I think I like Veda, she seems to represent the mature feminine agenda rather succinctly.  Although I could do without the cute ebonical embellishments  

what? youre sayin you dont like the cute ebonical embellishments?
thats just your white guilt makin you uncomfortable yo [img]http://brainmeta.com/YaBBImages/smilies/cwm26.gif[/img]

yo, my white ass don't got no guilt!  My white ass just believes you don't really think in ebonics, so it wants to know why you occasionally type in it   [img]http://brainmeta.com/YaBBImages/smilies/cwm35.gif[/img]

QUOTE

hey does your book say anything about bhakti?

The book I am reading is called How to know God: The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali. It's a very high level view of Yoga and I think Bhakti is too specific for it, although i have noticed that some of the Sanskrit translations come out differently depending upon who you are reading!

It talks of meditation for personal gain and warns strongly against it, It calls this attached meditation, as opposed to non-attached. This can be mapped to the Bhakti terms: Sakamya and Nishkamya I think.

Both are clear in their dissaproval of the wrong kind of meditation, and how this will not lead to enlightenment, unfortunately this appears to be the big selling point for things like Ascention!

QUOTE

yo, my white ass don't got no guilt!  My white ass just believes you don't really think in ebonics, so it wants to know why you occasionally type in it   [img]http://brainmeta.com/YaBBImages/smilies/cwm35.gif[/img]

well its true, i dont really think/talk in ebonics all the time. i would never let my mom hear me talk like that, shed be convinced i was addicted to crack or something.
it was my girlfriend christene that started in with nigga this and nigga that and "whazzzup girlfrien?" and all that stuff. christene is one of the funniest people i kno and she could make me laugh till i cry. so i started givin it right back to her and it became an ongoing thing.
really these ebonicisms slip into my typing in a nonserious way, becuz i thought i could get away with it.
i admit its a bad habit...
...oh i been sitting here for like 20 minutes paralyzed with introspection. im sorry if its distracting, ill do my best to keep them to a minimum.
but i refuse to give up my spelling shortcuts, like thanx and kno and bcuz and b4, ect. if i didnt use them, how would you kno it was really me and not just anybody?

If you did keep using them, how am I supposed to seperate you from the other 100 million people on the internet that waive their grammatical skills, and choose to use internet spelling?

Watch how you answer.....

you're just going way off topic! (i say this because i don't really have an answer. [img]http://brainmeta.com/YaBBImages/smilies/cwm3.gif[/img])

lets talk about yoga some more.
Laz, dont laugh but what does this have to do with all the stretching and bending? is it just tha "yoga" means discipline so anything you practice at with discipline is yoga?

QUOTE

Laz, dont laugh but what does this have to do with all the stretching and bending? is it just tha "yoga" means discipline so anything you practice at with discipline is yoga?

The stretching and bending is all to do with an extreme form of Yoga called Hatha Yoga. This special and fringe form says that the body must be in perfect shape to be able to perform meditation. The term yoga has become corrupted since probably the 70's so that anytime someone says Yoga, this is what they think of!

The philosophy of Yoga has nothing to do with exercises, it's a philosophy like any other. All it is asks of you when meditating is that you sit comfortably, no lotus position or anything

Yoga means Union.
There are a bunch of different interpretations to what that means. The discipline of Union has been taken on in as many forms as there are to describe and interpret it.
Bhakti is devotion, not to a particular path but to a path.
Like the many interpretations of religion depending on the particular prophet that enlivens it, the individual interpretation is what always separates the one into many forms.

