Alex T. Jacob wrote: I had a freind who got involved in Carlos Castaneda's 'cult' in LA, a woman I had lived (platonically) with in Mexico years before. This cult went through an almost unbelievable implosion, and what was left were the burnt out hulks of a (false) belief-system, with absolutist tendencies, that offered a whole range of things to believe and to live, yet many of which, in the end (the bitter end) proved false.
Cults and cult-like groups implode all the time, I've witnessed several melt-downs over time. Some members move on, others are left injured to some extent. Not unlike romantic relationships! We all know by now which belief-system underlies that.
In the end the failure lies within the people, when after drawn in to something that seems bigger and more powerful than themselves - and often is, start to actively seek its very destruction or corruption: the ego prefers simulacra.
By the way, I do notice your friend was involved there but you are the one staying home writing about it on-line, ever analyzing and discussing the topics. This gives an impression of someone who is always distant, remote, trying to objectively piece things together, perhaps "as a substitute for life lived". And then you have the guts to call upon others online to get an actual, "connected" life! l.o.l.
I came to realize that whole generations were getting sucked into vain and 'false' belief systems expressed as strange spiritualities, new conglomerations of belief-systems...
Sadly, there is far too little to really bite into with your last post, Diebert. Nothing to rail against, no one to punch. I feel defrauded!
The problem certainly does lie 'within the people'. Maybe it is what a well-trained, teevee raised, trained-to-serve culture will always do? Crave simulacra, prefer it. I suppose that is one of the reasons I take issue with the shallow, hollow forms I note in some around here. It is hollow simulacra offered but people pretend that it has real substance.
What belief system underlies romantic relationships, Master? My ears are itching to hear.
I'd happily tell you what I was doing in Mexico at that time, but I don't think you really care. (·snif·) Internet and forums only came into existence, for me, in 2000 or so. I remember the days with a certain nostalgia when I used to write and send actual letters.
Alex T. Jacob wrote:·Mysticism (from the Greek μυστικός, mystikos, an initiate of a mystery religion ) is the pursuit of communion with, identity with, or conscious awareness of an ultimate reality, divinity, spiritual truth, or God through direct experience, intuition, or insight.
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David wrote: "The second definition of mysticism on your list comes closest to what I am about, but it is still couched in immature terms nonetheless. There is no mention, for example, of using the insights and experiences of mystical union to inform one's reasoning powers in a drive to reach supreme clarity and understanding. Dictionaries cannot help but reflect the biases and limitations of the average person. They aren't written by enlightened sages, but by ordinary people whose outlook is restricted by common consent."
Well, I guess that is not surprising since there have only been according to you maybe 5 Enlightened Ones in all history. We could never expect the Enlightened to write all the dictionaries, all the books, and organize everything on top of that. They'd be so busy they'd never have time for Nirvana.
Jokes aside, what first comes to mind for me is (again) the machine-like manner you have contrived for yourself to respond to all questions and problems. True, you express a certain 'logic' or perhaps consistancy is the word. You have a neat trick where you can always stay on top. This 'system' you have come up with begins to look more and more like a simple mechanism with about 3 moving parts. The same mechanism is found, at the core, in all the Geniuses.
What can one do, what can one say? To take a position in contra is, 'logically', to take an impossible position against logic, against the Absolute, against Truth, against Honesty. You are going to have either True Believers or their opposite. No in-between.
I suggest this is where 'cult-thinking' originates. I think this style of thinking may be increasingly common, and it will function in many areas, not just in spiritual philosophy. It seems to be the result of certain internal impulses (or perhaps needs) that coincide with a limited mental field, limited preparation. I am still of the opinion that it is a strategy of the 'ego' (in the psychological sense only) so as not to come undone, not to dissolve. I don't think it can really be called 'enlightenment' and cannot, for a group of reasons, be privelaged as valuable realization. I cannot help but see and describe it as 'mechanical'.
I see it as being functional. Simple, direct, and to the point. The way language should be used when pointing to something of interest.
In contrast to my style, your writing is verbose and overly-flowery. It's as though you're trying to point to too many things at once. Or that you are too much in love with the intricacies of your own voice, with the actual pointing a secondary concern.
It all comes down to what one is trying to achieve. When a person comes across a spectacular sight and wants to share it with others, should he say, "Hey, come and have a look at this!" and allow people to enjoy the sight for themselves? Or should he keep trying to describe the sight to others in elaborate, flowery detail and not give them any clear indication of how they might trot along and see it for themselves?
Point to the sight as efficiently as possible, I say, and then get out of the way. Don't keep standing in the way of people out of a selfish need to be adored for one's descriptive skills. Don't try and substitute your own vain preenings for the beauty of the sight.
Not that you've actually seen the sight yourself, dear Alex. With you, it's all flowery description and no pointing to the truth at all. Just vague, henid-like objections to functionality and efficiency.
When water is poured into an empty vessel a bubbling noise ensues, but when the vessel is full no such noise is heard. Similarly, the man who has not found God is full of vain disputations. But when he has seen Him, all vanities disappear. He is like a deep pool, clear and full.
Your concerns about Genius Forum becoming cult-like are noted. It is always an issue. However, I don't see how the functional use of language promotes this any more than flowery language does. There are just as many "cult-like" groups whose founders overwhelm people with the kind of verbose, flowery language you favour. It's not really the use of language which is the issue, as far as this matter is concerned, but the fact that when a person seems to embody a sense of authority and power, people are naturally attracted. Some of these people will be of high-quality, and many won't be. There is not much you can do about this without compromising the pointing activity.
David Quinn wrote:Point to the sight as efficiently as possible, I say, and then get out of the way. Don't keep standing in the way of people out of a selfish need to be adored for one's descriptive skills. Don't try and substitute your own vain preenings for the beauty of the sight.
David Quinn
Joined: Sun Sep 09, 2001 6:56 am
Posts: 4483
David wrote: "Your concerns about Genius Forum becoming cult-like are noted. It is always an issue. However, I don't see how the functional use of language promotes this any more than flowery language does. There are just as many "cult-like" groups whose founders overwhelm people with the kind of verbose, flowery language you favour. It's not really the use of language which is the issue, as far as this matter is concerned, but the fact that when a person seems to embody a sense of authority and power, people are naturally attracted. Some of these people will be of high-quality, and many won't be. There is not much you can do about this without compromising the pointing activity."
To understand why I described the thinking here as 'cult-like', you'd have to read my posts more carefully.
But, I thought of the following with your description of different means of description. It seems to be the contrast between a romantic style and a classical style. Something noted by scholars of antiquity. Today of course there are writers who favor the classical style---I think it is predominant. But there are examples, maybe in Southern Gothic, of writers who still use a more romantic style. My prose style, intentionally mostly, is all over the place. If you look at it more closely you will see that I deliberately move between the two extremes. It is all for fun, really. Weisenheimer, of course, was invented to give vent to ridiculous, over-blown descriptions, and the way 'he' functioned was, of course, to point up the ridiculousness of the over-dry, emotionless emphasis of GF. But even in the prose I write that means something to me (my own fiction) I seem to swing between classical description and something more 'flowered'.
Here are two descriptions of volcanic eruptions. One by the classical romantic, Virgil, whose influence was so far-reaching, and a more simple, to-the-point description by Pliny the Younger. I think the contrast points up your concern.
Virgil's description of the eruption of Mt. Aetna:
A spreading bay is there, impregnable...To all invading storms; and Aetna's throat With roar of frightful ruin thunders nigh. Now to the realm of light it lifts a cloud of pitch-black, whirling smoke, and fiery dust, shooting out globes of flame, with monster tongues that lick the stars; now huge crags of itself, Out of the bowels of the mountain torn, its maw disgorges, while the molten rock rolls screaming skyward; from the nether deep the fathomless abyss makes ebb and flow.
Here is Pliny the Younger, in a letter to Tacitus, explaining the eruption of Mt Vesuvius.
You ask me to write you something about the death of my uncle so that the account you transmit to posterity is as reliable as possible. I am grateful to you, for I see that his death will be remembered forever if you treat it [sc. in your Histories]. He perished in a devastation of the loveliest of lands, in a memorable disaster shared by peoples and cities, but this will be a kind of eternal life for him. Although he wrote a great number of enduring works himself, the imperishable nature of your writings will add a great deal to his survival. Happy are they, in my opinion, to whom it is given either to do something worth writing about, or to write something worth reading; most happy, of course, those who do both. With his own books and yours, my uncle will be counted among the latter. It is therefore with great pleasure that I take up, or rather take upon myself the task you have set me.
He was at Misenum in his capacity as commander of the fleet on the 24th of August [sc. in 79 AD], when between 2 and 3 in the afternoon my mother drew his attention to a cloud of unusual size and appearance. He had had a sunbath, then a cold bath, and was reclining after dinner with his books. He called for his shoes and climbed up to where he could get the best view of the phenomenon. The cloud was rising from a mountain-at such a distance we couldn't tell which, but afterwards learned that it was Vesuvius. I can best describe its shape by likening it to a pine tree. It rose into the sky on a very long "trunk" from which spread some "branches." I imagine it had been raised by a sudden blast, which then weakened, leaving the cloud unsupported so that its own weight caused it to spread sideways. Some of the cloud was white, in other parts there were dark patches of dirt and ash. The sight of it made the scientist in my uncle determined to see it from closer at hand.
