₦airaland Forum

Pastor AIO:
The answer to this question is obvious as well as being simple and complex at the same time.

put these ingredients together: inferiority complex, Ambition, self-loathing, and superficiality - - - and you will get the soup that african religiousity is nourished on.

Come on. You can't just leave something tantalisingly half-said. Explain a bit more.

seeklove:
The above is not always correct. Just because two people talks of the same concept doesn't mean that one of them got it from the other. All religions and sects in the world, at some point in there doctrine, have believes that are similar. This does not qualify the hastily assumption that they got it from each other.
If somebody writes about the sun in Nigerian and another writes about the sun in America. You don't conclude that one got his idea from the other; could also be that both wrote from their personal experience since both can see and experience the sun from their locations.
In school I always ague with colleagues who think that ancient Incas, Mayan, and the ancient Chinese stole their civilization from ancient Egypt, just because both cultures built pyramids. I know this is off topic but it is a similar thought pattan
Besides, I have read so many books by Tibetan lamas, I have read more than five books by T Lobsang Rampa; at the moment I am reading the Grail message, and the reincarnation and karma that Tibetan lamas talk about is not exactly what the Grail Message talks about.
Ie, some Buddhists and Hindus believe that a humanbeing can reincarnate as an animal. But, to the best of my knowledge, the Grail message teaches that humans can only reincarnate as humans. I can go on and on about the differences.

Perhaps you should read the Buddism's holy books proper. Buddist ideas are thousands of years old. They cover everything from reincarnation to how our thoughts interact with the unseen universe. The Grail Message is a modern book and the ideas in it are already covered in Buddism, extensively, even if the autjhor plays with semantics and changes terms. I'm a Christian. There are Christians who believe every single word in the Bible is sacred, that God wrote it all himself via divine secretaries or something. But while the Bible's message is divine, it's a human and flawed document. If I have no trouble criticizing the holy book of my faith, I can certainly point out the striking similarities between Buddism and a book by a modern author. Why nwakwo should take exception to that, especially since he's not read any Buddist literature, is beyond me. Grail's ideas are extensively covered in the various Buddhist literature, and if he has a problem with that, that will have to remain his own affair.

Catching up on LOST on DVD. I've missed Sayerr and John Locke and beautiful Sayidd and Ben.
How can anything be this good?

fyneguy:
I think Madmax is confusing the soul with the brain.

How do you mean?

Mad_Max:
The truth is the most elusive thing on earth, man. There are no absolute truths, just subjective versions of it, and they differ man to man. It'smazingly common self-deception to claim sole recipience of 'truth',to believe yourself the repository of 'true' knowledge, to think you have found 'the way', to regard others with pity because they don't know what you know, they don't get it, they think they do but they're merely wandering in the dark. The way and the truth has been revealed to you.
A disease  common to man and one from which Oskar certainly suffered.

Oh My God. I don't know whether to laugh or be distressed. That statement was OBVIOUSLY a general statement,and I made plain who it was intended for: OSKAR, author of the Grail Message. Why would you think that statement was referring to you,m_nwankwo? The thought never entered my mind; I was making a general statement. Good grief!   
As for proof his ideas were borrowed, they're in Buddist religious writing. You can begin with Magic and Mystery in Tibet before the formal religious and philosophical texts.

Pastor AIO:
Mad_Max I think that you're being a bit harsh. I don't think M_Nwankwo has claimed or acted like he is the 'sole recipient of true knowledge'. Maybe on some other post that I'm fortunate never to have seen, but from what I know of him it seems you've misjudged him.

