Garbage, all of it.

[moonrambler]

Originally Posted by moonrambler

Ok. This all makes total sense to me.

What you wrote makes me do some mind-bending. Perhaps there is an underlying causal relationship amongst a string of coincidences, and maybe sometimes that's where it feels weird -- like I am causing all this somehow, but I don't know how, or why.

Originally Posted by John Freestone

That was my words making total sense to you? jesus.

Just a quick note for the moment. Of course that was your words making total sense to me. This sort of thing happens to people all the time. For instance, my buddy Bob was calling in sick to work a lot on Mondays. He would wake up on Monday morning and feel like crap. Usually he had a headache and was fatigued. Sometimes this didn't happen. Sometimes it happened on a different day. Usually it happened on Monday, though. We spent a fair bit of time discussing what was causing this. I figured he was switching his sleep hours so much on the weekend that when he went back to his regular day shift schedule on Monday, it caused havoc. He went to a doctor who went so far as to diagnose Bob with depression and prescribed some drug for it. That seemed outrageous to me as Bob was not showing signs of depression. Except maybe he didn't want to go back to work.

Eventually a different doctor did something smart and took some blood. And they discovered Bob had very elevated blood sugar, Type II diabetes. And it made total sense that usually he felt like crap on Mondays, because he spent weekends going out to eat and having too much to eat and dessert and a couple glasses of wine before dinner and a Brandy Alexander after dinner. But not always. And sometimes he would do this mid-week. But he didn't always feel like crap afterward. And he didn't feel lousy on Sundays usually. It all seemed rather random except for the Monday morning factor, which probably was exacerbated by his sleeping non-habits.

So, yes. An underlying reason for what was happening which he was causing but didn't know how, or why.

[John Freestone]

Originally Posted by cylon

I'll take that as a "no".

Anyway, take it easy John.

I'm taking it easy, cylon. Did you miss that bit you yourself wrote about synchronicity being coincidence you think silly thoughts about? Take your eye off the ball there for a moment? Just don't feel like addressing the issue? You said it. I'm just pointing out that it is exactly my point. All your weirding out is just getting off on shadows - you're like a kid who's watched a scary movie and is thinking silly thoughts as he goes to bed. When you strip away the neurochemical feedback loops making you go into fight or flight mode, pumping cortisone and adrenaline through your body, there's nothing there.

I suspect that what you really can't handle is that if you let go of weird, you're left with ordinary human life and the laws of physics. Now, that's scary. What, me, not psychic? The world not at my command? I'm not on the verge of some amazing discovery?

[cylon]

Take care John. Looks like our discussion ends here.

[John Freestone]

Originally Posted by cylon

I'm saying you should lighten up and have some fun with this.

Thanks for the advice ... and your request of a few posts earlier (was this within the same hour, I wonder?):

Hey John, do you think you could take things a little more seriously please?

:-

[John Freestone]

Originally Posted by cylon

Take care John.

Sparkly dolphins cylon.

Oh, you edited yours in the meantime, to decline to continue. What a pity. I will miss the intellectual stimulation.

[cylon]

Yeah, take it easy. It was fun.

[John Freestone]

Originally Posted by cylon

Yeah, take it easy. It was fun.

Wassup?

[cylon]

1 minute into video

[alegro]

Moonrambler, thank you for your response.

Originally Posted by moonrambler

Alegro -- I don't know if anybody here is truly advocating the idea of LoA with no action.

As far as I understand it, the LoA does not require action. You may or may not be right that on this forum most people who believe to use the LoA successfully are taking action besides using the LoA. However, at least to my understanding in other sources (e.g. the movie "The Secret") the need to take action is not emphasized.

For example, people who try to manifest winning the lottery simply cannot take action other than buying tickets. There is no activity that can increase their odds. They *cannot* take action.

Originally Posted by moonrambler

Even those who are big proponents of this, are still taking action. ALG, for instance (talking about him in the third person, Hi ALG if you're lurking), insists he can create events with no action, yet in order to get a poetry book deal he had to write a book of poetry and he had to send the manuscript around.

