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Post by karen on Jun 9, 2010 20:42:25 GMT -5
Per Burt's request below from this thread, I'm starting a new one. Here are the pertinent quotes: Karen: Hi  When I am reading an opinion, like a review or evaluation of something, the point of view of the writer is relevant. Also the persons background because it is a contributing factor. If I say something is good and rate it a 10 out of 10, is it because I personally liked it? because I thought it is valuable for others? because I would like to see more material like it and want to encourage that? because I want to discuss it with outhers? And how qualified am I to rate it? Have I been studying or involved in the area for a few years? and has my background been broad or narowly focused? I don't think these things are that important in general. But when it comes to rating and judging some material publically, I would want to know some of this. Hi Burt, from my perspective I am the only one qualified to judge spiritual teachers because I am the only one here. When I say I am the only one here, I do not mean some "fancy spiritual" concept, but rather that I am the only one in my subjective experience - which regarding this stuff is all that matters. I really had to discard the idea that anyone else is more qualified than I. Because even if they are more qualified, I have no way to access that qualification except through my subjective understanding. The only thing others can do is point. If I have poor discernment, I will not know who is pointing to truth or the murky depths. Discernment, IMO, comes form looking within. Not reading many books or getting a credential somewhere. In that way I meant that it really doesn't matter about others' qualifications. Hi Burt, I'm curious about this warning of yours. Could you expend on it? Are you referring to "I am the only one in my subjective experience" as the possible myopic POV? If so, where is the danger that I must be careful? This is not a warning, it is more of a figure of speech. Being myopic, or seeing things from a very narrow point of view only, can obscure the truth, or the big picture-another figure of speech there. There is no danger implied. Karen, I do not mind continuing this discussion with you but I would ask that it is not in this thread, since we are now far from the Norquist book. It's funny that you should mention this - that focusing on one's subjective experience only "can obscure the truth, or the big picture". I was thinking about this myself the last few weeks - that logically it would seem to do so. However, with me at least, this is not the case. Focusing on my subjective experience and perception only gives me the widest possible perspective. I have a hunch as to why that is. Think about it: anyone else's point of view that I may care to contemplate, needs to be filtered through my subjective experience/perception. Nothing escapes this. Nothing. But when I focus on anothers' point of view forgetting myself and my perceptions, I am actually contracting my attention far more narrow than if I had just kept my attention on my subjective experience. It seems paradoxical, but I've found it to be true-ish: the big picture isn't "out-there". It's right there in your intimate subjective experience. |
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Post by karen on Jun 9, 2010 20:57:01 GMT -5
BTW, I should mention that I don't maintain that POV all the time. I get sucked down into lessor POV's most the time. But I strive to maintain it as log as possible as much as possible.
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lobo
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Post by lobo on Jun 9, 2010 21:57:26 GMT -5
Hi Karen
In one sense, ones experience is always subjective.
Here is another data point to consider. Two or more people can "occupy the same mind stream" for lack of a better phrase. That is, they can have the same thoughts streaming through the mind at the same time. This is similar to having the same visual sensory input. But their experience is still subjective, I would expect. I'm not sure how it could be proven otherwise.
But there are multiple perspectives within ones own self-experience. There is the purely absorbed experience where ones attention is completely absorbed in the experience. This is purely subjective for sure. And there are levels of internal objectivity. One can notice that one is having a subjective experience. And one can be aware that there is observation happening. And although not personal, this has a subjective feel to it. At that point, no matter what arises, it feels intimately subjective even though all perspectives are contained within the one field of awareness.
This is what happens when perspective is allowed to expand. My remark about what happens when ones perspective is too narowly focused, myopic, like too close to obtain perspective, would relate to the first layer of being completely absorbed in experience, which is totally subjective.
So I just went back and re-read your latest comments. I think we may be in agreement.
I wouldn't suggest focusing on anothers point of view either, because as you mention, that would be filtered through your own conditioned beliefs. But this process of going within has a feel of expanding to include everything.
All perspectives that one can take are still ones perspectives in relation to what is "out there", until the perspective includes everything so the "out there" is the same as "in here".
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Post by Guest on Jun 9, 2010 22:49:10 GMT -5
Can you define what Subjective means?
Can you define what objective means?
Just seems to be alot of different meanings for these words, when you mention them what do you mean by them?
Please give the correct definitions, thanks.