He ordered a boat made ready. He offered me the opportunity of going along, but I preferred to study; he himself happened to have set me a writing exercise. As he was leaving the house he was brought a letter from Tascius' wife Rectina, who was terrified by the looming danger. Her villa lay at the foot of Vesuvius, and there was no way out except by boat. She begged him to get her away. He changed his plans. The expedition that started out as a quest for knowledge now called for courage. He launched the quadriremes and embarked himself, a source of aid for more people than just Rectina, for that delightful shore was a populous one. He hurried to a place from which others were fleeing, and held his course directly into danger. Was he afraid? It seems not, as he kept up a continuous observation of the various movements and shapes of that evil cloud, dictating what he saw.
Ash was falling onto the ships now, darker and denser the closer they went. Now it was bits of pumice, and rocks that were blackened and burned and shattered by the fire. Now the sea is shoal; debris from the mountain blocks the shore. He paused for a moment wondering whether to turn back as the helmsman urged him. "Fortune helps the brave," he said, "Head for Pomponianus."
At Stabiae, on the other side of the bay formed by the gradually curving shore, Pomponianus had loaded up his ships even before the danger arrived, though it was visible and indeed extremely close, once it intensified. He planned to put out as soon as the contrary wind let up. That very wind carried my uncle right in, and he embraced the frightened man and gave him comfort and courage. In order to lessen the other's fear by showing his own unconcern he asked to be taken to the baths. He bathed and dined, carefree or at least appearing so (which is equally impressive). Meanwhile, broad sheets of flame were lighting up many parts of Vesuvius; their light and brightness were the more vivid for the darkness of the night. To alleviate people's fears my uncle claimed that the flames came from the deserted homes of farmers who had left in a panic with the hearth fires still alight. Then he rested, and gave every indication of actually sleeping; people who passed by his door heard his snores, which were rather resonant since he was a heavy man. The ground outside his room rose so high with the mixture of ash and stones that if he had spent any more time there escape would have been impossible. He got up and came out, restoring himself to Pomponianus and the others who had been unable to sleep. They discussed what to do, whether to remain under cover or to try the open air. The buildings were being rocked by a series of strong tremors, and appeared to have come loose from their foundations and to be sliding this way and that. Outside, however, there was danger from the rocks that were coming down, light and fire-consumed as these bits of pumice were. Weighing the relative dangers they chose the outdoors; in my uncle's case it was a rational decision, others just chose the alternative that frightened them the least.
They tied pillows on top of their heads as protection against the shower of rock. It was daylight now elsewhere in the world, but there the darkness was darker and thicker than any night. But they had torches and other lights. They decided to go down to the shore, to see from close up if anything was possible by sea. But it remained as rough and uncooperative as before. Resting in the shade of a sail he drank once or twice from the cold water he had asked for. Then came an smell of sulfur, announcing the flames, and the flames themselves, sending others into flight but reviving him. Supported by two small slaves he stood up, and immediately collapsed. As I understand it, his breathing was obstructed by the dust-laden air, and his innards, which were never strong and often blocked or upset, simply shut down. When daylight came again 2 days after he died, his body was found untouched, unharmed, in the clothing that he had had on. He looked more asleep than dead.
Meanwhile at Misenum, my mother and I-but this has nothing to do with history, and you only asked for information about his death. I'll stop here then. But I will say one more thing, namely, that I have written out everything that I did at the time and heard while memories were still fresh. You will use the important bits, for it is one thing to write a letter, another to write history, one thing to write to a friend, another to write for the public.
Just for added interest (I think you would like Lucretius if you haven't already read him):
Here is Lucretius speaking of the absurdity of the use of language, esp. in regard to women (On the Language of Love):
"We say a foul, dirty woman is 'sweetly disordered,'
If she is green-eyed, we call her 'my little Pallas';
If she's flighty and tightly strung, she’s 'a gazelle’;
A squat, dumpy dwarf is 'a little sprite,'
While a hulking giantess is 'divinely statuesque.'
If she stutters or lisps, she speaks 'musically.'
If she's dumb, she’s 'modest’; and if she’s hot-tempered
And a chatterbox, she's 'a ball of fire.’
When she's too skinny to live, she’s 'svelte,’
And she's 'delicate’ when she’s dying of consumption. . .
It would be wearisome to run through the whole list."
Alex really is just in love with the sound of his own voice. He thinks it's all just a thrust and parry game...like we are all really friends, having a 'discussion'.
At the end of the day Alex, I'd choke the life out of you with glee had I the chance. You fucking disgust me.
David Quinn wrote:Point to the sight as efficiently as possible, I say, and then get out of the way. Don't keep standing in the way of people out of a selfish need to be adored for one's descriptive skills. Don't try and substitute your own vain preenings for the beauty of the sight.
David Quinn
Joined: Sun Sep 09, 2001 6:56 am
Posts: 4483
Which equals 1.46 posts per day from a couple days before 9/11/01.
With all the individual threads that have come and gone here, that hardly qualifies as 'hogging the limelight'.
PS - I've been Remote Viewing Mr. Quinn of late, he's (now) on page 133 of his latest book. The 'writer's block' has ebbed due in part to Mr. Jacob's Third Resurrection as a human this time around.. The Macaw flew the coop in search of more nuts .. but the Ass trekked to Humbolt County to haul the cannabis (green, green grass of home) to farmer's market :-)
PPS - Me? .. I'm at 1.58 posts per day. Now that's hogging the limelight, big time.
David: Physical pain is not really a form of suffering, although it can, and often is, experienced as such.
dejavu: lol For something to qualify as physical ‘pain’ means we have become conscious of it.
dejavu: Consciousness of pain, however enlightened, qualifies as suffering.
jupiviv: One suffers from pain. Pain itself is not suffering. It is suffering only when defined as such.
dejavu: lol So what is "pain itself" then?
What they are getting at is that the pain, even chronic pain, can be just the experience of that pain, and yes in that regard you are correct it does fit the dictionary definition of suffering. But here we generally think of suffering as the sort of pain caused by the conceptual actions of the mind, a form of suffering that occurs because our ego has a strong dissatisfaction with some event.
Lets say a dude breaks a leg saving a kid from some disaster, while another dude breaks his leg, in an identical fashion, running away from the same circumstance. The suffering of the former, even in relation to the degree of pain, will be more probably be much less than that of the latter, because his ego is likely to be sated by all the positives he receives, while the ego of the other will cause him to suffer from guilt and anxiety, perhaps for the rest of his life in one way or another.
I know I'm not saying anything that you don’t know, you just wanted to "win the point", but I still thought it was worth clarifying.
Alex: I spent a good deal of time on forums similar to this one in seriousness, with some pretty well-prepared and often quite brilliant people, looking into these issues, analysing them. The background was cult-like belief-systems and how they function in 'our modernity'.
You are not likely to be comparing apples with apples though. This forum is not like any other forum I've seen. While sure they would have some similarities in the manner in which they approach core issues, perhaps seeming too consistent or too dismissive of opposing viewpoints for instance, I don't believe the QRS seek any form of control over what forum members should do. I'm sure these other forums all do to some extent.
Of course, the QRS do try and steer people towards what they believe have the most importance, and that this requires "the interested" to first look deeply into themselves, and to abandon many past beliefs (attachments), something that can both induce suffering and be a little dangerous, but what they don’t do is dictate anything. What an individual does is completely up to that individual, and I feel the QRS aim for that person to first learn what it means to be an individual.
In a way becoming a true self is the first step, before going past that to remove the self-centeredness that afflicts "true selves". While I am unlikely to get to that non self-centred state, I do see shadowy glimpses of how it might feel, and it does feel like a highly desirable state.
Other forums will be more communal in manner, even if most serious. This herd effect will mean that participants are unlikely to gain that deep individuality. Here there is no herd, although there is a core of people with many similar understandings.
You still with me here, Diebert? Cult-like belief-systems and the way they get hold of people at a fundamental level. In fact, subconscious. As a substitute for life lived.
RE: As a substitute for life lived.
You just don't have the right to make judgment upon that for other than yourself.
By your consistency of attack on what they are trying for others to achieve, are you not really demonstrating an overwhelming desire to protect others - your actually placing yourself in the position of their wantabe ruler by doing whatever you can to deflect them from a non-attachment style path. You are trying to make "the interested" continue to be herd-meme dependant people, and you want them to think like you.
Let everyone have the freedom to discover whatever they so desire. By all means raise any issues that trouble you for readers to consider, we all question the core folk often enough - to not do so would be cultish, but so long as you go about it the egotistical manner you do, expect to continue to be made light of.