This is a little fuzzy - especially if you consider two different explanations for the same observations. One is that through your thinking you have conditioned your brain to seek and identify opportunities that lead you towards your goal. And you may even take unconscious action towards reaching it without being aware of it. The other is that the LoA was at work.

If you take action, how can you claim that your results come from the LoA? I believe this is a crystal clear test of the LoA vs. the other more "scientific sounding" explanation: Don't take action and just wait to see if your wish manifests or not!


This is why I wrote that any meaningful definition of the LoA *has* to exclude taking action since otherwise it won't be the LoA anymore, but something different with a firm foundation.

Originally Posted by moonrambler

The LoA is fundamentally stating the tendency that "like attracts like." People who have money and have a good attitude about money are probably going to get more of it. People who have money and have a negative or conflicting attitude about money are more likely to run into financial problems. People who don't have money but have a positive and motivated attitude about getting money are more likely to get it than people who are opposite of that.

This makes a lot of sense to me. I have experienced something similar in my own life, so I can relate to what you write very well. My problem was that I had a fundamentally wrong belief which unconsciously sabotaged myself. Once I got rid of this belief, my attitude towards things happening to me changed. Positive things started happening, opportunities showing up. The difference between this and the LoA is that all those positive things and opportunities had been there before, I was just unaware of them because I didn't allow myself to see them.

You are not talking about the type of LoA that I understand some people are talking about. Some people are talking about thoughts manipulating matter. And there is a difference between walking past a hundred dollar note lying on the street because we can't see it and manifesting a hundred dollar note on the street.

Originally Posted by moonrambler

Nevertheless -- I still have to take action and get in my car and go around to these sales for any of this to happen. The LoA builds from that.

So how do you know that you did indeed materialize it? And that it had not been there all along?

[cylon]

Correct me if I'm wrong but ALG talked about thought being a form of action.

[Wax Frog]

Originally Posted by cylon

Correct me if I'm wrong but ALG talked about thought being a form of action.

Yes he did! My favorite post was the one where he spoke of making money manifest on the street and then "taking action" by picking it up! I don't believe he was against the value of taking physical action toward your intentions, only the notion that IM/LoA could not function in it's absence.

As for me, I have nothing personal against those I refer to as the "inspired action faction", but I believe that if there is any truth at all to IM/LoA, it should apply as much to "inner action" (i.e. thought) as outer.

[John Freestone]

Alegro, thanks for clarifying the difference between different versions of LoA - with and without action (i.e. physical, non-mental action, cylon). However, there seem to be some who see LoA meaning a phenomenon that is purely psychological or parapsychological (as you define it), and others who see it as the use of deliberate intention, thought, etc. alongside normal means of achieving a goal.

Originally Posted by alegro

As far as I understand it, the LoA does not require action. You may or may not be right that on this forum most people who believe to use the LoA successfully are taking action besides using the LoA. However, at least to my understanding in other sources (e.g. the movie "The Secret") the need to take action is not emphasized.

I think that this question is the source of a great deal of misunderstanding and antagonism. If someone argues against LoA, meaning the magical variety, they might get shot down by someone who sees the LoA as working through thought and its influence on action. I have absolutely no problem with the latter explanation (normality), but see a great deal of the former type (superstitious magic).

For example, people who try to manifest winning the lottery simply cannot take action other than buying tickets. There is no activity that can increase their odds. They *cannot* take action.

And that seems to agree with the circumstantial evidence - people can't win the lottery by this method (which kind of clinches it for me). If they could, even at a ridiculously poor probability-rate, they would bancrupt the house in no time. Ask lottery comapanies what they think about parapsychological wins - their whole livelihood depends on it not being possible.

If you take action, how can you claim that your results come from the LoA? I believe this is a crystal clear test of the LoA vs. the other more "scientific sounding" explanation: Don't take action and just wait to see if your wish manifests or not!

You sound like a sceptic, and I would agree with this. I do think you perhaps dismiss the middle-ground, however, the people who believe that thought is very influential, perhaps even has a magical power, but they know they still need to take action in the world. I argue that these things probably only really manifest because of a chain of action, and the thought is just as the usual neuroscientist would have it - an interior, personal brain function. LoAers' belief is often accompanied by many appealing ideas from religions, particularly about non-local mind, astral planes, and hence all sorts of parapsychological phenomena.

