Here at the Church of the Churchless we worship truth.
I love truth. I sprinkle truth on my cereal every morning. I rinse with truth when I take a shower. I brush with truthpaste three times a day.
That's why I adore science and dislike religion. And why I'm enjoying Susan Blackmore's new book, "Seeing Myself: The New Science of Out-of-Body Experiences" so much.
Blackmore, a British psychologist, is a spiritual but not religious sort of person. As she notes in the passages from the final Who am I? chapter in her book (which I read first, because the title drew me in) that I've shared below, science and Zen have been her twin passions.
I've read several other books Blackmore has written. I like how she uses her own subjective experiences to cast light on objective neuroscientific understandings of how the mind and body work.
Of course, the mind is the brain in action, and the brain is part of the body, so mind is brain is body. One thing, not several things.
But dualism is how most people see themselves. They wrongly believe in an immaterial soul/mind/consciousness something-or-other than inhabits the body, distinct from physicality.
Blackmore's focus in this book is on out-of-body experiences, or OBEs. The first chapter, Leaving My Body, is a detailed description of her OBE, which she misinterpreted for quite a few years, until the truth dawned on her. Blackmore writes:
I was just nineteen when everything I thought I knew was overthrown and my life changed direction. If I had imagined a future in some sensible university job, that was now impossible for I was determined to understand what had happened to me.
For just a couple of hours I was no longer confined to a slow, heavy, physical body but escaped through a tunnel into a world of flying, exploring the world from outside my body and finally entering the mystical experience of oneness, of unity with the universe.
...I had never heard of tunnel experiences, and the phrase 'near-death experience' (NDE) had not yet been invented. So I jumped to my own conclusions. I was sure that my spirit had left my body and would survive after death. I was convinced that telepathy and clairvoyance must be possible and that ghosts were real.
I became determined to devote my life to parapsychology and to prove all my closed-minded lecturers wrong.
I failed; of course I failed. The conclusions I had jumped to so quickly were ill-thought-out and superficial. But never mind. The vivid memories of those few hours kept driving me on.
Nearly half a century later I can look back and see how my intellectual life has been shaped, pushed and pulled by the experience, and how my spiritual life might never have begun had I not found myself disappearing into selflessness without having a clue what that was.
So Blackmore changed her mind. She gave up a false belief in the supernatural and mysticism, choosing demonstrable truth over comforting illusion.
Here's excerpts from her final Who am I? chapter.
I was surprised, long ago, when my Zen teacher kept going on about the importance of the body... I suppose I thought the body was unimportant, to be transcended or overcome by the mind. Surely, I might have thought, this meditation training is about the mind, isn't it?
Aren't I supposed to practise and practise and practise until I can see clearly through all the mess and worry and fear and hatred and horribleness of my own mind? Enlightenment, if such a thing exists, is surely nothing to do with the itch on my knee or the heaviness of muscle, bone, and subcutaneous fat, is it?
How my ideas have been forced to change -- for two intertwined reasons. One is the science that has transformed our understanding of human nature; the other is the ancient practices of Zen which, curiously enough, have the same effect.
For most of my life I thought these two were separate disciplines; the science was my work and Zen was a private matter, almost a hobby. Yet as it turns out they both lead in the same direction: they both take 'me' down from its pedestal and show it in quite a different light.
...Paying attention clearly and steadily to what is here right now banishes the tangly wool and disarms the slithery monsters. All those disparate thoughts, emotions and worries that otherwise keep running in our heads float through one vast space and seem to lose their power.
This is called 'one mind' or 'one-pointedness' and is quite different from our usual harried, messy confusion. The world comes to seem more and more real and immediate. Body, self and world come together. They are all the same stuff -- there is no longer a conscious me looking out at a real physical world but just all of this -- whatever it is.
This is the slow change from duality to non duality; from a world in which minds inhabit bodies towards one in which minds and bodies are fundamentally the same; from a world in which 'I' am in control of 'my' body towards one in which decisions just happen because they must.
This is a radical change and a scary one. But we can cope!
We can give up our childhood dualism; give up the idea of a unified and continuing inner self who is the wielder of free will and the subject of our experiences, and accept the scary view that neuroscience provides. Just as we have given up thinking of the earth as the centre of the universe, so we can give up our very natural but false intuitions about ourselves.
...Modern children learn about brains at a young age but they still seem to imagine a 'me' whose brain it is and who is helped along by its clever powers.
