Question is about egoism by a religion.Originally posted by Pion:Hare Krishnas? They sing and dance in the streets shamelessly.
Or the Mormons? Getting the door slammed in their faces does not discourage them
the reverse is also true - those without a religion or without a belief in the existence of god also has an ego - the ego of "knowing better" or "smarter"... and that those that embrace religions are more stupid then them..... so go figure.... ++++ those who called others bigots are also bigots themselves.Originally posted by Herzog_Zwei:A question posed by TheGoodEarth:
http://www.sgforums.com/?action=thread_display&thread_id=280413&page=7
I really wonder is there really any religious movement without ego?
I mean the Judeo/Christian/Islamic religions all have an egoistic Diety. Hinduism have multiple such Dieties.
Buddhism,Jainism and Sikhism all have a self-righteous insistence that the religious views of the workings of the world is right.
So where's the religion without ego?
buddhismOriginally posted by Herzog_Zwei:A question posed by TheGoodEarth:
http://www.sgforums.com/?action=thread_display&thread_id=280413&page=7
I really wonder is there really any religious movement without ego?
I mean the Judeo/Christian/Islamic religions all have an egoistic Diety. Hinduism have multiple such Dieties.
Buddhism,Jainism and Sikhism all have a self-righteous insistence that the religious views of the workings of the world is right.
So where's the religion without ego?
Buddhism.Originally posted by Herzog_Zwei:A question posed by TheGoodEarth:
http://www.sgforums.com/?action=thread_display&thread_id=280413&page=7
I really wonder is there really any religious movement without ego?
I mean the Judeo/Christian/Islamic religions all have an egoistic Diety. Hinduism have multiple such Dieties.
Buddhism,Jainism and Sikhism all have a self-righteous insistence that the religious views of the workings of the world is right.
So where's the religion without ego?
agreedOriginally posted by Chin Eng:the reverse is also true - those without a religion or without a belief in the existence of god also has an ego - the ego of "knowing better" or "smarter"...
See what I am talking about?Originally posted by Omniknight:buddhism
Unless you want to codify such a belief to be true or false by proof and experiments of the so-called religion, I suggest that you rethink your position.Originally posted by Chin Eng:the reverse is also true - those without a religion or without a belief in the existence of god also has an ego - the ego of "knowing better" or "smarter"... and that those that embrace religions are more stupid then them..... so go figure.... ++++ those who called others bigots are also bigots themselves.![]()
Self-righteousness doesn't have to be egotistic.Originally posted by Herzog_Zwei:A question posed by TheGoodEarth:
http://www.sgforums.com/?action=thread_display&thread_id=280413&page=7
I really wonder is there really any religious movement without ego?
I mean the Judeo/Christian/Islamic religions all have an egoistic Diety. Hinduism have multiple such Dieties.
Buddhism,Jainism and Sikhism all have a self-righteous insistence that the religious views of the workings of the world is right.
So where's the religion without ego?
???? don't understand - very chim.Originally posted by Herzog_Zwei:Unless you want to codify such a belief to be true or false by proof and experiments of the so-called religion, I suggest that you rethink your position.
Like I said, saying facts does not mean egotistic.Originally posted by Herzog_Zwei:There is ego in the Buddhist movement.
saying that the earth is round is NOT being self-righteous is it????Originally posted by An Eternal Now:Self-righteousness doesn't have to be egotistic.
When one speaks from a matter-of-factly way, it doesn't have to be. Only when you make it an identity then it is ego.
For example, it does not take an egotistic man to say that the Earth is round.
Originally posted by An Eternal Now:I must add that there is no schools of Buddhism, Theravada, Mahayana or Vajrayana that do not represents the discovery and realisations of the original teachings, and emphasizing on self-transformation and insights rather than mere belief.
Exerpt from A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle, page 13 to 19
[b]THE ARISING NEW CONSCIOUSNESS
Most ancient religions and spiritual traditions share the same common insight – that our “normal” state of mind is marred by a fundamental defect. However, out of this insight into the nature of the human condition – we may call it the bad news – arise a second insight: the good news of the possibility of a radical transformation of human consciousness. In Hindu teachings (and sometimes in Buddhism also), this transformation is called enlightenment. In the teachings of Jesus, it is salvation, and in Buddhism, it is the end of sufferings. Liberation and awakening are other terms used to describe this transformation.