I also agree completely with the observation that the pysical, active intermediate cause of 'manifestations' (changes) happen unconsciously - a much greater effect than is commonly known. The power of the unconscious is massive in all of this LoA nonsense (the magic bit). So much so that I suspect that believers are actually unconsciously programming their brains to forget non-magical explanations for their successes, and forget that they've forgotten. This is one reason why scientific rigour is so important - the sceptic is as prone to unconsciously fixing the results as the believer, but the scientific method is designed to eliminate these biases as far as possible, and often completely (depending on circumstances).

It's amazing how much psychics, when asked to participate in these tests, cling on to the action bit - but like you say, if they can take action to influence the results, it's not a fair test of parapsychology.

This is why I wrote that any meaningful definition of the LoA *has* to exclude taking action since otherwise it won't be the LoA anymore, but something different with a firm foundation.

I would just say that it could be meaningfully defined to include external action in some way, but I agree with your implication - it won't be possible to tell whether it has anything to get weirded out about, go off to study in a course in miracles to develop, or that can be proven to be any different from normality (oh that boring n-word again, sorry). It would be what I called earlier (or on another thread) the Weak Law of Attraction. Actually, that was probably unhelpful, because the important features of the phenomenon are 1. that it is not weak, but very powerful, and 2. that it is not some kind of mystical law of mental functioning or magic or parapsychology, just unconscious processes (hypnosis, placebo, positive/negative thinking, etc.). Generally people do not understand or make enough use of these features of the mind - and it is disappointing that they are so often popularised under the mystical guise of the LoA, spiritual consumerism, 'the secret' and such. It turns what could be a genuine enlightenment into a new trap in superstition and muddled, self-delusive, self-hypnotic stupidity.

The difference between this and the LoA is that all those positive things and opportunities had been there before, I was just unaware of them because I didn't allow myself to see them.

Yes.

You are not talking about the type of LoA that I understand some people are talking about. Some people are talking about thoughts manipulating matter. And there is a difference between walking past a hundred dollar note lying on the street because we can't see it and manifesting a hundred dollar note on the street.

So do I take it you're a sceptic about the magical explanations, Alegro?

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by John Freestone

I've added emphasis to your post, wolfgang, to show how different IM is to gravity. Yep, gravity is a bit mysterious yet. However, we can calculate the trajectory of a spacecraft accurately enough to land men on the moon. IM - has anyone got anything like 'an equation that works for us', or 'a causal relationship that repeats itself'?

The big different between these phenomena is that gravitational mathematics, theories, equations, proposed particles, etc., while they may be best guesses, have been devised purely to explain repeated, predictable experience, so reliable that no-one argues about whether it is real or not. We experience it so widely, with such clarity, the same in function everywhere (though differing in strength), that we call it a natural phenomenon, and the mathmatics that fit with it PERFECTLY EVERY TIME 100%, a law. The Law of Attraction is a sparkly dolphin in comparison, an imaginitive construction.

Did you say relates TM to crime rate - what, Transcendental Meditators reduce crime? I suppose you could theoretically test such a ridiculous theory if you selected, say, a thousand cities and measured those things. You may be able to establish a relationship between them, but it is unlikely you would establish a causal direction. I suspect that TM practitioners live mainly in Western, industrial cities, where crime rate may be higher, due to other features, such as economic pressure. You see the problem with social science, as someone pointed out, is that there are so many variables. Maybe after a few more fantasies about what IM or TM or QXZ might possibly be the cause of, the apple might drop.

Too easy to debunk that one, ha? Still, there have been studies (or at least one that gets used in these kind of debates) of TM groups lowering crime rates.

Yes, many variables. Maybe that's the issue. With gravity there aren't many variables for the equation. But it's probably more like statistical relationships instead of a hard fixed equation like gravity. Like trying to predict the weather - too many variables to be completely reliable. And then a lot of atomic particles' behaviour are just statistics or even probabilities. The electron has a probably that it's in a certain location, as far as we can tell.

