{"id":4926,"date":"2018-02-26T10:55:11","date_gmt":"2018-02-26T09:55:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hansvandergugten.nl\/?p=4926"},"modified":"2018-02-26T10:55:11","modified_gmt":"2018-02-26T09:55:11","slug":"questions-always-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hansvandergugten.nl\/?p=4926","title":{"rendered":"Questions, always questions."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/hansvandergugten.nl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/ducks.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"510\" height=\"379\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-4928\" srcset=\"https:\/\/hansvandergugten.nl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/ducks.jpeg 510w, https:\/\/hansvandergugten.nl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/ducks-300x223.jpeg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 510px) 100vw, 510px\" \/><br \/>\nLet&#8217;s try a blog again.<br \/>\nFrom the tablet this time.<\/p>\n<p>A lifetime back, once upon a time in Tiruvannamalai, say six weeks ago, I asked Swami Atmananda if he was willing to read two of my blogs and talk about the questions that are connected to them for me.<br \/>\nHe agreed.<br \/>\nSome days ago we had our conversation in a rather hectic environnement. For a monastic ashram that is.<br \/>\nIn between the regular satsang and an additional half hour of it especially for his visitors from China, we were seated in the kitchen while tea and birtday cake was being prepaired for being handed out.<\/p>\n<p>Apart from a quick social talk, Swami Atmananda explicitely gave feedback on my meditation reports.<br \/>\nHe mentioned that the cosmos is full of many and various things like stars planets and dust particles.<br \/>\nAnd so is our so called inner world. We should whatever is arising not give attention, we should be indifferent.<br \/>\nI protested, as always, on this. Indifferent for me is a negative attitude and I am not willing to be with whatever is from this attitude.<br \/>\nAt some point Swami mentioned the word neutral. And hey, that works for me!!<br \/>\nThanks a lot.<\/p>\n<p>For those who have an interest in the long wording of my questions, I copy here the mail with the full text, including the links to the two blogs I mentioned.<\/p>\n<p>QUOTE.<br \/>\nHello Swami Atmananda.<\/p>\n<p>We spoke about my request for you to read two of my blogs.<br \/>\nYou agreed and I was going to send the links to you.<\/p>\n<p>For some unknown reason it took till now to do so.<\/p>\n<p>In preparation I have read the blogs again.<br \/>\nTo find words for the underlying questions.<\/p>\n<p>For the first one the question is simple: when you read the report of this meditations, do you recognize what i am describing? Can you respond on this please.<br \/>\nTime is a bitch. Report of two meditations.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"fcAqeMOfIa\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/hansvandergugten.nl\/?p=4902\">Time is a bitch. (Report of two meditations)<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;Time is a bitch. (Report of two meditations)&#8221; &#8212; hansvandergugten.nl\" src=\"https:\/\/hansvandergugten.nl\/?p=4902&#038;embed=true#?secret=W0OBVC8rv9#?secret=fcAqeMOfIa\" data-secret=\"fcAqeMOfIa\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The second one touches deep and complex layers of my (way of) being.<br \/>\nWhen I read this one again i found that i had completely forgotten about the &#8216;personal&#8217; part of Satsree&#8217;s statements.<br \/>\nI only remembered that he stated that human life is meant to be about suffering.<br \/>\nThat makes me angry.<\/p>\n<p>In the same way as i always have felt a strong resistence against what i experience as cowardice tricks. This (Buddhist?) move to imagening that woman or people in general are filled with blood, pus, slime, urine and poo.<br \/>\nThat is not a way to deal with beauty.<br \/>\nThat is a disgracefull cover up operation.<\/p>\n<p>So the statement life is meant for suffering makes me furious.<br \/>\nYour statement recently that pain is our guru is for me totally okay.<\/p>\n<p>Can we reflect on this?<br \/>\nBodhi Satva Ki Jai.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"2Qzi6n3xHG\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/hansvandergugten.nl\/?p=4833\">Bodhi Sattva Ki Jai !<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;Bodhi Sattva Ki Jai !&#8221; &#8212; hansvandergugten.nl\" src=\"https:\/\/hansvandergugten.nl\/?p=4833&#038;embed=true#?secret=6y5MmaTxxX#?secret=2Qzi6n3xHG\" data-secret=\"2Qzi6n3xHG\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>There is more to this.<br \/>\nThe last months i am reading Peter Sloterdijk&#8217;s book You must change your life. I find it a great book. Fits fully in what i find myself involved in: intellectually reflecting on 20 years of satsang and 40 years of &#8216;working on myself&#8217;.<br \/>\nIt is not really reading. It is more like chewing myself a way through the book while it is eating me.<\/p>\n<p>He makes a remark that hit me fully.<br \/>\nIn a totally different context but it made something understandable for me. About me. (And thus about many others).<\/p>\n<p>He states that in the &#8216;inquisition&#8217; against the I, against egoism, this criticism came way too early for many because they were still before having developped an ego that could have shed a bad shadow.<br \/>\nAnd others had an ego that did not earn the humiliation to which it was obliged by the anti-egoism-inquisition.<\/p>\n<p>Feelingwise this was done to me as a child.<br \/>\nThe world was a miracle and it was declared bad by this religious assholes.<br \/>\nAnd moreover, the bastards preached that I was born a sinner.<br \/>\nAnd all the vital functions were declared to be sinfull.<br \/>\nHow can one develop a sexual identity when the whole thing is banned and tabooed?<br \/>\nHere is the source of my saying that I did everything that was forbidden by God consciously. Not on purpose. I was not doing anything. Except trying to suppress all my vital functions that supposedly were not kosher. And being a conscious witness of what was done despite of me. So a feeling of failing, accompanied by a structural and increasing feeling of guilt and selfhate was the ground tone of my youth.<\/p>\n<p>So the sexual thing went into the underworld. Half a century of porn consumption.<br \/>\nAnd recently the discovery that there is a very strong resistance to stop this.<br \/>\nAnd a honouring of this resistance.<br \/>\nThe last weeks in Tiru something has happened that rewarded this persistance with a new understanding.<br \/>\nAm working on finding words for this.<br \/>\nWill result in a report the coming weeks.<\/p>\n<p>Greetingz,<br \/>\nhans<br \/>\nUNQUOTE<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Let&#8217;s try a blog again. From the tablet this time. A lifetime back, once upon a time in Tiruvannamalai, say six weeks ago, I asked Swami Atmananda if he was willing to read two of my blogs and talk about &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/hansvandergugten.nl\/?p=4926\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4928,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-my-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/hansvandergugten.nl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/ducks.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1tD9I-1hs","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hansvandergugten.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hansvandergugten.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hansvandergugten.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hansvandergugten.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hansvandergugten.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4926"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/hansvandergugten.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4926\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4932,"href":"https:\/\/hansvandergugten.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4926\/revisions\/4932"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hansvandergugten.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hansvandergugten.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hansvandergugten.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hansvandergugten.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}