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Post by stardustpilgrim on Oct 4, 2022 12:44:19 GMT -5
Interestingly, I just watched a film about the Devil, played by Claude Rains, and a guy, Eddie, who was just murdered by his best gangster friend Smiley, and ended up in hell, Angel On My Shoulder, 1946, on TCM. Mephistopheles makes a deal with Eddie to go back to ground level and get revenge and kill Smiley. But Eddie has to do a favor for "Nick", the Devil, first. He gets the body of Judge Parker so as to destroy Parker's career, basically by just being Eddie. Quite an interesting film. Eddie is quite ignorant and illiterate and doesn't know he's made a deal with the Devil, who calls himself Mephistopheles, or Nick for short. But Eddie falls in love with Judge Parker's fiancee, who loves Judge Parker. God is never seen, or is even seen in action, but we know from the beginning that God is the Devil's adversary. So seemingly inadvertently, Eddie becomes a good man, and spoils all Nick's plans. Eddie eventually falls in love with Barbara, the fiancee. Near the end Eddie as Judge Parker realizes he has made a deal with the Devil, and backs out. In the end Nick looks up into the sky and recognizes he has been defeated. The only real hint of an actual battle is the title, which is almost a throwaway line from the film. Things just get worked out against Nick's plans. Basically, we learn that the Devil has very little power of his own, he only has lies and manipulation and deceit. Your analogy of the Devil as a supercomputer is way over the top. Yes, basically, the devil is the human conditioned mind, the conditioned mind. But we are not our conditioning. sree, you are never going to get anywhere here peddling your nihilism. Have you actually read The Moviegoer? Walker Percy was a existential philosopher who crafted novels to make philosophy palatable, and almost hidden. He succeeded pretty well with The Moviegoer. For anybody interested > this< is a pretty good synopsis. But it's not short. Because Binx's life works out does not mean he gave up the search. Why are you afraid to contact your parents after ten years? You got me! No, I had not actually read The Moviegoer. My mom read it, and we discussed it. She said that she was entranced by that book. Practically all the books that you have read had been read by her. I don't read and never had to. My mom read me to sleep every night from the time I was a baby and could listen to her voice. And when I was old enough to ask questions, the reading sessions evolved into conversations. From the time I was in high school till I went away to university, every evening with her was a "My Dinner with Andre". I was the dumbass. She was Andre
If you want to play "Andre" with me, you need to step up your game. We are our conditioning, and our conditioning is us. If this perception is wrong, how do you explain the separation between you and your conditioning? What are you?
Your not a pleasant person to have a conversation with, sometimes. I don't think you are sincere. I still don't know what you're up to here on ST's forums, other than a need for interaction. But you have asked a good question. I am virtually alone here in my view of the world, the universe. My view was not concocted by me. My view basically saved my life in 1976, and meeting my teacher, those were simultaneous. I've posted here the mess I was in. I had shared a few personal things here over the years previous to your coming here, the battle with suicide one thing I've shared before. Most of the threads I've started were attempts to share my view. I try to share, but everything I write, people read it from their view, mostly the nondual view. Yes, I get wordy, I try to stay away from that. I don't think a lot of people here have read the long posts in full. So I'll try to give a nutshell version. First, I will say a few things I've never said directly. Why not? Because I learned them from blood, sweat and tears. Some things are not given outright in my tradition. You are given the tools and then you have to keep taking the initiative, again and again. Why? Basically it's like the butterfly trying to emerge from the chrysalis, if someone tries to help it out, it dies. The emerging effort has to come from the inside. So in sharing a couple of things, I rob you of finding out for yourself. But virtually nobody here is interested in my view, anyway. So we are two, the true self and the false self. True self is what we are born as or born with. That's who you truly are. Were you born with the conditioning? No, of course not. So the conditioning was added-on, the conditioning was acquired after birth. We call this your essence, your essence is your true self. People here use the word individuation, but they have no explanation as to what individuation is. I've tried to point this out for over ten years. Essence is the true individuation, the possibility, but for most people the seed never comes to germination. Essence is in a very real sense a seed. So, your body belongs to essence. So your brain belongs to essence. Many people obviously have innate talents, like musical ability, these would belong to essence. Your false self is acquired after birth. We call the false self, personality, it's just a name. I have used a lot of names here. I 'invented' the term cultural self. You invented the term boatman. Others I've used, small s self ( Self is used here for the broadest sense of 'what we are', it comes from Ramana Maharshi, who is basically ~*It*~ here for people here, along with Niz), persona, mask, ego. What else are you born with? Attention, awareness, the five senses. Anything you can think of that you were born with, that's your essence. So a newborn baby lives through their essence. A small child lives through their essence. But a baby begins collecting data from the exterior world immediately upon birth. It's stored in neural connections in the brain. There are millions of connections in the brain between neurons, and much data is associatively stored as neurons connect. Information comes in through the five senses, we call these impressions. Impressions are a kind of food like ordinary food and air which we also call food. Impressions entering fall upon our essence and feeds our essence in a very organic way. We call this essence being active and personality is passive (because