You mean I'm stuck like this?
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@Takamba said
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@Vadox said
"Samadhi experienced by the brain of a 75 IQ is not the same as that of a brain of 300 IQ.
"In this case it is like saying "all things are relative."
Let me give you a practical example you can experiment with on your own.
Eat a chili pepper.
Next day, suck on an ice cube for 30 seconds on your tongue. Eat a chili pepper.
Same experience? No."
Oh, i got it. Its like having more sensitive finger tips
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@Vadox said
"Samadhi experienced by the brain of a 75 IQ is not the same as that of a brain of 300 IQ.
"A brain with a 75 IQ probably isn't capable of Samadhi.
I mean, I don't want to rule anything out a priori, but Samadhi takes enormous brain energies to pull off. It's not a cessation, not a nothing, but rather an everything. (It's a "noting on balance.")
Not everyone has the capacity in a given lifetime to attain Samadhi. Most don't, just like most don't have the capacity, no matter how they train, to do a 6' high jump.
This doesn't mean any of the practice is lost. "Live like you have eternity before you" since, well, you do!
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@frater aSP said
"Just a short example - in my genetic makeup I'm prone to addiction, depression, and mild OCD. Turns out that this is the perfect cocktail for me to obssessively engage with the spiritual life and learn how to care about details, which in turn led me to obssessively examine the depression until I found the root causes (both individual and ancestral), and then finally reroute and unbind those energetic ties into healthy pathways.
Within the process of genetic expression there lies such a huge ocean of possibilities in the unfolding of one's world, that there is no reason other than a masochistic one to look at a genetic predisposition as a weakness."Thank you for posting this. I too suffer from the maladies of depression and anxiety and have recovered from a life-threatening addiction. But I too have the bonus of redirecting all that obsessive energy towards Ritual, practice and study, intense exercise (running) which I would have never dreamed of being capable of in my previous life, AND at the current time directly most of my attention to getting to the root of my depression and anxiety. I would love to get off of the SRRI's I've been on for the past 20 years and with the help of my current therapist I'm beginning to become hopeful. It seems like the psyche drugs are becoming less and less effective.
93, 93/93 - Matt
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93 all,
"May be chosen at will before incarnation, and even then within limits. "
Examining this sentence brought me directly to tibetan buddhism. The process of being incarnated again, after a set of serious mistakes, that happens before you even get to the Womb-door.
[The ultimate success would be the Clear light of true Reality, which I take to mean Samadhi after death.]
Amongst the problems one faces when they get to the Womb door is enormous attraction to the images of male/female couples that eventually become your parents. I believe it is a magnetic, karmaic attraction to this couple and aware though you are, you experience your potential life after being concieved by this couple before you enter the Womb door. This includes all the positives and negatives about your body, mind, outlook, personality, horoscope, etc.
So, we are here to rectify the mistakes of our incarnation as best we can, and hopefully, if we are not able, incarnate ourselves in a better predicament next life in order to achieve the ultimate Samadhi upon death. -
A significant difference between historic Eastern views of reincarnation and the Thelemic view is that Thelema regards it not as punishment, not as failure, but as a choice. In a sense, you described it that way also, but I read the inference that it was from a failure or mistake. Thelema regards it entirely as choice.
Consider, for example, this 11th collect from The Thelemic Mass which (give or take a word or two) is identical to the same collect in Crowley's Gnostic Mass:
"Unto them from whose eyes the veil of physical life hath fallen, may there be granted the accomplishment of their true Wills; whether they will absorption in the Infinite, or to be united with their chosen and preferred, or to be in contemplation, or to be at peace, or to achieve the labor and heroism of incarnation on this planet or another, or in any Star, or aught else, unto them may there be granted the accomplishment of their wills; yea, the accomplishment of their wills."
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93,
Well, I believe the tibetan culture does have a death fixation, so to them, incarnation is a mistake.
However, this is in their terminology.
What is the Thelemic process of incarnation after death? In other words, who would choose to be born blind for example? Or choose to have an IQ of 75? -
There isn't a standard answer, but there are a lot off possible answers. One takes on limitations in order to grow, and one places oneself on the opposite side of an issue to increase understanding. Of course, some people do have a sense of self-punishment.
Jumpers wear heavy weights - which technically hold them back - to strengthen them to jump higher
When you live in eternity, a particular incarnation is just another day at the office, another day in the classroom.
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Yet in this classroom we are able to find our True Will as the dynamic expression of our innermost being and once this is done we realize that our problems are actually the lesson that we're to learn and should embrace it/them. So the end game is not another incarnation, once we are in perfect Samadhi...or do we come down again incarnate and crawl in the filth and deal with newer problems because that is what the universe has expressed for us?
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But this life is elegant and amazing, too.
There are many choices. Bodhisattvas are committed to continuing incarnation to assist in the liberation of others. Some move on. Some like to play here.
And Samadhi is hardly the threshold. Samadhi isn't all that hard. (It's a definite attainment, make no mistake; but it's not a be-all and end-all.) Of course, there are many grades or stages or types of Samadhi.
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93,
I saw the easy answer elsewhere on this forum in another post that I can't find at the moment.
Essentially that "Something is Better than Nothing".