so much spiritual talk

Couldn't have said it better myself.

 

LOL. I was going to post a video "alone in the wilderness" and that happened and after reading 8 pages of this i gave up!!

But it does go well doesn't it.

 

i'm not saying that anyone's suffering is special. but there is a natural order of things. just as we can build barriers to protect against hurricanes, the hurricane will eventually prevail. so will nature always prevail. one can can choose to abide within our natural confines, or we can choose to rough the hurricane.

what are our natural confines? there are hints in every major world religion. there are hints in the ways the earth responds to the ways that we live.

we have created for ourselves a modern fortress to protect against these truths. in the edenic creational stories the earth was perfect the way that it was, but man ate from the forbidden tree, thus leading to suffering. which puts us now, as a species whose purpose is to move away from suffering within our natural confines.

 

You cannot exceed your own barriers and this is natural.

Our natural confines are around 98 degrees f.

If you say purposes can be higher or lower, it is the same in content as saying there is higher or lower suffering, or, special suffering.

 

What is "correct"? Which is more correct, Kant "should" or Bentham "should"? Islam "correct" or Eskimo "correct"? Maybe Desos "correct" is correct, yeah?

"Spiritually inclined" . . . lol. What does this even mean? Of what use is spiritual inclination in a meat processing plant for the city of New York? Of what use is materialism in a Nepalese Buddhist temple? Context, context, context. You are lost in absolutes.

So you are a Buddhist? You spin the prayer wheels? Truly free from suffering? For a long time now Buddhists have known that Nirvana = Samsara. There is no distinction, no differentiation. Still you search for "that other place", falling into the trap of religion-hidden-as-mysticism-hidden-as-"spirituality".

If my car runs over a salamander, does the salamander prevail? Or does my car, in its natural beauty, born of the same spirit, energy, and stuff, as your mother, and my soul, and our planet, crush it, with the same kind of crushing, as hurrican Katrina on man made buildings?

I'm confused, you believe the story of the garden of eden and the forbidden fruit to be literal truth? you realize it is an allegory from a particular philosophy of theism which believes that to even wish to be equal to god is the worst sin imaginable? does this not fundamentally go against most of your other views, in which you strive to be one with god, or something?

 

all i am saying is that despite the underlying oneness of reality, there is still a fundamental imbalance. it is our purpose to bring balance.

 

describe the imbalance, i see none

 

i'd love to be able to say that we are spirit reaching toward spirit in all things, and that is it. but that is just simply not the only measure of truth. if that was all that was true, then there is no moral accountability, no ethics, no meaning, just purposeless existences seeking to experience itself. if that was true, then what would be the difference between me working towards the betterment of humanity, or going out tomorow on a killing spree and murdering many people? because it's all spirit reaching toward spirit in all things, right?

i see that there is imbalance on two levels: the physical and the spiritual. the physical i have already described fairly well in this thread regarding the unsustainability and how far from equilibrium with nature our society at large has fallen, etc.

the spiritual. even though i can agree with you that everything is spirit, that does not absolve us from attachment to the creation. if there was nothing to be accomplished, why then do you think all of the enlightened buddhist lamas reincarnate here lifetime after lifetime? surely not out of futility. i see the cessation of suffering of humanity as an essential part of the evolution of mankind as a whole. just one part of our eternal journey through existence. in order to grow and experience and bring meaning to what otherwise would be meaningless.

 

Truth is unqualified.

 

You are misunderstanding me. It is extremely sad that there is people in other countries that are suffering and have aids. But I was talking about myself, I do not live in those countries, I avoid getting AIDS by protecting myself. I have been brought up in a way where I would avoid starvation at all costs. I would eat out of dumpsters if I had to. I have compassion for those people, but your argument is ridiculous. My mother does not have aids, and my father is not a rapist. Im sure a child growing up in that situation would have trouble getting food, but I was raised different you know? Its an unfortunate situation for those people, and it was completely unecessary to bring them up.


And about the woods thing, it was a cirumstantial situation, its not like I was like "hey im going to go live in the mountains for a month" lol. I dont plan on detaching myself from society anytime soon, as I feel I can help many people come back to the light. Sorry for makin you feel neg, I didnt mean in anyway to offend. I am just sharing my views and opinions in a place where I should be able to without people "jumping down my throat"... But its all good man, I love ya!

 

You initially made this generalization, now you saying you are talking strictly about yourself comes off as really self absorbed. chasing pigeons around a city and cooking them is far more ridiculous than the arguments porkstock is making.

 

prone, why can't you just admit that it's not always the starving person's fault that they are starving? that was my ONLY problem with what you did indeed say. like GB just said, you didn't seem to be talking strictly about yourself.

 

First of all, I was fucked up when I posted that, and didnt remember posting it until you brought up the quote today. Thats no excuse though. What I really meant was the people in my immediate surrounding. I have never been to africa, so how can I make statements about those people? Come on. I was refering to the people in my NJ town who run over deer every day and dont even stop to see what just happened. I am sorry for confusing you, but it is ignorant to assume that I would be making a statement about people and places that I have never seen or been to. Again I am sorry for confusing you, sometimes I just need to vent, and a free speech forum is a good place to do it. Maybe lack of communication but you guys just seem to try to put a negative twist on things. I am sorry you feel this way.

