Tso Family Neigong...Iron Shirt...

[mYTHmAKER]

I don't usually go into discussions on religion. but for me this is (at least part of) the reality.

 

You wake up in a dark room, you don't remember anything. The first questions you may ask are:

 

1. Who am I?

2. Where am I?

3. How did I get here? / Who put me here?

4. How do I get out? Is there an out?

 

If life is a search for truth, then it is the answer to those questions.

Anyhow, for me this is pure raw reality, it has to be tackled head on, on a daily basis.

But I do believe in God.

 

IMHO this is not a discussion about religion. Religion = politics.

This is the basc quest for truth.

I use the word god for lack or anything better.

God to me is consciousness or the stuff of consciousness

or something else.

[mYTHmAKER]

Kashmir Shaivism is very close to my heart.

 

Interesting that you should say that as it is a path of bhakti / devotion

which is the heart.

[Fireblood]

sean and mythmaker you are so resonating with me right now.... i think we are getting close to truth here

 

very cool. puts into words a concept i couldn't quite shift into the verbal.

 

i have never read any of that guy, but sounds cool. pinpoints exactly where my problem with buddhism lies (plus i just don't vibe with the whole "life is samsara = suffering" nonsense as if it's something to be escaped from).

yeah.... cool. funny thing is before we get to the point where we can actually be able to intellectually actualise those questions we are conditoned into believing we know the answers, or not even thinking about them.

 

ask most people who they are and they'll give you a word that their parents (and then the government) stuck on them as a label... this is who they have come to identify with who they are.

where are they? well they are at this particular location.

how did i get here? well... i was born from my mum, and my dad had sex with her to make me.

how do i get out? i don't know if much people even think about this one.... let alone even ponder that moment of death.

 

but we are not those people, we yearn to know these answers. so what makes us different from the average joe? is it the level of conditioning? is it a karmic thing? or is it something else?

this is where i become stuck. i'm not sure if all people question for truth or not.

you are wrong when you think that everything we know in the universe is limited and finite. what we have discovered is limited.... just by that, its only what we have discovered to this point.

people misunderstand science when they think of it as truth. science is not truth, science is an exploratory tool which is used to explain observed phenomena. it is limited by the phenomena we can observe. invent a new instrument, and hey presto we can observe even more phenomena and the field of science grows.

 

do you really think there will come a point when we can say "well this is it, this super-duper-microscope shows everything there possibly is. now we know, this is how it all is" i doubt it.... simply because everything is true somewhere in this hologram.

 

and it is a hologram, and by being a hologram, the more you cut it up the more microcosms you find. every part of the hologram is the whole hologram itself. pretty amazing stuff.

 

and why is that?

it's because all existance is the reflection of one single divine force or source. there can only be one. and beyond that none. but its still one. ahhh the paradox love the paradox.

 

you believe in god?

 

I AM GOD!!!

:D :D

 

 

We all have our opinions my friend. I am basically saying that I'll base my reality/beliefs on what information is available to me at the time. Anything which is substantiated currently, be it by science or logic (more common sense than pure logic) is what I'll use. Anything which is conjecture is just that, conjecture, pure and simple. Anyhow what one man/woman believes to be truth, another may see as nonsense.

 

As for the questions then I'm sure you know what I meant, I was drawing parallels:

 

i.e How did I get here? Would translate to a bigger question, something like: Where did the human race come from? As sentient beings who can communicate using complex language and technology, way surpassing all other forms of life. I suppose many people would give answers based on conditioning but that's most people for you.

 

you are wrong when you think that everything we know in the universe is limited and finite. what we have discovered is limited.... just by that, its only what we have discovered to this point.

 

What's the relevant difference between "what we know" and what we have "discovered"? Surely knowledge is a result of discovery? And if we cannot base our beliefs/reality on knowledge then what can we base it upon? When we discover and consequently gain knowledge of something infinite, I'll accept that, but until we do, it's all conjecture to me.

 

I don't think that the universe is a hologram! And I don't think you're God but thats my personal belief which I came to based on my current knowledge and experience. And a hologram is crafted in time which makes it finite as is the material that it is crafted onto. But then again, like I said, one mans/womans belief is nonsense for another.

Edited May 21, 2006 by Fireblood

[neimad]

sure.

 

i'm not trying to infringe upon your beliefs.

