The Metaphysical Dream of the World

[Dan Rowden]

Alex is like a toddler in a sandpit with an endless array of toys to play with. Pity he doesn't notice in all that frenzied, boyish play that the sand is sinking beneath him.

[SeekerOfWisdom]

“ That will always be the case if your only recourse is to artificially escape from this via things like meditation and solitude.“

Non-attachment and awareness isn't an escape, its an ongoing process, one I am willing to improve on or change, tho I am not aware of what is the best path if not to keep in awareness of emptiness? You haven't yet described the path or way that you promote as ideal for overcoming this case?

[Dan Rowden]

Read "Poison for the Heart". It's all text and an easy download.

[SeekerOfWisdom]

Ok I will get back to you after reading.

[Dan Rowden]

A couple of things. One is an interesting fact.

I love it that you and Pincho have the same cute little peccadillo of referring to your opinions as "facts". Dogs/fleas, Alex. Be careful.

Tell me what you think.

Oh, but that would make you cry and if you cry, I'll cry and then everyone will cry and we'll need another Ark...

Genius Forum, at a basic level, lives by and in a sense thrives on 'insult'.

God you're a stupid cunt.

My theory is that when there exists no means to value persons, and when it is only about 'ideas', or gaming with ideas, or fronting, or god-knows-what, it must always lead to a sheer dysfunction. Let's see: Jehu is 'certifiably insane' (when he is really only thoroughly absent and obsessively meticulous!), but he is told that by Leyla who loses in every precipitated argument and with each embarrassing display but who claims Victory! anyway.

Ok, this is a fallacy of composition unfolding, but let's see how badly you indulge... (btw, not treating individuals as individuals is incredibly insulting to them).

John

Who the fuck is "john"? How about I reveal your real name to everyone since I know it through private correspondence? I warn everyone to respect people's anonymity if they are using it. I think it sucks, but I expect people to respect it.

can label anything at all 'delusional' and thereby sever connectedness. (I have totally given up trying to figure out Dennis).

So? Dennis is Dennis. I don't give a flying shit about your inability to grok his posts. Why does it matter?

I am 'neurotic', at an infant level intellectually and spiritually.

Yes, you're urgently in need of adult incontinence aids, frankly. But I gotta admit I have no desire to change your nappies. There are limits.

And 'stupid' to boot.

I was being kind. You don't want to know what I really think.

Dan, you are aware that all these namings originate, by and large, 'on your side'? That it is part-and-parcel of the 'system' that has been established here. What you see displayed here, or what it reduces to, derives from the ideas that have been assembled here, from the 'content' in the widest sense. It seems an inescapable fact to me at least. The people that disagree with 'you' become real enemies! In a conversation with David once he told me, in so many words, that I was the delusive force incarnate.

It's the difference between honesty and candour and subtle condescension and feminine skulduggery, Alex. Your posts are full to the brim with insult; you just hide it like a coward for various psychological reasons that are too obvious for me to have to delineate. Fake politeness, in short.

You have this idea, you have installed it at such a basic level, that if you say something with enough force, with emotional force even, that you have made it true.

YOU'RE FUCKING WRONG YOU STUPID BLOWHARD MORON!!!!!!!!!!! QED

It is a characteristic of you. It is as if you say "In this you are absolutely wrong!" and you suppose that the other person must appease you, or prove themselves to you.

What I'm actually hoping is that you might consider the notion that when you try and tell someone else what their own views are really about you may just be a teeny weeny patronising, ignorant, insulting, foolish, and all the things that you invariably are. I have long since given up the idea that you are reachable, Alex, but I seem to keep forgetting myself.

You suppose that 'you' (Quinn, Solway and yourself), what, do not represent a philosophy and so 'philosophy' is an absurd term?

Do you know what it means to have a "philosophy"? It is sublimely indicative of your lack of comprehension of our views that you would want to confine them to or characterise them as a "philosophy". If you understood, you'd know why that's so absurd. But you have no desire to understand, which is the crux of the problem. Stop typing one-handed for a while and I might give a crap.

What the fuck?

