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Post by explorer on Jul 4, 2018 11:05:28 GMT -5
The functions of thinking, feeling, intuition and sensation that you mention are what Jung talked about in his so-called "Quaternity" (probably based on air, fire, water and earth: the Elements. However, I think we are on dodgy ground when we talk with confidence about which function precedes another and which is faster or slower. Psychotherapists constantly (and with some sterility?) debate whether thoughts create feelings or feelings create thoughts for example. Come to that, are sense perceptions or intuitions thoughts or feelings or a combination of the two? What I feel is useful is to consider that the four functions circle around the core of awareness, as it were the Observer Consciousness. In fact the Observer Consciousness (or Ether in the elements) can be regarded as being the source of the four functions but also as being informed by the four functions. Perhaps the flow we are talking about in this thread is when the four functions are in balance, in harmony, like a wheel spinning serenely around its centre.
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Post by laughter on Jul 4, 2018 14:13:51 GMT -5
I remember reading about these things and it was like ordinary thinking is slowest, instinctive function is fastest, ordinary emotions are somewhere in between, etc.. And then, when there is higher functioning emotions get quite faster. My interest is there, in the 'high' functionings of thinking and feeling, where we "know all that we know at once" and "feel everything at once". So it is a definition of timelessness I think. When there isn't successiveness and there aren't fragments, it is timeless... At the same time, the difference between the low and high workings of emotional function (and here fast does not mean being excited!) can be the line between personal and impersonal? I ask that because I don't wish to write about theories or info on differences of speed between functions (if your quotes are about that, that's ok though). I wonder whether there is a line beyond which the ordinary selfishness (heaviness) is not possible! There are some quotes related to this in my mind but as this is essentially a 'perception of time' thread, I hesitate about writing more.
Yes, a sage lives in a kind of timelessness because s/he has rewired the brain to remain focused on whatever is happening in the present moment. There may be some occasional self-reflection, but it's minor, and quite different from the usual self-referential way of interacting with the world that Charles Tart has called "the concensus trance state" and which some neuroscientists refer to as "the default mode network." Tolle probably writes and talks about the eternal NOW more than any other non-duality sage. When the mind is quiescent (not ruminating or thinking self-referentially), life is a kind of flow from activity to activity, and the passage of time is rarely reflected upon or experienced. They function much like little children who don;t worry about the future or reflect upon the past. One of the reasons little children are happy is because the intellect has not yet become a dominating influence. They live in a state of mind analogous to what Zen people call "no mind"--a state of being in which the body functions appropriately without reflection. The intellect appears within awareness, and awareness is the fundamental reality. People who have deep CC experiences realize that if the entire universe disappeared, awareness would still be present because it supersedes all else and is infinite--beyond space and time. In fact, time and space are solely products of thought, and are based upon the cognitive idea of separation. Seems to me that someone who enters nirvikalpa samadhi at some point after SR would come to that same understanding about awareness and the universe.
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Post by laughter on Jul 4, 2018 14:17:19 GMT -5
Hmmmm ... I conceive of feeling in several different contexts, but in each one of them there's always some underlying process involved. Yeah, feeling is stimulated by thought and involves memory/conditioning and sense perception, so there's a complex process involved, but apparently we're trying to separate thought, feeling, sense perception and intuition, and look at what is experienced as slow and fast. Experientially, a feeling just appears, it doesn't develop slowly. This is why peeps think feeling isn't tied to thought. ah, ok, I see what you mean by that now. On the other hand, passion and a consciousness of our own mind aren't always necessarily mutually exclusive!
