Is enlightenment the only way / the limits to information?

[Anchor]

Posted by S-L (here)
Is there any point to gathering information and trying to "figure it out" on an intellectual level?

What other choice do you have?

I like the bridge analogy you use, here is mine: the intellect stands at one side of the chasm (with you). You can just hear something on the other side, but you cannot make out what is said with any great clarity, but you have an idea that this is the best chance you have and thus your intellect is guided toward the goal of building a bridge. Each brick you lay, is matched by several on the other side. The work is done in faith that you are doing the right thing and one day the bridge will be built - and then the next challenge... crossing it and trusting your other-self did the job properly on their part

The other side of that chasm is a "future you", what can be termed the higher-self and in those irrational, non-intellectual moments of faith motivated random exploration, meditation etc, one discovers that one can in fact talk to the higher-self anyway - and then one finds that this might have been happening for some while and explains the synchronicities one may have observed in ones "guided" life.

I read your post - and I had to assume something of your definition of spirit. My definition may be different, so I could not directly address it. My context is you have Mind, Body, Spirit and then an eternal Soul. The spirit acts as a kind of shuttle between the Mind/Body and Soul - it is the connection between that which is outside of time and that which is in time. So in our "bridging" analogies, you are building a path of conciousness from your mind/body/spirit to your soul and everything that itself connects to. The bridge is a spiritual structure.

During an Edgar Cayce reading, he once chastised: "Why follow a teacher when you can follow the Teacher of teachers?"

Yes, well he also said large parts of the US would sink into the sea! I'd say with EC, there is much of value - but discernment is always necessary - this is true for of all our external sources of data. If your going to follow anything follow you heart - that is where the connections all lead from anyway.

[noxon medem]

- Yes

We all want to force reality .

- well

Beware .

[TraineeHuman]

Posted by Bollinger (here)

1. Can we use meditation to change world politics?
2. Is it possible to meditate a cure for an illness?
3. Does it give anyone other than the person meditating anything of value?
4. Can anyone achieve whatever it is that meditation is meant to achieve?
5. Can it bring peace to our world?
6. Can it end poverty, disease and injustice?

1. Have a look at any of the threads about Krishnamurti. Krishnamurti always began his discourses with an explanation that changing the situation the world is in, and changing what causes the politics, was the goal of what he talked about. He did also say that such change can primarily come about only at an individual level to begin with. In every discourse he would also explain part of the psychological process involved in bringing such change ultimately to world politics.

2. How psychic healing works is by the healer going into a meditative state, plus directing or intending the energy to the patient. I have certainly used it to cure at least a number of terminal cases or create "total remissions", according to some quite sceptical physicians. Japan didn't have any such thing as psychiatric facilities until the early 80s, because the Zen masters did so well (far better than any psychiatrists) at resolving or dealing with all mental health issues.

3. Greater inward joy and peace is something that is noticed by everyone, even by strangers you pass in the street. Joy and peace are also quietly contagious, and have a slight healing effect on everyone you meet.

4. As I understand it, it's essential for meditation to be integrated with a process of self-healing that touches all aspects of a person's life. There isn't one goal to achieve, but always new frontiers to go further. I guess there are some goals, such as finding out who you truly are. (Most people haven't much of a clue who/what they really are, because they haven't looked deeply enough and long enough.) But ultimately it's about achieving greater and greater freedom from unhappiness and creating the same for others.

5., 6.: The answers are much the same as for 1.

[Bollinger]

TH, thank you for your well constructed reply to my post. In order to bring about a meaningful dialogue I need to take your paragraphs one at a time for each of them deals with separate but important issues.

You are obviously well read and are by no means a novice (like me) in these matters so bear with me as I try to understand and reply to what you are saying.

1. Have a look at any of the threads about Krishnamurti. Krishnamurti always began his discourses with an explanation that changing the situation the world is in, and changing what causes the politics, was the goal of what he talked about. He did also say that such change can primarily come about only at an individual level to begin with. In every discourse he would also explain part of the psychological process involved in bringing such change ultimately to world politics.

