Has anyone here ever experienced an enlightenment? [Archive]

Royce

Jul16-03, 05:51 PM

Never said it was easy and I doubt that I have experienced the intensity, if that is the correct word, that you have more than a few times myself, if at all. I can only surmise that what we experienced was the same or nearly the same. I can't do it at that deep level at will but I did learn to quiet my ego and let it happen a number of times.
Personally, I am sure that the individual interpets each experience differently requardless of their backgound. It depends on what the individual can relate to at that time and what his needs are at that time. It also has a lot to do with what they expect to see or experience from their cultural environment. This of course is my opinion only. I would like to hear yours.
The first time I was bathed in the light was a total surprise to me and almost frightening as well as startling. If I had any expectations of seeing the light it was totally subconscious. It winked out almost immediately as my ego game charging to the forefront. The next time a few weeks or months later I was not quite so surprised and it came on more gradually so that I was able to welcome it and hold my ego in check. After a few more times I was able to sit and be bathed in the light for several minutes with no conflict until the real outside world forced me or required me to leave.
As for the other I think it may be the Buddhist Void. I have been there only once or twice and only for a short while but enough to see my true self in link with the ring that is everyone else and the One at the same time. Again this my be pure sef delution or a dream due to previously having read about it, but I don't think so.
Now when I meditate with any success at all, I am aware of my true self and at least one other constant companion whom I think of as Jesus or a part of the spirit of Jesus, my mentor as well as Lord and Master of the universe, Jesus Christ. This is hard to put into words with out sounding presumptuous or overbearingly egotistical. It relates to the idea of christians letting Jesus into their lifes. It is not the personification of Jesus himself but a part of his spirit that he sends to be with us, guide us, mentor us and support us.
This is along with the spirit of God the Father that is within us all. If you prefer to call it the Buddha that is in all of us, okay, its the same thing or at least the same principle.
Anyway, if you want to go back there again, find a nice quiet time and place where you can be alone and not interupted for a while to meditate. Then meditate with only the desire to return to that place. Expect it. expect to go there and attempt to keep your ego in check just as you learned to keep you mind quiet. Don't try, just sincerely humbily desire this. It will come. If not now later when you've got your ego more under control.
You see our egos do not want to accept control nor accept something greater that itself so if left unchecked it will not let you go back.
Its just a spoiled selfish brat, a child and it must be delt with in the same way with firmness and deternination. It must learn just like a puppy, who is in charge, who the boss is. Good luck.

megashawn

Jul16-03, 06:50 PM

Man, you guys try to hard. All you need is a 2 liter, a 3 liter, and, uhh, well, email me for details.

j/k

I can agree that meditating is relaxing, and I think that if you can actually manage to quiet the million thoughts bouncing inside your skull, and focus on one important question, then yes, you'd definetly come up with a better answer as compared to sitting on the couch watching tv.

But I mean if your expecting something magical to happen when you sit in a dark, quiet room with your eyes closed and almost in a dream state, and it does, whoopy doo. How are you so certain it is a connection to some supreme master and not just a more solid connection to your deeper mind? Are you sure its a real expieriance, or merely a half awake, half asleep expieriance?

My guess, seeing as how meditation is usually quite a time consuming process, that you're probably in rem sleep by the time all the special feelings start to hit.

I can't say I've meditated amd reached a state either of you described, but I've had lots of expieriances similar to that as I was dozing off or just waking up.

Royce

Jul17-03, 07:52 AM

Mg, It is not focsing that is part of the key. It is not trying that is the way. Focusing and trying defeat our purpose. Letting go and letting it happen is the way to do it.
If you have not experienced anything like it then there is no way anyone can tell you what it is like because there are no common terms to discribe it. Its like trying to discribe color to one who has always been blind and never seen color.
Getting in touch with your deeper mind is part only part of what it is all about. Once there then getting in touch with with our soul, spirit or the other reality is just one more step.
Where there is no fear there is no danger. The door is open; walk through it.

radagast

Jul17-03, 09:51 AM

Originally posted by megashawn
Man, you guys try to hard. All you need is a 2 liter, a 3 liter, and, uhh, well, email me for details.

Yea, I think I used to do that type of meditation back in my late teens and twenties. [:)]

But I mean if your expecting something magical to happen when you sit in a dark, quiet room with your eyes closed and almost in a dream state, and it does, whoopy doo. How are you so certain it is a connection to some supreme master and not just a more solid connection to your deeper mind? Are you sure its a real expieriance, or merely a half awake, half asleep expieriance?

I only speak for myself, MG, but I see nothing supernatural in the experiences I've had. They are only part of the functioning of the brain. While they may seem magical experientially, it doesn't mean that there is something supernatural going on outside of my consciousness.

The experience I mentioned lasted about 20 minutes, including some walking and physical action, without the slightest bit of sleepiness involved. At the meditation retreats I've been on, we do get much less sleep that normal, and I have had near sleep hallucinations, near sleep dreams, and other sleep related experiences - these I'm very familiar with. The related experience was quite different.

I don't meditate with that experience being the goal. I meditate because it has and is changing me. The way I relate to the world and other people has changed significantly. And these changes occurred, initially without me realizing it. A specific incident occurred, where I would normally have gotten really pissed, (and as was my habit stayed ticked off for a few hours), and didn't. That started me asking family members and friends about changes in my behaviour. They had all noticed it, though I hadn't. When I started looking, I noticed it too - I didn't get upset with folks cutting me off on the highway, the patience I have with my kids has gotten a lot better, I find I don't mull over past injustices the way I used to. I've noticed I can be much more in the present in social situations that would normally have me constantly socially over thinking things. The clarity in my life has increased. All of the above factors are much more pronounced (even compared to normal) for about two weeks following returning from a retreat.

Are these due to meditation? I can't say for certain, but the fact that forty plus years of mental and emotional habits have started to change, in only a few years, with no other apparent explanation. Perhaps you can see why I attribute it to the meditation.

To be somewhat accurate, meditation, though easier in a quiet room, isn't necessarily just done in a quiet,dark room. I've entered meditative states during Aikido practice, while being attacked by four people (randori). When I'm able to do this I do much better. This meditative state is called Samadhi, and it's occurance is not uncommon in extremely good athletes during games - they refer to it as 'being in the zone'. There are also types of meditation that aren't quiet - chanting meditation, walking meditation, just to name a couple of the common ones. At meditation retreats, all actions are meant to be meditative, whether in seated meditation, serving meals, cleaning, or using the rest room.

Royce

Jul18-03, 06:28 PM

Glen, I agree that there is nothing magical, mystical or supernatural about meditation despite the impressions that my previous post gave. I was only trying to relate my personal deepest and most profound experiences. The majority of the time I get out of it exactly what you discribe with much the same results.

laserblue

Jul18-03, 07:04 PM

While I'm not sure what you mean by an enlightenment experience, I think I've had one. I'm not sure if there was anything I realized specifically as a result of it. Later in life I found that this was even a standard exercise in some religions.
When I was quite young, I started wondering late at night in my bunk 'What if there there wasn't an earth?'. I attempted to actually visualize this and after many minutes, something completely unexpected happenned. I found myself looking at the universe or something like a galaxy full of stars as though I was outside of it somehow and I had a feeling of complete peace and omniscience. Then I was back. It was like visiting Shangri-la and I've always wanted to return.

Andy

Jul20-03, 06:56 AM

Dont Drink and Drive, Smoke and FLY!

Mr. Robin Parsons

Jul21-03, 04:35 PM

Originally posted by Andy
Dont Drink and Drive, Smoke and FLY!

Don't you have to be old enough to get a drivers licence, first?

Aside from that, it's Bloody dangerous to do. (Years of driving experiance, trucks, cars, snow plows, tractors, motorcycles, heavy equipment, etc.)

EDIT PS depends upon just what you mean by enlightenment, but probably yes!

Andy

Jul21-03, 05:06 PM

In the UK you only have to be 17 to drive, and i do have a valid drivers license with no convictions of any kind not even a parking ticket on my license, and i have been driving for about 4 months now about 10 months if you include lessons.

PS, i dont fly that often, but i never drink and drive.

Mr. Robin Parsons

Jul22-03, 12:15 PM

Yes and I have more then 260** months of driving experiance, and your in the highest inssurance bracket available, but neither of these two facts have anything to do with enlightenment, so back to that?

Of that time lots of it is professional time driving snow plows and salt trucks in the winter, having to go to work in the worst of possible WINTER weather, and not leaving till the weather breaks, sleet, freezing rain, snow, cold, and blowing cold days, cause of wind drifting, seen way more accidents then most people will ever know.

(SLOW DOWN!)

EDIT ** Oooooops, thirty years, lets see thats thirty time 12, that equals 360 months, Ooooops so sorry!

Andy

Jul22-03, 12:33 PM

(SLOW DOWN!)

Who said anything about speeding, this is another thread where you have taken a comment far too seriously, and what was wrong with that comment anyway? "dont drink and drive (fine so far) smoke and fly!" whats wrong with smoking a bit of weed to get yourself high, obviously dont smoke and drive either.

Mr. Robin Parsons

Jul22-03, 01:33 PM

Originally posted by Andy
Who said anything about speeding, this is another thread where you have taken a comment far too seriously, And just where do you derive that from? I merely mentioned to "slow down" because of the related experience that I have, posted above, the WINTER driving experiance, that has shown me, (Very clearly I might add) that most people get into trouble driving in the winter BECAUSE THEY DO NOT SLOW DOWN!! and what was wrong with that comment anyway? "dont drink and drive (fine so far) smoke and fly!" whats wrong with smoking a bit of weed to get yourself high, obviously dont smoke and drive either. No, because it is similar in nature to drinking and driving, adulteration of the senses, differently, but none the less adulteration. responce time is important in driving. As for the obviousness of anything about me, well, you don't know, and time is an important factor in life, sooooo........

Perhaps, you take yourself, just a little bit too seriously? Ya figure?

Andy

Jul22-03, 05:12 PM

If youve got no money, how comes you can still drive, surely if you had no money then you wouldnt be able to afford the petrol (gas)?

Mr. Robin Parsons

Jul23-03, 11:43 AM

Originally posted by Andy
If youve got no money, how comes you can still drive, surely if you had no money then you wouldnt be able to afford the petrol (gas)?

Still have my drivers licence, (good for five years) stopped driving my own car back in 1999 when I took it to the scrap yard, to dispose of it (it still ran well, and could have been kept for longer) as my circumstances changed. The car had ~545,000 Kms (='s ~13 times around the planet) on it when I drove it to a scrapper, and sold it for some money. I had personally put ~220,000 of those Kms on that car, as I had bought it second hand for about a 'grand' ($1000.00)

But I still drove for a living, after that, company vehicules, trucks, heavy equipment, etc.

EDIT Does that help to "enlighten" you.......Hee hee!!

Andy

Jul23-03, 12:49 PM

I'm Enlightened! you must be a bit rusty though if you havent driven for 4 years, especially being as old as you are.

Mr. Robin Parsons

Jul23-03, 04:26 PM

Originally posted by Andy
I'm Enlightened! you must be a bit rusty though if you havent driven for 4 years, especially being as old as you are.

I doubt that, and you have just proven what I had known about you all along, you don't even bother to read the post!

Originally posted by Me, Mr. Robin Parsons
But I still drove for a living, after that, company vehicules, trucks, heavy equipment, etc.

BYE ANDY!

Andy

Jul23-03, 06:48 PM

I will give you that one, but you still suck.

pace

Jul23-03, 07:01 PM

I won't say I've felt any particularly religious enlightment.
But I do think I sometime feel enlightment about certain things, and I think it's one of the best feelings, cause it both touches my rationale and my affects. Thus my whole body.

Mr. Robin Parsons

Jul24-03, 01:38 PM

Originally posted by pace
I won't say I've felt any particularly religious enlightment.
But I do think I sometime feel enlightment about certain things, and I think it's one of the best feelings, cause it both touches my rationale and my affects. Thus my whole body.

That seems, to me, to be a fairly apt description of what occurs sometimes, othertimes, (I have found) it is (sorta) the "absence of feeling" that acknowledges that moment of enlightenment, the silence enlightens, but that one is usually only recognized afterwards, and is sort of different in it's effects/affects.

eNtRopY

Aug7-03, 07:54 AM

Originally posted by Mr. Robin Parsons
That seems, to me, to be a fairly apt description of what occurs sometimes, othertimes, (I have found) it is (sorta) the "absence of feeling" that acknowledges that moment of enlightenment, the silence enlightens, but that one is usually only recognized afterwards, and is sort of different in it's effects/affects.

Somehow I refuse to believe that 44 year old "men" who dedicate their entire day to peddling 30 km from their illegally camped tent to the computer room at the Kingston Public Library for the sole purpose of arguing on internet message boards with 17 year old boys are capable of achieving a true Buddhist enlightenment.

eNtRopY

Mr. Robin Parsons

Aug7-03, 09:24 AM

Originally posted by eNtRopY
Somehow I refuse to believe that 44 year old "men" who dedicate their entire day to peddling 30 km from their illegally camped tent to the computer room at the Kingston Public Library for the sole purpose of arguing on internet message boards with 17 year old boys are capable of achieving a true Buddhist enlightenment.

eNtRopY

#1) I'm 47 not 44

#2) 10 kms either way = 20 kms /day

#3) And the other 'places' that I use computers, Queens University et al

#4) apparently you seem to think that the ony thing I do is exchange with andy, (17 year old Boy) what an un-enlightened cursive thing you are!

#5) Might have achieved that years back, but you would never know that, would you?, how could you?, you are to busy thinking of ways to be insulting.

EDIT aside from all of that, what do you know about what I do with the rest of my day? I'll tell you, NOTHING, hence, you judge in ignorance, that tells of you, and your judgmental abilities/inabilities. Why don't you try something constructive for a change, like trying to learn to control your own mouth!

eNtRopY

Aug8-03, 10:30 AM

There is no way you are enlightened. You become angry far too fast. You are far too controlled by your emotions. If you ever were enlightened, then would still be today. Being enlightened means being completely aware. One who is completely aware of his/her situation would not let that outlook on life slip away.

eNtRopY

radagast

Aug8-03, 10:54 AM

No insult intended, RP, but using the definition of Enlightenment typical of Buddhism, I'd have to lean toward agreeing with ENtropy. Loss of ego is extremely typical of enlightened individuals. Even people that are practicing toward that are a lot like that - they will almost never be seen in an argument or debate. Just your last response would have been extremely atypical of an enlightened person.

e.g. EDIT aside from all of that, what do you know about what I do with the rest of my day? I'll tell you, NOTHING, hence, you judge in ignorance, that tells of you, and your judgmental abilities/inabilities. Why don't you try something constructive for a change, like trying to learn to control your own mouth!

That you could have experienced an enlightenment type experience, I could see. But an enlightenment experience, as profound as they tend to be, rarely last unless your entire state of being and personality has been transformed (usually thru a great deal of effort and considerable amount of time) into something compatible with remaining enlightened.

Mr. Robin Parsons

Aug8-03, 12:05 PM

This is what I had typed prior to seeing your responces, Hee hee,
WOOHOOooooooooo!
-----------

July 8 2003

So, eNtRoPy, you mentioned the idea of "Buddhist Enlightenment", if observant of Buddhist Monks you would notice, (in the older ones more-so) the 'Serenity of Being' that is achieved through/by/in the placating of the 'noises' of the mind.

This path is found by practice, (inner-intellectual practice) the preceding practice, needed to reach that state, is the practice of the silencing of the mouth, and that practice, is preceded by the controlling of the minds output through (outa) the mouth, AKA controlling your own speech. (Patterns/word usage*)

So we start the practices of (Jedi?) mind training, (Enlightened Buddhist Mindset) with the end result, the goal/gold in mind, of "Placating the Noises of the Mind" as to enjoy the serenity of a peaceful mind, by first learning to control ourselves in the manner(s) of our speech, followed by the learning of the controls of the mouth, learning to NOT speak, followed thereafter by the learning of the control of the thinking processes themselves, in the learning to silence the mind.

* The reasoning for the need of control over the word usage, speech patterns is in the recognition of the Emotive Driver that has association with speech patterns and the rebounding of the Emotive within the orator, literally stated as, "Your words end up driving you, and (then) your emotions, which will (then) drive your words, which will (then) drive your Emotions", so your ability to self control, delves from your ability to achieve some control over that type of patternistic process.

As for the idea of me "pedaling all this way, just to argue with seventeen year old boys" is sorta-kinda not very realistic about the situation that I find that I am currently in, inasmuch as, some might realize that one of the things that I pedal into town for, every day, is a simpler thing, it's called FOOD.

Hope that helps.........?

(This part is after I had read the responces)

As for how "Enlightened" I actually am?, you don't know....period!
eNtRoPy accuses me of anger to quickly, sees himself in that one, NOT moi, that is very clear to me, but why is it so clear to me, yet he doesn't see that?

"Atypical" is simply your judgment radagast, so it isn't what you expect, welcome to the Real world, try training yourself to be silent, "Non-talkative", in North American Society. Just this morning, someone calling me "antisocial", behind my back, because I walked by them, in silence. What is 'typical', or 'atypical', about that?

Find the Ego(tist), in what I write, not as simple as you would think, cause I can reasonably assure you that you will find your own, first!

radagast

Aug8-03, 01:07 PM

Originally posted by Mr. Robin Parsons
"Atypical" is simply your judgment radagast, so it isn't what you expect, welcome to the Real world, try training yourself to be silent, "Non-talkative", in North American Society. Just this morning, someone calling me "antisocial", behind my back, because I walked by them, in silence. What is 'typical', or 'atypical', about that?

Find the Ego(tist), in what I write, not as simple as you would think, cause I can reasonably assure you that you will find your own, first!

While it is my judgement, it is one I tend to trust. As for training, it do that quite regularly, both alone and with Buddhist monks. Being around them I do get the feel for the clarity or calmness that I, as a 'non-enlightened being' would expect sense around, and as part of, an enlightened individual. I have had, what I believe to be, an enlightenment experience (satori), so I feel I've got at least some grounding in forming a judgement in the area.

You speak of someone considering you antisocial for not speaking. While I wouldn't say my teacher is enlightened, I'm sure he is much closer than anyone else I've met personally. He talks only very rarely. I can imagine no case where anyone could or would consider him antisocial. Though he may not speak when he passes you, there is a profound sense of quiet compassion there. It is just my opinion, but I can't imagine someone that has achieved enlightenment to be considered antisocial, even in passing.

I have observed quite a bit of what you've written. Though you wouldn't be, what I would consider, egotistical, your ego shines thru just fine. As, I'm certain, does mine. This is what is lacking in the 'more' enlightened folk I've been associated with.

In reading your response carefully, I realize you are not claiming that you are enlightened and I'm not trying to argue with you, only voice how I would interpret what I've observed, regarding enlightenment of an individual, using you as an example.

Mr. Robin Parsons

Aug8-03, 03:08 PM

Originally posted by radagast
(SNIP) I have observed quite a bit of what you've written. Though you wouldn't be, what I would consider, egotistical, your ego shines thru just fine. As, I'm certain, does mine. This is what is lacking in the 'more' enlightened folk I've been associated with. (SNoP)

Examples please.... as one of the things that is (has been) very clear, in my life, is just how many people cannot tell/recognize the truth about the Ego's of 'others', inasmuch as the "takes one to know one" rule requires that, for you to recognize one who operates mostly absent of egotistical drive, you must be able to subdue your own ego to "at least" that degree....most cannot see 'that' which is 'that' which they cannot reach.