 

the problem i have with science and the people who follow science is that it IS just a religion, regardless of the evidence.

 

unless you have done the experiment yourself, numerous times with repeated sustained results, anything you quote in the name of science is still just a belief. it's not really true knowledge because you are taking someone elses word for it.

 

how do you know they didnt mess the experiment up? or not consider all variables (which is impossible to do anyway)? or how do you know that they didn't fiddle with the results to get the answer they were looking for anyway (very very very common in scientific practice)?

 

my point is that it's not true knowledge.

 

true knowledge cannot be taught, it cannot be read in a book, it cannot be watched on a dvd, it cannot even be taught by a teacher.

 

true knowledge can only ever be experienced. and as such it is ENTIRELY a personal thing. as soon as you write down and start instructing someone upon what you may have experienced as truth for yourself.... it becomes religion.

 

in that sense, anything you may read about or hear about is nothing more than religion and conjecture.

 

for example i have had an experience that all things are connected. i know two things as truth. i know that i am connected to EVERYTHING in some way that is indescribeable (and as such every action i take influences everything else, and vice versa).

and i know for truth that who is me is more than this physical body.

 

there is no evidence for either of these statements, i can tell you about it and you can choose or not choose to believe me.... but regardless of which choice you make it's still a belief.

you are either choosing to believe.

or choosing not to believe.

regardless you believe and you don't 'know'.

 

my point.

 

truth = experience.

not science, or spirituality or religion.

[turbo]

how do you know they didnt mess the experiment up? or not consider all variables (which is impossible to do anyway)? or how do you know that they didn't fiddle with the results to get the answer they were looking for anyway (very very very common in scientific practice)?

 

my point is that it's not true knowledge.

 

Peer review. When a scientist makes a discovery, they publish a paper describing the experiment, how it was conducted, the results, and everything else. This paper is published, the the scientist's peers review the paper and may even reconduct the experiment to validate the results. This is why the space shuttle launches, why viagra gives an erection, why were able to have an internet, without peer revied science our world would be a lot different. Think less technology and more superstition. Lots of amazing and utilitarian discoveries are made through science and its silly to dismiss it as so fundamentally flawed.

 

for example i have had an experience that all things are connected. i know two things as truth...

 

there is no evidence for either of these statements, i can tell you about it and you can choose or not choose to believe me.... but regardless of which choice you make it's still a belief.

 

Subjective experience. You can describe it, but you cant reapeat it. You could to the same set of practices and not have the same experience. You could tell someone else the process you went through to get there and they may not be able to repeat it. Since you can not prove it, it is of little value to the world at large.

 

 

The Vedas are said to describe everything in the universe that is knowable. This knowledge is said to have been gained by devout spiritual seekers. So I suppose that there is some point of balance between subjective experience and objective measurable experiments. This is where spirituality meets science.

[Fireblood]

I also belive that I am connected to everything in some way, mainly through atomic interaction and chains of cuase and effect. I also agree that we are more than just a physical body no doubt. Perhaps I stressed science too much. Maybe what I was trying to express was basing beliefs on reality or experience of reality and logical inferences from that. Anyhow thanks for the input, it's always good to expand your mind.

[freeform]

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Edited December 18, 2019 by freeform

[neimad]

now... your original question... I really like the look of this guy: www.invisiblemaster.com... seems to be teaching proper iron shirt techniques without too much fuss... would love to go train with him - but he's half way round the world from me... maybe one day I'll travel down to Oz and convince neimad to come train with me (what d'you say, neimad? ).

 

if i'm in australia.... sure thing.

 

 

and turbo, i'm not saying science is flawed, i was saying that the belief that science upholds the truth is flawed. as i said science is exploratory, its not set by any means, its constantly changed and every now and again something new is discovered that turns the whole scientific community on it's head (a lot of these discoveries never get mentioned to us lay people though.... how many of teslas discoveries were revealed? that dude was pretty much erased from the history books!).

and my argument was that science doesn't give you truth.

regardless of peer review, quality of the experiment, no matter what..... the only truth you can ever know is your own experience.

 

thats my only argument and for me i believe nothing and i disbelieve nothing except for when i have personal experience that shows me one or the other.

 

everything else is conjecture as far as i am concerned. yet i have great fun in believing lots of stuff too even though i don't really believe it.