What I wonder is how someone could keep wonder and awe alive at the same time as being able to toss out anything might suggest our feelings or thinking effect reality beyond the mind/body connection. It seems like taking only the equations to the 3d world (that they have figured out so far) and saying everything else is sparkely dolphins in imagination, closes the mind to wondering and also imagination. How did the great thinkers come up with those equations? Not by closing the door on every possibility that was different to what was already understood.

Does a mind set of being rigid about the 3d world and taking science as the only gospel cause less imagination and less investigation into unknown phenomenon? Immediate refusal to consider that there might be more to what we know? That maybe stories of miracles aren't just stories? That people have done things that we can't explain other than taking consciousness to mean everything is consciousness. Does a path of rigid 3d world thinking kill being able to feel awe about that natural world? Does a sunset's spectrum turn into equations? I guess not, it's probably possible to see beauty with the equations too. But still... it's not all known and we aren't at a dead end for what our consciousness can do or what reality really is.

[moonrambler]

Originally Posted by alegro

This is a little fuzzy - especially if you consider two different explanations for the same observations. One is that through your thinking you have conditioned your brain to seek and identify opportunities that lead you towards your goal. And you may even take unconscious action towards reaching it without being aware of it. The other is that the LoA was at work.

If you take action, how can you claim that your results come from the LoA? I believe this is a crystal clear test of the LoA vs. the other more "scientific sounding" explanation: Don't take action and just wait to see if your wish manifests or not!


This is why I wrote that any meaningful definition of the LoA *has* to exclude taking action since otherwise it won't be the LoA anymore, but something different with a firm foundation.

I don't see LoA and taking action as being mutually exclusive . . . I see LoA as sort of a turbo-charger. At least that has been my experience so far, and what I typically see when people here tell their stories -- although there are some more unusual stories than that, too.

You have a good point though, but I don't know how we could ever prove something occured by LoA and nothing more. Even if a person does nothing toward a certain goal but visualize and/or other IM techniques, this person has their whole entire history and relationships and everything else influencing what is going on right now. Like when I talk about winning the lottery twice over the past eight months without buying a ticket, when I was manifesting for money, I still had to get those tickets somehow. So how does one prove it's LoA? I have no idea.

This is why I asked John Freestone what would have to happen for him to accept the concept of synchronicity, and he responded basically there isn't anything because the question isn't valid to him. I don't know how LoA can be proven. Can't we always say there were other things going on that we have built up over time? No matter what happens, there'll always be a way to write it off as coincidence, or as natural progression.

[cylon]

Originally Posted by moonrambler

This is why I asked John Freestone what would have to happen for him to accept the concept of synchronicity, and he responded basically there isn't anything because the question isn't valid to him.

I was going to find a funny picture of a sparkly dolphin but changed my mind. I clicked "who's online", saw an interesting thread called "The World in 50 Years", and again, watch one minute into the video. It happened about 10 or so minutes after I was thinking of finding a pic of sparkly dolphins. Maybe John missed this post.

Originally Posted by cylon

1 minute into video

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by John Freestone

I would just say that it could be meaningfully defined to include external action in some way, but I agree with your implication - it won't be possible to tell whether it has anything to get weirded out about, go off to study in a course in miracles to develop, or that can be proven to be any different from normality (oh that boring n-word again, sorry). It would be what I called earlier (or on another thread) the Weak Law of Attraction. Actually, that was probably unhelpful, because the important features of the phenomenon are 1. that it is not weak, but very powerful, and 2. that it is not some kind of mystical law of mental functioning or magic or parapsychology, just unconscious processes (hypnosis, placebo, positive/negative thinking, etc.). Generally people do not understand or make enough use of these features of the mind - and it is disappointing that they are so often popularised under the mystical guise of the LoA, spiritual consumerism, 'the secret' and such. It turns what could be a genuine enlightenment into a new trap in superstition and muddled, self-delusive, self-hypnotic stupidity.

Generally people assume the mind is all figured out and is just a habitual machine. Why toss out ideas that our minds are representations of a whole infinite mind that we can connect to? Isn't that genuine enlightenment? Being free of the habitual mind's unconscious flooding of our awareness such that some fully awake consciousness comes into being?

