Here’s a new Open Thread. Remember, off-topic comments should go in an Open Thread or they may be deleted. Off-topic comments have been proliferating in posts on this blog. It’s good to have comments in a regular blog post related to its subject, and it’s also good to have a place where almost anything goes in regard to sharing ideas, feelings, experiences, and such. That place is an Open Thread. Leave a comment on this post about anything you want to talk about. And keep comments on other posts related to the topic.
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Thank you Brian Ji!
It’s helpful when we invite others to move a discussion that has veered off topic with a comment that includes a link to the current open thread. Thank you for providing a means for extended discussions as they meander while keeping the post comments on topic.
I just noticed ‘open threads’ is listed under topics and selecting that brings up this current open thread at the top. This makes for easy copy and paste of a link.
Just as a point for my commenting colleagues, it is also good etiquette when we move a discussion to open thread to include a link in the first comment back to the original post, so any interested readers can go back and see how the discussion got here…
And it helps search engines return the full discussion.
AI Overview
Truth is an absolute defense to slander and defamation, meaning a genuinely true statement cannot legally be considered slanderous in the United States.
A Sufi means a man of the heart, a man of love; a man who doesn’t bother about where this universe comes from, who doesn’t bother about who created it, who doesn’t bother about where it is leading—in fact, who doesn’t ask any questions. Rather, on the contrary, he starts living.
Existence is there: only fools bother about where it comes from. Only fools, I say. They may have shrouded themselves in very cunning philosophical words, but they are fools.
A man who is wise lives existence. It is here and now! Why bother about where it comes from? What does it matter where it comes from? Whether somebody creates it or not is irrelevant. You are here, throbbing, alive—dance with existence! Live it! Be it! And allow it to happen in its total mystery within you.
And this is the miracle: a person who doesn’t bother about where it comes from, a person who doesn’t ask questions, receives the answers.
A man who is not curious, but is celebrating whatsoever is there—whatsoever is the case, he is celebrating it—suddenly becomes aware of the very source, and suddenly becomes aware of the very culmination.
End and beginning meet in him—because he himself becomes the mystery.
Now the mystery is not something which is there as an object that you have to go around and around and see and look at and observe. No, because that is not the way to know it. That is the way to miss it.
You may go around and around, about and about, but you will never penetrate into it. How can you know? You are beating around the bush. Your attack is on the periphery.
Rather, penetrate into it. Go to its center—become it.
And you can become, because you are part of it.
And you can become, because it is part of you.
And then suddenly all questioning dissolves.
Suddenly the answer is there.
It is not that you have come to a solution to your problems. No. There are no problems at all.
When there are no problems at all, for the first time you become capable—capable of living the mystery that is life, capable of living God, capable of being gods.
ÖshÖ 💞
Hi Tej
Everyone has their own ideas about a person who is
“a man of the heart, a man of love; a man who doesn’t bother about where this universe comes from, who doesn’t bother about who created it, who doesn’t bother about where it is leading—in fact, who doesn’t ask any questions. Rather, on the contrary, he starts living.”
Not so sure that the ideal person has these qualities. These are Osho’s ideal, and I guess they are yours.
But that are only self-evident when they are not seen. Not observed, not viewed from any other Osho’s than their own.
A person who loves purely may be very curious.
They may love discovery, and see new dynamics as they learn to truly observe.
Where we came from and where we are going might just be sources of wonder, awe, excitement and pleasure for the true person of love, if the heart, for life is dynamic and that person may live it dynamically.
Osho describes a static state, a static intellect. Maybe that is also loving.
But is it living? It could be resignation, even depression.
A smug person may also have disinterest in anything new. A person who doesn’t understand that for anything live it must grow. A person who thinks they know so much they need not learn anything else.
“Those who aren’t busy being born are busy dying.”
Bob Dylan
I agree with the father of Renzai Zen, who wrote over 2000 years ago that these ideas are just empty forms.
In other words, they may be fine to help us form questions, which keeps the mind open, but not answers which creates the false illusion of understanding. And that mental understanding, as a thought we hold onto, gets in the way of seeing.
Since it’s open thread, here I go…
“All I see and hear is blah blah blah…”
– My alter Ego
Yes, learn to step back and observe. The entire creation can be seen in the very heart of your hatred.
A grudge can become a stepping stone, if you are willing to look past it.
As Linzu Li wrote, Any answer you can think is wrong.
IMHO Osho is wrong to suggest we only ask questions when we have a problem, and we don’t ask questions when we know the truth.