My sentiment exactly.

That means, of course, that your philosophy is not a group of ideas or selections or choices but the One True Vision of Reality.

There can be only one true "vision" of Reality. You don't have to agree that we have it, but if you disagree with the essential premise then you're a moron who can't be reasoned with.

For you, this is 'self-evident' and you wear this idea like armor.

Penetrate it, if you feel you can. But you have no motivation to think that deeply. You don't even make the grade as a philosophical dilettante, Alex. Fess up, dammit. You just want to play stupid sociological games.

And clobber whomever you wish.

Yeah, I'm the rock boy of the Fantastic 4; but there's only 3 of us. Damn. I'll have to induct Diebert after-all and create a hive of jealousy Oh no!! He can be the one that turns everything to ice.

But the way I look at things,

Optometrist - You - Now

and some part of this comes from what I have learned here, is that 'you' are, your ideas are, just one group of outcomes in a greater world of ideas. You CAN apply analysis, you can recur to the history of ideas, historical sources, comparative religion to look at what you are proposing. In fact, to move beyond the static and the BS which is presented in some aspects one needs to do this. But y'all do an efficient job of making sure that analysis doesn't happen.

Your idea of "analysis" is meaningless to me because it doesn't involve ME. Please get that. It's no small point.

And it is not foolish, it is actually one the opposite end of what 'foolish' means. If it is 'insulting' to you then I suggest reading a little more closely. Insults and slaps are part-and-parcel of presence on this forum, and they very often come from you. But so what? In point of fact I suggest that 'you' will not allow any bridges to be built by those who do not share your predicates even if those bridges move in your direction. You come out like a swarm of hornets and deal with any threat.

Stop speaking in collective terms. It's insulting. Trying to engage you in deeper philosophical terms is fruitless because you don't give a crap, Alex. Live with that, because you admit it. Live with the consequence of people finding you a fuckhead when you try and "critique" people at that level - a level at which you balk. Dive into the abyss or shut the fuck up.

There is a world of 'scholarly thought', people who dedicate their lives to looking into certain areas or subjects. Some of the people I have mentioned on this thread for example. Incredible resources. Except for y'all who sit in the cat bird's seat, who shoot down whatever you like when you like, any structure of idea that you don't like.

Have all the fun you want in your playground, but please understand I see such people as spiders weaving webs of bullshit, to badly paraphrase Nietzsche.

You telling ME that I am not thinking?

Yes. Your belief that what you do is thinking is laughable to me. All things are relative. I don't actually doubt your sincerity, Alex, in case you're wondering, just the depth of what you do.

As you can imagine I can't take you at all seriously though I suppose you actually mean to be taken seriously.

You cannot take me seriously. It's impossible. You have no idea who I am.

I don't have any idea what Pincho Paxton is up to.

He's filling his holes, as any good pretend physicist does.

I don't really read his posts because I don't see how they are related to *any of this*.

Hah! You get 100 smart points for that.

But comparing me to him is just...well, you can guess!

But, you just said you don't read his posts, so... You strike me as a housewife who tries to claim they don't watch Days of our Lives...

But of course your point and your endeavor is the derail the possibility for any line of idea that you do not manage.

Yes indeed. I never had a train set to play with as a child. This is so much fun!!

[Diebert van Rhijn]

I'll have to induct Diebert after-all and create a hive of jealousy Oh no!! He can be the one that turns everything to ice.

You've got that right, I'd ban without hesitation or consultation half of the current active membership which might as well mean 98% of the daily produced characters here. There's too much leeching going on in this tropical paradise... thriving on blood and no matter what you say or don't say, they swell up but never digest, never drop off. A bite of frost, a bit of mountain height would work miracles!

[Dan Rowden]

Well, you're inducted as Ice-Man. Kevin is Mr Invisible who never shows up but seems to be everywhere anyway (he's especially appealing to the paranoiac). I'm Mr Scat who puts shit on everyone. Dave is Mr something clever that I can't come up with right now. It's a work in progress...

