oh deary me. we had someone here a while back who went on and on about how free will was an illusion, because any decision we made we were destined to make, blah blah blah; it was philosophically ludicrous. you're starting to sound a little similar. look - presumably you decide when to get out of bed in the morning. that is control of something, however small; you may have little control over your life in a macro sort of way (whether interest rates and inflation go up and down, whether your team does well at football, all that sort of thing) but make no mistake, you contribute to this, even in the smallest way. that is one of the reasons that we say that "he who destroys one life destroys a world".
Does the Bible not say to do God's will? Muslims are constantly disputing whether there is free will or not because the Quran seems to suggest it is not the case. Hinduism says much the same, and the Advaita practitioners will be quite adamant of this. Buddhism seems to be the only faith that proclaims individualism at the highest reaches of consciousness reached.
Now, I am not going to this extreme, my mind still asserts doubt over intuitions to go in a certain direction. I do uphold interconnectedness though, that the entire universe is intimately related. Your example is very poor though, no one chooses when they wake up unless they set an alarm.
so, presumably when you are in a crowd, you just follow it; when you're in a lift, you simply step off the first time the door opens and when you're on a train, you get off at the third stop - i mean, really. this all sounds very grand, but it doesn't really amount to a substantial insight other than the unworkable "be totally passive"; what happens when someone mugs you, do you just hand over your wallet?
I attempt to follow intuition as much as possible, this rarely takes me with the crowd, it is very much against the crowd most of the time because most of society today goes on going against the stream. It is not being passive at all, passive is a duality, the opposite of aggressive. It is simply a being, there is no qualifier necessary.
let me give you a better example - how exactly does one "go with the flow" when one is playing music? you can "play what you feel", of course, but what is really happening is that you're responding pre-emptively using reflexes and feedback loops and vocabulary such as scales, modes and techniques you developed when you practiced and listened to previous pieces. on one level you're "going with the flow", but on a far more granular level, your axons are firing in order for you to move a finger at the right time to hit the right note with the right amount of pressure - all of these are, if you like, micro-choices, even nano-choices. but they're still choices. you could play something different.
One goes with the flow by listening to intuition with trust.
How does this apply to music? Hazrat Inayat Khan has an entire volume on this exact topic - one simply observes the flow of the sound and keeps the wave going. When you are in tune with the instrument, you simply know how the notes can best fit together, though this intuition you can create a masterpiece - most of the time, people are just going off sheet music, no intuition is needed here.
When you simply are the music, when you are totally in tune and are creating a cosmos rather than cacophony it is not that you move the fingers to create the notes, the fingers begin to move of their own accord because that is where the wave is going next.
I have not experienced this, my experience is with music as a dancer. When dancing, as soon as I start considering moves the whole thing is utterly ruined. If I am attuned to the music though, I needn't do anything, I simply move with the music and what is created is often praised by those around.
no - in *hindsight* there is only one possible response. in reality there is *every possible response*, executed simultaneously and at the same time not-executed simultaneously. it is far too much to hold in a regular human perceptual framework. mystical practice, at its best, enables us to approach this with far more equanimity.
Intuition, listening to the whispers of God, is like hindsight as the situation is arising. It is as though past and future have blended into the present and there is no segregation. You begin to see what is happening before it is the case, because mind is not gone as a constant condition however often doubts arise and something negative usually happens as a consequence.
As a particular example, as I was leaving my neighborhood to go to the store on a peddle bike, I stopped because a girl was trying to catch her dog. I thought not to scar the dog and make it harder to catch, so I stayed still. I watched the situation arise and at one point the dog was right next to me, I was told "dive and grab it now" but I thought it would be bad to become involved now. The girl had now gone around the bike and the dog began running further up the street - towards a major road. When it started running, it arose "it is going to get hit, tell her to stop chasing it that way" - again I ignored. No sooner that this was said, I heard it get crunched under a car... harsh lesson, and yet mind still insists on asserting its doubts during day to day activities.
but that hasn't switched off your choices - your choices are perhaps more passive, more unconscious, less mindful, but they're still choices. only physiological stuff like breathing doesn't involve choice.
It is not that the choices are less passive or conscious, it is that when I go against intuition there are negative encounters, when I go with the flow of life all is good. It is actually that I am MORE conscious, I am conscious that I am not to choose, that there is no need to choose, that all is taken care of without my decisions.
It is when I go into unconsciousness that struggles arise, when I go with the current all is blissful and utterly enjoyable. Life becomes a heaven, but otherwise it is a hell.
perhaps you found them "uninteresting" because they failed to fit into your preconceptions of what the text *says*. most people, starting from a text, would concern themselves with its actual contents, based on actually looking at it, not vague generalisations of what they assumed was in it.
I have no conceptions, I have a truth which guides me in all things. If I am reading a religious text that doesn't even hint at this truth, why waste time accumulating whatever it is conveying? I am not interested in spiritual knowledge, it has already served its purpose for me. I am interested in causing others to experience what I have encountered, and for myself to go deeper into that.
ok, but you're not going to like what i'm going to say, because what i'm going to say is that neither perspective can be divorced from its inextricably mainstream-jewish (oh the contempt!) content. seriously - do you actually think hasidism can be considered without considering hasidic observance of shabbat? do you actually think you can know anything about kabbalah without understanding the halakhic and aggadic substructures that support it? how typically new-age; let's eat the tasty mustard and forget the rest of the sandwich.
