Karl

Flat landers are Mystics of muscle by your description. Logical positivism, empiricists of the Lockian persuasion.

I understand it as 'action'. I don't think it has a meaning beyond that, or a descriptor, so it gets inferred. If there is action then there should also be cause, but it maybe that this was intentionally or ignorantly omitted. Therefore the guru can achieve the cause less cause and action less action. That relates well to the idea of the ineffable one. The omniscient. The one that cannot be described as the one. Pretty much Plotinus in operation. It denies identity of the one and therefore our world is a very diluted illusion of Platos perfect forms. Lots in a word eh ?

Found this which I thought might help clarify.

Does that question relate in any way to the subject ?

Well If that's what's most important to you. They say everyone should have a hobby.

Well at least you got it in the end.

Is it there when you are totally unconscious and not dreaming ? I'm always me as a stable, permanent, existing, perceiving, conceptualising consciously aware being whilst I'm conscious.

Are you still stuck on this hopeless analogy ? Firstly it isn't necessary for a blind person to know colours, they sense the world in terms of textures and sounds. They are as vivid to a blind person as sight is to the sighted. If they were trying to get an idea then I would probably explain it in terms of hot, warm, softer rougher smoother. That would be in keeping with their perception of the world as a nuanced place.

You forgot about wider, denser, louder, brighter ... ;-) You are muddled. It sounds distinctly unpleasant and you should go do something fun right away.

Right, but it isn't an existent thing is it ? A rainbow most certainly is. I could describe a rainbow to a blind person. They understand distance, arch, definition even if they don't understand full vision. A monochromatic person will see the shades within the rainbow, that I see orange, yellow, blue and he sees lighter, darker is sufficient for us to understand. I can't see or hear microwaves, infra sound or sub sonics but I know they exist, it wouldn't matter if you described them as pink with blue dots, I wouldn't dispute it being so. All, that's needed is to know how the 'higher truth' is present in existent reality. If it isn't, then it's a peculiar mental aberration and pertinent to no one or nothing outside of that persons thoughts. It's pointless describing it as beyond words, or a higher truth because, unless it has some effect, it isn't anything at all and a worthless thing to say. I don't doubt this is what Nickolai feels, but it's not a concrete reality for anyone beyond Nickolai. I might begin 'one upon a time there was something no words could describe' the end.

I don't expect unending pleasure. I do what I can do to bring me happiness in any particular situation. It doesn't mean I'm always succesful or that I don't make errors. Thats existence and life. It's not always kind, but it's not always cruel and you have it within your power to make a go of it even if you trip and fall along the way. Dust yourself down, learn the lesson if you can, then move on and try again. You are alive dude, that's all that counts and it's all you have. Just your body and a mind.

Its not analogous. A blind person is aware of existence through his remaining senses. He can understand object, distance and time and is in the world of that integrated conceptual existence. He can feel a tree even if he cannot see it visually and so makes a similar connection. It's no different to explaining colours to a person who only sees in black and white, or words to someone who cannot read. These things are real, connected and experienced by everyone even if not in exactly the same way. What Nikolai is describing, or failing to describe is something other people don't experience. I don't say that Nickolai doesn't experience this as being true, I just point out the logical fallacy in calling something 'the higher truth' and then saying that it is impossible to describe.

How bad is your life to believe that to be true Nikolai ? I was jousting with you earlier, but your comment has left me dumbfounded and a touch saddened.

But then how do you know if you don't know ? If you have no thought system then how can you determine that there is any higher truth ? It's your thought system that must determine that you have a higher truth, that it hasn't got a clue what that higher truth is might be a bit of an issue. You are committing the fallacy of the stolen concept. You are relying on the concept of the cognitive mind to describe a concept that you that you say cannot be held by the cognitive mind. The idea of no idea. Can't you just get on with your work and children because you enjoy them because they bring you happiness. Why does it require a higher truth than the one that's right in front of your face ? Considering you can't talk about it, you sure talk about it an awful lot. :-)

You describe it a higher truth and then say you have no words to describe it ? If you have no words to describe it, then it doesn't exist and you haven't found anything but a foggy patch where your own mind is allowed to float like an abandoned dingy without any sail or oars.

Maple Sitkabeech.

Although that depends just how high you have jumped, or how high you are intending to jump.

It certainly gives you the option of your whims, but that eventually collapses when it encounters existence. No matter how high you fly, there will always be gravity.

