[Acting Like Godot]

Ah, Mr Freestone - you are an interesting person. Much more so than Mrs Cogan.

Originally Posted by John Freestone

I don't say that Buddhism is necessarily the be-all-and-end-all of spiritual development, or that everyone should become a buddhist. I was considering the wisdom therein and my feelings about it as I reflect on LoA. I am saying that if we accept it's central message, it is perhaps a strong challenge to IM.

I understand that you are not out to convert people to Buddhism (although personally if I had to name one thing which is the be-all-and-end-all of spiritual development, it would probably be Buddhism).

On my own point, Category 1 could be more accurately defined as the people who seriously seek spiritual growth and are no longer very interested in material things or ego satisfaction.

As for the central message of Buddhism being an "strong challenge" to IM, well, I am not so sure. You see, these are all experiential in the end. Intellectually, we may have a debate and discussion, and intellectually, we may conclude that the central message of Buddhism is superior to IM.

But it does not follow that we are thereby able to incorporate the central message of Buddhism into our lives, and begin to live it. Similarly reading a book about how to swim, does not mean that you know how to swim. First you still have to jump into the water.

Instead of Buddhism and IM being viewed as "challenges" to each other, I do see that IM could be a possible path to Buddhism (or some other set of spiritual teachings). This is for the simple reason that IM is very likely to introduce the person to an inquiry into the Meaning of It All, and as he begins to do IM, to an experiential understanding how his monkey mind shapes his reality (I'm sure you see the relevance of this, in the Buddhist context).

You may find this other old blog post of mine interesting: here I explain my view of IM and Buddhism, in the same breath. See the comment section too.

Mr Wang Says So: Mindhacker 101

However, this is slightly different from saying that we have to climb the hierarchy of needs and become prince-like first, thus giving our money-attachment a kind of increased validity - even an injunction. This seems to be closer to what you're saying, almost like wealth is a step on the way to wise living, which is a new interpretation of Buddhism to me. I agree that Buddha was looking for the answer to something like happiness, but be careful, really it is more about liberation as opposed to pleasure. It seems untenable to me that he would have attained enlightenment, known that in order to reach it he had to have been filthy rich, and then taught his disciples to transcend their desires, omitting to mention the get-rich-first bit.

I am not saying that this is the path to enlightenment, for everyone. I am saying that this could have been (or was?) what happened for Prince Siddharta.

The necessity of climbing through the hierachy of needs is not proposed by me - you know your Maslow - and furthermore it may be relevant to add that the Level 5 motivations are not necessarily of any 'spiritual' nature (although all intensely spiritual endeavours must, I think, definitely be placed at Level 5 and not at any of the lower levels).

As a matter of fact, money (and at the things that money can buy) has to go to Level 4 (excluding money for subsistence needs), but Level 4 isn't necessarily all about money either ... People may, for example, seek respect, validation, fame, recognition etc through means other than money.

I don't particularly doubt that you'll catch your monster (just be careful what you wish for?). What seems unwise to me is summoning all that energy to draw something to you that you see as having to be let go of at the next stage in your journey. The law of karma would suggest that all that practice will only make it harder to let go of.

Thank you for the warning. I am aware of the point - it comes up in Hinduism as well, in a slightly different context.

It is well-acknowledged in the ancient Indian spiritual teachings that human beings can attain all sorts of strange, paranormal powers. There are eight or nine categories of these powers (they are called "siddhis") and one of them is known as the "prakamya siddhi", which turns out to be what we in this forum call the "Law of Attraction".

Spiritual teachers like J Krishnamurti, however, warn against seeking to acquire the siddhis, for the reason that he considers them to be distractions from true spiritual growth.

But Mr Freestone, I just came out of Category 3 not too long ago. I'm really not ready to gain enlightenment yet.

I must master one siddhi at least - catch my monster, if you will - before I move on to other things. Your cool confidence that the monster does exist is encouraging; but let me catch it first, take my photographs and make friends with it; then I shall set it free back into the Loch Ness.