For some reason I couldn't get to this sooner, maybe other people had a lot more to say than I- sorry if I repeat what others may have said, I'll just comment as thoughts pop into my head.
Quote Originally Posted by sleeper
Semantical signifiers as lexiconic barriers to communication.
And
Conceptual framework as the mechanism of contextual comprehension.
In other words:
How do you know if your audience understands what you mean when you say it?
Or
Pragmatics.
That's quite the comprehensive text you got here. Wow! It's a keeper.


I’m troubled by what I see as a trend; the obscuring of the valuable meaning of valuable words and also adds worthless meaning to the same words. In other words, it is our experiences that contribute to our conceptual framework that we use to translate what we see and hear; translate that into something coherent.

So many people from diverse backgrounds are flocking to spiritual knowledge that I should feel enthusiastic; spiritual seeking is a good thing, however, I’m concerned about the magnitude of the misunderstandings and proclamations that are occurring today. Even though diverse groups flocking to spirituality use much of the same language, they generally mean much different things when they use them and that is contributing overall to a contamination of spiritual knowledge which does not portend well for future generations.
I almost disagree- even though a greater number of people are exposed to certain ideas, I find that everyone without exception interprets what they read or learn information in whatever supports their comprehension, and this has been always true- if you take a look at contemporary religions you will see that there are as many interpretations of christianity as there are groups- some have such differing beliefs that they don't even believe that the 'other' ones are christians, and have different understandings of concepts that are thought to be universal in this specific religion- the Holy Spirit is going to be taught one way in a Pentecostal church than in a Unity church, for example.
This doesn't mean that there are many kinds of Holy Spirit, it just means that my understanding of it will be different than the Mormon who knocked on my door yesterday, and I don't expect us to agree on it anytime soon.


Spiritual knowledge has been garnished from thousands of years of hard work and preserved in multi-cultural texts, traditions and by discipleship. Now that we are technologically capable of widely disseminating this information, it should be properly done – humanity has the resources to do it. Why, instead, humanity chooses to create mindless entertainment – I don’t know.
I can answer that- some groups believe that to attain any type of progress (spiritual progress, that is) we have to be exposed to some ideas, and it doesn't matter if the brain understands it, because the truth doesn't have to be understood to be recognized, only remembered. So this information is out there partly to be made conscious, and to cause interest in it, as many people have become interested. It doesn't matter if someone else doesn't believe or understand it, chances are they wouldn't have anyway.

But I do know that at the pace the spiritual contamination is going, future generations will have trouble distinguishing truth from fantasy.
The thing is, that I don't know anyone who categorically knows truth from fantasy, because truth is truth somewhere, and the only fundamental truth is not context-dependent.


Naruto is a is an fictional ongoing Japanese manga series (anime, manga, movies, card game and video game) about a young ninja. Here is an excerpt from narutopedia, regarding naruto lore:

Chakra (チャクラ, chakura) is essential to even the most basic jutsu; it is a mixture of the physical energy present in every cell of the body and the spiritual energy gained from exercise and experience. Once mixed, it can be channeled through the chakra circulatory system, which is to chakra as the regular circulatory system is to blood, to any of the 361 chakra points (called tenketsu) in the body. Through various methods, the most common of which is hand seals, the chakra can then be manipulated to create an effect that would not be possible otherwise, such as walking on water.

Here is some non-fiction; excerpts from Wikipedia’s chakra page:

“The Chakras are said to be "force centers" or whorls of energy permeating, from a point on the physical body, the layers of the subtle bodies in an ever-increasing fan-shaped formation. Rotating vortices of subtle matter, they are considered the focal points for the reception and transmission of energies.”

“The central role of the chakras in this model is the raising of Kundalini, where it pierces the various centers, causing various levels of realisation and resulting in the obtention of various siddhis or occult powers, until reaching the crown of the head, resulting in union with the Divine.”

One excerpt is fantasy, one reality How do you know which one is which? How would a Naruto fan distinguish the two?
I will give you an answer from my own experience (not theoretical, this actually has happened a few times):
Occasionally a young kid will google chakras or psiballs or kiballs or something from Naruto, and find themselves here or in other energy-work oriented websites. They originally want to know what is possible, and are flabbergasted when they find out that people do learn to make energy balls and run energy, etc. Invariably they want to find out how to do it, just because it seems cool. Then they read more about it from actual practicioner (such as Robert, or other psi sites, for example, the old psipog (or however it was called). Then they realize there is a lot os serious material and get to one point- find out what this is really for (and get more into real spirituality) or decide that it's too much work for results they are not that interested in. These are the immature kids, who then go on to the next thing.
Out of that initial 'dude' group some end up becoming some kind of practitioner, the rest go on a more traditional life, and like some, end up looking at spirituality when older.
Or not, the cycle goes on.

