The Game

The Traveler,

Have you ever read the oldie but goodie by Florence Scovel Shin ? Loved that book. Thanks for the post will look now. Love these kind of posts.

Don't believe so. What's the name of it?

:man333:

still staring into the abyss here

Last Edited by the_traveler on 10/08/2009 04:56 PM

"The Game of Life and How to Play It" by Florence Scovell Shinn.

"Most people consider life a battle -- but it is not a battle, it is a game.

It is a game, however, which cannot be played successfully without the knowledge of spiritual law, and the Old and the New Testaments give the rules of the game with wonderful clearness."

Florence Scovell Shinn



One of the first I ever read .

[link to www.spiritsite.com]

tyvm! I'll certainly check it out!

makes so much sense now, thnx trav

Welcome. :)

GLP in a nutshell.

The Game? You all just lost it.

more please

my turn

[link to www.youtube.com]

don't forget to push:

up,up,left,right,up,down,down,x,b,x,x,a

Shapeshifting towards a
New Cosmology
[link to www.ceptualinstitute.com]

[link to www.etymonline.com]
cosmic
1649, see cosmos. Originally "of this world;" sense of "of the universe" is from 1874.


plasma
1712, "form, shape" (earlier plasm, 1620), from L.L. plasma, from Gk. plasma "something molded or created," from plassein "to mold," originally "to spread thin," from PIE *plath-yein, from base *pele- "flat, to spread" (see plane (1)). Sense of "liquid part of blood" is from 1845; that of "ionized gas" is 1928.

platform
1550, "plan of action, scheme, design," from M.Fr. plate-forme, lit. "flat form," from O.Fr. plate "flat" (see plat) + forme "form" (see form). The literal sense of "raised, level surface" is first recorded 1560. Political meaning, "statement of party policies," is from 1803, probably originally an image of a lit. platform on which politicians gather, stand, and make their appeals, perhaps influenced by earlier sense of "set of rules governing church doctrine" (first attested 1573). Railroad station sense is from 1838.

cosmos
c.1200 (but not popular until 1848, as a translation of Humboldt's Kosmos), from Gk. kosmos "orderly arrangement" (cf. Homeric kosmeo, used of the act of marshaling troops), with an important secondary sense of "ornament, decoration, dress." Pythagoras is said to have been the first to apply this word to "the universe," perhaps originally meaning "the starry firmament," but later it was extended to the whole physical world, including the earth. For specific reference to "the world of people," the classical phrase was he oikoumene (ge) "the inhabited (earth)." Septuagint uses both kosmos and oikoumene. Kosmos also was used in Christian religious writing with a sense of "worldly life, this world (as opposed to the afterlife)," but the more frequent word for this was aion, lit. "lifetime, age." Cosmology is from 1656; cosmonaut is 1959, Anglicization of Rus.

[link to www.hinduism.co.za]

Kosas – Sheaths (Pancha-kosas)
From ‘Vedanta Treatise’
By Sri A. Parthasarthy
Vedanta Life Institute, Mumbai.

The structure of man can be divided into five material layers enveloping Atman (indwelling soul). Atman is the core of your personality. It is represented by the mystic symbol of AUM (pronounced OM). The five layers of matter are like five concentric circles around the symbol. They are called sheaths or KOSAS in Sanskrit. The five sheaths (pancha-kosas) are:

Food sheath (Anna-maya kosa)
Vital-Air sheath (Prana-maya kosa)
Mental sheath (Mana-maya kosa)/li>
Intellectual sheath (Vignana-maya kosa)
Bliss sheath (Ananda-maya kosa)
Food sheath
Food sheath is the physical body. The five organs of perception and the five organs of action are a part of it. It is called food sheath because it is caused by food, maintained by food; and finally ends up as food.

Vital-Air sheath
There are five faculties functioning within you. They correspond to the five physiological functions. They are called the five Pranas. Together they constitute the vital-air sheath. They have been given that name because they are related directly to air you breathe.

Faculty of perception (prana): is the functioning of the five senses as seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching.
Faculty of excretion (apana): throws out, evacuates
excreta of the body such as faeces, urine, sperms, sputum, perspiration etc.
Faculty of digestion (samana): digests food received by the stomach.
Faculty of circulation (vyana); distributes digested food to different parts of the body through blood stream.
Faculty of thought-absorption (udana): takes in fresh knowledge.
These five faculties (pranas) are sharp and clear when you are young. As you get older the pranas lose their strength and vitality. That explains why a ripe old man can hardly see, hear etc. His faculties of excretion, digestion and circulation become very weak. His capacity to absorb and accept new thoughts and ideas is reduced to the bare minimum.

