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Post by andrew on Jun 3, 2024 6:58:08 GMT -5
The way I see humans, is that they will always do what they feel is working for them, and that usually changes when what they are doing ceases to work well for them. In some cases, something has to stop working entirely, in order for a change to happen. It seems to me that what you do, works for you, and that's cool. Personally, I don't think you are immune to the possibility of unexpected spiritual change. I'm probably in for some more myself at some point. Yes. I didn't say this. Yeah, I was aware you were talking about SR, I just didn't want to limit the potentials for change. |
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Post by someNOTHING! on Jun 3, 2024 7:24:44 GMT -5
Oh, almost forgot; according to the Enneagram, this mind's blind spots/passion/spirit are also aligned with 9. It had a stronger 1w (probably due to my mother's hoarding  and my dad being an Aspey), but being in education and traveling strengthened the 8w, from what I observed. The travels exposed a lot of blind spots, strongly conditioned guilt, well-honed, unhealthy coping strategies, etc etc, and the weight of it all brought me to my knees. Perfectly so. Cool. I was basically totally f-ed up. My spiritual search basically began (age 17) to try to figure out my misery index, if it could be fixed. Cool about your Dad, learning that. Don't recall seeing that before (not that that means anything  . Probably about 18 years ago I read a two-page article in (Sunday paper) Parade Magazine, it practically explained my whole life. Went right out, probably that day, found a book, a lady writing about Asperger's, Pretending To Be Normal, even the title was me. And she talked about being invisible, that was me too. I've always said, if I hadn't found my teacher and he introducing me to the Gurdjieff teaching (at age 24), I'd have probably ended up in prison, a mental hospital, living on the street, or dead (my teacher was also a psychologist, MA, that helped). ...That's going to be goodnight. This really helps me to hear you better. Thanks a lot for sharing. In a similar fashion, once I looked into Asperger's, it revolutionized my communication and subsequent relationship with my Dad. I used the insights to peek back into his life as a child, misunderstood by virtually everyone in his German, Czech, Polish community, and having lost his very cool mama at the age of 8, after his dad returned from the war. He and his dad had a very rocky relationship duw to no one knowing what Aspergers was. It must have been a very confusing series of life experiences. Luckily, he moved out to his grandparents farm, and lived a relative Tom Sawyer life on a river when not working on the farm and/or in his dad's hardware shop. The repairman who worked there taught him everything he knew about tinkering with repairs and, a bit about how radios work. Radio frequency, radars, and microwaves eventually became his raison d'êtres. He could do math that I've never even dreamed of hoping to understand. I once gave him a rundown of Enneagram 5, and he said he literally had to put it down on occasion because it felt like someone was reading his mind. <<I smiled>> This mind was always quite gifted at intuiting the invisible lines of interactional relationship, sometimes a bit too sensitive for my own well-being as a 9 child. There's a lot more to it as a story, but I'll leave it at that for now. But, if you're willing in future discussions, it might be worth exploring how such minds, as brilliant as they are in their ways, have certain tendencies. I would completely understand and respect the fact if you preferred not to. I do remember there was a speaker/teacher on ND who was an Aspey. Seems like of us brought it up here way back in the archives. Turtle. Very cool Buddhist iconography, both for 'the practice' and for 'the hierarchy of ideas'. <<makes note to find those damn baby snapping turtle pics and get them to imagur>> |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Jun 3, 2024 10:28:31 GMT -5
Cool. I was basically totally f-ed up. My spiritual search basically began (age 17) to try to figure out my misery index, if it could be fixed. Cool about your Dad, learning that. Don't recall seeing that before (not that that means anything . Probably about 18 years ago I read a two-page article in (Sunday paper) Parade Magazine, it practically explained my whole life. Went right out, probably that day, found a book, a lady writing about Asperger's, Pretending To Be Normal, even the title was me. And she talked about being invisible, that was me too. I've always said, if I hadn't found my teacher and he introducing me to the Gurdjieff teaching (at age 24), I'd have probably ended up in prison, a mental hospital, living on the street, or dead (my teacher was also a psychologist, MA, that helped). ...That's going to be goodnight. This really helps me to hear you better. Thanks a lot for sharing. In a similar fashion, once I looked into Asperger's, it revolutionized my communication and subsequent relationship with my Dad. I used the insights to peek back into his life as a child, misunderstood by virtually everyone in his German, Czech, Polish community, and having lost his very cool mama at the age of 8, after his dad returned from the war. He and his dad had a very rocky relationship duw to no one knowing what Aspergers was. It must have been a very confusing series of life experiences. Luckily, he moved out to his grandparents farm, and lived a relative Tom Sawyer life on a river when not working on the farm and/or in his dad's hardware shop. The repairman who worked there taught him everything he knew about tinkering with repairs and, a bit about how radios work. Radio frequency, radars, and microwaves eventually became his raison d'êtres. He could do math that I've never even dreamed of hoping to understand. I once gave him a rundown of Enneagram 5, and he said he literally had to put it down on occasion because it felt like someone was reading his mind. <<I smiled>> This mind was always quite gifted at intuiting the invisible lines of interactional relationship, sometimes a bit too sensitive for my own well-being as a 9 child. There's a lot more to it as a story, but I'll leave it at that for now. But, if you're willing in future discussions, it might be worth exploring how such minds, as brilliant as they are in their ways, have certain tendencies. I would completely understand and respect the fact if you preferred not to. I do remember there was a speaker/teacher on ND who was an Aspey. Seems like of us brought it up here way back in the archives. Turtle. Very cool Buddhist iconography, both for 'the practice' and for 'the hierarchy of ideas'. <<makes note to find those damn baby snapping turtle pics and get them to imagur>> My first email address was tortoise@mindspring (turtle@mindspring was taken). I can't remember when I first recognized turtle was my animal, but at least 44 years ago. But that was me growing up, I could withdraw into my shell easily, and psychologically, I lived in my shell. I don't mind talking about my stuff. When I first learned about autism, probably my 20s or 30s, I figured I had been very close to being autistic, I figured I had just missed it. All I knew about then was the severely noncommunicating autistic. I had never even heard of Aspergers until I read that article. The 'politically correct' people had to do away with the name, because Hans Asperger became a Nazi, so they rolled up Aspergers into the autistic spectrum. OK, but you can't really erase history. When I started investigating, there were different attribute lists. Basically, I had every attribute, except I was always a pretty good athlete, average, never was clumsy. I owned the Aspergers, but I never talked to a psychologist or tried to get a diagnosis. I had figured out how to