...Many adults think like this too -- believing that 'I' am the feeling, thinking person in charge. In this way we turn our self into a supreme conscious entity living in, owning and controlling our bodies. It is no surprise, then, that having an OBE [out of body experience] seems to confirm this ready illusion: 'I' have left my body so I must be an independent thinking and feeling soul.
The reverse may also be true, that throughout the ages OBEs have inspired the idea of the soul. Either way, it's a quick jump to the false belief that the supreme conscious entity called 'me' can leave its bodily shell behind and go travelling. But it cannot: nothing can leave the body in an OBE because there is nothing there that could leave.
To call something an 'illusion' is not to say that it does not exist, it means that it is not what it seems to be. My self seems to be a continuing conscious entity, a subject of experience and possessor of free will, but this is not true. The self is a representation or model of something that does not exist -- but the model itself exists.
...Modern science says the same [as Buddhism]. In one sense there is a self -- or, rather, lots of different selves. They are useful mental models of a continuing conscious entity. In another sense there is no self because these models are ephemeral constructions that arise and fall away, change and decay, and no such continuing powerful and unified conscious entity actually exists.
...We have come a long way from believing that an OBE proves the existence of a soul or a conscious 'me' that can abandon its body and live on without it. Instead, we find that our notions of self and consciousness have been, and are being, transformed. What seems so wonderful to me, after all these years, is OBE's can now contribute to that transformation.
For me it's been a long journey.
As Metzinger says, 'For anyone who actually had that type of experience it is almost impossible not to become an ontological dualist' and I did. Like so many others who have OBEs I jumped to the obvious conclusion that my soul or astral body had left its physical shell and could think and feel and travel without it.
It has taken a lot of thinking, experiencing, meditating and science for me to travel from that dualism to its utter rejection -- to seeing the duality of body and mind, or physical and mental, as a feature of the way we model the world, not of the world itself.
I no longer think that my soul left my body; that my astral body separated from its physical shell to travel on the astral planes or that my deep and unforgettable experience has anything to do with life after death. Thanks to decades of science and philosophy I have a far better idea of what happened to me during those special few hours back in 1970.
I am alive here and now in a vivid and colourful world.
Atheism definitely provides a certain comfort that religion and spirituality cannot—it provides you with the assurance that there is no fiery hell or judgment of your “sins”. Atheism assures you there are no ghosts or evil spirits and that the voices in your head are just your own thoughts. Atheism provides many reassurances... no need to fear—there is no one watching and judging you or your “soul”.
Posted by: Sonya | June 28, 2019 at 09:18 PM
I think on the surface Atheism is an intellectual argument but beneath the surface it’s a way to find freedom from fear. Understandably so... fear is the antithesis of love and our so called “gods of judgement”.
Posted by: Sonya | June 28, 2019 at 09:24 PM
Yes, I have a lot of time for sincere enquirers into the question of 'Who am I'. I have read most of Susan Blackmore's books; particularly relevant for me was 'The Meme Machine'. As a non-academic I have followed a similar path to Susan's which led me to the same 'who am I' enquiry. 'Who am I' is the theme of some of the Chan (Zen) retreats here in the UK – and can be quite interesting.
Basically, I am a Naturalist – it was my work (in conservation) and hobby. So for my entire life I have been involved in nature. It has not only been a professional relationship but also a spiritual one, spiritual in the sense of feeling the wonder and sublime nature of – well everything. Just living was meditation. Everything required exploring, even the explorer – and initially the most challenging enquiry was the body/brain/mind issue.
We do tend to use our valuable conceptual abilities to divide life up into 'them and us', 'spiritual' and 'atheist', 'believer' and 'non-believer', without seeing that it is the convenient and naturally divisive nature of the self structure that needs to divide and separate to survive – the 'childhood dualism' that Susan calls it.
I realise that the mind cannot help being dishonest. Its very function is to protect and maintain its contents, its conditioning, at any cost - including truth. It certainly does not always want the truth. Truth would expose its insubstantial nature. It would expose the insubstantial nature of the brain's store of information we call mind – and from which we derive the sense of self. The whole naked illusion would be revealed – although the mind would still be functioning as our source of information necessary for day to day living.
Posted by: Turan | June 29, 2019 at 03:12 AM
Some interesting points:
https://www.near-death.com/science/articles/dying-brain-theory.html
Posted by: 271days left | June 29, 2019 at 03:36 AM
Blackmore’s simple mistake is that she believes the brain creates mental models and consciousness as emergent properties, whereas actual Buddhism says consciousness creates mental models and physical worlds.
This is quite easily proven by the way. Take an apple. Can it exist without consciousness? Of course not.
