The Secret of Conscious Co-Creation

[sean]

el_tortugo posted a link to this cool movie in the alchemycalmonkey Yahoo! Group yesterday and I'm watching it right now with the Lezlizzle. Yoda, your girl Esther even plays a big part in it, check it out:

 

The Secret of Conscious Co-Creation

 

Sean

[VCraigP]

el_tortugo posted a link to this cool movie in the alchemycalmonkey Yahoo! Group yesterday and I'm watching it right now with the Lezlizzle. Yoda, your girl Esther even plays a big part in it, check it out:

 

The Secret of Conscious Co-Creation

 

Sean

 

 

When this movie was first launched it was merely called "The Secret".

I purchased a copy after it came out. You can see more about the movie at http://thesecret.tv/home.html

the new title is a bit better perhaps, or maybe it is just Tortuga's name for it?

 

I really liked it. Actually I had the oppurtunity to see it before it was widely released.

It was inspiring to me. Even though what is presented in the film are all things I claim to "know" it is really nice to have them presented in this way.

 

At the time I said to my wife. "This is the kind of thing I would like to have on the TV all the time" Which is a good goal when you have small children who want to watch TV junk food all the time.

 

It's been a few weeks now but I plan to watch it again. Hey maybe I'll take it with me on my next airplane ride to NY (in two days time).

 

Let us know your impressions.

 

Craig

[sean]

I had the same feeling Craig. I've read all this stuff a hundred times but seeing it come through in a nice presentation like this had a more powerful effect. Really helped the wisdom click on a deeper level for me. I woke up this morning paying attention to all of the wonderful things in my life and I am having a really amazing day. Also I am really looking forward to the million dollars I will make this year.

 

Wow, if TV were even had 2% more content like this ... what would the world look like?

 

 

Sean

[hagar]

In all sincerety

 

This stuff is detrimental to people's lives. It's propaganda. I am abit surprised that you don't see through the rethoric. This is the secret: You consitute what you THINK is real by what you accept as real. Like this film.

 

It's the kind of streamlined, narcissistic, consumer-capitalistic, quick-fix bullshit that pollutes the minds of people who deep inside are searching for truth.

Thinking positive thoughts does NOT change your reality! What new-age propaganda merged with neo-liberalist agendas!

 

Its so alluring, it's so tempting. Like urinating in your pants when you are freezing to death.

 

I thought you guys knew better, in all honesty. I do not mean to disrespect anyone, as I all see you as intellegent, honest and true searchers. But come on! The UNIVERSE will reflect what you think? What kind of huge egos are we becoming? Please tell this message to the people starving to death in Darfur. Tell it to the jews as they walked into the gas chamber. Tell it to the children who work in factories to make the clothes you have the money to buy. What decadence!

 

What does the true core of any real spiritual tradition say?

There is no law of attraction! There is the law of loss. You do not attract loss, you do not create you own happiness. You cultivate wisdom.

 

But you don't attract jack shit! What a nice way to make people feel a renewed protestant guilt for the suffering in their lives. Once again we're all living in sin.

 

 

Wisdom is realizing that sooner or later life nails you on the spot. Life is infinately more complex than just a summum Bonum of our subconsious or conscious thougths. You can streamline your perception and your internal dialoge, train qigong, do charitable deeds, chant mantras or whatever all your life. But sooner or later life comes and gets you. Takes you by the hand and scares you. And that is the most honest, most precious gem you will ever discover. That is the truth, that's when you can be free, and see that beyond loss, beyond suffering, there is peace. When "things fall apart" is the real wake up call. Not when things come together!

 

 

 

If you follow the message in that film, you will cheat yourself of a great opportunity. And that is surrender.

If you don't surrender, sooner or later we end up thinking we can be perfect, happy, rich, serene like hindu cows. I have to be blunt: You will be miserable, you will suffer, you will lose, you will be embarassed, lost, confused, angry, depressed, sad, apathetic. But that's ok.

 

One day we will lie in a bed somewhere old or middle age, or maybe still young. And we will know that we are about to die. What wisdom you have accumulated in your life will reveal itself in that very moment. And the hard core of that wisdom is that there is NO way around pain, around loss, around confusion. The sooner we realize that we don't have any ground to stand on the better. We are utterly lost from the moment we are born to the moment we pass away. It is how you deal with that realization that will make your death either a good or a bad one. But your death is by definition not a product of your perception.

 

Gautama Buddha's, or Lao Tzu's main message is this; YOU DO NOT HAVE CONTROL OF YOUR LIFE. LEARN TO ACCEPT IT, AND FIND PEACE.

 

Now, let's see what I attract....

 

h

[Peregrino]

Its so alluring, it's so tempting. Like urinating in your pants when you are freezing to death.

 

Wow Hagar, I have no other comment to make on this excellent post except to say that you have just come up with THE METAPHOR OF THE MONTH! Or, um . . . is that "simile"? Oh yeah! I is an English teacher, after all!

 

Anyway, thanks for cracking me up in the midst of the unpleasant work of grading exams and essays. Although I do find Raymond Sigrist's meditation on dukkha useful at times like this, when positive thinking alone won't make the "unsat" go away, I still think that laughter is the best medicine!

 

Re-adjusting my Depends and getting back to work now . . .

