Intuition and the Wordless Nerve

[Dennis Mahar]

it's empty (causes/conditions)
meaningless (ultimately)

you assign meaning.

it's empty and meaningless that it's empty and meaningless.

I didn't say anything like you said I said.
You contradicted.

If you designed existence.
How would you set it up?

Would impermanence be a good idea?
out with the old, in with the new,
if you kept the old around it'd be hard to move about freely, cluttered.

Would you give the critters an ego?
So they could feel separate and have to find ways to deal with each other?

Would you give them duality?

The point is activity.
How would you set it up?

[Alex Jacob]

First, I would not allow a mind like that of Dennis Mahar to arise within the existence. Yet I would allow birds to chirp and monkeys to squeal, which is I suppose a contradiction. And I wouldn't give 'the critters' egos but rather guns! They would soon kill each other off...

;-)

I oppose mechanical mental formulations, those with 'three moving parts'. Though attractive, though seductive, it is best to help the mind to grow. One does this through a kind of willingness, but also amplified reading. A great danger, in this age of mediocrity, is for a given intellect, for example yours, to hang everything on one view-structure. It is a kind of fundamentalism, similar to the evangelicals. The 'truth' presented feels so marvellously 'true'. One is safe within a reduction. It is kind of like going back in time (as far as our intellectual traditions are concerned).

When you 'talk' to this sort of intellect (for example me talking with you), you can hardly be seen to make any headway. The mechanism of thought is so strong, so rigid, that no conversation is possible. It is almost exactly this rigidity of though (mechanized mind, fundamentalism) that I found so strongly in David Quinn. One notices it too very strongly in many others who write or have written here. The causes of the love of and need for reductions? Good question. Perhaps a little complex. One is a general Loss of Value cultur-wide. The effects of 'nihilism' resulting from the falling away of an old, substantioal belief-system (Medieval Christianity as a solid perceptive structure). One could mention too the mechanization of society, the domination of society (and intellect) by commercial entities, an extreme lowering of cognitive and perceptive skills (which would result in a dumbed-down mind, with very little education, with very limited reading, and with no desire or need to amplify or to augment reading).

Then, there are many emotional factors, disaffection, alienation from self. Within this complex of factors, I think, the mind desires and longs for a substantial base. It seems to hinge on some Articles of Faith (emptiness, valuelessness, lack of inherant meaning, and randomness as a driving doctrine)(etc.)

This post-Christian, uneducated, lower-level intellect and mediocre mind then 'makes a religion' out of certain revelations which (notably) come from a radically different system of thinking and being: the East. This individual, a sort of infected agent, overlays a radically new perceptual system and ethical system over that of his 'old self' in exactly the same way one puts on new clothes, or affects a disguise. This is what I call Interior Decoration in the sense of changing the colors of one's abode, putting up a few statues of the Buddha, etc. With this comes a light external remodel, perhaps shaving the head (Kelly Jones), or what-have-you. Importantly, the inflections of speech need to be modified, and in your case the manner in which one writes. An affected, insincere neo-Buddistic poetry replaces simple, direct prose. I am sure there are many other modifications I haven't mentioned. I suggest that this process (of assuming costumes, while also denying 'self' at a fundamental level) have been going on in our culture for a long time. This can be looked at and discussed (and it is not all 'bad').

Since it seems it is impossible to crack through the rigid structure that gets established (absolute certainty of Absolute Truth, etc. etc.) one is placed in an odd position in relation to it. My tactic has been and is to completely subvert it, that is to say by-pass it, through a direct frontal assault while, as if coming in from another angle, certain metaphors, phrases, images, are 'suggested' not to the afflicted intellect with its mechanistic structures (think Jupi, thing Sue), but to another part of the individual. In fact, that part which cannot, within this mental system, be seen as having existence, as being 'real'! I subvert, therefore, the declared ethical tactic ('making bloody', 'causing pain to the ego', etc.) that is the central ethic of the forum!

