Demystifying Quantum Physics

[godnotgod]

Oh okay, so you're saying that what the HUP actually says is not significant. Osho could have picked any principle discovered by science which was not known prior to its discovery, such as Kepler's laws of planetary motion, or the germ theory of disease. Is that right?

No. It is significant....for a time. There may be more to what we know of Kepler or germ theory. This is accumulated knowledge, and paradigm is simply one of its features.

Osho is comparing the way Reason works with that of Higher Consciousness, where the true nature of Reality is seen as it always is. It does not change. Both Reason and mysticism are attempts to find out what Reality is. One might say that mystics go directly to the Souce, which is Reallity itself, whereas Reason uses conceptual models it manufactures and then also uses Reason to see if the concepts fit the reality. But such analysis is piecemeal. That is why it changes. New pieces are found which change the conclusions previously reached. That is not the case with Higher Consciousness. There is only one nature of Reality. The Tao te Ching sums this difference up by stating:

"Knowledge of the future is only a flowery trapping of Tao.
It is the beginning of folly.
Therefore the truly great man dwells on what is real and not what is on the surface,
On the fruit and not the flower.
Therefore accept the one and reject the other."

Tao te Ching, Chapter 38

Chapter 38, Tao Te Ching (Dao De Jing) by Lao Tzu (Laozi): Selected Translations, Commentary, Links, Taoism

 

[godnotgod]

When it comes to quantum mechanics, I am not an 'outsider'. I am criticizing Chopra's statements about quantum mechanics, which are false, and therefore cannot be part of any genuine 'spiritual nourishment'.

You're not qualified to make that statement, as you have not had the experience. Go get the experience first, then tell me it is false.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Even scientists use the Source

Of course they do. Everybody uses google.

Mr. Sprinkles has succeeded in demystifying nothing.

'Thou art that' is the point, not how it is translated.

You already said the internet told you so, and as we can all agree that only recognized authorities can have blogs, websites, etc., clearly this isn't a matter of a problematic commentary which is rather similar to the ways in which Christians tried to reinterpret scriptures and certain concepts to make them fit. Of course, as you haven't actually studied the language or the history behind the texts (I mean actually study, not read a bunch of websites), or the history of India, China, or Japan, and have yet to say what training (other than learning how to use your internet connection) you have dedicated yourself to, what you offer is dogmatic fundamentalism, and you're the first mystic I've met who fits that description (one I wouldn't have thought possible).

I don't 'hate' on Western patriarchy, which may actually surpass the Eastern social structure in mistreating women, as the Inquisition, which included torture and witch burnings, went on for some 400 years.

Is this a website or have you got a book by Silver Ravenwolf somewhere which talks about "the burning times"?

Before Constantine and the rise of Christianity, "witches" were being killed already. From 184 BCE to about 153 BCE "we hear of a number of cases of Roman magistrates and pro-magistrates ordering mass executions both in the immediate vicinity of Rome and further afield in Italy...In one case, 2,000 persons were executed...in another, 3,000. The scale of these investigations and condemnations...easily outstrips any known from the late mediaeval and early modern periods." p. 254 of Valerie Flint's contribution to the volume Witchcraft & Magic in Europe (Ancient Greece and Rome). After Christianity spread, and began burning and destroying pagan art, temples, books, etc., they also stopped people from killing "witches". From the Theodosian Codex to the edict of Lombard, there was (alongside a concerted effort to stamp out "heresy" and paganism) a systematic effort to stop Visigoths and other Germanic groups as well as Romans from executing accused witches (mostly women). The first case we know of in which a trial of an accused witch took place in Christian Europe is in 1324. From that time until the 18th century sporadic outbreaks across Europe and away from centralized power resulted in an estimated death of a total of 30 to 50 thousand people (many of the males).

For context, that means that a single trial in Rome mass execution in Rome killed more "witches" than would be executed across all of Europe over about a decade.

Cultures where magic is believed to be a real force and a potential weapon have always developed laws, and these have usually (quite independently of Eastern or Western or any culture) resulted in a systematic oppression and often deaths of women.

And as your knowledge of the history of all kinds of socio-cultural practices is almost as adequate as your knowledge of Sanskrit, how could you know that "roots of Buddhist misogyny run deep"? (source)

As long as we're on the topic of self-delusion, you might like:

Faure, B. (2009). The power of denial: Buddhism, purity, and gender. Princeton University Press

I include Europe within the definition of what is Western patriarchy.

