snowleopard

@Annetta Good, an opportunity to investigate that feeling, what is its real shadow source ? No need to worry about BM's shadow.

Sure, and I used that discernment about the article in question, and found its agenda to be highly suspect. Again, I know little about BM, but if I wanted to know, it wouldn't be such a source.

Enlightenment is a 13 letter word.

Now if you can just find a way to make Derrida snortable, think of how rich you will get !

I find it fun having no expectations about how fun has to appear

@Deep Yes, agreed, not intending to contradict that ... Just asking, would they still abstain if it meant the extinction of the collective human experience? Again, just purely speculative -- not that it matters, since it ain't likely to come to pass.

Yes, I agree, as it is indeed integral to this relational experience. Just not sure that sense of self is the same as the belief in that sense of self as an exclusive, segregated self-identity -- aka the ego. Maybe just semantics, but it surely feels different.

@cetus56 Not to dwell too long off topic here, but I've seen Calum play a few times at the Canadian Guitar Festival. As with watching just about every performer there, afterwards I'm inclined to spend a lot of time looking woefully at my guitar, instead of playing it

@Joseph Maynor I suppose it depends on how one defines the 'ego.' Is it a belief in an exclusive, segregated self-identity? Is it still the ego, if there is a dreamlike sense of an apparent individual locus or expression of Awareness, for the sake of this relational experience, absent the exclusive identification and attachment? I'd suggest there is a significant difference in effect.

@Mighty Mouse Yes, I see the point, and that was also the point I was getting at by saying 'Knock y'all selves out' ... Keeping in perspective that, as the King Crimson tune says, "I talk to the wind ... My words are all carried away" ... yada, yada, while being again reminded of the worn-out old Ramana quote I mentioned elsewhere today

@Mighty Mouse Sure, putting idolatry in perspective serves a function. Just saying, is that truly what that article was about? Was there no other agenda? Gotta keep that in perspective too.

@Outer Out of curiosity, I just watched Leo's vid about 'zen devilry', and it surely was about cautioning against the devolving into a war of us-vs-them factions, as illustrated in the story about the Mount Hei monks who fell into that very trap. Surely the message was clear enough ... but apparently not ... sigh.

@cetus56 Yes, this tangent into the inevitably biased and petty search for 'what's wrong with everyone but maya-me'' does somehow seem counterproductive to the focus being on what's 'wrong' with the maya-me. But hey, I suppose that has its role to play as well ... Knock y'all selves out ! But while at it, for the record, here is the response from the cult leader ... http://www.bentinhomassaro.com/read/our-first-official-response-to-the-cult-accusations

@Dan Arnautu It's perhaps a tired, worn-out quote from Ramana Maharshi, but nevertheless I do often come back to it ... “Whatever is destined not to happen will not happen, try as you may. Whatever is destined to happen will happen, do what you may to prevent it. This is certain. The best course, therefore, is to remain silent.”... Albeit, that could spell the end of this forum

@Mighty Mouse @Dan Arnautu Yes, interesting inquiry there: resisting resistance

I've only watched a select few of Leo's vids, but I can't recall any where he did not discuss illusory concepts of life.

@Shin yeah, sometimes folks need to lighten up a bit. Is it really all about grimly going around looking for faults 'out there'? There's something to be said for investigating faulty beliefs within, and maybe then having a good laugh about that too

@Deep Even though it's a totally speculative moot point, if every individual human expression were in the 'higher' state you imagine, and no longer had any interest in lowly carnal pleasures, would they all just abstain from sex in view of the fact that the collective human experience would be extinct within one generation. I suppose mass artificial insemination would be an option, but somehow I suspect that the unique intimacy of the love-based relational experience would still have its appeal. There just wouldn't be some unnatural obsessive need for it to fill the void of a sense of something lacking. Even in a truly awakened state, wherein egoic identification is completely dispelled, there would still likely be a recognition of the unique role of relational experience, and the integral part that an apparent individual locus and expression of Awareness plays within it. Thus the dream doesn't end, it's just revealed to be what it actually is.

@blazed Pretty much a perfect example of how a story can be spun just about any which way with some out of context editing ... But just in case, I'm going to fact check if Leo really might have raped a grandma

People are massively addicted to a belief in a separate self -- no technology, etc, etc, needed.

Oh shit ! There's some other kind of honest observation ?

@Dodo Yeah, as the old adage goes, why let the facts get in the way of a good story.

@Dodo Yeah, Will may have missed a calling as a headline writer for the National Enquirer ... Though even there I think you're supposed to spell the name right

Wow, the other Bentinho/'Cult leader' smear-job thread of 2 weeks ago only went to like 24 comments ... Is there an echo in here?

@Outer I concur ... phantasm that it is, the issue is the exclusive identification with it. Absent that, it's just an apparent individual locus of Awareness, for the sake of this relational experience, now aware of what it is in essence ... emptiness/form reduced to "___"