Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern
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From: cognos!cognos!uunet.uu.net!garym@uunet.UU.NET (Gary Murphy)
Subject: Re: Awakening From the Dream of Experience
References: <1991Jun4.013633.19919@nas.nasa.gov>
Date: Tue, 4 Jun 91 20:45:44 GMT
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Organization: Cognos Inc., Ottawa, Canada
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I enjoy these postings and I, too, find this man's humour infectious.
Like a 'Spiritual Lenny Bruce', if I may be so bold to make an analogy
(I do hope he doesn't take offense!).

When we go to see a comic, we find funny those things from our own
experience which we either overlook or dare not say publicly.  We
enjoy Tim Leary as we side with his albeit-impractical reachings,
we enjoy Lenny Bruce for his clinging to an ideal in the face of
rampant illogical otherwiseness.  I enjoy Sri Da Avabhasa in the
same way I enjoy the riddles of Taliesin or the poems of e.e.cummings;
they paint the world I see in words I do not have.

Where I am a little disappointed, and this applies to all of the
above personages, is the lack of practical advice.  GIVEN we are all
different portals to the One I, what does that mean to our here and
now?  How are these teachings to be practically applied and what, if
anything, would we gain (sorry, considering the 'given', that should
be 'what do I gain').  It's like Jesus saying the First Commandment
is the most important because all others follow from it, but I KNOW
from my travels that the meaning supposedly implied is open to VERY
wide interpretation: Nazism _is_ based on a Tibetan doctrine!

How does an 'enlightened point of view' approach the world we live
in?  Does it imply saving the whales or does it imply not caring 
about such 'transient' things as sentient beings and their sufferings?
Do we build orphanages? Wildlife sanctuaries? Nuclear Power Plants?
Or do we bask in a kind of spiritual masterbation proclaiming ourselves
as complete in ourselves without need for the obvious diversity we
have been given?

I'm playing a bit of "Devil's Advocate" here and I know it.  There are
no solid answers to what I ask, but I wonder, given my ignorance of
the vast subject area covered by this group, what the general approach
of each of the eastern views would take.  Zen councils us to be at
rest at the mountaintop _and_ ceaselessly active in the market but so
far as I know, it doesn't stipulate the ethics of our business.

Can I summarize? Given this enlightment which sees things as they are,
what happens next?

--
 Gary Murphy - Cognos Incorporated  | "You think you're human.
       P.O.Box 9707 Ottawa K1G 3N3  |  But what if you've made a mistake,
              (613) 738-1338 x5537  |  As humans sometimes do,
 garym%cognos.uucp@ccs.carleton.ca  |  And you is an Angel, instead?"
                uucp: cognos!garym  |                     -- Sun Ra