Osho - Comparing Buddha And Jesus

[Ryan Rudolph]

I thought this is was interesting. Osho is suggesting that Jesus was far more fiery and less refined than Buddha because was had died so young, and didn't have the chance to mature fully into enlightenment. I think there was a story of Jesus where he whipped moneylenders in the town square. This is probably why he was interpreted as more of a political revolutionary by many of his followers. They missed a lot of the deeper philosophy he was pointing to, and only focused on his evident fiery political side. Any thoughts?

Question - In comparing Jesus to Buddha, Jesus seems very active and revolutionary. Why is this?

Osho - There is a reason. But first, some explanation is needed. Yoga divides man into two parts: the sun part and the moon part. The sun is symbolic of inner positivity and the moon is symbolic of inner negativity. Sun does not mean the outer sun nor does moon mean the outer moon. These words are used for the inner universe.

There is even one breath that is known as the sun breath and another breath that is known as the moon breath. Every forty to sixty minutes, your breath changes from one nostril to the other. If you need more heat in the body, or if you suddenly grow angry, your sun breath starts functioning. Yoga says that if you use your moon breath when you are angry, then you cannot be angry at all, because the moon breath creates a deep coolness inside.

The negative is cool, silent, still. The positive is hot, vibrant with energy, active. The sun is the active part in you and the moon is the inactive part in you. When one first becomes acquainted with the sun, the light is burning hot, like a flame.

If you analyze the inner life of Buddha or of Jesus with this distinction in mind, many things which are ordinarily hidden will become apparent. For example, whenever an enlightened one like Buddha is born, his early life will be very revolutionary. The moment one enters the inner dimension, the first experience is of a fiery flame. But the older Buddha grows, the more an inner coolness is felt. The more perfect the moon stage becomes, the more the revolutionary fervor is lost. That is why Buddha's words are not revolutionary.

Jesus did not have this opportunity. He was crucified while he was still a revolutionary and he died, as far as Christianity is concerned, at the age of thirty-three. If you compare Buddha's sayings with those of Jesus there is a clearcut difference. Jesus' sayings look like those of a young man -- hot. Buddha's early sayings were also like this, but he was not crucified for them; he lived to be eighty.

The reason he was not crucified is that India has always known that this happens. Whenever a person moves within, whenever a buddha enters into himself, his first expression is fiery, revolutionary, rebellious. He bursts open and explodes into fire. But then that phase disappears and ultimately there is only the moon: silent, without any fire, with only light. That is why India has never killed anyone; that is why India has never behaved the way the Greeks behaved with Socrates or the Jews with Jesus.

Jesus was crucified early. Christianity still remains incomplete because Christianity is based on the early Jesus, on Jesus when he was just a flame. Buddhism is complete. It has known Buddha in all his stages. It has known Buddha's moon in all the stages of the moon -- from the first day to the full moon light.

It has been a misfortune for the West, it has proven itself to be one of the greatest misfortunes in history, that Jesus was crucified when he was just a flame, when he was only thirty-three. The flame would have turned into moonlight, but the opportunity was not given. The reason is that the Jews were not aware of the inner phenomenon.

India has known many buddhas, and it is always true that whenever someone enters the inner dimension, he has to feel the fire of the revolutionary side coming up. If one continues going inward, this dissolves, and then there is only silence, a moonlit silence. To change heat into light is the secret science of inner alchemy. To change coal into diamonds, to change baser metals into gold -- these are just symbols.

Alchemists were never really concerned with changing baser metals into higher metals, but they had to hide what they were doing. They had to create an esoteric, secret symbology, because it was very difficult in early times to talk about an inner science and not be murdered. Jesus was killed: he was an alchemist. And the Christianity that developed after Jesus went against him. The Christian Church began to kill and murder those who were practicing the alchemy of inner transformation.

Christianity could not really flower into a religion; it remained a clerical thing. It could not create sannyasins, it could only create preachers -- trained, dead, disciplined.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

I think there was a story of Jesus where he whipped moneylenders in the town square. This is probably why he was interpreted as more of a political revolutionary by many of his followers.

To be fair, this happened in the main temple itself. The genius of that action (or parable) was to recognize the greatest danger to religion was to turn it into a ritual of transactions (like "paying for sin"). The money exchangers were actually dealing in foreign money (depicting often the icon of a 'godking') so people could buy sacrificial animals. The violent cleansing of the "unclean spirits" from the "temple" might be seen as another version of exorcism.

History shows that the transaction based religion prospered (Jesus the Lamb died for atonement, evolving into mainstream banking econonomy) while the puritan die-hard branch died out. It was like sowing seed on a rocky patch there though. Buddha might not have survived three days!

[Ryan Rudolph]

Diebert,

History shows that the transaction based religion prospered (Jesus the Lamb died for atonement, evolving into mainstream banking econonomy) while the puritan die-hard branch died out. It was like sowing seed on a rocky patch there though. Buddha might not have survived three days!

