On consciousness

[cousinbasil]

Sure, but that only tends to piss him off even more. Better to fein obedience when He's around and do what the fuck you please when He's not. That has worked for me anyway.

TA, always the practical beast of burden. Reminds me of Father Guido Sarducci, when asked how one should comport oneself if Jesus suddenly appeared. "Look a-busy."

[Kunga]

We have lost the capacity to define 'him'. So, we are left bathed in the waters of a world where god has become absent. Or, all connecting ideas to 'god' have been short circuited. Modern man has not only negated the sacred, he has been extruded into a desacralized cosmos. In such a world, what would you 'obey' or 'disobey'?

I came to the understanding that God is not the God I initialy concieved him to be....the only thing that made sense to me was God is everything....not a creator God, separate from his creation...but a single manifestation. You can call it God, The Absolute, The Totality, Divine Cosmos, The Tao, Nature......God to me is not separate from eveerything else, as there is nothing else but God.....All IS IT.

It puzzles me how monotheism see's God as a separate entitiy, when the substance of everything is of itself.

To obey your indwelling heart, consciousness, will reveal what is right or wrong. The fruit of your comprehension will be bitter or sweet.

BTW....humour makes me fall in love....my heart melts towards those that can make me laugh. You guys are too funny !

[Kunga]

The fruit of your comprehension will be bitter or sweet.

Bitter/sweet is good too ...I imagine it boring if there's no more mystery to solve...

[David Quinn]

David writes: "It doesn't matter if everything I experience is a neurosis or a demon-inspired dream or a simulation or whatever - the mere fact that everything I experience is a part of existence means that it is a direct experience of reality. / This point is very difficult to explain to those with mental blocks, but I can only point out the obvious truth that whatever exists always has something ultimately real about it - which automatically means that everything is ultimately real."

Well, at this point I can somewhat agree with you since my understanding is that there is a 'something' standing behind all Manifestation. The difference between yours an my view is that for me what 'stands behind' all things is more than (your) the sum-total of things.

Can a mirage be greater than the ALL? Attempting to go beyond the world of things (mirages) in an effort to find what "stands behind" will always end in failure. No matter how hard you try, all you'll end up with is another mirage.

It's the wrong aproach. It is spirituality at its crudest. It is spirituality conceived by a mind that is still besotted with forms, that still looks for happiness in forms.

He who believes the ALL itself is deficient is himself completely deficient.

Still, you must keep in mind that I am thinking in 'kabbalistic' terms: all of our ideas about any 'ultimate' reality comes to us through a flawed structure: the mind, the perceptive tool. It is the world of all possible images and organizations. Yet, there is a kind of hierarchy (superior-inferior) of Vision, and there are lower and limited rungs (of perception). The trick seems to be: achieve the most pure Vision, or the most all-inclusive, or the widest one. Or, find that tradition which seems to have best emplored 'all that' and 'mine' within it: use new hermeneutical tools and to 'restate' in terms that express the purest 'spark' of 'truth'.

You're a posturing man who prefers to stumble around in the dark rather than switch the light on.

I always think that your *rationalistic* system of (achieving vision) is flawed because it derives from lower, not higher, levels. So, though you indeed experience 'reality' as 'the limits of what you conceive', it is not all there is to be perceived.

Only a mind that is besotted with forms could say something as stupid as this. You are completely looking in the wrong place. Forget perceptions. Forget forms. Forget what stands in front and what stands behind. Transcend it all. Go beyond all form and perception now!

-

[David Quinn]

he can never go beyond his own consciousness and peek at what's there.

Does that have anything to do with evolution ?

No, it is an inherent aspect of consciousness itself. To peek is to use consciousness. Consciousness can never go beyond itself while remaining conscious

I often think it's impossible to know more than what our evolutionary brains can allow.
Other civilizations in the Universe, that have evolved millions of years beyond Earth, have the capacity to learn/know what we could never comprehend in our present condition.

That may be so, but even they will be trapped within their own consciouness. There is no way for anyone, anywhere, to get around this while remaining conscious.

You seem to be going off on a tangent there. The essence of the solipsist's position is that there is no objective criteria that he can use to distinguish between the idea that he alone has consciousness and the idea that everyone he meets also has consciousness.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism

Solipsism is the position that we can only be certain about our own mind and things therein.

Okay, that's a broader conception of solipsism and contains irrationalities. It ignores, for example, the reality of logical truths which necessarily apply everywhere, both within the mind and beyond, such as the one you give about how the mind is necessarily caused. The narrower conception of solipsism that I have been talking about - namely, that it is imposssible to judge if other people are truly conscious - cannot be refuted.

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[Kunga]

To peek is to use consciousness. Consciousness can never go beyond itself while remaining conscious

Isn't that a contradiction ? So one would have to be unconscious in order to do the peeking ?
How do you peek beyond yourself when there is nothing beyond yourself ?
If you are The ALL,
What's beyond ?

[David Quinn]

To peek is to use consciousness. Consciousness can never go beyond itself while remaining conscious

Isn't that a contradiction ? So one would have to be unconscious in order to do the peeking ?

Yes, that is what makes it impossible to peek beyond consciousness.

This is an example of a logical truth which is impossible to refute. Unearthing logical truths of this kind and using them like rungs on a ladder to climb out of the world is the path to enlightenment.

-

[Kunga]

Is what is watching your consciousness different from consciousness ? Like when you are aware of being conscious ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O55QQonD9C0

[Liberty Sea]

As Quinn said, I am only exploring a theistic point of view as much as I can, turning the problems around and asking all possible questions. Basically I lean toward atheism.

More empty speculation. If things are created out of nowhere then they would in fact be random, i.e, without a cause. This is because nothing cannot cause a thing, and vice versa.

