It is heartening to see that established, credible media is now seeing the reality of what we set out to accomplish six years ago and suggested we had accomplished a year ago.
On 10 February 2014 we posted Miscavige’s Obsession With the Rathbuns.
On 24 February 2015 the New York Times posted Scientology’s Chilling Effect.
Moving On Up a Little Higher 
Oops, Marty, I get exactly what you’re saying here but you got your dates transposed, I think!
Quite an accomplishment and my congratulations Marty.
A few “defrogged apostates on the fringe of the Internet” throwing rocks in the gears of a major criminal harrassment machine and degrading it to a level that it is no more a like a snarling barking mad dog behind a fence in a kennel.
You stood in the first row when there was a price to be paid for this work.
I sincerely appreciate what you did and the shit you had to put up with for all those years and hope there is light at the end of the tunnel now.
Thank You.
DM,
Your contribution to mankind’s understanding of this universe will be as a contemporary example of a sociopath who latched onto cult of hypocracy, greed and intimidation, and drove it into the mud. Your criminality and inhumanity will be in the plain view of those who look.
Thanks – fixed.
I think I got a glimpse of the church of scientology’s karma today and suddenly felt it wasn’t something I wanted to watch until the end.
Karma uses lawyers.
Thank you, Marty, for everything you have done to get us this far. Thank you, Mosey, for being his rock.
I believed this day would come. Was not sure if it would be in my lifetime. It is the beginning…:)
Yes, Marty. I laud your accomplishment.
That mafialike fear that Scientology has generated in the hearts of media is no longer effective. That means IRS should be reviewing its past decision.
Touche’
Good job! Thank you, Mark.
Many, many VVWDs to you and a whole lot more atta boys! Thanks Marty, Mike and all apostates everywhere. Every time the cult touches a life there is a bitter aftertaste. Fortunately, it goes away when one takes one’s life back and defrocks.
+many.
Mark
Thanks for starting an avalanche Marty. Also hats off to Anonymous, Mike and all those who have stood up to tyranny and misuse of religion.
This has just begun. The dark deceptive cloak of corporate slight of hand that Hubbard taught his disciples the art of, is and will be being pulled back, revealing the devious mental state state of its founder.
This depraved church must and will be stopped.
I am still looking for a Going Clear open house in LA.
Anyone want to invite the bitterest of bitter defrocked apostates?
I will bring beer:-)
Agree, I still think here and there of old friends and comrades I shared time with for over 20 years; all good, caring individuals. Many have suffered the abuses perpetrated by a system where caring for another was not part of the equation.
Invaluable contribution has come from this blog with numerous postings that made me, and others, look at what was the real scene.
Scn closed itself to the world behind a pretended position of ‘we are here to help, to make a better world’, they cut of communication with not only the rest of the world, but with its own members plus with the riddance of intelligent, able individuals which were there to really help others. All this has led to a shrinkage of members.
Scn, its leaders and minions are not being attacked- we have been simply exposing the truth about the crimes and abuses well known by many. Some had, and still do have the courage to stand up and say ‘no more’ and the media is making the general public see how things really are.
About time. And thank you again Marty.
They still have a few teeth but mostly a paper tiger. Marty you have huge Kahoonas the way you have dealt with them,I like your style.
More truth revealed………..
Thanks Marty..
You threw him the heat, Ralphie. Three strikes down the heart of the plate. No way the bozo could touch your high hard one.. If it isn’t the final out, there ain’t too many innings left. And with the score as one sided as it is now, no way the Cults are gonna make it out’a the cellar.
Message me on FaceBook regarding ‘Going Clear’ in LA. I know a party 🙂
Once the Church is stopped, the the next target should be the greed of Corporate America, which this Church has highlighted.
Will do Gerhard, thanks 🙂
There is a beautiful irony in the fact that once upon a time you were a part of the machine that so ably cowed, silenced and harassed journalists. Then one day you got on your motorcycle and escaped. Now you lead the charge that has led thousands to the truth, helped shine the light on the abuses and ensured they have been covered and documented like never before in the media and the courts.