The statement wasn't intended for him and I'm frankly amazed it was interpreted that way. He happens to be one of my favourite people on NL. Even without having met him one can sense his worth and his basic goodness. So no,I haven't misjudged him. However, if you've never gone to the source of the ideas in The Grail Message, the book will have a powerful effect on you. The fact remains, its ideas are borrowed from Buddism.

m_nwankwo:
Can you furnsih evidence for the assertions you made above, ie, show that "everything in the book ( Grail Message) is , of course from Buddhist religious thought", and that Oskar Ernst Bernhardt got the material for writing the Grail Message from Tibetan Buddhism. Thanks

Not Tibetan Buddhism- Just Buddism. It's an odd question to be asking. Given that The Grail message talks about reincarnation and karma and thought-forms,etc ,all Buddhist doctines, where oh where did he get his material from?  Oskar must have time-travelled and been born before Buddha,and orignated those concepts himself.
You've applied his teachings to your life for two decades and they work.Of course it does; Buddism is very hands on, and its adepts are full of dangerous, arcane knowledge. There's much to be learned from it. It doesn't dislodge my Christian faith in any way, but the Buddist scripture and philosophy is fascinating. The Grail Message is a bucket of water compared to the ocean of Buddist thought, and if I were you, since you're inclined in that direction, Buddism is the way to go, not a pastiche of Buddism smeared with 'Christianity'.

You've applied his teachings. You've applied his brand of Buddism and seen the light. So every single thing in his book must be 'the truth'.
Hah!
The truth is the most elusive thing on earth, man. There are no absolute truths, just subjective versions of it, and they differ man to man. It'smazingly common self-deception to claim sole recipience of 'truth',to believe yourself the repository of 'true' knowledge, to think you have found 'the way', to regard others with pity because they don't know what you know, they don't get it, they think they do but they're merely wandering in the dark. The way and the truth has been revealed to you.

A disease  common to man and one from which Oskar certainly suffered. Yes, I know you've imbued him with infallibility, but he's just a man and The Grail Message's just a book, and neither is infallible, hower much you'd like to think so. The Grail Message would reconcile Buddism with Christianity and in so doing, has twisted the latter beyond recognition.  It only has pretensions to Christianity if it rejects what Christ himself said. But I forget, The Grail Message is a higher authority than the Bible. Its author, who cites no references or sources other than himself, knows more about Christ and his expressly stated purpose than Christ himself.

Have you read the Buddist Holy books? Unlikely,or you wouldn't be asking how I knew Grail was a pastiche of Buddist religious thought and 'Christianity'. Read Buddist holy books and religious philosophy,and then come and tell me which ideas in the The Grail Message are original: Karma and reincarnation perhaps?

Pastor AIO:
I would be interested to know this too. I still haven't read the Grail Message book, but I know a tiny little bit about Tibetan buddhism.

I think that if you looked at any religion deep enough you'll be inclined to the realisation that they all have soo much in common at their core. I'm talking about those religions that have an experiential basis.


I remember reading Bardo Thodol many years ago. It's also called the Tibetan book or the Dead. It was fascinating. Tibetan religion is a mix of the old shamanic beliefs indigenous to Tibet and Buddhism, and plenty plenty of Tantric ideology (Tantra is came to them from india and it sees the world as the product of the interation between two procreative forces, one male and the other female). They practice possession trance and other shamanic techniques as well as the Buddhist quest for liberation. Their iconography is also something quite special. But then I've always loved Tantric iconography. My uncle came to my home once and was spooked because he thought that I'd turned to worshipping Hindu dieties. I have many Siva-Shakti yoni-lingam images.

You've read the Tibetan Bookof the Dead? You lucky thing, I've only been getting snippets, and fascinating they are too. Buddism,like every other religion, has sects and schools of thought that disagree. Some accept the Bardo as a real place, a region through wohc spirits sojourn beofre they get to 'the Judge of the Dead'.Other schools deny the existence of wsuch a region. You must read Magic and Mystery in Tibet. You'll love it.

vescucci:
Max. I was talking about intellectual prowess earlier and not time being cyclic. Time indeed is one elastic stuff. So intangible and so 'there'. The way I see it, human intellect is normally distributed (I mean IQ ranges thru a normal curve) in every generation. This means for every age a fairly constant percentage will be geniuses and one genius from one age being absolutely the equal of another genius from another age.

Absolutely.

