[Contrapunctus]

Ok here's the deal with my life:

I'm an atheist, I don't see that changing. However, after taking a religion class at my college, I've started flirting with the principals of Buddhism. That isn't to say I'm going to shave my hair and head off to a local monastery, far from it. I've just been fascinated by the more agnostic branches of Buddhism, specifically Theravada (Mahayana is just too colorful and supernatural to be interesting for me at this point in my life). In addition to that I've been flirting with Epicurus and his school of thought. The best way I can describe what I'm going through is a rekindling of my spirituality. Not in the sense of a "come-to-Jesus" moment, but in a more philosophical over scientific sense of the term.

So, my question to PoFo, is where should I go from here? Can anybody recommend me some good readings from various Western and Eastern schools of thought that will satisfy my craving for understanding myself in the world through non Scientific means? I'd prefer Non-Abrahamic schools of thought, but I have an open mind.

[fuser]

Embrace Jainism (the one true atheist religion unlike halfhearted attempt of Buddhism) and go full atheist preferably Digambara sect and go nude for rest of your life.

But in seriousness if you are looking for Buddhist texts, you must study Nagarjuna, although he belongs to Mahayana school, I will say he is indispensable when studying Buddhism and there is an excellent book by J L Garfield with verse by verse translation and commentary of Nagarjuna's work.

[Contrapunctus]

Embrace Jainism (the one true atheist religion unlike halfhearted attempt of Buddhism) and go full atheist preferably Digambara sect and go nude for rest of your life.

But in seriousness if you are looking for Buddhist texts, you must study Nagarjuna, although he belongs to Mahayana school, I will say he is indispensable when studying Buddhism and there is an excellent book by J L Garfield with verse by verse translation and commentary of Nagarjuna's work.

Jainism is a noble faith but:

Brahmacharya: The vow of brahmacharya requires the exercise of control over the senses by refraining from indulgence in sexual activity.[27]

I'm much too debauched to go for that.

[RhetoricThug]

Ok here's the deal with my life

What sense do you wish to rekindle; the audio, visual, or tactile?

I'm an atheist, I don't see that changing.

We have a case of living with absolute mental arrangement. Your next sentence will follow with example of such psychoanalytical fixation.

However, after taking a religion class at my college, I've started flirting with the principals of Buddhism. That isn't to say I'm going to shave my hair and head off to a local monastery, far from it.

Why would we expect you to? You're exploring new ideas, new paints to mix with your old paints, forming new colors (perceptions). Don't worry about your brush strokes, just paint. It shouldn't take one college course to introduce new concepts. You need to seek new concepts if you wish to nurture your own identity.

I've just been fascinated by the more agnostic branches of Buddhism, specifically Theravada (Mahayana is just too colorful and supernatural to be interesting for me at this point in my life). In addition to that I've been flirting with Epicurus and his school of thought. The best way I can describe what I'm going through is a rekindling of my spirituality. Not in the sense of a "come-to-Jesus" moment, but in a more philosophical over scientific sense of the term.

You seem to be afraid of what others will think of your ethos. Does their judgement confer your judgement? You are clearly attracted to science, with its absolute narrative reinforced with accumulative properties which can be measured, tracked, traced, compared, controlled, collided, explained. Science offers security with its physical, instead of metaphysical, evidence. You should read Francis Bacon, one of our foremost fathers of scientific method. Yet, the unseen realm of mystique still pulls at your heart string, that gut feeling (which may be genetic & ancestral) that you know nothing. You can understand cause & effect, energy & entropy, North south east west, but you don't know why. Guess what, not one of us can tell you why or how.


After all, Stephen Hawking can sit paralyzed in a mechanical wheel chair and proclaim- "there is no God," but the joke seems to be on him.

So, my question to PoFo, is where should I go from here? Can anybody recommend me some good readings from various Western and Eastern schools of thought that will satisfy my craving for understanding myself in the world through non Scientific means? I'd prefer Non-Abrahamic schools of thought, but I have an open mind.