Twenty years ago the beleaguered critics, ex-members and brave journalists may have never believed this day would come, but if they did they would have NEVER believed the fearsome duo of Rathbun and Rinder would be two of the key men responsible for it The prediction that the internet would be Scientology’s Vietnam has panned out. (But now I think it might be more apt to describe it as its Waterloo thanks to ex-Execs like you.)
It’s enough to make even the most cynical heart cheer.
Unfortunate as it may be Michael, that cellar has a lot of money. All the witch f*k has to do is sit idle (morgue) stupid and call off his flying monkeys for a few years and maybe come up with a GAT Policy reform. He won’t do that, because that would be smart and he simply cannot sit idle by and let his pet monkeys, and their pet monkeys, run the show.
The morass remains as complicated as ever.
I forgot to say he could also make whole a whole lotta law suits and then remain idle. Then it actually might work to save the Church, not to give him any ideas, and not that he has any intention of salvaging the original.
In 300 years, all this will be nothing more than an uninteresting blip on some 3D coffee table.
In 2000 years… well, who knows.
Contrary to reports in the wog media, we in the Church of Scientology are not becoming toothless. Rather, we are too busy these days de-PTS’ing and sec-checking the entire Church following the damage caused by the hidden Psychs at Flag who crashed the stats following COB’s launch of GAT II.
I hope this will give you much satisfaction.
I cannot imagine what you have had to bear in and outside scientology.
Hopefully it has come to an end and you and your family can enjoy your lives in freedom.
Talk about being ahead of his time.
Here’s what Richard Behar wrote in 1991, almost a quarter of a century ago !
“hugely profitable global racket that survives by intimidating members and critics in a Mafia-like manner.”
Same tactics, Same Mafia like thuggery as 25 years ago, the only difference is ex-members report it all with lightening speed and we now have Google, YouTube, Twitter, Message Boards, and willing documentarians, willing journalists and willing authors
Congrats again Marty and Mosey. You’ve shown a lot of courage and have helped so many!
Quick question. Do u prefer Marty or Mark ? Thanks…
Mark —
Many thanks for 1) escaping 2) gathering yourself together — also called de-compressing 3) finding a wonderful life partner to help weather storms 4) speaking out LOUDLY 2009 – continuing to speak out REGARDLESS of pressure to do otherwise
And all the while transforming yourself and helping others to do the same.
YOU have been one of my biggest sources of inspiration and one of my best mentors.
You have remained courageous, curious and discreet …
And someone I will always call my friend.
Love,
Windhorse
Dear Mr. Rathbun,
Could you please post where (country/bank) the international reserves of the Church of Scientology are being held?
One should assume that you know about these important details?
Thanks to EVERY single person who stood up from the shadows and spoke out, here, on Mikes blog, on ESMB and commented on articles as they appeared on the net, including the Tampa Bay Times. Every person voice counts. This is a HUGE win.
Isn’t it funny that such a simple communication can come across so creepy?
There’s no going back now for the CO$. I can really feel now what I could only believe before, that their end is inevitable and not too far off. Suddenly this game got a LOT more fun.
When you came to the UK for the second Panorama program you told me
in our pub meet that you were going to draw the fire of the cult and that this would benefit the Indies/FZ. You did far more than that. Perhaps one day a “Freedom Medal” or equivalent will come your way. It would be well
deserved 🙂
It must be somebody who successfully completed Scientology’s Communication Course.
Don’t think it’s necessary for Mr. Rathbun to keep track of such trivial details when the CIA has a close watch on all of dave’s accounts
Now, with the press crouching like tigers ready to lunge, governments are demanding dave’s financials.
A financial reckoning is imminent.
Marty, thanks for your work to put an end to the church bullying and their harm to many. I think you are the anvil that breaks all church of scientology hammers. I’ve read all your posts since 2009 and your three books and it has all been helpful to me. I hope you and your family are getting to do some fishing occasionally.
Let’s stick with this one goal. No need to lose focus.
Great job Marty, Mike, Mosey, Karen, Jeffrey and all of you who are dauntless, defiant, resolute!
You have changed the game forever and we all thank you.
The Debbie Cook trial and the way the CoS ended that off changed absolutely EVERYTHING. It is now quite clear to everyone that the one thing that scares the shit out of the CoS more than anything else is to have an actual courtroom trial with wirnesses under oath, cross examinations, depositions, documents and subpoenas. No one has to fear this kind of legal action again. It is now the CoS that fears the legal actions.