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Post by laughter on Jul 4, 2018 14:24:21 GMT -5
The functions of thinking, feeling, intuition and sensation that you mention are what Jung talked about in his so-called "Quaternity" (probably based on air, fire, water and earth: the Elements. However, I think we are on dodgy ground when we talk with confidence about which function precedes another and which is faster or slower. Psychotherapists constantly (and with some sterility?) debate whether thoughts create feelings or feelings create thoughts for example. Come to that, are sense perceptions or intuitions thoughts or feelings or a combination of the two? What I feel is useful is to consider that the four functions circle around the core of awareness, as it were the Observer Consciousness. In fact the Observer Consciousness (or Ether in the elements) can be regarded as being the source of the four functions but also as being informed by the four functions. Perhaps the flow we are talking about in this thread is when the four functions are in balance, in harmony, like a wheel spinning serenely around its centre. The entirety of eternity conspires to make even the subtlest or most mundane of physical perception, and any and all feeling, mood and emotion is tied inextricably to that. But it can be helpful to get present to how our conditioned thoughts about what appears to us can lead to distortions of those perceptions. Understanding the mechanics of the machine only becomes a hindrance if we mistake ourselves to be some sort of effect of the mechanism.
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Post by zendancer on Jul 4, 2018 15:28:40 GMT -5
Yes, a sage lives in a kind of timelessness because s/he has rewired the brain to remain focused on whatever is happening in the present moment. There may be some occasional self-reflection, but it's minor, and quite different from the usual self-referential way of interacting with the world that Charles Tart has called "the concensus trance state" and which some neuroscientists refer to as "the default mode network." Tolle probably writes and talks about the eternal NOW more than any other non-duality sage. When the mind is quiescent (not ruminating or thinking self-referentially), life is a kind of flow from activity to activity, and the passage of time is rarely reflected upon or experienced. They function much like little children who don;t worry about the future or reflect upon the past. One of the reasons little children are happy is because the intellect has not yet become a dominating influence. They live in a state of mind analogous to what Zen people call "no mind"--a state of being in which the body functions appropriately without reflection. The intellect appears within awareness, and awareness is the fundamental reality. People who have deep CC experiences realize that if the entire universe disappeared, awareness would still be present because it supersedes all else and is infinite--beyond space and time. In fact, time and space are solely products of thought, and are based upon the cognitive idea of separation. Seems to me that someone who enters nirvikalpa samadhi at some point after SR would come to that same understanding about awareness and the universe. I doubt it. SR reveals that personal selfhood is an illusion, and NS confirms that pure awareness can continue in the absence of both sensory perception and thoughts, but only a CC reveals the infinite. Someone might logically conclude, or speculate, that awareness is infinite, but a CC involves the direct knowing that reality is unified, aware, and infinite.
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Post by laughter on Jul 4, 2018 16:02:13 GMT -5
Seems to me that someone who enters nirvikalpa samadhi at some point after SR would come to that same understanding about awareness and the universe. I doubt it. SR reveals that personal selfhood is an illusion, and NS confirms that pure awareness can continue in the absence of both sensory perception and thoughts, but only a CC reveals the infinite. Someone might logically conclude, or speculate, that awareness is infinite, but a CC involves the direct knowing that reality is unified, aware, and infinite. I like to think I know that direct experience you're referring to, and I'm very happy to respectfully agree to disagree on it being the only way to that understanding.
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Post by zin on Jul 4, 2018 16:07:09 GMT -5
That's rebellion at god! He deserved it! "A house divided against itself cannot stand" So, are we going to benefit from an advice for mister Satan?
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Post by zin on Jul 4, 2018 16:34:55 GMT -5
I remember reading about these things and it was like ordinary thinking is slowest, instinctive function is fastest, ordinary emotions are somewhere in between, etc.. And then, when there is higher functioning emotions get quite faster. My interest is there, in the 'high' functionings of thinking and feeling, where we "know all that we know at once" and "feel everything at once". So it is a definition of timelessness I think. When there isn't successiveness and there aren't fragments, it is timeless... At the same time, the difference between the low and high workings of emotional function (and here fast does not mean being excited!) can be the line between personal and impersonal? I ask that because I don't wish to write about theories or info on differences of speed between functions (if your quotes are about that, that's ok though). I wonder whether there is a line beyond which the ordinary selfishness (heaviness) is not possible! There are some quotes related to this in my mind but as this is essentially a 'perception of time' thread, I hesitate about writing more.