We ask questions for the sheer joy of curiosity and the desire to grow when we are one with life, which is always at work and play, discovering and creating.
And we don’t ask questions when we are asleep.
Spence,
After re-reading your message today.
I agree with your sentiments.
Thank you for the input on Osho’s quote which I shared above.
Though, I think the quote is complete unto itself.
Ronald,
In relation to your comments from previous blog post.
Here’s a link about a Burmese monk who died conciously.
I saw the original footage many years ago before AI was in existence, but the original video seems to have been taken down.
The original video shows how his students prepared for his departure, and how he left his body conciously while lying down, surrounded by his students.
https://youtube.com/shorts/w4GmEt6kHUI?si=UQ9OdIC9h84MDXzP
https://youtube.com/shorts/qpNRqBvAYC8?is=wJkt9lsasKimhJJY
In relation to my name
Spencer,
You must be a troll.
If you are for real, than that is enough proof that God exists.
Brian, and all the rest of the atheists might as well start praying now 🤣🙏✨
Tej
I’ve been accused of being of being a troll before, and so I asked Gemini to define an internet troll.
“An internet troll is a person who deliberately posts offensive, misleading, or provocative messages online to upset others and elicit strong emotional reactions”
Nothing I’ve posted is offensive. I offer a different view point about the subject which I believe in. They are never misleading, but it may be that some don’t understand. I make a point to avoid name calling or personal remarks.
For example, I might disagree with your viewpoint, but I would never indulge in name calling.
However, where you have a point is in the other qualities of a troll. While I strive to express philosophical opinions, some may take it as provocative. I am always interested in dialogue and when I share a different view that may be taken as provocative.
What sort of dialogue has any value that is all in the same camp? People stroking each other’s ego? I find that provocative, and usually contains some misleading content. So I call it out.
Now as to the remaining parts, “upset others and elicit strong emotional reactions”
If a different perspective, even a direct disagreement, triggers unpleasant strong emotions such that tge opinion is outside your boundaries of recreation, please say so. You won’t hear back from me. But also do me the kindness to leave my name out of your remarks. Then you will never have to read a reply from me.
Otherwise, if seems to me that in this Church of the Churlish we ought to be able to take what we dish out.
Leave my name out and you’ll only see my comments on the subject of the post.
I will have to call the father of Renzai from his grave, to come and whack you with his Zen stick.
Or maybe I have to disturb Renzai himself also, as I don’t think that one zen stick is enough for you.
Should I disturb them? Both of them are in a deep Mahasamadhi, but I’m sure they would come back to meet such a challenge like you.
I’m afraid you are right. They gave me tea. But here come the sticks!
Only God would be compassionate and creative enough to create an Idiot like you… typing yourself to death, when nobody is reading.
What great sense of humour God has.
I think I am a firm believer now. I have discovered him through your existence. Thank you Spence for being the village Idiot 😊🙏✨
Tej
Relative to God I am most certainly a complete idiot.
And relative to my relatives I also fit the bill at least twice a day.
Every village does need its idiot.
I’m foolish enough to think my comments are just as interesting to others as yous.
But that is the fool’s paradise I live in.
A paradise where I don’t need to call any one else a fool, ever.
For that is a great burden, and I’m happy to be free of it.
Has anybody looked up the definition of a village Idiot?
This is a real case study.
Spence,
Now that I’m finished with my alter Ego. I’m sorry for calling you an Idiot or a village idiot. Please accept my sincere apologies ✨🙏✨
And sorry for mentioning your name again, after you have requested me not to. I don’t promise that this is the last time. So bare with me.
It’s just that when someone shares an art work, a quote, an insight, or even just an opinion. You don’t have to always have the last word, with your unnecessary commentary. Nobody cares!
Just enjoy and appreciate what the others have posted! Silently! Drink it in.
And, if you really want to say something, than say it after you have given yourself and the other some space.
There’s no need to be keyboard happy, or a keyboard gangsta.
Than I’m sure others will value what you have to say as much as anyone else, except for may be Ronald! (Hehe, I had to plug that one in, sorry Ronald, you did it to yourself!)
Ps. Oh, and apologies for calling you a troll. But, I do believe in God now!
Hi Tej:
Your guidelines are solid, your feedback hits the mark (ouch, but thanks!) and I will strive to follow them. A lot of wisdom there in giving people a real chance, real time and space to have their own voice.
Spence
I’m glad I’ve come across this site, and think it has helped me understand better what I believe and my direction through life. It is not the pro or anti RSSB comments as such, but the sincerity of those who post comments and blogs, the freedom to express what people really feel, a freedom of speech not often found elsewhere.
