Everyone post some favorite quotes!

[moment]

 

[moment]

Petrarch: I confess that my body has always been a burden every time I think of myself; but when I cast my eyes on the unwieldiness of other people's bodies, I acknowledge that I have a fairly obedient slave. 

 

St. Augustine: As to your body, of what do you complain? 

 

Petrarch: Of that which most other people complain. I charge it with being mortal, with implicating me in its sufferings, loading me with its burdens, asking me to sleep when my soul is awake, and subjecting me to other human necessities which it would be too tedious to go through.

 

St. Augustine: Calm yourself, and remember you are a man.

[moment]

The map is not the terrain!

[manitou]

 

The "going beyond", the "non-activity" are the means for us to attain mental freedom.  In truth we have nothing to do, it is a question of "undoing",  of clearing the ground of our mind, of making it, as much as possible, clean, void.  The Void is, here, for us always a synonym of liberation.

 

(The Secret Oral Teachings in Tibetan Buddhist Sects (Alexandra David-Neel)

Very last page, very last paragraph.)

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 21, 2020 by manitou
had time on my hands

[silent thunder]

3 hours ago, manitou said:

 

The "going beyond", the "non-activity" are the means for us to attain mental freedom.  In truth we have nothing to do, it is a question of "undoing",  of clearing the ground of our mind, of making it, as much as possible, clean, void.  The Void is, here, for us always a synonym of liberation.

 

(The Secret Oral Teachings in Tibetan Buddhist Sects (Alexandra David-Neel)

Very last page, very last paragraph.)

 

I have such an energetic crush on Ms David-Neel. 

She is like a lightning rod...  her influence on my most recent developments on internal work cannot be overstated.

Edited September 22, 2020 by silent thunder

[manitou]

1 hour ago, silent thunder said:

 

I have such an energetic crush on Ms David-Neel. 

She is like a lightning rod...  her influence on my most recent developments on internal work cannot be overstated.

 

 

Her strength and inner clarity can be felt through the pages.  She, better than just about anybody I've read, can really put into words to the merger of all paths.  Her work takes you right in to the I Am consciousness.  There's another magic little book that can do that as well.

 

It's called The Impersonal Life, and it was written by Anonymous.  (This was later determined to be a monk named Joseph Benner, but I like to buy according to the author's wishes).  It sort of assumes that a seeker has done the inner work - and books like that find people just when they're ready for them.  From the very first sentence, it is a journey into the great I Am.  And then it just becomes a question of permeation at its own pace.

 

 

[silent thunder]

Most of us want to feel better, we don't actually want to see that we're misperceiving things.  But that's the core of spirituality.  And the only way to really wake up is to realize that the way you perceive yourself is not true.
Adyashanti

 

“Enlightenment is a destructive process.

It has nothing to do with becoming better or being happier.
Enlightenment is the crumbling away of untruth.
It's seeing through the facade of pretence.
It's the complete eradication of everything we imagined to be true.”
 Adyashanti

Edited November 22, 2020 by silent thunder
fixed a spelling goblin

[Taomeow]

'

Edited October 2, 2020 by Taomeow

[neti neti]

"What we see now is like a dim image in a mirror. Then, we shall see face to face."

 

~Maj. Kusanagi Motoko, Ghost in the Shell (1995)

Edited October 4, 2020 by neti neti

[neti neti]

15 minutes ago, neti neti said:

.

 

Edited October 4, 2020 by neti neti

[lrn2livorlive2lrn]

 

Living virtuously is equal to living in accordance with one's experience of the actual course of nature
 

Chrysippus 

 

[neti neti]

"Man is the measure of all things."

 

~Protagoras

[silent thunder]

Not all those who wander are lost.

 

JRR Tolkien

[silent thunder]

If more of us valued food and cheer and song

above hoarded gold,

it would be a merrier world.

 

JRR Tolkien

[manitou]

On 10/4/2020 at 4:15 PM, neti neti said:

"Man is the measure of all things."

 

~Protagoras

 

 

Meaning that the template for man's body is the primary template for the universe?

[neti neti]

Just now, manitou said:

 

Meaning that the template for man's body is the primary template for the universe?

 

Not the intended meaning, although it could certainly be read that way.

