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Everything posted by manitou
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The master seems to be merging the physical with the metaphysical when he refers to the individual grains of sand. The individual grains could be interpreted as individal humans, and accumulation on the riverbanks the 'beach', or the One. I have come to believe (actually, to gnow) that trying to hang onto physical wealth is merely to accumulate stuck energy. This passage seems to infer that the constant flow of the energy (money, in this case) is what is needed; not the accumulation that denies someone else their share. I have put this to practice, and I practice it now. I just stopped worrying about it, Knowing that there will always be enough. So far, it's worked in my life - seems like whenever something extra is needed, some little windfall from out in left field will be there to cover it. But the secret to making this function is the Awareness, I do believe. It's easy to be in Awareness when we're talking to each other on TTB's. The trick is to expand the Awareness so that we walk around with it always, during the light of day when irritations seem to set in. This is a daily discipline, one moment to the next.
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What is the secret of being ultra smart ?
manitou replied to Tatsumaru's topic in General Discussion
Not really, lol. -
What is the secret of being ultra smart ?
manitou replied to Tatsumaru's topic in General Discussion
You could say that the separate trajectories create separate universes. Apparently we all meet somewhere in the center, as a spinning gyro or something. My guess is that the center focal point at which we meet is Love and Oneness, the rest an illusion based on senses. -
LOL, Flowing Hands. I'll bite on this one. Are we not the All (Heaven, Earth, Dao, 10,000 things) when we finally get down to the Essence of self? I'd like to hear your distinction.
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What is the secret of being ultra smart ?
manitou replied to Tatsumaru's topic in General Discussion
I think you're absolutely right. It depends on what we consider 'smart'. Is it facts we carry around in our heads? Is it our ability to think through something logically? Does it involve intuition and non-quantitative elements? -
What is the secret of being ultra smart ?
manitou replied to Tatsumaru's topic in General Discussion
Here we are trying to say the unsayable. I agree, we are God, as it were. We are this Intelligence that seems to want to manifest in physical form and evolve into something that merges with its own concept (of Love, I am guessing). This is why in order to come to the conclusion that 'we are God' must be an internal process of realization of who we Really Are. This is done by concerning ourselves with our shortcomings, jealousies, unkindnesses, selfishnesses, pride, and our monkey mind. This is what we have to start with, once we experience the desire to step out of the illusion and seek the Real. It's upon us to change that, morph it, into the Real Thing. The Real Human Being. That's when the Incredible Intelligence is found within ourselves. I believe the process is complete with the lower self and higher self are merged. Until then, we are all living in separate universes, each according to their own senses, their own perspective. And, somehow, we all seem to have that same thing inside that 'thinks it has the anwer'. Well, the truth is, that we do have the answer, but we have to do a lot of self-mining to find it. The internal 'Aha!' that forms the realization - that very thing that connects something we read from some Master in some book suddenly becomes alive within us because we suddenly see a direct connection of the Master's words with particular events in our lives. We start to think as a Master thinks. We start to act as a Master acts. The intelligence that can be attained by use of phone applications, games, puzzles; these can certainly help our mind when it comes to logical thinking. That's important, and it's a left brain concept. There is a different type of intelligence that must be found as well - the inner intelligence, the connection to the One. I see this as more of a right brained phenomena, every bit as important as training the logic of the mind. The left brain alone, the studying, will never find it without the 'experience' of the knowledge as we attain it. But the other side of that coin is to yin and yang to the other side too - to become capable of stilling the mind. This takes many years of work, I'm not aware of a shortcut on that one. It is from the place of stillness that true vision can occur. Inner vision combined with stillness of the mind (no thoughts) combined with Being Here Now - we can get into some serious creative thinking from that intersection. -
What is the secret of being ultra smart ?
manitou replied to Tatsumaru's topic in General Discussion
I seem to be able to access it at will, but it takes few minutes to fully Be Here Now and get into 'tao mode', as I call it. Smoking a litle weed access it immediately, I can feel the structure in place. -
"It is a good day to Die" - Geronimo - What a mindset this is. To embrace death as a friend, without fear. This warrior lives within us all, if we just uncover him.