it is not fully formed yet). What we remember, is memory. Most of the stored data is not-remembered, we call this the unconscious or the subconscious. When a small child begins to talk, it does not refer to itself as I. About 18 months to 2 years, it begins to say I. The shift is starting here. By the age of about six the false self almost completely covers over our essence. By about age six the false self is almost fully formed, and now impressions fall upon the conditioned self, and they rob essence of the energy it needs to continue growing. So personality/ego/boatman is now active and essence is passive, a complete shift has occurred. Most people live the remainder of their lives through the false sense of self, through their conditioning. The conditioned self is a filter, it only allows in what corresponds to itself, it is like a polarizing lens. And so it also distorts, to different degrees, what enters the organism. After the shift of one's sense of identity from essence to persona/ego/mask, impressions entering via the five senses and the nervous system, now are intercepted by the neural network of associations which form the conditioned self. The incoming impressions activate our self, our small s self, the ego, it is reaction, not real action. So that basically answers your question. For me these are indisputable facts. They were first merely theory, maps. My very first week coming to know about this teaching, which is called the Work, or the Fourth Way, some things I verified, March 1976. What I verified kept me with the teaching. I haven't shared here on ST's 1% of what I know and understand. But through blood, sweat and tears, and practice, the theory has become understanding. And that continues. But I will share one more thing. Actual "spiritual" practice can begin to reverse the persona/mask/ego and essence, and again make essence active and personality passive. When the ego/boatman is active, it controls your attention and awareness. So true spiritual practice is about using attention and awareness. This use is called a conscious effort. The false self, the conditioning, consists of multiple habits. To a certain extent these are useful, but to the extent that we are wholly conditioning, we are robbed of real life. So, a conscious effort can never be habitual, that's almost the very definition, that's what it's not. For the ordinary person, thoughts, feelings/emotions, bodily actions, sensations, people, places and things, capture one's attention and awareness, take and hold. Practice is about reversing that. In practice, impressions can once again fall on essence and feed essence. Eventually, this shift back to essence can become permanent. A seed is a good image. A seed consists of an outer shell and an inner living kernel. The shell is the persona/mask/small s self/boatman/conditioning. The living inner DNA-kernel is our essence. The outer shell has no real future, it consists of copies, and copies of copies, and copies of copies of copies, that is, the false sense of self consists only of memories and recordings and words-as-abstractions. The living kernel has all the possibilities. 19 hours later, an edit. Adding one thing, maybe relevant (for you). Early, we were taught, about life: You don't have to give up anything externally, but (eventually) you have to give up everything internally. What my teacher didn't tell us, if you give up everything internally, the external doesn't matter. You see, the conditioned self consists of the mesh side of the velcro. The exterior world, again, consists of the hooks side of the velcro. Interior practice ~uncurls~ and eventually eliminates the mesh side of the velcro. Then, there is nothing for the hook-side-exterior-world to hook to. No attachments, nothing to attach to. Another pretty smart dude once said it this way, to be in the world but not of the world. |
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Post by andrew on Oct 4, 2022 12:58:29 GMT -5
you're asking the wrong dude I'm pretty quiet unless I have something on my mind what is suffering? do you feel content all of the time? No, I don't feel content all the time. Would you feel content being a person with no purpose other than taking care of your body: find shelter and food for it and wipe its ass everyday until it dies? You like doing this? Is this not suffering?
We all have things on our mind all the time. You are just being careful not to put your foot in your mouth.
I might have asked you this already, but why don't you give yourself a broader or more expansive purpose? What would be the problem of doing that, for you? |
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Post by sree on Oct 4, 2022 15:31:48 GMT -5
No, I don't feel content all the time. Would you feel content being a person with no purpose other than taking care of your body: find shelter and food for it and wipe its ass everyday until it dies? You like doing this? Is this not suffering?
We all have things on our mind all the time. You are just being careful not to put your foot in your mouth.
I might have asked you this already, but why don't you give yourself a broader or more expansive purpose? What would be the problem of doing that, for you?
I appreciate your question. Give myself a broader purpose? I had a broader purpose before I embarked on my spiritual quest. I was like you guys with a job and a family (girlfriend, and parents).
Wondering about what life is all about has always been a burning question. Even as a kid, I didn't think being President was such a big deal. They all create a mess, die, and are forgotten. Nothing endures. And yet, I felt that some thing good must and does. And the only way to find out is to cut out the noise and distraction of the immaterial and transient. Toss out everything that is inessential. In that bareness, an objective observation is possible; otherwise, it's just speculation.
The problem of doing what you are suggesting is living the same life that has been lived a zillion times before, in vain. However, I am not a Bourdain seeking a high in an existential tomb. He suffered the same fate of highly sensitive, talented people who had a similar disdain for their admirers.
My empty tomb is not unpleasant. I go about my daily tasks minding the body in a comfortable setting. It's similar to a house-sitting job that includes caring for a living body.