What you did was talk about the gynocentricism of some of the most sexist cultures on the planet, and in case I missed recent media reports, no body had been burning brides as part of a socio-religious practice in the West, systematically killing and/or aborting females for sexist reasons, selling daughters into what amounts to slavery, or rivaling places like probably the largest forced prostitution and sex trafficking in the world:

Are women human?

"Thailand is a partriarchial society with political and corporate leadership in the handsof men; Thai women, especially in rural areas, find power in the home in their role as mother–nurturer. The mother–nurturer (mae) role is idealized in the female code of social and sexual conduct to the extent that a woman is not considered fully adult until the birth of her first child. In addition, little girls and adolescent women are nicknamed “mae” in their households, particularly in central Thailand, in preparation for their adult status."
Buddhism, The Status of Women and The Spread of HIV/AIDS in Thailand

And before you go further down this idealistic dream world of yours, try reading just a little bit about Western romanticization of "exotic" or "esoteric" cultures they colonized and subjugated and how much current fantasies about various cultures being e.g., gynocentric originate out of works like Bachofen's Das Mutterrecht and were actually tools used to prevent women from leaving the house, doing work, or in the case of Buddhism, becoming monks or entering the mountains.


Znamenski, A. A. (2007). The Beauty of the Primitive: Shamanism and Western Imagination: Shamanism and Western Imagination. Oxford University Press

But as I explained, what I have referred to as the East's inclusion of the feminine, has not to do with it's social structure, but with its spirituality, which is the feminine essence within both men and women.

Yes, but as you haven't any idea what you are talking about you are still managing to idealize some essence that you don't know much about, and certainly not from any historical point (nor, apparently, does the fact that "spirituality" as distinct from cultural practices is a new thing seem to mean much to you).

Again, stick to insisting that the Source itself tells you all you need to know about physics. Leave your glorification of "spiritually feminine" cultures which is nothing other than trivializing sexism, dehumanization, slavery, and underage child prostitution rings and a history of oppression because you found stuff online that sounded neat.

Again, it is the West, via the Abrahamic religions, which has come up with the idea of the divine as being primarily male.

And in Greece, where female deities abounded, women were treated like cattle or prostitutes most of the time, and Rome was little better. Athens, with its patron goddess Athena, was again about as sexist as you can get.

Please stop trivializing the history of sexist practices so that you can cling to romantic fantasies. You don't need to espouse that crap here, as you can cling to them in private. Stick to trying to "mystify" quantum mechanics so that Mr. Sprinkles can clarify why you're wrong.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

You're probably the only person I know who continues to parrot himself

To the extent that has any meaning at all, everybody does.

At this point, as regards 'tat atvam asi', I put my trust in the innumerable references to it in that form all over the internet far, far more than I do you

Of course. It's the Source itself.

...as compared to 'but Legion said so'. The internet is bigger than Legion. Sorry.

The difference between us here is that I can reference every single thing I say and if I can't provide you with access to a particular study, book, reference grammar, etc., I can give you the details so that you can use a library.

I don't need to rely on claims that cannot be falsified just so that I can talk about how scientists don't know science, all religions have it wrong, etc.

As for all the above you posted about Dr. Yang, it makes not one bit of difference: QiGong is still a pathway to Higher Consciousness via the breath.

Just go ask your QuGong instructor. I know he'll set you straight.

The Source itself seems to have failed you again (google is really not that hard to use). But what would Dr. Yang, a master who has studied traditional Chinese medicine, traditions, and practices since he was a child, know compared to you about the very essence of his beliefs, practices, instruction, and philosophy?

I don't care how many degrees he has, how many blackbelts he owns, or how many years he has studied and translated texts.

You cared before, enough to repeatedly taunt me about what he would say, and it backfired on you. Here's someone whose knowledge of Chinese practices and internal medicine is the result of decades of studies from masters but all of a sudden you don't care about learning from an actual master because somehow your internet, spoon-fed, commercialized "mysticism" and delusions of grandeur are challenged by someone who actually is from the "East" and not a fast-food web-based "mystic".

So what do you do? You claim to know Chinese traditional practices better than a native-born practitioner who is internationally recognized as a master. Scientists don't know science, and now traditional Chinese practitioners don't know the foundations of their practices. All because you have an internet connection.