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What is the secret of being ultra smart ?
manitou replied to Tatsumaru's topic in General Discussion
This is a great thread. Speaking only for myself, I became K-active about 8 years ago. Since then, there has been a noticeable difference in my brain-power; not the ability to remember things (in fact, I'm getting older and my memory is getting worse and worse). Although I don't want to reaffirm that so I probably shouldn't say that at all... But the power to project out a line of thinking, into the stratosphere sometimes. This is a new ability; and the "sense" I get is that the lower back part of my brain is expanding outward, if that makes any sense at all. It doesn't feel like its new abilities are due to study in particular (although certainly that has to have been part of it) and it doesn't feel like the intelligence is coming from the front of the brain, as it normally would have from just book-learnin'. No, it's something happening 'behind' me and it continues burrowing deeper and deeper, expanding greater and greater. It's as though there are triangles, perceived by me at some level I don't understand, that connect the essences of one subject to the next. This intelligence is capable of diminishing things to their essence and seeing how they compare to other things, showing what I know (gnow) to be the true alignment. I do believe that meditation and learning the ability to still the mind is instrumenal in developing any ability or 'gift' such as the above. I do also believe the somehow te (virtue) is pertinent here too. The motives must be void of any individual drive to "see" - this wasn't an ability I sought out. Rather, it was a by-product of years of study and meditation; and in my particular case, my study was in the form of comparative religion study, an emphasis on metaphysical thought. Perhaps this is the reason I was finally rewarded by something a little out of the ordinary; an ability to see the essence of things. I'm really not blowing smoke here. This is an ability i've never had before, and I have been a detective of one type or the other for 40 years. This is something different. I sure wish I had had this ability when I was doing criminal work. -
I actually really get a kick out of Stephen Mitchells translation. I find him down to earth and adaptable to this day and age. His footnotes in the back are awfully good, some of them.
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What is the secret of being ultra smart ?
manitou replied to Tatsumaru's topic in General Discussion
What an absolutely wonderful metaphor. Huzzah, Marco. -
Please consider handling your newly discovered darker side as we recovering alcoholics do: When you realize that you screwed over someone, don't just kick yourself. Physically go to that person, if you can, and make a physical amend to them. If they don't accept it, it doesn't matter. It's your insides that you're trying to clear out. The more the amends hurt your ego, the better it is for your ultimate ego subjugation. It is called the 'christ consciousness' when you can step aside from yourself and see yourself for what you really are, in a dispassionate way. We can't be truly loving (although I understand your attempts to do so) until we've cleared out the mess inside us, and only then can the sun shine outward. Everything up to that point is pretense, merely covering up what you're really feeling on the inside. When I first started this clearing out process 31 years ago, I made a list of every possible character defect I could imagine, and then I assumed I had it to some degree. It seems to be easier to do it that way, because then your ego won't be trying so hard to defend itself and deflect blame. It's for this very reason, this clearing process that you're going through, that masters will tell you to Know Thyself. They understand that in order to see things clearly, our inner lens must be spotless. It is a long process, life will bring you 'fresh opportunities' all the time to file down the rough edges. Once you've identified the rough edge, as someone above said, you are starting to separate from it. Once you see it, whether through meditation or the same type of 'problems' coming to you over and over (which means there is some character defect inside you attracting the negative manifestation) you have the opportunity to direct your thinking to the opposite, if necessary. This process you're undergoing will be a lifelong journey. The big chunks are usually discovered at the beginning of the search, but as time goes on the defects get subtler and subtler. This is not to say the subtle defects are easier to remove - they're often harder to detect and deeply rooted. True love is experienced more and more as your inner lens gets clearer.
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What is the secret of being ultra smart ?
manitou replied to Tatsumaru's topic in General Discussion
The thing which exists inside us never gets older. I'm 66 and still 'feel' like about 14. What will happen as you improve in character and knowledge is that your manifestations will change and you will start to see the inner dynamics of people and situations. -
What is the secret of being ultra smart ?
manitou replied to Tatsumaru's topic in General Discussion
If you've ever read Shirley Maclaine's Out On A Limb, she'll describe with hilarity how she was passenger in a car that drove down a mountain road with a man who had his eyes closed, who was able to sense when to turn. It just may be possible. If we're going for the big enchilada, I think an open mind is essential -
What is the secret of being ultra smart ?