The greatest achievement of humanity is not the works of art, science, or technology, but the recognition of its own dysfunction, its own madness. In the distant past, this recognition already came to a few individuals. A man called Gautama Siddhartha, who lived 2,600 years ago in India, was perhaps the first who saw it with absolute clarity. Later, the title Buddha was conferred upon him. Buddha means “the awakened one.” At about the same time, another of humanity’s early awakened teachers emerged in China. His name was Lao Tzu. He left a record of his teaching in the form of one of the most profound spiritual books ever written, the Tao Te Ching.
To recognise one’s own insanity is, of course, the arising of sanity, the beginning of healing and transcendence. A new dimension of consciousness had begun to emerge on the planet, a first tentative flowering. Those rare individuals then spoke to their contemporaries. They spoke of sin, of suffering, of delusion. They said, “Look how you live. See what you are doing, the suffering you create.” They then pointed to the possibility of awakening from the collective nightmare of “normal” human existence. They showed the way.
The world was not yet ready for them, and yet they were a vital and necessary part of human awakening. Inevitably they were mostly misunderstood by their contemporaries as well as by subsequent generations. Their teachings, though both simple and powerful, became distorted and misinterpreted, in some cases even as they were recorded in writing by their disciples. Over the centuries, many things were added that had nothing to do with the original teachings, but were reflections of a fundamental misunderstanding. Some of the teachers were ridiculed, reviled, or killed; others came to be worshiped as gods. Teachings that pointed the way beyond the dysfunction of the human mind, the way out of the collective insanity, were distorted and became themselves part of the insanity.
And so religions, to a large extent, became divisive rather than unifying forces. Instead of bringing about an end of violence and hatred through a realisation of the fundamental oneness of all life, they brought more violence and hatred, more divisions between people as well as between different religions and even within the same religion. They became ideologies; belief systems people could identify with and so use them to enhance their false sense of self. Through them, they could make themselves “right” and others “wrong” and thus define their identity through their enemies, the “others,” the “nonbelievers” or “wrong believers” who not infrequently they saw themselves justified in killing. Man made “God” in his own image. The eternal, the infinite, and unnameable was reduced to a mental idol that you had to believe in and worship as “my god” or “our god.”
And yetÂ…. And yetÂ… in spite of all the insane deeds perpetrated in the name of religion, the Truth to which they point still shines at their core. It still shines, however dimly, through layers upon layers of distortion and misinterpretation. It is unlikely; however, that you will be able to perceive it there unless you have at least already had glimpses of that Truth within yourself. Throughout history, there have always been rare individuals who experienced a shift in consciousness and so realised within themselves that toward which all religions point. To describe that nonconceptual Truth, they then used the conceptual framework of their own religions.
Through some of those men and women, “schools” or movements developed within all major religions that represented not only a rediscovery, but in some cases an intensification of the light of the original teaching. This is how Gnosticism and mysticism came into existence in early and medieval Christianity, Sufism in the Islamic religion, Hasidism and Kabala in Judaism, Advaita Vedanta in Hinduism, Zen and Dzogchen in Buddhism. Most of these schools were iconoclastic. They did away with layers upon layers of deadening conceptualisation and mental belief structures, and for this reason most of them were viewed with suspicion and often hostility by the established religious hierarchies. Unlike mainstream religion, their teachings emphasised realisation and inner transformation. It is through these esoteric schools or movements that the major religions regained the transformative power of the original teachings, although in most cases, only a small minority of people had access to them. Their numbers were never large enough to have any significant impact on the deep collective unconsciousness of the majority. Over time, some of those schools themselves became too rigidly formal or conceptualised to remain effective.[/b]
Originally posted by An Eternal Now:
No fanaticism
Of Buddhism alone can it be affirmed it is free from all fanaticism. Its aim being to produce in every man a thorough internal transforming by self-conquest, how can it have recourse to might or money or even persuasion for effecting conversion? The Buddha has only shown the way to salvation, and it is left to each individual to decide for himself if he would follow it.
- Prof. Lakshmi Narasu, "The Essence of Buddhism"
Originally posted by An Eternal Now:
[b]SPIRITUALITY AND RELIGION
What is the role of the established religions in the arising of the new consciousness? Many people are already aware of the difference between spirituality and religion. They realise that having a belief system – a set of thoughts that you regard as the absolute truth – does not make you spiritual no matter what the nature of those beliefs is. In fact, the more you make your thoughts (beliefs) into your identity, the more cut off you are from the spiritual dimension within yourself. Many “religious” people are stuck at that level. They equate truth with thought, and as they are completely identified with thought (their mind), they claim to be in sole possession of the truth in an unconscious attempt to protect their identity. They don’t realise the limitations of thought. Unless you believe (think)( exactly as they do, you are wrong in their eyes, and in the not-too-distant past, they would have justified in killing you for that. And some still do, even now.
