Being Different

[dwai]

Creepy Christian yoga link to be sure. Have you read this book? Fascinating expose http://www.amazon.com/Gita-As-Was-Rediscovering-Bhagavadgita/product-reviews/0812690249/ref=cm_cr_dp_all_helpful?ie=UTF8&coliid=&showViewpoints=1&colid=&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending

I havent read the book...but baes on the comments it seems like cockamamie extrapolations and innovations...why do you find it fascinating?

[voidisyinyang]

I havent read the book...but baes on the comments it seems like cockamamie extrapolations and innovations...why do you find it fascinating?

 

Yeah I'd have to reproduce the whole book here which I can't do. haha. Seriously though -- if you want to read it now you know. Hey what about that leftist techno-feminist Indian lady dismissing yoga as a modern invention? What's her name again? I posted a comment on one of her articles published somewhere. She's attacked Vandana Shiva also as being regressive and aligning with the right wing in India....the religious fundamentalists.

 

Ahhh. Do you know who I am talking about? Hey also have you read "Karma Cola" by Gita Mehta. Classic.

 

I'll see if I can find the other lady. Oh yeah Meera Nanda: http://books.google.com/books?id=zKNhDJ0Wv3cC&pg=PA247&lpg=PA247&dq=vandana+shiva+right+wing+hindus&source=bl&ots=MaTCXEHdTY&sig=TxWlH5vjErdTR_54Pb3XtIReUac&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Fev0Tp3ZJsiLgwf_0rmsAg&ved=0CCAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=vandana%20shiva%20right%20wing%20hindus&f=false

 

http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2010/how-%E2%80%9Chindu%E2%80%9D-is-yoga-after-all/

 

How "Hindu" is Yoga after all? is her article. So what's your take on this?

 

Here's someone debunking Meera Nanda line by line. http://www.sandeepweb.com/2011/02/15/meera-nandas-ignorance-revisited/

Edited December 23, 2011 by fulllotus

[dwai]

Yeah I'd have to reproduce the whole book here which I can't do. haha. Seriously though -- if you want to read it now you know. Hey what about that leftist techno-feminist Indian lady dismissing yoga as a modern invention? What's her name again? I posted a comment on one of her articles published somewhere. She's attacked Vandana Shiva also as being regressive and aligning with the right wing in India....the religious fundamentalists.

 

Ahhh. Do you know who I am talking about? Hey also have you read "Karma Cola" by Gita Mehta. Classic.

 

I'll see if I can find the other lady. Oh yeah Meera Nanda: http://books.google.com/books?id=zKNhDJ0Wv3cC&pg=PA247&lpg=PA247&dq=vandana+shiva+right+wing+hindus&source=bl&ots=MaTCXEHdTY&sig=TxWlH5vjErdTR_54Pb3XtIReUac&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Fev0Tp3ZJsiLgwf_0rmsAg&ved=0CCAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=vandana%20shiva%20right%20wing%20hindus&f=false

 

http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2010/how-%E2%80%9Chindu%E2%80%9D-is-yoga-after-all/

 

How "Hindu" is Yoga after all? is her article. So what's your take on this?

 

Here's someone debunking Meera Nanda line by line. http://www.sandeepweb.com/2011/02/15/meera-nandas-ignorance-revisited/

Meera nanda...hahaha

 

I think she is full of shit...and the author of being different has quite masterfully shown how illogical her logic actually is. We had a series of discussions on meera nanda on my website.. Chindu is a militantly communst and anti-india, anti-hindu propaganda machine...

[JustARandomPanda]

Well I'm excited. I just got an email notice that my book order shipped today. So we'll see how long it takes the post office to deliver it to me. I'm still not expecting it until after New Year's Day. Especially when the U.S. Postal Service is pushing to have so many centers shut down to stop the red ink piling up in their accounting books.

 

 

In keeping with the overall theme of this thread.

 

Have yall checked out this site? Criticizing Skepticism

 

Julio Siqueira. He's a Brazillian with a degree in microbiology. He's a critic of the New Atheism. The kind advocated by the likes of Richard Dawkins or Daniel C. Dennett. His entire site eviscerates the claims by Physicalist/Materialist/Militant Skeptics of the likes of the affore-mentioned men and those who run SCICOP (now known as CSI). Basically he holds them to the same standards they criticize as failing in others. And *shows* not just tells - how they themselves fail to live up to the standards they require of everybody else. It is fascinating. Basically Siqueira lets these Materialist-Atheists hang by their own ropes.

 

The same can be said for University of Cambridge Physicist Brian Josephson. Fascinating reading.

 

I've actually come to believe that the diligent efforts of men like Dean Radin and Charles Tart are showing that Psi research is trying like freakin hell to hold itself to a higher gold standard than demanded by even the likes of Physics, MicroBiology or a whole host of disciplines that have lower standards of what passes muster of double-blind, randomized, controlled research.

