i was brought up by a new age family member , and now as a grown up, i can say this: -why is it so impportant to ALWAYS "be positive"???: i have seen examples of people who have lost total contact with REALITY because of their obsession with being (and thinking) positive. they couldnt face the real world out there, and wouldnt allow other to be critical and so called "negative". It is for me a form of fachism, not to be allowed freedom of speech and thought..... they say it destroys the general atmosphere... the vibrations.... -karma: i beleive in it, but some people have a simplistic view of karma, they think there is a simpel answer.... like: if you are poor, its a sign that you deserve it. it you are hadicapped, it a sign that you have done something very bad in your past life and that you are actually in a lower form of evolution. i've been in india, and the view of karma is much more widespread there than in the west, and... i can tell you that i can see a coldness in their hearts because of it>a cow, for instance, bleeding to death, because of a reckless driver, and they wouldnt even come near it to try to help or see if it can be helped. they would just go inside their houses and hide and wait that the cow would go away: they think the cow was hit because of bad karma and they want to avoid contact with it, because some might think that you have to keep distance from bad karma. (for me its bad karma NOT to help the cow...) -crystals, gold, gems.... sure, there is some power there. BUT! do you know what MINING does to mother earth!!?? its RAPE, the american indians used to call it. mining has a damaging effect on the earth= the new age movement is supposed to be super dedicated to mother earth, and still, people are living in 2 separate worlds: the REAL world (were the earth gets sick because of destruction, water problemes and road construction, related to mining), and the new age word, a dream world were everything is possible (ecept the negative...!) the time of the spider and the fisherman (the age of pisces) is over, or almost.... it was 2000 yrs of dreaming and believing. it was about ILLUSION. BUT, have you heard of the age of AQUARIUS? i really do think we are getting there now .... aquarius is the contrary of dreaming. it's about WAKING UP.... please, dear friends, open your eyes and let clarity enter your mind and soul and body. what is clarity? stop beleiving, start being critical, seeing and understand the illusion/system, and entering something NEW, but before you can enter the new world, you need to clean up= clarity..... it's the first step.
This is one of the fallacies of New Age thinking. It is not humanly possible, or even desirable, to be positive all the time. Stereotypical New Age thought is watered-down Buddhist and Hindu philosophy with a little pop psychology thrown in. This is not a part of either Hindu or Buddhist philosophy. Reality is more important. One does not need to positive all the time any more than one needs to be negative all the time. What you really need is balanced. Karma is not retribution. People like to think that if something "bad" happens to them that the same will happen to the person who causes it. The world doesn not work this way. Karma is similar to the Egyptian concept "ma'at" which literally means truth, but in practice it means "justification". If something good or bad happens to you, if it was justified, it was because you deserved it or needed for it to happen. That is karmically good. If it was not justified it is bad. Unfortunately we are not always able to know if it was justified. Here is an example: Let's say someone breaks into your house and steals everything. Many people say bad karma will happen to the thief. If this is true, then WHAT will happen to him? If the thief gets mugged in return, then is the mugger "off the hook" because he is repaying a karmic debt, or does it become a viscious cycle of bad stuff happening? When you look at karma as "justification" then you look at this differently. Maybe you really didn't deserve it. Maybe you were extremely materialistic and you had to learn a lesson. Maybe you were an idiot and left the door unlocked. Unfortunately the virtue of us living rapes the earth. Yes due to the way we live, we are far worse than any other animal, and the only thing you can do is charnge yourself. That being said, the problem of mass mining has nothing to do with magical properties of rocks. The magical properties of rocks has its roots in traditional magic, and New Age has glossed over most of the logic the ancients used. In the ancient world, for the most part, one didn't simply take a rock and say it was magic. There are a couple of exceptions such as bezoar stones and eagle stones and a few others. The idea was to take a particular stone for a particular purpose and then imbue magical properties into with certain herbs and other things. Crystals didn't have any more power than opal or marcasite - it was what you did with them. Today people take shortcuts and think that all you need is have positive thoughts and presto you have a charged crystal. It doesn't work that way. The ancient wise people would laugh at us. The Age of Aquarius happens when the Sun enters Aquarius on the spring equinox which will happen around the year 2654. You might be a little frail by then.