Life boy:
how did you knw i do but have not plain to show it to her yet

the fonniest thing is this every body loves her and love talking wit her, her major friends are male and few are female but i do reject the likeness just to aviod **** reasons

How do I know you liked her? It’s pretty obvious, you know.
Man, I feel for you. The girl is popular and beautiful, and you’re too much in awe of her to approach her and let her know your feelings. You aren’t friends, you seem to be admiring her from afar. If you were friends, then, knowing you well she might have some basis for considering your proposal, but right now she has none. And beautiful popular girls are used to men’s attentions, so yours might just be one more drone in an endless sea of ‘I like you’ droning. But if you don’t know her well, how can you be in love with her? From your superficial interactions? Examine yourself, man.
I think you should keep your feelings to yourself for now, and become her friend. There is a time and a season for everything under the sun. Start a friendship and get to know each other as friends.

As for the dream; you have feelings for the girl, she’s on your mind and in your thoughts and you dream about her. It happens everyday with virtually everyone who has feelings for someone. It’s your insecurity about your chances with her that’s making you consider the sneaky and not altogether honest route of co-opting ‘God’ ‘messages’ and ‘divine dreams’ into getting her. Love is the basis of any marriage,Christian or otherwise. You love her, she loves you, you pray and have continual peace about a life together, and you get married. Your feelings for her isn’t enough. If you become friends and she doesn’t return your feelings, move on.

Vesc?

Time as a cyclical phenomenon? Weren't we talking about 'progress' as non-linear?
Time wasn't always linear, it wasn't always measured the way we measure it now. I think it's long been discovered to be one of the most elastic stuff in the universe, thanks to Einsteins theory of relativity. But even before he came along, time wasn't measured linear. And time is different in the universe. Time ticks a different way on the moon,etc, and in space itself. That's why cosmologists have so much fun with their Twin Paradox.

I'm reading Magic and Mystery in Tibet by Alessandra David-Neel. She was a French scholar who studied at the Surborne in Paris and went to Tibet for a scholarly project on oriental mysticism. She saw more than she baragined for, ended up staying for 14 years learning under her spiritual master, adn became the only European woman to become a lama, a Tibetan Master or Monk. The books is an excellent introduction to Tibetan Buddism, and Tibetan religious philosophy is enthralling. Her rational, clear-eyed approach to mysticism is refreshing.I've been reading up on Buddist philosophy for a while; but there are so many schools of thought, though it's certainly not boring. It's the most philosophically advanced and enthralling religion on earth. You see where authors of books like THE GRAIL MESSAGE (Oskar Ernst Bernhardt) get their material. Everything in that book is,of course, from Buddist religious thought, with a smattering of 'Christianity' to give it some oomph. If one were inclined in that direction, give The Grail Message a miss and go for the real deal, the motherlode, in Tibetan Buddhism.

You read a passage in these Buddist texts and you KNOW what it's saying is true. Of course, being a Christian, I see one or two things differently, but oh my lawd it's fascinating stuff. When people die their spirits experience all sorts of things. In NDEs we have Hindis seeing their gods, muslims seeing theirs, Christians seeing theirs,ect. Each sees what they believe in. I've wondered at this. (Of course, these people come back; we have no idea what really happens to the spirits of those irrevocably dead) And there are explanations for this from Christian religious thought. I was enthralled to read what Tibetan Masters had to say on the subject.

Magic and Mystery in Tibet is excellent. Highly recommended as an introduction to oriental religious philosophy.

I ADORE Aamir Khan and will actually sit for three hours to watch ANYTHING he's in. (Will these people reduce the length of their films! Ah-han! Like somebody doesn't have anything to do).His movies are the best of the current crop: Lagaan, Fanaa, Raja Hindustani, Rang De Basanti,etc.

LMAO!! I get what you mean.

She plumped them up again? No freakin way I'm watching that movie now.

Depp and Foxx to play Jackson? The guy just died and the Hollywood movie machine's already licking its lips and counting its millions? Depp had better not take that role or else.

Still they're two different kinds of men. Mebbe Foxx will play black Indiana Jackson and Depp the WASP Jackson . No time for movies. Not even a crummy once a week. Come high water I'm going to finish Fringe on DVD this week.
iice, you made me hunt out the two Lewis Caroll books on a wave of nostlagia and read em again. Of course you like the Off With His Head! Queen. You're just hopeless. Still in the middle of Thru the Looking Glass. If Megan Fox is in Transformers 2 I'm giving the thing a miss. Her endless pouting and Angelina-ing the first time made my foot itch to kick her over someone's fence. Can't sit thru it again.

spikedcylinder:
He was THE master. Can't think of anyone that remotely comes close. So so so sad.