This is a misunderstanding of the scenario I proposed.
I did not say something can be caused by nothing. I believe in causation, but I am questioning whether we can ever be certain about what the causes are. Cannot God's will be a cause? To put it more clearly, my question was: Can the total mass in the universe increase? In the beginning, is there no mass? Is this scenario possible: In the beginning, there is God and no mass? Can mass be created out of non-mass by God's will?
Quantum physicists seem to be saying that mass can be created out of non-mass, and the totality of mass can be increased.

There is no reason to say that only two specific beings exist, since other beings can also be conceived.

When you dream, what beings do you 'conceive'? The images you see in your dream are not interpretation and distortion of actual beings that actually occupy space, but simply images created by your psyche, or whatever process that created your psyche, are they not?

You say that a being is if and only if it is in relation with other beings. But what if An object is said to exist/be if it does occupy some space, and its identity should not be characterized by its appearance or outer form, but its inner structure?
Try to conceive a strawberry in an empty space. Remove the empty space surrounding it, and the atomic structure of the strawberry remain basically same, and that which we called a strawberry still occupies space. So, does an object need external environment to be?
Of course it can be said that the strawberry is still composed by its parts, which are not it, but they belong to its internal structure nonetheless. And what if we reduce the object to a particle that has no parts, only an indivisible whole?

[Kunga]

Also...it's not very hard to realize or imagine, that there was something present in the Universe before human consciousness.

[Talking Ass]

My feeling, David, is that you are locked into a description-system that often just sounds like a repeat of classical Buddhism. Buddhism is simply not concerned with anything beyond what is needful to live a moral life and to cease pain and suffering, insofar as that is possible. It is not 'designed' or equipped for the sort of speculations we are involved in. (I cannot say that in all this time I have a clear understanding of what your position is or your vision or your desire. I have more or less given up! If it benefits someone, anyone---you---then well and good. I fight against you because polemic is a great way to learn about oneself, to be forced to define one's values. It is very true that I find much lacking in your approach, but you know that.)

To arrive at the end of suffering, I honestly get the impression that it [Buddhism] desires to extinguish life itself, and the self especially, which is a logical choice since existence is the thing that produces all this pain. It is a very very radical program. But yoga too in Indian thought shares this desire: that by reversing all the steps that got us into this material condition (through inner unravelling, climbing back up the chain of events, retreating back out of sense engagement) we can make our way back to a more real real, in any case a permanent level of existence. Whole schools of yoga take this position, and they span ultra-theism to near-atheism. [Pure atheism is rare in Indian thinking and even Buddhism is not non-theist but rather theo-indifferent].

With qualifications, but not because I am being stubborn and 'chosing it' but rather because it is simply a fundamental part of my substructure of perception, I understand everything to be only divine stuff. There is no way to say where it came from or how it came to be (this is sort of the Buddhist position, isn't it?), but there is no alternative in thinking about it except that it is eternal and, as I have experienced, conscious. I tend toward a 'hyper-theism' [in imagining all that might be], but in fact I am a rather practical practitioner: I have my ways and means of evoking divinity. I have alluded to this in humorous ways in numerous posts. There is really nothing more that I would even care to say about it. 'You know what you know'. I am sure that what confuses you [and many] is the 'defense' of Judaism and Christianity. True, it is an almost endless maze and it is certainly perhaps easier just to dismiss it all. However this is impossible. We have to work with what we are. [How we Westerners have become the 'selves' that we are'.]

What would I gain, David, by shutting myself off from the fundamental means by which Reality is revealed to me? [I am not speaking of either Judaism or Christianity here, this is an altogether different paragraph]. It just seems so very simple to me: every person has a sort of 'subjective hook-up' through which their perception occurs. Mine is that I sense 'God' as a force that pulses through this manifested world. And what is more, when I speak of 'beckoning' [to divinity], it also means of course that I have received the 'signals' coming back. What you never seem to take into account, and we can speak of the Indian Traditions because they seem to be the most complete, the most thorough, is that within those descriptions of divine experience there are many that describe God very 'theistically'. And there are others that do not seem to describe it that way. To me, it is not worth the time to explain away one whole segment of human experience, but rather to take it as it is, to try to 'get behind it', to try and intuit what is being 'said' through that 'language'.

I have a feeling that I won't be joining the Australian Atheist's Society anytime soon... ;-)

A person lives and if they are a 'seeker' sort, and if they are adamant about that, if they take risks and really put their selves on the existential line, it is my experience that knowledge comes to them in spades. One's whole life is an adventure in it, and one spends one's time unravelling and 'processing' that experience. That is what I am doing in my own life. The really really important experiences and knowledge, in my own case, is only useful to a person who will move or is moving on similar roads. (So, my experience, from all we have seen, is useless and incomprehensible to you and your whole tribe). In my case, and certainly on an Internet forum, I will never, ever describe what I really think and what I really 'believe': meaning what I live. To me, these conversations are only useful as a way to stimulate thought in these areas. Nothing is going to be solved here. If a person is going to 'solve' things, they will do it way within levels of inner experience that are incommunicable.

[Firefly]

Here's my two cents...

I hope this helps expand your works to a more approachable form. Note that my approach is to expand awareness of the subject, not to insult or intimidate.. may poke. This exercise also helps me so don't think too much into it.

1. Consciousness exists.

Where? The metaphysical realm or the epistemological?

2. Consciousness is a movement.

Where is it that it can move? As a state of awareness it has no position thus no basis for movement.

2.1 Consciousness changes constantly.

This implies it has a form. If so, what form is it? If it has no form it has no basis for change.

2.2 No consciousness stay the same between two consecutive moments.

This implies it is affected by time, that time is more than a unit of measure and there is more than one form of consciousness. If so, how and why?

