Transcending Theism

[Orbit]

Did you see the other video I added to the above post?

Thanks for drawing my attention to that. Yes, it's a beautiful sound. Have you thought about low-end drums, like Japanese drums?

[Antlerman]

We got off topic a little bit on my lust for music, but to bring this back I came across these videos just now that I think shed a lot of light of the mystical union you are talking about.  I love how Teasdale says at somewhere around the minute or so mark how that God and Godhead are like the Yin and Yang of the Absolute.  God is the active, and Godhead is the passive.  That helps me a lot in my thinking.  And I think it helps a lot in understanding the whole of why 2nd person approaches work.  

 

The only problem with 2nd person approaches is when they become literalized or a complete externalization of them - which is why I believe 1st person, Zen and Theravada Buddhist practices, and 3rd person Pantheistic approaches became popular in the West, because 2nd person is too removed from us in traditional dogmatic Christian theologies.  The Absolute is within us, but we can move ourselves beyond the separate self through symbolic interaction with it in an objectified fashion, to move through it, rather than simply driving it out through focused practices.  2nd person has to be held not concretely, as is done by those with no mystical apprehension, intuition, or to put of fine point on it, faith (the True Believers™), but metaphorically.  

 

And to add just one other thought that occured to me as well just now writing that, we likewise have to hold our self, our small separate egoic self, as a metaphor as well!  That is in fact exactly what that "me" is we look at and self-identify with - a metaphor.  We likewise, see that metaphoric "me" as a literal object, in the same way most see God.  Both are illusory.  Both held as factual realities are a form of delusion.  It's not just the God Delusion in some naive Dawkinsian theology, but the Dawkins Delusion as well of some naive realism through the eyes of the separate self as reality!   We have to likewise hold the small self, the egoic "me" as a pointer to something greater than itself, the same as that Face of the Infinite.  God beyond God, Self beyond self.  

 

Here's the videos I'm watching right now and getting a lot out of for myself.  Teasdale was really in touch with this and has a great way of trying to talk about it.  I think there's an incredible wealth in this series.  

 

[Antlerman]

part 3 and 4

 

 

[Antlerman]

part 5 and 6

 

 

 

 

Just previewing all of these there's some incredible material in here.  I'll be watching all of these today!  

[Antlerman]

goodness, there's a part 7 too!

 

[Ellinas]

I am trying to work through something, and hope that the forum lurkers (I know you're there!) will contribute. In my own path, I am at something of a crossroads.

 

When I was a Christian, I was a very liberal, nondogmatic mystic with a New-Age God concept. I had several mystical experiences, which centered on union with God. I still think those experiences are valid and valuable. I also had one mind blowing experience that was not theistic at all that had to do with pure perception of consciousness and a trip through the universe. So, I'm now, and have always been a mystic at heart. I did not then, and do not now, have any use for dogma of any kind.

 

Here is the crossroads: I am now an atheist with pantheist leanings who finds Eastern mysticism appealing. I do non-theistic meditation, which is one way to reach mystic states. So in that sense, my basic spiritual makeup is unaltered: I'm still chasing mystic states. It has been recently pointed out to me that the "God" concept and related religious symbols and imageries are just that--imagery to be transcended; convenient shorthand for the indescribable; masks of the ineffable.

 

As I incorporate those ideas into my practice, I wonder if I can leave the God-baggage behind and truly be free of, or rather transcend theism in my efforts at mystical union.

 

So, I throw this open to the wisdom of the boards: Have you had a mystical experience? How do you incorporate that into your post-Christian worldview? General thoughts?

 

Orbit, I find myself puzzled at why the "god baggage" is so much of an issue.  Does it really matter?

 

Let's put it another way.  You are attempting "mystical union".  With what?  The "indescribable" and "ineffable" of your previous paragraph?  How does that not come within some sort of concept of "god"?  Not necessarily a personal deity, not necessarily a "being" having some sort of theoretical form like the Judeao-Christian old man with a long white beard.  Maybe some undefinable river of primaeval power, life force, or philosophical concept of what constitutes ultimate reality.  Perhaps just what you see as the latent powers within your own psyche.  Maybe some, all or none of those in various combinations.  It's up to you.  But however you see it, doesn't it come down to a concept that is capable of being regarded as  that which is beyond this current, literal reality and in the realm of the psychological, even the spiritual?  And, if so, why worry about whether it appears to you as some idea of deity?  It won't change its' nature just because you give it a different name or try to drop the "baggage".

 

Of course, I may be completely misunderstanding you.  And it may be that your issue is to try to stop the accustomed imagery of Judaeo-Christian thought getting in the way - in which case, I see your problem, but still think that trying to drop the concept of "god" altogether simply risks losing a (potentially useful if not absolutely necessary) stepping stone to the greater reality that you seek to sense.

 

There is a finite possibility that I am talking rubbish, of course...  Feel free to savage me appropriately if that is the case.

 

Anyhow, I also rather suspect that mystic and transcendent experiences are what the individual makes of them.  The most accessible place to find a sense of union with the cosmos (for want of a better word; "42" will also do quite nicely...) is - for me at any rate - whilst standing alone on a windswept hillside.  If you can link relaxation and emptiness of mind with minute observation, a sense of almost boundless "belonging" is possible.  No god concept needed - though ultimately, to my mind, god becomes the cosmos to which you sense yourself linked, and your own self becomes part of that godhead, as a necessary consequence of the union.

 

Of course, I have a rather different approach to you to the concept of individual deities.  There is one deity with which I tend to identify more than others, and this morning I attempted to use her name as a sort of mantra.  No great insights to report - just a surprisingly quick state of apparently heightened awareness of what was around me, similar to the "relaxation and minute observation" that I referred to above.  The mental repetition of the name seemed to filter out the outside stimuli that distract so easily.

