Garbage, all of it.

[Wax Frog]

One silver lining if the "fundamaterialists" are right: I won't be around to have to spend eternity listening to them!

In the end I really don't care how this works, I just want to change my life for the better. Period.

[moonrambler]

Originally Posted by wolfgang

The usual take on why that works is that they are training their own local mind to perform. That there is no need to think of it as operating in the infinite mind or some sort of mystical response of the universe to their imagination exercises.

In other words how do we call this the law of attraction, in that they got more free-throw by sending out a vibe that the universe then provided this state to them. As opposed to just normal brain training?

It's sort of like the mind/body connection. That ideas seems to be very acceptable to science with repeatable statistically sound objective results. Enough that it can be thought of as "real". But then do we know why? Why does the mind effect our bodies? Is that the law of attraction? Does putting yourself into a happy state of mind just communicate with our cells to be healthy as part of how we are built or is it some grander vibe sending thing that the universe listens to and responds by generating a healthy state for your body? Or both?


oh no, I'm a skeptic. lol. I've seen the light and am converted. jut kidding. I keep understanding LoA in different ways and am not here to tell you it's garbage, all of it.

I guess I can't think of anything that true skeptics might be willing to believe is LoA in a universe-AAIIG frame of mind.

If I set this forth (with no missing steps):

A) I manifest for money
B) I win $30 in the lottery

Skeptics will still say this is not IM or LoA.

[Geiger]

Originally Posted by alegro

Interestingly, nobody has addressed my other questions about the conflict of history with the hypothesis of LoA and subjective reality. How can the Earth be round if nobody believed it? How can someone discover a new continent if he didn't detach himself from the outcome and wanted to manifest something entirely different? How would - assuming the hypothesis of subjective reality - someone who still beliefs the Earth is flat experience a trip around the Earth?

Interestingly the myth that most people thought the earth to be flat is from a (fictional) novel about Columbus

Anyway, perhaps Columbus desire was to become famous (and rich), and he just thought that finding the way to the Indies was the best way of doing it.

[cylon]

Originally Posted by moonrambler

Skeptics will still say this is not IM or LoA.

Yeah, but you still get to keep the money.

[Geiger]

Originally Posted by cylon

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

Correction!

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

As for that "action" thing .... people, don't be silly. Up to now, can you still not see? Action is merely a form of thought. Some of your actions may change your reality, but NONE of your actions were NOT an expression of your thought. If you were brain-dead, you wouldn't be taking any action.

[puduman]

When I first saw The Secret I was totally amazed. And this feeling lasted a while. Meanwhile I began to cast a critical eye on it. Not because the LOA did not work. Actually it was an important discovery for me to be personally responsible for my happiness. But I think The Secret and many LOA approaches missrepresent things. I personally prefer a Ken Wilber-like integral approach (as far as I know it yet). So I googled what he may think about The Secret. Google came up with a blog article on his site where a discussion between him and Julian Walker is summarized. I totally agree with what they say:

As Ken and Julian agree, what can be so tricky when evaluating a new approach such as The Secret, is that at first glance it can appear fairly innocent, even if lacking any kind of critical depth. If it’s helping people feel empowered and positive about their lives, what’s the problem?

Well, the problem is that it’s not a basically solid approach with room for improvement, it’s a fundamentally confused way of understanding reality that misunderstands and contorts the genuine truths that it intuits. Some of the central points that Julian and Ken discuss are as follows:

• As with any “you create your own reality” schema, The Secret fails what can be called “the Auschwitz test.” According to The Secret, everyone who was murdered at Auschwitz—or Rwanda, or Darfur—created that reality for themselves, and therefore they are to blame for their fate. For obvious reasons, this position is an unconscionable as it is untenable.

• By teaching that the world quite literally revolves around you, The Secret encourages and entrenches narcissism. In developmental psychology, narcissism doesn’t mean an unhealthy obsession with thinking only about yourself, it means you can’t think about yourself. The capacity for self-reflexive awareness just isn’t there. The entire world and everyone in it is simply an extension of your-self, and you are literally unable to take the perspective of another human being. This is not mystical union; this is pre-rational fusion, and without the ability to take the perspectives of other sentient beings, the entire foundation for ethics evaporates.

• Actually, you are creating the universe moment-to-moment, but it’s not the “you” that you think. According to the great contemplative traditions, every person has at least two “selves”: the finite, temporal, egoic self-sense, and the infinite, transcendental, unqualifiable Self, or I-AMness. Your Self, your I-AMness, is indeed giving rise to the entire radiant Kosmos in this and every moment, but The Secret teaches that your separate self has the power to personally manifest a new car, win the lottery, or cure cancer… and this simply isn’t how things work.

• “The Law of Attraction” is true—as far as it goes. The problem is that The Secret takes this one relatively small piece of the puzzle and makes it the entire puzzle. A positive outlook will change your life and your intentions will co-create your reality, but so will brain chemistry, interior level of development, family relationships, natural disasters, cultural trends, language structure, environmental toxins, and, basically, the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

• Developmentally, if one uses a scale ranging from archaic to magic to mythic to rational to pluralistic to integral to super-integral, The Secret teaches the magical thought structures that were humanity’s leading edge several hundred thousand years ago. As Ken explains, The Secret encourages childlike “primary process thinking,” which can be in the form of “the law of attraction” (e.g., if one black thing is bad, then all black things are bad) and “the law of contagion” (e.g., if this particular man was powerful, then a lock of his hair must be powerful too).

• The importance of understanding how unconscious psychological shadow elements color and affect one’s experience, and how The Secret can agitate, alienate, repress, or—perhaps even more worrisome—act on these disowned elements of consciousness.

