ThisLife

'Sad', or 'happy' truth -- I guess it depends whether one is a pessimist or an optimist. It's like the proverbial analogy of the beer glass - is it 'half-full', or 'half-empty' ? One could say, "How lucky we are if opportunity knocks once. Or we could say how unlucky we are that it doesn't knock twice.

You've raised a very interesting point that to me, kind of seems like a recognition that one usually comes to after the experience of discovering that a path we truly had faith in, simply turns out to be as flawed as any other human mind-created theory and practice. If we don't dig ourselves out of our disillusionment by merely rebounding straight away into a different path, or following a different guru, ... then the question you have asked often arises. The most personally satisfying reply to it that I've ever come across was given by a Non-Duality teacher I came across, called Wayne Liquorman. If you have the patience to read through, I'll share it with you below for whatever value you may find in it : * For those of you who are hearing me for the first time I want to emphasize that nothing I say is the Truth. I make no claims whatsoever that one word comings out of my mouth is the Truth. Now I am not unique in this. None of the teachers that you've either read or heard are speaking the Truth. Truth can't be spoken. All of these concepts are simply pointers, indicators of a Truth that is right here - that is ever-present - as clear, and as unmasked as it could possibly be. So, I personally have no trouble with anybody else’s teachings. If one teacher says you exist and another one says you don’t exist, and this one says that you’re God incarnate and this other one says that you’re nothing, I don’t care. They are all understood to be relative teaching tools. There is never a question of the hammer being Truer than the screwdriver. What I find objectionable (in an aesthetic sense) is when someone says, “What I am saying is the Truth and what the other teaching is saying is bullshit.” Such an assertion lacks the essential clarity of understanding that it’s all bullshit, and that a given teacher’s teaching is a matter of enculturation and personal programming that determine how their teaching is expressed. Ramana Maharishi used the image of a concept, (or religion, or philosophy), as being like a thorn that is used to remove some other thorn that is, let's say, embedded in your foot. So you have a thorn (which is some concept about how things are) and it's embedded in you. The sage comes and uses another concept in the hopes of removing that embedded concept with this second concept. If the embedded concept is removed both concepts become superfluous - they get discarded. The thorn that's being utilised to remove the other thorn has no intrinsic value. After it has done its job you don't wax rhapsodic over what a great thorn it was. Its value was only as a tool. The purpose of all religions and philosophies is exactly the same. Generally, by the time you've gotten here you've read a lot, you've been to a lot of teachers, you have absorbed a vast number of concepts, and many of them are contradictory. How do you reconcile what this teacher said with what that teacher said ? I mean, you've sat with this teacher; you know that this person is a genuine teacher. There's no question of him scamming you. And yet he's saying something that is utterly and completely different from what this one over here is saying. How do you reconcile these conflicting explanations ? The way you reconcile them is to understand that none of these teachers' concepts are true. All concepts, religions, and philosophies are simply tools, and their applicability is only in the moment. *

Knock Knock Who's there ? Opportunity. Don't be silly - opportunity doesn't knock twice!

Now you've gone and got me so stimulated and aquiver about yaks that, once I discovered their African origins and their unexpected love of popcorn, I simply had to find out more. Unfortunately, not a lot has been written about these rather shy and retiring creatures. But happily, after two days of in-depth research I finally discovered a poem that Ogden Nash had written about them, (though he was later obliged to change their species to 'cows' out of necessity for the rhyme), ... then later, against all odds I found an obscure reference to them written up in the minutes of the Fur Trader's AGM of 1934, regarding the local native inhabitants of Canada's far north. In the spirit of sharing arcane knowledge with a fellow yak-o-phile, can I show you my gleanings ? : (1) I've never seen a purple cow I hope I never see one But I can tell you, anyhow, I'd rather see one than be one. (2) Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, so they lit a fire in the craft. Unsurprisingly it sank, proving once again that you can't have your kayak and heat it too.

. No one ever says, "It's only a game," when their team is winning.

A commendable effort. Definitely eight out of ten for the punnish humour. But unfortunately your lack of geographical awareness brings down your overall score. Zero out of ten for geography and zoology ... yaks are herbivores from Tibet, which is in Asia, (or Central Asia, if you wish to be even more precise). And that's a LONG ways away from Africa. As a further consideration, yaks are actually quite a large animal. They would have great difficulty fitting onto any standard sized merry-go-round. (And as they are also extremely powerful, its handler would have great difficulty keeping his yak there long enough for it to get dizzy.) Are you certain that this is a factual account you have related to us here ?

