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Post by inavalan on Sept 3, 2023 15:05:20 GMT -5
Your (ZD's) question suggests that you (ZD) know " if you stub your toe on a rock", and that you know that you had the ultimate self-realization (you know the ultimate truth, whatever that might be). You may have watched, or read about demonstrations when a subject is hypnotized that his hand was burned and he developed blisters. That felt like "knowing" he was burned, although that was "believing". Reversely, one can be anesthetized into not feeling pain, "knowing" that they weren't burned, stubbed, ... To me, the merit of your question is of making your readers (maybe yourself too) think about what they believe that it happens when such an event happens, when they recall having it happened, maybe even going deeper and interpreting (intuitively) why and how it happened, and what to think / do about that. Some of the replies to your questions tried to do that. In ordinary language, we use "know" more loosely for convenience. We shouldn't do that when we claim knowing the ultimate truth. I was just curious about your ideas regarding knowing and believing. Stubbing one's toe is what the Greeks would call " direct knowing" or "gnosis" versus "intellectual knowing" or "episteme." A belief is commonly considered a strong attachment to an idea, and stubbing one's toe, or touching a hot stovetop, is "known" through the body directly and does not require belief. People also use the word "believe" to be synonymous with "know," and I wondered if that was the way you were using the words. I was also curious about the idea of knowing that one cannot know, and how that might apply to something as simple as stubbing one's toe or touching a hot stovetop. As you might surmise, I'm not very interested in abstractions. I'm always pointing to what can be discovered by turning attention away from abstractions to the direct sensory perception of "what is." To me, " direct knowing" isn't the same as " direct sensory perception", as the (5 senses) sensory perception is the perception of a subjective reality, which is almost universally and incorrectly believed to be an objective reality. To me, "direct knowing" is through your inner senses. I thought that you believe too that there is no objective reality: there are no objective toe, rock, nor stubbing event. This isn't about " abstractions", which you seem refer in a dismissive way. If you can be made "believe" through hypnotic suggestion that you stubbed your toe on a rock, that proves that " direct sensory perception" is unreliable. (it also proves that the present is the point of power) To me, " knowing" is an endless process of deeper differentiation. You can't ever reach a point of absolute knowing, because there is always one step further that unveils more. It is like a picture that continuously increases in resolution, making you perceive more details, that also reshape the forms you interpreted with less details. It isn't a cumulative process. It is true, that you can hypnotize yourself into believing anything, including that you know the absolute truth. That would be detrimental, but it will eventually be overcome. I don't mean to convince or contradict; I just attempt to clarify what I mean. To me it is worth intuitively thinking about these things. |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 3, 2023 15:59:03 GMT -5
His signature states:
Also: those described different realities, because they distorted / misinterpreted their experiences. Try again ... I said it was A or B. You're confirming it is B. Why would I try again? B = it's a mere belief, but you want to repeat it 100's of times. To be fair, you also somewhat explained why (in the quote below). So I guess you feel ZD and other here are "misleading" people: Fair enough. I meet all kinds of people who I think are deluded. Religious "fundamentalists" for example. I don't hang out with them and constantly tell them they are off-base. That would be a waste of time. |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 3, 2023 16:20:01 GMT -5
I was just curious about your ideas regarding knowing and believing. Stubbing one's toe is what the Greeks would call " direct knowing" or "gnosis" versus "intellectual knowing" or "episteme." A belief is commonly considered a strong attachment to an idea, and stubbing one's toe, or touching a hot stovetop, is "known" through the body directly and does not require belief. People also use the word "believe" to be synonymous with "know," and I wondered if that was the way you were using the words. I was also curious about the idea of knowing that one cannot know, and how that might apply to something as simple as stubbing one's toe or touching a hot stovetop. As you might surmise, I'm not very interested in abstractions. I'm always pointing to what can be discovered by turning attention away from abstractions to the direct sensory perception of "what is." [...] To me, " knowing" is an endless process of deeper differentiation. You can't ever reach a point of absolute knowing, because there is always one step further that unveils more. It is like a picture that continuously increases in resolution, making you perceive more details, that also reshape the forms you interpreted with less details. It isn't a cumulative process. [...] I suspect that's actually true, for that type of knowing. That's at the level of playing around in the 'creation', or the ever-increasing fractal manifestation, whatever it is. |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 3, 2023 16:33:20 GMT -5