The easiest examples of Ego come from persons/peoples judgments, how well they are based in something, balanced against admittence to their own (self recognized) ignorance.

radagast

Aug8-03, 03:37 PM

Originally posted by Mr. Robin Parsons
Examples please.... as one of the things that is (has been) very clear, in my life, is just how many people cannot tell/recognize the truth about the Ego's of 'others', inasmuch as the "takes one to know one" rule requires that, for you to recognize one who operates mostly absent of egotistical drive, you must be able to subdue your own ego to "at least" that degree....most cannot see 'that' which is 'that' which they cannot reach.

The easiest examples of Ego come from persons/peoples judgments, how well they are based in something, balanced against admittence to their own (self recognized) ignorance.

Depending on your meanings, I'm not sure I disagree, yet there are things I can recognize in others that I cannot do myself.

When at retreat, there was situation during a work period, where one monk - having seen where we had been really working hard, told us to have a seat a get a cup of coffee. That monk left the kitchen and less than 20 seconds later another walked in and assumed we were loafing. We got chewed out for it. Normally I would have felt compelled to explain the situation. Having been at the retreat a while, our egos had subsided enough to intuitively realize that it really didn't matter, so we simply got up and resumed working. Having experienced a few times of reduced ego, I can often recognize it in others. As long as a persons ego isn't directly involved with another person having or not having an ego, they can sense the absence of the things we often associate with ego - judgemental behavior, lack of clarity of thought/action, defense mechanisms. In addition, reduced ego people listen better, because their ego's aren't getting in the way, they seem to be in the moment much more often than the rest of us, plus half a dozen attributes that have been mentioned here before, so don't need repeating.

Just as well, it doesn't take a lot of experience to realize when someone's verbally defensive. In an online situation, that is an excellent example of one's ego shining thru. What else would lead a person to defend a position - when nothing serious would occur from a lack of defense.

When you ask for examples, that, by itself, is a defensive act. Think about it. When it really comes down to it, why would you care whether we think your enlightened or not, yet you still manage to brave a written defense.

One thing you state really strikes to the heart of the matter. Judgement. Unbidden, when one person is judging another's actions/words/position, that, in and of itself, is an obvious act of ego. The persons I've known that were much closer to enlightenment than I am (or likely ever will be) are about as non-judgmental as they come.

Andy

Aug9-03, 08:45 AM

4) apparently you seem to think that the ony thing I do is exchange with andy, (17 year old Boy) what an un-enlightened cursive thing you are!

You definetly do more than exchange with me, i have noticed you exchanging with many other people aswell.

TENYEARS

Aug9-03, 09:36 AM

Radagast, I recommend the movie "Cirlce Of Iron".

Mr. Robin Parsons

Aug9-03, 05:33 PM

So radagast, your own words.....

Originally posted by radagast
Just as well, it doesn't take a lot of experience to realize when someone's verbally defensive. In an online situation, that is an excellent example of one's ego shining thru. What else would lead a person to defend a position The person wanting the truth to be the predominate result!- when nothing serious would occur from a lack of defense. Not really true as, a lie may be left standing, that is unacceptable at this point in the pathway that, by God's Grace, I must follow. (by being led)

When you ask for examples, that, by itself, is a defensive act. Think about it. When it really comes down to it, why would you care whether we think your enlightened or not, NO, but I do care about the "Truth", and how that is presented to people as that is all they have to learn from, and, as the learning is the important part, I would prefer to (attempt) do that well, if possible. yet you still manage to brave a written defense.

One thing you state really strikes to the heart of the matter. Judgement. Unbidden, when one person is judging another's actions/words/position, that, in and of itself, is an obvious act of ego. Hence the next quotation, from you, you starting in the excersize of judgment, the second one, followed by your first one... The persons I've known that were much closer to enlightenment than I am (or likely ever will be) are about as non-judgmental as they come.

Clearly here you pass judgment, inasmuch as you trust your judgment....

Originally posted by radagast
While it is my judgement, it is one I tend to trust. As for training, it do that quite regularly, both alone and with Buddhist monks. Being around them I do get the feel for the clarity or calmness that I, as a 'non-enlightened being' would expect sense around, and as part of, an enlightened individual. I have had, what I believe to be, an enlightenment experience (satori), so I feel I've got at least some grounding in forming a judgement in the area.

But here you have made an assumption about me.....that above you trust, but I ask you, based upon what?

Originally posted by radagast
No insult intended, RP, but using the definition of Enlightenment typical of Buddhism, I'd have to lean toward agreeing with ENtropy. Loss of ego is extremely typical of enlightened individuals. Even people that are practicing toward that are a lot like that - they will almost never be seen in an argument or debate. Just your last response would have been extremely atypical of an enlightened person.

As you have simply decided that you know 'the how' and 'the why' of my life, the presentation of the person, who is here, and yet you have little direct knowledge of me, no personal interaction, and are probably lacking in sufficient knowledge of the overall capabilities that I have been allowed to see/hear/feel/know/live in a full fourty seven years of living, (in my fourty-eighth) as the life that I lead has a form of a duality about it, that is exceedingly self evident, yet Abolutely impossible to validate to anyone else. (Personally, God's Grace. I really don't need to, haven't needed to for alot longer then most people will ever know, and, again by God's Grace, I do care!)

One of the simplest manners of "Hiding an Ego", in North American Society, is by being having, and being able to communicate esoteric knowledge. In a discourse that is simply intellectual inasmuch as it seeks to find truthfull knowledge, an Ego can be very very well hidden, especially when the person is, Not completely absent of one, but absent enough to have learned the value of absenting it, By Practise!

(But again, you would not know! would you?, how could you?)

radagast

Aug9-03, 09:48 PM

Originally posted by TENYEARS
Radagast, I recommend the movie "Cirlce Of Iron".

I've seen it. A very good movie.

Mr. Robin Parsons

Aug10-03, 11:44 AM

Originally posted by eNtRoPy
(SNIP) illegally camped tent (SNoP)

Curiousity? where did you get this idea from? the idea that my camping situation is "illegal"?

After all, your not a lawyer, right?

eNtRopY

Aug10-03, 02:35 PM

Originally posted by Mr. Robin Parsons
Curiousity? where did you get this idea from? the idea that my camping situation is "illegal"?

It's just a play on words. By a strategic placement of a single adjective, I can make you sound ten worse. I learned this technique from the public education system of America.

Why do you think I called Andy a 17 year old boy? Had I called him a 17 year old man, then you would have sounded less like the homosexual pedophile that you may (or may not) be. Of course, human nature is to always assume the worst of a person. So you can see how easy it is for me to capitalize on this fact as well. Yes, I also learned technique from the American public education system.

We rule!

eNtRopY

Mr. Robin Parsons

Aug10-03, 02:44 PM

Originally posted by eNtRopY
It's just a play on words. By a strategic placement of a single adjective, I can make you sound ten worse. I learned this technique from the public education system of America.

Why do you think I called Andy a 17 year old boy? Had I called him a 17 year old man, then you would have sounded less like the homosexual pedophile that you may (or may not) be. Of course, human nature is to always assume the worst of a person. So you can see how easy it is for me to capitalize on this fact as well. Yes, I also learned technique from the American public education system.

We rule!

eNtRopY

The braggadocio of a self inflated narcisist, not bad.

All you really suceed in doing, in the end, is lieing to yourself,

#1) cause you don't know if the "others" (the readers of these writings, other then your 'playpals') really believe you.

#2) becuase you must believe in your own lie(s) as to seem convincing.

#3) You think that because you can lie (and are willing to do it) that you are, therefore, Superior.

(clear proof of you duping yourself!)

eNtRopY

Aug10-03, 03:08 PM

How am I lying? You still haven't proven to any of us that you are not a homosexual pedophile OR that you saved the Canadian government $40,000,000 OR that you have such a profound understanding of gravity that you are constantly on the run from American G-men who want to destroy the potentially dangerous information in your head OR that you are enlightened.

eNtRopY

Andy

Aug10-03, 03:39 PM

LOL

Mr. Robin Parsons

Aug10-03, 04:57 PM

Originally posted by eNtRopY
How am I lying? (Opening your mouth, seems to work!) You still haven't proven to any of us that you are not a homosexual pedophile OR that you saved the Canadian government $40,000,000 OR that you have such a profound understanding of gravity that you are constantly on the run from American G-men who want to destroy the potentially dangerous information in your head OR that you are enlightened.

eNtRopY

And I have abolutely no need to prove anything to you.

PS. you haven't proven a lick of that to be true, either, but you have, once again proven yourself to be quite the "maker'r upperer of the storryer!" (How sad..and kinda silly, in a 'stupid' sorta way. Spuuun Doctor! "weaver of de tails, de (false) trails")

eNtRopY

Aug10-03, 06:10 PM

Originally posted by Mr. Robin Parsons
And I have abolutely no need to prove anything to you.

You have no need to lie to us either, yet that doesn't stop you.

eNtRopY

radagast

Aug10-03, 09:48 PM

My original post seems to have been eaten by the system... Computers, gotta love em.

Mr. P, Yes, I have made a judgement - having never claimed to be enlightened, this would be consistent with my current state of being.

Could I be incorrect, yes. I only have what I've seen to base my judgements on, so on that limited information have have made a judgement call. And your subsequent words didn't dissuade me from my original position.

Perhaps you are one of the few people in history to actually be enlightened. I've only heard of two that I considered enlightened in the last 2500 years (based on their words and actions), perhaps you're number 3. Imagine getting to sesshin and telling everyone that I got to talk to an enlightened person - the next Buddha.

And I was there!

Mr. Robin Parsons

Aug11-03, 08:42 AM

Originally posted by eNtRopY
You have no need to lie to us either, yet that doesn't stop you.

eNtRopY

Again, here you go, accusing with no eveidence, no proof, nothing but your own self assumptive silliness.

Little boy, go back to your mama!

PS the thread is about enlightenment, I know that is difficult for you entropy, to deal with reality, but try, for the sake of all of the readers of these forums, try.

Mr. Robin Parsons

Aug11-03, 08:46 AM

Originally posted by radagast
My original post seems to have been eaten by the system... Computers, gotta love em.
Mr. P, Yes, I have made a judgement - having never claimed to be enlightened, this would be consistent with my current state of being.
Could I be incorrect, yes. I only have what I've seen to base my judgements on, so on that limited information have have made a judgement call. And your subsequent words didn't dissuade me from my original position.
Perhaps you are one of the few people in history to actually be enlightened. I've only heard of two that I considered enlightened in the last 2500 years (based on their words and actions), perhaps you're number 3. Imagine getting to sesshin and telling everyone that I got to talk to an enlightened person - the next Buddha.

And I was there!

I agree, that kind of enlightenment is really really rare on the face of the planet, but it still occurs.

Whether, or not, this is achievable, in my lifetime, is something that is between myself, and my creator. Clearly, to me, it wouldn't, and cannot, occur, save for the blessings of that creator being given to such result.

Praise be to God!

radagast

Aug11-03, 11:16 AM

Originally posted by Mr. Robin Parsons
I agree, that kind of enlightenment is really really rare on the face of the planet, but it still occurs.

Whether, or not, this is achievable, in my lifetime, is something that is between myself, and my creator. Clearly, to me, it wouldn't, and cannot, occur, save for the blessings of that creator being given to such result.

Praise be to God!

That's the (extremely uncommon) kind of enlightenment that Entropy and I have been talking about.

Since it seems that your working definition was a little more commonly occurring, I withdraw any comments about your (lack of)attainment of enlightenment, under your definition.

eNtRopY

Aug11-03, 11:23 AM

Originally posted by Mr. Robin Parsons
Praise be to God!

Although, the Zen philosophy doesn't address the issue of whether or not God exists, when you get right down to it, every great Zen master was an athiest.

eNtRopY

Mr. Robin Parsons

Aug11-03, 03:23 PM

So lets put it this way, of all of the ones, who have achieved a true form of enlightenment, had to have had that within them, from the beginning, just that, they themselves, had not yet learned enough about themselves, to live with that which is within them, as free.

Even the mother who adopted me, recognized that I needed to be free.

(nature? nurture? 'or both!?)

Andy

Aug11-03, 04:33 PM

Oh my god!

Royce

Aug11-03, 06:52 PM

Originally posted by eNtRopY
Although, the Zen philosophy doesn't address the issue of whether or not God exists, when you get right down to it, every great Zen master was an athiest.

eNtRopY

That may not be true. I read somewhere, possibly an Alan Watts book, I can't remember where that the Buddha saw god in the end. When asked about God and spirits he said let the ''gods and spirits take care of themselves. We must learn to this live life here on this world. That may not be a direct quote it is at least aparaphrase of what he was said to have said.

Whethe Buddhist or Christian it is within all of us. We have only to look within and accept what we see. Then the hard work starts.

TENYEARS

Aug11-03, 07:08 PM

Zen, christian, american indian, voodoo, science, santa claus does not address anything. Individuals address the truth not a building, a computer a group of people or whatever relative objects one needs to define to grope for some meaning. The truth exists in one place and one place alone. You may call it every nowhere or nowhere everywhere, but in the end if it aint in mud it isn't anywhere.

radagast

Aug12-03, 09:17 AM

Originally posted by TENYEARS
Zen, christian, american indian, voodoo, science, santa claus does not address anything. Individuals address the truth not a building, a computer a group of people or whatever relative objects one needs to define to grope for some meaning. The truth exists in one place and one place alone. You may call it every nowhere or nowhere everywhere, but in the end if it aint in mud it isn't anywhere.

Except for that cryptic part about mud, I think most Zen Buddhist would agree.

Iacchus32

Aug12-03, 09:38 AM

All we are is dust in the wind dude! [;)]

Mr. Robin Parsons

Aug19-03, 06:11 PM

Ah yes, that mention of "My Mom", it was an "intuitive thought" that had arisen 'within her', (at last that is what she has told me, more then once) as she had been observing this boy playing in the back yard, less then five years old, and it was from 'within her' that she had known of the need of myself, to be free.

(Lord knows!! I had nothing to do with it!)

quartodeciman

Aug20-03, 12:31 PM

Then there was the zen monk who declared: "Now that I have become enlightened, I am just as miserable as I ever was. Ha! Ha!"

Mr. Robin Parsons

Aug20-03, 12:58 PM

Originally posted by quartodeciman
Then there was the zen monk who declared: "Now that I have become enlightened, I am just as miserable as I ever was. Ha! Ha!"
Perhaps his perception of being, or having become "enlightened" was simply a self-deception, as I, personally, have not found the pathway (my own) to be a miserable one, just that some of the people that I have had to deal with, along that pathway, have definately tried to make it that!

God does not make it miserable to be enlightened, humans do!

quartodeciman

Aug20-03, 04:32 PM

I rather enjoy thinking he is right on target, and it sounds very zenlike.

Mr. Robin Parsons

Aug20-03, 04:51 PM

Originally posted by quartodeciman
I rather enjoy thinking he is right on target, and it sounds very zenlike.
OK, but I would rather surpass "zenlike", xazen and beyoooond!

quartodeciman

Aug20-03, 05:46 PM

You probably meant zazen-- jes' sittin' thar, thinkin' nuttin'.

This is a tangent, but-- In 1968 Karlheinz Stockhausen wrote an intuitive composition called Es ("It") for a trained group of musicians. Here is the instruction for each musician:

think NOTHING
wait until it is absolutely still within you
when you have attained this
begin to play

as soon as you start to think, stop
and try to re-attain
the state of NON-THINKING
then continue playing.

------

:) TFYP!

that's Thanks For Your Patience.

Mr. Robin Parsons

Aug20-03, 05:58 PM

Originally posted by quartodeciman
(SNIP) You probably meant zazen-- jes' sittin' thar, thinkin' nuttin'. (SNoP)
Uuuuh, no, I meant Xazen, means; "beyond Zen!"

radagast

Aug21-03, 05:04 PM

If you meant to have it in Japanese, then shouldn't that be chozen to mean 'beyond zen'?

Mr. Robin Parsons

Aug22-03, 01:18 PM

Originally posted by radagast
If you meant to have it in Japanese, then shouldn't that be chozen to mean 'beyond zen'?
The manner in which I express it, is the manner in which it was taught to me, hence out of respect for that which "teaches"(taught) me, I stick with what I know

radagast

Aug22-03, 02:30 PM

Just as a point of curiosity (not being fluent in Japanese), does that mean 'Xazen' is Japanese?

Mr. Robin Parsons

Aug22-03, 05:40 PM

Originally posted by radagast
Just as a point of curiosity (not being fluent in Japanese), does that mean 'Xazen' is Japanese?
If the question is towards me, I have no idea!

hypnagogue

Aug30-03, 04:12 AM

A question for Royce and Radagast (and anyone else with any insight):

What does it mean to quiet the ego in terms of meditation? Specifically, how is it distinct from quieting the mind? Quieting the ego when in the presence of other people seems to be clearly distinct from quieting the mind; presuming solitary meditation, though, the distinctions seem to break down. In this situation, what is the difference between the two?

Zero

Aug30-03, 08:47 AM

Drugs....lots and lots of drugs is what you people need...ketamine, mostly.

hypnagogue

Aug30-03, 11:48 AM

Got 'em, thanks for the suggestion though.

radagast

Sep2-03, 07:55 AM

Since meditation isn't a straightforward, press this button and the ego stops, press this button and the mind's voice stops, I'm not sure exactly how to answer your question. Meditation does tend to affect both the mind's voice, by quieting it, and your ego. In all my experiences of watching my own mind, I can't help but think there's a relationship between the mind's voice and the ego, but that could simply be my seeing a stronger relationship where only a simple corrolative set of experiences exists.

Royce

Sep2-03, 10:04 AM

It is simply (easy to say but not in practice) a matter of what is in control. By quieting the mind something stops the constant chatter of our minds to be quiet and listen. By quieting our ego that same something, whether we call it the superego, real self or soul, controls our ego instead of our ego controlling us.

We should not supress the ego but take control of it and not let it interfere. How this is actally done other than by willing it to be so I can't really say. How do we control our ego or temper or emotions in normal life and in society?

The ego first asserts itself around the age of two, hense the terrible two's. It is our becoming seberate from our parents and become an identity of our own. It is a necessary part of our personallity and is designed(?) to resent and deny authority as well as say "I am." It usually is also saying "I am the greatest and most important above all others." As we grow older, more mature and our individuallity and charcater become developed it becomes necessary to reign in our egos and realize that others are important too and the there is something greater than us.

If we supress the ego or try to do away with it altogether we actually give it energy as it takes energy to supress anything and that energy goes right to that which we are attempting to supress.
If we control our ego or any other impulse or compulsion we then take energy from it and become stronger and it weaker. It takes practice.

To lose our ego completely we lose our identity and become selfless. This is seen by some as a worthwhile goal but if we lose our self and identity we take on the identity and self of something else. We become one with the One reality, or in my mind, God. This is a final goal and cannot or should not take place until we have become fully integrated and whole within ourselves and our character and identity is fully formed and complete, when we have achieved complete harmony and peace within ourselves, enlightenment which is our goal and purpose in life on this world.

I know this is much more than you asked but important as many including myself when first starting out think that we must supress or do away with our egoes. This is impossible and causes more trouble than good. My best answer is to will it to be quiet just as we will our mind to be quiet. Learning this self control, self discipline is at the very heart of meditation and at first the hardest to do.

It must be done without effort, without energy or consentrating on it before we can go on. Once even partailly mastered if even for a short time we can then go on and begin reaping the many benifits of meditation.

hypnagogue

Sep2-03, 01:05 PM

Thanks for the replies, Royce and Radagast. The question still lingers a bit for me though. Specifically, Royce mentions a distinction between 'supressing' the ego and 'controlling' it. Royce, would you mind expounding on this distinction a little further? It's not clear to me how controlling the ego is not in some sense supressing it, and vice versa how supressing it is not in some sense controlling it.