[thelerner]

When a happy, optimistic guy like Hagar raises his voice at something, you have to listen. I think he's raised a good point. For the New Age types living in relative luxury its all very well to say, oh I create my universe through my happy thoughts. But I don't think thats the way the universe operates.

 

We can all agree that we have the power to interpret things as good or bad, pain or pleasure, hope or despair, or the third choice of remaining neutral toward the events happening to us. But its our inner universe we control, not the outter. Controlling the inner game is the baby, thinking we control the universe is the bath water.

 

Stephen Levine, is a meditation teacher who worked w/ the dying. He was in the trenches w/ desperate people w/ real problems. He saw painful death and miraculous healing. He dealt w/ those who bought into the New Age 'I am God" who were very sick, and saw a cruel psychology playing out w/ them when they got worse. They had the double whammy of being very sick and having to think, I guess I'm really choosing this pain and sickness, even I really don't want it. Sometimes they died feeling like horrible failures.

 

Levine thought healing and grace were available, the mind heals, grace is received but sometimes you still die. Illness claims the body, but the death is a good one, a holy one, peace is achieved.

 

I get littered w/ new age Secret formulas emails daily. Heck all I have to do is look above this window. Use this formula, and win the lottery, money falls into your lap mysteriously, woman will love you, men will envy you etc. That will play well to the younger generation, but work hard, work smart, connect w/ people, that is what will make you a success IMHO.

 

Michael

[Yoda]

Esther is my girl!!

 

Sean, I didn't feel like sending you the Esther tapes so I intended that you'd find a good intro on your own...

 

You did great, by the way! And I'll send them when I feel like it.

 

While I'm personally into this stuff, there's certainly no need for people to believe this sort of thing in the slightest. One could have a beautiful, spiritual, 100% orgasmic, uplifting life with or without it.

 

To my mind, it's just like believing that the practice of chi kung or meditation would be appropriate and beneficial for one's life... sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't. You have to follow your heart, first and foremost.

 

-Yoda

[sean]

If you watched the entire film there is an interesting paradox that comes through. In the beginning the teachers kind of "hook" the audience with this "the world is your Sears catalog" model of the universe. They hook the audience with, likely, their strongest desires ... to be in control of their lives, to have wealth, successful relationships, happiness, and everything they want out of life. Then, one of the first practices they suggest for acheiving this, is an immersion in gratitude for what already is perfect in their lives. Maybe it's a on a dangerously superficial level that this practice starts out on. And maybe there is the temptation to start judging any tragedy on a superficial level, as if the victims are poorly applying "the secret" (one of the teachers in the movie says something really close that unfortunately). But come on, spiritual practices are chock full of advice that can lead to dangerous misconceptions, that's the nature of the game. Not to say that it's not our place to analyze and criticize beliefs and practices though. This is vital too since some paths do lend to more confusion and suffering than others obviously.

 

Anyway, here is how I took the message of this movie:

 

1) Look for what is capable of being appreciated in every situation, cultivating humble gratitude and you will naturally create a space for more of the same. Grasping and aversion lead to suffering.

 

2) Seek to discover and satisfy your deepest desires. Start where you are, and trust that the bread crumbs will lead to more and more skillful means. So you think you want a nice house and a beautiful, healthy family? Nothing wrong with that. Make it happen and live it to the fullest and always keep your eyes open to see if there is something you desire even more deeply. Imperturbable happiness? Enlightenment?

 

3) Open to the enlightened part of yourself that is not separate from anything, that is completely one with the Tao, which is the intelligent source of all manifestation. It's in this sense that we truly are creating everything, and, as you pointed out Hagar, not always as the individual self craves. But we can assume that, on some level, that which we truly are intended this moment to be exactly as it is.

 

4) So we can assume that we are getting 100% what we need, and what we, on some level, intended and asked for.

 

This doesn't sound that new agey to me. #2 is on the Tantric side of the scale, and so not found in mainstream scriptural sources like the Christian Bible or the Pali Sutras, but I bet I could dig and find references to support each of those views and practices within the deeper mystical traditions of Taoism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity and Hinduism.

 

And maybe I am just naturally fitting in the movie into a more sophisticated level than just the "average viewer", or at least, the viewer that has the type of misconceptions spoken of above. So I think the criticism is warranted and welcomed. I still rail on "What the Bleep?" and think that movie was garbage so we all have our trigger points.

 

But I think it's good to have mainstream productions of this nature to at least get people talking and thinking about these sorts of things. And if you think about it, all spiritual traditions have a marketing hook. Typically one that appeals strongly to the audience. The Chinese revere old age, is it any surprise their masters market immortality? A couple thousand years ago there was a Hagar going, "Dude! This is bullshit. You are all going to die. You need to accept it." And that's right, it's good, clear, Zen advice in the bamboo thwack style. But in the hands of a teacher it's not just marketing gimmick it can be skillful means to appeal to our resistant egos to engage in practices that ultimately unravel and transcend the ego.

 

However you try to squirm around it, if you're honest I think a big part of anyone on a spiritual path's motiviation arises to some extent from very basic, self-centered desires for pleasure, happiness, freedom, love, immortality, even power, sex, beauty, money, worship, you name it. Skillful means, IMO, is the process by which the desires of the lower three chakras are transcended but also included, in a transformed state, in an deepening spiral of refined desire.

 

Whaddya think?

 

Sean

 

PS- I was wondering where those Esther tapes were!! Thanks for the intention though, I had a feeling you sent that.