 

I have no idea whether any of that was of any help whatsoever, or whether it was just my own rather self centred rambling.  I'll leave that to you to decide...

[Deva]

For me, the talk of "God" doesn't really help much anymore. 

 

I am helped by the Buddhist view of mind - which is that mind is uncreated and unending and unrelated to the physical body. This makes sense to me in view of my own experience. I am looking to see this eternal mind, the mind beyond all categories, or what Buddhists refer to as the "true nature of the mind". 

 

I think I am going to experiment with using a focus of meditation on a positive image.  Probably I have two main ones: Padmasambhava and White Tara.

[Antlerman]

I'm going to share some thoughts that occurred to me as a result of my meditation this morning I think will help with the theistic, 2nd person perspective.  There is a confusion in the manner in which people speak of God, the traditional theistic deity.  That is actually not a 2nd person perspective, but a 3rd person perspective.  Though it is called a "person", it is an object.  It is not a 'you', it is a "him", a "she", or an "it" 3rd person perspective of the personal or the impersonal.  That is not a 2nd person perspective.  For someone to say "I believe in God" is a 3rd person view.  For someone to say "I know God" is a 2nd person view.  2nd person is a 'we'.  It is relational and interpenetrates, relating self and other, sameness and differences.  It facilitates the space between 1st and 3rd person perspectives.  With me so far?

 

When we 'believe' in God, or envision God or Spirit or the World, or the Universe in as positive expression of the Ultimate or the Absolute, this is a 3rd person perspective.  We perceive and relate to this Ultimate as an object and us as the observer, the considering, the ponderer of this.  But because it is the Absolute we are trying to see, it creates a dissonance within ourselves because we are excluding the 1st person, the one seeing from the understanding of the Absolute.  We are excluding the "I".  And we are excluding the 2nd person of relationship between the subject and the object.  Whether that is a theistic object or a naturalistic object, it's no different.  There is an exclusion of the beginning and the middle.

 

Here's where it get interesting and forgive me if I indulge a little in going deeper.  The 2nd person in relation to the Absolute, lets call that "God" as a positive face we can look at, a cataphatic rather than apophatic understanding of a 3rd person object, can be described as an "I-Thou" relationship.  Where the actual space, the 2nd person, is the hyphen between I and Thou.  That is the middle ground between 1st person and 3rd person.  That is the relationship between the subject and the object.  That is where the work occurs between self and Self, the false self, the ego-self, and the Absolute Identity.  

 

Now as we come to this space, that hyphen mark, this is where our small ego meets the Self and tries to relate to and grow in relationship with it.  This is the Subtle space of meditation.  The is where we begin to move beyond ego to our true Identity.  This is where we grow up and out of the things of our naive childhood.  This is where we 'overcome the world' in the sense of our naive self-contraction as an object separated from the Universe and our own very Ground of Being.  And this happens in stages, a shedding of the things of childhood in favor of a new awakening Identity.  The confrontation happens in the Subtle realm of contemplation, of inward exploration through meditation, but putting off ideas and thoughts and concepts to simple exposure to that inner luminosity.  This goes through a low-subtle, and then a high-subtle plane of illumination in the space between I and Thou, between self and Self.  

 

In that relationship, that space in the low-subtle, we come to see and know the ego self, we heal what is broken, we mend what is wounded in order to move forward.  Much is learned in this space and we begin to become whole.  This is the domain where psychotherapy does its works.  But it becomes very much more than this.  That is the beginning ground.  What then happens as the 'whole' self continues to explore the interior spaces, the high-subtle emerges and comes to light, though it was there and seen the whole time but largely held at bay due to the capacity to receive it at that earlier point.  

 

The transition to this, through abandoning all fear, receptivity through calm and open intentionality, willing to die completely to the egoic-self, to leave behind all clingings to the things of your childhood, brings you up into an emerging knowledge of your true Identity, your Authentic self.  You spend time in that space, as that body in a growing self knowledge just before that Light and in deep relations of knowledge "Face to Face", on that hyphen mark.  You come to know who you are as you experience mind and spirit and body in this.  I would rightly call this the "Soul".  It is the culmination of you separate identity before complete Oneness, before united with and as That which you had previously beheld as Other.  It is to me highly important we know ourselves, know our soul as it were, in order to be fully integrated on the other side of dissolution into Emptiness and emergence on the other side in nonduality where there is "not one, not two".  

 

Spending time in high-subtle, which I see as the goal of 2nd person perspective teaches us who were are as the highest being of our individuality, Face to Face with the Absolute.  I am not sure how better to describe this at this point, but I feel those who bypass this are short-circuiting our growth, trying to bypass growing up to find maturity at the end.  Try to escape the self, not grow it into Truth.  How can we truly become who we are we haven't learned anything along the way to integrate? 

 

Hope some of this helps, and just wanted to get it out while it was fresh before me.  

[Orbit]

We got off topic a little bit on my lust for music,

But you brought it back to my lust for knowledge, so it's all good...

 

but to bring this back I came across these videos just now that I think shed a lot of light of the mystical union you are talking about.  I love how Teasdale says at somewhere around the minute or so mark how that God and Godhead are like the Yin and Yang of the Absolute.  God is the active, and Godhead is the passive.  That helps me a lot in my thinking.  And I think it helps a lot in understanding the whole of why 2nd person approaches work.

 

 

Let me add a comment about the Eckhart quote way upthread: it really speaks to me; it's what I'm trying to do: transcend God in order to find "God". The idea of the union of opposites as you discuss above has always appealed to me as it seems so natural, most likely this is a psychological extension of our biology.

