Apech

I think you completely misunderstand the reservations expressed on here. But I am grateful for the info and links you have posted and have downloaded one of Marshall Thomas' books Harmless People ... from a quick look she seems like a wonderful writer.

No that's dinner.

I think that what descartes was saying was that since I cannot necessarily trust what my senses tell me about the world and myself ... it is the fact that I can think that tells me i really exist. I don't think it was an ontological statement as in 'I am my thoughts' but that the evidence for my own existence is the fact that I am thinking. I will await correction on this point

Thank you for explaining. I don't get that at all from the text but its interesting that you and others read it that way.

I want to try to explain the entities or parts of a person so they can be understood as aspects of your self. This is not to say they are really all the same thing but to say they come into existence as a consequence of each other, or as a direct consequence of the presence of a person if you like. To exist means to 'stand out' (ex=out, ist = to be or stand). If we imagine the background as a field of consciousness then to exist means to appear as a separate thing from out of this 'background'. Just as an image appears in your mind when you think of something, a car, a tree and so forth. Actually you can't exist in relation to nothing. You cannot exist totally in isolation and in relation to no other thing because then there would be nothing to stand out from. Your 'appearance' is always in relation to 'something' or in relation to the no-thing of consciousness/energy itself as the background. In this case we are going to examine our relation to our environment as if we are standing facing south. This is the Egyptian convention that all spatial orientation is viewed from standing facing south, or sometimes (as with the sarcophagus) lying with the head in the north. If you wish to look for correspondences between Egyptian symbolism and other systems then you have to be mindful of these conventions, since they change from culture to culture. In fact even within Egyptian symbolism this convention was adapted in the New Kingdom when the orientation was changed to facing East even though they kept the language of the previous convention – which is sometimes confusing. If you stand facing south then of course your back is to the north. On your left hand is the east and on your right the west. This was so culturally embedded as a view that the Egyptian word for left is the same as that for east and right is the same as west. If you stand like this you will, like a tree for instance, have a sunny side, the south, and a side which is in shade the north. Your left side will be sunny in the morning and in shade at night, and the other way round for your right side. Assuming that is you have the patience to stand for 12 hours! The Egyptians took the four directions as epitomising four forms of energy, the young or rising sun in the east, associated with Khepera the power of transformation, the sun at midday in the south as a the radiant being Ra, the old sun in the west as Atum or the ram and the north as the hidden sun at night. They also tended to group these four into two pairs. So the east and south went together as did the north and west. This because they understood the solar cycle to have two phases. One upward, growing into the light, called the day or morning boat and associated with the goddess Isis and the other dying away, downward into the dark and associated with her sister Nephthys. So the east and south were of the upward Isis phase and the west and north part of the downward phase. The four mid points of this cycle are the cardinal points. The east is the sun first appearing in new form, the south is the sun at maximum strength at midday, the west is the sun sinking into the horizon and hiding itself in form and the north is the sun dissolving into the void (to renew itself). These four points are identified with four gods called the Sons of Horus which in turn relate to organs in the body. So there was a link between the cycling of the sun and organic function in the body. The being standing facing south, you or me, can align or harmonise with the solar cycle by energy movements in the being. In fact all biological rhythms are this. But it should remembered that the day cycle is just one example of this rhythms which echos at all levels, for instance the heart beat, the breath, these are all cycles in which energy goes through four phases like this. And on a larger scale the year cycle and so on. On the good Hermetic principle of 'as above so below' to which can be added 'as without so within' it follows that just as the sun has four distinct manifestations, as just as we have four points in the internal energy circulation in our bodies, then so also we have four significant entities which make up ourselves. These are the ba, the ka, the shade and the body. The ba is our power to manifest form. It is of the east. In fact the sun is called the 'great eastern ba'. In our everyday lives this manifests as imaginative power, creative thought and also dreaming. The ka is our radiant energy being, our bio-field or what might be called our chi – body. This is of the south. Our shade is our form as a conceptual essence, in the west, and our body and most significantly our heart as the centre of our mind, will, and character is in the north, because this is our 'coldest' most condensed aspect.

look like a zombie, kinda like a sexy goth but with flesh hanging.

gnow garden, garden gnome. am I on the right track?

hands become my eyes.. and my feet my intestines organ replacement.