Roger…..I believe you meant to say cojones.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cojones
Switzerland, UBS account number #18920121223-1
I’ll take 10% finder’s fee, please.
Yay Marty and Mosey! Like water dripping on sandstone the church of crazy is being worn away.
Not to mention the 4th Invader Force. Let’s not forget them for goodness sakes.
Without Ron we would never have known about the 4th Invader Force.
Every night I am on my roof with my weapons waiting for those bastards.
BTW, I think all X Scientologists and Indies should download Lucifer’s Bridge by our own Goerge M White (not his actual name). It’s under $3.00 to download.
This first hand account of Ron being Lucifer on the OT 8 materials is a stake in the heart of Ron apologists who decry this version of OT8 as false.
Making LRH yet stranger than apologists can keep up with.
Yet another lie in the never ending lies that are holy sacrament for Ron’s disciples. “Ron did not write this OT8. It doesn’t sound like him”
Oh yeah, Marcabs, Farsec etc sounds like him, but not being Lucifer LOL!!
No, Ron would never write like that!
Inquiry, in the now famous video interview with Hubbard “The Shrinking World Of L Ron Hubbard” he acknowledges there are off shore accounts. He lies about the amount saying it’s little (sure, not that much, pocket change)
Al/Kate Bornstein in her book chronicles personally carrying suit cases or briefcases of cash into banks in Liechtenstein for Hubbard.
Maybe one of these days other folks will come to the surface and have the balls to reveal the same.
Interesting post. These “hidden Psychs” surely that is bad news and it was my understanding that “when imparting bad news it was important not to use generalities. Who are these hidden Psychs? Without names being named it makes it unsafe for everyone.
Regards
Pip
I love you
“Scientology Losing Its Teeth”
Marty if your son gets older I insist that at some point you show him the movie Labyrinth by Jim Hensen.
And of course I have nothing to say about that.
CIA does not care.
would be the FBI
FBI does not care
Sup ?
I believe Pip that OT 8 is Great is simply making poetic license with Ron’s delusions.
We don’t know all their names Pip, but we know they come from Farsec, were friends with Xenu, create rose perfume as mind control and all are criminals.
These generalities are true. They must be. It’s in writing 🙂
Is it really at all possible to generalize on things that do not exist?
In the imaginary world of mystical delusions, yes.
Thanks, Brian.
My original birth name is George Witek. In 1987, after OT VII, I changed it
to White. Well, no identity required, everything blown, pure theta etc. LOL
I thought it would be fitting to use my original name to write the book.
Much Metta,
GMW
Hey George, I am happy to promote it. I am also glad to have been part of that thread a while back that brought it up.
I hope it sells well. Thanks for being a reminder of the Buddha for us. Such a great one.
Namaste and Much Metta,
Brian 🙂
Download the book or buy it
Yup! Just like the belief in an eternal thetan, or in an immortal soul.
I am not taking the bait Vinaji LOL
I know you don’t want to answer this question, just like Scientologists do not want to answer the question about Xenu.
It is the same phenomenon. LOL!
Well Marty, all I can say is that thanks to you and a lot of people who risked their lives to expose this repulsive cult, things are getting better.
Scientologists have painted themselves into a tiny corner, from which they cannot escape. At least not if they cling to Hubbard’s messianic goals and his view of reality.
That corner puts the Religion of Scientology at par with the most virulent, intolerant RELIGION on the planet.
And all the spin from the Stupidologists, is not going to change the facts that Charlie Abedo, was killed by religious extremists, and no, France is not “Nazi”, and yes, Scientology is being conducting a JIHAD against the non-believers for sixty years following the scriptures of Ron-Lucifer .
Now, here is how to conduct fair game the right way, Ron was a pantywaist dilettante:
“U.S. Hindu Blogger Avijit Roy Killed in Bangladesh”
http://www.indiawest.com/news/global_indian/u-s-hindu-blogger-avijit-roy-killed-in-bangladesh/article_f5513a58-beb8-11e4-804e-076669999c5e.html
Je suis Avijit
I am very sad at what happened to Avijit.
