Vmarco

Ah,....you haven't heard. At the end times, before the Kalachakra war, the spiritual center of the planet is to move to Patala. In ancient sanskrit, America was the patala or antipodes. But I'm thinking Mexico,...perhaps around Tepoztlan.

As matter of fact I am. Tell Miguel (and the spray painters,...especially Vero) that Vicente said hi.

Testosterone is OK if you want to be a powerful caveman. I've heard of some noble beings that use the herb White Kwao Krua to reduce the male animal hormone, and thus allowing a better harmony with their yin. In an advanced, polite, spiritual society, I'd think we'd evolve to where penises would simply fall off at about 30-35. Before that, no male would be allowed to hold public office.

Pretty cool observation.

A caterpillar understands love differently than a butterfly. To caterpillars, love is associated with emotions, and has the opposite of hate,...for butterflies, love does not have an opposite. Christians say, "love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things", 1 Cor 13:7. Although this form of love, that is, bearing, believing, hoping and enduring is idealized by Christians, it isn't Unconditional Love, but the submission, devotion, expectation and suffering to the conditions of their religions brewed beliefs. My impression of the Buddhist quote in my previous post, is that it was pointing to a love beyond duality's groupthink. In the Buddhists argument, a Christian could not possibly experience real love,...only a perceived love within duality. Passionate or emotional love, is another type of conditional love. This is the love of solicitudal desire and enthralled obsession. Such love is usually, but not necessarily, accompanied by biological, chemical or instinctual love, which manifests a yearning for the welfare, possession and companionship of another. Ordinarily, emotional love is based on something received through physiological or psychological arousal, and commonly includes, as in Christian love, an attached expectation. Then there is the amoral intimacy of Conscious Love. This is the Love of the Bodhisattva; the wish for the well being and liberation of all; without predisposition, and indifferent towards the consequences to the lover. In other words, as Alfred Orage said, "so she becomes perfectly herself, what matter I?" The fragrance of love is as a tremendum uncovered by surrendering expectation, and through that immediacy, one witnesses a grand preferenceless reality. A reality of Love's own flow; unveiled of what belief and predisposition think it should be. That is to say,...as long as one clings to expectations for their identity, they will not experience non-dual love.

“the highest goal is being devoid of hope and fear…. And when all hopes and fears have died, the Goal is reached.” Tilopa

I see a wish as not quite synonymous as hope. Siddhartha realized that suffering is a consequence of the desire for things to be other than they are, and simultaneously became the Buddha. He did not achieve a "state of non-desire," nor say that all desire causes suffering, but that the desire or hope for something other than the way things are, is what manifests suffering. Thus,...there are 2 desires,...one a hope,...the other a wish. Hope is an expectation/anticipation that keeps us separated from the moment,...the Present. No matter what level we frame the view, hope is false. Hope is an anticipation of the future; thus it must arise from a predisposition, a belief, and attachment to the past. Hope implies lack,...how else could we possibly define it? Hope is for something we think we don't possess. The belief of hope is a barrier that obscures the present, and thus our heart. The Heart of our Essence would not express lack or need. A wish, as I see it, is greater than self,... it is an intentional invocation to allow Spirit to flow. Hope-desire arises from memory,ordinary knowledge, the Five Skandhas,... Memories or ordinary knowledge can not manifest truth,..they are nothing more than CONDITIONS repeating themselfs. A wish-desire, as I define it here, arises from the Heart of ones Essence,...literally. To me, a wish is a grand unexperienced reality, a tremendum uncovered by surrendering hope and expectation. Individuality is always convinced of its separateness,... it hopes and negatively desires, but can not truely wish. To ask for anything is to deny what has already been given. The motive of one conscious of wishing, is always that the subject arrive at its own harmonium. A bodhisattva has a wish for the liberation of all sentient beings. If such a wish were a hope, they would not be bodhisattvas.

Sounds like a Guy Ballard mantra

Yes,...and likewise,...when you lose attachment to your perceived self, you simultaneously dissolve all hope. Without hope there is no fear. If you still have hope, fear is still there. If you play the Lotto, you likely have hope, and thus fear. If you play the Lotto regularly,...you surely have hope, and are thus nursing fear within. No one who advocates hope is your friend.

