soma

When I was a monk we had to sit for 4 hours a day and the lotus is the most comfortable for the back. I had a hard time at first and it took gravity many years to get me into it because sports tightened my muscles and I had to relax them, but it doesn't matter when you are floating in the universe, up and down, cross or straight are the same. Asia is going to be a great retreat a jump into the unknown since it has changed so much.

Steve I agree. This move I am turned upside down, surfing the energy wave and going over the falls. Exhausted trying to get to the surface, out of air, but something always brings me back to the present moment so I can catch my breath. That moment seems to be what I desire more and more as the world turns in another rotation, and it only takes a moment to get the oxygen and energy to proceed, in an attentive state so I can enjoy a huge truck that is noisy or the physical exhaustion of lifting in high temperatures as the world turns. I like to sit in full lotus, but it is not necessary when you don't know if you are up or down moving, but going no where, it is only the mind that moves if I think of Reno, I am in Reno, think of Vegas and I am here, making reservations for Asia in October I am there in August, but more than mental activity I really enjoy the still, tranquility of the moment.

T I think either translation works as both appeal to different mind sets and hopefully leads people to an experience of the Divinity within. Faith seems to be external, something concrete that the Christian mind can hold on to for support, but someday they will take a leap of faith into the unknown , let go and fly to heaven where everything has meaning.

I guess their our different communities for different purposes, social interaction, service to humanity, contemplation or silent worship as the Trappist monks participate in.

For where two or three are gathered together in my name --or "unto my name.". there am I in the midst of them --Sublime encouragement for union, For (Mathew 18:20) When I first started meditating, group meditations were essential because it was easier to go beyond earth's gravity and experience a collective consciousness, but now after almost fifty years it doesn't matter because alone means all one (al-one). When we go to a party it takes about twenty minutes for a collective consciousness to form where everything flows beyond the ice-breakers. This is experienced at concerts, sports, comedy shows etc. When I first moved to Reno, I met with the Carmelite nuns who are cloistered, but had group meditations once a week. Their philosophy was that they were doing service as a cloistered group by raising the collective consciousness of the community. I relate the name as Christ Consciousness, which is beyond the stories and is an experience beyond the words similar to Buddhist states of consciousness. Burl, I like your discrimination about choosing the right church because many are negative, political organizations. Advice given to me was If we are a positive 10 we will affect people in a positive way who are 10 or below, but if we visit a negative 15 they will affect us in a negative way. Mob rules and violence are executed in these collective situations. Many Christians have been damaged with an immature Christianity, which projects hatred and meanness in the name of Jesus where they would crucify Christ if they saw him. (A joke that is not funny)

“People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.” (Thich Nhat Hanh) We are always in the present moment, but we are not always aware of it. The present continues if we are aware of it or not, the difference is where is our attention on our pain or on worrying about what is to come. 25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life[c]? (Mathew 6:25:27) Jesus at the last supper didn't worry about the events to come, but gave thanks for the bread in the present moment. I feel he was an example of being mindful in the midst of a crisis. Jesus saw the the outer reality and the inner reality at the same time the big picture in the moment and not focused or attached to the part of it that causes pain.

Realspeak, I agree and like that quote too. I feel we do this by being a light beneficiary that flourishes and expands towards the light source similar to plants growing higher in the direction of the sun without worrying because the night will pass and we get rid of darkness not with gloomy thoughts, but with light. The light is not only at the end of the tunnel, but here now despite all the darkness, the light is with us now, we just have to open our eyes and reflect it by lighting another candle, the birds perceive it before the sun rises and start to sing. They don’t preach, but just reflect the expression of divine energy as divine beauty with no question of God or not God, but only by reflecting the divine expression of energy that is the Essence of all existence, the energy we are made of. They are an example for us to be our self and enjoy the moment so there is joy just being around us and others can find rest in our being for a moment of peace.