 

And I lost a huge amount of respect for James Randi once *all* the details of how he ran his Million-Dollar-Psi-Prize offer came out. Randi was playing fast and loose. No peer reviewed journal of any scientific discipline would accept any research study as valid had it followed Randi's rules of judging what stands and what is discounted. In fact...once the whole story got out and circulated on the web he formally retired his offer. It no longer stands. Sunlight is the best disinfectant sometimes to less-than-honest ways at increasing the sum of human knowledge. I was really disappointed to find those things out about Randi because for years I'd seen him as a guiding light.

 

 

Anyway...to get back to the original topic...once I get the book and finish it I might give a summary review in this thread of it. Or at least try. It might not be possible but I'll at least take a shot at it.

[voidisyinyang]

Meera nanda...hahaha

 

I think she is full of shit...and the author of being different has quite masterfully shown how illogical her logic actually is. We had a series of discussions on meera nanda on my website.. Chindu is a militantly communst and anti-india, anti-hindu propaganda machine...

 

Wow this is a very impressive critique of Meera Nanda. http://www.medhajournal.com/philosophy/921-hindu-tradition-modern-science-and-the-intellectually-colonised-mind.html thanks.

[voidisyinyang]

Well I'm excited. I just got an email notice that my book order shipped today. So we'll see how long it takes the post office to deliver it to me. I'm still not expecting it until after New Year's Day. Especially when the U.S. Postal Service is pushing to have so many centers shut down to stop the red ink piling up in their accounting books.

 

 

In keeping with the overall theme of this thread.

 

Have yall checked out this site? Criticizing Skepticism

 

Julio Siqueira. He's a Brazillian with a degree in microbiology. He's a critic of the New Atheism. The kind advocated by the likes of Richard Dawkins or Daniel C. Dennett. His entire site eviscerates the claims by Physicalist/Materialist/Militant Skeptics of the likes of the affore-mentioned men and those who run SCICOP (now known as CSI). Basically he holds them to the same standards they criticize as failing in others. And *shows* not just tells - how they themselves fail to live up to the standards they require of everybody else. It is fascinating. Basically Siqueira lets these Materialist-Atheists hang by their own ropes.

 

The same can be said for University of Cambridge Physicist Brian Josephson. Fascinating reading.

 

I've actually come to believe that the diligent efforts of men like Dean Radin and Charles Tart are showing that Psi research is trying like freakin hell to hold itself to a higher gold standard than demanded by even the likes of Physics, MicroBiology or a whole host of disciplines that have lower standards of what passes muster of double-blind, randomized, controlled research.

 

And I lost a huge amount of respect for James Randi once *all* the details of how he ran his Million-Dollar-Psi-Prize offer came out. Randi was playing fast and loose. No peer reviewed journal of any scientific discipline would accept any research study as valid had it followed Randi's rules of judging what stands and what is discounted. In fact...once the whole story got out and circulated on the web he formally retired his offer. It no longer stands. Sunlight is the best disinfectant sometimes to less-than-honest ways at increasing the sum of human knowledge. I was really disappointed to find those things out about Randi because for years I'd seen him as a guiding light.

 

 

Anyway...to get back to the original topic...once I get the book and finish it I might give a summary review in this thread of it. Or at least try. It might not be possible but I'll at least take a shot at it.

 

 

Sweet. Yeah George P. Hansen, paranormal psychologist, has an excellent expose on the Csicop group and Randi: http://www.tricksterbook.com/ArticlesOnline/CSICOPoverview.htm Brian Josephson emailed me back about my research saying he didn't know enough about music theory. haha.

[dwai]

Wow this is a very impressive critique of Meera Nanda. http://www.medhajournal.com/philosophy/921-hindu-tradition-modern-science-and-the-intellectually-colonised-mind.html thanks.

Interestingly enough, the author of that critique is a highly accomplished physicist at the ucsc

[voidisyinyang]

Interestingly enough, the author of that critique is a highly accomplished physicist at the ucsc

 

I'm gonna read his columns. Thanks. http://medhajournal.com/sections/medha-junior-mainmenu-174/112-gangps-column.html

 

Hey Dwai - that reminds me -- have you read Jeffrey Kripal? I mean Geez. yuck. Oh well back to the good stuff. haha.

Edited December 24, 2011 by fulllotus

[dwai]

I'm gonna read his columns. Thanks. http://medhajournal....gps-column.html

 

Hey Dwai - that reminds me -- have you read Jeffrey Kripal? I mean Geez. yuck. Oh well back to the good stuff. haha.

 

Jeffrey Kripal?!? You're pulling out really stinky, rotten carcasses out of the entrails of Western Indology/Acamedia aren't you?

;P

 

I'd recommend reading http://www.invadingthesacred.com/ (http://www.amazon.co...s/dp/8129111829) for the gory details about authors such as Kripal, Wendy Doniger, Paul Courtright, Sara Caldwell, etc. They are classic specimens of what's wrong with Hinduism studies in the West (and they are or at least were the mount pieces for Indic studies for the most part in the West).

 

Also I'd recommend reading the articles here --

 

http://www.medhajournal.com/medha-gold.html

Edited December 27, 2011 by dwai

[JustARandomPanda]

Well Dwai...

 

I'm reading the book and I must say I like it. I find this guy's arguments well done. In fact I suspect something like what he discusses has long been acknowledged in the West across many disciplines, not just religious ones but economic and political ones as well.