The new spirituality, the transformation of consciousness, is arising to a large extent outside the structures of the existing institutionalised religions. They were always pockets of spirituality even in mind-dominated religions, although the institutionalised hierarchies felt threatened by them and often tried to suppress them. A large-scale opening of spirituality outside of religious structures is an entirely new development. In the past, this would have been inconceivable, especially in the West, the most mind-dominated of all cultures, where the Christian church had a virtual franchise on spirituality. You couldnÂ’t just stand up and give a spiritual talk or publish a book unless you were sanctioned by the church, and if you were not, they would quickly silence you. But now, even within certain churches and religions, there are signs of change. It is heartwarming, and one is grateful for even the slightest signs of openness, such as Pope John Paul II visiting a mosque as well as a synagogue.
Partly as a result of the spiritual teachings that have arisen outside the established religions, but also due to an influx of the ancient Eastern wisdom teachings, a growing number of followers of traditional religions are able to let go of identification with form, dogma, and rigid belief systems and discover the original depth that is hidden within their own spiritual tradition at the same ime as they discover the depth within themselves. They realise that how “spiritual” you are has nothing to do with what you believe but everything to do with your state of consciousness. This in turn, determines how you act in the world and interact with others.
Those unable to look beyond form become even more deeply entrenched in their beliefs, that is to say, in their mind. We are witnessing not only an unprecedented influx of consciousness at this time but also an entrenchment and intensification of the ego. Some religious institutions will be open to the new consciousness; others will harden their doctrinal positions and become part of all the other man-made structures through which the collective ego will defend itself and “fight back.” Some churches, sects, cults, or religious movements are basically collective egoic entities, as rigidly identified with their mental positions as the followers of any political ideology that is closed to any alternative interpretation of reality.
But the ego is destined to dissolve, and all its ossified structures,, whether they be religious or other institutions, corporations, or governments, will disintegrate from within, no matter how deeply entrenched they appear to be. The most rigid structures, the most impervious to change, will collapse first. This has already happened in the case of Soviet Communism. How deeply entrenched, how solid and monolithic it appeared, and yet within a few years, it disintegrated from within. No one foresaw this. All were taken by surprise. There are many more such surprises in store for us.[/b]
Ah yes I agree with you.Originally posted by Chin Eng:saying that the earth is round is NOT being self-righteous is it????
maybe you are not sure about the meaning of being self-righteous.... which is very different from speaking from a matter-of-fact manner.
So quoting half-truths is also not egoistic? You have to be kidding people.Originally posted by An Eternal Now:Like I said, saying facts does not mean egotistic.
Oh BTW, obviously you can't judge the whole religion by individuals. There will definitely be 'egotistic Buddhists'
If it's the whole religious movement, then it is a big problem society at large.Originally posted by An Eternal Now:Like I said, saying facts does not mean egotistic.
Oh BTW, obviously you can't judge the whole religion by individuals. There will definitely be 'egotistic Buddhists'
actually no.....Originally posted by Herzog_Zwei:So quoting half-truths is also not egoistic? You have to be kidding people.
In a country, there will be good guys and bad guys, doesn't this means there is a big problem in the crime rate.Originally posted by Herzog_Zwei:If it's the whole religious movement, then it is a big problem society at large.
Buddhists do not quote half-truths, but truths that can be tested and realised by everyone.Originally posted by Herzog_Zwei:So quoting half-truths is also not egoistic? You have to be kidding people.
Yes.Originally posted by Herzog_Zwei:If it's the whole religious movement, then it is a big problem society at large.
Interesting view from unker Chin Eng of EH forum.Originally posted by Chin Eng:actually no.....
quoting half truths knowing that they are half truths is lying.....
quoting half truths thinking that they are truths will be, well to quote andrew, delusional.
now the problem is how do we define half truths and how do we define truths....
sometimes there is no definition because we can be looking at different sides of the same thing,
or it could be that we refuse to accept something as truth or not.
nonetheless, quoting half truths and being egotistical are two entire different issues.
also one can be quoting truths and yet remain egotistical at the same time....
It cannot be proven true nor false by physical experiments, so is it a half-truth?Originally posted by An Eternal Now:Buddhists do not quote half-truths, but truths that can be tested and realised by everyone.