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Post by sree on Oct 4, 2022 15:36:56 GMT -5
I might have asked you this already, but why don't you give yourself a broader or more expansive purpose? What would be the problem of doing that, for you? identifying the various components that comprise ones identity is interesting perhaps..  Wow, this is very deep coming from you, farmer. Perhaps,you need to be strapped down in a chair and have the jewels beaten out of you as in a James Bond movie. |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Oct 4, 2022 16:05:30 GMT -5
I might have asked you this already, but why don't you give yourself a broader or more expansive purpose? What would be the problem of doing that, for you? I appreciate your question. Give myself a broader purpose? I had a broader purpose before I embarked on my spiritual quest. I was like you guys with a job and a family (girlfriend, and parents).
Wondering about what life is all about has always been a burning question. Even as a kid, I didn't think being President was such a big deal. They all create a mess, die, and are forgotten. Nothing endures. And yet, I felt that some thing good must and does. And the only way to find out is to cut out the noise and distraction of the immaterial and transient. Toss out everything that is inessential. In that bareness, an objective observation is possible; otherwise, it's just speculation.
The problem of doing what you are suggesting is living the same life that has been lived a zillion times before, in vain. However, I am not a Bourdain seeking a high in an existential tomb. He suffered the same fate of highly sensitive, talented people who had a similar disdain for their admirers. My empty tomb is not unpleasant. I go about my daily tasks minding the body in a comfortable setting. It's similar to a house-sitting job that includes caring for a living body.
It seems you have given up your search, your burning question, your spiritual quest. It seems you have committed a kind of suicide, without the messiness. Why have you given up? (Have you given up?) |
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Post by sree on Oct 4, 2022 16:31:11 GMT -5
You got me! No, I had not actually read The Moviegoer. My mom read it, and we discussed it. She said that she was entranced by that book. Practically all the books that you have read had been read by her. I don't read and never had to. My mom read me to sleep every night from the time I was a baby and could listen to her voice. And when I was old enough to ask questions, the reading sessions evolved into conversations. From the time I was in high school till I went away to university, every evening with her was a "My Dinner with Andre". I was the dumbass. She was Andre
If you want to play "Andre" with me, you need to step up your game. We are our conditioning, and our conditioning is us. If this perception is wrong, how do you explain the separation between you and your conditioning? What are you?
Your not a pleasant person to have a conversation with, sometimes. I don't think you are sincere. I still don't know what you're up to here on ST's forums, other than a need for interaction. But you have asked a good question. I am virtually alone here in my view of the world, the universe. My view was not concocted by me. My view basically saved my life in 1976, and meeting my teacher, those were simultaneous. I've posted here the mess I was in. I had shared a few personal things here over the years previous to your coming here, the battle with suicide one thing I've shared before. Most of the threads I've started were attempts to share my view. I try to share, but everything I write, people read it from their view, mostly the nondual view. Yes, I get wordy, I try to stay away from that. I don't think a lot of people here have read the long posts in full. So I'll try to give a nutshell version. First, I will say a few things I've never said directly. Why not? Because I learned them from blood, sweat and tears. Some things are not given outright in my tradition. You are given the tools and then you have to keep taking the initiative, again and again. Why? Basically it's like the butterfly trying to emerge from the chrysalis, if someone tries to help it out, it dies. The emerging effort has to come from the inside. So in sharing a couple of things, I rob you of finding out for yourself. But virtually nobody here is interested in my view, anyway. So we are two, the true self and the false self. True self is what we are born as or born with. That's who you truly are. Were you born with the conditioning? No, of course not. So the conditioning was added-on, the conditioning was acquired after birth. We call this your essence, your essence is your true self. People here use the word individuation, but they have no explanation as to what individuation is. I've tried to point this out for over ten years. Essence is the true individuation, the possibility, but for most people the seed never comes to germination. Essence is in a very real sense a seed. So, your body belongs to essence. So your brain belongs to essence. Many people obviously have innate talents, like musical ability, these would belong to essence. Your false self is acquired after birth. We call the false self, personality, it's just a name. I have used a lot of names here. I 'invented' the term cultural self. You invented the term boatman. Others I've used, small s self ( Self is used here for the broadest sense of 'what we are', it comes from Ramana Maharshi, who is basically ~*It*~ here for people here, along with Niz), persona, mask, ego. What else are you born with? Attention, awareness, the five senses. Anything you can think of that you were born with, that's your essence. So a newborn baby lives through their essence. A small child lives through their essence. But a baby begins collecting data from the exterior world immediately upon birth. It's stored in neural connections in the brain. There are millions of connections in the brain between neurons, and much data is associatively stored as neurons connect. Information comes in through the five senses, we call these impressions. Impressions are a kind of food like ordinary food and air which we also call food. Impressions entering fall upon our essence and feeds our essence in a very organic way. We call this essence being active and personality is passive (because it is not fully formed yet). What we remember, is memory. Most of the stored data is not-remembered, we call this the unconscious or the subconscious. When a small child begins to talk, it does not refer to itself as I. About 18 months to 2 years, it begins to say I. The shift is starting here. By the age of about