I'm a believer that truth does destroy some of our humanity, and you object to that outcome. It just depends on how one views what occurs with that. To me, in regard to the state of the human mind, everything important one learns has both positive and negative effects that are not equal. In a non-structurally-evolved mind, one that has not built beliefs upon a foundation based on truths of reality, then core herd memes are "emotionally better", but such folks minds will stagnate or devolve over their lifetime. For those whose beliefs are built of solid foundations, such contained in David's Wisdom of the Infinite, then their minds can evolve. Such minds can, as they say, become more conscious, but they will face the negatives that stem from disinterest in emotions.
For some of us, such as myself, who was already somewhat mentally detached from society, then my ego-value system determines that the positives of consciousness seem to suit me better than the positives of strong herd-dependant emotions.
For me, it’s a fluctuating ratio though, I waver between both sides - yes, I'm a Gemini, whatever that means :) - sometimes I want greater conceptual consciousness of reality (and will post supportive posts like this), sometimes I desire or feel the loss of emotions and the joys the herd can offer (and my posts will be non-QRS-tolerant, sort of nitpicking at their absolutes). What I don’t feel though, what I've evolved through, is any consistent need for it having to be one or the other (and you are right that the QRS teach that only one side is worthy, but this is clearly stated in the forum intro and in posts - they don't hide behind a false veneer). Still I have a preference to move away from the suffering that emotions have caused me, towards calmer waters (lol where the grass looks greener).
It’s a slow boat to The Middle Land though, and the boat for my consciousness is a rickety thing, so I will suffer on the way. The herd winds that force herdliness can be very cold when there is little herdskin to deflect the winds bites, and emotional food may be scarce. The odds of reaching nirvana are not high, but like any adventurer, in this case the adventure of understanding reality, some of us are just driven by our self-history to do what we do - even though in my case this drive is non-paramount, is more the effect of a consistent underlying wishfullness, than something I feel I was always destined to do, something I would do anything for, as it would have been for the QRS.
The courage to leave work in order to seek truth full-time, has not been caused in me, so I have to straddle both sides of the fence. I'm still way too self-centred to leave the herds womb, the emotional womb. If truth eventually changes me enough, then that will give me the means to rid myself, not of desires so much, but of the need to act on those desires.
Presently I have too much hatred of political irrationality; inhuman technocratic capitalistic solutions and of controlling egotism, as well as too much need for entertainment, for me to progress much in that regard. Like you, I can't take the world as it is, I feel the need to act - but that just causes anxiety as to fix these things is totally beyond my abilities - the whining I do is pointless, the world of humanity is not there for me to control, I'm just a part within it. However, I do wish to see beyond it. Therefore I am hoping to reach a point where such desires are approached with a rational and calm mindset, a non-emotional mindset, where it doesn't matter to my ego what actions or non-actions I take, allowing the "modern world" anxiety to fade away.
Prince, thank you for your comments! But before you'd be able to choke me, I'll trip you up with some fancy footwork, hog-tie you to the mast, and with maniacal glee fry your own nose in smoking oil and feed it to you, carefully wiping the grease from your chin. Then I'll cook your lips and your ears, I'll cut them off with pruning-shears. I'll read you all my posts one by one until you achieve lyrical satori, and bored with you finally, I'll toss you overboard and watch the sharks tear you to shreds.
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Jamesh wrote: "You are not likely to be comparing apples with apples though. This forum is not like any other forum I've seen."
I only mentioned that episode because Diebert always wants to psyche me out, to uncover the secret reasons why I write. I didn't compare QRS philosophy with Castaneda, they are not the same. Still, I sense a danger here: the sacrifice of one's substantial life to a hollow, even 'romantic' vision---this 'sage' that is privelaged. One thing I have often seen is the dissonance between what 'spiritual types' say in print (or on forum) and what they actually live in real life. I just read an interesting portrait of Thomas Merton written by a non-religious writer who befriended him. When he got away from the convent he loved pitchers of beer, Southern-style ham, and filterless cigarrettes, read Nietzsche and Camus and Henry Miller. I never could have imagined such a thing. It doesn't fit with the image of him one gets from the books. The point it that people seem to need what they need to live. That life goes on despite the spiritual grandiosity. Once in a while 'the sage' jerks off in the shower or has a hankering for a little pussy. Or, he gets drunk and falls in a puddle and has to explain the abrasion on his nose when he gives a talk in front of the Australian Nirvana Society. To me, this points back to the human being who is there. I am not trying to reduce what is sublime and celestial in human capacity, but time and time again it has been clearly seen that the spiritual types do not precisely walk the walk, or they walk with a hobble. It is wise, therefore, to take peeks behind the curtain, to look behind all the glittery machinery, the steam, and see clearly the human being there.
What interests me about Castaneda---who was a brilliant 'narcissistic personality'---is the way a whole world got woven from fictional and 'real' materials and presented to people in a quite compelling form which was believed, taken at face value. (All his books). There is a great deal of wonderful content there, and some decent philosophy, some decent and useful ideas. But the over-arching vision---a cold, cruel universe that created beings just to 'devour their awareness' is in the end what drove CC and what consumed his close followers. In the first books his 'Don Juan' extolled 'the path with a heart', but in the end, in his mytho-psychological-artistic-popular creation, there was no 'heart' left, just some other kind of drive, and it led to tremendous distortions in people around him. Those, as Diebert said, who bear the 'fault' for being so foolish to come under the sway of such ideas.
What is the connection you might ask? What am I saying? I hear something, and see it, on this forum: a desire or a need to cut away vital parts of human selves. Heart, emotion, 'the feminine', sentiments, imagination, art. So many things that are grouped together under 'illusions'. I suggest that one must be terribly careful in cutting away parts of our natural selves (even as I say this I see The Sages cringing, since they---Ryan, Trevor, David, Diebert, Cory and others---have (obviously!) transcended these ridiculous, womannish, low human expressions. In the 'game of values' played here, one can pretend anything, but I'll bet you that the reality is quite different. We have and are vital persons, composed of numerous poles. If we do anything we 'work with' lower-level sentimentalism, we raise it up, we restore it. Same with our emotions. We have them, but we don't want to be possessed by them, ruled by them. But one thing seems pretty universally acknowledged: if we repress our emotions they have a sneaky and terrible way of getting even with us. The same is true with all that is described here as 'feminine'. Just as you were born from a woman, you have that 'woman' in you. It has to be dealt with, not flippantly and brutally dismissed, as it often is here.
I don't see any awareness of these 'truths' here, frankly. And that is why it seems to me sometimes 'adolescent'. Some boys making a show of it. And yet when you get a peek under the veneer presented you sometimes catch a glimpse of someone not wholly well. For that reason I describe what seems to me an inevitable pathology. But, to say that, to see it, does not mean that I do not recognize many, many positive features in the folks here. I do think it could be far more real and far more meaningful, more intelligent. And I am aware how the sages squirm even to consider such things! It's like asking them to wear silk panties or to lisp. This does NOT mean for me becoming sentimental, or discussing emotional episodes. It means being realistically aware of what we are as human beings. And I suppose---as far as I am concerned---it also means to challenge the stereotype of sagaciousness as it is presented here. I simply don't BUY it, myself. Like, I don't 'buy' the packaging on a box of soap-flakes either. It is advertising, 'image-management'. The real truth of what is spiritual life is, I think, something different.
"You just don't have the right to make judgment upon that for other than yourself."
And I don't. But any writing, any opining, starts from the position of the self---you and me. If we are here communicating, we are sending up our ideas. They are put out there for all to see. And then people make their decisions. Why the heck else would we do this? What is the point of exchanging ideas? It is just part of the arena of seeking after knowledge that you have to submit to the rigors of the conversation. But ultimately, it's you who has to take responsibility of what you believed, what you thought, what you did, how you spent your life.
"...but so long as you go about it the egotistical manner you do, expect to continue to be made light of."
This moves into the territory of revealing secrets (Diebert, please go in the other room for a minute), but since your post was so sincere and it is so possible to respond to you. I just have to say that a good deal of what I do (the way I say things, the fun I take) is deliberately theatrical. Too serious people cannot handle humor or parody of their own fine selves. So, it makes them shit, right then and there. Take Prince for example, or Ryan. There is not a drop of humor in them, and so they become the perfect playthings of humor and they never get it. The enable themselves for that role. I am neither 'egotistical' nor 'non-egotistical'. I say whatever I want. When 'the sages' make light of me (dismiss me, wrap me in their descriptions, label me, snicker) it just gets better for me. I become even more free to say what I think.
"I'm a believer that truth does destroy some of our humanity, and you object to that outcome. It just depends on how one views what occurs with that. To me, in regard to the state of the human mind, everything important one learns has both positive and negative effects that are not equal. In a non-structurally-evolved mind, one that has not built beliefs upon a foundation based on truths of reality, then core herd memes are "emotionally better", but such folks minds will stagnate or devolve over their lifetime. For those whose beliefs are built of solid foundations, such contained in David's Wisdom of the Infinite, then their minds can evolve. Such minds can, as they say, become more conscious, but they will face the negatives that stem from disinterest in emotions."
