/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.17606511]

>Neoplatonism/esoteric native European Tradition is gone
>its remnants in Christianity are dead, at least in Catholicism
>Orthodoxy has a weird relationship with it via Pseudo-Dionysius and shit like Jesus saving Plato from Hell (WHICH HE DESERVED CUZ HE DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT YHWH!!!) but then has an opening prayer(?) cursing the "hellenes" constantly
>Advaita Vedanta which has almost the exact same mirror to Plotinus' conception (proving perennial Tradition in its universality) is situated in a completely alien and strange culture, Hinduism also seems to be decaying with modernity
>Islam has Sufism but they are the elite minority who are nowadays becoming victims of Salafist 70 IQ takfiri attacks and lay exoteric Muslims think they're secretly kafir

Where do I go, Tradbros..

[Anonymous No.17606520]

conserve good ideas and stop going here simpel as

[Anonymous No.17606540]

>>17606511
To your ancestors. Neoplatonism was not the native European tradition, it was a mishmash of European and Semitic ideas. Better than nothing, sure, but like you said it's also dead and/or corrupted.
None of the current great religions will give you fulfillment, the ones that still exist are too foreign. You need to rediscover the old ways. The Gods have not left us, we have left the Gods. Find them again. It's the hardest path.

[Anonymous No.17606735]

>>17606511
material limitation is cool actually

[Anonymous No.17606808]

>>17606735
All these traditions are life affirming and monistic. . .
"Material limitation" is not a real term to them r#tard

[Anonymous No.17606814]

>>17606540
How can neoplatonisn be 'corrupted' ?

[Anonymous No.17606827]

>>17606511
>having an elaborate cosmology as a fucking tradfag because you feel the need to distance yourself from other people in a holier than thou way

[Anonymous No.17606828]

>>17606814
He didn't say that Neoplatonism was corrupted, he said that it was just another form of corruption, and that corruption has further corruption stacked on it.

I think what he's getting at is
>Read Indo-European Poetry and Myth by M. L. West, and start taking part in an actual ancient religious tradition and stop rambling about "transcendent principles" and "contemplation"

[Anonymous No.17606833]

>>17606808
I just said it so it's real.

[Anonymous No.17606846]

>>17606828
So what are you advocating for? Sophistry? You can also tell OP transition and it means the same thing anon. It's all cope

[Anonymous No.17606851]

I just said it so it's real

[Anonymous No.17606853]

>>17606540
>Neoplatonism was not the native European tradition, it was a mishmash of European and Semitic ideas
l0w quality b8

[Anonymous No.17606854]

>>17606511
There is nowhere to go. We are so deep in the kali yuga we can only look to the ancient masters in order to achieve solace and peace of mind.
There is no monastic order, no guru or great sage who can initiate you.
You can only read, meditate/pray and devote yourself to philosophy, mathematics and the enjoyment of nature.
Everyone telling you otherwise is trying to sell you snake oil.
Very important, don't limit yourself to reading from just one tradition, there is a convergent truth in most of them.

[Anonymous No.17606857]

>>17606511
Aren't most Christians hylics?

[Anonymous No.17606858]

>>17606511
Conserve good ideas and live a good life

[Anonymous No.17606861]

>>17606833
Material limitation is a dualistic term so it isn't your idea. I understand where you're getting at, but to the neoplatonists there was no separation

[Anonymous No.17606870]

>>17606814
>>17606828
>He didn't say that Neoplatonism was corrupted, he said that it was just another form of corruption, and that corruption has further corruption stacked on it.
Yes.
>>17606853
How is it bait? Neoplatonism was a very late development that took much from other traditions (mostly semitic / mediterranean). That doesn't mean it doesn't have its merits, but it's not the same as the native European tradition.

[Anonymous No.17606882]

>>17606846
I literally just said what I think OP was advocating for, which I do believe is confirmed by >>17606870, and what I would also advocate:
>Read Indo-European Poetry and Myth by M. L. West, and start taking part in an actual ancient religious tradition and stop rambling about "transcendent principles" and "contemplation"

[Anonymous No.17606885]

>>17606870
>native European tradition i.e. some pseudo religion constructed by anon's modern conception
>let me delude myself by destroying everything so I can pretend to be Tarzan
>ignore the tradition that reconciles science, mind, and spirit i.e. Platonism

[Anonymous No.17606895]

Neoplatonism is not gone. The Neoplatonists themselves saw studying the writings of Plato; of which we have everything, as a theurgic practice. We also got much of the Neoplatonist commentaries and explications.

Become a Neoplatonic polytheist like a chad.

[Anonymous No.17606900]

>>17606885
>native European tradition i.e. some pseudo religion constructed by anon's modern conception
No, religion is not the right word. The traditions of my ancestors were not religions but instead Weltanschauung.
>>let me delude myself by destroying everything so I can pretend to be Tarzan
Okay retard
>ignore the tradition that reconciles science, mind, and spirit i.e. Platonism
Who said I ignored it? Did you even read my previous post? Platonism was also a relatively late tradition. Neoplatonism is a bastardization of that. That's no issue in itself, but Neoplatonism is not the native European tradition. That's the same as claiming Buddhism as the native Indian tradition. It's many things, but not that.

[Anonymous No.17606911]

>>17606900
>Neoplatonism is a bastardization of that.
Except it's not. Most modern scholars agree that Neoplatonism is essentially the synthesis of written Platonic teachings, and the unwritten teachings of Plato which were only spoken about in private (which we know existed). There's no reason at all to think it's Semitic.

[Anonymous No.17606912]

>>17606870
>Neoplatonism was a very late development that took much from other traditions
Uh oh we can't have that—my imaginary pristine theology has to be unalloyed and based on the oldest fragmentary evidence otherwise I can't believe it, since I am a museum curator and not a spirtual seeker

[Anonymous No.17606924]

>>17606911
He's mad because all the big name neoplatonists were hellenized Egyptian or Syrian and he'd rather be a racialized, reconstructionist pseudo-atheist than accept any translatability.

[Anonymous No.17606931]

>>17606900
How is Neoplatonism a bastardization, if not affirming? Neoplatonist ideas are more explicitly religious than those of Plato, and they developed largely to counter dualistic interpretations of Plato's thought. For example, Neoplatonism sought to overcome the Platonic cleavage between thought and reality, or Ideal and Form.

[Anonymous No.17606943]

>>17606911
>There's no reason at all to think it's Semitic.
Uzdavinys thinks so though. Even back in the days of Plato and Pythagoras there was intensive contact with semitic ideas and it's unthinkable that nothing was taken from that. I'll grant you that it's mostly European, but not entirely.
>>17606912
Can you read? I said that that's not an issue but it's not the native European tradition. It's a later development. Did you all suddenly lose reading comprehension?

[Anonymous No.17606954]

>>17606943
>it's not the native European tradition.
Wrong.

[Anonymous No.17606964]

>>17606943
What is "the native European tradition"? Some hyper-real modern chimera?

[Anonymous No.17606970]

>>17606924
I explained it in other posts. More explicitly religious is not necessarily a good thing.
>>17606924
Stop projecting. You really think they didn't bring outside influences into it, even if doing so unknowingly? That's a ridiculous standpoint. My only issue here is calling Neoplatonism the native European tradition, which it is not. That doesn't mean it doesn't have merits.

[Anonymous No.17606973]

Start by just engaing with yourself in a genuine and open way. You're searching for something, ask yourself what exactly it is you're looking for. Don't fall for the glamourous appearance of ancient wisdom and secret teachings chasing after them is still a materialistic persuit.

[Anonymous No.17606981]

>>17606954
>>17606964
Can you not read? The native European traditions are those that came before Neoplatonism from the Indo-European weltanschauung. If there was a tradition before Neoplatonism, you can't claim it to be the native tradition. Just like buddhism isn't India's native tradition.

[Anonymous No.17606991]

>>17606981
The Indo Europeans brought Platonism.

[Anonymous No.17607010]

>>17606981
Perennialism isn't real anon. Western civilization started and skyrocketed from Platonic thought. To say otherwise is ignoring historical fact of European development. Also you seem disingenuous about Neoplatonism being corrupted, while also "having its merits."

[Anonymous No.17607016]

>>17606981
>The native European traditions are those that came before Neoplatonism from the Indo-European weltanschauung.
Lol you're exactly proving my point. Hyper-real modern chimera set up as opposition to something which actually existed that we possess knowledge of
>Just like buddhism isn't India's native tradition.
Buddhism is literally an Indian religion and all the major doctrinal developments occur in India before being exported to China, Tibet, Japan etc.

[Anonymous No.17607021]

>>17606991
To some extent yes (although it was a relatively late form influenced somewhat by non-Indo-European thought as well), but not Neoplatonism.

[Anonymous No.17607041]

>>17607010
>Perennialism isn't real anon
Cope
>Western civilization started and skyrocketed from Platonic thought.
Retarded take. Only if you confine yourself to south-eastern Europe perhaps. There was much more than just Platonism.
> Also you seem disingenuous about Neoplatonism being corrupted, while also "having its merits."
Another anon explained above what I meant when I said corrupted. My issue is with calling Neoplatonism the native European tradition, which I have clearly explained why it isn't.
>>17607016
>Lol you're exactly proving my point. Hyper-real modern chimera set up as opposition to something which actually existed that we possess knowledge of
Another retarded take. Just because you haven't read about it doesn't mean we don't possess knowledge of what came before.
>Buddhism is literally an Indian religion and all the major doctrinal developments occur in India before being exported to China, Tibet, Japan etc.
But it is not the native Indian religion. It's a development out of Hinduism, which would be a better candidate for native Indian religion although asserting that also brings some obvious issues. Do I really have to spell it out for you like that?