get by in life, so it didn't seem necessary. But it was basically crippling, mostly after about age 12. Your dad was very lucky, I'd say getting to the farm was an example of 'your being attracts your life'. That probably fit him perfectly. I went to college because I had to to stay out of Vietnam, needed a draft deferment. But I really had no direction. I probably would have picked psychology as a major, but I got some very bad advice when discussing this with my favorite psychology teacher. After two years in college they had the draft lottery, my number was 360, so no danger whatsoever of being drafted. So I floundered, started dropping classes. I finished 60 hours in the first two years, then finished only 17 more hours in the next 1 & 1/2 years. I had zero ideas of what to do with my life. I couldn't attribute it to Aspergers, then, but ~I~/me blocked every career avenue, I just marked stuff off the list, can't do that...can't do that, etc. Yea, I remember the Aspergers coming up here before, don't recall who that was. ....And I could really relate to Sree. I never got around to bringing it up that he chose the life that I had kind of been forced into. I wanted to explore why he chose that life, but I couldn't swing things that way. Seems he got kicked off permanently while I was on vacation. |
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Post by someNOTHING! on Jun 5, 2024 7:56:46 GMT -5
It's a good place for logical inference that might even help open up some trans-rational insight. Like, I wonder if Jesus ever said anything similar and/or about Adam, too. The way I interpret it, the poetic prose of the Garden of Eden somewhere uppish on the scale of Gurdjieff's model. But I'll leave that to SDP. I'm sure he has thought about it. Whether Jesus said or not is another story. We are talking inside the story. Your thinking seems to be not clear much. This is in reply to both SDP and Gopal, our resident Biblical scholars. It kinda ties together various ideas being discussed such as the I AM, Gurdjieff/Plotinus/the Greeks/scholarly/myth/allegory/Truth/etc. I will be away for a while as I'm heading to Mexico with extended family. ( Excerpts re-copied and pasted here from some online sources- sorry, don’t know which.) The Latin word "genesis" is derived from the Greek "gignesthai" meaning "to be born."THAT, which you are, is the unborn. Look up at the top (or all around) any neo-platonically based model. The Book of Genesis. [1:1] In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, [1:2] the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. [1:3] Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light.God is neither form nor formless, neither light nor dark, non-local, unborn - ND before even the thought that bifurcates ‘reality’, abstracts, and eventually gives rise to the ignorant illusion of self/SVP. This mind-body, for fun and curiosity, also reads the story of Adam in the garden as an allegory, using the etymological meanings of the words of the case in point. Interestingly, it all aligns with the neo-platonic models given by Plotinus and Gurdjieff, which SDP and I have rehashed a discussion on. That’s why I mentioned SDP in the reply to you, since you both seem to assume you are the Biblical scholars of the board and/or think it says anything different than ND. I do not know any of the characters of Jesus, Plotinus, Gurdjieff, etc, nor whether they were SR. Just poking away and interpreting stuff here. Adam
Adam ('adham') is one of several Hebrew words meaning "man," and usually designates man as a species. In Genesis i, 26-27 the word is used to designate the human species, including both male and female. But Adam is also used in Genesis as a proper personal name (of a specific individual) in Genesis iv, 25 and v, 1.So, this is why I put forth the potential idea of whether the dream character Jesus may have said something along these lines, as they would basically say the EXACT same thing (i.e., I AM before ‘whatever/whoever’ was). I've read the Bible is kinda set up in a repetitive fashion, which could possibly provide moments of insight, and who knows what else. Eden
The man is placed in a garden of Eden (Genesis ii, 8-14), but the geography is not real and the garden has no location. There is an explicit contrast between man's primitive bliss in the garden and the conditions of historical experience. The narrative describes Adam/individuation in the spiritual state, before s/he enters earthly, terrestrial life via the conditioned mind.--- This is the morning waking state after awakening from the dream of one’s nightly sleep that SDP and I have discussed. Before the conditioned mind’s conscious/unconscious wheels start to turn and before getting involved in the plans/responsibilities/drama of the day, one can consciously see/sense how the Book of Genesis plays out. This is akin to the "space" prior to thought that Krishnamurti refers to. One can also apply the Dream Metaphor, if one is not too averse to it, though it points to THAT which is prior to and/or inclusive of ALL existence, it’s Mind-Body. Thou Art THAT. The Tree
No restraint is placed on the man except the prohibition of eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil (Genesis ii, 16-17). This tree has no parallel in ancient near eastern traditions, so its symbolism is probably to be understood in the context of the fall narrated in Genesis iii. “Good and evil” are easily understood as dualistic labels of value born of conditioned thought. When God falls into the duality that Thou Art Dreaming, the s/he assumes that the labels are Truth, and that her/his ideas constitute Truth. This is ignorance experienced prior to SR/TR, and it’s easy to fall into the Dream and forget. The ‘levels’ of the neo-platonic, Plotinus, or Gurdjieff models are within THAT which you are, and it is the mind not informed by THAT which is ignorant of IT, perhaps mind-hooked attached to stuff further down the abstractions of/in the models. Sorry you think my thinking is not so clear, Gopal. Life's a funny thing!  |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Jun 5, 2024 8:12:24 GMT -5
Whether Jesus said or not is another story. We are talking inside the story. Your thinking seems to be not clear much. This is in reply to both SDP and Gopal, our resident Biblical scholars. It kinda ties together various ideas being discussed such as the I AM, Gurdjieff/Plotinus/the Greeks/scholarly/myth/allegory/Truth/etc. I will be away for a while as I'm heading to Mexico with extended family. ( Excerpts re-copied and pasted here from some online sources- sorry, don’t know which.) The Latin word "genesis" is derived from the Greek "gignesthai" meaning "to be born."THAT, which you are, is the unborn. Look up at the top (or all around) any neo-platonically based model. The Book of Genesis. [1:1] In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, [1:2] the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. [1:3] Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light.God is neither form nor formless, neither light nor dark, non-local, unborn - ND before even the thought that bifurcates ‘reality’, abstracts, and eventually gives rise to the ignorant illusion of self/SVP. This mind-body, for fun and curiosity, also reads the story of Adam in the garden as an allegory, using the etymological meanings of the words of the case in point. Interestingly, it all aligns with the neo-platonic models given by Plotinus and Gurdjieff, which SDP and I have rehashed a discussion on. That’s why I mentioned SDP in the reply to you, since you both seem to assume you are the Biblical scholars of the board and/or think it says anything different than ND. I do not know any of the characters of Jesus, Plotinus, Gurdjieff, etc, nor whether they were SR. Just poking away and interpreting stuff here. Adam