For me, Puerto Vallarta area can be a transformational place. The spray artists are quite spiritual, and part of an extended family who actually live in Las Juntas (above Tomatlan),...it's a beautiful area, with cascades and great places to hike. If you move there, connect with Miguel Angel Sosa, who is the director of al Instituto para el Desarrollo Armonico del Ser Humano, a Fourth Way school in Puerto Vallarta. Outwardly, Vallarta appears to be a party place, mostly for obnoxious Americans,...but behind that is an exciting spiritual community. I even knew, rather well, a woman who was personally connected with Don Juan Matus. Remember, Ixtlan is not far away. Have fun.

Yes,...many are into that mystical stuff,...perhaps it's a way to become prepared or something for a presumed next lifetime. But what if we only have one? Sure, our subjective imaginings love mystic lore, like striving for virtue, but has any virtuous person ever honestly ascended? No where that I've ever seen. It's not all that complicated,...ascension is the reverse of descension. To ascend means to move in a direction towards ascension, not descension. It means letting go of all the ideas of descension Look at virtue,...most agree that means a conformity to a standard of right,...it's synonym is morality. What is morality? A Buddhist said, "Morality can only be imposed from without when we are asleep. Morality is nothing but a deep suppression. We can not do anything while asleep,...we can only suppress. Through morality we become false,...we will not be a person, but simply a just a pseudo entity. That is to say, only a dishonest person clings to morality. A moral person is concerned with ideals,...how we should be, what we should be, how to be convenient to society,...and thus inconvenient to ourself. The preachers have convinced the whole world that "we are sinners". This is good for them, because unless we are convinced, their profession cannot continue. Religion is built on us being sinners, on our inferiority complex, thus creating an inferior humanity. Love is not concerned with our so-called morals, our social formalities, etc. Love is neither concerned with immorality, it makes no difference between a thief and a saint. Immorality comes from the disturbed mind of morality. Love is amoral. Morality and concepts concerning moral behavior are irrelevant for love. Morality is basically condemning. We are never the ideal so we are condemned. Every morality is guilt-creating. Love does not condemn. Of necessity, every morality creates hypocracy. Hypocracy will remain with morality, for it is part of it, like a shadow. This will look paradoxical because moralists are the men who condemn hypocracy the most, and yet they are the creators of it. Hypocracy cannot disappear from the earth unless morality disappears. They exist together as two sides of the same coin. Morality gives us the ideal and we are not the idea; that is why the ideal is given to us. Then we start feeling that we are wrong, and that this wrongness is natural, it is given to us, we are born with it, born with sin. We cannot transform it, only suppress it,...that is easy. But what can we do. We can create a false face; we can pretend to be something we are not. This saves us; allows religion to save us. Then we can move more easily and conveniently in society. Inwardly we have to suppress the real because the unreal can only be imposed only if the real is suppressed. So our reality goes on moving downward into the unconscious and our unreality becomes our conscious. Our unreal part becomes more dominant and the real recedes back. We condemn the real and we enforce the unreal, because the unreal is going to be helpful in an unreal society and the unreal is going to be convenient. Where everyone is false, the real is not going to be convenient. And thus, in the vicious cycle, we train our children to be false." If you want to ascend,...let go of the children of the descension, like morality.

Yes!!!! Light, in this case, Divided Light, the Light without Darkness, is equal to wisdom. Wisdom means knowledge accumulated through philosophic or scientific learning. In other words, wisdom points to the highest and most lofty ideas of ego consciousness (that is, who we think we are through the 6 senses), whose sole purpose is to sustain itself. Wisdom is to make the best use of knowledge,...yet to realize enlightenment means to let go of all knowledge. Knowledge is acquired through thinking/the Head-mind

I'm not sure what "light" Genesis is speaking to when it say, in the English translation, "let there be light." For example,...the first words Berasith bara elohim, while translated as "In the beginning God created"....Hasidic Jews see "bara" as the literal second word, not the third, as in the English "In the beginning God created...", but as "In the beginning was created the Gods. What does that do to the meaning? My own research suggests that Berasith translates to "In Wisdom," ....what does that do to the meaning? As for light,...is there any correlation between "Let there be light" and 1John 1:5....god is light and in him is no darkness?

