My understanding of life reviews is that they are not about punishment, but awareness, so the idea of a 'bad' life review is erroneous. Neither are life reviews about balancing good and bad - but growing in consciousness from life experiences - and growing in insight and compassion. I think we are all misguided by the Christian doctrine and the misinterpretations of Buddhism made popular in the 1960s.h, agree, but what about some ultimate authority? Steve thinks (and perhaps relishes) that I might have a bad life review. I don't think it would be so horrible and I like to believe to the bright points would outweigh any negatives - at least it wouldn't be worse or better than anyone else's, IMO.
So why do we argue?
Both suffering from the error that 1. you do not understand what I am saying and yet, 2. contend that I am wrong. A form of plural arguing fallacy, which leaves me underwhelmed.
I cannot vouch for everyone in this video personally - I would need to see more of their lives, but these are the accoutrements/verbiage of the costume.
I think you’re quite wrong here.
I think the community of students of spirituality would be better served if teachers stopped telling us that enlightenment means you are a nice person.
It doesn't. Enlightenment does not erase your personality. It means you have ended suffering for yourself, or at least reduced it significantly.
“Every person that I have ever met, or heard of, or read about, that had recognised their true nature (which I, Steve, take to mean enlightenment) is a kind, loving, compassionate person.”
Imo this appears to contradict Jim Smith and others’ opinion. Jim recently posted:
If Jim and Rupert don’t both mean ‘enlightenment’, then I admit that this post loses its point.
Well, in my book a nice person would be someone who displays traits such as kindness, love and compassion. I’m not sure what Jim thinks, except that he appears to think differently about what characterises enlightened people.
Frankly, I’m not at all bothered whether you’re underwhelmed or otherwise.
You dismiss the video without even watching it, I may be wrong of course, but your reply came much quicker than the videos runtime and it was posted yesterday.
Well God created volcanoes, stars that super nova, lions that eat zebras, bacteria and viruses that invade bodies and destroy them, liars and deceivers, murderers - Gods creation contains - nay depends on in many instances, like the ecosystem - a lot of violent activity and viciousness and ruthless killing.
I asked the guide and God what was the purpose of life? I heard a pause and sort of a sound of someone sighing. It was as if this entity felt I should know the answer. It said, "The purpose of life is to love". The guide said I had ten minutes to chose to stay or go back. I agreed and told them to send me back to my family.
Is it safe to say that God is not enlightened because earthquakes and hurricanes and great white sharks?
How do you even define concepts like "kindness"?
It all sounds like a circular definition and no true Scotsman type situation - which is me being "kind" by not telling you what I really think of the whole cluster of arbitrary assumptions and definitions around this topic
the video was insincerely posed and therefore, was moot. Just as the 'I can't go for that' video was also insulting and darkly purposed.
Your basic first instinct is to attack, insult, demean, categorize, ... based upon someone you hated in your past. I am sorry you had to undergo such injury, but please leave me out of it.My dad used to like a saying:
You’re not always right, but your never wrong.
He never used it on me. I got on very well with my dad. (Just in case that’s what you meant.)Your basic first instinct is to attack, insult, demean, categorize, ... based upon someone you hated in your past. I am sorry you had to undergo such injury, but please leave me out of it.
Firstly I’d say that people talk of enlightenment - I don’t really have a clue what that means. People like Rupert claim to have met ‘enlightened’ people, as I asked in a recent post - what identifies them? If it was written in a ‘holy book’ that “When a person becomes enlightened, they start to glow in a white light so that others may recognise them” I might be more intrigued by the notion. What percentage of us have either the time or the interest in reality?
The thing is, enlightenment would surely be subjective if humans are making the decision. One man’s ideal enlightened person may be far from another’s.
Sure, that is all true. My answer contains only evidence, the ‘best’ that I can come up with, I of course, really don’t have a scooby (doo - clue) about what God really is or wants with ‘us’.
