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Jan 8, 2024 8:54:51 GMT -5
Post by someNOTHING! on Jan 8, 2024 8:54:51 GMT -5
“One must cease to look; it is necessary, closing one’s eyes, to change this way of seeing by another one and to wake up this faculty that everyone possesses but that very few use.” — PLOTINUS This is the context of the above quote, in a different translation: - §1.6.8. ...
Someone would be better advised to say: ‘let us flee to our beloved fatherland’. But what is this flight, and how is it accomplished? Let us set sail in the way Homer, in an allegorical way, I think, tells us that Odysseus fled from the sorceress Circe or from Calypso. Odysseus was not satisfied to remain there, even though he had visual pleasures and passed his time with sensual beauty. Our fatherland, from where we have actually come, and our father are both in the intelligible world. What is our course and what is our means of flight? We should not rely on our feet to get us there, for our feet just take us everywhere on earth, one place after another. Nor should you saddle up a horse or prepare some sea-going vessel. You should put aside all such things and stop looking; just shut your eyes, and change your way of looking, and wake up. Everyone has this ability, but few use it.
§1.6.9. What, then, is that inner way of looking? Having just awakened, the soul is not yet able to look at the bright objects before it. The soul must first be accustomed to look at beautiful practices, next beautiful works – not those works that the crafts produce, but those that men who are called ‘good’ produce – next, to look at the soul of those who produce these beautiful works. How, then, can you see the kind of beauty that a good soul has? Go back into yourself and look. If you do not yet see yourself as beautiful, then be like a sculptor who, making a statue that is supposed to be beautiful, removes a part here and polishes a part there so that he makes the latter smooth and the former just right until he has given the statue a beautiful face. In the same way, you should remove superfluities and straighten things that are crooked, work on the things that are dark, making them bright, and not stop ‘working on your statue’ until the divine splendour of virtue shines in you, until you see ‘Self-Control enthroned on the holy seat’. ...
Thanks, that helps me to not have to read ALL of the Enneads, assuming that is where the quotes came from. I'm curious to see if there's an explanation of 'distinctions' between 'soul' and 'The One'. Maybe you can help me with finding any of those.
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Jan 8, 2024 10:31:09 GMT -5
Post by laughter on Jan 8, 2024 10:31:09 GMT -5
The famous physicist and Nobel Prize winner Richard Feynman remarked, - “the first principle is not to fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool”.
Polonius: "but this above all: to thine own self be true, and it will surely follow, as night follows day, that you cannot be false to any man."
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Jan 8, 2024 13:23:49 GMT -5
Post by stardustpilgrim on Jan 8, 2024 13:23:49 GMT -5
This is the context of the above quote, in a different translation: - §1.6.8. ...
Someone would be better advised to say: ‘let us flee to our beloved fatherland’. But what is this flight, and how is it accomplished? Let us set sail in the way Homer, in an allegorical way, I think, tells us that Odysseus fled from the sorceress Circe or from Calypso. Odysseus was not satisfied to remain there, even though he had visual pleasures and passed his time with sensual beauty. Our fatherland, from where we have actually come, and our father are both in the intelligible world. What is our course and what is our means of flight? We should not rely on our feet to get us there, for our feet just take us everywhere on earth, one place after another. Nor should you saddle up a horse or prepare some sea-going vessel. You should put aside all such things and stop looking; just shut your eyes, and change your way of looking, and wake up. Everyone has this ability, but few use it.
§1.6.9. What, then, is that inner way of looking? Having just awakened, the soul is not yet able to look at the bright objects before it. The soul must first be accustomed to look at beautiful practices, next beautiful works – not those works that the crafts produce, but those that men who are called ‘good’ produce – next, to look at the soul of those who produce these beautiful works. How, then, can you see the kind of beauty that a good soul has? Go back into yourself and look. If you do not yet see yourself as beautiful, then be like a sculptor who, making a statue that is supposed to be beautiful, removes a part here and polishes a part there so that he makes the latter smooth and the former just right until he has given the statue a beautiful face. In the same way, you should remove superfluities and straighten things that are crooked, work on the things that are dark, making them bright, and not stop ‘working on your statue’ until the divine splendour of virtue shines in you, until you see ‘Self-Control enthroned on the holy seat’. ...
Thanks, that helps me to not have to read ALL of the Enneads, assuming that is where the quotes came from. I'm curious to see if there's an explanation of 'distinctions' between 'soul' and 'The One'. Maybe you can help me with finding any of those. Your diagram, and the meaning of emanation. It's kind of like making tea, with the same teabag. The One is the teabag. Nous is your first cup. Then you use the same teabag, Soul is the second cup. Then you use the same teabag, the world of manifestation is the 3rd cup. That's a rough analogy. But I am interested. I've had interest in the past, I will take a refresher course.
