Me:
>Union with God, the Void, Nature, the Force, Tao, Allah, etc can only be
achieved by extinguishing personality.
Nils:
>I'm by no means an expert on the subject, so if you can back that with some
quotes or such I might buy it, but I thought that rather than extinguishing
your personality you have to balance and harness it in order to succeed as a
mystic.<
As a general rule, any generalization made about mystic truth can be proven
wrong, that is, there is always a strong argument for the opposite. That's
why duality is generally denied by mystics. To extinguish one's worldly
personality is to realize one's true personality. To balance and harness it
is an equally valid way of looking at it. But in our worldly state, the
personality dominates, and it must first be defeated, hence the stories of
Job (Book of Job) and Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel, Chapter 4). This should
probably be off-line, but here's a few quotes.
"The fruition of the warrior's path is the experience of primordial goodness
. . . the complete realization of egolessness, or the truth of non-reference
point (which) comes only from working with the reference points that exist in
your life" (Chogyam Trungpa, from Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the
Warrior.)
"If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his
cross daily and follow me" (Jesus from Luke 9:23).
"In Buddhism, the laying of an egg is compared to the first birth of a
person, and the hatching is compared to a spiritual rebirth. Imagine
yourself as an unhatched chick. To break the shell is to destroy your
nourishing, protecting world. But that is what you must do to experience the
greater reality of sun, wind, rain, Mother Hen." (Professor Charles Davis,
from Speaking of Jesus: Toward a Theology of the Periphery)
"Our moral nature is vitiated by any interference of our will." (Ralph Waldo
Emerson, from his essay, "Spiritual Laws")
Also refer to Zen Keys by Thich Nhat Hanh, The Buddha's Way by H.
Saddhatissa, The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a' Kempis, The Cloud of
Unknowing (author unknown), and Old Thinking, New Thinking: The Sufi Prism by
Fazal Inayat-Khan.
. . . Tim
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