[img]http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/500/280496/Michael+Jackson.png[/img]

Yes he was. No one comes close. No one. No one. No one.

Where did you find that photo? So stunning. I can't stand it; the guy's priceless. No one to fill them shoes.
Biddy bye bye Michael.

Michael Jackson is dead! Good grief!

iice:
[color=#9900ff]Tim Burton presents ~ Alice in Wonderland
[color=#9900ff]Anne Hathaway As the White Queen ~ In "Through the Looking Glass," the White Queen claims to be over one hundred and one years old, but she seems to experience time backwards. So it follows Carroll's twisted logic that when Alice returns the Queen would be young. While Anne Hathaway looks very different in the role with her long white hair, her appearance will not be digitally manipulated. Hathaway told MTV that while she was happy to get a chance to work with Burton, she was most excited to share scenes with Johnny Depp. She said, "I wish I could be so cool about it [but] I am such a huge fan, I felt really embarrassed. He would catch me staring at him."

I know what you mean Anne Loving the white locks sha[/color]

I adore Alan Rickman [/color]

That's right. Keep emphatizing and affirming Anne Hathaway till she snatches ya husband.
I'm the one with the thing for older men. You can't have Rickman. Ah-han! Join Supreme Greed Anonymous or something. I've had a thing for his voice for years and you can't just swoop in and claim him now.

Why do you not like Lewis Carroll's books?

Didn't know you were a Norton fan.Yeah. Leo's been touted as the new De Niro.

So sorry! I've been excruciatingly busy.
Am I insinuating the sun goes down everyday and the moon comes up a spell? Naw. No insinuations.It's a self-evident fact.

Are people any different from those in the past? No. Whatever their profession now, scientist, archeologist, chemist, thief, librarian,our brains are no different from those in eras past, and we're not in any way smarter than they merely because they lived in 200AD and you live in 2009 AD.There's a common tendency to think each civilization is 'better' than those past, that progress itself progresses like an arrow, in a straight line. It does no such thing. Each era is self-contained in its progress, and each has remarkable acheivements in diverse fields of knowledge. Scientists might even have it easy now. They innovtae, but they also build and improve upon the work of genuises past. Scientists who didn't have as much as they do now or know as much as has been discovered cummulatively, but who blazed trails and opened fields to new knowledge.

Look at Islam and Arabian scientists, for instance. The greatest thinker of the 11th century (or was it the 13 th?) was a Muslim Arab. The greatest thinker in the world! Centuries before that they led the field in Astronomy and other sciences, and their contributions to mathematics is incalculable. You wouldn't have this numeral without them (0). I think they gave us numbers and values: 1,2,3,4,5etc. The only discipline they lagged behind was in biology. You wouldn't look at them now and believe that, would you? Would you say their progress has been linear? No. Like every era it's been contained within itself, and the present is in no way superior to the past in terms of "progress'.

If Fiennes's in it, it'll be great. The man dosn't know how to disappoint. The remake is long overdue. Man that thing is old! With updated SF it should be just great! Just heard, and can't wait already!

See his head. I was teasing you.

You are so not awed and astonished.
The supernatural turned to pyramids. What can one say?

Formulaic, slick Hollywood 'corporate spy' thriller. Just OK.

The movie refused to engage me. Crowe's a far cry from "Gladiator". Amazing actor but I wonder if his streak isn't over.

@Tpiah
Sandra Bullock? Pull what off?

mystikal:
Prison Break has ended since May!

No thanks to that talentless, beefy, overacting, steroids-for-brains who played the older Scofield brother and his crappy acting. lol at the places the ass 'concentrated' on acting 'sensitive' and 'deep'. My foot itched to kick the guy.

