2005-9-14 00:24:00
Johan writes:
I feel sorry to hear a heavy emotional charge in the comments. It seems that all I am saying is being refuted regardless of what I am saying.
I think the refutation began with you refuting what many here write and believe - or at least what you assume they believe.
Johan:
Among other things I see a need to defend a supposed attack upon the so highly valued free will, this little expression of the little self, which is almost considered as holy in the western world. But this is not what I meant.
Let there be no doubt; I will be the last one to challenge the free will of humanity (in fact it is not a free will but rather a freedom of choice).
Excuse me for misunderstanding. Here are your words: "All the lofty talk about freedom is imaginary and illusory and misleading when it is not understood that each human being is not free at all in this world."
I am glad to hear your clarification, which tells us that you do believe in some free choice after all.
You distinguish free will from free choice and I can understand that if you use a lofty esoteric definition of will, but if we use the dictionary definition free will and free choice are the same.
Johan:
I only offer a more Universal view - which some consider to be more eastern coloured - which may invite people to look out of the box of materialistic conventions and traditions, which is so pressing in our western world, and which is being considered here as the one precious exportproduct to the rest of the world.
I have offered both a spiritual and humanitarian view regarding the law of free will and the Law of Absolute Freedom. I have tried to make this clear as far as this relates to humanity in its attempts to become spiritual.
What you do not realize is that many have come on this list before you in an attempt to teach from a similar view as yourself. I thought you had a different twist because you said we have no free will, but now you have clarified your views we see you your doctrine is basically the same as we have heard many times before, even though the presentation may be slightly different.
The problem here is not that you represent Eastern thought and we the West, for many on this list have synthesized both the East and the West.
The problem seen by many of us is that you represent a western version of eastern philosophy in which we see major flaws. These flaws are similar to what we see in some fundamentalist Christian religions that have a similar belief to you but merely use a different vocabulary.
You, and those before you, seem to think you are presenting us with fresh thinking that we have not heard before. On the contrary, we have heard it many times, thought it through, seen its flaws and retain that which the soul verifies.
When a teacher such as yourself comes here and we do not accept him he always thinks the problem is that we just do not understand what he is saying. We do understand and that is why we see the flaws. If you were to peruse the archives you would see that just about every point of your teaching has been covered. Even so, I usually comment briefly when a new challenger comers on board because each teacher gives a slightly different slant on the same material.
Now, even though we see flaws in your philosophy we also see some truth in it. For instance, the idea that we are trapped in matter and suffer limitations here is certainly one that is true.
The pattern followed by teachers such as yourself has been almost exactly the same so far. They stay for a few months and make a great effort to help us to see the error of our ways. When we do not totally accept they figure we just do not understand and continue to hammer away. Then, after a month or two, when it is seen that no converts are made they will leave. We have yet to see one stay and just attempt to be a positive member of the list and participate in the classroom topics.
Johan:
All I have done is to invite people to look beyond all appearances and even beyond conditioned spiritual views and thus beyond themselves; in fact it is the invitation to look beyond the opposite poles of duality of good people and bad people. There is more than that. Not seeing this is missing a higher level of spirituality, exactly as Buddha told so urgently to his bikkhus. For it is time.
Many here have already done this. Why do you assume we are a bunch of spiritual country bumpkins? If you want to present something new tell us what is next - after we have seen Nirvana.
Against logic there is no armor like ignorance. Laurence J. Peter (1919 - 1988)
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