So you are suggesting that the environment in which Jesus existed was much more harsh than that of the Buddha. But I suppose what I am exploring is how the psychology of the spiritual man evolves. Is there a universal trajectory? Jesus seemed to be of two spirits. Sometimes he spoke with a lot of hatred, anger and direct confrontation, other times he was very calm, rational and poetic. The bulk of Buddha's teaching are pretty devoid of emotion though, and I suppose this is probably because the Buddha was an older man, he had time to reflect on the body of his work, and select the best material to pass on. Much like Lao Tzu.

[Talking Ass]

In my view---please excuse me for this---there is something despicable in Rajneesh. It is hard for me to divorce his ideas, expressed in his writing, from his bizarre presence through his culties that used to pepper---or 'paprika' (for the deep orange-red color of their clothes)---the US.

Christianity could not really flower into a religion; it remained a clerical thing. It could not create sannyasins, it could only create preachers -- trained, dead, disciplined.

This is simply not true, even if one takes the most unsympathetic view of Christianity or of Europe. It was carried out quite crudely and imperfectly but the values expressed through Christianity were inculcated at very fundamental levels all throughout society. And people certainly did, within their structures, understanding and their time-frame, try to mould culture in accord with spiritual and religious principals.

The use of the word 'sannyasin' is ironical here, since his scores of thousands of followers (who described themselves as sannyasins), all dressed in that deep reddish color and wearing a 'mala' around their necks with his image at the center, were living out a freak-fantasy of what it is to be a sannyasin. When Rashneesh disappeared from the scene (was deported) so too did they disappear. It is extremely peculiar and suspect that this man thinks he can say anything at all about the culture of Europe and so many different groups of people who have, very seriously, turned their focus to these texts and to the life we live and attempted to live out values.

And even more so: with Protestantism there began one of the most far-ranging attemps to spiritualize life and to carry those identified spiritual values out into the world. The effect of this is still quite vital and alive and the process does continue in its way. But it is a big part of 'the problem' that not so many really understand this history and they are more inclined to reject it. That is really an unfortunate thing. (Or, as with the founders of this forum, to focus only one one minor aspect of this protestant intensity and fail to recognize how these ideas work in very wide and divergent areas of life).

Jesus' sayings look like those of a young man -- hot.

This is absurd. What marks the sayings of Jesus as recorded in the Gospels, and even the apocryphal story of his life and activities, is precisely the opposite of 'hot'. If anything, especially for a young man, he was rather too 'old' and 'cold'. The episode with the money changers is rather the anomaly in comparison to the rather even-handedness of his actions (even if they were radical and confrontative). If his intensity is to be called 'hot' then the Prophets are irridescent white-hot...

The reason he was not crucified is that India has always known that this happens. Whenever a person moves within, whenever a buddha enters into himself, his first expression is fiery, revolutionary, rebellious. He bursts open and explodes into fire. But then that phase disappears and ultimately there is only the moon: silent, without any fire, with only light. That is why India has never killed anyone; that is why India has never behaved the way the Greeks behaved with Socrates or the Jews with Jesus.

Perhaps. But looked at from another angle, what happens in India is that everything is pushed back into an endless interiority. Those impulses that when 'sane and healthy' should be directed outward toward the transformation of the world are thwarted, resisted, run up against so much exterior hierarchy and priestly opposition that they are forced into other, strange and less healtyh channels: the endless attractions of interior worlds, feats of consciousness, hallucinations of the value of 'enlightenment'. Meanwhile, the culture remains rigidly stratefied, locked into indelible social roles (castes), immune to advancement and progress, and stultified in all manner of superstitions. In comparison to this, European Protestantism is a breath of fresh and pure air, and in comparison to rotten water, is fresh and living water. (This does not at all mean that there are not vital or 'important' aspects to Indian or Eastern spirituality, but it is useful to mark certain disfferences, and these differences make all the difference in the world).

Jesus was crucified early. Christianity still remains incomplete because Christianity is based on the early Jesus, on Jesus when he was just a flame. Buddhism is complete. It has known Buddha in all his stages. It has known Buddha's moon in all the stages of the moon -- from the first day to the full moon light.

It has been a misfortune for the West, it has proven itself to be one of the greatest misfortunes in history, that Jesus was crucified when he was just a flame, when he was only thirty-three. The flame would have turned into moonlight, but the opportunity was not given. The reason is that the Jews were not aware of the inner phenomenon.

It seems this poor brute is totally unaware of the fundamentals of the mystery of Christianity (and Judaism), and the notion of 'sacrifice' and atonement as a metaphysical principal. True, you don't have to believe it (that humankind was redeemed through a sacrrifice offered by God himself...), but to speak in this way is evidence that he speaks to an ignorant crowd. People who do not even vaguely understand the fuller, inside dimensions of their own traditions.

