Nikolai1

I'm a modernist and a reformer.

Ah, sweet contentment Is written on your face But is it my writing or yours?

Please don't equate manic-depression with awakening Karl. You need to stop thinking you understand people when you clearly don't.

This reminds of Socrates' idea that wisdom will automatically result in virtue. But this can't happen until we admit our foolishness, Likewise, the Father's will can't be done until we admit our original sin. Also Buddhism's primary teaching is that life is, in fact, very unsatisfactory. Only when we see this can we go about liberating ourselves.

It seems to be a basic feature of the human condition to sense that something 'isn't quite right'. The word sin 'means missing the target) originally, and the target was the will of the Father. Buddhists call the same feeling duhkka - originally as in 'a wheel rolling off kilter' but now translated as unsatisfactoriness. And yes the situation is self-genarated through ignorance of the Truth. Not performing God's will is understood as more like some kind of intellectual error. I think for you the problem and solution are presented politically. Our feeling that something isn't right is due to the fact that we aren't politically free - a problem compounded when we think we are free. In a way, I'm quite comfortable with any of these - but only if they each recognise that liberation is possible.

Since you came here you have been diagnosing problems in people: the way they think, the way they educate themselves, the way some assume powers over others etc. You seem to be on this website for no other reason than to correct people, usually on their logic. So what you are saying is that your only problem is other's people's problems?

This situation you are describing is so true of so many people on the spiritual path. I'm part of a non-duality discussion group that meets in my town and it seems to me that all of the members are in the same logical loop you describe. And you are also right that Buddha warned against it: he and his followers called it being 'stuck in emptiness.' It is in effect what happens when you realise that solid reality can also be seen as totally unreal. But, as you point out, this is another logical insight...and because the seeker is still a firm beliver in logic, he simply exchanges one view for the other whiile duplicitously suggesting that he has overcome logic. He hasn't overcome logic, he is still in the same trap in he was in...but calling it another name. But this is where you are wrong, and get people wrong: Just because people talk the talk of emptiness, it doesn't mean that they are walking the walk. If you take people's words at face value then you will assume they are at speaking at the same dualisitic level of consciousness as their words (and all words are dualistic) I don't think you understand just how the true teacher, when he speaks of 'truth', or of the unreality of reality, is being entirely ironic. He knows that the truth that is inside him beloongs to a completely different order. He does not at all believe that his words even remotely capture what he has discovered, but he speaks anyway...because reality speaks. You have identified the 'logical loop' that many seekers are in, but you think the solution to this is to stop the regress (the rot!) and insert an abitrary fiat. This fiat is your assumption in the solid reality that logic captures. It is painfully obvious how misguided you are, but you are the last to see it because you are also trapped...not in 'emptiness', but in reality. There is a higher stage that you need to reach. You need to, for yourself, and for no-one but yourself, step out of the logical loop you see in others but don't see in yourself. This territory beyond is totally, totally dark to you, I'm sure. But a useful preparation would be to courageously face up to the logical problems in your objectivism. Man up! Read Kant! Your objectivism is propped up by one incredibly crude argument. That all those who argue against objectivism are doing so in order to politicaly manipulate us and to keep us in ignorance and docility. This grotesque deduction of yours is inevitable because you have seen both sides of the argument about reality and emptiness, but not achieved a synthesis. You have no choice therefore to fall on one side, and say that one side is not actually logically valid but an extraordinarily sophisticated conspiracy: a mirage of logic. You will not let logic go, will you? But this is your solution. You need to find the ground which is the true solution to the logical impasse. You need to unite with the source of all logic.

With a plantar's wart, stepping on lego. That's pain.

Anyone who uses logic as an oberver analysing an independent objective realm is failing to grasp the core teaching of the Buddha. Buddha was a logician, and his follower Nagarjuna especially so, but it was logic deployed in the attempt to go past logic. Maybe this is why the Zen Master, perhaps in a moment of rhetorical flourish, calls logical thought a sin. Most religions take a dim view of the rational mind.

