ion

In an egoless state, without a body, there is still a sense of being, and not being many or being one, it does not feel unindividual, or individual, but having a sense of being, and having awareness of that, it feels like the sense of being is Are you familiar with the concept of a consciousness arising, how it rises from triggers? When the concept of self is letgo of and the ego that never was is let go of, all consciousness ceases to rise because the ego is at the core and the limiting factor in all consciousness in the individuals mind; remove the hub from the center of a wheel and the wheel is no longer a wheel. Life ideology is a part of every consciousness, ego is the center of life ideology, the limiting factor in the shape and form of all an individuals consciousness. By the disolution of ego all associated consciousness and ideologies are no longer, yet a sense of being is

Although the religions themselves have very different messages, I think it is interesting how the tao can be observed in religious concepts/axioms, but most interesting is that it seems to me, that two of the worlds biggest religious icons followed Tao, and taught it. Neither was religious; if anything they taught against religion because what they taught gave people independence from religion, a form of self salvation. I'm talking about Jesus & Buddha. Both people, if you look at their lives and how they dealt with everything, seemed to walk with the tao and I believe the messages they gave basiclly expounded on fallowing tao and taught it as a life style. Jesus was a leader. When he was crucified they made a spectical and mockery of the fact that people were calling him the king of Jews, but he definitely didn't seize power, or coerce anyone into givving him power. He gained influence over people maybe by performing miracles or having deep wisdom, but a big part of it was his lowly humble demeanor. I know the popular belief is that he was a carpentar, a polished and refined craftsmen but actually the aramic word which is what the gospels were originaly written in say he was a hadok or madok or something like that, I dont remember but it translates into someone who works with their hands, so more like a laborer then a craftsman. He lived in humility and washed the feet of his disciples, and his last commandment to his disciples is that they do the same for each other, to serve each other. He taught that the lowly will be exaulted and the high brought down low, to love your brother/neighbor as you love yourself, and to do unto others as youd have them do unto you. Buddha was also made a leader. He inherited a royal title yet renounced it and left a fortune and high position to perform a service for mankind. This in a time after becomming enlightened, he livved as a beggar and never gained wealth, he stayed a beggar til his death and to his culture at the time, he was considered a baggar factory, convincing people to leave house and householding for homeless life. This in a time and place when beggars were considered the lowest caste in their spiritual strata. If you were a beggar, you were considered spiritualy deficit and that you deserved to serve out your karma as a beggar til death, and likewise that if you were wealthy and powerful, then you were spiritualy evolved and deserved to keep your power and exploit the wealth. Yet buddha followed tao to, and dwelt in humility in that lowly place. Also anyone with wealth and power would have to "lower" themselves to seek wisdom from Buddha, because to go to a beggar for spiritual advice would be humiliating and humbling. Personally, I see that at least in some of the buddhist text and schools, particularly zen the message is the same, or that they are continuations of eachother. Appearently Im not alone in that, there are buddhist temples in China that sport the tai chi symbol, and also taoist temples with statues of buddha. I believe that if you follow tao with sincere devotion, make a life of it that you will be also practicing manythings from buddhist philosophy even if indirectly and that the advances made in buddhism, serve as advances made for the follower of tao. My personal preference is for tao, I see all the things that I see anywhere in the TTC, but much more eloquently simple and compact, but in the same way that if a person followed tao just a little way before getting caught up on an idea, they might go join the military to serve their fellow country man, I believe that if a person followed itmuch further, they would find themselves in a position like buddha was, where they renounce it all, what ever it is, enter into homelessness for a life of searching out the cure to end suffering for everyone, to bring harmony into everyones lives and relationships.

This is one of the two chapters that the christian church says is about the fall of lucifer. It is In the book of Isaiah chapter 14 verse 12. The actual context is an area of Isaiahs scroll, about ten chapters of it, where the god of Israel is sending his prophet to neighboring nations rebuking all their kings or judging them, I dont remember if they are all rebukes. For some reason the church leaders isolate this verse out of that whole event to say that hes talking about lucifer. Heres the same verse from another translation Heres the definition of Lucifer Lucifer is the latin name for venus, and the same as saying the morning star, day star and others. Probably an early latin translatoin is how the word lucifer got in there, I dont know, but its come to be that the christian church considers that morning star is a name for the ruler of hell, lucifer and considers that section from Isaiah as a reference to the devil and his fall from grace. The last thing that Jesus says in the bible is in Revelation 22 and it says- Which in the first Latin translation would have said he was lucifer. Incedently, this is the other part of the bible that the church uses as reference to there being a favorite angel that rebeled against god and fell from grace. Again the context is the god of Israel's prohet is rebuking neighboring nations- The next verse he is rebuking thor whatever the word is, the king of Sidon but apearently that is to be taken literaly. As far as satan and lucifer I dunno about them being different but I meant in the more conventional sense used by christians where in beelzubub, lucifer, the devil, and satan are all references to the same fallen angel and lord of hell. I have heard that though about there being more complex beliefs about different deities or whatever by those names and others. Ill check out that link in a while, I have to get out too. @stosh, what an ego is, has been around for over 200,000 years and is a product of human mind, not freud . They even talked about ego in buddhas day but I dont know the sanskrit word for it. I dont use freuds definition I think from what little I know about his philosophy I disagree with his ideas about it. Other then that I do not understand what else you are saying in that other part. I said ego was the cause of straying from tao/negativity, undesirable behavior etc, and that evil itself is a concept not a reality, however due to all things being sentient, evil has a spirit and is a sentient being like all thoughts and concepts although it be man made. So is and does the thing I and many others refer to as ego, the concept of self and because of that and laws of conflating awareness that the two (and more), conflate and become one spiritual being. But I dunno if that is what you were saying