I do have an intuition of what it means to be ego-less, from experiences I have had with meditation and certain drugs. But as Radagast mentions, in the context of solitary meditation, controlling the ego and controlling mind chatter seem to be essentially the same thing. I would appreciate further insight on the matter. For instance, could we explore a little further the distinction between the ego and that which is conscious but is not part of the ego? How are we defining 'ego' to begin with?

Mr. Robin Parsons

Sep2-03, 03:57 PM

Hummm, isn't an 'absence of ego' (partially) really an absence of judgment(alism), ergo lack of expression of self, from perspective.

"Sound of mind" and 'ego' are sorta distinct, although ego can generate intellectual/mind noise/sound, the other is seen as 'spiritually sourced'. TTBOMK/IMHO
(Ya just gotta remember that there are both "good" {truthfull} and "bad" {lieing} spirits)

Royce

Sep2-03, 05:06 PM

hypnagogue, This is a hard question. While I know the answer in my mind, putting it into words that someone else can understand is hard.
I'll give it s shot for now but please be patient with me. If I think of a better way later I'll let you know.
The mind thinks thoughts, sometimes random some times meaningful that we get caught in and distracted from our purpose. This happens all the time in normal day to day living as well as in meditation. Our soul or super ego can watch these thought come and go without being distracted from its goal and it is only background noise. It can however quiet the mind by not getting caught up and by consciously not thinking of anything. We soon learn to do this without effort or conscious thought or drugs.
The ego will on occation try to get or demands your attention just as a small child tries or demands the attention of a parent. When we are busy doing some thing else it willl try to distract us as a child does when we are on the phone or computer. If we encounter that which it perceives as greater than itself it immediately attempts to block that perception as it is jealous of its primacy.
We control our ego the same way we control small children. We deny the the attention that they demand and don't listen to is and tell it to be quiet. If it gets in the way we gently push or brush it aside.
This is controlling the ego.
Suppressing the ego is by an conscious act of will holding it dowm and denying it existence or expression by consentration as we attempt to do pain. Rather than acknowledging it and simply not paying attention we do just the opposite but consentrating and actively holding it down and denying it it's existence or expression.
I hope this helps. Sorry that I can't do better right now.

hypnagogue

Sep2-03, 05:27 PM

Royce,

Thanks again for your thoughts. I think I have a clearer idea now of what you are trying to say. Of course, if any further thoughts come to you on the subject, please share.

I find it useful to think of the ego as one's perceived identity: name, memories, habits, beliefs, etc. In this sense it is difficult for me to conceive rationally of meditative states of consciousness which are not grounded in the ego, but rather are different expressions of that ego. This difficulty is quite confounding to me since although it is rationally difficult to conceive of, I have to some degrees experienced and verified it first-hand, either by extreme dissociation or what I guess could be called extreme association, in other words the unbounded unitive state of consciousness. As I have alluded to, my most powerful ego-transforming experiences have come via drug use; I am now interested in exploring and cultivating the transformative abilities of my consciousness through more natural means, although I have some doubts that any such experiences will be as profound as what I have already experienced. But I am very open to the possibilities.

As an aside, this is just a technical objection, but I prefer not to think of that which is not the ego as the super ego-- I associate that term with the Freudian definition, which I believe is something altogether different from what you are referring to.

Sunfist

Sep2-03, 05:52 PM

I have a friend of mine who did and he forgot it. I feel really bad for him. We were at his house and suddenly he jumped up from where he was sitting with this look of joy on his face. He then started frantically searching for a pen and paper mumbling something about "I have to write this down now!". He couldn't find any and started getting distraught. He was saying, "I'm losing it!!!" Finally, he couldn't remember what it was. He said it was one of the secrets to the Universe and that it made so much of our lives make sense, but it almost went beyond words. That's why when he didn't perfectly have it fresh in his mind anymore, he couldn't put words on it.

radagast

Sep3-03, 08:24 AM

Hypnagogue,
When you define ego the way you have, then Royce and my comments don't apply as directly. When I have experienced ego-less states, I didn't lose my memories, name, or beliefs, though my sense of self (as separate from everything else) was much much less distinct. I also lost, for a period of time, all habituation to even the simplest sensory inputs - something the experience does have in common with psychoactive drugs.

Having lived thru the sixties/seventies, I can attest that drug experiences, especially the psychoactive variety, can have a strong effect on our sense of ego and self. While meditative experiences can be just as powerful, they require much more work to get to a point where you are likely to have that type of experience, and are much harder to predict.

Mr. Robin Parsons

Sep3-03, 10:53 AM

Gotta say it, find it comical that no one picked up on what I stated, (my first statement) tells me that some of you, believing that you are practising some sort of "lack/absence of ego" simply put, are NOT.

(little else then 'self deception', I guess)

My apologies if it offends you, then again, it would only be your ego that would be off-ended, soooo, bespeaks the truth once again, and without anything from me!

Royce

Sep3-03, 12:05 PM

Mr. Parsons, please forgive me but I have no idea of what your saying or trying to say. I do however understand yout P.S. so that is what I'm doing[:D]

Yes your sound of mind as being different from your ego is the way I see it and yes part of the egoless experience is not being judgemental but accepting. If this is what your saying, then I agree.

Hypnagogue, Our ego is a part of ourself, of what and who we are. It is part of what makes and keeps us individuals. It is not a seperate entity within us but one aspect of us, of our personallity.

Just as our higher consciousness, soul, can observe the thoughts come and go in our mind without getting carried away with them and, to a small degree at first, control the activity or chatter of our mind, to quieten it, our soul can do the same thing with the part of ourselves we call the ego. I think of it as a small unrulely child that needs control and civilizing, probably because mine does.

If we concentrate on anything, quieting our mind or ego we defeat our purpose. If we by effort of will try to keep something from happening within us we defeat our purpose. If we, our souls or upper consciousness simply ignore whatever is trying to distract us and refuse to get carried away or distracted by it then we are on the right path. With practice and learning and disciplin we become better at it and can more effectively reach the meditative stae.

Each of us experience the episodes Glenn is talking about differently yet we who have experience such thing recognize and understand the experience of others. We lose all bond with earth and our bodies and exist in a void that is the one universal reality. We see and come to know our real self and our relationship with the One and the Universe and nature. It is life changing and joyous and free and loving. Better than any drug because it is real, more real than anything else that we have ever experience or known. We want to go back and experience again and again.

I don't know that we can really go back there again because we are so changed that we will experience it differently each time and the time may come that there is no longer any need to go back there but it is time to move on. Once seen and experienced once we have learned and gotten all that we can and need from it, it too becomes a distraction.

radagast

Sep3-03, 12:13 PM

Well said, Royce, well said.

Mr. Robin Parsons

Sep3-03, 12:15 PM

Originally posted by Royce
(SNIP) Yes your sound of mind as being different from your ego is the way I see it and yes part of the egoless experience is not being judgemental but accepting. If this is what your saying, then I agree. (SNoP)
So, what you write seems 'self contradicting' (a Little at the beginning) but you do seem to have understood what I have stated in this "quotes" emboldening.
That said, you say it is "a part", to the best of my knowledge it is the only place to begin, as the "expression of judgment" is the evidence of the ego in action, unless the judgment is obtained purely from the observation/description of the 'Self Evident Truth'. (there is a computer keyboard that I am typing on.....not self evident to anyone who isn't here/present/where "I" am)

Very few people seem able to recognize that, 'common sense', in a manner of speaking, as it is their egos that get in the way.
(Same thing happens in learning, really obvious sometmes, really obvious!)

Royce

Sep3-03, 01:14 PM

Originally posted by Mr. Robin Parsons
That said, you say it is "a part", to the best of my knowledge it is the only place to begin, as the "expression of judgment" is the evidence of the ego in action, unless the judgment is obtained purely from the observation/description of the 'Self Evident Truth'. (there is a computer keyboard that I am typing on.....not self evident to anyone who isn't here/present/where "I" am)

Very few people seem able to recognize that, 'common sense', in a manner of speaking, as it is their egos that get in the way.
(Same thing happens in learning, really obvious sometmes, really obvious!)

I think I understand. Yes of course the ego in action is judgemental. That I think is one of its more important functions.
In everyday life we pass judgement on vertually everything we read, see or hear. Is this true? Do I believe this? Is this accurate or real or worthwhile knowing? However it can as you say also hinder learning anythg new. That not what my daddy says. I don't believe that. This does not agree with what I thought was true so it is saying that I am a fool or wrong. Yes its really obvious. Its obvious here i=on these forums (my posts included). If you attack my beliefs you attack me and I will become defensive and retaliate.

It is the other property of the ego that I was addressing when in meditation. The one that says to us I am the great and hold no other before me. There can be only one. When the spirit of truth and light comes to us our egos may try to distract us or may try to block our seeing the spirit or whatever. If this happens we miss the opportunity to experience the light and truth. It may or maynot come again once we have our egos better under control.

Mr. Robin Parsons

Sep3-03, 03:20 PM

Originally posted by Royce
(SNIP) It is the other property of the ego that I was addressing when in meditation. The one that says to us I am the great and hold no other before me. There can be only one. When the spirit of truth and light comes to us our egos may try to distract us or may try to block our seeing the spirit or whatever. If this happens we miss the opportunity to experience the light and truth. It may or maynot come again once we have our egos better under control. (SNoP)
Are you saying that when in meditation your ego tells you that; "I am the great and hold no other before me" ??

(Mine definitely does not do that, if it did, God's Grace, I would employ the Truth to chase that misnomer away!!)

It is only in absence of "Self Perspective Judgment" that there is room enough for the truth to be, to work, to be accumulated as to achieve understanding of greater still, Truth.

Plato asked; "What is God?"
Mr. Robin Parsons answered; "The Truth!"

....it is that simple, and complete, all the rest, are the lies.

P.S. When I mentioned "Good" and "Bad" Spirits, the "Bad" being the liars, caution needs be taken as they will also employ "Partiallities of Truth" as to lure and mislead!

hypnagogue

Sep3-03, 06:03 PM

Originally posted by radagast
Hypnagogue,
When you define ego the way you have, then Royce and my comments don't apply as directly. When I have experienced ego-less states, I didn't lose my memories, name, or beliefs, though my sense of self (as separate from everything else) was much much less distinct. I also lost, for a period of time, all habituation to even the simplest sensory inputs - something the experience does have in common with psychoactive drugs.

You're right, I didn't state what I meant clearly enough. My experience with ego dissolution has not been that my memories, beliefs etc. vanished, but that they no longer seemed part of the "me" that was in that state. Those things with which I usually am content to identify myself seemed not only wholly inadequate to describe the sense of self I experienced, but (in at least one experience) seemed completely, utterly absurd: I call myself this name, and this is supposed to be who I am? Preposterous! I think of my memories as happening to this person with this name, but that person is not me in this moment. And so on. As far as I can discern, this is what it means to be ego-less, namely to dissociate the totality of one's identity in a given moment from the usual ego construct that is comprised of a name, beliefs, memories, etc.

Could you explain further what you mean by losing habituation to sensory inputs?

Having lived thru the sixties/seventies, I can attest that drug experiences, especially the psychoactive variety, can have a strong effect on our sense of ego and self. While meditative experiences can be just as powerful, they require much more work to get to a point where you are likely to have that type of experience, and are much harder to predict.

I don't question that meditative states that are as powerful as psychedelic experiences can be attained, I only question my personal ability to reach that high a level of meditative consciousness. I know it's a long and difficult discipline to master, but hopefully I can be persistent enough to reap its higher rewards.

(While we're on the topic, quick question: whenever I attempt to meditate in the traditional lotus position, it's not long before my back aches and becomes quite distracting, whether I'm sitting on a hard surface or a pillow. Is simply lying down an acceptable meditative posture?)

Originally posted by Royce
Each of us experience the episodes Glenn is talking about differently yet we who have experience such thing recognize and understand the experience of others. We lose all bond with earth and our bodies and exist in a void that is the one universal reality. We see and come to know our real self and our relationship with the One and the Universe and nature. It is life changing and joyous and free and loving. Better than any drug because it is real, more real than anything else that we have ever experience or known. We want to go back and experience again and again.

Royce, I don't know if you have any experiences with psychedelics or not, or if I am misinterpretting your statement, but I don't think that the unitive states of consciousness achieved through meditation are any 'better' or 'more real' than those achieved through psychedelics. Nor am I suggesting that psychedelics are instantaneous enlightenment; out of my several experiences, only one or two truly yielded what I would call an ecstatic state of unitive consciousness. But there was nothing 'fake' about those experiences. Indeed, they match up very well with every description I have read of the unitive experience, including the acute sense of heightened reality.

radagast

Sep3-03, 09:32 PM

Originally posted by hypnagogue
You're right, I didn't state what I meant clearly enough. My experience with ego dissolution has not been that my memories, beliefs etc. vanished, but that they no longer seemed part of the "me" that was in that state. Those things with which I usually am content to identify myself seemed not only wholly inadequate to describe the sense of self I experienced, but (in at least one experience) seemed completely, utterly absurd: I call myself this name, and this is supposed to be who I am? Preposterous! I think of my memories as happening to this person with this name, but that person is not me in this moment. And so on. As far as I can discern, this is what it means to be ego-less, namely to dissociate the totality of one's identity in a given moment from the usual ego construct that is comprised of a name, beliefs, memories, etc.

That sounds much like the what I think of/experienced as ego/egoless.

Could you explain further what you mean by losing habituation to sensory inputs?

Psychology term, it means the way we tend to ignore things in our environment that are common and we are used to. I once read a murder mystery where someone comes in and kills a man, yet a large number of people swore that no one entered the building. It turned out to have been someone dressed as the mailman, someone that everyone sees, but doesn't notice. When you lose the normal habituation, everything seems new, fascinating, worth looking at. If you've experienced psychotropic drugs, then you should recognise the description.

I don't question that meditative states that are as powerful as psychedelic experiences can be attained, I only question my personal ability to reach that high a level of meditative consciousness. I know it's a long and difficult discipline to master, but hopefully I can be persistent enough to reap its higher rewards.
While it is a lot harder, it is worth it. I find sitting regularly with a group helps deepen the practice.

(While we're on the topic, quick question: whenever I attempt to meditate in the traditional lotus position, it's not long before my back aches and becomes quite distracting, whether I'm sitting on a hard surface or a pillow. Is simply lying down an acceptable meditative posture?)

That's simple to answer, but hard to put into practice. One) be very careful to maintain good posture two) ensure you are sitting in such a way that your hips/pelvis tilt a little forward [if you can get into lotus, this happens naturally], three) give good care to try and relax your entire body while meditating. [kinda paradoxical, relaxing completely yet maintaining good posture] four) definitely sit on a cushion or something that elevates your butt a little.

I had good instruction in this, plus hands on, in person advice, yet it still took me years to master my posture enough that my back wasn't killing my by the end of a meditation retreat. Of course I've always been a little slow. You're a little ahead of me, in seven years I've still not gotten close to the flexibility needed to get into half lotus, much less lotus.

Personally, I would advise against lying down - it's too easy to just fall asleep. With deepening concentration, you learn that the pain isn't something that you have to pay attention to. Pain at the meditation retreats is constant and everpresent after the first few hours. By concentrating on the meditation, I find it doesn't seem to matter very much. In October I will have to seriously put this to the test. I have a six day retreat to survive. [:)]

Good luck in your practice.

radagast

Sep3-03, 09:36 PM

Originally posted by Mr. Robin Parsons
Are you saying that when in meditation your ego tells you that; "I am the great and hold no other before me" ??

I think what Royce was saying was that in meditation you see the games your mind can play. This makes them easier to recognise when not meditating, less likely to be carried away by them.

hypnagogue

Sep4-03, 01:18 AM

Originally posted by radagast
Psychology term, it means the way we tend to ignore things in our environment that are common and we are used to. I once read a murder mystery where someone comes in and kills a man, yet a large number of people swore that no one entered the building. It turned out to have been someone dressed as the mailman, someone that everyone sees, but doesn't notice. When you lose the normal habituation, everything seems new, fascinating, worth looking at. If you've experienced psychotropic drugs, then you should recognise the description.

Thanks for the clarification-- yes, I definitely know what you're talking about now. [:)]

That's simple to answer, but hard to put into practice. One) be very careful to maintain good posture two) ensure you are sitting in such a way that your hips/pelvis tilt a little forward [if you can get into lotus, this happens naturally], three) give good care to try and relax your entire body while meditating. [kinda paradoxical, relaxing completely yet maintaining good posture] four) definitely sit on a cushion or something that elevates your butt a little.

I had good instruction in this, plus hands on, in person advice, yet it still took me years to master my posture enough that my back wasn't killing my by the end of a meditation retreat. Of course I've always been a little slow. You're a little ahead of me, in seven years I've still not gotten close to the flexibility needed to get into half lotus, much less lotus.

Personally, I would advise against lying down - it's too easy to just fall asleep. With deepening concentration, you learn that the pain isn't something that you have to pay attention to. Pain at the meditation retreats is constant and everpresent after the first few hours. By concentrating on the meditation, I find it doesn't seem to matter very much. In October I will have to seriously put this to the test. I have a six day retreat to survive. [:)]

Ah, stupid me. Here I've just been sitting cross-legged the whole time, Indian style. I've looked up the proper position after I suspected it was a lot more difficult than I thought given your description, and.. boy. [8)] I can sort of do it, but it's not at all comfortable-- feels like my right foot is being stretched way too much, and it's never been quite 100% after a few bad ankle sprains. I think I can get it with some practice, though it might be a long while before I can get the soles of my feet facing up all the way.

As for the back pain aspect, it's nothing I can't put up with and with further practice I'm sure I'll be able to disregard it completely. I was more worried that I'm doing something physically injurious in some way to my back. Ironically, I only get this when (as far as I can tell) my posture is very good, ie my back is completely straight. If I slump over a little it recedes a bit. I suppose this might be alleviated by sitting in the proper lotus position, but then there's the feet to worry about. [s(] I guess I'll get used to it.

Good luck in your practice.

Thanks much-- good luck with your October retreat as well. Let me (us) know how it turns out. You have at least one person hoping you can experience another kensho. [:)]

Mr. Robin Parsons

Sep4-03, 10:55 AM

Originally posted by hypnagogue
(SNIP) Ah, stupid me. Here I've just been sitting cross-legged the whole time, Indian style. I've looked up the proper position after I suspected it was a lot more difficult than I thought given your description, and.. boy. I can sort of do it, but it's not at all comfortable-- feels like my right foot is being stretched way too much, and it's never been quite 100% after a few bad ankle sprains. I think I can get it with some practice, though it might be a long while before I can get the soles of my feet facing up all the way. (SNoP)
Back when I was ~36 I encountered a slight problem that gave me reason to go to a gym. (had a friend who was an instructor there, it was a Kick boxing gym)
What I discovered @ 36 was that through regular stetching excersizes I was able to increase my range of motion, to a degree that had been completely unknown to me, in my entire previous history, to a point wherein I could sit between my two legs, while down on my knees, (Butt on the floor comletely, between my two feet, feet 'face' down) without any pain at all.

Never before had I been able to do that.

They had a machine that was specifically for stretching the legs out, like doing the splits sitting down, and throught the use of that one, and several other REGULAR stretching excersizes, a range of motion of any human should be increasable. (took me about 6 months)

Hope that helps!

Royce

Sep4-03, 11:09 AM

Glenn has it right about the ego thing and the tricks that the mind plays on us. As far as posture and the lotus position goes, I don't and can't. If I ever got into a lotus position it would take a heavey crane to get me back up and out of it. It may be good exercise and good disciplin but it is not necessary.
I sit upright in a straight back chair at our dining room or kitchen table with both feet flat o the floor and my arms and hand before me relaxed on the table. I have achieved whatever experiences that I have had in just such a position.

