Sounds reasonable. I stand corrected, for I'll trust you've lived a long life and know a thing or two.Mortalsfool wrote: ↑Wed Sep 16, 2026 10:09 amTrust me! Evidence is everything but scant. I have a lifetime of seeing men who had absolutely no idea how to treat a woman. I have found the consensus of opinion among women is, and I have asked many, 'men are assholes'. If you see a man who blames women for his inability to get along with them, you are looking at a man that never listened to a woman.
You do realize that I’m efforting on your behalf for fidelity to your thread topic, whereas Lacewing takes the female route with her feminine need to distract and make the topic … menfolk.
So, to put those subjective, feminine wonts aside and address the actual subject …
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Example of the Holy Bible as a miraculous (because it’s divine) instrument with secular parallels:
Miraculous: Christ died for the sins of humanity.
Secular: A sage can remove a particular karmic burden of another, by taking on that karma and then living through that karma himself to “burn it off,” i.e., withstand the scorching.
A bhakti sage such as Anandamayi Ma can do that by taking on another’s isolation and working through the isolation that because of the taking is now real for herself, working through the senses with physical contact, hugging the person whose karma she took on for herself, thereby working through the karma of isolation for them both in that moment of touch.
It’s effective because, well, she’s a bhakti sage relieving suffering, one at a time.
For those bhaktis not yet sages, Tonglen is an easy and effective practice to relieve another’s burden ... if one is so moved to that action, in that realm.
The aforementioned parallel:
As a preternatural, secular parallel to the miracle of Christian resurrection, a bodhisattva who takes on the karmic burden of another certainly echoes Christ's miraculously taking on the sins of humanity.