The shadow of the Dalai Lama

From “The shadow of the Dalai Lama”:  

But then, out of the blue in 1996, dark clouds began to gather over the bright aura of the “living Buddha”. Charges, accusations, suspicions and incriminations began to appear in the media. At first on the Internet, then in isolated press reports, and finally in television programs (see Panorama on ARD Heidelberg, Germany, November 20, 1997 and 10 vor 10 on SF1 Switzerland, January 5-8, 1998). At the same time as the Hollywood stars were erecting a media altar for their Tibetan god, the public attacks on the Dalai Lama were becoming more frequent. Even for a mundane politician the catalogue of accusations would have been embarrassing, but for a divine king they were horrendous. And on this occasion the attacks came not from the Chinese camp but from within his own ranks. 
 
The list of accusations goes on and on. Here we present some of the charges raised against the Kundun since 1997 which we treat in more detail in this study: association with the Japanese “poison gas guru” Shoko Asahara (the “Asahara affair”); violent suppression of the free expression of religion within his own ranks (the “Shugden affair”); the splitting of the other Buddhist sects (the “Karmapa affair”); frequent sexual abuse of women by Tibetan lamas (“Sogyal Rinpoche and June Campbell affairs”);intolerance towards homosexuals; involvement in a ritual murder (the events of February 4, 1997); links to National Socialism (the “Heinrich Harrer affair”); nepotism (the “Yabshi affair”); selling out his own country to the Chinese(renunciation of Tibetan sovereignty); political lies; rewriting history; and much more.

Re: The shadow of the Dalai Lama

Hi Theurj

The involvement of the Kundu with the nazis is a well-know fact. The nazis were since the beginning a sort of secret society. Mein Kampf, the nazi bible, is a book based on vague occult mythology.

 Two french journalists Pauwells and Bergier have mentioned it  in their famous book “the Morning of the Magicians” in the 60 ies. Thousand tibetans soldiers in german army uniforms were found dead by the soviet army when it entered Berlin 1945.

The choice of the Hakkenkreuz, the indo-european swastika turned to the left, the emblem of the nazi party, was a deliberate political manipulationa to legitimize the foundational myths of the german nation in new clothes so deeply needed in post-war germany, after the humiliating defeat of 1918.

here is a link, amazing stories.

http://www.berzinarchives.com/web/en/archives/advanced/kalachakra/shambhala/nazi_connection_shambhala_tibet.html

Re: The shadow of the Dalai Lama

Enlightening what enlightenment can allow one to do.

Re: The shadow of the Dalai Lama

Indeed!  ;-)

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lmao…

Re: The shadow of the Dalai Lama

lots of empirical example heres, and Zac is probably right:

You can´t trust white asses, they are always so overtensed and trying to be the best boys and girls sitting at the right side of “God the Father”, these silly idiots
hahhahahahha

Re: The shadow of the Dalai Lama

uh…wtf???  madness does not have a color…it only wants you to believe it does…that is part of it's madness…*

Re: The shadow of the Dalai Lama

Sorry no so quickly 
colours are colours, but sometimes colours are no longer colours Herr General, clack clack

:-((

Re: The shadow of the Dalai Lama

Indeed.

Funny site. It's a spoof on how the various GD Orders are at each other's throats, some claiming others are Nazis, etc. The whole GD infighting is what led me to resign from it back in the 90s. And it appears it's still going on as strong as ever.

My intent to get reinvolved and join with one of the aforementioned factions is to integrate my so-called “lower” states and stages with the so-called higher via ritual enactment and interpreted postmetaphysically, much as I've discussed elsewhere (like the transpersonal psychology thread of late). Part of the problem with the GD, and any “enlightenment” endeavor, is the metaphysical interpretation which tends to lead to all of this shadow side being rationalized in the name of God or Good, etc. I've chosen the faction I did because it seems amenable to my interpretation, less dogmatic and more open to democratic and individual changes. We'll see.

Re: The shadow of the Dalai Lama

Any paparazzi shadow headlines in the Naropa Mirror of Boulder on Kenny the Trismegistos?
ahahhahahhahhah
Just kidding

Re: The shadow of the Dalai Lama

And let's not forget, Obama is Hitler too.

