Becoming K... conscious or how to re-invent the wheel

The place where members can exchange as they like between themselves. A kind of sidewalk cafe for spiritualists.
User avatar
harsi
Posts: 2284
Joined: Sun Jun 05, 2005 1:40 am
Location: Nuremberg, Germany
Contact:

Re: Becoming K... conscious or how to re-invent the wheel

Post by harsi »

Nanda-grama wrote:from this another question comes- why and how much we allow other people to influence on us, independently on what this people are "authorities" or not. How much are all we connected one with another, how much do we influence one on another, what is this inter-penetration one person to another? ...How much can we avoid influence of other people on us, and how much is this independence necessary for our self-determination? And simultaneously how much is interaction with other people important for our self-development?
I find that the right for self-determination is a fundamental need of any adult or grown-up human being. To be other-directed or heterogamous is not good at all. Heterogamy can have many forms. It can be that you just do or try to act and think the way it was told to you although inside of you you have a hard time to really accept it at all. Thats not self-determination thats heterogamy. That means you do something although inwards you are not firmly convinced or feel some confidence about it. You just do it or try to follow it because it was told to you or someone may have said it ones.

For example all this Prabhupada said stuff one can read here and there or that of what any person in history may have said ones. What is the use of it or rather what is the intention or goal one may have in mind in using this kind of quotes or sayings by someone? Is it to persuade you to just do what Prabhupada or what anyone may have said and done ones as a means to urge or push you to become or follow Prabhupada or anyone else, make a person out of you which is heterogamous or other-directed by that what Prabhupada or anyone else may have said and done ones upon a time, because HE SAID IT and HE DID IT? Or rather should it be rather so that what he or anyone else ones said should make you think, give you a hint and enable you or help you to be or come in a position where you can realize things on your own, INDEPENDENTLY so called and related to you personally.

Of course some inference or influence this sayings or this what someone may have said ones may well have on us. We are all interrelated that we cannot avoid but we can prevent to be dominated or other-directed by that through our own free will. Thats self determination as opposed to being dominated or other-directed by that what Prabhupada, may have said, or Hari (Robert Campagnola), or this and that person to whom we may listen or whose teachings or sayings we may read here and there.
Nanda-grama
Posts: 272
Joined: Wed Jul 30, 2008 11:13 pm
Location: Moscow

Re: Becoming K... conscious or how to re-invent the wheel

Post by Nanda-grama »

I mean more subtle things. All we influence one on another even if we don't want it or don't consious it . We are as vegetables in sabji, juices of which penetrate one to another :) , or if to say better -vegetables in a soup because between us may be long distances but " water" transfers our energy . Of course, it is possible to try to be such independent vegetable which doesn't accept alien juices, but it risks to become not very tasty :D . But why do we choice to cook ourselves in definite group of people? If to be exact, before I came to ISKCON( for example) I red " Bhagavad- Gita", and it did strong resonance in me. Only then I began to accept all this things which were in ISKCON. At the first there was this resonance and my agreement on following influences. And now, why are we here in harimedia? There is some resonance. You, Harsi, want to be " independent vegetable" but you continue to cook yourself in harimedia :) , why? But if seriously, it is not very simple question-how to keep balance between own selfhood and harmonious interaction with other people? May be is a secret in what in order to relax and to not fear to lose own essence? Because the main peculiarity of our essence is in what we never can lose it.
I think even that it is only one real possibility to keep own selfhood and independence to interact extensively with other people -this is to be oneself in full degree. If I am who I am, why will I worry about " authorities", about some influence? I will connect with who and what I will like.And I will grateful if somebody will spend his time in order to share his understanding and experience.
I think also that envy and rivalry comes from condition when person doesn't feel own unicity and value of what who he is. Then any success of another person, any wonderful display of another seems menace for own magnificence.
Thank you for this topic, Harsi. You even can't imagine how this term is important for me now although in another it's aspect.
User avatar
harsi
Posts: 2284
Joined: Sun Jun 05, 2005 1:40 am
Location: Nuremberg, Germany
Contact:

Re: Becoming K... conscious or how to re-invent the wheel

Post by harsi »

What I mean with independence in spiritual life or education is an autonomous self-regulated or self-imposed task to find meaning in life and explore spiritual truth as opposed or contrasted with something imposed by tradition or some scriptures, spiritual authority or a person someone esteems or may adore. That does not mean that I do not appreciate or value highly that what Hari is saying in his lectures, that I really do, but I also contemplate or give my own thought to that what he or someone else may say and explain on a certain subject.