 

https://www.ancient.eu/article/61/protagoras-of-abdera-of-all-things-man-is-the-meas/

 

Quote

Protagoras of Abdera (c. 490 - c.420 BCE) is most famous for his claim that "Of all things the measure is Man, of the things that are, that they are, and of the things that are not, that they are not" (DK 80B1) usually rendered simply as "Man is the Measure of All Things". In maintaining this stance he pre-figures the existential relativism of writers like Luigi Pirandello ("It is so if you think so") by some two thousand plus years. It is curious to consider, then, how a man who claimed that what was true to each of his listeners was, in fact, true (including the idea that no one could know the gods' will objectively) could come to be the most highly paid Sophist in ancient Greece.

 

[manitou]

5 hours ago, neti neti said:

 

Not the intended meaning, although it could certainly be read that way.

 

https://www.ancient.eu/article/61/protagoras-of-abdera-of-all-things-man-is-the-meas/

 

 

 

 

Protagoras in Plato

In the dialogue of the Theatetus, Plato argues against Protagoras' view thusly, "If what each man believes to be true through sensation is true for him - and no man can judge of another's experience better than the man himself, and no man is in a better position to consider whether another's opinion is true or false than the man himself, but...each man is to have his own opinions for himself alone, and all of them are to be right and true - then how, my friend, was Protagoras so wise that he should consider himself worthy to teach others and for huge fees? And how are we so ignorant that we should go to school to him, if each of us is the measure of his own wisdom?" (161B). Plato argues, here and in the dialogue Protagoras, that it is impossible for everyone to know the Truth of a matter if everyone's opinions of that Truth differ, often dramatically. What Protagoras seems to be saying, however, is that the apprehension of Truth is relative to the individual perception and what one recognizes as 'true' will be True to that individual despite any evidence to the contrary.

 

 

LOL.  What excellent commentary.  The relativity of what's true and what's not.  I think that a reason that it's not feasible for one to walk their own path exclusively from the beginning is that most folks don't care about a path at all until they do.  But how very lucky those are who have the clarity to align one's self with the Void.  From that initial point of alignment and staying true to that point, once found within ourselves, we're on our way.  All situations can be viewed from that point of reference, and regardless of one's conditioning, that clarity is finally able to transcend the egoic body and see without distortion.  This is what seers are capable of doing; merely transcending the egoic self for as long as that consciousness is maintained.

 

 

Edited October 7, 2020 by manitou

[neti neti]

"The waters of the sea, evaporating, and rising into the sky as clouds, find no rest til they come back as rain, and finally rush back to the sea."

 

Spoiler

"The ego can have rest only when it merges back into the Self... into the Source."

 

~Sri Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi

[manitou]

   "As for your so-called individuality, that is nothing but your personality still seeking to maintain a separate existence.  Soon you shall know there is no individuality apart from My Individuality, and all personality shall fade away into My Divine Impersonality.

  Yes, and you shall soon reach that state of awakening where you will get a glimpse of My Impersonality, and you will then desire no individuality, no separation for yourself; for you will see that is but one more illusion of the personality."

 

                                                                                                             The Impersonal Life - by Anonymous

 

 

 

[neti neti]

"Omniscience 

is the storehouse

of the ever-known,

access to which

is revealed

either by silent recollection

or spontaneous recognition."

 

--Wu Hsin

[neti neti]

"Wu Hsin expounds a thousand different sentences, and ten thousand different words. They are appropriate for all kinds of human beings, with different sorts of confusion.

 

One will come to discern,

that self-centeredness,

is a prison. 

 

The end result of such discernment,

is clarity,

which gives one nothing, 

and takes away, everything."

 

--Wu Hsin

[Taomeow]

None of you should feel grief about having no dream. For when a person becomes deep-rooted in knowledge, dream will be taken away from him.

— Prophet Muhammad

[neti neti]

"It is too clear and so it is hard to see. A dunce once searched for a fire with a lighted lantern. Had he known what a fire was, he could've cooked his rice much sooner."

 

~Mumon

 

 

Edited October 15, 2020 by neti neti

[silent thunder]

[silent thunder]

Be empty of worrying.
Think of who created thought!

Why do you stay in prison
When the door is so wide open?
― Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi

Edited October 17, 2020 by silent thunder