In the latest NDE that I have read, here on this forum, the author once again tells us that:
I kept coming to the same message years ago, when I was ‘seeking’ after my stroke. I don’t have a record of everything I researched, but it was an intense period of around four years. I woke up in the morning and reached for my iPad, until I lay down at night to go to sleep. Interrupted generally only by eating, meditating or my physiotherapy. I meditated nearly every day, not sure why, but it was like something inside me just suddenly made me want to do it.
Anyway, I came to the conclusion that Love was somehow what it was all about.
We intuitively know that is true. We know it when our kids make us laugh, when we can’t entice them to lie (hi TES), when we feel amazing just being here, when we look in wonder at the stars or the sunset or a million other things. We know in our hearts that Love beats all else.
Only this morning, I felt on top of the world when my daughter made (what I consider) the right choice, to force herself out of bed that she’d got into at 3am, and go to work. Without any interference from us. It made me feel good because she doesn’t _really_have to go, as it is a friend of ours business and isn’t a full time proper job, she starts her studies later this month. She could have made the semi-valid excuse that she had been up very late, as she has occasionally done, much to my wife and I’s disappointment. It is a sign that she’s growing up to do the right thing!
This is what a big part of life’s about. Choices.
We can choose to concentrate on the negative, sure. Volcano’s can be dangerous, but they can be seen as awesome and beautiful. I guess the same with super novas, everything you have said, lions and zebras, the latter appear to be chosen as lesser than the lion. I honestly don’t see things that way, I don’t see the zebra as less than the lion. I am sure that a zebra would be just as capable of humbling me as would a lion. That are all amazing creatures. One eats the other to survive, but it appears that we must all succumb at some time, what better way for a zebra to go than being eaten by a lion! It is the cycle of life, but to concentrate on the negative is surely to miss out so much positive? I think Acceptance of the downsides is part of any growing we do. In a way, it makes life that much more exciting, don’t you think?
For every liar and deceiver, or murderer, there will be an honest person, or someone such as Michael that does healing work. We tend to concentrate on the dark, while ignoring the light.
I tend to think that it makes some sort of sense that we are here on earth to grow. Why God wants/needs us to do so? I don’t know.
God no. The examples you give are positives, not negatives! God enlightened? I don’t think this is part of the deal.
It is when you feel that you are doing the right thing on someone else’s behalf. Even when in fact, it is not. Intent is everything. Kindness is when an Israeli soldier feels something in his heart and gives a sweet to a Palestinian kid. If the sweet happens to contain some virus that ultimately gives the youngster cancer, it is still kindness. You can only know what you know. There are complicated scenarios that you describe which we can only hope and prey we don’t encounter. But intent and wisdom ought to get you through, if you are wise enough, you should welcome the tough DI in certain circumstances. As long as he doesn’t kill you!
Actually, interestingly, I listened to a video by Andrew Wakefield recently. His thinking about the measles virus is far from that of the usual scientist. After telling us he’d studied them for some decades I came away with the strong impression that he has grown to deeply respect a ‘simple’ little thing like a virus, he appeared to me to think of it as divine. Not what you might expect really.
See, you definitely know what kindness is.
Look, I have my ideas. Others have theirs. I’ll leave you with this book, which you probably know about.
http://www.brainybetty.com/2007Motivation/Khalil Gibran - The Prophet.pdf
Finally a couple of quotes from my book. The first, which appears in the intro, is by a (one time?) member of this forum, Manjit, which sums up very well how I feel about things:
"And I can't help but feel that the universe, reality, consciousness, being, divinity or whatever....... is just so much more mysterious, awesome, magical, astonishing, incomprehensible, mind-shattering than anything humankind has conceived of."
This is how I end, both my book, and this post.
“A little while, a moment of rest upon the wind, and another woman shall bear me.” The Prophet–Kahlil Gibran
Something I doubt you'll ever understand is that one of the sacrifices soldiers make, besides laying down their lives, is, if they survive, their innocence and the purity of their soul so that others don't have to go there. Is that not love?
At some you have to do what is cruel to some to be kind to others.