2.3 Consciousness is no longer itself after a unit of time.

This implies that consciousness only exists for one unit of time. What does it become? What is that unit?

3. All movement of consciousness is inevitable.

Where?

3.1 All movement of consciousness is caused and conditioned.

Caused and conditioned, I agree.. but movement? The analogy needs expansion for me, please elaborate.

4. All ordinary movement of consciousness remains trapped in the duality of the point of view and the pointed, of the viewer and the viewed, of the observer and the observed, of subject and object.

This implies it is separate from these given variables, I think it is the cause.

4.1 All ordinary movement consciousness has a vantage point, namely, a point of view, from which consciousness launches itself.

That is a circle. I'm afraid it doesn't launch itself. If so, we wouldn't be.

4.1.1 My ego is that vantage point ('I' is a vantage point).

One's ego is what does the launching.

4.1.1.1 I do not have an ego or a self beyond that vantage point.

Because it is the vantage point as you have said, and cannot be more than it is.

4.1.1.1.1 My body is not my ego.

You could say your body of knowledge founded and managed by consciousness relative to your stance in existence is your ego.

4.1.1.1.1.1 My body is but a totality of my parts.

With your body in the metaphysical realm and mind in the epistemological realm, consciousness must be the 'between', how do you prove the two realms are tied together by it? Prove it and your claim could be true.

4.1.1.1.1.2 My parts are my possessions.

Please elaborate.

4.1.1.1.1.3 My possessions are not me.

Possession does not denote ownership, to what context are you working with?

4.1.2 My vantage point does not realistically exist.

What does realism have to do with this?

4.1.2.1 A vantage point is merely geometrical.

This is merely stating ego is structured.

4.1.2.2 A vantage point is factually empty.

Because it is not based on credibility.

4.1.3 My ego does not realistically exist.

If existence is considered real, then this statement is a fallacy as you have declared it exists by stating is is the "vantage point".

4.1.4 I do not have an inherent existence.

Please elaborate.

4.2 All consciousness is consciousness about something, launched toward something.

You've dropped the original integrity you started with and are throwing more about. This only hurts you, please don't do this.

4.2.1 That something is my world.

A world decreased in value due to the dropped context.

4.2.1.1 My world is all that my consciousness perceives and all that is not my vantage point.

It is the basis for your vantage point.

4.2.1.1.1 My consciousness is the reflection of my world.

Consciousness reflects the world, it is not a reflection of the world.

4.2.1.1.2 My perceptions of my world is dependent on my vantage point.

And what consciousness reflects at the same time. Consciousness also reflects the vantage point.

4.2.1.1.2.1 I perceive my world as forms.

How do you perceive forms?

4.2.1.1.2.2 The existences and forms of all entities that my consciousness perceives are dependent on my vantage point.

And consciousness.

4.2.1.1.3 My world is dependent on my consciousness.

And the vantage point.

4.2.1.1.3.1 No form exist independent of my perception.

I don't agree.

4.2.1.1.3.2 Nothing possess form apart from what my consciousness perceives, namely my world.

Only relative to what one can be aware of at any given point in time.

4.2.1.1.4 My world is the only world I ever perceive.

A relative statement, redundant like many so far.

4.2.1.1.4.1 What my consciousness perceives is all that I ever perceive.

One is not separate from that which they are.

4.2.1.1.4.2 My vantage point is the only point of view that I can ever possess.

As you've stated, you don't possess anything. You must be more specific

4.2.1.2 I and my world are one.

Only, I mean only, in the context that both are of the same existence. One is not null.

4.2.1.2.1 The existence of a separation between I and my world is as realistic as the existence of my vantage point.

Not 'a', 'the', the basis is Definition.

4.2.1.2.2 The separation is formed and strengthened through my educational environment in which 'I' have grown up.

Dirty Definitions.

4.2.1.2.3 Language strengthens the separation between I and my world.

Like I said, "Do not hold words clearer than your ideas.", without a pure base lexicon your ideas will become corrupted and destroy everything you fought for.

4.2.1.2.3.1 All language is the result of categorization.

And the need to share ideas.

4.2.1.2.3.2 Language determines my thoughts.

And is destroying you as words are not yet pure like ideas.

4.2.1.2.3.2.1 My instincts and habits are petrified thought, established through a long history.

False assumptions hurt too. Please quit trying to take shortcuts, I tried, it doesn't work.

4.2.1.2.2 All ordinary movement of consciousness is pointed toward my world from my vantage point, but not self-pointed. In other word, consciousness at a particular moment is not conscious of itself and I am not conscious my own action right that moment.

This is a contradiction.

4.2.1.2.3 My ordinary consciousness can only observe my past self and not my current self.

Why not the present and future?

4.2.1.2.2.1 When I am happy I am not conscious my happiness.

This is another contradiction.

4.2.1.2.2.2 When I am conscious of my happiness I am no longer happy.

Why?

4.3 Any merely oppositional movement of consciousness remains trapped in the networks of what it opposes.

Why would consciousness oppose anything?

5. Ordinary movement of consciousness is motivated by fear and at the same limited by fear, which is caused by the illusion of duality.

How so?

5.1 All ordinary movement of consciousness of caused, motivated by the deep-rooted desire for eventual pleasure, that is, to gratify itself. (Or to put it casually, we all want to feel good and everything we do is to achieve that good feeling, whether directly or indirectly, whether we are aware of it, whether we hasten or postpone it.)

Dropped context again, you've separated yourself from consciousness and now work as if it isn't separate. Please be more consistent.

5.2 All ordinary consciousness is limited by the fear of not being able to gratify itself.

Why do you impose fear as a necessary function?

