Statement about Solway and Trump

Discussion of the nature of Ultimate Reality and the path to Enlightenment.
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Dan Rowden
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Re: Statement about Solway and Trump

Post by Dan Rowden »

Those efforts are obviously very welcome, Russell. But ease up on the 'old farts' stuff, will ya? We are still young, vibrant people with a lot, hang on gotta take a pee ....

Ok, so as I was saying. Ah, sorry, lost my train of thought. Anyway, what ideas do you have for perhaps giving the forum a boost? Facebook page, perhaps? Twitter channel? Those are the only social media I know anything about. I may not be serious about that but am in a more general sense.

Diebert,
And since you've been back so far posting conspiracy filled, political gossip all put front center at the forum, the question is if anyone should take your idea of quality serious at the moment.
I have not posted one iota of 'conspiracy' theorism or gossip. The facts are what they are. Obviously we interpret their meaning differently. I honestly believe if I were to raise the issue of Donald Trump's nepotism you'd find a way to turn it into a 'no big deal' scenario.
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Re: Statement about Solway and Trump

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Dan Rowden wrote: Anyway, what ideas do you have for perhaps giving the forum a boost? Facebook page, perhaps? Twitter channel? Those are the only social media I know anything about. I may not be serious about that but am in a more general sense.
That's the real nub of the issue, in my opinion - the low number of active participants and lack of new blood. And you're right, this is basically a matter of advertising. Hardly anyone knows about the existence of Genius Forum these days, so if we want the forum to come alive again we would need to spread out to other forums, chat boards, social media sites, etc, and stir up interest in the kinds of truths that Genius Forum specializes in. Zestful thoughts attract zestful people.
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Russell Parr
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Re: Statement about Solway and Trump

Post by Russell Parr »

Dan Rowden wrote:what ideas do you have for perhaps giving the forum a boost? Facebook page, perhaps? Twitter channel? Those are the only social media I know anything about. I may not be serious about that but am in a more general sense.
David Quinn wrote:That's the real nub of the issue, in my opinion - the low number of active participants and lack of new blood. And you're right, this is basically a matter of advertising. Hardly anyone knows about the existence of Genius Forum these days, so if we want the forum to come alive again we would need to spread out to other forums, chat boards, social media sites, etc, and stir up interest in the kinds of truths that Genius Forum specializes in. Zestful thoughts attract zestful people.
I'm going to mull over it and see what I can come up with. Off the top of my head, there's a forum over at actualized.org ran by a fellow named Leo Gura. Perhaps we could attract some serious seekers from over there. He also has a youtube channel. He seems to have a pretty good sense on what enlightenment is about. Check out his "practical guide to enlightenment."
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Statement about Solway and Trump

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

Dan Rowden wrote:I have not posted one iota of 'conspiracy' theorism or gossip. The facts are what they are. Obviously we interpret their meaning differently. I honestly believe if I were to raise the issue of Donald Trump's nepotism you'd find a way to turn it into a 'no big deal' scenario.
In my view you've been posting here various nonsensical and irrational interpretations of what other people said or did. It doesn't seems like any advertisement for the quality or thoughtfulness of this forum! Then again, I'm a realist: this forum even in its best days was always a mixed bag of brilliance and idiocy. Lets not go into some narcissistic fantasy of it being some special, eclectic place in hindsight, there's as much philosophy here as you can find lying in the dirt on the street. But I'm fine with all that. And with the street dirt.

Indeed if you'd raise the issue of Trump's nepotism, I'd turn it around, bring the similar moves of the Clintons into it and some more history and point out that according to a 1978 law, it's not technically nepotism what's happening, just your feeling of it basically. Actually I'd say, considering the Bush and Clinton dynasties we're just leaving behind us, it's indeed hardly a big deal. Personally I'm happy Trump starts more leaning on his kids, since he seems to need a lot of management by people who know him well and perhaps can protect him from going off the rails. And there are way bigger problems right now which lay way beyond Trump. It' s unclear how rational it is to even start on who is advising who inside the White House.
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Re: Statement about Solway and Trump

Post by jupiviv »

@Russell, are you serious with that guy? Forget about the tenth, he flounders on the very first teaching!
Leo Gura wrote:A sudden massive shift in awareness where one becomes directly conscious of one's ABSOLUTE nature.
What kind of absolute nature requires *any* shift in awareness?