 

I can admit that, and I never said every starving person is at fault for starving. I am not the one generalizing here lol




EDIT: I just did what you guys do and went back and read my previous posts. Maybe you should do the same and see how ridiculous you are sounding because I never said what you are claiming I said. Stop with the negativity man.

 

You got this "problem" with projecting negativity

 

you got this problem with projecting fake positivity.

you are so pretentious it's not even funny.

sounds pretty negative to me. but i didn't know you were defining "starving" as people who live in NJ (probably one of the more expensive places to live), drive nice cars and hit deer with them. my bad for thinking you meant actual starving people.

but whatever, let's just squash our little argument. it's pointless. i guess you are right, i was just confused as to what you meant.

 

Im sorry you feel this way man, and I am sorry you project all this negativity, maybe you cant help it? Seriously man, Im sorry for not being completely scientifically literal with what Im saying, but come on, have some sense. Starving people in third world countries do not run over deer every day, Im sure they would totally eat it if they did, and Im sure alot of them do not have a car to run it over. I was talking from personal experience, which is pretty much all I do, because its all I know. Ship of fools, sail away from me.



Are you having trouble seeing what is right in front of you? Maybe you need to increase dose

 

yes, increasing dose is very relevant to the conversation here.

the original post was about the conflict one might feel in having to earn money to avoid starving.
you said that the earth will give you everything you need.
which is not 100% true in all cases. such as with broke, homeless people in the USA, or broke families in africa (my ridiculous example).

but being a rich white boy from NJ (this statement is a bit ridiculous. i don't know you. i am making a generalization for the purpose of illustrating my point) you don't know much about a situation like that, so you talk about other rich NJ residents who hit deer and don't eat them. these are not starving people. just cuz they complain about money, doesn't mean they are starving, or that they need the earth to provide for them. they are pretty well off. and LUCKY for being born to a family that gives a shit - much like yourself.

again, this is getting off topic. i can't seem to help that either.

i guess my point is that mother earth doesn't provide for everyone who could use it. with all the rainbows and butterflies in prone's happy psychedelic world, there is a lot of nasty shit that happens on the earth.

but apparently you were never even talking about what i thought you were talking about. you meant, people who complain about money, but do stupid things like hit a deer and keep driving. so i guess you had a right to get defensive. but maybe you can see how i thought you were talking about starving people...since that's what you wrote.

cheers, prone. sorry for actin' like a bitch. free speech forums are a good place for that sometimes

 

Nothing needs to be added to the recipe of everything.

Morals and ethics are man made. Stars don't lose sleep when they torch cells. Cobras don't regret sinking their fangs into a person they can't eat.

The difference between "just purposeless existences seeking to experience itself" and "existence seeking to experience itself" is one of death and life, and your journey will bring you to the latter one day, i hope. We are the universe made conscious; we are all atoms from the big bang coalesced into machines and machines of machines and now there is "I". Past that, you can get lost in any fable you like, if you like.

There is no difference to the universe, only to you, and beings involved in your actions. Is there a moral imperative to how I take my coffee too? How I drive my car? Where is the rulebook for rules, you seem to have a copy with you at all times. You make the same argument that christians make against atheists; "But if there's no God, what's stopping me from raping and killing children?" I can only facepalm to this argument. If you don't know whats stopping you from raping and killing, and you think you need to invoke a supernatural deity or order or something to understand it, you are still very small, and I would not trust you with my children.

Spirit is nowhere and nothing. I don't recall saying everything is spirit. This is not my view. My view is there is no difference between what you call spirit and what is between your ears.

But you just said "Everything is spirit", so what is there to attach to what? For what? You say "all is one", and then in the next breath, "Also there are some rules the One and the Two and the Three must follow, as outlined in my doctorate:"

Wow, I don't know where to begin. Enlightened? Reincarnate? If these are the ideas you hold in your mind we do not speak the same language to continue these debates. What is enlightened? Why are they enlightened? Because the buddhist texts say so? And they are buddhist? And they say so? And they say they reincarnate? Have you considered that maybe . . . they don't reincarnate, and you are just believing the fables of a religion? Do you also believe in golden tablets containing the law of YWHW found in the USA in the 1800s? Are you a mormon? Are you a jain? Are you a catholic, and muslim, and jewish? Why not? They all say stuff like this.

Surely not, I'm sure they all reincarnate their enlightened selves for really really really good reasons . Man, if only I had a good enough reason, I would TOTALLY reincarnate myself when I die. But I just wanna see what comes on MTV in the future, and that's not good enough, so when I die, and come to the console that has the two buttons, "REINCARNATE" and "DONT REINCARNATE", I guess I'll have to push the other one. Le sigh.

Are you literally a buddhist? I'm so confused dude. I swear in earlier threads you said you were christian, but you keep throwing these hindu concepts around and now you believe in reincarnating lamas . . . I'm not sure if you yourself know what you are or where you stand, beyond applying generic mystical and religious terms to gut feelings you have about "shoulds".

You start these debates as though you are willing to discuss but then when we get to the heart of the matter you just pull out whatever fashionable dogma you're digesting at the moment. Try dropping all these beliefs and see what you see. I've no interest in arguing with a religious man, because that's not a real argument, that's attrition of logic.

 

Its all good pork, even a rich white boy from NJ can see that you should lay off the youtube. Get out a little, sure the earth wont give you money, but if you make the decision to dedicate yourself to a relationship with the earth, she will provide. But its not like food is just going to be handed to you like you are used to, it is a relationship, you must give to get.