Ram Bomjon and the Development of Myth
Looking for a different kind of story to think about during the Thanksgiving holiday? One that’s not yet all over the blogosphere? How about trying Ram Bomjon on for size.
Ram Bomjon is, his followers say, a new buddha. Buddha meditated for 49 days under a pipal tree. Ram Bomjon, it is said, has been doing so for six months, and continues to do so today, even after being bitten by a snake - and he is just a 15 year-old boy.
Is it for real? Well, I’m suspicious Ram’s closest followers won’t allow outsiders in to inspect the boy - not even doctors. Of course, it makes for a good story, which is why thousands of people are making pilgrimages to the site. What do they expect to get out of the trip? What will taking a look at the boy do for them? Does enlightenment rub off?
Before we get too critical of the pilgrims in Nepal, we ought to remember that similar numbers of people here in the United States will make pilgrimages, and pay money, to see Mariah Carey.
As you take a second helping of Thanksgiving Dinner, you might want to think about Ram Bomjon, and the legend of six months without a bite to eat. But then, you also might want to think about a community of people in Nepal who are making an awful lot of money from the visitors who are coming to see this teenage mystic, and consider how thankful they are for that.
Is mind control better, or to be out of your mind (not in control of your mind)?
I brush my teeth every night. I eat every day. Are those rituals. Does the church have rituals?
Tantra is a sexual ritual. When you have sex do you have rituals that you do every time?
If one is full of thought is he happy? Is thinking a ritual?
By non mind they mean non thinking. Is it possible to experience without thinking? Is experiencing a thought? Is experiencing the same as thinking?
Is asking questions a form of answering?
Is a turtle a car wax or a kind of candy that combines chocolate and nuts?
Juniper,
There are answers to your questions:
Is asking a form of answering? When the question is rhetorical, more or less. Rhetorical questions allow me to suggest an answer without having to go to the trouble of actually giving a straight answer.
Is a turtle a car wax or a kind of candy? Both. The word turtle has multiple meanings. It refers to an animal that is flat underneath and round on top, and therefore by extension to a kind of candy that has that shape. The animal in question also has a hard shell–suggesting the kind of protective surface marketers of car wax decided to market through the selection of the brand name “turtle wax.”
Yes, Juniper. We can answer our questions. You did want answers to those questions, didn’t you? I mean, you didn’t want to just ask those questions, then say “Whoa!” and call it profundity? That would have been, like, bogus.
Yes, and rogerwalker’s profound questions surely aren’t bogus. Surely. Right?
Are they bogus?
What is the essence of bogusness?
Paradox: Is bogusness bogus?
Tony, it saddens me that your mind is so closed that you would call my questions bogus.
How can you understand what is and what is not bogus unless you have yourself been bogus?
Well, I’m sad you’re sad, because it proves you’re not enlightened.
If you were enlightened, you would realize that all is one.
If all is one, bogusness is enlightenment and enlightenment is bogus.
Sy, Patricia, and Rogerwalker,
I have started a new post in the Irregular Times Discussion Forum based on your discussion. Please feel free to respond there. It is under Philoshopy and called “Language and Experience”.
Well, headfacemouth, what would you say to the argument that nothing you say convinces me of anything–because I haven’t “experienced it?”
Of course language is symbolic, which seems to be your point. But that basic fact gets used to say that you can’t really say anything–apparently the irony of saying you can’t say something is lost on the person who says it.
Rogerwalker’s question: How can I tell you about something you haven’t experienced?
Patricia’s answer: People use language to describe things other people haven’t experienced all the time.
Where in this did anyone say or imply that language IS experience, or that it somehow conveys experience directly? I don’t think anybody is denying that language is a set of symbols that can be used to convey experience. The set of symbols itself is limited, but the potential to combine those symbols to convey meaning is infinite, and the symbolic system has the power to describe things to people who have not experienced them.
If your thinking about what I said your not listening to what I am saying. And if your thinking about saying something your not listening to me. Is listening a thought?
What is the point of telling anybody anything when they are not listening to you. And besides, since every experience is in the moment. And your ears are one of your senses used to experience the moment. Then listening is experiencing. And by listening one is sharing the moment. By asking a question one has the oportunity to listen. Since listening is sharing the moment, and every experience I had was in the moment then by listening I am teaching (sharing with) them everything I know from my experiences.