Jesus was killed: he was an alchemist. And the Christianity that developed after Jesus went against him. The Christian Church began to kill and murder those who were practicing the alchemy of inner transformation.

What he is doing here is similar in a way to what Quinn does with Jesus: he seeks to turn him (as a 'person' and as a symbol of the symbolization of divinity) into a caricature of a Zen monk, or in the case of Rajneesh a Hindu sadhu. Yoga is generally speaking described as an inner process, and 'yoga' is a linking-up with inner processes. But it is not at all correct (in fact it is a lie) to revision the Jesus of the Gospels, or even the apocryphal Jesuses---the 'Christs'---as some sort of Hindu yogi. Jesus came out of the tradition of Jewish nationalism and humanism and a very deep theism (How does one get around this, I ask? What smokescreen, what smoke and mirrors allows one to perform this recostuming?) and has everything to do with a deliberate, downward movement into flesh-consciousness and flesh-activity. The whole nature of the focus, in so many substantial senses, is in the presence of the body and in the meaning of here-and-now life, even if the fact or symbol of the afterlife is also stressed.

To understand the actual and real (and 'bona fide') innards of Christianity is not an easy thing, in my view. You can only get it by making the effort, and what one finds there is quite different and much more enriching and relevant than what you'd imagine is there if you listened only to the Southern Baptists or the hierophants of the Catholic Church. It is a shame, in my view, that many people who write here seem caught up in rejection of 'their own traditions' and what has made them what they are...and favor it for things that are not their own and which did not inform them.

The result in my view is a kind of impotent milktoast. Neither fish nor fowl. Ni chicha ni limonada. It is the beginning of a weakening and 'unmanly' path...to irrelevance. Even as relevance is so desired (and so needed).

[Talking Ass]

This is probably why he was interpreted as more of a political revolutionary by many of his followers.

See The Trial of Jesus of Nazareth, by S.G.F Brandon. It is impossible to know with certainty, but it is unlikely that the man Jesus was not a Jewish nationalist who opposed Roman imperialism. He is represented though as being indifferent to it. But if one begins to distinquish a 'Jesus' who was nationalist and anti-imperialist, you wind up in a territory of defining a rather different 'Jesus'.

What is more immediately interesting, and also relevant, is the idea that people take what they want of any teaching, text, or context, and deliberately misread. Early Christianity is a deliberate misreading of Judaism; a deliberate cynical darkening of understanding so to turn against Jewish nationalism and the Jewish state religion. But so is Pharisaism, in its own way. The man Jesus was tried as a 'political revolutionary' but later persons, filled with fire and will, broadened his endeavors well beyond the borders of Judea...to include the whole world...this whole plane of existence in fact! They 'deliberately misread' time itself (overturning it in echatological upheaval and renewal). You can't go much farther than that...

I always stress this point of deliberate misreading because it is this to a 'tee' that is done here by 'you philosophers': at least this is a strong element of what you do. I find it so interesting that you don't see it.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Jesus seemed to be of two spirits. Sometimes he spoke with a lot of hatred, anger and direct confrontation, other times he was very calm, rational and poetic. The bulk of Buddha's teaching are pretty devoid of emotion though, and I suppose this is probably because the Buddha was an older man, he had time to reflect on the body of his work, and select the best material to pass on. Much like Lao Tzu.

Wisdom traditions grow within different cultures and different literatures. Personally I see the Gospels more as Homeric in its drama and tragic, with much sense of the Greek theatrical pathos wedged into it. That way it might have died from its own popularity by the "unwashed". Yet at the same time the core elements are simple and hardly embellished, cast more as raw and historical material to bring it all down to Earth a bit more. Within Buddhism the context is often more abstract, clinical with a rigid structuralism and obsessive naming and all tentatively bordering on passive and mindless contemplation. Osho was a great critic on Eastern philosophy for similar reasons. He despised the effect of it on the development of certain Eastern societies over the centuries. As if the spirit left there long ago and cow culture remained.

[David Quinn]

I always stress this point of deliberate misreading because it is this to a 'tee' that is done here by 'you philosophers': at least this is a strong element of what you do. I find it so interesting that you don't see it.

You do exactly the same, Alex.

Instead of the perjorative term "deliberate misreading", how about we use a more neutral term - namely, "conscious interpreting". We are all interpreting the meaning of the Gospels - even you, Alex.

How each of us interpret the Gospels reflects our psychology, values and levels of wisdom. As much as I dislike Osho, he looks like an utter genius with his comments on Jesus compared to the way you reduce Jesus to a mere cog in Jewish cultural history. Talk about misreading the Gospels ......

-

[Talking Ass]

David wrote: "As much as I dislike Osho, he looks like an utter genius with his comments on Jesus compared to the way you reduce Jesus to a mere cog in Jewish cultural history.