The ego you were refering to was the determing factor and director of actions(self preservation) and as you say, toward the greater good. Self worth is a product of ego. Does the tao, which is ultimately selfless and without a self have a sense of self worth. Feeling either good or bad about ones self is judging the tao ultimately, but is not a necessary part of life to feel either way. If you give yourself to the concepts of good and bad, then you give yourself to the activity of liking and disliking, of judging and comparing; and to what standard are you comparing. Before the people strayed from tao there was no concept of good or bad, and no mental-fixation of ego to compare to a named concept as a standard, and so they didnt have a sense of self worth at all but derived the same confidence from loving their surroundings and having the feeling that we call goodwill and respect to and of their group which are also their surroundings. The law of attraction, that like attracts like and so a well fed ego draws good to ones self is not a fundemental law, but may yeild good earthly fruits, a wordly/mundane thing that the ego will be satisfied and call it good. But the law of attraction and the exact function you are speaking of is also used by everyone from televangilist to wall street in order to meet their sucsess's. You rarely an ego in a negative spiral of feeling badly about itself on wall street, in the pentagon, or in a televised church, but these collectives are having a "bad" and negative impact on society and the earth. I assure you, the ceo of walmart feels very good about his or herself and what they do. That person has very well rationalized their actions and are at total peace with literaly perpetuating slavery and exploitation, and having followed the temptations and rationale of the ego as far as they have, they are very much at peace with their greed and conquests. The board at Monsanto doubly so. So in the ultramundane sense, a person cultivating a sense of self worth does so in an attempt to establish peace, but it is like hiding in a cave in a collapsing mountain, and is the same as cultivating an eternity antangled in suffering of the self, (per the thread topic). The egos is rooted in something it does not have and can never touch, a sense of being, and why should a being judge that sense of being either good or bad? Does an ego have a self awareness, or is it a product of self awareness? It is not self awareness, and self awareness without an ego, and a mind ruled by dualistic concepts does not judge its awareness as good or bad. As far as a greek guy creating the concept of God, Id say you might be a little bit to learned and feigning ignorance to avoid the obvious. The concept and worshipping of God and gods predates the first celebrated civilization (sumaria) by a couple hundred thousand years. What I was refering to when I say that God is a by product of ego is that ego is the concept that this sense of being belongs to this self awareness and this self awareness is my experience and I am the being confined to this space, my body and that it is I who control and am also subject to this body and it is I who exist. But because of the way of Tao, to describe one thing is to have give life to its polaraity because to make not of a polarity isto give life to the spectrum its a part of, so to say I am this, is to say I am not that. To be not that is to say that that is something other then I concept, so I creates othersconcept, and I concept creates a seperatedness, a division within infinite unity. An ego is the only thing that can not say that it is one with all things, but because it has faith in its existance, it percieves an ego quality in the unity and way of the universe and calls it god. It says that the Tao is a thing like it a self with a POV, motives and intentions. Ego is what causes us to unconsciously think and act for the self, it is because of ego that we have to reason with ourselves and over ride its fundamental nature (selfishness) because it is born from the concept of self. The ego you also refered to the one that works toward a greater good is comparable to this And others. Ego creates a division and all selfish acts are born from the ego, it is these selfish acts that innoculated culture with disharmony etc and the thing that has to be over come/over ridden when selfless act of "good" are done, when the ego has a sense of bad self worth or what ever it acts out its concept of good in order to be its concept of good so it can feel a good sense of self worth. The good provided by ego is the superficial rite described in chapter 8, and the unpretentious "good" of chapter 38 is thoughtless because its our tue nature our true nature is selfless(tao like) and naturally what we call "good" from this "bad" place of dualistic and egotistical thinking.

I dont believe christ and satan/lucifer are one, I believe ego and satan are one an when christ was tempted by satan while in the wilderness, that he was tempted by his own ego while in a state of deep meditation, where the battle is actually fought. I do believe that the teachings of Christ are actually a tool of "satan/lucifer" and that the christian church is "the church that gives the beast its streangth" that was written about in revealation. I believe that everything is alive and sentient, thoughts and concepts, corners and straight lines inclued, and thus the ego has a spirit. I also believe that in the dimmension of spirit where there is no time or space, that the spirits/awareness's conflate by similarity/likeness's. Sentient beings can be man made, like the ego, and like evil. The things we classify as good or bad become that because we breath that life into them, and so since there is what we call evil there is a spirit with that self awareness, but because of the law of conflation, all egos are one spirit in that dimmension, and also the spirit of evil is conflated with that spirit and so evil, and ego are one, because ego is also the source evil(negativity, selfishness and unbenificial acts). I have a belief (sorta I can also see how it is untrue, but more an interpretaion of a happening) that Id say is similar to the gnostic belief. It is the core of my understanding of Tao which will proabably confuse anyone who reads this. But, the scourceless scource, (the one true god) is entirely selfless and without self and creates nothing,(literaly creates nothing just by being) but that the yin-yang, & original myriad creatures unfold from its state however they "exist" in a state of non-existence and never come into being because from the sourceless source the only "law" is the law of nothingness. They all only exist in principle, but because they exist in principle, they have sentience and self awareness, so although they are truly non-existent, the spirit of them and their sentience do exist in the dimmension of spirit and mind. In that place, the yin-yang have two forms but share a single self awareness because of the conflating effect; they are the awareness of infinities n0-things/nothingness. The collective awareness of these things comes into being and considers its self and understands that it is eternal, that it sits on a foundation that cant be taken away, that it can not not be. It considers its foundation, the yin-yang and the myriad creaturres which are the formless elemnts and phenomenon that create and maintain reality, (symmetry, balance, diversity, replication, opposite and likeness etc, the list goes on) and considers nonexistance and the possability of existance and goes onto create existance. The creator, and the one true god are not the same thing, the creator is a eternal being who becomes nonexistant when it creates existance. It is somewhat an act of rebellion because the true scource made one law and that law is nothingness so the rebellion in heaven is the act of creation, and the creator was the rebel. Existance was not meant to be because of the inevitable out come of creating existance is a human like being because once creation is created, it unfolds and creates itself and inevitably crates life which inevitably created humanoid which enevitably aquires an ego, creates evil, and the ego causes the hell dimmension which I've touched on a bit in another thread ("is there ever an end to individual consciousness?"). I have seen this but do I believe it? Yes and no. Its all true but It is a metaphor to understand other things, physacal and ego imagery to describe something that cant otherwiise.