What is Union? It is the union of what the mind can conjure into the meaning of God or something that has similar meaning. Divine principle, the Force, The Matrix, Universal mind etc. with the self and the manifest reality. Even the agnostics believe there isn't a universal force for Good but they so much try to believe it doesn't exist that they reinforce the thought of it not being real. But if it isn't real then what is it that they are refering to? You can't refer to something even a nothing without giving it substance.
Anyway for those that follow an inner faith of knowing that they are part of something the search for that something is usually given a name like ( the search for something)  Christianity, Buddhism, Atheism etc, even the path that is no path.
These choices that we make in our life to follow what we believe is the path of choice, choice is inspired by belief, belief is the interpretation of what we have accumulated in knowledge and experience yet they, are always changing.
 Knowledge grows, expands and our experience of life continues to change.
The premise of Union is in uniting the ever changing manifest with that which is stabil within all that changes.
From the Union (Yoga) of the personality with that comes self restraint(Bramacharia) from the ideas that are built from illusions, truthfulness (Satya) to follow and speak from truth rather than false ideas and imagined realities, non grasping (Aparigraha) or the ability to allow the universe to flow and be unattached to life as it changes leaving you unaffected and calm in the midst of chaos,  non-violence (Ahimsa) this is not only in action but in thought and when in alignment with what is most appropriate in the given moment allows one to move without being unaware of the events that lead one into the other in perfect creativity and also, Non-stealing ( Asteya )
There are also other aspects to the personality when one reaches Union such as perfect contentment ( Samtosha)... All these Sanskrit names are given to the expression of the divine Self in union with the one thing that ties all of life together, unites the unmanifest with the manifest.
The Sanskrit language is one of the earliest developed languages, any single world can have up to ten different meanings depending on its application. Often  translation by those that are not familiar with its use and also not familiar with the level of consciousness that the original text was written is  misinterpreted and mistranslation leads to abusive behavior in the name of enlightenment.
Someone may take any one of these aspects and try to create a discipline around it when it is a natural part of the personality when enlightenment dawns.

It takes discipline and often this has been misconstrued. To unite the body and its world with the subtler aspects of the inner mind people have been known to twist their bodies into pretzel like shapes, sit upright and stiff in meditative postures and study the breath and force it or the body into submission. This is abusive to the body and increases stress rather than lessens it. Often people observe the personalities and mannerisms of the enlightened and copy the external features and mannerisms in the attempt to become what they idealize. Yet the mind will forever change it's anchors in the externally created beliefs of what is real and what is not.

Pada 1, Sutra 1 - The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
Atha yoga anusannam - Now, the Teaching of Yoga.

There are two pages of commentary on this one sentence that goes into the meaning of Yoga and the use of the word Now preceeding the teaching of Yoga. This alone is key to the whole premise of the Teaching, Now is inclusive of everything that exists within the Universe.

Pada 1 Sutra 2 -
Yogas chitta vritti nirodha - Yoga (Union) is consciousness with its movements still.

There is another 2 pages of commentary explaining the movement of the mind in its thoughts and repetative and habitual patterns to follow subjective beliefs that take away from the innocense of taking in the present moment uninhibited by past experience projected into the future moments.

I noticed a place in your board where you have left space to share what you think enlightenment is in hopes of gaining a collection of reference to help the aspirant who might wish to attain the goal of enlightenment.
Second guessing the intent of the teachings of the masters leads to the yoga of body postures, celibacy and many other bizarre interpretations, the literal wearing of the hair shirt in so many forms.

One of the things it takes is the discipline and willingness to surrender to the guidance of one who has not wasted their time in self interpretations but has given themselves in apprenticeship to one who has also done the same.
Like any trade that is taught by apprenticeship it not only takes hands on application in practice but the guidance of one who knows how to guide you past the pitfalls of self deluded ideas and misinterpretation.
Few musicians are self taught and for those that are they are far from the norm.
Most Teachers of enlightenment, liken self taught enlightenment by egos interpretations as being as practical as building a 747 from a college engineering book with a 2nd grade education.

The teaching of Yoga describes eight limbs or aspects to Union, following any single limb in the attempt to master all of them is like watering the branches of a tree.

But then the ego with its pride in self mastery will never surrender to anything outside of itself.

Hello Joe.

I've missed you  

You talk about missinterpretation, The truth will be seen regardless of the words used. Taking Patanjalis words and translating them differently:

Book One
Samadhi Pada
Portion on Contemplation.

Sutra 1:Now the exposition of Yoga is being made.

