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Post by laughter on Sept 22, 2022 15:55:31 GMT -5
In many ways what you posted here is valid because there are two sides to every coin. Are there such things as individual human beings ? Yes and no, but on a ND forum the writing is an attempt, via pointers, to deprogram peoples' attachment to the consensus paradigm. The most comprehensive writing with this objective is Chapter 26 of the Ribhu Gita, but most of us are pointing to the same thing in our own way. Are there such things as individual human beings? Yes, in the sense that separateness and boundaries can be imagined, but no from the standpoint of the living truth and what is actual. This is why many of us suggest that people search for actual boundaries. I agree with you about Krishnamurti, and that's why I quit recommending his books to people. I never met anyone who got free as a result of listening to him or reading his stuff. Be careful, however, about jumping to conclusions about someone who you don't personally know. You would need to spend time with someone, watch how they interact with people, listen to what they say in everyday situations, consider how they respond to probing questions, etc. to adequately discern what they've realized and whether or not they "walk the talk." I guess I must have written my post in Tamil and you read it in English without getting anything from what I wanted to convey from Tamil Nadu. Talk about a cultural barrier. It's not your fault. I was beaming to you from that other shore.
Truth, in India, is neither a two-sided coin nor anything in between. It is either black or white, up or down, man or woman. The western perception of truth, however, is a matter of opinion.
Thus, nonduality is a two truths act: one for the self-realized nutjob in the "prior to concept" trance, and the other when he is back on planet earth as a human being.
All is not lost. You and I won't have any difficulty communicating when picking out what to eat at MacDonald's.
Flexibility with truth and relativism generally seem to me to have been a recent development in "Western thought". And isn't it just sad that rational mind kant even really find refuge in mathematics.
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Post by laughter on Sept 22, 2022 15:56:05 GMT -5
I guess I must have written my post in Tamil and you read it in English without getting anything from what I wanted to convey from Tamil Nadu. Talk about a cultural barrier. It's not your fault. I was beaming to you from that other shore.
Truth, in India, is neither a two-sided coin nor anything in between. It is either black or white, up or down, man or woman. The western perception of truth, however, is a matter of opinion.
Thus, nonduality is a two truths act: one for the self-realized nutjob in the "prior to concept" trance, and the other when he is back on planet earth as a human being.
All is not lost. You and I won't have any difficulty communicating when picking out what to eat at MacDonald's.
Haha! Even in crazy western logic classes they teach about "the fallacy of black and white." (** muttley snicker **)
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Post by lolly on Sept 22, 2022 21:41:23 GMT -5
Well it gets complicated because not only are people suffering due to reactivity toward current circumstance, but they have been traumatised and have old gunk remaining from the past, including that which they are not yet stable minded enough to endure without losing the plot, so I'm not sure what 'alignment is' as I am unfamiliar with that terminology, but I know how clearing the old blocks opens the heart, if I may generalise using figure of speech.
Since self realisation is here defined as recognising the false self as false, then I'm going to have to say such a recognition is an outcome of meditation. Essentially, if you relentlessly cease to fuel the ego with reactivity, it will ultimately be revealed, and you'll be like, 'that's what has been pretending to me' and/or 'I can't believe I've been living as that'. Even then, it can, I think usually does, take a bit of persistence to become established...
That is of the things that happens with regard to self or existence. There is another which is like space opens up all around, and another where you directly contact like - "I am that" . It's more like 'that is the truth of my nature' - and it's weird. Then there's the balance point I mentioned, which has nothing to do with the more 'I am' related things, but I consider it the ultimate, even though its a bit of a nothing burger.
Alignment is just the word I prefer. ZD prefers to call it flow. Dispenza calls it coherence. In essence, it is a state of peace of mind, active or inactive, focused or unfocused. SR is acausal. And self does play no role in SR since it is shoved aside. So on the level of self, there are no requirements to be met, no one can bestow it upon you (self), you (as self) cannot earn it and you (self) cannot mess it up either. Because you (self) have no part in it. So mediate or don't, extinguish your ego or don't, it doesn't matter. So, as a seeker, you cannot bring SR about and you also cannot prevent it from happening. Where you can do something though is alignment. That's why I keep talking about alignment. I just think it's better to be unenlightend but in alignment, which means living a pretty good and satisfying life, than unenlighted and out of alignment, which is a living hell. Ya... self is pushed aside is a reasonable way of putting it.