Paradoxically, it's also true that Hitler is very upset about Obama's win.

We are coming to know the truth about our cosmos and the human condition:
WE ARE ALL HITLER!!!!

;-)

Re: The shadow of the Dalai Lama

As somebody once said, Hitler really killed that fashion statement with the little moustache. Nobody can grow it anymore. It's s finished. Thanks Adolf.

Gaddy  ;-)

Re: The shadow of the Dalai Lama

All seriousness aside… How does a Tibetan Buddhist respond to the very real charges against the DL “within his own ranks” as listed above and detailed in the article? What causes such behavior?

I suggested above that a metaphysical worldview likely plays a large role. Recall in the “letting daylight into magic” thread that the DL and TB generally think of the “gods” as actual entities. And that given the mix of magico-mythical elements with rationality there is still a mix of pre-differentiated value spheres (i.e., quadrants). Here are some further excerpts from the article that kicked off the thread highlighting this:

In ancient societies (like that of Tibet), everything that happens in the everyday world - from acts of nature to major political events to quotidian occurrences - is the expression of transcendent powers and forces working behind the scenes. Mortals do not determine their own fates; rather they are instruments in the hands of “gods” and “demons”. If we wish to gain any understanding at all of the Dalai Lama's “secular” politics, it must be derived from this atavistic perspective which permeates the traditional cultural legacy of Tibetan Buddhism. For the mysteries that he administers (in which the “gods” make their appearances) form the foundations of his political vision and decision making. State and religion, ritual and politics are inseparable for him.

In the symbolic political world, however, we encounter “supernatural” energy fields, the “gods” and “demons”. The secular protagonists in events are still human beings such as ecclesiastical dignitaries, priests, magicians, gurus, yogis, and shamans. But they all see themselves as servants of some type of superior divine will, or, transcending their humanity they themselves become “gods”, as in the case of the Dalai Lama. His exercise of power thus not only involves worldly techniques but also the manipulation of symbols in rituals and magic. For him, symbolic images and ritual acts are not simply signs or aesthetic acts but rather instruments with which to activate the gods and to influence people's awareness. His political reality is determined by a “metaphysical detour” via the mysteries

This interweaving of historical and symbolic events leads to the seemingly fantastic metapolitics of the Tibetans. Lamaism believes it can influence the course of history not just in Tibet but for the entire planet through its system of rituals and invocations, through magic practices and concentration exercises. The result is an atavistic mix of magic and politics. Rather than being determined by parliament and the Tibetan government in exile, political decisions are made by oracles and the supernatural beings acting through them. It is no longer parties with differing programs and leaders who face off in the political arena, but rather distinct and antagonistic oracle gods. Above all it is in the individual of the Dalai Lama that the entire wordly and spiritual/magic potential of the Tibetan world view is concentrated. According to tradition he is a sacred king. All his deeds, however much they are perceived in terms of practical politics by his surroundings, are thus profoundly linked to the Tibetan mysteries. The latter have always been shrouded in secrecy. The uninitiated have no right to participate or learn about them. Nevertheless, in recent years much information about the Tibetan cults (recorded in the so-called tantra texts and their commentaries) has been published and translated into European languages. The world that opens itself here to Western awareness appears equally fantastic and fascinating. This world is a combination of theatrical pomp, medieval magic, sacred sexuality, relentless asceticism, supreme deification and the basest abuse of women, murderous crimes, maximum ethical demands, the appearance of gods and demons, mystical ecstasy, and cold hard logic all in one powerful, paradoxical performance.

Re: The shadow of the Dalai Lama

How does a Tibetan Buddhist respond to the very real charges against the DL “within his own ranks” as listed above and detailed in the article? 


off with his balls???


and what causes such behavior???  


he is not a god he is a human being…and human beings come in all kinds with every potential within them…even the potential we don't like…


but even if he were a God…God don't have a good track record either…


check the old testament out…or, just look at what God allows to go on every single day…


geeze…ridiculousnessness…

Re: The shadow of the Dalai Lama

How can you actully take such a movement seriously?
all that cheap kitschy trash.

When I have visited for the first time a tibetan stupa and a temple, I couldn´t help to LOL about all that ugly “ornamental” bazar so important for them.

