Sunmaster

Thank you for the clarification. According to this I used the term Brahman correctly then. But again, I don't think it's an either-or situation. You can have some sort of individual cosmic consciousness (sometimes called God), and at the same time an impersonal force.

I don't think they are mutually exclusive, they just focus on different aspects of AllThereIs. The same goes for any other religion. The notion of the One God or Creator coexists with that of Nothingness or impersonal ultimate reality. They are all correct and valuable.

I can't speak for what others believe, but if they are Buddhists, I would think yes, in some way or another. The reality though, is that the more esoteric teachings (of any religion) are often misunderstood or ignored by those that don't practice. So I guess it depends on the individual if and how much they believe in them.

Yes, Buddhism is at its core extremely practical. That's why I'm attracted to it. Buddhism also stresses the fact that the world we live in is Maya, an illusion so convincing that we rarely doubt its reality. So, while there is Maya (material manifestation of energy patterns coming from the source), there is also Brahman, true reality. Not as opposites though. Maya is a result of Brahman's creative force. For many, Maya is the only reality there is. And from that fact, countless problems arise that make our lives miserable.

Ego is a construct, yes. The self is not an illusion. The self is the source of the personality and ego. Apart from that, I agree with your post. From my experience, Thais in general don't have a very deep understanding of Buddhism (a bit like most Catholics know very little about their own religion), but many do practice meditation. And that I regard as more beneficial than any theoretical knowledge.

I'm familiar with his teachings, yes.

Maybe the fact that you accused me of not being humble enough? Or of pretending to know more than the Dalai Lama and millions of Buddhists?

Not sure what warranted such a salty reply. Anyway, what you say and what Buddhists say, does in no way contradict what I theorised about. Time is cyclical yes...in our 3D world. Beyond that, time as we know it ceases to exist. This is in line with Buddhist teachings when they speak about timelessness. Enlightenment is ‘timeless’. It is an experience beyond the process of the mind conditioned by time. Hence, it is beyond time and therefore beyond the thought process. It is the experiencing of the ‘timeless present’. It is where pure ‘dhamma’ operates - simultaneous arising and ceasing. It is the experiencing of the reality. It is the experiencing of pure ‘dhamma’ beyond mind made time dimension. It is where the thought process activated by ‘kilesas’ does not operate. It is where the reality exists and illusion of ‘self’ is realised. It is the realisation of the mind’s own ignorance with the dawn of wisdom. It is where personalisation does not exist. (From http://tibetanbuddhistencyclopedia.com/en/index.php/The_Concept_of_Timelessness_in_Buddhism#:~:text=Our life exists within the,concept we are adhered to.)

Good points being discussed here. And some clueless posters still accuse us of debating Noah's Ark, lol. I'm one of those who believe that time is a human construct and only bound to our material 3D plane. Time ceases to exist, at least the way we perceive it, as soon as we step out of 3D. As an example, if we are 2 dimensional creatures and need to go from A to B, the law of our 2D world would dictate that the shortest way would be a straight line. However, as a 3D creature, we look at the paper with the 2 points and simply fold the paper so that the 2 points would touch each other with no distance at all. In the same way, what we perceive as a rigid rule of our material world (time), is very different to what it would be in 4D, 5D and so on. That said, if time is not existent in higher dimensions, the implications become very interesting. For one, the age old question of "Who created God?" or "Was there a beginning?" become irrelevant. If something exists outside time, then there can't be a beginning nor an end, which are only pertinent to 3D time. Furthermore, the questions of "past life" or "future life" are based on our understanding that time is linear, but are equally wrong. There are no past lives. There may be multiple incarnations in 3D, but from a perspective higher than 3D, they are all happening at the same time, right now. And for this reason it is also interesting to note that we can influence these other incarnations to some degree and perhaps even consciously benefit from their personal experiences. Difficult to grasp, but I believe this to be true.

Of course we can only speculate at this point. I guess a soul can have more than one incarnation where the personality plays the aggressor or victim, IF the lesson it set out to learn hasn't been fully learned the previous times. I agree with the "hierarchy in the evolution of souls" though.

Reminds me of something a poster asked here not too long ago. "Why do bad things happen to good people?" This question only makes sense in the limited dualistic perception (right/wrong....good/bad). Maybe a more appropriate question would be "Why do things happen to people?"....or even better "Why do things happen?". If we believe in some sort of soul or higher self, and if we believe that this soul has a much bigger overview of our 3D reality and other realities, then it would be logical to think that this soul is always aware that part of it is incarnated in 3D and knows that it chose to forget its identity during the incarnation (us). The soul also knows that it chose this setup as a way to act out various scenarios with the intention of learning or perfecting attributes such as compassion and tolerance. All this is to say that in this light, there are neither wrongdoers nor victims. All souls have chosen to be incarnated and agreed to go through the life experiences they are living. This time around they may play the aggressor, next time they may be the victim, just so they can appreciate the energy dynamics from different points of view.

In reality you don't really need external guidance to find out who you are. You know best, but you need to know how to do it. If spirituality is diving into the subconscious and beyond, then a very simple breathing technique (pranayama) can help you to get there. I think it's all much simpler and more self evident than we imagine it to be.

Thank you for your reply. 1) Yes, you're right. They are not the same. The conscious mind is the operating system, while the ego is a program in this OS, so to speak. I should have made this distinction more evident. 2) You mean the tools used to explore the subconscious mind? Psychology and Psychotherapy are scientific disciplines, although classified as soft science. Are you referring to tools offered by the hard sciences?

Excellent post.

