Coaster

I hate when people adopt spiritual terms for crass material purposes ("guru", "avatar", etc.). Now it's our turn: https://www.yahoo.com/tech/wireless-charging-may-not-be-doomed-to-irrelevance-112784007394.html (Note that cellphone charging is probably the biggest "first world problem" currently, so I expect this use of our term to eclipse its original meaning very soon.

Not a ranking:

You are just describing exoteric Abrahamic religion and esoteric Eastern religion, and ignoring the other two. Just to give a few examples, in Esoteric Abrahamic religion, we have: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_Spark and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baruch_Spinoza#Substance.2C_attributes_and_modes In Exoteric Eastern religion, we have: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvaita and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_deities

I just wanted to comment about one minor point in your post. I think that our impressions of "spirituality" in English speaking countries are associated with Eastern religions, simply because our "default" religion is Christianity, and so someone who wants to do something different, then avoid Judaeo-Christian religions, which only leaves the Eastern religions. And, in addition, there is a historical reason, as follows: Both the Western religions and the Eastern religions have an "exoteric" aspect, which is designed for the average person, i.e. give money and go every week to church/temple. Then they have an "esoteric" aspect which is contemplation, meditation, and so forth, which was only done by monks (prior to World War 2). When people actively stopped doing their local default religion, it was often because the exoteric participation was not enough for them. They were looking for esoteric practice - but - religions do not promote esoteric practices outside of a full-time (monk) situation. So, they did not see the esoteric practices of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam and looked to other religions. Then in the 20th Century, some Eastern religious teachers came to the West. The people who had the time and the education to understand the Eastern practices were upper class people (or upper middle class). So, the Eastern religion teachers saw these Westerners who spend all day every day at the Ashram, and saw that this was like monks - they were interested, and they were available full-time. So they gave these people esoteric teachings normally reserved for monks. And when those Western disciples setup centers to teach other Westerners, they taught those esoteric teachings, because that is what they knew. So, while the Western missionaries had always setup exoteric churches in the East - because their subjects were working class people - the Eastern religious teachers who came to the West ended up giving esoteric teachings to Westerners - just due to "historical" reasons, meaning the conditions of the time and place, rather than any intention to do so. Thus, people in the West associate esoteric teachings like meditation with Eastern religions, purely due to the circumstances that led to only Eastern esoteric teachings being publicly taught in the West.

But that is what it is about for all the people we call "materialistic". No one goes out to make $100 million so that they can buy $100 million of specific things like cars. What they are doing is competing for status (aka "playing the game"). This is why no one ever stops when they make enough money to buy everything they might want, instead after the first $100 million, they keep working 12 hours every day to make the next $100 million. The "game" is "my net worth is bigger than your net worth". It's instinctive. Money is the scorecard of the game. The fact that the same money that is the scorecard is ALSO the means for survival for poor people is intentional. That's what is meant by "let's play for real money". It's real because for some people, losing their money means death for them and their family. The game IS samsara (aka maya). Spirituality is not caring that everyone wins and you lose. "Give them the other cheek".

I said that in the original post.

It's worth noting that for thousands of years, up until the end of World War 2, spirituality was only practiced by full-time monks, or sometimes by independently wealthy people who had plenty of time (e.g. upper class). Upper class leisure activities then were trickled down to the masses, largely for the reason of providing income to entrepreneurs. Spiritual practice got swept along by that phenomenon. A lot of them are not really suited to part-time practice. For example, I spent 10 years doing Tibetan Buddhism, and eventually came to the conclusion that it was entirely constructed for monks, and was unsuited for householders (YMMV). +++ Ironically, the advancement of technology means that we each have less time than before - just the opposite of the marketing promotion of "time and labor saving gadgets". Compare making a phone call in 1990 to making a phone call today. In 1990, press the seven digits (perhaps look it up in a pocket address book), and the person either answers or it goes to an answering machine. At the end of the month, a paper bill arrives and you write a check and put on a stamp. In 2015, you first have to decide between iPhone and Android. If you are rigorous, that could take dozens of hours of reading threads and reviews. Then you have to choose between Verizon, AT&T, Tmobile, Sprint, etc. - more hours of threads. Then you have to choose whether you want a feature phone or a full-on smartphone, and then many more hours of threads of which model. Then you have to decide which plan, whether your minutes are rolling or not, whether pay-as-you-go or monthly. Okay, so you can make a call - oh wait, there was a new iOS (or Android) version and now your phone does not work properly. More hours with customer service and thread reading and finally you have it working. Finally, you turn the phone on... and no bars ! That's just one way in which entrepreneurship is based on making other people use more of their time.

