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March 16, 2014

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Brian
"At the end of the day I felt good seeing the bar stools all assembled. I guess I could have worked on a novel, composed a symphony, sought a cure for cancer, or tutored low-income children. Instead, I put together two bar stools. "

2 minutes of PROFOND meditation*
is more than a life full of that, like eradicating AIDS

Even a day full of SIMRAN*
signefies more

As said in the last post
The difference is in DARSHAN
outer or inner

and Darshan comes from **
plus modesty

Have a nice repetition - of of something fruitful

777


777, you're a good example of why I don't like it when people like you feel superior about their purported "special" experiences.

Hey, I've done about 45 years of meditating. Almost certainly I've done way more minutes of mantra meditation than you have. I've had my own "profound" experiences in meditation.

But I don't feel like preaching to the world why what I've experienced in my life is superior to what other people have experienced. Everybody is different. Everybody has different experiences.

Do you really believe that you know what is "fruitful" for everybody else? What gives you the right, or ability, to assume that what you personally find meaningful and important should be done by everybody?

"There's a peace of mind that comes with accepting whatever happens as what is happening. And accepting that whatever happens to other people, this is what is happening to them."

Quite so, with no 'self' and no 'will' all that arises is just happening. If we find ourselves helping or not helping, that is also just what is happening.

"Darshan", I had to look this word up - "in Hindu worship, the beholding of a deity (especially in image form), revered person, or sacred object."

I'm reminded of a saying (Zen I believe) re states and visions - "If one continues meditating such things eventually go away."

"If one continues meditating such things eventually go away."

---The "continues" to meditate would indicate a practicing routine. Nothing wrong with practicing. However, why would meditating continuously, allow states and visions to go away? Do they go to another part of the brain and hibernate? If I stop meditating, do the states and visions simply come back?

If I couldn't think about where I could-would-should-be, doing what could-should-would-be more engaging and gratifying, I wouldn't be human. If I couldn't have vexatious thoughts, I'd be as content and compliant as a cow. Reflective consciousness is vexing because reflecting is distracting. But not reflecting is not human...unless you're as docile and dumb as a cow.

If the mind isn't taking its measure, it's a cow. And if the measure the mind takes isn't determined by what could-would-should-be, by what measure is a mind more human?

Quite so, with no 'self' and no 'will' all that arises is just happening. If we find ourselves helping or not helping, that is also just what is happening.

With all due respect, this is delusional, magical thinking. If you're capable of ascertaining your selflessness and absence of will, you're perfectly selfish and willful. If you really were without self and will, you'd have no way of knowing it and nothing to say. You can't be a talking cow.

Turan wrote

"Darshan", I had to look this word up - "in Hindu worship, the beholding of a deity (especially in image form), revered person, or sacred object."

I do not exactly know the semantics of "behold"
but perhaps it means the following like in Augustinus confessiones:

The while looking to that person :
lose normal consciousness
of the world
like everything around you goes, becomes
blossom and bloom
and you behold a kind of brilliant stream
of sound and light coming from that person
which opens a feeling of Love
as you never had
like orgasm but it almost doesn't stop
and above your eyes

while this happens you are kind of bewitched
or hypnotized and you become really ONE with that person

en stay in that mood until the following 'happening'
which is not necessary the next happening meditation

there are cycles in that experience
and it can happen the next time
while reading the newspaper
as in Guru Nanak's case
when somebody uttered the figure 13

Definitely around this phenomenon there are strange syncronicities° like
phenomenon s happening in somebodies live
as I have described often in this blog

A special is that you -even at the start-
become sure that you ARE that Sound
which is the moment that for you death is a non happening
just asttronautes coat that you no longer need
exempt for temporary doings

BRIAN

At what right you start a worldwide journal
accusing such persons, I love
to be lyers, thieves, hypocrites and more
next forbidding me to defend Them

Who is the arrogant here?

I m not after collecting souls
recently wrote to the Houston boy here that this path is only
if you cannot put out of your head
like:
Recently we met a girl saying
"who is that man on the portrait , .. I cannot put Him
out of my head."

So I try in a subtle way without offending you
to give thes persons credit
with f i my story
google : hinessight+777+vivaldi

which is the only check-able account og a miracle
in the known history of mankind
and on which
you even don't react seriously which undermines
every other article here

When I stated that any actuarian gives this mathematically
a chance of happening of ZERO
you just accuse me
of trying to preach here.