[Anonymous No.17607059]

>>17607010
>Perennialism isn't real anon.
based
>>17607021
Wrong. Neoplatonism is Platonism.

[Anonymous No.17607064]

>>17607041
Except there wasn't more to Platonism... Menander writing about Buddhism -- is he writing about purely Hinduism/Buddhism or is he writing about Greek philosophy? Despite so much written about Eastern faith systems, we know very little about them. A lot of what we know has been through the anthropological endeavors of the British in the East. As valiant and great these efforts were in codifying these stuff, what it does do is that it creates a methodology that the native populations then pick up and use and match them up with "matching narratives" or whatever's "equivalent" or perhaps compatible they might say with wester ones or Christian ones. Concrete structure becomes crystallized where there was none, where it was more syncretic and maybe idiosyncratic, and animistic, and polytheistic: it gets all jumbled up together and this starts to get systematized as "Hinduism"

[Anonymous No.17607078]

>>17607041
>there's only "the native x religion" and everything is a false development

[Anonymous No.17607079]

>>17607041
>>17607064

Ideas create humanity, the mind, is only available to the Greeks i.e. the greeks discovered it..

Not the egyptians, not indians, not the chinese, is that none of these ancient cultures were able to project the mind outside their own particular world. For the chinese, there was no world outside of china. For the indians, it was forbidden to cross the oceans - its a sin. For the ancient mesopotamians and egyptians, these were extremely inward-looking cultures.

When we are talking about the mind, it is a particular understanding of what reality is. It's this habit that we have that we don't or are not aware of anymore: it's a very humanistic habit. It's the habit of always projecting outside of ourselves. If you are not able to project outside of yourself, you are an incomplete human being i.e. mindless. If you are mindless, you are only driven by passions because you are only concerned with getting ahead in life for yourself. This is why historically ancient cultures and modern day ones could practice all kinds of things that we object to.

This is why Plato and Pythagoras were so radical. They introduced the concept of a mind, a developing understanding that humans have a unique and individual inner world of thought, to the world.

[Anonymous No.17607105]

>>17607064
>>17607079
Classical philology allures to the idea that creations in pronouns in ancient greek paralleled the development from Homeric Greek to Classical Greek. (i.e. in the creations of epic and lyric poetry, and in the drama, from Homer to Aristophanes to Plato, not orthopraxy).

Just as Oscar Wilde says, life imitates art far more than art imitates life

[Anonymous No.17607109]

>>17607064
>>17607079
Classical philology allures to the idea that creations of pronouns paralleled the development of Homeric Greek to Classical Greek. (i.e. in the creations of epic and lyric poetry, and in the drama, from Homer to Aristophanes to Plato).

Just as Oscar Wilde says, life imitates art far more than art imitates life

[Anonymous No.17607148]

>>17606511
The people who say you can recreate the pagan European tradition from reading the small amount of remaining works and watching STJ are lying

The people who say that you cannot receive an authentic and traditional initiation into another religion are also lying

If you want a legitimate initiation but you don’t want to become and Orthodox Christian, then you’ll have to convert to Islam and join a Sufi tariqa, or become a Sikh, or choose to be initiated into one of the householder sects of Hinduism. At the end of the day the only thing that really matters is your own spiritual journey and your own relationship to God. If you don’t want to spend your life completely immersed in an alien culture then travel to the Middle East or India, be initiated, and then spend some time studying under a teacher so that you are equipped to continue practicing the path you are on at home, and in most cases you can find communities of like-minded people in big cities who are also Muslims or Hindus or Orthodox or whatever.

[Anonymous No.17607172]

>>17607079
>For the indians, it was forbidden to cross the oceans - its a sin
WTF are you talking about? Have you ever heard of the Chola empire?

Also, the early Hindu and Buddhist texts discuss the nature of the mind, intellect, thoughts, etc pretty extensively, it’s a foolish and incorrect claim to say that the Greeks were the first to think outside the box when it comes to the mind

[Anonymous No.17607188]

Hey guys I'm looking for spiritual awakening but i've got a pretty good idea of what that means, I know what to accept and what to dismiss.

All present religions are wrong because they don't align with what I think transcendent wisdom is and half of them I don't think are cool, the other half I do think are cool but they don't align with my beliefs so they must have some hidden or lost teachings that miraculously align perfectly with my own beliefs.

At no point will I reflect on the accuracy of my judgement and understanding of spirtual practices.

Help guys what do I do?

[Anonymous No.17607194]

>>17607172
We don't know anything for sure. For instance, the first depiction of the Buddha as a person emerged during the first few centuries C.E. after Alexander invaded India.

[Anonymous No.17607276]

>>17607188
You should make another thread exactly like OP. You two will get along.

[Anonymous No.17607442]

>>17606854
I think this post is true. Don't waste your time trying to "be initiated" in some specific tradition. Read about all of them, try out their practices on your own, and self-initiate.

[Anonymous No.17607458]

>>17606895
Isn't neoplatonism basically a barebones framework and not a religion in itself?

[Anonymous No.17607477]

>>17607148
You don't need an initiation to walk the spiritual path.

[Anonymous No.17607605]

>>17607194
The Vedas and earliest Upanishads have been reliably dated by linguists to originate from before the pre-socratics. It’s pretty much the consensus position among experts, there is no major reason to doubt it. The Greeks wrote of gymnosophists already being present India when Alexander reached its borders and it had been known as a land of riches and wisdom even before Alexander’s time to the Greeks, which attests to the long history of intellectual development there
>>17607442
>self-initiate.
this is an oxymoron
>>17607477
That’s true, but the major metaphysical traditions largely say that one cannot reach the end of the path (not in terms of basic spiritual fulfillment, but a complete enlightenment and the attainment of the Unconditioned) without being instructed and guided by a qualified teacher.

[Anonymous No.17607644]

>>17607605
>the major metaphysical traditions largely say
Of course they do lmao

[Anonymous No.17607659]

>>17607605
>this is an oxymoron
No it's not. Various forms of yoga incorporate self-initiation, or rather, initiation by deities.

[Anonymous No.17607754]

>>17607605
A person in the 21st century has access to all the major texts of all world religions, with varied philosophical analysis on topics like metaphysics and ontology.
You could study medieval scholastics extensively, then the monism of Spinoza and later the advaita vedanta of Shankara and reach a greater philosophical understanding than what was possible in all previous ages.
All someone needs today is reaching a sound understanding of the philosophy behind the different traditions, you don't need to fast in Ramadan or do the fire sacrife, that would only be postmodern posturing and we all know it.

[Anonymous No.17607774]

>>17607754
Without practices, knowledge alone leads nowhere.

[Anonymous No.17607781]

>>17607774
Proofs?

[Anonymous No.17607788]

>>17607781
Do you seriously believe it's possible to reach higher states of understanding just by reading and without any experience?

[Anonymous No.17607792]

>>17607148
>recreate
Why have an opinion on this subject if you've never done even the slightest amount of reading into it? No, seriously, why? Anyone whose done even the bare minimum research into what the people advocating for this sort of stuff want will see that you're a dumbass and just ignore you.

>>17607477
It's not about actually doing anything, though. The kind of people who get googly eyed at "initiation" don't actually want to DO anything, they want to suck themselves off for holding the Right Opinions and being part of the Cool Kids Club. It's purely about identifiers and signalling to others: I'm cool because I'm an Initiated Traditionalist, YOU are just a Satanic Innovator! At no point is praying, or meditating, or reading actually required. Just "contemplate" "principles" and be enlightened by your own intelligence.

[Anonymous No.17607818]

>>17607792
>It's not about actually doing anything
I'm not sure what your point is. I'm saying you don't need to "be initiated" in the sense that it's not necessary to join an established tradition. Of course, practice is fundamental.

[Anonymous No.17607820]

>>17607659
If you are talking about Vajrayana and their deity empowerments and that sort of stuff I'm pretty sure that even getting to that point would presuppose that you have already taken a more general initiation and vows to your Vajrayana guru etc.
>>17607754
>All someone needs today is reaching a sound understanding of the philosophy behind the different traditions
That's all someone needs to reach an intellectual understanding of a doctrine, which is completely different from intuitively and directly experiencing something as true in spiritual realization. The intellectual or conceptual understanding of something by itself is not enlightenment or even spiritual progress.

[Anonymous No.17607830]

>>17607792
>The kind of people who get googly eyed at "initiation" don't actually want to DO anything,
That's wrong, it's from being initiated that you actually learn and are instructed by your teacher in the *spiritual practices* which you DO on a daily basis, the actual real ones instead of the larping fake ones from the blend of chaos magik, hermeticism, neopaganism and whatever other stuff Evolians like to throw into their syncretism

[Anonymous No.17607832]

>>17607788
The only experience you need is deep meditation and reflection.
Every mystic of every single religion makes it very clear that the ultimate truth is within, and you can only reach it through prayer, meditation, a calm surroinding (most notably the solitude of nature), ascetism and a deep metaphysical and philosophical understanding.
If you think that by praying 5 times a day or by going to church every sunday you are somehow getting closer to the truth then you are completely lost.