If I’m thinking about saying something, I’m out of the moment. But if I’m experiencing anything, I’m in the moment.
What if I’m experiencing thinking about saying something? Every experience is in the moment, so therefore I must be in the moment. But at the same time I’m thinking about saying something, so I must be out of the moment. I guess I’d be in and out of the moment at the same time!
What if I think of saying that I’m experiencing thinking about saying something. Am I back out of the moment I was in by virtue of experiencing the moment I was out of?
If I experience thinking of saying that I’m experiencing thinking of saying something, am I in and out and in and out of the same moment at the same time, or am I in and out of more than one moment?
Wheeee!
More on Ram Bomjon from his land is found at link http://www.nepalitimes.com/issue/281/NepaliPan/10147
and on http://www.blog.com.np/2006/01/23/ram-bahadur-bomjan-the-buddha-boy
Also on http://www.kantipuronline.com/feature.php?nid=63824
and on http://www.blog.com.np/?p=1035/
You are experiencing what you are thinking. But if you are thinking then you are not in the moment. Because experiencing is not a thought. Are experiencing and thinking the same thing?
When you said in and out of the moment at the same time, did you mean being able to do two things in the same time? (multitask)
One can do many things at the same time, but will only remember doing one thing at a time including what he is thinking. So if you are thinking about saying something you are not listening to me….and you won’t remember what I said.
So, if you experience thinking, you experience what you think. But if you think, you are not in the moment. How do you have an experience that’s out of the moment? Is the experience in some other moment, or outside of time altogether?
Tony,
Let me first respond to your question about the ‘argument’ that
“nothing you say convinces me of anything–because I haven’t “experienced it?â€
I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make, but I’ll answer the best I can.
Being convinced of something is up to the listener. You decide if you are convinced or not, so whether you have experienced it or not is up to you to factor into the equation.
If you are trying to ask me if someone who hasn’t experienced something can understand my explanation, I would answer that they cannot understand, at least in the way that I do (assuming I’ve experienced it). The best they can do is to use the guide of their own experience to imagine what I mean.
As for your next statement:
“Of course language is symbolic, which seems to be your point.â€
If you read my post and that’s all you got out of it, I guess that’s something, though I didn’t limit myself to that point. The basic nature of language being distinct from that of direct experience was probably a more basic point, and I mentioned the symbolic nature of language as one piece of evidence to support that idea. I also mentioned the fact that it’s more fundamental and temporally prior both in the development of human beings as a species and in the development of the individual as a child. I went into a bit of detail about how language forces us to make choices as to what we want to express, and the we are forced by limitations such as time to leave out almost all information surrounding a state or event we describe. I didn’t mention the fact that some people can’t speak, but everyone can experience humanness, but that’s relevant as well.
And your next statement:
“But that basic fact gets used to say that you can’t really say anything–apparently the irony of saying you can’t say something is lost on the person who says it.â€
I don’t know where you got the idea that I was saying that ‘you can’t say anything.’ That’s utterly ridiculous. You can say anything you want to. If you’re T.S. Eliot or Shakespeare, you can say amazing things. If you’re some schmuck who doesn’t often think more deeply than the “sex and drugs†level, you can talk about how you got drunk and vomited last weekend, and how you’re gonna get drunk again this weekend. What I’m saying is that saying something and experiencing it are distinct.
Thanks, by the way, for serving as more evidence for my view. You ostensibly read my post, but took an understanding away that was far different than the one I intended. Whether this is my fault for not writing clearly enough or your fault for not ‘getting it’ is not the issue here; what is more relevant is the fact that language could not communicate my thoughts well enough so that you could grasp them.
We could try again, with me rephrasing everything, and you explaining your understanding to me, and me checking various points, until we were both satisfied, but would you understand even then? How could we tell? And, even if you understood everything I wanted you to understand, would we then have a shared experience? I don’t see how anyone could claim that we would.
Mind is powerful it drives you crazy
The practice of meditation is fixing the mind in one point,
thats not easy it takes a lot of practice and discipline to master.
The goal in meditation is not to be slave by our owned mind.
