Infosource quoted J. J. Rousseau in "Good Quotes"-Thread
"God is intelligent; but in what manner? Man is intelligent by the act of reasoning, but the supreme intelligence lies under no necessity to reason. He requires neither premise nor consequences; nor even the simple form of a proposition. His knowledge is purely intuitive. He beholds equally what is and what will be. All truths are to Him as one idea, as all places are but one point, and all times one moment."
-J. J. Rousseau, "A Savoyard Vicar" (Harvard Classics, Vol. 34, p. 267)
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I think this quote is among the best I have read on this forum in "Good Quotes".
Is God's knowledge purely intuitive?
Moderator: Moderators
Is God's knowledge purely intuitive?
If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you always got.
Is enlightenment not something that you acquire?
You Are What You Seek
Attention spiritual shoppers: enlightenment is not
something you acquire. How to avoid common pitfalls of the seeker.
By Deepak Chopra From "The Book of Secrets" by Deepak Chopra. Copyright©
2004 by Deepak Chopra. Excerpted by permission of Harmony Books, a
division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.
Seeking is a word often applied to the spiritual path, and many people
are proud to call themselves seekers. Often, they are the same people
who once chased too hard after money, sex, alcohol, or work. With the
same addictive intensity they now hope to find God, the soul, the higher
self. The problem is that seeking begins with a false assumption. I
don't mean the assumption that materialism is corrupt and spirituality
is pure. Yes, materialism can become all-consuming, but that's not the
really important point. Seeking is doomed because it is a chase that
takes you outside yourself.
Whether the object is God or money makes no real difference. Productive
seeking requires that you throw out all assumptions that there is a
prize to be won. This means acting without hope of rising to some ideal
self, hope being a wish that you'll get somewhere better than the place
you started from. You are starting from yourself, and it's the self that
contains all the answers. So you have to give up on the idea that you
must go from A to B. There is no linear path when the goal isn't
somewhere else. You must also discard fixed judgments about high and
low, good and evil, holy and profane. The one reality includes
everything in its tangle of experiences, and what we are trying to find
is the experiencer who is present no matter what experience you are
having.
Looking at the people who race around trying to be models of goodness,
someone coined the apt phrase "spiritual materialism," the transfer of
values that work in the material world over to the spiritual world.
Spiritual Materialism
Pitfalls of the Seeker:
Knowing where you're going. Struggling to get there. Using someone
else's map. Working to improve yourself. Setting a timetable. Waiting
for a miracle.
There's no better way to be a genuine seeker than to avoid these
pitfalls. # Don't know where you're going. Spiritual growth is
spontaneous. The big events come along unexpectedly, and so do the small
ones. A single word can open your heart; a single glance can tell you
who you really are. Awakening doesn't happen according to the plan. It's
much more like putting together a jigsaw puzzle without knowing the
finished picture in advance. The Buddhists have a saying, "If you meet
the Buddha on the path, kill him," which means if you're following a
spiritual script written in advance, bury it. All you can imagine in
advance are images, and images are never the same as the goal. # Don't
struggle to get there. If there were a spiritual payoff at the end of
the trail, like a pot of gold or the key to heaven, everyone would work
as hard as possible for the reward. Any struggle would be worth it. But
does it help a two-year-old to struggle to become three? No, because the
process of child development unfolds from within. You don't get a
paycheck; you turn into a new person. The same is true for spiritual
unfolding. It happens just as naturally as childhood development, but on
the plane of awareness rather than in the realm of physiology. # Don't
follow someone else's map. There was a time when I was certain that deep
meditation using one specific mantra for the rest of my life was the key
to reaching enlightenment. I was following a map laid down thousands of
years ago by venerable sages who belonged to India's greatest spiritual
tradition. But caution is always required: If you follow someone else's
map, you could be training yourself in a fixed way of thinking. Fixed
ways, even those devoted to spirit, are not the same as being free. You
should glean teachings from all directions, keeping true to those that
bring progress yet remaining open to changes in yourself.
# Don't make this a self-improvement project. Self-improvement is real.
People get stuck in bad places that they can learn to get out of.
