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Post by laughter on Jul 2, 2022 18:24:23 GMT -5
As far as to whether altered states of consciousness are possible, I'm not going to argue with you about it, if you're not interested, you're not interested. But as Billy Shakes put it "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."  Human suffering, in and of itself, has no resolution. There is no utopia. This isn't to advocate for ignoring it though, as it is, of course, a fact on the ground, as in, it is undeniable. Does the suffering of others cause you pain? I don't disagree that spirituality can directly address suffering, both through facilitating material action or by comforting the sufferer. It's also possible though, to end suffering, once and for all, on an individual basis. Which doesn't, btw, mean that you will be ever free of pain from then on. When this happens, suffering is seen for what it is. Not ignored, met with real empathy as the situation demands, but not in such a way as to drag you into it. You don't know that. Utopia is an idea, an imagined opposite of our present condition of suffering. Utopia is mental escapism.
Suffering is the state of undergoing pain, distress, or hardship. Perhaps, you don't know what suffering is. Or you have experienced hardship and pain but don't regard it as a big deal, and consider it part and parcel of being human.
Yes, suffering of others causes me pain. Even the idiot driving like a fool and hurts himself bothers me. And when our country launches a just war maiming and killing people, that is the absolute pits for me. Being helpless and watching it going on is suffering. Won't you get upset watching your wife or child getting beaten up?
Every year hurricanes tear through the US southwest and upend the lives of thousands of people. And the Californian wildfires destroy lives like clockwork. What's wrong with people? Can't they see it coming? One time, I was in Bali. The sunsets were gorgeous at the resort but there was that damn volcano smouldering nearby. People live in villages around it even though it has erupted 5 times in 2017.
Do you think Krishnamurti and me are neurotics inflicted with algophobia (fear of suffering)? Buddhist too, but their condition is not as severe. They are only concerned about their own skins.
Archeologists, anthropologists and geneticists have all converged on the theory of a volcanic eruption that, if true, nearly wiped out humanity. Does that lead you to the same sort of feelings you describe about the contemporary events? If not, why not? Pain is inevitable, but even a decent psychologist can point out how people amplify, magnify, extend and deepen the pain by their secondary reactions to that pain. This is the distinction I was alluding to, the distinction between pain, which is undeniable, and suffering, which is just as real, but not in the same sense as pain. Suffering, in this distinction, is only real in a subjective sense. The distinction has limits. Those can be illustrated by various gruesome hypotheticals. But the distinction is still valid nonetheless, both in practical, psychological terms, and as a pointer as to the origins of suffering, which has no conceptual resolution. |
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Post by sree on Jul 2, 2022 23:20:02 GMT -5
How about this: a person is an idea or abstraction conjured up by the intellect. What a body is is actual, but there are no actual boundaries to a body (or to anything else for that matter.)This is yet a third context. Perhaps we could refer to it as the "cosmic" context.  I am sure zendancer don't find it "cosmic" at all. You may not be able to figure out how practical life can be lived with no actual boundaries to your body, zendancer can; otherwise, he wouldn't say such things.
Have you asked him how he can walk through walls? What about social boundaries? Can he touch any woman he likes?
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Post by sree on Jul 2, 2022 23:38:05 GMT -5
Can you diagnose my mental condition?
When I decided to give up the conventional life to find out what Krishnamurti was talking about, my parents were upset. They were convinced that I had gone nuts. Dropping out of society is what crazy people do unless you are an explorer like Christopher Columbus or Shackleton.
I think my mission to free mankind from suffering is a sane one and a lot more worthwhile than finding the South Pole.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 3, 2022 1:56:22 GMT -5
Can you diagnose my mental condition?
When I decided to give up the conventional life to find out what Krishnamurti was talking about, my parents were upset. They were convinced that I had gone nuts. Dropping out of society is what crazy people do unless you are an explorer like Christopher Columbus or Shackleton.
