Wayfarer64

I started fighting to keep my lunch money in 2nd grade' ... later I studied Judo - as my pops was a practitioner, then wrestled in high-school - learned and taught Hatha Yoga in High-school also- then studied Hung-Gar (Shaolin) with Grand Master Bill Chung for about 6 years - In the 80's I had a short period learning moves from a "Family system" in Taiwan and continued scrapes on the streets of cities around the world... Meditation practice has been pretty continuous since 1968...At 55 I hope i'm done with the scrapes! - but who knows?

What you seem to be addressing is subjective reality, not objective reality. They are not different realities -only mental points of view. The interactive realm of our existance isn't over when one of us dies away from this realm, it only changes somewhat... How we see our experiences may seem to be a complete world view, but as we grow and change -so does that world view - and it is not always a matter of choice. If we each had the control you seem to think you possess then real mayhem would insue...Conditions exist that are not always within our purview to change...

Wilhelms' translation of the I Ching - has been the most influential book in my life - as a voracious reader there have been many that seemed profound and meaningful... when I was very young I got a lovely picture book of boats drawn around New York City harbor - it thrilled me no end and I still have it to give me a very deep sense of wonderment and joy! writing: my own book - @ -http://www.lulu.com/browse/preview.php?fCID=265718 also changed my perspective a lot!

Jesus was a nice Jewish boy who learned Buddhist ideas in his travels and applied them to the then - "modernizations" of Roman input... He was trying to throw off the Roman yoke and assert a more open-hearted sort of Judaism that encluded Buddhist ideas.... He may have well been a Lama - and the 3 wise men Buddhist priests who came in search of him after his rebirth - just as they still do today -in Tibet... One thing seems pretty sure to me - he would NOT be thrilled with a faith naming him as its savior being based in ROME!!!

I also doubt that reality can be changed by our opinions

I am mostly put-off with the whole bad-ass idea...Is this a goal that one needs to attain in our world...? It may be - Please do not sell it as anything but fighting skills if that is what is being transmitted... the cost is not so relavent - but what is being taught -should have a value worthy of the cost/effort and intent of spirit... this system just does not seem worthy to me... which certainly does not preclude my being wrong!

I really doubt this is the case. There are 1/4 million dolphins killed by drift nets every year. There were millions of innocents murdered by the nazis, Pol Pot, Ne Win, and G.W. Bush. Native Americans and the American Bison were driven to near extinction. I do not believe these beings were victimized because of their inner lives being escew in any way. They were victims of people who behaved in an evil manner. Do not be naive, not everything is so very self-centered as you seem to indicate above... we are inter-active not self contained beings, and there are dangers to be aware of that do not stem from anything within ourselves.

I believe it to be an easy glimpse of the big picture. Balance and harmony can be depicted, so maybe thay can be attained within ourselves as well?!

This is a great thread... My 2 cents - I'm not sure an intellectual process is of great use in holding onto gains made in spiritual cultivation. It seems apt that "understanding" - is a term 1st used in Shakespearian theater- it pertained to those that stood under the stage - They got to hear the play- they "understood" and thus were able to relate the tale told by the actors...They could say -"Yes, I understood the play!" That seems relavent - in that the mind needs a translator to "grok" the activity of our cultivations...Our spiritual selves. One - the attainment of spiritual awakening is a true knowledge gained in activity - the holding onto those insights and realms of consciousness are not stored in the brain per se but in the spirit... which is that which is aware on all levels of experience and all too often is just not being accessed by our minds in the day to day... We just forget who/what we are and go about our bizness as beings who are sort of sleep walking thru our lives. It is the spiritual awakening we attempt to grasp that gives us glimpses of our awakened potential... We have trouble staying aware and awake - without the practice of spiritual cultivation, and our minds just cant keep up in any case!

I have a great little bridge for sale - it goes from Manhattan to Brooklyn- any takers? It is like I said on the "New Age" thread... the whole world has gone up for sale - everything is now a commodity. We need to be careful my friends... the inner strength we wish to develop can only be built from the inside out. Seeking the leg up from anyone who does not merit your real trust from day one may be a waste of effort, money and time... Or there may be lessons learned that are useful in ways that can surprise us...Nothing is wasted if we contemplate the full picture of where our efforts go and what we produce. So even mistakes are often great tools for growth and learning... But at $160 K - that takes some real hubris!

