The New Age - what helps, what works, what harms, what doesn't work

[RongzomFan]

To take a Jain or Buddhist term....the community is divided into Monks, Nuns and the Layperson. Laypersons are thirsty to connect but at the same not enough to take any serious step, they are not ready for the intensity of the Path.

 

Rechungpa, Dudjom Rinpoche, Milarepa, the Mahasiddhas, most lamas are laypersons.

 

Shit, this is how the tulku system works for the most part i.e. children of famous lamas. Only laypersons can have children.

 

By the way, many lamas start out as monks and give back their monkhood.

Edited February 12, 2013 by alwayson

[Seeker of Wisdom]

I was just re-mulling this last post Mokona and I was wondering 'Why not?' What is is about people, what is it about cultivation methods that requires 'Time' and repetition? What about those guys who get enlightened when walking in the park?

 

I have an idea that Buddhism would have a frame/explanation for why.

Two points:

 

Firstly, experiences along the way are often mistaken for enlightenment. A very minor level of clarity can seem like enlightenment when compared with the obscured and restless minds of many.

 

The jhana of infinite consciousness in particular is tricky, because it's so pure and great that many who reach it decide that pure awareness is the Self, and that they are enlightened. When (IMHO) pure awareness/subject and object are two empty principles, meaningful only as they relate to each other, and the real Self is the 'suchness' below subject and object.

 

So we need to be very careful evaluating our own or other's progress, especially as regards enlightenment.

 

 

Secondly, I doubt it's possible to jump from normal to enlightened just from walking in a park. In cases where it seems like this, it was probably not enlightenment (i.e. the above). Whether it was full enlightenment or just an experience, it would be due to the effect of previous practices bursting in a sudden insight.

 

What we forget when hearing stories about a Zen master saying or doing something and the student suddenly getting it, is that it wouldn't have worked had the student not been a serious meditator for years and years. A whack with an oar is just what the guy from the story of the Boat Monk needed at that time and place... go around trying it and you'll just get sued!

 

 

There are no shortcuts.

Edited February 12, 2013 by Seeker of the Self

[GrandmasterP]

http://www.holybooks.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Open-Secret-by-Tony-Parson.pdf

Never say never.

Here's a guy reckons that just walking in the park gets the job jobbed.

[Seeker of Wisdom]

GP, if that guy is enlightened as he said that as a child he had a sense of oneness outside time; whatever he's achieved is therefore down to previous lives of cultivation.

 

It's easy for someone born like that, not remembering their past lives, to conclude that enlightenment is just dropping intellectualism. In a way it is, but removing eons-old hindrances takes practices, sadly.

 

If enlightenment is so easy, where are the hordes of masters?

Edited February 12, 2013 by Seeker of the Self

[GrandmasterP]

Eh, than we have the majority like you, who prefers that everyone conforms to the dubious "all paths lead to the ONE/equally lead to GOD;" that 'Hindu's' have been pushing and the New Age folks have taken up.

.....

Lost me there Jack.

Not sure I've ever encouraged conformity.

If it seems that way I repudiate it right now.

 

If it harms no one, do whatever floats your boat.

 

HTH

[Spotless]

When I was younger (I'm 58) bookstores that had the type of information one seeks towards enlightenment were only found in small stores. They were openly advertised as "Occult Bookstore". Yoga was exotic and generally unknown and acid, peyote and grass were often the starting points for the "serious".

 

We watched the Beatles with gurus and flocks of us flew to India and elswhere.

 

Today, the wonderful and still blossoming new age is upon us - and just as we find in all ages - it is very well dusted with all sorts of people flat on their faces stuck in some rythym with no rhyme.

 

We are in a new paradigm - we are releasing our dying religions - we have moved to a higher vibration.

 

This angnst regarding crystals or mediumship - lizards and granola - (put your nose over a cup of coffe and breath it in - then pull you head out of your assumptions).

 

What puffery!

 

We always have and will always have those moving up the ladder that have as yet to reach what we consider to be our more breathtaking view of life (and our more breathtaking levels of en-jailment). We watch someone headlong dive into mediumship - initially relatively sound of mind and body - but soon they are dismembered by the experience. We see someone take diet and crystals into the extreme and with shock we lump it into the notion of a whacky "new age" thing. What egotistical slop - getting stuck is nothing new.