And just like Scientologists you twist the truth. I have dialoged with you numerous times on this subject. I have exhausted my rational argument with you. I have decided it’s just ego at this point for me to discuss it with you.
Words……………………………. so two dimensional.
BTW I just discovered, because I love Sanskrit words, that one of the various definitions of your name Vinay means: Humble
I will now not crack a joke.
When Marty’s blog started, I remember a positive shift and a new
voice. I was out over twenty years and paid little attention to Miscavige’s
crimes. It took a lot of courage for Marty to go public and so many of us
have had benefit from his decision, myself included. I was glued to the
blog when Marty’s home was invaded by the old men with cameras on
their heads.
Miscavige cannot now put out all of the fires. It is time to unmask
him and scientology for the last time.
GMW
You are dealing in blame and accusation now, like a Scientologist, I must say.
You are not a Hindu, Brian, despite your pretensions.
Brian, you are reacting the same way as a Scientologist will react to the Xenu question. This is just an observation.
Amen.
yes Sarah.
Thank you for your view Vinayji 🙂
And just to be clear Vinay, when I mention ego it is me, my ego. Because you and I have actually discussed, on this blog about soul/no soul many times it would simply be my need to be right to try to convince.
I thought we had a great discussion about soul/no soul.
I am not sure why you do not remember and claim that I am avoiding a discussion that we had. A discussion that took a lot of blogs space.
I enjoyed the discussion.
Vinay don’t you remember?
Brian, I do remember the discussion but you were arguing about the existence of souls, which was not a point of contention for me. You were simply not listening to what I was saying.
Here is my position.
(1) Soul does exist, but it is not permanent.
(2) Soul exists only in the live body. The human-centric view likes to believe that it will continue after death.
(3) After death soul disintegrates into soul “elements” just like body disintegrates into body “elements.”
(4) It is the soul “elements” that continue after death, similar to the fact that body “elements” continue after death, even as atome and molecules.
(5) Soul “elements” then get used up in the construction of new souls, similar to the fact that body “elements” get used up in the construction of new bodies.
Now I have oversimplified it above just to get the point across that souls are not permament. This is consistent with Vedas and basic Hinduism and Buddhism, though you may find many people in the East even misinterpreting the Vedas. Buddha emphasized this point because it was being misinterpreted by Hindus of his time. Buddha simply went back to the original Vedas from which Hinduism was derived.
To summarze, souls do exist, but they exist in the live body only. Souls are not permanent. Souls disintegrate when death occurs.
There are other explanations for “past life” memories in terms of genetic programming from past bits of souls and bodies.
An immortal soul or eternal thetan is as much a fiction as is Xenu.
Yes, we have had that discussion. You interpret disagree with not listening.
I heard your view. It is not mine. I am listening. I simply disagree.
Love,
Brian
Vinay.
Thank you for your thoughts and opinions. I have read all your posts and you have done a lot of work and contemplation on this subject. You have outlined and detailed your views quite well in the last few months. You have done your due diligence and I respect that above many things. Much of your work is used in mine. May our differences and agreements reach a higher truth.
Mark
They will reach a higher truth.
Oh I thought it was referring to real live human beings within the org.
Let me reiterate, Brian. The disagreement is not about whether there is a soul or not. We both agree that there is a soul.
The disagreement is about whether the soul is eternal or not. You think that a soul is eternal.
When a soul represents a person with certain configuration of abilities, it is basically an identity. So, your belief is that an identity as a soul is eternal.
I am calling that belief comparable to the belief in Xenu, because that is NOT what eastern philosophy says.
Vinay, you can go back on this blog and find the long conversation you say I am avoiding to get my response.
Falsely accusing me of avoiding a conversation, that we actually had, and associating that avoidance with folks avoidance of OT 3 has educated me to how desparately need to be right.
You have twisted the truth.
To summarize my prior argument:
1) You are ignorantly and arrogantly inaccurate regarding Vedic knowledge.
2) And at a risk of sounding arrogant myself (something not too hard for me to do 🙂 – you have theoretical data rolling around in your head with no actual realization of what you are talking about.
I will take all of this into consideration before I respond to you anymore, if I do. You are a self centered man that desparately needs to be perceived as wise.
