Developing tk/pk

Hello
If anybody's interested, I have made a tutorial on how to do telekinesis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwyNqabAWtM

forceuser wrote: I don't think anybody's change their mind
I believe if you've never seen or experienced it it's impossible for you to understand or believe
but if you've done it experienced it or seen it it may be a little more likely for you to believe it

Funny how we never see anyone apply this logic to anything real. You ask about gravity and they drop their pen. You ask about air, and they blow a sheet or dust. You ask about electricity and they switch on the lights. You ask about radio waves and they call a cell phone. But then if you ask about magic, suddenly it's "impossible to understand or believe" through showing by someone else, for it must be experienced personally and subjectively. In other words, we are talking about make-belief.
Well, people can make-believe all kinds of things, including self-contradictory ones, and they do, and they murder each other over it, too. I reject that kind of self-deception and choose to be honest with myself and others instead. To each their own though...

Gisteron wrote:

forceuser wrote: I don't think anybody's change their mind
I believe if you've never seen or experienced it it's impossible for you to understand or believe
but if you've done it experienced it or seen it it may be a little more likely for you to believe it

Funny how we never see anyone apply this logic to anything real. You ask about gravity and they drop their pen. You ask about air, and they blow a sheet or dust. You ask about electricity and they switch on the lights. You ask about radio waves and they call a cell phone. But then if you ask about magic, suddenly it's "impossible to understand or believe" through showing by someone else, for it must be experienced personally and subjectively. In other words, we are talking about make-belief.
Well, people can make-believe all kinds of things, including self-contradictory ones, and they do, and they murder each other over it, too. I reject that kind of self-deception and choose to be honest with myself and others instead. To each their own though...

This is kind of why I decided on TOJO, to get over those false beliefs. Mine weren't so much spiritual, but more like fear, anxiety, and failure. I was creating the same kind of false world and false justifications for myself. But a delusion is a delusion. So, I while I won't fault anyone for wanting to believe... I think that if you can't be honest with yourself when confronted with the facts, logic, and reality then you are going to have a very long and hard road to being a Jedi.

To be clear I do believe in reality I have physically beat many highly trained martial artists I have been in the United States military jumped out of planes repelled graduated from the Sheriff's Department earned a contractor's license and real estate license to name a few
Yes I have been highly trained in reality
All I can tell you is this if all you believe in is what you can touch with your hands you have a longer way to becoming a Jedi

Discussing whether these phenomena exist in the subjective 'imagination' only, or in 'objective reality' too, is interesting and has been a discussion for possibly thousands of years. The beliefs on whether they are real or not have generally followed the fashion of the day.

For those that do not believe you don't need to read the rest of this post! For those who do believe they are real, those much wiser than me have consistently given a stark warning. Given this thread has begun to evolve away from a discussion on the reality of these phenomena, on to individuals discussing development of such skills and 'training' it would seem appropriate to remind people of, or introduce, those warnings:

So-called super-natural powers (although IF they exist they can be nothing but natural) are a distraction at best and dangerous at worst. In the Cambridge Companion to Miracles Graham Tweltree states:

" . . . the yogin who has mastery of higher levels can control and manipulate the elements that comprise the lower levels and so is able to perform what appear to be miraculous feats. These powers, however, are discouraged as a distraction from the ultimate goal of liberation and there is a rhetoric of disparaging such worldly powers as distractions at best and as dangerous at worst - in creating stronger desires in the yogin. If the goal of liberation is detachment from the world of the senses and from human desires - the desire for power or sex - then cultivating such powers might take the yogin away from that goal."

More forcefully in the Yoga Sutra III: 38, Patanjali warns the sincere seeker of God-union that the use of phenomenal powers is an obstacle, tempting the yogi to egotistical pride and distracting him from the true Goal. The advancing devotee is careful to shun the use of any supernatural powers he might attain, or to employ them only when he is certain of divine permission. After becoming irrevocably established in samadhi, of course, the perfected yogi is guided by God's wisdom; he then exercises the siddhis or refrains from doing so entirely according to the inner promptings of the Divine Will.

To seek such powers is a waste of time (in all likelihood it won't work, if they exist they are a mere by-product of contemplative practice) and if through meditation and dedication such powers were to become available to you, you should shun them anyway.

