samadhi wrote:David,I have no problem with your not liking Adya. He isn't for everyone and certainly not for you. My problem is that your criticisms do not actually address anything he says but either his looks or your overall impression that is no different from simple prejudice. Like saying he is "too emotional." All that does is reflect your own feeling you get from listening to him. But you won’t say that because of course it would contradict your "man of logic" façade. All I am doing is pointing that out. Unfortunately a "man of logic" cannot see his own emotion. It takes someone else to do that for him.samadhi: All you seem capable of is a blanket dismissal. Your unwillingness to quote and critique, which might lend a semblance of credibility to your words, exemplifies a lazy, dismissive attitude that bristles with hostility when challenged. Like a dog, you piss on everyone around you to let them know they are impinging on your territory.
DQ: It is completely beyond all that. I know you're a fan-boy of Adya and it is understandable that you would react to my criticisms of Adya in a defensive manner. But all I can do is call it as I see it and hope that you can awaken to the larger perspective that I am depicting.
You’re misunderstanding me. I cannot begin to describe just how small Adya seems to me. He is like a mosquito or a gnat. The thoughts he delivers are the thoughts I had when I was a teenager, the same thoughts that I now see as being very limited and naive.
For me, rejecting someone like Adya is like rejecting the doctrines of the Jehovah's Witnesses or the Ku Klux Klan. It is not an emotional rejection, but simply a recognition of their limitations.
samadhi wrote:Yet he gets results. Something else you don't want to look at.Now you could analyze Britney's songs and say, "Oh, that is a nice drum-fill there", or "She puts an unexpected little twist on the melody here", but it still won't hide the fact that it is generic, formulaic pop produced for the large lucrative market of insecure 14 year-old girls.
14 year-old girls would also say that they get results from Britney's music. Her music works for them. Given their lack of mental development, it doesn’t really mean much.
samadhi wrote:Please. It isn't his job to fix you. That's your job. And his approach isn't to look at each character flaw and throw it in your face. His approach is to help you see what is already present and doesn't need fixing. Once you see that, what needs changing, changes by itself.sam: Confrontation is not the only way to understanding, nor is it a very productive way, generally speaking. I'm not saying it can't work, given the right temperament. But your idea that everyone must be confronted is simply that, your idea. It is a strategy, nothing more or less than any other strategy. Simply because it might have worked in your case does not justify you going around and beating everyone up. You cannot force anyone to give up anything anyway, what needs to be left behind must always be surrendered willingly. People are not stupid. They will see what needs to be surrendered in good time when they are ready and engaged. Someone who is not ready to surrender will not be any more ready no matter how much you confront them.
DQ: While that is true, it would still be nice to see these gurus make at least some attempt to open people's eyes to the deeper issues of the ego, instead of sweeping it all under the carpet and pretending that there are no issues at all.
I'm talking more about opening people's horizons and encouraging them to see the true extent of the ego problem. Most people find this alone to be confronting. Yes, it is true that each individual has to do the work himself, but he cannot begin to do this if his guru keeps shielding the full extent of the problem from him and telling him that nothing’s amiss.
samadhi wrote:Okay. You and I have a basic disagreement about emotions and their place in what it means to be human. For you they seem to indicate some flaw or hindrance to awakening. For me, emotions are what makes a human being human. It doesn't mean the expression of hatred or rage are part of awakening. It means that humans can feel the whole range of emotions including those that lead to division and separation. On awakening, those emotions which express division and separation no longer have an ego to fuel them. Love, compassion, caring, the feminine as you call it, are all more available, not less, because those emotions are no longer hamstrung or manipulated by the ego.One can see the consequences of this in your own case. For example, in previous posts you have mentioned that you believe humour, emotion, the feminine, etc, are part of "human nature" and have no connection to wisdom or ego. This is a standard viewpoint which comes straight out of the generic guru's textbook. Instead of helping people to face up to these deeper egotistical issues and deal with them properly, the generic guru instead encourages his followers to erect mental blocks and push these issues out of mind and out of sight. This is not healthy, in my book.
