Read yourself

I agree wholeheartedly.



I remember when I first started seeking enlightenment I read many books, like "A New Earth" by Eckhart Tolle, and "Be Here Now" by Ram Dass.... as well as many many others.

I felt the exact same way you did, I would get incredibly excited about the ideas in the book and it made me feel really good for a while because I would always be remembering "I am not the ego" and "Only the present exists.. I am here now". That was great and all for a while, and it was in fact a vital part of my journey.


And then a few months ago a hit a wall where I realized that I had found none of that stuff within me. It all made perfect sense to me on an intellectual level but I didn't feel it, except out of sheer excitement about the ideas themselves.



Lately I've been taking in knowledge from books, but I accept it only as intellectual knowledge until it becomes a part of me, until I feel its truth within my very bones. And that is a wonderful wonderful feeling, because once it becomes a part of you, it doesn't leave.


That's why these days I really like to read books like the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads, and the Tao Te Ching, because you don't understand the meaning unless you already feel it in your bones.... either that or you read it and read it until you make sense of it through your own experience, rather than someone telling you what it means.


I read other many other books too, and love reading, but they should simply be inspiration to find those things within yourself. I've learned that, as you said, enlightenment can only truly come from within. It is wonderful to receive outside guidance, and in fact I think it is necessary, but guidance can only point to the truth, it cannot make you feel the truth on its own. All the answers must ultimately be found within.

 

Truth is told, but can only be felt to be believed.

You can only point the way you found your Truth. Someone else's will be different based on their experience and understandings. That is why we can only live by example to make it known.

 

Yes, I agree with you 100% and know exactly where your coming from



Experience, the best teacher

 

Truth is not expressible in words....every single time people try to express it, it gets chopped up into a million pieces and is very far away from truth. It is the image of the imagelesness, the form of the formless. Whenever you meet it you can't see its face, whenever you follow it you can't see its back.

 

This is just a thought that seriously bothers me now and has for a decade or more.

This "a book becomes a part of you" thing is I think a flaw or trick in the human mind.
When i read the bible (must have been ~15) i was a christian. The bible was part of me.

Just the other day, i got all devout and started practicing Zen seriously again. Then, within a few days, i realized again that it is silly. I can defend that if you wish.

My point is that the upanashads become part you and someone else incorporates the bible as part of themselves. Who is right? (Neither?)

And yes, it does matter. It matters very much.

 

Here is another idea that you could make part of yourself. From one of Hawkings books.
This is at least backed up by observation and replication, whereas the others are not.
"In the double-slit experiment Feynman's ideas mean the particles take paths that go through only one slit or only the other;

paths that thread through the first slit, back out through the second slit, and then through the first again;

paths that visit the restaurant that serves that great curried shrimp, and then circle Jupiter a few times before heading home;

even paths that go across the universe and back.

This, in Feynman's view, explains how the particle acquires the information about which slits are open-if a slit is open, the particle takes paths through it.

When both slits are open, the paths in which the particle travels through one slit can interfere with the paths in which it travels through the other, causing the interference.

It might sound nutty, but for the purposes of most fundamental physics done today - and for the purposes of this book - Feynman's formulation has proved more useful than the original one.

 

i often find things a agree with and have always known in shit i read....

but i find it at least as often if not more often in music then in literature..

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0vERRcV_eI]YouTube - Corrosion Of Conformity- Mine Are The Eyes Of God[/ame]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TboNW5AiHA8]YouTube - Savatage - Chance[/ame]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYM8IjodDMs&NR=1[/ame]

 

I understand what you are saying: that if you read a book religiously then it will subconsciously become a part of you just because your brain is being flooded with those thoughts. Thus, often times you will go out of your way to try to find experiences to fit into what the book says in order to be able to say it is true.


I think the idea is, that you read a book, and then set it down, not accepting it as truth or non-truth, not caring about its truth, not judging it.


Now, if you have had an experience prior to ever reading the book or being familiar with its ideas, and then upon reading the book you see that that experience undoubtedly fits into what the book is saying... you feel the truth of that book's statement in your bones.


Likewise, if you later have an experience (without consciously looking for said experience) that undoubtedly verifies the truth of what the book said, then you also feel the truth of the book's statement in your bones.



