Christianity and Solar myth

[Fist and Faith]

Not very enthusiastic about it, though, eh?




heh

[The Laughing Man]

I see what you're getting at. My (and Av's) problem is that, eventually, there must be an awareness that did not come from something that also is aware. Otherwise, the endless progression back. If the Big Bang was aware, it must also have come from an aware source. And that source must have come from yet another aware source, etc, etc, etc. An infinite chain of aware sources does not fit my idea of logic and reason. I am much more comfortable with the thought that something aware did not come from an aware source. And I'm not nearly convinced that this first awareness isn't us.

I see what you're getting at. Yours, (and Av's) problem is that, eventually, there must be matter that did not come from something that also is matter. Otherwise, the endless progression back. If the Big Bang was just matter, it must also have come from a matter source. And that source must have come from yet another matter source, etc, etc, etc. An infinite chain of matter sources does not fit my idea of logic and reason. I am not very comfortable with the thought that something aware did not come from an aware source. And I'm convinced that this first awareness isn't us.

[[Syl]]

Pretty good, but the orgy/wife-swapping towards the end kind of queered it for me (I'm the kind of guy that doesn't like it when his food touches other food on the plate).

[The Laughing Man]

haha! can you say pancakes and steak and eggs w/homefries? heh. "Oh, Miss?"

(I must confess I mix my corn with my mashed taters, tho. yum!)

[Fist and Faith]

The only corn I like is fresh picked.

I see what you're getting at. My (and Av's) problem is that, eventually, there must be an awareness that did not come from something that also is aware. Otherwise, the endless progression back. If the Big Bang was aware, it must also have come from an aware source. And that source must have come from yet another aware source, etc, etc, etc. An infinite chain of aware sources does not fit my idea of logic and reason. I am much more comfortable with the thought that something aware did not come from an aware source. And I'm not nearly convinced that this first awareness isn't us.

I see what you're getting at. Yours, (and Av's) problem is that, eventually, there must be matter that did not come from something that also is matter. Otherwise, the endless progression back. If the Big Bang was just matter, it must also have come from a matter source. And that source must have come from yet another matter source, etc, etc, etc. An infinite chain of matter sources does not fit my idea of logic and reason. I am not very comfortable with the thought that something aware did not come from an aware source. And I'm convinced that this first awareness isn't us.

Ah! You're actually convinced? That's interesting. I don't yet know enough about what you're talking about, as far as actual procedures go, but it gets us back to this:

but it is my stand that now there is a way to accept this "explanation" thru "direct observation". You are able to be "aware" of It, you just can't "comprehend" It. Thinking logically cannot solve this, and DJM, and others, have stated that you must "act illogically" in order to "apprehend" this "state of being", which is defined as "not being", or "letting go" of the "self". This implies a direct seperability between "self" and "awareness", and "knowledge" and "thought".

As you probably know, what you're talking about is the actual (i.e., pre-SRD) definitions of the words samadhi, turiya, and moksha. Yoga basically means joining with the Brahman (the Absolute - the Hindu God, if you will), and the different kinds of yoga (the weird poses we are most familiar with are only one type of yoga) are paths to this. (Many similarities to Buddhism, but I don't feel I have a good enough handle on Buddhism to discuss it much. But the Ch'an [Zen] master Ma-tsu Tao-i "knocked his students to the ground, pinched their noses, and shot sudden questions and paradoxical answers at them in order to shake them out of the routine of 'everyman's consciousness,' liberate them from well-worn ruts of conceptual thinking, and enable them, through a collapse of their habitual feeling and thinking brought on by a sudden shock, to come to the experience of enlightemnent.") What is a person without any thoughts or perceptions? All that's left is the true core of us, the atman, the "shard" of the infinite Brahman. When we achieve this complete absence of our worldly human-ness, we are the infinite Brahman. Since we are in this human form, we cannot maintain this state indefinitely, but we remember it when we're back to our familiar physical selves.

I imagine that's a lot like what Don Juan says? Never having put anything close to the required effort (or, rather, the required absence of effort) into seeing if this direct experience is real, I wouldn't dare argue against it. I consider direct experience the MOST important way of learning, and "facts" be damned. Furls Fire speaks from an completely unassailable position. And since you don't simply like all of this, as Av and I do, but are convinced of it, does this mean you have gone through Don Juan's process, and had the direct experience yourself? Or have you become convinced of that method by other means?

