Intuition and the Wordless Nerve

Discussion of the nature of Ultimate Reality and the path to Enlightenment.
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Bob Michael
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Re: Intuition and the Wordless Nerve

Post by Bob Michael »

Alex wrote: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.
Bill W. admittedly gleaned his 'program' largely from the fundamental Christian principles of the Oxford Group, which was a first-century Christian fellowship that he attended for a time when he first sobered up. And indeed the 'Holy Spirit' is a real thing, a real force or power and source of intelligence. And in order to tune in and flow with that holy spirit one must have a purified mind, which is a natural mind. A mind that has managed to free itself of all its societally acquired and deeply conditioned self-protective offensive and defensive posturing, which everyone of us falls prey to early on in life.
Alex wrote: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.
True experientially understood Christianity (fundamental Christian principles and teachings) is indeed terrifying, as is reality, but, as I alluded before, the terror of the reality of the fallen human condition (the abyss) must be fully faced if one is to ever gain permanent and comfortable residence in the promised land. And it's surely not a cakewalk as both modern day Christendom and A. A. would have one believe. All true men of faith have experienced great suffering, including Bill W. A few years after he developed his program he went into periods of depression which lasted some 11 years. And for 2 of those years his depression was agonizingly dark and quite debilitating. I too have undergone similar experiences, as has my wife also.
Alex wrote:It is interesting what you say about what AA became. But at the same time so many aspects of an 'authentic Christianity' (spontaneous spirituality, kindness, 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.
This is the reason Christianity and A. A. (and its many sister fellowships) don't work at a true spiritual level and why no one ever manages to fully breakthrough. And also the reason an esoteric fellowship that's remote from all of this worldly chatter, distractions, and constrictions, along with fully qualified, experienced, and understanding leadership will be necessary in order to develop a body of true Christian Soldiers or true Knights of Faith. Which is the only hope for the future survival of the human species.

"Earth needs a place where men can live away from all national rivalries, social conventions, self-contradictory moralities and contending religions; a place where human beings, freed from all slavery of the past, can devote themselves wholly to the discovery and practice of the Divine Consciousness that is seeking to manifest itself." (The Mother of Auroville, India)

Though Aurobindo and the Mother never managed to successfully build their 'Ark'. As was the case with many others who have tried.

"I dream'd in a dream I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the rest of the earth. I dreamed that was the new city of Friends. Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust Love. It led the rest. It was seen every hour in the actions of the Men of that city, and in all their looks and words." (Walt Whitman)

Nor did Walt ever realize his dream.

To suffer one's death and to be reborn is not an easy thing, nor is it an overnight matter. Especially in light of the fact that there's so much of one's falsely-conditioned self that needs to die. And remember here, as it's been said of old: "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God." And the same notion is more meekly made in the A. A. text book: "We were reborn" and "We have had deep and effective spiritual experiences which have revolutionized our whole attitude towards life, our fellows and towards God's universe." All of which meaning absolutely nothing to anyone who has not experienced the experience. Nor will these statements help lead anyone to this necessary radically transformative rebirth experience. A far more elaborate and detailed experientially-based explanation and coaching will be necessary in order to help initiate and complete this rebirth process in others.

And lastly here, and from my own experience, one must go through the depths of hell and torment of the soul if he's to ever discover and then dwell in a heaven that's eternally right here, right now, on the planet earth.
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Re: Intuition and the Wordless Nerve

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Dennis Mahar wrote: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.
True radical alteration will compell one towards more and more alteration. Which should continue until the self is completely dead and one is Pure Spirit. At which time one will undoubtably realize when he is such, and when he's not.

Essentially going through the abyss is coming to clearly see the rottenness of man, the rottenness of many of one's fellows. To clearly see the evil or the wickedly self-centered nature of people behind their many masks. Along with discovering that these kinds may be among some of our friends and even members of our own families. I offer here the potentially enlightening and rather sorrowful reflections of Kahlil Gibran on this matter (last paragraph), the need for awakening and rebirth, and on the rapid passing away of the joys and happiness of early childhood and the (very often fatal) wounding of the human spirit. Which I feel the last few younger generations, especially, no longer experience in depth at all due to the present universal cold, callous, insensitive, machine or robot like nature of the 'fallen' human species.
______________________________________________________

On Being 'Born Again'

My neighbors, you remember the dawn of youth with pleasure and regret its passing; but I remember it like a prisoner who recalls the bars and shackles of his jail. You speak of those years between infancy and youth as a golden era free from confinement and cares, but I call those years an era of silent sorrow which dropped as a seed into my heart and grew with it and could find no outlet to the world of knowledge and wisdom until love came and opened the heart's doors and lighted its corners. Love provided me with a tongue and tears. You people remember the gardens and orchids and the meeting places and street corners that witnessed your games and heard your innocent whispering; and I remember, too, the beautiful spot in North Lebanon. Every time I close my eyes I see those valleys full of magic and dignity and those mountains covered with glory and greatness trying to reach the sky. Every time I shut my ears to the clamor of the city I hear the murmur of the rivulets and the rustling of the branches. All those beauties which I speak of now and which I long to see, as a child longs for his mother's breast, wounded my spirit, imprisoned in the darkness of youth, as a falcon suffers in its cage when it sees a flock of birds flying freely in the spacious sky. Those valleys and hills fired my imagination, but bitter thoughts wove round my heart a net of hopelessness.