[Anonymous No.17607844]

>>17607820
>getting to that point would presuppose that you have already taken a more general initiation
Not necessarily, you don't need to do everything by the book.

[Anonymous No.17607857]

>>17607832
>The only experience you need is deep meditation and reflection
>ultimate truth is within
So we agree then.

[Anonymous No.17607862]

>>17607818
That's precisely my point, because the alternative leads to retards like >>17607830. Initiation is only useful in as much as it is necessary to get at certain practices, but only as a means of getting those practices. By definition, tradition is something that is partaken in by action. If you're sacrificing animals or making sigils or whatever, you are, by definition, doing something traditional.

[Anonymous No.17607875]

>>17607862
But that would mean that something's age is only an arbitrary measure of how long ago something was done, and that its validity is based on the practice's position in some network of other practices and beliefs.

[Anonymous No.17607879]

>>17606511
Cult of Alexander. Workout, read homer, fuck male friends, console each other with how little we have achieved by 32.

[Anonymous No.17607890]

>>17607875
Duh? The alternative is arguing that somehow human sacrifice is both bad because Zeus said so and good because Yahweh said so, that somehow Jesus is the final messiah and that Muhammad is the final messiah, and that there's multiple ontologically separate deities and that there's only one deity. It results in precisely the behavior I'm criticizing here: lacking any actual practice or ability to judge a belief or practice's validity based on what it does, the only thing you can do is create the entirely arbitrary pseudo-tradition wherein you do nothing and just jerk off about how cool you are for being a Sufi-Crusader-Bishop or whatever other garbage.

[Anonymous No.17607894]

>>17607788

[Anonymous No.17607904]

>>17607862
>Initiation is only useful in as much as it is necessary to get at certain practices
Yes. The exoteric details don't even matter, the only thing that matters is the experience granted by these practices.

[Anonymous No.17607913]

>>17607788
No it takes more than just reading, but you don't need a guru/master to initiate you. Hermits have been doing this all the time.

[Anonymous No.17607926]

>>17607890
I can't take traditionalism seriously since they just overlook the deep differences between religions for the sake of some arbitrary prisa theologia
I mean buddhism alone for example is absolutely impossible to reconcile with hinduism or neoplatonism since it denies the existence of an immortal soul. But traditionalists don't care about that.

[Anonymous No.17607931]

>>17607832
>Every mystic of every single religion makes it very clear that the ultimate truth is within, and you can only reach it through prayer, meditation, a calm surrounding (most notably the solitude of nature), ascetism and a deep metaphysical and philosophical understanding.
They don't say that you can reach this without instruction by a teacher though, but in their writings they generally affirm that it requires instruction and guidance by a qualified teacher to reach it. Advaita says that meditation cannot produce liberation since meditation is an action and ignorance is only destroyed by knowledge, which can only be fully attained when imparted by the right teacher. The Nyingma Buddhists say that the primordial basis or rigpa of Dzogchen cannot be found by people unless one receives the "pointing-out instructions" by one's guru. The Sufis say that one needs a Sufi teacher who acts as the essential link that transmits the spiritual influence from Ali or the Prophet to oneself.

In these cases and others these traditions reject the premise that anyone could read their texts online without joining and being instructed and still somehow attain the fruit of the path they teach. There is in the end no real basis for saying otherwise, the people on the inside say one thing, and the people on the outside who don't really know, who don't possess the fruit of the path, say another. Who to trust should be obvious.

>>17607844
>Not necessarily,
Yes, because otherwise you are basically just larping and have little idea if you are doing it right, plus usually these things all come with strict terms and conditions attached to them having to do with certain vows and ceremonies and you don't get all of that trying to autistically recreate it from afar based on book knowledge.

>>17607862
>Initiation is only useful in as much as it is necessary to get at certain practices, but only as a means of getting those practices.
The practices learned in initiation are secondary, the primary element is the spiritual understanding that is transmitted from the teacher to disciple.

[Anonymous No.17607937]

>>17607926
Are you able to think without "ists" and "isms"?

[Anonymous No.17607939]

>>17607937
Are you able to answer my criticism?

[Anonymous No.17607941]

>>17606540
> muh neo paganism
LARPING FAGGOT

[Anonymous No.17607943]

>>17607926
>I mean buddhism alone for example is absolutely impossible to reconcile with hinduism or neoplatonism since it denies the existence of an immortal soul. But traditionalists don't care about that.
To the contrary, Coomaraswamy and Schuon have written at length about Buddhism and how it can or cannot be reconciled in certain ways with other traditions. What you are saying is just false. You are trying to attack the Traditonalists for not caring when you can't be even bothered to care enough to get the basic facts right of what you are talking about.

[Anonymous No.17607946]

>>17607939
I'm not bothered with it.

[Anonymous No.17607947]

>>17607943
Evola didn't seem to mind.

[Anonymous No.17607954]

>>17607931
>these traditions reject the premise that anyone could read their texts online
Of course they do you fucking dumbass.
By all means if it gets you hard to larp with a guru do what you want, but actual results don't presuppose you get "initiated into secret knowledge" by some dude. You don't need to seek anything outside of yourself.

[Anonymous No.17607964]

>>17607946
Why?

[Anonymous No.17607971]

>>17607964
You're asking why I do not bother with your arguments? Well, because I'm eating a good pasta with cheese sauce, and it interests me more than whatever you were posting about. Just being honest.

[Anonymous No.17607979]

>>17607937
Socialism =/= Communism

[Anonymous No.17607983]

>nooo you need to do these very specific things and not stray from a specific set of practices that can only be transmitted from an enlightened master if you want to experience the Unmanifest
>you can't rely on your own insight and intuition and make your own path this isn't how it's supposed to go nooo stop
Shut the fuck up and go meditate

[Anonymous No.17607988]

>>17607971
There's no need for the feminine passive-aggressiveness, kid. Why did Evola not care about anatman/anatta?

[Anonymous No.17607992]

All your life in your present body you have been building-up the idea in your consciousness that you are your present body with its memories and habits.

You decreasingly experience yourself as a Spirit.

Things of the Spirit, of spirituality, have become mere beliefs and speculations because you no longer have direct access to realms of the Spirit.

You are a dark and constricted Spirit of identification with your body.

You then experience the world increasingly through the bodily senses.

The sensory world is vivid and strong, but the subtler Spirit worlds are vague and speculative.

The sensory world appears to be a sharp and clear hard reality.

You then treat the sensory body as a central subject, a hard self going about in a hard world.

A set of bones has some eyes protruding out of their brain to see the reality of stones and hills, of cars and buildings.

Bones and muscles make up a so-called “self” that looks at rocks and plants.

Therefore, if you say “I am”, it does not cause you to see yourself as a Spirit in the world of the Spirit.

It seems to confirm that you are a material body in a material world.

So, as a mantra it cannot awaken or liberate your consciousness.

It would only help if you truly knew yourself as Spirit, experienced yourself as Spirit.

Even repeating “I am Spirit” will not necessarily help because you would try to think, “I-the-body-am-somehow-a-Spirit”:

So you can go around in circles in your brain like a dog chasing its own tail.

Merely trying to believe you are a Spirit is not going to get the job done of directly realizing and experiencing Spirit as yourself.

But, on the other hand, trying to just be quiet and effortless like Jiddu Krishnamurti is more likely to reveal a state of sleep.

That is, after all, how one goes to sleep.

Reading Krishnamurti and blanking-out does not particularly reveal Spirit.

If it is important to you to question your bodily identity and reveal yourself to yourself directly and experientially as Spirit, you are going to have to become a great deal more serious about it than you have so far.

An intense self-boosting of urgency about Spirit is the essence of Zen.

In Zen, both Vedantic self-affirmation and relaxed clarity of consciousness as in the Krishnamurti approach become two sides of the same coin.

This becomes Shikantaza, or just sitting in simple, natural clarity as the basic expression of self-nature or Spirit.

But the whole practice tends to fall into drowsiness on the one hand or confused neurotic turmoil and cleverness of the agitated brain on the other hand.

[Anonymous No.17607996]

>>17607943
>how it can or cannot be reconciled in certain ways with other traditions.
So it is a genuine tradition or are all other traditions false? Because if we assume there is a prisca theologia, it has to be one or the other.

[Anonymous No.17607998]

>>17607992
Someone can hit you with a stick now and then to snap you out of these useless states, but if the one who hits you does not have the high energy of awakened Spirit, it will not put you into the heightened awareness of the Spirit.

When the Seer, Juan Matus, would strike his student, Carlos Castaneda, on the back now and then, it would put Carlos Castaneda in a state of heightened awareness for awhile because Juan Matus was imparting higher Spirit energy into the less developed energy system of Carlos Castaneda.

This is the same principle utilized by Siddhayogis of arousing Kundalini in their students through transmitting Power, Shakti, through Shaktipat, descent of Power, from the senior developed system into the less developed system.

But in both the case of Carlos Castaneda and the Siddhayoga students, a personal dependency on the energy boost from the senior person can become unhealthy so that it never becomes fully self-sustaining in the student plus it becomes a vampirical drain on the teacher by the dependent students.

The Sufis made a deep study of these problems and hit on the idea of moving students around to more than one higher source, both in terms of higher teachers but also high energy situations, like candles being built up with layers from a variety of pots.