I like what you wrote about energy and the balanced formula. We think we know the reality of matter and all things, but we cannot know reality as long as we are separated from it. Living in our skin, we look through eyes, periscopes, microscopes and telescopes, but our instruments and senses only let us perceive and understand what our minds allow us to perceive and understand. The church authorities would not look through Galileo's telescope because they said Satan would control the images, not realizing that Satan is their own hellish thoughts. Reality and the awesome material universe are something else altogether; in truth, we need to change our paradigm in order to have access to Reality and to do this yes we need to be detached, which I don't think is cold."I was there no thoughts, no names. Then our alternative reality entered my mind"................awesome. In contrast to the external world outside of ourselves, you were within where we find Reality. Reality is where integration is realized in the unity of our being with everything surrounding it, and it happens when we cease from identifying, just experiencing mind, body, universe all connected with subtle energy, I like to call consciousness. You accepted by observing life without judgment, living in the present moment, not attached to memories of the past nor attached to schemes for the future or theologies of what God might or might not be. Acceptance does not punish or reward a man because it is simply to help us live with happiness, health, success, sorrow, disease and failure by balancing the equation to live in harmony with Nature's Laws, observing the law of cause and effect in perfect balance with our individual demands; therefore, the way to change our condition in life is to change our mind about life. Hahn speaks of mindfulness as away of being aware of the equation that balances to zero, which can be in the realm of a deep observation of a rose. The objective mind will go on endlessly forming objects for the 'doer I' part of the mind, but this causes distortion on the mental plate because the ego starts craving and grieving for things destroying the peace of mind in the present and is the cause of bondage in our own mind where we are not aware of the alignment of our body, mind and collective unconsciouss. The mind is great for survival on the physical plane even our fears help, but when they are seen in perspective to the balance ending in zero we need some positive so are able to live in peace and balance the equation. When we no longer fear not getting what we desire we are free and in harmony with our environment, body, mind and universe. I think the objective mind and the doer mind (ego) serve their purpose well, but we are pure I, Ï am"Instead of running after endless objects, our minds are able to enjoy everything in the present as you said all at once and not linear one thing after another. At the present moment we have forgotten our relationship with a balance in energy functioning at different levels in different dimensions due to our interaction with material energy and because of this forgetfulness we face many problems so the need to reawaken our original consciousness, then we are happy. I don't think the real solution is material advancement, but to get out of the material condition by becoming aware so it seems the imperative is to look at creation another way from the standpoint of Hahn's Buddhism, Christ, Krishna, Shiva, Mohamed's methods, rather than considering creation and life from a material perspective. The science perspective works too because we can realize that our true existence in creation is present in energy carrying information and it is present everywhere without being destroyed, just changing form. This pure consciousness is active in our daily lives even though it is invisible to the material senses so we just need to point our mind away from the crude energy frequencies and let the subtle frequencies carry us away like music. I just retired to protest education policies I don't agree with and took the hit romansh mentioned, but love it and will not look back, of course I am to busy to even turn my head. I am into romansh's rose trip and that means I don't need more to be happy, but can be happy with less. Less thoughts, categories and analyzing, just being in the moment as long as possible.

My wife says we will die in our new house, but I see us down sizing becoming less attached to live and move around more freely, but I will tell you Vegas is as hot as hell. I gained a new appreciation for the individuals who pack and unload those big trucks and the advice given to drink lots of water.

I taught adults and had an annoying Christian that was a great parrot, but didn't really know what he was saying. I asked him if Jesus came to him like he came to doubting Thomas and said, "Will you do me a favor?" He said sure without knowing the question so I played it up about putting his hands in Jesus wounds excreta. Then I said Jesus's question, "Will you become Buddhist?"He said no because it was not in the Bible or his minister would say no.