It is not a reduction, not in the sense that your preferred view is a reduction [Jesus as Enlightened Sage], because it is only the beginning of an opening up and an opening outward toward an understanding of the man who was Jesus (quite difficult if not impossible); the actual facts of the life of a possible man named Yeshua in Judea during the time of the Roman Occupation vis-a-vis state authority and the occupational authority; the relation of the possible man Jesus to the radical Jewish sects that had arrived on the scene (with startling new doctrines and a certain adversarial stance to the State Religion); the relation of the possible man Yeshua to the rebellious sects and the nationalist sects who simply wanted the occupier out; and then the mystification of Jesus and the forming of a doctrine of value-structures that was then brought out into Gentile world, through a Greek imaginal and metaphysical lens.

I mean, it just goes on and on, David. So much that is vital and relevant to 'our culture' and the way we think originates in this stuff. Still, it doesn't at all surprise me that you prefer the tarted-up pseudo-yogic views of a gifted charlatan [he did after all have some interesting ideas] to something that might be called 'genuine understanding'.

It surprises me often that the Grand Philosophers of these pages...are not quite adults...are not quite interested in 'reality' and 'truth'...and who prefer adolescent fantasies about imagined religions...to grounded conversations that relate to 'reality' and to truths that can really be put to use. Now, that is not ALL that happens among the geniuses, but it is some part of it. It accords with the values of the forum to point out that the forum is not living up to its own ideals.

Surely you wouldn't slight me for desiring...more Truth?

Once one has grasped that you simply do not have even the slightest grip on a 'genuine understanding' of 'Jesus' or Christianity, but that you yet extract so very much out of your reading of Kierkegaard [and Nietzsche] who was 'genuinely involved' in the traditions in an 'authentic' sense, one can begin to dismantel your non-authentic, deliberately misread grasp of so much of this material! A nearly complete misunderstanding! A nearly complete misportrayal!

But in another way a 'creative misreading', or as Bloom would say, a revisionism by clinamen; clinamen coming from Lucretius and meaning 'swerve in the motion of atoms that makes change possible in the universe': a deliberate misreading that is a 'swerve' into a radically different interpretation, for radically different purposes of the present. Not all invalid, if conscious. (Or even if not, I reckon).

But this naturally opens up an investigation into exactly what you are doing, and why, and what are the 'true sources' [if you wanted to get 'causal'] of this reportrayal. I tend to think it has a relationship to 'nihilism', to a breaking-up and dismantling of the humanism of the human, which is not at all 'Christian', nor Kierkegaardian, possibly not even Zen or even Buddhist, but which is uniquely and destructively your own. But even destruction has its place. Yet it verges into a philosophy of hatred of what we in fact are! an impossible denial! and quite relevantly at the core of it is one glaring impossible denial, that of Woman.

Hey, it is y'all who put these interpretations in motion. Don't blame me for desiring to get to the bottom of them, to see where they really originate (which is also to say where they will inevitably lead).

I am but a Humble Ass and look at all the interesting possible questions I open up...

[Ryan Rudolph]

David Quinn,

As much as I dislike Osho, he looks like an utter genius with his comments on Jesus compared to the way you reduce Jesus to a mere cog in Jewish cultural history. Talk about misreading the Gospels .....

originally, hearing Osho speak on videos turned me off of him as a philosopher due to the distracting quality of his speech. However, upon reading some of his writings, some of it is really good. He has obvious character flaws, like all men, but he did expose himself to most of the decent philosophers, and some of their thoughts and style inevitably found its way into his own thinking and writing style.

He may have been a man that originally wasn't clinging too strongly to those around him, but he lacked the discipline and courage to cut certain people off when they needed to be, and inevitably his life had quite a bit of scandal and tragedy. He probably got used to having an audience, and the security, and became lazy.

Although, moments leading up to his death, he was pretty calm, rational, at peace, and accepting of what was taking place.

It all depends on if he had the courage to see himself as a conscious sinner, not able to live up to his own ideals, or if he blocked out his character flaws, or actually inflated them as something positive.

[Tomas]

I thought this is was interesting. Osho is suggesting that Jesus was far more fiery and less refined than Buddha because was had died so young, and didn't have the chance to mature fully into enlightenment. I think there was a story of Jesus where he whipped moneylenders in the town square. This is probably why he was interpreted as more of a political revolutionary by many of his followers. They missed a lot of the deeper philosophy he was pointing to, and only focused on his evident fiery political side. Any thoughts?

Hey Ryan, Diebert, and David...

This article had come out a couple days previous, at veteranstoday.com, written by Allen K Roland, a fellow military veteran like me but much, much more well-known. When you arrive at the article click on his name (in blue) for his mini-bio.

A couple snips from article regarding Jesus-Buddha similarities.

Jesus - The Ultimate Rebel

A state of consciousness that he surrendered to and found during his undocumented years from 12 to 30 and most probably in his travels to India.

Their work follows in the footsteps of the Oxford New Testament scholar Barnett Hillman Streeter, who established in the 1930s that the moral teaching of the Buddha has four remarkable resemblances to the Sermon on the Mount.