And then:
Existentialist philosophy like: Sartre, Nietzsche, Camus, Heidegger, or Kierkegaard
Nietzsche coming after Sartre and Kierkegaard coming *last*? Get thee behind me! Anyone who lumps those philosophers together is passing uninformed judgments or hasn't read them.
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Re: Statement about Solway and Trump

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jupiviv wrote:
Leo Gura wrote:A sudden massive shift in awareness where one becomes directly conscious of one's ABSOLUTE nature.
What kind of absolute nature requires *any* shift in awareness?
There is indeed a shift, but it involves realizing that no shift is possible.

This is a logical twist that goes to the heart of all Zen.
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Re: Statement about Solway and Trump

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David Quinn wrote:
jupiviv wrote:
Leo Gura wrote:A sudden massive shift in awareness where one becomes directly conscious of one's ABSOLUTE nature.
What kind of absolute nature requires *any* shift in awareness?
There is indeed a shift, but it involves realizing that no shift is possible.

This is a logical twist that goes to the heart of all Zen.
All you basically did there was play around with the word "shift". Semantic games are not logical and certainly not the heart of zen. If the realisation that no shift in awareness is possible were some sort of zennish twist resulting in enlightened awareness, then millions of people all over the world are becoming enlightened every minute. Every time someone realises that they can't figure out how sweet the coffee is without tasting it, they are experiencing enlightenment.
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Re: Statement about Solway and Trump

Post by Santiago Odo »

Better late than never I suppose:
David Quinn wrote:It is becoming increasingly clear to me that this claim has a lot of merit. If we look at the posts of Diebert and jupiviv in this thread, for example, we can see that there is a consistent pattern of being pro-Russia and pro-Putin, as well as a consistent pattern of bending over backwards to excuse or overlook Trump’s outrageous behaviour. It is quite striking to behold. And what's interesting is that it is by no means an isolated example, but rather a pattern that is repeatedly extensively throughout Trump’s fan base. A large percentage of Trump's supporters are pro-Putin. I confess that I had never thought to bring up the subject of Russia in my past talks with Kevin, but I have the uneasy feeling that if I did, he too would be expressing pro-Russian sentiments.

What does Kevin (an Australian), Diebert (a Dutchman) and jupiviv (an Indian) have in common, besides being members of this forum? Well, they have all spent the last few years immersing themselves in alternative politics and visiting alternative sites, and so it makes me wonder just how extensively the Russians have involved themselves on these sites. How much of Breitbart is driven by the Russians, for example? How involved were the Russians in the Gamergate affair? Have the Russians, with their well-honed KGB techniques, been exploiting the various grievances that Westerners have with their lives and “turned” them against the very idea of Western civilization itself?
As I said before I encountered 'technical difficulties', you would do well David to examine the New Right with fresh eyes because, from my angle of view, and I have made substantial efforts over the last year to read up on it, you really do not grasp it. Now, what relevance would such knowledge have? First, I do not see an interest in right-leaning and conservative politics as being incommensurate with many, and possibly most, of the philosophical predicates that you value and upon which this forum is based. Therefor, even though I knew this before, it is surprising to me that you and Dan seem to hold such established, rather common, rather mass-man 'liberalish' outlooks. I would imagine that most of your hard philosophical predicates would incline you, say, toward positions held by Julian Evola and some of those who in the interwar period (20s and 30s) attempted to develop an alternative to Marxism and Communism as it swept up populations in that period of time.

One idea that might be of interest, and some value to you, when one thinks on Eastern Europe is an idea that Jonathan Bowden explored: that though Communism was oppressive to the satellites of Moscow (those now free and independent Eastern Bloc countries), culture there was preserved 'as if in aspic' according to him. Now, as it happens, these countries, when Westerners visit them, seem more European than Europe does now. That means of course nearly completely non-multicultural. One might say Oh, you mean white? But it is something more. It really means regional and ethnic and 'true to itself'. It means uncontaminated by giant economic interests that, somehow, influence policy and succeed in importing disparate people. That is one element. The other element is the relationship and the link to 'their own traditions' which, now that the restraints are lifted, begin to upsurge in the population. Cultural, social, religious. So, and this is just one angle, Eastern Europe has given rise to a group of philosophers and thinkers, definitely not of the classic and liberal Left, who have many things to say on the question of 'identity' and 'self-empowerment'.