The key words in both statements being "undoubtedly", because it is all too easy to purposely fit an extraneous experience into a certain belief.

 

Cmon and chickedy-check yoself befo ya wreck yoself.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKJsSPATDLY]YouTube - Ice Cube - Check Yo Self (UnCut)[/ame]

 

you'll find a lot of context sensitive truth in books. this will just put you in the matrix of that context. argument gives way to new realms....argue with the book as you read it

believe it or not, I've been most inspired by a work of fiction. 1984.
doublethink: thinking two (often opposing) thoughts and believing both at the same time. in the book,(symbolically) big brother said 2+2=5 while the main character said 2+2=4. eventually they got him to literally believe that 2+2=5. I believe (symbolically) that 2+2=[whatever I want it to be]

this power is fundamental to everything important to me. at it goes into a certain kind of focus that I feel I need in life and an ability to do away with thoughts or emotions I don't consider productive.
this goes into the infamous (The) Game(which I think was made by spiritual people). to be able to stay so focused you dont think about yourself staying focused

 

Ok, i hear that, sure. You give the brain time to process, and then you get on the right track. What you say, i have experienced.

But;

I think we all are looking for the truth. So John reads the bible and biblical stuff in general. Meanwhile Joe is more interested in eastern stuff. Both are reading, both are "feeling the truth". Both become devout.

One has accessed and is devout about a lie! Which one?


A joke (caution all comedy is created without a safety net):

A buddhist, a jew, a protestant, and a GFList go into a bar after participating in the Johns-Hopkins psilocybin study. Everyone orders a beer.
The buddhist says "Oh my god that was the best the most life changing spiritual experience ever. I'm going to quit my job and meditate continuously until my savings is gone."
The jew, "I've always had secular leanings, but after that experience, i will keep more of the jewish restrictions."
The GFList, "After that life changing event, i'm going to learn how to channel the Pleadiens.
The protestant pulls out a gun and shoots the other three all the while screaming that Jesus will save them if he has made a mistake.

Each is sure, at least one is wrong.

 

If we are to base meaning in anything we say, then we cannot copy. For copying does not work well if the context shifts. We must rather learn to cooperate with our imagination as it truly wishes to express its views and its desires. If we are not to cooperate with our imagination, we are not to say anything real.

 

Imagination is beauty. Truth is what you make it. See how they work together?

You must use your imagination to create your "truth". If you do not understand what I mean, please consider this. We all rely on mathematics correct? But wasn't this just an imagined concept that we all allowed to become true? If there are two trees in the forest, are there really 1+1=2 trees? Or just 1 tree and then another? Do you understand what I am trying to say?

 

You must be the truth, then you can see it, hear it, and speak it, everywhere.

 

There is only one God, and various ways of life set out by God for varying cultures. It is only in thinking that God has a personality of what he does and doesn't like that it could be a lie, however that is not the case, there are only select Principles and all the rest is merely theology, but you will see these principles in all religions for the most part.

No matter how remote and apart from any other civilizations, man will always create a religion. It is because man is always looking for the true purpose of life, that purpose can be seen even on the physical level through the feelings of Love, longing to be United to that which is beautiful, and God is infinitely beautiful and so we go through incarnation to incarnation striving to Unify with Him.

 

Indeed.

but, (and since the controversy has begun and your posts are buddhist i will tread lightly if i can)

Nicherin believed that Zazen was a waste of time, or actually counter productive and preached it vociferously (per wikipedia i have not read Nicherin in depth). Meanwhile, Dogen said, a few years earlier, that (i'm paraphrasing) "Stinking skin bags of western lands preach that the sutras alone can bring enlightenment. They cannot understand zazen even in a dream."

Dogen liked the "stinking skin bags" thing and used it a lot.

so;

Nicherin was a stubborn if not fanatical dogmatist, and Dogen was a xenophobe and probably a racist (if a Japanese man that hates the Chinese can be accurately called that )

Enlightenment does not exist. But still, there is fetching wood and carrying water.

 

Enlightenment is our natural state, before we attach to thoughts and things. We are naturally enlightened, but we make ourselves something other than enlightened. With effort we lose enlightenment, without effort we are naturally enlightened.

 

True. I think (today).

Have i mentioned anywhere that i'm beginning to love you people?