Christian vs. Eastern Meditation: Similarities and Differences!

Paul Rogers94 said:Where did you get the idea that this Clown is a leading guru of our time? Every time you brought him up before, I honestly had no clue who you were talking about. People will swallow anything—everyone gets the guru they deserve. These gurus only exist because the "flock" creates them; if there weren't people desperate enough to need them, these guys wouldn't exist. It's just like how many idiots fell for the nonsense pushed by Zlatko Sudac... by the way, I barely lasted two seconds looking at that Clown's stare in a three-minute video, but based on those two seconds, I'm free to conclude—and I have zero doubts about this—that the guy is a narcissistic psychopath. I don't know why you're fixated on that face like he's someone actually important

It’s actually pretty fascinating to watch as a perfect case study in grandiosity delusion... plus, he’s basically driving his followers straight toward a collective psychotic break

Check out the first video—the whole three minutes are absolute gold

Nityananda physicist 😳



🤣

goldenjackal6 said:It wasn't a comment on grammar, it was correcting an inaccuracy.

I'll say it again: chanting about how I "don't know anything" isn't an argument, it's just a desperate attempt to attack the person instead of the point.

You're spreading useless misinformation, and once you realize your own statements are wrong, you just brush it off with a "whatever, it doesn't matter" and try to claim I'm the one being embarrassed.

Actually, I went twice—once with a buddy and once with my niece.

You probably either got confused or maybe just hallucinated, because you're out here spouting total nonsense about human biology, claiming the gland that triggers sleepiness is some kind of "Third Eye." Lol.

Go ahead, keep obsessing over typos—because clearly, that’s what matters most in life—but maybe take it to someone else on this board. It just proves how much of a pedantic clown you are... and honestly, how out of the loop you are on anything spiritual. You just pull sentences out of context and act like some kind of psycho, digging through Google for ten minutes just so you can swoop in and cynically "correct" people with half-baked info... it's pathetic, really.

Just skip my posts from now on. After that whole "self-righteous believers" thread, I already got a pretty clear picture of what a joke you are... feel free to put on your little performance for some naive newbie who hasn't realized you're an open book yet. Anyone hanging around this forum long enough is going to see right through you...

You started replying to me again after that one thread, even though I told you to stop... and here I am, responding again... totally pointless. Fine, you've officially hit my ignore list. Respond to this however you want, and I'll give you the "win"... just leave me alone already...

I don't care about your opinion—you've already exposed yourself as a clown—and I don't need you reading my stuff... so just skip it. My posts aren't just for you, so just move on and comment on something else.

There. Write some big, dramatic post about your "complicated" personality if it makes you feel better, then just stay out of my business when I'm talking to other people.

bluemason3 said:Nityananda physicist 😳

🤣

The guy's basically a joke guru—if he wasn't around, I wouldn't even be laughing this hard... reminds me of Toman from Game of Thrones... just listens and listens until he finally jumps out a window...

He absolutely nuked the main character's logic in under sixty seconds. Hey Einstein, you spinning in your grave yet?

bluemason3 said:Sure, you can't have a hallucinogenic experience without using hallucinogens, but that doesn't mean you know more about how they work than someone who hasn't used them.

It's like how you don't know what it's like to be a diabetic if you aren't one, but being a diabetic doesn't mean you know more about the disease than a doctor who isn't.

Solid knowledge is more important than lived experience because it's less prone to subjective interpretations, biases, and projections. It's based on a much larger sample size.

I respectfully, yet thoroughly, disagree with everything stated here... 🕺

OK 🤣

bluemason3 said:OK 🤣

Experience is actual knowledge—everything else is just theory (mostly hollow, unless it’s actually backed by experience)
How is a non-diabetic endocrinologist based in the US supposed to understand diabetes any better than an endocrinologist who actually lives with it? Both are specialists in America, after all...

lonestag15 said:Go ahead, keep obsessing over typos—because clearly, that’s what matters most in life—but maybe take it to someone else on this board. It just proves how much of a pedantic clown you are... and honestly, how out of the loop you are on anything spiritual. You just pull sentences out of context and act like some kind of psycho, digging through Google for ten minutes just so you can swoop in and cynically "correct" people with half-baked info... it's pathetic, really.