Surrender that “I” you say we do not have. Give up the need for attention.
It will help you in your common relations.
In Truth with a hug,
Brian
Thanks Vin.
That is my understanding of your opinion.
Mark
The soul as understood in Christianity is actually an IDENTITY. An identity cannot be eternal.
Scientology makes a distinction between INDIVIDUALITY and IDENTITY in Scn 8-8008. It seems to imply that individuality is not an identity.
Nothing can be far from truth. Individuality is a part of identity.
Just look at it without any filters.
Brian, is soul permanent? Yes or no?
.
Vinayji, you can go back to prior blogs. We have already had this discussion you say I am avoiding. These are better souls to hear it from.
Krishna says:
“The learned do not grieve for the dead or for the living. Never, indeed, was there a time when I was not, nor when you were not, nor these lords of men. Never, too, will there be a time when we shall not be…He who regards him [i.e., the soul] as a salyer, and he who regards him as slain—both of them do not know the truth; for this one neither slays nor is slain. He is not born, nor does he die at any time; nor, having once come to be will be again come not to be. He is unborn, eternal, permanent, and primeval; he is not slain when the body is slain.
Baghavad Gita, Chapter 2
Sivananda says:
“The goal of men, according to the Upanishads, is realisation of Brahman. Self-realisation alone can dispel ignorance and bestow immortality, eternal bliss, and everlasting peace. Knowledge of Brahman alone can remove all sorrows, delusion and pain.”
Krishna says:
This Self is never born nor does it ever perish; nor having come into existence will it again cease to be. It is birthless, eternal, changeless, ever-same (unaffected by the usual processes associated with time). It is not slain when the body is killed.
—The Bhagavad Gita II:20
Yogananda says:
The soul, in essence the reflection of Spirit, never undergoes the pangs of birth nor the throes of death. Nor having once been projected from the womb of immortal Spirit will Prince Soul, on return to Spirit, lose its individuality; having entered the portals of nativity, its existence will never cease. In all its bodily births, the Spirit-soul never felt birth; it exists everlastingly, untouched by the maya-magic fingers of change. It is ever the same—now, past, future—as it has always been; ageless, unchanged, since its immemorial beginnings. The deathless soul dwelling in the destructible body is ever constant through all cycles of bodily disintegrations; it does not taste death even when the body quaffs that fatal cup of hemlock.
The difference between soul and Spirit is this: The Spirit is ever-existing, ever-conscious, ever-new omnipresent Joy; the soul is the individualized reflection of ever-existing, ever-conscious, ever-new Joy, confined within the body of each and every being.
Souls are the radiating rays of Spirit, individualized as formless, vibrationless “atoms” and “tissues” of Spirit. Hence, they are coexistent with Spirit and of the same essence, as the sun and its rays are one. Though incarnate, the soul belongs to the noumenal region, which changes not. All material forms belong to the regions of phenomena; their very nature being alienated from Spirit, they change constantly. Phenomena arise from and are inseparably linked with noumena; but the latter, being of Spirit, are immutable and transcendent. The outer surface of the soul’s consciousness that is cloaked with the instrumentalities of the ego, mind, and senses undergoes the permutations of Nature, but the soul’s essence remains inviolable.
Swami Krishnanada says:
Chapter 2: The Atman (soul)
This final substance is constituted of the essence of everything, and it is our very Self. It is called the Atman. It is the Atman because it is the root substance of all things which are in the position of an effect. The Atman is the substance of everyone and everything. It is the Total Substance of all created beings, and so it is called Brahman. The Total Substance is Brahman, and the same thing conceived as the essence of particular beings is known as the Atman. Even as there cannot be a cause behind the final cause, there cannot be an Atman behind the Atman, for the very basic substance is what is called the Atman. The substance should be ultimate, and the Atman is such. The ultimate in us is the Atman. The ultimate in the cosmos is Brahman. There cannot be anything other than this Universal Reality.
The Aitareya Upanishad proclaims that the Atman, in the beginning, was the all; and it has become all this universe. The concept of the universe is also a difficult thing to entertain in the mind unless we analyse the universe into its very components. The universe is manifested out of this Total Substance, Brahman, which is the Atman, or the Self, of the universe. So the total effect came out of the Total Cause. From Brahman came the universe.