 And the monkish theravadins aren´t better either, and the remnants of the crazy samurai order in Zen neither. The poker face looks, ect… hummm   so deeply spiritual they say.

We are today in acute needs of re-actualizations/interpretations of the perspectives opened once by a man called Gautama.

:-((

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There are so many expressions of Buddhism today, xib. I do not find this distressing. People are people and will be fallible. The only error is to elevate people to gods and then the shock is that they have clay feet.

So, what are the healthy expressions? How do we learn from them?

Avec amitie,

Nicole

Re: The shadow of the Dalai Lama

The point is not that people will be people and all people are fallible. And it is not that it's the people's fault for elevating or projecting onto someone god-like status. The point is the system itself, that Tibetan Buddhism is based on a magico-mythical structure that demands the DL's god status, much like the Pope's status in RC. And no only within religion but within politics. There is no separation of church and state, no democratic revelation. It's still an archaic system that does not empower the people but keeps them enslaved and controlled within a metaphysical structure of a heavenly realm beyond the material. It's really not so much different than the other religions is this respect. And if Tibet, including its Buddhism, is ever to join the now 21st century, let alone the 20th, it will have to give up this system or radically alter it.

Re: The shadow of the Dalai Lama

exactly it is a structural problem.

 I would prefer to use Habermas´s model of cultural evolution instead of that insipide SD “meme” system and its colour. My strong prejudices at work here. hahhahah

In the movie “Kundun” Mao-Tse-Dong tells the young DL that they are backward people, stuck at the middle ages. So obvious.

Had the DL understood the political imperialistic intentions of Mao, he would have quickly modernized his army, asked the US to place some nukes to protect the country against the communist China and Soviet.

And then no way for the chinese to be able to invade anything.

But this DL was infantile: a young nerd playing with western toys, out of touch with reality, totally inapt to govern a modern state or to understand the geopolitics of the cold war. It is this theocratic system which mainly is responsible of the destruction of the tibetan culture. Its unability to renew itself. Stagnation leads to collapse.

and if the bodhisatwas are going to turn politicians as  KW once said, they better learn very quickly the best methods.

cheers

Re: The shadow of the Dalai Lama

Aha. Yes I knew about the Tibet-Nazi Connection. Intersting enought that the Nazi Ideology mentioned the Aryan Masters descending from the Roof of the World. The Thule Society also believed this, and ultimately it came from Blavatsky and the Theosophers. And yes, Crowley and the HOGD are in this, too.  However I am not accusing anybody, just saying.

This discussion can help IMO to put some things in perspective. 'Cause oftentimes people say that OOhhh Religion has brought so much grief and sorrow, so much Death and Suffering. And they usually mean Christianity with its Crusades and the Child abuse, the Muslim Radicals and their Suicide Bombings, and so on. And in Comparison, Buddhism always seems to be relatively peaceful and innocent.

Now the above article shows that there is shadow in the Buddhist tradition too. It's just less obvious, that's all. And btw, I think I mentioned this before, it is not by Acting that one becomes guilty, but one can also be guilty by NOT acting like you should.

“Im Anfang war die Tat”  (Göthe, Faust 1)

Re: The shadow of the Dalai Lama

While I regard dismissals of Tibetan Buddhism as “kitschy” as silly and not expressive of much more than a particular cultural prejudice, and while I also do not give sinister conspiracy stories about the Dalai Lama much credence, I do agree that Tibetan Buddhism's premodern metaphysical commitments are largely a liability in the modern world.  I hesitate to say 'completely,' because I think there is something of psychological (or psychospiritual) value in the rich, unruly, disturbing messiness of its mythopoetic themes that is not often found in more sterilized 'scientific' or 'behavioristic' renderings of the human condition.  But I think those themes can also flourish in a postmetaphysical space, without requiring literal belief in such premodern, mythological entities as 'demonic oracles' or dakinis or other fantastic creatures (secretly controlling human lives or magically influencing world events), and I would definitely welcome attempts to articulate a postmetaphysical Tantrism. 