six the false self almost completely covers over our essence. By about age six the false self is almost fully formed, and now impressions fall upon the conditioned self, and they rob essence of the energy it needs to continue growing. So personality/ego/boatman is now active and essence is passive, a complete shift has occurred. Most people live the remainder of their lives through the false sense of self, through their conditioning. The conditioned self is a filter, it only allows in what corresponds to itself, it is like a polarizing lens. And so it also distorts, to different degrees, what enters the organism. So that basically answers your question. For me these are indisputable facts. They were first merely theory, maps. My very first week coming to know about this teaching, which is called the Work, or the Fourth Way, some things I verified, March 1976. What I verified kept me with the teaching. I haven't shared here on ST's 1% of what I know and understand. But through blood, sweat and tears, and practice, the theory has become understanding. And that continues. But I will share one more thing. Actual "spiritual" practice can begin to reverse the persona/mask/ego and essence, and again make essence active and personality passive. When the ego/boatman is active, it controls your attention and awareness. So true spiritual practice is about using attention and awareness. This use is called a conscious effort. The false self, the conditioning, consists of multiple habits. To a certain extent these are useful, but to the extent that we are wholly conditioning, we are robbed of real life. So, a conscious effort can never be habitual, that's almost the very definition, that's what it's not. For the ordinary person, thoughts, feelings/emotions, bodily actions, sensations, people, places and things, capture one's attention and awareness, take and hold. Practice is about reversing that. I will comment on your post after review. In the meantime, can you tell me why you feel that I am not sincere? Why am I here? You answered the question yourself. I am indeed here to seek interaction. I don't need it as though this is the only place in cyberspace. I talk to others elsewhere also.
First stop, every morning, is in my garden "talking" to my trees. Krishnamurti was not kidding. There is something in nature. It is not something "out there" but within my state of awareness. Krishnamurti must have been pretty "advanced" in this sort of relating with nature. For now, I can only sense a presence.
Next stop, this morning, was with Michael Hudson on youtube to listen to what he had to say about the state of the global economy. The US is a war machine, he said. It's like a shark that must keep swimming in order to breathe in oxygen from the water flowing through its gills. War is necessary to keep our financial system from collapsing. Did you know that? Krishnamurti said nationalism causes war. The scope of our spiritual discussion in this forum is too narrow. Frankly, it is outdated. The self, namely you, is now the global system itself and no longer an individual with a name and a form. This is why you and I don't have any agency and each of us is like a helpless star stitched on the flag flapping in the wind of world affairs.
The interaction I seek here is what Krishnamurti phrased as "the mirror of relationship". When I send out a post and you reply, I get to see my image that you, the mirror, bounces back. Am I making sense?
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Oct 4, 2022 20:01:49 GMT -5
Your not a pleasant person to have a conversation with, sometimes. I don't think you are sincere. I still don't know what you're up to here on ST's forums, other than a need for interaction. But you have asked a good question. I am virtually alone here in my view of the world, the universe. My view was not concocted by me. My view basically saved my life in 1976, and meeting my teacher, those were simultaneous. I've posted here the mess I was in. I had shared a few personal things here over the years previous to your coming here, the battle with suicide one thing I've shared before. Most of the threads I've started were attempts to share my view. I try to share, but everything I write, people read it from their view, mostly the nondual view. Yes, I get wordy, I try to stay away from that. I don't think a lot of people here have read the long posts in full. So I'll try to give a nutshell version. First, I will say a few things I've never said directly. Why not? Because I learned them from blood, sweat and tears. Some things are not given outright in my tradition. You are given the tools and then you have to keep taking the initiative, again and again. Why? Basically it's like the butterfly trying to emerge from the chrysalis, if someone tries to help it out, it dies. The emerging effort has to come from the inside. So in sharing a couple of things, I rob you of finding out for yourself. But virtually nobody here is interested in my view, anyway. So we are two, the true self and the false self. True self is what we are born as or born with. That's who you truly are. Were you born with the conditioning? No, of course not. So the conditioning was added-on, the conditioning was acquired after birth. We call this your essence, your essence is your true self. People here use the word individuation, but they have no explanation as to what individuation is. I've tried to point this out for over ten years. Essence is the true individuation, the possibility, but for most people the seed never comes to germination. Essence is in a very real sense a seed. So, your body belongs to essence. So your brain belongs to essence. Many people obviously have innate talents, like musical ability, these would belong to essence. Your false self is acquired after birth. We call the false self, personality, it's just a name. I have used a lot of names here. I 'invented' the term cultural self. You invented the term boatman. Others I've used, small s self ( Self is used here for the broadest sense of 'what we are', it comes from Ramana Maharshi, who is basically ~*It*~ here for people here, along with Niz), persona, mask, ego. What else are you born with? Attention, awareness, the five senses. Anything you can think of that you were born with, that's your essence. So a newborn baby lives through their essence. A small child lives through their essence. But a baby begins collecting data from the exterior world immediately upon birth. It's stored in neural connections in the brain. There are millions of connections in the brain between neurons, and much data is associatively stored as neurons connect. Information comes in through the five senses, we call these impressions. Impressions