Depression, loneliness, and insecurity are tangible experiences that can
be improved. But if you seek to reach God or enlightenment because you
want to stop being depressed or anxious, if you want greater self-esteem
or less loneliness, your search may never end. This area of
understanding isn't cut-and-dried. Some people feel tremendously
self-improved as their awareness expands; but it takes a strong sense of
self to confront the many obstacles and challenges that lie on the path.
If you feel weak or fragile, you may feel weaker and more fragile when
you confront the shadow energies within. Expanded awareness comes at a
price—you have to give up your limitations—and for anyone who feels
victimized, that limitation is often so stubborn that spiritual progress
becomes very slow. To the extent that you feel any deep conflict inside
yourself, a large hurdle stands before you on the path. The wise thing
is to seek help at the level where the problem exists. # Don't set
yourself a timetable. I've met countless people who gave up on
spirituality because they didn't reach their goals fast enough. "I gave
it ten years. What can I do? Life is only so long. I'm moving on." More
likely they devoted just one year or a month to being on the path, and
then the weekend warriors fell away, discouraged by lack of results. The
best way to avoid disappointment is not to set a deadline in the first
place, although many people find this difficult to do without losing
motivation. But motivation was never going to get them there in the
first place. Discipline is involved, no doubt, in remembering to
meditate regularly, to keep up Yoga class, to read inspiring texts, and
to keep your vision before you. Getting into the spiritual habit
requires a sense of dedication. But unless the vision is unfolding every
day, you will inevitably get distracted. Rather than a timetable, give
yourself support for spiritual growth. This can be in the form of a
personal teacher, a discussion group, a partner who shares the path with
you, regular retreats, and keeping a daily journal. You will be much
less likely to fall prey to disappointment. # Don't wait for a miracle.
It really doesn't matter how you define miracle—whether it is the sudden
appearance of perfect love, a cure for a life-threatening disease,
anointment from a great spiritual leader, or permanent and everlasting
bliss. A miracle is letting God do all the work; it separates the
supernatural world from this world, with the expectation that one day
the supernatural world will notice you. Since there is only one reality,
your task is to break through boundaries of division and separation.
Watching and waiting for a miracle keeps the boundaries up. You are ever
at a remove from God, connected to him by wishful thinking.
If you can avoid these pitfalls of spiritual materialism, you will be
much less tempted to chase after an impossible goal. The chase began
because people came to believe that God, disapproving of what he sees in
us, expects us to adopt a certain ideal. It seems impossible to imagine
a God, however loving, who doesn't get disappointed, angry, vengeful, or
disgusted with us when we fall short. The most spiritual figures in
history were not totally good, however, but totally human. They accepted
and forgave; they lacked judgment. I think the highest forgiveness is to
accept that creation is thoroughly tangled, with every possible quality
given some outlet for expression. People need to accept once and for all
that there is only one life and each of us is free to shape it through
the choices we make. Seeking can't get anyone out of the tangle because
everything is tangled up. The only thing that will ever be pure and
pristine is your own awareness, once you sort it out.
It's much easier to keep up the fight between good and evil, holy and
profane, us and them. But as awareness grows, these opposites begin to
calm down in their clashes, and something else emerges—a world you feel
at home in. The ego did you a terrible disservice by throwing you into a
world of opposites. Opposites always conflict—that's the only way they
know—and who can feel at home in the middle of a fight? Awareness offers
an alternative beyond the fray.
Attention spiritual shoppers: enlightenment is not
something you acquire. How to avoid common pitfalls of the seeker.
By Deepak Chopra From "The Book of Secrets" by Deepak Chopra. Copyright©
2004 by Deepak Chopra. Excerpted by permission of Harmony Books, a
division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.
Seeking is a word often applied to the spiritual path, and many people
are proud to call themselves seekers. Often, they are the same people
who once chased too hard after money, sex, alcohol, or work. With the
same addictive intensity they now hope to find God, the soul, the higher
self. The problem is that seeking begins with a false assumption. I
don't mean the assumption that materialism is corrupt and spirituality
is pure. Yes, materialism can become all-consuming, but that's not the
really important point. Seeking is doomed because it is a chase that
takes you outside yourself.
Whether the object is God or money makes no real difference. Productive
seeking requires that you throw out all assumptions that there is a
prize to be won. This means acting without hope of rising to some ideal
self, hope being a wish that you'll get somewhere better than the place
you started from. You are starting from yourself, and it's the self that
contains all the answers. So you have to give up on the idea that you
must go from A to B. There is no linear path when the goal isn't
somewhere else. You must also discard fixed judgments about high and
low, good and evil, holy and profane. The one reality includes
everything in its tangle of experiences, and what we are trying to find
is the experiencer who is present no matter what experience you are
having.
