Fear mongering and psychedelics

[FranLover]

Its totally monstruous. The best example of this is Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. The Bukwoski of buddhism. Totally ridiculous. Only in the US, where Trump is president, can someone like this have found an audience which didnt see past the obvious, glaring ethical flaws present.

As for the flaws in the Gita, yes, I see that too and disagree with it. But hinduism is the religion with most religious texts and it is The Vedas where the knowledge lies. They are called apurusheya, meaning "revealed, not created by human thought." The vedic period ends with the arrival of the Buddah.

 

[OneIsEros]

Honestly, I found the principal upanisads were mostly trite. Not a whole lot of substance. And the rest of the vedas are just a series of rituals. If they’re not real ( which I don’t think they are), they’re basically a waste of life to even read. While I haven’t read much Hindu literature, if there’s anything interesting about it I would guess it developed later. This in contrast to, say, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Plato, Aristotle, the Pali canon, and other works from that period which demonstrated remarkably high developments of thought from the outset. The Gita was a lot more interesting than the Upanisads, I just happened to think it was dead wrong and ethically objectionable as heck.

 

[FranLover]

Compared to the Pali Cannon, indeed, the Vedas fall very short. Compared to the great philosophers mentioned and their works, I think so too. Yet in many places of Plato's fantastic dialogues, or of Aristotle's concise and truthful reasoning, there is a lack of something that the Vedas have (as well as most other esoteric traditions.)


Excerpts from the KATHA UPANISHAD

The whole world, whatever here exists,
was created from and moves in life.
The great awe, the upraised thunderbolt -
they who know that become immortal.

From awe of it fire burns;
from awe the sun gives heat

There are a hundred and one channels of the heart.
One of them rises up to the crown of the head.
Going upward through that, one becomes immortal.
The others are for going in various directions.


Clearly it is a different form of knowledge than what is presented in the works of Aristotle or Plato and it uses another level of reasoning (direct experience in the field of the Unmanifest and Absolute Abstraction) and another level of knowledge (The knowledge of other realms and the properties of other realms and their relation to this world.)

There are thousands more verses and thousands better. Its really not a bad work. If you enjoyed Plato and Aristotle and have used psychedelics I don't see how one finds the Vedas mostly distasteful. And even if it were so, the small portions of it that one did find tasteful are rather deserving of merit for their complexity in handeling abstract and higher thought and its poetic sensibility and good rhythm (they are rhymes so that they can be passed down by word of mouth and never forgotten, like songs.)

 

[OneIsEros]

I’m not into them because when you break it down it doesn’t say much that a guy like Aristotle doesn’t, except it says it in very vague ways that mostly amount to empty language most New Age hippies would be capable of improvising. And the visualization meditations also don’t amount to much beyond just that. I really just haven’t found much interesting stuff there.

 

[FranLover]

They are hyms, chant, in sanskirt; the oldest recorded language in the world. Its impossible to tranlsate the texts into another language because each sanskrit word has a specific value pertaining to the totality; all words have AUM in it so all words resonate cosmically with AUM vibration, AUM divinity, AUM knowledge. It is just like the Icaros of South America; these are representations of a form of experiential knowledge. It cant be translated, its impossible.

“richo akshare parame vyoman yasmin deva adhi vishve nisheduh” !!!
Rig Veda I.164.39

This can be rendered either, "the hymns [reside' in the alphabet in the transcendental space," or "the hymns [reside] in that which does not fall - the eternal unchanging - the transcendental [non-localized and non-temporal] space."

In both the Hebrew and Sanskrit traditions, the "letters" are considered to be of transcendental origin, and the letters of the human alphabet are mere shadows of them.

 

[👽℞]

Looks like the OP decided to quit this forum altogether. The OP was tired of fear mongering. Nothin wrong with that. I don't like it myself. I have found that all of these things exist within myself so I understand them. Watch a fearful child and smile when you see the multitude of false reasonings associated with their various fears. They know not what they do. They will act out in brutal ways when forced into a corner to face the fear soon becoming that which they feared the most.

