Forget about Enlightenment

[samadhi]

Adya .... Ego is written everywhere in his facial features.

Agreed. It only takes one glance at his face to see that there is no purity in him, no connection to the light of truth. Darkness floods out of his soul and shapes his features, almost as though he were perfectly content to remain in the criminal classes from which he emerged.

lol ... I could easily say the same thing about you with as much effect. Your opinion on someone else's features has no relevance when it comes to their teaching. Do you know what he teaches? Lol, I didn't think so.

[David Quinn]

I think seekers face a different set of problems than non-seekers do, so here you go you bastards. This should be relevant to your interests:
Some black dude named Mooji talks about Enlightenment


"Although there is something for you to do to see it, there is nothing for you to do to be it."

Mooji looks like a nice guy and speaks well, but his teaching here is unskillful and inappropriate. It is no good telling people just to drop everything and rest in the here and now, particularly if the people he is addressing are still full of egotistical delusions and unresolved issues. It is simply not going to work. At best, all his speech can do is trigger some temporary altered states of consciousness in his listeners, which they are bound to misinterpret.

Unless these unresolved issues and egotistical delusions are properly addressed, they are still going to continue to rear their ugly heads. They are still going to disturb the mind and create negative consequences. Blocking them out of the mind and pretending that everything is alright with the world can only result in a fool's paradise.

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[average]

I think seekers face a different set of problems than non-seekers do, so here you go you bastards. This should be relevant to your interests:
Some black dude named Mooji talks about Enlightenment


"Although there is something for you to do to see it, there is nothing for you to do to be it."

Mooji looks like a nice guy and speaks well, but his teaching here is unskillful and inappropriate. It is no good telling people just to drop everything and rest in the here and now, particularly if the people he is addressing are still full of egotistical delusions and unresolved issues. It is simply not going to work. At best, all his speech can do is trigger some temporary altered states of consciousness in his listeners, which they are bound to misinterpret.

Unless these unresolved issues and egotistical delusions are properly addressed, they are still going to continue to rear their ugly heads. They are still going to disturb the mind and create negative consequences. Blocking them out of the mind and pretending that everything is alright with the world can only result in a fool's paradise.

-

edit-


It's actually a vital teaching for people to understand that: although there is nothing for you to do to be enlightened, there are things for you to do, and let go of, to see it. Which is what he said. Which is true.

[David Quinn]

Adya .... Ego is written everywhere in his facial features.

Agreed. It only takes one glance at his face to see that there is no purity in him, no connection to the light of truth. Darkness floods out of his soul and shapes his features, almost as though he were perfectly content to remain in the criminal classes from which he emerged.

lol ... I could easily say the same thing about you with as much effect.

I'm happy to leave it to others to decide whether my face embodies darkness and criminality.

Your opinion on someone else's features has no relevance when it comes to their teaching.

Bad fruit cannot come from good trees. If the fruit is bad, then it means that the tree is also bad.

Do you know what he teaches? Lol, I didn't think so.

Fundamentally, he teaches evil people to accept their evil without a conscience.

-

[David Quinn]

I think seekers face a different set of problems than non-seekers do, so here you go you bastards. This should be relevant to your interests:
Some black dude named Mooji talks about Enlightenment


"Although there is something for you to do to see it, there is nothing for you to do to be it."

Mooji looks like a nice guy and speaks well, but his teaching here is unskillful and inappropriate. It is no good telling people just to drop everything and rest in the here and now, particularly if the people he is addressing are still full of egotistical delusions and unresolved issues. It is simply not going to work. At best, all his speech can do is trigger some temporary altered states of consciousness in his listeners, which they are bound to misinterpret.

Unless these unresolved issues and egotistical delusions are properly addressed, they are still going to continue to rear their ugly heads. They are still going to disturb the mind and create negative consequences. Blocking them out of the mind and pretending that everything is alright with the world can only result in a fool's paradise.

We don't know what level his audience is at though.

We can guess. Psychiatric-types looking for a quick path to mental peace and hippy-type women wanting to bathe in a thoughtless, emotion-filled paradise would comprise most of the audience. They always do when it comes to these types of gurus.

Some people don't really have any delusions to get rid of except a couple keeping them away from reality, or their nature, and part of the process of realizing it is being in the cheesy and cliche' 'here and now' and really disengaging with the desire for self-transformation, enlightenment as a thing to attain.

Such people are kidding themselves. The ego runs very deep, much deeper than most people imagine. Only super-advanced souls on the brink of perfect Buddhahood have "no delusions to get rid of except a couple keeping them away from reality", and I have yet to meet one of those.

