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Post by laughter on Feb 7, 2018 14:42:22 GMT -5
It's only when one reverses the process of suffering that it can be noticed that pain is just sensation until it is attached to a 'me' structure and it becomes suffering. That structure is critical, and the infant doesn't have it. That structure begins to form around age two. It's not that simple in actuality. I would agree that babies come very close to that ideal. But babies also do have needs. And there have been some (rather sick) experiments with babies in the past that would prove you wrong. Babies can and do suffer. But they are not willing to put up with it at all or endure it for long. And I think that's the actual difference between the baby and the adult here (and also the difference between the animals in the wild and humans). But just in case, what is your definition of suffering? My definition of suffering would be an acute awareness of a feeling of separation. The question "what is suffering?" can't be disentangled from the question of "what suffers?", so there's no idea in answer to it, no conceptual structure that will ever reduce the process of suffering to relative, mechanistic terms. But there are some facts that we can apply to gain clarity. In terms of the current forum dialogs, machines can't suffer, and any and all suffering for a human being can cease during the course of their lifetime, as this is, essentially, a defining characteristic of self-realization. The babies that suffer don't have the bogus belief that leads to emotional pain. While we could point to what we mean by saying that emotional pain is an illusion, we still have to contend, practically speaking, with how emotional pain and physical pain can weave together in a sequence of events such that teasing out cause and effect becomes a meaningless exercise in futility. Also, out at the extremes, the distinction between physical pain and suffering loses it's efficacy as a pointer. I don't think I need to state the gruesome hypotheticals that would make this point. As you said, those experiments (that I'm completely unfamiliar with) were diseased. In terms of LOA and vibration, a person free of suffering will still have some sort of reaction in encountering energy patterns destructive of their person or the persons proximate to them or otherwise strongly related to them somehow. But these reactions happen one way when the pattern of false identification is manifest, and another way otherwise. To simplify this scenario in terms of personal resistance is a misconception that only one who isn't really free of that identification would ever consider as a conclusive basis for an explanation of the process, because the opposition to destructive patterns of energy is entirely situational.
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Post by laughter on Feb 7, 2018 15:08:55 GMT -5
The true self (Inner Being) doesn't suffer. True self means the realization of oneness. Suffering is the belief in separation. Therefore the true self that suffers is not the true self. I guess I shouldn't use words that are "pre-loaded". E seemed to be saying that there isn't a self until about 2 years of age, so there isn't any suffering until then. But there is an authentic self from birth. Ask parents who have several kids, difference and uniqueness shows up from a very early age. Ego/cultural self/conditioned self forms to a great extent as a means to protect the authentic self, protection from suffering. However, eventually a shift occurs, the sense of being (unconsciously) shifts from the authentic self to ego/cultural self/conditioned self/inauthentic self. Ego/cultural self/conditioned self/inauthentic self is formed to shield and protect authentic self, but instead, eventually, this shift occurs, and 'we' mis-take the false for the real, we ~become~ the false self. And then most people live the remainder of their lives through an inauthentic sense of self. The spiritual journey is about recovering and living through the authentic self. The intended aim of the forming cultural self is for it to take abuse, be-a-shield, thus protecting authentic self from harm. But this shift occurs. The shift has different names, the fall, original sin, becoming lost. And instead of inauthentic self protecting authentic self, ~we~ become the inauthentic self. Defining humanity in terms of a timeline before and after birth and death is a way of reducing that humanity to a mechanistic blueprint. It's also a way of relegating the possibility of discovering that blueprint to the obscurity of hoping for future scientific enlightenment. You can't prove life before birth or after death in any definitive terms, so your only possible retort would be to say that future generations might be able to. The truths of self and suffering are available to anyone, at anytime, and are revealed in the quiescence of the body/mind. These theories about afterlife and prebirth are places for the mind to crystallize around false relative structures, while that quiescence, in contrast, is the epitome of the surrender of not-knowing.
