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Old 16-06-2018, 05:29 PM
meetjazz meetjazz is offline
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I quite agree with Honza. Eastern religions have a lot more focus on ''me'' as on ''us,'' although far from that obsession of ''I'' as is practiced in ''modern spirituality'' in the west. Nevertheless, eastern religions and philosophies did often run into problems and still do because of too much of ''I'' and lack of ''us.'' Also the misinterpretation of Karma can be often use as an excuse not help others, tolerance to suffering, exploitation,...Maybe it's ironic that I write this, because I follow an eastern goddess(Guan Yin), but there is often big misrepresentation and understanding of eastern philosophies or religions in the west. In the west is Buddhism presented as somekind of atheistic philosophy, where it goes everything about > me, myself and I<. While it's true that Theravada Buddhism is usually focus more about own power to ''enlightenment'' they are big minority in the east, the biggest branch of buddhism in the east Mahayana Buddhism which already includes as Christianity various deities, the importance of helping others, equality,..let alone to speak from Pure Land Buddhism, which sounds almost the same as Christianity,..

Also Hinduism is in the west usually deeply misrepresented or scrubbed down to chakras & physical yoga and that's it. I don't really agree that eastern religions are the couse of western rise of self obssesion. I think this was a process of decates of promoting certain self-centred economic philosophies, the rise of atheism,.. The ''self centered spirituality'' is somehow a logical consequence or outcome of western self centered development. I think that western philosophy and religion have alot to offer, the only reason why I have run to an ''eastern goddess'' was because I could not find any other deities which was not somehow linked to violence,..even though I don't think that western philosophy, looked to Old Greeks, Plato, Socrates,...is inferior to eastern philosophies,..It is strange development of the western spirituality that it looks to the east for salvation, probably because the Catholic Church have deeply disappointed people with various scandals, insisting on various dogmas,...at least this is often the key reason why people turn to the east.
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