Just skip my posts from now on. After that whole "self-righteous believers" thread, I already got a pretty clear picture of what a joke you are... feel free to put on your little performance for some naive newbie who hasn't realized you're an open book yet. Anyone hanging around this forum long enough is going to see right through you...

You started replying to me again after that one thread, even though I told you to stop... and here I am, responding again... totally pointless. Fine, you've officially hit my ignore list. Respond to this however you want, and I'll give you the "win"... just leave me alone already...

I don't care about your opinion—you've already exposed yourself as a clown—and I don't need you reading my stuff... so just skip it. My posts aren't just for you, so just move on and comment on something else.

There. Write some big, dramatic post about your "complicated" personality if it makes you feel better, then just stay out of my business when I'm talking to other people.

People love to throw the "psychopath" label at me whenever they get worked up, but I think this is actually my first time being a total psycho for a good reason: I’m sitting here obsessively formatting my posts just so you guys can actually read them without getting a headache. Honestly? I'll take it. Respect.

lonestag15 said:Go ahead, keep obsessing over typos—because clearly, that’s what matters most in life—but maybe take it to someone else on this board. It just proves how much of a pedantic clown you are... and honestly, how out of the loop you are on anything spiritual. You just pull sentences out of context and act like some kind of psycho, digging through Google for ten minutes just so you can swoop in and cynically "correct" people with half-baked info... it's pathetic, really.

Just skip my posts from now on. After that whole "self-righteous believers" thread, I already got a pretty clear picture of what a joke you are... feel free to put on your little performance for some naive newbie who hasn't realized you're an open book yet. Anyone hanging around this forum long enough is going to see right through you...

You started replying to me again after that one thread, even though I told you to stop... and here I am, responding again... totally pointless. Fine, you've officially hit my ignore list. Respond to this however you want, and I'll give you the "win"... just leave me alone already...

I don't care about your opinion—you've already exposed yourself as a clown—and I don't need you reading my stuff... so just skip it. My posts aren't just for you, so just move on and comment on something else.

There. Write some big, dramatic post about your "complicated" personality if it makes you feel better, then just stay out of my business when I'm talking to other people.

Look, if certain topics or arguments are getting under your skin and triggering an emotional meltdown, that’s honestly not my problem. Maybe instead of coming at me, you should focus on doing some actual soul-searching and working on yourself. You really need to shake off that insecurity.

lonestag15 said:Go ahead, keep obsessing over typos—because clearly, that’s what matters most in life—but maybe take it to someone else on this board. It just proves how much of a pedantic clown you are... and honestly, how out of the loop you are on anything spiritual. You just pull sentences out of context and act like some kind of psycho, digging through Google for ten minutes just so you can swoop in and cynically "correct" people with half-baked info... it's pathetic, really.

Just skip my posts from now on. After that whole "self-righteous believers" thread, I already got a pretty clear picture of what a joke you are... feel free to put on your little performance for some naive newbie who hasn't realized you're an open book yet. Anyone hanging around this forum long enough is going to see right through you...

You started replying to me again after that one thread, even though I told you to stop... and here I am, responding again... totally pointless. Fine, you've officially hit my ignore list. Respond to this however you want, and I'll give you the "win"... just leave me alone already...

I don't care about your opinion—you've already exposed yourself as a clown—and I don't need you reading my stuff... so just skip it. My posts aren't just for you, so just move on and comment on something else.

There. Write some big, dramatic post about your "complicated" personality if it makes you feel better, then just stay out of my business when I'm talking to other people.

