New-Age Wisdom

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Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem, modified 9 Years ago at 4/14/14 10:49 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 4/14/14 10:49 AM

New-Age Wisdom

Posts: 2227 Join Date: 10/27/10 Recent Posts
Nothing is impossible.

Today, science tells us that the essence of nature is guidance. This life is nothing short of an evolving vision of conscious health.

How should you navigate this spatial stratosphere?

You will soon be aligned by a power deep within yourself — a power that is pranic, self-aware. Aromatherapy may be the solution to what’s holding you back from an unfathomable source of wellbeing. As you reflect, you will enter into infinite hope that transcends understanding.

Greed is born in the gap where insight has been excluded. Greed is the antithesis of learning. Without faith, one cannot believe.

Only a child of the nexus may reveal this evolution of potential. The complexity of the present time seems to demand a maturing of our bodies if we are going to survive. You must take a stand against materialism.

You may be ruled by dogma without realizing it. Do not let it disrupt the knowledge of your path. Yes, it is possible to sabotage the things that can sabotage us, but not without life on our side. We can no longer afford to live with yearning.

The vector of serenity is now happening worldwide. It is time to take balance to the next level. This myth never ends.

---

Courtesy of this enlightening website.
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Mind over easy, modified 9 Years ago at 4/14/14 11:15 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 4/14/14 11:15 AM

RE: New-Age Wisdom

Posts: 285 Join Date: 4/28/12 Recent Posts
HAH! This is perfect. I wonder how many people read this thread, thinking... "yeah, this really resonates with me!".
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Daniel M Ingram, modified 9 Years ago at 4/14/14 3:16 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 4/14/14 3:16 PM

RE: New-Age Wisdom

Posts: 3268 Join Date: 4/20/09 Recent Posts
Wow, that so totally reminds me of much of what I grew up with from a certain unnamed family member.

Don't forget to pray with the mystic dream crystal for the alighment of the photon belts and the safe landing of the Mother Ship.
Eva Nie, modified 9 Years ago at 5/23/14 2:35 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/23/14 2:35 PM

RE: New-Age Wisdom

Posts: 831 Join Date: 3/23/14 Recent Posts
Admittedly, such talk sounds quite corny but just curious, what part of this are we SURE is wrong?  (ok well besides maybe that part about the aroma therapy)  Perhaps you don't realize it easily if you grew up with it or have been in it a long time, but the meditation jargon and ideas on this board sound at LEAST as ridiculous if not far more so to those who are not accustomed to them and to those who already have an attitude of rejection.  At least with the new age jargon, one does not need to consult wiki every 3 seconds to try to decode special abbreviations and meanings of industry specialist technical terms.  What is more funny sounding, air fairy concepts or airy fairy concepts squashed into psuedo scientific sounding technical jargon that are referred to by industry specific fancy abbreviations as if they were indisputable scientific facts?  This by an industry that is famous for philandering half naked shaved headed gurus who love to drive large numbers of expensive white cars while their scantily clad dusty barefoot minions bow to them as they pass and wait on them hand and foot with special platters of blessed vegan food?  To the average American raised in the average environment, both the airy fairy and the meditation dogma all sound stupid as hell!  Doesn't mean it's all wrong though, just that it does not comply with current cultural norms in America.  (and for this board, the airy fairy does not comply with current cultural norms for here).

This is kind of an aside but bare with me for a moment please.  I had this friend when I was growing up whose brother was dedicated to attaining enlightenment, hence, and I guess this made sense somehow in his mind, he was basically a jerk to anyone who did not agree with his goals.  So if his sister was dressing up to go to her prom or bought a piece of jewelry or any such 'materialist' thing, he would insult her and by rude to her saying she was selfish with her materialistic desires and hence not helping the world.  He said he did this to help her see the light.  Nobody liked this guy, not even his family, and he never helped out anyone because he thought that anything that was not his idea of the pursuit of enlightenment was a waste of time.   He didn't have a job and he sponged off his family lived in their house and ate their food so he would have time to sit and meditate all the time, their efforts for him he did not appreciate at all because he thought it was his due because his goals were so worthy.  To this day, I sometimes wonder how that guy progressed in his quest.  Was this the best path to enlightenment and did he make it?  Would such actions likely help his family become more enlightened? 

