Talking Ass wrote:To say I have a 'mental block', David, is to place a sort of pathology on me.
It is definitely a pathology. When a man goes to such lengths to create numerous stumbling blocks to prevent his knowing himself, there is something very wrong.
I believe the source of the pathology can be found in something you said to Cathy:
I will call this Cathy's Dream. It is not much more than an idealistic projection. It is untested. It is likely not your own experience but a 'dream' or a wish for your own experience. There is never 'end of self'. I have been around spiritual types for almost all of my life and I have listened to all this RAP, and no matter what they say, no matter what they imagine or project, there is ever and always a 'self' there. And that self goes on struggling with existential issues just as before.
All sorts of things leap out from this paragraph. There is the snarling tone, which suggests there is a lot of pain involved. The sentence, "I have been around spiritual types for almost all of my life and I have listened to all this RAP", suggests that this pain goes way back into early childhood, probably involving your Buddhist mother and her crowd. The superficial, fixed, iron-clad dismissal of the philosophy of "no-self" expresses a complete lack of understanding and empathy for Buddhist wisdom. All of these factors combined have contributed to the large mental block you have towards the Infinite.
I do empathize, Alex. If your mother and her crowd were anything like the Western Buddhist types that I constantly meet, then your reaction is entirely understandable. In my experience, such people are invariably psychologically damaged, alienated from their own Western culture, and looking for a quick fix within the Buddhist religion. Their understanding of wisdom is non-existent, their motivations are emotional and impure, and the results are nearly always disasterous. They give Buddhism a bad name.
It is a pity that you have had to bear the brunt of this at such a young age. I do feel for you. But unfortunately, it has led you to form a kind of pathological hatred of anything that seems to connected to Eastern thought and a mental block against wisdom.
Your need to constantly belittle anyone who expresses an affinity with Eastern thought, to slam down hard on any kind of thinking that leads in that direction; the way you have backtracked into Christian and Jewish culture so as to be as far away from the East as possible, even to the point of ignoring the wisdom of Jesus and turning him into a kind of mundane Anglican Jew - all of this is an expression of your pathology towards the Infinite.
And it explains why you are constantly on here on the forum, and have been for year after year, despite your lack of affinity for what this forum is about - the pain, the childhood trauma involving your mother and her crowd, remains unresolved. It continues to eat away at you. Your constant hostility and belittling of us is your way of dealing with the pain. Part revenge, part therapy.
I have read you for some years now and you make vague references to 'value' but your language can't reach it, or what you value is [apparently] substanceless.
I believe I've made myself very clear that I value God-consciousness. It means the world to me.
'God' (your own and very peculiar term, as defined by you, which you should really reject for the confusion it causes),
On the contrary, my use of the word "God" is very clear, unambiguous and right on the mark. It is the Christian conception of God - shaped, as it is, by egotistical desire, steeped in fantasy and riddled with contradictions - which creates the confusion. Just how Christians like it, in fact.
Funnily enough, Jesus happens to share my "peculiar" concept of God:
"It is I who am the light which is above them all. It is I who am the All. From me did the All come forth, & unto me did the All come forth, & unto me did the All extend. Split a piece of wood, & I am there. Lift up the stone, & you will find me there." - Thomas: 77
"When you make the two one, & when you make the inside like the outside & the outside like the inside, & the above like the below, & when you make the male & the female one & the same, so that the male be not male nor the female female; & when you fashion eyes in place of an eye & a hand in place of a hand, & a foot in place of a foot, & a likeness in place of a likeness; then you will enter the Kingdom." - Thomas: 22
"The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, "Here it is," or "There it is," because the kingdom of God is in your midst." - Luke 17: 20
His disciples said to him, "When will the Kingdom come?"
Jesus said, "It will not come by waiting for it. It will not be a matter of saying, 'Here it is', or 'There it is'. Rather, the Kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth, and men do not see it." - Thomas: 113
And a particular nod to you, dear Alex:
"Whoever believes that the All itself is deficient is himself completely deficient." - Thomas: 67
Ha! Even Jesus thinks you have a pathology!
Anyhoo, continuing on....
Talking Ass wrote: If I say, as I do, that I oppose your tendentious project you will say that I reject then 'God', or the ineffable, or 'eternity'.
If a person rejects the direct path to God, it is the same as rejecting God.
It is like a man saying to his distant beloved, "I love you with all my heart, my darling, but I have no desire to come over and see you. Maybe one day.” It is as absurd as it is insincere.
- "I must attain perfection in this life, yea, in three days I must find God, nay, with a single utterance of his name I will draw him to me". With such a violent love the Lord is attracted soon. The lukewarm lovers take ages to go to Him, if at all. - Ramakrishna
The situation is obvious, Alex. Because of your unresolved pain you are too scared to approach God directly, thus you hide away in cultural and religious theorizing. Instead of babbling on and on all the time like a clown, why not fall silent and humbly admit that you have this fear? It would make a good first step towards the beginnings of a relationship with God.
- It is eternally true that if one knocks, the door will be opened. But suppose that the difficulty for us human beings is simply that we are afraid to go - and knock. - Kierkegaard
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