Can consciousness exist without an apple? Of course.
Therefore consciousness did not emerge from the apple. The apple emerged from consciousness. Consciousness is fundamental.
Brains, physicality, appearances, are not fundamental but emergent properties of consciousness.
Posted by: 271 days left | June 29, 2019 at 03:51 AM
Why couldn't an apple exist without consciousness? Why can't unperceived matter exist?
Buddhism is stupid. So is all metaphysics and all studies of consciousness. Nobody knows shit and no amount of logic will ever change that.
Posted by: Jesse | June 29, 2019 at 09:07 AM
"Atheism definitely provides a certain comfort that religion and spirituality cannot—it provides you with the assurance that there is no fiery hell or judgment of your “sins”."
Fact Check by Snopes: Untrue
If there need not be a deity for the physical world to exist then there need not be a deity for heavens and hells to exist either.
We're all going to hell. Get ready.
Posted by: Jesse | June 29, 2019 at 09:14 AM
Hehe, ahh, Susan Blackmore.....being trotted out again (!) as an authority, a High Priestesses of materialism and "truth" beyond the wisful and ideological fantasies of true believers in woo!!
I have always found Blackmore's case to me most intriguing, and indeed revealing of the ideological and dogmatic mindset of true-believers in the dogmas of materialism, reduction-ism, atheism etc. Whilst she seems to be a lovely person (yes, I've read her books, articles, blog posts & numerous interviews over almost 3 decades!). She is like a passenger on a plane flying over Egypy that happened to glance out of a window briefly some 40 odd years ago, and has somehow managed to turn that into a several decade long career as one of the worlds most pre-eminent Egyptologists! I mean really, half an OBE 40 years ago, and she's still writing books about it? There is a level of absurdity around that which really beggars beliefs.
To those of us who have been paying attention to Blackmore over the decades, it is really very clear there is nothing that insightful or new about her perspectives, and that she indeed often makes makes very confused, incoherent & contradictory statements which strongly suggest she is far more swayed by her ideological affiliations rather than any particular objective interest in the "truth", as is claimed by those of a similar ideological persuasion. Indeed, I think that is just why so much weight is given to Blackmore and her now legendary & singular semi-OBE from 40 years ago despite it's real significance being almost non-existent....because she is now parroting the dogma many already believe in and want to hear.
Unravel this, so called seekers of "truth":
Susan Blackmore: " I was convinced that telepathy and clairvoyance must be possible and that ghosts were real.
I became determined to devote my life to parapsychology and to prove all my closed-minded lecturers wrong.
I failed; of course I failed. The conclusions I had jumped to so quickly were ill-thought-out and superficial. But never mind. The vivid memories of those few hours kept driving me on. "
"Impartiality forced me to admit that there is evidence for psi. It cannot all be successfully debunked, and there will always be more “successes” coming along. But I could not be impartial. The positive findings were other people’s and the negative ones were my own. So what could I do? (Blackmore, 1985a, p. 438)"
"A comparison of the experimental chronology from her dissertation (Blackmore, 1980c, pp. 135—136) and details from her autobiography (Blackmore, 1986) indicates that the bulk of her experimental psi research efforts (her dissertation experiments) occurred during a 2-year period (October 1976—December 1978), and that well before the end of this period she was a complete skeptic regarding psi phenomena (cf. Blackmore, 1987, p. 249).5"
"In her autobiography, Blackmore recounts the comfort offered by her husband when she lamented her failure to obtain psi in experiments in which other researchers had succeeded: “Maybe they’re wrong and you are right. Maybe they haven’t done their experiments as carefully as you have” (Blackmore, 1986, p. 55).
Blackmore’s statements concerning the lack of evidence for psi phenomena in general (cf. Blackmore, 1985a, 1987), the claims that her own research was consistently devoid of evidence for psi, and my review of her autobiography (Berger, 1988) prompted my examination of the database upon which her conclusions were drawn.1 Specifically, the questions addressed were: Is her database sound? And, do the results support her claim of “no apparent psi effects” as she insists?"
"In her writings, which span nearly a decade, she presents herself as an open-minded scientist. However, following the failure of her “very first experiment,” she recorded in her diary: “I concluded that parapsychology is all a lot of rubbish and I should do something else!” (Blackmore, 1986, p. 35)."
"“I asked myself a thousand times, as I ask the reader now: Is there a right conclusion?
“The only answer I can give, after ten years of intensive research in parapsychology, is that I don’t know.”