Every time I went to the fields I returned disapppointed, without understanding the cause of my disappointment. Every time I looked at the gray sky I felt my heart contract. Every time I heard the singing of the birds and babbling of the spring I suffered without understanding the reason for my suffering. It is said that unsophistication makes a man empty and that emptiness makes him carefree. It may be true among those who were born dead and who exist like frozen corpses; but the sensitive boy who feels much and knows little is the most unfortunate creature under the sun, because he is torn by two forces. The first force elevates him and shows him the beauty of existence through a cloud of dreams; the second ties him down to the earth and fills his eyes with dust and overpowers him with fears and darkness.

Solitude has soft, silky hands, but with strong fingers it grasps the heart and makes it ache with sorrow. Solitude is the ally of sorrow as well as a companion of spiritual exaltation.

The boy's soul undergoing the buffeting of sorrow is like a white lily just unfolding. It trembles before the breeze and opens its heart to daybreak and folds its leaves back when the shadow of night comes. If that boy does not have diversion or friends or companions in his games, his life will be like a narrow prison in which he sees nothing but spiderwebs and hears nothing but the crawling of insects.

That sorrow which obsessed me during my youth was not caused by lack of amusement, because I could have had it; neither from lack of friends, because I could have found them. That sorrow was caused by an inward ailment which made me love solitude. It killed in me the inclination for games and amusement. It removed from my shoulders the wings of youth and made me like a pond of water between mountains which reflects in its calm surface the shadows of ghosts and the colors of clouds and trees, but cannot find an outlet by which to pass singing to the sea.

Thus was my life before I attained the age of eighteen. That year is like a mountain peak in my life, for it awakened knowledge in me and made me understand the vicissitudes of mankind. In that year I was reborn and unless a person is born again his life will remain like a blank sheet in the book of existence. In that year, I saw the angels of Heaven looking at me through the eyes of a beautiful woman. I also saw the devils of hell raging in the heart of an evil man. He who does not see the angels and devils in the beauty and malice of life will be far removed from knowledge, and his spirit will be empty of affection.

(From 'The Broken Wings' by Kahlil Gibran)
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Re: Intuition and the Wordless Nerve

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Dennis Mahar wrote:3 weeks before he died Jung was interviewed on radio. He advised 'do Zen'.
In a letter written at the end of his life to Michael Fordham, Carl Jung wrote that nobody understood him and his work had been a failure. His mission in life was to preserve peace by presenting the world with a new combination of Christianity and depth psychology.

Jung had thought himself as the man who could shoulder the same strain as Nietzsche without going crazy. "Others have gone to pieces. Nietzsche, and Holderlin too, and many others. But there was a demonic strength in me, and from the start, it held firm."

(From 'A Life of Jung' by Ronald Hayman)
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Re: Intuition and the Wordless Nerve

Post by Alex Jacob »

Soundtrack for this post.
Dennis writes: "Crap. Can you do more looking before opinioning?"
For the sake of interesting conversation, exchange and comparison of ideas, etc., we (all of us) seem to be engaged. In conversation, as we all note, we all describe reality from our personal vantage. Each of us has, in varying degrees (and some, perhaps, do not have) a defined viewstructure, which is to say a 'metaphysical grasp' (or perhaps there is no 'meta') from which stems a general Ethic. To have a viewstructure---and everyone must have one even if it remains unconscious, submerged---the having of a viewstructure, is essentially the place where a person's religion takes place, is occurring. Religion, therefore, is one's way of being in the world, which is I think the manner of one's 'worship'.

At the center---again, consciously, subconsciously or unconsciously---of every person is a sort of 'conceptual core'. That core can gain language, get proficient in using language in such a way that it gives names to organizing concepts about Life. What it is, where it is, how it is occurring, why, and to what end. Essentially, every religious or spiritual system deals on these core questions. They are unavoidable. As with the carpenter dude who got the flu, who seeks to understand 'what is happening', he will have to go into his own 'core' and find out what is there. The 'pattern' of any sort of answer will arise from that, and in this sense the 'answer' is in a way 'predefined'.

Anyone who has been following these conversations, both my arguing against dear Brother Dennis, as well as all my furious attacking of the definitions of the QRS, which has to do with pointing out the consequences of ideas, ideas that 'possess us' and 'have their way with us', ideas that determine so much about our way of being in the world, our way of receiving and defining meaning, resulting in ethical choices for the way we live life which, naturally, always leaves an imprint on this world, like footprints---if these conversations have been followed one will have noted some fairly stark differences. Those differences are not hallucinated or invented and they are not 'unreal', which means, not without consequences. I have always said, and I continue to say, that there are better and worser ideas, just as there are better and worser metals, or personalities. If that is true, then it follows that it is very important to take in and put to use (build with) those healthy ideas that lead...to life. True, defining 'life' is therefore just as much a part of the definining project than discovering or identifying 'healthy ideas' that help on, enable on, or perhaos determine one (?) in living well in that Life. In the course of these conversations I myself have sought to educate myself.

