Sunya

hahah thanks for the link I like Michael Cera, he's an interesting character... and seems like a genuine guy. He was great in Arrested Development

hey buddy, I know how you feel, I've had many experiences which can be labeled 'psychosis', and it's indeed scary when you paint the world in such a negative light but there are big problems with your whole world-view; it's based on a thought-frame which just isn't congruent with reality. Look at this this way, your whole sensate world is filtered through the mind and if the mind isn't clean then the world appears different. Your emotions and thoughts actually create your reality this way because you think the real actual world is so negative, but in reality its just your mind that is the source of all this paranoia and hysteria. I assure you, like others here have, that you have nothing to worry about. In fact, there is no stable independent entity that you refer to as 'I'. Your thoughts betray you, the real You which is empty pure blissful awareness, because thoughts all point back to a limited and false I not the real I. Next time you have such thoughts or worries or emotions, simply ask yourself Who am I? and try to figure that one out. not through thinking, but feeling.. and not in the body either. You are not body nor are you mind, these are just temporary manifestations of a much deeper dimension of yourself that you are not aware of. You're clinging to a self that is make believe, in reality you're a symbol of perfection. Not realizing this you create a reality of suffering for yourself. You don't need a psychiatrist, nor do you need drugs. You don't even need to spend any money, except on some good books or teachings from a good teacher. Find a path. You're here for a reason, this specific forum, because you're open to spirituality. you're on the right track (believe me, I know), so stick around.. and outside of this forum I suggest you read up on spiritual paths like Buddhism, Taoism, Vedanta, etc. and see which you connect to.. then get good books (you can ask people here for recommendations) and find a center near you to connect with people and a teacher. This is all you need; to let go of false reality through learning enlightened teachings and meditation. Meditation is key to stop clinging to thoughts because that is the root of all psychotic issues. Peace be with you!

hehehe I know what you mean brother, but don't beat yourself up for it. Just keep going, keep practicing, it'll come again. and you'll probably feel fear again, and you keep going. Practice witnessing to feel fear in it's basic form, I did that once and it was SO liberating, this was during a strong energetic event, i was overwhelmed with fear and felt the root chakra exploding, I thought I was dying.. then i did just witnessed the phenomena of fear in its barest form, without the thought-construct of 'fear'on top of it, and what I experienced was an extremely strong, beautiful, and primal energy. Fear is resistence and over time you just let go more and more.

The topic of Islam, not Santiago (who I think is a good guy), is interesting to say the least. Nowadays in the West the common approach is to be politically correct by striving to be objective and to view all cultures and religions as super-cool and beautiful, while I think this is a good academic approach it isn't very conducive to figuring out whether or not a religion is beneficial and progressive for the human spirit. Islam right now is a touchy subject, but since it's the world's largest growing religion we must take a critical look at it and whether or not it's beneficial. This is our task as human beings, not to be all accepting but to be critical by questioning values in a respectful manner. That's at least how I feel. So while Islam does have a beautiful culture, the religion is quite detrimental on many points. First, like all religions that get stuck like this, to Islam the Koran is the Holy word and is unquestionable, it's taken literally, and questioning is impossible. Second, not like all religions, Islam is a whole way of life; the Koran gives plans for a whole system of government and law. This would be great if everyone was Muslim, but that isn't happening. Thirdly, the core of Muslim philosophy is superbly dualistic and not mystical at all, where a nondual relationship with God is seen as heretic and delusional, and was met in the past with execution (ex: Mansur al Hallaj). The practice of Islam leads to a mentality of slavery, the relationship of master to slave, and the necessity of fearing God (as opposed to Sufis who love God and want to merge with Him) For these reasons I agree with Gold about Islam, but I don't agree with him judging Santiago as a Muslim... since Sufism is not Islam as far as I'm concerned.

Which book? Light Warrior or a new one that you're working on?

Did you mean Indian Buddhist texts? because yes many original Sanskrit texts have been lost, whether by Muslim invasion or because of other conditions. Tibet translated every sutra into Tibetan and currently has many many many untranslated sutras. I'm not aware of Tibet ever being invaded by Muslims nor am I aware of most Tibetan Buddhist texts being destroyed. Tibetans have done a very good job in preserving texts. Many texts were indeed destroyed though, but that was done by Chinese invaders.. not Muslim.