[Cameron]

Reminds me of theKYBALION. Talks alot about mental vibrations and how you essentially attract to you what you are putting out through the law of vibration. It goes alot deeper than that. I remember first reading it and thinking wow this is it!

 

I don't know that is adresses the Taoist concept/path of wu wei/non effort..I like to think combining the eastern teachings with hermetic teachings is a nice balance.

 

Interesting read in any case and fun movie.

 

Cam

[cloud recluse]

If you watched the entire film there is an interesting paradox that comes through. In the beginning the teachers kind of "hook" the audience with this "the world is your Sears catalog" model of the universe. They hook the audience with, likely, their strongest desires ... to be in control of their lives, to have wealth, successful relationships, happiness, and everything they want out of life. Then, one of the first practices they suggest for acheiving this, is an immersion in gratitude for what already is perfect in their lives.

 

 

OK,clarify this for me somebody.I actually took the time to watch this thing,whereas usually the first 30 minutes would have turned me off.And yes,there is a "transpersonal" element beyond the Sears aspect.But as far as I can see,all phenomena are supposed to be the result of "magnetic"attraction,there is no mundane cause & effect,no random chance, & the 6 year old victims of violent paedophiles summoned these things into their lives.Or did their parents,by having a general wariness of sex predators ,summon the event on their behalf?

 

Yes Im using a sledgehammer example here,but I see nothing in this film to contradict it.The Source may be manifesting/allowing everything,but I am a subset of the Source,not its totality,& no matter how much personal power I can cultivate,no matter how potent the influences I can exert,their are other influences independent of me.No reason there to bail on life,but no reason to dismiss tragedy & deny evil.This movie has some dangerous half-truths & a load of confused narcissitic shit surrounding them.

 

"We",the finitudes in the mix,DO NOT create EVERYTHING.Its true our finite minds reduce reality down into comprehendable models of limited content,and those models could have any number of effects,or no potency whatsoever.But they are still finite influences.This film FAILS UTTERLY to make this crucial distinction,& so relegates itself to the usual trash of this genre.Its rationales are weak & unoriginal,its "philosophy" shallow.

I dont think spirituality requires jettisoning a more complicated & indepth analysis of the world,of politics & of human vulnerabilty & our capacities for cruelty,but this film does! Its arguments are weak to the point of being laughable.Does anybody here actually buy its view of politics?

 

Any positive message about our potential for manifestation,& the wisdom of beginning from gratitude is negated by the titanic solipsism of its worldview.

If anybody here really believes this is a worthwhile peice of cinema,I invite them to screen it at a Sexual Assault Clinic !

I wont bother concealing the fact that Im angry right now as I type this,but isnt it time this simplistic crap was seen through.Yes,its uncomfortable to see innocents suffering.Yes,engaging the world is difficult & complex.But NO,we dont have to retreat into this pseudo-spiritual copout!

[Cameron]

That is the tricky question. Of course when you bring up these sort of teachings the person who was a victim can feel like so I attracted that shit? Is the inoocent child that fell into the backyard pool and drowned because there parents didn't close the gate and werent watching them responsible for there death? I don't know.

 

I had an experience when I was about 5 or 6 years old. I was at the park with my mother and little sister and when it was time to leave my mother went to pick my sister up off the swing. Instead of waiting for my mother I started walking to our car across the street. When I got to the side of the road I saw a taxi coming from down the street and I thought " I can beat it". I started running and got run over by the taxi. It smashed into me and I went flying down the road. Nex I here my mother screaming and some other people coming to help pick me up and my first thought I had was "So this is life".

 

I got rushed to the hospital and they stiched me up(I still have a scar on my face) and was ok but I distinctly remember that first thought of so this is life. And that is the first of the Buddhas 4 noble truths. Life is suffering. There is no escape from suffering and we will all experience sickness old aga and death on some level. However, I think positive thinking(pretty much all that movie is about) can help you along to achive your goals in life but it's not going to do shit for the BIG stuff. Your definetly not going to resolve the big questions of life and death though positve thinking IMO. Maybe having that mindset will help you attract the right teacher and teachings that will help you answer big questions. Maybe it will give you the right mental tools to make money and support you spiritual practice, healthy healing lifestlye etc.

 

So the real question..is the victim attracting sufferng to them or are they just 'unlucky'. I don't have the answer. I like to think as a 5 year old boy I wasnt' attracting that kind of pain on myself ans was just careless and unlucky. but I cant' say I really know the answer.

 

Cam

Edited June 4, 2006 by Cameron

[sean]

It's quite possible the film does not hold up on it's own and I'm only buzzing from taking certain parts inspirational to me and fitting them into what I believe is my own, hopefully more coherent model of spirituality that addresses the concerns brought up here.

