I've finished The Web of Meaning, by Jeremy Lent, a book with the subtitle, "Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom to Find Our Place in the Universe."
It's a lengthy book, 382 pages, that I enjoyed. My first post about it was "Marvelous mystery lies in the complexity of the world."
Lent wrote a related previous book, The Patterning Instinct. Both books discuss Eastern and Western religions in a well-informed manner. In 2017 I talked about The Patterning Instinct in "Indian and Greek thought are both dualistic. Chinese thought isn't."
In these passages Lent explains how ancient India embraced a form of dualism that differed in some respects from that of the Greeks, but still was based on the same sorts of splits found in Christianity.
...So if someone is looking for oneness, it won't be found in either Greek or Indian thought, which are both thoroughly dualistic.
Pleasingly -- because I'm attracted to Chinese thought, especially in the guise of Taoism (and Tai Chi, basically Taoism expressed as movement, which I've been practicing for 13 years), Lent is big on the Chinese way of looking upon the world, which he admires as being in tune with modern scientific thought and a naturalistic approach to oneness.
In his new book, Lent is still big on Chinese philosophy. Along with Buddhism and indigenous traditions (Native American and others), this is what is meant by "traditional wisdom" in his subtitle.
What he's after is an integration of what divides us in science, religion, philosophy, and other areas of human life. I heartily agree with Lent that any belief system which finds meaning in some realm apart from our world and this universe -- which is what Indian religions and Christianity have in common -- isn't going to heal the splits that plague us.
Taoism and Buddhism have a lot in common with modern systems thinking. Since I completed the course work for a doctorate in Systems Science back in the 1970's before I became a Ph.D. dropout, I resonated with the many examples of how systems concepts reflect the reality of how reality works.
Here's some quotes from The Web of Meaning along these lines.
Reciprocal causality is a lot like the Buddhist notions of dependent origination and emptiness. Reality isn't top-down causation, as religions would have us believe, with God at the top.
We've seen that reciprocal causality is a defining element of integrated, self-organizing systems -- the system as a whole affects the parts, while the parts affect the whole. The relationship between mind and body is similarly reciprocal. While the mind affects the body, different aspects of the body are simultaneously affecting the mind.
...As we've seen, a hallmark of living systems is reciprocal causality: interacting parts create the system, while the system as a whole affects how the parts interact.
Purpose doesn't come from outside the universe or outside of life. Life is its own purpose.
When a bacterium in a tank senses sugar is more concentrated in a certain direction, it will turn around, rotate its flagella like a propeller and swim toward what it wants. It's driven by the same sense of purpose that has urged life forward in an unbroken flow from the days of the first protocells: a desire to resist the Second Law of Thermodynamics, to ingest nutrients, metabolize them, regenerate its parts and pass its particular form of negentropy on to the next generation.
We're back to Weber's First Law of Desire: 'Everything that lives wants more of life. Organisms are beings whose own existence means something to them.'
...As we've seen, life is a self-constructed process. There is no programmer writing a program, no architect drawing up a blueprint. The organism is the weaver of its own fabric. It sculpts itself according to its own inner sense of purpose, which it inherited ultimately -- like all of us -- from the first autocatylytic cells: the drive to resist the Second Law of Thermodynamics and generate a temporary vortex of self-created order in the universe.
Consciousness is material, but this doesn't make it any less sacred.
Some people, viewing consciousness as something sacred, might object to the idea that it could theoretically be measured through scientific instruments. My personal opinion is that, rather than diminishing the sacred quality of consciousness, it opens a pathway that bridges the sacred and the scientific.
In modern gewu, as in Neo-Confucianism -- and in contrast to Western dualism -- there is no inherent distinction between the spiritual and the material. It's the miraculous ways in which the material world self-organizes that create the conditions for all that is sacred and meaningful in the universe.
Emergent phenomena show that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, that at higher levels of organization newness emerges that can't be predicted by looking at more basic elements.
There is, as we've seen, a vast category of things -- life, mind, consciousness, music, cognition and rainbows, to mention just a few -- that are emergent phenomena, existing only as a result of complex, dynamic interactions between different entities. Meaning also belongs in this category.
In the same way that we can enact a rainbow by gazing into the rain, we enact meaning by the way in which we attune to the connective rhythms of the universe. Like music being played, like the refracted sunlight in the rain, the meaning potential is always there -- its just waiting for us to tune into the right wavelength and engage with it.
