Garbage, all of it.

[John Freestone]

Originally Posted by mercuryrising

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

I look forward to it, mercury. You're a darn sight better meditation teacher than many I've come across, assuming it's true. I may just be floundering about in the foothills and about to start another ascent! What I don't get is this 'expanded awareness' thing. I mean, yeah, much of it makes perfect sense, and I feel fairly confident that I've done enough practise to know stillness. It's just that in that indescribable nowness, I don't find expansion - certainly I don't find the experience of unity with everything, I haven't had any psychic experience, nothing. It's bottomless, endless, formless, sometimes joyful, beautiful, for sure, but it doesn't give me a reliable feeling that I'm in touch with ALL, or that my awareness is 'God', as you so effortlessly equate them. When I really look at the raw experience, it is wonderfully free of my categorising mind, but I still have a feeling that I'm me and you're you, genetic constructions, and that we are going the way of all flesh after these delightful contemplations about being God end.

[Wax Frog]

To amplify my earlier posts, I would have a hard time motivating myself if I could know for certain that the best possible outcome for my life would be remembrance as a good soulless 'zombie' by a bunch of other soulless 'zombies'.

[alegro]

John Freestone, thanks for your detailed posts and discussions.

First of all, I have browsed a little and found the entry of Christopher Columbus at Wikipedia: Christopher Columbus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The article clearly states that the Earth at his time was believed to be round by most scholars and most of them were able to correctly calculate the diameter (well, roughly). In fact, Columbus got it wrong, possibly because of his inexperience with navigation. Thanks, I learned something new!

Originally Posted by John Freestone

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 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.

Actually, I agree with this. Maybe I am not as eloquent in formulating my position as you are, but what you write makes a lot of sense to me.

Originally Posted by John Freestone

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...

Actually, I can understand this position as well. If you're sceptic and you have some standards for what will convince you and what will not, you will tend to get irritated if you are assaulted over and over again by people who a) don't know what these standards are, b) don't care to find out, and c) believe you are ignorant, because *they* didn't bother to provide evidence meeting those standards.


[Mind-body-connection]
So, it is always interesting to find something new. But I thought things like the Placebo-effect or the Hawthorne effect were known for ages already. Maybe the application posted here is quite new, however.

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by moonrambler

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.

My Dad, rest his soul, used to say, "Even if we don't have free will, we shouldn't act as if we don't."

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by John Freestone

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.

I do wonder about that proposed abundance mind set. It is tossed around a lot as that we are believing wrong to think of lack or not enough. Now, factually we could consume the earth in a way. But I try to think there is enough. It just isn't distributed and is horded a lot. Then also I think the idea needs to go further that just saying believe in an abundant universe. It needs to contain renewal and keeping the golden goose alive.

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).

I have stretched my thoughts over this in the past too. It seems that human kind is supposed to be able to realize competing is more difficult than cooperation. We don't get it yet. Sometimes I look at nature and wonder, that lion taking that zebra - is that plunder or a cooperation between species?

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.

it's only finite in keeping the same old mode going. if we can take but also allow and participate in replenishment, maybe we can keep mother earth alive for us. it may be a hard lesson for humanity to be able to work this out.

communism - I'm in usa and watched Sicko - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia recently and thought what happened to the health system here? made me think of moving to England or somewhere that if you get sick, you don't get a jacked up bill - no bill at all! Maybe not communism but socialist at least. (that's off topic of this thread, sorry poor thread)

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by mercuryrising

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).

liked this added take on the serenity prayer.

what's 'beyond exegesis'? wisdom that isn't just from studying books?

googled the serenity prayer, it has more words. Then I'll try to add.

Living one day at a time; (be in the now)
Enjoying one moment at a time; (find joy now)
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; (learn from bad times)
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
(?? don't presume to control the universe from ego)
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
(?? go into oneness consciousness to be with Life to feel everything is cool)
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
(?? then my ego will have a cool ride while having oneness be primary)
Amen.

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by Wax Frog

To amplify my earlier posts, I would have a hard time motivating myself if I could know for certain that the best possible outcome for my life would be remembrance as a good soulless 'zombie' by a bunch of other soulless 'zombies'.

but you aren't trying to find life to be this way. I think you are safe no matter what can be proved, because I don't think there is a way to prove questions like, is there a soul or deeper meaning to our lives. Just because no one can prove existance of the soul - doesn't mean soul doesn't possibly exist. A lot of the skeptical debunking is just as assumptive as faith beliefs.

skeptic: something is not true just because it can't be proven.

faith belief: it's true just because the possibilty of it being true has not been dis-proven.

