New Age vs. Neo-Advaita vs. Authentic Spirituality

[Deep]

3 minutes ago, Shanmugam said:

 Whether a person becomes a seeker or not depends on nature and the nurture, their genetics, and the life experiences..

More importantly it's God's will. Through certain people, God wants to re-discover itself, and through others it doesn't. 

[Monkey-man]

@Shanmugam  Jesus was enlightened but his teachings are ultimately about salvation, while enlightened life is just one important aspect of the path towards salvation. Mind that salvation in Christianity and Islam is something different than moksha, it’s salvation from Judgement day. And I will stop here because it will take way too long to explain that and my English might not be good enough to write on such nuanced topics. But it’s all about never-ending process of evolution. And it’s all really simple but very nuanced.

Check out Sri Aurobindo and his disciple Mira Alfassa. They wrote tones of very dense and nuanced works on Jesus and so called ‘supramental’ transformation/evolution of humanity, and they base everything on their direct experience. If we take sources in English, I think pretty much no one, except real deal saints of the past, has understood Jesus and the whole point of spirituality and where humanity is heading to, better than Aurobindo and Alfassa. 

[Joseph Maynor]

5 hours ago, Faceless said:

I asked my girlfriends dad if he didn’t have thoughts would he even exsist. He didn’t like this question and evaded 

I’m in the dog house now lol 

Talking to people about this stuff can lead them to thinking you’re nuts or them being envious of you because of your attainments.  They’re curious about the peace you seem to have, but they can’t fathom giving up the illusion of Ego.  It sounds crazy to them.  This is one reason you can’t just give a noob the kinds of instruction you can give someone further up the path.  Teaching means you gotta speak the language of Ego first to reach curious Egos who long for the peace of Enlightenment.  This is why I like Leo’s approach.  First you exhaust traditional personal development, then you get into the enlightenment stuff.  You gotta burn out the Ego.  I like that approach because that’s the path I did through Leo’s work.  First you build up the Ego, then you transcend it.  That’s a nice way to teach personal development.  You can’t just take a noob off the street and say to them — lemme explain Enlightenment to you!  It’ll go in one ear and out the other!  Furthermore — they’ll probably leave thinking you’re a little bit mentally off.  This is why sometimes the advanced people lose touch with the noobs.  A good teacher has to reach the Egos in this work.  He has to be able to relate to Egos and guide them.  Talking to advanced people is easy.  Talking to noobs is where you show your real work as a teacher.  How effective of a guide are you to any person on the path, regardless of where they are in this work?  That’s the key question.

Edited March 7, 2018 by Joseph Maynor

[Shanmugam]

1 minute ago, Monkey-man said:

@Shanmugam  Jesus was enlightened but his teachings are ultimately about salvation, while enlightened life is just one important aspect of the path towards salvation. Mind that salvation in Christianity and Islam is something different than moksha, it’s salvation from Judgement day. And I will stop here because it will take way too long to explain that and my English might not be good enough to write on such nuanced topics. But it’s all about never-ending process of evolution. And it’s all really simple but very nuanced.

Check out Sri Aurobindo and his disciple Mira Alfassa. They wrote tones of very dense and nuanced works on Jesus and so called ‘supramental’ transformation/evolution of humanity, and they base everything on their direct experience. If we take sources in English, I think pretty much no one, except real deal saints of the past, has understood Jesus and the whole point of spirituality and where humanity is heading to, better than Aurobindo and Alfassa. 

2

So what you said is just based on an 'authority' and some concepts you learned from them... 

I have no idea what you think 'enlightenment' is... You probably have some idea about it after reading or listening to whoever you think as the authority for enlightenment. Before you say 'enlightenment' and 'salvation' are different, I need to know how you actually define them.. Because as I said earlier, you may be mistaking some aspect on the path towards 'enlightenment' as 'enlightenment' itself.. And calling the actual 'enlightenment' as 'salvation'

I am not going by an external authority.  I am going by my own experience to say what I say..

I just want to suggest two things here:

1) It is better to not to conclude anything.. Because, I have lived a life where I was continuously seeking and my conclusions were proven wrong again and again and again and again. It is a long life of groping in the dark with temptations, doubts, misery, and pain. I no longer have them now.