Yes, a sage lives in a kind of timelessness because s/he has rewired the brain to remain focused on whatever is happening in the present moment. There may be some occasional self-reflection, but it's minor, and quite different from the usual self-referential way of interacting with the world that Charles Tart has called "the concensus trance state" and which some neuroscientists refer to as "the default mode network." Tolle probably writes and talks about the eternal NOW more than any other non-duality sage. When the mind is quiescent (not ruminating or thinking self-referentially), life is a kind of flow from activity to activity, and the passage of time is rarely reflected upon or experienced. They function much like little children who don;t worry about the future or reflect upon the past. One of the reasons little children are happy is because the intellect has not yet become a dominating influence. They live in a state of mind analogous to what Zen people call "no mind"--a state of being in which the body functions appropriately without reflection. The intellect appears within awareness, and awareness is the fundamental reality. People who have deep CC experiences realize that if the entire universe disappeared, awareness would still be present because it supersedes all else and is infinite--beyond space and time. In fact, time and space are solely products of thought, and are based upon the cognitive idea of separation. After so much time here (on st) I did begin to see most of self-referentiality as a burden.. However, I am still curious about other people! I like to hear their seeker-stories especially.
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Post by zendancer on Jul 4, 2018 16:45:41 GMT -5
I doubt it. SR reveals that personal selfhood is an illusion, and NS confirms that pure awareness can continue in the absence of both sensory perception and thoughts, but only a CC reveals the infinite. Someone might logically conclude, or speculate, that awareness is infinite, but a CC involves the direct knowing that reality is unified, aware, and infinite. I like to think I know that direct experience you're referring to, and I'm very happy to respectfully agree to disagree on it being the only way to that understanding. Well, I was specifically referring to the idea that NS after SR would necessarily result in that kind of knowing, because there's nothing revealed in NS, either before or after SR, that would lead to the knowing that awareness is infinite. I'm also curious to know what other kind of non-dual experience would result in that kind of knowing. One of the problems we encounter in the field of non-duality is that very few people have been able to describe in ordinary language specifically what they experienced when they encountered the infinite. Tolle writes about the "aliveness," but I don't remember him mentioning the infinite. Ramana, to the best of my knowledge, never attempted to explain what he encountered when he encountered The Self, but perhaps the sustained NS he apparently stayed in for several years resulted in the same kind of knowing that occurs during a CC experience. It's an interesting subject for sure.
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Post by zin on Jul 4, 2018 16:53:59 GMT -5
I remember reading about these things and it was like ordinary thinking is slowest, instinctive function is fastest, ordinary emotions are somewhere in between, etc.. And then, when there is higher functioning emotions get quite faster. My interest is there, in the 'high' functionings of thinking intellectual {the somewhat better word, as ordinary abstract thought plays no part} and feeling {and higher emotional is the better word, so as not to confuse the word feeling with sensation}, where we "know all that we know at once" and "feel everything at once". So it is a definition of timelessness I think. When there isn't successiveness and there aren't fragments, it is timeless... At the same time, the difference between the low and high workings of emotional function (and here fast does not mean being excited!) can be the line between personal and impersonal? I ask that because I don't wish to write about theories or info on differences of speed between functions (if your quotes are about that, that's ok though). I wonder whether there is a line beyond which the ordinary selfishness (heaviness) is not possible! There are some quotes related to this in my mind but as this is essentially a 'perception of time' thread, I hesitate about writing more.
Well, you can discover in yourself which is ordinarily fastest and which is ordinarily slowest. {The other arises out of the principle: "First you have to row a little boat"}. When does time drag and go slowly? One example is standing in a line. What are you mostly doing standing in a line? Thinking. (And then does time go by faster or more slowly while one is walking?, or gardening?, or taking pictures?, or playing a game?) Yes, thinking operates with the ~coarse least-fine energy~. Except in rare instances, maybe once or two in one's life, we do not ordinarily access the higher emotional or higher intellectual centers. Yes, these work with the highest, finest energies in man. Yes, to be-in the higher emotional center all sense of ego has been left behind, so correct, there is no sense of selfishness or heaviness. Basically, there is no sense of want for anything, the state itself is sufficient. But it is based upon a certain quality and quantity of energy. Do you know anything about poker? This is not a perfect analogy. Everything we do every day expends energy. Every hand in poker you have to ante in, put a certain amount of money in the pot. So you are "expending energy". So everything you do in an ordinary sense ... requires and expends a certain amount of energy (these are called mechanical efforts). ........... I think the speed of centers and how we experience time are a bit different things. By saying instinctive center is fast we mean that an input into it will bring very quick results (like how eating/drinking something affects us quickly). And feeling center evaluates a situation more rapidly (or it seems so to me!), gives quick reactions. And thinking in ordinary terms proceeds more slowly. But like how enigma says, if we like the experience it seems like time flows quickly even while reading a book.