One other factor to take into consideration --- since you are talking of the KGB and Russian manipulation --- is that within the American power-elite there is a faction called Neo-Conservatism. According to some (E Michael Jones is one, there are others) it is this particular elite that has brought America into its recent destructive wars. According to Jones for example he sees these men (he names them) as 'Trotskyites', a term which requires some explanation of course in this context. But these men have an interest in permanent war and are always upsetting established orders becuase, I gather, they understand they can gain in various different ways. Also according to these theorists (jones, et cetera) the present Liberal American establishment (Obama/Clinton) has links to these strategies, and that they are interested in provoking conflict with Russia. If this is so, it might be true that Trump represents a threat to a certain Washington power-faction. This might explain the sudden awareness of the American 'deep-state' and all the intelligence connections, and therefor a media campaign to paint Trump and his desired and expressed policies in the worst possible light. One senses behind-the-scenes battles and conflicts.

I also think that you do not have much understanding or appreciation of the 'regional' element that is beginning to manifest itself. Globalism is a bizarre doctrine really and is nearly absolutely undemocratic! It is a design-scheme which began to be implimented in the aftermath of WW2 and, according to Noam Chomsky at least (he exaggerates but I do not think he fails to see accurately power-dynamics), this was set up by the Americans whereby the world was divided into 'regions'. So, what is happening now, or one thing that is happening now, is that regions and people within regions are expressing their lack of assent to this 'globalization' project, both as idea and as economic fact. Therefor, out of that opposition there are many voices, many commenators, many philosophers who are coming to the fore. You can find many of them through the Counter-Currents website.

It must be understood, because it is true, that most of these people do not find an intellectual home within liberal and left-leaning postures. The reasons should be obvious. They require, and the seek and develop, strategies of resistance to liberal culture (I prefer the term hyper-liberal to indicate a soup of economics, culture, liberalsim and as my arachnoid freind Diebert might say 'seduction'). So, what happens is that they begin to articulate positions of resistance to the mass infiltration and thus their discourse is similar to that of the European interwar (20s-30s). It does have commonality with conservative social writing, which is also fascist writing, on the topic of preserving sovereignty in the face of a cultural mosnter like communism and Marxism.

Therefor, I suggest applying a certain prophylactic lens when viewing, say, Breitbart (not a good example) and other discourses which are floating around out there that are reactionary in the precise and accurate sense of the word. (Counter-Currents is a better example but it is far more intellectual). That prophylactic would be one where the regional complain, if you will, and the personal lamantation and the expression of violation and regret in the face of the hyper-liberal onslaught is recognized and understood. It is possible, then, to look upon 'white identity' or European identitarianism in a more understanding light. I have made efforts to understand 'white identity' in America and, as it happens, I have come to understand an aspect of their project as having integrity if looked at fairly. For example, I have read David Dukes work (well, his autobiography) and now instead of relying on the media reports I have my own opinion of the man. When I understood that these were 'identity' movements, and that a Japanese or a Romanian could just as well feel a need for an 'Identity" posture, it helped me to better understand some very essential things about the US. (Topic of another discussion of course).

One must I think separate the Trump Phenomenon from the man Donald Trump, to the degree that this is possible. Trump is beyond any doubt the worst possible choice to become a president and one could go on and on about this. He will very likely fail 'bigly'. But that is a somewhat distinct question. More important is the Trump Phenomenon, and therefor the link between this upset in the general order and people like, for example Marine Le Pen and other regional politicians of the political right who are moved by purer forms of conservatism which have postures of 'self-protection' and regional decision-making (a turn against receiving orders from a globalized establishment).

Now, then it comes to Commander Solway (I am still working out the proper salute) I have to admit that I find all your, if you will permit me, hysterics to appear as not a little surprising. It doesn't fit, and yet it does fit. You are a product of the Austrialian socialized system, you benefit from it, indeed it enables you to do what you do (largely). Your present discourse, which is coherant and yet based on skewed understandings (that is my view but then I tend to see everyone who is outside of power as having limited vision, rather like K. In The Castle: we really do not know how power functions and we have to guess), has embarrassed me to read. And then I noticed that you could not back away. You may therefor have incredible insight into the reality of the Absolute, but as to politics and power you seem 'to see through a glass darkly'.

When you ask what Diebert, Jupiviv and Kevin have in common you ask a good question, yet you imply an answer that I will imagine is false. What they each seem to have, in contradistinction to you, is a cooler head! Less prejudice. A position far less doctrinaire. I would suggest, based on what I have read here, that they have nuance and a more careful, back-grounded and even foot-noted articulation of understanding.