I'm just going to throw a different spin on the whole positive thinking. This is what I think, and perhaps it has absolutely nothing to do with this discussion. But when I think of positive thinking (I'm not a New Ager, btw, so I don't really know what you are talking about) but I think that even though something seemingly bad has happened in my life, I can get something positive out of it. At the very least I can learn from a mistake. An easy example for me to use is this: I got married when I was 18. I was wrong for me. It was a mistake I made. I got divorced when I was 21. Most people in my life (my parents included) thought this was a terrible thing. I on the other hand thought it was a great thing. It was positive. Even though I was not happy being married (or with that person) I don't regret it. I don't wish I had never done it. Because if I had not made that mistake I would not have learned some very important lessons that have changed me and shaped me into who I am right now. I think I am better for it. Maybe this really isn't what you guys are talking about. Forgive me if I have misunderstood. I also don't view Karma as if something bad happens to someone or something that they deserve it. I think that is just what is supposed to happen and it has happened for a reason. To teach someone (not necessarily that person) a lesson or something about life. I don't think that good things only happen to good people, because I am not naive enough to believe that is true. All things happen for a reason, we just don't always know the reasons. I have had a lot of struggles in my life, I don't know that I deserve them, they are just here for a reason, and apparently I am able to triumph over them. Anyway, I hope that people wake up to things too. But all people can't be enlightened, that is not the way it is supposed to be.
Maybe your idea of new age thought. Not everyone's, and certainly not mine. I'd point to the general ideas of people like R.A.Wilson, R.Buckminster Fuller, Aleister Crowley etc as the real 'new-age'. Both Hinduism and Buddhism have failed to change the world to anything like the extent that would be needed. The old religions have failed. And they will continue to fail, and probably to fade. They are all more or less anti-life and anti-world. Generally, it is better to be positive than negative. Even seemingly negative events can often have a positive outcome, and negative thinking is simply debilitating. I've found that any effort we make to put out a positive energy is generally repaid, sometimes many times over. Who is to say? The whole point of the new age is the hope for a much wider awakening. The problem is that most people are tied either to the old religions or to materialism. Tied to the way things are and have been in the past rather than how they can be in the future. 'New' means 'new'. Not simply a repition of old and outmoded paterns. Love...and do what you will...
So you think that you get points for your intent... interesting concept with which I happen to disagree. I don't care how good your intentions are, that means very little to me. That is why I don't believe in New Age. But it certainly isn't because I'm materialistic or because I care about repeating anyone else's views. I made up what works for me and I don't care what anyone else does. I can only live my life, I can't live for everyone else. Just my personal beliefs. What I meant by all people not being able to be enlightened is simply just that. Everyone can't think the same way. I would never want everyone to think the same way. Not only is that selfish and ego-centric, but it is very naive to believe that there will ever be a time where everyone will think the same way (without being brainwashed). But I think I pointed out in my illustration that negative events can have a positive outcome and help someone in some way. Having a positive attitude isn't a bad thing, it just isn't something that is realistic all of the time. (without drugs). Personally, I believe it is better to be a realist and not live in a fairytale world.
It's better to be well intentioned than have bad intent. That's surely obvious. Why do you think enlightenment would mean everyone thinking the same way? Enlightenment is beyond thought - that's the whole point. The notion that religions have that if everyone had the same set of mental beliefs everything would be wonderful is simply nonsense, as history has proven over and over again. Can you give me an example of a situation where having a negative attitude would be useful or better than having a positive one?
BTW - I'd better say this too - by a positive attitude, I don't mean a kind of blind acceptance of bad things when we encounter them. It's all in how we react to things. If you have a positive attitude, you can function much better, and thus you can hope to do more to create good in the world. There is nothing so debilitating as negativity. It is precisely negativity about our life here that led the old religions to the conclusion that the world is either evil or illusory, and that happiness can only be had on another plane of being, or in some kind of after-world. Today we see the wonder of existence here more clearly perhaps, and we can see too how human effort has improved things for us. So what I want is not to wait until I die to 'go to heaven'.I think we can create heaven here, and we can begin by trying to see things ina positive light, and being determined to act positively. If we come up against negative situations, people or things, we have to look at how it could be changed. Like Jim Morrison said 'we want the world and we want it now!'
I'm sorry I guess you haven't read anything I have written. Or maybe you have me confused with someone else's posts. Please go back and re-read what I originally wrote in this thread so I don't have to repeat myself. I wasn't the person who started this and quite frankly I don't care about New Age or enlightenment or what anyone thinks of me or my thinking. And for the record I subscribe to no religion. I think I have stated this enough times on these forums, but I will do so again for your benefit: I am agnostic, I don't give a flying fuck what anyone else wants to do with their time and thoughts on religion. I have my own ideas that I made up in my head. I believe that organized religion is brainwashing and they all have an agenda. I really am sorry you have misunderstood my points. I cannot make them any clearer than I already have stated. But honestly I have a lot of better things to do than argue with you over something I don't even care about. I know one thing I think you have proven my points for me.
Gosh, I'm sorry to have offended - maybe I was adressing what another poster was saying. Maybe I've just lost the plot......