Adam ('adham') is one of several Hebrew words meaning "man," and usually designates man as a species. In Genesis i, 26-27 the word is used to designate the human species, including both male and female. But Adam is also used in Genesis as a proper personal name (of a specific individual) in Genesis iv, 25 and v, 1.So, this is why I put forth the potential idea of whether the dream character Jesus may have said something along these lines, as they would basically say the EXACT same thing (i.e., I AM before ‘whatever/whoever’ was). I've read the Bible is kinda set up in a repetitive fashion, which could possibly provide moments of insight, and who knows what else. Eden
The man is placed in a garden of Eden (Genesis ii, 8-14), but the geography is not real and the garden has no location. There is an explicit contrast between man's primitive bliss in the garden and the conditions of historical experience. The narrative describes Adam/individuation in the spiritual state, before s/he enters earthly, terrestrial life via the conditioned mind.--- This is the morning waking state after awakening from the dream of one’s nightly sleep that SDP and I have discussed. Before the conditioned mind’s conscious/unconscious wheels start to turn and before getting involved in the plans/responsibilities/drama of the day, one can consciously see/sense how the Book of Genesis plays out. This is akin to the "space" prior to thought that Krishnamurti refers to. One can also apply the Dream Metaphor, if one is not too averse to it, though it points to THAT which is prior to and/or inclusive of ALL existence, it’s Mind-Body. Thou Art THAT. The Tree
No restraint is placed on the man except the prohibition of eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil (Genesis ii, 16-17). This tree has no parallel in ancient near eastern traditions, so its symbolism is probably to be understood in the context of the fall narrated in Genesis iii. “Good and evil” are easily understood as dualistic labels of value born of conditioned thought. When God falls into the duality that Thou Art Dreaming, the s/he assumes that the labels are Truth, and that her/his ideas constitute Truth. This is ignorance experienced prior to SR/TR, and it’s easy to fall into the Dream and forget. The ‘levels’ of the neo-platonic, Plotinus, or Gurdjieff models are within THAT which you are, and it is the mind not informed by THAT which is ignorant of IT, perhaps mind-hooked attached to stuff further down the abstractions of/in the models. Sorry you think my thinking is not so clear, Gopal. Life's a funny thing! Yea, this is very good. The Jewish sages understood all this. We were simultaneously writing about Genesis, I posted on lolly's thread just now. Certain Kabbalists go into great detail about the formation of man, about how the "fall" is a fall into materiality. And also about how this whole process is repeated just-before someone incarnates. IOW, we know what's about to happen, then we forget. Sometimes small children remember, but usually they too forget by about age 4-6. I'd say the garden is the body, and the two trees are two nervous systems in the body, basically the left and right hemispheres of the brain. Jill Bolte-Taylor describes the wholistic right-brain very well. If you look at the story, Adam and Eve were kicked out of Eden, they were kicked out of the higher dimension, to the physical. How do we know? There was an angel sent to block the entrance to the Garden of Eden. The angel was on a swivel, it kept turning around to block the entrance. So it was blocking one-central-point, it wasn't like blocking a gateway. That's how you would represent blocking one single point, being on a swivel, you're not blocking anything physical. So I surmised that one central point was the point of entry to a higher dimension. You could probably call it a gateless gate. So the Garden of Eden is not ~out there~ and is not ~in the past~. We are the Garden of Eden, the body-is. We are both the Garden of Eden and that which blocks the way. (See Reefs link, elsewhere, to a long book quote, Anything Can Be healed, pg 896 pettifoggery). Enjoy Mexico. |
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Post by Gopal on Jun 5, 2024 22:46:34 GMT -5
Whether Jesus said or not is another story. We are talking inside the story. Your thinking seems to be not clear much. This is in reply to both SDP and Gopal, our resident Biblical scholars. It kinda ties together various ideas being discussed such as the I AM, Gurdjieff/Plotinus/the Greeks/scholarly/myth/allegory/Truth/etc. I will be away for a while as I'm heading to Mexico with extended family. ( Excerpts re-copied and pasted here from some online sources- sorry, don’t know which.) The Latin word "genesis" is derived from the Greek "gignesthai" meaning "to be born."THAT, which you are, is the unborn. Look up at the top (or all around) any neo-platonically based model. The Book of Genesis. [1:1] In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, [1:2] the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. [1:3] Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light.God is neither form nor formless, neither light nor dark, non-local, unborn - ND before even the thought that bifurcates ‘reality’, abstracts, and eventually gives rise to the ignorant illusion of self/SVP. This mind-body, for fun and curiosity, also reads the story of Adam in the garden as an allegory, using the etymological meanings of the words of the case in point. Interestingly, it all aligns with the neo-platonic models given by Plotinus and Gurdjieff, which SDP and I have rehashed a discussion on. That’s why I mentioned SDP in the reply to you, since you both seem to assume you are the Biblical scholars of the board and/or think it says anything different than ND. I do not know any of the characters of Jesus, Plotinus, Gurdjieff, etc, nor whether they were SR. Just poking away and interpreting stuff here. Adam
Adam ('adham') is one of several Hebrew words meaning "man," and usually designates man as a species. In Genesis i, 26-27 the word is used to designate the human species, including both male and female. But Adam is also used in Genesis as a proper personal name (of a specific individual) in Genesis iv, 25 and v, 1.So, this is why I put forth the potential idea of whether the dream character Jesus may have said something along these lines, as they would basically say the EXACT same thing (i.e., I AM before ‘whatever/whoever’ was). I've read the Bible is kinda set up in a repetitive fashion, which could possibly provide moments of insight, and who knows what else. Eden
The man is placed in a garden of Eden (Genesis ii, 8-14), but the geography is not real and the garden has no location. There is an explicit contrast between man's primitive bliss in the garden and the conditions of historical experience. The narrative describes Adam/individuation in the spiritual state, before s/he enters earthly, terrestrial life via the conditioned mind.--- This is the morning waking state after awakening from the dream of one’s nightly sleep that SDP and I have discussed. Before the conditioned mind’s conscious/unconscious wheels start to turn and before getting involved in the plans/responsibilities/drama of the day, one can consciously see/sense how the Book of Genesis plays out. This is akin to the "space" prior to thought that Krishnamurti refers to. One can also apply the Dream Metaphor, if one is not too averse to it, though it points to THAT which is prior to and/or inclusive of ALL existence, it’s Mind-Body. Thou Art THAT. The Tree