 

Here is a piece I've written previously on TTB that address this topic:

I think people's confusions on depth of ultimate responsibility like this are issues with mismatching levels of reality. In Kabbalistic terms your truest, truest, most absolute identity is Keter, or more accurately Ein Soph. Nothing can be said about Ein Soph, including that nothing can be said about Ein Soph. At this level of Being/Nothingness, "you" are responsible for everything that occurs to Yael. And to Freeform. And to Sean. And to your friends dog. And to the Earth's soil. And to the Sun. And to the entire manifest universe that you are both and neither a container for and interpenetrating as. But now zoom in a bit to Yael's little interdependent vibration as a living body in Malkuth. Here you are a separate form, and IMO, exactly as you say, there are a thousand other influences merging to shape your individual destiny. So, as Yael the relatively independent form in Malkut, you can only hope to control your responses to what comes into your life. I think saying Yael, as a discrete entity in in Malkut, has Ein Soph level responsibility is a mismatch and leads to dangerous, even mentally unstable conclusions like you dreamed up Hurricane Katrina, the Jews invoked the holocaust on themselves to have that kind of experience, etc.

and also

[T]here is a wierd paradox that arises in the belief that each human creates reality 100% that makes it equivalent to saying that human beings create reality 0% and basically collapses the whole view into something that looks more like the one I am presenting anyway. If every finite human being creates reality 100%, then from your perspective, you are creating me 100% and I don't exist independently except for in your creation. If you stopped creating me, I would stop existing. But how is that so if I am creating my reality 100% ... from my perspective, I am creating you 100% and you don't exist independently except for in my own creation and you would cease to exist except for in my imagination. So our interaction here is an illusion for at least one of us in your view. In my view this is handled by the fact that, you and I are dependently arising in the One Mind of God that is inseparable from both of us.

 

Really though, I don't really see how the contents of the video, even taken at face value as presented, are any more offensive to people suffering than many beliefs presented by established esoteric traditions; beliefs such as karma, samsara, hell. (And since when are the reactions of people in suffering the only standard by which metaphysics are judged anyway?)

 

How is telling a rape survivor the concept that we manifest our reality 100% different than saying:

 

"The effects of karma (actions) are inevitable, and in previous lifetimes we have accumulated negative karma which will inevitably have its fruition in this or future lives. Just as someone witnessed by police in a criminal act will eventually be caught and punished, so we too must face the consequences of faulty actions we have committed in the past, there is no way to be at ease; those actions are irreversible; we must eventually undergo their effects." --- Dalai Lama, "Kindness, Clarity and Insight"

 

"Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A person reaps what he sows." --- (Gal. 6:7)

 

And how is this following explanation of karma fundamentally different than the 100% conscious creation view?

 

"Some people misunderstand the concept of karma. They take the Buddha's doctrine of the law of causality to mean that all is predetermined, that there is nothing that the individual can do. This is a total misunderstanding. The very term karma or action is a term of active force, which indicates that future events are within your own hands. Since action is a phenomenon that is committed by a person, a living being, it is within your own hands whether or not you engage in action." --- Dalai Lama, "Path to Bliss"

 

Finally, how are the carrot on the sticks called enlightenment, immortality, effortless action, supermind, nirvana, etc. fundamentally different ishta's than the ideal of having 100% conscious alignment with one's destiny?

 

Sean

[Cameron]

Finally, how are the carrot on the sticks called enlightenment, immortality, effortless action, supermind, nirvana, etc. fundamentally different ishta's than the ideal of having 100% conscious alignment with one's destiny?

 

Sean

 

 

Seanster,

 

Ime not clear on this. My impression of that movie was that there is no destiny and no alignment with destiny. Basically, it's all up to you. Like that dude at the end with the chalk board saying there isn't any destiny chalkboard that you have to find..it's all your call.

 

I do like it. It's a nice vision of life. Your basically like ana rtist that paints on the empty canvas of life as you see fit. You are the creator. It's just exactly the same stuff I learned from Matt Furey's programs.

 

FOR ME..I would say a kind of balance between that apprach and the eastern approach is suitable. My understadning of the eastern approach is to be LESS GOAL ORIENTED. What are they talking about in that movie? GOALS. That's all there talking about is having goals and then achiving them. That's great..it's awesome..but I don't think that's what the Eastern practices are mostly about. The theme I here again and again about eastern practices like zen, qigong etc is PRACTICE IS ENLIGHTENMENT. And dont' do to achive something..just put yourself totally into the practice.

 

Like in my aikido practice..it's really about the NOW. Unlike BJJ where your training to win a fight or whatever it's about practice. That's it..feeling good..training..practice. Like zen..sometimes you feel bad. You are sitting on the chair or cushion and your body hurts and you just want to stop but you have another 20 minutes to go.

 

I really do like both of these approaches..see the differences..but if you really think they are the same in essence I would love to here more..really this is a very interesting topic for me. I suspect it's all just a function of the mind..learning to accept what is without concepts and be still..and learning to focus on goals and achive them..I guess it's pretty simple really...carry on.

 

Cam

[hagar]

Sean

 

In relation to your points 1 and 2, I think you are absolutely right. No argument there. And as an inspirational source, generating a sincere intent to break through some negative habitual patterns, this movie hits the nail on the spot for many "main stream" westerners.

 

"However you try to squirm around it, if you're honest I think a big part of anyone on a spiritual path's motiviation arises to some extent from very basic, self-centered desires for pleasure, happiness, freedom, love, immortality, even power, sex, beauty, money, worship, you name it. Skillful means, IMO, is the process by which the desires of the lower three chakras are transcended but also included, in a transformed state, in an deepening spiral of refined desire."

 

Yes, yes, I totally agree. It would be cheating yourself not to admit that we should all align our spiritual cultivation with desire. If we start out with ressentiment towards our desires, them being "unspiritual" we are heading for trouble. The biggest challenge of spiritual cultivation is INTEGRATION, in all respects of the word.

