Karl

Everyone is responsible for their own actions. In motorcycle parlance take care, treat every road user as dangerous and keep it rubber side up. I ride a motorcycle and I enjoy it, I could drive a nice safe car instead, but I get a lot more out of throwing a high powered motorcycle about on twisty roads. Lots of people would say it's too dangerous and that's true, but I accept the risk and take care to ride defensively. I can't exactly be anti practice when I spent at least 8 years or more doing them. However AYP wasnt what it portrayed itself to be and I should have questioned more than I did.

Well I know what you wrote so I can give an answer :-) Capitalism doesn't need 'experts' unlike a centrally planned economy which has to pretend it is expert in the market. The USSR already had a market economy of sorts, there were also lots of rich bureaucrats and party elite who stole what was left in the coffers and bought out businesses. As the country was also open for business at this point then investors started looking for opportunities. There was also a thriving black market- basically the only thing really propping up the regime-which had a wealthy criminal underground which included many officials, secret police, KGB, army officers etc. This is the reason it's a very corrupt country and this isn't understood very well. It's like a massive Al Capone era Chicago.

I'm saying it isn't about the corruption of a technique but about the technique itself. What is it ? What precisely does it do etc. Ignore what you have been told about the technique itself. Evaluate it. I know you will go off and do the practices anyway-all the horses in hell won't stop a determined man on his path-just sit on a wall for a while and see if it accords with current reality. It's really easy to be swept up with things whilst justifying and rationalising them to fit the paradigm that is presented.

More along the lines of asking just what the effect actually is.

Love it.

The post I read alluded to the AYP paysite but was expressing the same concerns I had. It was clear that censorship was taking place and the group of AYP acolytes were indulging in thinly veiled attacks on anyone who dared criticise any aspect of AYP. This is cult behaviour and I reviewed my own to check that I hadn't also been a willing participant. As it happens I had, but only passively. As a general comment for every member on every type of spiritual website and practice-question more. Question what and who, before beginning to question why or how. If you only question 'how' or 'why' you fill have formed a reason to make the questions of 'what' and 'who' completely superfluous and given up the power to determine if something is really good for you. That is how cults work, they stop you asking the what question by telling the student that they need only practice to get results. It's necessary to fully understand what the practice does first and who is telling you it must be done in that particular way.

And recently I watched the post of another concerned contributor mysteriously vanish.

There is no 'projecting'. Everything appears in conscious awareness and subjective responses are attached and viewed in that same awareness. It isn't science, it's perceptual distortion and the dismantling of cognition.

I can't help but think much but good riddance.

It was not really on topic TI. I didn't see the connection between that and the value of concepts. I don't mind answering this stuff on another thread or PM if you want to. Enlightenment is no big deal. IMO it doesn't require practices just a healthy mind.

Oh I hope the flea navy forgave you.

No, I said I no longer do practices and neither do I read books on them. It's gone, past, I prefer interaction.

No, the object called 'dolphin' is reality, there is a degree of subjectivity about the experience of the object labeled dolphin, but it exists independenly of your experience of it. You may have a subjective happy, scared on other reaction, or a link to a memory or other concept, which is equally real for you. We both experience the dolphin, but I may fear it and you may like it. These things are true for each of us.

I was going to start a consulting company but instantly I began to hiss and foam. I began developing the ability to persuade people with a menacing glance. I started taking notes if anyone talked to me and they would offer me money, their wives, homes and children just to make me stop. Such is the power of the consulting force.

Well then in the nicest of tones 'get stuffed' ;-)

Dastardly fiendish those consulting companies. I had one come to my office, before I knew it I looked like 7 of 9 and had begun to assimilate my work colleagues. Resistance was indeed futile. I only wanted them to design some new letterheads, but once they are in........

Please tell me we aren't going back around this loop again ?

Because there is no other way of checking the validity of concepts other than by the use of reason.

Of course it's useful, because reason is the only way to cross check reality in order to know a thing is a thing. That time shifts conclusions, doesn't alter the need for logic. I'm not concerned with scientific discussion, only the logic of words used in communication, as they appear conceptually. We have free will, we have to make choices based on what we perceive to be reality. Yes, demystify.

I don't pass it through logic unless it's a thought and not simply a feeling. It might be that a feeling may inspire me to dig a bit deeper to see what might be behind it, just depends. Scientific understanding may or may not be included, but that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with reasoning. I don't need science to explain hunger or thirst. Science doesn't explain why I choose one thing over another, it can only show that I act in accordance with inbuilt values. As I said I think you are getting confused with what logic is for. You are concerned with the mystical and you imagine logic is out to prove you are wrong, but that isn't how it is used. I'm not trying to define science, only the concepts which are concerned with the structure of an argument. "What did that man just tell me, is it valid" ? "Am I correct in validating and integrating these two pieces of information". I'm using logic and reason to determine if the concepts and arguments conform to the facts as they are. They might be scientific data, they may simply be philosophical premises. You tell me there are ghosts and I see no reason for their existence. ie dead people without bodies. If you pointed to the sky and said you see the shape of a cloud and you think it looks ghostly, or you describe something as seemingly ghostly then I understand what you mean. It's even possible to apply this to stories. It's true that Santa has a beard and elves etc in the story, it is not true that there is a real existing Santa with elves living on the North Pole.

And me, but there was far too much to answer to add a chuckle.

Well the author is dead so it's not easy to find who had what rights and to what. No problem anyway, I never even gave it a thought when I posted the link as I've done that many times with mises book library which is fine.

I've removed it though I'm not entirely sure that copyright applies ? Kind of grey area as the original book isn't available and the second book is modified. It would be copyright infingement if I posted that link without permission, but I'm not entirely sure who owns the rights to the first edition and as its in electronic PDF form it's not really printable. The mises site has gained permission for hundreds of books to be available electronically FOC though copyright still applies if you downloaded them and started to sell the copies. As a writer I can make my books available free if I wish, but they are still copy right.

I'd go along with that.

It is of no concern to me at all. It's exactly as I expect it to be. I think you believe that I believe that logic reveals some ultimate truth, but it doesn't. I've said that it only reveals what is false and not what is true at that point in time and space to the one using the logic. My interest is only in ensuring that what I believe is based on sound reasoning to the extent that I can prove it is. Logic provides a clear route to knowing what is fallacy that's all. It does not provide ultimate truths. This is why we are at odds. I think you believe there is an ultimate truth and knowing, which is why you misconstrue the value of logic. If you tell me that fairies roam the bottom of my garden then I shall tel, you I am not aware of them, but I would not challenge your belief that this is true for you. It is only when you say I should believe that varies exist that I go about with the spyglass of logic and my direct perceptions. Logic is a moment by moment tool of reasoning. If you tell me that the tree only exists because the bird has sat on the branch then I will see that cause and effect is in play. I know the tree was there long before the bird existed.