I am not sure exactly why I wanted to bring up that guy right here other than I think it has to do with the dangers of pointing fingers at others while at the same time regularly doing only a slightly different version of the exact same thing ourselves while being in considerable denial protected by considerable industry standard protective dogma.  Perhaps I consider myself  a bit of an expert at this since I've done it myself oh so many times.  :-)  But IMO, who we point fingers at has a lot more to do with us and our issues than it has to do with them and their issues.  Why does that thing about them seem so irritating in the first place might be a good question.

IMO society does much better with a variety of types of people and ideas.  For each dogma (and IMO much on this board IS dogma just as much of everything everywhere on Earth is dogma), there is typically other kinds of dogma that may help counterbalance.  For each dogma, some of it will be more right and some of it will be more wrong. IMO, if various dogmas are moving in directions such that they are becoming more right than they used to be and if the (WARNING AIRY FAIRY TERMINOLOGY ALERT, HIDE NOW IF YOU CAN'T TOLERATE IT) spirit and energy of it are moving in a direction that seems better than is used to be, even if it's not all 100% perfect 100% of the time, I personally think it's pretty cool.  
-Eva   
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Daniel M Ingram, modified 9 Years ago at 5/23/14 3:19 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/23/14 3:19 PM

RE: New-Age Wisdom

Posts: 3268 Join Date: 4/20/09 Recent Posts
For me, some if it is definitely personal, as I honestly recognize that I have a hard time sortint out what are my views on some things that happened with some people who are into very similar views and my views on the views themselves. Your point that our finger-pointing reveals much about ourselves is clearly true.

However, what a nexus child is I have no idea, which would seem to require some looking up somewhere, as somehow the concept and criteria for that are unclear to me. Anyone else stumble on that one?

Part of this is also generational and paradigmatic.

I don't, for instance, share the view that the global collective consciousness or whatever will automatically progress to some next level, that involving numerous assumptions and concepts I consider dubious. I personally do not hold some doctrine of general upwward progress being assured or actually even likely. This seems largely a Boomer thing that I find at best naive and at worst dangerous.

I totally agree that sexual and financial exploitation is rampant most spiritual camps to various degrees, with the various mainstream Buddhist and various New Age camps being right there in the thick of it.

I also agree it is best not to be some dogmatic asshole.

That said, I still find those sorts of vapid, rambling strings of nice-sounding but essentially unusable platitudes, speculations and vague dictums a general waste of time, IMNHO. It is the organic cotton-candy of the spiritual world, IMNHO.
Eva Nie, modified 9 Years ago at 5/23/14 4:39 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/23/14 4:39 PM

RE: New-Age Wisdom

Posts: 831 Join Date: 3/23/14 Recent Posts
"I don't, for instance, share the view that the global collective consciousness or whatever will automatically progress to some next level, that involving numerous assumptions and concepts I consider dubious. I personally do not hold some doctrine of general upwward progress being assured or actually even likely. This seems largely a Boomer thing that I find at best naive and at worst dangerous."

Yeah, I think probably nothing it 'automatic,' could be that such things could happen and maybe they will or maybe they won't.  But if we all got told what happens at the end of the movie while we were still in the middle of it, wouldn't that take out most of the fun out of it?  I don't know the whole future but I am leaving open the idea that it could be better and I don't really see positive thinking, even the vague and illogical sounding kind, as necesarily bad in and of itself.  Sure positive thinking without action won't do much but thinking tends to lead to action at least some of the time.  And I do think a counterbalance to Keeping up with the Kardashians, rampant consumerism, and poisoning the environment might be of some good in the long run.  Yep, I do think a lot of it is cotton candy, but I can't say it is of no use or never will be.  Very few people are going to spend millions of hours sitting on at mat kind of doing nothing just because some guy from thousands of years ago says there might be a kingdom of enlightenment and happiness awaiting them if they do. In fact, on the face of it, the whole thing sounds really really ridiculous, imo WAY WAY more stupid than being a nexus child (whatever that is!).  That was my belief for most of my life, so it's easy for me to see the perspective of 'normal' people and how ridiculous it all sounds.   Over time, I did come to believe there is important substance behind meditation, enlightenment, and a lot of other stuff.  Not to say there isn't a ton of cotton candy everywhere too.  In fact, over time, I find it really kind of amazing that everyone forms their own little private communities and laughs at the other communities, new agers, religions, yoga people, meditators, OBEers, lucid dreamers, remote viewers, and for the most part, they think the others are total lunatics and that only THEY have the right way of thinking of things.  But really each of the groups has a hell of a lot more in common than they would like to admit!  IMO, a lot of it has to do with perspective.  If you start with the perspective that the other group has nothing to offer, kind of an us vs them perspective, you will tend to see only the aspects that support your pre existing view.  In that story from my first post, my friend's brother's actions made perfect sense from his perspective and my friend's actions and beliefs made perfect sense from her perspective.  Which perspective do other people see it from?  What if you could see it from both perspectives at once and really understand both perspectives, then what would you think?