 

And to add just one other thought that occured to me as well just now writing that, we likewise have to hold our self, our small separate egoic self, as a metaphor as well! .... We have to likewise hold the small self, the egoic "me" as a pointer to something greater than itself, the same as that Face of the Infinite.  God beyond God, Self beyond self.

 

 

Yes, I agree that the self is symbolic, which is to say on one level, that it is an illusion created by the sense making apparatus of our brain.

 

Here's the videos I'm watching right now and getting a lot out of for myself.  Teasdale was really in touch with this and has a great way of trying to talk about it.  I think there's an incredible wealth in this series.

I liked these first two videos, but I do have a quibble with them expecting materialism to explain the spiritual and saying it has failed when it can't. Materialism is about explaining the material world, nothing else. I'm watching the rest of the series now, and will make separate posts for those. Thanks for these, btw!

[Orbit]

 

As the newbie here I just want to clarify that the use of God terminology is ok with me. I know it doesn't refer to Biblegod.

[Orbit]

part 3 and 4

Some thoughts while viewing the videos, hopefully not too disjointed:

 

I love the part about not being able to see the garden from any one vantage point, and therefore you can't see all of reality from any one vantage point. I reminds me of the postmodern dictum that knowledge is necessarily fragmented and incomplete; full of truths but devoid of Truth, because truths as we perceive them are partial.

 

Mystic experiences are like that; glimpses, powerful glimpses. Partial and beautiful. Felt, sensed, and sometimes seen at the intersections of our consciousness. I can't give up that dimension in my life.

 

In part 5, I like the description of God as felt rather than heard. I have never heard an actual voice either, rather I am flooded with knowledge, with perspective not my own; I understand why words fail mystics but it doesn't keep me from trying. It can take a lifetime to make sense of a mystic experience. I'm still working on some of them.

 

I liked the discussion of light, and wonder if it is an evolutionary development that it figures in so many descriptions of these kinds of experiences, being an analog for the sun. I also was very interested in the topic of the intellectual experience, where Teasdale perceived an intellectual structure.

 

Something that I think bears further discussion is Wilber's idea that when we look at an apple, it registers in the brain,therefore spiritual experience must also be an outside stimulus that registered on the brain. It's an interesting assertion, but I'd like to know more about the ideas behind that.

[Orbit]

I'm going to share some thoughts that occurred to me as a result of my meditation this morning I think will help with the theistic, 2nd person perspective.

In Spanish, I'd call it 2nd person formal instead of 3rd person. I see what you mean, we address God as distant, not as the familiar "you". It is only with the familiar "you" that we can have an open, honest conversation.

 

Here's where it get interesting and forgive me if I indulge a little in going deeper.  The 2nd person in relation to the Absolute, lets call that "God" as a positive face we can look at, a cataphatic rather than apophatic understanding of a 3rd person object, can be described as an "I-Thou" relationship.  Where the actual space, the 2nd person, is the hyphen between I and Thou.  That is the middle ground between 1st person and 3rd person.  That is the relationship between the subject and the object.  That is where the work occurs between self and Self, the false self, the ego-self, and the Absolute Identity.  

 

Now as we come to this space, that hyphen mark, this is where our small ego meets the Self and tries to relate to and grow in relationship with it.  This is the Subtle space of meditation.

I really like the idea of the hyphen as the focus. That's the interactional space; that's where it happens. Your explanation makes perfect sense, and though I am going to edit the quote, so did the rest of the explanation that followed.

 

The transition to this, through abandoning all fear, receptivity through calm and open intentionality, willing to die completely to the egoic-self, to leave behind all clingings to the things of your childhood, brings you up into an emerging knowledge of your true Identity, your Authentic self.  You spend time in that space, as that body in a growing self knowledge just before that Light and in deep relations of knowledge "Face to Face", on that hyphen mark.  You come to know who you are as you experience mind and spirit and body in this.  I would rightly call this the "Soul".  It is the culmination of you separate identity before complete Oneness, before united with and as That which you had previously beheld as Other.  It is to me highly important we know ourselves, know our soul as it were, in order to be fully integrated on the other side of dissolution into Emptiness and emergence on the other side in nonduality where there is "not one, not two".

Beautifully put. I must confess I have never really understood "not-one, not-two". Is that shorthand for the concept of union?

 

Hope some of this helps, and just wanted to get it out while it was fresh before me.

Yes, that was actually very helpful, and very clear. Thank you.

[Antlerman]

I liked these first two videos, but I do have a quibble with them expecting materialism to explain the spiritual and saying it has failed when it can't. Materialism is about explaining the material world, nothing else.

A point of clarification. They are likely referring to philosophical materialism which goes beyond science and says nothing that isn't material is real. I know Wilber's term for it is a "Flatland reductionism", and materialism as he is speaking of it is something I myself have chafed against for years before I even heard of Wilber. It is a philosophical premise that hides under the guise of scientific thought, as scientific thought, which presupposes without evidence the nature of reality and blocks anything outside that as "woo". Though reductionism is appropriate when conducting science, to take that approach and apply it to all areas of knowing, including arts and morals and spiritual experience, is not science. Yet, you should know yourself from experience people try to "explain" the spiritual as "just the brain",which if of course an illogical point of distinction trying to say the spiritual is "just the brain" whereas every other experience of life is somehow "not the brain"?

 

That goes to his point about the apple, which is not to try to draw a correlate to physical objects and the spiritual as objects outside ourselves, but that any registration of any experience, be that material or nonmaterial, has a correlate in the brain. Yet no one calls those "just the brain". Why the selective reductionism if not abusing science against things we philosophically disallow because it doesn't fit our worldview? I think the entire fallacy itself is rooted in a bad understanding of what spirituality is in the first place, and then a misuse of science as an authority to 'debunk' their own bad ideas as not real and then projecting that whole stew onto everyone else and saying it's therefore not real for them either!