I am not so sure - my inner life was not so very dark at that time... I was not doing anything so reprehensible... Chasing women and smoking herb - pretty minor "transgressions", and only such as I was not being purely a cultivating spirit without real interest in the pleasures of our world... I had only denigrated the KKK to a member... Perhaps I should have avoided him in the first place - tho I didn't know of his affiliation until I was attacked... That is why I believe that those tortures were merited due to past life experiences. Or perhaps they were meant just to strengthen my comprehension of realms beyond the physical - in that case it was a severly harsh lesson indeed! So I am not sure that inner and outer realities are always in synch or relate as a mirror as stated - it just doesn't seem to fit... It could be that such extraordinary experiences may just be evil coming upon us without any actual karmic influence - just evil attacking and trying to animate more evil by perpitrating hatred on our part... I do not know what the true cause was for that attack, other than my speaking ill of an organization that I could never speak well of ever...It may be as Ian is trying to say on another thread - speak NO ill ever of anyone - that would be very hard for me to do as a politically active person... I hold no hatred now -only pity for those who attacked me - as I stated before they are in darkness always as hateful and very lost beings stuck at a level no one could wish for... Relating back to the meaning of this thread - I am assured of my own spirit being able to stand the journey hence, I have been out of my body and now think of it as a release and a blessing to become a part of a new realm of existance in some (distant- I hope) future... I have a great love for this realm and this life I live - in the here and now - I feel that I still have much to learn and share and grow with/for at these levels, before I go on...or "back" to where I am only spirit without corporial splendors to share... Love to all- Pat

Welcome - I think you'll like it here !

Many thanks to you... welcome aboard!

for that sort of money - why become a "bad-ass?' why not rent hookers and become a lathario? Is there actual happiness offered for that money? or just more ego-gratification...? My sifu only asked for help painting his home or running errands in Hong Kong - a few feast items and my sworn word to honor him. What more could I have given him ? Money is meaningless at some levels... at others it is just a ruse to lure chumps, at another a tool to use for goodness etc etc... I think its more like - study, work-(out), meditate... repeat and repeat... share yr love -grow - repeat and repeat again... soon you die a better person and you still have yr $160 K...

I bad-mouthed the KKK to a guy who was awol from the navy (still is for that matter- Garret Wojokowitz -or-sky) who was a member - he has shipped with Stephen Pagones and later met Wiliiam Stanton as well as other neo-nazi and/or KKK Members. They jumped me as I returned home one morning... But that's the short story... I didn't quite remember the incident well for several years.- Having successfully blocked it out -which I highly recommend as a basic theropy for trauma victims...Years later, when a complete memory returned, it took me some time to sort out. I reported what I remembered to both the FBI and the Southern Poverty Law Center, and also well known lawyer named Ron Kuby as well- - no help there -too late to make a case by then... In all, it was a triuphant experience for me - I lived thru it and now remember the visions I experienced much better than the suffering. - So all together it was a good experience -which took some time and effort to get to...It made me a much stronger person in later years, and I have little fear of anything save the will of cosmic retribution- which I seem to have lived thru and wish on no one... As for the perpitrators of the torture -they are stuck in their own hell as a norm that I could wish for no one - no light, no hope of becoming actually human -no contact with the sacred... doomed and left in the dark... lost to all that is worth knowing.... I see the event as part of my karma - I seem to have meditated my way out of a hellish situation in a past lifetime and needed to pay-off the debt I owed in hell... At least that is the way I see it now... I meditated my way thru the kkk time also and used the knowledge I had gained of yoga, martial arts and internal meditative quietude to get thru...There was fighting back and I bloodied them as well -but mostly it was internal work that brought me thru... love to all- and be aware -there is evil that can insnare and try to claim us - fight it and stay in the light of reason and creative growth- Love to all- Pat

These arguments seem futile - and what of luck? In a real fight sometimes a lucky move saves the day! -That's just karma perhaps -But then again - the real wisdom says that the fight is always won before it begins... If my apponant thinks I am a slow fat ninny and actually I've got skills - I am likely to have a serious upper-hand without his knowing what the hell he's about to learn... Just like foot ball... anything can happen any given Sunday!

As I stated on another thread just now - growing a garden is a wonderful way to be alive!!!- I am in an unusual state of inticipation for spring this year... I expect a real blossoming and renewal on a grand scale!!!

If you do such things - they are shared and you grow together... you nurture the garden that in turn nurtures you... we are all one thing in so many forms and ways of sharing life... - like the Lerners -new thread growing a garden is a very fine way to be alive... I await Spring with an expectation of renewal...

Calmness is the beginning. That is the basis of all out-put... But in instances when there is real trouble afoot - action may be needed beyond the calmness, (without ever leaving the calmness) ... It should come very naturally when it is needed. Just ACT as required... yes, Do what is needed. The actions will become obvious when yr intent is to preserve the well-being of all concerned...Tho the rough handling of people who are being nasty and hurtful may also come into the realm of possibility...Then martial arts training is certainly useful... If you have no training - just try to project the calm - a stout heart and clear mind will often disuade the bullies we meet up with and no show of force is needed...