...Just as music is an emergent phenomenon arising between a player and listener attuning through patterns of vibrations, so meaning is an emergent phenomenon enacted by a conscious entity as it relates an experience to other experiences.
Death is a problem for us only insofar as we have a limited view of ourselves as an isolated being.
At a deeper level, our identity as living beings can extend to embrace all of life. In the Western tradition, with personhood confined to conceptual consciousness, the existential fear of death has historically been alleviated by the belief in an eternal soul that remains intact after the demise of the body.
But much of this fear is the result of experiencing a self-identity separate from the rest of life. To the extent that we, as temporary eddies of consciousness, can recognize our unity with the entire stream of life of which we're a tiny part, there is less to fear from our own death.
As part of the unfolding cascade of negative entropy that has evolved in all its magnificence on Earth, we have never died for over three billion years. From this expanded perspective, as long as there is life, there is no such thing as death.
The Tao Te Ching hints at this deep insight when it proclaims, 'One who knows how to nourish life... has no place of death.'
So the thief has stolen new expression negative entropy from the compendium of Physics. This happens when thieves of America take inspiration from thieves of Britain. Together they form Association of American British thieves.
Posted by: Vinny | August 24, 2021 at 12:14 AM
"It's the miraculous ways in which the material world self-organizes that create the conditions for all that is sacred and meaningful in the universe."
A beautiful statement. But who or what is the organizer? Must
we remain in the audience? Why can't mystics peep behind the
curtain to see the totality of it all? To heck with one's blinkered
glance of emergent phenomena creating "newness that can't
be predicted by looking at more basic elements." If the author
really believes the "whole is greater than the sum of its parts",
then he must remain open to the possibility consciousness
can be more than his view that "Consciousness is material.".
There's nothing amiss with his views of how very sacred and
meaningful the material world in itself is. But to slip into an
absolutist statement about consciousness is scientism. It's
dogmatism stepping on a pedestal by default and subtly
dismissing alternate paths of investigation, however scientific,
into this sacred universe.
Posted by: Dungeness | August 24, 2021 at 02:31 AM
Interesting perspective. Taoism is appealing in so many aspects.
However one defines consciousness doesn’t really matter. Whether you believe in God or not doesn’t really matter. Whether you believe in life after death or not doesn’t really matter either. All that matters is our belief in love. True love (not the silly, egoistic fairy tale kind of love) and appreciation for those in our lives is what matters most. Every person we meet offers us the opportunity to show love or fear.
Back to Taoism, my husband gave me a giant coffee table book on Taoism with beautiful pictures of nature that were side by side with expressions of Taoist philosophy. It created an atmosphere of peace every time I opened it. With all of our moves back and forth across the country several times, I can’t remember what happened to it. 🤔
Posted by: Sonia | August 24, 2021 at 04:12 AM
It's funny how in claiming to believe in oneness the author then must reinterpret the world according to his own detailed, invented taxonomy.
Posted by: Spence Tepper | August 24, 2021 at 06:13 AM
... And yet isn't this what all philosophy and religion is? A system of thinking about reality? A set of concepts we use to help us understand what we see around us, and experience?
I like direct perception better. Though it is harder to interpret, in some ways impossible to label, yet it stands on its own, and doesn't actually require labels at all.
But the philosophies are nice too. They are clever and appealing inventions. They all, each one, has their grains of truth. A good painting is appealing too, as its own patch of reality.
Posted by: Spence Tepper | August 24, 2021 at 06:24 AM
Cool to see you posting about finishing Lent’s book Brian.
It seems an interesting broad ranging read based on your interpretations and quotes used.
It’s a topic I also have been long interested in.
I have a few comments:
In the first part of your post I was surprised to read that you lump both Greek, Christian and Indian thought together as being ‘thoroughly dualistic’ (in regard to oneness). Some would argue that a lot of Western dualism stems from Greek thinkers, but labelling all Indian thought as the same is somewhat incorrect? In light of your reading of Lent, then sure it comes down to this problematic notion of the separate soul. Yet as you must know, numerous avenues towards realising oneness are found in the mystic traditions of Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism. Meister Eckhart, Sufism, Kashmir Shaivism, Ramana M, Nisargadatta and various treatises on Advaita all come to mind. Arguably Sant Mat’s ‘goal’ is non-dual realisation.
Maybe I’m missing something because I’m less familiar with Taoist and Chinese philosophy?