Sutra 2: The restraint of the modifications of the mind-stuff is Yoga.

Is there missinterpretation here? these are different words but the same meaning is aparant.

Missinterpretation is a fear of the weak, I believe everyone has the ability to see the truth without the need for a "teacher" to show them.

Enlightenment for everyone is a concept that will strike fear in the hearts of "teachers". They will be made redundant.

Laz!  give in to the dark side of the force you knob!  Self-enlightenment is impossible because Joey was not self-enlightened!  don't you get it??
;D

QUOTE

You talk about missinterpretation, The truth will be seen regardless of the words used. Taking Patanjalis words and translating them differently:

This is true, after 2000 years the intellect is still getting closer to the meanings of Christs teachings, even the understanding of Patanjali after 5000 years.

QUOTE

Enlightenment for everyone is a concept that will strike fear in the hearts of "teachers". They will be made redundant.

Enlightenment is for everyone. Period, it is not a concept it is a reality. When everyone realizes it we can all go home. Imagine such an expression of Joy and bliss without a doubt of fear.
Until that time Teachers remain at the service of mankind as they have been since the beginning of time.

maybe you should upgrade your 'service' programming, Joey, by dropping the hard sell approach.  Of course, without the hard sell, you might be ignored....
[img]http://brainmeta.com/YaBBImages/smilies/cwm42.gif[/img]

I am simply stating the facts, it is only the ego that takes offense, it has its pride and control to protect.

For example the general consensus seems to be to maintain the integrity of knowledge in the educational system. Teachers are expected to achieve a level of standards to be able to teach the classes of the world.
 
Left on their own the children of the world may or may not learn to read write, understand the use of the english language or even another spoken language.
Learn mathematics, history, engineering, physics, so forth and so on.
Somewhere, sometime, the popular opinion was to preserve knowledge and the integrity of the arts because if no one was to pass down the knowledge from generation to generation then it gets lost in interpretation of memory, diluted, or forgotten altogether.
Generally over a period of time if this happens then someone who is really smart figures it out and passes their knowledge on to another thereby preserving the knowledge of the original cognized information.

I don't know why there is such a fuss about the teacher student relationship, I don't imagine any one of us would be here doing, knowing what we do and know without the teachers that helped us to understand what was accumulated up to this point.
There will always be more to learn and the system continually evolves.

When it comes to human consciousness then the interpretation of what it is leads the aspirant towards the idea. The unpopularity of the worlds leaders in this topic has failed to engage the masses in trust and belief.
Unlike the standards that are kept within the boundaries of intellectual knowledge one has to go beyond these to experience the totality of the spirit.
This is no mans land and ego reigns supreme in control and mistrust.
There are few that understand the concepts of enlightenment and without the actual experience of anothers explaination it becomes a philosophy rather than an exact science and when one cannot tie the differing experiences together it cannot fit into normal boundaries or paradigms. But the many will continue to try to use what they have gained through structure to try and bring the boundariless into boundaries and structure.
As I said the intellect has made some progress in the last few thousand years and perhaps in another few thousand left on its own may grow even further in bringing it into a concept that can be embraced by the majority rather than such a small minority.

It seems to me, Joey, that you feel a need to preserve your experience through recreating it in others.  Which is fine.  But this seems to contradict the ideas that you profess about detachment from need.  If you were detached from need, why would you care whether or not your experience was passed on?   ???

My experience is not important, I can not pass on my experience, I can enliven anothers experience by speaking of my experience that is all. There is no need, that is a common assumption but one that resonates with the need to be right by making others wrong because they feel threatened by something that invades their way of thinking.

The answer to your question is in the Bodhisattva vow of compassion.
This vow, or surrender to, or commitment, also helps to understand why the teachings are so adamant about not seeking enlightenment for personal gain.
Energy is alive when it is kept moving, it expands tenfold when it is given away. It withers and stagnates when it is kept.
Kind of like breathing, if you hold your breath long enough you'll pass out. But if you keep the oxygen flowing it nourishes all parts of the body.
Similarly the energy is moved through and out into creation. continually without grasping and without ownership.