I think my mission to free mankind from suffering is a sane one and a lot more worthwhile than finding the South Pole. I'm not a medical professional so it would be quite irresponsible for me to diagnose anything. Though in the context of an internet forum, no I don't think that you're scared of suffering, at all. It appears from the content of your posts that it's one of your primary interests. Perhaps it's even become, the only motivator that you have left. |
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Post by sree on Jul 3, 2022 10:20:11 GMT -5
Well, I was responding, specifically, to this: First of all, I don't believe in altered state of consciousness. Now, I don't see you contradicting yourself here, but rather, flipping existential context. It's certainly valid to talk about either a personal state of consciousness, on one hand, or the general topic of human consciousness on another. To recap, I had asserted that your personal consciousness does not "create your existential reality" in response to your paraphrase of JK. My comment about how there are various alternative states of consciousness was to put what I meant by "person" in context, in that those states of consciousness can reveal exactly what ZD described in a way that is about as clear as it can get, here: How about this: a person is an idea or abstraction conjured up by the intellect. What a body is is actual, but there are no actual boundaries to a body (or to anything else for that matter.) This is yet a third context. Perhaps we could refer to it as the "cosmic" context. I understand where you are coming from, a place where all "normal" folks come from: one's consciousness is a personal property emanating from one's brain as in my brain does not generate the universal cosmic consciousness. This remind's me of a Woody Allen video:
Your position on consciousness is like that of the kid's mother. A person's consciousness is in Brooklyn if the person is in Brooklyn.
My position on consciousness is like that of the kid's. The kid is connected: the observer is the observed. No separation.
One is the state of perception. You are existential reality (world) and existentiality is you.
I am not insisting that you and zendancer and the rest of the crew here are wrong. It's a tug of war with you guys on one side and on the other is the kid, Krishnamurti and me.
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Post by zendancer on Jul 3, 2022 11:19:25 GMT -5
Well, I was responding, specifically, to this: Now, I don't see you contradicting yourself here, but rather, flipping existential context. It's certainly valid to talk about either a personal state of consciousness, on one hand, or the general topic of human consciousness on another. To recap, I had asserted that your personal consciousness does not "create your existential reality" in response to your paraphrase of JK. My comment about how there are various alternative states of consciousness was to put what I meant by "person" in context, in that those states of consciousness can reveal exactly what ZD described in a way that is about as clear as it can get, here: This is yet a third context. Perhaps we could refer to it as the "cosmic" context. I understand where you are coming from, a place where all "normal" folks come from: one's consciousness is a personal property emanating from one's brain as in my brain does not generate the universal cosmic consciousness. This remind's me of a Woody Allen video: Your position on consciousness is like that of the kid's mother. A person's consciousness is in Brooklyn if the person is in Brooklyn.
My position on consciousness is like that of the kid's. The kid is connected: the observer is the observed. No separation.
One is the state of perception. You are existential reality (world) and existentiality is you.
I am not insisting that you and zendancer and the rest of the crew here are wrong. It's a tug of war with you guys on one side and on the other is the kid, Krishnamurti and me.
It sounds like you're saying the same thing that all the rest of us are saying. The observer is the observed. All seeming separation is a cognitive illusion. Form is emptiness; emptiness is form. As for the kid, it's possible to see a bit more deeply into the nature of "what is" than what he expressed in the clip. |
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Post by laughter on Jul 3, 2022 14:40:23 GMT -5
Well, I was responding, specifically, to this: Now, I don't see you contradicting yourself here, but rather, flipping existential context. It's certainly valid to talk about either a personal state of consciousness, on one hand, or the general topic of human consciousness on another. To recap, I had asserted that your personal consciousness does not "create your existential reality" in response to your paraphrase of JK. My comment about how there are various alternative states of consciousness was to put what I meant by "person" in context, in that those states of consciousness can reveal exactly what ZD described in a way that is about as clear as it can get, here: This is yet a third context. Perhaps we could refer to it as the "cosmic" context. I understand where you are coming from, a place where all "normal" folks come from: one's consciousness is a personal property emanating from one's brain as in my brain does not generate the universal cosmic consciousness. This remind's me of a Woody Allen video: Your position on consciousness is like that of the kid's mother. A person's consciousness is in Brooklyn if the person is in Brooklyn.
My position on consciousness is like that of the kid's. The kid is connected: the observer is the observed. No separation.