These feminine emotions still require the existence of division and separation, even if it is simply to overcome them. If there was no division and separation to begin with, then none of these emotions could come into play. That is why the Buddha taught that love and hate are both part of the same samsaric wheel. Love and hate depend on each other, and feed off of each other.
It is similar to the way that Mother Teresa needed poor, broken-spirited people in order for her compassion to come into play. If there were no poor, broken-spirited people to begin with, then her compassion would become superfluous. It would be robbed of the very fuel which sustains it. And interestingly enough, her Christian teachings encouraged the kind of passive, helpless mindset which so easily leads to poverty and broken-spiritedness in the first place. Her attachment to compassion literally helped to create the very problem that she believed she was addressing.
samadhi wrote:They are a part of human nature but a part that feeds the ego based on division, separation, greed and domination. Love, compassion, caring, etc. do not do that.sam: Women and the feminine is your kick and something for you to deal with.
DQ: It is everyone's kick and something that everyone who is serious about giving up attachments and becoming wise has to deal with. But don't look to Adya and his ilk to help you in this. You will only draw a blank.
sam: The feminine is part of human nature. You don’t give up human nature to remember who you are. In fact, you don’t become less human, you become MORE human.
DQ: One could just as easily rationalize murder and rape on the grounds that they are also a part of "human nature".
That is what the generic gurus say, but they are misguided. Love is always an attempt to bridge over division and separation, and thus is still based in the ego.
Because the enlightened sage never experiences division and separation in the first place, he never requires any emotional bridges to be built over them. In truth, he is too pure for love, just as he is too pure for hate.
samadhi wrote:Attachment is about ego. Sure, one can be attached to love as a means to feel better or even to dominate someone (although love in that sense is a manipulation, an appearance that plays on another’s emotion and not what is commonly referred to as love at all). When attachment is involved, the emotions can become more about manipulating than about a genuine expression. But without ego, such emotions don’t disappear, only one’s need to manipulate them to some other end. A genuine expression of love is not about attachment or ego. If love were not possible without ego, enlightenment would be worth precious little.People who use such phrases are simply trying to justify the things they are attached to. It is little different from saying that some behaviours are "Amercian", while others are "un-American".
Enlightenment is far, far greater than love.
samadhi wrote:You need to point to someone who actually teaches this besides yourself. I have never seen compassion, for example, associated with the ego. Yes, there can be attachment, practicing compassion out of a desire to create, preserve or promote an image. It doesn't mean compassion itself arises out of ego.What people need to grasp is that the feminine, along with emotion, humour, compassion, and yes, the masculine as well, are all part of our egotistical nature and need to be dealt with on that basis.
From the Tao Te Ching:
When the great Tao is forgotten,
Kindness and morality arise.
When wisdom and intelligence are born,
The great pretence begins.
When there is no peace within the family,
Filial piety and devotion arise.
When the country is confused and in chaos,
Loyal ministers appear.
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Therefore when the Tao is lost, there is goodness.
When goodness is lost, there is kindness.
When kindness is lost, there is justice.
When justice is lost, there is ritual.
Now ritual is the husk of faith and loyalty, the
beginning of confusion.
Knowledge of the future is only a flowery trapping of Tao.
It is the beginning of folly.
samadhi wrote:No, you will never find Adya talking about compassion as an expression of ego. That's because it isn't. If you say it is, then tell me who else teaches that. If you can't point to anyone, why should I believe you in contradiction to my own experience and that of all teachers who have come before?It is impossible to be truly serious about eliminating the ego if one can't even recognize the sheer extent of what's involved. Gurus like Adya are preventing people from addressing these issues properly because he is narrowing their conception of the ego to include just a few obvious egotistical traits, while excluding the rest.