That was a very nice message to read and I thank you for the time you took. As you know I have to come to deeply respect the Law of Attraction teachings and I recognise their deep wisdom. But I was always uneasy about the glib manner in which Dyer and Hicks presented them. I just want you to know that my criticism of them shouldn't lessen your faith in their teachings. When you went visit Dyer I'm guessing you were a bit bewildered by your disappointing experience, and perhaps your faith was rocked somewhat. I think this is more than possible when the teachings aren't geive the seriousness they are due. Too often, people are led to believe that wealth, love and health will be theirs for the taking. The reality is more complicated, and much inner work must be done first. Anyway, you are a living example of someone who is doing that work. Someone who is able to take a knock, and get right back up again. Love to you

So often etymology reveals an ancient understanding more savvy than our own. The important thing about logic is that the operators of any argument do not and cannot map onto reality. 1) First we think that logic arguments mirrot the way reality is. 2) Then we see that the logical argument is a kind of parable, from which we infer practical know-how through something like intuition. 3) The we see that the compelling logical argument is the way truth appears in reality. But it is a truth which is transient, and tomorrow we may be bewetiched by the compelling logical argument for the opposite. Logic compels when our scepticism fails. Logic convinces when we are at our most stupid, when the Gods have veiled our eyes.

I don't have a belief system to defend! You'll scour three years of posts and never find any adherence to any faith in particular...I write about and quote philsophers east and west, and spiritual teachers east and west. I can do this becuase the truth I refer to is something I have personally experienced. It is the pure awareness within which verything happens, of whatver religion or creed. This truth has not and cannot be captured by any system - though the various systems are noble and honest attempts, I can see that. The teachings that most clearly address the specific problem of logic are the Buddhist teachings, though we see informal examples in writers like Cuang-tzu. If you and your brethren assume these teachings to be 'bad (power motivated)' then there is nothing more that can be said. It is true that you cannot and will not abandon logic until you have found the truth that compensates for it. Evidently, anyone who reverts to Trivium never found the truth that supplants it. I can't justify this statement logically, but at least I don't claim to. There is sincerity in me at least!

Yes, any logical agument is like this. Seeing this is a major, major intellectual leap forward that also distances you from the formal intellectual method. Now we see that faith in logic is like believing we can lift ourselves up by our bootstraps. The logical argument, we now see, is nothing more than the verbal demonstration of a conclusion we have already reached. Communicating this to someone who believs in logic is impossible. This is because they are blindly believing in the axioms of the arguments they like to make, and therefore take them as plain facts from which other useful facts can be deduced. Logic is only deconsctructed when we start to sense a reality that is cannot be conceptualised. We are then able to see conceptual axioms as provisional, not something to be believed in blindly.

The trouble is, Karl, anyone who doesn't agree with you is 'pre-planned, it is what and how you are supposed to think if you are trying to extricate yourself from the imposed social hierarchy'. For you, the only possibility is that I am deceived and deluded. You use that device to dismiss anything that anyone says. All i can say is that you're a familiar type. A bit frantic, low on discernment, capable of total conviction. From what we know of you there was a) NLP - took to it like duck to water, learned it all, became a teacher. then b AYP - heard about it, practised it frantically, was the website mod, then moved on Now we have: c Trivium - Again you are totally utterly convinced that this the solution to everything. Total adherence, zero discernent. Zero insight into the pattern that is in your life. Everything else disregarded - Trivium is defintely the thing. Honestly, forget all esle. Trivium is where its at. Dismiss critics of Aristotle's Logic - assume they've been brainwashed. You're like a child. Totally brainwashable yourself. And the wise ones who've been round the block can see credulous ninnies like you a mile off. It is high time you stopped playing the preacher and actually started listening to the sensible people we have here.

Obviously inadequate to anyone who has realised the truth that cannot for a moment be spoken about. There is a truth that is vast and fundamental. The logical truth is nothing but the faintest metaphor for the actual truth. The actual truth can be known directly and concretely, but never intellectually. The intellectual truth cannot not be anything more than an infinite perversion and distortion. Do not try to tell me that studying the liberal arts are important or even necessary. Real truth will only come when we despair of the liberal arts. Please stop pinning all your hopes on educational reform. Whatever you replace it with will be exactly as misguided when it comes to truth.