Mr. Tepper, making coffee a strange thought did arise in my mind …. words of truth cannot be spoken by anybody at anytime.
Later trying to get into it I was reminded of a personal incident with mcs……were he said to me ……… do you think they want it handed by you ?
Words of truth need something to carry them if it is not there the words are not moving
And another thought did arise …
The memory of him saying … talking is just an excuse for being together
Being together listening to words, something else is there too … that something else … can be experienced, “seen”, aware of… complex, simple etc.
The way to listen to words can be different and the key to the something else.
Maybe you have come to know gifted story tellers … I had one … my maternal grandmother that for many years looked after me. She would tell always tell the same stories and I knew every inch of the tale, what she was going to saying her changing of her face and voice …and I never could get enough of it …every time she would tell the same story it would become more brilliant.
It was mesmerizing …
I have had it with others too …especially mcs
His “telling tales” was soothing … so much so that I was drawn to look at him … gazing without focus … without intent at that time …now many, many years later I have come to understand that my attention was locked on his body and his body was “speaking” … speaking a language of it is own.
His bodily presence was like the perfume shop were you smell the perfume without entering the shop, without buying the perfume, without seeing the artisan producer.
Words are just the bricks if the shop so to say
His representative used the word ..atmosphere.
That said … you have to like and appreciate the smell too … hahaha
A stitch in time saves nine
And … having passed that shop … there is no reason, motivation need to find another shop, nor is something lost now the shop has closed, nor is there any reason, motivation to find out about perfumes, perfume making.
The only thing … maybe …is to have gratitude and a smile remembering 😊….maybe it is not needed even, or misplaced…what was received cannot be taken away … like the last little salt added to making minestra di porri, riso e patate.
Watching casa pappagallo making it on YouTube
And …
You should not want to desire, long for more and other food than you can properly digest .. irrespective of the praise given to it by eloquent connoisseurs.
The child consuming the mothers milk does an can only digest milk and only due to how it us given and by whom.
As a grown up he might be educated in such an way that he can appreciate to eat at mona s 5 star restaurant… a place were only the wealthy can go and from the wealthy not even all….their preparations are not palabel to all and everyone.
Yet all are fed and enjoy their food.
No need to pronounce loudly … I do eat at mona’s …as the saying of mcs goes… in order for you to say … I eat .. two conditions are to be fulfilled… there has to be food on the table = there has to be mona’s 5 star restaurant and there must be hunger = you must like that tipe of food, have the talent to appreciate it and the means to afford it …. and …these are ..
A L L ….G I V E N
Radha Soami. I cancel everything I said because you changed my mind. I’m gonna come back to RSSB. I thank you for helping me, brother.
LOL.
By no means do so
Stay away as far and as long as you can.
Find something you can devote yourself to wholeheartedly …
I do hope no drugs, tiktok
Anon
No one wants you to go backward. .
Move forward.
Beautifully stated Um.
Today I’m touched by your words.
Hahaha …and that for the only real unbeliever in this saloon
There is wisdom in your words Um.
We disagree on some points, maybe major ones.
But the truthfulness of what you wrote cuts through all that.
I’m grateful for seeing it.
My own insincerity is reflected in my rear view mirror and now we know why we left , right Anon. No regrets.
I’m actually touching myself while reading your words. Back when words meant something we kept our mouth shut. And people are still keeping it shut they just text and type except now they’re poseurs. Remember when they told you that you could be anything or anybody that you wanted to be online ?That was the beginning of the end.
All of Poseur Baba’s and Hosed huzur’s lies are from the creative Source too. Totally created for your listening and watching pleasure. The only thing you’re ever right about is that they are not the real master. Made up whoppers from the chopper. And I’ve watched them do it!
https://youtu.be/ed620ZmBMyo?si=cm4xVvC4A-QXtCkj
Mr. Tepper
I am in the process of watching on ARTE an documentary on what humans believe … all modern religious expressions that are around are shown
Looking at it i am filled with disgust by lack of an suitable word
I have to force myself to hold on to the end of the hourly documentation.
The religious uniforms, the masses, the huge cities …they all fill me with disgust about what humans are doing to themselves
How far have they driven away from being natural just natural being in nature
I would I could scream, weep vomit and explode from anger … but I can’t
And than those pass the screen as academics describing these religious forms the anthropologist
Formal religion is a curse
Hi Um
I can see how strongly you had an adverse reaction to the documentary on modern religious expressions.
There is information, and then there is our conditioned reaction to it.
In all cases we find the information is incomplete and we end up connecting the dots according to our own dogma.