I had previously browsed the Krishnamurti threads, listened to his words in the videos and essentially found myself agreeing with a lot of what he says – for example that we haven’t been taught how to live without conflict. Absolutely true and I have no doubt it is possible to do so. Indeed a very insightful and wise man. As always, identifying a problem is usually the first and easier step in any endeavour. The second step of finding a general solution is more difficult and the theme of this thread, I would suppose, is more to do with exploring “how” rather than “what” which is the subject of your next paragraph.

2. How psychic healing works is by the healer going into a meditative state, plus directing or intending the energy to the patient. I have certainly used it to cure at least a number of terminal cases or create "total remissions", according to some quite sceptical physicians. Japan didn't have any such thing as psychiatric facilities until the early 80s, because the Zen masters did so well (far better than any psychiatrists) at resolving or dealing with all mental health issues.

You would agree that this is an attempt to explain the process of healing which, I won’t pretend to understand, isn’t nearly as important as whether or not it actually works. Let’s, for the sake of argument, assume it does. One person manages to cure another person by “going into a meditative state and intending the energy to the patient”. How many people will it take then to cure the entire world? By all accounts, it would seem one person meditating cannot cure more than a handful of people at a time for if it were otherwise, I am bound to ask; what are you waiting for?

So how many will it take? If you’re telling me half the world population have to become Zen masters or meditation experts before the world goes into “remission”, we know it’s not going to happen. Again, I come back to my main contention that practices of this kind and others like it have negligible effect on the world as a whole because the take-up is so low. Why is that? Perhaps it is too difficult, or takes too much effort but I suspect it might be to do with the fact that we are not all capable of it (like we can’t all become athletes or painters or musicians etc) because we simply don’t have sufficient talent for it.

3. Greater inward joy and peace is something that is noticed by everyone, even by strangers you pass in the street. Joy and peace are also quietly contagious, and have a slight healing effect on everyone you meet.

Well, joy and peace may be a by-product of meditation and I have no problem with that but then so is listening to Beethoven’s 5th piano concerto, or standing on top of a hill looking down at a beautiful countryside landscape, or seeing the joy inside a child’s eyes when they receive that toy; you get my point. You may say it’s not the same but joy and peace is joy and peace and yes it is contagious and I’ve seen it spread among people for all sorts of reasons, not just because someone meditated. In other words, what you describe (as joy and peace) can be achieved on a personal level via other means and not exclusively because of meditation.

4. As I understand it, it's essential for meditation to be integrated with a process of self-healing that touches all aspects of a person's life. There isn't one goal to achieve, but always new frontiers to go further. I guess there are some goals, such as finding out who you truly are. (Most people haven't much of a clue who/what they really are, because they haven't looked deeply enough and long enough.) But ultimately it's about achieving greater and greater freedom from unhappiness and creating the same for others.

The first sentence in paragraph four does not mean anything to me and I find that a lot of sentences on this forum written in the same vain, are like that. This is not an attempt at sarcasm or disparagement, it is simply how I see it (or don’t see it) as the case may be, and therefore the word sophistry immediately springs to mind. For example, another phrase “finding out who you truly are” does not mean anything to me. If there is some hidden information about me that I don’t know or have forgotten, why has it been hidden from me and why does it have to take meditation to access it? Seems rather a pointless exercise or is someone or something playing games with humanity?

To conclude then, let’s assume all that you say about meditation (on a personal level) is true. It can bring joy; perhaps heal some people and so on. It would seem that a very large number of people have to take up the practice before any real difference can be made to the world and if that is the case, world peace and justice for all can be achieved equally well if we all stopped trying to kill each other and turned to peaceful means dedicated to bringing about health and prosperity to all rather than the few. I’m not really interested in peace and joy just for myself while others live in poverty and filth.