 

It's what Richard Dawkins does in disproving God and calling it a delusion for everyone. He's disproving a Sunday School version of God, imagining that's what God is to everyone. No, it's his own ignorance on display, and little more than that. He is unable to distinguish anything about God from that low-hanging god of fundamentalism as he proclaims himself the victor. It smacks of a 7 year mocking how stupid a 4 year old is as they proclaim how grown up they are now. Ridiculous.

 

So anyway, that's the materialism that they're speaking of. Not actual science, but an unsupportable philosophical premise that the evidence doesn't support. I could go a great deal more into this, but I think you catch the gist.

 

BTW, you're way ahead of me on those videos. I only made it a little into the first one but got too busy today to watch the rest yet. I'll respond to some points you bring up after I've had the chance to get through them.

[Orbit]

any registration of any experience, be that material or nonmaterial, has a correlate in the brain.

This is a very interesting thing...doesn't experience, by necessity, have a correlate in the brain? Otherwise we couldn't perceive it. I tend to think mystical experience is about altered perception, or perhaps what happens when perception is cut off, like sensory deprivation. And I wouldn't be perceiving anything without a brain.

 

Are we talking about philosophical definitions of reality here?

 

Is mystical experience endogenous or exogenous?

[Antlerman]

 

any registration of any experience, be that material or nonmaterial, has a correlate in the brain.

This is a very interesting thing...doesn't experience, by necessity, have a correlate in the brain? Otherwise we couldn't perceive it.

 

Yes, that's what I'm saying.

 

I tend to think mystical experience is about altered perception,

I tend to think 'normal' experience is about altered perception. It's an illusion of reality. It's mental objects, symbolic content viewed as the actuality itself. The entire thing is tied to the human perception, and a perception at a certain level of consciousness, a certain level of awakeness. Mystical experience describes the waking up experience from "normal" consciousness to itself, as the same recognition as when we wake up from a dream and realize we were in a dream, whereas in the dream we were unaware of it, for the most part. What is being altered is really more what I call shaking off the sleep of normal waking consciousness. On the other side of the subtle, we discussed, is 'clear mind'.

 

or perhaps what happens when perception is cut off, like sensory deprivation.

In a sense. When you aren't distracted by living embedded in the gears of the normal processing mechanisms of our pathways, other stuff starts to be heard and seen, regardless of what forms those take. It's ultimately about control of that stream and moving through it to see it clearly for what it is. It's not just 'tripping out'. It's about breaking down the tight webbing of our constructed realities to see them as they really are and to become free, or liberating to move beyond them, rather than being imprisoned in their cage.

 

And I wouldn't be perceiving anything without a brain.

Okay, wouldn't you be??? What about the tape worm? Do you think it doesn't perceive the world it live in? It has to be perceiving it as it clearly interacts with it. It makes decisions, as rudimentary as those are. Yet, it has no brain. I think what we may need to go down is the path of discussion what is consciousness. I believe all life is conscious. But there are many forms of consciousness in how it manifests or perceives the world. But it ALL perception. It ALL is awareness, regardless of how basic it is. Our consciousness is just a higher form, a more inclusive and wider form of Awareness itself. And mystical states are forms of Awareness beyond the "normal' reality in our typical waking state of mind. I believe Consciousness is the interior of everything that exists, from strings and molecules to our humanness. The only thing you see in humans becoming 'self-aware' in the sense of become self-reflexive, is a development of already existing consciousness. It goes all the way down, and didn't suddenly appear like magic in the post-bicameral mind. The ego-self identity did, but that a type of conscious awareness, not awareness itself.

 

Are we talking about philosophical definitions of reality here?

I think it goes deeper than philosophical definitions. I think the entire experience of reality is radically different. It's a different reality altogether, like the difference of reality between a snail and an elephant. Reality to the snail is the world, as reality to the elephant is to it, as reality to the human is to it. But are all humans the same? In reality (pun intended), what we call reality is simply an average medium agreement. But that agreement is only valid to people of like perceptual mind, programmed by culture, language, and the like. I can go on, but I think you understand where I'm going.

 

Is mystical experience endogenous or exogenous?

Yes.

 

Nondual. Not one, not two. Not endogenous, not exogenous.

 

It is seen as internal depending which relative direction you are looking. It is seen as external depending on which relative direction you are looking. But those are relative positions. The nondual is not one or the other, and yet is both and neither. These positions are simply unproblematic. So the answer is, yes.

[Orbit]

And I wouldn't be perceiving anything without a brain.

Okay, wouldn't you be??? What about the tape worm? Do you think it doesn't perceive the world it live in? It has to be perceiving it as it clearly interacts with it. It makes decisions, as rudimentary as those are. Yet, it has no brain.

No, I would't say it has consciousness, unless you are going to define consciousness as simple responses to stimuli--by that criteria plants are conscious.

 

I think what we may need to go down is the path of discussion what is consciousness.

Yes, please!

 

I believe all life is conscious. But there are many forms of consciousness in how it manifests or perceives the world. But it ALL perception. It ALL is awareness, regardless of how basic it is. Our consciousness is just a higher form, a more inclusive and wider form of Awareness itself. And mystical states are forms of Awareness beyond the "normal' reality in our typical waking state of mind.

 

I believe Consciousness is the interior of everything that exists, from strings and molecules to our humanness. The only thing you see in humans becoming 'self-aware' in the sense of become self-reflexive, is a development of already existing consciousness. It goes all the way down, and didn't suddenly appear like magic in the post-bicameral mind. The ego-self identity did, but that a type of conscious awareness, not awareness itself.

