Bias against New Age

[Tibetan_Ice]

In a word, no. (to the last question)

Hi C.T.

In a word, yes. By visualizing a being/entity in front of you and then dissolving it into your body, either down into the crown or any of the gates, you are opening the door for any kind of entity/deity/being to enter your space. You have invited them/it in.

 

That is not so hard to understand is it?

 

I have seen many demons/entities. Most of them disguise themselves and come and visit you in bed, just before you fall asleep, when you are in transition between the waking and dreaming states. Or, they will try to gain access to your being when you are under tremendous stress, or some kind of traumatic experience.

 

My question was to Alwaysoff, which he neatly avoided. Mediumship is letting some spirit/entity/being take over your body. It is possible, however, to contact spritis/beings/entities in the astral and converse with them, hence channeling information without actually letting them into your body space. But, the first thing you learn is that just because someone is dead, doesn't mean they are enlightened, or benevolent.

 

You know, I had read a story about a seeker who had gained the ability to mold and reshape rock with his bare hands. Everyone thought he was enlightened. One day he went to visit an accomplished master to show him his powers. When the seeker met the master and tried to demonstrate his powers, they no longer worked. Turns out the master knew ahead of time about the pending visit, recognized that the man was possessed by a demon and exorcised the demon before he had arrived. Sorry, I can't find the source at this time, but it sure makes you wonder about lines of transmission and siddhis, doesn't it?

 

TI

[teknix]

As said In The Tantra of All-containing Jewels,

 

No matter who practices for one hundred thousand aeons,

By meditating on one hundred thousand deities,

Just remembering the Lama is supreme.

The merit of this is limitless.

More than practicing and reciting a million mantras,

Praying once to the Lama is supreme.

 

 

 

And Saraha said, "For those who hold the Lama's speech in their heart, it will be like seeing a precious treasure in the palm of their hand."

 

Haha, what a brown noser, I guess they had those way back when too! eheheh.

[Tibetan_Ice]

As said In The Tantra of All-containing Jewels,

 

No matter who practices for one hundred thousand aeons,

By meditating on one hundred thousand deities,

Just remembering the Lama is supreme.

The merit of this is limitless.

More than practicing and reciting a million mantras,

Praying once to the Lama is supreme.

 

 

 

And Saraha said, "For those who hold the Lama's speech in their heart, it will be like seeing a precious treasure in the palm of their hand."

 

Except when your lama gives you aids..

 

^{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96sel_Tendzin}

It was revealed in 1989 that Ösel Tendzin had contracted HIV, and for nearly three years knew it, yet continued to have unprotected sex with his students, without informing them.^[14][15] He transmitted HIV to a student who later died of AIDS.^[16][17][18] Others close to Tendzin, including the board of directors of Vajradhatu, knew for two years that Tendzin was HIV positive and sexually active, but kept silent.^[19] As one student reported at the time,

I was very distressed that he and his entourage had lied to us for so long, always saying he did not have AIDS. I was even more distressed over the stories of how the Regent used his position as a dharma teacher to induce "straight" students to have unprotected sex with him, while he claimed he had been tested for AIDS but the result was negative.

[10]

Stephen Butterfield, a former student, recounted in a memoir:

Tenzin offered to explain his behavior at a meeting which I attended. Like all of his talks, this was considered a teaching of dharma, and donations were solicited and expected. So I paid him $35.00 to hear his explanation. In response to close questioning by students, he first swore us to secrecy (family secrets again), and then said that Trungpa had requested him to be tested for HIV in the early 1980s and told him to keep quiet about the positive result. Tendzin had asked Trungpa what he should do if students wanted to have sex with him, and Trungpa's reply was that as long as he did his Vajrayana purification practices, it did not matter, because they would not get the disease. Tendzin's answer, in short, was that he had obeyed the guru."

[20]

[teknix]

Go figure, obv is obv.

[C T]

Except when your lama gives you aids..

 

^{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96sel_Tendzin}

 

Your zeal is very much infectious, TI. (no pun eh?) A comment like this says a lot.

