Thought is the problem

[maestro]

Thought is a mechanism that has monopolized the human organism for its perpetuation.

Instead of living in the real physical world, where there are no divisions and there is no knowledge, humans live in a a world of labels and divisions. The dualistic existence does have its uses; the problem is the monopoly that this dualistic existence has over humans.

Thought creates all the problems and the duality, which it then tries to overcome, in the absence of thought there is no right or wrong or good or bad.

Like a snake eating its tail, thought's project of solving all of its problems cannot come to a conclusion. The problems were created by itself in the first place, and its divisive actions ensure that problems never end.

Without thoughts there are no problems, and no duality. This is not possible without thought stepping aside, at least for brief moments.

A normal person's state is thought bound, an enlightened person's default state is without thought, one with nature, though he switches to the thought based divisive state freely, while it is impossible for the normal person to go to the thought free existence, except through drugs such as LSD. In short the fascism of thought has come to an end in the enlightened person, it functions as one of the many intertwining systems that make the human.

Given that thought is the dictator of the human organism, it itself is the one that can step aside, and diminish its importance. Why will it do that? Unless thought's universe has become too painful, it will not even try. There is a strong link between crisis and seeking.

An interesting video to accompany these musings.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jill ... sight.html

[Carl G]

Most of us actually do very little thinking. This is not to say there is not mental activity; there is, and indeed for most of us it tends to be excessive. It prevents us from consciousness, clarity, and being present in the moment. But this mental activity is mostly free association, mostly unconscious, which is very different from actual thought.

Regarding the video, the lady has an extremely annoying voice, and after watching half of it I realized that not one thing she said did I find remotely interesting. What did you get out of it?

[maestro]

Most of us actually do very little thinking. This is not to say there is not mental activity; there is, and indeed for most of us it tends to be excessive. It prevents us from consciousness, clarity, and being present in the moment. But this mental activity is mostly free association, mostly unconscious, which is very different from actual thought.

In the sense of rational thought it is true. But there is not a moment free of automatic thinking.

Regarding the video, the lady has an extremely annoying voice, and after watching half of it I realized that not one thing she said did I find remotely interesting. What did you get out of it?

I seemed to fit in with the theme of what I was saying.

[Shahrazad]

That was an awesome video, maestro. She experienced what it is like to have no memories, no concept of self, and no boundaries to your body. Just one with the universe, and yet retaining your consciousness. So cool.

[mansman]

zad,

That was an awesome video, maestro. She experienced what it is like to have no memories, no concept of self, and no boundaries to your body. Just one with the universe, and yet retaining your consciousness. So cool.

A quick peruse of her MY STROKE OF INSIGHT book ought to decide the matter with good confidence, but darn it im unable to locate any pages on the WWW.
Buying/owning id rather avoid, besides im not too keen on contributing to her amassing wealth, smart business woman that she is.
Has anyone here (yes you!) got this book, or know where passages may be viewed?
Has anyone Awakened (the fab four comes to mind) already read the thing able to confirm its mostly crap?
(the Ophra reference is worrisome)

cg,

Regarding the video, the lady has an extremely annoying voice, and after watching half of it I realized that not one thing she said did I find remotely interesting.

I think you missed the better half.
Im amazed you were put off by her voice, it never occurred to me. Can you say what about it annoyed you-- was it sound, content, method of expression, reminds you of someone you wish were dead????

I get this too with certain voices, for me its when one speaks from the throat area not from deep within the lungs usually insecure American girls, also put off by loud aggressive voices especially male.

Anyone else dislike anything about this lady's presentation? (link at top post, bottom)
Thought i'd read it's the most popular video on their network, shiit there are like a thousand comments attached to it!
Maybe you're just clowning with us, eh fella?

I find it interesting for a couple of reasons.
For one the situation was out of her hands with no mysterious or religious catalyst,
plus its far more plausible than having actually worked her way there (to NIRVANA of all places!).

Im hoping at the very least for a mixed bag of experiences, both real and outrageous.
The world still awaits its first queen divine!
M

[Shahrazad]

Has anyone Awakened (the fab four comes to mind) already read the thing able to confirm its mostly crap?

What? Is there a fourth person? Do elaborate.

[Cory Duchesne]

A normal person's state is thought bound, an enlightened person's default state is without thought, one with nature

I doubt this very much. The enlightened person you speak of is thought bound, but the nature of the thinking is significantly different. It's just a different way of thinking, a way of thinking that has as many debilitating limitations as the more 'left brained' way of thinking.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jill ... sight.html

A mystical experience triggered by brain malfunction is always a fascinating subject for me, so I was pleased to hear her story. Although, I think she's a little naive and arrogant to think that people can simply 'make the choice' to slip into their right brains. I think that ever since her recovery, her passion largely comes from the memory of the mystical experience, rather than the ability to slip into the mystical state she speaks of. I could be wrong of course, and am very much interested in hearing more about her present condition.

[marcothay]

Don't worry dear maestro,
many people are stuck on prejudices and on "confirmation bias"
In my experience they will never try to see what a change of view point could result in,
it doesn't matter what you are trying to demonstrate.
They can't even ponder on it, only because they consider to be like animals and we know that
animals can't ponder about their own existence.

