Nikolai1

The heart is what steps in when the world stops making sense. This doesn't have to be in the form of a fundamental existential crisis. The world stops making sense everytime we find ourselves in a dilemma. A dilemma is when we have to choose between two equal but incompatible alternatives. To follow the heart we have to stop trying to figure out the best outcome. In fact to follow the heart is to realise that any outcome is completely dependent on how we feel in our heart. The intellect is totally demoted, totally stripped of its responsibility. From the perspective of the heart, the intellect is nothing other than a servant which will do as it is told. No longer do we view ourselves as detectives, trying to discover truth in order to find our peace there. From the heart we see that we are already at peace, and it is reality that we shall shape in order to mirror that. The intellect is the thing that shapes; no longer an instrument of measurement, it is a tool that we use in order to form our heart's desire. What we desire in our hearts, it is true, is not of our choosing. But we are more than happy to surrender to what our heart wants. There is no part of us that does not want the same. There is nothing left to dissent. We allow our intellect to shape the heart's desires, and are entirely content with the situation.

Hi Karl, I am very happy for you, but let me make one caveat. I think that when people find wholeness and happiness at last there can come a time when the desire comes to 'spread the word'. You no longer suffer from your own pain, but you look out at the world, and other people's pain and stupidity can make you sad and regretful. I think the moment a person becomes happy and whole, they become a teacher also. So life doesn't just stop. Our heart will have desires that wish to be met, and our minds may confuse this process until the end of our days. In other words, don't get complacent!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folie_%C3%A0_deux Maybe even shared psychosis can feel blissful?

Spiritual circles are littered with people who have merged authentically with their guru, and it is tragic. It's not often said. but to merge successfully we have to have first individuated successfully. A healthy robust individuality is the perfect springboard into the divine. For those with a weak sense of self, who cannot function autonomously, the guru is so often the one who brings the person to everyday happiness and work. Nothing trasnscendental results, but the person is saved from suicide and is an eternally loving and grateful devotee as a result. Do not diss this person's guru!! They will get very angry at you...they are now strong enough to get angry, they know what they hate, and they love it!

A few notes about the introscientific hypothesis: The question we ask very much chooses us. It presents itself very vividly in the form of a practical dilemma. We do not know what to do? And this is not some idle query. The question is very important to our lives and it feels that we shall be at a standstill until we answer it to our satisfaction. If it remains unanswered, we are left wondering. Only this real-life vital motivation will enable us to undertake the search. We will not earn money or fame, we not contribute any body of knowledge for the betterment of humanity. We need the answer for it's own sake.

There are many, many people who have not married well as you did. They were unable to ' let things progress whilst finding out a little more at every meeting' They did not have the instinctive confidence. Their minds were full of all sorts of considerations that blinded them to the reality of their feelings. They were anxious and lonely and wanted to secure a mate our of fear. They therefore married badly and their lives were awkward and unsatisfactory as as result. You married well, but there are other areas of your life where all the above applied. Your heart's wisdom was completely obliterated by all the things that you were told about the world and the way it works. Things have aways felt 'against the grain', unsatisfying. When you become conscious of this and admit it to yourself then you are ready to consider introscience. If you think that those unsatisfying aspects of your life are simply 'the way things are' then you are still stuck in the mindset of extroscience. I'm not inventing anything. I'm raising something to the level of consciousness so that we can use it. Yes, with your marriage you were not blocked from using it, you did it without thinking. But what about the rest?

The only physiological counterparts are in utero, and more roughly, in coitus. Psychologically, emotionally the most obvious prefiguring of spiritual merging is love. When a man loves a woman he can experience self-transcendence directly. Likewise for the devotee and the guru. All these are transient preparations for the merging into the divine, but are only possible because we are already merged.