(I'm a "little slow" tonight, forgive me if I wander or things are "hazy", heh. )

If your explanations of this stuff are not hazy, then you're clearly not close to the Truth. (Did ya see how I used "clearly" to oppose "hazy" there??? ) I'm wondering if I should post a big quote from The Broken God, or just let you read the book yourself.

[Fist and Faith]

Pretty good, but the orgy/wife-swapping towards the end kind of queered it for me (I'm the kind of guy that doesn't like it when his food touches other food on the plate).

I feel the same way. (About that aspect of SiaSL, not food.) But Heinlein couldn't ever help himself in that, could he. Ursula has some stuff that often gets a chuckle and shake of my head. I guess they were hippies, eh?

[Plissken]

Heinlein does a good job of fleshing out the redefinition of family over the course of his better books. Perhaps Duchess and other doubters could start with "Job" and work their way to "Stranger" from there.

(I love "Job." The bit with the traffic signals has shaped my view of many things - and is reflected in some of the parenting discussions we've gotten into recently.)

[lucimay]

As you probably know, what you're talking about is the actual (i.e., pre-SRD) definitions of the words samadhi, turiya, and moksha. Yoga basically means joining with the Brahman (the Absolute - the Hindu God, if you will), and the different kinds of yoga (the weird poses we are most familiar with are only one type of yoga) are paths to this. (Many similarities to Buddhism, but I don't feel I have a good enough handle on Buddhism to discuss it much. But the Ch'an [Zen] master Ma-tsu Tao-i "knocked his students to the ground, pinched their noses, and shot sudden questions and paradoxical answers at them in order to shake them out of the routine of 'everyman's consciousness,' liberate them from well-worn ruts of conceptual thinking, and enable them, through a collapse of their habitual feeling and thinking brought on by a sudden shock, to come to the experience of enlightemnent.") What is a person without any thoughts or perceptions? All that's left is the true core of us, the atman, the "shard" of the infinite Brahman. When we achieve this complete absence of our worldly human-ness, we are the infinite Brahman. Since we are in this human form, we cannot maintain this state indefinitely, but we remember it when we're back to our familiar physical selves.

fist, have you read bakker's The Darkness that Comes Before? this piece of your post puts me in mind of the central character...Kellhus. if you haven't, you might like it.

[Fist and Faith]

I haven't read Job or The Darkness that Comes Before. But at least I've heard of Job. The reviews for DCB on amazon.com sound pretty good. I'll have to look for it. Maybe when I'm out today. I tell ya, I've completely lost track of which books I was planning to read in which order!!!!

Now I think I'll go make a Neverness thread in the Lit forum. No fiction could possibly be more about all this stuff than the Neverness books.

[lucimay]

ok...i'll follow you over there...we'll chat!!

[The Laughing Man]

Ah! You're actually convinced? That's interesting. I don't yet know enough about what you're talking about, as far as actual procedures go:

In order to arrive at seeing one first has to stop the world . Stopping the world is indeed an appropriate rendition of certain states of awareness in which the reality of everyday life is altered because the flow of interpretation, which ordinarily runs uninterruptedly, has been stopped by a set of circumstances alien to that flow. In this case the set of circumstances alien to our normal flow of interpretations is the sorcery description of the world.

The precondition for stopping the world is that one has to be convinced; in other words, one has to learn the new description in a total sense, for the purpose of pitting it against the old one, and in that way break the dogmatic certainty, which we all share, that the validity of our perceptions, or our reality of the world, is not to be questioned.

After stopping the world the next step is seeing . By that I mean what could be categorized as responding to the perceptual solicitations of a world outside the description we have learned to call reality.
All these steps can only be understood in terms of the description to which they belong; a description that I'm endeavoring to give you. Let, then, this teaching be the source of entrance into that description.

convinced, yet still pacing at the door.

“The art of the warrior is to balance the terror of being a man with the wonder
of being a man.”