 

get what i'm saying?

 

and fireblood. what are atoms? who told you they exist? have you experienced what an atom is? and to get really and truly semantical.... what is reality? how do you define it? how do you define it's limits? are they set?

 

it's impossible.... you either know truth or you don't, all else is just belief.

 

sorry... i'm using this discussion (as i always do) to clarify my own points of view. it's good fun. thanks for this.

Edited May 22, 2006 by neimad

[Fireblood]

and fireblood. what are atoms?

 

The model and mathematical description for atoms fits the behaviour of reality. This has been proven by scientists around the world and recreated many times in many experiments. Many realities are based on the atomic model including the unfortunately real atom bomb and nuclear power stations.

 

who told you they exist?

 

A big list of scientists. And another big list of scientists agree with them after doing loads of experiments. You can always google for the names.

 

have you experienced what an atom is?

 

Every day. In fact I experience atoms on a daily basis, all day and even at night when I'm breathing air. We do not need to see something to believe in it. I have never stepped on the US mainland, nor seen it off film but I still believe it is very real due to the effects that emanate from it.

 

and to get really and truly semantical.... what is reality? how do you define it? how do you define it's limits? are they set?

 

A nice way of putting it would be, "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away" in the words of Robert K. Dick (fiction author).

 

Maybe this, "Reality is that which is commonly experienced and cannot be denied by logic or that which cannot be directly experienced but can be logically inferred from that which is experienced in common and undenied by logic."

 

I think this going to get interesting

[freeform]

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Edited December 18, 2019 by freeform

[neimad]

The model and mathematical description for atoms fits the behaviour of reality. This has been proven by scientists around the world and recreated many times in many experiments. Many realities are based on the atomic model including the unfortunately real atom bomb and nuclear power stations.

A big list of scientists. And another big list of scientists agree with them after doing loads of experiments. You can always google for the names.

Every day. In fact I experience atoms on a daily basis, all day and even at night when I'm breathing air. We do not need to see something to believe in it. I have never stepped on the US mainland, nor seen it off film but I still believe it is very real due to the effects that emanate from it.

A nice way of putting it would be, "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away" in the words of Robert K. Dick (fiction author).

 

Maybe this, "Reality is that which is commonly experienced and cannot be denied by logic or that which cannot be directly experienced but can be logically inferred from that which is experienced in common and undenied by logic."

 

I think this going to get interesting

 

all you are doing is giving me someone elses words. someone elses experience.

it's not yours, it's just your BELIEF!

 

thats my only point.

anything you can say about reality is only a belief until you experience it or 'know' it for truth.

 

big lists of scientists have said all kinds of things about a whole variety of topics and then all of a sudden someone comes along that somehow manages to prove all of them wrong and then they get all puffed up and indignant and angry and deny it for truth then eventually it has to be accepted because the the evidence is undeniable and then it gets a whole other big list of scientists backing it and then suprise suprise the same thing happens again.... and again.... and again.

 

science is great for discovering things, its great for technology..... but try to describe truth with science and you very quickly fall apart.

 

why?

because truth can only ever be a personal experience.

 

sure you experience atoms all the time, but until you read about (read here "begun to believe in") atoms you never knew they existed and as such they were not real to you.

'atoms' is just a label someone else gave to some stuff they observed.

 

my opinion is that when you go down beyond atoms (the number of components within determining what element it is you are looking at) and you go down as far as you can.... you end up with the same stuff, you find out that everything in the known and observed universe is made up of this stuff.

 

what is this stuff?

this is the "life-force" this is the vibration of god.

 

i.e. its all god, it can only be all god.

 

this is my own experience, i haven't read it anywhere, i can't quote you anyone who spoke about it....

 

i'm interested in your experience, your own interpretation.... not some scientists. i couldn't care less who told you what, thats all just belief.... if they can tell me their results then it becomes worthy of something because its their experience.

 

but holding up someone elses experience as your own truth becomes just belief and it will never ever lead to the answers we seek.

 

(i had the same discussion with my mum this morning).

 

anyways i don't know what i'm talking about anymore.... and as i said in another thread i'm just arguing for the fun of it

 

 

hope what i said makes sense to someone somewhere, but please DON'T adopt it as your own belief. hahahahahahahaha.