Ha ha! I have my own funny bear spray story. I've been carrying bear spray with me everywhere I hike for the last twenty or thirty years. [...] Was the can 20-30 years old? Or did you mean you'd been carrying various cans for that long? My spray is in a cheap storage unit, and has probably been through too many extreme temperatures, so I should be careful with it, and check what it says about expiration. I carry a small pepper spray around because sometimes I walk through shady neighborhoods at night. Haven't had to use it yet, but I've had some close encounters. If I'm not cornered, I prefer to run. |
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Post by inavalan on Sept 3, 2023 18:05:49 GMT -5
His signature states:
Also: those described different realities, because they distorted / misinterpreted their experiences. Try again ... I said it was A or B. You're confirming it is B. Why would I try again? B = it's a mere belief, but you want to repeat it 100's of times. To be fair, you also somewhat explained why (in the quote below). So I guess you feel ZD and other here are "misleading" people: Fair enough. I meet all kinds of people who I think are deluded. Religious "fundamentalists" for example. I don't hang out with them and constantly tell them they are off-base. That would be a waste of time. I don't recall what your beliefs are, but for me this doesn't matter. Same about what you to point to. To me, it matters only how I interpret an exchange, a situation, a subject. Nobody's beliefs, as they are, can change mine, and I have no intention to change anybody else's, not even of those whom I care about a lot. I may repeat something when I think it makes sense, but not to jam it into others' minds. Zendancer's question, the cartoon I posted today, the LSD video, the Linda video, everything I experience has the potential, and the intention, to give me something to interpret intuitively, and to get something from it. To me, a religious fundamentalist isn't more mistaken in his faith than any fundamentalist, be it atheist, scientist, Buddhist, anybody who has an excessively strong belief about reality. That excessively strong belief about reality is a detrimental attitude. |
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Post by zendancer on Sept 3, 2023 18:09:04 GMT -5
Ha ha! I have my own funny bear spray story. I've been carrying bear spray with me everywhere I hike for the last twenty or thirty years. [...] Was the can 20-30 years old? Or did you mean you'd been carrying various cans for that long? My spray is in a cheap storage unit, and has probably been through too many extreme temperatures, so I should be careful with it, and check what it says about expiration. I carry a small pepper spray around because sometimes I walk through shady neighborhoods at night. Haven't had to use it yet, but I've had some close encounters. If I'm not cornered, I prefer to run. Yes, that was an extremely old can of spray, and it may simply have deteriorated over time. Needless to say, I replaced it, and have recently bought an even newer replacement. I use the chest holster rather than hip holster because it can be accessed faster, and if I'm hiking through dense forest where bears are likely present, I take the canister out, take the safety off, and carry it with my finger on the trigger. Over all the years I've been hiking in wilderness areas I've only encountered bears one time. I was hiking the mountain-to-sea-trail outside Asheville, NC and three bears came out from behind some trees uphill from me and started running down the hill toward me, but as soon as they saw me, they veered off into the undergrowth without slowing down. They weren't particularly large bears and I found it pretty exciting. I pulled out my bear spray and my camera and hoped they'd return, but they didn't. In Utah I came around a bend in a trail and came face to face with a huge mother moose and her baby moose. Needless to say, I backed away slowly and decided not to continue hiking that trail. It was way up on the side of a mountain and a moose was the last animal I expected to see up there. The coolest animal I've come across was late one afternoon hiking down from a small mountain near home. It was almost dusk and this strange animal that I had never seen before ran across the trail about 50 yards in front of me. It was covered in black fur, had a long tail, and ran in and out between the trees like a snake. I had never seen anything like it before. It was low to the ground and looked like it weighed about 25 pounds. Later I learned that it was a fisher. Apparently they went extinct in Tennessee more than 70 years ago, but foresters re-introduced them to the state about ten years ago. They're related to wolverines and weasels and are ferocious predators. They live in the tops of trees and only come down to hunt at night. I was just lucky to spot one as it was growing dark. |
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Post by andrew on Sept 3, 2023 18:14:24 GMT -5