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Feb 7, 2018 15:30:50 GMT -5
I guess I shouldn't use words that are "pre-loaded". E seemed to be saying that there isn't a self until about 2 years of age, so there isn't any suffering until then. But there is an authentic self from birth. Ask parents who have several kids, difference and uniqueness shows up from a very early age. Ego/cultural self/conditioned self forms to a great extent as a means to protect the authentic self, protection from suffering. However, eventually a shift occurs, the sense of being (unconsciously) shifts from the authentic self to ego/cultural self/conditioned self/inauthentic self. Ego/cultural self/conditioned self/inauthentic self is formed to shield and protect authentic self, but instead, eventually, this shift occurs, and 'we' mis-take the false for the real, we ~become~ the false self. And then most people live the remainder of their lives through an inauthentic sense of self. The spiritual journey is about recovering and living through the authentic self. The intended aim of the forming cultural self is for it to take abuse, be-a-shield, thus protecting authentic self from harm. But this shift occurs. The shift has different names, the fall, original sin, becoming lost. And instead of inauthentic self protecting authentic self, ~we~ become the inauthentic self. Defining humanity in terms of a timeline before and after birth and death is a way of reducing that humanity to a mechanistic blueprint. It's also a way of relegating the possibility of discovering that blueprint to the obscurity of hoping for future scientific enlightenment. You can't prove life before birth or after death in any definitive terms, so your only possible retort would be to say that future generations might be able to. The truths of self and suffering are available to anyone, at anytime, and are revealed in the quiescence of the body/mind. These theories about afterlife and prebirth are places for the mind to crystallize around false relative structures, while that quiescence, in contrast, is the epitome of the surrender of not-knowing. You're responding to something I didn't write (in this post). I didn't reference a timeline before or after birth. The only thing the 4th Way says in relation to this is, your essence comes from the stars. "The stars" represent a higher order of reality, a higher dimension. There is knowledge and then there is direct experience. What is merely knowledge for some, is direct experience for others. So there are maps and then there is the territory the maps refer to. If a map does not reference a territory, then yes, it's merely imaginary. IOW, not all ideas are worthless.
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Post by laughter on Feb 7, 2018 16:05:42 GMT -5
Defining humanity in terms of a timeline before and after birth and death is a way of reducing that humanity to a mechanistic blueprint. It's also a way of relegating the possibility of discovering that blueprint to the obscurity of hoping for future scientific enlightenment. You can't prove life before birth or after death in any definitive terms, so your only possible retort would be to say that future generations might be able to. The truths of self and suffering are available to anyone, at anytime, and are revealed in the quiescence of the body/mind. These theories about afterlife and prebirth are places for the mind to crystallize around false relative structures, while that quiescence, in contrast, is the epitome of the surrender of not-knowing. You're responding to something I didn't write (in this post). I didn't reference a timeline before or after birth. The only thing the 4th Way says in relation to this is, your essence comes from the stars. "The stars" represent a higher order of reality, a higher dimension. What's the point of deflecting like this? There is knowledge and then there is direct experience. What is merely knowledge for some, is direct experience for others. So there are maps and then there is the territory the maps refer to. If a map does not reference a territory, then yes, it's merely imaginary. IOW, not all ideas are worthless. There is direct experience and then there is the interpretation of that direct experience. I don't have to doubt NDE's, past life memories, mediums who say they speak with the deceased or others who claim they can read minds. But neither do I have to buy into the underlying theories they use to describe how these happen. Your notion of how the "true self" exists before birth seems central here to another theory you're building on top of that about suffering and awakening. Sometimes you have to leave your boat if you want to keep hiking. I suggest torching it so as to remove any temptation to get back in.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 7, 2018 16:19:22 GMT -5
You're responding to something I didn't write (in this post). I didn't reference a timeline before or after birth. The only thing the 4th Way says in relation to this is, your essence comes from the stars. "The stars" represent a higher order of reality, a higher dimension. What's the point of deflecting like this? There is knowledge and then there is direct experience. What is merely knowledge for some, is direct experience for others. So there are maps and then there is the territory the maps refer to. If a map does not reference a territory, then yes, it's merely imaginary. IOW, not all ideas are worthless. There is direct experience and then there is the interpretation of that direct experience. I don't have to doubt NDE's, past life memories, mediums who say they speak with the deceased or others who claim they can read minds. But neither do I have to buy into the underlying theories they use to describe how these happen. Your notion of how the "true self" exists before birth seems central here to another theory you're building on top of that about suffering and awakening. Sometimes you have to leave your boat if you want to keep hiking. I suggest torching it so as to remove any temptation to get back in. www.domobaal.com/resources/marceldinahet/marcel-dinahet-sur-la-mer-2014-domobaal-02.jpg
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Post by enigma on Feb 7, 2018 22:24:41 GMT -5
It's only when one reverses the process of suffering that it can be noticed that pain is just sensation until it is attached to a 'me' structure and it becomes suffering. That structure is critical, and the infant doesn't have it. That structure begins to form around age two. It's not that simple in actuality. I would agree that babies come very close to that ideal. But babies also do have needs. And there have been some (rather sick) experiments with babies in the past that would prove you wrong. Babies can and do suffer. But they are not willing to put up with it at all or endure it for long. And I think that's the actual difference between the baby and the adult here (and also the difference between the animals in the wild and humans). But just in case, what is your definition of suffering? My definition of suffering would be an acute awareness of a feeling of separation. Of course babies have needs, as do the animals in the wild. That doesn't imply they suffer. I would be interested in the experiments that prove they do. To start with, I'm not sure how subjective suffering is determined objectively. I think the difference between animals in the wild and humans is that humans are self aware. It's this self awareness that the humans build a self identity around, which animals can't do. I wouldn't define suffering as a feeling of separation. I would say suffering is any feeling from which one struggles to escape.