Bear in mind that on an open forum like this there needs to be topics which appeal to every age range. The perennial favourite of the 'under twenties' is always orgasm-related. Have patience, like coitus itself, the excitement soon passes.

Seems to me one can get carried away on quests looking for exotic plants from remote corners of the world. What's wrong with simple Cannabis Sativa or Indica, bought from your local dealer or back yard home-grower ? I'm not so sure that either one leads to orgasm, (you may perhaps be confusing herbal highs with her thighs.) From my experience, I'd have to say that magic mushrooms are always pretty damned good for a few herbal insights as well. Happy explorations !

Funny that you should recognise this relatively little known connection. In the very early days of Monty Python, (shortly after they first formed), they wrote a well-received but nowadays little known skit about an incident in the life of Cockermouth's beloved home town saint, Mr U.B. Fok. About five years later they decided to make the film "The Life of Brian". During the writing of the script Eric Idle suggested that they re-work their previous Mr Fok sketch so that it would fit in better with life in Palestine during the early years of the Christian era. Below is a link to their rewritten sketch, in which Michael Palin plays the now re-jigged, (but still instantly recognisable), Mr Fok perfectly : * .

Yes, Cockermouth certainly is one of the greatest paradoxes of the Lake District. It's undoubtedly one of the most beautiful, laid-back, arts and craftsy, cultural towns in the whole of Cumbria - yet it somehow got saddled with a name that makes it sound like the unlikely setting for the lowest form of X-rated porn flick. However, even more curious than all that is how a lad like yourself, who actually lived on the banks of the Cocker,.... would ten years later find themselves living in Finland amongst the pine forests and wild moose. Were you motivated by the musical praise lavished on your new-found country by those capable spokesmen of English culture, the Messrs Monty Python & Co. ? I know that when I first heard their lovely song below, I was sorely tempted to up sticks and move to Finland myself. Though I didn't go in the end, I've nevertheless always wondered, "Does the country live up to those famous Python lyrics ?" *

Wow !! I never thought I'd see the day ! A fellow Cumbrian on Tao Bums ... I thought there was almost nothing here except for sheep, mountains, and busloads of tourists buying trinkets at the Beatrix Potter Museum in Windermere. In honour of this historic occasion I feel moved to make a full confession - the Venerable Mr U.B. Fok isn't actually from Korea. He, too, is a Cumbrian. He comes from that somewhat dubiously-named town out on the wild west coast - Cockermouth. (Only in Cumbria could you say with a straight face, that you're from that place, eh ?)

Sorry,... will try to be better behaved in future. I was unaware the poster was new to the forum. This isn't an excuse. Sometimes the devil gets into me - but you're right. It isn't helpful or appreciated.

. Prose Versus Poetry : The World Heavyweight Philosophical Prize Fight. Two entries above, each clad in pink trunks with white daisies, fight for Poetry. One entry below, wearing blue satin shorts emblazoned with a golden, iridescent lightning bolt, battles for Prose. May the best man win : * As one’s understanding deepens, it is understood that that which is material is spiritual,… and that includes everything that exists, not just the sunsets, the puppies, and the rainbows and dolphins,… but also the sadists, the rapists, the murderers. Everything is spiritual. The same manifest energy that creates saints, creates sinners. All are aspects of the same thing, and that which they are aspects of, is spiritual. This becomes the reality. That’s the beauty of this teaching: everything that you do is a part of the natural flow of What Is. It is such an incredible relief. It is such an enormous freedom. The load lightens as the understanding deepens that every quality you have – good or bad – is an aspect of Source. As you are in this moment – in this very instant – is ‘perfect’, and could not be otherwise. .

I believe that he was the main disciple of the greatest spirtual teacher ever to come from North Korea, the Reverend Up Bum Fok.

A & P, That certainly is an impressive, tightly coherent, and well-nigh incomprehensible trainload of complex verbiage. Yet, after trying, (then eventually giving up) in my attempts to gather any meaning whatsoever from the things you wrote, the thought slowly came to me, .... "But isn't the truth actually one of the simplest things in the world to define ? Surely it can be expressed perfectly, succinctly and inarguably by using just two simple words ? Truth is,.... "What is."