But if this man is as important and accomplished as you say he is, I would cut off my right arm just for the opportunity to study with him if I stood even the slightest chance of mastering QiGong.

Why? You've already dismissed him. And you'd actually have to work at something for a change (plus, he wouldn't support your "scientists don't know science" shtick).

 

[godnotgod]

Yes, but as you haven't any idea what you are talking about you are still managing to idealize some essence that you don't know much about, and certainly not from any historical point (nor, apparently, does the fact that "spirituality" as distinct from cultural practices is a new thing seem to mean much to you).

It is you who are in ignorance here. Spirituality is outside history; outside culture. None of what you say as regards the mistreatment of women in the cultures/countries you point out has anything to do with the Eastern wisdom whose practice is to open the inner door of the feminine essence. Apparently, you fell short of that due to some frustration (?) in your QiGong practice. Perhaps your hard-headed intellect is the barrier?

Again, stick to insisting that the Source itself tells you all you need to know about physics.

I never said that. Now you are just using such statements to reinforce your ego's insistence that what it wants to claim as true is so, as a means of making you appear bigger and smarter than you really are.

Leave your glorification of "spiritually feminine" cultures which is nothing other than trivializing sexism, dehumanization, slavery, and underage child prostitution rings and a history of oppression because you found stuff online that sounded neat.

I hear the parrot again, but deprogramming it from its mindless incessant chatter is a challenge.

And in Greece, where female deities abounded, women were treated like cattle or prostitutes most of the time, and Rome was little better. Athens, with its patron goddess Athena, was again about as sexist as you can get.

Greece, part of the West, which has nothing to do with the East's focus on the feminine essence within. Are you programmed to deliberately ignore what I've said?

Please stop trivializing the history of sexist practices so that you can cling to romantic fantasies. You don't need to espouse that crap here, as you can cling to them in private.

No romantic fantasies, save but those within your own mind, transfixed as it is on the dancing cave wall shadows in Plato's Cave. If you still cannot get past this point, I suggest you read the Tao te Ching for starters. Only first see if you can put that damm parrot to bed first. It's incessant squawking is drowning out the soft voice of the feminine within, and is becoming quite annoying.

Stick to trying to "mystify" quantum mechanics so that Mr. Sprinkles can clarify why you're wrong.

Neither of you have demystified anything here, as the both of you are still enslaved by those dancing cave wall shadows cast by Reason, Logic, and Analysis, Oh, I know they seem very convincing to the both of you, they being Judge, Jury, and Hangman all atl at once. That QM is 'mysterious' to you and in need of rational 'explanation' is only because you've fooled yourself into a state of trance by Reason, which has now told you it is the way to solve the riddle it created in the first place. Ha...ha....ha.....Now you need Zen to break the bottle the gosling is trapped in as the only way to free it. Ha...ha...ha....Oh, the traps we manage to get ourselves into, eh? More Qigong, Legion....more QiGong.....Ha...ha....ha.....Is your parrot asleep yet, or has he too been hypnotized by those irresistible dancing cave wall shadows?:biglaugh:

 

[godnotgod]

The Source itself seems to have failed you again (google is really not that hard to use). But what would Dr. Yang, a master who has studied traditional Chinese medicine, traditions, and practices since he was a child, know compared to you about the very essence of his beliefs, practices, instruction, and philosophy?

Oh, that poor parrot is just an ignoramus after all! If it only knew that a true master would never consider himself as knowing more than ordinary folk, nor would he ever make personal claims to such knowledge as being personally his own, as you have let everyone know about yourself on these forums whenever the opportunity arose. 'Oh, I've studied this discipline, and that text , and blah, blah, blah, ad nauseum! You still think the answer is in the brain, don'cha? Clue 1: Nyet!


The Real Miracle

When Bankei was preaching at Ryumon temple, a Shinshu priest, who
believed in salvation through repetition of the name of the Buddha of
Love, was jealous of his large audience and wanted to debate with him.

Bankei was in the midst of a talk when the priest appeared, but the
fellow made such a disturbance that Bankei stopped his discourse and
asked about the noise.

"The founder of our sect," boasted the priest, "had such miraculous
powers that he held a brush in his hand on one bank of the river, his
attendant held up a paper on the other bank, and the teacher wrote the
holy name of Amida through the air. Can you do such a wonderful
thing?"