 

 

 

'Lama' is not external to your own enlightened nature. Just so you are clear. Although for fledgeling practitioners they are encouraged to first practice with the physical teacher whom they form a connection with. Naturally, humans have limitations, regardless. But the good thing is one's enlightening potential is limitless. We do have a choice at which level we want to step off.

[C T]

Hi C.T.

In a word, yes. By visualizing a being/entity in front of you and then dissolving it into your body, either down into the crown or any of the gates, you are opening the door for any kind of entity/deity/being to enter your space. You have invited them/it in.

 

That is not so hard to understand is it?

 

I have seen many demons/entities. Most of them disguise themselves and come and visit you in bed, just before you fall asleep, when you are in transition between the waking and dreaming states. Or, they will try to gain access to your being when you are under tremendous stress, or some kind of traumatic experience.

 

My question was to Alwaysoff, which he neatly avoided. Mediumship is letting some spirit/entity/being take over your body. It is possible, however, to contact spritis/beings/entities in the astral and converse with them, hence channeling information without actually letting them into your body space. But, the first thing you learn is that just because someone is dead, doesn't mean they are enlightened, or benevolent.

 

You know, I had read a story about a seeker who had gained the ability to mold and reshape rock with his bare hands. Everyone thought he was enlightened. One day he went to visit an accomplished master to show him his powers. When the seeker met the master and tried to demonstrate his powers, they no longer worked. Turns out the master knew ahead of time about the pending visit, recognized that the man was possessed by a demon and exorcised the demon before he had arrived. Sorry, I can't find the source at this time, but it sure makes you wonder about lines of transmission and siddhis, doesn't it?

 

TI

Inviting spirits is not Guru Yoga.

[teknix]

I still own your spirits. ^.^

Edited August 5, 2013 by teknix

[rex]

And let me ask you this.. In the guru practice of visualizing the deity/guru in front of you, and then finally dissolving the deity/guru into your body space as practised by various Buddhists, what exactly do you call that? Aren't you opening the door for hungry ghosts or malevalent beings to enter your space?

 

No. The visualised form is the samaya-sattva and the presence/aspect of enlightened awareness that comes to dwell in the visualised form is the jnana-sattva. The presence of the jnana-sattva confers protection.

[Creation]

No. The visualised form is the samaya-sattva and the presence/aspect of enlightened awareness that comes to dwell in the visualised form is the jnana-sattva. The presence of the jnana-sattva confers protection.

Like I said to C T, that's how it's supposed to work.

 

Look, every kind of practice has the potential to not work the way it is supposed to. Denial of this will just alienate the people who are having difficulty.

 

I believe the general term in Vajrayana for the kind of thing I am pointing toward is "obstacles".

[Creation]

Guru Yoga is a devotional practice. Westerners seem to have a hard time with it, generally speaking. Do you agree?

 

I wouldn't know about "generally speaking"; I don't know many practitioners.

 

I am a Westerner who is devotionally inclined, so the idea of Guru Yoga is quite palatable to me.

Edited August 6, 2013 by Creation

[rex]

Like I said to C T, that's how it's supposed to work.

 

Look, every kind of practice has the potential to not work the way it is supposed to. Denial of this will just alienate the people who are having difficulty.

 

I believe the general term in Vajrayana for the kind of thing I am pointing toward is "obstacles".

 

So what can go wrong and what are the obstacles that arise when visualisation goes wrong?

 

If the visualisation is done within the context of the sadhana and practice tradition from which it originates and the sadhaka has had transmission then there is really nothing to fear. The only folk this uncompromising assertion is likely to alienate are:

 

* people who are teaching themselves and haven't access to the advice of a sangha and experienced practitioners;

 

* people who aren't buddhists and haven't received teachings on core foundational practices and attitudes;

 

* people with a lack of faith in the teaching (who shouldn't be doing it in the first place).

 

In the context of buddhist refuge and transmission there is no need to countenance paranoid ramblings of spirit possession - the only obstacles that will arise will come from one's own kleshas.

