3bob

Roger, I still disagree in the sense that a permutation or multiple series of such even though connected to source - is not the same as the non-permutated "source". (if you want to go at from that angle?)

...further the programmer and his program have a connection, not unlike the Tao and the ten-thousand have a connection yet neither the programmer nor the Tao (when using such an analogy) are limited by connection to a particular program or to a particular form of the ten-thousand. (as alluded to in T.T.C. 43 with "Only Nothing can enter into no-space")

a programmer watching his program run is not the same as that program which can be changed or deleted in comparison. (thus Spirit is not the same as a mental dealy-bob or thing which can be changed or deleted)

there can be no divorce among aspects related to the truth except in limitations of perception.

What does the rainbow symbolize to Hawaiian culture? "The Rainbow is very significant in Hawaiian culture. Hawaii is very rainy, and rainbows can often be seen. This has led to it being deeply ingrained in their culture and religion. The rainbow is the celestial path that the Hawaiian Gods use to come down to earth from their home, in the Cloud Islands. The Rainbow Goddess, Anuenue, who is sister to the primal gods Kane and Kanaloa, acts as a messenger of the Gods. Lono, the God of Fertility and Music, descended on a rainbow to marry Laka, the Hawaiian Goddess of Music and Dance. "Anuenne" is Hawaiian for Rainbow The rainbow is also perceived as the pathway that the souls of the dead take to travel to the heavenly realms. The souls have walk on the rainbow path to pass through Kuaihelani, a mysterious floating island, which translates to "supporting the heavens or spiritual" to reach the sacred land of Nu'umealani, the bright, elevated and fragrant land of "the heavenly one". The rainbow is thus a symbol of transformation, and those who can freely travel between the upper world and the lower reaches live like gods among humans, enjoying earthly prosperity and abundance. Featured as a pathway between dimensions in Hawaiian mythology as it does in various cultures round the world, it also acts as a footstool for Malanaikuaheahea, the wife of the legendary transpacific voyager and astronomer whose name, Maliki'i is also the Hawaiian term for the Pleiades star cluster from which the first Hawaiians came to earth." Feel free to share meanings related to the rainbow in your or other traditions:

Wonderful pictures and sayings Nungali ! Thank you for sharing.

lots more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbows_in_culture The rainbow has a place in legend owing to its beauty and the historical difficulty in explaining the phenomenon. In Greco-Roman mythology, the rainbow was considered to be a path made by a messenger (Iris) between Earth and Heaven. In Chinese mythology, the rainbow was a slit in the sky sealed by goddess Nüwa using stones of five different colours. In Hindu religion, the rainbow is called Indradhanush, meaning "the bow (Sanskrit and Hindi: dhanush is bow) of Indra, the god of lightning, thunder and rain". Another Indian mythology says the rainbow is the bow of Rama, the incarnation of Vishnu. It is called Rangdhonu in Bengali, dhonu (dhanush) meaning bow. Likewise, in mythology of Arabian Peninsula, the rainbow, called Qaus Quzaħ in Arabic, is the war bow of the god Quzaħ. In Armenian mythology the rainbow is a belt of Tir, a Sun god. In Norse Mythology, a rainbow called the Bifröst Bridge connects the realms of Ásgard and Midgard, homes of the gods and humans, respectively. The Irish leprechaun's secret hiding place for his pot of gold is usually said to be at the end of the rainbow. This place is impossible to reach, because the rainbow is an optical effect which depends on the location of the viewer. When walking towards the end of a rainbow, it will appear to "move" further away (two people who simultaneously observe a rainbow at different locations will disagree about where a rainbow is). Also, a rainbow is in fact a full circle, we usually only see the half arc of it due to our positioning in respect to it; if you were to be positioned higher up (such as on a tall building or an airplane) then you could view it's actual full circle. So in reality there is no end to a rainbow, just as there is no end to a circle. Therefore, that 'end of the rainbow' is in other words an impossible/non-existent place. Another ancient portrayal of the rainbow is given in the Epic of Gilgamesh: the rainbow is the "jewelled necklace of the Great Mother Ishtar" that she lifts into the sky as a promise that she "will never forget these days of the great flood" that destroyed her children. (The Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet Eleven) Then Ishtar arrived. She lifted up the necklace of great jewels that her father, Anu, had created to please her and said, "Heavenly gods, as surely as this jewelled necklace hangs upon my neck, I will never forget these days of the great flood. Let all of the gods except Enlil come to the offering. Enlil may not come, for without reason he brought forth the flood that destroyed my people." According to Genesis, after Noah's flood God put the rainbow in the sky as the sign of His promise that He would never again destroy the earth with flood (Genesis 9:13–17):[1] I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud: And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth..." (and more)

