Ecstasy: Friend or Foe?

[Ryan Rudolph]

Scientifically speaking when one hears a beautiful piece of music, sometimes this can ignite bursts of Ecstasy. This usually happens in songs that are able to reach the high notes and stay there.

And I've heard of people that are able to induce ecstasy simply by thinking about weird occurrences in their life that they were unable to fully explain within the cause and effect framework.

However I'm quite skeptical of this phenomenon. It can evolve into a habitual mechanical thing that the person uses to derive confidence, delusions of grandeur and feelings of omnipotence.

But you cannot call it an emotion because it doesn’t behave like one, it comes in waves and bursts that explode from the center of ones being and emanate in all directions.

I remember as a child I was able to induce it in myself when I prayed. What is funny is that I even confessed to a girl that I experienced "religious feelings" I took it fairly seriously, so seriously in fact that I vowed to behave myself in sunday school as a means to please god and keep receiving the esctasy. Although I didnt keep my promise as I continued to behave like a goofball.

Esctasy is a powerful thing, it's able to bring tears to the eyes.

Apparently Hitler's speeches caused bursts of group esctasy in the crowds.

And Jim Morrison concerts were known to cause the same sort of group eurphoria.

What do you have to say about Ecstasy Can we get to the bottom of it?

[sschaula]

Ecstacy is like the devil.

It comes as an angel...you love feeling it. Then you realize what it is...a pain in the ass because the higher the high, the lower the low. You don't like only sometimes feeling great. Then you begin your search for an all time ecstacy. Enlightenment.

That's probably how I got to this forum. Either that, or I was just stumbling around cyber space and tripped over this place.

I don't mind ecstacy, though. Just as I don't mind the idea of the devil. A thing that tempts me, taunts me, pokes and prods me with its pitchfork. It's just a part of me, as a human being.

We each have a little devil in us, which is the voice that plays against our conscience. Your conscience says, "Do the right thing" and our little devil says, "How about you do the wrong thing instead? You'll probably feel ecstacy!"

Wisdom says, "Seek the truth."
Ecstacy says, "Avoid it and snort some meth."

[suergaz]

c-p:

And I've heard of people that are able to induce ecstasy simply by thinking about weird occurrences in their life that they were unable to fully explain within the cause and effect framework.

(:D)-I---<

[Lost Prophet]

Ecstasy is an emotion like any other. Not inherently friend or foe, but can take on the appearance of either.

[Ryan Rudolph]

Lost Prophet wrote:

Ecstasy is an emotion like any other. Not inherently friend or foe, but can take on the appearance of either.

Yes, but if a seeker of truth is addicted to deriving ecstasy through different means that it is very well is a foe and needs to be treated as one.

[Lost Prophet]

Yet one cannot rid oneself of ecstasy or any other emotion, regardless of what they do. Treating them as foes merely heightens one's attachment to them.

The emotions need to be understood for what they are. They cannot be fought as such. Those efforts are doomed to failure.

[Ryan Rudolph]

Lost P wrote:

The emotions need to be understood for what they are.

We are just going around in cycles. Suppose I am attached to deriving ecstasy through a variety of different means. To be free from it, I must recognize the fact that I am attached and in this sense it is a foe. I must freely observe the behavior and face up to it completely. This is the only possible way that the behavior can end. And some behaviors are so heavily conditioned into the individual that they are incredibly difficult to end.

[Lost Prophet]

I think what you are missing is that all attachments fall away on their own once Truth is ingrained in your psyche. Forcing attachments away or fighting them as the enemy never worked for anyone.

You must fight the problem at the root instead of the branches.

[swan]

Ecstasy by itself is neutral: is it overwhelming joy something that defines a genius? or something that goes agaisnt it's character? i believe it doesn't.
The "issues" with ecstasy would be:

how you get it?
Ecstasy gotten by hurting the spirit and hindering the awareness of self could be considered counter productive for the genius, for the genius understanding is the must, an ecstasy that takes away from us that characteristic it's harmful. But an ecstasy that is the product of the understanding or the awareness of self becomes the "reward" for the action.

how dependant you become of it?
If you live only to feel above the clouds, if you seek knowledge and understanding only to rise up to the skies then perphaps you're a no different than a drug-addict, difference is that you get your pleasure from understanding. (It would be a good topic: if we think for the prize or if we think for the thinking itself).

[Sapius]

Swan wrote:

Ecstasy by itself is neutral: is it overwhelming joy something that defines a genius? or something that goes agaisnt it's character? i believe it doesn't.
The "issues" with ecstasy would be:

how you get it?
Ecstasy gotten by hurting the spirit and hindering the awareness of self could be considered counter productive for the genius, for the genius understanding is the must, an ecstasy that takes away from us that characteristic it's harmful. But an ecstasy that is the product of the understanding or the awareness of self becomes the "reward" for the action.

how dependant you become of it?
If you live only to feel above the clouds, if you seek knowledge and understanding only to rise up to the skies then perphaps you're a no different than a drug-addict, difference is that you get your pleasure from understanding.

A well thought post that would help see an emotion for what it is. However...

(It would be a good topic: if we think for the prize or if we think for the thinking itself)

Think for the thinking itself, doesn't make sense.