Same as you can't convince an animal to change his view point, you can't convince a human
being who is CONSIDERING himself being part of an animal species ( a product of this universe)
to try to change his view point.

CONSIDERATIONS are very powerful.
As an example, think about "placebo effect" in a trial of a new medicine!
No one is testing placebo effect in animals! Why?

[Shahrazad]

Cory said,

A mystical experience triggered by brain malfunction is always a fascinating subject for me, so I was pleased to hear her story.

Nowhere in the speech does she refer to her stroke as a mystical experience. All that she says is that she was functioning with one brain hemisphere instead of two. There was no mysticism there.

[Cory Duchesne]

Cory said,

A mystical experience triggered by brain malfunction is always a fascinating subject for me, so I was pleased to hear her story.

Nowhere in the speech does she refer to her stroke as a mystical experience. All that she says is that she was functioning with one brain hemisphere instead of two. There was no mysticism there.

You apparently don't know very much about what is generally referred to as a mystical experience.

These few excerpts from her talk are quite suggestive of a generic mystical experience:

it was as though my consciousness had shifted away from my normal perception of reality, where I'm the person on the machine having the experience, to some esoteric space where I'm witnessing myself having this experience.

Out of body experience and an esoteric sensibility. Check.

I can no longer define the boundaries of my body. I can't define where I begin and where I end. Because the atoms and the molecules of my arm blended with the atoms and molecules of the wall. And all I could detect was this energy. Energy. And I'm asking myself, "What is wrong with me, what is going on?" And in that moment, my brain chatter, my left hemisphere brain chatter went totally silent. Just like someone took a remote control and pushed the mute button and -- total silence.

Boundary dissolution, sense of unity, energy, cessation of chatter, and presence of silence. Check.

And at first I was shocked to find myself inside of a silent mind. But then I was immediately captivated by the magnificence of energy around me. And because I could no longer identify the boundaries of my body, I felt enormous and expansive. I felt at one with all the energy that was, and it was beautiful there.

An overwhelming sense of expansiveness and oneness. Check.

And I felt lighter in my body. And imagine all of the relationships in the external world and the many stressors related to any of those, they were gone. I felt a sense of peacefulness. And imagine what it would feel like to lose 37 years of emotional baggage! I felt euphoria. Euphoria was beautiful

Dissolution of ego-baggage, euphoria and sense of beauty. Check.

And I curl up into a little fetal ball. And just like a balloon with the last bit of air just, just right out of the balloon I felt my energy lift and I felt my spirit surrender. And in that moment I knew that I was no longer the choreographer of my life. And either the doctors rescue my body and give me a second chance at life or this was perhaps my moment of transition.

A surrender to death, as well as a sense that death is a transition. Check.

I could not identify the position of my body in space, I felt enormous and expensive, like a genie just liberated from her bottle. And my spirit soared free like a great whale gliding through the sea of silent euphoria. Harmonic. I remember thinking there's no way I would ever be able to squeeze the enormousness of myself back inside this tiny little body.

Identification with a more expansive energy outside of ones conventional human body. Check.

But I realized "But I'm still alive! I'm still alive and I have found Nirvana. And if I have found Nirvana and I'm still alive, then everyone who is alive can find Nirvana." I picture a world filled with beautiful, peaceful, compassionate, loving people who knew that they could come to this space at any time. And that they could purposely choose to step to the right of their left hemispheres and find this peace. And then I realized what a tremendous gift this experience could be

An interest in Nirvana, a hope that others find Nirvana, a vision and hope for a better world, a renewed appreciation of compassion, and a sense that the experience is a tremendous gift. Check, check, check, check, and check.

It doesn't get any more generic than this. She has described what many people have experienced without a stroke, and named mystical experience. If you disagree, then it would be because you either haven't had a mystical experience yourself, or you never sought or paid much attention to the descriptions that so many people have given of their mystical experience.

[Shahrazad]

She has described what many people have experienced without a stroke, and named mystical experience.

But she did not name it a mystical experience. This is important because saying it is mystical is assuming there is something supernatural going on. She always knew what caused it, ergo, no mystery or magical stuff to explain.

[Cory Duchesne]

Ah, I see where you're coming from now, Shahraz. But I still think calling it an ME is apt, for the reasons I go into below:

This is important because saying it is mystical is assuming there is something supernatural going on.

I disagree. What about the word 'spiritual'? Are you saying that just because I say an experience is spiritual, it means there is something supernatural going on?

There are a lot of researchers, psychiatrists and neuroscientists who are very interested in studying the mystical experience, some of them even interested in helping people elicit it via drugs, meditation and technology for therapeutic reasons. They have no qualms about calling it a mystical experience, despite their affection for reductionist explanatory models. I'm thinking of guys like Rick Strassman, James Austin (neuroscientist and Zen practitioner), Roland Griffiths, and many others.

She always knew what caused it, ergo, no mystery or magical stuff to explain.