 

Go to India - it is a shopping market for those that have taken a spritual dive off the deep end - and - it is also an amazing world of great teaching and great teachers. In the United States in particular take a look at what is happening within the more popular old time religions - it is much harder to find the sane among them than those waltzing into walls - they are actually experiencing a re-embrace of ignorance - it is shocking.

 

But what is it in you that must laugh and mock at those of us that loose our way in the fog - the fog is by nature blinding and befuddeling. Some part in us seeks a way, a light, a beep for direction.

 

Don't try to shower off the New Age - shower off instead your ego - the invenstment you have in your story - the one where you are "on the path" and "know" something.

 

Once when I was a child I knew that I would die if I did not get a certain toy.

Once when I was a youth I knew that everyone noticed the zit on my nose.

Once I knew that my parents didn't have a clue and all my teachers were idiots.

 

Think you know all about auras - meditation - the path?

If you do - I am at your feet - and I hope you are willing to help me - my face has been stuck on this pavement way too long.

[Mokona]

I was just re-mulling this last post Mokona and I was wondering 'Why not?' What is is about people, what is it about cultivation methods that requires 'Time' and repetition? What about those guys who get enlightened when walking in the park? I have an idea that Buddhism would have a frame/explanation for why.

I suppose it depends on the persons belief system. Self confidence or lack of really changes what a person can accomplish, or what organs are pumping need hormones through the body to make this stuff work.

 

Old Green posted that the legs can't be added into the MCO until after three years. A man believed this enough to publish it as truth. My buddy Matt did it in under a year. Though in KAP that isn't a milestone, really.

 

In fact Matt and I are hanging out this Fri. We are going to tear up Tampa! ;-D

[RongzomFan]

Old Green posted that the legs can't be added into the MCO until after three years.

 

You gotta work on the legs:

 

[Mokona]

I prefer a bit of self massage and stretching. Then breath work is enough.

[RongzomFan]

So we need to be very careful evaluating our own or other's progress, especially as regards enlightenment.

 

What many people consider enlightenment, recognizing unfabricated freshness, is only step one in Vajrayana.

[Birch]

When I was younger (I'm 58) bookstores that had the type of information one seeks towards enlightenment were only found in small stores. They were openly advertised as "Occult Bookstore". Yoga was exotic and generally unknown and acid, peyote and grass were often the starting points for the "serious".

 

We watched the Beatles with gurus and flocks of us flew to India and elswhere.

 

Today, the wonderful and still blossoming new age is upon us - and just as we find in all ages - it is very well dusted with all sorts of people flat on their faces stuck in some rythym with no rhyme.

 

We are in a new paradigm - we are releasing our dying religions - we have moved to a higher vibration.

 

This angnst regarding crystals or mediumship - lizards and granola - (put your nose over a cup of coffe and breath it in - then pull you head out of your assumptions).

 

What puffery!

 

We always have and will always have those moving up the ladder that have as yet to reach what we consider to be our more breathtaking view of life (and our more breathtaking levels of en-jailment). We watch someone headlong dive into mediumship - initially relatively sound of mind and body - but soon they are dismembered by the experience. We see someone take diet and crystals into the extreme and with shock we lump it into the notion of a whacky "new age" thing. What egotistical slop - getting stuck is nothing new.

 

Go to India - it is a shopping market for those that have taken a spritual dive off the deep end - and - it is also an amazing world of great teaching and great teachers. In the United States in particular take a look at what is happening within the more popular old time religions - it is much harder to find the sane among them than those waltzing into walls - they are actually experiencing a re-embrace of ignorance - it is shocking.

 

But what is it in you that must laugh and mock at those of us that loose our way in the fog - the fog is by nature blinding and befuddeling. Some part in us seeks a way, a light, a beep for direction.

 

Don't try to shower off the New Age - shower off instead your ego - the invenstment you have in your story - the one where you are "on the path" and "know" something.

 

Once when I was a child I knew that I would die if I did not get a certain toy.

Once when I was a youth I knew that everyone noticed the zit on my nose.

