Let Go of The Need to Save The Planet by Thich Nhat Hahn

[Hammer of Los]

..

Not My Will, but Thy Will be Done.

I know you know Harv.

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[wordspeak2]

Just to say- a couple of my close friends who encountered Thich Nhat Hahn at Omega Institute didn't like him at all, described him as extremely elitist. I thought that was relevant, but perhaps not.

Personally, I'm not so into a spirituality that doesn't involve psychoactive plants. He should be using his fame to be out there fighting for the medical marijuana movement right now. Why are we letting go of the need to save the planet? Buddhism is weird.

[Hammer of Los]

I really think maybe all gurus are just idiots like the rest of us.

[wordspeak2]

Gurus are worse, imo. The wisdom is found amongst the rabble.
Then you got all the sexual abuse scandals of "gurus" at places like Kripalu Institute. Hardly shocking. New-ageism is just an incarnation of bogus capitalist religion.

[The Consul]

I once new a man who was in love with this beautiful woman. He could not stop talking about her, he could not stop thinking about her. It was hard to be around him except for the rare moments when he realized how ridiculous he had allowed himself to become. He tried everything he could think of to win her affections. Gifts, wonderful words, supremely organized suprise parties, a well modulated display of devotion even though she had cycled through two or three romances while he remained obsessed with her. Then I went away and travelled and did not see this man for quite some time. One day in a waiting area of LAX I we spotted each other. We caught up on our lives and actually had enough time to remenis. I asked him about the woman, how she was, if anything ever happened between them. "No," he said, "one night I had a dream that I asked her to marry me and she said no and laughed in my face. In a rage I took her throat in my hands and strangled her. When I awoke I was horrified. It felt so real I was sweating and shaking. It was then I realized my so called love was just a dream." He laughed a bit, shaking his head, "in fact," he added "I've come to the conclusion that this whole shooting match is just a dream."
His flight boarding gate called.
We shook hands and embraced like brothers that seldom parted.
I have not heard from him since.

[Luther Blissett]

"The toxic atmosphere in which we live" sounds a bit like so many Cosbies telling victims of imperialist wars that they need to step up their parenting game to overcome the whole child warrior thing. I think my only real main problem with the article is that he's missing the authoritarian angle and I'm not sure how or why.

p.s. I do think that sometimes, Cosby fills a need. Maybe more or less than Thich Nhat Hahn.

[alwyn]

there are 'gurus' and there are Gurus...... I've met both kinds... one of the more interesting ones said that we have no need to 'save the world'...the world can get along just fine without us.....

our challenge may be, indeed, to fully open ourselves to the 'world' and to move with it into it's new phase...or we end up just so much stardust static....in the cosmic scheme of things it matters not.

or it's not matter!

[Hammer of Los]

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No Matter!

Never Mind!

God's in his Heaven all's well with the world.

There is truth in that statement.

The ultimate victory of good is assured.

It's really just a kind of game. Isn't it? Aren't cycles involved, spinning dances of destruction and creation, ever turning spiralling?

We all play the part we live.

We love when we play.

Nous sommes du soleil.

..

[Hammer of Los]

Gurus are worse, imo. The wisdom is found amongst the rabble.
Then you got all the sexual abuse scandals of "gurus" at places like Kripalu Institute. Hardly shocking. New-ageism is just an incarnation of bogus capitalist religion.

Where there is the fake there is also the real.

The fake gurus are worse.

The real gurus are no worse and no better.

But there is an element of understanding that can arise in a person.

It can be discerned. It is of the person but not of them.

You can hear its voice speak. The voice of Intelligence.

Without the two poles of Jiddu and U G Krishnamurti, plus many others besides, all of you here are my gurus, all of you, I would be lost in the tangled forest of my own prejudices.

Oh, and Jon Anderson. Otherwise known as Hitler or Napoleon. Go listen to Tales from Topographic Oceans and meditate upon the lyrics. Personally I find it extremely potent.

[alwyn]

Oh, and Jon Anderson. Otherwise known as Hitler or Napoleon. Go listen to Tales from Topographic Oceans and meditate upon the lyrics. Personally I find it extremely potent.

love that guy. personally, I saw God by the time I got to the fourth movement of Tales

(there WERE psychedelics and tantra involved....just sayin....)

[Simulist]

I'm skeptical of anyone who's trying to sell me the absolute truth. (Just as I am of anyone who's trying to sell me the Brooklyn Bridge.)

Because no matter how convincing the sales pitch, if they're actually trying to sell something like that, odds are: they don't have it to sell.

[alwyn]

I'm skeptical of anyone who's trying to sell me the absolute truth. (Just as I am of anyone who's trying to sell me the Brooklyn Bridge.)

Because no matter how convincing the sales pitch, if they're actually trying to sell something like that, odds are: they don't have it to sell.

good one. Nice thing about the Sufi tradition is that the Sheikhs must all have jobs that support them which are not related to their teaching....

Yes, it's true. Knowledge can't be bought.

[Hammer of Los]

I'm skeptical of anyone who's trying to sell me the absolute truth.

Darn right you should be!

There is no absolute truth.

The expressions of human thought are profoundly relative.

[Simulist]

Hi, HoL. I don't know if there really is absolute truth, or not — but what I'm pretty sure of is that the human brain isn't adequately equipped to process it fully, if there is.

Because of this, it seems fairly clear to me that those who propagate "must believe" statements about some supposed "absolute truth" really don't know what the hell they're talking about.

[Harvey]

Hi, HoL. I don't know if there really is absolute truth, or not — but what I'm pretty sure of is that the human brain isn't adequately equipped to process it fully, if there is.

Because of this, it seems fairly clear to me that those who propagate "must believe" statements about some supposed "absolute truth" really don't know what the hell they're talking about.

Robert Anton Wilson called it being a cosmic shmuck and he may be right.

The absolute truth is, it reflects you back to yourself and gives back what you hold up to it. But regardless of what you call it, or what you see and experience, and I can say I've seen a great deal of astonishing things over the last three months of this experience, things it's clear many other artists and writers have seen too, from Van Gogh to Wyeth, Tolstoy to Garner (and Barney Bubbles!) it is the most amazing experience. And it is real, more real than anything else in your life up to the point that it finds you. I haven't even described it fully to my closest friends, so I'm not about to describe it in such detail here. Seek it with all purity of heart, and it will know you, but be warned, you may not like what you find.