are a kind of food like ordinary food and air which we also call food. Impressions entering fall upon our essence and feeds our essence in a very organic way. We call this essence being active and personality is passive (because it is not fully formed yet). What we remember, is memory. Most of the stored data is not-remembered, we call this the unconscious or the subconscious. When a small child begins to talk, it does not refer to itself as I. About 18 months to 2 years, it begins to say I. The shift is starting here. By the age of about six the false self almost completely covers over our essence. By about age six the false self is almost fully formed, and now impressions fall upon the conditioned self, and they rob essence of the energy it needs to continue growing. So personality/ego/boatman is now active and essence is passive, a complete shift has occurred. Most people live the remainder of their lives through the false sense of self, through their conditioning. The conditioned self is a filter, it only allows in what corresponds to itself, it is like a polarizing lens. And so it also distorts, to different degrees, what enters the organism. So that basically answers your question. For me these are indisputable facts. They were first merely theory, maps. My very first week coming to know about this teaching, which is called the Work, or the Fourth Way, some things I verified, March 1976. What I verified kept me with the teaching. I haven't shared here on ST's 1% of what I know and understand. But through blood, sweat and tears, and practice, the theory has become understanding. And that continues. But I will share one more thing. Actual "spiritual" practice can begin to reverse the persona/mask/ego and essence, and again make essence active and personality passive. When the ego/boatman is active, it controls your attention and awareness. So true spiritual practice is about using attention and awareness. This use is called a conscious effort. The false self, the conditioning, consists of multiple habits. To a certain extent these are useful, but to the extent that we are wholly conditioning, we are robbed of real life. So, a conscious effort can never be habitual, that's almost the very definition, that's what it's not. For the ordinary person, thoughts, feelings/emotions, bodily actions, sensations, people, places and things, capture one's attention and awareness, take and hold. Practice is about reversing that. I will comment on your post after review. In the meantime, can you tell me why you feel that I am not sincere? Why am I here? You answered the question yourself. I am indeed here to seek interaction. I don't need it as though this is the only place in cyberspace. I talk to others elsewhere also.
First stop, every morning, is in my garden "talking" to my trees. Krishnamurti was not kidding. There is something in nature. It is not something "out there" but within my state of awareness. Krishnamurti must have been pretty "advanced" in this sort of relating with nature. For now, I can only sense a presence.
Next stop, this morning, was with Michael Hudson on youtube to listen to what he had to say about the state of the global economy. The US is a war machine, he said. It's like a shark that must keep swimming in order to breathe in oxygen from the water flowing through its gills. War is necessary to keep our financial system from collapsing. Did you know that? Krishnamurti said nationalism causes war. The scope of our spiritual discussion in this forum is too narrow. Frankly, it is outdated. The self, namely you, is now the global system itself and no longer an individual with a name and a form. This is why you and I don't have any agency and each of us is like a helpless star stitched on the flag flapping in the wind of world affairs.
The interaction I seek here is what Krishnamurti phrased as "the mirror of relationship". When I send out a post and you reply, I get to see my image that you, the mirror, bounces back. Am I making sense?
Not much relating can be done over the internet. I learned this the hard way, 40 years ago. Very short version. My former wife, I had known her for 4 years. I've told part before. Her husband left her on Mother's day, pregnant and with a small son, he was then about 16 months old. We talked on the phone, I was looking forward to dating. Before I could ask, she said she would not date until legal separation, which I already knew took a year in NC, minimum. So we talked on the phone, twice a week. Our longest conversation by phone was 5 hours. After about 14 months, we dated. We say each other every day. Before very long I realized she was an entirely different person, in person, than just talking over the phone. So I will somewhat equate phone conversation with internet conversation, except you can obtain even more information via phone conversation than words on a screen. After knowing her for a few months, I was getting to a coin toss considering a future, 50-50. I can't go into all the factors. She also came to know I wasn't exactly ideal material for a husband. And then we got married, 15 years, until it became unbearable. After marriage things got worse, that is, we got to know each other better. In reading something a couple of weeks ago, ZD said something that impressed me. It was he and someone else's conversation. They asked him, in general, about some else's realization. He said to really know he would have to be around them for a while, to see how they interacted with people and how they acted in general. My recollection of his words, I think that's the gist of what he said. So I'm saying, don't count on any "the mirror of relationship" over the internet. The other, you can define spirituality any way you please. But if you're not on the same page as the majority of people here, you're not going to get far in conversation. People here are not too much interested in psychology, philosophy, politics or religion. Jesus put it this way, My kingdom is not of this world. The focus here is on nonduality. Your tree, nature, is the real world. Any and all conceptualization of the actual, are just copies, or copies of copies. Most people don't live in the actual but in the copies. Most people live most of their lives mediated through words, which are but copies. This ends, as I have to watch Devils on TV. |
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Post by sree on Oct 4, 2022 22:11:55 GMT -5
I will comment on your post after review. In the meantime, can you tell me why you feel that I am not sincere? Why am I here? You answered the question yourself. I am indeed here to seek interaction. I don't need it as though this is the only place in cyberspace. I talk to others elsewhere also.
