Kevin's Watch

Loremaster wrote:

jwaneeta wrote:First, one has to learn one's own nature -- a lot of people go from cradle to grave without understanding that their consciousness resides not in the mind, but in the will. It is as if a man spent his life within a thorn hedge he'd cultivated to protect him from wild beasts, but became so invested in the hedge that he started thinking he was the hedge. The mind is a great machine, a brilliant organism, but it's not the true Self. And the mind is generally prey to transient stimulation, emotions and passions that cause a great deal of misery. A human being's true center is much deeper within, much stronger: the will.

This is where we differ. But first off, thanks for your interesting description. I appreciate it. Anyway, I believe that the mind is the brain and the brain is the mind. All thought, all will, is the product of neurological processes (my education is in neuropsychology, just letting you know). For me self is a fuzzy, constantly growing/changing construct - brought on by life experiences, genetic factors and neural structures. That's my view.

I've most recently stated my beliefs about the mind on the fifth page of this thread:
kevinswatch.ihugny.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=9501&start=80
Actually, they're more like questions about my beliefs, since my beliefs are NOT based on any education. I don't know which of you disagrees more with my beliefs. And anyway, my beliefs could easily change as I learn more about the brain.

But my reason for responding to what jwaneeta said is that, like Avatar, I believe we have free will, and, if we choose to use it, it can override the transient stimulation, emotions and passions you refer to. But I guess I think the will is not the true center, but a tool of the true center. But maybe the two are inextricably bound, so the point is moot. After all, what function does the will have other than overriding the transient stimulation, emotions and passions that seek to take us away from our true center?

jwaneeta wrote:Following upon this comes a period of active purgation. Paul mentioned it above. It's often thought of as practices like corporal penance, fasting and whatnot, but these aren't in my opinion necessary. The point of active purgation is detachment from the phenomenal ego, and this can be acheived by practicing self surrender, or abandonment to divine providence. It practical terms it means deliberately releasing all self-oriented preoccupations such as fear, anxiety, pride, and obsessive control. There is an emphasis on simple, effortful living in one's own sphere of life, while practicing utter detachment from the results of those efforts.

Excellent! Very Taoist/Zen. This is from Neale Donald Walsch's Conversations With God:

GOD: Passion is the love of turning being into action. It fuels the engine of creation. It changes concepts to experience.

Passion is the fire that drives us to express who we really are. Never deny passion, for that is to deny Who You Are and Who You Truly Want to Be.

The renunciate never denies passion - the renunciate simply denies attachment to results. Passion is a love of doing. Doing is being, experienced. Yet what is often created as part of doing? Expectation.

To live your life without expectation - without the need for specific results - that is freedom. That is Godliness. That is how I live.

NEALE: You are not attached to results?

GOD: Absolutely not. My joy is in the creating, not in the aftermath. Renunciation is not a decision to deny action. Renunciation is a decision to deny a need for a particular result. There is a vast difference.

jwaneeta wrote:I will say this, though, and it is commonly reported by all who have enjoyed it: whatever you have suffered in this world, no matter how bitter and inexplicable it was, however long your misery, five minutes of this rapture pays for all of it.

And the bliss doesn't pass after five minutes -- it can last, literally, for years.

Very enticing! I've gone through some changes in the last few years, most of them bad. I've recently begun to pull out of the negative results of it all, and trying to be the person I believe I really am. (Or at least the person I want to be. heh) What you've been saying is built on a premise - God - that I do not believe in, even if I don't rule it out. But I think much of what you and Walsch, and what I've learned about Hinduism while reading about kundalini yoga, are saying applies to the way I feel and think. I hope, I intend, to begin meditating now. I'll see how close I can get to your end result.

This thread has the potential to become a great discussion point! Thanks, Fist.

I'm looking forward to Avatar's contribution, now.

Loremaster wrote:I'm looking forward to Avatar's contribution, now.

See how I did that?

now i feel silly having told about Captain America.

The only thing acid ever "showed" me was that I was capable of staring at inanimate objects (flint walls, glass paperweights and such) for 6 hours straight while believing that no more than 10 minutes had passed.

Marijuana showed me I could spend 6 hours straight sitting on my arse doing nothing and being perfectly aware of how much time had passed, but not caring a toss about it.

