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Post by michaelsees on Jan 19, 2011 12:52:03 GMT -5
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Post by frankshank on Jan 19, 2011 17:52:50 GMT -5
One of my favourites. I've watched it numerous times. ZD has stated many times that there is a non locatable doer but Tony Parsons stated that "the brain is doing this". I favour Tony Parsons version. What made me laugh was when he was asked what he had written down (because he stated that he had written something down) after the realisation and his response was "it's on page 4 of the open secret (his book)." LOL.
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Post by michaelsees on Jan 19, 2011 17:57:08 GMT -5
hehe Tony has a keen eye for marketing.
Michael
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Post by frankshank on Jan 19, 2011 17:58:03 GMT -5
Indeed!  |
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Post by michaelsees on Jan 19, 2011 18:48:39 GMT -5
I uploaded some of his talks for you.They are in a zip file The list of talks The Game of Becoming Radical Aliveness Play of Being No Escape Mind Hasn't A Clue Longing For Wholeness Liberation Is It's Complete Bottomless Bowl Biggest Thing in the Room Being Aliveness - A Contemplation www.4shared.com/file/yJI-VJW0/TP_online.htmlMichael |
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Post by popee on Jan 20, 2011 9:31:18 GMT -5
Thanks for the link
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Post by frankshank on Jan 20, 2011 19:32:43 GMT -5
Thanks for the upload Michael, really enjoyed listening to it!
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Post by michaelsees on Jan 20, 2011 21:40:46 GMT -5
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Post by mdawgs1 on Feb 14, 2011 13:35:26 GMT -5
Hi,
It's February of 2011. Anyone have a working link to those videos of Tony?
Please let me know. Thanks!!!
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Post by michaelsees on Feb 14, 2011 14:09:24 GMT -5
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Post by frankshank on Feb 15, 2011 9:28:47 GMT -5
It's also available at: www.conscious.tv/There are loads of Tony Parsons videos on Youtube too! |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 14, 2012 20:53:33 GMT -5
just listened to an interview with Tony Parsons at BATGAP.com .... he's in your general vicinity sometimes. have you ever thought of going to one of his shindigs to get your sucks knocked off? I have watched the interview and Parsons' system seems to contain major contradictions. He is saying that all there is is what is, which, according to him, is energy. He is saying that there is no self and that there is no seeker and that there is only what is. He is also saying that, for example there is no time, everything is appearances only, and yet he is supporting his point by referring to what scientists have found out about quantum physics (which he completely misunderstands btw), he is also talking about brains and how conditioning is dependent on their functioning. He is even speculating that the experience of separation is correlated to neurophysiology and that upon liberation the brain and body may change. That's the first contradiction. At 30min+ he says that 'the separation experience' is not caused by beliefs or thoughts but rather that it is an embodied energy, the actual body takes on the sense of separation. Liberation is thus an energetic shift and not a shift of the mind or anything that has to do with understanding. If this is so, then isn't he making a strong case for spiritual practise and 'energy work' (chakra cleansing etc)? Just a bit later he is saying that the imagined non-existent 'me' (seeker) is 'responsible' for the sense of separation. How can that be the case if selves are non-existent? Or is he simply saying that the self is a form (an expression) of the contraction of energy? If the latter is the case, then why is he talking about it if not with the agenda of deconstructing this form/expression (seeker, self) so that liberation may take place? But since the self is just an idea, then wouldn't that imply that understanding may resolve the energetic contraction of embodied energy that is responsible for suffering/separation? But the latter would imply that understanding may lead to liberation, an option which he already has excluded. Moreover, since in Parsons' narrative the self can at best be only a symptom and not the cause, why is he addressing the self at all? Why is he at all talking about selves and seekers? Heck, why is he talking at all in the first place? Is his talking just bait for people to stick around within his energetic field so that their energetic contraction may dissolve? In the end he states that upon liberation experience is immeasurably different than pre-liberation... that must be a serious energetic contraction he is talking about. |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 14, 2012 20:54:05 GMT -5
oy, you actually listened. alright i guess i'll have to listen more carefully.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 16, 2012 10:17:29 GMT -5