I agree that all forms of life are aware, but not that they are conscious, which to me implies both cognition and reflexivity. The idea that molecules, atoms, and particles are conscious appeals to me, but I have problems squaring that with physical reality and its limitations--are we indulging in anthropomorphism when we start going down the animism road? I would love to feel affection for my constituent particles, but how can particles of matter perceive anything?

 

 

Is mystical experience endogenous or exogenous?

Yes.

Rascal.

 

Nondual. Not one, not two. Not endogenous, not exogenous.

 

It is seen as internal depending which relative direction you are looking. It is seen as external depending on which relative direction you are looking. But those are relative positions. The nondual is not one or the other, and yet is both and neither. These positions are simply unproblematic. So the answer is, yes.

Can you pin down the non dual? I'm not getting exactly what it refers to. Maybe an example?

[Antlerman]

 

And I wouldn't be perceiving anything without a brain.

Okay, wouldn't you be??? What about the tape worm? Do you think it doesn't perceive the world it live in? It has to be perceiving it as it clearly interacts with it. It makes decisions, as rudimentary as those are. Yet, it has no brain.

No, I would't say it has consciousness, unless you are going to define consciousness as simple responses to stimuli--by that criteria plants are conscious.

 

Yes, plants are conscious. But note I did not say simple stimulus response, like if you tap my knee with a hammer my leg kicks. I said decisions. It seeks. It has will. It has a degree of freedom that the inanimate does not. Yes it follows certain patterns, but it is has freedom of choice. You can predict where a rock flying through space will be in ten years, but you can't predict where your dog will be in 10 seconds. These things go all the way down, and we just developed and built on what came before to higher and higher degrees. With the mind we have yet greater degrees of freedom. Evolution is all about transcend and include. Once we imagined only humans loved or had moral codes of conduct. But we now see that that exists in animals as well, and that we have just merely developed it to higher forms. We begin to see ourselves arising from all that is, and all that is in us.

 

As a related aside, the other day last week as I was taking my meditation walk after lunch the thought entered into me, that I am 14.5 billion years of evolution fully contained within my being. I emerged from it, and all it has gone through is in me, and I in it. I am the universe in my body. The consciousness of all life, of all reality is in me, and I in it.

 

 

I think what we may need to go down is the path of discussion what is consciousness.

Yes, please!

 

You're going to need to take some serious drugs first.

 

 

I believe all life is conscious. But there are many forms of consciousness in how it manifests or perceives the world. But it ALL perception. It ALL is awareness, regardless of how basic it is. Our consciousness is just a higher form, a more inclusive and wider form of Awareness itself. And mystical states are forms of Awareness beyond the "normal' reality in our typical waking state of mind.

 

I believe Consciousness is the interior of everything that exists, from strings and molecules to our humanness. The only thing you see in humans becoming 'self-aware' in the sense of become self-reflexive, is a development of already existing consciousness. It goes all the way down, and didn't suddenly appear like magic in the post-bicameral mind. The ego-self identity did, but that a type of conscious awareness, not awareness itself.

I agree that all forms of life are aware, but not that they are conscious, which to me implies both cognition and reflexivity.

 

No it doesn't. That's just an artifact of understanding that sees humans as unique, like saying apes aren't capable of love, and whatnot. The word needs to be released from that anthropocentric reality. Self-reflexivity is not what defines consciousness. Perceptivity is. The ability to know is. An atom can do this.

 

The idea that molecules, atoms, and particles are conscious appeals to me, but I have problems squaring that with physical reality and its limitations--are we indulging in anthropomorphism when we start going down the animism road? I would love to feel affection for my constituent particles, but how can particles of matter perceive anything?

Remember I said the work interiority? Physicality is exteriority. Everything has an interior and an exterior, and I'm not talking physical guts inside our bellies. Just like "I" am not my brain, but "I" know the world through my brain. Think of it like this, it's Consciousness all the way down and all the way up. As the physical becomes more complex, the amount of depth of that Core can be experienced and perceived. Meditation clears the illusion of the mind's objects as reality to sit in Silence and know that Core: Emptiness, Consciousness. At that Ground of all that is, in the center of all that is, is Consciousness. It is not an object that arises, but sees the world through all forms. The mystics are the ones who call it consciousness, because that is what is known to them as. It's not a self-reflexive thought, but omniscience. Knowing with a capital K, not knowing with the mental thought.

 

Can you pin down the non dual? I'm not getting exactly what it refers to. Maybe an example?

Yes, think of the sound of one hand clapping.

 

Here, this may help direct your thoughts: http://ngakpa.org/library/not-duality-is-not-non-duality/

[Orbit]

Yes, plants are conscious. But note I did not say simple stimulus response, like if you tap my knee with a hammer my leg kicks. I said decisions. It seeks. It has will.

It has genetically programmed light-seeking behavior. How is that will? Yes, I'm going to quibble!

A plant doesn't "decide" anything, it seeks light (reaction to stimulus).

 

It has a degree of freedom that the inanimate does not.

Degrees of freedom to me is a statistical term, not sure how you are using it. Every living creature responds to its environment--are you defining that as consciousness? I just want to be clear on the definition.

 

I think what we may need to go down is the path of discussion what is consciousness.

 

 

Yes, please!

You're going to need to take some serious drugs first.

What have you got?  

Actually, if anyone needs their mind blown, they just need to look at an Orbit/Antlerman thread.

 

 

I believe all life is conscious.

Are atoms life? Particles? I'm interrogating your thinking here so I understand where you're coming from.