Bankei replied lightly: "Perhaps your fox can perform that trick, but
that is not the manner of Zen. My miracle is that when I feel hungry I
eat, and when I feel thirsty I drink."
*****
Zen Stories - HermeticSource.info

 

[godnotgod]

You cared before, enough to repeatedly taunt me about what he would say, and it backfired on you. Here's someone whose knowledge of Chinese practices and internal medicine is the result of decades of studies from masters but all of a sudden you don't care about learning from an actual master because somehow your internet, spoon-fed, commercialized "mysticism" and delusions of grandeur are challenged by someone who actually is from the "East" and not a fast-food web-based "mystic".

So what do you do? You claim to know Chinese traditional practices better than a native-born practitioner who is internationally recognized as a master. Scientists don't know science, and now traditional Chinese practitioners don't know the foundations of their practices. All because you have an internet connection.

Now the parrot has transformed itself into a silly goose, and right before a live audience!

My taunt was what he would say about your breath as it relates to consciousness, not to knowledge. You continue to chatter on about what he knows, in terms of this discipline or that, and are forgetting the most important element: the breath!

I never ever claimed to know Chinese practices more than Dr. Yang. That goose is now bordering on the ridiculous!::bonk:

 

[godnotgod]

Why? You've already dismissed him. And you'd actually have to work at something for a change (plus, he wouldn't support your "scientists don't know science" shtick).

That would be of no concern to him. I am certain he would instruct me to focus on my breath instead.

He's YOUR teacher, not mine. YOU are the one in need of getting over the obstacles which caused you to give up, not I.

 

[godnotgod]

I don't need to rely on claims that cannot be falsified...

...such as that QiGong can be a pathway to Higher Consciousness?

 

[zaybu]

You've alluded to them as being 'natural', as compared to what? Then again, you could ask the same of the term 'spiritual'. Here we get into an issue of dualism, so let me clarify a bit. What is generally referred to as 'spiritual' and 'physical' are not different. Same goes for 'natural' and 'supernatural'. This is one world, not two. But to return to the point at hand...

Bear in mind that what many call 'natural' is still a mystery to the rational mind. Being 'natural' does not make it explainable in such terms, and that the moment you label it as 'natural', you imply its opposite, which is not-natural, or 'miraculous'. Don't you think it a bit odd that you are even sitting at your keyboard at this very moment? You may consider that an ordinary, everyday function, but is it really?

Animal behavior is largely fixed. Humans are in a position to realize a potential beyond such fixed behavior, as well as that to overcome the 'prey or predator' cycle. But I am not saying humans are superior in the dominant sense. That, as you implied, is a major flaw, but is one conducted by the ego, which is the primary cause of his suffering. Until that is transcended, man cannot realize his full spiritual/physical/mental potential. To do so is what we call 'Enlightenment'.

But you're not adding anything substantive to the claim of a whole category of "things being spiritual". There is nothing in the fact that a species like us having free will and self-awarenes that would put our species in a special category with "spiritual" qualities. What if we design one day a robot that is self-aware and has free will, will you continue to believe we are somehow outside of the natural?

 

[Skeptisch]

Now the parrot has transformed itself into a silly goose, and right before a live audience!

For many a silly goose is someone who figures a woo woo master and remote cutlery bender has anything reasonable to say about quantum mechanics and consciousness. Maybe you should check your mirror for your goose.


[youtube]qySx8tSs8BQ[/youtube]
Deepak Chopra Gets Owned. - YouTube

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

For many a silly goose is someone who figures a woo woo master and remote cutlery bender has anything reasonable to say about quantum mechanics and consciousness. Maybe you should check your mirror for your goose.


[youtube]qySx8tSs8BQ[/youtube]
Deepak Chopra Gets Owned. - YouTube

A little thing we like to call "logic". It is very strange and mysterious, but can occasionally somehow make sense. How bizarre.

Also, it reminds me of the barber paradox and how Russell extended it to bring Frege's would-be triumph crashing down around him. Sure, it's not exactly the set of all sets that don't contain themselves, but when one characterizes all beliefs as being X, one should ponder ahead of time what this says about one's own beliefs.