Although after Berger’s critique Blackmore was willing to concede in an academic journal that “I agree that one cannot draw conclusions about the reality of psi based on these experiments”, her writings in the popular press have not reflected this admission. Commenting on the ganzfeld experiments in a newspaper article in 1996, she wrote:
““The other major challenge to the skeptic’s position is, of course, the fact that opposing positive evidence exists in the parapsychological literature. I couldn’t dismiss it all. This raises an interesting question: Just how much weight can you or should you give the results of your own experiments over those of other people? On the one hand, your own should carry more weight, since you know exactly how they were done… On the other hand, science is necessarily a collective enterprise…. So I couldn’t use my own failures as justifiable evidence that psi does not exist. I had to consider everyone else’s success.
“I asked myself a thousand times, as I ask the reader now: Is there a right conclusion?
“The only answer I can give, after ten years of intensive research in parapsychology, is that I don’t know.”
Although after Berger’s critique Blackmore was willing to concede in an academic journal that “I agree that one cannot draw conclusions about the reality of psi based on these experiments”, her writings in the popular press have not reflected this admission. Commenting on the ganzfeld experiments in a newspaper article in 1996, she wrote:
“My own conclusion is biased by my own personal experience. I tried my first ganzfeld experiment in 1978, when the procedure was new…. Of course the new auto-ganzfeld results are even better. Why should I doubt them because of events in the past? The problem is that my personal experience conflicts with the successes I read about in the literature and I cannot ignore either side. The only honest reaction is to say ‘I don’t know’.””"
"“Come to think of it, I feel slightly sad. It was just over thirty years ago that I had the dramatic out-of-body experience that convinced me of the reality of psychic phenomena… Just of few years of careful experiments changed all that. I found no psychic phenomena… I became a sceptic. (Emphasis added.)
“So why didn’t I give up then? There are lots of bad reasons. Admitting you are wrong is always hard, even though it’s a skill every scientist needs to learn. And starting again as a baby in a new field is a daunting prospect. So is losing all the status and power of being an expert. I have to confess I enjoyed my hard-won knowledge.
“… None of it ever gets anywhere. That’s a good enough reason for leaving.
But perhaps the real reason is that I am just too tired – and tired above all of working to maintain an open mind. I couldn’t dismiss all those extraordinary claims out of hand. After all, they just might be true… ”"
NOW GET READY FOR THE KICKER FOLKS!!:
"I am glad to be able to agree with his final conclusion – ‘that drawing any conclusion, positive or negative, about the reality of psi that are based on the Blackmore psi experiments must be considered unwarranted.’"
Susan Blackmore
https://archived.parapsych.org/psiexplorer/blackmore_critique.htm
http://www.skepticalaboutskeptics.org/investigating-skeptics/whos-who-of-media-skeptics/susan-blackmore/susan-blackmores-research/
######################################################################
So, we are left with a few questions, I feel?:
1) Blackmore has made a career of saying she was a "true believer" and was forced to change her opinion after 10 hard years of her own personal scientific research (more like 2, apparently). However, as per her quote: ""I am glad to be able to agree with his final conclusion – ‘that drawing any conclusion, positive or negative, about the reality of psi that are based on the Blackmore psi experiments must be considered unwarranted.’", a quote she sheepishly had to make after the repeated misleading claims about her own research were "debunked", we are left in a somewhat more ambiguous situation. Susan here admits any conclusions based on her own research is "unwarranted", but she has apparently written another book trotting out the same old same old she's been trotting out for decades: "I became determined to devote my life to parapsychology and to prove all my closed-minded lecturers wrong. I failed; of course I failed."
2) Susan writes, quite rightly: "So why didn’t I give up then? There are lots of bad reasons. Admitting you are wrong is always hard, even though it’s a skill every scientist needs to learn. And starting again as a baby in a new field is a daunting prospect. So is losing all the status and power of being an expert. I have to confess I enjoyed my hard-won knowledge."
Freud or Jung are not need to understand this, and neither are they needed to understand if Susan's career, identity, ideology etc is tied up with being a believer in woo, a genuine seeker of truth, or a priest of mindless pseudo-scepticism.
3) And most, most, most mindbogglingly of all, just how much more mileage can she squeeze out of that 20 second semi-OBE from 40 years ago?! :-o
PS - as a little bonus treat, Blackmore was a member of that great organisation of "truth seekers" CSICOP (or whatever they call themselves nowadays after their sordid history of deception! :).....so here's a little background on this collection of lovers of truth!:
http://www.psicounsel.com/starbaby.html
Cheerio pseudo-sceptics!!