I think people do a lot to prevent SR from happening, and ego has tricky ways of maintaining its position as me, so there is a strategy people can undertake which happens to be the same as the one that enables purification. In that sense however, you don't really make purification happen either - you just stop doing the things that obstruct it. Those things are the same things that perpetuate the ego - and if you cease to feed the ego, it will reveal itself entirely.
The living hell is a bit rough, and it basically comes about when deep things that the mind isn't balanced enough to endure calmly are pushed into conscious awareness and you get too overwhelmed, and end up creating a deeper trauma rather than resolving those that exist from the past. Hence-why meditation becomes important in the sense that deliberate training in equanimity establishes the balance required to remain still-minded during more intense episodes. We usually don't realise this until more intense phases when just maintaining an even keel is as much as one can do, but it turns out that conscious awareness with stable equanimity is the entire practice of meditation. It might be immediately apparent, but self inquiry is implies and certainly a facet of that.
Not to be mistaken with 'you make it happen'. I describe is 'see it as it is' which is directly opposed to 'make it as you want it to be'. Indeed the former must cease to achieve the latter. This means being ardent, deliberate, persistent, consistent and unrelenting are all meritorious qualities in the observation, or self-inquiry if you like, but desire-cum-volition is not only futile, but counterproductive to the purpose.
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Post by lolly on Sept 22, 2022 22:06:24 GMT -5
I think i people discern it's unreasonable then they'd have to point out some glaring contradictions, otherwise there's no reason to discern it unreasonable, but if it stacks up and no part outright defeats another, then one has to accept the possibility that it might have some actual merit. Sometimes people are clinging to their preconceived notions and simply react when that's confronted, so you have to revert to pure reason to overcome such strong bias. Otherwise it might be a style issue, which is why I'm not a fan, but still, distaste for style is irrelevant to the consistency of the content or lack thereof.
Tolle's definition of madness is the common state of humanity. Is that reasonable? I could skim through for other examples if you're interested. And it's not that I disagree with Tolle's point there, just that I wouldn't try to defend it in an intellectual debate as reasonable. Self-consistency is a very poor measure of reason. Would you like me to illustrate? Perhaps we could say that self-consistency might be a necessary condition for a thought process to be reasonable, but not sufficient. I'm not sure if he qualified the statement. At face value it's a sensational, yet vacuous, thing to say - but since he probably qualified the statement, we could probably recognise his examples in ourselves and other human beings. We'd then contetualise the statement and 'madness' would take on a reasonable meaning. During my training my teacher would say them same thing. But when he pointed out the 'symptoms' you'd relate to them, like, yup, that's been happening to me. I see what he means.
The fault of your argument is it depends on omitting step 3 of my (actually the Buddhist) ontological model. I agree reason/logic cannot complete the ontology. If I did, then I would also omit step 3.
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Post by lolly on Sept 22, 2022 22:10:09 GMT -5
Well it gets complicated because not only are people suffering due to reactivity toward current circumstance, but they have been traumatised and have old gunk remaining from the past, including that which they are not yet stable minded enough to endure without losing the plot, so I'm not sure what 'alignment is' as I am unfamiliar with that terminology, but I know how clearing the old blocks opens the heart, if I may generalise using figure of speech.
Since self realisation is here defined as recognising the false self as false, then I'm going to have to say such a recognition is an outcome of meditation. Essentially, if you relentlessly cease to fuel the ego with reactivity, it will ultimately be revealed, and you'll be like, 'that's what has been pretending to me' and/or 'I can't believe I've been living as that'. Even then, it can, I think usually does, take a bit of persistence to become established...
That is of the things that happens with regard to self or existence. There is another which is like space opens up all around, and another where you directly contact like - "I am that" . It's more like 'that is the truth of my nature' - and it's weird. Then there's the balance point I mentioned, which has nothing to do with the more 'I am' related things, but I consider it the ultimate, even though its a bit of a nothing burger.
