Individual will, reality creation and miracles

[Marblehead]

When I used to go crabbing I used a crab net.

[MooNiNite]

We don't create reality Nikolai. We can choose to act in certain ways but we cannot change absolutes. There are no 'miracles', there are cause and effects.

 

How can we have free choice in a world of cause and effect?

[Karl]

How can we have free choice in a world of cause and effect?

 

LOL That you ask that question is proof of it. Some things we can change, others are absolutes.

 

[Karl]

What I am talking about is similar, except that the magician, instead of relying on the internet, knows how to employ Indra's net.

Is it as reliable as my internet connection. Does it guarantee the result of an action with repeatable, incontestable consistency ? Can you demonstrate it to my complete satisfaction ?

 

I ask rhetorically because I know you cannot show it, or prove it.

 

Sometimes I wonder at the wisdom of taking part in these kind of discussions. It's easier to leave the believers to believe, is this really my business ? and what harm can it do to continue believing these things ? Yet it seems that we are all here, and have signed up volitionally to a quest to discover knowledge and the truth of things-not as we wish them to be, but as they are. To fill our heads filled with faulty concepts and foggy definitions is like throwing a wrench into the works of the most magical thing of all-our minds. If we knew that we were poisoning our minds and actually preventing the expansion of consciousness that we seek then we would not do it ? Man is a volitional animal, he can choose to abuse himself, to self destruct if he wishes, he can prefer the worse to the better as a matter of reasoning. That is the curse and the blessing.

Edited March 3, 2016 by Karl

[Nikolai1]

Can you demonstrate it to my complete satisfaction ? 

 

I ask rhetorically because I know you cannot show it, or prove it. 

I think your mind can only possibly start to take these matters seriouly when the uncanny starts to enter your life with great force.  Yes, the uncanny makes minor insurrections into everyone's life - usually in the form of strange coincidence, or serendipity - but these are often not quite enough to rock our convictions.  When the uncanny happens with great force, and great meaning then we feel like shirkers by brushing it away.

 

There comes a point where our integrity as thinkers demands and requires that we make sense of it.  Don't liken this conversation to a 'spanner thrown in the works', because we can' possibly agree with that analysis.

 

In the meantime, you can't make the miraculous happen, but if you call yourself a thinker, then you might try seriously engaging with all the doubts that surround your objectivism.  Legitimate doubts that go back to the dawn of thought itself, and have never gone away.

[Karl]

I think your mind can only possibly start to take these matters seriouly when the uncanny starts to enter your life with great force. Yes, the uncanny makes minor insurrections into everyone's life - usually in the form of strange coincidence, or serendipity - but these are often not quite enough to rock our convictions. When the uncanny happens with great force, and great meaning then we feel like shirkers by brushing it away.

 

There comes a point where our integrity as thinkers demands and requires that we make sense of it. Don't liken this conversation to a 'spanner thrown in the works', because we can' possibly agree with that analysis.

 

In the meantime, you can't make the miraculous happen, but if you call yourself a thinker, then you might try seriously engaging with all the doubts that surround your objectivism. Legitimate doubts that go back to the dawn of thought itself, and have never gone away.

I have no doubts Nikolai.

 

I tried to make that plain when you asked about Wei Wu, but the truth of my statement clearly went straight over your head. 'The way' cannot be known. You can't pretend to know about it, or intellectualise it's meaning. Isn't it specific in that intent? Why would you ask me about something for which there can be no answer, and therefore I can give no answer ? Does it say anything about magic powers ? I told you what it meant only by a series of negation (what the way is not) and still you could not follow. Action-less-action, thought-less-thought, ego-less-ego. Could it be any plainer. Now you either give yourself completely to it, or you don't, but there is no middle way.

 

You lecture me about things to which you refuse to commit. Like a man outside a church you lecture on the pavement about why I should enter and yet you have never once been inside yourself. I see what you refuse to see. I have made my choice, you have not yet made yours. At some point you will have to.

