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If you have read Open Forum’s “Welcome” message , then you already know about “The Sand Box”, and you do not need to read this message. But I repeat it here, just in case. When it originated “The Sand Box”, which is where you are now, was visible only to those members who wished to have access to it...

Art, your recent post about C. S. Lewis and the statement "I am the way" and your post addressed to Anna raise important issues which have bounced around in my mind (for which I thank you) with the results listed below. They are presented here in random order, more or less, and I am fully ...

Deutero: Funny story. Of course, I am sure you realize that where you wrote "those are the Christians, they think they're the only ones here", one could substitute for the word "Christians" the name of almost any group, sect, cult, organization, institution, nation, and so on, an...

Here's a line from Emo Phillips that somehow seems apropos to this thread:

I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in my body. Then I realized who was telling me this.

There's more of this funny fellow's wisdom by wit at http://cmgm.stanford.edu/~lkozar/EmoPhillips.html

(Anna forgot to mention that the book she is guoting from is I Am That , which is a series of conversations and talks with Sri Nisargadatta . Speaking for myself, of all the many books I have read along this wondrous path, all the scriptures, all the lectures, all the memoirs, all the histories, if ...

Please forgive this long quotation. I hope you will agree that it is so nicely put that it is worth repeating here. I read it last evening in Holy Mother –The Life of Sri Sarada Devi . (Throughout, for man please read "man or woman" and ditto for he, him, his .) All prophets and saints hav...

Reading today in Yogananda’s wonderful commentary on the Bhagavad Gita , I came across this paragraph: In the beginning of creation and the advent of man, the Infinite impregnated His intelligent creative Cosmic Energy with not only the power of repulsion – the individualizing of Cosmic Consciousnes...

Loneliness is an inevitable by-product, even a symptom, of the separative egoic body/mind. The perspective we live by – “I am me, and you aren’t me. What is mine is mine, and not yours.” – is fundamentally false. The Fact is, there is only One, the One. Our insistence that “I am a person” is like pe...

Just for fun, before putting him to rest let’s take our nice French charge for a stroll down the Champs-Elysees , and see what of interest we encounter. It occurs to me that in the fascination of the egoic body/mind (“I am me, and you aren’t me”) with thought, we may have got caught like a deer in h...

Descartes says, “I think, therefore I am” (Cogito ergo sum). Does Descartes mean for us to understand that he is a being separate and distinct from his thoughts? That his thoughts are something he has? Is he saying, “I have these thoughts, and they prove that I am”? Or does he mean that “Descartes” ...

w4tvq raises a nice point in distinguishing between religion and spirituality (in fact, he’s written a book on the subject, about which please click here – and while I’m on the subject of who’s written what, another Open Forum member, windabove, is a poet who has submitted some of his work to TZF’s ...

I Am That, welcome to Open Forum at The Zoo Fence. We are glad to have you join in the discussions. You ask a good question. My guess is that there are probably as many answers as there are seekers, and that even within each seeker the answer undoubtedly changes over the full course of his or her li...

Maybe anything we carry in our minds (as opposed to anything we are) is baggage, and therefore aging. How about this as a measure or standard to determine what is "stuff" and what is real: Does it (whatever it is) distinguish me from other people? Does it make me different, make me feel o...

My sense is that we have exhausted this subject. In w4's poetic expression, "and so it ends". Speaking for myself, I agree with those who have remarked that it's been a good discussion. We started with my question asking whether classroom discussion (or, for that matter, any "life&quo...

Here’s an interesting thought. The age difference between a child of 5 and another who is 15, is three times, right? In five year’s time, the first will be 10, and the second 20. The difference between their ages is now two times. In ten years, the first will be 20 and the other 30; the difference b...