If you were a gamer, how would you tell the difference between a gamer-fan-website, and an astral projection website? An anime-avatar website and a kundalini website?
Most gamers I know already have a fansite or website they're into- they don't learn to do 'stuffs', they want to talk about this or that character. If anything, the only thing they learn from those anime sites is maybe some cultural context about other cultures (like we talk about Abe Lincoln or MLKing, they may be exposed to eastern cultural icons), something they probably won't learn in regular school, so I consider it a good thing.


Of course, to the layperson, both excerpts seem equal in regards to believability and strangeness, fantasy and pragmatism, in their likelihood to empower and in their likelihood to be a total waste of time. To the gamer, meditation is a waste and gaming is a worthy pursuit. To the truth seeker, the inverse is true. But how is the truth seeker to recognize the spiritual path if, at a young age, they began systematic predictive-programming that prevent them from recognizing it?
But the same can be said of regular western culture, with IM and FB and smart phones and texting- they turn anyone into an ADD person, even if they didn't have the problem in the first place.
I believe the spiritual path is a calling, that propels you to look for answers, and will continue to pull you until you find whatever suits you. If you feel the call something like an anime site will not be interesting to you. So IMO it's not the medium that's important, it's the drive itself.


Spiritual practice is the only liberation from the entrapments of illusion, maya, samsara.
I won't argue this because it's the truth for me, but I'm sure some will disagree with you.
If liberation appears to be a childish game,
I don't think that any of these things cause anyone to think this is liberation, just like religious rituals never did take the place of firsthand mystical experience. I don't think that just because cartoons depict eastern spirituality as a sort of 'superhero' achievement this means that it will be confused with liberation- if anything, it is just the westernization of these ideas what changes their focus, and let's face it, the western mindset was there in the first place.

then what truth seeker would choose liberation? In other words, if one doesn’t’ believe in Santa clause, doesn’t believe in Naruto, why should one believe in Chakras and therefore pursue enlightenment?
You don't have to believe in chakras to pursue enlightenment- you don't even need to understand chakras to run energy, but you want to want to do it, and that's what matters, IMO. The call, the drive, is what matters, IMO.

Spiritual teachings are a blessing from the learned elders of our past. By absorbing the wisdom of their teachings, we can see things that were formerly invisible; we can chart our own course in the universe, our destiny. Without them, humanity is doomed to repeat the same mistakes (or worse) with each successive generation.
That is true about any history of any culture.

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New spiritual aspirants are immediately met with their own inadequacy: their inability to concentrate, inability to remain still, inability to remember what they're supposed to be doing, difficulty in overcoming boredom, etc. In order to advance on a spiritual path, one must overcome one’s self; a minimum level of humility is definitely required.
Again, the opposite is true in cartoon media and in video games especially. Those activities reward hubris, aggressiveness, selfishness, a sense of entitlement and boasting. Staring at a screen or even playing a video game does not require concentration but it does require quickly adapting to rapidly changing visual stimuli.
So what I’m tried to illustrate above is that the contextual framework that is developed is considerably different and that is shapes the character and therefore the behavior of the persons involved.
If you look at how our cultures have evolved, you will see that survival required speed, fast thinking, and quick adaptability, so the tendency for the human to do the opposite from meditative or mystic practices have been there since day one. Only when culture become stable we see things like ashrams and monasteries and the like, and only selected members are able to live in these conditions.
So it's a cultural thing, and anime and cartoon media is just a reflection of how society works- like I said before, there is always something of a mixed bag of tendencies when you have a mixed bag of people living together.

So do I think it's a bad thing? No, I think those that can handle deep spiritual things 'get it' even from Naruto or Dragonball Z (OK, maybe not from DBZ) but these media, which are, by the way, modernized storytelling that has always been part of chinese or japanese culture, only in electronic media- the story of DragonBall (the original with Goku) are just the stories that were told to children from the Monkey King/God- in cartoon form.
Is it 'polluted' or 'wrong'? I don't think so, I just think that when you popularize mythology something gets lost, just like what the Hercules movies did to Greek Mythology,

So, no, I don't agree with your viewpoint.
Which is OK, if we all had the same viewpoint the world would be so boring!

===
ps. sorry about the smelling pistakes, I'm in a hurry. Hurry hurry hurry!