This is confirmation bias at work.
I find it helpful when looking at a view I don’t agree with to step back as a second step and identify and list what is positive, in my view, in what I observed in the opposing position I don’t like.
It helps me respect why others think and do as they do. And I also refine my own perspective too. My view may become a little softer than it was. I see elements of what I believe in the “opposition”, so that we don’t have two distinct views anymore, but different shades of the identical human situation.
I may still not agree, but in the process I may learn something. I challenge myself to do so.
Peter Drucker, the management guru, once wrote that first there is the executive who has had twenty years solid experience, and then, secondly, there is the executive who has had one year of experience repeated twenty times.
The first, the one with twenty years real experience and growth is worth far more as a leader of people than the second: 1,000 times more valuable to the organization and all its people at every level.
We ourselves must do the work of building the former, to be the first kind of people, and avoiding the latter, the second kind.
Please make the inner experiences stop !! This is your last warning ! Let me show you how an Aggie wipes his ass. Sending back my MBE because cold turkey never made it in the top 10
https://youtube.com/shorts/qpNRqBvAYC8?is=wJkt9lsasKimhJJY
I’m going back to paper too Mr. Sri.👍😂
They showed shots of religious gatherings, im Rome, japan, india, Israel etc …I saw al these people dressed up as in an opera, lost in their religious roles as clergy, devotee etc … followed by bloodless academics talking and writing what the others are doing…following by scenery of huge world cities, the billboards, the masses ….and it seemed an global conspiracy …playing themselves out as humans in roles … I saw people in mental prisons not being aware…. I just feel miserable.
Tomorrow it will be over and I will be able to rejoice for all those that have found their way in believing to be something different than they are …. humans
But now I feel miserable about this human role play, this disgusting theater …not knowing who an what they are and holding on to their own fantasmas making themselves believe that they are going somewhere
I am sorry to write it down
http://www.arte.tv
” a world of faith”
I’ll tell you right now why they don’t speak about inner experiences anymore, just relaxation. It’s because LSD can give you an inner experience. Drugs can give you an inner experience and that’s why people in India are turning to drugs. They don’t believe the hype anymore. And having a good cop bad cop scenario isn’t going to help the criminals become spiritual. The criminals already are spiritual because to live outside the law you must be honest. Following your duty might get you a paycheck but it’s not going to get you into heaven anymore . It’s already over crowded from your dirty little wars. Every cop is a criminal and all the sinners, saints!
Just try to be a good person because what’s the use of the body becoming numb and you going up in some upper region then coming back down and still being a vindictive narcissist like Batman and Robin ? What’s the use of that? It’s only of some use if you’re trying to rob your nephews of their business by pretending to be their daddy and granddaddy. I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.
Come on ask me what some of my visions were. I saw that many people from miles around will come see me play my guitar when the Sun goes down. I dreamed my name would be up in lights saying Sawan be good tonight! This message totally approved by rssb. Accept no substitutes. Oh wait a minute we have a substitute teacher band who can’t sing. Pepé Le Pew and the Shallow Few !
Babaji can go back to when he was a kid and achieve concentration by reading the back of his cereal box in the morning. I noticed he might want to go easy on the milk and maybe be vegan without it being mandatory. At his age the only thing mandatory is Viagra. Less milk more cereal. Everything he does is out of wedlock now. Not counting altar boys. The shallow few better start sleeping with their back ends against the wall, right Pablo?
I’ll ask for advice when I need another vice 🙏😂
White collar conservative flashing down my street pointing his plastic finger at me . Hoping my kind will soon drop and die but I’m going to wave my freak flag high. Hi 👋
You know what’s not going to happen anymore. Secret societies. That’s the greatest achievement of the internet and will remain the one greatest achievement of the internet. It did away with secrets and secret societies. Think about it that’s how you got busted Gurinder . Of course you’re not in jail because that’s where the innocent and good people are. And they are as safe as milk compared to the chaos you cause by just walking around.
The internet has become a little too safe, predictable, boring and it’s like yellow snow now. I am going to call my friend Ronald and drag him to my commune in downtown Los angeles. It’s more like a fortress or a compound. A lot like rappers places except no decomposing bodies in the trunk. Just enough danger for a snowflake like Ron. What happened to the days when people made you go with them ? Maybe how now we can get some writing done. We have no respect for the status quo .
How about we finish that country song . I Did It Out of Love ( She Did It Out of Wedlock).
I feel guilty not finishing that song but we might feel more guilty after we finish it. Unless Babaji says we’re friends and not guilty !