Hey Theos, Pema goes Daist on us ! ;-)

[Gadfly]

Have you heard this stuff before ?"

"From Pema's perspective I would much more appreciate it if Gaddy was honest and just said, "I don't get Wilber and since I refuse to sit down and practice the required contemplative discipline I won't ever get it or him."

The meditation card.

"I - the great and powerful Oz !!! Blah, blah, blah...

This guy, who ever he is, thinks he knows who I am and what I've done.

But here is the problem with this Wilber/Da conceit. Whenever backed into a corner and frustrated we get the, "I meditate, do the discipline, you don't, I've seen the Absolute, I'm right, you don't get it. Yada yada. (Now what Sangha is Wilber in ? Who's his Guru ?).

And from what I see - he's got the sixth sense too ! Watch out he'll be puttin' penee through the Computer.

Love Gadster

[~T]

This Pema guy is a real crackpot, one of the most loco “sane”-type characters to ever appear at this forum. It’s scary to see how an obsessed mind can be driven insensible by the “rational” antics of a mythic absolutist who has scant appreciation for the magic of matter and the mysteries of protoplasmic Buddaharma. Send him to the Mummery! That’s a book by Dafree about a character out of a 3rd rate surrealist imagination. I tell you, it’s disgraceful! I can’t get over it.

Hey wanna know the real secret of Da's teaching? EZ. There is no substantial teaching and there is no "Da" who is, after all, but an imaginary character in the mind of a middling writer of failing talents. And Wilber took that seriously?! The actor who plays "Da" is a masterful con artist who laughs his ass off as he fobs off his creations on the gullible. It's only business.


The only problem with these absolutists - and Pema is the worst or most prideful of the litter - is their boring and predictably redundant one-upsmanship rap and their smug spiritual equanimity. It’s a downright disgrace, it is! Pride masquerading as logic, bah!
_________________
ego no amigo.

it's gonna take a lotta love.

[Gadfly]

[Charles]

I think it would be interestin if someone on this forum provided a list of names of well-known individuals who took up the spiritual meditative injunction and do not report the same experience(s) of enlightenment that Wilber speaks of.

One individual I'm thinking of is Stephen Batchelor. They guy was a Tibetan monk for years (about 10 maybe) and he came away with a realization that was nothing like Wilber's ultimate level of enlightenment.

Who are other folks who took up the injunction for many years and came away with a different realization or experience than Wilber claims is the ultimate?

These individuals should be taken seriously and at least not automatically pingeon-holed into a lower level of realization.

[MarkDavid]

Good point Charles.

Mark

[Gadfly]

[sunya]

are you just playng or are those some suffering thoughts you got going on there, theos?

namaste and love,

ellen

[~T]

You want to ask me but what about how others heavy-handed approach moi? Anyhow, no worries!

‘Tis a Parody of how I/you/we tend to defend our positions.

Then a gain, when ends and means correspond we are building heaven, otherwise not. Some in our own midst may in fact be embryonic Nazis, no exaggeration, even if they can read their Heidegger. We tend to weakly miss that. That's how it always goes. I guess that's because the justifiers of wars of choice based on untruth can appear genteel on the immediate surface. Yes, it’s always justified with civil intellectual gloss and moral righteousness. To be real, feed people if we want to stop terror. That is it. Ten thousand and more Iraqi children murdered in a war for an abstract add-on propagandist ideal only aggravates all that’s worst in humans everywhere. I cannot look in those mothers' eyes and say, it's worth it, darling. If you cannot do that.....? That's the job for an integral" guy. Just look around. Where’s an “integral” philosopher in the midst of this compounded ignorance and suffering. What the worth of one who supports suffering, torture and brings us closer to the abyss? What if we turned those resources toward serving not killing? Who cannot see that self-destructive idiots (explicit or implicit suicide bombers) are running the world is simply not awake. Yep. As said, the rational is a myth when and where people spout rationalizations for doing harm to innocents and want to talk about their non-dual Buddhism. What has to happen for a person to come to the path of sudden morality? By this, I mean, is there a gradual path whereby our means finally come to correspond to our ends? How do we get there if not all at once? And this does not preclude defending ourselves for a real but not an imaginary threat. Peace out.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Old pirates, yes, they rob i;
Sold I to the merchant ships,
Minutes after they took i
From the bottomless pit.
But my hand was made strong
By the ’and of the almighty.
We forward in this generation
Triumphantly.
Won’t you help to sing
These songs of freedom? -
’cause all I ever have:
Redemption songs;
Redemption songs.