I have thought all this LoA stuff is directly viewable from a mind that is free of conditioned behaviours. And that is enlightenment. If one is enlightened they won't be habitual and full of unconscious processes. They will be flexible to the point of being one with all that is - no preconceived ideas/views or prejudices. They also see manifestations. They can wiggle this complete one consciousness with the desire of one and unfold reality before their eyes. Including a couple sparkely dolphins. But who can get there? Maybe Jesus got there.

Our unconscious processes get in our way to see reality without filters. That's what our unconscious processes are - habitual filters - the veil over real reality. When we see that way we are stuck with what we habitually see. The 'mystical' guise of LoA is that our unconsciousness is doing a lot of the sending of 'vibes' into the ether that we don't know about. Keeping reality out there in some way since it's still our consciousness but we aren't in touch with what it's doing.

So then we could say LoA is either just programing our unconscious to be habitual to our liking and reality will look like we designed it or LoA is about becoming genuinely enlightened which then allows one to see creation and be part of it.

[cylon]

Eh, I used to be the same way. Can't be too hard on John. There was a time when all you had to do was bring up the subject of religion or "superstitions" and I would go into a huge diatribe just ripping anything "non-scientific" apart. Some of that story is in this thread. Things started happening to me and at first of course I rejected them as being anything other than delusions.

So I guess I know what it's like to be on both sides.

But they just kept happening. At some point I decided to "go with it" and explore. And then more things happened. And I don't really LOOK for them... I just think about stuff and see evidence of it ANYWAY.

I choose to still wonder at life, like wolfgang suggested.

[John Freestone]

Originally Posted by cylon

I was going to find a funny picture of a sparkly dolphin but changed my mind. I clicked "who's online", saw an interesting thread called "The World in 50 Years", and again, watch one minute into the video. It happened about 10 or so minutes after I was thinking of finding a pic of sparkly dolphins. Maybe John missed this post.

No, I saw it. I just get a bit bored undermining your fantasies and annoying you so that you tell me to take care and it was fun chatting. But if you insist. All you have to do, cylon, is imagine if you had been having an argument with someone about future scenarios - maybe I'd said that probably we're going to run out of oil and we're on the brink of a Western economic catastrophe, and you liked Dr Michio Cucoo's world view more (sorry, he's actually pretty clever, I just couldn't resist), and looked for "future 50 years" or whatever, found the same video and posted it here.

Now, the point is that the video would, I think you may agree (though I won't hold my breath) still contain just as many holographic dolphins, but you wouldn't be weirding out. You probably wouldn't have noticed them other than to recognise their main purpose as computer GUIs. I mentioned dolphins, and you noticed them.

It's very nice that they were glowing, but that's not what I (or the Pink Unicorn) mean by sparkly dolphins (they have to exude a kind of bio-glitter from their skin to count - oh, look I said count, I'm going to be rich!).

[cylon]

ha ha, I thought the sparkly dolphins were fun. Glad you saw 'em.

Now most people when they saw something like that would laugh out loud and say "ha ha! Sparkly dolphins!" Even if they didn't see any "grand purpose" behind it, they'd enjoy it just the same.

Yes I know you meant real, physical dolphins that are sparkly. But those met my definition.

[John Freestone]

Originally Posted by wolfgang

Generally people assume the mind is all figured out and is just a habitual machine. Why toss out ideas that our minds are representations of a whole infinite mind that we can connect to? Isn't that genuine enlightenment? Being free of the habitual mind's unconscious flooding of our awareness such that some fully awake consciousness comes into being?

I have thought all this LoA stuff is directly viewable from a mind that is free of conditioned behaviours. And that is enlightenment. If one is enlightened they won't be habitual and full of unconscious processes. They will be flexible to the point of being one with all that is - no preconceived ideas/views or prejudices.
<snip>

Here's the rub - "generally", you say, people believe in local mind. Various religions talk about non-local or Divine mind, and letting go of your prejudices, they say, leads to that oneness and Enlightenment. The problem is, if you are not enlightened, and don't actually have very much evidence for those religious claims, then it is a prejudice to keep believing them, and you are programming your mind to be closed, not opening it up to possibilities. I agree that to cling only to scientific realism would also be prejudice, but it seems to me that the act of describing explanations for a phenomenon should depend on first identifying that there is a real phenomenon to explain. All you are doing is repeating religious dogma about Enlightenment. It may be true, I'm just saying that being open minded doesn't mean believing what orange-robed gurus say, it means considering all possibilities, comparing them, ruminating on them, daring to try believing the opposite of the opinion you normally defend. That is the way to get free of prejudice and move towards enlightenment, imho.

