BC CRSS

 

cheerleader effect

The cheerleader effect is that people appear more attractive in a group. It is explained by the averaging effect of the group.

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When you meditate: “Go deeper

Past thoughts into silence

Past silence into stillness

Past stillness into the heart

Then let Love consume all that is left of you!”

Om Kriya Babaji Namah Aum !!

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RD BK

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050621 AXDNT- ADVAITA

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ONE YOU X 1U

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I had a friend who spent some time at monastery... and they routinely taught visitors (for group retreat with the residents) that just because someone put on robes doesn't mean they have attainments. It just means they are living in a scenario where the motivation is to, eventually, remove suffering. It's still a long journey and egos will be there for quite a while with or without robes.

Well for one, you likely have a job, pay for a house, possibly but car insurance, and buy food. I doubt you submit yourself to poverty and rely on the goodness of others for each meal.

It’s a lot easier to find your zen without all this stress, and anyone who took a few months off work but was still paid during quarantine could attest.

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There are Amish people in the US, indigenous tribespeople in Africa and South America, and multiple other groups that remove themselves from the capitalistic fray for a variety of reasons.

Secondly the entire idea behind monks/nuns of any religion is the sacrifice of withdrawing from main societal functions in order to dedicate all of oneself to spiritual growth and enlightenment. Monks/nuns don’t marry. They are celibate. They don’t produce children. They take a vow of poverty. They help others.

This is not selective to Buddhism. Many religions require or suggest that their religious leaders lead similar lives of exclusion from the secular in order to have the spiritual strength to serve others.

You must accept that there are many paths to enlightenment. Not every path is for every person. Nor should every person take the same path.

Is it not possible to achieve the same 'results' in 20 minutes as you can in 4 hours? So there is an absolute time frame and set pattern that must be followed to get prescribed results? How fast does Enlightenment come? What is the real difference between hard and easy? What is the difference between 20 minutes and 4 hours where Enlightenment is concerned. How is it predictable? Where does the certainty come from? Seems a lot of assumptions are being made about some kind of universal path that fits and works the same in all instances, with all people, in time frames presumed to be definitive in every case. Truth-- you may or may not achieve the same results, but similar or better results are as possible either with lay or monk's practice in long AND short time frames. Which begs the question: what are results, how and who defines them, and by what measure are they calculated?!?! lol Sorry, it depends on the independent mind of each individual how and in what time frame they 'progress'. There is only that. Monk, lay? Doesn't matter.

making an argument that doesn't assume that monastic life is superior to lay life. I just don't see that as an absolute. Monks may just need more structure to foster discipline than perhaps lay people who decide to opt out of a monastic path. I think they, who may already be experienced in discipline, have advantages in some ways where monastics have advantages in others. Experience in ordinary life lends itself to insight on its own. Monastic life my have the structure and quietude for in depth examination and contemplation, but lack the organic inspiration of hardship, stressors of lay life that cause introspections that are just as profound, just as valid, often unexpected epiphanies that lead to near instant Enlightenment, like lightning striking from just a word or unexplainable instances of pure awareness. I don't think that there is really any great distinction between lay and monk. Monks are people, just as householders are using the same tools each with advantages and disadvantages each of their own. As well as individual differences that play a role as well. I'm not sure why I feel the need to hammer this point home. I just think it's a false and unnecessary distinction to say a Monk's path is better, easier, faster or somehow garners more success in some way than the lay path. Lay implies not expert, or nor educated, or not academic enough, like what you find in the arrogance of the 'professional' classes that assume a degree means that no one can possibly be as expert as they, because they took a more formal path. The truth is everyone has access to all the information and books that any academic has read, and can read every one of those sources and gain an equal understanding as these 'professionals'. There is no monopoly on information and knowledge and the professional class has less meaning and assumed credibility than ever before. If you can read, you as a layperson, if you are willing to apply the effort, can attain to the same 'expertise' as any monk or venerated teacher. You are your greatest teacher. Sorry to be somewhat preachy, and I'm not sorry too. lol Hierarchy is helpful but not the of all end all in every endeavor. That is all

Since the mind is where practice takes place, being monk or householder/layman doesn't really matter. The controlled environment is the mind, not the exterior conditions you find yourself in. That's just karma, happenstance. The path is the same. Subjective judgments of monk or lay are irrelevant. The path in either case is an individual one, yours alone. The tools used are the same. There is no inferior or superior condition for practice if the proper perspective is based in the 4NT8FNP! The work is done in the mind, that's your environment.

You are right that in meditation the 'tuning of the lute' applies - too tight and it breaks and too loose and you get no sound.

However, the Middle Way is a term with specific canonical sources as cited.