I have never taken any psychoactive or recreational drugs. My drugs are coffee, cigarettes, and ice cream. When I was younger I would have had to include booze. I can not therefore speak from personal experience or compare the two types of experience. The one that you described sound like complete disassociation.

hypnagogue

Sep4-03, 11:30 AM

Originally posted by Royce
Glenn has it right about the ego thing and the tricks that the mind plays on us. As far as posture and the lotus position goes, I don't and can't. If I ever got into a lotus position it would take a heavey crane to get me back up and out of it. It may be good exercise and good disciplin but it is not necessary.
I sit upright in a straight back chair at our dining room or kitchen table with both feet flat o the floor and my arms and hand before me relaxed on the table. I have achieved whatever experiences that I have had in just such a position.

I think I'm going to take Mr. Robin Parson's suggestion and try some stretching routines, since it seems like I can get into a lotus with a bit of work. In the meantime sitting in a chair sounds reasonable enough, since you can maintain a good posture without that achy back.

I have never taken any psychoactive or recreational drugs. My drugs are coffee, cigarettes, and ice cream. When I was younger I would have had to include booze. I can not therefore speak from personal experience or compare the two types of experience. The one that you described sound like complete disassociation.

Actually, I should clarify myself (once again). I was talking about the experience I described above (the part in italics-- this is not me, etc.) in order to clarify my idea of what it meant to be ego-less. But that experience came in an extremely dissociative state that if anything was the opposite of the unitive state. They are similar insofar as the ego seems to dissolve and lose importance, but the dissociative ego-loss was a lot more "in your face" than the unitive ego-loss, and also focused primarily on what I was not rather than what I was. In rough metaphor, in the dissociative experience my ego shrank to 0 without much to fill the vacuum, while in the unitive experience my surrounding awareness grew to infinity, thus effectively rendering my ego small and unimportant.

Mr. Robin Parsons

Sep4-03, 01:16 PM

Originally posted by hypnagogue
I think I'm going to take Mr. Robin Parson's suggestion and try some stretching routines, since it seems like I can get into a lotus with a bit of work. In the meantime sitting in a chair sounds reasonable enough, since you can maintain a good posture without that achy back.
Stretch until you feel a slight (very slight to start) burning sensation, hold while you count out tens seconds, repeat (spaced out) three times per muscle you are stretching.

If you do sit in the chair, give you heart a break, and ensure that your feet are propped up, either level with your heart, or as near to that as you can get, comfortably.

(Only suggestions, Do Whatever you Want!)

Mr. Robin Parsons

Sep10-03, 06:01 PM

Originally posted by Mr. Robin Parsons
Ah yes, that mention of "My Mom", it was an "intuitive thought" that had arisen 'within her', (at last that is what she has told me, more then once) as she had been observing this boy playing in the back yard, less then five years old, and it was from 'within her' that she had known of the need of myself, to be free.
(Lord knows!! I had nothing to do with it!)
Just as a clarification of this, the idea that "I needed to be Free", it is from that, that I have learned these.......

#1) We have greater Freedom With Rules. (Focault SP?)

#2) "Freedom is a very interesting thing, the more you understand it, the less you possess it." (Don't know!)

And hold them to be true......

Dazed&Confused

May28-04, 05:07 PM

I found enlightenment in my own home. One moment the darkness closed in like a warm blanket on a cold damp Irish evening, then the wife found the fuse box and the light filled the the room bringing truth to every corner of the room.

Enlightenment, dead easy, I do not why you all are making such a fuss over it, it's not like we discovered that there was never a single Big Bang or that the concept of time as we know it is just a human condition implanted by our need to know when to light the fires to keep the monsters away at night.

While I am rambling on, we have decided that the concept of God and the burning bush, Ten Commandments, the entire Catholic Church, the Vatican, the Popes are and were all the original political scandal that has taken the words of a good man who died for what he believed in and turned it into a yoke for all of mankind.

I am new here in this forum and wonder if any of you share these same views, here in Ireland we find that if you do not just stand in the queues waiting for the Church to take you money, demand that you not question their dogma and never speak of matters not approved by the Pope.

hypnagogue

May28-04, 05:33 PM

Les Sleeth

May31-04, 07:40 PM

Enlightenment is a phenomena falling under the more general category of what are called spiritual experiences. Spiritual experiences are certain modalities of human consciousness (just as normal wakefulness and dreaming are certain modalities of consciousness); as such, spiritual experiences are not to be confused with religious institutions. Conflating the two is like conflating Bach's music with a Bach fan club. If all you ever know of Bach is the fan club, you are not likely to be impressed with this Bach fellow. To be truly impressed with Bach, you must actually listen to his music, regardless of what you think of his fan club. Likewise, to truly be impressed with spiritual experience, you must actually experience it first hand, regardless of what you think of religious institutions. Unfortunately, spiritual experience is exceedingly rare, and as a result many people brush it off without knowing what is meant by it.

Very well said.

Personally I believe "enlightenment" and "spiritual" are simply terms we apply to something we don't understand because, as you say, so few people have actually experienced it, and few people today study it objectively (e.g. non-religiously). I would love to adjust those terms to modern language, and discuss the instances of genuine enlightenment as evolution (of consciousness).

Why would evolution be a more fitting context? This is very difficult to explain without understanding the experience of union, as it was termed in the West, or samadhi as it was/is called in the East. A careful study of the history of enlightenment reveals the practice of union was always associated with it. And if one were to study it, not as something to be pondered in awe, but neutrally and analytically so that we can see if it has potentional as a direction for consciousness development, then I think something is there.

If we were simply to evaluate it for its practical value (and I'll leave happiness and contentment out of it even though I think most of the world's problems are caused by the lack of them), one very valuable skill one acquires in union is intellectual neutrality. In a mind that is always "going," and subject to conditioning (often with the individual quite unaware that), it is very difficult to think a clear path from point A to point B because the incessant movement, preferences/predjudices and trends of the mind interfer. Consequently, conclusions reached reflect that interference.

Another practical skill is the ability to better see the "whole." While a thinking mind is often best suited for analysis of details, or "parts" contemplation, a still mind is superb for looking at an entire situation. In this sort of reflection, one pays attention to a situation until overall impressions are formed before translating what is "seen" into ideas. In that generalist view, one best sees underlying or foundational principles that help establish a situation.

Is what we call "enlightenment" the next step in consciousness evolution? Are individuals like the Buddha or Nanak or Jesus, rather than founders of religions, actually evolutionary harbingers? Given the time scale of evolution, and the fact that reliable reports of enlightenment have only occurred for the last 3000 years, might such individuals be like the first kernals of popping corn, and signaling a direction we are all headed? And given the fact that this particular evolution would be something we must consciously decide to do, and consciously work at accomplishing, is the process of evolution itself possibly evolving?

loseyourname

May31-04, 10:05 PM

What kind of evolution are you referring to, Sleeth? Biological evolution involves a change in genetic units of heredity, which cannot be consciously controlled.

Les Sleeth

May31-04, 10:49 PM

What kind of evolution are you referring to, Sleeth? Biological evolution involves a change in genetic units of heredity, which cannot be consciously controlled.

I know what biological evolution entails, and it's not that sort of evolution. I realize physicalists think evolution is completely explained by chemistry and physics, but since they can't make their case I don't yet buy it. Even though one can trace copius layers of physical complexity and interactions that accompany the genetics behind adaptation, what they cannot account for empirically is the quality of change and organization present in life. I emphasize "empirical" because there are lots of nice theories about what achieves that state of organizational quality in life, but absolutely no demostration of it outside of life. To me, it appears that physicalists have lost their objectivity (due to the a priori assumption that physical processes can explain life) because I cannot see how one is able to observe the organizational behavior in life and not conclude something totally unphysical-like is going on.

So what could an uncharacteristic physical organizing behavior mean? I say, it indicates there might another influence present in life which is not present in ordinary chemistry. Such an influence might be an evolutive force/principle whose nature is to organize "progressively" so it can emerge through the system it organizes (mainly the CSN) as "consciousness." In such a case, the principles of biological evolution we observe would be an effect of a more basic force and not the actual cause; and consciousness, as its most direct expression, wouldn't require the genetics of biology to evolve, but instead might be able to turn straight to its originating source and allow that to directly evolve it.

Of course, that is just theory and it too needs empirical support. But my point is, a truly objective mind, uncommitted to any metaphysical stance, should be open to the possibility of an evolutive principle because of the strange physical behavior observed in life.

loseyourname

Jun1-04, 12:03 AM

Les Sleeth

Jun1-04, 10:19 AM

That isn't really my point. I just mean that for something to be called anything more than personal evolution, it must be heritable. How would a change in consciousness that does not involve a change in genetic material be heritable?

Biological evolution requires that because it is the means for physical adjustment of the chemical body to the environment. It seems you are assuming consciousness is physical, which I do not.

I don't know if understood my concept about an evolutive force and "emergence." Imagine a man wanted to get through a cave that went up inside a mountain and led to a nice view above. A large boulder is in the way which he has to roll ahead of him in order to proceed through the cave. It is very dark in the beginning, but as he rolls the boulder along, it passes little openings to the outside and so the cave gets a little brighter as he gets closer to the top. Finally he pushes the bolder out and emerges above in a very well-lit cavern; a short but steep walk up leads to a ledge outside for a fine view.

In that analogy, the man represents an evolutive "force" I propose is part of the universe, and the boulder is genetics which the force is connected to and is "pushing" against trying to get through the "cave" of biology. The little openings along the way are the development of the nervous system where evolutive emergence manifests as awareness in lower life forms. The emergence at the top in the bright cavern is human consciousness, and the short but steep walk to the ledge outside I am claiming is enlightenment.

So I am suggesting that the force which pushes evolution, and what emerges as consciousness are the same thing, except when interacting in biological evolution it causes "progressive" change, and once "emerged" it is conscousness. While pushing biology it requires genetics because that is part of how this force interacts with the physical environment, but once it's emerged it no longer has a need for genetics to take that last step to the "ledge" of enlightenment.

Les Sleeth

Jun1-04, 10:54 AM

I've looked up the proper position after I suspected it was a lot more difficult than I thought given your description, and.. boy. [8)] I can sort of do it, but it's not at all comfortable-- feels like my right foot is being stretched way too much, and it's never been quite 100% after a few bad ankle sprains. I think I can get it with some practice, though it might be a long while before I can get the soles of my feet facing up all the way.

As for the back pain aspect, it's nothing I can't put up with and with further practice I'm sure I'll be able to disregard it completely. I was more worried that I'm doing something physically injurious in some way to my back. Ironically, I only get this when (as far as I can tell) my posture is very good, ie my back is completely straight. If I slump over a little it recedes a bit. I suppose this might be alleviated by sitting in the proper lotus position, but then there's the feet to worry about. [s(] I guess I'll get used to it.

After practicing daily for thirty years, I find my posture has nothing to do with what I do inside (except lying down, which as Royce says tends to encourage sleep). The most important thing is to be comfortable. One thing that needs to happen in meditation is actually forgetting about the body and senses, so if the body is not comfortable, it makes it more difficult to forget about it!

The Lotus posture was developed from the ascetic movement that began circa 8th century BC in India. Those guys were quite radical many whom might be found staring all day at the sun, covered in cow manure, hanging tortuously from ropes, fasting to the brink of starvation, or in other predicaments that required so much effort it distracted from the practice of meditation. The Lotus posture did serve to help one keep from falling asleep, which might have been a problem for the ascetics since they spent many hours daily in meditation practicing samadhi. That's why, in my opinion, the Buddha taught the "middle way." He was addressing the extremes of asceticism that was the standard at that time, and what most of his first students were committed to.

Myself, I sit on a comfortable couch with my legs crossed and my hands folded on a pillow on my lap. If my legs get unconfortable, I stretch them out. It doesn't matter as long as what I am doing inside myself is correct.

By the way, I too as a former "hippie" did a lot of psychedelics (about 200 peyote and mushroom "trips"). In fact, there was a small group of us who did it for the purpose of insight. In those days it was like our religion, and I believe what I learned from it convinced me of the potential of consciousness to attain that without the drugs. I haven't done any drugs for a long time, and I can report that it is definitely possible to get as high without the drugs. I believe what the drug did was give one a taste of what I've described as "union." And union is exactly what the Indian tradition of samadhi meditation is all about learning. But I also have to say that just sitting quietly isn't necessarily going to lead to union. There are very specific techniques for turning inward and finding what it is that one is to merge with.

hypnagogue

Jun1-04, 12:16 PM

Thanks for the input Les. I must admit with regret that I never managed to get myself into a routine since those posts months back, although recently I'm coming back to it (quite apart from the revitalization of this thread, which is a bit strange). Even with my limited attempts I get fleeting glances at something very nice, but I tend to have poor self discipline-- I get caught up intellectually and emotionally in just the first stages of the change in consciousness, preventing me from getting very far from baseline. Even with this, though, I definitely see the potential to get back to places I've been in the past, which is quite encouraging.

There are very specific techniques for turning inward and finding what it is that one is to merge with.

Would you mind expounding on that a bit? I'm familiar with several techniques (I'm currently trying out an 'embodiment' method endorsed by Charles Tart where you focus awareness in the body as well as in visual and auditory modalities while going about 'everyday' business, which shows some promise)-- but I'd like to hear about your own methods and experiences for any further insight you might be able to provide.

loseyourname

Jun1-04, 07:14 PM

Biological evolution requires that because it is the means for physical adjustment of the chemical body to the environment. It seems you are assuming consciousness is physical, which I do not.

All I said was that in order to qualify as any kind of evolution, it must be heritable. If Jesus had a son, would he display the same enlightenment? If so, how?

Les Sleeth

Jun1-04, 09:43 PM

All I said was that in order to qualify as any kind of evolution, it must be heritable. If Jesus had a son, would he display the same enlightenment? If so, how?

Who determines the rules for what qualifies as evolution? Are you saying Darwinists have exclusive rights to the word and concept of "evolution"? Remember, this is the philosophy area, and I am allowed to speculate about the cause of biological evolution. If I were posting in the biology area, I would speak about evolution in that context. Here I am suggesting a metaphysical cause of the physical phenomenon of genetic-based evolution in biology. It is ridiculous to insist I limit myself to biological definitions here.

And if Jesus had a son, it is equally ridiculous to ask if he would display the same enlightenment. It seems you ignored the content of my posts because I made it quite clear enlightenment is attained through effort and not genetics, even if one might have a predisposition towards that end.

You know, just for fun you might leave the context of your own views and consider something new. :smile:

loseyourname

Jun2-04, 12:35 AM

Les Sleeth

Jun2-04, 09:29 AM

Relax, sleeth. You act like I'm opposed to your speculation. I could care less about your speculation. If you are going to use a term that already has a well-defined meaning, but change its meaning for your purposes, it would be courteous of you to say so at the outset.

You've clarified your view fully now. Thank you. That's all I wanted.

Sorry, I came here this morning to edit out my ire. Hey, I've been pretty good for a couple of months now, I thought it was time to be a brat. :devil:

However, don't you think you were being a bit of a brat too? I admit my first mention of evolution was ambiguous because I have it linked to biology, and I didn't make it clear I was talking about consciousness evolving itself apart from genetics. But the two subsequent posts explained the somewhat creative way I was using the word. Yet even though I made it clear what I was talking about, you went on to say". . . to qualify as any kind of evolution, it must be heritable." So it seems either you were being obtuse or you were harassing me.

As far as evolution being "a term that already has a well-defined meaning" and me "[changing] its meaning for [my] purposes," I refer you to Websters Unabridged where its etymology reveals its derivation from a Latin word for unrolling, and where meaning #1a is "a series of related changes in a certain direction: process of change: organic development: UNFOLDING, MOVEMENT, TRANSFORMATION."

1b "is a process of continuous change from a lower, simpler, or worse condition to a higher more complex or better state."

2 is "one of a set of prescribed movements or motions."

3 is "the process of working out or developing."

4 is "math the extraction of roots."

Not until 5b do we find Darwinist evolution given as a definition, so my use of evolution was well within its accepted definition.

loseyourname

Jun2-04, 01:14 PM

Okay, I think I get what you're saying now. If consciousness was purely an individual phenomenon, it would still need to be heritable for it to evolve (I don't think you are speaking of individuals evolving during the course of their lifetimes). However, you seem to be saying that consciousness is not just an individual phenomenon, and that the individual consciousness we experience is really just our brains tapping into a larger, unified force, and it is this force that evolves independently from the human species.

Still, though, wouldn't the brain need to coevolve into something capable of comprehending this evolving force? Or do you think our brains are ahead of the game in that regard? In other words, are we already capable of utilizing the full capabilities of this force that we tap into, as well as capabilities it may evolve in the near future?

Les Sleeth

Jun2-04, 07:56 PM

Still, though, wouldn't the brain need to coevolve into something capable of comprehending this evolving force? Or do you think our brains are ahead of the game in that regard? In other words, are we already capable of utilizing the full capabilities of this force that we tap into, as well as capabilities it may evolve in the near future?

Well, my studies have indicated people have been experiencing "enlightenment" for some time. I doubt if anyone was able to examine the Buddha's or Jesus' brain, but I suspect even if they did we'd find nothing very distinctive about them. So if I were to speculate, I'd say we have all the brain power we need to experience it, but comprehending it might require a much bigger brain. :wink:

Evo

Jun2-04, 10:23 PM

Les Sleeth

Jun3-04, 10:59 AM

I can't help but wonder if "enlightenment" is not just a form of self induced hypnotism. If you want something to happen and you practice at having it happen, perhaps it is nothing more than auto-suggestion.

"Autosuggestion is the process by which an individual trains their subconscious mind to believe something. This is accomplished through self-hypnosis methods or repetitive, constant self-affirmations, and may be seen as a form of self-induced brainwashing. The acceptance of autosuggestions may be quickened through mental visualization of that which the individual would like to believe. Its successfulness is typically correlated to the consistency of its use and the length of time over which its used."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-suggestion

Unless people can spontaneously achieve enlightenment without "training" for it, I don't see where it is anything but autosuggestion.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for people doing this if it helps them feel better, but I have to admit I am skeptical about the conclusions people have drawn as to what they think they have "tapped into".

Most of what you've said is incorrect, especially, "Unless people can spontaneously achieve enlightenment without 'training' for it, I don't see where it is anything but autosuggestion." The practice which leads to enlightenment, samadhi, is precisely the opposite of what auto-suggestion is.

You might consider studying the history of a subject before you advance theories about it. I've always found it strange that skeptics about inner stuff are so careless in their education of the subject. I've debated skeptics extensively here, and I've yet to find one of them who knows much about what they are criticizing.

Evo

Jun3-04, 12:20 PM

I've always found it strange that skeptics about inner stuff are so careless in their education of the subject. I've debated skeptics extensively here, and I've yet to find one of them who knows much about what they are criticizing.I'm not criticizing, I am merely suggesting that there is another very possible explanation. I've read enough and spoken to enough people about the subject to conclude that this is the most likely explanation, IMHO. Have you never wondered about this?

I'm just looking at this objectively from a purely logical standpoint. It has been demonstrated that if you want to achieve a certain frame of mind, there are a number of ways to acheive it. It doesn't matter if it is through meditation, clearing the mind of all thought, focusing on something specific, etc... because you already know what you want to achieve, so with enough time devoted to it, you may. But it is a frame of mind you created knowingly or unknowingly.

I'm not saying that you are wrong, so it is not fair for you to say that I am wrong. My belief is just as valid as yours.