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Post by enigma on Feb 7, 2018 22:33:42 GMT -5
It's only when one reverses the process of suffering that it can be noticed that pain is just sensation until it is attached to a 'me' structure and it becomes suffering. That structure is critical, and the infant doesn't have it. That structure begins to form around age two. If it was the case that pain is just sensation, the baby would be no different to an AI bot. You mean in terms of how pain is interpreted? Maybe so. That's fine. It becomes an alert that something in the body requires attention. That all it needs to be. A sense of self is not a 'me' structure in the mind. A sense of self does not lead to suffering. We are moved to comfort simply because we believe it is suffering because it is acting like we do when we suffer. I'm suggesting we're missing something about how suffering happens.
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Post by enigma on Feb 7, 2018 22:46:36 GMT -5
If it was the case that pain is just sensation, the baby would be no different to an AI bot. A baby does have a primitive ego, a basis and unconscious sense of itself, and therefore although pain is experienced differently by babies (to older humans), there is still an apparent sufferer. Hence why, when a baby is suffering, we are moved to provide comfort if we can. I can't believe that E has been speaking of what constitutes attachment and conditioning . Couldn't get a word out of him before lol, now it's rolling off the tongue .. It's the difference between actual discussion and poopy pants discussion.
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Post by enigma on Feb 7, 2018 22:48:32 GMT -5
It's not that simple in actuality. I would agree that babies come very close to that ideal. But babies also do have needs. And there have been some (rather sick) experiments with babies in the past that would prove you wrong. Babies can and do suffer. But they are not willing to put up with it at all or endure it for long. And I think that's the actual difference between the baby and the adult here (and also the difference between the animals in the wild and humans). But just in case, what is your definition of suffering? My definition of suffering would be an acute awareness of a feeling of separation. Yes. True self exists from birth (and before), and can suffer. Suffering before 2 actually malforms the cultural self (conditioned self). Thus can arise rather nasty people. I think the whole problem here is that there's no true self.
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Post by enigma on Feb 7, 2018 22:55:01 GMT -5
The true self (Inner Being) doesn't suffer. True self means the realization of oneness. Suffering is the belief in separation. Therefore the true self that suffers is not the true self. I guess I shouldn't use words that are "pre-loaded". E seemed to be saying that there isn't a self until about 2 years of age, so there isn't any suffering until then. But there is an authentic self from birth. Ask parents who have several kids, difference and uniqueness shows up from a very early age. Ego/cultural self/conditioned self forms to a great extent as a means to protect the authentic self, protection from suffering. However, eventually a shift occurs, the sense of being (unconsciously) shifts from the authentic self to ego/cultural self/conditioned self/inauthentic self. Ego/cultural self/conditioned self/inauthentic self is formed to shield and protect authentic self, but instead, eventually, this shift occurs, and 'we' mis-take the false for the real, we ~become~ the false self. And then most people live the remainder of their lives through an inauthentic sense of self. The spiritual journey is about recovering and living through the authentic self. The intended aim of the forming cultural self is for it to take abuse, be-a-shield, thus protecting authentic self from harm. But this shift occurs. The shift has different names, the fall, original sin, becoming lost. And instead of inauthentic self protecting authentic self, ~we~ become the inauthentic self. There's no authentic self either. The only self that shows up in a human is an imagined one, and a child has to be able to form some deceptively complex concepts in order to form one. Takes a couple of years.
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Post by enigma on Feb 7, 2018 23:06:54 GMT -5
Defining humanity in terms of a timeline before and after birth and death is a way of reducing that humanity to a mechanistic blueprint. It's also a way of relegating the possibility of discovering that blueprint to the obscurity of hoping for future scientific enlightenment. You can't prove life before birth or after death in any definitive terms, so your only possible retort would be to say that future generations might be able to. The truths of self and suffering are available to anyone, at anytime, and are revealed in the quiescence of the body/mind. These theories about afterlife and prebirth are places for the mind to crystallize around false relative structures, while that quiescence, in contrast, is the epitome of the surrender of not-knowing. You're responding to something I didn't write (in this post). I didn't reference a timeline before or after birth. The only thing the 4th Way says in relation to this is, your essence comes from the stars. "The stars" represent a higher order of reality, a higher dimension. There is knowledge and then there is direct experience. What is merely knowledge for some, is direct experience for others. So there are maps and then there is the territory the maps refer to. If a map does not reference a territory, then yes, it's merely imaginary. IOW, not all ideas are worthless. Actually, there is knowledge and experience, and then there is realization. The former is fundamentally illusion.