See also: Freedom expands learning or Wikipedia: Self-determination > Self-determination theory

"Students encouraged by their teachers to take charge of their own learning have a better grasp of the subject and higher self-esteem than those who are controlled." "Letting them take charge, bonding with them will motivate them: Experts" more...


Image > Rochester Psychology: SDT


Image
User avatar
harsi
Posts: 2284
Joined: Sun Jun 05, 2005 1:40 am
Location: Nuremberg, Germany
Contact:

Re: Becoming K... conscious or how to re-invent the wheel

Post by harsi »

Interesting quotes I found recently online.

Image


Kamalamala characterizes Hari as a mystic. According to the information I found on Wikipedia "Mystics hold that there is a deeper or more fundamental state of existence beneath the observable, day-to day world of phenomena." and that "Often mysticisms center on the teachings of individuals who are considered to have special insight". The authors on Wikipedia write further that "in some cases entire non-mystical (doctrine-based) faiths (See List of mystics and Mystical traditions) have arisen around these leaders and their teachings, with few or no mystical practitioners remaining."

Now what to do that such a thing is not happening in our case also? Any constructive suggestions by anyone? Its interesting on the Wikipedia list of mystics is also Chaitanya and modern-day mystic Eckhart Tolle.
Nanda-grama
Posts: 272
Joined: Wed Jul 30, 2008 11:13 pm
Location: Moscow

Re: Becoming K... conscious or how to re-invent the wheel

Post by Nanda-grama »

:)
it seems to me that it is better to not worry about it. Mysticism can't be wholesale event. It is always individual journey
Although now such special time goes...
Indeed now there are very many myctics. Did you read Richard Bach or Paolo Koelyo? Or did you heard something about Jasmuhin? In Russia there is Norbecov, he "made" 240 millionaires and cured very many people, indeed he is very cool mistic and uses real mistical practics to teach people. But I think Hari stays separately from them. He is connected with Radha-Krishna but it is most rarity. Therefore I fear that we should become mistics in order to keep this knowlege. You, dear Harsi, should become mistic :)
User avatar
harsi
Posts: 2284
Joined: Sun Jun 05, 2005 1:40 am
Location: Nuremberg, Germany
Contact:

Re: Becoming K... conscious or how to re-invent the wheel

Post by harsi »

I was not reading anything yet from the authors you mentioned. Only what I could read on the Internet about them. And ones to my big surprise I got an e-mail from Yasmuheen which I published also here on Harimedia. I don't know where she had my e-mail account it was somehow 'mystical' or unusual for me to read her letter to me.

On the Internet one can read: "There is only one way to judge a mystical experience. This way is to have a mystical experience! Those who have had one, whether believers or atheists, have never denied its reality even when they interpreted it differently."

But what constitutes a mystic really and how does one become one?

Here is an article I found on the Web:

The Way of the Mystic
By Peter H. Samsom

Looking back over the story of how the human mind has done its thinking through the ages, we find that four major ways of knowledge have been pursued: the traditionalist, the rationalist, the empirical and the intuitional. The traditionalist follows the path laid down by beliefs and customs established long ago, embodied in the inherited culture or faith. The rationalist is guided by reason, accepting as true only what is coherent, logical, consistent and orderly. The empirical mind relies upon the spirit and method of science, wanting to test propositions for their truth, and respecting that which will work. The intuitionist, by contrast with these ways of knowing, believes that certain feelings, experiences, and intuitions provide a direct knowledge of truth; the road to knowledge is through immediate experience and insight more than by inherited beliefs, orderly reason or outward experience.

This intuitionist way is often called the way of the mystic. In popular use, "mystic" is held to mean anything mysterious, occult, or difficult to grasp. When someone expresses ideas not easily understood, people are apt to say that be is being "mystical." Any thought that is vague, incomprehensible, or farfetched is, for many, "misty-cism." In actuality, however, the mystical signifies something quite different in human response. It means the belief that the truth of things can be apprehended directly and immediately, that is, without the mediation of the ordinary senses. Direct contact can be made with "reality" and it is no surprise to find many mystics calling that reality God, though not always.

The mystical has been an element in all the great religions in the world, and vigorous mystical strains are found in each of them, creating distinct groups of followers. In the Orient, Taoism, Yoga, and Sufism; in Judaism, the Kabbalistic movement; in Christianity, some of the most notable figures of Christian history -- Jesus, Paul, St. Francis, Thomas 'a Kempis, Meister Eckhart, Jacob Boehme, as well as the leading Quakers George Fox, Rufus M. Jones, and Evelyn Underhill. Mysticism holds a place of honor and significance in religion.