5.2.1 All emotions is caused by this deep-rooted fear.

How so?

5.2.1.1 Emotions come through stimulation.

In which context?

5.2.1.2 Emotions is the manifestation of the inability to accept the causes of emotions.

So.. one cannot have emotions if one does't know they have them... even when they have them.... Give me a break.

5.2.1.2.1 Emotions cannot end itself.

Because the concept is inanimate.

5.2.1.2.1.2 Emotions only breeds more emotions.

Is this a metaphor or what?

5.2.1.2.2 Emotions cannot be ended by thought.

... beating around the bush

5.2.1.2.2.1 Thoughts can intensify emotions.

Ah, this I can agree with.. what's your point? Lose your way?

5.2.1.2.3 At bottom there is only one emotion: fear.

This is getting old, the point of exploring yourself it to find truth, not assumptions as truth.

5.2.1.4 The ordinary man doesn't want to be free from fear, because he doesn't want to be free from the bondage of emotions.

Don't go there, it has been done before, the basis is a fallacy and it has killed millions.

5.2.2 Emotions, caused by fear, prevent the cultivation of consciousness

So we must all kill ourselves according to your given context... right. So you want to kill millions if not all.

5.2.2.1 Emotional pleasures are a distraction from fear, or a disguise of fear, generated by the desire to escape from the fear of loneliness.

You have no point.

5.2.2.1.1 All decadence of consciousness is caused by the escape from the fear of loneliness.

Dude... this is just getting worse and you are way off tangent.

5.2.2.2 Loneliness is as realistic as the separation between I and my world.
5.2.2.2.1 Loneliness and fear strengthen each other.
5.2.2.2.2 Fear is caused by delusions.
6. Fear is overcome when all duality is transcended, including the duality of dualism and non-dualism.
6.1 Fear cannot be overcome through the rejection of fear.
6.1.2 The rejection of fear remains trapped in fear.
6.1.2.1 The rejection of emotions remain trapped in the network of emotions.
6.2 Fear can only be overcome the thorough understanding of fear, namely the piercing through delusions.
6.3 The through understanding of fear come through the cultivation of consciousness.
6.1 The cultivation of consciousness means to look at fear in the face, to accept loneliness and insecurity.

Your wandering, looking for clarity, and spouting the trash you come across. Not every connection your mind makes it perfect.

6.4 Genius is the cultivation of consciousness.
6.4.1 Genius is high sensibility fueled by passion.
6.4.1.2 Sensibility is enhanced perceptiveness, acute observativeness.

Without the integrity of the original context I can not agree.

6.4.1.2.1 Logical ability it not itself sensibility and therefore not necessarily the nature of genius, but a faculty that can be strengthened by sensibility.

You have no foundation, therefore no truth. No truth = lies/false ideas.

6.4.1.3 Cultivated and expanded sensibility and reflection bring about existential angst.
6.4.1.3.1 Cultivated and expanded sensibility brings to my face the meaninglessness of existence.

Without context it would appear that way. Please, leave this as an experiment. Not true, not false, but a test for yourself. Set it aside.

6.4.1.3.1.1 The reflection and observation of cultivated sensibility drives my to question my individuality, namely my ego, and my relation with the world around me, namely all that is not my ego, and my death, namely the finitude of my existence.

I hope you find serenity.

6.4.1.4 Existential angst enables me to unconceal the truth of existence and exposes me to the reality of my world.
6.4.1.5 The thorough understanding, acceptance and overcoming of existential angst is the beginning of the transformation of consciousness.
6.4.1.6 The transformation of consciousness brings about the disappearance of the illusion of self.
6.4.1.7 The disappearance of the illusion of self is the first step beyond duality.
7. All is one and all is different.

I don't know what to say. Now that I have read all of it, all the way through, I see why you attack like you do.

Anything to fix the problems you see even if you must destroy yourself.

We are fighting on the same side yet you are facing the opposite direction, against the flow of truth.

Turn around. Join me.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

But the real meaning, it seems to me, is that all of our arrangements of facts, all of our organizations of perception, all of our fighting to insist that our pet [sic] definitions are correct, often express [principally] our muddled understanding, which is part-and-parcel of our distorted 'self', which is to say our battered self, and in this sense our afflicted self and traumatized self.

The question then remains if people are really that much aware of the pet definitions being kept around. It's not the spoken and shared ones which are the most distorting after all. Defining is known as the great "carving up and dividing". Not to suggest that the mind should stop doing the very thing that could be called its nature, but that awareness should extend to the process of carving itself. This is a way to define meditation but then applied to minute-by-minute living. Attention to this thing is a special kind of attention. And the absoluteness of its appearance is a special kind of absolute. Every experience is absolute in the sense one cannot deny experience happening but it doesn't mean that one cannot distinguish anymore between absolutes. On the contrary, it's unavoidable!

perhaps we should only begin to put on the table those 'neurotic descriptions' that have been formulated in our history and discern the hidden levels of meaning? They are referencing something, are they not? but what exactly? That meaning is what I call 'beckoning'. Since it comes from out of the known and the tangible, it essentially cannot deal in known and tangible terms: hence mythology and all it connotes.

Neuroses, psychological descriptions of the mental process of suffering, could be described as being intrinsically linked to a false belief (eg Jung in Memories, Dreams, Reflections: "content with ...inadequate or wrong answers to the questions of life"). This creates the question if "non-belief" could become neurotic as well. It's easy to see how attachment can lead to suffering and disorder but how about detachment? Isn't it something that is akin to escapism and denial? And can detachment then perhaps become a mirror image of its foe attachment? Because it's often tempting to abandon the situations which are causing distress, which indicated there's an attachment to stress in the first place.

