[Faith-talk] Eastern Religions

Thu May 15 02:41:59 UTC 2014

Poppa Bear,

Very good thoughts. In a sense, yes even karma and reincarnation are just stories that fall by the wayside.

Hoever, while the ego appears to be in charge, it can go either with or against the flow of the Reality. Imagine if you will that you are in a boat floating down the river. As ing as you are going with the current, it is effortless. However, if you get it in your mind to go against the current, you will suffer. You will resist the river, and be pushed where you don’t want to go. Going against the current is the action, and the resistance is the karmic reaction.

There are multiple levels to this. As long as there is ego, there is karma and rebirth. When ego dies, so does karma and rebirth. All of these were just appearances, but necessary for this realization to occur.

Brandon
On May 14, 2014, at 6:12 PM, Poppa Bear <heavens4real at gmail.com> wrote:

> I imagine that diversity can be good, but if it is all nihilism,
> nothingness, or a mirage then even karma and reincarnation are mere
> subjective types of fantasies and in some mysterious way they could be
> categorized as transcendent truth? Am I looking at it all wrong?
> 
> -----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 1:23 PM
> To: Faith-talk, for the discussion of faith and religion
> Subject: Re: [Faith-talk] Eastern Religions
> 
> Poppa Bear,
> 
> I'm sorry that I misunderstood your beliefs. I thought you said to Mostafa
> that you are Agnostic.
> 
> You are speaking IMO of apparent truths. I am speaking of transcendent
> Truth, which is beyond all things and beyond all descriptions. Truth is not
> really the best word for it, as truth seems to have an opposite: falsehood.
> This transcendent reality, this That, has no opposite, because it is all
> that is. You say it is vague because there is nothing that can be said about
> it.
> 
> All I can say is that we are all this transcendent reality. Not mere parts,
> but the totality of it. Just as the wave of the ocean temporarily separates
> itself, but then returns to its source, so each of us temporarily seems to
> separate ourselves from this Source, but inevitably we return to it. We have
> never left; it only appears as such.
> 
> There is no external world. It is only a projection of mind, of ego. It is
> "created" so that we can in the end realize it was all a mirage. It was the
> delicate interplay of consciousness reflected upon itself. As I said before,
> there is no doer. There is no one behind the mask. It is all nothing. God,
> man, soul, is all a creation of mind.
> 
> Anyway my whole point in posting this was to see if anyone else out there
> was familiar with this philosophy. I think it is good to have a diversity on
> this list, so I wanted to express my own thoughts.
> 
> Brandon
> On May 14, 2014, at 11:52 AM, Poppa Bear <heavens4real at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Hello Brandon, thanks for your thoughts on this, and just so you know, 
>> I am far from agnostic. Without being disrespectful, it would seem 
>> that this concept of truth is so open ended that about anything can be 
>> fit within the definition. I think that truth is opriori, a self 
>> evident truth that stands as truth regardless of whether if anybody 
>> believes it or not, example, 2 plus 2 objects would be 4 objects 
>> regardless if somebody didn't believe it, if it was in space, 
>> underground or where ever, there would still be four objects. Also, if 
>> there is truth, then the opposite is there, and that would be a lie. 
>> Nature, science, math, emotions all show us that everything has an 
>> opposite and that would appear to be a self evident truth that is 
>> based on reality. So when somebody says, this may be your truth, but 
>> not my truth, it is a head scratcher to me. Somebody may say, the best 
>> car is a Ford and another may say the best car is a Chevy, those are 
>> simply opinions, even though they may feel that they are the gospel on 
>> cars, they are subjective preferences. When we except something, we 
>> are rejecting something else and often the difference is between truth 
>> and a lie, good or bad, dark and light. Dark and light do not coexist, 
>> light drives out the darkness and truth exposes lies. Some people are 
>> in bondage and some are free, some people walk in the light and some 
>> in dark. Also, there are sometimes vast differences between, facts, 
>> knowledge and, beliefs and truth. Giving something a definition 
>> doesn't make it a true definition, or even a truth, often people will 
>> bass their "truth" over an antidotal experience, or conclude that if 
>> this worked for my cousin then it must be true, example, Jane had 
>> cancer, she started eating nothing but wheat grass and became cancer 
>> free, there for, wheat grass cures cancer. This kind of conclusion is 
>> a guesstamation at best, but many people reason like this all day and 
>> base their belief system around examples like this. Along with this, some
> would say, if it feels right, then it must be truth. Unfortunately, things
> feeling right and truth are often as far from one another as the sun and
> moon.
>> Hitler felt that it was right for him to try and extinguish an entire 
>> culture based on nothing besides a ethnic title, but he was believing 
>> and propagating a maniacal lie to the German people the whole time. 
>> These are just a few examples of some of my thoughts and my initial 
>> reaction to your response.
>> Take care and have a good day in your part of the world
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Brandon Olivares [mailto:programmer2188 at gmail.com]
>> Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2014 6:41 AM
>> To: Poppa Bear
>> Cc: Faith-talk, for the discussion of faith and religion
>> Subject: Re: [Faith-talk] Eastern Religions
>> 
>> 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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