 

Ever heard of anyone making a comment that "so-and-so has gone Native"? Yeah. Just like that. The "Native" guy/gal is the one who tossed over most or all their Culture's unspoken frameworks and lives the new one just fine. So what the author is talking about has kind of been intuited to some degree by people of non-dharma/non-shamanic-societies aplenty. They just don't go into examining it in detail.

 

I do think he has a good exposition on the entire branch of Abrahamaic religions. And it's interesting to see that sort of veneration of "objective truth" in the New Atheism/Agnosticism too.

 

I'm still very early in the book but I like it so far.

 

It's interesting to think how different U.S. society might be now if it'd had its roots be dharmic or shamanic vs Abrahamaic or Philosophy-based.

[JustARandomPanda]

Here's a review on Amazon of exactly the kind of unacknowledged framework of mind that the author of Being Different discusses and the unspoken assumptions of Cultural, Spiritual, Religious and Scientific Superiority to all other ways of relating and understanding things:

 

 

 

Letters to a Buddhist Jew

 

 

 

LETTERS TO A BUDDHIST JEW purports itself to be a dialogue between Rabbi Dr. Akiva Tatz, a noted Judaic scholar, and David Gottlieb, an American Jew practicing Zen Buddhism (Gottlieb now runs a website named "True Ancestor" which is strictly Judaic in content).

 

Tatz's and Gottlieb's opinions, however informed, are, of course, their own, and other Jewish scholars might agree or disagree with them. This reviewer finds more commonalities between spiritual Judaism and Zen than Tatz allows for. Zen practice can be an enlightening adjunct to any religious system. In its accessibility it can take the place of more ritualistic religious observances. In large part, that is the appeal of Zen. Tatz can never admit to this, and Gottlieb seems to lack any such awareness. Tatz does not trouble himself to explore Zen in depth at all, while Gottlieb is little more than his audience of one.

 

Unfortunately for the reader, LETTERS TO A BUDDHIST JEW is barely a dialogue. It is a virtual monologue during which the erudite Dr. Tatz so completely overwhelms David Gottlieb that this reviewer began to wonder if their dialogue was even a real one to begin with and not just an authorial device. The David Gottlieb on these pages is so colorless that it seems like he may not even be real.

 

The religious chauvinism of the authors of LETTERS TO A BUDDHIST JEW is evident from the beginning. David Gottlieb's introduction spans half a page; Dr. Tatz's consumes several. There is a lengthy glossary of Jewish religious and mystical terminology; Zen gets not a word. Gottlieb is described as having undergone a "lay ordination" as a Zen Buddhist in 2002, but this "ordination" is never explained. And if in fact Gottlieb acheived a leadership role in his Zendo, his grasp of Zen philosophy and literature seems shockingly weak.

 

Perhaps this should not be surprising as his grasp of Judaism is just as weak. One of Gottlieb's earliest letters to Tatz spells out a dozen or so basic questions that even a particularly literate Bar Mitzvah boy could answer. Gottlieb seems to know nothing at all about Jewish history, Jewish religious practices, Jewish philosophy or Jewish mysticism, even though he describes himself as a "seeker" and claims to attend a Conservative synagogue regularly. If Gottlieb's ignorance is real, then it is a bitter indictment of the pallid state of mainstream American Judaism. But there is something so contrived about the intellectual befuddlement evident in Gottlieb's letters that this reviewer strongly believes that they were intentionally crafted so as to give Dr. Tatz a ready-made foundation for his numerous theses in this book.

 

Dr. Tatz's discourses in LETTERS TO A BUDDHIST JEW are articulate, reasoned, and brilliantly presented. The depth of his understanding and scholarship of Judaism is truly impressive. For those disaffected with "corporate" Judaism but wishing to return or to remain within the fold, LETTERS TO A BUDDHIST JEW opens surprising new vistas of spirituality and mysticism in the ancestral faith. For those "seeking," Dr. Tatz has written an accessible, detailed, and reassuring introductory guidebook to Torah and Kabbalah. As Rabbi Dr. Tatz observes, many young Jews seek out Eastern religions for their esoterica and exotica, never realizing that Judaism is in its essentials an Asian religion just as is Buddhism. It is difficult not to praise Rabbi Dr. Tatz's achievement here.

 

Over 95% of LETTERS TO A BUDDHIST JEW is comprised of Rabbi Dr. Tatz's responses to David Gottlieb's brief (sometimes one-line) letters. When speaking of anything Judaic in this thick volume, Rabbi Dr. Tatz enters the realm of genius. As a discussion of spiritual Jewish practice, this book is without peer for a general readership.

 

Having said that, it is difficult to praise Rabbi Dr. Tatz's insouciant intellectual particularism. Where Judaism and Buddhism agree, Dr. Tatz takes extraordinary pains to explore the depth of Jewish knowledge while damning Buddhism (and other faiths) with faint praise. Where they disagree, Dr. Tatz is almost venial in his criticisms of Zen Buddhism. He repeatedly falls into the unfortunate but very common habit of comparisons: Abraham, "our enlightened one," lived long before Buddha; by the time Buddha was born, Jews had already had their prophetic age; Jews have contributed immeasurably to Western civilization; and so on, as if such seniority in time indicates superiority in substance.