Now, and finally, I know what it is like to be a high-flying goose (and a rather low-shuffling four-footed barnyard creature with fleas and tartared teeth). I fly between the stars! I fly out of this entire manifestation (what you call The Absolute) and I have visited the *ponds* of 4 discreet and separate Absolutes. Yes, my perspectives are that wide. I of all incarnated beings understand what it is like to sully myself among the *commoners*. Yet I do it and I do not begrudge the destiny that has been assigned to me. Nor should you begrudge yours.
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Re: Statement about Solway and Trump

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jupiviv wrote:@Russell, are you serious with that guy? Forget about the tenth, he flounders on the very first teaching!
Leo Gura wrote:A sudden massive shift in awareness where one becomes directly conscious of one's ABSOLUTE nature.
What kind of absolute nature requires *any* shift in awareness?
Yea, he's referring to satori more so than enlightened sagehood. I think he would agree, he goes on to say:
Leo wrote:Don't get cocky, remember, there is more than one enlightenment breakthrough to be had. You ain't gonna become Buddha with just a few years of self-observation.
__
Existentialist philosophy like: Sartre, Nietzsche, Camus, Heidegger, or Kierkegaard
Nietzsche coming after Sartre and Kierkegaard coming *last*? Get thee behind me! Anyone who lumps those philosophers together is passing uninformed judgments or hasn't read them.
I haven't read much of the others, so I can't comment on that one.
Semantic games are not logical and certainly not the heart of zen.
Au contraire! Zen koans are nothing but semantic riddles.
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Santiago Odo
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Re: Statement about Solway and Trump

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David Quinn wrote:Since Putin and his cronies are all ex-KGB they have the expertise to make it work.
I find this comment interesting for a few reasons. In my own case, having grown up in a California-liberal situation, one of my first orders of interest and political activism was in the movement against intervention in Central America. One quickly learned of the CIA-coups, the dirty dealings, the manipulations of news and the behind the scenes payments, and of course the assassinations where necessary.

I have been listening to talks on YouTube by E. Michael Jones who is a Catholic intellectual who, as one might imagine from what I wrote just above, is concerned essentially for the issues of ethnic identity and cultural integrity in relation to the Catholic neighborhoods. In 'The Slaughter of Cities' he writes about a concerted effort by power-factions to destablize the traditional inner-city neighborhoods which were such a part of American identity, and he has researched the CIA and other agencies collusion in these efforts. Overall, and he has written 14 different books on different aspects of his religious and cultural concerns, he paints a picture of massive intelligence agency manipulation in fabricating and moulding the modern American culture as it is today.

What I find an interesting area for investigation, for conversation and analysis, is a comparison and the contrasting of your view about the birth of a 'liberal' cultural model which has done so much apparent good for people in that notable period of time between 1850 and 1950 and yet which has simultaneously, if one considers the analysis of one Like E Michael Jones, essentially destroyed regional identity. In my way of seeing things, I cannot be sure that the gain is outweighed by the loss, though I do not deny any of the gains that you mentioned in the posts from around page 5-6-7).

You ask whether the people who flock to Breitbart --- and I do agree with you that this is a sort of 'dark adventure' and that people who have so little mental and literary education and preparation get sucked, at a sentimental level, into the 'livid horrors' of the present corruptions in much the same way that people clamour for bread & circuses: for entertainment and titillation. These sites do not really provide 'truths' but rather they suck people into avenues of view in which they imagine they are receiving truths when, it could also be said, they are just getting more entangled with partial truths and distorted truths --- but you ask whether the people who flock there have much historical background, which is a good question. I doubt it. And yet I want to mention something I found interesting: when I investigated the most *forbidden* Internet sites for fascist, neo-fascist and so-called 'ultra-right wing' discourse I was surprised when I examined Stormfront to learn that some of these people are serious readers and many of them have extensive background in history and other disciplines, including philosophy. I found the same to be true on Counter-Currents and this is fairly evident when one reads the articles and then also reads the comments.

What occurs to me is that *our present* --- and by this I mean largely what you mean --- is quite directly the outcome of a massive CIA project, and I use the term CIA generally to mean a military-industrial, intellectual, planning program that is dreamed up para-governmentally. If this is true, and I am quite certain that it is given all the published documentation that came out in the late 40s and early 50s, you simply must include such operations as part-and-parcel of the *good* efforts to establish the world that you find so necessary and so worthy of preservation. In this sense then you would side with the CIA establishment of the Five Eyes in their establishment and in their management of a giant, liberal, modernist system of manufacture and distribution: globalism as it is defined.

