(April 25, 2014 at 10:23 am)Riketto Wrote: Christian mysticism is long gone.
The first Christians were real spiritualists but as the time goes
the things changed and slowly slowly spirituality turned into religion
(dogma or false truth) so these days all spirituality and mysticism
within Christianity is gone.

How can you be 100% certain that the first Christians were real spiritualists? And don't say you know because you were one of those first Christians in a past life.

(April 25, 2014 at 10:23 am)Riketto Wrote: I think you worry far too much about this issue.
A true spiritualist does not really worry too much whether
there is reincarnation or not.

I must be a true spiritualist, then, because I don't worry about it.

(April 25, 2014 at 10:23 am)Riketto Wrote: Of course after reaching high stage of consciousness everything come clear and you understand that reincarnation is there as you would understand that 2+2=4.

But where's the proof that this is anything more than a belief?

We obviously posted at the same time because you didn't reply to the PS part of my last post. I'll add it to this post to save you hunting back for it.

PS: I've just reread your opening post. There are many people working to stop deforestation and other damage to the planet but environmental concerns don't depend on meditating and believing in reincarnation. A lot of damage is due to unsustainable palm oil production. Palm oil is used in vegan and vegetarian food.

Is Palm Oil Vegan?

Quote:When I first heard about the ethical (and environmental) issues with palm oil I admit that I felt a bit annoyed - it's derived from plants and some of the most beloved vegan companies use it, so how could there be anything wrong with it?! Honestly, I was coming from a place of frustrated ignorance. Thus I started collecting information via conversations with friends and companies, but remained skeptical. At Expo East 2012 I spoke with a few businesses about their use of palm oil, and it was an uncomfortable topic - some were working on finding alternatives, others were irked by the issue. Six months later at Expo West 2013 I noticed several brands proudly displaying the words "palm oil free" on their packaging - things were changing fast! Meanwhile, VegNews had published a phenomenal article on the topic.

(April 25, 2014 at 10:32 am)Confused Ape Wrote: How can you be 100% certain that the first Christians were real spiritualists? And don't say you know because you were one of those first Christians in a past life.

The system of teaching follow the same pattern.
Religions pop up out of spirituality.
Christ never teach the mass or the rosary so why today
those who say that believe in Christ follow rituals that Christ never teach?
Christ was teaching spirituality not rituals.
The same with Buddha.
He was teaching yoga meditation but these days how many so called
Buddhist practice meditation?
You go in the Buddhist temple and you will see people praying Buddha with some incense in the hands.
The same with Hinduists.
Lord Shiva and Lord Krisna were teaching meditation
but these day most of the followers chant old mantras
or try the nirvana with artificial means.

http://s3.amazonaws.com/hypertextopia/pu...nasi-4.jpg

Everything change in this physical world.
I am sure that even the spirituality that i follow will change
in few generation and one more religion will pop up.

(April 25, 2014 at 10:23 am)Riketto Wrote: Of course after reaching high stage of consciousness everything come clear and you understand that reincarnation is there as you would understand that 2+2=4.

Quote:But where's the proof that this is anything more than a belief?

You can find young kids already skilled in something.
Nobody ever teach them that skill so where they got it from?
When i was in Fiji years ago i saw a 8 years old boy who could tell what was wrong with the engine of a car just by listen to the engine noise.
Beethoven and other great musicians displayed musical talents at an early age.
How could it be when they didn't spend years of learning at a conservatory?
In life you get something only if you work very hard so it is obvious that they developed those skills in past lives.

Quote:We obviously posted at the same time because you didn't reply to the PS part of my last post. I'll add it to this post to save you hunting back for it.
PS: I've just reread your opening post. There are many people working to stop deforestation and other damage to the planet but environmental concerns don't depend on meditating and believing in reincarnation. A lot of damage is due to unsustainable palm oil production. Palm oil is used in vegan and vegetarian food.
Is Palm Oil Vegan?