Now, something coming from something else is also a difficult thing to understand. What is the procedure of the world coming out of the Ultimate Cause? What is the relationship between the effect and the cause here? There cannot, in fact, be a vital distinction between the effect and the cause. Our aspirations would be meaningless, the search for reality would be baseless, and there would be no function of thought as self-transcendence if we were not vitally connected with the cause. Every activity in the world is the effect moving towards the cause by various degrees of self-transcendence. The very presence of the moral urge to overstep ourselves to a higher cause or purpose is a proof of the fact that there is a living contact of the cause with its effect.
While the effect has come from the cause, it is not disconnected from the cause. This is one principle laid down at the very beginning itself. The universe seems to have descended in such a way that it has not isolated itself from the Absolute vitally. There is no vital disconnection between the effect and the cause. There is some sort of a relation always. There is an inscrutable relationship, ‘anirvachaniya sambandha’, between the effect and the cause. There is not an absolute identity, because there is a manifestation. It is not an absolute manifestation, because we can see our relationship with the cause. This relationship between God and man, the Creator and the universe, the Absolute and the relative, is unintelligible. This relationship is the beginning of all cosmological questions, the theories of creation and doctrines of every kind. Once creation is admitted as a fact of empirical experience, everything that devolves from it is also accepted. We are only to accept the fact of the creation of the universe, and we are made at once to accept everything else also, automatically. There is a gradual evolution by an increase in the density of manifestation at lower levels. The Absolute never loses hold of the universe.
The Atman alone was. “Atma va idam eka evagra asit, nanyat kin cana misat,” says the Aitareya Upanishad at the very commencement. The Atman existed as the unparalleled Being, and it became the cause of the manifested elements. We have the great division of the elements as ether, air, fire, water and earth, in all their densities or levels of expression. There is a causal condition, a subtle condition and a gross condition. This was manifested. But the Absolute is never disconnected from them at any time; it always maintains a lien over everything that it has created. It enters the great objects of a cosmical nature, and this is what we call the immanence of God.”
Patanjali says:
“the man of discrimination ceases to regard the mind as the Atman” soul.
I would suggest that you identify the concept and reality of the soul with mind and body as Patanjali says.. That is a materialists view of spiritual knowledge.
I can go on and on quoting the Mahabharata, Vedanta, The Vedas-particularly the Upanishads.
I hope this helps Vinayji.
Tat Tvam Asi……………… Thou Art That
Brian, those references are fine in Sanskrit but a lot being lost in translation into English here.
The word “atman” of Hinduism does not accurately translate as “soul” in English. The soul is an “identity,” whereas, atman is “absence of identity.”
The parallel is in the concept of God in Semitic religions, which has an “identity.” But Brahma in Vedic religions is “absence of identity” as shown by the formula “neti, neti.”
The difference between soul and atman is explained here.
Soul versus Atman
Good luck in your understanding of the Vedas and the eastern religions.
.
These words are now meaningless Vinaji. You can throw away any concept I have communicated as wrong knowledge I am ok with it.
But I am just being a witness to the fact for others, that Vinay, even though he is Indian, he sees Vedic info through a biased view. He even said in some recent post that the Buddha “cleared up the Vedas.”
That would make Buddha’s interpretation the one true interpretation. I am profoundly negative against “only ways.”
The Vedas are open source and I am here to tell you that the sages say the soul and the Supreme Being exists.
Not as a temporary composite of material and mental forces as Vinay says, but as an indivisible verity of pure conscious being.
And if the soul does not exist eternally than all the rest are wrong.
These are all wrong
Jesus
Saint Francis
Gandhi
Yogananda
Thomas Merton
Dr Martin Luther KIng
Rumi
The BIble
The GIta
The Koran
Emerson
Thoreau
And countless other stellars of humanity.
You see, not every Buddhist feels this way as Vinay does. The true Buddhist Masters know what is true. There is no: two different enlightenments.
In reality it is a definitional problem using language.
Sunyata, nirbana (a blowing out) is Samadhi in yoga.
This is an argument with lay people not masters.