manitou replied to Tatsumaru's topic in General Discussion
This is the method of attainment in most everything in life. Except for the one thing you're looking for. I think that first of all you should determine what Real Intelligence is. If it's to cram all the information you can into your brain. Then you will be learned. That's not the same as Real Intelligence. I'm assuming that because you're asking this question on The Tao Bums you realize there is more to intellience than being learned, as opposed to asking this question on Ask.com or somewhere more traditional. Real Intelligence involves an evolved intuition, in addition to all the studying you've done, in addition to delving into your own character to remove the flaws. I haven't a clue whether I have Real Intelligence or not, but I have been hanging around here for more than a few years. I can break my particular path to whatever intelligence I have to about 3 things: 1. I've been a meditator for over 30 years. This focuses the mind, allows you to reign over the monkey mind - the mind where an endless stream of thoughts are present. An endless stream of thoughts disallows you from being in the Here and Now. 2. I've read everything under the sun, from a spiritual sense, over the past 30 years. No particular point of view, just everything. they all merge at some point if you extend far enough out in thought. 3. I've broken myself down and built myself up due to alcoholism recovery. It was during this process that an odd phenomenon occurred; it started a habit of self-examination of my own motives which continues to this day. Because we are all One, when you break yourself down and find out who you really Are (you probably think you do, but you probably don't) you are also developing the ability to 'see' as, again, we are all One, and true inner knowledge of the self (one human being) will result in knowledge of other human beings as well. Not in particularity of personality, but knowledge of motives, undercurrents, and dynamics; because you've observed the workings of such things in yourself. I really don't think there's any cheating on this journey. True intelligence must involve experiential understanding, and there isn't a shortcut that I'm aware of that can shorten it. If one is anxious to reach the goal quickly, then one can start working on that very quality of character: patience. There's an expression in Taoism that says something like 'Don't fish so hard that you scare the fish away.' -
What is the secret of being ultra smart ?
manitou replied to Tatsumaru's topic in General Discussion
The special understanding you refer to is Metaphysical Thought, not physical understanding. All traditions ultimately get to metaphysical thought once the structure of the tradition has been transcended. Yes, it is possible to not need the aspirin at all. If you want to stretch your brain to the outermost limits of metaphysical healing, please consider reading Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy (founder of Christian Science). There is actually very little christianity one has to sidestep; rather, she looks at Jesus as a self-realized one who discovered how to tap into the power of Mind. she takes you out of the realm of physical (in her words, "error thinking") and focuses her thoughts on the unseen, the metaphysical. she applies all her metaphysical understanding to health and healing. She started this journey by triangulating the bible over a period of years, seeking those passages that refer to healing, whether in Old Testament or New. and then she just thought it through, applying her excellent metapphysical mind to the endeavor. I don't think I'll ever be the same after reading this book; for one who truly seeks the mindset of a healer, as I do, please consider sidestepping the occasional reference to christianity and gleaning what you can from the wonderful words of this woman. -
What is the secret of being ultra smart ?