Quote:When I first heard about the ethical (and environmental) issues with palm oil I admit that I felt a bit annoyed - it's derived from plants and some of the most beloved vegan companies use it, so how could there be anything wrong with it?! Honestly, I was coming from a place of frustrated ignorance. Thus I started collecting information via conversations with friends and companies, but remained skeptical. At Expo East 2012 I spoke with a few businesses about their use of palm oil, and it was an uncomfortable topic - some were working on finding alternatives, others were irked by the issue. Six months later at Expo West 2013 I noticed several brands proudly displaying the words "palm oil free" on their packaging - things were changing fast! Meanwhile, VegNews had published a phenomenal article on the topic.

It is obvious that we can not change the rot by doing meditation
that is why P.R.Sarkar gave Prout which is the way to live without damage
mother nature and humanity and progress in all walk of life.

(April 26, 2014 at 8:13 am)Riketto Wrote: The system of teaching follow the same pattern.
Religions pop up out of spirituality.
Christ never teach the mass or the rosary so why today
those who say that believe in Christ follow rituals that Christ never teach?
Christ was teaching spirituality not rituals.
The same with Buddha.
He was teaching yoga meditation but these days how many so called
Buddhist practice meditation?
You go in the Buddhist temple and you will see people praying Buddha with some incense in the hands.
The same with Hinduists.
Lord Shiva and Lord Krisna were teaching meditation
but these day most of the followers chant old mantras
or try the nirvana with artificial means.

I looked up Shiva and Krishna teaching meditation.

Yoga Principle - Meditation Techniques

Quote:Many easy and proven meditation techniques are taken from many scriptures and sacred books. These meditation techniques are described here with the name of source scripture for reference

Scriptures and sacred books are a late development in human history.

Paeolithic religion

Quote:Religious behaviour is thought to have emerged by the Upper Paleolithic, before 30,000 years ago at the latest,[1] but behavioral patterns such as burial rites that one might characterize as religious - or as ancestral to religious behaviour - reach back into the Middle Paleolithic, as early as 300,000 years ago, coinciding with the first appearance of Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens. Religious behaviour may combine (for example) ritual, spirituality, mythology and magical thinking or animism - aspects that may have had separate histories of development during the Middle Paleolithic before combining into "religion proper" of behavioral modernity.

The San are still living a hunter/gatherer lifestyle in South Africa and their religion includes Shamanic Trance

Quote:Psychologists have investigated hallucinations and altered states of consciousness in neuropsychology. They found that entoptic phenomena can occur through rhythmic dancing, music, sensory deprivation, hyperventilation, prolonged and intense concentration and migraines.[23]

Meanwhile, over in Amazonian Peru, people use Ayahuasca

Quote:People who have consumed ayahuasca report having spiritual revelations regarding their purpose on earth, the true nature of the universe as well as deep insight into how to be the best person they possibly can.[2] This is viewed by many as a spiritual awakening and what is often described as a rebirth.[3] In addition, it is often reported that individuals can gain access to higher spiritual dimensions and make contact with various spiritual or extra dimensional beings who can act as guides or healers.[4]

So which came first? Sophisticated meditation techniques or early humans accidentally discovering altered states of consciousness and developing shamanic style religions and spirituality as a way of explaining their experiences?

(April 26, 2014 at 8:13 am)Riketto Wrote: You can find young kids already skilled in something.
Nobody ever teach them that skill so where they got it from?
When i was in Fiji years ago i saw a 8 years old boy who could tell what was wrong with the engine of a car just by listen to the engine noise.
Beethoven and other great musicians displayed musical talents at an early age.
How could it be when they didn't spend years of learning at a conservatory?
In life you get something only if you work very hard so it is obvious that they developed those skills in past lives.

The Mind Of The Prodigy

Quote:More striking is that every single prodigy scored off the charts in working memory -- better than 99 percent of the general population. In fact, six out of the eight prodigies scored at the 99.9th percentile! Working memory isn't solely the ability to memorize a string of digits. That's short-term memory. Instead, working memory involves the ability to hold information in memory while being able to manipulate and process other incoming information. On the Stanford-Binet IQ test, working memory is measured in both the verbal and non-verbal domains and includes tasks such as processing sentences while having to remember the last word of each sentence, and recalling the location of blocks and numbers in the correct order in which they were presented. There have been many descriptions of the phenomenal working memory of prodigies, including a historical description of Mozart that involves his superior ability to memorize musical pieces and manipulate scores in his head.