Edited March 3, 2016 by Karl

[Nikolai1]

I tried to make that plain when you asked about Wei Wu, but the truth of my statement clearly went straight over your head. 'The way' cannot be known. You can't pretend to know about it, or intellectualise it's meaning.

I asked you to define wu wei, not 'the Way'!  

 

So anyway, you said action-less-action.  How might a person in this state act? How might a person in this state feel?  Why is this mode of behaviour considered the summum bonum of human existence?

[Michael Sternbach]

Is it as reliable as my internet connection.

 

Oh boy, not even my internet connection is completely reliable.

 

Does it guarantee the result of an action with repeatable, incontestable consistency ? Can you demonstrate it to my complete satisfaction ?

 

I ask rhetorically because I know you cannot show it, or prove it.

 

Sometimes I wonder at the wisdom of taking part in these kind of discussions. It's easier to leave the believers to believe, is this really my business ? and what harm can it do to continue believing these things ? Yet it seems that we are all here, and have signed up volitionally to a quest to discover knowledge and the truth of things-not as we wish them to be, but as they are. To fill our heads filled with faulty concepts and foggy definitions is like throwing a wrench into the works of the most magical thing of all-our minds. If we knew that we were poisoning our minds and actually preventing the expansion of consciousness that we seek then we would not do it ? Man is a volitional animal, he can choose to abuse himself, to self destruct if he wishes, he can prefer the worse to the better as a matter of reasoning. That is the curse and the blessing.

 

I appreciate your concern, Karl. But actually, if you were to put me into the company of certain blue eyed New Agers, I would appear to be a sceptic. Now, there are reasons for blue eyed New Agers to exist, and there are reasons for sceptics and non-believers to exist. I am content to find my own position somewhere in-between. Is it the right position? Well, all I can say is that it's the right position for me.

[Karl]

I asked you to define wu wei, not 'the Way'!  

 

So anyway, you said action-less-action.  How might a person in this state act? How might a person in this state feel?  Why is this mode of behaviour considered the summum bonum of human existence?

 

Wei Wu is the flow, it is not how one should do, but how one should not do. Effortless doing, or doing-less-doing. You have mistakenly related this to miracles and magic, but it proclaims no such thing. It isn't higher level thinking or special powers, it is what it is and it's written clearly on the side of the box.

 

I did not imply it was the summum bonum of human existence, certainly not for me, but possibly for you, if that is what you choose. I'm certainly not going to be an advocate for it, others can guide you to absolute acceptance of it if that's what you wish.

[Karl]

Oh boy, not even my internet connection is completely reliable.

 

 

 

I appreciate your concern, Karl. But actually, if you were to put me into the company of certain blue eyed New Agers, I would appear to be a sceptic. Now, there are reasons for blue eyed New Agers to exist, and there are reasons for sceptics and non-believers to exist. I am content to find my own position somewhere in-between. Is it the right position? Well, all I can say is that it's the right position for me.

 

Agnostic ;-)

[Nikolai1]

From the wikipedia article on wu wei we have:

 

The goal of spiritual practice for the human being is, according to Lao Tzu, the attainment of this purely natural way of behaving, as when the planets revolve around the sun. The planets effortlessly do this revolving without any sort of control, force, or attempt to revolve themselves, instead engaging in effortless and spontaneous movement.

So to live this way is the goal of spiritual practice.  Now the fundamental question:

 

Is wu wei nothing more than the adjustment of our desires to nature? In other words, is wu wei learning to stop desiring what cannot be?

 

Or,

 

Is the person who has attained this exalted mode of being, wu wei, the wilful creator of nature and the her laws?

 

My argument in this post is that both of these intepretations make sense, but the reality transcends them.  Our will and nature's scheme become one and the same thing.  This means that the sage can legitimately be called a creative figure, in the same way that Nature is irrepressibly and effulgently creative in every given moment.

[Michael Sternbach]

Agnostic ;-)

 

Nah... Daoist.

[Michael Sternbach]

About wu wei...