I have seen the worst of myself and I know my demons. I am very well aware of them. They have caused me a tremendous amount of pain and suffering. These demons were allowed to run rampant in my mind unchecked for a long time. Ignored and unchecked, these demons can become real. They can certainly become something very real to a novice psychedelic user. Maybe it's lazy language to chalk anything dark into the demon and devil category? I feel that maybe some of these people who say the saw a demon or experienced something dark while in the midst of a psychedelic trip are simply experiencing something that they do not understand within themselves. The simple and lazy thing to do when engaging with something we don't understand is to label it evil or demonic and then we can say what we wish about it. I don't see demons or devils anymore because I understand the darkness of the mind now. Anyone can behave in an evil way if pushed far enough. It's completely relative. Something someone else may refer to as 'evil or demonic' I would likely refer to as 'cool! or wicked!'. I like dark things now. I now recognize them within myself and the fear vanished.

I cannot judge someone who sees demons asI saw them before as well. No one could have told me they weren't real. It was what I knew then. There was nothing wrong with me. I was just learning. I think we are all learning. We will create names for our fears, names for thing we do not understand. We learn and the names and labels of things tend to drop away in the end.

Thank you OP for creating this thread! I certainly hope you will come back and respond to what I have said to you here. I was hoping to chat about this with you and was very disappointed reading you were leaving. I guess that is just the way it is for a forum like this. Ebb and flow.

 

[OneIsEros]

They are hyms, chant, in sanskirt; the oldest recorded language in the world. Its impossible to tranlsate the texts into another language because each sanskrit word has a specific value pertaining to the totality; all words have AUM in it so all words resonate cosmically with AUM vibration, AUM divinity, AUM knowledge. It is just like the Icaros of South America; these are representations of a form of experiential knowledge. It cant be translated, its impossible.

“richo akshare parame vyoman yasmin deva adhi vishve nisheduh” !!!
Rig Veda I.164.39

This can be rendered either, "the hymns [reside' in the alphabet in the transcendental space," or "the hymns [reside] in that which does not fall - the eternal unchanging - the transcendental [non-localized and non-temporal] space."

In both the Hebrew and Sanskrit traditions, the "letters" are considered to be of transcendental origin, and the letters of the human alphabet are mere shadows of them.

The vedas strike me as more sacramental/theurgic than shamanic. Shamanism, though highly structured, is not simply a set of precise rituals - it is a method of attaining results, usually medical. The vedas, conversely, are more akin to the rites you would find in the Catholic Church.

I’m basically with the Buddha when it comes to the Vedas: it’s a bunch of superstition, and not benign superstition either. It’s predicated on a vicious caste system, for example.

 

[FranLover]

nono, vedas are practical like how you say shamanism is. Ayurveda, yoga and meditation, etc, etc. These things are the most practical as the buddah would agree, and after all, the buddah only taught because brahma asked him too, and buddhism shares the same gods and cosmological view to a very large extent.

Ayacana Sutta: The Request

www.accesstoinsight.org

I dont wish to convince you of anything but I want to help you learn this stuff if you have not looked into it, so that your view is more assesed, based on facts and right historical understanding.

 

[FranLover]

its like an old car from 1930. Compared to a new car its obsolete because technology has advanced, etc, but when it came out it was amazing and if we look into it we see that the old car has many virtues; its parts were built to last longer, its simpler, etc

 

[OneIsEros]

Well, I do wish to convince you of something. The majority of Vedic literature is dedicated to sacrificial rites, which have to be followed with utter precision, and it is a system which claims to be “revealed” and happens to “reveal” some stuff that probably “reveals” more about the lower aspects of human nature than it does about the gods.

You are right, the Buddha is said to have taught after one of the Brahmas persuaded him that some people would understand what he meant. I would invite you to try and contemplate what the author meant there, as it is a tricky bit of literature in a system that rejects the authority of gods.

In general, the Buddha rejected Vedic views. He mocked the sacrifices, telling people the best sacrifices would consist of vegetables (this is almost certainly tongue-in-cheek, he wasn’t encouraging us to burn broccoli on altars, he was saying Vedic sacrifice is pure superstition which hurts animals), and he utterly denounced the caste-system, which is one of the most fundamental aspects of Vedic revelation.