Alternately one could argue that to get a deeper understanding of ‘spirit/science’ Lent has focused on Taoism/Buddhism and not delved sufficiently into ‘Indian’ thought to get a more complete picture? For example integration of body/mind, outer/inner, head/heart, Self/self is one of the key underpinnings of Kashmir Shaivism as I understood from the Recognition Sutras. Transcendence and Immanence are not separated.
In the second part of your post I was unsure whether the text in bold + sentence/small paragraph was your paraphrasing and the indented text was Lent’s, or it was all Lent’s.
Lent makes good points, a key one being that there is no Boss behind it all. Fair enough.
It’s fine to say consciousness is material, this also leaves the door open to say material is consciousness in my view. Does Lent explain how ‘the sacred quality of consciousness .. opens a pathway that bridges the sacred and the scientific’?
Never heard of ‘gewu’, maybe I’d be able to understand it’s role in removing the distinction between the spiritual and material if I had access to the book?
I’m with Lent when he makes the point in regard to the dualism created by belief in an eternal soul. This belief is problematic unless one considers soul to be Soul I.e. Soul = the totality, non-separated.
When I read Lent’s take on death I couldn’t help wondering about a previous post I made in regard to consciousness being all. Lent saying ‘we, as temporary eddies of consciousness, can recognise our unity with the entire stream of life’ ….. reads to me as if he’s saying its essentially one and its all consciousness.
Hi Osho, I reckon your post of 23.8 said it well. I hope things have gone smoothly after your mum’s passing and everyone is ok.
BFN
Posted by: Tim Rimmer | August 24, 2021 at 08:49 PM
Hi Tim,
Hope you're keeping well and happy my friend!
You wrote: "In the first part of your post I was surprised to read that you lump both Greek, Christian and Indian thought together as being ‘thoroughly dualistic’ (in regard to oneness). Some would argue that a lot of Western dualism stems from Greek thinkers....".
There is a great deal of deeply superficial, partial and often egregiously erroneous understandings, interpretations and representations of the history and evolution of thought and ideas (and writing a book on the non-dual Plotinus apparently doesn't exempt one from this :).
I wouldn't have commented on this if it wasn't for 2 reasons: 1) Almost nobody seems to be aware of the profoundly influential origins of non-dual (imo as both experiential insight as well as conceptual arguments) Greek thought, which in turn influenced the entire Western civilisation, and 2) considering how so many are enamoured of the always self-righteous illusion of "rationality" around here, it may be worth back-tracking to the so-called founding father of Western "rationality" to understand his actual understanding of "rationality" and how that fits in with "reality".
https://peterkingsley.org/product/reality/
Reality introduces us to the extraordinary mystical tradition that lies right at the roots of western culture.
"This is the true story of Parmenides, Empedocles, and those like them: spiritual guides and experts in other states of consciousness, healers and interpreters of dreams, prophets and magicians who laid the foundation for the world we now live in. Reality documents the excruciating process that led to their work and teaching being distorted, covered over, lost.
And most importantly, it presents these original teachings in all their immediacy and power — revealing their ability, just as vibrant now as at the dawn of the western world, to awaken us to what reality truly is.
Reality is the key to, and also the core of, Peter Kingsley’s work as a whole. It draws us into a world of magnificent beauty; of uncanny precision, meaning and magic. And it uncovers a forgotten way of life that restores to us, step by step, our own divine nature right where this matters most: in the middle of our fragmented, everyday lives."
https://www.scienceandnonduality.com/article/the-meaning-and-destiny-of-western-culture
https://www.bernardokastrup.com/2019/12/the-destiny-of-western-culture-open.html
"However, Kingsley argues that we have been misinterpreting and misrepresenting Parmenides' ideas since Plato. Parmenides is considered by mainstream scholars to be the founder of logic and rationality, of our particular way of discriminating truth from untruth, fact from fiction, through reasoning. According to this mainstream view, the Promethean powers of Western science, as embodied in technology, are the culmination of a way of thinking, feeling and behaving that can be traced back to Parmenides' manner of argumentation in his famous poem.
But Kingsley argues very persuasively (R: 1-306) that what Parmenides was trying to say was nothing of the kind. According to him, logic for Parmenides wasn't a formal system based on fixed axioms and theorems, meant to help us discern true from false ideas about reality; it wasn't grounded in some metaphysically primary realm of absolutes akin to Platonic Forms; it didn't derive its validity from some external reference. In summary, Kingsley argues that, for Parmenides, logic wasn't what we now call reason, but something much broader, deeper, unconstrained by fixed rules and formalisms.
