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@Thomas: great reply!!! Now about this book Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance.It wasn’t one of the many great books i have read in my life so far.My father was adviced by a social worker somewhere in the 90’s to read it.It has been qualified as a highly intelligence guide to the insights of life.For me it is just a book about someone loosing his head, his mind and in the end, very sadly, he loses his son.Maybe i didn’t read it that good because i’ve only read it once but i have to be honest that this book scared me and eversince the fear had become a drive in my life, prayed many times such drama would not happen with to me,maybe that’s where i made the big mistake.Someone used to quote to me from this book as it contained wisdom to overcome lifes struggle to this particular person.But to me the whole story of someones surch to find piece of mind seemed totally wrong.I don’t why.You could say that i am totally wrong here, and maybe you are right but fear had got to me already.Maybe i’d recognized something in it, maybe i just flipped for nothing.Fact is that when one of my friends got killed it immediately reminded me of this book.I don’t know thomas, maybe you can help out here to prove me wrong.But sadly the only positivety i coulod learn from it is to let it on the shelf….not touched.
I am sure your experience with this book must have been less dramatic, good for you, i wouldnot want you to go trough fear like me.You can email me anytime, i’ll reply.It took you 5 years to get trough it?? Damn, that’s really good.I didn’t knew a zen guidebook existed.Thx for the advice, you can send me email to lisa_mark_12@hotmail.com.
greets mark.
@ mark: Bad luck you have such unpleasant connotations with this book. I can imagine that you look at it that way. I am no stranger to fear and to coming apart at the seams myself sometimes, but that book never points me back to that. I do not interpret it as an answer to life’s questions though, and I abhor the fact that they lump this book in with all the New Age claptrap, since this book is founded on ancient Greek rational philosophy, not ancient Greek auguring of birds or reading a cow’s intestines to see into the future. It took me five years to finish it, yes, but I read a lot of books in between. I just started with it, couldn’t read it through, put it away and started again months later. I got it for my 16th birthday (my teacher in Dutch Literature recommended it to me) and finally finished it weeks after my 21st. The only book that takes me longer is Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’, started reading it for the first time somehwere in my twenties, now ten years ago. But then again, to paraphrase Joyce, it took him twenty years to complete this book, so people might as well take twenty years to read it. Oh well, I’m at the halfway point of the time period, only one third through the book and people tell me the hardest part is the last chapter…
“Nothing comes from judgement… The soul is always free.”
Motorpsycho ‘Bonny Lee’
Greets,
Thomas
@thomas: great reply!! Good to see you share thoughts about the subject.I surely admire the way you get yout kicks from reading books.The last books i read was the da vinci code wich did not impress me that much.Best book i have read so far must be the count of montecristo by dumas.Offcourse Joseph Campbell is a good one too.Nowadays i don’t spend time anymore reading books but the bible wich i love to study.
Back to the subject.I think the way TB reported this song is quite brillant.Civilizations always fall due to reasons as TB said it.Nothing new there.Anyone formiliar with the legend about this city that got destroyed in 607 b.c?
It is written that within “7 times” this city should be rebuild crushing all other empires.Fact is that some think these so called 7 times represent 2525 years wich means that in the year 1914 the one that is justified to lead and destoy all other empires, sat on the throne and gave final judgement the world.Devil got trown out of heaven in 1914 where j.c seated on gods throne giving a short period of time to the devil on earth before final judgement.What happend in 1914? First worldwar etc..etc..theres loads of evidences the bible gives that points out to this particular year with importance not knowing what might happend but in the year 607 b.c.fact is that since 1914 the world have seen drama we never have seen before…atomic bombs, world wars, absurd numbers of victims of all kinds of evil like hunger,deseases, world tragedys like tsunamis, eathquakes etc…millions of people died since 1914 in ways of drama we have never seen before.All kinds of prove humanity isn’t capable of ruling this world without guidance of somekind of wisdom from an other source then the human brain.But to come to short terms…it is a process troughout history wich shows the struggle of humanity with various examples of faillures.
@mark: While I don’t put much faith in the Bible or other prophecies, it’s an interesting idea. No doubt we need something to guide us in the right direction!
oh, i doubt that. even it would be very simple. but ok, a good friend is always something like a guide. or all people, ideas, reactions on sthg. that have or had an effect on you. but that is different from following someones ideas, it is more like a river that finds its way wherever it floats.
Ok, so you don’t think we need something to guide us? Just, come what may?
edit: Sorry, I think I misunderstood. You’re saying that we should come together as a whole? Unite?