Jesus certainly was against the religios structure of his culture, but it is pretty clear that his teaching was very unsupportive of Rome and its ways Is a phrase that the Christian church, the Evangelicals certainly being one of them, has used for about 1800 years to make the masses and their followers complacent and good little drones. Its context is almost always ommited and rarely analized. They fixate on that one line ONLY and use it to direct ones devotion from "god" and over to man. In the actual context, the pharisees had wanted to trap him so they asked him if it was lawful to pay taxes; WHY? Why did they ask him that question? More then likely they thought he would say "no", because of the spirit of his teaching, and if he said "no", they could have had him executed by the romans which was their goal. Dont forget, at the time of christ's crucifixion, he was not excecuted for spreading gods word, he wasnt excecuted for teaching love, but for admittedly breaking roman law in stating that he was the king of the jews which was against roman law and that it was the pharisees that arranged this because it was unlawful for them to kill jesus themselves, they were constantly trying to get him to make an assertion that they could interpret as breaking roman law so that they could legally have him excecuted and be free from the karma of murder themselves. But Jesus knew what they were upto so he threw them something to think about, because inorder to pay taxed, you have to render up to Ceasar, that which is Gods", your devotion your dubmission and your works. Also if you read the bible in its entirety (which I have and I read 4 translations at once page by page from begning to end, it took half a year reading 4 pages at a time) from front to back, you see that Jesus's God had a plan, a layouut and format for starting a nation. In that nation there was no real rulers and no ownership of land. There was twelve tribal regions that were divided amongst the 12 tribes. They had Judges not rulers. Samson, who was a nazarite was a judge, he did not act as a ruler period at all, that was not his role. Samuel was the last of the Judges, actually his sons were for a short time, but they were corrupt. The judges role was to complete a circuit throughout Israel and then to Judge what he had seen and the people were supposed to take it to heart. The book of Samuel shows the people of Israel discontent with their political structure and envious of other nations so they tell Samuel that they want to have a king and become a kingdom like other nations. This was heard by their God who condemed them them as evil and wicked for wanting such a thing. and then If you noticed, the rights the king will demand...By the time they were under roman rule, this prophecy had come to be fully appearent. The christians seem to glorify the concept of kings etc idolizing David's position as sort of appointed by god, and by doing so they disregaurd this entire book completely. During the time of Jesus Israel was under massive opression. That Jesus worked with wood is ddoubtful because Israel was one of the most UNimportant regions in Rome, if there was wood there it would've been being shipped elswhere and so would all the good carpentars. Its likely that most building wouldve been with rocks and clay broicks, the crappy wood they did have would be used for fishing boats. The jews had become so poor from roman taxes, that they had to sell their homes and land to pay the taxes. All their choicest things and properties and people were taken by rome. They were under total opression and abuse by Rome, and givven the God of Israels stance on Kings and what it says they will demand as their rights, I think it is safe to say that Jesus's teaching was against rome and taxation. I think its also safe to say that the God of Israel feels the same way about American emocracy. That everytime elections come around, and everyone is thinking that their prefered candidate is the one that will lead America to a better place is sinning and commiting an evil act, denying God as their savior and looking to a mere person to establish balance. Tax cllectors were certainly thought of as bad guys, when ever they talk about the bad people that Jesus hung with, they mention tax collectors amongst them. Besides the book of samuels prophecy being paralell to the state of Israel under Roman occupation, there is also the fact that Jesus says repeatedly that "this kingdom will crumble", "this kingdom will not stand because it is divided from with in" Also the teachings of the beatitudes really doesnt support the idea of taxation being lawful, because it causes people to sin/stumble in that it causes massive worry. If we are not to worry about the clothes we wear come from or what we are going to wear, if we are not supposed to worry about food and what we are going to eat or where it will even magicly appear from, then why should we be dedicating our lives to stressing about how were going to pay the taxes before the romans come and sieze our propperty? Besides the context of the "Render unto Ceasar" phrase there is another paralel to that scenario where Jesus talks in private with Simon Peter, when there is no pharisees around. Hes talking about the temple tax, but I think it is safe to cross refrence these two scenarios to gain more understanding into the "render unto ceasar phrase" Jesus doesnt ask if the priests collect taxes from their kin, he says earthly rulers and some translations use the expression "kings of the earth" so I stand confident that this verse can be cross refrenced with the "Render unto" verse, because its talking about taxation in general. Of all the people I've talked to about the bible and its contents, noone is understands it worse then Christians. None of them read it from front to back, only little bits here and there so they miss the message. Plus the church has made axioms out of out of context statements to define the structure of their belief, but all of their fundamental beliefs are easy to prove wrong using the bible to do so. The main one is that you have to worship Jesus in order to go to heaven and have eternal life. When asked how o recieve eternal life Jesus answered to "Love your brother" more then once. Dont get me started on the fact that their is no biblical support for the idea of lucifer, let alone being a fallen angel and Gods most favoritest before the fall. The verses used to support that are taken out of context and completely distorted in order to make it seem that way. They are actualy about the king of Babylon, and Tyre and the prince of Tyre, but also and most ironicly, Jesus himself says in the bible that he himself is lucifer.

