I'm so extremely lost

[manitou]

LOL Mark.   How very strange it was to read your article after making the comment of the bellows action of the Dao and the black hole / big bang conjecture.  Micro / macro?

 

It has occurred to me that there is no point in actuality where the in-breath stops and the exhale begins.  It's not like black and white.  The muscles expand and contract in a gradual give and take; I like to envision the process as being circular with no strict delineation.

[Karl]

I would say the mind is a collection of experienced integrated sensory perceptions of existent non-reality.  Who can describe what reality is?  Even if we are standing together looking at the same tree, the tree will look slightly different to you than to me, because we cannot superimpose our eyes over each other.  If we step into the same position to look at the tree a minute apart, the tree is still different because time has made it so, however imperceptible.

 

The 'one' mind, is our mutual view of shared reality in our current dimension.  Perhaps this is a buddha-land, as described in the sutras.  Perhaps there are countless other shared realities in different realms, different stratas, different dimensions.  Yes, I do think there is a universal truth that must be experienced, it cannot be spoken.  It is that which is contained within the Logos, the 'We Are'-ness of all of this.  The Dao.  The template.  The oak in the acorn.  The image of the lotus in the seed.  The law of attraction.  Personally, I think the Logos and Love are the same, the glue that holds it together.  Perhaps it is the dark matter.

 

I don't know, what is reality, Karl?  You tell me.  Is it the bellows of the Dao, are we merely the other side of a black hole breathing into a big bang, back and forth ad infinitum?  I surely can't put words to it.  But if one has experienced the Oneness of the collective, then one gnows.  Once one has been there (please don't ask me where 'there' is, I can't tell you - I can only tell you the circumstances under which I saw it) it is felt, it is gnown.  It is The Collective, and it is real.  It is golden.  It radiates. It is warm.  It leaves no questions in your heart.

 

It's just not a brain thing.

 

The tree is a tree. We both see it and know what it is. We understand its relation in space and time. Our eyes see it's form, our consciousness grasps that form, our minds identify it. There is no conflict. It is not simply that we understand the tree conceptually, but it's relationship with our own identity, that the tree is a different entity, it's cause and effect, the principle of time, the perspective of distance, scale, colour, movement, sound, touch, smell, taste. We must understand our own separate independent identity and our place in the world we inhabit. The I and the Tree. It's a beautiful thing if you become aware of the complete totality of it. It's beautiful because separate identity allows the total comprehension of it. That we are part of the universe, born from its energies and yet have a uniquely seperate identity within it, that we can contemplate it is awesome.

 

Reality is what you percieve directly through the senses.

 

 

[Gerard]

Action more than words.

 

Theorise less and practice much more.

 

Spiritual inspiration over formal exercises. Start with formalities first and once you become proficient fine tune your practice according to your own situation, then formality needs to be removed in order to make serious progress. We want to become an 'eagle' not the obedient 'sheep.'

 

Feeeeel, as Bruce Lee wisely stated in

or

.

 

 

"Don't think. Feel. It's like a finger pointing away to the moon. Don't concentrate on the finger or you'll miss all that heavenly glory."

 

 

Wisdom over Knowledge.

 

On a side note:

 

Happy martial arts training if you want to heal yourself.

 

Happy meditation practice if you want to fight others.

 

 

[manitou]

Happy martial arts training if you want to heal yourself.

 

Happy meditation practice if you want to fight others.

 

 

 

Oh, that's funny...

[manitou]

The tree is a tree. We both see it and know what it is. We understand its relation in space and time. Our eyes see it's form, our consciousness grasps that form, our minds identify it. There is no conflict. It is not simply that we understand the tree conceptually, but it's relationship with our own identity, that the tree is a different entity, it's cause and effect, the principle of time, the perspective of distance, scale, colour, movement, sound, touch, smell, taste. We must understand our own separate independent identity and our place in the world we inhabit. The I and the Tree. It's a beautiful thing if you become aware of the complete totality of it. It's beautiful because separate identity allows the total comprehension of it. That we are part of the universe, born from its energies and yet have a uniquely seperate identity within it, that we can contemplate it is awesome. Reality is what you percieve directly through the senses.