The frequency with which the mystical element appears, both within and outside the religions, constitutes the mystic way as one of the perennial philosophies of life. It may even be affirmed that no human being on earth has not had at some time, in some degree or in some form, an experience with an element of the mystical in it.

Partial substantiation of this appeared in Andrew Greeley's New York Times Magazine article on January 26,1975, entitled "Are We A Nation of Mystics?" He tells of a study of mystical experiences in modem America, in which a surprising proportion of people reported having had at some time of their lives a feeling of being "very close to a powerful spiritual force that seemed to lift them out of themselves." Greeley concludes that "such intense, overwhelming, indescribable experiences are widespread, almost commonplace, in American society today." "Wherever the place, whatever the trigger, and whoever the person, there run through the accounts of such interludes certain common themes: joy, light, peace, fire, warmth, unity, certainty, confidence and rebirth.... All seem to report a virtually identical experience: a joy which seemed literally to lift them out of themselves."

Throughout history, the more dramatic and extreme occurrences of this kind have been given the name of mystical, while milder and more moderate feelings of this sort have been considered a part of normal existence, not especially mystical or even religious. Such natural incidents come in a wide variety of forms. Common to all of them is the awareness that life is larger, or deeper, or more mysterious than it usually seems. According to William James, the pioneer psychologist who wrote what is still the standard reference work in this area of religion, The Varieties of Religious Experience, it is a feeling of "the mystery of fact, the wildness and the pang of life."

The word "mystic" itself gives us a useful clue. It originally meant an initiate, one who had been led into the hidden meaning of some mystery in the ancient religions of Greek civilization. This is what mystical experience literally means in everyday terms: any experience that seems to let one into the inner heart of life, to give one an insight that does not come on the surface. In his poem, "The Great Lover," Rupert Brooke writes of commonplace things in such a way:

These I have loved . . .
Wet roofs, beneath the lamp-light; the strong crusts
Of friendly bread; . . .
. . . and the blue bitter smoke of wood; . . .
Sleep; and high places; footprints in the dew; . . .
All these have been my loves.

Have you ever felt uplifted, depressed or strangely touched by certain colors, sounds, or objects? Have you ever, at a chance moment suddenly sensed the inexpressible richness and beauty of ordinary things, and wondered why you felt so? Sometimes these feelings come and we resist them, turn away from them, or reduce them to conventional terms. In one of Charles M. Schulz's comic strips, Lucy say "Charlie Brown, life is a mystery. Do you know the answer?" Charlie puts on a pious expression and says, "Be kind, don't smoke, be prompt, smile a lot, eat sensibly, avoid cavities, mark your ballot carefully, avoid too much sun, mail overseas packages early, love all creatures above and below, insure your belongings, and try to keep the ball low." In the final frame, Lucy sums up by saying, "Now hold real still, Charlie Brown, because I'm going to hit you a very sharp blow on the nose". People often avoid letting a sense of the wonder and mystery of life touch and teach them, and reduce it to prosaic, familiar little prescriptions.

The same quality of experience does not move or touch all of us. For some, it is human relationships that trigger and release their natural mysticism, if we dare to call it that. It is no accident that most of the poetry and songs of the world have been written about love between a man and a woman, for this is the most powerful and profound experience most human beings ever have in their entire lifetime, even when it is only partially realized. Great (and terrible) poetry has been poured out on it, but the fullness of human love has never been captured or set down. There is no better way to illustrate what historic mystics felt in their sense of union with God than to point to the experience of being in love, the sense of partaking of the very existence of another human being and his or her thoughts, feelings, joys and sorrows, feeling the strange combination of identity and separateness that characterizes human love. The sense of "divine Presence" reported by noted mystics, according to students of religious psychology, often is connected with their human feelings about their loved ones; frustrated human love sometimes gives rise to a sublimated hungering for divine love.

Simply being aware of people, and of the impact of people on our senses, is written of by Kenneth Patton: To walk down a street with men and women streaming by, each face an insight into a life, the set and swing of their bodies, the liveness of their hair, the knowingness of their eyes, hints of joy and grief; the energy of young people burning like a quick fire, the calm of age like glowing coals; the magic of movement and muscle harmony, the flowing balance of walking and running, the smile lighting the whole person: and beneath the thin mask that each of us wears, the ever-present sense of mystery and loneliness and wonder. To be with people is to handle mystery. It is to live in wonder and glory.