From "Choosing Love" which will be published by Hampton Roads in 2010 "The ego doesn’t want to commit to anything—a place, a relationship, a career—because it believes that something better may be possible, and it’s willing to forgo what is present for the possibility of something better that isn’t present. Essence, on the other hand, is committed to whatever is. It doesn’t commit into the future because all that exists is the present, so it commits itself to that. This is the essential difference between the ego and Essence: The ego dreams of something better in the midst of whatever is, while Essence simply enjoys and commits attention and love to whatever is. In fact, committing attention to anything that is present results in enjoyment. This is why the ego enjoys so little—it commits attention to what isn’t present and to what it doesn’t have, and suffers over that, rather than committing attention to whatever is. It loves its fantasies, dreams, and desires more than it loves reality. To love, we have to fall in love with reality—with what’s true right now, not with what might be true in the future or with what we want to be true in the future. Love happens in the now (like everything, really). That’s why the ego doesn’t know about love—because love is the experience of being in the now, or the present moment, and as soon as the ego experiences the now, it runs from it. Commitment takes a willingness to fall in love with reality—with the real partner who is in front of you—rather than seek something else, either actually or through fantasy. What you commit to is what’s here right now. Who knows what will be here next? All you ever really have is what’s here right now, so it makes sense to commit to that, in other words, to give your full attention—your love—to that. Those who have difficulty committing to a relationship often have difficulty committing to other things as well because they have an underlying belief, or misunderstanding, that what’s here isn’t good enough and what’s somewhere else is better. This is the ego’s basic assumption about life: Whatever is happening now isn’t it. It is somewhere else, with it being ultimate happiness and contentment. The ego assumes that because it perceives whatever is happening as not good enough, it is, in fact, not good enough, and it concludes that must mean there’s something else that will be good enough. It imagines one day it will find peace and happiness because life will finally line up correctly. Those who can’t commit are waiting for life to line up, fall into place, and they’re quite sure that doesn’t look like whatever life looks like now. The funny thing (or not so funny thing) is that life never does line up for anyone, simply because the ego won’t perceive it as ever “lining up.” It has a habit of perceiving life as imperfect, even when it’s quite ideal. In any event, life isn’t meant to be perfect or to fulfill the ego’s dreams and desires. It serves a higher purpose, one that has very little to do with the ego’s fantasies. Life is essentially about learning to love and learning a lot of other things too, and for this, life is likely to look less than perfect to the ego. Life brings people into our lives for various reasons, and sometimes we have to be willing to stretch ourselves to gain what can be gained from a relationship or tap the love that is possible. Relationships, like life, aren’t meant to be easy, although they can be deeply rewarding. Commitment makes it possible to tap the potential of a relationship. If you give up on a relationship after the first blush is gone, you may never realize this potential. Sexual union often becomes the glue that keeps people together long enough to begin to experience true love or learn what they need to learn from each other. Nature has a way of bringing about spiritual lessons and spiritual growth. Sexual attraction is one of the ways Essence brings people together and keeps them together long enough to benefit from each other and grow. The ego doesn’t appreciate growth, and it’s not in relationship for that, or for love really. Its unwillingness to commit and to grow often prevents a relationship that could be a very good one from becoming that. It is forever chasing after the perfect “10,” which doesn’t exist. But it’s difficult to convince the ego of that. It believes in its fantasies. To the ego, it’s only a matter of time before “the one” shows up. Hope springs eternal. Essence experiences “the one” in whomever is showing up, and that’s the difference between Essence and the ego. It’s possible to love whoever shows up in your life. In fact, it’s very wise to do that if you want to be happy. If you don’t want to be happy, you will reject whoever shows up in your life. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be discriminating. Loving and saying yes to those who show up in your life doesn’t mean getting sexually involved with them unless you want to. Essence says yes to them—is open to them—because it is curious. And then it is very wise about getting more involved with them. Essence commits itself to someone only when love is flowing in both directions and the relationship is rewarding on many levels. The ego, on the other hand, may commit out of sexual attraction or because some other need is met through that relationship, which is not a good basis for commitment. Commitment naturally flows from love and appreciation of another. It’s the natural outcome of love. And this love is often enough to overcome conditioning and other difficulties that might arise in the relationship. Without love, commitment is hollow; it has no basis. Without love, the foundation for the relationship won’t be strong enough to weather conditioning and other difficulties. Commitment only makes sense when there is love, but the ego isn’t capable of love. It forms relationships based on needs, and that’s when commitment falters. As soon as someone’s needs aren’t getting met, then the commitment is questioned. Those who are identified with the ego much of the time have a very difficult time committing, while those who are identified with Essence are able to love and therefore able to commit. Eventually everyone learns to love, but relationships can be pretty volatile when egos are in charge. Even so, because relationships provide the ego with many of the practical things it values—sex, security, affection, companionship, support, and help—people who are in relationships for egoic reasons often end up discovering love. This is how life draws people out of the ego and into Essence." (I like the explanations related to why attaching to past or future is so hard on us)