Posted by: manjit | June 29, 2019 at 09:22 AM
Manjit, everything you just stated can be applied to every Sant Mat guru lead philosophy. All that meditation Jaimal Singh did is carrying on the works at Beas to this day, so they say.
Radha Soami teachings have contradictory aspects strewn all over its' teachings. Jaimal Singh said this, Sawan Singh said the contrary, Charan Singh said that was a different time, and GSD says let's hit the reset button.
That 20 seconds of OBE is probably more than the majority of RSSB followers see over a lifetime. But hey, it's being held back for when you die, so you don't squander it. Makes sense. Not.
Manjit, that's a whole bunch of hyperbole to say that Blackmore is full of shit. Probably could have stated that in less words.
Posted by: Amsr | June 29, 2019 at 09:59 AM
Lol, hit the send button before I saw my name spelled incorrectly.
Amar
Posted by: Amar | June 29, 2019 at 10:00 AM
Hey Baba Amar! You wrote: "everything you just stated can be applied to every Sant Mat guru lead philosophy"
Heh? I think you may be a bit focused on "Sant Mat" there, buddy....I didn't mention or refer to Radhasoami teachings or beliefs in any way, did I? I couldn't care less about this "Sant Mat" of yours Baba Ji!
You write: "Manjit, that's a whole bunch of hyperbole to say that Blackmore is full of shit. Probably could have stated that in less words."
Hmmm. Well, yes I could of. But different people have different interests. I'm not interested in people's opinions, I'm interested in facts and substance, knowledge and understanding.
Though I do appreciate in today's world, many do not place much importance on such things, instead preferring joining this or that clan and then shouting mindless abuse like "You're full of shit". Not really my personal taste, but you are of course entitled to your own!
And, finally....if there's too many words, don't read them!! You are under no obligation from me. Too difficult? :)
Cheers!
Posted by: manjit | June 29, 2019 at 10:15 AM
Using the words debunked and pseudo is intensely cringe. But I'll actually give Manjit some credit here for posting all of that chick's inner turmoil journal entries.
But forget about whether or not she's correct. Let's move on to the highest level of epistemology which is that nobody knows anything so who cares about dissecting and deconstructing arguments.
None of us will or can know anything.
Give up and enjoy hilarious lines like this "I love truth. I sprinkle truth on my cereal every morning. I rinse with truth when I take a shower. I brush with truthpaste three times a day."
Just remember that truth can't exist and you're just here playing a game.
Posted by: Jesse | June 29, 2019 at 11:10 AM
We're all going to hell. Get ready.
Right! Hell exists and you're going down, brother.
Forget consciousness, perception, philosophy,
and all the rest of the mumbo jumbo. You're
f*cking dead meat man!
But, if we're "going" to hell , then perchance we
haven't yet "arrived" and, when we get to that
hellish gate, who knows, maybe the sonuvabitch
with the key can be bribed to let us off the hook.
Gawd, I can hear bits of conversation drifting up
already. They're arguing about... shh, be quiet a
minute, will ya. Yep, about consciousness, and
perception, and all the rest of the mumbo jumbo.
Too f*cking late, ya poor dummies!
* Watching my language just in case the holy
rollers were right. Probably not a Chinaman's
chance in hell though.
Posted by: Dungeness | June 29, 2019 at 12:47 PM
My Beloved (don't tell Baba Amar about us, you Maha Jesse you ;) wrote: "Using the words debunked and pseudo is intensely cringe."
Ah, perhaps that is indeed so.
I am of course reflecting back the buzz words (pseudo) sceptics, materialists and atheists like to use when discussing evidence for the paranormal, "pseudo-science", "debunking claims of the paranormal" etc.
Yes, perhaps it is indeed "intensely cringe".....I should never have doubted your allegiances, Master.
Posted by: manjit | June 29, 2019 at 01:15 PM
"I'm not interested in people's opinions, I'm interested in facts and substance, knowledge and understanding."
The only people who talk like this also sniff their own farts. Get over yourself.
Posted by: Jesse | June 29, 2019 at 02:28 PM
"Forget consciousness, perception, philosophy,
and all the rest of the mumbo jumbo. You're
f*cking dead meat man!"
Yeah that's pretty much the only honest answer to all existential problems. The rest is self comforting and running from boredom and fear.
Can you just block all comments that aren't from Tucson and your own stuff, Brian? This talk is all painful to read gibberish.
Posted by: Jesse | June 29, 2019 at 02:40 PM
Electricity exists does it not without its medium or conduits to harness it?