One is the state of perception. You are existential reality (world) and existentiality is you.
I am not insisting that you and zendancer and the rest of the crew here are wrong. It's a tug of war with you guys on one side and on the other is the kid, Krishnamurti and me.
Yes, well, when I wrote this: This is why not even the best minds could grasp what Krishnamurti was trying to convey in a 60 year-long attempt to pass on a simple fact: how our perception creates our existential reality. Your personal perception does not "create your existential reality", nor is there any objective impersonal "existential reality". .. it was in the context of a conventional view of individuated consciousness, which I had assumed you meant by the use of the term "our perception". The question of the source of that consciousness is a different question btw. To be clear, I don't share the conventional view, nor the notion you suggest about the source as the brain. Your clarification here suggests that we agree, at least partially.
But even this notion of a "connected" (so, I'd assume, non-singular, as in non-individuated) consciousness creating reality, especially as you've tied it in with the alternative to the incorrect material origin of that consciousness, even that is questionable. "Creation" is a process. "Consciousness" is undeniable, as is that there is a dynamic process of perception. Trying to tie them all together in a theory to explain existence is a natural tendency of mind that reflects the existential question.
Inherent in that natural tendency is the rush to replace the causal link of consciousness arising from grey matter with a reversal, that - as your JK quote seems to suggest - "perception" (so, the perception of matter) arises from consciousness. This can be a useful mental position for all sorts of reasons, but any attempts like this to explain "existence" are trying to fit infinity into a box.
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Post by laughter on Jul 3, 2022 14:49:49 GMT -5
This is yet a third context. Perhaps we could refer to it as the "cosmic" context. I am sure zendancer don't find it "cosmic" at all. You may not be able to figure out how practical life can be lived with no actual boundaries to your body, zendancer can; otherwise, he wouldn't say such things.
Have you asked him how he can walk through walls? What about social boundaries? Can he touch any woman he likes?  in terms of literal meaning, the boundary of your skin is not what you think it to be. To say that the boundary is an idea is true, but certainly doesn't account for a deeper, felt sense of it. The potential for those altered states of consciousness is what is particularly relevant to that felt sense. Until experienced, those are like a flavor untasted or a melody not yet heard. But it is possible to explore the nature of that boundary in intellectual terms. It is certainly not context-free. It is only valid for a very narrow band of volume between just below the Earth's surface to a few thousand feet in the air. So it is not an independently existing phenomena. |
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Post by sree on Jul 3, 2022 15:03:04 GMT -5
I understand where you are coming from, a place where all "normal" folks come from: one's consciousness is a personal property emanating from one's brain as in my brain does not generate the universal cosmic consciousness. This remind's me of a Woody Allen video: Your position on consciousness is like that of the kid's mother. A person's consciousness is in Brooklyn if the person is in Brooklyn.
My position on consciousness is like that of the kid's. The kid is connected: the observer is the observed. No separation.
One is the state of perception. You are existential reality (world) and existentiality is you.
I am not insisting that you and zendancer and the rest of the crew here are wrong. It's a tug of war with you guys on one side and on the other is the kid, Krishnamurti and me.
It sounds like you're saying the same thing that all the rest of us are saying. The observer is the observed. All seeming separation is a cognitive illusion. Form is emptiness; emptiness is form. As for the kid, it's possible to see a bit more deeply into the nature of "what is" than what he expressed in the clip. Saying it is one thing, living it is another. The kid is genuinely depressed by his experience. He is living it. His mother and the doctor think the kid is nuts.
Your statement in bold above is an assertion. This is similar to looking at the answer in the back of the math textbook. Can you show me how you work out the problem? In other words, can you explain step by step how the cognitive illusion of the pavement ten floors down is separated from the balcony you are standing on?
You would have to lay out the cognitive process that conjures the fictitious separation and explain why the illusion won't prevent you from falling ten floors down if you jumped off the balcony.
I am serious. There is a rational explanation. Krishnamurti could tell us what he experienced (observer is the observed) but couldn't figure out the math behind it. I intuited that Krishnamurti was telling the truth; he had the answer without looking in the back of the textbook. I had to figure out the math.
