Will any of you have the willingness to give up attachments to pleasure and head on a course to high

I have really been thinking about Buddha's teaching. It does surely seem that almost every human in history has been caught in a matrix of illusion, either spending lots of time hunting for food, to the modern era of spending lots of time working and indulging in the rampant pleasures of society (at least in the 1st world). I truly see this as misery, living on to die and then hundreds of years after it is like me or you never even existed. We can't just live like this, rebirthing again and again and again in an endless cycle of agony and insanity. Things have to change. And simply most of humanity is deeply conditioned to be addicted to this dreadful cycle, and will stay imprisoned until one day some higher power changes small details in our reality of occult control causing big changes in consciousness to occur. Thus causing our secular world system, which is an array of superstructures with its bases on occult power and occult artificial reality design, to meltdown letting humanity to start over again (though not a mass cataclysm, but a change in the awareness of the masses). Until then, which is a long while, we will continue to play the eternal game of existence/nonexistence; all things participating in a game supervised by the Source of Life.

Anyone that refutes this, I respect their views. Though I firmly believe that taking a very secular view on things is seeing things in a skewed way. We must surely apply appropriate criticism (a lot of it), but I believe we should not take it too far as to let one to be merely shut off to other possibilities and be trapped by one's own belief that only the physical world and its pleasures only matter, and that all phenomena of possible greater and profound truth and higher reality do not exist.

It surely does seem we're burning the candle at both ends here. Work and play. Meanwhile the ruling occultic elite's exploit us.Give us very little freedoms, just enough to get by and not uprise. They give us cheaply made toys yet expensive to purchase. Good distractions. All the while they're acquiring the technology to become immortal. At our and our world's expense.

I believe it will be dire times after they have mastered such feats of ingenuity and sophistication as to basically live as long as they can without being crushed or blown etc. etc. And once they've succeeding they will thin the herds when we are no longer needed for production ( Robotic resource extraction and fully robotic assembly lines.). Something to that effect in my opinion.

Wouldn't you seek to be immortal? ( Always exceptions, like getting smushed or extreme unavoidable deaths) If you had the wealth, influence and resources. I would, but not at the cost of enslaving people in an elusive invisible illusional cloak of "freedom" and destroying the planet in the hopes they find what they need in time for the planet to make a recovery after the expense of raping it's resources.

I'm slowly giving up what I'm learning to be of an utter waste in what I perceive is a hindrance to reaching the level of civilization that's needed to secure ourselves in the cosmos. Slow but I hope we all turn over before we hit the apex and snowball to extinction.

Peace

It is possible to live in a world without becoming attached to it. I will admit that I enjoy the luxuries in life. High speed internet, nice cell phone, food reserves, etc. However, I spend a lot of time pondering life without them. I ponder a life where it all goes away; where my wife has died of high blood sugars due to no insulin and I am alone living day to day struggling to eat and work.

I think it is important to remember the worst case scenarios. By doing this, we can appreciate what we have and understand the transient nature of our lives. We can also learn to value the things that really matter while still enjoying the things that entertain us.

reply to post by Ruffian


I have given a lot of thought to this very idea. What intrigues me is that as you have said, there seems to be an effort to prevent people from progressing.

So much fear, so many distractions. When reading texts and fringe materials on transcendence it becomes apparent that these are the two biggest obsticles in a person's path towards enlightenment. It is a monster. Worse still, it is a monster that the majority willingly feed thinking it harmless or cute. At the end of the day, every purchase, every possession moves people farther away. With each thing owned there is the increasing fear of losing it either through crime or the inability to sustain the lifestyle required to maintain it.

Think about it; all of these people who live thier lives trying to satisfy someone else's ideal share the same basic theme...

Afraid that thier house isn't in the right area
Afraid that thier clothes aren't new enough
Afraid that thier job isn't good enough...

All of this is the result of mass marketting that has people convinced that it is not enough to have enough, you must want more.

Look at TV shows if you really want to see it. The show 'Friends' is a perfect example. Look at the apartment that Courtney Cox and Jennifer Aniston lived in. Although the show explains it away as a rent controlled apartment (that 'Monica' is illegally occupying) it gives the impression that 2 unemployed/underemployed people can afford a 2 bedroom high rise apartment with a balcony in downtown NY and still have enough left over for designer clothing and a bustling social life.

A cousin of mine is a good example of this. She moved to my region's largest city and hates it: It is soooo expensive.

I lived there for years when I was in university and know what the city is like, and it isn't that bad. Her problem stems from the fact that most of her income goes to her apartment. She's 21 and her and the 3 girls she lives with got an apartment very similar to what you would see if thier lives were a TV show. Sadly though, they live in reality. There isn't a stage hand present to fill the fridge or a wardrobe person to hang the latest fashions on them.

She won't move though, the apartment portrays the right image.

How many people are influenced like that? How many believe that they can have all the world's luxuries working a minimum wage job.

As another example, it is coming up on the time of year when the Christmas wish lists will start being published in all the magazines. It is no wonder that some people are miserable, they spend thier time looking at $5000 shoes, $25000 gowns, 'spend the holiday at a Dubai spa' and then go home to cut coupons.

This was perfectly demonstrated by many of my co-workers when I was working in the call center industry. Several people complained about how horrible christmas had been based on the gifts that they had recieved; there was no bow-wrapped Lexus in the driveway, no surprise trip to Europe.

So many today live in a hell that they have generated for themselves or have been suckered into by thier surroundings because of unrealistic goals or the belief that image is more important than substance. This hell is further compounded by the desire to attain that life by any means, thus leading them to take shortcuts or even worse, try and scam thier way up the ladder.