It's my view that it has to do with the proportional. There's a certain attachment unfolding and releasing with every breath ("the primal grasping"). Problems arise when holding it for too long. This is the basic principle of all accumulated artificial anxiety the mind has created for itself which demanded complex coping structures laced with "messages" pointing to the various exit doors.

but what is intimated from that 'God who stands outside of this and all possible worlds' and who, if you accept my view, beckons to us through the very structure of the world in ways that are simply incomprehensible.

So you are saying you are listening to God but not understanding what he's trying to say? But you did divine a "beckoning" of course so it's not that incomprehensible.

[jupiviv]

As Quinn said, I am only exploring a theistic point of view as much as I can, turning the problems around and asking all possible questions. Basically I lean toward atheism.

It's quite clear that you are playing devil's advocate, but you are going about it the wrong way, i.e, asking the wrong questions.

Cannot God's will be a cause?

By the way you seem to be defining God, he is an impossible entity to begin with, so the question of him causing anything doesn't arise.

To put it more clearly, my question was: Can the total mass in the universe increase?

If you define the universe as being all things, then no. There is no more room for any more mass when you already have the totality of absolutely all the mass in the totality of absolutely all things.

In the beginning, is there no mass?

This is a meaningless question because it presupposes a beginning of time.

Is this scenario possible: In the beginning, there is God and no mass?

See above.

Can mass be created out of non-mass by God's will?

Only in the sense that rivers can be created out of dry land by glaciers.

When you dream, what beings do you 'conceive'? The images you see in your dream are not interpretation and distortion of actual beings that actually occupy space, but simply images created by your psyche, or whatever process that created your psyche, are they not?

What are these actual beings that actually occupy space? What criteria are you using to determine that one of those types of beings is actual and the other is imaginary? And is this criteria itself imaginary or actual?

Ultimately, either both of them are imaginary or both of them are actual - take your pick.

But what if An object is said to exist/be if it does occupy some space, and its identity should not be characterized by its appearance or outer form, but its inner structure?

The only way you can posit an inner structure is if you assume the existence of an outer structure. Therefore, it's inner structure would be caused by its outer structure, and its outer structure would be caused by the things around it, and so on.

Of course it can be said that the strawberry is still composed by its parts, which are not it, but they belong to its internal structure nonetheless. And what if we reduce the object to a particle that has no parts, only an indivisible whole?

The question is whether a particle with no parts can even exist. I don't think it can. We may choose not to divide an object into parts for the time being, but that doesn't mean it has none!

But assuming there is an indivisible particle, it would be caused by the whole which it is a part of, and so on in the manner I have shown above.

[Talking Ass]

Diebert writes: "So you are saying you are listening to God but not understanding what he's trying to say? But you did divine a "beckoning" of course so it's not that incomprehensible."

My views on things, naturally, have been carved out of my own experiences. Having had a fairly eventful spiritual life, but not having had the time in between so many thunderous blasts, there comes the time when I have had to 'go back over everything'. To make this a completely tangible conversation would, of course, also make it auto-biographical and in that way not 'abstract'. Interestingly, just recently, when you described an estuary-land of some sort I suppose on the Netherland coast, that description allowed far more understanding of you. Also it demonstrates the power of 'showing, not telling' in literature, but that is another story.

As I have been thinking about it all [Liberty Sea asked me to define my 'philosophy' in a PM and I have been attempting it, in strange ways perhaps, over the last group of posts], I have realized that it is not exactly 'belief in God' that motivates me. As I understand it, this 'God' we refer to in some sort of energy or power that permeates all matter ('Brahman' I guess one would say), is just too vast to stand in relation to. Once one has had that 'vision' of the sense of how 'God' exists and how we participate in a structure that is part-and-parcel of God, at least in my case, the focus shifted to what sort of beings (either specific people or disembodied 'persons') are the 'representatives' of that 'God Awareness' on this Earth. If one goes the route of trying to locate 'masters' and 'gurus' and 'temples' and 'lineages' one quickly gets muddled in rather terrible problems: the human agencies are all polluted. We only have to refer to the whole post-WW2 'spirituality movements' to see all the resulting madness. But there is another route which may or not be available to everyone: seeking within the inner dimensions of consciousness for the Master who has conquered bondage to matter and is no longer beholden to the terrestrial birth and death cycles. It is the same idea of locating a 'guru' (which in Buddhism and all Hindu disciplic forms is essential, as well apparently in the Sufi and so many other traditions) out there, somewhere, who like you lives on the Earth in a body. So, instead of 'out there' one makes it 'in here' which opens up whole other dimensions.

The 'beckoning' I was speaking of is a sort of prayer in this context. What is received as a response comes back to you in indescribable ways. Could be in dreams or visions. Could be in people you meet. Could be in inner promptings that cause you to do certain things and not others, or go certain places. The long and the short of it [to get sort of gnostic on you] is that 'one thing leads to another' and within a very definitie kind of faith-knowledge one moves in the world and learns what one is to learn.

At a certain point, in my case, I became aware of a duality. I exist here, just like all of us, in a body that will die. On another level, I live in what I understand as an eternal 'space' or 'level of energy' that is no subject to death. Because it is part-and-parcel of eternity: eternal life. I think I would have to say, if really pressed, that once you 'know' that, your relation to things, people, this world, and all the discomforts of fatality, take on a different aspect.

But you asked: "So you are saying you are listening to God but not understanding what he's trying to say?" And I would say that every man who asks the most significant questions, and if he continues asking them, will receive answers. But the 'answer-process' is not at all what we imagine it will be, and certainly 'should' be. Once one has formed the Questions, and if they are the right Questions, and once one has sent those Questions out into the manifestation like a vibration, it automatically sets up the 'response-process', and all those birds so to speak come home to roost. (There are numerous people on this forum now who undertand this quite well.)(And there are others to whom this makes no sense at all).

