You are not advanced or modern

[Rilles]

If we put you in the wild right now, would you know how to fish?

how to create tools?

what to eat and what not to eat?

where to stay?

how to know if a cave is safe or if it will crash down on your head and kill you?

where dangerous animals have their habitat and where they hide?

what to do during the cold season?

what to do when your source of food decides to take off to some other place?

 

just contemplate that 

[ajasatya]

@Rilles human beings are not like other animals. we don't have tough skins, sharp claws... we're not poisonous, we don't swim very well, we don't run very well and our feet are very fragile. we don't climb trees with dexterity and we can't fly.

there's nothing wrong with being a social animal. villages and towns are our natural habitat. learning how to live in the woods is not how human beings will thrive. we will thrive when we learn how to live in groups peacefully and in harmony with natural resources.

if i were put on the wild i would probably die. and there's nothing wrong about that. it's like a whale that's been transferred to an artificial aquarium... it will die extremely early.

[Rilles]

@ajasatya Absolutely agree, we adapt to different environments, I just dont like the way modern Western society somehow thinks we are the advanced ones and that the people 50.000 years ago were dumb savages, were both equally advanced, its a good thing to ponder. 

I just wanted to share this because I was reading about early man and I realized how amazing you would have to be to survive in the environments they survived in. An appreciation for early man thread. 

Edited September 28, 2018 by Rilles

[Hellspeed]

Why not?  Is one of a dream of mine  

[Joseph Maynor]

Survival is Egoic.  The true Self is not worried about survival in Maya.  Ditto for success.  Ditto for love.  Ditto for happiness.  All that is Egoic distraction into Samsara (Hell) if clung to too tightly.  

Edited September 29, 2018 by Joseph Maynor

[Haumea2018]

Quote

Survival is Egoic.  The true Self is not worried about survival in Maya.  Ditto for success.  Ditto for love.  Ditto for happiness.  All that is Egoic distraction if cling to too tightly.

Look, this idea that equates enlightenment to the renunciation of worldly desires is just wrong.  100% wrong.

It is much more subtle than that.

People on this forum, for some reason, have come to associate enlightenment with passivity, resignation and indifference to the world.

Enlightenment is the natural state.

What does that mean? Does it mean you don't care if you live or die? No.  It's just that your self-concept is unattached to survival concerns.  This doesn't mean you have no spontaneously occurring survival concerns.  If a bus is coming at you, you're going to move out of the way.

This is hard for people to get, because they believe enlightenment is something otherworldly or extraordinary.

In reality, it's the flowering of ordinary.  All kinds of impulses run through you, including survival impulses. 

Nature taking its course includes self-preservation instincts.

The simplest way to put it is, enlightenment is the absence of resistance to what IS (i.e. everything that naturally arises.)

Edited September 29, 2018 by Haumea2018

[Adam M]

@Joseph Maynor that's not the point

[Joseph Maynor]

12 hours ago, Haumea2018 said:

Look, this idea that equates enlightenment to the renunciation of worldly desires is just wrong.  100% wrong.

It is much more subtle than that.

People on this forum, for some reason, have come to associate enlightenment with passivity, resignation and indifference to the world.

Enlightenment is the natural state.

What does that mean? Does it mean you don't care if you live or die? No.  It's just that your self-concept is unattached to survival concerns.  This doesn't mean you have no spontaneously occurring survival concerns.  If a bus is coming at you, you're going to move out of the way.

This is hard for people to get, because they believe enlightenment is something otherworldly or extraordinary.

In reality, it's the flowering of ordinary.  All kinds of impulses run through you, including survival impulses. 

Nature taking its course includes self-preservation instincts.

The simplest way to put it is, enlightenment is the absence of resistance to what IS (i.e. everything that naturally arises.)

Well, we can agree to disagree too.  Can your Ego handle that?   Why do you feel like you need to correct me?   Instead, you should be probing me and asking me for clarification, or just plainly ignoring me if what I say doesn’t resonate with you.  I don’t come on here to please your Ego with what I say.  Moreover, your above reply is revealing to me regarding your stage of growth.  Been there done that.  

I’m done arguing about Enlightenment, but I will explain myself further if someone requests that I do so either in a post or in a private message.  What I say comes from me and is all honest statement.  And it comes from my own seeing which is a different source than Thinking.  Trying to argue with me about Enlightenment conjures up the old saying, "who do I believe you or my lying eyes?"

Edited September 29, 2018 by Joseph Maynor

[Joseph Maynor]

7 hours ago, Adam M said:

@Joseph Maynor that's not the point

Please elaborate.  Anybody can say ‘is not’ or ‘is too’.  Give reasons for your conclusion and then a conversation is possible.  You left no room for conversation in your dismissive comment.  It’s also not clear exactly what your objection is.  What’s not the point?  Whose point?  It’s an attack without any substance behind it, an objection without any foundation we might call it.

Edited September 29, 2018 by Joseph Maynor