@OTHSteve, cool, I see you do dip in here once in a while, and I thank you for it.
I have gotten into Sikhi a bit through Kundalini yoga. If you look at my log, you’ll see I have pretty much stopped lifting in order to do yoga.
However, Kundalini yoga is closer to the eastern philosophies in that it is more about meditation and connecting with the inner divine than many western yoga practices.
Not better, just different.
Sikh dharma heavily influences Kundalini. The basic deal with Sikhism is all paths lead to the same god - Judaism, Islam, Christianity, etc… same god - and it is within, not without.
It’s an offshoot of Hinduism, which is an offshoot of Buddhism, so, all paths.
I’ve always liked that outlook, even though I’m not religious or woo woo myself. When I was still going to an evangelical Southern Baptist church back in high school, I questioned why someone else’s sincerely-held beliefs had any less validity than mine, when it was being hammered into me that this was the only way to heaven, and everyone else was going to hell because they didn’t believe the right thing. That sort of exclusionary outlook is what ultimately pushed me out of that particular set of beliefs.
I have no idea. It’s on the wiki page for sleep paralysis.
Have you heard of the child spirit that’s supposed to conjured up by a shaman from a dead fetus in S.E Asian folklore? I think it’s called a Tiyanak in the Philippines. I once had a sleep paralysis episode with the fucker sitting on my chest just like in the picture lol.
It’s fine once you’re used to it. If I relax my muscles instead of fighting to move, I normally go back to sleep again. The problem is sometimes it keeps happening again every time you start drifting off.
I don’t know where you’re getting all these, but this is really not how religion is practiced in Asia by the masses. Sikhism is a religion the same way Christianity is a religion. They all worship divine entities. Ask @OTHSteve about how Buddhism is practiced in Thailand if you don’t believe me. He’s lived there.
@dt79 Full disclosure, I never lived in Thailand. I visited there, as well as the Philippines, while I was in the Navy. I think you got that idea from the ‘discussion’ I got into with that mozzer dude over in this thread: What are Guys Looking for In a Girl? - #45 by Jewbacca
But yeah, Westerners who are open to woo woo stuff have been seeing a whitewashed, idealized version of Eastern religion since at least the 60’s when the Beatles went and hung out with the Maharishi Yogi dude. I’m not saying people can’t get value out of it, but it’s definitely different from how it’s practiced in its locations of origin.
Yeah, that’s what I’ve been saying. If you want to look at these as philosophies or principles to live by, it’s fine. Some younger Asians are doing this. They get their ideas from Western books on these religions.
But if you want to get into the mystical woo woo stuff, you have to recognize that these religions are the same as religions like Christianity and Islam and require the same amount of faith, worship and adherence to the Church or Mosque. After accepting this fact, you have to think about all the evangelical scams charlatans have attempted to pull off in the West. These are the same as what reiki and qigong are to Buddhism. And we haven’t even gotten to crystals with healing auras yet. These are modern day scams. Small time crooks used to go door-to-door selling them to middle-aged housewives.
To put it simply, if a Catholic priest told you astral projection exists and it is a sign of God’s divinity, would you believe it? If not, why would you believe someone from an Eastern religion? Is there any reason to take the words of someone from an Eastern religion more seriously than the Catholic priest’s, or even faith healers and bible thumpers, when it comes to miracles like divine healing? If the reason is that you have been blessed with divine revelations from an Eastern God, then it’s perfectly valid and, congrats, you’re a religious person!
Good question. I’m like the guy that read about a cycle and considers myself an expert - you should only do test, lol.
Truth, I read this shit and am just learning it. I regurgitate what I learn. Some things I have experienced, but a lot of it is just reading and trying to apply to my life.
With respect to Buddhism, I’ve been to a local Buddhist meditation center, and read that it’s a lifestyle, and not a religion.
Of course, that is western shit - you would know better.
So my posts here are, for the most part, to spark discussion, and not as an authority. I’m pretty stoopid when it comes to this shit. I just want peeps to talk about it.
Valid point, but I gotta tell you, I haven’t seen you misspell so much as I have in the last two weeks. You’re usually money.