A dog whistle produces a sound only dogs are able to hear. The sound is there, it just needs the correct medium to produce and channel it. Humans can't hear it. Does that mean it does not exist?
In order to function on this physical plane, mind needs a brain and a body.
Just an impermanent and temporary conduit for an experience.
Who knows what awareness is. Is it asleep outside of the confines of mind and matter or does it "awaken" in each experience? In order to project itself awareness or consciousness releases itself from its place of the centre of infinity ( being everywhere simultaneously at same time, space, vibration) and creates matter at different speeds or energies in order to manifest in a form relative to its desired newfound albeit temporal state of "being".
Electrical energy builds up during a storm and releases itself in the form of light and sound - lightening and thunder. The energy must always be there in order to be released. It just needed a medium to release or experience it.
The same principle is to be applied to body, mind and awareness or consciousness.
The only permanence in matter is its impermanence.
That's my take on things anyway.
There really is love in everything. If you can imagine it, then that thought exists for a fleeting moment, or a long moment. Thank goodness not all imagined thoughts manifest into matter. They are merely fleeting images with no substance or conduits built to materialise them. But other thoughts do materialise. For everything ever manifested or built or made comes from an origin of thought.
We humans are not intelligent enough yet nor have we evoloved enough yet to be able to "see" the reasoning beyond mind and matter. For there IS a beyond.
It is impossible to be able to view an entirety when you are "in" it
We have language to communicate thoughts and ideas. The more refined a language is , the better equipped it is to explain concepts. The language of science best explains proven facts about the existence of things along with the non-existence of things! However, as more knowledge is aquired , facts can change. I believe there is just no external language to explain away everything or all things.
(Oh, and I will never stop believing in fairies).So be it and so it is. At the end if the day and night, LOVE is the only reason. LOVE - EVOL(e).
Logically, there has to be awareness outside of mind and matter. It is a symbiotic relationship.
Posted by: Fairy Gyani | June 29, 2019 at 05:19 PM
The best part of growing old happens when we realise that all the stuff we learned about and believed in when we were young is simply just stuff. Gurus, religions, spiritual masters, fantastical inner realms, out of body experiences etc.
But then, I do still dabble in mystical stuff because I find it interesting and fun and also no-one actually knows or even cares who anyone else is, what they are thinking and what they believe in. Most people are really only interested in themselves, their own attitudes and beliefs and outwardly everyone is playing a role and acting in a sensible and intelligent manner.
We have this outer personality and our inner reality which we usually keep secret even though we know its simply mind chatter. But what the heck, if we are enjoying our inner thoughts and imagination, and still exploring all things mystical and strange, we can still behave in a logical and down to earth manner in our daily lifestyle.
"We are such stuff. As dreams are made on, and our little life. Is rounded with a sleep." Shakespeare.
Posted by: Jen | June 29, 2019 at 05:20 PM
Furthermore, to put it all the more simply;
Mind and matter are just a harness to confine awareness into all if its possible forms in order for it to be infinite. The infinite becomes finite for a time to realise ( real eyes) its infinity.
Posted by: Fairy | June 29, 2019 at 05:38 PM
Of its not if! My keyboard is the bottomless pit. Press the "o" and it ALWAYS prints an "i". It has a mind of its own for sure, unless I really, really control it. For I am my keyboard's awareness!
Posted by: Fairy | June 29, 2019 at 05:42 PM
My reservations about body-leaving (in the context of the RS Path) is a bit different from most.
1) If dying while living is so great, why is it a struggle for people to meditate even 10% of their waking hours?
2) If meditation is bliss, why is the happiest moment of a meditation usually the moment the bell strikes to signal it's over with, and we can now stand up and rejoin the world?
3) If the goal of The Path is Sach Khand, do any of us really have an inkling of what that existence would be like? Have we really considered the implications of "life" without a body is even worth...living? I doubt if anyone, even an experienced meditator, has the ability to really know if he'd prefer to live in a higher plane.
How then can anyone devote their lives to earning a divine destination that we're clueless about? It seems like the very purpose of The Path is something we'd prefer to not think about. We just trust in religious authorities that the afterlife will be great.
4) Charan Singh said that good initiates can, at their death, look forward to being with "the master" forever. But what does that even mean? We're in a bubble of consciousness with Charan, or whoever our guru is, and we stare at each other for eternity?
5) We're told that true bliss is in consciousness, and not in materiality. It follows that if we indeed do have a spiritual existence, it will be without human senses, appetites, limbs, locomotion, but fully awake. Isn't that something like the life of a fully paralyzed human being. Such people are all but completely cut off from materiality. Do they find it a blissful existence? Do we envy them?