The Answer comes back in ways that I would describe as miraculous: laced with meaning, laced with beauty and ironies on so many levels. And the question would naturally be: "Well, is that coming back from God?" And as I understand it the answer is no but also yes. What it seems to come back through are those entities and personages to whom we are linked on very subtle and internal levels. Just like we have a physical family so to we have a 'spiritual' family. We are linked to so many others! I think this is where the notion of 'body of Christ' becomes particularly poignant as a symbol (and idea) as well as a fact. Yes, it is 'from God' insofar as God is underlying all things. But it is not necessarily coming from what one might call 'the heart of God' or the 'God-loka'. It seems that the way it is set up is that it filters down through many levels (that is, persons) that (in my view anyway) are outside and 'above' physical biological manifestation, and then into and through people. There are certain people (alive in this plane of consciousness) who have a great deal of personal power [in this spiritual sense]. But there are other beings and personalities who have infinitely more and (again, as I understand it though can hardly believe it) are not 'confined' to physical bodies.

But they seem to be aware of a couple of things: One is that the only place where spiritual work goes on is within the world of incarnated souls. The work that is carried on is carried on directly in relation to beings who are alive in this plane of existence. It is a work of incredible subtlety. It is a work of suggestion and in a very real sense occurs 'tras bambalinas'. The work is carried out among the sick. This, to me, is another very interesting link to the doctrines of Jesus (or 'Jesus' if you prefer): only the sick need a physician. To require a physician requires awareness of sickness. What I have found is that the most interesting growth and change takes place in these borderlands of life.

But the essential thing is that this 'work' (if one indeed considers it to be a 'real thing') occurs on all levels of a man's being: mental, emotional, subconscious. Only a fool would state, in any seriousness, that it is a 'rational' process. I don't think it is. If one does not engage with oneself on a full level I believe it is not real engagement. It seems to have a great deal to do with the heart.

Diebert writes: "Neuroses, psychological descriptions of the mental process of suffering, could be described as being intrinsically linked to a false belief (eg Jung in Memories, Dreams, Reflections: "content with ...inadequate or wrong answers to the questions of life"). This creates the question if "non-belief" could become neurotic as well. It's easy to see how attachment can lead to suffering and disorder but how about detachment? Isn't it something that is akin to escapism and denial? And can detachment then perhaps become a mirror image of its foe attachment? Because it's often tempting to abandon the situations which are causing distress, which indicated there's an attachment to stress in the first place.

I am not sure if what you mean refers to the 'desacralization' of the cosmos, which results in 'non-belief'. But what in the heck is someone going to 'believe in'? Some freakshow eschatological and State Jesus lording it over past, present and future? Sitting on top of the death-machines as they plow the present for some Wonderous Consumer Future?

It is very, very hard it seems to me to find authentic spiritual trails in this world. But I will say that one of the reasons I am a defender of the 'human horizon' as the 'only' horizon that has meaning [for spiritual work] is exactly because human flesh is in a sunken state, dominated by forces (if you'll permit me) of 'darkness'. The lower down in the ocean of materialism one sinks, the more tenuous becomes the light that reaches one. The ones who actually establish---uncover, modify, restate---the perennial so-called 'spiritual truths' are part of a movement to (again please permit me to say it like this) resurrect the dying flesh.

Diebert writes: "The question then remains if people are really that much aware of the pet definitions being kept around. It's not the spoken and shared ones which are the most distorting after all. Defining is known as the great "carving up and dividing". Not to suggest that the mind should stop doing the very thing that could be called its nature, but that awareness should extend to the process of carving itself. This is a way to define meditation but then applied to minute-by-minute living. Attention to this thing is a special kind of attention. And the absoluteness of its appearance is a special kind of absolute. Every experience is absolute in the sense one cannot deny experience happening but it doesn't mean that one cannot distinguish anymore between absolutes. On the contrary, it's unavoidable!"

I don't know, myself. On one hand it seems to me that people are getting more and more deeply mired in materialism and certain forms of sensualism. I tend to see things sometimes in the light of a sort of 'captive flesh matrix'. But at the same time there is a great deal more awarness on so many other, important levels. Myself, I think I can understand 'minute-by-minute' living, but I also tend to believe that we need the Large Maps. I would put it in terms of the Extraordinary Extraordinary (as recently came up). The Tale that says so much and motivates people to, somehow, live out great ideas, ideas of great meaning, lives of great meaning.

[Liberty Sea]

Okay, I probably should stop playing the Devil's advocate by now. But I am uncertain about that.

No, it is real immortality, not metaphorical, and the only kind there is. In enlightenment, one literally goes beyond life and death. One sees the impossibility of being alive in the first place.
True, but we are not our consciouness. We are the ALL. Going beyond life and death means abandoning attachment to all things, even to our own life and our own consciousness. A thief cannot steal from a person who possesses nothing to begin with. -

I wonder if God's consciousness involves the duality of the observer and the observed. It is defined to be consciousness-without-an-object or the-observer-is-the-observed. But let cast that aside for a moment, else we would delve too much into nonsense.

Strictly logical, we were never born. But our consciousness did arise at a certain point in time. Only that we could never determine exactly when.
A person who possesses nothing wouldn't be a person. The All is not a person.

Zen treats life and death indifferently. And its goal is to lead everyone to treat life and death indifferently, and as this goal is accomplished, wouldn't the human race go extinct? Since you abandon all attachments, surely you wouldn't mind if someone drops a bomb that will destroy all organisms on Earth.

