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etzchaim
Registered User
(8/26/03 5:14 am)
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Re: how many sheep....how few lions
Soulcircle,

You da man!

How few lions, indeed!

Etzchaim

etzchaim
Registered User
(8/26/03 7:02 am)
Reply
Re: Sign on
Stermejo, I too have heard the story differently. The version you have is much closer to the one I'm remembering. It was taught to me as a lesson in thinking for yourself and not giving the control of your life over to anyone, including the great souls of the world, who may, just maybe, really want us to stop belittling ourselves, stand up and take our inheritance as a part of God to heart and mind and Realize it. Guru's have funny ways of teaching people not to be gullable - which is something that is very difficult for people whose natural tendencies are to rely on 'faith'.

'Be careful', they seem to say, in what are often the hardest lesson we learn, 'you are safe with me, but learn to be who YOU ARE without me, learn to not depend on others and trust the Spirit within you, it already knows'.

Aham Brahmasmi - it's not ego, its God. That's what we are.

Etzchaim

prssmd
Registered User
(9/8/03 12:05 am)
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MastersChelaīs "Donīt think; just obey"
MastersChela writes, "I started this thread a while back because I wanted to know what others thought of a spiritual teacher that my friend was interested in.... Honestly, I think people here need to GET TO WORK. Stop wasting your time worrying about who's right and who's wrong on the spiritual path, and start FINDING GOD."

MastersChelaīs attitude here is just exactly the sort of thing that needs to be stamped out completely in the modern world, because it is the attitude that leads to numerous atrocities such as THE PEOPLE'S TEMPLE, led by
JIM JONES. The members were under the influence of madman Jim Jones--the sort of person who might very well have made the same statement that MastersChela makes, namely, that one should not think about who is right or wrong, not think about what is true and what is a lie, but merely obey oneīs guru or leader blindly, as if one had no mind but was just an animal. With this approach, with blind obedience to Jim Jones, the membership of THE PEOPLE'S TEMPLE agreed to commit group suicide. 914 died: 638 adults and 276 children.

Gurdjieff, Madame Blavatsky, and Rajneesh/Osho are other examples of "spiritual" leaders who treated their followers as if they were sheep. The only people whom Gurdjieff, for instance, didnīt treat like sheep were his fellow Russians, most of whom werenīt interested in spirituality. Gurdjieff and his pals who were his fellow Russians were especially devoted to having drinking parties. As for Gurdjieffīs treatment of his non-Russian followers who were interested in spiritual growth, there was quite a bit of abuse.

MastersChelaīs attitude is also one that leads to Nazism and fascism. Unfortunately, in many areas of the world today, people donīt want to be free, and they still gladly vote in authoritarian rulers. Educated Westerners have no need to adopt such an approach in their spiritual lives.

Edited by: prssmd at: 9/8/03 1:54 am
MastersChela
Registered User
(9/9/03 10:32 pm)
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Re: MastersChelaīs "Donīt think; just obey"
I wish I knew how to respond to this...

The Guru says "fools argue, wise men discuss".

You're misunderstanding my whole point here... You're equating me with the Jonestowners who comitted sucide and (You're correct) were following a madman.

When I said "Stop wasting your time worrying about who's right and who's wrong on the spiritual path, and start FINDING GOD," I didn't mean that you shouldn't see right from wrong. I didn't mean that you should blindly pick a guru and shut your intuition off. I think those people at Jonestown DID switch their intuition off. I'm saying we should switch off our flapping minds and our wagging tounges that are attached to them, and just WORK TOWARD THE GOAL. What I was refering to was to stop looking for the faults in others and work on YOU (and I'll work on ME). We can NEVER fix things in the world by trying to change others. We can ONLY change ourselves, and it's by healing our own souls that we'll heal the wounds in the world.