• The genesis of the pre/trans or pre/post fallacy, and how The Secret is a perfect example of elevating pre-rational childish impulses to trans-rational spiritual glory. Simply because both categories of experience are non-rational, they can easily be confused, and often are.

By the way: This is a great blog post by Julian Walker on The Secret.

[John Freestone]

Just another of my quick notes!

Yes yes yes, Alegro (pardon me if I can't be bothered to quote the last few posts - i'll just reply to them generally). I'm very pleased you're here adding credibility to the sceptical position. However, to all the pro-IMers I just want to say that I understand, it's my stuff as a sceptic that I want more serious studies and hard evidence (I can't speak for Alegro or others of course). I mean, I'm sorry if sometimes it seems that I am being arrogant, like I expect other people to prove what they believe. It's partly just because it would be time consuming and repetitive if I kept pointing it out. I own my requirements in the way of evidence, and if other people are happy with a 'feeling' or some personal experience, I'm not saying they have to stop it until they prove it's true to me.

I don't know whether you'd agree with that Alegro. We happen to be sticklers for rational explanations and evidence for things, especially if they're making supernatural claims about the way the universe works. I did find it slightly irritating at the James Randi Educational Foundation forums that as soon as anyone said anything that didn't fit perfectly with hard physical science, even questioningly, tentatively, a bunch of guys started shouting "PROVE IT!" or "SO WHAT ARE YOU SAYING YOU BELIEVE IN?". Like hey, I'm just chewing things over, man...

When you suggested experiments, Alegro, I knew someone would post something about mind-body connections. I almost jumped in, but I see Wax Frog has given some explanation of it (keep it up, WF, you'll be a sceptic yet!) This kind of research is pretty amazing and has begun to make a quiet revolution in medical science. It's still very much contested, but I don't think it is going to be long before it's proven pretty substantially. But it is very different from non-local influence of mind. I don't know much about the research, but I guess there are two levels of influence. It's interesting if thinking about exercising increases your muscle tone (which is the research I was expecting someone to post), or thinking about doing a task makes you better at it. Actually - no - there's another level I didn't think about:

1. Netball example. Mental visualisation could help the relevant parts of the brain to prepare, make subtle bio-physical calculations, etc., before starting, or even just be primed for better performance through increased blood flow and synaptic activity there. The muscles - the physical part of the body other than the synapses - might not be involved at all.

2. This example perhaps, and also the working out mentally one, in which imagining you are exercising actually has some of the effect of exercising. Here it could be that there is some subtle muscular activity taking place, so that, even though you can't see someone's biceps bulging, the cells are being massaged and activated and so are getting stronger and fitter. This kind of possible occurence makes demonstrating the LoA (without action) by mind-over-body examples virtually pointless.

3. There may be some much more subtle level of mind-to-body communication (for which evidence is also increasing, I believe). I think one pathway suggested is through the mitochondria if I remember right. Anyway, it doesn't seem difficult to accept that there may be a way, as yet poorly understood, for my thoughts, even subtle ones such as being healthier generally or mentally curing an illness, etc., to affect my body. Even in materialist biology, the brain is the seat of consciousness and is made of matter. Matter is supposed to be able to think and feel, so it's not a particuarly clear distinction to start with between mind and body. Nevertheless, it is understood that it would be via energy-matter actions, generally. It could be via some undiscovered mind-waves, but few scientists consider such a thing likely.

4. There may be an even more subtle level that transcends the limits of the body, so that mind-to-mind communication or mind-over-innert-matter connections could be possible. However, as Alegro has pointed out, while there is a lot of unbelievably pathetic evidence, there seems to be none that is convincing.

To address your point about history, Alegro, firstly, there are a lot of different ideas being put forward, and people have different ideas about how they fit together. Subjective Reality fits with LoA for some, by referring to a kind of field of infinite potential or possibility (I think that may be the term Chopra coined), and the act of thinking something causes it to be manifest, created, out of that infinite field. So anything is possible. Personally, I tend to think I smell a rat already when someone says that, but you never know. Then, when I think about it, it does seem to pose quite some serious philosophical problems, but it could make sense if there is just me, now, typing this, imagining the whole of reality myself. You, Steve Pavlina, his frickin forum, GWBush, history, the world (whether flat or round), everything is just there in this moment of my mental creation, I, God, the One. Etc. From that point of view, I don't think history is a problem. The past is just an idea. It's all happening in one great eternal NOW. I used to believe this stuff, BTW. (Maybe we passed each other on the way, cylon.)
We hate the limitations of reality, so we keep making up much more interesting (supposedly) and appealing (at first) myths. Some of them have been around for thousands of years, not least the idea that everything is just some kind of dream God is having.

It just seems improbable to me now, though it hangs together philosophically, it has it's own internal logic, like many other religious beliefs. :duck: Nowadays it kind of reminds me of the way fundamental christians explain the vast fossil record, scientific dating methods for rocks that show it goes back to just slightly more than the 4 thousand years or whatever it's supposed to be, etc. He put the bones there to test our faith. LOL.

Others seem to prefer some kind of limited SR, where we have some ability to influence what is manifested, and our communication perhaps helps to create the world we agree is real. There's still no use asking why people didn't fall off the edge of a flat earth if they ever believed in one: the answer would be that, as far as they were concerned, they did fall off it.

Again, like LoA, there is some usefulness in the idea within its proper limits, imho. I mean, of course, that to us the act of mass murder and human sacrifice is anathema, whereas to the ancient Aztecs (I think) it was all a natural part of being civilised! And in the fact that everything in our human civilisation started as a thought and was moulded by our thinking. That's a wonderful and inspiring truth, imho, but it doesn't mean that we can turn water into wine, astral plane, levitate, etc. Our thoughts manifested certain things that were possible, and the field of possibility is not, despite Chopra's best hopes, infinite.