TRUE LOGIC AS INCANTATION
As a matter of fact, according to Kingsley Parmenides' logic was a kind of incantation. The context is the notion that we live in a world of illusions, caught up in our own internal narratives and made-up categories about what is going on, completely oblivious to the true world that surrounds us and from which we derive our very being—i.e. reality. This illusion is persuasive, has tremendous power and momentum. So to help one see through it and ultimately overcome it, an even more persuasive rhetorical device is required, a kind of spell or incantation woven with words, meant to disrupt our ordinary mental processes. This incantation is the true logic Parmenides gifted us, a kind of spell meant to trick our internal storytelling, make it catch itself in contradiction and thereby release its grip, so we can escape the illusion.
This is a critical point, so allow me to belabor it a bit. If I were to use Parmenides' true logic on you, I would weave whatever argument line I felt would be compelling to you, irrespective of whether the argument is strictly rational or not, strictly consistent with a given set of fixed axioms or not. The ultimate goal of true logic is eminently pragmatic: it is to get you out of the bind in which you continuously tie yourself up. True logic, thus, is a semantic trick meant to break the spell of illusion, like cracking a crystal by gently tapping on it in just the right spot."
https://peterkingsley.org/wp-content/uploads/SpiritualTradition.pdf
And, apropos of shabd yoga, here's another gem from Peter Kinglsey's re-presentation of Parmenides:
@4 The Sound of Silence
There’s one simple detail in Parmenides’ account of his journey to the underworld
that’s so easy to miss. During the whole of his journey there’s no mention at all of any
noise — apart from one single sound. That’s the sound the chariot makes as the daughters
of the Sun draw him along: ‘the sound of a pipe’. . .
After Parmenides mentions the sound of the pipe he uses the same word again to explain
how the huge doors spin open, rotating in hollow tubes or ‘pipes’. This use of the
word is extraordinary. It’s the only time in the whole Greek language that it’s ever applied
to doors or parts of doors, and scholars have pointed out that Parmenides must
have chosen it for a particular reason: not simply to describe what the doors look like
but also to give a sense of the sound they make. On his journey everything that moves
has to do with the sound or the appearance of pipes. (DPW 126–127)Hi Tim,
Hope you're keeping well and happy my friend!
You wrote: "In the first part of your post I was surprised to read that you lump both Greek, Christian and Indian thought together as being ‘thoroughly dualistic’ (in regard to oneness). Some would argue that a lot of Western dualism stems from Greek thinkers....".
There is a great deal of deeply superficial, partial and often egregiously erroneous understandings, interpretations and representations of the history and evolution of thought and ideas (and writing a book on the non-dual Plotinus apparently doesn't exempt one from this :).
I wouldn't have commented on this if it wasn't for 2 reasons: 1) Almost nobody seems to be aware of the profoundly influential origins of non-dual (imo as both experiential insight as well as conceptual arguments) Greek thought, which in turn influenced the entire Western civilisation, and 2) considering how so many are enamoured of the always self-righteous illusion of "rationality" around here, it may be worth back-tracking to the so-called founding father of Western "rationality" to understand his actual understanding of "rationality" and how that fits in with "reality".
https://peterkingsley.org/product/reality/
Reality introduces us to the extraordinary mystical tradition that lies right at the roots of western culture.
"This is the true story of Parmenides, Empedocles, and those like them: spiritual guides and experts in other states of consciousness, healers and interpreters of dreams, prophets and magicians who laid the foundation for the world we now live in. Reality documents the excruciating process that led to their work and teaching being distorted, covered over, lost.
And most importantly, it presents these original teachings in all their immediacy and power — revealing their ability, just as vibrant now as at the dawn of the western world, to awaken us to what reality truly is.
Reality is the key to, and also the core of, Peter Kingsley’s work as a whole. It draws us into a world of magnificent beauty; of uncanny precision, meaning and magic. And it uncovers a forgotten way of life that restores to us, step by step, our own divine nature right where this matters most: in the middle of our fragmented, everyday lives."
https://www.scienceandnonduality.com/article/the-meaning-and-destiny-of-western-culture
https://www.bernardokastrup.com/2019/12/the-destiny-of-western-culture-open.html
"However, Kingsley argues that we have been misinterpreting and misrepresenting Parmenides' ideas since Plato. Parmenides is considered by mainstream scholars to be the founder of logic and rationality, of our particular way of discriminating truth from untruth, fact from fiction, through reasoning. According to this mainstream view, the Promethean powers of Western science, as embodied in technology, are the culmination of a way of thinking, feeling and behaving that can be traced back to Parmenides' manner of argumentation in his famous poem.