Karl I should say now, as it seems relevant, that I'm also not talking about a philosophical method which uses a priori reasoning - rationalism in other words. Rational thought uses concepts that are grounded in former experience and is therefore not substantially different from pure empiricism. All conceptualisation must be dispensed with as we enter the heart. There is no conceptual input, but there will be conceptual output. Nothing from the past is brought in. Well, that's you writing history. There is a mystical germ at the heart even of extroscience;introscience is its raising to the level of consciousness and its fruition. Both. When we become conscious of something that was unconscious, it seems new but at the same time we see that it was always there. But when it becomes conscious we can...enjoy it, so to speak. We can ask questions pro-acticely now. Before we had to anxiously await the outcome. I made this point in the early posts. But it won't tell you if the girl loves you. You have to go ahead and ask...her not expecting such an awkward question, you worried about the answer. As I said before, the truth will always out anyway. But we gain peace when we understand in ourselves...we save ourselves much bother. This is what introscience is all about. We get knowledge that makes our lives work better. Think of it like a weather forecast. Watching it won't stop the rain, but it will teach us to take an umbrella. Looking into our own heart will tell us the contents of the others. This is useful information for a happy and peaceful existence.

All of the most profound spiritual experiences are pre-figured by everyday counterparts. Merging is definitely one of them. All this means is that we need the discerment to tell the one from the other.

When we move into the heart our thinking function becomes passive. This is the hallmark of introscience. We enter the place of empty peacefulness, and then...we see the thoughts. We read them as if they are words on a monitor, and we know their truth. Truth comes in a flash, and is entire. We do not get there by degrees. It is the exact opposite of normal thought which is iterative in nature, which moves from thought to thought, association to association until the process ends with a truth which 'feels right'. This all has its place, but it is useless when it comes to answering those unique questions of the universe that have never been posed before. Does this girl, love me, in this moment? This question has never been asked, no data has ever been gathered. Only the heart can give us the answer.

What I call introscience starts out as the complement to extroscience. As I explained in the OP, when we come to be aware of our timeless nature - the event I call awakening - it does not lead to omniscience. Introscience is the method of gaining certainty on those matters where normal science and mathematics can't help us. Everyday intuition definitely pre-figures this in our lives - you could call it proto-introscience if you like.

Michael You said: But then you also said that: But presumably removing one of the glands does impact on our connection to the subtle anatomy, in the same way as shrinking it does. I say this because as a child, God know why, but my tonsils and adenoids were removed. These, I understand, are associated with the throat chakra. So where does this leave me? What difficulties might I expect?

First thing you have to realise is that we are not performing an analysis of any thoughts, impressions that we have gained in experience. This would just be more empiricism, more extroscience. So, if we stay with our exampe of the young man trying to work out if the woman loves him back...this is not a situation where we are ruminating over all the things that she has said and done and settling on the interpretation that 'feels right'. No data from past experience is taken into account in introscience. This is an analysis of personal real-time feelings which will passively give rise to thoughts about the future that reflect our feelings. When we move our consciousness into the heart we will immediately feel at peace with the situation we are in. To enter the heart is to enter a place of security and well-being whatever the outcome of our investigation. This is why I say this method is only available to the awakened and is the post-awakened science. The method is the privilege of those who are truly able to face up to reality and let it be as it is. It is for those who have found true and imperturbable selfhood. As we enter our heart and be in it we will feel peaceful and expanded. Our thoughts, we notice, will start to follow a certain train - but all of them are characterised by peace and well-being and acceptance of the situation that our thoughts are painting. The young man may suddenly feel that he is absolutely fine and happy whether she loves him or not. He will see that worrying about it is what disturbs his peace. He will see with great confidence that he can live his life without her anyway, and her love for him is not necessary. He sees that he was wanting something that he does not need. Yes! He can live without her. Yes! he shall live without her! Or, He may realise that the most important thing is his love for this woman. Whether she loves him back or not, it does not matter because his love is there, from his side, regardless. He sees in his heart that he already has what he thought he needed to get. Nis only need is to love this woman. His only desire is that the love never dies. Now notice the massive difference in these two thought based intepretations of entering the heart. The first sees that his love for the girl is not necessary. The second sees that his love is the only necessary thing. This information will henceforth colour all of his interactions with the girl. He will know with suh confidence and with no shadow of a doubt about the cosmic reality of his feelings that he may let reality play out as it will. The first knows he does not need this girl and will be 'over her' in a flash. The second knows that his love is so real that he will be with her in a flash. This capacity to discern cosmic truths from inner exploration is not something that comes without work. In affairs of the heart, this extraordinarily deep understanding of our beloved's significance is something that we tend to leave to the poets: Dante, Plutarch, Shakespeare all showed the unmistakable hallmarks of this capacity I'm talking about. It is the fruit of the spiritual quest. And it will not come until we have moved beyond our belief that that only science is the science of exploring the outside world.