[puduman]

Originally Posted by wolfgang

but you aren't trying to find life to be this way. I think you are safe no matter what can be proved, because I don't think there is a way to prove questions like, is there a soul or deeper meaning to our lives. Just because no one can prove existance of the soul - doesn't mean soul doesn't possibly exist. A lot of the skeptical debunking is just as assumptive as faith beliefs.

skeptic: something is not true just because it can't be proven.

faith belief: it's true just because the possibilty of it being true has not been dis-proven.

I agree: God/oneness or the soul can't be proven by (materialistic) science. If we think we can (e.g. by quantum physics which derives from the materialistic view) we have to deal with the fact that everything that is proven may be falsified a few years later. If we claim god or the soul can be proven by manifestations in the materialistic world, he/she/it may be disproven too in this falsification process. We should not even think about proving it. This only leads to discussions like: "If we can prove that Jesus did not exist, we have the right to question christianity at all." on a higher, yet equally narrow-minded level.

I believe god and the soul must be experienced. And this deep experience can't be disproven by words or thoughts or quantum physics.

(Sorry for my English.)

[John Freestone]

Originally Posted by wolfgang

but you aren't trying to find life to be this way. I think you are safe no matter what can be proved, because I don't think there is a way to prove questions like, is there a soul or deeper meaning to our lives. Just because no one can prove existance of the soul - doesn't mean soul doesn't possibly exist. A lot of the skeptical debunking is just as assumptive as faith beliefs.

skeptic: something is not true just because it can't be proven.

faith belief: it's true just because the possibilty of it being true has not been dis-proven.

Wolfgang, I wonder how you think of 'skepticism'. There's a very common idea - a mistake, imho - concerning the meaning of skepticism/scepticism.

The common understanding is that a sceptic decides that something is not true because it has not been proven (and stays fixed in that position), but really a sceptic suspends judgement, is doubtful or uncertain. If "a lot of the skeptical debunking is just as assumptive as faith beliefs", it is done by people who are not sceptics or are bad ones.

Of course the ideas are very close: if I am doubtful or require more rigorous proof or evidence for a claim, and am uncertain about it, then I do not believe it (in the positive sense of signing up to the cause), but it doesn't mean that I refute it (sign up to the unbelievers' cause, as it were).

Unfortunately, the word is being used more and more nowadays to mean the same as 'materialist' or 'debunker of parapsychology' or 'atheist', and making this argument is going to become rather out of date, like arguing that 'gay' means happy!

But for now, if someone tells you they're sure that everything is matter and energy and they're a skeptic, ask them to choose between the two, certainty or scepticism.

Maybe you're a sceptic.

Skepticism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Allegro, that's what I meant about the JREF forum. I was tentatively posing questions about reality that suggested I had some doubts or alternative ways of looking at the world, and they, utterly certain of materialism, and certain that they were skeptics, shouted "What are you saying you believe in?" and "This sounds like woo to me!". They were entrenched in their belief that mind was the product of a brain, metaphysics was meaningless, philosophy a waste of time... not sceptical at all by my understanding. I was the sceptical one. They were signed up, hard-line materialists.

[moonrambler]

Originally Posted by John Freestone

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?

Boy, those are big questions, and I don't have all the answers.

I have also had certain kinds of difficulty - complexes, guilt and such - from the Christian insistence that money is sinful. It is all rather paradoxical. The 'eye of the needle' speech -- that's a biggie. Why is it so hard for a rich person to enter into the kingdom of Heaven? Why did Jesus tell that man to give away everything he had and join Jesus' disciples? Was he expressing to the man and the listening crowd that people are too materialistic? I just don't know.

The temple incident though -- I assume that was like running a payday loan center in the temple. Thus the 'den of thieves' comment.

I figure the love of money causes evil all the time. Hacking into bank accounts, identity theft, robbery, scamming a rich person to get married by pretending to love him/her, wars over resources such as the Iraq/Kuwait conflict, and so on, it shows up on many levels. Some of this, though, I guess is better classified as a distaste for any conventional money-making efforts rather than a love of money. But it makes us target "money" as the problem. Most people also seem to feel uncomfortable about lifestyles of the very, very rich as contrasted with the very, very poor, and how easy it would be for the rich to bring more reilef to the poor. There's a good discussion somewhere here about the problems we have with the idea that it's "okay" to spend $10K on a night's hotel room stay, when a person could get a great hotel room for $500 and give the rest away.

