Did you study religions?

[egoless]

The most of you here are practicing only this work here. I suppose at least major portion of you were atheists before like Leo. My question is - if you impose radical open mindedness shouldn’t you also try to practice all the other Religions? How do you know that you are not missing something. If the reality is paradoxical in many ways how are you so sure that the world was not created indeed as mentioned in various religious teachings?

@Leo Gura I’ve seen some religious people who are more sure in their truth then you, sadhguru and Eckhart tolle are probably. How do you know what that person experiences on their empirical evidence of the god?

Edited December 19, 2017 by egoless

[egoless]

Admins move this to Enlightenment topic.

[aurum]

@egoless

I was raised Catholic and did that whole thing for about 18 years. Then spent about a year studying different religions, accidently became an atheist. 

Now I’ve come back to looking at religion but from more of a non-dual perspective. There’s more good there than I previously realized, but so much of it is also misguided.

[Shanmugam]

@egoless I have studied both Hinduism, Buddhism and Christianity.. Also Islam to some extent... I was a  deeply religious person from age 7 to 20...  And after that, I couldn't imagine a personal God who is love but at the same time expects prayers and worship and punishes evildoers... After all these years, now I see that religion is a corrupted version of spirituality. True spirituality is hidden behind almost every religion.

By the way, Sadhguru doesn't say he is religious and he is completely against prayers and worship, even though there are religious symbols in the ashram. He says that it is all science. And I have seen enough of his lies in the last 13 years.

[egoless]

@Shanmugam Leo strongly disagrees with you criticizing sadhguru and calling him liar. 

How did you practice christianity tell me. Than why do strong christian believers find salvation and peace? I have seen these kind of people myself. Who are very very wise and calm. They are christians and they believe in god. What is that?

[Shanmugam]

@egoless Regarding Sadhguru, you need to give one thing to consideration. I am not sure how many people in this forum have actually visited his ashram regularly (every week), done the courses, bought expensive consecrated spaces, read a lot of his books, videos and also attended his satsangs. But I have done it all. And I used to believe in everything he says just like many people in the forum do. He lives in our state and he is currently facing very strong criticism all over the state for many reasons.

There are intelligent people who can just read a lot of books and speak out everything they read. Sadhguru is one of them. He has certainly went through some spiritual experience but I doubt if he ever went beyond that.  When I criticize him, there are obvious reasons. But if you don't have enough open-mindedness to see it, then you will miss it..

Once I started criticising Sadhguru in this forum once, people immediately started arguing that paranormal stuff is real. But what they miss is, I am not questioning whether paranormal is real or not, I am questioning if Sadhguru really has them... 

Here is a post from another blogger that I know: https://ksmphanindra.wordpress.com/2017/11/02/the-controversial-death-of-sadhgurus-wife-vijji/

Read it open-mindedly and see if you can resolve the questions which are raised. And this is just one of them. There are many others I can give you.

Read the above post first, and then read this: https://nellaishanmugam.wordpress.com/2017/12/12/why-do-i-criticize-sadhguru-jaggi-vasudev/

But remember, be open minded... Because I know that it may hurt you.  Don't take anything personal... 

 

[Shanmugam]

@egoless Here is another link: https://zaysen.quora.com/False-Sadhguru-Jaggi-Vasudev-His-Enlightenment-Isha-Cult-Empire-As-It-Is .. But I have to admit that the guy who has written that is biased and has written it in a tone of hatred. Still, everything he says has a lot of truth in it. Much of what he says can be verified.

 

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, egoless said:

@Shanmugam Leo strongly disagrees with you criticizing sadhguru and calling him liar.

What are you talking about??

I have NEVER said that. I have never even implied such a thing.

Don't put words in my mouth and be careful with your sloppy citations and sloppy misreadings. You mislead people very easily like that.

[Highest]

My father is a Muslim, my mother a Christian. I was an agnostic, now I'm nothing. I still know a lot about Christianity and Islam due. '''How do you know what that person experiences on their empirical evidence of the god?''.  It is clear that most religious people believe simply because they parents believed. From my experience and common sense, I know that God exists, or at least a higher power. But that's because I experienced it, not because of my parents. My spiritual journey took me far and high, enough to say that I agree with religion on the existence of God. Other than that, it's mind-made nonsense.