 

But there are many forms of consciousness in how it manifests or perceives the world. But it ALL perception. It ALL is awareness, regardless of how basic it is. Our consciousness is just a higher form, a more inclusive and wider form of Awareness itself. And mystical states are forms of Awareness beyond the "normal' reality in our typical waking state of mind.

Agreed.

 

Perceptivity is. The ability to know is. An atom can do this

An atom has knowledge? I'm going to challenge this. By knowledge are you referring to laws governing electron exchange, the physical laws of the universe? They are obeyed, but are they "known"? What does an atom know? Or are you speaking pantheistically?

 

Think the sound of one hand clapping

Ok, smartypants, point taken.

[Antlerman]

 

Yes, plants are conscious. But note I did not say simple stimulus response, like if you tap my knee with a hammer my leg kicks. I said decisions. It seeks. It has will.

It has genetically programmed light-seeking behavior. How is that will? Yes, I'm going to quibble!

A plant doesn't "decide" anything, it seeks light (reaction to stimulus).

 

Why does it have genetically programed behaviors? Perhaps a will to be? Isn't this self-programming a manifestation of will? Don't we develop things to survive ourselves and follow that programming as well because it works? What drives all this? I think will is a pretty good word to describe this. Bear in mind, I don't mean that in the sense of a cognitively aware decision based on thought processes following some predetermined flow chart. I mean a determination towards a goal that is the source of creativity.

 

 

It has a degree of freedom that the inanimate does not.

Degrees of freedom to me is a statistical term, not sure how you are using it. Every living creature responds to its environment--are you defining that as consciousness? I just want to be clear on the definition.

 

It responds because it is aware. I define consciousness as awareness. Cognitive thought and brain function are a furtherance of consciousness, just like a planet is a furtherance of atoms, in a sense. I don't mean that analogy in a strict sense of evolution compared to consciousness. Consciousness is the interiority of all form, that like form unfolds in greater and greater modes of complexity and depth. It is the Ground and center of everything. Self-awareness is a higher and deeper form of Awareness itself. Therefore the organism has greater degrees of freedom of choice. It can even choose to overcome its environment or its own functionality in stimulus-response. We do this all the time, whereas the atom or the planet does not. It therefore is more predictable. We are not nearly as predictable to the point of any sort of degree of certainty like physics can offer. Reductionism tries to reduce everything and everyone to just more complex machines without any true autonomy. We become reduced to just highly complex automatons.

 

 

I believe all life is conscious.

Are atoms life? Particles? I'm interrogating your thinking here so I understand where you're coming from.

 

I tend to switch metaphors sometimes when using the word life. Generally when we say life we are speaking of biological organism. But I also see all matter as life as well, in that it vibrates with that Life that penetrates and is an expression of that Source itself. I have consciously seen, and do see that to greater and lesser degrees in simply observing and being part of this system. It's everywhere in everything, in the very molecules of air, in the dirt, in every blade of grass living organism. You have to understand, a living organism is all of that life concentrated into a body, carrying it around with it. As I said before, we are 14.5 billion years of evolution walking around on two legs. This is very hard to describe.

 

 

Perceptivity is. The ability to know is. An atom can do this

An atom has knowledge? I'm going to challenge this. By knowledge are you referring to laws governing electron exchange, the physical laws of the universe? They are obeyed, but are they "known"? What does an atom know? Or are you speaking pantheistically?

 

It knows the atom world. It is aware of and interact within the domain of its reality. It understands other atoms, in the sense it recognizes and can related to or not with what is familiar to itself, but is unable to understand something beyond itself, like a molecule, or like a cell. Of course in none of this am I suggesting human-like thought processes! But it "understands" the function of the atom world in order to function within it. I use knowledge in the broadest possible sense of the word.

[Orbit]

Why does it have genetically programed behaviors? Perhaps a will to be? Isn't this self-programming a manifestation of will? Don't we develop things to survive ourselves and follow that programming as well because it works? What drives all this? I think will is a pretty good word to describe this. Bear in mind, I don't mean that in the sense of a cognitively aware decision based on thought processes following some predetermined flow chart. I mean a determination towards a goal that is the source of creativity.

 

I tend to switch metaphors sometimes when using the word life. Generally when we say life we are speaking of biological organism. But I also see all matter as life as well, in that it vibrates with that Life that penetrates and is an expression of that Source itself.

A separation suggests itself between those things that have DNA and those that don't. I can see the metaphor of "will" as applied to DNA. DNA is essentially programming that interacts with the environment. I don't see DNA as intelligent, but I do see it as adaptive, and indicative of life. Inanimate matter, like atoms, are the building blocks of life, but are they also life? I suppose we could stretch our definition of life to include "everything" that makes up life. To me, this hooks into the Pantheistic view of the universe, which is fine by me.

 

As you can see from the text under my icon on the left, I define "any Gods?" as "Energy". I do this because energy is the most basic and ubiquitous thing in the universe. Now defining life as "energy" also takes away any distinction between the non-biological and the biological. Why do I do this? For the very unscientific reason that it feels right. I may be completely in error for doing so. I also think there is an underlying assumption that this life force, prana, energy, or whatever we choose to call it, is somehow benevolent. I think the universe is supremely indifferent. A cell goes wild and makes a cancer. An asteroid hits the earth. Gravity makes you fall and break your leg. Supremely indifferent.

 

It knows the atom world. It is aware of and interact within the domain of its reality. It understands other atoms, in the sense it recognizes and can related to or not with what is familiar to itself, but is unable to understand something beyond itself, like a molecule, or like a cell. Of course in none of this am I suggesting human-like thought processes! But it "understands" the function of the atom world in order to function within it. I use knowledge in the broadest possible sense of the word.

