…the doctrinal differences between Hinduism and Buddhism and Taoism are not anywhere near as important as doctrinal differences among Christianity and Islam and Judaism. Holy wars are not fought over them because verbalized statements about reality are never presumed to be reality itself.

3 weeks ago  /  0 notes

“Here’s to our 2012 being magical, synchronistic, surprising and resilient. A year where everything might change, but what’s truly important is found to be indestructible. A year where dreams are no longer just dreams, where reality grows on trees, and people can do what they imagine. A time where you’ll meet exactly those you need to meet. A space where those things connect that fit. May you feel at home in the fabric of life.”

1 month ago  /  52 notes  /  Source: amiquote

In India two amusing figures are used to characterize the two principal types of religious attitude. One is “the way of the kitten”; the other, “the way of the monkey.” When a kitten cries “Miaow,” its mother, coming, takes it by the scruff and carries it to safety; but as anyone who has ever traveled in India will have observed, when a band of monkeys come scampering down from a tree and across the road, the babies riding on their mothers’ backs are hanging on by themselves. Accordingly, with reference to the two attitudes: the first is that of the person who prays, “O Lord, O Lord, come save me!” and the second of one who, without such prayers or cries, goes to work on himself. In Japan the same two are known as tariki, “outside strength,” or “power from without,” and jiriki, “own strength,” “effort or power from within.” And in the Buddhism of that country these radically contrasting approaches to the achievement of enlightenment are represented accordingly in two apparently contrary types of religious life and thought.

1 month ago  /  0 notes

Most of them yearn for girls, long for soft downy bodies with the basest for of urgency they are ever to experience, and the desire will never be quenched in their lifetimes. They can never satiate that adolescent lust since they can never again conjure up quite the same desperation.

1 month ago  /  0 notes  /  Source: amazon.com

Streams of giant green laser beams were shooting throughout the entire warehouse, which was the size of ten football fields. Fog machines helped create a sense of dreamlike surrealism as everyone faced the DJ and moved in unison to the beat of the music. Cans of Red Bull were strewn everywhere, and ultraviolet black lights caused the fluorescent decorations on the walls and ceilings to glow as if they were alien plants transported from another universe.

But it wasn’t just about the decorations, or the black lights, or the fog machines, or the lasers, or the massiveness of the warehouse. Something else about the scene and moment elicited an emotional response from my entire being that was completely unexpected, and I couldn’t really place my finger on exactly what it was or why I felt that way.

I tried to analyze what was different about this scene compared with the nightclub scene that I was more accustomed to. Yes, the decorations and lasers were pretty cool, and yes, this was the largest single room full of people dancing that I had ever seen. But neither of those things explained the feeling of awe that I was experiencing that was leaving me speechless. As someone who is usually known as being the most logical and rational person in a group, I was surprised to feel myself swept with an overwhelming sense of spirituality—not in the religious sense, but a sense of deep connection with everyone who was there as well as the rest of the universe.

There was a feeling of no judgment, and as I glanced around the warehouse, I saw each person as an individual to be appreciated for just being himself or herself, dancing to the music.

As I tried to analyze what was going on in more detail, I realized that the dancing here was different from the dancing I usually witnessed in nightclubs. Here, there was no sense of self-consciousness or feeling that anyone was dancing to be seen dancing, whereas in nightclubs, there was usually the feeling of being on display somehow. In nightclubs, people usually dance with each other. Here, it seemed that almost everyone was facing the same direction. Everyone was facing the DJ, who was elevated up on stage, as if he was channeling his energy to the crowd. It almost felt as if everyone was worshipping the DJ.

The entire room felt like one massive, united tribe of thousands of people, and the DJ was the tribal leader of the group. People weren’t dancing to the music so much as the music seemed like it was simply moving through everyone. The steady wordless electronic beats were the unifying heartbeats that synchronized the crowd. It was as if the existence of individual consciousness had disappeared and been replaced by a single unifying group consciousness, the same way a flock of birds might seem like a single entity instead of a collection of individual birds. Everyone in the warehouse had a shared purpose. We were all contributors to the collective rave experience.

I didn’t know it at the time, but ten years later I would learn that research from the field of the science of happiness would confirm that the combination of physical synchrony with other humans and being part of something bigger than oneself (and thus losing momentarily a sense of self) leads to a greater sense of happiness, and that the rave scene was simply the modern-day version of similar experiences that humans have been having for tens of thousands of years.

In the moment though, I felt a sense of experiential epiphany. It swept through my entire being. In that instant, I suddenly understood the appeal of the techno music. I couldn’t simply listen to it the way I listened to music on the radio. I had to let it flow through me in the context of a mind-set that I hadn’t really experienced until just now. It was like someone had bestowed on me the Rosetta Stone of techno music, and no amount of verbal explanation would have helped me understand it. I had to experience it for myself.

And in that one instant, I did. I had awakened. I had been transformed.

Finally, after all these years, I understood what the music was all about.

3 months ago  /  0 notes

Our separation from each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.

3 months ago  /  56 notes  /  Source: amiquote