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Jan 8, 2024 14:04:09 GMT -5
Post by stardustpilgrim on Jan 8, 2024 14:04:09 GMT -5
The great Indian yogi, poet, and philosopher Sri Aurobindo wrote: - “the subliminal being has also a larger direct contact with the world; it is not confined like the surface Mind to the interpretation of sense-images and sense-vibrations supplemented by the mental and vital intuition and the reason. There is indeed an inner sense in the subliminal nature, a subtle sense of vision, hearing, touch, smell and taste; but there are not confined to the creation of images of things belonging to the physical environment (…). It is the subliminal reality and not the outer mind that possesses the powers of telepathy, clairvoyance, second sight and other supernormal faculties whose occurrence in the surface consciousness is due to openings or rifts in the wall erected by the outer personality’s unseeing labour of individualisation and interposed between itself and the inner domain of our being. (…) the power of the subliminal to enter into a direct contact of consciousness with other consciousness or with objects, to act without other instrumentation, by an essential sense inherent in its own substance, by a direct mental vision, by a direct feeling of things (…) but these capacities are occasional, rudimentary, vague. (…) It is only if we can open up the wall between the outer mind and the inner consciousness to which such phenomena are normal” (Aurobindo, 2001)
sdp likes immeasurably. Whether by design or by chance, you have stumbled upon the *real deal*. A gazallion years ago (well, probably about 25 years ago), I chanced upon the biography of Aurobindo by Satprem, The Adventure in Consciousness, some such, I'll have to look it up. I was sufficiently interested to further check out both Aurobindo and Satprem. Satprem has a most excellent book, The Mind of the Cells. So I know beyond any doubt whatsoever that Aurobindo was on the right track, Satprem was a student of both Aurobindo and The Mother. The Mind of the Cells has some profoundly existential and phenomenologically significant personal accounts. Aurobindo extensively detailed his paradigm in numerous writings, I'd say pretty accurate. I'd say he wrote from direct experience. I'd say he was a pioneer of the spirit, the higher dimensions, in the sense of "Lewis & Clark". Good find. There was a guy here some years ago who also very much liked Aurobindo and Satprem. He was like me not a nondualist without qualification. I don't recall his name, I think I can find it as we corresponded somewhat. sunshine, I think his name was sunshine, 8 years ago.
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Jan 8, 2024 17:00:58 GMT -5
Post by inavalan on Jan 8, 2024 17:00:58 GMT -5
The famous physicist and Nobel Prize winner Richard Feynman remarked, - “the first principle is not to fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool”.
Polonius: "but this above all: to thine own self be true, and it will surely follow, as night follows day, that you cannot be false to any man." This reply reminds of Frasier's " But if less is more just think how much more more would be."
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Jan 8, 2024 18:00:44 GMT -5
Post by stardustpilgrim on Jan 8, 2024 18:00:44 GMT -5
The famous physicist and Nobel Prize winner Richard Feynman remarked, - “the first principle is not to fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool”.
Polonius: "but this above all: to thine own self be true, and it will surely follow, as night follows day, that you cannot be false to any man." But it depends upon if you are true to the false self or true to the true self. That has to be sorted out first. A wise man once said, the foolish man built his house upon the sand, the wise man built his house upon a rock. Feynman is correct.
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Jan 8, 2024 19:42:47 GMT -5
Post by laughter on Jan 8, 2024 19:42:47 GMT -5
Polonius: "but this above all: to thine own self be true, and it will surely follow, as night follows day, that you cannot be false to any man." But it depends upon if you are true to the false self or true to the true self. That has to be sorted out first. A wise man once said, the foolish man built his house upon the sand, the wise man built his house upon a rock. Feynman is correct. Here, debate this ham sandwich about it -->
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Jan 8, 2024 19:43:41 GMT -5
Post by laughter on Jan 8, 2024 19:43:41 GMT -5
Polonius: "but this above all: to thine own self be true, and it will surely follow, as night follows day, that you cannot be false to any man." This reply reminds of Frasier's " But if less is more just think how much more more would be." Billy Shakes refrained from saying more, this much is true.
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Jan 8, 2024 21:05:05 GMT -5
Post by inavalan on Jan 8, 2024 21:05:05 GMT -5
This reply reminds of Frasier's " But if less is more just think how much more more would be." Billy Shakes refrained from saying more, this much is true. To paraphrase your Frasier on my Niles' Feynman's remark: "But if you can't trust yourself, just think how much better you'll be if you still trust yourself."