 

Rabbi Dr. Tatz's self-righteous certitude that anything Buddhism can offer Judaism can offer more and better is the bigotry of that worst exemplar of our species, the True Believer. Certainly, a faith that has given rise to the elegance and complex simplicity of Ichiban, Bonsai, Haiku, and Chanoyu (Japanese flower arranging, horticulture, poetry, and the tea ceremony) not to mention a spare, direct, and immediate view of human existence, is worth more than just a specious examination. Rabbi Dr. Tatz needed to treat the subject of Zen with all due consideration, not just limit his inquiry to superficial divergences of ritual practice. For those interested, THE JEW IN THE LOTUS by Rodger Kamenetz addresses the specific "Jewish Buddhist" experience in a more openminded way.

 

Gottlieb is of no use here. He hardly mentions any great Zen masters or their writings by name, he seems to have no intellectual ability to draw parallels between the two streams of thought (there are a great many), and since he knows nothing of Jewish mysticism he can find nothing complementary in Buddhist mysticism. He does ask at one point if Dr. Tatz had read any of the Zen books he'd provided, but suspiciously, the names of the books and their authors are never mentioned, as if to put off any specifically non-Jewish intellectual curiosity in the reader. Likewise, a rather embarrassing (probably invented) dialogue between the leader of Gottlieb's Zendo and Gottlieb's wife makes it into the book, apparently in whole. Gottlieb's wife goes on a rant about "idolatry" while Gottlieb quietly stands there, utterly emasculated. Although the scene calls for ethical outrage, Tatz says nothing about this truly offensive display of ignorance toward another faith. This reviewer had to wonder how, if Gottlieb was an "ordained" Zen practitioner, he had failed to explain any of the practice to his spouse or found his own answer to the question of Zen "idolatry." Gottlieb seems less like a Zen practitioner than a man interested in attending meditation classes at the YMHA. This is not an impressive moment in LETTERS TO A BUDDHIST JEW.

 

In the same vein, Rabbi Dr. Tatz spends a good bit of time knocking over idols, at least Buddhist ones, but rationalizes similar Jewish practices. Bowing toward a Buddhist altar smacks of blasphemy while bowing toward the Torah ark does not. Displaying photographs of Hasidic leaders is "inspirational" while the showing of Bodhisattva icons is "idol worship." And Tatz never addresses the exact congruence between the numerous Hasidic practice lineages that are descended from various Tzaddiks (wise men), and the Zen Sanghas (communities) descended in lineages from various Roshis (wise men).

 

Tatz's Judaism is based on the "Word," and he talks volubly. Zen relies on zazen and shikantaza, forms of silent meditation. Gottlieb barely speaks, but only because he seems to have nothing to say. There is certainly nothing wrong in presenting and making attractive the huge, largely unknown corpus of Jewish mystical thought, but it is a shame that Tatz and Gottlieb made such an obviously conscious decision to turn this book into a minor tractate of religious propaganda. The apparent insecurity behind their decision will in itself be offputting to the intellectually curious reader. Their dishonesty is all the more hideous because LETTERS TO A BUDDHIST JEW is otherwise a book of immense value and quality with much to recommend it. It stands on its own merits.

 

Tatz and Gottlieb certainly didn't need to stoop to a disappointing parochialism to present their ideas. Notwithstanding the "give-and-take" format of the book, Tatz and Gottlieb are actually speaking from the same position and they should have just said so from the outset. Their decision to present Gottlieb as a confirmed Zen practitioner wending his way back to Judaism is simpleminded and becomes more and more transparent as the book progresses. Clearly, one of the major purposes of LETTERS TO A BUDDHIST JEW is to present a presumptively indifferently disposed Jewish reader with an attractive alternative to any non-Jewish spiritual practice. Despite Gottlieb's presence, the "Buddhist Jew" of this book is a constructed human being who could have been of any other faith or none.

 

Titled to attract a certain body of readers, LETTERS TO A BUDDHIST JEW has essentially nothing to do with Buddhism. It would have been far better to have made this book a true attempt at dialogue or at least a frank examination of the two streams of practice. Perhaps Tatz needs to sit over tea sometime with Bernie Tetsugen Glassman-Roshi.

 

Additional comments by the above writer:

 

As my review shows, I was disappointed in this book, primarily because of its intellectual dishonesty. While Rabbi Dr. Tatz and David Gottlieb do a WONDERFUL job of bringing to the fore the mystical and spiritual foundations of Judaism, they are very unkind to Zen, which neither of them takes the time to examine, explain or investigate. "Zen" qua Zen is as unimportant to this book as having an accordian in outer space. Buddhism merely serves as a jumping-off point for their polemics.

 

Shortly after writing the review, I was contacted by David Gottlieb and Rabbi Dr. Tatz, who engaged me in a brief but spirited dialogue. They both asserted that LETTERS TO A BUDDHIST JEW was NOT meant to be a dialogue between Judaism and Zen, and seemed surprised that I thought it was. However, they did say that other readers had made the same 'mistake,' which makes me believe that the book was intentionally presented in a way so as to draw in "Buddhist Jews" and sell them on mystical Judaism and away from esoteric Eastern religious groups.