What is perceived within when the mind and intellect melts back to it’s essential nature, makes these words just so much bullshit really lol 😉
” I have come to the mango grove to eat mangoes, not count branches”
Ramakrishna
Hugs to Vin-aire
From Bri-einstein 😉
P.S.
just like the Christians have their own doctrinal inaccuracies and fundamentalist clinging to wrong knowledge, sometimes in Buddhism there is a definitional inaccuracy with the word nirvana. There arose within the Buddhist community, at the end of Buddhist dominance in India, around 700 AD, an overly intellectual class. The problem was definitional. There arose as a result a Nihilist philosophy. The goal of life was only defined in the negative. A blowing out.
Then Sankara was born and updated India with the word Satchitananda. It defined enlightenment not by what it wasn’t but what it was.
The misunderstood comes from it’s literal meaning. It means ‘to blow out, extinguish,’ as a flame on a candle.
Nirvana is a Sanskrit word. Much more ancient than the birth of Gautama.
It means to blow out ego, to extinguish body attachment and desire. To surrender selfishness, blow out anger, hate, greed, suffering and all those crazy assed identities we get so locked up in.
It does not mean to blow out our self. You cannot blow out that which was never blown in in the first place.
The 4 gospels were written over a hundred years after the death of Christ. Some Buddhist texts like the Pali Canon was put to writing in 29 BC. That’s 400 years or so after the Buddha.
Logic and reason would dictate:
1) If the Buddha is right and there is no soul as defined by the sages, then that makes Buddha the only one to get it right.
2) that makes all, every the other prophets, saints, sages, adapts, disciples wrong.
This is an illogical and selfish conclusion and not one that fits into our developing culture of openness.
‘Only ways’ are a thing of yesteryear.
Buddha was not that. Buddha was/is one of the list I put up. Straight up!
So when Vin-voltaire says he knows all there is to know about the philosophy from the land of his birth, I am here to say, he does not.
But this argument is ancient.
Brian: He even said in some recent post that the Buddha “cleared up the Vedas.”
I never said that Brian. I don’t know what you are seeing!
.
Sorry Vinayji, I cannot find the evidence of you saying that. Please to erase that one as a thought. 🙂
A simple rounding up of the argument:
Words and philosophic doctrines do not alter the truth. This approach of soul/no soul does not in any way change what is true.
In the final analysis it is a mind and definitional problem that is only resolved by “shutting up and meditating”.
It is a procedural and definitional difference only. Truth is truth.
The rest, like this mental jousting that you and I like, is just fun. And it helps us to hone skills of interaction.
You got me going again! I said I wouldn’t. But I just could not refuse lol!
May all beings be happy and joyful and full of bliss! Even the one’s who have no self to be happy with 🙂
Tat Tvam Asi Thou Art That
Brian, you are looking through some filters to misquote me like that. I hope your meditation clears up your filters.
.
Dear Brian
Vinaire may have NOTISED what you wrote but I thought it was splendid. In fact if I had not met with Jesus I may well have become a Hindu, but then if I hadn’t met with Jesus I would still be just a Scientologist.
Love with understanding
Pip
Identity is an effect and effect can never truly be separated from cause in the same way the word INDIVIDUAL cannot be separated from the word INDIVISIBLE. MAN IS A REFLECTION OF GOD.
Love
Pip
Yes Vinayji, my faults are legion.
It is possible, that all you think you see me as, is really you, being that “I’ you say you don’t have.
I think I just hurt my brain with that!
Anyway, so what if we don’t see eye to eye. Life is beautiful.
Being understood is overrated.
I find that when I crave to be understood and crave to be seen as wise I somehow find myself at odds with others. Somehow, something is off with their minds, not mine.
I am so freekin fantabulous and smart that those that don’t get my smartness are not seeing clearly.
Do you ever feel that?
I’ve worked on that one. It yields great learning.
This I Me Mine masquerading as intelligence is comical at times.
The ego is a hard nut to crack. Don’t you think?
Hugs and love,
Brian
Thanks for the above acknowledgement Pip. 😉
Now you see how people feel when asked about Xenu.
Thank you for your views Vinaji.
You are a passionate fellow. I appreciate it.
At this same time there is another little man called Putin who has too much Power turning a whole country into a cult. Yhat was alsoo L Ron Hubbard’s Dream