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Jan 9, 2024 3:41:02 GMT -5
Post by inavalan on Jan 9, 2024 3:41:02 GMT -5
- "At that point perhaps debunkers hold 'the burden of proof', being now responsible for providing evidence to demonstrate the validity of their own claims. Skeptics often forget to be skeptical about their own skepticism." --- Anonymous
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Jan 9, 2024 8:19:00 GMT -5
Post by someNOTHING! on Jan 9, 2024 8:19:00 GMT -5
Thanks, that helps me to not have to read ALL of the Enneads, assuming that is where the quotes came from. I'm curious to see if there's an explanation of 'distinctions' between 'soul' and 'The One'. Maybe you can help me with finding any of those. Your diagram, and the meaning of emanation. It's kind of like making tea, with the same teabag. The One is the teabag. Nous is your first cup. Then you use the same teabag, Soul is the second cup. Then you use the same teabag, the world of manifestation is the 3rd cup. That's a rough analogy. But I am interested. I've had interest in the past, I will take a refresher course. No. Intelligence is Plotinus’ Intellect/Nous (as in 'God's Mind) in how I see it. People can get a sense of that, no doubt. The break with any previously understood notion of reality is just above that Intellect/Nous. EVERYTHING collapses into The One/ NOTHING. How I’d express it is that Intelligence is of the highest, most inclusive substrate of order, and there’s a lot of super-sensory Being involved there. Don’t get me wrong, purddy wingding cool, so I let a lot of that stuff in with respect to what is infinitely potential. I just wouldn’t say it’s The One (per Plotinus). It’s not a judgment in that it is wrong, bad, lacking, etc, just not IT, with respect to the depth of discussions we allow here on the board. I typically would not go chatting about this stuff too much in a public domain that is mostly ordered by the consensual trance paradigm. Not wise, unless of course I needed a rent-free room. I have assumed you had a glimpse of IT back in 1975ish, but have only identified (impersonally) with said Nous/Intelligence that you felt and perhaps which nudged you past the dark night of the Soul (see Plotinus). It is my supposition that there was a lot of emotional baggage in what was dropped, and perhaps there is something of it that was worth holding on (guilt, for example, has a weasely way of finding its way back into a mix,,, much like 'survivors' guilt after a major accident involving a death). Perhaps it was a peak experience, dunno. But using it as a reference point, if you were to settle into that memory and take a good look around for what was there prior to mind (that noticed and remembers a dreamlike state playing out before its eye via sense/feeling), prior to Nous/Soul that also might inform the mind, you might notice the complete absence of person/thing. Right Here, right Now. It might be why you like to say more/further/etc. Dunno.
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Post by laughter on Jan 10, 2024 11:50:50 GMT -5
Billy Shakes refrained from saying more, this much is true. To paraphrase your Frasier on my Niles' Feynman's remark: "But if you can't trust yourself, just think how much better you'll be if you still trust yourself." Self-honesty is as profound a question for the seeker of truth as it gets.
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Jan 10, 2024 13:01:38 GMT -5
Post by inavalan on Jan 10, 2024 13:01:38 GMT -5
To paraphrase your Frasier on my Niles' Feynman's remark: "But if you can't trust yourself, just think how much better you'll be if you still trust yourself." Self-honesty is as profound a question for the seeker of truth as it gets. People are honestly believing whatever they feel, like Winston. They really get self-suggested into feeling, and believing. For them, that is the reality. Their physical bodies (gestalts) react accordingly. That kind of delusion is like in a very realistic dream, when you have no clue that you are dreaming, when even if you test it, it seems "real". Surely, everything is real. Delusion is a real state.
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Jan 10, 2024 16:00:41 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by stardustpilgrim on Jan 10, 2024 16:00:41 GMT -5
Self-honesty is as profound a question for the seeker of truth as it gets. People are honestly believing whatever they feel, like Winston. They really get self-suggested into feeling, and believing. For them, that is the reality. Their physical bodies (gestalts) react accordingly. That kind of delusion is like in a very realistic dream, when you have no clue that you are dreaming, when even if you test it, it seems "real". Surely, everything is real. Delusion is a real state. Somebody explain to inavalan about the mirage and the canteen.
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Jan 12, 2024 12:38:57 GMT -5
Post by Reefs on Jan 12, 2024 12:38:57 GMT -5
"Team spirit is the glue that binds the losers together."
— Felix Dennis
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