In my own practice, I was once quite suspicious and critical of Tibetan Buddhism – from my Krishnamurti-influenced perspective, it seemed bizarre and excessive, and I couldn't understand (at the time) what value there might be in ritual – but I later became involved in it for a few years, and found it to contain many very beautiful and profound elements.  However, to my mind, those profound elements remained too bound up in a sort of mythological worldview that I couldn't square with my own perspective, and I moved on.  I found TSK, another “Tibetan” teaching, to be much more to my liking, emphasizing radical inquiry and a poetic sensibility that appealed to me without requiring any belief in mythical entities (and actually being fairly compatible with modern and postmodern 'cosmological' and philosophical perspectives).  But while TSK is attractive because it eschews all the stuff that came to seem problematic to me about Tibetan Buddhism, it also has stripped away the wildly mythopoetic images and narratives which I believe can still be quite nourishing and useful in their own ways.  So, I think there are certainly other 'ways forward' for Tibetan Buddhism besides TSK or Shambhala.  Time will tell whether any such vision emerges, but I expect it will.

Re: The shadow of the Dalai Lama

Bruce said?  it also has stripped away the wildly mythopoetic images and narratives which I believe can still be quite nourishing and useful in their own ways.


would like to hear more on this…you have said something similiar before (a year or so ago)…that illusions or our stories are necessary psychologically…


are you saying iow, we need some illusion…healthy illusion psychologically to nourish our imaginations???  we need to dream…but sometimes our dreams are not healthy…they are outlandish fantasy…and that is ok as a child, but our dreams need to grow up…so how do we manage to have healthy grown up dreams and goals that we can agree on, without killing our own imagination and sense of hope for our own realistic dreams coming true???

Re: The shadow of the Dalai Lama

Yea you can call that dismissal for silly, cultural prejudice, who cares?
that´s your probelm.

to me it is just really bad taste.
And that´s perfectly OK to say that.

I can experience a feeling of awe by looking at a sunset, or a beautiful moutain, or looking at a movie on human histology.

I am thinking of this Amachi and her candies, camman
they are limits to bad taste and teh ridiculous too

The cathedral of Notre-dame de Paris can put me, seomtimes, in touch with a sense of mystery.

Otherwise I am not a fan of religious ceremonies of any kind.

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Yasutani, the japanese zen master was a fan of imperial and militaristic japan.
Gautama Siddharta was not a buddhist as far as I know.
hahahhahah

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yeah and Jesus was not a Christian…

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We all stank when we shat in our pants as babies.
We all have body odor as adults when we don't bath.
And our bodies will all smell to high heaven after we die.
No one is exempt.
Similar instances of oppression, collusion, and intolerance could, and can, be attributed to just any other religious or political society.
We are human.

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K…u don't wear depends do u???  gol*

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K…u don't wear depends do u???  gol*

Hi Star,
No, I'm not kinky in that way. Nor am I into women in stilettos popping balloons with their heels. My tastes are rather basic. :-)

Re: The shadow of the Dalai Lama

Ok, I see now that “the point is not that we are all human and fallible.” My point was that we should not expect too much from our gurus and religious leaders. That, in itself, would be infantile. As I have said before, when John Lennon became disillusioned by the Maharishi's lusting after Mia Farrow, that disillusionment was brought about, to a large degree, by his own idealization of the guru. I realize that I am treading on dangerous ground here insofar as I am coming close to sounding like I am “blaming the victim,” which is not my intent — where abuse is concerned, blame should go where it needs to go: not only toward the individual who perpetrates the crime, but also toward the institution that fosters and protects the perpetrator. But still, I think some degree of “existential responsibility” is needed where religious and spiritual affiliation and experimentation is concerned: caveat emptor.

At the same time, I think Ed wants to take the discussion to the next level, and discuss the issue in greater depth, which I welcome.

