Save your unwitty idea of a comeback. You are unworthy of listening to any longer and are absolutely no intellectual match for most of us. I hope your “tattoo” is of the ruboff variety and I also hope your pathetic “yogic ideals” don’t rub off on *anyone*.

You are just the type who’d believe in an antichrist, lol.

sometimes, in the zen tradition, the most zen thing to do is to smack someone who talks bullshit in the face. which i am doing to steve, and you are doing to me.

i don’t think my beliefs are holier than anyone. i just know the definition of yoga. and what was going on that day in brentwood wasnt yoga. i will continue to defend that point if anyone would like to argue it, because its the truth.

and thats the funny thing about you angelinos — show me the place in the yoga sutras where it says anything about “spreading love”. historically, yogis spent many a good hour taking the piss out of each other — see abhinavagupta vs. adi shankara — if you think the “yogic thing to do” would be to paste a smile on my face and not say anything at all… well… then you’re still in diapers

tatvam asi

josh

Exactly. We don’t. I actually find your obvious frustration with your jealousy a bit laughable. “If only *you* could have what he has and be hugging all those girls!”

Get on with life and find out what it is *you* are good at. It obviously isn’t writing.

No disrespect is intended to anyone here. I’m not a religious zealot by any means, in fact I wouldn’t even describe myself as religious at all. I know that science as a whole doesn’t have an agenda against mysticism. In fact, there’s outright admiration for and participation in eastern mysticism among many scientists — and not just the “pseudo” ones. Read “Quantum Questions” by Ken Wilber. Its a great read, with excerpts from the greatest minds in scientific history speaking about mysticism.

I do not think that everything “the ancients” believed was true at all, but I do know that certain teachings on the nature of reality — from the Buddha, to Nagarjuna, to Abhinavagupta, are 100% verified by western science. The Buddha’s law of dependent arising. Nagarjuna’s teaching on emptiness. Abhinavagupta’s teaching of spanda. Abhinavagupta and modern quantum physicists both describe the fabric of the universe as continuous vibrating energy strings, all made from the same essential stuff. To have realized this in the 11th century, to me, is pretty impressive. As are his aesthetics and other writings.

As far as your points:

1) I’m not speaking of anything “supernatural”… I’m speaking of a consciousness that exists beyond our little skulls, which some people call god. No, I have no evidence, but it is not irrational nor does it run contradictory to the laws of physics as we know them to assume that such a consciousness exists. Nor, given what we are finding out about human perception every day, is it irrational to believe that humans might directly experience this consciousness. None of this is “proven”, you are right. But none of it is irrational either. And I believe it one day will be proven.

There is no reason to believe that the electric currents that make up what we call consciousness are limited to our little brains. I think the argument for consciousness extending beyond our grey matter is far more believable than the idea that consciousness only exists in brain tissue. Consciousness is electric in nature, and the universe itself is electric in nature. Who knows what consciousnesses exist beyond our realm of perception? I personally believe that the stuff of the universe — the vibrating strings of energy that both Abhinavagupta and today’s string theorists know are there — is consciousness itself. That’s my belief. And no, I cannot prove it. But neither can you prove that its untrue.

Which brings me to your comments on evidence. Empirical evidence is meant to give us insight into how things work. It is not meant to be a worldview or religion unto itself. Again, most of the great minds in science have believed in some form of higher power, and that belief does not run contradictory to science whatsoever. If you believe in god you can just as easily believe that the mechanics of physics are how god manifests in the universe. Many physicists do in fact believe this. Evidence is about how. Why is not covered by Western science, nor should it be, nor was it ever intended to be. So in essence you are saying that your trust in “how” prevents you from even acknowledging that there could be a “why.” But one can fully trust empirical evidence and still believe in god, and many people do.

To me, the very fact that there is existence at all means that there is God. God is this very universe, one great consciousness. That is what I believe.

2. I agree with you on this one. But there are definitely atheists who have an agenda — like Christopher Hitchens, who this article is directed towards. I have no problem with people who don’t believe in God, I just think that atheists fall into a trap when they state that they have the intellectually superior track, which they don’t.

3. This is a pretty random point. First off, there are many religions who do not claim to have divine texts — Buddhism, for example. There are also many traditions whose understanding of god is not that god is omniscient and perfect. In Kashmir Shaivism, god is the sum total of everything transpiring in the universe at any given time. The good, the bad, and the ugly. All that exists are facets of one great universal mind. If the point you are making is designed to undermine Biblical literalists, you won’t find any argument from me. Obviously the bible was written by men. And I seriously doubt there were any burning bushes or stone tablets. I find the Bible’s beauty in Jesus’s ethics and teachings on love, not in its understanding of the cosmos, which, from a Hindu perspective anyway, is a little pedestrian

4. I’m not sure what this means exactly. Religion and belief in god are two very different things, and from my understanding we are talking about belief in god and whether it can be proven.

Thanks for your insights and your time. This has inspired me to write a further blog post for Huffington on the subject, so stay tuned. And if you want some reading material, Quantum Questions, The Buddhist Psychology of Mind, Nagarjuna on emptiness, and Mark Dyzcowski’s the Doctrine on Vibration are good places to look.