Vital-Air sheath is subtler than food sheath. It controls the food sheath. When your pranas function properly your physical body remains healthy and strong. And when they slacken and work inefficiently the body is adversely affected.

Mental sheath
The mental sheath is the mind. Mind consists of passions and emotions, feelings and impulses. It is full of likes and dislikes. Mental-sheath controls vital-air and food sheaths. For instance, when the mind is disturbed, the physiological functions (pranas) and the physical body are affected.

Intellectual sheath
Intellectual sheath is the intellect. It functions as thinking, reflecting, reasoning, discriminating, judging, etc. It analyses and distinguishes between pairs of opposites. It controls the above three sheaths.

Bliss sheath
Bliss sheath consists of Vasanas alone. When you are in deep sleep i.e. dreamless sleep you are in bliss sheath. When you cross the bliss sheath and move to other sheaths you experience the dream and waking states of consciousness. Vasanas are therefore unmanifest in deep sleep while they are manifest in the form of thought in the dream and actions in the waking state. Consequently you experience mental agitations, be they great or small, as long as you remain in dream and waking states. When however you enter the state of deep sleep all your mental agitations cease and you experience undisturbed peace and bliss. Hence it is that this sheath is called bliss sheath. But the bliss experienced in deep sleep is relative. It is not to be confused with the absolute bliss of Self-realisation.

The five sheaths enumerated above may also be classified under three different headings viz. gross body, subtle body and causal body. Food sheath and the gross portion of vital-air sheath together constitute the gross body. The subtle portion of vital-air sheath combined with mental and intellectual sheaths form the subtle body. While the gross body is made up of gross matter, the subtle body is constituted of passions, desires, emotions, feelings and thoughts. Bliss sheath is the causal body consisting of Vasanas alone.

Your causal body is the storehouse of all your impressions and latent energies in you, all your Vasanas. When this hidden material in the causal body expresses itself as feelings and thoughts it takes the form of your subtle body. The same material works out as perceptions and actions in the gross body. Let the causal body be instilled with the suggestion of health, the subtle body will entertain thoughts of health and the gross body is bound to be healthy. Let the causal body be saturated with the suggestion of godhead, the subtle body will revel in the thought of godhead, the man is bound to be godly. A man is the architect of his own personality inasmuch as it is his own causal body that is responsible for his behaviour, movements and environments.

The substratum of your causal, subtle and gross bodies is your real Self.

___________________

Upanishads in Story and Dialogue

Reproduced from Page
Stories and Episodes (33)

The Five Sheaths
Taittiriya Upanishad
Paraphrased- simplified- abridged
By R.R.Diwakar

[The spirit is, as it were, encased in five sheaths (koshas), one within the other. We first come across the gross material sheath, and then go deeper to more subtle sheaths, the last being the sheath of joy or bliss. This teaching occurs in the Taittiriya Upanishad and forms the subject of a conversation between Varuna and his son.]

Bhrgu was the son of Varuna. He once approached his father and said: “Father, impart to me the spiritual knowledge you possess.”

The father said, "Matter, vital airs, eyes, ears, mind, and speech are the things that you daily come across. You must now know that Reality from which all these things issue and live, towards which all these move and in which they finally merge. That is the Brahman. You can know him by tapas or concentration and meditation.”

The son obeyed the father and after some meditation came to the conclusion that gross matter itself is the Brahman. He went and told his father so. But the father was not at all satisfied with his son’s findings and he exhorted him to go again and perform more tapas. “Meditation alone will give you real insight,” said the father.

Then the son went away and began to meditate further.

Next he realized that Prana or the vital power was Brahman and that it was out of Prana that things took their birth and into Prana they finally merged. Prana indeed is the life giving principle.

But that too was not a satisfactory conclusion. His father asked him to go into meditation again. He then found that the mind or the psychic plane was the thing from which all manifestation emerged and merged again into it at the end. It was subtler than gross matter and prana and could pervade both of them.

He reported this experience to his father. But the father sent him back again with the old advice to perform more tapas.

Bhrgu again meditated and found that the power of understanding (vijnana) was the thing from which all things issued and towards which all things moved. But the father was not satisfied and repeated his advice to his son.

The son again meditated and finally came to the conclusion that bliss or pure joy was Brahman (Supreme Spirit)- the source and the goal of all creation. All the beings are verily born in bliss, they exist by the power of bliss, and they all move towards bliss and into bliss they all merge in the end.

