goldisheavy

Poor Derren. He's very good with hypnosis, but his contemplation skills needs more work. What's happening to Derren is a cruel mix of being right and wrong at the same time. First, the phenomena of chi are indeed just mind. That's not wrong per se. What's wrong is that Derren seems to differentiate mind from matter and he seems to hold to the doctrine of physicalism. This is what's confusing and limiting him. To the physicalist the mind is mostly a victim of (what looks like) the objective reality and not the master of it. Blah blah blah.... I am getting tired explaining this over and over. I guess I should be happy that I understand this myself, but it would be nice if more people could understand what I understand. I saw that one. That's a great clip and I would recommend all the internal arts practitioners watch it. I think that Derren might subtly entertain the idea, even if he doesn't say it out loud, that he's kind of undermining the spiritual beliefs. I see the reverse. Someone like Derren, perhaps unwittingly, is laying down the groundwork for understanding of the spiritual reality of life. Heheheh Good, eh? I am pleased with Derren's impact.

I found some of these links to be interesting. I am not a fan of the brain paradigm of mind. I think that conflating the mind with the brain only hurts our understanding of the mind. I wouldn't go so far as to say that studying the brain is useless. I just wouldn't put the idea of the brain front and center in mind development. Heck no. The brain, to my mind (or more accurately, to my mindset), is a functional and believable illusion. I like the implications of mind over matter articles. Thanks for those links enouch; I appreciate them.

And who do you think established "The Establishment"? You wouldn't believe me if I told you. Where is establishment established?

Vajrasattva, I cannot be thankful for something I don't believe in. That would be an incongruous state of mind. I appreciate your sentiment however. I believe that there is an appearance like shakti in the same way there is an appearance like a body. But to go from an appearance to absolute "isness", as in, "this is my body" is a huge, huge step. Even if ordinarily I like to think that I have a body, when considering the issue, I cannot afford to start my contemplation with an "is". "Is" has to be proven. I've never been a huge fan of Shiva/Shakti division. I guess I can hang with it and get something useful out of people who talk and think in those terms, but internally, I don't relate to any phenomena in terms of Shiva vs. Shakti. And yes, every time you mention Shakti you must mention Shiva, while you're at it. Shakti without Shiva is like left without right. It's absurd. On top of that, if I did subscribe to the Shiva/Shakti duality, I would be identifying with Shiva and not with Shakti. Shiva doesn't honor Shakti. Shakti is desperate to please Shiva. But Shiva is desireless and is the Lord of Shakti at all times. So out of those two, I know which one would be me. But like I said, I don't like Shiva vs. Shakti game. It's not my game.

I think for me it is a sense of loneliness. I want others like me in my dream. I don't necessarily want everyone to be like me. I will be happy if there is even 1% of people like me, but if everyone was like me, that would be fine too. In any case, I like what you said there. It's something for me to chew on. This is a well known phenomenon of hypnotism. Memories seem to be attached to the states of mind. So for example, if you are hypnotized and are told something, you may not remember what you have been told upon exiting hypnosis. However! If you are re-hypnotized, you can remember what you were told in the previous hypnosis session. Something like that. Another possible explanation is that the process of consciousness obscures the hypnotic memory upon exit from hypnosis (as opposed to saying that the memory is attached to some particular state). I am not a huge fan of PUAs. I think some of the things they say are valid, but overall they seem to be mentally disabled to me. To make a science out of picking up women is like making a science out of wearing socks. Something that should be easy and natural is turned into a science. PUAs would do well to remember that the whole enterprise started by modeling successful guys, and the very models for the PUA process themselves know nothing of PUA. But PUAs do not try to emulate that natural ignorance. They become over-self-conscious and their behavior becomes artificial as it is restricted by a myriad of complex rules and PUA suppositions. Another thing I find problematic is that according to PUAs women are all the same, and are thus subject to accurate modeling. I think that nothing could be further from truth. Even non-human animals are individualistic, and what to say of humans who, more than any species I know, spread over the entire spectrum of opinions, mentalities, attitudes and behaviors, from one extreme to another (and are subject to change on top of that). Derren might not be Milton Erickson, or it might be that he's in a hurry to get results. Maybe he could do better if he wasn't under a deadline for a show. In any case, I agree that he's not that powerful, but I still respect his level of skill. For some reason I tend to respect hypnotists. I guess that's because I was hypnotized once and even though I snapped out of it, it wasn't easy to snap out. It felt exactly like trying to wake up from a dream I didn't like (which is an ability I have and use from time to time if I am not pleased with some dream). Well, whether or not you think there is something sinister about it depends on your beliefs about people. Are people separate? Do people have a right to their individuality? If you modify someone's behavior or appearance, are you hurting anyone or anything? In other words, is there a victim? Etc... It all depends on your views on these matters. Another thing to consider is... are we not doing it already? Are we not already all hypnotizing and modifying each other ad infinitum? Yup.