How on earth do we preach meditation to a family struck by famine? How do we explain to a 10 year-old that meditation is the key when she lies in hospital with first degree burns from a napalm bomb? Where would one find the words to explain to a single mother living in the ghettos in some god-forsaken corner of the city surviving on welfare, that meditation is the answer? It’s hard if not damn near impossible.

[TraineeHuman]

Bollinger, I appreciate and applaud your commitment to employing critical analysis and to refusing to accept anything that has not been clearly proved to you to be true. You raise such big issues, my current work commitments prevent me from being able to provide you anywhere near a detailed enough response to address your concerns, unfortunately.

All I can offer right now is a condensed and very incomplete version, one certainly lacking adequate explanation for someone like yourself. Firstly, may I point out that the problems on the planet are too vast for any quick fix. But we have to start somewhere, and the stronger and more balanced people make themselves internally, the more likely they are to contribute to a meaningful start that has permanent impact.

Another, very central issue is that meditation and “mysticism” is radically empirical, in the sense that it takes certain things as given that can only be realised through direct experience (including direct “spiritual” experiences in addition to sense experience). It seems clear to me that you don’t accept its “assumptions”. Unfortunately, for the most part their truth can only be discovered through experience, through praxis. It’s a little like you were refusing to try following a recipe for health cookies (if such exist) in a world where one couldn’t buy any baked items. To make things worse, meditation, and self-observation, is a very subtle recipe indeed. I guess most people do need to start off trying the recipe on faith, and waiting possibly months before they see it even begin to work.

A related issue is that understanding the nature of one’s own self is by no means a purely theoretical exercise. It is only achievable through hard work combined with self-reflection. Meditation is also an extraordinarily subtle technology of self-reflection of a certain type. However, if you don’t accept the radical empiricism, ultimately I would have thought you would need to accept the status quo of contemporary philosophy. In the world of philosophy, East-West philosophy is well-known to be the equal, in sophistication and substantiation, of any other area of contemporary philosophy. And because it is the one area of philosophy which examines the nature of the self in enormous detail and complexity, I don’t see why you feel justified in dismissing the best that philosophy has to offer regarding the nature of self as being meaningless.

As far as bringing about a saner society goes, sociologists are unanimous that each age’s ethos and culture is largely determined by a small “cutting edge” group decades prior; and that currently that “cutting edge” group is not the Illuminati etc but it is largely the alternative movement, including some of its spiritual side. So, I take it as extremely likely that in the near future a very large proportion of the population – at least those not dying of famine, etc – will be taking up true spirituality. True spirituality takes many forms, and actually I would say the essence is self-reflection more than anything you might recognize as “meditation”.

Now to address some of your other specific objections. Firstly, Krishnamurti is, to put it mildly, very difficult for almost anyone to understand fully. I certainly don’t agree with you that his solutions and explanations are as partial as you apparently believe. Incidentally, I don’t agree with you that identifying a problem accurately is only a beginning. I claim it’s over half the solution. Certainly I find this has always been true when I have worked as a psychotherapist and also in my self-reflection in working on myself.

Secondly, everybody has the natural ability to perform psychic healing. I’ve performed instant “miracle” cures in twenty minutes on enough terminal patients that I happen to know for a fact that it works. I can watch how it's working through telepathy. Most people aren’t able to heal at that kind of a level, or not without maybe a lifetime of training. But if we had a society based on true spirituality (without religion), you would see it working everywhere. In the states of Arkansas and Oklahoma, psychic healing is legally accepted as a valid form of healing and treatment. That would be what it would be like everywhere.

Thirdly, I don’t have the time right now to explain why, but let me assert that experiencing any type of joy and peace is in effect a type of meditation.

[markpierre]

Posted by S-L (here)

Is there any point to gathering information and trying to "figure it out" on an intellectual level?



To wit: what is the most effective way to spend one's time? Piecing it out through websites like this one (which I love, for the record ), or focusing on one of the many spiritual practices/paths that lead to enlightenment? A bit of both? How can you justify the former without pursuing the latter?

During an Edgar Cayce reading, he once chastised: "Why follow a teacher when you can follow the Teacher of teachers?"