But Kingsley argues very persuasively (R: 1-306) that what Parmenides was trying to say was nothing of the kind. According to him, logic for Parmenides wasn't a formal system based on fixed axioms and theorems, meant to help us discern true from false ideas about reality; it wasn't grounded in some metaphysically primary realm of absolutes akin to Platonic Forms; it didn't derive its validity from some external reference. In summary, Kingsley argues that, for Parmenides, logic wasn't what we now call reason, but something much broader, deeper, unconstrained by fixed rules and formalisms.
TRUE LOGIC AS INCANTATION
As a matter of fact, according to Kingsley Parmenides' logic was a kind of incantation. The context is the notion that we live in a world of illusions, caught up in our own internal narratives and made-up categories about what is going on, completely oblivious to the true world that surrounds us and from which we derive our very being—i.e. reality. This illusion is persuasive, has tremendous power and momentum. So to help one see through it and ultimately overcome it, an even more persuasive rhetorical device is required, a kind of spell or incantation woven with words, meant to disrupt our ordinary mental processes. This incantation is the true logic Parmenides gifted us, a kind of spell meant to trick our internal storytelling, make it catch itself in contradiction and thereby release its grip, so we can escape the illusion.
This is a critical point, so allow me to belabor it a bit. If I were to use Parmenides' true logic on you, I would weave whatever argument line I felt would be compelling to you, irrespective of whether the argument is strictly rational or not, strictly consistent with a given set of fixed axioms or not. The ultimate goal of true logic is eminently pragmatic: it is to get you out of the bind in which you continuously tie yourself up. True logic, thus, is a semantic trick meant to break the spell of illusion, like cracking a crystal by gently tapping on it in just the right spot."
https://peterkingsley.org/wp-content/uploads/SpiritualTradition.pdf
And, apropos of shabd yoga, here's another gem from Peter Kinglsey's re-presentation of Parmenides:
"4 The Sound of Silence
There’s one simple detail in Parmenides’ account of his journey to the underworld
that’s so easy to miss. During the whole of his journey there’s no mention at all of any
noise — apart from one single sound. That’s the sound the chariot makes as the daughters
of the Sun draw him along: ‘the sound of a pipe’. . .
After Parmenides mentions the sound of the pipe he uses the same word again to explain
how the huge doors spin open, rotating in hollow tubes or ‘pipes’. This use of the
word is extraordinary. It’s the only time in the whole Greek language that it’s ever applied
to doors or parts of doors, and scholars have pointed out that Parmenides must
have chosen it for a particular reason: not simply to describe what the doors look like
but also to give a sense of the sound they make. On his journey everything that moves
has to do with the sound or the appearance of pipes. (DPW 126–127)"
Massive and fascinating topic.
Massive and fascinating topic.
Take care my friend!
Posted by: manjit | August 25, 2021 at 02:42 AM
And it would be almost sacrilegious to mention Greek mystics, the ancient mystery traditions etc without adding a link to this truly brilliant and important book which connects all the ancient western mystery schools and traditions - which are the bedrock of western civilisation, science and philosophy etc - with fungi based experiences:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Immortality-Key-Uncovering-History-Religion/dp/1250207142
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYQh1ZNkC70
https://iai.tv/video/how-to-die-before-you-do-brian-muraresku
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7c-bWymbT04
Etc.
:)
Posted by: manjit | August 25, 2021 at 02:52 AM
Much of what we accept as sane and reasonable today has roots in what by today's standards would be insane, or unreasonable, or at the very least ignorant. Astrology's direct forebear was woo-ridden astronomy, chemistry's alchemy. Thus, apparently, with this proto-logic. This is not to denigrate the practitioners of those ancient modes of study, at all, because that was the best that was available to them then. Those ancient practitioners of alchemy, and astronomy, and proto-logic, knew no better; and they were brilliant at what they had to work with; and absolutely, it is on their shoulders that we stand today and from that perch look well beyond their incoherent and magical worldview. While one is happy to defend the brilliance of the practitioners of those ancient modes of study, but to stick to the ignorance of those ignorant times in this day and age is far less defensible.