 

Is there an emoticon with a noose, LOL?

[Mark Foote]

One thing I like to do along these lines is to close my eyes if I am the passenger in a car.  It's less effective if you're the driver of the car.  I imagine that going around a curve to the right, I'm in body.  A curve to the left, out of body.

 

I find very interesting your mention of the strings of pearls, the exquisite balance of the spine.  I do this as well - I like to sit on a cushion, perhaps a meditation position - but for the purpose of finding exactly the relaxed point of balance, where no muscles need engage to hold the head above the spine.  When I am in a place of danger, I place myself within a gyro-type place of perfect balance, envisioning round moving circles around me, gyrating - and knowing (or gnowing) that I will be fine.  I have done this instinctively throughout the years, even in my police career - way before I'd ever heard of the DDJ.  There must be something instinctual inside of us that knows this.

 

I look forward to reading your written article.  I have a feeling much of it will be over my head, however.   My exquisite 12th grade education can't begin to keep up with you.  My heart can Get Down with you, but my head can't Keep Up with you.  But I will try.

 

Egg-xactly, Ms. Manitou!

 

About your head not keeping up with me, my head can't keep up with me-- my latest blog post, I introduce my writing, and then I had to add this:

 

'I wrote to a friend and told him about my writing, and he said he looked forward to reading it. I wrote back to him:

 

"I have to say, if I didn't have the opportunity to wash my head out on the dance floor on Saturdays at my local karioke parlor, I would feel like the caterpillar in the 'toad and the caterpillar' story, on account of my own verbage."'

 

 

Edited February 4, 2016 by Mark Foote

[Karl]

Is there an emoticon with a noose, LOL?

 

?

[silent thunder]

 

The tree is a tree. We both see it and know what it is. We understand its relation in space and time. Our eyes see it's form, our consciousness grasps that form, our minds identify it. There is no conflict. It is not simply that we understand the tree conceptually, but it's relationship with our own identity, that the tree is a different entity, it's cause and effect, the principle of time, the perspective of distance, scale, colour, movement, sound, touch, smell, taste. We must understand our own separate independent identity and our place in the world we inhabit. The I and the Tree. It's a beautiful thing if you become aware of the complete totality of it. It's beautiful because separate identity allows the total comprehension of it. That we are part of the universe, born from its energies and yet have a uniquely seperate identity within it, that we can contemplate it is awesome.

 

Reality is what you percieve directly through the senses.

That is the poster slogan for Naive Realism.

 

Such a very seductive trap to believe that we perceive and interpret our perception of the world accurately, if we ever even become aware that we are interpreting our perceptions at all...  I'll defer to Robert Anton Wilson when he echos the words of Husserl and many other philosophers over the last 2,500 years commenting on Naive Realism and Reality Tunnels.

 

 

edit to fix link

Edited February 5, 2016 by silent thunder

[Karl]

That is the poster slogan for Naive Realism.

 

Such a very seductive trap to believe that we perceive and interpret our perception of the world accurately, if we ever even become aware that we are interpreting our perceptions at all... I'll defer to Robert Anton Wilson when he echos the words of Husserl and many other philosophers over the last 2,500 years commenting on Naive Realism and Reality Tunnels.

 

[/url]

 

edit to fix link

I didn't say that we 'interpret' our perceptions accurately, that should have been very clear. I gave an example of a stick in a beaker of water gave the appearance of being bent. Objectivism is fundamentally about the active cognitive mind at work using reason to interpret the perception. After this interpretation, the stick does not become straight. A new concept is born in the mind and integrated to produce new knowledge. This is an ongoing process.

 

The sense perceptions themselves are accurate, but our interpretation is that which remains in potential error until reason is applied to understand what is being sensed. It is not enough that we do this in some prescriptive fashion, it must be grounded in existence. From this effort proceeds a set of principles- ethics.