I suggest that this is the only way to get around that hard, resistant structure. True, it will likely only work in 15%-20% of the cases who come through here. And the others, the non-TBs (true believers) don't need to be convinced since if they need anything it is just the suggestion that this Buddhist game has very real flaws.

You are nearly perfect evidence of that.

[Dennis Mahar]

Your denial of emptiness Alex,
Your Reason for denying emptiness,
boils down to a ridiculous argument that it's not Western Canon or Christian.
Do you think it's about barracking for your favourite football team?

Does the Pope know you've got his back?

Not denying existence.
Saying it lacks inherent existence.
If you can 'grok' that,
you'll see Absolute of which nothing can be said.
No-thing.
Infinite.
Too simple for theory-laden minds.

[Kunga]

Buddhism came to the East thousands of years before it came West....but Buddha Nature has no boundaries...


Arrogance is also mediocre .

You can thank those burly lumberjacks (for their part) giving you the pleasure of having books to read....so as not to become mediocre like the rest of the population that works to make your life more pleasant.

We all have a part to play in this drama called life.

When we wake up... our wisdom and compassion are at it's peak.

[Alex Jacob]

'Buddhism' is a product of a people, in a time and a place, and it arose for reasons. The point is not at all to minimize or devalue Buddhism, but rather to note 'how it is used' (weilded). This requires 'spiritual sensitivity' and one has to step outside the fundamentalist framework.

You only hear 'arrogance', Kunga (when you might as easily hear humor, or good-natured laughter) because these ideas are hard for you to hear. Also, you don't take the time to deeply consider what I am saying. So it is 'reactionary'. Then, you turn it to mean that I am against those who work, etc. But the real issue with all of that is with those who define. We live in a worl run by those who define.

I suggest that you have very little (clear) idea what 'waking up' is (or isn't). If you knew about 'it' you're writing would be different.

Dennis, I don't 'deny' emptiness (that is like Peter denying Jesus!, where do you come up with these terms?!) I rather stress the importance of definition, the value of values, the importance of defining a base. Buddhism in that sense rose as a reaction to. But the reaction to...is reaction. The 'truth', the part that we can use and benefit from, is more properly something in the middle ground. But your use of these terms is...in my view...destructive. And that is exactly what I wrote.

It's not that it is 'too simple for theory-laden minds', it is that your use of the idea is like an acid which functions against the self. All this has big ramifications which, I do not think, you have really taken into consideration.

[Dennis Mahar]

You are the one wielding Buddhism. Didn't you notice?

Emptiness is the conversation.

The Self lacks inherent existence.

I rather stress the importance of definition, the value of values, the importance of defining a base.

it exists dependant on conceptual designation
they do not exist independantly of the theory
values are imputed on a base that is really pieces/parts and the pieces/parts have pieces/parts.
values are there conventionally and not ultimately.
human meaning making
values are dependant on verbal and conceptual designation
constructed out of nothing

On the one hand you say you understand emptiness.
on the other you give phenomena herency.

which is which?

Pam's declaration that logic, causality, emptiness, reasoning are of the domain 'conventional reality',
that they have no absolute existence is correct.

It took Reasoning to get that.

The track of Reasons leads to nothing.
Nothing exists ultimately.
Pfft!

[Bob Michael]

I suggest that this is the only way to get around that hard, resistant structure. True, it will likely only work in 15%-20% of the cases who come through here.

I suggest the figure is closer to 2 to 5%. And there's no guarantee that it will 'work' in them either. Since, due to an inherent flaw in the human evolutionary process, man 'everywhere' is by and large irreparably locked in a mental-rational structure of consciousness rather than functioning in the rare and ideal arational-aperspectival structure of consciousness.

http://www.gebser.org/content/about/about_JG.html

[Dennis Mahar]

I suggest the figure is closer to 2 to 5%. And there's no guarantee that it will 'work' in them either. Since, due to an inherent flaw in the human evolutionary process, man 'everywhere' is by and large irreparably locked in a mental-rational structure of consciousness rather than functioning in the rare and ideal arational-aperspectival structure of consciousness.

By saying that Bob aren't you yourself conceptually designating.
locked into a mental-rational structure of consciousness.