If anyone feels personally affronted by this warning or feels victimized by others questioning your "powers" I would take a long hard look at yourself. Such a reaction would suggest that you are far from ready for such gifts . . . if they exist . . .

To quote The Wise Heart, by Jack Kornfield: "The real blessing appears when we can bring the experiences of the transcendental to illuminate the miracle of the ordinary. Seeing with the eyes of wisdom allows us to reawaken to the secret beauty all around us."

If your motive is to help or heal others, then there a million ways to do that now - that don't involve what will likely be a fruitless waste of time. If your purpose is pride, ambition, power or self-promotion then it will indeed be a waste of time - the powers will not manifest when it actually counts, and even if they do, they will only cause pain, to you and to others.

Please continue . . .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voVj8zVTWCA

forceuser wrote: To be clear I do believe in reality I have physically beat many highly trained martial artists I have been in the United States military jumped out of planes repelled graduated from the Sheriff's Department earned a contractor's license and real estate license to name a few
Yes I have been highly trained in reality
All I can tell you is this if all you believe in is what you can touch with your hands you have a longer way to becoming a Jedi

Believing in the abstract because of logic, deduction, and rationale is completely different that making claim that cannot be substantiated by anything other than anecdotes and woo. I am fully willing to accept that you believe what you say, I have no reason to doubt you, however, I have no reason to believe what you believe just because you believe it.

If you can present anything verifiable or falsifiable to support your claims that don't boil down to because "I said so", "trust me, I know." "A lot of people think/claim." or just anything objective, then there might be reason to believe. But to my knowledge not then that basic hurdle has cleared by supports of this pseudo-meta-woo-bs.

I'd love to be wrong here, I'd love to see proof of the paranormal or psychic, but that just hasn't happened yet and I can't allow my want to believe to come a faith in something that just isn't there.

I have been looking for proof of this my whole life, I do it every day. I sift through story after story and I know the people think they are true, but the validity of the story doesn't matter, it's just a story. Without something, some way, some method, or just any proof for these extraordinary claims...it doesn't happened. I mean I can understand that there are unexplained things and there things we don't know, but the jump from "I don't know" to paranormal, supernational, pk, mystics, etc. is a bridge too far. You say you think it is X, but that doesn't make so and when it is something that has never before been seen, you have to have more than faith.

I'm pondering the words of the wise and I think of all the religions of the world Christianity Judaism Eastern cultures and the Egyptians they all have stories about Small Miracles or large miracles
Is it possible?
That the thousands of books written buy the wise are either 100% lies or possibly we have been deceived
I don't know I am only a lost student carrying two empty cups

forceuser wrote: I'm pondering the words of the wise and I think of all the religions of the world Christianity Judaism Eastern cultures and the Egyptians they all have stories about Small Miracles or large miracles
Is it possible?
That the thousands of books written buy the wise are either 100% lies or possibly we have been deceived
I don't know I am only a lost student carrying two empty cups

It is possible, in that there is a non-zero chance, but it probable that all those books are true? More probable than say... that people thousands of years ago didn't have the ability to understand, measure, or quantify things that they saw and experienced so they decided Zeus was angry or Eototo was laughing and thatGod or whatever you choose to the source of these miracles just so happened to also take a nap or whatever at the same time we became able to understands the natural world and could possibly verify a bona fide miracle

Also, I specially asked (as have others) show me something that isn't stories. I can tell you a story about a galaxy far, far away. Equally as valid by itself.

forceuser wrote: I'm pondering the words of the wise and I think of all the religions of the world Christianity Judaism Eastern cultures and the Egyptians they all have stories about Small Miracles or large miracles
Is it possible?
That the thousands of books written buy the wise are either 100% lies or possibly we have been deceived
I don't know I am only a lost student carrying two empty cups

You are not a lost student anymore my friend. Fortunately you find yourself here at TOTJO, as good a place as any to learn how to see through this false dichotomy you have presented yourself with (Possible vs Lies/Deception).

If you work through the Joseph Campbell lectures in the Initiate Program Lesson 1, the answers are all there. I won't spoil it - by giving you the answer. I have no wish to deny you the satisfaction of discovering the solution for yourself. Suffice to say that your answer lies in the role and nature of 'myth'.

And don't worry about the cups - empty ones are more useful than full ones - but that's a different lesson