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tadeas
Czech Republic
314 Posts |
 Posted - Sep 27 2008 : 9:24:00 PM
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Some quotes from a book called "The Origins of Man and the Universe: The Myth That Came to Life" by Barry Long.
Just some that I thought were interesting, in no particular order. And be sure to meditate otherwise it's likely to create only more baggage :)
Here we go...
Reality is neither past nor eventual; it is now. Now is the original and only state of things. Nothing ever has happened or can happen outside of now. Although self-evident, the significance of this is extremely difficult to concede. We are involuntarily, unconsciously terrified of it for it means giving up the past and seems to predicate losing all of the established foundations from which we gain our psychological sense of security. Through the feeling of having been, we get the feeling of being someone, something. It is a substitute for being now. It is comforting, reassuring almost to the point of necessity for most of us; but it is not the truth. To be someone or something at any time requires living in the past.
To be able to perceive the beginning of the universe and oneself as now is the beginning of immortality in the individual. To cling to any other beginning in the face of the real is for the individual to continue to calculate his own inevitable and equally unreal death.
[...]
Now is exactly the same instant that the intellect formed in the mind and the universe began. In truth nothing has changed, nothing ever will. The thing that does change and therefore is evolutionary, or at any moment not yet itself, is intelligence. Intelligence invented interval, the past and the Big Bang theory because it is not yet up to living in the now.
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The realisation of Immortality, I-am, Life, Non-existence, and the other extreme points of Consciousness, is not Self-Realisation. These "high" points of Consciousness are differentiated forms of the Self, or reality -- eternally present ideas, archetypal mind structures. They are neither concepts, precepts or percepts. They are "there", in the individual's Consciousness for him to realise as quickly as possible. The Self, although none of these high points, contains them all.
Self-Realisation is a State. A State -- like an ideal platonic national state -- is a self-sufficient beingness. No experience of a state is possible by those totally in that state because no separatedness exists for them to experience. Non-separatedness is non-experience.
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Sooner or later every good man who has learned to love and perhaps to serve something worthy in the world reaches a crisis point. He has to start facing up to the only thing that now stands between him and true selfless love. This is himself, the final residual emotional entity which he overlooked and unconsciously assumed was loving or doing the loving. The self itself - representing all that lives in him apart from love - must now be consciously dissolved. This is done by using his authentic being to observe and understand his emotional self. It means turning his attention inward instead of allowing it to be driven outward. For a long, long time the man must live out of character instead of out of his nature. This is extremely difficult to do as it entails going against much that is psychologically and emotionally normal in himself and society. To all other men living normal lives his behaviour and actions at this time will seem to be unnatural and therefore questionable. Furthermore, while the struggle is in progress the man's ability to love may seem to the world to be doubtful or self-centered.
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If you don't know what to do: Do nothing.
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Our feeling body does not have the shape and appearance of the physical body that our senses or fixed perceptions would have us believe. Our senses have produced a body that ages and dies. Yet the sensation of the body never ages, never dies. And although sensation may alter in frequency between pain and wellbeing, it is never absent. This body of indeterminate sensation is the ground of our psychic existence, whether we are alive, dead or dreaming. This body cannot die.
It is always some other body which is seen to be dying. If I should ever see my body dead, then I cannot be dead. If I never see my body dead, then death is an assumption. Only our fixed perceptions are seen to be dying.
Here is another example of fixed perception. I am conditioned to imagine that this mind of mine is confined to somewhere in my head, when really it is not positional at all. 'My head' is one of its fixed perceptions. If the head is taken away, as in sleep, where is outside, where is inside? All is just space or psyche in which heads and dreams are created every moment.
How necessary are our senses, our physical bodies? The senses are utterly necessary to physical existence. But they are not vital to our psyche or non-positional being. Which means that without our senses or bodies, we still are.
Does this mean there is no physical world in reality? No. It means there is no reality in the physical world except that which I provide.
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Modern man is endeavouring to rid himself of the confusion and uncertainty created by emotional indulgence and ignorance. The remarkably popular self-growth movement, all the different meditation methods, therapies, schools of philosophy and psychology are directed towards this end. A huge and growing section of humanity is ready to discover that for all its apparent sincerety and harmlessness, emotional living and thinking is no more than pathetic, self-indulgent games-playing #8211; the demand for love. Love cannot be demanded. But emotion thinks it can.
By facing up to the fact of emotion, by starving the demonic genie out of himself, man can begin to realise and fulfil his two basic drives - for pleasure as self-expression, and for love as union. As he is now, under the influence of the distorting and confusing demands of emotion, man can only vaguely sense that continuous creative pleasure and constant love are attainable. Certainly, his experience of living does little to confirm this; creative pleasure and constant love remain for most an impossible dream. Yet everyone in their own way continues to pursue them with unshakable certainty. For the simple truth is that man was born to love and to create.
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Each day every one of us subconsciously retouches the picture of his or her life to make the grotesque travesty of living-to-die make some sense and seem reasonable. We learn to live with a finger in the flame of doubt by refusing to acknowledge the pain to ourselves and each other, or to look for the cause of it. We are benevolent liars to our children, hearty cowards to ourselves. Apart from a few self-realised individuals, only the insane see the unbearable truth. Ours is a jungle in which everyone is kept as busy and unquestioning as is humanly possible, not for common welfare bu for common safety. Only in the real jungle there are no policemen, no doubts - and no insanity.
The unbearable truth, which few are allowed to realise without going mad, is that every man is fighting or trying to live through his nature in order to make a better or more meaningful life for man to come. This is the dynamic of human evolution. Each life is lived solely for another life. As the point is always another life there is never really this life - therefore no apparent point, no permanence, no peace for long, no death. While man lives, he must fight and strive to build the individual he will be tomorrow. As there is no tomorrow, and yet only tomorrow, there is no end. Man can never rest content, even when he is dead. This is the epitome of futility, insanity. Which is why for man who is mortal, the truth of life must always remain myth.
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emc
2072 Posts |
Posted - Sep 28 2008 : 04:50:43 AM
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Hi tadeas,
I'm so glad you quote Barry Long. I've read most of his books, and he touches very deep! If you can bear with his a bit "old" type of language, his knowledge is profound.
He is particularly brilliant when it comes to relationships. The books that has helped me sort things out in a particuarly clear way is:
To Woman in Love
To Man in Truth
If you ever wondered why quarrels or distance happen in relationships the answers are given there! |
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newpov
USA
183 Posts |
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Barry Long - The Origins of Man and the Universe