 

But in it's essence, the message in this movie is a great lie. Sometimes we need lies, and actually lies can help us along the way. Nothing wrong with grasping at the moon to learn to catch a ball. Another big trap in spiritual practice is to trick yourself into "I-am-holier-than-thou-due-to-my-outmost-honesty-and-dedication" crap. I have met some of those guys and their so-called spirituality reeks to high heaven.

 

Being honest is actually quite paradoxical. It's admitting that most of our aspirations, most of our preconceptions and many of our deepest beliefs are actually not "the truth". They are crutches that we need to move along the path. Nothing wrong with that. It's like being lost in the woods, and realizing that to find civilization again you must actually believe someting before it becomes a reality. You must actally think that the path you choose to get home is the right one. If you get stuck in needing confirmation for every step you take is in the right direction, you will surely die. So in that sense, the movie can be of some help.

 

BUT, it's revealing a HUGE danger. It makes you believe that you are in control of your life and happiness. Which is complete and utter nonsense. The universe does not manifest what we "need". Not even on a deep, subconsious level. Sometimes I find great help in having studied scientific theory. It has some sober insights. One of those is called the "Just-so" hypothesis. If you got cured from cancer by thinking that you were healthy, and then became healthy, and explained that change with you beinb able to think positively, thant's a "just-so" hypothesis. The only thing it explains is that it's "just so". No causal chains can really be found, because they cannot be predictive towards other similar cases in the future, and they are not EXPLAINING anything. This is unfortunately the case in many new-age and self-help schools. There's a truckload of suckers born every minute.

 

We could probably dig up quotes from all the spiritual traditions in the world for days on end confirming what we think is right in this discussion. I will not attempt to do that. Instead I will ask you to think about how you feel when you are told the truth. I mean spiritual truth. One of the key components of something being deeply true is that it needs no rhetoric. No persuation.

Actually, two things happen every time we are told the real truth about the nature of things:

 

1. We feel we are told something utterly alien, incomprehensible, scary, or even uncanny. Even in meditation, the deepest level of realization escapes us due to this fact. It's just to big and scary, nothing to hold on to.

 

2. We feel like we have known this all our lives. Like we already know it, yet when we hear it, it's almost impossible to remember it. It's almost tautological. Most of the time when my master speaks, I feel like falling asleep. That is when true transmission happens. The consious mind aren't fed anything to chew on. It goes straight in, and most of the time I remeber very little of what is being said. Nothing fancy, nothing special.

Other times it makes my mind stop. Like one time, when I had a really profound experience, and HAD to ask what was happening, not realizing that I was already down a slippery slope of grasping. He just answered "It's quite normal".

 

This movie is the exact opposite of those two dimensions of the truth. It tries to convince us. It gives our egos a pat on the back. "If I only try to control my mind even more, THEN I will be happy". It's too conscious, too captivating, too tempting, too agreeable. Almost like fast food.

 

Tao Te Ching states: Misfortune comes from having a body. If you had no body, how could there be misfortune? Misfortune is the human condition. Immortality is not physical immortality, but gained from seeing through the confusion of this world.

 

h

[Yoda]

I am creating you 100% and you don't exist independently except for in my own creation and you would cease to exist except for in my imagination. So our interaction here is an illusion for at least one of us in your view.

 

Sean,

 

Look deeper mijo.

 

There's a great scene in "Searching for Bobby Fischer" where the Master wipes clean the board.

 

It's like that. Helps you see. Just look for your own cause and effect in life before you look for another's.

 

You create your reality 100%. Lezlie creates her reality 100%. You line up perfectly with each other. If one of you doesn't line up, you'll part ways.

 

You can never know the vibration of another.

 

-Yodaaaah

[cloud recluse]

 

Really though, I don't really see how the contents of the video, even taken at face value as presented, are any more offensive to people suffering than many beliefs presented by established esoteric traditions; beliefs such as karma, samsara, hell. (And since when are the reactions of people in suffering the only standard by which metaphysics are judged anyway?)

 

How is telling a rape survivor the concept that we manifest our reality 100% different than saying:

 

"The effects of karma (actions) are inevitable, and in previous lifetimes we have accumulated negative karma which will inevitably have its fruition in this or future lives. Just as someone witnessed by police in a criminal act will eventually be caught and punished, so we too must face the consequences of faulty actions we have committed in the past, there is no way to be at ease; those actions are irreversible; we must eventually undergo their effects." --- Dalai Lama, "Kindness, Clarity and Insight"

 

"Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A person reaps what he sows." --- (Gal. 6:7)

 

And how is this following explanation of karma fundamentally different than the 100% conscious creation view?

 

"Some people misunderstand the concept of karma. They take the Buddha's doctrine of the law of causality to mean that all is predetermined, that there is nothing that the individual can do. This is a total misunderstanding. The very term karma or action is a term of active force, which indicates that future events are within your own hands. Since action is a phenomenon that is committed by a person, a living being, it is within your own hands whether or not you engage in action." --- Dalai Lama, "Path to Bliss"

 

Finally, how are the carrot on the sticks called enlightenment, immortality, effortless action, supermind, nirvana, etc. fundamentally different ishta's than the ideal of having 100% conscious alignment with one's destiny?