I believe the "other" may well turn out to be a drug dealer with a remarkable gift for finding low visibility hiding places in his customers lounges.

Consciousness expansion? You can keep it.

What do you think about it, Malik?

Honestly, I don't know what to think about it now, from a distance. But at the time, this agnostic thought he was in contact with God. It was very alien. It is easy to dismiss descriptions of these expereinces when you haven't had them. It's very easy to say it was an illusion. But let's not deal with that right now, and just talk about the phenomenon of the experience.

It didn't happen until I "peaked." I don't know if you've read any Terrance McKenna, but he talks about "heroic doses." Well, I must have taken a heroic dose, or just had some really strong stuff. The experience climbing up the hill, as I call it, was excruciating. Hellish. I've come to understand this as the ego dissolving, and the pain or discomfort is the ego's resistance to being dissolved. However, if you go with it and let it happen, you'll enter an ecstatic state of ego death. It really is pure bliss. I'm not talking about any warm and fuzzy feelings, nor any mellow buzz. This is a complete breakdown of our normal experience of reality. At that point, I felt my existence to be so REAL that my "normal" state of consciousness was a pale fascimile. I was so grateful to be alive and participating in this world, that I wouldn't have cared if my arm were chopped off right then. I realized my own mortality, came to grips with it, and passed it by. The reality of death and pain couldn't taint the pure glory of this experience. I've never felt more connected with the reailty of my being than during this state.

And at this ecstatic point, I felt like God was right there with me. I felt like all the religious upbringing that I'd rejected was actually true, and that something very important was looming on the horizon--something which the Christians naively call the "second coming." I could sense it, I could feel it. Terrance McKenna talks about this also, relating it to the Mayan mythology of the end of time (2012).

I'm not saying I believe any of this. But I know what I felt. Jwaneeta's response is very revealing: it doesn't take chemicals, though this can be a shortcut. Chanting, dancing, fasting, meditating--all can be ways to reach this ecstatic, "enlightened" state.

Now whether or not this is just another way to experience one's own mind, that is an important question. However, while I do not think we have a separate soul distinct from our body, I do not think we actually know what the body is. Quantum mechanics is teaching us that matter is actually a lot more like "spirit" than Newtonian physical "stuff." So while the mind is dependent upon the brain, I don't believe we actually know what the brain is. Perhaps it is a way to focus a more fundamental force of the universe: consciousness. I KNOW there are greater levels of consciousness; I've experienced them. But you don't have to get mystical to realize this: just look at evolution. It has been the case on this planet that matter itself has become increasingly more aware. It would be foolish to think that our current level of awareness is the pinnacle. There are greater levels to be reached, and I think other humans (and quite possibly , aliens) have already reached these levels. Through substances like psilocybin, one can "tune" one's consciousness to these higher levels, and possibly "tune in" to a level where other enlightened beings are already conversing--like tuning into a radio channel on which others are already communicating. Maybe one of those beings noticed me listening.

Crazy? You have to experience it in order to form a valid opinion.

Very interesting description of your experience, Malik. I've never had any like what any of you have described, no matter how it was achieved.** But it's all very interesting to hear, and makes me consider various things.

Malik23 wrote:Crazy? You have to experience it in order to form a valid opinion.

True enough. I can't comment on either these specific paths to what sounds like a similar experience, or the experience itself. But my general feeling for everything in life is that we never get the full package when we take shortcuts. It seems to me that drugs are a quick way to get where jwaneeta got after years of practicing other techniques. If the experience at the end of either path is not some sort of hallucination, I would be surprised if those who took the longer, more difficult path didn't get a fuller experience in some way.

I also believe the longer path taught other things that may not have anything to do with the experience at the end.

**A possible explanation for why people have these experiences, regardless of how it was achieved, is in WHY GOD WON'T GO AWAY - Brain Science and the Biology of Belief. It discusses the posterior superior parietal lobe:

The primary job of the [posterior superior parietal lobe] is to orient the individual in physical space - it keeps track of which end is up, helps us judge angles and distances, and allows us to negotiate safely the dangerous physical landscape around us. To perform this crucial function, it must first generate a clear, consistent cognition of the physical limits of the self. In simple terms, it must draw a sharp distinction between the individual and everything else, to sort out the you from the infinite not-you that makes up the rest of the universe.