I translate what I understand by what reefs means by alignment to what you write about the absence of reactivity. It's not a one-to-one direct translation, but isn't that often the case between different languages? I haven't quite grasped the meaning of allignment, but I suspect I might be talking the function (how) whereas Reefs is talking the form (what).
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Post by sree on Sept 22, 2022 22:12:15 GMT -5
I guess I must have written my post in Tamil and you read it in English without getting anything from what I wanted to convey from Tamil Nadu. Talk about a cultural barrier. It's not your fault. I was beaming to you from that other shore.
Truth, in India, is neither a two-sided coin nor anything in between. It is either black or white, up or down, man or woman. The western perception of truth, however, is a matter of opinion.
Thus, nonduality is a two truths act: one for the self-realized nutjob in the "prior to concept" trance, and the other when he is back on planet earth as a human being.
All is not lost. You and I won't have any difficulty communicating when picking out what to eat at MacDonald's.
Flexibility with truth and relativism generally seem to me to have been a recent development in "Western thought". And isn't it just sad that rational mind kant even really find refuge in mathematics.
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Post by laughter on Sept 22, 2022 23:10:42 GMT -5
Tolle's definition of madness is the common state of humanity. Is that reasonable? I could skim through for other examples if you're interested. And it's not that I disagree with Tolle's point there, just that I wouldn't try to defend it in an intellectual debate as reasonable. Self-consistency is a very poor measure of reason. Would you like me to illustrate? Perhaps we could say that self-consistency might be a necessary condition for a thought process to be reasonable, but not sufficient. I'm not sure if he qualified the statement. At face value it's a sensational, yet vacuous, thing to say - but since he probably qualified the statement, we could probably recognise his examples in ourselves and other human beings. We'd then contetualise the statement and 'madness' would take on a reasonable meaning. During my training my teacher would say them same thing. But when he pointed out the 'symptoms' you'd relate to them, like, yup, that's been happening to me. I see what he means. Yes, it occurred to me after having written that - your meaning of "reasonable" is that a person would agree with the statement in subjective terms. "Reasonable" .. to them. Going deeper and relating it to this it would mean something like: "now that I've tasted honey it is reasonable to me to say that it is sweet". I took "reasonable" to mean something different - more along the conventional meaning of the word - as I'm sure you can infer at this point from context. The fault of your argument is it depends on omitting step 3 of my (actually the Buddhist) ontological model. I agree reason/logic cannot complete the ontology. If I did, then I would also omit step 3.
To be clear, you're referring to what I wrote about reason as it relates to self-consistency?
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Post by lolly on Sept 22, 2022 23:17:12 GMT -5
I'm not sure if he qualified the statement. At face value it's a sensational, yet vacuous, thing to say - but since he probably qualified the statement, we could probably recognise his examples in ourselves and other human beings. We'd then contetualise the statement and 'madness' would take on a reasonable meaning. During my training my teacher would say them same thing. But when he pointed out the 'symptoms' you'd relate to them, like, yup, that's been happening to me. I see what he means. Yes, it occurred to me after having written that - your meaning of "reasonable" is that a person would agree with the statement in subjective terms. "Reasonable" .. to them. Going deeper and relating it to this it would mean something like: "now that I've tasted honey it is reasonable to me to say that it is sweet". I took "reasonable" to mean something different - more along the conventional meaning of the word - as I'm sure you can infer at this point from context. The fault of your argument is it depends on omitting step 3 of my (actually the Buddhist) ontological model. I agree reason/logic cannot complete the ontology. If I did, then I would also omit step 3.
To be clear, you're referring to what I wrote about reason as it relates to self-consistency?
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Post by laughter on Sept 22, 2022 23:18:04 GMT -5
I translate what I understand by what reefs means by alignment to what you write about the absence of reactivity. It's not a one-to-one direct translation, but isn't that often the case between different languages? I haven't quite grasped the meaning of allignment, but I suspect I might be talking the function (how) whereas Reefs is talking the form (what).