@Traktor, why not put faith in the Bible? It’s a whole lotta smart stuff (and some fairytelling). I’m not asking you about religion and belief, and let’s forget christian history and all blahblah. But as the ancient tome of philosophy and insight into the human soul, it sure is interesting. We’re all deeply influenced by it, believers and nonsuch. Be it on personal purpose or by accident while living in our societies which are undeniably based on its values.
@supernaut: I’m not so sure about the bible being a tome of insight into the human soul. It’s a tome of insight into a jealous deity, and human suffering. There are a lot of debatable morals and ethics in there that I wouldn’t stand by.
I don’t think we should put such importance into a book written several centuries ago, and I absolutely don’t think we should use it as a guide to our modern society. It has changed so much since then.
But of course, the bible and christianitys impact on western society is immeasurable, and a great deal of our cultures (both good and bad) values stem from it. But I think, as science and reason has proven its merits time and time again, we should put the ancient religions behind us and focus on what is proveable and useful for us as a society, and as a species. Move on, so to speak.
If we -should- look to old beliefs I think we should look to the natural religions, the pantheistic ones, and get back in touch with nature and our planet. Restore the balance we once had. Stop abusing it and draining its resources. We will kill ourselves that way.
No, I think we need to unite as a people, put behind us the old superstitions and let free thought, science and reason help us help ourselves.
edit: I’m not looking to offend anyone, I have nothing against your beliefs or your values, I’m merely writing down my thoughts
(let me switch this song first, it’s kinda hard doing this while listening to mobb deep)
@supernaut: i agree with you.The book shows many examples of humans inner/struggling while they’re trying to repsond to gods call.And has a great historically value.
@TB even do you might not carry faith or have believes in this book you surely agree this book was written with a purpose, do you? I even had a theory i thought of myself about King Arthur.Most myths tell you King Arthur was desperately looking for the holy grail while i think in reality King Arthur was looking for the holy scrolls that were left over during history and he wanted to collect them.I also think he had a lot of writers in Camelot that needed the study the orginality and quality of the scrolls and maybe re-write/translate some of the stories.May sound a bit silly but to me King Arthur was the one who maybe, amd i say again, maybe was the last one who had hand in the structure and index of this book we call the Bible.Then again, it may be another scrammbled eggs story of me.
have to go, i’ll have to come back to the subject later.
When I’m speaking of the bible’s value, then not as a believer. I’m an atheist. But to wipe it off just because of personal disbelief, is a silly thing to do. The bible (as any other ancient scrolls) contains lots of timeless wisdom. Our “modern” times are in need of wisdom and values. Call it deity, I don’t care. Did Jesus really live? I don’t care. Nor do I care about medieval witchburning or the pope’s recipe against AIDS. That’s the historical crap which doesn’t affect my thinking. And to me therein lies no contradiction to science and reason. That’s other people’s problem through the centuries and is also too much of a big-picture thing for me to discuss here properly.
Or you can also turn to Zarathustra or the greek philosophers. Why aren’t those useful anymore? Because they didn’t publish on the internet? What has changed? Western mankind took a thousand steps back in the medival times. We here are only making ground again.
How are the pantheistic religions more nature oriented than christianity? Does the bible tell mankind to destroy God’s creation? One should be careful not to mix the facts only because of all the stupid things done and said by dumb or reckless people in the name of that book. Or because other philosophies kinda sound cooler, for that matter.
Uniting by leaving all old beliefs and philosophies behind because we’ve “moved on”? Who is “we” then? And where do “we” move to? What if there are different ways to go? Who are we to talk down cultural merits and religions? To me this is everything else but free thought.
It is true! Most religions/wisdoms/churches have lost their value due to the false interpretations of many so called profets/popes leaving loads of people uneducated in their hopes and thoughts, people need to be educated about wisdom/religion/word of god, the time is right to revieuw the way we worship our god(s).Most of us blame the gods for all bad luck/pain/sorrow/death and deseases while in reality the bible teaches us about the love of god and the plan god has with humanity.It is true most of us don’t really know god or jesus or god’s way with people, we are easily manipulated and desperate to find the anwsers to our questions wich makes us an easy target for false religions.Is is true that we don’t understand the love of god, we understand the life of sin that has been our punishment from the day humans have decided to live without the lessons of the love of our god.People are so lost the even believe that they don’t have a god and think that god doesn’t exist/lives, this is how an anti-god works with our minds, leaving humanity lonely, at war while we bless our weapons, manipulating our hearts and minds to believe that life is not precious.Well…..i say…go to war..fight…and you’ll see how precious your life is and how much you love the sunlight to shine in your eyes and to feel the value of marriage and the true worship of a god, that is what we live for.That is our reason to live.