One does not need to be a parent to know the swelling of the heart when one bends over a sleeping child and kisses the warm, smooth cheek, or when a child trustingly puts its hand in yours and looks up at you, or the tangible emptiness of a house that is suddenly without children. If one is a parent, even with the desperations and irritations that this relationship brings, there sometimes comes the heart-bursting realization of being responsible for the life and nurture, indeed the very existence of another human being -- a feeling that lends dignity to the least of us and humility to the greatest. We may not call such a feeling mystical, but some do.

Our human experience must also be viewed in its larger setting. For many, "cosmic consciousness" serves as a better term than mystical. The universe has often been the focus of the mystical feelings of people, even when little was known about it, and the horizons of our knowledge were narrow -- or rather, especially when little was known about it, for the unknown surrounding us has exerted an irresistible pull on human imagination. There are always some who feel a compelling fascination in the unknown depths of the cosmos, and of the future ahead. But what we do know of the universe holds wonder too. In Max Ehrmann's famous "Desiderata," one of the gentle admonitions reads, "You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars." Too many have no real feeling that we are that, yet that is exactly what we are -- indeed it is all we are. Fortunately, this dimension of our being plays a large part in the daily consciousness of many.

John Buchan, the novelist who was once Governor General of Canada, told of one of the deepest impressions of his life: I had been ploughing all day in the black dust of the Lichtenburg roads, and had come very late to . . . the spring of a river which presently loses itself in the sands of the Kalahari. We watered our horses and went supper-less to bed. Next morning I bathed in one of the Malmani pools -- and icy cold it was -- and then basked in the early sunshine while breakfast was cooking. The water made a pleasant music, and near-by was a covert of willows filled with singing birds. Then and there came on me the hour of revelation, when, though savagely hungry, I forgot about breakfast. Scents, sights, and sounds blended into a harmony so perfect that it transcended human expression, even human thought. It was like a glimpse of the peace of eternity. -- Pilgrim's Way

This feeling for the universe, or nature, and our relation to it, does not necessarily arrive only in a dramatic way or majestic place. The mossy stone, rusted and pitted by the wind and the rain, lying in its native grass, says something that the cut stone of our buildings does not say. The tree alive in its soil says something that polished and stained wood fails to communicate. A great deal more is to be found in working the earth in a garden than in opening a pack of frozen peas. We are all children of earth, and there is a depth in us that can be enriched and impregnated through contact with the soil. Such contact can bring a sensual awareness of living forces moving through and around human existence.

Another and more humanistic kind of mysticism is felt by many people concerning humanity and their relationship to it, their involvement in it, and their indebtedness to it. The sense of belonging to humanity, of being joined in destiny with mankind, accompanies some of us all of our days and never leaves us. It is the religious basis for any valid program of social action. "I am not free while any man is in chains," wrote Eugene Debs, and he lived his words. Carl Sandburg's "The People, Yes" is one of the best examples of this kind of humanistic mysticism in modern literature. It may come with the birth of a child, or at the side of a dying beloved, when we realize that life and death are one, and that each emerges out of the other and that neither is possible without the other. It may come in the depths of despair, when all that we value seems lost, and when there flowers out of isolation an awareness that nothing is ever lost, that no matter what happens to our individual being, everything we have ever been and done and hoped is woven into the fabric of the universe forever.

We could speak of the natural mystic in us in other ways. For everyone there is a particular area of his life that has special sensitivity, a field of memory, an association long forgotten, that brings one to a halt of a sudden on hearing a distant train whistle through the night, or catching a strain of song from an unknown voice in a strange town. Read the novels of Thomas Wolfe for haunting expressions of this kind of feeling. I have stood on a waterfront dock of an evening, lost to the world, with nothing before me but the rough iron plates of a ship's side, while the wheeling gulls over the bow with their harsh call at the sight of the ship's tumbled wake as she moved away caused as deep a wonder, exaltation and yearning as any symphony or art gallery ever has for me. For each of us, there is something special that may bring to us the "mystery of fact, the wildness and pang of life," the true depth of life that knows no telling.

Two further words need to be said, one of caution and the other of challenge. Once we have accepted the awareness of this deeper dimension of our lives as natural and necessary, we should watch it carefully. Mystical tendencies have often brought superstition, harmful fantasy and dangerous obscurantism to the world, and have hindered a realistic taking-hold of life. Man's itch for the unknown has thrown a danger zone around his life, a zone in which charlatans, quacks, phony seers and pseudo-psychics make hay while the sun of credulity shines. The mystical has been and is a bulwark of all kinds of superstition and priestly authority.