In other words, it obeys the laws of physics. Going further down into this rabbit hole, where do the laws of physics come from? Unanswerable, but I still want to ask. I think the truth at the bottom of the rabbit hole is that the universe is truly random; that there is no sense to it at the level of the scaffolding that holds the whole of physics together. And when we stop making sense, we are apprehending a basic truth about the universe.

 

"Be still, and know that I am God."

[Orbit]

So, on the topic of 2nd-person meditation: I tried it yesterday. It didn't start out well. I tried to focus on God, but because God is such a nebulous concept in my mind, I immediately slipped into 3rd person and had to stop and start over. I tried with Swarswati (sp?) and that was a little better, but how do you become someone you don't know? It felt like meditating on a stranger. Not quite sure where to go from here.

[Antlerman]

So, on the topic of 2nd-person meditation: I tried it yesterday. It didn't start out well. I tried to focus on God, but because God is such a nebulous concept in my mind, I immediately slipped into 3rd person and had to stop and start over. I tried with Swarswati (sp?) and that was a little better, but how do you become someone you don't know? It felt like meditating on a stranger. Not quite sure where to go from here.

I don't have a lot of time here but will quick throw this out there while I have the thought.  I was discussing this 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person approaches with my partner last night and she was trying to process it in her experience, but when I said it the other direction, 3rd, 2nd, and 1st person it clicked with her.  The progression moves from 3rd, into 2nd, into 1st.  You start seeing the object, you move towards it and it to you and there is the middle space of exchange, and then you move into identity as it yourself.  2nd person is the space between of "we" that informs the subject with the object and transforms into Unity.  I think the thing is, as I said, it's not something you manufacture, but something that occurs.  It involves your own emotions in relation to the object which then becomes "we".  

 

All for now, back to work!  

 

BTW, that progression doesn't always happen exactly like that within each meditation sitting.  You may spend weeks, months even in one of these.  For me, I spend a lot of time at the high end of 2nd person, occasionally full 1st person.  I naturally keep coming back to 2nd person because of the work going on.  None of it is forced.  All of it is natural.  You just stay open and receptive to what comes, of course being mindful of removing obstacles that distract....  Don't be open to thinking about your grocery list, in other words.  

[Deva]

 

 

 

 

I posted this on Facebook today, and so I put it up for discussion.

 

"Question: Are you serious? Would you tell a Westerner to repeat 'Om' or 'Ram' or 'Hare Krishna' ceaselessly, though he lacks completely the faith and conviction born of the right cultural and religious background. Without confidence and fervor, repeating mechanically the same sounds,

will he ever achieve anything?

Nisargdatta Maharaj : Why not? It is the urge, the hidden motive that matters, not the shape it takes. Whatever he does, if he does it for the sake of finding his own real self, will surely bring him to himself.

Q: No need of faith in the efficacy of the means?

M: No need of faith which is but expectation of results. Here the action only counts. Whatever you do for the sake of truth, will take you to truth. Only be earnest and honest. The shape it takes hardly matters.

Q: Then where is the need of giving expression to one's longing?

M: No need. Doing nothing is as good. Mere longing, undiluted by thought and action, pure, concentrated longing, will take you speedily to your goal. It is the true motive that matters, not the manner.

Q: Unbelievable! How can dull repetition in boredom verging on despair, be effective?

M: The very facts of repetition, of struggling on and on and of endurance and perseverance, in spite of boredom and despair and complete lack of conviction are really crucial. They are not important by themselves, but the sincerity behind them is all-important. There must be a push from within and pull from without.

Q: My questions are typical of the West. There people think in terms of cause and effect, means and goals. They do not see what causal connection can there be between a particular word and the Absolute Reality.

M: None whatsoever. But there is a connection between the word and its meaning, between the action and its motive. Spiritual practice is will asserted and re-asserted. Who has not the daring will not accept the real even when offered. Unwillingness born out of fear is the only obstacle."

 

NSM

Nisargadatta Maharaj

[Antlerman]

Just to clarify, as far as I know this thread is not about Buddhism, but even so it is appropriate to quote or reference Wilber in any discussion of Buddhism, or any religion for that matter. Ken Wilber was a practitioner of Zen Buddhism for many years, and as far as I know still practices Buddhist meditation, though I think he doesn't like to identify as any one lineage, the same as me and many of us. That's definitely true. He is very knowledgeable about these areas of meditation across many disciplines. His work has had and continues to have an enormous influence and positive effect on my understanding and where it has allowed me to grow to in my own path. Obviously, I'll cite him. But what I say is my understanding taking off from what he helps me to sort out, just as with anything I am exposed to. I quote Meister Eckhart a hell of lot too.

 

Anyway, I'll pick up on my response I wanted to get to this morning but didn't have time. I'm thoroughly enjoying this discussion. It helps me to stretch my own thinking.

[Antlerman]

 

Why does it have genetically programed behaviors? Perhaps a will to be? Isn't this self-programming a manifestation of will? Don't we develop things to survive ourselves and follow that programming as well because it works? What drives all this? I think will is a pretty good word to describe this. Bear in mind, I don't mean that in the sense of a cognitively aware decision based on thought processes following some predetermined flow chart. I mean a determination towards a goal that is the source of creativity.

 

I tend to switch metaphors sometimes when using the word life. Generally when we say life we are speaking of biological organism. But I also see all matter as life as well, in that it vibrates with that Life that penetrates and is an expression of that Source itself.

A separation suggests itself between those things that have DNA and those that don't. I can see the metaphor of "will" as applied to DNA. DNA is essentially programming that interacts with the environment. I don't see DNA as intelligent, but I do see it as adaptive, and indicative of life.