Thank you for raising yet another set of most intriguing questions. As I said in an earlier post, I have long been fascinated by this type of question myself. Unfortunately I have never had any direct experience of any of the realizations such as many of the writers I am attracted to, talk about - so I have been limited to searching for answers in the world of books. Hence, in trying to reply to your questions, I can only do so by trotting out extracts from literature that particularly held my attention when I first came across them, (at least to the degree that I copied them out from whatever book I was reading at the time and filed them away on my computer as Word Docs). My own feeling is that the answers to all this type of question are completely unknowable and inconceivable to standard issue, dualistic human minds such as my own. Hence your ideas are every bit as likely or unlikely as my own. Or anyone else's. I think all of us who find ourselves drawn to these kinds of questions, in the end simply plump for the one that temporarily best soothes the itches that we can't reach. However, in my own life I have found that quite often our itches move, and scratching posts that once worked so well,.... after a time, disappointingly fail to do the biz any longer. Anyway, in my case this Non-Duality stuff has eased my particular collection of frustrations for about eight years now. But I'm not sitting here trying to tell you that it is 'true.' I really have no idea whatsoever what Truth is, (in the spiritual sense of the word) As for your questions, Ramana Maharaj is one of the earlier, (and best known), practitioners of Advaita, which is the Indian form of these widespread Non-Duality teachings. Tony Parsons is a current day, living spokesman for the same tradition. In the two extracts below I'll let someone who knows from personal experience, give you his take on what you seem to be asking. This chap is an American guy from California, called Wayne Liquorman. The extracts were taken from his book, "Acceptance of What Is". As for your queries about Buddha's and Christ's teachings, I feel there is a danger in spreading oneself too thin by attempting to unite all manner of different paths under one umbrella. There's a saying that goes something like, "A man can only ride one horse, effectively, at a time." Anyway, I'll let you take a snifter through these differently expressed ideas below : * * {1} : {Wayne} : Advaita is usually traced back to Shankara. His writings are the traditional Indian lineage, if you will, of Advaita. In the same way Taoism can be traced back to Lao Tzu. They both were the first writers that were associated with their teaching, although they can’t really be said to have originated it, because all they were doing is simply pointing to that which is. Advaita differs from a religious structure in that it lacks the qualities and characteristics of a religion,… priests, temples and all the trappings associated with those things. {Q} : Advaita doesn't seem like a thing that would lend itself well to becoming a religion. {Wayne} : Not in its essence. It has no tenets, it has no morality. It has no rules for living - all of those things which are the qualities associated with religions. So people tend to label it a ‘mystical teaching’ – that seems to be the preferred umbrella. All of the major religions have mystical wings. Thus, Hinduism has Advaita,.. Islam has Sufism,.. Buddhism has Zen,.. Judaism the Kabala - these are the mystical wings of those religions. Though you have these root mystical traditions within all the religions, the longer the mystical traditions are around, the more likely they are to start bordering on being religions. So when you get into lineages and those kinds of things, those are the seeds of religions, because out of that comes hierarchies, structures, authorities - whereas the essence of the mystical tradition is to point the individual to his own intuitive understanding. They’re not bodies of knowledge to be acquired. None of them are. * {2} : For those of you who are hearing me for the first time I want to emphasize that nothing I say is the Truth. I make no claims whatsoever that one word comings out of my mouth is the Truth. Now I am not unique in this. None of the teachers that you've either read or heard are speaking the Truth. Truth can't be spoken. All of these concepts are simply pointers, indicators of a Truth that is right here - that is ever-present - as clear, and as unmasked as it could possibly be. So, I personally have no trouble with anybody else’s teachings. If one teacher says you exist and another one says you don’t exist, and this one says that you’re God incarnate and this other one says that you’re nothing, I don’t care. They are all understood to be relative teaching tools. There is never a question of the hammer being Truer than the screwdriver. What I find objectionable (in an aesthetic sense) is when someone says, “What I am saying is the Truth and what the other teaching is saying is bullshit.” Such an assertion lacks the essential clarity of understanding that it’s all bullshit, and that a given teacher’s teaching is a matter of enculturation and personal programming that determine how their teaching is expressed. Ramana Maharishi used the image of a concept, (or religion, or philosophy), as being like a thorn that is used to remove some other thorn that is, let's say, embedded in your foot. So you have a thorn (which is some concept about how things are) and it's embedded in you. The sage comes and uses another concept in the hopes of removing that embedded concept with this second concept. If the embedded concept is removed both concepts become superfluous - they get discarded. The thorn that's being utilised to remove the other thorn has no intrinsic value. After it has done its job you don't wax rhapsodic over what a great thorn it was. Its value was only as a tool. The purpose of all religions and philosophies is exactly the same. Generally, by the time you've gotten here you've read a lot, you've been to a lot of teachers, you have absorbed a vast number of concepts, and many of them are contradictory. How do you reconcile what this teacher said with what that teacher said ? I mean, you've sat with this teacher; you know that this person is a genuine teacher. There's no question of him scamming you. And yet he's saying something that is utterly and completely different from what this one over here is saying. How do you reconcile these conflicting explanations ? The way you reconcile them is to understand that none of these teachers' concepts are true. All concepts, religions, and philosophies are simply tools, and their applicability is only in the moment. *