[John Freestone]

BTW, I think the idea that people used to believe the world was flat is an urban myth.

Edit: oops, nice one, Geiger, you got there first. Jeez, this thread is off like a rocket again, now you're all finally out yer beds there in the US. Probably on your lunch break actually.

I know more than any of you, because, being further East, I'm a few hours into your future. Anyone further East, you don't count.

Oh yes, Angela, I forgot, dolphins come in pods, not schools. Damn. And electronic holographic dolphins go around in iPods.

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by Wax Frog

I don't understand the questions. I do know that I have always had a deeply-rooted sense of how the world "should work", and the pro-IMers are posting things that line up with it. If they ever proved to be wrong, I'd be no worse off than before. In a sense I have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

This sounds like if IM fails for you in some way, you are OK with that.

To be blunt - in a proven-to-be-material-only world there would truly be nothing for me, and so I would be eager to die, to end the cruel illusion. I could do a whole thread just on that, but it's not why I'm here, so I will continue to see if I can purge that part of my psyche along with all the unwanted, unneeded rest.

This sounds like if IM ideas fail, you are not interested in life anymore.

Which is it?

Purging your psyche is exactly what it's all about, imho. and that is the foundation for IM (as well as feeling whole, etc...). And once you have gone through and cleaned up your subconscious, there might be less "need" to do IM.

It's a little scary to hear you say this eager to die part. It almost seems like you have put your eggs into the one basket of these LoA ideas and have a very strong need, a life or death struggle, for this to be true for you. Like when people fall in love, they will say "I can't live without you". However, isn't one of the LoA ideas to not be so attached? I know, it's irony or paradox. But to need LoA to work for you might be a blocking thing that is part of that purge that you are going through.

[mercuryrising]

John,

I thought you might appreciate this. It's from an Zen newsletter I used to subscribe to:

The entire path of Buddhism takes place in the world of mind. There is no path to liberation outside of mind. What is more, awakening or Buddhahood is the realization of the very nature and substance of mind by itself. This awakening of mind to mind is the direct acquaintance of mind with itself. In meditation, this called "ekakara-samadhi ciitassa" which can be rendered as "of mind the concentration of making [mind] itself or single".

Modern Buddhism is really adrift when it comes to grasping the importance of mind and awakening. It is as if there is nothing really to do in Buddhism except become a skeptic or an agnostic. Skepticism, of course, leads nowhere. The Buddha, as a matter of record, was dead set against the skeptics of his day because they rejected a basis for true knowledge.

The Buddha also would have rejected agnosticism because the agnostic assertion "we cannot know" is, on the face of it, contradictory. If someone knows they cannot know-- then they at least know that. Thus, they are no longer consistent agnostics. In fact, they are asserting an incredible kind of knowledge. Nor can they rule out that they really have no wish to know.

To take up the journey of mind, it is first important to know what are some objects of mind. Objects of mind include internal thinking, judging, forming hypotheses, attention, and determination. Perhaps more importantly, the effective activity of mind controls the senses which means it engages in self restraint. As we can see, mind is both its own object and an effective activity. At its highest point, in which mind is the object of itself, mind contains the absolute proof of its own being which is Buddhahood where all doubt vanishes.

And I responded to one of your posts in this thread and was looking forward to an answer. Since this thing is growing like a weed, just thought I'd bring it to your attention.

[John Freestone]

Originally Posted by Geiger

Correction!

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot
As for that "action" thing .... people, don't be silly. Up to now, can you still not see? Action is merely a form of thought. Some of your actions may change your reality, but NONE of your actions were NOT an expression of your thought. If you were brain-dead, you wouldn't be taking any action.

Well now, the master's words are already causing consternation! It's funny actually, because I agree that in the first statment "Action is merely a form of thought" he is saying the opposite of what cylon said he'd said, but in his next breath ALG says "none of your actions were not an expression of your thought", which, removing the double-negative and unnecessary past tense, means "all your actions are an expression of your thought", which is pretty much what cylon said, but the opposite of his first statement. I can only conclude that either he meant that there was no difference between the two, or he was doing his regular trick of saying what sounds big and clever even if it means contradicting himself in the same paragraph. Actually, it's an old trick - if you make it rather problematic to decipher, there's much more chance of being turned into a prophet! It helps also if you say things like "People, don't be silly" and "Can you still not see?" I love you ALG, you old dog.

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by puduman

When I first saw The Secret I was totally amazed. And this feeling lasted a while. Meanwhile I began to cast a critical eye on it. Not because the LOA did not work. Actually it was an important discovery for me to be personally responsible for my happiness. But I think The Secret and many LOA approaches missrepresent things. I personally prefer a Ken Wilber-like integral approach (as far as I know it yet). So I googled what he may think about The Secret. Google came up with a blog article on his site where a discussion between him and Julian Walker is summarized. I totally agree with what they say:

By the way: This is a great blog post by Julian Walker on The Secret.

Thanks for the Wilber pulls. I have his "No Boundary" book that is all about how we have a definition of self that sets up the illusion that we are separate. However I haven't been able to keep up with his newer stuff that seems heady or something for me. But the summary you put in your post was what I'd expect him to say.

Actually, you are creating the universe moment-to-moment, but it’s not the “you” that you think. According to the great contemplative traditions, every person has at least two “selves”: the finite, temporal, egoic self-sense, and the infinite, transcendental, unqualifiable Self, or I-AMness. Your Self, your I-AMness, is indeed giving rise to the entire radiant Kosmos in this and every moment, but The Secret teaches that your separate self has the power to personally manifest a new car, win the lottery, or cure cancer… and this simply isn’t how things work.

