Your brain on AYAHUASCA

[lorenzop]

Depends on the context - for civilians on the street - I would refer to Christianity\Buddhism\etc. as spiritual practices even with their faults.
In this forum I reserve spirituality to refer to 'recognizing one's true nature'.

Christianity\Buddhism\etc. have lost their way and as a substitute largely offer right behavior, giving back, justice, compassion, etc. There is nothing wrong with this - it's not anybody's fault - this is the best most pastors\rabbis\priests can offer.

There are Buddhist practices such as Mahamudra or Dzogchen which are exactly about 'recognizing one's true nature'. However, if one has not yet learnt right behavior, giving back, justice, compassion, which are natural expressions of love, then 'recognizing one's true nature' will not help them and they will likely become a spiritual narcissist. That is why any Tibetan Buddhist master will not teach Mahamudra or Dzogchen until they make sure you sufficiently practiced Bodhichita, i.e. right behavior, giving back, justice, compassion, which are considered preliminary but still important practices on the Buddhist path.

Right, and this is exactly backwards.

[lorenzop]

I don't see any 'list of right actions' above. My question was simple - are you redefining 'spiritual' to exclude the Buddhist eightfold path? What is an example of spirituality that still had its edge, according to you?

Depends on the context - for civilians on the street - I would refer to Christianity\Buddhism\etc. as spiritual practices even with their faults.
In this forum I reserve spirituality to refer to 'recognizing one's true nature'.

Christianity\Buddhism\etc. have lost their way and as a substitute largely offer right behavior, giving back, justice, compassion, etc. There is nothing wrong with this - it's not anybody's fault - this is the best most pastors\rabbis\priests can offer.

Anthroposophy suggests the self can be 'fixed', just get your thinking\feeling right and you can extend the self into a World Content of Eternal Ideas . . . you'll even be able to report on all your past and future deaths. It's better than biological immortality.

I agree, the core of all ancient spiritual practices has been 'recognizing one's true nature'. And many of those practices have fallen into decadence more recently. In a certain sense, they came to rely on the outermost expression of the original practices, which stemmed from genuine insight into the interweaving threads of spiritual activity and forms. The ideas of charity, justice, compassion, etc. used to be based on genuine insight into how our inner activity relates to the inner activity of many other beings and how our corresponding deeds feedback into the quality of those inner streams of experience. All of this was known in an instinctive or dreamy way, the same way we intuitively know that we exist, that we have certain memories that constellate our stream of experience, and that we have a certain orientation to the places, things, and beings around us. We don't need to know all those things in clear-cut concepts for them to be integrated into the way we experience and interact with the World.

Modern initiation, which includes but is not limited to Anthroposophy, is simply about recovering that original wisdom, the original genuine insight into one's true nature, in full lucidity. It is about bringing that intuitive insight of our stream of experience into clearer focus. All of this begins at the place where that stream of experience is already in clear focus - our rhythm of sensing and thinking. It is from here that we can radiate out into the deeper layers of feeling and willed activity that inform all genuine spirituality and their corresponding practices. 

For ex. imagine you are stopped at a stop sign and need to turn left. For that, you need to cross two lanes of traffic going from your left to right and merge into another lane of traffic going from right to left. What do you do? First, you visually sense the oncoming cars in either direction, looking left and right. These visual sensations stimulate your thinking to expand into a broader intuitive context of principles that help you anticipate the future. In this case, you expand into the intuition of how distance and speed relate to the time it takes for moving objects to reach certain locations, both the other vehicles and your own. The whole time you are also rhythmically moving back to the sensations and allowing those to feed back into your expansive intuitive context that anctipates the future. All of this rhythmic activity takes place very quickly and smoothly without you needing to explore it in clear-cut concepts. Even without such concepts, we can know it is actually happening and we can later use our concepts to make this experience clearer to ourselves like we are doing now. 

If we're not willing to concretely experience what we are already doing with our inner activity at all times, then there is no chance of attaining a genuine spirituality that recovers the original wisdom, i..e that goes beyond the outermost expressions of dogmas and moral precepts and penetrates the inner reasons for why those expressions came into being and how they help us attune to our true inner nature. As we can see, there is nothing at all shiny or secretive about this process, unless we call our current experience of reality and how we engage with it, such as when we need to turn left at a stop sign, 'shiny and secretive'. It is not a matter of debate, either. We cannot deny this rhythmic experience of reality any more than we can deny the rhythms of day and night, waking and sleeping. That following the threads of our living experience happens to lead into the profound reservoirs of ancient wisdom is not surprising either. The only question is whether we have any interest in delving deeper into that living experience or we would rather remain speculating and philosophizing about 'spirituality' from a safe distance. 

You and Cleric have a great intuitive sense for concepts like World Content, Immortal Ideas, the Soul, etc. . . . I'm sure you will find great success.

[Stranger]

Depends on the context - for civilians on the street - I would refer to Christianity\Buddhism\etc. as spiritual practices even with their faults.
In this forum I reserve spirituality to refer to 'recognizing one's true nature'.