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Post by karen on Jun 9, 2010 23:13:59 GMT -5
Ah yes Burt I think I get where you are coming from. If I were to mean subjective experiences - like individual nouns, objects - that would indeed be myopic. But looking at my continuing subjective experience - always there - never different, as a verb: this was where I was pointing.
As a tangent, it's odd how the use of term "awareness" to me seems like a concept, but "my subjective experience/perceiving" does not, and there is life there.
An individual idiosyncrasy.
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Post by karen on Jun 9, 2010 23:22:31 GMT -5
Can you define what Subjective means? Can you define what objective means? Just seems to be alot of different meanings for these words, when you mention them what do you mean by them? Please give the correct definitions, thanks. Hi guest. You're right. Words mean different things to different people. I'm afraid I cannot give any correct definitions, but I will try to expand on what I mean. When I say subjective experience, I mean something that is immediate and always now. Not in some grand way, but in the most basic ways. And objective experience to me is always relative and filtered through thought/concepts/belief. Some people value the empirical objective world more than their own subjective reality. But the empirical is clearly based on a daisy-chain of assumptions which are filtered through their own subjective experience. |
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Post by karen on Jun 9, 2010 23:26:19 GMT -5
I'd like to add on Burt's points: Here is another data point to consider. Two or more people can "occupy the same mind stream" for lack of a better phrase. That is, they can have the same thoughts streaming through the mind at the same time. This is similar to having the same visual sensory input. But their experience is still subjective, I would expect. I'm not sure how it could be proven otherwise. I really don't know any of that above. I have no experience of it as being true or false, so I will leave that in more capable hands. |
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lobo
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Post by lobo on Jun 10, 2010 7:51:30 GMT -5
Karen, this kind of thing happens all the time and one can learn to recognize it. There are experiments you can do to test and verify it. It is not recognized most of the time because we are so into our own point of view that we are myopic This kind of thing, and other things like it are interesting and valuable data points because they are outside of what is commonly believed. One has to be open to the possibility or they will be filtered out by ones own beliefs and conditining. There are many more examples of this, like mind to mind transmission, telepathy, seeing something before it happens in a dream,.....these are what could be called subjective experiences for the one having them but the line is not clearly drawn between inside and outside once the experience is shared with another "something or someone" normally considered outside ones own mind. |
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Post by ravenscroft on Jun 10, 2010 8:22:24 GMT -5
Burt this is a good point Hi Karen ones experience is always subjective. no such thing as an "object perspective" The very nature of perspective is contextual and thus always untrue Alan Watts used to the say "we are the apertures through which the universe views itself" - but where his approach was incorrect was that the very existence of this lense makes everything it sees wrong all the time (since the number 2 does not exists) - we can't fix the lense nor can we clean it - we can't meditate to transcend the lense - we can only break the lense - no lense=no-self an no one is around to see anything after that  |
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lobo
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Post by lobo on Jun 10, 2010 8:23:53 GMT -5
Karen, the title of this thread just begs the question of who are you? Using the subjective/objective dividing line one defines onself within ones own experience or conciousness. So one can take on many different points of view. But the ultimate view of unconditioned awareness (or the non-dual view, or undivided ) has no distinction. This state is the ground of being and probably everyone touches it all the time (frequently), but most do not recognize it and that is the key in spiritual work. When one is not doing antyhing for a moment, silently touching that space, the mind-ego will re-mind you LOL to re-engage in your separate beliefs ........ So I would say ultimately you are not alone in your subjective experience, you just think you are sometimes You dream it all up. Surely that can be attacked as some sort of non-dual psychobabble. LOL But it will always sound that way as mere words. In my own experience, putting attention on what is ultimately experiencing or "aware", questioning beliefs, finding and examining these counter-examples to commonly held beliefs... these help create recognition of the ground of being. It is like learning a new way to move through the world, to be in the world. or maybe it is just un-learning |
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Post by karen on Jun 10, 2010 10:35:07 GMT -5
Karen, this kind of thing happens all the time and one can learn to recognize it. There are experiments you can do to test and verify it. It is not recognized most of the time because we are so into our own point of view that we are myopic This kind of thing, and other things like it are interesting and valuable data points because they are outside of what is commonly believed. One has to be open to the possibility or they will be filtered out by ones own beliefs and conditining. There are many more examples of this, like mind to mind transmission, telepathy, seeing something before it happens in a dream,.....these are what could be called subjective experiences for the one having them but the line is not clearly drawn between inside and outside once the experience is shared with another "something or someone" normally considered outside ones own mind. Hi Burt. I'm open to what comes to me. But I can find no good reason to clutter up my mind with beliefs of the stuff you mention. If it comes, great. If not, great. |
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Post by karen on Jun 10, 2010 10:52:18 GMT -5
Karen, the title of this thread just begs the question of who are you? Using the subjective/objective dividing line one defines onself within ones own experience or conciousness. Not really. The objective is clearly based in ignorance and need not even be considered. I sense we are at a gulf in understanding here that my writing doesn't seem to bridge. But I am pointing to something beyond a concept. Maybe if the words come I'll rewrite. If they don't I will just continue with my practice anyway. |
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lobo
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Post by lobo on Jun 10, 2010 12:14:09 GMT -5
Hi Karen,
I am not suggesting you believe anything. Quite the contrary. WHat I am pointing out is that expeiences that do not fit are very worth paying attention to, rather than filtering out.