Ultimately no. But in the future, when you say practice Qi Cultivation, the reply will be " You have a special way of charging your phone? That's cool. "

But not "A corporation making billions of dollars off a flaw in smartphones".

A TheTaoBums member wrote: I find that when I associate with people who entirely accept mainstream culture - or what this poster calls "orthodox homogeneous worldview" - I have to carefully examine what I say. This is because the functional definition of "crazy" is "holds viewpoints different than everyone else". For example, if someone was walking down the street, and a person came up to them and said: "The sky is green and urine is falling from it", their reaction would be "this guy is crazy". In a similar way, if I am at a party and someone asks "What exercise do you do?" and I reply "I stand perfectly still with my hands a foot apart from each other" (Zhan Zhuang), most people would think I was crazy. So, my question is: How do you find other people who do not accept mainstream culture, for in-person social life ? Obviously, there are classes and meetings of the groups represented in this Forum - Taoists, Buddhists, Vedantists, etc. And there are New Age people - but I have just as many problems with their assumptions as with mainstream people - see relevant threads on this site for details. So I don't want to socialize with people whom I find to have an equal number of false casual beliefs as mainstream people. I'm wondering if there are any others beyond those two groups ?

Like what ?

First off, I'm not worrying about being thought crazy, I just find that it is better to start off at the beginning with people who are "on the same wavelength". Second, I'm not in college or a big corporation, so I am not constantly in social contact with a lot of people. So the idea "just be who you are and see what happens" doesn't work, because I have to seek out people to begin with. Lastly, I am interested in this in a general sense - without reference to me personally - as to whether there are any "counter-culture" groups beside New Age and Eastern Spirituality.

I'm not trying to start another thread on New Age, there are plenty of those already. My original question is simply: Are there people (in the West) who don't accept mainstream culture, and are not New Age people nor followers of Eastern Religion? Someone mentioned Conspiracy Theorists, which is one plausible answer. (I gave my personal take on that, but its still a plausible answer, thanks.)

To my way of thinking, the conspiracy theorists all accept mainstream culture. We all grow up in mainstream culture as children, starting with the critical premise that adults are competent and know what they are doing. For example, when the parent tells us "Don't play in the street" and "Don't talk to strangers", it is a survival trait to believe them - otherwise we are soon run over by a car, or shipped off to another country as a child labor slave. Thus it is probably an instinct coded into our DNA. As we get older, more and more we experience that people are actually not very competent at all. In fact, there are many systems that have been created to deal with people's incompetence (eg QA departments or slogans like "measure twice and cut once"), and even then you still hear about people who had the wrong leg amputated in surgery. So, I find conspiracy theories silly because all of it requires super-competent people who don't exist. A lot of the New Age stuff is similar. Somehow everyone who hears voices is channeling super-competent Ascended Masters who are super-kind. Why do none of the New Age people end up contacting disembodied gangsters who just want to take advantage of you? (And could they tell the difference? Probably not.)

Thanks, but I clarified in the OP that the question is specifically what/who is there, outside of Eastern Spirituality groups and New Age ?

Are there any Forums that have members with a similar viewpoint to the membership here (i.e. pro-spirituality anti-materialism) but without the Martial Arts guys (the "I'm going to spend 20 hours a day practicing until I am the most powerful being in the Universe - and btw My Master Is The Greatest" guys)? Or, if the Forum doesn't have the Taoist/Buddhist connection, is everything else going to be New-Age-I-Believe-Anything-And-Everything Forums ? Thanks.