The reason it is an error to apply it to the teachings in general is that new folks and people without teachers can misapply it to the realm of sense pleasures and other indulgences. They can also misunderstand what is meant by Right Effort and sense restraint and all the way down the line because it depends on the users definition of moderation. But the Buddha was quite specific and it's better to look to his teachings.

While it's an okay rule of thumb for conventional life (which I acknowledged in my original comment) it is, at best, a well-intentioned simplification that misses crucial subtleties.

It is both easier and more conducive to clarity of mind in one's progress to understanding truth to maintain a healthy balance. Residing in extremes is hard to maintain, which becomes a distraction and impediment, even harmful, inducing suffering, and requires much wasted effort to reside in the extreme condition. Concentration is wasted in this maintenance. Whereas, The Middle Way requires little effort or force of mind, leaving your energies available to the purpose of practice, progressing to Enlightenment. Not too tight, not too loose. Not indulgent, not depriving. That is the efficient utility of The Middle Way path. This is an incomplete perspective, one can delve deeper.

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“Isn’t it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when we look back everything is different.” ~ C.S. Lewis

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When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” ~ Mister Fred Rogers

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“If there is a God, He will have to beg my forgiveness.” ~  carved on the walls of a concentration camp cell during WWII by a Jewish prisoner.

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There are three things all wise men fear: the sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man.” ~ Patrick Rothfuss

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“Give a man a mask, and he will show you his true face.” ~ Oscar Wilde

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“Airports see more sincere kisses than wedding halls. The walls of hospitals have heard more prayers than the walls of churches.”

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When you’re good at something, you’ll tell everyone. When you’re great at something, they’ll tell you.” ~ Walter Payton

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We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita; Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and, to impress him, takes on his multi-armed form and says, ‘Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.’ I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.” ~ J. Robert Oppenheimer, after a nuclear test at Los Alamos.

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“Some people die at 25 and aren’t buried until 75.” ~ Benjamin Franklin

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“I loved her, and sometimes, she loved me too.” ~ Pablo Neruda’s The Saddest Poem.

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Be humble for you are made of earth. Be noble for you are made of stars.” ~ Serbian proverb

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A ship in port is safe, but that’s not what ships are built for.” ~ Admiral Grace Hopper

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“I am sorry,” sighed the tree. “I wish I could give you something…but I have nothing left.

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Nuclear warfare is like two men standing in a pool of gasoline, one with five matches, the other with two.” ~ Carl Sagan

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“Of all sad words of mouth or pen, the saddest are these: it might have been.” ~ John Greenleaf Whittier

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“Yesterday I was clever and tried to change the world. Today I am wise and try to change myself.” ~ Rumi

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When I was young and free and my imagination had no limits, I dreamed of changing the world. As I grew older and wiser, I discovered the world would not change, so I shortened my sights somewhat and decided to change only my country.

But it, too, seemed immovable.

As I grew into my twilight years, in one last desperate attempt, I settled for changing only my family, those closest to me, but alas, they would have none of it.

And now, as I lie on my deathbed, I suddenly realize: If I had only changed myself first, then by example I would have changed my family.

From their inspiration and encouragement, I would then have been able to better my country, and who knows, I may have even changed the world.”

~ Written on the tomb of an Anglican Bishop in Westminster Abby

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We the unwilling led by the unqualified to kill the unfortunate die for the ungrateful.”VTNM sldr war

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“Only after the last tree has been cut down. Only after the last river has been poisoned. Only after the last fish has been caught. Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten.” ~ Prophecy of the Cree Native American Tribe

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Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.” ~ Voltaire

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The mechanisms of consciousness—the reasons we have a vivid and direct experience of the world and of the self—are an unsolved mystery in neuroscience, and some people think they always will be; it seems impossible to explain subjective experience using the objective methods of science. But in the 25 or so years that we’ve taken consciousness seriously as a target of scientific scrutiny, we have made significant progress. We have discovered neural activity that correlates with consciousness, and we have a better idea of what behavioral tasks require conscious awareness. Our brains perform many high-level cognitive tasks subconsciously.

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Consciousness, we can tentatively conclude, is not a necessary byproduct of our cognition. The same is presumably true of AIs. In many science-fiction stories, machines develop an inner mental life automatically, simply by virtue of their sophistication, but it is likelier that consciousness will have to be expressly designed into them.

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, consciousness must have some important function for us, or else evolution wouldn’t have endowed us with it. 

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Besides giving us some (imperfect) degree of self-understanding, consciousness helps us achieve what neuroscientist Endel Tulving has called “mental time travel.” We are conscious when predicting the consequences of our actions or planning for the future. I can imagine what it would feel like if I waved my hand in front of my face even without actually performing the movement. I can also think about going to the kitchen to make coffee without actually standing up from the couch in the living room.