[Alex Jacob]

The 'guiding theory' I work with, in regard to the 'heavies' here, is that it doesn't ultimately really have to do with the ideas, since the structure of ideas really allows for no argument, but something in the *force of personality* of the ones who claim this space. All I can say and will say about my approach or my relationship to *this* (GF, the ideas contained, etc.) is that I am maximizing my contact with y'all in the best way that I can. Trying to understand how such formulations come into existence and how they connect to the 'world of ideas' generally.

No one has to agree with me.

I will repeat once again that your ideas, your philosophy, your religion or your Absolute Truth as you seem to desire to have it understood, is a part of a wide range of ideas, philosophies and strategies that have been forged as a way of dealing with incarnated life. The decisions any one of us make about *all that* become the operating system that we carry with us. It is I admit, expressed that way, a fairly obvious idea, but yet it is one that seems to pose a challenge for 'you'. I don't think you have a way to *deal* with that if it is suggested as a criticism.

What I do, or what I desire to do, and it comes about because I take issue with certain ethical stances generally taken or prescribed here, is to pick at those elements, attempt to get behind them, and find out how and why they have come on the scene. The most important element as I see things now is the core assertion of dealing not with ideas but with a One and True Vision or Understanding of Reality. The classical absolute stance. Once 'you' have made that formulation you have an unassailable position, you are on top of the mountain, and anyone attempting to scale that mountain (to push the cheesy metaphor) is repelled with violence if need be. Indeed, defending that mountain becomes a group activity and is, well, deeply enjoyed as such. It is *often* as simple as that!

But there is another side to this: Y'all love a good fight! That is also part-and-parcel of the Ethic here. To take an outrageous stance that challenges the multitude---indeed which challenge sends reverberations down into the very foundations of our Illusionary (relationship to) World---is really a rather heady stance to take and all the flack that is produced is indeed fun to manage. Without a doubt it puts one right at the center of attention! The *interesting* thing is to watch when, as a group, you come down on someone whose opinions you don't like, or perhaps it is because their thinking [sic] mirrors yours in some uncomfortable way? and watch you indulge, almost sensuously, in a sort of orgy of tearing that person to shreds. Oooooh! That's a fun one to watch. It has a gladiatorial element! ;-)

Well, you pretty much know all this.

If you don't like what I do or what I attempt to do, you do certainly have the option of just telling me to stop posting. I would prefer the 'gentleman's approach' to anything so dramatic as 'banning'.

[Alex Jacob]

Alex is like a toddler in a sandpit with an endless array of toys to play with. Pity he doesn't notice in all that frenzied, boyish play that the sand is sinking beneath him.

But you would say this in regard to everyone in the whole world, right? This is what you mean by being stuck in Samsara, isn't it? Humankind is just such a 'toddler in a sandpit'. That is our condition.

And you ask that this idea be *considered* and thought about. That would be the 'thinking' you desire and value. Right?

[Diebert van Rhijn]

If you don't like what I do or what I attempt to do, you do certainly have the option of just telling me to stop posting. I would prefer the 'gentleman's approach' to anything so dramatic as 'banning'.

Please stop posting. It's boring and dishonest to yourself as you kid yourself in thinking you're getting behind things when you've never even been behind yourself!

Of course my request is not enough. Dan's fatherly dismissal is the act you seem to crave. The Man, rude, insensitive, clumsy, towering above shaking sensitive A!

[Dan Rowden]

Alex, you're are a particular kind of child in a particular kind of sandpit. The problems of rescuing you are, therefore, particular. But yes the metaphor applies generally if you want it to.

[Alex Jacob]

I offered that to Dan, not to you, Diebert. In any forum there is administration and any administrator does have the right to guide that space as he sees fit. And I have said many times that I would stop posting if Dan (or David or Kevin) thought it best---'for the forum'. But I don't offer you that right to decide. Your opinion is not even relevant to me only because you have gotten emotionally involved through your peculiar wielding of contempt. It is as simple as that. And what you two are doing right now is a game that has been played here, and will be played here, time and time again. It resolves to this in fact. The insinuation of childishness, to paint things in parental terms. It is ridiculous. But by framing it like this, if you can succeed in getting your opponent to respond, allows you to 'control' the conversation. The game has a very simple structure.