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;
None but ourselves can free our minds.
Have no fear for atomic energy,
’cause none of them can stop the time.
How long shall they kill our prophets,
While we stand aside and look? ooh!
Some say it’s just a part of it:
We’ve got to fulfil de book.

Won’t you help to sing
These songs of freedom? -
’cause all I ever have:
Redemption songs;
Redemption songs;
Redemption songs.
---
/guitar break/
---
Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;
None but ourselves can free our mind.
Wo! have no fear for atomic energy,
’cause none of them-a can-a stop-a the time.
How long shall they kill our prophets,
While we stand aside and look?
Yes, some say it’s just a part of it:
We’ve got to fulfil de book.
Won’t you help to sing
Dese songs of freedom? -
’cause all I ever had:
Redemption songs -
All I ever had:
Redemption songs:
These songs of freedom,
Songs of freedom.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::
"The just man rages in the wilderness"
~William Blake
_________________
ego no amigo.

it's gonna take a lotta love.

[sunya]

[~T]

Hi Sunya,


I like what you’re saying here. BTW, Bob is Bob Marley who wrote Redemption Songs. I never championed Katie’s work but respect what she’s doing and have suggested it could be useful for some people. I do include myself as one who has also defended a position and falls into the same egoic category as everyone else. Ego confrontations are, after all, nonsense. Then again, it’s okay to speak your mind. Saying nothing is also an action. I understand the preference toward gentility but do not agree that a polite, communication style obviates or trumps morality questions like approving a war of choice that literally kills other people’s children. We’re talking about thousands and thousands of dead kids here. Serious business. Tragic business. Denying that we torture people illegally, went to war on false grounds, murder thousands of children, etcetera is not a rational position, by the way. Nazis and embryonic Nazis are the people next door. That’s how it creeps up. People stay politely-correct and do not become passionate about inhumane moral lapses such as we are seeing today even in folks posting round these parts. As for “Da”, yes he is a literary character invented by Franklin Jones, a wild and somewhat creative guy whose only problem is his power trip. His mentalized 7 levels teaching is, after all, nothing of any substance. So what is a person who rational-izes the needless deaths of loving, vibrant innocent children in a war of choice, believes that means justify the ends and claims to be an integral philosopher and a Buddhist who lives by “Do no harm”? Rational?

But let’s jump a level. We are all, at one or another level somewhat reactive here. I do not assert that this is wrong. However, when we reach to an integral level, and I’m being serious here, we understand that spiritual power does not properly reside in the dominions of worldly power. When we begin to be wise, we see that idiots are primarily running the world, people who are, let’s say, short-sighted, to put it mildly. We know that only the power of a people speaking in a democracy can possibly curb this beast or military-industrial complex. I give them no credit! Rule by an active citizenry is what Democracy is all about. I do not trust the government. I trust that waking the nation is our only shot at somewhat restraining these hidden rulers with whom we always share power. It is indeed possible for an integrated and individuated person to see through and behind the machinations of the idiots who run the world. This entails seeing how PsyOps and propaganda are coming at you all the time.

The intellect definitely does not protect a person from succumbing to the ancient power of sorcery as wielded today by the trillion dollar advertising industry nor its co-extensions into the world of political propaganda. May we all see this. I am speaking of the entire media and the entire government, right and left wings. This entails a degree of awakeness. And that is our best weapon.

We the People as Integral Democracy.

Love und Salud

~T
_________________
ego no amigo.

it's gonna take a lotta love.

