[Faith-talk] Eastern Religions

Wed May 14 18:17:26 UTC 2014

Brandon, do you think that it is plausible that our past life notions could
actually be passed down to us through our progenitors? I myself believe that
it is not just our physiological traits that come from our forefathers, but
latent memories can be passed down to our off spring as well. For instance,
If I had a great grandpa who grew up in Ireland and spent his life along
that countries wild and rugged landscape, then I may gravitate to having a
deep appreciation for that same wild landscape and may often feel a since of
familiarity when I see things that he was fawned of. In the same manner, the
memories of more intimate and personal experiences may be passed down. I
think that this is within the scientific realm and has a great amount of
validity as the power of DNA is made more clear over time. As far as your
thoughts on whether or not we can grow wise enough, or know enough within 70
years or so to get to a place called heaven, there are only a few basic
things we need to know from a Christian perspective. It is really a message
that is simple enough for a child to either except or reject, beyond that it
becomes a philosophy that is no longer a promise or a truth for humanity. It
is the only belief system that I am aware of that takes no extensive
schooling, training, test or ceremony to except or reject. I have heard the
message of the Gospel laid out in 5 minutes and without any preamble, over
ten thousand people came forward with tears in their eyes to take up the
promise of this belief. These were people who had experienced the worship of
hundreds of different so called God's in eastern religions, cruel dictators,
terrible wars that laid their country and families to waist and when it was
said and done, that five minute message gave them something that they
couldn't find any ware else. Was that message a truth,? Were the promises
made in that five minute talk true promises, or lies? If That can't be
answered without needing some proposed theory to attached to it, then we
need to evaluate many things in our ability to reason through the modes and
operations of our questioning,  because it is a simple question and in its
essence, truth is simple, and most things are either a truth or a lie. I
find that many people are simply scared to hold on to a real truth, because
at the heart of truth you have to be willing to give up a lot to really
protect the most precious truths and so many don't want to really make that
kind of sacrifice. For instance, in WWII Churchill thought it was true that
people should not be slottered around the entire world because one man
wanted to stamp out anything that he thought was not part of his idea of a
super race, this being the case, people had to stand on the side of the same
truth that Church hill did and be willing to sacrifice everything for that
truth. Now a days, as soon as a truth makes a person uncomfortable then they
shift their position to a more comfortable place and change their so called
idea of truth based more on fear than anything else most of the time.

-----Original Message-----
From: Faith-talk [mailto:faith-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Brandon
Olivares via Faith-talk
Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2014 8:13 AM
To: Faith-talk, for the discussion of faith and religion
Subject: Re: [Faith-talk] Eastern Religions

Kirt,

Thanks for your reply.

Yes, I agree that eastern religion can comprise quite a range of concepts. I
am largely influenced by the non-dual schools of Hinduism, particularly
advaita vedanta. I don't have as great of knowledge of Buddhism. In my
experience, Buddhism tends to speak of emptiness, while Hinduism tends to
speak of an all-encompassing being, which they call Brahman. I tend to agree
with this latter school of thinking, though both can really be true. As I
said, words cannot express it.

As for reincarnation, firstly it makes the most sense to me. We all come
into this world at various points. Some people become materialistic, while
others seem to naturally become spiritually enlightened at a very young age.
People have different beliefs, different fears, different interests, which
cannot all be explained by either genetics or their upbringing.

What's the alternative? The atheist would say that we simply blink out of
existence at the end of our life. I don't believe this, but won't go into
detailed reasons here.

The other possibility is the Christian idea of heaven or hell. I find this
inherently unjust. How can a person definitively discover truth and what is
good, in a span of 70-80 years or less, to such a degree that they could
potentially end up in a fiery place of torment for eternity? There is so
much to learn in this world; we can't possibly do everything we need to do,
learn all the lessons we need to learn, in a few decades.

So reincarnation makes the most sense. We have thousands of lifetimes in
which to learn everything we need to. There is no rush. there is no
judgmental God who will send us to hell if we don't believe the right things
or aren't righteous enough. It's just one learning experience after another,
until at last we discover our true nature, which I discussed in my prior
email.

Besides this, I've been a fan of the work of Dr. Brian Weiss. If you're not
familiar with him, he was a traditional psychiatrist who used hypnosis in
his therapies at times. Eventually he found that some of his patients
naturally regressed into a time before they were born in their current life.
Though he was very skeptical at first, pretty soon the evidence added up and
he had to admit to reincarnation. I believed in it before reading his books,
but his writings definitely helped.

I've also had past life regressions myself and had very strong experiences.
This is not evidence per se, but it definitely helped me to make this all
more than mere theory.

As for karma, I believe in the more traditional view of it. Again, there's
no God keeping a tally of all of our sins, but it is simply a reaction to
our every thought, word and action in this world. Sometimes it returns
almost immediately, and sometimes it won't return for many lifetimes.

Eventually we realize that there is no doer at all, but that actions simply
arise in consciousness and are effortlessly carried out. At this point no
further karma can be incurred, because the doer, who is the object of such
karma, has disappeared, and only the pure light of Truth, Brahman, Tat,
Satchidananda, etc, is present.

