old3bob

That is a very good reminder/story of those horrible times ! Many years ago at a thanksgiving dinner I spoke with a man who was a Polish soldier in WWll. He was captured by the Germans along with several hundred other men from his company and most of them were sent to the same concentration camp. (I don't remember which one) Anyway he did not want to recount to me many of the details of his imprisonment except to say that the main reason he survived was because he was a good musician which the Germans used for their entertainment. He said they were still hard on him but not anywhere near as hard as they were on his fellow soldiers, saying that out of the several hundred captured that only him and 2 or 3 others lived through it! During parts of the rest of the evening he happily played his old style accordion with great talent and gusto for us. I was kind of spellbound at that!

should that be a red check mark?

So Tara are you coming back? Btw, I have a comment or two on the Buddhist verse below... if someone wants to also share their understanding of it that would be great. "There is an unborn, unoriginated, unproduced, unformed. Were there not this unborn, unoriginated, unproduced, unformed, there would be no escape from the world of the born, originated, produced, formed. Since there is an unborn, unoriginated, unproduced, unformed, therefore is there an escape from the born, originated, produced, formed" Using the word "escape" above has some potential problems imo, whereas if the word detachment was substituted for escape it would work better for me in the sense of the saying, "samsara properly understood is Nirvana" which in effect would also mean said "escape". Along similar lines the term Moksha means freedom from samsara, and is often accompanied with the idea of being in a transcendental form and realm, (as is often depicted in drawings) yet if moksha is completely free then one would also be free in any realm including that of apparent samsara (aka. the born, originated, produced, formed") being that any limited perception or attachment to differentiation has ended or has been 'escaped' from if one prefers that word. Moving on to another subject : One major difference that is taught in most schools of Hinduism and that most students are aware of compared to Buddhism is the need for the Grace of the Guru, Buddhism often speaks of compassion and the importance of teachers but that it is not normally meant (as far as I know) as revealing Grace, a grace that does not come by individual merits or by any powers of the mind, which granted are recognized as having an important place yet they can not reveal the "Self" as pointed to in the Upanishads and other Vedic teachings.

umm, people may want to look into Siva, the Lord of Yoga...

the Buddhist four fold negation (which you are apparently paraphrasing) is really non-conclusive and says to me that it is a mental exercise pointing out the very fact of that, which then implies a direction of pointing further... (to me anyway) I'd also say that, Om Tat Sat ...is conclusive being beyond mental exercises.

Hello, I assume no corrections on what you have studied a lot. Btw. I follow the Upanishads but I do see some common ground with Buddhism, but correlations along such lines can only go so far and only satisfy up to a point, after that I don't believe water and oil mix well. Anyway where do you stand on or what do you think about of the verse below? "There is an unborn, unoriginated, unproduced, unformed. Were there not this unborn, unoriginated, unproduced, unformed, there would be no escape from the world of the born, originated, produced, formed. Since there is an unborn, unoriginated, unproduced, unformed, therefore is there an escape from the born, originated, produced, formed" (The Gospel of Buddha - Sermon at the bamboo grove at Rajagaha Udana 8:3) Om Shanti

and why not through in the speed of light while we are at it, which is rather slow. (especially on a cosmic scale)

ultimately agreed since ultimately there is only one of us... but there are still less than absolute cases related to accounts of particular forms in different places at the same time which have also been brought up.

Wu Ming Jen, your previous question also brings to mind the question of being in two places at once, something which comes up now and then in various accounts, and one may wonder how could that be?

can a full Buddha be both outside and inside the Wheel, what does the drawing show? (I'm not a Buddhist just borrowing what the idea of the drawing means to me)

just dropped in without reading the string...it is said by masters/mystics that blue in the aura (but not in a realm) is related to the pingala nadi, while pink is related to the ida nadi. Yellowish or golden is related to the sushumma nadi and results from a balance of said two currents, thus is of greater wisdom, intuition and consciousness. (I can attest to the good fortune of beings with radiating gold and also pure calm white light auras revealing themselves to me; and with the pure, clear, white light aura then blending or merging into a limitless ocean of same )

that's a great saying you quoted. I'd add that no thing knows but not as mind knows which is freedom.

if we really want to know about time or beyond time (and to borrow from Buddhism) we have to get past this difficult guy...

which got me to thinking of the story of Plato's cave people who "adapted" to being in the cave and which most would not leave because of ingrained fears...(haven't read that story in over 40+ years so I've forgotten lots of its details)

yep, a good example being the genocide against millions of American Indians sometimes called "manifest destiny".

I'd say it can not be denied that "unfolding" still involves or has a certain amount of evolution going on with it...so the eternal blueprint as you imply is there and ever foundational yet flexible in its DIVERSITY and iterations that are in flux to the ten thousand. There is obvious, verified genetic proof of that in living forms, forms that change and adapt to environmental conditions that do not to go against said blueprint but to fulfill it for greater manifestation of Spirit in form. I think another good word is emanation which is along the lines of an unfolding from the inviolate blueprint, which includes a refolding or return back into said blueprint which it never really left. Btw. the TTC. quote I submitted earlier is a simple and factual example of said manifestation. (regardless of transcendental sounding and debatable semantics)

maybe evolved would be a better word than real...for both a seed and a tree are "real" its just that the tree is further evolved as in T.T.C. Chap49: "THE Sage has no interests of his own, But takes the interests of the people as his own. He is kind to the kind; He is also kind to the unkind: For Virtue is kind. He is faithful to the faithful; He is also faithful to the unfaithful: For Virtue is faithful. In the midst of the world, the Sage is shy and self-effacing. For the sake of the world he keeps his heart in its nebulous state. All the people strain their ears and eyes: The Sage only smiles like an amused infant".

sounds like a bummer, none-the-less I'd say there could be more, just as there could be more to someone only getting conned by a martial arts or TCM phony. (thus not coming across the real McCoy of same)

the first Prana/Shakti from that which can not be named or nailed down holds no malice. (and if a great Sage could corrupt or be corrupted by that power after returning to the point of no return, then game over.

Nietzsche should know...

that's not what I meant, for instance and in analogy the frequency of the sun is higher and to live there without major artificial supports would require a being to be of a higher frequency. So no the benign souls, and angels or greater beings are not malicious.

or infiltrate, possess and corrupt...but in the end demons will no longer be able to hang around and harm the Earth and her children because she and they evolve to a higher frequency, in the meantime the eons old war here is still on.

Spirits may appear as souls and souls may appear as human beings and human being may appear as men and women and men and women may appear as "delightful creatures", when we see things the other way around it's backwards identification.