Looking at the people who race around trying to be models of goodness,
someone coined the apt phrase "spiritual materialism," the transfer of
values that work in the material world over to the spiritual world.
Spiritual Materialism
Pitfalls of the Seeker:
Knowing where you're going. Struggling to get there. Using someone
else's map. Working to improve yourself. Setting a timetable. Waiting
for a miracle.
There's no better way to be a genuine seeker than to avoid these
pitfalls. # Don't know where you're going. Spiritual growth is
spontaneous. The big events come along unexpectedly, and so do the small
ones. A single word can open your heart; a single glance can tell you
who you really are. Awakening doesn't happen according to the plan. It's
much more like putting together a jigsaw puzzle without knowing the
finished picture in advance. The Buddhists have a saying, "If you meet
the Buddha on the path, kill him," which means if you're following a
spiritual script written in advance, bury it. All you can imagine in
advance are images, and images are never the same as the goal. # Don't
struggle to get there. If there were a spiritual payoff at the end of
the trail, like a pot of gold or the key to heaven, everyone would work
as hard as possible for the reward. Any struggle would be worth it. But
does it help a two-year-old to struggle to become three? No, because the
process of child development unfolds from within. You don't get a
paycheck; you turn into a new person. The same is true for spiritual
unfolding. It happens just as naturally as childhood development, but on
the plane of awareness rather than in the realm of physiology. # Don't
follow someone else's map. There was a time when I was certain that deep
meditation using one specific mantra for the rest of my life was the key
to reaching enlightenment. I was following a map laid down thousands of
years ago by venerable sages who belonged to India's greatest spiritual
tradition. But caution is always required: If you follow someone else's
map, you could be training yourself in a fixed way of thinking. Fixed
ways, even those devoted to spirit, are not the same as being free. You
should glean teachings from all directions, keeping true to those that
bring progress yet remaining open to changes in yourself.
# Don't make this a self-improvement project. Self-improvement is real.
People get stuck in bad places that they can learn to get out of.
Depression, loneliness, and insecurity are tangible experiences that can
be improved. But if you seek to reach God or enlightenment because you
want to stop being depressed or anxious, if you want greater self-esteem
or less loneliness, your search may never end. This area of
understanding isn't cut-and-dried. Some people feel tremendously
self-improved as their awareness expands; but it takes a strong sense of
self to confront the many obstacles and challenges that lie on the path.
If you feel weak or fragile, you may feel weaker and more fragile when
you confront the shadow energies within. Expanded awareness comes at a
price—you have to give up your limitations—and for anyone who feels
victimized, that limitation is often so stubborn that spiritual progress
becomes very slow. To the extent that you feel any deep conflict inside
yourself, a large hurdle stands before you on the path. The wise thing
is to seek help at the level where the problem exists. # Don't set
yourself a timetable. I've met countless people who gave up on
spirituality because they didn't reach their goals fast enough. "I gave
it ten years. What can I do? Life is only so long. I'm moving on." More
likely they devoted just one year or a month to being on the path, and
then the weekend warriors fell away, discouraged by lack of results. The
best way to avoid disappointment is not to set a deadline in the first
place, although many people find this difficult to do without losing
motivation. But motivation was never going to get them there in the
first place. Discipline is involved, no doubt, in remembering to
meditate regularly, to keep up Yoga class, to read inspiring texts, and
to keep your vision before you. Getting into the spiritual habit
requires a sense of dedication. But unless the vision is unfolding every
day, you will inevitably get distracted. Rather than a timetable, give
yourself support for spiritual growth. This can be in the form of a
personal teacher, a discussion group, a partner who shares the path with
you, regular retreats, and keeping a daily journal. You will be much
less likely to fall prey to disappointment. # Don't wait for a miracle.
It really doesn't matter how you define miracle—whether it is the sudden
appearance of perfect love, a cure for a life-threatening disease,
anointment from a great spiritual leader, or permanent and everlasting
bliss. A miracle is letting God do all the work; it separates the
supernatural world from this world, with the expectation that one day
the supernatural world will notice you. Since there is only one reality,
your task is to break through boundaries of division and separation.