Based on my studies, I see this as the real life manifestation of the biblical hell. Although I am not religious at all, the parallels are still there: Unfulfilled wants and desires lead them into misery because of what they don't have without even a moments pause to reflect on how good thier life really iswhen realistically examined.

To return to the OP, this mindset guarentees that none of these people have any hope of advancing. The next stage of our existence is one where you can know anything you want, see anything you want and travel anywhere you want.

The catch is that you don't own anything, hence the true meaning behind the expression "You can't take it with you'

I have to question if this setup is not deliberate. Think about it...if we are all really running in circles lifetime after lifetime chasing after material gratification in a universe where materialism is a curse then we are all forever enslaved to this world at the mercy of those at the top who probably know the truth. If people were to wake up then there would be fewer slaves to be exploited.

Enlightenment of the masses means that the system comes to a catastrophic halt. Enlightenment means that the next cycle has fewer people available to provide the wealth and power to those who covet nothing more.

In this light, do you think that these people are willing to risk losing what the have striven so hard to acquire?

No chance.

Damning the masses to perpetual suffering is an insignificant price for someone else to pay in comparrison to losing even a small portion of the materialism they cherish above all else.

Enlightenment and freedom benefit the slaves, not the masters.

(continued)

On a personal note, does this mean that I a m monk living a life of poverty?

No.

But I spend my money wisely. Although you will find some very nice things in my apartment my reason for buying them was based on quality, not bragging rights.

You get what you pay for.

I have been through the cycle of buying the $20 DVD player at Wally World only to have it die 13 months later on a 12 month warrentee. It may mean that I have to go without for a few months instead of the instant gratification we are conditioned to demand, but it also means that in 10 years I will still have only bought it the one time.

I also have the rare pleasure in today's world of actually owning the things I purchase instead of having to pay them off later at intrest.

What you won't find are the seemingly mandatory status items.

Would I like to have a Lamborghini in my parking space? Sure, but a $500 000 + car is a luxury that I cannot afford so I waste no time on wishing for it. In all reality, in the absence of an Autobahn a $2000 20 yro Honda will get me from one end of town to the other just as fast.

Likewise I no longer buy designer clothes (although in truth I never really fell for that scam). The last time I did I had a $100 shirt ruined in the washer after having worn it only once and a pair of TH boots that fell apart in under a year.

The price was there, but the shoes bought six months earlier for half the price lasted me for a couple years after the other ones had been long discarded.

Do I turn heads when I walk into a room because of my bling? No, I don't waste the money on such things. I can however afford to enjoy the things that make my life a pleasure instead of sitting at home looking at the right logos hanging in my closet but miserable because I'm too broke to go outside with them.

Possessions are temporary, knowledge is eternal. People need to understand what is truely important in thier lives and persue that.

Leave the Jones' alone to live thier own life while you live yours.

You'll be happier for it and what's more, you will continue to grow as a person.

It's always nice when people try and think, and go deeper than our usual surface existence. If more did this, maybe things would change.

Our beliefs are indeed a huge part of of human misery, and a big reason why is because beliefs orient us, and therefore result in a response to "our" world, seen through our paradigm. This response is usually referred to as "attitude". We could take two similarly gifted people, put them in a similar environment, hand them similar advantages, and one might be so miserable, they are tempted by suicide, and the other could be as happy as anyone could be in this world. The difference? Attitude. Which normally comes from the way the person looks out on to their world.

I think the ancients pretty much figured out that any belief system needed to deal with the "problem of evil" in some way. Whether it's Western religion, with ideas of heaven/hell afterlife, or Eastern notions of reincarnation, somehow, it is important for people to think that there is ultimately "justice", now, or later.

This led to what most people accept as reality, that in spite of appearances, justice prevails ultimately.

But if this is the "lynch-pin" of typical belief, we might ask, "what if" the idea is wrong? What if "justice" isn't important to the Universe/God/"Source"/Creator, or what if justice for the Universe isn't what we imagine it should be?

Epicurus:

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?”

Contrary to this is the simple fact that the notion of justice is just too much a part of who and what we are, and therefore, "whoever" is responsible for us (created us, etc.), has already "spoken" on the matter, since we are here to show for it. Obviously, this is the point where many can legitimately just go atheist.

Thousands of years, and no one has "resolved" this enigma adequately. I'm not sure it's solvable, and the sooner we realize it, the sooner we join the ranks of guys like Socrates, who came to understand, that we "know nothing".

I guess Schultz was right. Come to think of it, wasn't he a sort of "happy" fellow?

JR

reply to post by Ruffian

and that all phenomena of possible greater and profound truth and higher reality do not exist.

these 'higher realities' do exist.. but they are more of a retreat from the natural world ~than ascensions into a state of higher being ~

these are the stuff of academic and mind game pursuits that elevate ones neural networks--
and so these events seem elevated states of normal consciousness... great experiencial exercises---

but dreaming your karma or one's soul has any sort of progression ---
that's just more of the mind game matrix some of us indulge in for the hubris


let's see. theres all sorts of phenomema that is illusionary but profound to the experiencer ->

apophenia (finding significance in insignificant phenomena),
auditory pareidolia (interpreting random sounds as voices in their own language),

its all just neural networks being created or re-routed, attribuiting something supernatural to these thoughts is bordering on the insane

reply to post by Ruffian


This repetitive cycle of pain has also allowed us to save lives, develop medical marvels, provide comfort for our sick, young, elderly and poor, send men into space, explore the bottoms of the ocean and provide charity to for selfless reasons. This cycle of pain has allowed us to see the effects of the pain, and allow ourselves to develop choices and a sense of consciousness.

It's not all bad man.