Help me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Follow Hindu (duty) Dharma to the best of your ability:

Ahimsa: Follow a code of non-injury, do not try to harm anybody with your words or your actions (best way to do it is offer everything to God mentally, then that way you won't hurt a fly) .

Satya: Speak the truth, never be afraid of speaking the truth and being honest with yourself and with others.

Asteya: non stealing: Do not steal anything or take anything does not belong to you, for instance- even using pirated software or games is stealing.

Brahmacharya: Try to be celibate to the best of your ability.

Kshama: Patience : Try to be patient, be agreeable , this way you gain in wisdom.

Drhiti: Steadfastness: Do not fear anything, do not worry about anything and know that your dharma will protect you and God is always there to take care of you.

Daya: Compassion: Show compassion toward all beings, even beings that you do not like, make peace with them in your heart, forgive and forget.

Arjava: Ofcourse be honest...

Mitahara: Moderation: In appetite, in any activity try to be moderate, try to do your best but don't go crazy at it, take care of your body , eat good things, live simple.

Saucha: Purity: Practice purity in mind, body and speech: Maintain your body , do not consume alcohol or any other drugs , do not smoke etc... and maintain a certain amount of cleanliness in your life. One good way to clean the mind is prayer.

Well those are the basics of hindu dharma.... atleast for kids anyway

 

you can't wear shoes inside your house

 

No no no , The serious study is required, the serious practice is required, for some one who wants to gain any insight into the cosmic joke that you are referring to, they need to gain a level of spiritual siddhi. Everybody who has realized brahman has done so only when they have gained some sort of spiritual siddhi or by the mercy of the lord, they have not realized it any other way - other than these two.

There is a concept called "self effort" , you see as long as you are in the dream , no matter how much you say "it is not reality, be happy", you won't be out of the dream. You need to gain enough spiritual siddhi to do whatever you are doing. First become sattvic, then understand that your own spiritual siddhi will take you there, not the other way around. Please, if you think that everything is a cosmic joke so let me smoke some marijuana, let me go crazy with sexual desires, then thats just wrong and you need to stop today.

 

You see this is what I am talking about, you mistake an Indian practice for a Hindu practice, I don't think you have any idea sometimes about what you are talking about. and when I say this, you present some twisted idea taken from a scripture, you cannot mold the scripture the way you like, thats not the way it works.

 

You'd have to be a bit of a masochist to do without slippers at least in the winter living where I do. You might end up with rhumatism or something. And the cold in one's feet would preclude much chance of getting concentrated.
There is a need to be adaptable. It's the inner consciousness that matters not externals.

 

So what should one study in your view?

I ask because I've been told by a certain person that I know too much...

 

Of course you do. Just like Wicca. That way, people can
look at you funny, and whisper about you, and persecute
your beliefs every time you go to walmart.

 

Please don't let this seriousness of this man confuse you! Seriousness is rooted in fear...

yet fear, such as a fear of god, often inspires the light and the love that comes as one realizes the cosmic joke.


You totally misunderstand me and the cosmic joke

I'm talking not about thoughts or emotions or sensations or other such things....

I'm talking about pushing the sensory world beyond itself...


pulling back from the movie and drama of the ego, and realizing the one consciousness....

BEING HERE NOW, beyond time, beyond space

The ego then jumps into the one consciousness, aware in the here now, percieving it, first you BE THEN YOU SEE.


As sadhana continues, the ego continues to go deeper into the ocean.


Imagine a salt doll drifting deeper into the ocean.... yes it is aware of the one consciousness, for the ocean is all around it... but it still has an ego (salt doll) will all kinds of issues.

As it is drifting downward, understanding in a kind of serious way... there is a barrier...

this barrier is the cosmic joke, once you hit this you see the absurding of spiritual practice, of everything...THE HUMOR OF GOD, THE COSMIC GIGGLE. Now as the salt doll drifts deeper into the ocean, it is laughing, spiritual practice is lighter, seriousness is a sin.


And you don't have do some special sadhana can get it, a tantric can realize as much as a celibate, as much as a drug users as much as a strict only meditation sadhana practicioner.

THE COSMIC JOKE IS AVALIABLE TO ALL!

