11-25-2007, 08:55 AM
My intro is a little late. I didn't want to say anything about myself, but then I thought it might help to find people with common interests.
So I've studied just about everything and like to find the common threads between various practices. I'm familiar with teachings from Castaneda, Gurdjieff, J. Krishnamurti, Osho, Eckhart Tolle, the traditions of Zen, Advaita, Kabbalah, Alchemy, Gnosticism, Hermeticism, Taoism, Western Magick, Sacred Geometry and Stoicism.
After much reading and acquiring knowledge I finally understood that knowledge is a hindrance and not a solution. By living in a state of not-knowing one finds the present to be quite extraordinary, wondrous, even miraculous. As DJ says, "When you see there are no longer familiar features in the world. Everything is new. Everything has never happened before. When you see and gaze at something it becomes nothing, and yet it is still there." Well, I've gazed at myself and realised that I'm nothing too. And I'm still here. And I still read. I'm currently enjoying various speakers on non-duality: Steve Harrison, Jeff Foster, Ramana Maharshi and Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj. Castaneda's teachings have been at my core all this time, and when I came across non-duaity I noticed the similarities with seeing, the second attention and the unknowable. So I'm refreshing myself with CC's writings with this new awareness that the "I" doesn't have any inherent existence or substance other than thought, and so it seems to cut through much of the exercises and efforts and disciplines to control the self or self-importance when you realise there is no self and nothing is important. To quote DJ again, "When a man learns to see, he realises that he can no longer think about the things he looks at, and thus everything becomes unimportant. All things are equal and thus unimportant."
So there's my story.
Oh, and I chose the name true with the intention of meaning sincerity, and not anything self-important as in right and wrong, true and false, etc.
See you around.
So I've studied just about everything and like to find the common threads between various practices. I'm familiar with teachings from Castaneda, Gurdjieff, J. Krishnamurti, Osho, Eckhart Tolle, the traditions of Zen, Advaita, Kabbalah, Alchemy, Gnosticism, Hermeticism, Taoism, Western Magick, Sacred Geometry and Stoicism.
After much reading and acquiring knowledge I finally understood that knowledge is a hindrance and not a solution. By living in a state of not-knowing one finds the present to be quite extraordinary, wondrous, even miraculous. As DJ says, "When you see there are no longer familiar features in the world. Everything is new. Everything has never happened before. When you see and gaze at something it becomes nothing, and yet it is still there." Well, I've gazed at myself and realised that I'm nothing too. And I'm still here. And I still read. I'm currently enjoying various speakers on non-duality: Steve Harrison, Jeff Foster, Ramana Maharshi and Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj. Castaneda's teachings have been at my core all this time, and when I came across non-duaity I noticed the similarities with seeing, the second attention and the unknowable. So I'm refreshing myself with CC's writings with this new awareness that the "I" doesn't have any inherent existence or substance other than thought, and so it seems to cut through much of the exercises and efforts and disciplines to control the self or self-importance when you realise there is no self and nothing is important. To quote DJ again, "When a man learns to see, he realises that he can no longer think about the things he looks at, and thus everything becomes unimportant. All things are equal and thus unimportant."
So there's my story.
Oh, and I chose the name true with the intention of meaning sincerity, and not anything self-important as in right and wrong, true and false, etc.
See you around.