Demons anyone...?

On forming my beliefs in life one concept has managed to escape my logic and reasoning abilities....demons and possessions. I don't believe in this stuff,I watch things on t.v and I see these Nigerian pastors 'casting out demons'. It gets hectic, but I'm not sold on it..not for one second even. I just can't bring myself to believe it because I cannot explain it, it might make 'sense'..but it's not logical. If a demon really wanted to ruin someone's life, why don't they just kill them..? Why take them through a life of strategic induced suffering ? Are they rules of war or something? I don't get it, and why does the pastor always win? Surely he should also be defeated on some occasions, no?

Another thing that I've thought about is what about the Catholics and their exorcisms..? It's made me think for a while, because it has been happening for a while, well that's what they say. I'm still a firm believer of science and logic, cannot believe in something that i don't think makes proper sense to me. I know I do believe in astral projection and different astral planes, O.B.E's and all so that would make room for both positive and negative entities maybe? And for generations civilizations have had a concept of heaven and hell, the underworld...Hades, Tatuarus etc so surely there is some solid basis for all this stuff..idk hey. Regardless here is a cool quote I found on the topic.

------------------------------------------------------------------

It is well documented that people do get possessed by Demons. What is your explanation. Do Atheist even believe Demons? Just curious. Not trying to flame war.

Did you ever hear of Multiple Personality Disorder?

It's where people appear to shift in and out of different personalities. A long time ago it was thought that these people had different personalities "stored" somewhere in their brain. Now, it's thought that personality doesn't exist in one area of the brain but is spread out in different sections and is a collection of parts. So, you can't have more than one because there's only room for one. Anyway, it's thought that these different personalities are a form of extreme role playing that the person employs to cope with life.

Normal people tend to adopt roles to please others or make things go smoothly. For instance, you probably tend to talk to mom differently than your friends.

So, people who have heard of demons and have a stereotype for how they behave adopt the role to get attention, punish their family, and so on. If you think that sounds hard to believe there's people with eating disorders who will starve themselves to death over family issues and of course people commit suicide too. Thus, acting like a demon isn't that strange.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Delight in thinking. ..philosophy book

Reading a philosophy book, figured id post up some quotes from the book and anything it leads me to read. I recently attended a few philosophy lectures and i think it was honestly the greatest academic experience of my life. 

The power of logical deduction, critical thinking and mental exploration are amazing. I really enjoyed it. I think that had I been born a few hundred years ago I would have been similar to Socrates. .. a heretic B-) .
-------------------------------
Delight in Thinking- S Hales, S Lowe.

On Moral Philosophy:

D> Ethical egoism: the idea thay each person ought to pursue his or her own self interest exclusively.

D> Psychological egoism: a theory of human nature that is concerned with how people DO behave,  not how they should.

Q> "Men lose their high aspirstions as they lose their intellectual tastes,  because they have not time or opportunity for indulging them; and they addict themselves to inferior pleasures, not because they deliberately prefer them,  but because they are either the only ones to which they have access,  or the only ones which they are any longer capable of enjoying...."

Q>" As philosophers we want good reason for our beliefs and we ought to approach religious claims in the same spirit of skeptical,  critical inquiry as we would claims of the supernatural occult. "

The battle.

Sometimes I know what I want and I know what I feel.
I could even feel quite certain at times...yet somehow it still manages
to conflict with what I think I should want and what I think I should feel.
And as the real me,with my real thoughts and my real emotions
lays somewhere, deeply involved in this battle of desires;
I, here, get helplessly lost in all the confusion.

Not knowing where I stand,
I don't even dare make a movement,
afraid that I might move in the wrong direction
too afraid to make a choice that I cannot retract
An action that Hindsight will quickly call a 'mistake'....

Funny enough - even when I am completely confident of my desires
At the time of action I'm often too afraid of the unknown that lies in front of me,
So one can only imagine when the unknown lies within me.
So I ask:
What does the future hold....
What to do...
Where to go...
How to act..
How to think?

Actually
Who is thinking?
These thoughts, to whom do they belong...?
Where do they come from?
Do I think them or are they formed elsewhere.
I just don't know anymore, not sure if I ever did.
-----------------------------------------------------------

This war that I wage
this battle that I face..








---------------------------------------------------------------
T4aM

Love,,,Investments...

Your love life is an investment — and the smarter the deals you execute, the savvier of an investor you become. Instead of navigating through an ambiguous investment in which you shower your lover with cash and prizes for existing, make sure he or she will demonstrate positive returns. Your love life should have a solid ROI.

http://elitedaily.com/life/the-20-mistakes-you-dont-want-to-make-in-your-20s/

World Views

I've been in many a debate, many an argument and many an intellectual tussle . And what have I gathered from all of these...? I have learned that you simply cannot convince someone to see the world the exact same way that you do, it seems nearly impossible.

