innerspace_cadet

I personally don't want children. I'm not even sure I want to get married. But I do want to accumulate enough wealth so I have the freedom to put in a resignation letter to my boss if I don't feel like working anymore. I don't see wealth as a way to buy things I don't need; I see it as a tool to break the cycle of having to "work for a living." I think personal cultivation can help you loosen some attachments that may cause you to spend your money on material things. It is like a feedback loop: through cultivation you loosen your attachments to buying things you don't need, and since you don't spend as much money, you can retire earlier, so you can spend more time cultivating.

It's the aspartame. I'm not addicted to green tea; it's always diet soda I'm drinking.

Diet soda does not contain sugar. And my glucose is nowhere near being diabetic: my recent non-fasting glucose reading was 83 and the danger zone for non-fasting glucose is past 140.

Yesterday was the usual, I drank like five or six diet sodas. I am exploring the option of going on a 3 day fast, with just water or juice. My doctor already gave me permission to do so. I am also considering kaizen as thesongsofdistantearth recommended. The diet soda problem has been an issue since college, and I graduated in 2000.

Thanks, I will try hypnotherapy out.

You can go to any Borders or Barnes and Noble and buy a book of mantras for 20 bucks. There is no need to shell out a ridiculous amount of money for a single mantra, and besides, no genuine guru would charge you a dime for spiritual teachings anyway.

In that other thread I said the pope isn't all bad, and he isn't. He recently forgave the woman who knocked him on his ass at Christmas Mass--no rhyme intended. I also remember reading that he denounced attacks on immigrants in Italy. I was raised Catholic, and even though I no longer consider myself a believer, I have to give the Catholic Church kudos for coming around to the theory of evolution. (Don't expect the right wing Evangelicals to do that any time soon.) Sure, I think the whole idea that the Catholic Church is the "one true church" is preposterous, but I think the same of the beliefs of the Mormons and Muslims. When I was being raised in the Catholic religion, I remember having a lot of unnecessary guilt about sex, and unnecessary fear of the devil. But seriously, every religion on planet earth has its drawbacks, not just the Western ones.

Revering nature is not the same as worshiping it. Saying that nature is divine would force you to claim that the 7.0 magnitude earthquake that just hit Haiti is divine. Come on, the pope is not all bad.

Yes, it is a generalization, but not a sweeping one. Generally speaking, yes, Abrahamic religions believe in a one lifetime scenario, but what sets atheists and agnostics apart is generally they don't believe in an afterlife. I have a family member who doesn't believe in any sort of afterlife, and she is trying to travel to as many places in the world as possible before she dies.

I've always thought that you should be very careful about what you believe, because those beliefs have consequences insofar as they color how you think and how you behave. For example, I once saw an activist for the blind talk about her experiences with trying to improve the lot of the blind in Tibet. She said it was customary for people born with blindness to be shunned by the rest of the community, because they supposedly committed some bad karma in some past life for which blindness was the result. Having a firm belief in karma and rebirth has some very serious consequences, a lot of them humanity could do without. Oh sure, if I firmly believed in karma, I would be much more motivated to cut out some of my vices, but I would do it out of fear of being reborn as a hungry ghost. And I'd also be convinced that the homeless people in my city deserved their situation. Why do you think that atheists and agnostics try to pack so much into their lives before they die? Because they believe--or in the case of agnostics, suspect--that life is a one shot deal.

until I awake I will be sleeping soundly sleep is my coffin

As for the following: 1. Well, if I objectively step in front of a bus, when said bus is traveling at a velocity of 60 mph or faster, then I could "objectively" said to be either a) seriously injured or dead. 2. Take your meds. 3. Not as overrated as flipping hamburgers at McDonald's until you turn 65. Of course, just search wikipedia for psych advice. 4. As I've never encountered a single demon in my fucking life, I must be a pretty half-assed Taoist. 5. Nope. 6. If this is true, then my sexually repressed Catholic education was on to something. 7. It will cramp your style if you are a Viking living in the 9th century. 8. Huh? 9. See #2 above. 10. Please stop drinking the Kool Aid. There is something to be said for not keeping your mind too open so your brains don't fall out.

Humans suffered 2,500 years ago, when the Buddha walked the earth, and they suffer now. If anything the nutshell of the Buddha's teachings is "I teach suffering and the end of suffering." We didn't "evolve" out of suffering; in fact, we are pretty much the same humans we have been for the past 100,000 years. Humans don't "evolve" that fast in 2,500 years. If it was a bad idea to cling to temporary things 2,500 years ago, I can pretty much guarantee it's a bad idea now. And I can speak from personal experience.