 

http://www.thedaobums.com/topic/34844-thoughts-on-wu-wei/page-4#entry572364

[Karl]

From the wikipedia article on wu wei we have:

 

 

So to live this way is the goal of spiritual practice.  Now the fundamental question:

 

Is wu wei nothing more than the adjustment of our desires to nature? In other words, is wu wei learning to stop desiring what cannot be?

 

Or,

 

Is the person who has attained this exalted mode of being, wu wei, the wilful creator of nature and the her laws?

 

My argument in this post is that both of these intepretations make sense, but the reality transcends them.  Our will and nature's scheme become one and the same thing.  This means that the sage can legitimately be called a creative figure, in the same way that Nature is irrepressibly and effulgently creative in every given moment.

 

Neither. It can't be rationalised and resists any attempt to do so because it is completely outside the scope of the human mind.

 

[Karl]

About wu wei...

 

http://www.thedaobums.com/topic/34844-thoughts-on-wu-wei/page-4#entry572364

 

That covers it. Particularly

About wu wei...

 

http://www.thedaobums.com/topic/34844-thoughts-on-wu-wei/page-4#entry572364

 

"Perfect virtue produces nothing. "No-Self" is "True-Self". And the greatest man is Nobody"

 

That .^

 

[Marblehead]

Is wu wei nothing more than the adjustment of our desires to nature? In other words, is wu wei learning to stop desiring what cannot be?

There are NO desires in the state of wu wei.

[Karl]

There are NO desires in the state of wu wei.

 

Desire-less-desire

 

 

[Marblehead]

Desire-less-desire

Hehehe.  We don't even desire to be desireless.

[Karl]

Hehehe.  We don't even desire to be desireless.

 

In AYP it was the called the still flame dancing-which is a touch more poetic.

 

[Marblehead]

In AYP it was the called the still flame dancing-which is a touch more poetic.

Yeah, well, I don't get poetic very often.  Well, actually, I doubt I ever get poetic.

 

But yeah, "still flame dancing".  No place to go but still alive.  We all should take time out to dance now and then.

 

Edit to add:  Or to drag our tail in the mud.

Edited March 3, 2016 by Marblehead

[Karl]

Yeah, well, I don't get poetic very often.  Well, actually, I doubt I ever get poetic.

 

But yeah, "still flame dancing".  No place to go but still alive.  We all should take time out to dance now and then.

 

Edit to add:  Or to drag our tail in the mud.

 

I'm going to North Wales on Sunday so I expect lots of muddy tail dragging.

[Michael Sternbach]

Yeah, well, I don't get poetic very often. Well, actually, I doubt I ever get poetic.

An Anarchistic ex-seargant who found the Dao (or was it the De?) - that's poetic enough.

[Michael Sternbach]

I start seeing both choice and determination, control and acceptance, the Magician and the High Priestess, as the two sides of a coin. Yes, multiple probabilities exist, we can make better or worse choices between them, and our decisions matter. Yet by the same token (I didn't intend this pun, but it's somehow funny), whatever our choices, the results are as if predetermined, as if meant to be, serving a higher purpose. My mind cannot currently resolve the seeming contradiction here. Perhaps it has got to do with the illusionary nature of cause and effect?

[Michael Sternbach]

One of the greatest powers to change reality is belief - utter, unquestioning belief that reaches beyond the conscious mind and that can't be pretended by the latter.

 

There can be no doubt about this (LOL).

[ilumairen]

I start seeing both choice and determination, control and acceptance, the Magician and the High Priestess, as the two sides of a coin. Yes, multiple probabilities exist, we can make better or worse choices between them, and our decisions matter. Yet by the same token (I didn't intend this pun, but it's somehow funny), whatever our choices, the results are as if predetermined, as if meant to be, serving a higher purpose. My mind cannot currently resolve the seeming contradiction here. Perhaps it has got to do with the illusionary nature of cause and effect?

 

Perhaps it's just a matter of where we choose to look and focus our attention.