Comments on: Buddha is asked, is there a God?

By: Parmartha

Parmartha — Wed, 03 Jan 2018 18:57:35 +0000

The other mystical traditions, other than Buddhism, seem more sensible to me.

Of course people can experience ecstatic states of bliss, union with God, etc. but the ‘continuance’ of such states – I don’t really buy.

It may be that in a whole variety of traditions people get ‘free’ just before death, and that seems to me to be an appropriate timing!

I prefer to say that I have found certain people ‘inspiring’ and good to hang around. Spiritual leadership does not have to include being free from mistakes!

By: Arpana

Arpana — Wed, 03 Jan 2018 18:22:59 +0000

SD wrote:

“Well, I never got what I thought I’d get or imagined I’d get either. But if I hadn’t got what I did get I probably wouldn’t be alive to say so.”

That is SO succinct. Almost an aphorism.
Can relate to that so strongly. Kudos.

By: satyadeva

satyadeva — Wed, 03 Jan 2018 14:09:32 +0000

You can call it whatever suits you, Frank, but I’d be surprised if you really don’t know what I mean, or even its source.

By: frank

frank — Wed, 03 Jan 2018 13:19:26 +0000

SD, you say:
“I’m simply paraphrasing what I’ve heard and what seems plausible to me.”
Just gossip, then!?

Dom, the last line is from the Rig Veda. I`m going to recondition it a bit and then flog it on.
As T.S. Eliot said: “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.”
At least, that`s what I tried to explain to them when they caught me exiting the local bookshop with an anthology stuffed down the front of my trousers.

By: satyadeva

satyadeva — Wed, 03 Jan 2018 10:32:13 +0000

Sure, Frank, you can highlight a phrase and pick it to pieces, but what do you or I actually know about it all anyway? By “a hierarchy of levels of realisation” I’m simply paraphrasing what I’ve heard and what seems plausible to me, ie that along the way there are “realisations and realisations”, in other words plenty of them, and some deeper than others, culminating, if you’re ‘lucky’, in seeing through death, the knowledge of immortality etc. etc.

But also it seems that such a climacteric is ‘merely’ the end of the beginning, it all has to be integrated, lived, which takes quite a while, we’re told. And as you say, and as I noted in a recent earlier post, there’s apparently no ‘end’ to the process, it goes on expanding, ever deeper….

By: satyadeva

satyadeva — Wed, 03 Jan 2018 10:24:37 +0000

Well, Dominic, it seems to me that examining one’s own possible motives for such an unusual excess of concern is a prerequisite for those of us allegedly in the psycho-spiritual ‘game’.

By: Parmartha

Parmartha — Wed, 03 Jan 2018 08:23:06 +0000

There are a number of ordinary people who I rate who never stand in front of audiences and claim nothing.
You seem frustrated. I am not a Tony Parsons fan.
I suggest you change your paradigm.

By: Dominic

Dominic — Wed, 03 Jan 2018 07:17:09 +0000

“Enlightenment is a Buddhist concept and should really stay within that tradition.”
Why? In any case, similar ideas are used in other traditions, hinduism (moksha), sufism, taoism, christian mysticism.

Are you saying that you don’t dig the whole ‘enlightened master’ schtick, because it’s divisive, and that they (e.g. Osho, Buddha, Ramesh etc) are human beings who make mistakes? Does making ‘mistakes’ mean they are sometimes in an unenlightened state, e.g picking bad deputies, taking drugs, sleeping around, bullying, ‘losing it’, etc? Is ‘enlightenment’ therefore not a permanent state?

By: dominic

dominic — Tue, 02 Jan 2018 23:51:21 +0000

“However fast you run, however hard you try, you look out in front of you
and the horizon is still there….And luckily, there are so many dawns that have not yet broken.”

Bloody hell, that’s poetry mate! Where did you nick that from?!

By: dominic

dominic — Tue, 02 Jan 2018 23:45:48 +0000

SD, I cannot help but fail to disagree with you less!
(N.B. Appeal to motive fallacy, a variation of ad hominem. You do it a lot, especially with Shantam! Trying to discredit someone’s argument by attacking the person or their motives).