777

Also I don't think ( after a year now )
that members are not EX RSSB INITIATES
THEY ARE LESS THAN 8
AND THE REST SEEKERS AFTER TRUTH you r slowing down

and many "disciples " from the 100 s of advaita , zen, rosecrusian
theosophian, new age-ers , satanists, and of course
collateral carbon_copy Sound & Light movements
to many to mention
and you give them 'space'

next accuse me of superiority
What I experience is shared with millions of people
on this planet

I'm just a messenger telling you that everything is true
and that nothing on this planet
has changed since Jesus.

ps2

cc
"If the mind isn't taking its measure, it's a cow"
Would be nice if it was a cow
but it is a Dragon full of sound and fury, specially when it's ignored .....

cc,

I don't think what Brian is talking about is like reducing ourselves to something like Pavlov's dogs, although in the end that may be all that we are...matter reacting in relation to matter or consciousness reacting to itself.

It is just an attitude of mind that allows one to be fully present and accepting of what is rather than in a state of resistance and discontent, a state of "what if" which generally only creates tension and anxiety.

I have found that when a situation needs to change, it does so of its own accord even within that attitude of acceptance of what is here and now. "Self" and "will" are paradoxically an apparent factor and at the same time nothing at all. Mere figments if you like..or not.

I mean, when the trash starts to stink you will find yourself taking it outside to the trash can. It all just goes along just as should. War, pestilence, a picnic in the park on a sunny day. All just fine. Life being life, if we have peace in our hearts or not.

Peace on you, tucson.

Roger. I think the Zen master’s point on states was to stop the student dwelling on states.

cc. The self is an illusion; a construct comprised of information accrued during a lifetime – the self then is not a thing but a process. Selfishness and wilfulness can arise but there is ‘no one’ being selfish and wilful. All that is happening is information arising in the brain in response to its environment. This information is seen in consciousness – and the jury’s still out on that issue.

The self is an illusion; a construct comprised of information accrued during a lifetime – the self then is not a thing but a process.


We know that the self is an illusion, the mental equivalent of your reflection in a mirror, but if you were without this illusion, you wouldn't have any reason to talk about it because, not only would you have no idea of who's talking or why, you wouldn't know how to speak.

cc, nicely said. If the illusion of the self wasn't positive and productive for humans, natural selection wouldn't have selected for it.

Feeling all one with the cosmos doesn't work well, reproduction-wise, if you embrace a cave bear or saber-toothed tiger with loving arms.

So the self-preserving survive. Which is common to all animals and other living beings. With humans, our sense of self-awareness brings additional benefits.

But just because evolution has selected for some trait doesn't mean it points to an aspect of objective reality that is true.

Natural selection rewards living long enough to pass on genes, not finding truths about the universe that aren't related to reproductive success.

Everything is equally important.

If this was true, the word "important" would be meaningless, without import.

cc and Brian. Glad we agree that the self is an illusion. I did not say we could operate without it but pointed out that as there is no ‘self’ things, situations etc., simply arise and happen and get acted upon – without an ‘I’ choosing and directing. So Brian working on the bar stools instead of finding a cure for cancer is what happened – he couldn’t have done other.

It’s good of you to elucidate the evolved function of the self complex – an observable natural phenomenon – but it does not detract from the fact that the sense of self is an illusion (not what it seems). This also means that free will is part of that illusion. There are good survival reasons for the sense of free will also.

Many belief systems elevate the concepts of free will and self to a lofty level (souls and the like) but for those who are interested in discovering the truth of things, knowing the self to be a composite of ad hoc (but useful) information may render us less likely to believe the often divisive religious, national and cultural identities (and others) we have been programmed with.

I did not say we could operate without it but pointed out that as there is no ‘self’ things, situations etc., simply arise and happen and get acted upon – without an ‘I’ choosing and directing.

Who says there's no "I" choosing, or that there's any choosing at all, for that matter? Can I know there's no I, no choosing? What is knowing if it not the illusion of I, the knower?

Brian said :

"But just because evolution has selected for some trait doesn't mean it points to an aspect of objective reality that is true. "

Evolution has already ended the human species by measures of the climate.