Thanks for posting both this discussion and those links, manjit. I enjoy your erudite posts, and it was very interesting to read what you've written here (as well as some quick googling that I did just now around these ideas). I haven't yet checked out your links, but I do intend to give them a look later at leisure. I agree, it is indeed, as you say, a massive and fascinating subject.
As usual, though, you end up swallowing wholesale, and as indicative of actual reality, what is merely interesting as history. There is zero evidence that these ideas comport with reality. (And no, tall tales of unbelievable experiences from mystics, ancient or otherwise, and celebrated or otherwise, and including you, does not qualify as evidence --- albeit, sure, they do qualify as a fringe oddity that well merits objective research, should the subjects volunteer for such, but beyond that, no reasonable person would treat them as more than mere speculation. Interesting speculation, sure, for those interested in this sort of thing, as I myself am; and interesting subject for research, for those willing to expend resources on such research; but that's the most one can say about any of this.)
Posted by: Appreciative Reader | August 25, 2021 at 06:47 AM
Sorry, the astrology astronomy thing. It's the other way around, obviously.
And incidentally, manjit, as far as your disagreements with Brian's post, I myself am less impressed than he is by the apparent wisdom of Buddhistic and Daoist ideas. I see these correspondences as akin to the blindfolded monkey's darts. If hundreds of thinkers and mystics and philosophers and prophets across the ages keep formulating hundreds of random speculations about the nature of reality, then it is entirely probable that some of them may, in some approximate manner, appear to hit home. Indeed it would be extraordinary if nothing of the sort ever happened. While absolutely, these correspondences do merit investigation, as would any promising idea about anything at all, but it is the formulation and codification of the scientific method that clearly demarcates the random speculations of the past from actual knowledge (even if that knowledge is necessarily tentative).
Posted by: Appreciative Reader | August 25, 2021 at 07:24 AM
@ Manjit
Until recently, whatever I know and knew was derived from knowledge handed down by others via hearsay. After all I and probably nobody else is born to learn what others have to say, forgetting to think even for a moment oneselves.
It starts with learning language,and it ends with endless years in schools ... countless bookshops, and miles upon miles book shelves.
So at home and in school I came to learn about God and later about mysticism in all its endless varieties, schools etc.
Then I started to think that all we know must have had an beginning and that before that beginning people also existed and had to cope with themselves and the world.
Before man invented how to hunt, he had to eat also, how did he do that.
Before the wheel was invented people had to transport also loads.
Before the use of fire was invented and the instruments for cooking people had also to eat, what did they eat
As these types of questions started to arise, also the answers came with them, mostly common sense types of answers for which nos schooling is neeeded.
Then I realized that what holds for the material knowledge, holds also for the abstract knowledge and came to understand that whatever any religion has to say or claims can be directly linked to their "problems" in a given moment of time and place.....so religions, or religious answers are like tools, inventions, like the wheel solving a reginal problem.
For a long time I wondered how the different indigenous people could develop such an deep knowledge and understanding of plants. Was it trial and error? O something else? The sjamans contacting the spirits of the plants.
Reading what you wrote the idea passed my mind that there has never been a god that revealed himself to humans and learned him how to develop knowledge. Probably it all started out with the consumption ofpsychotropic [ if that is the correct word] plants.
After all any practice of meditation of whatever school has not always existed. Like the wheel they were inventions, means to recreate something they experienced before. After all both plants and meditation techniques are "manipulations" of the body/brain system.
For a while I believed it all started out with "spontaneous inner experiences" followed by the discovery of means to recreate the same and have others do so. But these days I feel that these occasions are far to rare to be seen as the source of it all.
Great master started his submission with the words ... Man came first. Followed by: and religion was later developed for his evolution.
Unfortunately ... the use of these plants is not my cup of tea and I have to come back on earth more courages ... hahaha
Posted by: um | August 25, 2021 at 07:52 AM
"The organism is the weaver of its own fabric. It sculpts itself according to its own inner sense of purpose, which it inherited ultimately -- like all of us -- from the first autocatylytic cells: the drive to resist the Second Law of Thermodynamics and generate a temporary vortex of self-created order in the universe."
Where did the 2nd law of thermodynamics come from, and where did the drive to resist that law come from?
Order does exist in the universe; to say order is "self-created" is simply not accurate. The laws of physics and mathematics existed prior to the creation of the universe. They're not a construct of the human mind.