Thanks for sharing that. No,...what you describe above would not be considered New Age,...New Age is more the idea that the Present can be, and should only be, experienced through the 6 senses. As for New ager,...I generally agree with an Oklahoman who said (lengthy but interesting): "To dare to even speak about radical transformation, let alone call other people to a higher level, is against the unstated rules. And of course, one's definitely going to be put in one's place for doing something like that. But unless the possibility of genuine transformation is actually declared, unless one is willing to demonstrate it publicallyand to call other people to the same, no one is even going to know that it's possible. And than unknowingly, everybody's going to be participating in the conspiracy of mediocrity. The conspiracy of mediocrity is basically the conspiracy to express your own ego instead of transcending it or letting go of it. The idea has become "if I can really emote and express my self-contriction with sincerity, I'm somehow spiritual". Actually, people who are involved in this boomeritis even deny the importance of Enlightenment or Awakening, because that's saying some states are higher than others - and we shouldn't be so judgemental. But guess what? Some states are higher. And so the entire raison d'etre gets tossed out because it offends the pluralistist ego. The spiritual experience, which ideally should be a stepping stone to less ego and greater transparency, has become a victim of our therapeutic culture, where we don't make judgements because that would hurt egoic self-esteem, and so all we do is embrace, console, and celebrate the personal self. Spiritual practice has become nothing more than a form of therapy where self-acceptance rather than ego-transcendence is the goal. And the problem is that therapists are basically pimps for samsara. They want to hold onto the egoic self-contraction and make it feel good about itself. This conspiracy of mediocrity is very unfortunate. The great promise of the human potential movement was very straightforward - there are higher human potentials. Now, from the therapeutic culture, people say, "wait a minute. you're saying there are higher potentials, so does that mean I'm lower? because that can't be right". All of a sudden it implied a judgement, and nobody's allowed to be higher because that means someone else is going to be lower. And you're not allowed to call anybody lower; therefore nobody's allowed to be higher. So the Human Potential movement got derailed and was replaced by this therapeutic self-expression, self-acceptence movement, which catastrophically prevents higher transformation and mystical breakthroughs. What is missing in the New Age Community is real intellectual vigor. Under the therapeutic culture, if you feel good, you're enlightened. That is mediocrity, and a conspiracy toward mediocrity.” In our current therapeutic society people don't want to see that what they thought was meaningful may actually be meaningless.

Yes,...there would have been no need of the Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, Mahasiddhas talking (and having those talks written down). As for Madhyamaka,...I'd also recommend Brunnholzl,...not a good subject for those not really ready for waking up,...which doesn't mean that those who do, will wake up.

I'd say that darkness is substantially more. The topic of light/dark often gets confusing, especially in our Abrahamic religious society. Yet, how can we really get deep understanding of ourselves with only a superficial understanding of light and dark? There is physical light (measurable through motion), yet there is also Undivided, Still Light, upon which, physical light effects its motion. This motion does not appear to be "born" from Still Light, but is dependent upon Still Light, as a playground seesaw is dependent upon its causeless fulcrum. If speaking of light/time and dark/space however, then light, that is, physical light (time), is borne from dark (space). Moving, incandescent objects are borne from moving, dark, objectless space. All incandescent Yang is surrounded by Yin's dark. Where is it ever true that light conquers dark? There is no amount of light that can illuminate all dark, for in Duality, darkness always surrounds it. Rudolph Steiner once said that light was the antipathetic aspect of polarity, whereas darkness is its sympathetic expression. The Patriarchy wants to deny the rhythmic balanced interchange of nature, by indoctrinating ideas like light conquering dark. They don't want to know that all phenomena, through the nurturance of darkness, dies into light. Polarity's Yang light does not hold within itself the potential to birth, for it is a result already spawned through Yin's darkness. A prevalent human construct suggests that light is good and dark is evil,...not because it is, but because to understand the truth would wreck the fragile fabric of society's patriarchal brewed philosophical and religious beliefs they cling to for their identity.