[John Freestone]

Originally Posted by wolfgang

I do wonder about that proposed abundance mind set.

[...]

I'm in usa and watched Sicko - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia recently and thought what happened to the health system here? made me think of moving to England or somewhere that if you get sick, you don't get a jacked up bill - no bill at all! Maybe not communism but socialist at least. (that's off topic of this thread, sorry poor thread)

Yeah, I took things off at a tangent. Pool old thread. Maybe we need another thread or another forum to discuss politics and future scenarios! But I'm glad you're wondering about the abundance proposition. These things get trotted out, we have to stay awake and notice what people are slipping by us!

[mercuryrising]

Originally Posted by John Freestone

I look forward to it, mercury. You're a darn sight better meditation teacher than many I've come across, assuming it's true. I may just be floundering about in the foothills and about to start another ascent! What I don't get is this 'expanded awareness' thing. I mean, yeah, much of it makes perfect sense, and I feel fairly confident that I've done enough practise to know stillness. It's just that in that indescribable nowness, I don't find expansion - certainly I don't find the experience of unity with everything, I haven't had any psychic experience, nothing. It's bottomless, endless, formless, sometimes joyful, beautiful, for sure, but it doesn't give me a reliable feeling that I'm in touch with ALL, or that my awareness is 'God', as you so effortlessly equate them. When I really look at the raw experience, it is wonderfully free of my categorising mind, but I still have a feeling that I'm me and you're you, genetic constructions, and that we are going the way of all flesh after these delightful contemplations about being God end.

Thanks for the compliment. I am floundering in the foothills myself. Teaching is the best way I learn.

You are not your thinking. And while I believe you when you say you've had some great meditation experiences, you're still up in your head (Not that you are the only one, by any means. You're just particularly good at it.). Here is an example:

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)?

You didn't try what he was saying. Instead, you thought about it. Enlightenment doesn't come in the thought of enlightenment or anything else for that matter, but through the transcendence of thought.

The paradox is that to expand your awareness, you have to put all your focus on one point. In truth, it can be any point. You can think of poop on a stick with complete one-pointedness and POW, it happens.

[mercuryrising]

Originally Posted by wolfgang

liked this added take on the serenity prayer.

what's 'beyond exegesis'? wisdom that isn't just from studying books?

Basically, yes. It's like you can't get a great physique by reading books about bodybuilding.

The fact that you would go through the trouble of looking this up is really cool of you... I put in my take in the parentheses:

Living one day at a time; (be in the now)
Enjoying one moment at a time; (have fun)
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; (learn something)
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
(help someone)
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
(go with the flow)
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
(we're infinite beings on vacation... thanks infinitethoughts)
Amen.
(word to your mother )

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by John Freestone

Wolfgang, I wonder how you think of 'skepticism'. There's a very common idea - a mistake, imho - concerning the meaning of skepticism/scepticism.

The common understanding is that a sceptic decides that something is not true because it has not been proven (and stays fixed in that position), but really a sceptic suspends judgement, is doubtful or uncertain. If "a lot of the skeptical debunking is just as assumptive as faith beliefs", it is done by people who are not sceptics or are bad ones.

thanks for clarifying the distinctions. I suppose I didn't need the labels but just trying to see the camps that exist with beliefs that can't be proven the regular scientific way - in response to WaxFrog hopping (hehe) these kinds of beliefs (like having a soul) are never dis-proven.

Of course the ideas are very close: if I am doubtful or require more rigorous proof or evidence for a claim, and am uncertain about it, then I do not believe it (in the positive sense of signing up to the cause), but it doesn't mean that I refute it (sign up to the unbelievers' cause, as it were).

then one can be one of three things - either:
1--- refute totally on things unprovable or
2--- never really believe or dis-believe since there isn't proof.
3--- Or become a believer on feelings or faith or some personal method that 'proves' it internally.

And number 2 is difficult because it rests on what kind of proof is needed, which might brake that into other possible states of approaching these ideas.

Number 2 can have another distinction in keeping hope alive. Wouldn't some skeptics be trying to debunk, which is being pessimistic about the belief - that they are trying to dis-prove it, instead of prove it with hope? but maybe I don't have the definition down yet.