The article then goes on to autism and prodigious savants.

Quote:The only other group of individuals known for their dazzling displays of memory in rule-based domains such art, music, and calendar calculating are prodigious savants. There are fewer than 100 known prodigious savants alive today. A major difference between savants and prodigies is that savants display high ability in the presence of great disability. Often that disability is severe, debilitating autism that impairs language and communication so much that it leaves an "island of genius" (although Daniel Tammet is an interesting and rare exception, in that he has highly functional autism as well as synesthesia). Ruthsatz and Urbach suggest that prodigies may have some sort of "modifier" that prevents them from displaying the more severe deficits seen in most savants.

Both prodigies and savants demonstrate extreme attention to detail, exceptional memories, and high ability in rule-based domains. This is probably not a coincidence, as all of these characteristics are associated with talent in these domains. But how? First of all, there's no such thing as "innate talent." No one is born with fully developed traits. That's not how genes work. It is possible, however, that prodigies are born with genetic variants that relate to various tendencies, including an attentional focus on details and a brain-network wiring that supports an enhanced encoding of new memories. This could explain why prodigies and savants frequently report that they were attracted early on to domains that deal with systems, and why many also display -- even in infancy -- an enhanced ability to maintain mental representations (although there's some evidence that the working memory of prodigies is most enhanced in the symbol systems that interest them the most, such as mathematical or linguistic stimuli). After just a few years of obsessive focus, prodigies build up rich long-term memory structures that allow them to assimilate and learn new information faster and faster. This could also explain their enhanced ability to manipulate information in their heads.

I'm going to finish this post with Orlando Serrell

Quote:Orlando L. Serrell (born 1968) is an "acquired savant" — someone who exhibits savant skills after CNS injury or disease, as opposed to a person born with autistic disorder or other developmental disability.

Orlando Serrell did not possess any special skills until he was struck by a baseball on the left side of his head on January 15, 1979 when he was ten years old. Serrell fell to the ground, but eventually got up and continued playing baseball. He did not get any medical treatment because he did not tell his parents; for a long while, he suffered from a headache.[1] Eventually, the headache ended, but Orlando soon noticed he had the ability to perform calendrical calculations of amazing complexity.[2] He can also recall the weather,[3] as well as (to a varying degree) where he was and what he has done for every day since the accident.[4]

I don't think that being hit by a baseball bat proves that amazing skills were developed in past lives.

(April 26, 2014 at 11:32 am)Confused Ape Wrote: I looked up Shiva and Krishna teaching meditation.

To me these techniques look like man made fantasies.
In tantric meditation that Shiva taught you need a mantra or sound that goes on when you inhale and exhale while concentrating on a particular cakra.
Anyway it is up to you to believe or not.

Quote:Many easy and proven meditation techniques are taken from many scriptures and sacred books. These meditation techniques are described here with the name of source scripture for reference

It is important to remember that what was good in the past may or may not be good in the present.
Take the acupuncture.
Few thousand years ago when this technique was invented people had a different nervous system and that technique was working then.
These days this technique it is not very effective as our nervous system is quite different.
The same thing apply to almost everything.
The mantras used during Shiva times are not good anymore.

Quote:The San are still living a hunter/gatherer lifestyle in South Africa and their religion includes Shamanic Trance

Quote:Psychologists have investigated hallucinations and altered states of consciousness in neuropsychology. They found that entoptic phenomena can occur through rhythmic dancing, music, sensory deprivation, hyperventilation, prolonged and intense concentration and migraines.[23]

Quote:Meanwhile, over in Amazonian Peru, people use

Ayahuasca

Quote:People who have consumed ayahuasca report having spiritual revelations regarding their purpose on earth, the true nature of the universe as well as deep insight into how to be the best person they possibly can.[2] This is viewed by many as a spiritual awakening and what is often described as a rebirth.[3] In addition, it is often reported that individuals can gain access to higher spiritual dimensions and make contact with various spiritual or extra dimensional beings who can act as guides or healers.[4]

I leave these techniques to anyone who enjoy masturbating their brains.
I stick with natural techniques that are free from negative effects.