In many ways, of course, I agree with you. Seeing the truth about human beings can be (is) terribly sobering. Aldous Huxley said that if you really allowed yourself to see how rotten and fucked-up humans are you'd either want to wipe them out or annihilate yourself, it is that terrible. You are right: truth does destroy some of our 'humanity'. Self-knowledge, coming into contact with Self. And I do not object, necessarily, to that 'outcome'. Despite the characterization of the Sages and the many Geniuses who solemly walk in these Halls of Truth I do have some relationship with this path. I am looking, I think, at a wider picture of what 'truth' is and what it does. I do not excise the function of it, necessarily, from art or aesthetics or from 'common concerns'. My appreciations are wider. I actually think my intelligence is wider-ranging. The Sages are all about limiting, reducing, cutting. They make it into an adolescent game (sorry, but 'adolescent' is such a good word for them). In my book, to be 'manly' is something far more difficult. So, perhaps you see that I don't feel I am on the lower level striving toward them. I am already, at least in some ways, on a higher platform )(at least AWARE of it) speaking DOWN to them charitably. (And of course to say this is theatrics on my part. I don't really consider any of us so far apart).
"For some of us, such as myself, who was already somewhat mentally detached from society, then my ego-value system determines that the positives of consciousness seem to suit me better than the positives of strong herd-dependant emotions."
To have that position, to have found it or to have had it thrust on you (I would say 'us'), is the beginning of a necessary voyage. It is acutely important to become aware of 'herd' emotionalism. It is vitally important to make something more of ourselves. The really great people do this. And there are many ways to act from this 'spirituality'.
"The odds of reaching nirvana are not high, but like any adventurer, in this case the adventure of understanding reality, some of us are just driven by our self-history to do what we do - even though in my case this drive is non-paramount, is more the effect of a consistent underlying wishfullness, than something I feel I was always destined to do, something I would do anything for, as it would have been for the QRS."
I honestly wish someone could offer me a description of 'nirvana'. The older I get, the more meaningless the term seems to get. But I am not unaware of what it's supposed to mean, in Zen, Yoga, etc.
But 'understanding reality'...now there is a great project. A great question. It is the source for great things. I do think people have a tendency to 'jump the gun' and start describing reality well before they actually understand it.
"The courage to leave work in order to seek truth full-time, has not been caused in me, so I have to straddle both sides of the fence. I'm still way too self-centred to leave the herds womb, the emotional womb. If truth eventually changes me enough, then that will give me the means to rid myself, not of desires so much, but of the need to act on those desires."
Don't worry. In the mere blinking of an eye it will be ripped away out from under you in an almost unreally brutal and definitive manner, as it will for all of us. I think we can find some sobriety in that. It is a worthwhile sobriety.
I appreciate your post. Hope I have responded at least a little in kind...
Alex T. Jacob wrote:I only mentioned that episode because Diebert always wants to psyche me out, to uncover the secret reasons why I write. I didn't compare QRS philosophy with Castaneda, they are not the same. Still, I sense a danger here: the sacrifice of one's substantial life to a hollow, even 'romantic' vision---this 'sage' that is privelaged. One thing I have often seen is the dissonance between what 'spiritual types' say in print (or on forum) and what they actually live in real life. I just read an interesting portrait of Thomas Merton written by a non-religious writer who befriended him. When he got away from the convent he loved pitchers of beer, Southern-style ham, and filterless cigarrettes, read Nietzsche and Camus and Henry Miller. I never could have imagined such a thing. It doesn't fit with the image of him one gets from the books. The point it that people seem to need what they need to live. That life goes on despite the spiritual grandiosity. Once in a while 'the sage' jerks off in the shower or has a hankering for a little pussy. Or, he gets drunk and falls in a puddle and has to explain the abrasion on his nose when he gives a talk in front of the Australian Nirvana Society. To me, this points back to the human being who is there. I am not trying to reduce what is sublime and celestial in human capacity, but time and time again it has been clearly seen that the spiritual types do not precisely walk the walk, or they walk with a hobble. It is wise, therefore, to take peeks behind the curtain, to look behind all the glittery machinery, the steam, and see clearly the human being there.
This is a perfectly valid observation to make. It's doubtful that anyone in history has ever come close to the sort of enlightened perfection that I talk about, at least in the sense of it being consistently sustained in each moment of daily life. And I certainly don't pretend to have reached that level myself. There are many unsagely things behind my curtain as well.
However, the idea behind this forum is to present the ideal and then let people make their own comparisons between it and the reality of their lives. I like to assume that those who come here are intelligent and honest enough to make those comparisons, and can work out their own solutions. It's not really down to either of us, Alex, to berate people if they aren't living consistently to the ideal. We are not in a position to make those judgments, and it is none of our business in any case. Each individual has to work these things out for himself.
Where we clash is my desire to present the ideal clearly and your tendency to obscure it with this "none-of-our-business" stuff and other associated side-issues. In my view, people first need to first understand exactly what the ideal is, which involves breaking through into an authentic understanding of the nature of reality, and then they can begin making the comparisons. By contrast, you are wanting people to make those comparisons before they understand the ideal, which really cannot be done, at least not in any effective manner. This is why I keep saying that you have your priorities all wrong. You are wanting people to fly before they can even open their eyes.
As far as repressing the emotions are concerned, this is something which I definitely do not advocate, for the reasons you mentioned. Repressing the emotions will not only come back to bite you in a big way in the future, but it also hides vital evidence of your own psychology, which can then easily lead to serious bouts of self-deception. It's important to allow everything that wants to come to the surface to do so, no matter how ugly it might appear, so that it can be dealt with in an intelligent manner. Only then can the emotions begin to whither away of their own accord, as a result of increasing levels of understanding.
Tomas wrote:Which equals 1.46 posts per day from a couple days before 9/11/01.
With all the individual threads that have come and gone here, that hardly qualifies as 'hogging the limelight'.
PS - I've been Remote Viewing Mr. Quinn of late, he's (now) on page 133 of his latest book.
David Quinn wrote:Point to the sight as efficiently as possible, I say
David Quinn
Posts: 4487
David Quinn wrote:then get out of the way. Don't keep standing in the way
David Quinn
Joined: Sun Sep 09, 2001 6:56 am
David Quinn wrote:selfish need to be adored for one's descriptive skills. Don't try and substitute your own vain preenings for the beauty of the sight.
Tomas wrote:that hardly qualifies as 'hogging the limelight'.
Tomas wrote:he's (now) on page 133 of his latest book.
David Quinn wrote:Point to the sight as efficiently as possible, I say
Tomas
Posts: 2622
Tomas wrote:Now that's hogging the limelight, big time.
David Quinn
Posts: 4487
Tomas wrote:that hardly qualifies as 'hogging the limelight'.
Pointexter is in fine form today. Top-notch work...
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David wrote: "This is a perfectly valid observation to make. It's doubtful that anyone in history has ever come close to the sort of enlightened perfection that I talk about, at least in the sense of it being consistently sustained in each moment of daily life. And I certainly don't pretend to have reached that level myself. There are many unsagely things behind my curtain as well."
This is a new bit of information, for me anyway. It would seem that you are representing an imagined or assumed ideal, but that you are aware you don't embody it. How do you then 'justify' the positions you seem to take about an 'Absolute'? If you are not 'in it' all the time, or if it is an ideal, how are you able to define it?
Maybe it would be useful---it would certainly be interesting---to start a thread where we each describe (in 'classical' prose but now that I think of it a 'romantic' Virgilian prose might be better) the most unsagelike thing we have done in, say, the last year. I'll volunteer to go first...
"However, the idea behind this forum is to present the ideal and then let people make their own comparisons between it and the reality of their lives. I like to assume that those who come here are intelligent and honest enough to make those comparisons, and can work out their own solutions. It's not really down to either of us, Alex, to berate people if they aren't living consistently to the ideal. We are not in a position to make those judgments, and it is none of our business in any case. Each individual has to work these things out for himself."
It is a good ideal. It is also not too common, which is unfortunate. To take a position and say 'This is what I value' is almost heretical in today's intellectual climate. More and more I notice people who just sort of accept everything, like that have no critical power to definitely decide anything.
As to 'berating', I think that you should realize that, as it is played out in conversations here, 'berating' is a very real element on this forum. In fact it is one of the columns of it. I don't necessarily have a problem with that because it is part of taking a position, which is absolutely necessary (I believe) in a man's life. The style of berating is very masculine and sometimes adolescent but that is not a bad thing altogether.
We have I think different visions of the 'ideal'. You at the least have defined it for yourself, which I respect even if I don't understand it, and what I do understand I don't seem to agree with. Still, I am not an 'enemy' of the GF.
I have found that strong positions, strongly expressed, have impact. Weak positions, weakly expressed, don't.
PS:
David wrote: "And I certainly don't pretend to have reached that level myself."
Wait a sec. Hold on here. David, yes you do. In fact you do.
David Quinn wrote:
This is a perfectly valid observation to make. It's doubtful that anyone in history has ever come close to the sort of enlightened perfection that I talk about, at least in the sense of it being consistently sustained in each moment of daily life. And I certainly don't pretend to have reached that level myself. There are many unsagely things behind my curtain as well.
