Questions regarding the LOO, STS and Religions

[Ali Quadir]

A better one is to just walk in the now. And adsorb the world through your senses fully. Make every step deliberately. And halt all thought not related to this walk.

I do this all the time and only realized later that it is practice from the Buddhist teaching. By the way Zen has its root in Buddha...Must have been some past life association...This seems to stop the mind completely and focus things only on the sense of presence, so you are completely aware of the surroundings with no reaction to it...

Exactly, I learned it from Sufi's Though they all learned it from one sufi master who happened to be very close friends with... a zen master.. So I think it's likely to be zen too.

I have a different view of the rituals. Rituals are 'instruction manuals' to implement certain non-physical concepts. It is very like Scientists discover ideas like combustion engine, Engineer implement them in new gadgets or tools like cars, then there are instruction manuals to use these tools. Performing rituals are utilizing these instructions to drive cars and attain high speed and automation. Utilized incorrectly and you may cause an accident as these are powerful forces... Some rituals are now outdated as the technology is missing pieces and essential components to be complete. For example: if the car is missing fuel then following the instruction manual is not going to do any good.

It's a correct view I believe. The instruction manual is a very good analogy, because a ritual tells you what steps to take through consciousness to accomplish something. Be that a shift in consciousness or a magical work.

However, just like building a car there are many ways to perform this type of work. It doesn't require ritual. It just requires your mind to go through certain appropriate motions. Like walking.. You could call it a ritual, left, right, left, right, but it varies so often that you could also object to calling it a ritual. Both views are valid.

Ritual really just means doing something the same time every time you do it. Be that making tea or doing magical work. Doing something over and over again, like playing music, makes you good at it.. But at a certain point musicians learn to improvise.