Pythagoras on Reincarnation

[Archeus]

"O mortals,
Dumb in cold fear of death, why do you tremble
At Stygian rivers, shadows, empty names,
The lying stock of poets, and the terrors
Of a false world? I tell you that your bodies
Can never suffer evil, whether fire
Consumes them, or the waste of time. Our souls
Are deathless; always, when they leave our bodies,
They find new dwelling-places....
All things are always changing,
But nothing dies. The spirit comes and goes,
Is housed wherever it wills, shifts residence
From beasts to men, from men to beasts, but always
It keeps on living. As the pliant wax
Is stamped with new designs, and is no longer
What it once was, but changes form, and still
Is pliant wax, so do I teach that spirit
Is evermore the same, though passing always
To ever-changing bodies."

Pythagoras opinion as related by Ovid in Metamorphoses, Book XV

[Rin]

Good stuff. I think people sometimes underestimate how much the views of the Greek philosophers resembled those of the mystics and philosophers of Asia, especially in mainstream academia.

I've getting stuck back into the DDJ over the last week or two, and reading what you posted this passage immediately came to mind:

"What does it mean,
'Endless affliction is bound to the body?'
Man's true self is eternal,
yet he thinks, 'I am this body, I will soon die'
This false sense of self
is the cause of all his sorrow
When a person does not identify himself with the body
tell me, what troubles could touch him?" - DDJ Verse 13 (Jonathan Star translation)



Separated by 7000km and 500 years (roughly), and yet they seem to be saying the same essential thing. I sometimes wonder how much better off Western civilization could be, hypothetically, if we hadn't lost touch with these teachings.

[Desecrated]

I highly recommend: Iamblichus Life of PYTHAGORAS (The thomas taylor translation)
And when it comes to Ovid's metamorphoses; the new A.D Melville translation released by oxford is fairly easy to read and costs like 9 bucks.

Personally, I enjoyed the golden verses of pythagoras most of his works. It's really easy to understand and if you read 'the picatrix', you can see the parallels with ease.

[Archeus]

Good stuff. I think people sometimes underestimate how much the views of the Greek philosophers resembled those of the mystics and philosophers of Asia, especially in mainstream academia.

I've getting stuck back into the DDJ over the last week or two, and reading what you posted this passage immediately came to mind:

"What does it mean,...." - DDJ Verse 13 (Jonathan Star translation)

Separated by 7000km and 500 years (roughly), and yet they seem to be saying the same essential thing. I sometimes wonder how much better off Western civilization could be, hypothetically, if we hadn't lost touch with these teachings.

I assume you mean the Tao Te Ching or Dao De Jing.

Another Taoist work Secret of the Golden Flower explains the method of achieving immortality but is written in the Taoist code (lake, mist, fire, caudron, etc). If Bardon is any guide, then abdomen or genital area would be water, fire would be head, air would be chest...

[Shinichi]

I assume you mean the Tao Te Ching or Dao De Jing.

DDJ most likely means Do De Jing. But the Daozang, which is considered the Daoist Canon, contains about 1500 texts - and that is besides all the other texts on the side. Then there are the Buddhist texts, and the numerous traditions of Yoga.

Asia has quite a lot of stuff, and not all of it has been translated into English.

Another Taoist work Secret of the Golden Flower explains the method of achieving immortality but is written in the Taoist code (lake, mist, fire, caudron, etc). If Bardon is any guide, then abdomen or genital area would be water, fire would be head, air would be chest...

Do not use Bardon as a measure for practicing anything Daoist. Daoist Neigong is based on a very precise anatomy of the internal energy system that is much more complex than the general elemental overview that Bardon teaches, and practicing incorrectly can lead to many dangerous ends.

If you want to study some Daoist Immortal Cultivation, read Qigong Teachings of a Taoist Immortal. Stuart Alve Olson translates and demonstrates the 8 Brocade method of Li Ching-Yuenalong with the practice of the Lesser Circulation, the exercise that the Golden Flower text you mentioned is about. You probably won't be able to understand the book in depth just reading it alone, but it's relatively straightforward if you acquire the supplementary knowledge and skills required to practice it.



~:Shin:~

[Archeus]

Do not use Bardon as a measure for practicing anything Daoist. ....but it's relatively straightforward if you acquire the supplementary knowledge and skills required to practice it.

~:Shin:~

Thanks for these tips