I am not entirely comfortable, intellectually speaking, with the attribution of a “conceptual causality” where political dysfunction is concerned (eg. the distortions of Nazism). What I mean is I am not sure that we can blame, entirely, the problem of Nazism with it the “mythic irrationalism” that lies at its base. That would come close to Dawkins notion that religion is the source of all evil. As Joseph pointed out in his reference to Hedges, religion — or mutatis mutandis, any other “mythically” or “magically” oriented group — does not have the monopoly on human stupidity. There are, for example, lots of conservatives and libertarians, and others of that ilk, who have idiotic political and ideological notions and who are not at all religious or mythically oriented. ;-)

Some time ago, I read a book or article, it doesn't matter what it was, that suggested that the problem of Nazism was its “mystical basis.” I had a problem with this idea at the time because it implied a condemnation of “mysticism” (and I suspected that for the author, the term had little semantic difference from “magical” or “mythical”). Later, though, I began to entertain the notion, but had another problem with with it, and that was the attempt to link political dysfunction with a mere idea. Is there, to give another example, an actual genetic link between Heidegger's thought and his politics? I am not going to say there isn't, but I still think the association is problematic.

Marx thought there was a link between religion and oppression. Freud saw a link between religion and social insitutions. Reich thought there was strong link between what my ex called “SBU” (sperm build up) and fascism. (hahaha.) Eric Fromm attempted to discuss the issue, ie totalitarianism, from an angle that  included both Marx and Freud. The first serious paper I ever wrote at college was on this subject. My sources were Pauwels and Berger, Wilhelm Reich, and Eric Fromm. So I have thought about this issue for some time. Later, at grad school, though, I began to have doubts about the linkage.

So is there a linkage with mere ideas? Foucault, for example, would rather look at the history of institutions rather than ideas. Voegelin sees a linkage between “gnosticism” and ideologies like Nazism and Stalinism. One could, though, instead see the problem in terms of the institutional history of oppression, such as the oppression directed toward the Cathars, the witch hunts of the 17th centuries, etc. But, as Merleau Ponty once responded to the Marxist who said, “history does not march on its head”: “Yes, but nor does it think with its feet.”

Still, I think we need something more concrete than “religion” or “myth.” So, if we cannot blame, entirely, “mysticism, ” or “magic,” or “myth,” or “religion,” or “metaphysics,” as such, is there something within such worldviews that we can blame? Marx, and Left leaning Hegelians, saw a relation between hierarchical ontologies and the oppressive, hierarchical structure of the ancien regime. Whitehead sees a linkage between monotheism and oppression. I'm not sure about Deleuze, but he might as well — he certainly is not in favor or “transcendentalist” paradigms. Habermas sees a problem within the “philosophy of consciousness” and subjectivism in general. Levinas suggests a problem with the All Seeing Eye, the European “I” that is poised to swallow the rest of the world in the all consuming Hegelian dialectic, for which the Other is, almost literally, merely food for thought.

The article Ed quotes says, “In ancient societies (like that of Tibet), everything that happens in the everyday world - from acts of nature to major political events to quotidian occurrences - is the expression of transcendent powers and forces working behind the scenes. Mortals do not determine their own fates; rather they are instruments in the hands of “gods” and “demons”. It then says, “Lamaism believes it can influence the course of history not just in Tibet but for the entire planet through its system of rituals and invocations, through magic practices and concentration exercises. The result is an atavistic mix of magic and politics.” I agree that there may be a problem here. But the problem may have more to do with how such thought systems serve to legitimate a political system. Teddy Adorno used to say that belief in astrology is a symptom of a lack of power. This makes me think of those who have lost a sense of direction in their lives, who have lost the sense that they are controlling their own fate — the Leave to Beaver housewife in an abusive relationship, eg., who buys the National Enquirer at the supermarket to read her horoscope. My point is that it is not clear to me if we are not confusing symptoms and causes.

These ideas are off the top of my head and not well thought out yet and I'm open to correction or clarification. I'm merely musing aloud, here. But I think it is indeed an important issue, and one that lies at the heart of the quesiton: Is a post-metaphysical spirituality possible?

Re: The shadow of the Dalai Lama

I guess one way of summarizing the point made above, which, as I say, I am only throwing out for consideration and will not necessarily defend, is to say that it is not so much the idea per se as how it is used. I realize this sounds a bit like “guns don't kill people…” which, as a Canuck, I am loath to admit. Still, I think Michael Moore had a point in his documentary: Canadians own as many guns per captita as Americans, yet they don't seem to be going around killing each other to the same degree. In other words, there is the issue of a difference in culture that needs to be considered. We also sometimes hear in regard to the issue of pitbulls and other fighting and guarding breeds, “it is not the dog, its owner.” This is for the most part true, and yet we don't hear about English bulldogs or bull terriers ripping the faces off small children. This is because the gene responsible for agression has largely been bred out of them. So… in this sense, some ideas may be more dangerous than others.