So let's say that Jesus, like many of us, was originally looking outside of God and true meaning in his life and towards the end of those 18 years realized that what he was externally looking for was instead deepest within him ~ a love, a state of soul consciousness and a kingdom of heaven so deep that it existed beyond time and space and it was calling him to service.

Full Story
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2012/04/01 ... mate-rebel

.

[Cahoot]

David Quinn,

As much as I dislike Osho, he looks like an utter genius with his comments on Jesus compared to the way you reduce Jesus to a mere cog in Jewish cultural history. Talk about misreading the Gospels .....

originally, hearing Osho speak on videos turned me off of him as a philosopher due to the distracting quality of his speech. However, upon reading some of his writings, some of it is really good. He has obvious character flaws, like all men, but he did expose himself to most of the decent philosophers, and some of their thoughts and style inevitably found its way into his own thinking and writing style.

He may have been a man that originally wasn't clinging too strongly to those around him, but he lacked the discipline and courage to cut certain people off when they needed to be, and inevitably his life had quite a bit of scandal and tragedy. He probably got used to having an audience, and the security, and became lazy.

Although, moments leading up to his death, he was pretty calm, rational, at peace, and accepting of what was taking place.

It all depends on if he had the courage to see himself as a conscious sinner, not able to live up to his own ideals, or if he blocked out his character flaws, or actually inflated them as something positive.

Osho’s commentary on Patanjali’s yoga sutras is an enjoyable read.
http://www.messagefrommasters.com/Ebook ... n_Yoga.htm

In volume 6 he discusses Jesus in terms of this sutra and the enmity of the crucifixion.
- When the yogi is firmly established in nonviolence, there is an abandonment of enmity by those who are in his presence. -

[Jamesh]

Osho seems correct to me.

(10) Jesus said, "I have cast fire upon the world, and see, I am guarding it until it blazes."

These are the words of a young man. He is revelling in being a catalyst. He still has the hero desire and wants to see results/outcomes brought about by his own actions.

This is an attachment we see with many people who become familiar with the nature of reality and are changed as a result. They feel full of truth and are driven to "save" others.

The Buddha I think was past this stage - a bit more like David here. David values truth above everything else but no longer has the strong emotional insistence that it is absolutely necessary to impart this truth to others - he could take it or leave it, but as he has built his life around truth, he continues to promote these truths. It is a Why Not, rather than a Must Do.

Like many young catalysts, Jesus was stupid and impatient enough to let himself be killed. Unlike Buddha and India, there were plenty of hotheads around, the human outcome of consistent regional wars, to do that for him. Were he actually truly wise, rather than reactive, then he would have been able to work out a way to live longer. I do not accept he let himself be killed as a result of his own youthful actions so that the positive afteraffects of his martyrdom would be more pronounced. He prolly had the same “it won’t happen to me” attitude as a young smoker or drink driver might have.

Jesus may have been committing suicide (in setting himself up to be caught) for other reasons though. He might have just given up. He seemed to be sick of trying to convince others of his truth. His disciples seemed like twits, who just didn’t get enough of it – in the same way that few become enlightened nowadays even with all the resources for truth that are now around to help dispel delusional thinking.

[Cathy Preston]

Guilt is a heavy choking burden and in the East there is Karma and in the West there is Jesus died for our sins.

[Talking Ass]

Keep in mind the following, Jamesh: Generally speaking, when it comes to people making declarations about spirituality, religion, spiritual values, etc., it is often not enquiry or continued enquiry or desire to learn or desire to have something revealed, but more that they have arrived at a premise and grab and use anything that supports that premise. I suggest that one of the chief characteristics of the style of thinking (perceiving, understanding) that is demonstrated here, and especially by Sri You-Know-Who, is not really inquisitive thinking but stark concluding. I also suggest that this style of thinking is perfect for men who are beginning a process not of opening themselves up (the idea is too feminine, like a woman opening her legs), but of shutting themselves down and closing themselves off. If this is so, it pretty radically conditions the notion of 'enlightenment' and also the notion of 'delusion'. After all, what exactly is 'delusion'? Who perceives it as such? Who defines it?

"I have cast fire upon the world, and see, I am guarding it until it blazes."

This is a quite interesting parable, in the midst of a group of parables in Luke. This particular one does not, as I recall, appear in Mark (from which Luke derived much) and so they propose that it may have come from another document of 'sayings' that was circulating not too many years after the death of Jesus. They assume that this roving preacher did no writing himself, and that the people around him did little or no writing, and they also assume that he likely worked with short, pithy, memorable sayings and parables on top of which he built his preaching content. This saying, in fact, is regarded by scholars as being likely attrributable to the historical figure Jesus, and not like much of John a concocted 'christological' (and 'novelistic) personage and doctrine. The saying in and of itself is rather compelling because it is open to many different levels of interpretation, but so were almost all the parables. You could take it out of the context of that group of parables in Luke and juxtapose it with any other sayings (say from Buddhism) and simply by recontextualizing it, dramatically reinflect the meaning, which is open.