How do you suppose the ego does that? I see that that the most vital of our routines are fairly unconscious and in situations where eating is concerned, the ego often times to be over riden. The mental aspects of focus, deliberate action, and attention, along with biological impulses and cognition all have an actual biological basis, areas of the brain and nervous system where they can be seen working, and areas of the brain that control the specific function. Intuition and dreams come from a seperate brain in the enteric nervous system then the the encepholon which is what we normaly think of as a brain in the skull, and both fire impulses independently from the other, one doesn't control the other. These faculties above are all a consciousness needs in order to organize things and take care of ones self besides all the vital functions that are already taking care of themselves unconsciously. There is no need for an exagerated sense of self or an ego to take care of anything, and unlike these faculties listed above the ego does not have a biological basis, there is no seat of consciousness in the brain, no area where an ego resides and the brain itself is like several brains. Egois purely a concept. The fact that I say it is purely a concept is not to blow it off as something simple and benign or anything. It is the absolute center of every human ideology. You have seen what the concept of God to certain individuals and cultures Im sure? A concept depending on priority in a beings image of wholeness and life ideology has force and power on that being. Religious fanatics have their emotions and sense of morality governed by the concept of God. Religious fanatics will commit murder and commit suicide and murder at the same time all in the name of God, and what it all is in the mind, God included, is concepts held by the individual, mental fixations. "God", whether it's purely a subjective concept, or an objective reality is always a concept in the individuals mind, yet the concept is givven power over the indiviual because the individual believes the ideology and thus the concept governs the persons ideology, cognition, thought process and even impulses. Ideologies even gain control of endocrineglands in the limbic system. Every time a religious fanatic gets angry or offended in the name of their beliefs/ideology, that concept and ideology, in relation to that ones stimuli, controles emotions, and glands, and the secretion of certain hormones responsible for the persons mental/emotional state like adrenaline etc. Then those hormones influence the persons perceptions and thought process which are controlled by the ideology so when the adreniline comes for circle the ideology controls what its there for too. The cocepts we hold rule our physiology and health/ mental health. The concept that a being is a self, and has a life and is living one and will one day die is purely a concept. This concept, the ego, has so much power over our neuro-biology, but absolutely no direct influence, it is absolutely responsible for no body function, yet its presence causes a multitude of disorders. The ego concept which serves no function has so much power. The illusion that it has a life, and is living one is what gives the concept of God so much power over people to begin with because the priority placed on ego is far greater then the priority placed on anything God included, but that is precisely why God can have more power then ego, because the concept of God is that it controls fate and life/death, so within the ideology, God is is high priority because because of their fear, and the concept of death. The concept of god is also a byproduct of ego. Ego being the veil that gives awareness a sense of seperatedness; Because it has come to the conclusion and defines itself as being thus and thus, according to Tao it is also not this and that. Because there is beauty there is ugliness...because there is ego, as in existing object living its own existence, then there is also relative objects living, or existing as a seperate existence. Ego is indipendent entity and so naturaly seperate. Because ego is seperate and a perception of self, it views Tao as God, and projects an ego on Tao and calls it God.

Its because our government is a reflection of our society. If Im not mistaken, it cost the citezens of the USA 1 dollar 10 cents to put 1 dollar into circulation. It has something to do with the fact that we have to buy each dollar from the fed reserve. Does anyone know the deal with that or maybe Im way off?

I dont think anyone is confusing consciousness for personality. If by concept of yourself, you mean ego, A coceived concept of self being, having a life and living one, then I would say that without that you would self awareness, the ability to problem solve and do based on that self awareness. That would be a highly developed sense of self awareness but egoless. A simpler form of self awareness would be just that, an awareness of ones tendencies, reactions/responses to stimuli, and ones parameters etc. If you mean a lack of self awareness altogether then what you have is a sense of being, and you cant shake that. When all identity and ssense of self is gone there is a sense of being, and it doesnt, nor has it ever belonged to you. That sense of being is the primative awareness at the begining of the universe, the awareness of old yin the sense of being that arises out of stillness.

I agree Rara. I found that I, as a male can have multiple orgasms by not letting orgasm be the climax, or not giving into the "comedown".