It may seem strange that the brain requires a specialized mechanism to keep tabs on this you/not-you dichotomy; from the vantage point of normal consciousness, the distinction seems ridiculously clear. But that's only because the [posterior superior parietal lobe] does its job so seamlessly and so well. In fact, people who suffer injuries to the orientation area have great difficulty maneuvering in physical space. When they approach their beds, for example, their brains are so baffled by the constantly shifting calculus of angles, depths, and distances that the simple task of lying down becomes an impossible challenge. Without the orientation area's help in keeping track of the body's shifting coordinates, they cannot locate themselves in space mentally or physically, so they miss the bed entirely and fall to the floor; or they manage to get their body onto the mattress, but when they try to recline they can only huddle awkwardly against the wall.

And they found that this area of the brain is inactive at the times when Franciscan nuns and Tibetan Buddhists feel the most intimately connected with their respective godheads, which is during prayer and meditation, respectively. They theorized:

What would happen if the [posterior superior parietal lobe] had no information upon which to work? we wondered. Would it continue to search for the limits of the self? With no information flowing in from the senses, the [posterior superior parietal lobe] wouldn't be able to find any boundaries. What would the brain make of that? Would the orientation area interpret its failure to find the borderline between the self and the outside world to mean that such a distinction doesn't exist? In that case, the brain would have no choice but to perceive that the self is endless and intimately interwoven with everyone and everything the mind senses. And this perception would feel utterly and unquestionably real.

Malik23 wrote:But let's not deal with that right now, and just talk about the phenomenon of the experience.

It didn't happen until I "peaked." I don't know if you've read any Terrance McKenna, but he talks about "heroic doses." Well, I must have taken a heroic dose, or just had some really strong stuff. The experience climbing up the hill, as I call it, was excruciating. Hellish. I've come to understand this as the ego dissolving, and the pain or discomfort is the ego's resistance to being dissolved. However, if you go with it and let it happen, you'll enter an ecstatic state of ego death. It really is pure bliss. I'm not talking about any warm and fuzzy feelings, nor any mellow buzz. This is a complete breakdown of our normal experience of reality. At that point, I felt my existence to be so REAL that my "normal" state of consciousness was a pale fascimile. I was so grateful to be alive and participating in this world, that I wouldn't have cared if my arm were chopped off right then. I realized my own mortality, came to grips with it, and passed it by. The reality of death and pain couldn't taint the pure glory of this experience. I've never felt more connected with the reailty of my being than during this state.

And at this ecstatic point, I felt like God was right there with me. I felt like all the religious upbringing that I'd rejected was actually true, and that something very important was looming on the horizon--something which the Christians naively call the "second coming." I could sense it, I could feel it. Terrance McKenna talks about this also, relating it to the Mayan mythology of the end of time (2012).

From Paul:

I never read any McKenna, but I know about "heroic doses." One way to tell is that your experience is the same whether your eyes are open or closed. It's a difficult journey to return from.

:::first, let me apologize for posting twice in a row. Since Paul says he doesn't have time to come to the forum itself, I have to wait to receive his replies to post:::

Fist and Faith wrote:**A possible explanation for why people have these experiences, regardless of how it was achieved, is in WHY GOD WON'T GO AWAY - Brain Science and the Biology of Belief. It discusses the posterior superior parietal lobe:

The primary job of the [posterior superior parietal lobe] is to orient the individual in physical space - it keeps track of which end is up, helps us judge angles and distances, and allows us to negotiate safely the dangerous physical landscape around us. To perform this crucial function, it must first generate a clear, consistent cognition of the physical limits of the self. In simple terms, it must draw a sharp distinction between the individual and everything else, to sort out the you from the infinite not-you that makes up the rest of the universe.

It may seem strange that the brain requires a specialized mechanism to keep tabs on this you/not-you dichotomy; from the vantage point of normal consciousness, the distinction seems ridiculously clear. But that's only because the [posterior superior parietal lobe] does its job so seamlessly and so well. In fact, people who suffer injuries to the orientation area have great difficulty maneuvering in physical space. When they approach their beds, for example, their brains are so baffled by the constantly shifting calculus of angles, depths, and distances that the simple task of lying down becomes an impossible challenge. Without the orientation area's help in keeping track of the body's shifting coordinates, they cannot locate themselves in space mentally or physically, so they miss the bed entirely and fall to the floor; or they manage to get their body onto the mattress, but when they try to recline they can only huddle awkwardly against the wall.