The order creating biological processes of our bodies (e.g. DNA and RNA) exist without no scientific explanation as to where they came from.
You won't find a cogent and satisfying answer to these questions from the world of science. To say that "Life is its own purpose" is to beg the question of where life began and why humans seek purpose in this universe.
Posted by: Tendzin | August 25, 2021 at 11:03 AM
Thanks Brian. I maintain that every human being is petrified of death.
There are secondary fears such as fear of injury, illness, loss of property, loss of wealth, loss of reputation, loss of loved ones, public humiliation, ostracisation and many other fears.
But fear of death is dominant in every mind and ego. It is, sadly, the most ignored and neglected subject of conversation and study due to its unsavory, uncertain and frightening nature.
One may rationalize or deny all one wishes. But every breath and heartbeat brings each one of us to our demise...with no solid understanding or knowledge at all of what is to come after leaving the mortal coil. We must all leave empty-handed and this inarguable fact is chilling.
Posted by: albert | August 25, 2021 at 05:31 PM
Read all the comments on this thread and I was like 🤯😵💫😵
Complexity is to the mind what peace is to the soul.
Just for fun, I stole this from unijokes:
Q: Why can't atheists solve exponential equations?
A: Because they don't believe in higher powers.
Posted by: Sonia | August 25, 2021 at 08:53 PM
I'm torn. On the one hand, I want to believe my human form is uniquely designed for God realization, but on the other, why did it require a universe 14 billion years old and 93 billion light years across to produce a mere 300,000 years of Homo sapiens on one little planet 7,900 miles across. If we didn't arise at random, why was the Creator so wildly inefficient?
Posted by: umami | August 26, 2021 at 07:24 AM
@Umami
There is no reason to believe that the universe is designed at all, let alone for an given purpose as "god realization" ... but ... you, umami, you are free to use your life for that reason.
It is your life and nobodies else!!
It is entirely up to you to do with it what you deem fit ..... given the circumstances of who and what you are and where you happen to live.
YOU, you your self have no idea of how vast the universe is and how old etc. What you KNOW is what you have HEARD ...and ...there is no way to verify it at all ... what remains is BELIEVE ... and believe is a matter of ...CHOICE.
Chose what suits you, what makes you happy, what sounds reasonable. Stand your own ground and free yourself of the decades old ideas you have taken for granted.
Think for yourself .. again it is your life .. do not let yourself be intellectual and emotional intimidated by what others have to say, irrespective of who they are ... even if the tell you that they speak in the name of god. Tell them that their god has never told you, to listen to them.
Posted by: um | August 26, 2021 at 07:40 AM
Um,
Don't worry, I'm very good at not listening to anyone and learning the hard way.
: )
Posted by: umami | August 26, 2021 at 08:43 AM
@Umami
Some say WE created this. Just a thought…
Probably the greatest ill humanity suffers is it’s tendency to believe we’re powerless. But sometimes that’s a protection against the wildly egocentric.
Posted by: Sonia | August 26, 2021 at 09:30 AM
Hi Sonia - nicely emoji’d.
Some of the posts can get pretty heady (my posts included). Discussion of the nature of reality is a serious business! :-)
Thanks for providing a joke to lighten things up a bit. I know several religious ones but they’re mostly rude.
Good to see Osho throws in a few to highlight his points.
One of the best ones was a sketch Brian posted a few years back where the seeker arrived at the mountain top to see the guru dressed in drag.
Anyhows keep on truckin.
Best wishes
Posted by: Tim Rimmer | August 26, 2021 at 09:41 PM
Hi Um - wow, that's a very insightful, intelligent and thought provoking comment @ 25th August 07.52am, it is worth rereading a few times (and that is after spending AGES trying to locate it!). Thank you.
You raise so many excellent questions for which the answers, if we even have any, are still heavily debated to this day. So what can we do but speculate!?
You wonder: "Reading what you wrote the idea passed my mind that there has never been a god that revealed himself to humans and learned him how to develop knowledge. Probably it all started out with the consumption of psychotropic [ if that is the correct word] plants."
Personally I think it is a very, very strong possibility that plant medicine or "psychedelic" use heavily influenced or accelerated human evolution, or "stoned ape theory" as it's called.