 

I would be careful jumping to conclusions about objectivism, it's easy to do as it often seems similar to other philosophies. Though it is based around the reason and logic of Aristotles philosophy, from then on it departs. Where Aristotle shared much of Platos intrincist views, objectivism does not. In that sense it is completely different and that difference is vitally important. Objectivism has a spiritual dimension, it doesn't see consciousness as empirical and of mechanical function, neither does it accept that it is mystic-that knowledge is intrinsic or, given by divine revelation. It puts man in the driving seat not God or a world of things, but as a blend of spiritual consciousness and active cognitive reason. That's a unique position. It sets man free to be a thinking, compassionate being without need of stories.

 

Man is capable of his own virtues living in accordance with existence and reality. He must earn and hold values by the application of his virtue, by the use of his mind, to apply himself actively to the task of cognition knowing the potential for error. If he takes unearned value he will feel unhappy, if he earns the values then happiness is the result. The key to objectivist philosophy is the rational achievement of happiness.

Edited February 5, 2016 by Karl

[manitou]

?

 

I was going to use it on me, not you.  Have no fear.  

 

As I understand it, that which we perceive with our eyes is 99.99% not solid.  It appears solid to us, but in reality if you take the weight of the atomic particles in proportion to the size of the atom, that which is actually solid is .01%.  (It might only be .001%, I may be remembering this inaccurately.  But I'd rather err on the side of caution and go for the hundredth.) What makes it appear as reality to us are these infinitesimal bits of matter cycling around each other, taking up space and time, gravity (or the law of attraction) holding it all together. In essence, all we are is 'thought'.  If not 'god's' thought (please substitute your noun there - I actually prefer the concept of Logos or Intelligence) then whose?  There is something at play other than mere chance, IMO.  So that which you are referring to as a tree is really only the idea of a tree, or at least 99.99% of it.  Can we really call the remaining .01% (or .001%) reality?

 

And if we can't all see reality as the same thing, then what makes anyone's reality any better than anyone else's reality?  Who is the decider here? (Okay, maybe George W. Bush).   We can't even see a tree or a rock in the same way, as I mentioned earlier.  And is it a truism that if a tree falls in the forest and there is no tympanic membrane to interpret the sound waves, that there truly is no sound?  If it's not interpreted, then I assume they would just be invisible sound waves, not affecting anybody's eardrums and just heading out into space ad infinitum.

 

I think your statement about the blend of spiritual consciousness and active cognitive reason is a darned good one.  I think that's exactly what it is.  I see the spiritual consciousness part of this equation the 'love'... or gravity or mutual attraction, that which keeps the planets and galaxies cycling, that which keeps the atomic particles in one tight little spinning bunch, that which is undefinable that draws us together and makes us want to love or to mate.  I think the spiritual consciousness is there for all of us to tap into as much or as little as we choose.  But those who choose to tap into it, to make use of the intuitive intelligence, are the healers, the lovers of mankind, the artists.  And the essence of this is love - love for our fellow man, love for our planet, the agape love that knows that it sees the One Being, the Intelligence, the Logos - in the pupils of each others' eyes.  Whether the 'other' is a man, woman, child, person on the other side of the earth, a bear, a frog, an insect - it is the web of consciousness that Castaneda speaks of as the thing that holds this all together.

 

And who is to say it stops with this planet?  How ridiculous, to be so arrogant as to think so, what with all the zillions of galaxies that we are able to view just with our tiny little Hubble instrument.  Certainly there is life elsewhere - perhaps their web of awareness looks different than theirs - they have evolved under different circumstances, after all - but evolution there has been.  But certainly we are connected as One to them too - only unawares at the present moment in this illusion of time.

 

Time and space are bent.  We can't even depend on a linear time, as time is relative to speed.  And, again, the action of the Dao is reversion.  It is the snake eating its own tail.  It is circular; there is no yesterday, today, or tomorrow which exist as separate periods.  It is all the One Now.  I suspect that if we could stay in awareness of that 24/7 throughout our lives, we wouldn't age one bit.

 

So please, somebody.  Tell me again what reality is?  I'm just not sure it's all that black and white.