Watching and waiting for a miracle keeps the boundaries up. You are ever
at a remove from God, connected to him by wishful thinking.
If you can avoid these pitfalls of spiritual materialism, you will be
much less tempted to chase after an impossible goal. The chase began
because people came to believe that God, disapproving of what he sees in
us, expects us to adopt a certain ideal. It seems impossible to imagine
a God, however loving, who doesn't get disappointed, angry, vengeful, or
disgusted with us when we fall short. The most spiritual figures in
history were not totally good, however, but totally human. They accepted
and forgave; they lacked judgment. I think the highest forgiveness is to
accept that creation is thoroughly tangled, with every possible quality
given some outlet for expression. People need to accept once and for all
that there is only one life and each of us is free to shape it through
the choices we make. Seeking can't get anyone out of the tangle because
everything is tangled up. The only thing that will ever be pure and
pristine is your own awareness, once you sort it out.
It's much easier to keep up the fight between good and evil, holy and
profane, us and them. But as awareness grows, these opposites begin to
calm down in their clashes, and something else emerges—a world you feel
at home in. The ego did you a terrible disservice by throwing you into a
world of opposites. Opposites always conflict—that's the only way they
know—and who can feel at home in the middle of a fight? Awareness offers
an alternative beyond the fray.
If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you always got.
Dear Members,
with the link in the middle of the text I do not want to oppose anybody in any way. This is what my mind associated when I read Dr. Chopra's lines. I have to admit that I was quite astonished at the time when the topic "Is this the way to Enlightenment?" has been created that "the act of meditation" was put above all other "means of achieving enlightenment", as I understood it.
What leads me to something that I've read about in Sufi-literature, but am unable to express into words yet. I believe the "What is Enlightenment?"-discussion is far from being "complete"...
Good luck everybody
with the link in the middle of the text I do not want to oppose anybody in any way. This is what my mind associated when I read Dr. Chopra's lines. I have to admit that I was quite astonished at the time when the topic "Is this the way to Enlightenment?" has been created that "the act of meditation" was put above all other "means of achieving enlightenment", as I understood it.
What leads me to something that I've read about in Sufi-literature, but am unable to express into words yet. I believe the "What is Enlightenment?"-discussion is far from being "complete"...
Good luck everybody
If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you always got.
That much is obvious. That excerpt seems to have been just what I needed today. Food for thought to say the very least. I'll have to look into that book, as well as some other of Deepak Chopra's works. Thank you yothu.
Know what is in front of your face, and what is hidden from you will be disclosed to you. For there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed. - Gospel of Thomas
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YogiTranscend
- Posts: 6
- Joined: Sun Oct 23, 2005 11:37 pm
- Location: Ohio
- Contact:
Deepak Chopra
Deepak Chopra is one of my all time favorite authors. Thanks for posting that exert...it was very cool. I have not read that particular book but now I definitely will.
Hmm this reminds me... Has anyone ever seen "what the bleep do we know?". The movie is nothing short of fantastic. Its set in documentary style. Well its for sure worth a few watches, thats for sure. Deepak Chopra went to a few of the "what the bleep do we know?" meetings they held as well.
peace
Hmm this reminds me... Has anyone ever seen "what the bleep do we know?". The movie is nothing short of fantastic. Its set in documentary style. Well its for sure worth a few watches, thats for sure. Deepak Chopra went to a few of the "what the bleep do we know?" meetings they held as well.
peace
"The moon is one, yet on agitated water it produces many reflections. Similiarly ultimate reality is one, yet in a mind agitated by thought it appears to be many."
YogiTranscend: Yeah, its discussed in the What the Bleep topic
Know what is in front of your face, and what is hidden from you will be disclosed to you. For there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed. - Gospel of Thomas
-
YogiTranscend
- Posts: 6
- Joined: Sun Oct 23, 2005 11:37 pm
- Location: Ohio
- Contact:
Oh yeah I realized that after the fact. Thanks deary-oFrozn wrote:YogiTranscend: Yeah, its discussed in the What the Bleep topic
"The moon is one, yet on agitated water it produces many reflections. Similiarly ultimate reality is one, yet in a mind agitated by thought it appears to be many."