--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues"
<curtisdeltablues@...> wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Ravi Yogi" raviyogi@ wrote:
> >
> > Steveji - Just to let you know I was just joking on the "god hater"
> > part. I don't know if God is a non-negotiable tenant for me, I was
> > mostly anti-God most of my life. For me the most satisfying answers
come
> > from text like Yoga Vasishtha and Tripura Rahasya - that the concept
of
> > a dream explains it most and that the existence is just a long,
> > sustained dream of the creator. So how can I, the dream object of
this
> > creator truly understand the nature and agents through which the
creator
> > is sustaining this dream like existence. So I am at the same place
as
> > you are, the only thing that can be done for now is to realize the
dream
> > like quality of this existence and to just be joyous and playful
while
> > being in the dream and enjoy the ride with a childlike wonder !!! So
the
> > question of trying to understand or philosophize about while being
in
> > his or her dream seems to be a fruitless activity.
>
>
> Jesus, I mean Krishna, I mean Ambika Ravi. High five brother! I have
vastly underestimated you.
>
Thank you, may be with your endorsement Rick can finally rest with
ease..LOL..not that I give a damn, I tricked him the first time around
and thats good enough for me..:-). Have to thank Barry in fact for
making sure my video is still online.
> I don't feel that seeing our beautiful creation and life itself as
illusion or a dream is productive.
"Being productive" is something I have struggled with a lot. And after
my experiences in fact I got depressed a coupld of times because I was
not sure what I wanted to do - I even wanted to become a homeless
mendicant..:-). It took me some time to slowly integrate and balance and
come to my senses. Luckily I had and have the guidance of my Guru
Ammachi who's guiding me to actually put it into practice - she's
created situations where I do seva (service) at the ashram and she sent
me people along where I was forced to develop empathy even though I knew
that they were just so identified with their misery, but since I was
miserable myself in the past it was easy to picture myself in their
shoes. I do a good job of entertaining everyone with my playful humor no
doubt pissing off a lot of serious mature, responsible people who think
spirituality is a very very serious business and others who can't
believe I can be joyful after my painful divorce and not being around my
kids; some especially Indians shocked at my carefree behavior after
believing the story of my ex on how I abandoned her and the kids.
Tripura Rahasya (Chapter 3 to 10) has a beautiful story to illustrate
how you could still view the existence as dream like and still be
productive. The story of how Princess Hemalekha, a jivan mukta (realized
while living) transforms her husband the Prince and how the whole city
then eventually became jivan muktas themselves.
It ends with :
"The whole state was thus composed only of sages and philosophers, be
they men or women; servant boys or servant-maids, dramatic actors or
fashionable folk; artisans or laborers; ministers or harlots. They
nevertheless acted in their professions in harmony with creation. They
never cared to recapitulate the past or speculate on the future with a
view to gain pleasure or avoid pain, but acted for the time being (in
the present moment), laughing, rejoicing, crying or shouting like
drunkards, thus dissipating all their latent tendencies".
This is where I feel the caste system was so misunderstood but was so
helpful in the past, people understood their samskaras (innate
tendencies), people never married out of the caste, because only an
intellectual (Brahmin) could be born to an intellectual set of parents -
all the rules were laid down and it was just so easy for everyone to act
according to their dharma("right action") which made it easy for people
to attain liberation and not to be confronted with the dreaded question
"how could they be productive". As you can see the question wouldn't
even arise.
I'm not advocating to going to the past, but you can see how the caste
system was based on dharma and identify the "samskaras". Obviously with
the advent of Kali Yuga all the rules have changes. People have lost the
importance of samskaras and dharma.
That's why I get mad and react the way I do when I see people here
condemning the Bhagavad Gita as one of the dangerous books in the
history of mankind - sorry but they don't get it. It might not be
entirely applicable to Kali Yuga but it offers interesting insights,
certainly there's no reason to condemn it.
> But I catch the humility with which you express our human condition
and I dig it.
>
I think any genuine experience should make one more humble. And love and
compassion are important values to inculcate so one doesn't turn cold
and heartless to human plight. That is why I keep repeating to people
that Ammachi's whole purpose is to develop the heart chakra - love,
empathy, compassion. In fact all she recommends is devotion, love and
crying to god which is thoroughly unpalatable to the Western audience.
> "enjoy the ride with a childlike wonder" another perfect tattoo.
>
Thank you, I think the more intellectual you get the more you lose this
wonder and hence the need for a "use-by" date for the intellect in
spiritual matters.
I rarely watch TV but my roommate last week turned on a program called
"River Monsters" - the episode was about "Kali River Goonch attacks"
where British biologist Jeremy Wade concludes that a man eating Catfish
could be responsible for a string of attacks that killed a couple of
young men. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kali_River_goonch_attacks
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kali_River_goonch_attacks> ). Wade
concludes on how he is eager to solve the mystery but the villagers are
simple and don't believe there is a mystery to be solved, they don't
understand Wade's fascination - the boys time had come and they had just
died. That was for me a good example of child like wonder, you could see
the intellectual scientist wanting to help the innocent villagers who
themselves don't see any need for being helped.