2) Don't consider anyone as an infallible authority. The true guru is within you..

[Shanmugam]

If I had a dollar for every time my conclusions were proven wrong, I would be the richest person in the world now. .. There is always a temptation to conclude about things. But once you have come to a conclusion and stick to it, that is the end of progress in the spiritual path.

[Monkey-man]

@Shanmugam I’m not talking about enlightenment. Enlightenment is enlightenment, and salvation is salvation. 

Jesus didn’t teach enlightenment. I know it’s easy to identify some of his quotes for description of enlightenment. But that’s not the case if you study Jesus holistically and not picking verses

[Shanmugam]

2 minutes ago, Monkey-man said:

@Shanmugam I’m not talking about enlightenment. Enlightenment is enlightenment, and salvation is salvation. 

Jesus didn’t teach enlightenment. I know it’s easy to identify some of his quotes for description of enlightenment. But that’s not the case if you study Jesus holistically and not picking verses

Please define 'enlightenment' and 'salvation'...

I am not sure if you are getting my point. Before we discuss this further, we need to agree on the terminology. Because both us may be talking about two different things using the same word. That always happens.

[Hsinav]

@Shanmugam

Thanks for your great contribution to this forum 

[Shanmugam]

Just now, Hsinav said:

@Shanmugam

Thanks for your great contribution to this forum 

You are welcome friend  

[Faceless]

1 hour ago, Joseph Maynor said:

Talking to people about this stuff can lead them to thinking you’re nuts or them being envious of you because of your attainments.  They’re curious about the peace you seem to have, but they can’t fathom giving up the illusion of Ego.  It sounds crazy to them.  This is one reason you can’t just give a noob the kinds of instruction you can give someone further up the path.  Teaching means you gotta speak the language of Ego first to reach curious Egos who long for the peace of Enlightenment.  This is why I like Leo’s approach.  First you exhaust traditional personal development, then you get into the enlightenment stuff.  You gotta burn out the Ego.  I like that approach because that’s the path I did through Leo’s work.  First you build up the Ego, then you transcend it.  That’s a nice way to teach personal development.  You can’t just take a noob off the street and say to them — lemme explain Enlightenment to you!  It’ll go in one ear and out the other!  Furthermore — they’ll probably leave thinking you’re a little bit mentally off.  This is why sometimes the advanced people lose touch with the noobs.  A good teacher has to reach the Egos in this work.  He has to be able to relate to Egos and guide them.  Talking to advanced people is easy.  Talking to noobs is where you show your real work as a teacher.  How effective of a guide are you to any person on the path, regardless of where they are in this work?  That’s the key question.

I understand?

although I didnt attempt to teach. This was just somthing I threw out for fun lol 

[Deep]

1 hour ago, Monkey-man said:

@Shanmugam  Jesus was enlightened but his teachings are ultimately about salvation, while enlightened life is just one important aspect of the path towards salvation. Mind that salvation in Christianity and Islam is something different than moksha, it’s salvation from Judgement day. 

Those are beliefs used to scare people. There is no evidence for such a thing. If Jesus was enlightened, I doubt he would teach that. 

[Faceless]

2 hours ago, Shanmugam said:

that's expected.. .. Majority of the population is not interested in spirituality; not because they are not intelligent but they are too much identified with their personal selves.. There is absolutely no distance at all. Whether a person becomes a seeker or not depends on nature and the nurture, their genetics, and the life experiences..

I totally understand that?

 

The conversation started with discipline ‘reward and punishment, and the pro   spanking/hitting a child’...The  father believes the ‘mental illness and lack of respect from the new generation’ is the result of not enough organized religion ‘biblical stories to learn from’ being taught to the kids. That that is a means to a moral society. I simply stated that is not a fact, is an opinion based of his conditioning, and is in fact immoral. That we are responsible for the way that things are now. Of course they were all I’m not and pointed there fingers elsewhere. But said once again no we are responsible for the way things are now and how they will be. Some just don’t want to put themselves out there u know lol. 