Try to practice these gift and we will get freed from our deluded mind and
false ego.
Ik denk dat dit een heel speciaal kereltje is, kusje op z’n voeten
succes he..huib
lord namo buddha
he is reincarantion of christ and buddha
remember the miracles performed by jesus and meditation by buddha.
pray the name of loed namobuddha
I shall share my space with all those who are unfortunate enough to be nonexistent in time. A thought has a beginning and an ending that can be measured therefore a thought applies to Time. Time is a length of space that can be measured. Time exists in Space but it is not the same thing. Space is infinite and has no beginning or ending. Infinite does not have a beginning or an ending and therefore does not apply to time.
It takes time to think.
Dont waste your time. lol
Rogerwalker, you asked:
“How can I tell you about something you haven’t experienced?”
Well, since you’re not me and you don’t know what I’ve experienced, how can you tell me about anything I HAVE experienced? In addition to that, you claim you can’t tell me about anything I HAVEN’T experienced.
Add those two together, and you can tell me neither what I have nor what I haven’t experienced, which means you can’t tell me anything, which means you can’t say anything at all.
It may be ridiculous, Rogerwalker, but it’s a logical conclusion drawn from what you said.
Are you guys knows what you are talkin about,you guys are lost and out of reality, the one dont share any pholosophical illusion which you dont understand the meaning of it. your wasting your time.
The Dou,
Are you really Mackers?
Not at all, Dou. There is no philosophical meaning The One doesn’t share.
When one has piled up knowledge to an extreme, there comes a point at which one must start to forget. Every day one knows less and less, until at last one knows nothing at all, and nothing is unknown.
Your “pholosophy” is closer to this goal than mine. You have boldly transcended the vulgar constraints of conventional spelling. Kudos.
Tony i honor your comments but it doesn’t mean i believed you,presence of mind is important than tripping your mind in somepoint of creating illusion.its better to be blunt and franked and know where you stand. Of course nothing is unknown. Your ego is talking men like a shell without nuts. just be realistic.dont forget your self, the important thing is to achieved the presence of mind, in natural way.
I thought of an interesting way that jclifford could try to debunk the notion that
Bomjon possesses any unusual qualities. Here it is:
jclifford can go to Nepal and sit in that same opening of a tree that Bomjon sat in before leaving for more peace. Where the same little bit of clothing that Bomjon for ten months during a parallel, cold time of year. He must sit all day long in substantially one position without stretching, and cross legged, for 12 hours. At nights he can eat, drink, and sleep. Then next morning resume the cross legged posture, eyes closed, no talking, no dusting insects off, no food and watter or urinating for 12 hours again..and so on for 10 months.
I bet a group of people would chip in $7,000 to see jclifford do this….which is the same amount of money that some claim is the motivation for Bomjon to sit there.
It would be interesting to see if another person can at least do that much…. yes or no.
Interested jclifford? Do you think you could do that?
James
There is a lot more information and links to interesting info at this URL:
http://irregulartimes.com/index.php/archives/2006/03/21/ram-bomjon-video/
James These people are not worth it they are bunch of crap they are allways on denial.
They dont give a damn because they worked for this blogs,that was their job. you know what? youve got an intelligent reasoning power you was born to that so keep it up, That was the Battle of the Good and the Evil. Your the best and i think your Good. There is no competition in these matter but im with you.
Dont judge what u can’t see, dont say what u dont know, dont criticise untill u have experienced it…Ram Bomjon whether true or a drama….still anyones guess….Sit and think about it….frinds
Ignorance is the greatest mistake
Hey>> u people::
u c its lyk this—>
whether u believe in bible or//somfin of ur own// or even with all these stuffs written in this blog:;
but the fact is >> its non of our business::
hez sittin under that tress:: coz he may believe that he might be enlighte or blessed like buddha was, n that applies only if u kno the story bout him::—>
u c>> as i read the first comment>> it was bout that kid:: n as i went downwards—> the topic KINDA started to change::>> basically m sayin is that—> the whole thin’ll only cause::–> u to write rude or mean stuff bout each other::))—>
com’on ppl::>>> we all believe in differemt things n we all do different stuffs::~~* doesnt mean we have to mkae a BIG issue about things::~~*
hehe::^_^::