Does Anyone Have Power?

[Starjumper]

Good one, Thamosh. That gets to the heart of it.

[Starjumper]

Wise? Whats wise?

 

Wise is when it pops into your own head, whether or not it pops out your mouth. Repeating a wise saying is no longer wisdom, it's two bit knowledge .. or parroting ...

[Jox]

I wouldn't be 99.9999999% about that one

 

The most used % here is 99.999999 ...

[Blackfinger]

Just some food for though here, for those who say that meditation etc cleanses and promotes balance and harmony: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2012/may/22/anders-behring-breivik-meditation

 

Apparently not necessarily. Disturbing stuff.

[SonOfTheGods]

Just some food for though here, for those who say that meditation etc cleanses and promotes balance and harmony: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2012/may/22/anders-behring-breivik-meditation

 

Apparently not necessarily. Disturbing stuff.

Yeah the mainstream media like to sensationalize everything.

 

If the guy was a christian they would say he found god's confirmation to kill by reading the Old Testament.

[BaguaKicksAss]

Just some food for though here, for those who say that meditation etc cleanses and promotes balance and harmony: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2012/may/22/anders-behring-breivik-meditation

 

Apparently not necessarily. Disturbing stuff.

 

Using meditation to increase his own personal hell and personal prison... interesting. (and creepy)

[adept]

Yeah the mainstream media like to sensationalize everything.

 

If the guy was a christian they would say he found god's confirmation to kill by reading the Old Testament.

 

Exactly. This is one of the reasons that people who practice meditation, qigong, and other Eastern disciplines are sometimes described as 'weird', by those that take mainstream media for the absolute truth.

[Aeran]

What I want to know is how all the 'power is evil/power corrupts/power is an unworthy thing to work towards' people feel about martial arts? Power is power, right? And energetic power can be put to much more diverse use and much greater good than the ability to punch through someones skull. How is working to develop yourself energetically any worse than working to develop yourself martially?

[Starjumper]

It's not worse, in fact it's not bad at all to want power. Power is simply the ability to get things done effectively and NOTHING more. The problem is there are lots of weak people (who actually do want power) who make excuses by saying power is bad, and then the rest who connect power with their egomania give it a bad name.

[adept]

It's not worse, in fact it's not bad at all to want power. Power is simply the ability to get things done effectively and NOTHING more. The problem is there are lots of weak people (who actually do want power) who make excuses by saying power is bad, and then the rest who connect power with their egomania give it a bad name.

 

So anyone who says 'that wanting power is bad', is weak ?

That's rather a sweeping generalization.

[adept]

What I want to know is how all the 'power is evil/power corrupts/power is an unworthy thing to work towards' people feel about martial arts? Power is power, right? And energetic power can be put to much more diverse use and much greater good than the ability to punch through someones skull. How is working to develop yourself energetically any worse than working to develop yourself martially?

 

You can work to develop energetically and martially, as I've done for decades, without becoming power hungry though.

There's a difference.

[SonOfTheGods]

I think a proper definition of "Power" is needed on this thread.

 

Power --might be different, to many people here.

[rex]

Power as in capability - to effect change or influence in a given environment?

Power as in being adapted - to maintain or extend structural (personal/institutional etc.) integrity in a given environment?

Power as in just being - to be connected to a source of power and/or inspiration?

[Starjumper]

So anyone who says 'that wanting power is bad', is weak ?

 

That's absolutely not what I said, in fact it's kind of the opposite.

 

That's rather a sweeping generalization.

 

You make a lot of sweeping passive aggressive insults don't you! Then when I call bs on your 'mistakes' I'm the one that gets in trouble. I'm familiar with your type, and for two cents I'll put you on ignore.

Edited February 26, 2014 by Starjumper

[ThisLife]

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This question of power is an extremely interesting one. Probably because the desire for it, (whether spoken or unspoken, recognised or unrecognised),.. is at the base of why all of us who come to supposedly 'spiritual sites' like this, or go through years of hard work and often-boring routine practicing some martial art or religion.

 

Clearly it is not a question whose answer is, in any way, self-evident. The number of paths supposedly enabling people to gain access to power and keep hold of it,... are virtually endless. In the face of that diversity and false guarantees, (after years of waxing hot and then growing cold on many of these menu choices), it seemed to me that perhaps the best way to proceed was for me to survey as many of the different thoughts about 'power' as I could, and at the same time, check out what I felt coming from the followers and teachers of any of these paths that I found myself attracted to.

 

In that spirit, the following thought on 'power' is certainly one of the most unusual that I've ever come across regarding this universally desired quality. Once again, it's taken from a talk by Wayne Liquorman :

 

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"I had always maintained that I was basically the centre of the universe with enormous power, and that pretty much anything I set my mind to do, I could do. This was the principle upon which I operated for most of my life. I felt that God was for weaklings, and was a concept that people had created just to make life more bearable for themselves, and that I certainly didn’t need anything like that because,…. “I’m ME !” (laughter).