There was a time in which this thread (or rather, what this thread was intended to be before people like me screwed it up) wouldn't make sense. A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away (from the Andromeda galaxy), there was a planet Earth upon which lived a group of mystics known as the Pythagoreans, after their (probably historical) founder Pythagoras. And although they were not alone, they were known as mystics for their divine conception of geometry, proofs, and numbers. To many an ancient Greek mystic, the idea that one could show beyond doubt that certain properties of some abstract shape held no matter how one might draw it, build it, or see it, was to speak the language of God. Or, as Leopold Kronecker put it, "Die ganzen Zahlen hat der liebe Gott gemacht, alles andere ist Menschenwerk". Even today, mathematicians have a certain reverence for particular equations or proofs, and "elegance" is to certain mathematical proofs what beauty is to great works of art.

All this time spent on "demystifying quantum physics" when in reality the word mystical and mysterious have the same origins and for those who used the word mystikos and various derivations of it, quantum physics would be "mystical" in the same way that mathematics is, or statistical mechanics, or Newton's physics:

Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;
God said "Let Newton be" and all was light.
-Alexander Pope

 

[Ouroboros]

Ridiculous. Were that true, how did we get string theory? No cats, no strings. It's that simple.

I think we need to replace the string/cat theory with spaghetti theory. It's all spaghetti and meatballs interchanging. And the uncertainty is measured in flavor.

They sign you up, don't worry.

Resistance is futile!

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

It is you who are in ignorance here.

We are all in ignorance. Some of us just know a little bit more of what it is we do not know.

Spirituality is outside history

Just like quantum mechanics, texts you can't read, and everything else that would require mental effort on your part as well as time, but which is far easier to dismiss with claims that cannot be falsified.

One wonders, then, why you refer to QM at all, or quote languages you can't read, or talk about history you haven't studied, rather than to stick with that which is outside of history, science, etc.

None of what you say as regards the mistreatment of women in the cultures/countries you point out has anything to do with the Eastern wisdom whose practice is to open the inner door of the feminine essence.

It has a great deal to do with it. Of course, like any spiritual, religious, or similar set of beliefs and/or practices, it is entirely possible to divorce the ideas within it from the history of its practice (and even reinterpret parts which reflect things like misogyny). But this is just as true of Christianity & Islam. If you want to focus on how the ideas of a spiritual or religious practice is "feminine", but also claim that spirituality is outside of history, then relying on history to demonstrate the former is to render invalid your entire argument. If you wish to divorce spirituality from history, and also claim things about the feminine nature of "Eastern wisdom", then you have to find something other than history to do so, such as an analysis of Eastern texts.

Of course, if you don't care about making a clearly invalid argument by first saying that spirituality exists apart from history and then using history to demonstrate properties of a particular set of spiritual ideas/practices, that is of course your prerogative.

Apparently, you fell short of that due to some frustration (?) in your QiGong practice. Perhaps your hard-headed intellect is the barrier?

Actually it's because once again the Qi Gong instructor I had is an Honorary Advisor of the Martial Arts of China Historical Society, has translated historical texts, and has written and spoken things like the following many times:
"Even though Qigong has been researched in China for four thousand years, there are still many questions which can only be answered through recourse to today's technology and interdisciplinary advantages...This is not a job that can be done through one individual's effort. It requires a group of experts including Western-style doctors, Qigong experts, acupuncturists, and equipment design specialists to sit down together and exchange their research."

And as you can see from the table of contents in the sample from The Roots of Chinese Qigong from which the above quote is taken, he thinks history is extremely important.

Greece, part of the West, which has nothing to do with the East's focus on the feminine essence within. Are you programmed to deliberately ignore what I've said?

Not at all. But you referenced the witch trials. And although the goths, celts, and other groups were technically in geographical regions we now call the West, they were not Western cultures. My point was that killing witches, evil shamans, sorcerers, etc., has been a part of most cultures (this includes Eastern cultures).

No romantic fantasies

How would you know?

I suggest you read the Tao te Ching for starters.

I have. Alas, only in translation, (a parallel translation), and the The Complete I Ching as well as T'ai Chi classics by Wayson Liao (which provides commentary) and I had a Qigong master to go to with questions. Unfortunately, by the time I read the Penguin Classics publication Buddhist Scriptures, I was no longer a student of Dr. Yang.