He may not be your cup of tea. This little interview is about all I know of him so I don’t know much about him. ZD seems to think he is an effective pointer. I'd love to hear how he responds to your ''yea, but life still sucks" question. Inherent contradictions can be distasteful yes. Less believable on the whole if there are contradictions. On the whole, though, it seems like his ‘open secret’ message is very simple and his schtick is just to keep focused on that. It’s inevitable, isn’t it, when talking about stuff that can’t really be adequately articulated, that there are going to be limits and if those limits are not respected, there will be contradictions? Maharshi pretty much had the least contradictory schtick, which is to just not say anything (at least, that's the schtick about his schtick). I think he has some proprietary claim over that term. Wild unbounded, unmeasurable energy. As opposed to This, conscious spirit, awareness, the natural state, intelligence, God….whatever. I don’t have a prob with the use of that term. Sounds like he used to use awareness and 'Divine Wholeness' but has abandoned them because they derail seekers too much. On the whole, I do think 'energy' is less problematic because it is less anthropomorphic than awareness, intelligence, God, etc. I dunno. I think he was just referring to this “energetic shift.” There’s a visceral change. He likes to wax on about how the seeker, self, sense of I-ness, etc. is just a contraction of energy. If there’s an ocean of energy, that sense of I-ness is a little whirlpool in that ocean, a swirl. So when that swirl dissipates it is none other than the whole. Apparently, that ‘energetic shift’ may be experienced. It’s the ‘glimpse,’ the ‘awakening’ or what others call the ‘realization’ --meaning it’s the point at which the sense of self dissolves or no longer appears; there’s a grokking that what is happening is all there is. There isn’t some layered foam on top about who I am and such. I don’t know, I’d think he’d dismiss that too – all stuff done which is dependent and reinforcing of a seeker, an energy worker. That's how I heard it. Archer asked him that. He basically said that there was no one talking about this stuff, obviously. It’s just more stuff happening. Well ‘immeasurably’ is sort of like saying ‘nonconceptual’ – it’s hard to compare that which can be measured to that which can not be measured. But he also admitted that his friends and family probably didn’t notice any change at all. I liked that. |
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Post by question on Feb 17, 2012 5:20:43 GMT -5
Like with Harding, your defense (why do you defend them anyways?) of Parsons supposes that they use language in a sort of poetic way and actually mean something different than what they say. I prefer to take them at face value. In general I think it's a bad habit to be overly poetic about it, there is enough confusion in this nonduality business as it is, why add even more confusion to it? Unfortunately too often nonduality teachers end up talking like politicians and soccer players, it's a bad habit not worthy of support imo.
I for one fail to see how you can interpret energy as awareness or divine wholeness. Even if you define 'energy' as awareness or divine wholeness, it still wouldn't make sense. How does awareness or divine wholeness 'contract'? You would need for this energy to come it various configurations (so that it can contract), you will need some sort of ocean/wave thingy, but at that point it's relative, which is precisely what he is trying to avoid.
It's a nice truism, but of no use in this context, just a nice strategy for not having to explain anything. That's what I see in his satsangs. 90% of it is just repeating truisms and then once in a while he drops a bomb and he doesn't actually bother to explain. I have noticed that when he receives an apparently intellectual question, then he tends to avoid it by repeating the truism or by making fun of the question.
It's the same old game as always. Basically a fundamental inability to reconcile the relative and absolute. If you acknowledge that there is a problem in the largest context (non-liberation, energetic contraction), as Parsons does, then you have already sabotaged the absolute. It doesn't matter that there aren't selves and seekers, as Parsons claims, as long as at the same time he claims that there is liberation and non-liberation, and that the latter is a configuration of the absolute. This means that he has a fundamental contradiction in his system, which is ok as long as there is a trade-off, for example a reliable stategy to bring about this liberation, but Parsons claims that there is no such thing. All day he is talking about selves and seekers, even though there are none. Why is he talking if not to make people understand, even though understanding is useless?
There are definitely ways to tell the whole nonduality story so that it is entirely coherent and leaves enough room for there to be what we call enlightenment and non-enlightenment, but Parsons is not telling this story. I'm just pointing out the inconsistency of his narrative.
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