That makes no senses. For example,...if there is a discussion on theism, and someone quote Osho,... “Start knowing what you really know, and stop believing what you really don’t know. Somebody asks you. “Is there a God?” and you say, “Yes, God is.” Remember: Do you really know? If you don’t know, please don’t say that you do. Say, “I don’t know.”. . . False knowing is the enemy of true knowledge. All beliefs are false knowledge.” Then the point is,...is the quote valid,...regardless of the groupthink about Osho? Doesn't matter if Osho believed in a god or not,....is the message valid? If you disagree that: “Start knowing what you really know, and stop believing what you really don’t know. Somebody asks you. “Is there a God?” and you say, “Yes, God is.” Remember: Do you really know? If you don’t know, please don’t say that you do. Say, “I don’t know.”. . . False knowing is the enemy of true knowledge. All beliefs are false knowledge.”....then you could say,...I disagree,...beliefs are true knowledge, and belief in what I do not know, like god, is the supreme truth.

The opposite of fear is hope,...if you want do rid all of your fear,...let go of all your hope. As long as you have hope, you'll have fear.

Surely,...There is no arising, duration and cessation,...but who, attached to their 6 senses for their identity, will comprehend even 1% of that?

No. Listing the messenger is a courtesy,...and has nothing to do with the context that the quote was used, except when the context is related to the messenger themselves. Just because I agree with U.S. President Ulysses Grant for saying that church property should be supported entirely by private contributions to keep church and state forever separate, this does not mean going into a debate about the life of Mr. Grant. The quotations, as I use them, are about the message within the quotation, not the profile, or even intent of the messenger. As for tolerance vs intolerance? What Bodhisattva is tolerant of anything that steps between people and their direct experience? None. "If something is serious and it is necessary to take counter-measures, you have to take counter-measures....in fact, one of the precepts of the Bodhisattva vows is to take strong countermeasures when the situation calls for it. If a Bodhisattva doesn't take strong countermeasures when the situation requires, then that constitutes an infraction of one of the vows." HH Dalai Lama Real Compassion is intolerant of all religions. The existence of the Abrahamic religions is proof that there has been little true compassion in the world. However, an age of compassion and light may be near. Whether this means the legend of Shambhala and the holy war to move humanity beyond faith-based ideas of good and evil is true is not for me to say. But the holy war, a worldwide inner battle with the five skandhas, has already begun, and is not likely to be contained in this ever-advancing age of authentic spiritual consciousness. The days of the Abrahamic meme-plex are numbered. In our lifetime, it is likely that they will be consigned to the back walls of museums. Tens of thousands have actually been instructed about the holy war through presentations of the Kalachakra initiation, a path to the birthing of spiritual beingness, which at its heart is an empowerment to elevate the precepts of love and compassion as per the teachings of the Vajradhara. The Kalachakra initiation is meant to plant a seed of a love that is not based on the insanity of fear and hope. It inspirits a fierce compassion that does not arise from the five skandhas. The Kalachakra initiation is a rite of passage to embody a culture of light—the light of Vajra, a passage that exposes the recognition that each and every one has the same equal essence of Vajra. This initiation has been presented like someone giving another person a stereogram without any instruction on how to view the three-dimensional image within the two-dimensional abstract. The authentic initiation is intended to be a confirmation ceremony of actual intrepidity or knighthood, not merely a title or a been-there, done-that, moment. The initiate is being called to Vajradharic and Buddhic consciousness—a knight-magickian of Vajra and a Shambhala warrior. Vajradharic consciousness is not something for imagined mystics in a distant future that never quite arrives, like the tavern sign that says Free Drinks Tomorrow—every day there will be free drinks tomorrow, a tomorrow that never comes. The Kalachakra initiation is a confirmation, an affirmation and a pledge to support the Shambhala War and to participate in the co-creation of peace on earth—a genuine peace that will reveal Shambhala. This is not a symbolic war, but an inner spiritual battle that will project to the outer. The inner always projects to the outer, and the outer is always a mirror image of the inner. The initiation is a commitment of true compassion that arises from the vow to free all sentient beings from suffering, not tolerating beliefs and continuing suffering. Sam Harris said, “Moderates do not want to kill anyone in the name of God, but they want us to keep using the word God as though we knew what we were talking about. They do not want anything too critical said about people who really believe in the god of their fathers because tolerance, perhaps above all else, is sacred. To speak plainly and truthfully about the state of our world—to say, for instance, that the Bible and the Koran both contain mountains of life-destroying gibberish—is antithetical to tolerance as moderates currently conceive it. However, we can no longer afford the luxury of such political correctness. We must finally recognize the price that we are paying to maintain the iconography of our ignorance.” People who believe in theism cannot be compassionate, no matter how well-intentioned they perceive themselves to be, because the gateway to compassion is through the letting go of theism.