" From time to time, an amusing story awakened the interest of those who were not capable of reaching the level of a philosophical discussion, and a touch of humor or a burst of laughter reminded us of what she was talking about - joyful knowledge!" - written about Anandamayi Ma

"To read through these conversations in which mystical doctrine alternates with an unfamiliar kind of humor, and where discussions of the oddest aspects of Hindu mythology give place to the most profound and subtle utterances about the nature of Ultimate Reality, is in itself a liberal education in humility, tolerance and suspense of judgment." - Aldous Huxley



This unfamiliar kind of humor... is the cosmic humor that is joyful spiritual knowledge, in which you laugh at your ego, and your spiritual effort... at and with all that is. It is the laugh of the great Self, the one consciousness, that laugh that is no laugh at all... a deep understanding of absurdity of things. of all phemenmenon's basic humor.

This cosmic humor comes with it unbearable compassion for suffering.


Watch cosmic humor inspires in me is not now that's it funny I want to smoke pot and have crazy wild sex all the time...

It inspires me to take the character in the movie I am watching less serious... God is writting and directing, the chracter is just reading its lines and doing what is written for it... It inspired deepening surrender to god.


To get the cosmic joke, to begin the path going deep into the one consciounsess, one need not be

a brahman
a hindu
a sattvic


whatever what have you


The cosmic joke can happen to anyone, even a shmoe like me


I know it made be hard to accept that god would reveal its sense of humor to somebody that occassional smokes pots, has done numerous psychedelic drugs and has tantric sex... but remember I be here now, I meditate, I am always doing mantra, or a mudra to remind me of god, I've done a retreat with ram dass, I study spiritual texts a lot... I do all that shit on top of it.

What it comes down to is that I have devotion... and god is not going to resist the call of a devotee even if he is a dirty hippie pot head tripper in your eyes.

"He went with the Maharaji, Bhagwan Dass and half a dozen others on a short trip to a Forestry camp where the Maharaji had followers. They were welcomed on arrival by people who seemed to be in a continuous state of quiet happiness. The Maharaji went into a hut with some of the site workers, leaving Alpert and the travelling party on a lawn outside. Presently Alpert was sent for. He went to the hut and sat down in front of the teacher. The old man asked him some seemingly irrelevant questions. "Do you like to make people laugh in America ? Do you like to feed children ?" Bewildered, Alpert answered "Yes".
The old man said "Good". Then he leaned forward and very deliberately tapped Alpert on the forehead three times. Just that. This time there was no sensation of a something being wrenched open. No physical sensation at all. Alpert experienced only an inner turmoil and had to be helped outside to rejoin the others. Today, now he is back in the West, Alpert still does not know the significance of the forehead taps. Nothing, so far as he knows, has happened except that those outside the hut recognised that he was in a state of High when he left the Maharaji's presence. The significance, whatever it may be, lies in the future."


The significance, is that this is about all that is required to get the cosmic joke

-is enjoying making people laugh
-and liking to feed children

A person that has sex, does drugs, does all kinds of things... a person never reading mystic literature can still meet these two requirements.

You are beginning to sound like a hindu fundementalist Jedi! Never you will saying that Buddhist and christains can't get as advanced in consciousness because they don't study hindu texts... BS!

One can get the cosmic joke through one's devotion despite what hindu fundementalists say.

God will not refuse one that meets these requirements, but it may take some time...

BBB wrote, "Perhaps, like Bob Dylan, he's gone beyond that stage.

(give 'all along the watchtower' a spin sometime)."


Yeah perhaps, but when one goes beyond the early beginning cosmic joke stage... one doesn't lose the cosmic joke, it is still there... it just gets lighter and lighter and lighter... and knowledge of Self gets deeper and deeper.

 

[color=#0000e]Double post, sorry
[/color]

 

GP, I think I need to read this Be Here Now book you constantly speak of.

 

I guess I meant the scriptures with the perspective of knowledge - jnana or bhakti - devotion. Then,
His own life, he should first know what he needs to do to apply whatever he knows to his life. it is not enough to say "surrender all actions to God", it won't change a thing unless he puts this into action. What I meant was actually follow the path, try to change- even the simplest thing. if you wake up at 8:00am and go to work at 9:00 am, try to wake up at 6:00 am and do some japa. Change yourself for the better, live a better life... thats all this is about and finally go to God. Anyway, I think I am spending too much time on this website, chao.

 

The easy way out would be to to take more drugs and plunge myself further into illusion; the correct way is to do as you said, go after the source of this misery, Yourself. Drugs aren't needed to do that...the Hare Krishna maha-mantra and other spiritual tools seem to work very well in this regard.