Quote:So which came first? Sophisticated meditation techniques or early humans accidentally discovering altered states of consciousness and developing shamanic style religions and spirituality as a way of explaining their experiences?

Spirituality and altered states of consciousness due to artificial means
have little in common.
Spirituality is a natural technique while the rest is like a mental masturbation.
I wouldn't know which one came first.
What i know is that if a person is ready to experience the good and natural way to progress spiritually he-she will experience no matter in what age or planet he-she live.

Quote:I don't think that being hit by a baseball bat proves that amazing skills were developed in past lives.

It is up to you to believe this or that.
To me reincarnation make a lot of sense.
You build up your own consciousness.
Nobody does that for you.
You can give a material thing to whoever
you like but you can not give something
like consciousness to other people.

Aren't we really off Topic?

(April 23, 2014 at 8:37 am)Riketto Wrote:

Quote:That still doesn't explain why praying Franciscan nuns don't believe in reincarnation even though their brains behave in the same way as the brains of meditating Tibetan Buddhists.

You didn't take in consideration the fact that not all the meditation are the same.
You can meditate on some external thing or you can meditate within.
In both cases the brain may use the same energy so a test made on the brain only indicate that the brain
follow similar pattern but a physical test can not find out where the consciousness is directed to.
Franciscan nuns focus on something external like Christ while Buddhists
focus on the spirit within ( OM i am that entity-I am God ).

What are you talking about? Not only do Buddhists not believe that there is a god, they don't believe that there is a self either. Indeed according to buddhism god is just a deluded being born into a higher realm of existence (para 42 http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/....bodh.html) Following on from this, the cosmology of Buddhism vs hinduism is very different, with the former denying any creation myth.

If meditation can allow us to see into some ultimate truth about reality, why does your view differ from the buddhists? Why do the views of Buddhism vs Hinduism differ so much?


In the earliest Buddhists writing, the Buddha also ate meat that was offered to him, although he forbade monks from killing for meat and eating meat killed specifically for them, the buddha was never recorded as saying lay people should not eat it. Indeed by eating meat they offered he is given his tacit approval. In my opinion this is wrong. Again if meditation can provide ultimate knowledge about something, why did he do something which is wrong?

Additionally the buddhist idea of rebirth (which does not involve a soul, but rather a stream of consciousness that lacks self) is very different from the hindu one of reincarnation which is a soul with some element of permenance that transmittigates.

So meditation has not stopped different religions from have very divergent views about god, existence, the soul , and it did not stop the buddha from behaving immorally. Why then do you assume that anything you experience in meditation can actually provide factual answers to such questions?

---

(April 27, 2014 at 3:27 am)Riketto Wrote: .
Take the acupuncture.
Few thousand years ago when this technique was invented people had a different nervous system and that technique was working then.
These days this technique it is not very effective as our nervous system is quite different.

How could you possibly know this? In what way was it different? How/why did it change? Why do you make such exaggerate claims that are obviously nonsense?

(April 27, 2014 at 3:27 am)Riketto Wrote: Spirituality and altered states of consciousness due to artificial means
have little in common

I wouldn't know which one came first.

In that case you can't claim that all religions have popped up out of spirituality.

(April 27, 2014 at 3:27 am)Riketto Wrote: In tantric meditation that Shiva taught you need a mantra or sound that goes on when you inhale and exhale while concentrating on a particular cakra.

So when did Shiva first teach tantric meditation and who did he teach it to?

World's oldest ritual discovered. Worshipped the python 70,000 years ago

Quote:The Tsodilo Hills are still a sacred place for the San, who call them the “Mountains of the Gods” and the “Rock that Whispers”. San guides who lead archaeologists to the hills must first check with their deity to ascertain whether they are welcome there.

The python is one of the San’s most important animals. According to their creation myth, mankind descended from the python and the ancient, arid streambeds around the hills are said to have been created by the python as it circled the hills in its ceaseless search for water.

The python cave

Sheila Coulson’s find shows that people from the area had a specific ritual location associated with the python. The ritual was held in a little cave on the northern side of the Tsodilo Hills. The cave itself is so secluded and access to it is so difficult that it was not even discovered by archaeologists until the 1990s. The first archaeologists at the site noticed two paintings on one side of the cave and a rock with a large number of indentations in it on the other side.