You claim that you want to make as much people become aware of 'reality' as possible, to enjoy the 'joyousness of Nature', but they must be alive in order to be aware of your 'reality', and in order to fulfilling your wish, you must somehow preserve your life and their lives, and by thinking about preserving lives you treasure life. And by treasuring life, you already take life as your possession, which means you already have something to lose, and you already treat life as different from death. In other word, if you are concerned about the survival of 'wisdom', you must first be concerned about the survival of the species, (which involves mating), and by being concerned, you value life and differentiate it from death.

If you see the impossibility of being alive, then you see the futility of thinking one is alive, then why should one try to preserve life for a purpose, even if it is the purpose of leading people to see the futility of being alive? You can say, "Yes, it doesn't matter whether I die right now or 50 years later, and whether I success in converting any more person. There is no difference." But there is a difference between life and death. In life there is consciousness and consciousness involves: 1- duality and 2-forms and appearances. In death there is no duality, so in death you become one with the All in the fullest sense. Have you been successful in abandoning your ego-consciousness? Has Kevin? Has anyone? Your goal of an 'ideal Buddhahood' involve the complete disappearance of ego-consciousness, but is it a possibility in life? Are you chasing after it? Or by stop chasing after it you attain it? But even by thinking about stop chasing it to attain it you get trapped again in the illusion of self. So is not death the only way to achieve this complete disappearance of ego-consciousness? Is there anything more to attain in life, if by living we never achieve the 'ideal Buddhahood'? If so, why shouldn't one shoot oneself in the heart like Weininger?

You are communicating to me in the assumption that I am an actual person with a consciousness relatively separated from your own and not purely your imagination, purely an event within your electric impulse, not purely a program installed in your brain, and even if you assume that I am a program, by the very act of communicating you are taking a risk. The assumption that an 'Ideal Buddhahood' is attainable is of the same risk.

If you value Truth, you value your knowledge of Truth, which means you are attached to your knowledge of Truth and that you have something to lose. Consider the possibility that you get amnesia, in a way that your whole learning process to Truth is undone, and your mind returned to that of a 'fool'. In any way, don't you always have something to lose, and something you possess, something you can't afford to lose?

[ForbidenRea]

" n There are no athiests in the fox hole.."

~Nietszche

[Jamesh]

In any way, don't you always have something to lose, and something you possess, something you can't afford to lose?

Thats my view on the issue.

I kind of look at this enlightenment business as just rearranging the way one views the self.

Using Maslow's hierarchy of needs one moves up the levels until the normal final level self-actualisation - Ohh bugger. I just looked up Maslow on Wiki and I’ve seen someone beat me to this analogy* - but I’ll carry on anyway.

Enlightenment to me means going through the pointy end of the Maslow diagram's apex (Jesus's Eye of the needle!) via using the mental tools that provide for the achievement of self-actualization (desire, logic and effort), so that at some point one is primarily outside of those needs looking back at the ego-self.

Once one has surpassed or overcome all the other levels, and in a sense the satisfaction of those needs will now be more or less automatically generated, one is not as driven to ensuring they are achieved. Also many needs have been redefined on the learning path to post-self-actualization. For instance the once perceived "need" for one-on-one Love may disappear.

Now the outside of the triangle is unbounded – the Maslow Hierarchy is contained within the rest of nature, and while it is just a segment of nature, it is still our anchor to the world. We do not shoot off into the nothingness of the void, but our minds are free to go beyond human nature into the nature of the all.

In this scenario, Maslows Hierarchy is no longer our entire worldview, no longer our sole experience of reality from within the prison of the normal self. At the same time, this inner self is not just another caused thing - it is an anchor and a home, it is still the centre we gravitate to for most experiences that occur – but what it is not, it is no longer a prison. One might not ride a bike all the time, but when you know how to do, there is no effort in doing so again.

Each moment of consciousness is a new one and always a result of external causes. It is not consciousness that is your soul but the affect of your memories on consciousness. So, although a Buddha or someone who has studied reality correctly from their formative years, may be able to be outside Maslow’s Hierarchy much of the time, few can do so consistently . Needs relating to any level of the hierarchy will arise fairly constantly and will be dealt with by habit by the normal internal ego.

*Self-transcendence
Viktor Frankl later added Self-transcendence [12] to create his own version of Maslow's Hierarchy”.

[Dennis Mahar]

That resonates Jamesh.
Good job.
It gets it doesn't it.

Being and Time and the possibilities of being.
possibility and temporality run together.
there seems to be 2 blocks,
past/ present.
present/future.

that past runs like a videotape into the present and forges a dreary future.
why not bring the future into the present and run that, dropping the past into the recycle bin.

it's obvious the future is dwelling in the infinite,
bring it to the present.
the present gets to be a walk in the park.

[jupiviv]

I'm sure David will respond, but here's my 2 cents:

Zen treats life and death indifferently. And its goal is to lead everyone to treat life and death indifferently, and as this goal is accomplished, wouldn't the human race go extinct? Since you abandon all attachments, surely you wouldn't mind if someone drops a bomb that will destroy all organisms on Earth.

Indifference is itself an attachment. It means you just don't want to do anything.

You are communicating to me in the assumption that I am an actual person with a consciousness relatively separated from your own and not purely your imagination, purely an event within your electric impulse, not purely a program installed in your brain, and even if you assume that I am a program, by the very act of communicating you are taking a risk. The assumption that an 'Ideal Buddhahood' is attainable is of the same risk.

If assumptions are based on some evidence then there is nothing wrong in making them. For example, what I read of your posts leads me to believe that you are reasoning/thinking about these issues, so I am choosing to respond. When I cross a road, I act on the assumption that a 16 ton weight won't fall on me when I am halfway through.

If you value Truth, you value your knowledge of Truth, which means you are attached to your knowledge of Truth and that you have something to lose.

