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Post by laughter on Mar 11, 2015 21:29:06 GMT -5
I've been wondering why did you bump 'Shaming' -- I don't think the answer is in the title, necessarily. Those who do not remember the past, are condemned to repeat it. George Santayana. (That's not really the reason, but I'm not going to share the reason, presently anyway). Such craven cowardice is shameful.
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Mar 11, 2015 21:38:38 GMT -5
Those who do not remember the past, are condemned to repeat it. George Santayana. (That's not really the reason, but I'm not going to share the reason, presently anyway). Such craven cowardice is shameful. What cowardice? What does it matter that I bumped a thread?...why I bumped a thread? I also bumped about ten threads on the Spiritual teachers section. Why don't you ask me why I did that?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 11, 2015 21:46:57 GMT -5
laughter, what you are advocating and I agree with, is self-control. But hardly anybody knows what it means to influence our own self or control our own self psychologically, it's a nonsense most people will say. How can I control my own mind? Am I myself different from my mind? It will be tautology to speak of myself controlling myself, because the act of control requires a distinction between the controller and the controlled. Otherwise, what is control? It's much more difficult than it seems. Self-control is not something the self can 'do', it's not an action, but rather it is something that someone wakes up to, much like waking up from a dream. Wasn't advocating self-control but instead self-knowledge. laughter, yeah, I misunderstood your intent. I thought you were addressing the reasons for conflict on the forum. My bad. Yeah, epistemology is a different animal.
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Post by laughter on Mar 11, 2015 21:54:57 GMT -5
Such craven cowardice is shameful. What cowardice? What does it matter that I bumped a thread?...why I bumped a thread? I also bumped about ten threads on the Spiritual teachers section. Why don't you ask me why I did that? man ur just too easy ... I was referring to this: I'm not going to share the reason, presently anyway). ooooooh! .. not presently anyway ... wow! what suspense!
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Post by laughter on Mar 11, 2015 21:56:51 GMT -5
Wasn't advocating self-control but instead self-knowledge. laughter, yeah, I misunderstood your intent. I thought you were addressing the reasons for conflict on the forum. My bad. Yeah, epistemology is a different animal. Episteme reflects gnosis and -- especially in this media -- also is the intermediary expression of it, so the conflict on the forum is the idea involved at the center of the presentation, yeah.
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Post by Reefs on Mar 11, 2015 22:09:20 GMT -5
No, that's not it either. What is it then? Oneness just means no separation.
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Post by Reefs on Mar 11, 2015 22:19:12 GMT -5
I've been wondering why did you bump 'Shaming' -- I don't think the answer is in the title, necessarily. Those who do not remember the past, are condemned to repeat it. George Santayana. (That's not really the reason, but I'm not going to share the reason, presently anyway). What a nonsensical statement. Everything you put your attention on grows, and everything you withdraw attention from fades away. It's like dealing with plants. Your focus is the water and the plant is your object of attention. If you keep remembering the past, you keep watering your plants, they grow, if you stop remembering the past, you stop watering your plants, they whither.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 11, 2015 23:59:03 GMT -5
laughter, yeah, I misunderstood your intent. I thought you were addressing the reasons for conflict on the forum. My bad. Yeah, epistemology is a different animal. Episteme reflects gnosis and -- especially in this media -- also is the intermediary expression of it, so the conflict on the forum is the idea involved at the center of the presentation, yeah. Laughter, sorry, you lost me. Can you explain how empirical knowledge can be a reflection of that which can't empirically be known? Or what you mean by episteme reflects gnosis? Thanks.
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Post by laughter on Mar 12, 2015 0:05:22 GMT -5
Episteme reflects gnosis and -- especially in this media -- also is the intermediary expression of it, so the conflict on the forum is the idea involved at the center of the presentation, yeah. Laughter, sorry, you lost me. Can you explain how empirical knowledge can be a reflection of that which can't empirically be known? Or what you mean by episteme reflects gnosis? Thanks. Sure, here are two examples of intellectually indefensible statements of gnosis: there is an absence of separation, and there is an absence of limitation.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 12, 2015 8:35:36 GMT -5
Oneness just means no separation. No separation between what and what? Can you think of a state where you do not think of a knife and a fork as separate objects.