For example, the QRS (and the local followers many of whom have vaporized) have defined a rather strict and limited platform of definitions---axioms in fact---and seek to install these as tenets. It was not at all hard to distinguish that this defining process was leading to and would (always?) lead to similarly limiting resuts. It was not hard to see that this QRStianity, the play on words always intended, was not in fact Buddhism but a specific and 'locatable' deviation from Western traditions. I have used the term 'infection' as well as 'transplant' and 'costume' to describe it.

I have explained so many times that when we merely 'overlay' one idea structure on that aspect of our self that holds our 'core' (which is a center of consceptual consciousness built over a long historical period), that there is a peculiar result of 'costuming'. I suggest that we have all seen it and that we have seen it literally, as for example a Hare Krishna with his Hare Krishna get-up. This 'costume' goes quite a bit beyond external appearance though (often) the physical costume is quite central to what happens interiorly. I suggest that in our culture (occidental, since all those who write here are European, American and Australian or certainly anglo-centric, as with Jupiviv) we are witnessing, nay we are ourselves living, a process by which one understructure of idea is being overlayed by another (or others). And, cutting right to the chase, it is happening here with this 'overlay' of Zen and Buddhist ideas, ways of looking at and interpreting 'phenomena'. I suggest that this is not 'bad' necessarily, after all some of the 'great minds' (certainly interesting minds) like Hermann Hesse (he is esspecially noted) and like Jung, who come out of very strongly developed Judeo-Christian traditions that are one of the great achievements of human history on the planet (I say this in complete seriousness and in full confidence), have always explored, entered into, moved in and out of, these Eastern ideas.

But it is very important to note that they never abandoned or explained away or set up 'destructive definitions' to work against the traditions themselves (their own) or the results and products of those traditions. Jung was in fact deeply concerned for the 'invasive' characteristic of 'Eastern ideas' as he was for Communist totalitarianism as an infliction of the Western 'soul'. It was not at all a simile or a metaphor for him, but a fact. A real thing that really happened. With very destructive results.

Interestingly, we have arrived at one of those junctures where ideas are lain (more) bare than at other times. Two references have come up recently: Whitman and the AA Program. I would first say that, almost beyond any shadow of a doubt (indeed: without doubt) both Whitman and the AA program are 100% American. That is, they arose within an American context, have elements that are exclusively and identifiably American features; but most importantly are the outcome of a stream of ideation that spans certain forms of (American) puritanism with a peculiar kind of freedom of ideation that could perhaps best be emblemized as Emersonian. It has roots, identifiable roots, and those roots are not, say, Zen roots, or Chinese roots, or Hindu roots. What arose in this particular context---holding Whitman, an artist and visionary on a level with Shakespeare, and also the AA Program with its tangible presentation of nothing else BUT Christian fundamentals---is exactly what it is, and is not something else. It sounds like a circularity but it is crucial to understand how a given thing becomes that given thing and is a given thing of its own context. Because if you do this, it enables you to better distinguish the outline of a thing as well as determine its relevance and value.

I wish to suggest that both Whitman and the core principals of the AA Program express and give form to a tangible, expressible, quantifiable group of 'core values' that cannot be called anything other than what they are. Meaning, they are not Zen Buddhist, or Mongolian, or Persian. A thing is a thing as it arises in its context. I actually do not think this idea is understood by a certain number who express their opinions here.

What separates, and I am using two examples very generally, Whitman and the underlying concepts (the underlying metaphysic) of the AA Program from the QRStian neo-Buddhism is not at all a small element. It is a very large, glaring, and important element. These are not random differences, slight variations, but rather extremely different core definitions that determine radically different outcomes. That is what I have been saying all along and I continue to say it. The discovery of these 'facts' has been a substantial part of my own development, and the main reason why I have valued my time here. I have sought to translate this learning into clear ideas that can be conveyed, and in truth I see this as (heh heh) a kind of evangelization. The 'gospel' I seek to spread, that I wish to be linked to, to live and die within, is that one which holds life as a real value, and that encourages the sorting through of competing values, the recognition of those values that conduce 'to life' and the rejection (and unmasking) of those that have other, perhaps opposite, effects. This is the core 'spiritual importance' of these conversations, to me.

Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.
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Re: Intuition and the Wordless Nerve

Post by Dennis Mahar »

Instead of writing vacuous opinions Alex.
Why don't you take an inventory of yourself.
That means do steps 4-9 rigorously.
You'll discover emptiness or Beginner's Mind and awaken spiritually.

You will discover that 'personal identity' is a falsity and you will no longer believe in it.
You will open up.

You will come to understand you are generally taking the inventory of others which is useless,
particularly on GF where most people don't subscribe to a 'personal identity'.

Your insults are empty.
Your prose is empty.

Try and get on the same page.
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Re: Intuition and the Wordless Nerve

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Well, let's post them:
  • 4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
    5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
    6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
    7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
    8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
    9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
To search through oneself, through the idea-structures that inform one, through our thinking and all that informs us, is in fact quite in the spirit of the 4th step.