Re: The shadow of the Dalai Lama

Kela, I appreciate your points about the potential problems involved in trying to draw any direct causal links between things like 'myth' or 'metaphysics' or 'mysticism' or whatever and particular behaviors.  I'm not comfortable with your phrase, 'mere ideas,' because that seems to undervalue the influence on behavior and decision-making that particular ideas and patterns of thinking can have.  But I agree that there are many factors to consider, and simply tracing blame for human atrocities back to 'religion' or 'secular atheism' or 'metaphysics' or 'God' or whatever our despised conceptual frame of the day is, is too simplistic.

Some ideas would seem to be more socially or historically problematic than others – I can think of some from the Judeo-Christian-Islamic traditions that appear to have played significant roles in long histories of intractable violence – but what are the factors that would encourage or support belief in or reliance on such ideas?  I don't think you can simply say, “this idea causes this behavior,” as you point out.  There are political, social, cultural, environmental, economic, and other factors to consider.

Seems like we need something like AQAL to begin to make sense of this… :-)

Re: The shadow of the Dalai Lama

Bruce said, “I'm not comfortable with your phrase, 'mere ideas,' because that seems to undervalue the influence on behavior and decision-making that particular ideas and patterns of thinking can have.”
 
Yes, and as I thought about it, the issue was not some idea; it concerned a worldview, and in the gun example, where the gun is the idea, this worldview corresponds to “culture.” So my reduction to ideas or concepts does not suffice, as you point out.

The question of whether Islam is inherently violent is another good example of a question that cannot be answered easily. Simply doing hermeneutics on the Koran will not suffice: “according to the Koran.. blah blah blah.” Nor is appealing to history satisfactory. For one, history is contingent and “accidental” (in the sense of musical accidentals). And there is the issue of whether it is religion that is the problem, or whether it is a matter of its being used to legitimate a political agenda, like expansionism. In such cases, it can be difficult to extricate the two from each other.

In a pragmatic sense, the separation of church and state appears to have done some good. But this does not tell us if religion was the “problem” as much as that the mixture of religion and politics can sometimes fosters certain problems, like putting guns in the hands of the wrong people, or like having two troublemakers sit beside each other in the classroom… or populate the same forum at the same time. ;-)

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Hi kela

yes and the separation of the Church and the State has also generated true monsters: the french revolution jacobins, Robespierre, Danton, Saint-Just and Marat as true precursors of Hitler, Mussolini, Staline and Mao.
:-((

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yes and the separation of the Church and the State has also generated true monsters: the french revolution jacobins, Robespierre, Danton, Saint-Just and Marat as true precursors of Hitler, Mussolini, Staline and Mao.

Yes, that's an interesting point. As I say, the church does not have the market cornered on creepy, lycanthropic lunacy. But part of the problem in the case of Robespierre was the instability created by regime change. Here in Canada, there's a debate over whether we should become a republic or remain a constitutional monarchy. Besides the chaos such a change would bring, there is also the argument that there are advantages to having a constitutional monarchy, where the king/queen is but a figurehead. Having a head of government who is not the head of state, like the American president, has actually saved us grief at various points in history. Imagine, if you may, during the Cuban missile crisis, if JFK had not listened to MacNamara and instead listened to that hawk general that firebombed Tokyo, LeMay. Hmmm. We would have had a different course in history, wouldn't we? So republics are not necessarily the best forms of governance.

Us humans are, sometimes, an f—-ed up bunch of chimpazees, eh?

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hi kela

MacNamara, that´s an old memory from the Vietnam war.
How many of these Macs have been socio-political celebrities?
 Arthur, japanese and Korean dickhead, Donald the freedom fries fighter, Mahon the french field marechal of 2nd empire in Sebastopol, Ewans of the beer
hahahahahhh

yes it would be  a symbolic value of trans-partizanship, a factor of true stability and consensus.
 In France, our presidents behave as they were small kings. So ridiculous.

