jbaumannmontilla wrote:Two things.
1.Everything that Malcolm is saying is actually in the early dzogchen texts. So maybe you want to go argue with Manjusrimitra.
I can't argue with manjusrimitra, as he is not alive.. but I have read some of his writings. Whether the translations are any good is another story. I can have conversations with living Dzogchen masters.. but I don't know any that make the across the board generalizations that we are discussing here.
Anyway, in case you missed Heart's signature this is a manjusrimitra quote:
"The direct, hard to understand, subtle field of knowing, the Great Path, is non-conceptual (akalpana), and entirely beyond the grasp of intellectual thought. Divorced from verbal ideation, it is difficult to point out and as difficult to enquire into. It cannot be communicated through words and [therefore] is not within the scope of the neophyte (adikarmika). Nevertheless the path is to be approached through studying scriptures (sutra) of the World-Teacher and following the personal instructions (upadesa) of one's Guru-ji."
Bodhicittabhavana by Acarya Sri Manjusrimitr
2. These posts on Afro Diasporic religions are deeply racist, drawing upon a whole history of demonization of people of African descent and denigration of their religions.
Hardly, I never said anything racist in any of my posts, I am referring to something I was told ChNN himself said, and I don't think he was being racist.
If you watch the film, you will see how little regard or respect for the animals being slaughtered there is... and the intoxicated relishing in the death of the animals, biting into their bleeding flesh while they are still dying, smearing blood all over their faces, etc. The cruelty is self-evident. It is not racist of me to observe for myself what fellow human beings are doing, regardless of their race. You don't even know what race I am so you are being ridiculous.
Your friend's film is voyeuristic and exploitative.
And you know this because you have seen it? Do you often judge films you haven't even seen? It is really unhelpful to just snap judgments on things you know nothing about. Actually, everyone in this film seemed delighted to be filmed, and it had a very respectful approach: just filmed documentation of many scenes, the practitioners own poetic accounts of their gods history and qualities, and the native music.. nothing was done to color things in any way by the filmmaker. Plus, as I said, this was a friend-of-a-friend.. pay better attention. I have no agenda in defending them.. but you are simply reactive with no basis.
The Tibetans aren't vegetarians, neither are the Haitians
Well, I know many Tibetan vegetarians.. so that is a wrong statement..and as I pointed out above, it was not the eating of meat I found disturbing, it was the apparent joy found in killing with cruelty-- even one young man held a decapitated goats head up and made all kinds of mocking faces with it.. think about someone doing this with your mother or wife's head. .I tend to see animals lives in the same precious light that I see human lives. So I do feel sad when I see people being cruel to animals, in the same way I would feel sad if I saw them do the same to a human being.
And? Isn't Mahasiddha Krishnacharya depicted riding a zombie?
Riding a zombie is a much different thing than becoming one. The former implies subjugation. Anyway, obviously we are not talking about zombies in the sense the Tibetan's discuss, we are talking about people ritually using a drug that induces very aggravated trance like states that sometimes mirror catatonia.
Spirit possession is also practiced by Tibetans, they're called oracles. One of them advises the Dalai Lama. "Pretty Nutso Stuff."
I don't believe possession itself is the root issue, but the nature of the entities doing the possession.. and the motivations on both side of the equation.