Maybe the differences between people about time perception have something to do with their dominant 'center', I am not sure (as everybody uses all functions). I got curious, aren't "doing things consciously" and "self-remembering" the same thing?
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Post by zin on Jul 4, 2018 17:15:13 GMT -5
I remember reading about these things and it was like ordinary thinking is slowest, instinctive function is fastest, ordinary emotions are somewhere in between, etc.. And then, when there is higher functioning emotions get quite faster. My interest is there, in the 'high' functionings of thinking and feeling, where we "know all that we know at once" and "feel everything at once". So it is a definition of timelessness I think. When there isn't successiveness and there aren't fragments, it is timeless... At the same time, the difference between the low and high workings of emotional function (and here fast does not mean being excited!) can be the line between personal and impersonal? I ask that because I don't wish to write about theories or info on differences of speed between functions (if your quotes are about that, that's ok though). I wonder whether there is a line beyond which the ordinary selfishness (heaviness) is not possible! There are some quotes related to this in my mind but as this is essentially a 'perception of time' thread, I hesitate about writing more.
Thinking is slowest relative to action. In other words, actions that are thought-out, are deliberate, whereas action that isn't thought out, but instead, spontaneous, are more fluid. At the extreme, sports and some vocations involve conditioning the body/mind to respond quickly, typically by repeating the same action many times. There is a decided lightness of feeling the expression of these kinds of conditioned movements as they happen. Emotional conditioning is a different matter altogether. Leaving emotional heaviness behind might involve changes to conditioning, but conditioning is only secondary and incidental to leaving it behind on a permanent basis. This thread coincided with my interest in 'fragments and whole', so I think that the thinking function which goes on by words is slow because words are fragments. Also looking for cause/effect is a fragmentary act. I may be seeing everything from this pov now but thinking about me/others is so, too (I mean, slow). But someone experienced in thinking on a certain subject might do this quickly (make some calculations quickly for example). But there is a beauty in thinking, too, and I don't exactly know why this is so : )
Oh, of course, these 'centers' have common points with each other, if we talk in Gurdjieff-teaching terms. I mean, there is an emotional part of intellectual center, etc.. I like to read on them but it may sound as tmt!
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Jul 4, 2018 17:38:20 GMT -5
Well, you can discover in yourself which is ordinarily fastest and which is ordinarily slowest. {The other arises out of the principle: "First you have to row a little boat"}. When does time drag and go slowly? One example is standing in a line. What are you mostly doing standing in a line? Thinking. (And then does time go by faster or more slowly while one is walking?, or gardening?, or taking pictures?, or playing a game?) Yes, thinking operates with the ~coarse least-fine energy~. Except in rare instances, maybe once or two in one's life, we do not ordinarily access the higher emotional or higher intellectual centers. Yes, these work with the highest, finest energies in man. Yes, to be-in the higher emotional center all sense of ego has been left behind, so correct, there is no sense of selfishness or heaviness. Basically, there is no sense of want for anything, the state itself is sufficient. But it is based upon a certain quality and quantity of energy. Do you know anything about poker? This is not a perfect analogy. Everything we do every day expends energy. Every hand in poker you have to ante in, put a certain amount of money in the pot. So you are "expending energy". So everything you do in an ordinary sense ... requires and expends a certain amount of energy (these are called mechanical efforts). ........... I think the speed of centers and how we experience time are a bit different things. By saying instinctive center is fast we mean that an input into it will bring very quick results (like how eating/drinking something affects us quickly). And feeling center evaluates a situation more rapidly (or it seems so to me!), gives quick reactions. And thinking in ordinary terms proceeds more slowly. But like how enigma says, if we like the experience it seems like time flows quickly even while reading a book.