Look, I don't care what you want. This forum is an open floor, and I have every right to reply to whoever I feel like.

Paul Rogers94 said:Experience is actual knowledge—everything else is just theory (mostly hollow, unless it’s actually backed by experience)
How is a non-diabetic endocrinologist based in the US supposed to understand diabetes any better than an endocrinologist who actually lives with it? Both are specialists in America, after all...

A non-diabetic endocrinologist and an endocrinologist with diabetes will have the exact same level of knowledge. Their expertise comes down to their education and clinical commitment, not their own medical diagnosis.

If experience alone equaled true knowledge, primitive people would still think the sun is a divine chariot circling the globe, or that the Earth is a flat disc resting on a turtle's back in a sea of milk.
Experience is overrated because our senses, perceptions, and cognitive abilities are fundamentally limited and unreliable.

#selfknowledge 😍

bluemason3 said:A non-diabetic endocrinologist and an endocrinologist with diabetes will have the exact same level of knowledge. Their expertise comes down to their education and clinical commitment, not their own medical diagnosis.

If experience alone equaled true knowledge, primitive people would still think the sun is a divine chariot circling the globe, or that the Earth is a flat disc resting on a turtle's back in a sea of milk.
Experience is overrated because our senses, perceptions, and cognitive abilities are fundamentally limited and unreliable.

#selfknowledge 😍

I disagree. 😁

Even though we share many similarities, everyone is ultimately unique. For example, a doctor might claim strawberries are healthy, but if you happen to be allergic to them, your personal experience carries far more weight than any scientific study.

A lot of harm has been caused by medical professionals who hold narrow, rigid views and refuse to account for the specific needs of an individual organism.

When offering suggestions or advice, we must remember that what works perfectly for me could be quite harmful to someone else.

mistybison said:I disagree. 😁

Even though we share many similarities, everyone is ultimately unique. For example, a doctor might claim strawberries are healthy, but if you happen to be allergic to them, your personal experience carries far more weight than any scientific study.

A lot of harm has been caused by medical professionals who hold narrow, rigid views and refuse to account for the specific needs of an individual organism.

When offering suggestions or advice, we must remember that what works perfectly for me could be quite harmful to someone else.

That’s debatable. Without knowing what an allergy actually is, without testing to find out exactly what you're reacting to, or having treatment on hand if things go south after you eat something... you're just guessing.

More importantly, there's no basis for applying your own experience to others. You aren't a large enough sample size, the variables aren't controlled, and your own perception isn't objective enough. If that were the case, we wouldn't need science to uncover the causes of diseases; a thousand years ago, people would have already figured out it was bacteria rather than ghosts or shamans.

bluemason3 said:That’s debatable. Without knowing what an allergy actually is, without testing to find out exactly what you're reacting to, or having treatment on hand if things go south after you eat something... you're just guessing.

More importantly, there's no basis for applying your own experience to others. You aren't a large enough sample size, the variables aren't controlled, and your own perception isn't objective enough. If that were the case, we wouldn't need science to uncover the causes of diseases; a thousand years ago, people would have already figured out it was bacteria rather than ghosts or shamans.

That all holds true, but we shouldn't overlook the value of personal experience. 🧐

That would be an entirely different extreme.

Despite my allergies, I continue to eat strawberries because doctors insist they're healthy—completely ignoring my own lived experience and ultimately leading me toward my demise. 😁

Even when it comes to spirituality, it isn't for everyone. 🙂

I highly doubt those doctors just brushed off your allergic reactions and told you everything was fine when you clearly aren't.

Look, there’s no reason to disregard what you're feeling. But if you don't weigh your own experience against established medical science—or worse, if you ignore the data entirely and decide your personal perception is the ultimate yardstick for everything else—you're heading down a bad path.😳

bluemason3 said:A non-diabetic endocrinologist and an endocrinologist with diabetes will have the exact same level of knowledge. Their expertise comes down to their education and clinical commitment, not their own medical diagnosis.