Alex, you're are a particular kind of child in a particular kind of sandpit. The problems of rescuing you are, therefore, particular. But yes the metaphor applies generally if you want it to.

I think you understand that I do not accept your 'analysis' of me, and that I do see your position as the central core of your 'cultish' system of thinking. This is an important term: thinking system.

The applicability of the metaphor though should not depend on me. And what I perceive is the following: this is the foundation of your position: The world, the world of thinking, the world where a person 'exists'---everything in fact---is like an insubstantial world of sand for you. It is not just me in any peculiar sense, though I accept that you paint it that way and see this as one of your tried and true strategies of defeating any opponent to 'you', but this is essentially your view of reality, life, etc.

What does fascinate me in all this is the question about samsara and perdition. Posing it, highlighting it, bringing it to the foreground, is a good idea and produces interesting exchange of views. It is indeed the most important question one can ask. I understand full well that you regard 'the world' as just such a shifting sand-construction, and I also understand well enough that you see yourself as having discovered a platform within that which is the 'enlightenment' you talk about. But you know that I do not accept your story about yourself and your attainment. You do know this, right? You do understand that that is what I am arguing against? The terms of 'enlightenment' or salvation as the case may be? You do understand that the notion of 'rescue from samsara' or 'salvation from perdition' is quite substantially at the core of my own concerns, don't you? It is something that can be talked about and should be talked about. But it is a subject that opens up into a far wider territory than you allow or can consider. It opens into all the definitions and choices that *we* make in this life, from the most minor to the most superior.

You do not dominate or control nor even define, in the widest sense, that conversation. You can surely participate in it as can everyone. But at the point that you claim or own the conversation, or arrogate dominance of its terms to yourself, to your views or choices or opinions, is the point that you commit your *gravest error*. You destroy the possibility of conversation. The other mistake is that you cut yourself off from a wider conversation that exists in the 'world of ideas'.

[Alex Jacob]

Emotionally I guess it would be equal to everyone and thing you know and love being murdered or disappearing mysteriously.

Man you aren't joking when it comes to drinking the poison! I have to say that this is one of the strangest---and darkest---analogies I have come across as a descriptive of 'spiritual life'. Like the death camps of Central America. Goons arriving in the night. Torture. Screams.

In no sense and NEVER have my inner, spiritual experiences taken on such a flavor or mood. Spirituality as a reflection of terrorism? Very odd indeed, friend.

But in this we might discover elements of 'metaphysical pathos'. This is where the aesthetic kicks in. You *like* it like that. If it doesn't have that flavor, it doesn't taste of truth.

Evidently, the God I define and *interact with* comes through another vibrational frequency! Thank Heaven for that... ;-)

I'm going to light a candle and offer up thanks...

[Alex Jacob]

[A comment about calling SeekerofWisdom 'John'. His name came up in other posts by other people and I have referred to him as 'John' for at least 6 months. Whatever anonymity people desire for themselves is respected by me. I understood his name as being known to everyone on the forum. And I assumed and still assume he does not mind.]

This one goes out to Diebert.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

I offered that to Dan, not to you, Diebert.

Perhaps you should start thinking on what it is that you mean and how you mean it when using the word "you" in a post next time and all the different shifts between the "you's" that a typical post of yours is always addressing. Perhaps one day you'll be able to write literature people will understand! Anyway, the more obvious problem is that in your "critiques" there is usually only one "you" and that is you.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

In no sense and NEVER have my inner, spiritual experiences taken on such a flavor or mood.

Haven't lived much, have we? The thing that you will never accept is that you never had "spiritual experiences" in the sense others are using it here. The whole theme in any relevant historical, poetic or experimental sense is alien to you! It's possible you don't even have the equipment to experience any of the stuff we're discussing here or even map them out in your thoughts, to ponder over them without being carried away by some selfish twirl. How did David call it? Deaf! Tone deaf.