This is an unsupported assertion. I guess I don't need to bother with steps 2 and 3. Do you even know how proofs work? A proof begins with an axiomatic assertion that both parties agree on, either explicitly or implicitly. However, if that agreement is not in place, you need to find some common ground first, or you just can't prove anything at all. Another rule of proofs is that you cannot put something that is under dispute into the initial assertion in the proof. So if we dispute the existence of objective universe, and you want to prove that it does exist, you may not start your proof by saying "Objective universe was created X billion years ago." Still making untenable statements! Sound like the New Age ism of "you create your own reality". Ralis, you're being a little lazy in my opinion. CowTao made a decent suggestion for examination. Now, if you don't want to reassess your memories, that's fine. But if you're not even going to bother performing the examination that CowTao suggests, you shouldn't say his statement is untenable. Haven't we all seen entire universes appear in the blink of an eye during dreaming? So we know the mind can do this. There is no question as to whether or not the mind is capable of creating an entire universe in the blink of an eye, right? At least, not for me, since I've seen my own mind do it. The only question that remains is, is this universe here mind created too? Just like the one in the dream? The question is not about whether or not it is possible, but whether or not that possibility is actualized right now.

Aha, this is exactly the kind of thought process the leads to the creation of something like bullshido.net. There are some people who love nothing more than to seek out internal artists and to pound their heads in, even without rules, on the street. Ask any high level martial artist, and if they are even slightly famous (or I should say notorious instead of famous), they get attacked, either unprovoked or by a request for a duel, by all kinds of challengers. The more loud you are about your level of attainment, the more likely someone is to show up and try to prove you wrong. And you know what? Sometimes that "someone" succeeds, or even if you beat that someone, you might go home with a broken nose too, which is not all that great either.

All transcendent qualities are already present -- hence they are called "transcendent". If transcendent qualities had to be actualized, or in other words, brought into being, they wouldn't be transcendent -- they would have a beginning and an end, and would be relative. So "attaining" a transcendent quality is a tricky thing, because it entails something like "waking up to the fact that you've never been without it in the first place." It's a realization rather than an attainment. But it's even hard to call it a realization because once you realize them, you can't be sure what is the difference between realizing and non-realizing. So transcendent qualities are always authentic, even if the person is half-asleep, or whatnot. Perfection of wisdom is something different. Perfection of wisdom is when you start to value wisdom and become wiser in the relative sense. As you become wiser and wiser in the relative sense, you also begin noticing that it's a fool's games and that wisdom is not something you can attain by modifying relative qualities. This is a rough description of the process, which is mystical at its core. Let's take a different quality for example, such as patience. What is relative patience and what is transcendent patience? And what is the perfection of patience? Relative patience is when your inner state of being proceeds at an even keel, even though you are expected something to happen, and it didn't happen yet. This is true whether you're patiently waiting for your wound to heal, or patiently waiting for an appointment with a plumber, or patiently waiting for peace on Earth. So if you pay attention, what this means, is that you still maintain a separation between inner and outer. You think that the inner world is a reaction to the outer. Inner is under control, and outer is out of control. Thus when the outer world serves up something that you think is delayed, and you are relatively patient, you also delay manifesting disappointment. So you are surprised, however slightly or subtly, by the outer world, and try to soothe and smooth out your inner world, because you think the inner world is your responsibility. So this process is juggling inner and outer worlds like that is what relative patience is. Now let's look at transcendent patience. What is that? Well... it's everything. From a transcendent perspective inner and outer are not different worlds. Inner is not a response to the outer, it exists together with outer as one undifferentiated whole (that's not to say something got merged or was glued together... one just realizes there was never a split to begin with). Thus, whatever arises, the fact that it arises, changes "flavor" and passes away, is itself transcendent patience. Thus if anger arises, there is patience with the anger. If impatience arises, there is patience with the impatience. If rain falls, there is patience with the rain. If your butt is on fire, there is patience with that too. If you scream while your butt is on fire, there is patience with the phenomena of butt being on fire and with screaming as one whole. If one thinks that the inner world is a reaction to the outer world, there is patience for that somewhat painful perspective, and so on. Transcendent patience is not something you can attain. You can wake up and realize it's always there. And perfection of patience is when you practice getting more and more relative patience, to the point where you realize that it's a fool's errand in the face of transcendent patience. It's precisely because these non-attainments exists that there is authentic humility. Pretentious humility is simply kowtowing to other human beings and making sure you don't appear more "anything" than they are (refrain from appearing more knowledgeable, or stronger, or wiser, etc.). This allows one to save oneself from the effects of envy (I wish I was as strong as the person boasts strength) or anger (how dare this person boast strength, don't they know who I AM? do they think they are God?? How dare, blah blah blah). In the movie business people will say, "Don't upstage the main hero of the movie." Or we could say, "Don't upstage the one who thinks himself or herself a 'master'." This kind of humility is pretentious because you have to practice it regardless of your honest self-opinion to avoid the repercussions of other people's uncultivated minds. If other people had cultivated minds, there would be no need to lower yourself or to hide your qualities, thus no need for pretentious humility. Basically people are insecure, and pretentious humility is how you can protect the insecure people from their own insecurities. But there is real humility too. Real humility is a realization that all the best qualities you have, the transcendent ones, are non-attainments. Since you simply woke up to something that was always there from the beginning, since you didn't have to work up a sweat to attain it in the relative sense, how can you be proud of it? It would be like being proud of one's "attaining" one's belly button. It would be absurd. This kind of non-pride is authentic and has nothing to do with kowtowing to others. In fact, you can be arrogant to others and rile them up constantly and still be a humble person deep down. None of you would like such possibility, but it exists if the person who displays such behavior has a high degree of realization/spiritual awakening. Beautifully said. It makes me glad there are some beings who can think this way.