Alignment is all about the vibe, man. ... when there is resonance instead of dissonance there is an absence of reactivity. By my understanding of reefs alignment, the "form" in question here is dynamic, best understood in a "Zen sense" as a verb rather than a noun, and certainly not conceived in terms of an object, nor a subject. The question of method, I'll leave to you and him, as I'm an interloper here. What you write about meditation is always worth reading, as is what he writes about alignment.
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Post by lolly on Sept 22, 2022 23:48:22 GMT -5
I'm not sure if he qualified the statement. At face value it's a sensational, yet vacuous, thing to say - but since he probably qualified the statement, we could probably recognise his examples in ourselves and other human beings. We'd then contetualise the statement and 'madness' would take on a reasonable meaning. During my training my teacher would say them same thing. But when he pointed out the 'symptoms' you'd relate to them, like, yup, that's been happening to me. I see what he means. Yes, it occurred to me after having written that - your meaning of "reasonable" is that a person would agree with the statement in subjective terms. "Reasonable" .. to them. Going deeper and relating it to this it would mean something like: "now that I've tasted honey it is reasonable to me to say that it is sweet". I took "reasonable" to mean something different - more along the conventional meaning of the word - as I'm sure you can infer at this point from context. The fault of your argument is it depends on omitting step 3 of my (actually the Buddhist) ontological model. I agree reason/logic cannot complete the ontology. If I did, then I would also omit step 3.
To be clear, you're referring to what I wrote about reason as it relates to self-consistency? It's just that the 3 part ontological model should be imagined as 3 general aspects rather than 3 chronological steps, because during the same time as the teacher speaks or Tolle is read or whatever, all 3 aspects can occur concurrently. At times you hear bits and they don't 'fit in' so those bits remain at step 1. Other bits are heard and you see how they 'join the dots', yet they have no subjective reference and remain at step 2. Other parts are seen like, 'Yup, that happens to me,' and immediately hit step 3.
Over time the aspects that remained at step one start to fall into place. You have some insight, and realise, that thing Tolle said fits in with this, so it moves within reason step two, and might soon be seen - where it falls into step 3.
There is no set way the ontology plays out, so best imagine it as a single thing what has been broken into general categories for the sake of philosophical explanation.
When I was taught this ontological model it came with the following parable:
A mother loved her son and made his favorite rice pudding, but the child was wailing, 'It has black stones in it,' and wouldn't eat it. The mother explained, 'It's not stones. They are cardamon seeds that give the pudding a great flavour'. The child didn't understand and kept crying 'black stones black stones'. The mother figured the kid doesn't understand cardamon, so she picked them out and the child ate up the rest. Of course there came a time when the child grew older and understood cardamon, and was glad the little black seeds were included in his pudding.
We were told the 'dhamma' is like that. There are bits you don't like and don't understand and don't make sense, so push them to the side and enjoy the rest. Later on you'll see the side bits are good, and then you can accept them too. If not, don't accept it.
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Sept 23, 2022 4:29:12 GMT -5
Alignment is just the word I prefer. ZD prefers to call it flow. Dispenza calls it coherence. In essence, it is a state of peace of mind, active or inactive, focused or unfocused. SR is acausal. And self does play no role in SR since it is shoved aside. So on the level of self, there are no requirements to be met, no one can bestow it upon you (self), you (as self) cannot earn it and you (self) cannot mess it up either. Because you (self) have no part in it. So mediate or don't, extinguish your ego or don't, it doesn't matter. So, as a seeker, you cannot bring SR about and you also cannot prevent it from happening. Where you can do something though is alignment. That's why I keep talking about alignment. I just think it's better to be unenlightend but in alignment, which means living a pretty good and satisfying life, than unenlighted and out of alignment, which is a living hell. Ya... self is pushed aside is a reasonable way of putting it. I think people do a lot to prevent SR from happening, and ego has tricky ways of maintaining its position as me, so there is a strategy people can undertake which happens to be the same as the one that enables purification. In that sense however, you don't really make purification happen either - you just stop doing the things that obstruct it. Those things are the same things that perpetuate the ego - and if you cease to feed the ego, it will reveal itself entirely. The living hell is a bit rough, and it basically comes about when deep things that the mind isn't balanced enough to endure calmly are pushed into conscious awareness and you get too overwhelmed, and end up creating a deeper trauma rather than resolving those that exist from the past. Hence-why meditation becomes important in the sense that deliberate training in equanimity establishes the balance required to remain still-minded during more intense episodes. We usually don't realise this until more intense phases when just maintaining an even keel is as much as one can do, but it turns out that conscious awareness with stable equanimity is the entire practice of meditation. It might be immediately apparent, but self inquiry is implies and certainly a facet of that.