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[brokenhead]

I remember eading a compilation of "Essays" by Gurdjieff, which were, to a large extent, transcriptions of his lectures to his followers. Gurdjieff was an admitted follower of the Sufic tradtition regarding the seeking of enlightenment. His pupils were often the idle well-to-do, the same type of people who went to seances and flocked to psychoanalysis, many of them women. That G. cultivated this crowd is obvious - he wanted their money and complained when he wasn't getting enough of it.

The Sufic way of teacher-pupil interaction is unmistakeable in these lectures. Q: "What does one do to become enlightened?" A: "Do? You can do nothing. Enlightenment is a big thing. You cannot even do small things." Q: "How do I begin on the path to enlightenment?" A: "You can start by shutting up. You talk too much. You are always interrupting other people and bothering them with your useless chatter."

I once went to a lecture by Doris Lessing, an admitted follower of the Sufic tradition. Sure enough, the Q&A part went like this: Q: "Where do you get your ideas?" A: "I read. If you could read, you would have ideas, too." Q: "You seem to have a unique grasp of the condition of the world. How do you come by it?" A: "You are being ridiculous. Try to read a newspaper some time." Q: "What is the first step towards enlightenment?" A: "You are speaking nonsense."

Gurdjieff's career was spotty. He was a dance teacher and a circus performer, I believe. To be fair, our last Pope was an ex-actor and our present one an ex-SS concentration camp guard. But he did have his followers, and if I'm not mistaken, was one of the subjects of the PBS series Meetings with Remarkable Men.

I recall this quote from one of his last lectures: "Take the knowledge of the West and the wisdom of the East and seek." The theme of the lecture was forget about enlightenment. "Take everything we have said in these meetings and forget about it."

I am reminded of Brian in Monty Python's Life of Brian. The crowd keeps following Brian around and speaking to him with one voice as if it were a single person. And Brian finally gets fed up and says to them, "Look, you don't need to follow anyone!"

[average]

We can guess. Psychiatric-types looking for a quick path to mental peace and hippy-type women wanting to bathe in a thoughtless, emotion-filled paradise would comprise most of the audience. They always do when it comes to these types of gurus.


Such people are kidding themselves. The ego runs very deep, much deeper than most people imagine. Only super-advanced souls on the brink of perfect Buddhahood have "no delusions to get rid of except a couple keeping them away from reality", and I have yet to meet one of those.

-

It's useless to judge his audience, what matters is what he is saying, and it does point to truth.

Some will understand it quickly, others will require more time.

[samadhi]

DQ,

I'm happy to leave it to others to decide whether my face embodies darkness and criminality.

The point is that opinions about what someone's features tell you says more about your prejudice than their features. It is the basis for all racism.

me: Your opinion on someone else's features has no relevance when it comes to their teaching.

you: Bad fruit cannot come from good trees. If the fruit is bad, then it means that the tree is also bad.

Again, you don't like his looks. And you want to base your opinion on his teaching on that. That is called prejudice.

me: Do you know what he teaches? Lol, I didn't think so.

you: Fundamentally, he teaches evil people to accept their evil without a conscience.

Let me know when you actually want a discussion. Right now your only interest appears to be spewing prejudice.

[Shahrazad]

Sam,

Sher, long time no see! I am happy to see you too. Find anything enlightening over here?

Yes. I never participate in the philosophical discussions, but I do like reading them and have learned from them. Being as I'm a woman and stuff, enlightenment is not within my grasp, but it's so much fun to learn and afaik there are no rules against learning for the heck of it.

There are plenty of good posters here, such as average. Though one of the admins called him a one-trick pony.

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[samadhi]

I never participate in the philosophical discussions, but I do like reading them and have learned from them. Being as I'm a woman and stuff, enlightenment is not within my grasp ...

Hilarious! Where are the emoticons? I miss my lol face!

There are plenty of good posters here, such as average. Though one of the admins called him a one-trick pony.

I've just been poking around a bit. I noticed Victor sometimes put in an appearance. Average seems to have a nice grasp on things. Good to see Dan still has his sense of humor. DQ could benefit from a little of that.

[Carl G]

Samadhi, welcome to Genius, where you don't have to be smart to be brilliant.

Yep, Victor is one of our star performers. Average, though well meaning, is, well, just average.

Check out our 911 threads, all four of them. They're in Worldly Matters, the Matterhorn of Chat Forums. We take our conspiracy theories seriously. Ditto for Alpha/beta historical speculation, oats as the breakfast of champions, and women as the wave of the future, all from an Ozark Mountains perspective.

[Carl G]

DQ,

I'm happy to leave it to others to decide whether my face embodies darkness and criminality.