However, the idea behind this forum is to present the ideal and then let people make their own comparisons between it and the reality of their lives. I like to assume that those who come here are intelligent and honest enough to make those comparisons, and can work out their own solutions. It's not really down to either of us, Alex, to berate people if they aren't living consistently to the ideal. We are not in a position to make those judgments, and it is none of our business in any case. Each individual has to work these things out for himself.
Where we clash is my desire to present the ideal clearly and your tendency to obscure it with this "none-of-our-business" stuff and other associated side-issues. In my view, people first need to first understand exactly what the ideal is, which involves breaking through into an authentic understanding of the nature of reality, and then they can begin making the comparisons. By contrast, you are wanting people to make those comparisons before they understand the ideal, which really cannot be done, at least not in any effective manner. This is why I keep saying that you have your priorities all wrong. You are wanting people to fly before they can even open their eyes.
As far as repressing the emotions are concerned, this is something which I definitely do not advocate, for the reasons you mentioned. Repressing the emotions will not only come back to bite you in a big way in the future, but it also hides vital evidence of your own psychology, which can then easily lead to serious bouts of self-deception. It's important to allow everything that wants to come to the surface to do so, no matter how ugly it might appear, so that it can be dealt with in an intelligent manner. Only then can the emotions begin to whither away of their own accord, as a result of increasing levels of understanding.
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And this is why I appreciate this forum and its founders It is truly a unique forum because we are truly after truth. I know I used truth three times in a sentence ;)
David has a good heart and this is the key, Kevin pursuits truth with everything in his being and Dan - is simply brilliant at times. It is important to realize this is a dojo of truth - none come out unscathed so check your ego at the door.
Expect to get bruised and beat up by truth but- the reward is actualized reality from potential. Quite the brass ring . Deep satisfaction of the soul and mind.
Thank you Alex and David for this very frank discussion.
The most unsagely thing I did last year was I got angry with a thief who stole from me. He not only stole from me but others who depend on me as I could not provide what I had promised. I HAD TO FORGIVE HIM - NOT TO HIS FACE, NOT YET ANYWAY. In my heart of hearts and it took a few days for me to calm down - quite unsagely on my part indeed.
Anger is not a 'normal' state, it is toxic - forgiveness cured it for me and I am in the land of flow again. I send blessings to this individual who stole that he may learn to ask and I most likely would have given to him but now he has hurt many - he needs to reconcile his actions. I need to be strong with him and not cave into his illusions of lies to cover it all up.
May he transcend and find agape in his heart and the truth of : "it is more blessed to give than to receive."
Alex, thank you for bringing this to the surface, it is realized experiential perfection of where peace can truly be found.
You have a good heart also and I consider you a kindred spirit.
Peace is a statement about reality - when I say "I am at peace." Reality corresponds because even if I am beholding a horror, I can still realize the appearance of a thing while choosing a state of being for myself.
Alex T. Jacob wrote:David wrote: "This is a perfectly valid observation to make. It's doubtful that anyone in history has ever come close to the sort of enlightened perfection that I talk about, at least in the sense of it being consistently sustained in each moment of daily life. And I certainly don't pretend to have reached that level myself. There are many unsagely things behind my curtain as well."
This is a new bit of information, for me anyway. It would seem that you are representing an imagined or assumed ideal, but that you are aware you don't embody it.
Not all the time, no.
How do you then 'justify' the positions you seem to take about an 'Absolute'? If you are not 'in it' all the time, or if it is an ideal, how are you able to define it?
A person is able to define it if he understands it thoroughly and has gone some way to experiencing it and embodying it in his life. In other words, he has experienced it enough to know what it is all about.
The path to perfection is essentially twofold. Firstly, there is the breakthrough into enlightenment, in which a fundamental change occurs inwardly - the bottom falls out of the ego, as it were, one's relationship with everything undergoes a complete inversion, the essential elements of the spiritual path are grasped and the nature of reality is understood. Thereafter, it becomes a matter of allowing this understanding to infiltrate into every aspect of one's existence, until a point is reach where one is effortlessly free of all delusion in every waking moment and beyond all possibility of slipping back. That is what I would call "perfection".
The first part is driven primarily by the intellect and the emotions, and is relatively short in duration (depending, of course, on the motivation and desire of the individual involved). The second part is primarily about character and will, and is the work of a lifetime. As I say, I doubt that anyone in history has come close to achieving perfection.
I'm currently situated somewhere along the second part, but still a long way short of the ultimate goal.
Maybe it would be useful---it would certainly be interesting---to start a thread where we each describe (in 'classical' prose but now that I think of it a 'romantic' Virgilian prose might be better) the most unsagelike thing we have done in, say, the last year. I'll volunteer to go first...
I don't think there is anything too remarkable behind my curtain. Just some of the usual minor things - I get irritated on occasion, masturbate when I have to, like to smoke a joint every now and then, enjoy watching soccer, am a sucker for music, etc. Pretty dull stuff, really, most of it involving downtime. Of course, other observers might have a different point of view.
David wrote: "A person is able to define it if he understands it thoroughly and has gone some way to experiencing it and embodying it in his life. In other words, he has experienced it enough to know what it is all about. / The path to perfection is essentially twofold. Firstly, there is the breakthrough into enlightenment, in which a fundamental change occurs inwardly - the bottom falls out of the ego, as it were, one's relationship with everything undergoes a complete inversion, the essential elements of the spiritual path are grasped and the nature of reality is understood. Thereafter, it becomes a matter of allowing this understanding to infiltrate into every aspect of one's existence, until a point is reach where one is effortlessly free of all delusion in every waking moment and beyond all possibility of slipping back. That is what I would call "perfection". / The first part is driven primarily by the intellect and the emotions, and is relatively short in duration (depending, of course, on the motivation and desire of the individual involved). The second part is primarily about character and will, and is the work of a lifetime. As I say, I doubt that anyone in history has come close to achieving perfection. / I'm currently situated somewhere along the second part, but still a long way short of the ultimate goal."
Interesting. What I see here is a kind of model and the model describes a process. Way-back-when, I spoke of a 'shamanic model' (which is a kind of ur-model for all spiritual experience in my opinion). I would add a few parts-of-process that you have left out though I'm reasonably sure you would include them. We could break it down in the following way:
1) Period of crisis. Something hard to define overtakes the individual. In shamanic terms it could be a haunting, an accident, deep grief, a sickness, an 'existential crisis'. Normal life is disrupted. The tools and strategies one used and hoped to continue using no longer function. One enters a kind of depression, a down-period. It could get so bad that one could come close to dying.
2) In the darkest period, there comes revelation. It is often brought by a figure that is not exactly fully human. Sometimes, it is the classical 'power-animal', or the ghost of a dead relative (who had shamanic powers), or sometimes it is in a dream and it is contact with a spiritual personage who lives, literally, in an above-world or a below-world. This figure brings 'the cure' but the cure has a price: the complete renewal of one's life, the remaking of it, the accepting of a whole other group of responsibilities, and of course 'taboo', which is all the stuff one can no longer do.
3) One then enters the 'crisis' period, or it gets all the more intense. In some shamanic stories the shaman, in vision or dream, is literally disassembled, bone by bone. The bones are polished, gilded or otherwise treated (made different, special) and then the shaman is put back together again. Or, magical stones, gems or power-objects are embedded in his body. All this part is the 'death' part leading to renewal.
4) Then comes the journey through the underworld, which could be seen as a complete assessment of the conditions and reality of that underworld. In the course of that, the shaman actually learns his main 'doctoring' tricks. You cannot cure sickness unless you yourself have experienced it (I keep wanting to say 'the sickness unto death'), so to know it you have to live it. The exploration of the underworld is a very interersting part because, for those who only dwell in the upper-world, the underworld is forbidden territory. It is too jarring and destructive for average people, so they can't go there. But it is the 'pattern-world' where all human sickness is created. The 'underworld' description is obviously a kind of negative mirror of what happens in our world.
5) With all the new tools, the taboos, and the links with the 'spirit-helper', the next part of the journey is the resurrection phase. One dies at the hands of 'spirits' and one comes back to life again under the tutelage of 'the spirits'. The death and resurrection model in the most enduring and the most constant.
6) And classically, that is how it begins for someone who had been 'selcted by the spirits'. He comes back into the world with an ability to heal, and more often than not with a 'pact' to perform such healing (or suffer consequences).
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I have noted all these phases in the processes you and Kevin and Dan describe (especially what stuck with me as an image was Kevin's description of how ugly and horrible he felt one day at the Hare Krishna restaurant with the pretty young devotee cashier, this horrible sense of separation which was not bridgable---among many different indicators).
But, you have taken the model and have inflected it in certain ways.
Where it stops being a classical shamanic model (of psychological processes that are connected pretty directly to tribe, to 'earth', to a temporal existence) is when it is taken toward 'absolute' ends, whatever they are. Most of the 'high' religious revelations have their origin in traditions that are shamanic or shamanic-like but they seem to go on to propose 'grand' things for the individual. Otherworldly, etc.
In my own 'cosmology' too it all hinges into very grand and even cosmic realities---secret knowledge if you will---and this knowledge is 'whispered' to me by beings on a whole other existential level.