If experience alone equaled true knowledge, primitive people would still think the sun is a divine chariot circling the globe, or that the Earth is a flat disc resting on a turtle's back in a sea of milk.
Experience is overrated because our senses, perceptions, and cognitive abilities are fundamentally limited and unreliable.

#selfknowledge 😍

But spiritual experiences are extrasensory and beyond the physical—otherwise, they aren't spiritual experiences at all. Though, granted, our interpretations of them can be unreliable and total garbage. Can we at least agree on that?🙂

You can only say then that they aren't "personal" experiences—because they aren't.
Only the interpretations are personal.
A spiritual experience isn't actually an "experience."
It's more of an insight—an realization that there is no one there to have any experience in the first place. There is no subject, no director supposedly moderating these supposed experiences, whether they be sensory, emotional, or conceptual.
And if there is no subject (no point of view), then nothing else exists either.
The perceived universe arises with the subject and vanishes with the subject; they are interdependent. Without an observer, there is nothing to be observed.

Do these claims stem from my personal experience? No. They stem from an impersonal insight.

To be honest, the very term "personal experience" is an oxymoron when applied to spiritual insights.

Paul Rogers94 said:But spiritual experiences are extrasensory and beyond the physical—otherwise, they aren't spiritual experiences at all. Though, granted, our interpretations of them can be unreliable and total garbage. Can we at least agree on that?🙂

You can only say then that they aren't "personal" experiences—because they aren't.
Only the interpretations are personal.
A spiritual experience isn't actually an "experience."
It's more of an insight—an realization that there is no one there to have any experience in the first place. There is no subject, no director supposedly moderating these supposed experiences, whether they be sensory, emotional, or conceptual.
And if there is no subject (no point of view), then nothing else exists either.
The perceived universe arises with the subject and vanishes with the subject; they are interdependent. Without an observer, there is nothing to be observed.

Do these claims stem from my personal experience? No. They stem from an impersonal insight.

To be honest, the very term "personal experience" is an oxymoron when applied to spiritual insights.

Look, whether you show up or disappear, whether you exist or not, the entire universe is still just... there. It’s still existing. Objective reality doesn't give a damn about you or any other individual. The cosmos doesn't care about your mind or how you perceive things—it exists regardless of your presence or lack thereof.

neonmarlin39 said:Look, whether you show up or disappear, whether you exist or not, the entire universe is still just... there. It’s still existing. Objective reality doesn't give a damn about you or any other individual. The cosmos doesn't care about your mind or how you perceive things—it exists regardless of your presence or lack thereof.

Good to know for sure, 100%
Stay chill

neonmarlin39 said:Look, whether you show up or disappear, whether you exist or not, the entire universe is still just... there. It’s still existing. Objective reality doesn't give a damn about you or any other individual. The cosmos doesn't care about your mind or how you perceive things—it exists regardless of your presence or lack thereof.

So, we’re back at square one again 😁

Could you maybe explain—even if it's just a rough outline—how you actually landed on that conclusion? What kind of reasoning brought you there, or are you just certain it's true?
It seems to me there's really only one way to figure that out...

In some way—and admittedly within my own limited capacity—I try to draw a conclusion, yet you just swoop in with categorical assertions, quotes, and sources, expecting some sort of high-level dialogue...

And the universe, much like the one being imagined, is just a fantasy within a fantasy—whether anyone likes it or not. 😉

By the way, I started a thread the other day asking whether the observable universe is real or an illusion, and I reached some "final" conclusions there 😵. If it makes any sense to you, you could probably flesh them out with your own thoughts—feel free to take a look.

Peace

I’m with lonestag15 on this one—it’s all just empty talk just pure theory... without actual boots-on-the-ground experience (whether you're tripping or staying sober), you're basically just parroting someone else's homework...