So this is the real secret. The you of being one with everything, having no boundary, is where creation comes from. That it's not our ordinary local mind type consciousness. That's why some will say to ask, in the IM/LoA way you need to go into alpha (a non-ordinary state). And then, to really be a IMer one has to fully awaken to oneness or whatever that state is. And we are given glimpses of this state from time to time. But then who can exist there and see the light all the time? I think it's possible to be all and and individual - actually I have the wacky idea that we already are one with life, other wise we'd expire. Something in us at a cellular level already believes in life being whole.

I suppose one can call it bogus too. That there's no such state of consciousness - oneness. How does someone prove that? Is it an idea that is provable? Is it even definable? Is it so "not mind" that there's no language for it? That it requires one's whole being, not just thoughts to prove this. But it is only proved subjectively to one's self. But even then, it's not your normal objective scientific proof.

Why aren't more IMers talking about getting into that state - instead of trying to manifest $$ or something that they think will make there ego happier or be proof that there's something to it. Or talking about how to feel whole and have less fragments and projections of denied self "out there", or being able to purge habitual responses. Instead people latch onto something that make them think their ego self is able to ask for something to be given.

[John Freestone]

Originally Posted by puduman

By the way: This is a great blog post by Julian Walker on The Secret.

Thanks for that puduman, brilliant stuff, I'll have to go there soon. I tend to agree with some of those objections, though not all.

Originally Posted by mercuryrising

John,

I thought you might appreciate this. It's from an Zen newsletter I used to subscribe to: [...]

And I responded to one of your posts in this thread and was looking forward to an answer. Since this thing is growing like a weed, just thought I'd bring it to your attention.

Thanks for that too, mercuryrising. I'll have a look and see what it was you asked - I'm sorry if I missed it. Reply follows...

[cylon]

Originally Posted by wolfgang

Why aren't more IMers talking about getting into that state - instead of trying to manifest $$ or something that they think will make there ego happier or be proof that there's something to it. Or talking about how to feel whole and have less fragments and projections of denied self "out there", or being able to purge habitual responses. Instead people latch onto something that make them think their ego self is able to ask for something to be given.

What's wrong with manifesting money? You can do a lot of things with money.

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by cylon

What's wrong with manifesting money? You can do a lot of things with money.

can you buy love with money?

but my point wasn't not to manifest money - but that there's little focus on the state one needs to do the asking or where our intentions really come from.

[John Freestone]

Originally Posted by mercuryrising

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?

If I do try, it will suddenly become very mundane really. I have had some lovely experiences in meditation, but that no-mind one was very mundane. Really, it seems I only knew about it after the event. I was trying to quiet my mind, let thoughts come and go, then - - - it was like "oh, I just stopped having any object of consciousness then for a moment". I am now much more sceptical about all these 'religious experiences' and see quite clearly that this, at least, could be thought of as having a moment of unconsciousness - a complete forgetting, like a little moment of sleep. One of my Zen books describes samadhi as being unknowable and says that when it happens you can't be aware of it; you are only aware of it the moment you wake up from it. I don't know whether than means it is utterly without deep spiritual significance, or just unknowable in experiencing it - and anyway, other meditators say that they have very different, radiant experiences when they are conscious of nothing except - - - everything. Can't say I've really had such an experience. I do think there is a great pressure we put upon ourselves, however, to interpret such things in the ways we have read about - beautiful promises of glorious spiritual awareness. I cringe to think how arrogantly I proclaimed to have had kensho experiences or whatever, but when I REALLY consider what they were TO ME, without all the promises of gurus in books, they really haven't been that amazing.

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

I'm beginning to see it like this - as soon as I try to say anything about the world, it is partial, flawed. We think in concepts and expect to see objects around us. When we let go of that, there is a NOW, a primary, unclassifiable, indescribable momentary experience, whatever it is. That, to my mind, is all that enlightenment means - seeing that there is no 'computer' 'window' or 'coffee' there in front of me, just my linguistic preconceptions. The doors of perception can be opened, it is fairly well known, with hallucinagenics or - the safer, slower way - with meditation and practising trying not to see those preconceptions - trying not to project, but witness.

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?"

Yeah, I had something similar, although if I'm honest I've never been very disciplined with it. They say to make good progress you need to stop doing it when you feel like it, and do it every day. Even so, it could all be self-hypnosis.

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.

Fairly similar to me. I've studied a bit, practised a bit, and taught a bit (hopefully within my capabilities and not making wild claims - thinks - oh no, probably did). My therapy training was useful in that regard of course and there's a big crossover.

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.

Koinkydinks-R-Us!

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.

I'm sorry I missed such good questions. I have no idea how to answer! Maybe that's why I missed answering them! Erm....it could be that my intellect is the real deceiver, but to know that I'm being deceived seems to rest on my intellect. I mean, I can deceive my cat quite easily. My granddaughter is a little harder to fool, especially if chocolate is involved. It could be types - maybe it's genetic that some people don't mind too much if the different bits of their world view don't fit together, or if they just enjoy believing dreamy things that bring them pleasure, and other people, like me, are driven to make sense of things. And I go through phases. Only a few months ago - in the winter - I was much more into the idea that my intellect was a problem and I should just go for it. I did more meditation then. About a year ago, I did my first meditation for months, burst into tears and decided that I had lost my connection with the Divine. I should meditate and find God every day before I do anything else, I said to myself. Things change. We go through phases, and we change our minds. I occasionally pray these days: "God, please, if you exist..." I know that it's pathetic, and I know that if he's what they say, he will understand that I'm pathetic. But I'm not going to pretend anything for some kind of false piety.