[cylon]

BTW John it's not your points that make me not want to debate you (even though I'm doing that now) it's your insulting tone and personal attacks. Everyone's going to do that from time to time but you seem to have a genuine hatred for the actual PEOPLE here. And that's not much fun.

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by John Freestone

Here's the rub - "generally", you say, people believe in local mind. Various religions talk about non-local or Divine mind, and letting go of your prejudices, they say, leads to that oneness and Enlightenment. The problem is, if you are not enlightened, and don't actually have very much evidence for those religious claims, then it is a prejudice to keep believing them, and you are programming your mind to be closed, not opening it up to possibilities.

Let's see. I'm not enlightened. Um... do I have much evidence for religious claims? hmm... not really, I mean I can read stories of miracles and listen to arguments but that's not evidence. Am I believing these stories, first hand? no. Well, to a point I do feel oneness with some experiences. But ok, that's not real objective evidence. subjective again. How is it that is programing my mind to be closed? I have taken some ideas and found my experience to fall into what those idea offer. At least as far as being able to meditate and get into states that are non-ordinary that feel like an expanded sense of self where everything is exactly what it is, no brain objections.

I suppose I look are religious people in the way of being closed minded, that they have taken on a faith belief without evidence. However I have talked with people that have felt to their core a conversion. Maybe I should talk with them more. I don't think they feel there's lack of evidence that Jesus is there for them. But back to me. I would rather not program my mind to be closed and I'm trying to understand what you see in this as being closed minded. So if I read something that says TM lowered crime rates but I didn't go out and collect that data, and I start to think that could be - is that closing my mind? Or would rejecting the claims be closed minded?

The way you put it it sounds like there is no path to enlightenment. We are doomed to local mind because we don't have real evidence of enlightenment, and without evidence there's no way to bring it on because to try to believe it is actually another version of not being open?

I agree that to cling only to scientific realism would also be prejudice, but it seems to me that the act of describing explanations for a phenomenon should depend on first identifying that there is a real phenomenon to explain. All you are doing is repeating religious dogma about Enlightenment. It may be true, I'm just saying that being open minded doesn't mean believing what orange-robed gurus say, it means considering all possibilities, comparing them, ruminating on them, daring to try believing the opposite of the opinion you normally defend. That is the way to get free of prejudice and move towards enlightenment, imho.

I'm all for not following gurus. Jesus was one of those reluctant gurus that kept trying to get people to not need him. the kingdom of heaven is in you - or something like that.

Daring to try to believe the opposite of the defended opinion - well I try to not defend opinions. At least as soon as I defend something I think I want to believe, I have regressed and am not on my path anymore, probably.

And what is your aim? I mean you tell me to not be closed minded and not follow the orange-robed gurus, to consider and compare things - but are you doing that? Or is your path not interested in enlightenment? I think you are interested. But also you are not interested in paths that dead end and appreciate that you seem to know what dead ends are. However, how does one compare things without trying what it is that is being said to the point of experiencing? It can't be done with endless thought experiments that lets the mind declare, something that needs to have experience to feel, it bugus.

[cylon]

I'm re-reading this thread, man it's old. Interesting to see how we have all evolved over time. Many experiences I have forgotten about are in this thread, it's weird.

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by cylon

I'm re-reading this thread, man it's old. Interesting to see how we have all evolved over time. Many experiences I have forgotten about are in this thread, it's weird.

sometimes when I see this thread pop up again, I think 'poor old thread'

[mercuryrising]

Originally Posted by John Freestone

But mercuryrising, as you say, that is your hypothesis. You would be very silly to suggest that you know absolutely that there is no order to the universe - I imagine you'd agree with that - it's your belief.Furthermore, it seems to me (and a few others) to be a kind of circular belief, or self-defining one. The way I react to that is that yea, it could indeed be the wonderful 'secret' it's said to be, or it could be wrong. There might be an order to the universe, a Truth there to be (at least potentially) uncovered.