But for now, if someone tells you they're sure that everything is matter and energy and they're a skeptic, ask them to choose between the two, certainty or scepticism.

So that would be asking them to be number 1 or number 2?

Maybe you're a sceptic.

I do wonder what I am. I know Wax Frog, in his more personal thread, seemed to think I am a skeptic. I never thought I was. It sort of pushes a button to think I'm a skeptic. Maybe it's that I resist fixating a label, that, like you, it changes throughout life. I like wacky ideas. Then I wonder what wacky ideas do for me other than keep my mind entertained. I have started wanting practical results. Although I'm not trying to IM things.

I was thinking about how I often think it's better to not believe anything. Because that's another way to say we aren't operating with a conditioned mind at all. You'd have the empty cup, clean slate, original mind. Then I thought a skeptic probably is just that - one not believing anything.

But I'd be the most hopeful kind, not the debunking kind. I know I post with the stand of all that physic/soul/oneness stuff is real. But then recently I had some reactions to a thread to ask, but what does that mean to believe all that? In that question I don't feel it as doubt but just wonder what the practicalness of having the actual belief does, or what is it actually that I'm trying to believe and why? Then my answer comes back to just me trying to feel whole, complete, at peace and excited about life.

Maybe it's wanting to be less bored with regular local mind. Habitual stuff can be boring after a while. Then I try to remind myself how awesome and wondrous reality, as is, is. And recall those peak experiences that showed me to my being that what I hear from mystical/psychic material is confirmed - or just "feels" correct. So then back to the meditations, or tai chi and wacky procedures to induce states and chase that rainbow some more. Those moments of oneness feelings leaves one hungry for 'knowing' it.

It seems to go away, like you posted once your experiences of coming out of non-mind. Once you think you are in the oneness state, those thoughts bring you out of it. This is where I wonder what it takes to allow both oneness and local mind to coexist. Actually, a couple weeks ago I was doing a tai chi form in private and felt that oneness, my self was gone and my body wasn't doing the form, but the form was doing my body kind of thing. And also I was able to reflectively notice this state of non-self feeling while it was occurring.

I could feel some sort of 'energy' running through me and making the body feel connected up to a larger expansive energy system that had a blue shimmer lattice look going on too. One of those cool rare experiences, for me, since it usually goes the route of, I feel "it" and then think about "it", get terribly excited about "it" and then am back to only regular local mind struggling with doing the form "correctly".

But then, what does having those states do for me? I don't think it's a delusion or a placebo/imagination seeded hallucination. Is that state important to get into? It almost seemed like the more 'natural' me. That it wasn't something to be super excited about in a woo woo way. That it's more normal than tic-toc local mind states. But then, now sitting here writing about it, maybe glorifying that kind of state, makes me "want" that some more. Like I'm addicted to having peak experiences or something.

I stopped going to tai chi classes since the teacher wasn't regular and treated some with disrespect, shame. Like your experiences with Buddhists, perhaps. plus I wasn't regular enough - I'd skip class to hang with guitar playing friends, tisk tisk on me too. It was strange how the classes were at the same time as the best time to hang out with guitar playing friends. Like the universe was telling me I need to choose one or the other (is that something a skeptic would think?)

Playing guitar with people can also be a oneness door. Or at least a door to being in flow or the zone. Which I think is a cousin to being oneness. When the group finds a sound together and the blend is so great that there is a oneness in the sound and your playing isn't really you doing it - but you are still an individual.

sorry about the length of posting, did you read it all?

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by mercuryrising

Basically, yes. It's like you can't get a great physique by reading books about bodybuilding.

The fact that you would go through the trouble of looking this up is really cool of you... I put in my take in the parentheses:

thanks for your take too - put a smile on my face!

that serenity prayer sometimes bugs me.

why do we have to figure out that somethings we can't change and other things we can?

Could there be a way that going with the flow doesn't include wanting to change anything?

is it to be in the flow or are we actually able to be the flow? which is part of the issues with IMing. are we able to will creation or are we just floating along with it?

I suppose if I responded to this, I'd want to say it both in a paradox, or that oneness is also my very little identified self somehow.

[cylon]

Originally Posted by moonrambler

I have also had certain kinds of difficulty - complexes, guilt and such - from the Christian insistence that ........

