the way of nature in the world. What is cool, cold, receptive to information--- that is yin. What is active, fiery, hot, willing, creative - that is yang. They both exist in a concurrent infinite monolithic cycle to create everything in existence. Without an open space, ( without a yin aspect ), there is no room for ( yang aspect things ) to be creative in. In truth, all morality (religious truth) is relative. Here we can see, another example of yin and yang relativism as true. Also, I think you may find the history of taoism enlightening when you view it for what it is. Taoists believe that every human being and form of life comes to earth to accomplish its mission. To learn what that mission is, and how to accomplish it is why the science of taoism was developed. That is why the concepts of yin and yang were invented, simply as a way to describe time based phenomena as a method of communication on each aspect of life. Because, each aspect of life follows the basic three-fold law of creation-sustenance-dissoultion….. that is the story of everything created or existent. Theoretical questions on the purpose of existence are fun to think about, but like you I also get impatient with not knowing the answers. Which is why I try to understand the common truths that I can find in the worlds collective information - science, religion, art, etc. all of it. The hindus teach that the purpose of life, is to dissolve your past karma, so therefore you can see, know, and hear God. The real God. The creator of life. And, some people may say…" Oh God is unknowable, that's impossible…." BUT, I strongly feel the urge to do so, and according to many past students of spirituality around the world, it is perfectly natural to feel that way, to feel the way you and I feel. We want to talk to who is responsible for the way things are, have been, and will be. RIGHT? You may also want to check out a book that changed my perspective on things called, " The man who saw God", by Joseph Pagen. Joe is a very cool, private man who shared his experiences with me. But, after I consider all of the information about other factors shaping the course of existence and life as we know it, I also need to realize that I too, I and YOU, also have a part to play in the shape of life at large and of our own individual lives. No single aspect of the universe is totally responsible for what transpires all the time. Is God to blame if you don't get up tomorrow? Are the older people in your life responsible for your state of mind? Are the things you want to understand going to show up one day and say hello? No. You are responsible for yourself. You must seek, you must find. There can be no other way to truely know except through your own personal experience, all other types of knowledge retention and dispersion is in the realm of "belief" To know, to seek, to find, to share- is why we are alive. I hope this may help you. Good tidings to you!

The goal of each person may be different, however the truth that each person will eventually see is not. After you develop a bit into the spiritual sphere (mental sphere) and are able to sit or exist in stillness (in your ether point) you must have total control of your emotions (astral soul) at all times, if you do not, your subconscious may express itself uncontrollably...which has happened to me numerous times. This is 100% true story. I have sent my thoughts into peoples minds and they have spoken them outloud and it is all mostly jibberish.... it is the transference of thought through the ether, and when directed with intention produces a result. Things of this nature are explained further by Bardon in his questions and answers on the great arcanum, which describes nearly all polarities of all the elements aligned with the consequences of each for an individual. Never forget the motto if you are on the magical path - "as above, so below" --- What I have found it to mean is that what you hold within will seek to express itself and can be sent through the ether to express itself through an outside agent, in other words your inner world will find a way through the "labor of the elements" to manifest itself, and it definitely will if you "command" it through the power of the your subconscious mind. I am not very far along in IIH, as I have picked at it here and there, but I can say with full confidence that if you are serious about it be careful with what you learn, just as Bardon has said.

The usefullness of the useless is what escapes the hands of the void and ruthless. There is a place for spirituality I think.... if it is making you more aware than what you were before. Ancient people's lived in a much different world than we do now and had a much different use for the same truth that both of our societal histories share. Today, so much spirituality is sold to people as a way to cope with their lives, which is fine....in ancient times this was true also. I think the real fruits of spirituality (meditation) are supernatural abilities that man is born with that make life easier to live and which can enable oneself to create the life that one so wishes....without the need for material possessions to survice or conflict with other living creatures. If everyone was developed enough to know and to see what they could do, our world could a have a better chance at being a brighter place to live. "We are all God's underneath" - Buddha Some people live in peace because they have evolved past the need for material food... Some people meditate for years because they love it and it makes them happy... Some people go to church and give away their money... Some people visit the afterlife to gain information on their departed loved ones, which gives them peace... Point being, if you are not developing yourself to the point of where you can go, see, or do anything in the perceivable universe than yes..... you might as well stop. Spirituality not taken this far or as this means of freedom is nothing but further prisons of belief, habit, enculturation, and ignorance.