You are condemning a person for holding a fish with the holding of a fish yourself.
Completely illogical.

[Bob Michael]

By saying that Bob aren't you yourself conceptually designating.
locked into a mental-rational structure of consciousness.

You are condemning a person for holding a fish with the holding of a fish yourself.
Completely illogical.

Sadly and regrettably I can clearly see that my 3 sons, ages (about) 45, 48, and 50, are unfortunately and very likely irreparably locked into the mental-rational mind/thought structure. So when I say it's 'everywhere' I mean everywhere. Many years ago I saw a picture of Hermann Hesse and his three grown sons in a biographical book. My question at that time was whether his sons experienced the state of consciousness that I perceived their dad to have been in since I had a pretty good sense of what that state of consciousness was at the time. Either I wasn't ready for an answer or I didn't really want an answer at the time, but as time went on and after having taken some more painful journeys down into the abyss the answer is now quite clear. It's no. Along with coming to understand the reason for this tragic ongoing human dilemma. Which is something Jean Gebser, sharp as he was, was never able to put his finger on. But then I wonder if anyone has? And clearly it's not a matter of genetics.

[Dennis Mahar]

Absolutely there is nothing wrong Bob.
Conventionally there is ignorance and suffering.

Being a long time member of Alanon and understanding the alcoholic to some extent.
I, without casting aspersion on you, dare to assert your alienation from your sons is caused by the massive damage the alcoholism wrought upon their early years as children.
Have you made amends?
Have their resentments been handled?

It doesn't work taking a defensive position by slagging them off.
Have you compassion for their experience?

[Kunga]

You only hear 'arrogance', Kunga (when you might as easily hear humor, or good-natured laughter) because these ideas are hard for you to hear.

Little do you realize all the times I've laughed at your humour (because I didn't react in a post).

Then, you turn it to mean that I am against those who work, etc. But the real issue with all of that is with those who define. We live in a worl run by those who define.

I suggest that you have very little (clear) idea what 'waking up' is (or isn't). If you knew about 'it' you're writing would be different.

Ditto.

I know one thing for sure. Arrogance is a dead ringer for ignorance.




No, I didn't say that you were against working people. By your use of the word "mediocre", I got the feeling that you find no value in people that are just ordinary, plain, and boring (by your standards.) I was trying to make a point, that the average ordinary person is just as valuable to society.


The mediocre make it possible for others to shine :D


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7hTAp6K ... utlm1VhAr5

[Bob Michael]

Absolutely there is nothing wrong Bob.
Conventionally there is ignorance and suffering.

Being a long time member of Alanon and understanding the alcoholic to some extent.
I, without casting aspersion on you, dare to assert your alienation from your sons is caused by the massive damage the alcoholism wrought upon their early years as children.
Have you made amends?
Have their resentments been handled?

It doesn't work taking a defensive position by slagging them off.
Have you compassion for their experience?

Clearly my brutal and mercyless self-honesty irritates the hell out of a lot of people (though unfortunately not enough of it to set them free). I experience this nearly every day at A. A. meetings. But oh what joyful liberation it has brought to me. Not to mention all the 'enemies' too. Which is fine and to be expected. Though most of them understandably smile to my face.

Coming to realize my ways of error and making amends has indeed freed me from the wreckage of my past, but unfortunately such action rarely, if ever, fixes or liberates the wreckage that they may have created. Yet in all honesty I really can't take full blame for the fact that my sons are very likely permanently trapped in the mental-rational mind/thought state. Society, their mother, and interferring inlaws have also played a large part in creating that wreckage. Whereas my good input into the situation, which there was too in retrospect, really counted for little. So overall it was unfortunately largely a matter of wreckage creating more wreckage. Which is really the case 'everywhere' in the world, and especially in these last days. But then too no realizations of errors or amends have ever been made by society or the others mentioned for their hand in the whole matter. And I see the consequences of such neglect, unwillingness, or incapacity to do so on their parts playing out. Their being trapped in a world of darkness, lies, and self-delusion. Rather than them being full-time residents in the "World of the Spirit."