Your comments continue to be stimulating and thought-provoking for me so I thought that at this juncture I should point out that Nathan Gill and the author I've taken an extract from below, (Richard Sylvester), are both Non-Duality teachers. I'm not sure where your philosophical attractions lie, but within Non-Duality teachings your closing objection, i.e. "the speaker didn't point out the change that occurs in actual experience once we start to dissociate from thought and disown its activity." - simply have no ground to stand on for the reasons Richard points out below. In his book, "I Hope You Die Soon", he describes these thoughts as the first realizations that came to him after 'Awakening' happened. * * Liberation is freedom from the burden of being a person who apparently has to make choices and decisions; choices and decisions which have consequences. What a wonderful relief it is to see that there is no choice, no person, no separation. Nothing you have ever done has ever led to anything because you have never done anything. No one has ever done anything although it appears that things have been done. One thing that is immediately seen is the nature of all the apparent spiritual experiences that arose during the years of searching and following false paths and gurus. Suddenly they are seen for what they really are, emotional and psychological experiences happening to an unreal person and no more significant than putting on a shoe or having a cup of coffee. Spiritual experiences are not difficult to evoke. Meditate intensively, chant for long periods, take certain drugs, go without food or sleep, put yourself in extreme situations. That will probably do it. I had done all of these things and there had been many spiritual experiences. I had chanted for hours and meditated to the beating of mighty Tibetan gongs. I had seen the guru, sitting on a dais in impressive robes, dissolve into golden light before my eyes. Personal identity had refined and dissolved into transcendental bliss. The universe had breathed me as my awareness expanded to fill everything. So what ? There had always been someone there, having the spiritual experience. A person, no matter how refined, had always been present. These events had all happened to ‘me’. None of them had anything more or less to do with liberation than stroking a cat. .