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Post by enigma on Feb 7, 2018 23:15:54 GMT -5
You're responding to something I didn't write (in this post). I didn't reference a timeline before or after birth. The only thing the 4th Way says in relation to this is, your essence comes from the stars. "The stars" represent a higher order of reality, a higher dimension. What's the point of deflecting like this? There is knowledge and then there is direct experience. What is merely knowledge for some, is direct experience for others. So there are maps and then there is the territory the maps refer to. If a map does not reference a territory, then yes, it's merely imaginary. IOW, not all ideas are worthless. There is direct experience and then there is the interpretation of that direct experience. I don't have to doubt NDE's, past life memories, mediums who say they speak with the deceased or others who claim they can read minds. But neither do I have to buy into the underlying theories they use to describe how these happen. Your notion of how the "true self" exists before birth seems central here to another theory you're building on top of that about suffering and awakening. Sometimes you have to leave your boat if you want to keep hiking. I suggest torching it so as to remove any temptation to get back in.
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Post by andrew on Feb 8, 2018 3:30:27 GMT -5
[quote timestamp="1517998327" author=" andrew" source="/post/43 3459/thread"]If it was the case that pain is just sensation, the baby would be no different to an AI bot.You mean in terms of how pain is interpreted? Maybe so. That's fine. It becomes an alert that something in the body requires attention. That all it needs to be. I mean that even in a baby there is a primitive 'me' structure that the AI robot doesn't have, so apparently an AI robot can be programmed to respond to a 'sensation', but I still wouldn't classify the sensation and response as an 'actual' experience of pain because the primitive 'me' structure (or sense of self) is absent. Whereas the baby is 'actually' experiencing pain, because the primitive 'me' structure is present (just as it is in animals). [/b]unconscious sense of itself, and therefore although pain is experienced differently by babies (to older humans), there is still an apparent sufferer. [/quote]A sense of self is not a 'me' structure in the mind. A sense of self does not lead to suffering. Your premise was that ''pain is just sensation until it is attached to a 'me' structure and it becomes suffering''. I'm saying that GIVEN that premise, the baby must be suffering because there IS a 'me' structure, just not an abstract conceptual structure.
We are moved to comfort simply because we believe it is suffering because it is acting like we do when we suffer. I'm suggesting we're missing something about how suffering happens. [/quote] Well it would be interesting to see if one would be moved to provide comfort to an AI robot when they demonstrated that they were responding to pain.
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Post by andrew on Feb 8, 2018 3:51:05 GMT -5
It's not that simple in actuality. I would agree that babies come very close to that ideal. But babies also do have needs. And there have been some (rather sick) experiments with babies in the past that would prove you wrong. Babies can and do suffer. But they are not willing to put up with it at all or endure it for long. And I think that's the actual difference between the baby and the adult here (and also the difference between the animals in the wild and humans). But just in case, what is your definition of suffering? My definition of suffering would be an acute awareness of a feeling of separation. Of course babies have needs, as do the animals in the wild. That doesn't imply they suffer. I would be interested in the experiments that prove they do. To start with, I'm not sure how subjective suffering is determined objectively. I'm not sure either, but if the body is designed with a survival instinct, then 'suffering' could be the body-mind's way of saying, 'there is a problem that is disrupting my welfare'. Does a baby send off a 'there is a problem that is disrupting my welfare' signal? Well, when a baby is screaming for half an hour, I would say that is a 'there is a problem that is disrupting my welfare' signal.
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Post by andrew on Feb 8, 2018 4:56:19 GMT -5
I guess I shouldn't use words that are "pre-loaded". E seemed to be saying that there isn't a self until about 2 years of age, so there isn't any suffering until then. But there is an authentic self from birth. Ask parents who have several kids, difference and uniqueness shows up from a very early age. Ego/cultural self/conditioned self forms to a great extent as a means to protect the authentic self, protection from suffering. However, eventually a shift occurs, the sense of being (unconsciously) shifts from the authentic self to ego/cultural self/conditioned self/inauthentic self. Ego/cultural self/conditioned self/inauthentic self is formed to shield and protect authentic self, but instead, eventually, this shift occurs, and 'we' mis-take the false for the real, we ~become~ the false self. And then most people live the remainder of their lives through an inauthentic sense of self. The spiritual journey is about recovering and living through the authentic self. The intended aim of the forming cultural self is for it to take abuse, be-a-shield, thus protecting authentic self from harm. But this shift occurs. The shift has different names, the fall, original sin, becoming lost. And instead of inauthentic self protecting authentic self, ~we~ become the inauthentic self. There's no authentic self either. The only self that shows up in a human is an imagined one, and a child has to be able to form some deceptively complex concepts in order to form one. Takes a couple of years. What I see you suggesting here is 'no self' rather than 'authentic self' and I'm alright with that, but I would say the 'imagined self' begins to really take shape at the age of two/three, but is still present before that. An 'imagined self' isn't a 'self that is being imagined', it is the apparent imaginer.
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