I had the same issue with the bubishi and The Book of Five Rings. One does not go up to one's aikido or jujitsu instructor and ask them to translate various Japanese texts, and I'm not actually sure if my ninpo instructor knows Japanese. Stephen Hayes does, but I met him once when he came as a guest instructor. And long before Deepak Chopra made a name for himself, Gary Zuka wrote The dancing Wu Li Masters: An Overview of the New Physics. I'm surprised you haven't referenced it.

It's incessant squawking is drowning out the soft voice of the feminine within

Have you tried Gillette's Venus? It reveals the goddess within. And I would bet it's a lot easier than having to read long books, whether academic (Rosemary Radford Ruether's The Divine Feminine or Gimbutas' The Living Godesses) or not (e.g., When God was a Woman).

Neither of you have demystified anything here, as the both of you are still enslaved by those dancing cave wall shadows cast by Reason, Logic, and Analysis

You do know that Plato's dialogues were all centered around logic, reason, and rational analysis, right? That "Socratic dialogue", a description of Plato's depiction of the ways in which Socrates engaged others, refers to a method of teaching by making others think logically about their position and analyze what follows from their positions? And I thought you read Plato.

 

[Skeptisch]

...when one characterizes all beliefs as being X, one should ponder ahead of time what this says about one's own beliefs.

Or, when one understands why s/he dismisses all the other possible beliefs, s/he will understand why some dismiss his or hers. reach:

 

[godnotgod]

For many a silly goose is someone who figures a woo woo master and remote cutlery bender has anything reasonable to say about quantum mechanics and consciousness. Maybe you should check your mirror for your goose.


[youtube]qySx8tSs8BQ[/youtube]
Deepak Chopra Gets Owned. - YouTube

It was cooked long ago, which is my right of passage.

Superficially and sensationally, it appears that Chopra has been 'had' in this clever but misleading video, out of context.

However, 'belief' can signify many things. If you ask the prisoners in Plato's Cave if they believe the images cast upon the cave walls represent Reality, they will say 'yes'. But if you ask the prisoner who escaped into the upper realm if he believes the Sun is Reality itself, he will not only say 'yes', but will also tell you that the prisoners still in the cave have a problem with their view, which he now sees clearly, via the light of the Sun, the 'Sun', in this case being a metaphor for Enlightenment*. So what we have here is the difference between belief about Reality as a product of indoctrination, and 'belief' as a result of direct experience, with Reality itself, without doctrine. This difference is about seeing via Light, as compared to believing via thought.

Chopra is pointing out the delusion of the prisoners in the cave from the position of illumination, of seeing 'what is', via of the Light. It is the same insight you have of knowing that the prisoners stlll in the cave are, in fact, deluded. But you wouldn't know that without the vantage point you now have.

*This is the way I am using this scenario, so calm down, Legion.

 

[godnotgod]

Just like quantum mechanics, texts you can't read, and everything else that would require mental effort on your part as well as time, but which is far easier to dismiss with claims that cannot be falsified.

One wonders, then, why you refer to QM at all, or quote languages you can't read, or talk about history you haven't studied, rather than to stick with that which is outside of history, science, etc.

QM is one way the universe expresses itself. The universe is the Absolute, which is the focus of the mystic.

You may know how to read Sanskrit about spirituality, but you don't understand what it actually means. I can't read Sanskrit, but I know what 'tat atvam asi' means. You keep the menu; I'll partake of the meal.

History is fiction, just as the world is illusioin. Both are created by the Absolute which lives in the Present Moment. Contrary to popular opinion, the past does not create the present; the Present creates the past. Therefore, I do not cling to what is dead, but align myself with what is current and alive. Science, History, and Religion are dead artifacts as all come out of memory. That which is Present has no history; has no memory, and that is why it is Unborn, Uncaused, Ungrown, Timeless, and Deathless. It is The Real.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

You may know how to read Sanskrit about spirituality, but you don't understand what it actually means. I can't read Sanskrit, but I know what 'tat atvam asi' means. You keep the menu; I'll partake of the meal.

You trolled the internet and got a meaning you liked. For all your insults about how close-minded scientists are (or that I am), and all your dismissals of those who can't match "the mystic", you display a remarkably adolescent view of the things you discuss. You said you'd be glad to study with the person that I did, and I don't doubt you (nor do I doubt that you'd learn much that I didn't). However, you haven't.