QUOTE

My experience is not important, I can not pass on my experience,

what I mean by experience is what you refer to as enlightenment.  And clearly you are acting to initiate 'enlightenment' in others


As for the 'boddhisattva vow', you seem to be describing a system for maintaining personal vitality.  It almost seems as if the 'compassion' bit is a side-effect that has no bearing on the decision to hold the vow.   It seems to me that you are claiming that you are not acting out a need to 'give' to others so much as recognizing a need for personal vitality and acting to secure it.  I think you should consider that you may be confused about your motives.

[img]http://brainmeta.com/YaBBImages/smilies/cwm11.gif[/img]

Foras many times as you have said it seems perhaps you need to get clear about what you are perceiving before suggesting anything.

For as many times as you have said it seems perhaps you need to get clear about what you are perceiving before suggesting anything.

clarity on my behalf seems not to be the problem here.

there are two possible motives of your 'teaching': desire to sustain the experience of enlightenment outside your personal boundary or desire to achieve a maximally satisfying personal experience.

you first seemed to explain the value of 'teachers' by explaining their importance to the progression of society.  This appeared to indicate that the value in teaching was altruistic in a 'parent' sort of way.  You then explained that you are bound to a 'boddhisattva vow' of compassion (the ultimate in altruism!) but then you described the value of this vow in its effect on your personal vitality (the ultimate in selfishness!).  
In the first case, the motive seems to be altruistic as the 'reward' is primarily in its effect on posterity; while in the second case, the motive seems to be selfish as the 'reward' is primarily the effect it has on you.

Interesting point of view.

However it is not mine.

The understanding of what I have told you from your description falls short of its true meaning.

Would you care to try and summarize it again from a different perspective?

QUOTE

Interesting point of view.   However it is not mine.

yes, I can see that your points of view are logically inconsistent but are 'bootstrapped' in such a way as to hide this fragmentation from yourself.  I do find it fascinating

QUOTE

The understanding of what I have told you from your description falls short of its true meaning.

I don't think so.  However, I do think that you need to believe what you just said as a matter of maintaining your integrity

QUOTE

Would you care to try and summarize it again from a different perspective?

of course!

sle  jfsod  e jf so fdjsoi mf eo fos ji fojds

that was my alien robot perspective, much more true and efficient than my real perspective; but I guess you would have to be an alien robot to understand it, eh?

In response to Dan concerning the nature of motivation as observed in the subject known as Joe.

You wrote:

QUOTE

there are two possible motives of your 'teaching': desire to sustain the experience of enlightenment outside your personal boundary or desire to achieve a maximally satisfying personal experience.

I almost feel guilty for indulging in the the pleasure of watching you dance circles around Joe in debate...almost.  Remember those blowup clowns shaped like huge bowling pins and weighted down with sand?  You'd punch them in teh face and send them flying, but no matter how hard you hit the silly little thing it would always come back.  Hours of great entertainment.  Something like that shouldn't be _that much fun_ ... but somehow it just is.  I wonder...if the clown understood that its sole point of existence was to get punched teh face, would it still want to get back up every time?  But I digress.

There is all this mystifying talk about freeing oneself from the ego, but when you take a hard look at what is actually said in terms of content, it seems that for all the enthusiasm, it is much ado about very little.  It either can't be communicated in words, or must be experienced, or for some reason or another, the skeptics are too closed minded to understand what is being said.  In other words, there is no public domain of analysis in which to determine the validity of opposing claims between dissidents.  How very inconvenient for the un-enlightened opponents, and coversely, how very convenient for those eternally mystified proponents.  After all, they are obviously right because they are the only ones that can know if they are right or not.  And they have told us--they are right!  We must take their word for it.  But what if...well what if they are...ummm...err...mistaken?  Is it possible that they might be decieved?  Could 50 million Elvis fans be wrong?