[...] To me, " knowing" is an endless process of deeper differentiation. You can't ever reach a point of absolute knowing, because there is always one step further that unveils more. It is like a picture that continuously increases in resolution, making you perceive more details, that also reshape the forms you interpreted with less details. It isn't a cumulative process. [...] I suspect that's actually true, for that type of knowing. That's at the level of playing around in the 'creation', or the ever-increasing fractal manifestation, whatever it is. I consider it possible that physiological capacity relates to the experience of knowing 'the real'. Speculatively, other beings in other dimensions, in other simulations....may experience knowing 'the real' in a different way to us. Simply, I'd say there is a 'filter'....though paradoxically it doesn't seem at all as if there is a filter in this knowing. I guess you might be able to relate to that. The whole point of the knowing is that it is 'filterless' |
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Post by laughter on Sept 4, 2023 3:57:19 GMT -5
Though the fruits of the mind grasping are tasty and nourishing, useful. This habit presents some aspects that are detrimental. I make that last claim with trepidation because some poor souls (excuse the ND profanity) will interpret that to mean all practicality is dubious and make a mess of things. What I mean to say is that seeing Reality unencumbered, unaldulterated, requires a suspension of the proclivity to grasp or understand. This is purification. It is contact with Reality without calculation or judgment. Considerations like "is this real or not," "is this caused or not" make for interesting discussion and might, I repeat might, gunk up the mental works enough to grind it dead, but repetition in this case is not likely to bear fruit. I see many here practicing a sort of ND jargon whack-a-mole therapy that probably says more about your inability to teach than you're willing to admit and has the opposite intended effect, sending seekers running for the hills instead of listening. Peace, kind of. In the words of those great purveyors of nonduality, Pink Floyd: "Hey Teacher! Leave those Buddhists alone!" If you want to make fun, do us purifiers a favor, look in the mirror. If you really see yourselves, you'll have a hearty laugh, like the many we've had on this thread. Come back ouro! Sorry dude. Jokes on you this time. Funny idea that anyone has any intention or is making any effort to teach.  |
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Post by Reefs on Sept 4, 2023 9:11:23 GMT -5
Re: the reincarnation, atman/soul topic... Watts made some good points in his Bhagavad Gita talk: IOW, the point of power is in the NOW. There is only NOW. I don't think that "there is only NOW". This conscious-I recalls a past created by its subconscious in the present, according to its current beliefs, expectations, level of evolvement, in the same way its subconscious creates its future also considering the conscious-I's choices in the present. This doesn't mean that it has no past, nor that it doesn't matter, but that it just doesn't recall it as it experienced it, which is the case for the majority of people, because of the conditioning in this society. Subconsciously the lessons accumulate. Also, the whole self (that includes all one's incarnations) recalls all its incarnations as they were, and whatever it experienced during its dreams, and between lives, incomparably more vividly than we "recall" now the past our subconscious creates in our individual present. The "Eternal NOW" is just a pretentious formulation for the fact that most of us, while alive, don't consciously recall the past we actually experienced. It doesn't have to be this way. You are confusing 'the present' with the 'eternal Now'. |
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Post by Reefs on Sept 4, 2023 9:12:14 GMT -5
TMT. The question I asked, I meant it literally. Just take a highway mirage as an example. I'm sure you've encountered something like this:  Where does the mirage go after you've realized that it is a mirage? My example is "Where does your fist go when you open your hand?" Awesome! |
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Post by Reefs on Sept 4, 2023 9:40:52 GMT -5
Yes, they didn't pay the price and also apparently didn't suffered enough. Not fair! It's the exact same kind of thinking you'll encounter in the deliberate creation context, i.e. there's a price to pay, no pain no gain. But in reality, there is no price to pay and there is also no gain in pain. Alignment (with your desire) is the only requirement. There are certainly people who follow that pattern. Expecting a reward, or punishments for others, getting pissed if others appear to have too much fun, or don't suffer. But that's something like "Puritanism". I wasn't detecting that from Lolly, or from the 20 or so quotes about "purification" in I Am That. I admit I didn't read all the posts here. But it's possible to just notice 'purification' as a thing that's happening and that's interesting. Different uses of the "puri-" words. My comment was more a general comment, not directed at our purifiers specifically. I encounter this 'no gain no pain' attitude regularly when I talk to people about LOA. It seems to be the default mode of operation of 99.9% of people, after having been successfully socialized. And it's usually quite a challenge to show people the flaw in that logic, that there is no gain in pain and that there is no price to pay, that they don't have to prove their own worthiness to anyone, not even God. So, naturally, people come with this exact same approach to spirituality. And here, the 'no pain no gain approach' is even more ridiculous. There is no price to pay. You don't have to prove your worthiness to God. Remember what Niz said: "God is my devotee". So at the root of all of the efforting, both in terms of deliberate creation and liberation, is some kind of existential inferiority complex, i.e. ignorance of your true nature. |