I have to admit that I do find this odd indeed. But not because I diagree with that view (of the present). I have had, to maintain mental coherancy, to embrace the idea of American and Occidental power in an elaborate collusion to create a present that would compete, if you will, with Soviet-based communism or Nazi-era totalitarian Aryanism (fascism is the common term). One has to, at some point, recognize that the system we exist in is one into which we are colluded. We are products of it, we gain from it, and we either serve it or we work against it (as these are the two poles of possibility).

Now, I am inspired to point out that if you are an admirer of Zen and Chinese modes of realization (as you generally seem to be), it must be stated that those cultures did not nor would they ever have created the sort of systems that we term Occidental Liberalism. Quite the contrary or so it would seem. They seem only to have created, and certainly in theose periods that produced for example the Zen reaction, despotisms and all things which run counter to your glowing vision of our global present. It might be suggested then that in our glowing global present, as you seem at one time to have felt, it was all far too 'feminine' and far too 'flowly' and far too diffuse and 'seduced' to be able to focus into hard categories. Yet here you are, as it seems, defending quite precisely exactly the processes which have led to the model of the present in which we live.

This is one more reason why I point out (but not necessarily because I am a partisan or an activist for these things) that now, rumbling from the corners and from under the floorboards, there comes out of the woodwork articulate voices that seek to challenge aspects of liberalism (hyper-liberalism) and its cloying, overpowering and weakening, overweaning and destructive, leveling of the present. 'The Crisis of the Moderrn World' and 'The Reign of Quantity & The Signs of the Times' by Rene Guenon would seem to me to be so very much more in harmony with the philosophy of GF; so radical, so opposed to the common and the quotidian.

I do not think that those who are *of the New Right*, as it is developing, want to turn back the clock and to subtract many and possibly all the gains which technology has availed us. And in this sense 'liberalism' is a technological attainment, would not you say? But there is indeed something that they want to preserve, or rediscover, or to protect and empower. I would suggest that there is a fruitful path to discovering what *all that* is and in understanding how various theorists express it and then what it is they focus in and what they oppose.
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Re: Statement about Solway and Trump

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jupiviv wrote:
David Quinn wrote:
jupiviv wrote:
Leo Gura wrote:A sudden massive shift in awareness where one becomes directly conscious of one's ABSOLUTE nature.
What kind of absolute nature requires *any* shift in awareness?
There is indeed a shift, but it involves realizing that no shift is possible.

This is a logical twist that goes to the heart of all Zen.
All you basically did there was play around with the word "shift". Semantic games are not logical and certainly not the heart of zen. If the realisation that no shift in awareness is possible were some sort of zennish twist resulting in enlightened awareness, then millions of people all over the world are becoming enlightened every minute. Every time someone realises that they can't figure out how sweet the coffee is without tasting it, they are experiencing enlightenment.
It is definitely not a semantic issue. Making the shift from a shifting consciousness to a shiftless consciousness is an enormous undertaking. As Hakuin describes, it involves having to single-mindedly bore through the Great Barrier.

Is enlightened consciousness the same as ordinary consciousness? Or is it different? Do you know the answer to that?

If you say they are the same, you stomp all over the Buddha. If you say they are different, an enormous chasm opens up between you and the Buddha. So what's it to be?
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Re: Statement about Solway and Trump

Post by JohnJAu »

I'm posting so my account isn't automatically deleted. This is previously seeker of wisdom here.

Hey Dan and Russell, I have a channel with a few old docos, one of which still receives millions of views, I'm happy to advertise an introduction video or the site itself if you like.

As for the thread, we're all basically inmates that weren't provided with anything close to an adequate education, surely you can all see that. Therefore supporting the guards, the current warden, display figure, or any part of it, is just perpetuating every issue. The only possibility for a solution, if you're after one, seems to be using what resources are available to us to spread wisdom, logic and education. Without basic knowledge, virtue and life skills, such as communication, self-awareness, contemplation, compassion, forgiveness, generosity, moderation, unity, a realistic understanding of the feminine, and so on, then of course these problems won't go away. Posting on the internet doesn't seem like it will be much of a fix, if that's what you're after.