Intuition is probably the best synonym for introscience, especially if your intution is undertaken with method.

The glands in the brain, I read, are the pineal (6th chakra) and pituitary (7th chakra) glands. These can be removed. So is the chakra function affected?

What happens if the corresponding gland is removed? Is the chakra removed with it?

OK I promise that introscience shall be used henceforth.

The word science comes from the Latin scientia - to know. It's not a trademark term, it can mean all sorts of things, and it comprises other words like prescience, omniscience, nescience. I could call my approach introscience...but then I should really rename normal science extroscience while I'm at it.

Ramana Maharshi apparently avoided touching people, and did not want them to touch him.

Karl, Yes I know that. I'm simply pointing out that there is a science that will bring truth into your life and it is as infallibly true as mathematics. This is a new science, as a methodology it is universal...but the results will only operate in your life and the measure of truth is the love and happiness the results bring to you. The only possible preparation for this new science is the loosening of our faith in the normal science. It is all about going it alone...truly and radically going it alone.

I wonder if we have to call this 'fear of the feminine' - I think fear of the 'other' is what this is about. In the times when the British were in India, the two cultures - East and West - were nowhere near as integrated as the are now. When the westerner encounted the east, and was psychologically open to it, he became aware of a reality and an approach to reality that was radically alien. Only the very strongest managed any kind of integration. More commonly there had to be extremely strict defences put in place in order to stay western - afternoon tea, croquet, cocktails at six. Or, there was a whole scale abandonment of the west in favour of the eastern - 'going native' as it was called. Actually, these two responses are still very obvious in people today, despite the greater integration of east and west. I know people who have become incapable of just taking an interest in Zen Buddhism. They have had to change their name to a Japanese name, start wearing Japanese clothes and even taken up a Japanese pastime - calligraphy. This person is a prominent Zen Buddhist in America. He has not been able to integrate east and west, and appears as a bit of a clown at times. For the thinking westerner, studying a text like the I Ching is a profoundly disorientating experience. The approach to reality is diametrically opposed to western science. It takes considerable effort to even understand how the I Ching might be valid. There is a strong temptation to simply accept one method and dismiss the other as illusion. To hold them both and endorse them both is difficult, scary and painful. Richard Wilhelm, who made the first authoritative translation of the I Ching, was thought by Jung to have been killed by the intellectual efforts he had to make. But the sacrifices he made has made it easier for subsequent generations.

As someone whose path has been very intellectual / philosophical I find it fascinating that the same insights into truth can just 'happen' to those experienced in, say, qigong. No need to read Kant and Hegel!

I would say it slightly differently. The refinement I would say is inevitable, but it may feel like it is happening automatically, rather than as deliberate 'practice'.

Love is not needed for a marriage to work. Respect, a shared wordlview and liking each other is more than enough and is a firm basis to weather nearly all of the storms that you will face together. The one storm ithat really rocks this kind of marriage is when one of you falls in love with someone else...but there's a very good chance that will never happen. Arranged marriages work, a lot of the time.

I've been saying that it is only crucial for some people. Dogma, as I use the term, is setting up one teaching and applying it unilaterally to all. We all follow a practice consciously according to our conscious needs and understandings, our personality and so on. What then happens is that all the fruits of the paths we did not take accrue more slowly and naturally. We therefore may find ourselves rejecting the need for energetic practice, and yet when we lie in bed at night we cannot help but enjoy the lovely sensations that pass through our body. It does not occur to us that these feelings are of spiritual significance, it certainly doesn't occur to us that when we enjoy them we are engaging in another man's practice! But there comes a time when we notice that our own practice has led involuntarily to states that others have been striving consciously for. At the same time we may notice the limitations of our own practice compared to what others have gained through theirs. Yes we enjoy what happens as we lie in bed...but they are experiencing bliss on a whole other level! So when our path starts to merge with others, we naturally become less dogmatic about our own. And by being less dogmatic we are able to honestly see that some people are totally unsuited to the path we are able to teach.