No restraint is placed on the man except the prohibition of eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil (Genesis ii, 16-17). This tree has no parallel in ancient near eastern traditions, so its symbolism is probably to be understood in the context of the fall narrated in Genesis iii. “Good and evil” are easily understood as dualistic labels of value born of conditioned thought. When God falls into the duality that Thou Art Dreaming, the s/he assumes that the labels are Truth, and that her/his ideas constitute Truth. This is ignorance experienced prior to SR/TR, and it’s easy to fall into the Dream and forget. The ‘levels’ of the neo-platonic, Plotinus, or Gurdjieff models are within THAT which you are, and it is the mind not informed by THAT which is ignorant of IT, perhaps mind-hooked attached to stuff further down the abstractions of/in the models. Sorry you think my thinking is not so clear, Gopal. Life's a funny thing! Yes Enjoy Mexico! |
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Post by someNOTHING! on Jun 22, 2024 10:08:28 GMT -5
This is in reply to both SDP and Gopal, our resident Biblical scholars. It kinda ties together various ideas being discussed such as the I AM, Gurdjieff/Plotinus/the Greeks/scholarly/myth/allegory/Truth/etc. I will be away for a while as I'm heading to Mexico with extended family. ( Excerpts re-copied and pasted here from some online sources- sorry, don’t know which.) The Latin word "genesis" is derived from the Greek "gignesthai" meaning "to be born."THAT, which you are, is the unborn. Look up at the top (or all around) any neo-platonically based model. The Book of Genesis. [1:1] In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, [1:2] the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. [1:3] Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light.God is neither form nor formless, neither light nor dark, non-local, unborn - ND before even the thought that bifurcates ‘reality’, abstracts, and eventually gives rise to the ignorant illusion of self/SVP. This mind-body, for fun and curiosity, also reads the story of Adam in the garden as an allegory, using the etymological meanings of the words of the case in point. Interestingly, it all aligns with the neo-platonic models given by Plotinus and Gurdjieff, which SDP and I have rehashed a discussion on. That’s why I mentioned SDP in the reply to you, since you both seem to assume you are the Biblical scholars of the board and/or think it says anything different than ND. I do not know any of the characters of Jesus, Plotinus, Gurdjieff, etc, nor whether they were SR. Just poking away and interpreting stuff here. Adam
Adam ('adham') is one of several Hebrew words meaning "man," and usually designates man as a species. In Genesis i, 26-27 the word is used to designate the human species, including both male and female. But Adam is also used in Genesis as a proper personal name (of a specific individual) in Genesis iv, 25 and v, 1.So, this is why I put forth the potential idea of whether the dream character Jesus may have said something along these lines, as they would basically say the EXACT same thing (i.e., I AM before ‘whatever/whoever’ was). I've read the Bible is kinda set up in a repetitive fashion, which could possibly provide moments of insight, and who knows what else. Eden
The man is placed in a garden of Eden (Genesis ii, 8-14), but the geography is not real and the garden has no location. There is an explicit contrast between man's primitive bliss in the garden and the conditions of historical experience. The narrative describes Adam/individuation in the spiritual state, before s/he enters earthly, terrestrial life via the conditioned mind.--- This is the morning waking state after awakening from the dream of one’s nightly sleep that SDP and I have discussed. Before the conditioned mind’s conscious/unconscious wheels start to turn and before getting involved in the plans/responsibilities/drama of the day, one can consciously see/sense how the Book of Genesis plays out. This is akin to the "space" prior to thought that Krishnamurti refers to. One can also apply the Dream Metaphor, if one is not too averse to it, though it points to THAT which is prior to and/or inclusive of ALL existence, it’s Mind-Body. Thou Art THAT. The Tree
No restraint is placed on the man except the prohibition of eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil (Genesis ii, 16-17). This tree has no parallel in ancient near eastern traditions, so its symbolism is probably to be understood in the context of the fall narrated in Genesis iii. “Good and evil” are easily understood as dualistic labels of value born of conditioned thought. When God falls into the duality that Thou Art Dreaming, the s/he assumes that the labels are Truth, and that her/his ideas constitute Truth. This is ignorance experienced prior to SR/TR, and it’s easy to fall into the Dream and forget. The ‘levels’ of the neo-platonic, Plotinus, or Gurdjieff models are within THAT which you are, and it is the mind not informed by THAT which is ignorant of IT, perhaps mind-hooked attached to stuff further down the abstractions of/in the models. Sorry you think my thinking is not so clear, Gopal. Life's a funny thing! Yea, this is very good. The Jewish sages understood all this. We were simultaneously writing about Genesis, I posted on lolly's thread just now. Certain Kabbalists go into great detail about the formation of man, about how the "fall" is a fall into materiality. And also about how this whole process is repeated just-before someone incarnates. IOW, we know what's about to happen, then we forget. Sometimes small children remember, but usually they too forget by about age 4-6. I'd say the garden is the body, and the two trees are two nervous systems in the body, basically the left and right hemispheres of the brain. Jill Bolte-Taylor describes the wholistic right-brain very well. If you look at the story, Adam and Eve were kicked out of Eden, they were kicked out of the higher dimension, to the physical. How do we know? There was an angel sent to block the entrance to the Garden of Eden. The angel was on a swivel, it kept turning around to block the entrance. So it was blocking one-central-point, it wasn't like blocking a gateway. That's how you would represent blocking one single point, being on a swivel, you're not blocking anything physical. So I surmised that one central point was the point of entry to a higher dimension. You could probably call it a gateless gate. So the Garden of Eden is not ~out there~ and is not ~in the past~. We are the Garden of Eden, the body-is. We are both the Garden of Eden and that which blocks the way. (See Reefs link, elsewhere, to a long book quote, Anything Can Be healed, pg 896 pettifoggery). Enjoy Mexico. I won't say much else, as you seem to cringe on ND as some kind of 'thing/belief system/level', but Awareness of/as the 'I AM' without 'otherness is what I'd say the Garden of Eden dealio points to. There is no returning; just realizing no one ever really left. The ignorance, the blockage, is the belief in the thought that says otherwise, including the subsequent castles of structure built to point out the ifs, ands, and buts of it all. Don't get me wrong; they are cool to talk about and can be useful in certain dreamland contexts, but will hold little value when attempting to express Truthishnessness if/when it all comes crashing down into the greasy spot. I'll try to circle back later and do another spin on the Adam & Eve story that brings it a bit closer to Plotinus' 'border' between The One and Nous, but maybe one of Alan Watt's vodka-fueled spins can provide some insight or points to ponder for the time being. Perhaps you've already perused it... Mexico was a good time. Glad we got momma out for a spin. Hanging with the bros and our gals, seeing the nieces and nephew tackle the Pacific waves with boogey boards and surf boards was cool. Enjoyed some local tequila, too, which brought back some old memories (though I was able to not make any new 'bad' ones, hehe). <Tips hat to Watts> |
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Post by someNOTHING! on Jun 22, 2024 10:13:23 GMT -5