 

Sean

 

Actually,I agree with your points here by & large.Punitive Karma is just as bad as 100% CC.In that regard,there was that press conference a year or so ago where the Dalai Lama stated that children born deformed were paying for sins in a past life.This caused a ruckus in the audience,until one of the D.L.s press guys "explained" that this only applies to Tibetan children.D.L. seems to combine Punitive Karma,a doctrine very popular with totalitarian theocracies,with Empowering Karma.Empowering karma is kind of obvious in its limited sphere,you can observe it directly,whereas Punitive Karma is a leap of faith & not particularly evident to me.

 

As for the relevance of victims reactions to trauma, I dont see the Dao as a divine Other imposed from above,granting some kind of immunity from the emotional impact of life.So human reaction is part & parcel of it.As we approach the Dao through our own beings,its wisdom is in us,in our reactions,at least potentially.

 

As for carrots,alignment with your destiny,while certainly potent,still does not make you the Creator.And thats the thing with this film.It doesnt strike me as being "Co-Creation" AT ALL !!!! Whatever lip-service it pays to someting deeper,its still seems to be a formula of an isolate ego,a single determinant! Perhaps they didnt mean that & their rhetoric is too simple,or perhaps watching it once & getting steamed up about it in the process distorted my perception (my previous post was literally right after I finished watching it).

 

Im probably just being a grumpy old shit again & Im sorry for banging on about this.I suppose it just touched a nerve.

 

Regards,Cloud.

[affenbrot]

cool discussion, I'm especially happy about hagars views here.

I know too many people who in my view are off into questionable ideas, every pile of dogpoo on the trottoir is a "sign" the universe is giving them, and things "manifest" or don't "manifest" because they did or did not make it right, because "everything is in the mind" and so on.

Don't want to draw down the discussion onto my level though (I do not feel fluent enough to contribute on your philosophical level in the moment)

There is a psychological interpretation I read in a Stephen Wolinsky book, where he calls this idea of manifesting "infantile megalomania" . He explains how at a certain age little childs may come to the conclusion that through their behavior and thoughts they are magically manipulating the world. Like when they are hungry and cry they are fed, when they

feel their wet pants need changing it happens. So they may develop a believe that through their actions they can control the world (which in their conception is mostly the parents). When it does not happen they will start to wish and think about it more and more until it finally is fullfilled (and their unconscious believe pattern proofs true).

So people who try to manifest through visualization and the like may kind of regress into that childlike state.

 

...mh, I still believe in magic though...

 

affenbrot

[thaddeus]

OK,clarify this for me somebody.I actually took the time to watch this thing,whereas usually the first 30 minutes would have turned me off.And yes,there is a "transpersonal" element beyond the Sears aspect.But as far as I can see,all phenomena are supposed to be the result of "magnetic"attraction,there is no mundane cause & effect,no random chance, & the 6 year old victims of violent paedophiles summoned these things into their lives.Or did their parents,by having a general wariness of sex predators ,summon the event on their behalf?

 

Yes Im using a sledgehammer example here,but I see nothing in this film to contradict it.The Source may be manifesting/allowing everything,but I am a subset of the Source,not its totality,& no matter how much personal power I can cultivate,no matter how potent the influences I can exert,their are other influences independent of me.No reason there to bail on life,but no reason to dismiss tragedy & deny evil.This movie has some dangerous half-truths & a load of confused narcissitic shit surrounding them.

<snip>

Any positive message about our potential for manifestation,& the wisdom of beginning from gratitude is negated by the titanic solipsism of its worldview.

If anybody here really believes this is a worthwhile peice of cinema,I invite them to screen it at a Sexual Assault Clinic !

I wont bother concealing the fact that Im angry right now as I type this,but isnt it time this simplistic crap was seen through.Yes,its uncomfortable to see innocents suffering.Yes,engaging the world is difficult & complex.But NO,we dont have to retreat into this pseudo-spiritual copout!

btw, what does solipsism mean?

anyway, I thought it was a great movie. Didn't LaoTzu say something about hearing the tao and laughing 'cause it can't be that simple?

The 'law of attraction' or whatever one wants to call it is not something to argue about. Just simply look around you. Listen carefully to the movie. Most of us describe what we see about our circumstances, only creating more. If you are so focused on rape and assaults, that's what you see. You need to step outside yourself and see how this is working so clearly in your day to day.

Everyone invariably brings up examples of children and the holocaust whenever these types of ideas come up. C'mon already. If you can't accept that you are creating your reality then you leave yourself up to the randomness of your own mind and the common experience. In that randomness, bad things can happen just as good things can happen. Just as there is yang within yin and vice versa, for all the horrible stories about the holocaust there are also stories of intense bravery, extreme heroism, there are stories of love and survival during those times. For every bad story in the holocaust there is also a good story. Victor Frankl himself wrote about what it took to survive in the concentration camps in 'Man's search for meaning'. Deepak Chopra pointed out that you shouldn't listen to statistics. For example, just because 30% die of something means nothing about you and your circumstance. It's up to you. You are not a statistic. It ain't all bad! Regarding children, that's why we need to protect them.

You can argue how this ain't right all you want. Or you can just simply observe everything around you and see how things are. It's really very simple.

Maybe it's true that we are not afraid of failure, but we are afraid of what we could be--afraid of our true potential.