Yet with all the caution we can muster, the mystic way can lead to a deepening and enrichment of our life. William James again: "It must always remain an open question whether mystical states may not possibly be such superior points of view, windows through which the mind looks out on a more extensive and inclusive world." It is quite likely that we human beings have powers of which we know little as yet, of which we are only dimly aware. Our lives are rich in signs that further sensitivities and powers do exist. It would be a crime against the growing human spirit to stifle, much less to be ashamed of the natural mystic in all of us, blunting the edge of our deeper awareness with the dogma of a flat, narrow, two-by-four existence. Human life may well be a far deeper, richer, and subtler enterprise than we yet realize.

(From Sunrise magazine, May 1975; copyright © 1975 Theosophical University Press)
User avatar
harsi
Posts: 2284
Joined: Sun Jun 05, 2005 1:40 am
Location: Nuremberg, Germany
Contact:

Re: Becoming K... conscious or how to re-invent the wheel

Post by harsi »

Nanda-grama wrote:Mysticism can't be wholesale event. It is always individual journey
Although now such special time goes... Indeed now there are very many mystics.
What amazes me a little bit is the great interest of many of you in the writings or the "mental speculations" some describe it also as "crazy talk" of all this authors. I was reading recently also the "Recommended Reading List!" in Hari's Corner and was asking myself where should all this information contained in this books actually guide one or what should be the use of them? A kind of life coaching and holistic counseling? But where is than the spiritual goal or aspect some of us started also ones to be interested in?

I must admit I don't know many of all this authors listed in Hari's "Recomended Reading List" nor did I read many of their books. Many of them are also not even published in German. I have some books by Hermann Hesse which I find somehow interestingly written, some books by Louise L. Hay and Deepak Chopra and some books by the author Joseph Murphy like "The Miracles of Your Mind (1953)", "Peace Within Yourself (1956)", The Cosmic Energizer: Miracle Power of the Universe (1974) and his most famous one "The Power of Your Subconscious Mind (1962)" which was sold by the millions all over the world. "The Power of Now" by the German author Eckhard Tolle who many consider to be an American, I bought recently also, although I did not read it entirely yet.

But whatever one may think about all this books one thing they all have in common and that is they give an account of or mirror that what the certain author has or had in mind at the time he was writing the book. So how can this be a kind of "authoritative" or meaningful source of information where-from one can also learn something or be guided through life in a more spiritual sense, or a more religious one one may ask oneself?

I am reading right now the newest book by Neale Donald Walsch called in German "At Home with God - About Life after Death" in English the title is "Home with God - In a Life that Never Ends" Its interesting there is no doubt about it but how can I be sure that what is described therein is also the truth. I guess one can never be sure about this in this kind of "esoteric" books, so therefore some may say what is the use of reading such books if their content is not also a "divine revelation" one can be sure of and not only some "mental speculation" or "concoction" of some rank and file author here on earth.

Of course I would like to read also Hari's recent book may be then I will understand somehow better what do you understand by a mystic. But unfortunately it is published and available until now only in Russian. In any case it seems this term you use seems not to describe a kind of mystic yogi of the old school in India's ancient times.

On the Amazon website one can find a book called "The Yogi and the Mystic Studies in Indian and Comparative Mysticism" where one can read " "When writing about mysticism, it is still necessary first to explain what one means by that expression..." (more)

On the [url=http://india_resource.tripod.com/scienceh.htm]India_resource.tripod.com[/url] site one reads: "Contrary to the popular perception that Indian civilization has been largely concerned with the affairs of the spirit and "after-life", India's historical record suggests that some of the greatest Indian minds were much more concerned with developing philosophical paradigms that were grounded in reality. The premise that Indian philosophy is founded solely on mysticism and renunciation emanates from a colonial and orientalist world view that seeks to obfuscate a rich tradition of scientific thought and analysis in India."

