Tao; just another way

[bird_migration]

wherever we go
we are already there





~ bird

[rainbow dew]

*breathing in i calm my body

breathing out i smile
dwelling in the present moment
i know this is a wonderful moment*

namaste
x x x

[Scholar_Warrior]

y'know, most people think of yin and yang as two. but this is not so. yin and yang are three and the three give birth to all phenomenon.

the two, yin and yang, are contained and are produced from the one - as symbolised as the circle in the yin/yang symbol. the circle (one) contains the two (yin & yang). the two within the one result make three.

from the one there come two. from the two there becomes three. from three all things manifest.

go figure.

[Sebbi]

And where does one come from...

Cough* Cough* Chapter 42* Cough*

Blessings

Sebbi

[Spiritforces]

Yes but that picture with that guylike: "God is a sock" is just so great
I like it.

[amarylia]

Hey Scholar_Warrior

Do you know anything about the simbology of the Mountain in Taoism?

I'd like to know more about it :)

[Scholar_Warrior]

maybe I do. I don't know, what are you getting at?

http://www.taorestore.org/maoshan.html

[amarylia]

Well 1st thanks cose I’ve already read the link and sure helped to my conceptual thought.

I’m doing a critical work and I wanna establish an analogy between mountain civilizations and their concept of verticality. So I only knew in Taoism there are a few holly mountains, now I know one of them is called Mao Mountain.

I know this might seem absurd, but I want to ask kind of another symbolic question if you can answer me, in Taoism, is there a negative sense in the descending? For example descending the mountain, I mean in the daily life, not talking just about rituals. :)

[Scholar_Warrior]

I think I have a good, elementary grasp of some essential Taoist concepts, but am less familiar with tradition and rituals, etc.

my understanding is that going into the mountains is symbolic of leaving worldly life and moving closer to what we might call God. as I understand it, living atop the mountain for spiritual aspirations implys leaving worldly life in order to pursue more heavenly goals. leaving the mountain would symbolise leaving the retreat and returning to worldly life.

~

we live between Heaven and Earth. Heaven is the Father, Earth is the Mother, we are the creation between the two. (actually, the entire universe is within the Womb)

we each are the one that contains the two: yin and yang. we enfold duality in our perception of the "Ten Thousand Things," or all manifest reality. our perception condenses into all one within our Spirit. and we are filled with the two, yin and yang; we are contained in them - between Heaven and Earth. the Earth is the finite and condensing, Heaven is the infinite expansive nature. we are cradled between duality.

we are pulled in both directions, really all directions, and yet retain our separateness in our senses. like the film of a bubble stretching between pressures from both inside and outside.

I wonder if death of the body is like the bursting of a bubble.... inside and outside once again merge. but then they were never really separate. the film is part of the everything too. yet the film will fall again to the ground, and the inside rises. and one day they will join again to fill another human consciousness.

...

who are you?

[Scholar_Warrior]

wherever we go
we are already there







~ bird

what he said.


(btw, all mountains are sacred.)

[amarylia]

Nice words :)

‘leaving the mountain would symbolise leaving the retreat and returning to worldly life.’ --> perfectly answers my question

Who am I? :D I’m amarylia, a girl from Portugal and I’m curious about symbols, cultures and I try to learn with those teachings...

I imagined a nice picture of that idea of yours that we’re a bubble and the entire spiritual atmosphere. Naíce. And I agree with the vital cycle you’ve described, after all life is connected with death.


And thanks :)

[Scholar_Warrior]

as giving and receiving are one, I too must thank you who are my compliment and I yours in this small forum. and we are one in the universal sense as well.

if I help you, I help me; and if you help me, you help we, and we are we, and we are all together.

(thanks John Lennon)

[Tamee]

what he said.


(btw, all mountains are sacred.)

true dat...

[Tamee]

if I help you, I help me; and if you help me, you help we, and we are we, and we are all together.

I like that

[Scholar_Warrior]

y'know, it's a funny thing about mountains: the reason they reach and expand out toward heaven is caused by the earth's crust contracting and buckling up into peaks. in other words the yin (the earth's crust contracting) gives birth to the yang (peaks caused by the tectonic plates pushing together and up.)

I am told that the Chinese ideogram, or symbol, for yin/yang is representing the image of the light side of the hill, and the shadow from the hill. the light side is yang, the dark is yin.

everything has this. without duality, there could be no time/space. all would be one and nothing would ever change. we experience time and space because of duality.

and duality exists as the balance of the one. so there are three.

the Holy Redeeming, the Holy Denying, and the Holy Neutralising; aka, the positive, the negative and the neutral result of the interaction of the other two energies. all together this is three.

[amarylia]

‘we experience time and space because of duality.’
‘and duality exists as the balance of the one’
Scholar_Warrior

…there’s something that really bothers me, which is the relation between the 3 dimensions, and fourth one that many people say it’s Time. And I really tried to overpass that dimension but… maybe I’m in the wrong way to solve my internal question. There are some mathematics that have studied the 4th dimension.