This is in reply to both SDP and Gopal, our resident Biblical scholars. It kinda ties together various ideas being discussed such as the I AM, Gurdjieff/Plotinus/the Greeks/scholarly/myth/allegory/Truth/etc. I will be away for a while as I'm heading to Mexico with extended family. ( Excerpts re-copied and pasted here from some online sources- sorry, don’t know which.) The Latin word "genesis" is derived from the Greek "gignesthai" meaning "to be born."THAT, which you are, is the unborn. Look up at the top (or all around) any neo-platonically based model. The Book of Genesis. [1:1] In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, [1:2] the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. [1:3] Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light.God is neither form nor formless, neither light nor dark, non-local, unborn - ND before even the thought that bifurcates ‘reality’, abstracts, and eventually gives rise to the ignorant illusion of self/SVP. This mind-body, for fun and curiosity, also reads the story of Adam in the garden as an allegory, using the etymological meanings of the words of the case in point. Interestingly, it all aligns with the neo-platonic models given by Plotinus and Gurdjieff, which SDP and I have rehashed a discussion on. That’s why I mentioned SDP in the reply to you, since you both seem to assume you are the Biblical scholars of the board and/or think it says anything different than ND. I do not know any of the characters of Jesus, Plotinus, Gurdjieff, etc, nor whether they were SR. Just poking away and interpreting stuff here. Adam
Adam ('adham') is one of several Hebrew words meaning "man," and usually designates man as a species. In Genesis i, 26-27 the word is used to designate the human species, including both male and female. But Adam is also used in Genesis as a proper personal name (of a specific individual) in Genesis iv, 25 and v, 1.So, this is why I put forth the potential idea of whether the dream character Jesus may have said something along these lines, as they would basically say the EXACT same thing (i.e., I AM before ‘whatever/whoever’ was). I've read the Bible is kinda set up in a repetitive fashion, which could possibly provide moments of insight, and who knows what else. Eden
The man is placed in a garden of Eden (Genesis ii, 8-14), but the geography is not real and the garden has no location. There is an explicit contrast between man's primitive bliss in the garden and the conditions of historical experience. The narrative describes Adam/individuation in the spiritual state, before s/he enters earthly, terrestrial life via the conditioned mind.--- This is the morning waking state after awakening from the dream of one’s nightly sleep that SDP and I have discussed. Before the conditioned mind’s conscious/unconscious wheels start to turn and before getting involved in the plans/responsibilities/drama of the day, one can consciously see/sense how the Book of Genesis plays out. This is akin to the "space" prior to thought that Krishnamurti refers to. One can also apply the Dream Metaphor, if one is not too averse to it, though it points to THAT which is prior to and/or inclusive of ALL existence, it’s Mind-Body. Thou Art THAT. The Tree
No restraint is placed on the man except the prohibition of eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil (Genesis ii, 16-17). This tree has no parallel in ancient near eastern traditions, so its symbolism is probably to be understood in the context of the fall narrated in Genesis iii. “Good and evil” are easily understood as dualistic labels of value born of conditioned thought. When God falls into the duality that Thou Art Dreaming, the s/he assumes that the labels are Truth, and that her/his ideas constitute Truth. This is ignorance experienced prior to SR/TR, and it’s easy to fall into the Dream and forget. The ‘levels’ of the neo-platonic, Plotinus, or Gurdjieff models are within THAT which you are, and it is the mind not informed by THAT which is ignorant of IT, perhaps mind-hooked attached to stuff further down the abstractions of/in the models. Sorry you think my thinking is not so clear, Gopal. Life's a funny thing! Yes Enjoy Mexico! Perhaps you could dare to share what's not clear to you. Is it still the heavily conditioned, scholarly nonsense on the Biblical stories you've studied to the Nth degree that has you so IRRITATED and confused?!   |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Jun 22, 2024 12:15:09 GMT -5
Yea, this is very good. The Jewish sages understood all this. We were simultaneously writing about Genesis, I posted on lolly's thread just now. Certain Kabbalists go into great detail about the formation of man, about how the "fall" is a fall into materiality. And also about how this whole process is repeated just-before someone incarnates. IOW, we know what's about to happen, then we forget. Sometimes small children remember, but usually they too forget by about age 4-6. I'd say the garden is the body, and the two trees are two nervous systems in the body, basically the left and right hemispheres of the brain. Jill Bolte-Taylor describes the wholistic right-brain very well. If you look at the story, Adam and Eve were kicked out of Eden, they were kicked out of the higher dimension, to the physical. How do we know? There was an angel sent to block the entrance to the Garden of Eden. The angel was on a swivel, it kept turning around to block the entrance. So it was blocking one-central-point, it wasn't like blocking a gateway. That's how you would represent blocking one single point, being on a swivel, you're not blocking anything physical. So I surmised that one central point was the point of entry to a higher dimension. You could probably call it a gateless gate. So the Garden of Eden is not ~out there~ and is not ~in the past~. We are the Garden of Eden, the body-is. We are both the Garden of Eden and that which blocks the way. (See Reefs link, elsewhere, to a long book quote, Anything Can Be healed, pg 896 pettifoggery). Enjoy Mexico. I won't say much else, as you seem to cringe on ND as some kind of 'thing/belief system/level', but Awareness of/as the 'I AM' without 'otherness is what I'd say the Garden of Eden dealio points to. There is no returning; just realizing no one ever really left. The ignorance, the blockage, is the belief in the thought that says otherwise, including the subsequent castles of structure built to point out the ifs, ands, and buts of it all. Don't get me wrong; they are cool to talk about and can be useful in certain dreamland contexts, but will hold little value when attempting to express Truthishnessness if/when it all comes crashing down into the greasy spot. I'll try to circle back later and do another spin on the Adam & Eve story that brings it a bit closer to Plotinus' 'border' between The One and Nous, but maybe one of Alan Watt's vodka-fueled spins can provide some insight or points to ponder for the time being. Perhaps you've already perused it... Mexico was a good time. Glad we got momma out for a spin. Hanging with the bros and our gals, seeing the nieces and nephew tackle the Pacific waves with boogey boards and surf boards was cool. Enjoyed some local tequila, too, which brought back some old memories (though I was able to not make any new 'bad' ones, hehe). <Tips hat to Watts> I don't mind the perpetual talk about the ND POV. I read everything where someone specifically replies to me. I will look at the Alan Watts video later. I had a house-project to do this morning, so I'm filthy dirty, I have some cleaning up to do, just taking a break. I don't cringe on ND, I get that it's significant to you (plural). .....I had a long discussion with ZD once. It was about "Source", the 'Oneness-Ultimate'. But I kept asking, but how can you be 100% convinced there isn't anything beyond what you *realize*? How do you know...Alan Watts puts it this way: The which of which there is no whicher. How can anybody be 100% sure there is no whicher? That's just another way to try to ask what I've asked literally 1,000 times, here, before. But questions come up, but no new questions, and no new ways to put old questions. .....I've considered a Kundalini thread. People don't like to go to the woo woo place here. But from what I've gathered from your story, parts, did you consider it was a Kundalini thing? I've also considered Steven's 'thing', here, also as a Kundalini 'thing' (don't recall if you were here for that, or not), a "spiritual emergency". ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Did Alan Watts drink too much? As far as I remember, he did. Why? Why do people drink...too much? ...I can only see it as an escape. Why would Alan Watts want to *escape*? I've only ever gotten a good beer buzz from 6 beers (once), it was basically like a pot high. Neither did anything for me. That was over 50 years ago. |