I think there is a time and place for everything... Keeping in mind that I wish to do the best I am able in as humble a fashion as the situation dictates... I'm not going to restrict my efforts - if I feel there is some part of malevolence afoot- I intend to be pretty negative towards its seeming imposition... I will contend with that which I see as negative as positivly as I'm able!

I wish you well in this troubling situation. I have long believed that the only thing that keeps me from experiencing hellish experiences is my time with deep meditation - thinking only how much I wanted to be nearer to the light and to leave the darkness behind me. Soon I am amid the light and HAVE left the darkness behind me. This is a constant struggle sometimes and I need to always be aware that dark forces do not want me to leave them behind- the dark forces need you as a source of energy. Offer them nothing, not even yr devotion to being of the light...just close yrself away from the intrusions they offer...Find yr center and take flight!

Say, isn't there a Bruce Lee thread somewhere? Is he actually concidered "new age"?

1st- around 6 yo- I fell out of a moving car - my short life flashed thru my mind(before my eyes as they say) 2nd- at 14 yo I had Strep,Mono, and blood poisoning that brought me to the brink of death... "I" rose up out of my body - saw a silvery feather dance down to me and then I was "told" to go back it was not my time.. 3rd- of many in a span of days- at 28 - I was tortured and then left for dead by the KKK, suffered greatly and had many visions of my future. There were several instances when I left my body and was transported away from my torments, one I zoomed into deep space and saw wonderous nebula and galaxies move though time/space -it was a wonderous realm of cosmic movement... In later years I used these visions as the basis for many paintings... Another was when an "angel" took the place of my spiritual self -(or conscious mind) for a while - to give me a breather as I was giving up my will to live...Others I just floated above myself observing the mayhem below me... I obviously survived... But - with a deeper sense of meaning and needed effort to do the things expected of me to complete my karmic debts and follow through with any expected new acts of following the will of the creative force that runs thru each of us... It was completely humbling in a very good way. These three + experiences gave me a profound sense that I have an actual eternal self that will go on beyond my current human life.

Since when is Hippy a darogatory term? There are some pretty silly assumptions taken and espoused from & by some New Agers... Many psuedo-scientific half-baked ideas that counter the actuallity of cause and effect. Much "wishful thinking" and too little practical observation... A sort of immaturity of discipline, as has been stated on this thread earlier... As an old hippy who saw the beginnings of this new-age thing and watched it grow into a sales-pitch -I liken it to the "Dead -head" phenominum where the trappings surplanted the essence and the verbiage surplanted the meaning... No digging around the grounded roots of a thing- only picking the flowers from its tree, as it were...as a means of transpalnting the living embodiment of the source that is meant to be shared...Which does not preclude taking a cutting and nurturing THAT from new roots of course! Searching for meaning and truth - (as it pertains to our spiritual growth) is hard enough without false paths offering "wisdom" being promolgated to the gullible...Observation and deep contemplation within and without is what is usually required to gain actual knowledge -and maybe even wisdom over time...Quicky glimpses of esoteric phenomina offers scant access to useful tools...

Hi, Strive to attain the highest level. Never give up, never. A peaceful physical death is a wonderful way of dying. 1. Ramana Maharsi Many thanks for yr kind thoughts! But why would I ever give up? Did something seem to indicate a lack of will to live on my part? That is far from the actuallity... I have a huge store of love for life within me yet...I turn 55 in a few weeks and am still in pretty good shape. Recently I moved many of my belongings from a room in Atlantic City to a room in Plainsboro. They weighed about 90 lbs and I carried them with only slight loss of breath for a few hundred yards at a time as I moved from train to train to bus, etc...I playfully asked a few much younger friends to lift the largest back-pack for me and they could barely get it up to their chests. My inner reserves of chi have only grown thru the years. With some lasting attempts to transform that energy to shen, my eternal spirit is thriving as the center of my consciousness... watching my "monkey mind" as it wanders (with joy) thru my days... When I die I will be excited to move on and hope to leave my few loved- ones with joyful memories and the knowledge that my life had been very full... As I've written here before most of those whom I have loved deeply have preceded me into the next realm. I look forward to regaining relationships with them, that are on equal footing! I aim to play some esoteric melodies with Jimi Hendrix and my old friend Buddy Miles in the celestial orchestra!!! Please worry not for my efforts to remain commited to transcendence and spiritual growth!