 

I tend to take a step back further and say that the fact that it is adaptive indicates intentionality. Again I do not mean conscious cognitive thought, which people assume is meant by intelligence, but the fact it does what it does. Life self-creates. The "how" of it is interesting, and randomness isn't a problem (I might consider calling it blind experimentation), but this fact remains it self-organizes. If you map it out you see self-organization is one of the principal forces of nature. Creativity is inherent in the system as a whole, from disorder to order through fits and starts and cycles (not a straight linear line). Organic life is all the more abundantly expressive of that creativity!

 

Inanimate matter, like atoms, are the building blocks of life, but are they also life? I suppose we could stretch our definition of life to include "everything" that makes up life. To me, this hooks into the Pantheistic view of the universe, which is fine by me.

Remember I made a point how language prevents us from seeing beyond what we define by our words? This is why I like to say "Life", in regard to the whole system, from quarks to Shakespeare. Our minds categorize the inanimate as essentially 'dead'. But it is hardly dead! A rock is hardly dead. It if full of activity within it, even though it cannot get up and walk or think thoughts and the like. Nothing in the universe is truly dead. They are structures formed by activity. But I do understand the convention of language the by life we are thinking of organic life. What is helpful is to not then think of the rest as somehow dead. The language we use helps shift our perception of the world. I don't think most people actually see reality outside the boxes of our inherited language created by a limited knowledge of the world.

 

As you can see from the text under my icon on the left, I define "any Gods?" as "Energy". I do this because energy is the most basic and ubiquitous thing in the universe. Now defining life as "energy" also takes away any distinction between the non-biological and the biological. Why do I do this? For the very unscientific reason that it feels right. I may be completely in error for doing so. I also think there is an underlying assumption that this life force, prana, energy, or whatever we choose to call it, is somehow benevolent. I think the universe is supremely indifferent. A cell goes wild and makes a cancer. An asteroid hits the earth. Gravity makes you fall and break your leg. Supremely indifferent.

There's a lot to tease apart here. I think there is a mistake to look at these things in terms of benevolence or indifference. It tends to assume some sort of external creator who's standing there with ultimate concern about our individual life-forms ultimate survival. It's a subtle viewing of the universe though our human eyes with ourselves as the ultimate concern. "If God or the Universe is loving towards me, why did this happen?" Or the opposite, "Stuff just happens and the universe is indifferent to me". I places its intentionality upon us as the individual, or that is simple has no regard whatsoever for us, a nihilistic view of reality. A very understandable human thing to do. I can do it myself, of course. I don't believe either view is ultimately correct.

 

I do believe the Ultimate reality is Love. Most definitely. But the survival of my body is not the ultimate concern. The survival of our species is not either. Nor the survival of this planet, or the entire universe itself. The metaphor that speaks to me of how I hold the ultimate to be is the one I heard Joseph Campbell quote on that PBS special in relating Indra's story,

 

The boy says, "Indras before you. I have seen them come and go, come and go. Just think, Vishnu sleeps in the cosmic ocean, and the lotus of the universe grows from his navel. On the lotus sits Brahma, the creator. Brahma opens his eyes, and a world comes into being, governed by an Indra. Brahma closes his eyes, and a world goes out of being. The life of a Brahma is 432,000 years. When he dies, the lotus goes back, and another lotus is formed, and another Brahma. Then think of the galaxies beyond galaxies in infinite space, each a lotus, with a Brahma sitting on it, opening his eyes, closing his eyes. And Indras? There may be wise men in your court who would volunteer to count the drops of water in the oceans or the grains of sand on the beaches, but no one would count those Brahmin, let alone those Indras."

 

While the boy was talking, an army of ants parades across the floor. The boy laughs when he sees them, and Indra's hair stands on end, and he says to the boy, "Why do you laugh?" The boy answers, "Don't ask unless you are willing to be hurt."

 

Indra says, "I ask. Teach." (That, by the way, is a good Oriental idea: you don't teach until you are asked. You don't force your mission down people's throats.) And so the boy points to the ants and says, "Former Indras all.Through many lifetimes they rise from the lowest conditions to the highest illumination. And then they drop their thunderbolt on a monster, and they think, 'What a good boy am I.' And down they go again."

I like the visualization of universes being created and dying, and then another, and another, and another. The pain of our suffering is to envision ourselves as indispensable as this form, to see ourselves separate, unique, and ultimate, "What a good boy am I". We are loved, because we are Love. Death and life are part of the system of being, but that is not our ultimate reality. That Core is. The eternal. People talk of the afterlife, but I see that there is only Life. And that Life is in this form, this body of mine which changes, grows, flourishes, gives, and dies. But that is not Life defined and when it is gone the universe for me is no more. I am the Universe. So are you. We exist before the Big Bang, before and beyond all time. And this is knowable to us as it is who we are. It is who we are now and always.

 

 

It knows the atom world. It is aware of and interact within the domain of its reality. It understands other atoms, in the sense it recognizes and can related to or not with what is familiar to itself, but is unable to understand something beyond itself, like a molecule, or like a cell. Of course in none of this am I suggesting human-like thought processes! But it "understands" the function of the atom world in order to function within it. I use knowledge in the broadest possible sense of the word.

In other words, it obeys the laws of physics. Going further down into this rabbit hole, where do the laws of physics come from? Unanswerable, but I still want to ask. I think the truth at the bottom of the rabbit hole is that the universe is truly random; that there is no sense to it at the level of the scaffolding that holds the whole of physics together. And when we stop making sense, we are apprehending a basic truth about the universe.

 

"Be still, and know that I am God."

 

I do not believe it is truly random. I do not believe in a pure chaos. The system creates organization from disorganization. There is a creative energy that is overlooked by eyes that are looking for the mechanics of what is seen as a dumb machine. It is a living system.

 

And yes, be still and know that you are indeed this God.