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Consciousness has to do with becoming "born again" and since machines have no, and never will have a soul they will never become conscious.

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If we accept David Bohm's notion of the implicate universe as underlying our perceived explicate universe (you know, time and distance), could it be that consciousness is itself part of the stuff of the implicate universe, and is manifested or instantiated locally wherever / whenever some locus (receiver, transceiver, brain, quantum observer) brings it into focus? Enlightened meat, yeah!

If, "When we know something, we know that we know it," could it be that at that instant of knowing the implicate universe simply resolves (quantum collapse) at our locus, and perhaps harmonizes and aligns with neural patterns? Aha!

Great stuff, lotsa fun, keep questing. Understanding consciousness may be the only way we will transcend the end of the universe.

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KY 

Few people love and practice silence and contemplation. We live noisily, the body always busy, the mind mired in a whirlwind of thought. Thus, the achievements achieved by the Hindu saints in their entire lives dedicated to self-knowledge through the practice of yoga and meditation sound miraculous. They are stories of telepathic communication, knowledge of the future, materialization and dematerialization of the body. Fantastic stories for those who, like us Westerners, constituted a philosophy detached from personal experience, as opposed to yogic philosophy, whose theoretical edifice was built from the continuous observation of the mind-body.

Kriya Yoga is a lineage of these gurus. Its origins go back to the mythical period of India, many millennia ago, but it only becomes known in the late 19th century, when the eternal and immortal guru Mahavatar Babaji initiates Lahiri Mahasaya. Passed orally from master to disciple, it was then taught by Lahiri Mahasaya to Swami Sri Yukteswar, the great guru of Paramahansa Yogananda and Paramahamsa Hariharananda

The techniques of Kriya Yoga are mentioned in the sacred texts of the Upanishads, the Yoga Sutra and the Bhagavad Gita: “It is the revival of the same science that Krishna gave to Arjuna millennia ago, and which was later known as Patânjali (author of the Yoga Sutra) and for Christ, Saint John and Saint Paul”, as Yogananda teaches in the book Autobiografia de um yogi. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says: “The yogi stops the degeneration of the body by ensuring an additional supply of prana (life force) by calming the action of the lungs and heart; it also stops growth mutations in the body by controlling apana (eliminating current). In this way, neutralizing growth and degeneration, the yogi learns the control of the vital force.”

The Sanskrit root of kriya is kri, which means to act, react, the same root as the word karma and which evokes the natural principle of cause and effect; ya means soul; and yoga, union. Thus, "Kriya Yoga is union with the infinite through a certain action or rite." Its practice is based on the interaction between the breath and the mind, and is mainly composed of pranayamas, or breathing and concentration exercises – by controlling the breath and quieting the mind's oscillations, the devotee achieves liberation.

From Babaji's teachings, various schools of Kriya Yoga were created by his different disciples. In Hariharananda's lineage there are six levels of kriya, each lasting three to four years. The initiation is open to anyone interested and the practice can be done individually or in groups. In Brazil, there are about 5,000 initiates in this Kriya Yoga lineage.

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Our particular species of humans has been around for about 300,000 years and, best as we can tell, for about 290,000 of those years we lived materially poorer but much more equal lives. For most of our life as a species, most communities lived as mobile foragers, shifting camps when local resources became scarce, but probably sticking to a regular pattern over a defined territory

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Once hereditary leadership backed by military power establishes, subordination and inequality are explained by entrenched differences in access to force. So the critical problem is to explain inequality in village societies where it doesn’t yet have the protection of institutionalised power. These ‘transegalitarian communities’ are dominated by ‘Big Men’ (as they’re called in New Guinea and Melanesia), that is, individuals with wealth and status. But they don’t rule as a right, and their sons don’t automatically inherit their standing. It’s in communities of this kind that inequality establishes. Once these cultures exist, we’ve had a shift from social worlds that were equal to worlds in which inequality was a routine and accepted fact of life – so much so that it often seemed natural.

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Farming and storage make inequality possible, even likely, because they tend to undermine sharing norms

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For mobile foragers, sharing is insurance.

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Storage, however, tends to erode sharing. Storing, like sharing, is a way of managing risk, and farmers are more likely to store than to share. Variation in supply within the community is likely to flow from variation in commitment and effort, not differences in luck. Local bad luck – unfavourable weather, a plague of pests – will probably affect everyone in a community, which makes sharing a poor form of insurance. It’s to my advantage to share with you, if my good years are your bad ones, and vice versa (so long, of course, as you return the favour). Not so if we’re both having it tough at the same time, as we have no surplus to share; and not so if we both have good years together, as then we don’t need one another.

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