Oh, lest I forget, I then went on to engage in another much shorter term marriage which produced a fourth son and eventually more similar wreckage. But that too is now all simply water over the damn. And I have far more than just 'compassion' as the result of these and many, many other thoroughly understood life experiences. Including especially the awareness of what sort of approach will be necessary in order to help liberate some of the 'elect', or those relatively few souls, who, by the hand or the grace of fate, escaped being permanently trapped in the universal mental-rational structure or state of consciousness, as was the case with myself. They being those who suffer deeply (as I also have) as the result of them having an arational-aperspectival structure of consciousness while having to exist amongst the huge multitudes of those who are hopelessly trapped in the mental-rational structure or state of consciousness.

[Dennis Mahar]

Thanks for that Bob.
Good work.

I'm not clear on these distinctions you use:
the universal mental-rational structure or state of consciousness, as was the case with myself.
result of them having an arational-aperspectival structure of consciousness while having

The 12 steps is a rational response to addiction.
It is of sound Reasoning.

It's reasoning discloses all problems are caused by self-centeredness.

You are released from suffering through perfect comprehension of a step by step track of reasoning.
A track of reasoning hard fought for and hard won arising out of an astonishing degree of ignorance and suffering.

How can you discount Reasoning?

[movingalways]

Bob, is arational and aperspective consciousness the same as spiritual consciousness?

[ForbidenRea]

MovingAlways,

Can I follow you to the ends of the earth, for all-time, for the rest of eternity?

[movingalways]

Rea, the ends of the earth are my earth ends to tie up and give back to Spirit. Conversing about this journey of reconciliation of this eternality of illusory beginnings and endings to "Father" Consciousness is, as "His" "Son" is my joyful duty; you are most welcome to enter my word-world of obedience and love at any time!

[Bob Michael]

Thanks for that Bob.
Good work.

I'm not clear on these distinctions you use:
the universal mental-rational structure or state of consciousness, as was the case with myself.
result of them having an arational-aperspectival structure of consciousness while having

The 12 steps is a rational response to addiction.
It is of sound Reasoning.

It's reasoning discloses all problems are caused by self-centeredness.

You are released from suffering through perfect comprehension of a step by step track of reasoning.
A track of reasoning hard fought for and hard won arising out of an astonishing degree of ignorance and suffering.

How can you discount Reasoning?

First I would add here that my 3 oldest sons could be said to be quite 'responsible', 'respectable', and 'successful' members of society. Which means little to me as they live fundamentally in the world of darkness rather than in the world of light, or the "World of the Spirit." My fourth son I know nothing about (though I suspect the same is probably true of him) as I've had no contact with him for over 25 years.

The 12 Steps as they were initially and inspirationally written were a 'spiritual' (not rational) path to recovery from alcoholism. Or more correctly they were a spiritual path to enlightenment, which was the state of mind, body, and spirit that Bill Wilson was in at the time he drafted them. Which took place after his having experienced a revolutionary shift in consciousness that he referred to as his 'white light' or 'hot flash' experience. Which initially he understood in religious (God) terms, though later on he questioned this event and was more in favor of a scientific explanation of it. But as time went on he fell from 'grace' (the pure enlightened state) due to the fact that he failed to continue to completely and ongoingly give himself to his very own 'program of recovery' (the 11th step being the one that even the best of souls fail to continually give or surrender their lives to). Not to mention his failure to venture further down into the abyss. Which I find has happened to many, many enlightened men. It has happened often to myself after having most definitely experienced the state of enlightenment. Anyhow to get on with the point here, fellowship-wise, as time went on, Bill's 12 steps became a rational, legalistic, or psychological path of recovery rather than a spiritual or deeply transformational and soul-searching one. This was aided by the fact that the vital need for a revolutionary spiritual experience, rebirth, or shift of consciousness was thrown out the window, so to speak, very shortly after it all began. Primarily because it (the radical rebirth) and its importance was not clearly understood at that time. So today, while A. A. (along with its many sister fellowships) may have some success and value in freeing people from their addictions, spiritually or enlightenment-wise, it's become but another one of the many, many dead spiritual organizations, as is the same case with all the religions. I could offer some more quite negative (though truthful) observations of alcoholism, A. A., and organized religions, but I won't. Though I will say that the professional addiction recovery industry and the legal system (of course along with the constant moral and spiritual deterioration of the human species in general) have rendered A. A. totally dead so far as it ever being what it orginally set out to be. Which was a launch pad to a "new freedom and a new happiness", contrariwise to the ineffective support group or crutch (hold your tongue here Bob) it has near-totally become.