I really liked those phrases. So you consider time and space as a duality? We know space has 3 dimensions, but what about time…? chiiii :D oh well I don’t know, but it really bothers me. Well maybe past, present and future… And I had never really thought of this duality.

But I understand that we’re all one, and that there’s a force, a ‘point’ of cosmic gravity that pull us to the cycles of life and reproduction… that’s really logical. But to really decompose the unity and truly understand it… it’s something that really most come with in long long time :D not now! Even if there only really exists now… uuuuhhh ok I’ll stop.

So what does everybody think about this?

[Scholar_Warrior]

Gurdjieff successfully explained all of creation and the one-ness that creates it, as well as the three gunas that interact to do the creating.

here is an essay from a man who studied a student of Gurdjieff's and sub-sequently studied Gurdjieff. this deals with the Law of Seven, which explains al of creation if you can grasp it.

you can navigate throughout the rest of the site by using the triangles at the top left of the page. this should answer at least a few questions, and probably generate a lot more questions - this is a good thing.

http://www.rahul.net/raithel/otfw/93article.html

btw, sorry if this doesn't seem like Taoism at first glance, but then everything is Taoism....

[Scholar_Warrior]

from "In Search of the Miraculous," pages 281,282:



"Man, in the normal state natural to him, is taken as a duality. He consists entirely of dualities or ‘pairs of opposites.’ All man’s sensations, impressions, feelings, thoughts, are divided into positive and negative, useful and harmful, necessary and unnecessary, good and bad, pleasant and unpleasant. The work of centers proceeds under the sign of this division. Thoughts oppose feelings. Moving impulses oppose instinctive craving for quiet. This is the duality in which proceed all the perceptions, all the reactions, the whole life of man. Any man who observes himself, however little, can see this duality in himself.

But this duality would seem to alternate; what is victor today is the vanquished tomorrow; what guides us today becomes secondary and subordinate tomorrow. And everything is equally mechanical, equally independent of will and leads equally to no aim of any kind. The understanding of duality in oneself begins with the realization of mechanicalness and realization of the difference between what is mechanical and what is conscious. This understanding must be preceded by the destruction of the self-deceit in which a man lives who considers even his most mechanical actions to be volitional and conscious and himself to be single and whole.

When self-deceit is destroyed and a man begins to see the difference between the mechanical and the conscious in himself, there begins a struggle for the realization of consciousness in life and for the subordination of the mechanical to the conscious. For this purpose a man begins with endeavors to set a definite decision, coming from conscious motives, against mechanical processes proceeding according to the laws of duality. The creation of a permanent third principle is for man the transformation of the duality into the trinity."

-P. D. Ouspensky

[amarylia]

Well I did not read everything in the link, someday I’ll finish, I think we must digest words first, rethink, and then return and read a little bit more.

I’ll be meditating about the division of one to seven. Since the result is more specifically 0.142857143. And even there’s a great mysticism around the number seven I really analyze the matter by myself first, without experiencing there’s no true learning or confirmation.

I’m really into these reflections but each day that passes I believe they have an inferior value compared to feelings. ‘Thoughts oppose feelings.’ I haven’t found much that over passed the magic and the conscience of a real feeling and the unsolved mysteries it generates.

There’s a writer called Richard Bach that loves to write about the meaning of oneness, I read ‘There’s No Far And No Distance’ and ‘One’, of course it’s kind of a romantic look to the Universe, and is clearly a very personal view of the author, but it’s another view of a similar.

There’s an infinite of paths.

And by the way:
‘There are no ways to Peace. Peace is the way.’ Mahatma Ghandi

[Scholar_Warrior]

you are all good there. I like your words.

our society, in general, places an un-balanced imphasis on information. learning information.

information is different from knowledge.


it is important to develop your being at an equivalent rate with your knowledge. this is growth of Soul. information may help, but it is not it.


understand the difference between information and knowledge.


(I apologise for the writing style, but I am very stoned and I'm listening to Frank Zappa's "We're Only In It For The Money." and I am currently tweeked)

[BlackBillBlake]

What do you mean 'tao is just another way'?

other than what??

just an-other.....

[themnax]

yes just another way, belief, path.

just one that offers less incentive to deceive yourself then any other i know of.

other then simply not attempting to name or define the nontangable in any way
which is, such is my understanding, precisely the way of tao to begin with.

[~Sam~]

I think that concepts of "above" and "below", or descending or ascending, are post conquest in origin, and not Taoist. The idea is supposed to foster comfort in knowing that you are better than something else... this is no good.

Living in the recent future... with a connection to all things, and having acceptance of self, as being balanced by all the aspects of self, is the concept of Tao that I have come to understand.

[mati]

The idea of a body separate from the idea of a separate continued existence is an illusion and not founded on any distinct impression.

[mati]

There is no future- how can the present come to pass
There is no past- how can the present have come to pass