Once I knew that my parents didn't have a clue and all my teachers were idiots.

 

Think you know all about auras - meditation - the path?

If you do - I am at your feet - and I hope you are willing to help me - my face has been stuck on this pavement way too long.

Some days yes, I get sense that there is change towards 'better days' in progress but I think my sources are biased because of my interests and the circles I'm in. Other days it seems like the civilization I live in is going to the dogs and by extension that all of humanity has finally lost all of its marbles. Neither of these things mean anything - except maybe I'm getting older and people have been saying the same thing for centuries. I'm not at any level to evaluate the overall level of vibration of 'our world' (if there is one) but I can spot an offended poster, I think. Not my intent to offend and I'm sorry if I have.

 

 

I put my main 'subjective' and personal objections to 'New Age' on this thread (must be a couple of pages back) but so far there haven't really been any responses to those, more of a sharing of what other people like and dislike, and a few more suggestions of what might be New Age (experimentation) and some classic 'aliens, dolphins and crystals' Which is perhaps an interesting place to start looking again. I dunno.

 

Your experience sounds very interesting, I hope you'll share more of it.

[Spotless]

To K:

 

Please understand no offense was taken - certainly not by any single posting of anyone here in this forum.

 

My roughness was set as a relatively firm fixture within a current of what I percieve to be fairly whimsical assumptions about the New Age and New Agers. We are in the very midsts of a renaissance and can't see the forests through the trees.

We have traveled eons and yet we harp on sentimental illusions with all the puffery of a rabit racing a tortise.

 

So much is being leveled upon those that go off on some wild hair - but nothing is new about this - those that are off in the weeds are not the New Age, they are just off in the weeds for a time - perhaps a life or two.

 

The surface of the water is busy with oil spots and scum, floating plastic and strangeness - but access to the deep has never been so accessible!

Edited February 13, 2013 by Spotless

[skydog]

Working on beliefs/memories can be a part of wuwei too, but ambition coming from overdesiring to "become somebody" can be coming from a place of feeling disharmonious inside right now

Edited February 13, 2013 by sinansencer

[Thunder_Gooch]

"How long has your guru been teaching?"

 

"Well, uh, over thirty years."

 

"And how many of his students have achieved enlightenment?"

 

"Well, uh..."

 

"That you know of personally?"

 

"Well, uh, I never..."

 

"That you've heard of?"

 

"It's not"

 

"That there were rumors of?"

 

"I don't think..."

 

"What is it they're doing, Martin? The recipe for enlightenment they're promoting - what is it?"

 

"Uh, well, meditation and knowledge, basically."

 

"And in thirty years they've never held someone up and said, 'Look at this guy! He's enlightened and we got him there!' In thirty years, they don't have one? Don't you think they should have, like, an entire army of enlightened guys to show off by now?"

 

"Well, it's not..."

 

"After thirty years they should have a few dozen generations of enlightened people. Even with only a quarter of them becoming teachers, they should have flooded the world by now, mathematically speaking, don't you think? I'm not asking all this as a teacher myself, mind you. I'm just asking as a consumer, or a consumer's advocate. Don't you think it's reasonable to ask to know a teacher's success rate? The proof is in the pudding, right? Didn't you ask them about the fruit of their teachings when you started with them?"

 

"Well, that's not..."

 

"Don't you think it's reasonable to ask? They're in the enlightenment business, aren't they? Or did I misunderstand you? Do they have something else going?"

 

"Nooo, but they..."

 

"If Consumer Reports magazine did a report on which spiritual organizations delivered as promised, don't you suppose that the first statistic listed under each organization would be success rating? Like, here are a hundred randomly selected people who started with the organization five years ago and here's where they are today. For instance, thirty-one have moved up in the organization, twenty-seven have moved on, thirty-nine are still with it but not deeply committed and three have entered abiding non-dual awareness. Okay, three percent - that's a number you can compare. But this organization of yours would have big fat goose egg, wouldn't they? And not just out of a hundred, but out of hundreds of thousands - millions, probably. Am I wrong?

 

- Jed McKenna - 'Spiritual Enlightenment:The Damnedest Thing'