Meditation on life

Postby Jack Roper » Wed Dec 04, 2013 3:45 pm

A friend sent me this You Tube video of beautiful scenery, music and a teacher--Gangaji-- going into some profound issues of self, identity, awareness, and consciousness.

I should warn everyone about to watch this that it has the potential of altering your perspective 180 degrees. It could be life altering--or not.

Would love to get your input and feeling about this video.

Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUtH0DDJ ... gest-vrecs

Re: Meditation on life

Postby ebascoray » Sat Dec 07, 2013 5:56 pm

That video is very interesting. Beautiful music in the background. Thanks for sharing it with all of us.

Ebascoray :odd:

Re: Meditation on life

Postby mikeybound » Sun Dec 08, 2013 1:18 am

Eh. So this woman thinks that labels and definitions are useless? We are not tuggers, we are ourselves? We are not men and women, hard working or lazy? Compassionate, caring, selfish, sadistic, apathetic? It's just...not enough?

Re: Meditation on life

Postby Jack Roper » Mon Dec 09, 2013 2:07 pm

Hi Mikey,
You have probably misunderstood what Gangaji is saying. Given the radical nature of this video I can see how that would be very easy to do. However, once you realize that we are effectively lost in a web of words, definitions, beliefs, "isms", and other self-imposed conditioning, then defending one's word-belief-structure comes quick and easy. To see that we are in this web is another matter entirely; that behind all thought, and feeling, there is an awareness that has been there ever since you (and I) were born. She calls this consciousness, and it is there right now as I type and you read these words. Seeing that everything appears in conscious awareness and that it "comes and goes" (as do all things born that eventually die), the question she asks is "who am I" really? As soon as you (or I) attach another word to "I am" then you have moved from the unlimited to that which can be described as limited. From the unknown to the known. The unlimited expanse of consciousness gets narrowed down to a limited entity. Of course, we have to function in the world, where there is a proper place for thoughts and feelings, but psychologically, how necessary is it to define yourself down, as it were, to a limited being: either a Christian, a Buddhist, a Muslim, a Communist, a capitalist, an American, a Russian, a South African, etc.? Even man and woman.
All limitation is exactly that: limitation. I'll leave it at that and would gladly continue this dialogue with you and anyone else on here who is truly interested.

Re: Meditation on life

Postby mikeybound » Mon Dec 09, 2013 3:39 pm

Or is it not so much a web as a structured latticework? Imposing order on the chaos and savagery that has claimed other species? Giving belonging and worth through definition, even as it presents a limited view of the self? Even if we know ourselves, flawed definitions is as close as others can get, and that is where it is important.
(Sorry if you meant P.M)

Re: Meditation on life

Postby Jack Roper » Tue Dec 10, 2013 5:19 pm

Maybe this will help:

beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing,
there is a field.
I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase
each other
doesn't make any sense.

Rumi
(Sufi Mystic 1207-1273 A.D.)
translation by Coleman Barks