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Post by Reefs on Mar 12, 2015 12:02:06 GMT -5
Oneness just means no separation. No separation between what and what? Can you think of a state where you do not think of a knife and a fork as separate objects. That's how it looks from 1st mountain, yes. In reality, there is no knife and no fork. Only the intellect sees a knife and a fork. Separation only exists for the intellect only.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 12, 2015 12:48:07 GMT -5
No separation between what and what? Can you think of a state where you do not think of a knife and a fork as separate objects. That's how it looks from 1st mountain, yes. In reality, there is no knife and no fork. Only the intellect sees a knife and a fork. Separation only exists for the intellect only. Yes. I agree. It wasn't meant to be a trick question. I was just interested in exploring the subtle meaning of that with you.
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Post by Reefs on Mar 12, 2015 13:21:40 GMT -5
That's how it looks from 1st mountain, yes. In reality, there is no knife and no fork. Only the intellect sees a knife and a fork. Separation only exists for the intellect only. Yes. I agree. It wasn't meant to be a trick question. I was just interested in exploring the subtle meaning of that with you. Hey, you are welcome. I like it. Interestingly, we talk about oneness all the time, but you are the first one who provoked such a precise answer with your questions. Kinda cool. I haven't been forced to phrase it that clearly before. Usually we don't leave the vagueness.
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Post by runstill on Mar 12, 2015 15:03:35 GMT -5
Those who do not remember the past, are condemned to repeat it. George Santayana. (That's not really the reason, but I'm not going to share the reason, presently anyway). What a nonsensical statement. Everything you put your attention on grows, and everything you withdraw attention from fades away. It's like dealing with plants. Your focus is the water and the plant is your object of attention. If you keep remembering the past, you keep watering your plants, they grow, if you stop remembering the past, you stop watering your plants, they whither. Great stuff , wanted to bump it.
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Post by zendancer on Mar 12, 2015 15:18:59 GMT -5
No separation between what and what? Can you think of a state where you do not think of a knife and a fork as separate objects. That's how it looks from 1st mountain, yes. In reality, there is no knife and no fork. Only the intellect sees a knife and a fork. Separation only exists for the intellect only. Correct, and that's why I often talk about "seeing like the lens of a camera." A camera has no intellect, so it only "sees" a field rather than separate things. Most people do not grasp what this means because their minds are not sufficiently silent to understand how the intellect imagines what we see. If the mind is silent, we see "what is" rather than what we imagine. If I ask someone to take ONLY a photograph of a chair, they point a camera at a chair, take a photo, and show it to me. I reply, "No no. I asked for a photo of ONLY a chair. The photo you've taken shows walls, floor, a chair, and other stuff included in a field of view extending from one side of a room to the other." I actually did this one time with a group of students, and they all looked totally befuddled. I explained to them that what adults call "seeing" probably ought to be called "think-seeing" to distinguish that kind of seeing from what a still mind sees. The students were young enough and open-minded enough that they eventually understood what I was saying. As we grow from childhood to adulthood, we make hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of distinctions. We label those distinctions with words, and we then unconsciously construct a meta-reality with the intellect where the word and the distinction become synonymous. Everyone understands that the words we use to represent distinctions are totally arbitrary, and that Germans, for example, use different words for similar distinctions. We say "house" and they say "haus." This is elementary, but very few adults realize that the distinctions which the words represent are ALSO arbitrary because imaginary boundaries can be drawn anywhere. If we look at the world around us non-conceptually (with a silent mind), we do not see things; we see "what is." This is why sages often advise seekers to go stare at something like a tree or a rock until they can discern the difference between what those things ARE and how they can be distinguished. If I hold up a Bible and ask several people, "What is this?" I will usually get these kinds of answers: 1. It's a book. 2. It's a product composed of cellulose and organic chemicals. 3. It's an object. 4. It's matter (as opposed to energy) 5. It's a Bible 6. It's a holy book Their answers are all different ways that what I'm holding in my hand can be distinguished. However, I didn't ask, "How may this be distinguished?" I asked what IS thist? IS is a verb rather than a noun. Most people name what they see, and think ABOUT what they see rather than simply see. Seeing without knowing is seeing with a still mind. The sage sees and understands the world in two radically different ways--through non-conceptual awareness as well as conceptual awareness--, so the sage has access to both sides of the same coin. Jacob Boehm, a Christian mystic, had a disciple who once asked him, "Master, how can I enter the world of the divine?" Boehm replied, "When thou canst throw thyself into THAT where no creature dwelleth, then thou wilt hear unspeakable words of God and see the world before it was. Simply cease thy willing and knowing of self, and the door will open." Boehm was pointing directly to what is always here and now, but remains unseen.
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