And they found that this area of the brain is inactive at the times when Franciscan nuns and Tibetan Buddhists feel the most intimately connected with their respective godheads, which is during prayer and meditation, respectively. They theorized:

What would happen if the [posterior superior parietal lobe] had no information upon which to work? we wondered. Would it continue to search for the limits of the self? With no information flowing in from the senses, the [posterior superior parietal lobe] wouldn't be able to find any boundaries. What would the brain make of that? Would the orientation area interpret its failure to find the borderline between the self and the outside world to mean that such a distinction doesn't exist? In that case, the brain would have no choice but to perceive that the self is endless and intimately interwoven with everyone and everything the mind senses. And this perception would feel utterly and unquestionably real.

This is an important CORRELATION to the experience, but I would suggest that the CAUSATION is "top down" in that the spirit/consciounsess is supervening upon the brain like a radio field resonates within an antenna, and that the parietal lobe phenomenon is merely the "tuning knob," to extend the metpahor (simile?). The empirical evidence is to be found in sensory deprivation studies, not in brain pathology or scanning. If you deprive the lobe of external input it does NOT suddenly go into a spiritual ecstasy; rather the initial experience is generally one of fear and loss, followed by major dissociation (schizophrenic break) or a very interesting kind of compensation. In my own example when I had an hour in a sensory deprivation chamber, I found myself entirely surrounded by a cosmos of color and multiple dimensional spaces, overwhelmed by music of pure emotion, and having a tactile feeling at once infantile (womb-like) and supremely sensual/orgasmic. The edges of self were gone, but my world became a self created fantasy that seemed as real as waking life. This only took a short time in the chamber. I imagine its another "short cut," worthy of disparagement in the eyes of those with greater discipline. One might also argue, however, that these psychic tools might perhaps be seen as axes when a scalpel is more appropriate.

P

Very interesting, Paul. What you say points out that there may, indeed, be quite a difference between the parietal lobe being inactive, and it having no information upon which to work. According to the little I read and quoted, they noticed the case of the former, and decided it would be the same in the case of the latter. If the rest of the book does not support their assumption, then they're pretty sloppy scientists. OTOH, if the rest of the book does support their idea, then, in light of your personal experiences, I guess it's another case of us not being able to find an answer that explains 100% of the cases we run into.

Menolly wrote:This is an important CORRELATION to the experience, but I would suggest that the CAUSATION is "top down" in that the spirit/consciounsess is supervening upon the brain like a radio field resonates within an antenna, and that the parietal lobe phenomenon is merely the "tuning knob," to extend the metpahor (simile?).

Of course, this assumes the mind is not what Loremaster believes it to be. But if he's right, there is no spirit/consciousness to supervene upon anything.

From Paul:

From what I remember of the research, and I don't have the book available, the inspiration for the idea was both peak experience states and accident victims who had parietal lobe destruction. In both cases, we have hypo-activity. It seems to me that this may be different from what I experienced, which is hyper-activity, or at least, activity not grounded in sensation. I have also had experiences where my proprioceptive awareness dictated what I was seeing as is said to happen in tai chi or qigong practice. The closest description I can give would be watching the trails in a psychedelic trip, having that turn into an energy field, and then being able to trace specific nodes within that field with my body in a kind of shamanic dance. The feeling is sort of like swimming with fins.

Well, I'm in WAY over my head in both education and experiences. But I'll hang on as best I can!

Fist and Faith wrote: Well, I'm in WAY over my head in both education and experiences. But I'll hang on as best I can!

Don't feel bad, Fist. I feel that way about most of what Paul talks about...

From Paul:

In reply to Pam's statement all I can say is...

What can I tell you, I'm an extremist.