[neimad]

certainly is interesting... firstly I have to be abrasive and mention that using A is B type logic is very unscientific. but it's much easier to communicate using 'is' so I'll follow suit.

 

so what you're implying is that consensus reality 'is' real - money is real because almost anywhere on earth you flash some green and people will give you stuff for it. (you might not be implying that btw - I dont mean to put words in your mouth!)

 

even science agrees that 'reality' is very hard to pin down - in fact impossible (so far) to pin down.

 

I've seen strange stuff happen before - I've seen a man under hypnosis that saw his friend in a chair - when there was nothing there. I've seen people condemn a whole nation because of their ethinicity, I've seen others in tears scared of something that couldn't be seen/heard/experienced - in their mind it was so real!

 

in england there is an unwritten rule in broadcasting that bans the showing of any program that disagrees with darwin's theory of evolution.

 

I dont think there can be any sort of objective reality... there can only be levels of probability - it's very unlikely to see the same person in two different places at once - but according to quantum mechanics it's not impossible.

 

yeah. you've covered it freeform.... i don't have to say anything more about how shaky reality really is.

 

we have set boundaries for it, but they are easily crossed.

 

as far as i am concerned reality has no definable boundaries other than the ones we impose upon it with our own will (largely a collective thing).... and even those boundaries can be broken.

 

i've experienced weird stuff too.... i've seen ghosts and beings that were not from this dimension. i've heard the sound the planet makes.

 

all stuff that science would deem is not part of reality.... so who decides then what is reality?

that which is commonly experienced?

so you are saying that true reality is only whats common to everyone? so anyone experiencing outside of that common scope is no longer experiencing reality? what are they experiencing then??

and how can reality be something that is inferred but not experienced?

 

to me it's all baffling.... i could never even dream of trying to put a label on this bizarre thing we call existance. i don't know if i am real, in all honesty.... i don't know if you are either, or if anything is.

i can come up with no boundaries, no set limits.

 

infinite possibility, infinite potential.

yet it's all nothing.

 

it's fun to discuss this stuff.... but when you really get down to it, you go nowhere because as i said above truth is personal and can only be directly experience. whatever we discuss is no longer truth (or "the tao" to quote some famous dude).

[turbo]

if i'm in australia.... sure thing.

and turbo, i'm not saying science is flawed, i was saying that the belief that science upholds the truth is flawed. as i said science is exploratory, its not set by any means, its constantly changed and every now and again something new is discovered that turns the whole scientific community on it's head (a lot of these discoveries never get mentioned to us lay people though....

 

how many of teslas discoveries were revealed? that dude was pretty much erased from the history books!).

 

and my argument was that science doesn't give you truth.

regardless of peer review, quality of the experiment, no matter what..... the only truth you can ever know is your own experience.

 

get what i'm saying?

Yeah, the scientific establishment were referring to as science is not perfect, but at the same time neither are we. How often do you have conflicting experiences, or an experience that invalidates, or puts another into question? Its a sign of advancement, not inadequacy.

 

Deriving knowledge from your experiences is science at its most fundamental level. Science does not uphold or create the truth, but merely tries to explain it. Sometimes those explanations are sufficient sometimes not. Can we arrive at the truth through scientific exploration? Possibly, at least we can come up with a reasonable explanation and see how it fits with other phenomena we have observed.

 

Tesla was a genuis inventor, but I'm not sure of his scientific discoveries. Like Edison did he contribute to society? Profoundly. Did they countribute to science? Not on the same scale as they did to mankind.

[neimad]

Yeah, the scientific establishment were referring to as science is not perfect, but at the same time neither are we. How often do you have conflicting experiences, or an experience that invalidates, or puts another into question? Its a sign of advancement, not inadequacy.

 

Deriving knowledge from your experiences is science at its most fundamental level. Science does not uphold or create the truth, but merely tries to explain it. Sometimes those explanations are sufficient sometimes not. Can we arrive at the truth through scientific exploration? Possibly, at least we can come up with a reasonable explanation and see how it fits with other phenomena we have observed.

 

Tesla was a genuis inventor, but I'm not sure of his scientific discoveries. Like Edison did he contribute to society? Profoundly. Did they countribute to science? Not on the same scale as they did to mankind.

 

cool.

[freeform]

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Edited December 18, 2019 by freeform