I'm quite partial to Brunnholzl' "Gone Beyond,"...I like the academic structure and content. The Heart Attack Sutra (IMO) is surprisingly accessible for newbees.

Nice. I used to live in Puerto Vallarta, and had several Spray Paint Art friends,...it's an awesome process. As I'm partial to sunflowers, they made me several pieces for gifts over time. My favorite Tao text is the Hua Hu Ching,...have you read it?

How can you honestly say that? I've seen no indication in your posts that being "present" is part of your path at all. Your path, according to your posts, is a sensual, thoughtful, feeling path,...as far removed from liberation as necessary to conceal the Present. "As soon as one sense-organ returns to the source, All the six are liberated." Avalokitesvara (Shurangama sutra)

Love the name "SkyDog"....I love Dakini's, Guruda's, Butterfies, Phonices, all metaphors of sky goddesses (Nut, Isis, Inanna, Ishtar, Shekhina, Lilith, Vajrayogini, Yeshe Tsogyel ) and the Prajna underlying all Means. To 4bsolute....get a copy of The Heart Attack Sutra, by Karl Brunnholzl,...and disregard all the above posts. Second,...Is attaining emptiness a form of constant reduction? Let's break it down. Emptiness is not attained, it is unveiled from the barriers you have built against it. The perception of constant reduction is how ego sees the unlearning process. True Emptiness is actually realized through the simultaneous cancellation of opposites. Yang cannot be separated from Yin. Wholeness is beyond the sum of all opposites. SkyDog,...yes, perceived life is as inherently empty as last nights dream. Although I don't care for the term "empty mind"...because neither empty nor mind has a clear meaning among caterpillars attempting to discuss butterfies,...I do recognize your point,...at least partially. An enlightened person once gave 6 words of advice: Let go of what has passed. Let go of what may come. Let go of what is happening now. Don’t try to figure anything out. Don’t try to make anything happen. Relax, right now, and rest. Contrary to Jeff's New Age opinions above, one does not uncover emptiness through the senses, thoughts, or feelings,...as if those skandhas can actually observe the Present. Senses, thoughts, and feeling can NEVER observe the Present,...and thus will NEVER realize True Emptiness. Senses, Thoughts, Feelings...come and go,...that's what they do,....they witness the illusion of change in motion. To realize the nature, so to say, of emptiness,...we must let go of attachment to senses, thoughts, feelings,...which includes the cerebro-centric mind,...whether empty or not.

Jeff Foster says...."what you are accepts everything that appears,...every thought, every sensation, every feeling, ....if it's appearing,...what you are has said yes to it." New Agers love that stuff. positive thought, senses, and feelings. And it is also a huge WHY, New Agers will not realize enlightenment. As Lao Tzu said, "Recognize that everything you see and think is a falsehood, an illusion, a veil over the truth." Why did Lao Tzu have this contrary notion? "From beginningless time until now, all living beings have mistaken themselves for things and, having lost the original mind, are turned around by things." Buddha, Shurangama sutra Why did Buddha, supposedly an authentic enlightened guy, have a different notion of things han New Agers? "Existence really is an imperfect tense that never becomes a present." Friedrich Nietzsche Ah!....some philosophers seem to grasp the ridiculousness of uncovering truth through the senses, thinking, or feelings. Even some scientists felt the same way,...for example: Did not René Descartes say: “All that I have tried to understand to the present time has been affected by my senses; now I know that these senses are deceivers, and it is prudent to be distrustful after one has been deceived once.” Even Drummers have a clue,...listen to how many times the drummer in the below youtube says,...that one's HUMAN-NESS is the barrier to uncovering who you are. In other words,...you do not uncover who you are through thoughts, senses, and feelings of being present,...because thoughts, senses and feelings can NEVER be in the Present, Now, or Instant. Once more....it is IMPOSSIBLE for thoughts, senses or feelings to perceive the Present. The Present cannot be observed through faculties that can only perceive motion.