Interesting. I think there was a similar case with a Christian missionary in Africa, where he decided to practice African shamanism after his encounters with the natives there. With the non Western world being so saturated with missionaries, I think this sort of thing happens more than people assume.

It's surprising they haven't concocted a disorder for melancholy yet.

I've struggled with this so much over the years. Am I "Taoist" or "Buddhist"? Then I ask myself, is the truth Buddhist or Taoist at all? I tell myself "no, the Truth is the Truth, and that's it." Life isn't about joining an ism it's about being free, totally free of all constraints.

It was weird when I did a forty day mantra practice with one of the mantras from the book "Healing Mantras." In the middle of the forty day discipline, I was at Home Depot with my Mom getting some mulch. We were in the garden section, and I was reciting the mantra mentally. All of a sudden, the external world, for a brief moment seemed "dreamlike" and that's the best way I can describe it.

Seriously? If Billy Graham screwed up as royally as Tiger Woods did with his life, exhorting him to convert away from his religion would be the last thing on my mind. It seems that Brit Hume's ulterior motive is to exploit a scandal to simply proselytize. And trust me, converting to Christianity is not a cure all for bad behavior. I know, because I live in the "Evangelical Vatican" also known as Colorado Springs. The most common complaint about the Christians who live here is the hypocrisy; and I've seen it myself. I'm not trying to slam Christianity; I'm just saying that no matter what religion you are a part of, you do ultimately have to look at yourself in the mirror at the end of the day. Tiger Woods, even if he converted to Christianity, would still have to slowly change the accumulated habits that got him into this mess; no "born again" experience is going to change that.

Currently I am 5'11 and weigh 198. I'd like to learn some exercises to lose some of that and get down to around 180. Any suggestions? Exercises, dietary regimens?

Thanks again everyone for the information. You guys gave me lots of food for thought, no pun intended.

Thanks. I will check out "Born to Run" at Borders tomorrow; the book looks fascinating. Since you asked, my motivation is primarily health reasons; at my last visit to the doctor, my blood pressure was 160/90. I had a free personal training session on my Bally Total Fitness account, and the personal trainer tested my body fat percentage. It was over 25 percent. Another reason is that I don't like the fat on my belly. My best friend swears by running, and he wears those leather sandals depicted in the video interview.

I think this cult like worship of gurus comes from Westerners' fascination with anything "Eastern" or exotic. This fascination stems from the naive notion that the West is "materialistic" and the East is "spiritual" when in reality, there are elements of both in the East and the West. And seriously, not everything in the Eastern religions is so wise. Of course, it's great if you are a Hindu born into a Brahmin family, but if you are born an outcaste, your life will be living hell. Why do you think so many outcaste Hindus are converting to Christianity or Buddhism? It is because they don't see a future as outcastes in Hinduism. Westerners like to portray Old Tibet as some Buddhist utopia, when in reality it was a brutal Buddhist theocracy. Whenever a religion is enmeshed with the state, it becomes a tool of oppression, no matter how peaceful the religion is. I think there is some hypocrisy with Western "seekers" of Eastern religions. They will automatically dismiss Christianity and express skepticism about it, but when a guru arrives off the plane from the East, they will leave their brains at the door. I am not intending to slam Eastern religions or promote Western ones, my point is you just need to think for yourself.

Once during meditation, all these feelings of anger arose towards the people who had bullied me in the past. So I forced myself to forgive them, and it was very painful to do. I say painful because once the anger faded away, I was confronted with the pain they had inflicted on me. I actually ended up in tears confronting those feelings, but after that meditation session I did not have as much anger towards them.

I personally think that both life and death are meant to be fully embraced and accepted. By that I mean that no matter how difficult they become for you, life and death are not to be ignored or escaped from. I don't have any knowledge about what happens after innerspace_cadet dies, but I can't imagine it would be anything worse than what I have experienced in this life. Personally, I believe in equanimity, just accepting everything as it is, and not letting events ruffle your feathers. I haven't perfected equanimity, but when I experienced brief states of consciousness where I accepted the "way things are" I experienced more peace than I had ever before. I've explored yoga, Buddhism, Stoicism and many other systems, but I just see them as tools, not philosophies that own the copyright on "truth." I can't say I'm religious, because I see these "religions" as brooms that sweep the dust out of my eyes, and nothing more. Beliefs have their consequences. If you "believe" that nothing happens after death, then naturally you will have more of a "carpe diem" attitude about life. But if you "believe" that there is an afterlife, then you will naturally be more relaxed about life, because you're just passing through, so to speak.