My point in all of the discussions/arguments we have had is that things are way more complicated than you and some others want them to be.
I'm not saying you are or aren't, just that sometimes, IMO, you come awfully close, but maybe I'm overly sensitive in some areas. It's a real possibility.
1. Presumably being enlightened means moving past one's ego and aligning with higher truths/God/The Source, etc (let's just call all of that "God" for ease of discussion). Well God created volcanoes, stars that super nova, lions that eat zebras, bacteria and viruses that invade bodies and destroy them, liars and deceivers, murderers - Gods creation contains - nay depends on in many instances, like the ecosystem - a lot of violent activity and viciousness and ruthless killing. So, is enlightenment only aligning with parts of God and "what is"?
Firstly I’d say that people talk of enlightenment - I don’t really have a clue what that means. People like Rupert claim to have met ‘enlightened’ people, as I asked in a recent post - what identifies them?
I suppose that alternate understandings of enlightenment are possible - but they would be non-standard and idiosyncratic.
I would ask: Show me an enlightened person. :)
When I work on a national infrastructure strategy - I cannot honestly say that my motives derive solely from a compassion for the people of that nation. That is part of it, yes. But I refuse to join political clubs who wear such faux-compassion in order to gain power...Wittgenstein Attribute by Exception - a condition wherein the definition of a concept, term, quality or attribute can only be objectively described by comparison to what it is not. A logical object which is exclusively tenable through outlining cases wherein it or its qualities are absent. Often framed by 'I don't know how to define it, but I know when I am in it', for example; usually involving merely a personal standard of measure. Attempts to define as logical objects, concepts such as love, happiness, genuineness, good, enlightenment, etc. Two errors result from a positive logical object approach in defining this type of Wittgenstein attribute:
a. epistemological study or social deliberation of such qualities ends up being more equivocal, ineffective or subject to personal experience than is presumed beneficial, andb. the pseudo-objective standards of such a definition, can be worn as a masquerade by entities which truly do not actually bear such concepts as qualities.
Most importantly, I cannot learn all this through studying, political club identity, scripture memorization, getting a divinity degree nor PhD, talking with spirits, being nice, going off-grid, meditating on a mountain, joining a religious order, nor contemplating enlightenment. Otherwise, there would be no need for visiting this prison in the first place. We can do all that masturbation anywhere.
Absolutely, if you simply help the lady with kids next door get groceries out of her car, you have done spiritually every bit the task I have ever done... this is merely my particular life situation/path and is not purposed to sound intimidating. I am still a journeyman spiritually and woefully behind at that.Love it TES! There's always a risk of sounding like an arrogant wanker in this kind of conversation, but there's nothing like a dose of 'real life' hard scrabble service to bring your noble thought balloons down to earth.
hear, hear... my kids can't get disability, despite being both flat broke and severely disabled, for this very reason. They are not in the 'disadvantaged' social category because they are the wrong skin color, so their disability does not count. This is the handiwork of 'niceness in action' (also known as 'evil').I work in social policy in which fine well intentioned folk try to figure out how address the needs of the dispossessed and down trodden. But this so often results in nice white middle-class, university educated city folk dreaming up politically correct, but utterly ineffectual, schemes to spend public money in the name of a noble sense of duty. The sense of compassionate duty I get, but filtering it through a middle class conceit drives me nuts. As a person with disability I am passionately committed to the principle of "nothing about us without us" - and I'd extend that ideal to the "homeless" who don't want to live in houses - and all the other 'ungrateful' recipients of 'help' they didn't ask for. This becomes a case of 'we will do good on our terms, because we are good and educated, and we know what is good and right.'
Will do, as this looks really good... 'passion, entrepreneurship and the rebirth of local economies'!!! Where has this guy been?!!!If you have the opportunity, read Ernesto Sirolli's Ripples from the Zambezi. Sirolli joined an Italian aid agency in Africa straight out of uni, and was shocked by what he experienced and witnessed. That led to his passion - sirolli.com