Jamesh wrote (some posts back): "It is true though, there may be some form of intelligence playing with us - but I can't see the rationality in that -what the fuck for! / Still, I'm a little uneasy about ASSUMING that ALL these occurances, whether seeing small details of the past or the future, are purely coincidental, although I acknowledge the majority will be precisely that. I'm beginning to think that there is some form of alternate, non-sentient, originating cause for some of these unusual coincidences. I think an extremely primitive or devolved - due to other subsequently evolved senses being more useful - 6th sense is possible. Some people may still have a "wave sense" leftover from the time before animals with our current senses evolved. / I am not convinced noticing such "coincidences" are entirely a play of the ego. The problem I have is that I feel such premonitions or readings of the past average out at about a 5% greater degree of accuracy or coincidence than can be explained by causes."
A few posts back I brought up the subject of 'synchronicity' and, I admit, I was surprised to see it dismissed so readily by both Diebert and David. Obviously, in my view of things, 'synchronicity' is a kind of cornerstone of my personal metaphysical and existential understanding, and one that I live within.
In other forums where I have seen synchronicity dicussed it usually occurs between two opposed camps: those who have had such experiences and those who have not, those who recognize the experience and those who don't. Even on Jungian discussion lists I have met people who have never experienced a 'synchronicity' and so, of course, any description of the event made no sense, must be something invented by the one who has it (and maybe for rank purposes as it was assumed in Jung's case: how very convenient to suggest a 'synchronicity' to a paying customer and to shove a goddammed beetle in her face)(and Jung did in fact have a reputation as a high-dollar psychologist. James Joyce's daughter---a tangled little soul---saw Jung on a few occassions and she thereafter referred to him as 'that materialistic Swiss witch-doctor').
In my own case the platform of my spiritual belief system, a main column of it, is synchronicity, or put another way the intervention from time to time, by a conscious being or perhaps conscious beings, in the determined events of my life. So many times (hard to count in fact) important events or time-periods in my life have been heralded by strange, even magnificent, omens or configurations of circumstances that seem to have set the stage for what was to come, and what did come. It got to a point where, because I felt a sort of charge or vibration or jolt (at the start of some episode of life, or the meeting of some person, etc.) that I would then begin to pay attention and begin to look around for a language of symbols to present themselves which, I felt, held keys to understanding what was happening to me and why. Once such odd but meaningful events had occurred so many times, and once the 'language' became at least a little decipherable, it was not really the specific event that occurred that held the greatest meaning but something above and beyond that: Who or what was setting these things up? Why? And what enabled me to 'cultivate' a relationship with that being or those beings so that those 'signs and omens' appeared with frequency?
When one answers those questions, or tries to, I have found that they open up into some pretty dramatic territory but also difficult and troublesome territory. It is not surprising to me that our local geniuses, by and large, completely dismiss a whole range of possibilities since their understandings and conclusions, resulting from the reduced group of tools at their disposal, reduces the universe to a strict mechanism. As you know, I take issue with this for quite a few reasons and try to speak about that difference.
I think signs, omens and 'synchronicities' (I don't really like the word synchronicity because it is a pseudo-scientific term and too linked to Jung himself) are cultivated events. It is possible, I've discovered, to turn off the omen switch (so to speak). The way to turn it on, of course, is disturbing to strict rationalistic thinkers, and sometimes for very good reasons. To turn it on one must release one's hold on any sense of definiteness about 'the nature of this reality'. Meaning, one has to open up to and to some degree 'surrender' oneself to the existential experience itself. Additionally, in order to have such an omen-life (take a deep breath boys!) you have to cultivate, allow for, use and handle, a sort of receptivity that (gasp!) could be described as feminine. Pretty obviously, that is what Jung was referring to when he took a stand against a strict rationalism. (I would also say that it is essential to know how to turn the switch on just as it is to turn it off).
The cultivation of omens is an odd sort of psychological and multi-layered relationship with life and events. It is also a unique and very open relationship with the imagination, hence its connection or link with art, intuition, experience---all that is the inside content of life lived, an inside content that you have to open yourself to. In the long traditions of human life the closest thing to a science of omens would, I think, be all this weird arcane knowledge having to do with 'magic'. Obviously all of that extends back very very far in time to some of the original experiences of man in his world---shamans and magicians---attempting to discover and apply a sort of existential magic, which is really the origin of the material sciences. It is connected to practical purposes sometimes more than it is connected to transcendental purposes, in much the same way that our present material sciences have next to no link with transcendental conceptions and everything to do with stricts materialistic purposes and biological will. But, when the science of omenology (the cultivation of a relationship with whatever it is that produces omens and by extension meaning, a very important little element) is lifted up and joined to transcendental possibilities or realities, then the whole game takes on very different shades and colors.
I don't think, myself, that it is so much that some intelligence is 'playing with us' as it is that we begin to enter into the realm of consciousness (standing above materialism, arising out of materialism) where this being or these beings have their existence. It is not that they 'play', maliciously, it is (it seems) that they are sort of pleasantly delighted that we show certain signs of discovering things about 'the nature of reality', about who we are and to what we really belong, but they know that it is a longish process for we who have gotten so used to operating in a strict material field, with all our embarrassing addictions and strategies, with all our 'certainties' and all our impositions upon a reality that, it would seem, is more fluid than we imagine.
Paramahansa Yogananda, in his 'translation' of the Bhagavad Gita describes a yogic science in which the adept begins to put in reverse all the psycho-spiritual mechanisms and processes that landed the 'soul' or entity into this 'material world', what is referred to in Hindu metaphysical and comological terms as 'Divinity's exterior energy' (to differentiate, obviously, from Divinity's 'interior' energy). It becomes, essentially, a sort of 'fasting' from material nourishment and a deliberate 'diet' of 'stuff' that is of another and higher order, a purgatory. There are certain things that the entity did, when he was safe and sound in a level of existence prior to material incarnation, that brought him 'down' into all that we have to live here, and in which we absolutely believe. (Absolutely believe is the operative word and requires a special, subtle examination). It is also an arrival into a zone or territory where 'omens' are---what is the word?---enriched, charged. One interesting 'fact' is that just as it was our imagination that got us into this mess in the first place, so it is our imagination that might get us out. We cannot cut ourselves off from 'imagination', from this subtle, interior 'realm', but must learn to relink our imagination with...
Oh dear. Sorry! I've got a roast in the oven and I've GOT to go.... (I thought I smelled something burning. I was getting so into this!)
PS: Prepositions, descriptions of 'where we were before', are references linked to our own sense of time and dimension. The core of those metaphors explodes, of course, raining down 'meaning', and none of that really makes sense as a description, but one is forced to employ language with all its limitations...
Alex T. Jacob wrote:A few posts back I brought up the subject of 'synchronicity' and, I admit, I was surprised to see it dismissed so readily by both Diebert and David.
No, I didn't, at all, if you'd care to remember with some greater attention. But I did advocate clear headed thinking on the individual cases, like Jung's boasting, which had obviously more mundane and likely explanations. Psychology developed a bit further since Jung, as well.
To me sychronisity is a very mundane occurance. It's the interpretation, the significance given which should be considered very carefully. It turns out more often than not rather self-serving.
Alex T. Jacob wrote:David wrote: "A person is able to define it if he understands it thoroughly and has gone some way to experiencing it and embodying it in his life. In other words, he has experienced it enough to know what it is all about. / The path to perfection is essentially twofold. Firstly, there is the breakthrough into enlightenment, in which a fundamental change occurs inwardly - the bottom falls out of the ego, as it were, one's relationship with everything undergoes a complete inversion, the essential elements of the spiritual path are grasped and the nature of reality is understood. Thereafter, it becomes a matter of allowing this understanding to infiltrate into every aspect of one's existence, until a point is reach where one is effortlessly free of all delusion in every waking moment and beyond all possibility of slipping back. That is what I would call "perfection". / The first part is driven primarily by the intellect and the emotions, and is relatively short in duration (depending, of course, on the motivation and desire of the individual involved). The second part is primarily about character and will, and is the work of a lifetime. As I say, I doubt that anyone in history has come close to achieving perfection. / I'm currently situated somewhere along the second part, but still a long way short of the ultimate goal."
Interesting. What I see here is a kind of model and the model describes a process. Way-back-when, I spoke of a 'shamanic model' (which is a kind of ur-model for all spiritual experience in my opinion). I would add a few parts-of-process that you have left out though I'm reasonably sure you would include them. We could break it down in the following way:
1) Period of crisis. Something hard to define overtakes the individual. In shamanic terms it could be a haunting, an accident, deep grief, a sickness, an 'existential crisis'. Normal life is disrupted. The tools and strategies one used and hoped to continue using no longer function. One enters a kind of depression, a down-period. It could get so bad that one could come close to dying.
2) In the darkest period, there comes revelation. It is often brought by a figure that is not exactly fully human. Sometimes, it is the classical 'power-animal', or the ghost of a dead relative (who had shamanic powers), or sometimes it is in a dream and it is contact with a spiritual personage who lives, literally, in an above-world or a below-world. This figure brings 'the cure' but the cure has a price: the complete renewal of one's life, the remaking of it, the accepting of a whole other group of responsibilities, and of course 'taboo', which is all the stuff one can no longer do.