[Karl]

Para 1: it doesn't matter. Your explanation is empiricist/nominalist. If we break Manitou down then what's in a name ? It seems like nothing at all-it's just a made up thing. Same with the physics. These are the steps towards Nihilism. I know all these same arguments because I've used them myself. I wrote a book that pandered to them. Existence is existence and it's pointless to try and nullify it because of physics or nominalist ideology.

 

Para 2: it doesn't matter either, but we are a product of existence. Like a die and a casting, we don't exist apart from the fabric of the universe, we are a natural product of it. Thus we have commonality with the tree in your description. We have a defined way of physically relating to that tree. Your argument is again one which is well known. However you see the tree, that is true for you and it is true for everyone else you see the tree that way. I also played these same games. It's just more of the same nullification.

 

For instance when you were a baby, maybe there was a small pot plant in the room and outside the window, in the distance a tree. You couldn't yet determine tree and plant. You couldn't yet determine the causal effect of perspective, time and distance. Maybe you noticed that your mother looked smaller as she walked further away and was bigger up close. Then you began to experiment by moving your hand towards your face and then further away. Now the concept of bigger closer, smaller further away was embedded.

 

Para3: you can be compassionate because it feels good and you give and take value in accordance with existence. You can know why. There is nothing in objectivism that strangles intuition, emotion or feeling. These are the things that tell us when we are doing it right or wrong; have made a crucial error; or haven't yet been able to apply reason sufficiently because of lack of evidence. We can feel that someone is/isn't a nice person even when we cannot figure out why. Sometimes we can make a mistake as well. The intuition isn't infallible so we investigate, we gather factual evidence and cross correlate it from our experience. When you say 'Love' -have you ever considered what, where, when or how you love. Would you equally love Hitler and your Mother ? What is the connection between the love of nature and the love of fast cars ? Have you explored what particular elements create the feelings of love, or even if it's exactly the same kind of love-or is it multifaceted, does it not have infinite hues, shade, variety ? Like a sunny day in the woods :-)

 

I certainly did not imply in any sense that there wasn't other life, or similar life. It would seem to me that it is very possible, but as yet we haven't discovered anything like us. We can revisit it when we do. For now we are alone in the universe and we may be the only conscious reasoning beings in the entire universe. We should always take into account time as well. The universe does not simply stretch from here to here, but from time to time. Civilisations may have died out before us, or we may be the first, or the last. We know nothing yet.

 

We would always age, time is not dependent on our consciousness, just as the sound of a tree falling is not dependent on someone hearing it. We have a sense of time which is conceptual, based on our experience and reality. We die in a space of around one hundred years, our day varies in period, but it is ever fitted to our own cycles and span of life. A second can feel long when there is nothing to do, or shorter when we are busy, but this is our internal sense of time. Time is linear in the sense we experience it, at the place we experience it. At the boundary of the universe it is different, but not for our comprehension of it. We can accelerate away from the Earth at near light speed and then return. Our bodies would appear to have aged more slowly than those on the Earth and physics explains the seeming paradox.

Edited February 5, 2016 by Karl

[manitou]

Karl, I think we're saying pretty much the same thing.  Re:  paragraph I, you're right - there is nothing in a name.  This is what I was saying about a tree.  We humans tend to fall back on the shorthand of language and assume that language, or the word, is the reality.  But the original cavemen, who may have merely pointed and grunted to each other, each saw the tree differently.  From where one sat, he saw certain twigs and branches that the other fellow didn't.  But each assumes that the other was seeing what he was seeing, and yet he was not.  Close enough for government work, of course - but not in actuality.  So no, I agree with you, there is nothing in a name.  It is merely shorthand and assumption that the other understands from our point of view.  Which they do not.

 

I am about at the limit of my abilities as far as pursuing this much further. I just don't have it upstairs like I used to - and you will no doubt squash me like a bug because I can't follow what you're saying.  My focus just isn't there any more.   But there is one thing that I would like to approach from the right side of my brain, if you'll forgive me for cherry picking and perhaps taking this out of context.

 

It's about your statement about loving Hitler and my mom equally.  Here's how I sit on that.  That too is relative.