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.

Yes, to some extent I've forgotten, to some extent I have given up childish things (also a religious principle, from Jesus, methinks!). I love and care and enjoy - I cry and laugh my head off. I go weak at beautiful scenery. I feel immense awe for nature - the amazing complexity and pattern of planets and stars condensing out of the universe, genes mutating and natural selection causing evolution, the human brain and thinking, our culture, our future possibilites if we could get over ourselves. I'm a poet and musician and I love sitting alone by the side of my tent on a hilltop. But I also have chosen not to let go of my reasoning. I owe so much to being hard as well as soft, and being self-critical, questioning things. I don't see it as an advantage just to go "Oh to hell with it, I'll believe in magic," or "Hey, it would be cool if God existed, I'll believe that." I just can't do that. I'm not a child. That's the point. There are too many people who can't be bothered to grow up. That's why we're squabbling over oil and energy and water and carbon emmissions and killing each other because we have different gods. It's infantile.

<big snip>
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.

That's beautiful, funny (the money lettuce) and true, but I suspect partially so. I'd say it's one of the most powerful tools we have, but it is also one of the most dangerous tools we have (especially when people don't know what you know - that we're doing it! - and it is one of the great things about all this loa philosophy that it brings this into the light of day)...but there is also, I hope, having seen that we make our reality to some extent, our ability to transcend that and learn to witness what is...and maybe other things too.

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...

I agree that in principle it is good for us to take responsibility for our actions, but I also think what is missing here is an acceptance of other - other people, other things, other circumstances, history, everything that is outside our control, and even when we know we should take control, sometimes people can't. I know that as a therapist and in my own struggle. It's no use pointing it out to an alcoholic that he can stop drinking. Of course, on one level, he can. On another level, until he can, he can't. And he might come from a long line of fathers who beat the **** out of their sons and made them so sick they turned to drink as well. I'd love to be responsible for all my actions, but sometimes I'm a piece of flotsam being smashed about on the beach of reality. I don't think we take that into account enough. It's another thing I dislike in Buddhist philosophy, the attitude that you created all your suffering yourself...but maybe again that's about which self we're talking about. Oh, and reincarnation...oh, and...

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

No, it's good. I'm sorry I missed replying. I hope that's the one you meant.

[John Freestone]

I love this post, wolfgang.

Originally Posted by wolfgang

Thanks for the Wilber pulls. I have his "No Boundary" book that is all about how we have a definition of self that sets up the illusion that we are separate. However I haven't been able to keep up with his newer stuff that seems heady or something for me. But the summary you put in your post was what I'd expect him to say.

Me too - I loved No Boundary and thought he was just the most wonderful philosopher alive. I saw it more generally, that maybe there's no boundary anywhere, but it also implies our oneness with All. Then I read some later stuff and couldn't believe it was the same person. For one thing, it was crammed full of so many boundaries - different levels of spiritual awakening and such. I guess it could be that they are relatively real boundaries or something. It was another little crack in my religious armour. I have a critique of him I've just started that says he has lost the plot. Keep meaning to get back to it. Someone at JREF pulled it for me.

So this is the real secret. The you of being one with everything, having no boundary, is where creation comes from. That it's not our ordinary local mind type consciousness. That's why some will say to ask, in the IM/LoA way you need to go into alpha (a non-ordinary state). And then, to really be a IMer one has to fully awaken to oneness or whatever that state is. And we are given glimpses of this state from time to time. But then who can exist there and see the light all the time? I think it's possible to be all and and individual - actually I have the wacky idea that we already are one with life, other wise we'd expire. Something in us at a cellular level already believes in life being whole.

I suppose one can call it bogus too. That there's no such state of consciousness - oneness. How does someone prove that? Is it an idea that is provable? Is it even definable? Is it so "not mind" that there's no language for it? That it requires one's whole being, not just thoughts to prove this. But it is only proved subjectively to one's self. But even then, it's not your normal objective scientific proof.

Why aren't more IMers talking about getting into that state - instead of trying to manifest $$ or something that they think will make there ego happier or be proof that there's something to it. Or talking about how to feel whole and have less fragments and projections of denied self "out there", or being able to purge habitual responses. Instead people latch onto something that make them think their ego self is able to ask for something to be given.

Again I think you're on to something here. Maybe we are co-creators with the universe the more we give up our separate ego and live from the position of oneness. That means that $$$ is pointless and unavailable to people who are trying to manifest it. It exists for those who see that certain people don't have enough of it and are helping them get more, or whatever. I think you've nailed it with that distinction. I think it was what was on my mind, more vaguely, when I first found this forum - why are so many people going on about spiritual awareness and grasping for money like greedy swines?

It would be a funny thing if it turns out to be true. You - your small self - the ego that wants this and that and hates the other - has no power whatsoever to manifest anything other than its own suffering, by reinforcing its separateness from everyone and everything else. Cast your bread upon the waters, however...

:-

[infinitethoughts]

Actually, you are creating the universe moment-to-moment, but it’s not the “you” that you think. According to the great contemplative traditions, every person has at least two “selves”: the finite, temporal, egoic self-sense, and the infinite, transcendental, unqualifiable Self, or I-AMness....

Here's a simple way to experience this.

Watch a thought when it comes to you. Then notice, where did this thought come from?

Watch a thought when it disappears. Then notice, where did it go?

You'll see that it comes and goes from your "infiniteness" (for lack of a better word.)

So thats what you are. You are this "background" that continually keeps thinking thoughts. And you can choose any thoughts you want.