3) One then enters the 'crisis' period, or it gets all the more intense. In some shamanic stories the shaman, in vision or dream, is literally disassembled, bone by bone. The bones are polished, gilded or otherwise treated (made different, special) and then the shaman is put back together again. Or, magical stones, gems or power-objects are embedded in his body. All this part is the 'death' part leading to renewal.
4) Then comes the journey through the underworld, which could be seen as a complete assessment of the conditions and reality of that underworld. In the course of that, the shaman actually learns his main 'doctoring' tricks. You cannot cure sickness unless you yourself have experienced it (I keep wanting to say 'the sickness unto death'), so to know it you have to live it. The exploration of the underworld is a very interersting part because, for those who only dwell in the upper-world, the underworld is forbidden territory. It is too jarring and destructive for average people, so they can't go there. But it is the 'pattern-world' where all human sickness is created. The 'underworld' description is obviously a kind of negative mirror of what happens in our world.
5) With all the new tools, the taboos, and the links with the 'spirit-helper', the next part of the journey is the resurrection phase. One dies at the hands of 'spirits' and one comes back to life again under the tutelage of 'the spirits'. The death and resurrection model in the most enduring and the most constant.
6) And classically, that is how it begins for someone who had been 'selcted by the spirits'. He comes back into the world with an ability to heal, and more often than not with a 'pact' to perform such healing (or suffer consequences).
Take away the bits about the "spirits" and "spirit-helpers" and the model you describe more or less resembles what I went through. In the end, my spirit-helpers were my own reasonings and experiential insights into the nature of reality, as well as the writings of other philosophers such as Kierkegaard, Huang Po, and Lao Tzu. Kevin Solway was a kind of spirit-helper too.
Granted, I could easily view the writings of these philosophers and the conversations I have had with Kevin as a meeting with the "spirits", particularly at those moments when I could see right into the truth of what they were saying and discern its momentous implications. Those sorts of experiences are very much out of the ordinary - otherworldly, even - but in truth, what we are dealing with here are immature perceptions borne out of a sudden break with normal experience. The "spirits" exist by way of a sudden contrast with normal experience, and don't really exist in and of themselves. Increasing maturity sees them fading out of existence.
Alex T. Jacob wrote: In my own 'cosmology' too it all hinges into very grand and even cosmic realities---secret knowledge if you will---and this knowledge is 'whispered' to me by beings on a whole other existential level.
Alex T. Jacob wrote:In my own case the platform of my spiritual belief system, a main column of it, is synchronicity, or put another way the intervention from time to time, by a conscious being or perhaps conscious beings, in the determined events of my life.
Have you ever considered the possibility that these beings you converse with are not spirit-helpers, but in fact demons? That their intent is not to bring you closer to God, but to keep you far, far away from Him?
When you consider that the reaching into God requires one to abandon the finite in every possible way, then it would be natural for these demons to want to divert people away from this reaching and keep them firmly entrenched in the finite world where they reign. And what better way to do this than by dazzling us with illusions and parlour tricks which seem heavenly in nature and which appeal to the child in us.
After all, the devil's treachery is at its most effective when he resembles an angel from God......
In any case, a "magic" that has to be propped up by "synchronicities" and other particular patterns in the world is very much a poor man's magic. It doesn't hold a candle to the real magic of reality which is ever-present at all times and doesn't require any mental contrivances at all.
You're still playing around with trinkets when the real gold is all around us.
Diebert, I suggest that 'synchronicity', the receiving of powerful omens, the 'intervention by the spirit', or the events that unfold, or can unfold, in a person's life resulting from such spiritual events cannot and should not be dismissed in your dreary tone. I have no idea what you experience or don't experience, because you never talk about it, but based on what I do sense from what you write, it sounds like you don't really have much to go on. Honestly, though you are correct about emphasis and interpretation I rather think you don't have the slightest idea what you are talking about. I say that with my utmost respects of course.
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(Defining and recognizing what is 'gold' and what isn't is really what is at stake here, I think.)
David wrote: "Take away the bits about the "spirits" and "spirit-helpers" and the model you describe more or less resembles what I went through."
Where I find you 'lacking', if you will permit such an uncharacteristically arrogant statement on my part, is in lack of imagination, lack of synthetic intelligence, and perhaps a lack of an ability to see through the forms and symbols to the inner content.
It is really rather simple, painted in this way: If you, David, had existed a thousand years ago and had the core and essential drive or desire for knowledge or to break out of restrictions (however you define yourself, which is not necessarily what you are, but you get the idea), the map of your journey, and your record of that journey, would be couched in completely different language. The same would be true if you were raised up and acculturated in another context---say even 500 years ago in India or Asia. You wouldn't have had Kierkegaard to rely on, and you might not have had Huang Po, and Lao Tzu. I believe that we need to recognize that there are essential cores within ourselves, and essential processes. The outer context shifts all the time, and the language and conceptual order it gathers around itself is also constantly shifting. But what doesn't shift, it seems, especially in deeply religious, spiritual and existential experience, is some fundamental 'thing' that is not at all easy to name or describe. Or, the description of it can take different forms.
"Granted, I could easily view the writings of these philosophers and the conversations I have had with Kevin as a meeting with the "spirits", particularly at those moments when I could see right into the truth of what they were saying and discern its momentous implications. Those sorts of experiences are very much out of the ordinary - otherworldly, even - but in truth, what we are dealing with here are immature perceptions borne out of a sudden break with normal experience. The "spirits" exist by way of a sudden contrast with normal experience, and don't really exist in and of themselves. Increasing maturity sees them fading out of existence."
Well, here we are again right at the same point. You 'privelage' your own experience in much the same way that the German philosophrers (to use one rather obvious example of intransigience and stubbornness) privelage their own. The core here, I mean the core of your prejudices, is discovered in your use of the word 'immature' (I say 'weilding' quite often and for good reasons). Second, it is really quite hard to definitively say, in respect to such an ephemeral notion as that of 'spirits', what has existence and doesn't 'in and of themselves'. Sometimes, what makes the mysterious and, say, 'magical' (that which appears in one's life or consciousness or on the roads of life as messenger, something one experiences but does not control) disappear or fade out of a person's life...is a dreary specieis of rationalization that, for no good reason really (unreasonably) crushes imagination, 'reasons' it away, and in a certain very real sense keeps a lid on experience.
One would assume---if it were possible to do it---if you were suddenly to appear before some adept, some spiritual seeker, maybe even some 'Huang Po, and Lao Tzu' (or some analogous personage from some unknown part), you would sit them down and give them a little lecture on 'maturity, and help them to revise their symbolic language and the very platform of their perceptions.
"Have you ever considered the possibility that these beings you converse with are not spirit-helpers, but in fact demons? That their intent is not to bring you closer to God, but to keep you far, far away from Him?"
I am beginning to think you may be playing a few cards short of a full deck. For you, there is no god and certainly no God in a theistic sense, so the question is a Mad-Hatter question. To Mad-Hatter questions one can only pose other Mad-Hatter questions and just sit back and enjoy the lunatic experience.
If 'spirits' don't exist and 'increasing awareness fades them out of existence', what in the name of the Elohim are you doing talking about 'demons'? You seem to saddle any sort of conceptual order you want in a given moment, but with expert legerdemain you make it all go 'poof' when it suits your purpose. (I suggest this is a noted tendency among the TBs here.)
Mad-Hatterly, I could just as well reverse the 'question' and ask (meaning, propose) that you in your ultra-rationalism, with a neurotic mind-machine of your own arbitrary creation that you can't and won't let go of, are similarly 'possessed'. That would place me in the position of psychologist trying to break through your defenses. The battle of the psychologists on internet forums is in itself a dreary game, I try not to play it. But again, the value in these conversations is that our readers get to see and make their own assessments.
But the way I would answer the question would be to suggest to you and to anyone else, that it is our core presuppositions that determine all our activities and behaviors, meaning, the sorts of praxis we recommend to others; whether our 'spiritual lives' conduces to 'sane ends', or if it is more than anything an invitation to engage in certain neurotic patterns, and in that sense to miss the point.
I think that at least conceptually we agree that there is such a thing as 'sane end' in life.
"When you consider that the reaching into God requires one to abandon the finite in every possible way, then it would be natural for these demons to want to divert people away from this reaching and keep them firmly entrenched in the finite world where they reign. And what better way to do this than by dazzling us with illusions and parlour tricks which seem heavenly in nature and which appeal to the child in us."
But this is just spiel coming from you. We have recently determined that you mouth sublimities but are not within those sublimities. It would seem that you wish with all your heart to point to those sublimities---perhaps a noble path---but it is hypocritical and somewhat false to wear clothes you are not qualified to wear. All over again, one notes the seduction of absolute language and concept, and this has to be (all over again) disassembled, exposed for what it is. This paragraph of yours, coming from you, is a sort of lunacy!
To talk about what IS 'God' and how to 'reach' God, is the Question of all Questions. You, David Quinn, do not control the access to even the speculation nor the beginning (if it is possible) of an answer. You could be...evidence...of some of the 'pathologies' that keep one from knowing, realizing, 'being'.