In this day and age, Buddhas won't cut it. If you have the truth about the nature of existential reality, you have to be able to sell it for application in the global marketplace. I am talking about a paradigm shift in human consciousness, the mother of all altered states.
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Post by zendancer on Jul 3, 2022 16:23:53 GMT -5
It sounds like you're saying the same thing that all the rest of us are saying. The observer is the observed. All seeming separation is a cognitive illusion. Form is emptiness; emptiness is form. As for the kid, it's possible to see a bit more deeply into the nature of "what is" than what he expressed in the clip. Saying it is one thing, living it is another. The kid is genuinely depressed by his experience. He is living it. His mother and the doctor think the kid is nuts. Your statement in bold above is an assertion. This is similar to looking at the answer in the back of the math textbook. Can you show me how you work out the problem? In other words, can you explain step by step how the cognitive illusion of the pavement ten floors down is separated from the balcony you are standing on?
You would have to lay out the cognitive process that conjures the fictitious separation and explain why the illusion won't prevent you from falling ten floors down if you jumped off the balcony.
I am serious. There is a rational explanation. Krishnamurti could tell us what he experienced (observer is the observed) but couldn't figure out the math behind it. I intuited that Krishnamurti was telling the truth; he had the answer without looking in the back of the textbook. I had to figure out the math.
In this day and age, Buddhas won't cut it. If you have the truth about the nature of existential reality, you have to be able to sell it for application in the global marketplace. I am talking about a paradigm shift in human consciousness, the mother of all altered states.
Sure. There are dozens of simple thought experiments that can help anyone see that all boundaries are imaginary. The simplest one is to take a magic marker or ink pen and attempt to draw a line exactly where the boundary between a hand and a wrist is located. It should only take a moment to realize that the boundary defining those things is as imaginary as lines of latitude or longitude. Or, open your mouth and investigate where the boundary of the body lies in the space between the upper and lower lips. Or, put a glass of water up to your mouth and ask when, precisely, the water becomes "you" when it is drunk. Boundaries appear to exist until one starts investigating exactly where they are located. Language only deals with symbols that represent images, ideas, or other symbols. I agree that the realization that reality is a undivided infinite field of being isn't worth much unless it becomes embodied, but it usually doesn't become embodied until the sense of being a SVP collapses. Math is another product of the intellect, and it has nothing to do with seeing and interacting with what is actual. What a tree is is actual because it can be seen and felt whereas the idea that a tree is a separate thing with boundaries is imaginary. As for selling boundarylessness in the marketplace, I doubt that many sages are interested in that sort of thing. They usually speak about non-duality only with people interested in non-duality. |
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Post by laughter on Jul 3, 2022 16:32:22 GMT -5
It sounds like you're saying the same thing that all the rest of us are saying. The observer is the observed. All seeming separation is a cognitive illusion. Form is emptiness; emptiness is form. As for the kid, it's possible to see a bit more deeply into the nature of "what is" than what he expressed in the clip. Saying it is one thing, living it is another. The kid is genuinely depressed by his experience. He is living it. His mother and the doctor think the kid is nuts. Your statement in bold above is an assertion. This is similar to looking at the answer in the back of the math textbook. Can you show me how you work out the problem? In other words, can you explain step by step how the cognitive illusion of the pavement ten floors down is separated from the balcony you are standing on?
You would have to lay out the cognitive process that conjures the fictitious separation and explain why the illusion won't prevent you from falling ten floors down if you jumped off the balcony.
I am serious. There is a rational explanation. Krishnamurti could tell us what he experienced (observer is the observed) but couldn't figure out the math behind it. I intuited that Krishnamurti was telling the truth; he had the answer without looking in the back of the textbook. I had to figure out the math.
In this day and age, Buddhas won't cut it. If you have the truth about the nature of existential reality, you have to be able to sell it for application in the global marketplace. I am talking about a paradigm shift in human consciousness, the mother of all altered states.