But then on the other hand, what if...what if *I* am mistaken?  That's possible too.  What should I do?  What means do I have to come to arrive at some tenible conclusion?  What if the IPU never reveals itself to me?  What if I never find the enlightenment that is being recommended to me?  Does that mean I didn't try hard enough, or that I did something wrong?  Or does it mean something that I can't understand until I have the hindsight of enlightenment illuminating my presently darkened awareness?  Don't you see how shitty those answers are? You cannot know if my motives were sincere, or if I tried hard enough.  You only have your own private experiences and I have mine.  The only way to defend your position is to deny the existence of a public domain of knowledge, but in doing so, you suspend your right say anything about the universal.

If there is ever to be a definitive answer to this dilemma we must first understand that the issue (and all of philosophy) ultimately reduces to this question -- Is direct experience of the universal possible, and if so in what way?  All else is just vain disputation.

Until this point we can only talk about what we believe to be probable.  Which brings us full circle back to the rather misleading introduction of this post--the motivation of Joe to teach.  But I don't really want to spend time writing about that right now, so I won't.  Thus I leave you with a totally irrelevant, inappropriate, argumentative and unrepentently submitted post which if you are anything like myself, will hae stopped reading somewhere between the middle of the first and end of the thrid sentence.

Well it has to be about something doesn't it?
And if you can't be right about your perspective life can't be worth living is it?

Maybe that's the key to the true question.

If the clown didn't exist what would you do?

Finding flaw seems so much more important than finding union in life.

maybe the union that we would default into would be flawed!  ever thought of that??  8)

QUOTE

maybe the union that we would default into would be flawed!  ever thought of that??  8)

That thought can only exist outside of union, because of the inability to accept what is in creation as having purpose and viability.
That lesser idea is one I had to rise above to experience Union.

It seems to me that I posted something in response to Joe, but I don't see it anymore.  Odd.

I think I did it, unintentionally, when I was moving files around on the server.   For a period of time today, a few thousand forum messages were unavailable while I was trying to make a change to this forum, but I thought I had replaced them all.    Sorry about that, Timothy, and to anyone else who may have been effected.    

If anyone else has any 'missing posts', please let me know.

my original #34 reply to "God" in the Religions and Cults board is still AWOL  

AWOL?

I apologize for any inconvenience I caused earlier today with the 'missing posts'.  It will not happen again.  

I'll get over it  :'(

btw
happy 666th post!  
;D

http://mm.dfilm.com/mm2s/mm_route.php?id=1278935
i kno this is just more silliness, but i just cant help it

I'm touched guys, and lost for words

I'll think of some and get back to you...

This is difficult, hmmm.

If i'm a prickley pear now, what are you? Is extra strength v3d4 Laz proof?
I'm sure there are some ego traps here-abouts but i want to bypass those.

I wonder if it is coincidence that your password screwed up and veda could not be used, I prefer the new identity?

veda and Bubba/Preacher Joe were in league together and played games. v3d4 and joesus are still a team, but don't as yet play games, at least with me. I like that a lot, it's a sign of trust forming between you guys and me.

As for the love veda showed me, i never felt it!
Was i ignoring it, or was I not actually shown any, i'm not sure, but i know that i don't know what love is anyway. Closest that i've gotten to understanding it, is the idea of being with your loved one with when they die.

So where are we now?

I'm going to try and switch off my thinking, and follow my heart. I'm not really sure what this means as yet, but a close approximation that i can make right now is that when i get a warm fuzzy feeling in my chest, i'm on the right track/path.

I'm thinking that the reading I did recently on m-theory was actually bad for me and for this path i'm on. spending time associating science with religion actually pulled be back from the path and started a new one, one without a heart? maybe! (that's Castaneda coming through).
I'm fully prepared to make a go of this current path and follow it to a conclusion/or not

I'm starting to wonder now about what you guys hope to achieve with me and whether the Asecensionites on high would have a few things to say about it. Whatever the case, i appreciate the effort you are making and look forward to learning more from you.