Now to say that there are "two selves" is incorrect. There is just you, aware of your infinite background, choosing any thoughts you want.

When one is saying there are "two selves", this is coming from not seeing what you are.

The Secret teaches that your separate self has the power to personally manifest a new car, win the lottery, or cure cancer… and this simply isn’t how things work.

Wrong.

This is exactly how thing things work, due to what I said above.

[puduman]

Originally Posted by John Freestone

Maybe we are co-creators with the universe the more we give up our separate ego and live from the position of oneness. That means that $$$ is pointless and unavailable to people who are trying to manifest it. It exists for those who see that certain people don't have enough of it and are helping them get more, or whatever.

A philosopher comes to my mind I saw speaking on the internet a while ago. Asked from many people around the world what really makes us happy, he came to a conclusion that sounded like this: "Find something that is more important than you and do it with all your heart."
Maybe that's why you feel so good when you serve a greater community, make people happier/decrease suffering and forget (not ignore!) yourself: it's nearer to the "truth".

[puduman]

@infinitethoughts: As far as I can tell and as far as I know Wilber's work, he is aware of this. The concept of two (or even more) selves is just a tool to make you aware of something in the background. From the point of oneness this sure does not make any sense. The point is: You can act out of oneness or you can act out of your ego. Latter may create boundaries, which former may overcome.

[cylon]

Originally Posted by wolfgang

.... there's little focus on the state one needs to do the asking or where our intentions really come from.

Could be. My main goal is to be in that space though, not for the money (which is nice) but to just have a happy life. I can't speak for other people though.

[moonrambler]

Originally Posted by John Freestone

Again I think you're on to something here. Maybe we are co-creators with the universe the more we give up our separate ego and live from the position of oneness. That means that $$$ is pointless and unavailable to people who are trying to manifest it. It exists for those who see that certain people don't have enough of it and are helping them get more, or whatever. I think you've nailed it with that distinction. I think it was what was on my mind, more vaguely, when I first found this forum - why are so many people going on about spiritual awareness and grasping for money like greedy swines?

This is exactly the attitude that got me into the financial mess which I'm now digging myself out of.

It's taken a LOT of self-examination and effort to understand that most people who want money are not greedy swines.

Also, where do you get the idea that $$$ is unavailable to people who are trying to manifest it? My monthly income has gone up 40% since I started working with the concepts on this particular forum.

[cylon]

Originally Posted by moonrambler

My monthly income has gone up 40% since I started working with the concepts on this particular forum.

Coolness.

There's a lot of negative views about money. But it's just a tool. Do with it what you will.

Everyone deserves abundance and to be happy. "greedy" is not from abundance, it's from scarcity. One is greedy because they see life as a limited resource and want to take as much as possible before it all runs out.

Abundance says there's plenty for all (money, love, creativity, happiness, friendship, etc.) of us and we all deserve to have it and should take pleasure in others having it as well.

[Wax Frog]

Originally Posted by wolfgang

This sounds like if IM fails for you in some way, you are OK with that.

This sounds like if IM ideas fail, you are not interested in life anymore

Which is it?

Two separate issues.

- If IM fails there's not a damn thing I can do about it, no matter my beliefs.

- A universe conforming exactly to materialist expectations/understanding is completely incompatible with what I feel at the core of my soul (if there is such a thing ). I have never felt as if I belonged here, my deeper intuitions and beliefs have never been compatible with the "cold hard truths" I was told. I believe the appeal of IM is that it would certainly exist, to some degree and in some way, in "my world". Without it, or perhaps I should say without any "metaphysical" element, I'm just a rather pathetic model of we mostly-deluded meat puppets who infest this rock.

I have only two choices - I don't know the blanket term for my preferred philosophy, but the other would be nihilism.

Once you have gone through and cleaned up your subconscious, there might be less "need" to do IM.

Maybe so, but the foregoing would still trump all other considerations for me.

It's a little scary to hear you say this eager to die part.

I'm not suicidal, but I felt I should use powerful words to express my feeling. I can never accept the "fundamaterialist" view, for many reasons beside IM. That world view is poison to me.

[Wax Frog]

Originally Posted by cylon

Could be. My main goal is to be in that space though, not for the money (which is nice) but to just have a happy life. I can't speak for other people though.

For me, money would be an extremely useful tool for accomplishing some pretty cool stuff while I'm still doing this mortal-coil gig...

[John Freestone]

Originally Posted by moonrambler

This is exactly the attitude that got me into the financial mess which I'm now digging myself out of.

It's taken a LOT of self-examination and effort to understand that most people who want money are not greedy swines.

Also, where do you get the idea that $$$ is unavailable to people who are trying to manifest it? My monthly income has gone up 40% since I started working with the concepts on this particular forum.

Ok, yeah, I don't know what came over me then. Well, I do, it was all the old crap coming back, all the religious stuff saying that the love of money is the root of all evil (Jesus) and crap like that, if it is crap, which I don't know.

Actually, what do I believe when I stop repeating things I've heard? It's a tool, like cylon says. Sorry for getting on my high horse, like I even give much to charity for that matter.

I'm sure you're all sick of hearing what I think, but anyway, I'm reassessing all this Oneness or two-ness stuff as well.