Back to LLM.Now..isn’t it a bit strange motorpsycho writes a song like this?.What happend with flick of the wrist, psychonaut, vortex surfer..etc.? Why does MP sing about “needing a guide”, “a ghosttown now” even about someone whos been there and learned those lines.Why do they care? Why don’t they just sing about love, getting stoned, having fun…drinking beer…girls and making money?
To me there is a line in their colection and the first time i thought of this is when i went back to songs like KSD (TM), Un chien déspace, ozone, mbf, etc…and i can se some ressemblence in those songs.It’s all about a person MP dreams of ,wishes to meet, dying to know of etc.Before the flood is a good example of the situation on earth and the mentality of people like in the times of noach maybe when people lived under similar circumstances while they are warned to change their roles.To me it is the same time again, life on earth gets fucked, people live and heard of the dangers we are threaten by while they live on not changing too much to turn the odds of devastation of our live.Believe me, if god does not exist we are doomed because all we know is how to destroy things and dictate others.
LLM to me is a call to everyone who feels responsible to act and change their role and show others the meanings of true guidance, wich by the way like the song is a brillant idea.
I’d like to add a little phrase ’bout (eastern) philosophy here.While studying some of these wisdoms years ago (Lao tse, tao te tjing) i’d come to the conclusion this path of enlightment didn’t had those straight guiding lines ’bout how to overcome and live with struggles of life but to set with it in self-flagellation.Other philosophys just study the origin of things ,or what i reject, the beauty of things, the value of things etc…again without comming clear with proper awnsers like most philosophers had come to the point of dropping all knowledge just to clear thoughts of the mess they had got in.Manknd should not ask himself who made what for what purpose but i guess it’s just part ouf our education to ask ourself these kinds of questions wich doesn’t mean the awnsers will leave us satisfied, every awnsers lead to another question and our thirst for knowledge will never end.
You can say most religions have similar guidance, they do, due to different cultures and rituals some have changed value and rules wich aren’t really that religious anymore same as the political role some of our religious leaders show us.As far as i know there is only one person who’d came up with a complete guidance with rules that really show us how to live with religion.Then again, most of the people just reject this guidance because they hadn’t have the proper education to understand it.LLM shows there’s still a hollow dimension we live in, we haven’t been educated that much to live with a guidance that has all the propers awnsers while we deserve to live in peace and harmony with the world/universe.
Back from a few days travelling here, haven’t had internet access. Good to see that the thread is going strong
Well, to comment on my last post, super and mark, I never meant that the Bible doesn’t contain any wisdom, nor that it tells us to burn down the woods, I merely meant to say that we should take the Bible as any other ancient text. Not put it on some pedestal.
And by the pantheistic religions being closer to nature, I wanted to say that I think we need to get back in touch with nature (not talking about mysticism and shamans), the environment is obviously suffering from our lack of respect for it. That’s all
I’ll have to read through the thread again later if I’m gonna contribute anything of value. Now I need some rest, sorry!
@TB you’re right ’bout getting back in harmony with nature, but if you study this book you will come to the conclusion god has a plan with humanity due to his everlasting love and to live in harmony with nature is just a part of this plan.In my opinion the bible is a gift from god to teach us about his love.Most of us don’tm understand this and keep their judgements towards god like the anti-god wants us to do.It is true that this world/humanity has come to the point where there are all kinds of dangers that are threatening us, no matter what we want to do, we will never be able to control this world or make it a better place without the love and worship of god.Do at this moment the needs and intentions of the people are towards ” making this place a better place” the responsibility has gone sky high and question is if we succeed by ourselfs to continue to carry this responsibility.Various examples have shown us that no EU, no gouverment or other nation have ever succeed in creating peace on earth.So while i put my faith in the promise of god i don’t have high expectations of most political leadership.Comming back to your point of view, offcourse you got it right, we need to get in harmony with nature etc…but do you have such faith in people? Do you think that we humans are capable of showing respect to our environment? Do you think humans will ever respect an other without dictating an other? Personally, i don’t share any kind of view of guidance by humans.There is no wisdom to be found in our hearts, minds or the path we walk, we all should be greatfull for the love of god because without this kind of guidance we’ll never make it.
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