But the Ch'an [Zen] master Ma-tsu Tao-i "knocked his students to the ground, pinched their noses, and shot sudden questions and paradoxical answers at them in order to shake them out of the routine of 'everyman's consciousness,' liberate them from well-worn ruts of conceptual thinking, and enable them, through a collapse of their habitual feeling and thinking brought on by a sudden shock, to come to the experience of enlightemnent.") What is a person without any thoughts or perceptions? All that's left is the true core of us, the atman, the "shard" of the infinite Brahman. When we achieve this complete absence of our worldly human-ness, we are the infinite Brahman. Since we are in this human form, we cannot maintain this state indefinitely, but we remember it when we're back to our familiar physical selves.I imagine that's a lot like what Don Juan says?

“We talk to ourselves incessantly about our world. In fact we maintain our world with our internal talk. And whenever we finish talking to ourselves about ourselves and our world, the world is always as it should be. We renew it, we rekindle it with life, we uphold it with our internal talk. Not only that, but we also choose our paths as we talk to ourselves. Thus we repeat the same choices over and over until the day we die, because we keep on repeating the same internal talk over and over until the day we die. A warrior is aware of this and strives to stop his internal talk.”

sounds alot like it.

And since you don't simply like all of this, as Av and I do, but are convinced of it, does this mean you have gone through Don Juan's process, and had the direct experience yourself? Or have you become convinced of that method by other means?

I have, as DJM recommends, pitted his description against my (our)description. I have "studied" myself and "society" on an individual basis, me and "everybody else" to attempt to verify his statements and ideas, and clarify the meanings of those statements and ideas. Nothing else has come close, IMHO, to rendering the "universe" in a more cogent, substantial, and complete manner in all of my previous and current "influences", those being just about every religion and philosophy that is "commonly known". They all appeared to have certain things in common, they just went about describing it in different and "confusing" ways. Now, after 20 years of intense scrutiny, I believe I have "just begun" to understand his teachings, and not having the benefit of his "direct intervention", I am pretty much left to "my own devices" to verify these incredible "possibilities", but the force of habit engendered after 39 years of "indulgence" has rendered me "currently unable" to "experience" this "way of knowing" as a bonafide "ability". I must say Syl described a peculiar habit of his, and mine, and he said

"I do just a little bit more than just enough to get by".

heh, he couldn't have been any closer in describing my daily life. I have had "random experiences", usually in "dream states", but nothing "concrete". I once "dreamed" I was playing with a bunch of kittens I had, and we were in the kitchen, and we were all "balls of light". Well, I "told" one of the kittens to go "wake me up", and I followed him and heh, well, the dream ended when I woke up with that same kitten licking my face. That same instant the 5 others came romping into the room and jumped on the bed and we all started playing with each other "again". The "electrical" feeling of pure joy and awe at that moment has never left me, and reminds me constantly that "there is more" to life than "commonly believed". "Little things" like that happen sporadically, as well as a "sort of" deja vu, but different, in that sometimes I just "know" things, with no "obvious" prior knowledge of any subject or circumstance related ot a current situation. Useful to me, gibberish to others, so be it. *shrug*
There is impossibly too much to go into here, and the links provided can gain you an introduction, using condensed quotes, but I recommend reading them all from end to end and back again, and take the challenges presented by them overall. I have also been able to "put them to the test" right here on this board. Avatar, you, and others here so inclined have provided me the rarest opportunity I have ever been afforded, which is to "prove" my "interpretations" thru debate and discussion. I have never been able to discuss these with others, especially since my contact with society has been limited due to "self imposed restrictions" on "interacting" with others for purposes of "analysis" and "research". heh. Also I live in a depressed area where "esoteric" is "some spanish word". I don' even know where to stop here, so I'm just going to now.