The thing is, we all have a model of life, of the world, of each other and of ourselves. We each see things in our own way, this is because of our past experiences, our beliefs, our values and our principles. We each feel like the way we see the world is right because of this and i think that it is fair to say that we have the right to. It is extremely difficult, if not impossible to see the world as someone else does, unless of course you are them.

It is for this reason, that over time I have lost the urge to convince another or to enforce my ideas/ opinions/ideologies onto someone else. Cause I simply cannot, so now i try to understand people and strive to accept regardless. The conversation/argument is a whole lot easier when you sit back and give people a chance to explain themselves, you may even get to see the world in a different way and that's great. The point is that we shouldn't try and force our glasses onto others, but rather try and understand their glasses better. Because the truth of the matter is that at the end of the day we each see the same things, we just perceive it differently. So what we think about the world, doesn't really change what is actually there.



T4aM
--

Value

We  seem to value ourselves by either how much money(external) we make or how much other people (external) value us.  So when these two measurement are not high, our self esteem and self value also depreciates.... quite sad. 

T4aM

Buddha

Nothing much to say. .. just sending a shout out to Siddartha.

Non-Practical Idealism

My ideals are always in conflict with the practicalities of real life. .. I wanted to be vegetarian. ..but meat is convenient to cook and eat and its very filling.  I stopped drinking alcohol but I was missing out on good times with friends and that amazing taste of a nice cold beer. I stopped going to church cause of conflicts in belief,  but I realized i liked and missed the gospel music and that feel good factor u get in a service.  So my mind, my values, my ideals point in one direction...but life points me in another. So as soon as I try do something,  it never lasts long.

It is as if my mind tells me who I should be...but life shows me who I am. I personally dont think that atomicity is feasible I dont think this all-or-nothing mentality is practical at all...its just an ideal.

T4aM
--

Mind control...random thoughts.

If a tree falls and no one hears it, does it really make a sound?  If it doesnt leave a mark then, did it ever exist. ..?

Everything we have ever experienced,  felt, heard, touched,  made.... only really exists in the mind. Yes we can feel something physical,  but that feeling of sensation, is just chemical signals firing in the brain no? Without the brain, without the mind..there is no hearing,  feeling, touching. ...there is no living, essentially there is no life :|

Thus,  is it fair to say that none of us KNOW anything besides from this perspective. None of us knows anything outside of ourselves.  if my dreams can be so realistic,  it means I really cannot prove that anything else exisist.  Is this enough to prove that I exist. ..idk.
Decartes...holla back
T4aM

Find the Others.

“Admit it. You aren’t like them. You’re not even close. You may occasionally dress yourself up as one of them, watch the same mindless television shows as they do, maybe even eat the same fast food sometimes. But it seems that the more you try to fit in, the more you feel like an outsider, watching the “normal people” as they go about their automatic existences. For every time you say club passwords like “Have a nice day” and “Weather’s awful today, eh?”, you yearn inside to say forbidden things like “Tell me something that makes you cry” or “What do you think deja vu is for?”. Face it, you even want to talk to that girl in the elevator. But what if that girl in the elevator (and the balding man who walks past your cubicle at work) are thinking the same thing? Who knows what you might learn from taking a chance on conversation with a stranger? Everyone carries a piece of the puzzle. Nobody comes into your life by mere coincidence. Trust your instincts. Do the unexpected. Find the others…”

― Timothy Leary

Breath of life

Over this past week of meditation, i have made major realizations. One of the great ones is the aspect of breathing and watching your breath. Ever since i started meditating i thought i was supposed to Breath consciously and watch myself, but that requires a lot of conscious involvement and that kind of defeats the purpose of trying to get away from your mind. This week at a meditation class in Rondebosch (21 Loch Street) while going through the guided meditation, i heard the instructor/monk guy say that i must watch my breath, and for the first time it struck me that i should not breath, but rather watch my breath! and that just means so much.

I realized that we have bodies and just like the way a tree will take in carbon dioxide and produce oxygen, our bodies will take in oxygen and produce carbon dioxide, naturally...as a system of nature these things will happen. i do not think it is our conscious mind that says 'mouth breathe' or even more taxing 'heart beat' because if this was the case, we would all be struggling to keep ourselves alive each and every day.The body knows what it needs to survive and it does this without our involvement each and everyday...

So with the meditating, you have to get to that point where you understand that you are not your body, you are in your body yes, but it is more like a vessel of nature, and nature has been around for a very long time. This is why when we sleep, yes we are 'unconscious' (in this dimension of reality) but our body stays doing what needs to be done to keep us alive,our heart beats...our respiratory system functions seamlessly cause our bodies knows best.

Meditation should get you to that level of awareness and then allow you to transcend this reality and this vessel that we call our body, and the beginning of this process is to simply watch your breath :).