I find myself thinking about meme suits now, I have tried not to wear one here from the start, i have not had a silly name tag and i have not changed it over and over. I have not tried to play at a role, i am not here to debate, rather I am here to learn. I have tried to be open and honest always, maybe people didn't believe me at first?

My identity on mind-brain has been as close as i can get it to my real identity, hopefully this has come across now

If i had to sum it up, I would have to be "the eternal pupil, master of nothing, yet!". I have had many teachers in my life so far, one of them I learn now; was a lightworker and i didn't know!

I judge teachers based upon my previous experience of being a pupil of said teachers, just thought i'd throw that in for Joe ;D

Blimey, i've done a veda

One last thing, if you guys don't mind sharing, what is the Joesus/v3d4 relationship?

Our lot as men is to learn and, as I've said, one goes to knowledge as one goes to war; with fear, with respect, aware that one is going to war, and with absolute confidence in oneself

lookin' sexy, v3d4!

:-*

[quote]Posted by: Laz Posted on: Today at 05:33:36am
veda and Bubba/Preacher Joe were in league together and played games.[/quote]
Paranoia strikes deep, you might benefit from reading the next quote.

[quote]Our lot as men is to learn and, as I've said, one goes to knowledge as one goes to war; with fear, with respect, aware that one is going to war, and with absolute confidence in oneself [/quote]

Ego projects and creates from fear. It is not man's nature it is ego's nature to approach with fear and apprehension.
No one is in league to get you Laz. You create the world with all the parts you have integrated into your idea of reality to display your entire belief structure in a tangible form so that you may understand where you are at or where you think you are at. The world is a mirror of you. Your mind is the film the absolute the screen and the manifest the projection of the film which you hold in your mind.
I'd say you are getting a wakeup call to go much deeper than what you maintain as reality

[quote] v3d4 and joesus are still a team, but don't as yet play games, at least with me. I like that a lot, it's a sign of trust forming between you guys and me.
As for the love veda showed me, i never felt it![/quote]

The relationship is with the self and the Self. The Self is speaking to the self so that it may wake up and drop the veil of illusions


[quote]I'm going to try and switch off my thinking,[/quote]
That'd be good, how do you propose to do that?
[quote] and follow my heart. I'm not really sure what this means as yet,[/quote]
I can pretty much say I agree with that statement
[quote] but a close approximation that i can make right now is that when i get a warm fuzzy feeling in my chest, i'm on the right track/path.[/quote]
Stop, don't do it, it's the same thing you've been doing and it hasn't gotten you past the suffering yet.

Let me reiterate something. The heart knows NO boundaries, the Heart knows NO reason it will follow when logic does not prevail and even when fear is present it will move because it must.

Warm fuzzies are feelings. Feelings are associated with memories and conditioned response to ideas.
When you said there is something you know inside of you that there is truth out there and even if you don't know what it is you will follow it, that is your heart. IT is leading you forward. If your mind/brain were truly in control it would sit still in what it holds as truth and allow it to exist and stagnate.

[quote]I'm fully prepared to make a go of this current path and follow it to a conclusion/or not[/quote]

That is your heart and I 'll bet the warm fuzzy wasn't there when you told yourself that. I would say it was a greater determination within you that goes way beyond the fuzzies and any feelings that you have about it.

[quote]I'm starting to wonder now about what you guys hope to achieve with me[/quote]
1) the student is ready and the teacher has appeared, it is the voice, never mind the container.
2)When one gives Love one recieves it tenfold, that is the nature of the universe.
[quote]and whether the Asecensionites on high would have a few things to say about it.[/quote]
When you stop stereotyping your reflection you will see the message is the same through each vessel.
[quote] Whatever the case, i appreciate the effort you are making and look forward to learning more from you.[/quote]
Praise, Gratitude and Love are the foundations of creation.

[quote]My identity on mind-brain has been as close as i can get it to my real identity, hopefully this has come across now [/quote]
It is a hypnotic repetative affirmation to maintain definition in personality, separation and ego. You are much bigger than you think. God sees God and You still want to be Laz and what that means to you.