I'm not telling you to no longer see good from evil or right from wrong. What I'm telling you is to stop looking for those things OUT THERE and start looking for them INSIDE. all the good/evil, right/wrong, black/white stuff is just the pendulum swinging. If there weren't tyrants, we'd never value freedom. If there weren't poor people, we'd have no way of understanding what it means to be rich... All these extremes are NOT GOD. God is the middle of all extremes.

I'm saying, JUST STOP LOOKING, STOP JUDGING, and START BEING.

etzchaim
Registered User
(9/11/03 5:38 am)
Reply
Re: MastersChelaīs "Donīt think; just obey"
"JUST STOP LOOKING, STOP JUDGING, and START BEING."

Amen

dawnrays
Registered User
(9/11/03 6:27 am)
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The Truth
Very good points, MC.

I once heard a lecture where Bro. Mitrananda said "the facts are not the truth."

This simple statement struck me so strongly that I absolutely knew where he was coming from.

You can present facts and facts (for or against) and sooner or later they will all get around to contradicting each other (creating even more confusion!) Sometimes discussing things is the answer (this is positive) at others it is best to get away for a while and think about what you know and figure out what's best for YOU.

That is the truth, the one for you. It may not be somebody else's truth but it's your truth and you don't even have to bother to explain it after that! You can just live it. In the event that someone looks at your great example of living truth (as in the case of certain high souls) then you can explain it to those whose hearts are ready.

Open up your heart (it will sort out all of these confusing facts in time!)

I also once read a statement that went something like "if sex is a fact, then the truth is love." So, if "the truth" is being thrown about with the express purpose of hurting people's feelings and/or maligning thier characters, it is certainly not the truth.

It is more the spirit (of helpfulness and love) behind the statement than the actual statement itself, which is why it is so often referred to as "the spirit of truth".

dawnrays

Edited by: dawnrays at: 9/12/03 1:24 pm
etzchaim
Registered User
(9/12/03 4:56 am)
Reply
Re: The Truth
There was a woman, recently, who's inner life told her to kill her children. The fact is, she's delusional.

Somewhere between the internal and the external is a 'point', and if you can go there, which isn't anywhere, you will find truth, which is neither fact nor fiction, right or wrong, differentiated or undifferentiated.

Etz

Edited by: etzchaim at: 9/12/03 5:01 am
prssmd
Registered User
(12/3/03 2:51 am)
Reply
Re: MastersChelaīs "Donīt think; just obey"
etzchaim, quoting someone else, writes,

-------------------
"Re: MastersChelaīs "Donīt think; just obey"

"JUST STOP LOOKING, STOP JUDGING, and START BEING."

Amen"
-------------------

I have nothing against people who want to STOP LOOKING, STOP JUDGING--I just wonder why they bother to write anything for public consumption on the internet. If some guru or other is engaging in fraud, and someone questions it, then instead of confronting the fraud, the guru or his blindly obedient defenders can always say, STOP LOOKING, STOP JUDGING. That's no different than when the former heads of state in the Philippines, Estrada, and before him, Marcos, stole millions from the state treasury. When this was pointed out, they acted just like etzchaim and uttered such nonsense as STOP LOOKING, STOP JUDGING, but such utterances do not in any way correct the problem--the enormous theft from the state treasury. If etzchaim doesn't want to look or judge, that's o.k. with me, but when I look and judge, I'm doing a great service to the spiritual community, which service etzchaim ought to support, unless she wishes to act like Marcos and Estrada or their mindless supporters.

prssmd
Registered User
(12/3/03 3:05 am)
Reply
Re: dawnrays on "the truth"
Dawnrays above writes, "You can present facts and facts (for or against) and sooner or later they will all get around to contradicting each other."