You speak of partaking of the meal, pointing to the moon, and all the other ridiculous metaphors you use to explain away the fact that your coke zero version of spirituality is internet derived. You mock "Science" via the only way you are able to access the concepts you reference. You disparage scholars, scientists, and just about everybody who can't compare to you (with your Source), but you can't even do more than justify your interpretation of a line than by saying "well the internet said so"?

I've met mystics, shamans, and masters, and studied under a small few. I've learned languages so that I can read that which philosophers and mystics wrote over the past ~3,000 years. And I've met with those who have surpassed me easily when it comes to things like meditation or any number of practices which originate from places like China, Japan, and India.

You aren't one. You are just someone with internet access. A different incarnation of a "fluffy bunny wiccan", or a student from a McDojo. I've read so many of your posts and yet all I have seen are popular books, youtube clips, and website links. What makes you a mystic? Imitating what you think this means? The fact that you (like so many fundamentalists everywhere) have access to the "real source"?

Arrogance matched only by its ignorance.

I don't pretend to know that my understanding is superior to any other. And I respect anybody who spends years of time working hard to obtain understanding. But anybody can quote-mine the internet. There are a lot of 13 year olds out there who have, after "long study", gained the knowledge you have.

 

[godnotgod]

You trolled the internet and got a meaning you liked.

Nope! You're playing guessing games, Legion. You just assume, guided by your prejudices, and the fact that I see the internet as a great resource which I selectively use to bring new ideas to people here without getting too technical or esoteric, and which only a few understand, to make me fit your preconceived notions. Not gonna happen.

You have now had two Grand Mal Hissy Fits over both Einstein and intuition (in which case you are just wrong), and now you go ballistic over the the technical translation of something whose meaning is far more important, and is immediate and succinct.

Many times, sudden enlightenment occurs in the spiritual world that doesn't necessarily require years and years of hard work. Awakening is not about learning or the accumulation of factual knowledge. That is for the academics, the intellectuals, and the scholars. In fact, any move one makes toward achievement will only take him further away.

'Tat atvam asi'

That thou art.

That is all. If you don't like the way the majority of people spell it, there's nothing I can do for you. If you fathom the meaning, that is the important thing. This forum is not a course in advanced linguistics or translations of ancient texts. My concern is with the living present, where you will find Everything, and 'tat atvam asi' is about what is happening NOW, and which has nothing to do with who you are in the eyes of the world, what you studied, how many degrees you have, how many languages you speak, etc. In other words, it is saying, in only three words, that you are not your history, nor your Identity, nor your titles, because all of that is the dead past. Your true nature is a mirror reflection of Reality itself.

The above was not pulled off the internet, but the following was, and it is a gem.

“The fish trap exists because of the fish.


Once you've gotten the fish you can forget the trap.


The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit.


Once you've gotten the rabbit, you can forget the snare.


Words exist because of meaning.


Once you've gotten the meaning, you can forget the words.


Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can talk with him?”

**********
Chuang Tzu, ancient Taoist sage

 

[godnotgod]

You speak of partaking of the meal, pointing to the moon, and all the other ridiculous metaphors you use to explain away the fact that your coke zero version of spirituality is internet derived.

Oh, Legion. I'm so disappointed in you. You've shown how un-intuitive you can be, but that's your fault. If you can't understand simple metaphors which point to the profound, then you really do need to pack it up and beg your QuGong master to take you back. Are you aware you are mocking Zen when you refer to pointing to the moon as ridiculous? Then again, many people are confused by Zen and do think it ridiculous, until they spend a little time deepening their insight, after which the seemingly simple insights of Zen become most profound. I know. You want a simple, rational explanation of the world, one that 'makes sense' to your mind of academia, logic, reason, and analysis. Well, Legion, it does'nt work that way, but that is your discovery to experience for yourself. All I can say to you at this point is this: What your rational mind tells you about the world ain't what it actually is. That, in a nutshell, is the teaching of spirituality.

You would make a good candidate for Inka Zen, where you could have official recognition as a Zen Master, with your own office, desk, and Certificate of Enlightenment on the wall:

"This is to certify that Legion has satisfied the required intensive course of study for Inka Zen after a period of exactly 10 years, 4 months, 13 days, 7 hours, 43 minutes, and 12 seconds, being the exact time period for official Enlightenment to occur on schedule"

Puh-leaze!