This thread is very interesting to me, as I have never indulged in hallucinogens. My reasoning is twofold:

1) I'm a very visually oriented person (I paint as a vocation), and dread my eyesight being screwed with, and -

2) Every damned artist that starts messing with acid that I've seen starts painting checkerboard horizons, and every writer that I've read start ranting about the interconnectedness of all things, and can't ever seem to ditch the topic - and who wants to contribute to the wealth of cliche's?

Fist and Faith wrote:Very interesting, Paul. What you say points out that there may, indeed, be quite a difference between the parietal lobe being inactive, and it having no information upon which to work. According to the little I read and quoted, they noticed the case of the former, and decided it would be the same in the case of the latter. If the rest of the book does not support their assumption, then they're pretty sloppy scientists. OTOH, if the rest of the book does support their idea, then, in light of your personal experiences, I guess it's another case of us not being able to find an answer that explains 100% of the cases we run into.

Menolly wrote:This is an important CORRELATION to the experience, but I would suggest that the CAUSATION is "top down" in that the spirit/consciounsess is supervening upon the brain like a radio field resonates within an antenna, and that the parietal lobe phenomenon is merely the "tuning knob," to extend the metpahor (simile?).

Of course, this assumes the mind is not what Loremaster believes it to be. But if he's right, there is no spirit/consciousness to supervene upon anything.

I incline to agree with Paul. I would go so far as to say that the hypoactivity in the brains of the Buddhist monks and the Franciscan nuns (very cool, that: I always wondered if anybody had been able to take readings) is not so much a correlation as a response to higher stimuli. Top down, exactly. If that makes any sense.

St. Teresa of Avila called it "recollection of the senses": as consciousness passes into ecstasy, outward perception dulls or ceases altogether. I think she described it as all the faculties turning inward, to concentrate their force on what is occuring at the center, or "apex" of the soul.

There are levels of recollection directly proportionate to the intensity of the ecstatic state -- a person may experience mere "abstraction" wherein they retain waking consciousness and simply see the world around them as Illusion, while experencing intense inward bliss. Deeper ecstacies involve inward silence and a loss of time sense, but outward sounds are heard and the thinking mind follows its accustomed groove apart. In this state physical sensation is retained but sense messages have no power to disturb the individual; as was mentioned by Malik, one feels as though one could be chopped to bits without experiencing dismay. The deepest raptures are named by Western Mysticism (with their usual mania for catagorizing everything) as Flights of the Spirit, in the sense that the spirit for all intents and purposes retires from the body, and the physical state resembles death. Stick a pin in a person in that state and they will not respond; the limbs become cold; respiration may even cease for a time.

From any or all of these states a person may return to waking life at the starting point, what is called Abstraction: a feeling of being wrapped in cotton, observing a play of light and shadow that lacks core meaning. It doesn't last very long, perhaps a few minutes. Then the sense of purpose received in the ecstatic state asserts itself, and daily life goes on. There's no crash, no climax blues. It's actually quite invigorating. Teresa of A had this to say about ecstatic prayer, and I believe she's right: "With every joy of life, no matter how wonderful, there's both an element of 'Yes' and 'No.' In this state of which I speak it is all Yes; there is no No."

If all of this is, in fact, top down, that presupposes an agent. I have no problem with the idea of an agent. I've encountered the agent. But as this point in my life I don't think it's necessary to "believe" in an agent, still less a standard Christian or Hindu god, in order to explore this path. Anyone can start from anywhere -- indeed, they should. It's your birthright. If you want to taste reality, don't wait until you can wrestle your beliefs into some form or idealogical box. God, whatever else God is, is Truth. And you can only get to Truth by starting from where you are, not from where you think you should be.

And besides, once you encounter God, the Other, Whomever, there's a pretty good chance you'll fall in love. And love grants a lot of courage to follow through, and is its own reward, and kind of makes its own rules.

I should talk about the Void. I glossed over that, because it was six years of unspeakable suffering and anybody who is even thinking about the Other should know about the Void. But honestly, I don't have the energy right now. Just know that it sucked. Paul said it better than I.

Instead, how about a few words from St John of the Cross (I took his name in religion: Juan, Juanita, jwaneeta, get it? ) who went there and back and wrote some of the loveliest poetry this side of Rumi:

O lamps of fire that shined
With so intense a light
That those dark caverns where the senses live
Which were obscure and blind
Now with strange glories bright
Both heat and light to his beloved give.