Take a look at any elementary logic textbook. Facts, or truths, never contradict each other. Dawnrays doesn't understand the concept of truth. I challenge anyone to present an example of two facts, or truths, which contradict each other. If there is a contradiction, at least one of the supposed facts or truths is nonfactual, or untrue.


dawnrays also wrote:
----------------------
"if "the truth" is being thrown about with the express purpose of hurting people's feelings and/or maligning thier characters, it is certainly not the truth."
---------------------

First of all, truths are not thrown--they are asserted, stated, denied, etc. Dawnrays is also quite confused in thinking that a truth is in some cases not the truth. This is sheer miscomprehension of what "truth" is and is like saying that sometimes the number 2 is not equal to 1+1, which is simply a miscomprehension of what the number 2 is.

Sometimes truths do hurt people's feelings, but that is just too bad. I'm sure Marcos' feelings were hurt when the truth was stated that he had stolen millions from the Philippine treasury, but the fact that his feelings were hurt does not in any way make it untrue that he stole millions from the Philippine treasury. That a sentence communicates something unpleasant doesn't make it untrue--in fact, plenty of unpleasant sentences are true.

Finally, for those who may be unsure what truth is, I should like to point out that truth is a property of statements, or perhaps sentences relativized to speakers and times. A "true" sentence or statement is one which CORRESPONDS to the facts, i.e., to reality. For instance, the sentence that "snow is white" is true just in case snow actually is white. The Polish logician Tarski explained in detail the correspondence account of truth.

Edited by: prssmd at: 12/3/03 3:17 am
dawnrays
Registered User
(12/3/03 7:40 am)
Reply
Re: dawnrays on "the truth"
I think I am a good person. But that's not exactly true, because in fact I have done some wicked things. Not everybody thinks I am a good person and not everybody likes me, but most people do and think I am a good person.

The truth is of course different according to who you talk to, what time of day it is, how they are feeling that day, etc.

Many of the facts of my life might lead you to believe that I am a bad person, however there are facts that contradict those facts and it's really which facts you chose to concentrate on and prioritize that will lead you to your conclusion. It might also be affected by what type of person you are and what your values, beliefs and experiences are.

Deep, inner truths don't contradict, but the many, varied and more openly talked about (and provable in the material world) facts, do. That's why it often takes alot of meditating and experience to get to the truth. Talking things over (alot) can also be fruitful and educational and often times even diverse people with diverse opinions, can agree on things.

prssmd
Registered User
(12/3/03 11:54 pm)
Reply
Re: dawnrays on "the truth"
Dawnrays doesn't understand that that whether he/she is a "good person" (which is an exceptionally vague concept) doesn't depend on what others think about him/her. If everyone thought Hitler was a "good person," he'd still be, in fact, an evil person. Dawnrays says, "The truth is of course different according to who you talk to." This is untrue. What you get from asking different people is different opinions or beliefs, not different truths. Dawnrays also says, "The truth is of course different according to ... what time of day it is." This is also untrue. You might say, "At 10:00 it was true that the sun was shining but at 12:00 it was untrue that the sun was shining--in fact it was raining hard." Here we have two truths, "At 10:00 the sun was shining," and "At 12:00 the sun wan't shining." No contradiction here. No two truths contradicting each other.

Dawnrays also says, "Deep, inner truths don't contradict." This is an interesting point, although in fact no two TRUTHS, whether inner, deep, or otherwise, can contradict each other.

When we're talking about whether it is "true" that such-and-such a guru is guilty of fraud, we're not talking about "deep, inner truths"--instead, we're using truth in the ordinary sense. Anyway, I don't really know why Dawnrays brought up the topic of "deep, inner truths." But since he or she raised the topic, let me say that I've always thought it interesting that Theravada Buddhists could meditate and arrive at the "deep, inner truth" that there is no eternal soul, while Hindu yogis could meditate and arrive at the "deep, inner truth" that there is an eternal soul. This isn't a case of two truths which contradict each other. Rather, either the Theravada Buddhists or the Hindu yogis are just deluded and are claiming that something is true which is in fact false. I personally don't know which of their views is correct.