I agree with you guys about not believing that the gospels/new testament are entirely manipulated into something it wasn't, however, the romans/catholic church didn't pull it out of thin air. Jesus's followers wrote several gospels only 4 were used and I believe are basicly forgeries, but the new testament that was put togeather happened years after Jesus death and years after christianity in its pure form was spread. The early christians were generally gnostics. As far as being divinely inspired and without fault, well I wouldn't say that. I did my own research using things from the 4 gospels that give hints at dates. There are some in John where he says something like, "On about the third hour of the 4th day of the passover...:So I thought it would be interesting to try to figure that out and find out what was going on astrologicaly at that moment, but in my research I found that Jesus's apostles didn't even know how old he was, and appearently made some other mistakes. Heres an example from Luke: You should be able to cross reference all that to get a fairly precise date. Heres another, also from Luke: That was also written in luke 1 that Herod was king at the time. Anyone with the internet should be able to research and find exactly when that was, but what I found that because some say that Jesus was as old as two when the census took place that the the first census was taken at what we believe to be 6 or 8 bc, not in the year 0 or 1. Shortly after that I foundd this: In Mathew its written that there was an earthquake at the moment of his death, but because he was born in either 6 or 8bc according to the facts about the census, that would make jesus about 40 at the time of his death, not "about 30" like Luke said, and not "33" like John said. So the bible obviously has some false hoods, and shouldnt be taken as fact, but I do believe there was a real guy who is nothing like the christian churches image who had a following of gnostics and mystic types. Although there is not a lot of historical data to back up his existence, the Jewish historian Josephus wrote quite a bit about John the Baptist who I get the impression was much more well known then jesus himself, " All the people in the land of Judea went to the Jordan to be baptised." And also that the govenor desperately wanted John Baptist imprisoned, John was accosted by soldiers, and Herods daughter wanted his head on a plate. Jesus on the other hand was not that well known. Pontious Pilate never heard of him but crucified him for the sake of the Pharisees who wanted him dead but had to have the romans ddo the killing for him. What Im saying is I think it makes more sense that John would have been written about but not Jesus because I dont think Jesus became a popular icon until just before, but mainly after his death so there is little to no record of him. But there are several gospels, like 30 or something that have surfaced in the recent past that are all very differnt then the four that were selected when they cannonized those scriptures. At that time alot of the hebrew bible was taken out and considered apocraphal. Whats funny about that is thenew testement have jesus and his apostles making direct quotes and references to thos books that the church dismisses. Enoch was removed but is quoted, and Solomons book that portrays him as a sorcerer with a magic ring. I cant for the life of me figure out why the Romans/catholics would have forged certain things that Jesus said because it attacks the foundations of govt, economy and institutions in general. I do believe that there was stronger statements he made that aren't in there for one reson or another. I think there were reasons the pharisees asked him if he thought it was wrong to pay taxes and that they expected and wanted him to say "Yes". I think they wanted/expected him to say that it was wrong so that they could legaly have him tried and killed. The entirity of the beatitudes and the fact that he told people to give all there stuff away and follow him into homelessness is non authoritarian and detrimental to the functioning of the empire and I dont believe was superimposed but but yes, I agree, the new testament has been manipulated and Paul was definitly no master of metaphysics and his ramblings are not paralell to the utterances of Jesus.

Actually he does mention the existence of Columbia PhD in Ancient History Richard Carrier some were toward the end of the Gospel of Luke, but only very briefly. Its really easy to miss it.

I believe the roman catholic church (w/ the help of the self appointed apostle Paul), reinvented Jesus but didn't invent him. I've heard of the prophecy of Maitreya, it's believed he or she is going to be a westerner which makes sense to me because as a society we are so greedy, egotistical and materielistic etc etc. Maitreya is also a good example, (not to go off topic) of how the universal teaching points away from love as an egotistical love/personal relationship. Its said that there will be no more families because everyone will be like brothers (in the ideological sense that brothers are close and love eachother/trust). I think that buddha and jesus probably both heard about a guy in China and a little about his philosophy. I would think that in his years long travels and wanderings amongst the different sects and practices that buddha caught wind of Lao Tzu. Probably more so Jesus, who probably also heard about Buddha, but I dont't think either of them followed any path or ideology. Buddha as I mentioned earlier tried all sorts of stuff and rejected them all as futile means. Word probably traveled a little slower in such a short time frame, (1 or 2 hundred years), between Lao Tzu and Buddha, but Jesus was Livving in the Roman Empire, and it is known that the Essene community which was near by, and maybe his dad had involvement in did study all the known religious texts, buddhist text included, and knowledge of his teachings had most certainly reached jesus, even meditation practice. His 40 days was spent in the wilderness, probably in solitude. I imagine it was not too dissimilar to buddhas meditation under the tree. The description of the temptation from satan fits my understanding of what happens when the self is faced off with in deep meditive states that are attended to from a place of purpose. As it is well known by both schools, one cannot cross over for the self and if any of the awarenesses or senses give themselves slighty to the subtle temptations or thoughts to experience, then one is attempting to attain enlightonment for the self. Even the bible says-"woa to the one who tries to enter the kingdom but through the fold" and that is an indication that one cannot attain enlightonment if it is not for the sake of the people. In regaurds to them "hearing" about Lao Tzu, there is the question of where the hell was jesus from 12 ish to 30 or whatever...I think maybe Egypt was a likely place where he probably learned good work skills, but was also brought there because of his noted genius in the area of spirituality. All the rabbis marveled at his knowledge and his questions... in Egypt he would've had acsess to anything written down about anything of a metaphysical nature.

I've heard that the religion buddhism says there were other buddhas before buddha, but I am refering to the historical buddha. Im sure there were others, but they weren't known or refered to as as buddha. Maybe Lao Tzu was one of them, I dunno but the teachings that the religion is founded originated with Prince Siddartha Guatama. Historically, Guatama Buddha was around 1 or 2 hundred after Lao Tzu and I tend to agree because it seems more like Guatama was influenced by Lao Tzu then the inverse, but I wouldn't fight to the death over it. It'd be interesting to hear your sources info. Marblehead- could you elaborate on that please? He was most certainly looked upun as a beggar. Even when he gained notiriety it is written everywhere that every day he wentout with his beggar bowl. Prior to his enlightenment he followed every spiritual path available, starting with astecism and wandering if that is what you are refering to, but he was not a part of any religious sect whatsoever, he had renounced them all and to everyone around him, all the people that came to him, he was a beggar and a beggar factory.

Warm regards, and, interesting translation of chapter 1

The practices are based on interpretations or better certain peoples understanding of the "philosophy". People who came to a certain understanding applied that to a practice. Semen retention is a good example. Its not written in TTC, but what is written here and there throughout the text is to remain unasserted(ive), and to bail out before climax, not to strive towards a climax etc, there is more and it goes on but one could also translate those to mean that semen should be retained or that those principles also apply to sex.