The christian concept of guilt and shame permeates every aspect of your life. The only reason people talk about money so much is because, well, it's a big part of our lives, so it makes sense. But it's not like "money is the root of all (sorts of) evil, yet everything else is gumdrops and roses".

In the Christian religion man is FUNDAMENTALLY EVIL. He could be rich or poor , it makes no difference. Adam ate the apple and our Jealous God did not like that. So he cursed all of us.

And and on top of that... God (of the bible) really doesn't even CARE if you have rejected money altogether! Good deeds, don't count! Being a good person, doesn't count! I had this whole discussion with my mother (she was in tears) explaining to me that Jesus doesn't look at the good or bad things I've done in life, all he cares about is that I am born again and join his club. Anything else and we all burn in hell.

Right now you could say "I reject all money and will instead live as a humble buddhist monk on a mountain top", God would send you to hell anyway because he only likes Christian monks on mountain-tops. You may as well have been greedy and cruel your whole life then on your deathbed converted to christianity, you could have had the best of both worlds.

Just being alive is a sin. I don't want to side-track the discussion, just to point out that shame and guilt ARE THE Christian religion... not just money.

[JSB]

Originally Posted by puduman

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:

(Selected Quotes [emphasis added])

Originally Posted by puduman

• By teaching that the world quite literally revolves around you, The Secret encourages and entrenches narcissism.
...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...

• Actually, you are creating the universe moment-to-moment, but it’s not the “you” that you think...

• “The Law of Attraction” is true—as far as it goes.
...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...

• 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.

Wow, Wilber hits this one way out of the ballpark! This clearly and simply addresses all of the issues I've not been lucid, eloquent or clever enough to come up with on my own. Brilliant!

Thanks, Puduman.

[John Freestone]

Originally Posted by mercuryrising

Thanks for the compliment. I am floundering in the foothills myself. Teaching is the best way I learn.

You are not your thinking. And while I believe you when you say you've had some great meditation experiences, you're still up in your head (Not that you are the only one, by any means. You're just particularly good at it.). Here is an example:

You didn't try what he was saying. Instead, you thought about it. Enlightenment doesn't come in the thought of enlightenment or anything else for that matter, but through the transcendence of thought.

The paradox is that to expand your awareness, you have to put all your focus on one point. In truth, it can be any point. You can think of poop on a stick with complete one-pointedness and POW, it happens.

Thanks, mercuryrising. I have practised a lot of different techniques including single-pointed awareness and I have experienced what I experienced, and I make of it what I make of it. There are those, like you, who say that the truth of such a philosophy cannot be comprehended by the rational mind, but there are also those who say that it is essential to take what happens in meditation and think about it rationally too.

I could tell you that when you think you experience oneness with the Universe (which presumably you do, or you would not propose it), you were enjoying the delights of an unusual state of consciousness and adding on to it an even more enjoyable interpretation.

The strange thing is that, in order to argue for Oneness, you are making rational judgements about what happened in your meditation - describing it and interpreting it afterwards - even though you are denying that rationality was involved. But when I use rational arguments to doubt Oneness, you say that I am stuck in my head while you have transcended reason and just know. I don't buy it. I used to. I went there and came back and told people how I've seen the light, the Oneness of everything. I even told the people who didn't believe me that it's a feeling thing, intuition, and they have to get out of their heads. It's a great trip. Man we luurve our trips. I was a special guy then, like some kind of guru.

You may be right, I don't know. I was going to say, ok I'll try again, give one-pointed awareness another go for - how long?, I don't know - daily for 3 months? - but there's this other problem I mentioned. If I sit there doing my meditation every day, I'm going to really want you to be right. I mean, we do don't we? I want you to be right, right now! We'd love it to be true that there's a place inside where I am WE are EVERYTHING is GOD, and so I'll be sitting there wanting it, trying to taste that intuition you might have tasted, and then I might just have a moment where I sense that what I just experienced could be a little bit like the real thing, and then I could remember that I have to let go of my thinking mind and my doubts and just go with it...

...but what if intuition is actually just belief caused by the desire to believe?

Desire causes us to believe all sorts of untruths...little by little we let go of our doubts and believe because we want it to be true so much. No doubt you pity me in my rational prison, not daring to feel my way into higher understandings because I have a fear of self-hypnotically programming myself to believe. It's ok. We're different. Not letting go of doubt, being a sceptic, has become my greatest tool on the quest for knowledge. I can suspend my thinking, but I'm not going to come out of it and stick my favourite cosmological fantasy onto it - I'm going to try out different ideas, different theories, doubt and test and judge.