T

 

BUT, it's revealing a HUGE danger. It makes you believe that you are in control of your life and happiness. Which is complete and utter nonsense. The universe does not manifest what we "need". Not even on a deep, subconsious level. Sometimes I find great help in having studied scientific theory. It has some sober insights. One of those is called the "Just-so" hypothesis. If you got cured from cancer by thinking that you were healthy, and then became healthy, and explained that change with you beinb able to think positively, thant's a "just-so" hypothesis. The only thing it explains is that it's "just so". No causal chains can really be found, because they cannot be predictive towards other similar cases in the future, and they are not EXPLAINING anything. This is unfortunately the case in many new-age and self-help schools. There's a truckload of suckers born every minute.

No disrespect, but can't you see how silly this is? You're just stating YOUR belief and trying to convince others. You and the movie are the same, just opposite ends. I'm absolutely sure your experience of reality is exactly how you state--for you. My experience is different. Should we argue about it?

T

[neimad]

hagar - it's all lies. truth can never be told, it can only ever be alluded to.... it is an experiential thing. i continue to say this, and i hold by it.

 

all this conversation about it, while offering us the oppurtunity to have an insight (experience) of truth, is usually just mental masturbation..... not to say i don't enjoy it, but it's just another petty indulgence of mine. but then again to exist as a human being in this dimension is all indulgence!

 

nevertheless most of what hagar says gives me a lot to reflect upon.

 

anyways i digress.

 

 

when it comes to destiny and creating your own reality, i think there are two possibilities (each having infinite variations) for each individual.

 

1. an individual holds to the pattern given by the earth consciousness. that is he/she fulfilles the role in the bigger picture, having a particular experience that goes upwards to god saying "oh yeah, now i know what that's like".

this is where most people lie, and this is having little to no control over your life. this is also the "destiny/karma" path.

 

2. when an individual begins to apply themself spiritually, the more so they do, the more they lessen the hold of the pattern over them and begin to break free to create their own oppurtunity to exist. this is "the secret" (not that i have watched it yet, but i will). this is to break free of destiny/karma.... to free oneselsf from the webbing that tries to constantly pull us into the pattern is to become enlightened. to truly break free is to be able to perform miracles, life becomes easy.... things happen as you wish because this dimension is just like our dreams/astral dimension. just illusion.

 

 

these are just thoughts. i have yet to have the experience to verify these theories.... so thats all they are, theories.

Edited June 4, 2006 by neimad

[mYTHmAKER]

2. when an individual begins to apply themself spiritually, the more so they do, the more they lessen the hold of the pattern over them and begin to break free to create their own oppurtunity to exist. this is "the secret" (not that i have watched it yet, but i will). this is to break free of destiny/karma.... to free oneselsf from the webbing that tries to constantly pull us into the pattern is to become enlightened. to truly break free is to be able to perform miracles, life becomes easy.... things happen as you wish because this dimension is just like our dreams/astral dimension. just illusion.

these are just thoughts. i have yet to have the experience to verify these theories.... so thats all they are, theories.

Some thoughts

Perhaps as we become in tune with the universe and are able to witness our actions we cease to perform those actions which are harmful to us. We do not engage others as we did before.

However, I don't think things happen as we wish - we become more accepting. We have some control on a personal level.

We see circumstances from another perspective.

Life is not necessarily easier for an enlightened being - we cannot control the larger picture.

We have a body we suffer.

Before enlightenment we have a wild mind we suffer.

We can come to a point where we no longer create hurtful karma.

We must pay for past karma.

Edited June 5, 2006 by mYTHmAKER

[cloud recluse]

btw, what does solipsism mean?

......

The 'law of attraction' or whatever one wants to call it is not something to argue about. Just simply look around you. Listen carefully to the movie. Most of us describe what we see about our circumstances, only creating more. If you are so focused on rape and assaults, that's what you see. You need to step outside yourself and see how this is working so clearly in your day to day.....

You can argue how this ain't right all you want. Or you can just simply observe everything around you and see how things are. It's really very simple.

 

Solipsism is the beleif that the ego creates eveything it perceives.Its basically the formalisation of the egos nartcissistic tendencies into an actual belief system,very popular in the newage crowd.If you like,contrast it with the traditional spiritualities such as Daoism,wherein the ego is actually reducing & distorting reality,& consequently compromising its own creative forces.The culmination of this would be the finite ego coming to believe its the sole determining force.

 

So why should I believe the movie?What makes it any kind of authority? Wheres the proof?

I have spent a few decades now simply observing everything around me,one of the benefits of Sitting meditation.And it is VERY simple.People dont like complexity & want easy answers that appeal to the ego.I have listened to the movie twice now,its mostly misquotes & misunderstood Quantum Mechanics used to repackage an old egoic fantasy.Very weak.

 

One of the gratifying things about the Dao is nothing is obvious to the ego.In assesing the world,we take the egos distorting solipsism into account,we dont give it free reign.What you seem to be advocating here Thad is not stepping outside ones preconceptions. Rather,it is fully indulging them & abandoning the faculty of critical thinking,a faculty that many newagers apparently find too much of a challenge to sustain.I hope your not one of them,I cant really tell from this one post.

 

Now I have NO problem with accepting my potentials,in fact Im rather taken with them,but I have no inclination to reject those faculties of critical thinking that are an integral part of my potential.If Im going to accept the message of this movie,your going to have to give me a pretty good reason for ignoring its distortion of the obvious.I didnt buy "Just Belive" in Sunday School & Im not buying it now.