With these techniques of multi-transmission or spiritual out-sourcing, there has tended to be better results than dependency fixations in the exclusive Guru-cults of India and the useless wielding of sticks in Zen monasteries where the energy-sources are not high enough and the timing and location of the blow on the body is wrong.

But the Sufis have also tended to exert too much authority over their trainees.

Solving the energy-side of the equation suppressed the need for an intense self-awakening effort of real consciousness from within the student.

Multi-dependency and group identification is itself ultimately a veil over Spirit.

The Sufi approach thus remains incomplete.

Hence, the complete way is not a tradition anywhere on Earth.

All traditions are imbalanced.

Therefore, getting to the Spirit is not going to be easy.

Even if you try to make use of all the traditions in the manner of Osho Rajneesh, you may discover that there is nothing but a useless dilution of all of them because of certain personal faults and inadequacies of realization in the Great Universal Formulator Himself as demonstrated in the case of Osho Rajneesh.

You are thus up against the great dilemma of Universalist Dilution versus Local Traditional Incompleteness.

Since both of these are ultimately useless, what are you going to do?

Are you serious about both your self-awakening and your higher energy connections?

How will you resolve these two urgently ultimate problems?

[Anonymous No.17608002]

>>17607988
I'm not entirely sure. But I can venture a guess that anatman concerns the non-existence of atman, which is clearly not true. So I guess that's why it didn't interest him.

[Anonymous No.17608003]

>>17607983
>>17607931
>You have to either be initiated or wing it
The constraining and expanding of virility should be up to your digression, following the golden line can be good, making your own line can be good, it depends on the context (form which nothing can be removed).

[Anonymous No.17608012]

>>17608002
>which is clearly not true
According to whom?
Anatman is a central teaching in Buddhism, maybe the most important teaching alongside dependent origination. Say anatman isn't true and Buddhism just becomes crypto-Hinduism.

[Anonymous No.17608023]

>>17607605
>The Greeks wrote of gymnosophists already being in present India
And just about all of them were written after said invasion

[Anonymous No.17608027]

>>17608003
>it depends on the context
Personally, I have no interest in any current tradition. While I don't doubt some have legitimate teachings, I see no point in getting initiated and following a single tradition's teachings when I could pick from what truly resonates with my personal sensibilities. I don't want to follow another person's path to realization, I want to follow my own path. Some people call it pop spirituality for women, but Hesse's Siddhartha truly nailed this particular feeling: I want to do things on my own.

[Anonymous No.17608032]

>>17607947
>Evola didn't seem to mind.
mind what?
>>17607954
>By all means if it gets you hard to larp with a guru do what you want,
Doing the real thing with an actual guru is the opposite of larping, everything other than the traditional form of instruction by a guru is larping because it's all "live-action role-playing" of the experience where one is seeking to roleplay and recreate what is normally transmitted by the guru.
>but actual results don't presuppose you get "initiated into secret knowledge" by some dude.
Actual results are not the same thing as complete enlightenment and the attainment of the fruit and summit of the spiritual path, you can get "actual results" from doing basic yoga and breathing exercises and many other things, it's a mistake to conflate them with anything higher than that.
>You don't need to seek anything outside of yourself.
There is no reason why enlightenment would be readily and easily available to people to grasp if they just 'looked inward' without any guidance and instruction, if that were true there would be an abundance of enlightened people walking around, but such is not the case.

[Anonymous No.17608033]

>>17608012
>Anatman is a central teaching in Buddhism, maybe the most important teaching alongside dependent origination. Say anatman isn't true and Buddhism just becomes crypto-Hinduism.
Yes, that explains a few things about Buddhism, they don't believe in the self, the Atman. That's a fundamental error.

[Anonymous No.17608037]

>>17608033
According to their own logic, it makes sense. What does it explain about Buddhism?

[Anonymous No.17608040]

>>17607983
meditation without corresponding spiritual understanding is hardly different from any other form of mindless diversion

[Anonymous No.17608044]

>>17608032
>where one is seeking to roleplay
Nope you just seek to get to the experience.
>Actual results are not the same thing
No but they lead to it. And neither requires a guru.
>There is no reason why enlightenment would be readily and easily available
I never said easily. And there's no reason why it would only be available through specific channels.
Are you guenonfag? If so I'm not interested in discussing with you.

[Anonymous No.17608047]

>>17608037
They reject that Atman is real, so you can see what that implies. It's akin to modern western materialists who see the brian as a "computer", and the human consciousness as something that is tied-up with biological mechanisms.

[Anonymous No.17608049]

>>17608040
Practice leads to understanding. That you really need to believe understanding absolutely requires some old asian or arab telling you "secrets" and that it can't be obtained in any other way is quite pathetic

[Anonymous No.17608055]

>>17607996
>So it is a genuine tradition or are all other traditions false?
It doesn't have to be one or the other, but as Coomarawamy and some other scholars held Buddha may have originally taught a view in line with the Upanishads that was later misunderstood by the textual traditions of Buddhism, which wrongly inserted the "no-self" into the "non-self" doctrine which was supposed to lead to the Atman by negation.

[Anonymous No.17608062]

>>17608047
They say everything you can perceive is "not you". As I said, within their system, it makes sense.
>>17608055
Non-self leads to the same realization: there is no atman because nothing you can identify, even in the formless jhanas, is "you". So unless you say the atman is Nirvana, which is controversial, non-self and no-self are more or less the same.

[Anonymous No.17608069]

>>17608023
Okay, so are the linguists wrong who have extensively compared the Vedas to the Avestas and other manuscripts and dated them as predating the pre-socratics? If so, what is your basis for saying so? Because you want the Greeks to be earlier and would be upset if they weren't? Come on anon

[Anonymous No.17608074]

>>17608062
>perceive
you can perceive Atman but with Intellect, it can't be perceived with 5 gross senses. Intellect, not Memory or Reason, it can perceive the truth.

[Anonymous No.17608076]

>>17608074
Intellect is included in the aggregates according to Buddhists.

[Anonymous No.17608082]

>>17608076
And what do you mean by "aggregates"?

[Anonymous No.17608083]

>>17608082
>The five aggregates or heaps are: form (or material image, impression) (rupa), sensations (or feelings, received from form) (vedana), perceptions (samjna), mental activity or formations (sankhara), and consciousness (vijnana).

[Anonymous No.17608087]

>>17607931
>Yes, because otherwise you are basically just larping and have little idea if you are doing it right
The ultimate larp is an affluent white westerner taking part in a fire ritual with the """guru""" they paid in their graduation trip to India.
Rituals and traditions have a HEAVY cultural baggage behind them that can mask the deeper spiritual truths they portray. You can enjoy the aesthetics and envy the sincere faith of those involved but you can never take part in them in a truly genuine manner.
It doesn't matter though, since those rituals are nothing more than cultural artifacts that should be admired for their beauty, but nothing more. The real way is deeper, unaccessible to the masses of believers, but attainable to anyone willing to take the time to learn. It's in the texts, the chants, the poetry, the parables, the dialogues.
To anyone with enough sensibility, Laozi, Shankara, Rumi and St Teresa all are talking about the same.
Perenialism is real. Don't confine yourself to a closed tradition.
Look up Bede Griffiths or the Cardinal Newman.

[Anonymous No.17608090]

>>17606511

[Anonymous No.17608091]

>>17608027
>personal sensibilities
If you still approach the subject with the idea that what you think of when you say "I" is generated solely from your unique self, then I'm sorry to say you are already lost. The reason people follow golden lines is because the causality of generations are behind that set of traditions, every unit adding to and making a tradition more itself. When someone "walks their own path", they are not separating themselves from previous traditions, they are only affirming them. Doing this while coming from the approach of your path being solely your own will only lead you to spiritual ruin. Again, I'm not saying you should blindly follow a path laid out for you, but with the wrong approach and mindset, all the theory and practice in the world means nothing.

[Anonymous No.17608098]

>>17608087
Does this extend to the practices? Do you think yoga is useless because it has a heavy cultural baggage?

[Anonymous No.17608103]

>>17608091
You're really overthinking things.

[Anonymous No.17608110]

>>17608083
Alright, thanks, interesting. I can't translate "vijnana", but consciousness is Atman. The self, or "I am", is Atman, that's fundamental. In Advaita Vedanta, you may learn, for example by reading Ashtavakra Gita. As for the buddhists, I can't say much, but they seem to me ignorant if they do not know Atman. The goal of Jivanmukti is to know the true self.

[Anonymous No.17608114]

>>17608044
>Nope you just seek to get to the experience.
Seeking and recreating in leu of the actual thing, i.e. 'role-playing' or 'larping'
>No but they lead to it. And neither requires a guru.
No they don't, the Unconditioned has no real relation with the conditioned which would make it conditioned. The everlasting is unproduced and cannot be produced by actions like seated meditation and yogic poses. The minor attainments only help to remove the obstacles to the higher goal such as helping to purify one's heart and mind, they don't directly produce or lead to the highest attainment as some sort of stairway or cascading effect which would make the highest goal of the Unconditioned something that is produced i.e. non-eternal and conditioned.
>I never said easily. And there's no reason why it would only be available through specific channels.
Enlightenment is a spiritual understanding which is transmitted, the channel of transmission is the channel through which is available.