Regarding "suffering" I find that most people really can't be said to be suffering in the truest sense of the word. At best they're merely momentarily discontented. Due to the fact that they lack sensitivity and are thereby locked in a mental-rational or essentially unfeeling state of mind and body. Which could also be called a self-protective thought mode, or more simply a state of self-centeredness. From which there's no way out, including the 12 steps or even with the help of God, should God exist.

Reason/reasoning? A good rational or reasoning mind is necessary if one is to ever attain to enlightenment. But if one is to ever attain to enlightenment he must come to see the limitations of his reasoning mind and then go beyond it. This 'jumping off point' has often been referred to as a 'leap of faith'. I generally refer to it as a total shift in the manner in which the brain is functioning. After which one's brain and total being begin to function in an intuitively all-knowing, all-understanding, and all-harmoniously corresponding manner with life everywhere.

Following is an excerpt from an e-mail reply I sent to a woman friend in A. A. about a week ago. She was concerned about not having seen me for a while at a particular meeting. It further expresses my feelings towards the fellowship which has been of tremendous help to myself. She hasn't replied to it yet, though I really don't expect one. When one expresses his true feelings about certain things he automatically tends to create 'enemies' and alienate himself more and more from his friends and the masses. But surely I'll not go back to being the people-pleaser and yes-man I once was. Rather I shall continue to go about my business and work on building my Ark.
___________________________________________________

I'm doing well, ****. Hope you are too. I've given up on the two YASNY meetings as I find them too depressing. It's become too painful to sit and listen to 55 minutes of nonsense/non-understanding in order to get my 5 minutes in. It's also painful to see people leading others far astray or at best keeping them in the same rut. But I still go to at least 2 meetings a day. Though it's not easy for me to sit through any meeting anymore with my level of awareness, yet I still go to them in order to seek out some of those relatively few ("chosen few") people who I feel have the potential and the willingness to "let go absolutely" (of the old life of self and all that it has put together) in order to make the breakthrough into that "New and Wonderful World" or into the "World of the Spirit" (Big Book). Or the "Kingdom of God" if you prefer.

[Bob Michael]

Bob, is arational and aperspective consciousness the same as spiritual consciousness?

Yes m/a, there are many names one could give to it, but unless one experiences being in such a state and then comes to better and better understand it and himself these names will have little, if any real meaning. Cosmic Consciousness is another one of many fancy names for this state, though ultimately and simply, albeit presently rare, it's the natural state of mind, body, and spirit. It's the wondrous and joyful state of wonder and awe and innocence and purity and love that nearly all young children dwell in for a relatively short time of their lives. And without them having any need to understand it or convey the experience to others, save for their spontaneous expressions of the joyfulness of it all. That is until us 'good' and know-it-all adults get into the picture and then straighten them up and get them to 'fly right'. Whereby we destroy their young and tender human spirits, and tragically in most cases for good. Never to be recaptured and experienced again in the whole of a lifetime.

[Alex Jacob]

Debating the Buddhist concept of sunyata is a dead-end road. The term itself is not agreed upon, and can mean more or less what a given person wants it to mean. And because this is so, I say, one has to be careful to analyse and make decisions about the way this idea is used. Because the idea is connected with cogent ideas about phenomena and the mutability of all things, it is not 'untrue'. Still, Buddhists (or some Buddhist schools) have a way of holding to and asserting a non-coditioned thing: Buddha-nature. And this becomes a kind of insider's game. What is 'Buddha-nature' and who can 'know' it? Only participants in the system of thought, in the handling of definitions, etc.