I am curious: How would you go about defining, or explaining, this 'God' of the 5th step? And who would you ask to remove shortcomings?

What interests me is how destructive ideas, unconscious idea-patterns and even unconscious will, can act in this world. So, under Step 8 I would not only include people I might have specifically harmed, but the internal idea-structures, or patterns of ideas, or specific points of philosophy, which I might transmit to others, thereby harming them. (But that is of course preceded by Steps 4-7 interestingly enough.)

IDEAS HAVE CONSEQUENCES.

Making amends is...the willingness to do the work to put things right.

As to 'taking someone else's inventory': this is a public forum that is supposedly discussing the most important ideas that can be discussed, and that is supposedly a very serious business! And if that is true, then the ferreting out of destructive ideas (or costumes, or 'infection') is truly an important and worthwhile task.

But, to do this, one must have clear and tangible and very real values and ideals to support this process.

Which is of course why I say that you (utterly) self-contradict.
Dennis writes: You'll discover emptiness or Beginner's Mind and awaken spiritually.
Whoa, hold it right there! Is it not obvious from everything that I write that I am Tenth Echelon Enlightened Maven? Am I that humble that I manage to camouflage it? I have the certificate, perhaps I should post it?

Here, try this one. Cool, huh?
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Re: Intuition and the Wordless Nerve

Post by Dennis Mahar »

It's an authentic meeting with your conscience.
The thing you've been avoiding for decades.

Who have you harmed?
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Re: Intuition and the Wordless Nerve

Post by Alex Jacob »

Someone without inherency can do no meeting. There can be no reckoning with conscience since 'conscience' is a false construct. It is impossible, therefore, for any harm to be done since there can be no one to inflict or to receive it.

Everything is perfect! (I'm catchin' on. I am!)
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Re: Intuition and the Wordless Nerve

Post by Dennis Mahar »

Someone without inherency can do no meeting. There can be no reckoning with conscience since 'conscience' is a false construct. It is impossible, therefore, for any harm to be done since there can be no one to inflict or to receive it.

Everything is perfect! (I'm catchin' on. I am!)
Good.
Now to the question.
Who did you harm?
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Re: Intuition and the Wordless Nerve

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Bob Michael wrote:.....indeed the 'Holy Spirit' is a real thing, a real force or power and source of intelligence. And in order to tune in and flow with that holy spirit one must have a purified mind, which is a natural mind. A mind that has managed to free itself of all its societally acquired and deeply conditioned self-protective offensive and defensive posturing, which everyone of us falls prey to early on in life.

"I was telling them this morning - for seventy years that super energy - no - that immense energy, immense intelligence, has been using this body. I don't think people realize what tremendous energy and intelligence went through this body - there's a twelve-cylinder engine. And for seventy years - was a pretty long time - and now the body can't stand any more. Nobody, unless the body has been prepared, very carefully, protected and so on - nobody can understand what went through this body. Nobody. Don't anybody pretend. Nobody. I repeat this: nobody amongst us or the public, know what went on. I know they don't. And now after seventy years it has come to an end. Not that intelligence and energy - it's somewhat here, every, and especially at night......You won't find another body like this, or that supreme intelligence operating in a body for many hundred years. You won't see it again. When he goes, it goes.There is no consciousness left behind of 'that' consciousness, of 'that' state. They'll all pretend or try to imagine they can get into touch with that. Perhaps they will somewhat if they live the teachings. But nobody has done it. Nobody. And so that's that." (J. Krishnamurti on his deathbed)
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Re: Intuition and the Wordless Nerve

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Dennis Wrote: Now to the question.
Who did you harm?
Interestingly, the phrasing Who did you harm? can be read two ways: Who I did harm to and who did me harm. Dennis, you avoid every single point in everything I write, it is rather 'astonishing' as you like to say. Still, I feel I understand why.

Still, and once again, without realizing it, you have brought up some very important things. The whole question of Who is doing harm, what harm is, and how to alleviate that harm, how to change the individual on inner levels to alter those patterns, does seem to be what it is all about. I had not seen it before with quite that clarity, but those 12 Steps---because they are an expression of Christian values, a gleaning of the essential core message---they represent a whole way of being in the world, coming to terms with oneself, dealing with one's own tendency to 'do harm' if there are not ethical restraints. It is interesting to note that at one time the conversion to Christianity (from paganism) was termed 'taking the Christian cure', and priests are known in Spanish as 'curas' and in French 'curie': admininisters of the 'cure'. I would certainly not say that a conversion to Buddhism (a revelation and accepting certain values and ideals) would not have the same effect, as it seems to in your case. If I differ with you it is for other reasons, and those I have explained.

It seems to me that we are surrounded by lying narratives. Our culture is interpenetrated by them. Our minds, our bodies too. If there is such a thing as a 'cure' for that or from that, I suppose that is what we are all talking about in one way or another. Getting to a lying-free stance seems a difficult thing to do. Sorting through the lies that come to us as truths is another.