When Bhrgu told his father about this conclusion of his, he was overjoyed and said, “Dear child, this indeed is the highest term of existence. All these five sheaths are there, one more subtle than the other, but the finest and the subtlest is bliss eternal. These are not mutually exclusive. They are inter-penetrating. But the basis of all is bliss, the bliss of Brahman, pure spiritual happiness. He who knows this and realizes it goes beyond all sorrow and death.”

This is known as the Bhargavi Varuni Vidya.

=================

Related articles
Nature of Man

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The Nature of Man
according to Hinduism


...The relation between the real and apparent men has been beautifully described through an allegory in the Katha Upanishad:

Know the soul to be the master of the chariot and the body the chariot. Consider the intellect the charioteer, and the mind the reins. The senses, they say, are the horses, and their roads are the sense objects. The wise call Him the enjoyer when He is united with the body, senses and mind.

Real and apparent man

The Hindus have further elaborated this concept by stating that the real man or Atman is conscious, ever free, blissful and immortal. The apparent man consists of five sheaths which cover the soul or atman. These are (1) the physical body or the physical sheath, (2) the vital sheath or the sheath life-force, (3) the mental sheath, (4) the ego sheath, and (5) the Blissful sheath. According to another concept, the real man or the conscious soul or Atman has three bodies: (1) the gross physical body, (2) the subtle mental body and (3) the causal body which is made up of pure ignorance. At the time of death, the physical body dies, but the subtle mental body and the causal body remain and together with the conscious soul or real man, transmigrate to another physical body to be born again.

When we are awake, the gross physical body is active. In sleep, when we are dreaming, the physical body is inactive, but the mental body is active. But when we go into deep sleep and do not even see dreams, at that time even the mental body is not active and only the causal body in the form of ignorance remains covering the pure soul or Atman.

Western and Hindu concepts compared
From the above resume it would be evident that the Hindu concepts of the nature of man, his destiny and his drives are far more comprehensive and vastly superior to the western ones. For western thinkers man is either an animal or a machine. Hindus on the other hand believe that he is essentially divine. Secondly, whereas western savants have postulated only three ultimate goals for man, viz. sensual enjoyment (kama), acquisition of earthly riches (artha), and fulfilment of social obligations (dharma), the Indian philosophers have postulated a fourth and final goal: liberation (moksha), the state of fullest manifestation of innate divinity and perfection. Thirdly, whereas Freud thinks that man must satisfy his passions to remain whole and healthy, Marx states that man cannot truly be a man unless he actively relates with others. Swami Vivekananda, however, says that 'man is man so long as he is struggling to rise above nature', both internal and external. Finally, western philosophers say that man's evolution is governed by drives and instincts. But the Hindu sages say that man's innate perfection is constantly trying to manifest itself and every effort on our part simply acts as a remover of barriers to its manifestation.

Implications of the concept of divinity of man
Swami Vivekananda laid the greatest stress, in his message, on the divinity of man because he knew men are divine, and since truth liberates, the only way to be free was to perceive the truth of one's divinity.
.... [link to www.hinduism.co.za]

The Game --- the conscious concept

Closed concept: Facts, Discussion Forum, and Encyclopedia Article - [ - ]A closed concept is a concept where all the necessary and sufficient conditions ... More on open and closed concepts; - A guide to the usage and application ...
www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Closed_concept - 12k - In cache -

Open and Closed Concepts and the Continuum Fallacy - [ Vertaal deze pagina ]It’s important to realize that open concepts are normal and
can’t define them as precisely as we can define closed concepts. ...
instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/open_and_closed_concepts1.htm - 12k -

“Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.”
~Albert Einstein



“Ignorance gives one a large range of probabilities.”~George Eliot

We have ALL knowledge within our being.
Inspiration unlocks the doors of
knowledge. All knowledge being universal
exists inside our being.

Genius awaits him who listens. The messages
are from YOUR inner mind alone.

The greater our imagination the greater the
understanding of universal existance.


now for the bad news......

those who do not have ears to hear
will always crucify the genius.


WE ARE HOLY

See, this sort of nonsense is why I think people ought to be made to get a licence to speak English.

Thanks Trav! Way cool!

Finally actually sat and watched the video.



lol @ it being a year later!

Last Edited by Only Me on 02/27/2010 02:52 PM

Where Are You?

bump

come back btw

LOL unlimitted lives!!!!!up up down down left right left right B A select start!!!!