BTW, I only got jiggy with the woo woo shit while I lived on Long Island.
And, who elses is from LI? Bunch a cray cray peeps.
TBH, can’t wait to ski at Timberline with my kids in a few weeks, can’t wait to tour OSU Vet school with my daughter, can’t wait to tour the ME school with my son, can’t wait to see Corvallis Club with my kids and my brother.
Because of racist tropes westerners have regarding Asians. If the Magic Asian says so, it must be true. Because everyone knows Magic Asians are real. Priests are just suckers for the writings of bronze age goat herders. What kind of nutjob observes something like Lent when there are crystals out there that do the work for you?
I’d say the Magic Asian tropes are very similar to the racist tropes we have about Native Americans. The fraudster Nathan Phillips played off of those while he was smearing the Covington Catholic kids. Wise old native man, sacred drumming, chanting something sacred in a kids face, all that crap. Westerners eat it up.
You’ve even got people paying to take trips to South America to get high as a kite off of Ayahuasca with some shamans. I’m not anti-psychedelic, per-se, but I’m also not pretending that they are doing much more than getting really, really high in the Peruvian jungle and pretending they’ve reached some cosmic special place. I’m sure the shamans are great guys and all, but what kind of qualifications do they really have other than doing lots of ayahuasca?
If psychedelics are your thing, great. I think they can add value to people’s lives, but doing lots of them doesn’t mean you’ve got the market cornered on enlightenment. Unless you’re doing DMT with Mike Tyson, at which point I’m sure you’ll have all the answers you ever need about everything.
Yeah, probably. You’ve heard the non-stop chanting, seen people burning jossticks, kneeling before statues of Buddha and other deities with hands in prayer positions…
Did any of these people look more like they were contemplating life, philosophy and shit or did they look like Catholics in a church lol? Josssticks are OFFERINGS to the Gods. The richer you are, the bigger ones you can afford to burn.
When you walk on the streets, did you notice most shops have tiny altars in them? Have you seen the red candles? Those are for offerings for the DEAD. The dead EAT CANDLES. Noticed some altars are on the ground at street corners? Those are for the Earth God.
Have you seen these sold at religious shops?
You can’t take them into the bathroom. You can’t wear them while fucking. Before you take them off, you need to chant something. If you break the rules, misfortune will befall you.
These things aren’t metaphors or symbols. They have to be blessed by monks or something, just like Christian crosses and holy water. People literally believe that they will bring them good fortune as long as you don’t break the rules and anger the Gods. Thai and Indian Gods are particularly vicious when you piss them off.
Jesus Christ, if you guys want me to go indepth about all the mystical shit Buddhism has spun in the East, I can write a whole book on them.
Exorcism by Thai monks:
Does this remind you of another religion? It’s actually pretty COMMON since they don’t need permission from a higher authority like the Vatican. (The people speaking are speaking in mandarin. They sound like Malaysians.) Go ahead and do a google search for “thai” and “exorcism” or “black magic” and you’ll find lots of them.
Like I’ve said several times, it doesn’t matter if that’s how it’s practiced there.
However, the woo woo shit should not come into the picture. Otherwise, it’s a religion. And one in which you are just cherry picking a couple of mystical beliefs out of THOUSANDS of ludicrous ones spawned form the East that easily make things like Virgin Birth look realistic in comparison.
Look, Christians leave the religion despite the promise of eternal life and the threat of eternal damnation where there will be weeping and grinding of teeth. You think you can make hundreds of millions of people in the Third World join a religion simply because of a personal existencial crisis lol?
Nah, I wouldn’t call it racist. Younger Asians are attracted to Western religions, particularly the modern evangelist churches, simply because they’re Western and the Asian beliefs are seen as old, archaic and practiced by the lower educated. There was a similar attitude before this with regards to Indians living outside India which reflected the caste system. They would become Christians, adopt Christian names and speak mostly english to show they were superior to other Indians.
As you all know, religion is pretty complex. There are so many social and political factors that come into play as well, which wouldn’t make it fair to just pinpoint everything down to single issues like racism or other stuff.