Everyone has to ask themselves if what they are preaching is Truth. In so many instances what seems like a truth in one moment appears not to be truth later on. Getting turned around in that way seems to be part of growing and learning. This 'plane of existence' (in my way of seeing things) is a place where all that occurs, the interplay of different truth-narratives, the forwarding of different truth-claims.

There always exists the possibility that the idea-constructs one puts forward may be interwoven with lies (deceptions, partial truths, self-willed 'truths'). I think that is why it is the Questions that are always the best to hold to.
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Re: Intuition and the Wordless Nerve

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Alex Jacob wrote:I am curious: How would you go about defining, or explaining, this 'God' of the 5th step? And who would you ask to remove shortcomings?
God or the Holy Spirit is trying via other people to help you remove some of your shortcomings, Alex. But your pride, intelligence, cleverness, flippancy, and need to belittle others seems to prevent you from realizing this simple fact.
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Re: Intuition and the Wordless Nerve

Post by Dennis Mahar »

Practically speaking.
The condition human being or what it means to be human.
Or the situation is:

Human is caused with a Social Instinct (herding).
a sexual instinct.
a financial instinct,

In your interactions in a competitive world,
who did you harm as you went about satisfying these things.
Who did you lie to, rip off, manipulate,
what did you steal,
who were you violent towards,
who did you plot against.

who were you afraid of and hid from,
who made you cower and dominated you.
who did you dominate and humiliate

who did you backstab to get up the ladder a bit,
who did you spread false rumours against to push them down
which girls did you tell that you loved them as a trick to get sex and then discard them

don't tell me you are an angel,
you've been a lying, conniving, cheating scumbag in your time,
only occasionally an angel

Quit bullshitting.

while human lacks inherent existence,
a piece and part of him is a conscience
coming clean or taking inventory,
admitting one's defects of character
refreshes,
renews spirit.
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Re: Intuition and the Wordless Nerve

Post by Alexis Jacobi »

No! NO! God or the Holy Spirit is working though ME to...get y'all to see all sorts of things about yourselves and the whole nature of the problem. The Holy Spirit comes at night with a magic carpet and takes me on journeys far and near! The Holy Spirit allows me to reach deep into the back of your minds and...rearrange things (put them in the correct order!). He who defines, determines! It is I who brings salvation!

;-)

Bob, you can only remove a shortcoming that is real and not a shortcoming that is acting. Please remember: I have revealed all my tricks (of acting) as I go along. Don't read the lines, read between the lines. In respect to that, I have the sense that you are far too literal, as if you take yourself literally seriously. I take flesh and blood people on the ground to be literally real. I don't relate in that way to written constructs. How can I take you, Dennis, Jufa, movingalways and others seriously? Do you take them seriously? By taking ourselves seriously, we end up taking others seriously too. And we shouldn't.

Read the lines and then read between the lines. I have never been dishonest, I have proclaimed all this right from the very start.

Still, I have a sense that the 'game' that you wish to play is one where you become a sort of Forum Captain (since I cannot believe that you really believe you are establishing some sort of Ark...on an email forum...in cyberspace!) The 'personality defects' (if you will) that I indulge in were all originally devised as mirrors and responses to the numerous hard cases I encountered in this space. Don't you know that I am the most enlightened one here? You think you are Captain? I am Dimensional Master!

There are some problems associated with it, I admit, but there you have it. In summation, I would say that because the environment is so essentially and irremediably 'dysfunctional', it has always seemed best to play dysfunctionally. When I write straight, direct prose it is generally 'me' speaking.

Like this right here:
  • Hello Bob, this is the real me speaking. I hope you are very well. Please, read between the lines and glean out of what I write the 'real person' offering his opinions, insights, tentative ideas, partial conclusions. But DO NOT take seriously the over-the-top stuff, and also beware of devilish irony. I love to play within irony and, while ironizing, imitate...
The rest...well who knows? ;-) (But thanks a bunch for giving Dennis endless ammunition for now bringing The Holy Spirit against me!)
Quoting you, quoting Whitman: "I dream'd in a dream I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the rest of the earth. I dreamed that was the new city of Friends. Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust Love. It led the rest. It was seen every hour in the actions of the Men of that city, and in all their looks and words." (Walt Whitman)
Interesting, I was reading that Whitman's father or grandfather was associated with a radical branch of Quakers. So much of Whitman's vision of things comes from this Christian personalism. It is an eye-opener to read him with this is mind.

As to Whitman 'not making it', we know that the only one who has made it is Bob Michaels. To me, this is a funny game to play but as it is played I do appreciate many of the things you say and enjoy the quotes. I do not in any sense accept your vision of things, though. I think you yourself make a terrible mistake. That mistake is grandiosity combined with believing your own illusion.