 

Edit: tpoys

Edited August 6, 2013 by rex

[nine tailed fox]

@tibetan_ice

 

would you like to tell us , how to believe ?

 

how to install new beliefs/remove the existing ones ?

[Creation]

So what can go wrong and what are the obstacles that arise when visualisation goes wrong?

As you say, a sangha of experienced practitioners and close relationship with one's teacher are ideal.

 

What is at stake here is the mind connecting to another mind directly. All the visualizations etc. are methods of doing this. But genuinely understanding the level of reality on which such a thing is possible is another thing. People whose minds are very open to that level will have a different experience than those whose minds aren't. That's just part of their path, and it comes with it's unique challenges. All too often sanghas just tow the party line when presented with a problem that they don't understand.

 

I think it was Trungpa Rinpoche who said that Sutrayana was like walking up the mountain, and Vajrayana was like being shot out of a cannon aimed at the top of the mountain.

 

May all those who seek the blessings of the Vidyaharas have their aspirations fulfilled.

[rex]

What is at stake here is the mind connecting to another mind directly. All the visualizations etc. are methods of doing this. But genuinely understanding the level of reality on which such a thing is possible is another thing. People whose minds are very open to that level will have a different experience than those whose minds aren't. That's just part of their path, and it comes with it's unique challenges. All too often sanghas just tow the party line when presented with a problem that they don't understand.

 

Valid points which raises two distinctions on the source of potential obstacles that can arise from doing Deity Yoga and/or Guru Yoga:

 

1) The original non-starter premise/question as posed by Tibetan Ice, namely that Guru Yoga and Deity Yoga visualisation practices invite invading spirits into practitioners' mind streams;

 

2) Dealing with any risings or kleshas bought into sharp relief from practice.

 

 

Edit: Windbagness removed

Edited August 6, 2013 by rex

[Apech]

Valid points which raises two distinctions on the source of potential obstacles that can arise from doing Deity Yoga and/or Guru Yoga:

 

1) The original non-starter premise/question as posed by Tibetan Ice, namely that Guru Yoga and Deity Yoga visualisation practices invite invading spirits into practitioners' mind streams;

 

2) Dealing with any risings or kleshas bought into sharp relief from practice.

 

 

Edit: Windbagness removed

 

Its very hard to answer these questions because they are based on misconceptions about guru/deity yoga in the first place. All buddhist yidams are aspects of the non-dual emptiness/luminosity ... bringing yourself in relation to this does not open you up to various 'entities' and so on ... in the way that is suggested. Practice does bring into sharp relief kleshas because it is meant to ... but essentially they are illusory and the dharma practice has effective ways of dealing with such. That's (kind of) the whole point.

[RongzomFan]

What is at stake here is the mind connecting to another mind directly. All the visualizations etc. are methods of doing this.

 

I don't think that's right.

[Zhongyongdaoist]

I hate to agree with "alwayson" in pubic but:

As you say, a sangha of experienced practitioners and close relationship with one's teacher are ideal.

What is at stake here is the mind connecting to another mind directly.

is, as he says in a round about way, not correct:

 

I don't think that's right.

For reasons that "C T" has made clear:

'Lama' is not external to your own enlightened nature.

In the ideal situation there are no "two minds" only the "enlightened nature", to which the guru has already awakened and which if all goes well, the disciple will also.

Of course that is the ideal situation.

I suspect it can go wrong.

Now, can we get back to New Age bashing before I have to report you guys to a moderator? You Buddhist will do anything to get out of the Buddhist forum.

The last two sentences, Just kidding of course.

 

Edits: Added a comma, corrected "make" to "made" in "has made clear". Rushed as usual.

Edited August 6, 2013 by Zhongyongdaoist

[Tibetan_Ice]

@tibetan_ice

 

would you like to tell us , how to believe ?

 

how to install new beliefs/remove the existing ones ?

Well, er, this is complex subject. I assume that you mean within the context of the idea that you create your own reality through your belief system.