First stop, every morning, is in my garden "talking" to my trees. Krishnamurti was not kidding. There is something in nature. It is not something "out there" but within my state of awareness. Krishnamurti must have been pretty "advanced" in this sort of relating with nature. For now, I can only sense a presence.
Next stop, this morning, was with Michael Hudson on youtube to listen to what he had to say about the state of the global economy. The US is a war machine, he said. It's like a shark that must keep swimming in order to breathe in oxygen from the water flowing through its gills. War is necessary to keep our financial system from collapsing. Did you know that? Krishnamurti said nationalism causes war. The scope of our spiritual discussion in this forum is too narrow. Frankly, it is outdated. The self, namely you, is now the global system itself and no longer an individual with a name and a form. This is why you and I don't have any agency and each of us is like a helpless star stitched on the flag flapping in the wind of world affairs.
The interaction I seek here is what Krishnamurti phrased as "the mirror of relationship". When I send out a post and you reply, I get to see my image that you, the mirror, bounces back. Am I making sense?
Not much relating can be done over the internet. I learned this the hard way, 40 years ago. Very short version. My former wife, I had known her for 4 years. I've told part before. Her husband left her on Mother's day, pregnant and with a small son, he was then about 16 months old. We talked on the phone, I was looking forward to dating. Before I could ask, she said she would not date until legal separation, which I already knew took a year in NC, minimum. So we talked on the phone, twice a week. Our longest conversation by phone was 5 hours. After about 14 months, we dated. We say each other every day. Before very long I realized she was an entirely different person, in person, than just talking over the phone. So I will somewhat equate phone conversation with internet conversation, except you can obtain even more information via phone conversation than words on a screen. After knowing her for a few months, I was getting to a coin toss considering a future, 50-50. I can't go into all the factors. She also came to know I wasn't exactly ideal material for a husband. And then we got married, 15 years, until it became unbearable. After marriage things got worse, that is, we got to know each other better. In reading something a couple of weeks ago, ZD said something that impressed me. It was he and someone else's conversation. They asked him, in general, about some else's realization. He said to really know he would have to be around them for a while, to see how they interacted with people and how they acted in general. My recollection of his words, I think that's the gist of what he said. So I'm saying, don't count on any "the mirror of relationship" over the internet.The other, you can define spirituality any way you please. But if you're not on the same page as the majority of people here, you're not going to get far in conversation. People here are not too much interested in psychology, philosophy, politics or religion. Jesus put it this way, My kingdom is not of this world. The focus here is on nonduality. Your tree, nature, is the real world. Any and all conceptualization of the actual, are just copies, or copies of copies. Most people don't live in the actual but in the copies. Most people live most of their lives mediated through words, which are but copies. This ends, as I have to watch Devils on TV. You are telling me that what I see is not what I get. This may be true about knowing you, as a person. But I am talking about knowing me based on your reaction to what I post.
This is an aside. Peeps here get upset when I pass judgment on them. Why is that? I would know better and not pass judgment on others out there in the real world. This is a spiritual forum. We are here to inquire into the nature of the self. How are we going to do this if we must abide by rules of conduct in the real world?
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Post by laughter on Oct 5, 2022 5:59:17 GMT -5
What? really? nah .. wouldn't 'a known ... amazing to experience actually. best thing ever but I went from 100 miles an hour to zero.. so now its back to just doing the next thing life goes on I'm still here what is that??  |
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Post by laughter on Oct 5, 2022 6:11:54 GMT -5
It seems you have given up your search, your burning question, your spiritual quest. It seems you have committed a kind of suicide, without the messiness. Why have you given up? (Have you given up?) people focus on 'the other guy' far too much, imo and how could you ever search for "what" never needs to find you?  |
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Post by laughter on Oct 5, 2022 6:30:33 GMT -5
No, I don't feel content all the time. Would you feel content being a person with no purpose other than taking care of your body: find shelter and food for it and wipe its ass everyday until it dies? You like doing this? Is this not suffering?
We all have things on our mind all the time. You are just being careful not to put your foot in your mouth.
I might have asked you this already, but why don't you give yourself a broader or more expansive purpose? What would be the problem of doing that, for you? Back in my existential civilian days.  I used to try to shift to the big picture. And then try to keep zooming out. From what we can see of the Universe the Earth is quite rare. From a benighted personal perspective, we can use the lens that the Universe creates these playgrounds, islands of riotous life, probably billions or not hundreds of billions of them right now (although the concept of simultaneity itself, in the big picture is .. different .. no star you see in the sky is now, and all are at different times, looking out is looking back in time, and on massive scales ...). It's like "God is playing dice", on a cosmic scale. What eventually "works", is what eventually "works". Then, on the biggest scale, we can anticipate the eventual heat death of the Universe. If we are here so that the "Universe can know itself", then perhaps, we might extend the life of that Universe by outliving it? So, the existential civilian, with the most expansive picture, can see a sort of choice buried in a question. It is perhaps easier to perceive this underlying, core question, with a series of multiple questions: do I care if the human race survives, if Earth survives? Is it possible that something of this Universe might outlive it at the end? If so, do I want to be a part of building, of helping and working toward that eventuality? The easy cop-out, which probably is where most existential civilians land and get stuck is "well, I'm just one person. a speck of dust. it doesn't matter". Those are the grundoons (a term Steve Bannon uses to describe menial manual laborers). Or to use a different metaphor, these are the sticks-in-the-mud. The Hobbits who never leave the Shire.