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Post by Reefs on Sept 4, 2023 9:44:54 GMT -5
I don't think that "there is only NOW". This conscious-I recalls a past created by its subconscious in the present, according to its current beliefs, expectations, level of evolvement, in the same way its subconscious creates its future also considering the conscious-I's choices in the present. This doesn't mean that it has no past, nor that it doesn't matter, but that it just doesn't recall it as it experienced it, which is the case for the majority of people, because of the conditioning in this society. Subconsciously the lessons accumulate. Also, the whole self (that includes all one's incarnations) recalls all its incarnations as they were, and whatever it experienced during its dreams, and between lives, incomparably more vividly than we "recall" now the past our subconscious creates in our individual present. The "Eternal NOW" is just a pretentious formulation for the fact that most of us, while alive, don't consciously recall the past we actually experienced. It doesn't have to be this way. Memories are thoughts/experiences in consciousness, now. All thoughts about the past, present, or future happen in consciousness, now. The pointer "There is only Now" has nothing to do with whether you can remember the past or not. Correct. |
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Post by Reefs on Sept 4, 2023 9:50:40 GMT -5
There is only oneness (not-two to be more accurate) or THIS, and it is what we are. It is either realized/recognized or not. Duality only exists in imagination. As you noted, it has nothing to do with beliefs. Beliefs are nothing more than strong attachments to ideas. To grok the isness of THIS requires an intuitive shift. All those are beliefs, and are to some degree incorrect, and I believe I understand where they're coming from (cellular consciousness). Anybody who says he knows anything, besides that he exists, and that there is change, is mistaken. Jesus, Buddha, all sages, all channelers, all were convinced of knowing, but each one knew it differently. So do you, and the others who believe to know, like my brother in law's baptist mother about god, like my niece about Santa, like almost all people about reality, science, etc.. We can only believe. We can't know. If you know, then you are mistaken, and it is detrimental to you. Everybody has the right to believe whatever the can, even that they know. My critique comes when somebody states his beliefs with the intention to influence others misleading them, even when unconsciously doing it, even if that happens with the tacit agreement from those others' inner selves. That's a good start for getting an idea of what we are pointing to. This is what Niz meant when he told seekers to adhere to the "I am". Because the seeker perspective (which is the VR headset perspective) is basically 100% imaginary, except for one thing: the sense of being, the "I am". |
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Post by Reefs on Sept 4, 2023 10:08:05 GMT -5
If, by 'enlightenment' you mean having realized your true nature, then #3 is illogical. And #4 should be rephrased, because enlightenment this is the realm of (absolute) knowing, not mere believing. I understand that you "know" differently, but I stick to what I wrote. You have the right to believe you are at #4, and I have the right to believe that you are at #1. There is nothing to argue here, just expressing points of view. Problem though is that I don't actually believe that and wouldn't actually say that. It's an odd statement. So thanks for the strawman. But I have to decline. |
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Post by Reefs on Sept 4, 2023 10:25:14 GMT -5
Out of curiosity, if you stub your toe on a rock, do you believe you stubbed your toe or do you know that you stubbed your toe? I don't think that analogy is going to work with him, because a person can spin out of it with ideas like, well, you can be dreaming that you stubbed your toe, or "stubbing toe" is a overlaid interpretation on raw sensory experience, which in a way is unreal – dream experience. But I think Inavalan wrote before that there are a couple things that aren't beliefs - like your bare sense of being. That's what Niz said : the only thing that can't be doubted is the bare "I Am", so it can be a doorway. Perhaps that's the way for Inavalan. That's the way I see it too. However, there seems to be no interest in going thru that door. Instead, Inavalan turns around and goes right back into imagination. |
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