Some need a True Self teaching where the ultimate nature of mind, the primordial empty awareness, is identified with as a method to attain its recognition. Most Buddhist schools view this as problematic since it can lead to grasping, and (i'm guessing) one could very well get stuck at the 'Witness' stage due to grasping at an ultimate Self. But, the hardcore no-self attitude of Madhyamaka can be quite difficult and is always supplemented in Tibetan traditions by Cittamatra (mind-only) teachings, which (I think) were inspired by the Mahaparanirvana sutra.

Beer Qi Gong??? intriguing... is it as it sounds? drinking and practicing?

I agree with you, and I think you mistook my post. I don't locate mind within the head, but mind I mean non-local awareness. I should've been more clear.

how do you draw the conclusion that the tones are coming from the Earth and not from within your very mind?

Hi Pero Happy new year brother! hope you are doing great what other boards have you been carousing since E-Sangha went down (btw is it down for good?)

the fat jolly monk is actually not Buddha, though everyone seems to think he is I lost count how many times I've explained to people that Buddha was not a fat nor Chinese it's actually Budai, who was a Chan monk living around the 10th century. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budai

what are you 12 years old? I simply told you to participate in discussions without picking on me as I'm growing quite tired of it. Well I was talking about what Nietzsche said.. but if you're asking what I think, then what I think is different than Nietzsche since he simply deconstructed 'knowledge' and 'objects' but left no room for wisdom or insight. Yes, no one understands reality since there is no way to understand reality. Understanding, to know, implies a knower and a known, such a duality will never lead to true wisdom, true understanding, because the brain is flawed. Wisdom arises when one goes beyond mind-brain. Yes there is no way for a brain to understand reality but that doesn't mean brain is the finite mark of consciousness.

This is interesting. from Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's Zhuangzi page perhaps Zhuangzi was a Buddhist? No, I think this kind of skepticism toward objectivity is universal among all sages. "Objective World" means nothing without the human ideas of objects, shapes, colors, time, distance, all of which depend on the mind for their existence! this is why there is no objective world outside of your mind because the very idea of it is human. What appears to you is not the real world since the human brain is just not capable of truly perceiving reality, this we can probably all agree with? Well then the human will ponder about the noumenon, the 'real world' that lies outside human perception. But that is part 2, we are still on part 1. Can we agree that we as humans do not perceive the world through our senses as it truly exists?

I posted many quotes from Nietzsche which are on-topic to "the objective world", plus I'm having a discussion. You really are like an unwanted guest that keeps butting in and just won't leave.

How many times this has been quoted to you I've lost count... but it's at the top of the forum page incase you want to read it yourself: ...Taoism as the bona fide Chinese religion of Taoist priests and shamans. Don't let this intro scare you though. Most of us are syncretic at heart. Discussion is encouraged to wander eclectically across a wide range of spiritual thought and practice, whether Buddhist, Yogic, Tantric, Judaic, Advaitic, Christian, Islamic, Shamanic, Occult, "New Age", Integral... As long as you are up for a good time, you're welcome to discuss your path Who is degrading Taoist philosophy? Who is preaching Buddhist doctrine? My you are strange, you keep saying the same things yet you ignore what others write to you, and if this were a personal email conversation I would've stopped long ago since you seem to absorb worse than a brick. As far as I can tell, we are trying to speak and communicate through our own words and thought-processes but you seem to create these barriers of "Us vs Them" simply because its easy for you to dismiss those that practice in a different tradition, which I find odd because, like I pointed out, this isn't strictly a Taoist forum and the thread isn't "Is there an objective world according to Taoism" How do you get physical objective universe from 'ten thousand things' ? Zhuangzi and Laozi were very vague and especially in their metaphysics. You're trying to make a connection which requires many assumptions on your part. And even if you do make the connection, that still doesn't answer the many unanswered questions of how can you ever know. It's not a matter of convincing yourself, that part seems to be easy, its a matter of epistemology.