'' If the reality is paradoxical in many ways how are you so sure that the world was not created indeed as mentioned in various religious teachings?''. Sounds like you mean it wasn't created in the first place. Maybe it came from nothing, or by chance like the old Darwinists proclaimed. Lol That the world was created has little to with religion, it is pure common sense. 

[egoless]

@Leo Gura I know how you respect sadhguru and remember how you argued with some people on forum that they don’t understand his deep meanings and he is on another level of understanding. I did not want to misinterpret your words in any ways. Maybe I missed something.

I can delete that part if you think that I misinterpreted your viewpoint.

Edited December 19, 2017 by egoless

[egoless]

@Shanmugam your viewpoint is understandable and I am sure you have your own arguments. I will read all the links you provided when I have more free time. I don’t follow sadhguru. I just find some of his videos very helpful. I don’t follow any particular spiritual teacher. But I value Leo’s videos the most. I resonate with Leo’s style the most. 

[Shanmugam]

@egoless Ok.. 

It is always good to read stuff that is contradictory to your assumptions.. It is a test for open-mindedness.. I used to do that a lot.. 

And a way to test if you are really being open-minded when you read or listen to something is to check if you are mentally preparing objections while you read/listen to it... If I am thinking what to say next when a person is talking to me, I am obviously not paying attention to him. You may already know this, but just a reminder.

 

[Nahm]

@egoless If you want to understand the religions - want to see them for what they are, study the history and politics during the time & place of their conception, not the dogmas. 

[Leo Gura]

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Leo strongly disagrees with you criticizing sadhguru and calling him liar.

The issue is that that sentence is ambiguous. It can be read in two ways:

1. Leo said Sadhguru is a liar
2. Leo disagrees with the person calling Sadhguru a liar

What I mean is that I have never criticized Sadhguru or called him a liar.

If other people are calling Sadhguru a liar, that is their opinion. As far as I can see, Sadhguru is not a liar and I don't see any good reason to criticize him.

[egoless]

2 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

The issue is that that sentence is ambiguous. It can be read in two ways:

1. Leo said Sadhguru is a liar
2. Leo disagrees with the person calling Sadhguru a liar

What I mean is that I have never criticized Sadhguru or called him a liar.

If other people are calling Sadhguru a liar, that is their opinion. As far as I can see, Sadhguru is not a liar and I don't see any good reason to criticize him.

No Leo, I meant the second variant. I did not mean that you call sadhguru a Liar. My bad if it was that ambiguous...

[Leo Gura]

@egoless In that case we had an honest miscommunication. Sorry.

[Source_Mystic]

@egoless I could list all the religions I have studied  over the last 35 years but that would be pointless. I was looking for the Rosetta stone,  the blueprint of reality, universal truth.  I was never seeking out a religion. There is a lot to be learned from looking and studding a vast array of religions and looking for universal laws. I would caution others not to do this. As there are better more constructive ways to cut though reality without taking the scenic rout.   Why do I say that ? There is one glaring quality that causes religion and the followers of said religion to go off the rails and derail their life and give control over to others. 

DOGMA : a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true.

This quality is self-destructive on so many levels. Dogma is given by authority and is taken as truth. When you add the next component which  is systematic repetition then add group dynamics that reward people for "believing" the same things and shunning those that do not. There is also the aspect of altered or enhanced states of conscious for directed purpose.   As well as teaching children this before their minds develop. I have to look at this as what it is and not sugar coat this. It is a form of brainwashing. 

I have a problem with authority especially religious authority. No one gets  to tell me how reality is or how I interact with it or the rules of the game. I look, I find the rules that apply and I act accordingly. That is my job as a individual as well as a collective unity. 

DOGMA,  limits progress , limits thinking , and teaches people to follow a path someone else created instead of investing in their  own mind their own thought process and there own will to truly find what their path is. 