The point is that opinions about what someone's features tell you says more about your prejudice than their features. It is the basis for all racism.

me: Your opinion on someone else's features has no relevance when it comes to their teaching.

you: Bad fruit cannot come from good trees. If the fruit is bad, then it means that the tree is also bad.

Again, you don't like his looks. And you want to base your opinion on his teaching on that. That is called prejudice.

me: Do you know what he teaches? Lol, I didn't think so.

you: Fundamentally, he teaches evil people to accept their evil without a conscience.

Let me know when you actually want a discussion. Right now your only interest appears to be spewing prejudice.

Very funny, and naive. Faces tell a lot, as do auras. Auras are the energy one puts out. Faces are the result of the energy one puts out. It has nothing to do with opinion. It is you who appear to be making snap judgments.

[samadhi]

Samadhi, welcome to Genius, where you don't have to be smart to be brilliant.

Thanks for the welcome! Indeed, I've noticed there is very little "genius" in Genius.

Very funny, and naive. Faces tell a lot, as do auras. Auras are the energy one puts out. Faces are the result of the energy one puts out.

Well then clearly DQ knows nothing of faces or auras.

It has nothing to do with opinion. It is you who appear to be making snap judgments.

It has nothing to do with opinion? You are giving me an opinion right now! lol

[David Quinn]

DQ,

I'm happy to leave it to others to decide whether my face embodies darkness and criminality.

The point is that opinions about what someone's features tell you says more about your prejudice than their features. It is the basis for all racism.

I'm not talking about physical features, but rather about the state of a person's soul which can imbue these features. Most people can be read very easily in this way.

For example, one sometimes meets people who are traumatized and mentally-disturbed, who are angry, fragile, constantly nursing thoughts of vengance, looking as though they are about to explode. The darkness of their souls permeates everything they do. It is so strong that it is almost tangible. That is pretty much the impression I instantly get with Adya - not of psychosis, but of a cunning criminality.

It is interesting to ask, then, why those who are attracted to him do not also see this cunning criminality, which is very tangible and easy to see. The answer is probably that these people are themselves steeped in cunning criminality and instinctively identify with the Adya, and use him to soothe their own consciences.

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[David Quinn]

For those wondering who we are talking about, here are some photos of Adya.

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[Ataraxia]

Why no gig for Melbourne? Aren't we heretics worthy of his special wisdom?

[Carl G]

It has nothing to do with opinion. It is you who appear to be making snap judgments.

It has nothing to do with opinion? You are giving me an opinion right now! lol

Oh, what a tired comeback. And the chortle. It's almost criminal. You are almost as smarmy as Swami Adya.

[Shardrol]

You can test your skills at snap judgments through appearance here, where you are asked to sort inventors of programming languages from serial killers by looking at their faces.

[Shahrazad]

Sam,

Where are the emoticons? I miss my lol face!

Emoticons are not encouraged or supplied here, as QRS believe a sage has no room for emotions. We must be trained to shed them.

Good to see Dan still has his sense of humor. DQ could benefit from a little of that.

DQ has taught me that Dan's sense of humor will completely disappear once he goes super nova, and that it is a reflection of his weakness. Dan seemed a little disappointed to find out that what I love the most about him is his weakness.

I hope you stick around, buddy. I've always liked you.

-

[Jason]

Actually I think David still has a sense of humour, some of his posts are quite amusing, intentionally so. It's just that some people don't seem to understand or recognize his humour, and they are often the same ones it is directed at.

[samadhi]

DQ,

I'm not talking about physical features, but rather about the state of a person's soul which can imbue these features. Most people can be read very easily in this way.

You say you are not talking about physical features but then you go on to describe them. That doesn't help your case.

For example, one sometimes meets people who are traumatized and mentally-disturbed, who are angry, fragile, constantly nursing thoughts of vengance, looking as though they are about to explode. The darkness of their souls permeates everything they do. It is so strong that it is almost tangible. That is pretty much the impression I instantly get with Adya - not of psychosis, but of a cunning criminality.

I and many others get just the opposite feeling. So instead of arguing about your feelings, why don't you demonstrate the truth of what you see? I thought you were a man of logic and not a man of feeling. Yet here you are appealing to me to believe in your feelings. If what you say is true, you should be able to show how his character is a reflection of his "soul." Yet you don't actually know anything about his character other than what you feel based on a picture. You've never met him, never heard him speak, never read a word he's said but you want to claim to know all about him. His ideas, his words, his actions, how he treats others, how he leads his life; all that is irrelevant to your feelings based on a picture. Are your feelings all that is important? Are you appealing to everyone here to trust your feelings? You seem to have abandoned your own teaching at the drop of a hat. Perhaps the man of logic is more a man of feeling than he thinks.