Nietzsche was a non-theist and used many Buddhist arguments to show his point. in Will to Power passage 557, Nietzsche clearly is using Buddhist argumentation to show the emptiness of things, where he says "there is no thing without other things". Like I said before, Nietzsche was heavily influenced by his teacher Schopenhauer who, on the record, has admitted to being heavily influenced by Buddha. But anyway, this isn't important and its nonsensical to continue this. I merely said that Nietzsche was influenced by Buddhism to get you to open up. You misunderstand, what he spoke of as over-man was not one who understood reality but one who acted with will to power, though Nietzsche did hint that eventually it was possible he stressed the theory of errors, which is that the human brain evolved for survival not truth so there is no way for the human brain to understand reality, at least currently. This is actually the whole backbone of his philosophy and the main argument he uses against Theism, Materialism, Descartes notion of 'cogito ergo sum' and many other ideas. Umm which concepts exactly? I was raised Jewish so please feel free to get technical. Gay Science passage 135, he goes into detail about the origin of sin, which is the essence of the Christian slave mentality, and that it originated in Judaism. Nietzsche liked Jews because of their emphasis on education and questioning, their intellect, but he was never for the Jewish religion. in-fact, he commonly would use the example of Rome (his ideal) as being infested by the priestly moralists (the Jews), Nietzsche was against all religions, he viewed them all as possessing slave mentality, including Buddhism, but unfortunately Nietzsche didn't understand Buddhism too well because he commonly called it a nihilist religion, and not understanding the metaphysics he didn't get the inter-related ethics. actually this isn't relevant to the thread 'objective reality' so I'll end this part of our discussion Show some passages man. I could give you tons of quotes where Nietzsche says mankind created mathematics and the existence of 'things', all of which the Natural world lacks. The objective world that you speak of is not the world Nietzsche spoke of, in fact he denied such notions as objectivity entirely..Objective world depends upon the notions of causality and separate things existing. In WTP 552 Nietzsche writes. "When one has grasped that the "subject" is not something that creates effects, but only a fiction, much follows. It is only after the model of the subject that we have invented the reality of things and projected them into the medley of sensations. If we no longer believe in the effective subject, then belief also disappears in effective things, in reciprocation, cause and effect between those phenomena that we call things. There also disappear, of course, the world of effective atoms.... if we give up the concept "subject" and "object" then also the concept "substance" -- and as a consequence also the various modifications of it, e.g. "matter" "spirit" and other hypothetical entities, ... We have got rid of materiality... From the standpoint of morality, the world is false. But to the extend that morality itself is part of this world, morality is false... Life is founded upon the premise of a belief in enduring and regularly recurring things" and also in WTP 556: "There are no facts-in themselves" (objectivity) for a sense must always be projected into them before there can be "facts". . . The origin of "things" is wholly the work of that which imagines, thinks, wills, feels . . . Even "the subject" is such a created entity, a "thing" like all others" and also in WTP 557: "There is no "thing-in-itself" (objective thing) and also in WTP 560: "the apparent objective character of things: could it notbe merely a difference of degree within the subjective? that perhaps that which changes slowly presents itself to us as "objectively" enduring, being, "in-itself" -- that the objective is only a false concept of a genus and an antithesis within the subjective?"

As I said before, this isn't Buddhist philosophy since every Mystical tradition says the same thing. Second, this is an open Taoist forum where all views are respected, so really stop saying that just because you feel threatened. Third, I feel you are absolutely misrepresenting Taoism and projecting your own beliefs onto it. Laozi and Zhuangzi were highly realized and would not commit to such an erroneous belief. There is no way that Manifest means the same as physical universe. Where did you get this idea of 'Manifest' anyway? who taught it? It is clear that you not only have a disrespect for Buddhism but also many traditions of Taoism as well, holding only to your own particular brand of Taoism. Could you please be clear which Taoism you're talking about? Which teachers? Which texts? If you can't argue your point and will instead fall back upon a tradition, at least say which specific school.

woah man, Nietzsche didn't hold strongly to the Jewish God... Nietzsche was against any concept of a Theistic God; he preferred God as the omega point of the cyclical Will to Power, which is his metaphysical suggestion, a pragmatic concept that he admitted had no truth-in-itself since it was just an idea, but nowhere does Nietzsche ever show a liking toward any Theistic concept let alone Yahweh. Nietzsche was indeed influenced by Buddhism though indirectly, because Nietzsche was a student of Schopenhauer who was the first Western philosopher to bring Buddhist thought, though not fully complete, to the mainstream. I never said Nietzsche was Buddhist but he was absolutely influenced and used many Buddhist arguments against the Theistic model; for example he argued that things do not have to depend on God they can depend on themselves, this is the same argument Buddha used. another example is Nietzsche's pointing to the human limited capacity for comprehending reality and our attachment to beliefs and their makeup of our world-view. Yes the reason I threw in Nietzsche was because I know you respect him Marble, and I think you should read him more carefully.