Hi SL. You're probably overwhelmed with information.
Really good question though. Most people wouldn't ask.

The answer to the first question is probably no.

There are how many thousand people visiting these threads every day, and there will be nearly as many personal definitions of what enlightenment is. It's anybody's guess which one it is, so who cares?
They all come from books or here-say, or personal experiences.
I've met 2 people in my life that I regard as 'fully enlightened' and I didn't meet them here. I say fully enlightened only because there wasn't much of anything left here for them to do. In fact both of them left. It's just a term.

You're not going to figure it out. You're going to get tired of figuring it out and it will happen of it's own. And it won't be like anything you could have imagined. It could even go noticed. One day you might go 'hmmm, everything is different.'

What is it? The light of day?
The light of reason?
Sometimes the inside of my head lights up like a florescent tube. So what is that?
An enlightenment if you had to define it. It doesn't give me any information,
it's just weird.

All of us in our experience, the whole lot of us, are in some stage of individual transition. Everyone will agree on that. There's no one here that can tell where anyone else is in they're individual journeys. And the purpose of time is to take as much time as you need. Some guys feel in more of a hurry than others. It depends on how uncomfortable you are in your own skin.

Everyone is only one thought away from enlightenment, and no one knows which one that is. And that includes you right now. You're already doing what you're meant to be doing, and thinking what you're meant to be thinking, or you wouldn't be doing it. But you'd be doing something else. No one is screwing up.

You may go out and get advice and visit healers and lots of interesting stuff, and that's all just what you did on your journey home. You can do anything you want, think about anything you want. Pick a path. What the heck.
If you do things like come to Avalon because you love it that's a really good reason. If you came because you were scared, I guess that would be a compelling reason. Either way. It's what you do.

So can I just make a suggestion? That you just go and live your life and pay attention to what and who is around you the best you can. But by 'best' I mean with as much integrity and caring as you can. Be as honest as you can. Never mind what you think of yourself, just do the best you can.

I was told by a particularly remarkable entity once that simple kindness is the most transformational discipline that a human can exercise. I accepted that as true.

Watch and read the stories, be alert and aware of what's going on in your world, but notice how things make you feel, and feel the feelings. Don't exclude anything. Pay attention to how you feel from day to day, then moment to moment.
You'll notice yourself changing. But it's because you're now paying attention to your thoughts and feelings instead of reacting to them. You've become aware.
You had always been changing. It's not about what you think, it's about how you associate with your thoughts. Do you accept them or reject them?
'No thoughts' is nice, but you won't stay there. Then what?

When you start to notice that there is less and less conflict in you regardless of what's 'happening', and you notice that you're accepting yourself and others more and more, the game is up. You only spiral up in one direction. Up.
Then who cares how much 'time' it takes?

Cheers!

[Anchor]

@markpierre

+1

All that and either start or continue to meditate regularly

[Bollinger]

…if we had a society based on true spirituality (without religion), you would see it working everywhere…

And there lies the problem which is easy to see but difficult to solve. Even mainstream scientists say the same. We don’t know how to explain or do something now but we will in the future. It seems we have nothing other than the old “extrapolation” or “faith” game to fall back on. Which is it going to be? Perhaps, as you suggest, a worldwide recognition of spirituality and meditation will sweep across the planet and heal all, maybe free energy will catapult us to the stars or even some celestial race will leap to our rescue at some future point in time. It seems we must forever lie and wait in hope for any one or more of those things to happen.

You see; anytime anyone says to me, just wait, you’ll see, all I can hear is religion. That is the basis of all religious ideas. No religion ever promises anything now, it’s always in the future provided you do x, y and z.

TH, wittingly or unwittingly, you are selling me hope, which in itself is not a bad thing, but it solves nothing. It doesn’t really matter whether the things you say are possible or not. It even doesn't matter what the gurus say or advise. What matters is that we are still all in a huge hole with people clambering on top of each other trying to see if they can get any closer to the top only to find, it’s still all darkness and we continue to fall.