I am a mystic

What does that mean to be a mystic?  Look up the word and you will get a whole slue of different interpretations none of them hit the nail on the head though.

How I would define mystic is : Through the practice of meditation , exploration of trance states,  enhanced awareness or altered states of awareness  seeks direct knowledge and of truth , God  and or ultimate reality.  This attainment  comes through seemingly  apparent subjective experience. This direct experience is where the  understanding and  insight comes from.  The  mystic is not told the truth it is shown directly though experiences. I would argue that a mystics experiences are not subjective but something more.

 

So what is the core message I am trying to give you?

Seek out answers yourself using all the facility's of your consciousness your mind , your emotions,  and all of your senses .   Never trust anyone's rendition of what they found to be true from Leo or myself or anyone else especially  religion. Learn how your mind works learn how to achieve trance and altered states and enhanced awareness  Go out there and experience it for yourself and until you do don't  internalize that as truth. EXPERIENCE REALITY DIRECTLY. That is the most authentic and genuine thing I can tell you.

Everything else is a distraction

You have two propositions

Be a spectator and be guided and told  limited and controlled. 

OR

Be a Active Participant  Engage reality on all levels.  Test,  play,  push, and  pull and internalize what you experience directly. That is the really real.  

Edited December 20, 2017 by Source_Mystic

[Faceless]

Heavan is filled with isolated spirits 

Didn't have to study religion to see that 

[Akim]

I do study religion. Here are some interesting finds.

In Catholic tradition there is integrated tradition of consuming information, digesting, integrating, forming intent, contemplation, meditation etc. called https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lectio_Divina.

In Orthodox Christian tradition you can find a description of how deeply ego can corrupt spirituality. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prelest

Buddhist scripture contains mind blowing wisdom: https://accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn01/sn01.020.than.html, https://accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an02/an02.005.than.html. In the last one Buddha tells how important is effort:

"You, too, monks, should relentlessly exert yourselves, [thinking,] 'Gladly would we let the flesh & blood in our bodies dry up, leaving just the skin, tendons, & bones, but if we have not attained what can be reached through human firmness, human persistence, human striving, there will be no relaxing our persistence.'

I also found for myself that things that I considered old, irrelevant, boring can have enormous depths of wisdom. Like for example, I was shocked recently by encounter with some eastern European communist era literature.

[Monkey-man]

On 20/12/2017 at 3:55 AM, Shanmugam said:

@egoless Regarding Sadhguru, you need to give one thing to consideration. I am not sure how many people in this forum have actually visited his ashram regularly (every week), done the courses, bought expensive consecrated spaces, read a lot of his books, videos and also attended his satsangs. But I have done it all. And I used to believe in everything he says just like many people in the forum do. He lives in our state and he is currently facing very strong criticism all over the state for many reasons.

There are intelligent people who can just read a lot of books and speak out everything they read. Sadhguru is one of them. He has certainly went through some spiritual experience but I doubt if he ever went beyond that.  When I criticize him, there are obvious reasons. But if you don't have enough open-mindedness to see it, then you will miss it..

Once I started criticising Sadhguru in this forum once, people immediately started arguing that paranormal stuff is real. But what they miss is, I am not questioning whether paranormal is real or not, I am questioning if Sadhguru really has them... 

Here is a post from another blogger that I know: https://ksmphanindra.wordpress.com/2017/11/02/the-controversial-death-of-sadhgurus-wife-vijji/

Read it open-mindedly and see if you can resolve the questions which are raised. And this is just one of them. There are many others I can give you.

Read the above post first, and then read this: https://nellaishanmugam.wordpress.com/2017/12/12/why-do-i-criticize-sadhguru-jaggi-vasudev/

But remember, be open minded... Because I know that it may hurt you.  Don't take anything personal... 

 

Hello, i read your blog post, so Sadguru is not enlightened? this is one hell of a revelation

 since you had made research on all these gurus, would you mind to make a list of gurus who are enlightened and those who aren't in your opinion? so we can avoid pitfalls you know..