Once a person has mastered the list of Talking Points:

it exists dependant on conceptual designation
they do not exist independantly of the theory
values are imputed on a base that is really pieces/parts and the pieces/parts have pieces/parts.
values are there conventionally and not ultimately.
human meaning making
values are dependant on verbal and conceptual designation
constructed out of nothing

They have a stock 'answer' that can be thrown up in the face of literally anything: any statement, any value, any idea. I call this sort of stance 'the ultimate arbiter's position'. It is deeply attractive to a mediocre mind who cannot and will not step beyond it or resist its pull. You cannot speak against it, you cannot defeat it or prove it wrong, because in certain senses it is an expression of truth.

But a non-inherant thing (I use the word 'thing' in the loosest sense and as a language convention) really does seem to need an immutable thing, and this is offered up in some schools of Buddhism as the Buddha or 'Buddha-nature'.

In my own way of seeing things, that is in accord with my 'thinking system', I do not disagree with the understanding of emptiness of mutability or transitoriness, nor is such a meditation denied. But tese ideas, if handled badly (and I say you handle them terribly, almost perversely, but I also think that 'they' really are handling you and you are the victim of them), undermine value and meaning through a devious mental trick, where the 'trick' becomes the dominant agent. So, instead of leading to sobriety and clarity (of ideation or purpose or conduct) it rather acts as an acid against establsihed value, definition. It is also a sort of cop-out it seems to me, and as it is stated with this: 'values are there conventionally and not ultimately' and 'human meaning making values are dependant on verbal and conceptual designation
constructed out of nothing' I think a potentially drastic mistake is made. At this point it is not Buddhism or even neo-Buddhism but rather Western nihilism in drag. It is a conflation of 2 different systems of thinking, for very different reasons.

I think of value and meaning in this way: Just as plants and organic systems arise within this sphere, and as such arising cannot be said to be 'random' as it is normally understood, but processes and events and occurances that are part-and-parcel of the manifestation itself (things 'flowing into their form' as the Chinese express it), similarly values and also meaning naturally arises within the context and is part-and-parcel of it. It seems likely and probable that, in any other part of the manifestations, that there too arise 'value' and 'meaning', and that they likely share commonality with ours, just as ours (within our terrestrial system) share commonality one with another. There is certainly the element of 'invention' (in value-systems) but not in the way that you (Dennis) have twisted it. If it were made up like that, it could just as well be any other value. So, the notion of value (and Value itself) is not 'inherantly void' but rather relationally differentiated---and there is a great difference between this designation and yours.

You have a marked tendency, Dennis, to twist your definitions to suit your proclaimed or cherished values. For if you really carried those definitions to their 'logical conclusions' you would have no ground at all to stand on. None. There could be no conversation, no argument, no differing of opinion. I think you would almost have to dissolve away into 'emptiness'! Into nothingness!

The absurdity, of course, is in how very much you are here. This is what I mean by 'contradiction'.

[Dennis Mahar]

Reason/reasoning? A good rational or reasoning mind is necessary if one is to ever attain to enlightenment. But if one is to ever attain to enlightenment he must come to see the limitations of his reasoning mind and then go beyond it. This 'jumping off point' has often been referred to as a 'leap of faith'. I generally refer to it as a total shift in the manner in which the brain is functioning. After which one's brain and total being begin to function in an intuitively all-knowing, all-understanding, and all-harmoniously corresponding manner with life everywhere.

The radical shift fully experienced from my experience is transitory in nature.
Even tho' one is radically altered one is not in the fullness of the experience for much of the time.
The actual experience is generated by practicing on a daily basis the steps 4-9.
Is going into the abyss for you mean steps 4-9.
Steps 4-9 are the reasons.
Not having the reasons loses the shift.