[~T]

By using these terms, like “sorcery” as applied to PsyOps, I hope it helps to better see how “rational” people can yet be controlled by archaic and primal psychic forces.

Here’s an example: When Bush spoke of the Iraq War with all the scare language image pictures like of mushroom clouds, etc. , it was not in-obvious, that is, it was indeed within possibility to see that he was appealing to FEAR and not to COURAGE.

Now, kindly think of Churchill leading the Brits against the Nazis in WWII. He appealed to COURAGE and not FEAR. That was no accident.

In a REAL war, it is necessary (It is a must!) to appeal to courage; in an unreal war, the appeal to fear is mandatory in order to manipulate a population into backing a fraud-based campaign. This psychology is very, very old. Awareness is a shield. It is protection. It sees what’s going on.
_________________
ego no amigo.

it's gonna take a lotta love.

[sunya]

hi ~t - tis crazy to be posting now because i have so much packing to do before the movers come tomorrow morning - but i worked on my post more after originally posting and wonder if you saw my last version. anyway, i have heard you say more than once in the thread or recently somewhere "As for “Da”, yes he is a literary character invented by Franklin Jones, a wild and somewhat creative guy whose only problem is his power trip. His mentalized 7 levels teaching is, after all, nothing of any substance." ... and each time i hear this i get that you are the one who has invented the da that you see and the whole trip in terms of how it is for you and wonder what would happen if you looked within and substituted yourself for pema and da in the way you talk about them lately. i am not saying that there isn't corruption, ignorance, abuse and agree with you about the need to call it as we see it and confront the collective slog, corruption and self-centric ignorance. i too do not trust the government - though i do trust That which sees through it all and rises up against and through it all (and i do really appreciate your activism)- and i also detect that there is work to do starting with ourselves.. especially where we find ourselves getting continually caught and there is charge beyond compassion - and it is worthwhile to see the nazis and embryonic nazis in ourselves and take responsibility for that... this trashing of pema or da seems to me to go beyond disagreement . i really don't see how this kind of venting could be helpful to you, him or anyone unless it points you to taking responsibility for what is behind it. compassion can inspire radical activism that is not necessarily polite but that does not create destruction or division in its path.

i wouldn't say this if i didn't know you were at one time into katie and other kinds of inner-work and psyco-spiritual unfolding and transformation, but speaking of pema and da, ever consider doing a worksheet on (your issues with) them?

[sunya]

[Charles]

You know, I'm just thinking how there are so many individuals out there who have logged some serious years on the meditation cushion who may not agree with Wilber. Here is experience meeting experience head on. Now how do we decide who is right?

The ongoing assumption seems to be that if you put a certain number of time into meditation that you will come to these levels of spiritual attainment. However, I think a serious confirmation bias is occuring when there isn't a serious dialogue about meditatively experienced people who would not support Wilber's interpretation. Individuals that would differ with Wilber's model according to their own experience.

Then what would happen? Would it just turn into a theoretical discussion where each side is trying to prove their spiritual superiority through argumentation and no longer according to the very meditative means by which they say is the only way to enlightenment?

Where are the people who have taken up the injunction and have said, "Sorry Wilber, I didn't find that as my experience"?

[neverness]

Where are the people who have taken up the injunction and have said, "Sorry Wilber, I didn't find that as my experience"?[/quote]


...they are everywhere, gleefully living their lives, most without needing to even take a sniff of wilber.

seriously the dirty little secret of wilber is despite his scientific facade -- his system requires a leap of faith. for at the heart of his system is a metaphysics based on teleology. one can see, peering through the jungle of verbiage, the impulse for his grand endeavour -- his coming to terms with lifes existential givens. and this endeavour is colored by the impulse of immortality projects in general -- to make his idiosyncratic project universal.

the fact is many deeply spiritual people trod the same ground and arrive at different ways of living life. imo if there is going to be any kind of grand unifying system it will be an elegantly simple system based around our existential givens and the process we all go through in creating meaning. it wont be a teleology but will be a flexible template that generates answers/meaning/solutions to living as ephemeral gods.