 

A far better book about Torah and Zen is JEWISH DHARMA by Dr. Brenda Shoshanna. Unlike Dr. Tatz, who is a Baal Teshuvah and came later to his Orthodoxy, Dr. Shoshanna was raised in an Hasidic environment and found in Zen practice the exact type of congruencies that permeate both streams of thought. Unlike Dr. Tatz, Dr. Shoshanna does not find it necessary to deride Zen (or in the process of such derision, diminish Torah) in order to demonstrate the value of Judaism.

 

Zen is NOT particularly esoteric, it is essentially a practice that seeks out the marvelous in the mundane, and so it has much more in common with Judaism than Tatz and Gottlieb want to acknowledge.

 

In a fit of pique, Gottlieb posted carefully edited 'selections' from my review on his website, making it seem that I was making a vindictive personal attack against them both. Although Gottlieb described this as "a bit of fun" on his site, it was not at all amusing. I received hate mails from several self-righteous religious bigots, and was called an anti-Semite, among other things, a comment I take great umbrage at as a Jew born and raised and the child of Holocaust survivors. Gottlieb's maliciousness was manifest in his cherry-picking of half-phrases out of the review, and I regret that he and I are brethren in any degree both as Jews and as Zen practitioners. I'd prefer less benighted companionship on the Way.

 

and

 

Thank you for such a sober review. This book was recommended to me from person who knows that I have deep investment in Jesus, though as a Jew, as a vehicle to the divine. I have read another book by Tatz-- WorldMask-- and did find him to be a clear thinker; yet I recall that he could be inconsistent if it served his purpose. I am interested in reading any reviews or recommendations from this reviewer regarding Jesus, especially given my position as being considered heretical to have engaged the God-infused man.

 

and

 

I agree wholeheartedly with Minde's review. These were the wrong two people for this dialogue - unless, as Minde suggests, there was an agenda on the part of the author or publisher to steer Jews away from alternate traditions (which may be the case, given that it was published by an Orthodox company, rather than by a mainstream publisher).

 

I was troubled as well by the sections involving Gottlieb's wife, although I'm not willing to dismiss them as fabrications. Her dismissal of Buddhism as idolatry, her assertion that his practice of Zen is "a knife in my heart" (as I recall) - this is her attitude toward Zen, the least iconic form of Buddhism! I thought at the time, "She's lucky it wasn't Tibetan Buddhism; she'd have a meltdown!"

 

And, I agree - as a theologically conservative Orthodox rabbi, probably qualifying as "ultra-Orthodox", Tatz is simply in no position to be able to understand or appreciate other faith traditions. And Gottlieb is in no position to represent Buddhism, in all of its many and varied facets. As an introduction to Jewish theology from a strictly Orthodox perspective, it's valuable. As meaningful dialogue or debate between the traditions - not so much.

[dwai]

Well Dwai...

 

I'm reading the book and I must say I like it. I find this guy's arguments well done. In fact I suspect something like what he discusses has long been acknowledged in the West across many disciplines, not just religious ones but economic and political ones as well.

 

Ever heard of anyone making a comment that "so-and-so has gone Native"? Yeah. Just like that. The "Native" guy/gal is the one who tossed over most or all their Culture's unspoken frameworks and lives the new one just fine. So what the author is talking about has kind of been intuited to some degree by people of non-dharma/non-shamanic-societies aplenty. They just don't go into examining it in detail.

 

I do think he has a good exposition on the entire branch of Abrahamaic religions. And it's interesting to see that sort of veneration of "objective truth" in the New Atheism/Agnosticism too.

 

I'm still very early in the book but I like it so far.

 

It's interesting to think how different U.S. society might be now if it'd had its roots be dharmic or shamanic vs Abrahamaic or Philosophy-based.

 

Glad you are enjoying the material. I have too...

I have interacted with the author on a personal basis in the past and he is a brilliant thinker. What is revolutionary about ths book (and a series forthcoming) is the reversal of gaze. I had often dreamt of having a framework wherein anthropology can be turned upside down...which this book provides. I know there are initiatives underwy to try and provide this famework to other eastern nations to let them ses themselves outside the colonial/colonized caricature they have come to internalize.

[Jetsun]

 

It's interesting to think how different U.S. society might be now if it'd had its roots be dharmic or shamanic vs Abrahamaic or Philosophy-based.

 

Probably half as rich and powerful but as long as you weren't dominated by a foreign power you would probably be a lot happier and more balanced.

[dwai]

Probably half as rich and powerful but as long as you weren't dominated by a foreign power you would probably be a lot happier and more balanced.

Actually history proves that wrong. India for example was one of richest nations in the world (perhapd the most) before getting infected by foreign rulers. Its a little anachronistic but that can be extrapolated. There was no poverty then like the poor-porn films show these days...people were more or less contented. There were mutiple political systems in place then...democracy at the village level, monarchy at the state level...

 

In fact the only recorded famines in indian history happened as a direct result of british interference in India...long story...millions starved to death.