Did he use the language and general views of the time? Absolutely. Does that mean he accepted Vedic claims? No. Every sign indicates he thought it was cruel nonsense, and that the movements which were developing at the time focusing on liberation (Jainism, certain Upanishadic literature) were right when they rejected Vedic thought (as the Jains did), and wrong when they embraced it. He took a side, and it was pretty definite. Sacrificing animals is superstitious cruelty. The caste system, which stands to this day in India, is superstitious cruelty. And the fundamental premise of the atman/soul, he dismissed. This is all in dialogue with his culture, but he was rejecting it, not critically strengthening it, as other later Hindu thinkers did.

I understand you’re saying Buddhism didn’t come out of a vacuum. I’m just trying to express to you that he wasn’t a thinker like, say, Adi Sankara, who built upon a base and made something that was better and rendered the prior vehicle obsolete. That’s a valid description for thinkers other than the Buddha. The Buddha in his own right, was saying that the old wasn’t just now obsolete: he was saying it was trash from day one. This is why Buddhism is a nastika school rather than an astika school. Buddhism wasn’t just building on something, it was saying it was crap ground to start with, and that the new building projects needed to be relocated. Astika schools think that’s not true and are completely comfortable resting on the vedas as a solid, though antiquated base. That’s basically the case with all of orthodox (astika) Hinduism today. Not the Buddha though. So, Buddhism is nastika (non-orthodox).

 

[FranLover]

I know, I know; hurting animals is no good and the system has great flaws, but the people dont decide that, the law makers in power decide that (acumulation of wealth equals acumulation of power.) Just like I didn't decide the consumer culture I was born into, and I didn't start a war with Irak, the wandering ascetics or exatled brhamins of the past who have achieved a state of pure emptiness and eternal silence and resided in that pure, unsurpassed emptiness, are still as pure, no matter their circumstances, because we dont decide our circumstances.

Of course Gotama would not agree with any of the flaws which cause suffering, as none of us would

"And the fundamental premise of the atman/soul, he dismissed."

Thats just a matter of semantics. There is no difference in saying the ultimate self or saying total emptiness, in saying bliss or saying total emptiness. Experientially these things are felt the same by all who venture into this (Shipibo call it ABISMO "Abyss." Is their idea wrong merely cause they use another word in another language?) I go further still, to me there is no difference in saying Kingdom of Heaven/Eternal Life or saying Emptiness, I could fit the same emptiness into every religion and it would not upset it one bit. A complete matter of semantics.

"I would invite you to try and contemplate what the author meant there, as it is a tricky bit of literature in a system that rejects the authority of gods."

It means what it means, for the well being of the world Brahma asked Gotama to teach the dhamma. Buddhism does not reject the authority of gods at all, and shares the same gods with hinduism and even the shipibo people, mainly the understanding of the participation of the Nagas (snake lady or snake people) in helping humans obtain enlightment

God bless you

 

[FranLover]

I denounce the religion and system just as much as you, and I denounce it in every religion, including buddhism. But the fact that the system is wrong, that the orthodoxy is wrong, does not mean that what has been said is wrong. Thats to say; the existence of the caste system or of false brahmins and false traditions dont eliminate the benefits that meditation, yoga, vedanta, avaita vendanta, ayurveda, etc, gifted to the world. In the same way that the various different schools of buddhism and its orthodoxy and submission to the sangah, submission to traditions and enforced practices, dont take away from the benefits buddhism has given to the world, or take away any glory from Gotama and his teaching. Likewise, a shaman who burries a dead client to avoid the cops, does not corrupt Ayuahuasca or Ayahuasca's teaching. The shaman made the mistake and its his problem, he will deal with the consequences.
Truth is truth by whoever speaks it and is not corrupted because of the mistakes of a few.

 

[OneIsEros]

If you won’t engage with the distinctions because you want to have your cake and eat it too, then you will never rise above platitudes.