[quote]I judge teachers based upon my previous experience of being a pupil of said teachers, just thought i'd throw that in for Joe[/quote]
So you've shot the messenger and all because you didn't have the capacity to understand the message and now you still want to hold a grudge against the messenger. Tsk.
Nothing will change until you change Laz.


[quote]One last thing, if you guys don't mind sharing, what is the Joesus/v3d4 relationship?[/quote]

Only you can answer that question. You are the one that has concluded it is something of a relationship and relative to something.
I could tell you what it is to me but what good is that when you can't understand what it is to you. It would be some outside idea that has no meaning to you.
But I'll give you a hint: I already said what it is.

So feelings are the same as thinking, another illusion and not the heart, right; i'll be trying to look beyond both for the truth

I have tried to resist this idea, but it keeps surfacing so lets get it out in the open; Veda is Joe, Joe is Veda, they are flipsides of the same coin; one "your self", the other "your Self".

If this is true, i am quite frankly astonsihed that you managed it.

[quote]Posted by: Laz Posted on: Today at 12:19:42pm
So feelings are the same as thinking, another illusion and not the heart, right; i'll be trying to look beyond both for the truth[/quote]
No feelings are feelings, the thoughts associated with them make them something. The senses are mechanical, they are tools to assist in perception and are built into the structure of the manifest world and the body. As long as you are in a body you will feel. As long as the soul inhabits a vehicle the vehicle will have perceptive capabilities. The only trouble that takes place is when the perceptions are judged.
Attraction and aversion are relative to judgment and sometimes unconsciously drive us outward into thoughts of past and future moments or projections to leave us outside of the moment and pure potential.

I caution you in the application of trying to do anything. The reason I say this is if your understanding is based in illusion then you will still play within the limits that you are trying to escape.
Find a vehicle to take you to the experience of the absolute. Focus on that and it will dissolve all false aspects of the Self, or the ego and its limitations.
Other wise just live your life and trust that eventually you will get where you need to go, without creating so much complication in your life. Accept it as it comes and with acceptance and appreciation comes expansion.
One is faster than another but they end in the same place.


[quote]I have tried to resist this idea, but it keeps surfacing so lets get it out in the open; Veda is Joe, Joe is Veda, they are flipsides of the same coin; one "your self", the other "your Self".[/quote]
Fascinating. which one do you perceive as which?

[quite]If this is true, i am quite frankly astonsihed that you managed it.[quote][/quote]
Your vision is not of the same person but of the same voice coming through what you have experienced as two different personalities.
This is great. You are beginning to notice the exalted aspect of your conscious awareness. This is not Union but an experience of it from a witnessing point of view.
You are growing Laz.
Let go and Let God!

It's getting late here, and i've been in work far to long :- can you say that again, a little simpler?

Let it sit for a while.
If you are tired there is no point in pushing yourself, get some rest and then your mind will be clearer.

'thinking' might be best described as complex feeling; what you want is to 'unthink' and recapitulate all that mess so that you can become intimately 'coherent' or 'unified' in feeling. The process of 'unthinking' is tricky as you don't want to leave your brain in a chaotic mess; it is a machine that preserves structure and must be kept in coherence with your transformation if you plan on self-transforming; thus you want to make 'sense' of the trip so that you have a sense of where you are.

Simplest feeling is the crux as here lies the base of psyche; it is of primitive importance. You always 'gnow' what you need in a primitive 'unthinking' sense, but you may not 'know' it in a thinking sense; this is basically 'confusion'. The key to 'knowing' what you need is in the process of uncovering your 'intent'; a totally personal journey. You are your only possible guide here. What do you 'intend'? No easy answers to that question

8)

well i had no idea my little movie would be such grist for the mill!
and veda-ego would like to point out that my movie was about me, not you Laz, and i was making fun of myself more than anybody else. and it was my movie that i made but you are giving joe half the credit! Harumph!
well it really was just an attack of the sillies.

if i had to make a wild guess at what joes talking about, id say that 1. first you saw me and joe as a team, but 'team' implies duality which according to joe is a mistaken idea or illusion.
and 2. you are thinking of us as one person because you are beginning to see through the illusion of duality.