manitou replied to Tatsumaru's topic in General Discussion
I'm not sure he did it without a brain. I think I see what he's saying. All is One. We are part of the All, the One.....and us humans seem to be the part of creation which represents input of certain types of stimulae. It's like we are the tip of the spear, the part of the All that takes in physical phenomena. However, we are at One with the animals, the trees, the rocks, the earth, all of it. It's just that we're the sensory part. As mind is surely more potent than matter, and capable of creating anything of which it can conceive, it surely is capable of bypassing the traditional means of taking in sensory perception. Lucid dreams may be an example? I'm not sure there should be put limitations on what we can sense. A plant can sense danger, it is said. And yet, they have no ears or eyes. Water responds to words, as proven by a Japanese scientist whose name I can't recall at the moment. He would freeze different samples of water after the water had been exposed to either kind words or harsh words. Then he would examine the crystal patterns with a microscope; he discovered that those water samples which were exposed to kind words like Love, Harmony, etc. had gorgeous patterns within! Yet the water samples to harsh words (I hate you, etc) would result in deformed and rather ugly patterns. (We've had a thread on this fellow once or twice; probably someone else can remember the name) And yet the water has no ears or eyes either. I don't think we really have a clue as to what non-humans can sense, be it animal, vegetable or mineral. Have you ever looked through one of those optical things they sometimes have at zoos, where you can look through it and 'see' the world as how the animal sees it? I think it was a bat, maybe, that sees in neon green. Their universe in their awareness is very little resemblance to ours. And yet, they 'think' that's all there is, and that's the universe they live in. So what I glean from all this is that there countless 'universes' which are as real to them as ours is to us. Even at that, none of us human beans share exactly the same universe either. There is no way that you can see exactly what I see, even if we're standing next to each other. Unless we could figure out a way to superimpose both of our sets of eyeballs one upon another, my universe is going to be 12" different than yours, if we are standing a foot apart. The tree I'm looking at will look slightly different where you are standing; one branch will look a little longer to me, another a little shorter to you. It could almost be said that anything 'sensory' at all has their own universe to contend with. But there is an intersection at which all universes can unite as One; the intersection of Be Here Now and Love your Brother as Yourself. This intersection is arrived at by removing all inner distortions that life has thrust upon us; all paths, if viable, will wind up here - this is the place of Grace and inner peace. -
wonderful answers. I think it's also important to stress that within the yin yang symbol both the light and the dark are contained within each other, they are two sides of the same coin, which is expressed in the light and dark dots. The male is contained within the female, the female within the male. The darkness is contained within the light, the light within the darkness in the smaller dots. It's all intertwined. The earlier point made about 'good' and 'evil' goes right to the heart of Taoism, IMO. There is no good or evil, it all just 'Is'. Part of the trick to living an enlightened life is to not make judgments, to see everything as equal (in addition to a few other details like loving your brother as yourself, and Being Here Now.) Traditional Christianity, for example, sees life in a dual sense. You're here, God's out there somewhere. Their philosophy is that evil and good are at odds with each other, but in reality there can be no duality, no good or evil, because to label something good or evil is just in the mind of the beholder. After all, if you ask a soccer mom what her idea of 'evil' is, she'll say it's the guy on the corner trying to sell drugs to her kid. If you ask that same guy on the corner what his idea of 'evil' is, he'll say it was the son of a bitch that tried to rip him off for his money last night. There is no fixed point from which to gauge good or evil. We all see it differently. So I think the yin-yang symbol tries to convey this as well. Non duality. I think it's fabulous that you ask such questions at the age of 16. Very best wishes on your path.
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What is the secret of being ultra smart ?
manitou replied to Tatsumaru's topic in General Discussion
Thank you for the wonderful compliment, hydrogen... Maybe if I explain a tad further, you'll see that we're ending up in the same place. The process of Self-Realization is an onion-peeling process that takes one through your own personality - the why's and wherefore's of why we act the way we do. Once the onion has been totally peeled to the core, one finds that we are nothing less than Pure Intelligence (or God, if you will), depending on your point of view. Yes, we have true intelligence but it's a question of getting down through all the error-thinking we've been taught (by our folks, our teachers, and ourselves) and finding the Pure Essence within ourself. This is truly viable path - if I have any intelligence at all, it's because I've peeled the onion to the bottom. In my physical life, I only made it to the 12th grade, and that was just barely..... -
What is the secret of being ultra smart ?