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Post by someNOTHING! on Jun 22, 2024 13:30:49 GMT -5
I won't say much else, as you seem to cringe on ND as some kind of 'thing/belief system/level', but Awareness of/as the 'I AM' without 'otherness is what I'd say the Garden of Eden dealio points to. There is no returning; just realizing no one ever really left. The ignorance, the blockage, is the belief in the thought that says otherwise, including the subsequent castles of structure built to point out the ifs, ands, and buts of it all. Don't get me wrong; they are cool to talk about and can be useful in certain dreamland contexts, but will hold little value when attempting to express Truthishnessness if/when it all comes crashing down into the greasy spot. I'll try to circle back later and do another spin on the Adam & Eve story that brings it a bit closer to Plotinus' 'border' between The One and Nous, but maybe one of Alan Watt's vodka-fueled spins can provide some insight or points to ponder for the time being. Perhaps you've already perused it... Mexico was a good time. Glad we got momma out for a spin. Hanging with the bros and our gals, seeing the nieces and nephew tackle the Pacific waves with boogey boards and surf boards was cool. Enjoyed some local tequila, too, which brought back some old memories (though I was able to not make any new 'bad' ones, hehe). <Tips hat to Watts> I don't mind the perpetual talk about the ND POV. I read everything where someone specifically replies to me. I will look at the Alan Watts video later. I had a house-project to do this morning, so I'm filthy dirty, I have some cleaning up to do, just taking a break. I don't cringe on ND, I get that it's significant to you (plural). .....I had a long discussion with ZD once. It was about "Source", the 'Oneness-Ultimate'. But I kept asking, but how can you be 100% convinced there isn't anything beyond what you *realize*? How do you know...Alan Watts puts it this way: The which of which there is no whicher. How can anybody be 100% sure there is no whicher? That's just another way to try to ask what I've asked literally 1,000 times, here, before. But questions come up, but no new questions, and no new ways to put old questions. .....I've considered a Kundalini thread. People don't like to go to the woo woo place here. But from what I've gathered from your story, parts, did you consider it was a Kundalini thing? I've also considered Steven's 'thing', here, also as a Kundalini 'thing' (don't recall if you were here for that, or not), a "spiritual emergency". ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Did Alan Watts drink too much? As far as I remember, he did. Why? Why do people drink...too much? ...I can only see it as an escape. Why would Alan Watts want to *escape*? I've only ever gotten a good beer buzz from 6 beers (once), it was basically like a pot high. Neither did anything for me. That was over 50 years ago. I'll get back to this, but it's great to hear that you are still active enough to do house projects and the like. I just hope you are taking care of yourself with respect to the heat. It will likely be another doozy this summer. 🥵♨️🔥 But honestly, I do understand why some folks are averse to ND. A large majority of what is passed on as ND is utter shaite, so I get it. I just take it as part of the exploration of a perceived something into Nothingness; lots of stuff to get hung up on or hopeful of. I know what the good stuff points to, and I sometimes do my best to clarify that and, at other times, if I sense the mind I'm chatting with is locked in on something special/sacred, I might take a stab at destabilizing the belief. I've grown wiser to the fact that there may be better times, places, and people peeps to try that on, but in hindsight, I admit that I've erred in such crazy wisdom angles. Perfectly so. The question of another's 'certainty' may arise from a perceived ideal one assumes to be true (i.e., better/best/highest), which is more often than not just a conditioned one. This is kind of pointed to in the Dzogchen stuff you made reference to with respect to the video ZZ provided. I suspect that any purification process eventually gets around to purifying one's conditioned ideas of purity, as well. "We empower our conditioned nature rather that our Buddha nature. We easily turn our face away from this truth, from the reality that we encounter in our lives, because of our deep-seated conditioning. The Dzogchen practice is to face each moment of our lives as it is without fear, and without judgment." I occasionally use something of a Kundalini kinda thang when I'm resetting my brain for the professional stuff I'm involved with. That said, I do slip into some Nous stuff quite often and/or vast expanses of conscious nothingness, experientially. I do not know enough to pontificate on it, nor do I make much claim about what it points to. I don't mind woo woo stuff at all, though I would not say it references Truth or any path to 'certainty'. To be honest, I know of no such path to Here, where YOU actually already are. I just know I loves ya, without choice. I never met Alan Watts, so I can't say much with respect to the whys. It seems he did openly admit to liking it because of its effects on his delivery, but sure, there could be questions about his psychological 'needs' as it was suspected he may have even died of cirrhosis of the liver (interesting story of his death I cannot really recall about his body being burned/disposed of before anyone could do an autopsy... or something like that). I don't spend much time thinking about it. The purity thing was never so much about outward expressions than the 'inward journey', imo. Indeed, it could even be a blockage. I notice the perfectly meandering circles when I end up visiting some evangelical groups that my wife's in laws are associated with (and other places). I do recognize that it works for some people, and that's fine. I have always been something of an outsider, maybe even something of a loner (in a good way... Stoic thingy). I think it was JK who mentioned the difference between being lonely and alone, which resonated with my mindset. The process of attempting to pierce through the veil is likely to let out all kinds of weirdness. I'd even say that hard core morality might be one of the ways of coping with them, or stabilizing the search. Dunno. It's not always easy to decipher what exactly it is that people are ignoring, repressing, denying, or hiding from. One of my interests in the Greeks was looking at some of the clash in attitudes of the early Christians towards the rituals observed in the Bacchic Cult, and the subsequent overly heavy-handed doses of morality that plagued the Church for centuries. If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you. ~Gospel of Thomas, Verse 70 |
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Post by laughter on Jun 22, 2024 14:23:15 GMT -5
The Tree
