Be Here Now: the greatest spiritual text of all time

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A human being is only as good as his mental capabilities.

That's Nazi mentality. The bitter irony here is that had you lived in 1940s Germany, they would have systematically slaughtered you along with the other ret*ds, homosexuals, and cripples. Nice douchebaggery.

Cute argumentum ad Hitlerum

The Third Reich is only an example of why we should hold our behavior to a higher standard

It's time to throw out hatred and much more besides

Hmmm, not quite sure, perhaps.
Among all, I would give the medal of honor to AG to be honest.

Last edited by greenblue on 19 Sep 2008, 7:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Perhaps what I said was a bit harshly general, but please don't take it out of context. I was simply reacting to what I saw as a rather hurtful statement towards someone I admire on this forum (i.e. you saying Chever was dead inside, and not human), so I didn't really think about it. But anyway, my point was, we, as human beings, have built our world and rationalized our morals through our own sense of logic or reasoning. I don't believe in spiritual guidance or divine influence; I just think it's us humans with our own minds.

I've got a bit of a Randian streak perhaps, but certainly not "Nazi."

Last edited by Phagocyte on 19 Sep 2008, 7:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Perhaps, but.. it seems to be one interpretation of "A human being is only as good as his mental capabilities". It is very vague, of course, doesn't look to be what is exactly the point, other than perhaps the liking of a person's posts, nevertheless a subjective form of judging human race I would assume, if not, a matter of opinion, just as the strong opposition of that argument would be. And well, considering we are in a forum of aspies and auties, then it would be reasonable that that would come to mind.

What?

Saying "A human being is only as good as him mental abilities ... and Nordic people are superior to everyone else in this area" would be Nazi. But that's not what he said. slowmutant's objection is silly, at least on that account.

well, I am certainly not agreeing with the Nazi statement or fallacy, I'm sure it wasn't meant to be, and the reply to it was rather funny, however I can see why few people would fall into the fallacy, in a matter of speaking.

Regardless, what we should all take away from this is "I'm not a f*****g Nazi."

Of course not! sorry if I made you feel like being accused of that or something like that
and well, slowmutant seem to have come up with statements more "politically incorrect" in other forums and threads, it seems.

Remember: emphatically denying that you are a Nazi really means that you are a Nazi

I suspect truly spiritually enlightened beings are publicity hounds. You will find all you need to live a rich spiritual life within yourself.

What you said is a contradiction. You meant "I suspect people who APPEAR TO BE truly enlightened spiritual beings are publicity hounds" because a truly enlightened spiritual being would not be a publicity hound. Unless, of course, you happen to believe that man reaches his greatest potential and is closest to God when acting as a publicity hound, but this seems rather ridiculous

Anyway, many "spiritually enlightened" people are publicity hounds. But if you learn more about Maharaji - such as the fact that he went out of his way to avoid too much attention by staying on the move constantly throughout his life, always disappearing at a moment's notice, and the fact that he never wanted to be filmed and only allowed a book to be written about him a couple of years before he died, I think you would find your suspicions unfounded in this case. The man's only possession was a blanket... I really don't think being famous was his goal.

As for the rather hilarious cold heart/dead heart/Nazi argument that happened, I think I agree more with slowmutant, although he could have expressed his views more effectively if he had taken a less tersely offensive route. While it is true that humanity's technology is far outpacing its spiritual/emotional development, that seems to me much more an argument that more spiritual development is precisely what we must HAVE if we are to survive, not that it should be abandoned in favor of science and logic. Nukes + spiritually bankrupt culture = death. We already have nukes, so we better start working on our hearts...

Spiritually enlightened beings don't need to be publicity hounds. The "publicity" comes to them naturally.

Of course. Seeing the sacred as outside or beyond yourself is a stage of the path - one that perhaps we're all ultimately intended to go beyond, but something that many of us, for now, appear to need. Hinduism acknowledges this - loving devotion to a god-form or guru is a recognized branch of yoga, bhakti - which is perhaps why the kind of following gurus get in the East looks disturbing to us, because we have no tradition of it.

An enlightened soul, though, doesn't take the 'worship' at all seriously because he or she is forever pointing the followers to the Divine in themselves. Their own personality has been transcended, so shouldn't come into it. (There are clues to the fact that this is also the case in the Gospels. Jesus tells his followers to seek the Kingdom within, tells them to call nobody but God 'Father', tells them they can do whatever he can do if they have enough faith...and spends a lot of time trying to escape the crowds.)

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the whole guru thing is the way the New Age in the West has taken it on. Spirituality has collided head-on with the whole Hollywood mentality, so you get speakers and authors who are in danger of believing their PR people and disappearing up their own ashrams. The sad thing is, some of these people have basically good insights, but it all gets lost in the personality cult that develops round them.

All good points above.