[Fist and Faith]

I gotcha! You do, indeed, have direct experiences. As I've said, these are the most important things. Alas, I don't have any such experiences, and they're not transferable. I stopped trying to explain what being a parent feels like to friends who don't have children. They give me the same blank looks I imagine I give people who tell me about various experiences like yours. Not disbelief, just lack of experience. I can't know what the future holds for me, but at this point, I'm not at all driven to try any of the meditation/yoga/whatever techniques that are supposed to get me there. It takes more time and effort than I currently am willing to give. In Kundalini: The Evolutionary Energy in Man, Gopi Krishna says he get much further than one might expect without any formal training, or even attempting to get there. He just did what he could when he could, and eventually - BOOM! It hit him. heh

[The Laughing Man]

It could happen! But would my "direct experiences" even mean anything if I hadn't been "pre-disposed" to "interpret" them in "spiritual" terms? I f I didn't already "believe", they all would be totally "meaningless" and "coincidental", don't you think?

[lucimay]

The Esmer writes,

I once "dreamed" I was playing with a bunch of kittens I had, and we were in the kitchen, and we were all "balls of light". Well, I "told" one of the kittens to go "wake me up", and I followed him and heh, well, the dream ended when I woke up with that same kitten licking my face. That same instant the 5 others came romping into the room and jumped on the bed and we all started playing with each other "again". The "electrical" feeling of pure joy and awe at that moment has never left me, and reminds me constantly that "there is more" to life than "commonly believed". "Little things" like that happen sporadically, as well as a "sort of" deja vu, but different, in that sometimes I just "know" things, with no "obvious" prior knowledge of any subject or circumstance related ot a current situation.

and then asks,

But would my "direct experiences" even mean anything if I hadn't been "pre-disposed" to "interpret" them in "spiritual" terms? I f I didn't already "believe", they all would be totally "meaningless" and "coincidental", don't you think?

i know i'm butting in on this conversation so forgive me but it's the first time in this lengthy discussion where i felt i understood what you guys are talking about and have input so here's my thoughts on your question to Fist, Ez...

that your experience means ANYTHING to you is a choice you are making. if you weren't, as you describe, "pre-disposed" to interpreting them in spiritual terms, you might be pre-disposed to interpret them in some OTHER terms, like, oh, i don't know, say SCIENTIFIC terms (possibly having to do with phenomenologies, telepathic studies, etc.).
the organic experiences you describe are open to a variety of interpretations, you're CHOOSING one and attempting (correct me if i'm wrong or have interpreted your statements incorrectly) to understand or explain them to your own satisfaction.
i'm truly interested.

[The Laughing Man]

yes, exactly, but I cannot just "accept" these as valid, they must be put to the test as far as reason and logic will allow. All the other "possible" explanations are considered and then compared to my "predisposed" perspective. And I am going even further than attempting to explain them to my satisfaction, to attempt to validate thru everyone's opposition.

The Conditions of a Solitary Bird

The conditions of a solitary bird are five:
The first, that it flies to the highest poinT;
The second, that it does not suffer for company,
not even of its own kind;
The third, that it aims its beak to the skies;
The fourth, that it does not have a definite c olor;
The fifth, that it sings very softly.

[lucimay]

so through a dialogue with others you hope to "prove" the validity of your interpretations to yourself?

[The Laughing Man]

[lucimay]

gotcha.

[Fist and Faith]

I was in a pretty intense, three-year email relationship that ended a few years ago. This woman and I wrote pages and pages every day, on everything along the lines of what's discussed here. That dialogue didn't help me "prove" my point, so much as force me to seriously consider what my point actually was. There were many things about which I had a vague idea how I believed. But when questioned, I realized I didn't truly know what I thought in any serious detail. In addition, there are very often other thoughts on a topic that I hadn't heard or come up with, and this new material had to be thrown into the whole mix. Did my beliefs hold up to scrutiny? Sometimes not. But I may have never scrutinized them without her.

[The Laughing Man]

heh. Now, what I believe I have indeed accomplished is that I have totally eradicated the firmly held "argument" that if we are to believe that we came from an aware source, then that must have come from an aware source, ad infinitum. It just recently, and by recently I mean thru the course of this discussion, dawned on me that this "widely held position" and "logical argument" is, in fact, completely illogical! It puts an unmeetable burden of proof upon validation, and it's premise is impossible. For every "thing" to be required to have a "previous source" continues on indefinitely. Now, seeing that this "logic" is "unreasonable", we can then turn this very premise around to make it "more logical" that we came from a "source" that "has no source", because that is the only "logically" possible alternative.



dam fist! snuck in heh