Okay, I've read more of the AYP lessons... a lot of the explanations - and even some of the practices - are just made up. It does fit the concept of "one guy does a mish-mash of practices and then acts like his arbitrary choices are a system". You can tell a child that his presents come from Santa Claus and this his siblings were brought by the Stork, and those falsehoods will not prevent him from having presents or siblings. Similarly, you can spent a month eating random foods from the supermarket, and you will survive to the end of the month, the same as if you had meals prepared by a chef. So, the lessons have tons of New Age gibberish that is only vaguely related to the Patanjali Yoga that is theoretically the basis for AYP. But the practices, despite their vague and meaningless explanations, are just close enough to actual yoga practices to have positive effect if you do them as prescribed. This can make it seem like the explanations must be true, because the practices do something (a false correlation). The whole thing is needlessly complex and lengthy, and in fact there is a Q and A on that subject, and the answer is just more meaningless abstractions. Whereas, Ramana Maharshi describes the meaning of life, the universe and everything in 21 short pages, and you could get most of it from the first 8 or 10 pages, so it can really be short and simple. The anonymity and "not a Guru" claim shows that just the sensation of being "followed" is enough for many people who come up with their own system. The " I'm only doing it to benefit others " is a rationalization, because humans do actions directly from instinct. The satisfaction of being followed can be easily rationalized as actually being the satisfaction of helping others.

Now that I read some of the articles ("lessons") at AYP, it seems oddly materialist and mechanical. There is almost no emphasis on metaphysics or philosophy (although it might be present somewhere on the site, it is not in any of the language of the lessons), and so there is still the mainstream culture idea of "I am going to get something by doing this". Whereas in more sophisticated yoga, one of the main lessons is that there is nothing to attain...

Thanks for the reference, strangely enough that site started around the time I stopped looking for sites on that topic. By the way, the AYP site owner has a reply to the same objections you mention, which can be read at: http://www3.telus.net/public/sarlo/Yyogani.htm (And, it seems fairly obvious that when there is a physically perceived phenomenon, that is contrary to mainstream culture's conventional wisdom, it is going to get the lion share of attention from newbies. It takes some contemplation to realize that such things are still just a means, not an end.)

The OP is just a bunch of assertions. It would be just as valid to say: " The Qigong teacher must wear a green shirt. If he wears a blue shirt, then his technique is unproven."

I was researching some tea to buy and came across the following information, which is very contrary to "what everyone knows": + Green, Oolong and Black Tea all have the same amount of caffeine. People who have been drinking green tea "because it has less caffeine" have been fooled by things they have heard. + The caffeine in tea is directly proportional to the steeping time. The idea that the caffeine mostly comes out in the beginning is a complete myth. So, the idea that rinsing the tea for 30 seconds and then throwing that out - solely to "remove most of the caffeine" is wrong. + Aging tea decreases the caffeine content. Evidently caffeine is volatile enough to dissipate due to years of exposure to air. So, old pu-erh tea has less caffeine than new pu-erh tea. In fact, old pu-erh tea would seem to be the best choice for someone trying to drink tea with less caffeine. + The research was done in Europe, so no reference to the "gongfu" style of brewing. So, it is unclear whether the shorter steeping of gongfu means less caffeine - especially since there is the same deepness of color (and taste) either way. Here are a couple of links, but the above is also based on some other pages: http://chadao.blogspot.com/2008/02/caffeine-and-tea-myth-and-reality.html http://teawithgary.com/2012/07/03/tea-and-caffeine-part-ii-exploding-the-myths/

Yes, but you are talking way too much tea in order to get osteofluorosis:

More on L-Theanine: and

Then it may not be due to just caffeine content, because that is measured by a lab test. For example, tea contains L-theanine, which helps one to relax, it's part of the reason why people feel more wired and tense from coffee. From the web: Here is another link, this is a tea site that brewed many teas and measured the caffeine (scroll down their page for the caffeine test - it seems highly related to very specific varietals, and confirms that old teas have less caffeine - and, as you mention, sencha): http://camellia-sinensis.com/en/tea-and-health BTW, I know people who claim to be able to tell regular coffee from decaf coffee instantly, quote "because I can feel the caffeine immediately". When I informed them that it takes at least 20 minutes for caffeine to enter the bloodstream from the digestive system, they just looked at me blankly... so we have to be carefully with anecdotal reports, even our own.

I think that if you are such a fragile state of mind that you need "psychic self defense" then you should not participate in a Martial Arts discussion forum, where the avowed state of mind is competitive. Sometimes we do need a "retreat" in order to heal, and I don't think that TTB qualifies. The intersection of Martial Arts and Spirituality, and the effect of that intersection on TTB is itself a huge subject - which I am sure has been discussed before...