[3bob]

Actually history proves that wrong. India for example was one of richest nations in the world (perhapd the most) before getting infected by foreign rulers. Its a little anachronistic but that can be extrapolated. There was no poverty then like the poor-porn films show these days...people were more or less contented. There were mutiple political systems in place then...democracy at the village level, monarchy at the state level...

 

In fact the only recorded famines in indian history happened as a direct result of british interference in India...long story...millions starved to death.

 

And where was God, Gods, Devas, Satguru, Swamis, Hindu kings and their multi-millions of devotees at when this "happened" in India? Long story short, the names change but it's more or less the same throughout human history. I'm pretty sure you won't like such a nutshell but its been constantly repeated for most of mankinds recorded history regardless of names or places.

[dwai]

And where was God, Gods, Devas, Satguru, Swamis, Hindu kings and their multi-millions of devotees at when this "happened" in India? Long story short, the names change but it's more or less the same throughout human history. I'm pretty sure you won't like such a nutshell but its been constantly repeated for most of mankinds recorded history regardless of names or places.

You assume of course that there needed to have been an intervention. Where were all the same for the west during the world wars?

No, the Gods wont intervene...they leave us to our own device...we ave to make the right choices

[3bob]

You assume of course that there needed to have been an intervention. Where were all the same for the west during the world wars?

No, the Gods wont intervene...they leave us to our own device...we ave to make the right choices

 

I don't exactly assume that, for on the other hand is the story of Lord Shiva and how he came to have a bluish throat from eating poison just a myth?

[Jetsun]

Actually history proves that wrong. India for example was one of richest nations in the world (perhapd the most) before getting infected by foreign rulers. Its a little anachronistic but that can be extrapolated. There was no poverty then like the poor-porn films show these days...people were more or less contented. There were mutiple political systems in place then...democracy at the village level, monarchy at the state level...

 

In fact the only recorded famines in indian history happened as a direct result of british interference in India...long story...millions starved to death.

 

Well you can't deny the fact that the Western powers came to dominate most of the world in terms of trade and military, the reasons why are contented but many historians say one of the reasons why the Industrial revolution took off in the West rather than a Buddhist or Shamanic culture was because of the influence of Christianity mainly the ideology of Protestantism type beliefs. The reasons being that some of the main ideas of that faith are that you only have one life and if you work really hard your whole life you willl be rewarded in heaven afterwards, which created an anxiety driven drive forward, then compare that to an Eastern ideology where you have many lives under the constricting laws of karma without the fear of eternal hell and it can help to explain some of how the world turned out like it did.

[JustARandomPanda]

then compare that to an Eastern ideology where you have many lives under the constricting laws of karma without the fear of eternal hell and it can help to explain some of how the world turned out like it did.

 

Hmm...

 

Can't speak for Hinduism but as far as Buddhism goes it most definitely teaches there are Hell Realms. And from what I gather not just the one Hell of Christianity but tons of them. Now granted - they don't teach one is stuck in these realms for all of eternity but they do mention sentient beings being stuck there for multiple Eons so vast in time (I count one Eon as one cycle of Big Bang/Big Crunch) that they sure will seem like eternity to the beings stuck there.

 

 

Hence the need for Great Beings like Earth Treasury Bodhisattva

 

 

"Until the Hells are empty, I vow not to become a Buddha. Only after all living beings are saved, will I myself attain Bodhi." - Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva

[Jetsun]

Hmm...

 

Can't speak for Hinduism but as far as Buddhism goes it most definitely teaches there are Hell Realms. And from what I gather not just the one Hell of Christianity but tons of them. Now granted - they don't teach one is stuck in these realms for all of eternity but they do mention sentient beings being stuck there for multiple Eons so vast in time (I count one Eon as one cycle of Big Bang/Big Crunch) that they sure will seem like eternity to the beings stuck there.

 

 

Hence the need for Great Beings like Earth Treasury Bodhisattva

 

 

"Until the Hells are empty, I vow not to become a Buddha. Only after all living beings are saved, will I myself attain Bodhi." - Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva

 

Yeah but I wouldn't say Buddhists lived under so much fear about the day of judgement, that's not my impression anyway, you can get yourself out of the Buddhist hell while in the more Protestant forms of Christianity they don't even have confession or absolution of sins as such so your life turns into a permant stress where your always being judged by a higher power every minute of the day, which is probably why alcohol was so popular to try find some escape.

[dwai]

Well you can't deny the fact that the Western powers came to dominate most of the world in terms of trade and military, the reasons why are contented but many historians say one of the reasons why the Industrial revolution took off in the West rather than a Buddhist or Shamanic culture was because of the influence of Christianity mainly the ideology of Protestantism type beliefs. The reasons being that some of the main ideas of that faith are that you only have one life and if you work really hard your whole life you willl be rewarded in heaven afterwards, which created an anxiety driven drive forward, then compare that to an Eastern ideology where you have many lives under the constricting laws of karma without the fear of eternal hell and it can help to explain some of how the world turned out like it did.