Pythagorean..., Its doesn't work like that. the bushmen may well be the remnants of the larger 'family' most of which left Africa to explore the world ... but that's the very point ... the original humans was all of us ... not just those that stayed behind. In fact the bushmen themselves must have gone through evolutionary processes in that last 100,000 years if only social evolutionary ones ... and they may live in a similar way to how we all once lived but not the same ... its as if the bushmen are just some cousins who decide to stay home when the rest of us decided to roam the globe, experience ice ages, build civilisations ... they do not represent all of us just that particular sub-set.

is a cat, a cat! not dog or bear or monkey, it's feline ok.

Although I haven't read the authors you quote I am prepared to accept that what you say about the Bushmen is true. But I think you have made a number of assumptions about them and their relation to the whole of human history which cannot be substantiated. It is not possible to know if there was homosexuality in modern mankind through the last 150,000 years from looking at one group which although it stayed in Africa has had a history of its own and interaction with other groups and so on. It is more likely since it is found in the natural world and in all (as far as I know) cultures in the historical period that it did exist and is just a natural part of human expression. I did not think you were attacking anyone personally but the hypothesis you present suggest that homosexuality is an imbalance which does not appear if people practice qi gong and so on. In other words it is some kind of defect. If you think that, then that is up to you but I don't agree. Gay people have a difference obviously but I don't think it is a defect, I think it is a different expression of that which makes up a human being.

I read the first chapter and in a different translation it says: more knowledge = more grief .... therefore presumably less knowledge less grief ...so don't get knowledge ... so stay stupid ... tell me another way to read this ... seriously I would like to know ...

Modern humans first appeared somewhere between 150,000 and 200,000 years ago. For 90% of our history there is no record of how we lived or about sexuality. In all cultures since then where there are records there were gay people. So it would be very unlikely that it was not the same throughout those 200,000 years. Obviously in many cultures it was frowned up, outlawed and vilified. In fact it could be a taboo subject ... leaving the impression that it doesn't exist. So I am certain that pythagoreanfulllotus' first statement is false.

Sure I've read some but I don't like that period much. I prefer the older stuff.

Er what!? Buddhism promotes wisdom and also learning ... The Taoist sage is wise and so on ... I don't get that ... this Biblical idea that you should just stop thinking for yourself and believe is rubbish.

This is a thousand times true.

V ... I have a feeling you have posted this before.

Ok I've read it now and it seems to mean the same to me. Can you explain an alternative interpretation?

Ok will do ...

What is the point of it then?

Yeah let's stay stupid! Thank you Mr. God.

Does he have his benefits and welfare taken away?

is that from the Gospel of Turtle Shell ?

I would prefer to see no sexism, racism and homophobia on here at all. I would like to see any post which expresses any of these views deleted. That is my gut reaction to the question. AND I also believe one of the best ways to combat these views is open debate. Political correctness has the effect of suppressing debate and drives received values and judgements underground where they simmer away with no hope of resolution. So I would suggest we should have protocol which identifies a way of responding to such posts if they occur. A standard paragraph from the Mod Team asking the poster to rephrase or explain their point in other language and open challenge from other members. This would be for hate crimes if you like. The other category is, as happened recently someone posts links or quotes or ideas coming from other sites with a certain socio/political agenda. These exist whether we approve of them or like them or not. Wider than that I am sure you could find quotes from Buddhist sites which regard being gay as sexual misconduct. I know the Dalai Lama got into a pickle with this issue … since the medieval writings of Buddhist masters includes prohibitions against certain sorts of sexual activity i.e. oral, anal and with certain people. If this issue got any kind of resolution it was not by sweeping it under the carpet. It has to be out there and addressed in my opinion. So there must be people who are on TBs or may become members who read these texts and think that being gay is bad for you. If they never express this thought, or if they do and it is just stamped down then they will never get the opportunity to be enlightened by other posters on here.

"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." -- Wendell Phillips, (1811-1884)