Than there is also a book called "Mystic Christianity" by Yogi Ramacharaka where one can read on-line among other things about the "The Mystery of the Virgin Birth" and "The Mystic Youth of Jesus". So Mystic and Mysticism seems to be a popular notion discussed and described in various cultures and areas of life. But how to express this term in a way which everyone can understand and deprive the meaning of the word of its mystique and secretiveness seems to remain wrapped in mystery. At least here on Harimedia...
User avatar
harsi
Posts: 2284
Joined: Sun Jun 05, 2005 1:40 am
Location: Nuremberg, Germany
Contact:

Re: Becoming K... conscious or how to re-invent the wheel

Post by harsi »

Google translation of the thread in Harimedia's "Writings of Members" For all those who don't speak Russian >
aradhya wrote:Platonic love?! The old-greek Plato thought the first creaturs (those who had fallen down later on) had both sexes on their own (somehow like angels the church later on beraved of all sexuality, including bisexuality), so they needed not to struggle after something they already posessed (the other sex). Nowadays, some think the surviving laws of nature inevitably brings the humanity in that direction as the best way to resolve (damaging for survival) misunderstandings born out of sexual diversity. The most idealistic (impractical) way of thinking to be the only solution for survival, what a paradox?! Anyway we can't wait the evolution for so long, so maybe the solution is to simply undertake some training in order to successfuly ignore the urges (perverted dhira-lalita archetypes), otherwise how could an ordinary person (like myself) be platonicly satisfied, as you suggested?!
I have to admit, dear Aradhya, that I had a hard time to understand fully what do you actually mean to say. You are a sort of intellectual who knows to say many things in a few words. As far as I understood it you mean to say that in order to experience true love one needs to undergo some kind of training. Or in other words life (or love) is what you make (of) it.

And indeed when I recall the past and see my own life and what I all went through I can say a boy's best friend is his mother. However when it comes to contemplate and understand the love and motivation of my wife its not so obvious and easy anymore. Sati posted here a part of her conversation with Hari which I looked up and found also this thoughtful quote by him.

>> "The idea that residents of monasteries or spiritual ashrams are unbalanced has been documented by history and expressed within literature. We have also seen this lack of balance manifested within the last century as the disturbing manner in which the devoted lost their capacity to love and relate to one another in a healthy manner due to their being programmed to think such healthy relations are somehow illusory or evil. The problems male spiritual aspirants have with women translates into their philosophy as rules and regulations meant to prevent the disturbing connection between men and women." <<

Well, I would say so far so good. Opinion is deeply divided on this issue. At least the fact that you really touched a nerve by writing about this is something to talk about.
___

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails."

Image. About.com

"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing."
aradhya
Posts: 29
Joined: Tue Feb 09, 2010 4:28 pm

Re: Becoming K... conscious or how to re-invent the wheel

Post by aradhya »

Dear Harsi, I wanted to thank you (as well as our godsisters from Moscow) for the concerned attantion I have received few days ago, so yesterday I wrote something I thought to be funny for you to hear but it seemed so distastfuly written that even the sistem could not swallow it, so after I regularly pressed the command ,,submit,, proudly expecting to see the post in the media, it took me to the previous page asking me to login. Now I've learned a lection, I'll not repeat that mistake again, anyway I couldn't do it, I can't recapture it again (you remember the beautiful Hari's song ,,I had a dream,, this nightmare of mine is not worth of recapturing it). This time I just want to test the sistem (like testing microfon: ,,one two, one two three,,), so let me see if it works again: ,,...raghupati raghava raja ram, patita pavana sita ram...,, Sri-Sri Sita-Ram-Laksman-Hanuman ki-jay!
Nanda-grama
Posts: 272
Joined: Wed Jul 30, 2008 11:13 pm
Location: Moscow

Re: Becoming K... conscious or how to re-invent the wheel

Post by Nanda-grama »

Dear Harsi, I read your discussion with Hari about misticism with great interest. I wonder your way to understand things-you think that if you will describe a thing and look how other people describe it you will understand it better :? . But how it seems to me, misticism is such thing which you can understand only when you experience it- also as love, as taste of ice-cream.
You quote:
Evangelical Christianity interprets all religious experience by the normative revelation of God recorded for us in the Holy Scriptures, and guides, directs, and corrects it from these Scriptures, and thus molds it into harmony with what God in His revealed Word lays down as the normal Christian life."

This description of the practice of the interpretation of all religious experience in Evangelical Christianity is very similar to how it was and still is practice in various societies for example or the way one understood the Vaishnava religion to be.



"The mystic, on the other hand, tends to substitute his religious experience for the objective revelation of God recorded in the written Word, as the source from which he derives his knowledge of God, or at least to subordinate the expressly revealed Word as the less direct and convincing source of knowledge of God to his own religious experience. The result is that the external revelation is relatively depressed in value, if not totally set aside."