In 1963, Buddhist monk Thích Quang Duc burned himself to death at a busy intersection in Saigon. He was meditating without reaction while he burned.The self-immolation was done in protest to the South Vietnamese Diem regime’s pro-catholic policies and discriminatory Buddhist laws.The Buddhist flag was banned and Diem displayed crosses; earlier in his rule he had dedicated Vietnam to Jesus and the Catholic Church. This resentment of Buddhists under Diem led to a coup to put in place a leader who would not alienate Buddhists, who made up 70-90% of Vietnam’s population. This act meant a lot to me and was a pivotal point in my life. I lived in Sri Lanka in the seventies and the majority of people are Buddhist and they persecute the Muslims and Tamils who are Hindu. The freedom fighters called Tamil Tigers are still fighting and are undoubtedly one of the most organized, effective and brutal terrorist groups in the world. I noticed in the Buddhist countries I was fortunate to have lived in there are many levels of devotion, experience and superstition just like Christianity: you have the people who meditate, status and pray for stuff. We can see those dimensions also in our way of life in other countries and the US. My wife and I met from two different extremes she was an extreme fundamental Christian as I said before she would not enter a Buddhist courtyard of the temple thinking it was worshiping false gods. I came from India and left an ashram where I lived and traveled as a monk. We lived in South Korea and I had a few monks from India over and invited my wife and others also. The monks and nuns told me she was a good, sincere person and I thought she was beautiful so we continued to an almost 40 year marriage and two children. I watched her transformation and my own as we ate from the same cake, but on different plates. We never use the words truth or belief, but she respects and protects my time for meditation, telling people on the phone to call back later or telling me to go meditate. I feel the most amazing and influential transformation in my life is an altered shift in consciousness in the realm of Divinity, Spirituality, Infinite oneness as an undivided unity with everything where the whole thing is connected. Neil deGrasse Tyson an American astrophysicist said, “We are all connected; to each other, biologically, to the earth, chemically, to the rest of the universe, atomically.” In the physical and mental realm of division, contrast and duality, love is an inner feature that points to and brings out the best in us in a consciousness of oneness. It is an escape from the designs, patterns and blueprints of the mind and material world with its order and purpose in the continuum of time to the simplicity of loving or not loving, being united or separate from existence. I think this is one way to look at the word spirituality, which is beyond words. I will try to keep up, but I just sold my house and am between closing, signing papers and loading, driving and unloading furniture from Reno to Las Vegas. I just did a 26 ft load, but will have to do a smaller one too. I can relate to the birthdays in July, but I am 68.

Those are Divine vessels!

We have learned to allow other people’s views, especially the negative ones to bring about change in our life when we need to shape our own life as human beings. Our society, religion, science, teachers and parents tell us that life should be a certain way by putting limits on everything we do physically, mentally and spiritually when there are no limits in Eternity. My fellow Christians use the Bible to shut down and bring to an end spiritual consideration when it is a means to open spiritual reflection. The following quote was attributed to Isaac Newton just before he died, “I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.” We Christians read the Bible as a Holy Book, but many instead of taking it in, digesting and contemplating the material spit it at others to show superiority, authority and dominance. Bishop Desmond Tutu, Archbishop Emeritus and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, a South African opponent of apartheid said, “When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said "Let us pray." We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.” Instead of using the Bible to take advantage of people and closing their minds, we need to let people and science advance and progress to expand and to deepen the mind in order to go beyond it to a spiritual experience and a desire for more. Science and religion are only tools to use, to experiment with and to broaden our horizons; therefore, we don't need to build a cult around them and worship their every word.

Trump can't control or govern his tweets much less a country. He wanted entertainers to be mainstay at his convention and they turned him down, even conservative Republican names. Therefore, B list got the call and they did it not for Trump, but to get back into the spot light. The opening prayer was a shock praying against his mental enemies.

Burl I like your thought, we are in the midst of the infinite so we are already there, we just aren't aware God is all around and inside us.