I am not trying to be an observing hasidic or kabbalist, I am interested in venturing in their direction only because our discussions will have more common ground. I am not a slave to any practices, they are a distraction from gratitude and love for the whole. They are frilly pantomimes to entertain the unconscious, activities to give the mundane something to do.
You say it is "typically new age", I simply say it is an avoidance of the childishness of the old. We will certainly conflict in this area though, my main influence is Osho who died in 1990, yours is no less than 3,000 years into the past. Osho has catered much of his talks on modern people, the ancients are not like the people today at all so for me what they teach for the most part is irrelevant today. There are some gems here and there, but if I wanted a history lesson I would take a class on it at college.
in judaism, as in philosophy, detail and precision are both astoundingly important.
It is because it is an ego pursuit :/
yes, that's called instinct. we have instincts too, but we also have humanity, which allows us to choose whether or not we act on our instincts. presumably you don't feel up anyone that takes your eye?
Animals have instinct, they react.
Humans have intuition, we respond.
It is a subtle but important difference.
i see what you mean, but you're assuming that the edenic state is precisely equivalent to the state of enlightenment and, for us, the edenic state is somewhat less, in many ways, than humanity is.
According to most of your stances in this post, enlightenment is also somewhat less than humanity... of course this is ego, you are human and you want to feel you are superior, important.
we've seen simplistic beauty - usually it has been something along the lines of "if we could only kill all the jews, life would be so good!" simplistic beauty invariably has a brutal elegance; a tiger has a simplistic beauty, but i wouldn't want to share my house with one.
This is not simplistic beauty... a child playing and laughing is a simplistic beauty, a flower flowing in the wind is a simplistic beauty. Life is filled with simplistic beauty, but sustaining life in the instance of the Lion and hatred in the case of the absurd statement you have said is something else entirely. Food is necessary, survival at the expense of another is often a necessary evil in nature. Wanting to kill Jews is a jealousy caused by Jews proclaiming themselves the chosen people of God because a book says it, it an inferiority complex and like yourself wanting to think your current situation is superior others want to say they are superior - the ultimate dominance we feel we can have over another is to kill them.
you see, this is why i got bored halfway through "eat, pray, love"; i would have stayed in italy scoffing pasta and necking chianti. yes, life is full of tragedy, renunciation is one way of dealing with it - but it isn't the jewish way. we've never gone in for monastic existence. we like our food, arguments, texts, music and bonking too much.
Why do you bring renunciation in? I am about totality in everything, repression of nothing. It is easy to not get caught up in the market while you are in the mountains, but you have not grown you have simply become a coward. They say renounce the world, but the just move address, it is stupid. Then they go on begging because they have renounced money, what is this serving? You are not becoming more religious when you renounce, you are becoming more lazy.
again, this sort of polystyrene vocabulary sounds like new-age fiddle-faddle to me.
I do not prescribe to New Age thinking, but what is the problem in it? Why do you have such a disdain when you post about it, it is your go-to for describing a religious statement you disagree with. You should probably go into why you have created this attitude, did you come across something which hit a nerve and offended you in some way? Usually when ego lashes out, it is because it is threatened, this is usually a good sign to investigate in that direction...
fine. but then, who's going to pick the kids up from school?
For one thing, you are creating in them a dependence on you which is unhealthy - depending on their age. Secondly, using another as an excuse is not much of an excuse at all. If there is this responsibility, you will do it more reliably and yet not so habitually when you are acting through response. Often the unconscious person will look at the clock and realize they are going to be late because they have not noticed the time. Existence tells you when things are to be done if you listen, you need only tell it you wish to do the thing.
Of course, you don't agree with statements like this, you still crave control over yourself. It is perfectly good for now if you can grow ever increasingly in love for your God, then a day can come when you will be ready to hand over this control.
oh, really? pray, tell me what the nazis found useful in their faith that the jews of europe should have learned from, other than to get the feck out of there? or is that exactly what you mean?
That their community was becoming too dispersed, too easily victimized. You cannot uphold statements saying you are the best race on the planet and then live in the world just as a common citizen. It is why the Jews need their own country, to band together and protect against those that are offended.
White people get away with it because we are the majority in every country where we reside basically, but if it wasn't the case every race on the planet would have the right to destroy each of us for our history of enslavement and murder. I do not condone either groups history, the Bible is filled with the slaughters they have committed in their early days too. It is always the case that if you think yourself superior, others are less, it becomes very easy to kill something you consider an animal - animals you can kill daily for food.
When people identify with any group, part of this is always that other is now the enemy. You will tend to agree on things the group has decided without question, you will do things which you ordinary wouldn't because you wish to be part of the group.
sorry, i must have nodded off. i'm going to go and get some coffee and perhaps a kebab.
You are aware there is no requirement to reply to everything said?
Probably could have done with skipping those last 10 or so statements, just saying. What purpose has that served other than to show your arrogance?