Now, for those who get past that point, the next inevitable wall is Hamlet, or, a bit more explicitly and on the bright side, Arjuna. This is where the existential civilian either stays a civilian or enlists as an existential warrior. "What am I to do? And why?".
heh heh ..  .. the mind has all sorts of survival strategies. As E' used to say, there's no outsmarting the ego ... |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Oct 5, 2022 6:51:08 GMT -5
Not much relating can be done over the internet. I learned this the hard way, 40 years ago. Very short version. My former wife, I had known her for 4 years. I've told part before. Her husband left her on Mother's day, pregnant and with a small son, he was then about 16 months old. We talked on the phone, I was looking forward to dating. Before I could ask, she said she would not date until legal separation, which I already knew took a year in NC, minimum. So we talked on the phone, twice a week. Our longest conversation by phone was 5 hours. After about 14 months, we dated. We say each other every day. Before very long I realized she was an entirely different person, in person, than just talking over the phone. So I will somewhat equate phone conversation with internet conversation, except you can obtain even more information via phone conversation than words on a screen. After knowing her for a few months, I was getting to a coin toss considering a future, 50-50. I can't go into all the factors. She also came to know I wasn't exactly ideal material for a husband. And then we got married, 15 years, until it became unbearable. After marriage things got worse, that is, we got to know each other better. In reading something a couple of weeks ago, ZD said something that impressed me. It was he and someone else's conversation. They asked him, in general, about some else's realization. He said to really know he would have to be around them for a while, to see how they interacted with people and how they acted in general. My recollection of his words, I think that's the gist of what he said. So I'm saying, don't count on any "the mirror of relationship" over the internet.The other, you can define spirituality any way you please. But if you're not on the same page as the majority of people here, you're not going to get far in conversation. People here are not too much interested in psychology, philosophy, politics or religion. Jesus put it this way, My kingdom is not of this world. The focus here is on nonduality. Your tree, nature, is the real world. Any and all conceptualization of the actual, are just copies, or copies of copies. Most people don't live in the actual but in the copies. Most people live most of their lives mediated through words, which are but copies. This ends, as I have to watch Devils on TV. You are telling me that what I see is not what I get. This may be true about knowing you, as a person. But I am talking about knowing me based on your reaction to what I post.
This is an aside. Peeps here get upset when I pass judgment on them. Why is that? I would know better and not pass judgment on others out there in the real world. This is a spiritual forum. We are here to inquire into the nature of the self. How are we going to do this if we must abide by rules of conduct in the real world?
But I'd say for 90% of the people here, when you pass judgement on them, what you say tells them more about you than it does about them. You're not dealing with ordinary people here. |
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Post by andrew on Oct 5, 2022 6:59:03 GMT -5
I might have asked you this already, but why don't you give yourself a broader or more expansive purpose? What would be the problem of doing that, for you? identifying the various components that comprise ones identity is interesting perhaps.. My question to Sree got 3 replies, all very different, and all very interesting. Your reply was actually the most abstract of the 3! Are you talking about a path of self-inquiry and investigation of the mind? If so, yeah I agree it can be interesting. For about 10 minutes lol |
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Post by andrew on Oct 5, 2022 7:10:21 GMT -5
I might have asked you this already, but why don't you give yourself a broader or more expansive purpose? What would be the problem of doing that, for you? I appreciate your question. Give myself a broader purpose? I had a broader purpose before I embarked on my spiritual quest. I was like you guys with a job and a family (girlfriend, and parents).
Wondering about what life is all about has always been a burning question. Even as a kid, I didn't think being President was such a big deal. They all create a mess, die, and are forgotten. Nothing endures. And yet, I felt that some thing good must and does. And the only way to find out is to cut out the noise and distraction of the immaterial and transient. Toss out everything that is inessential. In that bareness, an objective observation is possible; otherwise, it's just speculation.
The problem of doing what you are suggesting is living the same life that has been lived a zillion times before, in vain. However, I am not a Bourdain seeking a high in an existential tomb. He suffered the same fate of highly sensitive, talented people who had a similar disdain for their admirers. My empty tomb is not unpleasant. I go about my daily tasks minding the body in a comfortable setting. It's similar to a house-sitting job that includes caring for a living body.