I think sermons are meant for us to pin our ears back and pay attention to a long discourse where the board is meant to discuss, debate and joke when appropriate or when life is messy. I like both just like I like philosophy and science, but I am attracted to contemplation and enjoy the experience. Christian Mysticism is not reading about theories or taking anything on loyalty. It only deals with what works to bring about enjoyment and the good qualities of life. “I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live.” (Ecclesiastes 3:12) The terror some profess will never relax the mind because it only activates fear and theology is used as a tool to stir up these emotions making God an inference or hypothesis. Theology identifies God as the unknowable, but much in theology is a collection of meaningless words that say follow my theology to know and fear God. Joseph Campbell says, “Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors for you where there were only walls.” I have to admit I like the theology that points to happiness and unity and does not deny evolution. I don’t think mysticism is dangerous as some Christians without knowledge and proper practice would have us believe. On the contrary, it is a profound and incredible spiritual experience that can induce fear in those not acquainted with the mind of Christ. The Bible supports this with this phrase, “These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” (Corinthians 2:13-14) The fear that extreme Christians invoke is what is toxic and treacherous, not the mysticism. The mystics in different time periods and in different cultures all converge or reduce everything down to one, a unity that is experienced, but expressed differently depending on one’s culture. We also have diversity in theology, for example why and how to wear the hijab and in Christian theology nowadays it seems it is a debate on who is going to hell with the worst going to heaven and the best going to hell. Comedians will say I want to go to heaven, but I like the people in hell a lot more.I m

Annie, Thanks we need to remind each other that we get exactly what we need.

We identify with our mind and feel we our separate, individual units, which works well with linear time one thing happens after another, but the soul is spiritual and is in eternity beyond linear time connected with everything where everything is united. "One God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all....." (Ephesians 4:6 NRSV) I feel the main message of Jesus was this Divinity with in that is connected to all. I see the Father as the ocean of God's pure consciousness, which Jesus said, "I and the Father are one." His drop of humanity, his consciousness merged with the ocean. Therefore, if our mind is a cup and in the cup is our consciousness imagine the cup floating in the ocean of God's pure consciousness. "So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." The problem is we identify with the mind, the senses and what is perceived so we think we are separate, but if we expand beyond the cup the vessel separating us from the Divine Ocean then we can experience what the saints, mystics and wise people from all religions have been pointing to. They point because we all have different minds so different ways to unlock the windows to fly free in unity.

I agree Burl the church is losing intellectuals and the young very fast. Our Christian way of life does not mean we have to leave our logical mind to have a dogmatic grasp of truth. We just need to integrate our Christian traditions with smart, scientific understanding, spiritual discernment and the all-inclusive, all-embracing Christian wisdom that is open to new ways of thinking that direct us beyond the mind. Let's keep the simple Christian truth of the Divinity within, but allow it to emerge up and outward as individuals embody and represent it in a higher revelation instead of being loyal to rigid policies, rules and sets of law.

In a hologram the whole lives in every part of it in light interference patterns produced on the material plane; similarly, I feel the consciousness of our Heavenly Father intercommunicates with our divinity within the consciousness of our soul. Our soul is our interconnection to all experiences in the interior and exterior self so we don’t have to decide on being spiritual or physical because we are both sensual and supernatural at the same time. Our human assignment is to discover, balance and harmonize the two in a mature consciousness where we are whole in the spiritual and material worlds bringing light, energy to both as we discover our purpose in the process.

It is difficult to live with people who fear and think they are right with all the answers, yet we still have peace in our mind. Do not worry if all the candles in the world flicker and die. We have the SPARK that starts the FIRE. ~ Jalal ad-din Rumi -Translated by Coleman Barks. May we all find our safe and welcoming place where we can enjoy everyone even the most bitter among us. Laugh with and not at people and the world laughs with us no matter how much pain is there. Christians who build walls to keep others out are actually keeping them selves in prison. Freedom allows us to enter their kingdom, laugh and leave and go back to the place that exposes awe in everything.

Man Martin I am glad your creativity is paying off and it seems you are enjoying the energy. I am sure your classes are lively and funny. The funny part is the reality we live in with the label of Christian where most people think Christians don't live as Christians.

No wonder Canadians are so mellow where Americans have aggressive fear stabbing at their brains.

Burl welcome, A progressive Christian I feel is a Christian who is moving, growing evolving physically, mentally and spiritually. We might not want to grow physically, but we are fortunately and unfortunately. I think the same applies to the mind. The soul just is. I see you come with a sense of humor. Cheers. May we laugh and explore the angles and dimensions together.

Ecc3 , Thanks for making your presence felt and enjoy the ride.