It is interesting to ask, then, why those who are attracted to him do not also see this cunning criminality, which is very tangible and easy to see. The answer is probably that these people are themselves steeped in cunning criminality and instinctively identify with the Adya, and use him to soothe their own consciences.

A supposed man of logic wants us to trust his feelings. Your appeal to feeling, belief and authority to make your point is hardly credible. You have no interest in actually showing us the character you supposedly can read by looking at a picture; his words, his ideas, his actions, of no import. What you actually demonstrate is your own dogmatism, fundamentalism and authoritarianism. You are not interested in an exchange of ideas, of finding truth by investigation but simply passing judgment based on feeling and dismissing others whose experience does not mirror your beliefs. A poor showing DQ, especially for one whose teaching supposedly is based on just the opposite.

[samadhi]

Carl,

Oh, what a tired comeback. And the chortle. It's almost criminal. You are almost as smarmy as Swami Adya.

Yeah, it's tough when you get your own words thrown in your face isn't it ... lol.

Look, if what you were saying was more than an opinion, you wouldn't need to ask for my belief, you would simply demonstrate its truth. But you don't do that. Why don't you show how features reflect character with regard to Adya? Could it be that you don't actually know anything about his character? You haven’t met him, never heard him speak, never read a word of his but you want to pretend to know all about him. And I should believe you? What is that about? Why do you make an appeal to belief based not on experience but on your feeling of someone else's feeling? I have first-hand experience but I should trust your feeling of someone else's feeling of looking at a picture? This kind of argument demonstrates nothing but your own dogmatism and fundamentalism. If you don't think this is about ignorance and hypocrisy, then please, SHOW IT. Show me what you know, don't tell me. If you can't, then take a hike. Ignorant, hypocritical arguments hardly do your credibility any good.

[samadhi]

Sher,

Emoticons are not encouraged or supplied here, as QRS believe a sage has no room for emotions. We must be trained to shed them.

What can I say ... lol ...

me: Good to see Dan still has his sense of humor. DQ could benefit from a little of that.

you: DQ has taught me that Dan's sense of humor will completely disappear once he goes super nova, and that it is a reflection of his weakness. Dan seemed a little disappointed to find out that what I love the most about him is his weakness.

Poor Dan, I find his sense of humor most appealing as well.

I hope you stick around, buddy. I've always liked you.

Me too, Sher, me too.

[mikiel]

David Quinn wrote:
"Only super-advanced souls on the brink of perfect Buddhahood have "no delusions to get rid of except a couple keeping them away from reality", and I have yet to meet one of those. "

How will you know when you meet one, David? And do you mean in person or including on these boards?
(note: Please define "perfect Buddhahood" as/if different from total transcendence of egocentric consciousness, i.e., realization of the illusion of self... conscious unity in/as One Omnipresent consciousness, ergo, selflessness.)

mikiel

[Carl G]

Look, if what you were saying was more than an opinion, you wouldn't need to ask for my belief,

Remind me, where exactly did I ask for your belief?

you would simply demonstrate its truth. But you don't do that. Why don't you show how features reflect character with regard to Adya?

Educate yourself. I haven't time to write you an essay.

Could it be that you don't actually know anything about his character?

Again, I haven't time to write you an essay on how one's character is reflected in one's manifestations, such as facial expressions. I'm surprised this is such news to you.

You haven’t met him, never heard him speak, never read a word of his

Why would you claim this without knowing? It makes you come off as strident and irrational.

but you want to pretend to know all about him.

False. And, who is pretending to know whom? Are you projecting a weakness of your own?

And I should believe you? What is that about?

Fuck that. Check it out for your self.

Why do you make an appeal to belief based not on experience but on your feeling of someone else's feeling?

You are the one identifying this as a feeling issue. It is not. It is a science like any other. It is psychology.

I have first-hand experience but I should trust your feeling of someone else's feeling of looking at a picture?

Your experience may be skewed. It is always wise to consider the input of others, and then test it for oneself. You're coming off as overly emotional about this.

This kind of argument demonstrates nothing but your own dogmatism and fundamentalism.

It does not. You are leaping to conclusions.

If you don't think this is about ignorance and hypocrisy, then please, SHOW IT.

What are you talking about? Where do you think ignorance and hypocrisy enter the picture here?

Show me what you know, don't tell me. If you can't, then take a hike.

Okay, I'm getting the point, you're a really tough guy, or you're really identified with Adya, or both.