Read the book, it answers these issues quiet succinctly. Indeed western powers came to dominate the world. You know how? By parasitically looting India first. India was the unwilling bank that funded western imperialism!

 

And do you know how they came to control india? Not by military power (that came later), they used deception and insitigated infighting among the various kingdoms, provisioned by a multinational...known as the east india company.

Edited February 20, 2012 by dwai

[Ulises]

Yes, you might want to read/listen Jorge Ferrer:

http://integral-options.blogspot.com/2011/05/jorge-ferrer-phd-transpersonal.html

 

Now: where to put Ramakrishna...? Kabir...? Were they "Abrahamic","Dharmic", both...?

How to classify the growing numbers of mystics that practice a "garland of sadhanas" (Lex Hixon's term): f. e. Vajrayana/Mystical Christianity/Shamanism...are they "Abrahamic", "Dharmic"..both...?

 

Just open questions to ponder us all... ; )

Edited February 20, 2012 by Ulises

[Ulises]

Loka 2

A Journal From Naropa Institute

Edited by Rick Fields

 

NONDUAL POLYTHEISTIC PLURALISM

 

By Lex Hixon

 

 

 

 

 

The deity Manjusri appeared in dreamvision to the great Buddhist teacher Atisa, revealing to him that the school of prasangika madhyamika contained the fullest expression of truth. This is a good example of the peculiar functioning of tantric, or nondual, theism: the deity appears and reveals a truth in which all concept of deity is undercut. Due in some measure to the vigor of Atisa (and the grace of Manjusri), the prasangika madhyamika became the universal basis of Tibetan Buddhism. One could translate prasangika as "avoidance" - the avoidance of assertion through the discovery of the void or non-binding nature of any particular assertion. Leaving aside the fact that followers of the prasangika madhyamika often become strangely assertive, the prasangika approach provides a void basis for the free pluralism of tantric theistic practice. When there can be no binding system of assertions, there is no limit to the number and nature of revelatory deities which can flourish in emptiness without holding rival ontological claims; the function of these deities, which are nonentities, is to reveal the unbound, free-form nature of all form, to reveal truth. The vajrayana, or "way of tantra," is theistic and pluralistic. Theism and pluralism are the two issues we want to discuss briefly.

 

Among the forms of theism, tantric theism is indeed somewhat unconventional because it springs out of the nondual insight which clearly recognizes no differences in essence between worshipper and worshipped. But it is not merely a provisional theism, cleverly designed to destroy itself, because the deities do not become obsolete to enlightened practitioners. Atisa did not consider Manjusri simply as his own mind revealing to him the truth of prasangika madhyamika. Manjusri is undoubtedly buddha-mind, but so is the Crab Nebula, and as no astronomer considers this giant cluster of stars a fiction or projection of his own mind, in the same sense, no tantric practitioner considers his chosen deity a fiction or projection of his own mind. Actually, it is the deities who project us, rather than we who project the deities.

 

Also, the tantric practitioner does not seek to merge with the deity in a monistic sense. There is a proud exhilaration of nonduality of essence between practitioner and deity, but the reverential relationship with the deity is maintained and deepened. The deity is not a cardboard container for the nectar of nondual insight or bliss-void, to be thrown away after the nectar is consumed. The deity is a permanent expression of insight, emptiness, and bliss. Actually, it is the practitioner who is a cardboard container, whose body and mind are eventually thrown away in death. The tantric experience of theistic relationship in the minds of nonduality is perhaps best expressed by the symbol of sexual union. The playful twoness is an essential expression of the nondual bliss. But the image of biological human sexuality is not entirely apt because it brings together two elements, the male and the female, into ecstatic union, whereas the Great Bliss of tantra is not a joining together but the discovery of an innate, natural nonduality which playfully projects from itself the elements of male and female, worshipper and worshipped. The play does not create the nonduality; the nonduality generates the play. Theism is the play between worshipper and worshipped, seeker and sought; many spiritual traditions accept the imagery of lover and beloved - though often not in the overtly sexual mode - as the most accurate description of the play. For advanced practitioners, this play deepens and intensifies. What becomes realized cannot be put into words. To state it as a philosophical doctrine of nondualism, qualified nondualism, or dualism, and then to argue about it, is somewhat beside the point. We can only say that intimacy intensifies to the point of identity, steps back to enjoy itself, and then reintensifies in a kind of endless sexual rhythm. This structure and rhythm can be discerned even in such an overtly nontheistic atmosphere as zen koan practice. The zen master Hakuin had five ecstatic great enlightenment experiences in this loveplay with the truth. Even in the absence of a formal deity, the ecstatic spiritual play which is theism manifests itself, not abstractly through concepts, but concretely as divine-human energies. The guru, lama, roshi or tzaddik often takes the place of a transcendent deity-form as the beloved. All worshippers or seekers (those of Dionysus, Christ, Kali, Allah, Bodhi, Brahman, Tao, Torah and on and on) are channels for the theistic playfulness of the truth, which is itself void of structure, yet full of energy.