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hi x,

ya i'm not defending mac. only saying his position was better than that of lemay.

incidently, there's a good documentary about macnamara called “the fog of war.”

cheers, dude.

Re: The shadow of the Dalai Lama

Ciao Kela

I didn´t suggest you were defending that old ghost  of Vietnam war, MacNamara. hahhahha. I still remember how much I hated the bombings of civilians on North Vietnam.

In frog land there will be, formally speaking, none of them any longer on the throne of France.

Re: The shadow of the Dalai Lama

how about the emotional misery of the Dalai lama´s childhood?
living in a family with 16 kids, the deep sadness of being abandonned by own´s parents, the huge stress due to survive in a strange world of adults, not being able to live the life of a regular kid playing regular games with other regular kids.
speaking of a shadow

Re: The shadow of the Dalai Lama

that sounds like my childhood…well, except for the 16 kids part…lol*

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 I can recall that crazy Osho´s refying and narcisso-political theories about himself, him the reborn archetypal savior: the Tulku, the teertankar, the avatar, the jivan-mukta, a liberated soul in life, going thru samsaric misery, giving his last rebirth,  not for his own sake, but for the sake of compassion of all sentient beings.

And perhaps also for 90 rolls Royces, some somptuous palaces,
why not after all, that nondual crazy-wisdom surfing, isnt´it?
hahahhahahhaha

Re: The shadow of the Dalai Lama

OHOHohoho! Me do enjoy this post.

All Hail lighty Kela! :-P surplus juissance!

I don't have any answres yet - just enjoying the questions for now.

WHat I DO have, though, is finally some free time to do some more reading. I hope get some things done within the next two weeks.

greetings,

Re: The shadow of the Dalai Lama

That was another of my points, that not differentiating the value spheres (in Habbie's terms via Wilber) like church and state is part of the pre-postmeta dilemma. Such fusion tends to conflate “god” or “enlightenment” with political affairs and has beings from other planes (men in black, no doubt) controlling things behind the scenes. But since I can see and communicate with them, and they are telling me what to do, for humanity's own good… So I agree with Balder that this requires a so-called AQAL postmeta frame, by whatever name we use. One that still honors “god” but in which god has his proper place and time, even if that is everywhere everytime (see the new science and mysticism thread).

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Here we are 
that not differentiating the value spheres (in Habbie's terms via Wilber) like church and state is part of the pre-postmeta dilemma….. So I agree with Balder that this requires a so-called AQAL postmeta frame,
 
So we others here are only coming from old 1800th century modernity thinking?
THX but I think I have extensively read Habermas and the french poststructuralists already in the very early seventies long before any english translation even existed, and I didn´t ask KW for that.
:-((

Re: The shadow of the Dalai Lama

theurj…

so, to be Integrally Correct, we must still honor god but put god in his proper place and time…???

wouldn't we have to first agree on what we meant by god?  so, to really do what Bruce is suggesting in the first place, we would have to come to an agreement on what we mean by god or enlightenment…etc???

good luck with that…*

p.s.  almost forgot…KW does not believe in god…right?  so there is another big prob…or, does KW think 'oh they're talkin about me' everytime god is mentioned?  or does he just replace the word god with enlightenment making them interchangeable the way you did in your post?

Re: The shadow of the Dalai Lama

Well, Kenny believes in “Spirit”. The idea that he doesn't believe in God is absurd. He's saying he doesn't believe in Jehovah but Brahman is his guy. Now he might say that is mythological but his whole philosophy depends on it. His Neo-Vedanta view of evolution yada yada. (The one that bothers Teddy).

Of course it may be true, who knows.

But I think his ultimate view is the ancient idea that it all ends in Non-duality. (His Non-Duality God).  This may be his current post-metaphysical metaphysical view as when Sunya becomes a something. He'll deny it's an object but so what as Mr. X might say. Sounds like a noun to me. ;-).

As when Habby tells us there is this “Life world”  and the big bad system hovering just above it. How could we talk if we couldn't invent these dualities?

Love Gaddy

P.S. Canadians have more guns per capita than Americans? Hey those cultural Canadians are into fist-fighting on ice and calling it sportsmanship. Hahahahaha……….