No restraint is placed on the man except the prohibition of eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil (Genesis ii, 16-17). This tree has no parallel in ancient near eastern traditions, so its symbolism is probably to be understood in the context of the fall narrated in Genesis iii. “Good and evil” are easily understood as dualistic labels of value born of conditioned thought. When God falls into the duality that Thou Art Dreaming, the s/he assumes that the labels are Truth, and that her/his ideas constitute Truth. This is ignorance experienced prior to SR/TR, and it’s easy to fall into the Dream and forget. The ‘levels’ of the neo-platonic, Plotinus, or Gurdjieff models are within THAT which you are, and it is the mind not informed by THAT which is ignorant of IT, perhaps mind-hooked attached to stuff further down the abstractions of/in the models. So, from somewhere, at some time, I heard this expression "ignorance of true nature". Can't remember if it was from an Advaita-type source, or "Neo-Advaita" or perhaps even Zen. Can't remember at this point exactly when I heard it either. But I do recall when it first dawned on me that what is pointed to by "ignorance of true nature" is the same as "knowledge of good and evil". To any thinkers reading along and thinking about this. Stop! This brings to mind a translation of a Tao stanza that goes "true words seem paradoxical". It is only to the divided, thinking mind, that there is any paradox to this. |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Jun 22, 2024 19:41:13 GMT -5
Yea, this is very good. The Jewish sages understood all this. We were simultaneously writing about Genesis, I posted on lolly's thread just now. Certain Kabbalists go into great detail about the formation of man, about how the "fall" is a fall into materiality. And also about how this whole process is repeated just-before someone incarnates. IOW, we know what's about to happen, then we forget. Sometimes small children remember, but usually they too forget by about age 4-6. I'd say the garden is the body, and the two trees are two nervous systems in the body, basically the left and right hemispheres of the brain. Jill Bolte-Taylor describes the wholistic right-brain very well. If you look at the story, Adam and Eve were kicked out of Eden, they were kicked out of the higher dimension, to the physical. How do we know? There was an angel sent to block the entrance to the Garden of Eden. The angel was on a swivel, it kept turning around to block the entrance. So it was blocking one-central-point, it wasn't like blocking a gateway. That's how you would represent blocking one single point, being on a swivel, you're not blocking anything physical. So I surmised that one central point was the point of entry to a higher dimension. You could probably call it a gateless gate. So the Garden of Eden is not ~out there~ and is not ~in the past~. We are the Garden of Eden, the body-is. We are both the Garden of Eden and that which blocks the way. (See Reefs link, elsewhere, to a long book quote, Anything Can Be healed, pg 896 pettifoggery). Enjoy Mexico. I won't say much else, as you seem to cringe on ND as some kind of 'thing/belief system/level', but Awareness of/as the 'I AM' without 'otherness is what I'd say the Garden of Eden dealio points to. There is no returning; just realizing no one ever really left. The ignorance, the blockage, is the belief in the thought that says otherwise, including the subsequent castles of structure built to point out the ifs, ands, and buts of it all. Don't get me wrong; they are cool to talk about and can be useful in certain dreamland contexts, but will hold little value when attempting to express Truthishnessness if/when it all comes crashing down into the greasy spot. I'll try to circle back later and do another spin on the Adam & Eve story that brings it a bit closer to Plotinus' 'border' between The One and Nous, but maybe one of Alan Watt's vodka-fueled spins can provide some insight or points to ponder for the time being. Perhaps you've already perused it... Mexico was a good time. Glad we got momma out for a spin. Hanging with the bros and our gals, seeing the nieces and nephew tackle the Pacific waves with boogey boards and surf boards was cool. Enjoyed some local tequila, too, which brought back some old memories (though I was able to not make any new 'bad' ones, hehe). <Tips hat to Watts> Listened to the AW video in full. It's very good, I'd say the best AW talk I've ever heard. He's going back to his roots. I think I recall he deliberately chose to be an Episcopal priest as it was the easiest avenue to 'earn a living' while being near to his pursuit. But it gets us to the crux of my whole point and dilemma. I agree with his description of the anthropology of man, have for over 40 years. But he kind of papers over a distinction he makes, an accurate distinction. I've written about here before we are Spirit, soul and body, he describes this accurately, from the Hebrew. But here is where I disagree with the ND view. Between actual ~the person~, the true individuation (not the persona, the 'so-called SVP', which I agree is a fiction, it's the false self), between the soul and the Spirit, there is an unbridgeable gap. The actual ~person~ cannot exist without the Spirit, which is Source. On ~our~ side of the gap, we are, on the ~other side~, there is no person. This is the distinction I've tried to express by pan entheism versus pantheism, AW is a pantheist. So there is no identity, with Source. Does that make sense? You don't have to agree, you probably won't agree. ........I should really stop there...... But, IOW, I think AW is just wrong here, he ~carries~ Identification across the gap, he identifies the person with Source (as does ND), which is the whole (incorrect) point. In pan entheism the unity is one way, the Whole knows the Whole, the part does not know the Whole. But this is why I asked, how do you (plural) know what you know (realize), is the Whole? OK, my path. What Gurdjieff taught is unlike anything else you will find anywhere, today (you find hints of it in the past). But he said and wrote and taught that the actual-person (not the so-called SVP, which he referred to as personality) has an inborn capacity to experience more of reality, time and space. This is the meaning of the evolution of consciousness. OK, I will stop there, as I've been through all of it before. ... Generally, I trust experience over realization. I don't know if all that helps. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Added aside note. If Gopal has the time, I'd like for him to listen to the video, I'd like to know what he thinks of it. |
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Post by Gopal on Jun 24, 2024 1:49:52 GMT -5
Yes Enjoy Mexico! Perhaps you could dare to share what's not clear to you. Is it still the heavily conditioned, scholarly nonsense on the Biblical stories you've studied to the Nth degree that has you so IRRITATED and confused?! Whether the Bible is correct or incorrect is a separate matter entirely. The issue at hand, however, is that you have not fully grasped the messages that these stories are trying to convey. |
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Post by someNOTHING! on Jun 24, 2024 6:57:44 GMT -5
The Tree