What is compassion, exactly?
samadhi wrote:Do you want to talk about the Tao? Chuang Tzu? Have at it. Do they reject emotion? Then please show it. Time to put up or shut up.sam: QRS does have a thing about emotion (the feminine, etc.) and the "need" to get rid of it that, as far as I can tell, has no basis in enlightenment teaching. I don't know where it came from.
DQ: It certainly has no basis in the bland, generic speech that usually passes for "enlightenment teaching" these days. But it's there in most of the major works nonetheless - the Dhammapada, Chuang Tzu's and Lao Tzu's writings, the various sutras, various Hindu works, and so on.
From Chuang Tzu:
- When the mind is without care or joy, this is the height of Virtue. When it is unified and unchanging, this is the height of stillness. When it grates against nothing, this is the height of emptiness. When it has no commerce with things, this is the height of serenity. When it rebels against nothing, this is the height of purity.
- To harmonize with men is called human joy; to harmonize with Heaven is called Heavenly joy.
For him who understands Heavenly joy, life is the working of Heaven and death is the transformation of things. With his single mind in repose, he is king of the world. The spirits do not afflict him, and his soul knows no weariness. With his single mind reposed, the ten thousand things submit ‑ which is to say that his emptiness and stillness reach throughout Heaven and earth and penetrate the ten thousand things. This is what is called Heavenly joy.
Heavenly joy is the mind of the sage, by which he shepherds the world.
- A little while ago, when I went in to mourn the death of Lao Tan, I found old men weeping for him as though they were weeping for a son, and young men weeping for him as though they were weeping for a mother. To have gathered a group like that, he must have done something to make them weep for him, even though he didn't ask them to weep. This is to hide from Heaven, to turn your back on the true state of affairs and forget what you were born with. In the old days, this was called the crime of hiding from Heaven.
Lao Tan happened to come because it was his time, and he happened to leave because things follow their course. If you are content with the time and willing to follow along, then grief and joy have no Way to enter in. In the old days, this was called being freed from the bonds of God.
Though the grease burns out of the torch, the fire passes on, and no one knows where it ends.
- Beasts that feed on grass do not fret over a change of pasture; creatures that live in water do not fret over a change of stream. They accept the minor shift as long as the all‑important constant is not lost. Be like them and joy, anger, grief, and happiness can never enter your breast.
In this world, the ten thousand things come together in One. If you can find that One and become identical with it, then your four limbs and hundred joints will become dust and refuse; life and death will be as day and night, and nothing whatever can confound you.
Since the ten thousand transformations continue without even the beginning of an end, how could they bring anxiety to your mind? He who practices the Way understands all this.
- You should find the same joy in one condition as you would in any other and thereby be free of care. But here you are, when certain things take their leave, you cease to be joyful.
Though you might experience joy on occasion, it will always be fated for destruction. Therefore, it is said: "Those who destroy themselves in things and lose their inborn nature in the vulgar may be called the upside‑down people."
- When a man does not dwell in self, things spontaneously reveal their forms to him. His movement is like that of water, his stillness like that of a mirror, his responses like those of an echo. Blank‑eyed, he seems to be lost; motionless, he has the clarity of water. Because he is one with it, he achieves harmony; should he ever reach out for it, he would lose it. Never does he go ahead of other men, but always follows in their wake.
samadhi wrote:Well, here I am, open my eyes. Where is the teaching that humor or emotion are to be abandoned? You keep repeating it but when I ask you to show it, you do a lot of hand-waving and little else.Most importantly, it is there for anyone who has the courage to open their eyes to Reality. Like humour, emotion is always triggered by illusion and always tied up with attachment and ego. This is something which is obvious to the mind when it becomes enlightened.
I’ve already showed how humour and laughter are egotistical responses to oppression, that they act to release the ego from tension. The reasons I gave are simple and direct. If you understand the nature of the ego, then you will have no trouble understanding these reasons very clearly.
samadhi wrote:Well, I want to know about it. Show me. Let's look at the Tao. How about this:But, of course, people instinctively become emotional about this kind of talk and don't want to know about it. This is where the generic gurus come in, to soothe them and put them back to sleep again.