Maybe the differences between people about time perception have something to do with their dominant 'center', I am not sure (as everybody uses all functions). I got curious, aren't "doing things consciously" and "self-remembering" the same thing?
The last, self-remembering and self-observation are both conscious efforts. So no, they don't mean exactly the same, in all cases. (I will try to be more specific next time). Also, conscious breathing is a practice, so you could say in conscious breathing you are working consciously, but not necessarily remembering-self. But ideally, self-remembering is simultaneous with any practice. Gurdjieff covers this in In Search of...the why. [And there are levels of self-remembering, but the deeper (levels) ALWAYS include the "beginning" level].
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Jul 4, 2018 17:52:31 GMT -5
Thinking is slowest relative to action. In other words, actions that are thought-out, are deliberate, whereas action that isn't thought out, but instead, spontaneous, are more fluid. At the extreme, sports and some vocations involve conditioning the body/mind to respond quickly, typically by repeating the same action many times. There is a decided lightness of feeling the expression of these kinds of conditioned movements as they happen. Emotional conditioning is a different matter altogether. Leaving emotional heaviness behind might involve changes to conditioning, but conditioning is only secondary and incidental to leaving it behind on a permanent basis. This thread coincided with my interest in 'fragments and whole', so I think that the thinking function which goes on by words is slow because words are fragments. Also looking for cause/effect is a fragmentary act. I may be seeing everything from this pov now but thinking about me/others is so, too (I mean, slow). But someone experienced in thinking on a certain subject might do this quickly (make some calculations quickly for example). But there is a beauty in thinking, too, and I don't exactly know why this is so : )
Oh, of course, these 'centers' have common points with each other, if we talk in Gurdjieff-teaching terms. I mean, there is an emotional part of intellectual center, etc.. I like to read on them but it may sound as tmt! The following is an example of the difference in the speeds of centers. Learning to drive a straight-drive the intellectual center is necessary. You get instructions, mind tells the body what to do: Right foot on break, take l foot off break and push in clutch with left foot, put transmission in first gear with right hand and simultaneously step on gas with right foot. Now, eventually by doing over and over the body and muscles know what to do automatically, and can do much faster than the mind can say or think what to do. Thus, the moving center is quicker than thinking. Simple. (And yes, the operation of the instinctive center is yet quicker). And yes, the parts of centers work at different speeds. This overlaps with what E was saying. The moving parts of centers are slower (the moving part of the intellectual center is called the formatory apparatus. It is what is involved in rote learning, and, is the source of ~automatic~ thinking, and speaking (what can be called 'tongue not attached to the brain'). The moving parts of centers works with scattered attention. The emotional parts of the centers work with interested attention, some object or thought ~captures~ and holds one's attention. So yes, the emotional parts of centers works with a finer (and thus faster) energy. The intellectual parts of centers are where conscious efforts are made (as in self-observation). Surmise.
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Post by enigma on Jul 4, 2018 18:05:05 GMT -5
Yeah, feeling is stimulated by thought and involves memory/conditioning and sense perception, so there's a complex process involved, but apparently we're trying to separate thought, feeling, sense perception and intuition, and look at what is experienced as slow and fast. Experientially, a feeling just appears, it doesn't develop slowly. This is why peeps think feeling isn't tied to thought. ah, ok, I see what you mean by that now. On the other hand, passion and a consciousness of our own mind aren't always necessarily mutually exclusive! As Explorer implies, it's all muddled up together and probly not meaningful to try to separate. Not so much interested in that, but how we form our subjective experience of time is more interesting.
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Jul 4, 2018 18:16:50 GMT -5
And just to add one thing about the higher centers. They are always working, but we cannot "hear " them. Again, we access the higher emotional center through the emotional center, but ordinarily the emotional center does not have the quality of energy necessary to hear what the higher center is "broadcasting". And, the higher centers "speak" a different language. .....So the centers must be repaired cleaned out and balanced (could be called alignment) to ~receive/contact~ the higher centers.
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