Interesting is also the following although from another religious tradition:

"In the history of Christian thought mysticism appears accordingly as that tendency among professing Christians which looks within, that is, to the religious feelings, in its search for God. It supposes itself to contemplate within the soul the movements of the divine Spirit, and finds in them either the sole sources of trustworthy knowledge of God, or the most immediate and convincing sources of that knowledge, or, at least, a coordinate source of it alongside of the written Word."

"The characteristic of Christian mysticism, from the point of view of religious knowledge, is therefore its appeal to the "inner light," or "the internal word," either to the exclusion of the external or written Word, or as superior to it and normative for its interpretation, or at least as coordinate authority with it, this "inner light" or "internal word" being conceived not as the rational understanding but as the immediate deliverance of the religious sentiment."

It seems to me, main difference between mistic and religious traditionalist is in what first eats ise-cream and tells: It is great! -but second looks how first eats it and repeats hereafter : it is great, it is great! :) He thinks that as he will more often and heartily repeat it :003 as he will better feel the taste of the ise-cream.He thinks also that he self is unworthy and fallen in order to try to eat this ise-cream. The case is that "Word" and all sacred books were composed or narrated by mistics who had personal experience of association with God and of connection with Him. And other people simply follow it to not try to get own experience.
You want Hari would DESCRIBE what is misticism but he already not only explained it many times in his lectures but also GAVE KEYS how you can go into the experience of misticism. If you will carefully listen to his lectures which were in Moscow in October 2009, you will find this keys in order to experience the taste of this ice-cream.
:)
User avatar
harsi
Posts: 2284
Joined: Sun Jun 05, 2005 1:40 am
Location: Nuremberg, Germany
Contact:

Re: Becoming K... conscious or how to re-invent the wheel

Post by harsi »

What you wrote is just another proof that in order to really understand someone and the way he may view and experience spiritual reality, it is also necessary and essential to have also some personal association with that person. At least for me that would be of great help, this whole Internet is OK in one sense but it can never really replace the personal association with someone or with one another.

For example Hari writes: "When I quote the phrase from Donald Walsh that there is only one of us, the us refers to exactly what the word usually refers to, a group of individuals. Us, as it is used in English and all languages, refers to an arbitrary group of individuals placed together into that group due to desire or circumstances, such as when five people are going to the theater together and they say, "We are going to have a good time. Good for us!" In the larger sense, the divine sense, we are all Beings. We are the sum total collective of all living energy."

So far I can understand Hari very well. Where I have my problems to follow is the following: If there exists only "the sum total collective of all living energy" meaning us all than where is its or our all source or origin? Or that what one calls God or the Supreme Being or the Divine or whatever? Are we all That or "Om Tat Sat" although I am not really in control of "That What Is" since I was born ones and also have to die sometime. And this whole cosmic creation is also something I dont really have some influence on or some creative power. You understand my dilemma?

In this regard one can read for example also on Funeralwise.com:
"Unlike other religions, Hinduism has no founder and no common creed or doctrine. Most prevalent among Asian Indians, the religion teaches that God is within each being and object in the universe and also transcends every being and object. It teaches that the essence of each soul is divine; and that the purpose of life is to become aware of that divine essence."

Somehow we may have mised this point of "Hinduism" since some of us were thinking before that the point would be to realize Krishna and that we are not this body, not what would be the texture or quality structure (essence) of our spiritual being.

Hari continues:

"When we say there is only one of us, there are various implications. To start, it implies that we do not stand alone or separate. What we do or feel affects others. What we send out, returns to us. Our pain is others pain, there pain is our pain. We are in it together and we are all affected by what we create together."

For the members of a family what Hari writes may no doubt make some sense but for those living outside of it they may loose their importance. In the greater society their would be a need for a proper educational system in order to educate the public in order to view things like that. And therefore one thinks that such a thing would also a religion do and its institutions.

Nanda-grama wrote:The case is that "Word" and all sacred books were composed or narrated by mistics who had personal experience of association with God and of connection with Him. And other people simply follow it to not try to get own experience.
Regarding Mysticism I found today also this interesting definition on the Web which seems to confirm what you wrote:

"Mysticism, from the Greek μυω (muo, "to conceal"), is the pursuit of achieving communion with or conscious awareness of ultimate reality, the divine, spiritual truth, or God through direct, personal experience (intuition or insight) rather than rational thought; the belief in the existence of realities beyond perceptual or intellectual apprehension that are central to being and directly accessible through personal experience; or the belief that such experience is a genuine and important source of knowledge."
Last edited by harsi on Wed Apr 07, 2010 8:24 am, edited 1 time in total.
Nanda-grama
Posts: 272
Joined: Wed Jul 30, 2008 11:13 pm
Location: Moscow