Nobody said that the path that leads to salvation would be easy and without sacrafice. Tao teaches that it is from desolation that life springs and that we should dwell near desolation, having nothing. Existence and life spring forth from non-existence and liflessness, where is it written in the Tao that we can have our cake and eat it too? Can yo be like Tao and love everyone yet with no preferences regaurd them all as equal? Can you bare children and regaurd your off spring equal to anyone elses and express love to all of them everywhere equal without placing an emphesis on any of them as your own? The path is not an easy life, we are all in a position that requires sincere devotion and great streangth to break free from. Livving the path is no picnic. Can you be like Tao and having no point of view, placing no emphesis, and regaurding all things as equal express love for everything equally having no standard and no personal interests no likes or dislikes to hinder that love? Did you realize your POV after searching deeply for the answer or is it just an assumption based on how you naturaly feel? If you could not find the answer inside your self, to what and where do you base your argument on? Where in any text do you find support? Everything seems to point away from worldly entanglemets, no matter what ammount of joy or self satisfaction it may promise. How you naturally feel is how you are programmed to feel, it is a task upon the path to rid yourself of you you think you feel. Like the guy in the Matrix who sells them all out so he can feign ignorance just to indulge in the joys of eating "real food", a juicy steak while everyone suffered and sacrificed for the salvation of all mankind...

When I was 13 years old I used a Oija board made by parker bros or whoever...not some old enchanted board with any history just a board game. It totally worked, told me things about people that I could not have known. I asked it the birth day of a girl in the other room and then went and asked her what her bday was. She told me some datemand I thought, "I guess it didnt work", then she said she was joking and told me her real bday which was exactly what the Oija said. Then I started asking more and more personal things about people, I had it tell me the details of my freinds brothers death, time place, how, and what he was doing when he was killed and the oija told me everything, and it was all verrified. Bad stuff began to happen to me all the time, I felt vulnerable spiritualy. Like I had no protection from chance occurance or malevelont spirits or anything. I ended up in Tijuana mexico and got arrested (at 13 years old)...just strange out of the ordinary bad stuff kept happening. I told my dad what I was doing and he said that I opened myself up as a medium to spirits by doing what I did, like I pealed off a protective layer when I really wanted it to work, like I prayed in a way, to have myself opened up to spirits. I dunno if it was him praying for me, or whether my believing him closed the gates or, if it is like the microorganisms in our body after we take an anti-biotic that reestablishes over time but things returned to a balanced state.

I think your presenting the either or arguement is a strawman and does not represent my standpoint. you could say that to anyone you disagree with if your goal is to make them seem closeminded and your ddelf the opposite by default. You failed to back up your arguement but instead offered the strawman and then fortified that you yourself are the one stuck in the either or philosophy by (in both of the posts where you adress me) pointing out only that we are different in our thinking. Why shouldd love for and of life be projected onto an individual? This expresses a belief that you are didvied from the others in your life and that you and they are seperate from one another and it. Forgive me for refering to buddhist texts, but in reference to the buddhas leaving his beloved family (worldly/illusory love and role) for the dharma(love for humanity and spiritual way/path), there was a poem written that goes something like what follows: A thraller and thrall is defined: This poem implies that these sorts of love that you are refering to, and that you are insinuating can be had even from an awakened state of love, are considered to be prison keepers that hold a person in the world of illusion and ignorance; that these states have the power to enlslave a persons soul and to keep it under. This poem implies that a person dedicated to the path and armed only with the ultimate undifferentiated love for all people (compassion at this point in history/delusion) has to sever the ties that have their basis in egotistical/cultural "loves". It is my understanding that the world of ignorance/illusion has its grips so deeply into our emotions and psyches that to have glimpsed the imprisonment we are all under is to not ever be able to trully entrench yourself with another in such a way because how could you knowing that there love is born of ignorance and a form of attatchment and to feign ignorance yourself for the sake of such relations is selfish, self serving because it further entrenches that person in ignorance and illusion and egotistical attachment. If from an awakened position you continue to "love" people in that manner, you do not show compassion for them or anyone else by leading them further into darkness simply because you liked the way it made you feel. It is the same as if a person, after becomming awakened and seeing just a glimpse of how deep within our hearts and minds the world of illusions chains have their grip, one decided to "forget" or ignore and still pursued any other worldly pursuit in ignorance for the sake of self. You cannot serve two masters, and that is not an either or scenario, I am not saying because you cannot indulge in egotistical love then you have to hate, Im saying that true love cannot be bound or its focus sustained. Im not saying either or, that is just not true, im saying the kind of love you are refering to is ultimately self fullfilling and merely a vestige of the love of tao, (which at this point is compassion). I am not saying that the unawakened world all actually hate eachother and are doing eachother wrong. They are in a world of illusion and their practices and rituals are a fruit of that. Compassion is when you realize that only you alone are not caught up in the pursuit of death and your heart truly goes out to the trapped souls all around you, knowing that absolutely everything they do say love and hate further enslaves them and establishes potentiated enslavement for the following generation. That it is not this or that, but everything; when you realize that love within the world is an egotistical illusion; a lie then you will know why you must only have compassion. If you have any love in you at all when you realize this you will trully break down and cry for them and from there learn to love.

