The Secret (Splat or not?)

[Guest guest]

--- Marge Clark <marge wrote:

 

> A lot of people tend to/try to ignore " things of the

> spirit " ... but... if

> ignored... just like the law of gravity... you can

> ignore it all you want,

> and pretend it doesn't exist all you want... but

> the fact remains,

> believe or disbelieve, if you walk off a ten story

> high rooftop, you ARE

> going to go SPLAT...

 

:-)))))) LOL!

 

Hi Marge, I have not seen the movie yet, but I totally

agree that most all Spiritual Paths teach pretty much

the same techniques, of course with " flavor "

differences, to reach the top of the mountain

(enlightenment), at least in the fundamental levels.

 

And I agree for most of us SPLAT would be a definite

ending to stepping off into space, but (and I

personally think this is *really* cool) it cannot be

ignored that there are some pretty odd and interesting

stories and evidence of things deemed impossible by

Newtonian physics, such as literal walking through

walls, bi-location, creation of a... hmmmmmmm..... I

can't remember the name of it, but creation of a

separate entity that looks and acts human and has the

capacity of independent action. Of course in the

little-bit-less unbelievable category, there's what we

now call " remote viewing " , and gTumo (heat yoga), and

lots of other interesting seemingly impossible feats

of " yoga " .

 

Some of these have been studied and verified by

Western Science, gTumo and Herbert Benson comes

immediately to mind.

http://www.samyelingshop.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=748 & osCsid=12e\

60a46f4685

Interestingly, Tibetan Buddhism cultivates at least

some of these feats; but Zen while acknowledging the

existence of unusual facilities that can occur, even

spontaneously, on the Path, Zen ignores or even

actively discourages taking notice of such

" distractions " .

 

If anyone is interested in some more info about

unlikely physical feats from spiritual study and

practice, books by Alexandra David-Neel are my

personal favorites (the ones about her, are to my

mind, not nearly as interesting).

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b/102-0248975-4201771?url=search-alias%3Dstrip\

books & field-keywords=david-neel

I think my favorite of hers is Magic and Mystery in

Tibet. She has some wonderful descriptions of gTumo

in her books, which until Benson did his study was

thought to be... well the polite word would be

" fiction " ;-) Once Benson verified gTumo, kinda

makes you wonder what else she described that might

not be fiction.

 

The upshot being that for some, SPLAT might not be a

foregone conclusion. I like that. It helps me

maintain a high level of awe and wonder at the

Universe. Awe and wonder help fuel my quest and

certainly keep my mind open to all possibilities.

 

KD

 

 

 

 

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[Guest guest]

but (and I

personally think this is *really* cool) it cannot be

ignored that there are some pretty odd and interesting

stories and evidence of things deemed impossible by

Newtonian physics, such as literal walking through

walls, bi-location, creation of a... hmmmmmmm....-. I

can't remember the name of it, but creation of a

separate entity that looks and acts human and has the

capacity of independent action

 

[Dave:] If you haven’t already, you should read Autobiography Of A Yogi by

Paramahansa Yogananda. It contains many such stories, and I see no reason

to doubt that they are true on some level. You might also google Arthur

Ford. He was reportedly able to do such things, as was Aleister Crowley.

I’m sure not all the stories are true but my gut tells me that many of them

are. I remember reading a review of one of Carlos Castaneda’s books in

which the writer said that one hopes at least some of his tales are true,

because otherwise we are looking at a very, very sick person. So there’s

your grain of salt. Stick it in your pocket and carry it with you.

 

I think it’s fascinating that while mystics and gurus have said for

thousands of years that the material world is an illusion, it was not until

the 20th century that scientists began to reach the same conclusion. The

studies of quantum mechanics suggest that nothing is really what it seems at

all. We know that things are made of atoms – which, when you pin them down,

turn out to be pretty much nothing but vibrations. Einstein, by the way,

didn’t trust quantum physics, but then he spent the last twenty or so years

of his life grasping at a unified field theory that eluded him. Obviously

he was missing something. Heisenburg’s Uncertainty Principle set Newtonian

physics on its ear.

 

The world isn’t a clockwork. The tinier we can see or measure, the weirder

things get. They’ve found that they can determine the velocity of a

particle or its location, but not both. They’ve found that the very act of

measuring something changes it. Even the act of observing submolecular

events changes them. Now, some folks think that even thinking about

observing or measuring these events has an effect on their outcome. The

quark zigs instead of zags. Manifestation of intent, also known as magic or

miracle; also full circle to the ancient concept of mâyâ, illusion. Jesus

handled this stuff with ease.

 

Atoms are mostly empty space. Matter is simply condensed energy, and when

matter decays, energy is released. In theory there is no reason you or I

couldn’t walk through walls or on water, see what is going on in each

other’s living rooms, or create a walking, talking double. If you really

know that everything is one and is alive, then as part of that whole things

become easier – easier to believe, easier to see, easier to do.

 

The question for me is, what’s the point? Not what was Jesus’ point in

doing such things, but what would be the point of me wanting to do such

things? One thing gleaned from Yogananda’s book is that it takes many years

of meditation and learning to achieve the ability to float through the air

or create a double. Not only that, but a guy who can float through the air

is always a different guy than the one who can be buried for a month and be

dug up alive or the one that walks through fire or eats poison or sleeps

with scorpions and cobras. Seems to me that the best axiom here is

Schrödinger’s cat. Schrödinger used the illustration of a cat in a box with

a poison and a trigger that will set loose the poison at an undetermined

time. The event will end with a dead cat, but we don’t know when, and we

can’t tell without opening the box. The point is that many of the questions

themselves are meaningless.

 

The vision quest thing is definitely part of my life. My dad studied

shamanism, but not before I did. I spend a lot of time in the desert. I

like hiking and camping. I have a gift for finding prehistoric sites, and

I like to meditate at them. But if I was going to retire to a cave and eat

berries for a time, I’d hope to come out with something better than a few

parlor tricks. My dad had a whole bag of tricks, but he was still a jerk.

Aliester Crowley was a jerk and worse. I have a few tricks of my own, but

they’re for my education and not for impressing people with more money than

sense. And there are folks who think I’m a jerk, too.

 

So I agree that it’s both cool and fascinating that these things exist.

They provide a doorway to a sense of reality that’s beyond what we were

taught. I think the easiest thing to do with such knowledge is misuse it.

I don’t think it’s something most of us are meant to reach for. And if some

of it does come our way and open up a glimpse of what’s beyond that door,

then it is a gift to be used with reverence. Because it can also lead to a

kind of insanity which is what we see in people like Crowley.

 

 

 

 

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