. You've got interested in and seem to be following some rather intriguing thought patterns. I spent a number of years myself trying to grasp where ideas like this were coming from. I enjoyed the process and from the evident sincerity of your writing imagine that you are as well. I found the 'detachment' from mainstream religions and personal philosophies that these ideas seemed to embody, to be highly attractive. However, your conclusions seem to me to be quite strongly mixed with your own personal views - particularly in your perceptions of thoughts as "vermin", or statements like your "Thinking is an abhorrent activity of an alien breed." To the outsider, it appears that this kind of idea must stem purely from one individual's mind, and it seems highly unlikely that they could accurately represent some kind of universal truth. For my own tastes I prefer writings like those of Nathan Gill, for instance. I'll stick in his take on the same ideas you're chasing and see if they hold any appeal for you : * {Q} : So there is this body-mind and a thought arises - for instance, ‘I am hungry’ - and the brain reacts to that thought. {A} : No, it's simpler than that. There's no cause and effect. There is a play of images being presently registered. A body is appearing, simultaneously with a sensation of hunger, and also simultaneously with the thought, ‘I am hungry’. {Q} : So what's doing the registering then ? {A} : No-thing is registering every-thing. This registering, or no-thing, is what the concept 'awareness' points to. {Q} : It can't be the ‘I’ thought because the ‘I’ thought, the person, doesn't exist anyway. {A} : The ‘I’ thought is part of the content, part of what is being registered. No-thing is registering. {Q} : So are we trying to understand this with the mind ? {A} : There is no mind. The term 'mind' is used in a somewhat confusing way to represent the thoughts appearing and disappearing presently in awareness, and so seeming to constitute a stream of thoughts. This apparent stream of thoughts - when seen objectively as single images appearing and disappearing - is not problematic, but when labelled 'mind', it is presumed to constitute an actual entity. It is a phantom. No thought can understand anything. Thoughts are merely inert images - message balloons. {Q} : Where do they arise from ? {A} : It's a complete mystery, as is all of the arising content. They simply appear within awareness as part of the content. {Q} : The difficulty of course is that the mind shifts these thoughts together into a time sequence and so spins its own story, doesn't it? Is that how it is ? {A} : There is no mind. The mind is the succession of thoughts, so there is no mind as an entity that could do anything with thoughts or spin a story. The apparent succession of thoughts is already the story. {Q} : So the thoughts are doing the weaving - it's the other way around ? {A} : The thoughts aren't actually doing anything. They are merely images, arising in succession and so appearing to form a story. {Q} : And we don't know where the thoughts come from - it's a complete mystery. {A} : Yes. {Q} : So we're on a hiding to nothing really! But who strings the thoughts together? {A} : When the ‘I’ thought - the primary thought - has been assumed, then the succession of arising thoughts appears to form a continuous solid entity called 'mind'. It's like a propeller: when it's still, it's seen as two or three blades, but when it's whirling around - the apparent succession of thoughts - then it appears as an entity. {Q} : The story. {A} : Yes. This is what we're calling 'mind', but in fact mind has no existence - it's just an apparent succession of arising thoughts. The story formed in thought is no more real than a story formed by a succession of messages strung together to form a novel. There can be involvement in a novel, but only when it's picked up and read. It could just be left on the shelf. {Q} : Can you say also that there's actually no control over whether there is mesmerisation or not — it just happens ? {A} : That's right, yes. {Q} : And the apparent unfolding - you have no control over that either. {A} : No, there is simply unfolding. {Q} : So to say that you’re going to do something or not do something... {A} : That's the thought story. But it's not 'your' thought story - it's just the thought story presently appearing or happening. {Q} : So you just let it all happen. {A} : 'You' don't let it all happen - it's already happening. Maybe the ‘I’ will be undermined, maybe not. {Q} : It seems that, for me, all this keeps getting heard over and over and over,…yet it nevertheless still seems that 'me-doing-something', takes place. And that feels wrong in the light of what you're saying. {A}: All of this is the thought story - maybe it appears within this play that it seems to need to be heard over and over again. That is the nature of these talks. There is simply this continual reminding of our true nature, that there is only `Already Awake-ness'; Oneness. {Q} : Is this conceivable in any way ? {A} : No, not in the relative sense. It is not knowable by the mind, by the intellect. It is not knowable by the senses. In order to know something, one must be separate from it; in order to perceive something, one must be separate from it. And you are not separate from It. {Q} : From the "not-two" ?... Well, I think that's beginning to sink in. {A} : That's what this is about : Waves temporarily appear,.... then crash into oblivion leaving everything exactly as it was.

Apologies for the large font. My eyesight is getting worse every year and I find it increasingly difficult to read the standard default 12 point size. It's not driven by a desire to shout loudly. Just personal comfort - (and, I must admit, aesthetics. I find Georgia a much more attractive font than Arial.) As for your question about why I am "scrutinizing" the chat - I must confess I'm completely at a loss as to what you mean. I'm quite familiar with the meaning of that word, but I'm not really sure that you are. Like anyone else on who comes to this forum, I first check out thread titles that seem to have some potential interest value to them. I look at a few of the replies to see what's being said. And if I find enough of them interesting and relevant to however I happen to be feeling at the time, I may well throw in a comment of my own for whatever it's worth. Wouldn't you say that this probably describes the pattern of about 90% of the users of this forum ? Perhaps even yourself ? Now, if you were to quickly check the dictionary to make sure that you actually are au fait with the meaning of 'scrutinize', could you then explain to me how the process I've described above is seen by yourself as "scrutinizing the chat" ? .