Yes I agree with this, and I also sense in you that you are speaking from experience. But because you haven't made the equivalent intellectual breakthrough you will stay powerless to transmit the peace and inspire others to seek it. We see you day in day our trying to promote a method that is obviously inadequate. And because you haven't made the breakthough so many others have made, you are the last to see it. Your achievements to date are in no doubt, and your own, and I think you can be confident that no-one can take them from you. It may be that for you, after a hard-knock life, this is attainment enough and you are content to rest on your laurels until you die. Or, you will find yourself frustrated by all those who who cannot see as you do. This compassionate frustration will wake you from your slumbers and make you try to find a truth that you can share with people - to help and liberate.

It's possible to be very liberated at the emotional level; after years of turmoil, to finally feel at peace with yourself, To stand talll, and know that you are of equal worth, and that you don't need to bow and scrape- To be independent and self-actualised in the Maslow sense. But intellectually, you can be very much trapped in the same old worldview of self and other, real vs not.real, truth and falsehood. This needs to be mentioned in this thread. That whatever breathroughs we make, they must be integrated into all aspects of our identity. Those who have followed a path always bear the fruit they were aiming for first, and the rest needs to catch up.

This is an idea you hear in the most ancient traditions: that the awakened individual starts to take on the characteristics of both sexes: becomes androgynous. So, yes, a man's testosterone falls and becomes more in balance with his oestrogen; vice versa for women. This androgynity is reflected in action, and even physically in appearance. For me though, age isn't the variable as to whether this happens: Many men remain very masucline, chasing women and power, until very late in life, and also like Trump and Berlusconi, tend not to be models of wisdom. Others, like Ramana Maharshi, found himself at age 18 spontaneosusly surrounded by devotees who were writing down his transcendentally wise utterances...and never chased a pretty girl in his life. There are too many exceptions for us to suggest that this is a program of biological maturation. For a man, the gaining of wisdom IS the reduction of testosterone. The latter is a biological reflection of the former. Talk of causation can't be justified, only correlation. For one conspicuoulsly seeking wisdom, this change might happen at any age whatsover.

This conversation is ridiculous and can't be anything more than dispute over semantics.

I agree with that Jetsun. I think people start to announce their awakening when they realise that they can no longer back into the worldview of naive dualism. They have become too convinced by the awakened state and can never go back. It doesn't mean that they are perfect, and if there is still strong traces of 'show-offery' left, the person can become a bit unbearable they way they announce themselves awakened.

I really think that what you're objecting too is spotless's audacity at calling himself awakened. If you focus instead on what he says then it's very likely that you'll find parallels in your own experience. The trouble is, many people don't actually have any actual experience of their own, all they have is stored quotes from scriptures. And when a verbal comparison is made at the merely verbal level, of course what spotless says and what the sriptures say don't add up. I think you know this, but you're so shocked by his brazenness that you want to drag him down.

A living person can be a corpse, a corpse can be sparkling with life. It all depends on the state of consciousness of the observer. Most people have no choice in the matter. The corpse is death and so shall appear inert and inanimate. To the wise, who have a choice, the corpse is neither alive nor dead. What the corpse IS, transcends these ratehr crude labels.

You're like the King's butler thinking he's sovereign because he commands the kitchen staff. If you think that there is an external reality that needs logical investigation - if you 100% believe this - then you limit your own sovereignty and disempower yourself. If you even knew how to challenege intelllectually your naive objectivism then you would make a giant leap forward. Just read Kant. Oh no you won't because Kant is one of the jailers. This is your defence against your own freedom. A true doube-bind. That which could liberate you, you choose to see as your jailer. Pitiable!

Spotless isn't rejecting eastern teachings, just paraphrasing them!

Dawei, The windchimes thing wouldn't happen to anyone but a Tai Chi student because that is the tradition. Likewise, the Taichi student wouldn't have the visions of the Passion that we see in Christian teachers like Julian of Norwich. We live in syncretic times, and the serious western student is steeped in all sorts of traditions, and often none exclusively. One emerging trend is what gets called generically Non-Duality and Tolle, Adyashanti, Parsons are importnant innovators. We need people like Spotless who are willing to translate direct experience into new and fresh tropes - those who have the ears to hear will hear.