manitou replied to Tatsumaru's topic in General Discussion
Ralis - interesting that you posted a picture of Rodin's Thinker. It has been occurring to me lately that WE are the thinker and that there is much more to that work of art than meets the eye. As to intelligence, I don't think that true intelligence can be manifested until one gets to know himself down to the core. And the core is pretty astounding. -
Hi Mal - this does take a bit of breaking down! Let's you and me try to figure this puppy out. Your first paragraph quote 'Do you wish to inhabit sacred space?....' indicates a plaurality right there, when it goes on to ask if we wish to have the companionship of the higest spiritual beings. I guess it's anybody's guess as to whether this is metaphoric or whether there are actually beings that we cannot see accompanying us. But I suppose it must be interpreted that the 'beings' are also part of the One. What's the meaning of the first paragraph about the grains of sand? Seems like a bit of an unfair question to the student. The teacher is referring to the grains of sand in the River of Timelessness, then multiplying the sand by referring to many rivers with the same sand. What kind of a setup is this? But I suppose the master is equating this to accumulated wealth; in that perhaps there is no end of 'blessings' that come our way when the One is respected (the student's response; "....because returning an equivalent response is the nature of a subtle law of the universe", or the Reversion of the Tao, as I see it. If one gives it away, etc.... But I think what he's really trying to convey to the kind prince is that expounding the truth of this statement to others would be even greater, as it would be magnified by teaching it to others. Perhaps this is exactly what Jesus meant when he said to have no fear for the morrow, because today has problems sufficient to itself. In essence, the master may be evoking the principle that we are like the lilies of the field, we need have no concern that we will have enough, that it will always be provided to us if we stay in consciousness of The Way. I think the understanding of this universal supply and demand is imperative to understanding the workings of the Tao, or even of the Nirvana mindset. We need be anxious about nothing, when we are in Awareness. As to the multiplicity of beings spoken about as being opposed to the One, I think there's a mixture of philosophical Taoism and religious Taoism here that must be sidestepped a bit to get to the goal.
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Old thread, new remark. Reading over some of the posts on this thread, it reminds me so much of a paragraph in "Advanced Course in Yogi Philosophy and Oriental Occultism" by Yogi Ramacharaka. He cites a paragraph from a little pamphlet called Light on the Path: 21. Look for the flower to bloom in the silence that follows the storm; not till then. It shall grow, it will shoot up, it will make branches and leaves and form buds, while the storm continues, while the battle lasts. But not till the whole personality of the man is dissolved and melted - not until it is held by the divine fragment which has created it, as a mere subject for grave experiment and experience--not until the whole nature has yielded, and become subject unto its higher self, can the bloom open. then will come a calm which as comes in a tropical country after the heavy rain, when nature works so swiftly that one may see her action. Such a calm will come to the harassed spirit. And, in the deep silence, the mysterious event will occur which will prove that the way has been found. Call it by what name you will. It is a voice that speaks where there is none to speak, it is a messenger that comes - a messenger without form or substance - or it is the flower of the soul that has opened. It cannot be described by any metaphor. But it can be felt after, looked for, and desired, even amid the raging of the storm. The silence may last a moment of time, or it may last a thousand years. But it will end. Yet you will carry its strength with you. Again and again the battle must be fought and won. It is only for an interval that nature can be still.
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What is the secret of being ultra smart ?
manitou replied to Tatsumaru's topic in General Discussion
Here's your huckleberry, I do believe -
But don't you suppose the Sage is an enlightened one? He has the treasure of unconditional love (loving his brother as himself); he has the treasure of 'never too much', which is developing the understanding that happiness is learning to be happy with what we have and not wasting the rest of our lives pursuing other 'things'; and he has the treasure of 'never be the first', which goes directly to one's ego. To diminish the ego to the point where we're not pushing ahead and trying to win the race. I would think an enlightened one would possess all the above characteristics. The enlightened one Knows that he is One with all. Would this not be the same as an immortal? (I'm not talking about 'immortal' so much as age here, or one's physical appearance), but the understanding that we contain form only when Mind is animating Matter, whether this is in the form of a human or in the form of an animal or plant. The consciousness remains when the matter dies; perhaps consciousness returns to collective consciousness or perhaps it immediately inhabits another form. But I think the enlightened one, the immortal, is in the state of realization that he is not his body at all; rather, he is the idea that inhabits it and which continues its upward spiral to full self awareness. Perhaps that is what life is about. For everybody to achieve full self-awareness of who they really Are. All collectively. As for idea inhabiting matter, I like the metaphor of a surfer sitting on his board just beyond where the waves break. Say he's looking up the coastline with a picture frame; he can see the waves rolling from right to left in the frame. It appears, at first glance, that the water is actually moving toward the shore. However, the individual water molecules remain out where he is, although the wave has gone by and crashed to the shore. The wave doesn't pick up the molecules and move them; the current (or idea) merely disturbs the ocean and makes it appear that the water is moving. But the molecules are pretty much staying right where they were before the wave went through. Such is life. While the current is in us, we are here. We are the current. Our body is merely the water molecules. When the body is no longer here, We (the current) will have moved on to something else.