Whatever your experience is, that is what you work with. The experiences I describe may mean nothing to you. It is just my attempt to illustrate with an example from my life.
I keep trying to communicate with you and sometimes it seems like these messages do get tossed over the fence, and then tossed back again without any real connection being made.
I do admit that I feel somewhat of an oblifgation to respond with the hope that some common understanding can be achieved. But I don't know if you are getting what I am trying to communicate either.
Also, if you do not want your paradigm shaken, then don't look at or look for things that do not fit. But sometimes they just poke through, and I personally take that as a blessing.
Let me ask you this. Have you ever had an experience that is not explainable by any rational means? or whatever you you may consider normal in your state of conciousness at the time? And what did that cause in you? anything?
In my experience, these things are not uncommon, and I just don't know what to do with them mostly. So they fade away, until something happens and they can be seen in a new light.
The new light is not a new belief, but the releasing of an old belief.
An example. The belief in causality.
When I was young, about 12 or 13, I had a vision, similar to a dayream, but not self directed, so I say a vision. I was in a car with a woman and some children. I saw very clearly the car in detail. Also the other people in the car and the feeling of being there in relationship to them. It was a very clear, distinct, and memorable experience. About 15 years or so later I remembered this vision. I owned that very car, and I was driving in it with my family. At that point it was deja-vu and previously a premonition, but not vague and fuzzy at all. Very sharp and clear. What does the mind do with it? hey cool, or wierd, or just not knowing what to do with it, in fact what can you do? Well, there is no way I could have made up all the details that far ahead of time, and any day dreaming is never sharp and clear like that was.
For me now, it is just one more piece that defies conventional wisdom. I have had many experiences that point to the lack of causality or lack of free will for this character in this life. But in normal waking conciousness I still operate from that paradigm, until I catch myself and then I can suspend judgement, question, and watch or experience from a wider perspective. This falls under the heading of inquiry for me, a broad catagory. It helps me to let go a little, and every little bit helps.
Anyway, this may not mean anything to you. But this is actually a very definite practice of using the mind to circumscribe the mind, using the mind to find its own limitations. What does the mind do when it is faced with a paradox? If it has been seen clearly enough it can bring a recognition and a silence, even if just for a time, beofore distraction once again attracts and captures the attention.
But the rest state, the ground state of being, if you will, is this undefined state of pure awareness. I should say this is my experience.
Do you believe, or thinnk that there is an absolute truth? or state? one that each one will experience the same?
Personally I think that is a concept that hangs on from the old paradigm. Nothing can be said about the undefined state at all, becasue it is a paradox from the minds point of view.
Maybe that is why it is so hard to communicate ....
whatever happens ffom here, I wish you the best
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Post by karen on Jun 10, 2010 13:21:37 GMT -5
Burt this further proves that I must write very poorly since you seem to be responding to points I didn't mean to make. It is not that I "dissagree" with your points, but rather that I'm puzzled by their relevance to my points.
So you need not expand. I think I got your points. But it's quite clear to me my point was never made competently.
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lobo
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Post by lobo on Jun 10, 2010 22:18:36 GMT -5
Karen,
It is quite possible that I did not respond to some of your questions. I thought I was being "called on the carpet" in some sense. I am a little new to this but I do believe that having your thinking questioned is valuable.
Should I question you more?
I will answer your questions.
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Karen: Hi 