There's an odd thing that happens. Wilber demonstrated it in that quote earlier, with the Auschwitz Test. The general argument goes like this: 'A' can't possibly be true, because if A were true it would be really really horrible to think. I don't believe that we create our reality, so I'm not saying that the victims did, but when Wilber says that it would be 'unconscionable' and 'untenable', he just means that he finds the idea repugnant. That, to me, is a pathetic excuse for an argument, and quite beneath a man of his supposed intelligence. We might be horrified to think about the possibility that people could cause their own downfall in dreadful circumstances, and we might look at their lives and recognise them as good, loving people who did not expect or intend to be murdered, but who knows what hidden lines of causation might be in play. Wilber is quite open to Buddhist ideas of karma acting across many lives, which would suggest at least the possibility that the victims were all brought together in that life at that time so as to fulfill their karmic suffering. I'm not saying that, but I don't believe in reincarnation: he does. It is just cowardice to reject propositions on the grounds that you're scared to think about them, or you might be accused, wrongly, of being racist or genocidal. It's as useful as arguing with a satanist that his religion can't be correct because it's very nasty...or an atheistic philosophy that says everything in the world happens through competition and violence, nature red in tooth and claw. If the world worked that way, finding it repugnant isn't going to change it.

A similar kind of argument comes a lot from the East. I don't mean to be racist either, but it seems a peculiarity of Indian thinking from what I've read. The teacher gives a surprising assertion about reality, for example that we have many lives and the soul goes on into another body at death. Then he pretends to ask himself why that should be so, and answers that it must be so, because how awful would it be if it were not? The soul just exterminated like that into nothingness? The very idea! - usually this is where he repeats the assertion - "No, the soul is not destroyed, but goes on to another body!" Smiles all round. Someone rub a bit more butter on the old git eh?

But spiritual philosophy is full of ridiculous arguments like that. In Life After Death, Deepak Chopra argues that you were never born - in the sense of never coming into existence as a conscious being from a state of not being. How do you know? Well, think about it, he says. Can you remember a time when you were not aware? To which the obvious answer is, "No, Deepak, I cannot remember ever being unaware". There you are, then, says the great spiritual teacher, that means that you never were born, you have existed for all time, adding as a neat flourish before the penny has time to drop, And if you never began, that means you can never die either.

Can I remember being asleep? No. So am I always awake, Deepak, and will I never fall asleep again? It's bloody insidious this monstrous excuse for spiritual intellectual argument. And I haven't found a spiritual teacher yet who wasn't full of it - assumption and false reasoning after prejudice and projection! Not even my old beloved Ram Dass. They're all full of it!

Infinitethoughts just posed a similar one, that if you ask where a thought comes from and where it goes to: 'You'll see that it comes and goes from your "infiniteness" (for lack of a better word.)' With all due respect, the lack of a better word is not sufficient reason to conjour the words 'your infiniteness' out of thin air. Could you give me any idea, infinitethoughts, why we should consider that possibility over 'bio-chemical emergency' (meaning that my bodymind found biological reasons for constructing a thought due to the particular circumstances in which it found itself, for the purposes of trying to navigate itself through the next ten minutes the best way it could)?

[moonrambler]

Originally Posted by John Freestone

Ok, yeah, I don't know what came over me then. Well, I do, it was all the old crap coming back, all the religious stuff saying that the love of money is the root of all evil (Jesus) and crap like that, if it is crap, which I don't know.

Gunk, inner junk, and old crap.

And you know what? I was gratified to discover that it IS crap -- because that's not what the Bible quote says. (And it was the apostle Paul, not Jesus, who said it.) The quote is, "The love of money is the root of all sorts of evil." That changes the meaning completely! That statement carries much more truth than the way it is typically misquoted.

I don't mean to be racist either, but it seems a peculiarity of Indian thinking from what I've read. The teacher gives a surprising assertion about reality, for example that we have many lives and the soul goes on into another body at death. Then he pretends to ask himself why that should be so, and answers that it must be so, because how awful would it be if it were not? The soul just exterminated like that into nothingness? The very idea! - usually this is where he repeats the assertion - "No, the soul is not destroyed, but goes on to another body!" Smiles all round. Someone rub a bit more butter on the old git eh?

I have a friend who likes to say the platitude after somebody dies, "Well, she's in a better place now." One day I quizzed him about how he can know this. He responded that he doesn't know it, but it makes him feel better so he has decided to believe it. That actually made a lot of sense to me. When somebody dies, people certainly do not behave as though they know they will be with this person again someday. In fact, they behave as though they know they never will.

In any case, I like the existentialist idea of conducting oneself in such a way so that if there really is no meaning in human life, no Heaven, no nothing, it's a damn shame because there should be.

[John Freestone]

Originally Posted by Wax Frog

Without it, or perhaps I should say without any "metaphysical" element, I'm just a rather pathetic model of we mostly-deluded meat puppets who infest this rock.

But that is such an unnecessarily negative view of the human infestation! We are jaw-droppingly fascinating, loving, intelligent, the only self-aware beings in the universe (maybe). I know what you mean and I think my recent epiphany (what?, I freaked me out there) is due to learning that materialism doesn't have to be all dry and meaningless, loveless and mechanical. There is consciousness now. Even if it happened rather haphazardly, it is amazing. In fact, it is more amazing because it isn't just explained by some deity making it so and it's a done deal. Somehow, out of the very fabric of the rock itself, life grew or strove or was caused to become (maybe we don't have the language to express these ideas) able to look at itself. Rock! Looking at itself and going all weak and weirding out. Stick around. Love might not have been squeezed out of the sky like toothpaste, but it's here now. You know you love and you are loved, don't you? I hope so. If not...anyway maybe that's another thing altogether, but my point is that any universe that can do that neat trick - well, I just wish even more that I could stick around for ever!