I don't AT ALL see Whitman as a failure, or rather I think it is much more honest to see everyone as a failure, I mean in the end. The personalism and the vision of beauty of Whitman lives on. I don't at all see that as 'failure'.
Dennis writes: "...which girls did you tell that you loved them as a trick to get sex and then discard them."
Look, I'll admit to anything, alright, but that is one thing I am NOT guilty of. I would always reveal my intentions beforehand. I'd say, "Look, I am going to act as if I care about you, but in fact all I am interested in is getting into your pants. I tell you this now so you don't have any illusions. I am a rogue in all senses and you should NEVER believe a word I say. But, I know, even if you don't fully realize it, that even with this advance notice you will take my theater seriously at some point. It is your destiny. You will think your 'affection' has somehow won the day, you will see my lying there on the pillow beside you (after fucking your brains out and sending you into girl-orbit) and you will hallucinate that I must, at some level, feel what you feel, want what you want. But that can't be because I serve my own purposes! I will not at that point dissuade you from your illusion. It will seem as though I have 'changed my mind'. Don't believe that, even though you will have no choice but...to believe it. We'll have a great deal of fun but that will only be a sign that it is soon coming to an end."

Yet still, in fact, I do see myself as an Angel.
Child and singing cradle one
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Re: Intuition and the Wordless Nerve

Post by Dennis Mahar »

Yeah,
angel of the first degree.
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Re: Intuition and the Wordless Nerve

Post by Alex Jacob »

Ok: I'm back. I became Alexis Jacobi for a minute and, as you well imagine, that is sort of a chameleon-like experience. Waving of the hands...concealment/revelation, front/depth. But I am back.

Allow me please to throw up (I don't quite mean it that way) a quote by Michael Taussig who wrote aninteresting book called Magic of the State.

"I use the Sydney expression 'fictocriticism' to convey the hybrid sense and I clearly designate the fictional quality through a variety of devices, mainly humor and.tone, camp and arch-camp. An aim of such writing is to turn the attention of the reader to the very act of writing as an 'anthropological' or cultural act which engages with the desire to succumb to authority in general, and to colonial or post-colonial tropes in particular."

Narrators always have a role or serve a role. It seems to depend on some initial self definitions. I find this interesting.
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Re: Intuition and the Wordless Nerve

Post by Bob Michael »

Dennis Mahar wrote:Practically speaking.

The condition human being or what it means to be human.
Or the situation is:

Human is caused with a Social Instinct (herding).
a sexual instinct.
a financial instinct,

In your interactions in a competitive world,
who did you harm as you went about satisfying these things.
Who did you lie to, rip off, manipulate,
what did you steal,
who were you violent towards,
who did you plot against.

who were you afraid of and hid from,
who made you cower and dominated you.
who did you dominate and humiliate

who did you backstab to get up the ladder a bit,
who did you spread false rumours against to push them down
which girls did you tell that you loved them as a trick to get sex and then discard them

don't tell me you are an angel,
you've been a lying, conniving, cheating scumbag in your time,
only occasionally an angel

Quit bullshitting.

while human lacks inherent existence,
a piece and part of him is a conscience
coming clean or taking inventory,
admitting one's defects of character
refreshes,
renews spirit.
Even More Practically Speaking

Such a virtuous and human spirit liberating task requires having a finely-formed and highly-sensitive conscience. However, due to the evolutionary deterioration of the human species, few there be that are equipted with such a conscience. And those few who have such a conscience are hopelessly trapped in the wall-to-wall deterioration.

P. S. If Alex ever comes down to earth and grasps this tragic fact of life and starts to get serious about himself and life he just might stop playing the buffoon and begin to be of real value to the evolutionary process. I've come over time to clearly sense he's one of those kinds of people that it's useless talking to. At least presently. He has all the answers, or so he 'thinks'. And engaging in discussion with him only feeds his ego and keeps him running round and round in circles to absolutely nowhere.
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Re: Intuition and the Wordless Nerve

Post by Bob Michael »

Alexis Jacobi wrote:Bob, you can only remove a shortcoming that is real and not a shortcoming that is acting. Please remember: I have revealed all my tricks (of acting) as I go along. Don't read the lines, read between the lines. In respect to that, I have the sense that you are far too literal, as if you take yourself literally seriously. I take flesh and blood people on the ground to be literally real. I don't relate in that way to written constructs. How can I take you, Dennis, Jufa, movingalways and others seriously? Do you take them seriously? By taking ourselves seriously, we end up taking others seriously too. And we shouldn't.
Be it with irony or whatever, woe to him who keeps kicking a man when he's down. But eventually it'll come home to roost, even if it's on his last day.
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Re: Intuition and the Wordless Nerve

Post by Alex Jacob »

No, Bob, in fact you can talk to me about anything. You can't really have an idea of just how much I take things seriously. Well, you could, but you'd have to read between the lines.

I understand your negative view of the present, and in many ways I share it. I share it even if it is not true because, in truth, we need a great thing to struggle against to romantically charge our own mission. We are in that sense products of the romantic traditions. I see your end of the world vision as romantic. It all might end and it all might not end. But---and I"ve already said this---it is also one of the best times. But I see, take in, understand and even relate to your romantic, apocalyptic vision. It tends to super-charge the present.

As to helping evolutionary processes. Good Heavens! That really does seem Aurobindo-inspired. I am a disciple of Hermes. I might have chosen it and it might have just happened like that. You both can---very much!---and can't---at all!---get a straight answer out of Hermes. But you cannot say that Hermes does not serve evolution.