Not to be mistaken with 'you make it happen'. I describe is 'see it as it is' which is directly opposed to 'make it as you want it to be'. Indeed the former must cease to achieve the latter. This means being ardent, deliberate, persistent, consistent and unrelenting are all meritorious qualities in the observation, or self-inquiry if you like, but desire-cum-volition is not only futile, but counterproductive to the purpose.
I wanted to get a reply from Reefs, but I'm going to move ahead with my 'project' from yesterday. I think you might find it relevant, and laughter also, as you both understand about practice. (I would say Reefs would say practice brings about alignment [but Reefs would say it's irrelevant to SR]).
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Sept 23, 2022 6:00:55 GMT -5
Well it gets complicated because not only are people suffering due to reactivity toward current circumstance, but they have been traumatised and have old gunk remaining from the past, including that which they are not yet stable minded enough to endure without losing the plot, so I'm not sure what 'alignment is' as I am unfamiliar with that terminology, but I know how clearing the old blocks opens the heart, if I may generalise using figure of speech.
Since self realisation is here defined as recognising the false self as false, then I'm going to have to say such a recognition is an outcome of meditation. Essentially, if you relentlessly cease to fuel the ego with reactivity, it will ultimately be revealed, and you'll be like, 'that's what has been pretending to me' and/or 'I can't believe I've been living as that'. Even then, it can, I think usually does, take a bit of persistence to become established...
That is of the things that happens with regard to self or existence. There is another which is like space opens up all around, and another where you directly contact like - "I am that" . It's more like 'that is the truth of my nature' - and it's weird. Then there's the balance point I mentioned, which has nothing to do with the more 'I am' related things, but I consider it the ultimate, even though its a bit of a nothing burger.
Alignment is just the word I prefer. ZD prefers to call it flow. Dispenza calls it coherence. In essence, it is a state of peace of mind, active or inactive, focused or unfocused. SR is acausal. And self does play no role in SR since it is shoved aside. So on the level of self, there are no requirements to be met, no one can bestow it upon you (self), you (as self) cannot earn it and you (self) cannot mess it up either. Because you (self) have no part in it. So mediate or don't, extinguish your ego or don't, it doesn't matter. So, as a seeker, you cannot bring SR about and you also cannot prevent it from happening. Where you can do something though is alignment. That's why I keep talking about alignment. I just think it's better to be unenlightend but in alignment, which means living a pretty good and satisfying life, than unenlighted and out of alignment, which is a living hell. OK, my intention here is to lay all my cards on the table. I put it that way because I have a clear pathway to what I want to say, but sometimes I abort a post after I'm done. I reply here as this seems a good place. My question yesterday, which ZD did answer (I haven't replied to his answer) was, you both seem to say that the self-circuits (in Gary Weber's language, there are neural circuits only-related to self and then there are ordinary-learning-circuits which don't relate to self) still exist after SR. My question was, does Reefs ever function through those self-circuits? So here is looking at the ND view through sdp's paradigm. I don't think I've ever laid this out before. I've always maintained you can't understand sdp through a ND paradigm. I also understand that that's virtually impossible to ~get away from~ doing, it's exceptionally difficult to 'get outside of how one sees the world'. My view trying to be very brief, bare bones to show my view of your view within my view (with a little extra sprinkled in, but a lot left out for brevity). What we are indeed, truly, exists prior to birth in a physical body. (This is buddha-nature, the unborn, what you were before your parents were born...). This is called essence, it also includes the body, essence is what you are born with/as. Essence is a seed of potential. As soon as we are born the baby begins to collect data about the world, and this info is stored