Actually, that was what was behind my resistance, perhaps. Accepting the possibility of materialism means that mortality is absolute, and given that it is an amazingly beautiful world, and I have an amazingly beautiful girl, that hurt enough for me to keep looking for escape hatches - God would save me somehow. And that's what led me to all sorts of muddled thinking, my desperation to be saved and not have to die. Now I'm beginning to accept my mortality, my utter and complete helplessness against that reality. It's making me want to find other comforts, like leaving good things behind for future generations, that kind of thing. I can only live on through other people's memories or my words and the effects of my deeds. It still hurts like hell, but it feels like a grief I can go through as other people go through it.

And just possibly, the fact that the universe clearly wants to get conscious (for the scientists: exhibits inherent syntropy) is evidence that consciousness is there within its fabric, even if it is a kind of dumb potential of consciousness. It may be God, giving birth to Itself, but It doesn't seem endlessly merciful and fluffy, bringing all Its conscious shards into the holographic fold at bedtime. I hope I'm wrong, of course.

[mercuryrising]

Originally Posted by John Freestone

If I do try, it will suddenly become very mundane really. I have had some lovely experiences in meditation, but that no-mind one was very mundane. Really, it seems I only knew about it after the event. I was trying to quiet my mind, let thoughts come and go, then - - - it was like "oh, I just stopped having any object of consciousness then for a moment". I am now much more sceptical about all these 'religious experiences' and see quite clearly that this, at least, could be thought of as having a moment of unconsciousness - a complete forgetting, like a little moment of sleep. One of my Zen books describes samadhi as being unknowable and says that when it happens you can't be aware of it; you are only aware of it the moment you wake up from it. I don't know whether than means it is utterly without deep spiritual significance, or just unknowable in experiencing it - and anyway, other meditators say that they have very different, radiant experiences when they are conscious of nothing except - - - everything. Can't say I've really had such an experience. I do think there is a great pressure we put upon ourselves, however, to interpret such things in the ways we have read about - beautiful promises of glorious spiritual awareness. I cringe to think how arrogantly I proclaimed to have had kensho experiences or whatever, but when I REALLY consider what they were TO ME, without all the promises of gurus in books, they really haven't been that amazing.

I was raised in a form of meditation where a person went within and through these various planes of consciousness until they reached God. It excited me to think there were these worlds within me that I could access. Ironically, it wasn't until I dropped the idea of there being these higher planes that I could experience them.

I'll have to reply in more depth later because I have to get to work. I wanted to say this, though:

Many of my experiences in life have led me to understand that I can't control anyone or anything. Attempts to do so just come right back at me. So it's best to just accept whatever people are doing and wherever they are at.

The only thing I can really change is myself and I'm not even very good at that. The reason I have found through meditation is that I am not this self... I am just the awareness of self. By being awareness, that is, just being conscious or mindful... the self changes. There's no method, no procedure.

Spiritual experiences, the expansion of consciousness, are the ways a self tries to interpret what it means to be awareness. It generally fails miserably at this because awareness is 'beyond exegesis'.

You brought up alcoholics. My dad has been in recovery for 7 years. There is a prayer the drunks have. I'm sure you are familiar with it and it says (in their terms) what I just said:

God (awareness)
Grant me the serenity (experience of expanded consciousness)
To accept the things I cannot change (others, the world)
The courage to change the things I can (the self)
The wisdom to know the difference (beyond exegesis).

Have a good one John... I'll hit you up in about 12 hours.

[John Freestone]

Originally Posted by moonrambler

Gunk, inner junk, and old crap.

And you know what? I was gratified to discover that it IS crap -- because that's not what the Bible quote says. (And it was the apostle Paul, not Jesus, who said it.) The quote is, "The love of money is the root of all sorts of evil." That changes the meaning completely! That statement carries much more truth than the way it is typically misquoted.

Yikes, moonrambler, loud and clear, loud and clear. No, seriously, I am happy to accept that my moralising was a bit rich, especially for a materialist! I recognise that I have had certain kinds of difficulty - complexes, guilt and such - from the christian insistence that money is sinful. I see also that it was preached by an insanely rich church and may well have been used as a way of keeping the masses putting their hands in their pockets to fill the collection plate. You seem very passionate about those lies, and I take your point.

However, I'm wondering if you can put all that on one side and whether there's anything left to say? If Paul said it that way, what kinds of evil do you think he means? Are you discounting other sayings attributed to Jesus about the problems or sins associated with wealth, about his attitude to money lenders, their working in the temple, his advice to the rich to give away their possessions, the 'eye of the needle' speech, and in this modern world, do you see any evidence of the love of money causing evil? What about utopia after utopia putting the abolition or magical vanishing of money as a priority? Is it all just nonsense?

What I said came from a disappointment that spiritual insights about our oneness seemed to mean nothing to certain individuals other than that they could have anything they wanted. The plight of the rest of humanity seemed of no consequence (or in some cases, figments of the person's imagination anyway - just shoot the pointless avatar creeps, why not?).

If someone is poor or oppressed and they use positive thinking to empower themselves and start moving up the scale, I'm in favour of it. If the richest people on the planet use it for their further gain, I'm a little uncomfortable about it. I don't buy the simple reply that there is abundance everywhere and I've got a deficit mindset. That's just an insult to the poorest people on the planet, e.g. those having their homes and way of life wiped off the planet by rich logging companies manifesting more abundance.

All populations of life forms have always competed for resources, and we are no different, except that we consume far more and have run out of frontiers to expand into (unless we count whizzing off to space - cue another link to Michio's lovely fluffy world of wonderous human futures).

Indeed, with global warming and the enormous economic upheavals we seem to be on the brink of - one superpower losing its position, another on the rise - the finiteness of our global resources should be becoming very clear. In this climate, I believe we should be trying to find ways to overcome our unbridled acquisitiveness. Maybe a little Christian charity wouldn't go amiss. Maybe we won't even survive unless we get the hang of communism.