 

On the higher level, the book "Buddhahood Without Meditation" reveals the key to realizing emptiness which is that you and all the forms found in normal existance do not have any identity. The forms, and normal reality do not exist. You do not exist. There is nobody whom has ever been born, nor has there ever been anyone that has or will die. In this case, what you are being asked to accept is based on a few things: 1) You are being told that this is so, 2) There is a justification that there is no difference between the substance of past dreams and past events. 3) If you look really hard, you will not find anything that you can call 'your identity'. Therefore, in the book, the method of attempting to alter your belief system is through the written/spoken word along with examples and logic. There is also mention that most people will need a transmission from a realized guru in order to grasp the essence of this. And, even then, very few will be able to grasp the essence.

 

I think it is important to distinguish between beliefs and knowledge, and even then gnosis, which is knowledge obtained while in an enlightened state. There is a general theme that beliefs are thoughts that we've blindly accepted without proof or empirical evidence. Or, beliefs can be caused by experiences like when you put your hand in the fire and it burns. After that experience, you belive that every time you will put your hand in the fire in the future, it will burn.

 

Now, let's start at the bottom. What is a belief? A belief is a recurring thought that the voice in your head repeats over and over to you whenever you find yourself in a relative circumstance or situation. Such a thought might be "If I put my hand in the fire it will burn". By believing in the thought, you have limited your reality and are now bound to that belief or thought or piece of knowledge.

 

So how do you change that belief?

 

One day you find a Buddhist book that says that if you perform samadhi on the fire element many times, if you 'realize' the fire nimitta and work with it, if you use your mind empowered by stillness and jhanic states of samadhi, that fire will no longer burn you. What? How does that work? You don't believe. In order to change this belief, I think the only way is to see for yourself, through practice and trial and error. But the qualifications are rather high; you must be able to go into samadhi, you must be able to understand the practice, you must have discipline and willpower, and you must have the correct practice. Then, after dedicating yourself to this practice, finally you arrive at the understanding through empirical evidence that the fire no longer burns.

 

By the way, this is not just conjecture on my part. In the book called the Vissudhimagga, it says exactly how to gain master over the fire element..

 

The fire kasióa is the basis for such powers as smoking, flaming, causing

showers of sparks, countering fire with fire, ability to burn only what one wants

to burn (S IV 290), [176] causing light for the purpose of seeing visible objects

with the divine eye, burning up the body by means of the fire element at the time

of attaining Nibbána (M-a IV 196).

 

...

 

Fire, poison and weapons do not affect him: they do not affect, do not enter into,

the body of one who abides in loving-kindness, like the fire in the case of the lay

woman devotee Uttará (see XII.34 and Dhp-a III 310), like the poison in the case

of the Saíyutta reciter the Elder Cú¿a-Siva, like the knife in the case of the novice

Saòkicca (see Dhp-a II 249); they do not disturb the body, is what is meant.

 

 

So, until you can do the practice and thereby gain the appropriate knowledge, you will start by having the belief that "fire burns your hand", then you will contemplate the idea that "maybe fire does not burn your hand", then you may have the belief that "fire does not burn your hand", then, with faith in the new belief, you will perform the practices and you will come to realize that 'fire does not burn your hand'. At that point, it is no longer just a simple belief, but it is knowledge, or even gnosis. Then, you realize how your belief that 'fire burns your hand' had kept you a prisoner, had limited your reality and that in essence, you were creating your own reality.

 

For simple beliefs, it may be sufficient to just mentally repeat the opposite of that belief, right after the voice in the head produces it. For example, if the voice in your head keeps saying "I'm such an idiot", then, every time you hear that thought, you mentally affirm "I am a wise intelligent being". Eventually the voice in your head, and your lower self will start to believe your new intent.