[Alex Jacob]

Bob Wrote: "The 12 Steps as they were initially and inspirationally written were a 'spiritual' (not rational) path to recovery from alcoholism. Or more correctly they were a spiritual path to enlightenment, which was the state of mind, body, and spirit that Bill Wilson was in at the time he drafted them. Which took place after his having experienced a revolutionary shift in consciousness that he referred to as his 'white light' or 'hot flash' experience. Which initially he understood in religious (God) terms, though later on he questioned this event and was more in favor of a scientific explanation of it. But as time went on he fell from 'grace' (the pure enlightened state) due to the fact that he failed to continue to completely and ongoingly give himself to his very own 'program of recovery' (the 11th step being the one that even the best of souls fail to continually give or surrender their lives to). Not to mention his failure to venture further down into the abyss. Which I find has happened to many, many enlightened men. It has happened often to myself after having most definitely experienced the state of enlightenment. Anyhow to get on with the point here, fellowship-wise, as time went on, Bill's 12 steps became a rational, legalistic, or psychological path of recovery rather than a spiritual or deeply transformational and soul-searching one. This was aided by the fact that the vital need for a revolutionary spiritual experience, rebirth, or shift of consciousness was thrown out the window, so to speak, very shortly after it all began. Primarily because it (the radical rebirth) and its importance was not clearly understood at that time. So today, while A. A. (along with its many sister fellowships) may have some success and value in freeing people from their addictions, spiritually or enlightenment-wise, it's become but another one of the many, many dead spiritual organizations, as is the same case with all the religions. I could offer some more quite negative (though truthful) observations of alcoholism, A. A., and organized religions, but I won't. Though I will say that the professional addiction recovery industry and the legal system (of course along with the constant moral and spiritual deterioration of the human species in general) have rendered A. A. totally dead so far as it ever being what it orginally set out to be. Which was a launch pad to a "new freedom and a new happiness", contrariwise to the ineffective support group or crutch (hold your tongue here Bob) it has near-totally become."

I think it is important to say (having done a little bit of looking into the question) that the AA program is a direct expression of Christian spiritualism, and by that I mean the notion of 'the Holy Spirit' as a sort of incomprehensible spiritual presence, something that acts on persons and in them. I have read that the program developed very directly from a faith-based (Protestant and Evangelical) Christianity, and took a great deal from Corinthians 13 and also the Book of James.

As I have tried to understand Christianity, I have encountered parts of its expressions that have appalled me, terrified me, but there are other parts of it that when conceived of nicely, or when plumbed, give rise to a very powerful and transforming power or potency. The Book of James is filled with some pretty amazing stuff, I find.

It is interesting what you say about what AA became. But at the same time so many aspects of an 'authentic Christianity' (spontaneous spirituality, kidness, disinterested association, freedom from controlling mental systems, inner awakening and something 'life-giving) can have no place in the mechanistic cultural system than only seems to solidify itself more and more, squeezing out spontaneous and sincere spiritual value.

[Dennis Mahar]

Debating the Buddhist concept of sunyata is a dead-end road.

Sunyata is a way of being.
As in,
your way of being Alex is insult distributor.
causes/conditions.

access to a Thesaurus of Pejorative Expression effectively gets to Alex Jacob.
it's unpaid, low skill,
someone has to do it.
well done for the dedication you bring to the task.

[Dennis Mahar]

I think it is important to say (having done a little bit of looking into the question) that the AA program is a direct expression of Christian spiritualism,

Crap.
Can you do more looking before opinioning?



The 12 Steps have been reshaped and renumbered throughout history.
The earlier accesses trace to Ancient Greece and Zen.
Zen had it as 12 circles.

I'm pretty sure the Oxford Group had 6 steps that weren't working and they consulted Jung who provided the rest.
Jung got it out of his studies of ancient cultures.
3 weeks before he died Jung was interviewed on radio.
He advised 'do Zen'.

[ForbidenRea]

Rea, the ends of the earth are my earth ends to tie up and give back to Spirit. Conversing about this journey of reconciliation of this eternality of illusory beginnings and endings to "Father" Consciousness is, as "His" "Son" is my joyful duty; you are most welcome to enter my word-world of obedience and love at any time!

What's your phone #?

[ForbidenRea]

Pam~