Sure, I have my personal opinions and what ways probably work best IMO currently.  But then again, in the past I was wrong a TON.  I was wrong so much I am an expert at being wrong. I practiced long and hard at being wrong and really became good at it.  So now I figure to be on the safe side, its easier and safer to realize I just don't know and probably there is all kinds of super cool stuff I don't know yet and don't understand.  I remember a while back when it was all the rage for new agers to talk about 'vibrations' and 'changing your DNA' and of course they got blasted to kingdom come by the scientific community and just about everyone else for saying things that were clearly impossible and stupid, and then some time passes and we start hearing about scientific knowledge of string theory, 'jumping genes' (aka transposons), epigenetics, etc, all stuff that really basically support that crackpot stuff.  (horrors!) Of course the scientists cringe if their research is ever cited in such a way because in their mind only their stuff can be right and the new age stuff is always no good and of course they don't want the two things ever to appear in the same room together for fear their image and research will be forever tarnished.  Personally, I think it's actually pretty funny.  I don't know how much of the new agers stuff will turn out to be for the good, if any, but I don't know either if it will be for the bad.  But maybe something that at least promotes kindness and improvement and yes, is even very likely QUITE responsible for the current popularity and mainstreaming of meditation might actually be an overall good thing in the long run. 
John Wilde, modified 9 Years ago at 5/23/14 5:43 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/23/14 5:42 PM

RE: New-Age Wisdom

Posts: 501 Join Date: 10/26/10 Recent Posts
Eva M Nie:
Admittedly, such talk sounds quite corny but just curious, what part of this are we SURE is wrong? -Eva   

Hi Eva. While I agree with much of what you've written here, your first line suggests that you might not have followed the link in the original post. The point is: the text was generated by machine. I don't think the intention was to ridicule the new age community so much as to have a laugh at the formulaic nature of much of its literature.
Eva Nie, modified 9 Years ago at 5/23/14 7:28 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/23/14 7:28 PM

RE: New-Age Wisdom

Posts: 831 Join Date: 3/23/14 Recent Posts
You are right, I didn't follow the link!  ;-P  Didn't notice it down there. When I saw a humor section was put in to make light of 'all this stuff' I had kind of assumed it would be you guys making fun of yourselves, which I thought was a genius idea because people tend to take themselves too seriously sometimes and also to not see their own flaws easily.  And I'd never seen that kind of suggestion before as an official section of a board.  However, the first 5 or so posts I clicked on just happened to be making a bit of fun of women and other groups, and not so much meditation, which can be shaky ground at times.  Easy to offend when pointing fingers at others instead of self.  Of course there are other posts more directly pointed as well.  But I don't think the truth can easily be gauged by level of vague formulaic dogma present as all groups have it.  And i do think that meditation dogma would also very easily also lend itself to similar formulaic generator programs that would produce weird sentences that could mean almost anything.  Of course, you've already got koans so maybe there is no need..   ;-P 
-Eva    
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Dream Walker, modified 9 Years ago at 5/23/14 7:50 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/23/14 7:50 PM

RE: New-Age Wisdom

Posts: 1657 Join Date: 1/18/12 Recent Posts
Daniel M. Ingram:

However, what a nexus child is I have no idea, which would seem to require some looking up somewhere, as somehow the concept and criteria for that are unclear to me. Anyone else stumble on that one?