When you reply to me, more than anyone else here, I notice that I then have about 10 further paths I might could explore with you. If I asked about all 10, I think I'm concerned that that 10 would then be multiplied by 10, and then I'd have a 100 paths I could explore with you lol I'll pick the one that interested me the most. The bolded. Yes, for me too, I feel that something 'good' endures. We could pick the bones out of the word 'good', but let's not. Intuitively, we share a felt sense of 'goodness'. And that reminds me of a teacher I liked called Lester Levenson, who was all about stripping away the negative conditioning. In his words...'nothing good is ever lost'. I would say that I have a broad/expanded sense of purpose, and not just in terms of my family. When I connect to this enduring sense of goodness, it often asks something of me, and I follow it, I am basically rewarded with the continued sense of goodness. And there's a micro and a macro level to this. Like Farmer has said, it can be just doing the next practical thing. But at other times, for me, it might be to sit in meditation and visualize a world of peace. To engage with a creative process that is beyond doing the next practical. I sense that you are probably a very creative person, and engaging with your creative nature would take you outside of your focus of tending to the body. Not that there's anything wrong with what you are doing, if you are basically content with your life. I think there's something to the idea, 'if it ain't broke then don't try and fix it'. So while I think you'd probably enjoy and appreciate engaging with your creativity, ultimately, you know best what is best for you. |
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Post by andrew on Oct 5, 2022 7:19:14 GMT -5
I will comment on your post after review. In the meantime, can you tell me why you feel that I am not sincere? Why am I here? You answered the question yourself. I am indeed here to seek interaction. I don't need it as though this is the only place in cyberspace. I talk to others elsewhere also.
First stop, every morning, is in my garden "talking" to my trees. Krishnamurti was not kidding. There is something in nature. It is not something "out there" but within my state of awareness. Krishnamurti must have been pretty "advanced" in this sort of relating with nature. For now, I can only sense a presence.
Next stop, this morning, was with Michael Hudson on youtube to listen to what he had to say about the state of the global economy. The US is a war machine, he said. It's like a shark that must keep swimming in order to breathe in oxygen from the water flowing through its gills. War is necessary to keep our financial system from collapsing. Did you know that? Krishnamurti said nationalism causes war. The scope of our spiritual discussion in this forum is too narrow. Frankly, it is outdated. The self, namely you, is now the global system itself and no longer an individual with a name and a form. This is why you and I don't have any agency and each of us is like a helpless star stitched on the flag flapping in the wind of world affairs.
The interaction I seek here is what Krishnamurti phrased as "the mirror of relationship". When I send out a post and you reply, I get to see my image that you, the mirror, bounces back. Am I making sense?
Not much relating can be done over the internet. I learned this the hard way, 40 years ago. Very short version. My former wife, I had known her for 4 years. I've told part before. Her husband left her on Mother's day, pregnant and with a small son, he was then about 16 months old. We talked on the phone, I was looking forward to dating. Before I could ask, she said she would not date until legal separation, which I already knew took a year in NC, minimum. So we talked on the phone, twice a week. Our longest conversation by phone was 5 hours. After about 14 months, we dated. We say each other every day. Before very long I realized she was an entirely different person, in person, than just talking over the phone. So I will somewhat equate phone conversation with internet conversation, except you can obtain even more information via phone conversation than words on a screen. After knowing her for a few months, I was getting to a coin toss considering a future, 50-50. I can't go into all the factors. She also came to know I wasn't exactly ideal material for a husband. And then we got married, 15 years, until it became unbearable. After marriage things got worse, that is, we got to know each other better. In reading something a couple of weeks ago, ZD said something that impressed me. It was he and someone else's conversation. They asked him, in general, about some else's realization. He said to really know he would have to be around them for a while, to see how they interacted with people and how they acted in general. My recollection of his words, I think that's the gist of what he said. So I'm saying, don't count on any "the mirror of relationship" over the internet. The other, you can define spirituality any way you please. But if you're not on the same page as the majority of people here, you're not going to get far in conversation. People here are not too much interested in psychology, philosophy, politics or religion. Jesus put it this way, My kingdom is not of this world. The focus here is on nonduality. Your tree, nature, is the real world. Any and all conceptualization of the actual, are just copies, or copies of copies. Most people don't live in the actual but in the copies. Most people live most of their lives mediated through words, which are but copies. This ends, as I have to watch Devils on TV. In the spirit of sharing, I've said before that me and Jenn met online in 2006. Like your experience it was intense, first online, and then on the phone. I agree that 'in person' is a whole other kettle of fish, though I'm not sure if it's because the individual that we have gotten to know on the phone is much different from 'the reality', but because reality demands so much more from individuals, than a phone call does. Real life situations bring up different aspects of our personality and conditioning. In the first couple of months of being with Jenn, in person (in America), I think I drove to the airport 3 times to leave. It was all just too hard, too much to deal with, for both of us. But each time I'd get near to the airport, a powerful force within me DEMANDED that my physical body return back to Jenn. At these times, it was absolutely clear to me that 'my choices' or 'my will' were irrelevant. There are much bigger forces at play. In a very real sense, we were stuck with each other to work out our sh/t together. Which we did (mostly...still doing it 15 years later lol). |
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