 

[FranLover]

emm...sure, thanks
god bless and take care

 

[OneIsEros]

emm...sure, thanks
god bless and take care

There are similarities and parallels across traditions. That does not mean they are talking about the same thing. You use the term “emptiness”. How many conceptions of that term do you suppose exist even within a single tradition like Buddhism? Let alone across different groups. I have never in my life met a teacher with any degree of acumen who has concluded with the sort of homogenization you seem to subscribe to - though I have met many other people who have. As Bhikkhu Analayo says (and he is only talking about unitarian Buddhists, not even religious universalism generally) - blending these things together is like throwing a row of flowers together in a blender and getting a dull grey.

If you want all of them, you will have none of them. It’s as simple as that. That doesn’t mean syntheses and cross-pollination across traditions does not occur! But those sorts of syntheses and mutual-restructuring processes take time and dedication, only rarely happening within the mind of a single individual, and then only with the brightest individuals (as in, world-historical individuals) - and even then, they do not homogenize things to the degree you describe. Chase many rabbits, catch none. But, perhaps you are brighter than a guy like Adi Sankara, who even as he was instructed by Buddhism, was careful to distinguish Vedanta from Buddhism because of the atman! Perhaps you really did see through it and realize it was all simply a matter of semantics these people could not wrap their heads around! Perhaps you really are the person to unite all the spiritual thought this world has produced.

Or, like all too many people in the psychedelic community, perhaps you are here (Dante, Inferno, Canto III, Vestibule of Hell).

“ "O master! What is this I hear? What race
Are these, who seem so overcome with woe?"

He thus to me: "This miserable fate
Suffer the wretched souls of those, who liv'd
Without or praise or blame, with that ill band
Of angels mix'd, who nor rebellious prov'd
Nor yet were true to God, but for themselves
Were only. From his bounds Heaven drove them forth,
Not to impair his lustre, nor the depth
Of Hell receives them, lest th' accursed tribe
Should glory thence with exultation vain."

I then: "Master! what doth aggrieve them thus,
That they lament so loud?" He straight replied:
"That will I tell thee briefly. These of death
No hope may entertain: and their blind life
So meanly passes, that all other lots
They envy. Fame of them the world hath none,
Nor suffers; mercy and justice scorn them both.
Speak not of them, but look, and pass them by."

And I, who straightway look'd, beheld a flag,
Which whirling ran around so rapidly,
That it no pause obtain'd: and following came
Such a long train of spirits, I should ne'er
Have thought, that death so many had despoil'd.

When some of these I recogniz'd, I saw
And knew the shade of him, who to base fear
Yielding, abjur'd his high estate. Forthwith
I understood for certain this the tribe
Of those ill spirits both to God displeasing
And to his foes. These wretches, who ne'er lived,
Went on in nakedness, and sorely stung
By wasps and hornets, which bedew'd their cheeks
With blood, that mix'd with tears dropp'd to their feet,
And by disgustful worms was gather'd there.”

 

[FranLover]

Perhaps you really did see through it and realize it was all simply a matter of semantics these people could not wrap their heads around! Perhaps you really are the person to unite all the spiritual thought this world has produced.

Indeed, but its very simple to vibrate at the frecuency of subtle, refined thought, very easy level of acomplishment, its absolutely simple; because you close your eyes and the kingdom of heaven is inside you. That simple. I can describe an apple for you, its color, its taste, how juicy, but unless you have the apple....

The experience of totality, of anatmaan, emptiness, has primacy over language. Silence, the experience of absolute emptiness, this is holy; holiness means virtue ethics, eightfold path; whatever words. At the fundamental level we can not disagree about anything, 0 disagreement, 0 violence, agression, because emptiness is emptiness, knowledge is knowledge, wisdom, etc...No need to fight over words and terms, those things have to pass; there is nothing besides knowing through being, nothing besides silence, emptiness; going into the self. All the rest; conjecture, forms of expression, which our conditioned by the environment, where jesus is born, where buddah is born will define what they say, what they eat, if they walk or ride horseback, etc ad infinitum. But all beings have buddah nature; the mandala is inside all; all here are in samsara. All religion is Path of Purification. This has been said a thousand times, its eternal knowledge, not a subscription, not a concept; its god given, natural like the trees and rivers.


in the following suttra it is explained clearly. Once again, I send out the spirit of love and strenght to you and wish you the best in this week, may you be prosperous and happy and fulfilled. God bless♡♡♡aummm.

