Are Western people who practice Eastern mysticism aspects of spirituality such as mediation, various versions of Yoga, Tai Chi, and similiar kooky stuff actually deluding themselves and wasting their time? Why do these people do these?
2007-10-05 22:47:29 · 14 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
Well I guess one needs to look at the history of European Spirituality.
A lot of small localised indigenous spiritual traditions that was brutally conquered by the Indigenous faith of a nomadic tribe originating in the Middle East.
Any wonder why Europeans seek elsewhere for Spiritual fulfilment? When their own Indigenous spiritualies was demonised, vilified & otherwise defiled?
2007-10-06 01:56:58 · answer #1 · answered by Rai A 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
It appears that the deluding comes in the practice of the western mindset of christianity...more wars have been fought and people killed on its behalf...western christianity appears to be the devil it seeks to destroy...it exists by filling its followers with guilt for their actions...it is the rip-off bastard child of conquerors- the trinity of father, son, holy ghost was taken for the story of Isis, Osiris, and Horus, the Egyptian cosmology that ran to far India to avoid prosecution by invaders/christians in AD 324...these christians burned sacred Egyptian temples and replaced these with coptic churches for worship, and relabeled the Horus story as Jesus et al...Christianity places the powers of spirit outside of the individual self...christians stole the pagan holidays are renamed them as Easter, x-mas, etc to get the pagans into supporting the Catholic church after the fall of Rome...there are too many truths for such a small space of discussion, but an educated spiritually truthful statement would be that christianity is the kooky stuff that is the waste of time
2007-10-06 17:02:51 · answer #2 · answered by Nature's Own Wisdom 1 · 1⤊ 0⤋
I know that the main philosophy behind these are to connect with your inter self but for those who are not Christians this is a great way to find out what works and what does not. When you quite the worry and junk of your life the serene comes in so how could you down something that Christians do everyday we just don't have to sit funny or breathe a certain way but there is nothing wrong with these being in a chaotic world and the next step is enlightenment. I hope you find yours
2007-10-06 06:03:27 · answer #3 · answered by truely human 4 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Never the twain shall meet except in thee.
There is a virus in the human brain. It's in a part of the brain that has evolved relatively recently, the perimeter devoted to western thought. The virus is rampant. Much dis-ease arises from it: emotionalism, unresolved guilt, discontent, highs and lows, sexual fantasy, self-doubt, senseless violence, adolescent uncertainty, wishful thinking, inexplicable fear - to name but a few.
The virus occurred and lives on at a point of division in the brain. This is the point where East meets West. Here westernised thought tries, always in vain, to understand the sublime truth or being of the East. Such a meeting is impossible.
As the poet Kipling said, 'East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet'.
It was the brainy effort of trying to bring about the impossible that caused, and still causes in the individual brain, a psychic reaction of inadequacy or rejection.
The East I refer to, and its truth of being, has nothing to do with the modernised East - which is part of the West. The truth and being of the East is in fact the undivided, original, pristine state of the brain, which remains always pure and untouched - despite the spread of the virus.
The virus is the almost irresistible demand to understand what is beyond understanding. The task of dying willingly to this demand is the means by which I enter and connect with the underlying purity and clarity of the brain. In this is the spirit realised - the spirit of the brain that has created and creates all.
The virus stimulates analysis and rationalisation. It ensures its survival in the brain by making divisions where there are none.
This works well enough in the approach to material progress - which is what the virus substitutes in the outer world for man's conscious inner evolution, about which it is utterly ignorant. But as an approach to life and truth the progressive making of divisions is disastrous. The divisions become blocks of ignorance in the exposed brain.
The virus is like a bookmark I use to artificially separate a single text; to mark what I've read from what I haven't read. In spite of the importance of the division to me personally, it has no objective reality. The objective reality of my reading is the text, which remains single and whole as it always was. My division of it is purely subjective; and cannot be the truth since the position of the bookmark would vary with every reader. The truth of course is that the truth does not vary.
2007-10-06 07:10:50 · answer #4 · answered by rattleme 2 · 0⤊ 1⤋
well, i suppose we could waste our time on the important things that you do like watch tv. besides, why does it matter? it's my time i am wasting. i could do worse things. and, why does it have to be called kooky? is it because you don't understand it? your not understanding of it would make you kooky and if you did understand it, then you wouldn't have to ask such silly questions.
2007-10-06 05:57:43 · answer #5 · answered by The Duke 2 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Are Eastern people who practice Western-based religions wasting their time? It's all relative. People do and believe what they think is right.
2007-10-06 05:51:00 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 1⤋
Yoga is very relaxing, and meditation has mental benefits. I don't think they are wasting their time any more than someone who prays or goes to church does. Plus it is healthy for your body too.
2007-10-06 05:51:57 · answer #7 · answered by Rin 4 · 2⤊ 0⤋
They do it because they are more spiritually evolved. It's O.K. for you to think they're wasting their time, they're enlightened enough to not care if you think they're being kooky.
Perhaps one day you'll get there too, but by your attitude, I'm betting it won't be in this lifetime.
2007-10-06 06:25:36 · answer #8 · answered by Tea 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
because those practices improve the quality of one's daily life regardless of any religious beliefs.
tai chi and yoga improve your flexiblity and physical fitness and along with meditation make you calmer.
2007-10-06 06:00:22 · answer #9 · answered by joe the man 7 · 4⤊ 0⤋
While it may seem kooky to you, it makes more sense to some of us then going to church and paying lip service to God.
And I assume you mean meditation and not mediation?
2007-10-06 05:53:06 · answer #10 · answered by Theresa 6 · 2⤊ 1⤋