 

My mom was always a lot of fun, we played tennis together, golfed, laughed all the time.  My heart soared when I was with her. Now, when I visit her in her dementia facility in California, it's like pulling teeth to be with her.  I wish I could say that I 'feel love' when I'm with her.  What I feel is extreme irritation at being asked 40 times in one hour what time it is, or where her purse is, although she doesn't carry one any more.  The only time I can feel anything for her now is when I just hold her in my arms and tell her I love her.  She will place her head against me like a child's, and we will sit there for a few minutes.  But there is a lot of transcending that I have to do, and my trips out there are a challenge to me, both because of her repetition and my growing confusion in airports.

 

As to Hitler, here's what I think.  I think that, given his karmic remnants from a previous existence, given the continued input of information from the adults surrounding him when he was a child in Salzburg that there was a particular group of people 'ruining' his city and his country, given his own personal feelings of inadequacy which caused him to join up with an aryan type group, given his natural abilities to speak and influence those around him, and given the events of the day leading up to the war - that I probably would have done exactly what he would have done.  That any of us would have.  So, yes - in that sense I can have compassion for him - or even call it love.

 

But this, of course, is knowing what I know now.  To have compassion for him if living in a Jewish concentration camp would have required a true saint-like understand that I don't know if, even now, I would have had.  But perhaps someone like Gandhi would have been able.

[Karl]

Not exactly what I meant re first para. Leave that for now.

 

As for your Mum. Can you answer what has changed-obviously she has dementia-but fundamentally something has shifted in your feelings towards her ? This isn't a psyche type thing I'm getting at, but the identification of what underlies it. Objectivist philosophy can answer that very precisely.

 

With Hitler it's different isn't it ? I mean that I can have compassion about your situation with your mum-I can empathise and feel a certain sadness at the predicament because ultimately it is grief but without being able to grieve for one who is still alive. Mum has gone and what is left is a body shaped like Mum, with the mannerisms and voice of Mum, but little else. With Hitler it's possible to empathise as well, but only from the perspective of yourself as him, which is then, not really anything at all.

 

I certainly don't intend to go around crushing anyone, unless they are intent on doing me harm :-) I like to learn from others about their world even if I don't understand or agree.

Edited February 5, 2016 by Karl

[manitou]

Thanks for your concern, Karl.  Probably it's not real pertinent to the thread as to my feelings about my mom.

 

You would have to go back through the body of your posts on this forum to see if it's in your nature to be a bug-crusher or not.  If it turns out that this tendency is there, there is something to look at there as well.

 

Love to you - signing out now.

 

Manitou

[Karl]

Thanks for your concern, Karl.  Probably it's not real pertinent to the thread as to my feelings about my mom.

 

You would have to go back through the body of your posts on this forum to see if it's in your nature to be a bug-crusher or not.  If it turns out that this tendency is there, there is something to look at there as well.

 

Love to you - signing out now.

 

Manitou

 

I respect that.

 

As to bug crushing. Well, if I am I am. :-)

[dust]

.

Edited February 16, 2016 by dustybeijing

[niki]

I actually can relate. I did go through a similar experience, gave up, declared myself an existential nihilist, and embraced hedonism. I decided I could do whatever I wanted with no repercussions because when I decided I was ready, I would just take my own life. Fortunately, I never did anything I'd live to later regret.

 

The Spirit found it's way to me... and not a moment too soon as I was slowly beginning to lose touch with reality.

 

I was reading Tarot cards, and they kept steering me towards the Bible. Specifically Ecclesiastes and Proverbs (the verses where King Solomon's Mother tells us what a virtuous woman is.)

 

I happened to have some very stressful and bizarre life events occurring around this time which played a pivotal role in this experience, but ultimately I know I never closed that door off to my Spirituality. It came and rescued me from myself right when I needed it most. I never hoped to become "enlightened" only to not feel so dead inside. I've finally found the light we all have buried inside us. If that's enlightenment... cool. Either way I'm eternally grateful and LUCKY.