If it's the latter, it seems a big missed opportunity - all that wonderful kosmos (which means 'order' BTW) to, erm, wonder at. And it does seem wonderful and ordered - incredibly ordered - like all the stars and planets and all the trillions of life-forms and communication and human psychology and mathematics and....etc.! And I know we could be deluding ourselves, but when I talk to other people and they agree there is such and such a planet and such and such a frog and 2 and 2 make 4 (ALG will step in to give me a link here to some weird math, you watch) ... well, it all just seems so beautiful and shared and convincing. Even if it's a shared hallucination, all you seem to be suggesting I replace it with is a personal hallucination, and I see in that as a rather lonely condition and no obvious improvement on what I have.

In order for an object to exist, there must be some a subject to perceive it. No subject, no object. "Order" is all these "things" we perceive put into a pattern according to... whatever you decide to be the basis for organizing things.

You said you had an experience of 'no mind' or 'no self'... in that moment, what was the order in the universe according to you? Of course, since there is/was no you, how can you describe it?

Yes, that may be true, but what about the possibility that we might step out of the delusions altogether. It might be another delusion to think we can, but some meditation traditions say it's possible - and a lot of people here describe it, the being in the moment where the meaning is contained in the actuality of experience. I think I experience that too sometimes. I know, I've laboured the point, but that's where I diverge from a lot of the IM stuff - rather than saying "Maybe everything is delusion (cuz I see a wall and there's really just an energy flux or something), therefore to hell with it, let's have fun and manifest my own delusions", I say let's try to see if there's a way to see through them altogether.

That is nicely stated. So what do you do after enlightenment (and please don't say the laundry)? And that's a sincere question.

A few years back, I got real deep into Zen meditation. I got rid of a lot of nasty old habits. Cleaned my relationships up with a lot of family and friends. Was having some wonderful blissed out experiences. And I got to this point where it was like, "Now what?"

I still needed to embrace the very materialistic, physical side of my life. We may be all one, but we are also all individual beings. Simply put, I wanted to live my life fully and not in some cave contemplating the mystery. I thought of teaching meditation, but I wasn't sure I was qualified. No one bopped me on the head and said I was an enlightened Zen master. I have no degrees in anything. Just me.

I also see worth in having intentions and the good it can do to think positively, etc., and I'm not saying we all have to try to be sages all the time - it's one mode of experience, trying to stop categorising and thinking about experience and just letting it be.


I'm sorry, I don't know what you mean. I don't lament what I am or want to be a robot. Please say more.

It's interesting how you answered my question in a post you wrote a few days ago (though I'd like you to say more also). Maybe I should read your whole post before I answer. What a coinkydink.

In regards to being a robot, what's wrong with being a dreamer? What's wrong with imagination? Why is imagination less 'real' than logic? You seem to be striving for this ultra-stringent world where you are no longer deceived by your own senses. Perhaps your intellect is the real deceiver.

Have you forgotten what it is to be a child and to live from your heart?
You know what I'm talking about... I know you do.

Thanks for saying that, because I've been struggling to work out what this is about: you can't have such a hypothesis, it seems to me. It's not a hypothesis. Bear with me here. A hypothesis is only meaningful in relation to realism. It says something might be true in such a way that it can be tested against ... you guessed it ... Reality.

So what?, you might ask, So 'hypothesis' might be the wrong word. Am I just being pedantic, playing with words? - well, what is it instead? You see, I'd be interested in your answer, but you might not like mine. It's a prejudice, or if you prefer, a supposition, an assumption. It is a hypothesis that can't be tested (if there were such a thing, but there isn't, it's an oxymoron). You live by faith. as I see it. That's fine if that's your thing. I don't mean it as an insult, and I'm sure lots of people will pack you on the back for it. This is all discussion in the interests of us discovering stuff - and I don't mean me educating you either, as I'm sometimes portrayed here - I genuinely mean, let's discuss ... and to hell with who's right. Let's learn and understand more.

I find it interesting that you are therapist. Psychology is not an exact science. Lot's of fuzzy thinking. Perhaps that is why you are good at it. You can cut through the crap.