P.S: Orginally it wouldn't let me post because this comment included a "trigger word" =) It was the "c u m"
in docomentaries.
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Re: Statement about Solway and Trump

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Russell Parr wrote:Off the top of my head, there's a forum over at actualized.org ran by a fellow named Leo Gura. Perhaps we could attract some serious seekers from over there. He also has a youtube channel. He seems to have a pretty good sense on what enlightenment is about. Check out his "practical guide to enlightenment."
That's an interesting site in the context of this thread, given that it is essentially a reflection of the liberal establishment. Its overall tone, the opinions it expresses, the topics it avoids, the underlying political correctness - it is the liberal establishment distilled into pure form. And yet I don't like it.

Leo Gura seems a nice enough guy, but I don't like his overall "modern guru" persona. He seems to be tapping into the magician/illusionist shtick, a bit like Derren Brown, which infuses everything he does with an element of fakery/showmanship. His discourse is too narrowly focused on meditation techniques, positive thinking and the like, which tends to attract damaged people who are looking for quick, easy solutions to alleviate their pain. He doesn't encourage people to properly develop their intellectual understanding, he doesn't attack the deeper attachments and values of the human race, and so he doesn't encourage people to really get to the root of all illusion and become truly wise.

Yet in the coming war, I will probably have to side with the likes of this guy and his feminine-orientated supporters. For whatever deficiencies these people possess, they are still a lot more human than the backwards-looking, evangelical, tribalistic, white supremacist, anti-intellectual mob that is largely driving the Trump movement.
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Re: Statement about Solway and Trump

Post by David Quinn »

In assessing Leo Gura's level of wisdom, this is not very encouraging - A Description Of Enlightenment.
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Re: Statement about Solway and Trump

Post by Dan Rowden »

The source of the material of that page, Suzanne Segal, is a highly problematic character in that it seems she may well have mistaken a dissociation disorder caused by brain damage for enlightenment.
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Re: Statement about Solway and Trump

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

Yes, indeed, how is it possible fears and "deep despair" would still arise when personal self would have thoroughly disappeared. What's the worry, which identification would ever justify such range of deep, conflicted emotion to follow?

Besides that, just one deep inhale of salvia essence could bring one in quite similar states for a few minutes. It's definitely some brain mode which distorts the usual mode of identification and causes dissociation. But it's not non-attachment.
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Re: Statement about Solway and Trump

Post by David Quinn »

Yeah, reading through some of the threads on the forum, it's a pretty dismal site. It reminds me of the old KIR forum, and Ducky M's posts in particular <shivers>. It's obvious that Leo Gura knows nothing about enlightenment. Perhaps I won't side with them, after all.
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Re: Statement about Solway and Trump

Post by Santiago Odo »

  • Needless to say
    I'm with Commander Solway ...
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Re: Statement about Solway and Trump

Post by Russell Parr »

I'm going to start participating over there. I'd add a URL link to this forum in my signature, but unfortunately I can't have one until I've posted 50 freakin times. I'll find a way to mention this place here and there.
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Re: Statement about Solway and Trump

Post by Santiago Odo »

Etienne Gilson, expounding on Aristotelian and Thomist metaphysics, wrote:
  • "No one has ever better discerned the mystery that the very familiarity of movement hides from our eyes. All movement implies some being, for if there were no being there, there would be nothing that could move; wherever, then, there is movement, there is something that moves. On the other hand this something that moves never fully is; if it were it could not be in movement, since to change is either to aquire being or to lose it."
What seems to me curious is that --- or so it appears --- there is likeness of awareness of our position within mutability that, it seems, inspires the seeking after either a 'permanent self' or, as a similar mental construct, an absent self, a self seen as not really existing or perhaps more properly never having become.

The part that interests me is less that someone's self has disappeared, or been shattered (and thus is a pathological outcome of trauma, physical or psychic), but more in what they choose to do when their non-self --- that is, they who exist not --- continue to act in this world.

There stands before us --- as these last 25 pages seem clearly to indicate --- an unavoidable and required making of decisions about all things. From my perspective, of course, it is curious to look in on these different small universes of people who come together in a desire to achieve something; to either discover something that empowers, or bring an end to something (which is also a form of empowerment). But clearly there has to be an originating dissatisfaction for if one were not dissatisfied (with self) one would have no desire to act, or not-act, against that which causes the sufffering. Is it reaction to pain that is the motivator, in essence?