T4aM
Ben
--

Christ Consciousness

Jesus you my nigger, you were not necessarily 'the Messiah' or The Savior' of sinful humanity in my eyes, or whatever people try and box you up to be, but you were truly conscious of this reality that we live in and this universe that we happen to find ourselves in. And i respect that greatly, there is a lot i want to learn from you, without looking at it through religious glasses, because that narrows it extremely. I admire how aware you were of life, and what this is all about, there is a lot about you that people say you said, or did or believed, but i think i kind of know when to separate the truth from the unnecessary peripheral stuff. With Christianity there is a lot that they speak of that actually makes sense, like the spirit realm, heaven , hell, Satan, the holy spirit, God etc... but the problem is that the model simplifies it a bit toooo much. See after learning just a bit on astral projection and OBE's (Out of Body experiences) it all makes sense, there seem to be entities in this other realm that help us, this is why the people in the early bible talk a lot about Angels, i guess they do exist. This is just what people have reduced this entities to, its a way to understand life really... and i understand and i have no qualms with it, we each have the models that we create of the world that allow us to live.

The Angels and the Holy Spirit, could really be one and the same thing, just spritual entities idk... People claim that God talks to them, or that the holy spirit reveals things to them, and it makes sense, there is something/someone that they are making connection to, but for all we know these could all be different beings hey, but because of peoples models of life they try and centralize it, but then again we do all have guides so we could always be listening to the same person, i just strongly disagree with there being one God up there that runs this whole show, i think its a naive understanding of life, but i'm not saying it is wrong, i just know that there is more.Christ, Bhudda, they achieved this level of understanding of life and of importance of meditation/prayer etc, and we need to learn from this to understand the true nature of reality.

This post is not very structured, but all i want to say is that Jesus was on point, and he had a lot to say about the realness of life, about the power of thought, about what exist after we die in this realm, about how to materialize things in out life (ask and you shall receive...etc), about seeking the truth (Seek and ye shall find). And the virgin birth....maybe that had to do with the fact that he was not of this dimension, he just had to materialize in a way that we would understand as stupid little human beings, maybe he was an entity from the other side, that came here intentionally. OR that they (the bible writer, book chooser people) threw that in to make us feel that Jesus was Divine, eish this propaganda guys...

Anyways Jesus, you my nigger.



T4aM
BJM

Seek and ye shall find...

Mathew 7:7 "Ask and it shall be given unto you, Seek and ye shall find"- the first makes sense, kind of on that law of attraction level type of vibe, and the second part of the verse is actually quite deep on a psychological level. Personally I think that also means that when we look (seek) for something, we can make the answer anything really, as long as we accept it; humans have this amazing ability to convince themselves that what they believe is true- hence all the religious violence and destruction going on in the world...mxm people are ridiculous :/ seek and ye shall find, not necessarily finding the right thing, quite deep... Our brains are a messed up organ.

Consciousness is a spectrum....

When we go to sleep it is not that we are becoming unconscious. Consciousness is a spectrum and sleeping might put us out of consciousness in this dimension of 'reality', but we will be conscious in another dimension. This is what we tend to call dreams and the like, that it not just our mind playing games, that is our 'soul' (or whatever you choose to call it) conscious in another dimension, a dimension (shall expand more on it when i understand it more...). We tend to have very hazy renditions of this because we are not trained to 'remember' this. we often recall very little of our dreams because of this, its weird actually, this also implies that our 'memories' are not stored in our brain, because our brain is left in this dimension, from what i understand... This is so bloody interesting.

T4aM

Meditation Journal

I started meditating a while ago, well rather i wanted to start meditating and learning about meditation a while ago (2011). I did but then got out of it because i did not dedicate enough time to it and i did not make it a habit. Im trying to get back into it again because i know that it is useful and i can feeeeeeel the potential benefits of it. I know there is something out there- or rather in here.... i am certain of it, its ust a matter of making that connection to it. I think the more time i spend on focusing on this and making it a habit i will be able to tune into the divine. People have various ways of 'getting there' and i think that this is certainly one of them. I'll try do this every day and jot down how i felt and try gauge my progress.

Day 1: 21 September 08:00, back in action, i realized i have a lot of the 'tools' i need for meditating. A nice comfy pillow, a statue and two posters of the Bhudda, a string of beads, a candle. I think i will get myself some incense :D that's actually a plan!!! The session today was good although i was falling asleep i think, and also my throat hurt a bit so that affects my concentration. but i felt like it was soothing and even though i was aware of my surroundings and all i was still in a deeper sense of consciousness, at least i think i was. i think this journey wil be an exciting one and i am really looking forward to learning more about this art and about the universe within :)

Day 2: 22 September 07:00. O.k and now i am learning about Astral Projection and Out Of Body Experiences :D, this is so exciting because this does not even sound supernatural for me. I am at the stage in my life where i believe in these things not as supernatural but as completely possible .this is how life is and what we as humans are capable of :) so glad i can relate to this, let the learning continue, meditation later on tonight :)

Continue: got home at 02:30 BUT! I meditated.  Had wanted to buy incense but had no time so just got a lighter for my candle. It was a beautiful experience,  so silent I could hear the candle fire, and align my vibrations/thoughts to it. I really enjoyed it, much better than the previous attempt.