It's kind of like how scientists these days study 'out of body experiences'. Many of these scientists don't actually believe out of body experiences are literally out of body experiences - - but it's still convenient to refer to them as OOB experiences because that's how the patient experiences it. The same goes with the mystical experience. Just because we have a scientific model for how this occurs, doesn't mean that the patient (or these days the researcher) doesn't have a profoundly moving experience that feels heavenly, divine, spiritual, life changing, religious, mystical, etc.

I also wouldn't be surprised if (and actually, I suspect that) Jill Bolte Taylor literally believes that her consciousness is a spirit that is immortal. In other words, I think she believes in a permanent soul. She suggests this when, in her talk, she talks about death being a transition. Also, her affiliation with Oprah's soul series suggests she has religious views, and wants to appeal to the public's religious impulses.

It really isn't unusual for very scientific thinkers to believe in a God and a soul, despite their various models. Rick Strassman is a great example of this.

[David Quinn]

She did refer to her experience as "nirvana" and she indicates that she believes in reincarnation, describing death as a "transition".

It looks like she has succumbed to the temptation of slotting her experience into crude, pre-existing religious categories and building a comforting belief-system around it.

All she experienced was an altered state, which arises naturally when the mind escapes its habitual thought-processes. Having a stroke which violently shuts down much of the brain is one way of experiencing such a state, but there are many other ways it can be done. All that's happening is that the mind is temporarily experiencing the world in a non-habitual way. This in itself isn't wisdom or enlightenment, but it can lead to enlightenment if the person is intelligent enough to know what to do with such mental freedom. Which is rare.

This hasn't happened in Taylor's case. Judging by her mistaken view that it was nirvana, her copious tears and her attachment to her mother, she doesn't seem to have learned anything significant from the experience. In effect, she has degenerated into a more Eastern version of a born-again Christian.

I look forward to the time when the human race is able to look at this kind of thing and instead of whimpering and being bedazzled by it, can dismiss it for what it is - namely, the naive and anxious chirpings of a person using her altered state to distance herself from wisdom as much as possible.

-

[Dan Rowden]

"Mystical" really just means outside perceptual norms. It might involve notions of the supernatural, but need not do.

[Dan Rowden]

It looks like she has succumbed to the temptation of slotting her experience into crude, pre-existing religious categories and building a comforting belief-system around it.

Yes, that was my impression as well. I think she might benefit from reading up on some altered state experiences people have had. Her story is testimony, really, to the enormous power altered states have over people's minds and emotions. As a scientific type, she should know better than to just accept the verity of things she experienced, as though they presented Reality as it really is. One might say she went in a different - if not opposite - direction to someone like Blackmore.

[baulz owt]

embrace this moment; remember: we are eternal, all this pain is an illusion.

[Shahrazad]

Dan,

"Mystical" really just means outside perceptual norms.

Oh, but Laird's dictionary.com says otherwise.

[Dan Rowden]

Well, of course it does. I stand utterly and eternally corrected. :)

[Shahrazad]

balls out,

embrace this moment; remember: we are eternal, all this pain is an illusion.

If it's an illusion, how come I'm suffering? And how come I can't just turn the pain off by will power?

[baulz owt]

balls out,

embrace this moment; remember: we are eternal, all this pain is an illusion.

If it's an illusion, how come I'm suffering? And how come I can't just turn the pain off by will power?

Are you coaxing me into showing some intellect here? Nice try.

[Shahrazad]

In here, we are expected to back up our claims. "Because I say so" will not fly.

[baulz owt]

Well, my statement is a reflection of this board. you are suffering due to ego attachment. we are eternal because we are one. It's nothing new. We could probably both use help on maintaining on enlightened mindset, I have slipped from mine from too much pot use.

[maestro]

She did refer to her experience as "nirvana" and she indicates that she believes in reincarnation, describing death as a "transition".

I cannot see any problem with that
Nirvana because the self no longer existed.
Death is a transition like any other, a reshuffling of the universe, which anyhow happens moment to moment.

I doubt this very much. The enlightened person you speak of is thought bound, but the nature of the thinking is significantly different. It's just a different way of thinking, a way of thinking that has as many debilitating limitations as the more 'left brained' way of thinking.

The thinking is limited, but it does not bound the enlightened. The difference is that thought has a dictatorial rule over the unenlightened. In the enlightened state thought falls in its natural place, right brained consciousness (moment to moment awareness etc) is the default.

[Jamesh]

Instead of living in the real physical world, where there are no divisions and there is no knowledge, humans live in a a world of labels and divisions. The dualistic existence does have its uses; the problem is the monopoly that this dualistic existence has over humans.

This is the statement of an idiot. Of course there are divisions in the real physical world, otherwise there would be no physical world.

Non-duality in this context is for useless dreamers. Are the divisions absolute - No. Does that make them non-existant - No. Emotional desires for non-duality in relation to humans is pathetic. Dualism will always range supreme over non-dualism for all life forms forever. Non-dualism has two rational uses only - 1. as another way of expressing the totality of all there is and b. as a way to conceptualise the interconnectedness of all there is. one however cannot conceptual eithewr of these without utilising duality.

[mansman]

Has anyone Awakened (the fab four comes to mind) already read the thing able to confirm its mostly crap?

What? Is there a fourth person?

Why YOU of course!