When Coulson entered the cave this summer with her three master’s students, it struck them that the mysterious rock resembled the head of a huge python. On the six meter long by two meter tall rock, they found three-to-four hundred indentations that could only have been man-made.

“You could see the mouth and eyes of the snake. It looked like a real python. The play of sunlight over the indentations gave them the appearance of snake skin. At night, the firelight gave one the feeling that the snake was actually moving.” said Sheila Coulson to the University of Oslo’s research magazine Apollon.

Anyway, back to the opening post.

(February 26, 2014 at 9:33 am)Riketto Wrote: Man was never build up to be omnivore as we can see from the different body (teeth, jaw, length of stomach and different acids to digest food) so by going against nature it is clear that damages will occur.

Omnivorous Species

Quote:Various mammals are omnivorous in the wild, such as the Hominidae (which includes humans, chimpanzees, orangutans, and gorillas)

I know chimps hunt for meat but I didn't know about orangutans and gorillas so went to google.

Meat-eating by adult female Sumatran orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus abelii).

Quote:Abstract
Information about meat-eating behavior by wild orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) is scant. The first article about such a case dates from 1981. Since 1989, seven incidents of adult female Sumatran orangutans eating slow lorises (Nycticebus coucang) have been witnessed. Three females from two study sites were involved. In three cases the females were seen catching the prey. There are too few cases to conclude whether this behavior is typically female.

Nobody is sure about gorilas. FirstProof Gorillas Eat Monkeys? Mammal DNA in gorilla feces hints the big apes might eat meat after all

There could be other explanations for how the DNA got there because they've never been seen to hunt for meat in the wild.

"Loving" Bonobos Seen Killing, Eating Other Primates

Quote:A new study reveals that some bonobos—one of humankind's closest genetic relatives—hunt and eat other primates.

Groups of the endangered chimpanzee subspecies were observed stalking, chasing, and killing monkeys they later consumed.

Scientists have long known from stool samples that some bonobos eat rodents and small antelopes in their natural forest habitats in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), but many researchers thought this was the extent of their hunting activities.

Gottfried Hohmann and Martin Surbeck, at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, thought differently.

"We saw that their relations with neighboring monkeys were frequently hostile and found a black mangabey finger in bonobo feces last year," Hohmann said. (See a photo of a mangabey.)

"We did not know if the mangabey had been killed by another predator and then scavenged by the bonobo or if the bonobo had killed the mangabey itself, but this raised our suspicions."

The researchers went on to observe bonobos attacking, killing, and eating monkeys. Their findings were published Monday in the journal Current Biology.

Chimpanzees

Quote:Chimpanzees are our closest living relatives, sharing more than 98 percent of our genetic blueprint. Humans and chimps are also thought to share a common ancestor who lived some four to eight million years ago.

Chimps are generally fruit and plant eaters, but they also consume insects, eggs, and meat, including carrion. They have a tremendously varied diet that includes hundreds of known foods.

This is an in-depth analysis of chimp hunting - I'm linking to Page 4 because of an interesting bit of information.

Chimpanzee Hunting Behaviour And Human Evolution

Quote:The australopithecines also differed from modern chimpanzees in having relatively small canine teeth. But again, this does not mean that they did not eat meat. Although large canines are often taken to be an indicator of a meaty diet, they are more likely to be used as weapons by males in the competition for mates. Chimpanzees do not use their canines to capture adult colobus monkeys; rather they tend to grab the animals and flail them to death.

Finally an article about Meat in the human diet: an anthropological perspective.

I checked the author out and found that he's one of the authors in a book about diet and anthropology published by the Cambridge University Press. Evolving Human Nutrition - Implications for Public Health - Part of Cambridge Studies in Biological and Evolutionary Anthropology

All this suggests that it's best no to be dogmatic about what humans are supposed to eat.

(April 27, 2014 at 3:43 am)Mothonis_Cathicgal Wrote: Aren't we really off Topic?

This is the Enrico masturbation thread. Seems like it's going along just fine.

This topic started off topic.

Why the fuck is this thread polluting the philosophy section? Can it not be moved to the woo section where I don't have to see it anymore?