Well, you know, there's no way to tell what their intentions were; it was so long ago.
The Aztecs are on a different continent entirely, so far away from Egypt there was no way the two cultures could interact, and yet they too were building pyramids. But Aztec pyramids aren't a mystery; it had steps. The pyramids are a puzzle. The ancient Egyptians were simply smarter than our modern scientists is all.

esensed:
IF WHAT IS SEEN (PYRAMID MADE BY ANCIENT MEN) HAS NOT BEEN UNDERSTOOD BY MODERN MAN, HOW CAN THE UNSEEN(SUPERNATURAL) BE UNDERSTOOD BY MERE HUMAN UNDERSTANDING?

I like that!

sherifatou:
more like sun worship, I should think.They had precise calendars for equinoxes and all that. Think I heard it somewhere.

The Aztecs? I think so. For the Egyptians the pyramids were tombs. For Aztecs and their kin, they were temples.

Yes you did.
Please tell me the rest. There's simply no way I can manage to finish it. I stopped where Affleck shows Crowe the dead girl laughing on his phone, asking, "Does that look like someone who was going to commit suicide?"
What happens after that? What's the movie about?

I like your honesty. No posturing or anything. You're a man, and you're not blind. You see and appreciate beautiful women. It's just a dream, nothing more. It means something only if you're desperate for it to mean something. It seems you like the lady.

RichyBlacK:
The al-Shabab group must be crushed! These foul imbeciles taking orders from Saudi Arabia to desecrate the dead must be routed at all cost!

There is absolutely no excuse in this world or the next, to desecrate graves. Only the most ignominious bastards will do such a thing.

What idiotic interpretation of Islam teaches Muslims to not only kill other Muslims but to also desecrate their graves? This is unpardonable and the Sufis must fight back and annihilate the Wahhabists. These dirty urchins in Saudi-Arabia are trying to introduce their barbaric religion into Somalia and all must bring them to their knees. As far as I'm concerned, there are no worse humans than Wahhabists on this earth!

Thankfully, the Ahlu Sunnah Wal Jama (the umbrella group of Sufi sects in Somalia) is fighting back ferociously.

I hope more true Muslims will stop seeing the failed state of Saudi-Arabia as anything special. Just because Mecca and Medina are in Saudi-Arabia does not make those gremlins who advocate Wahhabism any more special than saner Muslims in America, Egypt, Iran and Jordan.

We, the living can fight as much as we want, but going to disturb the dead is unconscionable!

Man, you sound like all you need is a semi-automatic rifle and you'll go to town on wiping them out!
Take am easy o.

Is that the planet?Whoaaaaaa-what a beauty.
Why didn't they give its specifics, like what galaxy it's on.

Anything's possible. Afterall it appears the God of the Bible visited an Egyptian pharaoh, Akhenaton, and the encounter was so profound, the king changed his name to reflect that of this 'sun god' who was a being 'brighter than the sun.' Familiar?

"On one of these journeys I was going to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests. About noon, O king, as I was on the road, I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, blazing around me and my companions. We all fell to the ground, (Acts 26:12-14)(Acts 9)

This pharaoh built a city and dedicated it to his God, and was, naturally, soon at loggerheads with the priests of other gods in Egypt when he declared this God was the only true God. It's possible God might have had a hand in the pyramids, but it's unlikely. Modern men simply haven't been able to figure out how the Egyptians did it, is all. Some of them are saying, in their conceit, if we can't figure it out,then perhaps aliens built it with alien technology lol. Besides, the Egyptians weren' the only ancient civilization with pyramids. The Aztecs, a cruel, intriguing, very smart and scientifically advanced people, had step pyramids too.They knew their astronomy and could predict eclipses,etc.

esensed:
could it be that when the children of isreal in eygpt as slaves were building the pyramid
i wanted to ask some mysterious question but i cant put it in words but , i hopr i can

lol are you perhaps wondering if God had something to do with the pyramids when the 'children of Israel' were building it, lending a hand somehow, and 'man' cannot now unravel how it was done because of that?

Listening to Sleep Song by Rooney.
Will try and see it. Too busy these days. All I managed this week was 20 minutes or so of State of Play. Crowe was a seedy, gum-popping,overweight,cynical, veteran journalist and there was some suicide thingie with Ben Affleck.