I think my dad would understand this and maybe chuckle or say nothing, but my mom would start crying, if I said that.

Well, hypnosis is a real power. All of life can be thought of as one giant hypnosis session. The difference between a hypnotist and a normal person is that a normal person does not take conscious control of the hypnotic process. So a hypnotist is practicing and experiencing lucid hypnosis (like lucid dreaming), while a normal person is practicing and experiencing automatic run-away hypnosis (like regular dreaming). Derren seems to have some pretty strong beliefs in physicalism, and this is what limits his power. This is also why Derren is so modest about his powers and doesn't think they are special (or at least, he's smart to talk like that on TV, so as not to make people envious). So Derren is not exactly lucid in his hypnosis, but he's more lucid than a non-hypnotist. Derren would be completely lucid if he didn't have an unconscious belief in physicalism. I can't say for 100% sure that Derren believes in physicalism, but based on his manner, I give myself a 90% chance of being right on this one.

It could also be that you don't want to deal with what is perceived to be a disruption of something important. It depends on how much you care about the relative matters. If you care more than a moderate amount, yes, it's hard. Maybe. Buddha was not as perfect as you think. Here's a Sutta that describes Buddha losing patience with the monks and nuns and taking a break from them in the forest: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn....4.05.irel.html

Upon a deep inspection, there is not. However, if you don't look into the issue that much, sure, it seems like energy exists and it appears relevant. Calling it a "force" is a misnomer. There is this connotation that something must be forced, or that some resistance must be overcome. In reality, intent faces no opposing force, and no resistance. The glue is the structure that your beliefs create within consciousness. But beliefs are strange in that they are not like anything else and cannot be compared to anything. You don't quite understand how the two truths work. The two truths are not equally true. The ultimate truth is actually true, while the relative truth is at best a convenient and useful lie, while at worst, a source of suffering in the world. The two truths do not have equal value. It's kind of like that parable about caring for the body. There was a monk whom some king asked something like, "If you care for the body, doesn't it mean you value the body?" And the monk replied, "You care for the body the same way you would care for an open wound. It doesn't mean you value the open wound." So caring for the relative truth is like caring for an open wound. We don't care for it because it's true. We care for it because that's the affliction we have until the time we fully understand the implications of the ultimate truth. I don't like it when people bring up the relative truth as something we must honor and worship on the par with the ultimate. Universe is not still or in motion or anything at all. Nor do I have life or energy or any such thing. There is life. But I don't possess life. At best, life has the small me in it, but I am all of life and not just this being that types this here. This is why I don't have life. I am life.

The difference is in degree, but not in kind. Equanimity with regard to the relative world means that you care a small to moderate amount about relative matters. Or in other words, your relative and non-transcendent values have a small to moderate amount of worth to you. Incidentally this is kind of what the spirit of renunciation is about too. Transcendent values are tricky, because you can care a lot about transcendent values, but since they are transcendent, nothing within the relative realm has the power to violate those values. When I talk about getting offended in this thread, I am mostly talking about relative values and not things like "the perfection of wisdom", which you can be absolutely hung up on and yet never get upset over it getting violated, since it's a transcendent value that cannot get violated in the first place. Yes, so maybe I should have said "Well, if things offend you only a little, then you don't care much about anything within the relative realm." It's the same thing. The difference is that righteous indignation is more gnarly, tubular, fly and well, more righteous. Other than that little fact, it's all the same.

I disagree. There is no such thing as "shakti". "Shakti" is supposed to represent the stuff that intent can modify. Alas, it doesn't really exist. There is no stuff. Intent doesn't work by modifying stuff, at the ultimate level (which is to say, at the level of how things truly are).