 

I would advise you go on about your life and just enjoy yourself. Leave the door cracked and at the right time, you will receive what you're yearning for.

[wuchiclan]

I have come to learn that a healthy body grows a healthy spirit.

 

How is your diet? 

[tao stillness]

Anyone who tells you to just drop enlightenment seeking and drop spiritual traditions cannot possibly have experienced even a taste of enlightenment which is our true state of natural mind but few experience it due to stress in the nervous system. To reach enlightenment is the whole purpose of creation and only a human nervous system is capable of making the changes to the brain which can create enlightenment. Zen crap again, to drop everything. They are very misguided people. The blind shall not follow the blind. Find a teacher that is enlightened and practice he method. The highest teaching and most powerful and quickest method is now from an actual avatar, Sri Bhagavan of Oneness University. Awakening comes before enlightenment. Listen to a just one of his short teachings on video clip at onenessuniversity.org and then decide if this is real or not. When someone tells you to drop the search for enlightenment you can bet that person is not enlightened and thus is not at a high enough level of consciousness to be offering any spiritual advice to anyone.

[thelerner]

It's distressing. The anxiety, the feeling of loneliness and the fear of never becoming spiritually enlightened (not the same as the Enlightment, just a better sense of self is what I mean here). Is anyone else in my same spot? I've been trying to follow my path but I'm just so lost and lately I've "lost touch" of my spirituality and it's been highly distressing and anxiety-inducing.

When I was younger I'd be hit by bouts of melancholy.  For some reason the image (or maybe its a saying) that helped me was, we fall from tightrope to tightrope.  Not too much consolation there.  Yet on a tightrope there's not a lot of choice.

 

Ultimately the way out is looking ahead and putting one foot infront of the other.  And if you fall again, there will be another tightrope.  Gain balance, face forward, one step, then another.  Once you get momentum, balance is easier. 

[liminal_luke]

When I was younger I'd be hit by bouts of melancholy.  For some reason the image (or maybe its a saying) that helped me was, we fall from tightrope to tightrope.  Not too much consolation there.  Yet on a tightrope there's not a lot of choice.

 

Ultimately the way out is looking ahead and putting one foot infront of the other.  And if you fall again, there will be another tightrope.  Gain balance, face forward, one step, then another.  Once you get momentum, balance is easier. 

 

Ho

Kol ha-o-lam ku-lo gesher tzar me'od

V'ha-i-kar lo l'fached klal

The whole world is a very narrow bridge;

the important thing is not to be afraid.

-Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav

Edited April 20, 2016 by liminal_luke

[Orion]

I have no way to qualify what I'm about to say, I may be wrong. My impression of enlightened states is that you aren't beyond suffering, beyond depression, beyond anger and sadness, beyond any human vice; it just means you are permanently non-attached to whatever arises, and as soon as it dissolves it's over. No lingering, no excessive mind. It's just gone.

 

Whatever you're experiencing, it's just what's happening. I know that sounds simple, but it's a realization in of itself. Nothing is wrong. There's nowhere to go. There's nowhere "better". Right here is as good as it gets, whether that's depressed or happy, etc. It's all empty, ultimately, but so connected because nothing is separate. Everything is one.

 

I know it sucks to feel the way you feel. It hurts, it's unsatisfactory. But it's temporary. You won't feel this way forever.

 

Whenever I've compared myself to someone else and then had the privilege to get to know that person, my inferiority complex ended up turning into compassion: for myself and for them. They ended up being flawed and revealing their human suffering or dissatisfaction, as we all do, and it was revealed to me that I am not so broken or worthless.

 

You are exactly where you're supposed to be. You can't be anywhere else.

 

And sometimes? You're sad because you're sad. It doesn't need a reason or a justification. Part of what creates the suffering is the resistance to whatever's happening in the moment. Sometimes it really is neurochemical. Sometimes it just is.

 

I find that mind really makes temporary states WAY WAY more complicated and arduous than necessary!!

Edited April 24, 2016 by Orion

[wuchiclan]

I find that mind really makes temporary states WAY WAY more complicated and arduous than necessary!!

 

 

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