Posted by: j | June 29, 2019 at 06:33 PM
My android ( body) is a medium for me to express myself using all of the tools that physically make it up. It does, however, appear to have a mind of its own in its functioning little computer (brain) when it self-corrects and the awareness behind it (me) is not fully conscious. E.g. lightning lightening up my mind!😇🧚
Posted by: Fairy | June 29, 2019 at 06:51 PM
you are moving towards vipasana and non duality. right direction, but you are overshooting the target by saying things like "mind is the brain" or "life is finite". non duality is something you realize with time while duality is how things seem to be in this world.
Posted by: Q8i | June 29, 2019 at 10:31 PM
Why would any religion or cult or Blackmore or even Mr Brian point out to us at exactly what we are. I check myself every moment while sleeping upto again sleeping at night. And this myself is Net *I " minus body. Except while unconscious and before regaining conscious I may cease to exist.
I am a mystery and wil finish off as mystery after last moment drowning every good and bad talks, attitudes, faiths or no faith... till I discover or reveal something else in this 'I' residing in this body and which either peeps outside while awake or relaxes or thinks when not..
I am told by Science that it is brains at work in me and thats all.
Saints say its ( this body) not the right place for me and must push myself out of it to my higher. self. before its late and I get migrated into a long cycle of 84 lakhs species.
Who to believe while death has no retakes.
Posted by: Meditator | June 30, 2019 at 12:08 AM
Thank you Q8i. I am forever learning whilst "being" here.
Android- Body
Computer chip- Brain
Programming- Mind
Programmer- Awareness
Therefore awareness exists without the others, but the others once created by that awareness can't function within without!
??? Yes or no?
Posted by: Fairy | June 30, 2019 at 04:02 AM
Some comments are just food for thought.
Critical thinking includes the ability to appreciate and recognize the fine art of subtlety...
Critical thinking doesn’t TELL you how to think. It SHOWS you how to think. So, a lot of things worth mentioning are simply food for thought. I don’t need to tell you what the facts are. You need to figure that shit out for yourself. 😄
Posted by: Sonya | June 30, 2019 at 08:04 AM
The problem with having an OBE is that you feel compelled to prove that it wasn't imagined, and since no one has been able to do that, it's best to just enjoy your nocturnal jaunts and pretend to be grounded.
Posted by: adam balm | June 30, 2019 at 10:39 AM
Mankind has obsessed over this topic for as long as we've existed, and yet we've made precisely zero progress because we can't make any progress on it. The reason why guys like Manjit feel sad when Brian points out the obvious fact that people who are materially dead are in fact dead, is that unfalsifiability is the mirage that intellectual wankers want to dangle in front of your face to trick you into thinking they have something to offer you other than the realization that you are a piece of meat.
People who invent nothing, contribute nothing and have a lot of self doubts always resort to philosophical questions that can never be proven one way or another. No amount of cheap accounts of past lives or drugged out dental patients talking about leaving their bodies in any way adds to our knowledge of continuity of consciousness post rotting dead corpse, which is what this all ultimately leads to. Irreversible death.
But you can sit around reading and talking about this stuff forever creating more and more models that have no validity whatsoever. Weather forecasting doesn't even work and it's mostly dealing with tangible substances that we know pretty much everything about. Consciousness untethered to our physicality? Suck it.
This is the tragedy of modern man. Mathematical and philosophical models and all the curve fitting required to make them sound even remotely relevant when they're not. We're a species of wankers. It's that simple.
Posted by: Jesse | June 30, 2019 at 10:59 AM
I should add that I wasn't even seriously digging at Manjit or anyone personally there. It's all of us. Everyone who ponders and thinks their pondering has value beyond whatever comfort or entertainment they derive from it. We're meat. Our brains are meat with electricity. That's the beginning and end of it. Have fun passing time.
Posted by: Jesse | June 30, 2019 at 12:12 PM
@ Brian. Hope you didn't spend money buying g that book. You would have been better spending money on a bottle of red.
We are all meat- as Jesse said. Throw the book in the open fire if you have one. I enjoy life and don't dwell too much on these books people write. They are making dosh (money). Don't forget the bottle of red.
I recently got rid of a lot of books - it was a heavenly feeling. I would rather not fill my limited mind with dross written by other pieces of meat who like me - are nothing special.
All the best
Posted by: Arjuna | June 30, 2019 at 01:30 PM
Blackmore's quote: "I was surprised, long ago, when my Zen teacher kept going on about the importance of the body".