 

This brings us to the issue of tantric pluralism. Countless sadhanas or formal worship of deities are recorded side by side in the Buddhist sadhanamala, or "garland of sadhanas." There is no sense that the practice of one deity is fundamentally superior or contradictory to that of another, yet at the same time, there is a fierce mood of total dedication of one's energy to the particular sadhana in which one is engaged. The fullness and accuracy of practice is considered a life-and-death matter; partial and casual experimentation with several sadhanas, serially or simultaneously, would be unthinkable for the serious tantric practitioner. Thus tantric pluralism is very far from the uninformed, unprepared for, uncommitted, and therefore irresponsible experimentation with various spiritual practices which are coming into fashion in the West today as a kind of cross-cultural theater of religious liberalism. But distortions of the pluralistic approach should not blind us to its essential truth. Tantric pluralism is based on the prasangika madhyamika: if no formulation of the Real is accepted as accurate (simply because of its very nature as formula), then countless formulations can be freely allowed to exist side by side as vehicles for the awakening to the Real. One does not awaken to the non-formulatability of the Real by simply and abstractly contemplating the assertion of its non-formulatability (which is itself nothing but another formulation). One realizes nonformulatability concretely by penetrating deeper and deeper into one or more particular formulations, by living them with total intensity. Why not regard all the authentic spiritual traditions of the planet as a sadhanamala, a gigantic garland of sadhanas? Each of these sadhanas, when undertaken with total dedication and thorough preparation, leads to an overtly or covertly nondual intimacy with a particular mode of playfulness, energy-current, or deity-form of reality itself, if one has the courage and strength to pursue the sadhana to its root or to surrender to it with complete abandon, rather than adopting the practice in a mild, conventional manner.

 

Sadhanas are like children. One can have several children, fully loving and nurturing each one; in fact, an only-child does not always prosper psychologically. But here we must point out a common error in the understanding of spiritual pluralism. Religious traditions do not "say the same thing in different languages." They each say something unique. Nor do the spiritual exercises of the various traditions "lead to the same ultimate experience." Enlightened persons from different streams of spiritual practice do not readily agree on the nature of realization. Each enlightenment is a unique flowering of truth. Pluralism goes right down to the root; it is radical pluralism. All spiritual practices are independent currents or tides in one planetary ocean. The Gulf Stream is not equivalent to or interchangeable with some current in the Indian Ocean or some tide along the coast of Japan.

 

Because of the tremendous development of planetary communications, radical spiritual pluralism is emerging now for the first time in the history of human civilizations as a concrete cultural possibility. But if it emerges simply on the cultural plane, it becomes merely a form of diplomacy or theater, not a transforming realization of nonduality. Pluralism must discover its own spiritual authenticity, and this authenticitv is available through the prasangika madhyarru:ka and the practice of tantra (but not exclusivelv there; the potentiality for it exists in each spiritual current). The fact that Indian culture has provided useful initial modes for spiritual pluralism can be seen as a confirmation of the potency of tantric pluralism, because, as Trungpa Rinpoche and other tantric practitioners and scholars have observed, there is little spiritual practice on the Indian subcontinent which has not been subtly imbued with tantric influences. On the Indian subcontinent religious paths are indeed regarded as a sadhanamala, although bitter quarreling among adherents of the various sects is also prevalent. We have to carry this attitude of the garland of sadhanas further and develop it more consciously, dissolving the idea that Christianity and Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism are solid, mutually exclusive entities; religions are not solid entities, any more than cultures or nations are. When the nondual insight into emptiness has revealed the void, non-obstructing nature of all categories, then various cultural, philosophical, and religious forms can stay in play, now transparent and therefore free from mutual antagonism.

 

The countless deity-forms are not to be discarded after they are discovered to be innately transparent to the formless truth. A harmonious polycultural world-view can be created with these transparent forms - a polytheism which is nondual. This is the vajra path as it manifests in the planetary age, moving in new cultural directions with the same nondual insight and with the same deities, such as the marvelous Mahakala-Mahakali, who appear revealing a truth in which various spiritual traditions flourish even as the very concept of separate traditions is undercut.

 

 

Loka 2

A Journal From Naropa Institute

Edited by Rick Fields

 

Published by Anchor/Doubleday 1976

 

ISBN:0-365-12046-x

 

http://www.lexhixon.org/simplesite/simplefrm.html

[Informer]

Being different is still being something other than you are. "Just Be" - Tiësto

 

 

"Lyrics to Just Be :

http://www.lyricsmania.com/just_be_lyrics_dj_tiesto.html

 

You can travel the world but you can't run away

from the person you are in your heart

you can be who you want to be

make us believe in you

keep all your light in the dark

if your searching for truth

you must look in the mirror

and make sense of what you can see

 

just be

just be

 

they say learning to love yourself

is the first step

that you take when you want to be real

and flying on planes to exotic locations

won't teach you how you really feel

face up to the fact that you are who you are

and nothing can change that belief

 

just be

just be

 

cause now i know it's not so far to where i go

the hardest part

is inside me

i need to just be

 

i was lost and i'm still lost but i feel so much better"

Edited February 20, 2012 by Informer

[JustARandomPanda]

Being different is still being something other than you are. "Just Be" - Tiësto

 

 

 

 

The above sentiment and lyrics have nothing to do with the topic / discussions of the book.