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Recent content by Raymond Sigrist

  1. Raymond Sigrist

    Tao is amoral

    "we are creatures driven by the desire to recreate and gain more." Yes, and we can get more for ourselves by overcoming our narrow view of what is good for us. Laozi: "Why do I put my agenda aside? Precisly to get what I want." Laozi: "I give away from my store and I only gain more."
  2. Raymond Sigrist

    Can Mysticism Serve as an Alternative to Religion?

    Yes, and also in mysticism one does not have to believe anything. It can be an experience, not an ideology.
  3. Raymond Sigrist

    Selflessness?

    I suspect: 1. Everything I do is motivated by self-interest. The thing I enjoy most is helping other people find out how they can become capable of solving their own most difficult problems. 2. The less ego I have involved, the more successful I am in helping others. 3. I suspect it is my...
  4. Raymond Sigrist

    The New Mysticism

    "Do you think that "God" is necessary for the mystic?" Actually some of us find that our mystical disposition deepens when we suspend the idea that there is a God, and also suspend the idea that there is no God. Meister Eckhart: "I pray God to be rid of God."
  5. Raymond Sigrist

    Im lost

    "This may sound very conceded, but I feel that no one can help me become a better person but a god." That is plausible "Even he has so many things that sound so wrong what am I to do?" Just because you read it in the Bible does not mean it is "god" that has it. Do you really think this...
  6. Raymond Sigrist

    Thanks for your kind comments Xiao Shu. If you would like one, I will be happy to send you a...

    Thanks for your kind comments Xiao Shu. If you would like one, I will be happy to send you a copy of the book. My email is [email protected]
  7. Raymond Sigrist

    A speaker of the way

    Hi Ymir You point out the problem with claiming that there is only absolute reality. I think you might enjoy the following: "the oldest Upanishad texts (800-400 BCE), respectively, that there are "two truths" (dvayasatya) or two possible levels of discourse: 1) the conventional...
  8. Raymond Sigrist

    Thanks for the friend invite Xiao Shu. Wo hen gao xing jian dao ni.

    Thanks for the friend invite Xiao Shu. Wo hen gao xing jian dao ni.
  9. Raymond Sigrist

    Kabbalah 101

    Hi Mr. Cheese Thanks for not being put off by the critics. I like to read with a post-modern perspective. If the text is useful for me, it is authentic for me. I don't need to have it authenticated by the established experts. I find what you have written to be quite useful. ciao, raymond
  10. Raymond Sigrist

    non-contingency

    "For now I will have to be content how I am" Me too Xiao Shu and Heavenly Heathen. And it is good for us to realize that the "Mother" sees us as being perfectly good already, even as we are intending to get better at daoing. Zhuangzi: "From the dao's perspective, beings are not noble nor...
  11. Raymond Sigrist

    non-contingency

    Yes it is difficult to realize the ability to feel the entire reality which surrounds us responding to us like a mother, in the midst of both joy and terror. When we have that realization, we will as Laozi says, "Go to the mother." We will discover "Wu suo bu zai" There is no where it (dao)...
  12. Raymond Sigrist

    Im lost

    You don't have to pick any religion. You can intuit your own. You can have a spirituality where you don't need to think "I am right and the others are wrong." While you are working on your own religion, you can attend a Unitarian church for the feeling of community you get there. For better...
  13. Raymond Sigrist

    non-contingency

    A major theme in the B.C.E. daoist writers is non-contingency. This is to say that they maintained a deep sense of well-being no matter what happened to them on a material level. For example Zhuangzi says: ": “Content with success and content with failure.”
  14. Raymond Sigrist

    non-contingency

    removed by author
  15. Raymond Sigrist

    prayer

    Frederic W. H. Myers: "I am glad that you have asked me about prayer, because I have rather strong ideas on the subject. First consider what are the facts. There exists around us a spiritual universe, and that universe is in actual relation with the material. From the spiritual universe comes...
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