[Anonymous No.17608118]

>>17608040
Throwing my thoughts out here:
And the reason for this being is that 'meditation' for the ancient man was just doing nothing as a past time. Intense stimuli was rare for them the same way it was for us, so their senses were more acute. Meditation was an Indian thing which meant that doing nothing was only half their time and it was done PURPOSELY (perhaps something is forcing them to take these breaks?), while doing nothing was a passive thing for the Greeks whom all had enough time to conceptualize philosophy (whenever an idea was available to them).

[Anonymous No.17608122]

>>17608110
>they seem to me ignorant if they do not know Atman.
They'd tell you that what you perceive to be atman is just another impermanent delusion, like the formless attainments the hindus falsely believe to be true enlightenment.
By the way I'm not a Buddhist and I don't agree with Buddhism because I think there definitely is a soul or spirit, that's why I stopped looking into it. I was planning on learning about neoplatonism first but advaita sounds interesting as well.

[Anonymous No.17608126]

>>17608049
>Practice leads to understanding.
No it doesn't, action does not produce knowledge, if enlightening knowledge was produced by an action it would have a beginning and would thus be non-eternal.
>That you really need to believe understanding absolutely requires some old asian or arab telling you "secrets" and that it can't be obtained in any other way is quite pathetic
What is pathetic about accepting that an essential spiritual understanding exists which can only be fully transmitted personally from a teacher to a disciple?

[Anonymous No.17608131]

>>17608114
>in leu of the actual thing
Nope, it is the actual thing.
>No they don't
Yeah they do.
>Enlightenment is [...] transmitted
False.

[Anonymous No.17608139]

>>17608103

[Anonymous No.17608150]

>>17608069
I'm not saying that they aren't ancient Anon, but I am questioning its originality. Refer to this >>17607079
We have no reason to believe that Plato was influenced by Indian philosophy. Interactions between these cultures were sporadic until Alexander of Macedonia's Asian invasion. As far as I knows, the Parable of the Cave (from -The Republic-) has no counterpart in Indian thought.

[Anonymous No.17608151]

>>17608139
Every time I enter a thread on spirituality on here it's the same thing. People arguing about the specifics of systematizing enlightenment. I think that's missing the point.

[Anonymous No.17608161]

>>17608098
Well practised yoga is a form of meditation, good for your body and mind. I'm talking about strictly religious rituals.

[Anonymous No.17608163]

>>17608150
>Parable of the Cave (from -The Republic-) has no counterpart in Indian thought.
Maya

[Anonymous No.17608174]

>>17608161
>I'm talking about strictly religious
Kundalini yoga is strictly religious. Tantra in general too.

[Anonymous No.17608191]

Here's a small excerpt from the Ashtavakra Gita, which I love:

>You are really unbound and actionless, self-illuminating and spotless already. The cause of your bondage is that you are still resorting to stilling the mind. 1.15

>All of this is really filled by you and strung out in you, for what you consist of is pure awareness — so don’t be small-minded. 1.16

>You are unconditioned and changeless, formless and immovable, unfathomable awareness, unperturbable: so hold to nothing but consciousness. 1.17

>Recognise that the apparent is unreal, while the unmanifest is abiding. Through this initiation into truth you will escape falling into unreality again. 1.18

>Just as a mirror exists everywhere both within and apart from its reflected images, so the Supreme Lord exists everywhere within and apart from this body. 1.19

>Just as one and the same all-pervading space exists within and without a jar, so the eternal, everlasting God exists in the totality of things. 1.20

[Anonymous No.17608200]

>>17608062
>Non-self leads to the same realization: there is no atman because nothing you can identify, even in the formless jhanas, is "you".
That's not true, because the Atman has self-revealing, self-knowing, unconditioned existence, if the Buddhists don't admit that there is a self-revealing and unconditioned presence then it's not the same. Advaita says that there is an existing, self-effulgent, self-knowing sentience that pervades everything through and through. Non-self doesn't lead to the same realization according to the conventional Buddhist explanation because they don't admit any remaining existing presence underneath this, only when you bring in controversial interpretations of apophatic Atmans not accepted by most of Buddhism that it starts to become similar, but under the standard Buddhist model it's not.
>>17608074
Advaita says that the Atman can be imagined and grasped conceptually through the intellect, but that this is purely a verbal or intellectual understanding which is not the same as truly knowing the Atman, they say that this latter, actual knowing of the Atman only happens when ignorance is eliminated, at which point the Atman which is always self-revealing, reveals itself to the aspirant but just without the normal superimpositions of ignorance obscuring that self-revealingness, which had prevented the aspirant from knowing the Atman before.

[Anonymous No.17608202]

>>17608200
>That's not true
The eight and ninth jhanas are supposed to be completely devoid of awareness

[Anonymous No.17608213]

>>17608163
There is nothing in Indian literature which suggest there's something similar to a Socratic dialogue which, more or less, demonstrates Individuality and the play of words

[Anonymous No.17608239]

>>17606511
>Advaita Vedanta which has almost the exact same mirror to Plotinus' conception (proving perennial Tradition in its universality)
wrong.
>Many say the same thing
>It must be true
Perennialist are zulus who think by analogy alone and are incapable of actual philosophical thought, which is why the usually get stuck at the beginning of philosophy (Plato, and the platonic tradition at best) instead of trying to move forward. Plato was not the beginning of perennialism, but the end of it. By conceptualizing perennialist metaphysics, he made it vulnerable to criticism so that thought may finally move forward instead of being stuck in an endless cycle of repeating the same shit over and over. As a consequence, we got creative and we can now post about going back to being fucking sky-worshipping monkeys on 4chan.

[Anonymous No.17608246]

>>17608239
>move forward
Towards what?

[Anonymous No.17608255]

>>17606540
>semitic
What precisely about Platonism and/or Neoplatonism would you define as "semitic"? Please expose your ideas so I can ridicule your poor understanding of both Platonism and "semitism".

[Anonymous No.17608262]

>The upright person does whatever presents itself to be done, good or bad, for his actions are like those of a child. 18.49

>By inner freedom one attains happiness, by inner freedom one reaches the Supreme, by inner freedom one comes to absence of thought, by inner freedom to the Ultimate State. 18.50

>When one sees oneself as neither the doer nor the reaper of the consequences, then all mind waves come to an end. 18.51

>The spontaneous unassuming behaviour of the wise is noteworthy, but not the deliberate purposeful stillness of the fool. 18.52

>The wise who are rid of imagination, unbound and with unfettered awareness, may enjoy themselves in the midst of many goods, or alternatively go off to mountain caves. 18.53

>There is no attachment in the heart of a wise man whether he sees or pays homage to a learned brahmin, a celestial being, a holy place, a woman, a king or a friend. 18.54

>A yogi is not in the least put out even when humiliated by the ridicule of servants, sons, wives, grandchildren, or other relatives. 18.55

>Even when pleased he is not pleased, not suffering even when in pain. Only those like him can know the wonderful state of such a man. 18.56

[Anonymous No.17608266]

>>17608087
>The ultimate larp is an affluent white westerner taking part in a fire ritual with the """guru""" they paid in their graduation trip to India.
This was just a lazy strawman, the fire ritual is a Vedic rite that a priest performs usually for a homeowner, the person seeking initiation would not seek one. Instead, they would travel to a temple or other center where authorities of a sect reside, and then they would converse with them, learn about the sect, and then request to be initiated into it, which may or may not be granted and which may involve some days, weeks or months spent with them learning the doctrine and practices. There is nothing larping about this but it is the complete opposite of larping.
>Rituals and traditions have a HEAVY cultural baggage behind them that can mask the deeper spiritual truths they portray. You can enjoy the aesthetics and envy the sincere faith of those involved but you can never take part in them in a truly genuine manner.
This is nonsense, and it's rejected by those traditions that initiate westerners, they actually know what they are talking about when they say that westerners can join them, you don't.
>It doesn't matter though, since those rituals are nothing more than cultural artifacts that should be admired for their beauty, but nothing more.
Fire-rituals are not a part of initiation or spiritual instruction in sects, the actual initiation is not a cultural artifact but involves an essential transmission of spiritual understanding.
>The real way is deeper, unaccessible to the masses of believers, but attainable to anyone willing to take the time to learn. It's in the texts, the chants, the poetry, the parables, the dialogues.
No that's wrong, those texts etc belong to and were produced by people on the inside, not on the outside, and they are meant for people who properly partake of the tradition by joining and being initiated.
>Perenialism is real. Don't confine yourself to a closed tradition.
You don't have to, you can be initiated into multiple sects or even religions, it's not unheard of. That doesn't change that without a real initiation you are larping.

[Anonymous No.17608272]

>>17606854
some people unironically believe in the kali yuga. Also nature is evil and currently trying to kill us. People who venerate nature are the stupidest people ever. You have evolved the ability to use instruments precisely to manipulate nature because you are weak and living in nature fucking sucks

[Anonymous No.17608284]

>>17608266
>tl;dr: if you don't suck off some old hindu in a shitty temple you're larping and will never be able to attain enlightenment

[Anonymous No.17608323]

>>17608284
What's funny is that the most dedicated people for Indian religion tend to be westerners

[Anonymous No.17608330]

>>17608323
Westerners love larping as hindus and buddhists

[Anonymous No.17608338]

>>17608330
Vedanta is for all humanity, not for a specific race.