It is interesting therefor to pay attention to who is attracted to these enlightenment, guru-oriented websites and to discern where they come from (out of what relationship to Being and out of what sense of lack of relationship to Being they surely must sense) and then what is offered to them as a possibility. Obviously, there would *naturally* appear, with those first steps out of the 'prison' John refers to, another manifestation of the same trap. Thus, the *really wise* immediately recognize the trap. They notice its cloying aspects. They sniff it out and find it to be, not genuine enlightenment, but false realization.

Yet how curious it is to observe that within the cilrcle of the enlightenment a certain jockying for power,, even a struggle for power. Whose realization is the real one and whose is superior? Which goose shall we align ourself with? Well, it is not surprising that politics enters in.

But it is inevitable, is it not?

The question then seems to become: After the realization, after the enlightenment, what theology will one articulate? Or Essology might be a better word. A doctrine of being. A description of 'what is' so that in relation to that one can make right choices. I would say that this is precisely what happened in this thread. Now it appears there will take place an effort to smooth it over and for the Head Geese to assert themselves.

How different is this from any of those smallish enlightenment universes that one can find with a Google search?
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Russell Parr
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Re: Statement about Solway and Trump

Post by Russell Parr »

David Quinn wrote:Leo Gura seems a nice enough guy, but I don't like his overall "modern guru" persona. He seems to be tapping into the magician/illusionist shtick, a bit like Derren Brown, which infuses everything he does with an element of fakery/showmanship. His discourse is too narrowly focused on meditation techniques, positive thinking and the like, which tends to attract damaged people who are looking for quick, easy solutions to alleviate their pain. He doesn't encourage people to properly develop their intellectual understanding, he doesn't attack the deeper attachments and values of the human race, and so he doesn't encourage people to really get to the root of all illusion and become truly wise.
This is a fair assessment. He also seems to be a proponent of the idea that the logic is limited when it comes to enlightenment, which should provide basis for interesting conversations.
Diebert van Rhijn wrote:Besides that, just one deep inhale of salvia essence could bring one in quite similar states for a few minutes. It's definitely some brain mode which distorts the usual mode of identification and causes dissociation. But it's not non-attachment.
Yes, he talks quite a bit about psychedelics. I think they can be helpful with shaking loose some attachments and preconceived notions about the nature of reality. But you're right, they cannot give you enlightenment, just varied states of dissociation.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Statement about Solway and Trump

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

David Quinn wrote:Yet in the coming war...
Which is exactly the type of post-Christian, post-evangelical hysterical dystopian prose I think you should be distrusting.

Wisdom does not go around trying to fix the world or voice fear of broken things as he'd be digging his own philosophical grave with every attempted repair or prophecy. What the wise can do, is promoting reason, identifying passions when they're blocking reason, provoking questioning and promoting doubt. And that modest goal is already immense in its encompassing scope.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Statement about Solway and Trump

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

Santiago Odo wrote:The part that interests me is less that someone's self has disappeared, or been shattered (and thus is a pathological outcome of trauma, physical or psychic), but more in what they choose to do when their non-self --- that is, they who exist not --- continue to act in this world.
I think it's important to first establish if this case had anything to do with a "non-self" at all. From Wikipidea.
  • Two years after her shift into a "sense of unity", Segal relapsed into the uncomfortable state of constant anxiety she had first experienced. At this point she returned to exploring psychological themes from her childhood which included recovered memories of abuse and persistent migraines. Shortly thereafter, in 1997, Segal's health began rapidly deteriorating, and she was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor.
The development didn't stop her to get a doctorate in Psychology. But it's not impossible her condition, although probably based on unusual physical conditions, could have provided some deep insights along the way. Lets not forget someone like Nietzsche has been posthumous clinically diagnosed with many ailments and Weininger might have had some clinical mood disorder.
The question then seems to become: After the realization, after the enlightenment, what theology will one articulate? Or Essology might be a better word. A doctrine of being. A description of 'what is' so that in relation to that one can make right choices. I would say that this is precisely what happened in this thread. Now it appears there will take place an effort to smooth it over and for the Head Geese to assert themselves.
It must be all on some "best effort" basis or not? Perhaps we can say that, yes, enlightenment can provide deep insights and reasonable assessment of a great many things, at least when they are being explored for some reason. But it's not like that any musical talent that was there earlier now suddenly would become prodigy level overnight. Is it any different with detailed analysis of culture, history, language, the whole intrigue of human communication? It might need sufficient talent, raw capacity and lots of hours dedicated on top of any fearlessness, academic disinterest and a "liberated" state of mind.