[John Freestone]

Originally Posted by cylon

The christian concept of guilt and shame permeates every aspect of your life. [...]
In the Christian religion man is FUNDAMENTALLY EVIL. [...] I had this whole discussion with my mother (she was in tears) explaining to me that Jesus doesn't look at the good or bad things I've done in life, all he cares about is that I am born again and join his club. Anything else and we all burn in hell. [...]
Just being alive is a sin. I don't want to side-track the discussion, just to point out that shame and guilt ARE THE Christian religion... not just money.

They are your mother's "Christian" religion. A great many Christians would say that she is way off, couldn't be further from the truth if she tried, has got it all about face.

[Wax Frog]

Originally Posted by wolfgang

I think you are safe no matter what can be proved, because I don't think there is a way to prove questions like, is there a soul or deeper meaning to our lives.

I haven't been around long enough to be clear on your own philosophy, so I apologize for being initially tempted to throw you in with the überskeptic crowd.

I confess it bothers me that there are those who are both completely convinced ours is a universe without inherent meaning and esteemed for holding that view. Their frequently-expressed smug condescension for those who believe otherwise only grates me further. I suppose some messed-up aspect of my psyche drives me to seek them out, a masochistic desire to prove my worst fears to be true.

When I was a child I had two really bad phobias, about my breath being stopped and swallowing my tongue. It took years of therapy and reassurance to convince me that neither would happen, but I still felt this weird impulse to "scare myself" by trying to do both. I have no idea where that impulse came from, but now it seems that I have transferred it to philosophical areas of thought.

I do wonder what I am. I know Wax Frog, in his more personal thread, seemed to think I am a skeptic. I never thought I was. It sort of pushes a button to think I'm a skeptic. Maybe it's that I resist fixating a label, that, like you, it changes throughout life. I like wacky ideas. Then I wonder what wacky ideas do for me other than keep my mind entertained. I have started wanting practical results. Although I'm not trying to IM things.

I think all these years of being exposed to the "fundies" has given me a thin skin, so I reflexively assume anyone countering statements made in support of a 'fringe' idea is a bomb-throwing adversary. Now that I'm at long last giving in to the impulse to vent, maybe I can get out of my conclusion-jumping habit...

[Wax Frog]

I apologize for deliberately misusing the term 'skeptic' as well, but the informal cabal that puts itself in the public eye for the purpose (seemingly) of depressing the Waxies of the world calls itself skeptical, so that is the term I choose to use. I have also grown fond of the term "fundamaterialist", as it is perhaps more precise (and pretty funny).

[cylon]

Originally Posted by John Freestone

They are your mother's "Christian" religion. A great many Christians would say that she is way off, couldn't be further from the truth if she tried, has got it all about face.

And vice versa. Somewhere in-between the extreme fundamentalists (using the same bible) and the liberal christians (using the same bible) are the general attitudes and interpretations that lead to this pervasive sense of "christian guilt".

[cylon]

The only denomination of Christianity (current times) I personally know of that do not believe non-christians will go to Hell are unitarians.

Whereas most people tend to take the parts of the Bible they like and focus on those (the word of god) and pretend all the scary stuff (same word of god) isn't there.

It's there though.

[Wax Frog]

My relationship to Christianity has been a fluid one, thanks to my Mom. She was raised Catholic and would probably identify herself as one if asked, but she has never quite fit the mold. She stopped going to church when she camed to the States from Germany, and by the time I was old enough to start, she'd lost interest in having us kids go through all the formalities (confirmation and the like). All I ever had to do was join in the family prayer once every Sunday. Also, throughout my life we have shared an interest in the paranormal, and she's told me of apparent ghostly and angelic phenomena she's experienced since childhood, as well as a borderline NDE. I've never really asked her about it, but she seems to see no conflict between her personal faith and the reality of these things.

I still ask Jesus/God to help me when I feel afraid, but at present I couldn't call myself Christian, and certainly my idea of God has since late childhood been far removed from the Bearded Giant in the Sky. I'm grateful (if sometimes frustrated) for the gift of having been raised in such a way to feel free to find my own truth.

[cylon]

I grew up of course terrified of going to hell. That was my impetus for atheism and or skepticism... I needed a way out of that. It worked.

