The
Loveline
Companion

SHANE CARWIN IS ALSO GOING TO MAKE DEEPAK CHOPRA BLEED FROM HIS ANUS.

• http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100513225040AA8iDE9

—ZTgeist

I wanted this to segue in to discussion about Deepak Chopra and Bill Maher, but I'll just start that discussion now and see if anyone is still reading this thread.

Deepak was promoting his latest book on the Colbert Report on "embracing your dark side" this Wednesday. That's cool, and I'm sure some people will find it insightful. I have to say personally it sounds like advice I've heard from other people before. They weren't guru-like authors from India who describe themselves as a "profit."

It made me think of a study where researches gave separate groups of students an energy drink that was advertised as enhancing their cognitive functioning. They found that the groups who were charged the most money for the energy drinks got the most benefit from them (if you measure it but their ability to solve intelligence testing puzzles), even though the actual product was no different. I, personally, think Deepak works a similar placebo angle. He presents himself in a certain way and makes sure that his teachings are expensive enough to be effective.

Back in February, Bill said somethings about Buddhism that I thought were interesting. Interesting, mostly because he had Deepka Chopra on his show a few years ago and seemed very interested in his brand of spirituality. Deepak and Buddhism are certainly not the same, but they aren't worlds apart either. The times I've heard Deepak speak he seems to make reasonable points and have decent ideas. Of course there are exceptions, but that's no reason to throw the baby out with the bath water.

I know I've mentioned Chögyam Trungpa before. Trungpa should have been locked up. At the same time, I'll grant that the institutions he started have done very good things despite his pederasty. I'm sure I could find plenty of atheists who have done horrible things. That would be almost complete waste of time, however, because in the same way that not all Buddhists are bad because of Trungpa, not all atheists are bad because some atheists have done something fucked up.

I think Bill is under the effect of a placebo, which can be as bad as opiate for the masses.

—ZTgeist

i'm just going to throw this out there:

i think spirituality is bullshit. it's just a state of mind you talk yourself into. if you think you are spiritual, then go into a vegetative coma, are you still spiritual? no, because you can no longer dream up such emotional filler.

i do fine with the complete absence of spirituality, therefor i believe others can too.
i have friends, good job, skills, money, fair luck in general.. i get to live life on my terms. so, i don't get the point of trying to grasp something you just make up, and then run with.

edit: getting to the point to where i can't remember whether i've said this before here on on Fb. oh, well.

—plurryho

I used to think that cynicism and sarcasm were the opposite of spirituality, but I starting think that they're a kind of spirituality. I've probably posted this here before, maybe several times. This is Carl Sagan on spirituality, and I couldn't say it better:

In its encounter with Nature, science invariably elicits a sense of reverence and awe. The very act of understanding is a celebration of joining, merging, even if on a very modest scale, with the magnificence of the Cosmos. And the cumulative worldwide build up of knowledge over time converts science into something only a little short of a transgenerational meta-mind.

...

"Spirit" comes from the Latin word "to breathe." What we breathe is air, which is certainly matter, however thin. Despite usage to the contrary, there is no necessary implication in the word "spiritual" that we are talking of anything other than matter (including the matter of which the brain is made), or anything outside the realm of science. On occasions, I will feel free to use the word. Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light-years and in the passages of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual. So are our emotions in the presence of great art or music or literature, or acts of exemplary selfless courage such as those of Mohandas Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both.

...

Except for hydrogen, all the atoms that make each of us up - the iron in our blood, the calcium in our bones, the carbon in our brains - were manufactured in red giant stars thousands of light-years away in space and billions of years ago in time. We are, as I like to say, starstuff.

—ZTgeist

i need a word that combines the words: alive, aware, and present, because some people are varying degrees of those things. that's my version of spirituality, i guess.

but.. i'll be damned if i'm going to use that word, because it seems to imply one has a spirit or soul, and i just can't dig that concept. stuff can have spirit, like school spirit, or soul, like jazz or the blues, but i shy away from that word, because i don't want anyone thinking that i believe i possess some sort of cohesive, conscience energy that floats around the ether of some mythical place when i die. i believe in worm food. worm food is tangible.

—plurryho

I remember my mom being really into Chopra.
I didn't think much of it at the time, but looking back (and knowing more about Chopra now than I did then) I can't say I approve of it. While she was always more sensible than my dad, she still wasn't as sensible as she could have been.

—Nyarlaithotep

FUCKChopra

—stellagold

I just farted.

—Dusty TheHick

you're Dusty TheHick

—catloaf

—Dusty TheHick

the holy ghost just farted.

—plurryho

—Dusty TheHick

Lama Meathead, son of Chögyam Trungpa.

—ZT-In

"I once pantsed Deepak Chopra while Craig T. Nelson taped it." -- jack donaghy

—he sounds like a delight