Sariputta's Lion's Roar

16. Then the Venerable Sariputta went to the Blessed One, respectfully greeted him, sat down at one side, and spoke thus to him:

"This faith, Lord, I have in the Blessed One, that there has not been, there will not be, nor is there now, another recluse or brahman more exalted in Enlightenment than the Blessed One."

"Lofty indeed is this speech of yours, Sariputta, and lordly! A bold utterance, a veritable sounding of the lion's roar! But how is this, Sariputta? Those Arahants, Fully Enlightened Ones of the past — do you have direct personal knowledge of all those Blessed Ones, as to their virtue, their meditation, their wisdom, their abiding, and their emancipation?"

"Not so, Lord."

"Then how is this, Sariputta? Those Arahants, Fully Enlightened Ones of the future — do you have direct personal knowledge of all those Blessed Ones, as to their virtue, their meditation, their wisdom, their abiding, and their emancipation?"

"Not so, Lord."

"Then how is this, Sariputta? Of me, who am at present the Arahant, the Fully Enlightened One, do you have direct personal knowledge as to my virtue, my meditation, my wisdom, my abiding, and my emancipation?"

"Not so, Lord."

"Then it is clear, Sariputta, that you have no such direct personal knowledge of the Arahats, the Fully Enlightened Ones of the past, the future, and the present. How then dare you set forth a speech so lofty and lordly, an utterance so bold, a veritable sounding of the lion's roar, saying: 'This faith, Lord, I have in the Blessed One, that there has not been, there will not be, nor is there now another recluse or brahman more exalted in Enlightenment than the Blessed One'?"

17. "No such direct personal knowledge, indeed, is mine, Lord, of the Arahants, the Fully Enlightened Ones of the past, the future, and the present; and yet I have come to know the lawfulness of the Dhamma. Suppose, Lord, a king's frontier fortress was strongly fortified, with strong ramparts and turrets, and it had a single gate, and there was a gatekeeper, intelligent, experienced, and prudent, who would keep out the stranger but allow the friend to enter. As he patrols the path that leads all around the fortress, he does not perceive a hole or fissure in the ramparts even big enough to allow a cat to slip through. So he comes to the conclusion: 'Whatever grosser living things are to enter or leave this city, they will all have to do so just by this gate.' In the same way, Lord, I have come to know the lawfulness of the Dhamma.

"For, Lord, all the Blessed Ones, Arahants, Fully Enlightened Ones of the past had abandoned the five hindrances,
the mental defilements that weaken wisdom; had well established their minds in the four foundations of mindfulness; had duly cultivated the seven factors of enlightenment, and were fully enlightened in unsurpassed, supreme Enlightenment.

"And, Lord, all the Blessed Ones, Arahants, Fully Enlightened Ones of the future will abandon the five hindrances, the mental defilements that weaken wisdom; will well establish their minds in the four foundations of mindfulness; will duly cultivate the seven factors of enlightenment, and will be fully enlightened in unsurpassed, supreme Enlightenment.

"And the Blessed One too, Lord, being at present the Arahant, the Fully Enlightened One, has abandoned the five hindrances, the mental defilements that weaken wisdom; has well established his mind in the four foundations of mindfulness; has duly cultivated the seven factors of enlightenment, and is fully enlightened in unsurpassed, supreme Enlightenment."

 

[OneIsEros]

“and it had a single gate”

Buddhism is very careful to stress how singularly distinct it is from the other spiritual teachings in this world. The other Buddhas it refers to in that passage, are not the authors of the Vedas. I’m sorry Fran, but you are misinterpreting this passage.

Read Thanissaro Bhikkhu, or Bhikkhu Analayo, or Bhikkhu Bodhi. These are the greatest scholars of the Pali canon in the English speaking world, who have been practicing not just as monastics, but in Thanissaro and Bodhi’s case, as full abbots. They are scholars and practicioners. Analayo, has read and teaches not just the Pali canon, but also the Chinese canon and the Tibetan canon.

Are you claiming that you understand this religion on an experiential level in a deeper way than them?