 

You say the movies message is simply obvious & should just be believed.Actually,it requires that you AVOID the obvious & retreat into a simplified ego-fantasy.To be clear,I dont think the worlds a terrible place & I dont think im powerless.Ive just seen all this shit before & I think its time we grew beyond it.This movie has great appeal to the ego & is well packaged ,but sometimes you have to step outside the egos preferences & look to something deeper.

 

I am however gratified to hear that you read Victor Frankl Now thers something we could REALLY chat about!!!

 

Regards,Cloud.

 

 

 

all this conversation about it, while offering us the oppurtunity to have an insight (experience) of truth, is usually just mental masturbation.....

 

I sincerely hope your not knocking masturbation of ANY variety.A quick flick of the wrist is all that keeps me going

 

Regards,Cloud.

Edited June 5, 2006 by cloud recluse

[neimad]

I sincerely hope your not knocking masturbation of ANY variety.A quick flick of the wrist is all that keeps me going

 

Regards,Cloud.

 

 

not at all.

masturbation is great, IF:

 

- one approaches it within the right context and right attitude

- one is aware of it for what it is, and

- one does not do it to excess.

 

masturbation can be very satisfying if these conditions are met... but it's no substitue for sex (experience)!

however it CAN be extremely good preperation for deepening the level of sex (experience)... if the intention is right.

 

[turbo]

Not to enter the debate, I'm too tired...here are some more books on the subject...this idea has been around for a while

 

oh yeah theyre free

 

http://www.psitek.net/index2.html

[thaddeus]

<snip>

So why should I believe the movie?What makes it any kind of authority? Wheres the proof?

I have spent a few decades now simply observing everything around me,one of the benefits of Sitting meditation.And it is VERY simple.People dont like complexity & want easy answers that appeal to the ego.

<snip>

Regards,Cloud.

And your point about the tao is.....?

Anyway, what do you think is happening in a dream? Are there no parallels to your dream life and your waking life?

T

[hagar]

No disrespect, but can't you see how silly this is? You're just stating YOUR belief and trying to convince others. You and the movie are the same, just opposite ends. I'm absolutely sure your experience of reality is exactly how you state--for you. My experience is different. Should we argue about it?

T

 

T: Am I and the movie the same? Am I trying to convince you ? Answer to the former: NO, Latter; Yes

 

I had a sincere intent to convince you to reconsider things that are overly simplistic, and utter and sheer nonsense. Especially because it inhibits your potential for spiritual growth. This movie is working like a kind of existential anaesthesia; don't focus on the negative aspects of your life, but instead see and believe what you want in life. Well, if this is not anaesthetics in some sense, then I will bow deeply and take everything I said back.

 

Why? If you study some of the truly great spiritual teachers in the west, like Trungpa, Suzuki or others, they basically say the same: There is no way around pain. If that gay guy in the movie embraced all those things that were happening to him instead of affirming positivity he would sooner or later wake up. Actually, all those things that were happening to him were small gems in disguise. They could make him snap out of his entanglement. Instead, he as built himself a pleasing, beautiful prison, and his monkey mind will run his life forever...

 

Spiritual growth is about receiving grace. Grace is actually painful. It hurts you. It's scary, not comfortable. Actually, one of the truly big obstacles in meditation is the clinging to positive sensations, and the body, and the rejection of the opposite. Any sensible meditation master would teach you that.

 

Sometimes the only way to truly realize what this kind of message does to you is just to sit. If you try to maintain and continue the type of affirmations that this movie embraces in a sitting meditation, you would become deranged and crazy, or atleast "attract" a whole lot of trouble for yourself. So my best response to your statement that I am just as bad as the movie would be to test it in meditation. Please do it for a month or two, and tell me how it goes. You may feel great, you may feel that you are having a great time, but sooner or later you will run into trouble. What kind of trouble? Find out yourself. But I know from my own meditation practice that the only time I truly had a breakthrough was when I embraced my pain. Not my happiness.

 

Life, and meditation is about opening. When you understand that enlightened people also suffer, you realize this. The only difference between an enlightened person and an ordinary, neurotic one is that he does't reject anything. An enlightenend person is angry, sad, scared, have accidents, becomes embarrassed, even gets divorced, but he lets all these experiences just pass through him without holding on to them. He is actually in joy, because he is open to all that life is. Not just the good. So while open, he know that everything is change and transformation, and he does not want to have a "better" life. Non-doing is just this. BE open, or as Chuang Tzu said: "Be springtime with everything".

 

The moment you open, things start to hurt. But it's a good hurt, a hurt that connects you to all the fragile, beautiful, ephemeral stuff in life. You should be so open that if a mosquito landed on your raw, open heart you would shiver and cry. That kind of sensitivity is what spiritual cultivation is about. NOT creating your own reality. If reality was that way, if we really created our life in our own image things would look absolutely DISGUSTING. We cannot cultivate our subconsious mind through affirmations. But we can just be. The moment I don't reject anything that happens, but instead know that I will be in pain, feel loss, be worried, have doubts, make mistakes, get sick, have bad days, etc and totally be at peace with that, I am on my way to a kind of joy. Joy is seeing that the ordinary, trivial, every-day life is fresh like a blossoming flower.

 

That's it, enough talking

 

h