 

Uh oh lol... imagine how the room must be reacting at this moment lol 

 

He/they didn’t like that to much. Anyway he kept denying and so did the rest of the room, ‘being the product and continuation of his conditioned point of view’

 

Anyway no matter what I would say to them wouldn’t be considered because they haven’t gone into themselves. I mean even people who have somewhat gone into that are even difficult to explain something like non violence is still an action of violence.

i don’t try and teach people this because I don’t feel that will get through to them but I do suggest they look into things themselves...Anyway they just antagonized and ridiculed me which was ok??. But one thing that did bug me was that my girlfriend who I have a child with was joining them is this assault. She doesn’t take an interest in learning the self/thought either so she doesnt get my different point of view either. You can only imagine the problems that can raise from this lol?

 

Usually I don’t get involved emotionally as far as ‘the movement of self distorting my clarity of thought’ but i did when she started in with them. Mostly because the fact that I have a child and I see now that I will have to deal with opposition in how he is raised. And when it comes to violence disguised as morality I do tend to act according to the movement of the self. This may be one of the deep rooted fears I still hold as I see that every action made by us now leads to a result down the line ‘consequence’....To me seeing something being very dangerous and staying away from it is a must. Only in this case I see that my son will inevitably have to be subject to that with the family and obviously in society. I think the only thing that brings out the sense of self ‘disorderly thought’ in me is the fear for my son growing up with all this and of of course others having to suffer those consequences based off the actions of the past. 

 

Anyhow I do understand what has happened in myself and have learned from that action of experience. I consider every such experience as learning. I understand that relationship is the best way to learn about oneself?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 7, 2018 by Faceless

[Joseph Maynor]

6 minutes ago, Faceless said:

I understand?

although I didnt attempt to teach. This was just somthing I threw out for fun lol 

I gotcha.  Sometimes I just let my mind sprawl after being influenced by something said.  All I’m trying to do is capture everything flowing out.

Edited March 7, 2018 by Joseph Maynor

[Faceless]

28 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

I gotcha.  Sometimes I just let my mind sprawl after being influenced by something said.  All I’m trying to do is capture everything flowing out.

It’s ok man. I see things similar. And I do see your point on sharing this message with people who are totaly fresh and people who have already been into it already. 

I have gone this self learning alone and feel that is totally necessary. I want to share with anyone who wants to listen. But at the same time from my own learning experiences see that there is nothing I can actually offer anyone. I can only point. I don’t want people to think there is somthing to be gained/added from learning about themselves. But more something to be taken away lol. 

I am all about taking away and staying at that empty level. Most people don’t like that. I see my sharing only being of interest to certain types of people. Maybe those who are ok with being insecure and facing that emptiness. 

Edited March 7, 2018 by Faceless

[Shanmugam]

@Faceless ha ha.. I never talk about these things to people in the family and the relatives.. My grandma who is 65 years old still believes that after her death she will be visiting mount Kailash and will live happily ever after with Lord Shiva's family.   . The conditioning is so deep in India. 

[Faceless]

2 minutes ago, Shanmugam said:

@Faceless ha ha.. I never talk about these things to people in the family and the relatives.. My grandma who is 65 years old still believes that after her death she will be visiting mount Kailash and will live happily ever after with Lord Shiva's family.   . The conditioning is so deep in India. 

Here to lol 

[Faceless]

@Shanmugam I put a sign on the wall saying no religion/politics discussions allowed 

lol 

[Deep]

@Shanmugam Some people in my family know about enlightenment, but they believe in dogmas. 

[Saumaya]

40 minutes ago, Shanmugam said:

@Faceless ha ha.. I never talk about these things to people in the family and the relatives.. My grandma who is 65 years old still believes that after her death she will be visiting mount Kailash and will live happily ever after with Lord Shiva's family.   . The conditioning is so deep in India. 

How the hell is your grandma 65 years old?! Mine is above 70 and Im 18

[Nahm]

What a great thread man. Couple questions for anyone if you’re interested in commenting....

In terms of taking responsibility, what would you say to an adult who was molested as a child?

Also Faceless, you mentioned non-violence is an action of violence, what do you mean by that?

Thanks!