Likewise, or perhaps in conjunction with, I feel that the creation and evolution of language was (and continues to be) heavily influenced by such plants and fungi. Only a few months ago I happened to read this fascinating book:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Xenolinguistics-Psychedelics-Language-Evolution-Consciousness/dp/1583945997
Likewise, it is now seemingly almost beyond doubt that most of the early, shamanic religious beliefs and practices, OUT OF WHICH emerged the more "civilised" (or as you astutely observe, more appropriate to their NEW "time and place", in settled towns and even cities, than that of indigenous and hunter gatherer tribes etc) religious and metaphysical beliefs, concepts and practices, were deeply grounded in psychedelic use - I believe it is lost on the vast majority of contemporary readers that almost 100% of modern hindu beliefs and practices (within which we can include RS and it's "Sant Mat") were completely non-existent at the time of the earliest vedas like the Rig Veda. They did not exist, but evolved out of, a shamanic belief based on ingesting something called "Soma" which is clearly described in the vedas themselves as a plant or fungi of some sort that is ingested. OUT OF THIS emerged all the flavours of hinduism we have today, included shabd yoga, guru bhakti, etc. An evolution? Degeneration? Bit of both? :)
Likewise with the early Christian and Greek mystery schools - from which are produced almost ALL the great thinkers and philosophers which laid the very bedrock of western civilisation - as the very, very convincing, entertaining and scholarly book by Brian Muraresku, The Immortality Key, lays out in extreme detail, also placed extreme importance for their insights on these mystery schools and their mysteries rites of initiation involving psychedelic fungi or plants.
"After all any practice of meditation of whatever school has not always existed. Like the wheel they were inventions, means to recreate something they experienced before. After all both plants and meditation techniques are "manipulations" of the body/brain system.
For a while I believed it all started out with "spontaneous inner experiences" followed by the discovery of means to recreate the same and have others do so. But these days I feel that these occasions are far to rare to be seen as the source of it all."
Ah, I think there will definitely be some truth to this.
However, I personally believe and have indeed experienced in depth that everything that is achievable by taking very large doses of psychedelics is also possible and a clear potentiality of the human consciousness itself. EVERYTHING is WITHIN, imo & ime. All these serotonergic psychedelics like psilocybin, ergot, 5MEO-DMT, DMT and ayahuasca are basically giving us bio-availability to chemicals THAT ALREADY exist in our own body as it is a scientific fact both DMT & 5MEO-DMT exist in our brains and body.
Alas, I believe, based on my observation of others, that it is extremely rare and unlikely to have these kind of experiences by following practices like RS with their meditation, darshan etc beyond the most superficial level, and that there is no long lasting "after-glow" of joy, happiness, contentment, gratitude etc.
But, imo certainly not impossible :)
You write "Unfortunately ... the use of these plants is not my cup of tea and I have to come back on earth more courages ... hahaha"
Haha! :)
There is nothing unfortunate about it; if you have no compunction to do so, why do it? It is merely a case of being aware that such a tool is available......nobody is demanding or requiring you to do any particular task or job that it is "unfortunate" if you don't do so.
Like you often wisely hint at, if the inner drive or passion or love for something isn't there, that doesn't make you "wrong", that is your own nature, and somebody else has a different nature; let's just be aware that a tool exists that if somebody really desperately wants to explore reality, consciousness, communication with the "Divine" etc etc, that there is something people are saying is a very powerful tool in that regards. And if you do claim this, how desperate, willing to take "risk", fearless sacrifices etc are you in achieving that?
If you either don't have that initial interest (like the vast majority of people in the world), or are unwilling to take those kind of "risks" (like the vast majority of people who do have that initial interest), then there you. We each get according to our own degree of interest, or devotion (not to a man, religious dogma or meditation practice, but to truth and reality).
Just like I wouldn't or COULDN'T dedicate my life to earn millions of dollars (I could barely muster a few minutes, when forced......we gotta eat I suppose! :), why should somebody concerned for eg. with earning wealth and honour and prestige take such "risks"? It is as absurd as telling cats to bark!
So nothing to be at all worried or concerned about.
As you already know, everything - the whole universe - is contained in your cup of tea, so why go looking elsewhere for refreshment?
:)
Posted by: manjit | September 12, 2021 at 09:37 AM
@ Manjit
>> As you already know, everything - the whole universe - is contained in your cup of tea, so why go looking elsewhere for refreshment? :) <<
I do not.. hahaha
I wrote a longer answer and a click on the wrong button made an end to it. So be it, I am not going to recapitulate.
Posted by: Um | September 12, 2021 at 10:16 AM