I still feel bad for all the other people though growing up the way I did, afraid to think for themselves, afraid of their own desires because it's all the devil trying to trick you. Makes an atmosphere of guilt and confusion because you're told god is love and at the same time to be human is to be dirty and sinful.

[Wax Frog]

Originally Posted by cylon

I grew up of course terrified of going to hell. That was my impetus for atheism and or skepticism... I needed a way out of that. It worked.

I've noticed a pattern of atheist/agnostics coming from strict or likely-strict upbringings. Makes me appreciate my own situation, problematic as it was in some ways, more fully.

[jawillie]

Okay, the last few pages of this thread have been very interesting to me and I see a lot of myself in a lot of you (on both "sides").

I came across this quote today: "In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted."Bertrand Russell
British author, mathematician, & philosopher (1872 - 1970)

So my question mark for myself would be: Why do I need to believe LoA and IM??

I hate, hate, HATE to admit that a part of me does "need" magical, mystical, out-of-this-world experiences. Like the physical world is just too mundane for me so I seek and seek something extraordinary.

For me a lot of it is questioning what happens when we die, too. So if the what I am (at my essense) is the same as that place where thoughts come from.... that would make the REAL me.... nothing. Basically. That bugs me.

So then I question how people can have interaction with spirits who have passed on.... I mean, there has to be something to that.

BUT.......... I am veering off-topic, I apologize.

I just wanted to say that I do, definitely, see myself in a lot of the last few posts!

[cylon]

Originally Posted by jawillie

I hate, hate, HATE to admit that a part of me does "need" magical, mystical, out-of-this-world experiences. Like the physical world is just too mundane for me so I seek and seek something extraordinary. !

Thing is after awhile you see it's not so otherworldly. If it's happening, it's natural not "magical".

If you had told me as a kid that they were going to discover tons of new planets that weren't in our solar system I would have said that's magic.

[Wax Frog]

Originally Posted by jawillie

I hate, hate, HATE to admit that a part of me does "need" magical, mystical, out-of-this-world experiences. Like the physical world is just too mundane for me so I seek and seek something extraordinary.

One of the ways I try to reassure myself is to focus on the absurdity and perverseness of the paradox the materialists present me with, the idea that a universe can produce beings with the ability to vividly imagine that which this same universe expressly prohibits. It's one of the foundations on which I base my IM (and other) hopes, and the source of my almost visceral rejection of the materialist model.

[This pseudonerd would be very grateful if someone could restate the paradox (or point to a restatement) so that it isn't so heavy on "big" words ...]

[nightdiamond]

Hi waxfrog..

Everything that's going on in your mind about the paranormal is normal, I think.... Here's what I discovered about my own approach to this topic;

Whenever I felt I needed an answer from the paranormal or mystical world, like you mentioned, it was because something wasn't ok with the 'ordinary' world...

If things are normal or even great in average life, then usually there's feeling of having little need to 'manifest something', 'talk to spirit guides' or meditate or study concepts like karma......

If a person feels something is missing in their life, or that person desires something they think they can't reach easily, and the average world doesn't seem to provide an answer, then that's when a person might turn to concepts like I.M, psychics, channeling ect....

But then there's the problem of insecurity of belief; Of needing confirmation from other people, especially skeptics, in an attempt to strengthen your own belief....

I found out that only leads into endless circles, of questioning discussing and arguing, and back to questioning again.... You have to avoid getting disappointed by a foolish idea, but at the same time fight off the skeptics who say things that bothers you; because they make it hard to believe....

That's why I often say if you can solve a problem by discipline and hard work, go for it..the results feel just as good as I.M, seeing a psychic or whatever, but the real reason is that when you eliminate a problem, want, or need that bothers you, you feel less like desperately turning to I.M in order to desperately manifest that things you want....

For example you want a car, and you don't have one. Something is missing in your life, something you want and need. So you spend all day looking up ads, calling, asking around, talking to friends or family who might sell you one, and then one day you find a neighbor who will sell you a great working spare car at a big discount....

And when you are driving around in that car, it will feel just as good as if you somehow manifested it. Or you could take a shot at I.M and manifest it, while dealing with the 'is it real' issues, wondering what approach to take, ect...


That's why the approach I finally settled on has been to find a reasonable technique to experiment and practice with and take action and do it, and do it frequently to give the technique a fair chance..... if and when I get consistent results then I can classify my own experiences as proof, at least for me....


What's your view waxfrog, or anybody else?

Great thread, by the way...