I guess, until someone comes along and says “cut”, takes away the illusion and you see the props being wheeled away, we won’t know what this movie is about, why we were ever in it and who the writers and directors are. There, I’ve just sold us both yet another bit of hope.

[bridgetlilstar]

I totally agree. Each and everyone of us has his own path to follow, and there might be a lot of different ways to get there. Thus No one is wrong.. I guess in the end it is just a question of creating as much experiences as we can, listening to our inner selves, trusting our hearts. Well that is what I personnally have come to realize works for me

[Jenci]

Posted by markpierre (here)
Everyone is only one thought away from enlightenment, and no one knows which one that is. And that includes you right now. You're already doing what you're meant to be doing, and thinking what you're meant to be thinking, or you wouldn't be doing it. But you'd be doing something else. No one is screwing up.

Absolutely! Well said.
Jeanette

[13th Warrior]

IF enlightenment is the end; then i don't want it...yet.

I'm still in love with the journey...

[Tarka the Duck]

Bollinger wrote:

How on earth do we preach meditation to a family struck by famine? How do we explain to a 10 year-old that meditation is the key when she lies in hospital with first degree burns from a napalm bomb? Where would one find the words to explain to a single mother living in the ghettos in some god-forsaken corner of the city surviving on welfare, that meditation is the answer? It’s hard if not damn near impossible.

It's interesting that the country that is most probably most associated with meditation and other spiritual pursuits - India - had and still has many many thousands of people living in those terrible circumstances.
Meditation isn't something just practised by the affluent middle classes...it has been used as a tool for centuries.

[Tony]

Before one can approach meditation one has to be a healthy human being.
Meaning all the right circumstances have to be in place,
before that person to want to understand meditation.

A person who is physically or mentally suffering needs to be brought to some degree of balance,
before they can begin to seek spiritual needs.

However it is interesting that meditation and prayer takes place in many so called poor countries.
The very reason why people take up meditation is because they recognise suffering in themselves and others.

Coming to meditation is also part of our karma. It means that,
that person intends to become a spiritual practitioner, and not merely to join a group.

It has many practical benefits, of seeing themselves and the universe in a different light.
Instead of the one that they are made to believe.

It has nothing at all to do with hope. That maybe what religions or religious people do but it has nothing to do with meditation.

Meditation is seeing clearly, beyond concepts and ideas.
Hope, fear and ignorance are the three poisons that bind people to their suffering.
Meditation cuts through this confused state.

Of course one has to meditate properly.

[Bollinger]

Before one can approach meditation one has to be a healthy human being.
Meaning all the right circumstances have to be in place,
before that person to want to understand meditation.

So, you are asserting that certain conditions must be in place before a person can even entertain the idea of meditation; namely that we have to be physically and mentally healthy. Isn’t this the same as one of the rules to catholic ordination to priesthood being that the candidate must be free of physical deformities and disease? That’s smells like religion to me.

A person who is physically or mentally suffering needs to be brought to some degree of balance, before they can begin to seek spiritual needs.

That precludes something like 2 billion people. We’re now bordering on elitism.

However it is interesting that meditation and prayer takes place in many so called poor countries. The very reason why people take up meditation is because they recognise suffering in themselves and others.

Interesting in what way exactly? Interesting because however much they meditate and pray the poverty just keeps on increasing or interesting in that we can’t explain why people in such dire situations should even think about such things? It doesn’t matter. Human nature is such that we often turn to prayer or whatever your customary belief system dictates, as a last resort. Most people in the third world countries take the initiative to do whatever is physically and humanly possible in order to secure survival. However, it doesn't stop them praying at the same time hoping that something somewhere will hear it and act on it.

Coming to meditation is also part of our karma. It means that, that person intends to become a spiritual practitioner, and not merely to join a group.
It has many practical benefits, of seeing themselves and the universe in a different light. Instead of the one that they are made to believe.