_________________________________________________________
In really concrete terms, if one really wanted to 'locate demons', way on the far side of theology and mystical 'fact' or speculation, the core human problem(s) (this will come as a shock to the local Geniuses) likely stem from something universal within our culture, immensely powerful, ubiquitous, and intensely damaging: Alchohol and alchohol addiction. Out of that core addiction stems most all if not all others:
·over-eating and food addiction (obesity)
·delinquincy, starting in adolescence (and all this implies)
·compulsive violence
·'vagancia' which is apathy in all its forms, which are many
·drug-addiction
·'donjuanism' (addiction to womanizing)
·tobacco-addiction
·compulsive lying ('Mythomania');
·'mesalinismo' which is a Spanish term for Donjuanism in women (which is also a Spanish term, don't think it exists in English)(Valeria Mesalina was the wife of emperor Claudias and the term is for sexual and other forms of dissolution in women of 'good' social standing; leading women of society)
·gambling
·garden-variety sexual perversions
·prostitution
·Rebel-Without-a-Cause-ism (as social and personal pathology)
·the selling of sex
·rape
·incest
·voyerism
·pyromania
Alex T. Jacob wrote: David wrote: "Take away the bits about the "spirits" and
"spirit-helpers" and the model you describe more or less resembles what I went through."
Where I find you 'lacking', if you will permit such an uncharacteristically arrogant statement on my part, is in lack of imagination, lack of synthetic intelligence, and perhaps a lack of an ability to see through the forms and symbols to the inner content.
Simply because I don't indulge in your love of childish games and irrelevant side-issues? Come on, Alex, fair go.
I simply reject what is either superfluous or a hindrance to the task of diving directly into truth. I can't help it if you have a dread of this diving and an attachment to whatever spares you from having to contemplate it.
It is really rather simple, painted in this way: If you, David, had existed a thousand years ago and had the core and essential drive or desire for knowledge or to break out of restrictions (however you define yourself, which is not necessarily what you are, but you get the idea), the map of your journey, and your record of that journey, would be couched in completely different language. The same would be true if you were raised up and acculturated in another context---say even 500 years ago in India or Asia.
I beg to disagree. If I valued truth and reason back then to the same degree as I do now, then my approach and use of language would be exactly the same as it is today. The process of going beyond culture and diving directly into truth never changes. It is timeless.
One would assume---if it were possible to do it---if you were suddenly to appear before some adept, some spiritual seeker, maybe even some 'Huang Po, and Lao Tzu' (or some analogous personage from some unknown part), you would sit them down and give them a little lecture on 'maturity, and help them to revise their symbolic language and the very platform of their perceptions.
If they were trying to justify their own cowardice with childish games and misleading people away from the direct path to truth, then yes, I would.
"Have you ever considered the possibility that these beings you converse with are not spirit-helpers, but in fact demons? That their intent is not to bring you closer to God, but to keep you far, far away from Him?"
I am beginning to think you may be playing a few cards short of a full deck. For you, there is no god and certainly no God in a theistic sense, so the question is a Mad-Hatter question. To Mad-Hatter questions one can only pose other Mad-Hatter questions and just sit back and enjoy the lunatic experience.
If 'spirits' don't exist and 'increasing awareness fades them out of existence', what in the name of the Elohim are you doing talking about 'demons'? You seem to saddle any sort of conceptual order you want in a given moment, but with expert legerdemain you make it all go 'poof' when it suits your purpose. (I suggest this is a noted tendency among the TBs here.)
I'm surprised that I have to explain this to you. I was utilizing my "poor imagination" and putting myself in your shoes, asking a perfectly valid question which has relevance to your perspective on things. I was asking how you have determined that these beings you talk with aren't demons intent on keeping you entrapped in childish games and irrelevant side-issues. It's a serious question.
But the way I would answer the question would be to suggest to you and to anyone else, that it is our "core presuppositions" that determine all our activities and behaviors, meaning, the sorts of praxis we recommend to others; whether our 'spiritual lives' conduces to 'sane ends', or if it is more than anything an invitation to engage in certain neurotic patterns, and in that sense to miss the point.
Your use of the term "core presuppositions" is biased and crafty on your part, since it serves to level everyone on the same playing field (and forms part of the overall theme of turning everyone into ants). It seems that you are only really comfortable when everyone in the world is reduced to being ants stuck within a collective.
If everyone simply operates out of different "core presuppositions" and if no mention is made of how true or false these presuppositions are, then everything becomes a matter of relativity and everyone becomes exactly the same. Like ants.
Or more deeply, you're trying to pretend that partying with spirits is on the same level as diving directly into God.
"When you consider that the reaching into God requires one to abandon the finite in every possible way, then it would be natural for these demons to want to divert people away from this reaching and keep them firmly entrenched in the finite world where they reign. And what better way to do this than by dazzling us with illusions and parlour tricks which seem heavenly in nature and which appeal to the child in us."
But this is just spiel coming from you. We have recently determined that you mouth sublimities but are not within those sublimities. It would seem that you wish with all your heart to point to those sublimities---perhaps a noble path---but it is hypocritical and somewhat false to wear clothes you are not qualified to wear.
I knew you would misunderstand this point. A person situated on the second part of the path, between initial enlightenment and perfection, is eminently qualified to speak about both enlightenment and perfection. For his life is now one of slipping in and out of enlightenment (or perfect Buddhahood) on a regular basis. When he is on song, he is like a perfect Buddha, fully steeped in the clear infinite awareness that a perfect Buddha enjoys on a permanent basis. His imperfection is that he cannot yet maintain it indefinitely.
To talk about what IS 'God' and how to 'reach' God, is the Question of all Questions. You, David Quinn, do not control the access to even the speculation nor the beginning (if it is possible) of an answer.
"Controlling the access" - you've lost me there. How am I preventing you from diving deeply into the truth?
In really concrete terms, if one really wanted to 'locate demons', way on the far
side of theology and mystical 'fact' or speculation, the core human problem(s) (this will come as a shock to the local Geniuses) likely stem from something universal within our culture, immensely powerful, ubiquitous, and intensely damaging: Alchohol and alchohol
addiction. Out of that core addiction stems most all if not all others:
·over-eating and food addiction (obesity)
·delinquincy, starting in adolescence (and all this implies)
·compulsive violence
·'vagancia' which is apathy in all its forms, which are many
·drug-addiction
·'donjuanism' (addiction to womanizing)
·tobacco-addiction
·compulsive lying ('Mythomania');
·'mesalinismo' which is a Spanish term for Donjuanism in women (which is also a Spanish term, don't think it exists in English)(Valeria Mesalina was the wife of emperor Claudias and the term is for sexual and other forms of dissolution in women of 'good' social standing; leading women of society)
·gambling
·garden-variety sexual perversions
·prostitution
·Rebel-Without-a-Cause-ism (as social and personal pathology)
·the selling of sex
·rape
·incest
·voyerism
·pyromania
Well, this sort of thing is clearly under the purview of the less intelligent demons who lack cunning and imagination. Encouraging people to drink is easy. Everyone loves the descent into diminished consciousness. The drone demons can easily take care of this.
But demons are also needed for more crafty purposes. Just as a clever spy goes out of his way to not look like a spy, a clever demon goes out of his way to not look like a demon. As such, his remit would include appearing like an angel, posing as a shaman, being charismatic, offering enigmatic riddles, speaking half-truths, writing bibles, bestowing heavenly visions, creating synchronicities, showering happiness, connecting with your soul, etc. The possibilities are endless. I'm sure they have a lot of fun with this sort of thing.
Alex T. Jacob wrote:
It is really rather simple, painted in this way: If you, David, had existed a thousand years ago and had the core and essential drive or desire for knowledge or to break out of restrictions (however you define yourself, which is not necessarily what you are, but you get the idea), the map of your journey, and your record of that journey, would be couched in completely different language. The same would be true if you were raised up and acculturated in another context---say even 500 years ago in India or Asia. You wouldn't have had Kierkegaard to rely on, and you might not have had Huang Po, and Lao Tzu.
What does it matter though? It is likely he would've come to the same understanding in another context - sitting under gum tree alone, discussions with old Aboriginals, after watching Star Wars, whatever.
Jed Mckenna, for example reckons Moby Dick is the greatest spiritual book ever written; Walt Whitman a genuine sage. And that's after reading the Bhagvad Gita, Tao te Ching etc.
I believe that we need to recognize that there are essential cores within ourselves, and essential processes.
Yeah, but to what end? So you can wax lyrical without really saying anything, prime example....
The outer context shifts all the time, and the language and conceptual order it gathers around itself is also constantly shifting. But what doesn't shift, it seems, especially in deeply religious, spiritual and existential experience, is some fundamental 'thing' that is not at all easy to name or describe. Or, the description of it can take different forms.
In my view David has you well pegged: interesting dinner guest, pretty decent writer in the post modernist genre (a couple of my lecturers would love you), that's about it.
That's why I suspect you keep reincarnating here every few months. This is the first forum you've ever been to where people aren't fawning all over you for your liberal Arts education.