I do like your phrase "smallish enlightenment universes" but I do see promise for that in perhaps another sense. Targeting ignorance effectively needs to happen at a human scale because that's the playing field after all : the self, ones identity, ones path and so on. In that way I understand Kevin's activism with challenging the SJW or for example the small scale discussions on a forum or a Youtube channel. It's that scale the wisdom, as it's also explored here, seems working best and can be quite powerful, addressing all the psychological, the false, personal beliefs, the small inconsistencies and violations of truth: like catching the pick pocket thieves red handed! And not try instead to somehow arrest those "wind mill" mafia bosses.

When addressing the larger world, it gets all increasingly harder. Somehow we have to translate all the personal into the impersonal wider world where whole other forces, mass movements, mental energies and cultural "entities" might crawl around like giant snakes at the world's edge. Personally I like to explore it and attempt to bring it down to a human level. But it's a project wrought with difficulties and certainly, even more so than with the guru business: mind the trap!
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Santiago Odo
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Re: Statement about Solway and Trump

Post by Santiago Odo »

Since I know nothing of such things, that is, of processes or experiences, healthy or pathological, where 'self' is annihilated, transcended, or any such description as these, I tend --- as I always have --- to regard the quest for such a thing as somewhat questionable. Why in the name of Heaven would someone quest for that? Well, the answer is that it is presented to us as a 'release' or an avenue to attain to 'freedom', and then there is the yogic language where enlightenment = self-realization = encounter with 'ananda' or 'bliss'. I am aware that in the conception spoken of here no such terms as these are used. Yet enlightenment is spoken of as a positive thing, a desired realization. One seeks it for some reason, or to put it another way one desires to stop doing something with or to the 'self' in order to gain something. Freedom? Well-being? I do understand --- in the sense that I can feel it --- the realization of someone like Ramana Maharshi. But here, realization or enlightenment is not ever spoke of in those terms.
Diebert wrote:Targeting ignorance effectively needs to happen at a human scale because that's the playing field after all: the self, ones identity, ones path and so on. In that way I understand Kevin's activism with challenging the SJW or for example the small scale discussions on a forum or a Youtube channel. It's that scale the wisdom, as it's also explored here, seems working best and can be quite powerful, addressing all the psychological, the false, personal beliefs, the small inconsistencies and violations of truth.
Unless there were some way of by-passing altogether everything about the human world, the world of the self or psyche. But there you'd have an escapist, perhaps a bliss-infused enlightenment which would act similarly to a drug-experience.

My basic observation is that 'enlightenment' does not, or does not seem to, provide much help or guidance at all in deciding the concrete questions that face us. What happens is that those men who have realizations, be it in a Chinese, Indian or Medieval European setting, consult with each other, often over long periods of time, and devise theologies. That is, their knowledge is systematised in practical form. (I use the term that contains 'theo' only because the term God, modified, is often used here, though differently. Esselogic is not a bad term insofar as it connotes a realization that arises out of (or in relation to) Being.)

Did Kevin's choices come about because of enlightened mind? It would seem that they only came about because of a rather pedestrian application of common sense. But unless I am wrong, it seems to me that David and to a lesser extent Dan have pegged enlightenment to a certain view of the world, and even to specific outcomes.
Somehow we have to translate all the personal into the impersonal wider world where whole other forces, mass movements, mental energies and cultural "entities" might crawl around like giant snakes at the world's edge.
I have been trying to gain more insight into what is going on in the world today because, it surely seems, we are indeed dealing with a mass phenomenon (Trump's appearance is nothing short of a world-event and it is talked about all over the world).

I read Jung's 'Wotan' essay (1936) recently in which he envisioned the emergence of a dark and destructive 'archetype' that, unstopped, devastated Europe. Jung tends to convince, at least when one is reading him, but I begin to wonder how useful his science is. But once one begins to attempt analysis, and opinion, at such a vast scale I have the sense that anyone will quickly lose their bearings.

So, whether one is sage or just some normal person attempting to make his way through life all that one really has are local, small, immediate choices within small and immediate circumstances.
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David Quinn
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Re: Statement about Solway and Trump

Post by David Quinn »

Santiago Odo wrote:Did Kevin's choices come about because of enlightened mind? It would seem that they only came about because of a rather pedestrian application of common sense. But unless I am wrong, it seems to me that David and to a lesser extent Dan have pegged enlightenment to a certain view of the world, and even to specific outcomes.
Can you give an example?
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