Do Hopeless People Glorify Enlightment As A Way To Cope With Being Hopless?

[ArchimageDGTAL]

To start it off with some personal experience. So back in hs I used to do this stuff, me and this one girl took a strong interest in psychic, and all the phenomenon that goes on with lucid dreaming, OBE and other practices such as meditation even activating pineal gland. This culture is almost bumistic so to speak, guys with long facial hair(hipster pre set) and geometry and flower tattoos, people walking around barefoot & caucasians with dreads etc. I do not see many wealthy people promoting these practices nor science except those who profit from saying riddles. What if this culture claims to be enlighten when really it is being used a defensive claim against people who do follow the crowd to survive which the enlighten crowd is not apart of? More on this, what if this culture was created to bring to the American people because American People have no official FUN and Open spiritual culture which is where Buddhism falls on us and is so widely popular and accepted. The attitudes of these people are " universe IS my home". Although one thing we all have in common is we strive for better knowledge to help ourselves.! I feel this culture merging towards making some believe it's okay for them settle for less or what they already have. Another way to put it is, are we really suppose to be satisfied with what we have just because everything is in our minds? Aren't we supposed to be experiencing too, not just "thinking" about the experience? I feel as though in a sense this stuff can be very time consuming & filled with many riddles which are sometimes good for solutions. Maybe I have reached nirvana through writing this message. I am not saying this stuff isn't real I am just saying what if you're trying to be what you already are? Maybe us humans ARE the universe just expressing ourselves as we are. There will always be chaos. There will always be peace. We just need to share the "intent" of sharing and understanding amongst ourselves, that should be the prize. Not trying the practices "SITTING AND LAYING". Btw to access the parts of you that you cannot normally access, ummm you need psychedelics, like the stuff in mushrooms. Those Buddhist were doing psychedelics guys, but they left that part out!

[gab]

Just a quick question. Do you practice lucid dreaming?

[ArchimageDGTAL]

I do not try to do it. Sometimes I become lucid, sometimes its just a regular dream i that I'm not controlling. But I remember them.

[Deelo]

Well,this is a lucid dreaming forum,not a spiritual discussion forum. I don't really see anything spiritual about lucid dreaming. It's only spiritual if you make it out to be. Most of the people on this forum(including me) just LD for fun.

[rastro13]

It may just be me but it seems like you are implying that lucid dreaming isnt real even though you said that that is not what you are saying. You dont need to be on psychadelics to achieve lucid dreaming or obe's. Many people, in fact almost all of the people on this sight have had more than a few lucid dreams and or obe's without any drugs or supplements. Also like deelo said, a lot of people lucid dream just for fun. Its pretty much the same sort of fun you get out of video games. If you're going to be sleeping a third of your life away might as well have some fun doing it

[Sivason]

I could be offended by the statement that all the Buddhist stuff was inspired by drugs,,, if I cared enough. I am not a Buddhist (but my father was), I am more of a Yogi, although to many there is almost no difference. I can assure you that deep amazing states of being can be achieved with out drugs,,, but whatever. Do not look further into it, if is that what you choose. I accept that 'new age' stuff can be a form of self dillusion, and an excuss for drug use or slacker behavior, but that means nothing about the actual practice of self-awareness or mindfulness. The same is true for Christianity or any 'culture.' There is always someone using a culture as an excuse for something. It could be that a Gypsy wanna-be uses it as an excuse for staying nomadic, that a Christian may use that for not acquiring wealth, that a Krishna consciousness person uses that as an exuse for not making new friends, and so on. Those few looking for self-excuse in no way reflect any of those cultures. They are simply a few lost people looking for ways to feel a part of something, and to not be judged.

[Darkmatters]

[B]This culture is almost bumistic so to speak, guys with long facial hair(hipster pre set) and geometry and flower tattoos, people walking around barefoot & caucasians with dreads etc. I do not see many wealthy people promoting these practices nor science except those who profit from saying riddles. Are you really surprised that hippy type non-conformists are the ones into drugs and spiritual enlightenment, and upwardly mobile conformists aren't? It seems to me that wealth/social climbing and spirituality don't really mix very well. Anyone who really understands anything about spirituality or enlightenment knows money can't buy happiness and in fact usually gets you just the opposite, and anyone who's invested in chasing after material wealth doesn't have much of a sense of spirituality.

[JoannaB]

Nonesense, I say. If one is hopeless, one will not seek out enlightenment. It requires hope, and tremendous will power and focus. Enlightenment is also empowerment by accepting one learns to surpass. It is much more meaningful to ask whether someone needs to be a perfectionist to seek out enlightenment, and one needs to both let go of the perfectionism and never let go of focusing on it at the same time. Of course, I admit i may also not have a clue though I do seek one. I am not poor, not hopeless, never used drugs and do not intend to, and yet I find many of the Buddhist ideas worth pursuing (though I am not a Buddhist), and I only turned to them as part of a self improvement effort, so the opposite of hopelessness.

[Sivason]

Are you really surprised that hippy type non-conformists are the ones into drugs and spiritual enlightenment, and upwardly mobile conformists aren't? It seems to me that wealth/social climbing and spirituality don't really mix very well. Anyone who really understands anything about spirituality or enlightenment knows money can't buy happiness and in fact usually gets you just the opposite, and anyone who's invested in chasing after material wealth doesn't have much of a sense of spirituality. Wealth and spirituality are not mutually exclusive. A person can find self-realization and still attend grad school.

[Darkmatters]

Oh of course - I was generalizing. I know there are wealthy people who aren't conformists just in it for status and power.

[Sageous]

Do hippies still wear flower tattoos? Does nothing ever change? Seriously, though, I wonder if the OP makes a good point, if not a point he or she intended. Though I do not believe that enlightenment, and even LD'ing, for that matter, are possible without hope (hope being the driving force behind a person's need for more, whether they know it or not), it does seem that there is a lot of blind "following" in disciplines like LD'ing (and paths to enlightenment) where the follower is more interested in affecting the appearance of working that discipline to impress others, be part of the crowd, and, often, to deceive themselves into believing they are doing something "real." Perhaps OP has just noticed how much empty adherence there is to all these rules, to the point where the rules become more important than the results? Indeed, I often wonder (to my own detriment, occasionally) if all these "time-saving" techniques are a reflection of this sort of mind-set ... if not a direct reflection, perhaps a symptom of how close so many of us always are to losing hope. Oh, and succesful rich people and scientists have plenty of hope, I believe; they may be driving towards a more of a different, more materialistic nature, but they're still driven.