You misread about flesh and blood 'on the ground'! I mean the people.around us, 'on the ground'. Who do you imagine is on the ground that I am kicking? That ia not very flattering to Dennis. I'm sure he doesn't see it that way.
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Re: Intuition and the Wordless Nerve

Post by Dennis Mahar »

I am a disciple of Hermes.
That's your excuse.
Who's gonna buy that?

It was the pink elephant your honour.
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Re: Intuition and the Wordless Nerve

Post by Alex Jacob »

Is this a trial? Am I being tried for my crimes by a State authority? Consider for a moment the scenario you are presenting. I say, 'as a disciple of Hermes', that I cannot quite take 'you' seriously, but that is no crime against the State! You may, with some justice, consider it pretentious of me---very well! But I think that 'Hermes' is the presiding God of this place (our reality). That means: things are not what they seem. You both can and can't get a straight answer! But what that means is that it is more about the Questions. It is both about the act and the action, and about the demasking.
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Re: Intuition and the Wordless Nerve

Post by Dennis Mahar »

An excuse = An excuse

That's all it is.
An excuse.
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Re: Intuition and the Wordless Nerve

Post by Dennis Mahar »

But I think that 'Hermes' is the presiding God of this place (our reality).
What you've done is given Hermes absolute existence.
Really, for hermes to exist depends on you giving him existence.
Because hermes depends he has relative or conventional existence only.

hermes gives you the possibility of 'taunt and mock'.
in that way hermes is your excuse.

The same point can be made with reference to ethical laws, what is unethical are various types of mental, verbal, physical actions. These actions are motivated by ignorance, hostility, craving and result in suffering for oneself and others. There are natural laws governing the manner in which wholesome and unwholesome actions lead to well-being and suffering, respectively. They are objective in the sense they are not subject to whim, but they exist as dependantly related events or possibilities for human being.
They are not absolute things in their own right.

All Bob and I are saying is a full and rigorous inventory of how one has lived self-centeredly,
once realised,
sets one on a trajectory of living upon a spiritual basis.

Living upon a spiritual basis as a possibility benefits all beings and is found to be largely unpopular, consequently giving rise to a troubled world.

Not living based in spirituality amounts to a range of excuses.
Trust me I had all the excuses and that's all I had.
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Re: Intuition and the Wordless Nerve

Post by Bob Michael »

Alex wrote:No, Bob, in fact you can talk to me about anything. You can't really have an idea of just how much I take things seriously. Well, you could, but you'd have to read between the lines.

That may be all well and good but I read 'behind' the lines, Alex. Or from much higher up on the mountain top.
Alex wrote:I understand your negative view of the present, and in many ways I share it. I share it even if it is not true because, in truth, we need a great thing to struggle against to romantically charge our own mission. We are in that sense products of the romantic traditions. I see your end of the world vision as romantic. It all might end and it all might not end. But---and I"ve already said this---it is also one of the best times. But I see, take in, understand and even relate to your romantic, apocalyptic vision. It tends to super-charge the present.
Call it (label it) whatever you wish, it's the real deal. And my 'Ark' will not (cannot) be built here online. My time and energy spent here serves primarily (and very likely only) in my own continuing development towards spiritual perfection. Being/becoming Pure Spirit!
Alex wrote:As to helping evolutionary processes. Good Heavens! That really does seem Aurobindo-inspired. I am a disciple of Hermes. I might have chosen it and it might have just happened like that. You both can---very much!---and can't---at all!---get a straight answer out of Hermes. But you cannot say that Hermes does not serve evolution.

I've gone beyond Aurobindo and all of my many teachers. The most notable of them being J. Krishnamurti and Nietzsche. Both of whom I've come to understand better than they understood themselves. And woe to him who remains a mere disciple (of Hermes or any man for that matter). Such a man repays his teacher(s) rather badly, and the evolutionary process too. Not to mention that he may very well be stuck in a rut.
Alex wrote:You misread about flesh and blood 'on the ground'! I mean the people.around us, 'on the ground'. Who do you imagine is on the ground that I am kicking? That is not very flattering to Dennis. I'm sure he doesn't see it that way.
Here you fail to correctly read between the lines, Alex. Remember too, I'm the wise and highly discerning Captain of the 'chosen few', the 'elect', out in the real world ("Michael and his Angels"), and not the essentially faceless and aimless multitude here or anywhere. What's your m. o., Alex? To continue to pompously and vainly fritter away your days here online? I would hope not. I suggest you begin to fellowship with life out in the real world while focusing your time and energy on fully overcoming Alex. Book learning is good, but it's out in 'Life's School of Hard Knocks' that the real, valuable, and truly helpful (to others) education takes place.
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Re: Intuition and the Wordless Nerve

Post by Talking Ass »

Dennis writes: "What you've done is given Hermes absolute existence.
Really, for hermes to exist depends on you giving him existence.
Because hermes depends he has relative or conventional existence only."
Literalism seems to be a strong trait around here. But such literalism is not 'hermetic', my children. To speak of life and 'Hermes' is just a way to speak about the way things are, or seem to be. The Hermetic idea is just as much a part of the Occidental traditions as is the Jesusonian or the Apollonian or Dionysian. It is a way of experiencing, or a way of interacting. I think it is more fundamental, myself, and that is why (in mythology) Hermes is always the first and last.