Edited by: prssmd at: 12/4/03 12:01 am
bsjones
Registered User
(12/4/03 12:26 pm)
Reply
ezSupporter
Re: eternal soul
The Hindu view of the soul, at least as described in the AoY, culminates in the casting off of even the casual body (that is already so thinly veiled from the Creator). What is left seems so completely merged in the great Cosmic Ocean, that there is not much individuality to speak of, not much of an INDIVIDUAL soul. So maybe there is an eternal soul, but it is essentially the same one for everybody.

prssmd
Registered User
(12/7/03 10:26 pm)
Reply
Re: One more thing
MastersChela writes, "Do you guys know that this thread is the #1 hit on Google when you type in Marshall Govindan? Anyhow, just thought you should all know that people ARE listening to what we say here. We're devotees of Master. Let's try to be his channels as much as we can be. Just think before you spew hatred and anger. I'm not saying we should censor ourselves, but I for one am doing all I can to be the kind of chela Yoganandaji would be proud of. Let's speak truth and love and acceptance "

I wish MastersChela would take his own advice. MastersChela engages in more unjustified personal attacks and spews more unjustified anger than anyone else on this website. He rarely shows either acceptance or an interest in the truth. If he is truly trying to do otherwise (which I doubt), he ought to try a lot harder.

Edited by: prssmd at: 12/7/03 10:29 pm
bsjones
Registered User
(12/10/03 11:01 am)
Reply
ezSupporter
Re: eternal soul - update
I went back and re-read the resurrected Yukteswar's comments on the final destiny of the soul, and he says that at the end, the casual body slips away and the free soul merges with the Great Cosmic Ocean without any loss of individuality! Wow!! How can that be ???

ugizralrite
Registered User
(12/10/03 9:10 pm)
Reply
Re: eternal soul - update
Fellow INTJ. re: retention of individuality. I have a point of view on this that goes quite counter to what I have read in SRF lessons and elsewhere. It is my opinion and belief that Cosmic Consciousness, so-called, can be directly accessed without all that Christ Consciousness rigmarole. Christ Consciousness is apparently about feeling the creation as one's own body, which implies toes of stars and hair of trees and blood of rivers and planets swirling around in ones head, and should include I suppose, omnipresence, and omniscience. I always wondered what if there were two Christ Conscious people in the same room, but standing on opposite sides of the room. Would they disagree by virtue of their small but real differences of perspective? Frankly I think Christ Consciousness is a silly and useless goal.

Cosmic consciousness on the other hand is quite more accessible. First, it is utter peace. Why? It is unopposed and immutable because nothing exists outside it. It is the culmination of all knowledge, and thus is full of fullness, whole. It is utterly sane, spotless, and pure by virtue of containing all. It is free, for nothing can hem it in. It is boundless for there is nothing to oppose its expansion. It is near because it is all in all. And therefore it is immediately accessible. No journeys to astral or causal planets are required. It is as much in you as it is in the gods. Why then do seekers make the simple; complex? Perhaps they thought that spirituality 101 was for simpletons, and that surely the cure for ignorance was some sort of complex and glorified exalted state of knowledge. Cosmic consciousness has nothing to demonstrate and no one to witness it's demonstrations. It is a state of complete stillness and final resolution. We can experience it naturally in glimpses of unbidden peace, and we can learn to purposely connect to it simply by dwelling on it continuously.

The key barrier to Cosmic Consciousness is its subtlety.

etzchaim
Registered User
(12/11/03 7:28 am)
Reply
Re: eternal soul - update
"Christ Consciousness is apparently about feeling the creation as one's own body, which implies toes of stars and hair of trees and blood of rivers and planets swirling around in ones head, and should include I suppose, omnipresence, and omniscience."

This seems like symbolism (...toes of stars...). Realizing the creation in one's body is realizing that the macrocosm and the microcosm are the same thing - as above, so below, etc.