Day 3: It keeps getting better hey, i made a huge realization: all this time i have been consciously breathing, but actually i am supposed to be Watching my breath, and it was just such a huge realization that i made. The body doesn't need us and our consciousness to breath, it can breath without us!, so when we just silently watch out breath we realize that there is something separate from this physical body, something that inhabits it, or that animates it. the body is just a vessel, that is guided my nature, it is not who we are, but rather what we are in this dimension of reality(Breath of Life).

Day 4 : Enjoying my meditations a lot more now, and early morning meditations (03:00-04:00) are AMAZING, there is just so much silence and stillness around, it is extremely conducive :)

Day 5: went to a 'Buddhist temple' today, he spoke about 'anger and patience' it was a nice message, although it could have been executed much much better. Either way the meditation was great :) i'm learning a whole lot more each day.

Day 6: was tired but i meditated :) trying to make it a habit.

Day 7: Listening to Wayne Dyer again, and his talks on meditation and giving up time to live in silence.beautiful.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
16/10/2013 12:51 pm - K i've been so busy that i cannot write every time that i have a young session. :/
BUT! i do feel that chanting is much easier for me, i enjoy it a lot more and i can calm my mind much easier.
The Krishna mantra is the future, i wish i had some sort of scientific evidence that proves its effects. The words, the music, they just move me. So that is the tip i have been on. I also have silent sessions as they too are very valuable and effective. I must say that i feel much better now, with these frequent meditation sessions. In silence we hear everything.

resources http://www.meditationcapetown.org/
http://nz.srichinmoycentre.org/meditation

Thoughts (updated continuosly)

1. Funny how we seek to be valued by everyone else, but our self. This intrinsic human desire to be accepted in society is quite extreme.
2. It's not that i am trying to figure out life,  i just cannot believe in that which i cannot make sense of...
3. The strict monotheists might shutdown the open minded polytheists, but when you look at the multitude of colours in the colour spectrum and understand that it all comes from white light.... you tend to see both views...and maybe that is where the pantheist steps into the picture...?

3. One light...many representations...

4. No man can save you.
5. We are all searching for God. we just call it different things, some of us look for God in others. Some look for God in a sense of meaning or purpose. We cannot help it, as human beings we have a void deep within.
6. We have a knowing, we have an understanding. We have the universe plotted out deep within, yet we tend to look everywhere else for these answers...
7. Consciousness is a spectrum, when we go to sleep it is not that we are 'becoming unconscious' it is that we are unconscious in this physical realm but we are conscious in another dimension, this is the phenomenon that humans tend to -naively- call dreaming.

8 The Hindu holy trinity:
The Trimurti (three forms) is a concept in Hinduism in which the cosmic funcitons of creation, maintenance and destruction are personified by the forms of
1. Brahma the creator
2. Vishnu the maintainer/preserver
3.Shiva the destroyer/transformer.

These three deities have also been called the Hindu Triad or The Great Trinity, all having the sme meaning of Three in one.

9. Consciousness/Spirit has no gender.
10. You cannot get wet from the word water. -Wayne Dyer
11. Often we get confused with the WHAT that we want and the WHO that has it. We fall 'inlove' with people because of the care, love and affection that they give us. But do we actually like who they are...? I wonder...
12. All mans' miseries derive from not being able to sit quietly in a room...alone "- Blaise Pascal

My words cannot move you.

What good does it serve me to tell you i love you

especially when you do not feel the same

what is it i expect, should i not just hide it

if you never know...

then shall anything change?

For i tell you, then you know

and i know and life knows

then we go

continue

the silence remains

  

Maybe hatred

or careless
or worse yet
indifference

all these feelings you may feel

my words cannot change

So i keep it
to myself
greet me and ll smile back
my emotions for you
shall remain inside

yes in silence
i'll lose you
but i rather chose to
keep my dignity
and try salvage my pride

T4aM

Ben

Long over due

This is long over due, i actually love writing and expressing myself. The truth is that i know that i have something to say and im not sure what has made me so lazy to do this. Is it because i do not want to actually make the effort, is it because i think no one will read it..is it because my own potential is what i am actually afraid of. With time flying past me and my future staring me in the eyes, i realize that it is time that i start doing what i like doing, and stop holding myself back from life.... Because i might die before i can say that i lived. So here is to a life of thought expression....!

T4aM
BJM.