I see it as what it is Nickolai. No more or less than that. It's pointless to say 'look out danger ahead' because the danger isn't visible, it's like a gossamer spiders web on which I place a few drops of dew. You might not see the web, but the droplets might give a clue that there is a web. Im an interested observer. If a fellow ignores my gesticulating and hollering about the hole he is about to walk into then that's what he does. The hole won't likely be so deep that he suffers permanently, occasionally perhaps it is fatal, but that's not my concern. I shrug and walk on until the next time I see a fellow hurtling towards a hole and shout a warning but I can't do much else. I'm not interested in discussing the depth, material, shape or the reason for the hole, it's passively intriguing like an interesting novel, but it's not going to make the hole any more obvious, the person will fall in anyway even after every detail has been discussed in vivid detail. That you think the truth is inaccessible is the idea of no idea. In a sense it's giving up and admitting defeat but convincing yourself that it is better than thrashing around in ever decreasing circles of disappointment. The thing is, existence will kick in the door to your tidy little quiet place. Your mind will begin wondering if maybe there is a truth and then the process will begin all over again. You cannot shut it out, even when you think you have made a circle of logic from which the mind will forever circle like a plane over an airport, eventually the fuel runs out and landing becomes an inevitability. You will know this to be true, even when you will endeavour to create more and more loops to stabilise the belief, you will still know it. There is no peace, no enlightenment in the form that you wish it. I know, I spent many years searching for the exact same thing.

'You're just like me' is a very good way to encourage a person to follow you. You have to do what you have to do and that's just the way it is. I would encourage you to think for yourself, but of course that is precisely what it appears to you, that you are doing. A expect a true Guru would only want the greatest happiness for his students and wish them to leave him as quickly as possible. The point of education is to teach someone how they can educate themselves and not to fill their heads full of knowledge like some empty pot. Once they know how, then the rest is up to them. Until they know how, then they will always be after knowledge first. A good guru would refuse them knowledge. He would not suggest they are similar to him, he would recognise they were entirely different, neither woukd he create levels of attainment, or hoops through which to jump. When the student is ready he will be ready and he will know when that time is. The Guru will grin with joy at his leaving.

I'd go along with that. Pretty much my shoe shop analogy. Heck, I tried an entire shops worth until I figured it out. Rand was just another pair of shoes, but it taught me that the work we do on ourselves must be mentally derived. That we must actively think and think hard. The answer isn't going to fall into our heads, or to be discovered to have been there all the time had we stopped thinking. Neither can an answer be sought, if there is no existence from which an answer may come-all we can say then is that no answer is possible, that the very idea of an answer is a red herring, a ghost that will never be discovered and so we settle for the idea of no idea.

Good story. Mine was similar, perhaps not quite as bad in some areas and worse in others, but that's the breaks, we move on. There is no good side of altruism because it's fake to begin with. It's predicated on the philosophy of a sinful, deluded being that has no existent identity and must therefore be forced to accept whatever authority claims this to be true. If you carry out an act of kindness then you aren't always expecting a physical return. That isn't altruism. Doing something nice for someone is a nice thing to do and watching someone you have helped improve their circumstances is payment enough. However, don't you, personally discriminate with your own direct acts of kindness ? Woukd you give your wallet to a drug user, or hand over your car to a drunk who was stuck for a lift ? When you donate, don't you look to see if it's a cause you support ? If you were bullied into making a donation would you feel good about giving, or are you suggesting that you would simply regard it as altruism and in a poof of smoke your individual self vanishes ? I'm certainly not saying be a mean bitch, but surely you give where it gives you most pleasure. Where you believe that your effort will result in something good happening for the ones in whom you endeavour to support. Even the efforts of a mother are aimed at helping her children grow and prosper like a Gardner tending his plants. The effort is rewarded because it was judged to be worthwhile otherwise you would just give everything away including your life to any cause whatsoever. A marriage only flourishes when both partners are receiving as they are giving. There is no altruism. Love is identity and being identified. This is what real respect is all about. It is respecting the values of the other person and the other person respecting your values in turn. It is a trade, but no money passes hands, love isn't a valueless commodity, it's the highest valued commodity of all.

The facts are established, but the jigsaw might be impossible to assemble. The connections are there for all to see, I don't worry so much about a conspiracy, more I'm judging if something I'm being told by anyone is actually true or false. There are plenty of people who genuinely believe that what they are selling is great news (I was like that with NLP/NVC), but that doesn't necessarily mean that what they are saying is true either even if they have no dark agenda. I'm sure many in the CIA believe they are saving the free world.

I don't understand what you are doing, you have that much correct. :-) Your consciousness might be doing things you can't explain, but mine is completely coherent as the faculty I use to grasp reality. Anyway I've said enough.

You are getting into some deep dark mind control stuff here. Have you looked into Jose Arguelles, Rudolph Steiner, Huxley and Theosophy too ? Giving a points system, stars, bands, colours is the traditional method of wiping and conformity. People get sucked into a graduation and believe it is success and achievement whilst they are actually being manipulated towards a goal. Of course, this is an open forum and I know zilch about the people who live here or run it. However, it isn't inconceivable that there are some who have more sinister mindsets and aims.