Obviously, Sri You-Know-Who does exactly this. The 'goal' of spiritual life is preestablsihed and predefined. 'Rationally'. Then one works backward as it were into and through any other text, from any other tradition or time, to 'enforce' on those texts contexts the meaning one has preestablished. I suggest this is a pretty sad way of working, and is pretty terrible 'philsophically'.

But if one starts with 'an open mind' (and I know there are truly terrifying associations here with 'open vagina' and 'flouncy femininity', but lets not get pinned down under that) and says 'I don't know what this means' or 'I don't know what was meant', it leads into a project of learning, considering, reading and thinking. The 'fire' being spoken of becomes then something to be discovered. And it might fit into considerations of other pithy phrasings that have similar 'inner dimension' and open up into perceptions and ideas not immediately obvious. It stands as possible that they do not have to do with the preestablished Sri You-Know-Who meanings, and they might not be as linked as one assumes to Buddhist notions or Zennish notions. It stands as a possibility that they have their own, unique meaning and message. How would one dig into that different area of possible meaning? I suggest: by sincerely making enquiry within the context.

Jamesh wrote: The Buddha I think was past this stage - a bit more like David here. David values truth above everything else but no longer has the strong emotional insistence that it is absolutely necessary to impart this truth to others - he could take it or leave it, but as he has built his life around truth, he continues to promote these truths. It is a Why Not, rather than a Must Do.

'The Buddha' is far more of a construct than even the christological Jesus. That is the first problem. If it is hard to get to the 'historical Jesus' (the man), it is impossible to get to 'the Buddha'. So when you say 'beyond this stage' you are referring to a long historical and cultural process that culminates in a group of ideas about life, and a way to deal with living. It cannot be attributable to one man, it seems to me.

And though it is attractive to see the Indian 'culmination' (in Buddhism) as dealing with 'absolute truth' or an absolute foundation of all possible truth-telling, and then drop Judeo-Christianity into this picture, like into a vat of acid, to see what remains and what compares (and surely some things must...), still this is a reductive methodology for reasons that should be obvious.

Finally, you and 'you' must immediately knock David off of his self-subscribed dais. You must do this as a favor to him. He has no qualifications nor any 'right' to make any assumptions about 'enlightenment' and is in many ways (though a decent bloke and likable) a sham-artist who has got people dancing to his tune. His ideas about himself are destructive to himself, and the ideas he defines about religion and spirituality are disturbingly narcissistic. Knock him off the throne and force him continue to work as we all must work!

Jamesh wrote: "Like many young catalysts, Jesus was stupid and impatient enough to let himself be killed. Unlike Buddha and India, there were plenty of hotheads around, the human outcome of consistent regional wars, to do that for him. Were he actually truly wise, rather than reactive, then he would have been able to work out a way to live longer. I do not accept he let himself be killed as a result of his own youthful actions so that the positive afteraffects of his martyrdom would be more pronounced. He prolly had the same “it won’t happen to me” attitude as a young smoker or drink driver might have."

One recognizes, immediately, the logical imperatives that you are using. To propose a 'historical man' (a preacher, a sage, a troublesome thinker) one has to place him in a truly human frame, and for you, above, that is youthful impetuousness. And by proposing that, you propose there is another 'method' that would have been 'better' or should have been applied. Naturally, your presuppositions takes none of the metaphysical aspects into account, likely because you don't or can't think in those terms (the necessaity of dying so as to 'save'), nor is there in your presuppositions any link to the historicity of this Jesus-figure in the sense of connection to the evolution of the prophetic message, nor to the sense (or 'delusion') of 'God's involvement in the world'. What you have done is...rather strange in fact. I am not saying 'wrong' but I will say limiting. Even at the most basic level, to understand Christianity (Paul's message in the Gentile world) you have to at least take into consideration what the story meant to these people. For it was on the basis of the content of the Story (this peculiar area where reality and an inner, imaginal, 'novelesque world' has its 'existence') that the meaning penetrated into the culture and had the effect it did, which is considerable, and more: it is part of the basis of Western culture and how our very 'self' has been constructed.

I think therefore that what you have written is really not that useful for analysis.

Whatever happened in the Occidental world, whatever has been 'our' motion and quest, it simply cannot be compared to Indian history. Or if it can I do not see how, nor the utility of it. How people in the Alexandrian-Judean-Hellinistic-Roman world made use of ideas about God, salvation, social organization, worship, present and future, value and any number of different things, are unique to that context. If one wishes to 'regress' through a Buddhist lens and sort of revision all life and all history, well, what can one say? Have at it! Enjoy! But it won't necessarily lead to much understanding of 'who we are' and also 'who YOU are'.