I have found myself in a technical field, machining. I never thought I would enjoy something so... real. I actually find it relaxing in a way. I am extremely sensitive, so it helps me to be in a position without a lot of people and their problems. I'll take on their problems and reach this level of emotional toxicity that wreaks havoc on my life. It's like eating at McDonald's all the time.

Though my "faith" still crops up. Last night, my supervisor gave me a simple part to run. I said, "I'm sure I'll make it complicated somehow." A bit later, one of the tools left this nice groove in the bore. That's a no-no. We spent hours trying to fix it and I spent part of my night reworking the parts I ran. I think tonight I'll tell him it's going to be easy, without a hitch.

From the outside, machining looks so exact. I mean, you have tolerances in thousandths of an inch. But then, you get into it and find out it's very messy, illogical, on the brink of ridiculousness.

If your 'hypothesis' were true, that whatever you believe brings its evidence to bear, does that make everything the way you wish it to be, and, if not, is it because you don't believe in a particular condition enough, or at a deeper level? This seems to be a perennial question about IM, and those answers about not wanting it really seem weak to me. For one thing, they're just suspiciously convenient, but for another, it suggests a kind of structure of psychology - a 'me' who thinks consciously that I want and deserve something, and a - what shall we call it, it's usually - my unconscious. Now, if that were true, wouldn't that indicate at least some order in the universe?

That is the perennial question. My answer is that it makes everything the way you wish it to be. In other words, you see what you believe. Then logic kicks in and defends whatever you believe.

A hundred dollar bill means something different to me then it does to my daughter's guinea pigs. They see lettuce probably. To put it in Buddhist terms, everything is empty of self. It has no meaning except what we give it. And personally, I think that ability to give meaning to things is the most powerful tool that we humans have.

This has led me to two great principles of reality creation that are not original. One is acceptance of the reality that you are creating right now without judgement. Two is taking full responsibility for everything you think, say and do. In terms of psychology, I think even the most stingy behaviorist could get with that. As long as you didn't get absolute about it...


Sorry if this post is weird... I'm pretty tired.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[John Freestone]

Originally Posted by cylon

ha ha, I thought the sparkly dolphins were fun. Glad you saw 'em.

Now most people when they saw something like that would laugh out loud and say "ha ha! Sparkly dolphins!"

Most people under 12, you mean?

Even if they didn't see any "grand purpose" behind it, they'd enjoy it just the same.

Grand purpose. Now that's funny!

Yes I know you meant real, physical dolphins that are sparkly. But those met my definition.

Oh good.

Anyway, I'm off back to school.

Do a bit of, erm, surfing.

Jump through a few hoops.

See if there's anyone I click with.

[John Freestone]

Originally Posted by cylon

BTW John it's not your points that make me not want to debate you (even though I'm doing that now) it's your insulting tone and personal attacks. Everyone's going to do that from time to time but you seem to have a genuine hatred for the actual PEOPLE here. And that's not much fun.

I beg to differ. You don't want to debate with me because your arguments are flawed and you don't know how to debate. Now you are resorting to accusations of hatred instead. I have some affection for you, actually, and pity and amusement and irritation, but I don't hate you.

[Angela]

Wow! I am getting A LOT out of this conversation, and what each person is generating. I don't think this is a tired old thread at all -- I think it's a perfect, magnificent expression of truth. Thank you all so much!

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by Angela

Wow! I am getting A LOT out of this conversation, and what each person is generating. I don't think this is a tired old thread at all -- I think it's a perfect, magnificent expression of truth. Thank you all so much!

'poor old thread' - like a stray dog that makes you say awww that you want to adopt...

[Angela]

Originally Posted by wolfgang

'poor old thread' - like a stray dog that makes you say awww that you want to adopt...

Yeah, I am really feeling compassion here. The old stray dog of believing we are separate -- I want to adopt him and pet him and pet him, and help him to expand into the Dog of Unity, and to feel really loving and alive.

I want to do that for the old stray dog that wanders in my heart. And I'm starting to get a glimmer of what I was asking about earlier in this thread -- why do you protest? why do you defend? what is so valuable about being right and knowing the truth?

I love this dog.