A brother who followed the life of stillness in the monastery of the cave of Abba Sabba came to Abba Elias and said to him, Abba, give me a way of life. The old man said to the brother, In the days of our predecessors they took great care about these three virtues: poverty, obedience, and fasting. But among monks nowadays, avarice, self-confidence, and great greed have taken charge. Brother, choose whichever you want most.
Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, Abba, as far as I can I say my Little Office. I fast a little. I pray. I meditate. I live in peace and as far as I can. I purify my thoughts. What else am I to do?
What else, Abba Lot says, can I do? Then the old man stood up, stretched his hands towards heaven and his fingers became like ten lamps of fire, and he said to him, If you will, you can become all flame.
I guess there might be several monks reincarnated among the people in this modern western world. It's probably not just the days of our predecessors, but also us and our successors.
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The unreal hath no being; there is no non-being of the Real; ~Krishna
A stable-minded person will neither hug nor hate the world, he will take things as they come.
@Sussch I say senseless joy to your heart. You may not've known but thoughts of things like reincarnation and relativity are seen as deeply careless and distracting to believers who claim said monks as their predecessors. Likened to idle gossip. Again, I say senseless joy to your heart.
I want to apologize for representing these monks and their practices so mistakenly in that foolish reply I posted to Sussch.
I'm pretty sure I was so defensive in the first place because I myself didn't live up to their standards and practices AT ALL at that time.
I'm trying to say these people rarely if ever lost control of themselves and here I was a PORN ADDICT at the time trying to speak on their behalf .
I really don't think I've ever done anything as stupid and harmful as that.
I've made a lot of personal progress since then and I now know how to refine those previous compulsions into more refined qualities by happily holding myself to certain disciplines.
No problem, you were correct too. Because my joy sourced mostly from ego. If you hadn't said so, I wouldn't have noticed.
Each of us have different viewpoints and by sharing them, we eventually learn to see things as a whole. Like a multitude of spotlights from different angles directed at the object reveals its true appearance.
I appreciate what you've taught me =).
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The unreal hath no being; there is no non-being of the Real; ~Krishna
A stable-minded person will neither hug nor hate the world, he will take things as they come.
Torig how did you stop being addicted to porn? I recently learned about psychic implants and I had one implant making me addicted. Now I am not sure if it was me or the implant....
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Ah forget my signature, I have nothing smart to say...in a few months I will change my opinion probably :~p
Some may disagree with what I'm about to say, but I think the most effective way to be free from unwanted compulsions is to become more familiar with one's own creativity.
One way that's been very reliable for months for me to be free from that previous desire for porn was through representational drawing. I would draw something I chose to look at as closely as I could to how I saw it in front of me and I'd notice how that required me to be way less compulsive and way more creative in my thinking.
That was really when I began to stop feeling like I wanted to watch porn.
I've been doing more personal practices since then but I think what I've been doing lately is only effective because of how familiar I've become with my own creativity.
By psychic implants, you mean something like this?
I thought I had a blog post on it, but couldn't find it somehow.
While on the bus at a bus station, I noticed a lady step out for a smoke. Observed her, acquired a feeling of her and her addiction to smoking. Once she inhaled the first mouthful of smoke, both of us experienced the incredible pleasure of her body getting its dose of nicotine. It was obvious that she tried to reproduce the effect again several times afterwards, but did not experience the pleasure anymore. Here, simply because of experiencing a boost of empathy, I was this "psychic implant" that amplified her pleasure and caused the addiction to grow deeper.
I think it might work similar with pr*n, too. It's not so much because we're addicted, but because there is consciousness enjoying it through us. Also similar to how FullMetal Alchemist monsters Greed, Pride and Envy worked. They consisted of hundreds of people, united by properties of their personalities. Greedy people powered monster Greed, envious people Envy and so on.
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The unreal hath no being; there is no non-being of the Real; ~Krishna
A stable-minded person will neither hug nor hate the world, he will take things as they come.
Everyone doesn't want the same thing as everyone else. I know I practice pk for very different reasons than others here seem to. I'm not trying to say anything philosophical now. I'm just saying I know I really don't care to empathize with people or speculate about people and stuff like that.
I really just want to get better at preventing accidents.