I'm working on a drawing that (I hope) can illustrate some concepts that are forming in my mind. I won't post pictures of the actual work for now, but I'd like to share a few details of the concepts to get them out there and maybe with the help of your feedback, fine-tune them. The following concepts are nothing new, but I will expand them further to include even wider ideas and their implications. So, this is us. Sitting on a tiny island (the tip of the iceberg - our conscious mind), interacting with the material world through our ego and our outer senses. Underneath the waterline is our subconscious....that mysterious, messy realm we are being told is there, but have no real knowledge of it. Most of us, at least. Most of us spend our lives concentrating on what can be perceived by the 5 outer senses. Every last bit of energy is used to explore, interact and make sense of this world. That's what we were taught from the moment we are born as a way to secure our survival in this world. Most people never venture under the waterline. We are not taught to explore this territory, which is a part of us, just like the visible iceberg tip. There is fear involved when it comes to diving down into the dark and unknown waters of the subconscious, and the automatic responses to this fear are denial, ridicule, anger and aggression. We have plenty of examples of that in this thread. In a sense, I would say that everything beneath the waterline is commonly labeled as "spiritual". In its widest sense though, the term "spiritual" would also include the material world. Now, as I mentioned in a previous post, for some reason some people are attracted to the subconscious and seek to explore and understand it. To do this there is a plethora of tools available: from psychology and psychotherapy, to art therapy, dreamwork, all kinds of New Age workshops, shamanism, entheogenic substances, religion (prayer, contemplation), spirituality (yoga/meditation) and many many more. Not all tools are created equal and their effectiveness varies greatly. What they all have in common though, is the fact that they recognize this hidden part of man and set out to explore it. Thoughts so far?

I honestly don't know to whom you're referring to. Most certainly not to me, since I've never quoted the bible to make any of my points. In fact, I argued against the bible thumpers (those that take the allegories literally and damn you eternal hell for not believing as they do) as fiercely as any of the atheists/materialists. However, if someone uses bible quotes to make a point in an open and respectful discussion, then I have no problems with that. Like Hummin said, there is a lot of truth in the bible, but one has to use discernment and not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Dismissing it as purely a tool for power or fairytales is equally wrong and shortsighted as taking it literally and making it the source of all your knowledge.

You go on complaining about the bible, the church, religion, paedophiles and whatnot in your long post, when the reality is that in the history of this long thread, there have only been 2 posters (as far as I remember) who were bible thumpers, and they left a long time ago. The rest of us is on very different wavelengths and we mainly discuss psychology, spirituality, ecology, sociology, consciousness and more. But why let truth get in the way of a good Sunday morning rambling, right?

I think I can answer that. Besides, he wouldn't be able to identify and verbalise the real reason anyway. In a nutshell.... It's because small minds can't handle big thoughts. They start to spin uncontrollably and land on their backs, in a state of stupor and unable to move for a long time. Sometimes it's irreversible. So, to avoid going through all that, they start to see threads like this as life threatening and will do whatever they can to stop big ideas from spreading. These specimen can become quite aggressive in the process. It is recommended to avoid contact and don't disturb them in their natural habitat (often called "bars"). If they do come closer, then just ignore them and walk away. Thankfully, they usually lose interest and return to their stools quite fast. Hope this helps.

I think the Earth has energy lines with hotspots (concentrated energy area) and cold spots (areas where you feel uneasy), similar to the energy lines in our bodies (nadis, chakras, acupuncture points). I also believe that a place can absorb psychic energy, especially when it's coupled with strong emotions/intentions. I found such a place when I visited the amazing underground "Temples of Humankind" in Damanhur, north of Italy. If you are ever in Italy, I wholeheartedly recommend visiting Damanhur. Even as an atheist/materialist, one can not remain unperturbed by the sheer beauty of it. Video documentary here. Likewise, any place of worship will absorb or be imprinted with the thought patterns of the people there.

Oooor....since you have nothing worthy to contribute, you could simply disappear. Sorted.

Nature is not equal to the Divine Consciousness (my definition of "God"). Nature is the material manifestation of the D.C., a partial aspect of it. Nature can be called divine, but so are we and everything in between, because we are all part of nature. In the Hindu philosophy, nature would be classified as "maya", or illusion. Maya is the veil that covers our real nature and the real nature of the world around us. So, while nature is built and permeated by the D.C., it's still just a smoke screen, keeping us separated from the unfiltered reality that is the Divine Consciousness.

Lol YOU are the portal!

I think they are fascinating and I'm sure there is a lot we don't understand yet about the role they play in the ecosystem. I also believe that they (among other psychotropic substances) were humanity's first spiritual teachers. Even today, I think they can play an important role in our spiritual evolution and physical wellbeing. Thankfully, science is slowly re-discovering and researching these proprieties, and implementing them in consciousness research and as a cure to mental health issues.

Not for me. The questions of who I am and how it all connects, are more than necessary for me. They're imperative. And I can't be the only one, given that the thoughts of God or Spirit have been central to humankind for thousands of years. But you're right, to each his own. New questions will arise sooner or later, at the appropriate time, and will need to be answered.

Of course you are free to think that, even if it's wrong. It's easier to think that way, but still wrong. Not everyone who believes in a greater reality does so based on faith alone. Then there are others who look for evidence to support their beliefs. The problem is that you are looking for evidence in the material world, because that is the only evidence you've learned to trust. However, there are other sources of evidence that are infinitely more adequate. It's like you are expecting an old tape recorder to take pictures. When you realize that it's not possible, you deduct that there is nothing to take pictures of, when in reality, all you need to do is to use the appropriate tool for the job. Use a camera. Do you see what I mean? If you're looking for evidence of a spiritual reality, don't expect a machine to do the detection for you. It simply won't work. Use your inner tools to get results. That's what all spiritual traditions teach at their core: to go within.