No restraint is placed on the man except the prohibition of eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil (Genesis ii, 16-17). This tree has no parallel in ancient near eastern traditions, so its symbolism is probably to be understood in the context of the fall narrated in Genesis iii. “Good and evil” are easily understood as dualistic labels of value born of conditioned thought. When God falls into the duality that Thou Art Dreaming, the s/he assumes that the labels are Truth, and that her/his ideas constitute Truth. This is ignorance experienced prior to SR/TR, and it’s easy to fall into the Dream and forget. The ‘levels’ of the neo-platonic, Plotinus, or Gurdjieff models are within THAT which you are, and it is the mind not informed by THAT which is ignorant of IT, perhaps mind-hooked attached to stuff further down the abstractions of/in the models. So, from somewhere, at some time, I heard this expression "ignorance of true nature". Can't remember if it was from an Advaita-type source, or "Neo-Advaita" or perhaps even Zen. Can't remember at this point exactly when I heard it either. But I do recall when it first dawned on me that what is pointed to by "ignorance of true nature" is the same as "knowledge of good and evil". To any thinkers reading along and thinking about this. Stop! This brings to mind a translation of a Tao stanza that goes "true words seem paradoxical". It is only to the divided, thinking mind, that there is any paradox to this. Right, I think I get your meaning. The thought arose that the Bhagavad Gita somehow addresses this issue in the general discussion between Arjuna and Krishna. Though I am not equipped with any specifics at the moment, going into it with the questioning of the mind in any conditioned state is likely to bring one to the precipice of the paradox. Whether one falls to one's knees is highly dependent on the willingness to go further into it, I suppose. The 'getting back up' only comes after, but the mind is a slippery lil' fish and it hates the hooks of its own creation. |
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Post by someNOTHING! on Jun 24, 2024 7:22:43 GMT -5
I won't say much else, as you seem to cringe on ND as some kind of 'thing/belief system/level', but Awareness of/as the 'I AM' without 'otherness is what I'd say the Garden of Eden dealio points to. There is no returning; just realizing no one ever really left. The ignorance, the blockage, is the belief in the thought that says otherwise, including the subsequent castles of structure built to point out the ifs, ands, and buts of it all. Don't get me wrong; they are cool to talk about and can be useful in certain dreamland contexts, but will hold little value when attempting to express Truthishnessness if/when it all comes crashing down into the greasy spot. I'll try to circle back later and do another spin on the Adam & Eve story that brings it a bit closer to Plotinus' 'border' between The One and Nous, but maybe one of Alan Watt's vodka-fueled spins can provide some insight or points to ponder for the time being. Perhaps you've already perused it... Mexico was a good time. Glad we got momma out for a spin. Hanging with the bros and our gals, seeing the nieces and nephew tackle the Pacific waves with boogey boards and surf boards was cool. Enjoyed some local tequila, too, which brought back some old memories (though I was able to not make any new 'bad' ones, hehe). <Tips hat to Watts> Listened to the AW video in full. It's very good, I'd say the best AW talk I've ever heard. He's going back to his roots. I think I recall he deliberately chose to be an Episcopal priest as it was the easiest avenue to 'earn a living' while being near to his pursuit. But it gets us to the crux of my whole point and dilemma. I agree with his description of the anthropology of man, have for over 40 years. But he kind of papers over a distinction he makes, an accurate distinction. I've written about here before we are Spirit, soul and body, he describes this accurately, from the Hebrew. But here is where I disagree with the ND view. Between actual ~the person~, the true individuation (not the persona, the 'so-called SVP', which I agree is a fiction, it's the false self), between the soul and the Spirit, there is an unbridgeable gap. The actual ~person~ cannot exist without the Spirit, which is Source. On ~our~ side of the gap, we are, on the ~other side~, there is no person. This is the distinction I've tried to express by pan entheism versus pantheism, AW is a pantheist. So there is no identity, with Source. Does that make sense? You don't have to agree, you probably won't agree. ........I should really stop there...... But, IOW, I think AW is just wrong here, he ~carries~ Identification across the gap, he identifies the person with Source (as does ND), which is the whole (incorrect) point. In pan entheism the unity is one way, the Whole knows the Whole, the part does not know the Whole. But this is why I asked, how do you (plural) know what you know (realize), is the Whole? OK, my path. What Gurdjieff taught is unlike anything else you will find anywhere, today (you find hints of it in the past). But he said and wrote and taught that the actual-person (not the so-called SVP, which he referred to as personality) has an inborn capacity to experience more of reality, time and space. This is the meaning of the evolution of consciousness. OK, I will stop there, as I've been through all of it before. ... Generally, I trust experience over realization. I don't know if all that helps. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Added aside note. If Gopal has the time, I'd like for him to listen to the video, I'd like to know what he thinks of it. Considering you are a self-proclaimed Aspy, I think I understand why you like and respect Gurdjieff as much as you do. Interestingly, I have actually traveled a lot of the places he supposedly went to in search of such knowledge, and admittedly, I was on a similar quest, though we probably approached it quite differently. I do not know enough about his expansive set of ideas, but I am curious. You've mentioned that, "First, you have to row a little boat"." Does Gurdge teach that you have to connect a lot of specific dots (i.e., little lives/selves) before you can 'attaimn' Big Self? Or, does he make any allusions to the fact that the boat (maybe this is 'self') has to sink and fall beneath the surface of the ocean to die, before some new bettererer 'level can be attained'? And you say it all alludes to the 'treasure'. I was always in awe of how much 'factual knowledge' that my dad could organize and structure within the his mind, and do some pretty cool stuff. At the same time, as a child of such an Aspy, and with the benefit of hindsight, I am also quite aware of the tipping points when the structure gave way and the subsequent shit storm that arose. As a child, those times were emotionally difficult for me. As a teeen, I rebelled. As an adult, I stood my ground, but in more and more loving ways. Only much later did I make the connections with respect to Aspies, and we met eye-to-eye and enjoyed many rich times together before his passing.It would have been interesting to know as a child what I do now about such events, but it is what it is. The reason I ask is I think that, if Gurdjieff's system was actually meant to help others seek/achieve liberation, then I think the 'treasure' you speak of is synonymous with true ND. As a structure, his system is all well and good, but if he truly understood Beelzebub, he'd know that even it could (i.e., would, should) at some point fail, and that it would be truly auspicious. Hail Satan! (in the original sense) |
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and my dad being an Aspey), but being in education and traveling strengthened the 8w, from what I observed. The travels exposed a lot of blind spots, strongly conditioned guilt, well-honed, unhealthy coping strategies, etc etc, and the weight of it all brought me to my knees. Perfectly so.
. Probably about 18 years ago I read a two-page article in (Sunday paper) Parade Magazine, it practically explained my whole life. Went right out, probably that day, found a book, a lady writing about Asperger's, Pretending To Be Normal, even the title was me. And she talked about being invisible, that was me too. I've always said, if I hadn't found my teacher and he introducing me to the Gurdjieff teaching (at age 24), I'd have probably ended up in prison, a mental hospital, living on the street, or dead (my teacher was also a psychologist, MA, that helped). ...That's going to be goodnight. 