[Anonymous No.17608340]

>>17608266
Explain how hermits living alone in the mountains of China without a guru can reach enlightenment.

[Anonymous No.17608352]

>>17608340
What prevents them in the mountains of China, do you mean?

[Anonymous No.17608356]

>>17606511
Can you achieve pneumatism even if you weren't born pneumatic? Or are you doomed from the start

[Anonymous No.17608360]

>>17608338
westerners still love larping

[Anonymous No.17608365]

>>17608360
Ok. Very cool

[Anonymous No.17608366]

>>17608365
Not really it's kinda cringe actually

[Anonymous No.17608378]

>>17608246
Away from Sophistry that's for sure. Abusing analogy is what the Sophists were nefarious for (mixing up words).

[Anonymous No.17608380]

>>17608150
>but I am questioning its originality.
Why would the Vedas and early Upanishads not be original if they indeed predate the pre-socratics, as most Indologists who have ever studied them have maintained?
>We have no reason to believe that Plato was influenced by Indian philosophy.
There is no reason either to believe that early Indian philosophy was influenced by the Greeks, with the possible exception of the skeptics and Buddhists which is actually more of a latter development anyway.
>>17608150
>As far as I knows, the Parable of the Cave (from -The Republic-) has no counterpart in Indian thought.
The pre-Buddhist Upanishads and later ones too abound with metaphors of how people are mistaken or enclosed by ignorance and how they don't realize the underlying truth or reality.
>>17608202
So? That's not contradicting anything I said.
>>17608213
>There is nothing in Indian literature which suggest there's something similar to a Socratic dialogue which, more or less
That's not true
>The Socratic method is a form of cooperative argumentative dialogue between individuals, based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to draw out ideas and underlying presuppositions.
This exact form of discussion occurs at length in the pre-Socratic Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, from centuries before Plato, where in chapter 3 Yajnavalkya has a series of dialectical discussions with Asvala, Artabhaga, Bhujyu, Ushasta, Kahola, Gargi (I), Uddalaka, Gargi (II) and Vidagdha in the order listed. Yajnavalkya critically examines the things that the people say and he makes them reflect on and think about what is said in order to address how their presuppositions relate to the topic of conversation.

https://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/the-brihadaranyaka-upanishad/d/doc118301.html

[Anonymous No.17608381]

>>17608378
Okay but what does that have to do with religions

[Anonymous No.17608382]

>>17608366
Whatever

>>17608356
I think it's part birth, part the effort you spend in life. Maybe you can make some progress in one "birth" so to speak, but you won't reach the ultimate goal until another life. That's just speculation from my part, but I'm drawing inspiration from the notion of Samsara, which the Easterners talk about.

[Anonymous No.17608391]

>>17608239
>As a consequence, we got creative and we can now post about going back to being fucking sky-worshipping monkeys on 4chan.

[Anonymous No.17608393]

>>17608380
>So? That's not contradicting anything I said.
It does because the eight jhana and above have nothing that can be called atman

[Anonymous No.17608402]

>>17608381

[Anonymous No.17608407]

>>17608284
>learning spiritual instruction from someone who knows is a sexual act that degrades you
no, what are you, 13?

[Anonymous No.17608410]

>>17608407
Do you have autism?

[Anonymous No.17608419]

>>17608340
Do you really think any of those people ever become Hermits without first learning from a teacher before entering into their hermitage? You don't need constant contact with your guru, but once you receive the essential instructions that instruction can fructify elsewhere.

[Anonymous No.17608424]

>>17608380
People make the same case for the Egyptians or the Jews. Whoever translated these works thought like Socrates ( >>17607064 ),
and whoever wrote the Vedas/Upanishads thought Indian (which we have no idea is like in pure form). The difference between these two cultures are very radical and historical development shows once Greece becomes the most advanced in terms of technology/art

[Anonymous No.17608427]

>>17608419
>nobody has ever attained spiritual realization by themselves
God you are fucking retarded

[Anonymous No.17608429]

>>17608366
the dhamma is for all beings for all time. It arises in other worlds, other aeons, in other beings. It didn't have to originate in India, it could have started anywhere.
>lol bro ur just LARPING (live action role playing btw) as an Indian lmaooo, nice Indian religion loser, didn't you know you have to be racially Indian to follow an Indian religion?

[Anonymous No.17608432]

>>17608393
I wasn't asserting that they did, I was only saying that it's possible for people to believe this (either wrongly or correctly) if they adopt an unconventional and basically heterodox understanding of Buddhism

[Anonymous No.17608435]

>>17608429
>according to my religion you're wrong
Nice rebuttal.
There is no need to seethe this hard, "western buddhist"

[Anonymous No.17608444]

>>17608410
Is it autistic to call out foolishness for what it is?

[Anonymous No.17608446]

>>17608444
You're doing no such thing, autismo

[Anonymous No.17608448]

>>17608435
What the fuck is wrong with you? You're just hating on people in this thread, even after being proven wrong. Got a stick up your ass?

[Anonymous No.17608457]

>>17608448
Wow that's not very loving kindness of you

[Anonymous No.17608463]

>>17608424
I can't understand what your post is even trying to say? Are you ESL? Can you rephrase it into more coherent sentences?

[Anonymous No.17608465]

>>17608457
No, it's not, fuck off now and stay on topic.

[Anonymous No.17608468]

>>17608465
Seethe harder, larper. You will never be a real buddhist.

[Anonymous No.17608474]

>>17608468
I am not trying to be that, what the fuck is your problem?

[Anonymous No.17608484]

>>17608463
Think of it like how Whitehead makes the claim that all of philosophy are but footnotes to Plato. It is exactly like that: westerners think like Socrates/Plato and Indians did not do so. If you go to a third world country you'll be surprised at how different people manage/conceptualize things

[Anonymous No.17608487]

>>17608435
1. Not my religion
2. It IS a nice rebuttal. It's literally the only rebuttal possible.
>wtf you just disproved what I think I know about the religion by telling me what the religion's actual beliefs are? No that's not allowed

[Anonymous No.17608496]

>>17608487
>ummm ackshually the dharma can arise anywhere!
That claim is only worth anything if you believe in buddhism in the first place, brainlet. As it is, it's just a religion made up by some dude in northern india 2600 years ago, not some kind of higher truth that transcends dimensions lmfao

[Anonymous No.17608507]

>>17608484
>Think of it like how Whitehead makes the claim that all of philosophy are but footnotes to Plato. It is exactly like that: westerners think like Socrates/Plato and Indians did not do so
So? Is there a point that you are trying to make by saying this? I don't disagree that the western mindset had Greek roots or that the Indian or Chinese mindset has Indian or Chinese roots. That's not the same as showing that the Greeks predated and influenced the Indians in terms of understanding the mind, which is what I disagree with and is what we were originally debating about.

[Anonymous No.17608523]

>>17608496
I'm not debating whether or not the religion is true, smoothbrain. Would you like me to break it down for you? Or maybe you can practice your reading comprehension and go back through exchange? Anyway, here goes

Retard 1: westerners pretend to be buddhists
Retard 2: westerners don't "pretend" to be buddhists because the religion allows them to be true buddhists
Retard 1: wtf but buddhism is not true and u r dumb

[Anonymous No.17608537]

>>17608523
No need to seethe bub
Buddhism isn't a religion for westerners, so westerners pretending to be buddhists are larping. Simple as

[Anonymous No.17608566]

>>17608537
>Simple as
Simple as what? Complete your thought

[Anonymous No.17608573]

>>17608566
Simple as.

[Anonymous No.17608579]

1000 years from now Perennialists will make an analogy between george floyd and socrates

[Anonymous No.17608587]

>>17608579
There will be no 1000 years from now, time is fake, PKD was right

[Anonymous No.17608588]

>>17608573
>Simple as.
Simple AS? This whole time I was responding to a British """""""PERSON"""""""? Oh my God why didn't anyone warn me??

[Anonymous No.17608594]

>>17608588
I'm not british

[Anonymous No.17608604]

>>17606511
>Where do I go, Tradbros..
You’re ancestral culture you fucking numpty. Where else? If you’re actually “trad” and you actually believe in the ‘universality of perennial tradition’ then your own ancestral culture should be enough to find enlightenment.

[Anonymous No.17608607]

>>17608594
Then why the fuck would you larp as a Brit?

[Anonymous No.17608623]

>>17608607
Almost for the same reason westerners larp as buddhists :^)

[Anonymous No.17608630]

>>17608604
My ancestral culture is christianity and I don't believe in it, can't force myself to either.

[Anonymous No.17608692]

>>17608630
Religion only >2000 years old is your ancient traditional religion? Where are you from?

[Anonymous No.17608736]

Is Themistius worth studying as a bridge between Hellenic/Roman thought and Christianity?
Anybody else in a similar vein?

[Anonymous No.17608790]

>>17608692
>2000 years old
Less than that if he's anything but Jewish. Greece and Italy don't convert until around 500AD, Germania/Gaul don't until around 600AD, the Russian peasantry aren't Christian in any meaningful sense until the 1600s, and the Balts don't Christianize meaningfully until the fucking 1900s.

And even then, the Christianity of his ancestors is low-church Protestantism, which only comes around in the 1600s, with his family line converting to Episcopalianism and Quakerism around 1800, and the Christianity he espouses was concocted in the 1970s by the CIA, but he e-converted to Georgian Orthodoxy back in 2016.