[Alex Jacob]

This is how The Game begins with Diebert. First, a foray into a false argument. That I did not write something clearly when it was certainly clear enough, and contained references to my request to Dan for his simple request to stop posting ('gentleman's agreement') if he were to decide thus, rather than a deactivation of my user name(s).

(If you hadn't paid attention to any of that, that is understandable.)

My writing is clear enough, and that instance was clear enough. But now the implication is that my writing generally is not. Normally, to respond to this, would draw one away from what one is *genuinely* conversing. And of course that is the whole point: to derail the possibility of conversation. I suggest that once you understand the bad-faith aspect of communication within this System of Thinking, you can fairly easily spot the 'tricks'. To do so infuriates the various Bossy-Boots who think they run the show. And that escalates their ire and their desire to get even. And once you have aroused them...

And so it goes.

Haven't lived much, have we? The thing that you will never accept is that you never had "spiritual experiences" in the sense others are using it here. The whole theme in any relevant historical, poetic or experimental sense is alien to you! It's possible you don't even have the equipment to experience any of the stuff we're discussing here or even map them out in your thoughts, to ponder over them without being carried away by some selfish twirl. How did David call it? Deaf! Tone deaf.

Now here's a whole interesting little knot. Common, all-too-common but it is also effective to derail conversation and the possibility of understanding. I say that my spiritual experience never contained such deathly and torturous sensations such that I would refer to spiritual life as a sort of internal Shoah. Diebert implies that I just have not lived my spirituality either enough or sufficiently radically. Here, is the declaration that 'my sense of my spiritual life', of what it can mean, should mean, 'is superior to yours'. (Commonly asserted by TBs of GF). Therefore, my experience, my grasp, trumps yours. Therefore you are a child, a beginner, lost to samsara, deluded, et cetera ad infinitum.

These are very simple mechanisms.

But this is not really where the issue centers, in my view. It is not that very tough and demanding spiritual experiences are not possible, indeed they are, nor is it that I myself have not had profound experiences, or experiences that dealt on life and death themes (indeed, it must be a given that any conversation about spiritual life deals in the entire domain of life, which also means death), it is rather that one is---I am---attempting to arrive at some general understanding about what *this* recommended GF spiritual path is all about. I am attempting to look at it and note and speak about its 'metaphysical pathos' (and idea taken from Arthur Lovejoy in The Great Chain of Being and worthy of consideration): the note, the timbre, the 'aesthetic' of a given philosophical or spiritual orientation.

'As it is used here', since you have not really defined it but merely allude, in general ways, to something non-specific, could be in fact a group of perceptual errors. Or a kind of 'willfulness' to see things one way and one way only. There is also the quite important psychological dimension, something common in fact: ethical praxes that people define and insist on which are driven by unseen or unrecognized elements in themselves, perhaps even self-destructive? There are ALL SORTS of different motives that push people into their belief-systems, and one of the uses of 'intellect' is to look into them. And one can do that through comparative analysis. I am not at all convinced that I am interested in, or that anyone should be interested in, the sort of spiritual life that you are touting. It has to be rationally spoken of, intelligently defined and explained, and then approbated after considered analysis.

The whole theme IS NOT irrelevant to me, nor do I fail to grasp its implications and value. What is considerable to me are ethical platforms that insist we behave in life or toward life is certain, specific ways. Once one makes those sorts of declarations one has taken a position and is defining a platform. And that is where, if one is opposed, one is duty-bound to respond. To correct. To challenge.

The philosophies and 'religious tenets' which 'you' (that is a general plural---do you ever miss the informal second person? Heh heh) subscribe to and defend, stand in relation to a gamut of the same. They are part of our spiritual history, as it were. I have a strong feeling that some of the internal tenets or predicates are not completely 'healthy', and I am at least somewhat convinced that some of the ethical concomitants that derive from the predicates are not *desired*, and are certainly not Absolute nor necessarily True in these capitalized senses.

And so I work to pull back the veil and examine some of the structure. And compare it all to wider concerns and considerations. It is all positive and productive work.