I disagree with the notion that ego has a job. It definitely does not do the computing, reading or math, but it thinks it knows how. Ego is probably most peoples stumbling block or limiting factors in those areas of cognition and in general thinking thinking faculties in general. When the "I" tries to do something it inevitably fails. I believe that everything is sentient and alive;everything. That everything has self awareness but egoless and that many things are also conscious yet still egoless. I believe the concept of ego is the byproduct, the inevitable consequence of human consciousness yet the extremity to wich the ego is accentuated is variable and ependent on certain conditions, cultural and/or environmental. I believe that like all things/ everything else, the thoughts and concepts which indefinitely within the individual and collective human consciousness are sentient and alive, and the ego, being a held concept also has a life in that sense, simply because it is, even though physicly it is not; it has no biological foundation. Ego, and both its dependent thoughts and the thoughts that support it existence and have life and so do not fall into dissolution with the body at the time of death. When a person has a body, the ego and its associated thoughts try to validate their existance and to establish them/its self on earth, it creates a cultural environment that accentuates is position within the consciousness of beings so that it establishes and perpetuates its own existence on earth or within our reality; within existence. If/when a person tries to avoid validating the concept of ego or living out an existence in the name of the mental fixation of the ego concept, or in a state of meditation or trance where in a person experiences egoless states and "attempts" to sustain that state or at the time the body "dies", ego and its thoughts will fight for their lives. Ego and its assoiate thoughts believing in and thus having a self, fear death, and beyond having a healthy will to survive will fight for their lives, telling lies and extraordinary promises that it can in noway fullfill. It will cause temptation to succumb to it in egoless states like death and meditation. It will cause a person on the verge of enlightenment to believe they are becomming the buddha and though it may have been true it will cease when its believed or percieved. It is a parasite on self awareness, and causes the awareness to believe it is the awareness of the ego, like the shine on an apple making the apple believe that it is the product of the shine. When a person dies self awareness becomes one with pure awareness whos existence rest on a foundation of infinity. Infinity is a principal and quality without form and precedes time/space and sequence/existence, it is the sourceless source that all things spring from and does not identify with self. Selflessly and without self the principle of infinity exists, and selflessly without self it creates all things and exists in independence. The stateless state of pure awareness having no sense of self is undifferintiated and baseless, it is the perception of being, also, having eternity as its source is is confident that is is, yet it is perfectly still it is confident that it is and is thus a state of pure love and bliss. When A self awareness, the awareness of experience percieves that it is experiencing the blissfull effect of non-being as it's own experience, or even an experience that others have experienced then it believes that the effect of beinglessness is an experience of a being or something that can be experienced by a self; yet it is the falling away of sense of self that is perception of a self experiencing the effect, and it is that perception that causes the ego to continue to exist after death. Yet the egos foundation for existing after death is contrary to the stillness, undifferentiated selflessness it is experiencing and so does not remain in a state of experiencing the bliss and love that without doing anything dissolves all other senses of self. So ego ends up in an infintesimal loop that is the percise opposite of love, bliss, and selflessness. Its "hell", a self arising dimmension that is the by-product of ego juxtopposed to infinite selflessness and it is entirely self imposed, and experienced by quite possably every human being in the after death, at least for an infinite moment. Part of what chains the ego in this state of eternal dying is that it believes it can do something to get out of the hell it creates, or that it can hide and wait it out, but the very sense of doing and being that self awareness keeps being tricked into experienceing are the very things that keep it from dissolving into non being, so the self awareness continues being aware of the discomforts of ego after the body is gone. After having concieved of the ego and spending a life fortifying ours and others, we spend our lives clinging to experiencing an ego having a life, and so we, (self awareness) also cling to experiencing ego having a death and thus reap the awareness of doing so. It is the same thing in life (battle/agony-ecstacy between self and no-self) but spread thinner and balanced out by other things.

The only aspect of us that does fear death is ego. The body is programmed to die. Death is in the genome; our cellular body and our collective of organs, that goes for the heart which carries memory, the enteric nervous system which is its own mind, and the collection of brains called the encepholon which we call our brain, are not afraid to die. Like melting ice the unconscious aspects of our being do not fear death because they submit themselves to their path and the moment it is a part of. Awareness never dies and has its root in old yin, the stillness that prexist time and trancends death so does not fear it. The ego which is the source of attatchment and has spent our lives trying to validate its existence so as to gain faith in its eternity absolutely fears the disolution of its source. It is the only aspect of our being that believes it has a life that it must care for,sustain and maintain, it is the only part of our being that truly suffers death because it is the only part of our being that wants/desires life instead of just being, yet it suffers both death and rebirth once every moment, because it is a reflection of an aspect of each moment related to that aspects concieved/percieved past. I believe, that before anyone in recorded history to have ever have mastered the self, like Lao Tzu, Buddha, Jesus etc has suffered death before dying, and they have done so selflessly not to attain greatness for themselves but only for the love of humanity. The ego comes to a point that it does away with itself, it is like dying and not being reborn, not that it reaches some intelectual pinnacle or thru just a matter of self-discipline and practice, but that the ego overirdes itself/takes a bullet for humanity, and ceases to exist. I believe what they brouught on themselves during the life time of their being, is what we are all up against everytime our form passes. The ego does not pass with the body because its attatchment and foundation is the awareness. At/after death when awareness returns to its true source which is undifferintiated Tao, the presence of ego causes and endures an uncreated, semi timeless but infinite state of existance of suffering which gives way to a new begining. A peson who does not spend a life satisfying the self, but instead practices selflessness and sacrafice, letting go of things and working on detatchment is a person preparing themselves for the battle of over comming which we all face at "death".

I did not mean to generalize love as attatchment. What you said was a very beautiful ideology, yet what was it you described. I should have been more specific. According to Tao, the only kind of love a person can have and still be aligned is the kind of love that has no personal interests. If you had it, you would know it as compassion. Any other kind of love, is one of personal interests/prejudice and is absolutly a form of attachment. The type of love you describe, where one indulges because of personal interest is not the love of Tao, but the love of an ego loving their projection which usually ends not in joy, yet it is that "joy" that is the initial personal interest. Just because you were not possesive does not mean that what you really had was not just some form of attatchment. Thank you.