but me, id say if this idea is really bothering you, since youre a moderator why dont you look at our ip's and if you are clever you can at least see if we are coming from the same server. i guess that wont really prove anything tho. i dont kno what to say, or even if this is really an important issue that we really need to discuss very much - i mean i could be dan and shawn too! Shawn posted about the universality of the self, and dan has his "reciprocating cosmic simultaneous time domain multiplex consciousness loop" (or something like that) theory, so there are not just two voices suggesting that all of our different personalities actually come from the same source.

right here right now i am a voice. does it really matter if the body sitting here typing is black or white or male or female or sexy or ugly or anything? im a person. but even behind this veda personality there is the real me that "stretches way beyond the boundries of me-ness." isnt this true about all of us? im not trying to be totally profound, im just sayin.

im not enlightened and i cant teach anybody how to be, but there are things i do want to share. maybe theres something i can tell you that will help you, or one of the mysterious lurkers, or somebody.

ok im gonna try not to go on too long (pull a veda) but i wanna say something about love. veda in the movie was dumb. walking around singing "la la la, love love love" isnt being a real person, you cant live with a permanant warm fuzzy goin on, i mean obviously thats not real. and you kno, ive gotten plenty of warm fuzzies and other pleasures from people who, when it came down to it, didnt give a ratz-azz about me.
remember i promised id think about how best to describe what had happened to me? well i didnt forget. i still dont kno how to tell you, but i have been struggling with it and i can tell you this, what my whole message really boils down to - i had the realization that there is an essential fundemental interconnectedness of all living things. all things really.
out of this understanding comes my love, becuz our differences are nothing compared to what we have in common.
so i figure if there ever was any real way i could kill my ego, it would be in giving my self to others, for the benefit of all living things. maybe this is just another ego trap, becuz with this new attitude i can say to myself "self, see how good and loving i am? i am soooo good!" but i dont think of it this way. i think of it more like pulling somebody out of a burning building or even yelling at kids to stay off the road- its not something you think about, and what a good person you are for doing it, you just do it.
of course i havent killed my ego yet.
i read a book about a lady who had multiple personality disorder, and her doctor was trying to get her to integrate all her selves together. most of her "selves" were against this idea becuz, as one of them said, "i wouldnt be me anymore"

p.s. thank you dan! :X
p.p.s. well there i went and pulled a veda anyway. so let me just tack this note on the end: Laz, my personal hope for you is that you do get closer to God and that you do get enlightenment. im glad you decided not to quit.
you can be suspicious about anything else i say, but thats the truth /no games

I can vouch that veda and joe are not the same individual. In fact, no-one on this thread is the same (meaning, from the same ip address).

Why do you say that you're not enlightened, Veda? Humility has it's place and purpose, but too much of it is not a good thing.

Enlightenment:

1) experiencing Totality as One (or All is One),
2) dissolving (object/subject) dualities,
3) dissolving one's ego,
4) realizing one's body as merely an instrument,
5) realizing the undying Self behind all selves,
6) coming to grips with one's true nature (realizing the answer to the question, 'what am I?'),
7) realizing that we, as individuals, will get swallowed up in infinitely vast seas of Time,
8) appreciating the relativity of both Time and Space.... that both infinitesmally small and infinitely large are one and the same..... that even the vastest measures of Time and Space that we can imagine are like nothing (i.e., are infinitesmally small) alongside other measures.
9) realizing our undying nature.
10) realizing that Truth is not so much something to be talked about objectively as it is something to be experienced directly.

did I leave out anything? I'm sure I did, but let's just take the above as a starting point. The point being that there are many degrees of enlightenment. It's not the case that either someone is enlightened or he's not.... it's not as simple as black and white, but there are many shades of gray in between.

So, you are enlightened to a degree, right? :)

well yes maybe somewhat, but i was hoping for supernatural powers possibly also kung-fu ability

Focus Grasshopper.........