Hmm, compassion. Surprised?The Master views the parts with compassion,
because he understands the whole.
His constant practice is humility.
He doesn't glitter like a jewel
but lets himself be shaped by the Tao,
as rugged and common as stone. (v 39, Mitchell trans.)
That particular translation diverges markedly from most other translations, so much so that one has the impression that Mitchell has just made it up.
samadhi wrote:Everyone wants to feel better, okay? That's not a bad thing, it's just the way things are. Everyone comes to an enlightenment teaching wanting to feel better and end their suffering. That is where you start. When there is some understanding, one realizes enlightenment is not about problem-solving, feeling better, or in your case, either attaining some kind of perfect logic or getting rid of emotion. It is about what is prior to all that. It is not about a future moment but about what is being overlooked in the present moment. Struggle is invariably about the future, getting something that isn’t here in the present. But you can’t struggle for what you already have. Nor can you stop struggling if you think there is something you need. Adya teaches the direct approach, what you already are right now. For some, that's not enough, they want something else. As long as you think you need a brilliant mind infused with impeccable logic to attain enlightenment, struggle will be part of your path.sam: I’m not saying he teaches trying not to struggle, or even not struggling. Struggling and not struggling is the duality which humans find themselves in. They think if it’s not one, it must be the other. That is the turning of the wheel itself, chasing answers within a duality. There is no “the way†to it. There is “your way†to it. He doesn’t encourage you to struggle or to not struggle, only to do what you do without the idea of getting something in return.
DQ: What about emotional rewards, good relationships with people, love, mental peace, good conscience, the blisses involved in being aware of the present, etc? Are you telling me that the people who attend Adya's lecture's aren't seeking these things?
Not at all. You are speaking out of ignorance here. The importance of logic is that it can unearth the deeper aspects of the ego which need to be addressed and eliminated before struggle can cease. What Adya teaches is a false peace based on the blocking out of these deeper aspects. It is a band-aid solution, at best.
But it is a win-win situation for the cunning Adya because he knows that the process of blocking out can achieve temporary periods of peace and he knows that when these peaceful periods come to an end it won't be seen to be his fault. In other words, a student can quickly achieve periods of peace by this "direct approach" as taught by Adya. However, no one can block out deeper emotional realities forever and sooner or later they will burst through. But it won't be seen to be Adya's fault when they do burst through, nor will it seen to be the fault of the teachings. No, it will be the student's fault for not meditating well enough, or not having developed enough good karma in the past.
It is similar to the dynamic observed in Christian fundamentalism where a devotee might pray for a miracle cure for a friend’s disease and if the cure doesn't materialize the fault will lie with the devotee for not having enough faith. In this way, the ministers are able to side-step the blame for their dodgy teachings. Virtually the whole spiritual industry runs on this dynamic.
Not so. A person can still act egotistically even when he isn’t seeing himself as an ego. The ego is like an iceberg, with most of it extending down beneath the awareness of most people’s minds. If this deeper part isn’t brought to the surface and dealt with properly, it will still continue to fester away and influence that person’s behaviour, regardless of what he happens to see within his awareness.samadhi wrote:Egotism (which is delusion) is here because that is what you see. As long as you see yourself as an ego, you will act as an ego.sam: Enlightenment isn't a bargain, it is not a prize you get for following some rule someone tells you. Struggle is more obviously about getting something. What do you think you’re getting that isn’t already here?
DQ: Freedom from egotism and delusion. For most people, that is definitely something which is not already here.
Simply imagining that one doesn’t have an ego isn’t enough. That’s just wishful thinking. One has to roll up the sleeves and put in the hard work to eliminate the ego properly. That’s if you’re serous about wisdom.
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