[Anonymous No.17608821]

>>17608692
So what I should larp as a pagan? No thanks

[Anonymous No.17608829]

>>17608821
You're already LARPing as a Christian, so what's the big deal?

[Anonymous No.17608840]

>>17608829
But I'm not, I don't give a fuck about christianity. Are you retarded?

[Anonymous No.17608872]

>>17608692
Pagan larpers are the greatest source of cringe this planet has to offer.

[Anonymous No.17608964]

>>17608821
>So what I should larp as a pagan?
No, you should spend your life learning about and reconnecting with YOUR ancestral culture and tradition. What’s so hard to understand about that? You won’t find answers with anybody else’s tradition.

[Anonymous No.17609001]

>>17608419
>Do you really think any of those people ever become Hermits without first learning from a teacher before entering into their hermitage?
Yes. Watch the documentary among white clouds and you'll see it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pH2ozq65yHQ

[Anonymous No.17609073]

>>17608507
refer 2 >>17607064

[Anonymous No.17609104]

4chan gnosticism is the next step my friend.

[Anonymous No.17609150]

>>17609073
What that post says is not true at all though since the Indian Hindus already had their own long textual and philosophical history with various commentators and chroniclers that clearly defined the Sruti and Smriti texts as comprising the Hindu canonical literature centuries before the Europeans showed up. It already had its own consistent structure that was not invented by Europeans, and this is reflected in Hindu writings from the first millennium BC onwards, in that they all generally refer to the followers of the Vedas and the accompanying literature as constituting the tradition, and the Jains, Buddhists, foreigners etc as being outside it.

[Anonymous No.17609191]

>>17609104
Redpill me on this

[Anonymous No.17609207]

>>17609150
I don't believe it buddy

[Anonymous No.17609254]

Do tradfags actually believe in initiation or are you just quoting Guenon/Evola? All these canned responses aren't very enlightened of you. Simply repeating over and over that you need a lineage master for instruction is just a point of dogma.
>>17608964
Also not very trad of you to be a cultural determinist and treat religions like regional blu ray releases
>>17608537
Someone got filtered hard

[Anonymous No.17609262]

>>17609191
Demiurge partakes of wisdom/sophia?

[Anonymous No.17609267]

>>17607148
The people who say Muhammed and Yeshua weren't basically grifters and adharmic are lying

[Anonymous No.17609272]

>>17609254
>Someone got filtered hard
there is nobody to be filtered

[Anonymous No.17609288]

>>17608840
No, I'm just wondering why someone who doesn't give a fuck about Christianity cares so much about people not being Christian.

[Anonymous No.17609294]

>>17609288
I don't, you fucking schizo. You are absolutely obsessed, holy shit.

[Anonymous No.17609303]

>>17608191
>>17608262
Based anon

[Anonymous No.17609328]

>>17609254
>Simply repeating over and over that you need a lineage master for instruction is just a point of dogma.
It's not that you need one for instruction, it's that one is needed for this instruction to actually allow you to reach the summit of the spiritual path and complete enlightenment, instead of only getting you to the lesser attainments or nothing at all.

The claim that you don't need a lineage master is equally a dogmatic belief by the way, but unlike the other side of the argument it's not a position that is supported by the doctrines and traditions in question.

[Anonymous No.17609337]

>>17609328
>supported by the doctrines and traditions
Who made the doctrines and traditions? Fucking gullible retard

[Anonymous No.17609343]

>>17609254
>Also not very trad of you to be a cultural determinist and treat religions like regional blu ray releases
Im not even trad. I just think it’s ridiculous when aimless 20-somethings moan on 4chan about lacking meaning and spirituality without first looking to their own ancestral culture. If you’re looking for meaning then that should be the first place you look

[Anonymous No.17609346]

>>17608692
Kys

[Anonymous No.17609347]

>>17607879
I cant chuck with Alexander after reading Peter Green's biography on him and discovering the iconoclasm that Alexander committed.

[Anonymous No.17609356]

>>17609337
>Who made the doctrines and traditions?
God, the lineage of initiations goes back to God or the equivalent of God in these traditions. But God doesn't reveal it to every person individually in every case for all time thereafter, but it's only revealed when the tradition is established, and after that you have to participate in the lineage of initiation going back to the original establishment by God for the real thing.

[Anonymous No.17609361]

>>17607926
>since it denies the existence of an immortal soul.
Buddhists today might do this but Gautama did not.

[Anonymous No.17609366]

>>17609356
>god says you need some old asshole painted white to teach you how to get to him otherwise you'll never be able to reach him
Shitty god tbqh

[Anonymous No.17609369]

>>17609343
Yes and it all leads back to Plato, but that is the painful answer. What we have to do is reconcile monotheism with polytheism, absolutism and relativism, and variety and consistency imo

[Anonymous No.17609376]

>>17609361
>Buddhists today might do this but Gautama did not.
Source? Please don't say Evola.

[Anonymous No.17609385]

>>17609369
>meaningless word jumbo

[Anonymous No.17609386]

>>17609369
>it all leads back to Plato
How do you figure?
>reconcile monotheism with polytheism, absolutism and relativism, and variety and consistency
Seems impossible.

[Anonymous No.17609417]

>>17609386
See
>>17607079

>>17609385
Moderation is the final redpill. I know what I say sounds baseless but there is a reason why Plato's dialogues look more like fiction than anything systematic, or why he uses mythology to explain ideas, and that is because he understood psychology way

[Anonymous No.17609447]

>>17609417
before Nietzsche (perhaps Nietzsche understood him, and that is what he referred to as the untruth that was missing in Kant's philosophy)

[Anonymous No.17609452]

>>17609417
>Moderation is the final redpill.
This is not a unique, interesting, valuable, or relevant part of this conversation. What you say is totally and completely worthless.

[Anonymous No.17609462]

>>17609328
>>17609356
If enlightenment requires theology then there isn't much we can say about it

[Anonymous No.17609467]

>>17609376
There is no written record of Gautama at any point making the positive declaration that there is no unborn, uncreated, permanent soul, known commonly as the "self". There is nothing to cite, since such a declaration doesn't exist. There is no sauce to post.

[Anonymous No.17609468]

>>17609452
That's fine. It was just a quick take on 4channel

[Anonymous No.17609480]

>>17609366
>Shitty god tbqh
No it's a good thing, otherwise people would not care to have high standards concerning initiation/instruction and more people would get misled than they already are, and there would be countless shizos and egomaniacs saying they are enlightened and know God, which would undermine the religion and doctrine revealed by God, because the tradition maintaining it would have no basis for saying that the schizos dont know what they are talking about. But because they are exclusionary it allows us to better separate the fakers from the real thing.

[Anonymous No.17609492]

>>17609462
I didn't say that enlightenment requires theology, but rather a proper initiation.

[Anonymous No.17609496]

>>17609480
>there would be countless shizos and egomaniacs saying they are enlightened
Already are
Your arguments suck ass

[Anonymous No.17609526]

>>17609343
To some extent the "ancestral culture" has failed them. It's as in/authentic as any other choice.

[Anonymous No.17609551]

>>17609492
If the lineages roll back to a chat with god they sure do

[Anonymous No.17609554]

>>17609496
>Already are
Yes, but it was obviously implied that there would be even more of these than there are now. You nitpicking at the language I used did nothing to refute the underlying point of that point. If there is no authentic initiation which shows the actual way and which is exclusionary, then it would become an almost insurmountable obstacle to distinguish the real teachers and doctrines from false ones, which is not the case right now for anyone with a 100+ IQ.

[Anonymous No.17609579]

>>17609551
No they don't, Why would it be so? If it comes from God then it was transmitted from that time onwards before all of the intricacies of the theology were put down in writing, and it remained the same essential doctrine the whole time even while being communicated purely by word of mouth in the early stages even before this doctrine was drawn out and elaborated by later theologians.

[Anonymous No.17609671]

>>17609526
This is what I have been talking about with >>17608239 & >>17607064 ....
People just seem to love to project towards the past. Perennialism is a modern ideology

[Anonymous No.17609690]

>>17609579
Don't be dense. If the transmission ultimately comes from god then tradposters are just doing theology with extra steps. And if that is the case there are no arguments because god is not an object of knowledge anyway. Tradposters are just taking a list of religions as being true or false based on whether they meet some criteria, such as having a monistic god, initiatory lineages, etc.

[Anonymous No.17609717]

>>17609690
>If the transmission ultimately comes from god then tradposters are just doing theology with extra steps.
No that's not true, theology is the explication of a revealed doctrine or scripture. The transmission of that doctrine through initiation is different from the systemization of that doctrine in the form of theology.

[Anonymous No.17609775]

>>17609717
Desperately missing the point.

[Anonymous No.17609821]

>>17609775
What point?

[Anonymous No.17609931]

>>17609821
That god is so embarassing of a thing for trads to affirm that they've invented perennial philosophy to obscure it.

[Anonymous No.17609962]

>>17609931
Why do you think it is embarrassing to affirm the existence of God?

[Anonymous No.17609964]

>>17609931
Who is embarassed? You don't seem to know what you're talking about. Did you just skim through a wikipedia article on "Traditionalism" and then make up your mind on these matters?