Wait, I can't help myself. Here's another, describing the state of parietal lobe inactivity:

Over the ramparts fanned
While the fresh wind was fluttering his tresses
With his serenest hand
My neck he wounded and
Suspended every sense with his caresses.

Lost to myself I stayed
My face upon my lover having laid
From all endeavor ceasing:
And all my cares releasing
Threw them among the lilies there to fade.

jwaneeta wrote:The deepest raptures are named by Western Mysticism (with their usual mania for catagorizing everything) as Flights of the Spirit...

And Eastern Mysticism calls them samadhi, moksha, and turiya.



I have to re-read this thread before I can comment further. Paul and jwaneeta have said too much for me to keep straight. Heh. However, this is all reminding me of Altered States. And what was William Hurt's realization?
The final truth of all things is that there is no final truth. Truth is what's transitory. It's human life that is real.

Fist and Faith wrote: However, this is all reminding me of Altered States. And what was William Hurt's realization?
The final truth of all things is that there is no final truth. Truth is what's transitory. It's human life that is real.

Screenwriters write. The truth is much better than anybody can possibly imagine.

Heh I don't imagine the screenwriters actually experienced any of the stuff they wrote about.

What an excellent thread LoreMaster, with some excellent contributions by everybody, including Paul at 2nd hand.

Like Syl, my ego is pretty much insoluble. I'm too much of a control freak. I've never had that "holistic" type of experience on acid. Never felt that interconnectedness. when I trip, it's all about me.

In fact, I experience almost the exact opposite. A psychological isolation from the rest of the universe, which is, in essence, probably simply a magnification of what I usually feel.

I tend to perceive my thoughts/feelings as an island of calm in a roiling sea of reality. I'm always strictly conscious of myself and my actions, and of the processes of the drug. Much as I like psylocybin, I tend to experience it as a more watered down version of LSD. A far less chemical and intense experience, and when it gets down to it, it's the intensity that I enjoy.

As was said earlier, there is nothing that acid does to you that cannot be achieved without it, if you've got 20 years to spend meditating. The meditation though has the advantage of preparing you for what you find though, and a great dseal of the apparent chaos of acid is, I think, down to that lack of preparation for what you find when you get to the top floor as it were.

But "the other," the great universal consciousness, the subsumaion of the ego in some universal overmind...sorry...never felt it.

My individualism overcomes it I think. I can't release myself into the universe. And as Syl mentions, actual hallucinations have never been caused by hallucinogens for me. It is a purely "mental" experience.

Oh, I'm highly conscious of pattern and perception, but I'm conscious of that consiousness as well, if you know what I mean. It's all waking life for me. No synesthesia, no dissolution. If anything, my ego grows under the influence of hallucinogenics.

I love them...I love the persepctive that they give me, I love the stripping away of the mundane filters of the brain, the exposure of the essential wonder of the universe...but I know that it's not showing me anything that isn't there already. And indeed, I don't believe that LSD for example, produces anything in the mind that wasn't there before. Hence the 'monsters of the id' etc.

It can make you conscious/aware of them, but it cannot create them, only reveal them.

--A

In defense of screenwriters, they should not be required to experience any of the things they write about. Just as SRD is not required to actually visit a place called the Land in order to write about it.

Anyway, this is a terrific discussion. I've never taken, uh, recreational substances and experienced their effects, so all this is way over my head, too. But, like Fist, I'll just try to keep up with the conversation. I do recall seeing a program on the Discovery channel about those tests with the nuns Fist referred to.

Very beautiful posts from you, jwaneeta, explaining the mental processes/discipline that lead to the "rapture." As I said before, it's really cool to have you, as a former nun, here at KW. Thanks for giving us a glimpse into this rarefied sense of being. Needless to say, most of us "regular" folk who live our mundane 9-to-5 lives will never get to experience such a profound sense of one with the universe, or with God - whichever term one prefers.

Not that I have any urgent desire to experience this cosmic connection, at least not if it involves ingesting drugs. I just don't like the thought of losing my self-control or inhibitions. It's the same fear Plissken expressed: I don't wish to become incoherent and be just another guy drawing psychedelic art, nor do I want to fall under the illusion that I'm impervious to pain.