More from Wikipedia on autosuggestion:

"The same effect that autosuggestion achieves may be seen also in individuals not consciously trying to program themselves through autosuggestion. The dominant thoughts of a person which occupy their conscious mind, if constantly present over an extended period of time, may be training that person's subconscious mind to believe what that individual cognitively is thinking."

hypnagogue

Jun3-04, 12:20 PM

Unless people can spontaneously achieve enlightenment without "training" for it, I don't see where it is anything but autosuggestion.

Spiritual experiences can and sometimes do happen spontaneously, for no apparent reason. See for example The Archive of Scientists' Transcendent Experiences (http://www.issc-taste.org/index.shtml).

Evo

Jun3-04, 05:20 PM

Spiritual experiences can and sometimes do happen spontaneously, for no apparent reason. See for example The Archive of Scientists' Transcendent Experiences (http://www.issc-taste.org/index.shtml).Thanks Hypnagogue, I will look into it.

I guess I will have to buy the book, it's not online.

Yes, people have reported spiritual and/or psychic experiences spontaneously, but I was thinking more of the overall state of "enlightenment" a feeling of reaching a higher conciousness, the feeling of "being one with all things", etc... This state of mind seems to be the result of a long term regimen of discipline where the goal is to reach a higher plane of understanding. What I'm curious about is just how much of the effect of enlightenment could actually be caused by the process itself becoming ingrained on the person's subconcious. Surely it must be a factor?

Of course people claim they can reach this higher consciousness by taking drugs or drilling holes in their heads, but that's another discussion.

And Les, I am not saying what you experience isn't real, I'm just looking at how the process could affect the outcome.

hypnagogue

Jun4-04, 02:16 AM

I guess I will have to buy the book, it's not online.

You can click the words on the banner at the top of the page. Specifically you should check out the archive of submissions located at http://www.issc-taste.org/arc/dbo.cgi?set=arc&ss=1

Yes, people have reported spiritual and/or psychic experiences spontaneously, but I was thinking more of the overall state of "enlightenment" a feeling of reaching a higher conciousness, the feeling of "being one with all things", etc... This state of mind seems to be the result of a long term regimen of discipline where the goal is to reach a higher plane of understanding. What I'm curious about is just how much of the effect of enlightenment could actually be caused by the process itself becoming ingrained on the person's subconcious. Surely it must be a factor?

As I understand enlightenment, it's a certain kind of advanced spiritual experience that endures for a long period of time, if not indefinitely. (By advanced, I mean that the differences evident between any arbitrary spiritual experience and normal waking consciousness forms a sort of continuum of quality and intensity, with enlightenment presumably being at or near the far end of the spectrum.)

The thing is, spiritual experiences are not just a general cognitive / psychological mindset. They are a distinct form of experiential consciousness to begin with, as distinct as dreaming consciousness is from normal waking consciousness. It's one thing to have an intellectual concept of being one with all things, and quite another to viscerally feel it and literally see the world through that lens. (It should also be pointed out that words are just a rough approximation to the actual experience; 'oneness' is one way to describe the experience, but there's really a whole lot going on subtlely in the background that can't be comprehensively communicated with just words.)

Would any amount of auto-suggestion be sufficient for you to really experience waking life exactly how you experience dreams? Or, perhaps more to the point, would you ever be able to auto-suggest yourself into perpetual dreaming consciousness if you had never experienced any dreams yourself to begin with, and only had the descriptions of others to go by? Suppose Bob, who has never dreamed, auto-suggests himself into believing that he is experiencing dreaming consciousness. He see things as pretty disjointed and random, and so on, more or less in correspondance with the descriptions he has read of what it is like to dream. Now suppose that Bob eventually does have a fairly vivid dream that he remembers well. My guess is that at this point, Bob would realize that the state he had auto-suggested himself into was really not quite like this. He would be able to discern many differences between the two experiences. And I imagine the same would happen if you replace 'spiritual experience' for 'dreams.'

Of course people claim they can reach this higher consciousness by taking drugs or drilling holes in their heads, but that's another discussion.

I don't know about drilling holes in the head, but certain drugs really can activate spiritual experiences. For example, if you hadn't read it, you might be interested in The Doors of Perception (http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/lsd/doors.htm) by Aldous Huxley. Huxley is a fantastic writer and he gets the point across very well, or at least as well as it can be put across. Skimming through it just now I found an excerpt that is suggestive of what I'm trying to say, although I could substitute any number of others:

I took my pill at eleven. An hour and a half later, I was sitting in my study, looking intently at a small glass vase. The vase contained only three flowers-a full-blown Belie of Portugal rose, shell pink with a hint at every petal's base of a hotter, flamier hue; a large magenta and cream-colored carnation; and, pale purple at the end of its broken stalk, the bold heraldic blossom of an iris. Fortuitous and provisional, the little nosegay broke all the rules of traditional good taste. At breakfast that morning I had been struck by the lively dissonance of its colors. But that was no longer the point. I was not looking now at an unusual flower arrangement. I was seeing what Adam had seen on the morning of his creation-the miracle, moment by moment, of naked existence.

"Is it agreeable?" somebody asked. (During this Part of the experiment, all conversations were recorded on a dictating machine, and it has been possible for me to refresh my memory of what was said.)

"Neither agreeable nor disagreeable," I answered. "it just is."

Istigkeit—wasn't that the word Meister Eckhart liked to use? "Is-ness." The Being of Platonic philosophy— except that Plato seems to have made the enormous, the grotesque mistake of separating Being from becoming and identifying it with the mathematical abstraction of the Idea. He could never, poor fellow, have seen a bunch of flowers shining with their own inner light and all but quivering under the pressure of the significance with which they were charged; could never have perceived that what rose and iris and carnation so intensely signified was nothing more, and nothing less, than what they were—a transience that was yet eternal life, a perpetual perishing that was at the same time pure Being, a bundle of minute, unique particulars in which, by some unspeakable and yet self-evident paradox, was to be seen the divine source of all existence.

I continued to look at the flowers, and in their living light I seemed to detect the qualitative equivalent of breathing—but of a breathing without returns to a starting point, with no recurrent ebbs but only a repeated flow from beauty to heightened beauty, from deeper to ever deeper meaning. Words like "grace" and "transfiguration" came to my mind, and this, of course, was what, among other things, they stood for. My eyes traveled from the rose to the carnation, and from that feathery incandescence to the smooth scrolls of sentient amethyst which were the iris. The Beatific Vision, Sat Chit Ananda, Being-Awareness-Bliss-for the first time I understood, not on the verbal level, not by inchoate hints or at a distance, but precisely and completely what those prodigious syllables referred to. And then I remembered a passage I had read in one of Suzuki's essays. "What is the Dharma-Body of the Buddha?" ('"the Dharma-Body of the Buddha" is another way of saying Mind, Suchness, the Void, the Godhead.) The question is asked in a Zen monastery by an earnest and bewildered novice. And with the prompt irrelevance of one of the Marx Brothers, the Master answers, "The hedge at the bottom of the garden." "And the man who realizes this truth," the novice dubiously inquires, '"what, may I ask, is he?" Groucho gives him a whack over the shoulders with his staff and answers, "A golden-haired lion."

It had been, when I read it, only a vaguely pregnant piece of nonsense. Now it was all as clear as day, as evident as Euclid. Of course the Dharma-Body of the Buddha was the hedge at the bottom of the garden. At the same time, and no less obviously, it was these flowers, it was anything that I—or rather the blessed Not-I, released for a moment from my throttling embrace—cared to look at. The books, for example, with which my study walls were lined. Like the flowers, they glowed, when I looked at them, with brighter colors, a profounder significance. Red books, like rubies; emerald books; books bound in white jade; books of agate; of aquamarine, of yellow topaz; lapis lazuli books whose color was so intense, so intrinsically meaningful, that they seemed to be on the point of leaving the shelves to thrust themselves more insistently on my attention.

The mere fact that this radical transformation of consciousness is possible just by chemical means, I think, suggests that this is something beyond just a 'surface level' psychological effect.

Les Sleeth

Jun4-04, 11:30 AM

I'm not criticizing, I am merely suggesting that there is another very possible explanation. I've read enough and spoken to enough people about the subject to conclude that this is the most likely explanation, IMHO. Have you never wondered about this?

First, let me apologize for any harshness in my previous answer. It's just that I've heard so much uninformed skepticsm my tolerance for it is low. See, the problem is you really don't know what you are talking about even though you say you've studied enlightenment enough to "conclude that [autosuggestion] is the most likely explanation." I will explain why I believe this by the time I complete this post.

However, I do not claim to be enlightened, which as Hypnagogue pointed out, is considered the permanent attainment of "oneness." I have however devoted 30 years of my life working toward it, practicing oneness through the inner techniques of union/samadhi daily (I"ve also studied the history of the phenomenon extensively). When I first started practicing many years ago, I only achieved full union a few times a year. For the last ten years I've become quite able at achieving union, and usually can reach it in less than half an hour. The full experience doesn't last very long, but the after effect is well worth the work because one does stay partially merged. I am preparing a thread which models consciousness using what I've learned from union. The quote below is from that thread material and describes what union is:

"Imagine a pickup truck, whose bed is waterproof, filled with water and speeding along on an old, bumpy country road. The water in the truck is in a constant state of movement, vibrating, sloshing about, bouncing up into the air, etc. so that when the driver observes it, all he sees is the moving-ness of the water surface. If that’s the only way he’d ever perceived water (a silly concept of course), then he might be surprised to see how that water exists when he brings his truck to a stop. What he would observe is that all the water formerly in movement, and appearing distinct from its base pool, now reunites with its source. In that condition, all the vibration and jets of water that had been flying up in the air merged to become one thing.
That analogy is similar to union, where the actions of the mind are allowed to return to a 'foundation' out of which they arose in the first place. To achieve the stillness of union, it isn’t that one actually stops, calms or empties anything (that would be the mind trying to still itself, an impossibility); but rather, one learns how to recognize the 'feel' of the foundation, and feels that enough to where it starts to predominate as an influence in consciousness (I mean during practice). When one feels it start to prevail, one can then practice how to 'let go' to it (a skill that normally takes years of practice), and when successful one will be absorbed back into that foundation (usually for anywhere from a few seconds up to a few minutes). With enough time spent in that 'ground state' one eventually acquires a strong sense of what the basis of consciousness is, which is utterly impossible to see while one’s 'pool' is stirred up by mentality, conditioning, strong sense stimulation, emotions . . . "

I'm just looking at this objectively from a purely logical standpoint.

There is no logical, objective standpoint from which you can observe enlightenment, it is 100% subjective. Even if you meet someone who is truly enlightenend, you have to feel them to detect the enlightenment.

It has been demonstrated that if you want to achieve a certain frame of mind, there are a number of ways to acheive it. It doesn't matter if it is through meditation, clearing the mind of all thought, focusing on something specific, etc... because you already know what you want to achieve, so with enough time devoted to it, you may. But it is a frame of mind you created knowingly or unknowingly.

If you can accept that enlightenment is permanent union, then first problem with your belief is that what one is after in enlightenment is not a "frame of mind." I agree that plenty of people striving for enlightenment have a frame of mind, and that they actually believe the enlightened frame of mind is enlightenment. In my opinion, there is nothing interfering more today with people communicating about the possibility of enlightenment than such enlightened frame of minds. They go around setting themselves up as experts willing to teach the naive, and spreading much misinformation. Then when intelligent people hear this and recognize them for spiritual egoists they are, they classify all spiritual pursuits as that sort of nonsense. Grrrrrrrrrrrrr :frown:

I'm not saying that you are wrong, so it is not fair for you to say that I am wrong. My belief is just as valid as yours.

Well, I don't see how. You are speculating, I am speaking from experience.

More from Wikipedia on autosuggestion:

"The same effect that autosuggestion achieves may be seen also in individuals not consciously trying to program themselves through autosuggestion. The dominant thoughts of a person which occupy their conscious mind, if constantly present over an extended period of time, may be training that person's subconscious mind to believe what that individual cognitively is thinking."

I understand what you mean by autosuggestion, but that is how one achives a "frame of mind." You have to understand that enlightenment is actually the opposite of a frame of mind. "Mind," if we rely on my analogy above, would be that water which is sloshing around and bouncing up from the pool. Enlightenment is the experience of the still pool. Autosuggestion, as your quote says, is dependent on related and continuous thoughts over time which comes to give mind a mental orientation. But an aspect of union is the absense of thought altogether, so if someone is really practicing it (i.e., and not just "thinking" they are), then there is no possibility for autosuggestion in true enlightenment. As I've admitted, people who are practicing union with the hope of realizing enlightenment usually do have some kind of "enlightened mind" because they think about it. All I am referring to now however is the genuinely enlightened person and also the genuine path to enlightenment (union), and I say the only thing autosuggestion will do is get in the way.

Of course people claim they can reach this higher consciousness by taking drugs . . . but that's another discussion.

I no longer use psychotropic substances myself, and in good conscience I cannot recommend it because of the dangers and lack of wise supervision (plus it's illegal). Back when I was first getting interested in the potential of introspection, I was inspired by Carlos Castaneda's books to try peyote (if you've not read him I highly recommend "Journey to Ixtlan"). A small group of us kept the focus sort of spiritual, so I almost always treated the occasions of using peyote or mushrooms with reverence. That day when I met someone who was experiencing union without drugs, I immediately recognized it as the same experience the drug gave (except a lot more mellow).

The one huge disappointment in doing the drugs was that even though when high on them you feel like you will never lose that experience, every time you do. :cry: I so wanted to learn how to have the experience and keep it, so that is why I undertook union meditation. Today I can report in all sincerity it is very possible to naturally achieve what the drug gives, and a lot more.

If you are interested in investigating the history of this you might start out with Evelyn Underhill's classic study "Mysticism." I myself specialized (study-wise) in the history of union in western culture. The history is rich, and intereting too. There were the so-called "desert fathers" (hermits who retreated to the desert to meditate after Jesus' death), the practices of certain Greek Orthodox monks described in the Philokalia, a great many Catholic monks and nuns (some of whom, like John of the Cross, endured persecution for practicing union), and so on. Someone who I think is absolutely brilliant is Meister Eckhart.

Anyway, I am trying to suggest that you might be dabbling in a very deep subject, and that you might need to study it more before drawing conclusions about what enlightenment is.

Evo

Jun4-04, 10:20 PM

I understand what you mean by autosuggestion, but that is how one achives a "frame of mind." You have to understand that enlightenment is actually the opposite of a frame of mind. "Mind," if we rely on my analogy above, would be that water which is sloshing around and bouncing up from the pool. Enlightenment is the experience of the still pool. Autosuggestion, as your quote says, is dependent on related and continuous thoughts over time which comes to give mind a mental orientation. But an aspect of union is the absense of thought altogether, so if someone is really practicing it (i.e., and not just "thinking" they are), then there is no possibility for autosuggestion in true enlightenment. As I've admitted, people who are practicing union with the hope of realizing enlightenment usually do have some kind of "enlightened mind" because they think about it. All I am referring to now however is the genuinely enlightened person and also the genuine path to enlightenment (union), and I say the only thing autosuggestion will do is get in the way.
Wonderful explanations from both you and Hypnagogue. It does sound like there is a significant difference in the "experiences". I will concede that "true" enlightenment is not the effect of a form of auto suggestion. But I do see people, as you also mentioned, that are confusing a created "frame of mind" with the real thing.

Funny, I have done peyote and mescaline and psylicibin, opium, hashish, LSD, you name it (a child of the 60's & 70's) and I have never experienced anything other than odd visual effects, and feeling "drugged". The hallucinations just made things look weird - trees looked like they had suction cups. Well, opium distorted time a bit. But that was it. I could never understand what the fascination was that people had with drugs. Everyone was experimenting with drugs back then, so I was willing to see what the big deal was and quickly discovered that I did not enjoy them. Life is much better with a clear mind. So, I don't understand how people felt enlightened when I realized I was nothing more than stoned.

Perhaps this has been a cause of my skeptiscm about what "enlightenment" is. Since I've done the same drugs and didn't experience any of those things, I came to the conclusion that you got out of it what you wanted or expected, so it was the result of "suggestion".

I'm enjoying discussing this with both you and Hypnagogue, I hope you two don't mind.

I also found out that I cannot be hypnotized. One of the leading clinical hypnotists in the US (he was a well known and respected psychologist in Chicago) tried and failed. I really wanted to be hypnotized to see what it was like. I was his first failure.

Perhaps it is how my mind functions. Maybe a good analogy would be that you and hypnagogue can see color and I am color blind and will never see what you see?

hypnagogue

Jun7-04, 02:53 AM

It does sound as if you have more subdued experiences with psychoactives than the average person, which isn't entirely unheard of. I tried MDMA a couple of times, and while other people reported strong experiences from presumably the same 'stuff,' I never experienced anything much more than mild. As they say, mileage may vary.

I'm particularly surprised that you report experiencing time distortion a bit on opium, but not at all on psylocibin. One of the more easily identifiable signatures of psylocibin is marked time distortion. The skeptic might say that we experienced roughly the same thing in our respective experiences, and I have just chosen to describe it in terms other than 'drugged'-- but the fact that we diverge on something as relatively mundane and straightforwardly describable as perception of time seems to substantiate that our experiences actually were different to a substantial degree. It might be helpful if you could try to flesh out what you mean by 'feeling drugged' in fuller terms.

That you seem to be resistant to hypnosis, in conjunction with your resistance to psychoactive drugs, does seem to be suggestive. I wouldn't say it's impossible for you to achieve some of the 'higher' states we've been talking about, but you do seem to have a lot of inertia (so to speak) in your waking consciousness, which would impede in your efforts to fully relate to what Les and I are trying to describe. If you can't relate directly, there's always analogy, in which case the dreaming / waking analogy is probably the best one available, albeit very crude.

confutatis

Jun7-04, 03:49 PM

Life is much better with a clear mind. So, I don't understand how people felt enlightened when I realized I was nothing more than stoned.

I think "enlightened" is just another word for "overwhelmed by the experience of being stoned". If drugs put one so close in contact with reality or God, why are they so harmful?

Of course there's always the "universal conspiracy" explanation, by which God has put us in a state of delusion, out of which one can only break free by playing tricks with one's brain.

Perhaps this has been a cause of my skeptiscm about what "enlightenment" is.

I think you skepticism is well based. Les is one who is proud of his spiritual achievements, yet his posts are as full of contempt for dissenting views. I say this is just an illusion a person falls into, something of a fantasy to avoid the unbearable uncertainties of life.

Sorry if I'm being too sincere.

Since I've done the same drugs and didn't experience any of those things, I came to the conclusion that you got out of it what you wanted or expected, so it was the result of "suggestion".

I wouldn't say one doesn't learn from playing tricks with the brain. I have had my share of strange experiences myself, and I did learn something quite profound: I learned you cannot trust your brain. And that means the last place you can expect to find truth is inside yourself. Our ability for self-deception is greater and more powerful than the universe itself. A person who realizes his/her smallness in the face of infinite mystery is someone I would consider "enlightned"; those people full of stories about stuff only a few privileged ones are supposed to know do not impress me much.

I really wanted to be hypnotized to see what it was like.

As far as my knowledge goes, being hypnotized is like sleeping. You lose consciousness and when you wake up you can't remember a thing.

I read a story about a man who wanted to quit smoking, so he hired a hypnotist. After a few introductory sessions, he was put in a deep state of hypnosis and given the command to abandon his habit. On waking up from the hypnotic state he didn't remember a thing, but when he got home he called up the hypnotist to tell him he didn't need his services anymore - all of a sudden he lost the desire to smoke and felt he was strong enough to quit without hypnosis.