Re: Becoming K... conscious or how to re-invent the wheel

Post by Nanda-grama »

Harsi wrote:
For example Hari writes: "When I quote the phrase from Donald Walsh that there is only one of us, the us refers to exactly what the word usually refers to, a group of individuals. Us, as it is used in English and all languages, refers to an arbitrary group of individuals placed together into that group due to desire or circumstances, such as when five people are going to the theater together and they say, "We are going to have a good time. Good for us!" In the larger sense, the divine sense, we are all Beings. We are the sum total collective of all living energy."

So far I can understand Hari very well. Where I have my problems to follow is the following: If there exists only "the sum total collective of all living energy" meaning us all than where is its or our all source? Or that what one calls God or the Supreme Being or the Divine or whatever? Are we all That or "Om Tat Sat" although I am not really in control of "That What Is" since I was born ones and also have to die sometime. And this whole cosmic creation is also something I dont really have some influence on or some creative power. You understand my dilemma?

Hari continues:

"When we say there is only one of us, there are various implications. To start, it implies that we do not stand alone or separate. What we do or feel affects others. What we send out, returns to us. Our pain is others pain, there pain is our pain. We are in it together and we are all affected by what we create together."

For the members of a family what Hari writes may no doubt make some sense but for those living outside of it they may loose their importance. In the greater society their would be a need for a proper educational system in order to educate the public in order to view things like that. And therefore one thinks that such a thing would also a religion do and its institutions.

I would advice you( if generally I can advice something you) to read source of this phrase "This is only One of us"- "Conversations with God" of N.D.Uolsh. This is such tearm which can't be explaned in 2-3 postings. This is another point of view on world. In this book God explains it. Then I would advice you (after this book) to look on world from this point of view and to try to get personal experience of it. For example, I had many times such experience when I felt another person as myself( I don't want to describe it- it is something very intimate). I think you also had such experience, may be, with people whom you loved. Simply with loved people we sancion ourselves to feel again this "Oness", but in usuall life it is for some reason more comfortable for us to see everybody and everything separately one from another. Then, when you will get personal experience of it, you will ask Hari and will see that his understanding of it will be different a little from yourself but it will stop to worry you because you will have own experience. :)
Generally, to understand this things by mind is very difficultly because quite the opposite mind prevents to experience and to understand it( here all is same as it was described in Scriptures :) ). It is more easily in meditation because for some cause mind "go out" or fills up when body relaxs.
From philosophical point of view Oness( as it seems to me) is feeling of reversion us to our original condition of parts of God which we can experience in condition of love. ( Althougt it is very difficultly for me to express it philosophically :mrgreen: )
User avatar
harsi
Posts: 2284
Joined: Sun Jun 05, 2005 1:40 am
Location: Nuremberg, Germany
Contact:

Re: Becoming K... conscious or how to re-invent the wheel

Post by harsi »

“I have no idea what God is. Yes, I have an experience that God is. There is something very real about this presence called God, although I have no idea how to define God, to see God as a person or a thing. I can’t seem to do it. It’s kind of like asking a human being to explain what God is. It’s similar to asking a fish to explain the water in which the fish swims.” – Fred Alan Wolf, Ph.D.
Open up your mind and heart to new experiences of consciousness.
Nanda-grama
Posts: 272
Joined: Wed Jul 30, 2008 11:13 pm
Location: Moscow

Re: Becoming K... conscious or how to re-invent the wheel

Post by Nanda-grama »

:)
May be, it is impossible to explain what is God, but it is miracle that it is possible to feel Him and associate with Him(or Them)!
Nanda-grama
Posts: 272
Joined: Wed Jul 30, 2008 11:13 pm
Location: Moscow

Re: Becoming K... conscious or how to re-invent the wheel

Post by Nanda-grama »

Long age when I was student of conservatory I thought : how is it possible that God sees me, such little, among milliards of other people? Likely He has something like microscope!
Now I understand that I am a part of Him, and He feels me as I fell my finger. But I am such special "finger" which also can feel all body and other " fingers". ( But we don't know, may be, our cells can conscious us? :) .For example, cancer ,may be , is revolt of cells and their refusal to be in whole body consciousness and their trying to live separated independent life. And if somebody can to admonish this cells that to be in whole body consciousness and to execute their destination as parts of body- is safely and favourably for them, he can cure himself of cancer)
Post Reply