That’s all well and good and very commendable if your next meal is assured and you know the corrugated iron roof over your head isn’t going to be swept away in the wind and the flood

It has nothing at all to do with hope. That maybe what religions or religious people do but it has nothing to do with meditation.

To most people meditation isn’t the hope but the effect they “hope” it will have that connects it to hope. That was the point I was making.

Meditation is seeing clearly, beyond concepts and ideas. Hope, fear and ignorance are the three poisons that bind people to their suffering. Meditation cuts through this confused state.

Not sure what this means but it sounds like if I meditate and cut through the concepts and ideas, eliminate the three poisons where everything becomes clear and there is no more confusion, my job is done. However, we’re still left with 2 billion going hungry and living in squalid conditions and they have absolutely no chance of achieving the same because there’s simply no way the idea of meditation can reach them; sounds unfair to me.

Of course one has to meditate properly.

And finally, if you’re not doing it right, you can’t come in. Isn’t that what all the main religions profess? For those based on theocracy, (probably the worse kind there is) it is the same as saying: if you make the right propitiations, utter the correct incantations and commit to having faith in some extraordinary claims, you can be one of us.

However we dress it up, if it looks like religion, sounds like religion and smells like religion, well maybe it is.

Having said all of that though, I wish to make clear that if meditation helps the individual in any way, whether to see things clearly or heal people and there is even a trace of good in it for those who practise it, I have absolutely no qualms about saying continue. It is when universal claims are made that things can get a bit sticky.

[Carmody]

Posted by Ultima Thule (here)
Perhaps the very thing to use ones time is to search and study of information to be finally sick and tired of searching and when you can't take any more, you give up and look inside. Perhaps it is very worthwhile to search extensively and make sure there is no point in searching.

Add: Before I actually try to lift 2500 pounds, I think I can´t do it. After I try, I know I can´t do it. Therefore it is good to try the impossible and then surrender to what is possible?

UT

There is also that thing about finding your keys in the last place you look. Enlightenment, for lack of a better word, tends to be like that.

[Carmody]

Posted by Bollinger (here)

…if we had a society based on true spirituality (without religion), you would see it working everywhere…

And there lies the problem which is easy to see but difficult to solve. Even mainstream scientists say the same. We don’t know how to explain or do something now but we will in the future. It seems we have nothing other than the old “extrapolation” or “faith” game to fall back on. Which is it going to be? Perhaps, as you suggest, a worldwide recognition of spirituality and meditation will sweep across the planet and heal all, maybe free energy will catapult us to the stars or even some celestial race will leap to our rescue at some future point in time. It seems we must forever lie and wait in hope for any one or more of those things to happen.

You see; anytime anyone says to me, just wait, you’ll see, all I can hear is religion. That is the basis of all religious ideas. No religion ever promises anything now, it’s always in the future provided you do x, y and z.

TH, wittingly or unwittingly, you are selling me hope, which in itself is not a bad thing, but it solves nothing. It doesn’t really matter whether the things you say are possible or not. It even doesn't matter what the gurus say or advise. What matters is that we are still all in a huge hole with people clambering on top of each other trying to see if they can get any closer to the top only to find, it’s still all darkness and we continue to fall.

I guess, until someone comes along and says “cut”, takes away the illusion and you see the props being wheeled away, we won’t know what this movie is about, why we were ever in it and who the writers and directors are. There, I’ve just sold us both yet another bit of hope.

More than anything it could be explained to you that the part of the mind, the physical structure of the mind that is in charge of creating the voice in the head we many times confuse as being the being inside'--actually is not the being inside, it is the voice of the body. it is an egoic projection. The ego is based in the animal functions and is the highest level of physical interface. in your particular case, it appears to be the literal point of the block within you---- the earlier point of yours about posts on this forum being sophistry.

it isn't specious posting or content..what it is ...it is the tip of the iceberg of your mind, your egoic premise... with regard to the egoic block you have on your TRUE self. And that is the beginning and the end of it, my friend.

We are not specious or at fault. The fault is in on your own mind, and we've covered this many times before.