 

Now I find that after this experience of ‘awakening’, I find myself aware that true powerlessness carries with it no frustration whatsoever. It is the feeling of 'quasi-powerfulness' that carries the frustration.

 

The idea that you have limited power causes frustration. The conviction that you can truly do nothing, brings with it a sense of enormous peace and contentment if it’s purely understood. You rest easily and comfortably in the knowledge that everything is happening precisely the way it’s supposed to, and could not be happening any differently.

 

But if there is not pure understanding, then there is a sense that what is happening now is not right, and you need to ‘DO’ something about that.

 

And if ‘you’ are not sufficiently powerful by your own unaided effort, then you need to invoke a more powerful source to take care of it.

 

And so you say, “God, do my bidding.! Help me out here ! This has gotten a little bit beyond me.”

 

Now, that movement towards acknowledging the power of God is positive to the extent that you are at least acknowledging some kind of limitation to your own power.

 

But in order for there to be peace, you then have to go on to the next step of recognising that God has ALL of the power. You must realise that even your prayer to God is only God praying to Himself. It is a movement in Consciousness through which something happens. You are simply the instrument of that activity.

 

So, in any given situation, you do what you do. If a prayer comes, a prayer comes. As to the effect of that prayer,….. who knows ?

Edited February 26, 2014 by ThisLife

[adept]

That's absolutely not what I said, in fact it's kind of the opposite.

 

 

You make a lot of sweeping passive aggressive insults don't you! Then when I call bullshit on your 'mistakes' I'm the one that gets in trouble. I'm familiar with your type, and for two cents I'll put you on ignore.

 

Good. I'm beginning to tire of your superiority laced overtones.

[SonOfTheGods]

 

But in order for there to be peace, you then have to go on to the next step of recognising that God has ALL of the power. You must realise that even your prayer to God is only God praying to Himself.

 

That patriarchial nonsense is the reason why people lost their "power" to begin with- it was given up voluntarily in the name of religion.

 

God is within- internal- Not external.

 

if you want Real Power- throw away that "god" delusion.

Edited February 26, 2014 by SonOfTheGods

[adept]

God is within- internal- Not external.

 

God is both

[SonOfTheGods]

God is both

In your opinion.

 

If you read the bible- "god" doesn't like "adepts"- because it takes "his glory" away.

 

"Yahweh doesn't share power- it's all about "him"

 

Isaiah 64:6

King James Version (KJV)

⁶ But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.

Edited February 26, 2014 by SonOfTheGods

[adept]

You don't need the bible to understand 'god'.

[adept]

God can be approached scientifically also. Read the works of Stephen C Meyer and the Bogdanov brothers.

[SonOfTheGods]

You don't need the bible to understand 'god'.

Some/most (all) religious groups have "god" trademarked.

 

It is usually a "he", and "he"- is always pissed off about some grudge "he" is STILL holding - that happened several thousands years ago.

 

Cosmic Intelligence, The Primordial Source, Prime Consciousness, IMO/IME, in this year of 2014- is a good idea to differentiate.

 

Like that word "POWER"

[ThisLife]

That patriarchial nonsense is the reason why people lost their "power" to begin with- it was given up voluntarily in the name of religion.

 

God is within- internal- Not external.

 

if you want Real Power- throw away that "god" delusion.

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Hiya S.O.T.G.

 

What Wayne's quote was saying, depended entirely on how he was defining the word 'God.' Basically he uses it as a shorthand term for 'Universal Consciousness', or 'Awareness', or 'Buddha Mind', the 'Atman',.... whatever term you feel most comfortable with. Virtually all religions have a concept like this at the very basis of everything they are trying to understand. The problem is, calling it something like 'Awareness', (the term I am personally most comfortable with), also has problems. It's too abstract to hold any appeal for most people. It isn't something we can visualize; pray to; make offerings or promises to; follow the commandments of; etc.

 

So religions tend to go through a process of dumbing down, (or 'materializing) their basic attempts to understand, in order for these attempts to be sufficiently substantial for them to be conceivable. As the final, bottom-layer image in this process, they put out the idea of a "living being much like ourself", who is behind it all.

 

Of course this 'Being /Consciousness', has to have a name so that it can be talked about,.... and so our Anglo-Christian religion has come up with the name "God".

 

But please don't assume I was talking about some bearded old man in the sky with a host of angels and cherubs fluttering round him all day. Read it again, (if you're interested in the slightest),... and substitute the word 'Awareness' instead of 'God'. Or any other term you prefer which will roughly translate to "Everything That Is,... at every moment.

 

Forget about the bearded chap in the sky. He never existed except in the imagination of simple folk.

 

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Edited February 27, 2014 by ThisLife

[Nungali]

I have power ! < finger hovers over ignore button>

[ThisLife]

I have power ! < finger hovers over ignore button>

 

Yikes !! I'd better be more careful in future.

 

Sorry,.....

Edited February 27, 2014 by ThisLife