I'm surprised you don't see the answer. Not everyone wants MCO or Kundalini. For example, I know I can awaken Kundalini, but I do not. Why not? Because whatever you can do with Kundalini, I can do the same thing without. How? I use mind and intent, that's how. Since I have a better, more general purpose tool, I don't need a more specialized tool. If you understand mind+intent, you are done. There is nothing more for you to learn and no spiritual power to acquire beyond that. Another answer is that this guy who wrote Path Notes, he was a nobody, in the grand scheme of things. I know some people here respect him, and that's perfectly fine. In fact, he might be a Buddha for all I know. But what I also know is how people go after what is popular, and after the brand names. And the guy with Path Notes had a weak brand and wasn't all that popular (compared to say Dalai Lama or Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche, or something like that). Dalai Lama is so popular that even ordinary non-spiritual people know who he is nowadays. On the other hand, who the heck knows about Glenn Morris? I've never heard of the guy until I came to tbums, and even then, I haven't heard of him for a very long time, until after Vajrasattva appeared and started promoting him here. So because people are herd animals, and because Glenn is not that famous and has a weak brand, not many people are brave enough or open-minded enough to read his books, or what's more, to actually put anything there to practice. Simple, right?

It depends on how offended the person is. The more offended the person is, the less likely one will have the presence of mind necessary to examine that feeling. Well, if things offend you only a little, then you don't care much about anything. That's close to being apathetic. Apathetic people don't and can't get offended much.

Facts, eh? I don't think you understand. I like how mikaelz addressed your ideas about facts, so I don't want to repeat anything he said. It's worse than that. The fact that the Earth is flat is obvious. It takes a lot of technology or special experiments or some extremely careful and unprejudiced observation at an ocean shore, to demonstrate otherwise. The fact that the Earth is the center of the universe is also obvious. The fly in the ointment were the stars that wondered around the sky instead of rotating nicely around the Earth. They were called "the wanderers" or "planetas". If people didn't notice the subtle wandering planetas, there would be nothing to contradict the fact that the Earth is the center of the Universe. Those weren't just beliefs, see? They were facts. You could observe them and verify them too. It took special instruments (called telescopes) and super-careful observation to find, barely, any proof to the contrary. That's better than what a lot of people have. At least you seem to be aware that you can change your fundamental beliefs about reality. You're unlikely to do so, because you seem to be enjoying your life as is. I do wonder what are you doing here on tbums? Your beliefs do not match the spirit of this forum, because you don't have spiritual beliefs. Search? Most people are physicalists already. Even those who claim to be religious. You don't need to search anything to believe as you do, because your beliefs are the currently dominant ones in the world. You're welcome.

Yea, I agree about this being the best of his shows. This should be required watching in every high school and college. The only thing that could be better is if Derren also targeted more established beliefs and not just the New Age ones. I'd love to see Derren pose as a Ph.D. at a conference somewhere and get the same effect. In fact, this was already done by some psychologists in one of the links I posted in this thread, but I can imagine Derren would do a much better job at it, given his skills. I love this text here mikaelz! Good stuff! I enjoy your definition of belief too, although I don't think it is the most accurate one. I would define belief as that which structures consciousness. So a belief is a little deeper than an affirmative psychological position toward a given statement, but your way of defining belief is usefully (and incompletely) informative.

That won't do at all. CowTao, please check out http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=0d3d8b8...c9d0a36e998cf81 You can download the 8 files there and use VLC to view them.

This simply means Bob doesn't value honesty that much, in the grand scheme of things. In your example, Bob values what you call "reality" more than honesty. In your example, it is also apparent that Bob values the feeling of not being offended -- which means that in the off chance Bob does get offended, he will fucking explode spectacularly -- because not only will he be angry at the original offense, he will also be angry at the fact that he feels offended, and he will lose his mind in a fit of rage, due to being unable to maintain his emotions at a smooth level. As for me, I like being offended from time to time, especially if I am offended for the right reason, or by a good looking person who smells good. In the worst case, I hope whoever offends me has a menacing-looking beard, for their own good.

Also this material here is relevant to the theme of beliefs. How is it that we acquire our beliefs? How are our beliefs modified? One key, is that when we are faced with what we perceive to be an expert in the field, we are ready and willing to suspend judgment: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/26/opinion/26Kristof.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Fox_effect Here are some other avenues for persuasion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Cialdi...of_Influence.22 These are all the mechanisms of our hoodwinking. This is how we get hoodwinked and this is also how, if we want to, we can hoodwink others.

Please, I am not that important. Think of something else.

How would you distinguish that which is merely internally mediated from that which is internally constructed? Keep in mind also, that this is the exact argument that theists give for God, and atheists laugh at it. Just substitute "God" for "external reality". Just admit it -- you must take external reality on blind faith. There is no way external reality can be proven or demonstrated.

Duh. By all means. I respect your freedom of speech. I even respect your freedom to insult me. It's part of the package. That's agreeable. We have a deal.