We are not living in an act of sophistry.. ..and there is no intellectual argument to be had here, no nits to be picked or grains of sand to be collated, separated or discerned. It is a clear and simple case of your intellect as an erection of your 'egoic body' construction blocking your other self and senses from coming forth. It really is that simple and it is this very point you return to all the time..it is the direct evidence and case of this block.

Like and unknown and unseen corner that you cannot navigate, you are literally blocked from seeing it or experiencing it--- by your ego. An ego that appears to be so afraid, that it shunts any capacity or possibility of thought from even figuring out that such a thing can even exist within you. An ego that controls the creation of the inner voice and intellectual stimulation, as it creates the very idea of a 'thought', in your head. Which is why you cannot see it. You are literally blocking yourself from seeing it ----and then coming after us (and the rest of the world) as being at fault.

However much one may call this as being acts of intellectualism......if one considers the origins of human thought, as brought forth within a Freudian intellectual frameworks.. it is actually.....the very definition of animalism.

~~~~~~~~~~~

I guess, until someone comes along and says “cut”, takes away the illusion and you see the props being wheeled away, we won’t know what this movie is about, why we were ever in it and who the writers and directors are.

Only you can do this, for yourself, yet you fight it to the point of death, through your ego function.

The world is not at at fault, the core components of your inner function is at fault. It really is that simple. Yet you continue to block yourself and come at us.

This is ego. and that ego ----is quite obviously in charge of you.

[Mulder]

My opinion is most people will "free-load" off the small number of awakened souls. For example, only 5% of Americans fought the English in the 1776 Independence war, so 95% did free-load, and I think the same is likely to happen again. The question is should we be like the Prodigal Son's brother and be upset when the father welcomed him home after he spent all his inheritance in the city.

[another bob]

Posted by Carmody (here)
More than anything it could be explained to you that the part of the mind, the physical structure of the mind that is in charge of creating the voice in the head we many times confuse as being the being inside'--actually is not the being inside, it is the voice of the body. it is an egoic projection.

http://www.pbase.com/1heart/image/126440420

[Semnyi]

Hi S-L,

You have a good topic here thanks for reaching out. I suggest you take a look at the two truths. Absolute, and relative.
Be careful when taking philosophy literally, it is often metaphor and analogy.

The literal truth is relative, this because all language is dualistic, made up of opposites with no point of reference. This relative truth is good for establishing ego, also for simple communication, this is useful for describing phenomena taking place within a closed system. In reality there is no closed system, every system is open and interdependant.
As far as following a teacher, it is important that you understand your motive.

Intelligence is helpful for attaining happiness, first you need a good heart,
but it is helpful to be able to communicate and use your situation to help others.

You can appreciate your own confusion, and this is it's own form of peace.

As for spending time, I suppose an investigation into what time is made of would be a good use of it.
As far as applying yourself, variety is good, try teachers, try being your own, but it doesn't change your experience with your spiritual friend, the one who makes your own mind appear, the one who shatters your ego. Good luck, and I hope this merit eases the suffering of all beings

[TraineeHuman]

Bollinger, it seems to me that you are changing the goalposts a little. As far as I understand, your original question was effectively:

“Show me some evidence or some cogent explanation that establishes that meditation, etc can actually drive, or contribute in a major way to, solutions to the planet’s problems.”

Now you seem to me to have changed the “can” to a “definitely will”.

Yes, I hope that a sufficiently large cutting-edge minority will influence humankind that way. But that has absolutely nothing to do with religion in any sense of that word. And it’s certainly not true that hope is all I have. I’m afraid you may never appreciate what I and some of the above posters have come to know, unless you take a chance and plunge in. Not out of “faith”, but simply because it’s a reasonable option to try.

In any case, no-one knows precisely what will happen on the planet in the future. So all that anyone, including yourself, has regarding that question is "hope". So your criticism of "all you have for certain is hope" is a pure red herring. It's not a criticism at all, as far as I can see, because you now seem to be asking the wrong question.