[Dan Rowden]

[A comment about calling SeekerofWisdom 'John'. His name came up in other posts by other people and I have referred to him as 'John' for at least 6 months. Whatever anonymity people desire for themselves is respected by me. I understood his name as being known to everyone on the forum. And I assumed and still assume he does not mind.]

This one goes out to Diebert.

Fair enough.

[Dennis Mahar]

The whole theme IS NOT irrelevant to me, nor do I fail to grasp its implications and value. What is considerable to me are ethical platforms that insist we behave in life or toward life is certain, specific ways. Once one makes those sorts of declarations one has taken a position and is defining a platform. And that is where, if one is opposed, one is duty-bound to respond. To correct. To challenge.

We've done our duty.
We've pointed out your childhood development issues.
Give mum and dad a ring and have the 'big' conversation with them.

[Dan Rowden]

To take an outrageous stance that challenges the multitude---indeed which challenge sends reverberations down into the very foundations of our Illusionary (relationship to) World---is really a rather heady stance to take and all the flack that is produced is indeed fun to manage.

My primary issue with you, Alex, is that you have never, and it seems to me refuse, to properly demonstrate that any stance I take is "outrageous". You dance around in your rhetorical tutu but never get to the core of anything and show why and how it's wrong (you know it has to be wrong to be outrageous, right?). Do some actual philosophy is you wish to be other than mocked. What you generally do is a monumental waste of time.

[SeekerOfWisdom]

Yeah no worries Alex/Dan, the name is actually John Junior, dad wasn't very creative.


Also Alex, just write less. Hearing me? Write less so you stop bullshitting yourself.

And Dan! Why do you persist on talking to Pincho/Alex or anyone who you know is the same after repetition?

If it really is because you care that little, congratulations, you really are outdoing me and I need a course in whatever you got.

[Leyla Shen]

Little weeners turn into big weeners. It's too bad, really, when all you've got on your hands is a little strap-on cunt!

[Dan Rowden]

And Dan! Why do you persist on talking to Pincho/Alex or anyone who you know is the same after repetition?

Whilst Pincho is certainly a lost cause, I haven't entirely given up on the idea of Alex re-thinking his approach. There's lots of raw intelligence operating there; it's just wrongly directed and focused (shit, did I say "focused"? I think I may mean something else). I'm not yet 100% convinced there's no possibility of him seeing that, and that his modus operandi makes him irrelevant to this place. I mean, his posts would be interesting if they weren't so wide of the mark at a basic level. I swear, for example, he actually thinks there's some element of a sort of "escapism" in so-called "QRS" philosophy: build a mental world; abide in that world and thereby escape the crap of the "real" one. It's basically that he has to filter everything through his own perspective, values, goals and mental kaleidoscope. Unfortunately that process just distorts things to a point where they are unrecognisable to me. But it's fine for him because his whole agenda is fitting shit he doesn't "like" into his own framework.

Maybe I just want to be surprised when one of these days he says something about my worldview that's actually recognisable to me. Maybe it's a substitute for Xmas or something. Give me that bike you promised, dammit!

[Alex Jacob]

What does fascinate me in all this is the question about samsara and perdition. Posing it, highlighting it, bringing it to the foreground, is a good idea and produces interesting exchange of views. It is indeed the most important question one can ask. I understand full well that you regard 'the world' as just such a shifting sand-construction, and I also understand well enough that you see yourself as having discovered a platform within that which is the 'enlightenment' you talk about. But you know that I do not accept your story about yourself and your attainment. You do know this, right? You do understand that that is what I am arguing against? The terms of 'enlightenment' or salvation as the case may be? You do understand that the notion of 'rescue from samsara' or 'salvation from perdition' is quite substantially at the core of my own concerns, don't you? It is something that can be talked about and should be talked about. But it is a subject that opens up into a far wider territory than you allow or can consider. It opens into all the definitions and choices that *we* make in this life, from the most minor to the most superior.

I hope Dan that you might try to explain a little more of your take on 'samsara', if you wouldn't mind.

[Dan Rowden]

I can do that. Give me a day or so. Right now I think I have Space Cadet Pinball's measure...