Could only find Star Children | Indigo Children | Crystal Children| Rainbow Children. I didn't find any nexus children....but it sounds cool...if noone has taken it yet can I be one? I like it better than gen x...
Eva Nie, modified 9 Years ago at 5/23/14 9:08 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/23/14 9:08 PM

RE: New-Age Wisdom

Posts: 831 Join Date: 3/23/14 Recent Posts
As Daniel pointed out to me, the sentences were made by a computer that one assumes randomly chooses out of a list of words and plugs those words into various slots in the sentence.  Which means although the words themselves were likely chosen out of common new age terminology, how they get thrown together by the computer will not always be how they are used commonly by humans.  Anyway, there're certainly worse things to be called.  If I were you, I'd stake an official claim to it now, set down your rights as the official founder, and be ready to stand your ground when people start arguing about the definition and the inevitable dueling wikipedia article wars get started.  ;-P
-Eva
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Jeff Grove, modified 9 Years ago at 5/24/14 7:48 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/24/14 7:42 AM

RE: New-Age Wisdom

Posts: 310 Join Date: 8/24/09 Recent Posts
Eva I have had to read this thread a few times, I thought it was poking fun at dheepra chopra, I don't know how women was brought into this, it's a bit like seeing a snake when there is only a stick across the path which we have all probably experienced at some time
Eva Nie, modified 9 Years ago at 5/24/14 10:31 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/24/14 10:31 AM

RE: New-Age Wisdom

Posts: 831 Join Date: 3/23/14 Recent Posts
Well, under danger of beating a dead horse, what I was saying is a number of topics on the humor section appeared to be poking fun at others, for this thread, new agers (since the title is New Age Wisdom), and for other threads, women, for instance the thread called Do women nag enlightened men?   Since I've been known to whine about men myself once in a while and have been known to say stuff that I later regretted fairly often, I can't reasonably wag much of a finger over it, but the making fun of other groups besides yourself is a bit of a different kind of an expedition than the making fun of yourself and your own group, especially if members of those other groups are likely to come here and read it like I did.  I suspect that you will over time get more and more attention here.  It's the only place I've found that allowed me to make sense of the meditation community and all its many many conflicting bizarre, vague, and confusing assertions.  There are so many conflicting groups, beliefs, and terminologies, it's dizzying and I would guess it would have taken years and years of study otherwise to make even a beggining of a sense out of it.  I even went to read some of the old texts thinking I could get to the root of it faster that way but what I found was mostly pages and pages of instructions on how to make various kinds of sacrifices on alters at various times to various Gods in order to get various outcomes.  Let's just say I did not feel any more enlightened as a result!  So maybe the short version of what I am trying to say is, in regards to making fun of other groups, I think you guys are throwing rocks from a glass house.  ;-P
-Eva
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Daniel M Ingram, modified 9 Years ago at 5/24/14 9:42 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/24/14 9:42 PM

RE: New-Age Wisdom

Posts: 3268 Join Date: 4/20/09 Recent Posts
There truly is much that is funny about the various meditative traditions, no doubt about it from funny hats to absurd texts describing the craziest of things, to the strange and archaic notions of biology found in the Abhidhamma, there is a lot to laugh at. Please, lend a hand in this important work as you find sources of mirth and joy, as humor really helps.

Daniel
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Daniel M Ingram, modified 9 Years ago at 5/24/14 9:46 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/24/14 9:44 PM

RE: New-Age Wisdom

Posts: 3268 Join Date: 4/20/09 Recent Posts
Further, bask in the glow of the light of the rainbow union as the eternal star-vibe radiates its Pleiadian seven-fold essence through the entire moonbeam spectral range so that the cosmic alignment with the crystal God-form revoles upon the universal axis of love. Ah, this brings back memories of my childhood...
Eva Nie, modified 9 Years ago at 5/26/14 8:03 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/26/14 8:03 PM

RE: New-Age Wisdom

Posts: 831 Join Date: 3/23/14 Recent Posts
Thanks a lot!  Now I have a strange urge to go read the Abhidhamma.  Are you sure you didn't study advertising?  Anyway, 'vague/difficult to verify' and 'sounds/feels good,' are always great advertising tools, just swap out the moonbeams for any product of choice (viagra, politics, money, dating, toothpaste) and you are good to go.  Ooh, the clean minty freshness!  First you choose your preferred vague feel good dogma according to personality, upbringing, and appropriate brainwashing and/or monitary compensation, and then you must defend it vehemently and smite all attackers with your verbal prowess.  Then you must immediate high five your fellow cohorts and brag of your accomplishments far and wide.  Anything less is a severe threat to ones (perceived) identity!   Dang I hate it when I get sucked in too!  ;-P
-Eva

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