 

What it all boils down to is the practice of examining the mind, how it works, identifying the components and then learning to play with them. Spend many hours in meditation, just watching the mind. See where the voice in your head appears, and listen to what it says. Watch a thought, or a belief as it appears. Try feeding the thought and see what happens. Try focusing on the content of the thought. Focus on the location of the thought. Then, focus on how big or wide the thought is. Try not giving it any attention at all. See if it dissolves. Watch where it dissolves into. Watch to see where a thought comes from, its source. Watch to see who is watching the thought. Notice how your thoughts put up a kind of barrier or wall that your attention is forced to stop at, to pay attention to. Notice how the longer you merely perceive a thought without grasping or averting at it, that eventually the thought dissolves. Notice how there are thousands and thousands of thoughts, the deeper you go. Notice how the conceptual mind proliferates chains of thoughts when you focus on the content. Notice how the coarse mind collapses into a stream of golden light when you finally succeed at neither grasping or averting your thoughts/visions/emotions/sensations.. Get the picture?

 

Eventually, you might find yourself laughing at the voice in your head, as it spews forth its paranoic garbage and nonsense as it starts to lose ground and control over you. Notice how it may even turn destructive and produce thoughts to make you quit watching it instead of acting on what it produces. I agree with Dawg, the voice in the head is the replicator of karma and is a major hinderance to evolving spiritually. What is your voice telling you?

 

And then there is the obvious. If you don't believe something, try it for yourself. But, you must have an open mind. Your belief that "this is not so" may prevent you from realizing the truth.

 

Some beliefs are embedded so deep in your subconscious that even when you see empircal proof of the opposite of the belief, you still don't believe. Like watching a miracle healing or some other non-ordinary event. It shakes the whole conceptual construct that the I-thought has built up around itself to such a degree that it fears it will lose it's existence, it will lose its security and stable ground. But, as you examine your mind, after you gain sufficient experience, you will come to see that the I-thought is a mental construct of thoughts/memories/values etc, and that the 'real you' is watching that too, so it can't be the 'real you'. Further, you may discover that the 'real you' is located somewhere around the heart and that the mind was a witless child just playing games.

 

 

TI

[rex]

Its very hard to answer these questions because they are based on misconceptions about guru/deity yoga in the first place. All buddhist yidams are aspects of the non-dual emptiness/luminosity ... bringing yourself in relation to this does not open you up to various 'entities' and so on ... in the way that is suggested. Practice does bring into sharp relief kleshas because it is meant to ... but essentially they are illusory and the dharma practice has effective ways of dealing with such. That's (kind of) the whole point.

Thanks for the clear, concise and rational summary - speaking of kleshas I'm quite nonplussed that the initial question stirred so much debate.

[Thunder_Gooch]

One thing I notice about occultists and newagers is spiritual hoarding of low grade systems and teachings. They strongly desire to collect everyone's view point and opinion on the matter and blend it together into something new. If I wrote a book filled with intentional disinformation and marketed it well, I would become a famous and best selling occult/newage author in no time.

 

It's like newage occult Pokémon or something for these people, gotta catch um all... This sort of mindset eludes me.

 

The reality is 99.99% of this stuff would be better used as kindling or toilet paper, as the people who wrote the material don't have a ****ing clue about the topic they wrote about. The systems they are selling do not actually lead anywhere.

Edited August 7, 2013 by More_Pie_Guy

[LCH]

I want to thank everyone who participated in this discussion.

[RongzomFan]

if that is "powerful transmission", what about speaking in tongues at any evangelical church?

 

seems similar

Edited August 7, 2013 by alwayson

[skydog]

if that is powerful transmission, what about speaking in tongues at any evangelical church?

 

seems similar

 

 

I dont know much about speaking in Tongues.

 

I have this book on this kind of shaking/kundalini thing.

 

And some people work on the kundalini through ecstatic dance, some do Qigong or spontaneous movements, some yoga, some pray and dance, and seem to have the same experience.

 

They are just using different language and concepts that they can relate to.

 

Holy spirit is their expression of "Buddha"

[RongzomFan]

I dont know much about speaking in Tongues.

 

go to any evangelical church on any street.

 

I used to be an evangelical Christian for about 2 months.

Edited August 7, 2013 by alwayson

[skydog]

go to any evangelical church on any street.

 

I used to be an evangelical Christian for about 2 months.

 

lol