Suddenly I have started to think, why is this body important, why is life on this planet important, why do we cling to this human form?
I think I have awakened. All it takes is to have an ageing sick body with multiple complications and then the feeling that leaving this body and becoming nothingness and emptiness sounds like a really good idea; no longer even feeling the need to continue to exist in some kind of spirit or soul; and feeling okay with that - such is enlightenment.
Posted by: Jen | June 30, 2019 at 03:24 PM
Transcendant experience, discovery, emergence, call them what you will. They are our natural birthright and worthy of pursuit.
What you are now, you once were not. And tomorrow you will awake as someone else. Every day is a death, and a re-emergence.
Every day we see the world from a place that can't be explained, just as all the spokes of a wheel converge on the empty space of the hub. Just as the empty space within the vase is the purpose of the vase.
Fill that as you wish.
Posted by: Spence Tepper | July 01, 2019 at 09:17 AM
No amount of cheap accounts of past lives or drugged out dental patients talking about leaving their bodies in any way adds to our knowledge of continuity of consciousness post rotting dead corpse, which is what this all ultimately leads to. Irreversible death.
Drugged out dental patient OBE's? Yep, coulda just been that dang
laughing gas,
But "cheap accounts of past lives"... ya wound even the "dead meat"
among us to the quick. I think a while back Spence cited ongoing
research at the Univ. of Virginia. There are simply too many credible
accounts for the whole subject to be "rubbished" as the English would
put it.
My favorite reveals how loony the so-called "scientific" dismissals are.
Dr. Bannerje's research cites a young girl in rural Russia who suddenly
spoke fluent Japanese and recalled detailed memories (including
extensive geographical info that couldn't have been gleaned from
casual reads) of a past life in Japan. The Russian Academy of Science
took interest and speculated that upper atmosphere winds carried
molecular debris from a Japanese corpse thousands of miles away
where it wafted down into that poor Russian waif's brain.
The respected Academy members didn't opine further about the
actual memory transference mechanism or its statistical improbability.
I think someone suggested the odds of a gale wind blowing through a
junkyard and leaving a fully assembled 747 in its wake would be greater.
Of course maybe the child was put under with "laughing gas" and her
hippocampus memories were altered...somehow . Hey, if they nail
down the mechanism, we could learn Japanese the easy way...
Posted by: Dungeness | July 01, 2019 at 02:54 PM
"There are simply too many credible
accounts for the whole subject to be "rubbished" as the English would
put it. "
Only if by credible you actually mean garbage. You'd believe anything as long as it didn't force you out of your comfort zone.
Posted by: Jesse | July 01, 2019 at 09:39 PM
Only if by credible you actually mean garbage. You'd believe anything as long as it didn't force you out of your comfort zone.
Gosh, does that go for the Univ. of Virginia research team too..?
Posted by: Dungeness | July 02, 2019 at 12:20 AM
"What you are now, you once were not. And tomorrow you will awake as someone else. Every day is a death, and a re-emergence.
Every day we see the world from a place that can't be explained, just as all the spokes of a wheel converge on the empty space of the hub. Just as the empty space within the vase is the purpose of the vase."
Really liked your comment Spence... thanks... :)
Posted by: Jen | July 02, 2019 at 01:52 PM
Blackmore's OBE is as much a mystery today to her as it was when she had it years ago.
Using Zen teachings as a way to explain her OBE is just another untested explanation. She has replaced one belief with another.
But if she could duplicate that OBE at will she would experience the truth for herself. Then she could explain it to others in any way she liked.
That would be real science. Duplicate the effect under controlled conditions. Demonstrate you can control the variables and produce the result at will. Then you have real experimental control and are closer to the true objective basis of the experience.
That's what Zen is really about. The now.
By trying to explain something she cannot experience at will, she is just creating another duality.
Posted by: Spence Tepper | July 02, 2019 at 08:49 PM
"Gosh, does that go for the Univ. of Virginia research team too..?"
Do you not read about how bad "science" has become? Big topic right now. People cutting and pasting parts of mein kampf randomly and getting peer review accolades for it and maybe literally thousands of other similar examples by now.
So yes, it applies to the people at all universities, especially nowadays when universities admit to lowering standards for admission, and also to admitting based on diversity quotas instead of real qualifications. You could probably be accepted into a university in 2019 if that tells you anything.
This is what I keep repeating about appeals to authority, but those who need others to think for them won't believe me until a famous person says exactly what I've already said to them.
Posted by: Jesse | July 03, 2019 at 03:53 PM