Setanta wrote on Aug 4^th, 2019 at 1:17am:


In answer to your first two questions, I most certainly am not. In answer to your third question, I absolutely am.

Religions are not equal, just as medications are not equal. You use them for their specific benefits and say ah.

The Vedas describe 4 categories of spiritual practice:

1. Karma yoga. Karma means action. This is where you work selflessly, thinking of no outcome or benefit to yourself, your work becoming your spiritual practice. Mother Theresa was such a yogi. Gandhi was a more formalised practitioner.

2. Bhakti yoga. Bhakti means devotion. This is the yoga of faith, where you worship an object of attraction. Prayer, fasting, faith. Christians, Muslims and Hindus are Bhakti yogis.

3. Jnana yoga. Knowledge or self realisation. Here the yogi questions the premise of their ontology. Who am I? Where am I? What is thinking? The Buddha was a great Jnana yogi.

4. Raja yoga. The "king" or "royal" yoga, also known as ashtunga, the "eight limbed" path outlined in the Patanjali Sutras. This is a systematised path which ends in samadhi, or peace. It has elements of the above yogas and more.

The Buddha's "noble eightfold path" is believed by some to have influenced Patanjali's sutras (or narrative threads) in the form of a system. These yogic practices had existed centuries or millennia prior to their 250 BC discovery on bamboo-leaf parchment, but they were written here in a deeply resonant Sanskrit form that put the practices into context.

My teacher says that when you are working and doing, you are a karma yogi. When you are loving, you are a Bhakti yogi, and so on.

The first three yogas above are really the foundation of Raja yoga, and there are many other yogas aside from these.

The benefits of the cultures and religions most certainly should be shared with all who need them in the world. Some will naturally be drawn to certain ones. I'm not much of a devotional type. I simply don't get Christianity, Islam or Hinduism, although these religions do include yoga practices that are not just Bhakti.

I'm more drawn to Raja yoga and Buddhist practices, primarily to still my mind, feelings and expectations.

All cultures and religions are not the same, but we need to be curious about them all to understand our friends who use them.

It's worth saying that the cultures and religions also have their dark tendencies that need to be avoided. The method itself is not the aim. Nothing is fundamental beyond love, curiousity and awareness. Anything that teaches hate or intolerance or closed-minded absolutes is to be avoided at all costs.

This is different to warnings of consequences for failure. There are indeed some very hard fates in the universe, many on our own planet. Hanging out with dogs does give you fleas, throwing pearls before swine is indeed a waste, letting people or bad habits into your tent that will bring you down certainly does require you to kill them wherever you find them.

The same goes for cultures or religions that might seduce you into a state of mindless determination. Hatred is used for this, channelling all your energies towards a target of destruction.

Many see the tinted races as such a target. Others see the non-religious - or the religious. Whatever the target, letting hate into your tent will surely destroy you.

All cultures and religions serve a purpose. All can be a friend - or an enemy.

You?

Mattyfisk wrote on Aug 4^th, 2019 at 2:35am:


Beautifully put. I love it when you take the time.

As to your bafflement of Christianity; is that more so in the accepted application of the church or the teachings of Jesus?

Because, and i hasten to explain that my understanding of Hindu and Buddhism is by far inferior to your own, i've always thought that JC kinda fit in with the nicer bits quite nicely. As does the value placed on introspection and charity of Mohammed.

The golden rule, do unto others, is common in most religions and spiritual, moral and ethical  systems .. at least as i understand it is. And this commonality represents my inclinations the best. What unites us, irrespective of religion , agnosticism or atheism.

Stuffed if i know why people get caught up on being right. And it's usually the ones complaining the hardest about others. Completely, of course, ignoring the golden rule.

Mattyfisk wrote on Aug 4^th, 2019 at 3:04am:


My father is a little the same. He trained to be a Jesuit priest before giving in, as he puts it, to "original sin". Devoted church man all my life but he's more of a Buddhist than anything these days. Although he still dutifully accompanies my mother to church.

But he rejects any form of symbolism or ritual categorically as devious. I see his point ... to a point.

As for the grotesque images designed to traumatise children of thehorrible  end of JC, couldn't agree more. It was largely me not understanding why i had to go to confession if he died for my sins, my mother's insistence that my cat wouldn't go to heaven and nobody being able to tell me who God's mummy was that first inspired my rebellion.

But i do take some comfort in riitual and symbolism. Just the nice ones.

Well, the telos of the counter-reformation is reason, Mother. It makes perfect sense for Jesuits to become Buddhists in old age. Plenty of those on Buddhist retreats are lapsed Catholics.

Especially the Tibetan ones - all those prayer wheels, brass and incense.

polite_gandalf wrote on Aug 3^rd, 2019 at 10:57pm:


polite_gandalf wrote on Aug 3^rd, 2019 at 11:23pm:


So having Jews as customers is not sufficient? A business has to take a political stance first?

Don't you think all businesses have expressed policies that are incompatible with anti-semitism, or do they have to specifically mention anti-semitism in particular?

Mattyfisk wrote on Aug 4^th, 2019 at 1:07am:

Why do some tinted people choose to go to white countries and then complain that people notice and often dislike their tinted ways? Why dont they choose to go to another tinted country? Are they ALL shitholes?


Challenge: name tinted countries that are not shitholes and explain why the tinted people from shitholes are not infesting them.
Hint: wacism.

polite_gandalf wrote on Aug 4^th, 2019 at 11:12am:


So pretty much any company could refuse to hire someone, or fire someone, based on them posting mindless collective of treacherous Jews memes on the internet?

Regardless of whether the company specially identify themselves as being anti anti semitism?