Im not sure if it is a big deal or not, or even what to think about it really, but I seem to have originated a probiotic beverage or two. It started off with brewing kombucha and Jun (there are rumors that Lao Tzu orginated Jun tea). Then in wondering how these cultures originated I followed an intuitive hunch and tried to start a similar culture and I did. It was back in april. The original culture, started from scratch/thin-air was started with nothing; it is not a kombucha or jun culture that is 1,000's of years old, it is brand new, drawn into existence from the abyss made from local micro-organisms by me. The original culture has produced about 4 SCOBYs and is now on its fifth. Two of the SCOBYs are being used to make beverages that are similar incomposition to kombucha and jun. One is made with black tea and cane juice, the other with green tea and honey but yerba matte is something Ive grown them both out on. Another SCOBY is being grown in roobios tea and sugar, and Im going to do the next in roobios and honey. One other batch, Ive altered a little to favor the lacto-bacteria and that one taste a little different. The two that are being brewed in the traditional methods (like kombucha and Jun), taste just like kombucha and jun, or quite a bit anyway. Oh yea, I also now have a wild yogurt made from the same original culture that I started the others from. Its with the wild yogurt whey and some lactose seperate from milk that I fortified the one drink with lacto-bacteria, but it is all the same lacto-bacteria. So I tried to repeat the experiment to make sure it wasnt a fluke and it appears as though it was not because the experiment had the same results. I may try one more time just to make sure. I've gotten rid of my jun and kombucha cultures and have been brewing/consuming nothing but my own at this point. So what Im wondering is can I or should I try to capitolize on these in someway or another? Im really not minded in that direction, really not ever focussed on how to make products and sell them and stuff, but it almost seems like this could be something to sell what with all the other probiotic things on the market, but maybe Im just being naive and arrogant(?), I dunno. What would you do if you originated a probiotic beverage that tasted like, only better then kombucha/jun? And it is "better" imo. I can almost not tell if they are different at all, but I do like "mine" better. I even have bought kombucha from the store a couple of times to do a test to see if what I have was really "different" but could not tell if they were fundamentally different, but I did like mine a lot more..it is hard to tell if the major similarity is in that they are tea based beverages. So what would you do?

I dont think the concepts Lao Tzu put forth back then were very widespread, or even widely assimilated at all by the bulk of any culture at all, ever, anywhere. They were not the fruit of chinese culture, but the obscure ramblings of an ubscure man who by way of Tao was liberated from his cultural imprint. They are just as obscure today as they were when he wrote them down. The concepts Lao Tzu put forth were not the type of concepts that you are using for comparison. What you are holding up for comparison are cultural beliefs and ideologies, in otherwords attatchments and the type of "learning" that Lao Tzu suggest we abandon. I think chapter 20 would be a good comparison to hold next to what you are saying- Chapter 20, ironic in relation to the context (this portion of the thread)is something that in this very day and age I can fully relate to. i dont know anything about the festivals hes refering to but I take them to mean any cultural afair; christmas, birthdays, new years and ground hog day, any of them, and Lao Tzu never heard of any of those yet he spoke of their essential nature in chapter 20 of TTC. This chapter also says among many other things that cultural ideology are just that and have nothing to do with a universal being. That the imprint of the culture is something to work at getting rid of. If you are saying that the concepts and observations of Lao Tzu as written in the TTC are reflections of the time that they were written , I think you are mistaken. I will agree with you on that- Loose like ice about to melt conjurs up an idea of anticipation and preperations based on preconception which I dont think is the point. Besides, Ice about to melt is not loose. Ice melts at basicly 33F maybe a tiny bit less but for the sake of discussion. At 32F water freezes and stays completely frozen until it melts. I think the line describes someone who does not conceive of a self outside the moment and regards identification with past, or future as false, but is one with the eternity of the moment, like ice which at 32F does not concieve of a nearing change in the environment, and with that notion in mind, begin to melt. Ice stays ice, in the moment and as a change arises, everyready for transition because the nature of its character, begins to melt only at the tempreture at which ice melts. As ice melts, it melts when it is frozen it stays frozen. It does not conceive of a nearing change in the environment where in the tempreture will again drop; ice continues to melt and does not stay frozen because of a notion in mind that it will soon be 32F again. Melting snow= the mutual arising of character, action, activity and conditions. True that the lines people draw, the classifications and labels we make are unreal, but again, the comparisons being made are off balance. Make a description of superman. Do you in anyway fit it? No, clearly we dont have much in common. If you dont believe you are a primate then you shouldn't consider yourself a mammal either because those two classifications are equal in that they classify several species with differences as one group because we all share certain traits that qualify us as members of that group. In that respect people certainly are primates, and if you consider the genome as something of a reputable source youl see we share common ancestors. The fact that we ARE primates is to me, important in understanding the teachings contained in TTC because the fact that we are primates says something about our nature. We are a group animal, designed to be a componenet of a group. Not being arrogant and trying to sieze control, being humble and respecting that all components of the group are integral and equal, and that to benifit the group through selfless actions is to benifit the self. To benefit the self by way of selfish means is to exclude yourself from the group and to recieve no benefit. "Heaven and earth are ever lasting, because they neither live for or of themselves" could be called the motto for any group animal, but very obviously describes the way of all great apes. All permanent cultures, as opposed to insustainable cultures like the American and Chineese cultures, also live by that motto. Cultures that have survived for thousands of years in the harsh jungles world wide all live by that motto. Even if you never heard of Tao, the way to true contenment would be to embrace your primate nature... your essential self. We have the law of Tao wired into our genome and it expresses itself as what we call an ape.