It’s like being in some basement bar with ten guys... all of them debating how much a drink affects you, instead of just having a glass and finding out for themselves within five minutes...

Especially when we're talking about consciousness and stuff like that... I mean, come on, there are a million different ways and practices to expand your mind...

Psychological dilation of the belt—it basically backs up those experiences... so there’s actually some science behind it

Paul Rogers94 said:So, we’re back at square one again 😁

Could you maybe explain—even if it's just a rough outline—how you actually landed on that conclusion? What kind of reasoning brought you there, or are you just certain it's true?
It seems to me there's really only one way to figure that out...

In some way—and admittedly within my own limited capacity—I try to draw a conclusion, yet you just swoop in with categorical assertions, quotes, and sources, expecting some sort of high-level dialogue...

And the universe, much like the one being imagined, is just a fantasy within a fantasy—whether anyone likes it or not. 😉

By the way, I started a thread the other day asking whether the observable universe is real or an illusion, and I reached some "final" conclusions there 😵. If it makes any sense to you, you could probably flesh them out with your own thoughts—feel free to take a look.

Peace

You can get to that conclusion pretty easily using simple logic, looking at things through an objective scientific lens, using philosophical methods, or even through spiritual insights (take the case of Buddha, for example) 😁

But, like you said, you're the one claiming to have reached a "final" conclusion, even though you're basically just parroting someone else's dogma... And honestly, whether these are your own conclusions or someone else's doesn't even matter much, since other people have already tried to explain this exact thing here. Plus, if you truly believe everything is an illusion, then you and everything you're saying is just an illusion too. In a way, you're totally undermining your own point because you're claiming nothing is real—which means what you're saying isn't real either (if you're pushing that whole Maya/Advaita Vedanta/Shankara interpretation I've noticed you go for). Why would anyone listen to the illusory ramblings of some illusory figure who, by your own logic, doesn't even exist? Or do you only see the contradiction when you're arguing that the universe isn't real? And why on earth would Brahman bother creating some pointless illusion like the universe where everything is fake? Where does Maya even come from in your version? You haven't even touched on the heavy hitters here. You're mixing up basic philosophical concepts like relativity, the Absolute, reality, actuality, and illusion—you can see that in your thread about the universe being an illusion. And you say "cosmos," not the universe, which sounds like those Slavinski terms or wherever you got them from.

Paul Rogers94 said:So, we’re back at square one again 😁

Could you maybe explain—even if it's just a rough outline—how you actually landed on that conclusion? What kind of reasoning brought you there, or are you just certain it's true?
It seems to me there's really only one way to figure that out...

In some way—and admittedly within my own limited capacity—I try to draw a conclusion, yet you just swoop in with categorical assertions, quotes, and sources, expecting some sort of high-level dialogue...

And the universe, much like the one being imagined, is just a fantasy within a fantasy—whether anyone likes it or not. 😉

By the way, I started a thread the other day asking whether the observable universe is real or an illusion, and I reached some "final" conclusions there 😵. If it makes any sense to you, you could probably flesh them out with your own thoughts—feel free to take a look.

Peace

Also, in previous debates, people have pointed out specific teachings and systems that tear down these philosophical dogmas about the universe not being real, using solid philosophical frameworks, but you just ignored it all and stuck to your guns. People even suggested books to read if you actually wanted to dive deeper and see what's what. Now, science is a totally different beast. It’s one thing to believe whatever you want—hey, you're entitled to your beliefs—but it's a completely different story when you want to argue a point or analyze something using clear sources, philosophy, scientific evidence, or whatever else. Your thread is, to put it mildly, just rambling, and it falls flat under several major philosophical critiques found in both Eastern and Western traditions. Philosophy hasn't just popped up overnight, and neither has philosophical critique. Right now, most of what you're saying is based on pure belief and your own narrow interpretation, while you're ignoring plenty of other critiques and systems that might explain things way better than the books you're reading or the ones you've already decided to believe in.