The last few hundred years of human history are as much a triumph of rationality as they are a tragedy of it. The conception of yourself and the world as a machine are at this point a deep conditioning, and while it has certain utility, the ultimate failure of it is demonstrated quite clearly by the current state of contemporary medicine, which expresses the parable of the blind men and the elephant as aptly as anything. There is no formula, which can express, you. No blueprint. Anyone who is trying to sell you a personal instruction manual is a huckster. |
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Post by sree on Jul 3, 2022 16:43:46 GMT -5
Can you diagnose my mental condition?
When I decided to give up the conventional life to find out what Krishnamurti was talking about, my parents were upset. They were convinced that I had gone nuts. Dropping out of society is what crazy people do unless you are an explorer like Christopher Columbus or Shackleton.
I think my mission to free mankind from suffering is a sane one and a lot more worthwhile than finding the South Pole. I'm not a medical professional so it would be quite irresponsible for me to diagnose anything. Though in the context of an internet forum, no I don't think that you're scared of suffering, at all. I t appears from the content of your posts that it's one of your primary interests. Perhaps it's even become, the only motivator that you have left.Are you saying that my only reason for living is to set mankind unconditionally free? This sounds altruistic. I am selfish. I want to set myself free of suffering. Yes, suffering is my only motivator and the need to wipe it off the face of the earth has hounded me all my life.
It is not that I care for other people's pain. It's just that their miseries bother me. My life, personally, is great, always has been, and that makes it a whole lot worse. It's holiday weekend here in the US, July 4. It wasn't pleasant coming upon a homeless guy on my way out of the parking lot of a store, loaded with fine foods and wines in my car. Did I feel guilty because I have and he has not? No. I felt pissed off. Why are our politicians squandering billions on humanitarian aid abroad without dealing with that homeless guy first? The memory of a woman on a sidewalk still remains with me. I was on the way home from the golf club when I saw her standing there as I drove by. It was getting dark, and there she was with her stuff - a mattress and other things - on the ground. Evicted. Where would she go? Would anyone be helping her out? Why do I have to see miseries like that in the greatest country on earth?
What the heck. I am going to open a bottle of chianti and fix a nice dinner. I hope you live as well as me, abscissa. Don't bring me down.
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Post by sree on Jul 3, 2022 19:58:08 GMT -5
I understand where you are coming from, a place where all "normal" folks come from: one's consciousness is a personal property emanating from one's brain as in my brain does not generate the universal cosmic consciousness. This remind's me of a Woody Allen video: Your position on consciousness is like that of the kid's mother. A person's consciousness is in Brooklyn if the person is in Brooklyn.
My position on consciousness is like that of the kid's. The kid is connected: the observer is the observed. No separation.
One is the state of perception. You are existential reality (world) and existentiality is you.
I am not insisting that you and zendancer and the rest of the crew here are wrong. It's a tug of war with you guys on one side and on the other is the kid, Krishnamurti and me.
Yes, well, when I wrote this: Your personal perception does not "create your existential reality", nor is there any objective impersonal "existential reality". .. it was in the context of a conventional view of individuated consciousness, which I had assumed you meant by the use of the term "our perception". The question of the source of that consciousness is a different question btw. To be clear, I don't share the conventional view, nor the notion you suggest about the source as the brain. Your clarification here suggests that we agree, at least partially.
But even this notion of a "connected" (so, I'd assume, non-singular, as in non-individuated) consciousness creating reality, especially as you've tied it in with the alternative to the incorrect material origin of that consciousness, even that is questionable. "Creation" is a process. "Consciousness" is undeniable, as is that there is a dynamic process of perception. Trying to tie them all together in a theory to explain existence is a natural tendency of mind that reflects the existential question.
Inherent in that natural tendency is the rush to replace the causal link of consciousness arising from grey matter with a reversal, that - as your JK quote seems to suggest - "perception" (so, the perception of matter) arises from consciousness. This can be a useful mental position for all sorts of reasons, but any attempts like this to explain "existence" are trying to fit infinity into a box.
You know what? Some things in life can never be known. I don’t know what the source of consciousness is. My “personal” consciousness is a mysterious thing. I don’t even want to figure out that other cosmic, universal, collective, impersonal or whatever consciousness that you guys talk about.