You need to experience real experiences, don't worry about the content of man's artwork. Go outside and observe the everyday sequence of organized chaos. Spend a day out of your comfort zone and observe life. Books will provide you with 10% of the simultaneous occurrence we call life. Meditate by the veins of earth, study acoustic space, feel the wind water & fire. Experiment with your bodily senses, try to configure how the interplay between your five senses and mind shape your entire outlook on life. Always remember, I am, and man is only because of woman.

Tick tock, right?
Time is relative, how old are your relatives?
Stop asking us how to live your life


-RT

[Contrapunctus]

My god that was the most wise and prolific thing anybody has said to me on the internet on these matters. Maybe in my entire life. I sincerely thank you for that.

[RhetoricThug]

My god that was the most wise and prolific thing anybody has said to me on the internet on these matters. Maybe in my entire life. I sincerely thank you for that.

It is never a problem. Although men seem to profit from problems.

Keep in mind, compulsory schooling is fairly new, considering man's evolution. Knowledge is not scarce and compartmentalized like a classroom. Vertical pillars of specialism, where science is contained as science for one hour, history is contained as history, English as English... etc, is not our organic form of study or wisdom. Real knowledge and understanding of being is absorbed from vast horizontal ecological fields (with extreme layers of depth) of everyday life. Our education system is stuck in the rear view mirror, romancing with our archaic mechanical Victorian age, where the assembly line, mass production, and factory work supplemented civilized man's industrial wealth. For society's sake, public education needed to consist of fragmentation and specialism, because the industrial age operated by fragmentation and specialism. Did you know Henry Ford was partially illiterate? We are slowly catching up with a post-Tesla world, but our education system still suggests you should obtain your smarts by the book. However, it isn't the 18th, 19th, or 20th century anymore. Man's information environment is not limited by time and space, of course, the so-called economic(a word that has lost its meaning) business world knows this. At this point in time, public education is used for cultural indoctrination for a consumer-driven capitalist system. It primarily focuses on state worship, cultural folklore (corporate slogans), competitive behavior (sports, grades, awards, statistical abstraction), and sex, all things which keep the populace participating in a global market economy.

My spiel on formal eduction shouldn't deter you from interacting with it. All I'm trying to say- education can occur anywhere, knowledge is not a fixed point on a geometric plane. Knowledge is a circle or unified field of energy, like earth, the seasons, life & death, you're always learning... so pay attention

I go to sleep at night, only to spend the next day attempting to wake up.

What piece of the puzzle is this, I wonder?

Nostalgia can hold us back from changing our collective future, only because, more often than not, nostalgia becomes our collective future.

[Donna]

I would recommend looking for titles by René Guénon and Frithjof Schuon for a comparative approach to the religions of the world. Both were Muslims who introduced the esoteric teachings of Hindu and Buddhist traditions to Westerners in their original arrangement, distinct from the theosophical syncretism that was also fashionable at the time.

The theosophy of H.P. Blavatsky can be described as an inverted Buddhist sect that discovered the ancient record of the Atlantean catastrophe through a ecumenical effort in the Hermetic, Kabbalah, and Zen traditions. The theosophy of Rudolf Steiner is a form of Rosicrucianism that developed around a Goethean view of nature and the intelligent component in creation, the Logos (the divine mind that incarnated into the body of Jesus).

While an intermediate (or 'eternal') tradition is preserved in the faiths of Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, this isn't the same for Christianity, whose founder is already a mystical individuality, who in His nature succeeds all others, whether an avatar, buddha, prophet, et al. This is why the gnostic heresies - those radical movements for the preservation of ancient knowledge - were swallowed by the dust-bin of history, since it could not genuinely call itself Christian any longer, as the core doctrine of the Church Fathers was that the Mysteries were now with all of us in the earthly life of the Lord Jesus Christ (and the ancient initiations were also made obsolete by the eucharist). Therefore, esoteric Christianity - unlike eternal tradition - is also the spiritual and moral record of history.