in the neural structure, and incidentally mostly stored as associative links. Always keep a distinction between essence-body and the stored information. The baby continues to live as essence, the small child continues to live as essence all the while storing information. Eventually, about age six, the mind-body has stored enough info for the info to ~turn into~ a false sense of self. The baby and-then the small child has collected the data-psychology of parents and other caregivers, as conditioning, to form the self, but it is a false sense of self, true self remains as essence, but a flip-flop occurs, one's sense of identity shifts from essence to the false sense of self. Now, I've written all this at least two dozen times here on ST's over 13 years. The vast majority of people live the remainder of their lives through this false sense of self (variously named, ego, persona, cultural self, conditioned self, small s self, sree has added the boatman). Once the false sense of self has formed, essence is covered over and ~the person~ ceases to live through their essence, which is in a real sense, asleep, or ~we~ are asleep to it. OK, now placing my view of the ND view on that paradigm. (Which I freely admit is partly theoretical, trying to get outside my own paradigm). SR is seeing the false as the false. The false sense of self is indeed seen to be false, imaginary, which indeed it is. I have zero problem with this being once-and-forever-seen. But what sees this? Essence sees this. How? Why? ND has no opinion as to how this occurs, says it's acausal. But as far as I recall, and what I asked again yesterday, ZD and Reefs admit that the self-circuits that form the "false sense of self" can still exist even after SR. I called this my fulcrum, the question as to why, in the ND 'view', why do these self-circuits still exist? Reefs said it doesn't matter if self still exists after SR or doesn't exist. But my question, really, was, does Reefs (or ZD) ever *get lost in* the self-circuits? (That is, forget). Sure, no problem, maybe in a minute, or five minutes or a half hour, comes the realization, back, the self is imaginary (it is, the conditioned self is imaginary, it's just a set neural connections). The self-that-is-conditioning is imaginary, always was, I have zero problem with this, as it is indeed true. I really should stop there, for now. But there isn't a place for essence in the ND view. When sdp writes about essence, you can't help but try to see essence in terms of the ND view. But essence is the true individuation. So what is practice? What is alignment? What is flow? You see, I can see clearly what these are. Practice is ~operating from~ essence. Alignment is being aligned with essence. Flow is being in sync with the whole universe (through essence). The conditioned self can't help but be out of flow, it's the very definition of being out of flow. I asked ZD a couple of weeks ago why he just liked to ATA-T. He wouldn't say. ATA-T is a form of operating-from essence. That's why it's enjoyable, just simply enjoyable. So practice by the very definition can't-be operation from the conditioned-self (as the conditioned self is imaginary, is-not a something in and of itself). OK, I will stop there, for now... But a lot can be surmised from all that, a lot explained. OK, just one more thing. Who-what is practice difficult for? Who-what avoids practice? The old self-circuits, the false sense of self, the conditioned self. The old self-circuits are the very anthesis of practice. The old-self-circuits are an obstruction. Probably should have stopped at OK, I will stop there.
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Post by zendancer on Sept 23, 2022 8:44:59 GMT -5
SDP: You wrote that you asked why I liked ATA-T and that I wouldn't say. I thought I had answered pretty clearly. From a conventional relativistic perspective I said that I driven solely by curiosity. I wondered what the world would look like free from ideas ABOUT what is seen. I wondered what animals and little children see when they look at the world non-conceptually. ATA-T was an initial attempt to do that. Many years later, when I realized that sitting on a meditation cushion watching the breath was a form of ATA-T (because I was shifting attention away from thoughts to something actual--the breath), I left Zen behind but continued informally doing ATA-T. I had an intuitive sense that ATA-T would eventually reveal what I wanted to know.