The knowledge of Truth is itself part of the Truth, just like everything else. How can anyone get attached to it? If someone does get attached to it then it is either because their knowledge isn't complete, or because what they are calling the knowledge of truth isn't that to begin with.

[Ataraxia]

The God that is everything certainly exists.

Aside from the matter of semantics such as existence, being, or wujud, I suppose that would make you a Pantheist, which is by nature a form of Spiritual Atheism anyway. I would consider myself a Pantheist as well, if I am to associate myself with any -ism coined by others at all, but I don't claim certainty about whether God is strictly identical with the universe.

It all boils down to definitions. Things only ever exist by definition, Gods included. Knowing this, why are you still seeking objective realities?

Owned!

[Ataraxia]

Well, even if God is separated from the universe, that doesn't prevent from being infinite.

You need to rethink that, brother.

[Bobo]

The God that is everything certainly exists.

Aside from the matter of semantics such as existence, being, or wujud, I suppose that would make you a Pantheist, which is by nature a form of Spiritual Atheism anyway. I would consider myself a Pantheist as well, if I am to associate myself with any -ism coined by others at all, but I don't claim certainty about whether God is strictly identical with the universe.

It all boils down to definitions. Things only ever exist by definition, Gods included. Knowing this, why are you still seeking objective realities?

Owned!

"The God that is everything certainly exists."
"Things only ever exist by definition, Gods included."
"(A thing is) any portion of the ALL."


God is not a thing. God cannot exist by definition.
If "the definition of God that is everything certainly exists", so that of being or wujud...

[banetoday]

" n There are no athiests in the fox hole.."

~Nietszche

that line isnt true i am a former marine and half if not more of my platoon didnt believe in a god or a supreme being. and yes i have been through 3 combat tours and no i am not a pog 0317 baby

[Dionysus]

[quote="Firefly"]Here's my two cents...

I hope this helps expand your works to a more approachable form. Note that my approach is to expand awareness of the subject, not to insult or intimidate.. may poke. This exercise also helps me so don't think too much into it.

1. Consciousness exists.

Where? The metaphysical realm or the epistemological?

2. Consciousness is a movement.

Where is it that it can move? As a state of awareness it has no position thus no basis for movement.

2.1 Consciousness changes constantly.

This implies it has a form. If so, what form is it? If it has no form it has no basis for change.

2.2 No consciousness stay the same between two consecutive moments.

This implies it is affected by time, that time is more than a unit of measure and there is more than one form of consciousness. If so, how and why?

2.3 Consciousness is no longer itself after a unit of time.

This implies that consciousness only exists for one unit of time. What does it become? What is that unit?

3. All movement of consciousness is inevitable.

Where?



[quote="Firefly"]Here's my two cents...

I hope this helps expand your works to a more approachable form. Note that my approach is to expand awareness of the subject, not to insult or intimidate.. may poke. This exercise also helps me so don't think too much into it.

1. Consciousness exists.

Where? The metaphysical realm or the epistemological?

2. Consciousness is a movement.

Where is it that it can move? As a state of awareness it has no position thus no basis for movement.

2.1 Consciousness changes constantly.

This implies it has a form. If so, what form is it? If it has no form it has no basis for change.

2.2 No consciousness stay the same between two consecutive moments.

This implies it is affected by time, that time is more than a unit of measure and there is more than one form of consciousness. If so, how and why?

2.3 Consciousness is no longer itself after a unit of time.

This implies that consciousness only exists for one unit of time. What does it become? What is that unit?

3. All movement of consciousness is inevitable.

Where?

3.1 All movement of consciousness is caused and conditioned.

Caused and conditioned, I agree.. but movement? The analogy needs expansion for me, please elaborate.

I would like to address certain ambiguities which i came across in this post:
The question as to "where consciousness exists" is wrong. Consciousness is that which is beyond the empirical reality, verily "reality" as presented within representation, within phenomena. Your essential being, is not and cannot be represented. A representation cannot represent to ITSELF. The anti-thesis between "appearance" and "thing-in-itself" falls once we discern, that, that which representing things to itself cannot simultaneously BE the represented (within the same relativistic frame); therefore, to answer your question, consciousness exists solely within the absolute, the question whether consciousness in this empirical reality is wrong; that is solely due to the nature of representation.

I also wanna add that in the former comment, it is stated that "consciousness is a movement". This entails that consciousness is subject to the laws of space and time, where both belong to the faculty of perception that is responsible for the spatial-temporal representation of absolute reality. Your fundamental being is not within space and time, it perceives the world within space and time because it is only through space and time that the empirical world can exist (empirical world is the world as we see it, WE SEE AN APPLE RED BECAUSE WE ARE MADE TO SEE IT THIS WAY!). I also found it important to point out that you cannot misunderstand consciousness for cognition. Cognition, or the faculty of understanding (Causality) is in itself a tool of our essential being, and is not in itself our essential being. YOUR SOUL IS NOT ONLY THOUGHT AND REASON, IT IS ALSO MANY OTHER THINGS, AND IT IS THAT WHICH HAS NO NAME. MOREOVER, HUMAN BEINGS ALSO POSSESS EMOTION, BUT DOES THAT MEAN WE ARE ONLY EMOTION ONLY?

Since space and time are not properties of our essential being, then it is not plausible to speak of our consciousness being under the effect of time. Sure, our thoughts change constantly, they are conditioned by causality, and no one second are they the same, however, YOU ARE NOT YOUR THOUGHTS! I highly suggest anyone interested in this subject to read Arthur Schoppenhauer's World as Will and Representation and while ur at it , Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. You might find Kant a bit hard to understand at first, BUT DEFINITELY WORTH THE EFFORT:D

Keep up your Curiosity!!!!