But it has to be stated: The Q-R-S project is a radical, radical project defined by itself. It has no need to conform to anything but what itself defines and insists as 'valuable' or 'important' or 'necessary'. That is, I have found, the 'style of thinking' that is done here. And I have certainly explained myself at length and why I think it is 'bad thinking'.

"His disciples seemed like twits, who just didn’t get enough of it – in the same way that few become enlightened nowadays even with all the resources for truth that are now around to help dispel delusional thinking."

But of course you could say that 'no one' or 'few' are getting 'the message' nor even know what it is or how to define it. You could say that the 'message' is not at all easy to get. You could say also that the 'message' has ever-opening-outward levels of meaning that have to be thought through with new methods and means. And then you could say [but I am being didactic and leading...] that there is a 'fire' operating in this plane of existence that is only smoldering and is only being tended until it can actually 'blaze'. But then you'd have to say, hmmmm, I just don't know what any of that means...

But then, of course, you'd have to go back through all those words and try to attach meaning and value and sense to them...and if this context decides anything, you can be sure that will never happen. ;-)

Finally, isn't it interesting to consider what happens when I [someone] says in such direct terms:

'You' are not 'truth-tellers' nor are 'you' interested in 'the truth', but rather 'you' are accomplished deceivers and liars who oppose 'truth' and meet to rehearse your lies.

I find it so interesting this inversion! And then to note all the defensive actions which must occur when it is stated. But this is a much better position from which to enter into these bullshitty discussions that occur so often around here. What do you think?

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Anybody interpreting sayings of Jesus in the sense of a person describing his own human efforts is himself still immature.

A saying like "I have cast fire upon the world, and see, I am guarding it until it blazes." is totally brain dead or mutilated in translation if it's not the voice of wisdom itself.

I [wisdom compound] am the way [tao/nature/wise] and the truth [reason] and the life [consciousness] ...

the Word [Logos] became flesh

I am Alpha and Omega, [the] beginning and [the] ending, saith the Lord

"I tell you the truth, before Abraham was born, I am!"

To say these things about oneself indicates a state of being not of a mortal but of something way larger. So one can choose here between divine beings, arcane poetry or cool metaphysics.

[Talking Ass]

So one can choose here between divine beings, arcane poetry or cool metaphysics.

And, as is possible, go on still missing the point...

[Diebert van Rhijn]

And, as is possible, go on still missing the point...

The point cannot be missed since it's my own point, my own observation of something standing out clearly in my view. And even if I'd have not surpassed your book knowledge on the subject a thousand times, I would still not miss my point which is also the goal and purpose of every spiritual text: a canvas not to examine and x-ray to discover a mix of earlier works but to reinterpret masterfully, like a true impressionist because this is what the original work should have desired. Of course like with everything, there's the issue of skill and quality. With this, there's always something left to desire.

[Talking Ass]

Your [rather testy] comment reminded me of this.

;-)

...which is also the goal and purpose of every spiritual text: a canvas not to examine and x-ray to discover a mix of earlier works but to reinterpret masterfully, like a true impressionist because this is what the original work should have desired. Of course like with everything, there's the issue of skill and quality. With this, there's always something left to desire.

I would say that with any text or reading one has the privelage of interpreting in any way one so desires. I mean in the sense that any such possibility is open to you. But I think you are (please excuse me for this) missing a certain point, and that is that some texts, some statements and platforms and ideas, are part of tendencies, movements, trends. They move in a certain direction, they tend in a certain direction. To 'interpret correctly' is to divinate the direction of those texts, and to fulfill some sort of inner life of them.

My impression so far of your 'fabulous learning' in these areas...is that there is much huff and puff but little is delivered. Are you sure your reading is a 'thousand times' more complete than mine or perhaps just 'five-hundred'? Or is it closer to two-fifty? Or what if you don't really have much of a base from which to speak, either in books or in experience? Hmmmm? It stands as a possibility. Anyway, if you have some fantastic store of knowledge, wouldn't it be better to reveal some of it? Or, are your fingers tired? As it is, what I get [often] from your writing is a fabulous command of italics.

;-)

[David Quinn]

Kierkegaard said it best: "Think of a very long railway train - but long ago the locomotive ran away from it. Christendom is the unmoving train, each generation linked to the previous one. The locomotive is Christianity, the restlessness of the eternal."

Alex, for some reason or other, is obsessively focused on Christendom.

-

[Talking Ass]

Someday, the 'some reason or other' will become clear in your mind.

Funnily, you offer a group of interpretations: of Christianity, of the 'eternal restless', and of Christendom---and of me! Unfortunately (for whom I am not certain...) you have made substantial errors in each category. But you will never revise. Not now. You'll carry on as you have from the beginning: careening off into a kind of irrelevance.

[David Quinn]

Someday, the 'some reason or other' will become clear in your mind.

The reason is already very clear in mind - namely, to put as much distance as possible between yourself and the restlessness of the eternal.

This underlying motivation shines out in everything you say.