COMPASSION ( and among that : vegetarism ) is the "target" of evolution and the 6 ex-satsangis here are in the know

like :
Love is COMPASSION without agenda.
-WORKS THE BEST WITH ANIMALS

No planet is more useful for compassion than this one
and conditions develop to open the 7 chakra tunnels of the jeeva

Without that the third eye can't function
and rotate fast enough

When that happens a love-powerstation will join the jeeva by means of Repetition and dhyan

Next submission / absorbtion to the Sound is possible when there not to much of self-importance
( another natural selection )

Killing, torturing : The consumption of meat ( uric acid ) which blocks chakras
is a FIREWALL of God against evil

Evolution doesn't target comfortable planets but Love

What else than Love would be of interest for someone
who has already everything


777

-

"Who says there's no "I" choosing, or that there's any choosing at all, for that matter? Can I know there's no I, no choosing? What is knowing if it not the illusion of I, the knower?"

There is choosing, choosing happens, but there is no ‘entity’, no separate ‘me’ doing the choosing – and we can know this.

When it comes to knowing who/what we are, understanding the processes that create a sense of ‘I’ can be a somewhat enlightening and freeing undertaking.

The reason I feel this to be important is that the information (culture, religion etc.) which constitute our identities, our sense of self is probably one of the main causes of conflict and suffering.

There can be confusion between 1: The organism as an instrument for action/choice and 2: The organism as the originator of action/choice.

I feel as if I am acting because this organism is the locus of actions - actions take place here. That action occurs here gives rise to the sense that the organism is the actor. But this is true only in the sense that the organism is the instrument/engine from which action takes place. It is not the originator of action. In a healthy, intelligent, aware human there is no reason why a sense that I am the originator of urges, feelings and thoughts should be present.

And so it feels as if I am thinking - but there is not the added sense that I originated (willed) these thoughts. It feels as if I have a headache - but there is not the added feeling that I originated (willed) the pain. It feels as if I am responding to a comment - but there is not the added sense that I originated (willed) the urge to respond.

the information (culture, religion etc.) which constitute our identities, our sense of self is probably one of the main causes of conflict and suffering.


It feels as if I am responding to a comment - but there is not the added sense that I originated (willed) the urge to respond.

An urge is involuntary, and the mind's response to it may be also, but it seems willed, chosen, because it is preceded by previous responses less informed by experience.

Free will may be illusion, but the ability to learn is real. If life is entirely deterministic, "I" am a learning mechanism, but no less I.


Jon, I like your distinction between "instrument" and "originator" of action/choice. Hadn't thought of free will, or the lack thereof, in this way before.

[Note: Roger, I don't see any unpublished comments from you. Nothing in the spam section either. Let's blame the TypePad blogging system. Or God. Or karma. Or.... you can choose -- Blogger Brian]

Did my comment get lost again?

I have made the decision to blame Almighty God and the spam section Devil. True, the TypePad blogging system is no Angel, therefore blame is in order there too.

Jon,

You mentioned,

" It feels as if I am responding to a comment - but there is not the added sense that I originated (willed) the urge to respond."

---What would be the mechanism of how a response is created? If you received a question, how does your response make an appearance?

What would be the mechanism of how a response is created? If you received a question, how does your response make an appearance?

I'm not sure what the actual mechanism is apart from it being a type of causality.

When the sun appears a plant orients its leaves to catch photons - there's no free will involved. If the plant was self-aware it might conclude that it chose to catch the photons.

Thanks Jon,

How do you define Free Will? This is for interesting conversation purposes.

Roger, I'm the wrong person to ask since I think it's an incoherent concept.

But the sort of common definitions that I'm familiar with are along the lines of: "the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate" or "freedom of humans to make choices that are not determined by prior causes."

If the way I respond to stimuli and situations is determined by "prior causes" and not by reason, choice, free will, then when the prior causes are unknown or unacknowledged, a plausible explanation rushes in to fill the vacuum of information.

Thanks Jon,

"the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate"

---The supposed non-power of not acting with the absence of constraints of necessity or possible fate.

"cc" person

---the "prior" causes, you mentioned, would require someone to reason through what prior means. Your personal "prior" causes are probably known, but not acknowledged by you. That said, how does a plausible explanation rush in to fill a vacuum of information?

...how does a plausible explanation rush in to fill a vacuum of information?

You don't always know why you do what you do, so you come up with an explanation that comports with your notion of who you are.

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