Reciting mantras protects the mind.
is the BEST invention EVER! hihihi LOVE it 
Thought this was an interesting presentation:
Jung and Sri Ramana Maharshi
Interested in others’ take on this.
Interesting focus:
it reminded me of Alex’s brilliant exploration of metaphysics territories in which he speaks about Jung (after 1h18:42 he explains how to locate “isms” in several territories)
it also brought me to a passage from AH’s new book (I am Mindful, now what?):
“the diurnal and nocturnal practices are bidirectional, or reciprocating. They lift each other up. It’s your mind, after all, expressing itself in different states.” (page 109)
I would apply this to all forces on this planet, in particular those who are apparently opposite, such as, for example, man and woman.
It also brought me to Alice Bailey’s study of the seven rays, where I could easily see Sri Ramana Maharshi in the seventh ray, and giving his contribution to the world through that energy spectrum and Jung perhaps in the 4th ray, making a lot of the unknown and subtle visible and empowered in the world.
If the world had a place for these two and so many others, it means each one was doing their own thing. none is better or more holy that the other… in my vision.
@_Barry. Interesting video on Jung and Ramana Maharshi! Jung was the one who first got me interested in the psychology of dreams. I had never read about his visit to Ramana Maharshi (or perhaps I did read it years ago and have forgotten it). I’m not sure that I agreed with all of the comments by the guy in the latter part of the video. It’s true that Jung was trying to be an emperical scientist. Mainstream psychology was accusing him of being a mystic, so he pushed back and said “no, I’m being emperical because I’m starting with the experience of dreams and imagery and so my theory is based on emperical evidence!” (I’m paraphrasing). But I don’t think it’s true that he was an agnostic. He was once asked if he believed in God and he said “I don’t believe, I know!” In other words he had direct experience of God as an archetype in the psyche. And in his later writings, he equated the psyche with the “soul” not just the physical brain. The word “psyche” is the Greek word for “soul.” “Psychology” is therefore, “the logos of the psyche.”
Back in the 80’s I attended a conference on Buddhism and Christian Mysticism at the Naropa Institute (now University) in Boulder, Colorado. Christians and Buddhists sat in meditation together and their were amazing dialogues between top Christian and Buddhist contemplative teachers exploring points of similarity and possible differences. Amazing!
Wow! An end of an era for Naropa!
My wife had a good friend who was one of Chogyam Trugkpa’s students and I started reading some of his books and went through the Shambhala Training program in the 80’s. But when I went there I was shocked that he was drunk, and I also latter learned about his wild and possibly abusive behavior, including with women. His students would say that this was part of his “crazy wisdom” Tantric tradition. I still don’t know quite what to think about him. He did leave a lot of great teachings and Naropa has been a great school over the years. And he has left many great students, including AH, Pema Chodron and others.
@BlessingsDeers. This guy seems brilliant and fascinating! I’ve only listened to a little of it - it’s a very long video! I hope to get back to this later as I’m very interested in these kinds of philosophical and scientific issues around the nature of consciousness.
So many videos, so little time!
And I hardly have time to read any books any more!
Being a regular practitioner of Reverse Meditation, I would say that the boat can be free from stones… and surrender its lightness to navigate happily and consciously in the waters of consciousness.
I’m not so sure of this either. Especially when coming closer to his death and already with an aware foot on the other side.
yes, his Red Book is from a Soul who knows he’s a Soul…
yes, I regarded those comments just as that 
some highlights from the video:
“the ultimate control is time. there is no location in time” 19h20
Henry Bergson - Matter and Memory
“matter is a negation of all that we care about”
“A universe in which the world is made of events, not of matter, then you allow a different mode of relationship, where all these events are always somehow connected.”
“When the blind man connects with the images he knows about their look and also how they smell, how they sound, how they feel.
He’s not only hacking photons that are not reaching his retina, but also a kind of gestalt of perception.”
“How does material science deal with this?” 36h47
“We need skeptics for finding a balance between doubt and belief”. 49h07
“Be brave and believe in what you do” 1H14:08 where he mentions Essentia Foundation and other institutes who are in this not for the money, where a sense of true community is existing.
Alex’s research is about NON-LOCALITY, and he’s studying 3 things:
- extra sensory perception;
- Psycho-kinesis (ability to perceive anomalous information that exert more influence in the world);
- Survival Research (if 1. + 2. is possible, then perhaps when we die, the stuff still goes on) 1h31:28
“We just need to rediscover enchantment” 1h36:09
His near death experience 1h42:48
“vehicles like music, a mantra is a direct transmission of consciousness force through the vibration of sound”
the great barrier to studying consciousness is The Scientific Method. 2h02:50
Alex tackles the topics and the topics also tackle them (I also experience this in my long-term creations - they become ALIVE!)
“Studying consciousness is the cosmic destiny of humanity” 2h09:08
“the best advice we can give to young people is to care for them and ask questions and for their advice”
“Consciousness for real included talking about death.”
“it’s scary because it’s for real” 2h18:29
When he died and came back, when washing the dishes again, he felt enlightened - “A hint of awareness permeating all my life” 2h19:33
“memories are like a melody, with a snow ball effect. that’s why nature is so creative and constantly evolving” 2h29:02
I subscribed to his newsletter here:
I found this article quite a good read:
The Zen of Uncle Pappy.
Consider what happened this past week in Georgia . . . .
@_Barry. This is an excellent summary of these two points of view. When I first got interested in dreams in my 20’s, I turned to Jung and Jungian psychology as a way to make sense of them. Jung also got me interested in the I Ching, which led to Taoism and studying Tai Chi, and then I got interested in meditation. I tried meditation practices from many traditions but I was heavily influenced by Buddhist thought. In my 30’s I discovered the work of a renegade Jungian named Arnold Mindell. He was strongly interested in Taoism as well and he re-formulated Jungian ideas in such a way as to be more process-oriented. So instead of emphasizing static entities like “ego” and “Self” and “archetypes”, he was looking at everything in terms of an ever-changing and flowing process, like a river. Taoist philosophers often compared the Tao to a river that is always flowing and changing. So instead of an ego and a Self, or a conscious and unconscious mind, Mindell talked about a primary and a secondary process. The primary process is the experience that one identifies with and the secondary process is the experience that you don’t identify with. And these are processes, like flow patterns, rather than fixed entities like “ego” and “Self”, so he called his psychology “Process-oriented Psychology” or “Process Work.” This manifests in many forms, such as the dreams we have at night, but also the day time experiences that also have dream-like meanings. So Mindell said that it’s all dream-like and it’s all meaningful! For instance, physical body symptoms have dream-like meanings. So do relationship and family problems. So do world problems and conflicts. (He developed a process called “world work” in which world conflicts are worked with in groups.)
But getting back to Jung and Buddha. I agree with the video that these two views are complementary. There is some parallels here with the difference between Hindu yoga which postulates an “Atman” or “Self” and the Buddhist “Anatman” or “No Self.” I saw a film once in which the Dalai Lama was dialoging with a group of Hindu yogis and he said something like “Atman/Anatman, two sides of same coin!” This paradox may be at the most fundamental level of physical reality, the quantum level in which particles can also behave like waves, and waves can behave like particles (tiny fixed entities) or waves (which are more like ripples flowing across the ocean of empty spacetime) , depending on how you observe them. And these particle/waves are arising out of some deeper ocean of emptiness! But ultimately, anything that can be put into words is not it. As the Tao te Ching says, “The Tao that can be spoken is not the true Tao.” Or to use the Zen Buddhist metaphor, all of these words are just “fingers pointing at the moon.”