Something like 10% of the population can't be hypnotized. It's strange your hypnotist made you feel like you were an oddity. I have a self-hypnosis CD and it works quite well with me, but my wife just doesn't respond. In any case, no one is missing anything, except perhaps the chance to drop a bad habit without much conscious effort.

Cheers --

Kerrie

Jun7-04, 04:14 PM

sure am enjoying this thread :biggrin: as for the drug induced "enlightenment"...having my own personal experience with certain drugs, the feeling of euphoria was certainly there and helped open me up. the closest feeling i had to "knowing" enlightenment was a day i realized that my spirit was in charge, not my hormones/chemicals/feelings. you know the song from Sting, "We are spirits living in a material world" ? that is when i knew what he meant. does this make sense??

Fliption

Jun7-04, 05:27 PM

I have also enjoyed this thread alot. I haven't contributed because my answer to the thread title is "no". Therefore, I can't contribute anything to it. But it is an area of great interest to me so I have enjoyed reading it.

The only contribution I can offer now is to say that I can understand 100% everything that Evo and confutatis are saying. I can appreciate this point of view because I certainly debate with myself on the very same issues. But at the same time, I have to say I am much more open to the idea of "enlightenment" than confutatis seems to be in his last post. That post was far too conclusive for me given what I know about this experience or the effort it takes to achieve it (Which is close to nothing). Perhaps confutatis has a lot more personal knowledge than I do about this experience. For me it would be mere speculation.

So as opposed to finding Les' view necessarily obstinate toward other views, I truly do see his dilemma. I have put myself in his shoes and asked myself "what if what he is saying is really true?" If it were, I can understand fully why he gets frustrated with the attitudes of people who think they know so much when they actually know so little. It is compounded by the fact that there is no mathematical forumula you can show these people. The only way they can see what he sees is to be open to it and the only way they will become open to it is if they can see it. I would have pulled all my hair out by now.

Having said that, I'll also say that I've put Les to the test on questions just like these in the past because I see the same possibilities that any rational person would see who hasn't experienced enlightenment. While everything he has ever said to me about this has made complete sense, the answers still do not (because they cannot) completely satisfy a reasoning person who has not experienced enlightenment. So it has become obvious to me that there's only one way to find out the true nature of this experience. And that is to find out what it's all about, be open to it, and attempt to experience it for yourself. If we take the stance that we cannot trust our brains, then we're left with nothing but chaos because all knowledge is filtered through the brain somehow. We have to have some faith in our experiences. No one else can be expected to accept them. The experience only has to be good enough for you.

On the drug topic..... Again... I know very little :biggrin: . But it makes sense that there would be a connection. If enlightenment is so difficult to achieve because of the conditioning of our minds to focus, feed and process external stimuli to the point that we develop subconscious patterns of thinking, it makes sense that a "mind altering" drug might jolt one out of these patterns momentarily and allow one to see something that their patterns wouldn't allow before. It also explains why the non-drug experience is more difficult to achieve. Without the use of drugs one would have to generate their own "jolt" through some form of mind training or practice.

loseyourname

Jun7-04, 07:23 PM

Kerrie

Jun7-04, 08:44 PM

I find it highly ironic that chemically manipulating your brain led you to the conclusion that a spirit, and not chemical reactions, was in charge.

read closer. i never implied that the drugs made me realize what i stated, only gave me a sense of euphoria that helped me open up in general. i was quite sober when i realized that who we are is our spirit, not just the matter we are made of. matter/flesh does deteriorate without life aka: spirit.

loseyourname, do you have any words to contribute on your experience or non experience of enlightenment?

Kerrie

Jun7-04, 08:46 PM

On the drug topic..... Again... I know very little :biggrin: . But it makes sense that there would be a connection. If enlightenment is so difficult to achieve because of the conditioning of our minds to focus, feed and process external stimuli to the point that we develop subconscious patterns of thinking, it makes sense that a "mind altering" drug might jolt one out of these patterns momentarily and allow one to see something that their patterns wouldn't allow before. It also explains why the non-drug experience is more difficult to achieve. Without the use of drugs one would have to generate their own "jolt" through some form of mind training or practice.

your perspective is quite refreshing. :approve:

Les Sleeth

Jun7-04, 10:40 PM

I think "enlightened" is just another word for "overwhelmed by the experience of being stoned".

Can you make your case? Remember, as a term, "enlightenment" was applied millenia before psychotropic drugs came into vogue.

I think you skepticism is well based. Les is one who is proud of his spiritual achievements, yet his posts are as full of contempt for dissenting views. I say this is just an illusion a person falls into, something of a fantasy to avoid the unbearable uncertainties of life.

I suggest you read my 800 or so posts here, and the 500+ at the old PF, to see how much I've fallen back on my meager spiritual achievements. But, why should I be shy either? I've experienced what I've experienced. When I hear people saying things that contradict both what I've experienced and what I have discovered in my research, do you think I should just passively roll over like a gutless conformist? My "contempt" isn't for dissenting views, it is for ignorant, prejudiced opinions that very often are feigning objectivity or "sincerity."

On the other hand, I admit that I have become a bit "raw" from hearing too many sophist persuasions, and so I do over-react at times to the innocent when I should show more tolerance. Evo is a case in point. You, however, are a challenge.

Sorry if I'm being too sincere.

Where's a barfing smiley face when you need one.

BoulderHead

Jun7-04, 11:32 PM

Where's a barfing smiley face when you need one.

:(*)

That's it, according to this site;
http://www.smileyworld.com/emoticons/categoryresults.asp?category=In%20Action

Les Sleeth

Jun7-04, 11:52 PM

I find it highly ironic that chemically manipulating your brain led you to the conclusion that a spirit, and not chemical reactions, was in charge.

But don't you think it depends on your starting assumptions? If one assumes we are entirely physical, then it might seem ironic to hear a non-physicalist acknowledge that a drug, which is a physical agent, has led to spiritual insight. If consciousness were non-physical, then clearly nature (or whatever) has found a way to join it to the physical body.

Studies have proven both biochemistry and brain manipulation can affect consciousness; also, studies have shown how states of mind, emotions, beliefs, etc. can affect the body; so there is no doubt biology and consciousness are mutually influential. If so, then why couldn't there be chemistry which could liberate consciousness a bit more than normal from its neuronal confines? And of course, historically there is support for this idea in the rich history of drug use in spiritual pursuits by certain indigenous peoples.

Les Sleeth

Jun8-04, 12:04 AM

:(*)

That's it, according to this site;
http://www.smileyworld.com/emoticons/categoryresults.asp?category=In%20Action

Hi BH, how have you been? I work on a Mac, so I probably can't use that face . . . still, I must try. (*)

[edit] (sigh) oh well.

BoulderHead

Jun8-04, 12:12 AM

Hello Les,
I've been better these days but my arm gets tingly-numb rapidly making movement unpleasant. Thanks for asking.

I am unfamiliar with Mac systems (I don't think I've ever seen one at a thrift store, hehe) but you almost had it - just needed a colon.

Anyway, I'm two pages behind in this thread but it looks enjoyable. Perhaps I'll contribute in a couple of days if I'm able to add anything worthwhile.

Les Sleeth

Jun8-04, 12:19 AM

Evo

Jun8-04, 12:19 AM

I have to say that when I first came to PF confutatis explained to me something I had experienced that had been puzzling me for years. His insite was invaluable.

We all have our beliefs, but I think we can all learn here if we don't take another's opinions personally (I will admit that I am not good at this myself) but listen to what they say and discuss it. Could it be possible that we all perceive things a bit differently and all know a bit of the truth?

I am finding I am losing some of my preconceived ideas by talking with you guys. I have a bad habit of assuming my way is the right way, and I am slowly accepting that I could (rarely :rolleyes: ) be mistaken. :biggrin:

I wish to respond to everyone's posts, but I have a broken tooth and I am in so much pain I can hardly think.

Evo

Jun8-04, 12:30 AM

I'm particularly surprised that you report experiencing time distortion a bit on opium, but not at all on psylocibin. One of the more easily identifiable signatures of psylocibin is marked time distortion. I have to answer this though. Probably because the times I did psylocibin I was sitting in a room listening to music. I noticed the time distortion with opium when I was walking and it seemed I had been walking for awhile, but then I realized from the distance I had traveled that I hadn't gone very far at all. This gave me a reference to the distorted view of time, something I did not have when doing psylocibin.

confutatis

Jun8-04, 09:48 AM

I have to say I am much more open to the idea of "enlightenment" than confutatis seems to be in his last post.

I'm not rejecting the claims that people experience enlightenment, far from it. I know the brain/mind is capable of producing anything imaginable, and quite a few things unimaginable. But I do reject most metaphysical claims associated with altered states of mind.

So as opposed to finding Les' view necessarily obstinate toward other views, I truly do see his dilemma. I have put myself in his shoes and asked myself "what if what he is saying is really true?" If it were, I can understand fully why he gets frustrated with the attitudes of people who think they know so much when they actually know so little.

You can't possibly accept all claims people make on the basis that they might know something you don't. It doesn't work that way. But of course blind skepticism is not the answer either.

If enlightenment is so difficult to achieve because of the conditioning of our minds to focus, feed and process external stimuli to the point that we develop subconscious patterns of thinking, it makes sense that a "mind altering" drug might jolt one out of these patterns momentarily and allow one to see something that their patterns wouldn't allow before.

Why does that make sense to you? It doesn't make any sense to me. When these people describe their altered states of consciousness, they do so from quite an ordinary state. If what they discover in the ASC makes any sense in the baseline state, it can be known from the baseline state - no "trips" required. And if it doesn't make sense in the ordinary state... well, then it doesn't make sense.

-----------------------------------------------
I find it highly ironic that chemically manipulating your brain led you to the conclusion that a spirit, and not chemical reactions, was in charge.

It's a shame they don't give prizes for brilliant statements like that. Kudos!!!

-----------------------------------------------
Can you make your case? Remember, as a term, "enlightenment" was applied millenia before psychotropic drugs came into vogue.

As a term, "possession by the devil" was applied millenia before neurology existed. So what?

As far as I know, the idea of "enlightenment" is a key point of some religions. It is a belief, not unlike the concept of salvation in Christianity. I'm not saying one or both ideas are false, but I think it's very reasonable to think of them as rough approximations of truths beyond our current ability to understand.

Now the fact that you can experience a belief as if it were real is completely irrelevant to the truth of the belief itself. In industrialized societies, people who undergo near-death experiences often arrive at a meadow filled with beautiful flowers, trees, bubbling brooks. In pre-agrarian societies, such as parts of Africa, near-death experiencers often arrive at a modern city, filled with cars and jobs at factories. Now isn't it odd that one man's heaven is another man's hell? Isn't it likely that, during altered states of consciousness, a person has the awesome power to make his or her imagination become real?

This is as much as I'm willing to concede for now: our imagination is far more powerful than we might realize. That means something quite profound: many things you believe to be true may turn out to be illusions. That's the part I like about this enlightenment thing, but then most "enlightened" people engage in all sorts of claims that contradict their basic position. If our knowledge is filled with illusions, let us first find a way to get rid of illusions before trying to know more things.

I suggest you read my 800 or so posts here, and the 500+ at the old PF to see how much I've fallen back on my meager spiritual achievements. But, why should I be shy either? I've experienced what I've experienced.

I like your honesty. I hope you don't think an attack on your claims is an attack on you as a person. It's all in the spirit of philosophical debate, nothing personal.

My "contempt" isn't for dissenting views, it is for ignorant, prejudiced opinions that very often are feigning objectivity or "sincerity."

Now here I think you are wrong, for your opinions appear to me as ignorant and prejudiced as anybody else's. And you do show contempt for dissenting views of any kind, at least as far as I can tell.

You, however, are a challenge.

I'm not sure in what sense...

Dayle Record

Jun8-04, 11:05 AM

There is a tomb in eastern India that purports to be the tomb of Jesus Of Nazareth. It is stated that he went there and preached for the rest of his life, after being taken down, drugged from the cross. It is stated he had five sons with Mary of Magdala, and lived to a ripe old age. There was an enormous christian church in eastern India, in the centuries after Jesus's migration to the east. Supposedly the "crusades", were fought to destroy this heretical information. They didn't get as far as India to destroy the faith of those that lived there, with Jesus. I don't think he was magical at all. He was certainly an enlightened individual, or was he? How do we really know that he said even one thing, that is purported? The laws of physics are no different today, than they were then. Things happen as they do now, as they did then. I imagine if we showed up in the ancient middle east in F-16's, with loudspeakers, and nuclear weaponry, we would be considered angry jealous gods, throwing thunderbolts.

One thing that is a lasting proof of whether enlightenment, or even power lasts through the generations; would be the twists and turns of European Monarchies. They have certainly had their mediocre generations, and their awful generations. Collectively we are ruled by greed, and rarely by anything higher. There are few, rare individuals that shine throught the eras as heroes of our species. They, without fail, put the collective needs of their people's ahead of personal gain. They apply their energies to service, and lay down their lives to make the world a better place for the common existence of all.

I have reached this age, where I am not so sure that the enemies of man aren't just what the world needs. I think that far from now, when the biologists are looking at the rings of trees, our chief descriptor will be our destructiveness.

Enlightenment, ah yes. It used to be that on any ceremonial day, shall we say, a koan, or statement came forward as the enlightened thought of the day. Then it would get lost. So, having one of those , I decided that I would write it down on a piece of paper, and I stuck it in the front of a book I was reading, for later. So a couple of weeks later I reopened the book and there was the folded slip of paper, with the enlightenment of the day inside. I was so excited that I had written this down, and I could not remember what it had been. Opening the paper I read, "The smell of oranges pervades the air." Now this was so worth it, because I laughed and laughed and laughed at the joke of the nature of our consciousness, and deliberate mystification we are capable of; and how we misappropriate our senses from the fundamental intensity of natural life as homo sapiens, in the here and now.

Les Sleeth

Jun8-04, 11:34 AM

Funny, I have done peyote and mescaline and psylicibin, opium, hashish, LSD, you name it (a child of the 60's & 70's) and I have never experienced anything other than odd visual effects, and feeling "drugged". The hallucinations just made things look weird - trees looked like they had suction cups. Well, opium distorted time a bit. But that was it. I could never understand what the fascination was that people had with drugs. Everyone was experimenting with drugs back then, so I was willing to see what the big deal was and quickly discovered that I did not enjoy them. Life is much better with a clear mind. So, I don't understand how people felt enlightened when I realized I was nothing more than stoned.

Perhaps this has been a cause of my skeptiscm about what "enlightenment" is. Since I've done the same drugs and didn't experience any of those things, I came to the conclusion that you got out of it what you wanted or expected, so it was the result of "suggestion".

I wanted to think about what you said a little before answering. My first few time with drugs was with LSD. I really had no concept about it before I did it. I didn't understand the idea of being "high" at all other than noticing people seemed excited. So I don't believe suggestion had much to do with how I first related to drugs.

What I noticed almost immediately was that a sort of "background" became very apparent to me. That is, I felt, heard, and saw something existing behind all the stuff I was ordinarily aware of. It seemed to vibrate, to be malleable, and I would hear something (even if I plugged up my ears) like what you hear when an amplifier is on but no music is being played. I was so fascinated by that that from the start, the background would be the very first thing I would be attentive to.

There was one occasion I recall where at a party a friend put some LSD in some punch I was drinking without telling me. It was on me before I had a chance to relate to the "background" as usual. That was the only time in all my experiences that I hallucinated. I was overwhelmed by the distortion of my environment, by colors, by sounds zipping by in space coming seemingly from nowhere, etc. Fortunately I was experienced enough to sit and enjoy the show without panicing.

After that I returned to relating to the background when I took drugs (almost exclusively peyote and mushrooms after that). I was influenced by Castaneda's descriptions of Don Juan's methods, and began taking my trips in high, natural places where I could be alone or with a friend or two (my avatar is a self-portrait of me doing just that at Yosemite over twenty years ago--it was the last time I ever did peyote). Most of the suggestion I took from Don Juan was simply to treat the occassion with reverence, which did seem to make it more insightful and meaningful.

In these trips, I continued to relate more deeply to the "background." I had been taught union meditation and was practicing it daily; at the time of that Yosemite trip I was only doing peyote once a year, which took up one day in what was usually a week of all-day meditation sessions at the park. The reason this particular excursion was the last time I did peyote (besides losing my footing and rolling down a steep incline nearly breaking my neck), was because I was doing so well with union meditation that peyote, even just once a year, was getting in the way. It turns out that union actually is the practice of merging with the "background," which is why I recognized union so quickly when introduced to it. With the encouragement of gravity, that day I decided to put all my efforts into union.

The point I am trying to get to is that I suspect it is from relating to the "background," which today I call the "foundation," that causes one to have the spiritual sort of experience on the drug. That foundation seems to be "one" and everywhere, and I one with it, and there is exactly the thing that most people sense which encourages them to lean toward spiritual belief. But if one were to trip and instead of the foundation/background, related to the forms and structures of reality, then that is when one becomes overwhelmed by the flood of input and distortions the drug can cause.

Perhaps it is how my mind functions. Maybe a good analogy would be that you and hypnagogue can see color and I am color blind and will never see what you see?

I can't believe that mostly because I've yet to meet someone who I haven't felt that foundaton present in them. Since we only see what we are looking at, people's views tend to be shaped by their priorities and preferences, as well as dislikes. I would argue that to see it, first you have to want to see it, and then you have to look in the right place, in the right way.

I also found out that I cannot be hypnotized. One of the leading clinical hypnotists in the US (he was a well known and respected psychologist in Chicago) tried and failed. I really wanted to be hypnotized to see what it was like. I was his first failure.

I cannot be hypnotized either. I've always thought it's because I have purposely tried to keep my consciousness objective, and so I've treated all "suggestive" stuff as something that could make me biased. To me, a mind that can be hypnotized is not as strong as the mind that cannot. Of course, it could be due to being inflexible or a know-it-all too. :redface: I hope it's not the case with me since those traits too would damage my objectivity.

I'm enjoying discussing this with both you and Hypnagogue . . .

Same here, I love this subject.

Fliption

Jun8-04, 02:48 PM

confutatis

Jun8-04, 03:40 PM

The only problem I see with this view is that it seems like it can be applied to anything to question it's truthfulness so it becomes sort of a useless view if taken to such extremes.

It's not an extreme because you can't be too skeptical before skepticism itself ceases to be a valid position. You must be in possession of an awful lot of truths before you are able to come up with a lie (or illusion). Most of our knowledge must be true by way of logical necessity. Which is why I have a problem with those brands of mysticism which teach that, except for their esoteric teachings, everything we know is an illusion. To a rational person, that is just not possible.

As I said earlier, I think we, as individuals, have to have faith in our experiences to some extent. Otherwise there is nothing for any of us to talk about; On any subject.

You don't need to have faith in your experiences. What you have experienced is yours and can't be taken away from you, so in that sense experience is absolute. The only problem is to understand what a particular experience means, when that experience happens to very few people, for brief periods of time, on a very infrequent basis. There's no rationale to doubt that the sun exists, when it can be seen everyday by everyone, but it took centuries for us to learn that the sun is a star. Now look at Les' last post and his "background" - what the heck is that, and how does he know it is what he thinks it is? How does he know he's not mistaken it for some completely unrelated phenomenon, just like the ancients mistook the sun for some god in the sky?

As I said earlier, I have come to the conclusion that the only way to understand the true nature of enlightenment is to experience it yourself. Whether I eventually accept it or not will be based on my experience alone. No one elses.