Christianity\Buddhism\etc. have lost their way and as a substitute largely offer right behavior, giving back, justice, compassion, etc. There is nothing wrong with this - it's not anybody's fault - this is the best most pastors\rabbis\priests can offer.

There are Buddhist practices such as Mahamudra or Dzogchen which are exactly about 'recognizing one's true nature'. However, if one has not yet learnt right behavior, giving back, justice, compassion, which are natural expressions of love, then 'recognizing one's true nature' will not help them and they will likely become a spiritual narcissist. That is why any Tibetan Buddhist master will not teach Mahamudra or Dzogchen until they make sure you sufficiently practiced Bodhichita, i.e. right behavior, giving back, justice, compassion, which are considered preliminary but still important practices on the Buddhist path. In simple words, 'recognizing one's true nature' does not work without love and compassion, and that is because the absolute ('one's true nature') is inseparable from the relative (the world and our active participation in it).

Right, and this is exactly backwards.

Well, they had a reason for that, because they observed in practical life how 'recognizing one's true nature' without developing love and compassion can quickly lead to narcissism and nihilism in many adepts. Be careful, you have been warned. This is one of the pitfalls of the modern nonduality/neo-advaita.

[ScottRoberts]

However, not everyone realizes that philosophy of Idealism was NOT created by Bishop Berkeley in Europe, but 2500 years ago in Buddhism, and at least 5000 years ago in Hinduism.

Actually, until the modern era (say, since 1500) everybody, East and West, was an idealist. Classical theism claims that every speck of dust, tree, human being came to exist and maintains its existence as a thought of God. Go back far enough, and everyone was what I call a naive idealist (they perceived spirit behind mountains and rivers, etc.) Nowadays we are naive dualists. What is interesting is how we moved from the one state of consciousness to the other. (For move elaboration on this, see here).

[lorenzop]

There are Buddhist practices such as Mahamudra or Dzogchen which are exactly about 'recognizing one's true nature'. However, if one has not yet learnt right behavior, giving back, justice, compassion, which are natural expressions of love, then 'recognizing one's true nature' will not help them and they will likely become a spiritual narcissist. That is why any Tibetan Buddhist master will not teach Mahamudra or Dzogchen until they make sure you sufficiently practiced Bodhichita, i.e. right behavior, giving back, justice, compassion, which are considered preliminary but still important practices on the Buddhist path. In simple words, 'recognizing one's true nature' does not work without love and compassion, and that is because the absolute ('one's true nature') is inseparable from the relative (the world and our active participation in it).

Right, and this is exactly backwards.

Well, they had a reason for that, because they observed in practical life how 'recognizing one's true nature' without developing love and compassion can quickly lead to narcissism and nihilism in many adepts. Be careful, you have been warned. This is one of the pitfalls of the modern nonduality/neo-advaita.

. . .if their methodology generates nihilism\narcissism then their methodology for 'recognizing one's true nature' is wrong

The Gita is perfectly clear: Ch 2:45 "Established in Being perform action"

Be wary of high priests who set hurdles to 'recognizing one's true nature'

[Stranger]

. . .if their methodology generates nihilism\narcissism then their methodology for 'recognizing one's true nature' is wrong

The Gita is perfectly clear: Ch 2:45 "Established in Being perform action"

Be wary of high priests who set hurdles to 'recognizing one's true nature'

Only by love can men see me, and know me, and come unto me. Bhagavad Gita 11:54

Through Jnana you come to know the formless and timeless aspect of Reality, through Bhakti you come to know the living and form-creating aspect of it. One does not work without the other. But by establishing yourself in practicing Bhakti yoga before proceeding to Jnana you save yourself from the danger of falling into the trap of spiritual nihilism and narcissism.

Sri Ramana Maharshi always maintained that Bhakti (devotion) is Jnana mata meaning Bhakti gives birth to Jnana as a mother gives birth to a child.

[lorenzop]

Bhakti and Jnana are also be means of 'recognizing one's true nature'
'recognizing one's true nature' is not to be postponed is all I'm suggesting

[lorenzop]

Now I appreciate that you are a tolerant person and you always tell that anyone is free to do whatever they want, even if it is to chase the golden calf. But I’m still unclear whether you think that the experience of the world serves any purpose for spiritual development besides being the experiential arena that needs to be transcended.

I must have missed this question in all of the 'Jon Excitement'.
I didn't suggest people can do what they want, I didn't suggest thinking and activity have no consequences. People can not do what ever they want.
I didn't suggest that renunciation and banishment of the world is a spiritual goal - though this is a common misinterpretation of the main message from the East.
Re 'whether I think that the experience of the world serves any purpose for spiritual development ' - - - I fully confess to using a narrow definition of spirituality and what constitutes a spiritual practice. I would prefer the word\phrase 'spiritual' to have utility and not apply to all thinking and activity.

What I have alluded to, but was not clear - - - is that scripture seems to indicate that an individual established in his\her true nature, such an individual will enjoy support of nature, and will naturally behave in accordance with nature. We can discuss whether this is true, or if this is what scripture suggests.