Consider sensory perception. How does it work? It’s wonderful how we can deal with short-sightedness and restore vision to older folks afflicted with cataracts based on our scientific reasoning. Do I accept the theories as existential truths? No. They are just theories, mental abstractions. But they are practically useful. Do I believe that gravity is an existential truth? No. Bodies exerting a gravitation pull on each other is absurd. Can we use that concept to determine structural loadings for building bridges and buildings? Absolutely. We use the same idea for calculating thrusts of rockets to launch satellites and navigate our way to the moon.
Are you following my argument? I hope so. You have a good mind and not as muddled as guys like Ramana and Allan Watts. I look forward to a fruitful dialogue. |
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Post by laughter on Jul 4, 2022 19:15:19 GMT -5
Yes, well, when I wrote this: .. it was in the context of a conventional view of individuated consciousness, which I had assumed you meant by the use of the term "our perception". The question of the source of that consciousness is a different question btw. To be clear, I don't share the conventional view, nor the notion you suggest about the source as the brain. Your clarification here suggests that we agree, at least partially.
But even this notion of a "connected" (so, I'd assume, non-singular, as in non-individuated) consciousness creating reality, especially as you've tied it in with the alternative to the incorrect material origin of that consciousness, even that is questionable. "Creation" is a process. "Consciousness" is undeniable, as is that there is a dynamic process of perception. Trying to tie them all together in a theory to explain existence is a natural tendency of mind that reflects the existential question.
Inherent in that natural tendency is the rush to replace the causal link of consciousness arising from grey matter with a reversal, that - as your JK quote seems to suggest - "perception" (so, the perception of matter) arises from consciousness. This can be a useful mental position for all sorts of reasons, but any attempts like this to explain "existence" are trying to fit infinity into a box.
You know what? Some things in life can never be known. I don’t know what the source of consciousness is. My “personal” consciousness is a mysterious thing. I don’t even want to figure out that other cosmic, universal, collective, impersonal or whatever consciousness that you guys talk about. Consider sensory perception. How does it work? It’s wonderful how we can deal with short-sightedness and restore vision to older folks afflicted with cataracts based on our scientific reasoning. Do I accept the theories as existential truths? No. They are just theories, mental abstractions. But they are practically useful. Do I believe that gravity is an existential truth? No. Bodies exerting a gravitation pull on each other is absurd. Can we use that concept to determine structural loadings for building bridges and buildings? Absolutely. We use the same idea for calculating thrusts of rockets to launch satellites and navigate our way to the moon. Are you following my argument? I hope so. You have a good mind and not as muddled as guys like Ramana and Allan Watts. I look forward to a fruitful dialogue. Thank you for the kind words.  Yes, I agree that consciousness, in any context, embodies a great mystery, and it is one of the myriad expressions of self-inquiry, of which I have found Ramana to be the most clear and direct past voice. What he and Alan point at, as well as ZD, is a sort of "resolution" to that mystery. Not an intellectual resolution, as that mystery is ever out of reach of either intellect, or even, emotion. I certainly agree that the mind is a powerful and wonderful tool. |
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Post by laughter on Jul 22, 2022 21:57:54 GMT -5
It's the empty boat that everyone gets so mad at. Nobody gets mad at an empty boat (unless you're floundering in the water and have to watch the one you were in drift away) Usually they get envious of a nice looking boat or dismissive of the old girl who is past her prime in the mood to argue with a ham sandwich today, are we? |
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in terms of literal meaning, the boundary of your skin is not what you think it to be. To say that the boundary is an idea is true, but certainly doesn't account for a deeper, felt sense of it. The potential for those altered states of consciousness is what is particularly relevant to that felt sense. Until experienced, those are like a flavor untasted or a melody not yet heard.
Yes, I agree that consciousness, in any context, embodies a great mystery, and it is one of the myriad expressions of self-inquiry, of which I have found Ramana to be the most clear and direct past voice. What he and Alan point at, as well as ZD, is a sort of "resolution" to that mystery. Not an intellectual resolution, as that mystery is ever out of reach of either intellect, or even, emotion. I certainly agree that the mind is a powerful and wonderful tool.