The other day I was lying in bed, very tired, when I had the most unusual experience - my mind became completely devoid of any thoughts, yet I didn't lose consciousness (I may have told this story before; anyway...) So I'm in my bed thinking, "isn't this strange? I'm not thinking about anything". During the few seconds the experience lasted, I was in awe of contemplanting a void mind, something I never experienced before, or after. But when it was over I was a bit confused: how could I not be thinking about anything when I was thinking about "not thinking about anything"? That doesn't make any sense. Something strange definitely happened, but it's not what I thought it was.

As you said, in order to understand things you have to experience them. But experience alone is not enough. Without guidance from other people, without logic and reason, without a healthy dose of skepticism, we risk losing our mind if we play with things we cannot understand. Happens all the time.

I wasn't suggesting that drugs were "required" for the altered states. I was simply suggesting that if there is something more to reality that is difficult to see due to conditioning, then it makes sense to me that drugs "might" be able to alter ones normal patterns enough to escape this conditioning temporarily. Also, I haven't said I believe this to be the case. I'm just saying that it makes sense as a possibility.

I don't think it's a possibility. If drugs really helped anyone understand things better, they could help people achieve ordinary things. Drugs could help people find solutions to complex differential equations, compose beautiful symphonies, design awesome buildings, write breathtaking poetry, and so on. As it turns out, at best drugs do absolutely nothing in that sense, and at worst they render a person insane. I find the claim that drugs open one's mind to really, really important truths, while doing absolutely nothing for more mundane things, to be unbelievably naive.

Fliption

Jun8-04, 05:54 PM

It's not an extreme because you can't be too skeptical before skepticism itself ceases to be a valid position. You must be in possession of an awful lot of truths before you are able to come up with a lie (or illusion). Most of our knowledge must be true by way of logical necessity. Which is why I have a problem with those brands of mysticism which teach that, except for their esoteric teachings, everything we know is an illusion. To a rational person, that is just not possible.

I'm not sure I fully understood what you are trying to say here. But I do understand the need to be skeptical as long as it is reasonable to remain skeptical.

The only problem is to understand what a particular experience means, when that experience happens to very few people, for brief periods of time, on a very infrequent basis. There's no rationale to doubt that the sun exists, when it can be seen everyday by everyone, but it took centuries for us to learn that the sun is a star. Now look at Les' last post and his "background" - what the heck is that, and how does he know it is what he thinks it is? How does he know he's not mistaken it for some completely unrelated phenomenon, just like the ancients mistook the sun for some god in the sky?

So where do I obtain meaning if all these people that you mention are just a trick that my brain is playing on me? This is my dilemma. I understand, agree with and put into practice myself the things you are saying but when I take it to the extreme, the view no longer seems valid to me. At some point you have to make an assumption. It seems as if what you're getting at is the difference between subjectivity, objectivity and everything inbetween. It looks as if you're claiming that meaning and therefore knowledge come from other people. The fact that we have common experiences of the sun implies to you that the sun really exists. But I can just as easily have a dream where people are discussing the way the sun looks and yet that sun nor the people talking about it have any physical existence at all. It's just a movie my brain has played for me. So the idea that these "other people"(that you rely on to make sure you aren't just imagining things) aren't themselves a figment of your imagination seems to be an assumption.

I didn't really intend on getting bogged down into the view of solipsism. I understand the points of subjectivity versus objectivity and in this case inter-subjectivity(if that's where you were going). But this view seems to deny the existence of anything that has no external reference; like the sun does. I agree that the traditional empirical approach to gaining knowledge doesn't work so well with these items and therefore knowledge is a tricky thing. But does this necessarily mean that they don't exist as they are experienced to exist? This conclusion I have not been able to make.

The other day I was lying in bed, very tired, when I had the most unusual experience - my mind became completely devoid of any thoughts, yet I didn't lose consciousness (I may have told this story before; anyway...) So I'm in my bed thinking, "isn't this strange? I'm not thinking about anything". During the few seconds the experience lasted, I was in awe of contemplanting a void mind, something I never experienced before, or after. But when it was over I was a bit confused: how could I not be thinking about anything when I was thinking about "not thinking about anything"? That doesn't make any sense. Something strange definitely happened, but it's not what I thought it was.

What if an angel came down from heaven and spoke to you while you were alone? This angel gave you a bit of knowledge and then left you with no physical proof of it's visit. Would you believe it really happened? From your statements so far it seems you would lean toward claiming that you wouldn't believe this happened. But I don't think you will know the answer to this until it happens. So I guess my point is that there is no pre-defined formula of subjectivity versus inter-subjectivity that you can use. Of course you can never know for sure whether this actually happened ( so I agree with you here) but you will decide whether it did or not based on your experience of being a conscious human being and the impression this experience left relative to your past experiences. I'm betting that the fact that you can't prove it to anyone else will have little to do with your belief.

As you said, in order to understand things you have to experience them. But experience alone is not enough. Without guidance from other people, without logic and reason, without a healthy dose of skepticism, we risk losing our mind if we play with things we cannot understand. Happens all the time.

I agree. From the hundreds of post that Les mentioned and I have read, I would argue that he has met all that criteria. But it's not a black and white issue. I understand that. What is reasonable is subjective to.

I don't think it's a possibility. If drugs really helped anyone understand things better, they could help people achieve ordinary things. Drugs could help people find solutions to complex differential equations, compose beautiful symphonies, design awesome buildings, write breathtaking poetry, and so on. As it turns out, at best drugs do absolutely nothing in that sense, and at worst they render a person insane. I find the claim that drugs open one's mind to really, really important truths, while doing absolutely nothing for more mundane things, to be unbelievably naive.

Well the first thing I would say is that there is a big difference. Otherwise I would agree with you. All of the things that you mentioned i.e. differential equations etc. require the mind to be actively working. Drugs interfere with the way the mind works so it makes sense that these things would be especially difficult to do while on drugs. It is said that achieving enlightenment requires the exact opposite. Turning the mind off. Drugs seem like a good catalyst for this to me. Another way to say it is that these things you mentioned are creations of the mind. Enlightenment is when you experience something that isn't a creation of the mind. Drugs could simply assist in removing the barrier to seeing it.

loseyourname

Jun8-04, 06:24 PM

Fliption

Jun8-04, 08:23 PM

I still don't see how you can jump from the feeling of oneness to the conclusion that oneness is a truth of the universe. I don't want to say that I don't trust experience, but it's difficult to trust an experience that involves no sensory perception. How could you possibly know what it is you are experiencing? What exactly is a feeling of oneness anyway? Unless someone tells you that is what you are feeling, from what basis do you even put the experience in words?

Which sense do you use to experience happiness?

While I personally can't speak with alot of credibility on this, my understanding is that there are no words to describe the experience. "Oneness" is just one of the words used in an attempt to describe it. And contrary to some people, I don't believe words or language are required for something to exists or for that existence to be acknowledged.

TENYEARS

Jun8-04, 09:16 PM

Flipton, bull "blurry theory"? I was an aspect of englightening experience. There is not just one englightening experience, there are many, many kinds.
There is a general one, but that statement in itself is foolish, for it is different in it's commonness for everyone who has or will experience it.

loseyourname, if I told you what it was like, you would have a preconcieved notion, and that could taint your experience or your mind. This I know first hand, not relative to reading or the words of others, but of daily life and it's affect on absolute experience.

confutatis

Jun9-04, 08:57 AM

So where do I obtain meaning if all these people that you mention are just a trick that my brain is playing on me? This is my dilemma.

It is a false dilemma, or rather a pseudo-dilemma. The fact that you have difficulty justifying your knowledge doesn't necessarily make it invalid. You may not know why it's correct to assert that other people do exist, but that doesn't mean it's possible they don't really exist.

At some point you have to make an assumption.

When you kick a stone and your toes hurt, is your feeling of pain an assumption?

I can just as easily have a dream where people are discussing the way the sun looks and yet that sun nor the people talking about it have any physical existence at all. It's just a movie my brain has played for me. So the idea that these "other people"(that you rely on to make sure you aren't just imagining things) aren't themselves a figment of your imagination seems to be an assumption.

I can assure you there are no assumptions involved in asserting the existence of other people. If you claim it's possible that other people are a creation of your mind, you have to explain why you can't control their behaviour the same way you control yours. Then you'll end up dividing the universe between "figments of my imagination I can control" and "figments of my imagination I cannot control". Then you'll proceed to discover the relationship between "figments I can control" and "figments I can't control", and before you realize it you'll be back to the good old concept of an independent reality.

Make no mistake: the current view of the world which you, I, and almost everyone on this planet hold, is not a flight of fancy, it has been slowly developed and refined through hundreds of thousands of years since the invention of language. It may not be perfect, but making even small improvements to it takes a lot of genius. To throw the wisdom of the ages away and replace it with one's own ideas is just narcissistic nonsense.

I agree that the traditional empirical approach to gaining knowledge doesn't work so well with these items and therefore knowledge is a tricky thing. But does this necessarily mean that they don't exist as they are experienced to exist? This conclusion I have not been able to make.

You have not been able to make that conclusion because it would be a false conclusion. And I'm not implying what you think I'm implying at all. While it's true that empiricism has limitations, there is more to truth than empirical facts. There is language. Language is the most important source of truths. What makes the sun real is not only our experience of it, but the experiences of billions of people together with the fact that the sentence "the sun exists and is real" is true for any rational person on this planet.

Now you may perhaps contemplate my reaction when I hear sentences such as "the world is an illusion", which the absolute majority of rational people don't accept as true. It has nothing to do with my experience, or Les' experience, or anyone's experience in particular. It has to do with the work done by every single member of the human race, in their attempt to come up with a consistent description of our experiences. There's a lot of work in that, and you can't throw it all away just because you had a warm, fuzzy feeling you can't properly put into words.

What if an angel came down from heaven and spoke to you while you were alone? This angel gave you a bit of knowledge and then left you with no physical proof of it's visit. Would you believe it really happened?

Again, my position on angels is to take the wisdom of the ages. And the wisdom of the ages tells me that people often experience visits by angels, but they can't really understand what it means.

All of the things that you mentioned i.e. differential equations etc. require the mind to be actively working. Drugs interfere with the way the mind works so it makes sense that these things would be especially difficult to do while on drugs.

But understanding the universe and our place in it doesn't require the mind to be actively working????!!!!

It is said that achieving enlightenment requires the exact opposite. Turning the mind off. Drugs seem like a good catalyst for this to me.

"Turning the mind off" means going unconscious, which is not what those people claim. They claim they are fully conscious, but not conscious of anything. This doesn't make any sense. I think they are just fooling themselves, and the fact that I can also fool myself if I do whatever it is that they do proves absolutely nothing.

I'd like to comment on something you wrote to loseyourname:

Which sense do you use to experience happiness?

Nobody is claiming the experience of happiness reveals any cosmic truth. Nobody says you must achieve happiness before you can understand the essence of reality.

loseyourname

Jun9-04, 03:50 PM

While I personally can't speak with alot of credibility on this, my understanding is that there are no words to describe the experience. "Oneness" is just one of the words used in an attempt to describe it. And contrary to some people, I don't believe words or language are required for something to exists or for that existence to be acknowledged.

Neither do I, but that was not my point. Happiness is an individual state, whereas "oneness" is not. Oneness is a state of the sum of conscious lifeforms in the universe. People like Les are not simply inserting a word where none belongs; he has quite clearly stated that he believes individual minds arise from a single source of consciousness that is more real than the physical world we experience with our senses. All minds are literally "one" mind. I can't imagine a way in which I would even begin to suspect that, much less come to be convinced of it.

Kerrie

Jun9-04, 05:30 PM

People like Les are not simply inserting a word where none belongs; he has quite clearly stated that he believes individual minds arise from a single source of consciousness that is more real than the physical world we experience with our senses. All minds are literally "one" mind. I can't imagine a way in which I would even begin to suspect that, much less come to be convinced of it.

you can't "imagine a way in which our minds are literally one", yet Les clearly states that the single source of consciousness is more real then the physical world we experience with our senses. If Les's theory is correct, then could one have a difficult time comprehending the concept due to our senses and how our senses are hardwired by biology and society?

hypnagogue

Jun9-04, 06:21 PM

I'm not rejecting the claims that people experience enlightenment, far from it. I know the brain/mind is capable of producing anything imaginable, and quite a few things unimaginable. But I do reject most metaphysical claims associated with altered states of mind.

I don't reject them, but I don't accept them. I prefer to take a position of agnosticism with regards to the more extravagent metaphysical truths purportedly revealed in altered states of consciousness. Please keep this in mind when considering my responses to your ideas.

Also, I prefer to use the term "spiritual experience," or SE, in the following discussion instead of enlightenment. Enlightenment can be understood loosely as a special case (indefinitely enduring, with perhaps some additional qualitative constraints) of the more general concept of spiritual experience. As the discussion here has been carried out on a very foundational, general level, it is more appropriate to use the more basic underlying concept.

Why does that make sense to you? It doesn't make any sense to me. When these people describe their altered states of consciousness, they do so from quite an ordinary state. If what they discover in the ASC makes any sense in the baseline state, it can be known from the baseline state - no "trips" required. And if it doesn't make sense in the ordinary state... well, then it doesn't make sense.

I can have a conceptual understanding of what it is like to dream from my baseline, waking state. At the same time, I would not expect someone to have an understanding of dreaming as good as mine if that person had never experienced a dream before. They could get some sort of conceptual understanding from verbal descriptions of dreams, but I take it as uncontroversial that such a person would achieve a much better understanding of what it is like to be in a dreaming state if that person eventually did experience a dream firsthand.

You can substitute any altered state of consciousness in for "dream" in the above paragraph, including "spiritual experience," and it would remain just as valid. Dreaming consciousness is a particular kind of ASC, and is useful for the purposes of this discussion since it's undoubtedly the most widely experienced ASC there is. Epistemological and metaphysical claims about spiritual experiences can be clarified by testing analogous claims about dreaming.

As far as I know, the idea of "enlightenment" is a key point of some religions. It is a belief, not unlike the concept of salvation in Christianity. I'm not saying one or both ideas are false, but I think it's very reasonable to think of them as rough approximations of truths beyond our current ability to understand.

Spiritual experience is more than belief. It is a particular kind of state of consciousness that viscerally feels different from normal waking consciousness in a completely novel way, similarly to how dreaming viscerally feels different from waking consciousness on so many levels. People over the ages have attached metaphysical meaning (belief structures) to such experiences, but those belief structures do not constitute the essence of the term. They are scaffolds built on top of the central conceptual structure, which is simply about the experience itself. The aborigines constructed a metaphysical belief structure based on their experiences with dreaming consciousness, but that does not mean that dreaming can be exhaustively characterized by those beliefs or other metaphysical beliefs derived from dreaming. The core concept of what an SE is is no more and no less a belief than is the concept of the experiential "what-it-is-like-ness" of dreams.

There's no rationale to doubt that the sun exists, when it can be seen everyday by everyone, but it took centuries for us to learn that the sun is a star. Now look at Les' last post and his "background" - what the heck is that, and how does he know it is what he thinks it is? How does he know he's not mistaken it for some completely unrelated phenomenon, just like the ancients mistook the sun for some god in the sky?

This is a great paradigm case to clear up some of the confusion going on here. I know what Les was referring to, having experienced similar things myself. It is important to recognize that at its core, this claim of a 'background' is not a metaphysical claim, but that it is an experiential claim; that is, it's not immediately a claim about the true 'nature' of a phenomenon underlying a certain appearance, it's just a claim about the existence and nature of a certain appearance as such. Les has extended metaphysical claims on the basis of this experiential claim, but I need not agree with his metaphysical claim in order to recognize a ring of truth in the experiential claim by way of comparison to my own experiences.

Using your sun example, the ancients and modern scientists certainly have different metaphysical claims about what the sun is. But both agree rather plainly on the experiential aspect-- that the sun's appearance is simply that of a bright yellow disc. Whether you think the sun is an anthropomorphic god or a collection of vibrating molecules, you can agree rather uncontroversially about the experiential claim, assuming you have a normally functioning visual system. I suspect you have trouble identifying with the experiential claim of a certain background state of consciousness in the same way a person who has never seen bright things or yellow things has trouble in identifying with the experiential claim that the sun is a bright yellow disc.

The other day I was lying in bed, very tired, when I had the most unusual experience - my mind became completely devoid of any thoughts, yet I didn't lose consciousness (I may have told this story before; anyway...) So I'm in my bed thinking, "isn't this strange? I'm not thinking about anything". During the few seconds the experience lasted, I was in awe of contemplanting a void mind, something I never experienced before, or after. But when it was over I was a bit confused: how could I not be thinking about anything when I was thinking about "not thinking about anything"? That doesn't make any sense. Something strange definitely happened, but it's not what I thought it was.

Perhaps your mind really was devoid of thought up until the point where you recited this thought to yourself? Surely there was some temporal extension to the experience, one part of which was thoughtless, and the other part of which contained thoughts about the thoughtlessness of the preceding portion.

I don't think it's a possibility. If drugs really helped anyone understand things better, they could help people achieve ordinary things. Drugs could help people find solutions to complex differential equations, compose beautiful symphonies, design awesome buildings, write breathtaking poetry, and so on. As it turns out, at best drugs do absolutely nothing in that sense, and at worst they render a person insane. I find the claim that drugs open one's mind to really, really important truths, while doing absolutely nothing for more mundane things, to be unbelievably naive.

If you think drugs (or more generally, exceptional states of consciousness which may be accessed either by drugs or other means) have never assisted anyone in writing exceptional poetry or composing exceptional music, boy are you kidding yourself. :tongue2: Many great poets did their best work when in trance-like or 'transcendental' states of consciousness. Whole religions have been founded on the altered states of consciousness of 'enlightened' spiritual leaders or 'visionary' prophets. The revolutionary music of the 60s and 70s owes much of its soul to marijuana and psychedelics. (Just ask Bob Dylan or the Beatles or Pink Floyd or Jimi Hendrix, to name a few-- I highly doubt the Beatles would have ever composed Revolver or Sgt Pepper in the absence of these experiences.) Dali and Van Gogh, to name a couple of highly influential and praised visual artists, owe much of their creative talent to their peculiar states of consciousness. Personally, I dabble in creating art and poetry, and some of what I consider to be my best stuff has come directly from altered states. (Others have come to the same conclusions without knowing anything about how they were created.)

I don't think the SE state is optimal for straightforward logical tasks like performing math. But they are great enhancers for social and artistic intelligence, or social and artistic sensibility if you prefer.

"Turning the mind off" means going unconscious, which is not what those people claim. They claim they are fully conscious, but not conscious of anything. This doesn't make any sense. I think they are just fooling themselves, and the fact that I can also fool myself if I do whatever it is that they do proves absolutely nothing.

It doesn't make sense that the speed of light is constant in all reference frames either. Whether consciousness can exist in the absence of recognizable contents of consciousness is ultimately an empirical question that may be answered on a firsthand basis, eg by using the appropriate meditational techniques (I don't believe any known drugs can simulate this kind of experience).

Les Sleeth

Jun9-04, 07:13 PM

Now look at Les' last post and his "background" - what the heck is that, and how does he know it is what he thinks it is? How does he know he's not mistaken it for some completely unrelated phenomenon, just like the ancients mistook the sun for some god in the sky?

What you are saying with "what the heck is that" is that you have no personal experience that allows you to understand what I am talking about. Well, that's how reality seems to work. I can't transfer my experience into your consciousness, but that doesn't mean I can't have my personal opinions about what is happening.

As Hypnagogue pointed out, I am certain I experience the background, but I am not nearly so certain about what that background really is. After a solid ten years of experiencing it every day, I can only say my impression is that the background is something big, really BIG . . . at least, a lot bigger than my tiny little consciousness. But, does my impression mean I am "convinced" beyond all question of that interpretation? No it doesn't. I am reporting to you and others the closest approximation I can of what it "seems like." If you want to investigate the truth of what I am saying, I don't see any other way than for you to develop the skill of union yourself, and then see what impression you get.