I'm not trying to demonize drugs, I'm just recounting the damage that I've personally seen from their use. My opinion: legalize or decriminalize them...the go'vt doesn't have any right to forbid adults from getting intoxicated in any way that they please, as long as they're not endangering others by driving a car under the influence or otherwise causing harm beyond themselves.

If Neem Karoli Baba said that LSD was good for the world, he didn't mean it in the sense that college kids should be taking it as weekend recreation. I can accept that there are gurus who approve or encourage the use of psychedelics as part of sadhana, and maybe they can be beneficial if used in the proper consciousness and setting. I've been taught and personally believe that drug use has no place in sadhana, and also can see that many people use "spirituality" as an excuse to get high...that hasn't changed since the 60's.

Ganja, I'm not going to change my stance on drugs, and I've never meant to try change yours...anything I've said about drugs to you is cautionary. Let's just agree to disagree and let it go.

Those are good basics for anyone...kids and old folks alike!!

 

I'm not so sure that Neem Karoli Baba did encourage people to take acid. From what I've read of Ram Dass' account, he didn't think very highly of it. The only Hindu guru I've ever come across who did tell peole to do acid was Jaya Tirthpada - one of Prabhupada's successors who split off from ISKCON and started his own version of Krishna Consciousness with LSD as a 'sacrament'. Tirthapada was eventually murdered in a ghastly manner by a follower who had become mentally ill. It seems this person was unstable to begin with, and I don't know how much of a part acid played in the murder. Certainly though, the disciples of Tirtahpada I know (and I know a few) have not benefitted from it.(incidentally - TP's killer has now been released from mental hospital).

Tirthapada

Ok - maybe TP himself was made of different stuff from his devotees, but really I still think he was wrong to do what he did and seek to align acid use with orthodox Hinduism. If he'd had more insight and sense, he would have shut up about it. Because a certain number of those who turned to Krishna Consciousness back in the old days were kids with drug issues to begin with.

I don't want to sound hypocritical, because I have myself taken psychedelics many times, although not for some years. Overall, it can only be a kind of 'initiation' - and actually, one becomes bored with it eventually. It can only give a fleeting glimpse. It doesn't lead to lasting changes in most people who use it, and I know at least one in whom it induced life-long psychosis.
What's more important than trying to have 'experiences' is to try for an experience which is there day to day, and which one can access anytime without recourse to anything external.

 

Oh yeah, I'm very familiar with the story...the SP "successor's" name was Jayatirtha dasa, and he was beheaded by a deranged follower in his spinoff Krishna/LSD cult.

Regarding psychedelics, I took them five or six times 35+ years ago, and a couple of times had experiences which could definitely be described as transcendental. Was it beneficial?...yes, because I learned something and moved on. The severe LSD/psychedelic damage that I've seen is in people who were borderline unstable to begin with and/or used massive quantities over a period of time...but then, I've known more people who took a lot of the stuff and it never affected them negatively. A couple of the trips I did were pretty rough and I came out ok, and I've known others who survived incidental "bad trips" just fine.

The idea is to be able to access the higher states naturally, and an important point that extensive heavy intoxicant use of any kind can damage both the physical/mental and subtle/spiritual faculties.

The only fact I know about Neem Karoli Baba and LSD is Ram Dass's account of giving him a huge dose and Baba just smiling back and saying "so?". That story was a real hippie urban legend in the 60's-70's, and it actually turned out to be true.

 

That puts my own attitude in a nutshell really.

 

You should check out Miracle of Love which is a collection of stories about Maharajji


There is a chapter entitled drugs in there, it is that, ram dass's account, and my personal communion with him that I understand how he views psychedelics...

He never told anyone to use them, but he admited that through them, one could have the darshan of christ (his way of saying, come into contact with the one consciousness) the problem with this method is that it is not effective in the majority of people in developing one consciousness through your very BEING, but inspirational visits (or trips) can help inspire one to BE Here Now... so in a way, its like meeting Amma or Guru or christ, it is inspiration.

He called psychedelics


YOGI MEDICINE

thus I think that sums it up.

He honored yogi medicine, saying it would be helpful if Ram Dass used it occassionally.

Thus suggesting that it is good for some yogis, but it is so person to person based...

that saying
don't do it
or
do it


Is not gonna work, because it depends on the person.