That's the superficial answer to your question. The deeper issue is why this body/mind organism does whatever it does, and the answer to that question is what really matters. Why did you get interested in Gurdjieff? Why did you do anything else you've ever done? Why did certain ideas appear in your mind? Why did I intuit that there was something wrong with the conventional concept of reality? Why did I begin to wonder what animals see when they look at the world non-conceptually? The best answer would be to hold up one finger in silence, but an intellectual explanation is simply that this is the nature of reality as manifested through two particular humans. Reality unfolds however it unfolds, and one can either see this and accept it, or one can resist it, psychologically. It cannot be comprehended intellectually.
When the vast intelligence and unified nature of THIS is seen, and when it is seen that there is nothing other than THIS, all "why" questions fall away.
FWIW, this organism never gets lost in what you refer to as "self-circuits," and it never forgets that it is THIS manifesting temporarily through a particular human form. When the thought structure, or whatever it is that neurologically generates a sense of "me" collapsed in 1999, it never came back. This organism simply doesn't think self-referentially in the same way as before that shift. However, there was a period of integration or embodiment that occurred during the first few months after that shift occurred when occasional self-referential ideas continued to appear, but they gradually diminished and finally ceased. I still use words like "I" and "me" in conventional conversation, but they're empty. For someone else this might be different, but it wouldn't matter because after it's clearly seen that there is only THIS doing everything it no longer matters how THIS manifests. THIS is THIS whether someone is sound asleep or wide awake.
BTW, I don't know what you mean by "essence is the true individuation." "Essence" and "individuation" are ideas, and if those ideas are dropped, what remains?
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Sept 23, 2022 10:24:14 GMT -5
SDP: You wrote that you asked why I liked ATA-T and that I wouldn't say. I thought I had answered pretty clearly. From a conventional relativistic perspective I said that I driven solely by curiosity. I wondered what the world would look like free from ideas ABOUT what is seen. I wondered what animals and little children see when they look at the world non-conceptually. ATA-T was an initial attempt to do that. Many years later, when I realized that sitting on a meditation cushion watching the breath was a form of ATA-T (because I was shifting attention away from thoughts to something actual--the breath), I left Zen behind but continued informally doing ATA-T. I had an intuitive sense that ATA-T would eventually reveal what I wanted to know. That's the superficial answer to your question. The deeper issue is why this body/mind organism does whatever it does, and the answer to that question is what really matters. Why did you get interested in Gurdjieff? Why did you do anything else you've ever done? Why did certain ideas appear in your mind? Why did I intuit that there was something wrong with the conventional concept of reality? Why did I begin to wonder what animals see when they look at the world non-conceptually? The best answer would be to hold up one finger in silence, but an intellectual explanation is simply that this is the nature of reality as manifested through two particular humans. Reality unfolds however it unfolds, and one can either see this and accept it, or one can resist it, psychologically. It cannot be comprehended intellectually. When the vast intelligence and unified nature of THIS is seen, and when it is seen that there is nothing other than THIS, all "why" questions fall away. FWIW, this organism never gets lost in what you refer to as "self-circuits," and it never forgets that it is THIS manifesting temporarily through a particular human form. When the thought structure, or whatever it is that neurologically generates a sense of "me" collapsed in 1999, it never came back. This organism simply doesn't think self-referentially in the same way as before that shift. However, there was a period of integration or embodiment that occurred during the first few months after that shift occurred when occasional self-referential ideas continued to appear, but they gradually diminished and finally ceased. I still use words like "I" and "me" in conventional conversation, but they're empty. For someone else this might be different, but it wouldn't matter because after it's clearly seen that there is only THIS doing everything it no longer matters how THIS manifests. THIS is THIS whether someone is sound asleep or wide awake. BTW, I don't know what you mean by "essence is the true individuation." "Essence" and "individuation" are ideas, and if those ideas are dropped, what remains? Thanks, I appreciate all that ZD. Why did I get interested in Gurdjieff? I had already looked into many different areas. Later, after finding Gurdjieff, a lot later, I came to realize I was most interested in ending my suffering. But also later, still later, I knew that wasn't enough. (Therefore Buddhism was never enough). I completely accept the complete collapse of "me" for ZD. Why? You will laugh. Because probably about 30 years ago I read the first 2 books by Bernadette Roberts, about 20-25 years ago, the 3rd. I found her story completely genuine, what she called her experience of no-self. Later I found out she gave a yearly retreat in California for a small number of people, about 2 weeks, and I was somewhat tempted to go, but never did. I didn't think I would learn anything new. But even she had a different ~grid~ around her no-self "experience", one closer to my POV (than ND). (When I found this out, the retreats, I also found out she had some further privately published writings). Your last paragraph. What's imaginary versus what's not imaginary. I explained within my last post, but briefly. Essence originates from the Whole. I clearly stated essence existed prior to birth. In addition to that, a newborn baby is pure essence. So essence is what is not imaginary, but still and possibly for a very long time: "A man is unable to say what he himself really is". The self-circuits which form from stored information which enters through the senses of the baby/small child, what sree calls the boatman, what most people say "I" to, is imaginary. A key to understanding one has touched essence (not for ZD, you are way beyond this), the chattering mind stops, silence. What remains? You should be able to see I have answered this.