As you said, in order to understand things you have to experience them. But experience alone is not enough. Without guidance from other people, without logic and reason, without a healthy dose of skepticism, we risk losing our mind if we play with things we cannot understand. Happens all the time.

I've had experience, I've had guidance from other people, I apply logic and reason fairly well, and I am, if not exactly skeptical, at least conservative in drawing final conclusions. I am surprised to find people worried about the implications of my musings when I myself am leaving any final intepretation of the experience open.

I don't think it's a possibility. If drugs really helped anyone understand things better, they could help people achieve ordinary things. Drugs could help people find solutions to complex differential equations, compose beautiful symphonies, design awesome buildings, write breathtaking poetry, and so on. As it turns out, at best drugs do absolutely nothing in that sense, and at worst they render a person insane. I find the claim that drugs open one's mind to really, really important truths, while doing absolutely nothing for more mundane things, to be unbelievably naive.

How do you account for my report that it was peyote that first clued me into the possibility of union? And now, for the last twenty years, I've been experiencing union without the drug? Doesn't that suggest certain drugs, used in a specific way, might work as some of us claim?

Further, how can you claim someone is naive when you know nothing about psychotropic drugs from personal experience? Without experience there are lots of things that "don't make sense" which, after experience, do. However, I must add, again, that I DO NOT recommend drug use. At the time I did it, I didn't realize a natural way was possible to discover the "background." I kept doing peyote for awhile after I discovered a natural way because it had been a "friend."

Les Sleeth

Jun9-04, 07:46 PM

Happiness is an individual state, whereas "oneness" is not. Oneness is a state of the sum of conscious lifeforms in the universe. People like Les are not simply inserting a word where none belongs; he has quite clearly stated that he believes individual minds arise from a single source of consciousness that is more real than the physical world we experience with our senses. All minds are literally "one" mind. I can't imagine a way in which I would even begin to suspect that, much less come to be convinced of it.

Have you read my posts? What you do is emphasize my hypothesis, and that's all it is, ahead of my experience. What I have stated as clear as anyone can state it is that oneness is an individual experience. I "inserted" the term oneness to describe the very personal experience of union.

I did not say I am sure "oneness is a state of the sum of conscious lifeforms in the universe." I gave you an impression, a hypothesis for discussion, a possibility. Never have I said what you are attributing to me. I should be able to suggest an idea without being labeled a believer. To discuss what someone's experience might imply doesn't mean anyone has to jump to conclusions. I certainly am not ready to do that.

Think about what it means when you say, "I can't imagine a way in which I would even begin to suspect that, much less come to be convinced of it." Of course you can't imagine it, and that is because you are intelligent. When you hypothesize, isn't it based on some experience, or with the hope you will have some kind of confirming experience? I can hypothesize as I have because I've had the experience, and you cannot "begin to suspect that" because you lack experience. Unless the standard for truth is to be only what you've experienced, then it seems to me in a philosophical area of an empirical-based forum, any experience-supported and logical hypothesis is worthy of consideration.

Kerrie

Jun10-04, 08:19 AM

confutatis

Jun10-04, 01:10 PM

If you think drugs (or more generally, exceptional states of consciousness which may be accessed either by drugs or other means) have never assisted anyone in writing exceptional poetry or composing exceptional music, boy are you kidding yourself. Many great poets did their best work when in trance-like or 'transcendental' states of consciousness.

I'm short of time today, but I think it's worth commenting on this. It is true that people have sometimes produced good works under altered states of consciousness. But it's even more true that the vast majority of great artists and scientists produce their best work in a heightened but still quite ordinary state. It's also true that all scientific research on "mind-expanding" drugs and creativity turned out negative results. If anything, scientists have learned that drugs do change a person's judgement, so that they think they have performed a lot better even when they have actually performed a lot worse.

I do not particularly like when I see people defending the use of drugs for any purpose, even recreational, when all scientific research has established that drugs are useless at best and extremely harmful at worst. I think it's particularly bad in a forum like this, when young people may get the impression that such opinions as expressed in this forum have authority to them.

And that was my sermon for today :smile:

BoulderHead

Jun10-04, 02:30 PM

…Drugs could help people find solutions to complex differential equations, compose beautiful symphonies, design awesome buildings, write breathtaking poetry, and so on. As it turns out, at best drugs do absolutely nothing in that sense, and at worst they render a person insane.
Spoken with authority.
It is true that people have sometimes produced good works under altered states of consciousness…
Authority softened from declaration of “absolutely nothing” to admission that “sometimes….”
…when all scientific research has established that drugs are useless at best and extremely harmful at worst.
I think this depends on the type of drug under consideration as well as the individual taking it. This is a blanket statement that is false, as can be seen in the admission that “sometimes…”. At least, the only defense I see for it is tied to it being limited to “scientific research”. Certain drugs, for some people, are useful as has been admitted to. So, if scientific studies deem a drug useless yet an individual performs well while taking that drug, who is to deny them?
Also, and I believe this was the most comprehensive study on marihuana ever performed, the Nixon-appointed commission stated: "Marihuana's relative potential for harm to the vast majority of individual users and its actual impact on society does not justify a social policy designed to seek out and firmly punish those who use it."

Here’s a link for more information, should anyone be interested;
http://www.csdp.org/news/news/nixon.htm

For adults, if not children, I view it as a matter of personal liberty.
I think it's particularly bad in a forum like this, when young people may get the impression that such opinions as expressed in this forum have authority to them.

I agree with you 100% so I’m pointing where authority is found wanting. :smile:

Les Sleeth

Jun10-04, 08:22 PM

I do not particularly like when I see people defending the use of drugs for any purpose, even recreational, when all scientific research has established that drugs are useless at best and extremely harmful at worst. I think it's particularly bad in a forum like this, when young people may get the impression that such opinions as expressed in this forum have authority to them.

I am quite certain you cannot cite the studies that have established all drugs are "useless at best." I don't like such generalizations because I know such a fact has not been established with all drugs. Yet I agree with you about kids and drugs, and have had the same reservations about discussing my experiences with them.

But it seems several of we adults have decided to talk about specific drugs in an objective way, and now that we are into it and it is public, I think we should strive to be accurate. To make my point, I will use the Yaqui worldview to help evaluate the wisdom of using a drug.

First, I think we have to distinquish between synthetic drugs and those found in nature. If I'd been raised in Yaqui culture, for instance, I might have learned that nature (which we know took billions of years to become what it is today), provided peyote and certain other substances for humans to benefit from. Of course, nature provides deadly poisons as well, and just because the Yaquis believed what they did doesn't make it so; yet it could be true too in the case of peyote.

Secondly, I think we have to distinquish between the tribal culture that peyote use developed within, and modern culture. In Yaqui culture, a shaman, relying on methods passed down for centuries, would guide the use of the drug. He would serve as a guide in the sense of creating the proper attitude with which to use peyote, and limiting its use to situations he would set up. There the drug was employed with a purpose, such as helping one escape from one's conditioned world view (or, as Don Juan expressed it, "stopping the world"). But in modern culture, people are likely to take peyote so they can party, get off on how color is accentuated or how much fun sex becomes, or for no other reason than to be "out of it," etc.

One can be sure any modern studies on peyote did not attempt to measure its ability to help one when under the guidance of an experienced guide, and so statements about the positive potential of that drug at least lacks support from credible research.

As noble as a kneejerk reaction to drug use may be, in the name of accuracy I think we shouldn't be fearful of discussing the possibility of it being done properly. Afterall, the medical profession relies heavily on drugs, where there too it is done under the supervision of a trained professional; but in that case, many of the drugs are being prescribed without the benefit of centuries of testing. On the other hand, I must admit that since currently we don't have proper guidance available to us, the use of drugs, while possibly beneficial in the past, may now be too dangerous to recommend.

hypnagogue

Jun11-04, 09:20 AM

I do not particularly like when I see people defending the use of drugs for any purpose, even recreational, when all scientific research has established that drugs are useless at best

from http://www.maps.org/research/tenlessons.html :

While no medical use is currently accepted in the United States, many of the earlier individual practitioners and clinical researchers produced extremely promising - and due to subsequent constraints on research - largely unexploited results.

In the clinical research that has been conducted, psychedelics have been shown to be useful in:

Alcoholism
Substance abuse and addiction
Relationship counseling
Criminal recidivism
Post-traumatic stress disorder
Depression
Obsessive-compulsive disorder
End-stage cancer psychotherapy
Stimulation of the meditative state
Elicitation of a mystical experience

and extremely harmful at worst.

from http://www.maps.org/research/tenlessons.html :

In fact, the clinical literature agrees that psychedelics are generally "safe and effective when used as directed" (see "Ten Lessons of Psychedelics, Rediscovered" below). From a chemical perspective, the classic psychedelics are relatively non-toxic in adults, especially as compared with other drugs of abuse

Nonetheless, psychedelics are powerful psychoactive chemicals and when used outside the professional context, or even in an improper clinical setting, can cause considerable, although generally transient, psychological distress. (Psychedelics do cause sensory distortions, but not true hallucinations.) When subjects are properly selected and treated, however, the research clearly and repeatedly has shown no long-term deleterious effects from the use of psychedelics under medical supervision. The question of whether medical or psychospiritual supervision is most appropriate is an important issue and one yet to be fully addressed by professionals.

Your attitude towards psychedelics betrays either a bias in your reasoning or an ignorance of the facts. When used properly, psychedelics can be safely used for both practical (therapeutic) and theoretical (research of the nature of the brain/mind) purposes.

I'm not advising that just anyone go out on the local street corner and buy a tab of acid, for the same reason I wouldn't advise that just anyone get into a car and start driving. Driving is a wonderful tool, but can also be quite dangerous. Before an aspiring driver begins driving as he pleases, he must learn the basic rules of what constitutes safe driving, he must practice carrying out actual performance in small increments under the supervision of an experienced tutor, and he must meet legal qualifications.

The same holds true of psychedelics. They can be wonderful tools, but they can also be quite dangerous. Before an aspiring psychedelic user begins using psychedelics as he pleases, he must learn the basic rules of what constitutes safe usage, he must practice carrying out actual performance in small increments under the supervision of an experienced tutor, and he must meet legal qualifications.

I would heartily recommend anyone who is willing to follow the above guidelines for driving to actually go through with them and learn how to drive safely and legally for his own person benefit. I would even more emphatically recommend anyone who is willing to follow the above guidelines for using psychedelics to actually go through with them and learn how to use psychedelics safely and legally for his own personal benefit.

confutatis

Jun11-04, 09:49 AM

from http://www.maps.org/research/tenlessons.html :
[... and ...]
from http://www.maps.org/research/tenlessons.html :

Well, I guess we tend to accept research that confirms our beliefs and dismiss the rest. I won't pretend I don't have beliefs about drugs, or that those beliefs don't taint my perceptions, but at a minimum I feel confident about my beliefs as they come from experience, not from ignorance.

Your attitude towards psychedelics betrays either a bias in your reasoning or an ignorance of the facts.

There is a bias, definitely, but it's nothing I find embarassing. The bias comes from having seen quite a few young lives destroyed. And I'm not talking about the news on TV, I'm talking about friends and extended family, about cousins and in-laws who have come to the edge of suicide or madness. So I hope you can forgive if I have no sympathy at all for the stuff.

When used properly, psychedelics can be safely used for both practical (therapeutic) and theoretical (research of the nature of the brain/mind) purposes.

When used properly, antibiotics can be safely used for practical and theoretical purposes. That doesn't mean we should go out and play with them without professional supervision.

I'm not advising that just anyone go out on the local street corner and buy a tab of acid, for the same reason I wouldn't advise that just anyone get into a car and start driving. Driving is a wonderful tool, but can also be quite dangerous.

The benefits of driving are far greater than the risks. The risks of drugs are far greater than the benefits. It's as simple as that - a rational decision.

psychedelics [...] can be wonderful tools, but they can also be quite dangerous. Before an aspiring psychedelic user begins using psychedelics as he pleases, he must learn the basic rules of what constitutes safe usage, he must practice carrying out actual performance in small increments under the supervision of an experienced tutor, and he must meet legal qualifications.

You mean, like Timothy Leary?

[I would] recommend anyone who is willing to follow the above guidelines for using psychedelics to actually go through with them and learn how to use psychedelics safely and legally for his own personal benefit.

In most parts of the world, there are no legal ways to "benefit" from psychedelics.

Anyway, I'm sure you have heard all this stuff before, from your mother. Sorry to bother you, you're an adult after all, and quite mature and responsible as far as I can tell. I just wanted to make it clear that my position does not come from ignorance, as you claim it does.

hypnagogue

Jun11-04, 10:35 AM

A lot of young lives are destroyed by drunk driving as well. But if you drive safely and properly, the act is of great benefit. Likewise for psychedelics. I'm not trying to trivialize or deny the harm that can come from improper drug use, far from it. I don't know the details of your personal acquaintances, and I wouldn't want to get too personal here, but I suspect if the drugs in question were psychedelics and if they were used properly, disaster could have been avoided. Psychedelics are not addictive, so responsible use is emminently possible. Of course, there are some people who should never use psychedelics under any circumstances (those predisposed to mental illness, mainly), just as there are those who should never drive under any circumstances (eg someone with extremely poor vision). But for a well-informed and responsible user of psychedelics, the risks are really essentially minimal and the potential benefits are great. The risk of psychedelic use is not at all comparable to the risks involved with using rampantly destructive, addictive, and physiologically damaging drugs such as cocaine or heroin (or, for that matter, nicotine!), where even the most informed and responsible intentions of use are in precarious danger of being overtaken.

You are correct to point out that by far the most stringent limiting factor on reaping the benefits of psychedelics is legal restriction. I do believe that many of the legal restrictions on use of psychedelics are entirely unfounded (as opposed to, say, legal restrictions on the use of heroin which are entirely justified), and I can only hope that governments will progressively come to take a more enlightened position with regard to them. But for sufficientily serious, responsible, and interested people, there are ways to reap enormous personal benefits from psychedelics both safely and, in some parts of the world, completely legally.

Kerrie

Jun11-04, 02:27 PM

i hope some here participating in this thread do not think that those of us claiming the realization of "oneness" did so by drug use exclusively. my realization came by reading many books which offered words of experience from others and conversing with other people coupled with a lot of alone time thinking. people sharing their experiences i think have the intention of helping others realize this great feeling of "oneness". let's not forget this :)

hypnagogue

Jun11-04, 05:09 PM

I agree with Kerrie. To use a rough metaphor, psychedelics can serve as useful compasses on the spiritual path. I don't mean to give the impression that psychedelics are complete answers to the problems of exploring consciousness and approaching self-actualization. But they can serve as an invaluable tool in achieving this end. A compass can point you in the right direction, but it won't lift you up and take you where you want to go. Likewise, psychedelics can be eye-opening guides as to the potential of what consciousness can be (and what is so wonderful about what it can be), but ultimately the cultivation of one's consciousness is a more involved, embedded, ongoing process that can be assisted by, but not completed by, psychedelics.

For an article that says all this and more better than I am able to, please see http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/lsd/walsh.htm. In addition to expounding on what I stated above, there is also this useful insight that should be of interest to all the naysayers:

For 5 of those 8 years I have worked in areas such as the nature of psychological well-being, non-Western psychologies and religions, consciousness, and the effects of meditation. I have also undertaken a personal study of meditative and non-Western traditions, and I thus have had the opportunity of meeting, interviewing, and studying with a wide range of people in these related disciplines.

Whenever I came to know these people closely, the same story would emerge: that although they rarely acknowledged it in public, the psychedelics had played an important role in introducing them to and facilitating their passage through these disciplines. It occurred to me that this might well be a case of what social scientists call "plurality ignorance:" a situation in which each individual thinks he or she is the only one doing something, although in fact the practice is widespread. In this case, what seemed to be widely unrecognized was that large numbers of people appear to have derived, at least from their own point of view, significant benefits from psychedelics, despite popular media accounts of their devastating dangers.

This suspicion was deepened by an encounter with the editor of a prominent psychological journal. In an extensive review of various Western and non-Western psychologies, I discussed the data on psychedelics and concluded that there was evidence suggesting that in some cases people might find them beneficial. The journal editor was willing to accept the paper provided I removed any reference to positive effects of psychedelics; he thought that the journal could not afford to be associated with such statements. I am familiar with this particular editor's work and know that he is exceptionally open-minded. It appears that we have in our culture, even in the scientific and professional literature, a bias towards reporting only the negative effects of psychedelics.

loseyourname

Jun11-04, 06:34 PM

I did not say I am sure "oneness is a state of the sum of conscious lifeforms in the universe." I gave you an impression, a hypothesis for discussion, a possibility. Never have I said what you are attributing to me. I should be able to suggest an idea without being labeled a believer. To discuss what someone's experience might imply doesn't mean anyone has to jump to conclusions. I certainly am not ready to do that.

I was pretty certain that you had said "union" meant union with a primeval source of all consciousness. This would apply to all conscious lifeforms. If I'm wrong about that, though, I'm sorry. It's not like misunderstandings are uncommon on internet forums. Hopefully enough discussion can clear them up. I'm starting to get the feeling that what you are experiencing isn't adequately described by the English language.

Think about what it means when you say, "I can't imagine a way in which I would even begin to suspect that, much less come to be convinced of it." Of course you can't imagine it, and that is because you are intelligent.

There is logic behind why I can't imagine it. I can imagine experiencing a higher form of my own consciousness, but unless I could simultaneously experience the conciousness of all conscious beings, I don't see how I could know that this higher state is common to all of them. Hypothesis or not, I don't see any way in which it could possibly be verified, except of course by experiencing the consciousness of all conscious beings, something that no one has ever claimed doing as far as I know.

Les Sleeth

Jun11-04, 08:06 PM

I was pretty certain that you had said "union" meant union with a primeval source of all consciousness. This would apply to all conscious lifeforms. If I'm wrong about that, though, I'm sorry. It's not like misunderstandings are uncommon on internet forums. Hopefully enough discussion can clear them up. I'm starting to get the feeling that what you are experiencing isn't adequately described by the English language.

Well, you are definitely correct in saying "misunderstandings are uncommon on internet forums." Part of it is trying to maintain some level of brevity in one's responses . . . most of us are pretty busy with our lives.

However, you have fused my personal experience with my theorizing, while I tried to keep them distinct. What is not theory to me is the idea of "merging" with some background state of consciousness (I refer you to my "truck-on-a-bumpy-country-road" analogy). That experience is very unambiguous. In contrast, besides the direct aspects of the union experience there are also peripheral "impressions." One is, for example, that one is not just merged with the foundation of one's own consciousness, but also that one's consciousness is part of something much bigger.

While I am confident to state an experience I've labeled "union" is possible, and even that there is some "ground state" or foundation of conscousness, when I talk about the greater thing I feel outside of me, I realize it must be left in the category of impressions.

There is logic behind why I can't imagine it. I can imagine experiencing a higher form of my own consciousness, but unless I could simultaneously experience the conciousness of all conscious beings, I don't see how I could know that this higher state is common to all of them. Hypothesis or not, I don't see any way in which it could possibly be verified, except of course by experiencing the consciousness of all conscious beings, something that no one has ever claimed doing as far as I know.

Right, that's what I said. I said you lacked confirming, or even indicative, experience. To me, it is a sign of intelligence (even if not terribly intuitive :wink: ) when one limits one's thinking to confirming personal experience.

On the other hand, your standard for verification is physicalistic. If consciousness is not physical, then it's not going to work, as you say. I suggest that inner experience needs a different standard for verification which is, each human being has to look inside for oneself.