LOL funny, but clearly you've never met any real Buddhists.

but Marble, everything that you've described are just phenomenal experiences that appear in the mind. when you gain enough lucidity in dreams you can experience the very same sensual and visual experience, and actually with even more vivid awareness. "No, I did not ignore it. I did agree that people conduct scientific inquiry and there are specific guidelines that are used. I generally accept something that is stated as a proven fact if two or more verifications have been made by qualified people in that field of study. But, there are times where I will not accept something even if these criteria are met because they directly contradict what I have already established as a fact on my own. And there are other things that just don't matter to me one way or the other in the least so I don't even bother my mind with it. " you missed my point, scientific inquiry is not done by robots. it's done by humans, the process is not objective because it is humans that created the process, it is humans that interpret the data, and it is humans that form conclusions about the scientific theory. "But if you argue this point please do not recire some Buddhist writing because you should be aware by now that I don't care about reading that kind of stuff. I stated a number of times that I tried Buddhism as my path but it wasn't good for me so I discarded it." So you think it's only Buddhists that say reality is dream-like? Actually so do Hindus, so do Taoists, so did Gnostic Christians, so did Jewish Qabalists, and many many other mystics. Likewise so did many Western philosophers such as Plato, Plotinus, Descartes, Berkeley, Nietzsche, Kant, Hegel, Derrida, Schopenhauer. etc. I could go on. Point is, this idea isn't Buddhist, its practically universal, so let go of your disdain for Buddhism for a second because that isn't relevant here.

yes I believe you are right, Gold. the older someone is the less likely they are to question their firmly held views. why so defensive? i'm not trying to make you defensive, it's your attachment to your views that are making you defensive, buddy. so relax since those views are simply thoughts and have nothing to do with you. i'm sure, having had experiences of Oneness, you know this already to be true. well if we are talking about objective world then we should settle on a definition shouldn't we? at least I can hope we can agree on a definition at the very least. what is your definition of objective world? I think a good example of an objective world is your house, when nobody is there to observe your house, the rooms in it, and the things inside those rooms, with their various forms, colors, shapes, substances, etc, when nobody is there to observe your house, is it still there? You would say yes your house exists outside of your perception of it, right?

Ok, so you since you saw this thread yesterday, and you came back today and see it again, that confirms an objective world? I don't think you understand what 'objective world' means for if you do, and if it does exist, then you would have no way of confirming that belief since you are forever trapped in your own subjective world.

Ok, let's see how valid your arguments are and whether you truly offer another valid alternative So in response to all of my criticisms about knowledge you present the extreme of hiding in caves? No, I never said that. I'm talking about truth not technology. I'm talking about using science as metaphysics, basing your whole world view on scientific discovery. I never said I dislike technology. You've completely ignored everything I said and presented myself as a pioneer for regression into an animal-like state, so far you haven't shown any arguments against what I said and have not shown any alternatives, which you said above you would do. I don't fear you buddy, just trying to figure out why you believe what you believe, this is after all a discussion forum and the topic is beliefs. So, again you've ignored what I said and just painted an extreme. I never said we should ignore everything, I'm saying we should question the assumptions for why we do what we do, and the conclusions that we make. So again, you ignore what I've said about scientific inquiry (that it's created by, and used by, people with limited capacity for truth). It was a metaphor, Marblehead. A metaphor to show you that relative beliefs depend on the existence of axioms which are assumed to be true. without those axioms the truth of the belief crumbles. you think Buddhists are the only ones who question reality? I'm not even arguing Buddhism right now, so discarding what I say as 'unTaoist' is strange. I'm simply posing questions which are relevant and important. There are many philosophers, mystics, and saints which have argued the same, including Taoist, but i'm not relying on them as authority. If you genuinely take an interest in examining your beliefs about the world and yourself, then this would be a much more interesting discussion. So far you've just acted defensive and haven't offered a worthy presentation. It's only been "well i believe what I believe because it's true, science says so, and so do I, plus i'm happy and you're Buddhist so check out Taoism or at least my Taoism" You said you present valid arguments and alternatives but you haven't at all.