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Post by sree on Sept 23, 2022 11:01:55 GMT -5
You know what? I do agree with your assertions; however, scientists (including you) do not imagine that they are separate from what they observe. The separation is an actuality, as actual as the fact that they are human beings living on planet earth. The actuality of separation is caused by perception. There are tons of theories published by scientists/academics refuting that separation but none is convincing. Case in point: Bernardo Kastrup, who worked at CERN. He rejects the separation and posits what you have asserted. His theory debunking the objective reality of materialism has gained no traction. All sages perceive themselves as people and not trees or rocks. Therein lies the separation. Living one way and preaching another way is disgusting to me.
One of you guys said that only nutjobs don't see themselves as human beings living on planet earth. And all of you concurred in silence. If that is the case, then stop discussing nonduality bs in this forum. If you folks are human beings and not planet earth, that is the separation. Then, there is the car you drive, the computer you use to discuss nonduality with other non-nutjobs, the food you shove in your mouths, the wives you yell at. They are all separate from you.
Look, I understand why you people gather to converse on nonduality and disdain the intellect as though you have a special "prior to concept" power of perception at your disposal to transcend the mundane world of scientists and folks like Gopal and sree. And you huddle together for warmth and comfort. I get that. My grandma huddled with Catholics all her life. She was a good woman and I loved her as much as she loved me. I think she loved me more. Like you folks,she also believed she had a special power, in Jesus, the Savior. Your special power is in nonduality, the holy grail of western spirituality.
My grandma is dead but you are not. Also, you folks come across as smarter than scientists and professors of physics at the top schools in the US. This is why I have been trying to shove my brand of spirituality in your faces. Reefs don't like it and said it is toxic. I was hoping that at least one of you would check it out. The separation between "the observer and the observed" (Krishnamurti) is indeed an illusion. Krishnamurti, apparently, could live it but couldn't explain it. You guys are just saying it but cannot live in that state of oneness. Using the intellect, I can explain the illusion. It is not a bad thing but a marvelous feature of the wholeness of life.
In many ways what you posted here is valid because there are two sides to every coin. Are there such things as individual human beings? Yes and no, but on a ND forum the writing is an attempt, via pointers, to deprogram peoples' attachment to the consensus paradigm. The most comprehensive writing with this objective is Chapter 26 of the Ribhu Gita, but most of us are pointing to the same thing in our own way. Are there such things as individual human beings? Yes, in the sense that separateness and boundaries can be imagined, but no from the standpoint of the living truth and what is actual. This is why many of us suggest that people search for actual boundaries. I agree with you about Krishnamurti, and that's why I quit recommending his books to people. I never met anyone who got free as a result of listening to him or reading his stuff. Be careful, however, about jumping to conclusions about someone who you don't personally know. You would need to spend time with someone, watch how they interact with people, listen to what they say in everyday situations, consider how they respond to probing questions, etc. to adequately discern what they've realized and whether or not they "walk the talk."
What do you mean by "imagined"? Is the boundary separating me and the chair I am sitting on not actual? Is the chair an imagined object? What about me? Am I an imagined human being?
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