If the answer is “no”, then you may want to ask yourself: since your scholarly knowledge is far beneath their’s, and since your experiential understanding does not match these full-time monastics, isn’t it perhaps possible that a difference of opinion might indicate you have made a mistake? Because as far as I can see, all you are doing is peddling platitudes, and expressing opinions that every great scholar of the religions you are borrowing from would repudiate.

There is a Zen teacher I know, who likes to point out that nearly every great Zen master (with very few exceptions) was a great scholar. Zen teaches that scholastic understanding is limited, but there is a crucial distinction between transcending scholastic knowledge, and being below that understanding. And they do not repudiate the scholarly parts upon transcending them, either. Dogen for example, was still extremely keenly aware of the distinction between the Zen lineage he had inherited, and other lineages, even as his very lineage taught that the discursive mind interfered with direct understanding.

I am sorry Fran, but every sign would indicate you are wrong. And not only wrong, but kind of seriously arrogant. You’re literally saying you know better than scholars like Bhikkhu Bodhi, Thanissaro Bhikkhu, and Bhikkhu Analayo, about their religion, owing to some sort of transcendent understanding. That’s a pretty intense self-evaluation.

 

[FranLover]

Place on me whatever ill judgement you concieve, my thought of you will remain unchanged; only love and understanding from me to you. If you think I dont understand and am wrong, thats totally OK. I dont mind that you think that of me and say it to me. I dont compare myself to others, so if you think others are wiser than me, I am fine with that too and dont mind you saying it to me. God bless you my sweet my friend and may you find peace wherever you go n_n

Buddhism is very careful to stress how singularly distinct it is from the other spiritual teachings in this world

Gotama would never compare himself to others.

You can fight and make enemies, or make peace in the world, spread understanding, compassion, true wisdom. Dividing and fighting over supremacy of languages or cultures is silly and nonsense, my friend. This is the dhamma. This is why its beautiful. True wisdom means seeing the buddah nature in all things. You know that these people that you name, their life is not more important than yours...that fundamentally means their knowledge is not mroe than yours, for knowledge means Knowledge of Life, and nothing more, that is all.

 

[FranLover]

so lets recap

You are saying 'and it had a single gate' in the sense that buddhism is the only way to enlightment

I am saying 'and it had a single gate' is akin to life; all beings come from a single gate. So that it is possible for all beings to be enligthened, no matter time and place of birth.

Sariputta makes completley clear what he means by the single gate; ""For, Lord, all the Blessed Ones, Arahants, Fully Enlightened Ones of the past had abandoned the five hindrances,
the mental defilements that weaken wisdom; had well established their minds in the four foundations of mindfulness; had duly cultivated the seven factors of enlightenment, and were fully enlightened in unsurpassed, supreme Enlightenment."

 

[OneIsEros]

My friend, all I am saying is that if you subscribe to a homogenized view, you may miss the distinctions among the various faiths, and therefore miss the full import of what they’re saying. That’s fine, up to a certain level. The sermons you will find in Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Taoist, etc. places of worship to the public are virtually indistinguishable in substance. Be an ethical person, is basically the shared ground.

But if you really get the message behind, say, Zen - you very swiftly realize that this is radically distinct from, for example, Neoplatonism, because Zen is characterized by radical rejection of formal idealism, whereas Neoplatonism is formal idealism par excellence. In Zen, if you are lobotomized, the philosophy is so radically anti-idealist, you would be considered equally complete post-lobotomy as you were prior-lobotomy. Not so in Neoplatonism. Neoplatonism would say that your formal instantiation in matter has been corrupted. There is no such notion in Zen. They are radically distinct doctrines.

I study all of them, and I really enjoy being mutually informed by all of them - but it does a disservice to the people who had something distinct to say, to claim that it is indistinct from other messages - which are in fact, admirably distinct. It is in finding the differences that we move beyond empty language and platitudes, and into real, meaningfully distinct ideas. That does not mean we cannot find shared ground or learn from each other - it just means that it’s okay to not ultimately be the same, or to have different ideas about enlightenment, in a religiously pluralistic world. It’s okay to be different.