Here, here's a story:
  • Just after the Middle Earth had been conquered and claimed by intelligent beings, and Chaos pushed back to the frontiers, there was still a great deal of confusion and turmoil and it always seemed that Chaos might overcross the borders again. Indeed, it happened from time to time and the inrush of chaotic power upset the careful, consitent work being carried on in Middle Earth. In a meeting between the different tribes and species, the Trolls suggested that a difficult and dangerous trip be undertaken to seek consultation from Hermes who is said to understand everything, both the past and the present and the future and everything required. If you are lucky enough to get an interview with Hermes, bring a pen and a notepad and carefully write everything down, and follow the instructions to the letter.

    Well, all the tribes agreed that Hermes should be consulted, and so they elected a human (whose name, coincidentally, was Dennis) to make the trip to sit at the feet of Hermes and find out how Chaos could be kept at bay. Three weeks of travel later, scarred and tattered but still rosey-cheeked and really quite eager, Dennis arrived at Hermes' abode, and Hermes, after hearing about the conditions in Middle Earth and after deeply thinking over the problem, pronounced:

    "I have the answer you need, but it will require a great sacrifice on your part!"

    "What might it be? My ideals are so high and I am so eager to be of service that I'll do anything, your excellency!"

    "Very well, then: Give me one of your eyes!"

    Without hesitating, Dennis took out and handed to the God Hermes his right eye.

    "And what, Sir, is the answer?" asked Dennis, who had kept his side of the bargain and fully expected Hermes to keep his.

    "The answer is KEEP BOTH EYES ALWAYS OPEN!"
It is really only possible to 'taunt and mock' (and succeed at it) when there are ready victims. That is to say, fully cooperating souls who are perfect for the role assigned to them. Once one is stable and unmovable, it is usually at that point that Hermes becomes very forthcoming and explains things in simple, direct prose.
"The same point can be made with reference to ethical laws, what is unethical are various types of mental, verbal, physical actions. These actions are motivated by ignorance, hostility, craving and result in suffering for oneself and others. There are natural laws governing the manner in which wholesome and unwholesome actions lead to well-being and suffering, respectively. They are objective in the sense they are not subject to whim, but they exist as dependantly related events or possibilities for human being.
They are not absolute things in their own right."
Hermes, who was here beside me when I read this aloud, became very serious and pious and got down upon one knee to pray. Then, he enacted a kind of pious choreography with attending pious flourishes, a sort of curtsying with genuflections and primping. I felt a little offended and demanded to know by what authority he felt he could mock what sounded like good, sound advice that any sensible person should accept.

He explained that by hanging around with dull-witted people my intelligence was getting dulled. He explained that the trick and the tactic for getting through what he called 'the material entanglement' was devilishly complex, and though it was certainly true that the experience we create for others are those, from the other side (a kind of simultaneity as he explained it), that we oursleves shall have to live, indeed are living, the trick of beginning to stop that 'karma' was not exactly as it is explained in the Morality Texts. He explained that the realm itself is rife with ambiguities and that only by grasping the nature of these ambiguities could one be said to make progress. He said 'Awakening is not, despite what anyone says, a formula. It is a process of realization that cannot be feined'.
Bob wrote: "What's your m. o., Alex? To continue to pompously and vainly fritter away your days here online? I would hope not. I suggest you begin to fellowship with life out in the real world while focusing your time and energy on fully overcoming Alex. Book learning is good, but it's out in 'Life's School of Hard Knocks' that the real, valuable, and truly helpful (to others) education takes place."
I tell you EXACTLY what my M.O. is and you ask me what is my M.O. 1) The right questions are more important than the answers. 2) To get to the right questions is much more work than one supposes. 3) Nothing is as it seems. This is tough to take in but very important. Don't read surfaces, read depth. 4) Trust your mother but cut the cards.

I sometimes think, myself, there is no 'Alex' to overcome. (Please don't take that the wrong way).

I became puzzled and distraught over this and so brought it to the attention of ole Hermes. He said, 'While it is not quite like Dennis's disappearing or non-inherant self, but more along the lines that once the ball of twine begins to unravel, once some of the knots have been untied or loosened in any case, and once one has seen the scheme of things, and once one stays out of certain kinds of existential traps, everything will happen as it is supposed to, and the effort becomes (Bob's 'evolutionary processes' here...) about beginning to demonstrate to others how some aspect of that is carried out. It is demonstrated
'enegetically'.

'Does that sound pompous?' he asked. 'It sure sounds so to state it like that. But this is exactly what everything hinges upon. Isn't that what that GF Forum is 'dedicated' to, the loosening of knots, the beginning of the 'road home'? From the way you describe it, Alex, what goes on there is on a very different order. Will they kick you out of the Kingdom even as they edge their way in?'

The question I (Alex) ask is: Can you people laugh? Can you laugh at yourselves?
fiat mihi
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