It seems to me that what Yogananda called "Christ Consciousness" is referring to the manifested or Immanent understanding of God and the "Cosmic Consciousness" is referring to the unmanifested or Transcendent understanding of God. When we get to that point, whether we are the Transcendent or the Immanent loses it's meaning. It's all the same thing.

Edited by: etzchaim at: 12/11/03 7:29 am
bsjones
Registered User
(12/11/03 12:50 pm)
Reply
ezSupporter
Re: eternal soul - update
INTJ is OK!

Thanks. Your comments made me think of this: Enlightenment. It is nothing yet everything. I've always thought of Babaji's creation and maintining of the elaborate palace for Lahiri's benefit was like this. Because at some level I guess he was holding it all together one little bit/atom at a time (nothingness), but the result was a complex creation of vast proportions (everything).

As I think I've heard in Zen: Become Zero!

ugizralrite
Registered User
(12/11/03 2:07 pm)
Reply
Re: eternal soul - update
Re: It is all the same thing, and it is nothing yet everything.

I have come to Walrus filled with "spirituality 101", being a professional student, I keep repeating that course. What I am learning here for the first time is how many others have mastered 101, not only on Walrus, but in islands all over the Internet, and I think that is a sea-change in human history. Never before have so many grasped the implications of the One and the Many. Why so many and why now is also interesting.



MastersChela
Registered User
(12/16/03 10:23 am)
Reply
Re: One more thing
Quote:
MastersChela engages in more unjustified personal attacks and spews more unjustified anger than anyone else on this website. He rarely shows either acceptance or an interest in the truth. If he is truly trying to do otherwise (which I doubt), he ought to try a lot harder.


I AM trying to do otherwise, Great Soul. I'm going to take your words about me and meditate on them, because that's what myself, and others have asked you to do with ours. I do not recognize the person you discribe as a part of myself, so I will look for him, and squash him out. We should ALWAYS follow our own advice. In this, you are quite right.

If my posts come off to you as angry, I'm quite sorry. They weren't written in anger, or intended to project anger. Sometimes, I still get angry at the foriegn policy of our nation, and at the way things are portrayed in the media. I still get angry at war sometimes, and at needless killing... But I do all I can to not get angry at PEOPLE. I'm truly sorry if I have put forth this emotion. It's completly unyogilike of me.

You're probably NOT a fundamentally negative person. Few people are, and I'm also sorry I projected that onto you.

Please don't look at the things I say here and say "that's Ananda." I'm just one guy. I'm not an Ananda minister, and I haven't even been with Ananda that long (almost 2 years). My opinions are my own, and I don't ever suggest that they're the official oppinions of Ananda. Actually, I think there's probably very few "official" opinions at Ananda. We're all just a bunch of folks, trying to find a way to God. Do me a favor... Forget about this stupid "thailand meditation group" thing. It's really not important. What is important is that Ananda provides a space for people support each other on their path toward Self-Realization. This is the valuable part. This is the part I'm supporting and the part I'm working toward with my participation in the organization.

Yes, there are some things about Ananda with which even I have a problem. I won't discuss them here, because this is not the place for it. However, I accentuate the things I love about Ananda, and do what I can to make positive change from within. We're NEVER going to find a group of people with NO problems or without some aspect with which we take offense. The secret is to associate ourselves with those whom with we agree in most things, and do what we can to change the group through our own positive influence and example on the things that seem to need changing. That's what I'm trying to do with Ananda.

My dear Prssmd, I hope you find someplace to call Home, and a group of God-centered Souls to call Family.

Peace,

Jonathan
(MastersChela)

soulcircle
Registered User
(12/18/03 2:23 am)
Reply
Jonathan, thank you!
Jonathan, you say:

Quote:
I accentuate the things I love about Ananda


Thank Goodness for Ananda. I hope to see the fruit trees you all tend, in their magical bloom this spring.

Sprites, unicorns, gnomes and all!

Thank you, Dave

Edited by: soulcircle at: 12/18/03 2:25 am
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