Sorry! can't stop myself posting this and the last one from the skeptic; The cause of all sorrow lies at the very beginning; it is hidden in the ignorance from which life grows. Remove ignorance and you will destroy the wrong desires that rise from ignorance; destroy these desires and you will wipe out the wrong perception that rises from them. Destroy wrong perception and there is an end of errors in individualized beings. Destroy the errors in individualized beings and the illusions of the six fields will disappear. Destroy illusions and the contact with things will cease to beget misconception. Destroy misconception and you do away with thirst. Destroy thirst and you will be free of all morbid cleaving. Remove the cleaving and you destroy the selfishness of selfhood. If the selfishness of selfhood is destroyed you will be above birth, old age, disease, and death, and you will escape all suffering. This is from the Enlightenment page. The red bold words are little bit confusing 'cos how can one be desireless when he's the desire to became desireless ?
Your scepticism is quite suitable. When reading this all first one might think that this all is destructive. Most used word is to destroy and these are orders / active instructions. IMHO the way it is written there is not really a easily accessible meaning it in. Anyway I post my thoughts about. First I want to say that the way how it is written is a kind of rhetoric, which is often used to galvanize. You know the expression perfectly happy. We can say when there is no more desire / are no wishes then one is happy / contented. The desire to become desireless seems paradoxical. It is the same paradox as to instruct somebody to think about nothing. Both are related, because the desire for an object happens in one's mind. There are a bunch of different desires to a bunch of objects. First there must be an active action to get rid of those desires. (Which is also a desire). The first goal is simply to reduce them. The final resolution of this paradox ends in self-awareness. The answer of the question Who am I? And to whom arises the desire. There is one (the idea of 'I') who has desires. Why? Because 'he' thinks that something is missing, he desires. So it's the feeling to be incomplete in some way that causes the desire. The feeling to be apart. The desire will end if one has realized his true nature, which is all in one. So there can't be somebody who is missing something. When able to recognize 'ones' true being in everything then there will be no more desire. There is written of ignorance, which I call nescience. This ignorance of the real identity is responsible for desires. When the ignorance vanishes then 'one' is desireless. Active start in mind starts always with to desire, yes. So in meditation to get rid of thoughts it starts with the idea to get rid of thoughts, which is also a thought. This thought should keep away other thoughts until the last vanished. So it's with desire. The desire / active action to become desireless lasts until there is no more desire (no one apart). Both end in Self-awareness, which is named Enlightenment. So I'd say it is the meaning of it.
The key as I see it is to BE, not to desire to be something. Of course you will make some mistakes, but you those must not set you off your path. @sid_16:Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense. - Buddha said that and it one of my favorite quote.
Believing nothing other than what agrees with your own reason and commonsense will lead to a mad, mad world !
As long as one doesn't know who one really is, yes. And hence the search for what to believe has to continue and will end when it agrees with one's own reason and one's own common sense. Then there is peace.
"Just look at us. Everything is backwards; everything is upside down.Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, governments destroy freedom, the major media destroy information and religions destroy spirituality." by Michael Ellner. Why is this happening? It's because the humans don't really know themselves, just like Yen said. "Most people are other people.Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation." by Oscar Wilde. "Reality is an illusion, albeit a persistent one." By Albert Einstein. A neurologist who suffered a stroke and what she discovered: http://mystrokeofinsight.com/ @sid_16: I suggest you to see: DAVID ICKE - BEYOND THE CUTTING EDGE. Maybe you'll find some of your answers there.
That's a very pessimistic view of everything, remember the cup is either half full or half empty, I prefer it half full.
I'm trying to put this in "real terms". For me is useless, 'cause I know this is just an illusion. I am not my thoughts, nor my body, nor my profession. These are just tools for the discovery of SELF (Oh, boy! Here we go again ). I am at peace with mySELF and with the world. LOVE IS EVERYTHING, the rest, just an illusion of a struggling mind.
Michael Ellner tried to express something.(quote). It is indeed one-sided and also made to galvanize. I personally don't like the quote very much. I don't like it, because I think this quote has not much power to address one's mind to get another POW, hence it's not inspiring. We have here the word 'to destroy' again. Health, justice, knowledge, freedom, information, spirituality. These are ideas of the mind. And these are propagated by the corresponding people / institutions. And the idea that they are destroyed is also a OWN idea. So why do I complain about that those are destroyed when it's 'me' that has these ideas of destruction? There is a meaning of them which has a place in our Duality / illusionary world. The quote addresses mainly objects which usually seem to be outside. So to recognize that one doesn't know who he is, one needs not to find something wrong 'outside'. Why to look at the doctors, lawyers, universities, governments, media, religions? To deny own responsibility? To fool the Self? Michael Ellner should not care about 'his' world, he should start to get who he really is. Then there are no institutions who could have destroyed something. And finally again: Why is this happening? It's because he don't really know himself. To understand it by the intellect is the first step, to live it the next and the final is to live it permanently. To live it permanently means ever to remain the Self without a distracting mind. "That's a very pessimistic view of everything, remember the cup is either half full or half empty, I prefer it half full." To be optimistic or to be pessimistic both have the same value (it's one and the same cup of water), because it are ideas. So I thought is the meaning of the quote. Also the illusionary character of it. (2 realities of one cup). To see the cup as it is, it simply IS (without own meaning) is the right way.
When I think of all the despots that have been or will be I think of ego gone wild.. There is a despot in my own mind that intends to kill who I really am because it's reign of power is threatened by the mere presence of the truth of my being Self.. It is like a cartoon for me and whose Kryptonite is the Self.. When the truth of who I am is unveiled I am with no context or need of some elevated descriptor that sets me apart ..
a nice way to describe it, I like. Some say that what one's really is, is simply being, or the Reality is just to be. And we say it's the mind that distracts us from our real being which most call the Self. Why do we say so? Mind game: Who are you? I am Yen, Chemical engineer. No that's not what I have meant, Chemical engineer is an object, I mean you, the subject. OK, I am human I am a creature on earth. No, these are also objects, who are you really? Ahh, I see. I am consciousness. No, consciousness is an object who are you? Doh! I am the Self, haha! No, the Self is also an object. Who says I am the Self? Are there two selves??? Who are you??? Yen stops to answer since it makes no sense, Yen starts to simply be. 'I am' is the Reality. That's also the reason why some say the Reality is there where no question arises. Pure being.