-

[Talking Ass]

"Restlessness of the Eternal" is to me a meaningless phrase. I must suffer from some kind of spiritual autism. I'm a FAILURE!

Do you know what would be interesting, David? It would be to write a paragraph that paraphrases what each of us thinks is the other's position. See, the more that I consider the trajectory of my life, and try to deepen my understanding [no, Diebert, I am not implying I'll ever get even a quarter light year close to you] of 'spirituality', all abstract goals seem more and more unreal. What you call 'Christendom' with a gread deal of contempt, is in my view the only real and essential area we have to work. Using your example, it is about making the 'engine' as real as possible in life. The radicalism you prescribe seems to me misplaced, a 'mistaken radicalism'. I think that 'you' are fearful of what that means. You seem to love your 'pipe-dream' more. It is a subtle form of self-delusion. Or so it seems to me. But please, correct me, show me the right way. Lead a blind ass to water. [Oh heck, I'm mixing metaphors again...]

[Liberty Sea]

Alex, allow me to call you Alex, as others do. Are you interested in Truth and truths?

[David Quinn]

"Restlessness of the Eternal" is to me a meaningless phrase. I must suffer from some kind of spiritual autism. I'm a FAILURE!

You're not a failure. You're very talented and insightful, but you do have a large mental block about this matter.

The phrase above is obviously meaningful to Kierkegaard and it is also meaningful to me. Indeed, it is meaningful to anyone who understands and experiences the reality of what the phrase points to.

See, the more that I consider the trajectory of my life, and try to deepen my understanding [no, Diebert, I am not implying I'll ever get even a quarter light year close to you] of 'spirituality', all abstract goals seem more and more unreal.

Good for you. I can't wait to see you start going beyond the abstract. In the meantime, dismissing the goal of becoming conscious of eternity, or realizing the Infinite, as "abstract" is insulting to everyone who embarks on such a path.

What you call 'Christendom' with a gread deal of contempt, is in my view the only real and essential area we have to work.

Without God, nothing in this life is real or essential. Christendom detached from God is as dead as dead can be.

"Wherever there is a corpse, there the vultures will gather." - Matthew 24: 28

-

[Jamesh]

Alex,

One recognizes, immediately, the logical imperatives that you are using. To propose a 'historical man' (a preacher, a sage, a troublesome thinker) one has to place him in a truly human frame, and for you, above, that is youthful impetuousness.....it is part of the basis of Western culture and how our very 'self' has been constructed.

Yep, I take no metaphysical aspects into account.

I think therefore that what you have written is really not that useful for analysis.

Probably. It was not a post I gave a lot of thought to. I don’t care much about dead folk – with dead people everything becomes too speculative, it’s far too easy to grab onto some minute detail that for whatever reason is appealing to one’s ego, when it could be completely the wrong reasoning.

you have to at least take into consideration what the story meant to these people.

Why? There is nothing more stupid than martyrdom – it’s the ultimate in delusion. So if Jesus did this to “rally the troops to the cause”, to show how seriously his teachings needed to be taken, that his problem. I have no desire to accept that delusion, even though it was common enough in those times. It would be like accepting Anders Breivik (Norway killer) actions as having an enlightened justification for ceasing the rest of his social life.

My view is that the church since made Jesus’ stupidity fit into the value system people apply to martyrdom – not that it was really what Jesus wanted.

How people in the Alexandrian-Judean-Hellinistic-Roman world made use of ideas about God, salvation, social organization, worship, present and future, value and any number of different things, are unique to that context. If one wishes to 'regress' through a Buddhist lens and sort of revision all life and all history, well, what can one say? Have at it! Enjoy! But it won't necessarily lead to much understanding of 'who we are' and also 'who YOU are'.

The difference between Jesus and others around that time, what made him such a catalyst, was how similar his most basic teachings were to Buddhism.

But it has to be stated: The Q-R-S project is a radical, radical project defined by itself. It has no need to conform to anything but what itself defines and insists as 'valuable' or 'important' or 'necessary'. That is, I have found, the 'style of thinking' that is done here. And I have certainly explained myself at length and why I think it is 'bad thinking'.

It can result in bad thinking, that is for sure. Kelly and Sue I think have “bad thinking” in relation to the femininity issue. I’ve been struck with nihilism. Others have been made overly earnest, and overvalue their degree of enlightenment.

But then so can any truth produce these results. I’d rather hard self-destroying truths than the plethora of wimpy academic feel good circus rides of mutual cock holding/cunt licking that are out there. A truth is only a truth while it is consciously affecting us, which causes us to examine it and ponder about it’s context amongst other truths and delusions, but after that it becomes a “fact” we don’t need to think about. And yes truths can affect us in random ways as it is natural for our learnt ego programs to reject certain angst causing truths that go against these ego programs – however you treat all these mental reactions as being almost all negative and dangerous. I don’t.

Anyway – time for me to go home. My PC at home crashed a few days ago, so I shan’t finish this post off.