I think another aspect of the quote above (which is not exactly touched on) is how young kids often live in essence a lot, until the ways of the worldly ego start kicking in, granted with some needs for such although not some needs for to much...

bump

MH, that could be nice but its to bad that our karmic tendencies might get passed on to other mind streams

Sounds Om-ish Everything-ish...

CT. your last post is just another example of your creepy comment problems , so again get off it.

well one of your high horse type of posts proclaimed that that of another was non-sense which btw was fed back to you in another post as a possible example for reflection on your state of demonstrated and thus factual arrogance. (so again, get off it)

CT', Get off it - "logical" per your parameters that are mostly related to your understanding, (quotes or no quotes) which btw. may or may not be all that applicable per the general forum and even among or per debates among various schools of Buddhism - thus your personal and as demonstrated non-flexible beliefs which come across habitually even in the general forum!

CT, Stating various truisms per your beliefs and or your beliefs about what and who you are quoting only apply to same..(just like when the rest of us bring up stuff that may or may not be like yours) so I suggest getting off your high horse when it comes to conducting yourself in the general forum.

you may be interested in part of a commentary on Isa upanishad along these lines... "Consciousness cannot be in some place because to be conscious that consciousness is in this 'some place', it has also to be somewhere else – where it now appears not to be. Therefore, consciousness cannot deny that it exists in another place as well, somewhere else, because such denial is impossible unless it is already present there at the spot which is being denied. Therefore, the nature of consciousness is universal. This is the nature of the Ultimate Reality. This is what we call God. This is what we call Ishvara. Therefore, the pervasion of this Supreme Consciousness, which is the Absolute Reality, is not pervasion – something entering into something else – in the ordinary sense of the term. It is the One Thing being all things. In a great mantra of the Rig Veda we are told: ekam sad vipra bahudha vadanti (R.V. 1.164.46). "The one Being – poets, sages, and masters call It by different names" such as Indra, Mitra, Varuna, Agni, and so on. Therefore, this world of perception, this universe of variety, is a perceptional presentation and not actually a modification, because eternal things cannot modify themselves. If eternity modifies itself, it becomes a temporal something. That which is above time cannot become something in time. This is the tough doctrine of creation, hard to understand, which will never enter the brain of a person; and even if it enters, it will not stay there for a long time. So, be cautious about this. The great sage of the Upanishad, therefore, tells us: "Whatever is apparently moving or not moving – yat kim ca jagatyam jagat tat sarvam – all that is Ishvara." You must be able to convince yourself as to the way in which God, Ishvara – the Ultimate Being – can be everywhere and also be everything. From this consideration it follows that God is not merely everywhere, He is also everything. "Knowing this, be happy without the sense of possessiveness in regard to any object," is the second half of this mantra: tena tyaktena bhunjitha, ma gridhah kasyasvid dhanam." By Swami Krishnananda

"nonsense", understanding is obviously not disconnected from acts of conducting one's life...

one with compassion may desire to remain in some form and or reincarnate to help others until the end of this great cosmic cycle...for the "dream" is not absolutely real (depending on certain interpretations) but it real enough and exists to an "x" degree to be worked on and with, BESIDES, samsara is nirvana when properly understood...

"if you die" there is only "ease" so to speak at the Spirit level where you do not die being that Spirit does not die.

I'd say what is more important than memories of "previous lifes" or "deaths" is realization of lasting and quintessential reality which is not bound by such passages.

I'd say "previous" and "last moments" are only apparent which is what it sounded like you were starting to say except in your 3rd sentence?

I'd say that we can't change the absolute and the end game of it, (or beginning game of it) but we can change or have variable impact on everything else from a-z and our part and place in it, thus from ourselves and to whatever degree with all the forms of energy in the universe. What are your further extrapolations along such lines?

there are many people taking vows as if a whole lot of the same are "reliable" - to say the least, thus there is not much leeway or add-lib interpretation of such vows.