I hope this answers your questions.

Brandon
On May 14, 2014, at 11:53 AM, Kurt <kirt.crazydude at gmail.com> wrote:

> Brandon,
> Icy much to admire and your perspective. However, from my study of eastern
religions, not too shallow to be cursory but certainly not incredibly deep
saying you are influenced by "eastern religion"is just about as useful for
defining your specific beliefs as saying you are a "Christian."I know you
have mentioned specific branches of thought that have inspired you but I'm
curious which streams of Hinduism/Buddhism you identify with most. Also,
when you speak of "Karma"are you referring to the Jain concept of karmic
matter on your soul or the more traditional view that it is simply a force
of nature? Also, what sort of empirical evidence do you have to justify your
belief in reincarnation? Again, I'm not trying to offend, I'm just curious.
> Best,
> Kirt ,
> 
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
>> On May 14, 2014, at 8:41 AM, Brandon Olivares via Faith-talk
<faith-talk at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>> 
>> Poppa Bear,
>> 
>> There are several answers to this. Obviously, truth is reality. What is,
is truth. The question is, what really is?
>> 
>> For the purposes of ending suffering, which is why I think we are here,
that doesn't much matter. What matters is that we don't argue with truth.
Arguing with truth is the root of all suffering.
>> 
>> Let me give an example. Let's say you apply for a job, but you aren't
accepted. If your reaction is anger and depression, or any other negative
emotion, you are suffering. Why? Because truth is that you did not get the
job, but you are trying to argue with reality. You are trying to say, "I
should have gotten that job." But you didn't; there is no should about it.
When you come to accept that you should not have gotten it, simply because
you didn't, you will no longer suffer, and can go on to apply to other jobs
and either get accepted, or not.
>> 
>> So truth in this sense is simply, that which is. When we argue with that,
we suffer. That which is will never change because we really want it to. It
will be what it will be.
>> 
>> If your interest is deeper than that, and you want to find your own
spiritual identity, then we can identify Truth further, but not much. My
favorite sentence of the Tao Te Ching says:
>> 
>> "The tao that can be told
>> is not the eternal Tao
>> The name that can be named
>> is not the eternal Name."
>> 
>> So, whatever you try to say of Truth, is simply false, because Truth (and
I am using a capital T here to point out its transcendent nature), is beyond
all words. Words are man-made, describing finite realities, but Truth is
infinite. In Taoism, it is simply called the Tao, also often called the
void, or nothingness, or darkness. In Hinduism, especially in advaita
vedanta, it is called tat, which literally translates to "that."
>> 
>> Truth is what I call God, but in reality God is a pretty poor term for
it, because it is so abused in the west. People say, God is loving, God is
just, God hates these people or those, we must kill in the name of God, etc.
God is anthropomorphized- it (and I use it purposefully), is made into a
person, a He usually. By so doing, God is made exclusive. He is not a she,
and he only approves of certain things, but hates others.
>> 
>> But Tao, Tat, that which is, approves of all. It has no opinion, because
it knows of no good or evil. It is simply being, or non-being, whichever. It
does not matter. We are all part of that reality, our souls are really all
specs within that larger beingness. There is no you or I or the other, but
only Tat, Tao, Truth, filtering through our apparent perceptions. To me, it
appears as one thing because of my totality of life experiences, while to
you, it appears as another. To you, from what you have said, it appears as
non-being, in the way that you do not know if God exists. But it also
appears as how you see the world, which I don't know you well enough to say.
It might appear as love, or as hate, or as joy or despair. But all of it,
the light and the dark alike, are all Tat, Tao, God, Truth, Reality. It is
not better or worse that you are agnostic, nor that I am non-dualist, nor
that someone else is Christian. It is how Truth manifests to that
individual.
>> 
>> I hope this helps.
>> 
>> Brandon
>>> On May 14, 2014, at 9:59 AM, Poppa Bear <heavens4real at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Hello Brandon, nice to have you on the list. I was wondering after 
>>> reading your post, how do you define truth?
>>> 
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Faith-talk [mailto:faith-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of 
>>> Brandon Olivares via Faith-talk
>>> Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2014 5:45 AM
>>> To: Faith-talk, for the discussion of faith and religion
>>> Subject: [Faith-talk] Eastern Religions
>>> 
>>> Hello,
>>> 
>>> I've been reading with interest the various thoughts posted here. 
>>> However, my own philosophy is in line with eastern thinking, such as 
>>> Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism. I don't identify with any one 
>>> religion, because I believe that a religion is just a series of 
>>> labels that in the process of self realization, we have to one day 
>>> surpass anyway. But I do read the writings of some of the masters. I 
>>> myself believe in reincarnation and karma, which are staples of 
>>> eastern religions, as well as non-duality, which is the believe that 
>>> all things are one substance- that there is neither good nor evil, 
>>> right nor wrong, being nor non-being, but the Truth includes and
surpasses all of these man-made polarities.
>>> 
>>> Anyway, I just want to see if there is anyone here who has similar 
>>> beliefs, or if there might be an interest in discussion of this sort of
philosophy.
>>> 
>>> Thanks,
>>> Brandon
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>> 
>> 
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