[Anonymous No.17610049]

>>17609962
>>17609964
Trads engage in ridiculous posturing about needing to become a sufi or move to Kashmir to be initiated since Christianity doesn't have esoteric schools. But they are just theists and the entire ornamental thing collapses without that core belief. If you don't believe in god then going through the lineage holder to get your intangible gnosis is pointless. No elderly renunciant is going to demonstrate god to you. That's what embarasses, they cannot justify the dogmatic belief in god without babbling about initiation and tradition.

[Anonymous No.17610070]

>>17610049
>they cannot justify the dogmatic belief in god without babbling about initiation and tradition.
So the problem is that you don't understand tradition and initiation. So research those concepts.

[Anonymous No.17610089]

>>17610070
No, the problem is theology.

[Anonymous No.17610232]

>>17610049
>If you don't believe in god then going through the lineage holder to get your intangible gnosis is pointless.
Pointless for what purpose? These things don't exist for the purpose of personally convincing you of their truth. If you don't believe in God anyway then why would you care what other people do in their own religious life?

[Anonymous No.17610394]

>>17606511
>knowledge of Gnosis

[Anonymous No.17610562]

>>17606511
Anybody know any good books about christian knighthood? I'm starting to really love the Catholic church and want to know how hard Christian tradition clashes with my existing respect for martyrdom and war.

[Anonymous No.17611576]

>>17607188
good post I laughed

[Anonymous No.17611601]

>>17607781
I'm just gonna read every single book on how to play guitar and never practice and I will be a guitar master!

No, this is absurd, obviously practice is required in addition to knowledge

[Anonymous No.17611686]

there is a Vedanta school in my city that seems legitimate. not sure if I’m ready to pay a visit or not

[Anonymous No.17611714]

>>17606981
Too bad nothing exists and what we do have that exists still fits the bill.

[Anonymous No.17611733]

>>17609262
The demiurge is a shit posting pepe and we are his shit post creations and the demiurge shit posting pepe just wants to be comfy so we can be comfy.

[Anonymous No.17611846]

>>17610562
>I'm starting to really love the Catholic church and want to know how hard Christian tradition clashes with my existing respect for martyrdom and war.
Everything you like about Catholicism can probably be found everywhere. Just remember if you become catholic you literally worship a dead guy as your god while also worshiping a bronze age desert god who commands people to chop up their dicks. There is no way around that, it is a necessary part of being a catholic. Just keep that in mind, you would be voluntarily submitting to the god of dick cutting.

[Anonymous No.17611849]

>>17611846
>be found everywhere
I meant to type "be found elsewhere".

[Anonymous No.17611863]

>>17608964
>reconnecting with YOUR ancestral culture and tradition
How far back? I've never seen a good answer on this. My most immediate ancestral culture and tradition involves McDonald's and Coca Cola and Jesus. A few generations from that is still just Christianity. How many steps back am I supposed to go before I have arrived at the "ancestral culture"?. I don't even know who my great, great grandfather is. You haven't given very actionable advice.

[Anonymous No.17611879]

>>17608964
>YOUR ancestral culture
If you'll go 100 generations back, you will probably have entire Earth population as your ancestors.

[Anonymous No.17611886]

>>17606895
>Neoplatonic polytheist
>native European traditions
Bruh

[Anonymous No.17611904]

What the fuck is going on in this thread?

[Anonymous No.17611906]

Who cares about 'native' european traditions when we've had Christianity for 2000 years.

[Anonymous No.17611942]

>tfw will return to the world-soul and become one with my waif after my physical death

[Anonymous No.17611993]

>>17611942
Anon, I'm not sure how to explain how succinctly that sums up my belief system and reason for continued living. Although for me I don't think of it as a waifu situation as a stand-in for God and my own conscience, but hey.

...so, the esotericist maniacs are where you all have been? wonderful.

[Anonymous No.17612026]

>>17606511
why dont you guys just read the Bible and pray to God

I dont get it

[Anonymous No.17612045]

>>17611906
exactly

Christianity is literally a native western religion

[Anonymous No.17612103]

>>17611906
Christianity is more Greek than Jewish anyway.

>In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God.

[Anonymous No.17612119]

>>17606511
To the psychiatric ward, fucking schizophrenic retard.

[Anonymous No.17612124]

>>17611993
Oh nonono. Thats not my reason for being nor my personal theology; rather, I have found a benevolent divine that exists as that from which reality stems and that in which reality occurs: the past with no beginning and the future with no end.

[Anonymous No.17612132]

>>17611942
>>17611993
>>17612124
sorry nerds

satan will bang your waifu in the afterlife and make you watch

[Anonymous No.17612159]

>>17611846
>Everything you like about Catholicism can probably be found everywhere.
I feel a throbbing-heart attraction for the Catholic Church that I don't feel when I go to any other kind of church or temple. Buddhist temples make me feel intrigued and like there's some mystery to be solved, like there's a labyrinth hidden underneath the building I'll uncover if I pull the right book or find a trapdoor, but nothing makes me feel a literal romantic yearning like the inside of a Catholic church.

[Anonymous No.17612201]

>>17612132
Satan is not philosophically rigorous. The true redpill is that this world is hell insofar as you do not experience ontological self-creation and actualize your humanity (connection with the divine): a fate worse than eons of suffering insofar as suffering proves your individual existence

[Anonymous No.17612212]

>>17612159
Hey man you do you. It doesn't matter anyway since christian hell isnt real and christianity is dependent on obviously false doctrines anyway, when you die you'll just be reincarnated and come back here and learn more anyway. So do what you think is right.

[Anonymous No.17612225]

>>17612201
>you do not experience ontological self-creation
Books on this? Never heard of this

[Anonymous No.17612280]

>>17612212
then I hope you don't incarnate as an incel this time, anon

[Anonymous No.17612314]

>>17612280
Me either! And to you, the same good wishes!

[Anonymous No.17612493]

After reading this thread I can see that it's gone the same way it almost always does. Nobody can agree on a definition of "trad", of what qualifies as "ancestral religion", whether or not a certain religion has semitic or hellenic roots, whether or not a philosophy qualifies as a religion or not, etc. There is profound confusion to the point that productive discussion is almost impossible. Nobody knows what the hell we are even trying to talk about. There is clearly a problem (or likely multiple problems) to be solved here which most certainly does not or do not have a clear answer. I think the central problems are
>There is something missing in our lives. We can hardly name it, but we all commonly have an intellectual or spiritual sensation or experience of loss or incompleteness. How can this be identified? How can it be fixed?
>How do we have an authentic spiritual experience, practice, and life in the modern world?
Even the definition of the words like "spiritual" and "authentic" could be in dispute here. Although this thread has not fixed anything (and obviously no single 4chan thread is going to be a solution to such a profound problem), I believe it reveals a collective experience we all have and I encourage everyone reading to continue earnestly seeking to investigate and solve these problems and experiences. God bless us all.

[Anonymous No.17612552]

>>17612124
yes yes yes the beginning and the end are one and the same.

but then why do you mention your 'waifu' at all?

[Anonymous No.17612570]

>>17612493
a good post, but honestly nobody can agree on anything. just keep moving forward. you'll never be certain that you're right and others are wrong. you'll regret your actions either way. just move along. live for yourself. try to help others if you can. "don't make others suffer for your personal hatred."

[Anonymous No.17612576]

>>17612570
Hear, hear. Earnest striving for the god will lead us to goodness.

[Anonymous No.17612581]

>>17612493
why is the norse looking guy riding a homosexual horse

[Anonymous No.17612585]

>>17612581
Sneed.

[Anonymous No.17612639]

>>17612585
N-NO, YOU DIDN'T JUST BTFO ME, DID YOU? ANON HOW COULD YOU...

[Anonymous No.17612644]

>>17606511
Scientology?

1. Not cucked
2. Deep tradition
3. Initiation system
4. Old sages
5. Consistent metaphysical system

[Anonymous No.17612666]

>>17612644
*smokes meth* MY FUCKING STOMACH HURTS BECAUSE 4 TRILLION YEARS AGO IN A PAST LIFE I WAS A CLAM WITH A PIECE OF SAND STUCK INSIDE ME

[Anonymous No.17612711]

>>17612666
THE FUCKING THEEETANS MAN

[Anonymous No.17612812]

>>17606827
(Formerly Abraxas’)

[Anonymous No.17612905]

>>17608790
Judaism was demolished and rebooted as Talmudic Judaism with a bunch of fake oral traditions they pulled out of their ass. What we know as Judaism is younger than Christianity.

[Anonymous No.17613014]

>>17606827

[Anonymous No.17613021]

>>17613014
keyed and sneed

[Anonymous No.17613063]

>>17612905
Nice meme but by that token there's no reason to consider Christianity any older than the council of Nicaea, and that's because I want to be generous. So Judaism would still be older.

[Anonymous No.17613066]

>>17606511
Thomist participation metaphysics is a kind of neo-platonism

[Anonymous No.17613071]

>>17606511
You're gonna go outside.
You're gonna take your meds.
You're gonna enroll in a calculus class.
You're gonna perform some basic mechanics experiments.
You're gonna realize this larp you're doing only fools other similarly minded people to you, and you're not a super hero in a magic universe.
You're gonna die.
You're not going to exist anymore.

And nothing of value was lost.

[Anonymous No.17613108]

>>17613063
deal, let's shake on it

[Anonymous No.17613298]

>>17606540
Cringe

[Anonymous No.17613344]

>>17607992
>>17607998
thank you for writing this i will reflect on it