Hiya Zerostao, Hey ! Another Taoist in Dire Straits !! Some very perceptive lines they come up with, eh ? "philosophy is useless theology is worse." Your question, "This thread works the magic on its own " , ok, what does not work magic?", has got me intrigued. Well, of course, if we truly had the ability that some apparently have, (to be able, like the title of Ram Dass's book, to "BE HERE NOW") - then of course, from what I've read about the way they see the world, everything that exists would be magic. End of story. But unfortunately I'm stuck here in my usual mundane perceptions and have never knowingly been able to step outside them. So I can only answer from my own experience, and assume that you're not a Zen master pulling his poor student's leg just for a bit of a laugh. All I was meaning was that this entire Taobum's site is simply a chat room. So what is the point of roping off one small area of it and calling it a designated chatroom ? To me, it's like going on a long hike through a lovely woodland, then suddenly walking unexpectedly into a roped off clearing deep in the middle of the woods, with signs all around it saying, "Nature. Quiet please." So I thought I'd try to chat in the corridor outside the secret chatting chamber. Just to see what happens. Pretty bold stuff, I know. I guess I always was a bit of a teenage rebel. Aren't you worried that we might get caught, talking like this outside the designated area ? .

Hiya VTDT, I must confess that your reply and the question wrapped within it, have left me rather confused as to what you're asking. My guess is that it's very much written in the 'modern style' - very short, (never more than two sentences), and with an added emoticon or acronym like LOL, IMHO, or ROFL tagged on so that everyone feels at home with the familiar. Are you making reference to the question I asked Jeff, and simply turning it back on myself ? Saying basically, "You tell me first." ? But why the sad face on the emoticon ? This is just a chat room after all. Surely differences of opinion are what makes discussions come alive ? Without the contrasts we'd could only communicate about two lines before hitting a dead end - "I think you're nice, and I agree with everything you say.", followed by the rejoinder,"I think you're nice too, and I agree with everything you say." I never use emoticons or LOLs as a matter of priciple, so I'll have to leave you with just the words on their own to try and decode. But I'm sure you're nice too, (Though unfortunately I can't promise to agree with everything you might say.). .

I have no question at the moment. I just felt a momentary desire to chat, opened the link to this thread thinking there might be a group of people inside whom I shared a common interest in spiritual matters with - but found it was simply a collection of statistics regarding how many people you could squeeze inside a chat room. So I kind of chucked a spanner into the room, (or threw a monkey wrench into the works, for the North American side of our shared language) - and sat back watching to see what would happen. And Presto ! Here we are, all chatting ! No need for a special, secret and private room. This thread works the magic on its own without any need for paraphernalia, if chatting is all one is asking for. But if a specific question works better for you, how's about, ... "Why do you spend so much of your free time on a website like this, a place where none of us will ever get to meet and have a 'real' relationship with anyone we ever talk to here ?" .

(1) Fact or opinion ? Relative truth or Absolute truth ? (2) All spiritual teachers, real or phony, all endeavour to 'entice' their followers. Otherwise they remain a one man band braying in solitude in the wilderness. Enticement on its own doesn't imply one thing or the other. It depends entirely on the motivation of the person who lays the honey for bait. (3) Week old mouldy lunches and dog poo removed from a public footpath , are both also found in mundane brown paper bags where you least expect to find them. Beware judging any contents by the nature of the container it comes in. A brown paper bag can paradoxically also be a double-edged sword. .

Now this is a curious line of reasoning. Seeing, hearing, and feeling are somehow the nature of chatting. Now considering that a mute can see, hear and feel but most definitely not chat - how does all this follow ? Or is it like so many spiritual teachings. Couch them in the language of slightly incomprehensible poetry and mystery, and they get accepted as 'quite possibly' being true. Here's an interesting chat topic - "Why don't spiritual teachers ever seem to just talk straight like normal people ?" .

You call this a chat ? Sounds more like a head count than an interesting discussion. How about enticing us with something more interesting than simply quoting the number 8 ? Perhaps something like, "Do you think there is any relevance to chat ?", or "Is there any difference between spiritual chat and mundane chat ?", or "If your car could travel at the speed of light, would your headlights work ?" .