From: cup.portal.com!Tagi%portal@uunet.uu.net
Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern
Subject: Re: Effort vs clinging on the spiritual path
Date: 19 Nov 1992 09:54:02 -0800
Organization: ----
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: sandman.caltech.edu

9211.18 e.v.


Roger Adams writes:

		"Human conduct is ever unreliable
		 until man is anchored in the Divine,
		 Everything in future will improve
		 if you are making a spiritual effort now".
			       - Swami Sri Yukteswar


The spiritual path requires effort with very few exceptions. There was a
man who wrote a book some years ago called (I think) _The lazy man's way
to enlightenment_". Well, lazy men may write books but they don't find 
enlightenment. 


Response:

That man was Thaddeus Golas.  His small book is a very important text
and it illustrates just how far we have strayed from our own naturality
in search of 'spiritual perfection'.

I like to argue against this 'work-hard ethic' and refer the interested
reader to Taoism, wherein one does not seize on either effort or laziness
and just relaxes, letting Tao flow upon Hir course.

Effortful men may write posts and pose arguments for more effort, but they
find enlightenment as often as the lazy men.  I would add that most women and 
children are ALREADY enlightened. ;>


Roger:

..the real clinging is to remain in the lower states of 
awareness where one only perceives that which is perceivable through the 5 
senses.  Any "lazy" path which quotes the ultimate truth sayings and then
concludes that one need not do anything or make any spiritual effort, is
an example of big-time clinging to ego-consciousness and the limited states
of awareness, bound and limited by the 5 senses. True non-clinging is found
in any practice which severs the ties and weans us from the lower states
of body-bound, sense-bound consciousness.  


Response:

This gets tedious after a while.  Upper and lower are in no sense a system
of valuation.  The '5 senses' and their 'lower awareness' are no worse or
better than their 'higher' counterparts.  Anybody who tells you this is
either very deluded or out to sell you a book.

Any truly 'lazy' path does not quote because it is too burdensome to quote.
One can say what one means without using the words of another and the
energy to regurgitate.

Methinks that Roger does not know what is being referred to by a 'lazy path'.
A lazy path is a path that is not a path (true buddhism!).  It requires no
effort because it does not require, period.  If you want to get to point A,
then the path might say: go X direction for Y minutes, then turn left.
The lazy path is about getting there with the LEAST amount of effort, not
about arguing that no effort is ever needed in order to accomplish something.

[Note that the TRULY lazy path states that nothing need ever be accomplished
and that no effort is EVER needed, so RELAX!, but this may be too advanced
for beginning Lazes. ;>]

I think your words here are quite extreme and limited.  What else IS there
besides the world if the '5 senses'?  I submit there is none other and that
your concept of 'weaning' is a castle in the clouds!  Having said this
(in some humor), let me add that I like my philosophy nondualist and your
mention of 'higher' and 'lower', 'senses' and [Nirvana???] lets me get my
blood boiling! :>


Roger:

After enough effort is
made, the practices are no longer necessary and thus there is no lasting
attachment to the means to ending this powerful clinging to ego-consciousness.


Response:

It is this sentence which convinces me that I must be misunderstanding Roger
above, for I agree completely.  The effort and practice are only stages
during which the aspirant learns that such efforts ARE NOT NECESSARY! ;>

Clinging is clinging.  We don't like it.  Let's abolish it!  Let's make
sure that nobody clings to anything.  Let so focus on clinging that we
begin to cling to clingingness and its cessation!  Argh!  :/  Perhaps we
ought just sit at home and watch football instead.  Spiritual practice!


Thyagi Morgoth NagaSiva
----------------------------------------------
"I went in to the body shop.
I said to the guy, 'I want stereo FM installed in my teeth,
and take this mole off my back, and put it on my cheek,
and while I'm here, why don't you give me some of those high-heeled feet?'
And he said 'Please!  There's no guarantees, nature's got rules and
nature's got laws, and if you cross her, look out for the monkey's paw!!...
She's saying 'Give me five!', she's saying 'Bye bye!'" 

Laurie Anderson