I don’t think one thinks for the thinking itself, because any and every thought is necessarily a self-centered thought, i.e. emanating from the “I” of the mind, and one cannot think that out of existence, however temporary it may exist due to casual conditions. Hence, the “I” finds pleasure in absolutely anything that emanates form it, even the pleasure of thinking itself, but not just for the sake of thinking itself.

Hence, it is always necessarily for the “prize”, satisfaction, be it a person who gives away his life for any cause or reason, even saying no reason at all is a reason in itself. Or a person who gives away every thing that he has, which basically satisfies his self-values more that any thing else. There is no sacrifice or action that does not give a sense of satisfaction to the self, or the hope of it, and acts accordingly.

Doing particularly something just for the sake of pleasure is quite another thing. One wouldn’t need much thoughtfulness there any ways, which goes against the thinking of a thoughtful person.

If none have said it yet, Welcome, Swan.

.

[swan]

Swan wrote:

Ecstasy by itself is neutral: is it overwhelming joy something that defines a genius? or something that goes agaisnt it's character? i believe it doesn't.
The "issues" with ecstasy would be:

how you get it?
Ecstasy gotten by hurting the spirit and hindering the awareness of self could be considered counter productive for the genius, for the genius understanding is the must, an ecstasy that takes away from us that characteristic it's harmful. But an ecstasy that is the product of the understanding or the awareness of self becomes the "reward" for the action.

how dependant you become of it?
If you live only to feel above the clouds, if you seek knowledge and understanding only to rise up to the skies then perphaps you're a no different than a drug-addict, difference is that you get your pleasure from understanding.

A well thought post that would help see an emotion for what it is. However...

(It would be a good topic: if we think for the prize or if we think for the thinking itself)

Think for the thinking itself, doesn't make sense.

I don’t think one thinks for the thinking itself, because any and every thought is necessarily a self-centered thought, i.e. emanating from the “I” of the mind, and one cannot think that out of existence, however temporary it may exist due to casual conditions. Hence, the “I” finds pleasure in absolutely anything that emanates form it, even the pleasure of thinking itself, but not just for the sake of thinking itself.

Hence, it is always necessarily for the “prize”, satisfaction, be it a person who gives away his life for any cause or reason, even saying no reason at all is a reason in itself. Or a person who gives away every thing that he has, which basically satisfies his self-values more that any thing else. There is no sacrifice or action that does not give a sense of satisfaction to the self, or the hope of it, and acts accordingly.

Doing particularly something just for the sake of pleasure is quite another thing. One wouldn’t need much thoughtfulness there any ways, which goes against the thinking of a thoughtful person.

It makes sense, thought could be seen as our "survival tool" for the living, and thinking for just the mere fact of doing so would become an appendix. But still could hypothetically speaking a purposeless thought be concieved?

If none have said it yet, Welcome, Swan.

.

no, you're the first. Thank you

[Sapius]

Swan wrote:

It makes sense, thought could be seen as our "survival tool" for the living,

Sure it is, and at the same time, it is for nature, for what else drives nature except its blind self-survival, all things being tools, without exceptions. A blind strife to simply go on, which by its own making cannot be or do otherwise.

But still could hypothetically speaking a purposeless thought be conceived?

I'm not quite sure what you mean, I can’t think of an example, can you? However, any thought itself, could be considered as a matter of natures survival. Nature, however perfect from the Totality point of view, apparently survives through trials and errors, and in the wake, it does leave behind the extinct. A thought that wouldn’t serve its "purpose" would be treated in a similar manner.

Please note, that does not mean that Nature has any meaningful purpose behind its surviving, it simply IS what it IS. It has no human traits, although all is its creation. It cannot be considered a Thing, for there is nothing beyond it to compare and consider it as such, and only things may have any particular traits.

[swan]

Swan wrote:


I'm not quite sure what you mean, I can’t think of an example, can you? However, any thought itself, could be considered as a matter of natures survival. Nature, however perfect from the Totality point of view, apparently survives through trials and errors, and in the wake, it does leave behind the extinct. A thought that wouldn’t serve its "purpose" would be treated in a similar manner.

I agree on that, but what i mean it's like if in theory could we conceive a thought without meaning, purpose, end, like something random, not forced (even if in terms of evolution it would simply cease to exist).

Situation: you have your mind completely blanck, you're not thinking, you are isolated from all stimuli, you have no memory, can you think? can something come out of the blue so speaking?...perphaps this is unconciable for us because our thought is purpose/stimuli driven, but could it happen? and if it did what kind of thought would it be? could we call it a pure thought, because it is truly something from you?

*Note thought is used connoting a conscious thought, i.e. right now :P*
Maybe we can't concieve such a thought because we're taking away some of the major things that define us as humans.

[Sapius]

Swan,

Maybe we can't conceive such a thought because we're taking away some of the major things that define us as humans.

I’m glad you found that out on your own, by simply analyzing it. So look at it as any thought is necessarily caused by something else, just as every thing else in Totality is. Even the thought of…

like if in theory could we conceive a thought without meaning, purpose, end, like something random, not forced (even if in terms of evolution it would simply cease to exist).

...is necessarily caused out of the curiosity of knowing if that is possible, it is the nature of the mind, and what helps us is our analytical logic to know if indeed that is possible or not. Obviously it doesn’t seem to be so, so the question of a "purposeless" thought simply ceasing to exist doesn’t even arise.

Nothing is random or "forced", since all things arise due to casual conditions of the moment.

.